Disclaimer: (ahem) Not Mine. (For longer disclaimer, see first chapter)
Chapter Summary: {Sometimes, when I ran out of places I thought you might be, I looked for you in shadows, though I knew you hated the dark.}
-Chapter 2-
Mr. Hartfield had a private room through a doorway hung with strands of beads. Kurama stopped just inside the room and looked around, taking stock of the low couch on one side, the nest of pillows on the other. TV screens set in the wall.
Hartfield walked to the other end and pushed a code into a keypad, opening the wall, which turned out to be stocked with every liquor in every color known to man. Hartfield poured himself something teal. Kurama put two pills in his mouth.
Hartfield turned. "Do you want anything?"
Kurama kept silent, feeling the burn of drugs melting on his tongue and forcing himself not to swallow, though he didn't actually believe they would do him any harm. Hartfield's gaze grew hungry. He took four strides across the room and grabbed Kurama roughly, bringing their bodies together.
"Poor little lost boy," the man said, rubbing against Kurama. "Daddy'll take care of you."
Kurama kissed him, deep and hard, dropping the pills into the back of his throat where he swallowed them convulsively.
"Shit!" he snarled, shoving Kurama away. "What the fuck—"
The redhead kicked him in the solar plexus, knocking him back into the couch, and before he could move, Kurama had straddled him, holding him down with bare efforts as he started to convulse.
Placing his lips next to the man's ear, he spoke in English. "Someday you will die," he promised. "And when that day comes, I hope it is slow and painful." He stood and stepped back, watching Hartfield's eyes roll back as he straightened his clothes. When a trickle of drool ran down his chin, Kurama left the room and went hunting.
Shark had to piss. He'd had to piss for the last ten minutes, but hadn't been able to find the bathroom. He was jostled across the dance floor, bumping into grinding bodies and cursing. Whatever the hell Chloe had given him made him feel like he was in slow motion while the world sped up. It made him giggle until he hit a wall and the flashing lights cut through him like long knives in rainbow hues.
"Fuck," he said to no one in particular, just enjoying the anger in the word. And he was angry, he realized. "Fuck!" he said a little louder, and slammed a fist into the wall behind him. "Fuck Chloe, stupid bitch. Fuck Hawk, stupid bitch." He laughed at his own cleverness. "Fuck Hartfield, and his fucking little boys…" Red-haired clown-faced pretty thing he could swear he remembered from somewhere… Shark wasn't good with faces—or names for that matter, so why did that face, dead white face with bright green eyes that even the lighting couldn't dim, why did it stick with him?
"Fuck the cocksucker," he decided and pushed off the wall, groping for the door he knew was around here someplace. He'd pee in the alley like a fucking man. Antonio would let him back in.
He wrenched the door open and stumbled onto the street where a slant of orange light from the front of the alley turned everything a uniform gray color. He took a deep breath of air so cold it cut his lungs and decided he was fucking brilliant, sometimes.
It was difficult to navigate a straight line to the dumpster, but once he was there he braced himself in the corner between it and the wall, unzipped his pants and got down to business.
"Shark."
He yelped and jerked around, piss jumping back up his dick and staying there as muscles clenched.
There was the pretty painted boy, leaning against the wall casually with arms folded, watching him with eyes as green as summer grass Shark barely remembered. Shark knew, somewhere inside, that the drugs had seriously fucked with his head. But he also knew with a kind of obscure certainty that the boy hadn't been anywhere in the alley moments before.
His face was still familiar, and growing sharper with each moment.
"Fuck, man!" Shark snapped, suddenly nervous. "You a pervert or something? Jesus. I'm busy here."
The boy raised an eyebrow. "I can see that."
Shark opened his mouth to retort, but found he had nothing to say that was more important than emptying his bladder, so he turned around and went back to doing just that.
That's when he had his legs cut out from under him. Literally.
Shark hit the ground screaming, brain suddenly so full of pain that all he could really feel was the wet of his own blood soaking into his pants. The kid grabbed his hair, wrenched him around like he weighed nothing and put his face right into Shark's until he drowned in green eyes.
"Do you know me, Shark?" the kid asked quietly. Something gleamed in his right hand like a slice of night, but Shark didn't get a good look at it before it was tucked under his chin. It felt like a knife colder than the air, sharper than a razor.
"No! Fuck no, man! What did you do to me? Fuck!" he managed, terror and pain fighting for dominance in his head.
"I hamstringed you," the kid said calmly, and the knife flickered before Shark's eyes. It was hard to see against the backdrop because it looked like black crystal bleeding into diamond around the edges, and it blended with the darkness almost seamlessly but for the toothy gleaming. "Do you know me?"
