Thanks for all the positive feedback! I decided to put chapter two up for you guys now so you can get into it a bit or have a bit more to go on if you're judging this. Have a great read! :)

Chapter Two: She gave me a ring

The night was young when Natsuki entered the mortuary; now, after the tumultuous onslaught of information and danger, she felt like she was emerging into a different world. Shizuru had taken her calmly through the secret door, a threatening smile enough to keep the junior doctor quiet. The passage was dank and dingy, roughly-hewn rock walls supported by decaying wooden beams. It looked as though the passage definitely predated the hospital. Natsuki felt herself get colder and colder as the rational world receded and she was faced with the reality that vampires and werewolves and whatever an Ankou or a lamia was actually existed. Oh very dear. It was all going to pot.

"Well, for one so previously vociferous, you are mightily silent, Natsuki." Shizuru said, her voice echoing along the slippery corridor. "Natsuki is welcome to ask whatever she pleases."

"Ah, but if I ask the wrong thing you'll kill me." She replied mock-happily.

"True." Shizuru replied lightly. "But nevertheless, ask away."

"What are you?"

"Ara, quick off the bat." The woman smiled. "My race has many names, though you may call us sirens."

"Like in greek myths?"

"Similar."

"Is Fr. Greer really a… vampire?" she asked.

Shizuru's lips twitched. "Why yes, he is. And an unfortunately indulgent one at that. He leads a the opposition party of our government, of which the council is merely a facet. He is… a roadblock."

"Why not kill him? You seem fine with it in general."

"He is one of us. He has rights."

Brilliant, Natsuki thought. If I'm an unfortunate human doctor just trying to skive my extra duties, I'm expendable, but if I'm a merciless rambling vampire priest, it's okay: I've got rights. "Do I have any rights?"

Shizuru paused, taking one of the forks of the tunnel. "As a human, no."

"Awesome. So I'm dead unless you like me."

"Yes."

"Do you like me?"

Shizuru grinned. "I have not decided yet. And even if I did, I am no guarantee."

"What?"

"I can override the law, but our law doesn't go far enough to aid humans. If you were to be charged with anything more that what our only law applicable to humans covers, I could not do anything. Natsuki should be worried."

"Natsuki is worried enough, thank you."

"There is, of course, a way to circumvent this." Shizuru said suddenly after several cold minutes of walking, with the mould and the metallic smell of blood become stronger, underpinned by the thick, volatile feeling of magic that Natsuki couldn't place but was sure she recognised.

"Of course. I could just top myself now and save the goon squad the trouble."

"Sarcasm does not befit an asset."

"Right boss." Natsuki bitterly replied, dread coiling in her stomach. "What's your idea then?"

"If you cease being human, you gain otherworld rights."

"But I like being human." She protested. "I really like it."

"Do you?" Shizuru stopped and looked at her again with those bewildering eyes. "Do you like growing old? Do you enjoy mundanity? Death? The passing of time and your slow, inevitable decay?"

Natsuki paused. "Yeh. Slow inevitable decay works for me."

She thought the ghost of a smile flitted in and out of Shizuru's face. "Well, that is our last resort. Although… now I think about it, Natsuki is quite the asset in herself. An established doctor in one of our biggest investments. And since dear Kenta is… well, the poor fellow got on the wrong side of a very vindictive succubus. He daren't continue his job of gatekeeper. Though now he has sent a human down to do the work for him… I shall be having a word with his mother."

"Right. How old are you?"

"Eternally young." She answered . "It is quite tiring."

"Right."

"Now, Natsuki must look her best. Try not to look too… gormless." Shizuru muttered something and the wall dissolved into a cacophony of fluttering bats that flew away in alarm. They stepped through the strange door into another fucking world.

Everything was upside down, for a start, and then with a sickening lurch, they were standing right side up. Except that Natsuki knew she was still upside down, compared to the real world, but all gravity told here was that this was the right way and the real world was backwards and everything was just…

"Fucked up."

Shizuru frowned. "Language, Natsuki."

