~*~*~*~*~
"You've reached the Ellison residence. We're probably out dangling off an oil rig right now, so you know the drill-"
"Sandburg!"
"Right. Leave a message, we'll get back to you." Beep.
"Ah, this is Yugi Mouto," Yugi said carefully into the hotel phone. "Dr. Sandburg? My grandfather, Solomon Mouto, asked me to call you about the Hayashibara texts. We're going to be here in Cascade for a few days, and we'd like to set up a time to meet." He listed off the hotel number and their cell, and hung up. "Grandpa, why did you want me to call him?"
Shuffling a photograph Yugi still hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of back in with a sheaf of photocopied ancient writing, Solomon forced a smile. "It's... well, complicated."
//I'll believe that,// Yami murmured, eyeing their grandpa from the labyrinth of his soul room. //Something's amiss here, aibou.//
//Besides last night?//
//Aa. And about that....//
Right. Wish I didn't have to think about that.... "So... do you know anybody local who deals with spirits, Grandpa?" Yugi asked carefully. "The Darkness isn't focused anymore, but magic's going to be very fragile around Corinne for a while-"
"If she's a priestess, she can protect herself against the aftereffects."
Yugi blinked, taken aback by his grandpa's unaccustomed bluntness. "But-"
"Yugi. Cascade's been a city for less than two centuries. I doubt Yami's ever been in any settlement that recent, but I can tell you the result is a great deal of magical chaos as human and natural energies interact. There's a similar nexus in the Sea of Japan I used to live near; between that and various digs, I'm accustomed to the raw edges. But most people with any degree of Sight simply can't handle it for long. I'm rather surprised Dr. Sandburg is still here...." Solomon looked him over. "You don't have a headache?"
"Ah... no." Yugi listened inside for a second. "Yami says the Items ground their holders. As long as we're home, we're okay."
"Home?" Solomon frowned at the hotel room.
Yugi smiled. "Home isn't a place, Grandpa. It's people. Family."
Solomon eyed the Puzzle speculatively. "Every time I think I know how that works... well. Even if we found someone, we'd find it very difficult to explain without hinting at just what Yami did last night. Some magical practitioners have quite good relations with the local authorities."
"Huh?"
//I believe he means they might try to - is the word "grill" us, aibou?// Yami sounded almost amused by the prospect.
Oh. Oh. Yugi sighed. "They wouldn't find anything, Grandpa. Don't worry."
"Lost cause, I'm afraid." Solomon rubbed the back of his neck. "Corinne's not a common name. It's not worth the risk, Yugi. Trust me."
//Hmph. Leaving magic loose and untidy....//
//You're just upset because Cascade has more rain than Domino City,// Yugi teased his darker half.
//It's cold. And wet,// the five-thousand-year-old Egyptian spirit retorted. //And the auras of this place are... unpleasant.//
Yugi started. //Is it dangerous?//
He felt the spirit sweep Shadow Magic outward, testing how it pulsed against patches of light and dark, love and hate and the wild mix of city and wilderness energies. //More unruly than actively hostile, even with the necromancer's interference,// Yami determined. //I don't know who wards spirits here, in these modern times, but their techniques could use work... hmm. The window, aibou?//
"...Are you listening to me?" Solomon sighed. "How do you get through the school day?"
"Well, at school, Yami knows where all the magic is," Yugi said apologetically, heading for the half-open window. "So we don't have keep looking to make sure we don't run into... a weak spot?"
//It's a reasonable analogy. Ready?//
//Anytime.// "That way, the Puzzle doesn't attract so much attention-"
Yu-Gi-Oh!
"Except from those who were already intent on it," Yami finished, violet eyes holding a flash of scarlet as he hauled a black-clad teen over the sill. "Tomb robber...."
A scrabbling hand shoved a black knitted cap aside, exposing Ryou Bakura's rumpled silver hair. "It wasn't my idea!"
Solomon started as the slender teen scrambled into their room, taking in the uncharacteristic soot-gray trench coat, the satchel full of odd objects slung over his shoulder, the Millennium Ring glinting gold over his black sweatshirt... and the all-too-familiar panic in brown eyes. "Ryou! You shouldn't be here on your own!"
Ryou buried his head in his hands. "If I were on my own, Mouto-san, I wouldn't be here!"
"But then why-" Solomon shook his head as he made the connection. "Bakura?"
"Not at the moment," Yami noted, laying a steadying hand on his taller friend's arm. "Are you in danger? Can you hold him? What's the last thing you remember?"
"Oh, I remember everything this time...." Setting the satchel down, Ryou let out a slow breath. "This is a bit complicated."
//I'll bet,// Yugi put in dryly, watching from his soul room. //He's here in Cascade when he's supposed to be in Domino City? How did he get here?//
"Good question, aibou," Yami noted. "How did you get here?"
Ryou held up a familiar leather-bound booklet. "My passport's still valid."
"And a minor's," Solomon put in dryly, closing the window against a damp breeze.
