"Marik, we have to leave now!"

Rishid's firm voice broke into Marik's thoughts. And he knew his elder brother spoke the truth. The smoke was so thick by now that it was impossible to even see shapes. And Mokuba wasn't faring very well. Marik had to get him outside.

Holding the child close to his heart, Marik made a run for the door. He burst outside, gasping for breath, and then immediately looked back to make certain that Rishid and Ishizu were coming. They were the last ones who needed to get out, save for Seto. Or so Marik thought.

"Joey!" Yugi cried. "Where's Joey?" The violet-eyed boy's gaze darted all about as he tried to see where his best friend had gotten to. Joey had been there, but then somehow in all the smoke he must have vanished! Yugi became more frantic.

"He's not here!" Téa realized, her heart plummeting.

Marik's eyes narrowed at this news. When he saw his siblings stumbling out and knew they were okay, he turned his attention back to his young friend. Mokuba was burrowed into Seto's trenchcoat, but with one hand he gripped at Marik's shirt.

"Marik . . . Seto's not here," he whispered.

Marik looked at him sadly. "I know," he said softly.

"He's comin'!" another voice choked out suddenly and everyone looked up, startled. Joey was staggering out of the ashes and flames, trying to hold Seto's limp body up. Seto, barely conscious, was trying to walk but not having much success.

He was thinking of only moments ago, when he had been upstairs leaning on the balcony and choking on the smoke. He had known he wouldn't be able to get Mokuba down before he was overcome. When he had seen Marik directly under the balcony, he had done the only thing he could do—he had lifted Mokuba over the railing and sent him into Marik's arms. Then he had collapsed. Joey had found him like that when, trailing behind, he had reached the stairs.

Marik relaxed, smiling down at Mokuba. "Your brother's here, my friend," he said softly. "He's safe."

Mokuba grinned weakly. "Of course he is. Seto always comes out on top." He laid his head on Marik's shoulder, finally at peace.

Amazingly everyone made it back to Seto's limo without incident. The chauffeur was stunned as he watched them all stumble in, including a girl he hadn't ever seen before. Seto managed to tell him to take them into the city, to the Kaiba Corp infirmary, before going into another coughing fit. As they drove off, the house continued to burn and a snow started to fall. It made for quite an eerie sight.

After they had gotten to the infirmary and had been treated for their injuries, the group planned that they would meet to discuss what they should (or could) do next. However, a couple of other odd incidents prevented this from taking place immediately.

Yami Bakura growled as he heard Rhea protesting being examined. "Ridiculous girl. Just do it and have it done with!" he snapped finally, running his hands through his wild hair. Honestly, she was being so exasperating! It was almost like what happened when he and Bakura would try to take Oreo to the vet. She would struggle and scream and yowl and refuse to allow them to remove her from the cat carrier. It had to be among the experiences Yami Bakura despised most in this world.

Bakura blinked in surprise, hearing the near-caterwauling of Rhea's voice. An odd thought started to take shape in his mind. The girl acted so peculiar! There seemed to be a certain innocence about her that seemed almost uneal. And she had such an obvious crush on Yami Bakura. Oreo had disappeared and Rhea had come shortly afterward. Was it . . . was it possible that she really was Oreo? Bakura couldn't believe that he was thinking such an absurd thing, but he was. And he needed to know the answer. Slowly he got up and walked to the room, knocking on the door quietly.

It opened, revealing the frazzled-looking doctor. He gazed at Bakura in a bit of confusion. Would this boy save him from the torture? He could only hope so. The strange girl in the room absolutely didn't want to be examined. She even tried to scratch him with her fingernails.

Bakura tried not to chuckle. "Can I talk to her for a moment?" he requested.

The doctor pushed past him. "Take all the time you need," he retorted. As he wandered down the hall, Bakura heard him mutter, "Now I know how the veterinarian feels."

Rhea was sitting on the counter, her arms crossed in irritation. "Saved!" she exclaimed as she saw Bakura. Instantly she leaped down and went over to him.

Bakura scratched his cheek, wondering exactly how he was going to say this. Should he just ask if she was his cat? Oh, but that would be so preposterous and he'd feel so embarrassed if he was wrong! Maybe he could use a slightly different approach. "The doctor won't hurt you, Oreo," he said at last.

Rhea blinked at him. "I'm not Oreo," she said.

Bakura blinked too, feeling himself coloring. "But you know her?" If Rhea wasn't Oreo, how on earth would she know about her!

Rhea grinned. "Yeah, she's that cat of yours. But I'm not a cat."

