Chapter 27:
Red Stone, Blue Girl
The diamond in Kaito's hands shone clear as glass in the pale moonlight. Both he and Snake stared at it.
"It's…not red…" Snake said slowly. "It's not—"
Not three meters below them, Shinichi's feet pounded on the metal stairs to the roof.
Snake's eyes shot from the gem in Kaito's hand to his face. Kaito's face was impassive, his monocle opaque in the moonlight.
"It's not Pandora," Snake gasped.
With a cry of rage he whipped out his gun just as Kaito raised his hand and hurled the gem at Snake's head. Taken aback, Snake's gun hand faltered as he reached forward and caught the gem with his left hand. At his touch, the translucent crystal turned ruby-red.
"Wha-a-a—" A red gas gushed out of the gem and into Snake's mouth as he gasped and squeezed the trigger of his pistol. The bullet zoomed over Kaito's shoulder.
"Missed me," said Kaito as the door to the roof burst open and Shinichi appeared, his wristwatch stunner raised. He fired a dart at Snake, who staggered dizzily from the red gas, and the stunner barely nicked Snake's nose.
Snake's arms fell to his side. He stared at the gem in his left hand.
Kaito put his hands back in his pockets.
"Sorry," he smirked, and from his right-hand pocket he withdrew a second, identical crystal-clear gem. He held it aloft. As soon as the moonlight fell on the gem, it turned blood-red.
Shinichi's breath caught in his throat. Even Kaito's eyes widened.
"P-Pandora," Snake gasped. "Pandora!"
Kaito looked at him and flashed a tight grin. "Misdirection again."
Snake swayed on the spot, clutching the fake Pandora in his left hand and his gun in his right.
"I expected you to find those traps I laid in the theater," he said coldly. "Those were all a bluff. Everything I needed to catch you I brought with me. Which wasn't much, if you notice. Little more than a fake gem with some anesthetic gas inside it." Kaito tossed Pandora up in the air and caught it again, and the whipping wind disguised the trembling in his own arm. "You've lost, Snake. The Kaitou Kid has beaten you."
Snake's face was brilliantly crimson, his eyes wide and staring at the luminous red gem in Kaito's fingers. He swayed again but did not fall.
"I think I missed with the stunner," Shinichi called to Kaito.
"It's okay," he called back, turning the Pandora gem over in his fingers as if looking for something on its glittering surface. "He's a big guy, but he won't last much longer. Ah-ha!"
The gem clicked in Kaito's hands and swung open like a box. Inside, scratched into the crystal's red surface, were a long string of numbers and symbols—a chemical formula.
Kaito quickly averted his eyes. "If I see it once I'll remember it," he said, so softly that the others could barely hear him. "And I'm not going to remember it. No one's going to kill for eternal life ever again."
A groan escaped Snake's puffy lips. He shook his head like a bull trying to swat a fly. A haze of pink gas still hovered around his head.
"I don't have any stun darts left," Shinichi called to Kaito, pulling his gun out of his jacket.
Kaito threw up a hand. "Wait." He drew back his arm and tossed the Pandora gem high into the air. It shot upward like a scarlet shooting star falling in reverse, almost brighter than the stars above it, the only drop of color in a darkened city landscape behind it. At the apex of its arc it seemed to hover in the air, and the light danced over the carven writing etched into its insides. Shinichi, too, averted his eyes for a moment, though there was no way he could have seen the entire formula. Snake, however, stared avidly, desperately, at the red gem, his mouth open, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
A playing card shot out of Kaito's gun and struck the Pandora gem just as it began to fall again. It was the King of Spades, and there was a small, black device clipped to its center that blinked once and then, as Shinichi and Snake looked on, exploded.
The groan became a roar in Snake's throat, then an inhuman scream as little red pieces of the Pandora gem rained down on the roof, tossed in the wind. His eyes were nearly crossed and his body swayed, but his every muscle was tense and he gripped the gun in his right hand with a terrible intensity.
Shinichi raised his own gun and pointed it at Snake.
"Don't fire!" Kaito shouted. He stared as if transfixed at Snake's contorted face.
Shinichi thumbed off the safety on his gun. "I won't—but—Kid!"
"You haven't forgotten thieves' honor, have you?"
Snake took another staggering step forward, and with his shaking right arm he began to lift his gun toward Kaito.
"Don't bother, Snake," he called over the wind. "You've lost. You've lost everything. I'm not even going to kill you. I want you to rot away in jail, always knowing that you were thwarted by the better man."
Shinichi bit his lip and pointed his gun at Snake's leg. He still didn't fire.
Kaito, too, lifted his card gun and pointed it at the bulging veins on Snake's neck. But he didn't fire.
"It's gone, Snake," said Kaito. "But I can understand why you're upset. Now that you're going to die someday like the rest of us, you're actually going to have to account for all your sins. That certainly won't be a pleasant experience."
Shinichi glanced to Kaito and back to Snake, his finger on the trigger.
Snake's face and neck were red, swollen, and glistening with sweat, his beady eyes bloodshot, his breathing loud and raspy on the silent roof. Suddenly he seemed less than human, like a wounded animal, trapped and frightened and angry. He took another step forward. His gun arm continued to rise toward Kaito.
Still, Kaito did not move. "Thieves' honor," he whispered, so low that Shinichi almost didn't hear him. "You wouldn't want me to kill him, Dad. Right? Phantom thieves don't kill." He held his ground and did not fire.
…
"S'all right," Heiji gasped. "I've had worse."
Saguru was kneeling by Heiji's side, his jacket pressed onto the wound on Heiji's stomach. He let out a dry chuckle.
"Perhaps…but you realize help is not coming for another…" he glanced at the pocket watch he had laid open by his side. "—three minutes and twelve seconds until Kazuha-chan calls the police, plus five to ten minutes of response time before they arrive. Approximately."
Heiji snorted. "Are you kiddin'? Kazuha's probably already called in the national guard."
"Didn't you tell her not to call the police before thirty minutes had passed?"
"Yeah…" Heiji winced. "But I wrote her name in the text. She'd know that means it's urgent."
Saguru wrinkled his nose. "When I specify measurements of time, I am always as precise as possible, to avoid confusion."
"Yeah, well you—" He broke off as the sound of footsteps suddenly sounded through the door from which they had come.
A moment later, a girl burst through the door from the main theater, her face pale and her dark hair streaming behind her. She hardly seemed to notice them, but raced across the room to the roof access.
"Hey…" Heiji gasped, craning his head. "Is that…"
The girl bent down to scoop something off the floor and flung open the door to the roof.
"Aoko-chan!" Saguru shouted. "Aoko-chan, wait!"
He staggered to his feet as the door banged shut behind her, muffling the sound of her feet pounding up the stairs to the roof.
As Saguru reached the door, they heard, over the sound of his and Heiji's shallow breathing, the swing of the second door to the roof as Aoko stepped out into the night.
There was silence, and then two gunshots cracked through the air.
…
…
Next Chapter: "Murder."
