Chapter two-done. The next update will take longer. I want to draw and study more, I have another story to edit, some other random excuse. Thank you for your patience. This chapter is mainly on the sisters. The next will run through the usual suspects.
I do not own D. Gray-man. However, the lumberjack camp and all of its permanent residents are out of my head.
From Chicago to California
No one was sure what to do with Eustace's corpse. Most were afraid to come close, as if being murdered was contagious. Some suggested to bury him immediately, but that would make it much harder to investigate the murder. In the end, they drew lots for three people to stay and guard the body until the sheriff came.
Tyki actually wanted a red lot. The corpse didn't bother him at all, and he would be able to sleep off his hangover. Of course, he didn't get one.
Chicago did. She glared at the red spot like the lots were conspiring against her. "Tch. Fine. I'll fix the boiler leak on that old steam donkey. Nothing else to do in the tent."
Jason drew the second, and smiled about missing work despite the circumstances.
The third lot was draw by a heavy-set, brown-skinned logger that Tyki didn't know. He stared fearfully at Eustace's body like it could jump up at any moment. Then Jason came over and said something with a smile, and the man's face calmed.
Everyone else wandered back to finish breakfast with murder the dominant topic of conversation.
Cali stumbled off the front porch half-asleep and looking for Chicago, and Tyki immediately stopped her.
"Hello, Miss California. Are you feeling better?" Tyki kneeled in front of her, and she cringed.
She backed away while shaking her head sharply and staring at the ground.
"No? If you're not feeling well then you should back to bed." Tyki said in his best gentle voice, but the little girl just stood shaking and staring at the ground.
"Give it up, Mr. Mikk. She only talks to Chicago." Stephen called out to Tyki as he walked up. Mike was on his heels, and he sneered down at the rich man. They both were tall and heavy. They wore old overalls and thick wool shirts. Everytime he saw them together, Tyki was reminded of the Noah twins. They copied each other's gestures without realizing it.
Tyki returned Mike's glare. "I don't think the little girl should see what her sister is guarding, do you?"
Stephen shook his head and shrugged. "Suit yourself, but it's not like you're the first one to try talking to her." Mike also shook his head, but with contempt.
Blood started to trickle down beside the little girl's nose.
"Oh, Miss California! You're bleeding." Tyki reached out a hand, and the little girl bolted for the lodge.
"Huh. We told you so." Steven and Mike grinned identically as they walked past.
Tyki stood still and sullen for a minute, then walked back toward Chicago.
"Hey, Mr. Mikk." Jason waved as Tyki walked in the tent. "We're playing for cigarettes. Do you want in?"
Tyki cracked a smile as he passed. "Maybe later. Where's Miss Armstrong?"
"Oh! Wait! Mr. Mikk!" Jason called out, but Tyki had already found her.
Chicago held a huge piece of tin against a large machine that looked like a cross between a wench and a giant kettle. Her layered shirts were pulled up to the bottom of her shoulderblades to allow four metallic arms to sprout from her glowing green spine. In the center of her back was four bright green diamonds arranged in the shape of a cross.
She glanced over her shoulder at Tyki's wide open eyes and sighed.
"Wanted to leave this off the tour." Chicago said irritably. The metal hands neatly leaned the tin up against the steam donkey, and the glow in the spine stopped. The extra arms dropped off of her back, and her shirts fell back into rumpled place. The discarded arms twisted on the ground and became a cable, a crowbar and a couple pieces of scrap metal.
She put the rivets into her pants pocket and scowled at Tyki. "Don't you go talking! Those extra arms have caused me too much trouble. The guys here know, but I don't want rumors leaving the camp. By the way, you two make lousy guards!" She glared menacingly at the two loggers, and they were suddenly completely engrossed in their card game.
Tyki's eyes were still wide, though Chicago now looked exactly like the same back-woods mechanic that he met yesterday. "Your sister started bleeding." He said when he found his tongue.
She swore and marched out of the tent. "You can watch a corpse without me, right? It's not like Eustace is going anywhere." She shouted over her shoulder, and the men grunted in response without glancing up from their cards.
"There is it. I've found the Innocence. Right down Chicago's spine." Tyki smiled sadistically. He straightened both arms and opened his palms. "Goodbye, Miss Armstrong." A swarm of tease butterflies erupted from his hands and flew towards Chicago.
