Part 24 – The Soul's Call
Satoshi stared at the child that was clinging to his thighs for dear life, completely baffled. "My help? You're supposed to be in the hospital! How did you even find this place?" he demanded of the boy.
Jirou shook his head against the leg of Satoshi's jeans. "You left your address with the nurse, and she gave it to me, and I snuck out. I had to find you, you're the only other one who knows him!"
"Knows who? The nurse?" Satoshi demanded, confused and wondering if he was going to end up facing some sort of kidnapping charge.
"No, the angel," Jirou said, looking at Satoshi eagerly. "I heard you talking to him when you saved me. You knew him, you even knew his name!"
Satoshi felt his stomach tighten as an image of the blonde angel as he'd last seen him flashed through his mind. "Krad?" he asked the boy suspiciously.
"Yes!" The kid's face lit up at Krad's name in a way Satoshi would never have believed without seeing it directly. Great, the kid had some sort of weird obsession with Krad. Now he'd seen everything.
"What about him?"
"I think he's in trouble. We need to help him," Jirou said, looking up at the blue-eyed teen eagerly.
Satoshi's expression soured as he eyed the child impatiently. "What makes you think he's in trouble?" he scoffed.
"Someone's buying makeup with my credit card!" the boy exclaimed seriously, as if this explained everything.
Satoshi rolled his eyes and hooked his hands under the kid's arms, prying him off his legs and carrying him at arm's length into the next room. "Give me your name. I'm calling your parents," he said, setting the injured kid down on an armchair across from where Riku was still asleep like a rock. Those pain killers they'd given her for her ankle apparently really knocked her out.
"No!" Jirou protested, "Please, you've really got to help him! He was being careful with the card before. Now there are charges all over it…"
"He stole your credit card?" Satoshi interrogated.
"I gave it to him!"
The blue-haired boy had to stifle a guffaw. "You're telling me you gave Krad your credit card?" He could have choked when the kid nodded his head seriously. "What exactly possessed you to do that?"
"He needed it to eat," Jirou answered defensively. "So I just told him to use it."
"So you've been in regular contact with him?" Satoshi asked skeptically. It sounded angrier than he'd meant it. What was wrong with him, snapping at a little kid? The strangest sense of antagonism was building in him. Was he actually jealous?
"Well…no, not exactly," the boy said sheepishly, talking into his lap. "He says I'm too noisy and that I'm a useless pest, but I sometimes saw him after school."
Satoshi stared at the boy, trying to make some kind of sense of his story. Had Krad actually sought out a human who looked gullible enough to provide him with a source of cash? Considering how rarely he'd let the angel gain the upper hand and have control, he was surprised Krad had any practical knowledge of urban Japanese life at all. It would make sense for him to need help to get by. Perhaps if he was honest with himself, Satoshi could even admit to being worried about the angel. But knowing that Krad had been throwing around some kid's credit card quenched any concern he'd felt with good old-fashioned spite. "Look, I'm sorry something happened to your credit card. If you want, I'll have the police look into it, but the best thing you could do is cancel the card and-"
"I'm not worried about the card! I'm worried about him,"Jirou pleaded. He wouldn't just lose it. My mom said the charges came from a store in a really bad part of town. Something happened to him!"
Satoshi just rolled his eyes and turned toward his bedroom, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Where are you going?" Jirou asked.
"I'm calling the hospital so someone can come get you," the older boy said impatiently as he began closing the door behind him.
"Wait! He saved my life twice. I have to try to help him!"
Satoshi looked back at the boy sharply. The kid had to be making this stuff up, and he didn't find it funny.
Their argument had finally woken Riku, who raised her head up and noticed Jirou in confusion. "Satoshi, who is this?" she asked blankly.
"Some kid that Krad tricked," Satoshi explained flatly. "Keep an eye on him; I'm calling someone to pick him up." He closed the door firmly behind him and looked down at his phone. He flipped it open to dial and stared at the backlit screen. Questions that had lingered with him since yesterday nagged at the back of his mind. Why had Krad been holding up that wall when he found him in the schoolyard? He'd assumed the angel had wound up under the cave-in during the course of his fight with Dark and caught the falling building out of self-defense. But then, why continue to hold it up? And if he wanted to trap Satoshi inside, why even warn him to get out? Why not just drop the roof on his head when he'd had the chance? It had been a very, very long chance.
He gazed at the keypad on his phone. If it was true that Krad had been using the kid's card, he might be able to use this situation to track the angel down. And do what? With Dark busy playing hostage for Gorudo, he knew he didn't have the power to take Krad on by himself. Yet he felt a maddening urge to know where the white angel was and to confront him.
His fingers hovered over the number pad indecisively. He dialed the area code for the hospital, and then stopped again. Damn it, he needed more information. Rolling his eyes, he cleared his screen and thought it through again. He had to be crazy to even be thinking about this. But if he wanted to track Krad down, this could be the only clue he was going to get before the angel did something truly catastrophic. There was only one part of the city that counted as intrinsically 'dangerous,' and as deputy commander of the police force, he was fairly familiar with its businesses. There was only one cosmetics store that he knew of in that part of town.