"No!"
Calmly, the kid used the knife to draw a bloody line down one of Shark's cheeks. "Do you know me?"
"Fuck you!"
Another slash. "Do you know me?"
"Jesus Mary Joseph Peter…"
Another. "Do you know me?"
Drug low or blood loss, Shark didn't know, but suddenly there wasn't any defiance left, wasn't anything but gibbering terror and a little boy crying in the dark. He was sobbing and shaking his head slowly back and forth and he knew there would be no mercy from those remorseless eyes.
"Is this about Hartfield? What? Is that what this is about?" he asked, hating the whine in his voice. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I left you with him. I would've helped, you know, but I-I'm no one, nobody, please…" He flinched as the knife flashed again. "He does it to everybody!" he screamed. "He did it to me, he does it to everybody!"
Something changed in the air. Shark could feel it, and when he dared an open eye to look, he could see it. Something in the kid had gentled. Shark felt the buddings of hope. The kid's fingers were soft as they traced his eyebrow and slid back into his hair. Shark smiled. Hey, the kid was pretty hot. He wouldn't mind…wouldn't mind…Everything would be alright now.
The kid leaned in, close enough to kiss. Shark focused on black-painted lips. "It wasn't Hartfield who raped me," the lips said.
Shark began to shake, because, suddenly, the kid's face slammed hard into a memory, a deep memory, and submerged. "No. No no no no no…" He heard someone whimpering, becoming only vaguely aware that it was his own voice.
Then the kid did kiss him, soft lips on his forehead like a benediction. Over the kid's shoulder, blacker against the black alleyway, Shark saw a great bird flying toward them on silent air.
~*~
Kuwabara stepped onto the crime scene wishing for stronger coffee. He tossed the motor oil the local coffee shop was passing off for coffee into the drain and chucked the cup into the nearest trash bin, showed his badge to the uniformed officer controlling the crowd and ducked under the yellow tape. With a quick look around to get his bearings as he walked down the alley, he stepped up to a lieutenant who was snapping pictures of a body. It had been a young-ish man, dressed in clubbing clothes—lots of black leather and metal studs.
"Who am I looking at?" he asked.
"Uh…" the lieutenant flipped through his notes. "Rutsuko 'The Shark' Asaki."
Kuwabara studied the corpse, which was leaning up against a green metal trash bin like a cast-aside puppet with cut strings: legs spread, arms hanging, chin propped on chest.
"Gang connections?"
"Some. Mostly with the mob, though."
"Witnesses?"
"The kids who found the body and the owner of the club, but time of death is estimated approximately midnight last night and all the patrons are gone by now. The club doesn't keep records of who comes and goes but the owner said he'd give us the names of the regulars."
Kuwabara nodded, his eyes landing on a marked article beside the body. He frowned. "What's this?"
"Well, we're not quite sure, sir."
"I hope you can shed some light on this one for me, Kuwabara-san," Tekko said as she stepped up behind him. Kuwabara straightened and looked at her, rubbing a hand through his hair.
"I don't see how, Tekko-san," he said, honestly confused. "I mean, besides my natural brilliance," he grinned and she grinned back, "I don't really see why you called me in to look at this." He tilted his head. "Unless I'm missing something…?"
Tekko gave a sharp "look at this" nod and crouched down beside the body. With a latex-gloved hand, she lifted the victim's chin until his face was visible. Kuwabara gave a grunt of surprise.
With thin, expert cuts, someone had carved a rather detailed picture of a bird on Shark's face, its head resting between his eyebrows, its wings spread along his cheeks.
"Ritualistic cutting," he concluded. "Yeah, I can see where you might want my help. But…the pattern is not the same."
"No," Tekko agreed, standing and snapping her gloves off. "And there are no obvious signs of rape or torture." She sighed. "Of course, we won't be certain about that until we get the autopsy results."
"Then why—"
"Your current case isn't why I brought you here," she said, and gave him a look that set off his alarm bells. It was a cross between determination and apology. "It's…because of your history."
"My history?"
"The victim was strangled to death."
Kuwabara felt cold knot in his chest.
"And he was one of the prime suspects in a double homicide six years ago."
"Shit," Kuwabara snarled, clenching his teeth and turning away from the body. "I thought his name sounded familiar." He glared at the labeled article on the ground, three pieces of what looked to be obsidian which, if put together, might have formed some sort of blade.
Tekko took a step toward him. "Kuwabara-san, I'm sorry. But…I thought you'd like to know before you heard the rumors on the grape vine. And besides, this is the reason you became a police officer…" she let the sentence trail off into a question.
"There were other reasons," he muttered. "What's this, then?" He pointed to the shards on the ground. "You said the victim was strangled…?"