"What the HELL!!?" Jason tumbled to the ground as a black swarm of tease butterflies flew past his head and out of the tent. He looked up, and the strange swarm dived for Chicago. "Chicago! Look out!"
Chicago spun in the middle in the dirt road and saw the bizarre swarm rushing toward her. "Hmm. Kill it first. Figure it out later." She took a fistful of rivets out of her pocket and pressed them onto the green cross on her back. The rivets linked and twisted together into a long braid-like chain that swung from her back like a tail. Chicago lashed it into the cloud of butterflies as fast as a fan blade, and every tease she hit split and burst. The tease swarmed around her. By sheer numbers, some broke through the quick metal whip and bit her skin and chewed her clothes. "Ow! Damnit!" She stomped and swatted, but only the rivet whip seemed to kill them.
"No, Chicago!" Jason started to run to her, but Tyki caught his arm. "What are you doing?!"
"What are you doing, Jason?" Tyki shot Jason a look that froze his blood. "Her metal tail kills the butterflies, but not her swatting and stomping. You'll only get eaten if you run blindly into that swarm."
"B-but . . ." Jason stammered and stared at the suddenly frightening gentleman that held his tricep like a vice. " . . .w-we have to do something!"
"Chicago!" The porch began to fill with shocked lumberjacks, who, for the second time that morning, had their breakfast interrupted by yelling.
Tyki scowled. "In hindsight, I should have waited." Then his mouth opened in a broad, sadistic grin. "No, this is better. The tease can have them all!"
The black swarm scattered and attacked all the lumberjacks on the porch and flew through the open door. Screams, curses and panic filled the air.
Then it was gone, all of it. Chicago, the men, the lodge, it had all instantly disappeared.
"What? What is this?" Tyki's mouth hung open as his confused minions fluttered about aimlessly above the empty dirt road.
"Hey! The evil butterflies stopped attacking!" Jason jerked his arm out of Tyki's hand, and Tyki just continued to stare at nothing. Jason ran out to the middle of the road where Chicago had been and proceeded to talk excitedly to thin air. The Noah narrowed his eyes and silently ordered to tease to disperse into the trees and wait.
"Did Miss Chicago just grow a tail?" The remaining lumberjack asked Tyki.
Tyki glared murderously back, and said, "So it would seem," through his teeth. He stalked out into the empty road.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" A voice boomed out of thin air.
"Sorry?" Tyki said to no one. He didn't even feel the bump. He just couldn't walk further for some reason, a reason his mind couldn't quite process. "What is this? More Innocence?"
Then there was a noisy and excited crowd of men talking all at once around him. A tall, blonde man glared down at him and then snorted before joining a growing crowd around Chicago. He had been bitten on his broad, exposed forearms, but it was nothing deep. The lodge had returned as well.
Every nerve in Tyki's body was on alert. "Who did that?" He could hear the conversations around him about demon insects, and evil ghosts, and murder, but nothing about the disappearance. "And Jason was talking to thin air. That lumberjack was there. I just couldn't see him. Someone is targeting me, or possibly, I'm effected because they targeted the tease?" He waited for some other attack, or clue, but nothing more happened. "Maybe, because of the crowd? They want to hit only me?" Tyki decided to join the men gathered around Chicago.
"What was that? I was born and raised here, and I've never seen a man-eating butterfly before." The blonde lumberjack said loudly to anyone that would listen. "It's embarassing, but that scared me. I was afraid of butterflies!"
"Maybe they were locusts?" Jason suggested.
Chicago shook her head. "A locust isn't a butterfly." Her neck was chewed bloody where it connected to the shoulder, and her hands were red with bleeding, shallow bites. Her exposed back was whole, thanks to the metal whip that swung back and forth like an angry cat's tail. Most of the damage was taken by her thick layers of shirts and pants, which were now chewed clear through in patches.Her little sister clung desperately to her ragged shirts.
"Maybe it was an angry evil spirit. Maybe it's Eustace wanting revenge!" Someone suggested.
"I can't see Eustace becoming butterfly under any circumstances." Jason said immediately, and several men snickered. "It probably wouldn't hurt anything to throw a blanket over him though."
"Waste of a good blanket." Mike grumbled. Several men raised an eyebrow at the man Eustace had cheated the night before, and Mike quickly changed the subject. "What's that tail coming out of your back?" He pointed to Chicago.