Of course, it was a very vague lead. Obviously, Krad hadn't rung up the charges himself, unless he'd picked up some seriously strange hobbies, and whoever had gotten hold of the card might have never even met Krad in person. The card could have been picked up off the sidewalk. The boy gave a self-directed growl and pushed the phone back into his pocket.
Riku and Jirou both looked up at him searchingly as he came back out of the bedroom a few minutes later. "Did you call them?" Jirou asked in dread.
"No," Satoshi answered, ignoring the excited look the boy made in response. He looked at Riku. "I need to go out for a while. If this kid's telling the truth, Krad might still be in the city."
"I have a name," the boy piped in.
"And I didn't ask for it," Satoshi brushed him off impatiently. The boy crossed his arms and looked put out. Apparently, this person and the angel had some things in common. "Riku, can you wait here with him until I check this out? I might have more questions for him later."
"Where are you going? What are you supposed to do if you find him?" Riku asked him.
"I'm not sure, but it's not safe to let him run around the city, either."
His friend didn't look convinced. "He could seriously hurt you, Satoshi. Maybe we should wait for Dark to get back so that he can help," Riku urged.
"I'll go with him! Krad won't hurt him if I'm there!" Jiro said eagerly.
Satoshi pressed his fingers to his eyes, thinking more conclusively than ever that this kid was some kind of idiot. "You are not coming. You are staying right here," he said firmly before looking back at Riku. "I hear your point. I'll just make it a fact-finding mission, no confrontation. If things start to look dangerous, I'll back off until the others return." He noticed that his friend still didn't look pleased. "I'll have my phone with me the whole time," he added. "If anything develops here or with Daisuke, call me. If anything comes up about the boy, I'll smooth things out with the police later."
Riku looked skeptical, but she nodded her cooperation. "Just don't take too long," She said. "And really, Satoshi, please don't get in over your head. I don't know how I'll get Risa to forgive me if I let you do something stupid."
Satoshi frowned slightly as she brought up Risa. This wasn't the time to mention that his relationship with her sister was close to collapsing. Risa had only said they needed to talk, but he had felt the truth like a massive subtext in her voice. Honestly, though, he didn't think the news would surprise Riku. Maybe it didn't surprise any of them. After all, he had never been any good with relationships.
Before Riku could ask him to explain his strange expression, Satoshi turned toward the closet and pulled his police badge out of its place on the shelf, jamming it into his pocket. He threw on a long coat over the clothes he was wearing, wanting to look professional enough to have a serious conversation with whoever was working the shop when he got there. Though he suspected people in that part of town would probably recognize him, it was still tough to play tough as chief of police when you looked like you should still be in college.
"I'll be back." He looked over at Jiro and Riku and gave them a brief wave, then scooped up his keys and left through the front door. Within moments, he was sitting in his car, a silver hybrid that had been decked out with a police radio and lights. He put the car in gear and backed out of his space, then made his way toward the southeast end of the city. He switched up the fan on the AC so that cool air blew against his face, trying to calm his nerves and clear his head. Imagining what would happen if he saw Krad again was more than he could handle right now. He needed to just not think about anything. He couldn't think about what would happen with Risa, or about how he couldn't seem to care either way, or about how his best friend was cooperating with an obsessive billionaire who had kidnapped him by force, or even about the fact that he was about to flash his police badge right in the middle of the red lights district. For the moment, all he had to do was drive.
--o0oOo0o--
He couldn't stay here any longer.
Krad stood still as stone, looking up at the bonds on his hands. They were each locked in a thick steel cuff, and the two cuffs hung together from a single chain anchored to the wall above his head. The position gave him almost no flexibility in his bruised wrists and left his bare torso exposed and unguarded. It was a position of weakness, of submission. This was not a position he could endure. Logic told him to remain calm, to bide his time, but his pride couldn't take it any longer. These humans were trying to humiliate him. He felt like he was going crazy, like something vast and important was missing and no amount of anger could possibly fix it. It wasn't like him to think such things, and he knew it had to be the result of this ridiculous entrapment. This was not worth even his safety, not at this price. Anything was better than remaining in these people's bizarre reality.
He twisted his left hand around the chain that suspended his hands and held the other tightly around it, reinforcing his grip. The angel took a deep breath and focused. This wouldn't be fun, but it would be worth it. Closing his eyes, he summoned energy from deep inside his soul. The demands of the spell he was forming tugged at his insides, seeking power that was growing increasingly difficult to channel through his tired nerves. Krad just gritted his teeth and proceeded with the spell. A deep blue glow began to form inside his clenched hand. It grew brighter and brighter, shining through his tight grip until it cast a fierce blue shadow across the entire room. The angel kept himself carefully focused as the incredible amount of carefully gathered energy throbbed to escape his tightly closed fingers.
