When you're strange, faces come out of the rain.
TITLE: Cardinal Points (1/2)
FANDOM: X-Men, X-Men 919, James Bond [Conflictverse], Eastern Promises
CHARACTERS: Remy Lebeau, Riley Lebeau, Peggy "M" Carter, Nikolai, others by mention.
RATING: Teen [Language, criminal behaviors, minors engaged in illegal mischief.]
SUMMARY: At a school in New Orleans, things aren't just about to get weird. They're about to get downright $*%&ed up.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: HOLY CRAP. TWO FICS IN TWO DAYS ZOMG YAY I THINK.
This is so frigging AU it's not even funny. In a 'fifteen characters/questions' meme a long while back, the questions vikingprincess asked created a world in which the Lebeau twins -- Remy and an evidently mildly bisexual Riley -- and Peggy "M" Carter attend a high school in New Orleans where Nikolai of "Eastern Promises" is a teacher. Insanity ensues. She encouraged the creation of a fic, and then xenokattzthrew one of her bunnies at me (and then provided a wonderful beta that she just got back to me -- hence this following so closely on the tail of "My Arrested Hope -- so I suppose she gets a reprieve of sorts). It was kinda hopeless from that point on. This came surprisingly easily despite how long it took to get it to y'all. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but here it is.
Also, what do you mean there's no British Consulate in New Orleans? That the closest one is in Huston, Texas? Good lord people. Haven't you heard of willing suspension of disbelief?
Lunchtime at Saint George's Academy was a mess of noise, movement, and a sea of uniformed students enjoying the hour of freedom they were granted before shuffling off to classes once more. In the cafeteria, three individuals sat around a table munching at unremarkable brown-bagged meals: Riley Lebeau, her twin Remy, and Peggy Carter.
"Are you going to skip classes this afternoon?" asked Peggy.
Riley nodded along. "You said you wanted to go dick around at the mall or something."
"And miss biology?" Remy asked dryly. "Perish the thought."
Both girls shot him a look.
Peggy took a vicious bite of her sandwich. "Just because you're --"
"I ain't jealous, if that's what you're getting at," he interjected. "That'd just be ridiculous. Watching you swoon over Mr. Nikolai just gets old is all."
The fair point quieted Peggy, though she still glared.
Riley hid the smallest of smiles behind her water bottle. "I, for one, am lookin' forward to going over the intricacies of the endocrine system in class today."
"Thought you'd be more lookin' forward to the unit on the reproductive system."
"Nah. More your area of expertise, m'thinkin'."
"'Cause you don' know anything about that."
There was a heavy huff from Peggy, though it was affectionate. "Can we agree that you two are both incorrigible, and leave it at that?"
Riley grinned. "Y'still love us though, yeah?"
"Sadly, yes."
The shift from playful to thankful expressions on their faces did not go unnoticed.
***
Forty-five minutes later, the bell rang and they prepared to go their separate ways. Peggy had left first, seeing as her books were already waiting in her bag, leaving the twins scooping up their own.
"Y'still love us though, yeah?" Remy mimicked. "Subtle."
"Oh, like you weren't relieved too."
And there was the largest bone of contention between the two of them laid bare.
"You're better off nursin' that crush on -- what's'is face -- that Andrew guy."
"I know," she said, words prickly. "An' in case you didn't notice, I kinda am. He's got a damn fine pair of pants I'd love to get in to. Doesn't mean that I like Peggy any less. So if you'll shut your fool mouth, I won't have to punch you right here in the cafeteria."
Obliging her, Remy didn't go any further with the subject. Last time one of them threw a punch at the other on school grounds, it had ended with blood, bruises, black eyes, and a three day suspension for both of them.
Their teachers had not been impressed.
Their father, on the other hand, had been proud.
***
3:28 that afternoon had Peggy approaching Mr. Nikolai's classroom.
Peeking through the glass panel in the door to see if he was there, she was pleased to see that he was. She had some questions about somatotropin and cell production. There was a test coming up, and she wanted to be sure she was still on track.
She raised her hand to knock on the door, but noted that Mr. Nikolai was unbuttoning his shirt.
