LUCKY THIRTEEN
"Good morning, Miss Karasuma."
Michaeal Lee's cheery voice called out to her brightly, but the woman hated it. How could the hacker be so happy, so perky, after everything that had happened? Although, Miho had to admit, Michael had no idea what had happened. It wasn't his fault. No, the fault was Sakaki's, and his alone.
She sighed, exhausted. "Morning."
"You sound tired, Miss Karasuma," the hacker noted.
Miho shrugged. "Understatement of the century."
Michael glanced over to the clock. 5:31. He looked out the windows, only to see that the sun had yet to rise. Karasuma had arrived more than three hours early. Not only that. Now that the hacker had begun to take stock of the situation, he saw the bags under his boss's eyes and the fact that she had yet to change clothes.
"You come right from the crime scene?" Michael asked the words curiously.
Karasuma shook her head, almost sadly and mournfully. "No." The hacker raised an eyebrow at that, to which Miho had to explain. "I've just been driving around for a while."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Why don't you head home, then?" Michael offered.
Karasuma shook her head. "No. I don't think I could sleep if I went home." She paused, mulling over the evening's events. "How about Sakaki? Did you get that trace I asked for?"
"Yes, but I still don't understand why."
The woman closed her eyes. "Please, Michael. Please just trust me on this one."
Michael peered into his computer, at the files before him. Somehow, the hacker didn't want to tell Karasuma. It felt like betrayal to tell her where Sakaki had been all night. Still, the man had to admit, if the empath felt so strongly about something, Michael had to trust her. Miho had never shown him any reason, even the slightest of reasons not to put his complete and total faith in Karasuma.
The hacker shook his head, rubbing his eyes. "Alright. I believe in you."
"Good." Miho gave a small nod. "Where is he?"
Michael pulled up a file from the background of his desktop. "Still in Kabukichu. Looks like in that new club."
"Nocturne," Karasuma replied almost sorrowfully.
Lee nodded. "Yeah." He rushed to the internet browser to pull up the club's website. "They closed two hours ago. What is he still doing there?"
"I don't know."
xxxx
"Miss Karasuma. I'm sorry."
A gun was raised, pointed right at his head.
"Please… don't."
xxxx
"Robin…"
She jumped awake and blinked, trying to wake up from the nightmare.
Amon stood over her. "You fell asleep while reading." He spoke so matter-of-factly, but it wasn't a surprise. "You were having a nightmare."
The girl ran her fingers through her tangled, red hair. Her book, a tattered copy of The Two Towers lay sprawled over her lap. Robin looked to the long row of windows to her left. The sun hadn't risen yet. Amon must have awoken to walk the perimeter of the property and found her nestled in the armchair with her book, fast asleep, lost in the darkness of her nightmares.
Robin stretched. "I'm worried."
"And?" the former hunter inquired as he strode from the living room into the kitchen, to return to cleaning his guns, almost bidding Robin to follow and explain herself.
The teenage girl mused, "I hope everything's alright at the STN."
xxxx
They were gathering.
All of them.
They came out of the woodwork, literally.
At 2:30, the bar held last call. Sakaki sat and watched as it happened. A group of them, of the foreigners, all appeared behind the bar, laughing and joking, exhausted from the night's work. The music was dimmed greatly as the owners/operators of Nocturne all clamored behind the bar of Purgatory. The girls of the group, having shucked off their fairy wings from their games in Heaven, climbed atop the wooden counter, clapping, dancing, and teasing one another. Geoff took to ringing the call bell, drawing all eyes in Purgatory to the bar, to the girls standing before the Hagalaz marker.
All at once, they raised their voices. "LAST CALL!"
It took only fifteen minutes of rush at the bar before the crowd died down and the club goers started to steadily file out of Nocturne at their own pace. The girls, both red headed lasses, helped Geoff by taking money for orders as he and the other tenders filled them. They worked as a team, like a well-oiled machine. By 3:00 AM, it was finally time for the doors to close.
The girls, still laughing and horsing around atop the bar shouted out, over the lingering crowd, "The night is done; the sun is near. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here! Now goodnight and get the hell out!"
Sakaki smiled to himself as the pair jumped down from the counter once the club started to empty out fully. In no time, they were the only ones in the club. They took to cleaning the club. The two girls swept, chasing each other about while working. The men were hauling trash and crates of used glasses to load into the washing machines. Sakaki eventually reached over the bar, took a rag, and started to polish off the sticky counter. By 5:30, the work was done and the group who worked the club had settled down at a few of the tables in Purgatory.
