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In Fevered Dreams Truth is King (Part 5)
Jun. 19th, 2011 06:59 pmErik left the hotel and started working his way back to the restaurant. He had a good sense of direction and had, out of habit, been very observant of his surroundings. It was something that he had developed in his search for Shaw. He tugged at his jacket and felt the hunter within emerge. It was like he was a tiger that had finally slipped his leash. It was strange not have Charles there next to him or the feeling of Charles being in his head. His morality was dying on a bed in the hotel he just left.
He walked down the narrow streets with his five sense heightened. People can tell when a tiger walks in their midst and they tend to get out of the way. He made good time back to the restaurant and enter the narrow door.
“We are closed Sir” came the curt answer from the greeter who hadn’t looked up from his paper.
“I was here earlier this evening with my friend.”
“Did you lose something?” came the question.
“You might say that. Is Mr. Li in? I think he and I need to have a conversation” Erik purred.
The greeter’s head snapped up like he had been pulled up by his hair. He looked at Erik rather startled and began to babble, “No Mr. Li here. No. Wrong place. We are closed. Please leave.”
Erik reached out and got a hold of the chain around the man’s neck with his mind. He started to squeeze slowly so that the man could have a chance to realize how much trouble he was in.
“Let’s try that again shall we? Where is Mr. Li?”
He felt the knife coming behind him and casually reached out and grabbed it with his left hand, flipped it around and returned it to the gut of the man who had thrown it at him. The man screamed in pain. “I will tell you that I am not a very patient man and right now I am a bit on the clock. So this will be your last chance to have enough breath to tell me what I want to know before you stop breathing all together. Do we understand each other?”
The man nodded and said in a very choked voice “I am dead either way.”
“Well don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” He tightened the chain around the man’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged in their sockets and Erik heard the sound of the neck cracking. He dropped the corpse to the desk and shouted, “Li, I am Erik Lensherr. I am here to talk to you about Charles Xavier.”
A voice came from a balcony, “Charles Xavier? Have you come to report his death? Take your revenge? It would be fitting.”
“I came for the antidote Mr. Li. Charles still lives and if you know what is good for you, I strongly suggest that you comply with my wishes.”
“And I strongly wish his death. So we are at an impasse” giggled the disembodied voice.
Erik plucked the needles that were shot at him out of the air and hovered them over his hand. He then returned the needles back to whence they came. There were cries from all over the restaurant as they hit their targets and a lot of swearing in various languages. Metal throwing stars and darts were next and they were quickly dispatched as Erik crossed the restaurant towards the voice that he heard. A couple of waiters attacked him but were quickly dispatched with the metal vases that lined the walls of the restaurant.
“I grow tired of this. Show yourself” demanded Erik. He then started to feel a pressure in his skull. ‘Charles?’ he thought and then realized that this felt very different. He grabbed some metal pots still on the tables that the waiters who were now writhing on the floor or unconscious had been clearing and threw them with his mind as fast and hard as he could with his mind. The pressure grew greater. He felt like his brain was cooking inside his head. Then he felt the pressure vanish.
He ran to the steps leading upstairs to the balcony and worked his way from curtained booth to curtain booth. He grab some metal knifes along the way. He figured he hadn’t much time. He opened one curtain to find another curtain behind it. He went through that one into an alcove and from there into an office.
The man behind the desk was wearing yellow silk and had a traditional hat on his head.
“Mr. Lensherr.”
“Mr. Li I presume”
The man behind the desk nodded slightly. Erik carefully assessed his enemy as he believed that his enemy was doing the same of him. The man behind the desk was younger than him but older than Charles. His black hair was slicked back under his hat. The mustache looked right out of a Fu Manchu movie. He was pale and his fingernails were very long and lacquered. This was not someone in the picture of health. Erik idly wondered what Mr. Li thought of him.
“214782” said Mr. Li.
Erik felt cold to the core “What?”
“The tattoo on your arm. You have suffered much Mr. Lensherr. Seeing your family die. Being tortured.”