"Yes." Tekko's lips pursed. "But it also looks like he was hamstringed. And the cuts…maybe ritualistic cuts require a ritualistic dagger?"
"Yeah," Kuwabara agreed and crouched to spread his hand over it, palm down, trying to measure its breadth. "But don't you think it's a little odd—" Hot flash of youki hit his palm and spread through his system. He cursed and clenched his hand, standing up hastily.
"Kuwabara-san?" Tekko's light touch on his elbow steadied him.
He pressed his fingers to his eyes and shook the aftershocks away. "Nothing. It's nothing." He began moving because he had to, walking away from the body quickly, back toward his car. "Listen, I'll talk to you later," he spoke over his shoulder to Tekko's bewildered and slightly worried expression. "Bring me all the information you've got on this. I'll help."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her relieved smile. "Thanks, Kuwabara-san."
"Yeah," he muttered, still feeling the burn of demon presence in his arm. "Don't mention it."
Kuwabara sat on his couch and did what he always did when he needed to find Botan quickly.
He thought loudly and in great detail about seeing her naked.
"KUWABARA YOU PERVERT!" she shrieked as she popped into existence. She hopped off her hovering oar to greet him with her customary sharp blow to the head.
He rubbed the sore spot and gave her a rueful grin. "Hey, ferrygirl."
"Hmph," she said, though her violet eyes twinkled.
"I need to get to the Makai," he said.
"Sure, Kuwa-chan!" she chirped, all flowers and dimples and blue bobbing ponytail. "I can take a break from my extremely important and busy work to be your personal taxi!"
He rolled his eyes. "It's important," he said seriously.
"Okay," she said. She was still flowers and dimples, but she seemed to accept the gravity Kuwabara was trying to convey. "Anywhere in particular?"
"The Second Kingdom."
She blinked at him. "I thought you said you were being serious!"
"I am!"
"It must be really serious," she said quietly, eyes wide.
"It is."
She gave him a worried look.
"I think."
The look turned slightly skeptical.
"Listen, it's serious. Just take me there, please?" And he gave her his best kicked puppy look.
She sighed. "All right. But I don't have time to wait around for a hasty escape. What happens if you need to get out quick?"
"I call Yuusuke?"
"Let's get Yuusuke," she said decisively. "So he'll already be there as backup." That said, she hopped onto her oar and held out a hand to help him on.
"I can handle Hiei, you know," he grumbled as he clamored up.
"I know," she said in a tone of voice that meant she knew he was lying, but didn't think any less of him because of it. "But it's better to be safe than sorry."
~*~
The day, Kurama found, was meant for rest. He'd half-expected to be burned into ash when the sun touched his face, but instead he'd almost fallen over when the draw of his quest dropped its towlines and left him staring up at the pale sky, making pictures out of clouds.
Nighttime is the time of the murderer, the thief, the criminal, and the Crow, said Kuronue's voice, still reciting rules. We do not disturb the day.
He heard the beating of wings. "That one looks like a kitsune who's chasing his tail."
Kuronue's lanky form dropped down next to Kurama.
"Kitsune don't chase their tails," Kurama said, smiling slightly.
"They have so many," Kuronue said, laughing. "They'd likely get lost."
Kurama closed his eyes and turned his face into the light. "Kitsune don't get lost."
"No?"
Kurama looked at his companion, and Kuronue looked back, one eye hidden in the shadow of his cocked hat. Kurama broke eye contact first. Looking down, he studied the toes of his new boots, and then the city below him. There was little to see, though. He was on the edge, where trees still grew of their own inclination and it was quiet here.
"What is wrong with me?" he asked.
"Wrong with you?"
Kurama looked at his own hands and thought about last night, when he'd summoned the powers he'd always used so easily and had been answered by something completely different.
"You are not the same person you were in life, Kurama," Kuronue said.
"Obviously," Kurama snapped, and pushed off the building.
The long leather coat, slipped from Shark's shoulders as the sun turned the sky, spread out from Kurama's body as he fell, seven stories down, and hit feet first. When broken bones had mended, he stood up.
He ran.
Later he would claim he hadn't planned where he was going, but, as he stood in front of his house in the weak December light, he knew he'd come home.
The house was classic Tokyo suburban: well-kept and well-loved, like a book with edges worn by a tender hand. Kurama felt he could spend all day watching breezes move through the neatly tended flowerbeds.
"Hello?"
He turned and found himself looking at a little old woman, round face creased into a smile, bespectacled eyes twinkling. He bowed hastily, realizing what he must look like, painted face, wearing black and leather that smelled faintly of smoke and alcohol.
