Chapter Text
Merlin dove, shoving his body, along with the tan, burlap sack, to the side just in time to miss the knife now quivering and embedded within the hardwood floor two inches from his head. Even as he let out a sigh of relief, though, another knife came distressingly close to where his pale neck was exposed, and a volley of gunfire could be heard ricocheting down the hallway.
Perfect.
Merlin jumped up, grabbing the two knives and sack, deflecting a third headed straight for his abdomen with a quick flash of silver. It clattered to the floor, useless.
Ignoring the ache in his ribs and the throbbing cut on his upper thigh, Merlin broke out into a sprint, flying down the hallway and away from the hell-bent hired hand that most definitely was not a cleaning lady (if the two dozen knives on her persons was anything to go by). He was actually surprised that he hadn’t ended up as a smear on some wall yet, what with the fact that he could barely feel his left foot.
But never mind that. It wasn’t like retaining all his body facilities was important or anything.
With a grunt, Merlin took a sharp right, coming abruptly to a staircase, winding and grandiose and totally unnecessary and unhelpful in a high speed chase, because who the hell wants to go in circles when they’re getting fucking knives thrown at them?!
Which ah, yes, right there about a foot from his arm in the wood paneled wall, there was a fresh, unappealing knife. Speak of the devil. The maid was rounding the end of the hallway, heading full-tilt towards the warlock, her face scrunched in concentration.
Merlin had to give it to her, she was actually a pretty good shot.
Only the best for the Pendragons, though. Gardeners wielding machetes, maids throwing knives, and let’s not even mention where in the hell that butler had been stashing that AK-47. Bloody obnoxious, was what it was.
But then there was a second, much closer and equally less friendly knife embedding itself in the wall next to Merlin’s head, ripping him from his reveries, and then he was once again faced with the bloody staircase, though of course going in circles just wouldn’t do, so instead –
The distance to the ground was about a floor and a half. Merlin jumped, equally pleased and terrified with the sensation of his guts lodging in his throat. Then he was landing, tucking his body into the fall even as his already sprained ankle gave out beneath him.
He gave a cry, the thief biting his lip to the point that he tasted a flush of sharp iron on his tongue. Merlin’s head swam, as though he were immersed in cotton, and the pain was nearly unbearable. Scratch that; his ankle was now certainly broken.
Fuck.
His magic threatened to emerge, pushing at the surface of his skin, prickling and angered at his recent, purposeful negligence.
He couldn’t let it out though – not now. Not with witnesses. And gods, Merlin didn’t want to have to kill all the groundskeepers in the building. Not just so that he could let his eyes flash gold, and make an easy escape (because of course there could be no witnesses – not when magic wasn’t even real). After all, for them, it was just a job. No one was truly loyal to the Pendragon Dynasty. Just employed.
So Merlin pushed the magic down, swallowed down the waves of pain radiating from, well, everywhere, and rucked the unassuming sack on his shoulder up a bit further.
Then, he broke out into a sprint. Which, in hindsight, was bloody stupid, considering his broken ankle.
As a matter of fact, Merlin made it exactly to the front door of Pendragon Manor (because his brain was too addled by the pain from running on a broken ankle to actually think of a decent, unassuming escape route). And just as he collapsed against the garishly overdone wooden door, Merlin had the dawning realization that witness or not, he had to use his magic. And fast.
Because the dots flashing at the edge of his vision was a bit too close for comfort.
So, just as maid-from-hell rounded the corner, Merlin metaphorically popped the cap off of his magic, letting it loose with what would probably have been a brilliant display of light, noise, sound, etc, etc, yadda, yadda –
He was actually too busy trying to concentrate on his piece of shit flat near Chinatown, London, and not passing out to notice the light show.
And then the warlock felt a familiar, uncomfortable sucking in his gut that always seemed to accompany his teleportation, and was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Because the next thing he knew, he was breathing in dank, musty air, the sweat that had been beading on his brow nearly instantly freezing due to the infamous draft in his flat.
Then he was falling out of consciousness, the rucksack slipping from his grip.
Then there was nothing; and for that, Merlin was thankful.
***
“I’m sorry, what?” Arthur said, his jaw hanging rather uselessly open as he listened to the tinny voice in the phone repeat itself.
“I’m saying, sir, that Pendragon Manor has been broken into.”
Arthur gave a sigh, massaging his forehead in an attempt to make the growing headache in it dissipate. He suddenly felt intensely tired.
“Look, I get that Uther is my father, but I don’t see what he expects by having you contact me. He should be calling the police, not me. It’s below my pay grade.”
