Chapter Seven

Blue Eyes

S.H.U.S.H. headquarters was alive with activity. News crews were set up on every available patch of concrete they could find as their field reporters hastily fixed their appearances in the limited reflection of their gaudy vans’ side view mirrors. It was like observing an abstract display of cholesterol laden arteries the way they were all crammed together. J. Gander Hooter watched them from a window in the passage leading to his office. It was amazing to him how the media never responded to good news with this level of enthusiasm. Only the worst of the worst got this kind of coverage, this carnage was too delicious for all the jackals and vultures down there to resist. All of them were fear mongering vipers in their fancy suits and plastered on smiles. His eyes drifted skyward with a sigh. He only wished the city would cut off the supply of atrocities that fed these scavengers, but it was like wishing the moon was made of cheese. He had to speak to them eventually, the people had a right to know as they liked to remind him every time he got within shouting distance. Though, he reasoned with himself as his heels clicked on the polished floor, though he ALSO had a right to know and at the moment he had very little information to, in fact, know. It was as if there was a portal to hell opening under their very feet, and he was stumbling in the dark to find it and force it closed before more demons came spilling out, to no avail.

But for all this commotion and upped security to keep the press at bay, somehow she had still managed to gain access not only to the facility but to his very office. He had arrived only to be informed at the front desk that she was waiting for him . The thought entered his head that he’d be better off dealing with the media but he resigned to meet with her first. After all, he was in charge, as unpleasant as she was, she was just a civilian. The door to his office was ajar and he sidled in at his usual pace, despite the instant glare that greeted him. In a smart figure hugging pin striped pant suit she sat in the “hot seat” across from his desk like a snake poised to strike. He had interrogated his faulty agents in that chair so frequently and so effectively that most people avoided looking at it in fear that it would unleash his wrath on them with just the briefest glance. She, however, sat in it like she owned it. He had barely crossed the threshold before her sharp voice pierced the air.

“So the prison’s been wiped out I hear? Were those guards under your ‘brilliant’ protection just as I was?”

Hooter continued on to his own seat and composed himself mentally before he met her glare with as much inner calm as he could muster. There were a precious few people in this world that could get under his skin as quickly and deeply as this young woman. He would be damned if he would let her see that.

“I was not expecting to see you here Isabella. I do hope your accommodations and bodyguards are keeping your mind at ease.” It was hardly a question. More of a buffer of mundane small talk to counter her pulsing aggression.

“The hotel’s a dive and your men are slobs. I’m sure if I had stayed there any longer I’d have met the same sticky end as those poor working saps at ‘the safest structure in Saint Canard’ as you so penned your bloodbath penitentiary.”

“Well thank heavens for your intuition. We’d all hate to see anymore harm come to you.”

“I’m sure you would.” Her eyes narrowed into slits and she snapped open a briefcase that was cradled in her lap. “I won’t make you strain yourself trying to injure my feelings any longer and I’ll get right down to business.”

“By all means.”

“I have a very pressing matter to discuss with you Hooter, one that I feel should be addressed immediately.” She produced a crisp looking file and slid her eyes onto him with the slightest hint of a smirk on her face. Hooter felt his patience fray, nothing good ever came of being smiled at by this one. She tossed the file onto his desk as if she believed it was the most useless scrap of paper in the world, but her eyes never left him. Another bad sign. “I think the contents of that file may be of some interest to you. There’s a contract in there that I believe an anxious young Director signed some years ago that may provide you with the opportunity to, well, see to it that your current attention is spread less thin.”

His eyes reluctantly broke their battle with hers. There was always this infuriating glimmer of superiority in her gaze, one that spoke volumes of her opinion of herself. Once, just once, he’d love to see that smugness dissolve, he’d even pay to see her knocked down a few pegs. Unfortunately, she was far too clever for that. The way she sat there, deceptively lovely and the hint of a smile on her bill... whatever was in this folder was something he was not going to like. Reluctantly he flipped it open and long forgotten documents greeted him, taunting him with his naivete. Shit.

“I am seizing control of the Glomgold investigation.” Her face split in a serpentine grin, the kind a mouse sees a snake flash when escape is no longer an option. “Effective as of right now, you work for me.”