“I strongly suggest you get the out of my head.”
“I have suffered too. At Charles Xavier’s hand.”
A burst of cold laughter escaped Erik’s lips, “Charles? Are we talking about the same Charles Xavier?”
Mr. Li screamed, “Charles Xavier killed my brother and almost killed me!” Mr. Li pushed back from the desk. He was in a wheel chair with his legs twisted and useless. “My father was never the same. He lost his position and it took me years to regain what my family had and put the Yellow Tong back to its feared position in the triads.”
Erik looked at the man in disbelief, “Charles did this?”
“You think he is such a noble man. Such an honorable man. Did he ever tell you what he did with his father?”
“Step father,” Erik said rather absently. “Kurt Marko was his step father and apparently you know nothing about why Charles was there.”
“He was there to cheat my father.”
“Again you are wrong. So was it you or your brother who went into his head in the bathroom?”
“How do you know about that?”
Erik flipped a knife up with his mind and slammed it into the man’s right hand. Mr. Li screamed. “This is taking too long” said Erik, “let me simplify this for you. You will give me the antidote and I will let you live which is a better deal than I have given many others in your position.”
Mr. Li’s face started to blank out like Charles. Erik took another knife and pinned the other hand to the wheelchair armrest. Li screamed again. “Care to probe my mind and figure out where the third one is going to go?” Li shook his head in the negative.
Erik felt the metal heading at his noggin. He deflected and rebound it on the person that had dealt the blow. The third knife when to in front of Li’s left eye. “And I think you can figure out where the fourth one will go if I have to use the third. And I strongly suggest that the people that are behind me back off or I might slip.”
Mr. Li shouted out orders in Chinese and Erik heard people move back. “Antidote.” He pulled back the knives from Mr. Li but left them hovering with the implication of grave bodily harm. Mr. Li opened a desk drawn and pulled out a silver vial.
“Here. This will save your thrice cursed friend. This is not over yet.”
Erik picked the vial up with his mind and put it in his pocket. “No Mr. Li. This is over.” He flipped a knife over his shoulder and it went into Mr. Li’s chest. There was no one in the restaurant when he left. He went rapidly as he could back to the hotel praying all the way to his long forgotten G-d that Charles was still alive.
He walked down the narrow streets with his five sense heightened. People can tell when a tiger walks in their midst and they tend to get out of the way. He made good time back to the restaurant and enter the narrow door.
“We are closed Sir” came the curt answer from the greeter who hadn’t looked up from his paper.
“I was here earlier this evening with my friend.”
“Did you lose something?” came the question.
“You might say that. Is Mr. Li in? I think he and I need to have a conversation” Erik purred.
The greeter’s head snapped up like he had been pulled up by his hair. He looked at Erik rather startled and began to babble, “No Mr. Li here. No. Wrong place. We are closed. Please leave.”
Erik reached out and got a hold of the chain around the man’s neck with his mind. He started to squeeze slowly so that the man could have a chance to realize how much trouble he was in.
“Let’s try that again shall we? Where is Mr. Li?”
He felt the knife coming behind him and casually reached out and grabbed it with his left hand, flipped it around and returned it to the gut of the man who had thrown it at him. The man screamed in pain. “I will tell you that I am not a very patient man and right now I am a bit on the clock. So this will be your last chance to have enough breath to tell me what I want to know before you stop breathing all together. Do we understand each other?”
The man nodded and said in a very choked voice “I am dead either way.”
“Well don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” He tightened the chain around the man’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged in their sockets and Erik heard the sound of the neck cracking. He dropped the corpse to the desk and shouted, “Li, I am Erik Lensherr. I am here to talk to you about Charles Xavier.”
A voice came from a balcony, “Charles Xavier? Have you come to report his death? Take your revenge? It would be fitting.”
“I came for the antidote Mr. Li. Charles still lives and if you know what is good for you, I strongly suggest that you comply with my wishes.”
“And I strongly wish his death. So we are at an impasse” giggled the disembodied voice.
