Chapter 7: Intruders

"Alright, Luna, Martina!" Beth Hanson called from her place over the grill. "You two can take a break now. Twenty-five minutes, so go get some lunch while you're at it."

"But it's the noon rush!" Martina protested as her tray was whisked away from her by one of the junior waitresses.

"No 'buts'!" Beth snapped as the flames shot up from the grill to her left. "Amy, for heaven's sake, would you not burn that Elmekian sausage? Just take the break, Martina! You're working double-shifts today, so you'll have plenty of work when everyone starts heading home this evening! Damn it, Henry, Mr. Valazard does not like it medium rare!"

Luna rolled her eyes as she handed her own tray over to one particularly gangly waiter and briskly walked out the side door, followed by a slightly putout Martina. She didn't show it like her friend, but Luna was disappointed as well. The extra money always came in handy, especially considering Lina's voracious appetite. Tips were what made a waitress's life – everyone knew that.

Unfortunately, all the tips in the world would not make up for the massive drain in energy when the rushes came. Noon rush was bad enough, but the go-home rush was always the kicker. People running in to grab a bite meant more money all-around, but the influx of people who liked sitting in a little diner at the end of the day doing work while sipping soda and the students who took advantage of the free wireless internet Merle's provided was the real gold mine. Luna could understand why their midday shift manger wanted them to take a break now. That was why she hadn't argued.

"Pulling a double-shift is a real drag," Martina whined as she ungraciously fell onto the bench seat placed to one side of the picnic table near the restaurant. "Why did Helmina choose now of all times to finally get sick?"

"She didn't choose to get sick, Martina," Luna pointed out as she pulled her cell phone from her apron pocket. "A person doesn't just ask to get botulism – it just happens."

"Botulism?" Martina's ice blue eyes widened in sudden horror. "Oh, that's so disgusting! How on Earth did she manage to have something like that happen to her?"

"Apparently Aramis decided it was a good idea to catch a quick bite to eat at some new hotdog stand before taking her to see a movie," Luna replied as she scrolled down the security settings on her phone. "He came out perfectly fine, apparently. Helmina, on the other hand, was sick all of last night and had to call in this morning."

"That boyfriend of hers must have a cast-iron stomach," Martina snorted. "I certainly hope Helmina will be all right by this evening."

"If she isn't, I'm dragging her to the hospital." Luna pressed her lips together as she hit the "send" button on her cell and put it up to her ear.

"Who are you calling?"

"I'm making sure Lina actually went to school today. I've got the Caller ID blocked just to see if she answers. Once I'm satisfied, I'll call Helmina."

"While you're doing that, I'll go pick up something at the deli two doors over." Martina rose and slung her purse over her shoulder.

"It had better not be another meatball sub," Luna warned, amethyst eyes looking at the other woman narrowly from under her bangs.

"Don't worry, it won't be," Martina assured her nervously and quickly dashed off from her companion's sharpened gaze. The last time she'd made the mistake of getting Luna a meatball sub from that particular deli was an incident permanently engraved in her mind, and thankfully not by that cleaver Luna had been holding at the time.

Luna leaned on one elbow on the table, listening as the answering machine picked up:

"Hello. You have reached the number of Luna –"

"And Lina!"

"– Inverse. Please leave your name, number, and a message, and we'll get back with you soon. Thank you."

BEEP!

She waited for a few moments, careful to breathe ever so lightly so as not to make a sound. Lina hated it when people did that on the answering machine. Luna had caught her younger sister skipping school several times so far with this little trick, and each occurrence had taken place at difference times during the day. Lina could never predict it, and with the Caller ID turned off the only way to find out who was on the other end was if she picked up the phone.

Well over a minute passed before Luna finally hung up with her lips pressed together. Lina obviously wasn't at home, but this hardly gave the waitress the satisfaction she desired. She quickly dialed her sister's cell phone and waited for the precocious redhead to pick up. Lina loved answering anonymous phone calls – the trick never failed.

Except in this instance; after five rings, her call went directly into Lina's voicemail.

"Hiya! This is Lina Inverse! I'm not here at the moment, but if you could –"

Luna immediately ended the call before the recording could finish.