"Terribly sorry. I just walked in on upside-down world. Nothing strange about that." She surveyed the world. The domed ceiling was rock, but laced all across with strange, slightly luminous lichens, giving the underworld the appearance of twilight on the surface. The buildings were mostly square, with small, glowing windows, and they clung not only to the 'floor' but also extended up into the walls of the great cavern. In the centre, a massive cathedral thrust up from the ground, green with thousands of years of mould and climbing vines eating away at its crumbling pink stone. It was breathtaking, strewn with buzzing purple specs that must have been some strange insect, and Natsuki's eyes had trouble drinking it all in. "Holy shit."

"This is Asheol. It is our home in this area. The council meet here, and the less… hominid of us live here. We are otherworlders. Welcome to the lion's den, Dr. Kruger."

Natsuki gave Shizuru a worried glance before she adjusted her leather jacket and cleared her throat, gathering her courage before she continued. "Right. President Viola, show me to your leader."

Shizuru's eyebrows rose. "I am your leader."

"Your other council of leaders, then?"

"Yes, of course. Well then, brave human, let us hope that you are not eaten by anything on the way to the Basilicum."

"The what?"

"Natsuki, fewer questions, more…" Shizuru thought for a moment. "More aplomb."

Natsuki made a face at her. "Lead on then, Prez."

They wound through the streets, and Natsuki looked perplexed at the many indiscretions. The streetlights had no bulbs, and greeny-purple balls of fire burned by themselves inside them instead. The cobbles were mostly stones, but the occasional squirrel skull stuck out as strange. Creatures most definitely not human-esque peeked out from their heavily curtained windows, and at one point a distinctly lobster-shaped being the size of a pro-wrestler saw them and scuttled off. A group of satyr women smoking pipes on a wall watched them with mild interest, and a tiny man hovering in the street on gossamer wings took his hat off with respect to Shizuru. It was a visual orgy to Natsuki, who was used to seeing the inside of a hospital all day, and the inside of Nao all night.

"Shit. This place is… am I high?"

"I would hope not. And at any rate, the otherworld controls most of the city's drug trade."

"What?"

"We have to make money somehow. We do not care if humans want to whittle away their time using drugs."

"Wait, so I spent most of the summer of 2005 buying weed from you?"

"You can look at it that way if you'd like." Shizuru smiled. "Now, you must uphold the utmost respect for the council, understood?"

"Yes, mum."

"And you must only speak when spoken to."

"Aye-aye, captain."

"And you must be aware that my vice-president is a dragon."

"Sure- wait and minute, what?"

"Reito-ryuu is a black dragon, the obsidian prince. He is to be addressed by his dynastic title, Lord Obsidius."

Natsuki frowned. "What a poncy name."

"The dragons are largely inactive, but they always hold a representative at our courts and they hold a great deal of sway. There was a time, before the Recession, when dragons ruled our world."

"Cool. Be nice to poncy dragon, be nice in general, and don't buy drugs, gotcha."

"Wonderful." The siren replied sarcastically as they approached the huge bronze double doors of the Basilicum. She took from the pocket of her coat a large rusted key and uncharacteristically jammed it into the keyhole with a great gesture, trying to turn it. It didn't budge. "I must demand a new key at some point."

"Here, let me." Natsuki said without thinking and reached to turn the key, much to the horror on Shizuru's face. As soon as her fingers touched the metal, a shock coursed through her body, great forks of screaming, thrashing fae-fire that burned her insides and threw her to the ground, a twitching mass of crackling energy.

"Ara, that's never happened before." Shizuru said mildly. "But on the bright side, Natsuki may be dead now anyway."

The doctor coughed up some blood and groaned from her place on the floor, rolling over with the imprint of a squirrel skull on her cheek. "Fuck."

"Natsuki should know not to touch strange objects." The siren observed distantly, fiddling with the key until it finally clicked. She sighed and looked down at the faintly spasming human, offering her a flawless, porcelain hand with the glimmer of disdain. Every fibre of her being screaming out for her to stay the fuck down, Natsuki eyes the hand suspiciously.

"Am I going to get zapped if I touch you?"

"Am I an artefact of significant magical importance?"

"Probably." Natsuki replied taking the hand and allowing herself to be pulled up by a surprisingly strong grip. "Whoa!"

Shizuru apologised under her breath as the doors began to creak open of their own accord, roiling blue smoke pouring out in insidious tendrils. "Follow me, Natsuki, and for the love of all that you humans consider holy, be quiet."

