Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

21) Dangerous Territory

The weather, which was fine and sunny with only one or two pale white clouds decking the bright blue sky, turned bad. Storm clouds quickly appeared over the horizon to the east and spread quickly to cover the city of Manhattan. Shortly after the sky turned black it bucketed. The dark clouds rumbled and thundered, and lightning flashed across the sky in bright colours mirroring fireworks. It all happened in a matter of minutes, first the clear sky and the next thousands of people were caught in the terrible storm that raged down upon the tiny city of men.

Not everyone was caught out in the storm, there were many thousands who had jobs to be at and work to do and so they missed it all. Among those that missed the storm, barely, were Dastardious and Silence. Dastardious, who was out of the taxi before it had even stopped was under the awning of the apartment building before it started to rain, but Silence, who liked to wait until the taxi stopped before moving, had been soaked completely in the five seconds it took him to get to the front door. And when Dutch finally arrived, he too was soaked; he had the unfortunate luck of having to wait in the rain outside 1PP for a taxi. Susan refused him entry into the apartment at first glance, and Silence had to find towels for him to dry off with and a dry set of clothes.

But now they were all working. By working it meant that they were sitting in the lounge waiting for lunch. Susan walked in with a platter of sandwiches and placed it down on the cleared coffee table in the middle of the group.

'So we have cheese and ham, and egg and lettuce,' she said as she pointed out which were which. There was an even amount of each. Then she sat down on Silence's lap and gave him a kiss before watching them dig in.

'We can talk about work in front of her, can't we?' asked Dutch as he gently lifted his sandwich to his mouth to make sure none of the egg would fall out as he took a bite.

Susan looked at them each in turn, her gaze finishing by looking at Dastardious who was eyeing her calmly in a way that unnerved her. 'If you want me to leave I will,' she told him.

Susan Mourner was the only reporter Dastardious had bothered to get to know, but knowing her didn't make him like them any better. He knew for starters that she would hide just around the corner as she had done on previous occasions to listen in to their conversation, there was no point hiding anything from her. Not even Silence could get her to stop listening for titbits of news.

'You may stay,' he said at last. 'But only if you answer a couple of simple, little questions for me.' A wicked gleam appeared in his eyes, he had just the questions to ask her. He knew exactly how she would take them too. 'If you fail to answer you will leave.'

'Mm?' she asked.

'Why are you kidnapping these children and killing them?'

He asked it with such a serious look and tone of voice that Silence almost laughed, he certainly smiled. Only to have it wiped from his face by a look from Dastardious. Silence's expression turned to one of confusion, the detective wasn't joking.

'I don't know what you mean,' Susan told him blankly, her fingers gently playing with the hem of her sleeves.

'Your child died and shortly after that the kidnappings started, you can't deny it! Was it because you were swallowed by the madness of your dead child? You couldn't get enough of draining the life of one child; you had to reach out for others? Why are you doing this?' Dastardious demanded loudly. The others in the room looked at him in surprise, Susan looked like she was about to cry.

'How dare you suggest that I have anything to do with this?' she choked out. Her eyes flashed angrily. 'How dare you suggest that I killed my own child? I would never hurt any of mine! It just... just wasn't it's time to come...' her voice broke as the emotions of that fateful day spread through her mind and tears started to run down her cheeks.