It was wrong, it was stupid, but she stood there watching anyway, her hand lowering to her side. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.
It had been a hot day; it was hardly surprising that he'd be changing his shirt. It was obviously more comfortable to change into a fresh one rather than marinate in your own sweat.
Having fully undone his shirt, he took it off.
Suddenly, Mr. Nikolai's insistence on wearing long-sleeved shirts at all times made sense.
His chest, back, and arms were covered in intricate tattoos.
She knew his hands were tattooed -- that much was common knowledge at Saint George's. The ink was faded though, and it was written off by pretty much everyone as being the residue of a previous life. Mild speculation had ensued back when he'd first arrived at the school, but had faded away in the face of more interesting gossip.
The rest of his body though: the Madonna had a home on his stomach, crosses were everywhere, and she spotted lots of text in Russian script she couldn't quite make out.
Picking up what was presumably his clean shirt off his desk, Mr. Nikolai pulled it on and began to do it up. Peggy backed away from the door. Somatotropin could wait. She was fairly sure she had a decent enough grasp on it anyhow.
***
Catching up with the twins as they were leaving the campus, Peggy nabbed their shoulders. "We need to talk. Smoke pit, now."
This brusque, all-business manner indicated that there was something large and important going on. Both Riley and Remy knew better than to kid around or to question her when she spoke that way.
Walking back towards the campus, they slipped around to a small line of old cypress trees behind the school. It provided the perfect shield behind which students could have a quick smoke between classes without getting caught.
Leaning against a tree, Riley took a pack of cigarettes out of her backpack -- unfiltered Lucky Strikes pilfered from her dad's desk; he knew of this, of course, and there were always some waiting for her whenever she snuck in to grab them -- and took one for herself before passing the pack around.
After each of them had one and had lit up with Peggy's lighter, Remy looked at Peggy through the thin cloud of smoke developing.
"A'ight. Talk."
"Mr. Nikolai."
"You dragged us here to talk about Mr. Nikolai?"
"If you would be so kind as to let me elaborate?" she said warningly. Remy raised his hands in surrender, cigarette dangling lazily between his index and middle finger.
"I went to see him after classes to talk about that test we have next week," she continued. "He was changing his shirt."
Riley gave an appreciative grin. "Is it as good as we imagined?"
"He has tattoos."
"Mmmm. Even bett--"
She cut Riley off. "Strange ones. The Virgin Mary, a bird, the grim reaper, daggers, and god knows how many more. There's ridiculous amounts of Cyrillic text everywhere too. It's all over his body."
Eyes widening, then narrowing to slits, Riley spoke soberly. This had to potential to be bad. Very, very bad.
"Was there a crucified Christ on his chest?"
"Yes. Why?"
"The ink work on his hands too," Remy said, paling as he caught on to what his sister was thinking. His fingers tightened around his cigarette, and understandably so; if Riley's guess had any merit, then they were stepping into something deep.
The twins looked at one another, a conversation obviously passing between them that Peggy was not privy to. They did that on occasion, and it irritated her to no end. Even though they did a fantastic job of not making her feel like a third wheel a good ninety percent of the time, there were those occasional 'twin moments' that most certainly made her feel a little on the outside.
"Do either of you plan on explaining yourselves?"
Pulling hard at his cigarette, Remy smiled wanly. "Not so sure that'd be a good idea."
"We should get out of here," added Riley.
Dropping and squishing out their half-smoked cigarettes, the twins left, leaving an irritated Peggy behind to finish her own.
***
That night, the twins found themselves sitting in Riley's room. Her clock read 12:23. They'd tried to sleep, really, but it hadn't worked out for either of them. While their particular thoughts had differed, both were focused on exactly the same problem.
The two of them were seated on her bed: Riley up against the wall, legs crossed beneath her, Remy on the edge, kicking his bare feet at the floor. He collapsed backwards onto the bed and looked up at Riley.
"His hands. Why didn't we notice his hands? How the hell did we miss that?"
Leaning forward, then slamming her head back into the wall, Riley frowned.
"I don' know. I mean, we knew he had tattoos there. Gawd," she bit off. "I didn't think that they came anywhere near New Orleans though, or even the States. They know whose turf it is. They know what we'd do if they were caught here. That's why we didn't think the tats meant anything."
