Chapter Nine
By the time the stars disappeared in the east the flames had disappeared down the chimney's hell-black trachea. By the time the sun's white orb had climbed to nestle in amongst the tiers and terraces of the city roofline, the chimney's bricks were only faintly warm. At this point they decided it was probably safe to go back inside, and did so cautiously, choosing an opportune window of momentary quiet to descend from the rooftop. They stepped inside, and upon meeting no smoke or cinders, breathed a collective sigh of relief. They had taken it in shifts to hold the Balus Wall, and were gratified to find that they had not tired themselves out for nothing. In the exact center of Lina's fireplace they discovered the brown bottle that had been the corporeal housing of Luna's spirits, delicately upright and perfectly unscathed but for a dusting of filmy charcoal over its mouth. The fireplace itself could have passed for the entrance to a coal mine.
The night had been passed mostly in companionable silence after that remarkable exchange. The shock of the Philosopher's Stone's ineffectuality still rode on Zelgadis quietly, though truth to tell, he had half expected it and fully dreaded it. It would probably stay with him for months to come, an uncomfortable, misplaced feeling like having a sharp bit of food lodged in one's throat, too small to impede breathing, but too large to swallow without tearing the delicate membranes of the esophageal lining. But Lina's unexpected kindness had taken his attention away from its sharpest edges. It wasn't going to disappear anytime soon – he had no illusions about that – but having her around to beat the depression out of him might keep the very worst at bay.
Lina waved the bottle triumphantly and jumped up to whack him (carefully, mind you) over the head.
"All right, you've had your mope. What are you going to do now? And when are you going to pay me?"
Zelgadis gave a sigh and made a mental note not to expect any financial lenience in light of Lina's declaration of friendship. Reaching into his pocket dimension, he extracted coins by the handful to pour in luxurious pools on Lina's tabletop. Lina gaped gleefully and was huddling joyfully over her cash in no time flat.
"You mean you've been carrying this around with you all the time? What was all that complaining about paying for meals then? And where did you get this?"
"Burgled Rezo's safe when I left his service."
After Lina had finished (for the moment) gloating, dragon-like, over her hoard, she turned to face Zelgadis, who sat bemused on the couch, watching Lina cavort atop a pile of coins half her height.
"So what are you going to go do next? Go thwart Rezo I assume?"
"He's already been thwarted. I got the Stone first."
"I guess you were dead to the world by then, but he said there was 'more than one way of accomplishing his goal.'"
A beat of quiet passed before Zelgadis abruptly stood up and made for the door, snagging Lina on his way.
"Let's go. He's been looking for a way to see for a long time. If he's found something now, it has to be both powerful and obscure."
"And you think it might cure you too?"
"…."
"What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
Another hour saw Lina and Zelgadis wandering through a distinctly unsavory district in search of a person Zelgadis said would know Rezo's whereabouts and most likely what he was up to as well. The street cleaners didn't come out here too often for fear of being mugged, and the cobblestones were rendered almost perfectly flat by a layer of manure and garbage that clung to them, filling in the cracks and gullies between them. Piles of rags quivered in a shaking dance at the sides of the alley, revealed to be children only by wide starveling eyes in the dirt-colored, bare-bones faces. Adults occasionally prowled past with the weary, downtrodden aggression of hyenas.
"Are you sure this is the right place?"
A sneer curled across Zelgadis' face.
"Very sure," he answered cryptically.
Lina was debating whether to beat it out of him or just let him be uncommunicative when a vision of the sort that might usually cause the viewer to stare, shake his or her head, and immediately return home to question the chef as to exactly what kind of mushrooms had been used in the soup appeared at the end of the miserable alley and traipsed its way toward them with venomous cheer. Lina stared. She had never before in her life encountered anyone who might be described using the word "dapper." Dapper, however, was the term par excellence in describing this man. He wore fine, dandy-ish clothing, and his boots (miraculously unscathed by the city's muck) were polished to the chipper brightness of a beetle's carapace. His hair swung from side to side as he made his way through the miserable alley with blithe indifference. All the while, his smile stretched from ear to ear, and his eyes remained tightly closed as he nimbly skipped over outstretched bodies and heaps of trash.
The hallucination-cum-one-man procession came to a halt just in front of Zelgadis and swept an extravagantly mocking bow.
"Why, Zelgadis isn't it? You haven't changed a bit since I last saw you. Still just the same rock headed, hardhearted, stone skinned, all-around tough guy I remember you as!"
Zelgadis, demonstrating remarkable restraint, grabbed the man's lapels and shook vigorously.
"Shut it, Fruitcake. Where's Rezo and how does he plan to cure himself?"
The Fruitcake's grin widened into an expression of almost epiphanic exuberance and he warmly clasped Zelgadis' hands, completely ignoring their death-grip on his coat.
"So you do know Rezo! Grandson, right? I knew it!"
"Just answer the question. And if you give me any of that 'It's a secret' crap, I'm going to shove those words so far up your…"
At this point Lina intervened.
