Please read Disclaimer in Chapter One.
Title: Maya's Tale (C9: By Appointment Only)
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action/Adventure, General
Rating: K+/PG-13 (for anime-style fight scenes/language)
Summary: Hiei investigates a lead.
A/N: Any character sketches can be viewed on my blogspot.
Idiot Beloved take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; Firebird Sweet directly follows that timeline and details the origins of Romantic Soldier. As reference, I use a combination of the American YYH manga and the subtitled anime. I appreciate your reviews and thank you for reading this tale!
"For the unbeliever, nothing is possible."
Maya's Tale (9: By Appointment Only)
by
Kenshin
Anything that got Hiei's mind off a costume fitting was good.
The fake psychic's office was in a private home, on a street that looked like the back lot of a tarnished fairy tale: second-tier shops, rooming houses, an air of quiet desperation.
Hiei sat in a greasy spoon cat-corner to the target's house, hiding behind a newspaper he wasn't reading and a coffee he wasn't drinking. He had watched the house for close to an hour, during which time a female (not that girl) had come and stayed about fifteen minutes, then left.
The house was three stories, with a gray shingled front. Anything that was going on inside was hidden by rose-colored velvet curtains faded almost to gray.
Hiei's Firebird, Shayla Kidd, had told him how she used to work fairs and trade shows as a gypsy fortune teller.
("It's simple," she'd say. "People have similar concerns; money, health, love. You do what's known as 'cold reading.' Study a person's age, social status, general appearance. You pick up clues from how they dress and speak and move, and you get better with practice.")
Shay-san's act was pure show-biz, and she'd had a disclaimer right on her table: For entertainment purposes.
And still people had believed in her 'psychic powers.'
Hiei went out into the street. The sky was gray, too.
To the left of the building, an alleyway was blocked off by wooden fencing. There was probably a back entrance somewhere.
The front door's glass panels were also draped with faded-rose curtains. A sign was wedged between the curtains and the glass: A half-lidded eye that could have been a crude drawing of his Jagan, and beneath that, a drawing of a crystal ball. Bold black lettering: Muktananda. By appointment only.
Hiei didn't have an appointment. He knocked anyway.
Then waited.
Dressed in faded jeans, a blue flannel shirt, and a denim jacket, Hiei also had a watch cap jammed over his trademark hair, in case the psychic had ever heard of Romantic Soldier. He could have been a student. Maybe even pre-med.
If there was anyone approaching the door, the faded curtains blocked off not only sight, but sound.
He knocked again, and a third time.
The doorknob turned. The door creaked open. A voice that sounded like the creaky door whined, "Go away."
Before the door shut again, Hiei muscled his way in.
It was dark, smelling of failure, cloying and sweet, with a bitter undercurrent and a side of stale air.
Successful psychics, fakes though they might be, didn't run their rackets from B-movie back lots. They milked their wealthy clientele from fancy main street parlors with neon signs. Some of them even had radio shows.
Maybe this guy's real racket was blackmail.
It took a few moments for Hiei's eyes to adjust. Thank the heavy drapes for that, and a lack of electric light.
The walls resolved into mud-colored paisley wallpaper. On the floor was patterned carpet also designed to hide dirt. A sideboard with a couple of fat, sandalwood-reeking candles.
On the far wall, an arched doorway curtained off by more faded drapes. In the middle of the room, a round table covered with a fringed paisley cloth. On the table, a crystal ball.
"Can't you read?" whined the psychic. Hiei found himself looking up at a man who was the source of the question, and more than one layer of the smell.
Muktananda was narrow as a broom handle, with skin the color of saddle leather, a hooked beak of a nose, and greased-back hair thick with patchouli.
Hiei was made of tough stuff, but the combination of patchouli, sandalwood and curry had him longing for gray skies.
Muktananda's eyes were so dark they seemed to lack pupil and iris, and they were as hard to read as his age, which could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty.
"My mother," Hiei began, playing it straightforward and subdued. "I think she's trying to reach me."
Muktananda gave a soundless gasp, jerked his glance around, then wrenched it back to Hiei. "By appointment only."
"Can't I make one now?"
"Not without a referral."
"Please." Hiei wasn't about to give out Kitajima's name. "I was wandering and saw your sign. It must be fate." Digging into his jacket, he extracted a handful of crumpled yen notes.
Muktananda's Adam's apple jumped once, twice. His narrow furtive eyes did calculations, and then he tore his starved gaze from the money to study Hiei.
"No," he said at last.
Tempting as the thought might be, Hiei could hardly just slap the information out of Muktananda: Tell me about Kitajima Maya! Are you blackmailing her?
"Can't you help me?" Hiei slid a hand into his pocket and rustled more money.
"No." Muktananda was walking him back to the door. "For the unbeliever-no. This is not possible."
And before he could attempt another strategy, Hiei found himself on the wrong side of the door, which clicked shut behind him.
0-0-0-0-0
Dear Diary:
I am a coward. It is entirely my fault that I fled and hid in the tower when Father sent my sisters out one by one.
He lost them all, while I hid, afraid.
Father refused to speak for seven days after that. I tried to comfort him, but it was as though I did not exist.
There is always one failure in any group, and that failure is me. For I am still afraid.
0-0-0-0-0
After he had shoved the punk back into the street and thrown the lock, Muktananda stood with his back to the door, as if his insignificant weight would augment the deadbolt.
Absurd, he thought angrily, Absurd!
For someone such as himself, who could read auras, to be stuck in this back-alley dirt trap, conning widows and orphans-
I am better than this!
If only he'd had all the right breaks. If only he'd had better connections.
What about Von Brandt? True, the man was cold, dictatorial, off-putting. It was unpleasant to be in his presence. But the bounty he'd given for the girl hadn't stretched far.
The boy did not knock again. Muktananda went upstairs.
Now that boy. Such an alarming aura! Possibly a danger. Did that not warrant further contact with his benefactor?
Maybe the boy's worth something to Von Brandt. I shall send a message. If I play my cards right, perhaps some day I shall find a wedge to use against the man, and I shall turn on his money spigot. It is beneath me to scrape out a living from these tedious women.
At least the girl is lively. And pretty.
Very. Far too pretty for the likes of Von Brandt.
Muktananda reached the top floor.
He went to a room at the back of the house and slid open a window. Putting two fingers to his lips, he gave a sharp, two-note whistle that could have been mistaken for the cry of a bird.
He did not have long to wait. In answer to his call came a black flurry of wings and claws as a crow flew toward the window.
This was no ordinary crow. In the middle of its head was a cluster of five silver eyes, glittering with malice.
It settled on the window sill, opening its beak to display a sulphur-yellow mouth. In a voice like battery acid, it hissed, "What task, Master?"
"To Von Brandt," ordered Muktananda. "Summon him here."
-30-
(To be continued: Sisters and a stethoscope.)
