The Grave of Alistair Ipswich
Fandom: Death Note
Pairings: Mainly LightxL (with mentions of L/A)
Rating: R
Summary: Part 2/4. In which L and Light argue, a finger is stolen (again), and Beyond Birthday takes a brief vacation in a jail cell.
The Grave of Alistair Ipswich
Section Two:
Ghosts I Have Loved
"The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were — No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it — this suspicion of their not being inhuman. "— Heart of Darkness
"What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? A lie. A lie and we have to be merciful." — Apocalypse Now
• • • •
Two weeks after Beyond Birthday is brought to Wammy's, the groundskeeper's wolfhound goes missing.
L is the first, and seemingly only, person to notice. The dog had taken to sleeping in L's unoccupied bed through the night, huffing and galloping sideways through canine dreams. L had grown accustomed to its presence, while he studied cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom.
"Where is the dog?" L eventually asks A, who is on friendlier terms with the staff than he. This is before they've shared adolescent secrets, kisses, and mutual betrayal. L has known A for eight months, and regards him with distant and wary skepticism.
At this point, what L knows is this: A's parents drowned in the Zaire River, possibly during the course of a mission assigned by the MI6. A eats one meal a day, and can read in four languages. He had arrived at Wammy's with a small collection of postcards from various countries in constant political upheaval— Cambodia, Turkmenistan, Iran.
L finds A in the library, pulled together in an armchair, hair in rigid clumps. A reads novels in one sitting and staggers out of the library, sweating and stinking, like the survivor of a natural disaster. Today, A is reading Heart of Darkness, occasionally folding dog-ears into the lower corner of a page where he's stumbled upon a favorite passage. It is a habit A picked up from Wammy.
(Just yesterday, L had caught them huddled together over the fireplace. Wammy's sleeve had been rolled up to show the crude blue anchor tattooed on his forearm. L had felt something dull thud in his chest, while Wammy sermonized to A about the tragic beauty of a life on the open sea.)
"The dog?" A asks, "What dog are you talking about exactly?"
"The wolfhound. It bit you on the calf on your second day here."
"I don't recall any dog," A says, eyes searching for the sentence L had interrupted. "Maybe you should ask Beyond. He likes animals. Just yesterday, he left a dead rat in my sock drawer."
L shrugs and keeps searching. The dog is not napping in the vegetable garden, or the music room, or behind the storage shed, densely packed with old hospital beds and mint green slippers. The dog is not guarding the front gate, ears at military attention, or gnawing at the chicken wire surrounding the coop.
L finds Beyond in the kitchen, staring into a bowl of beef stew. A shank bone bobs along the surface of the broth, which Beyond sucks from a serving ladle. L swallows, suppressing the urge to retch into his fist. Lately, he has trouble eating anything but the caramels he steals from Roger's office.
Beyond smiles with the great air of patience and empathy one might reserve for a child. This is before Beyond learns to mimic L's curved posture with frightening accuracy. For now, Beyond is a hodgepodge of personalities and mannerisms. He adopts transient accents from characters on the television. L often catches him mesmerized by mayflies smeared against the windows of the orphanage.
"Have you seen the dog?" L asks, and watches as Beyond tips his head to the side, chewing a carrot with great deliberation. The copper pots above them clatter in a draft.
"The dog," Beyond repeats, with his mouth full. He smiles, and it is like a flash of lightning in the darkness. "I've seen the dog. He was a nice, old fellow. Some of him is behind the tool shed. The rest is at the end of the old hunting trail. I could show you, if you liked."
• • • •
They chase Beyond across the desert.
Watari drives them across the country in a rented El Camino with torn leather seats. Light rides on the passenger's side, head pitched to block the sun with the rim of his sunglasses. L stretches across the back and searches the internet on his phone, occasionally glancing up to watch the passing of a great stone megalith on the horizon. The floor of the car is littered with plastic water bottles and candy wrappers. Their rides are never silent, narrated in crunches, crackles, and Light's steady commentary on the surrounding landscape. Light seems to agree with the desert, and its dry, extraterrestrial loneliness.
