Alright, I think that's all I have in me today. *stretches* Now to do something fun with my three-year-old.

Chapter 14

With a shuddering gasp, I opened my eyes. Cold sweat covered my body and faces, familiar faces, circled my view. The ceiling was criss-crossed with modern lights hung on curved, black bars. Naru's apartment. No. Home. My living room.

Lin took his fingers off my forehead. I could smell the incense and rosin on his fingers, like the scent of an old violin.

The others breathed a collective sigh of relief, which turned to a cough on Naru's part.

It was short lived, as familiar, heavy smack thudded on the window, followed by another tink of cracking glass.

"Shit, this never ends!" Takigawa jumped up to his feet and ran to the windows, moving his hands into the sign of the Immoveable One.

"So it really was her dad," said Yasu. A thin film of sweat had collected over his upper lip. "Lin couldn't have cast out the spirit unless it wasn't. Good thing I wrote down his birthday, eh?"

Ayako gave a disgusted harrumph. "Some father."

I put a hand to my face. It shook horribly, almost not making it and more like dropping on my face then being put to it. "This possession thing's getting real old." Oh gal, my voice sounded worse than ever. Had I really screamed it out?

"Welcome to Masako and Gene's world," said Naru, falling back out of my vision with a huff.

"They channeled spirits, not got possessed by them," said Yasu. "I thought there was a difference."

"There is," said Lin lowly. "But Mai hasn't had the training, while Masako has. Untrained mediums of Mai's and Masako's level of power are a danger to themselves."

"Then why hasn't she been trained?" Ayako almost screeched, looking directly at Naru as though he were my father figure or something.

Naru let out a heavy sigh. "Can we focus on the thing about to break through my window?"

As though to punctuate his statement, another invisible smack echoed through the room and Takigawa started up his chant. The low thrum of his voice soothed me, familiar. The sound of defense and safety. He threw up a set of blade like fingers to the glass.

I tried to sit up, only getting to my elbows before my arms seized up. Ayako quickly ran to my aid and got me upright, to which I thanked her for with a smile. I could still smell smoke, and as I looked towards Naru I caught sight of black streaks on the counter and ceiling. He followed my gaze and answered my unasked question.

"Fire," he said. "Seems your dad has an affinity for it."

"Why is this all happening now?" Yasu asked, sitting back to reopen another of my mother's journals in his hands. "Why would whatever is out there come at Mai now? Or why would her dad suddenly be in the picture?"

"The two spirits are obviously tied to one another," said Naru. "He killed the man trying to save the creatures daughters and accidentally burned his daughters. Same guy's probably back for revenge on both accounts, whether if that's at Mai directly or-"

"He wants to eat me," I cut in, though my whisper wasn't very effective. I coughed to try and clear my throat, then regretted it. Ugh, pain. This was all getting so very, very old. Naru's idea of retirement on my part wasn't sounding so bad anymore.

Naru gave his impressive frown, the one that folded V's into all parts of his face. "Is that all he wants to do? Why you?"

"I don't know," I rasped. "But my dad is tortured by his guilt. He kept replaying the scene over and over of when the...the young woman realized her daughter was in the house and ran in and he couldn't save them. And then, for some reason, he connected me with them." I coughed. My voice was dying out. "Water?"

Ayako nodded and stood. As she made her way to the kitchen, I tried to continue, only to be interrupted by Takigawa's chant reaching a loud climax and a weird squelch coming from the window. Still, only water could be seen coursing down the glass in streams and rivulets. Takigawa exhaled loudly and slumped down to the floor, legs crossed and head shaking.

I wondered what eating people or getting burned alive had to do with water. Why was the man my father killed connected to the water?

And why did he choose to eat his wife in the first place? Had they been starving?

I accepted the glass of water Ayako handed to me, hesitated a bit before drinking it. It wasn't like I was going to drown in a cup of water or summon the beast to me with it, right? I'd drunk the soup and tea just fine.

They still waited on me to speak when I lowered it.

"I think that path we got lost on, back at the resort, either led to the cabin or looked a lot like it." I turned to Yasu. "Do you know where this fire was?"

"I guess you could say it was close to the resort," he said, tapping the bottom of his chin with his thumb. "But it's on the other side of the mountain. At least, I think so. The newspaper article she quoted wasn't exactly clear."

"But I saw me and Naru," I said, my thinking still sluggish. I did my best to describe everything I saw and my impressions, broken up with sips of water and coughing. At the end, however, I couldn't even understand the words I was speaking. No one, from Lin to Takigawa, seemed to have a clue what to take from it. Though it helped the whole story of 'dude goes into mountain to kill cannibal' story, it didn't begin to tell us why all this was happening now...or what to do about it.

"Can't we just hunt down the name of this dude and have Lin exorcise him?" Ayako asked. "That being said, what's your problem, Monk?"

