Chapter 14: Was Torture an Option?
X
They took a huge metal door out of the club and into the underground tunnel that connected the high-rise back to the warehouse speakeasy. Kurma walked with tension strung between his broad shoulders, and as the door fell shut behind him, he turned to Rei with a mouth like razor wire.
"We require speed." He eyed her high heels, arms stretching toward her. "I can carry—"
"Fuck that," Rei spat. "I test all my heels before I buy them. If I can't do the foxtrot, I don't buy, and the foxtrot's harder than running any day."
As if to demonstrate, she started running as fast as she could down the hall, trying not to wonder if she was flashing her ass at Kurama while running in her way-too-short shirtdress. He declined to comment on the matter, to the benefit of her dignity, loping along at her side with the smallest of smiles on his face. Maybe she had flashed her ass, after all. She had a nice backside, if she did say so herself, and that was a look of approval on Kurama's face if she'd ever seen one.
Or maybe his expression had nothing to do with her ass at all, because after they'd run a few feet, he said, "Impressive; I didn't know anyone could run in heels." His eyes turned forward with a flash of green, voice rising to combat the sound of their feet upon the floor. "I dropped Kuwabara off with Yusuke before coming back for you. It's lucky I returned when I did."
"I'll say," Rei grunted between her teeth. She didn't have Kurama's breath control and could only barely talk; he, meanwhile, didn't even sound winded. What a show-off…
"We'll rendezvous with the others," the bastard said, still talking like he was walking instead of numbers. "Strength in numbers."
"Less talk!" Rei hissed. "Less talk! Less talk!"
Kurama laughed, dashing on ahead of her with a burst of speed (and a good thing, too, because Rei's ears had started to burn, and that telltale sign of embarrassment was quite obvious when she wasn't wearing a wig). They reached the end of the tunnel in short order, but before they could approach the gigantic metal door waiting for them there, the portal swung open—to show the unexpected sight of Yusuke standing in the doorway, Kuwabara's beefy arm looped around his neck. Kuwabara barely had his feet under him, blind stumbling drunk as Yusuke dragged him forward with a curse. Rei stopped running at once, feet sliding precariously over the concrete floor.
"W-wait," she said through her labored breath. "How the hell are you here?"
"Kurama signaled me, duh!" said Yusuke.
"Three flashes of energy constitutes our emergency signal, to be precise," Kurama clarified.
Understanding dawned; Rei said, "So that's what I felt."
Yusuke frowned. "Felt?"
But "interesting" was all Kurama said, looking at her with glittering eyes. He shook his head before he could elaborate. "We need to leave. The demons who targeted Yamato are here."
Yusuke's eyes bugged out of his skull. "What? How the hell did they find her?"
"I wish I knew, but we can theorize later." Kurama started off down the tunnel. "Let's go."
"Ugh, fine." Yusuke shook Kuwabara, smacking at his cheeks with one irate hand. "Wake up, Kuwabara! We gotta go!"
Rei knew the look of a drunken stupor when she saw one. She slipped under Kuwabara's free arm and looped it around her neck, too, hoisting him up in a fireman's carry that only made her legs wobble a little bit. Looking down in concentration, she noticed she'd gotten a run in the left leg of her hose, a stripe of skin like milk amid the black nylon.
"Fuck," she muttered, but she shook it off and grinned at Yusuke. "I got this asshole drunk. Let me help with him."
Yusuke eyed her heels with the same trepidation Kurama had. "You sure?"
"Yup." Rei hefted Kuwabara higher with a grunt. "Let's go."
Mostly thanks to Yusuke's strength, which Rei had to assume was greater than his wiry frame suggested, they lugged Kuwabara down the tunnel without too much trouble, her ankles holding steady atop her heels. Rei worried the pair of guards at the doors at the end of the hallway would give them grief, but they ignored her party entirely, muttering into their earpiece walkie-talkies with eyes downcast (Rei could only assume they were hearing about the ruckus the demons had to be making back in the dance club). Rei wasn't sure if she liked how the guards ignored her, but as they passed the guards, she caught a snippet of their conversation and got her answer.
"… gone?" said one guard.
"Chased them up to the roof and they vanished," said the others.
And expletive leaves her mouth. The guards glanced at her, but only for a second, going back to muttering like they hadn't heard her. Yusuke swore, too, catching Rei's eye with a shake of his head as they left the tunnel and walked into the cool night air, back into the same alley where they'd started the night's foray into the world of burlesque.