Arthur could almost hear Leon rolling his eyes on the other end of the line, because they both knew that it was more than just rank at play here. Ever since Arthur’s falling out with his father, things had been… touchy at best.
“Sir, with all due respect, I believe this is in fact within your pay grade. Witnesses on the scene all are describing the perpetrator as a tall, cloaked man, late twenties.”
“Could be nearly anybody.” Arthur quickly nullified, though he had a sinking feeling in his gut.
“Well, there’s also a page. You know how he is. From ‘The Prince’ by Machiavelli,” Leon snorted, momentarily forgetting the weight of the situation.
Arthur sighed, placing his half-consumed coffee back on his desk. “What did it say?” He asked – though of course, they all already knew what it would say.
Leon sighed. “The usual. ‘In exchange for the liberation of goods. Signed, Emrys.’” And Arthur could just see it. The looping cursive covering a random page from a random book – usually one that cannily matched whatever corrupt pursuit that said robbed persons was involved in. In Uther’s case, that would of course be politics – being the head of state and all. Leon had jokingly said that it was Emrys’ way of recommending books. Arthur thought it was something more. Stupid, but more. After all, sending a message to the corrupt and rich through a page of a book was a perfect example of exactly how righteous and dedicated a man Emrys was.
Arthur bit his tongue else he let out a rather immature groan, instead taking a moment to drag a hand through his hair. “Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant.” Then he paused, glancing around his office, eyes landing on his badge. “Look, I’ll be there in five. In the meantime, don’t let anyone touch anything – and that includes Uther. You and I both know how damn finicky and meddlesome he can get when it comes to shit like that.”
“Copy, sir.”
“Alright, bye.”
And then Arthur flipped the phone off, shoving it into his jacket pocket even as he struggled into his thick, grey pea-coat, grabbing his badge and chugging his lukewarm coffee in one go.
He had work to do.
***
Emrys.
An inspector’s nightmare. Robin hood’s wet dream. Arthur’s life for the past seven years.
The man was a mystery, enigma – nearly a myth, if it wasn’t for a thin folder in Arthur’s desk full of grainy photos, eyewitness accounts and scraps of books to prove otherwise. To say he was a thief would be to not do the man justice; Emrys was so much more. He was a revolutionary, a master of disguise, an obvious intellect, an artist, and an omen.
He was a proper adversary.
His crimes were always neat, tidy – completely calculated and nearly seamless. His victims were the ultra-wealthy, the corrupt, the residue that managed to float to the top of the food chain. He stole – never killing, scarcely ever even being detected, let alone harming another human. Usually, the objects he targeted would’ve as easily been attributed to magically disappearing, if it wasn’t for the bloody git’s MO: a page from a book and a little note left at the scene.
Emrys, in all sense of the term, seemed to fancy himself some sort of hero. Stealing from the corrupt, destructive, dangerous. What he did with the wealth once it was liberated, Arthur could only dream of. But the fact of the matter was that the thief was quite the opponent, and the (possibly unknowing) leader of a whole small movement of similar crimes. People inspired by the centuries-old idea of vigilante justice – a pipe dream, to be perfectly honest. Wispy, vague, never truly formed and usually horribly execute, causing the Yard quite a bit of extra trouble, and getting Arthur side-tracked on more than one occasion.
And really, that was bloody well obnoxious.
Arthur sighed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he parked his car haphazardly on Uther’s pristine lawn, because he was petty like that.
Leon nodded at Arthur when the Inspector walked up to his childhood home –hauntingly off-kilter as he ducked under the police tape blocking the long, winding driveway.
Upon closer inspection, Arthur realized that Leon was more pallid than usual, his lips drawn down in a small from, brow furrowed as though in deep thought.
That was never good.
“Well, what’s different?” Arthur said as soon as he was close enough to the other officer.
Leon’s eyes shot up at Arthur, surprise at the other man’s intuition for only a moment before regaining himself. “Quite a bit, actually.”
Arthur raised a questioning brow, easily falling into to step with man beside him as they trekked towards the rather massive mansion in the distance. “You sure it’s even Emrys?”
“Certain.” Leon said, not sounding pleased at all. “Thanks to your father’s… foresight, we have some measure of viable footage. No face, of course. It’s blurred as usual. But the height, weight, dress – everything matches up. On top of that, though, we have some witnesses – a maid, gardener and butler, to be exact – who all describe roughly the same person. Again, the facial features vary a bit, but honestly, this is some of the best identification stuff we’ve gotten since his fuck-up at MoMA in America, in ’09.”
