Chapter Twelve: Memory Loss and Pain

Author's Note
  Ok, guys, I actually finished it for you. xD Now, y'all probably don't remember what happened last, so here's a quick run through. Timothy? The evil guy at that house that wants them to track down that thing that lets a person see a person's memories? Yeah, him. The gang figured out that he's not actually thee Timothy Curtis, that the real Timothy had been out of town but was getting back that day.
  Thanks to a nifty Jericho, there was a bug planted in "Timothy's" office [Fake Timothy is generally referred to by his last name, Curtis.] The gang split up to different hiding spots by the house: Jericho and Kal, and Nights and Israel. The real Timothy came home. Jericho listened in: Real Timothy shouting at fake Timothy fake Timothy being all-knowing and just plain annoying, fake Timothy indicating that he knew there was a bug, Kal sending the signal for Nights and Israel and running towards the house, fake Timothy doing something to real Timothy to cause him to scream very loudly, Jericho also running towards the house.
  There ya go. Now enjoy.
P.S. Don't forget about Harris- The Butler, who worked for the real Timothy, but has forgotten him and thinks fake Timothy is real.

Nights Raven

  I burst through the front door, shoving Harris out of the way and catapulting into the study. Curtis is sitting in his usual spot, back the to the windows, facing the door, and the real Timothy is sitting in the chair across from him, a blank expression on his face. I heard the screams... He was screaming right before I burst through that door. Why isn't he screaming?

"What's going on here?" I demand.

"Why, Miss Raven, what ever do you mean?" The corner of his mouth curls into a smile that almost looks like a grimace.

I want to flick a bit of wind to knock off his toupe. I really do. But besides his being the definition of "snide," I don't really have a legitimate reason for doing so. Well, besides it being hilarious... Instead I walk up to the funny little man whose identity was stolen, Timothy. His eyes are... hollow, as if he has just woken up in the middle of the night and doesn't remember where he is.

"Timothy?" I murmur soothingly. "Are you alright?"

"I'm-" he looks at me, "well, I am fine, but my name is not Timothy, madam. You have me confused somehow with this gentleman." He indicates Curtis.

"Madame? You can call me Nights. What... just happened? Do you remember?"

"Of course. I was just asking Mr. Curtis if he would like me to take the dry cleaning today." He looks at me quizzically.

I glare at the fake Mr. Curtis. "What did you do to him?" I ask it like a mother wondering why her little girl is crying and her little boy is laughing hysterically.

"Oh, but nothing!" He grins, "ask him yourself."

"What is your name... if not Timothy?" I ask the little man.

"My name is Harris, madam. I am a butler here. There is a room in the basement in which I sleep. Why do you care to know?" He looks as if he's trying to keep his irritation off his face and not quite succeeding.

"What? You're not... Did you just say you were Harris? No, you're n-... oh, good grief." I sigh and go back to glaring at Curtis. "Will you please hand over whatever magical device you just used to replace his memory? Seriously, how do you people come up with these things?" I throw my hands in the air, aghast.

  Just then, Kallista bursts through the door much the same way I did.

"Hey!... What's going on? This is much less interesting than Jericho led me to believe." She blinks at us, me standing, the other two sitting, none of us doing anything in particular.

  Jericho is ten seconds behind her, and I experience a moment of deja vu as he demands why the poor fellow isn't screaming anymore, although he does it with more threats.

"Jericho." I interrupt before the same conversation ensues, "he thinks he's Harris... the Butler. Obviously Mr. Smarty-pants here-" I give Curtis a look- "has a... thing. Device. What-have-you. What do you think it is? I'm going to go with the so called paperweight. I mean look at it... It's staring right at me. That thing is creepy, man." The referred to paperweight is a sphinx with silver eyes.

Timothy smiles. Again.

I never understood why villains liked smiling evilly so much. I mean, really?

"The sphinx? No, my dear, the sphinx is merely a bauble Timothy- er, that is, the real Timothy-" he pauses here to chuckle- "picked up in Egypt one day when he was smuggling artifacts into the country."

I raise my finger, "I met you yesterday. Why is it that people I don't know are always calling me 'dear,' or 'honey.' I bet you don't have a clue how annoying that is, do you, sweetheart?" Timothy looks at me like he just ate a sour candy. I wait a few more seconds to let him experience that before I continue, "Secondly, thank you! I have been trying to remember that word- artifact- for the last five minutes. Thirdly, 'smuggling, merchandise, and artifacts' sounds very magic-prone to me. Lastly, where on earth is Hellboy?"

***

Israel Elysium

  "I would love to help you- I really would- but I'm tied up at the moment." I chuckle at my own wit before the big scarred man in front of me curls his massive fist and slams it right in my nose.
I am
Lights
Ringing
Flashing
Is this a disco?
Dizzy
Headache
'Cause this could really be a disco.
Pain
Damn, not a disco.

