Please read Disclaimer in Prologue/Chapter One.
Title: Maya's Tale (C12: Trap)
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action/Adventure, General
Rating: K+/PG-13 (for anime-style fight scenes/language)
Summary: Von Brandt is about to get his wish.
A/N: For reference, I use a combination of the American YYH manga and the subtitled anime.
"Mother? She's here?"
Maya's Tale (12: Trap)
by
Kenshin
Haunted Palace, Haunted Palace
The Prince in pink, Princess in black
Haunted Palace, All is lost
The bedroom was dark as pitch. Four in the morning, Hiei reckoned, was far too early to be awakened by the imaginary droning voice of Zo.
Droopy little fop of a boy, droopy little fop of a hit.
Damn song.
With Haunted Palace still boring into his brain, Hiei slunk to the bathroom. Disdaining to turn on a light, he splashed cold water on his face and dragged on some sweats.
He was surprised to find his Firebird down in the kitchen, staring at the black screen of the broken laptop by the light of a votive candle at her elbow.
Wrapped in a robe two sizes too big, her gray eyes puffy with sleep, hair tousled to a marigold halo, Shayla Kidd looked like an angel who'd stayed up way past her bed-time.
"Hush," she murmured, a line of concentration stitched between her brows. "I'm pretending."
"Won't do you any good." He gently closed the cover of the laptop. "Damn song."
"You, too?" She yawned. "Did you see those set designs?"
He nodded. "Expensive. Complicated."
"A crumbling ruin in stone and mortar," she agreed, "dangerous for us poor performers."
"I won't let anything happen to you." There was a pot of drip coffee ready on the counter. Hiei fumbled for the carafe, poured some into a mug and then down his throat.
She held out her own mug for a refill. "Where are you headed?"
"To go make Kurama's life miserable."
She yawned again. "At least you're not wearing pink."
0-0-0-0-0
The dream always woke him in the middle of the night, and he could never get back to sleep.
The house felt oppressive in its silence.
Kurama had stared out his window for what seemed hours, watching the sky fade from black to slate to steel. The day promised frigid temperatures. A weather report predicted snow flurries.
As a master of plants, Kurama knew any number of remedies with which he could dose himself to sleep. He didn't like doing it. He preferred a clear head. But a few more days of this and a drug hangover wouldn't matter, because he'd be dead of sleep deprivation.
Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
He found himself thinking of the Suntory he'd given Hiei a week ago, half-wishing it was still on his night table.
Well. He could wrestle with chemistry some more, or he could get dressed and get on with it.
Just as Kurama was leaving the house, Hiei stopped him.
Hiei looked as bad as Kurama felt: bleary-eyed, unshaven, rumpled, a man you wouldn't want to get into an elevator with.
The sky had turned white, as predicted, about to spew snow. At this early hour, they were alone.
"What is it, Hiei? I'm on my way to the library." Kurama's research into 'fifty years ago' had gone nowhere. The public library contained no reference to anything unusual that occurred on Rokurokubi Block back then.
As charming as they were, the Kawasaki sisters were elderly. Their memory could well be faulty.
Kurama planned a visit to the Fukuzumi Oh private library before classes. If he came up empty again, that was it.
With a glance around to ensure privacy, Hiei gave a terse report of his two visits to Muktananda, ending with the discovery of an 'on-vacation' sign.
"Gone," sighed Kurama. "Well. Can't be helped." He turned to leave. But suddenly Hiei was in front of him, gripping his arm, scorn glittering in his crimson eyes.
"What the hell happened to you, Kurama?"
Kurama gazed over Hiei's head. Far down the block, someone else was coming out of a house, walking away from them. "Can't imagine what you're referring to."
"I consider myself one tough bastard, but you-you used to be scary."
Kurama yanked his arm free.
He was worn. He was frustrated. Though he tried to quell his reaction, anger bubbled up like scorching lava.
"Maybe it's you," he snarled, then ground his teeth together to stop the lava-flow.
What's happening to me? What's wrong? This was not like him. Kurama was the cool-headed one, the controlled one, and he could not chalk up this reaction to mere lack of sleep.
Jamming both hands in his pockets, he struggled to tame his wildcat emotions. He managed to wrap them in chains-just.
"Maybe it's all of you. These-connections." Kurama glanced back at the house, where his mother was no doubt still sleeping. "Tying me down. Draining me."
Hiei was quite unruffled. "Pitiful excuse. They give you strength. Urameshi found that out."
Kurama's hands were twitching. "Is that all?"
"Yeah." Hiei shrugged. "You've got your chem exam tomorrow, I've got to crawl back into the rehearsal studio. Guess that Kitajima girl's on her own."
Kurama wanted to rip both twitching hands from his pockets, wind them around Hiei's neck, and squeeze until he shut up.