L does not mention that he has been seeing dead men for the past four weeks. He catches glimpses of A in the rearview mirror, hunkered down into a booth in a 24-hour diner, waving frantically from the background of a television commercial for dish soap. L had waved back, and A had smiled beatifically.
Watari secures them a motel room in Santa Fe, the sight of Beyond's last killing. The room is not to L's usual standards. There is mold on the shower curtain, and they are kept awake at night by the pop of mousetraps in the hallways. Light is nearly bitten by a coral snake they find coiled beneath the nightstand.
They receive another finger on their second day. Light opens the package with a sigh.
"It's for you," he says, and slides the box towards L.
They've been receiving packages like this since Boston. Always a left index finger, always removed from the body with surgical precision. This particular appendage belongs to Betty Balefire, who wore lime green nail polish. L looks down and feels an odd sensation crawl cross his face, like he's stepped into a cobweb.
Light is double-checking the security measures on his laptop, although they are both certain he will find nothing. Beyond has a peculiar talent for knowing exactly how far behind L is lagging. He is still better at this game than L.
Watari enters the room to take the package for processing. This finger is their sixth. Neither of them bothers to comment, but Light dusts the room with air freshener, and after a moment, the space smells like fresh linens and dismemberment.
"Wedy e-mailed," Light says, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "She wants to know why you've had her chasing a dead man all over Europe. Come to think of it, I also feel like this information is relevant."
Light and Wedy have been carrying on a correspondence since the resolution of the Kira case. L does not entirely approve, but he feels a certain residual guilt over Light's four-month imprisonment in Salzburg, which forces him to overlook the melancholic letters Light and Wedy exchange in the lulls between cases. They talk about modern fashion, a narrow range of philosophical ideas, and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. L is mostly frustrated about the lack of conversation about himself.
"You didn't seem interested before."
"You have your eccentricities. They're usually charming, when they don't seem so wasteful. You are aware this was the sixth finger we've received, aren't you?"
L pauses for a moment and watches Light's hands hovering over the keyboard, tense and full of repressed energy.
"I'm not sure. It's just a hunch. I'm good at those, remember?" L says, eventually. His gaze drifts to the heat mirage along the horizon, and the millipede crawling across the windowpane. It's been at least thirty hours since L last slept, and he can feel the pull of gravity in his joints and solar plexus.
Light doesn't answer that. L wonders what Light's hands are poised to do, and continues speaking, "Right now, Beyond just wants to be chased. I'm indulging him. There's something we're missing. Something I need to see before we can all proceed."
Light finally steeples his fingers on the desk, and L feels a tremor of relief pass through him. L hates uncertainty. He glances at the pink clock on the nightstand and sees that the time is 4:44.
A has been standing behind Light for several seconds. He looks flat, one-dimensional, like he's been woven into gauze and stretched too thin.
A passes through Light's shadow and disappears into the bathroom, half-closing the door behind him. Light does not seem to notice the spontaneous new visitor, and is watching L with narrowed eyes, waiting for a response.
"Excuse me," L says, and follows after A. L subsists on a constant stream of tea and coffee, and frequent bathroom trips are not unexpected. Light rolls his eyes, but says nothing.
L shuts the door behind him. For a moment, all he sees is the heavy sway of Light's damp towel, drying on the rack. Then, he finds A's reflection in the medicine cabinet. He is rubbing at pink rope burn on his throat, and wearing one of Watari's old tweed jackets, with a Royal Navy patch sewn into the chest panel. A's left hand remains curled into his pocket.
"Hello," A says.
"Hello," L tells him, turning on the faucet to muffle his voice. "I wish you would have phoned before showing up unexpectedly."
"It's all cell phones these days. It's a lot harder than communicating through a landline. In any case, I'm sorry. I have missed you. It's not easy to make an apparition like this, you know. It took me decades to learn. I wouldn't have bothered if you weren't in grave danger."
"In grave danger?"
"You're not going to ask how I did it?" A says. He speaks in a banal tone, as if addressing an old school chum. Which, L supposes, he is.
"Forgive me for focusing on that particular detail."
"It's Beyond. He's more dangerous than you think. It's not just his eyes that give him power, it's incredibly important that you don't bring him the —"
"What the hell are you doing?" Light asks through the door.
