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Chapter 20

(A.N.) I'm sorry it took me so long to update! School and writer's block has been preventing me from writing. Thanks to everyone who reviewed (all five of you...) and to my wonderful beta/muse, Serpent of Slytherin. And without any further ado, here's the chapter!

I'm pretty sure that these cliffs are haunted, and I don't say that lightly. There was something infinitely lonely about the place. The way that the wind whistled its eerie tune, the way the sound of the crashing waves seemed to steal away our words. Even the very stone was cold and ghostly, holding not even the slightest happy impression in them. All I could feel from the cliffs was pain. A screaming, never ending pain that was tearing my heart to pieces. I didn't know if the pain belonged to the victims or to the killer. The two agonies were so intermingled that it was hard to differentiate between them.

Slowly, the sun was just beginning to set, gilding the stone, police officers, and cruisers in gold. We'd been at this all day. Every available officer was searching. I'd been able to narrow down this stretch of cliff for the searchers, but nothing had been found yet. No hidden doors, no drag trails, no foot prints. It was unnatural. This close to a town, you would think that the cliffs would show some sign of human taint. But it didn't. It was just Nature, strong and silent to my ears.

I was staying as far from the cliff edge as I could possibly get myself while still being useful to the searchers who were repelling down the rocky side. Needless to say, I experienced severe bouts of vertigo when I got too close to the damn edge. It was days like this that I sincerely hated my phobia.

The seconds ticked by with no discoveries in sight. Hiwatari was farther down the way, barking orders to other teams on his cell phone. I haven't the faintest clue what he was saying, but it wasn't happy or triumphant. The other teams weren't finding anything good either. God help us.

Or rather, God help Miyo. She's the one who'll need it if we can't get to her before night falls and Hikari Shoji returns to her. I had a bad feeling that the guards Hiwatari had posted inside the exhibit at the museum were going to do jack shit against this monster. How do humans stand against stone?

Easy answer: they can't.

Equipping them with some high powered firearms was the best I could suggest, hoping that we found Miyo before the Hikari woke up (or whatever exactly happens to him that makes him not stone anymore).

Wearily, I signaled Hiwatari with a wave, jogging over to him. He flicked his cell closed. "Nothing, huh?" I asked softly, leaning towards him. Didn't want to ruin the tiny bit of morale left in our officers.

"Nothing," he confirmed. He rubbed a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. Straitening his glasses, he looked at me for a moment in silence then asked, "Are you getting anything out of this place?"

I shook my head. "I wish. All that's here is pain, Hiwatari. It hurts to probe it, but I've tried. If there's something else here, it's so buried under the agony that I can't find it."

A pair of repellers came up from their run, letting two fresh mountain climbers replace them. If only they could just effortlessly sore through the ocean air, searching with hands and eyes that don't need to be concerned with ropes and pulleys.

Hot damn!

"Give me you're phone," I demanded of Hiwatari, holding out my hand.

Without a word, he slapped the cell into my palm. He watched with what I perceived as interest as I scrolled through his digital phonebook. It took me a little bit to sort through the hiragana and kanji, but I managed to find Niwa Daisuke's phone number. I knew Hiwatari would have it. Don't ask me how, but I just knew. I punched the call button and waited, tapping my foot at top speed, as the phone rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And…

"Moshi moshi," a woman's finally answered.

Hope she speaks English. I'm going to feel like an idiot if she can't, or if I have to attempt speaking my broken Japanese. "Is Niwa Daisuke available?"

Hiwatari's eyes locked on me. A cross between a glare and an appraising look, I think.

There are angels looking out for me. The woman switched languages easily, replying, "Hold on a minute." It was heavily accented, but perfectly understandable. Faintly, I could hear her calling for Daisuke to answer the phone.

Detecting the click of someone picking up and another snick sound from hanging up, I immediately launched into my grand master plan. "Niwa, I need Dark. Now. As in a week ago."

Some spluttering. "Da—dare wa?"

"It's Cassandra Simon, Niwa. Look, I know that this is really sudden and out of the blue, and I know that Dark's supposed to be all covert and everything, but I need some airborne eyes pronto. Hiwatari's a tad unavailable for that at the moment. Besides, I would rather work with someone who was mentally stable." I said all of if without taking a breath. Maybe that was a bit much for the first explanation?

"B-but what for?" Niwa asked, sounding excessively confused.

Yeah. Too much.

Hiwatari was shaking his head at me.

I took a deep breath. "Listen, Niwa. You know I'm with the F.B.I. Dark knows, at least. Surely he let you in on that one?"

"Yeah, he did, but what…?" I think he was so taken aback from my openness about knowing Dark that he forgot that he was supposed to be denying his connection to the thief.

"I'm here to help solve the murders. I've been helping with the investigation since I got here and we're so close, Niwa. A hair's breadth away. We just can't find the entrance to his little shop of horrors. We need help. Airborne help. Do you understand?"