Erik plucked the needles that were shot at him out of the air and hovered them over his hand. He then returned the needles back to whence they came. There were cries from all over the restaurant as they hit their targets and a lot of swearing in various languages. Metal throwing stars and darts were next and they were quickly dispatched as Erik crossed the restaurant towards the voice that he heard. A couple of waiters attacked him but were quickly dispatched with the metal vases that lined the walls of the restaurant.
“I grow tired of this. Show yourself” demanded Erik. He then started to feel a pressure in his skull. ‘Charles?’ he thought and then realized that this felt very different. He grabbed some metal pots still on the tables that the waiters who were now writhing on the floor or unconscious had been clearing and threw them with his mind as fast and hard as he could with his mind. The pressure grew greater. He felt like his brain was cooking inside his head. Then he felt the pressure vanish.
He ran to the steps leading upstairs to the balcony and worked his way from curtained booth to curtain booth. He grab some metal knifes along the way. He figured he hadn’t much time. He opened one curtain to find another curtain behind it. He went through that one into an alcove and from there into an office.
The man behind the desk was wearing yellow silk and had a traditional hat on his head.
“Mr. Lensherr.”
“Mr. Li I presume”
The man behind the desk nodded slightly. Erik carefully assessed his enemy as he believed that his enemy was doing the same of him. The man behind the desk was younger than him but older than Charles. His black hair was slicked back under his hat. The mustache looked right out of a Fu Manchu movie. He was pale and his fingernails were very long and lacquered. This was not someone in the picture of health. Erik idly wondered what Mr. Li thought of him.
“214782” said Mr. Li.
Erik felt cold to the core “What?”
“The tattoo on your arm. You have suffered much Mr. Lensherr. Seeing your family die. Being tortured.”
“I strongly suggest you get the out of my head.”
“I have suffered too. At Charles Xavier’s hand.”
A burst of cold laughter escaped Erik’s lips, “Charles? Are we talking about the same Charles Xavier?”
Mr. Li screamed, “Charles Xavier killed my brother and almost killed me!” Mr. Li pushed back from the desk. He was in a wheel chair with his legs twisted and useless. “My father was never the same. He lost his position and it took me years to regain what my family had and put the Yellow Tong back to its feared position in the triads.”
Erik looked at the man in disbelief, “Charles did this?”
“You think he is such a noble man. Such an honorable man. Did he ever tell you what he did with his father?”
“Step father,” Erik said rather absently. “Kurt Marko was his step father and apparently you know nothing about why Charles was there.”
“He was there to cheat my father.”
“Again you are wrong. So was it you or your brother who went into his head in the bathroom?”
“How do you know about that?”
Erik flipped a knife up with his mind and slammed it into the man’s right hand. Mr. Li screamed. “This is taking too long” said Erik, “let me simplify this for you. You will give me the antidote and I will let you live which is a better deal than I have given many others in your position.”
Mr. Li’s face started to blank out like Charles. Erik took another knife and pinned the other hand to the wheelchair armrest. Li screamed again. “Care to probe my mind and figure out where the third one is going to go?” Li shook his head in the negative.
Erik felt the metal heading at his noggin. He deflected and rebound it on the person that had dealt the blow. The third knife when to in front of Li’s left eye. “And I think you can figure out where the fourth one will go if I have to use the third. And I strongly suggest that the people that are behind me back off or I might slip.”
Mr. Li shouted out orders in Chinese and Erik heard people move back. “Antidote.” He pulled back the knives from Mr. Li but left them hovering with the implication of grave bodily harm. Mr. Li opened a desk drawn and pulled out a silver vial.
“Here. This will save your thrice cursed friend. This is not over yet.”
Erik picked the vial up with his mind and put it in his pocket. “No Mr. Li. This is over.” He flipped a knife over his shoulder and it went into Mr. Li’s chest. There was no one in the restaurant when he left. He went rapidly as he could back to the hotel praying all the way to his long forgotten G-d that Charles was still alive.
