Radiant Creatures of Destiny Township

by ThePlotMurderers

Radiant County, Colorado is a dull suburban outpost with nice, unassuming townsfolk. But beneath the surface, a web of intrigue, mystery and danger seethes. All it takes is one misbegotten act of adolescent love to shake the balance, and set events in motion that will change the citizens of this humble place, forever. Small Town AU/Multi Ship/Almost Every Character

10. Honor Among Thieves

Chapter 10, Honor Among Thieves

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A/N: Sorry for the lateness of the hour...but this chapter took a bit of time to proofread. A lot of things I had to make sure were just right. So, after last chapter's little reprieve, this one returns us to the Underworld stories, and several revelations.

Enjoy!

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"So…what, are they like mimes?" the de Vil woman sneered, crooked ebony cigarette holder positioned with a somewhat contradictory elegance between two fingers, "They just stand there in those masks, ears open and mouths shut?"

Jafar frowned, crossing his legs in his easy chair, looking tiredly from his erstwhile roommate to where Jane and Shock were standing by the meal tray, arranging the two place settings for dinner.

"They can speak just fine, I'm sure," as he wrinkled up his nose at the pungent odor of tobacco, "You can't very well deal blackjack as a mute, now can you?"

"I hear sign language's come a good long way. Chimpanzees can order at restaurants now, if only they were allowed."

"How excellent for them," Jafar looked back at the two Elysian girls. Jane couldn't deny an uneasy tension took hold of her whenever his gaze rested on her for any amount of time.

Don't be silly, she told herself now, as she'd been telling herself all day since she'd first come to learn Jafar was staying at this place, You're wearing a mask, for one thing, and for another he's never even seen you up close before.

"Presuming you two are able to talk," Jafar continued, "I don't suppose your employer has forbidden you from speaking with us?"

Jane gave Shock a look. Her new colleague was, after all, something of a seasoned vet around here. The wiry young woman lifted her head from the dish of steak and potatoes she'd been arranging, lifting a pale, skeletal hand up to adjust her mask. The painted image on it was something vaguely resembling a Latin American effigy, a ghoul mask to frighten away grave spirits.

"We can talk, yeah," she had a high, thin sort of voice, surprising for a girl like her. De Vil, to whit, cringed at the sound of it.

"If you want us to talk."

"Oh look, they even have something resembling wit," De Vil nodded approvingly, "Perhaps, then, my dears, you can tell us just how long we're supposed to be imprisoned in this moldering cell?"

Jane wasn't sure the Green Room could be best described as a cell, though it was somewhat moldering.

"The boss has you down for lunch tomorrow," shock replied with a simple shrug, as if they were talking about a job interview or some such, "He's real finicky about schedules. Never a minute early, never a minute late."

"Like the bitter certainty of death," de Vil drawled with another pull on her cigarette, "See, I'm getting used to all the fruity puns already. You ought to hire me, doll me up in a mask and have me sell whiskey and cigarettes to dope peddlers. Care to join up, Jafar? You'd look smashing in a mask."

The unscrupulous attorney's upper lip curled back from his teeth in an expression of sour contempt. De Vil, for her part, had now turned her attention to Jane, staring long and hard at her face with such attention it was all Jane could do not to collapse into a quivering mass on the floor.

Oh, come now, you're made of sterner stuff than this, you know that. If Jafar doesn't recognize you, this one certainly won't. if she's the type to stay home for the 6:00 news, I'll eat my…

"Charming little squiggles, darling," de Vil shook her cigarette holder in the general direction of Jane's mask, specks of tobacco drizzling down onto the marble tile floor of the suite, "Chinese? Japanese? Chimpanzees?"

Oh God.

After much debate earlier in the day, Jane had decided that perhaps the American accent she'd displayed for Esmeralda was not her best bet at anonymity ion this place. Therefore, she'd opted for a somewhat tighter delivery of her usual speech, to remove some of the emphasis for her accent.

"Greek, mostly," she said simply, tracing her finger down one particularly exhaustive Neo-Atlantean character on her mask. It had taken her about an hour back in her room, but Jane had managed to finish designing the one personal aspect of her Elysian girl uniform. Teal paint, with various Neo-Atlantean pictograms going up, down and sideways along it. The act had calmed her down, if nothing else, and it was no more loud than some other girls' masks that Jane had seen

"Arabic too," Jafar commented, "Attractive gibberish, wouldn't you say?"

Jane froze up, struggling to find words, "Oh, I…I can't really understand any of it. The letters just looked…pretty."

"The best and brightest in this place, I tell you," said de Vil drily, "I'm sure you were on your way to law school when you got your calling to be a tavern slattern."

Jane briefly considered explaining about Steffy Resnick's stint in prison on her nineteenth birthday, but Shock was looking at her in a way that suggested that might not be the best idea.

Jane suspected Shock didn't fully believe the entirety of Steffy's backstory, but even if she did doubt the veracity, Jane doubted she had any idea who she really was. Apparently, embellished and creative histories were a grand favorite of the Underworld's bustling workforce.

"Lay off the girl, won't you?" asked Jafar.

"Oh, look at you standing up to defend these weak and helpless young flowers," de Vil looked over at Jane and Shock, in a stage whisper, "Don't buy it, believe me, this one has a track record with fillies your age."

Jafar snapped up to his feet, a full lithe six feet of cold, impersonal disdain, as he looked sourly from de Vil to the Elysian girls.

"Has anybody ever, once in your life, told you that silence is a virtue?"

"Perhaps in a court of law, Jafar dear, but I've got nothing to hide." De Vil smirked again, "And, either way, I'm sure these two hear a dozen stories worse than yours before breakfast, and they don't say a word, isn't that so?"

"Very so…" began Shock, but de Vil cut her off, "Actually, silence is starting to sound like a fine option, dear, my head is splitting."

She got up to cross over to the meal tray, sniffing gingerly at the food, "I daresay it's not poisoned. Most sensible poisoners would tamper with edible looking food. Less obvious." she held the wind bottle up the to the light for closer inspection (even the above ground hotel rooms at Elysian Fields only had the narrowest of windows, for privacy's sake, so Esmeralda had explained) and sneered in distaste, cracking it open with her scarlet, talon-like nails anyway.

"Swill, the lot of it," she continued, pouring a very generous portion into her glass, "My old man ran a nightclub once upon a time, you know."

"Yes, I believe I've heard something to this effect before," said Jafar disapprovingly, collecting his plate from the tray, "More than once."

"He knew a good bottle of wine, even if he didn't know a budget from his bunghole. It's always the money that ruins us," she downed half her glass in one swig, cocking a severely charcoaled eyebrow in Jane's direction, "Mark that, dear. You'll have to take my womanly advice for a tip, since your illustrious mobster of a boss made off with my personal affects."

"He will return them, I'm sure." Jafar sat flatly, "These people are criminals, yes, but not common thugs. They won't steal your pocket change."

"Pocket change is it?" Cruella asked with a sudden shrillness, rounding on Jafar so fast her hair slapped Jane fair across the mask, knocking it almost askew so Jane had to straighten it at once, knocking Cruella's half-filled glass to the floor, where it shattered along with a (mercifully empty) gravy boat and an (unluckily full) salt shaker.

"Oh, now look what you've done!" scolded Jafar, as Jane went down to her hands and knees at once to clear up what she could.

Well, for once it isn't your mess. There's a refreshing lack of responsibility with this whole anonymity shtick, now, isn't it?

"Never fear," she said quietly, "I'll manage…" but it was highly unlikely either of the Green Room's unwilling tenants were paying her any mind at all.

"What I've done?" de Vil bellowed, encroaching on Jafar who, though he was clearly trying his damnedest to save face, couldn't keep from retreating a step or two farther back, "What I've done?"

"Yes, you incipient woman, or is there some other impoverished relative to blame this mess on?"

"This mess wouldn't be bothering anybody if you hadn't gotten us caught up in this garish hellhouse in the first place!"

"I?" What in heaven had I to do with any of this?"

"Oh, fuck," muttered Shock, crawling over beside Jane, removing one of the colorful patchwork dishrags she had hanging from the waist of her dress (a cute touch, Jane had to admit, and undoubtedly very handy), "Come on, we'd better clear this out before these two kill each other or start shagging."

Jane nodded in agreement, accepting the rag Shock offered and, as she did so, taking notice of the carved wood underside of the dresser. The article of furniture was an old, but well-maintained piece, carved up and down with images of wildflowers and vines, in accordance with most of the furniture in the finer suites.

It wasn't the design that grabbed Jane's attention, though, so much as how close to the floor the lower wooden panel was, and what ample space there was to hide something behind it.

There's an idea! Honestly, I should have thought of this before.

De Vil was still railing at Jafar, waving her cigarette holder about like some flimsy blunt instrument, though the cloud of noxious fumes this constant movement produced was a certain sort of intimidating in and of itself.

"If you hadn't kept us back at the old crone's house, these Styx and Stones people wouldn't have gotten the jump on us, my baby wouldn't have been turned into scrap metal, and the boy wouldn't have got away!"

The boy again. Riku, if Esmeralda was to be believed. Jane cocked her ears, at the same time reaching surreptitiously into one of the many nifty pockets sewn into her patchwork skirt (she supposed the abundance of easy hiding places on Elysian girls' outfits were supposed to serve as some sort of cornball metaphor, like everything in this place, but Jane hadn't yet steeled her stomach enough to contemplate it) and removed another coil of thin, barely visible black wire, with a nifty recording box affixed to the end.

If the resourceful reporter can wiretap one room, she sure as summer can tap another.

"That is absolutely ridiculous! Perhaps if you hadn't been driving like a maniac, we wouldn't have piled up and the boy would be safely behind bars as we speak."

These two obviously knew a lot about what was going on here, one way or the other.

While Shock scooped ceramic shards of the gravy dish into her rag, Jane deftly snaked the wire under the dresser, feeling across the wall for the phone jack.

"So you'd rather we all got shot?" de Vil laughed a high, cruel laugh, "You maybe willing to live or die for that wretched old witch, Jafar, but I've got priorities in this world,"

Yes! Jane thought with barely disguised delight, as she clamped the wire to the jack, neatly furling the rest of it under the dresser. Housekeeping at Elysian Fields left much to be desired, Jane had noticed. Nobody was going to push aside a piece of furniture just to vacuum any loose dust bunnies.

"Oh, yes, how could I ever forget your noble purpose, to claw yourself out of the gutter, come hell or high water, and with no care for principles."

"Principles? Ooh, a lawyer lecturing about principles. I'll tell you where you can shove your principles, you oily little snake. If you think you can smooth talk us out of this mess, you've got another thing coming."

Jafar slammed his hand down on the writing desk, loudly enough to cause Jane to turn back to them, though Shock was still hastily clearing away the debris.

"This mess will be resolved. Luxord is a cold man, but he's not unintelligent. They will find Riku, and…"

"And?" De Vil repeated piercingly, "And just return him to you, because you asked? As I recall, this all began because they didn't want to let the boy go."

"There will be a ransom, no doubt. Maleficent was trying to avoid such an outcome, but she will consent for the boy's sake…"

"Ah, yes, I'm sure she will. For the boy, her hope and dream, the truest purpose of her life, all that other cloying drivel, I was there too, I heard her talking about him. You're sort of important to her too, I suppose, and mildly famous besides, scandals or no…"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

De Vil snatched the wine bottle from the dining cart with a sudden furious energy, kicking the cart over onto the floor, nearly crushing Shock, who drew back on hands and knees with a muffled, "Oh, son of a nut."

"Oh my goodness," Jane added, hastily scrambling over to Shock's side to see if the girl was hurt.

"It has everything to do with everything!" de Vil shrieked, advancing on Jafar again, "You are important, you are the old woman's attorney, her little partner in crime, her little liaison. She wouldn't want it said that she let her attorney die because she wouldn't pay a ransom, but who the devil cares about the chauffeur? She loves her precious little boy, she needs her slimy little counselor, but she'd leave me to fester and waste away in this hole without batting a dusty old eyelash, because nobody gives a damn whether Cruella de Vil lives or dies!"

With an almost inhuman wail, she threw the bottle of wine across the room and, had Jafar not ducked to avoid it, letting it shatter against the woodland-themed wallpaper, it may well have brained him.

"Perhaps we'd best get going," whispered Jane, helping Shock to her feet.

"Ace idea," the girl nodded hastily, untucking some brittle brown hair from where it had gotten stuck beneath her mask, "I think they already forgot we're here, anyway."

Which seemed like it may well have been true. Jafar was leaning on the writing desk to get back to his feet, trying not to slip in the puddle of wine on the floor, as Cruella stood over him, breathing deeply and with fire in her eyes.

"Who are we kidding anyway? We're dead, no matter what happens. Either they find the boy, keep him for ransom, and kill us, or they don't find the boy and kill us because they don't like loose ends, that's all I've ever been, a loose end…"

Shock closed the door behind them, sufficiently muffling any further noise from the suite as they both stood in the dim interior of the 12th floor corridor.

"My first day was crazier," Shock confided, "Three bar fights, one stabbing, and God knows how many creeps trying to cop a feel."

"Do you think they'll be alright?" Jane asked as they started down the hall, "I mean, she looked right dangerous."

"Eh, it'll be fine," she shrugged, "That type's always got a chip about something. Guy's a total puss, though, I don't blame her for getting fed up."

