We're still in the spotlight, but the ground below is no longer golden. It's cold and grey and metallic, like we're in a warehouse or something. Conan shrinks closer to me.

"What're they doing now?" He moans. Then he blinks as another spotlight flashes to life. "Kaasan?"

I jolt in surprise. It is his mother, lying on the floor not far away. I can feel my blood chill. She's lying so still, curled up in an almost foetal position, light-brown hair splayed raggedly around her, one hand outstretch and lying flat against the floor, as if she's reaching for us. Her eyes are stretched wide open, perfectly circular, but her mouth is tight shut. She seems to be staring at us, but increasingly I feel that I cannot see us.

She's too still. She seems to be outreached and staring, accusing, but she's too still. I can feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. It couldn't be, they can't have brought her here, they can't have…

"Kaasan," Conan whimpers. "Kaasan!" he bolts away from me, reaching for her.

"Conan, don't-" I yell, reaching for him, but before I can reach him he reaches his mother. The barest second before he touches her, the light blinks out and she vanishes. I grab his arm to pull him back. He's trembling a little, frightened and confused.

"It isn't real," I tell him quietly. "They use dreams and nightmares. It isn't real. It can't be…" I trail off as another spotlight flashes into life. It's his father this time, in precisely the same position as his mother- same curled posture, the same outreached, accusing arm, the same wide eyes. I try to tell myself that it's not real, but it looks real, and it speaks to, if not my nightmares (I have never slept), then my greatest fears. They look dead, dead in great terror. It hurts to think of them that way, but I hide it. Conan is shaking visibly. He can remember his parents. It hurts him too, to see them that way.

"Tousan…" he whispers, stepping forwards. I tug him back, but the movement is enough to make the light vanish, and another comes to life behind us. This time, it's Ran.

"Who…?" Conan says, furrowing his brows. I'm not sure if he remembers Ran, and if he did he hasn't seen her since she was six years old. I can remember, though. She's in the same position, still dead and frightened. Her outreached hand and wide stare, like the others, assaults me with a sense of guilt; they're blaming me. It's my fault.

"Ran," I murmur. "But it isn't. It's not real. It isn't…" I can feel guilt and shame overtaking me. I know that it's what he wants me to feel, but I can't stop it.

"Ran?" Conan says with a frown. "She's an adult?"

"She is, and she's home somewhere, and safe," I tell Conan quietly. "You hear me?" I yell into the darkness. "It's not real and I know it's not! Throw as many bodies as you like at us, they're not real! They're all home and safe…" I gasp as the air suddenly freezes, choking the words in my throat, rendering me silent. A moment later and I am on the ground, curled up as the others had been. I can't move, utterly frozen. I can see Bourbon smiling cruelly at me. Where's Conan? I begin to panic. Where is he?

Bourbon smiles as he feels my panic rising. They're standing in between him and I, my parents, Ran, Hattori (would he have been next on the floor if I hadn't realized in time?), all standing protectively between Bourbon and I. And Bourbon has dogs at his side, huge creatures like wolves. I struggle against my paralysis, but I can't move, even as Bourbon smiles more broadly and the dogs leap.

I can't even close my eyes as the wolves tear them apart, I can't close my ears to their screaming. Bourbon is smiling the whole time.

"It's my fault… because of me, because they were with me…" seems to be the only thought capable of passing through my head. Guilt and blame assault me. Yes. This is my greatest fear. That they will be hurt because of me…

Wrong, unnatural, freak, the wolves snarl. Wrong. Kill. Kill.

"Freak?" I think almost glad that they're about to tear me apart, to send me after them. "Yes, I'm unnatural… a Faerie… who clung… to humanity…"

"You're gonna pay for that!"

To my shock, there are gunshots, and the dogs pull back, whimpering. A small hand tugs me up.

"He's taking your nightmares," Conan insists. "He didn't take these from other kids, they wouldn't have Kaasan and Tousan if they did, and he had to take them from you for grown-up Ran and that other guy to appear. He's taking them from you. If they're yours, you can control them, right?"

"My nightmares…?" I say, confused. My kind have no imagination, no creativity of our own! I can't have nightmares!

"I guess we're linked or something and it's a bit mine, too," Conan says, hefting a pistol at the dogs. "They reminded me of the dog in Hound Of The Baskervilles. Holmes shot it and it died. I can scare them off but you've got to get rid of them, okay?"

"What are you?" Bourbon says, staring at me, suddenly frightened. The bodies have vanished, only the confused and frightened wolves in between us.

"Who knows?" I say with a little grin. "I'm the Kaitou Kid. I'm a human and a Faerie and whichever I am, I'm not quite like anybody else. Right now, though…" the dogs begin to growl again, but not at us. They're slowly turning on Bourbon. "I'm feeling very human. You've threatened people that I care about, and that's very human in and of itself, because Faeries don't really care about much beyond their own entertainment, do they? But I care about my parents and my friends-" I grip Conan's hand tightly "-and Conan. You threatened them. That makes me angry." The dogs snarl and leap. Bourbon yells and steps back, but he can't summon up any defence. Conan's right. This is my nightmare. But I have no intent to suffer.

He screams for an instant as the dogs tear him apart, and as he dies it all vanishes. We are alone in the council chamber, alone with the Shadow Faerie.

"That's just incredible," Akako is laughing in my head. "A human Faerie! Wonders never cease. Final Boss, now. He's a little different, though…"

"Give me their names," I demand of the shadow cloud that seems to spread, attempting to fill the room. Conan shivers in fear. Ai is gone- has it consumed her?