"Three guesses who that's about," he said, "and the first two don't count."
"Shit," said Rei.
"Double shit," Yusuke agreed.
Kurama muttered, "Double shit is right."
Rei had never heard Kurama curse. The sound of his velvet voice saying something obscene made her gasp, the incongruity of the sound paired with the meaning like a blow to the goddamn face. She looked up with a snap to ogle the space between his shoulder blades—and all of a sudden she felt Yusuke tense up on the other side of Kuwabara's limp body. She felt him tense; she wasn't sure how, but it resembled the sensation of a razor gliding across her naked nape, cutting and cold, making her gasp down a gulp of humid spring air in pained shock. His arm where it crossed over hers at the small of Kuwabara's back felt like it had been carved from ice, and did the posture of Kurama's shoulders: glacial and immovable, strong but cold. She also feared looking at either of them lest the sight of their tense faces cut her, and yet she stared at Kurama with bated breath… but he wasn't looking at Yusuke, whom he'd quotes. He stared straight ahead, so Rei looked ahead, too. The alley was empty, though—
Or was it?
"I know you're there," Kurama called out into the stillness of the night. "There's no use in hiding."
Her head swung toward a dumpster at the end of the alley even before the shadows rippled, like she'd caught them deepening out of the corner of her eye. Two figures emerged like darkness tasking shape, congealing into two tall, broad shapes with heads crowned by curling horns, the tails of heavy coats fluttering at their massive ankles. They leered at Rei and her friends, yellow eyes like the eyes of lions in their blocky faces, and Rei was tempted to shrink back, duck out of sight, run and hide and—
Yusuke's tapped her wrist, down behind Kuwabara's back where their arms lay crossed. He caught her eye and grinned, not budging an inch, confidence oozing from every pore.
The urge to run faded. Seeing this, Yusuke turned from her and looked ahead, at the demons who wanted her dead.
"There you are," Kurama was saying in his silken voice. "I was beginning to think you'd cower out of sight all evening."
"Big words, pretty boy." The demon on the right showed all his teeth. "Now hand over the girl."
"Or what?" Yusuke said, raising his voice, grin still fixed firmly in place.
The demon's face swung in his direction. "We'll—wait a second." He frowned, blinking in confusion, looking from Yusuke to Kurma and back again. "Why do you look familiar?"
"Yeah, they do look familiar," said the other demon, frowning too. "But…"
The first one did a double-take, a lightbulb apparently going off. "Huh? Is that—oh no."
"Oh," said the second, horror creeping across his piggish features. "Uh-oh."
Together the two demons took a big step back. Yusuke tossed his hair and laughed, wry amusement radiating as his grin turned positively feral. Rei sure as hell didn't understand the source of his humor, but oh well, so long as he was having fun or whatever…! But the demons looked like they were having less than fun, muttering to each other from the corners of their mouths as they apparently communicated something dire indeed.
"Well, well, well," Yusuke drawled with lazy self-assurance. "Looks like we're famous, Kurama."
"Kurama," one of the demons repeated, leaping upon the word like a cat on a mouse. "I knew it." To Yusuke he directed the words, "And that must make you—"
"—Urameshi Yusuke," the other demon finished. Color drained from his tawny face like pigment leached from paint by the hard sun. "The k-king of Demon World."
Rei didn't miss that his voice had broken when he said that, stuttering with nervous energy, teeth on display in an on-edge grimace. Yusuke just laughed again, though, apparently delighted with the whole affair.
"Former king," he corrected. "And current friend of Yamato's, so why don't the two of you shove off before Kurama and me get really mad?" He showed all of his teeth when he smiled, as savage as a tiger on the prowl. "Trust me when I say I've only gotten stronger since the last tournament. You two pipsqueaks don't stand a chance."
"He's not wrong," one of the demons growled to the other.
"But he never mentioned the girl would be with demons like Urameshi and Kurama," said his companion.
And there was something in the way he said that pronoun that caught Rei's attention. Slipping out from under Kuwabara's limp arm, she left the drunkard hanging off of Yusuke (who yelped at the sudden shift in weight and pitched awkwardly to the side) and dashed forward.
Kurama held out an arm before she could pass him, slender fingers curling around her wrist. He shot her a warning look and shook his head, but she tossed his hand aside and addressed the demons with a glare.
