[covent garden] a rush of blood to the head. [tag; dieter]

the tide's out, the ship's run aground
we drown traitors in shallow water.

"Oh, what are you doing now?"

Sofia was sat at the back of the room in a dimly lit corner, nursing a barely touched dirty martini. She'd been here for most of the afternoon, in varying disguises. Sofia had three main aliases; Scarlet Hargreaves, Elizabeth Tate and Valentina Trussardi. As a matter of fact, she'd used all three. Sofia was a fantastically good liar and a well trained actress, so slipping in and out of personas was as easy as shuffling a deck of cards.

Scarlet was an upper class English investment banker. Elizabeth, a spectacle-wearing bumbling librarian and her favourite, Valentina. A Spanish socialite with charms so strong, she'd had no one turn her down yet but this was a job for Sofia.

This evening had been months in the planning. The man, Victor Greene, was a bad man who did very bad things so naturally, he was a gorgeous specimen. Tall and broad with a shock of jet black hair and an achingly beautiful jaw line and he needed to be stopped. Victor was making waves, waves that have only recently started to affect her and Chetare in its entirety. He was undercutting them, selling to their own clients faster and cheaper and as a result, they were haemorrhaging money and their reputation was wavering.

Mr. Greene had been staying here in the lavish hotel for three nights. The Savoy was world famous, so famous that its notoriety had swept over to her world. She could see why. She'd had to be Valentina first, otherwise she'd not be let in through the front door. Sofia had managed to clap eyes on Victor, well dressed as always and she was unsure why he'd chosen this hotel. He was skilled and unobtrusive. Did he think the powers that be wouldn't come and find him in the Muggle world?

Rumours were that he was planning a poker game for him a few close friends. Scarlet had been next. She'd come in to the front desk and kicked off, demanding to see Victor, expressing concern over a "client" of hers that had withdrawn a large amount of money without her consent. The receptionist, a pretty young thing, had momentarily panicked and blurted out that Mr. Greene had booked out the penthouse suite. Elizabeth had been the final character to play. Everyone ignored her, dressed in her dowdy skirt that was too long for her chubby legs. She'd "accidentally" bumped into Victor who had sneered at her, but it had been long enough for Sofia's fingers to delicately measure his hips, chest and biceps as Elizabeth fumbled awkwardly around him. Adding up those body measurements let her calculate the exact amount of poison that would kill him swiftly and soundlessly.

But then Dieter Meer walked in and her heart dropped.

Sofia's back straightened as she slunk back into the darkness, allowing the candlelight to catch her glittering rings and her glass of liquor. Her big dark eyes watched the interaction. It was clear they were flirting, from Victor's slow smile and Dieter's intense concentration. "You stupid boy," she whispered as she frowned. Her long dark curls were pinned back and pushed over one shoulder, held in place by an expensive golden clip as they tumbled down. Her dress, simple and form fitting, had a high split that showed an expanse of her tanned legs and her towering heels.

Was Dieter after Victor, too? He couldn't be. He couldn't know. As she watched, she was sure she saw the gentlest of touches to the German's thigh from the other man. His smile, though inviting, reminded her of a shark. It was wide and wicked and didn't meet his eye. Soon, both men got to their feet. As Victor fixed his jacket, her keen eye saw a flash of silver tucked into the back of his waistband; a knife.

Sofia got to her feet, too. Her long legs walked behind them quietly, her heels sinking into the plush carpet as she held her delicate clutch bag close. The receptionist had said the pent house. As they entered the lift, she turned her back quickly to hide her face before making her way to the staircase, only to be blocked by a rather burly man. Great.

"Where are you going?" The muscle wearing an ill fitting suit sneered at her, causing Sofia to blink. His eyes were all over her, drinking her in and making her feel physically sick. "My boyfriend is in a meeting upstairs," she told him tersely, holding up a stonker of a diamond on her wedding finger and rudely waggling it in his face. "Adrian Turner?" The man's face dropped. Adrian Turner was also a bit of a bastard but he was no harm. He was all bark and no bite and he continually punched above his weight. He was also unhappily married and had a string of mistresses and if this man was worth his salt, not a word of her arrival would slip out of his mouth.