"Mouto-san, you would not believe the people Bakura knows," Ryou sighed. "I don't believe some of the people he knows... it was amazingly simple. We just - er - you're not planning to report any of this, are you?"
Yami took in the embarrassed rub of Ryou's fingers through the back of white hair, and felt a smile threaten. Whatever Bakura had done, it might have been unpleasant, inconvenient, and definitely out of character for Ryou, but it hadn't been actively malicious. Interesting.
//And he let Ryou stay awake for all of it,// Yugi noted. //All right!//
A possible move toward true partnership, rather than Ryou and Bakura's usual unhealthy combination of host and malicious yami. Perhaps Yugi had been right all along, and there was reason to hope. "No bodies?" Yami asked matter-of-factly. "No souls trapped in various unusual objects?"
"Not this time," Ryou admitted, stealing a chair from the room's small desk. "He just - um - really wanted to get out of town."
Yami did smile, now. "Tristan?"
"Tristan, Joey, Tea, you and Yugi, Mokuba when he can talk his brother into it... it's been a siege. Every day! People! Coming to my house. Bringing me food. Dragging me out to the mall, or the Game Shop, or the park - or even a dance studio!"
"Tea?"
"Tea," Ryou confirmed, leaning on the back of the chair. "Though I admit, I prefer reading books while she's practicing to getting yanked through malls at high speed by Joey and Tristan. I swear they're on personal terms with the owner of every secondhand music and motorcycle shop inside the city limits. And more than a few without. I'll grant you I was wishing for more company, but this...." Ryou shuddered. "Bakura swears it's all your fault."
"Not at all," Yami denied the charge. "Tristan's idea entirely. Though I'll grant you I found it intriguing."
"Intriguing? Yami, the other day I heard Tristan's motorcycle pull up, and I nearly pulled out the Ring!"
"Good."
"Good?" Ryou yelped.
Solomon's violet gaze darkened. "Yami...."
"You can't control your power if you're afraid of it." Yami met his grandfather's gaze squarely. "Grandpa, please try to understand. The Ring belongs in Ryou's hands, just as the Puzzle was meant for Yugi. If a soul is stolen, I can return it; I've done so before. But if Ryou can't master his own magic, Bakura will continue to use it as he chooses. You've seen yourself the chaos that can cause."
Solomon frowned. "Yami, the next time you plan to set in motion a course of action that may involve soul-stealing, no matter how temporary, warn me first."
Oops, Yami thought dryly.
//Oops is right,// his hikari remarked, just as wry. //You're not a pharaoh anymore, Yami. We really should talk to Grandpa before we start to do something risky.//
A sigh echoed down their bond. //I know, aibou. I'm simply... not used to having elders to depend on.//
Yugi wrapped his other self in a mental hug. //I know.// A flash of gold, and he took back control. "Sorry, Grandpa. I think he just thought it was obvious," Yugi admitted. "I guess I can see why you'd both want to get out of town, Ryou. But why did Bakura want to come here?"
"Well... er...."
Mokuba!
Fire and smoke and a dragon's roar-
"Kaiba!" Yugi blinked away flickers of fire, hand on the Puzzle. Tried to reach out, strengthen that fragile sense of contact. "Seto?"
//Kaiba, where are you?// Yami listened through the shadows, attempted to grasp the thin thread of magic that bound them to the man whose soul he'd shattered - and restored. //Call us, Kaiba!//
Silence.
"Kaiba?" Solomon asked sharply. "Yugi, what's going on?"
Yugi drew in a shaky breath. "Ever since Yami crushed the evil out of Kaiba, we can... hear him sometimes. Through the shadows. He's a sorcerer, Grandpa, the Shadow Realm knows when he's upset." Fingers closed on the golden pyramid. "Mokuba's in danger."
Solomon sighed, laying a gentle hand on his shoulders. "We'll call the others. Outside of that - they're in Japan, Yugi. Whatever's wrong, there's little we can do about it from here."
"But Kaiba's not in Japan," Ryou said, puzzled. "He's here. In Cascade." Chocolate eyes studied them both. "You really didn't know? Bakura-" he clamped his lips together, suddenly pale.
//So the tomb robber wakes,// Yami observed. //Leave him be, Bakura! He's told us none of your plans.//
//He's said enough!// came the cold snarl from the Ring's spirit. Red flickered in Ryou's eyes, tinting chocolate to amber.
//Enough to determine you knew we would both be here, when neither Kaiba nor I knew the other would be anywhere but Domino City?// Yami's smirk tugged at Yugi's lips. //That must have been unsettling.//
The Ring flashed; amber eyes glowed as Bakura snarled. "Pharaohs and priests! Nothing but plots inside plots!"
"It's not a plot, Bakura," Yugi stated, holding down the trembling worry. Mokuba. Please, kami-sama, let him be okay. Seto couldn't bear it if he wasn't. "I don't know why Seto's here, but Grandpa and I are just here to talk to the son of an old friend of his. An archaeologist."
