The Anteroom
If she dies, I'm going to kill every person named Melcross in America. I'm going to strangle Percy, the girl's firefighter - anyone and everyone who loved that bitch. Whatever I do to Emma, however I treat her - however she treats me - she is still my creation. She's mine. Shooting her...
What could drive her to this? Emma can be harsh, perhaps, but no harsher than I with my pawns, and Sabitha is - was - such a bad pawn. Why do it? There were other, better ways out, and now Emma is lying on an operating table. The doctors say it's going to be hours more before her lung is repaired; everyone is working frantically, but towards what end?
I did not make Emma what she is to kill Paris Seville. I could have killed Paris Seville. I made Emma what she is because simpering Queens are poor matches for the Black King. How could she have let this happen? How did she let her guard down? Why would she let Sabitha in, with murder on her mind?
...if she dies, I'm going to kill every person named Melcross in Canada, too.
The call came, and Shaw came - and now the Black King stands outside a surgery in the ICU, bristling with impatience in a dark suit with deep red pinstripes. He's got a little bit of handkerchief wrapped around one hand, and a splash of burgundy brown on the white cuff of his shirt. His hands just clench and unclench, waiting and watching, a pair of black pawns in suits and sunglasses nearby.
Adel relies heavily on the prop of his silver-handled cane, shouldering in through the doors. He is not in white: is in soft gray, threaded through by pearlescent pinstripes. The collar is open and sleeves are rolled to his forearms. He thumps over quickly enough, his greeting to Shaw punctuated to the point of rudeness: "Well?"
Down the hall comes the White Rook, looking flushed as she slows upon nearing the surgery. Tyanna pauses near a white pawn to say a few words, her high heeled sandals skidding just a tad on the slick floor. One hand rests at the hem of a white midriff blouse that glimmers with the harsh lighting, the other attempting to keep her skirt from flying a la Marilyn Monroe. Avoiding the men for the moment, she stays in conversation with lesser beings.
Shaw's pawns react first, tensing and then reacting, and then the Black King himself turns with a brief clenching of his arms. The room is private - kept that way by the pawns - and so he does not guard his tongue. "The doctors are operating right now - they say the bullet collapsed a lung." Shaw spares a glance towards the towards the operating room, activity inside only barely visible through the door. His mind boils - surprise, anger, worry, and then a low undercurrent of genuine concern for the White Queen. "It was Melcross?" There comes a mix of anger and incredulity, boiling up atop political scheming and the low thread of actual emotion.
Taking a moment to glint malicious humor at the wary pawns, Adel tips his head to Shaw. His eyes are entirely on the operating room. "Yes," he says simply, the clipped syllable vibrating with tension. "But she is no longer a concern."
At this point Tyanna makes the decision to join the conversation, tap tapping her way over. For the moment, she has nothing to offer. Arms crossed over chest, her hands knead the flesh of her upper arms.
"I understand the firefighters are trying to retrieve the body," Shaw says in a cold, distant voice. Memory flickers briefly across the Black King's mind, images of a year-dead dalliance, and then his mental landscape goes flat black as he turns back to look at the operating room. "The hospital director assures me, al-Razi, that their best surgeons are in there. Still..." A pause, and the man's ponytail flickers as he glances towards Tyanna. "Tyanna." A beat, and then politics starts to seep back into his mind, creeping around the edges of that darkness like a pale spider with hairy legs. "It's going to be important to perform damage control."
A dark glance flicks over to Tyanna, and Adel takes her in with a glance. With another blink, he dismisses her. "/Their/ best surgeons." The best is not good enough, and Adel tips his hand in a broad gesture. "How about the best surgeons elsewhere? You have money. Throw it at the problem until Emma's fixed," he says, the words light and a little giddy.
A nod to Shaw, and then a gaze towards Adel, eyebrow arched. Tyanna's look breaks away. "Once the fire is out, it will take several hours to cool enough for the fire investigators to look into it. We have plenty of time to plant evidence of what started the fire, and to get that gun out. Assuming you want to change anything." she says, addressing the Black King.
If, when the Black Bishop arrives, he is a late, and rumpled, in the sort of clothes one wears when one grabs whatever off the floor, and tousled, and smelling (if you're sniffing him) of sex -- whatever his state, his mood is suited to the occasion of the impromptu gathering, the black pawn shepherding him having told him enough for gravity: he is a black cloud, and bleak, and very little emotion otherwise escapes the clamp of his control save for a thin, quavering, desperate thread of worry. His stride is, to say the least, brisk.
