A/N: Summer Solstice giftfic for My Misguided Fairytale. Contains Au and sort-of Screamshipping. I'm afraid it#s turned out not very good.
Possibility of sequel is possible.
Whoever catches the two Discworld references gets special love.
"Demon, come to answer my request," the girl said, hands folded nervously in front of her, brown hair trailing in her face.
Candles guttered, the smell of oil and wine they had been anointed with mixing with the disgusting odor of pig's blood, aquired at the butcher's. Bundles of crow feathers hung from the ceiling, glittering black. The copper mirror reflected her face.
She thought it looked pale and drawn, her eyes emphasized by the dark shadows under them.
All of her room was filled with igredients that the book claimed necessary to raise a demon. She had said a dozen chants in a language she'd never heard of before.
None of it seemed to be doing any good, or anything at all. The chalk-drawn pentacle stayed empty.
Shizuka sighed and looked at the mirror again.
There was something wrong.
There was a face in it beside her own.
"You might've wanted to use a ruler for that pentacle, girl," a voice said into her ear.
The door panel shut again with a click and Jounouchi stood up to retrieve the dinner tray.
The mush on it didn't look to promising, he thought. But neither did the bare, gray walls and bars across the window. You couldn't go around expecting much from a state prison.
There was the question, though, why he got his mush delivered to his room instead of being called to the canteen with the rest of the criminals.
Was he seriously considered that dangerous? There were worse here, much worse than him, and they didn't get room service as far as he knew.
Besides, he had to shower with everyone else, dangerous or not. Thankfully, the rumor- and movie-fueled nightmare of getting propositioned or worse there hadn't come true so far.
He tried a bit of the so-called food, which was apparentely meant to be meat, carrots and mashed potatoes. It tasted almost, but not exactly, like a damp towel. Wood shavings. Cardboard.
He was on to something here, he thought. No doubt the prisoners weren't really worth enough for the state to give them real food, so they got cardboard which might or might not contain nutrients.
To think that he'd once held great expectations in this place.
This place being the United States, of course, not the New Haven city jail.
They had climbed out of the plane, their legs weak and eyes unaccustomed to the light after flying through the night. The sun had risen and the sky was absurdly, artificially blue.
New Haven had seemed to be exactly what the name promised, a new haven for them after they had left their old home.
And for almost a year now, things had worked out fine. He seemed to find semi-regular but definetely not illegal at all jobs at every corner, and did them until the job was over or until he got bored, then moved on to the next one. Before this whole screw-up, he had helped out at a shipping company.
Shizuka worked in an antique bookstore where the air was thick with the smell of dust.
Odd people where customers there. When he came to pick her up, Jonouchi had seen small scholarly men with gleaming eyes ask for volumes with long Latin names. Young, skinny college students with a hunted look implored her to find what they were looking for. Tall, tired-eyed women in black called Shizuka 'dear' and swept out of the shop, rattling with amulets and carrying stacks of books. Her boss insisted on burning incense, and candles gleamed in bowls of water so that they posed no danger to the old, dry paper.
There were some creeps that didn't come for the books. They came for Hannah, Shizuka's boss, who was wire-thin and pretty despite her forty-odd years. And now they came for Shizuka, too.
To say he did not like people coming after his sister would be an enormous understatement.
The bookstore was in a semi-reputable neighbourhood, and so was their apartment. But between the two was a stretch of houses that were on the verge of breaking down and covered with grafitti tags. Fires burned in old trash cans and the sound of police sirens was a constant background noise.
So Shizuka sat and waited every evening in the musty bookstore, drinking tea with Hannah and telling her about her childhood in Domino, or listening as the woman talked about Europe, and the small town she had grown up in, until her brother came to pick her up.
Picking up his sister to walk with her was one duty that he had never skirted, and would not do so on pain of losing his life. She had been apprehensive at first, telling him that she could take care of herself, that she didn't need him constantly holding her hand. But he had told her, not patronizingly but matter-of-factly, that grown men did not traverse these streets alone, because it was dangerous.
Of course, 'Even a guy built like a tank'd be too scared to go there at night, without any friends' was closer to what he actually said. And Shizuka had understood. Safety in numbers.
The guy who had been following them was not built like a tank. He was one of the skinny ones with shadows under his eyes.
They had not started running, just walked as fast as they could, but the guy had started running, had come at Shizuka, and wrapped his arms around her middle.
Jonouchi didn't see red. He dove to pick up the lid of a metal trash can and slammed it into the guy's temple. He let go of Shizuka, who fell down on the asphalt so hard it took the skin off of her knuckles.
The creep was still standing upright, swaying and bleeding from a head wound, and before he knew what he was doing, Jonouchi had put the knife he carried for emergencies into his side.