L starts, and when he looks back to the mirror, A has disappeared, leaving a swinging shower curtain in his wake. L slides his hands into the running water. It is cold, and feels good on his knuckles, which are stiff and arthritic from years of hurried typing.
"I'll be out in a moment."
"I thought I heard voices."
"Lately, you haven't been making a very good case for your continuing sanity," L says, and does not fail to note the irony of that statement. There is an odd rushing in his ears, like they are back on the freeway and Watari is picking up speed.
"Well, if you're done talking to yourself, get out here. Wedy is on the line. Turns out you were right about the dead guy."
Which one? L thinks, but says nothing.
• • • •
L and A are sitting atop the roof of Wammy's unused eastern building, looking down on the rolling summits of summer fog. The tips of decorative cypress tress spear through the mist like arrowheads. They can smell the coal smoke from a train pulling into Winchester Station. A reads, and L ties one of A's shoelaces into an impressive knot. L is comforted by simple, repetitive motions — tying, typing, shuffling a deck of cards.
"What are you reading?" L asks, although he doesn't really care. He only wants A to break the silence.
"Lord Jim."
"What's it about?"
"Someone goes on a trip."
"Ah. Very descriptive."
A shrugs without looking up. He has been remote lately, and strangely fixated on the calendar, sometimes asking L for the date several times within an hour. L misses him a dull way, like one might miss a blue jay that has flown from the windowsill.
"There are only two stories. Someone goes on a trip, or a stranger comes to town."
L snorts, unintentionally breathing in a lungful of cold fog. His throat is suddenly filled with static tingle. "Which story is ours?"
A stares at him for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice sounds like it's been filtered through a shortwave radio. L does not know it yet, but A has been cut free of his moorings and is drifting farther and farther away. Communications are patchy, sent across long distances.
"A stranger comes to town. I'm just not sure who the stranger is yet. As for you, I have no idea."
• • • •
L exits the bathroom to find Wedy's scowling face on his laptop screen. She has called to tell them two things: (a) she is quitting, and (b) Alistair Ipswich was apparently 224 years old at the time of his death.
"I'll e-mail you my findings, and then I'm out," she says, pushing her white-rimmed sunglasses up with an index finger. It is dim where she is, but Wedy has never been able to suppress the twitch in her left eye when she talks to someone she finds particularly infuriating. L certainly falls into that category.
"I've had enough fun with shinigami for one lifetime. I'm not cut out for this supernatural shit."
It is two a.m. in Western Europe. Wedy is drinking wine out of a dark green bottle, and she sways to reveal slices of the bedroom behind her. There is an unframed impressionist seascape leaning against the wall, a pile of coats on the unmade bed, a ziggurat of used coffee mugs on the nightstand. Wedy's lipstick is impeccable, and she can break a man's arm in four places without chipping her nail polish, but everything around her always seems to be fraying at the seams.
"Anyway, this Beyond Birthday — what kind of fucking name is that, by the way —"
Light shoots L a satisfied look.
"He went through a fair amount of trouble to erase Ipswich from the records. He even visited local archives to destroy any physical copies of old newspapers and family records where Ipswich might have been mentioned. Beyond left a fine impression on a number of rural librarians. He was apparently very fond of fire."
"How did you find what you did?" L asks.
Wedy tips her head back and takes a long slug of wine. "I'll tell you, but you have to promise you won't try to arrest me."
"I can't possibly promise that."
It's an old joke between them. Wedy had once stolen a Rembrandt self portrait from a private collection, and it had hung in L's office for three weeks before he'd bothered to turn it over to local police. (He almost hadn't.)
"While talking to locals in Glastonbury, I heard a rumor about a relic stashed away in a monastery outside of town. No one story corroborated any other, but there had apparently been a number of deaths associated with the object's excavation. Suicides, mostly. Now, I'm not a superstitious girl, but you know how I'm a sucker for a cursed artifact."
Wedy hiccups into her fist.
"Anyway, I'm sure you can guess what it was. The monks had it stashed in the basement, beneath a pile of confiscated pornography. I searched the whole place after that, and found a diary mentioning Ipswich in several places, and some old medical records from St. Theresa's. It was very dusty down there. I think I have pneumonia. You should compensate me for my medical expenses."
