AN: While not enough to raise the maturity reading level, be aware there is stronger language in this chapter. Also, thanks very much to everyone reading and commenting.


Chapter 7

"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." – African Proverb.

"Kurumu, the yacht is that way."

Tomek and Kurumu stood face-to-face beneath the outsized golf umbrella, rain pattering overhead, staring one another down. Their standoff had begun almost as soon as the bus driver and Gin pulled away in the limousine. Kurumu suddenly seemed as determined to sneak aboard the cargo vessel as Tomek was set on sending her to the yacht where the other monsters were no doubt gathering.

Kurumu cast her gaze north, past the mind staggering enormity of the cargo shipyard. Across Elliot Bay, under the fast-moving rain clouds, she could make out the distant harbor where the yacht Storybook Garden was moored. Taking a deep breath of cool sea air, she shook her head and looked back up to Tomek. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not."

"I am."

Tomek took a step closer to her, careful not to run into her breasts, "Look, you can have the umbrella." He held it forward.

Kurumu cocked her head, considering his offer. "Are you going to carry my luggage?"

Tomek was taken aback, withdrawing the umbrella handle. "Why would I do that?"

"So I can carry the umbrella," Kurumu said patronizingly.

"What? No! Take the umbrella and your suitcase and go to the yacht."

Kurumu shook her head, smiling the smile of benign, parental patience, "But, I'm coming with you."

"No you're not."

She stepped forward, chest bumping him with her grand bosom, "I am."

"Why are you doing this?" Tomek leaned down towards her, angrily gritting his teeth.

"O-M-G, that looks so romantic. Get a pic of that!" said a girl's voice from nowhere.

"Romantic? More like cheesy," said another girl.

Kurumu eased down from her toes onto the soles of her wedges and Tomek straightened up. They turned their heads in unison to see who had spoken. A trio of teen girls and a male friend of theirs were all bringing up their phones, trying to coax Tomek and Kurumu into focus on their cameras. Handing off their coffee syrup drinks, two of them gestured unsubtly, staring at their screens, directing the pair where to stand in relation to each other and the background. The other two girls suddenly found themselves juggling their phones and two extra coffee tumblers. Enormously pleased, Kurumu smiled bright as day in the gray surroundings. She angled her head and hip, leaning towards Tomek.

Tomek rolled his eyes, taking Kurumu by the arm and jerking her around just as the camera flashes went off. "This is ridiculous!" he growled under his breath at her.

Kurumu watched her skirt flare as she spun, "Twirl factor!" she announced happily.

"No! No, you guys were so cute!" called one of the adolescents, presumably the first girl who spoke.

"So retro!" said the boy. "I got them spinning so it's blurred… oh and I got their legs under the umbrella." he told his friends, tilting his screen for them to see before lingering on his phone's handiwork.

"This looks like one of those "miss you" or "thank you" cards at the drugstore…" said another one of the girls, showing off her phone.

"Thank you for being hot," the boy joked making one of the girls laugh and the other two scowl deeply. They began to text each other with what images they had.

"This time hold the umbrella," Tomek forced the handle into Kurumu's hand as they walked away and she glared at him. He rummaged inside his suit jacket and pulled out what looked like an 'old-fashioned' flip phone. With a flick of his thumb to open it, he immediately began pressing the keys within.

"What…" she began.

"They marked me. I can't have that," Tomek said with an angry monotone that made Kurumu recoil emotionally from him. "If you have a phone, you might want to turn it off," he said. Hitting 'send', he closed the flip-phone, slipping it back into his jacket pocket.

"What? NO!" came a scream from behind them moments later. Three more voices raised useless objections soon after. Curses, accusations and an argument ensued.

Kurumu looked over her shoulder but only saw umbrella. "You… did something to them?"

"I erased their phone data. Only the last couple days. I'm not cruel," Tomek said, sounding somewhat cruel to her. He snatched back the umbrella. "And I'm not stupid. You've been drinking again."

"Pffft. Sound pretty stupid to me," Kurumu made a face and looked away from him as they walked side by side. "When the hell would I have had time to do that?" She 'hic-burped' and put a hand to her mouth, her guilty eyes bugging enormous.

