A/N: I know it's been far too long. I've hit a dryspell recently when it comes to writing. But I hope y'all enjoy this none the less. You can actually thank Star Charter for this update because of a mood board challenge they issued on Facebook. I got inspired.
Victoria sat on her back porch, overlooking the lake, and waited. It's what had eaten up most of her night so far, and she was fairly convinced at this point that it would eat up the rest. The lake was still, a sheet of glass reflecting a sliver of moonlight. Crickets chirped intermittently, but mostly, the night was quiet.
Too quiet.
Even the deer hadn't entered the yard and Victoria noticed that. She'd shut off all the lights in the house and she rocked in her chair, eyes straining through the darkness. Lifting an amber bottle to her lips, she continued to wait.
Because she had a feeling. And it wasn't a good one. But she trusted her guts and nothing would change that. She needed to be out here.
Even if it took all fucking night.
"You don't sleep much, do you?" Her question came out hushed as the back door opened. She really needed to get some WD-40 for those hinges. But then again, if they were too quiet, she'd never hear if someone snuck in.
The creaking could stay.
Hiei stepped out onto the back porch and eyed her. She offered him a few simple signs to get her question across, to which he shook his head.
He'd picked up the alternate communication style fairly quickly, in her opinion. It had taken her years to truly master the language, but Hiei had picked up enough to get by in merely two weeks. A testament to his stubborn nature or his quick mind, she wasn't sure. Granted, it still wasn't much. Hiei wasn't an ardent conversationalist, even when he used his hands. But in the two weeks that had passed Victoria had learned to speak his language a little more.
Hiei operated on body language more than anything else. He spoke Japanese, but he communicated far more through his expression, posture and stance. And without the protection of her obsidian, his emotions radiated from him like heat waves off a furnace.
Awake. Why? Hiei eyed her with heavy speculation.
Waiting. Honestly, it was nice to not have to speak.
Hiei tipped his head to the side, scanning his eyes over her and then sat beside her in the second rocking chair. His gaze swept over the yard. She didn't need him to say it, it rang clear enough in his silence.
He didn't know what she was waiting for, but he would wait too since she found it so important. Another thing about Hiei that had come to light in the recent days was his near-anxiety about understanding the world around him. Especially the world Victoria was a part of. When she touched her stones or cards he watched her with the most unnerving, unbroken stare, as if he could memorize her movements he could prevent her from using them against him.
Except she'd never attempted to turn her intentions against Hiei, so she wasn't quite sure where his phobia was coming from.
The door creaked again and both of them turned to eye Kurama as he walked out on silent feet.
Living with a pair of master thieves had given Victoria more than her share of heart attacks. These two just seemed to appear sometimes, their footsteps so quiet she never really heard them. In the house, as many measures as she'd taken to cleanse and protect space in recent weeks, she couldn't even sense their emotions. So, she'd be doing something like cooking and suddenly an arm would appear over her shoulder to reach something and she'd shriek, ready to use anything in her hand as a weapon.
Kurama had learned to warn her when he was behind her. She'd gotten him with a wooden spoon last week and she was almost positive he was still sporting a bruise. Hiei? Hiei got a sick joy out of startling her and tended to do it whenever he could. He'd gotten her earlier that day when she'd been changing clothes from the washer to the dryer. Just came right behind her and ghosted his fingers over her nape and sent her sputtering around trying to hit him.
Hiei, even in this world, was faster than she had any hope of being. His reflexes were on point.
She could learn a thing or two from him, but kept that idea tucked under her tongue.
"Did I miss the note about the house meeting?" Kurama wondered idly, fussing over a few strands of his hair that had knotted. "Why are we congregated on the porch at three in the morning?"
Victoria held one finger up to her lips and turned back to the yard to keep waiting. The sense grew stronger and she wondered if she'd needed both men with her for whatever was going to happen to come to pass. Once again she took a swig of her beer. It was then she noticed Hiei watching her and eying the drink. She offered the bottle to him and he snatched it, sipping it with trepidation. He pulled it away from his mouth to eye the label, then shrugged and continued to drink.
Kurama made a barely noise of surprise that earned him the most withering glare.
Victoria fished two more beers from the cooler, twisted off their tops and passed one to Kurama then kept the last for herself. Clinking her glass to Hiei's without blinking she said, "Prost."
Then she drank without blinking and moved onto doing the same to Kurama. Both men eyed her with great speculation but dismissed her actions as another quirk of this culture they didn't quite grasp yet.