L and Light exchange a glance. For a moment, L feels like they are two parallel lines, meeting far in eternity.
"You'll have to bring the finger here yourself. I don't trust anyone else to travel with it."
"Do you not remember earlier, when I quit?"
"You don't quit, Wedy. Where are you? I'll arrange a flight. "
"I don't think you understand. I'm a burglar, not a secret agent. I already survived one Kira. I have no desire to get involved with supernatural murderers again. No offense, Light."
"None taken. Do prefer a window seat or the aisle?" Light says, tapping deftly at his phone's screen.
"Neither. I'm hanging up now. I'll leave the finger at Wammy's. So long. Have fun with your enormous monsters and your stupidly-named doppelgangers."
"See you tomorrow, Wedy," L says and ends the call.
The screen dims and L turns to Light, who is e-mailing Wedy her flight information. L's fingers slide into the fine hairs at the nape of Light's neck, and Light tenses from the unexpected contact. After a moment, he leans back into L's cupped palm.
L likes the weight and solidity of Light's skull. Somewhere inside it, all of Light Yagami is captured in electrical signals that spring from neuron to neuron.
"What do you think?" L asks, at the same moment that Watari re-enters the room, balancing a tea set on the same tray he'd used to carry away Betty Balefire's finger.
"I think we need new silverware," Light says, frowning.
• • • •
Two days after Beyond's arrival at Wammy's, the birds start dying.
L sees sparrows flattened against windowpanes, robins piled in clumps beneath the trees, a kestrel strangled by electrical wires, dangling beneath the porch light. L and A find it together, making their way back to the dormitories after a particularly successful raid on the apple orchard at the property next door. A regards its singed feathers, unphased and seemingly accustomed to portents of doom.
"Beyond is bad luck," he says blandly, and turns back into the building, rubbing his arms against the cold.
L does not immediately follow. He stares at the bird's stiff, clenched claws. L dislikes nearly every person he has met, but he occasionally feels an overwhelming grief for the brief, terrified lives of the animals in the woods surrounding them.
After the birds, it is a stray cat, shot to death with a pellet gun. Two field mice, bloody and tied by the tail to the iron wrought fence that surrounds a property. A pregnant possum, crushed to death beneath a rock.
And, then the dog.
Even then, L had been able to spot a killer.
"It's Beyond," L tells Wammy, who is polishing one of the antique rifles in his study. L likes this room; there are yellowing maritime charts in crooked frames along the wall, a telescope angled skywards at the window, a sextant on the desk, a victrola in the corner, like the space has lagged behind the stream of time that pulls ahead of it.
"Do you have any proof of that?" Wammy says, without looking at him.
"He all but told me about the dog."
"And the other animals?"
L doesn't answer.
"Bring me proof, and I'll decide what we should do. In the meantime, shouldn't you be reviewing the Portsmouth case?"
L slouches out, frustrated.
What L knows about Beyond Birthday is this: he had been found roaming the wilderness of the Meon Valley, naked and clutching a roughhewn grey stone. The police who'd taken him into custody had initially believed him to be deaf and mute, until he'd recited each of their names with unconcealed wonder. Beyond had spent two years as the ward of a monastery in Hampshire, and they had all but begged Roger Ruvie to relocate him to Wammy's.
That is all.
It is the unspoken agreement among orphans that the past is best left in the rubble of memory. No one of their stories is more interesting or tragic than any other. L's final memory of his mother is the drifting sound of her voice humming a bar of The River Saile, a moment before she'd been blown up. A's parents had been swept away by olive green waters in enemy territory.
"The horror, the horror," A had once whispered against his throat, teeth bared and dry, and it had taken L a decade and a half to understand.
Beyond ignores L for his first four months at the orphanage, and then, suddenly begins to follow him everywhere. L catches him watching through the window as the nursemaid presses a cold stethoscope to his chest. Beyond spies on him from the kitchen cupboards, from beneath the loveseat in the sitting room, from atop the library shelves. Once, L catches him rummaging through the trash for bits of L's scrap paper, which Beyond delicately smooths over his knee.