His eyes flashed open, gold irises shining hot white with power. It was ready. A dark smile spread across his lips. They would come to regret keeping him here, very soon. The angel squeezed tighter, cupping the ball of energy fiercely against the chains, and then let the spell go.
A fierce squeal of twisting metal resounded loudly throughout the basement as the tightly contained explosion blasted apart the chains in Krad's hand. The angel tugged his newly freed arms immediately downward and cradled his smoking hand to his chest with a thick gasp. His right hand had barely been grazed by the spell, but the left hand that had literally held onto the explosion was ripped through with ragged gashes. Krad clutched the bleeding palm tightly to his bare chest as the circulation began throbbing back into his arms. He stretched the shoulder muscles of his good arm stiffly, and he could almost have taken pleasure in the sweet pain of moving his arms. He was free. He felt adrenaline clear his head as he walked to the middle of the room and threw his wings wide in a victorious stretch.
Already, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Krad grinned darkly as the descending figure came into view. It was Ryuusuke.
Spotting the free angel, Midnight's lover stopped short and stared at Krad with surprise and real fear in his eyes. It was one thing to be near Krad when he was tied down, but quite another to have the angel smirking at you evilly at full height and wingspan a few feet away. The silver-haired man's hand shot to the comm unit at his waist and pressed a button. "Get down here, he's done something," he said tensely, presumably into some microphone attached to the device. He tried to take a step back and nearly fell to his ass on the stairs. More footsteps could already be heard pounding across the floor overhead.
Krad wasn't going to wait around for reinforcements. He cast a wicked smile at Ryuusuke and strode toward him fearlessly, climbing the stairs up to where he stood.
Ryuusuke clearly wanted to run, but either fear or loyalty to Midnight rendered him plastered to his spot as the liberated angel approached him. As a last resort, when Krad got too close, the man pulled back his fist and threw an untrained punch at the strange being's chest.
Krad reached up and caught the punch easily, crushing Ryuusuke's fist in his grip. The man's knuckles made a satisfying crunch at the pressure. Ryuusuke let out an alarmed curse and looked down at his hand in shock as he noticed blood oozing from between Krad's fingers. That didn't make sense to the man. The angel's grip hurt, but it wasn't that strong, not enough to make him bleed. A look of horror spilled over his face.
"My god, what did you do to your hand? Are you insane?" Ryuusuke's breathless voice demanded. He seemed unable to take his eyes from the blood that was dripping down onto the ground between them.
"Shall I do yours next?" Krad offered coldly, power sparking to life between his fingers. This gained a wonderful reaction from the terrified Ryuusuke, but unfortunately, reinforcements appeared at the top of the stairs before he could pulverize the fool's hand. Three men appeared at the top of the stairs and stared down at Krad warily. They were big guys, and they didn't look scared, per se, but they did seem the worse for wear. One was sporting a strip of gauze across the bridge of his nose, the other had two very clear black eyes, and the third had his wrist in an ACE bandage.
Krad grinned as he realized the cause of the resentment in their expressions. Midnight had mentioned he'd given her men some trouble, but this was priceless. "So you're the lackeys I wiped the floor with while I was drugged into oblivion? Enjoy your trip to the hospital?" he snickered at them. Losing interest in Ryuusuke, he tugged the man past him, throwing him down the remaining stairs. "I've been having a ball down here."
His feral smile provoked the obviously annoyed men into running down the stairs toward him. The angel went into the first body that approached him with his good fist, cutting a sharp hook across the man's jaw and throwing him down the stairs behind him. A pained groan told him he had dealt a decent amount of damage, and Krad reveled in the sound. No sooner was he rid of the one man than two more were there in front of him. Before he could maneuver, a large foot kicked him squarely in the chest and sent him flying backward, falling over Ryuusuke and the man he'd just punched to land on the carpeted floor.
Krad felt his head reel dizzily. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he'd had entirely too little food and rest to deal with a fight of this scale. He could have sworn his mind only blurred for a second, but when he snapped back to reality, hands were all over him, holding him down, pressing him to the floor. He counted the three men surrounding him, and then saw Midnight step up behind the one who was holding his feet.
"Oh, Krad. You've been a very bad boy," she said coldly, yet she also seemed bizarrely amused. Her deep brown eyes met his smoldering gold orbs in a challenging deadlock. "I was going to give you time to compose yourself, but since you obviously can't play nicely with others, I think we should spend some time together right now. Get him on the table."
Krad rolled his eyes, irate at being restrained again. "You're wasting your time," he scoffed, testing his strength against the hands that were heaving him up by his arms and legs. The men staggered as a group to keep their balance, but they were strong. Seriously strong. And he was willing to bet that they'd eaten something in the last 24 hours. Beyond kicking one in the nose, Krad's struggles were unsuccessful as he found himself being dropped on the huge wooden table that was sitting next to the stairs. It was the same table where Midnight had nearly had her way with Ryuusuke in front of him earlier that day. He felt strong hands locking around his wrists and ankles, and his limbs were tugged spread-eagle to the corners of the table.