Arthur nodded, his brow pinched in thought. “Well, besides for the slip-up on camera, what’s so unbelievable?”
At this, Leon hesitated. “Um.”
Arthur gave him a sharp look, and the officer squirmed in a very uncharacteristic manner under the pinning gaze.
“I think it best if you… see the footage, first.”
Arthur’s brows both raised in question, but he did not voice any complaint. Obviously, Emrys’ actions were quite troubling for Leon.
…And if something was troubling for Leon… well, Arthur didn’t particularly want to know what it was.
But of course he would, anyway, because it was his duty as an inspector of the law to bring such criminals as Emrys to justice. So the young Pendragon easily accepted the tablet shoved under his nose, tapping the paused screen into motion.
The footage itself was grainy, frizzing and jumpy as though interrupted by electrical or magnetic distortion. Arthur knew for a fact that Uther had, during the time when his son still acknowledged being such, employed only the finest security measures. Therefore, he could only wonder as to how in the world Emrys had managed to have such a detrimental effect on the footage quality.
Though, it appeared as though that were a question for another time, as there was now a figure moving into the frame. It was an encompassing view of the great foyer. A cloaked figure stumbled into the room from off camera, his movements more than a little pained. As he reached the doorway (which Arthur had to admit seemed like an idiotic exit strategy), though, was when it really got interesting.
Because just as a pair of hunched shoulders met the wood of the front door, Emrys just… Vanished.
Arthur blinked. Then, he rewound the clip. Again, the stumbling, the hunch, the pained leaning to let cloth meet door, then –
“Where did he go? How did he make the footage jump like that?” Arthur said, not taking his eyes from the tablet’s screen.
“Er, nowhere.”
Arthur looked up, frowning. “What do you mean nowhere?” At Leon’s helpless shrug, Arthur scowled. “You aren’t telling me that Emrys just fucking vanished, are you? Like some two-pence magician with a rabbit in his bloody hat?”
But before Leon could stutter out the embarrassment that was Emrys’ most recent form of the double finger salute to the Yard, Arthur was already engrossed in the new mystery, flipping through video feeds and tapping quickly on his phone.
After all, Emrys was taking them all for fools, furthermore coming onto what could only be assumed to be Arthur’s turf (after all, his and Uther’s falling out had been a rather private affair).
It was bloody insulting.
With a final sigh, the inspector handed the tablet back to his second in command, the gears in his brain running on overdrive.
After all, there had to be a solution to this – one that might just lead to the final capture of Emrys.
***
As it was, little to no headway was made on the most recent Emrys case. After a tense meeting with his father that left Arthur emotionally stripped and a summary of witness testimonies, it could only be concluded that the thief had encountered something nearly unheard of when breaching the Pendragon mansion: a failed attempt.
Arthur couldn’t help but wonder. True, he knew the more nasty aspects of who Uther employed and why – but Emrys had surely gone up against worse. Mobsters, assassins, ex-militia – much worse.
So what, then, had gone wrong with this particular heist? Nothing was unaccounted for in the vaults, no family heirlooms were missing, no possessions gone. So then what? What had Emrys been there for?
And on top of that, why? Uther Pendragon was a homophobic prick, sure – but he wasn’t publically disliked. He was too charismatic to be so open about such beliefs. True, Arthur knew Uther could be politically vicious sometimes, aggressive in his movements to pass laws and lobby changes – but half of parliament was that way. The fact was, was that this was wholly out of character.
And that in turn led back to the reason Arthur was still at the office three hours after he got off, resisting the urge to rip his hair from the roots and scream.
Because what if this wasn’t Emrys? Just a really, really good fake? What if it was Emrys and he was just finally – finally – changing his MO?
Arthur groaned, shoving his head into his hands. Seven years of chasing this prick, and it would be for little to naught if he suddenly shifted his motives, methods, execution.
The inspector sighed, scrubbing a hand across his face and sitting back. The office was only partially lit, what with the night shift having clocked in. The computer screen in front of Arthur was darkened, having gone dormant from lack of use.
With another sigh, the young Pendragon groped around for his phone and wallet, standing up to throw on his coat. He wasn’t getting anywhere staring at a blank screen like this. And contrary to popular belief, despite the fact that Arthur was a Pendragon, he wasn’t stupid; he knew when a cause was hopeless. He’d only watched the grainy, jumping tape a million times – only closed up on the flash of a distorted face a thousand.
For tonight, Arthur just needed to go home, and let things be. And in the morning, he would work it all out.
***