#typewriterintheattic

New poem from ohhhwillow coming out today!

also a possibility of a new joint-effort project through the site

Foaly sighed heavily as he walked back to his ops booth. It was late, and there was no one left in the building. It was probably better that way, no reason for the techies to see their boss in such a state. He carried a batch of paperwork under his arm as he walked slowly down the dark hallway, which was barely lit. It had been a long night.

When he entered the ops booth, he nearly had a heart attack. Sitting at his computer, playing the piano on his keyboard, dressed head to toe in black: black shirt, unbuttoned at the top, black pants, and black shoes; his blonde hair short and spiky again, was Constantine Seven.

“Frond alive.” Foaly exclaimed, closing the door behind him. “What are you doing here, how did you even get down here?”

Constantine calmly shut down the program he had opened and turned towards the centaur. “I've climbed out of Hell more times than I can count, you think I can't climb back down? To answer your second question, I am here to appeal to the better part of your conscience.”

“What do you mean?”

“No doubt Vinyaya has reported to the Council about Holly.”

“Yeah,” Foaly sighed again and put his paperwork down on his desk. “They want to take away her magic, well half of them do anyway.”

“The other half?”

“They want to give her a reprieve, given she comes back to the People. We owe her, and Artemis, quite a bit, and a few of the Council have a soft spot in their heart for her, but no one can really come to grips with her going to live aboveground, with a human, none the less.”

“You can.” Constantine nodded at him.

“Yes but I understand her, and they don't. Artemis isn't like other humans, I think she deserves to be happy.”

“You understand her.”

“Yes but I -” He looked up at Constantine. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying,” Constantine spoke slowly. “That there may be a way for you to get back into her good books.”

Foaly thought for a moment. “What are you suggesting?”

Constantine leaned forward, a shrewd gleam in his eye. “You know where all the bones are buried. You know all their dirty little secrets. They can't fire you because this whole system would come crashing about their pointy little ears. Take some initiative, take some responsibility, use that against the council, or the members that want to put her away. Release a public statement saying Holly has gone on vacation to Atlantis to visit her sick aunt or something for a few decades. Everyone in Haven owes her their lives, it's not like they would complain.” He stood up and looked at Foaly seriously. “If you want her to forgive you, start with that.”

He passed Foaly and patted him on the shoulder. “Ball's in your court now. I'll be watching” And with that he left.

Do you guys like it? 

do you think it should change? is there something I should add/takeaway? 

The car ride ensued in silence. With the few exceptions caused by the driver, who tried to start up conversation several times, but was struck down by Artemis' cold indifference. A changed man he may be, but this was business, and he will never be one to suffer fools during business. Butler and Constantine said nothing at all.

When they were getting closer to the mill, which was well outside the town itself, Artemis noticed a gorge in front of the mill. There was a private suspension bridge that spanned it, with armed guards at outposts at the entrance and exit to the bridge. The car pulled up to the first of these buildings, where the driver flashed an identity badge and spoke in Russian to the guard who waved them through. They passed through the second outpost without stopping, Artemis guessed that the first guard had radioed ahead.

The whole process made Butler nervous. He wasn't a superstitious man, but certain things appeared to him as a bad omen. Armed guards at checkpoints ranked high among them. It would make escape difficult, not that they didn't know about this already, but knowing and seeing have different effects on people. At least, he thought, they had Juliet on standby. He glanced at Constantine, who was seated on the other side of Artemis, to judge what he thought about the situation, but the youth showed no reaction. He was completely passive.

Butler's eyes narrowed for a moment. That was why he didn't trust the kid yet. In those rare moments when Constantine was in motion, when the shadows of a life long past showed on his face, Butler could not read him. Even the most hardened hit men, when face to face with Butler, could not hide their soul behind their eyes. That is why many of them wore sunglasses. You could train your face to betray nothing, but the eyes were a wealth of information for someone who knew where to look. Constantine, on the other hand, never wore sunglasses, but when he was like this Butler couldn't pick up a single thing from his eyes, they betrayed no emotion, and it unsettled the veteran.

