Please read Disclaimer in Chapter One.

Title: The Book of Cat With Moon, C14: Wet Work

Author: JaganshiKenshin

Genre: General, Suspense

Rating: K+/PG-13

Summary: Demons strike, and before there's time to react, you're dead.

A/N: As always, thanks for reading this; please review!

"What the hell are you doing?"

The Book of Cat With Moon (C14: Wet Work)

by

Kenshin

Without warning, Hiei struck, rattlesnake-quick. The blow sent Kaitou Yuu flying backward and slammed him into the wall.

What the-!

Dazed, sprawled on the floor, Kaitou watched Hiei advance. He looked dangerous, uncontrollable.

Baring his teeth in a wolfish grin, Hiei began to laugh, a sound rich with malice. "That was too easy." He clenched both fists. "And you've had it coming a long time."

With a great murderous leap, becoming a streak of gray too fast to track, Hiei launched himself at Kaitou.

And in a flash of cold rage, Kaitou cast his Territory.

Hiei bore down with sledgehammer force, struck with a bone-shattering crunch. Anticipating pain, Kaitou winced.

The blow never connected.

Meeting a shield far sturdier than the hamster Habitrail in that long-ago movie, Hiei's fist smashed into the shell surrounding Kaitou, and stopped short of Kaitou's jaw.

But Hiei could no more halt his speeding-train momentum than he could re-write the laws of physics. Eyes wide with shock, he sailed past Kaitou and crashed head-first into the wall with an impact that shook the gym.

Then he slid to the floor and lay still.

Hope that broke his damned neck! Kaitou struggled in vain to flee before Hiei could launch another attack, broken neck or no.

Then, Hiei coughed. Rolled over. Got to his feet.

Neck unbroken, quite intact, he swiveled his head until his eyes met Kaitou's.

Kaitou glared back. Though his heart was thumping and he was unable to move, there was the fierce satisfaction of knowing Hiei couldn't lay a finger on him. So that's why Hiei wanted to meet me here? He won't get away with this!

Slowly, Hiei approached until he was standing at Kaitou's feet. Kaitou could not escape. He was trapped.

But Hiei was beaming. Absolutely beaming. As Kaitou gaped at him in disbelief, he extended a hand. "That," Hiei said, "was Lesson One."

WHAT? "Y-you bastard!"

"Technically correct. My parents never married."

Kaitou took a deep, painful breath and sat a moment, collecting himself.

Hiei never spoke of his heritage. And though Kaitou thought of him as a fire demon, Hiei's sister Yukina, eminently sane and polite, was an ice maiden, making Hiei half-fire, half-ice. "You-hitting me to prove a point!-"

"I was running a two-for-one special."

"You bastard," Kaitou repeated.

"You purport to be a writer. Can't you come up with something better than just that?"

Hiei still held out his hand. Disdaining his offer of assistance, Kaitou struggled to his feet.

It was difficult to tell where the blow had been struck: between Hiei's fist and the wall, Kaitou ached all over. Limping to a nearby weight bench, he sat heavily.

Hiei sat next to him and enthusiastically displayed his bloodied knuckles. "You really do have the ultimate shield."

Of all the moods Kaitou expected from Hiei just now, elation was last on the list. "You. Are. Effing. Crazy."

"Yeah, yeah," Hiei said dismissively. "So this'll work on anyone within your Territory?"

Kaitou sighed. "Just ask Kuwabara." Unlike Hiei, Kaitou was somewhat less than elated, and his head felt like it had been caught in a drill press. "I really hate you."

"People will say we're in love."

"You underhanded little-"

"And I completely pulled that first punch," Hiei said, smug. "I know where your wounds were. I know anatomy. Even a putty-ass like you has some shoulder padding."

Padding or no, Kaitou grimaced. "I should withdraw my Territory and pop you in return."

"If you hit me like you hit that bag you might as well buy me a box of chocolates."

"Bastard." Kaitou released his Territory. His head felt somewhat better for it, but he still had those boxing gloves on.

Impatiently watching Kaitou struggle to remove them, Hiei unlaced the gloves. And while he worked, Kaitou realized that he, too, was suddenly elated. For whatever reason, the skirmish with Hiei had freed him.

For years, Kaitou's mind and body had been like a clenched fist. He had gotten so used to the oppression born of going it alone, that when it lifted, he sat back and sighed in blissful relief.

Hiei noticed. "I should hit you more often."