"You think I didn't see you take the flask from inside the limo's fridge? No wonder you stopped your blubbering so fast. Baby got her bottle," Tomek said with his jaw clenched.

Kurumu's cheeks and ears flush red. "You don't understand," she said evenly. She wanted to be angry at this annoying human, but it took less energy to wrap herself in the idea that he would never understand the heart of a succubus. "Have you ever lost anything that meant the world to you?"

The long silence prompted her to look up at him. Stone faced, Tomek's eyes were in near constant motion, taking in the shipyard in totality and by pieces in a way Kurumu just could not bring herself to. Not even while buzzed. She had seen some human cities, she recalled clearly the Hanging Garden of Fairytale, and she remembered vividly the enormous monster Alucard. But something about the scale of this sprawling city harbor, this artificial place of metal and plastic and concrete, and these gigantic cargo ships serviced by cranes 10 stories tall made her feel small in a way that terrified her. Humanity's works seemed to be the forever backdrop against which individuals played out their lives, even more so than the natural world itself sometimes. No wonder humans nominally "ruled" the planet. The results of their frantic drive to build and create were staggering.

With no argument or rejoinder coming, Kurumu had time to feel irritated for not only having developed the instinct to steal the alcohol, but to actually drink it after. What had happened to her, she wondered, suffering an anxiety filled moment of guilt. She pulled the flask out from between her breasts. "How did you know?"

"Your scent changes," Tomek stated, taking it from her. "When you drink, I swear it comes out of you smelling like Lillies of the Valley."

"You're weird!" Kurumu yelled. "What difference does it make to you, anyway?"

"We're about to get onto a cargo ship that may be crewed by humans, or monsters, or maybe both. Chances are good, whomever they are, they may want to kill us for snooping around, Kurumu. I'd like it very much if that didn't happen! If you're going to insist on coming with me, I need you sober and aware!"

"Are you scared?" Kurumu asked, teasing.

Tomek didn't hesitate, "Yes. And so are you."

"No, I'm not," she lied automatically.

"Yeah, you are. And that's good. It means you want to survive." Turning his head, he stared down at her.

She squinted, angrily avoiding his gaze, her cheeks flushing even more red. Who the hell was he to say so? And how was he right, again? For brief minutes, caught up in the excitement of doing real undercover work, she'd forgotten her emotional anguish that had driven her actions the past couple months. Together with the exhilarating fear over the sheer scale of the human harbor and ships, the desire to end her suffering in the combat arena no longer figured in her mind. Not until Tomek brought it up. Jerk.

Tomek stopped. Kurumu did the same without thinking. In a similar unconscious move, she sidled closer to him. "What?"

He gestured with his chin, as he closed and shook off the umbrella. The rain had stopped. "'The Tiger's Decoy'. That's our ship. Looks like a feedermax… has its own crane too. Makes sense." The more self-sufficient the ship, the less human involvement would be needed at the docks when it loaded or unloaded. Tomek wondered how long this ship had been in active international operation. With a sense of cold foreboding, he also wondered about the U.S. Senator's aid he recognized in the pictures Nagare Kano had been taking. A U.S. Senator's office could have the necessary pull to make a number of people look the other way as a container ship full of monsters pulled into port.

Tomek predicted asking for double his fee from Yokai Academy for this job.

Kurumu saw the Chinese characters written on the side of the monstrous, flat vessel sitting next to docks, away from the enormous gantry cranes that were working constantly, unloading another, even larger ship. "You can read Chinese?"

"You're killing me, Sunrise," Tomek leaned in, pointing to the English words written horizontally over the Chinese on the hull.

Kurumu made a face, threw out her hip and looked away from him and the vessel. "I can't read English." She glanced at him. Now it was his turn to turn red. Inexplicably, she found that funny and quietly enjoyed a grin at his expense.

"You're not going down there dressed like that,"

"Yes I am," Kurumu argued imediately.

Tomek sought out and found a small cluster of buildings closer to them than the ships were. They would have what he needed. "C'mon,"


"Why do you get to keep your suit and I have to wear this smelly thing?" Kurumu was tucking her long blue hair under a hard hat. Tomek finished off the zipper on the front of her borrowed blue work jumpsuit, careful not to touch Kurumu's ample breasts in the process. Whoever the jumpsuit really belonged to, they were definitely not endowed like a succubus! It was like trying to contain two medicine balls in a Ziploc bag.