"Fuck you, Adel," Shaw snaps at the man, his tone overly loud and full of venom. His mind follows - sharp anger, lancing up like a sudden fire, and a half-step behind is the familiar lust for violence, directed at the Arab in momentary fury. The root cause is bare to telepathy: concern, and indignant defense over an accusation of concern's lack. "My surgeons are better than her hit men." Sabby and an indistinct man in gray, both wavering in vision, and then a deep breath as the Black King turns to Tyanna. "The gun will need to go. The fire was an accident, and Emma was injured in it. Not burns - some rebar as a wall collapsed." Mental images of Emma, a bit of iron in her chest. "The hospital director will buy off the staff, but someone will need to look to them to make sure they stay bought."
"Fuck you, too," Adel chirps back; the instinctive flinch from the taller man's anger is squared in the set of his shoulders, and he cuts a smile out for Shaw from the cloth of scorn. "Making sure they stay bought off, hmm?" << There is a place for delicate persuasion, >> he says, words for Shaw, Tyanna, and (a hate-filled glance slanted over his shoulder,) reluctantly, for Percy. "I could help make sure the investigators see what we want them see, or at least, dissuade from seeing what they shouldn't."
A simple shake of the head at the two of them, then Tyanna continues. "The fire is easy enough. Candles in the bedroom, or some such. We need to persuade the coroner not to perform an autopsy. It would only cause more questions. But we have -got- to get in there before they retrieve the body, or make sure the gun disappears. It's"
A simple shake of the head at the two of them, then Tyanna continues. "The fire is easy enough. Candles in the bedroom, or some such. We need to persuade the coroner not to perform an autopsy. It would only cause more questions. But we have -got- to get in there before they retrieve the body, or make sure the gun disappears. It's most likely too close for them to miss." A mental shudder, and thoughts of a bloody and beat Emma filter through from times past.
"Sounds like your job, Adel," Percy says. He is cool business itself, no time or chemistry to answer Adel's hatred, though the rumpled white of his shirt might be reason enough for it from that quarter as it's not his. "Autopsy," he adds, with a blank look for Tyanna. "Who's dead? All I've got out of the pawn is Emma shot. Her assailant--?"
Adel wraps his hands on the handle of his cane and leans forward. He smiles at Tyanna. "If we have got to get in there, go get in there. Why are you still here?" He does not say 'go be useful', but his tone implies it. He rubs the back of his knuckles down the line of his cheek, something a little like delight sparking across the manic pitch of his mood. He turns all attention to Percy, /all/ of it. His tone is pitched satin-smooth: "Her assailant was Sabitha Melcross, who died in the resultant fire."
Shaw turns to look slowly at Percy, gauging his reaction. It's a momentary thing - an unwavering gaze on the Black Bishop - and then Shaw turns back. "Yes, Adel, if you can see to it. Percy, I'd like you to call Bahir and send him to the mansion. If a pawn can't get in in enough time to remove Melcross' gun, he needs to take steps. Linden will be there to coordinate." A deep breath, as Shaw's mind settles back onto Emma, and there's some sort of unspoken prayer, there, glimpses of the operating table mixed with images of his mother. More images of Emma flicker through his mind: dancing, plotting, sex, and then his mind settles on the White Queen standing over the bloody suicide of Paris Seville. Adel's words snap him out of his reverie. "Linden can handle it, Adel," he says. "Harper is seeing to security, but one of the Rooks needs to be in charge here." It's not quite overruling the White Bishop - not overtly, at least - but Shaw is monarch, and the White Queen is unconscious and bleeding on the table. All the implications of regality are there, and there is throne and crown in Sebastian Shaw's thoughts.
Blank. Percy's reaction is ... blank. Utterly blank. No thought; no emotion; the words sink in, it's clear they do, but he has no response. After a moment he hears his own voice asking "What?" as though from a long way away, but there is not actually a conscious thought process that goes into the formation of this word.
Tyanna's gaze drops down, then back up Adel's form, her features ever so briefly contorting in anger. She stops short of vocalizing, mentally running through a list of the pawns that need to be awakened, if they haven't been. She glances at Percy as a cell phone is pulled out of her purse. Nodding to acknowledge Shaw's orders, Tyanna takes a step backwards and flips the phone open, getting down to business.
"He said Melcross, Percy," Shaw says in a slow, calm voice, not looking at the Black Bishop in the slightest. "Melcross is who shot my Queen." Carefully, the big man clasps his hands behind his back, standing there. His legs spread apart to shoulder-width, and he settles. "Adel," he says carefully. "Perhaps this would be a good time to reach out to your brother. I believe your counterpart is incapacitated." Again, it's an order, given with certain assurance. His thoughts begin to spool in upon themselves, dark and occulted.
Adel turns his palm out to Shaw, a slight show of acceptance of, if not submission to, his authority. "We will leave this in your capable hands," he says, words still slippery-slick and cool. He bares teeth as telepathy spiders along the twinned link, and he tips his head. "He will be there soon. I told him to contact Linden."