"He's supposed to be a wiz in the courtroom, though," Jane commented with due caution. That altercation had been about as confusing as it had been informative, and there were enough ideas and theories jostling for attention in her head that Jane felt she simply had to express them to some sort of sounding board.

"A wiz, eh?" Shock snorted, "Lawyers, execs, bankers, all a bunch of big shots with fat mouths, fat wallets, and nothing worth anything anywhere else. I hear he's some groper, or something. Felt up some intern. Figures. It's the only reason guys like him have interns."

Jane almost corrected her to say that Jasmine Ahmed had been a paralegal, but Shock probably wouldn't know the term, and Steffy Resnick wasn't supposed to either.

"A proper creeper, yes," Jane added.

"Proper creeper? What's an improper onelike, then?"

Jane cleared her throat, "Figure of speech, sorry…" she paused as they turned a corner at the end of the passage, making for the elevators, "Really is something, though, isn't it? That whole mess with them and that boy everyone's looking for? Riku."

There was nobody else in the hallway, so Jane didn't feel odd about speaking aloud. From what she'd gathered, Jafar and Cruella De Vil had only been booked way up here because there were no other guests on this floor.

"Seems they were working for Maleficent, his guardian, I think," she continued, more to herself than to Shock, "Then the Styx and Stones wanted Riku, I guess for leverage on Maleficent, so they tried and failed to catch him, and then they tried again when he was with those two," she jerked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate Jafar and Cruella back in the green room, "But he escaped, even though Hades' people got their hands on his escorts. You don't suppose de Vil was right? That she and Jafar are both dead whether they find Riku or not? Or Jafar isn't dead, but she is?"

Shock looked at her blankly as they paused in front of the three bronze-finished elevators (to offset the black marble tone of the walls), "Yanno, boss lady said this would happen."

"What? What would happen?"

"That you would ask all sorts of questions," she lifted her mask just slightly, to expose her dark, almost blue tinted lips, "Look, I don't mind it, but not a lot of folks do in this place. I'd watch out, especially about the whole S&S thing."

"S&S? Oh, you mean Styx and…"

"Technically, we don't know they exist here in Elysium," she added, in a lower voice, "We are a legit front, after all."

"Oh, yes, of course we are," Jane nodded, "Sorry about that."

"Hey, don't apologize to me. It's not my ass on the line if you say the wrong thing around here. I kinda liked having a room to my own, anyway."

But she was joking. Probably. Hopefully.

"But…" Shock added, "you ask me, not saying you are, but you did, I'd say the crazy lady had a mean point. No one likes a loose end, 'specially not down here."

Jane found herself agreeing on that point. If, indeed, Hades wanted Riku for some sort of ransom from Maleficent, it might make sense for him to also hold Maleficent's legal counsel and longtime representative in business for an extra sum. If Cruella was really just a driver, Jane didn't see much reason for Maleficent to pay more than a pittance.

"One less groper in the world, however you look at it," Shock finished, calling the elevator.

"Ah. Yes, that's…that's true. I suppose."

There were better ways, though. There were far better ways of dealing with 'gropers', and their sort. Not just snuffing them out and tossing their bodies into some unmarked grave, no, what good would that ever accomplish?

Exposing them, prosecuting them, giving their victims some sense of justice, of closure, of peace.

Jasmine's face floating back up into Jane's mind, shaking with wide-eyed shame as she recounted her story. Jane knew that expression all too well, yet somehow it still shook her whenever she recalled it to mind.

"I'll all play out,' Shock continued as the staff elevator doors opened with a ping, "It always does. You learn to stop caring pretty fast with this job, Steffy. Or you don't," she added that last part with a grim finality, as if to say 'Your funeral.'.

"I call first shift on the floor," Shock declared, pressing the button with the big gold C on it, "You can relieve me later."

"Was that a gift or a punishment?"

"Throwing you into the water, see if you sink or swim," Shock grinned, lowering her mask down properly over her face, "Late night on Saturday is insane, but if you experience it first, ain't nothin' gonna scare you around this place ever again."

"Oh. How kind of you," muttered Jane as the elevator began its descent, slowly down the first ten or so floor, before reaching the main ground level, where the shaft was transparent, providing a winning view of the lobby, casino, and restaurant areas, all alight in bright colors, crowds of patrons and staff milling about.

Jane had to admit, it was very impressive for a gaudy pleasure palace. If only it didn't hurt the eyes so much.

"Catch you later," Shock waved her off as the doors opened, "Try and catch a nap. You'll be needing it."

"I'm sure I will!" Jane quipped, waiting for Shock to leave before pressing the button for the basement level.

She took a moment to collect her thoughts as the elevator commenced this shorter descent. In truth, for a first day on her very first undercover job (self-imposed or no) this had been quite productive indeed. She had two ears in two different strategically significant places, a helpful, if somewhat detached confidant, and the very real chance of getting to the bottom of more than just one story while she was here.

This isn't just a matter of a few missing teenagers anymore, if it ever was to begin with.

While she still had no clues on Kairi, Jasmine or the other four missing women, the involvement of Jafar, and by extension Maleficent, in this whole thing was quite telling.

Jane knew very little about the elderly philanthropist who, as Milo and her own scant access to local records testified, had taken in Riku as a sort of ward when he was barely a toddler. CEO of a real estate company, now worked largely behind the scenes. No criminal history, and no scandals despite the suspicious death of her niece about twenty years ago, but most agreed any rumors about that incident were little more than playground ghost stories.

Indeed, Jane had only come to know anything about Maleficent when she was researching Jafar's own history on the bar. He was something of her public face these days, with her health apparently not being the very best.

But if Maleficent has really had ties with the Styx and Stones this entire time…

That could very well make Jafar a…what was the term?...a sort of go-between, or a middleman. What better person than an attorney to handle that sort of byplay?

And now, if there was some sort of dissension between Hades and Maleficent…

The elevator doors opened on the drab, unpainted service corridor, again quite deserted, with most of the girls either working the floor, the suites, or catching a few minutes' precious rest before their shifts began.

She started down the hall, quite proud of herself for only making two wrong turns in this rabbit run maze. All those years following her father in and out of labyrinthine burial chambers had definitely paid off. Clumsy and lacking in social graces Jane may be, but at least she would never get lost.

The door to Jane and Shock's room was unlocked, and hanging slightly ajar, not enough to give Jane a peek inside, but enough to show that somebody most certainly had entered.

She felt her breath catch in her chest, as her heart began pumping frantically in her breast.

Perhaps it's nothing. Shock has that boyfriend she keeps going on about, Lock or Barrel, or hell, maybe both of them. They could just be in for a visit, maybe to drop something off. You haven't stepped a toe out of line, there's no reason for anybody to be susp…"

Jane opened the door and stepped inside, to find Esmeralda bending over the dresser, a pair of clunky headphones over her head, string with an expression of muted amazement and disquiet at a little black console that, though Jane could not see, was hooked up to the phone jack in the corner of the room.

Jane shut the door firmly enough to bring Esmeralda's concentration right up to her, ripping her mask off her face in the same motion. Her eyes widened at once and she moved to take the headphones off her head, but Jane beat her to it, practically springing across the room to snatch the left side of the apparatus, pressing it to her ear even as the right side was still over Esmeralda's.

She was wearing some sort of musky, heady fragrance, and her hair was particularly bouncy with some special wash, but Jane didn't take any of the time to notice that, distracted as she was by the first words she heard when she pressed the headphone to her ear.

"…he will die, I assure you of that much.," though Jane had only heard his voice once before, she knew very well she was listening to the same clean cut, formidably debonair man Esmeralda had kissed in the hall that morning, "And, after that, we brace for the chaos."

"You know me," a different voice, with a cocky, self-assured quality, "Chaos is kinda my aesthetic."

"We all have our talents," there was a certain level of steel under Luxord's otherwise smooth, effortless delivery, "Leave the fallout to me. It will be rank madness for a short time…everybody gets into such a state whenever the Coliseum is open. It may be some time before anyone realizes something is amiss."

"Kinda feel sorry for the poor bastard." Yet the laugh never left his voice, "He never asked for any of this."

"None of us do, and yet here we are. His loss is our gain; it's how this game is played." A short pause, and Jane thought she heard a creaking, as of someone raising from their chair, "Funny. I never imagined you, of all people would have any scruples."

"Scruples? Me?" a rough, yet genuine laugh, "As if."

Another creak, and a sound almost like a door opening, "Hasta manana."

"Until then," Luxord sounded almost bored, as if he'd already found something else to occupy his attention.

Esmeralda yanked the headphones off both of them, letting them clatter uselessly next to the main console.

She was dressed for the floor, too, Jane noticed, but in a different sort of costume, presumably due to her higher rank among the Elysian girls. A purple gown with dagged sleeves and gold thread embroidering the edges, a plunging neckline, and elaborate, impossible brass jewelry hanging from her neck and ears.

She was very heavily painted as well, in a dark rouge and severe shadow under her eyes. Yet, despite all the color in her face, she looked pale and, for the first time in Jane's admittedly limited experience of her, frightened.

"You bugged Luxord's office?" she asked at last, in a strained, hushed voice.

Jane figured now would not be the best time to mention she'd bugged the Green Room too.

"I told you before," Jane retorted, moving to adjust the headphones on the dresser, "I didn't risk all of this just to take a few shorthand notes in a writing pad. I imagine there's only so much a girl can learn disguised as a waitress in this place."

"Are you insane? What if somebody found the wire?"

"It's nowhere he's going to find it, don't you worry." Jane snatched up the console from the dresser, "And it seems if I have to worry about anyone playing the snoop in here, it sure as anything isn't him."

Esmeralda nodded toward the drawer Jane had previously concealed the equipment "Because that's the most ingenious hiding spot in the room. There's no way Shock wouldn't have found it while searching for a clean needle."

"She keeps her needles in a shoebox on top of the closet," said Jane shortly, "I know. I asked. Do you trust me that little?" she crossed her arms, "Or is this more a matter of whether or not I should trust you?"

Esmeralda faltered, frowning, "You understand I have a lot to lose here, much more than you. I told you I've never let a reporter down here, never, and it's because of that that I've been able to keep this whole thing going. I require a certain amount of trust, Steffy, and…"

"…and you just decide to search my room my first night on the job?"

"No. I came over to see if you needed any help with anything before your first night on the job, and imagine my surprise when I find you've already made yourself right at home."

Jane sighed, "Fine, then. Most kind of you, I'm sure." She jabbed her finger at the console, "Can we please talk about that, then? Because clearly this was a remarkably spiffing investment indeed.:"

Esmeralda pressed two fingers to her temple, bangles clattering on her wrist, "That was…I was not expecting that, believe me."

Jane did. However doubtful she may be of certain things she'd observed about Esmeralda so far, the look on her face when Jane had entered the room to find her listening to the wiretap had been all too real.

"They're talking about killing someone, during the…the Coliseum matches," she said the phrase with a certain forcedness, recalling the somewhat careless manner with which Esmeralda had defended her silence about them before.

"Someone who wasn't supposed to be here, some…some victim of circumstance." She felt a cloying sort of thickness in her voice, "Sora. They're going to kill Sora…something about…about chaos or…or…"

She rounded on Esmeralda, who stood there, wringing her hands in slow, nervous circles.

"We have to do something, of course. He's an innocent boy, his mother…" she remembered Celeste in the police station, the tear tracks on her face, the terror in her eyes as Jane told her just where her precious son was.

"…this isn't even his fight, his problem. Everyone agrees he was only brought here because he got in the way, it's the other one, Riku that they want…" she broke off, pressing her hand to her chest to catch her breath, "Sora's just collateral, they don't give a toss about him, so they can…they can slaughter him as they please, if it furthers their ends, whatever the hell those are."

She looked at Esmeralda, beseechingly, imploring her to agree, to perhaps come forth with some ingenious plan that only she, as a longtime denizen of this place could think of.

What she did say, at length, was "Yes, yes, you're right, it's…it's why you're here, you're supposed to learn about these boys, help them any way you can. People die all the time fighting in the Coliseum…"

"Oh, do they?" Jane retorted, taking a sort of grim satisfaction in the way Esmeralda tensed as she said that.

"Best way to carry out a hit, nobody would ever question that it wasn't just…part of the game." She lifted her gaze to Jane, "All you'd need is the right kind of guy to hold the knife, and Hades has a whole pack of them."

"That…that other man, then,' said Jane, "That was Hades himself? I sort of imagined he'd have a little more of an air about him…"

"You'd be surprised," Esmeralda almost smiled, looking back at the console, "But no…no, I…I'm not sure who that was."

A brief silence passed between them, before Esmeralda said, "You'd best get up to the floor. I'll try and dig up what I can, but until then…" she sighed, depositing the recorder back in the drawer she'd gotten it from, "Keep your head down. For both of our sakes."

She left the room, letting the door swing shut behind her, and leaving Jane standing amidst old clothes and used needles, thinking again of that boy she'd never met, his sad, careworn mother, and the cold, definitive way those two men had spoken of snuffing him out as if he were worth nothing at all.

Sora, Riku, Kairi, Jasmine…what's the point of this job if it doesn't help the ones the rest of the world can't be bothered to help?

People talked a lot of noise about a journalist's job being to report the news rather than make it, but those were often the same people who believed archaeologists just dug up old junk from the past just for the sake of finding things, rather than understanding them.

Esmeralda may be content with standing on the sidelines and watching the world fall apart, but I'm not.