Please, please, please, please…

The silence on Niwa's end stretched unbearably for three milliseconds. "We'll be there, but you won't see us. If we find something, we'll let you know. I don't know how yet. Dark and I will think of something."

"Thanks," I breathed out. A little bit of hope flooded through my heart.

I think Niwa was smiling when he said good-bye.

Handing the phone back to Hiwatari with a smile of my own, I went back to the squad of officers I was in charge of and started moving them farther down the cliff. We still had a lot of ground to cover. I kept one eye on the sky and another on my team, hand poised next to my walkie-talkie. My newfound hope was combating the pain of the rocks so it was easier to listen with my heart to the signatures.

Hurry up, Dark. Daylight's burning away.

Deep inside the cliff, Chigusa Miyo sat chained and curled on the rough floor, rocking back and forth. The bloodstains on the stone beneath her body didn't really bother her anymore. She was numbed to the initial terror she had felt when she'd first woken up in the dark space. She didn't know what time it was or how many days it had been since the Hikari had stolen her and killed her little brother. Time was relative to her. Moving forward some of the time, standing still others. But all too often, Miyo found herself stuck in that one, horrible moment when the Hikari slit her nine year old brother's throat. When the Hikari touched her, that's all she could think about. Those painter's hands had murdered her sunshine.

Even when he was raping her, that's all she could think.

Even when he cut her, that's all she could remember.

Miyo wasn't sure if that made the pain of her own torture more or less. She was starting to think that she didn't care anymore. Even if she somehow lived through this whole ordeal, the girl knew that she would kill herself. Regardless of whose hand completed the act, she didn't plan on living a second longer in this painful existence than she absolutely had to. Kiyoshi was waiting with their ancestors for her, smiling and laughing like always. She just knew it.

Of course, she was terrified of death. Who isn't? But that didn't mean that she wouldn't end her life if she had to. Miyo had always been told that she was a strong girl, a determined girl. And she was determined to die.

"Determined to die, ne?" she whispered to herself, voice cracking. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her sliced cheeks. The salt stung horribly. Her sobs echoed off the stone walls of her prison, the sound amplifying a hundred fold to her ears. It was a desperate noise. Hopeless.

"Wait for me, Kiyoshi," she called into the empty air. "I'm coming soon, just wait."

The ghostly howling of the wind was all that called back.

It took twenty minutes and the sun sinking another few centimeters in my vision for Dark to find the entrance. He threw tiny rocks at me and Hiwatari to get our attention, hiding behind some boulders and trees all the while. With an uncharacteristically serious expression, he informed us, "The entrance is in the cliff side. He probably has a ladder hidden somewhere nearby, but I didn't see it. Just go about thirty paces that way." He pointed to accompany the directions. "Then head down. You'll have to use the ropes or something."

My stomach did this neat little flip flop, constricting painfully. Ropes? Cliffs?

Damn.

"I'll stick around in case you need me," Dark said quietly. I had a feeling he was referring to the possibility of Krad making an unwanted appearance, but kept it to myself. We had to stay focused.

It's a really tall cliff…

No. Focus. Must focus.

Hiwatari nodded stiffly to Dark as the thief leapt into the air once more. I blinked and then Dark was gone. Just like magic. I blinked a few more times to make sure I wasn't just hallucinating in my current panic. He didn't reappear. Surprised, my heart rate kicked up more as it usually did when I encountered something weird.

This whole magic thing was going to take some getting used to.

Following Dark's directions, Hiwatari and I went thirty paces down the way. Then, we started organizing our men into teams. The first group was to wait for us here and control our rope so that we didn't die or anything. The second team was to wait up with the ambulances, which were parked by the command center up by the road. The third was to go to the museum and back up the current watchmen.

Nightfall was in a half and hour, at the most.

I buckled myself into the rock-climbing harness provided for me, figuring out the straps and clasps easily enough. It took me a few minutes to make sure that the draw for both my guns was uninhibited by the contraption, though. I have feeling that I'm not supposed to be cutting off my circulation. Maybe the straps were too tight? I glanced over at the edge of the cliff.

No. Never too tight.

The officers' tension was making me edgy too. It wasn't enough that I was scared out of my Goddamn mind. Oh no, other people's fear had to be thrown in just to make it more interesting. Sometimes, the Powers that Be can be extremely vindictive.

A safety rope was secured to my harness along with a light pack of useful items, and then the main line was placed in my hands. I was told to back off the cliff, just walking like I would walk backwards on a street. "Just don't look down," one of the more experienced climbers advised gruffly. "First time is really unbalancing if you keep looking down."

I backed over the edge, on the verge of hyperventilation.

The first thing I did was look down.