"It was rivets. I made it into a whip-tail thing." She stopped until the prolonged silence pressured her into explaining further. "Fine. For those of you who don't already know, I have a special ability to shape metal and machines into anything I want. Then I control it as an extension of my body by attaching it to the green marks on my back."
Mike nodded, but to most of the men, it was old news.
"You're a witch!" Mike said.
"If I was a witch, then you'd be a toad!" She whipped the ground for emphasis.
"Could you modify a gun to fire without a noise?" Mike asked with one eye on the lashing metal tail.
"I could." Chicago admitted and leveled a dangerous stare at the large man. "But I didn't."
The frightened crowd started to mutter. Many had thought of this as soon as the silent shot question was posed. Of course, it was Chicago herself that brought it up, but who else could make a silent gun?
Tyki eavesdropped as the fearful rumors spread through the crowd. A fair number were calling Chicago a witch and assigning the butterflies to her as well, even though she was most injured. "Hmm. It looks like Chicago is the prime suspect now. She may even be killed if this crowd becomes a mob. I suppose that would save me some effort, but it doesn't tell me who the other Innocence user is." Then an uncomfortable thought crossed his mind. "How do I fight someone that I can't see or hear? I can manipulate any object in this world, but I have to know that it exists first."
"My alibi is the same as yours. I was with you when the murder happened." Chicago and Mike continued arguing while Tyki sorted out the mess he was in.
"Without a gunshot, how do we know exactly when he died?" Mike countered.
California had been shaking increasingly as the circle of large men slowly crept in on her sister. She began to scream.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The little girl's scream was as high-pitched and loud as a train whistle.
"Oh, my head!" Tyki put his hands tightly over his ears. The pain-killer Chicago gave him for his headache was instantly defeated. He thought his ears would bleed. A glance around showed him that all the men were holding their ears and grinding their teeth.
"Cali! Cali, Stop it! They're not taking me anywhere! I'm not leaving you!" Chicago screamed above the noise, and the child closed her mouth into a doubtful frown.
The men sighed with relief, and dropped their hands from their ears.
"First noise I've ever heard her make, and my ears are ringing." Stephen groaned. Stephen and Mike folded their arms simultaneously and glared at Chicago.
"Listen to me Cali. I won't leave you alone. Not for any reason. O.K.? You have nothing to be afraid of." Chicago kneeled and gently pulled her little sister into the arms. Then she glared over Cali's shoulder at the loggers surrounding them. "And as for you lot." She lashed the ground with her metal tail and mud splattered the front row of the crowd, "You should know me better. I make my life with my own hands. I want nothing of Eustace, and I took nothing from him. But if any of you want to go a round with me, I'll beat sense into your thick skulls!"
She stood with Cali cradled in her arms and walked back into the lodge.
The men gave the human whip and the human siren a wide berth.
"Blasted freak. That outburst proves nothing!" Mike said, and Stephen nodded in agreement. Many of the men agreed and started keeping their distance from the strange woman.
However, Tyki immediately followed the sisters into the lodge. Cross Marian may control two different Innocences, but that was astronomically rare. Since Chicago's Innocence had nothing to do with blocking sound, vanishing, or possibly, distorting a person's senses, she was the least likely to be Eustace's killer in his mind. Not that Tyki really cared about Eustace's murder, he just wanted to know who had stopped his attack. "Not only that, but if this man can make himself invisible, he might be able to kill me before I even know he's there." Tyki thought briefly of calling for Road to help him, but he didn't want to share. Underneath his fear, a familiar thrill of death was heating his blood. "I can still handle this. I just need to destroy both Innocence users. Besides, this is exciting. It feels like anything could happen."
A broad smile stretched to almost his ears. "I might even die."
"Following for a reason?" Chicago stopped short in the hall between the sisters' room and Mr. Lancaster's office. She didn't turn to look at Tyki. She swung the metal tail in Tyki's general direction and took a chunk out of a chair.
"Witch hunts make you irritable, I see." His smile was both amiable and dark.
She sighed and turned around. "What is it, Mr. Mikk? As you can see, I have a sick little girl to take care of."
"I wanted to say that Mike's comments were out of line. I don't believe you're the murderer."
"Thank you. I don't believe that I am either." Then she turned to leave.
"Stubborn girl," thought Tyki. "Wait! Mrs. Armstrong! Before the silent gunshot was brought up, I felt as though I was the primary suspect. Since no one knows me, I'm still probably under suspicion. I think we should put our heads together on who the real murderer might be."