"Remember, we don't want to get noticed! Walking around with a compact supermodel would have gotten us caught in no time." He stood back from Kurumu, regarding her and nodded. Except for her large violet eyes, doll like features in a heart shaped face, lips like a strawberry and flawless skin, she looked like any other dock worker of Asian persuasion… Tomek exhaled a quiet curse, hoping this wouldn't be a complete disaster as he handed her the work boots from locker he picked opened.

Tomek adjusted a second hard hat he found on his own head and withdrew a pen from his shirt pocket. "It goes like this, Kurumu: Hardhat, clip board, suit, carte blanche."

"Card what?" Kurumu glanced up at him as she shoved the boots on.

"Carte blanche. It means this combination is magic and I can go damned near anywhere without answering lots of questions." To emphasize his point, Tomek showed off his hat, suit and clipboard as he spoke. Pretending to be startled, he remembered something, pulled a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on, dropping his arms open in a silent "ta-da" move.

"You look like an idiot," Kurumu said, suppressing a laugh.

"And you look plain," he said jamming her helmet lower onto her head. She grimaced under the pressure.

What did he say? Kurumu's face contorted into confusion as she looked one way and the other. "Were you calling me a supermodel before?"

"You better sober up, because now you're just making shit up." Tomek said. He busied himself with a series of clipboards hung in a row by the door leading out to the docks. Each was paired with a bar code scanner hanging below them. He grabbed another board, flipping through it.

Kurumu felt she was sober and knew what she heard. She crossed her arms, nodding and smirking knowingly. "Mm-hm. Now I know why I have to wear this. So you can try and keep your eyes off of me."

Satisfied with the documentation he found, he hung up the other clip board. "You think I can't?"

"Pfft," Kurumu rolled her eyes and sauntered closer to Tomek, smashing her glorious size "g's" into him. "I know you can't, human!"

Knowing it was dangerous, Tomek held eye contact with her. If she decided to charm him, there was nothing he could do. "You answer to the name on this uniform, get it?"

"What name?"

Tomek looked down at the name patch, "Lee. Easy enou…"

"You totally looked at my boobs!"

They stared at one another and Kurumu sucked in her lips, trying not to laugh in the stern human's face. Tomek didn't even blink. "We're going out this door, together. Stay with me, don't wander off, and don't charm any of the longshoreman or sailors. When we leave this place, it's going to be together. I am counting on you now. Understand?"

For an awkward moment, Kurumu was aware they were still pressed together. That became lost in the unexpected magic of being told someone was counting her! Feeling giddy, she wondered if she was still buzzed before speaking up. "What are we looking for?"

"We'll know when we see it. Ready?"

They left the employee area of the hanger together. Kurumu discovered quickly Tomek wasn't exaggerating about whatever "carte blanche" was. People that saw him, from other workers dressed like Kurumu, to supervisors in shirts and ties, to maintenance teams, all either waved or simply paid them no mind, like they belonged there.

The further they walked along the docks, the more Kurumu's memory was stimulated. "Hey, Tomek," she whispered, quickening her pace to walk alongside him. "I remember this place."

"Good," he stopped, pretending to examine one of the clipboards he had, making sure no one was close by to listen to them. "Can you find us a way back onto 'The Tiger's Decoy'?"

Kurumu nodded, falling into her roll and standing on tiptoes while pulling at Tomek's clipboards. She ran her finger along a line of words and then pointed at The Tiger's Decoy. Tomek followed her lead and saw a gang plank leading up to the second deck of the container vessel. "I remember I wanted to fly, but Nagare wouldn't let me. We ran down those stairs…"

"Nicely done, let's go."

They started across the wet black top, making a straight line to the ladder leading to a door to the second deck. That's when Tomek noticed the crane on The Tiger's Decoy was swinging their way, he paused and Kurumu did the same. A number of men were securing a twenty-foot steel container for transport and started hooking the crane leads to the box.