---

Sora's first thought had been that he was hallucinating. Not the first time in the last few days he'd entertained the notion this was all just some crazy dream. Not even a nightmare, just one of those confused, disoriented, trippy sequences of events that only arose out of the deepest, most peaceful sleeps.

It would explain why it had been so hard to get to sleep in the first place. Sora wasn't sure you were allowed to fall asleep in dreams, at risk of causing one of those existential crises people talked about sometimes.

But, no, after about twenty minutes of lying in his cold, solid bunk bed, staring at the rusty, graffitied metal bottom of the bunk above him, he realized that he was, indeed, hearing a chorus of dogs barking out in what was supposed to be a secure underground fortress run by the mob.

He looked wearily at the bunk opposite him, where a three-foot tall mass of muscle and chest hair was snoring clangorously, the only other noise of note.

Sora had very briefly entertained the idea of getting to know the people he would eventually be playing death games against and alongside before realizing that such 'first day of school' attitudes were frowned upon here.

Nobody had any interest in chatting with the new guy. They all knew he was only here because the Captain had decided he'd be a fun diversion, so the most reaction Sora had gotten from anybody had been a, "Always playing with his pets, that sunuvabitch." From three-foot snorer himself.

Which seemed to be the capacity of social warmth around here.

They probably figure it's pointless getting to know you anyway. You'll likely be dead this time tomorrow.

There wasn't even anything that could be done in the way of training. Not that Sora felt in the best shape to do push-ups and squats when he still had Mr. Smee's baby blue sewing thread holding his right side together.

The thought of squats made him think of Zack, which almost made Sora smile. The idea that Zack, and Tidus and Selphie and all the rest of them could exist in the same world as him right now was nothing short of disconcerting, almost unreal.

So this is how it is. You try to sleep, you wake up, you go to the Coliseum, you try not to open your stitches and you play their game. Two men enters, one man leaves. Or maybe it's three men, or four, or ten, or…

He felt half ready to puke, and those dogs weren't making shuteye any easier.

Sighing, he threw the scratchy wool blanket aside, sliding his legs out onto the floor, where he'd left his sneakers. No point forcing himself to get to sleep; it clearly wasn't gonna be happening any time soon.

He put on his shoes and wiped some sweat from his brow. It was always stuffy down here. Sora supposed it came from being underground. Still, the close proximity of so many other warm bodies, many of whom looked like they had protein supplements in place of white blood cells, didn't make it any easier. The dorm, if that's what it truly was, stank worse than a thousand Destiny High locker rooms.

Sora crept, very carefully, down the length of the dorm, between the closely-arranged bunkbeds. Not all of them were occupied at the moment, though most of them appeared lived in, so Sora supposed there wasn't actually a penalty for being out past curfew.

Not for them maybe, but hazing's a real bitch.

And he had no wish to have any more contact with the Captain's box of creative prostheses or, perhaps worse, get a firsthand meeting with Smee's Johnny Corkscrew.

The floor was solid granite, so Sora didn't need to worry about creaking floorboards or squeaky tiles. If he could get up at two in the morning and sneak cake from the fridge without waking his mom, what was a room full of hardened killers for sport, right?

He encountered one close call on his way out the door, scuffing the toe of his shoe against an uneven doorstep, causing him to hiss sharply in pain.

There he stood, in a sort of petrified silence for a minute or two, but the only reaction was a sleepy groan from one of the occupants of a nearby bunk, a guy maybe a few years older than him, square-jawed and built like a tree trunk, with a very unflattering buzzcut.

Thankfully, he quickly returned back to sleep. Sora wasn't sure if he could have dealt with him.

Cocky again. You know he could've ripped you in half at the stitches.

Funny how much more he was realizing about himself in his new predicament.

Outside the dorm there was an arched passage that led to a set of carved steps leading down in a tight spiral. The Coliseum barracks were built in a sort of underground (What else is new?) silo, made of heavy gray bricks, that had apparently once stored raw, unprocessed coal. The stench of the stuff still hung in the air, raw and pungent, and the dozen or so tiny windows that had been knocked in didn't really do much for the air quality.

The barking noises echoed up the stairway, coming from what must be the very bottom of the silo. Sora was reminded of big neighborhood dogs, that barked like killers whenever a stranger walked past 'their' house. Angry, relentless, feral noises, twenty of them, maybe more, never ceasing.

Taking a tentative look down the winding stair, Sora began to head down, feeling the barking pounding in his ears, echoing so much more pronouncedly in the closed-off cylinder.

Most of the heavy streel doors on the lower levels were locked shut anyway, not that Sora was entertaining the idea of a midnight escape. Though such things as security seemed pretty relaxed around here, the Underworld itself was such a twisting maze, and apparently large parts of it were still unmapped, unfinished mine shafts with no known exits and nobody brave enough to explore them.

The doors were numbered, in big block Roman numerals: VI, V, IV, III, II, I…yet the stairs kept going down, deeper even than that.

Maybe it was just Sora's imagination, doing what Kairi called 'projecting', but there seemed to be an undercurrent of something else in all the barking now. Not just anger, but a sort of desperation, begging, fear.

There was no door at the foot of the stairs, just a low arch, with the number 0 painted over it, a gaping ovoid against the dark granite.

Sora felt a hot, dry draft whistle past him as he stepped through the arch, and into a long, low room that may once have been a storehouse and now seemed to have been converted into a sort of kennel.

About ten metal grilles were installed in the walls leading down the room, five on each side, leading into cramped cell-like enclosures. There must have been five dogs to each cell, cramped as tightly together as sardines in a can.

Sora paused, stock-still in the middle of the storeroom, feeling the attention of every one of the canines fix on him immediately, as if they knew who he was, and had lured him down here for the sole purpose of meeting him.

"Um…" Sora began, almost forgetting he was speaking, "…hey. Can't sleep either, huh?"

They were big dogs, mostly, with a few scrawnier, smaller breeds. Dobermans, pit bulls, mastiffs, terriers, all nosing at the bars of their cells, salivating on the floor as if they hadn't had a drink in days.

That may even be true, Sora supposed, with an inexplicable twinge of sadness.

He drew a little closer to the nearest kennel, behind which a handful of well-sized animals were practically throwing themselves against the bars, as if in a desperate attempt to break them, to run to him.

"Yeah, I tried that way too," Sora whispered, lowering himself to one knee before the kennel and turning his head as if to display the bruise (Whatever remained of it, he wasn't sure; first time in his life he wouldn't have minded a mirror, and there wasn't a reflective surface to be seen. Figures) he'd earned in his ill-fated escape attempt from Smee's operating theater.

"I don't recommend it, and I've got about the hardest head around."

The dogs had quieted down somewhat when he started speaking. Funny animals, dogs. Unlike cats, they seemed to actually want to hear people talk to them. Marie just rolled over and went to sleep whenever Sora tried to vent.

One of them, a pale yellow mastiff, probably some sort of mix, barked sharply, nosing between the bars.

"Sucks being locked up, right?" Sora reached out a hand as if to pet it, but thought against it. He'd had his own experiences with what passed for emergency medical care down here, and he really didn't want to end up like the Captain anyway.

"I'd help you, if I knew how," he shrugged, "Kinda out of ideas right now, though."

The dog bared its teeth, not necessarily in a threatening manner, but more as if to prove it had teeth. Sharp ones, too, and even yellower than his coat.

Sora laughed drily, "I'll you what, once I get really desperate, I'll let you eat me. Take it easy for now, though, alright?"

"I wouldn't go around making promises like that,"

"Shit!" Sora scrambled to his feet and up against the bars as though a thousand volts had been shot through him.

He felt the dogs behind the bars nuzzling at the back of his legs, one of them even giving him a lick with a dry, papery tongue. Sora may have winced at the grossness of it all, had he not been significantly more bothered by the unexpected new arrival.

There was a figure: short, somewhat stout, standing in the shadow of a low doorway at the end of the room, that Sora hadn't noticed when he first arrived. He held a little electric lantern, casting an unexpectedly warm light around the kennels that, though somewhat disorienting at first, was oddly comforting as well.

"Getting acquainted with your competition?" asked the man, starting forward at a slow, leisurely pace, "Not the worst idea in the world."

"Um…" Sora looked back at the kennel, and the yellow mastiff in particular, who was looking up at the approaching speaker with a new attention, tongue lolling from his mouth, panting excitedly.

"I…I couldn't sleep," he said at last.

"Nobody can, the first night. I sure hope you're not here to complain about the noise. There really is only so much I can do, and haven't these poor fellas suffered enough, anyway?"

He drew close enough for Sora to get a look at him, in the lantern light. Portly, with a kindly, lined face and thinning hair, though Sora couldn't quite tell how old he was.

Still, the Captain had cautioned Sora against judging by first impressions in this place, and Sora was beginning to understand the council of that. He stood his ground, crossing his arms, trying to appear both on guard and not explicitly threatening or frightened.

"Nah," he shook his head, "Doubt I'll be getting much rest anyway."

The man smiled, nodding understandingly, "No, no, I s'pose that's true." He moved past Sora to the grille, and bent down to let the yellow mastiff lick eagerly at his fingers, a task which the dog took to with gusto.

"Happy to see me, aren't ya, boy?" the man smiled, chuckling like an old grandfather.

"They're pretty hungry," Sora commented, just to see what sort of reaction he would get.

The man looked over at him, a more solemn cast coming over his face, "The hellhounds always are, that's the whole point. One meal a day under normal circumstances…but when the games come around, it's one meal for two days." He paused, "Per cage," he rapped neatly on the bars of the grille, "Gives 'em something to fight for, you see."

Sora felt his stomach twist at that, not at all helped by the exuberant expression on the mastiff's face as he licked the kennel master's hand.

He thought again of those sharp teeth, and imagined them clasping tightly around the hand, wrestling it free of its arm, and Sora shuddered.

The kennel master seemed to notice this reaction, "Dogs are funny animals, when you get right down to it." He scratched the mastiff under the chin, causing it to whine contentedly, "I raised this one from a pup, for example. Saw him whelped, kept him out of trouble the first two or three years before they decided to try him out in the pits. He's been about as good a friend to me as anyone else in this place."

He lowered his hand back to his side, setting the lantern down gently on the floor, "But I've got rules to follow. I'm told to starve him, I starve him just the same as the others. Beat him, kick him, starve him again…it wouldn't go too good on either of us if I didn't listen. I bet you've already gotten a good idea of what disobedience costs ya down here."

"Yeah…" he heard the sharp snap of his dog tag breaking off around his neck, the glint of the metal through the pained tears in his eyes, "Yeah, you could say that, I guess."

"And you know what?" the kennel master raised his eyebrows, "He doesn't much care about any of that. He cries when I kick him, but I feed him, compliment him, give him a treat, and suddenly he's my best pal again. Gives you somethin' of a rotten feeling, knowin' you can just turn him around whichever way you like, no consequences."

"Some guys get off on that," said Sora blithely, remembering with an unexpected clarity his fight with Riku in the street outside Selphie's house.

Crap, it feels like it happened years ago.

"Which is why we have the fighting pits to begin with." The kennel master scratched behind his ear, "Nobody likes to think about consequences, but you can't avoid them either, not if you want any chance at being a big name in the world, at making a spot for yourself. So, why not make a game where the only consequences happen down there, in the arena, and all you need to do is watch?"

"Yeah," said Sora, "I'm still not getting the appeal."

"Good boy," as if he were talking to one of his dogs, "That means you've got a heart pumping in your chest. Don't forget about it, that sorta thing becomes easy enough to do down here as it is."

Funny, now that Sora kept remembering that night with Riku and Kairi, the last time he'd ever seen her… He'd accused Riku of getting off on following Kairi around, making her feel small, scared, maybe because she wasn't interested or something, Sora couldn't really remember a lot of what he'd said that night.

If Riku was down here too, somewhere, being treated to more of this place's irreplaceable brand of hospitality…what was he thinking? Was he scared, scared as Sora had been when he'd felt the Captain yank him forward on the edge of his hook? Angry? It was easier to imagine Riku as angry, for whatever reason.

Was he thinking about Sora? Kairi? Was he feeling as guilty as he by all rights should, for getting them both embroiled in this mess?

"Sneaking out of bed?"

Sora gave a start, looking sharply from the kennel master, to find Cloud standing in the doorway, scarf stirring barely perceptibly in the hot breeze from outside.

"Evening, Strife," the kennel master nodded at him with a genial smile, as if he'd just walked in on a pleasant stroll in the park, "Sorry if I kept this fella up,' he patted Sora lightly on the shoulder, "If I could get all these rascals to catch some shut-eye at once, I would, but I'm more their servant than their master."

Cloud made a soft sound of recognition, frowning warily, "It's no problem. I'll take it from here."

The kennel master seemed to understand, smiling sympathetically as he recollected the lantern and started back down the way, "Right you are. Big day tomorrow, for both of you."

He looked down at Sora, a peculiar, but not at all upsetting, expression on his face. Like a very measured sympathy that, for one fleeting moment, had Sora thinking of his mother and Kairi's Gran all rolled up into one.

"Good luck to you," he clapped Sora on the shoulder, "And remember, son," he looked from Sora to Cloud, "You don't have to like the game to be good at playin' it. It's a hard lesson, but those of us who learned it, we're that much better off."

He seemed to be expecting Cloud to make some gesture of agreement, but Cloud simply inclined his head in a half bow so superficial that it could mean anything or nothing, just as inscrutable as the rest of him.

