Episode 10: Switch (Sleep)
Though he prided himself on his unflappability, Leorza's heart hammered in his chest to the point where he felt his heartbeat all over his entire body. Shaking, he sat down in the nearest chair to the door of the restaurant he had ducked into; a waitress came over expectantly, but he waved her away with a restless hand. Closing his eyes, he reached within his coat for the object he knew hung within; clutching the amulet and breathing deeply, he felt the peace of the new blood wash over him and empty his mind of worries.
Outside, the sun shone warmly on eager trees, and he could feel them stretching upwards, away towards the light they could never fully obtain but which provided nourishment all the same. In that way, he regarded himself very much a tree. On the outside stoic and composed, slow and steady in his mighty growth, but within lunging constantly for a light overhead he could not quite reach. Yet if he grew long enough...high enough...then someday...
But now one of his branches had been chopped off and supplanted, a seedling had sprouted where it should not have and threatened that growth. This could not be. There was no reason for it to be so, he argued with himself. What possible reason could his son, of all people, have for wandering through the dingy mire of the Magnagalian back streets? Preposterous. He was Vampire now! His place was in Judoh, ruling it from the shadows as he had been instructed for all his nineteen...no, twenty, the boy was twenty now, years. He had the fullest confidence that Mauro would have looked after his son and continued to provide advice and guidance for feet that sometimes wished to divert themselves from his father's carefully-laid path for them.
No, the boy had become Vampire: he had heard as much on the few radios he'd been able to find that broadcasted international news. Such a pronouncement should not have made the air, unfortunately; it only merited mention because his son had done an absolutely horrible job within the position. Leorza didn't know the details, but he'd heard that in the span of a mere year Clair Leonelli had managed to spark one minor gang war against the Wei family, one major gang war against Vita itself, and a manhunt that nearly resulted in the unity of the board dissolving. He'd eventually won his way back into the board's good graces, the reports said, only because the man the other families had chosen to replace him was a viciously ambitious but brainless twit.
The very idea of another bearing the title of Vampire—a title Leorza had created for himself, with his own goals in mind—sent spasms of revulsion up his throat. His own kin carrying on the legacy sat well with him, as indeed his monopoly had been created and his son born for that express purpose, but a total stranger? A human? What was more, an utter idiot, if the reports were to be trusted. What had Mauro been doing? There had been a fine specimen of mankind, indeed—constantly overstressed, to be sure, but cautious. Careful. Deferring. Respectful. Subservient. Leorza liked his followers meek; explaining his logic to inquiring and challenging minds got tedious after a while, though he did have to admit to himself that he enjoyed the occasional mental spar with Magnagalia's Baroness.
But Trinity and her multitude of infuriating quirks no longer occupied the "primary threat" portion of his mind, the area on which he found himself focusing constantly. Instead, her smirking face had been replaced by the cowed but unbroken expression of a young man at a father's deathbed, pleading for acceptance even as he flaunted the freedoms given by the older man's "affliction." Clair had hated him then and continued to do so; why else would he have performed so poorly as Vampire? Leorza had failed his son and thus himself. He had not made the boy want the position enough, had not sufficiently pressed into his head his high expectations.
No, no, no! This was all fruitless. He needed empirical data, needed proof to determine if his grand gamble had indeed fallen through. The boy was a threat, that could not be doubted: "Lorenzo Leonelli" had been dead and buried for a year, so reports of his reappearance were certain to spark, if not belief, at the very least curiosity. Best to get him back under control as soon as possible, then. He could gain information from the boy as well.
Taking his hand off the amulet hanging from his inner coat pocket, Leorza drew out his cell phone and punched in a number. The response, as always, was near-immediate.
"Master?"
"Usagi. Where are you?"
"I am in the Barony. I did not think returning to my cell would be of use after the beast masters' discovery of my escape route."