Blank. And blanker. Percy's head lifts after a moment, nostrils flaring with the intake of breath. The careful hold is slipping: tension, anger, fear, more tension, bitter twining tangs in his senses. He hisses sharply and blinks. He clears his throat. "I ..." But all he has, at the moment, is " ... /fuck/."
Phone call after phone call. Confirming pawns are up and about, or telling them where to be. Another glance at Percy, but the woman is making a conscious effort to ignore him. The phone snaps shut, and Tyanna turns to look at Shaw. "Pawns are coming here to reinforce. The fire isn't completely out yet, but they should be able to get in within the next two hours or so."
Shaw nods slowly to Adel. "Thank you," he says evenly, and then his mental coil snaps ramrod straight, pointed towards a measure of sharp vengeance. It's with this in mind that he addresses Tyanna: "Miss Fisk," he says. "If you have a moment tonight -" you had better have a moment tonight "- I'd like you to give Linden the name and location of Melcross' next of kin. Please copy me." His mind radiates black purpose and the certain knowledge that this information is not for a condolence call. That's when he turns - when he looks at Percy. "Was there something you wanted to add?" he asks solicitously, and now all that hate appears to be arrowing towards Percy in the caverns of Shaw's mind.
Adel looks in the direction of Emma's still body, his own figure resolving to tense stillness. "Do we really want pawns here to reinforce? Sabitha was a pawn, just as they were."
Hatred. Rage. Fear. Tension. -- Percy passes a hand over his eyes. "No." The word is a snarl, frought with everything he's breathing in, everything his skin is breathing out again. He sways on his feet. "No. Shaw. I. Have nothing. To fucking well /add/." His teeth clench. There is a pleading note to directed thought: << Adel. >>
"There's already pawns here." Tyanna points out in a patient manner, her jaw tensing. "Unless you were planning to stand a watch to keep this room private yourself, we need to switch the pawns out with ones that are fresh and sharp, rather than ones that have been awake for hours and involved in an emergency."
"You've got nothing to add?" Shaw says, and his voice rises one, two, three notches. "You know, Percy," he says, his tone flat, vicious and cutting. "Do you think there's a room here somewhere for the people who care about the dead cunt rather than her victim?" He turns entirely, and his hands are at his sides, fingers curling all over again. One step is taken towards Percy, and little black tendrils of rage - tentacles of some angry, unholy thing - are worming their way out of the crevices of the Black King's mind.
Adel purrs back to silent address, name stained and acid-etched: << Percy. >> His eyes glitter beneath the fall of his eyelashes as he watches Shaw take a single step. Irritation remains in the look he levels on Tyanna. "And I think those pawns are a bad idea. Clearly we don't know which ones we can trust and which ones we can't. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but--" But he'll do just that! "--at the very least you should have my brother or I evaluate them since you so clearly failed."
Percy jerks straight, eyes lit with sudden fury, and snarls a single cold flat sentence: "Do not talk to me about caring for Emma Frost you hypocritical son of a /bitch/."
A syrupy sweet smile flashes at Adel. "Then perhaps you should take that up with the Black King, as he was the one who ordered them here before I arrived." A nod, Tyanna's mind roiling with thoughts of fire. "Since I was -under orders- not to interfere with Miss Melcross, perhaps someone closer to Sabitha could have warned our Queen of the danger she was in."
Shaw is fast, so fast, and it is a balled fist that goes flying squarely at Percy's jaw. Thank St. Grey - if this were a year ago, the Black King would be charged up, full of energy, and he would probably kill Percy. He's not; he's got the power of a broken wine glass, nothing more, but he is still a /strong man/, and his movements are full of a sudden, overpowering rage that flares from his mind like a black sunburst.
Malice continues to color Adel's gaze as he meets Tyanna's smile, and his lips part on some wonderfully cutting remark or another -- only to close over a sharply burst, "/Fucker/." Telepathy wraps around Shaw, first, and then Percy, stilling their movements. Adel vibrates with the tension of it, empathy throwing buckets over matched tempers. "Not /useful/, Shaw."
Percy's head snaps back under the crack of the Black King's fist. It's with hissing, spitting, snarling, suicidal fury over which he has no control whatsoever, bolstered and pumped by the human and superhuman chemicals roiling in the air around them, that he coils to spring back at him -- and freezes in the telepath's mental grasp. << /Slowass/. >>
Shaw's mental cry is angry, frustrated, as his whole body quivers in an insistent desire to hit Percy more. << Fuck you, Adel, >> his mind rants. << I'll feed you in pieces to your little queer twin if you don't let me go right now - I'll beat your face in until he can't recognize you. >> Insane anger lashes out, and it's only the tight empathy push of Adel's mind that calms the Black Kind down enough to seem free of violence, so that he can let out a mental snarl of: << Enough. >>
Tyanna's head snaps towards the men at the sound of Shaw's fist splitting the Bishop's jaw. A wave of her hand pulls two pawns over. One does not restrain the Black King, but one can restrain a Bishop and back him out of harm's way. Tyanna, meanwhile, uses the time to take a step back and get ahold of herself. Two fires in one night would be suspicious.