"Anthropologist," Solomon corrected. "And even if Kaiba is here, Yugi, Cascade is not a small city. We can't just go looking for him at random...."
Almost as one, Solomon and Yugi turned a speculative look on Bakura.
Who gripped his Ring, and eyed the distance to the window, obviously weighing his chances of getting past Yugi before Yami could take over. "You must be delusional."
"Please, 'Kura-kun?" Yugi gave the spirit his most innocent smile and bow, flashing frantic mental peace signs to the pharaoh growling in his soul room. "You've found Mokuba before. I know you could do it again."
Bakura's snarl flashed a hint of fang. The Ring's five golden pointers shifted against his shirt, magic stirring in response to its wielder's will. "Why should I?"
"Three words, young man," Solomon said acerbically. "Minor. Illegal. Deportation."
"Keh! You would." Subtle respect gleamed in the dark spirit's gaze as he studied Solomon. "You have spirit, old man. Do what you will - to Ryou. I don't feel like playing hero today." The Ring flashed.
"Ooof," Ryou gasped. "Ow...." He smiled weakly. "Sorry, Yugi. I don't think... er, why are you smiling?"
"Yami was watching Bakura touch the Ring's magic," Yugi grinned. "Maybe Bakura won't use the Ring to find Mokuba. But you can."
~*~*~*~*~
Chomping an unlit cigar, Captain Simon Banks paced the hall in Cascade General, listening to his oddest pair of detectives bicker.
"I was nowhere near this one, Jim," Blair Sandburg stated, accompanied by a soft slosh that probably meant he was swiping a saltwater-soaked washcloth over his partner's arms and face. Both had been pronounced clear by the emergency crew, but clear for a regular person might not be clear for Jim Ellison. Sandburg was being cautious. Now.
"One week," Major Crime's most aggravating detective growled in turn. "What the hell happened to one week?"
Music to Simon's ears. Arguing meant both of them could breathe, which meant both of them would get the full effect when he strangled them to death.
Ellison was a sentinel. Jim knew he was a sentinel. Blair knew he was a sentinel. Both of them knew damn well how hypersensitive Jim was to chemicals of every shape, form, or color. Which meant both of them should have damn well given up their hot pursuit of Manuel "Manny" Dominguez the second Jim got a whiff of methamphetamine-related precursors, and called in less-sensitive backup.
But no. Jim Ellison had been tracking - make that hunting - this particular drug dealer and rapist for almost a week, and there was no way he'd back off. Not for anything so minor as a potentially life-threatening sensitivity....
And Simon stopped pacing, and counted to ten. Again.
So. Jim. Blair. Drug dealer. And a stray large-scale rolling meth lab in the back of a moving van parked in the alley, owned by the heavily-armed business associates of said drug dealer.
The results were predictable.
There goes our homicide rate....
Thank god he had Taggert on the scene right now. The ex-Bomb Squad detective knew what to look for. He had the easy job; collect the evidence, get the bodies to the morgue, fend off the press with a "Sorry, we can't talk about an ongoing investigation".
Simon's job... had just switched to damage control.
So far he'd fended off a call from the mayor's office about assigning detectives to escort some foreign VIP visiting Questscape, coordinated with Transportation to keep part of the street blocked until Taggert was through gathering pieces, and gotten the statements of three shocked, shaken bystanders who were walking wounded. Which was why Simon was out here in the hall, and not in the room chewing Ellison out. He'd been careful not to come in contact with his witnesses, but he wasn't going to risk bringing in a trace of chemicals while Blair was making sure Jim was stable.
And here comes the bad news. Simon straightened as the brunette nurse stalked down the hall. Grateful for small blessings that it was this nurse; not everybody attached to the ER could take a Major Crimes invasion in stride. Ellison himself had terrified most of the doctors to the point they wouldn't come near him without backup. "Nurse Houlihan. What's the count?"
"Could be worse." Agnes Houlihan tilted her head back to look up at him, gray eyes tired. "So far, three dead. I'm hoping they're your perps. One teenage girl still in the OR for exposure and shrapnel; no ID, and head trauma."
Simon winced. "Bad?"
"We don't know yet," Houlihan said bluntly. "At least some of her reflexes are up and running. Keep your fingers crossed." She gave him a shadow of a smile. "It really could have been worse, Captain. We were able to release the people you got statements from. No exposure."
Simon scowled. "Excuse me?" He wasn't Bomb Squad or Vice, but he'd read enough reports on explosions like these to know that was not normal.
"Exactly," Houlihan nodded. "I hope our last patient might shed a little light on that-"
"There's another witness?" Simon pounced.
The nurse gave him a look that had been known to stop Sandburg mid-obfuscation. "He's a minor, Captain. And right now, all he's speaking is Japanese."
And the day just kept getting better. "And...?"
"Dr. Hiroto's out of town, and we haven't been able to get hold of anybody else to translate," Houlihan said matter-of-factly. "He seems to be okay, but he's somewhere around ten, maybe twelve, and scared out of his wits. We need to calm him down... and if you want to interview him, you're going to need help. Hi, Blair. Can we borrow your partner?"