Then, Beyond starts breaking into his room at night.
• • • •
L sleeps, but only briefly.
A wakes him by tapping rapid fire at his shoulder, and L's eyes open to the constellation of freckles along Light's ribcage. L has no recollection of having fallen asleep, remembers trying to align his breath with Light's, and growing lightheaded and tired as they arranged themselves amidst the unfamiliar topography of the mattress.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up," A whispers.
I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, L thinks.
He doesn't open his eyes.
"Don't get up. There's something I forgot to tell you. Oh, all right. I didn't forget. I was trying to build a proper sense of drama and importance. It's really all your have when you're dead. You'll understand one day."
L feels one of Light's feet drawing up beneath the sheets. L cannot tell if the dull rhythm he feels in his wrists and ankles in Light's pulse or his own.
"I know what you're planning. Don't bring Beyond the finger. And before you say you're not going to, don't. I know you. You're the kid who used to mix household cleaners together to see if they would explode."
L cannot help the snort that escapes him, but when he turns, A is already gone. The curtains are buoyant in the breeze from the cracked window. Outside, the sky is prismatic, and arched broadly over the squat buildings surrounding them. For a moment, L deeply misses the claustrophic skies of England.
"Go back to sleep," Light mutters, turning his face into the thin skin above L's collarbone. Light's breath is hot and damp.
"I was dreaming," L says.
"No. You never dream," Light tells him, laying an arm across his chest.
L cannot argue with that.
They are awoken early. Watari knocks twice, and then drags in a monitor displaying a mug shot of Beyond Birthday, who has been arrested overnight in Encinitas. Beyond stares happily from the screen, smiling despite a black eye and what appears to be a severe slash to the left corner of his mouth.
"Well, that was unexpected," Light says, rummaging through the bed sheets for his bathrobe.
Beyond looks no older than he had when L had watched him moving through the jungle green terrain of security camera footage in Los Angeles. That had been four years ago. Naomi Misora had not known she was taking her final strides towards the gallows. L had not known that Kira was dutiful studying for cram school at the other end of the Pacific rim. L looks older. His skin has greyed, and there is a persistent white hair behind his right ear. He doesn't understand Light's occasional reference to current movies or celebrities.
"He's up to something," Light says, which is L's assessment as well. Beyond is Wammy's trained. Even his insanity has been carefully cultivated — while he may act illogical, it is always deliberate. It is a very dangerous sort of madness.
"He expects that we'll come for him. "
"You always were fond of walking into traps."
"Yes. But only because I am very good at breaking out of them. Watari, would you pick Wedy up from the airport, and book all of us a flight to California? Has Beyond spoken yet?"
Light, who has been overviewing the police report, answers without looking up.
"He was arrested lurking around the home of a local news anchor — Barbara Bannock, big surprise there — but right now, he's only being held on trespassing charges. Three guesses as to who the only person he says he'll talk to is."
"Beyond is rather fixated on me."
"Wrong. Two more guesses."
"Huh," L says, scraping his front teeth against the underside of his thumbnail. He tastes a speck of dried strawberry frosting from yesterday's shortcake. There is an odd palpitation in L's heart, something he has not felt since criminals began dropping dead, and whispers of Kira had spread across the world like radioactive fallout.
"He asked for me by name. It's been very confusing for the local police. Apparently, I'm dead," Light says, with a twitch at the corner of his mouth that L cannot interpret. L watches his eyes dart sideways and wonders if Light is searching through his collection of empty memories. The most important moments of Light's life occurred in his absence.
"I can arrange for us to meet with the police chief tomorrow. But I want it to be on the record, before everything inevitably goes wrong, that I am totally against this. We don't understand enough yet. Beyond Birthday has the shinigami eyes. There's no telling whether or not he has a notebook as well. He already has my name. I'd rather he not know my face too."
Light has, perhaps deliberately, moved into the rosy shadows of the room's western end. He only ever speaks of Kira like a disaster from the deep past, a storm that left him stranded in a vast, strange land.