"It's a superstition." She explained quietly to them. "If you break eye contact before drinking you'll have a year of bad sex."
Kurama snorted. "What does Prost mean?"
"Cheers." Victoria shrugged. "It's German."
"Are you also German or is this another example of the hodgepodge culture I should expect from this country?" Kurama had complained a few times about the mish mash of customs he'd been exposed to. It made it hard to know what to expect he'd said.
"I, like many Americans, have an eclectic background. But it is predominantly European. My family tree seems to mostly hail from Germany and the British Isles." She waved a hand to hush him. "We can get into my genealogy later."
The redhead sighed, annoyed. He disliked having his questions put off, Victoria had learned that early on. She really needed to make time to teach him how to use Google.
The three of them sat quietly, Kurama taking up the hanging swing, and they all looked over the yard. Kurama went to ask again why they were out there in the middle of night when Hiei cut him off with a short Japanese phrase. Victoria pointedly ignored them both. Polishing off her beer, she got to her feet and started to walk out onto the lawn, her footsteps as sure as anything.
Hiei got to his feet too, tensing as if preparing to fight. Kurama followed his lead, though far more languidly.
Victoria raised her right arm to study it, the hairs on the appendage rising of their own accord. Then her other arm and nape prickled as well. Her scalp tingled and the scent of ozone preceded the single bolt of lightning that struck a few feet in front of her. It threw her off her feet to the shouts of the men on the porch and she landed on her ass. Ears ringing and nose clogged with the scent of burning hair, she didn't care, not immediately anyway, about the soles blowing out of her sneakers or the ache in her legs. Instead she scrambled to her hands and knees and eyed the spot the lightning had struck, watching as the electricity rose in the form of a ball, trailed over the lawn for a few seconds and then dissipated. Her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness again, the spots in her vision fading to nothing.
A snake, charred and one hundred percent dead, lay in the way of the burn marks marring the grass. Victoria crawled over the animal and cautiously pulled it into her hands, studying what she could see of the markings. Utterly bizarre that the thing seemed mostly intact. She dropped it to the ground and sat stunned for a moment before hands pulled at her shoulders.
Kurama forced her around to face him, long fingers pushing at her now bushy hair. He examined her as thoroughly as he could in the darkness before pulling her to her feet and onto the porch. Hiei turned on the outside light, immediately attracting moths. All at once the night came rushing back to life, as if it had been holding its breath for that very moment to occur and could return to its usual habits now that it had passed.
Cicadas screamed their song, crickets played theirs, a fish jumped in the lake and created ripples that destroyed the glasslike reflections from just moments before.
"Are you alright?" Kurama demanded, fussing over Victoria's hair still. "I thought you'd been hit directly.
"It was a snake." She turned to face the lawn again, confused. "Why did it hit the snake? What does it mean?"
"I haven't the faintest idea but please never do that again." Kurama begged her. "It was a spontaneous event, Victoria. You could have died."
"No. It was a message." She argued with him, shaking her head. "I need to make a call."
Hiei spun around to glare at the front door when it opened, the deadbolt releasing without warning or preamble. A tall brunette walked into the living room carrying two cups of to-go coffee and Victoria rushed from the kitchen to greet her.
"Fuck, Nessie, I can't even tell you-"
"I know." The new woman held out the coffee in her left hand. "Drink up baby, you've got a lot to explain."
Her brown eyes trailed over Hiei and then to Kurama.
"Like, a lot." She turned back to Victoria and waited a beat before the purple haired woman caught on.
"Right, sorry, it's been a long night." Victoria shook herself from her stupor. "Vanessa, meet the boys. Hiei and Kurama."
"No." Vanessa looked Victoria dead in the eye to utter the word then turned on heel and started to march toward the door. Victoria ran to block her. "You've lost your goddamn mind, Vick."
"I haven't." Victoria promised, then glanced behind Vanessa to the two men who had closed ranks with one another to watch. "They're the real deal, Nessie."
"They're cartoon characters." Vanessa turned and looked at the two men. "You know this is a ploy of some kind, right?"
"I put them through the ringer. Flesh and blood, verified by Grams."
That earned Vanessa's attention with a fan of her hair as she turned to gape at Victoria who nodded twice. Brown eyes went back to the men.
"No. It's impossible."
"There was a circle. A complicated one. I think there will be more." Victoria urged her best friend to believe her. "Tonight, I got the feeling I needed to wait for something. Then lightning struck the yard, killing a snake that was feet from me."