She nodded and followed Shizuru through the doors into the gloomy Basilicum, her human eyes barely able to make out the grotesque décor. Gargoyles of all creeds and varying degrees of ugliness leered down at her from the eaves, shadows splayed across the high-roofed antechamber and hiding in the nooks of crannies of eerie statues that watched them wordlessly. The light came from cast iron brackets on the walls, green like everything else in this crazy place.

They emerged from the antechamber into a vast space, the dust of centuries settled in the corners. At the far end, seated around a vaguely semi-circular table, were eleven… what had Shizuru called them? Otherworlders. The head of the table was empty- presumably the siren's space- and to the right of that was a dangerously attractive man. His hair and eyes were dark, as was his outfit, though small plumes of steam occasionally escaped from his nostrils. Behind him, a long, lizard-esque tail swished treacherously back and forth as he regarded her. He looked at her, then looked at Shizuru and smiled.

"What have we here, Shizuru?" his voice resonated through the Basilicum, although it was barely more than a whisper.

The siren strode confidently towards her council, Natsuki struggling to keep up with her inhumanly large strides. "Ara, surely the dragons have seen her already, Reito?"

"We don't want to appear pretentious." He interlaced his fingers as he watched Natsuki creepily. "That said, I am hungry and you've bought a lovely entrée."

"I have a proposal for the council." She motioned for Natsuki to stay in the centre of the semi-circle while she took her place amongst her kind. "This is Dr. Kruger. She was sent by one of us to the hospital morgue, where she got there before I was informed that the position was vacated."

"By whom?" A petite, mousy woman asked.

"An ankou." Shizuru replied, looking over at a greying man, "He is yours, Thanatos."

"He will be punished." The god of death replied mildly. "Why bring her here, Shizuru?"

"She is immune to siren song; I cannot make her forget."

"Kill her, then." He dismissed.

Shizuru glared at him. "We need a gatekeeper, and Kenta- your ankou- cannot take the position any more. She is a doctor. The position is congruent to her lifestyle."

"Her lifestyle is human, Shizuru." Reito said. "Any consumers looking for a post-feeding snack will eat her."

Someone cleared his or her throat. A large, Amazonian woman further down the table with swirling tattoos covering her arms held up her hand. "Surely we have others at the hospitals?"

"Armitage." Thanatos addressed her. "It is difficult to get anyone of us to work at a human hospital. Consumers cannot- the presence of blood and chi is too high for them to cope. Pixies and other woodkin hate suffering. Only my people will do it, and I have all the ones I can spare working at the moment."

"I am sure that we could find someone." She growled.

"Someone who will go through six years of human medical training?" Reito pitched in, stroking his chin. "That leaves us with a six year deficit. Dr. Kruger may be suited to fit the gap while we find someone."

"Bloody humans." Armitage muttered, shifting in her seat. "Just be rid of them all, I say."

"What will consumers feed on?" A man on the other side of the table with a row of serrated teeth that indicated that he must be some sort of… 'consumer' asked tiredly, as though the proposal had been made many times before. "No, now is not the time to discuss this. The human."

"Well, we shall take it to vote, as the council should." Shizuru said. "All for allowing Dr. Kruger to act as gatekeeper for the time being, raise your hands."

Thanatos, Reito, Shizuru, the mousy woman, and three others. That was seven. "All against?"

Armitage and the rest of them opposed. "This motion has been passed. Dr. Kruger will act as gatekeeper."

The otherworlders muttered amongst themselves at the verdict. "Surely it is… dangerous, you must admit?" Reito reiterated his earlier point as a couple of councilmen got up and left. "Shizuru? Have you considered this?"

"Admittedly not as much as necessary." She confessed. "But she is not dumb, Reito. She understands her position."

"Do you?" He turned to address Natsuki directly. She was shocked for a few seconds, having been feeling increasingly anxious as the monster-people had decided whether or not she would die. She whetted her lips and looked him in the eye, which was more difficult that she'd thought.

"Y-yes… Lord, um, Obsidius."

He chuckled a bit. "Shizuru, you continue to entertain me so."

"I shall take that as a compliment." The siren raised her elegant eyebrows. "Now, the sooner she is out of Asheol, the less likely it is that an ogre will eat her."