And now he was in jail, awaiting his trial for attempted murder. And the creep was still in the hospital, probably getting bunches of flowers and 'Sorry you didn't get to rape the girl, get well soon'-cards. It was, Jonouchi thought, seven kinds of unfair.
Shizuka didn't scream. She was too shocked for that.
The face beside her own was white as bone and the ragged-cut hair surrounding it was even whiter. Skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones. The demon looked like a corpse.
But for the eyes, which were vivid and green like nothing she'd ever seen before, and made her think wildly of plutonium and poison.
She turned around, very slowly. He didn't disappear.
"To get this over with quickly," his voice was deep and not unpleasant, but he sounded like a chain smoker, "no, you aren't hallucinating. Yes, I am a demon, and yes, I'm here to strike a deal with you. Your chant worked."
Well, she could see that. It had most definetely worked.
The impossible green eyes were rimmed with red. Odd though the thought was, it looked like the demon had been crying. Or like he had allergies.
But that was a crazy idea. That demons went around getting allergies was almost as unlikely as them going around crying.
I have to do this.
"D-do you w-want-" BAD, very bad, she should not stutter and not show fear. But she couldn't help it.
"No," the demon sounded bored, sounded like he did things like this every day and was tired of it, "no, I don't want your soul. You can't just give it to me, at any rate."
That was certainly new. And contradictory to a lot of things she'd heard.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Souls aren't currency. Do you even begin to realize how you'd give somebody possession of it? So tell me your demands, girlchild."
He sounded like a drug dealer. He looked like the more successful kind, too, with a pure white suit that would have made most people think of irony but made Shizuka think of death.
She took a deep breath, thought of her brother, and managed to speak without hitching.
"I hereby ask you to free my brother from prison, a place he was brought to unjustly. Please give him his freedom back."
The demon gave her a look that seemed to come from centuries – aeons – away, and Shizuka wondered how old it? He? Was.
He chuckled, sitting down on her threadbare couch without invitation.
"Girlchild, do us both a favor and knock off that solemn talk. It doesn't do any good. Now," he motioned with one hand to the space beside him, "sit down and tell me the whole story, no fibbing."
So she told him about the bookstore, about the strange customers, about the assault and that her brother had defended her.
As she talked, skin prickling in nervousness, sick to her stomach with fear but determined not to show it, she felt something. There was a weight behind her breastbone, and every time she repeated, 'My brother saved me,' it grew heavier.
She didn't want to save him because he was her brother and she loved him.
She didn't want to save him out of guilt or gratitude.
That was, she did want these things, but there was something else.
She wanted to strike a balance. She didn't want to be the one who got rescued, only. And she was willing to pay an unspecified price for it.
"Now I've got one last question for you. Are you aware that you've got medial tendencies?"
From the look on her face, she wasn't. Her eyes went all wide, even wider than before.
"Medial tendencies?"
She really had no idea.
He could see, now that he strained to look, a faint thread of chi energy that started at her consciousness. The link was connected at the other side to a vast reserve of power. The simmering energy was so strong he could feel the skin of this human shape start to crawl.
"You have a mental link to an enormous source of mental energy," he clarified.
Her mouth opened.
"and as a payment, you will lead me to it. And I'll bail your brother out."
The gears in her head seemed to be moving. It was clear she had no idea what the source was or how she was going to make him attain it.
Nevertheless, she asked with an almost challenging tone, "what if I can't?"
Bakura was surprised. This girlchild did have the makings of a witch, even if she was free of experience. But he didn't like being asked stupid questions.
"Can't? There is no can't. You call me. You draw a pentacle that looks like a crippled starfish. And now you expect me to play by the rules? To show you kindness?"
And it worked, too. She leaned back suddenly, as if she only now realized that she was sitting next to him, her eyes growing wide. It seemed she had only now realalized what she had done.
"You made a demand, now you pay the price. It's not difficult," he amended.
He liked the way she fidgeted, but he didn't want to waste unnecessary time, "I can track the source quick as anything, you just have to let me in."
She didn't draw back further, but her face twisted in a grimace.
"Into my...head?"
There was some knowledge there, rudimentary though it was. Bakura was elated. Getting summoned by someone stupid was usually excruciatingly boring.
Of course, if the human was too smart then that could be even more excrutiating. It nettled him that he had lost a significant amount of power to a human sorcerer. Small consolation that he had gotten his shape to do with as he pleased in return.
"The contract comes first. It always does. Do you agree to my terms?"
"I will, if you agree to mine. Do you have," she hesitated, hand waving vaguely to indicate something, "a written form?"
But there was no form, only the spoken word, older than even paper, that would be bound in place by blood.
"I'll make it so your brother will not be in prison," he started, having removed a single-edged blade from his suit pocket.
Shizuka gave him a dirty look.
Bakura affected a heavy sigh, as if he had been tricked out of something pleasant. It never hurt to try.
"And will not cause him, nor you, any harm."
