Chapter Twelve
Téa stared in disbelief as the door flew open, banging against the opposite wall. "Kaiba?!"
"You are so going to get in trouble," Tristan frowned.
"So is Scarlet, if she's involved in this!" Seto retorted. "And if she's not, maybe she's laying hurt in here!" He stepped into the entryway.
"Kaiba . . ." Atem took one step in the doorway and froze. The Infinity Puzzle was flashing worryingly. "Something is very wrong in here. I can feel the presence of evil."
Yami Bakura growled. "Yes, in here there is no mistake. It isn't just a memory; I sense it as well."
"So what does that mean, exactly?" Joey gulped.
"I don't know," Atem admitted. "I can't get a clear reading on it. I only know that Scarlet or someone else in this house has been doing something very bad."
Mokuba moved closer to Seto. "I don't like this. . . ."
Seto growled. He wasn't sure where Mokuba would be safer. Leaving him outside right after a drive-by shooting seemed preposterous, however, so he preferred keeping Mokuba with him despite the possibly disturbing house.
"Don't wander off," he ordered.
"Oh, don't worry, I won't," Mokuba exclaimed.
Several people went in the house to look around, while others stayed outside. Marik and Ishizu tended to Rishid in the limousine, still badly shaken over the shooting.
"It's strange that no one has called the police," Ishizu noted.
"The whole street is in darkness," Marik frowned. "Maybe no one is home tonight."
"That is just as well," Rishid said, grimacing again from the pain as Ishizu cleaned the wound. "Although we may need to call the police ourselves."
"Yes," Ishizu sighed. "We may."
The search of the house proved fruitless. Scarlet was definitely not home, nor was anyone else. Seto was quite sure she lived alone, anyway. There was nothing to indicate that she was in any way responsible for the pain and misery being heaped upon people Seto knew and some that he cared about, but he was still suspicious and still furious.
He recognized the cold feeling in the house as well. It was hate, it was anger, and it was vengeance. That alone made him think Scarlet could be mixed up in this; the feeling was too strong to pass off as imagination. And yet, something about it made him feel that he was still missing a piece of the puzzle. Scarlet herself surely didn't have feelings that ran this deep; he couldn't believe he wouldn't have sensed it when being around her. It was someone else who hated this much. Someone . . .
"Kaiba?"
He started and came back to the present at Téa's voice. She was standing in front of him, regarding him in concern. "What?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yes." Seto quickly walked past her. "There's nothing to see here. We should go."
"What are you gonna do about her door, big brother?" Mokuba asked.
"I'm going to write her a note and tell her to contact me as soon as she gets in," Seto replied. "I'll put it on the door."
"But it won't even shut the right way now," Téa objected.
"I'll also have Roland come out here and watch for anyone trying to go in," Seto said. "If burglars try to walk in before Scarlet comes back, he'll be here to see about it. More importantly, maybe he can find us some clues to what's going on here."
"What if Scarlet really isn't responsible for any of this?" Mokuba said. "What if she's even a victim? What if she's been kidnapped or something?"
"I don't know why she would be," Seto returned. "She's always been loyal, as far as we know."
Of course, what if there was something they didn't know? He frowned. He couldn't think of any reason why she would hate him. Then again, his enemies sometimes came up with the most bizarre reasons for it. And there was that dark feeling in her house, although there was nothing to indicate it was directed at him. If she was a part of this, she must be using the avenging angel tactic and want to get at Seto's enemies, not Seto himself.
Not that that made this any less disturbing. Seto was growing more and more angry that someone was taking it upon themselves to do this. If they thought they were doing him a favor, they were dead wrong. And since Mokuba had been attacked that morning, he wasn't even sure he believed the avenging angel slant. It seemed more likely to him that whoever it was wanted the plans for Gozaburo's real-life Satellite Cannon and whatever was in the strongbox. All of the attacks could be a distraction, a smokescreen.
"I was hoping all of this might get solved tonight," Crump moaned.
"We all were," Lector said. "Now it looks like we'll have to go to that hotel."
Seto clenched his teeth in frustration. "We'll all have to go to our homes, it looks like. Unless something else goes wrong, nothing further is getting solved tonight."
