A Talespin fanfic by Lizzy Spencer (KarmaCat) Page 11

 
 

        Molly Cunningham arranged two dozen pink roses in a vase. Kit watched, less than amused, his hand on his chin.
        Molly gave him an exasperated look. "Kit! We were talking to the girl about three seconds before it happened. It's the least we can do, for crying out loud. Get that glum look off your face."
        Kit lazily tossed a yo-yo, the red plastic gleaming against the unfinished wood insides of Higher for Hire. "Yeah, I guess. But I don't see why we can't just have it sent. Old Stripes probably doesn't want to be bothered." He turned slightly away from her and mumbled, "Besides the fact that he's a flaming S.O.B. and probably won't let us in anyway."
        She gave  a shocked yelp. "Kit! I swear! Don't you feel the least bit sorry for him? His daughter almost died! Nobody deserves that."
        "Yeah, well..."
        "You act just like a teenage boy sometimes," Molly began. Kit could sense that she was preparing to go off on one of her Rebecca Cunningham rants. "I mean, you'd be surprised what a wife and children can do to a man. Speaking OF...." she gave him a pointed look and elbowed him in the arm.
        "Oh, knock it off, Molly."
        "I'm telling you, if you're not hitched by the time you're thirty-five I'm going to marry you out of pure pity. I'll just hold you down and marry you."
        He rolled his eyes. "Good. Then I've got a few years. And besides, Molly, I couldn't marry you. I used to baby sit you. It would be too weird."
        "Oh REALLY!" she exclaimed, putting her hand on her hip. "Marrying me would be too weird, but what happened between us two years ago on New Years Eve is-"
        He glared at her. "Don't ever mention that, Molly. Ever. First of all, we were both smashed out of our minds. Second of all, nothing actually happened."
        She leaned up close to him and put her hand seductively on his shoulder. "No, but it came pretty darned close," she breathed. "And I can't entirely say that I minded."  Kit's eyes widened. She abruptly reverted back into regular Molly mode, picking up the vase. "Well, I've got some flowers to deliver. You coming?" she glanced over her shoulder at him and walked out the door.
        Kit stood by the desk for a moment, mouth open, collecting his thoughts. "Wait a second," he called, running after her. "Molly? Molly, you're just kidding with me, right?"
        "I don't know," she called back. "Am I?"
 
 