Bakura went completely pink. He stammered about, trying to find words but being unable to. He felt absolutely foolish for thinking such a thing, but as he looked at Rhea he still saw the eerie resemblance to his cat. Her hair was black with white streaking through it and her eyes were the deepest golden, like Rishid's in a way, but in another way almost inhuman, unreal. He wanted to ask how she knew about Oreo, but before he could get the words out, she spoke again.

She smiled mischievously, stepping closer to Bakura. "Maybe someday you'll find out who I really am," she whispered. In that moment, as Bakura gazed into her eyes, he had the feeling that she wasn't always as naive as she appeared. He also had the thought that she knew many thing about himself that he had never told anyone. It startled him, but he knew it was true.

Abruptly she hugged Bakura, smiling at his surprise. "You have such a strong spirit, Bakura," she told him. "Never let it go." With that she drew back, ruffling his hair, and then hopped back on the counter. "And you can send the doctor back in now," she added in her normal, perky voice.

Bakura gaped, more confused than ever. Who was she! He had no answers. Finally he turned away, heading to the door. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but then he changed his mind and left to find the doctor, shaking his head in disbelief.

In the meantime, Seto was keeping a close vigil over Mokuba, making sure the child was doing well. In addition to the smoke inhalation, he had been struck heavily on the head. Luckily, according to the doctor, he didn't have a concussion. His extreme dazedness had come about because he had been drugged. This angered Seto all the more, and puzzled him at the same time. The "spirits" or whatever had caused most of their problems in Cooperstown couldn't have drugged the boy. It could have been the police officers, but Seto had the feeling that they had gotten back to the city as quickly as they could.

"That excursion was pointless," he muttered low to the darkened walls around him, turning his gaze to the sleeping Mokuba, whose childish countenance made him look angelic. He had fallen asleep a few moments ago, weary of the tests the doctors had put him through.

"Was it?" he heard a female voice said quietly. He turned to see Téa coming in, making certain to be near-silent so as not to disturb Mokuba. But there wasn't much likelihood of that happening anyway. The child was so exhausted now that Seto doubted an earthquake would rouse him. He didn't want to put it to the test, however.

Seto turned back to stare out at nothing, his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed. "The only thing that happened was that several people got hurt, most importantly my brother. I could have been searching for Del Vinci tonight. Finding him would be what I want most for Christmas," he added darkly. He had discovered that Téa could get him to open up, at least slightly, but even she couldn't get him to reveal all of his deepest thoughts and feelings. If he wouldn't tell them to Mokuba, he certainly wouldn't tell them to anyone else.

Téa bit her lip, drawing closer to him. "Kaiba . . . what will you do when you do find him?" she asked, observing him in the dimmed light. He was standing the way he usually did, stern and cold and apparently unfeeling to all around him except Mokuba. Often this stance, this expression, made her very angry. It made him look so heartless and cruel. But she had learned he really wasn't that way.

Seto gripped his arms tighter, the long fingers almost seeming to dig straight through the deep blue of his coat. "I want to break him," he growled.

Téa sighed softly. Seto had an unfortunate streak of hatred that rose up sometimes at opponents and enemies. He had seemed to have calmed down where Yugi was concerned, though he was still determined to defeat his eternal rival someday. Téa hadn't been able to understand Seto's past feelings toward Yugi, but she could understand his feelings toward Del Vinci. The man was a demonic monster, having put Mokuba through some of the most cruel experiences imaginable. A protective big brother had every right to hate such a person. "You can't kill him, Kaiba," she said softly, touching his arm. "I know you probably want to, but you can't. You've never killed anyone before."

Seto only narrowed his eyes further. Téa was right, of course. Seto had been many things in his short life: cold-hearted, cruel, the ruthless businessman, the loving brother, but never a murderer. He didn't want his hands stained with blood. What would Mokuba do then, if his brother was taken to prison for a serious crime like that, despite the fact that Del Vinci would most likely deserve whatever Seto could do to him? No, Seto knew, he couldn't shed the man's blood, if for no other reason than that it could wind up hurting Mokuba.

Téa sighed and slowly reached into her skirt pocket, withdrawing a slip of paper she had found on the floor in the mansion. She had all but forgotten about it after all the commotion, but the mention of Del Vinci had brought the memory of her find to light again. Seto Kaiba, she thought, should be the first to know about it, considering the contents. "Kaiba?" she said quietly, hoping that he would look over.

He did. "What is it now?" he grunted, his eyes bespeaking his annoyance.

Téa pressed the paper into his hand. "I found this," she told him. "I thought you'd want to see it."

Curious now, Seto opened the parchment and held it under the dimly-lit light near the door. His eyes widened, then narrowed, as he saw what was written there in red ink.

Del Vinci says to clear out.

The spirits can have Cooperstown.

Meet back at the normal hideout.