Almost instantly, dizziness made the world swim and my feet scrabbled frantically against rocky cliff face. I shut my eyes tightly, wanting nothing more than to be away from this place. Panic overrode my rationality and I shook uncontrollably. I was too high up. Too high. I was going to fall. I just knew I was.

Hiwatari's calm voice interrupted my terror. "Simon-san?"

"F-fine," I ground out between my clenched teeth.

"One foot at a time," he instructed, shifting so that we were side-by-side. "Look straight in front of you or look up. Imagine that you are only a few feet above the ground. As long as you don't constantly look down, you won't know the difference."

"I'll fall. I'll fall and be nothing but pulverized meat, just like Katherine." My voice was high and thin, panic lacing each syllable. No no no no no… "I don't want to fall…"

"You won't fall," Hiwatari reassured me, wrapping a hand around my tightly gripping ones. His voice enveloped me and warmth spread from the contact of his touch up my arms. "I won't let you fall. Do you trust me?"

Since I wasn't doing well with movement at the current moment, I wasn't looking at him, but I heard and felt his sincerity. "I trust you." I shouldn't have trusted him as much as I did. Not with the limited time I've known him. But the realization that he would catch me if I slipped and fell was more comforting than it really should've been. I leaned back a little, breathing harshly, and took a tiny step backwards.

Hiwatari coaxed me down the cliff for what I think was about twenty or thirty feet at least. A sudden motion from him halted my terrified progress. "Koko…" he murmured, one hand feeling the stones carefully.

It looked like a bunch of rock to me.

"You sure?" I asked breathlessly. My arms were shaking.

A faint gold light glowed around his searching hand, causing a similar reaction in the cliff. Red symbols shone briefly for a couple seconds, then dissolved. Along with the section of the cliff right in front of us. I started in surprise, swinging violently on my rope, panic again constricting my mind. I really was going to have to get used to this whole magic shindig. It kept popping up. Hiwatari tugged once on his safety rope to let the officers above that we had found the entrance, steadying me at the same time. "Calm down," he ordered firmly. "You're fine."

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes briefly. "Yeah… Yeah, I'm fine." I said it more for my benefit than his.

Agilely, he swung himself through the opening and unhooked himself from the ropes and slid out of his harness. With a calm strength in his eyes, he held out a hand to help me in. I hesitated for a moment, debating how much I really wanted to start swinging around again. But the lure of something solid to stand on and Hiwatari's beckoning hand was enough to draw me in. I took his hand, felt the pressure of his touch through my gloves, and let him pull me forward. Shocking really. I'd never accepted another person's hand for help before. Had I changed so much? Did I really feel that comfortable with Hiwatari?

Questions for another time. Once all this was over.

The sun was setting behind me, bathing the world in its blood red rays.

Magic roared around the Hikari, freeing his stone body for another night.

And he was angry.

That girl had touched him! He had felt something, something strange when she did. Her eyes had been consumed by the green-blue of her irises, an eerie phenomenon that made him wonder what she saw with such unseeing eyes.

And that Other had been with her! Wretched hypocrite! Tainted blood! Bastard angel-carrier! What did he know?!

Nothing!, the Hikari's mind screamed. That boy knew nothing of magic, nothing of beauty.

He knew nothing of perfection and devotion, not as the Hikari did.

With a strange grace, the Hikari drew the sharp stone knife at his waist and walked forward silently. No guard would keep him from his art. No one at all would stand in the way of his redemption.

Blood spattered across his face when he attacked the first guard. More blood splashed heavily over his hands and arms and chest when he tore out the man's intestines. Lowly peasants would not stop him! They were weak!

The Hikari was strong. As he always had known he was.

Another guard rushed him, drawing his weapon. The Hikari was a stranger to such a strange thing, but it didn't matter. He cut the man down before he could do anything with it.

Blood flowed freely, pooling elegantly on the marble floor.

"Beautiful," the Hikari murmured to himself, holding his crimson stained hands to the moonlight filtering through the windows. Blood was beautiful.

Death was exquisite. As it always had been, as he'd always known. It was a transformation that only he could manipulate correctly. Like phoenixes from ashes were his swans.

Footsteps coming.

No matter. The Hikari was ready to spill more blood.

As he always had.

The tunnel led farther into the cliff than I'd expected it to. No light reached us when Hiwatari and I finally reached a widening in the rock. Pain was radiating in waves from the walls around me and I had to force myself to dampen the effect. Pulling out our flashlights, we flicked them on and took in the scenery, so to speak. It took me only a couple seconds to wish I'd left this scenery alone.

Blood was painted on the walls in intricate swirls and designs. What looked like human skin covered with charcoal sketches was tacked up like a piece of parchment. More human skins were on the floor. I realized with a nauseous feeling in my stomach that they were meant to be rugs. Animal and human skulls alike were used as holders for paint brushes and other tools. Knives and swords were hung in brackets on the walls or stored neatly in freestanding shelving units. Shaking, I reached out and brushed my gloved fingertips over the skin on the wall. I shrieked with the voice that lanced through my head, screaming as I was skinned alive. Dropping my flashlight, I covered my ears to try and stop the screaming.

