Zelgadis ground his teeth and wished futilely that his fingernails could do enough damage to his palms to distract him from the white-hot pain ripping up and down his spine. He hadn't known they had a demon ward. It was not a reasonable expectation. It took a white mage of considerable skill to construct a semi-permanent one like this. Zelgadis was willing to bet he knew exactly who had done this particular one. He supposed it only made sense. If the city was going to shell out for a demon ward in the first place, why not get the best? Still, he was surprised. Rezo's services did not come cheap. He hadn't anticipated this at all. If he had, he might have taken his chances with the mob. After all, the other times he'd been here he hadn't seen any evidence of a ward.
But then again, why should he have seen it? Back then he hadn't been a chimera.
If he had been anything other than what he was, a whole creature instead of the fusion of three separate ones, the ward would not have caused him such complete agony. If he had been human it would not have affected him at all. Had he been a golem, it might have served to keep him confined, but would not have caused him pain. If he were entirely Mazoku, well, it would still be torture, but at least he'd be enjoying it.
Damn you to the blackest pits of hell, Rezo.
Tensing his shoulders against the pain he was sure movement would inflame, Zelgadis hauled himself into a sitting position so he could lean against the wall and studied his hands. If he held them perfectly still, he could almost imagine they were false, just the hands of a statue that his real hands clasped from within his sleeves. They suddenly clenched shut as an especially strong wave of pain broke over him, and the illusion was shattered. They were still his hands, corpse-blue and littered with rock shards over the wrists and knuckles. Ignoring the pain dancing inside his joints, he suddenly turned and meditatively swung one at the wall behind him with all his strength. The resounding crack of rock on rock met his ears and he brought back the hand to examine it. Every so often Zelgadis would succumb to the urge to do that, in the vain hope that if he did it hard enough, the stone skin would shatter and he'd be human underneath. He turned the hand over. Nothing. A small chip in one of the rocks over his knuckles. It would probably be healed in under an hour. He could thank the Mazoku side for that.
The demon ward's ever-present glow throbbed, and Zelgadis did his best to keep from involuntarily fisting his hands.
To be reduced to this.
Confined and incapacitated by a demon ward.
He was trapped. There was no way he could get out of this one. And consequently, there was no way he would be able to get to the Philosopher's Stone before Rezo.
Fate does have a sense of humor. It finds circular logic especially funny. Zelgadis wasn't human. Therefore he couldn't escape. Therefore he couldn't obtain the Philosopher's Stone. Therefore he couldn't be human.
Zelgadis closed his eyes and settled in for yet another long bout of festering anger and self-loathing.
At roughly the same point in time at which Zelgadis was absorbed in a rather vitriolic internal diatribe, Lina was thoroughly occupied with the task of distracting the night watchman. Subtle hadn't worked. A pebble cast in the guard's direction had done nothing but make him yawn. This particular watchman apparently had no human decency to appeal to. When confronted with Lina at her most cute and innocent, sweetly lamenting the fact that she was lost, the watchman had not offered to guide her home, but had just grunted something that sounded an awful lot like "Beat it, kid." And Lina knew she was too flat for the "feminine wiles" approach to work.
So what now? Lina was at something of a loss. This kind of furtive, tricky, sneaking-around-at-night sort of thing was a real pain in the ass. On the whole, she preferred jobs with more excitement. Violence was a definite plus, too.
Ah, to hell with it. Sometimes the direct approach is best.
This being the middle of a large city, there were no good-sized rocks lying about, but there was a nicely potted chrysanthemum on the porch of the house across the street that ought to do just as well. With the aid of Lina's silent Levitation spell, it quivered and then lifted straight up off the step in a fairly credible impression of a UFO take-off. At around thirty feet or so off the ground, it halted its ascent and moved to position itself precisely over the watchman's bald spot. Then Lina released the spell. With a loud crash and a muffled grunt, the guard crumpled up into an uncomfortable sitting position, a few flowers drooping forlornly over his nose. Seizing the opportunity, Lina hopped over his legs and scurried inside the gate leading to the prison yard. She was at the main entrance when a shout and the sound of pounding footsteps halted her. She spun around on her heel and saw a figure bending over the huddled form of the man she'd downed.