When they went outside, Duke presented Seto with the three bullets. "They were pretty easy to find in the snow," he said. "I thought you might want these to try tracing the gun."
Seto nodded in approval. "I'll get on that. . . . Thanks." He headed for the limousine, as did Mokuba.
"How's Rishid?!" Mokuba immediately asked Marik.
"He's alright," Marik said in relief. "It really did just graze him. But it could have been so much worse, and still could be if we're attacked again."
Ishizu nodded. "Somehow we have to solve this, and soon!"
"Hopefully Scarlet will be at work tomorrow," Seto said.
xxxx
"Lector! You have to get up! You have to . . ."
"He's not breathing, Nesbitt! You killed him!"
"No, he's not dead!" Nesbitt snarled, pushing Crump away and bending over Lector in desperation. But all of his attempts at CPR and artificial respiration failed. He stumbled to his feet, shaking, his eyes haunted.
"Nesbitt, you weren't in control," Johnson tried to say.
"That doesn't matter!" Nesbitt screamed. "Crump is right; I killed him! Satellite Cannon, strike me down as well!"
"What?!" Crump struggled up. "You're crazy, Nesbitt! Lector would never want you to kill yourself over it!"
"And neither do we!" Gansley exclaimed. "Isn't it bad enough to lose one?!"
But it was too late to stop it. The Satellite Cannon's beam cut through the clouds while Nesbitt simply stood and stared up at it, waiting for death. Then it hit and it was all over. He collapsed into the snow next to Lector.
Crump fell out of bed with a heavy thud. He started awake, breathing heavily, trying to adjust to the darkened room. After a moment he muttered to himself and started trying to untangle himself from the blankets.
That was the first chance he'd had to sleep since what had happened in the afternoon. He had known he would have nightmares, but he hadn't expected them to be quite like that.
He shuddered. Was that what Lector was going through every night? He didn't think he could take it, if so. Nesbitt was probably having a rotten time of it tonight too.
The only upside was that at least they didn't have to worry about being murdered in their sleep. They had taken a hotel suite with multiple bedrooms and none of their servants knew where they were. At least . . . they hoped their servants didn't know.
He pulled himself up, sitting on the edge of the bed. Why would he have had a dream quite like that? Deep down, was he upset with Nesbitt, even though Nesbitt hadn't been under his own power when he had attacked? Or did he just fear what Nesbitt might have done if Lector had been dead?
Yeah . . . that was surely it. He wasn't angry with Nesbitt; he was just horrified by the day's events and everything that could have happened.
He sighed and looked over at Gansley in the room's other bed. Gansley seemed to be soundly asleep, but that wasn't a surprise. Gansley was the deepest sleeper of the group. Not even Crump falling out of bed right next to him had roused him.
Crump got up, shuffling into the living room. Nesbitt has chosen the daybed, out of shame or guilt or just plain being introverted and not wanting to share one of the suite's two bedrooms. He seemed to be completely asleep as well, somewhat to Crump's surprise.
The drapes blowing about gave him a start. The sliding door onto the balcony was cracked open; Johnson was leaning against the railing, wide awake and clearly troubled.
Crump stared in further surprise. Out of all of them, he had expected that the least. He grabbed his coat off a chair and went out to join him, pulling the door completely shut after him.
"You're gonna give Nesbitt pneumonia, leaving the door open like that," he scolded. "And probably catch it yourself."
Johnson shrugged. "I just barely came out here. I wasn't going to stay long."
"And what if we get found here, huh? They'd try to knock you off the balcony!"
Johnson turned to look at Crump, leaning on the railing with one elbow. "We're not going to be found by our servants here, Crump, and we all know it," he said. "Do you want to know the real reason we decided to all crowd into the hotel's Grand Suite? Because we're scared. We don't want to be alone."
Crump looked away. Out of all of them, Lector and Johnson were the most likely to be blunt about the group's feelings.
"No point in being scared if we're safe here," Crump muttered.
