Author's Note: I got hooked on the TV show Supernatural. As I am wont to do, I reimagined it with Sailor Moon characters, and…it became this. NOT a crossover but a retelling of Supernatural using Sailor Moon characters. Some knowledge of Sailor Moon is recommended to read this story, knowledge of Supernatural less so, although I strongly urge you to check out the show.

Disclaimer: Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi. Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke. Neither one belongs to me.

Warnings: Language, Gore, Suggestive Material. If you are uncomfortable with sexual references, this story will not be for you.

Summary: Seventeen years ago, a demon killed Darien Shields and Sapphire's father. Now it's back, and interested in an encore.

-o-

quem inferi tremunt

chapter one

-o-

"This story begins with two brothers.

One was a little boy and the other was still a baby. They lived in a small house in a small town, with their mother and father, who loved them very much.

They were happy.

-o-

"Sapphire! Good to see you again." Dr. Tomoe shut the exam room door behind him, setting Sapphire's chart on the counter to clasp his shoulder. Sapphire disliked the casual touch, but what was he going to do? Complain? It had been hard enough to get accepted to the free clinic in the first place; he wasn't going to blow it by pitching a fit about a volunteer doctor. "How are we doing today?"

"Fine, sir."

"Better than fine, I hear." Tomoe plopped down on the swivel chair, pulling on his glasses. "Really excellent news about getting into University of Illinois, Sapphire, really excellent—although I can't say I was surprised! No, I expect great things out of you, son."

"Thank you."

"Great things! And I imagine that's your reason for being here today?" Tomoe finally glanced down at the chart. "A physical and proof of immunizations. Yes, yes, we'll get you all set up." He looped his stethoscope around his neck and stood up, put the cold metal to Sapphire's chest beneath the paper gown. "All right, deep breath."

Sapphire breathed deeply. Tomoe moved the stethoscope. "Again."

Sapphire breathed again. Tomoe did it a few more times, then moved onto checking his ears and mouth, keeping up a running conversation as he did so. "So you're thinking engineering, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's good, that's good. Urbana-Champaign's engineering program is highly ranked, I understand?"

"Yes. Fifth in the country."

"Excellent." Tomoe shone a light into Sapphire's right eye, leaning in as he peered through his pupil. The movement brought him uncomfortably close to Sapphire's face; it always did, and Sapphire stiffened, but as usual, Tomoe seemed not to notice, just smiled broadly and pulled back. "Looking good, my boy. Let's just check out those feet and we'll have you on your way. You doing all right with your Lantus?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll see if I can track you down any sample pens anyway." Tomoe hefted Sapphire's foot up onto his knee, prodding the sole methodically with his pen. "Feel that? Great. U of I's a state school, but it's not going to be cheap." He switched feet. "Any idea how you're going to pay for everything?"

"I applied for an engineering scholarship," Sapphire said, watching the pattern Tomoe's pen poked along the bottom of his foot. "The interview's on Monday."

Tomoe smiled, all white teeth and gleaming glasses. "That so?" He put Sapphire's foot back on the table, looked up. "Knock 'em dead, kiddo."

-o-

Everyone but Catzi was in the kitchen when Sapphire got home. Prisma was emptying a box of angel hair into a pot on the stove, and Bertie and Avery had their homework spread out on the table.

Prisma smiled at him. "How'd it go at the doctor's?"

"Did he find your third nipple?" said Avery. "More importantly, did he have any removal options for you?"

Bertie was staring at her older sister with thinly-veiled disgust. "How can I be related to someone so vulgar?"

Avery grinned, flipping back her brown hair. "Well, let's see, it has something to do with Mom and Dad having something called sex—"

Avery and Bertie's conversation devolved into "Avery, you're so disgusting, why can't you be more of a lady," "Bertie, you're such a prude, I'm gonna laugh when you die alone with fifty cats," etc. Sapphire moved past the sisters to join Prisma at the stove, pushing up his sleeves and washing his hands to begin chopping the carrots she had out on the counter.

"It went fine," he said. "I had Tomoe again. He told me when I was leaving he might know of another scholarship I could apply for, to help with room and board. Said he'd ask around, get in touch with me."

Prisma lit up, bumping him with her hip. "Sapphire, that's wonderful!"

Sapphire was smiling himself, down at the carrots as he chopped them. "I know."

"This calls for celebration," Prisma said warmly. "Bertie, if I let you drive my car will you go buy some ice cream for us?"

Bertie jumped out of her chair like someone had taken a cattle prod to her rear. She'd been begging Prisma to let her drive the car any chance she got, ever since she'd finally earned her driver's license last month. "Yes!"

"She's going to wreck your caaaar," Avery sang.

"Which is why you are going with her." Prisma tossed her the keys, and she and Sapphire grinned at the identical dismayed expressions on Bertie and Avery's faces.

-o-

"Catzi! Stop stealing my cookie dough chunks!" Bertie thumped Catzi's leg as Catzi ducked away from her again, grinning and popping more cookie dough into her mouth. She collapsed onto the floor next to Sapphire in a fit of giggles. "Sapphire, make her stop!"

Sapphire held his bowl out to Catzi. "You may have mine if you stop stealing Bertie's."

Catzi went abruptly pink, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. "Really?"

"As long as you leave the chocolate chunks," said Sapphire, because he liked those.

Catzi turned pinker and said, "No, that's okay."

Sapphire considered. "I suppose I could give you all of it," he said after a moment. "Even the chocolate chips. But you have to give me something in return."

Catzi went wide-eyed. Avery burst into laughter. Catzi shot her a glare and said, "Like what?"

"You have to stop dropping by our chess club meetings at lunch," Sapphire said. "It distracts the freshmen boys, and they need their practice for the tournament next weekend."

Catzi's face fell, redder than ever, and Avery sprayed her Coke all over the table, laughing hard. Bertie looked simultaneously grossed-out and sympathetic, wiping soda from her face with one hand and patting Catzi's shoulder with the other.

"It's all right, Catzi," Prisma said, getting up to clear off the table and bending to press a quick kiss to Catzi's hair. "You can't help how boys are."

"Yeah," said Bertie with a face. "Stupid."

"In their defense, their distraction is understandable," Sapphire said, trying to help comfort Catzi as well. From the strange expressions on the sisters' faces, he wasn't sure he was succeeding at it. He looked to Prisma for help, but she was just watching him with a gentle expression. "Catzi is very beautiful. It is only logical that they would pay more attention to her than the chess pieces."

It seemed this was a wise thing to say after all, for Catzi was suddenly beaming. "Thanks, Sapphire," she said shyly.

But Avery snorted and Bertie just made a little huffing noise, so Sapphire decided it was time to make himself scarce for the night.

-o-

Between the doctor's visit that day and the school he would be missing on Monday for the interview, Sapphire was more than a little pressed for time with his homework. His shift at the restaurant the next day, Saturday, didn't start until noon, but there was an academic bowl meeting at ten and it was his turn to make breakfast the next morning—not officially, but he hadn't helped cook anything in a few weeks, and he was beginning to feel like a freeloader, regardless of the contribution he made to the rent and grocery bills each month.

He felt it was especially important to help out this weekend because Prisma was taking off work on Monday to drive him to his interview. It was yet another instance in which she was going extremely out of her way for a stray of a kid who'd shown up on her doorstep two years ago, a few months after his mom had cleared a poltergeist out of her house, and asked if he could stay with her and her sisters for a while.