        Shere looked at the evening paper. Not even they knew what to make of it. Some of them reported that Sarabi was dead, others that she was alive, others that she was in a coma, and a few even dismissed the whole ordeal as a rumor. Shere sighed. Just as well. They'd get it straightened out. It was of little consequence to him.
        "Mr. Khan, some visitors are here to see you. A Molly Cunningham and a Kit Cloudkicker." Mrs. Snarly buzzed through to her boss's desk, and Shere could hear the concern in her voice. She had always been fond of his daughters, especially Sarabi, and she had watched them grow up. How long had she been working for him now? About twenty six years, he figured.
        "They have flowers for your daughter, sir. I can ask them to leave them here and go if you want."
        Shere shrugged. It was one of the only times in his life that he could recall not having anything better to do. Or rather, as he looked upon the papers spread on the desk before him, anything worth doing. He felt changed.
        "Let them up," he said.
        "Right away, sir," Mrs. Snarly replied, surprised.
        He stood, and the door opened to reveal two young bears, a female with long blonde hair and a male with a green corduroy jacket. He could barely say hello before the female began to chant, "Oh, Mr. Khan, thanks you for seeing us and we just thought that we should bring you these flowers because we were talking to your daughters at the Friendship Festival about two seconds before the accident happened and oh it's such a tragedy isn't it but I'm so glad she's okay and oh-"
        Kit rolled his eyes in a private gesture to Mr. Khan. The tiger repressed a smile as the chattering young bear put the flowers on his desk.
        "Thank you, Miss-"
        "Cunningham. Molly Cunningham. And this is my friend Kit Cloudkicker."
        Shere's brow folded in thought. "Cloudkicker? That name sounds somewhat familiar." He began to wonder just why he had these two civilians into his office. What odd reasoning had led him to that? He couldn't recall.
        Kit nodded. "We know one another from way back, Mr. Khan. Do you, by any chance, remember Baloo?"
        He thought for a moment. And another moment.  "Oh yes, I do. A fine pilot. I believe he saved my life on more than one occasion."
        Kit was taken aback that Mr. Khan was so quick to admit it. Perhaps what Molly had said about a wife and kids was correct. "Do you remember that kid who used to follow him around?"
        Molly giggled.
        Shere leaned forward. "Is that you? You've certainly grown."
        "It's been a few years."
        "How is Mr. Baloo, by the way?"
        Kit smiled. "Just great, Mr. Khan. He retired a few years ago, but he's still flying like there's no tomorrow, even though he spends most of his time at Louie's now. He's been cowing the place ever since it expanded into a midair refueling center a few years back."
        "Is he?" Shere replied, feigning interest. August had taught him how not to talk down to people, at least not too much. He remembered when he started talking down to her at some reception, and she took him outside and gave him the talk of his life, saying something like, "You will not speak to me in that manner, Shere. I am not one of your clients, I am your wife!" Hard lesson learned.
        The two bears were staring at him expectantly. Had one of them said something?
        He still couldn't remember why he had let them into his office.
        He was about to thank them and show them out when Orly burst through the door with Gabriel hot at her heels. She could never just come through a door, it seemed she always had to burst. "Papa, is Sarabi awake ye-? Oh. Excuse me. I didn't know you had anyone in here." She glanced at Molly, and then to Kit, and Shere saw her jump. "Oh! It's you. Hi."
        "Hey, Orly!" he said, walking up to her and shaking her hand. "How've you been?"
        "I, uh, good. I guess. I mean, good for my sister all getting hurt and stuff." She sounded like an idiot. "This is my friend Gabe. Gabe, this is Kit. I met him at the Friendship festival right before...."
        Gabriel took Kit's hand and shook it, gazing up at him with an almost lustful gleam in his eyes. "How DO you DO, sir?"
        Kit raised his eyebrow uneasily. "Um, fine. And you?"
        "Great." He leaned over and whispered to Orly, "NOW."
        "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Orly replied sarcastically.
        Kit turned back to Molly, who was talking to Shere. "Orly is such a wonderful thing! I'm a school teacher, you see, and she had won all these stuffed animals at the fair. I had my class with me and she gave them all her animals. It was such a nice thing to do."
        "Yes, she can be quite generous."
        "And Sarabi, so elegant and strong! So sad, what happened. How is she?'
        "Asleep."
        To make Orly laugh, Gabriel widened his eyes and let his tongue hang out of his mouth and made quiet dog like pants at Kit's back. Orly stifled a giggle. Shere gave him a puzzled glance and Gabriel straightened himself once more.
        "Um, I'm really thirsty," he said, as if to justify his actions. Orly's stifled laughter was making her face turn red.
        Molly turned in response to Gabriel's apparently random statement. "Sorry to hear that."
        Shere raised his eyebrow dubiously. "I'll get you some water."  He walked to the back where there was some bottled water. He poured some into a cup for Gabriel, and all of a sudden Sarabi came through a private door behind the plants. She was wearing her nightgown and her mother's silky white robe.
        Shere smiled at his daughter. "You certainly slept. How do you feel?" he held out a cup of water to her, which she took.
        "Fine. Is someone here?"
        "Yes. Some people brought you flowers."
        "And you let them in?'
        "I did. I don't remember why, though."
        She smiled slightly and shook her head, patting her father's cheek in such a incredibly, un-Sarabi-like, sweet manner. "Father, you're getting older every day.'
        "Thank you Sarabi. Just go on reminding me of that."
        Together they brushed past the jungle and her father accompanied her out to the guests, Sarabi apologizing for her attire.
        Molly waved her hand dismissively. "No problem. At least you look good in the morning."
        "Thank you."
        Molly handed her the vase of roses. "We brought these for you."
        "And thank you again." They were rather heavy.
        Kit smiled at Sarabi. "Anytime."
        Sarabi smiled politely at Kit, but her smile quickly faded as she glanced up over his head. She saw a purple light there, a kind of glowing swirl. In fact, the glowing purple swirl extended to encompass his entire body, a bright and glowing beautiful kind of smoke that pounded of life....but as soon as she blinked it was gone.
        She placed her head in her hand. "I'm afraid I'm coming upon quite a headache. I'm starting to see colors."
        "I have aspirin in my purse," Molly said.
        "Oh no, that's fine. Thank you for the flowers, Miss Cunningham. I do so apprec-" she looked down at the pink petals and saw that they, too, had a glowing smoke, this one of pale white.
        She almost dropped them. "Oh my, I should be going," she stated, rushing from the room.
        Orly watched her go. "That was weird."
        "Well, considering what happened to her yesterday, I think she has some free license to act as weird as she wants." He winked at Orly.
        "Indeed," Shere replied, looking off in the direction in which Sarabi had rushed.
        Molly smiled. "Well, we won't take any more of your time, Mr. Khan. Thank you for seeing us. And only the best of luck to you."
        And they went on their way.
 