<< Fuck you, Percy. >> Empathy helps restore equilibrium to Percy's pheromone dazzled emotions, until Percy is able to pull his temper under his own control. << Help me out here, if you're done being useless. >> Adel turns dark eyes on Shaw, a slow blink matching the numbing of mood and body. Unpleasant prickles race along Shaw's spine, something of Adel's mood leaking through. He releases control on Percy, first. << Fuck you too, Shaw. >> A curse for each, Black King and Bishop both, each delivered in the privacy of their own minds. And then Shaw's body is his own. He retains hold over the emotions of both men in the fist of coercive empathy, battering them back toward rationality and evenness. "Now."
With his control restored, Percy floods the air with pheromonal soothers to leech bodies of tension and rage and leave serenity in their wake. His fingertips edge wincily over the line of his jaw, which he then elects not to think about any. "Now." The Black Bishop echoes the White. He does not look at his King.
Shaw's body is bristling, his hands still fists as he stares at Percy. His thoughts have nothing for Adel - a private, grudging acknowledgement for the neccessity of what the telepath just did, but dismissive scorn and a nugget of cold, stark fear at the Arab's intrustion into his mind. His words, however, are for Percy, and there's anger in them, bottled up and trembling. "You don't say that, Percy," he says. "You don't ever fucking say that." Deep breaths, ragged, pheromones, and the trembling begins to still. "Now," he agrees. "Adel, you're going to be needed here - both to keep things quiet, but also for security. Until Harper and Fisk can reevaluate all the pawns, it's important that we keep them close, and Emma is particularly vulnerable." A dark smile. "I'd enjoy someone trying to shoot me." A pause. "Bahir will perform the same role at the mansion, but we need safety and security, White Rook, and we needed it yesterday." A beat. "We needed it an hour ago." The last comes with accusation in both tone and thought.
Tyanna falls into thought as the pheremones calm her down. Her head jerks up as Shaw begins to speak, and the White Rook takes the reprimand without wince or retort. Feelings of guilt, regret are shoved down to be dealt with later. A flash of a much younger woman, Tyanna's age, blond hair, bullet holes riddling her chest.."Four of ours can be trusted that I know of. Emma handpicked them. Two are outside guarding the door." she says to stop her own morbid thoughts. Her phone is picked up and flipped open. "Harper." is the name spoken into it as she retreats back to work.
Adel nods tight acknowledgement to Percy, his movements tense and constrained. There is a small glint of triumph, for Tyanna; a small glint of scorn, for Shaw: his eyes are concealed behind the lowering veil of eyelashes. "And who picked Sabitha? I'll start with those four," he says, a sneer dusting over his tone. "We'll see."
Percy's teeth clench, but his silence holds: the source of calm is like unto a still, unrippled pond. He can be pissed off later; he can grieve later; he can be incredibly conflicted later, on his own time. For now, there is the Bishop's work to be done, and never mind, /never mind/, sweet Christ never mind the rest. "And me, Shaw." Quiet; even; grave. Not even wincing.
"And you." Shaw's gaze turns on Percy again, and it's quieter and more reflective, noticing the bruise blossoming on the man's jaw. "Get some ice. I need you to supervise the external operation, Percy. The twins will keep information from leaking out in here or at the club; I need you to watch to make sure no one starts peeking inside. Keep an eye on the press, on Emma's corporate people... If we can make Emma's hospital stay disappear entirely, all's the better." He smiles a little. "I know you care for our Queen, Percy, and I know you'll be most effective." There's a haunted echo of a threat in Shaw's mind, known only to Adel, and then the briefest flicker of guilt at the assault he's just made upon a friendship valued. His mind steels, though, and turns back to Emma, the Circle, and worries both personal and political.
Adel swings the dark cane from the lazy droop of his hand, Emma's gift, curled loosely in his fist. He walks to the door, and the pawns standing guard, to have a little /chat/. He makes a peculiar watchdog for Emma, lying still and unresponsive on the operating table, but a dedicated one. He flags a hand over his shoulder in a wave.
"Ice." Silent, unvoiced, a break: mad, hollow, bitter laughter, shivering through the threads of thought. Percy shakes his head -- himself -- and coughs. "Fine. External. I'm off." He turns on his heel and stalks away.
The Black King takes another deep breath, watching as bishops, rooks and pawns scurry off to do what must be done. For his part... He takes a slow step towards one of the chairs in the lounge, wincing a little at a pain in his knee, and then he lowers himself down to where he has a view of the operating room. Hands settle in Shaw's lap, and he lets his breathing steady, returning to a slow waiting and watching.