She frowned down at her cell phone for a moment, not quite certain what to think. Either Lina was ignoring the call or the phone was off – neither of which sounded like something her careless younger sister would do. Lina always at least had the blasted thing on vibrate during classes.

'You'd better have gone to school today, Lina.'

Repeating the demand once more in her head, Luna went through the security settings to set her Caller ID back to normal before calling Helmina.

Not even eight minutes after Luna's test call, the phone in the apartment rang for a fourth time that day.

"Hello. You have reached the number of Luna –"

"And Lina!"

"– Inverse. Please leave your name, number, and a message, and we'll get back with you soon. Thank you."

BEEP!

"Hello. This is an automated message from the Saillune County School System. Student Lina Inverse, attending Saillune High School, was recorded as absent for the following classes: English IV Honors, Algebra II Honors, History of the Outer Territories III Honors. Thank you."

"The song was always White Saillune?" Rezo asked curiously.

"Yeah, at least that's what I've heard," Lina confirmed, leaning back a little and frowning. "There were a few occasions where they heard music playing, but there was always that song and they always heard a girl singing it."

The realization that she'd heard that very song hadn't settled well with the flame-haired teen. Xellos had gotten her so wound up about everything that she'd overlooked all the details that would have confirmed her thoughts before.

Speaking of Xellos…

"Say, how do you know Xellos?" she asked conversationally. "Is he your business partner?"

"Not exactly," Rezo replied with a bit of a chuckle. "Xellos Metallium is what you might call my personal assistant – he handles most of my affairs and is my connection to everything going on. In a way, he acts as my eyes, having the ability to judge things when I cannot."

Lina frowned a little bit. Were they talking about the same Xellos as the one she'd made that deal with? "Is he a practical joker?"

Rezo gave her question a little consideration. "Yes, as a matter of fact he is. He tends to bore easily, so he often engages in little games to amuse himself. A bit childish perhaps, but provided it doesn't interfere with our work, I have no complaints."

Lina nodded to herself in thought. Rezo probably knew Xellos, but might not have known just what his personal assistant was up to. "What about someone named Eris?"

"Erisiel Vrumugun?" Rezo raised his eyebrows in evident surprise. "Why, she's my personal secretary. Next to Xellos, she's my constant companion. She acts as my eyes when I send Xellos off on assignments."

A loud crack of thunder accompanied by a piercing bolt of lightning came forth ominously, seeming to remind those within the complex of the storm's continued presence.

"Jeez, talk about your wild weather," Lina joked with a nervous laugh. It was a futile attempt to calm her ringing nerves: she couldn't believe that the two she'd come across were connected to Rezo Greywers. They were too weird. Rezo was just… well… nice. He was pleasant to talk to and he sure didn't come across as being malicious, at least not what she could tell just by talking to him.

So what was with that little Chibi Lina in the back of her mind screaming that something was off about this guy?

"If you don't mind my asking, Miss Lina, could you tell me why you chose to seek refuge from the storm in here of all places?" Rezo inquired. "Not to be presumptuous, but seeing as today is Wednesday, should you not be in school?"

Lina faltered a bit, suddenly embarrassed by her predicament.

"No particular reason," she said after a moment's silence, shoving aside the Chibi in her mind.

Unfortunately, Rezo wasn't the type to simply drop the subject.

"Oh, come now," he insisted gently, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin upon them, elbows on his knees and his cane laid across his lap. "I'm most curious to know how a charming young lady such as yourself ended up in this crumbling old building."

Lina only just managed to beat down the heat threatening to crawl over her face at that moment and swallowed before she trusted herself to answer.

"The truth is… well… actually, I just wanted to get out," she admitted sheepishly. She told him about her friends at school and how at times she felt that they and the subjects at school could be total bores. She told him how her mother had passed away, and how Luna continuously drove her further in her studies, never mind the older girl had set aside her own personal ambitions in order support the both of them.

It was a long and involved spiel, but Rezo proved to be a good audience. He nodded in all the right places, making interjections and posing a few questions in-between. Lina hadn't the faintest idea how long it took her, but she found it relieving to simply talk about all the things she'd been certain to keep to herself. She didn't understand what it was about Rezo that made her so at ease, but she really appreciated his company.