Another early pedestrian ambled toward them. The sky released a handful of snowflakes. And before he lost control altogether, Kurama turned his back on Hiei and strode away.
0-0-0-0-0
This, Kitajima Maya promised herself, is the last time I deliver a package here. Ever.
But she knew Mr. Quicksilver would send her again. Mr. Von Brandt was a regular.
Poor Daddy had touched down yesterday, heavy with jet lag, and had gone again this morning. Who knew when he would return? A week, three? Must be hard on him. Daddy had left her a hastily scrawled note, and a wrapped present. Maya looked forward to opening it when she got back home.
She couldn't get warm, and it wasn't just that the clouds blocked the afternoon sun and the white sky gave no cheer.
It was snowing. In April. Did that count as a supernatural event?
Because of work, she had missed the Adventure Club, and was beginning to envy Riku, Chikako, Ayumi, or anyone who had regular hours and could count on attending meetings.
And that Mrs. Shayla. It would be nice to see her again, too. But how, given their crazy schedules?
This time, Maya wore a pale lilac scarf in her hair, a color that went surprisingly well with the forest-green of her old sweats, which she now wished was an overcoat.
Chips of snow danced sidewise, as if struggling to keep warm despite the bitter wind.
Standing on the porch of the Von Brandt residence, Maya, too, danced. Partly to keep warm, like the companionable snowflakes, but also partly from impatience. She wanted to ditch the package and get to the Kawasaki's house for tea.
It was always so warm there. And the sisters were so kind. Sometimes, quite apart from the usual delivery of photographs for evaluation, Miss Olivia and Miss Ruth ordered elaborate, wonderful cakes, just so Maya could deliver and help eat them.
She rang again.
It didn't do for a mere courier to question the nature of her deliveries, but Maya's natural curiosity made her speculate.
Mr. Von B. was very old-world, and the packages were always from photo developing shops around town. Was he a spy? Not at all supernatural, but potentially thrilling nevertheless.
At last, Mr. Von Brandt answered the door. He was wearing his perennial overcoat with its fur collar, and the sight made her feel even colder.
He was tall, taller than Minamino, and wide. His hair was thick and dark as a bear's pelt, but touched with gray at the temples. A neat little goatee sat beneath a meaty prow of a nose, and startling red lips.
Mr. Von Brandt made her a little uneasy, maybe because those watchful, icy eyes pouched in pale flesh seemed at odds with his comical, caterpillar eyebrows.
He seemed to belong in another world. A remote, mountainous, European world.
Or maybe she was just romanticizing.
Of course, the guy was spooky in the best of times. She always felt as if he wanted something of her, something beyond the expected package.
"Ah!" His deep, hollow voice rang with a slight accent. "There you are. You seek Muktananda? Did the sign not tell you to come here? How negligent of the man."
"Mr. Muktananda?" Her eyes widened. "You know him?" Mr. V. B. did not reply. "I had an appointment earlier, but the sign said he went on vacation. It didn't say where."
"But the one whom you seek." The caterpillar brows crawled together. "The one you have sought all along. You will find her here. I am positive Muktananda told you."
"Here? My mother?" A wild excitement grew in Maya. "Mr. Muktananda reached her?" She tried to peer past Mr. V. B.'s shoulder, but his big frame blocked her view. She got a fleeting impression of pale walls, pale shiny floors, glittery lights.
Mr. Von B. shook his head. "I am surprised and disappointed that you were not told."
"Told what?" Maya jiggled up and down to keep warm.
He reached out a red-gloved hand.
Every week Mr. M. had stared into the crystal ball and cocked his head, had lit incense and consulted the spirits and laid out cards, but all he could tell her were snatches of words that, no matter how Maya struggled, never made sense.
"Perhaps I misunderstood," said Mr. Von Brandt. "I had thought you wanted to see your mother."
"I did!" Maya burst out. "I mean, I do! You don't mean she's here, do you? As in actually, in-the-flesh here? Where is Mr. Muktananda?" She craned her neck, but Mr. Von Brandt's solid form continued to block her view.
Some flash of emotion shuttered his eyes. "Very well. I was mistaken. If you will just give me the package."
"Oh! The package, right."
Maya meant to hand it over. She really did. But she heard something from far back in the house.
A voice. Calling. A female voice.
Could it be true?
Maya's little black Zuma was parked in the street. The Kawasaki sisters lived down the block, but with Zuma as transportation, she might check things out and still arrive right on time.
Mr. Von Brandt's house was certainly big enough to contain a spiritualist's room. There was no smell of incense, but then the cold made it difficult to smell anything.
"Is it my mother?" She turned her gaze up to Mr. Von B's. "Can she really speak to me?"