Another thing that unsettled him was Holly, shielded and sitting on his knee. But not the same "what-the-hell?" way, more of a "what-am-I-a-Disney-ride?" kind of way. He loved her the same way he loved Artemis, but there is a limit. Next thing you know she'd be riding on his shoulders. Butler had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the thought.

When the car stopped in front of the complex which, from the outside, looked like any other large corporate structure with the exception of large smoke stacks rising out of the top, she did climb on top of his shoulders. Butler couldn't react, knowing it would betray her position, and to be honest, he understood why she did it as he stepped into the snow. Invisible footprints would be a little hard to explain.

Artemis was light enough to stay on top of the powdery snow, but the cold did nothing to improve his disposition as the driver lead them to the entrance of the complex, where there appeared a large man in a white suit that matched the surrounding snowscape.

As Artemis approached the man, he recognized him as Kravchenko, his long, stringy hair and mangled features making him hard not to be noticed. The large Russian had a wide, anticipatory smile on his face as he waited, not unlike a car salesman, and as Artemis entered the first set of glass doors, where Kravchenko was waiting, the man shook his hand vigorously.

"Master Fowl, what a pleasure it is to meet you at last. I'm glad to have you here." He said with a light Russian accent.

"The pleasure is mine," Artemis said, extracting his hand from the man's grip. "and, if you would please, it's Mister Fowl." He finished, taking the chance to play the spoiled little rich kid. It was better to have people underestimate him, especially when they were the subject of covert surveillance.

"Of course." Kravchenko replied. He glanced at Artemis' bodyguards, who were still waiting outside, being snowed on, the driver who escorted them already having left. "Would your, ah, friends like to come in?"

Artemis looked back at the pair, feigning indifference. "If they are welcome."

"Of course!" The businessman boomed. "Friends of Mr. Fowl's are always welcome here!"

Artemis had to repress a smile as he signaled for Butler and Constantine to enter. It was almost too easy.

The two men entered, shaking snow off their shoulders. Krevchenko greeted them just as heartily as he did Artemis, shaking both Butler's and Constantine's hand.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" He asked Constantine, his eyes narrowed, but his smile never faded.

"I don't think so." Replied Constantine, without returning the warm smile.

"Ah…..Yes, I think I would remember a face like that." Indicating Constantine's tattoo.

Constantine suppressed the urge to say "same to you, and simply nodded.

"Mr. Kravchenko," Artemis said, impatiently breaking in. "if we may?" He indicated towards the inside door.

"Ah, business first, eh Mr. Fowl? Very well then, let us go." As they turned to move inside the building Artemis noticed a slight shimmer follow behind them. Too easy.

A few hours later, Constantine, Juliet, Butler, Holly and Artemis were all in the living room of the house and watching the video feed of the factory tour that Holly had recorded.

"Does this trigger anything?" Artemis asked Constantine.

"Nothing but a migraine." Constantine had been irritable since they left the Complex. He attributed it to a headache that he had since they crossed the bridge. Now he sat in the center of a light blue couch facing the television, nursing a whiskey glass, no one really knew where he got it from. Juliet and Holly were on either side of him, Butler taking up a whole couch by himself, and Artemis holding the remote next to the T.V.

"I'm surprised you managed to control it the whole time you were there." Juliet complimented. Holly's camera had just panned over his face, which remained passive the entire time.

"Yes," Artemis added absentmindedly. "but it is a good sign, it means your brain is working overtime trying to re-establish connections that have been lost. It knows that it has forgotten something, it just can't remember what it has forgotten."

"Welcome to the club." Constantine said, holding the whiskey on the rocks to his forehead, as if toasting his brain.

"So, you are both blue-diamond bodyguards?" That was Kravchenko on the screen. He was talking to Butler and Constantine, who nodded simultaneously. They were all in a small, grey, windowed room looking into the foundry.  Artemis cocked an eyebrow at Kravchenko, who shrugged, still smiling. "I am not without my sources either." He turned back to the two bodyguards. "May I see the blue diamonds? I've never had the pleasure of seeing one up close."