A single snowflake twisted through the gray dense air. It tumbled past windows, taking in the light of lives that carried on in overpriced platforms in the sky. Story after story it descended on the winter breeze sending it swirling through the smog and exhaust in path of poetic chaos. The ground drew nearer and nearer and in a wretched alcove, deaf to the wailing of sirens and the buzz of city life it fell gently toward the blaze of an overturned motorcycle’s headlights. Down further it crept until it found it’s resting place on the bill of a mallard slumped against the defaced wall behind him. It’s perch, coursing with hot anger and agony reduced the fluffy precipitation to a droplet of water almost instantly. Darkwing’s head craned back to look at the sky for more snowflakes as his vision blurred. He’d managed to keep himself together long enough to put a comfortable distance between him and prison. But he’d gone as far as he could. He forced himself to stop to try to regain himself or else his exhaustion would cause him to wipeout, so far it hadn’t gone so well. Adrenaline had carried him out of that chair, and Gizmoduck had carried him out of that jail... now on his own with no crutches he couldn’t even get to his own feet. Being electrocuted within an inch of his life probably had something to do with that. But there was something else, he closed his agonized eyes. It felt like his brain was trying to wriggle out through his ears, and it was on fire. His senses were going haywire, alien sounds rang in his head, phantom smells invaded his perception, and his eyes were playing tricks on him. It was as if his mind wanted him to be seventeen places at once, like it didn’t understand there was only one of him, and that he tended to only be in one place all the time. It would pass. It would have to wouldn’t it? As far as he could tell he hadn’t been injected with anything... there were no puncture marks on him, and he didn’t seem to feel like he’d been force fed anything. So that ruled out poison. This had to be his body’s version of dealing with the shock of near expiration, he figured as the gentle grumble of the Ratcatcher’s idling engine warped into the frenzied sound of children laughing. A tremulous breath escaped him as the laughter seamlessly changed to the purring of a cat and eventually the ticking of an old fashioned clock. Each shallow breath was a noseful of sweet scents of memories he didn’t recall. One in particular was pumpkin pie. A young girl’s shrill laughter galloped through his head and the world suddenly adopted a dark tone. The metallic tang of blood replaced the spice in the air and the laughter transformed into terrified screams and sobbing that rattled his bones. His stomach bubbled furiously and the oil slick of ooze crept toward his mouth. Rather than succumb, his body launched him onto his feet wrenching his eyes open, and time stopped.

A mansion stood before him. Caged behind massive rod iron gates taller than two quarterbacks. The summer song of birds spewed from the lushly leaved trees that encircled his range of vision and the meticulously groomed path that swirled out before him like a ghostly melody of a forgotten music box. The far structure was breathtaking, it’s grand picture windows twinkling like lighthouses, leading him away from the crashing waves of the sea safely back to his... home? He shot his hand out to grab the gate but his fingers were bitten by the ferocious solidity of bricks. The injured appendage recoiled from the sudden pain, he blinked and the mirage was gone. The Ratcatcher’s headlights illuminated the graffitied wall before him, as a handful of snowflakes drifted across his vision. A hand reached out and stroked a brick forlornly and for a moment he didn’t register that it was his own. Feverishly he pulled it away and mopped the water droplet from his bill. He was acting like he was insane... his knees wobbled at just the thought of the word. He wasn’t. He fixed the wall with a frosty glower, they must have done something to him while he was out. Megavolt seemed to know what that goop was that was flowing out of him like water from a spout. Despite his previous reasoning he decided this was the only explanation. It was something so despicable that only F.O.W.L. could cook it up. Wrong, said an annoying little voice in his head but he ignored it. His fist closed tightly around itself and in a flourish of his ragged cape he righted his bike and mounted it. His mind tried to compile the facts and push away the lingering disorientation of madness. Elmo Sputterspark was now “Megavolt”, who was working with Quackerjack, who was a minion of F.O.W.L. which was run by Duncan, who was a Glomgold, who were rivals with Scrooge McDuck-

Fingers paused in the act of strapping on his helmet. Were they? Where did that come from? He didn’t recall reading that, it was... as if it slipped out of the void, out through the metal slats in that mansion’s front gate and into his head. And it rested there now, not on a shaking pedestal, but bathed in certainty. It was true, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was, and yet... and yet...