Given the fact that Hiei wasn't actually trying to kill him, Kaitou was not only relieved, but grateful enough to refrain from again pointing out the nature of Hiei's parentage. "But," he murmured, "that doesn't mean I'm signing on to the team."

"And here I thought I mounted such a persuasive argument."

Sitting in the gym with fire and ice at his side, Kaitou strove to explain his position. "About Sensui," he began, choosing his words with care, "I had no choice but to fight. It was an emergency. But I can't assume this vocation in ordinary time the way you-"

"There's nothing ordinary about these times."

"What good is my Territory, really?"

"Ch." Hiei pulled one glove off. "Stopped me, didn't it?"

"What's to prevent the attacker leaving?"

"The Taboo word."

Vivid in Kaitou's memory: Botan and Kuwabara, colorless, frozen like statues. "You think it's all that easy to get an attacker to say the Taboo word? Besides, I can't just rob someone's soul if I lack the skill to return it."

"I'd worry about that after the fact."

"But I repeat: I'm not you."

Hiei started on the second glove. "No fooling. I know how to untie this."

"Genkai said not to use our-"

"Genkai lives off in the mountains."

Kaitou sighed. A small part of him knew that he was using Genkai's words as an excuse. He possessed a skill that would protect him, and never enabled it. Because that would mean-

-declaring himself a combatant.

Even as a child, Kaitou had sensed the growing chaos of the world, his obsession with monster movies being but a symptom of the larger disorder. And he had struggled to impose order on such chaos by means of pride in his intellect, scornful of anything others deemed ordinary, commonplace, mundane.

The only problem with that approach: it didn't work.

"Suppose," Kaitou began, "just as information-gathering, that I was in the park, and some demon's about to devour a little girl. So I cast my Territory. What then? Stay frozen inside until the last trumpet sounds?"

"You hit the panic button and the real firepower arrives."

"Panic button?"

Hiei reached into his pocket, withdrawing what Kaitou had always assumed to be an ordinary cell phone. "This device is linked to a communications net. We all have one."

"You're saying someone would get to the scene? Even if you were in the middle of shooting a video?"

"Like that hasn't happened already."

"I don't know. This is a whole new territory for me."

"Lousy pun." Both gloves were off; Hiei pulled the tape from Kaitou's hands, none too gently.

"Ow! Any lousier than 'Hey, Yuu?'" Kaitou squinted at his reddened hands. Hiei's looked worse.

"Hey, Yuu-if you'd cast your Territory on the roof, you wouldn't have those cuts all over."

Hiei was right, and Kaitou knew it. Cold and stiff, he pried himself off the bench. Moving forward hurt, but it was better than sitting still.

If only this iron dungeon would warm up.

When he had walked some six paces he stopped. "Hiei-" Now was the time for that crucial question, or it would remain forever unspoken, another victim of his fear.

Hiei remained on the bench; Kaitou lacked the nerve to face him. "I need to ask you something."

"No. You can't have my autograph."

Kaitou gave a half-hearted grin. "What you said on the roof, about how you always show up whenever my ass needs saving."

"Don't thank me, just throw money."

"How'd you know Frog-face was after me? For that matter, Hiroshi?" At last he turned to regard Hiei.

Hiei tapped his headband. "Kept an eye on you."

"Kind of coincidental, don't you think? And that guy Issei, that special agent. You knew him from before."

Hiei wadded the tape into a ball, then let it drop.

"Years ago, in the park, you cut up a demon that thought I was dinner." Kaitou took a deep breath. "Why?"

"I kill people and break things. Kind of a hobby."

A gym door opened, flooding the room with thin gray light. A man in his 20s stepped in. He was about the same height as Hiei, but twice as broad, with a head round as a cannonball and just as smooth. He waddled toward the rack of dumbbells.

Hiei looked at him. The musclebound man caught his gaze, turned on a dime, and waddled back out.

"You know what I mean," Kaitou said. "Why did you keep coming after me, time after time, until I finally showed up for Bad Movie Night? Not to stop me bashing Romantic Soldier."

"Actually it was to stop you bashing Romantic Soldier."

"No. Really."

"Really. Sometimes I cry myself to sleep at night. Shay-san doesn't even wait until night."

"Hiei," Kaitou warned. "I did my homework. This meddling in someone else's affairs, it's not really your style."

"You're a style pundit now?"

"You work with Special Agent Ueda Issei. And others."

"Very good. Did you learn to tie your shoelaces as well?"

"Your job is to kill demons. But you also do protection."

"Who told you?" Hiei toed the wad of tape aside.

"You-just now."