"Of course, miss, I'm so very sorry. Right this way," he bumbled, about to escort her the rest of the way. Too much time had passed and she was getting anxious. "No," she hissed. "I'm terribly affronted by your rudeness and shan't be needing your assistance. Good night." Leaving him floundering, she tossed her head back haughtily and glided up the first few steps. Once out of sight, she gathered up her hem and sprinted all the way to the top.

Sofia knew something was wrong because the poker game wasn't until tomorrow night. She ghosted down the hall, her breath coming in short little gasps from exertion before she reached the door. It was after eleven in the evening an it had started to rain and she hoped that wasn't an omen. Pressing her ear against the door, she strained it for any recognisable sounds. There was a laugh and then something that sounded like bodies colliding. Silently, she waved her wand and unlocked the door, twisting the handle to  muffle the sound as she crept into the lavish room. There was a decanter full of whiskey and two glasses, one drained. A jacket on the back of an armchair.

The tall Italian wandered closer and with a practised touch, flipped it open and was dismayed to see a wand in the inner pocket. One of them was unarmed and she was willing to bet it was Dieter. They had a love-hate relationship and like anyone, she was sure the blonde wasn't going to pass up a night of no strings attached sex.

She couldn't see the knife, which meant Victor still had it. She crept in further, the lights of London shining on her skin, turning it white, pink and blue as the traffic rumbled by. Hearing what sounded like muffled struggling, she delicately nudged open the door with the toe of her shoe and was surprised to see Dieter, flat on his back, strapped down to the plush mattress and not looking like  he was having fun. Her eyes flicked to the chink of light spilling out from the slightly open ensuite bathroom and she pressed her index finger to her lips in a non-vocal cue to Dieter to shush up before yanking open the bathroom door and striking Victor Greene down in three precise wand movements.

@Dieter Meer

This was not his finest moment.

It was bound to happen at some point, given his penchant for putting himself in these situations, but until now he'd always managed to get himself out of anything sticky. He didn't need a wand to defend himself. The Meers had given him that, along with a long list of other skills that would make upstanding citizens shudder. Dieter was well versed in hundreds of ways to disarm a man. Maim a man. Kill a man. Unfortunately not many of them were useful when tied to a bed, unable to move. He wasn't completely out of options, he reassured himself, although the remaining lifelines open to him were obscure and required Victor to be closer... and direct eyecontact... and Victor seemed intent on playing with his prey without allowing that to happen, for now.

So long as Victor kept him alive and conscious, then eventually Dieter would be able to do something. His legilimency was at a level of expertise where he could use it without a wand. It required a lot of focus and energy, and was draining, but this was his final option. When the man was close enough, Dieter could do what he'd been practising on expendables for years - clean his mind. Reprogram him. Get him to untie these damn ropes.

But before that could happen there was a knife. And blood. And Dieter was struggling to keep bad memories from rising to the surface and impacting his focus. He had to stay with this. His life depended on it. But knives were always tricky, especially since he'd unlocked a lot of his buried memories. He could handle being beaten, whipped, burned, tortured with Crucio... but it wasn't so much the pain of the knife that sent his head reeling, but the way that it plunged deep into parts of his soul that were vulnerable and weak.

Plus he was kicking himself for being this stupid. He'd done his homework on the people who would be playing tomorrow's poker game. He knew about the man who was now gleefully torturing him. Knew what he was capable of. Unfortunately sadistic bastards were Dieter's achilles heel. What should send him running instead drew him in like a moth to the flame. Victor was exactly the kind of psycho that Dieter's desire hooked onto... and even now while he was almost helpless, that fear was pulsing through him like a drug, the giddy high of adrenaline sharpening his senses, the pain like a desperately-needed fix. He was actually in danger of dying right here and now, and yet some part of him was still getting off on this. He was sick.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a shape that he knew intimately well. His favourite femme fatale.