"Good girl. Now listen carefully. I have a job for you. Here is a description of your quarry..."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It had finally happened, Giovanni sighed wearily to himself. Vampire had finally cracked. Though what had brought it on he really couldn't fathom, there could be no other explanation. Clair wasn't stupid enough to see a man in the crowd in passing and mistake him for Giovanni's old boss; and the gentleman in question had laid in repose within his solemn coffin marked only "Vampire" for over a year. No, for Clair to start hallucinating his dead father, something must have finally snapped in that little black-and-blue head.
"Damn it, Giovanni, you don't believe me?"
"Sure I believe you, Vampire," the bodyguard replied, keeping his eyes up as the group navigated the narrow unsavory streets. "Problem is, I also believe my own memory of seeing a coffin lowered into the ground."
"But I just--"
"Clair." He left off all honorifics on purpose; the young man blinked in startled surprise. "I was with you when you found him, remember? We checked for a pulse together, and I...helped you cope." The boy had been violently sick all over himself, and Ian and Mitchal had conveniently remembered other, pressing jobs to be done in the wake of the don's death, so Giovanni had been left with the task of cleaning up the Vampire-apparent. To the leaders went the glory, eh? Not in his world. "There is no way you could have seen him."
He had expected anger, had prepared for it mentally and hoped dearly the young man wouldn't cause a scene. But instead of inflaming his master's indignation, Giovanni's words deflated Clair, made his thin frame seem even more fragile as the young don dropped his head slightly. "You think I'm lying, Giovanni?" he asked dully, almost slurring his words. "You're able to believe I would lie to you..."
"Vampire..." Giovanni began, but a voice from the shadows interrupted him.
"I have found him," Boma informed the group in his low, slightly husky voice. "Daisuke."
Kyoko's head whipped around at the words; Monica smacked her hand. "Don't be so obvious!" she whispered through teeth clenched in frustration. Giovanni himself inclined his head slightly to try and catch a glimpse of the wolfman keeping carefully out of sight. "Lead the way."
"The easiest path is through a hotel called the Barony," Boma reported; J produced a faint whirring sound as he searched for the map data.
"It is owned by a prominent family and consists of thirty-two floors of accommodations ranging from conventional to elite," reported the android, adjusting his black hat atop his head. "Estimated time on foot from our current position: twenty minutes. If Daisuke is there, my telemeter must be receiving interference from an outside source, as it is off by nearly two blocks."
"You mean even you can't tell where Daisuke is??" Monica nearly shrieked, but it was Kyoko's turn to hush the other girl and she obeyed the older woman. "At least Boma was useful."
Shun gave a short grunt of amused irritation. Clair, still sulking, kept glancing over his shoulder at the receding storefront where his father had reportedly vanished. Giovanni's heart went out to his employer, but what could he do? Lorenzo Leonelli had died nearly two years ago, and like Kyoko had earlier pointed out on the yacht, the world kept rolling. Nothing Clair wished or dreamed could bring his father back. To attempt such flights of fancy would cause him to fall off that ever-turning sphere. He and Giovanni had teetered precariously before, and the older man was determined not to let the younger one fall. Yet...
"Boma, could you check something for Vampire and me?" he asked the air; Clair's head jerked up in sudden, pathetic hope. The wolf-man, holographic human mask carefully in place, joined them in their walk. He listened as Giovanni explained his directions—go back there and look for a man, well-dressed, with large dark eyes, white hair, and a thin mustache. "He'd carry himself like he owned the world," Giovanni described, never one for especially poetic language save in times of extreme stress, but nonetheless trying hard to encapsulate the aura that had surrounded the late Vampire even in death. Boma nodded; then his pale face blanched slightly more, his head snapped up like a wary animal's and his eyes darted along the horizon of heads mulling around the street.
"Something is coming," he predicted grimly, and Clair behind him gave a strangled yell. The sound faded as the glassy young woman holding onto his arm withdrew the syringe from his neck and grabbed him as he collapsed.
