Last time: We got a glimpse of the Khiitani's thought processes and met Aria's adoptive Father. We also found out just what kind of hell they were inflicting on Mai. Now Naru is anxious to set up a base so they can search for her quicker. Will the gang really be able to save their friend?

A/N: Reminder: The mature content continues in this chapter and some of it is on the more graphic side, though we tried to keep this to a minimum. Sorry for a short chapter, we'll make it up in the next chapter.

The Disappearance of Mai Taniyama Part 5: Change of Plans; Running Around

In the Khiitani's Den…

Graiven paced back and forth in their den while awaiting Velnia's return. Pacing, until he looked over and noticed something wrong with his reflection. Grabbing a spare blanket, he walked over to the reflexive surface and used it to towel off the blood and gore he'd gotten on himself. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised to find himself splattered with his own brother's blood, after all, he'd been right next to Velnia when she'd shifted into her true form, lost it, and began ferociously tearing his brother to shreds. The incident had happened on the landing between the third floor and the door to the floor their den was on. He recalled his brother, picturing his remains splattered all over the walls. He'd even managed to see some of the mess hit the section of stairs almost directly below where the deed had been done. He'd never seen so much blood and guts fly into the air before. He was glad that Velnia hadn't known he was the one behind everything; relieved that it was Grundrin that had died instead. Too bad for Grundrin, but it had been exciting to watch, in a morbidly fascinating kind of way.

His brother had it coming, he reasoned, for asking Velnia for seconds with the girl before they'd even made it fully back to the den. The idiot should have just kept his mouth closed. Now Graiven's own chances with the girl would come with a higher price than he wanted, but he felt confident that she wouldn't kill him now because he was her only option anymore. So she really had no choice except to keep him or risk her own death at the hands of their kind, but he knew Velnia obviously didn't like the idea of them plunging into the human. He'd seen it clearly before he'd tricked his brother into doing it with him, he'd even made Grundrin think it was his idea. Nothing was better for escaping punishment than using a scapegoat, but with his brother out of the picture, he would only pay the price of a bit of pain if he got caught now. He would just need to avoid getting caught.

Graiven gave up on cleaning off his bloodstained shirt and pulled the darn thing off to clean beneath it, his mind occupied by the images of Grundrin being shredded by Velnia. He was currently in their den on the fourth floor and he was alone. Velnia had left several minutes prior. She told me to stay here while she goes to capture another "guest" and possibly deal with some vermin. He sighed. I'd rather be with the little mouse. An idea struck him. Maybe I should take the girl and hide us away. With Velnia busy capturing another empath and killing off vermin… their fear would easily cover any spikes in the girl's emotions with the barrier up. Casting his mind around, he could feel the presence of more humans pulling up to the hospital, but they were nowhere near the den or the girl's holding pen. And even if by some miracle they came close later, he could easily take care of them. Knowing Velnia's trap weaving, I should even have plenty of time to enjoy the girl before we go. I did promise the little mouse a treat. With Velnia distracted, this is definitely a good time to give it to her, he thought. There's nothing stopping me. An evil smirk twisted it's way onto his lips as he continued thinking about what else he could do with the girl and he headed out.

Past the fallen doors of the hospital...

Naru walked into the building with his arms full of equipment. Once inside, he looked around and quickly chose a decent sized office just off the main entryway that looked like it would make a good enough base. Set up began with everyone keeping a sense of urgency in their movements so when the client did arrive, it was no surprise he made a point to stop Lin and praise him for keeping the group working in such a competent manner. He did, however, also express his annoyance over the group's trampling over the fallen door and had them quit working long enough to unlock the chain.

Only after unlocking the doors, pulling them open and out of the way, did the older man allow the work to recommence. Though the work went a little faster with the door removed, it didn't speed it up nearly quick enough for Naru. Since they'd begun setting up, he'd started feeling feelings of revulsion, self-loathing, pain, despair, and fear. They were the same type of emotions he'd felt from Mai at the end of his last psychometric vision and instinctively knew they belonged, not to him, but to her.