"Where did you find this!" he demanded, looking up at Téa in stunned shock. Had he been wrong? Maybe he actually had been on the right path all along. Those crooked police officers . . . what if they were involved with Del Vinci? That thought hadn't even really occured to him. He knew from what they said that they had been part of the drug ring. Did that mean Del Vinci could be involved with it as well? Or did it mean that his men had been around but hadn't ever been seen by Seto and the others? Mentally Seto screamed in irritation at all the conflicting plots that seemed to eventually intertwine and be important.

"It was in the hallway of that weird house," Téa replied. "I found it just before we realized the whole place was on fire." She still didn't understand how that had even happened. The fire department was out at Cooperstown now, trying to put it out. They were saying it seemed to be arson, but that would mean that someone had deliberately tried to kill them all. Would it have been Del Vinci's men . . . or someone else?

Seto studied the paper again, his frown deepening. Maybe, he thought, he'd better have a little chat with Marik and Duke.

Joey, meanwhile, was pacing the floor in irritation, coughing occassionally. "I don't get it!" he cried to anyone around him who was listening. "This whole mystery's been nothin' but dead ends and freakshows! And we're not any closer to figurin' anything out!" Not to mention he found he was slightly miffed that Seto hadn't thanked him for helping him out of the mansion. Of course he supposed that the other boy had been too out of it at the time to really understand what was happening, and then once they'd all reached the infirmary he'd been too concerned about Mokuba, but it was still frustrating. Joey knew Seto said "thank you" rarely, if ever.

Yami Yugi sighed, leaning against the wall. "That's not quite right, Joey," he said. "We know some. Seth has gone mad and Khu is trying to stop him. We know that some of those that Duke and Marik tried to bring to justice are still at large and still as vile as they were before."

"We know that someone planted cocaine in my shop," Duke growled from where he was trying to rest in a soft chair.

"And who do we have as a suspect?" Tristan spoke up.

"I still think Gabrielle was part of it," Duke retorted.

Marik got up, wanting to go check on Mokuba again. The last time he had tried, the doctors hadn't let him in. By now he was quite concerned. He looked back at the others, the long bangs falling in his eyes. "I saw a woman fleeing behind two houses as we were getting into the limousine," he announced darkly. "She looked guilty enough." It hadn't looked like Nuru, either, now that Marik thought of it. At the time he had been too worried about Mokuba's condition to bother saying anything about her, and, like with Téa's note, had soon forgotten.

"A woman?" Bakura blinked in surprise as he entered the room, hearing the Egyptian say that just before exiting. "I wonder who it was. . . ." Idly the thought of Frances, Mr. Ryou's vanished fianceé, came to his mind. Bakura had suspected her of being the vampyress Franceska in disguise, though he knew it sounded preposterous. But if it were so, he didn't doubt that she was capable of wanting to burn the house and kill everyone within it. He knew Yami Bakura didn't like Frances either, vampyress or not.

"It could have been any one of our known female enemies or even someone new," Ishizu said with a frown.

"Man, that's all we need," Joey muttered, just as he heard a familiar voice calling out to him. He turned just in time to find Serenity running into his arms. The girl seemed highly upset, but he wasn't sure if it was because they were all in the infirmary or if it was something else.

"Joey! Joey!" she cried, hugging him tightly. "I'm so glad that awful experience is over. . . ." Her hazel eyes glimmered with tears as she finally pulled back to look at the elder brother she adored. Serenity had, indeed, had a deeply strange experience now, one that had left her fearful for Joey's safety.

Joey smiled in his classic way, thumbing her tears away. "Hey, don't cry, Serenity," he said softly. "We're fine. Everyone's fine. See? Nothin' to worry about."

Serenity smiled weakly, but the worry still flitted through her eyes. "I was just coming into the waiting room when I met this horrible person. . . ." Just the remembrance of it made her shiver again. "She . . . she said that if you and the others weren't dead yet, you . . . you would be soon! And she gave me this!" With that she reached into her pocket, drawing out a strange metal box. On it were the words Domino City Cemetery.

Marik was about halfway to Mokuba's room when he felt a hand go over his mouth and an arm grip at him tightly. He struggled in anger, trying to break free, but his captor, hidden deep in the shadows, pressed the boy's back firmly against his chest. Up ahead Marik could hear several sets of feet pounding down the hall. Once they were past, the strange person holding Marik hostage shoved him to the floor and melted back into the shadows. By the time Marik got his bearings and stood up, the person had vanished.

"What in Heaven's name was that all about?" the annoyed teenager muttered, putting his hands in his pockets. As he did so, his fingers found what seemed to be a small bag. Had that man put it there? Frowning, Marik slowly pulled it out and loosened the drawstrings. To his absolute astonishment there was a white powder inside.