"It's warm, snakes are everywhere." Nessie argued.
"The bolt missed me by feet to hit the snake. Something is happening, Nessie. Something I need your help to understand."
"Is that what happened to your hair?" Vanessa scanned her gaze down Victoria with pursed her lips. "Girl, you look like you made out with a light socket."
"You should see my shoes." Victoria relaxed. "Nessie, I need you."
"You know I can't say no when you say that." Vanessa sighed heavily and then frowned, nodding. "Fine, fine. I'm here already. Tell me everything."
"Is that wise?" Kurama voiced finally, watching the exchange with wariness. "I don't know this woman, Victoria."
"She knows you." Victoria walked around Vanessa toward him. "She's been my closest friend my whole life. I trust her."
"I don't." He flickered his gaze to the newcomer.
"I hate to say it, but you're going to need to. If anything ever happens to me, it'll be Nessie who takes over." Victoria turned to the other woman for a second, more serious than she'd ever been in their presence. "She's the sole benefactor of my will."
"As a friend?" Kurama frowned. "Seems ill-advised if I'm being honest."
"We're soul sisters fox boy. Sit down and strap in. Let's get to the bottom of this mystery." Vanessa walked over to Victoria and squeezed the woman's shoulders. "I want to hear facts before theories, hon."
"Yeah, of course." Victoria tipped her coffee back and chugged the all twenty-two ounces of gas station cappuccino in mere seconds. "Let's start with the house."
By the time Victoria finished her explanations, with some input from Kurama, Vanessa looked mostly mollified. Their coffees had been drained and replaced with fresh mugs from the kitchen. Vanessa had taken out a notebook and scribbled as she asked questions, writing down all the information spoken to her.
"It's possible." Vanessa set her pen flat against the page of the moleskin. "I mean, it would be a hard pitch and if it happened it would alter our current knowledge of trans-dimensional theory, but it is possible to punch a hole. Theoretically. Under the right conditions. Which, I should say, aren't a decrepit house."
"Finally you're on board with one of my theories." Victoria grinned. "Took you long enough."
"Captain Planet is not a demon, Vick." Vanessa glared at her friend.
"He's an eternal spirit controlled by Gaia that is summoned by creating a circle of the five elements to perform a task. He is one hundred percent a demon." Victoria shot back and then raised her hands to dissolve the conversation. "Not the point. The point is that these two are the real deal."
"The same deal you think is affecting the world at large." Vanessa gestured to the two men who were sitting next to each other watching the women talk with unnerving intensity. "His eyes are really freaky in real life. Like, sort of pretty, but I feel like he might want to eat me."
"He ate a lizard two weeks ago so I wouldn't take that off the table." Victoria snorted and glanced at Hiei.
"I'm sorry, he did what?" Vanessa blinked then turned away from Hiei's unrelenting gaze.
"It's not important." Victoria smiled then let it falter. "He didn't even chew. It was awful. Again, not the point. Look, I need a favor."
"Sure, you earned one." The brunette slid her hand into her purse and produced a black pack of cigarettes with a lighter tucked into the front layer of thin plastic wrapping.
"That's not what I was going for, but thanks." Victoria accepted the clove cigarettes anyway, pulling one from the pack and taking the lighter with it before passing the closed box back to the other woman. "I need you to babysit."
"Them?" Brown eyes flicked to the two men who had shifted their daunting attention to their purple haired hostess.
"Yeah. I got a job. I'll need to be there in a few hours. I don't feel right leaving them home alone. Could you keep an eye on them?"
There was a lapse in the conversation as Vanessa turned back to the two men. Kurama stared at Victoria who seemed to be studiously ignoring him. Hiei squinted, eyes darting between the two women and he asked the redhead something in a quiet voice. The answer he received earned Victoria a particularly harsh glare.
"Ask Grams." Vanessa suggested, shaking her head.
"Hiei doesn't like Grams. She makes him nervous. I don't like it when he's nervous because I don't know what he's capable of." Victoria pointed out.
"Kurama doesn't like me." The other woman countered. "And quite frankly I'm not keen to find myself on his shit list if he's half as smart or cutthroat as he's been depicted as being."
"Kurama speaks English and can be reasoned with. Don't worry, if he doesn't like you he'll skirt around you and watch your every move while questioning your motives for at least a few weeks before he decides to kill you." Victoria shrugged. "Plus, he doesn't know you. He doesn't trust what he doesn't know."