The longer the group delayed their search, the stronger the swelling emotions became, but now, mixed in with the other emotions, there was a new feeling, it was like she was feeling good, but it seemed twisted, warped, like the meaning of "feeling good" had somehow been changed to mean something wrong, disgusting; demoralizing.

He tried blocking out Mai's rising and confusing emotions, and succeeded to a degree, but they continued to make it so that, even though they worked quickly, to Naru, every minute felt like an hour. Finally he couldn't take it anymore, he had to check on Mai; had to know why she was feeling what she was feeling. Making sure their client wasn't looking, he slipped away from the group and into a nearby room. His hand desperately dug back into his pocket to grasp Mai's lucky key. The new vision assaulted him quickly. One of the males was back and at it again. On top of everything else, his words filled Mai, and thus Naru, with a strange cocktail of emotions. "Sorry my little mouse," the brute purred, "but I'm not done with you yet...I'm not sure I ever will be."

Naru ripped himself out of the vision, his heart pounding as he frantically cried out in his mind, No! Not again! They shouldn't be back again. They'd stopped, covered her, and left her alone! His mind frantically tried to come up with the answer to why he'd thought she'd be safe long enough for them to set up the base. His thoughts then jumped to the things he hadn't thought of. I could have sent someone to go find her before that idiot client came! The windbag didn't need to know how many consultants we brought along! His thoughts returned to what he'd just seen as he scrambled back out the door. Why can't they just leave her alone!

Carefully, Naru snuck back into the entry hall near where Lin was, and urgently escorted him away from their client. When they were far enough away from Ishikawa-san to risk speaking, Naru kept his words to a harsh whisper, "Lin, we have to go now! They're back." The two headed into the base and, while Lin grabbed some random equipment, Naru quietly, but hastily, alerted John and Yasu that Mai needed to be found as soon as possible. He also asked them to spread the word and have everyone break off in pairs to search and to: "remember the stupid equipment so we don't get kicked out prematurely." He also reminded the pair to continue to set up and distract the old man before his panic for Mai completely took over and he escaped from the base with a trailing Lin. In his attempt to follow Mai's waves of emotional agony to their source, he found himself trudging down the stairs of the nearest stairwell.

Monk and Ayako…

Monk and Ayako were both shocked when Yasu filled them in on the fact that Mai was being hurt again and needed to be found immediately. Monk growled out, "We'll start our search on the ground floor and work our way up to the top floor."

Ayako nodded her agreement. "Perhaps you can suggest to Aria and Victor to start on the top floor and work their way down to us, so we can meet somewhere in the middle of the building."

Yasu nodded. "Right. I'll do that. Hopefully we can find Mai quickly. I hate to imagine what she is being put through while we try to keep the client happy." he worried aloud, before heading over to Aria and Victor.

With equipment in hand, Monk and Ayako searched the rest of the ground floor, finding mostly empty offices with layers of debris scattered around. Stopping outside the nearby stairwell, Monk asked, "Are you ready to tackle the next floor?"

"Of course, idiot, what kind of question is that?" Ayako stomped off in the direction of the stairwell and Monk easily kept in step. After glancing sidelong at him, Ayako resumed her rant, "The only way we're going to find her is if we look everywhere! There's no way I'm going to stop trying to find Mai. If she could have gotten out by herself, she would have by now. If Naru says she's in danger, I believe him, but my mind keeps going back to what he said earlier, 'They harmed Mai in a way I refuse to forgive,' I can't help but wonder how they hurt her and how bad it is."

"Yeah, same here. I already feel like we failed her. She doesn't deserve to be hurt worse, she didn't deserve to be hurt at all. If she isn't able to heal from whatever they've done to her, I'll feel even more guilty than I do now," Monk confided.