Sakaki returned to the bar, waiting as Geoff called over a few of the others.
They separated themselves from the others and stepped forward, all taking stools at the bar. All except for the two red heads. They immediately climbed to sit on the bar itself and help one another take out their extreme hair-dos. They reminded the hunter of chimps, grooming each other as the pair pulled bobby pins and ties from each other's flame red hair.
"Alright kiddies, let's get started," Geoff announced, to those who stepped forward; Sakaki could tell the bartender was stalling. "Business was good tonight. Any problems?"
One of the fairies swung around lightning fast. "Except for being groped a couple of times, whacking some dude who got too close with one of my poi, and a couple of other random mishaps?"
Geoff snickered. "Other than that?"
The group fell awkwardly silent. The entire collection of foreigners, along with Sakaki, knew exactly what the bartender was fishing for. Geoff spoke of one, major problem. Or, really, two problems. The first, was the attack. The bartender obviously searched for answers, for some sort of explanation for the incident in their own backyard. And, judging by the eerie quiet of the usually loud crew, they knew something. They were just reluctant to own up to the terrible mistake.
"Any news, Sakaki?" one of the fairies inquired, the taller and skinnier of the two.
The hunter shrugged. "Good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"
"Pluses and minuses! Always fun!" the other fairy cried out in delight, slapping her hand down on the counter. "How 'bout the bad news first so the good news seems so much better!"
"Ah, optimism," one of the males, a tall gent with short, black hair teased. "Thanks, Nycole."
The fairy, Nycole, giggled before calming under the stern gaze of Geoff; the bartender let out a sigh. "Yes, thanks for the startling insight." He turned to the hunter seated at the bar and raised a hand to him, gesturing for the hunter to continue. "Now, Sakakai, as you were going to say…"
"The attack has been linked to Nocturne," Haruto admitted.
The man with the short, ebony hair, cut in almost an "emo-hair" cut frowned. "And who's fault would that be."
The hunter closed his eyes. "My fault, Brett." Sakaki looked up to Geoff. "I just thought maybe it would help if Miss Karasuma just knew about all this. I figured it would make things easier if we just admitted everything to her." There was much rolling of eyeballs at that statement, like a collective wave. "Aw, c'mon. I thought she could help."
The other fairy leaning in close, whispering into Sakaki's ear in a frail voice, "No one can help us."
xxxx
"He's been at Nocturne all night, Miss Karasuma. What's so important about that place?"
Karasuma dolefully rubbed her arms, trying to wipe off the disgusting taint the entire night's events had left upon her. "It's a haven, Michael." The woman paced uneasily, a caged lioness stalking and prowling about Raven's Flat. "It's a haven for witches." Karasuma watched out the window as the sun arose in the distance, lighting the sky with a warm, rosy pink. "And Sakaki took me in there." She blinked, feeling her heart fall. "The attacks are DIRECTLY linked to this club. I know it. Those runes where there, all over the place, all over the bar."
"Miss Karasuma…" Michael finally looked up from his computer. "Are you so sure? I mean, this is Sakaki we're talking about."
"Sakaki is lying," the empath growled. "He is not the friend we used to know."
The hacker shook his head. "I see. You scried him?"
The woman plopped down in to a chair. "Not purposefully. I… I just know." She smirked slyly. "Call it a woman's intuition."
"You think he's betrayed us."
Doujima's cheerful voice piped up from the doorway, startling both the hacker and the hunter. "Good morning you two." She gave a flip of her blonde hair before sitting on the edge of the desk. "So, betrayal?"
"How long have you been standing there?" Miho loathed whatever answer Doujima would give.
The blonde toyed with her hair, spinning it around a finger. "Long enough to know far too much." Doujima subconsciously stuffed her hands in her pockets. "So, what exactly are we going to do about Sakaki?"
Miho reached out a slender hand, taking up the note that had been taped to the computer console for close to a year now. For an entire year, none of the hunters had ever felt the need to take that piece of paper. Even Karasuma felt it a sin to even contemplate that route of action. The scrap of paper felt so heavy in her hand, almost dreadfully so.
"Are you such about this, Miss Karasuma?" Michael asked hesitantly.
"We have no other choice."
xxxx
Yeah, sorry about the "empath"/"empathy" thing, FyodorD. This copy of MS Word keeps changing it on me on auto, even after the beta-ed version comes back. I need to change the preferences on it, I think. But it's not my computer.
Pokes Zurizip so you fidget more.