Eventually, Hiei's brain started working again. "I am sorry. I mistook your sister for someone else. I did not mean to attack either of you."
"It's OK, Missy. He's just one of Lady Kharistahl's silly dupes." She spoke soothingly to her sister while glaring at Hiei over her head.
"B-b-but Faith, he attacked me the other night, too. I recognized him. He's the one that knocked me down and made me skin my knee and tear my favorite dress." Her head came up and her eyes, tearfilled and confused, stared into his. "Did you mistake me for someone else then, too?" She accused.
"Unfortunately, Kharistahl has chosen to drop you in my path when I am both angry and in a hurry. Again, I apologize. For frightening you. Both then and now. I would like you to know, however, I would never harm an innocent child like yourself intentionally."
"Hmph. As if we haven't heard that before. From nobler and gentler men than yourself. Usually just before they threw themselves on her swearing they couldn't live without her." Faith was still glaring at Hiei and her gaze had taken on a slightly scarlet hue that was most distracting. Hiei was caught by it for a moment before his Jagan opened and glared back at her.
"Nice try, whatever you are, but I am relatively immune to those types of compulsions. There are only a few ways to get me to do something that is not exactly what I want to and that's not one of them." Hiei's contemptuous dismissal did not seem to upset the girl, but she murmured something to her sister and sent her scurrying into the house.
"My name is Faith. My sister is Missy. And you are...?"
"Getting very tired of these games of Kharistahl's. I am Hiei. I believe you were referred to as 'interesting and more difficult to control' by your Lady Kharistahl. And I begin to see why."
"Hiei...now where have I heard...-" Her eyes widened for a moment and then narrowed to slits. "You're here to take Missy away from me!" Her body tensed and her hands curled into claws. Her fingers even seemed to sharpen to talons. "You can't have her. I have not protected her for over 100 years to see her handed off to some stupid demon as a pacifier until Kharistahl has everything under her control!"
Hiei caught a glimpse of blood-red eyes and fangs as he dodged the girl's first attack. Whatever she was, she was fast and-as he caught a glancing blow to the side that he rolled with to reduce the impact-strong. Rather than counter-attacking, Hiei concentrated on keeping himself in one piece till her insane fury dissipated. A few minutes later, as he was becoming winded and she seemed to not be fazed at all, that idea was tossed out in favor of simply leaving the area. Fleeing, as it were. Backing away, he found the way blocked by a stone wall.
"Oh no. Lady Kharistahl has said that if I can eliminate you, Missy will be spared and we will both be freed from her service. Prepare to die, demon!" Hiei waited until the very last instant before she reached him, and then dodged out of her path. He stepped behind her and neatly pinned her to the wall with his body. Faith struggled a few seconds. Having no leverage and darned little range of movement, she finally stilled.
"What did Kharistahl say would happen if you did NOT eliminate me?"
With a sigh that sounded at least half sob, Faith went limp against the wall. "She said you would become one of her consort's high lieutenants and that Missy would be given to you as a plaything. Missy is a true innocent, and the thought of what could happen to her then..."
Hiei released the girl with a sigh of his own. He waited till she turned to face him before speaking. "Faith, I have no interest in your sister. Or any human for that matter. I am just trying to keep my friend Kurama from being forced into something that can only end with all of us being killed. Or Kharistahl in charge of the waking world. Or both. Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse, but if Kurama decides he needs to go along with her, so will I. We're partners, he and I, and would do almost anything for each other. Kind of like you and your sister."
"Then why do you keep attacking Missy?"
"I'm not really attacking Missy. My friend Kurama has a girlfriend who is a blond and is also being possessed by a minion of Kharistahl's which I have been trying to eliminate. Kharistahl keeps dumping me into nightmares where I am pursuing the girlfriend to avenge some damage she has done to Kurama. I go racing off through the mist like an idiot and wind up on top of a girl I think is her. I flip her over and it is Missy."
"Oh." Faith studied him consideringly. "So Lady Kharistahl wanted me to try to eliminate you so she could have her minion keep its grip on this Kurama person's girlfriend to make him-Wait a minute. Kurama? As in Youko Kurama? As in the last piece Lady Kharistahl needed in her puzzle to achieve domination over the world? Her intended consort?"
"Ummm...yeah."
"But he's dead. Almost twenty years now. How could...?"
"Reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. Anyway, where have you been the last 5 years? Since he was revealed in the Dark Tournament and the Makai tournament I didn't think anyone was unaware of his return."
"Missy and I are in the human world. Lady Kharistahl says we have to keep Missy here so she can retain her 'air of innocence' and it is easier for me to guard her here where people mostly don't believe in vampires."
"Vampire. Perfect. And Missy is...?"
"Asleep. Perfectly preserved, but in an enchanted sleep. Lady Kharistahl never explained HOW she was going to keep Missy from aging for the 100 years that I was to work for her. I suppose I should have asked." Faith looked faintly disgruntled for a moment, then her attention fastened back on Hiei. "Just because my time working for Kharistahl is nearly up doesn't mean you get a free shot at my sister, though. I'm still going to protect her for the rest of her life."
"I suppose Kharistahl wants you to get rid of me so she can have a clear shot at Kurama," Hiei muttered, half aloud.
