Disclaimer: Kenshin does not own the Yuu Yuu Hakusho characters (they are the property of Togashi Yoshihiro et al), and does not make any money from said characters.
What Kenshin does own, however, are all the original characters
in this work. Any attempt to "borrow" these original characters will be met with the katana, or worse.
As canon, I use a combination of the subtitled YYH anime and the American manga, plus some of the CD dramas. In my YYH novel-length fic and its sequel, Idiot Beloved takes place shortly after the Dark Tournament; the sequel Firebird Sweet directly follows. Warehouse 13 occurs within the overall time-frame of The Book of Cat With Moon.
Title: Warehouse 13
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action, Character
Rating: K/PG-13
Summary: Flickering through the shadows, always fearful of capture, a young outcast meets two strangers who change his life.
A/N: Rat Boy is an original character who has been demanding his own story for some time now. Here it is, in six parts. I appreciate your reviews and thank you for reading this tale!
Who are the two mysterious strangers on the dock?
Warehouse 13 (Part I: I Cover The Waterfront)
by
Kenshin
Keep moving. If Rat Boy had a philosophy, that summed it up.
He had been called Rat Boy for as long as he could remember. No one would ever call him beautiful.
Maybe that was why he created beauty from scraps of paper and wire in the form of colorful flowers.
On this bright Wednesday in April, he worked the harbor, appreciating its clean salt scent and bracing tang of creosote. Gulls wheeled overhead, rejoicing their freedom.
The strip of paving between shops and the water was lined with movable carts hawking everything from yakitori to bangles, even Rat Boy's flowers.
Rat Boy felt at home here. But nowhere was home.
With the sun warm on his head and a breeze from the water cooling his back, Rat Boy carried his flowers in a gray plastic bin the size of an attache case, fitted with a strap so he could sling it over his shoulder and get away fast.
He studied flowers, made sketches of them, then translated them into paper and wire. Maybe someday he would work in other forms, beads or clay.
Today's load was paper carnations in pink and yellow and white and pale powdery blue. So far it was not a profitable day; he had sold only five flowers and it was nearing noon.
But the harbor still boiled with people, hurrying on their way to dine or shop. A trio of businessmen hurried past. A few women glanced idly at the flowers but did not buy.
Then came a gang of five teenage boys. In dark blue school uniforms, they had big fists with calloused knuckles that did not suggest they were the flower-buying type.
Rat Boy had his wits, and he thought they weren't bad. But when the boys slowed to a crawl in front of Rat boy, eyeing him, laughing, pointing, he stood his ground, tried to match them glare for glare.
It made no impression.
The tallest, with buzz-cut hair, elbowed the fat one next to him and bared his teeth in a grin that promised trouble. "Hey," said a tall blond boy with a cast in one eye, "If it ain't a little flower girl!"
The rest of them laughed. Buzz Cut cracked his knuckles.
Rat Boy was nimble and quick, tough for his size, but his wits said he was no match for them. He took a step back, hating himself for giving way. Any further and he would tumble straight into the harbor.
Then someone spoke. "The five boys in front of me-move along. You're blocking traffic."
It was a female voice, the voice of a siren, sweet and low, but the boys who were about to dump Rat Boy in the harbor obscured his view. He could not see who it was.
"March," said the girl. "Now!" The beautiful siren voice became a whip-crack of command. As one, with chorus-line precision, the high school gang spun and fast-stepped off.
It was all Rat Boy could do to keep still; every nerve crackled with yearning to obey the siren's marching orders.
When the schoolboys had gone, he saw the girl.
She was a knockout. And there was a boy with her.
Rat Boy knew that his nose was too pointed, his chin too weak, and he grew his lank red-brown hair long to conceal backward-pointing ears. His eyes were too small and set too close together. And there was the small matter of his slightly webbed fingers. Plus, he was a runt.
But this boy and girl clearly had won the genetic lottery.
They were in their early 20s. Though not much taller than Rat Boy himself, the boy had wide-set garnet eyes with the look of eagles. Bristling blue-black hair with a startling white starburst was kept in check by a white head band. He wore a gray polo shirt over black jeans. Despite his small stature, he looked as though he would be a tough customer in a fight.
She had spoken perfect Japanese, but the girl looked foreign-born. Elfin, with liquid gray eyes and short hair like tongues of flame, she was a touch smaller than her escort, but still Rat Boy would only come up to her collarbone. A breeze fluttered her expensive-looking green dress.