It seemed to Giovanni that time slowed and sped up at once, watching the young man fall into the girl's hold. In numbness he drew both handguns, crossing his arms across his chest as he went for his holsters. "Vampire!" he yelled, letting off two shots before breaking off in fear of hitting the young master himself. For her part, the girl defected both bullets calmly with a knife she drew from the shuddering air around her one free hand and, stepping backwards, vanished completely, taking Clair with her. And time, tired of running in an unorthodox manner, stopped.
For the others...he saw it was over before most of the rescue team knew it had even begun. Boma immediately disappeared as well, but returned not five minutes later unsuccessful. "They are gone," he admitted grimly; Giovanni dropped his weapons as everyone in the street turned to look at him—some in fear, some in anticipation of a fight.
"What are you all looking at???" he screamed at the other pedestrians. "Go home or back to work or whatever!! There's nothing to look at here..." Stooping to pick up his guns, he shouldered them both with unsteady fingers. "There's nothing..." he repeated, closing his eyes and swallowing hard. "Not a damn thing one of you could do." His eyes snapped across the rest of his group. "Any one of you. Or me. Did you see that? We all just stood there and..." His knees buckled; he had to lean on a storefront to remain standing, hands fisted but the rest of his body sucked dry of power. "...oh God..." he mumbled brokenly, angrily, disbelievingly. "Oh dear God..."
It was the first time anyone had ever heard him mention religion, even in vain. His companions watched him in awkward, near-fidgety silence; his shoulders heaved, and one by one they realized he was muffling tears.
Bit by bit the wall of blunt disbelief crumbled in his mind and he let reality seep in. It was over. Like a brick in the face, his master—his friend, he dared think of the don as a friend—had been snatched from him. And he hadn't been able to do a stupid, shitty thing.
"Damn it," he growled, banging the storefront with his left fist while biting his right until it bled. "God damn it..."
Who and why, and to what end? He didn't know, had no leads. For a moment the young man's "crazy" assertion hovered in his mind; he stared at it dumbly. Could it be...? But why?
Damn the questions! Accepting what had happened was bad enough without also having to accept a million different possibilities. Choking, he swallowed salt and gagged, coughed. Inside the store people turned to stare at the man slowly breaking down against their window. He let them stare, beyond caring enough to hate them or be embarrassed. They'd been useless too...
Turning away, he rubbed his arm across his face and slid his sunglasses back on. They all stared at him, afraid to speak.
Finally J broke the silence. "Your tears indicate great emotional stress, most likely of guilt. A man is never passive, but I allowed this to happen," he told Giovanni. "The blame is thus also mine."
"A man knows when to keep his trap shut, old man," Giovanni snapped; then, shuddering, shook his head. "No, no, it's not you. I'm fine, I just need...Look, old man. Change of plans. You all go on without me."
"We won't," Monica insisted. "What if you get caught? You'll give the rest of us away."
He actually smiled. "Glad to see you're grateful, miss. See if I visit you next storm. No, I have to...just sit awhile..." As much as he thought he hurt, he knew he was still mostly numb. It was too sudden. It couldn't have happened. Any minute Clair would jump out from somewhere, spitefully pleased like a child at his little hiding game. When the numbness broke...like it always broke...Well, one thing was for sure. He wasn't in any condition to go save Daisuke.
"What do we do, though?" Kyoko sounded frightened, kept close to Shun. "We can't just go on with everything like...well, we just can't!"
"We split up," Shun prescribed; Giovanni cracked a despairing grin.
"But we don't know who took him or..."
Whack.
She had to stand on her tiptoes to do it, but Monica still managed to slap Giovanni squarely across his face. "You IDIOT!" she scolded him as he stared, jaw slightly loose, at the small girl. "Is he your friend or isn't he?"
"...Yes..." It wasn't really an answer to her question, but she understood.
"Then you have to look! If he's your friend, no matter what, you have to get him back!" She glared at him, moral superiority bristling down every inch of her stiff coppery braids, until he looked down and noticed his bleeding knuckles.