Tomek quietly cursed, "What's in that container? It's listed here as a return and addressed from South Africa."

Kurumu sneered, "Why don't you whip out your 'carte blanche' and make them show you."

"Crap…" Tomek walked away from her. She reached out and pulled him back forcefully.

"Silly human, watch this!" She ushered Tomek along until they were walking at an angle from the container door, were it open. Kurumu took a breath, a moment to think, then let loose with her succubus power.

The door lock bar on the container, apparently under pressure buckled in its catch and popped open. The worker closest to it barked a command to the rest of the team, "What the hell! I was told this was secure and ready for transport!" As Tomek and Kurumu watched her succubus illusion play out in the man's mind, the man undid the lock entirely, swung the bar up allowing the door to crack open just enough to see the inside.

"Well done! Did you see that?" Tomek asked.

Kurumu nodded quietly, "They're orange balls or melons or something." she whispered.

"Let's get on board. When they lift the container, all eyes should be on it."

With Kurumu in the lead, the two of them reached the temporary steel ladder truck and they ascended, unnoticed into the ship. They found themselves on a catwalk between the walls of the cargo holds. At the very end was another ladder leading up to the main deck. Kurumu waved for Tomek to follow her. His eyes sought out cameras or motion sensors before sneaking along behind the agile succubus. They stopped at the base of a vertical ladder to an open hatch. The sky and the side of another container were all they could see. "I'll go first," Tomek offered.

"That's what I was going to say! You go first," Kurumu whispered nervously.

Taking the clip board in his teeth, Tomek scrambled up the ladder making very little noise for someone his size. He all but launched himself through the hatch. In a moment's time, he was leaning back over, waving her up. She accepted his helping hand and swung out onto the deck with him as they pressed their backs to the cold, raindrop dotted steel of a dark blue forty-foot container on the main deck.

"It's lucky this was here. Unless someone is actively looking for us in the 4th cabin deck or from the bridge, we should be fine." He gestured to the monstrous, 6 story "T" of the cabin decks rising off the surface of the main deck well away from them.

The shadow of the twenty-foot crate occluded the sun for a moment and they watched it swing overhead. Together they sneaked around the edge…

…and dove right back around the container. A dozen people were assembling on the deck, watching the container come down. One of them stuck out immediately to both Tomek and Kurumu.

"That was the guy you…"

"Wasn't that the guy who…"

They both shook their heads, holding an index finger to their lips. Maintaining eye contact, they somehow understood they both knew exactly what the other was talking about. They both had seen the young punk who had grabbed Kurumu very inappropriately at the party. The one whose hair and pants she'd shredded with her claws right after. Tomek had to do a lot of apologizing that night to the little creep, Julian MacStephens, to extract Kurumu from that situation after he handled Nagare Kano. In years' past, Tomek might have had to arrest Kurumu as a Yokai Academy Sanction. It never came to that this time around, although if it had, Kurumu would have been long gone on a flight to Japan and he might have been on another case or taking it easy.

Tomek tapped his ear and pointed. Crouching, they both clung to the corner of the container, listening as hard as they could. Somehow, they tuned out the backdrop of humans talking, vehicles roaring around, loaders beeping while backing up, cranes dropping containers onto ships, all of it. As the container touched down on the deck, they could hear the clamps and hooks being removed. Chancing a peek, Tomek saw they could watch now, unseen, as the group of people lingered around the container door.

"What the hell?" he whispered. Two dark women in white kangas wrapped around them and over their heads stepped from around the box to stand next to the man they had both recognized. Very similar to the beautiful woman who had watched him removed Nagare Kano from the launch party, these ladies could have been her daughters. Once they were on either side of the smallish young white man, he seemed to become even more smug. Having shaved his head to correct for the damage Kurumu had unleashed on his hair, his bald head reflected the light, looking from one woman to the other with a mix of disdain and arrogance. Tomek recognized the senator's aid to the man's right looking anxious, wiping his own forehead with a handkerchief. For muscle, they brought a pair of men each, in the guise of secret servicemen.