"Good morning, grandmother," he greeted, giving her the title respectfully, hoping his politeness would make up for his appearance.
"Good morning young man. Can I help you?"
"Ah, no." He glanced toward the house. "Just…looking."
"I see." She shifted a basket of fruit to her other hand and considered him shrewdly. "Why?"
The question took him by surprise. "Oh, well…I used to live here."
"Ah." She beamed. "I see. Why don't you come in, then?"
He gave her a startled look, trying to wrap his mind around the idea that someone else lived in his house. "Oh…no. I wouldn't want to impose…"
"Nonsense," she scoffed, shuffling forward, up the path toward the door. "I am old and my time is my own."
He trailed after her as if pulled by a leash, until she reached the door and he took the basket from her so she could open it. Then he stepped inside and looked around as she bustled forward.
In the foyer and saw—
—His mother, dressed in a formal kimono for New Year. She was beautiful, her hair piled neatly on her head, wisps curling around her soft cheeks, framing her smiling eyes as she turned toward him and laughed—
A strange ache like a newly agitated bruise awakening inside of him as he stared at all the familiar spaces of his home that had become so different. He blinked and forced himself to look away.
The kitchen still smelled like green tea.
He set the basket on the table and let his fingers trail over the shiny red skin of an apple as the fruit blurred into a vague blob.
"I bought this house about a year ago," the woman said, standing on a stool to reach her cupboard. "People tried to talk me out of it. Said it was haunted. Well," she continued, setting two cups on the counter. "I don't know about that. Sometimes, I think I see shadows in the tree outside." She turned to him. "But nothing has hurt me, so I let it be. Did you ever have a problem with ghosts?"
A hot tear turned cold as soon as it hit his hand. Hastily, he wiped his eyes, embarrassed, but when he looked up to see the old woman looking at him with a gentle expression, all he could feel was grief.
"I have to—" He cleared his throat. "Excuse me."
He left the kitchen and headed upstairs, hoping she trusted him enough to let him wander out of her sight.
In the bathroom, he studied himself in the butter-yellow light, startled to see his own face, unadorned, paint burned away in the sunrise. He decided that without it, he looked truly pathetic: lost, painfully young. He tried to glare, to see if that improved anything, but stopped as soon as he realized it made him look like a petulant child. Well, he decided, at least it got him instant sympathy from mothering types.
He splashed water on his face and stepped away from his reflection.
Something caught his eye as he walked past a bedroom and he turned to see a maple tree outside of a large window—his bedroom, his tree. It made him stop, frozen.
The tree was a skeleton. He took a step forward and balanced on his toes on the threshold, head tilted slightly, listening. But the only sounds in the house were the click and clink of an old woman making tea downstairs.
No ghosts, he thought.
Then a demon moved like dark fire through sleeping branches.
Kurama sprang for the window, had flung it open, and shouted, "Hiei!" before even considering the consequences.
Hiei paused on the edge of a branch that should not have been enough to hold his weight, and turned slowly until their eyes met. Kurama felt the world go still and shrink until it only existed in the places where they stood and in the distance between them.
Hiei spoke first. {I thought I might find you here.} He reached up and touched a branch above his head. Kurama let the words sink into his mind like drowning candles. {Even though I've already looked for you here. Even when I knew I'd never see you here again, but I kept waiting for you to come and open the window and welcome me in. Even though I know you're nothing but a memory.}
"I'm here," Kurama said softly. His voice was too heavy for the breeze to carry, but Hiei heard him anyway.
{Maybe,} the fire demon conceded, looking to the right, searching the horizon. {But you're not staying.}
Kurama wanted to close his eyes against the truth, but wouldn't look away, wishing Hiei were close enough to touch.
{Sometimes, when I ran out of places I thought you might be, I looked for you in shadows, though I knew you hated the dark.} Red eyes like jewels with black-fire depths searched Kurama's soul. {I think I might have loved you once, but I'll never know for certain, now.}
Then he took to the wind like a broken leaf and vanished in a blur. Kurama pressed his forehead into the window frame and kept watching the empty space he'd left behind. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked the passing seconds hollowly.
"Young man?" the old woman called up the stairs. "Tea's ready!"
Kurama considered his transparent reflection in the windowpane and decided that if anyone saw his eyes, if anyone bothered to look, they'd see nothing of the child his face conveyed.
Feeling tired, he went to have tea and speak to an old woman of ghosts.
~*~
Kuwabara paced the waiting hall of the Second Kingdom's stronghold uneasily. He'd contemplated sitting only as long as it took him to see that half the provided furniture looked like it might shatter should dust touch its surface and the other half like it was just waiting to ensnare some unsuspecting victim. The wall looked more vicious than a lot of the things he'd seen slinking through the dark corridors, so nonchalant leaning was out, too.