It didn't help. It still felt like a knife was scraping away my skin.

Hiwatari pulled me back sharply and I fell back onto him. I shook violently in his grip, praying rapidly, almost unconsciously, under my breath. "Hail Mary, full of grace…"

"What is it? Simon-san?" When I didn't answer except to pray some more, he dug his fingers into my shoulders. "What do you feel?"

"He skinned them alive," I whispered. "He skinned these people alive. They knew what he was doing to them. They screamed and screamed and screamed, but he just laughed. They kept screaming, over and over. They're still screaming. I can hear them, feel them." My eyes were filling up with tears. "They're in so much pain. Even after so much time."

Hiwatari turned me around to face him and bent down so that we were eye level with each other. When I tried to look down to get away from his intense gaze, he slid his fingers under my chin and forced my head back up. "You can't do anything for these victims right now, but we can still get to Chigusa Miyo before he kills her. We have to keep moving and you have to stop touching things. Do you understand?"

The screams were fading away now that I wasn't touching the skin. Hiwatari's voice replaced them, and it was much more welcome. So was his touch, but it was mostly his voice. "I understand." With effort, I pulled away from him, picking up my flashlight. "Let's go."

Another dark and dank tunnel later, we walked into a much larger room than the last one. It was both worse and better. There were no macabre things hanging on the walls or the floor. But it still smelled of death and terror. It felt like it too. The beam from my flashlight trembled in my shaking hands, flicking over the stone and wood table and cabinets. Faintly, the sound of sobbing reached my ears. Powerful, wrenching sobs of a broken soul.

Hiwatari heard them too and was moving forward in a flash. "Chigusa-san? Doko de?"

I rushed passed him, knowing already where she was. Her despair was calling to me like a homing beacon in a storm. I found her behind a large worktable in one corner, chained by her neck to the wall and completely naked. Blood was streaked down her skin and thin slashes covered her from head to toe. "Miyo?" I asked carefully, pulling my jacket off. "Miyo, can you understand me?"

Miyo lifted her head and looked at me with terrified eyes, uncomprehending I think, for a heartbeat. Then, she threw herself into me, wrapping her arms around my neck and shoulders with a cry of animalistic relief. The chain clinked loudly, but not loudly enough to overwhelm her rapid speech. I didn't catch a word of her babbling. Hiwatari knelt down and started speaking gently to her.

I tugged lightly on the chain binding Miyo to the wall, but there was no way I was going to be able to break it and there was no visible lock I could jimmy. Over the crying girl's head, I shook my head at Hiwatari and gave him questioning look. What would we do now?

Subtly, so as not to alarm Miyo, he reached behind her and grabbed the chain. Eyes narrowed, soft gold light traveled briefly from his hand over the links. When the glow faded, the chain just fell away from Miyo's neck, though the collar stayed in place. We could move her now.

It took every ounce of control I had to shut out Miyo's pain when I cradled her in my arms. "Tatte kudasai," I commanded soothingly, wrapping my jacket around her. I could feel her blood seeping into my shirt front.

With Hiwatari's help, Miyo stood on shaking legs.

Wait. What's that? Murderous. There's someone…

Oh shit.

"Hiwatari! Down! Get down!" I yelled, dragging Miyo down to the floor with me. Red light flew over our heads, crashing into the wall in a shower of sparks. Another ball of light followed, this one clipping Hiwatari in the shoulder as he turned towards its source. Grunting, Hiwatari rolled with the blow, coming up on his feet.

It was coming from behind us. "Nokotte," I ordered Miyo. She froze and pressed herself as hard as she could against the stone floor. In one fluid and practiced motion, I spun around and simultaneously drew the Berretta from my shoulder holster. The assault of red light continued, directed at Hiwatari. In the erratic lighting, I could make out the outline of a man in a doorway that hadn't been there before. A huge explosion sounded, and Hiwatari disappeared behind the concentrated blast. Without thinking, I squeezed off three rounds, aiming for Hikari's chest and head.

I heard the impact of the bullets, knew I'd hit my mark, but Hikari Shoji did not fall. Instead, he flicked his wrist in my direction, sparks crackling at his fingertips. The ground went out from under me and I flew into the nearest wall. Little spots dotted my vision as I slid to the floor.

A great flash of bright whiteness did not help matters. Nor did the gold lightning that followed it.

Krad as the cavalry.

This was going to be bloody.

(A.N.) Thanks for reading!. Please review and let me know what you think. It's always disheartening when you have twenty-seven people on the alert list and only five reivews, so EVERYONE, please review!!!! Love and Thanks!