"Ryuusuke, bandages and anesthetic," Midnight commanded. "The rest of you hold him steady."
The men looked uncertain about any further interaction with the strange being, but she gave them a look and they held him fast while Ryuusuke went up the stairs for the items described. A minute later, he returned with a metal case in hand. Krad twisted his head to watch the man coldly as he prepared a syringe. Ryuusuke took a very light grip on the angel's wounded hand and then injected a clear liquid into the meaty part of Krad's palm.
Krad held very still as the numbing liquid spread through his shredded hand. The blazing pain soon became only a dull ache while Ryuusuke wound a bandage tightly but sloppily from his wrist down to stave off the bleeding. For Krad, it was like watching someone else's hand. Everything below his forearm seemed to grow more and more detached, and it was hard to believe the blood spotting through the amateur bandage was his. It was hard to believe any of this was really happening to him. The relief in his hand was deceptively comforting, but he knew he wasn't safe on this table. Not even close. He turned his gaze back to Midnight with a wary glare.
"Keep giving me that look. I can't get enough of it," Midnight smiled, running a hand along his numb arm and then slowly drifting her fingers down his bare chest. She touched his skin there and followed the trail of fine blond hairs from his naval down to his pants. Eyes like candle flames followed her movements, observing her angrily.
"Yes, just like that. Notice nothing but me," Midnight crooned, enjoying the angel's undivided attention. She didn't seem to mind at all that her goons were there as an audience.
"I'm going to vomit on your furniture," Krad warned with a dark look.
"Or maybe, just maybe, you're going to have the time of your life," she smirked. "Krad, you always seem to love being angry. Why not loosen up a little?"
Krad grinned sourly at the suggestion. "Certainly not for you."
"Then whoever for? Look around you, darling. I'm all you've got," she smirked.
Krad frowned at her. She had a point. No one was going to find him here. He was on his own, and he didn't have a whole lot of options on this table. A tendril of longing snared in his chest, bringing with it again that sense of emptiness he'd broken himself loose to avoid. He brusquely disregarded the feeling before he could think too hard about what it meant. "I'm sure this is very complicated for you to grasp, but I'm not interested," he sneered.
"We'll see about that," she smiled craftily, climbing onto the table with him. Without the slightest regard for her audience or her displeased captive, she straddled his waist and ran both hands in a gliding, exploratory caress along his stomach and ribs.
"Get off," Krad ordered, his pulse drumming madly inside his chest. He couldn't stand her or the touch of her skin. Even when he considered, for just a split second, what would happen if he were to just cooperate with her intentions for the sake of convenience, he couldn't seem to fathom being attracted to her. Not that he had much experience in that arena…
"You don't give orders to me, love. It works the other way around," she purred, pressing her weight down between his legs as her mouth traced the contours of his collarbone.
Krad's body gave a furious jerk at her touch, his eyes wide with anger. Two men lost their footing and had to stumble to regain control of his limbs. "You will die for this foolish insult," he snarled. It was no act; he meant every word. Despite the strength of his thrashing, exhaustion showed at the corners of his eyes.
"Midnight, he's dehydrated. I don't think he's capable of responding to you right now," Ryuusuke said quietly.
Both Midnight and Krad turned to stare at him. A devious smirk slowly grew on Midnight's face. "I'm not letting him off the hook this time, Ryuusuke. If he's going to stay here, he needs to learn his place. If you're so concerned for him, I suggest you help. In fact, I think I'll make that an order," she smirked.
Ryuusuke paled and looked down at Krad's hateful expression. "I'm not a dom," he said uncomfortably, seeming more distraught by his assigned role than by the idea of the angel as a partner. Conversely, the angel thought he might prefer to lie down under construction equipment.
"How ironic, then, that I'm ordering you to be one," Midnight smiled. She looked down at Krad. "I have a little theory, my stubborn angel, that Ryuusuke is more in line with your preferences than I am. I wouldn't dream of swimming against your current, so to speak, so let's let him have a try, shall we?"
"He's of no more interest to me than you are," Krad said in exasperation.
She seemed to think otherwise. "Let's give it the old college try," she grinned, crossing her arms. "Ryuusuke," she smiled at her reluctant pet, "If you refuse, you will be punished. If you fail, he'll be punished," she gestured to the restrained angel. "So I suggest you put on your best show."
To the angel's flat-out disbelief, Ryuusuke seemed persuaded by this threat. "You have to be kidding," Krad muttered at the silver-haired man as he took a step closer. "You think tying me up, trying to starve me to death, and then crawling around on me will somehow raise my interest in you two?" he hissed. His eyes betrayed wary shock as Midnight slid off him and Ryuusuke came up next to the table. The man looked uncertain of the safety of this experiment, but he climbed up to kneel on the table just next to Krad's waist. Unlike Midnight, he didn't dare try to straddle the angel or pin him down, but there was undeniable curiosity, maybe even interest, in his expression.