What could drive her to this? Emma can be harsh, perhaps, but no harsher than I with my pawns, and Sabitha is - was - such a bad pawn. Why do it? There were other, better ways out, and now Emma is lying on an operating table. The doctors say it's going to be hours more before her lung is repaired; everyone is working frantically, but towards what end?
I did not make Emma what she is to kill Paris Seville. I could have killed Paris Seville. I made Emma what she is because simpering Queens are poor matches for the Black King. How could she have let this happen? How did she let her guard down? Why would she let Sabitha in, with murder on her mind?
...if she dies, I'm going to kill every person named Melcross in Canada, too.
The call came, and Shaw came - and now the Black King stands outside a surgery in the ICU, bristling with impatience in a dark suit with deep red pinstripes. He's got a little bit of handkerchief wrapped around one hand, and a splash of burgundy brown on the white cuff of his shirt. His hands just clench and unclench, waiting and watching, a pair of black pawns in suits and sunglasses nearby.
Adel relies heavily on the prop of his silver-handled cane, shouldering in through the doors. He is not in white: is in soft gray, threaded through by pearlescent pinstripes. The collar is open and sleeves are rolled to his forearms. He thumps over quickly enough, his greeting to Shaw punctuated to the point of rudeness: "Well?"
Down the hall comes the White Rook, looking flushed as she slows upon nearing the surgery. Tyanna pauses near a white pawn to say a few words, her high heeled sandals skidding just a tad on the slick floor. One hand rests at the hem of a white midriff blouse that glimmers with the harsh lighting, the other attempting to keep her skirt from flying a la Marilyn Monroe. Avoiding the men for the moment, she stays in conversation with lesser beings.
Shaw's pawns react first, tensing and then reacting, and then the Black King himself turns with a brief clenching of his arms. The room is private - kept that way by the pawns - and so he does not guard his tongue. "The doctors are operating right now - they say the bullet collapsed a lung." Shaw spares a glance towards the towards the operating room, activity inside only barely visible through the door. His mind boils - surprise, anger, worry, and then a low undercurrent of genuine concern for the White Queen. "It was Melcross?" There comes a mix of anger and incredulity, boiling up atop political scheming and the low thread of actual emotion.
Taking a moment to glint malicious humor at the wary pawns, Adel tips his head to Shaw. His eyes are entirely on the operating room. "Yes," he says simply, the clipped syllable vibrating with tension. "But she is no longer a concern."
At this point Tyanna makes the decision to join the conversation, tap tapping her way over. For the moment, she has nothing to offer. Arms crossed over chest, her hands knead the flesh of her upper arms.
"I understand the firefighters are trying to retrieve the body," Shaw says in a cold, distant voice. Memory flickers briefly across the Black King's mind, images of a year-dead dalliance, and then his mental landscape goes flat black as he turns back to look at the operating room. "The hospital director assures me, al-Razi, that their best surgeons are in there. Still..." A pause, and the man's ponytail flickers as he glances towards Tyanna. "Tyanna." A beat, and then politics starts to seep back into his mind, creeping around the edges of that darkness like a pale spider with hairy legs. "It's going to be important to perform damage control."
A dark glance flicks over to Tyanna, and Adel takes her in with a glance. With another blink, he dismisses her. "/Their/ best surgeons." The best is not good enough, and Adel tips his hand in a broad gesture. "How about the best surgeons elsewhere? You have money. Throw it at the problem until Emma's fixed," he says, the words light and a little giddy.
A nod to Shaw, and then a gaze towards Adel, eyebrow arched. Tyanna's look breaks away. "Once the fire is out, it will take several hours to cool enough for the fire investigators to look into it. We have plenty of time to plant evidence of what started the fire, and to get that gun out. Assuming you want to change anything." she says, addressing the Black King.
If, when the Black Bishop arrives, he is a late, and rumpled, in the sort of clothes one wears when one grabs whatever off the floor, and tousled, and smelling (if you're sniffing him) of sex -- whatever his state, his mood is suited to the occasion of the impromptu gathering, the black pawn shepherding him having told him enough for gravity: he is a black cloud, and bleak, and very little emotion otherwise escapes the clamp of his control save for a thin, quavering, desperate thread of worry. His stride is, to say the least, brisk.
"Fuck you, Adel," Shaw snaps at the man, his tone overly loud and full of venom. His mind follows - sharp anger, lancing up like a sudden fire, and a half-step behind is the familiar lust for violence, directed at the Arab in momentary fury. The root cause is bare to telepathy: concern, and indignant defense over an accusation of concern's lack. "My surgeons are better than her hit men." Sabby and an indistinct man in gray, both wavering in vision, and then a deep breath as the Black King turns to Tyanna. "The gun will need to go. The fire was an accident, and Emma was injured in it. Not burns - some rebar as a wall collapsed." Mental images of Emma, a bit of iron in her chest. "The hospital director will buy off the staff, but someone will need to look to them to make sure they stay bought."
