Case one: Beauty and the Beast

Mai's POV

I was bringing Naru his 6th cup of tea that morning when she walked in. Tall, slim with pale gold hair tied in a loose plait over her left shoulder, pale porcelain skin and eyes the colour of rain drenched violets: she was beautiful. But what drew my eye was her clothing; she wore a black wool coat over a high collared silk bustier shirt that stopped just below her navel, a red and black tartan skirt with chains hanging from the one side and a pattern on of white crosses along the hem and thigh high black boots. Never had anyone looked so out of place in Naru's almost obsessively tidy office before.

"Um…can I help you?" I asked tentatively. She must be in the wrong place, I thought to myself. She pushed a stray strand of hair behind her right ear revealing a row of piercings and the cross dangling from the lowest one and smiled.

"Yes, I'm looking for someone going by the name of Kazuya Shibuya. Is he here by any chance?" The girl asked in perfect accented Japanese.

"Em…," I wasn't sure how to answer her, she wasn't the normal kind of client we received. Shaking my head I smiled, we were ghost hunters, we didn't do normal clients.

"Never mind, I'll check myself." She said before sticking her fingers in her mouth and letting out an ear piercing whistle. Flinching I quickly stuffed my fingers in my ears, dropping the tea cup to the floor as I heard a door crash open behind me, undoubtedly my narcissistic ass of a boss come to see what the hell was going on.

As if on cue Naru came bursting out from behind me his midnight blue eyes angry until he caught sight of the blonde. He froze, his eyes widening in surprise and his mouth hanging open, the words he was going to say now lost.

She grinned.

"Ah good, you're here. Well then, let's get down to business shall we?" she stated before sauntering over to the nearest armchair and folding herself elegantly into it.

Naru's P.O.V

As she folded herself elegantly into a chair I couldn't stop my heart from racing, I hadn't seen Eos in years. Not since leaving England to search for Gene.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, folding my arms over my chest to show I had regained my composure. Displaying any weakness around her would only cause trouble.

"I would have thought that would have been glaringly obvious to someone with, how did you put it? Ah yes, higher cognitive processing to the rest of us mortals. I'm here because I have a case for you." She said in that infuriatingly smug way of hers as a smile curled at the corner of her perfectly shaped mouth.

"You travelled all the way to Japan just to get me…"

"Don't flatter yourself Noll, I was already here. My Client asked me to find someone to deal with a little ghost problem he's having and I thought to myself 'who do I know in Japan who fixes ghost problems?' And naturally you were the first person that came to mind." She quipped, sarcasm lacing her words. Her smile was more of a self-satisfied smirk now, knowing that she had gotten a rise from me.

Mai looked between the two of us, confusion lacing her wide cinnamon eyes as it creased her brow.

"Um, I don't think I caught your name miss…?" she asked tentatively, she was playing with the edge of her shirt. She only did that when she was nervous.

"Ridley, Eos Ridley. And you are?" She replied turning her violet orbs away from me and onto my unsuspecting assistant.

"Mai Taniyama. It's nice to meet you. So, how do you know Naru?"

Eos's beautiful tinkling laugh echoed around the room as she heard Mai's little nick-name for me which everyone seemed to have adopted. I kept reminding myself to get her to stop using it but then never did, I suppose in a way I liked that she felt comfortable enough to use a nickname for me.

"Oh bless you Noll, you escape one nick name back home only to pick up a new one here!" Eos cried her eyes bright with mischief and laughter. It was that impish joy and her sarcastic take-no-prisoners attitude that had first drawn me to her and she damn well knew it.

"Mai, tea." I snapped, not harshly just cold enough to get the message that I wanted her out of the room across. She humphed and stormed off in the direction of the kitchen cursing me under her breath as she went. I almost smiled at the way she always did that when I demanded tea but stopped myself short as I remembered who I was facing.

"So, Noll, Lin. It's been awhile. How are you two?" she asked eyeing me and my silent companion. I hadn't realized Lin had come out of his office till she mentioned it but I was glad he was there. I didn't trust myself alone with this woman, not anymore.

"I thought you came here with a case not to exchange pleasantries."

"You are correct of course, as usual. My client purchased a house a number of years ago which he turned into a hotel, however lately there have been a number of…incidents. He called me and asked if I would take a look at the place but…well you know my powers. This isn't my area of expertise. So I advised he found someone more suited to the task and then I remembered you were here and offered to enlist your…services."

Slipping into business mode I sat down in the armchair opposite her as Lin slid onto the sofa seat next to me and began to type up what she had said on his laptop.

"What kind of incidents?"

"Doors slamming of their own accord, usually when someone's walking through them. The noise of heavy footsteps been heard, a horrible smell keeps appearing in one of the upper floors and the maids keep getting attacked, dragged across the floor by their hair and brutally beaten. One of them almost died." She said her voice getting quiet toward the end. She looked down at the floor then up at me through her thick dark lashes ringed in smoky liner and I saw something I hadn't seen in her eyes in a very long time. Fear.