The two men stared at each other, furious gold against cautious gray. No matter how you looked at it, the roles were backwards between them, not to mention the two were on blatantly different levels physically. Despite Ryuusuke's moderately good looks, in his position above the nearly luminous beauty of the angel, he gave the impression of a common buffoon attempting to dance with a god. Ryuusuke reached out a cautious hand and touched Krad's chest very lightly, testing. The angel struggled back as if to descend into the table to get away from him. It was somehow worse with this man than it had been with Midnight, more threatening, despite Ryuusuke's meek disposition. Maybe there was some truth to Midnight's theories, because the prospect of taking this man as a lover struck a much more real chord of alarm in the angel than Midnight had. Krad recalled how uncomfortable Ryuusuke had been with an audience of one earlier that day, so he thought the man couldn't possibly intend to flirt with him in front of four other people. Hopefully, he would simply give up.
Instead, Ryuusuke leaned forward until his chest brushed against Krad's. He moved slowly, like he was trying not to spook him. The angel narrowed his eyes in frustration as warm lips pressed just below his collarbone. The sensation began as a testing contact, but then the man's mouth widened and a hot tongue ran up along the length of Krad's neck. The angel tensed, his pulse racing in the artery under Ryuusuke's lips. He twisted his head downward and bit onto one of the silver loops that pierced through the man's ear. With a fierce jerk, he ripped his head to the side and tore the metal through the man's skin.
Ryuusuke gasped in pain and pulled back out of reach of the angel. He put a hand over his ear and stared at Krad with the strangest expression the angel had ever seen. Rather than anger, the man's face revealed something closer to respect or even excitement.
The angel had to swallow back his nausea. The deranged twit was actually getting off on what Krad had just done. Krad spit the earring out on the table and glared at him in disbelief.
"Don't fight me," Ryuusuke whispered. "I can make this easier for you, but you have to relax."
"You're out of your mind, you sick pervert," Krad snapped, breathless with anger.
Ryuusuke paused and looked down at his horrified partner. Everything about the angel told him that this wasn't going to become pleasurable for the winged man. He wasn't even human; maybe he really couldn't deal with these things. "Midnight, he's in no condition--"
"Try his wings," Midnight ordered, crossing her arms. She was enjoying the show quite a bit and had no intention of letting it end here. "You're a very skillful man, Ryuusuke. Don't get shy on me now."
Krad's eyes narrowed hatefully at the man. "Don't you dare," he threatened, his livid face pale as a ghost.
Ryuusuke looked at the other man warily. "Think of someone else, if you have to," he whispered and reached out a hand to weave his fingers through the incredibly soft feathers at the base of his wing. He was surprised to hear the angel's breath hitch. When he looked back at Krad's face, though, all he saw was a startled glare. He tried again, running his fingers through the underside of Krad's wing in a slow, luxurious movement.
"Stop," Krad snarled, panic plain now in his voice. He was breathing too fast. He'd never felt any of this before, and he was beyond spooked. His whole body was telling him now exactly what Ryuusuke had said before: that if he just relaxed, it might be easier. Maybe it would even feel good. But far from relaxing, the angel was close to hyperventilating. He couldn't stand being held down by these people. His pride just couldn't endure it. He hated them for trapping him, for daring to touch him. And he hated himself at the moment too, because he knew he was blushing.
"Well imagine that, you've got a soft spot after all," Midnight teased. "Ryuusuke, use more pressure. You're just teasing him," she ordered as she watched Krad's reactions in fascination. The angel was proving to be far more complicated physically than she could have imagined, but she was convinced she would have him, if she could just push him a little further.
"Get off me!" Krad hissed venomously, but Ryuusuke seemed more concerned with Midnight's orders than his. Not a phenomenal surprise. After all, there weren't three grown men holding her down. The silver-haired man rubbed his fingers in a firm, solid caress along his wing. Krad sucked in a ragged gasp and struggled against the hands that were holding him down. "Stop," he breathed.
Ryuusuke didn't stop. The angel bit back a startled cry as the man's fingers pressed further in between his feathers, causing something deep in him to throb. Far from calming him, the new feeling only seemed to heighten Krad's adrenaline, throwing him into panic. Despite himself, he felt his nerves beginning to go taut, to stretch out and reach for more.
And that was the final straw, the final surge of panic and indignation that finally pushed the angel over the line. He would not feel these things under this man's touch. He wouldn't feel them with anyone.
The angel's eyes burst to life, swimming with molten gold. He'd had more than his taste of this game, and his mind and body were both out of tolerance. Something monstrous and unrelenting swelled up within him, bringing with it an overflowing power that activated every nerve he had. Then, like a sheet of ice trod too heavily, he simply snapped. The angel glowered at Ryuusuke and braced himself as magic rushed in from every reserve he had, ready or not, like an ultimate defensive mechanism. His eyes brimmed with a fierce, confident power, and he looked up at his captors sadistically.