The kennel master paused at the low doorway he'd come in by, nodding a final goodbye, "See ya real soon," as he vanished into the shadows, the steady light of his lantern ebbing away along with his footsteps.

Alone with Cloud, Sora shifted from foot to foot, aware of the dogs to either side of them still growling and barking, though the sound seemed to have faded to white noise the longer he'd been down here.

"Come on," Cloud nodded toward the exit back to the stairwell and started off, only looking over his shoulder once to make sure Sora was following him. Sora did, not entirely upset with leaving the kennel behind, just more apprehensive than ever about what next mess awaited him.

"I'm…uh…I'm sorry I snuck out of bed," he began unevenly, as they started up the stairs, "I know I probably broke some rule and you'll have to, I dunno, cut off my pinkie or something, but I couldn't sleep. I know, I know, important to get some rest before the big game, or whatever, but…"

"If we cut off the fingers of everyone who couldn't sleep before their first match in the pits, we'd have some pretty damn embarrassing games."

Though he was obviously joking, there wasn't all that much in the way of levity in Cloud's voice. Still, Sora was somewhat reassured.

"So, if I pass out during the match would they just cancel it?"

"You won't," he said it flatly, simply, as if it were a plain fact of nature, "When you're in the pit, and they raise the gate, ring the bell…you wake up. impossible not to."

Cloud stopped in his ascent, looking right down at Sora, "It's waiting for the gate to come up, waiting for everything to start, that's when it's the hardest."

Sora nodded, "Because you're thinking, trying to plan your next play, figure out what to do, how to win… then the game starts, and you get your in ass in gear, no time to think any more."

Distantly, he heard a whistle, felt the whoosh of air past his ears, heard a crowd cheering as he whistled past them all, easy as the wind.

"You're going places kid," he recalled, suddenly, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He hadn't been wrong.

"Thinking kind of sucks," he mused softly, but Cloud was studying him in a new way, almost approvingly.

"Running back," he said at last, "Am I right? Could be a punter…"

"Hell no," Sora shot back, smiling despite himself, "Right the first time. How'd you guess?"

"No guess," Cloud shrugged, "Captain's got your team dog tag hanging in his office."

"Oh." He should have figured that; without realizing it, Sora brought his hand up to his neck. He was sure whatever mark had been left by the snapping of the chain had already faded, but he at least imagined there was some raised, reddish pink line, almost like a collar, a brand, around his neck.

He imagined the dog tag hanging from the polished wood panels of that office, or maybe put in some plaque on the bookcases that hid the door. Maybe the Captain kept souvenirs form every person he 'recruited' into the Coliseum, stocking them up in that plushy, overly elegant study like an obsessive collector.

Maybe mirroring Sora's own action, Cloud made some careless motion with his hand, moving to a spot near his shoulder blade, just away from the scarf. Sora glimpsed a canary yellow feather, pinned there like some fancy boutonniere on a tuxedo jacket.

"You any good?" Cloud asked, too casually.

"Oh…um…yeah, yeah, actually," he felt a sort of embarrassed flush come into his cheeks, "Screw, modesty, right?" he added, thinking of Tidus and his stupid towel-slaps, "We…um…we almost won the division this year, actually. Would've been our first unbeaten season in…"

"Seventeen years?" and for the first time, Sora actually did see something resembling a smile on Cloud's face.

"Yeah," Sora finished, "You don't look that old."

"I'm not. It was just twelve years when I left."

Five years, Sora thought with a chill, Five whole years.

"You haven't been above ground in five years?"

Cloud narrowed his eyes, "Course I have; they don't just keep us down here. Not how you run a business."

The Captain had called Cloud Hades' 'go-to', Sora recalled. From all Sora knew of mobsters (though it was becoming more and more obvious that old gangster movies were perhaps too grounded, in comparison to the Underworld), that sort of phrase could mean a lot of things, and 'accomplished blood sports star' wasn't even in the top five.

"I've just been here, with them, for five years. They'll let you up top too, when they need you to be. If they do."

He continued up the steps, Sora trotting to keep up as they passed doors I and then II.

"So…" Sora continued, not wanting to fix too long on the tantalizing question of how many years he'd needed to stay locked up down here before being allowed privileges to leave to smuggle arms or kill somebody, "…think I can put my football cred to good use in the match? Maybe outrun those hellhounds?"

"Who said anything about outrunning them?" Cloud raised an eyebrow curiously, "it's a fighting pit."

Somehow Sora knew he was going to say that, "So…what? Me against the dogs? That's how it works?"

"You, the dogs, one or two other guys. We try out the newer blood with the dogs first. Good test of speed, strength, stamina…"

"Smarts?" suggested Sora, thinking again of the Captain's distinctions between cleverness and cunning, and the story of Hercules and his hellhound.

"Never hurts. Free for all match, three rounds. No one's asking you to kill the dogs."

"What a relief," though, and maybe he ought to have been ashamed, Sora hadn't really been agonizing over the morality of killing a rabid dog, as much as he'd been agonizing about everything else about the situation.

"You have to kill the other guys," Cloud continued, in the same impersonal voice, "If it's two, last one standing wins. If it's three, least bloodied one gets the laurels, last one standing or best out of two. We never start anyone off on four."

"How nice of you," said Sora grimly, pausing again in his ascent. Sure, he'd been somewhat dimly cognizant of the fact that he could very well, and perhaps most probably would die in the games, but he'd somewhat tuned out the fact that he would probably be required to kill other people to avoid that outcome.

"So…what? Me and the other guy fight to the death and the dogs are just there to…what? Make it interesting?"

"That's the idea. The more balls you add to the court, the more fun it is to watch. Always something going on."

"Huh," Sora supposed the same could be true with normal, sane people sports. It's why he could never stand baseball. Watching it, you spend hours watching one or two people out of a group of 18 doing anything at any given time, and playing it, you stood in one spot, sweltering in the heat while someone (usually Tidus) accidentally caused minor property damage.

"So…let's say, for example..."

"Look, you may not be sleepy but I've got a match in the morning too."

"I thought no sleep was good," retorted Sora with a daring that was both surprising and somewhat reassuring to him. He was growing steadily more comfortable with his taciturn mentor, or confidant, or whatever he was.

Having either stumped Cloud or resigned him to silence, Sora continued, "For example, the dogs are about to kill me and the other guy. Like, we're cornered, and we could both get our guts ripped out, or whatever, if we don't do something fast…" he nodded significantly to gauge if Cloud was listening. His expression remained unchanged, which Sora took as an affirmative.

"…so the guy and I, we like, team up, yanno, 'cause we're both desperate and we know we're both gonna die if we don't do something. Like, maybe one of us goes right and I go left, to split the dogs up, or we feint, or some trick like that. That'd work, right?"

"Probably. Then if the other guy's smart, he'd crack your skull in before you'd finished congratulating him."

Sora stopped short, looking side eye at Cloud, "Well…yeah, I guess…I guess that could happen."

"Oldest trick in the book," Cloud said it knowingly enough that Sora didn't doubt he knew from experience, "Don't partner up with someone unless you trust them totally. You're new. So don't trust anyone."

"Not even you?"

Cloud narrowed his eyes, "I wouldn't recommend it." He continued up the stairs, "And the Captain's not such a big fan of that trick."

"What, too predictable?"

Cloud made a dry scoffing sound, adjusting the feather in his lapel, "Try asking him how he lost his hand. Probably your surest ticket out of this place."

And Sora knew better than to press any further on that score. He continued on, after Cloud, up the stairs to the bunker, suddenly finding that he was getting kind of tired with each extra step.

Yet whether some rest was a good thing, or a death sentence, Sora still couldn't be sure.

---

Seifer drove with all the exaggerated swagger and machismo of a bachelor entrenched in a midlife crisis, but somehow with even less self-awareness.

"She's a beaut, ain't she?" he asked Squall with a careless tilt of his head, one hand lazily manipulating the leather-padded wheel and the other draped with a frankly stupid leisureliness over the side of the car.

He seemed much more composed now that he'd gotten Squall away from potential eavesdroppers. The roof of this ridiculous sleek sports car had been lowered, as if to provide the benefit of an evening breeze, despite the fact they were driving along a one-lane subterranean mineshaft-turned roadway.

"Bit too beautiful for you," Squall quipped, adjusting one of the studs in his ear with a purposeful precision, "Who'd you have to screw over?"

"Now, when have I ever screwed over anyone?" he gave him another one of those accusatory looks, "I've got friends down here, Leon."

"That doesn't sound any less sketchy the fifth time you say it."

Seifer laughed, "Yanno, Leon, I ain't gonna pretend to know how you hardass boys in blue operate, but maybe, just maybe, you wanna be a little more respectful around your only friend in this place."

He smirked, "You need me."

Squall didn't really. This whole thing would have been much, much easier if Seifer hadn't turned up out of nowhere to turn this entire plan on his head. Nobody in the Underworld would be very likely of recognizing a former cop whose only legacy to this place was a drug bust from nine years ago, especially not if he kept his head down and avoided any old timers…

But Seifer had always been nothing if not a spanner in the works, already ready to throw all the most carefully calibrated schemes into flux. Squall would have to put up with him now, he was too dangerous to let out of his sight, now that he knew…

And, perhaps, their meeting here was some small sort of fortuitous.

"I thought there was still bad blood between the Earthshakers and the Styx and Stones?" Squall asked as Seifer took another turn into a somewhat wider, more trafficked tunnel, where other vehicles of different sizes and maintenance trundled this way and that.

"You never hear of diplomatcy?"

"Can't say I have."

Seifer didn't seem to pick up on the jab, "It's called 'trailblazing', Leon. End to hostilities, no more fighting, a new chapter. You know how many Wind Makers get their dumb asses killed tryin' pull raids on this place?"

"A lot," Squall tried to mask his irritation, though Seifer probably knew more about the exact figure of gang members killed in the Underworld than the DPD could ever hope to. Hades covered his tracks so well, you'd be forgiven for thinking he actually was as implacable as death itself.

"Cocky little shits, all of them. Too proud to know when it's time to roll over." Seifer clicked his tongue against his front teeth, "I take care of my people, Leon. None of my crew's gonna get killed fighting a war they can't win."

He let the words hang in the air, as if he expected Squall to be moved to gentle, tender tears by his noble and virtuous deeds. Squall chose to neither indulge or antagonize. He would not be the first of them to broach the subject, no matter how much Seifer seemed to want him to.

"So, does the rest of your crew know about your diplomatic mission or is this all some very expensive secret?" he tapped his finger lightly against the polished faux-wood paneling of the glovebox, in which was inset a clock, a compass, and what appeared to be a vertical ashtray.

"If you're askin' whether Riku would know about any of this…" Seifer looked over at Squall, decisively, "No, and there's no way he coulda found out either. I'm keepin' this whole thing under wraps for now."

"So, his friend, Axel, he couldn't have…"

"Axel?" Seifer made some noise of contempt in his throat, though it sounded more like he was choking on the name, "If I didn't tell Riku, no way I'm telling him. He's like a damn kid, can't control himself. I'd kick him out, but he'd probably get himself killed out on his own. Guy's clueless."

"Yeah, he doesn't like you very much." Offered Squall casually.

Seifer snorted, "What, was he bitching about me in lockup?"

"Well, he bitched about a lot of things, but yeah."

"S'what I get, y'see, for trying to be a nice guy, a fair leader, a friend to my men." he spat carelessly over the side of the car, causing the driver of a passing off-road vehicle to cuss loudly.

Seifer flipped him the bird as casually as anything, continuing, "I coulda kicked him out the second I heard he had a buddy crossing over to the other side, but I didn't, and he hates me anyway. You just can't win with people, eh, Leon?"

"Guess you can't," with a bit of unnecessary emphasis on 'you', "If it's any consolation, Axel and his friend don't have much to do with each other anymore."

He thought again of Saix's casual shrug, his almost too-solemn disaffection for Axel, his warnings. Saix never really spoke more about Axel than was necessary, yet even so, everybody at the DPD knew something of their friendship, of Saix's all too brief stint in the Twilight chapter of the Earthshakers, his sudden career shift, and their subsequent falling out.

Perhaps not as dramatic as the stories the Earthshakers presumably told about Squall and Seifer, but it was something.

As if he'd been reading his mind, Seifer quipped, "Nothin' kills a friendship faster than a badge, eh?"

"I can think of a few other things."

Seifer chuckled drily, turning again, now onto a slight decline in the tunnel, toward a cinderblock archway looking into what must have been some kind of underground parking lot.

"Your summer place?" Squall wondered.

"Piss off," said Seifer congenially enough, slowing the car down at a metal gate that had been lowered over the arch and gesturing impatiently beyond it, as if to signal to somebody, "Now, shut up and look wise. I've got a reputation to uphold."

Squall held his tongue and watched as the gate was raised with an ear-grating screech of metal against metal.

"Git it going, donkey dookie," Seifer called to the approaching figure from the other side of the gate, "Right time of night don't last forever!"

"Right time of night for someone, maybe," muttered the gateman, a tall, spindly man in a velvet uniform that looked a tetch too classy for this dingy, underground establishment, "Nice of you to stop by, all the same. The house could do with some repairs. Central heating, for one thing, I'm freezing my stones off in this hole."

"Deepest sympathies, but you'll have to get by on someone else's charity. I feel like winnin' tonight."

The gateman looked over at Squall, as if noticing him for the first time, "Oh, yeah? What's this guy? Secret weapon, or did ya need some help to count cards?"