"Noll, I've never been to a place like that in my life and I've been to some truly awful places. The feeling of horror and pain and the level of malignancy I felt there…it's beyond description."

It was then that Mai re-appeared with a tray of tea, her usual bright cheerful smile plastered on her face. She handed out the tea and received a murmured thanks from Eos before sitting on the floor next to my chair, her jean clad legs pulled up to her chest.

"Tell him we'll need a room to set up base and three rooms to sleep in and I'll need to speak to the women who've been attacked so far," I said to her before standing and walking to my office door, "Mai, call everyone and tell them to be here at 8AM sharp tomorrow morning. And don't be late this time."

I could hear her fuming at my parting comment as she went to go and make the calls to the rest of the team and I stepped into my office and rounded my desk.

"Noll?" Eos's soft voice called from the doorway. I looked at her properly for the first time since she had arrived in my office. She was taller than the last time I had seen her and her figure and filled out into a slim yet womanly physique, her hair was longer and there was sadness in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Can I come in?"

I nodded my ascent earning a reproachful glare from Lin as she closed the door on him. I'd be hearing about this later for sure.

Taking a seat behind my desk I motioned for her to take the one opposite. She slid into and shrugged off her black coat revealing the minute silk shirt she wore underneath.

"I see your clothing choices are as impractical as ever." I said trying to ignore the way the silk clung to the curves of her body and the glitter of onyx at the base of her shirt where I knew her navel piercing resided.

She smirked.

"And I see you still dress as conservatively as a priest, I swear you were the one born with the brains and Gene was the one born with the fashion sense." She laughed before realising what she had said. I flinched away at the mention of my dead brother, my lost twin. Gene. I got up and turned away from her to look out of the window into the glacial street below. I heard her chair scrape and soft footfalls. She wrapped her arms around my waist and placed her chin on my shoulder, something I would allow no one else to do.

"I'm sorry Noll, I didn't think." She murmured against my neck. I could feel her breath against my hair, feel the curve of her body moulded to my back, could smell the scent of her skin that was uniquely her. I breathed in and closed my eyes remembering nights spent in the comfort of her scent of lemon, honey and something else I could never place that just put me at ease the way nothing else could. I relaxed into the feel of her arms around me and sighed.

"Damn it Eos," She was my one weakness. Turning around in her arms I cupped her face in my hands and lifted it up to face me, "why did you have to come here?" I said before I pulled her to me and kissed her hard. Her lips were as soft as rose petals, just as I remembered them. With her so close to me her scent filled my head, I felt drunk on it, it was drowning my senses and clouding my usually clear head. She responded passionately, deepening the kiss; I felt her teeth graze my lower lip and bit back a smile. Turning our bodies I pushed her up against the book shelves that lined the walls of my office, wanting to be closer to her body. I ran my tongue along her lip and they opened allowing me to deepen the kiss further. My hand ran down her waist to her hip, hitching her leg up she took the hint and wrapped it around my waist.

"Noll…" she whispered to me in English, her breathy exclamation like another link in the chains of my attachment to her that would inevitably drag me back under her spell for good. I groaned at how good she felt pressed up against me, all the feelings I thought I had buried when I left to find Gene, when I had abandoned the beautiful, infuriating, intelligent, impossible girl in my arms.

"Hey Naru I brought you your…holy crap!" I heard Mai say as she entered my office. Pulling away from Eos like a drowning man surfacing for air I turned and looked at my young assistant who stood paralysed in shock in the doorway.

"Em, I'll just come back later." She said hurriedly closing the door behind her as she fled. Groaning I let my head fall against Eos's shoulder and inhaled her calming yet intoxicating scent.

"I don't think we've been caught in a situation like this since we fifteen." Eos mused, a delicate smile on her face as she ran her fingers through my hair soothingly. She knew it calmed me, lord knows why, whenever she did it would lull me back to my normal state but only when she did it.

"Yes, my mother was quite surprised to find you in my room let alone us tangled up together in bed like that. It took her almost a week to get over the shock. I wish it had taken longer, I infinitely preferred her avoiding us to her giddiness at me finally, as she put it, acting like a 'normal teenage boy'." I replied dispassionately. Eos trailed her fingers down my neck and over my shoulders to push me away from her slightly so she could look me in the eye, her smile was adorable and I could feel a small imitation of it curling at the corners of my own mouth.

"I shall see you tomorrow Noll." She murmured leaning forward to place one last kiss on my lips before disentangling herself from me and sauntering out of my office. Growling in frustration and irritation at our interruption and her departure I did the only thing I could.

"Mai! Tea!"