Staring at them dumbly, he finally replied, "Well...then...what are we all standing around for?" Standing tall, he pulled out his pistols and crammed replacement bullets in them for the two shots he'd set off at Clair's captor. "Let's show them what happens when they mess with Judoh's greatest, eh?"
"Judoh's greatest losers," Monica retorted, but like him she was smiling. "Okay, people. Here's the plan. Boma, you've proven you're good at finding random stuff..."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Phia told herself every day that Shun wasn't coming back, but it didn't keep her from hoping. Word of his disappearance had reached the media despite Edmundo's efforts to the contrary; by force of either a small miracle or considerable bribing, Vampire's corresponding vanishing act had not yet leaked to the world at large.
It hadn't taken her too long after Mauro's initial call to piece the puzzle together; the pieces had been cemented by Edmundo's assertion that a yacht flying the Vita flag had opened fire on two scavenging vessels well out of the twenty-mile permission radius. After the initial misunderstanding at the apartment door between the detective within and the mob advisor without, the assassin had successfully, as always, negotiated the gap between the two coexisting worlds of Judoh, and now Mauro and Vita were part of the team searching for Shun Aurora—all in secret, of course; they could not afford to admit that their interest lay not with the escaped convict but in locating their "sick" ringleader.
What a pathetic alibi, Phia mused to herself. The kind of thing a child would come up with when he wanted to stay home from school, not the sort of thing a mafia don used to cover his flight.
Of course, then there were the children who felt no such excuses were required for their absences. Shun Aurora was one such child.
Searching through his private possessions was, she thought, far easier than it should have been; perhaps old "secretarial" habits died hard. Unfortunately, the investigation had thus far proved fruitless. Never one to trust his ideas to paper, Shun kept all his most important plans and notions safely locked away in his head. He left no trail to follow, no "clues" to present to the public to throw them off-track until he could return with Daisuke (if he returned...she had to remember the if). And he also left her with no ideas as to how to cover for his absence, either. The truth was certainly noble enough, but it was still illegal. Another trial, another sentence, another long stretch of time serving and hating. Though glad the city had granted Shun "amnesty" at least in word, Phia wondered if their treatment of him had hurt more than it had helped.
Here was something, though: her fingers closed on a folded slip of paper carefully wedged between the bottom and back of Shun's dresser drawer. Drawing it out gingerly, trying not to dwell on the presence of the man that floated around his drawers and possessions, she unfolded the small letter. Her eyebrows shot up.
Daisuke--
It had to end like this, didn't it? Somehow I hoped and feared as much. I don't blame you for your decision, so I don't want you to feel guilty. I can only hope you come to see the truth about this city someday, and realize Bro was right all along.
I still would rather die by your hand than any other's. Better fratricide than slow torture at the hands of Vita and the other monsters. We could have cleaned them all out, you and I. But that's neither here nor there anymore.
Destroy the controls for J that I tried to use on you; I don't want anyone imitating my voice and using him to further the sludge of anarchy polluting this city.
By the time you find this note on my body, it'll be too late, but...I'm proud of you.
Shun
He had put this into his vest pocket the night Daisuke had come for him at Central Tower? She remembered very little of the rebellion, only the faint beeping of her medical apparatus and the distant sounds of explosions. Fireworks over the city. Celebrating the downfall of a tyrant. The ruin of a proud soul...a confused and erring soul, but a proud one all the same...
She sat back on the bed, frowning, and stared at the note again. One line, seemingly inconsequential and even cowardly, stood out to her against the rest: ...torture at the hands of Vita...
Breath quickening, she dialed Mauro's number. He answered on the second ring.
"Beetle?"
"Are you alone?" Best play it safe.
"Yes. What's happened? Has someone seen them?"
"Not that I know of," she informed him regretfully, sorry to let the old man down. "But I have a cover for both of them. It'll maybe hurt Vampire's image, but...I think he'll find it fun."
