2nd Ave & 42nd Street.
Sango checked that address every day. But thus far, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
After Sango had spoken of the faceless man, the other three women—Kagome, Kikyō and Kagura—had opened up about everything. They spoke about the book (which Sango had now read), they talked about the perps (a man who looked like Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings and a man with silver hair; Kagura called it white, but Kagome kept saying silver), and they talked about the other phenomena.
When she watched Kagura's video, Sango tried to picture the event she had witnessed (why the hell had she not thought to pull out her own phone and record? Or even just turn on her body cam?). She couldn't be 100% sure, but she was fairly certain that the portal she saw had been larger and more stable than the portals in the videos. As if the perps were learning and improving after each subsequent event. Just more evidence that what she'd seen was real.
And soon, the women she'd at first suspected of being crackpots had accepted her into their little "demon-hunting" band. They didn't call her Madonna, and they didn't tell her that her ideas were stupid. They listened when she talked and asked for her advice and opinions as they all worked to confront and deploy the moment something seemed off at 2nd and 42nd.
Maybe that was why Sango had… made the accommodations she had made…
...Why the demon hunters were now headquartered in Sango's basement in her brownstone in Queens…
"Hey! Anyone want Chinese? I'm gonna order," Sango called down into her basement. "Menu is on the refrigerator down there."
"General Tso's please!" Kikyō's voice echoed back up the stairs. "I can pay this time, if you'd like!"
"Pork fried rice… and wonton soup?" Kagome answered next.
"Surprise me!" Kagura said finally. "I'm indecisive and hungry when I work. So you could get me a pu-pu platter actually made of poo and I'd eat it."
"Thanks for the visual Kagura…" Kikyō drawled. (Even from upstairs, Sango could detect the flirtation…)
Sango didn't know when or why she'd offered up her basement, given Kagura's penchant for accidentally setting things on fire. She didn't know when she'd become their den mother (along with Kikyō… thank goodness…), but she had, and she liked it. Turned out that not being surrounded by the oppressively toxic environment of her precinct was… freeing!
Sango grabbed her phone and put in the order. It would be a half hour before the delivery guy came, so she headed down into the basement to join her fellow "demon hunters."
"So… he said he can meet us tonight…" Kagome was saying, but then as soon as she saw Sango, she avoided eye contact.
"Okay Kagome… spit the rest out," Sango drawled.
"Miroku is… a friend." Kagome still looked too guilty not to be hiding something. "He—he's been an associate of mine for a long time… He's a… locksmith."
Now Sango knew that Kagome was definitely hiding something.
"So… this… Miroku… who you know from work… will help us get access to the building…" Sango knew where this was going.
"Yes Officer," Kagome snarled, "if you don't want to be a part of this, you don't have to…"
Sango narrowed her eyes. Kagome was right. She had to choose. The badge or the demon hunters.
But… the badge had already abandoned her.
"I don't want to see any of it," Sango grumbled. She didn't miss the look of glee that appeared on Kagome's face.
"So… tonight around 8, we'll meet Miroku near the WPIX building and we'll pop up to the roof," Kagome affirmed. "We don't know when they are going to strike, or where, but I figure if we get some of our gear up there, we'll be ready for them!"
"Now now… don't go getting cocky on me, Kagome," Kagura lectured, "Kikyō and I have barely worked out the kinks of the zappy zapper—sorry about the burn marks by the way Sango—and we have only two working prototypes, which you two candlesticks are gonna need to man."
"Stop calling me a candlestick!" Kikyō huffed, a bandage wrapped around her right hand. "Especially since the person around here who got burned was me!"
"Uh huh. Well, you and Kagome are the only two people I've ever met that have reiki. So unless you want me popping off my mouth about the two mikos hanging around, you should just let me call you both candlesticks," Kagura countered.
"Just because most people don't go showing off in front of you doesn't mean you haven't met more," Kagome sighed.