Remy's hands found Riley's comforter, and began twisting it.
"Think it could be a co-incidence? Maybe Peggy's wrong. Maybe she didn't see what she thought she did. Maybe we're jumpin' to conclusions."
"It's Peggy we're talking about here. What're the chances of that?"
Remy sighed, defeated. "Slim to nil. I know. Still, the crosses on his fingers. The barbed wire. We should've seen that. We should've realized what they were. What they meant."
Studying her own hands, Riley rubbed at her knuckles. He was right. They should have seen it. It should have clicked, dammit. They'd been taught better. Of course now that she was thinking about them, she could visualise their teacher's hands perfectly. Like Remy had said, there were crosses and barbed wire. There were dots and an hourglass there too, as well as something that looked like a blazing sun, and that all was just on his hands. None of these were encouraging. The idea that they'd been lazy enough, or even off guard enough, to miss that wasn't either.
"You think Dad knows?" Remy asked quietly.
She shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't think I want to know," she answered. "If he does, then why would he want us at Saint George's? If he doesn't, then that's a whole other can of worms I don't think we should be openin'. That's assuming that Mr. Nikolai is one of them in the first place."
"But if the tattoos are legit..." he trailed off.
"If," Riley agreed, hopeful for a moment before delving back into worry. "If they're legit, then we're all kinds of screwed."
Remy kept twisting the comforter, considering. If. If. If. If.
That 'if' was futile and he knew it. As much as he might hope or pray, those tattoos didn't lie. If Peggy had really seen what she said she had, then they were all in serious shit.
"You know Dad'll kill us if we get in to this," Riley pointed out, though it was more resigned than concerned.
Remy smiled weakly. "Never stopped us before. We're stupid that way. Plus, he's kinda across the country right now. Not much he can do from there."
"This is kinda bigger than messin' with the Assassins."
"This is Peggy though. If she's gotten herself in to this, then someone's gotta get her out."
Both sighed, and it could only be described as beaten. It was the truth and they knew it.
This is Peggy, Remy had said, leaving out the great unspoken between them in silent agreement that it was not the time to bicker. The unspoken was a given. This was Peggy, and that was important.
"Alright. I'll call her."
"The Roadrunner is a 24/7 joint," Remy supplied. "We can meet there."
***
Fifteen minutes later had the three of them sitting in a booth in an all but empty diner. It wasn't a dive at all -- the place was clean and well cared for -- even though it was showing signs of age. Both twins clutched warm mugs (Riley's contained black coffee, Remy was drinking what was essentially sugar-cream touched with a little decaf) and maintaining remarkably disaffected expressions.
Peggy stirred some honey into her cup of tea. "You're willing to help me, then."
"If we're going to be in on this, if we're gonna help you, there's three rules," Riley said, counting them off on her fingers. "One, you don't ask us how we know what we do. Two, you don't try to find out how we know what we do. Three, you trust that everything we tell you's true, 'cause it is."
"Cryptic. That's not like you, Riley."
It was all but a foregone conclusion that they were going to get involved based on their conversation back in Riley's room, but Riley and Remy looked at Peggy in silence, waiting.
"Alright," she said. "I can live with those restrictions, strange as they are."
The twins relaxed visibly. Thank God.
Sipping delicately at her tea, Peggy's glance shifted between Riley and Remy. "I suppose we should begin with the tattoos then."
Remy slid a paper napkin to her. "Can y'draw 'em?"
Pulling a pen from her purse, Peggy began to sketch. Riley and Remy's eyes widened as her drawings grew more and more detailed. She unfolded the napkin and drew more.
"Oh, fuck me," Remy whispered as she set down the pen.
Peggy started pointing to the drawings, one by one. "This one was on his upper back. This was on his stomach."
She continued through all of them in the same manner. The increasingly haunted looks on Riley and Remy's face were worrying.
"I don't know if I got them all," she finished, almost apologetic. "And I'm a little uncertain if these are all completely right, but it's what I remember. Do these mean anything to you?"