"Hmm. Well, to be honest, we're likely to skip town as soon as we can. These witch hunts don't end well. It's a shame. We'd been here for a while now. I must admit, I was starting to feel . . . attached to this place. I wonder if Mr. Lancaster can settle the men down?" Chicago said as she walked down the hall. She turned the handle to their room with her arm still under California's legs. "I suppose it couldn't hurt to talk. Come in. We'll talk while I treat Cali, and me."
"Got her." Tyki thought and smiled pleasantly. "Where is Mr. Lancaster? Did he go to the sheriff, too?"
"No, he's at the bank. Something is wrong with one of the loans." She sat Cali down on the bed, and began rummaging though a small suitcase of herbs, medical supplies and clean clothes.
Two other suitcases were leaned up against the wall, and an empty clothesline was strung through the center of the room. Two cots were set up, covered in neatly folded blankets. An old copper kettle with two copper cups sat next to a tin washbasin. The rest of the room was clean and bare.
"As unfeminine as an army barrack." Tyki wasn't expecting pink ruffles or stuffed animals out of Chicago, but this room had the charm of a prison.
"You learn to hate unnecessary possessions when you have to carry them for long distances." Chicago said as she guessed Tyki's thoughts from his expression. He winced at her accuracy, and she laughed under her breath. "You've got to do something about your poker face, or you'll be losing money for the rest of your life."
Tyki was about to bring up card counting, but his mind suddenly blanked.
Chicago had brushed back Cali's golden bangs to dab rubbing alcohol on the row of bloody stigmata that ran just below her hairline. The little girl's eyes teared up at the sting, but she sat obediently still.
"That can't be right!" Tyki muttered and looked from the little girl's bleeding crosses to her sister's metal tail. "God has a sick sense of humor."
"What do you mean by that?" Chicago asked without turning around.
"Oh, it's . . . such a strange and terrible illness for a little girl." Tyki said quickly.
Chicago glared at him suspiciously. "Yes. I've taken her to doctors, but they can't identify this disease."
"So . . ." Tyki looked into Cali's wide, shy eyes, and saw fear, but no hatred. ". . . You don't know what is wrong with her, then?"
"No, I don't. What about you? I'll take guesses at this point." Chicago glared at him like a cop at an interrogation. "What do you think it is, Mr. Mikk?"
"Yes, Well, I'm not an expert or anything, but . . ." He looked again at the bleeding scars and felt a pang of loss. Cali hadn't awoken yet, but the Noah was there, growing. Soon, she wouldn't belong to the human world. "It looks like stigmata. The sort that saints would get in the bible."
"Pfft! That's your guess? She's a nice girl, but I don't think she's one of God's angels."
"Not angels." Tyki said a bit too sharply. "More like a possession. Maybe even a demon." Tyki stared pensively at the floor. He remembered waking one morning to a trickle of blood running down his face in the mirror. He pulled back his bangs and there were these strange bleeding marks.
"Have you had this disease, Mr. Mikk?" Chicago pointed at Tyki's hand on his forehead. He had pushed it under his tangled bangs without thinking.
"Yes, I mean, NO!" He kicked himself, but it was too late now. "A long time ago. The bleeding will stop on its own. Just keep the wounds clean and . . . wait for it to run its course."
Chicago's mouth hung open for a second. Then she ran up to him. "Do You Mean That!? DO YOU REALLY MEAN THAT!?"
Tyki looked down into her desperate face and smiled like a gentleman. He pulled back his own dark bangs, and let the old stigmata show. "You see? They don't bleed anymore."
Chicago smiled with pure joy. It was like a star was released from a small, dark prison. Then she fell to her knees and wept loudly with a smile on her face.
There were few times since becoming a Noah that Tyki wanted to hold someone. Humans could be fun, but in the end, were diseased and repulsive. He was a tool and sacrifice to destroy a defiled world. He wanted to see the end of everything; he dreamed of it. But in this doting sister, he saw the people that he had left behind in his normal, human-world life. He knelt down across from Chicago, and watched the tears of relief flow down her cheeks. "I wonder if they missed me? Did people cry, when I never came home?" He reached out experimentally, and wiped the tears off of Chicago's cheek.
Then Cali grabbed Chicago's waist in a tight hug, and stared at Tyki with burning jealousy.
Tyki jerked back his hand as a new thought crossed his mind. "Is it possible for a Noah to have their powers before they're fully awakened? Did she stop my attack on Chicago?"