"We couldn't be any closer tonight unless we'd taken a smaller suite that only had one bed per room. But after that disastrous night during the business conference in San Francisco, I'm quite sure none of us will ever be that desperate."
Now Crump flushed. Everyone had been in town that weekend, forcing them to take the only room left and crowd into two beds and the daybed. Johnson had learned the hard way that Crump liked to hug things in his sleep. All that night, Crump had preferred to hold onto Johnson instead of the pillow or the quilt or the edge of the mattress. Meanwhile, Lector had fallen out of bed trying to share it with Nesbitt. Lector had mistakenly believed it would be easier to share a bed with the smaller-framed Nesbitt rather than the heavy Gansley, but Nesbitt was used to being the only person in the bed and had tried to claim the entire thing in his sleep. Gansley, having known sharing would be a disaster, had wisely claimed the daybed.
"Okay, so we wanted to stay together tonight. So what?" Crump finally said.
Johnson looked out at the city. "Even if our servants can't get at us here, we're probably not safe from the magical madman who hurt Nesbitt and Lector. He could show up here at any time. Even if there's nothing we can do against him, we like to fool ourselves into thinking we might have a chance if we're all together."
Crump didn't want to admit that was true. "But . . . if we don't have a chance when we're all together . . . what hope is there?" he said softly.
From Johnson's eyes, he didn't have an answer. And he was just as terrified that they weren't really safe from Yami Marik as Crump was, if not more.
". . . So, why did you wake up?" he finally chose to ask.
Crump sighed. "Bad dream," he admitted. "Lector was dead and Nesbitt killed himself out of guilt and grief. . . . You?"
Johnson adjusted his glasses and looked away. "Just thinking. . . . Trying to be logical about all this."
"You woke up to be logical?" Crump looked doubtful.
"Well, why not? Someone here has to be." Johnson smirked.
Crump scowled. Johnson was trying to switch to full-blown obnoxious mode. He probably hoped Crump hadn't seen that look in his eyes a moment ago.
"Hey, come on," he said. "I know you're hurting too. Why deny it?"
Johnson wouldn't face him. "Because if I break . . . I don't know if I'll be able to pull myself together again," he whispered. He slumped forward, gripping the railing. Crump's simple question had seemed to be the key that unlocked the desperate hold Johnson had over his emotions.
Crump stared at him in surprise. "You, Johnson? But you always have it together!"
"Sure I do in court," Johnson said. "But not when things start going wrong. I crumble so easily then. I say things I don't mean . . . I don't care if I hurt people I care about. . . . When we laughed and encouraged Khu to put Lector in the darkness, and then we thought he was gone, I . . ." He shook his head.
"I remember how shook you were about that," Crump said. "I was too. It was Gansley who tried to act like he didn't care then."
"And today. . . . I just calmly told Nesbitt Lector was breathing. . . . I thought he was, but then I wasn't sure. Maybe I was only seeing what I wanted to see. I didn't know for sure until he woke up. Nesbitt completely fell apart, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was frozen. But I wanted to scream . . . cry . . . something. . . ." From Johnson's wavering voice, he sounded like he was at the point of crying right then.
"Hey, it's okay," Crump said soothingly, drawing an arm around Johnson's shoulders.
"I just don't know how much more I can take," Johnson choked out. "Everything that went wrong when we tried to take over KaibaCorp, and everything that's gone wrong since. . . . And even now that we're finally back in our bodies, things are still going wrong. Everyone wants us either tortured or dead—some nutcase, a mad scientist, our servants . . . ! I always believed the end justifies the means, or at least, I made myself believe it. I told myself I wasn't doing anything wrong, that none of us were. But it's obvious that we're all being punished for what we've done, by God, Karma, whatever you want to believe dishes out such punishment. And Lector was never as bad as we were and he wanted to change before we were willing to try, but he's being put through so much of what's going wrong! Why? It should be me!" He hit the railing with the palm of one hand. "Don't you understand that, Crump?! It should be me!" He pulled away from Crump and leaned forward on the railing, digging both hands into his hair.
Crump just stared at him, at a complete loss to deal with the pent-up anguish of the formerly crooked lawyer. He had wanted, encouraged Johnson to open up to him, but he had never expected this.