Seifer raised his eyebrows as if offended before thudding Squall lightly on the collarbone, bursting into peals of laughter. Squall, getting the idea, laughed along, in fits and starts.

"Nah," Seifer shook his head, "Out of towner, thought I'd show him the sights around town before he ships back out again. No visit to the Land Down Under's complete without…"

"…losin' all your money, that's the idea," sniffed the gateman dismissively, stepping aside to wave the car through, "Have fun, boys. Don't forget to tip. I'd like to retire before I'm a hundred and seven."

"Memory's getting fuzzy already!" Seifer called back, stopping the car and stepping out as a shorter, stouter man in a similar uniform tottered from a cramped office in the corner of the lot, "Come on, Lee, clock's ticking and my game fills up the fastest."

Squall followed him out of the car, taking one cursory look back at it as the shorter usher got behind the wheel, presumably to guide it to a parking spot somewhere in this cavern.

"Lee?" he whispered out of the corner of his mouth as he and Seifer started across the lot.

"We could've compromised on a name before, but you were too busy quizzing me on Earthshakers past and present." He nudged Squall in the side, as if they were just old buddies out for a night on the town, as he's claimed, "'Sides, those two goons ain't gonna recognize ya from anywhere. One of them's half-blind, and the other one's more than half stupid."

"This is that casino," Squall didn't phrase it as a question, "Elysian Fields."

"Yanno, I've always missed our meaningful conversations."

"So, does losing here all the time count as diplomacy too, or do you just have a problem?"

"You win some, you lose some. I've got a pretty banging record. "

Seifer paused outside an elevator in polished black marble. The brass plaque next to the doors reaffirmed 'All Upper Floors', quite unnecessarily.

Squall sighed as Seifer called the elevator, "Why are we here?"

"You wanted my help, I agreed," Seifer shrugged, "But I did have plans for my Saturday night before you decided to jump me."

"So we're gonna win back the money you blew on call girls?"

Seifer snorted, "Trouble with you is, man, you think you know everything."

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure you were just meeting with Ursula for tea and cookies. A guy like you doesn't need to pay for a date."

"Damn right I don't," he said in a somewhat cooler voice as the elevator doors opened and they entered, "A man like me, he has business everywhere."

Seifer pressed the button with a large letter C inlaid on it in worn gold-leaf, sending the elevator up with a little jolt.

"'Sides, safer to talk in a big place with lots of people; no one's gonna hear ya," he looked at Squall, "You oughta know that."

Squall did, but he wasn't; about to give Seifer any more undue credit. The Elysian Fields Hotel and Casino was a widely known public front for Hades and the Styx and Stones. It had been brought up under inquiry and investigation more times than Squall could count, yet the number of times admissible evidence had been discovered he could've counted on one hand.

The elevator came to a smooth stop on a floor where the chute was mirrored, offering Squall a 360 degree view of the main casino floor. Columns in black and white marble stretched up to a garishly vaulted tin ceiling, in which were carved assorted scenes from Classical Mythology, too high up for Squall to make out clearly.

Card tables and slot machines were scattered around the floor, with little rhyme nor reason, almost all of them occupied by finely dressed men and women, some smoking, some drinking cocktails. On a mezzanine level above the main floor, Squall could dimly make out the tables and chairs of the restaurant.

"We don't exactly blend in with this crowd," Squall observed as the doors opened and he and Seifer stepped out onto the floor.

"Maybe not," Seifer looked around with an approving smirk, "But you fit in with me, and that counts for something."

He patted Squall squarely on the shoulder, starting off across the floor, "You still got the magic touch for Hearts, or are games of chance frowned upon over on the 'right' side of the law?"

Hearts. He's just out to torture me tonight.

Squall could remember all too vividly those many summer nights, sitting up at the Overlook outside of Destiny, bikes parked in the little dirt paddock a few steps down the hill, while they sat in the shade of tall elms and twisty, greyish-black poplar trees, four of them on a faded Navajo weave blanket (probably imitation, but Ri had always had an affinity for the indigenous, no matter how fake), dealing and passing cards with an almost inhuman rapidity.

Hearts had always been his game, but Ri had loved it too.

"It's better than poker!" she would laugh excitedly as she threw a Queen of Spades down onto the mat, delighting in the defeated groans of whichever of them was unlucky enough to have played the highest card, "Teaches you how to read somebody and it makes you think."

"Sometimes, I swear, I thought you were psychic." Seifer told him as they crossed the garishly patterned carpet to the Hearts table, "I'm older and wiser now, though. You were just damn good at bluffing."

"And you were damn good at thinking you were bluffing," Squall retorted, though really you didn't need to bluff to be good at Hearts. You just needed to affect an air of confidence, of infallibility. Never appear to know too much or too little. They would never stop looking at you, but they'd never suspect you half as much as they would if you were trying to look 'innocent'.

Sort of like training to be undercover, really. The method had worked just fine for him back then, too.

There were two men already sitting at the table when the two Earthshakers past and present drew up close.

"Ah, here's two likely lads!" the older one of them announced approvingly, speaking with a pursed perfunction around the Cherrywood pipe in his mouth, "We needed another two for a game."

"Well, you're in luck," Seifer swept grandly into the third chair, next to the man's burlier companion, "Or maybe we are."

The first man chortled at the bravado, his companion smirking, "Excellent. Maybe when Clayton and I have relieved you of your pocket change you can direct us to your jewelry store. My fiancée's in the market for a new set of earrings."

Seifer grimaced, "Look at that, Lee, this one thinks he can trash talk us into submission." He snapped his fingers over at the card girl on duty, one of the many masked young women in the patchwork patterned dresses milling around on the floor, "She'll be in the market for a new financier when we're finished with you."

The older man, Clayton, laughed again, muttering something that sounded vaguely like, "Peace, peace!"

"What is the point of all this?" Squall asked quietly, putting a hand on Seifer's shoulder before he could launch himself across the table and assault one of the dandies.

"What, you forgot how to trash talk? It's how you play the game, psych out your opponent."

"Why are we here, playing cards? You said you would answer my questions…"

"Would you rather I bought you dinner first? You know how expensive this place is?" he snapped over at the card girl again, who was crossing the room to them in quick, short steps, having apparently just finished some discussion with one of her colleagues.

She slowed down a little as she neared, and Squall could make out the design on her mask: a series of black symbols, almost like cave drawings, on a greenish-blue background.

"We can't really have much of a conversation anyway with these two breathing down our necks." He nodded surreptitiously at Clayton and his companion, at which Seifer snorted.

"These two chicken wusses ain't gonna be long for this world," he winked, "It's been a while, but I ain't forgotten how good you are this game."

"There you are, my dear!" Clayton nodded at the woman, shaking his pipe at her like a jolly old uncle chastising his niece, "Come, come, I daresay you've never met a group of gents so willing to part with their wallets."

"I more than daresay if you walk like that everywhere," the other man said with a garish smile, "Come on, loosen up, sweetie, put some spring in your step."

It was true, Squall noticed, that the card girl was more than a little reticent about approaching them, looking unsteady on her feet, walking stiff as a board, like a little kid about to deliver a speech in front of the rest of her class. Perhaps she was new at her job.

"Hey, watch your mouth," said Seifer, "You talk to your girlfriend that way, punk?"

"Never any need," the man turned back to the card girl, "Come on, honey, Gaston doesn't have all night."

"Who's Gaston? You got a guy waitin' in the wings for ya?"

The man's eyes glimmered dangerously, though the cool, yet predatory smile never left his face, "I'm Gaston."

"Well, in that case, you say I don't got all night. Talk English, ditchweed?"

"Settle down," Squall tugged Seifer back down to his seat, grabbing him by the collar of his coat, "I didn't sign up to be your babysitter."

Clayton chortled again, thick, white smoke curling up from the bowl of his pipe, to dissipate to nothing just beneath the ornate tin ceiling, "We've got our hands full with these fellows, eh, my friend?" he leaned past Gaston to grin at Squall, "I deeply sympathize."

"Thanks," Squall told him flatly, looking back up to the card girl, who had paused across the table, her hands gripping the edge maybe a little more firmly than was necessary. Maybe it was Squall's imagination, but she seemed almost petrified, stricken. Though she wasn't looking at Gaston, who had insulted her, or at Seifer who had, however clumsily, defended her, but at him.

This place isn't the same as the Underworld, Squall reminded himself, feeling a barely perceptible prickle, almost like goosebumps, over his scar, It's aboveground, and anyone can go in and out. Anyone can recognize you.

But who would? Certainly not some random cardsharp. Squall doubted the staff at Elysian Fields were allowed to get out much.

"If…if you're all settled, gentlemen," the girl began in an oddly strained voice, perhaps muffled by her mask, "I can start dealing. You'll be playing a proper round game?"

"I should think so," said Clayton, "In this company, we'll have no lack of competition, that seems clear enough." He looked over at Squall and Seifer, thin, gingery eyebrow cocked in an almost mocking expression of curiosity, "Unless you chaps have any objections?"

"Fine by me," Seifer shrugged, "I never shirk the chance to teach a man a lesson."

The card girl nodded and began fumbling with the deck of cards, shuffling them decently enough, though her hands seemed to be shaking.

"You know the rules, of course?" the girl seemed almost terrified they wouldn't; Squall wondered if she would even know to explain them if she had to.

"We each deal a card each trick," Squall explained for her, "Whoever deals the highest card has to take all four. Hearts count as one penalty each, and the Queen of Spades is 13. Can't deal a heart 'till someone breaks on another suit. First guy to exhaust his cards wins the pot."

Gaston sniffed in mild dissatisfaction, though the card girl nodded with a sigh, "That's quite correct, yes." As she began dealing, six cards to each of them.

"For the sake of restoring some politeness," Clayton continued, "May I ask what brings you fellows this way tonight? Gaston and I have been staying here three days now, yet I don't wager I've seen you lads before."

"Not stayin' at the hotel," answered Seifer before Squall could say anything, "You could call us regulars."

"I'd figured as much," said Gaston, with another lingering look at Seifer's cross-earrings, but the barb seemed to go over Seifer's head, thankfully enough.

"Ah, I'd been wondering if perhaps you were here for the big games," Clayton shrugged, "I've been setting up a pool with some other fellows from our floor. Upwards of four grand in play, now, if you're interested."

"I don't think you're supposed to go about chatting about them to just anyone," Gaston chided.

Seifer, however, had tensed noticeably at the mention of the games. Squall could tell by his adamant refusal to look back at him, that he'd been really hoping Squall never catch any wind on this subject.

"Let's focus on this game first, whaddaya say?" said Seifer easily, nodding over at Squall, "You pass first."

That was true enough. Squall was sitting to the left of the dealer. With a sharp look at Seifer, he looked down at the cards he'd been dealt, selecting an ace of diamonds, a Queen of Clubs and an ace of spades (a virtual death sentence to anyone who held it) to pass to Seifer, who in turn passed three of his cards to Gaston, who passed three to Clayton, who passed three to Squall.

King of Spades, Jack of Clubs, 10 of Hearts. Not a bad play. Clayton seemed to know what he was doing at least.

The games. The big games… Squall didn't have to reach too far to recall the Underworld's legacy of big games, and he knew Seifer didn't have to either.

But that was all supposed to be over, all of it, all since…

"Two of clubs deals first," said the card girl, as if happy to remember the rule.

"That he does," and Seifer slid the card along the red felt of the table.

The rest of them joined their cards to the trick. Gaston with a seven of clubs, Clayton with a four, and Squall, who had no clubs, with the King of Spades Clayton had given him.

"Next trick to the gentleman here," the girl announced, nodding at Squall, as she collected the four dealt cards, "Score is zero all around."

"Give 'em hell, Lee," said Seifer as Squall returned his attention to his cards

"I plan to," but his gaze never left Seifer, as he dealt the nine of diamonds.

He was kept from paying close attention to what the others did in reaction as he felt a separate rectangle of cardboard being slid under his folded arm.

He looked sharply up at the card girl, who shook her head in a quick nod, as if a warning to stay quiet.

The penalty for cheating was hard enough at most conventional casinos; Squall didn't like to think what they did to cheaters at Elysian Fields, or to the girls that helped them.

As Clayton chortled about dealing the highest card of the trick, Squall turned his arm back to examine the card the girl had dealt him. It was one of the four clubs from the first trick, the four, on which the girl had written, in a spindly yet neat pencil, 'THE GAMES,'

"Aha!" Squall almost jumped from his seat, but it was just Clayton grandly throwing the three of diamonds onto the table.

In the movement of the next trick, Squall felt another card slide under his arm. He accepted it readily, turning it around to read the message, 'TOMORROW., boldly written across the seven clubs.

"This game's dead as dishwater," declared Gaston, who had accepted the last trick, "I'd have a better time eating paint."

"Squall felt the third card slide over to him. He flipped it over so fast he was surprised no one saw him.

The King of Spades, with the message 'THEY'LL KILL CELESTE'S BOY.'

"Enjoy your paint," Seifer told Gaston, "I'm having a great time," as he threw a six of hearts onto the table, "Hearts broken. Let's liven up this joint."

Squall, without even realizing it, had played the Jack of Clubs that trick, ended up accepting the one penalty point for Seifer's heart.

"Let's," said Squall, dealing the Queen of Spades and taking a momentary grim satisfaction, in Seifer's groan of dismay as he dealt the Ace of Spades.