While Kaitou counted the seconds, Hiei looked up, measuring him. "It's true," he said.

Kaitou turned away. He had merely suspected this before, but the words sank to the pit of his belly like a stone.

He had indeed done his homework. Everyone had unexpected depths; his mother demonstrated that. But among other surprises, Hiei possessed an expert eye for art; that icon of St. Francis de Sales, it turned out, was a valuable piece. Once Kaitou lost his initial fear, Hiei's company was enjoyable. Even flattering.

And, as with the arm candy Kaitou himself had once squired around town, it was nothing more than a job.

Maybe he should feel flattered to warrant his own security detail, but the pain was worse than the blow to his shoulder.

He had come to say good-bye. Yet now, he was paradoxically disappointed, and strove to hide it. "So you do protection," Kaitou echoed, as though repeating it would remove the sting. Why react with such childishness? A business deal is a business deal. I'm alive. Get over it and grow up.

Then Hiei spoke so softly that Kaitou strained to hear the familiar words: "You're dead, Kaitou."

Approaching the bench again, Kaitou studied Hiei, but his face revealed nothing. "And that matters because...?"

Hiei jumped up, sped to the heavy bag and struck it again. Hurrying after him, Kaitou grabbed the bag as Hiei hammered it, his knuckles leaving a red calligraphy on the gray leather.

"Well?" Kaitou pressed. "Why?"

"Search-me." Hiei spoke in rhythm to his blows. "Because -it's-really-beginning to lose-its luster." With one last blow he stopped, then returned to the weight bench to scoop the wadded tape from the floor. He tossed it in a trash can and slung the boxing gloves over his shoulder in a single movement.

The heating pipes ticked, reluctantly squeezing a handful of warmth into the gym.

"During the Sensui battle," Hiei went on, "I was laid up. You were deemed of value. The agencies I work for later sent me to keep track of you."

"You already said that. I meant-"

"But no one does protection for five years straight," Hiei interrupted. "The job took on a life of its own." He returned, keeping the heavy bag between them like a shield. "And... maybe you reminded me of me."

"Hiei-"

"Of course I was never so pathetic," Hiei said quickly.

"Of course." Kaitou waited.

"Outsiders. Both of us." Hiei studied the floor. "In my case, a killer."

"Not any more."

"You just haven't been paying attention."

"No murderer," Kaitou insisted. The power of Hiei's words, he realized, had set Frog-face up for a confession; that bad-cop routine had never been mere cruelty.

"Maybe you're right." Switching moods like lightning, Hiei laughed. "We're alike in one other way as well: neither wants to get involved."

"Yet here you are, trying to sign me up."

"Yeah. It's a rule. Urameshi changed me. Even the idiot, who did the right thing no matter what. At the Dark Tournament, for the first time, someone had my back."

And now you have mine?

"In the park, what I did to that low-class demon-"

"It was like watching a film with a jump-cut. I never saw you move, then the monster fell into pieces like a pot roast."

"And I was two steps from Death's front porch. Let's just say a year previous, a helicopter blew up with me hanging from its skids. Broke my spine in two places."

"So I've heard."

"Then you should realize a dislocated shoulder and some other injuries not worth mention wouldn't even slow me down."

This startled Kaitou. "But-on the roof, you-"

"Had a hard time of it?" Hiei gave a derisive snort. "I was never out to kill Hiroshi. He'd be dead before his first wisecrack. I was out to protect you and defeat him."

The filthy practice bag was probably marching armies of bacteria into Kaitou's pores. He released it to muster another argument. "So I'm a target. But what about my parents? Miss Michiko, and her boy Shinta. By what right do I endanger them?"

"None." Hiei's gaze was eagle-fierce. "But the instant your Ability formed, that target got taped to your back. Deny it, hide from it, move to another country, the target remains."

"Is this your idea of a signing bonus?"

"And it's up to you to decide how comfortable you are, lying to that Miss Michiko about the cuts on your face."

"I was getting to that."

"Blame me if you like," Hiei said magnanimously. "Say I popped you one, rubbed your face in the ground."

"I said I tripped over my own feet, staring at the moon."

"She didn't buy it."

"Lucky guess."

"Good. You don't want a stupid woman."

The door cracked open again. When Kaitou turned to see if Cannonball Head was back, his gaze brushed the grimy window set high in the wall.

Pressed against the other side of the glass, its copper eyes seeking his, was the dandelion cat.

(To be concluded: Heralds and portents - can Kaitou decipher their meaning?)

-30-