"He?" she said. "You mean Tutivillus?"
The two demons froze at the sound of that name. Ah. So she'd hit the bullseye, then. The demons exchanged another look, the pair hunching in their heavy coats as if against a chill wind.
"How do you know that name?" one of them grunted.
"How do you think, losers?" Rei shot back.
They exchanged another look. She wasn't sure what to make of it. Uncertainty, but also expectation? Like a confirmation of something they'd heard rumors about, understanding shared between them without words. She just didn't know what the heck that understanding was about.
"So he was right," said the other demon. "You can see beyond the reach of your eyes."
The words sent a shiver through Rei, but she ignored it and did her best to look haughty—like she wanted to know that. Like this was all part of some enormous master plan of hers, and they were playing right into her calculating hand.
It was an act, of course. But they didn't know that, and she didn't intend to let them find out.
"That's right," was all she said, staring down her nose at them and scowling. "But I don't need power or eyes to know you're a pair of gaping assholes." (Yusuke, behind her, snickered; she ignored him.) "And I also don't need 'em to know that you're useful, even if it's just as my errand boy."
Kurama shot her another look of warning, eyes alight with a flash of green. "Yamato, what are you—?"
"Tell little Tuti-chan to back the fuck off for me, would you?" she said to the demons in a voice of dripping acid and pure, snobbish disdain. "In case he hasn't notice, I roll with kings now." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Yusuke. "And kings don't take kindly to people like him poaching members of the court."
"Yeah! What she said!" Yusuke yelled, playing along beautifully (Rei made a mental note to thank him later).
But for all Yusuke's playing along, she worried this wouldn't be enough—that her act wouldn't be convincing. She was standing there with no pants on and her eyelashes in her pocket; Rei certainly wouldn't taker herself seriously if she were them. But she didn't want this to turn into some big battle or whatever; Yusuke said he could fight, and she believed him and stuff, but that still didn't mean she wanted a brawl on her hands. What the hell would they do with Kuwabara if all hell broke loose? No, she wanted the demons to turn tail and run, get freaked out and leave her the hell alone. Was the combined threat of Yusuke and Kurama enough to sufficiently intimidate these guys? Rei didn't have a clue—but as the moment of tension stretched into a full minute of tension, like cowboys facing off down a dusty road, she hoped like hell she'd done enough.
And it turns out that she had, because soon the demons took a step backward, feet sliding with a clatter over the alley's uneven terrain.
"Aww, where ya going?" Rei said, still playing the part of someone without a care in the world. She thrust out a hip, hand pillowing on it in a sassy smack. "Running home to daddy already?"
One of the demons bared his teeth, although he still continued to slink away. "Shut up, you miserable—"
"You can't run from the eyes of Tutivillus," said his friend. "He found you tonight, and he will find you again."
"Sure, babe. Whatever you say." Rei blew them a kiss, eyes as wide as they could go, winking black in the starlight. "Just know that however sharp his eyes may be, they ain't got nothin' on mine."
The demons turned tail and fled, then, with another shouted curse—but as Rei tamped down the urge to celebrate, Kurama ran forward almost too fast for her eyes to track, tracing the paths of the fleet-footed demons down the alley and around the corner at the end. Yusuke shouted something about waiting up because he wanted to help punch then into the dirt, but Kuwabara gave a groan and Yusuke's bellow turned into a defeated curse, instead. Kuwabara had started to snore, passed completely out at last, leaving Yusuke immobile under his boneless weight.
Rei, meanwhile, finally relaxed enough to allow her legs to shake. They wobbled under her so bad, she pitched to the ground, collapsing to the dirt with a groan of relief. But Rei hardly cared. Her tights were already ruined, after all; she didn't give a shit if they got another run after everything else she'd been through. Rei was alive, un-kidnapped, and with both eyes intact. As far as she was concerned, that was enough victory for one evening, thank you very fucking much.
"That," she breathed, hand clamped over her thundering heart, "was a close one."
"Yeah, for them," Yusuke spat as he glared at Kuwabara's unconscious face. "If this asshole wasn't a sitting duck, I would've pounded those bastards right into the ground!"
And Rei was sure that was true, but she was too busy breathing deeply of the nighttime air—something she wasn't sure she'd get to taste again had those demons kidnapped her—to say so.