"They're Russian prison tattoos," Riley murmured, almost forgetting her coffee in the wake of the images before her. "That crucifix y'saw on his chest means he's considered a prince of thieves."
Remy pointed to each of the drawings in turn, a reflection of Peggy's actions as he went on with the process of translation. The first one he indicated was the one that Peggy had said was on Mr. Nikolai's back -- a church, complete with three domes.
"These copulas mean time in prison. Three copulas, three stints." Next, he pointed to the stars that Peggy had said were on his collar bones. "These mean he's a bigshot. They don't just give these away."
"If you got even half of these right," Riley said, going even more quiet, "then we got us a serious problem. Mr. Nikolai...looks like he's vory v zakone."
"Russian mob," Peggy nodded, noting their surprise at her recognition of the term. The twins apparently had their own secrets and knowledge. She had hers. Peggy looked over the illustrations once more, fingers drumming on the table. Frowning, she looked back at her friends.
"Why would a representative of the Russian mob be here in New Orleans? At our school of all places? And posing as a biology teacher at that?"
"Those're good questions," Riley mused, looking at Peggy askance. "Real good questions."
***
Biology the next day was, needless to say, difficult to get through.
The three of them sat there at their shared table looking to the front of the classroom where Mr. Nikolai gave a lesson as though nothing was different at all. Of course, nothing was. Riley, Remy, and Peggy were just more aware of the status quo.
"HGM -- human growth hormone -- is strange thing. It is still a mystery, very complex. We don't know everything it is capable of."
Three sets of grit teeth tightened a little more, and three pairs of hands became fists at the words.
***
Lunch fell right after Biology, thankfully.
Seated, lunches hardly touched, the three teens looked at one another.
"We need to follow him," Peggy said, and both Riley and Remy started at the proclamation. Poking listlessly at the soggy fries he'd bought from the cafeteria, Remy raised an eyebrow. "Wanna share your logic with the rest of th'class?"
"If he is who his tattoos say he is, then there's a definite problem. You have to concede that much."
"Well, yeah."
"And do you honestly think we'd be believed if we said anything?"
Remy went quiet, thinking to himself. The first lesson that his dad had ever taught him was that if something didn't feel right, it probably wasn't, and there wasn't any shame in taking matters into your own hands so long as you played it clean. Typical Lebeau family wisdom.
Firstly, Peggy was right. No-one was going to listen to or believe three teens claiming their teacher was a gangster. Who the hell outside the criminal world would understand the tattoos? No way any American cops would be able to translate them. Could they even say anything without him and Riley revealing their own criminal pedigree, which either wouldn't be believed or would manage to go and make the whole thing worse?
Secondly, there was the fact that their dad wasn't there to talk to -- and seeing as he was Jean-Luc Lebeau, you didn't contact him, even if you were his kids. Jean-Luc Lebeau contacted you.
They weren't left with a whole lot of options. Their own hands it was, then.
Riley was thinking along far different lines. "So what, we go play plucky teen detectives?"
"If you got a better idea," Remy said shortly, determining that he was up for it regardless of what his sister decided.
Leaning back over the back of her crappy plastic chair, Riley breathed out. She was considering her options, trying to order her thoughts. This shit kept getting bigger and bigger, and there were far too many questions circling in her head. Consideration wasn't helping, because it was mainly centering around all the numerous possible outcomes. Pessimism was winning out, and the worst possible was coming to the forefront of her thoughts.
"What good is trackin' him gonna be?" she asked. "Peggy's right. No-one's gonna give a damn about what we got to say. Wouldn't it be smarter to stay the hell away from this?"
"He's vory v zakone," Remy replied. "That ain't reason enough to at least check him out?"
Remy looked back to Peggy.
"If you wanna drive Riley home tomorrow, I can tail Mr. Nikolai when he's leavin' school. He doesn't know what kinda car I have, so I can follow him easy."
"Call me afterwards then, and we can make further plans," said Peggy.
Both of them then turned their attention to Riley.
"Riley?" Remy said, nudging her. "You in?"
A slow, but genuine, grin spread across her face. If they were going to risk raising all hell, no way she was getting left behind. She leaned back even further in her chair to stretch her arms out lazily.
"Lookin' before you leap's for losers anyways."