"Penalty is 13," said the card girl with an anxious look back to Squall, a sort of understanding in her eyes.

"This is where I step out, actually," announced Squall, getting to his feet and dragging Seifer up to stand next to him.

"Taking your soul mate with you?" asked Gaston, "Good idea, he seems to have gotten in way over his head."

"You don't have to tell me. You two enjoy your games."

"Oh, we will!" Clayton waved them off, "Perhaps we'll see you again. This place isn't nearly so big as it looks."

"Sure isn't." and Squall strode out of their earshot, with one last look back at the masked card girl, who had helped him more in ten minutes than Seifer had in two hours.

"The hell was hat for?" Seifer demanded as they started toward the elevator, "I thought you were trying to keep a low profile, what was that supposed to do for anybody?"

"That's a damn good question," Squall called the elevator, suddenly feeling as though he were being watched, like every eye on the casino floor was watching him, "You've just been wasting my time all night, haven't you? Biding your time, maybe, waiting for the right chance to stab me in the back…"

"Look, Leon…"

"Don't call me that."

"…Do we really need to go over this again, 'cause I ain't the backstabber here."

The elevator opened and Squall ushered Seifer inside, pressing the button for the parking level, "Of course you're not, how could I have forgotten? I'm the backstabber, I'm the traitor, you're just an upstanding, moral citizen, looking out for his own people, protecting them, sheltering them, a father to his men, that's it, right?"

"Yeah, you know what, Leon, it…"

Squall slammed his finger against the elevator's emergency brake at the same time as he slammed Seifer against the wall, just as they'd been in the corridor outside the Grotto. The elevator car came to a screeching halt midway down the shaft, the dusky orange glow of the lights flickering in and out as Seifer struggled against Squall again, his hand going to where he'd hidden his second knife.

Squall grabbed for the reaching hand, squeezing Seifer's wrist in a vice grip, "Were you gonna tell me the Coliseum reopened?"

"I…" Seifer grunted, "…Leon, for fuck's sake, what are…"

"Were you?"

"It's not like I reopened it!" Seifer spat at him, his eyes blazing, "I hate that place as much as you do, Leon…"

"Call me that again, and I cut your throat," and, before he knew what he was doing, Leon had the first knife, the one he's stolen from Seifer earlier in the evening, pressed up beneath Seifer's jaw, "Yeah, you know, I'm sure you really do hate the Coliseum. you probably hate this place too, and the Grotto, and every other goddamn hole in this cesspool, but you stick around, you order girls from Ursula, you gamble all your money away to the Styx and Stones, you sell people to the Coliseum to fight and die like animals all to protect your people, right? It's all in the name of diplomacy."

Seifer pushed back against him, sending them both crashing to the cold, marble floor of the elevator. He reached for the knife in Squall's splayed hand, as Squall struggled to get out from under him, seeing the hilt of his second knife poking out over the edge of his belt.

"I never sold anyone to the Coliseum, get it through your head," he spoke through strained words, and Squall could feel his hand shaking as he recollected his knife, "The hell could I, after what happened to Ri?"

Squall kneed him in the gut, pushing back against him so they were both on the ground in the corner, Squall pinning him there, the knives both forgotten, though the rage pumping through him was such that he didn't doubt he could snap Seifer's neck if he wanted to.

"You don't get to say that name either," he said softly, dangerously, "Not when you killed her."

"Me?" Seifer made a choked sound that might have been a laugh as the lights flickered again, getting dimmer and dimmer, "That what you've been telling yourself all these years?"

"She'd still be alive if you had let her go, don't even try to spin this. She thought…" he swallowed, feeling a stabbing twist in his stomach, "…she thought she could save you, and you let her think that and now she's dead instead of you…"

"She loved me!" there was an angry flush in Seifer's face, and his eyes were blazing and watering all at once, "That's why she stayed. Because she was loyal."

"You don't even know what that word means. If you gave a damn about Rinoa, about her memory," he paused, taking a breath to compose himself, "you would've quit this whole game after she died. The Underworld, Hades, the Earthshakers, all of it. That's why she died, and here you are making sure those traditions stay strong…"

"I couldn't just leave." Seifer told him, "You get too deep, and you can never get out. I'm making the most of it. I take care of my people, Leon," he pronounced the name with a cool deliberation, as if seeing just what Squall would do, "And that's what Rinoa wanted too."

"Oh?" Squall nodded slowly, cupping his hand around the back of Seifer's neck, drawing his face closer to his own, so he could smell the sharp, sour tang of his breath, "Is that what you call kidnapping one of your own and bringing them down here to die like Rinoa did?"

Seifer went pale, tensing in Squall's grip, "I…I don't…"

"That souped up Bentley of yours," Squall continued, "Great move showing it to me, by the way, saved me a lot of work. Same plate numbers as one of the cars from the tunnel, last known location of your little man Riku and his little pal Sora."

Sensing Seifer's look of amazed bewilderment, Squall added, "Friend of mine's really good with stats like that. I've just got a really good memory."

Seifer slacked in Squall's grip, and he knew he'd caught him.

"You took them? One of them, at least."

"It…it was supposed to be Riku," Seifer said at last in a somewhat different voice, "Axel showed up, wanted me to hand Riku's bike back over to him, so…so I knew he was planning something."

"And you went off to catch him before he got away, and one other kid too, an unexpected surprise. A nice little present for Hades, maybe an early Christmas bonus, is that it? You'd already brought him five or six pretty young girls, why not spice things up a little, right?"

"Hades never got those girls from me, if he even has 'em. He just wanted Riku..."

"Riku, your own little Earthshaker, accused of a crime he didn't commit," because, Squall had to rationalize Riku's guilt was only shrinking as Seifer's grew. Yuffie would be relieved.

"And you chased him down as he tried to get away, and you took him down here to God knows what," Squall shook his head, laughing a more genuine laugh than he'd felt in a long time, "Honor among thieves, my ass. You're just as full of shit as you always were, only looking out for yourself."

"Fine!" Seifer cried, "Fine, I was supposed to take Riku. And I would have, but someone else got to him first."

"The second car," Squall offered, and Seifer nodded.

"Don't ask me who it was or who was driving, I don't know. They started shooting, took Riku and drove off…"

"Leaving you with Sora."

"Whatever his name is. He was shot, so I couldn't leave him there…"

"What a Good Samaritan you are." Squall reached into his pocket and took out the King of Spades, showing him the message the card girl had written across it.

"Who's Celeste?"

"Sora's mother. I only met her once, but that's all it takes to know her life is that kid. Rinoa had a mother too, you know. I still get Christmas cards from her. She still can't say her daughter's name without crying. You sent that innocent kid down here, with a bullet wound if you're not lying, to die in that place just like Rinoa and you have the nerve to say you're doing what she would have wanted?"

"Look, I didn't know what they were going to do with him!" Seifer cried out, as the lights flickered out for good, plunging them both into darkness, "If he's in the Coliseum, don't blame me!"

"They're going to kill him." Squall repeated, "I don't know why 'they' are, or why they want him dead, but they're gonna kill him, because of you."

"You can say all you want about me, Leon," there was a strained tightness to Seifer's voice, "I didn't mean the kid any harm. Hell, even with Riku…if I hadn't, it would have been worse…"

"For you?

"For the rest of us. Just like with Ri. I didn't want Ri to die, I had no choice…"

"Huh," Squall didn't really feel about beating around that point again. It occurred to him that they'd been stopped here long enough to perhaps make some people suspicious, "Well, you have a choice now."

"What choice?" Seifer staggered to his feet as Squall released him, rubbing at his Adam's apple and grimacing.

"You can help me save Sora," Squall explained, "Or I can kill you, right here, right now." He cocked his head to the side, "You think you know what Rinoa would have wanted? Prove it."

Seifer glowered at him, running his hand through tousled hair, "It doesn't feel like much of a choice."

"Neither was Rinoa's. We really gonna stand here arguing about this?"

So Seifer sighed, letting his arms go slack to his sides, "You'll get us both killed."

"Maybe," Squall slammed the brake again, starting the elevator back down the shaft as the lights flickered back to life, "It's long overdue."

He wasn't sure whether Seifer was scowling or smirking at him the rest of the way down to the bottom.

For one sick, confused moment, Squall found himself thinking, Just like old times.

---

Second times the charm, Riku found himself thinking as he again approached the cavernous entry of the Grotto, home of Heaven's Most Beautiful Souls and, apparently, also leasing space to Earth's Most Dependably Undependable Douchebags.

Riku had been put off enough by the sudden appearance of Squall Leonhart at the entrance to the place. Fair enough to assume, he supposed, that Leonhart was down here for him. Riku had mostly put the catastrophe on the highway out of his head, but when he came to think of it, that sort of chaos couldn't very well have passed unnoticed, even by the most conventional of cops.

He'd entertained the idea of speaking up, making himself known to Leonhart. Sure, the guy had a beef with the Earthshakers, but from all Riku had gathered, he was far from undependable. He'd hear Riku out, not just ship him back to his cell at the DPD. After all, this wasn't exactly a job for one…

And yet, before Riku had even decided whether or not it was a good idea to creep out from hiding, blend with the clusters of guests going in and out, and enter the Grotto himself, his quarry had come out again, this time accompanied by his alleged worst enemy.

Seifer? Riku had dropped back behind the heap of unsmelted gravel he'd chosen as a new hiding spot, his heart racing at the sight of the self-elected leader of the Earthshakers, Destiny chapter.

It was him, all right, just as smug and self-assured as Riku had always known him to be, if a little roughed up. He and Leonhart had walked with a purposeful cordiality across the front lot, not speaking with each other, but with an air of such deliberate casualness that Riku knew at once something was up. They hadn't expected to find each other down here, and now they were both doing their best to keep themselves together.

He had lingered behind the gravel heap long enough to see the receding taillights of a Bentley heading down the tunnel. A very familiar Bentley, in point of fact. Riku felt his shoulders tense as the quiet hum of the engine faded into the dark, echoing back to the grotto entrance like a badly out of tune drum set.

It can't be. Not Seifer, not even he's that evil, he's just an asshole, and not even a very smart asshole at that.

Most of the Styx and Stones drove Bentleys; Riku had seen more than a few of them parked in this lot alone. Just the fact that Seifer, of all people, had one, one that he apparently only used down here, doing God knows what…

Riku resolved, at that point, to just get it all over with and do what he'd come here for. Whatever was going on between the stoic police detective and the bombastic gang leader was clearly connected in some way to the very tongue-in-cheek named brothel Riku had been by chance deposited in front of.

No point beating around the bush anymore, or else he may as well have just revealed himself to Seifer and Leonhart when he had the chance.

Riku took care to make himself moderately more presentable before he entered, though. Luckily, there had been a sort of makeshift wash shed, complete with a leaky sink and a basin vaguely resembling a toilet, just a few steps from the Grotto's entrance, either a relic leftover from the coal mine days or a clever innovation for saps just like him wanting to be let inside for a few hours of fun.

He'd washed the dust and grime of the road form his face, and out from his clothes (though to wash it all out with this water was too monumental a task to even contemplate), and even wrung out the bandanna he must wear over his hair, however stupid he felt in it.

"Here goes everything," he muttered to the cracked looking glass above the basin tightening the bandana back over his hair.

The crowds of the evening seemed to be thinning out as Riku passed through the charmingly claustrophobia-inducing entrance corridor. Riku had already observed Dopey's four rowdy companions tottering unsteadily back out of the cave, laughing about what may have happened to the two they'd left behind back at the junk pit.

Shame. Riku would have appreciated a few more people, the better to blend in with the crowd.

He passed into the main lounge, eyes burning at once as the harsh smell of incense and perfume met his nostrils. A harpsichord was playing somewhere, behind one of the many beaded curtains draped over niches in the walls of the cave, though Riku couldn't quite get the clear schematics of this place, obscured by harsh red and violet light and thick smoke as it was.

"I'd close my trap if I were you," a woman told him in a throaty voice, "Trust me, the air down here doesn't taste as good as it smells."

Riku turned around to look down at the speaker, an older woman in a black and purple evening gown, sporting seashell jewelry on every available part of her.

"First time, handsome?" she cocked her head to the side, a fat finger tenderly stroking the corner of her deeply rouged lips, "It's okay to be nervous."

Riku averted his eyes briefly, embarrassed, catching his breath, "Um…no," he lied, "I mean, yeah. Yeah, I haven't. Um…I haven't been here before. But it's not my…"

"Of course it isn't," the woman picked a sleek brass-finished pen from the table she was sitting at, working it delicately between her fingers as if trying very unsubtly to impart a message.

"The Grotto serves all kinds," she continued, "No need to be nervous. Tell me, honey, what your dreams are made of."

"My dreams," Riku repeated, "I'm…uh…I don't think I've ever thought about it."

The woman tut-tutted, leaning over the desk to look understandingly at him, like a pre-school teacher trying with everlasting patience to explain something to a toddler. It was unsettling, almost like she knew, though what she could know Riku wasn't sure.

"Your fantasy, handsome. That's our mission here, don't ya know? No one comes to a place like mine looking for some real life, honest to goodness answer to all their worries. What does that even mean anyway?" she tossed her head back and laughed, silver-streaked ringlets swooping dangerously close to a lit gas lamp as she did so.

"No, no…we're in the business of dreams here, of fantasies. What's yours, handsome? What helps you get to sleep at night? What little forbidden dreams drove you all the way here to me?"