Oh, damn, there's another one.
The watchman unhooded his lantern and stepped inside the gate, nightstick at the ready.
"Halt, intruder! Stand where you are in the name of Justice! How dare you besmirch this hallowed Sanctuary of Righteousness with your unlawful misdeeds?"
Lina blinked. The voice was young, female, and … perky. And "Justice?" "Sanctuary of Righteousness?" That wasn't something you heard every day. Maybe there was hope yet for doing this quietly.
"Come out slowly where I can see you."
Lina did so. The guard was revealed to be a girl with bright black hair, presently gaping at Lina with the befuddled expression of a person who has just experienced two thought-trains colliding messily.
"Miss! What are you doing here?"
The girl's eyes got a little teary.
"And how could you hit poor Mr. Tom on the head like that? He didn't do anything to you! It was a very Unjust thing to do!"
There's that Justice thing again.
"Uh…I'm here in the name of Justice! My friend has been wrongfully imprisoned…"
"…and you're here to rescue him? Oh, that's so beautiful! You must be a true Champion of Love and Justice, Miss…um…?"
Now Love was in on it too?
"Lina."
"Miss Lina. I'm Amelia Sailune."
"Right. So can I pass, Amelia?"
"Um…I'm not really supposed to let anyone in…but if it's to right an Injustice and I come with you, I'm sure it'll be alright!"
Damn!
"That's alright, Amelia, you don't have to come. You can just…patrol, or something."
"Nonsense! How can I allow an Injustice to go unaddressed? Come on, Miss Lina, let's go rescue your poor friend in the name of…"
"…Love and Justice. I know, I know."
Amelia had taken Lina to the temporary holding cells prisoners were assigned before receiving an official sentence. The occasional sleepily patrolling warden was easily disposed of by a cheerfully bubbling Amelia's assurances. When they reached the hall holding the recently captured prisoners, Lina directed Amelia to stand guard at the entrance and turn away all comers while she checked for Zel. Classic dungeon, all the way. The puny lantern lights sputtered and flickered in the steady drips of a poorly repaired roof, and the floor was zigzagged with the shadows of barred doors. Lina tiptoed her way through the corridor, cautiously inspecting each cell and praying to the Lord of Nightmares with all her might that none of the inmates were awake at this gruesome hour. At every room she cautiously edged her way into view and then, upon hearing no footsteps or war cries, thoroughly inspected the little space for signs of life. Most of the cells held snoring prisoners. A few were empty. None, however, held Zelgadis.
Now Lina was worried. Where could he be? Could she have somehow broken into the wrong prison?
Emerging from the dank tunnel, she turned to Amelia.
"Amelia, is there anywhere else he could be? He's not in here."
"But Miss Lina! Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure!"
"But…the only other place that has prisoners who haven't been sentenced yet is the high-security area, and that's only for the ones who've committed violent crimes…. Miss Lina, are you sure this is a mission of Love and Justice?"
"Of course it is! He's been wrongfully imprisoned, you twit! The only reason he's in jail now is probably because he didn't do something violent!"
"Ow! Miss Lina, you shouldn't hit people like that!"
Amelia led her back out to the main part of the jail and pointed to a trapdoor marked "Keep Out" wedged firmly under the creaking leg of a guard's chair.
That could make things difficult.
Lina gave said guard a quick once-over. His head rolled onto his right shoulder, mouth hanging loosely open, and his legs were crossed and firmly embedded in the paperwork covering the desk. The back legs of his chair shuddered and groaned piteously under his weight, and every once in a while a mumble would escape him. No, there was absolutely no way in heaven or hell that Lina, at a scrawny 5'2" (in her boots) was going to be able to shift him without waking him up, even with Amelia's erstwhile help. She was going to have to put him out of commission and then shove the chair off the trap door. But how to do it? There were no handy flowerpots in here, and Lina's fist wasn't going to do much good against a skull that thick.
Ah-ha. Here we go.
WHACK!!!
"Miss Lina!"
The guard only had time for a brief and perplexing view of a redhead triumphantly brandishing a boot before he succumbed to the pain in his temple. Problem solved.