"You knew he was Rezo's grandson?"
"But of course!" The Fruitcake somehow managed to bat his eyelashes without opening his eyes. "There can be only one explanation for a man who harbors a violent dislike of priests who don't open their eyes."
Zelgadis heaved a sigh and hoisted the Fruitcake a little higher.
"Can we get to the point?"
"Certainly, my good man!"
"Spill it, Xellos."
"Weeell…Rezo is in his mansion."
"The rest of it, you bastard."
Xellos' expression was filled with the happy satisfaction of a child who has just done something by himself for the very first time.
"Are you sure you want to know?"
Lina had had enough of the Fruitcake's dodging around, and so promptly put him in a headlock.
"Just spit it out already!"
Xellos did his best to bob his head amiably from within Lina's hold.
"Now, now… That was uncalled for…"
"Xellos. How. Is. Rezo. Going. To. Get. Cured?"
"That…"
Xellos waggled a finger.
"…is a secret! And you know, of course, that secrets don't come cheap."
Lina gave a battle cry and got ready to pound Xellos as flat as he could go, but Zelgadis beat her to the punch, having stepped back and pulled something out of his cloak. Lina had high hopes for the notorious crossbow, and was consequently somewhat disappointed when the object in question turned out to be a plain white envelope.
"Right. A secret for a secret, Xellos. You tell me what I want to know about Rezo, and Beastmaster never sees this."
The Fruitcake's eyes finally popped open, and Lina saw that his pupils were slitted.
Mazoku. No wonder he's such a pest.
"You'd eventually be very sorry if you did that."
"But you'd be sorrier sooner. And that's what matters."
Xellos' grin stretched a little farther, rendered somewhat macabre by evil stare of his opened eyes.
"Sure you don't want to go full Mazoku, Zelgadis? You'd be sooo good at it."
"Shut up and tell me about Rezo."
"But how can I say anything about him if I've shut up?"
Lina tightened her grip suddenly and Xellos coughed. Zelgadis waved the envelope.
"Ah, poor misunderstood me. You two really need to get a sense of humor. I know Zelgadis never had one to begin with, but surely there's a speck of…"
Lina growled and Xellos was suddenly an extra-crispy Mazoku.
"…unless, of course you happen to be Lina Inverse."
By the end of the next few punches, the ground was liberally sprinkled with charred bits-o'-Mazoku, and Xellos was thoroughly convinced that he was, indeed, facing Lina Inverse.
Xellos smiled lazily and was suddenly injury-free; skin pulling back over cuts with the elastic ease of rubber and bruises disappearing like cheap cosmetics. Blood dried to black flakes and fell off him in a snowstorm of ill portent. Suddenly he was back to the dapper, dandified eyesore he had been at the start of the encounter.
"Well, ducklings, don't say I didn't warn you. You're not going to like it at all. He's going to resurrect Shabranigdo."
"He's going to WHAT?!"
"Why?"
"It's quite amusing, actually. He thinks it's all his idea. His big plan is to resurrect the Old Man, keep him briefly confined, draw off enough raw power to make a new set of eyes, and banish him as fast as he can."
"And whose idea is it really?"
Xellos winked and donned a mildly startled expression.
"Why, Shabranigdo's, of course. Have fun, chickadees. Toodles."
And the bastard teleported himself out of there.
"COME BACK HERE, YOU SCURVY MAZOKU SON OF A BITCH!"
And from far, far away, there came an echoing sing-sing in reply:
"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!"
Lina was scarlet, shaking her fist at the spot of empty air that had previously held Xellos. Anger poured off her in a nearly tangible torrent. The alley had long since cleared of people. Even the rats and the roaches had skedaddled. You didn't need to know Lina Inverse was a sorceress to know you needed to get the hell out of there when she was angry. Zelgadis merely glowered. He had long since developed a marginal tolerance for Xellos' trademark brand of annoyance out of sheer necessity. In his business, information makes you or breaks you, and Xellos' business was secrets. They were both good at their jobs, and that made their interaction something of a necessary evil.
"Grrr...."
Lina, on the other hand….
Well, let us just say that one's first encounter with Xellos Metallium is bound to be deeply shocking at some level.
Lina abruptly threw her hands up in the air as if to proclaim to the world at large that she washed her hands of the Fruitcake and stomped out of the alley, Zelgadis in tow. After a few blocks she had cooled off a bit, though if Xellos was a smart Mazoku, he wasn't going to be seeing her anytime soon. With the fury pushed over to the side for the moment, Lina's thoughts soon returned to their normal composition; that is to say: 10% Miscellaneous, 40% Food, 50% Greed.
"So what was in the envelope, Zel?"
Lina did her best to look cute. Information that could hold such sway over an evidently powerful Mazoku like Xellos was well worth knowing, and, if exploited in the correct way, potentially extremely lucrative.