Midnight seemed to register what was happening, too late. There was no time to interrupt. This was more than a spell; it was a reflex, sharp and swift, and nothing could stop him fast enough. Not this time.
The air in the room thickened and hovered for a split second before a rib-cracking wall of power exploded from Krad in all directions. Ryuusuke took a direct hit that sent him hurling across the room. Midnight was thrown sharply against the wall, her head thudding hard into the cement, while the rest of the men flew unceremoniously backward onto the floor.
Krad stared at the ceiling, breathing heavily. The spell left his whole body tingling, and he wasn't sure what that meant yet. He threw himself up into a crouch on the tabletop to survey his groaning victims, who were reeling on the ground. He was running on adrenaline now, and it seemed to him that their groaning wasn't good enough. He wanted them all dead. He didn't care how much power it took. He set his eyes on Midnight and pulled a feather out to anchor his next spell.
The magic came to him obediently, almost too easily. He knew something wasn't right, but his confusion seemed lost in the storm of his anger. He shot a beam of white flame into Midnight just as she was beginning to crawl back up from his first strike. Her body slammed back into the wall as if she'd been slugged with a log. The sound of her pained yelp brought a satisfied smirk to Krad's lips, but he knew it wasn't enough to kill her. He wanted to blast her again and again, until she lay sputtering up her own blood on the floor. The angel leapt off the table to stand unhindered in front of his would-be captor. He slammed his heel down onto her chest, pinning her to the floor, and drew his good arm back to cast another attack.
None came. Krad stood there, poised to strike, but his eyes had suddenly lost their focus. His insides gave a sickening lurch as his body finally realized the full cost of the powerful spells he'd just cast. Trying his best not to appear weakened, Krad staggered backward until he slammed into the table. He sank back onto his elbows against its heavy surface. His legs lost their strength, and then his arms followed suit. He sucked in an unsteady breath and dropped down to the floor. It felt like his insides were trying to rip themselves apart.
He was so close….so close to revenge and freedom, but he couldn't move. He couldn't even make himself breathe. He could only collapse onto his side and ride the spasms of recoil as his empty body realized it had no strength left to replace what it had just used. He tried hard to focus on the recovering bodies that were getting to their feet around him, while his heart thundered in his ears. They were shouting - at him, at each other. Bits and pieces of their conversation bled into his ears as they approached him, yet he felt oddly indifferent about whatever they were yelling, like it was something that should matter to someone else, not to him. He didn't care about any of it.
The only thing his shellshocked mind could seem to think of at that moment was Satoshi. Satoshi lying paralyzed exactly like this, wondering when this feeling was supposed to stop. Wondering if it would kill him.
--o0o0O0o0o--
The young police commander tried not to attract attention as he got out of the car and stepped onto the broken curb. The shops on this street sported expensive merchandise and neon signs, but their flare and glare couldn't change the sorry condition of the neighborhood that housed them. In the middle of the day, the street seemed almost normal, cluttered with cars and pedestrians, but at night, this was the place to be for everyone who had no place good to go.
Satoshi took a deep breath and walked into the cosmetics shop that was next to his car. The inside of the store was brightly lit and colorful, filled with aisles and aisles of mirrors and creams and powders. Not his kind of place, and he knew it wasn't Krad's kind either. Still, as he approached the man at the register, the first question out of his mouth was "I'm looking for a tall man with long blonde hair and gold eyes. Have you seen him here?"
The shopkeeper, who appeared to be in his mid forties and had a carefully trimmed goatee, eyed the young man suspiciously. "Who's asking?" he demanded.
"I'm the Deputy Chief of Police," Satoshi said flatly, pulling out his badge and flipping it open for the man to see. "We're investigating this man. Any information you could provide would be useful."
"Let me guess," the teller asked, leaning across the counter. "He's got a huge pair of white wings and shoots laser beams out his hands."
Satoshi narrowed his eyes at him. "Yes," he said warily.
"Haven't seen him."
The blue-haired boy frowned. "Is that some kind of joke? You just described him perfectly."
"Sure I did. I watch YouTube, just like everyone else," the man snorted.
"YouTube?" Satoshi asked, growing pale.
"I know you cops don't think much of this part of town, but that doesn't mean every weirdo who goes viral on the web necessarily has to be here," he snorted.
Satoshi forced himself not to look mortified. Viral? "Sorry…that was a joke," he managed to say. "I'm really here to ask you about a large purchase that was made here last night. Several hundred dollars' worth. Do you remember the customer?"
"Sure I remember," the man sad sourly, "but I've got my customers' privacy to consider." His look spelled out distrust in capital letters.
"The purchase was made with a stolen credit card," Satoshi pressed.