"Wait here Amelia, while I go find him."
A flick of her wrist and the deadbolt was off and the trap door open. Lina chuckled contentedly and launched herself down the newly uncovered stairs.
Yeah, this was high security, all right. There were at least three separate locks on the heavily barred door immediately to Lina's left, and she could feel a huge amount of free-floating magic down here. An Unlock spell wasn't going to do anything to those babies. Hell, even a Fireball might be ineffective. It would be like trying to drown a mermaid. The doors were too well adapted to a magical environment to respond to anything but a fairly large outpouring of magical power. Crap. That meant she was going to have to go with Plan B.
"Hey Amelia! Do you have the keys for these?"
"No Miss Lina! Only Daddy has those!"
"Your father?"
"He's the captain of the guard."
Lina could just hear the beaming pride in Amelia's voice. No wonder she was so big on Justice.
Alright, then. Plan C. Do it the old-fashioned way. Damn. Oh well. She could worry about that when she found Zel.
Now, where exactly was he?
Something glowed at the end of the hall. Lina jubilantly headed off toward it. That was probably a good place to begin looking. If Lina had learned one thing in life, it was that Shiny equals either:
a.) Money.
b.) Expensive stuff that can be hocked.
Or:
c.) Magic.
Lina loved Shinies.
Sadly enough, down here A and B were a slim chance at best, but Shiny Item C was a good possibility. Zelgadis had oodles of Shiny Item C. And if the guard had also guessed him to be a Mazoku, there would probably be an even heavier magical guard on his cell that on the others she had seen.
So Lina hurried down the dank tunnel as quickly as she dared, trying to make as little noise as possible. The glow turned out to have its source in the cell furthest from the entrance on the left. The door was sealed with a massive, highly formidable looking iron lock. The gently pulsing white light that Lina had spotted shone from the runes that comprised the outer circle of a demon ward painted on the floor stones. At the far end of the cell sat Zelgadis, head down and arms and legs loosely crossed.
"Pssst! Zel! Zelgadis! Hey!"
"…Lina? What are you doing here?"
"Shouldn't it be obvious? Getting you out. I'm not about to leave you in the lurch."
Zelgadis was silent.
"Besides, you still owe me 1500 pounds."
Ah. No wonder.
"Dammit!"
Zelgadis glanced over at Lina, who was mumbling obscenities as she fumbled with a set of lockpicks. That lock was a nasty, nasty thing to pick.
"You'll probably need to use a larger pick to hold the big tumblers up."
"Hey! No smart comments unless you can do better! I'm trying to help, here!"
Zelgadis snorted in a decidedly depreciative manner. The demon ward had not done much to improve his normally surly disposition. Lina raised a speculative eyebrow.
"Can you do better?"
"Yes."
"Then stop being a pain in the ass, and get your butt over here."
"…I can't. Demon ward."
"A demon ward affects you?" Lina looked closer and saw that although his hands were tightly clenched, they trembled. As she watched, a brief flicker of white light scintillated across him and they jerked and were barely restrained from convulsive movement. No wonder his voice had sounded strange.
"Ah, geeze, Zel. I'm sorry. I should have known. Hold on a minute."
Lina pulled her cloak off, and wiped it along the dripping, filthy stone wall. In short order, she had converted one corner of it into a serviceable mop, albeit a rather grungy one. By poking it through the cell's bars with her sheathed rapier and dragging it along the floor, she was able to erase a rune and open a gap in the white-painted spell circle. As she scrubbed, the enchantment's glow flickered manically. When the last fleck of paint left the stones, the light flared brilliantly once and vanished abruptly. Zelgadis quietly released the breath he had been holding, got up, winced, and limped his way over to the door, where he silently held his hand out for the picks, which Lina gladly handed over.
Zelgadis knelt down, selected a lockpick, inserted it, and began a thorough investigation of the lock's ponderous innards.
"These picks yours?"
Lina looked smug.
"Nah. I just beat up muggers until I found one who had a set on him."
Zelgadis snorted.
"I thought you didn't solve your problems with violence."