So when there was a thump in the living room at two-thirty a.m. Saturday morning, Sapphire was awake. Hunched over on his bed against the wall with his tiny desk lamp wedged between his knees so he could read his chemistry textbook and take notes at the same time, he went still and listened. Adrenaline quickened his pulse and heightened his hearing; it was as if the last two years, away from death and danger, had never elapsed.

There wasn't another thump, no other sound to indicate that someone—or thing—was in the house that shouldn't be, but Sapphire knew what he'd heard, and he knew the prickle on the back of his neck. He slid his hand under the mattress for his knife, then reconsidered. He'd laid the salt lines down across all the windows and doors just as he always did after the sisters had gone to sleep; nothing supernatural could get through.

A member of Homo sapiens, though—one of those wouldn't have any trouble getting through. Sapphire levered himself silently off the bed and crept from his room to the kitchen. This was easy to do without making a sound because his room had no door, being less a room than a tiny alcove behind the kitchen that held a nonfunctioning washer.

There was a rolling pin on the counter from the cookies Catzi had been making for her club's bake sale; Sapphire picked it up and stepped silently through the dark kitchen to the entrance to the living room.

A little light from the streetlamp seeped through the living room window's sheer curtains, outlining the intruder's dark shape. Male, about Sapphire's height, standing at the fireplace mantle and touching something on it.

There wasn't anything on that mantle but picture in fake silver frames from Wal-Mart, nothing that a robber would be interested in, and that probably should have been Sapphire's first clue the intruder wasn't what he seemed. But he didn't stop to think, just darted forward and seized the man in a half-nelson.

Or tried to. He failed, because the man went with his momentum in a way he hadn't expected, using Sapphire's own momentum against him so that they both went pitching into the coffee table and then to the floor.

The hiss of pain that escaped the man beneath him was more familiar to Sapphire than his own voice. He scrambled to his knees. "Dare?" He scrabbled above him to turn on the lamp. "Darien?"

"In the flesh." His older brother didn't bother to get up, just put a hand to his side, wincing. "The bruised flesh—thanks for that, loser."

"You broke into the house," Sapphire said shortly, pulling himself up. "What did you expect, a hug hello?"

Darien said nothing, rolling to his feet. He wore the same ugly old green jacket as always over a t-shirt and jeans, his face covered by five o'clock shadow that looked more like midnight o'clock shadow in the weak lamplight. There was also a faint odor that let Sapphire know that Darien probably hadn't showered in at least a few days.

He tossed the rolling pin on the couch. "What are you doing here?"

Darien was rubbing his side again, now looking past Sapphire. Sapphire turned to see Prisma standing in the doorway in her bathrobe. Avery stood beside her, holding her softball bat, and Bertie and Catzi were behind them in their pajamas, wide-eyed and scared.

Sapphire's stomach swooped in guilt.

Prisma took a few steps forward, hands loose at her sides. "It's nice to see you again, Darien."

There was no accusation or even sarcasm in her voice, but Darien's face hardened anyway. "Prisma. Sorry to drop in unannounced."

Avery came up beside Prisma, swinging the bat idly at her side, and took Darien in, unimpressed. "Thought you would've grown a few more inches by now, Darien."

"Didn't think you would've added so many around the waist, Avery," he drawled back, and that was a glimpse of a Darien Sapphire was more comfortable with, the humor glinting at the corners of his eyes. But then Prisma was clearing her throat, fiddling with the end of her sash, and his face shut down again.

"I need to talk to my brother," he said.

"Bertie," Prisma said. "Catzi. Go upstairs, please?"

Neither one protested, though Bertie looked anxious and Catzi looked slightly longing, each one shooting last glances back at Sapphire and Darien as they disappeared into the hallway. When their bedroom door clicked shut behind them, Prisma turned back to the brother's, her calm gaze joining Avery's watchful one.

Darien just cocked a brow back. "Alone."

Prisma looked to Sapphire. He looked back at her, resisting the urge to bite his lip. Her gaze was patient, undemanding: It told him she would do whatever made him most comfortable, even if it meant she had to butt heads with his brother.

He cleared his throat. Prisma smiled reassuringly and said, "C'mon, Avery."

Avery fell into step but twirled the bat in her hand one last time. "You call me if you need any help," she told Sapphire before following Prisma into the hall.

Their door clicked shut behind them. Sapphire narrowed his eyes at Darien.

Darien wasn't looking at him, was still watching the hallway as though he expected one of the sisters to come back out. "Isn't this nice," he said, half under his breath. Then he met Sapphire's eyes. "It's like you're part of a harem."

Sapphire's eyes got narrower. "Why are you here, Darien."

Darien's eyes narrowed back. "Mom's missing."

A snort nearly escaped Sapphire. "She's always missing."

Darien's eyes flashed at the snort, but he just said lowly, "I mean like weeks missing. I haven't been able to get a hold of her in a month."

Sapphire said nothing.

Darien took a step forward. "Look. I know you guys have your…issues. But. Sapph. I'm freaking out here. Mom wouldn't go this long without calling me if everything was fine."

Sapphire stepped toward the fireplace. "What was she hunting?"

"At the time?" Darien shadowed his step. "She'd just wrapped up a werewolf in Bowling Green. Said she was heading south next, didn't say for what."

"You didn't ask?"

"Sure I asked, Sapph." Darien sounded annoyed for the first time. "Just, you know how Mom is."

"Yeah. I do."

Darien pursed his lips. He grabbed the rolling pin off the couch and tossed it to Sapphire. "Come on. Get dressed, grab your stuff."

Sapphire didn't move. "What for?"

"To find Mom, you robot, come on." He headed for the door.

Sapphire still didn't move, turning the pin over in his hands. "No."

Darien stopped. Turned. For a minute they just stared at each other.

"Two years," Darien said at last. "Two years you've been here, Sapph, and I haven't bothered you once. Not once."

Blood pounded in Sapphire's ears. "The University of Illinois accepted me. On Monday I have an interview for an engineering scholarship—it's a full ride if I get it, plus a living stipend." He took a deep breath, looked at Darien, willed him to understand. "I can't miss that interview, Dare."

Darien took a step toward him. "Call and reschedule it."

"It's not that easy. Do you know how many people are competing for this scholarship?"

"Then just tell them it's a family emergency, Sapph, they're not going to turn you down, —"

"Except it's not a family emergency! It's Mom being Mom. She takes off, she leaves you without telling you where she's going, and it's the same thing she's been doing for seventeen years, Dare, so just—" He forced himself to take a breath, lower his voice. "Just stop. All right?"

No. Not all right. He could see that in the way his older brother had gone tense, his gaze gone distant and flat as though he wasn't looking at Sapphire anymore even though eyes were still turned toward him. But he said lowly,

"All right. Sorry to have bothered you," and then he was opening the door, clipping down the porch steps and letting the screen door bang shut behind him.

Sapphire didn't let out the breath he'd been holding. He curled his toes in his socks and looked at the mantle instead of out the window. One of the pictures frames was tipped over; probably Darien had knocked it over when Sapphire grabbed him. Sapphire uncurled his toes and went to pick it up.

