LUCKY THIRTEEN
"Damnit, damnit, damnit," Geoff swore.
Kristo appeared from nowhere, climbing down with monkey-like grace from the ceiling rafters, katana at his side. The long-haired man sulked slightly as he slunk towards the group, holding his tongue.
"Where the hell were you?" Geoff demanded.
Kristo just shrugged. "Around."
"And you let that happen?"
The swordsman gave another shrug of his shoulders. "What would you have liked me to do? Kill them? Then we'd just have bodies on our hands."
Brett sighed. "You could have done something."
"Bullshit!" Kathain shouted from her spot behind the bar. "That's bullshit, and you know it." She stood taller, speaking with a certain grace and regality unique to even her. "You know there was nothing he could do." Kathain smiled, letting her guard down. "You did alright, Kristo. They can't know anything about us, until we know where they stand."
"Yeah…"
Nycole emerged from the seating area, hands stuffed in pockets and forlorn look spread across her face. Kathain pricked to her. "How is he?"
"He's sleeping now."
xxxx
"Amon, slow down."
The former hunter gave a quick look to the speedometer and eased off the gas pedal. The man tried to relax, but he couldn't. Amon allowed the car to slow, but his mind would not. He felt violated, inside and out, from that voice.
'That voice…'
It had been pervasive and unclean, like being raped mentally. Even now as the trees sped past, as Robin and Amon returned to their hideout, the feeling lingered on, as a dirty taint. And it came directly from that witch. She was powerful, strong, and especially dangerous. But she was cool and calculating. Meanwhile, Sakaki was uncontrolled and unstable, a meltdown waiting to happen. A witch. A telekinetic.
Amon didn't know what to feel anymore about Sakaki. He couldn't trust his former coworker anymore, not now that Sakaki had awoken as a witch. Especially not now that Haruto had even gone so far as to attack Amon.
Amon wondered how deep Sakaki's betrayal actually ran.
He took out his cell phone and dialed.
"Karasuma, I need your help."
xxxx
He slept.
Nycole kept vigil over Haruto. She wiped his forehead with a cool, damp cloth every now and then, cleaning away his sweat. Sakaki trembled, tossing and turning. Nycole wished, in her deepest heart of hearts that she could help him, but Haruto denied her gifts. He preferred not to ask to use her Craft to help him in any way. Typical male, never wanting a woman's aid.
"Oh, Haruto."
The girl mentally chastised herself as soon as the name fell from her lips. She cursed herself for saying his first name, forgetting that it was custom, or practice, or some sort of social decorum, to call people by their last name in those foreign lands. The girl could have hit herself for letting her guard down.
He tossed again, in the throws of some terrible dream, whimpering slightly before settling down in her arms.
"Shh…."
Nycole's vision moved across Purgatory. In the tight confines of the sitting area, she rested beside the sleeping Sakaki on a couch, along with everyone else who wasn't on watch. On the near couch, Kathain lay, curled in a little ball like a kitten, wrapped tight under a warm blanket. Brett and Geoff sprawled across a futon on the floor, dragged down from the loft. Somewhere, Bear, Raven, and Kristo kept watch, patrolling the club and guarding their charges.
Even then, as Nycole watched, Kristo emerged from nowhere and checked the doors again. Comforted by his presence, the girl put her head back down to sleep.
The night had been long, and they would have to leave, again.
Soon.
xxxx
"I don't know about this."
Karasuma sat in her own couch, huddled up with a blanket. After Amon gave the empath her leave, the woman had gone right back to her home. She sat with a terrible movie on the tv and fell asleep on her sofa, with her blanket. Once Amon and Robin returned and asked her that terrible request. Sitting there, feeling so small, Karasuma almost wanted a cup of hot cocoa to nurse with both hands.
"Karasuma…" Amon didn't know how to argue with her, how to convince her to do as he asked, without begging.
Robin spoke coolly, casually. "Please. We need to know what he's thinking."
"We need to know how deep his betrayal cuts," Amon added.
Karasuma thought for a moment before admitting to herself that it had to be done. "Alright. I'll do it."
xxxx
Darkness.
He had to be asleep.
But… he wasn't alone.
Karasuma waited, wanting, watching.
"Sakaki."
The voice spoke from nowhere, in his mind.
Karasuma looked about, searching for the source, but there seemed to be none. Yet, there was no logical source. It was an old woman, or, at least, it sounded like one. It spoke directly to Sakaki, and no one else.
"Sakaki. I need your help."
"You need to end her." Another voice spoke up, a male one, harsher and angrier. "Kill her. Slit her throat."
Karasyma shuddered. What voices? What horrible things the told him to do!
But, these voices… they were foreign, distinct from Sakaki. There were entirely separate. This was no mere fragmentation of memory, nor multiple personality disorder. These voices were separate from Sakaki and conscious on their own. And, yet, they were dead.
"Kill Karasuma!"
xxxx
"KILL!"
She drew in a sharp breath, jolting back to the real world from her scrying. Robin jumped from the snarling voice that erupted from Karasuma just before the woman emerged from her subconscious, from Sakaki's mind.
"Karasuma!"
The empath looked to Amon, her eyes wet and she bolted for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Robin turned to Amon. "That was unusual."
"Scrying has consequences," Amon interjected nonchalantly.
"Not like that."
xxxx
Something clattered across the floor.
Sakaki cracked his eyes open. The others were asleep around him, all but one. Kathain. She sat in the middle of the dance floor of Purgatory, dwarfed in that sea of nothingness. A loop of salt circled her, a white ring in the seeming vastness of the black floor. Before the girl, small wooden chips were scattered about, tossled and jumbled. A few lay face up, the burnt markings calling out to her.
Sakaki sat up just as the girl began.
A song escaped her lips, hummed first, then murmured. Sakaki couldn't understand it at all, even when the girl's voice raised up slightly. The language was lost to him. But the runes, they were definitely the Futhark. Her trade. Her Craft. Sakaki knew Kathain didn't need them to see what she sought, but the girl insisted sometimes on the weirdest things.
Her hand passed over the runes as they spoke to her. They were but whispers, faint and distant, speaking in tongues to Sakaki. But, to Kathain, they spoke volumes in loud, clear dialects. Her fingers curled and uncurled over the wooden bits. Her long nails seemed so much longer, more predatory than human. Her eyes seemed to glaze over and fade, falling to a dimmer white.
She regarded each and every one of the runes in time and, then, sat back easily.
The hunter finally spoke. "What do they tell you?"
"They only confirm things," Kathain replied solemnly.
Sakaki nodded. "And what do they confirm?"
"Hagalaz, here," she pointed out a rune with an unusual "H" shape. "Is the Rune of Disruption. It indicates general chaos in our future, and disarray. If there ever was a Tower Card of the runes, Hagalaz would be it." Kathain's pointer shifted to another rune. "This rune, here, is Thuruzas. It is the Gateway, a sign of change, for the better OR worse. It is… interesting."
Sakaki knew better than to try to get her to explain like that. It all summed up to nothing. He also knew never to have the girl just tell him. Kathain would awaken and go into far flung realms that no man- nor woman- could dream of.
"What have you seen?" Haruto inquired.
The girl shrugged. "I'm not sure. I have seen our friend in black, Amon, I think you called him. I have seen him come to attack us again, and fire upon us. I have seen death and despair. I have seen scientific studies." Her eyes glazed and the color fell away, leaving icy-white irises. "We are no longer in the gods good graces."
"What does it all mean, Kathain?" Sakaki asked.
"We're boned."
xxxx
Enjoy.