"Fuck you, too," Adel chirps back; the instinctive flinch from the taller man's anger is squared in the set of his shoulders, and he cuts a smile out for Shaw from the cloth of scorn. "Making sure they stay bought off, hmm?" << There is a place for delicate persuasion, >> he says, words for Shaw, Tyanna, and (a hate-filled glance slanted over his shoulder,) reluctantly, for Percy. "I could help make sure the investigators see what we want them see, or at least, dissuade from seeing what they shouldn't."
A simple shake of the head at the two of them, then Tyanna continues. "The fire is easy enough. Candles in the bedroom, or some such. We need to persuade the coroner not to perform an autopsy. It would only cause more questions. But we have -got- to get in there before they retrieve the body, or make sure the gun disappears. It's"
A simple shake of the head at the two of them, then Tyanna continues. "The fire is easy enough. Candles in the bedroom, or some such. We need to persuade the coroner not to perform an autopsy. It would only cause more questions. But we have -got- to get in there before they retrieve the body, or make sure the gun disappears. It's most likely too close for them to miss." A mental shudder, and thoughts of a bloody and beat Emma filter through from times past.
"Sounds like your job, Adel," Percy says. He is cool business itself, no time or chemistry to answer Adel's hatred, though the rumpled white of his shirt might be reason enough for it from that quarter as it's not his. "Autopsy," he adds, with a blank look for Tyanna. "Who's dead? All I've got out of the pawn is Emma shot. Her assailant--?"
Adel wraps his hands on the handle of his cane and leans forward. He smiles at Tyanna. "If we have got to get in there, go get in there. Why are you still here?" He does not say 'go be useful', but his tone implies it. He rubs the back of his knuckles down the line of his cheek, something a little like delight sparking across the manic pitch of his mood. He turns all attention to Percy, /all/ of it. His tone is pitched satin-smooth: "Her assailant was Sabitha Melcross, who died in the resultant fire."
Shaw turns to look slowly at Percy, gauging his reaction. It's a momentary thing - an unwavering gaze on the Black Bishop - and then Shaw turns back. "Yes, Adel, if you can see to it. Percy, I'd like you to call Bahir and send him to the mansion. If a pawn can't get in in enough time to remove Melcross' gun, he needs to take steps. Linden will be there to coordinate." A deep breath, as Shaw's mind settles back onto Emma, and there's some sort of unspoken prayer, there, glimpses of the operating table mixed with images of his mother. More images of Emma flicker through his mind: dancing, plotting, sex, and then his mind settles on the White Queen standing over the bloody suicide of Paris Seville. Adel's words snap him out of his reverie. "Linden can handle it, Adel," he says. "Harper is seeing to security, but one of the Rooks needs to be in charge here." It's not quite overruling the White Bishop - not overtly, at least - but Shaw is monarch, and the White Queen is unconscious and bleeding on the table. All the implications of regality are there, and there is throne and crown in Sebastian Shaw's thoughts.
Blank. Percy's reaction is ... blank. Utterly blank. No thought; no emotion; the words sink in, it's clear they do, but he has no response. After a moment he hears his own voice asking "What?" as though from a long way away, but there is not actually a conscious thought process that goes into the formation of this word.
Tyanna's gaze drops down, then back up Adel's form, her features ever so briefly contorting in anger. She stops short of vocalizing, mentally running through a list of the pawns that need to be awakened, if they haven't been. She glances at Percy as a cell phone is pulled out of her purse. Nodding to acknowledge Shaw's orders, Tyanna takes a step backwards and flips the phone open, getting down to business.
"He said Melcross, Percy," Shaw says in a slow, calm voice, not looking at the Black Bishop in the slightest. "Melcross is who shot my Queen." Carefully, the big man clasps his hands behind his back, standing there. His legs spread apart to shoulder-width, and he settles. "Adel," he says carefully. "Perhaps this would be a good time to reach out to your brother. I believe your counterpart is incapacitated." Again, it's an order, given with certain assurance. His thoughts begin to spool in upon themselves, dark and occulted.
Adel turns his palm out to Shaw, a slight show of acceptance of, if not submission to, his authority. "We will leave this in your capable hands," he says, words still slippery-slick and cool. He bares teeth as telepathy spiders along the twinned link, and he tips his head. "He will be there soon. I told him to contact Linden."
Blank. And blanker. Percy's head lifts after a moment, nostrils flaring with the intake of breath. The careful hold is slipping: tension, anger, fear, more tension, bitter twining tangs in his senses. He hisses sharply and blinks. He clears his throat. "I ..." But all he has, at the moment, is " ... /fuck/."