Well, shit.

This was not exactly how he wanted Sofia to see him. Ever. He liked their games, the way they matched each other, toyed with each other. And he liked the fact that since the happenings in Rostock a year previously he'd had the upper hand. Now the tables had turned and he was the one helpless and tied up, in need of saving. Oh she was never going to let him forget this. But of course, pride aside, he was happy to see her. And happier still when she expertly cut the other man down in a precise and anticlimactic fashion.

"Scarlet," he said, giving her a slightly embarrassed smile. "Lovely of you to drop in. You're well I hope? Be a doll and untie me, mmh?"

Sofia made no move to catch Victor as he collapsed like a house of cards. She took a step back and let him fold, crumpling to the floor in the most unceremonious of ways. She skirted him neatly, stooping to check his face. His eyes were open and were a shade of brown. Some might say they had a chocolate hue but she'd say they were more of a muddy puddle or a rather barren woodland.

She nudged his still-warm body with the toe of her shoe, rolling him onto his side and against the large bath tub. The original plan had been poison in a drink and she hadn't been wanting to use her wand but seeing Dieter in some considerable danger had overridden her plan. It wasn't the first time she'd had to dispose of a body but as of yet, she'd left no fingerprints.

Victor's skin was unmarked and she was lucky that his head had narrowly avoided colliding with the edge of the sink. Heaving a sigh, she slipped her wand back into the holster strapped to her left thigh before closing the bathroom door behind her and offering Dieter a sunny smile.

"Honestly," she said warmly as she drew closer. "The lengths you go to for sex," she tutted with a playful roll of her eyes. She wandered over to the crystal glasses, held the whiskey up to her nose, sniffed the amber liquid and then swiftly tipped the contents into a nearby plant pot. "You didn't drink any of that, did you?" She asked Dieter as she placed it back onto the table before wiping the glass with a silk handkerchief. It smelled faintly of almonds and she didn't like that.

The tall Italian turned and smiled down at the German man with her head cocked to the side slightly. It was cosmic irony at its finest. Dieter and his family had Sofia with one hand metaphorically tied behind her back for months and then suddenly, here he was, all trussed up like a Christmas turkey.

She sat down next to him, her weight making the slightest indent on the thick mattress. "Why?" Sofia purred, her big brown eyes flicking across his chest. Dieter had always been a little too lanky for her liking. He looked like he was carved out of marble, all angles and sharp edges. Her favourite part of him wasn't his filthy mind but rather his jawbone. "Let me just take a minute to revel in his turn of events." With that, she stretched her arms above her head and let out a soft moan as her bones clicked and her muscles relaxed, the stress rolling off her like water off a duck's back.

Her eyes flickered to the bonds holding him down. Sofia leant over Dieter, purposefully hovering her chest close to his face to make a point as she tweaked on the restraints. "Italian leather," she remarked as she nodded. She had a few bags made from the same sort of saffiano leather. "Poor Victor wasn't really going to give you a chance, was he? Here we go."

With a practised hand that hinted at the fact that this wasn't the first time she'd been exposed to such practices, she unfastened him quickly. She scooted closer and gently cupped his face, her own wearing a concerned frown as her eyes flicked back and forth across his face. "Are you hurt?" She asked him, looking him over for any signs that he was carrying anything more than superficial wounds. Absently, she took the fake engagement ring off her finger and switched her hand, as though the sheer thought of it was horrifying. She'd been engaged. Once. Many moons ago now. Everything was going well until he got too close and he "accidentally" fell off the Pont Neuf and into the Seine, never to be seen again.

"We should go," she told Dieter firmly as she got to her feet before looking over at the bathroom door with a slight frown. "Any ideas what to do with lover boy over there?" There was a pause. "And put your shirt on. You're distracting me."