"How… merciful of you. Well, I look forward to meeting you again… Dr. Kruger." He stood up and stretched his impressive arms, his dark eyes flashing amber suddenly. With a great tearing sound and the feeling that the whole world was yawning at once, his body contorted and lazily coiled around until he grew and morphed into a massive ebony dragon, black-purple wings extending nearly the whole span of the Basilicum. He launched himself upwards, and Natsuki watched in amazement as the 'roof' wavered and disappeared as he went through it into the cavern of Asheol and melded into the darkness.

"Dragons." Somebody muttered disapprovingly.

"Always with the big entries and exits."

"Did I tell you about the time my great-aunt Sophie- you know, the banshee? Well, she went out with this blue dragon, like a summer fling, and he…"

The conversing pair walked out of earshot as Natsuki stood, rooted to the spot. Now she, Shizuru, Thanatos and Armitage were the only ones left in the room. Armitage stood, glared at everyone and excused herself, but Thanatos stayed seated, silently brooding. Beside him, a scythe glinted in the firelight, and Natsuki was suddenly quite aware that the company she was in… well, Death himself was sitting in front of her. A black dragon had been talking to her. Oh very dear.

"That went well." Shizuru commented, talking half to Natsuki and half to Thanatos. Natsuki blinked at him- he'd suddenly stopped being and old man and had gotten much younger- he looked now around fourteen, very greek, with dark curly hair and twinkling eyes. A pair of greyish wings pressed tightly to his back, and he regarded her, making her heart jump. He was a god. She was in a room with a god. He smiled and turned to Shizuru. "I would say so. You and your… humans."

"Thanatos-kun would be out of work if they did not exist, hmm?"

"Don't call me that." He pouted, suddenly very far removed from the man who had blithely suggested that they kill Natsuki a few minutes ago. "And anyway, don't you have more important things to do than run around the overworld picking up humans?"

Shizuru considered. "Probably."

"Well, I suggest you do your job instead of filling in for subordinates." He started clipping his fingernails. "Speaking of subordinates, I should be off to deal with Kenta. He knows better than to be bragging to pretty humans. More trouble that they're worth, ankou…"

He yawned and the ground below swallowed him up in black energy. Natsuki blinked a couple of times and turned to Shizuru. "Right. Can I wake up now?"

"I'm not sure you appreciate the seriousness of your position. Natsuki is the first human allowed this kind of freedom by the council for… for an immeasurably long time." The siren stood up. "You owe me a very great debt."

Natsuki groaned. She was in enough bloody debt already. "Like money? 'Cause, Shizuru, I'm skint already…"

"No." she stepped down from the dais and walked closer to Natsuki. "It is a different debt. The repercussions of this incident will burden me for many years."

"Then why help me in the first place?" Natsuki demanded, eyes narrowing, stance slipping into something more aggressive. "If you people really are as selfish as you put across, why not just kill me?"

"I…" Shizuru paused, as if actually lost for words, but regained her poise a moment later. "It was merely convenient."

For some reason, Natsuki felt disappointed.

"Now, Natsuki, before anything else… we have much to do."

"I'm home!" Natsuki yelled for the second time that night, though feeling immensely different. The lights were on, so Nao was back, but nowhere to be found. "Fuck my life."

Natsuki decanted her crap onto the sofa and just managed to grab a cold beer from the fridge before collapsing down to watch late night television. Her human brain was definitely struggling to cope with everything, from vampires to upside down worlds to fucking dragons and gods who sat on the council in the otherworld.

Experimentally, she flexed her hands, feeling strange. Before she'd left, Shizuru had given here several things. The first, most unexpected and by far the most painful was a mark on her lower left back; this was explained to be the accepted mark of debt in the otherworld (Natsuki personally was quite worried about the dubious nature of this debt). With a flick of her hand, Shizuru had caused the mark to appear, the second time Natsuki had seen her do something definitely non-human. The first had been her strange, ethereal song in the mortuary. Natsuki didn't want to be on the receiving end of that extraordinary power again.

The second was what Natsuki remembered was an 'artefact of significant magical importance', and for a second she was worried that it could send her into another fit. Fortunately, it didn't. It was a ring, permanently cold and sitting on her finger like a strange, foreign presence. Shizuru had explained that it was one of many used by the otherworld army before the Recession (thousands of years ago, when the otherworlders had stopped their perpetual war with humans and retreated underground to live in secrecy), a weapon of great value.