The air filled with more white as he stared blankly ahead. Where would he go from here? What road was the right one? Where was home? Did he have one? What was his future? How much of one did he even have? What was happening to him? How could he trust what he thought he knew when it could be so easily altered by hallucinations? The click of the helmet latch carried up and down the alley and he gripped the handlebar with a scowl. He wasn’t insane, and he had one clue... real or not.

There was much to be said about the skeleton of a house. The sad yet regal way it rotted and collapsed in on itself, it was a metaphor of life itself. Bodies, like homes, are decorated, maintained, or left unkempt. Years added milage, new scrapes, tears, holes and new coats of paint but under all that.... it still aged. Eventually it would all fall into a worthless pile of lumber, uninhabitable and empty. A select few would remember the life that once filled it, while the rest of the world would pass by not sparing a glance. A lone figure stood back studying the ruined structure that sprawled out before him. Carefully his gaze moved along the rotting beams that were splintering with neglect, to the crumbling walls that still clung to hide it’s innards from unwanted eyes. He had lived here, it was a part of him as much as he was a part of it. It’s walls hid nothing from him no matter how hard they tried. It had been his schoolhouse, his enemy, his accomplice, his first battlefield, he was the cancer of this place. The being that killed it. With shark like smoothness he wove through the debris that cluttered the grounds. The gnarled topiaries more closely resembled beasts than the neatly trimmed visages they had once been, he liked them better this way. He stepped over a rusted iron beam and his step resulted in the crunch of an abandoned beer can. Now that it had his attention he noticed it wasn’t alone. The high untended grass was a mine field of them, along with cigarette butts and who knows what else. A little ways off he spotted the remains of an amateur’s campfire. His eyes drifted back to the corpse of his home, it was like a wounded demon sitting there in it’s decaying grandeur. Local teenagers probably came here to scare the piss out of themselves or their girlfriends. They no doubt came hoping to see a ghost. A smirk played darkly across his bill, maybe that’s why he’d come here too.

Naked branches sliced across the putrid roof filling the bitter air with hellish screeching as he slid through the remains of the caved in double doors and entered the mildewed air beyond. The stink of rotting wood and mold perfumed the air; he breathed it in with morbid glee. Those theoretical teenagers hadn’t made it this far he noticed as the main hall still had it’s now ruined antiques. Not even the smallest hint of ransacking, or a footprint disturbed this tomb. His eyes traveled up the decrepit staircase and quickly ran back down, as if watching a fond memory cascading down them like a waterfall. They remained at the foot of the stairs taking in the invisible, the scraping of branches above added a macabre accompaniment to his reverie. He stood in silence, transfixed before he produced a pistol with eerie quickness. Unblinking, unshaking, his aim trained on the area of his attention, the rusted stained patch of marble tile at the foot of the sweeping stairs.

“Bang.”

His voice ripped through the silent walls and collapsing ceilings invading every inch of the skeletal mansion with his malice. When his echoes vanished he removed his gaze from the ground and moved through the spore filled air toward an on looking room. The pistol swung between his fingers and through the ancient air disturbing the airborne dust into dismal patterns as he paraded on. His soles were captured by the dirt and fallen plaster with each confident step, the floorboards groaning from years of loneliness. Large warped wooden doors were within his reach and he paused his trek remembering how they had always been shut, so kingly and important in their deeply polished shine. Now they hung off their hinges at the very sight of him, like fractured leaves on a shedding tree. Oh what he would give to be able to kick down those old doors and be greeted by a face wrought with fear, a face so horrified it was practically unrecognizable before he made it truly so, by turning it into a crater. But no one stood before him so he moved onto the bacteria eaten carpet and into the musty rank air. The sky peeked at him through the gaps in the floors above. Twinkling stars between thick clouds were up there, a few stray snowflakes dribbling from them. They were of nothing of interest to him. A puddle had worn a groove into the wooden floor and the books that lined the buckled walls stank of decay. His hand brushed a few worm eaten volumes and they nearly sighed into dust. A pleasant laugh spilled out of him and he perched himself on the uneven surface of what was once a priceless desk. Eyes trailing the room, a gold cigar case slid from his pocket and he puffed one into life.