Butler and Constantine looked at each other, perplexed, and then at Artemis, who nodded his consent. Butler took off his suit coat and handed it to Constantine. He then started to undue the straps on the holster of his sig sauer and to unbutton his shirt, revealing muscles that would put a bodybuilder to shame. Before the shirt was completely off, he thrust the collar down over his his massive left shoulder, revealing the blue diamond, which seemed to sparkle in the sparse lighting of the room. Krevchenko smiled with glee and turned to Constantine. "And you?"

Artemis remembered the back of his neck prickling when he hear that. A henna tattoo could never pass for a real one under close inspection, a fact that could be explained away for the one on his face, but not the blue diamond. He would be revealed as a fraud if Krevchenko noticed.

Constantine, however, calmly handed both Butler's coat and his own to the giant, and started undoing the straps on his shoulder holster. Next he started unbuttoning his shirt. When he pulled his shoulder partially out of his shirt, he revealed the tattoo.

"Ah the Blue Diamond!" Kravchenko exclaimed. "Representative of a lifetime of work towards achieving something thought unattainable. You must be proud." Butler and Constantine silently agreed as they put their clothes back on. He was right, after all.

"I'm glad you thought of that, Artemis." Butler said from his couch.

"Yes, it turned out to be quite useful, did it not?" Artemis replied with a self-satisfied smile. He had anticipated that, as a matter of fact, and that's why Kravchenko hadn't noticed the fake one. It wasn't fake. They gave Constantine a real Blue Diamond.

"If Madame Ko knew I did that, she would kill me." Butler mused.

Constantine, whose headache had gotten worse, put his now empty glass onto a wood and glass coffee table in front of the couch and stood up. "I need a drink." He announced.

"You just had a drink." Holly pointed out.

"I need another one." He was already moving towards the door. He grabbed his black parka off of the coat rack on the way.

"Where are you going?" Artemis asked.

"To find a bar."

"Why?" Juliet stood up too now. "Why do you need to drink?"

Constantine stopped with his hand on the door knob. He was barely lucid at this point, the pain in his head was growing exponentially, but he managed to mutter. "So I can find the click." And with that, he left. leaving a stunned room behind him.

Butler and Artemis glanced at each other. They had known each other so long, thoughts could fly between eye contact. Something was wrong.

"Follow him," Artemis ordered. "And don't be noticed." Butler nodded, and got up to leave out the back door.

Constantine had managed to stumble 3 blocks before he found a bar. The bar he found was a dive, with a semi-collapsing roof and wooden walls with paint peeling off of it in sheaves. A big sign saying "Tom's Tavern" in Russian adorned the front.  It looked familiar to him somehow, but couldn't place it.  He didn't care though, it had alcohol, it was good enough.

He stumbled in, creating a little more noise than he would have like, but he headed up to the bar anyway. "Vodka. Straight." There was nothing quite like Russian vodka.

The shot appeared in front of him, and he downed it before he heard a voice next to him.

"You look familiar to me." The voice spoke in Russian, and was rough and gravely.

"Sorry, buddy," Constantine replied in perfect Russian, sliding the shot glass back to the bartender, indicating for a refill. "but no one looks familiar to me."  He looked at the source of the voice. It was an old octogenarian, lines crisscrossed on his face, thrown into sharp relief by the dim lighting in the bar. His nose was crooked, and he was missing a few teeth under his gnarled lips. His gray hair was cropped short to his head.  The damned thing was, he did look familiar to Constantine, everything did! But Constantine just couldn't remember where the hell from!

"No, no, I do remember you." The man continued, looking as if he was trying to recall details.

Constantine stared at him, could this be it? Could this old man be the key he had been searching for? Disjointed images flashed in his head.

"You were here a few years ago, looking for information on some guy." The man was looking at the ceiling, trying to remember. Constantine was frozen.

"You had that little girl with you. What was her name?"

No.

"Oh yeah."

No. No. No.

"Holly Short."

I want to make this blog a hub for fanfiction and fanart, but I need more pieces!!!