***
Waiting was not a chore for Remy; the process of reconnaissance was something he enjoyed. He could exercise an incredible amount of patience when he tried. Riley even more so, but he had picked the skill up first and faster. So he waited, checking his watch on occasion and thanking God for tinted windows for neither the first nor the last time.
When Mr. Nikolai eventually exited the school, Remy waited for him to get into a car.
He didn't.
Mr. Nikolai walked down the street instead, sporting sunglasses and clutching a briefcase that was presumably filled with assignments to be marked.
He waited to see if the teacher had perhaps parked on the street, and was headed to a car there. The answer to this was no. Mr. Nikolai just kept walking.
Starting the car, Remy pulled out of the lot and followed. The car was probably insanely obvious, but it beat following the man on foot where he would be fully visible.
As soon as he started to worry that maybe his presence was growing obvious enough for him to pull the plug and get out of there, Mr. Nikolai walked up the front steps of one of the condominiums that formed an repetitive, anonymous strip along the street. He was surprised at how close Mr. Nikolai lived to the school. Residing four blocks away from your place of work was practical, but in this case felt...wrong. The specifics of this could be worked out later though. He had an address, which brought them one step closer to figuring out what the hell was going on, and that was something.
A minute's drive later had him parking the car outside an apartment building. Pulling his cell out of his backpack, he texted Peggy.
School. Tonight. 10:30.
***
Riley and Remy arrived at the school at 10:26. They'd caught the bus, seeing as they were hesitant to bring the car anywhere near Mr. Nikolai's house again. Remy didn't want to push their luck on the off chance that the man would recognize it. He wouldn't normally worry, but since they were dealing with the vory v zakone, even if it was just one of them (though as he and Riley both knew, where there was one vory, there were others more often than not), it seemed wise to take the precaution.
Peggy was there waiting for them, leaning against one of the streetlamps. "Ready then?"
"Stupid question, girl," Riley smiled. "We're here, ain't we?"
"Alright. Lay on, Macduff."
The three traipsed along the road without a word until Remy pointed to the condo. They were still a few doors down, which meant they were still out of sight.
"That tree," Peggy whispered, pointing to a tall, sturdy one in the yard next to Mr. Nikolai's house. "We could hide in it."
Riley squinted. "View of his main window, lots of leaves, perfect cover. Good call."
"He shouldn't be able to see us climbing up there either," Remy agreed. "The tree thing's kinda cliché, but it'll work."
Boosting one another into the tree and on to a sturdy limb, they settled in and watched that main window. Enough light was pouring out from it that they could see Mr. Nikolai sitting at a table with a pen scratching across a stack of papers.
"So what should we be watching for, precisely?"
"This is preliminary recon," Riley said. "We figure out his habits: what he does, where he goes, and we piece it together from there."
"So we'll have to keep doing this for a little while yet."
It was an observation, not dismay. Peggy was fine with continuing this in whatever way the twins thought best, seeing as they looked rather like experts in this area. Everything about Mr. Nikolai and what surrounded him was enough to not only concern her, but pique her interest as well. Perhaps her imagination was a little more morbid than she'd thought.
Mr. Nikolai rose from his table, cracked his neck side to side, and exited the room. Riley continued, her voice low.
"It'll take a little time, yeah, but we'll figure this out. Patience is a virtue and all that."
They sat there in silence.
Remy scrutinized the outside of the place, looking for anything that would give away something. Except for the lack of vehicle that he'd already been aware of, there was very little that distinguished the place from the others around it. What stood out was the lack of blinking red lights or any digital panels of any sort -- no security system at all. He was unsure if he found this bizarre or not.
Peggy tried to get a closer look at the papers. The table was close enough to the window that she could make them out, albeit only vaguely. They were worksheets. Mr. Nikolai had been marking. Perfectly innocuous. It came across as incredibly strange given what she'd come to know of him. The facade of teacher, now torn down, felt wrong to her.
Riley was cataloguing the furniture, brow furrowed. It seemed too plain. It could have been that Mr. Nikolai just lived simply, but it still struck her as being odd. No-one, not even the most spartan sort, furnished a place like that. She suspected the place was a crash pad, not a home; a cheap, easily abandoned place serving to be functional enough for survival and nothing more.