The photo in the frame was one of the only ones Sapphire was actually in. It was of him and the three younger Akayashi sisters at Christmas last year, all four of them sandwiched onto the couch next to the popcorn-strung tree. Prisma had insisted on taking it, saying she wanted "a picture of my little sisters and our little bro," and Sapphire had been startled into a real grin by the appellation: a surprised, open-mouthed, felt-like-he'd-just-swallowed-a-mouthful-of-warm-hot-chocolate grin as Avery had looped an arm around his and Bertie's necks and Catzi had shyly given him rabbit ears with her fingers.

The light from the lamp on the corner table was weak because Avery had accidentally bought a 25-watt light bulb instead of their normal ones, but it was strong enough to illuminate a smeared thumbprint on the picture frame's glass, right next to Sapphire's smiling face.

Sapphire let out the breath he'd been holding.

Then he went out the front door and down the porch steps to the driveway.

-o-

One night, the little boy woke from a frightening dream. He hid under his covers for a long time, listening for the monsters who might have followed him out of his sleep. At last, he gathered up enough courage to jump out from under his covers and run into his parents' room.

"Daddy," he whispered. "Daddy, wake up."

-o-

"I have to be back by eight a.m. Monday at the latest," Sapphire said for the fourth time since they'd pulled onto I-74 in the black Nissan Darien was driving. "It takes two and a half hours to get to the university in good traffic, and my appointment is at 11:30."

Darien looked over. "Sapph, I get it—you have to be back by Monday. You don't have to say it every time we pass an exit."

Sapphire huffed and turned back to the window. It was just hitting six in the morning, people beginning to filter onto the interstate for their morning commutes with their headlights cutting through the gradually lightening dark. He'd forgotten what it was like to be on the road this early, the silence and closed-in feeling of the car that made it feel like you and the other people in it might be the only people on the planet. He could remember cold mornings when he'd woken up in the back seat to the sound of NPR and Mom and Darien arguing quietly over the news, could remember sticking his cold toes in the crack of the passenger seat to warm them against Darien's back and Darien jumping forward in shock, swearing revenge as he yanked off Sapphire's socks and threw them into the back seat. Sometimes Darien had gotten him right in his open mouth, making Sapphire choke on his laughter in shock, and sometimes Mom had laughed too, her smile visible to Sapphire in the rearview mirror, brighter and warmer than the dawn glowing on the horizon.

"The heat works up here," he said randomly.

Darien cast him another sideways glance. "What did you say that scholarship was for? Kids with a knack for stating the obvious?"

Sapphire ignored him. "So the last lead you have on Mom is from Rubeus?"

"Yeah, she called him a few weeks ago asking to borrow a brass knife. He said she never showed up to get it, but—" He shrugged.

"So she was hunting a rakshasa." Rakshasa ate humans, could turn invisible, and the only thing that could kill them was a pure brass knife. Which may have sounded bad, but rakshasa actually didn't rank much higher than a 5.0 on the Richter scale of things the Shields family killed.

"Or it could've been a nasnas or bahamut."

"They're from the Middle East," Sapphire said dismissively, already leafing through the sheaf of papers Darien had tugged from the back seat and tossed onto his lap. They were print-outs from various newspapers, articles about missing people, mysterious discovered remains, etc., dates and names underlined here and there with yellow highlighter and bearing notes in Darien's cramped handwriting. "The chances of finding one over here—"

"Aren't nonexistent. Setsuna said she tangled with a bahamut in Cali way back when."

Sapphire ignored him. "You've got three possible rakshasa locations narrowed down on here?"

"Four. Colorado, Maine, Ohio, South Carolina."

"No. I'd bet you ten dollars the disappearances in Myrtle Beach are from a selkie. The victims are a dead giveaway."

Darien glanced over. "No pun intended?"

Sapphire shook his head to hide the entirely inappropriate amusement that touched his lips. He waited a minute before saying, "You know I don't have time to go with you to check all of these places out, Darien."

Darien drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "We're just checking the one in Dayton for now."

Sapphire didn't call him out on the "for now," just stuffed all the papers into their folder again, except for the ones from Dayton, Ohio, which he kept in his lap and began to read through more carefully. He also didn't ask why, if Darien had already managed to narrow Mom's location down to these places on his own, he needed Sapphire's help.

-o-

A while later, Darien pulled off at an exit advertising a Perkins and a Krispy Kreme. They parked and headed into the former, Darien returning the smile the hostess gave them as she seated them. He ordered coffee, oatmeal with fruit, and one of the apple cinnamon muffins displayed in the front counter.

The middle-aged waitress turned to Sapphire, smiling. "What about you, hon?"

"I'll just have water and an order of toast, thanks." Sapphire said, handing her the menu and pretending not to notice the look Darien was giving him.

"All right." The waitress turned to leave.

"Uh, wait, hold up," Darien said quickly, holding out a hand. "Could you add another order of oatmeal and fruit to that? Plus a boiled egg, please. And what about your orange juice, is that from concentrate?"

She looked bemused but not impatient. "No, sweetie, it's fresh."

"We'll have a glass of that, then," Darien said, flashing another smile. "Thanks."

Sapphire was glaring blizzards at him as the waitress headed back to the counter with their orders. "I'm not five anymore, Darien. I'm can order for myself."

"Apparently you can't," Darien said, nabbing a sugar packet from the holder at the end of the table and pouring it into his coffee, "or you would have ordered actual food instead of a slice of bread."

Sapphire clenched his fists inside his hoodie's sleeves. "I have granola bars in the car."

"Is that what you live on these days? Granola bars?" Darien looked suddenly fierce, dark eyes gleaming angrily as they hadn't even when Sapphire had been refusing to come with him. "I swear to God, Sapph, if you've been cheaping out on food to save money—"

"I haven't!"

"Then what's with the I'll-just-have-a-piece-of-toast crap?"

"Some of us aren't using fake credit cards anymore," Sapphire said acidly. "Excuse me if I don't waste the money I work to earn on a stack of pancakes when I had perfectly good food in the car."

The waitress came over with Sapphire's orange juice then, and they both fell quiet, Darien flashing a smile at her. Sapphire made no move to touch the juice, which was childish, he knew, and he knew Darien knew he knew it, too, but he didn't say anything, just stripped the wrapper off Sapphire's straw and put it in the glass. Then he folded the wrapper up like an accordion in his fingers, looking out the window. After a moment, without looking away, he muttered, "You're not paying for anything while you're on the road with me, so don't sweat it, okay."

It wasn't a question, was more kind of a plea, so Sapphire pulled the orange juice closer and took a sip. It tasted good; he hadn't realized till now that he was thirsty.

But he couldn't help saying bitterly, "Sure you don't want to interrogate me about my meds while you're playing Papa Bear?"

"Don't need to. I know you have—unless you've been peddling Lantus pens to the highest bidder behind the school cafeteria." Darien snorted at his own joke.

Sapphire frowned at him. "What do you mean, you know?"

Darien threw him a look from over his coffee. "What do you take us for, Sapph? You think we weren't keeping an eye on you to make sure you had money to get your meds?"

Sapphire didn't answer, because that was what he'd thought. God, he couldn't even count the number of times he'd lain awake worrying when, or whether, he'd be able to get his insulin, what he would do if and when the single fake credit card he'd taken from Darien's wallet went bad or ran out.

He finally looked up at Darien, and understood. "You've been watching the charges on my credit card."