"It is, within bounds, whatever weapon you wish it to be. I am told that the magic works with any sentient mind." Shizuru had said casually, handing her the little piece of jewellery. Natsuki hadn't believed that it was actually the real deal until she decided that she'd like a sword, and then- da-naa- a finely-wrought shortsword was in her hand, just like magic. Not like magic… actually magic. She was using magic. That was pretty cool in itself, and after trying a couple of times (increasing the complexity of the weapon took a bit of effort, she learned), she sat quite smug with a gun in her hand that she was pretty confident could take out even the hungriest of vampires.

The third thing was a book. The fourth was a warning.

"You are under my protection, Natsuki, and my kin will know that. However… you are still human. It will be a long time in our company before you can shuck the chains of your old race. You are bottom of this food chain, and you must act accordingly." She had looked down upon the vulnerable human then with a strange mixture of emotions on her face. "I will not… go out of my way to help you, understood?"

"Great." Back in the present, Natsuki remembered the enigmatic siren's words and fretted about everything and anything. A banal talk show began, but she looked straight through the television, fingers nervously fiddling with the unfamiliar ring, reflecting on the whole new world she'd just found out about. Her thoughts wandered from the impossible city of Asheol to the impossible Shizuru herself. The siren was alluring, and beautiful, but so cold, so calculating: easy to lust after, impossible to love. She'd said she didn't care for Natsuki, that there was nothing but practicality guiding her decisions. Thanatos had told her not to run around doing the work of her underlings. So why had she been at the mortuary tonight? Why had she not, as she promised, killed Natsuki? Nothing made sense any more. She'd spent six years at medical school finding out everything there was to know about humans and their varying ailments, and now she'd found out that there were a whole underworld of un-humans that could kill anyone at any time- but mostly chose not to.

"Oh, doctor, I'm feeling awfully hot." Nao's sultry voice broke her reverie. She pressed off the telly and relaxed back into the sofa, pleased that after a harrowing experience in the otherworld she was at least going to get some sex.

"Well, let me take your temperature miss." She let Nao come around the sofa and sit on her lap, wearing a rather lovely set of lingerie, and felt Nao's forehead. "Well, you do feel awfully hot, Miss Zhang. You should probably…" her voice dropped huskily, "Take some of your stifling clothes off."

"What a good idea." Nao began to strip slowly, peeling her clothes off one by one. "Doctor, my pulse feels strange."

Natsuki reached into the pocket of her lab coat and took out her stethoscope, taking plenty of time feeling her way up to Nao's chest before pretending to listen. Indeed, her heart was hammering, but Natsuki wanted to go along with the roleplay, forgetting for a blissful moment that she had a sword in her ring. "Miss Zhang, it seems that there's something very, very wrong with you… I'll have to do a full body examination."

She let her fingertips dance around Nao's chest, tugging her bra off, undoing the clip at the back deftly while her hands roamed across Nao's stomach. "Oh, Doctor…" Nao said lustily. "Doctor…"

"Hmmm, no clues here, Miss Zhang, I'll have to check your lower body." She caught the elastic of Nao's pants in her fingers and slowly pulled them down. "Ah, I see the problem right here."

"What is it, doctor?"

"You need some erotic stimulation, and quickly too. God knows what will happen If you don't." Natsuki succeeded in taking Nao's pants off, and began removing her own clothes. "I can prescribe just the right course of treatment."

Nao moaned as Natsuki's hands found her pressure points, kneading, caressing, touching, probing, getting everywhere and anywhere. They rocked in rhythm on the sofa, Nao's hands tangled in Natsuki's long, dark hair, all roleplay forgotten, writhing, turning, sometimes meeting in the brush of a kiss, other times further within each other than was medically safe. Ragged breathing, moans, grunts, sighs, shouts, the complaining of the sofa's springs, it all started to mesh together into the tempo of sex.

They ended up on the soft, carpeted floor some time later, breathing deeply. Natsuki had somehow managed to lose every item of clothing except her socks. They looked at each other; it had been good, it was satisfying, but now it was time for bed.

Natsuki sank into the double she shared with Nao when they were on good terms and sighed deeply. Perhaps she'd wake up and it would all be a dream. Perhaps she'd taken some strange shit at home and hallucinated the whole things.

Perhaps she shouldn't be wondering what Shizuru looked like without her clothes on.