Starburst glanced at Fire Hair. "What color?" His voice was smooth and lazy and dangerous.
Fire Hair studied the flowers. "Yellow. And white."
"Can't have just two," Starburst replied.
"What about three for luck?" she suggested.
"Fine," Starburst said to Rat Boy, "We'll take the rest."
"Thanks!"
They paid too much for all his flowers. "Dianthus," said Fire Hair, giving the correct flower family name. Clutching them, she elaborated, "These are good. I have a friend who's a plant expert. He would say you even got the leaves right." Her smile was like daybreak.
Starburst turned to go. Fire Hair pattered after him, headed for the west end of the dock and the better restaurants.
0-0-0-0-0
Warehouse 13 (Part II: Break-In)
Luck was with Rat Boy indeed. His flowers all sold, he headed for Warehouse 13, and home. It wasn't far, not even a mile or two from where he had set up.
Warehouse 13 wasn't actually his home, but it was where he stayed. For the past few years, with only his flower kit and a small duffel bag, Rat Boy had slept in parks, alleys, and abandoned buildings. Last week, exhausted and hungry, he'd slipped into the warehouse.
Naruse Shingo, the night watchman, had discovered him. Naru-san was in his 40s, stocky, with a round placid face. He hadn't kicked Rat Boy out.
Rat Boy did not know his mother or father. His earliest memory was of a woman, her face obscured by the peach-colored scarf she wore, peering down at him in his wicker basket, whispering, "Good luck, little one."
She left him on the orphanage doorstep, basket and all.
Saint Francis Xavier's orphanage wasn't a bad place; though small, it had beds and baths and classrooms. The nuns and brothers gave Rat Boy a decent education, allowed him to sell his flowers, first at church bazaars, then on the street.
Yet he had run. And never returned.
He made enough money to buy supplies and usually food, though never quite enough to buy a room to stay in.
As Rat Boy drew closer to the warehouse, he pondered the appearance of Fire Hair and Starburst.
Were they really his good-luck charms? Why had that slip of a girl, only a handful of years older than Rat Boy, been able to disperse a crowd of toughs that towered over her?
Between one warehouse and another was a blacktop lane. Turning, Rat Boy walked down to Number 13.
At the side of the building, a window in the gray metal wall marked the night watchman's office. Another window showed where the warehouse manager worked. Opening the door, Rat Boy entered the cool, dim warehouse.
The main floor was busy now with beeping forklifts. Beyond the manager's office, two enormous metal doors opened onto the docks, and black metal catwalks on three sides allowed access to conduits and extra cargo.
Ships bringing goods offloaded cargo onto beeping forklifts, which in turn brought the crates inside. Trucks moved the cargo out, creating a cycle of trade.
But at night, there was only Rat Boy and Naru-san.
When the warehouse floor cleared a little, Rat Boy hurried to the night watchman's office. It contained not only a phone, but a steel desk, a worn leather sofa against one wall, a gas ring for cooking, a tiny bathroom, and a gray metal locker for cleaning supplies.
Naru-san, in his khaki uniform, glanced up as Rat Boy entered. "Sold out so early?"
"Luck was with me." Rat Boy laid down his gear and started heating water in a metal pot for some packaged ramen noodles.
"In what way?"
"I met a couple of tourists who bought everything."
"What did they look like?"
Rat Boy described them. The girl was likely an American, the boy of Japanese origin. "She was something else, though. Said 'march,' and those big toughs marched."
Rat Boy opened the packet of dried noodles and added them to the boiling water. "Would you like this?"
"No. A boy and girl, you say. Early 20s."
"Do you know them?" Rat Boy waited for the dried noodles to soften so he could add the flavoring packet. "Fire Hair and Starburst?" He added the flavoring, turned off the flame, waited a minute or so before pouring the ramen into a bowl. He lifted the bowl, took a sip of salty broth. Naru-san pressed for more detail, and Rat Boy added a few.
Naru-san rose. "The girl looked foreign. But not the boy."
"Why so interested?"
"No reason." he said.
Rat Boy slurped noodles. Then Naru-san said he was going out. Naruse Shingo strapped his night stick onto his belt, picked up his big metal flashlight. It was still daylight.
Without looking back, Naru-san paused at the office door. "Tell me again about the boy."
Rat Boy repeated his description: the spiked black hair, the starburst, the headband, the air of toughness. "Is he someone you know?"