"Well they should. Because it's fucking cool." Kagura folded her arms and looked away, but seemed to recognize that the argument was over.
Kagome and Kikyō's little chuckle seemed to mean that they understood that too.
"...Now. Back to the zappy-zappers…" Kagura said. "At least… until lunch arrives."
Sango rolled her eyes. That was how Kagura was. She spent every free minute she had using her hands to build something, test something, or (often) swear at something that had not worked. In the case of the "zappy zappers" (though Sango preferred Kikyō's term for them, "reiki blasters,") it had taken Kagura a while to work out the kinks.
It explained the char marks that lined the cement floor, and one or two on the ceiling.
It also explained why Sango had stocked up on fire extinguishers.
"So we aim this at the thing—demon I guess?—that is coming out of the portal," Kikyō fingered the little nozzle at the end of the cylindrical metallic device. "And add a little bit of our reiki and … it will shoot at them and trap them like in a lasso?"
"Precisely," Kagome beamed, "I tested it out yesterday."
"In my basement?" Sango punched the bridge of her nose, then looked around for any new char marks in her wall.
"Outside in the alley, " Kagura scoffed. "What do you take me for?"
"Someone who left multiple burn marks in my basement?" Sango offered, but Kagura waved her off.
"I fully plan on having these out of your basement and on the roof of Channel 11," Kagura explained, as if that would placate Sango? "Which is why we're just testing the stability of these things a couple more times…"
"How many of those times are going to involve fire extinguishers?" Sango sighed, before waving them out and into the alley.
She figured it was better she didn't watch, didn't know.
Luckily, the flashes and the bangs and the booms that emanated from the alley seemed to be going as expected, because it was never followed by frantic shouting, or a sploosh of fire extinguisher activity. It meant… it meant that the experiments were getting somewhere.
Sango ate lunch with the women up in her living room, and she watched the security cameras that Kagome just "happened to find" that overlooked 2nd & 42nd. Everything looked normal, and had for over a week at that point.
Could this really have been a wild goose chase? Perhaps Sango really had gone off the deep end this time, seeing things in the sky then letting three delusional women set up camp at her house to build devices that threatened to burn down the neighborhood…
But Sango knew what she saw. And even as the police training and her logical brain screamed for her to find any other answer than 'demons are trying to infiltrate New York City,' she couldn't come up with anything. And even as they were all weird, Sango really liked the three women. They were genuine, and interesting, and nonjudgmental.
Kikyō and Kagura were both really talented physicists. For Kikyō, that was evident from the theories in Demons Among Us! as well as from her faculty position at CUNY. Kagura Arashi might have been an electronics counter clerk at Best Buy, but from the looks of it (yes, Sango had investigated her. She was currently blowing up her basement, okay?), Kagura was also a savant majoring in Physics at Columbia. So the taking theory and throwing together machines for it was… not outside the realm of possibility. Then finally, Kagome Higurashi. She wrote a lot of stories for Musashi World News that could only be referred to as creative writing, but she was also the writer who often found the stories with veins of truth. She was as shrewd as Sango (and as bull-headed), and she did have a different understanding of the law as Sango, but… Sango admired her too.
Whatever they were, whether chasing ghosts or chasing the real thing, working with these three women was the most fun Sango had had in years, and that meant something.
"YES! YES! Yes." Kagura's squeals were coming from the alley. "It's a-l-i-v-e!"
That was enough to catch Sango's attention, and she jumped up to join the other three.
Kagome was standing, with the metallic looking cylinder strapped to her back, looking a bit shell-shocked.
"It… it worked!" Kikyō called out, jogging over to help Kagome out of the device.
"Hell yes it did, I told you I would tweak it into behaving!" Kagura squealed as Kikyō handed her the machine. "So Kagome, how did it feel? Think you can inject your reiki repeatedly just like that?"
"I… I think I can!" Kagome said, shaking off the momentary paralysis of whatever energy field she'd been enveloped in from Kagura's device. "It's just a little spark and boom, this thing sort of connects to my aura and I tell it where to point and it does."