"You speak Japanese?" Simon turned a glare on his wayward sentinel. Yet another interesting fact Jim had forgotten to mention. He was starting to lose count.
"Army didn't switch me to Central America 'til later. I'm probably a little rusty," Jim shrugged, letting his partner precede him through the doorway. "Sure, Agnes. Where is he?"
"Downstairs. We'd better hurry; he filched a cell off one of the orderlies and made a call before we could grab it. We don't know who to, but it was international and the administrator's fit to be tied."
"You're sure the kid is clean?" Blair asked, face uncharacteristically serious. His curly brown hair was damp, and tied back with a leather thong; evidently Jim wasn't the only one who'd suffered through a quick rinse just to be sure.
"As the proverbial whistle," Houlihan assured him, leading the way down the hall and into the elevator. "We've got his effects elsewhere just in case. Except for a locket, he wouldn't let us take that off. Bit Dr. Hendee when he tried."
Blair grinned as the elevator doors closed, probably recalling a few of his own encounters with the Cascade ER pediatrician. "I like this kid already."
"He's cute, too," Houlihan admitted, watching the lights blink down two floors. "I just wish I knew what he was saying."
The doors opened, and Jim's brows shot toward his receding hairline. "Agnes... you might not want to know."
Simon recognized Dr. Hendee's harried voice echoing out of one of the examination rooms. "Now, this will just sting a little...."
"Hentai!" a young voice yelled.
"Pervert," Jim said dryly.
"Shitsukoi! Te-o dokete-yo!"
"Stop it. Take your hands off me," Jim translated, heading toward the ruckus.
Another furious burst of Japanese, interspersed with a grown man's yelp.
"Get that needle away from me before I shove it up your-" Jim clamped his lips shut, pink flushing the tips of his ears. "That is one rude little kid."
"I thought the Japanese were supposed to be a polite culture," Blair said wryly.
"Guess he missed the memo." Jim stepped into the room, walking quietly up to the white-coated doctor and his struggling, swearing, black-haired armful of a patient. "Doctor? Why don't you just let him go for a minute." He bowed slightly. "Hajime. Mashite Ellison desu."
Black hair froze. Wide blue eyes blinked at them, tear-streaked and frightened; blinked wider, taking in Simon's full 6'5 height. The over-sized green scrubs the kid had been shoved into shifted as he tried to scramble back, exposing the black thong of a locket that looked like nothing so much as an odd, brown-backed playing card.
Huh. He is cute, Simon thought, surprised.
Hendee wasn't letting go. "What'd you say to him, Detective?"
"Just told him my name. I think it would make things easier if we had his, don't you?"
And cue the glare, Simon almost nodded, watching Hendee reluctantly back off as Jim eyed him.
But Ellison didn't follow up on his threats of mayhem, instead waving Blair forward as he stood a careful distance away and asked a quiet question.
The kid swallowed, fingering his locket. "Mokuba."
"Mokuba," Jim repeated gently. "Blair Sandburg. Captain Simon Banks...."
Simon listened to the rest of the introductions with half an ear, watching Mokuba's body language. Scared kid, Simon noted, watching blue eyes flick to him, the door, Houlihan, the odd objects on the counter, and back to Jim, fast as Blair calculating who to talk to when the anthropologist-turned-detective wanted to defuse a mob. And not just because he almost wound up as street pizza.
Of course, being hauled off away from your parents by god-knew-who, dumped into a hospital full of screaming, bloodied, terrified people, and stripped naked by doctors who didn't even speak your language would be enough to scare anybody.
Nope, it's more than that, the captain of Major Crimes thought. This kid's working the angles. He does not trust us.
"Okay." Jim turned toward him. "His name's Mokuba. Still hasn't given me his family name, by the way. Says he and his brother were looking at computer games in UltraGear; his brother got distracted by some technical details, Mokuba got bored and decided to look around outside the store. He heard a girl yelling, and ran that way to see what was happening, and he's not sure what happened after that. He remembers a gunshot, and a whumph - that was probably the combustibles igniting - and closing his eyes. Next thing he knows, the paramedics had him."
"What's his brother's name?" Blair asked, giving Mokuba a friendly smile.
"He didn't say," Jim said dryly. Leaned in, and asked a quiet question.
Mokuba gulped, tears trickling down. "Seto." And latched onto Blair like a limpet, sobbing into the anthropologist's brown jacket.
Great, Simon thought, feeling like an ogre. Sometimes I hate this job. Bad enough what he's already been through today, we're going to have to pry information out of an... upset... little... kid....
An upset little kid Jim was slanting a very skeptical look at - just as Simon caught Mokuba calculating the distance to the door again. A stretch of floor that was a lot clearer, now that Hendee had wilted out of the room and Houlihan was cooing at the kid from by the counter as she filled a paper cup with bottled water.
You didn't spend a couple years dealing with Sandburg without recognizing the signs. Son of a... he's playing us!