This seemed to hit a sore spot with the shopkeeper, who grew suddenly vocal. "Now that's a lie if I ever heard one. She's a good girl, that one, a hard worker. Said she got a client who was a big spender and offered her the card as a blank check. I told her she should only have accepted cash, but she insisted he was good for it. If the pervert reported it missing, it was a damned lie. Damn rich folks are always coming through these parts and then giving these poor girls the runaround. They've got it hard enough as it is without getting conned by those bastards."
Satoshi let this sink in. "You're saying this customer is a prostitute?" he asked numbly. Krad couldn't…he wouldn't possibly have actually… "Please, I need to know where to find her."
"Couldn't tell you if I wanted to," the man said coldly.
"Why not?" Satoshi demanded.
"Cause I don't like you, kid. Besides, Midnight took her off the radar for a few weeks for her own protection. Seems a client of hers caused some trouble, and she's not the most popular chick on the block at the moment."
"She works for Midnight, then?" Satoshi followed up. He'd been through enough files at the station to know exactly who Midnight was. He was fortunate that the man didn't seem especially good at keeping information under his hat.
"Midnight won't talk with you," he warned coldly, though Satoshi hadn't even suggested the idea yet. "She protects her own. Besides, word is she's got a new toy to play with."
"A new toy?"
The man snickered at him as if he knew some devious secret. "Midnight protects her own, and that's all you're hearing from me," he smirked, "Poor bastard'll learn his lesson."
Satoshi was about to demand to know what that was supposed to mean, but a strange spasm in his left hand made him wince. He drew the hand in against him and glanced down at it, unable to see any reason why it should suddenly have this dull, phantom ache. Maybe he'd slept on it wrong?
"Having trouble there, Commander?" the clerk asked him impatiently. His tone warned the younger man that it was time to get off the guy's property before he 'accidentally' pulled a knife or something.
"You've been very helpful," Satoshi said, jamming the hand into his pocket and giving the man a cursory nod before booking it out of the store. It wasn't until he was back in his car with the doors locked that he pulled his offending hand out again and stared at it. He inspected it back and front, and couldn't see any sign of a bruise or scrape. The sensation almost felt like it was on his skin, but obviously that wasn't the case. He ignored it and started the car as he thought about what the man had said. His mind pulled up every detail he could remember from Midnight's file. What did he mean, "poor bastard'll learn his lesson"? Something about the way he'd said "new toy" raised Satoshi's hairs for some reason. There were rumors, although none were confirmed, that Midnight had a taste for the sadistic with her partners. That she enjoyed 'taming' people.
The completely unlikely prospect that Krad was the troublemaking client Midnight was now supposedly 'playing' with inevitably found its way into Satoshi's head. He couldn't even picture Krad in such a situation. There was no way a human could get away with that kind of game against the angel, anyway. He'd probably just fight tooth and nail until one of them got killed. Not to mention the fact that he was too strong to get trapped like that. Although he had seemed to be in pretty bad shape when Satoshi encountered him at the school. He recalled how easily the angel had staggered off balance against his unpracticed punch. If Krad had come to this part of town in that condition…
The idea sent a pang of anxiety through him, and instantly, the ache in his hand grew stronger. Satoshi gritted his teeth and turned the AC on full, letting the cold breeze rush through his hair. What was he getting so worked up about? This was the part where he'd promised Riku he'd leave it alone and come home. Midnight was high up on the police force's "do not mess with" list, and calling in police reinforcements would mean explaining what he was investigating. A casual knock on the door would be a hazardous venture, even without throwing the possibility of encountering Krad into the mix.
After a few minutes of restless pondering, the strange pain in his hand melted away. In fact, it almost felt numb. He really must have slept on it wrong. And he had to get back to Riku. Not to mention the fact that he apparently had to deal with Krad being leaked onto YouTube. Satoshi put the car into gear and pulled out of his parking space, heading back the way he'd come, toward home. His nerves seemed to stand on end as he drove slowly. Krad couldn't possibly be with Midnight. He had to stop thinking about it. But with each block he put between himself and the red light district, a nagging feeling in his chest grew worse.
He was pulling away from a stoplight when an all-too-familiar spasm of empty shock rode through his whole body. Satoshi slammed on his brakes, gripping his chest in stunned confusion. The angry honking of the driver who'd almost crashed into him from behind went unnoticed as the young man sat there, stock still, in the middle of the road.
He took a deep breath and tried to understand how this could be happening. This was the most specific and cruel sensation he'd ever known in his life. There was no mistaking exactly what it was, except for the fact that it wasn't possible anymore. This body was only his, now. He possessed no magic of his own.
"How?" he breathed tensely, even though he knew there was no one else in his head. It took him a few horrified moments to realize that as horrifyingly familiar as the feeling was, his physical body wasn't reacting to it. He wasn't truly experiencing the exhaustion or the miserable paralysis, yet he was somehow conscious of it in his mind, enough to make him cringe. It was as if he were watching himself experience it, not literally feeling it. Like the suffering belonged to someone else. If this wasn't his nightmare, whose was it?