 
        "A package for you, Mr. Khan," rang a bubbly cheetah, placing a brown box on his desk. Her earrings dangled down to her shoulders and she chewed bubble gum. She had a nice figure and she fidgeted a lot. She couldn't have been any more than eighteen years old.
        "Is there anything else I can do for ya'?" she sang.
        "No," Shere replied.
        "M'kay. Later!" and she popped her gum and sauntered out of the office.
        Shere watched her for a moment and wondered who the hell hired her and then turned his attention to the box. He knew what it was without even looking at it.
        It was the Jade Parrot of Pierre-Ku-Ku, an ancient artifact he had obtained by less then honest means. But he did not intend to keep it. He had a contact in England who would claim to have found it in an archeological dig and would sell it, at a very exorbitant price, to the Grand English Museum of History, the wealthiest museum in the world. And he would get ninety percent of the millions it would sell for.
        Funny, though. He didn't need the money. It had become a game now, just mere sport. And it seemed to have less and less meaning as the years wore on, just seeing what he could get away with.
        But it seemed ever so much more pointless now, with recent circumstances.
        And he told himself that this was the last under-the-table deal he would ever take place in. He didn't need it any more. He had so suddenly become aware of what the real sport in life was...but he would never admit it as long as he lived.
 
 

        High above, and far from the city of Cape Suzette floated the Iron Vulture like a happy steel cloud. Pirates milled about the metallic guts without purpose, some of them cleaning their planes, some playing cards with musty old decks, and some drinking together. They liked to drink all the expensive tequila that they stole, but it was only the tequila.
        Don Karnage could never figure that out. He preferred vodka himself.
        Presently he sat at a desk in his private quarters, the blue sky open to him through one of the vulture's golden window eyes. It was a clear day. The top of his blue coat was unbuttoned and he had his feet up on the smooth wood finish of the desk. He was receiving a message on the radio, and he grinned, his luxuriant red tail flopping absently against the legs of his chair.
        "Look what we have here, my LaRoca," he sang out to a female fox who sat on the bed. She was sharpening her sword, and she stopped momentarily to trap him in her dusky, coffee eyes.
        'What do you have?" she asked. Her voice was like silk in his ears. The strap of her green tunic fell off the fur of her hazel brown shoulder and she corrected it. Not only was he attracted to her the first time he laid eyes on her trilling beauty, but he was even more interested when he heard her accent. She came from the same island he did, but a different province...of course, he hadn't had a lot of time to think about it when he first met her, considering that she had her sword against his throat.
        "I have just received a message about the Jade Parrot of Pierre-Ku-Ku. It seems that Khan has it now."
        She gave a dismissive wave of  her hand. "Eh. We'll never get it. We can't get the Iron Vulture past the cliff guns." She shook her head.
        "No, no, ma cherie. Khan, he will have it shipped to England."
        "England?"
        "England."
        "Ah. Then we just wait until it is in the air. That's all. Easy like the pie."
        Easy like the pie was right, at least for LaRoca. In his entire life, Karnage had never seen anyone, much less a woman, handle a sword so well, with such skill and intelligence. She could slice a fly in half with both eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. And here she was now, his partner in crime, this chestnut beauty stretched before him on his bed, sharpening a slice of gleaming metal and looking as incredible as she had on the day he met her.
        She was just as fierce as he was. Maybe more.
        He loved that.
        He shook his head at her incredulously. "Magneee-ficent."
        "What?"
        "You, my plundering pussycat."
        She laughed. "That's a new one." She sighed. "Me. Of course." She extracted a small dagger from a case that was tied to her ankle, aimed, and threw it right between the eyes of a small wooden cherub's head across the room, right into the same hole she hit every time. She looked at him again, hungrily. "But what about you, mon ami cher?"
        "I admit, I am magneef-icent as well, but I pale next to you."
        She smiled and slid off the bed, her brown tail swishing. She slid her arms around his chest and kissed his neck, and he could smell the flowers in her raven black hair. "I know why you are kissing up, yes-no? I know what you want."
        He gently kissed the underside of her wrist. "Alvays the same thing with me. You know that."
        "I know that all too well," she replied, nuzzling his ripped ear. "How long as it been?"
        He sighed. "Half the hour or so."
        She smiled and led him to where she had been sitting previously. "Far too long, mon cher."
 