From the faint lines around Blair's eyes, the anthropologist saw it too. "So... does Seto have a phone number?"
Jim asked, and listened, and gave his partner a skeptical glance. "Says he's not sure he remembers it, but if we gave him a phone he could try."
"Why am I not surprised?" Blair muttered, rubbing Mokuba's back in slow, soothing circles as the kid polished off the water. "Okay, Jim. Any idea why this kid's afraid we might find out who his family is?"
Simon snorted. "Hell, Sandburg. It could just be he doesn't want to get his brother in trouble for not watching him." Though that didn't seem to ring right. Not with those real flickers of fear when Mokuba didn't have the tears turned on.
"I don't think so, Simon." Jim was watching Mokuba like a hawk. "If he left his brother, he'd be the one in trouble with his family. This is worse than that."
Blair's eyes widened. "He doesn't want somebody else to find him."
Jim's head snapped up. Nostrils flared. "Somebody just did."
"You can't go in there!" Hendee protested from the hall.
"Get out of my way."
The voice was cold, precise. The words, English with the faintest of accents. The tone-
Move. Or die. I don't care which.
Jim had a hand near his gun. Simon snatched his cell, one speed-dial away from calling in the troops. Blair held Mokuba tight, ready to dive with Houlihan into cover.
And Mokuba's hands unclenched from Blair's jacket with a laugh of pure relief. "Nii-sama!"
A tall, chestnut-haired teen stalked through the door, a shadow in violet-wrapped black, cold gaze scanning the room like a blue laser. Overhead lights glinted off brass studs as he took in their stance, cast silver glimmers over his arms from steel-studded metallic wrist-guards. Were swallowed completely by the pure black of turtleneck, jeans, and boots, only to glint again from the inter-linked "KC" of his belt buckle... and the card-shaped locket at his neck.
Hold him, Simon mouthed at Blair as Jim reacted to the unmistakable aura of threat vibrating off the teen. "I take it you're Seto." Simon held out a friendly, professional hand. "Captain Banks, Cascade Major Crimes. Can you put us in touch with your parents? Your brother's a witness to a possible homicide, and we need to talk to a parent, or guardian-"
"I am his guardian." Seto walked past his hand as if it didn't exist, icy gaze fixed on tear-streaked blue. "Mokuba."
Yeah, right. Simon arched an eyebrow, waiting for the explosion. He'd seen the anthropologist with kids before. The idea that a scared little bundle like Mokuba would willingly leave Blair Sandburg for an ice statue like Seto-
And black hair slipped out of Blair's grip, launching into Seto's arms.
Strong hands caught him, shifted Mokuba's weight to his left arm. For one brief instant, the chestnut head was buried in a drift of black, chill eyes closed in pure, unfeigned relief-
And blue eyes snapped open, catching Simon in a glare no teenager should have been able to pull off in a million years.
This is all that matters to me, cold eyes promised. All that matters in the world. If you've hurt him, you'd better start running. Now.
Damn. Simon hid a dry swallow. I thought the Ellison Glare only came one to a planet.
"Emancipated?" Jim put in neutrally. Hovering by his partner, as Blair gingerly edged back.
"Yes." Seto gripped his brother close as Mokuba whispered sobs into his shoulder. His free hand hovered near his hip, fingers twitching as if to grasp something slender. Reconsidered, and rested near his side.
Ellison as peacemaker, Simon thought. Never thought I'd see the day... what the hell was Seto reaching for? He doesn't have a gun. And he doesn't look like the kind of guy to carry a knife. Though looks could be deceiving. "You telling me you're a legal adult?" Great, as if a grown-up Sandburg wasn't trouble enough. "Mind giving us your name, Mister...?"
Cool lips twitched, the barest flicker of a smirk. "Kaiba." Thinned again, as a red-faced Hendee straggled through the door. "Where are his effects?"
Hendee hrmphed. "That can wait, young man. Your brother's-"
"Leaving," Kaiba said evenly. "Now."
"Now see here..."
Cold blue narrowed.
Hendee licked his lips. "...We need your signature...." Dropping a clipboard on the counter, he fled.
Houlihan muttered something that sounded like suspiciously like "spineless" to Simon's ears. "Mr. Kaiba." The nurse looked up into that glare, and refused to quail. "As far as we can tell, your brother's not hurt. Physically. But he may have seen people hurt. He needs reassurance. He's going to be clingy, probably childish; he'll have nightmares, worse than you've ever seen-"
The smirk was back. "I doubt that."
"He told you he saw someone impaled by part of a truck roof," Jim said bluntly.
Blair's eyes went wide. Houlihan paled. Simon barely hid a shudder.
Kaiba didn't even flinch. "So he did."
What the hell is this kid? And why hadn't Blair jumped down his throat? Sandburg never let anyone treat a kid that way and get away with it.
Yet Blair was biting back his words, taking his cue from his partner. Who gave the Kaibas a long, considering look. Let out a slow breath. And nodded. "Okay," Jim said levelly. "Who are you, that he's a kidnap risk?"
