10:30, The Day Before Yesterday

Book 1 Chapter XIV - Mephysto

Chapter 14 - Mephysto

"I asked Lucius if he wanted to go shopping with me, and he said yes, so we went to a mall," Dani said slowly, trying to remember everything. It felt like it had all happened at least fifty years ago, if not longer.

"Which mall was that?" Faustus asked, taking a piece of paper out of the file and scribbling something down on it.

"...I don't know. I didn't see its name."

"Then can you tell us where it was?" Mason said.

Dani thought about this, then took the map out of her pocket. "We started from there," she said, pointing to InGEN 24, "and went along this street, and it's somewhere around here."

The two officers watched as she traced the route she and Lucius had taken.

"That's a long way from here," Mason said. "When did you leave InGEN?"

"At..." Dani racked her brains to remember that. "It was about half an hour after breakfast. So, ten forty-five, or maybe a bit later."

Mason and Faustus looked at each other. Then Mason looked at the clock.

"It's twelve-thirteen now," she said. "How did you get here so fast?"

Dani thought about this, surprised. How had she gotten there so fast? "We ran when I saw Nightmare."

"That's a long way to run," Mason murmured, looking at her oddly.

~~~~

Grievous stared at the clock, biting his nails. Montparnasse had been gone ten minutes, and there wasn't a squeak from either him or Nightmare.

What's taking so damn long?

The assassin had been gone eleven minutes when he returned, out of breath, his ridiculous top hat perched on the side of his head and in imminent danger of falling off, his already less-than-tidy hair even more of a mess than usual, his waistcoat and trousers stained with blood.

"What in god's name took you so long? Whose blood is that?" Grievous demanded, jumping up. A chill raced up and down his spine and his heart felt like it was being squeezed by an icy hand. It couldn't be his sister... She wouldn't be such a fool...

"Most of it's Nightmare's."

Those words hit him like a tonne of bricks, and it was all he could do not to collapse.

"Some of it's Sinistrah's," Montparnasse continued, leaning against the table in exhaustion and blissfully ignorant of just how shaken his employer was. "I shot out a car window to distract her, but she didn't notice. The human girl did, picked up a piece of glass, and stabbed her with it. I brought her - Nightmare, I mean - back here. Aisu's administering first aid, but she was in a pretty bad way. Blood everywhere!"

De Mon sat down again, outwardly calm. "I see. You're dismissed."

The younger vampire turned to leave. "Oh, and Mephysto's one of the cops who came to pick Sinistrah and the girl up. 'Least, the one she's impersonating is."

"Then that situation is in hand," Grievous said, half to himself.

Montparnasse left, closing the door behind him with a sharp *click*. An eerie silence descended on the office, broken only by the sounds of cars and people in the street below.

"Oh, Nightmare, Nightmare, Nightmare," he whispered. "You never listen, do you?"

He got up and walked over to the window. The humans kept walking to and fro beneath him, going about some mysterious, insignificant purpose that was everything to them, neither knowing nor caring that his sister may be dying.