Yuusuke was studying a painting that took up half the high wall, seeming oddly at ease in the strange surroundings. Kuwabara blamed demon heritage and prolonged exposure to the Makai.
He spun as tall, dark red doors at the end of the hall opened, relieved the wait was finally over. He and Yuusuke were standing expectantly, side-by-side, when Mukuro stepped into the hallway and jerked her chin back toward the room beyond, giving them permission to go inside.
"Be quick," she said as they stepped past her, and closed the doors behind them.
Kuwabara and Yuusuke peered into the dim interior. Kuwabara felt unease return, jumpy at the darkness when the room felt large enough to hold just about any sort of monster.
"Hiei?" Yuusuke called, his voice echoing faintly. He took a step forward. A blur collided with him before he could go any further.
"Shit!" Kuwabara snarled, reiken flickering to life.
But there was little he could do. Yuusuke and his attacker were moving too fast for him to pick out any discernable body parts until the last flash of a sword halted a breath away from Yuusuke's throat, caught firmly between forefinger and thumb.
"Shit!" Kuwabara said again, this time in exasperation, letting the glowing sword die out.
"Heh," Yuusuke gloated, pushing the blade further from his neck with a smirk.
Hiei grinned back before flicking his sword away and sheathing it. "Good reflexes."
"Fuck," Kuwabara said in disgust. "You two are such morons. Do you have to do that every time you see each other?"
Hiei gave him a cool nod. "I see The Idiot is still flapping his mouth as much as usual."
Kuwabara gritted his teeth. "Nice to see you, too, Shrimp."
Turning away, Hiei disappeared into the darkness. They heard the click and hiss of someone unfastening a bolt and then the room was bathed in the gray light of a cloudy sky as Hiei unshuttered a window almost as tall as the doors.
"Well," Yuusuke enthused, still grinning, "now that we've all said hello, we won't waste your time."
"Good," Hiei said, looking bored already. He pressed his hand to the window with his back to them and said, "So get to the point."
"Listen, you asshole," Kuwabara growled, taking a step forward to push Hiei's personal space a bit. "It's about Kurama."
Kuwabara blinked as the glass under Hiei's fingertips cracked.
"What about him?" Hiei asked, tone neutral.
"Well…we're not sure yet," Kuwabara admitted. "But one of his—one of the murderers—the suspects got himself killed sometime late last night. Not that I'm complaining, but something they found at the scene was shooting off so much ki I nearly burned myself. Someone's playing vigilante and doing a sloppy job of it. I don't know whether to try and stop the guy or help him along."
"So what do I have to do with it?" Hiei asked.
"I thought it might have been you, at first, but then I realized it wasn't your style."
Hiei turned slightly, presenting his profile. "Not my style?"
"Yeah, the guy wasn't, like, in twenty-four pieces strewn across the ground."
Hiei turned to face them then, and grinned a bit before he caught himself. "So I ask again, what do I have to do with this?"
"We figured," Yuusuke took over the conversation, "that if anyone knew who it was, or could at least point us in the right direction, it would be you."
Hiei remained silent, but in a way that said he was considering his response and not just about to blow them off. "All right," he said finally. "Because we have been allies—"
"And friends," Yuusuke interjected.
Hiei rolled his eyes. "And friends, I will be honest with you now." He slanted them a look. "It was Kurama."
There was silence.
"What?" Kuwabara choked out, finally. "As in…Kurama? As in…Kurama."
"As in back-from-the-dead kind of Kurama?" Yuusuke clarified.
Hiei frowned. "I don't see how you can be so surprised. Did you listen to nothing Genkai said?"
"Said?" Yuusuke retorted. "She didn't say anything. She just spouted that mystic shit—'You can't understand me, I'm ancient and wise and speak only in cryptic riddles, blah blah blah…'"
"She said Kurama was back," Kuwabara remembered.
"And you believe her?" Yuusuke asked Hiei incredulously.
"I believe most things Genkai says," Hiei replied evenly. "You've been her student. Has she ever lied to you?"
"No," Yuusuke agreed. "But sometimes she doesn't speak straight. For all I know the 'Kurama is back' line could've been some wizened mentor code for 'the end is near' or 'pea green will be the new spring color' or 'does this robe make me look fat?'"
Hiei didn't smile. "She was being literal."
Yuusuke let that sink in. "Whoa," he said finally. "No shit?"
Hiei showed fang in a little grin. "No shit."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Kuwabara demanded happily. "Let's go find him!"
He hadn't taken two steps toward the door when Hiei said, "It isn't that easy."