Mr. Von B. oozed disdain. "I thought you had decided against seeing her. Can you not make up your mind?"
He glared down at Maya, as though she were a particularly backward member of his serving staff, and he had given her every chance to improve herself, at which she had failed miserably, and he was about to send her packing.
No. She was no serving girl, and no coward. Besides, what would the Adventure Girls say? 'You got a chance to snoop around in a foreign spy's house and you said NO?'
Slowly, the door closed in Maya's face.
"No, wait!" Maya sprang forward. The door opened again, just as slowly, and Mr. Von Brandt looked down at her, with an ill-concealed air of impatience.
"I do want to see her," Maya declared.
"Then by all means." With a sweeping, Continental gesture he stood aside and let her walk over the threshold.
The walls were pale silk, trembling in the glittery light of wall sconces. The floor was real marble, like a fairy-tale palace. But the temperature was just as cold inside as out.
Maya had little time to admire the decor. Standing at the end of the hallway was a girl, wearing a heavy dress that was exactly the deep forest color of Maya's sweats.
Intrigued, Maya looked her over.
The girl was hardly old enough to be Maya's mother, for she appeared to be about Maya's own age, 23.
Green Girl looked awfully solid to be a ghost.
She was not homely so much as plain and well-scrubbed. Her face was round, and her nose, short, upturned, almost a pug nose. Her mouth was wide, and her eyes had just the hint of an upward slant at the outer corners, framed by solid straight brows that had never known the touch of a tweezer.
Her skin was almost as pale as the marble floors, and her straight, light-brown hair was scraped tight into a bun. The heavy woolen dress did not suit her at all.
Been there, done that, thought Maya.
Maya could just imagine Shayla Kidd's voice, and see the lift of her sleek eyebrows and know beyond a doubt that she would say to this girl, not unkindly: "Sweetie, I don't care if that dress is made of the finest wool gabardine direct from Paris. The cut and color are all wrong. And why not try a touch of lipstick?"
And then maybe they could all go shopping, Maya and Shay-san and the ghost. That might be nice.
If can hear Shay-san's voice, why can't I hear Mother's?
Maybe Miss Ruth and Miss Olivia were right. If Mother wanted to speak to Maya, she would do it herself.
With that thought, a many-legged chill skittered down Maya's back, a scorpion made of ice.
She still had a death grip on Mr. Von Brandt's package. The unpleasant feeling persisted, pressed in. Her ribs ached from the effort to draw air.
Mr. Muktananda was not here. She was certain of it now.
But hold it a sec. Stop being such a coward. Sure, okay, this girl was not Mother. But what if this was a medium? Another, better medium than Mr. M.? In her avid research, Maya had read that spirits were sometimes a little picky about speaking through a member of the opposite sex. "Mother?" she said tentatively.
Green Girl smiled. "Mother," she echoed. Her voice was light, fragile, far more ghostly than the girl herself.
Maybe she's channeling Mother.
Green Girl repeated, "Mother."
"Must you stand there yammering like a parrot?" Mr. Von B. snapped. Maya gave a little start. She had just about forgotten he was there. She flicked him a glance, no more.
But Mr. Von Brandt looked absolutely furious. Fit to be tied. "Prepare to assist!" he barked.
Maya began to edge toward the door. Assist? Assist what?
"But Mother," Green Girl insisted. "My new mother. I want to get to know my new mother."
She wants WHAT?
"Then be quick about it!"
And the girl's face, now alight with eager curiosity, zoomed forward to examine Maya.
While her body remained standing down the hall.
At last, thought Maya, a supernatural event.
But she was not intrigued. She was scared. Flat-out scared. Her brave words to Luna-P seemed a mockery now: "I'd show those aliens a thing or two!"
Maya had always believed she would be ready. Because of her studies. Because of her interest. That she would treat any encounter with dauntless, ready courage.
But now that it was real, she felt more like a deer caught in the headlights.
Her nerveless fingers opened. She dropped her package. Someone bent to scoop it from the floor. Maya caught the movement from the corner of her eye.
Like a creature out of a bad monster movie, Green Girl stretched out her serpentine neck, so that her head was the only part that approached.
The long thin neck twisted this way and that as the girl studied Maya from all angles, and Maya knew for a certainty that this was not her mother, that this creature was not even human, that Mr. Muktananda had never been here, that this had been a trap, and an old memory stirred in her, struggling to rise, from back in middle school, and this time the memory burst to the surface in shocking, crystal clarity.
She heard Minamino's voice echo across the years, husky and urgent:
"Run!"
But Maya stood frozen, as though bolted to the floor, and then she felt the sudden sharp sting of a needle pierce her neck.
-30-
(To be continued: The nightmare has only just begun.)