He punctuated the last word by twisting the blade's point in his hand, drawing a bit of blood.
"This is by my name, Eqael Bakura."
The words underlined by blood were binding in any case.
"I let you look into my head and find the source of power you look for. This is by my name, Kawai Shizuka," and she cut a line along her palm, and they clasped hands.
His blood was cold.
"Now ready yourself, girlchild."
He did not move from his seat. Shizuka had expected him to do something, to touch his hand to her forehead, but he stayed perfectly still, his mad green eyes slipping out of focus.
This was not his body. Not his skin nor his face.
But these were his eyes. He couldn't change his eyes. They showed.
There was nothing there, she couldn't feel anything.
He really does look like a corpse, she realized, seeing it even more now that his face held that unearthly expression, a pretty corpse, though.
Where had that come from? But he did look like a handsome person who had died recently.
She still couldn't feel anything.
Bakura made a noise of frustration, and turned his nuclear-hazard eyes on hers again.
"You have rudimentary shields, girlchild. That's good for you. Now be a treasure and turn them off."
Shields? There was something, intangible, and she drew it back -
and felt it.
A presence touching her mind, not softly like she expected a thought to feel, but not tearing either.
Sifting through her head, unravelling threads of her consciousness and plucking the threads than ran from her chi like guitar strings until he found the one he was looking for.
"A building," she heard him speak dimly, too preoccupied with the fact that he had not left, was still probing through the mess inside her head,
"on a crossing of three ley lines,"
Dragon paths, Shizuka thought, that's what they were called in other stories.
"and the words and knowledge collected there have hemmed that energy in, a bubble of it, there to take at once for anyone with the right tools."
"Or there to absorb a bit at a time, waiting for the source to replenish. Not destroying it." Shizuka said softly. She was not afraid even though he was still in her head.
The demon Bakura Eqael had agreed by contract not to harm her.
She hadn't.
The touch on her mind let itself be traced back to the demonic mind, which tasted of or sounded liike ancient power so strong it almost overwhelmed her. She did not remove a chunk of it, but she drained it, just a little, until she could feel the power swelling up in herself.
It was not significant, but it was just enough to make a point.
Bakura could have hit her, if he could have done so. If the contract hadn't prevented it.
He could have hit himself.
I underestimated her. A little slip of a girl, I thought. Nothing more. Hellfire!
"The people in the book store will not be touched. The merchandise neither. And I know the feel of your mind now and I know you can't hurt me."
She took his hand aprubtly, the cuts on both their palms touching again. The wound felt like fire.
He did not explode, but instead breathed in, the human motion doing nothing.
"To harm me you would have to follow me to hell. You will follow me to hell!"
"You get the power, though it hurts me to do this. Now free my brother."
He was no longer touching her mind. Whatever thoughts she must have had were hidden behind her solemn expression.
She'd used such an old trick, the gifted child acting small and scared, and he'd fallen.
But he had tricks, as well.
"Whenever did I say that I would free him? I said I will make it so he is not in prison. What put him there? He tried to help you, a week ago."
"What are you saying?"
She did not attack him then, which was smart of her, but all the blood drained from her face. He wanted to make it clearer.
"I'll help both of you by giving you time. One week more than there should be. One week for what has happened not to happen. You'll have to take care of everything else yourself. And then I'll come and collect the power due me. But listen. I'll get your soul. I will take it for my own."
"And how?"
Damn her, she really was a witch, or something like it. She thought like one.
He could never take her soul while it still belonged to her beloved brother. It was not his.
There had been a moment while he'd touched her mind where he thought he might have it.
He specialized in taking things that he didn't deserve.
That was why he wasn't an angel. They deserved everything.
This wasn't a mutually satisfactory situation. This was a terrible situation. He would leave, now.
And the world shifted, backwards.
Jonouchi smiled to himself as he saw the shilluoette outlined against the bookstore's door. His sister had been waiting for him, and now she stepped out.
She was bundled up in a thick downy jacket despite the weather that had grown warmer already.
They linked their arms together and set off and then Shizuka started shivering, suddenly.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know, I'm cold. Ice cold."
He looked at her questioningly. The evening was warm, the air felt soft.
Shizuka's lips were almost blue, and her cheeks red.
"Want me to call a cab?"
She nodded imperceptibly, and Jounouchi felt his stomach turn, giving a lurch like the floor had shifted under him. He wasn't sure why.
Curled up in the cab's backseat, Shizuka gave him a small smile when he asked, concerned, if she was still cold.
"Just a little dizzy. Thank you for asking."
The city outside was dead quiet except for the sounds of other cars.
He knew what had been bothering him, then. Her eyes had reflected the streetlamp's light oddly. For a second they had appeared bright green.
Shizuka ran her fingers along the spine of Egyptian Demonology. Win her soul, would he? Well, she had a week left to prepare.