Zelgadis glanced askance, gave a start and a blink at Lina's attempt at adorability, then shrugged and handed over the envelope in question.
"See for yourself."
Lina's hand clamped around the white paper in much the same fashion as the jaws of a Venus Fly Trap embrace their victim. She cackled a bit, hunched over her treasure, took a quick look around to make sure no one could see, and ripped open the paper.
Inside, she found nothing at all.
"Hey! What's the big idea?"
Zelgadis, looking quite amused by this time, gave another shrug.
"Xellos," (said with venom and suppressed malevolent glee), "is a snake. And he's an old one. At some point, he must have done something his master would disapprove of."
Lina guffawed and slapped him on the back before realizing the inevitable consequences of said action. Then she yelped, massaged her hand, and guffawed again.
"And you say he's a snake? 'Sure you don't want to go full Mazoku? You'd be sooo good at it.'"
It really rankled to have Lina quote Xellos at him.
After another few blocks, the hilarity had died down (though Zelgadis rightly suspected he would be teased for weeks to come about being just as much of a snake as Xellos), and they found themselves wandering along a busy street overlooking the docks and the river. People pumped through the channel between buildings in a dizzy pulse, carriages pushing through the current with the careless scorn the big have for the little who cross their path. The human torrent was hopelessly monumental. One could stand there for days watching it, and see different people repeat the same ebb and flow over and over again, unaware that they were only following the patterns that had been worn into the cobblestones since the street had first been built. The grimly ant-like rush sobered Lina, and she turned to Zelgadis, who gazed inscrutably through a gap between buildings at the gray, ship-studded Thames.
"…Is Xellos right? Will Rezo really go so far as to resurrect Ruby-Eye just to gain his sight?"
Zelgadis stared straight ahead and answered with immediate, unflinching certainty.
"Yes. He would do anything to be cured."
"Even that?"
With the comfort and support of Lina's friendship came the impulse to be completely honest, to let her know just what she was getting into and just who she had become friends with. Zelgadis shrugged.
"I would do it."
Lina looked at him sidelong and shook her head sharply.
"No you wouldn't. You're sane. You wouldn't think you could banish a demon lord, much less him. And you wouldn't risk not being able to just so you could die human."
Zelgadis shrugged again. He wasn't so sure.
"It doesn't matter. Rezo will do it."
"How far away is his mansion? If he really intends to summon and banish Shabranigdo, he'll need at least a day to prepare the spells. If we leave now, will we be able to stop him before he does it?"
"It's a day's hard travel by carriage. So yes, we could probably get there in time, but what would we do when we got there? We only held him off last time because he wasn't expecting me to disable his hand."
"Well we can't just sit here! He's about to summon a force capable of destroying the world, for heaven's sake! I don't see how we're going to win either, but at least we have a chance! I mean, we were beating him the last time. All we need to do is find a way to do it again."
Zelgadis was silent. Dying in a failed attempt to one-up the man who had made his life a living hell was one thing. It was a death he could accept, a pill easy to swallow when washed back with so many years of raw, suppressed fury. Dying in a fight against an impersonal evil bent on the destruction of a world that had not given him much cause to wish its salvation was another matter entirely. Half of him just wanted to commit himself to absolute amorality and find some nice quiet spot to wait for Armageddon, and the other half screamed at him that he should be disgusted for even thinking it.
"Lina…if we can't beat him again, or we don't get there in time, and he summons Shabranigdo…assuming we're still alive…we won't have a chance in hell of living through it, you know."
Lina turned to face him and perhaps heard some of his thoughts lying concealed under the carefully neutral tone of voice.
"Yeah. I know," she said quietly. "But if it does come to that, we're the only ones here who do stand any kind of a chance. You and I and Rezo are the only really powerful mages I've ever encountered here. If anybody's going to beat Shabranigdo, it will have to be us. We have to try. Any way you look at it, if we don't beat him, we're going to die. If we aren't there to try and stop him, maybe we'll have another day to live at the most."
Zelgadis gravely inclined his head.
"Point."
And with not another word spoken, they both set off with solemn, silent accord to find a carriage.
AN: I guess I did jinx it with the fast update last time. Damn. Ah, well.
A couple of you have asked whether this was ever going to turn into a real romance. The awful truth is, that although when I first planned this, it was heading in that direction, I later decided that in good conciousness I couldn't make Zel and Lina feel anything more for each other than strong friendship and tentative attraction within the time-span of this fic. (If you're mad enough to count the days (I was), you'll see that everything happens in a little under two weeks.) Neither one of them is really open enough or honest enough with their feelings for me to do that.
Which is why there's going to be a sequel.
Wait, wait, wait… don't get all excited. It's not going to happen for quite a while. I've got two major Inuyasha stories in the works right now, and I categorically refuse to work on more than two multi-chaptered stories at a time, and two only with the greatest reluctance.
But it will come eventually.
As always, thank you to PKNight for beta-reading. And thank you, of course, to you reading this. I hope you enjoyed it.