"Of course we were!"

Sapphire just looked at him for a moment. Then: "Do you and Mom still apply for the cards jointly?"

"Yeah—"

Sapphire snapped his fingers. "Give me the cards. And your phone."

But Darien's expression was already opening with realization, reaching the same conclusion Sapphire had: If Mom had used one of their shared credit cards recently, they would be able to find out where. "I'll call, I sound older," he said, shoving out of his seat. He fumbled in his pocket, handed Sapphire two twenties and jerked his head toward the counter. "Ask them to make it to go—I'll be in the car."

-o-

Five minutes later, Sapphire was pushing out the restaurant's doors, juggling a bag of Styrofoam containers in one hand and a to-go coffee for Darien in the other. Darien was sitting in the Nissan's passenger seat with the door open instead of on the driver's side; he had the glove compartment open and several paper-clipped sheaves of credit card applications spread on his lap.

"—no, it hasn't been stolen, I'm just getting a little suspicious about what my son's been getting up to on the internet, if you know what I mean," he was saying into his cell as Sapphire came up and handed him the coffee. He put it in the cup holder and tossed Sapphire the car keys, jerking his head toward the driver's side. Sapphire caught them, handing the food bag. "Okay, thanks." He hung up and started dialing again as Sapphire pulled out of the parking lot and merged back onto the interstate.

He went through the same rigmarole twice more before hitting pay dirt, his shoulder tensing around the phone where he'd cradled so he could eat his oatmeal before it went totally cold. "Wednesday?" he repeated, beginning to write in the notebook in his lap. "No, I was—could you give me the name again?" He hung up a moment later, trading the notebook for one of the maps in the glove compartment.

"Well?"

"Yellow Springs, Ohio," Darien said, unfolding the map. He sounded slightly stunned, as though receiving real, recent evidence that Mom was alive had thrown him for a loop. "She used the card for a motel there. On Wednesday."

Instead of saying, "I told you she was fine," Sapphire just said, "I think I saw a sign for Yellow Springs a while back."

Darien nodded, tracing the interstate on the map with his finger. "Yeah, we actually passed the exit we need a few miles back." His voice still sounded choked, like he couldn't believe they'd stumbled across this information. "Holy crap. Sapph."

Sapphire just shook his head, smiling. "Elementary, my dear Watson."

"Oh, shut up." Darien flicked him in the ear. "We both know I'd be Holmes." He was quiet for a moment, just grinning, then: "Jeez, Sapph, could you drive any slower? Pull over, I'm taking the wheel."

They switched, and the rest of the drive passed in companionable silence broken only by the radio. Not long after noon, they began to pass signs informing them that Yellow Springs was approaching. Sapphire watched Darien straighten in anticipation, was watching him so closely that he didn't notice the flashing lights coming up on the left side of the road until Darien was pulling over.

The highway they were on forked off onto a modestly-sized beam bridge, at the nearer end of which several sheriff's cars were parked. Closer to the middle of the bridge, a truck was parked across the median, its doors flung wide open.

Sapphire looked over to see Darien shifting the car into park and rummaging in the middle compartment. He pulled out a badge, stuffed it in his pocket, and opened the door, striding toward the cops gathered at the end of the bridge.

Ten minutes later he slid back into the car, stuffing the fake FBI badge into the compartment again. He flashed Sapphire a smirk as he wrenched the car out of park and fairly roared back onto the highway.

Sapphire returned it with a sour look. Darien knew how he felt about the fake badges. "So?"

"Apparently," Darien drawled, "there was a disappearance last night. Fourth one in two months. That truck on the bridge belonged to some high school kid—his parents said he never came home last night, didn't answer any of their phone calls, and one of the P.S.A.'s found his car here this morning, the engine running and the key still in the ignition."

Sapphire sat forward. "Darien, if that kid disappeared last night, it's really likely Mom's still here."

"There he goes stating the obvious again," Darien remarked to no one in particular. But he was grinning.

-o-

Yellow Springs was a fairly small place, though it had more than one stoplight and major street, which was more than could be said for a lot of the places they'd been over the years. Right off the interstate was a motel with an unimpressive plastic sign proclaiming itself The Springs Lodge.

"That's the one," Darien said, pulling into its parking lot. He made to get out, then paused, looking over at Sapphire. "You doing all right? Do we need to go grab some food first?"

Sapphire cast him a withering glance and got out.

In the motel lobby, a skinny woman looked up from behind the counter. She seemed a little uncertain as she met Sapphire's eyes, but then Darien ducked inside with his friendly charmer's grin, the one he seemed able to turn on and off as easily as a light bulb.

"Hey," he said easily, and she smiled back, straightening up.

"Hey yourself. You boys looking for a room?"

Sapphire took advantage of her attention on Darien to glance at the sign-in book lying open on the counter. It was pretty sparsely populated, the page only half-full and the earliest entry from a month earlier, but that only made it easier to spot the familiar loopy handwriting he was looking for. He caught Darien's eye.

Darien's smile relaxed almost unnoticeably. "Yes, ma'am," he said smoothly, turning his attention back to the woman. "We are."

"What brings you to town?" the woman asked as she checked them in. She looked at Sapphire as Darien signed a few papers. "You here to tour the campus?"

Sapphire remembered the signs they had passed for a local university. Antioch, he believed. "Yes."

She waited a moment, and Sapphire realized she must have expected a longer answer. "Well, I hope you like it. It's a great little place, my daughter goes there and she loves it. You get a lot of specialized attention when you go to a smaller school, you know?"

"Yes, so I read," Sapphire lied, trying to sound enthusiastic. "A smaller student-to-faculty ratio is always…productive."

The clerk gave them keys to Room 10, taking them out of a case behind the counter. They headed out onto the breezeway, Darien glancing casually back over his shoulder to check if the clerk was still watching them. "Which room?"

"Eight, I think." The guest keys for Rooms 7, 8 and 9 had been missing from the case behind the counter, but he'd noted on their way into the lobby that neither Rooms 7 nor 9 had Do Not Disturb signs hanging from their doorknobs. Putting the Do Not Disturb sign on the door was the first thing Mom ever did upon checking into a room, right along with setting down the lines of salt at the door and windows to keep out spirits.

There was no one in the parking lot, just a few cars. Darien stopped in front of the door to Room 8, rapped smartly. "Housekeeping!"

There was no answer. Darien waited a beat longer, glancing around, then knelt in front of the door. Sapphire shifted so that he was at least partially concealing Darien from the view of the road and scanned the parking lot as Darien knelt in front of the door to Room 12. "Mom's still driving the Thunderbird?"

"Yeah."

"I don't see it."

The lock popped, clicked. Darien rose fluidly and they slipped into the room.

"Oh, yeah," Darien said almost immediately. "This is definitely Mom's." Salt lined the doorway; empty Arizona iced tea cans cluttered the nightstand; and newspaper clippings were taped in neat rows on the back wall. The bed was empty and unmade, though, and an unpleasant smell was emanating from a fast food wrapped on the small table near the radiator.

Darien prodded it as Sapphire shut the door carefully behind them. "Forest Ham," he said; it was their mother's favorite sandwich. " A day old at least, the bread's soggy clear through." He crouched, lifting the bedspread and peering underneath the bed, pulled out the nightstand drawer and checked its contents. He tossed his cell to Sapphire as he continued his perusal of the room. "Call her phone."