"Do we get a say in this?" Kurama voiced from his post on the chair, Hiei perched on the over-stuffed arm of the seat. "I'd rather us just go with you than be left with a stranger as though we were unruly children."
"Yeah, why aren't you taking them?" Vanessa asked, tilting her head. "I thought sharing this with them would be a wet-dream come true for you."
"I have to go during the day." Victoria hedged answering. "If I'm not back by midnight call the cops and let them know. I'll leave the address."
"Victoria." Vanessa said her name like a whip cracking and it made the other woman wince as she got to her feet. "What are you facing?"
"I don't know. But I'm taking the black bag." The purple haired woman patted Vanessa's shoulder as she headed for the stairs. "I'm going to shower the static out of my hair and I'll be back down."
"Black bag?" Kurama asked and she paused on the stairs to look at him. Then she smiled, winked and pointed to Vanessa.
"I guess if you want to know, you'll have to ask Nessie."
Kurama sighed, expression flattening and he turned to the brunette. "What does that mean, black bag?"
"It means she can't afford distractions." Vanessa frowned. "My guess? She's facing an actual demon. Maybe a poltergeist. Something strong."
"By herself?" Kurama frowned too, eying the stairs. "If she'd allow us to go with her-"
"This isn't your world. You don't have any power here and Victoria is good at what she does." Vanessa got to her feet and started toward the kitchen where she rinsed her coffee mug before placing it in the dishwasher. Her hands gripped the counter as she stared at the drain. Then she let it go and turned back to the two men. "She's worried about you two."
"We're adjusting." Kurama unfurled slowly, rising to his full height.
"She'll find a way to keep her promise. I just hope it doesn't take too much from her to do so." Vanessa wet her lips and exhaled before shaking her head. "Anyway. We might as well get to know each other since we're going to be spending the day together."
The downside of working during daylight hours was the heat. The thick, wet heat that forced Victoria to sweat despite being in shorts and a tank top. Her boots were heavy, dirty and her jacket was slung over her black duffle bag. The claw marks raking through the wallpaper crept closer. She glared at them, rolled her eyes and finished the circle of salt she'd been crafting around herself. Some things were too powerful for regular, run-of-the-mill Morton's Iodized, so she'd brought the heavy hitters with her. Salt with black pepper, cayenne and sage.
An ungodly screech followed the completion of the circle and the furrows began to appear right on its edge, quick and shallow but growing deeper.
"You can relax." Victoria pulled the clove cigarette and lighter from her jacket pocket and lit up as she sat inside the safety of her circle. "You're not scaring anyone here buddy."
Another howl, and the humidity suddenly worked against her in a different way. Frost formed on the windows and spread over the aged hardwood. The sweat on her nape formed a chilly line down between her shoulder blades before the bead was absorbed into her bra band.
"Spoopy." She muttered and began to parse through her bag, pulling out a small metal bowl, some incense cones, a few jars of herbs and a handmade book with a sewn spine and parchment paper pages. Worn, well-loved and bulging with ink and taped on add-ins. She exhaled a line of clove smoke slowly, lighting the incenses with the same lighter she'd used for her cigarette.
Another screech and a blast of ice-cold air made her lift her gaze from the fluttering pages in her lap and she squinted, looking around.
That was a lot of rage. Her left hand rose to caress the obsidian, amethyst and jasper pendent around her neck. Swallowing, she focused on herself. On her breathing, on her own emotions, on the sound of the blood pounding in her ears. No, not that. Breath in, slow, four seconds. Hold it for three. Release, slower, seven seconds. Perfect.
Her lips lifted and she poured a helping of herbs into her palm, measuring them by sight before adding them to the metal bowl and the incense.
"Alright big boy. Time for you to get the fuck out." She set them ablaze, then smirked. "You're not welcome here. Get back where you came from."
The frost crept closer, the air so cold she shivered.
"You're not welcome here. Get back where you came from." Victoria repeated, her breath coming out in puffs of condensation and smoke. "You're not welcome here! Get back where you came from! YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE! GET BACK WHERE CAME FROM!"
It all stopped. The smoke rising, the furious scratching digging up the floor. The wrathful howling. The room was swallowed up in silence and cold and Victoria lifted her eyes from the pair of shining wingtips up tapered suit pants to the smiling face of a man in a fitted button down, y-back suspenders holding up the pants.
Without a smile, Victoria slowly got to her feet. Her fingers clutched her necklace as though she wanted to shatter it. With a shaky breath so greeted the demon.
"Dorian."