"You want to know why I woke up, Crump? Because I was dreaming that all of you were laying dead at my feet. I cheated all through my life, and somehow I'd cheated again and managed to stay alive while everyone else suffered. I'm the only one who managed to escape a death plot so far. Who knows what will happen when you're targeted! You'll probably be hurt too."
"I had no idea you were hurting so much," Crump said at last. "But it's not true that you escaped. Okay, sure, you didn't get beaned by that runaway cart. With you, everything happening to the rest of us is getting you right in the heart, especially since you think you should be suffering instead of us. Maybe you're the one who's hurting the most of any of us."
Johnson was silent for a moment. "That's an interesting argument."
"I think about more than numbers and penguins and pretty girls," Crump said.
Johnson stayed on the balcony for several more minutes, gathering his composure. Finally he turned back to face his friend. He was calm and collected again, the smooth-talking lawyer Crump recognized. "We should go inside before both of us catch pneumonia."
"Not me," Crump said as Johnson opened the door. "I love the cold, remember? I don't have to be a giant penguin to appreciate that."
"Hmm." Johnson smirked and stepped back into the living room. Crump followed him, pulling the door shut behind him.
Nesbitt was still asleep. As usual, he had sprawled across the entire bed and was even hanging somewhat off of it.
"I can't believe he's really staying asleep," Crump remarked.
"He looks calm, but don't believe it for a moment," Johnson replied. He headed for the room he was sharing with Lector, but paused and looked back. "Crump . . . thank you."
"Sure," Crump said with a surprised blink.
"Of course, I'll probably deny we ever had this conversation if you bring it up again." And Johnson vanished into his room.
Crump sighed. Johnson probably would at that. But while Crump might have calmed him for the moment, he was sure that that much pain would not fade so easily. Johnson would have to really deal with it eventually.
Crump slipped into the room he was sharing with Gansley. Their leader was still apparently asleep as well, currently unbothered by the cares and sorrows that they were dealing with, but was he really? Johnson had been hiding so much. What kind of pain were the others carrying deep down?
Slowly Crump swung his legs onto the bed and burrowed into the quilt. It was only then that he realized he still hadn't removed his coat.
xxxx
Seto took a long time to even feel like going to sleep, despite the neverending day. He spent a while going over the print-out again, trying to place any other possible suspects, but in the end he kept coming back to the idea that Red Hand referred to Scott Irvine and was probably a cruel set-up by someone to pin blame on him when he hadn't done anything wrong.
Could Scarlet really be responsible? He had been so outraged at the drive-by shooting against Yami Bakura and the Ishtar brothers that he had burst into Scarlet's home to demand answers, only to find none. She was still missing; he hadn't heard back from Roland yet.
And what about Hobson? Where on Earth was he and why had he left at all? Had he been abducted? The last anyone had seen of him had been when he had literally vanished into thin air while Yami Bakura was grabbing him.
At least Duke had recovered those bullets. Seto had taken them downstairs and had his master computer analyze them. To his frustration, they were from an unregistered gun. These people were professionals.
Finally he got up and headed for the stairs. Even he had to sleep, and he was at last ready to acknowledge it. He started unbuttoning his shirt as he went up.
He hadn't expected to find Mokuba standing in the hall outside his room, and yet somehow it wasn't fully a surprise. "What are you still doing up?" he asked.
"What are you?" Mokuba returned.
Seto grunted and went into his room, leaving the door open for Mokuba to follow. The younger boy did so, shutting the door after him.
"I was asleep, Seto," he quietly admitted. "I had a dream that Gozaburo came out of his bedroom and wanted to take over the house and KaibaCorp again and he was trying to kill you. . . ." Tears pricked his eyes.
Seto growled. "We never should have had to go in that room again."
"It was awful in there," Mokuba agreed. "But it must have been even worse for you. . . ."
Seto looked away and took off his blue coat, draping it on a chair. "It wasn't pleasant." He clenched his teeth. The only times he had been in Gozaburo's room had been during some of the man's abusive sessions. Mokuba still didn't know everything Gozaburo had done, and Seto wanted it to stay that way. Mokuba needed to remain innocent for as long as he possibly could.