Ayako opened the stairwell door and headed inside, instantly noticing a small pool of blood on the first step to the next floor and a few others above it. "Oh no," she muttered, drawing closer to the blood, she saw another drop fall into the first puddle. Her eyes dashed up to see the blood dripping from off the stairs above them. "Houshou, look!" she exclaimed, pointing out the blood. "Do you think it could be Mai's?"

Monk swore in shock as he raced up the stairs, Ayako hot on his trail. The higher they climbed, the worse the amount of blood and gore. It wasn't long before they found the scene of the crime. On the landing between the third and fourth floors, they found a large mostly body shaped hunk of flesh.

"Ugh! This is awful!" Ayako yelled, "Who could do such a thing!?"

Monk went silent as another thought came to mind and he grabbed onto Ayako's arm urgently. "Please don't tell me this could be Mai."

"It's hard to tell, there's no clothes or anything here. It barely looks human...though...I think this person is too tall, and broad to be Mai," the miko said, analyzing the remains.

It wasn't long before Monk noticed something else and walked up the stairs, trying not to slip in the blood and guts; leaving bloody shoe prints in his wake, Ayako noticed. He pointed to the floor, "Look, there's footprints that continue going up and some other sort of tracks, too."

Ayako came up to look at the prints, looking both up and then down the stairs towards the remains. Interspersed with their own bloody shoe prints, she noticed a set of barefooted tracks leading down. "Houshou," she exclaimed, pointing out her observation. "The footprints go away from the body both ways, just how many are there?"

"I don't know. We could all be in serious trouble," Is the only response Monk could give before the door behind them flew open.

Aria and Victor…

"So that is where we stand at the moment. Would you two be willing to start on the top floor and work your way down?" Yasu asked, hoping everyone would agree to make things run more smoothly.

Aria nodded. She was troubled by the fact she could not feel Mai and thus she couldn't go directly to her, and Mai couldn't wait for Aria to catch any hint of her emotions again. One, there were no more emotions to follow and, two, the longer they waited, the more Mai would be hurt.

Aria grieved that she wouldn't be able to hone in on the girl's direct location. It would have been so much easier to help find her, but, for whatever reason, there were no longer any emotions escaping from whatever breach had opened up earlier. Thus to find Mai, the whole team would have to work together and look around for her in the normal way. With a sigh she commented, "Too bad the elevators aren't working. They would make this a lot easier."

Yasu shrugged, "At least the power is on so we have electricity, besides I'm not sure I'd trust the elevators to be in proper working order. This hospital has been abandoned for the past fifteen years, at least."

Victor and Aria could only agree, no sense in risking death because one of the elevator's chains gave out and plunged the steel box down into the basement below.

Taking a small set of measuring equipment with them, they speedily took the nearest stairwell up to the fifth and top floor of the building. When they finally reached the top landing, Victor, having sensed his Heart's growing unease since their arrival, finally commented, "One of the Khiitani must have erected a new barrier to keep her emotions better contained, maybe even different layers of barriers at that. In a way, it seems like they've hidden her almost too well. Their female must be a smart one." He frowned. "My other Telirosa are probably also having a difficult time finding her because of it."

Aria sighed and shuddered, "Why did they have to target Mai? She has already suffered enough in her young life!"

Victor looked thoughtful, "They would say, 'It is suffering that brings more potential-more value.'"

Aria looked at her father with a look full of her pain, "I despise the Khiitani so much! Why did it have to be Mai?" There was no way to describe just how disturbed and worried Aria was that she couldn't feel Mai at all, and Victor understood her pain. The rest of their search spent in relative silence and, together, they made their search more frantic and they were able to finish the fifth floor in record time. It wasn't long before they moved along down a different stairwell to the fourth floor.

After they made it through a handful of the rooms on the fourth floor, they heard a shout sound from within a nearby stairwell. Reaching out her senses, Aria could feel Monk and Ayako's emotions: disgust, worry and edgy curiosity. Sharing a glance, Aria and Victor headed off as one towards the sound and emotions.