Blue and merciless as a storm, Kaiba's gaze locked with his detective's. "Seto Kaiba. CEO of Kaiba Corporation."
Blair eeped.
Simon felt kind of like eeping himself. Ordinarily the name wouldn't have meant anything. He was a cop, not a hacker; the only time he worried about software was when some idiot in IA came down on him for people trying to 'improve' government systems with screensavers that verged on R-rated.
But given that earful he'd just gotten from the mayor's office....
Oh, hell. We just found Questscape's visiting VIP.
Who'd just gotten his first introduction to Cascade, Major Crimes style. God. The mayor was going to throw three kinds of fits.
Jim's voice dropped. "And how many bodies has your brother seen before today?"
"Enough." Kaiba picked up the paperwork, flipping through with a casual ease that spoke of long familiarity with English. Nodded once, laid the stack on the counter to sign off with a neat, efficient swirl of a pen, and handed the result to Houlihan with a slight incline of his head. And never once let go of Mokuba in the process. "Good day, Detectives. Nurse Houlihan."
Great. Just great, Simon thought. "I'm afraid the day's not over yet, Mr. Kaiba." Ellison. Think Ellison, and never back down. "The mayor's very interested in the employment opportunities your company's contract with Questscape should bring to the Cascade area. Our department's been asked to provide you with an escort while you're here." God help us all.
From the way laser-blue eyes narrowed, he was about to hear just what he could do with his escort-
"Kaiba-kun!" a cheery voice broke in. "Here you are!"
And for a second, Simon could have sworn he saw stunned panic in Kaiba's gaze. Stunned, familiar panic; the sort of numb dread Simon had seen on one hard-headed sentinel's face when Sandburg had somehow knocked one more chip out of the wall of indifference Jim used to shut out the world. Brass-studded shoulders stiffened; storm-blue eyes widened by one slight hair's breadth.
To one who read Jim Ellison on a daily basis, it all but shouted, Oh god, not him, get it away-
"Yugi?" Mokuba blinked, then smiled at the very... odd... short person who'd just come through the door.
Even with more years on the force than he liked to think about, Simon barely kept his jaw from dropping. Five foot, maybe five-one, slender and pale. Dressed in a heavy raincoat over dark blue leather, chains, and enough buckles to outfit a contingent of Army backpacks. And topping it all off-
"Wow," Blair breathed. "How'd you do that to your hair?"
Yugi brushed fingers through magenta-edged black spikes, absently tugged on one of the wavy gold bangs that fell into wide violet eyes. "Ano... it just is this way?"
That's natural? No way.
"We got your message, Kaiba." The violet gaze was earnest. "Are both of you okay?"
Chestnut brows lifted a fraction; lowered in a furious scowl. "Yes."
Simon traded a glance with Blair. Either Kaiba didn't send this kid a message, or he didn't want to, Simon thought. But he's not going to call Yugi on it. What's going on here?
Leather, a buckled neck-collar, and a carved gold upside-down pyramid dangling by a steel chain. Yugi should have looked like a punk.
Innocent, the captain thought, fighting a sudden urge to get Yugi the hell away from Kaiba. Deliberately not shoving the spike-haired teen out of here... because hard and cold as Seto was, he'd finally put Mokuba down. Even if he did still have a wary hand on his brother's shoulder.
Will you look at that. The Kaibas actually trust somebody. "Jim?"
Ellison was eyeing the doorway, evidently listening out in the hall. Trouble, he mouthed.
A silver-haired head poked in. "Coast looks clear to the elevator," a breathless British accent reported. "Though I think we'd be best off with the stairs, if we can; less chance of running into... ah. Hello." The silver-haired teen waved at them, forcing a smile that sorted oddly with his gray trench coat. Though it did seem to fit with the white sweater he was wearing under it. "Didn't know you had company."
"Friends of yours?" Houlihan asked, curious.
In anyone else, it would have been a flinch. "I know them." Kaiba glared at them both. "Ryou. Yugi. Tell me the mutt's not around the next corner."
"No, just us and Grandpa," Yugi shook his head. "He's downstairs. He said you might need a little help, if people got upset about your age... I mean, we were sure you could handle it, but...."
"I do beg your pardon," Ryou put in, chocolate eyes sliding away from Kaiba's glare to one only slightly less dangerous. "But is there something stuck to my coat? I believe I did walk by one very young lady with a peacock-blue marker, though I could have sworn she missed."
"She did," Jim said shortly. "What'd you say your name was?"
"Ryou Bakura," the slim teen obliged with a bow. "And this would be Yugi Mouto, our classmate. And you?"
"Detectives Ellison, Sandburg, and Captain Banks," Kaiba stated, eyes still snapping cold.
You didn't have to be a sentinel to catch the sudden tremor in that slender frame. "Really." Smiling weakly, Ryou pulled a bulky hospital paper bag from under his trench coat and presented it to Mokuba with both hands.