Kuwabara deflated. "Of course it isn't," he muttered.
"Why isn't it that easy?" Yuusuke asked.
Hiei scowled. "Because it just isn't."
Somewhere, a gong sounded, deep enough to make the floor vibrate and the windows rattle.
"Your time is up," the fire demon declared briskly. "I have things to do."
Kuwabara blinked as Hiei vanished from the window, and then spun around as he spoke from the doorway where he had paused, red eyes strangely sad.
"Just…leave Kurama alone," he said. "He isn't one of us anymore." Then he was gone.
"Fuck," Yuusuke said, the room echoing his frustration back.
Kuwabara rubbed a hand through his hair and sighed. "Now what?"
Yuusuke seemed to think about it for a minute, hands on hips, gaze searching the bleak landscape outside the window. Finally, he turned back to Kuwabara, eyes narrowed with determination. "Let's go talk to Genkai."
~*~
Kurama walked down darkening streets, letting the shadows lengthen on his body. Humanity bustled around him and through him—the murmur of outsider thoughts as he brushed an arm, flash of emotion as he bumped against a chest.
Passing a bar, a girl who didn't look old enough to be as drunk as she was reached up and kissed him, thinking—
—looks like someone famous, I wonder—
He grinned a bit, like a movie star, and she blushed and giggled as her friends swept her away, apologizing. He watched them until his smile faded.
Above his head, decorative ferns hung in clay pots. Reaching up, he touched a pale green leaf, delicate as glass, and called it to grow. Instead of flourishing under his touch, black climbed up the leaf like hungry frost, glittering, and when Kurama jerked his hand away, the affected piece broke off and hit the ground with the sound of crystal.
He stared at it until the sound of wings brought his head up. Over the city flew a crow, bringing in the night. Kurama followed it.
The bird brought him to a hotel that looked fancy in a distinctly Western way—all gold gilded and red-carpeted, everything shining like money. Kurama considered the building indifferently, leaning against the bars of the gated entrance, wondering how long it would take before the guard shooed him away for loitering. Wondered how he was supposed to keep a low profile this time.
"Hey, kid."
Kurama froze. The guard. That hadn't taken long at all. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to look unobtrusive as he edged away from the gate.
"You know the routine. Clientele through the side door."
Well, that was different. Kurama looked at the indicated building, a small structure that might have been a security point or even another guardhouse, except that it had no windows. Trying not to let his confusion show, Kurama walked to it and opened the door, revealing a flight of steps down into the ground, lit by electric torches.
"Thanks," he said, suppressing a grin, and started down.
Totemo Satoru scowled as a large black bird landed on the hood of his car. He opened the door, stepped out into the street and waved his arm to shoo it.
"Oi, bird! Get away from there!"
The creature turned its small head and regarded him coolly with oil-drop eyes. Then, with a cackle that sounded surprisingly like a real laughter, it lifted its wings and took off. Totemo ran his hand over the paint to check for scratches, scowling, then tossed his keys to the valet who jogged up.
The interior of the hotel was pleasantly warm, and he peeled off his gloves as he went. The concierge stepped out from behind the front desk to bow and silently hand him a keycard, which he accepted with a little grin and tucked into his coat pocket.
In the elevator ride up to the twenty-second floor, he listened to some Christmas classic gutted and reduced to muzak and checked out the porter's ass. Whistling Jingle Bells, he stepped out of the elevator and walked down a hallway that was wallpapered with some striped tan and green design he'd always hated, his expensive shoes making little noise on the brown carpet. When he reached room 435, he slipped the cardkey into the allotted slot and pushed the door open when the light turned green.
The lights were already on when he entered. The walls were beige, the carpet some strange mauve-like color. Most of the room was dominated by a king sized bed that had a dark mahogany headboard, silver and blue quilted cover, and a huddled naked form curled up near the pillows.
Totemo surveyed the boy, or what he could see of him, as he took off his coat and tossed it on a chair. The boy flinched away from the sudden movement, and Totemo cursed under his breath, rooting through his suit jacket for his pack of cigarettes. He really hated it when they gave him these cowering weaklings who did nothing but mewl pitifully all night.
"Stand up," he snarled as he pulled out his pack and tapped out a cigarette. The boy shivered but didn't move. He put the cigarette in his mouth and slapped the pack down on the table impatiently. "I said stand up, you little whore. I want to see you."
His search for a lighter came up empty. Frustrated, he took a step for the bed and reached out—
Only to be jerked up short and spun around, lighter flame touching the end of his cigarette and his gasp of surprise filling his mouth with smoke and he coughed. The cigarette hit the floor and smoldered.
"You could start a fire that way," the new kid said mildly, letting the lighter in his hand flicker and die out.