Sapphire thumbed the speed-dial. It rang several times before sending him to the "You have been relayed to the automated message system" menu, but there was no corresponding buzz or lit-up screen glowing from anywhere in the room. He tossed the phone back to Darien, who sighed and kept looking, moving his search to the bathroom area.

Sapphire stood in front of the newspaper articles taped to the wall. There were various obituaries, missing persons notices. One, an obituary for a Haruna Sakarada, had Mom's loopy handwriting all over it. A quick scan of the words she'd underlined in the article were enough to enlighten him.

"Dare. It looks like Mom already ID'd the spirit."

The sounds of Darien pawing around stopped. He came to stand next to Sapphire, dark eyes flitting across the various articles. "The Haruna chick?" He slipped his hands into his back pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels for a moment. Then he went back to searching the room, riffling through papers in the trash and on the dresser.

Sapphire let him do this for about another minute. Then he said, "So, her phone's not here."

Darien grunted.

"Her car's not here."

Darien shook out the bed sheets. Nothing fell out.

"And her journal's not here. And the salt lines aren't broken." Sapphire paused, gave Darien an opportunity to say something, and when he didn't, he said, "It looks like she left, Dare. Of her own volition."

"What, without finishing the case?" Darien's tone was combative.

Sapphire shrugged. "Maybe she thought she had."

Darien was shaking his head. "No. Something's not right." He grabbed the Haruna article off the wall, stuffed it in his pocket. "C'mon."

-o-

Their next stop was the diner down the road for food, wi-fi, and reconnoitering. As Sapphire pulled up the local newspaper's website on his laptop, Darien sauntered up to the counter and pumped the waitress for information.

He came back to the booth when the waitress brought their food out, sliding into the bench across from Sapphire. "So, pretty sure Mom was here two days ago."

Sapphire clicked on a link to another obituary. "The waitress remembers her?"

"No, the cook does."

Sapphire's forehead creased. He glanced toward the kitchen and saw a middle-aged guy in an apron holding a spatula. "Ugh."

"I know." Darien took a bite from his club sandwich. "Anyway, he said she was here twice: Wednesday night for dinner and Thursday at lunch."

"She could've come in since then when he wasn't working."

"Nope, apparently, he told the other cook to keep an eye out for her and that guy hasn't seen her, either." He chewed. "Feel free to congratulate me on my thoroughness."

"Congratulations," Sapphire said dryly, bringing up a new window on his laptop. He didn't bother asking what Darien had done to make the rather surly-looking cook spill this information to him, because Darien would probably just shrug and smirk: "Just the Shields charm, man," except it was more than that, Darien's weird ability to make people open up to him. They were brothers, had grown up in the same back seat, but Sapphire couldn't do what Darien did, had somehow missed out on the gift.

He enlarged the window and swiveled his laptop around so that Darien could see it. "So, those four disappearances in the past few months—all male, all found near that bridge. All of them were driving alone." He let Darien click through the windows, frowning at him to make his wipe his fingers off first, watched his eyes move back and forth across the rows of text.

"Any links to this Haruna woman?" Darien smoothed out the newspaper clipping he'd taken from Mom's room, studying it again. The article was brief, probably in deference to the grimness of the story it told: A young mother had disappeared after the tragic death of her two young children; a week later, searchers had found her body in the river, several miles downstream. It was thought to have been a suicide.

"None so far. It's possible with this kid from last night, he was a local, but look at the other ones—a businessman here for a conference, a dad visiting to look at the university with his daughter, and a tourist visiting the springs with his wife. Pretty doubtful they'd have anything to do with a lady who died nearly a year ago."

"So the only common denominator is the bridge," Darien finished. "Her spirit could be bound to it." His mouth quirked slightly upward. "Which means we might have to blow up the bridge."

Sapphire rolled his eyes. "Why don't we try something slightly less illegal first?"

-o-

"Slightly less illegal" meant finding out where Haruna was buried and burning her body. The simplest way of getting rid of lingering spirits, especially malevolent ones, was salting and torching their remains to purify them. To that end, they hit the road again after lunch, this time headed to the office of Sakarada Realty, fifteen minutes away—though only after stopping by the motel for Darien to take a much-needed shower and to switch into slightly less rumpled clothes. Sapphire took the time to use his insulin pen and to call the realty office and ask if Mr. Sakarada was available to meet: they were doing a story on his wife and on a deadline and really needed to talk to him, could he possibly help them out—?

Sakarada was perched against the edge of an impressive mahogany desk when his blushing secretary showed them in. He was wearing a sharp-looking suit (which made Sapphire file away an "I told you so" to give Darien later for all the guff he'd given Sapphire for making him change into an outfit that wasn't torn-up jeans and his green jacket), but his eyes were even sharper, taking in the press badges they flashed.

He shook Darien, then Sapphire's, hand, eyeing Sapphire with a furrowed brow. "Isn't he a little young to be working?"

"He's interning with me during his free periods this semester," Darien said smoothly. "It's a new vocational program we're doing with the high school."

"I see." Sakarada motioned to the chairs in front of his desk, went around to his but didn't sit. "Now, are you from the same paper as that other reporter? Because I already told her everything I know, and I'm sure you understand that it's not something I really want to discuss again."

"Of course," Darien said somberly, but Sapphire could sense his excitement, the tiny bouncing of his foot. Mom had been here, talked to this guy. "We're just here to confirm some of the information, maybe ask some extra questions—you didn't tell our associate where your wife was buried?"

"No, I didn't," said the man slowly, "because she wasn't buried. I had her body cremated."

Darien's miniscule twitching stopped. "Oh? Why, if I may ask?"

Sakarada cleared his throat, sat slowly in his chair. "It didn't seem…right, exactly, to bury her next to the children. After what happened."

Darien and Sapphire exchanged glances.

"After…what happened, Mr. Sakarada?"

The man stared at them. A mixture of pain, disbelief, and suspicion twisted his face. "After she killed my children," he said. "How in the hell do you not—what newspaper did you say you were from?"

-o-

Daddy went back to the bedroom with him to check it for monsters. They checked under the bed and under the desk and in the closet and even outside the window. They didn't find a single monster. So Daddy tucked him back into his bed with a kiss and a hug.

-o-

"Some hunters we are." Darien flung their notebook s into the backseat and slammed his door behind him. "The ghost we're hunting drowned her kids in the bathtub before she died and we somehow totally miss it. Mom would kick my ass."

"Considering we're taking care of a case she skipped out on, that reaction would be unfair." Sapphire shut his door more carefully, buckling his seat belt. He thought for a moment as they pulled out of the parking lot. Dusk was beginning to fall around them, the streetlamps flickering on. "That information changes things, though. If the mother was homicidal even before she died—"

"Yeah, I don't buy it," interrupted Darien. "I mean, all right, maybe it's possible she killed her kids. But I'm inclined to take anything out of that guy's mouth with ten pounds of salt. I mean, did you see him?"

"Yes…?" Sapphire hadn't seen anything amiss with the man, although he hadn't liked the way Sakarada had called him out on his age.

"His wife and kids've been dead less than a year and he's banging the secretary." Darien shook his head. "It makes—"

"Wait, what?"