Lina growled. Zelgadis hastily ducked his head and rummaged for another lockpick. This was getting tricky. Using the thicker pick to hold up a large tumbler, he inserted the smaller one and began to poke the other tumblers into place. Lina watched him, fascinated.
"Say, Zel, you're pretty good at that."
At that moment, there was a minute click and Zelgadis pushed the door open.
"Let's go."
Lina needed no further encouragement. Together they quietly made their way to the exit and climbed up.
Amelia chattered in cheerful full gush, trying desperately to keep Mr. Bill engaged enough not to notice that Mr. Fred's deep unconsciousness was occasioned not by long hours and a hearty dinner, but rather by a large lump over his ear. So far he was buying it, and having a grand time endearing himself to his captain's daughter, but he was staying right here when he really needed to go away so Miss Lina and her friend wouldn't get caught.
At that precise moment, Mr. Bill abruptly ceased his grumbling against the poor quality of the Drunken Abbot's shepherd's pie in mid-sentence and stared fixedly at the spot over Amelia's shoulder at which the trapdoor should lie. Fearing the worst, Amelia turned around in time to see the first locks of Miss Lina's brilliant coppery hair hove into view and have her fears confirmed.
Anyone spying on Amelia's thoughts during the split second between that sight and what happened next would have been treated to something like this:
Oh no! What can I do?
…
I can't do that! Mr. Bill's a friend!
But Miss Lina is fighting for Justice…even if she does seem rather violent…
But…but….
Ohhh…
I suppose I have to. Justice must prevail!
And with that fateful decision, Amelia leapt into action.
"AAAAIIIIEEE!!! THE DEMON IS ESCAPING! RUN, MR. BILL, RUN! SOUND THE ALARM! GOD SAVE THE KING!!!"
The unfortunate Bill leapt back in alarm, only to be dealt a sound uppercut as Amelia flung an arm out in a pose that would have done Lady Justice proud. His eyes crossed neatly, and he dropped into a dazed heap slumped up against the wall. Amelia regarded her handiwork with the warm, happy feeling that she knew in her heart of hearts could only be the result of the correct implementation of the Hammer of Justice, and was just about to strike a dramatic victory pose to round it off, when a hand clamped down on her shoulder and spun her around to face a very malevolent-looking Lina Inverse.
"Eep!"
"HEY! What do you mean calling me a demon?! How dare you imply such a thing about Lina Inverse?! I'll have you know there is no Mazoku in my family tree, you…"
Fortunately for Amelia, at this opportune moment, Fate manifested itself in the person of a rather disgruntled Zelgadis, who tapped on Lina's shoulder and interrupted her tirade with a caustic observation.
"I think she meant me, Lina."
"Eh? Oh. Yeah. That's right. Forgot about that. Sorry there, Amelia."
Amelia stared and then wailed.
"Miss Lina! How could you?! You said you were on a mission of Love and Justice! How could you release the demon?"
"See?"
"Shut up, Zel. Look, Amelia, if he were a demon, why wouldn't he have just teleported himself out of there when the guard showed up?"
"The Minions of Evil can never be underestimated."
In the end, Amelia was convinced that they were, after all, allies of Love and Justice, more thanks to Zelgadis' sarcastic commentary and distinctly un-Mazoku-like frustration at the delay than to Lina's bombastic arguments. The disappearance of so notable a prisoner as Zelgadis would not remain unnoticed long, so it was agreed that after leading them out as unobtrusively as possible, Amelia would give them a quarter of an hour to get away before sounding the alarm. Any protestations of wrong timing made by Bill and Fred could be put down to disorientation resulting from the demon's assault upon their person.
As luck would have it, their exit from the prison was fairly quiet, occasioning only two more unconscious guards, neither of who was aware of Amelia's presence. (They had taken to going down the halls with Zelgadis in the lead, followed shortly by Lina, with Amelia directing them from the tail end of the procession to lend credence to the story of Zelgadis' daring solo rampage.) At the side-gate the guards used, Amelia bid them farewell.
"Goodbye Miss Lina! Mr. Zelgadis! Be careful! And remember to let Justice light the way!"
