Many people didn't like to think of themselves as old, but Yao didn't mind. In China, age was only wisdom, and all it would get you was respect. He was proud to bear his age, even though he wasn't really that old yet, and he was even prouder to bear his experience. His wisdom, beyond his years, allowed him to see things, secrets that he kept in silence for the sake of his younger teammates. He couldn't see spirits or creatures, no, but he could see the red strings that bound their souls together. With this new couple, Toris and Feliks, he could see the strings wound thick, pinky to pinky, up their arms, around their chests, a cocoon of solid red, signifying a solid and deep love. Alfred and Ivan were similarly bound, the thread growing thicker by the day on Ivan's side but blissfully ignored on Alfred's side, and the thickness of Francis and Arthur's string varied depending on the day. Yao's own string, though, trailed out and away from him, thin and unrealized. He knew that someday fate would guide the other end of his string to him, but until that day, he was willing to wait.
Allowing his thoughts to trail off, he decided that it would be a good idea to check back in with Feliks and Toris – he was easily the most medically inclined of the team, and could ensure that Feliks hadn't undergone any more damage than he'd realized. Pushing away from the wall on which he was leaning he reentered the room… to find it completely empty.
"Mr. Lorinaitis? Mr. Lukasiewicz?" He glanced around the room. Where had they gone? He had been close to the only door out of the room… He supposed that it was possible for them to have slipped past him, but he wasn't sure why they would try to be so sneaky. Only moments ago they'd agreed to stay in the room to allow the rest of the team to search for clues, too. He entered the room. Apart from the doorway, there were a few windows on the back wall. He guessed that if they weren't in the room, they might be outside, but decided to check the outside last. He called again, and then decided to search the perimeter of the room, carefully pacing along the walls, eyes on the ground for any clues. Although he was more grounded in physical reality than Arthur and Ivan, he knew that ghosts existed – he'd helped the team get rid of them before. He hoped that this ghost didn't harm Toris and Feliks, or taken them away, or landed them in some other doubtlessly bad situation, though he was fairly sure that it wouldn't. He'd thought it strange that Feliks had been so largely unharmed, so the damage or lack thereof, seemed rather deliberate. He supposed that that could only mean that the ghost wanted something with the couple, but he had no idea what. Anyhow, though he didn't know every trick up a ghost's sleeve, he'd never seen two individuals whisked away so easily so he figured that a more thorough investigation of the room was in order. Now, instead of merely pacing around the room, he started to knock gently on each wall as he passed, a trick he'd learned some time ago. Ghosts were often masters of the house they haunted, and knew all sorts of secrets about them, including secret rooms or hollows in the walls. After a minute or two of knocking, he heard a hollow sound, and began gently feeling around the wall for some trace of a hidden door, a trigger, a switch – anything that could open the hollow to him. As he did so, he made a very familiar mistake, and failed to notice a silhouette behind him, outlined on the wall. Not until everything went black.
"You're not going to find anything with those machines, Alfred."
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do. We should go back downstairs and help another group."
"N-no. You might have missed something."
"We both know that I didn't miss anything, Alfred. If you're too afraid to go, I'll go alone."
"NO! I mean, uh, no! What if the ghost eats you or something?"
"Alfred. The ghost will not eat me. The ghost cannot eat me. I am like the ghost, remember?"
"Of course I remember you and your weird ghost blood stuff, I just don't want it to eat the human part of you. …O-only because it would suck if something ate my teammate and I didn't stop it, I mean."
Ivan rolled his eyes. Alfred's fear of ghosts was very irritating, especially when they were working on a supernatural case. Any other kind of case, murderers, rapists, homicidal machines, or mysterious parasites – Alfred didn't bat an eye. The undead? A kind of being more natural to Ivan than nearly every other? Alfred was out. Even so, for some reason, he was inclined to be sympathetic, even protective of the younger man, and he definitely didn't want him to feel scared or in danger. He wasn't totally sure why (he just chalked it up to friendship as he wasn't totally sure what that was either, yet), but that was probably the only reason that he'd stayed up here and kept Alfred company rather than heading downstairs and putting his abilities to use.
"Alfred, if there is a ghost, I will be able to see it."
"I-I know that! It makes me feel… safe." Alfred was turned away from him; face screwed up in a frown, like the words pained him. Alfred was very proud, and with a friend like Ivan, so matched in ability to him, admitting fear was one of the ultimate signs of weakness, which both sides generally refused to show. Somehow his display got Ivan, previously exasperated at the young American, to feel rather uncomfortable. He felt heat climb his cheeks.
"A-ah… W-well, we should go downstairs, if - if you're done, da?" Ivan's accent thickened, like it always did when he was flustered. He involuntarily shoved his face into his scarf.
"O-oh yeah, of course."