"Connects, huh?" Kagura asked, and started scratching her chin—a sign that something about Kagome's words had gotten her brain thinking again.
Then a ping broke everyone's attention, and Kagome reached down and pulled out her phone.
"Looks like Miroku's ready to meet us," Kagome said while furiously typing a reply. "You ready, girls?"
"No—YES—No…"Kagura muttered, but started packing up the devices in the travel suitcases anyway.
"It's going to go great," Kikyō said, putting a reassuring hand on Kagura's shoulder.
And the tender look that passed between the two did not escape Sango's (or Kagome's) notice.
"Come on," Kikyō said, grabbing the second suitcase, with the second machine. "We taking your van?"
"Oh, listen to you having faith now that my van will turn on!" Kagura teased. "Unless Sango lets us borrow—"
"No," Sango drawled; the cop car was definitely off-limits.
"Fine. But don't complain about the smell," Kagura countered, and the women chuckled and climbed in.
It wasn't the most comfortable drive, and Kagura certainly drove like she was some sort of demon, but that was also pretty standard for New York drivers, and her van did have seatbelts. Then, before they knew it, Kagura was pulling into one of the pay-to-park structures (which Kikyō begrudgingly handed her money for) and winding upward and pulling into the first available parking spot.
"So, where are we meeting Miroku?" Kikyō asked Kagome.
"Texting him now," Kagome said, her fingers clicking away at the screen. "He'll meet us here."
They didn't have to wait long before hearing footsteps echoing through the concrete. Soon Sango made out the figure of someone, a man—a tall man—emerging from around the row of cars. Sango tried to swallow down her reaction to him, but it was hard. Because… well… he was the manifestation of everything she found attractive in a man.
He was tall (at least 6 feet), and had wild black hair that came down to his shoulders. As he got closer, Sango saw that his eyes were deep indigo, and while his face had a boyish charm, something in his eyes spoke to having an old soul. At seeing the women, his lips curled into a toothy smile, showing off perfect, pearly teeth. He wore a deep purple button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, which was also unbuttoned far enough that Sango could see his black ribbed tank below. His jeans were deep blue and tight (shit… Sango needed not to pay attention to just how tight). Miroku closed the final distance to the group of women, pulling Kagome in for a giant hug, then leaning in and pressing a sloppy kiss to her forehead.
"It's been too long, love." Miroku's voice was deep and silken, causing Sango to scowl. She didn't like how much she liked his voice.
At her barely audible contempt, Miroku turned his eyes toward the three of them, but his indigo eyes widened when he took Sango in.
"You are definitely someone I need to know," Miroku showed off his white teeth, grabbing Sango's hand with his own, then leaning down to it and pressing his lips to it. Sango really hated the way that the contact with his lips sent little sparks of feelings through her body. "Name is Miroku."
"Officer Tajiyama," Sango deadpanned, and she couldn't keep a smirk from painting across her face at the minute jerk and double-take Miroku did. Unfortunately, in the very next moment, Miroku's look turned more shrewd, more observant. She knew that look. She'd used that look.
"You certainly have an interesting moonlighting gig," Miroku spoke smoothly and suavely, never breaking his indigo eyes away from Sango's.
"Sounds like you have a more interesting moonlighting gig," Sango shot back.
"Ahhh, well… given you are one of the women who is using my… moonlighting services… I guess…" Miroku leaned his head close enough to Sango that his breath tickled her skin, "We'll just have to call a truce."
Sango officially hated Miroku.
"Uhhh. This is Kikyō, and Kagura…" Kagome broke Miroku's gaze away from Sango, which was absolutely for the best. Because Sango wanted to arrest Miroku (...she'd figure out for what later. After she had him in cuffs).
"Nice to meet you both," Miroku bowed, but then looked directly back at Sango.
"So… you've figured out where we want to go and how to get us there?" Kagome interrupted; she was not beating around the bush.