When they came to the stairwell, they pushed open the door dividing them from the voices within. On the other side, they met the shocked faces of Ayako and Monk surrounded by a gory mess. Just how much gore was flung around the stairwell was a feat in and of itself. There was even some blood, a hand, and some guts on the stairs leading up to the fourth floor. The metallic-smelling blood was an assault on the senses, nearly overpoweringly so. With how thickly it was permeating the air, especially as it combined with the feeling of unease coming from the others in the space, it was nearly vomit inducing. Aria's eyes searched the red splattered stairs up and down from her vantage point, taking care not to touch the railing.

She was amazed at the fact that without the yell, they would have missed it all simply because they'd used a separate stairwell earlier, not that she'd wanted to see or smell the mess. There was enough blood and gore here that it looked like it could have been from several different people rather than just the one. Aria shuddered, "This is terrible." She turned to ask her father, "What do you think happened here?"

Victor walked down the stairs and squatted down by the largest piece of flesh to examine it. "If I don't miss my guess, I'd say this is one of the male Khiitani. In all likelihood he did something to anger his mate in the extreme. It looks like she may have taken her other male up the stairs with her." He pointed out the odd prints going up.

"What about the prints going back down," Ayako asked.

Monk inquired, "Yeah, how many creatures are we dealing with here, exactly?"

"There is something you should understand," Victor explained. "The Khitanni mating practices are usually only done in threesomes we call couplings. It's rare to have multiple couplings sharing a single territory unless they're swarming, but in this case, that's unlikely. In other words, we are probably only dealing with just one coupling, and, as I said, the body here is likely one of the males, slaughtered by his own mate. If that's the case, we are likely down to two Khiitani. I'd say the remaining male was taken upstairs shortly after this whole affair." he gestured to the corpse and the splattered mess surrounding them, "but he went back down afterwards." Victor pointed down the steps. "His actions make sense since the females usually set the traps and the males herd their targets into her trap. She is likely in her trap or ready to spring it if he's on the move."

"I was hoping you'd say that he might have run away or something." Ayako wished aloud with a wistful half smile.

"I severely doubt he'd do that when only up against a small group of humans. The Khiitani are strong, but having only one male left makes things easier for us. He'll have less of an ability to herd anyone into their trap."

Aria sighed, "So they're separated, but we still need to be on our guard since we don't know exactly where either of them are."

"True," Victor agreed as he stood up and climbed the stairs back up to Aria. Glancing up the remaining stairs he added, "We already cleared the fifth floor and the female's prints only appear to go up to the fourth floor."

A thought struck Aria and she asked, "So does that mean that we could have walked straight into her trap if we'd kept going?"

"Potentially," Victor agreed.

Aria looked to the miko, "There's a chance you may have just saved us when you yelled out."

Ayako looked embarrassed to accept the credit, but said, "I...I'm glad I could help."

"We can't be sure she is on the fourth floor." Victor pointed out, "There are multiple stairwells so there is a chance the female is, even now, lying in wait somewhere else on one of the other floors. We just know she isn't on the fifth floor. "

The women looked at each other uneasily as Monk added, "or the first. We cleared the ground floor, but ended up climbing the stairway here because of the blood and gore we saw dripping down. We needed to be sure it wasn't Mai's."

"So we've narrowed it down to three floors," Vincent summed up. "Thanks to the body, we know that they should have their den somewhere nearby. Maybe we should keep together for safety sake."

"That sounds like a good plan," Aria said just before an overwhelmingly dark sense of loss hit her from below, taking her breath away for a moment with the depth of pain it carried. It might have made her collapse into the blood and gore if Victor hadn't caught her first. Once she could speak again Aria told the worried eyes around her, "I think Naru just found Mai. Let's go." She didn't have the heart to tell them that she'd felt the young man was nearly drowning in a feeling of loss.

Lying in wait on Velnia's cursed web…

Velnia fretted as she settled into a room near one of the stairwells. She could feel the stronger empath on the ground floor of the building. She'd laid her trap close enough to her den that it wouldn't upset it in any way, while placing it in a location that her quarry would easily stumble into now even though she was down to one mate.