"Xia-Long, it's been a while my friend," MacStephens said, holding open his arms. Beneath his blue pinstriped suit was the physique of a boiled noodle. Instead of a tie, he wore a few gold chains beneath his shirt on a hairless chest. "Where is your adorable little psychopath, Routier?"

A similarly eccentric looking Chinese man wearing black top hat and clothes directly from a steampunk cosplay, approached just within Tomek and Kurumu's line of sight. "Mister MacStephens," Xia-Long Maio said dryly. "As always, your manners and sense of etiquette impress."

Julian MacStephens' face turned an ugly red. He was not used to being challenged, ever, on any front. Especially not from some half-ass magician or whatever Xia-Long thought he was. He had no emotional or intellectual grounding on how to even deal with such rudeness. Raised in a tech family, constantly around tech, using tech to communicate to family and peers, in a business that wallpapered his life with money and everything else he could ever want, opposition was as foreign to him as Xia-Long and his attitude. "Fuck you, China-man. Do you have what I asked for?"

"Indeed. One of many reasons my associate Routier isn't present, as much as she enjoys taunting the weak." He smiled cruelly as MacStephens' grew angrier. Xia-Long had pushed as far as he could, he knew. Looking at the pair of vampirical Impundulu's on either side of MacStephens, Xia-Long knew at this moment, he was outmatched. How a simpering child, like Julian MacStephens, gained control of the immature lightning birds, Xia-Long could only guess.

"Let's see it then," Julian demanded.

"When I have confirmed the eggs are intact." Xia-Long stepped forward, pulling a small, soft ball size tuft fur from his coat that immediately sprouted proportional daddy-long-legs style legs and a massive single eye. The shikigami hopped to the top of the twenty-foot container, danced a nerve wracking staccato flutter of spidery steps all over it before jumping back down into Xia-Long's waiting hand.

MacStephens made a face. "Well?"

"Your African associates have been busy. All the eggs are here as you promised," Xia-Long bowed with mock respect. "And for you, straight from South Africa, as promised" Xia-Long motioned over his shoulder. "Doom's Torch, Heirloom of Vengeance of Saint Columba." A short, but thickly muscled Chinese man in a butler tuxedo, stepped into their line of sight, holding something they couldn't see on what looked like a silver serving platter.

"Show me," Julian snapped.

Xia-Long nodded and his man lifted the round cover from the tray. The affect was immediate.

The two African women standing next to him gasped and recoiled; half fainting, they clutched at the diminutive Julian MacStephens to stay upright. Xia-Long gave shudder like chills ran down his back and gripped the brim of his hat. Several of the nearby workers on the ship stopped what they were doing to look in horror at whatever it was beneath the tray cover.

Kurumu puked; just a single glob escaping her mouth and hitting the deck. Rolling, she fell into Tomek and he caught her. "What's happening?" she gazed up at him desperately.

"Oh, my God…" Tomek said on a horrified breath, watching her closely. She knew then, he knew exactly what was happening.

"I can't feel my wings… my thoughts are all closed in…" Kurumu's eyes fluttered as if she had just gone blind. She made a panicked moan a little loudly, prompting Tomek to scoop her up and draw her back from the edge of the container.

"Sh. Don't panic," Tomek told her softly. "Don't panic, it's temporary. It'll be okay." He hugged her to himself as she trembled violently, looking at her shaking hand as if she were trying to extend her claws.

"Graphic," Tomek heard Julian say. "All right, cap it up. Always a pleasure doing business with Fairytale."

Kurumu exhaled, wiping her tears into Tomek's suit shoulder. "It stopped!"

"They shouldn't have that," Tomek said in a low, dangerous voice. "I know that artifact and they shouldn't have that!" His breathing became shallow and his heart was racing.

"You're squeezing me," Kurumu said before wiping her nose on his shoulder as well. He relaxed his grip on her. "What the hell was that?"

"It's…"

Clicking and mumbling to itself, Xia-Long's Shikigami walked around the corner, blinking and drooling with its permanently smiling mouth. Despite having no obvious nose, it sniffed at Kurmuru's vomit before it's fat, bright green tongue hit the deck to lick a good portion of it up.

"That's gross!" Kurumu dropped from Tomek's arms and made to spear the thing with her right hand's nails. Understanding her aggression was directed at it, the shikigami pouted dramatically.