"I wish you'd talk to me more, Seto," Mokuba pleaded. "I know you don't want to tell me a lot of upsetting stuff, but I really want to help. . . ."
"What helps me the most is knowing that you don't know everything about what's happened," Seto replied. He took up his pajamas and vanished into the bathroom to change. He didn't care if Mokuba saw him, except for one important thing—he didn't want his brother to see the scars he still carried from the times Gozaburo had been physically abusive. Hobson had carried that blasted riding whip, but he had never used it. Gozaburo had saved that pleasure for himself. As far as Seto knew, Mokuba still didn't know about those times. He would never tell him if he could avoid it.
His hands shook. Going into that room tonight really had brought Gozaburo very close again. He could still feel what he had felt in there. He never would fully escape his stepfather's shadow, would he?
Steeling himself, he finished and went back into the bedroom. Mokuba was still there. He shifted, embarrassed but awkwardly hopeful. "Seto . . . can I stay with you tonight?"
Seto found he wasn't really surprised by the request. "Sure." He dimmed the lights and climbed into bed. Grateful, Mokuba crawled in with him.
"We haven't done this in a long time."
Seto smiled a bit. They hadn't, but now it almost felt like no time had passed at all. He closed his eyes and soon was dozing, in spite of thinking there was no hope for sleep. Mokuba had performed another little miracle.
xxxx
Duke lay awake come morning, just staring at his ceiling. He wasn't really sure he had slept much, if at all. He was still thinking about last night, or more specifically, the shooting. He had been okay at the time, or he had thought so, anyway—but ever since coming home by himself, the memories had been plaguing him. Trying to solve a mystery without calling the police, getting in over his head . . . a shooting. . . .
He rolled over in bed, trembling. One could never easily forget traumatic events unless they deliberately blocked them out, and he had never mastered the art of doing that. He remembered running into that hotel room so clearly . . . finding David fatally shot on the floor . . . being protected by him one final time as he died. . . .
He sat up. He wasn't going to let something like that happen again. He had felt it was Seto's and the Big Five's decision to call the police, but things were getting more and more dangerous. It was obviously only going to get worse. Maybe, since by now he was convinced of the identity of at least one police officer who was trustworthy, he should go to her himself and tell her everything that had been happening.
He cringed. He and Seto might get in trouble for taking the bullets. Still, he couldn't let that stop him.
Only . . .
He hesitated again. How would he explain supernatural things like mind-control? Could he bluff and mention Dr. Portman's likely involvement and say people had been drugged instead? His own mystery, the one that had killed David, had been devoid of supernatural elements, but this case was rife with them.
"Oh, ugh." He leaned forward, massaging his eyes. What they really needed was some kind of supernatural policemen, and there wasn't such a thing . . . was there?
Slowly he looked up. Could that possibly be what Atem and Yami Bakura were being groomed to be? The Millennium Items had been forged of evil and had been objects of darkness, but the Infinity Items had apparently been forged of righteousness and could only be objects of light. Atem and Yami Bakura were still trying to figure out all of their Items' intricacies, but Shadi likely knew all. He said he had been tasked with being the guardian of the Infinity Items, and he owned one himself, one that restored life if certain conditions were met.
"Shadi, we could really use you here right now," Duke muttered aloud. "I don't think you ever showed up to tell Atem about his priest Seto and Khu, either. Why are you always so hard to find when we need you?"
"Sometimes you do not need me as much as you think," came a voice from nowhere.
Duke jumped a mile and wildly looked around. No one was visibly there.
"You already have everything you need to solve this mystery," Shadi continued. "You just have to align the puzzle pieces correctly and the solution will be there."
"Me personally, or everyone in the group?" Duke retorted.
"All of you together, but perhaps especially Seto Kaiba and Démas Lector. They already know the truth, although they do not know that they know it."
"Well, that's helpful," Duke snorted. "Am I supposed to go tell them that?"
Now there was no reply. Muttering further to himself, Duke got off the bed and headed for the telephone. It sounded like today would be a weird day.