A while after she began her work, she felt the humans begin branching away from the main group in pairs. It was only a matter of time now. At the back of her mind she was aware that something about this group was different than the other humans that had stumbled into the building. Their fear and emotions were still measly scraps in comparison to the empath they'd brought along or the one already in her possession, but they'd all been more ill at ease upon arrival than was typical from the average humans that wandered in. For a while after they'd arrived, these humans had behaved more like those handsome little critters called ants-much more organized than normal. Now it was as if they were looking for something specific. Her mind supplied, Maybe the young empath? The idea of a swarm of humans trying to take away their empath made her angry, but she knew the young empath girl was well hidden from them within the labyrinth. Not even the newly arrived empath would be able to find the girl with the adjustments and reinforcements she'd had to make to the shields. The woman would be forced to explore the building like the rest of the humans. There was no other option. Thankfully fixing the spells hadn't taken long. If it weren't for Grundrin's defiance, she seethed grudgingly, I wouldn't have had to waste even a minute on them. But now, it was only a matter of time before the second empath would fall directly into the trap.

Velnia sped up her weaving, growing more excited and a bit frantic to finish laying her trap. Her spell wasn't complete, but, even now, it was formed enough to catch any unsuspecting human that stumbled into it. She hoped one of them would soon. Her excitement dimmed as she thought about the only worrisome thing the group had in their favor...In amongst their numbers, they had a Velatona, her race's enemy. She and Graiven would probably be able to take care of the unexpected nuisance, but it might cost Velnia her web and quarry. She hoped the scum would keep its distance until they had the opportunity to at least catch and trap the empath.

Velnia hoped that one of the humans would stumble into her trap soon. Since she'd been careful not to weave in her normal emotion blocking barriers, no matter who fell in first, the empath would feel the spike in their fear and surely follow it directly in. After all, she had already proven that she would run headlong into danger. She thought of the more worrisome presence she'd felt below. The only thing that can stop us now is that Velatona scum...I'll just have to prepare for the possibility that any one of them could bring its ilk along with them. Despite the nuisance, she clacked her mandibles with anticipation, excited to have the opportunity to capture another empath so soon after securing the first.

While she mused, Velnia continued to work at an almost frantic pace. The web was nearly complete when she noticed her target's approach. A chittering growl lit the air as she focused on what she was feeling from the woman's searching companion. It was the Velatona as she'd worried. I do not like the feel of this one, any of them really, she admitted to herself, but this one feels significantly more powerful...definitely male and older. If he ends up being the "Elder'' we were told about, this may be even more difficult than I thought. With him here and how powerful he is, we may even lose the empath we already have. I can't allow that. Mentally following them, she allowed herself to calm down, realizing her targets were on the floor above. With how steadily the woman and Velatona were moving, Velnia judged that she would have time to finish the web, with enough time left to weave a spell that might be powerful enough to catch this specimen of her race's hated enemy. The more complicated bit could be getting it over him.

As the two came down the next stairwell from the floor above, Velnia eagerly leapt into place, ready to spring her trap and pounce on her enemy. As she wove the last of the spell in her hands, suddenly the two stopped coming down the hall towards her and, instead, moved towards two of the humans that had stopped to linger in the closest stairwell.

The group seemed to congregate near the place she'd destroyed her lowlife mate. She wished she could just go out and rip the pathetic, puny ones apart and take her prize, but with their number and the fact that the Velatona was mingling with the lot, if she attacked now, especially alone, there was a high risk of failure and death. Exasperatedly, she continued lying in wait, trying to keep patient. When the group descended once more, she wanted to scream and thought of using her mate as a distraction to bring them back, but when she cast her mind to the den, she found that he had gone missing. When she cast her mind further, she amended, or he might be there, but just blocking her out. Maybe slaughtering his brother right in front of him had been too much for the weak willed thing. It kind of amazed her though that she couldn't feel his presence from wherever he was in the hospital. Had he always been able to hide his presence so well? As astounded as she was, she only hoped he was smart enough to stay out of trouble and far away from the old Velatona wandering around. The thought never crossed her mind that he might have simply left the hospital completely.