Opening the bag, the kid grinned. "Sugoi!" Snatched his clothes, and bolted for the bathroom just off this room.
"How did you know where his clothes were?" Blair asked, curious.
This should be good, Simon thought, seeing a fine edge of panic creep into Ryou's expression. These kids are covering something. Something big.
"I find that speed is better protection than guns, Captain Banks," Kaiba cut in. "I'm certain your officers have far more critical cases to attend to. Don't waste my time by reassigning them." He knocked once on the bathroom door. "Mokuba?"
"Ready, nii-sama!"
"Ready?" Blair and Houlihan exclaimed as one.
"He speaks English," Simon sighed as the door opened and Mokuba skipped out. It figures.
"I wonder if Questscape knows that?" Jim gave Kaiba a cynical look.
Kaiba smirked. And stalked out into the hall, Mokuba and a wary Ryou in his wake.
Yugi fell in behind them, leaving with one last, polite bow. "Nice meeting you."
"Jim?" Blair asked.
Ellison held up a finger; wait. Glanced Houlihan's way. "Agnes, please?"
"Work your magic, Detective. I saw nothing." Her pager beeped; glancing at the number, the nurse hustled toward the elevator.
"They're in the stairwell," Jim murmured, as Blair put a hand on his arm to ground him. "Mokuba's saying something about he tried to call Yugi, he saw the mirror wall go up and he knew his brother would be hurt - damn, Kaiba just cut him off."
"He knew Kaiba would be hurt?" Simon scowled. Granted, Kaiba had looked a little tired, but he'd expect that of anybody who'd misplaced their little brother under these conditions. And what the heck was a mirror wall?
"Kaiba's saying that Ryou being here explains how they found him, he wants to know why. They couldn't have gotten here from Japan, even if Yugi - huh. That word wasn't Japanese. Yugi says they didn't have to, they were already here...." Ellison stopped. "And they just met up with Yugi's Grandpa, and they're on their way out."
"Bakura found them?" Simon said in disbelief. But then... the white-haired teen had somehow found Mokuba's clothes. Why not the kid as well?
Blair eyed his partner as Jim got out from under his hand. "And you're not surprised."
"They all smelled like ozone, Chief. Like you do, when you pull me out of a deep zone."
"Ozone?" Do I really want to know? Simon wondered.
Yes, he did. Alex, damn her catatonic hide, would never have gotten the chance to drown Blair if those two hadn't been trying to handle the Sentinel thing all on their own. If he wanted his detectives in one piece, he had to know.
"Like Ms. Santiago after she channels Oshun," Jim went on reluctantly. "When people do something... really weird, Simon, they smell like ground zero of a lightning strike." He pointed where Mokuba had been sitting. "It was just a trace around him. I wasn't sure at first. When Kaiba walked in, it got stronger. Then Mouto and Bakura-" Jim shook his head. "It was all over those two, Blair."
"Which is why Mokuba was lying to us," Blair nodded. "He's protecting them."
Simon scowled. "He didn't even know they were here, Sandburg."
Blair waved it off. "He knew Kaiba was."
Huh, Simon thought. Like Kaiba needed protecting.
Then again, so did Jim.
"What else?" Simon asked pointedly. Something had set off the cop, not just the sentinel.
"Bakura's carrying knives," Jim said shortly. "The serious kind. Tools in his pockets; the kind we could probably take him downtown for. And I think he was hiding a razor wire in that hair."
Simon's eyebrows climbed. That kid was carrying knives? Heck, a strong wind could knock him over! "And you didn't shake him down?"
"Three on three wasn't good odds." Jim shook his head. "Not with Mokuba likely to jump in the middle as soon as we put Kaiba against the wall."
And he'd thought the day couldn't get worse. Looks really were deceiving. Bakura, definitely, Kaiba he could believe - but Mouto? "They were all carrying?"
Jim nodded grimly. "Though the way Kaiba walks, I'm guessing he uses hand-to-hand more than blades. Yugi - I have no clue, Simon. Something about that kid is just wrong."
"Scent, taste, touch...?" Blair prompted.
"Scent," Jim said slowly. "There was another scent around them. Something I smelled after the blast. Only it was burned there." His jaw clenched. "I don't know what it is. Sort of like paper, but not."
"Don't push it." Blair rocked on his heels, thinking. "Our classmate?"
Jim grinned. "Just because the Japanese government considers Kaiba an adult doesn't mean he gets to miss out on the great experience we call high school, Blair."
"If by great experience you mean hideous torture, then yeah, I can believe that...."
Simon's cell phone rang, dragging him away from the incipient argument. "Banks."
"Simon?" Joel Taggert sounded tired, annoyed, and more than a little confused. "We're done at the scene. You guys heading back to the department any time soon?"
Simon skewed a glance Blair's way, caught the guide's nod. "Could be there inside fifteen. Why?"
Joel laughed, more in frustration than humor. "You guys have got to see this...."