"Beyond doesn't want us dead. He's never that simple, and he needs us. For now, at least. You should be excited. Capturing Beyond Birthday is a rite of passage where I'm from. One day, we will look on nostalgically as my successors grasp vainly at his nonsense clues."
"You talk like you don't want him executed."
"I talk like I don't know if he can be."
Light has no answer for that.
• • • •
Beyond starts stealing his clothes. L is not entirely sure if it is deliberate, at first. Laundry at Wammy's is done in bulk, and L often finds A's socks strangling his shirtsleeves, or a pair of woman's bloomers, folded amongst his underwear. But then, L catches Beyond with one of his scarves, wrapped tightly like a noose. Then, it is L's gloves, his rain jacket, and a pair of crumbling loafers that L only wears when the floor tiles freeze in winter.
By December, Beyond looks like a reflection of L in a puddle of wastewater.
L generally prefers to avoid direct confrontation, finding himself more capable of influence through indirect routes — he takes delight in starting strange rumors amongst the janitorial staff, pitting Wammy and Roger against one another through deliberately misworded messages. He does not know how to react to Beyond, or if he even should.
And A is not helpful.
"Just stay away from him. Trust me. You don't understand what Beyond is."
They are sitting side by side at A's desk, copying one another's notes. The window is open, and the sounds of the surrounding woods leak in; whispers, squeals, groans, and barks, frightening and frightened. Unlike L, A is indifferent to the primitive dramas playing out around them. A lives only in the dreamy, untracked wilderness inside himself.
"You keep saying that, but I don't have any idea what it means."
"He's bad luck. Just leave it at that. I couldn't explain, even if I could." A has stolen a bottle of wine from Roger's cold cellar below. His mouth is the color of a rotting plum. The alcohol makes him more talkative than usual, but not necessarily any more coherent. He stares out the window for a moment, watching moths flap around the nearest lamppost. "He's not like us."
"Because he's potentially a serial killer?"
"Yes. But that's an oversimplification. It's in his nature to kill. Where he's from, it's —"
A pauses, searching the room for his words and finding none. To A, a dark room is never just a dark room. There are secrets and tragedies, hidden in every corner.
"It's too hard to explain," he finally concedes. "In any case, I have the feeling he's going to show us his true nature sooner than we think. We are surrounded by monsters, waiting for the best opportunity to come out of hiding. Best not to be around when they do."
L doesn't know which of these statements to address first, but he only has a moment before A drifts away again, unreachable, lost at sea. A takes a drink, and the light from his desk lamp filters through the glass. The room explodes in shades of red.
"What do you mean 'where he's from'?"
A shrugs. It's already too late; the rope has been cut, the anchor has been lifted, A is rigging his tattered sails and falling over the edge of the horizon.
"The world is full of holes. Space warps and bends, and sometimes two points meet that weren't supposed to. Beyond is from somewhere else. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Hand me your notes on Adam Worth, would you? I think I slept through half that lesson."
L slides his notebook across the desk. A is prone to hyperbole, to extended metaphors. He lives on the cutting edge of reality. L doesn't think any more of this conversation for several years.
• • • •
A is on the plane with them, although L is the only one who seems to notice. They fly in a private business jet, and Light half-sleeps in a reclined seat while L watches the clouds tumble past in curious shapes that remind him of meringue.
Light's hand grazes the side of L's knee. They remain within a six-foot radius, always, but Light has been more possessive than usual. He does not like to be reminded that L existed before the Kira case. To Light, they formed wholly and instantaneously, in the moment he lifted the death note from the lawn grass of his prep school.
Wedy and Watari ride a few seats ahead of them. L can see Wedy's fur hat, bobbing above the headrest. The cabin smells of expensive perfume and cheap cigarettes. Wedy is rich only a laborious, struggling way. She wears Manolo Blahnik shoes and drinks London dry gin, but calls L on occasion to ask him to cover her hotel bills. He always does. He's a sucker for blondes.
A watches Light sleep from across the aisle, crouching like Beyond, hands in his pockets. He looks paler and thinner than he did last. L can see a network of blue capillaries crisscrossing his cheekbones.
"You're putting all of them in danger. Don't bring him the relic. Haven't I always been right about things like this?"