Back at the Base….

Ishikawa-san walked back into SPR's base and was vexed to find that the bespectacled youth and the young Catholic Father were the only residents of the base. The frown colored his voice. "Where is the rest of your group? Taking a break are they? This is the slip-shod kind of work I expected..."

Yasuhara pushed his glasses up on his nose as he turned away from his laptop to regard their client. "We have not slackened our work in the slightest, I assure you, Ishikawa-san. This is our normal operating procedure. Right now, our spiritualists are looking around the building for the most active areas to set up our equipment. You wouldn't want us to waste time on areas with no activity, would you?"

John stood from where he had been sitting, setting up shelving. "You didn't seem to notice the fact that the others have also taken equipment with them to set up cameras in the areas with activity." he gestured to the pile of equipment that had a significant portion of items missing, almost like a giant had taken a large bite out of the pile. "We are not wasting your time or money in the slightest."

Ishikawa scoffed, "Then explain why you two are sitting around in this room." His doubts were obvious.

Yasuhara narrowed his eyes. "We are not simply sitting around. Since I have no spiritualist powers or senses, I am supposed to stay here in the base to calibrate the tools and monitors and to do any other needed grunt or gopher work." Yasu gestured to his companion. "John is currently setting up the shelves for the monitors, but he's also here to protect me and you so it's for our safety, you see? We wouldn't want to have you hurt, and can you imagine the lawsuit that would come your way if we couldn't set up communications in time and someone became stranded or lost and got injured? What if they died? It was our bosses firm order that no one was to be alone in this building until we had a better handle on what was really happening here."

Damn brat! Ishikawa thought, glaring at the impudent boy angrily. He knows darn well that's the very reason I went for a consultation in the first place. I didn't want to risk construction workers disappearing nor lawsuits for injuries. As well as the hush money we might have to spend out if anything like that were to happen. The man huffed in defeat. "Very well. Keep me informed about what is going on. I'll be in the office across the entry hall from this room." With that he left, grumbling to himself.

Somewhere in the lower levels…

After they'd cleared the basement with no results, Naru started worrying that he'd somehow misunderstood the direction he'd thought he'd sensed Mai being in, after all, they hadn't been able to find her after so many dead ends and her emotional and physical pain were only ever increasing. The one consolation was that her pain helped him know her general direction and that she was, at least, alive. As they continued down into sub-level 1, Naru had a strange feeling almost as if he were suddenly able to breathe easier only, instead of breath, all of the emotions flowing into him from Mai were much clearer and stronger, almost to the point of madness.

"Lin, I think Mai is on this level." Naru said urgently, picking up his pace.

They'd just begun moving through the halls when all of a sudden Mai's voice reverberated clearly through his mind, laden with despair, Please, if there's a god, please kill me now, shortly after these thoughts whispered through his mind, the steady stream of Mai's emotions suddenly came to an abrupt end. Naru swayed with the sudden loss, and reached out to steady himself against a nearby wall. Tears burned in his eyes and the icy hand of sorrow crushed his heart. There was only one explanation he could even come up with for why her emotions had just cut off: She found a way to die. His heart screamed within his chest, opening up a large dark hole at the core of his being. He wanted to rebel against the idea, but the void of evidence was clear and rebelling wouldn't bring her back. His heart froze and the thought of moving seemed to be too much for him. His mind desperately tried to find the now broken connection, the one he'd been following until now, but the connection was gone. At the realization, his legs ceased their support and he collapsed to the ground, praying that he was somehow simply mistaken.

Mai died? How will the team take the news?

Hey, guys, here's an opportunity for you to get an extra chapter of Soul Bound: If we receive a total of 15 comments/reviews, we will post an extra chapter this upcoming Saturday as a bonus!