Ten minutes later, nothing had happened. Mr. Nikolai hadn't come back to the room. It was safe guess that he had gone to bed.
"We can probably leave. I don't think we're going to see anything more tonight," Peggy murmured.
"Hold up," Remy whispered harshly, raising a hand for quiet. "Something's--"
His notice came too late, for which he kicked himself. Yet another thing that dad would have been ashamed of: first the tattoos, now missing the presence of another person.
There, looking right at them, was Mr. Nikolai.
The wife beater he wore was a thin one, and so they could not only see the tattoos on his arms but make out the ones on his body as well. It was worse than either of the twins had imagined. Peggy had been right on with the images she'd recalled, and there were even more than that. By his ink, Mr. Nikolai was the right hand to the head of the vorys. The revelation had the power of a detonated cluster bomb.
"Prince and Princess of Thieves," he said, mild as ever. "It is an honour."
The twins froze. If things had been bad before, they'd just officially gone to hell. They'd been spotted. Not just that, they'd been made.
Peggy arched an eyebrow despite herself and despite the rather dire situation. Prince and Princess? That was certainly news.
Mr. Nikolai looked over to her.
"I would say it is good to see you too, Miss Carter, but I am not a liar. I am more curious."
What happened next happened very quickly. It was instinct, pure and simple.
With a swift drop to the ground and a sweep kick, Riley hoped for the best. It didn't bring Mr. Nikolai down but did serve to get him a little off balance. She was able to make a quick dash away.
Remy launched himself down seconds after, grasping the tree limb and swinging hard to plant a firm kick into Mr. Nikolai's chest. Further off balance, though by very little, he wind-milled slightly as Remy dodged under his arm and tore after his sister.
It was Peggy who delivered the closest thing to a critical hit. Jumping down, she landed in a crouch and threw herself up and towards his face to deliver a sharp palm strike powered by her body's upward momentum. Again, it was nowhere near enough to bring Mr. Nikolai down, but it bought her the time she needed to get away.
"Move!" Remy screamed as the three sprinted down the street.
All Riley could think of was getting out of there. Pulling her sleeve down over her hand, she made a dash for an older model car and put her fist through the window before pulling up the lock and opening the door. Remy threw back the front seat, shoving Peggy into the back and getting in beside her. Slamming the seat back into position, Riley sat down in it and ripped open the panel beneath the steering column. Yanking violently at wires, she pulled them apart, muttering to herself.
"Faster'd be great, Riley," Remy hissed.
"I'm fuckin' working on it," she snapped back, stripping one set of wires with her fingernails before twisting them together. Pulling two more wires, she touched them together and the car came to life.
Shifting the car into gear, she tore out of there.
It took a second and a few steadying breaths, but Peggy collected herself quite well. "What on God's green earth just happened?"
"Remember those three rules?" Riley said, taking a corner at what was most certainly an unsafe speed. "I think we're gonna have to break them."
Remy bit his lip, eyes locked with an expectant Peggy.
"I'm waiting," she said archly. Shifting so he could buckle himself in and look up at the roof of the car, Remy relented. Riley was right -- it was time to clear some things up.
"You know about the Guilds?"
"Of course. The two crime syndicates based here in Louisiana. Thieves and Assassins."
Neither twin felt the need to ask how the hell she'd known that. Precious few knew about the Guilds -- it was a point of pride that they remained shrouded in mystery, and were more a rumour than anything else, if that -- but at this point the amount that would shock them was growing less and less.
"Our dad's kinda the...the Patriarch. The King of the Thieves Guild."
She nodded, the pieces coming together for her. "Hence the Prince and Princess of Thieves."
"Yeah."
Riley took a sharp turn onto a highway, the car picking up even more speed to fit the flow of traffic. "We're next in line t'lead the Guild once Dad steps down. Officially, we're called Le Voleur and La Voleuse."
"That explains quite a bit, actually."
This induced a furrowed set of eyebrows on Remy's part. Riley was too focused on driving to look behind her, only glancing into the rear view mirror to see if they were being followed.