They remained in the alley for maybe two minute before Kurama returned, not at all winded and not a hair out of place (yet again, Rei called him a show-off in her head, not allowing herself to acknowledge the envy she felt for his flowing locks). He jogged back into the alley and offered Rei a hand, helping her rise back atop her high heels—but his eyes blazed with green fire as they looked at her, jade hot enough to burn.
"They got away?" Yusuke said, sounding surprised.
"They had a portal waiting. Whoever arranged their exit had impeccable timing." He said this almost admiringly (but only almost) before turning to Rei. "Impressive as that display was, you should not have intimidated them." He sounded like he was scolding her, much to Rei's displeasure. "We could have interrogated them for information."
Rei frowned. "Interrogated?"
"He means tortured," Yusuke helpfully explained.
"Tor-tured!?" Rei repeated… but the possibility of torturing the demons who wanted to harvest her eyeballs didn't disgust her the way it might've only a week ago. Looking curiously at Kurama, she asked, "Was torture an option?"
"Yes," he replied, smile tight.
"Damn. My bad." She threw on a grin. "But at least they left us alone, right?"
"Yeah, I guess that's true," Yusuke agreed with a sigh. "All's well that ends well."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Kurama did not elaborate on what he meant, turning to Rei with another scowl. "Rei. Who was the entity you spoke of?"
"Entity?"
"Tuti…"
"Tutivillus? He's the demon who's after me. Or after my eyes, at least." At Kurama and Yusuke's blank expression, Rei frowned. "I thought y'all heard about that?"
Yusuke scoffed. "I think I'd remember a name like that."
"Huh. Then that part of our talk must've stayed inside my brain." She shook her head, trying to focus. "Remember when I talked to my ancestor in the mirror? She told me the name of the demon who'd killed my au—" (Don't think about her right now; don't think about her!) "—of the demon who's after me." Rei shrugged, helpless. "I just rolled with it and made a lucky guess when they said 'he.'"
"Somehow I doubt it was just a simple guess," said Kurama. "Your intuition has proven a force more than once now."
"Hmm?"
"Just a stray observation. Or a series of them. But we'll talk about that later." Green flickered toward the door over her shoulder, back the way they'd come. "For now, we have company."
As if he'd summoned them, the door to the club burst open. Rei nearly shrieked in fright, spinning and lunging behind Kurama for cover, but it was only Nobuo and Akemi who came tumbling through the doorway. Akemi's dark eyes were wild, but as soon as she spotted Rei, she sighed and trotted forward with a smile.
"Rei! There you are!" she said, pushing past Kurama to take Rei's arm, "You disappeared, and when one of the bouncers said they saw you in another outfit—"
"We thought you'd just skipped out on us." Nobuo crossed his arms over his chest, tattoos rippling. "Again."
"You know me." Rei shrugged, trying to look charmingly devilish. "I love an Irish goodbye."
"Well, I don't!" said Akemi. She grabbed onto Rei's arm like it was a lifeline in a storm, aiming a watery gaze up at Rei with a pout. "I've missed you and you can't just leave!" Her smile faded a little when she scanned Rei's face; Rei's cheeks heated, self-consciousness returning under the heavy weight of Akemi's scrutiny. "Why did you change clothes, by the way?" She looked at Rei's head and back again. "I love the scarf, don't get me wrong, but the makeup is a tad…"
"Rustic?" Rei said, tone artificially breezy—to disguise the way she hated being looked at in this outfit, for the most part. "Just felt like changing it up a little, that's all."
"Well, whatever you want." Akemi held on a little tighter, pouting without remorse. "Just come tell everybody goodbye, OK? It's been so long since…"
Rei let Akemi guide her back toward the entrance to the club, not sure how she could possibly say no to that face. She shot an apologetic look at Kurama when they passed, but he just appeared longsuffering and resigned at this obstacle to their exit strategy. Well, it's not like Rei wanted this to happen, either. If he blamed her, made her feel badly for saying bye to her friends or whatever…
She tried not to think about that. She just focused on pretending to have a good time as Akemi led her back into the underground speakeasy, where she was forced to spend the next hour painfully parting with all the members of her former burlesque company. Exchanging phone numbers and email addresses, promises to stay in touch she wasn't sure she'd keep, taking a few farewell shots and a final dance with Nobuo while Akemi sang karaoke… that sort of thing. Rei genuinely liked these people, sure, but the attention (especially dressed as she was) wasn't ideal after the day she'd had. All she really wanted was to go back to the hotel and crawl on her hands and knees into bed, sleep away the terror and adrenaline and wake up refreshed in the morning sun. She tried to keep her thoughts laser-focused on that ray of hope as she said her final goodbyes—but despite the intensity with which she tried not to think about the demons who had tried to kidnap her, she couldn't keep one stray thought from clinging to the hem of her awareness, claws hooked into the tattered edge of her mental robe.