Darien did a double-take. "What, you couldn't tell? We gotta work on your observational skills, Watson." He held up a hand, began to tick them off on his fingers: "He missed a loop with his belt, the secretary's hair clip was crooked, and did you see her mouth?"

Sapphire felt a flush climbing up his neck. He had noticed her mouth.

Darien was looking at him knowingly. "I take it back. We don't need to work on your observations, just your interpretations. When we get back to the motel you're gonna have some quality classroom time with Casa Erotica—"

"Darien!" Sapphire hissed. Darien just laughed, turning on the headlights. Sapphire glowered, then frowned. "Wait. Has Sakarada been messing around with his secretary for a long time, do you think?"

Darien's grin was startled away; he cocked a brow. "Well, let's see, Sapph, let me just check my crystal ball—"

Sapphire glared again. "It's just, if he was already committing adultery before Haruna died—" He twisted around, reaching for something in the back seat, made a frustrated sound when he couldn't reach it.

"Whoah!" Darien said when Sapphire unclicked his seatbelt. He automatically slowed down, his arm coming up instinctively to keep Sapphire from flying forward into the windshield, the same way their mother always had when they were younger. "What're you doing?"

"Trying…to…reach—!" Sapphire let out an exhalation of triumph, then shoved himself back into the front seat, holding a fat dictionary-sized book that had been wedged into a compartment on the driver's side back door. "That's where that went!" Darien said, looking over at the mini encyclopedia. It was fictional, written by some old fantasy author, but it had enough fairly accurate information in it, the accurate entries marked and highlighted by Mom over the years, to be useful. "I've been trying to find that thing for months."

Months. Sapphire paused in flipping through its pages. Then he kept turning pages, making sure to look very invested in the book. "I meant to ask," he said in a casual tone. "How long've you and Mom been hunting separately?"

Because he was looking at the encyclopedia he couldn't see Darien's face. Which didn't really make a difference; his face probably would have been as nonchalant and unreadable as his voice was, saying easily, "Ah, you know. A while."

Sapphire didn't say anything. Although no one—except maybe Prisma, because she was a human marshmallow—would call him a sentimental person, he'd had his share of homesick nights. Especially those first few months after he left Mom and Darien, lying in his makeshift bed staring up at the ceiling, wondering what they were doing, whether they missed him. When he'd imagined them, Mom and Darien had always been together, cruising down the highway at speeds that were going to get them pulled over, with the windows down and their beloved CDs playing at deafening volume without Sapphire there to complain until they turned it down.

"Hey." Darien's finger flicked his ear. "Spill, what're you trying to find in there?"

Sapphire shoved Darien's hand off, continued back to the W's in the book, and found what he was looking for. " 'The Woman in White,' often confused with the Weeping Woman, " he read, " 'is the spirit of a woman whose husband betrayed her while she was alive. Driven mad with grief and fury, the woman kills their children and then herself. She becomes a Woman in White, seeking out living men who are unfaithful to their partners and punishing them.' "

Darien snorted. "So that dad visiting the campus for his daughter and the tourist here to see the springs…?" He shook his head. "Nice. You think she catches them in the act, or—?"

"No, then there would be women missing as well. It takes two to fornicate."

Darien rolled his eyes, smirking. "No, really?"

Sapphire paused in his skimming of the encyclopedia entry for a moment. "Unless she counts masturbating as unfaithful."

Darien burst into laughter, nearly driving them over the curb. Sapphire hid his own smirk and feigned annoyance instead, looking over at him. "Can we focus on the case?"

"No," said Darien honestly, and burst into fresh laughter again, tears of mirth streaming from his eyes. "Holy shit, you won't even say 'sex,' but here you are bringing up masturbation—"

"I say 'sex,'," Sapphire said.

"Since when?" Darien retorted, swiping the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. "I remember that time with the incubus you just kept saying 'the s word' because you were such a prude—"

Sapphire rolled his eyes. "That was when I was fifteen, Dare. I've grown up a bit since then, in case you haven't noticed."

Darien's face straightened out. "Yeah," he said. Something shifted in the atmosphere, the mirth evaporating like ethanol, leaving nothing behind, least of all the smile on Darien's face. "So this Woman in White thing. Even if the woman's body was cremated her spirit could linger here?"

Sapphire watched him. "The drive for revenge, or justice, or whatever, acts as enough of an anchor, I guess."

"So Haruna finds out Three-Piece Suit back there was cheating on her, kills her kids, and commits suicide." Darien's voice was light but his eyes were bleak. "All right. There's nothing in there on how to get rid of them, though?"

Sapphire shook his head.

"Then the bridge is still our best bet. All the disappearances have taken place there, and if it's where she committed suicide, there's a good chance her spirit's bound to it."

"I guess we'll be blowing it up after all, then," Sapphire said, but Darien didn't smile this time.

-o-

Before he went back to bed, Daddy stopped in front of the baby's room. Maybe he heard something. Maybe he just wanted to check on the baby. Whatever the reason, he went inside.

It would be the last thing he ever did.

-o-

The bridge itself was almost an hour away from Sakarada's realty office; it was full night by the time they got there, pulling over in the same place on the shoulder as they had that morning. Sapphire wasn't sure what, exactly, Darien had in mind for them to do when they got to it—there were rituals that could be done to test sites for hauntings, but they were in Mom's journal, and Sapphire didn't know if Darien had his own copies of them. An EMF meter would probably work, but they'd only had the one, as EMF meters that actually worked were fairly expensive, and it was a good bet that Mom had it.

Sapphire unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out. He stooped to look into the car in confusion when Darien do the same. "We getting out?"

"You are," Darien said. "I'm gonna drive across."

"What? No —"

"What yes. I need you to watch my back in case this thing jumps me on the way across." Darien reached into the backseat for their bag of ready weapons and tossed them to Sapphire, making him stumble backward with the weight. The instant Sapphire was clear of the tires, Darien gunned the engine, yanking Sapphire's door shut, and then the Nissan was rumbling back into the road, toward the bridge.

Sapphire slung the weapons bag over his shoulder, pulling out his Taurus and clicking off the safety, his eyes glued to the Nissan's headlights, and the silhouette of Darien's head barely visible through the back windshield.

The car made it nearly all the way across the bridge. Then the back lights started to flicker, something creeping across the back windshield like fog—or ice. A white figure appeared, swaying next to the Nissan's passenger side. She turned, looking straight at him. For a second, Sapphire could swear it was their mother, and his heart stopped. All he could feel was the cold air on his face, the warmth of the gun metal under his finger.

Then she was gone, and ice had completely covered the back windshield. The car screamed into motion.

"Shit," Sapphire breathed, and burst into a run.

But there was no catching up to it, even if it had been going at half its current speed. Sapphire ran faster, sharp icy air slicing through his chest and burning in his sinuses, knowing the whole time that the ghost could be killing Darien, could be killing him right now—

The driver's side door swing open. As if in slow motion, Sapphire watched Darien tumble out. He rolled hard over the leaf-covered ground. Then—Sapphire didn't know which one happened first—he was scrambling to his feet, taking off toward Sapphire shouting, "Run! Run!" and the car squealed to a stop so hard it fishtailed for a minute before roaring after them.

Sapphire's eyes went wide. He pivoted so sharply he nearly fell over, slipping as Darien's hand caught the back of his hoodie and jerked him up. Then they were both running, pounding onto the bridge, Darien was shouting something, and Sapphire looked over in time to see him motioning to the guard rails, and then he grabbed the back of Sapphire's hoodie again, jerking. Sapphire understood; they lunged for the guardrail and scrambled over.