L had seen the finger once, before Watari packed it into a secure, bombproof case for the journey to California. Aside from its jeweled tin box, it had been exactly how L'd remembered it. Yellow, hooked, and disgusting.
"Go away. You're not real," L whispers, running the edge of his fingernails against Light's scalp. It is the only thing that will keep him asleep. L closes his eyes. "I'm done taking orders from dead people."
When he opens them, A is gone. Wedy is standing in his place, lighting an unfiltered Pall Mall cigarette. She has a grey cloud of mascara around each eye, but her lipstick is brilliant and red, the color of a mortal wound. Satin bra straps dig into the white skin at her shoulders.
"You're not supposed to smoke on the plane," L says.
"Shut up. Watari says we're landing. Put your seatbelts on."
California is yellow, pink, and seafoam green. Their hotel, the Grand Pacific, straddles a fault line. Light helps Watari and Wedy unpack their security equipment, while L analyzes the room for the safest places in the event of an earthquake. In many ways, California is Beyond Birthday's ideal landscape — blinding, precarious, and ready to tumble into the ocean.
Beyond is being held in a jail cell in downtown Encinitas. Watari finalizes a meeting with the chief of police, while L reviews the file on Alistair Ipswich. Light and Wedy drink mojitos on the balcony with their faces turned up to the sun. The room smells like fried seafood and sandalwood incense, from the head shop down the road. Once they are done here, L thinks, they should go to Copenhagen, or Reykjavík. Somewhere, cold and ancient and unmoving.
"What are you searching for?" Watari asks, closing his phone. L looks up. He and Watari have lived together for over twenty years, but have exchanged more e-mails than conversations. The tenuous mutual respect they once shared has been fractured since the Kira case, and L suspects that Watari stays because, like L, this life is all he knows. They are war veterans, aligned only by the horrors of their past.
"Whatever it is that links Beyond to Ipswich," L says.
"What makes you think they're connected?"
"The first mentions of Ipswich occur in the Meon Valley, where Beyond was found. I'm coming up with nothing," L lies. He looks up but sees only himself, glowing on the mirrored surface of Watari's glasses.
L is not ready to mention that he'd recently paid Mail Jeevas to hack into the most deeply hidden layer of Wammy's House records — the files containing each of their real names, and places of origin. Beyond's file had contained a particular note of interest.
Roger and Wammy had not found Beyond. Beyond had found them.
"Do you remember anything strange about Beyond's acquisition? Anything he might have mentioned to you or the police who picked him up? At this point, even a minor detail might help."
Watari wets his upper lip. California is too hot for suits, and he is wearing a grey camp shirt that reveals his flaking, white elbows and fading tattoos. Watari has dangerous hands. They have rigged sails on the SS Beatrice, shot at insurgents behind enemy lines, and nearly strangled a man during a bar fight in Galway. Now, they are gathering dirty towels from the bathroom floor of a motel room. The story you finish is never the one you begin.
"No," Watari says. "Nothing you don't already know."
Liar, L thinks, without any particular vehemence.
In truth, he's rather thrilled at the thought of a conspiracy.
• • • •
A has been dead for six months when Beyond disappears into the forest. It is late winter, and the grounds hibernate beneath a layer of frost. The land waits in shocked silence, save for the occasional wail of an owl from behind the wooded frontier. Beyond, by now a peculiar replica of L, steals a heavy coat and leaves behind no note or indication of his intentions, aside from a trail of strawberry jam in the snow.
"Do you have any idea where he went?" Roger asks L, who is attempting to stuff a number of unfolded jeans into a suitcase. Watari is taking him to Zurich, where a syndicate of crime lords has stolen a bank vault belonging to the Belgian royal family. The case is immeasurably boring, and L has all but solved it already, but he is attempting to build a reputation amongst the governments of Europe. That, and the crown prince is willing to pay quite handsomely. L suspects whatever was in the vault was more than just sentimental.
"No," L answers, climbing atop the suitcase to force it closed. One of his shirt sleeves flop against his pillowcase.
"It's just — he said something so peculiar to me. You two were friends. I was wondering if he'd mentioned anything."