"Yeah, everything's set. Ayumi says hi," Miroku answered. "Follow my lead."
Kagome fell in right behind Miroku, and after a furtive look, the others followed suit. Sango took the last position, because… she really really didn't want to think about why they were following some pre-ordained path navigated by a purveyor of… special locksmithing services. And it didn't help that Sango couldn't stop herself from looking at his physique: his arms were well-muscled, and she… needed to stop looking at his ass. Because it looked like two delectable scoops of ice cream under his midnight blue jeans.
"This is more roundabout than usual," Kagome murmured, just loud enough for everyone to hear over the rolling wheels of the pair of suitcases being toted by Kagura and Kikyō.
"This is a bigger job than usual," Miroku countered, but he did not slow his pace and he did not look back. "Why, by the way, are you headed to a roof?"
"None of your business," Kagome scoffed. "If you're gonna be nosy, I at least deserve a discount."
"Please please tell me how much he charged for what we are about to do," Sango said; she couldn't help herself. Every word Miroku spoke bore further into her body, exciting her. She hated it. She wanted to scare him, to remind him that she could throw cuffs around his wrists for so much as discussing anything illegal in front of her.
...Problem was, she was there too, participating in what was certainly an illegal activity… and he knew he had her there.
But that didn't mean a little bit of fun entertaining picturing slapping cuffs on the tall man with the ice cream scoop ass…
"A date," Miroku answered. "With her hot cop friend."
Sango tried to make words, but none came out. It was made worse by the laughter of two of the women in front of her. She officially really really hated Miroku.
"I swear Miroku, remember what I did to you the last time you sexually harassed one of my friends?" Kagome growled, shutting both Kikyō and Kagura's laughter up. "We don't want a repeat of that, right?"
"It wasn't my fault that Eri was being so… flirtatious!" Miroku's voice cracked—apparently whatever Kagome did to Miroku the last time… had had an effect.
"Nice is different from flirtatious," Kagome replied. "Leave Sango alone."
"Sango…" Miroku tasted Sango's name on his tongue.
Sango growled under her breath, mostly because the way he said her name… it was doing things to her. Things she was not okay with. Asking her on a date was not something she was okay with. She wouldn't be, she couldn't be.
But the conversations had at least distracted them on their way to their destination. As they rounded the corner of 2nd and 42nd, Miroku turned around.
"The cameras run on a loop. She's in there right now, so as soon as the crosswalk lights, we're gonna need to hurry." Miroku spoke with a commanding voice, looking around at the light traffic that the UN district had at night. "Follow my footsteps exactly."
This was it. Before that moment, everything Sango had done was technically inside of the law. She was on a vacation talking to her friends about strange demonic things. The machine parts had been obtained legally, and even the experiments that Kagura had been running had been completely up to code.
This, on the other hand, was different. This was not 'turn the other direction and pretend the boom is totally normal.' This was not 'I know a guy.' This was breaking and entering. Totally, completely, utterly illegal. And the only thing they had to go on, to tell them that it might be okay, was a piece of paper in a school. Sango had been fighting herself on it all day.
Did she trust her instincts enough to… do this?
Did she trust Kagome, Kikyō, and Kagura?
Did she trust—no. She did not trust Miroku.
"Sango… you coming?" Kagome's voice was soft, and her eyes were narrow as if she were reading exactly what Sango was thinking. "If… if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, then… at least we can say we did our best, right?"
That was the thing. If nothing happened, they did nothing more than hang out on the roof of a building (which was still illegal, but at least harmless). And if something happened, but they stayed away, they would regret it—she would regret it.
And that was her answer.
"Let's go." Sango knew the words were a promise, a choice. She was going to see this to the end; she had to.
Before she could stuff it back down, she felt a smile blossom on her face. She was going to see if demons were infiltrating New York City, even if she had to bend some rules to do it.
Sango also didn't miss Miroku's smile, in response to hers.