-o-

Darien spat out muddy river water. "You were supposed to hang on to the guard rail," he said irritably.

Sapphire ignored him, wading up to the river's shore. Water and mud sluiced from him, running into his eyes. He swiped his bangs out of his face, turning to squint up at the bridge. The Nissan idled there, lights on, unmoving. There was no ice on the windows that Sapphire could see.

He turned back to Darien. "You're an idiot."

Darien inclined his head, tapping water out of his ear. Mud covered his face, making his eyes look lighter than usual even in the meager light from the car's headlights. "It's been said."

"You all right?"

He rolled a shoulder experimentally, wincing only slightly. "I'll live."

Sapphire glared, began picking their way up the bank to the road and the Nissan. "What happened? I saw her materialize at the end of the bridge."

"Yeah. It's definitely Haruna, she looked just like the photo. And white dress, so, gold star for us. She put her hand on the door and asked me to take her home."

"And what, you said yes?"

Darien shrugged guiltily. "I figured if she got in the car I could salt her more easily. But when I tried she disappeared and—" He waved at the car, "that happened."

Sapphire frowned. Darien caught it. "What?"

"It just occurred to me—you don't have a girlfriend."

"You don't know that."

"Dare. It's you." Sapphire ignored his huff of protest. "She can't peg you for being unfaithful, you don't have anyone to be unfaithful to. She should've just ignored you while you drove across."

"Well, she didn't." Darien rubbed the back of a hand across his face. It came away darker than before, and Sapphire grabbed it.

"Man, you're bleeding," he said in exasperation. "C'mon, we're going back to the motel. We've had enough of this ghost for one night."

-o-

Mama woke to the sound of crying. She stumbled out of bed and into the hallway, already murmuring, "Shh, baby, shh, it's all right," as she pushed open the baby's door.

Yellow eyes met hers. They burned out of a shadow hovering over her baby's crib. It smiled—and pointed behind her.

She spun. And screamed.

-o-

He jerked awake to the sound of something buzzing. Lifted his head from the sheet of practice interview questions he'd been looking over the night before and reached for his phone on the nightstand, knocking over several Arizona tea cans—Darien had insisted the night before that they stay in Mom's room, just in case she came back. He knocked over another two cans before finally managing to grab the phone, which was migrating further across the nightstand with each buzz, and bringing it to his ear. "Yes?"

"Sapph, get your meds and get out of that room."

Sapphire squinted over at Darien's bed. It was empty. "Where are you?"

"Outside watching two cops go door-to-door looking for us," said Darien's voice, tense and low. "I'm gonna go distract them in thirty seconds so you can run outta there without them seeing you, so get your meds and get out of there."

The phone clicked as he disconnected. Sapphire shot out of bed, relieved he always wore a hoodie to sleep, shoved his legs into his jeans, his feet into his shoes, and his meds into the weapons bags, which he threw over his shoulder. Then, gripping his phone, he put his ear to the door, listening.

Five seconds later, there was a shout ("There he is!") and footsteps. Sapphire opened the door and slid out, taking off at a dead run without looking back.

Taking the Nissan was a risky move, but it was parked in the side lot that led onto a back road, and Darien was distracting the deputies pretty damn well in the front lot, so Sapphire threw caution to the wind and slid in. He started the ignition, grateful for the quiet purr of the Nissan compared to his mother's roaring beast of a car, and fairly coasted out of the parking lot into the road.

No sirens came rushing after him, so he made his way carefully into downtown, following the road signs to the public library and parking carefully in a shady spot down a residential street rather than in the library parking lot. Already feeling himself starting to get jittery, he found a few South Beach bars stashed in the pouch on the back of the passenger's seat. They tasted as though they'd been in there since Sapphire split in Georgia two years ago, but it stopped his hands shaking and that was good enough for him.

At least it was until he looked at the clock on the dash. Then he went anxiety-cold all over again. It was one o'clock in the afternoon. Darien had, for whatever reason, let Sapphire sleep in past noon.

He seethed. Stupid, careless Darien! That damn idiot! What had he been thinking?

If Sapphire was honest with himself, he would admit that his anger was to cover up his freaking out. Because he was freaking out but good. His scholarship interview was in less than twenty-four hours; they were six hours away from Crystal Lake, no closer to finding Mom or solving this case than they had been when they got here; and now Darien was in police custody.

His phone was in his pocket, and for a minute his hand twitched for it. He could call Prisma and she could tell him it would all be okay, that he should come home, get his interview out of the way, and then he could worry about helping Darien.

That was what she would say. He was certain of it.

Oh, who was he kidding? Prisma had dropped out of college on a full ride to come home after her parents died so that her sisters wouldn't be dumped into foster care. She would support whatever he did, she was just that loyal, but he didn't think he would ever be able to face her again if he skipped out on Darien now.

But he could never think about what Prisma had done without thinking about what Darien hadn't done, that too-humid night in Georgia, and it made him angry at his older brother all over again. He went into the library, researched for two hours until he'd found what he needed, and when he came out, he took a deep breath and shoved a few quarters into the pay phone outside.

-o-

"Well, hey, Sapphie," Darien's voice drawled over the line half an hour later. "You wouldn't have anything to do with that hostage situation that got called into the station, oh, twenty minutes ago?"

"I plead the fifth."

Darien huffed out a humorless laugh. "Dick. Fake 911 calls are a felony, you know. Sure your alabaster complexion can handle those orange prison jumpsuits?"

"I'll look better than you in that shitty jacket, at any rate."

Darien let out a small laugh, probably at Sapphire's uncharacteristic language, then sobered. "That's not funny. I managed to snag my phone out of the evidence locker when all the deputies high-tailed outta there, but I couldn't find my jacket."

"If we're lucky they probably burned it. Where are you?"

"Some gas station on…Dayton Street? Sound familiar? You got the car?"

"Find somewhere to hide out for a while. I'm in the car."

"What?"

"I found out why the disappearances keep happening near the bridge. Guess what's on the other side."

"A pot of gold."

"Hilarious." Sapphire glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure he still hadn't picked up any tails. "The Sakaradas' old house—where Haruna drowned her children. It's pretty isolated. Apparently Sakarada abandoned it after Haruka killed herself, and it's been empty since then. I'm betting Haruna's bound to the house, and the bridge is just one of the only places within her range that people actually go."

There was a moment before Darien said anything. "So you're gonna do what? Burn the place down?"

Sapphire shrugged. "I've already committed one felony today."

"No. C'mon, Sapph. Come back here, pick me up, and I'll take care of it."

Sapphire shook his head, putting the phone between his shoulder and chin so he could use his hand to flick on the headlights. Barely supper time and it was already almost dark out; he couldn't wait for Daylight Savings Time. "It'll take too long. I want this over now, Darien. I'm not missing that interview tomorrow."

"Of course you're not," Darien began placatingly, but Sapphire disconnected the call. He tossed his phone into the passenger seat and concentrated on the dark road in front of him, tensing as the bridge came into view.

He drove carefully and slowly onto it. In the corner of his eye was a light shimmer, like sheet lightning. He ignored it, kept his eyes on the road as the last rays of sunlight slipped under the horizon. Then it was full dark, and she was in the middle of the road.