An idea so impossible that he could barely consider it began drafting itself in his mind. Krad…Krad was in trouble. And somehow, their link was reactivating. He was in serious trouble.
It couldn't possibly be true, yet he had to admit it would explain what was happening. What if Dark hadn't been the only one to retain a connection with his wing host? After all, why should it only be him? Satoshi stared intensely at the straight road ahead of him. The impatient cars behind him were beginning to pull around and drive on, casting him baffled stares as they went. He had the option of joining them, pretending that nothing had happened. He could protect the so-called normal life he had spent the last two years painstakingly whittling into existence. Slowly, he took his foot off the break and touched the gas, sliding forward into the stream of traffic. The feeling grew worse, gnawing at his nerves. What was that jerk doing? He was going to get himself killed. 'And why stop him?' a voice inside of him asked.
He'd gone about a hundred feet when his blue eyes clouded with frustration. "Damn it," he muttered. He checked for traffic and threw an illegal U turn in the middle of the road, gunning it for the area he'd just left. He just barely ran every red on the way back into the red lights district, where he turned down a side street and drove until he came to a well-kept mansion. The green painted building was neatly incorporated into the run-down squalor of the buildings on either side of it. It was two stories tall and sported a small U-shaped drive with a Lexus parked in it – a very classy flat for the city, let alone this part of the city.
Satoshi parked at the end of the block and went out to his trunk to scrounge up whatever gear he had to work with. He hoped to avoid a conflict, but going in unarmed was out of the question. This was such a bad idea. Five minutes later, he was as ready as he would ever be and walking up the driveway. If Midnight's goons wanted to shoot him right there, he knew perfectly well that they could. Very little attention was paid to a murder or two in this part of town; the standard policy was to look the other way and carry on.
The front door had an old fashioned cast-iron knocker embossed with an image of two nude female angels joining hands. Great, she was into angels. Prying away this woman's 'new toy' was looking more and more like a very, very stupid idea, if in fact Krad was even here.
And if he was, why take custody of him at all? In the unlikely case that some human had managed to chain down and restrain his former counterpart, couldn't Satoshi just leave it to her to keep the angel under control? The paralyzing energy drain he could still feel in the back of his mind was a grim reminder of what taming Krad had been like. Maybe this was the best thing that could have happened. If so, why did it feel like there was a block of iron in his stomach? Still wondering what the hell he was thinking, the blue-haired man set his jaw and gave the knocker three sharp, firm slams.
--oOoOo--
To be continued! (Krad fans may now beat me with blunt objects)
Shout outs!
(To everyone: Reading your reviews makes me so happy! It is what helps me go on writing each chapter, and I am so flattered and lucky to be surrounded with such supportive and insightful fellow fans to help me keep this story well rounded and do the characters as much justice as possible. Thank you for your feedback!)
Fireflower19: I hope that sates the Krad cravings for now! If not, the next chapter is going to be almost exclusively Krad and Satoshi =P. Thank you for going out of your way to be my personal angel this month. Your kindness and enthusiasm really touched me and made me want to write! Really. –hugs--
Dark Hearted Shinobi: You are wonderful! Thank you for your kind review and for reading!
NasiraWolf: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! If Midnight doesn't get herself killed messing with Krad, you are welcome to her : )
Stormshadow13: Feel free to strangle the Daisuke for me : ) I made him a real turd lately. I want to say something about Gorudo and the Black Wings, but I'm afraid of wrecking surprises, so I'm just going to keep it under my hat for now ; ) (So bad at keeping secrets!!) I will say that Krad will be kicking some butts very soon!
BrokenBeyondRepair: Thank you so much for reviewing! Now that the holidays are over, hopefully things will slow down at work and I'll be able to write more often : )
TheEvilMuffinToaster: Your review made me giggle like a crazy lady. But you're right, of course, Krad would never submit! He may, however, encounter the all powerful veterinarian in a future chapter. Only time will tell the outcome of that epic battle. Thank you so much for reading and for your feedback!
Animeannie: Well, you asked what tortures I had planned…. He didn't technically chew his wrists, though, right? I have been really hard on Krad (and Dark, for that matter) the last few chapters, but the mood is about to turn up! Thank you for reviewing!
Herbblood: Thanks for reviewing!! I think you're right that Daisuke is due for some character development in this story. There will be more of him over the next several chapters, and I think those scenes will change his role in the story toward something more positive.
-fan: Whoah, awesome! I'm so flattered that you are enjoying it. I once watched a few of the initial episodes of -man to see what it was, and I think it must take a while to get started, because it didn't fully capture my interest in those first few episodes. However, given its length, it obviously develops into something more intense afterwards. I probably didn't give it enough time to get started. That happened for me with Saiyuki also, and when I pressed on a few more episodes, I became hooked for 4 season of madness. So I guess I don't know enough about D. Gray-man to write a fic, but I'm really flattered you asked about it, and someday when I have more time, I want to go back and try the show again.