"That won't work," Akako snorts. "He's… I'll come clean, he's not quite like the other Faeries. Most of them began in dreams and happy imaginary games or made by Elders as Changelings. He's from something even older, something a bit more primal than imagination. He's born in fear, fear of the shadows and the unknown."

What are you trying to say? I ask her, shrinking back a little. The darkness spreads, and I can hear voices, whispering things…

"I suppose a more apt word for him than Faerie is…" Akako hesitates. "Well, bogeyman."

Bogeyman? I almost snort. But it's not so absurd. Coldness emanates from it, rotted air, reaching for me all the time and I can't get away…

"The darkness under the bed, the voices and noises in the night… don't you feel that from him?" Akako asks sharply. She's right. Conan has closed his eyes, childishly thinking that if he can't see anything, it won't see him…

That's it! I gasp, reaching over my shoulder and ripping off my white cape. I do genuinely have a cape, it looks good and the cops think it turns into a hanglider. No sense in dissuading them from deceiving themselves, it saves me a lot of effort. I flap out the white cloth.

"What? You have an idea to destroy it?" Akako asks in surprise.

A very simple one, I smile, reaching down to pick up Conan and cradle him against my shoulder, raising the white cloth in my other. The simplest. After all, every child knows how to get rid of the monsters under the bed…

"Conan," I murmur, "Have you ever been scared of monsters under the bed?" He shakes his head, but I know he's lying, and when he cracks an eye open to look at me he can tell that I'm not buying it.

"Okay, yeah," he admits, "but I just put my head under the covers and they go away…"

Precisely, I say to Akako, drawing the cape over our heads.

"You can't be planning to gamble on that!" Akako gasps.

Have you met me?

There's silence for several minutes after I pull the "cover" over our heads. Then something barrels into my legs.

"They're all gone!" Ai gasps. "How…?" I drop the cape, and am pleased and smug to see that the black cloud is gone. There is only Ai, who happily hugs Conan when I put him down…

…and Vermouth, slowly clapping with a smile on her face.

"Just you left, eh?" I say, mentally bracing myself. She just laughs.

"No need to fear, my lucky clover," she laughs. "I have no intention of hindering your leaving. All I ask in exchange for the names…" she extends a languorous finger, indicating my wrist. "Is Akako-chan's bracelet."

"What?" I say in surprise, momentarily dropping my guard from shock and glancing at the bracelet. Conan and Ai glance up in confusion.

"Give her the bracelet," Akako prompts in my head. "It's okay…"

"It's okay," Ai echoes. "Do not fear. She told me her tale. She's like you, niisan!"

"Like me?" I say in surprise, removing the bracelet. "A Faerie who…?"

"A Faerie who hung onto a little humanity," Vermouth says with a truer smile than the amused grins that she's displayed thus far. "Most discard it easily, but I hung onto humanity in order to dream for myself. Your own dreams are so much more beautiful than stolen ones, you know. And I've been able to indulge in a kind of fun that the unimaginative can't touch, one that I'm sure you're familiar with."

"Me?" I say in surprise, tossing the bracelet to her. Conan and Ai both glance at me.

"Breaking the rules," Vermouth says with a grin. She flicks the bracelet into the air, spinning it…

…and Akako reaches up her arm for it to slide back into place.

"Who are you?" Ai gasps, Conan clinging to me. Well, Akako is a little scary-looking.

"Akako? What the hell are you up to?" I settle for.

"Thanks to you, the Elders are out of the way and I can come back," she sighed happily, then grinned at Vermouth. "Chris-chan! It's been too long."

"It's a name I wore as a human," Vermouth explains, high-fiving Akako. "You see, I needed someone to get rid of the Elders so that my friend here could come back to Faerieland. She was here once before, you know, but she left. I helped a little, of course. Breaking the rules, you know." She winks at me. Conan looks confused, but Ai looks thoughtful. How long has she been here… how much has she learned?

"I never got my name back, so I took a bit of Faerie magic with me," Akako says, snapping her fingers and making little sparks dance off of them. "It… expands my lifespan, a little. But once I'd grown up, and the people that I'd wanted to get back to had passed on… I wanted to come back." She closes her eyes, as if concentrating; elaborate black wings spread from her back. "I wanted to be a Faerie. Reality here is only a matter of opinion, so I figure that if I want to be a Faerie here, I'll be a Faerie."

"And that sounds like fun, so I decided to help her," Vermouth says with a wink. "With a little humanity, an ability to dream, I don't need to steal children. I promise I won't do so anymore, though I can't promise that I won't have a little fun in the human world once in a while. But you can go home."

"Th… thank you," Ai whispers. I nod at Vermouth. Conan and Ai, while looking grateful, look a little confused; I can understand where Vermouth's coming from. She's only in it for the funsies, arguably the only reason for anyone ever doing anything.

"Go home, Kuroba Kaito," Vermouth says softly. "And take Kudo Shinichi and Miyano Shiho with you."

"Later, Kid-sama," Akako says, blowing a little kiss as she vanishes. I awake and she and Vermouth are gone; I am lying on my bed, as I was before, an empty chair by the bedside and Shinichi and Shiho in my arms.


Okay, that should be the backlog cleared up. Next chapter tomorrow and APT on Tuesday. Maybe. Weather being good (aye, right)

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.