Then it went off. Like a fire alarm from a 1950's school building, it screamed in a single, guttural tone that echoed off every metal surface around, deafeningly loud!

Tomek and Kurumu both gave into instinct, charging, running right into each other and falling down. Grabbing each other's hand, they sprinted along between the containers, rounding the forty-footer and heading for the hatchway they had emerged from. The siren stopped abruptly, but someone shouted for them to stop! They had been spotted!

Down they jumped. Someone was already clambering after them! Alarms went off, almost as loud as the shikigami. As they ran for the open hatchway back to the dock, the steel door brusquely slammed, almost in their face. "Down! Find another hatch!"

Trying to move to the aft of the vessel along the passages only ran them into more guards. As of yet, no one had taken a shot at them, but Tomek and Kurumu didn't linger to see if there were weapons drawn or pointed at them. They wound up finding a hatch in the deck and a small crawl space they all but flew through, towards the fore of the vessel. They dropped into another corridor and ran along, the sounds of pursuit all around them. Seeing a maintenance hatch in the bulkhead, Tomek worked quickly to open it, ushering her through first.

"It's a dead end here!" Kurumu called from the darkness. Tomek pulled himself over and through a series of pipes and wires to see what had stalled their flight.

"Can you force it?"

"You think I didn't try?" Kurumu snapped.

"Here, climb up there and hold on.," Tomek pointed to several diagonal lengths of 1 ½ inch pipe above the bulkhead in the deck. Kurumu jumped and pulled herself up. "If anyone comes after us at least you'll be out of the way." Tomek couldn't make sense of what he was seeing in the low light of the maintenance tunnel. Taking a chance, he kicked at what he thought was a release bar…

…which released the floor below him…

"That shouldn't happen…" he said, utterly confused as he dropped into open air.

As he fell, Tomek marveled at the construction of the ship; it was his nature, he couldn't help but absorb the information. Nearly the entire inside, as far as he could see by the tiny lights along the spine of the vessel, was hollow. The fore was closed to the ocean by massive doors. They had to be doors because the hydraulics on either side of the seam were gigantic. It seemed an odd way to take on cargo, unless you were picking up other ships, Tomek thought.

And that was all he had time for. Quietly, he prayed there was enough water below him that he wouldn't break his legs; that he hadn't fallen so far, his velocity would make the water no softer than concrete… and that Kurumu would be safe. His initial job was getting her home safe. As he closed his arms and legs to hit the water below with as small a profile as possible, he looked up and saw her hovering stories above him, her wings sleek and black in the near darkness.

WHAM!


"Oh him." Julian MacStephen's voice trickled in from the ether. "His little blue haired bitch of a monster tried to cut my balls off last night."

"I know his monster friend. She's dangerous when off her tether," Xia-Long stated.

"Well, she was going to let him die. If she wants off so badly, kill them both." MacStephens said bluntly.

"What?" Kurumu screamed.

That woke him up. Tomek's eyes snapped open and he instinctively went for his sidearm. Finding his shoulder holster empty was not a surprise. Without help, he sat up, grimacing at the salty wetness he was laying in. "Well," he started, leaning back on his hands.

"'Well' what, human?" Xia-Long asked, a little sinister, walking into Tomek's line of sight.

"Just counting my bones. Trying to figure out if this salt water came out of me…" After the fall he experienced, he wasn't convinced he hadn't pissed himself. "What the hell are you dressed up as? A steampunk ringmaster?"

"I am Xia-Long Maio, head of the Maio family and your very temporary host aboard my ship." He walked closer to Tomek who stood up before him, dripping onto the floor. He made a point of not treading in the water. "But before you leave us, I would very much like to know what you and the Yokai Academy dunce here heard."

"Heard?" Tomek wiped salty brine from his face, wildly annoyed at all the ocean grit now under his clothes. "Well, I've heard there is no actual contract out for you right now, ringmaster Maio. And frankly, that is the only thing saving your life."