Phone call after phone call. Confirming pawns are up and about, or telling them where to be. Another glance at Percy, but the woman is making a conscious effort to ignore him. The phone snaps shut, and Tyanna turns to look at Shaw. "Pawns are coming here to reinforce. The fire isn't completely out yet, but they should be able to get in within the next two hours or so."
Shaw nods slowly to Adel. "Thank you," he says evenly, and then his mental coil snaps ramrod straight, pointed towards a measure of sharp vengeance. It's with this in mind that he addresses Tyanna: "Miss Fisk," he says. "If you have a moment tonight -" you had better have a moment tonight "- I'd like you to give Linden the name and location of Melcross' next of kin. Please copy me." His mind radiates black purpose and the certain knowledge that this information is not for a condolence call. That's when he turns - when he looks at Percy. "Was there something you wanted to add?" he asks solicitously, and now all that hate appears to be arrowing towards Percy in the caverns of Shaw's mind.
Adel looks in the direction of Emma's still body, his own figure resolving to tense stillness. "Do we really want pawns here to reinforce? Sabitha was a pawn, just as they were."
Hatred. Rage. Fear. Tension. -- Percy passes a hand over his eyes. "No." The word is a snarl, frought with everything he's breathing in, everything his skin is breathing out again. He sways on his feet. "No. Shaw. I. Have nothing. To fucking well /add/." His teeth clench. There is a pleading note to directed thought: << Adel. >>
"There's already pawns here." Tyanna points out in a patient manner, her jaw tensing. "Unless you were planning to stand a watch to keep this room private yourself, we need to switch the pawns out with ones that are fresh and sharp, rather than ones that have been awake for hours and involved in an emergency."
"You've got nothing to add?" Shaw says, and his voice rises one, two, three notches. "You know, Percy," he says, his tone flat, vicious and cutting. "Do you think there's a room here somewhere for the people who care about the dead cunt rather than her victim?" He turns entirely, and his hands are at his sides, fingers curling all over again. One step is taken towards Percy, and little black tendrils of rage - tentacles of some angry, unholy thing - are worming their way out of the crevices of the Black King's mind.
Adel purrs back to silent address, name stained and acid-etched: << Percy. >> His eyes glitter beneath the fall of his eyelashes as he watches Shaw take a single step. Irritation remains in the look he levels on Tyanna. "And I think those pawns are a bad idea. Clearly we don't know which ones we can trust and which ones we can't. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but--" But he'll do just that! "--at the very least you should have my brother or I evaluate them since you so clearly failed."
Percy jerks straight, eyes lit with sudden fury, and snarls a single cold flat sentence: "Do not talk to me about caring for Emma Frost you hypocritical son of a /bitch/."
A syrupy sweet smile flashes at Adel. "Then perhaps you should take that up with the Black King, as he was the one who ordered them here before I arrived." A nod, Tyanna's mind roiling with thoughts of fire. "Since I was -under orders- not to interfere with Miss Melcross, perhaps someone closer to Sabitha could have warned our Queen of the danger she was in."
Shaw is fast, so fast, and it is a balled fist that goes flying squarely at Percy's jaw. Thank St. Grey - if this were a year ago, the Black King would be charged up, full of energy, and he would probably kill Percy. He's not; he's got the power of a broken wine glass, nothing more, but he is still a /strong man/, and his movements are full of a sudden, overpowering rage that flares from his mind like a black sunburst.
Malice continues to color Adel's gaze as he meets Tyanna's smile, and his lips part on some wonderfully cutting remark or another -- only to close over a sharply burst, "/Fucker/." Telepathy wraps around Shaw, first, and then Percy, stilling their movements. Adel vibrates with the tension of it, empathy throwing buckets over matched tempers. "Not /useful/, Shaw."
Percy's head snaps back under the crack of the Black King's fist. It's with hissing, spitting, snarling, suicidal fury over which he has no control whatsoever, bolstered and pumped by the human and superhuman chemicals roiling in the air around them, that he coils to spring back at him -- and freezes in the telepath's mental grasp. << /Slowass/. >>
Shaw's mental cry is angry, frustrated, as his whole body quivers in an insistent desire to hit Percy more. << Fuck you, Adel, >> his mind rants. << I'll feed you in pieces to your little queer twin if you don't let me go right now - I'll beat your face in until he can't recognize you. >> Insane anger lashes out, and it's only the tight empathy push of Adel's mind that calms the Black Kind down enough to seem free of violence, so that he can let out a mental snarl of: << Enough. >>
Tyanna's head snaps towards the men at the sound of Shaw's fist splitting the Bishop's jaw. A wave of her hand pulls two pawns over. One does not restrain the Black King, but one can restrain a Bishop and back him out of harm's way. Tyanna, meanwhile, uses the time to take a step back and get ahold of herself. Two fires in one night would be suspicious.