"Okay," Simon said dryly a short ride later, as Joel and Inspector Megan Connor called up digital photos of various angles of the alley blast on a Major Crimes computer and spread a marked sketch over Blair's desk. "Enlighten me. What am I looking at?"
"I don't know."
"Joel...."
The dark ex-bomb expert shook his head. "I know what it looks like, Simon, but it doesn't make any sense. That's why I wanted Jim to see this. Maybe he'll catch something we missed."
Jim traced a rough curve on the sketch. "This is where you found the survivors?"
"According to the EMTs, yeah."
"From the witness reports, young Mokuba Kaiba would have been right here." Megan stabbed a finger behind the center of the curve. "The others were farther back in this area, while our injured Miss Doe was right on the edge of... well, whatever seems to have halted the blast in its tracks. Unlucky for her."
"Whoa. Wait a minute." Blair switched between photos, glasses on as he focused on screen and sketch. "You think something stopped the blast? Like what?"
"I didn't say that." Joel held up a warning hand. "All I'm saying is, at that perimeter, right in front of where your kid was standing, for a height of about six feet, all the debris stops. All the shrapnel that should have passed through that area stops, right there. It's lying on the ground, and it's flattened - and it did not get flung where it should have been."
"So something stopped the blast." Blair frowned. "Like what?"
"Dead air? How the hell should I know?" Joel's fingers clawed, as if he wanted to reach into the computer screen and throttle something. "All I know is, I've seen a hundred blast sites. And this pattern doesn't make sense."
"He's right." Jim called up a picture of a particularly contorted scrap of van metal. "If this is how you found it, Joel, this is the damage it took getting blasted out." He opened the next picture, of the crumpled mass where a ragged edge should have been. "And this is what happened when it hit something. Like this one." He called up another pair of images, shrapnel from blast side and impact. "And this...."
"Wait a second," Blair tapped the screen on the image of a bent pipe. "They look different."
"It wasn't moving as fast when it hit, so it didn't take as much damage," Joel shrugged.
"Or perhaps, it wasn't about to do as much damage?" Megan suggested.
"Connor...." Simon growled.
"She might have something, Simon." Jim peered at the screen, eyes dilated. Flipped through a pair of photos of blast damage as Blair put a steadying hand on his shoulder. And another. And another....
Three minutes later, he blinked and looked up. "Your shrapnel didn't just hit something, Joel. It slowed down when it hit. And it was hit back."
"Are you sure?" Megan peered over his unoccupied shoulder.
"It's like the force got split in half." Jim frowned at the inexplicable photos. "Somehow, in this one spot, the blast got turned back on itself."
"Reflected," Blair said softly.
And Simon felt a headache to rival the mayor threaten the back of his skull. "By a mirror wall?"
"Mirror what?" Joel looked at them both, confused.
"Something Mokuba said on the way out," Jim explained shortly. "Something Kaiba didn't want him to talk about." The detective's fingers gripped the edge of the desk. "What the heck is sedjem-ek khenmet-shewet?"
"Egyptian," Blair said absently.
"I've heard Arabic, Blair," Jim objected.
"And I thought they were Japanese?" Megan ventured. "Though from what you've said of him, your Bakura sounds as if he might be British as well. Not common, that."
"It's not Arabic." The anthropologist took his glasses off, rubbing a finger along an ear-piece as he thought. "Yugi's pendant had a Horus Eye on it. Like Kaiba's locket. I don't know what Kaiba said, but I know that's Ancient Egyptian...."
"What eye?" Simon frowned. Sure, Yugi's pyramid had an eye; carved, gold, and more than a little freaky. But Kaiba's locket looked just like his brother's, a playing card with an intricate brown swirl on the back. No eye in sight. "Jim?" Simon watched the detective move to another computer, calling up the department's Chinatown database. Vice tended to put all the Asian crimes in one place; half the Tong and Yakuza types out there couldn't speak two words to each other, but money made one heck of a translator.
"Bakura, Simon. I've heard that name. Somewhere. Romanization might have mixed up the spelling, but - hah. Got you."
Bakura, no personal name given, Simon read. "Since when do you worry about the fences talking to their pals overseas?"
"Thief, see psycho?" Megan's eyes widened at that little shred of someone's notes. "It can't be the same person."
"You hear Jim list off what he was carrying?" Simon said pointedly. "You're a cop, Megan. I don't know how Australian kids grow up, but being a teenager doesn't make him any less dangerous-"
Blair's yelp cut off Banks' set lecture number 35 on Young And Cute Does Not Equal Harmless. "Ah, guys?" The anthropologist waved a phone. "I was checking to see if Eli or anyone else in the Anthro department left a message, before I try calling someone on what Jim heard, and, well..."
"Ah, this is Yugi Mouto," a newly familiar voice came from the recording. "Dr. Sandburg? My grandfather, Solomon Mouto, asked me to call you about the Hayashibara texts...."
Taggert smothered a chuckle. Turned to Megan, and held out a hand.
Sighing, the Australian slapped a five-dollar bill into it. "I should have known...."
~*~*~*~*~