"You know a lot. And you're takin' this...pretty well." Remy sounded more confused than anything.
"You two aren't the only ones with secrets, you know," Peggy said, with a surprisingly timed (albeit sad) smile. It was time for her to do some revealing as well. "Why do you think I've never told you two why I'm going to school here in the States when there are plenty of good ones back in the United Kingdom?"
"You did tell us. Your parents work at the British Embassy, right? Like, record keepers or somethin'."
"In the interests of full disclosure, seeing as that's the game we appear to be playing, yes and no. They're British Intelligence."
"Great," Riley said, her tone suggesting that if she weren't driving, she'd be throwing up her hands in an overwrought display of defeat. "British Intelligence. We're sleepin' with the enemy."
Peggy's reply was sharp, though quite possibly amused. "Last I was aware, neither of you has made it that far."
Remy's smile and response were both dry. "There was that one time --"
"Doesn't count."
Riley gave a strained chuckle.
"And that time hardly counts either, Riley."
***
Back at the Roadrunner, coffees and tea before them, the three sat in ponderous silence. A few starts at conversation fell apart until Riley thumped lightly at the table.
"That was too easy," she said. "He let us go. We might've gotten away, might even have hit him pretty good, but no way that was totally clean. He should have followed us. This is all wrong."
There was a nod from Peggy. "He should have fought back too. You're right; something is off."
Remy was stirring his coffee. "I'm still stuck on the fact that the vorys are on Guild turf."
"And my parents -- likely the entire representation of the British government here as well -- are overlooking Mr. Nikolai's presence here."
Pouring one more packet of sugar into his 'coffee' , Remy frowned. "Why would Brits care about Mr. Nikolai, or the vorys? He's Russian. His accent's Siberian."
"North Siberian," Peggy corrected absently (Riley frowned at the level of specificity), unsurprised that Remy could peg accents. After what they'd told her about their background, and what assumptions she had made based on that, she was similar to the twins in that there was very little that would. "Look at his spelling on the chalkboard and on our tests and worksheets."
"All those frigging 'u's. British spelling." Riley looked down at her mug and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. It didn't make for an especially flattering reflection in the dark surface of her coffee. "Maybe should get the Guild involved. Officially."
It was a viable option. The Guild members currently in New Orleans would answer to La Voleur and La Voleuse, especially since the Patriarch was busy elsewhere. The twins did hold some semblance of power in their father's absence. The Guild members might not be thrilled, but they would listen.
"Not sure Dad'd appreciate us getting the Guild involved in an all-out war."
Riley nodded miserably, pulling a face. "Not the best homecomin' present. Yeah." She blew out a soft breath. "But something's still bugging me."
"What's that?"
"The Guild's gotta know he's here. A vory that close to steppin' on Guild toes? No way they don't."
"So why aren't they making any moves?"
"Exactly. Even the Assassins would play ball with us if anyone started movin' in like this. We'd do the United Guild thing, take 'em out, and go back to our sandboxes. No-one's said a word on either side. Something's really not right."
"We can't go to the Guild then," Remy said, a little stricken. It was one thing to face opposition by yourself. The twins had taken on all kinds of shit without help, and he was just fine taking care of business alone. It was another completely to take something on aware that the people who were supposed to have your back knew what you were up against, and had neither said nor done anything.
Peggy pursed her lips.
The idea came to her in one of those bolts of inspiration. If the twins couldn't bring in a cavalry to charge forward, why couldn't she sneak them in through the back? At the very least, there was a chance she could get the three of them a little closer to the truth. It would be difficult, but certainly not impossible.
The twins' resources were limited to only their individual skills now. That, combined with what she could offer...it was almost mad enough to work.
"What would your thoughts on breaking in to a British Consulate be?"
"What?" the twins asked in synchronicity.
"If he's British, or came through the UK at all, then there's going to be records of his presence here in the States at the Consulate. It also seems to me that you two would be the ideal pair to help me do so."
Remy sucked back some of his coffee. "We want the truth, we gotta get it for ourselves."
"Exactly."
"We gotta be absolutely certifiable," Riley sighed. "All of us."
There were murmurs of agreement that served as yeses all around.
Onwards to Part Two