"You vill tell us vhy zee man next door vanzs you and your lizzle band of friends... or Ziegfried vill ruin your handsome face for good."

  I felt a warm flow coming from my nose and spit out blood. My wrists chafed against the rough rope binding them behind the chair to which I was tied. I smiled at the little man in shadows of the room, and said, "You really think I'm handsome?"

  Unoriginally, that earned my poor jaw another slug. Dark spots pattered the edges of my vision. I blinked, trying to clear them, wondering how a bulk like Siegfried had sneaked up on me.

  I am next door to Timothy's. At- what- a gangster's house? Who else would talk with a German accent? I am beginning to wonder if any tree-shadowed, flower-beded, picket-fenced house doesn't have criminals in it... How well do I really know my neighbors anyway? Are they mafia? Or monsters? Or man-killers? Are the Petersons actually a nice family who hang up the laundry and play puzzles during family time and sell cars? Damn! They sell cars! Of course they're evil!

"Anzer me!" I am brought back to the present predicament.

"Why do you want to know anyway?" I murmur,  "I'm curious; I really am." My head rollicks back with, I am sure, an imprint of Siegfried's fist on it. Ouch. I can't take much more of this before I black out. My eyes water. I squint up at Siegfried, trying to see him as one silhouette instead of two.

"Zat is none of your business."

Well, this obviously isn't getting anywhere. I close my eyes and see my potential futures.
Death.
Death.
Death.
Explosion.
Cripple.
Death.
Pain.
I sigh. This is going to hurt.

"Ok. Fine. Timothy is... " I glance up at the man in the shadows. "Timothy is trying to hire us to find a..."

"Find a vhat?" The man leans forward so I can just barely make out his beak nose.

I grimace, "A pegasus! There, I said it! Now let me go!" Siegfried growls, raises his fist, but the beak-nosed man says, "Stop! Zis man obviously needs more encouragement zhen your fist, Ziegfried."
He stands. Unimpressively short, he waddles behind my chair where I can't see him and comes back with something long and metal. I believe it's called cattle prod.

  The beak-nosed man stands in front of me now. He strangely looks a bit like Jean Reno... "Zis is your last chance. Do you like pain? You certainly seem to."

"Yessir. Very much. May I have some more, please." He scowls, stepping forward, right into reach, but before I can do anything, he thrusts the cattle prod at my neck. My vision goes white. I convulse in my chair, screaming, and I can't
think.
I
can't
Elec
trici
ty
what
I'm
I'm...

It stops, and I'm gasping for air. I'm shaking. I'm gasping, and I cannot stop the cry of vengeance as I kick up blindly, abruptly changing Beak Nose's mild chuckles into groans as my boot connects. My chair falls over in the process, and I land on the arm of the cattle prod. Siegfried shouts something I can't understand as I use my hip and elbow to grasp the weapon and turn it upwards, right into the thigh of Siegfried. He howls, falling backwards, stunned. Beak nose is standing over me now, huffing. He grabs my head, slams it on the tile beneath me. I fade out of consciousness for a second, long enough for the cattle prod to be ripped from my poor grasp. Beak Nose hasn't learned his lesson, though, and my legs, never tied to begin with, kick out, knocking him to the ground,  his head hitting first, rendering him unconscious.

  Now it's just Siegfried and I.

  He wants revenge the proper way, kill me with a weapon in my hand. He grunts, angry, stands, pulls out a knife, and cuts through the rope binding my wrists. I take a second, laying there on the floor, to suck in a breath, try to clear my dancing head. I climb slowly to my feet, shaky and take the proffered knife, my body still twitching, my eyes still watering, blood dried to my face.

  Everything slows down.

  This is the tricky part.

  Circle slowly.

  Watch the red glint in his eye.

  See it when he loses his patience.

  He goes left, thrusting upward.

  I scurry back a step, another step, another, and skip around a wide stroke to keep from getting stuck in a corner.

  I move right, slash his arm, and lean back, just missing a cut that would have sliced my neck nearly in two.

  He growls, comes at me with fury in his face.

  This is it.

  Dodge left.

  Parry.

  Duck, feint right; he takes the bait, and I...

  Toss the knife into my left hand. I

  Stumble backwards, and

  Thrust my knife up into his chest, hard

Straight through his heart.

  He gurgles, blood splashing over my hand, leaking from his lips. He collapses, taking me down with him. I hit the ground with a moan, Siegfried half covering me. I shove at his bulk, push, and squirm, just manage to slither out from beneath him, and then lay there. Lay there next to his dead body.
Just lay there.
Breathing.