"Yeah," he muttered. Then lashed out and slapped the kid across the face, hard enough to whip his head around. "Don't you fucking do that ever again, you understand me?" he snarled, and pulled a gun. "Where the fuck did you come from?"
The kid only straightened and considered him silently, green eyes burning out from the black makeup marking his painted white face. Something flickered in the back of Totemo's mind, a brief memory at the lines of black traced on the kid's face.
"Who sent you?" he questioned, stepping closer and menacing with the weapon, feeling danger prickle against his skin like electricity.
"No one," was the calm reply.
"Fuck that." Out of the corner of his eye, something silver gleamed—
And he saw it in slow motion flashback, the kid lighting his cigarette. The silver Zippo lighter with the initials S.H. scrolled on the side, the initials of the original owner, some poor shmuck Shark had—
Shark.
Shark, who was dead at the hands of some psycho.
He screamed and pulled the trigger.
Only, suddenly, he was neither screaming nor shooting, the gun somewhere under the bed, unfired, and him up against a wall with the kid's hands, fucking strong hands, around his throat, and green eyes, cool like a doctor's—clinically detached—studying him from an inch away.
His gun was gone but his hands were free and he went for the eyes.
But instead he hit another wall, hard, and landed on the hotel-provided desk, bruising his ribs on complimentary pens.
"Shit," he said because, really, that's what this whole situation had become, and scrambled to regain his feet.
The kid grabbed his shirt and hauled him up until he stood on his tiptoes. The kid was really a lot taller than he first seemed, slender body disguised in swirls of black leather trench coat. Red hair catching highlights. Green eyes…
"You," Totemo whispered, disbelieving. "You can't be here."
"Why?" The kid put a hand to Totemo's ear and yanked. He screamed as the small loop earring ripped through his skin and dropped into the kid's palm. "Because the dead cannot walk?"
"No," he said shakily, clutching his head, feeling blood seep between his fingers. "No, because it took too long. You died so long ago. They said we were safe. They said we were safe!"
The kid tossed him again. He hit the bed, slid right over the edge and ended up awkwardly upside down on the other side, neck bent at a painful angle.
"They lied," he heard the kid say.
He scrambled, then. Crawled when nothing seemed coordinated enough to get him moving. Whimpering in the back of his throat because he knew. He knew there was no stopping that thing in a boy's body. The painted devil. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone and his thumb hit speed dial.
"He's here!" Totemo screamed. That was all he managed to say.
Kurama plucked a rose out of the complimentary vase of flowers and let his power flow, listened to the flower die as it crystallized in his hand, then set it down carefully next to the body, beside the lily leaf he'd used as a knife. These black, dead creations his youki formed now seemed to grow brittle as soon as they were out of his hands. The leaf had shattered when it had hit the ground. He carefully didn't touch it. Was afraid to touch anything.
He didn't jump when the cell phone began to chirp hollowly, but it was a near thing. He glanced at the number and then ignored it.
"It might be for you," said a voice behind him.
Kurama turned and stared at the naked, collared boy on the bed. He had spiky near-white hair that was darker at the roots, and brown eyes that twinkled as he grinned suddenly and slid off the bed.
"I did that cowering-in-fear thing pretty well, huh?" he asked cheerfully, stretching like a cat and completely comfortable without clothing.
Kurama felt bemusement turn his lips slightly as the kid walked forward and stepped carefully around a puddle of blood to observe the body.
"Hum. Aren't Crow deaths supposed to be messy and dramatic or something?"
Kurama blinked. "The arterial spray wasn't dramatic enough for you?"
"Well," the kid grinned in his direction. "That was pretty cool. But I think the whole dying thing is supposed to last longer.
"I don't work that way."
Kurama looked out the window and saw a sheen of wings as the crow flew past. In his head, he could hear triumphant laughter. It made him restless.
"Oh come on!" the kid scoffed. "At least shoot him a couple times or something."
"You want to shoot him," Kurama said, retrieving the gun and holding it out, "be my guest."
"Gah!" The kid batted at it like an angry kitten. "No way, don't give that thing to me! I've got fingerprints they could trace all the way to America. Bet that's not a problem for you, huh? Or is it? Do dead guys have fingerprints?"
Kurama shrugged and dropped the gun again, then stopped and turned to pin the boy with a look. The boy was searching for something below the bed, and didn't notice. "How do you…?"
"Know about Crows?" the kid finished, pulling back from under the bed with a handful of clothing. "In my line of work, it's bound to happen at least once. I was just there at the right time." He tugged on a pair of low-riding jeans. "Seki was dead, and then he wasn't, and then he was again." He pulled his shirt over his head. "And a lot of nasty people died while he wasn't. Can you help me find my other shoe? It looks like this." He held up a black sneaker.