L and Beyond have never been friends. L wonders just what Beyond has been telling Roger during their private sessions.
"What did he say?" L asks. He does not care, but he is curious. More than a small fraction of him hopes that Beyond is dead somewhere, curled beneath a clump of pine needles, with a crow snapping off his frozen fingers. L knows that is not the case. He has a single abiding certainty that Beyond will always haunt him, in one way or another.
"He said that he had to get back to where he came from."
• • • •
Light is sorting their recycling. That means he's nervous.
"You're overreacting," L says, through a mouthful of whip cream. He swallows, and then reaches for the bottle again. They are to meet with Beyond tomorrow morning. Wedy and Watari have since retired to their rooms, and they are alone, moving through the fog that's spilled in through the French doors. L dips a foot down, searching for the floor with his toes.
"I'm not overreacting. I'm not reacting at all. You are getting zero reactions from me, over or otherwise."
"I like the new passive-aggressive Light. It's certainly an improvement over how you used to take your frustrations out."
"Please stop talking with your mouth full."
"I know for a fact that you find me very charming. Come here. As much as I'm enjoying your newfound domesticity, there are other matters to attend to. Beyond might kill us all tomorrow. As far as last nights go, this one could be worse."
Light drops his hands onto the arms of L's chair, and L is comforted by the sensation of being caged. Light kisses the bulge of his jaw, just beneath his earlobe.
"You weren't so pessimistic yesterday," Light says.
"Have you read the file on Ipswich yet?"
"No," Light says against L's hair. "You had me unpacking equipment all day, remember? Why?"
L turns his head to push their mouths together, but pauses just as he feels the tickle of Light's eyelashes against his forehead. At this proximity, L can see Light's pupils dilate as his face lowers into their joined shadows.
"Keep your head down. There's a bug beneath the bed, and another on the underside of the desk. They won't be able to pick this up," L whispers, pecking at the corner of Light's mouth.
"The room is bugged?"
"Of course it is. Did you not know that?"
"I knew about the camera. Not about the bugs. Seems a bit extreme."
"Remember that only one of us has proven they can be allowed to function without constant survellience. Now, kiss me, this is starting to look unnatural."
Light concedes, and allows his teeth to graze L's bottom lip with too much force. It's punishment. L does not feel it is entirely unjustified, but he still retaliates by nipping at the thin skin beneath Light's jaw.
"From now on, we keep all relevant details of the case to ourselves. I'm going to send a file on Beyond to your computer. Do not let Watari know you've seen it. Review it and Wedy's notes on Ipswich this evening. I'm sure you will come to the same conclusions I have."
"Why all the secrecy?" Light mutters, in-between rough kisses to L's throat. L feels the muscles in his shoulders go limp.
"I can't trust that Watari will not try to destroy any evidence surrounding Beyond's origin. From now on, we'll be conducting two investigations, one of which must remain absolutely secret. Don't give me that look. It'll be fun."
"Fun," Light repeats flatly, dragging L to the bed.
• • • •
A whispers to L in the night. For a moment, L does not know if this is the present, or if he is only remembering the way A's voice sounds like the place where the ocean collides with cliffs at high tide.
"Don't do it, L. Don't give Beyond what he wants. He thinks he can leave here, but he can never get back. He'll destroy you trying."
"Back where?" L asks, searching for A's face in the darkness. He sees only the blinking orange patterns of the Wi-Fi router in the corner. A's body is outlined in deep blue, blurred like an amateur photograph, seeping into the space around it.
"It's not a place that has a name. I could not describe it to you. It is not a place any human can know."
"The shinigami realm?" L asks, voice so low, he does not know if he has spoken the words aloud or only thought them.
"No," A says, and reaches out to move a strand of hair away from L's cheek. There is something unsettling about the touch, but it is nestled in such an ocean of strangeness that L gives the sensation only a passing note.
"It's Somewhere Else," A says, and just for a moment, teetering on the edge of a dream, L thinks he understands.
Fin.
A/N: If you're still here, thanks for reading! The next update will be after the holidays, once life settles down again.
Next:
Interlude: The Strange Case of Allistair Ipswich
Section Three: The Man from Somewhere Else