The death of knowledge. A graveyard of books, that was what this place was. Words that were painstakingly crafted now were crumbling and melting from neglect. If he had it his way he would love to be the devastating destructive force of time and nature. Slow and wretched, inescapable. He would be the demise of everyone and everything he encountered, a blast of thoughtful smoke laced the air. It was a shame that he was limited with being tangible but he just had to make due with the hand he’d been dealt. And that hand at the moment, was a pile of... not problems. Problems indicated the fault of their barer’s ability to see to his ordeals properly the first time around. What he liked to think of them as were “loose ends”. They were flapping freely, disrupting his view of the big picture. It was time to decide. Time to set his mind to work and hatch the definite fate of his loose ends. Tie them up, and be done with them once and for all. A swirling nimbus issued from him as his eyes gazed unblinking at the doorway.

The first loose end was a simple one to rectify. A death. It didn’t need to be fancy, it simply needed to happen. The other, was more complicated. It had dragged on and on too long now. Another death was what his hands itched for, his fingers tensed to pull the trigger, his palms tingled for a throat to squeeze... but the brain always butted in. Oh what he’d give to be time and nature....

His eyes snapped to the figure that had come into his gaze and his pistol rose.

“Boss, we just got a call from H.Q. they said Quackerjack got our guy.” The agent didn’t seem phased by being in a steady set of crosshairs.

“No surprises?”

“Well... Darkwing Duck showed up.”

“Is that surprising?” He growled.

“N-no sir. He got away though, and uh... apparently Isabella has seized control of S.H.U.S.H. sir-”

“Pah! I hope she chokes on it.”

“-and also Megavolt mentioned Darkwing was uh... ‘leaking black stuff’, he was pretty sure you’d want to know.”

The creaking of foliage answered as the two mallards remained silent. Loose ends flapped in the breeze. The time for games and indecision really was over. The icy eyes scanned the dilapidated mansion, it was only a matter of time before Drake tried to come here too then. He was up and halfway to the door so quickly the agent recoiled and fell over backward to be out of his way. A smoldering cigar landed in the debris beside the fallen duck who swallowed thickly as his superior loomed over him. Nervously the agent backed away until his spine brushed the foot of the staircase.

“Did you know that a double homicide was committed in this hellhole?” The pistol swirled around a pale white finger in shadows.

“Y-yessir.”

“There was meant to be a third.”

His eyes stayed on the trembling form that stared up at him. “The killer was interrupted you know, he had pushed his victim down those stairs. Watched her clatter down each step like a china doll... straining his ears to hear each bone snap... waiting for pay dirt. Waiting for the neck to splinter, to shatter on one of these massive stairs. Would you believe she was alive when she rolled to a stop, right where you are now? Her hair,” His eyes glazed over slightly. “Her hair was messy, matted with blood, sweat, and tears. She cracked her head pretty good on the way down... a red patch stained her white hair like a big tropical flower. She just laid there gasping and weeping like an idiot while the killer swept down the stairs like the breath of the devil himself. He took one hand, seized a fistful of her beautiful bloody hair and...” His eyes snapped back to the present. “-was tackled by a police officer.” He shook his head in disappointment. “Atrocious.”

“U-uh yeah that’s pretty- uh...”

“I really had hoped to make my debut a triple homicide.” He stated grimly.

“S-sir?”

“Though... I do believe the appropriate phrase is ‘better late than never’.”

Bang.

Blood seeped along the grooves and cracks in the marble, pooling at the foot of the stairs where wide eyes stared up at him as he reloaded his missing bullet. If only those eyes were blue, he mused. But he supposed they would be soon enough. Without further thought, Duncan stepped back out into the night where a snowflake lazily landed on his bill.

Darkwing Duck and all related characters are (c) Disney

Author's Note: Sweet Jebus. Talk about inactivity! I wish I could report that I've been having the time of my life and was sidetracked by awesome in regards to this absence. Sadly that is very much not the case. That being said I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter, as usual I will update as soon as I can. But aaaah sir, Times is hard... Times is haaaaaard.

So to all my readers, new and old... thank you so much for reading.