"Don't know. Don't care. She just said that if I don't get rid of you, she is going to give Missy to you for a plaything, and that I cannot allow."
"And if I told you I don't have any use for a human girl, especially one so..." Hiei shuddered briefly as he searched for the appropriate word. "Innocent." The weight of disgust in his voice left Faith with no doubts about his sincerity.
"Is there something wrong with my sister being innocent?" Faith's eyes started to glow, again. Hiei sighed as the girl prepared to charge him again. Obviously, he was going to have to find a way to stop her or convince her he was sincere. Neither thought particularly appealed.
Hiei virtually vanished before Faith's eyes. He reappeared just to the left of directly behind her. Before she could react, he had his left arm wrapped around her waist, pinning both her arms. "I will tell you once again. I have no interest in your sister. Nor do I care one way or the other about her innocence. Or lack thereof." The last comment made Faith growl and squirm harder to get loose. He squeezed her one more time until she stopped. Then he set her back on her feet facing away from him. By the time she spun around, he was behind her again.
"I can keep this up all day," Hiei said from behind her. As she spun toward the sound of his voice, she glimpsed a lightening of the horizon. She ignored it. "All right, maybe day was a bad choice of words." He vanished from below her claws and reappeared on the far side of the clearing. Next to the door of the cabin.
"I don't want to have to hurt you, Faith." He dodged seemingly effortlessly to the side as she dove for him. Leaning his back against the door in a show of bravado, he seemed to be examining his nails. "Perhaps we should invite Missy to play, too." Faith growled and started toward him just as the door he was leaning on was flung inward.
Hiei was only off-balance for an instant, but that was just long enough to see the cast-iron skillet that slammed into the side of his head and sent him flying. He seemed bonelessly unable to move as Faith complimented her sister. Someone really needed to remind Kharistahl that nightmares are not supposed to feel so real. Or at least, they're not supposed to hurt so much.
"Nicely done, Missy. You're getting really good with that thing."
"Yes. If only I could cook with it, too."
"Hey, you can't have everything."
"That's true, I guess." Missy looked at the slight dent on the underside of the skillet and then toward where a corresponding lump was forming on Hiei's head. "Are you going to get rid of him before he gets back up?"
"Have you forgotten that this is another of Lady Kharistahl's nightmares? I can't actually DO anything to him here. But Lady Kharistahl did say that he and his friend are currently living in the Human World. They shouldn't be too hard to find. That way I can eliminate this one and Lady Kharistahl gets her desired consort and we get our freedom."
Hiei dragged in a ragged breath and levered himself into a sitting position. "You do realize that I am right here and can hear every word of your plans."
Faith walked over and wrapped her fist into his spiked hair, using it as a lever to lift him to his feet and steer him into the cabin, where she planted him none too gently in a chair. "I don't care what you hear, because you are going to give me your location in the Human World and Lady Kharistahl will keep your consciousness here while I go there and get rid of you. She promised that once I accomplished that, she would release Missy from her spell and we can be free."
"And you believed that? I thought you said you had worked for Kharistahl for a hundred years. After seeing her work for that long, you are going to take her word on something that will lose her two of her favorite play-toys? You must be dumber than you look." Hiei let his head roll with the punch, but it still hurt. Maybe he should try expressing himself a little less clearly. Not that that would be hard. The wench might have broken his jaw.
Faith looked over Hiei's shoulder and he followed her glance to where Missy stood threateningly holding her skillet aloft. "Just sit still and give me the information I want. Then I'll go and eliminate you as painlessly as possible."
"Right. And you expected that to work because...?" Hiei was starting to recover and was seeing no more than six of the girls.
"You have no choice. You tell me now and I will handle things quickly and painlessly, or my sister does a tap-dance on your head with her skillet till you give me the information and I will make it feel like nothing you could ever get in the Nightmare Realm."
Hiei was about to retort again when he realized that he had quite literally sunk INTO the chair and was now completely immobile. He pulled surreptitiously at his arms and was rewarded with no more than a fraction of an inch of slack. He wasn't going anywhere. So he relaxed into the chair.
"It'll never work, you know." He was trying his best to look relaxed and calm, but he was also searching frantically for a way out.
"And why would that be?" Faith stared at him a moment while Missy went over to the stove and put the skillet down.
"Because your Lady Kharistahl can't get Kurama out of where his physical body is without me. Alive and undamaged." Hiei smiled slightly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I am the only one who knows exactly where I have him stashed and how to open the locks and release him without flooding the chamber and killing him in the process. You kill me and her 'Chosen Consort' will either die of starvation or, if someone actually figures out his location, drown when they miss a single tiny step opening the cell. Either way, she loses. And now that you've made her intentions clear to me, I don't know that it isn't safer for all of us to leave him right where he is."
The two girls stepped away from Hiei and held a hurried conference, taking turn glaring at him from time to time. Finally Faith stepped forward. "I have to go find out what Kharistahl wants to do about this information. Missy will stay here and keep an eye on you. You aren't going anywhere, but just in case, she will keep the skillet handy. I'll be back soon." She looked at her sister, who just nodded to her, and then left.
Hiei watched the nervous Missy putter around a bit. Then he returned to trying to find a way out of the chair and this predicament.