"You think I haven't tried?" said Monk, more than a little offended. "It's taking all I got just to keep the wards up against him. Thing's like nothing I've ever felt!"

"I don't think it's a mere spirit anymore," said Naru, gazing out at the rain as he pulled up a knee and draped his arm over it. "I don't think it's Mai's father, at least. Guilt couldn't do this much to a man, but there's a chance, with the spirit's connection, that it's possible it isn't helping our situation either. That thing's activity rises and suddenly Mai's possessed? It can't be a coincidence."

"You two were wearing the resorts yukatas," said Yasu slowly. "And the cabin could be said to be semi-close to the resort. Could it just be proximity?"

Naru didn't say anything, eyes narrowed in thought. It felt like it had been forever since I'd seen Naru in his serious thinking mood, and I couldn't help but appreciate the nice profile he made. It was a nice reminder, through this horrible time, that at least he was still mine.

Ayako started laughing. "Hey Naru, Mai looks like she's going to pounce you."

I flinched and shrunk back, horrified. Naru's head turned just enough to give Ayako a droll look, then his eyes widened.

"Sex," he said.

Yasu and Ayako started snickering like middle school boys, and Takigawa let out a few loud barks of surprised laughter from his seat against the window. Lin was unamused.

So was Naru. "Will you lot grow up? I can't believe I forgot about something so big, especially after being able to use my PK so well."

Lin flinched and scowled, beginning to swell up.

"What does your PK have to do with any of this?" asked Ayako, still smirking.

"There's considered, in most spiritual and paranormal research, to be an elementary protection on virgins, particularly virgin girls."

Now Lin's eyes were widening as well. "Something so simple...?"

"Why not?" Naru's eyes had got bright, his usual arrogant smirk falling into place. "The man festered in his own immorality, robbing even his own daughters of that protection. Only makes sense that Mai's own virginity would be especially strong against him. Then there's the father's blessing theorum, where a woman with a dead father as a spiritualist is protected in spiritual senses until she marries. Then the spirit of said father is said to 'give up the mantle' to the husband. That could be in place as well. Mai's father has already proven to have something of the same spiritual potential as Mai. Virginity is thought to be natures natural spiritual protection to the, uh, weaker sex before she can have a man to protect her. That being said, in some cultures it counts for both sexes."

"I don't see what this has to do with your PK," said Ayako.

"I don't want to know how you found out," said Lin, mouth thin.

"Oh, please," Naru dropped his hands and pushed himself up. "Mai's father seeing me coming out of that guys shack in Mai's dream signifies he sees me as a potential threat, especially since..." he paused, catching himself, probably because of Yasu's lewd smile and Ayako's knowing grin. His face flushed and he turned away. "Look, it makes sense. All this started happening after that night. Mai even had her dream...after. I think that monster was finally able to find her because of that lift of protection and the turning of her father's spirit."

I wanted to hide my face in the couch for Naru's sake. Also because it sounded really nice all of a sudden. I was sick as a cow and had just been possessed and forced to relive hell, after all, it wasn't like I was perky energetic sunshine.

"Okay, so back to my question." Ayako folded her arms and went back to serious. "Why can't we hunt down his name?"

"The man and his family lived in a shack no one knew about," said Yasu. "And when he and his daughters all die in a fire, no one notices? Where do you suggest we start looking for a name going off of that? There probably wasn't even any records of the poor girls in the first place, with how twisted up the guys got to be to think eating his wife is a good idea..." he screwed up his face. "Or even want to. Crap, why would you even want to? Was it just a bad winter or something?"

"I think, " said Lin gravely, giving Naru a significant look. "We could be dealing with something from the Hēisè Bencao gangmu "

Takigawa made a funny little squawking noise. "Wait, the Compendium? I thought that was a book on medicine!"

I had managed to scoot myself over the space between me and the couch and squashed my face to it. It was nice. I couldn't breathe through the leather, but it was nice.

Naru, who was leaning against said couch while sitting on the floor, reached over and started rubbing my back lightly with his fingernails. It was blissfully mind-numbing.

"It's a rumored dark half of the book dedicated to using human flesh for black magic, rather than for healing. There were records of the book, but no copies found of the book itself. It's not a far stretch, but I've heard of something about eating the flesh of a lover for it—"

"Can we skip over the details?" Takigawa's voice sounded strained. "The later it gets, the harder it is to hold this thing off. How do we get rid of it?"

A silenced followed. I had to turn my head to breathe and managed a view of Naru's steady gaze on someone, waiting.

Then, I heard Lin, more grave than I had ever heard him.

"I don't know. And even if it was from the Black Compendium, I've never read it." He sighed. "That's too far of a stretch, Naru. There is no real evidence. None at all. We really have no idea."