Kurama let his eyes wander the room. "Over there." He nodded to the dark space under the desk.
"How the hell? Oh well." The kid crawled under desk and retrieved it.
This was not a conversation Kurama had ever imagined having, and he was not quite sure how to get out of it gracefully. "Do you have someplace to…go?"
"Nah. But I'll find something." The kid finished tying his shoes and stood up. "Oh, hey. Rudeness on my part." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Jiro."
Kurama looked at the outstretched fingers and the warm smile and thought of the heart-stopping jolt whenever he touched anyone, like getting hit by lightning with memories attached. He reached out and bypassed the hand, clasping the boy's clothed elbow briefly.
"Kurama."
Strange, so strange to see past the smiling exterior, to see the tear-streaked child underneath like a double exposed picture. Though there was still something hopeful, bright like a star and warm like candlelight, lighting both faces.
He blinked and it was gone.
"Eh. I forgot about that," Jiro said apologetically as he pulled away. "The No Touching rule. It must get lonely, though."
"I'm never alone."
"If you say so." The boy's eyes drifted back down to the body. "Ick. We'd better get going. The blood is starting to congeal."
"I'll get you out."
"You don't have to."
"I'll do it anyway."
"And who am I to argue with that sort of determination?" Jiro quirked a grin at him. "Lead on, vigilante."
Kurama moved, leading the way out of the room, his senses stretching outward. And that was strange—his focus felt scattered, like broken ice floating on a current. He'd become so used to his purpose driving him that this felt like…drifting.
Or searching.
He stopped in the middle of the hallway.
—And saw himself, in his old school uniform—that hideous fuchsia color Yuusuke had teased him mercilessly about—smiling politely, curiosity tilting his head.
Feeling warm and sudden shyness, dropping his gaze to his shoes—the good ones—he knew because they pinched his feet—
Wondering idly if it had really just been instantaneous hero worship like he'd thought back then, or his first crush—
"Hey."
Kurama jerked in surprise when Jiro's hand settled on his shoulder, falling back to reality enough to realize that he wasn't seeing his own memories. But who in this building would know him well enough to picture him as clear as a movie moment on a continuous loop?
"You planning on getting a room, or something?" the boy questioned, nervousness in his voice pulling Kurama away from his speculations.
He came out of the memory and found himself staring raptly at door 421 like he was waiting for it to open up and reveal its secrets to him.
Then it was opening, because he was pushing it, the lock giving away with the loud crunch of expensive wood, and he tried not to look too closely at the two bodies twined on the bed, one large and aggressive one smaller and passive, sweat and hard breathing and a short, startled yelp as Kurama grabbed the hair of the bigger one and yanked.
He stared into dazed, almond-shaped eyes as his fingers struggled to hold the short strands, nails scooping sweat and suddenly, it was all—
—rage—
—for this dirty, piggish excuse for a human who thought power was enough reason to justify his actions and money a great enough shield to save him.
—rage—
That he might he right. He just might be right. So then it was—
—joy—
As he smashed that sallow-skinned forehead into the headboard.
—joy—
When he tossed the lumpy body across the room, pulling out a handful of hair simultaneously. The man shrieked—a razor on glass—until he hit the wall with the same sound the door made, but wetter.
Then he breathed. Kurama breathed and tried to remember why he couldn't kill the whimpering creature where he lay.
The touch on his hand was painfully euphoric, like slitting his wrists, dancing on coals, twining lightning in his fingers, turning him around inevitably, pulling him down toward features sharp, handsome and hollow—a face he remembered from other days when it had been younger, sweeter, and he'd been alive.
A cool hand cupped his cheek and felt like fever.
Lips moved almost against his own in words that he heard mostly in his head.
"I dreamed you here."
Then he was released and Kurama jumped off the bed, landing on the balls of his feet, tension wiring him. The sound of flesh and flesh meeting violently turned him around to see Jiro poised over the sallow man, clasped fists brandished high to strike again. He looked over as if he felt Kurama's gaze and offered a rueful smile, hard at the edges.
"Sorry. He was getting uppity, but I think he knows better, now." He dropped his hands and approached carefully. "Are you planning on saving everybody?"
"No," Kurama said, watching as Jiro reached out and brushed the brownish-red hair off the unconscious boy's forehead.
"Drugged," Jiro reported.
"Do you know him?"
"Yeah. Shuichi. Stubborn—hates it here—but nice. Sad."
Kurama felt something hot close his throat. "I know him, too."
Jiro looked at him, surprised. "How?"
"He's my brother."