 
 

        In the top floor of her father's building, Sarabi tried to sleep that night, but something was cricking in the back of her room.
        She rolled over and tried to cover her head with her pillow.
        What was that darned cricking?
        She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on how very sleepy she was, and how very soft the pillow was, and how very nice and sweetly dark it was. But nothing worked.
        Crick.
        Crick.
        Crick.
        She fathomed for a moment sleeping in Orly's room, but she could barely get through the door of her room, much less sleep in it.
        Oh, all she wanted to do was sleep!
        Or maybe she just wanted to avoid thinking about what had happened to her, the miracle of what had happened to her-
        -Crick
        Crick
        Crick-
        -the undeniable supernatural nature of what had happened to her-
        -Crick-
        "QUIET!" she suddenly shrieked, sitting bolt upright in bed. No sooner had the word left her lips that she heard glass shattering. Her heart aflutter, she leaned over and turned on the small Panda-La silver lamp on her night stand.
        The vase of roses Molly Cunningham had given her had exploded, sending pieces of glass like dewdrops all around her room. A singular pink rose had landed on her lap. She picked it up and a thorn pricked her finger, a pain that shot up her arm and into her head, where it quickly festered into an amazing headache.
        She groaned and got up, heading for her door to get some aspirin out of the bathroom. She looked down and noticed that the pieces of glass were moving out of the way of her feet so that she wouldn't step on them, and she was thinking through her head pain that it was awfully convenient that they were doing that, and then she realized that they were pieces of glass - and they were moving - by themselves.
        She began to run.
        She ran down the hall and burst into her father's room, her eyes wide with terror. He had heard the door fly open and was sitting up in bed with a startled look.
        "Papa!" Sarabi gasped. "Papa, I'm sick!!"
        "What-?"
        "I'm sick, Father! I'm seeing things! The vase in my room broke and the pieces of glass were moving around by themselves, around my feet, and oh, I have the most horrific headache, Father, you can't even imagine this headache. It's making me hallucinate about glasses breaking and people surrounded by purple smoke." Her hysteria had dwindled down and she sat on her father's great bed, holding her forehead as if to keep it on.
        "Sarabi," he said gently, "do you suppose these hallucinations you've been having are related to the accident?"
        She nodded. "It's not logical that I'd come out of that with no residual effects. Maybe I hit my brain somewhere."
        He patted her shoulder. "I'll get you an appointment with Doctor Stone, my dear. We'll get to the bottom of this." He yawned. "Do you think you're calm enough to go back to sleep?"
        "I suppose," but she looked at him for a moment, pleadingly. It was a look that took him a moment to place, because he hadn't seen it on her since she was at least four.
        "Sarabi," he said quietly. "Do you want to stay with me?"
        She swallowed and looked straight down to the floor. It took her an embarrassed moment to form the words. "In case it happens again," she replied, her voice a choked whisper. "I don't...I don't want to be alone. It's rather frightening when it happens." She sounded almost ashamed.
        He nodded. "You can."
        And Sarabi slept peacefully in her father's bed that night.