"Guess not." Off Naru-san went.
Alone, Rat Boy finished his noodles, then took the pot and bowl into the bathroom to wash them in the sink. After laying the utensils on a towel to dry, he sat on the old leather sofa and got out his flower-making supplies: wire, scissors, florist tape, colorful crepe papers.
He worked in silence for a long time. Naru-san didn't return. The warehouse grew silent. Outside, darkness fell. Rat Boy reached for another package of floral tape.
As his hand touched the package, he stopped. The outer door between the two offices was opening. Was Naru-san back?
No. He always entered noisily.
The thuggish schoolboys? Rat Boy whisked from the office, darted across the darkened warehouse floor, ran for the catwalk on the wall adjacent to the offices, scrambled up the ladder, and crouched in cold shadows.
The two offices were built out several feet from the warehouse wall. It would take a few moments for anyone walking in the side door to reach a point where he could be seen.
If by chance it was Naru-san, Rat Boy could safely climb down. But if it was those schoolboys-
Packing crates lined the walls, but he could see the big front entrance doors, and both offices. Fool! he told himself, you left the office door open!
Light painted a yellow fan on the concrete floor.
Rat Boy was sure the intruders could hear the hammering of his heart.
Even if the school truants didn't find him, they might trash the place. Or Naru-san might return. He could surely handle one of them, maybe two, but all of them at once-
In spite of the chill, sweat beaded his upper lip. The intruders had come.
Someone dressed in loose black sweats with a black watch cap, holding a flashlight, which played briefly around the warehouse floor.
A second person followed, dressed also in black, not sweats but a close-fitting frock coat, with a white slash of scarf at his throat.
Both glided toward the open office.
Where the phone was. Rat Boy trapped up on the catwalk. Then the intruders went inside the office. Here was Rat Boy's best chance for escape.
Rat Boy darted toward the ladder, then froze. Too late. The intruders were already back on the warehouse floor. Rat Boy crouched low, gripping the cold metal bars of the catwalk until his webbed hands ached.
Pausing just outside the office, the intruders conferred in soft voices. Rat Boy had difficulty understanding them, and not because their voices were pitched low. In fact, his hearing was excellent. The difficulty arose because the pair of intruders were speaking in a foreign language.
English? Yes. They had taught that at St. Xavier's.
I stayed here a week. Too long. Should have kept moving.
One intruder sat on a low packing crate outside the office door. The other, the one wearing the scarf, stood close by.
The seated intruder took off his watch cap and jammed it into a pocket.
The intruder was a girl.
Fire Hair! The blaze of her locks caught the meager light like a tiny bonfire. What is she doing here?
"I don't sense any youki," she said, in that unforgettable siren's voice.
Youki? What did that mean?
The other intruder also removed his cap. Of course it was Starburst. "Cargo first," he said. "Target later."
Fire Hair got up. "What is it with you and warehouses, Dragon Boy?"
So. That was his name. Dragon Boy merely responded with a scornful hiss. But why had they broken into the warehouse, well-heeled as they were?
Dragon Boy mentioned cargo. And target. What target?
"What do you suggest?" said Fire Hair.
"Start busting open crates," replied Dragon Boy.
Rat Boy licked his lips with a tongue that felt like sand.
Fire Hair started for one of the big crates. Dragon Boy stopped her.
They turned toward the catwalk, looked up.
Rat Boy felt weak, waterish. They'd been in the office. Seen his supplies. They would put two and two together.
('You even do the leaves right," Fire Hair had said.)
Rat Boy's legs ached from crouching. Clinging to the catwalk bars for support, he inched to his feet, legs tingling as circulation returned. He glanced at the warehouse floor.
Empty.
Rat Boy skittered toward the ladder. If luck was still with him he could find Naru-san and warn him that thieves had come to steal cargo.
From the shadows, Dragon Boy spoke. "Ch. It's only him."
"Figured as much." Fire Hair's voice floated to him.
They had ascended to opposite ends of the catwalk so silently that Rat Boy had never heard them.
Fire Hair came forward to take his arm.
0-0-0-0-0
Warehouse 13 (Part III: Warehouse War)
Fire Hair and Dragon Boy neither harmed nor threatened Rat Boy. They simply took hold of him, walked him back down the catwalk, and into Naru-san's office.
Of course their names were not actually Fire Hair and Starburst, or even Dragon Boy. They introduced themselves as Shayla Kidd and Hiei, and Shayla Kidd didn't raise so much as an eyebrow when Rat Boy gave his name.