His foot slammed instinctively onto the brake pedal. It wasn't so weird that he'd mistaken her for their mother at first, he realized. She had the same willowy build and piercing stare. But her face was blank and her eyes bottomlessly dark, her skin unnaturally white and smooth as she vanished from the road in front of him and reappeared at the passenger side window, pale hand pressed to the glass.

take me home

Sapphire hastily put his foot back on the gas, sending the Nissan crunching down the rough road at 45 mph and keeping his eyes in front of him after that first startled glance at her hand on the window. But then it was suddenly bone-bitingly cold, ice creeping across the window and windshield. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, and there she was in the backseat, watching him. Her lips parted.

i want to go home

Sapphire kept his foot on the gas pedal that suddenly grown resistant, kept driving instead of grabbing the salt-loaded Taurus at his waist, because any shots he squeezed off now would only be temporary. The house was his goal. It loomed up ahead of them in the dark, huge and rambling like one of those Southern mansions you saw in movies, and then she was in the passenger seat, the icy aura from her like a splash of cold water across him.

i can't go home and she was in his face, hands in his hair and wrenching his head back, angry and hissing. i can't

She didn't look much like a mother like that, was all Sapphire could think as she straddled his waist, her cold breath lifting goose bumps along nearly every inch of his body, and other things, too, a deep revulsion sweeping through him. He thought of his mother in her too-tight jeans and bulky jackets, always smelling bitterly of gunpowder and sweat and often blood, how he never wanted to let his friends at school see her, with their pearled and sweatered moms who were always mothers first, not something else.

mommy had to sweethearts

Her fingers dug into his chest, like hot serrated things, numbness spreading from them, and a viscous feeling like necrosis. But she was looking up with her too-dark eyes, like she saw something past him, at something that terrified her.

my babies my babies don't you see i had to

Something like—

i had to

"No," Sapphire gritted out, "you didn't."

He slammed his foot into the gas pedal. The Nissan roared forward, slamming through the wood façade of the house.

-o-

The little boy was just drifting back to sleep when the scream shattered the night.

-o-

He must have blacked out for a second, or a few, because the next thing he knew he was blinking at the dashboard. He stumbled out of the car, pulling out his Taurus. It looked like they were in a living room, a wrecked couch in the corner and picture frames on the dust- and debris- covered walls.

Haruna was in the middle of the room, staring up at the stairs. There was a hazy light at the top of them, and outlined against it, two small shadows.

mommy?

Haruna began to scream.

The shadows flickered. They disappeared and appeared again halfway down the stairs.

mommy

One was shorter than the other. They advanced down the steps hand in hand, purposefully. Water dripped down them, hissing into hot steam when it hit the dully glowing orange where their eyes should be, the slightly brighter glowing streaks that seemed to be their mouths.

Haruna sobbed.

As one the two shadows looked past her to Sapphire. A flash of something like gratitude, like camaraderie, emanated from them, warping and wavering the air like heat. Then they were on Haruna, hisses and whispers and screams and a sound like rushing, gushing water.

Then nothing. The air empty, the room dark. Nothing but the sound of Sapphire's harsh breathing and the fuel popping in the Nissan's engine as it cooled.

-o-

He scrambled out of bed, breathing hard and scared. The hallway was dark, and there was an orange glow coming from his brother's room.

-o-

Sapphire wasn't sure how much later a new sound joined them. Boots crunching in gravel, scrabbling over splintered wood. And a voice. "Sapph! Sapph!"

He turned and saw Darien scrambling over the mountain of rubble that surrounded the Nissan. Then he felt the fierce grip of Darien's fingers, hard and digging, around his arms, heard, "What the hell happened? Are you okay? Sapph!"

"It was her children," he heard himself saying. His voice sounded a lot more aware than he felt. "They were waiting here for her. She didn't want to come home, because they—"

But Darien didn't seem to be listening, was staring at Sapph's shirt and pulling it carefully up. Sapphire followed his gaze and saw ten small bloodied holes in the pale skin of his chest, ten bruise-like streaks dragging down from them toward his navel, blackish under his skin. He swayed.

"Shit," Darien was saying, from somewhere very far away. "Shit, Sapph," and he was hauling Sapphire across the floor to the car, pushing him down into the seat. Sapphire was distantly aware of a wrapper being torn open, of something hard and sweet being pushed under his tongue, of Darien's voice saying, "C'mon, Sapph, hang in there for me, c'mon...!"

-o-

He looked inside and saw Mama, clutching the baby as she screamed.

-o-

...the next thing he knew they were speeding down a dark highway. Bandages and adhesives spanned his ribs, pulling taut as he breathed. Darien was saying something in a low voice: "Don't worry, it's only midnight, we're going to get you back in plenty of time for your interview, Sapph, don't worry, just rest up, just get those brain cells ready—"

Sapphire must have drifted off again after that, because the next thing he knew he was startling awake and blinking at the Akayashis' familiar, streetlamp-lit front yard.

"We're here." Darien's voice was low. His seatbelt clicked as he unlatched it. "I'll get your stuff. Make sure you eat something when you go inside, all right?"

Sapphire blinked as Darien got out of the car, then levered himself up, rubbing his eyes and opening his own door. He swiveled to put his feet on the curb but didn't get out.

"Dare," he said.

Darien swung Sapphire's duffel out of the trunk.

"We didn't find Mom."

Darien shut the trunk. "Yeah, Sapph, I know. It's okay."

He was thinking of Darien driving on his own in the empty night, in the too-hot day, the conversations of radio DJs filling the empty silence of the passenger seat. He was struggling to his feet. "If you stay—we can go look again—after my interview—"

"No." Darien set Sapphire's bag down on the front porch; only then did Sapphire realize Darien had led him up to the front door. "It's okay, Sapph. Just kick ass in that interview, okay?" He was already halfway down the front walk, pausing after he opened the car door to look back at Sapphire. "Impress their pants off."

"Okay," Sapphire said faintly. The Nissan had already pulled away, brake lights flaring red in the four a.m. darkness when it reached the four-way stop at the end of the street before Sapphire realized Darien was really leaving. Then he was blinking, reaching into his pocket for his keys only to find that they were already in his hand.

He let himself in.

-o-

He saw Daddy pinned to the rocking chair, burning.

-o-

The light in Prisma and Avery's room was on, glowing through the crack beneath the door. Sapphire swayed in the hallway for a moment, debating whether to knock and tell them he was home safely.

Later, he wouldn't recall making the decision to knock and nudge the door open. He would only remember the unnatural stillness of the room, and then, the terrible smell. Like something roasting and something rotting all at once.

Avery and Prisma slumped on their beds, held upright against their headboards by stakes through their chests. Their dark eyes lifted, sluggishly met Sapphire's. Then fire exploded from the stakes.

The wash of heat slammed him back against the wall. He was screaming but didn't realize it, watching their dark dead eyes eaten up by the flames, only became aware when hands yanked him back so hard his teeth clacked together.

"Sapph," rasped a voice roughened with smoke inhalation and something else, and they were stumbling through fire and smoke and tears.

-o-

In the smoke and fire it was hard to see anything. He could only feel the heat, and a soft weight being pushed into his arms, and Mama's voice, screaming.

"Darien! Take Sapphire and run!"

He ran.