"After that, it started to rain, so I ducked down an alleyway and tried a whole bunch of doors," she explained, at long last coming to her current situation. "I didn't think much about this place until I saw this little girl dart into one room. I couldn't find her, but there was this noise and loud cackling. That's when I met this guy and he told me his name was Xellos Metallium."

Rezo's eyebrows furrowed in thought. "That noise you heard must have been when I bumped into one of the barrels up here earlier."

Lina shook her head. "No, it sounded more like a door slamming than a barrel falling."

At this statement, the older man's face fell. "Then it must have been something else, then." A small wave of sadness seemed to pass over his features, but disappeared just as quickly as it came. "That cackling, however, was most assuredly from Xellos. He must have found something to his amusement again."

Lina could barely suppress her laughter at the man's exasperated tone. "I take it his sense of humor isn't anything you really understand, huh?"

"Frankly, no," he chuckled. "Not in the least."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one, because his sense of humor sure is warped." Lina folded her arms in slight irritation. "He's the one who got me into this mess by asking me if I'd play a little game with him. I don't know how the heck he did it, but he got me all turned around and now I can't find the exit."

"Wouldn't it be easier to find the exit on the ground floor? This is the second floor that we're on."

"That's what I thought, but I went and looked all over the ground floor and all I found were a bunch of rooms, windows, and walls."

"Couldn't you have just as easily left through a window?"

"Not exactly," Lina muttered lowly enough that Rezo was barely able to catch what she said. "But I'm not particularly worried about that at the moment – if anything, I'm more concerned about you. You said you came here to survey this old complex. Was it just you and Xellos, or was there anyone else?"

"Xellos arrived here before Eris and I had," he said. "I wanted to make sure we didn't get lost or run into any problems, so I had him get acquainted with the building before we did anything further."

"He mentioned something about watching this place…"

"Yes, quite like a caretaker; it was an assignment that he seemed to be rather taken with." Rezo chuckled. Then his face settled into what looked like whimsical contemplation. "You mentioned seeing a little girl. That may very well have been Xellos' niece. He sometimes lets her tag along, seeing as he's her only family. Her parents died quite some time ago, so he adopted her."

Lina tilted her head a little and felt herself smile, not so much at the idea of Xellos having a niece (actually, that train of thought made her want to cringe), but at Rezo's expression. The more she talked to him, the more she liked the guy, despite the Chibi Lina in her mind that was stomping and making a ruckus for no apparent reason. It wasn't very natural for her to be so trusting, but Rezo seemed to have that effect on her.

It was almost like having her mom sitting there with her.

"Do you have any family?"

The question was harmless enough, but the effect it appeared to have on the blind man was nothing less than startling; his face fell as though he'd suddenly come across a memory long ago buried in the darkened recesses of his mind. His composure faltered, and he looked almost… older.

"Yes," he answered after a moment's silence. "My great-grandson."

Lina let out a startled gasp and blurted, "Your great-grandson? But you're so young!"

Rezo chuckled bitterly. "Not everything is as it seems, Miss Lina. I am actually much older than I look." He sighed heavily and shook his head. "Unlike Xellos, who is actually much closer to his young niece than he outwardly appears, I am not an important part in the life of the one I raised from a child."

"Why would he want to be so callus?" Lina inquired, suddenly feeling very irate towards this unknown great-grandson. Honestly, didn't people appreciate the value of family these days?

"Long ago we had a dispute, and since then he has rejected any attempts I have made at rekindling our bond." Rezo smiled wanly. "I suppose I can't blame him, although I do still long for those simple days of the past."

Lina frowned, and silently thought to herself that if she ever got a hold on this great-grandson of Rezo's, she'd knock some sense into him. She and Luna had gotten into all sorts of arguments, and there had been several occasions when Zangulus and Jake had to drag her back home in the middle of the night when she'd tried to run away from home, but despite all their problems, she could never remain angry at Luna for very long. Their mother's death had left a deep impact on the both of them; if anything, they'd become closer, even with Luna's continually worsening authoritarian run of things.

She made to open her mouth, but this action was suddenly interrupted by a loud sneeze, followed a shout and an unmistakable crash somewhere in the nearby corridor.

"What the –?" Lina scrambled to her feet, grabbing her pipe as she dashed in the direction of the disturbance.

