24

Integra leaned back in her seat on the couch and rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. It had been two hours since she started going through the tour book and she still hadn't found the right waterfall. Even the geographical parameters didn't seem to help. The mountains of the Kanto Range were full of waterfalls. The wolf den was a needle in a haystack. A person could go crazy trying to find it. Why had she volunteered to do this? What was the secret? There had to be some trick to it. The real Buffy could have figured this out by now.

Why did that thought just pop into her head like that? She shook her head and smiled a little. Stupid nickname. It didn't matter. The real Buffy would have come up with some clever way of locating the next checkpoint. Some obscure magical rule, or capturing a little demon witness, or maybe an impossibly convenient common denominator among the other checkpoints.

Integra's eyes widened. A common denominator. Could there be one? What did the other two checkpoints have in common? The trail marker had been outside and the fox pelt had been hung indoors. The marker had been in a park while the pelt had been in a shrine. But... there was a shrine close to the park. Could that be it? Was there a shrine near the waterfall too? Integra flipped to the back of the tour book and ran her finger down the index page. Shrines...

Integra grinned in triumph as she flipped through the page references from the index. Out of all the waterfalls in Japan, there seemed to be only five waterfalls in the mountains north of Tokyo with associated shrines. And of those, only one had a cave big enough to be habitable for a large group. The name of the stream wasn't given in the tiny article so they'd have to go up there and see it themselves. Akagi seemed pretty far to drive but maybe they could take the train instead. Integra reached for the phone. She hoped Amon was still awake and ready to have his nose rubbed in it.

25

Alexander Anderson made sure he wasn't sitting too close to the window as he picked up the hotel phone and dialed. The creature hiding somewhere outside had ears that could rival a parabolic microphone. And she would certainly be interested in this phone call.

"Father Anderson? Is that you?" the young voice on the other end of the line said almost immediately.

"Aye," Anderson responded. "What have ye found?"

"We had nothing for the past few days, sir. But just a few minutes ago we had a lucky break. Someone on a secure network just booked four tickets on the 10:00 am train to Akagi. The old wolf demon territory. It looks like you were right, sir. They are following the map scroll."

"Good work, Yumie," Anderson said. "Ye'll be hearin' from me again soon."

He hung up the phone and smiled a wide toothy smile. What a stroke of luck. An opportunity to head off his quarry was worth suffering through the annoying surveillance. Tomorrow would be a good day. He could feel it.

Story Notes:

"...some clever way..." - All the things Integra thinks of here have been used in real Buffy episodes.

Akagi - If this name seems familiar to you then you must have been a fan of Initial D at some time in your life. Akagi is the home town of Ryosuke and Keisuke Takahashi, two of the best street racers in Gunma prefecture. If you believe the hype, they spend every waking moment flying up and down the winding mountain roads on Mt Akagi. Our canine heroes better look both ways before they cross the road, especially in wolf territory.

"...parabolic microphone..." - For those who weren't raised on crime dramas, a parabolic microphone is a long-range listening devise. It's capable of picking up sounds from over ten times the distance covered by an ordinary microphone. It can even hear through cars or walls. It's often used in surveillance because it allows the listener to keep a safe distance from their target while still hearing every word.

Yumie - If this name seems familiar to you, then you must have read at least some of the original Hellsing manga. Yumie was a side character who never appeared in the anime series. However, Yumie and some other Iscariot people will be included in the new OVA series slated to be released in the next year or so.