Maybe it was the incense in the air, the drowsy, torpid effect it seemed to have the longer you inhaled it, but the woman's (Madame's? Riku supposed that was what this woman counted as, if she was anything at all) voice seemed to have taken on a trance-like quality. It seemed as though Riku was barely even there, with her, at all.

"You can't just take everything you want," he heard Kairi's voice in his ear, "The world isn't just you!"

As if he didn't know.

"Dreams?" Riku nodded, trying to keep cool, trying to seem like nothing more than an ordinarily nervous teenage boy at his first ever bordello. Somehow, ordinary nerves were much more difficult to master than…whatever these nerves, were.

He didn't want to think of dreams, not anymore. Not when they'd already caused him so much trouble.

Tag in the street, under a hot midsummer sun. kids laughing, running and jumping and ducking around the neighborhood as if it were some sort of vast playground, some wonderland that only they could see.

One boy, so scrawny he looked younger than some of the other kids, though that wasn't so, lurking on the sidelines, watching, hoping, dreaming one of the others would ask him to join, would see him, would realize he was there, that he had joined them, that he was lost on the sidelines, unsure of whether to step forward, speak up or just slink back home, down the street, up the fire escape and back into his apartment as if he'd never left.

"The world isn't just you."

Though it had been, back then. And he'd hated it. Perhaps it still was, and Riku just didn't realize it anymore.

"Look, poopsie, this self-discovery thing is all well and good, but I do have a business to run, and the night won't stay night forever."

Snapped back to reality, Riku cleared his throat, reminding himself of why, exactly, he was here, "Redheads. I kind of…I kind of have this…this recurring dream, I guess. Redheads. Blue eyes."

The Madame raised her eyebrows with a nod, "You're not the only one." She toyed with the shell hanging from her neck, a brass conch shape on a beaded chain, "I guess there's something to be said for just the right mix of exotic and innocent, yes?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "Yeah, there…there is."

She beamed, "I think I have just the dolly for you. New to the family, and not long for us, I'm afraid. I've already promised her to another, if you know what I mean," she shrugged, "But she's mine for the next however long, and yours too, for tonight, if you want her. If you can."

Riku almost double-taked. He hadn't actually been expecting that much in the way of an answer.

She's here. Kairi's here, they made her one of the Beautiful Souls, or whatever they're called, he felt a deep sinking in the pit of his stomach.

What had he done? If he had just left well enough alone, Kairi would never have needed to follow him that night, just like Sora would never have needed to keep him from getting away, and neither of them would be in any danger, just as separate from Riku and his life as they were always meant to be.

But he could save her now, and maybe Sora too.

"I can," said Riku, maybe too quickly, "Definitely, I can definitely pay…"

Silently, he thanked his foresight in raiding that footlocker full of cash back at the junk heap.

"Hold your horses, bucko," laughed the Madame, "We're talking about a precious, living, breathing human being, not haggling over some old pick-up truck."

"No haggling, then," said Riku in a somewhat more measured voice, "Name your price."

She chuckled, "Oh, to be young again. Or maybe not." She took the pen again, reaching for a stationary pad nearby, on which she began to write in sweeping, loopy cursive, "With age comes experience, yes, handsome?"

She turned the pad back over to Riku, who blinked at the number, trying to figure out how he was supposed to react. Having never had any experience with places like this, he couldn't tell whether this price was a steal or highway robbery, though he could tell the Madame was expecting him to say something about it.

"I…I can do that."

"Ha!" the Madame laughed, more like cackled, "I like you, handsome. No nonsense, no frills. The world could use a good couple more of you."

"Not so sure about that," said Riku, rifling through his pocket for the cash, "But thanks."

"Pretty deep pockets," the Madame observed, "A less tactful lady might ask questions, but you won't need to worry about that over here. At the Grotto, silence is our specialty. Your secrets are safe with us."

Her gaze lingered on Riku for a good while, "Not that you have to spill any."

She rolled the bills up, slipping them squarely down the front of her gown, "Come on, handsome. Your firebrand awaits."

She started off across the room, Rubenesque hips swaying in an odd rhythm with the music from the harpsichord. Riku followed, feeling around in his now much more vacant pocket.

Better hope you won't need gas money.

Axel used to laugh about places like this. Not this one, exactly, as Riku doubted a lot of Earthshakers had room in their wallets for one of Heaven's (Purportedly) Most Beautiful Souls. Except Seifer, of course, but that mystery would have to wait.

"Anyone who needs to pay for a roll in the hay probably isn't cut out for rolling," Axel would drawl, lazily cleaning out his bike's perpetually faulty carburetor, "Ideally, the roll itself is the payment. Take that to heart. Pass me that screwdriver, will ya?"

Speaking of screws, the spiral staircase that led to the Grotto's upper level was so loosely affixed to the floor that Riku kept expecting it to tip over with every step he and the Madame put on it.

"Bless your heart, honey," she told him after one particularly precarious turn in the stair.

"W-what?"

"For not making a 'stairway to heaven' joke. That one's staler than half the salts I see in… Here we are!"

She reached the top of the stairs, pulling aside a beaded curtain (wave patterns, naturally) to reveal a narrow, low ceilinged passage, lit with similar gas lamps to the ones from the entrance, and lined with low archways, each one curtained off.

The harpsichord in the distance played on, though it was so faint it may have been coming from an entire world away. Somewhat closer, Riku could hear creaking, shuffling, even slight gasps and whimpers.

Yet, somehow…it was all too quiet. Something seemed to be missing. The drowsy somnolence of the main room downstairs was replaced now by an all-too-empty silence. He felt a shiver going up his spine, but he disguised his unease, as the Madame paused in front of the fourth arch down on the right side.

"You've got her 'till sunup," she told him, parting the curtain to reveal a round door of carved, warped black wood (to Riku's relief), "Make every second count. If you need anything, just holler for Ursula. I'll hear you, don't you worry about that."

The Madame, Ursula apparently, turned the bolt in the door, stepping aside to let Riku in.

"Um…thanks," he told her, his heart pounding in his ears.

"Don't thank me, thank her," Ursula winked, giving Riku a nudge inside and, quick as clockwork, closing the door behind him.

It was even quieter here, in this small, spare, windowless room, its walls seemingly carved out of the cave itself. Glass lamps hung from pegs in the ceiling, shining through blue and green panels, giving the whole chamber an eerie, underwater cast.

A canopy bed took up about half the space in the room, with drapes and sheets in dark, navy blue. There were also a few pieces of furniture, made from the same, driftwood-looking material as the door: a nightstand, a dresser, a writing desk complete with stationary…

But Riku didn't quite have time to take any of that in, not when he saw the silhouette behind the closed curtains of the bed, a figure stirring, as if from a nervous sleep.

She's not even going to know why I'm here. To rescue her. Hell, I wouldn't believe it either.

Forget about how he was going to rescue her. Somehow the reality of that aspect was only hitting Riku now.

He started toward the bed, tentative steps, reaching his hand out carefully for the curtains.

"H-hello?" he broached the question softly, as if to speak it too loudly would bring this whole den of thieves collapsing down on him.

She parted the curtain before he could, big blue eyes, wide, questioning, with a mix of innocence and unusual weariness Riku had so rarely seen. With her free hand, she pushed a lock of red hair, out of her face, as if to see him clearly.

"Oh," Riku breathed, looking at the stranger in the bed and feeling somehow as if all the air had been let out of his lungs, "You're not…"

She cocked her head to the side, her hair slipping out of the messy knot it had been tied into and falling in a waving cascade around her waist. Kairi never had hair so long, Riku knew. Everything else, however…the eyes, the build, the coloring, even the shape of her face, more or less…

He took a step back, suddenly feeling quite profoundly stupid. He'd blown the easiest cash it was possible to find when on the run in a place like this, on a single lead that hadn't even panned out.

"Shit," he muttered, averting his eyes, crossing to the writing desk, "Dammit. What the hell am I supposed to do now? What was I even thinking, this…this…"

He felt that implacable, raw rage take hold of him again, as he flung a Grotto-themed stationary pad, with abandon, across the room.

"It's over, that's it. I never should've even bothered, never gotten involved, none of this whole damn mess would ever have happened if I had just minded my own goddamn…"

He turned, half-blinded by his own anger, to see the girl, sitting up in bed, staring at him and breathing in short, shallow gasps. The writing pad he'd thrown had apparently just missed her by an inch and, though probably not a very dangerous weapon, Riku supposed he couldn't fault her for being scared.

He was kind of scared too.

"I'm…I'm sorry," he said, his voice hoarse, "I'm not…I'm not angry at you, or anything…I…I was…I was looking for someone else."

She hesitated, as if unsure of what to make of that. Riku saw she had a birthmark on the inside of her wrist, something like a three pronged spear or, from his angle, a fork.

"Not…I don't mean…" somehow, Riku's anger was quickly being replaced by embarrassment, "You're really…you're really…beautiful," he felt himself redden as he said the word. The girl seemed to find it funny too, looking away as if embarrassed for him.

"I didn't mean to scare you, or anything. Really," he moved a little closer to the bed, "It's just…it's been kind of a rough night."

She looked at him oddly for a short time, as Riku figured he might as well take one last shot in the dark.

"I…I don't know if maybe…if you know about any other girls at this place? Girls with red hair and blue eyes, like yours?"

The girl paused, pursed her lips, and then shook her head.

And, at last, Riku realized she hadn't spoken a word since he'd come into the room, nor even parted her lips from where she had them pressed firmly against each other. The blue light of the room did a good job to hide it, but now that Riku was closer to the girl, he could see pale pink marks on either side of her jaw, the legacy of some sort of clamp, or of pincers.

"At the Grotto, secrecy is our specialty." Not just empty words.

She seemed to notice Riku's diverted attention, and she turned away, letting the sheet she'd been holding drop to her lap. She was dressed beneath it, Riku saw, in a tawdry turquoise dress, probably some attempt at lingerie, though Riku wasn't sure if anything could look seedy on her.

"I'm sorry," Riku said hastily, "I didn't mean to sta…"

But she was reaching down to the floor, a seashell necklace similar to Ursula's hanging from her neck as she bent, to collect the stationary pad Riku had thrown.

She straightened up and looked at him, setting the pad down in her lap, nodding over to the nightstand on Riku's side, where a thin brass pen was lying.

"Oh." Understanding, he fetched the pen, tossing it lightly to her. The girl set to writing at once, in a neat, small print, turning the pad so Riku could see it.

'It's O.K. I'm Ariel.'

Ariel. Riku nodded, pointing to himself, "Riku."

She wrote again, 'You don't need to point. I can hear you.'

"Oh," Riku nodded, "Right. Sorry." He ran his hands slowly down the rough fabric of the sheets, "I hope you're not…offended, or anything. you really are…pretty, and..." his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, for more than one reason, "...and stuff."

Ariel made a soft, whimpering noise that took Riku aback at first, but she was smiling. The sound must be the closest thing she had to a laugh, and judging by the way she winced as she did it, it still hurt to do so.

She turned the pen over in her hands, as if contemplating, before putting it to paper again, "You're pretty" she left the pen hanging over the page, looking at him decisively before adding, "shy."

She may as well have been some mischievous schoolgirl, eyes twinkling over some secret only she was privy too. Not a bad secret, though. A harmless, girly sort of secret.

"Shy. Huh," he mused, "Been a while since I've heard that."

Ariel relaxed her shoulders, any of the remaining tension she'd had from when he'd come in slipping away as she slid her legs out from under the coverlet to hang over the side of the bed.

She was writing again, "You were going for the tough guy look?"

With a rapidly dissolving hesitation, Ariel reached forward and brushed her fingers over the bandana over Riku's hair.

He blushed, feeling stupid, "Something like that, yeah. What, it's not working?"

She shook her head, moving her hand down to the knot and tugging slightly at it, as if in question.

Riku tensed a little under her touch.

You can't trust her. So what if she's nice? She's a call girl, they're supposed to be good at acting.

Yet it was difficult to imagine any of Heaven's Most Beautiful Souls, much less this one, being a spy. Forget the whole 'secrecy policy', or whatever they wanted to call it. Her look of abject terror when he'd first come in, and then her sudden relief when he turned out not to actually want anything from her told Riku all he needed to know.

So he unknotted the bandana with her, feeling his sweat-matted hair come down around his shoulders, over his face.

A sharp intake of breath from Ariel. Not of recognition, but of surprise.

"My nan..." he trailed off, aware that would perhaps be too specific, "My folks used to tell me something must have scared me pretty hard when I was a kid. I used to be a natural blond,"

Mim had told the joke about once a day until he'd had his first growth spurt, at which point she'd finally developed some dose of self-awareness.

"So you look a little different," she would say, putting up her own purple-streaked silver hair in a hairnet, "Nothing wrong in being different, lovey. All anyone wants is to stand out, anyway, why complain when standing out is built right into ya?"

She meant well, but she'd been pretty oblivious to a lot of things. Maybe she'd gotten sick of being a 'nobody' when she was a kid, embraced being zany, loopy...purple as she got older.

But it had been different for Riku. All he could really remember from being a kid was standing on the sidelines, longing, yearning to be so inconspicuous, so ordinary that he could just blend in, be like everyone else, even if it was only for one afternoon.

One, single, midsummer's afternoon.

Ariel was laughing again, holding her throat as if to control herself. Riku noticed pained tears come up into her eyes, and he leaned forward.