"Uh…yeah, Amelia. You too."
Amelia waved to them from the doorway until they turned a corner.
"…'Justice?'"
"Yeah. I don't know either. But, hey, you take whatever help you can get in that kind of a situation."
"…Who was she?"
"The daughter of the captain of the guard."
"Oh."
And with that, they moved with all possible haste to put as much distance between themselves and the prison as they could before Amelia rang the alarm.
"You hear anyone coming?"
"No. They'll be out in force soon though."
"Well, at least you're out."
They walked silently through twisting, quiet streets, making their circuitous way to the area in which Lina lived. In the distance they could hear the pounding toll of the grand alarm bell and muffled shouting. Once or twice they heard a search party a couple of streets over, but no one came down their alley.
"…Give me your cloak, Lina."
Lina blinked.
"What? One edge is all slimy and wet, you know."
"…"
Zelgadis just held out his hand. With a sigh, Lina handed it over and watched him hastily draw the hood up.
"You know that absolutely no one is going to see us unless we run into a patrol? And if we do, well, they already know what you look like."
"…."
Zelgadis drew the hood a little tighter.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Zel! This is ridiculous! Just think of it as the world's worst case of acne!"
Zelgadis had had a stressful day. He had been chased, beaten, arrested, and confined in a demon ward. Now here was Lina, doing her merry best to add insult to injury.
For a moment, the dangerous, brooding pre-storm silence hovered over him.
"Acne. You think this miserable condition is somehow like a bad case of acne? People do not riot over acne. Acne does not necessitate complete and total withdrawal from human society. Acne would not preclude me from making an honest living. This is nothing at all like acne. Acne is trivial and superficial. This is not. Acne might make people cringe sympathetically. This…affliction makes them try to kill me. Acne is… "
"Ack! Alright, alright, I'm sorry! I take it back - chimeric transmogrification is not at all similar to acne in any respect whatsoever! Ok?"
"…."
Silence. Zelgadis sulked icily, and Lina contemplated the stillness. Not particularly surprising when only Zelgadis was available for conversation. Not that she minded. Although on the whole she preferred loud noise and bustle – something with some zip and energy to it, you know? – she could still appreciate quiet. After all, as a wise man once said, without the dark, there cannot be light and without evil, there cannot be good. Similarly, without dead calm, there can be no kaboom. More than that, though, the silence was nice in a way. Everything seemed cleaner in the absence of noise, the cobblestones solemnly and comfortingly rounded, like the backs of small turtles pushing their way up through the London mud, and the shadows edges perfectly etched, an opaquely twisted mirror of the city. Beautiful in its precision and clarity. Suddenly a thought struck her and she again turned to Zelgadis.
"Hey, Zel? Are you going to be okay with those patrols out?"
"I've got a room at an inn. I'll be fine."
"Have you got anywhere else you can stay? After they finish sweeping the streets, the first thing they're going to do is knock on the door of every tavern and hostel and ask for suspicious characters. And, as I believe I've already told you, that hood and mask get-up of yours is hardly inconspicuous."
Zelgadis scowled.
"And how would you know that's what they'll do?"
"Look, once you've blown up as many things as I have, you get to know how to be a successful fugitive. Now, can you go somewhere else or not?"
"I'll be fine."
Lina rolled her eyes and snorted.
"Right. I'll take that as a 'No, I don't, but I'll wander the streets and dodge guards for the rest of the night rather than admit that you might have a point.'"
"…."
"That's what I thought. Look, you can crash on the couch at my place for a while, ok?"
"What? No, you don't have to do that. I'll be fine."
"You realize that's the third time you've said that? Don't worry about it. It's the most practical solution. We'd have to meet somewhere tomorrow anyway, and the café is obviously out."
"…Thanks."
"No problem."
Silence finally having won the battle against the sporadic conversation, thanks to the tactical advantage of two very tired conversationalists, Lina and Zelgadis trudged, plodded, and stumbled their way home, where Lina promptly collapsed on her bed, and Zelgadis thankfully did likewise on Lina's sturdily built couch. Both were soon lost to the world, minds spinning weightlessly in the welcome oblivion of sleep.