Arthur willed on his face mask and rode his bike to his favorite spot, pushing his speed limit. But he changed his mind at the last moment, made a call, and drove to a train station. So the Cabaretti wanted a piece of him? He'd give them a pound; it should last them a long time.
He got off his bike, retrieved the file from someplace in the bike, tucked it under his arm, and stood there; taking in the busy scene before him and ignoring the people who stared curiously at him. A beggar suddenly shuffled up to him asking for alms, but he briefly studied the man, who gave him a sharp, piercing gaze and gave him the file. People around him stared curiously at him like he was mad, but he wasn't in the mood to care.
Ignorance was indeed bliss, he thought. Because that man was "the scavenger." The best among the best in the world of hacking. He got his name because while people scavenged for food or property, he scavenged for information all around the web. So long as it existed someplace or sometime in the world, the scavenger would force it out.
Arthur had met the man sometime back when a competitor had asked him to hack into the Scorpio network and get him some sensitive files. The scavenger got the job done alright, but it didn't take up to an hour for him to enjoy his victory when a masked man showed up in the dummy room he used for tricky jobs such as that. Knowing he only had two choices, which were either to surrender or lose his life, he submitted everything he had stolen, along with information about his employer, and ended up working for Arthur, whom he feared more than anything else.
Arthur knew he didn't need to tell him what to do because the man was one of the smartest guys he'd ever met. Besides the documents in the file being self-explanatory, it was obvious what Arthur wanted from him.
"I want a helicopter ready in an hour tops," Arthur told him.
"It's fed and ready," the scavenger replied.
Arthur raised a brow at him in mild surprise, but the man simply shrugged and made himself scarce. If he knew one thing about this boss of his, it was that Arthur always used a private plane every time he asked him to do something. So he had taken note of the urgency and anger in Arthur's voice when he had called him earlier on, asking to meet here. And that was one of the reasons he got a plane ready, in case there was another emergency, before hurrying down here.
It's not like the plane was his, but the owner wouldn't realize it was gone for at least two days. Which brought him to the second fact he knew about Arthur: the guy was as quick as a bullet in all his hits. Something he could bet his life on was what Arthur was going for. Thirdly, he had a nice little surprise waiting for him on the plane.
Arthur turned and was about to leave when Diana's voice filtered into his ears in a crescendo. He stopped in his tracks and looked around, but couldn't find her. The voice could be heard again from a distance as she sang Brenda Fassie's "Black President."
Damn! The girl's got one hell of a voice, Arthur thought, as he found himself walking in the direction of the voice, which was quite clear now. While a part of him niggled at him to go the other way, which led to his bike. But true to his manly nature, the baby boy temporarily chose boobs and butt over common sense.
The voice seemed to call on him like a vocal beacon as he went. His mind went back to the night he had carried her home; he had almost kissed her then. But he didn't think that was gentlemanly, considering they weren't dating yet.
He noticed that she had switched to Sam Smith's "Dance till you love somebody" and smiled. The voice led him to a large hall, where the crowd seemed larger, and he spotted her in the distance, singing like the star she seemed to him at the moment.
His eye roamed to her finger, and he saw Cleopatra winking at him, but it was snuggled in her middle finger now. Arthur smiled as she finished the song, and the crowd around her started clapping. He wondered if he should let her see him; he was so sure she'd recognize him as the stalker from the other night that he decided against it.
He was about to turn back when he noticed some men discreetly hiding among the gay crowd. He studied their formation and noticed they leaned toward him rather than her. which meant they had followed him there and might have noticed his pull towards her. He wasn't sure, but he chose not to take any chances where she was concerned. So he began weaving through the crowd like he was casually looking around.
Arthur got to the first guy and let a claw protrude in his lycan form and pierce the arm of the first guy with it. The guy was so deep in his cover that he didn't want to give himself away, so he acted like he didn't notice Arthur come his way. Besides, what's the harm in being grazed a little, right? In that manner, Arthur went around them all and walked towards the entrance.
He stood at the door and calmly spoke to Diana in undertones, telling her to be careful because there were enemies all around. With that, he started heading out.
Diana heard the quiet voice in her head and turned just in time to see Arthur leaving through the entrance to the main waiting area. She looked around and saw that no one else seemed to have heard the warning but her. Weird, she thought, as she smiled apologetically at everyone and ran after him. But Arthur was nowhere to be found when she got to the other side.
She wondered if she was overreacting and just maybe it was one of her audience members going to catch his train or something. But she also knew she'd recognize the gait with which he walked anywhere. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair when suddenly she heard screams come from inside, and people started running past her in fright.
Diana scowled and ran back to the hall, only to see some men dropping dead, one after the other, while people ran away from the scene, scared out of their wits. She noticed the similarities in their bodies as they gasped for air and fell on the ground; each person's veins went all black and seemed to stand out against their skin.
"Poison," she thought as she walked toward the dead men. She was confused and shocked at what her eyes seemed to be telling her, wondering if this had anything to do with the guy she just saw. Each died with their eyes open and horror written all over their faces. Diana stood there, unsure how to handle this or how to find the owner of the ring and wring some explanations from him in the process. When suddenly the wails of sirens flooded the air.
"Shit!" She cursed under her breath.
Hands in the air in surrender, she turned around and faced the entrance as she waited for the police trooping in to get to where she stood, with the corpses all around her and no explanation to give.
"Hands behind your head!"
"Knees on the floor!"
"Lay flat on the ground!"
"Keep your hands where I can see them!"
The cops simultaneously yelled at her as they ran in, looking around in shock at the more than a dozen men laying dead in the place. Diana just stood there, maintaining her position, and wondered which one she was supposed to listen to first.