They stood up to go, but there was someone in the room that couldn't have that happen. That someone, seeing one man whose outline was strangely flickering but clearly defined and one man whose outline was fuzzy in his sight, chose the man that was only faint to him, surrounded by the thick, cloudy barrier that his wife had been until just recently, as she slowly ebbed through the cracks. He knew that the flickering man would respond just as the other one had, and soon there would be four people soaking though the most infuriatingly visible but impermeable barrier he'd ever known. He only cared about one of them, of course, but he needed three, four, even more, just to take that man down! He obviously couldn't do it in his current state, but he knew that the other fuzzy beings would take care of it, just like they had when he was like them. Just as he'd done before, the man crept up behind the fuzzy being in the room, but was abruptly interrupted by the flickering man. Turning sharp violet eyes upon him – No! Those eyes can see! Really see! – the flickering man let out a sharp growl, bringing fear to him that he'd not known for years, a fear that he'd last felt a little before he had to make his wife cry, truly cry.
"Stay away from him!" The flickering man lunged, and the fuzzy one let out a strangled yelp. The flickering man's attack, surprisingly, gave the feel of being barreled into by a freight train. The man flew back, shocked that an attack had any effect on him at all, yet strangely pleased by the sensations he hadn't felt for eternities. The flickering man's outline, he noticed, stopped flickering quite so much, and a pipe had materialized into his hand. Still rather shell shocked, the man dodged as quickly as he could, side to side, still afraid that the flickering man would have some effect on him. It may have just been a fluke, but he couldn't be sure. The fuzzy man, however, sat up abruptly, a look of horror on his face. He tore at the flickering man, just about tackling him. The flickering man, however, simply threw him off effortlessly.
"Ivan! What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm – protecting – you. Get – Arthur." Each word was punctuated with another slam of his pipe, which crushed the concrete on the earth but still disturbed the air around him.
"Protecting me? From what? We're not here to murder anybody!"
"GET – ARTHUR. HE – UNDERSTANDS." The man, this Ivan, his tone had become dangerous, and would have sent a chill down the dodging man's spine.
"P-please, Alfred. Trust me." The fuzzy man, Alfred paused, staring doubtfully with sky blue eyes at his partner, before he turned on his heel and went to leave.
"You know I love it when you do your magic tricks, right, Arthur?" Francis smirked, leaning against the wall, ready for the inevitable punch that came along with the phrase "magic tricks". He took it gracefully, and smiled again, a mixture of deviousness and seductiveness in it now.
"They're not magic tricks, you bloody fool! Well, I suppose that I must forgive you, for it was I who so vastly overestimated your mental capacity and maturity by thinking you could somehow handle a mere description of the depths of magic." The blonde man was frowning, massive - …endearing? - eyebrows furrowed. Francis resisted the urge to laugh out loud. Arthur always took himself too seriously.
"Oh, Arthur. It's just as good when you get out your big… vocabulary." A moan had punctuated the pause between "big" and "vocabulary", and Arthur's reaction was as good as ever.
"Shut it!" Arthur was fully distracted now, and Francis soon felt guilty for Feliks and Toris' sake. Arthur was damn near unstoppable when he got into a "rage lecture", as Alfred had so eloquently dubbed them, and he was perhaps the best member on the team in relation to supernatural matters. Francis realized now, far too late, that he shouldn't have distracted Arthur at all. He supposed that it wasn't of massive consequence, though, as Arthur had been spending nearly the past half hour chanting softly in an effort to reveal some sort of spiritual evidence. He hadn't had much luck. Of course, he hadn't checked the master bedroom yet either, mostly because of some ridiculous English scruples about privacy. Francis had no such problem, but also had no such ability, and was left stuck trying to convince Arthur that it was a good idea while bored out of his wits by silently watching the other man work. In fact, it'd been rather impressive for him to have gone for so long without talking before he finally broke down and started harassing Arthur as usual. He probably also would have continued to do so, maybe even convinced Arthur to search the master bedroom if it weren't for Alfred's desperate cries from on the stairs.
"Arthur! Francis! Come up, and hurry!" The other two, upon hearing the urgency in his voice, immediately obeyed. "Arthur, please. Ivan needs you. He – he says you'll understand. Francis – I found Yao near the living room where Feliks and Toris used to be, but they're gone now. He's unconscious. We have to help him." Arthur and Francis glanced at each other. It was very rare for a case to escalate to this degree. Usually it was just some kind of house pest, or even a delusion on the client's part, but dangerous spirits and demons made up only a very few of their "situations". This was going to be risky. Wordlessly and quickly, they followed their orders and went to their appropriate posts, neither one of them realizing exactly what they were about to face.
(A/N: Thank you akamaru2112, for the review! I'm glad that you like it so much already, and that I can keep you in any suspense XD. Also, thanks again, Voodka! More RussAme will be coming in later chapters, but I hope I dropped a little bit more in this one than in the other two ;) . Thanks to everyone else who read or added me or my story as a favorite, too! I'm always glad to know that people are enjoying it.)