"Wait! I'm coming with you!" Lina looked over her shoulder to find Rezo dashing to catch up to her, his white walking stick clutched firmly in one hand. As if sensing the unasked question, he quickly answered, "Don't worry; I can follow you by the sound of your footsteps."

Jiima frowned. 'Did I get the wrong storeroom?'

Along the walls were shelves of knickknacks and other odds-and-ends, the kinds of things one would associate more with a curio shop than a magician's storeroom. The room itself was a maze of stacked boxes, the kind that would make the average curious person dizzy before they found their way back out.

This definitely couldn't be the right room.

"Man!" she groaned, lightly slamming an elbow into one stack of boxes. "This is the fifteenth storeroom I've been in so far, and I still can't find Ozzel! I could've sworn I hid her in this building!" She looked around in frustration. "Jeez… how many storerooms does this stupid building have, anyway?"

With an irritated sigh, she straightened up from the set of boxes she'd been leaning against. On a notion, she hazarded a peek at her backside, and let out a groan upon finding her clothing covered in age-old dust.

"Oh, great, more good news. I didn't agree to all this just so I could get my favorite outfit dirty," she informed the offensive dust with a scowl, and promptly removed it all with a flick of her finger.

Unfortunately for Jiima, her little cleaning attempt proved to be miscalculated, a fact heavily illustrated as the massive cloud of dust flew upward and into her face. The century-old particles filtered into her nose, and it was with one almighty sneeze that the girl found herself losing her balance and falling backwards into another stack of boxes, sending the carefully constructed rows down with her.

Three massive sneezes later, Jiima managed to cover her nose and mouth with a hastily conjured handkerchief and blinked watering eyes behind dust-covered lenses. Taking one end of the handkerchief, she wiped her glasses off and stared at the enormous mess surrounding her.

A majority of the fallen boxes had burst open on impact, spilling tubes, vials, stuffed animals, and, for some unfathomable reason, a rubber chicken.

She picked up the latter item and shook her head in distaste.

"That gag is so overrated," she said, chucking the chicken over her shoulder and heaving herself to her feet in order to better survey the wreckage. It wasn't much better standing up. "Damn… me and my allergies."

"Over here!" She heard the familiar voice of the redhead named Lina heading in her direction. Not too far behind her was another set, one that sounded like they belonged to someone larger and possibly older.

Smacking herself on the forehead and cursing her own carelessness, Jiima promptly phased out of the room.

The two darted down the corridor, and found one door left open ajar, boxed having fallen out from it.

A rubber chicken suddenly went flying out from the room.

Lina slowed down and looked into the room, casting a puzzled glance over to the flung joke item. Rezo quickly followed suit, only he accidentally bumped into the redhead, causing her to stumble.

"I'm terribly sorry about that," he said, grabbing her arm to steady her. "I miscalculated."

"No problem." She poked her head into the room, astonished at the utter chaos she found. "Is anyone in there?"

No one answered her call.

"This room is real mess," she commented, stepping lightly over the fallen boxes that crowded the doorway. "I wonder what happened in here."

Rezo gently tapped the side of the doorframe with his walking stick and frowned.

"This is one of the storerooms," he muttered to himself, eyebrows cinched together. "But why…?"

"You say something?" Lina looked over her shoulder. Rezo shook his head.

"Nothing of any consequence. I was just thinking aloud." He frowned once more and clasped both hands over his walking stick. "I don't think this mess was caused by either Xellos or Eris."

"You said that Xellos probably brought his niece along. Do you think…?"

Rezo shook his head firmly. "Mimsy knows better than to get into trouble by knocking things over. She's a very responsible child, not at all the type destroy things." His features darkened considerably, causing Lina to tense up. "Meaning that there must have been an intruder."

"Intruder?" Lina hopped back into the corridor and looked at him quizzically. "But how can anyone get in if I can't get out?"

"That's a very good question…" He considered her point for a moment and twirled his walking stick absentmindedly as he did so. "Perhaps it would be best if we –"

There was a loud shriek, which interrupted the steady rhythm of the grinding gears. Lina let out a yelp and Rezo gave a slight start, both turning their heads in the direction of the noise.

"That's it, I'm calling Luna," Lina announced, pulling her cell phone out from the pocket of her faded red jeans. She immediately flipped the top, intent on speed dialing her older sister.

The cell phone's display was blank. Just like the CD player, its battery had died.