Tutivillus' men had found her tonight, so far from home, so far from anywhere she'd ever been before… but how?
And more alarmingly still, when would they strike next?
X
Eventually—far later than Rei would've liked, especially after the night's excitement—they arrived back at the hotel. As soon as they walked in the revolving glass doors, they dumped the comatose and snoring Kuwabara onto a luggage cart, wheeling him through the lobby toward the front desk past an amused bellhop. The rest of the lobby was deserted, luckily for Kuwabara and his dignity. They only got weird looks from the staff at the front desk, one of whom—a man Rei recognized from when they first checked in—watched their approach with a raised eyebrow.
"Damn, I'm beat," Yusuke said, pushing Kuwabara's cart with head hanging low and tired. "Can't wait to crash."
"Same here," said Rei.
"Sleep would not go amiss for me, either," Kurama added in a velvet murmur.
"On it, gang." Rei skipped ahead toward the desk, motioning for them to hang back. "Two seconds."
She promptly leaned her elbows on the front desk in front of the clerk she recognized, ringing the bell sitting at his elbow with one cheeky fingertip. He stared at her and then at the bell in confusion, but soon his face cleared, an expression of surprise slipping into place.
"Yamato-san? Is that you?" he said, clearly not believing what he was seeing. Not that Rei blamed him. She knew damn well how different she looked.
"Wow, you recognized me!" was all she said on the matter, and she held up a finger to silence him when he once more tried to speak. Best lampshade her new look before he could make a comment, she thought. "No need to compliment my style. I just felt like changing up my look, that's all."
But the anxiety on his face didn't speak to the nerves before complimenting (or unwittingly insulting) a woman. It spoke to something much direr, as did his words when he said in fretful tones, "Yamato-san, I've been expecting you all evening."
"Uh oh." Her elbow slipped off the desk as she straightened up in alarm. "What's that face for?"
"Yamato-san…" He wrung his hands before he bowed, low and contrite as all hell. "I apologize, but it appears a clerical error was made in the booking of your room."
"Uh oh," Rei repeated. "Please tell me you still have two available."
"We do," he said (but after hesitating a bit, suspiciously). "But… unfortunately the final two rooms were not doubles, as described."
"Oh no?" said Rei. "Please tell there was a double and a suite or something."
"Unfortunately, Yamato-san, no. While there are still two rooms, I'm afraid…" He bowed again, and then a third time. "Well, I'm afraid that they are both singles."
"Both sing… oh." Rei rubbed her temples with her fingertips. "Oh."
"We are sorry, Yamato-san, and obviously we will be comping your stay here due to this oversight, but—"
But Rei wasn't listening anymore. She had long since tuned him out, cradling her head in her hands as the reality of the situation sank home. She'd booked two doubles, intending for the boys to sleep in one room while she slept in the other, but… with two singles, there wouldn't be enough room for all the men in one place. And that in turn meant…
Well. This certainly wasn't great, to put it mildly. But it couldn't be helped—and in fact, to Rei, the circumstances felt almost inevitable.
Her teacup wouldn't lie to her, after all.
"And let me guess," Rei muttered as the hotel clerk droned on, "in both rooms, there's only one bed."
She knew she was right even before the desk clerk nodded.
Indeed, there was only one bed.
The only question was who she would have to share it with—and thanks to her teacup, that hardly felt like a question at all.
X
teacup or not, I THINK WE ALL KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION LMFAO
remember when I warned you this might become a cliché mess? this is what I meant, baby. I LOVE THE "THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED" TROPE AND I REFUSE NOT TO MAKE GOOD USE OF IT
3 wonderful humans commented last time and that means I will never not worship the ground that Sorlian, damaged forest spirit and GinaLiz walk on. think more of you lovely humans could chime in next time? maybe we could crack 100 reviews; call it an Xmas gift for yours truly? eh? ehhhh? anyway see you next week for "THERE WAS PONLY ONE BED" SHENANIGANS LMAO