The room erupted in laughter. Tomek took a good look around himself finally. A deck or two below the bridge, he was in a large, recreational type room of bookshelves, plush couches, artwork and other distractions. Kurumu was nearby, still in the work jumpsuit sans the helmet and flanked by two yellow skinned ogres not in human form. Each had a huge, clammy hand on one of her shoulders. She would not look at him, but that was another matter. A balcony ran around the room holding several monsters in human form, holding Chinese made Kalashnikovs aimed loosely towards Tomek. He calmly marked each one of them. Seeing two of the kids that had tried taking his and Kurumu's picture was a surprise! The boy and girl stood together, drinking coffee and watching him with cunning eyes.

What unsettled him most was the small girl, timidly making her way onto the deck from the exterior ladder. Routier, known to most of the Sanctions as a dangerous sadist, dressed in a pretty floral mini dress. Her small horns were already sprouted from her skull and she had empty shark's eyes. Who he didn't see were Julian MacStephens or the African twins.

"How did you get the Saint Columba artifact?" Tomek asked, anger plain in his voice. "And what does that piece of crap MacStephens want with it."

Xia-Long considered Tomek's questions, "The artifact no longer has a home in South Africa. Its residence and its protectors are no longer with us." He stopped pacing, looked from beneath his blond bangs at Tomek and resumed. "I see this grieves you, human. Another thing about you I would know." He went on speaking, but Tomek was not listening.

There was a darkness taking shape in Tomek. The artifact was wielded by a very close friend of his from when he was in the military. To hear that she was dead, from a villain like the head of the Maio family was heart wrenching. Something Tomek saw then, caused him to smile outwardly. It was unexpected mana from heaven at that moment and it gave him all the impetus he needed. "One thing I have heard." He interrupted Xia-Long who had been speaking.

The Chinese Yasha spun to face him, his face contorted with rage. "What are you so anxious to tell us, human, that you dare interrupt me?" He held his skull topped cane out towards Tomek, shaking with anger.

Tomek raised his hand, catching the solitary snowflake that landed on his index finger. Where it should have dissolved on contact with the salt water, it did not. This snowflake was different. "It gets cold this time of year in the Northwest," he said with a grin.

There was a noise like a snow ball, bursting against someone's jacket, following by the tinkling of bells and many cracks and groans of ice solidifying as everyone in the room was abruptly frozen in blocks of ice. Hoarfrost covered every inch of the bulkheads, deck, windows and furniture.

Tomek shivered as his clothes stiffened up; his being drenched in salt water keeping him from joining the rest of the individuals there. He stepped carefully over to Kurumu and plucked her from the hands of the Ogres who watched impotently as he took their prisoner away. "Can you move?"

Kurumu nodded, "M-Mizore is here?" she asked, not quite looking at Tomek.

"Not exactly. Let's go." He walked her towards the door, stopping near Xia-Long and the little girl, Routier, in the floral dress. "This isn't over," he whispered. Feeling pure dread, he watched with contempt as a smile spread slowly across the girl's face. Xia-Long in the meantime, stared at him, terrified.

"C'mon," he nudged Kurumu's arm. "I said we were walking in together, and now out together. Just like in the plan."

He opened the door to the outside ladder, closing it behind them. They hadn't even reached the next landing down when someone came up that shocked Kurumu to her core. "Mrs. Shirayuki!" There stood Mizroe's mother, dressed in the exact same worker overhauls as Kurumu. The sun glinted off her pupil free, ice blue eyes and her white skin stood out against the drab colors of the wharf.

The snow woman smiled coyly, removing her sucker from her mouth. "Hello Kurumu. I can't tell you how happy I am that you are no longer missing! Hello Mr. Zagorski."

"Tsurara," Tomek said with a grin. He moved the rest of the way down swiftly and Mizore's mother likewise went at him. They hugged briefly but firmly. "Thank you for that! You saved our lives."

"Tom," Tsurara said, warmly. She looked down at her clothes and his, her mouth screwed up some after he got her wet. "We don't have much time. I will be missed on the yacht."

"Well, I don't think we can count on being flown out of here," Tomek said dryly, looking accusingly at Kurumu. It was the first he had mentioned her letting him fall, perhaps to his death. Her eyes dilated and teared up.

"Follow me," Tsurara said taking Tomek's hand. He gestured for Kurumu to follow.