<< Fuck you, Percy. >> Empathy helps restore equilibrium to Percy's pheromone dazzled emotions, until Percy is able to pull his temper under his own control. << Help me out here, if you're done being useless. >> Adel turns dark eyes on Shaw, a slow blink matching the numbing of mood and body. Unpleasant prickles race along Shaw's spine, something of Adel's mood leaking through. He releases control on Percy, first. << Fuck you too, Shaw. >> A curse for each, Black King and Bishop both, each delivered in the privacy of their own minds. And then Shaw's body is his own. He retains hold over the emotions of both men in the fist of coercive empathy, battering them back toward rationality and evenness. "Now."
With his control restored, Percy floods the air with pheromonal soothers to leech bodies of tension and rage and leave serenity in their wake. His fingertips edge wincily over the line of his jaw, which he then elects not to think about any. "Now." The Black Bishop echoes the White. He does not look at his King.
Shaw's body is bristling, his hands still fists as he stares at Percy. His thoughts have nothing for Adel - a private, grudging acknowledgement for the neccessity of what the telepath just did, but dismissive scorn and a nugget of cold, stark fear at the Arab's intrustion into his mind. His words, however, are for Percy, and there's anger in them, bottled up and trembling. "You don't say that, Percy," he says. "You don't ever fucking say that." Deep breaths, ragged, pheromones, and the trembling begins to still. "Now," he agrees. "Adel, you're going to be needed here - both to keep things quiet, but also for security. Until Harper and Fisk can reevaluate all the pawns, it's important that we keep them close, and Emma is particularly vulnerable." A dark smile. "I'd enjoy someone trying to shoot me." A pause. "Bahir will perform the same role at the mansion, but we need safety and security, White Rook, and we needed it yesterday." A beat. "We needed it an hour ago." The last comes with accusation in both tone and thought.
Tyanna falls into thought as the pheremones calm her down. Her head jerks up as Shaw begins to speak, and the White Rook takes the reprimand without wince or retort. Feelings of guilt, regret are shoved down to be dealt with later. A flash of a much younger woman, Tyanna's age, blond hair, bullet holes riddling her chest.."Four of ours can be trusted that I know of. Emma handpicked them. Two are outside guarding the door." she says to stop her own morbid thoughts. Her phone is picked up and flipped open. "Harper." is the name spoken into it as she retreats back to work.
Adel nods tight acknowledgement to Percy, his movements tense and constrained. There is a small glint of triumph, for Tyanna; a small glint of scorn, for Shaw: his eyes are concealed behind the lowering veil of eyelashes. "And who picked Sabitha? I'll start with those four," he says, a sneer dusting over his tone. "We'll see."
Percy's teeth clench, but his silence holds: the source of calm is like unto a still, unrippled pond. He can be pissed off later; he can grieve later; he can be incredibly conflicted later, on his own time. For now, there is the Bishop's work to be done, and never mind, /never mind/, sweet Christ never mind the rest. "And me, Shaw." Quiet; even; grave. Not even wincing.
"And you." Shaw's gaze turns on Percy again, and it's quieter and more reflective, noticing the bruise blossoming on the man's jaw. "Get some ice. I need you to supervise the external operation, Percy. The twins will keep information from leaking out in here or at the club; I need you to watch to make sure no one starts peeking inside. Keep an eye on the press, on Emma's corporate people... If we can make Emma's hospital stay disappear entirely, all's the better." He smiles a little. "I know you care for our Queen, Percy, and I know you'll be most effective." There's a haunted echo of a threat in Shaw's mind, known only to Adel, and then the briefest flicker of guilt at the assault he's just made upon a friendship valued. His mind steels, though, and turns back to Emma, the Circle, and worries both personal and political.
Adel swings the dark cane from the lazy droop of his hand, Emma's gift, curled loosely in his fist. He walks to the door, and the pawns standing guard, to have a little /chat/. He makes a peculiar watchdog for Emma, lying still and unresponsive on the operating table, but a dedicated one. He flags a hand over his shoulder in a wave.
"Ice." Silent, unvoiced, a break: mad, hollow, bitter laughter, shivering through the threads of thought. Percy shakes his head -- himself -- and coughs. "Fine. External. I'm off." He turns on his heel and stalks away.
The Black King takes another deep breath, watching as bishops, rooks and pawns scurry off to do what must be done. For his part... He takes a slow step towards one of the chairs in the lounge, wincing a little at a pain in his knee, and then he lowers himself down to where he has a view of the operating room. Hands settle in Shaw's lap, and he lets his breathing steady, returning to a slow waiting and watching.