"What cover?"
"Shun actually came up with this himself," she told him, smiling, and outlined her plan. Not waiting to hear his reaction, she hung up, dialed Edmundo, and performed an identical routine. Then she turned her phone off—give them time to digest before they voiced objections—and flopped down on the bed.
Shun's pillow still smelled like his shampoo; she buried her head in it and inhaled deeply. She had to believe he would return, had to prepare for it. She would make him proud of her. They would have a second chance at life, she swore, no matter what the city wanted to do to him. She'd break every rule and regulation ever recorded in Judoh to give Shun a chance for his soul to heal. And if he never recovered...at least she would have tried.
O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The needle stabbed Clair's neck maliciously; he jerked as the pain flooded his system, then slowly floated away. He found he could no longer stand, as he had no feet with which to support his legs...he had no legs, either, no arms...no torso...
The old man lay stiff and regal in bed as if sleeping, but would not wake, was cold and puffy to the touch. He held the man's hand and screamed for him to wake up anyway, though the fingers were nothing but slabs of hard flesh anymore; getting no reaction, he felt his insides revolt against the harsh truth and--
The vision ended as abruptly as the pain had begun. He watched, cushioned by soft warmth, as "Clair Leonelli" drifted off to some far corner of the cosmos, carrying with him all those problems and trivialities. Around what was left, the universe reached down and cupped gently, cradling him even as he soaked it all in to replace his lost body. The sun, he could feel the sun...and the rushing of the water in pipes below...and it was such a soothing sound; his eyelids fluttered softly shut, but he had no eyes to close anyway...birds in the sky, he had never taken time to notice the birds before...
And they were all so happy; even the water seemed to laugh joyfully as it rushed along its course. Forgetting he had no throat, he tried to laugh too; something bubbled up and over and out, but he knew not what...but it sounded happy...everybody and everything was just very...very...happy...and blurry, the world was blurry, too...
His head lolled to one side, and Usagi adjusted her burden accordingly. "He took the new blood well," she reported into her earbud. "I shall take him back to you right away."
"You gave him the diluted vial, correct?" Her Master's voice crackled in her ear; for a brief moment she had a feeling not unlike annoyance, but quickly she smoothed it over. It had never been. She was happy.
"It should still sedate and pacify him for a sufficient amount of time for me to transport him," Usagi replied.
"That is not the point! I do not want his mind fully wiped, Usagi. Ask him something."
"Master?"
"Ask him...ask him his advisor's name." The voice sounded almost worried. But that could not be. Master did not worry, for nothing Master did ever went wrong.
"What was your advisor called?" she asked the young man, adjusting him again as she slipped like a shadow towards her destination. Dumbly his lips moved, and she had to cock her head to hear his reply.
"Mauro...he helped me a lot...but I never listened to him...maybe I should have..."
"That's good," her Master said approvingly; she allowed herself a brief glow of satisfaction before subsiding back down to her usual level of bland contentment. "Bring him to my apartment, Usagi. Trinity's not finding out about this one."
"Yes, Master."
A voice, there was a voice above him...no, two voices, a loud one and a very, very soft one, but that one he knew. He had not heard it in a long time.
"Hey, Papa," he mumbled, smiling. "I thought you left me..." Something was wrong about his words, he remembered; the man disliked it when he was informal—what was 'informal'? What was 'dislike'?
Leorza sat back in his armchair and poured himself a glass of red wine, setting the bottle back onto the table next to a decanter of a translucent blue-green liquid. For emergencies only, he reminded himself. He needed the boy alert and cunning in Judoh--just not cunning enough to remember his encounter with a ghost. No, he must have found the machine left in his father's bed. A corpse, then.
"To the corpse of Lorenzo Leonelli," he toasted to his as-yet-unpresent son. "May Vampire rise from his coffin one day." Tipping the glass back precisely, he sipped.
On his lips as he removed the glass, his wine looked like blood.