"Whoa, whoa...you okay?"

She nodded, coughing through strained laughs now, one tear dripping off her lashes, then two.

"I promise, I'll...I'll stop making you laugh."

She shook her head again, wiping away her tears as she retrieved her writing pad, "You don't have to. I haven't laughed in a while. It doesn't hurt so much anymore."

Riku nodded, as if he understood, but really it was getting harder and harder to understand anything about this place.

"Ursula..." he noticed a barely perceptible flinch go through Ariel as he said the name, "...she said you were new. How long have you been down here? I mean...if you don't mind..."

But Ariel was already writing, quickly enough that Riku supposed she'd been waiting ages for someone, anyone to ask.

"Since August. My birthday."

"Three months?"

Ariel shrugged, frowning haplessly, "If you say so. It's hard to tell how time passes down here." her pen hovered delicately just over the pad, "The girl you were expecting. Is she a friend?"

Riku hesitated, feeling her big blue eyes on him, so inquisitive, hanging on his every word, "No. Not exactly. Actually, she probably has every reason to hate me."

He looked over at one of the lamps hanging from the ceiling, if only to break free of those eyes. Kairi's eyes had looked the same way that night, at the Overlook, when she'd appeared at the top of the hill, her hands raw and red from where she'd fallen on the street.

"I think I've gotten her into some trouble. I'm trying to find her, see if...if I can help her."

Ariel listened, head cocked to the side, her hair practically trailing over the bedspread, yet despite her apparent idleness, she was writing with an automatic efficiency, turning to a clean page with a sharp tearing noise, almost like a typewriter.

"I was trying to find someone too. That's why I came here."

"On your birthday?" he asked, and Ariel nodded, "Who? A friend, family?"

She sighed, averting her eyes, "A guy. My Dad sent him away."

She had begun to write the word 'Daddy' instead, Riku saw, but hastily scratched it out, as if afraid Riku would laugh at her, tease her for acting like a kid.

The thought had never crossed his mind. Riku wasn't quite sure what he would have called his parents at Ariel's age, or when other kids switched from Daddy to Dad or from Mommy to Mom. He'd never needed to think about it, so he hadn't.

"You...you liked him?"

"He worked for my Dad. I don't think he ever noticed me much, though. But Daddy," and here she didn't even pause to correct herself, she was writing so fast, "knew, and he sent him away. He was bad news, he said, worked for some bad people. He would just make trouble for me."

"More trouble than you're in now?"

Ariel looked away, her eyes shimmering again, and Riku instantly felt like an idiot.

"Hey...I'm...I'm sorry. I...should've been thinking..." he reached out to pat her on the shoulder, but she flinched away, sobbing now, sobbing into her hands, raw, scratchy sobs coming up from her raw and ruined throat.

"It's...it's not your fault," he said, half-expecting Ariel to snap out of it and deck him any second for playing the psychiatrist card, "It's not like you sent him away. You liked him. If..." he paused, aware of how heavy his voice sounded, "...if I'd been you, I would've wanted to find him too. Just to see how he felt."

Ariel drew back, her chin balanced on her knees. After some time in painful silence, she retrieved the writing pad and got back to work, pressing the pen so hard against the page Riku was surprised she hadn't shredded it full of holes.

"Will you tell her how you feel? When you find her?"

She looked at him, not with any kind of distaste, just with a steeliness that looked out of place on her.

"I..." it felt as though he were being crushed in a vice, and yet the words felt long in coming, freed from him only by the unwavering, piercing stare of the girl on the bed next to him, another wide-eyed innocent who'd never asked for any of this.

"I will. I'm sick of secrets."

She nodded as if she agreed with him, brushing her hair out of her face as she patted his arm reassuringly, her other hand working carefully on the pad, turning to a third page, "So am I. Sometimes I wish I could have just told him when I still..."

But before she could finish writing, a sharp metallic shriek came keening out from the shell around her neck, causing her to drop her pen with a start, reeling back as she stared with wide-eyed shock at the bauble, taking it carefully between two fingers.

"Wait..." Riku breathed, leaning forward to take the shell from her. It appeared, on the outside, to be a little metal-plate knick-knack, prettily painted and carved, but nothing else special about it, just like...

"Ursula," he nodded so Ariel could see the little black grille of the speakers inside the shell, "She's listening."

Judging by the look of abject horror on Ariel's face, she hadn't been expecting that either. How could she? She was new, after all. Riku could only imagine the punishment an older girl would get for telling another about the handy surveillance system their boss had equipped them all with.

"I told you my name," he told Ariel, getting to his feet and starting at once toward the door, "They know who I am, they know I'm here. They've been looking for..."

He yanked the door to open it, but it wouldn't budge. They'd been locked in, trapped.

"Dammit."

A clang of metal against metal turned Riku around on his heel. Ariel, in what seemed to be an impulsive-if-late attempt to give them both some privacy had taken off the necklace and thrown it up at a brass grille inset near the ceiling.

An air vent.

"That's it," Riku hurried over to Ariel's side, looking over at her stupefied expression, "What? They do it in movies all the time, don't they?"

He picked the now sufficiently destroyed necklace from the floor where it had fallen and lobbed it again at the vent, hitting the latch solidly and allowing the grille to swing off its hinges.

There was a chair positioned near the dresser, which Riku figured would be decent enough of a step ladder for him. He had already put one foot up on the chair before he turned back to Ariel, "Come on, come with me. Look, they know we were in here together, I don't want to think what they'd do to you if they found you here and not me," he gestured over to the vent, "Come on. Maybe we can both get out of here."

She looked uncertainly back at the bed, at the writing pad discarded on the floor. Then, with new purpose, she hurried over to it, ripped the pages she'd written on out of the pad, and shoved them down the front of her dress, looking back at Riku with an uncertain, nervous, but willing smile.

"Good idea." Riku told her, clambering from the chair to the top of the dresser, "It's none of their business, anyway."

The air vent, while not as roomy as movies may have led him to believe, was not entirely cramped. Riku imagined that was because these vents were pretty unconventional, having been carved right out of the cave as they were.

This meant that, though he had some room to crawl forward, the rocky surface on every side scraped and scratched at him gratingly.

He suddenly regretted having Ariel follow him, dressed only in that thin little number, yet one look over his shoulder at her told Riku that the girl was apparently far cleverer than he was. She must have selected a somewhat more appropriate, dark green, dress from the dresser before climbing in after him. It served to protect her knees and arms, at least, and she looked no less uncomfortable than he felt.

They passed a few other vents as they moved, though most of the rooms seemed unoccupied, probably because there was so little time left in the night.

A warm, dry breeze gusted sharply into Riku's face as they turned a bend to the right. He looked back at Ariel, "We're getting somewhere."

They went along a little farther, the breeze growing more and more consistent the farther on they went. It was as they crawled past another vent, that Riku came to a stop, hearing a familiar, throaty voice from the room below.

"...but it's him, alright, trying to be incognito, it's actually kinda cute,"

Riku peered through the narrow slits of the grate, and could make out Ursula's abalone-encrusted arm, draped lazily over the back of a carved wooden armchair, just within his reach, "But by all means, go back to your little dolly's embrace. I tell ya, I should've started charging by the minute years ago."

"Either way you'd still be robbing me blind," the man she was speaking to was directly beneath the vent. Riku could see a head of dark gray hair, almost blue under the lamplight, slicked back with an industrious amount of oil. He wore a smoky gray bedrobe, silk, maybe, which he was tying as he spoke.

"I thought it was house policy to knock before barging in? What kind of flophouse are you running, here?"

"Your flophouse," Ursula tsked impatiently, "And I reserve the right to walk in on you whenever I like. Or does Death feel shame, after all?"

"Aw, shut up," the man shook his head, "I'll be right out. This won't be a complete waste of time, s'long as we've got the kid."

"That's the spirit," Riku heard Ursula's receding footsteps, and then the door closing behind her.

The man turned behind him with a sigh to face whoever was waiting for him in the canopy bed, "We're gonna have to cut this one short."

As he turned back, Riku saw the glint of sharp, dark eyes in a deeply lined face. Hades, self-titled Lord of the Dead and, more importantly, the guy that wanted Riku as a hostage to Maleficent...for whatever reason.

"Don't make that face, Bluebird, it wounds me," Hades leaned over the bed, and Riku heard a little sigh, a whimper, maybe a kiss, "I'll be back soon. You know how crazy my job is."

He turned back to the door, crossing the room in two quick strides, pausing just short of the door, "On second thought, don't wait up. Big day tomorrow, and we all need sleep…gods and mortals all."

He slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind him. Riku heard Ariel let out a shaky breath behind him, indicating with her head that they should keep moving.

There was sense in that, of course. But Riku had now become aware of another sound in the room below. An even shakier kind of breathing, ragged and raw, like dry heaving, amplified in the comparative silence.

He could feel his heart hammering in his ears, feel the blood rushing through his veins. The breathing from the room below sounded primal, almost inhuman. Everything else seemed to fade away, until it was just that steady, constant breathing.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, Ariel, looking at him as though concerned. He looked back at her, blinking to bring her face back into focus. For a brief moment, he hadn't recognized her.

Riku felt his hand on the air vent's latch before he even properly knew what he was doing. The vent opened with a metallic shriek, and Riku had lowered himself into the room, barely hearing Ariel's short gasp of surprise as he did so.

He landed on the floor with a soft thud, looking up at the bed slowly. This suite was much nicer than the room where he'd met Ariel. Besides being bigger, the bed itself seemed large enough to drown in, draped in light, silvery fabric that shone supernaturally, offset by the bronze fixings of the headboard.

And, in the bed, sitting up and looking at him with the same surprised apprehension that Ariel had, was a woman, eyes wide and vacant, breathing in short, ragged breaths.

She was older than Ariel, maybe even older than Riku, but it was hard to tell. Her hair was cut short in a bob that may have been fashionable were it not so disheveled. It was dyed blue, like her eyes. She wore a blue dress, too, a thin fabric, not bedazzled like Ariel's, but somewhat worn, as if she'd had it on for a long time.

She shrank away from Riku as he looked at her, further down the bed until her head was pressed up against the headboard, fitting quite neatly into an engraved design of a laurel wreath.

"You don't...you don't have to be afraid," Riku heard him tell her, "I...I'm not gonna hurt you."

She shook her head wildly, and her breathing almost seemed to speed up as she half rose, half fell from the bed, scrambling back on her feet, a strangled cry leaving her throat.

"Wait, wait, please..." Riku stepped closer, hearing a light thud behind him, which he supposed must be Ariel coming down to join him, "I..."

The words died on his lips. The woman, (Bluebird, Hades had called her) lifted her arms to her face, as if to shield herself.

Riku saw red lesions running up and down her forearms, crisscrossing her wrists, her palms. Her hands were pressed over her mouth as it to stifle a cry, her eyes peeking out just over her fingertips, shimmering behind terrified tears, shaking her head back and forth.

Riku felt Ariel grab for his arm, to gently tug him back. She looked terrified, her head darting back and forth between Riku and the door. Riku understood why she was so frightened. They shouldn't be in here. They should be in the vent, hurrying toward the exit, before Hades and Ursula realized they were gone, before they came back here...

But he saw the fear in Bluebird's eyes, heard her pleading, fearful whimpers, saw the marks on her cheeks.

"You can't just take everything you want!"

"No..." so soft that at first Riku thought he had spoken without realizing it. But...no. She'd been the one to speak, whispering from behind her hands, "No, no...please..."

"You...you can talk," he looked back at Ariel, who looked as confused as he was.

Bluebird pressed her hands to her throat, to protect herself or to throttle herself, Riku didn't know.

"I...I don't want to hurt you," the room itself seemed to be shrinking around them as he reached a hand out for the woman, for Bluebird, for whoever she was, "We're trying to get away. Come with us. I promise...we...we won't do anything to..."

"No!" she cried, tears streaming down her face, "No, no, no..."

Riku felt a sudden stab of pain in his knees, and he realized he'd fallen to them, to be more on a level with Bluebird, a sorrow he couldn't even fathom building up in his gut.

What's wrong with me? Whispered some voice in the back of his head, What's wrong with her?

"You can't stay here, please, it's not...it's not..."

"You can't just play with people like that, we're not just pawns, you can't manipulate things to get what you..."

He felt a hand turning him sharply around, and for a second it was Kairi who had grabbed him, spun him around, shaken him to demand answers, an explanation.

But it was Ariel, tears in her eyes, on her cheeks, shaking her head in defeat.

Riku looked at her breathing deeply, feeling the tears on his own face, "W-we can't just leave her," he told Ariel heavily, desperately.

They both looked at Bluebird, curled up in her corner, hands around her neck, begging, "No, no, please no."

Ariel shook her head hopelessly, nodding back up to the air vent. So he followed her, back up the dresser, into the vent.

Bluebird's sobs echoed in his ears long after she had dropped out of earshot. Riku lifted a hand to wipe the tears from his face, trying to figure out what he had seen, why he was crying, and why he felt so goddamn guilty.

Riku let out his own small sob, though even now he couldn't quite say what he had just seen, or why he was crying.

---

A/N: This Chapter was a real joy to write, I found...mostly because of all the stuff that got to come out in it. One of my favorite things about writing Radiant Creatures is that I get to deepen the world every scene, and each little reveal gets to open new mysteries.

At least, I hope that's how it turned out.

Chapter 11 is currently slated for September 30.

See you then!