They were not tourists. They also assured him they were not robbers. But neither would say exactly what business they had with Warehouse 13, or why this business required black outfits. They would not let Rat Boy use the phone.
Hiei leaned against the office wall, arms folded, eyes shut, as though napping. The girl seemed more watchful, even nervous, pacing the office.
The outer door clicked.
"Company," Hiei said.
The night watchman's slow, heavy footfalls announced him. Naruse Shingo stopped at the open doorway without entering, looking from face to face.
His blunt features showed no surprise. "Your friends from before. Invited them for tea?"
There was something slightly off, slightly un-natural about Naru-san tonight, for all that Rat Boy had only known him a week.
Naruse Shingo was some six inches taller and many, many pounds heavier than Hiei. He was armed with a nightstick and a big metal flashlight. Hiei was armed with a scarf.
"Warehouse," said Hiei, jerking his head at the office door. Naru-san, here by right, not stealth, nevertheless obeyed.
Rat Boy started to go after them, but Shayla Kidd-Fire Hair-put a hand on his arm. "The bathroom window. Does it open?" She kept her voice to a whisper, her eyes on the two men walking onto the warehouse floor.
Puzzled, Rat Boy nodded.
"Climb out and run."
"What?"
"Run, Sweetie."
"Why?"
"Run. As far and fast as you can."
Rat Boy trusted this girl, this Fire Hair. For whatever reason. Yet he was also stubborn, and Naru-san had let him stay at the warehouse. "No."
Fire Hair said, "If anything happens, get out that window and keep moving." Then she sprinted onto the warehouse floor.
Keep moving.
Rat Boy knew he was in over his head. He lifted the phone to call the police. He would place the call anonymously, then grab his gear and bolt.
The phone was dead.
He glanced at the bathroom window. Escape. That girl he trusted had said to run. It made sense to run. He could not understand what was happening here, but he knew it was dangerous in some way he had never before encountered.
It was his instinct to keep moving, flee from trouble. But Rat Boy inched onto the warehouse floor, a shadow among shadows.
There was just enough light from the office to see that Shayla Kidd-Fire Hair-had taken a position under the catwalk. She was almost hidden inside two walls of heavy wooden crates that formed a sort of cave around her.
Naru-san stood in the middle of the warehouse floor, facing Hiei, his back to the main doors. The night watchman laughed, an ugly mirthless bark.
Rat Boy stood halfway between Fire Hair's cave and the two men. He did not know what to do.
The night watchman flicked a glance toward Rat Boy, then back at Hiei. Naru-san took a deep, deep breath. He did not let it out, but kept breathing in.
With a smooth, continuous motion, as though he was a balloon being inflated, Naru-san swelled up: horizontally, vertically. Every dimension of Naruse Shingo expanded, his size doubling, tripling, quadrupling.
His arms and legs swelled until his uniform split and fell away, yet he continued barking out that un-natural laugh.
Wicked black claws sprouted on the ends of his fingers and toes; a pair of devilish-looking horns sprouted from his head, and his hair bristled into a shaggy black mane. His form was tall, thick, long of arm, broad of shoulder. His skin deepened, turning copper orange, with a metallic sheen evident even in the dim light.
Rat Boy stood frozen in fear.
Naruse Shingo's placid, blunt-featured face was changing too, morphing into something belonging to a hyena, long-muzzled, black-lipped, predatory, with long yellow fangs.
A deep blood-colored flame rose from him, playing around his enormous form: a fire that stank of sulfur.
The transformation was complete. He was a monster out of nightmares, almost elephant-sized. The monster leapt in a great arc straight over Hiei, landed with a ground-shaking thud close to Rat Boy. He towered over the boy.
"Stupid punk." The thing that had been Naruse Shingo leered down at him, his slanting eyes red, voice laced with acid and gravel. "This is your doing." Raising a knotted fist the size of a soccer ball, he swung at Rat Boy.
The blow never connected.
Hiei simply flickered into being in front of Rat Boy. The creature's massive fist struck Hiei's head with a sickening crunch. Hiei went flying backward, smashed into a crate.
The crate splintered. Its contents burst out: a dozen shiny white rectangles that littered the floor.
Bricks? wondered Rat Boy,even as he scurried toward the fallen Hiei. But Fire Hair darted from her shelter beneath the catwalk, and yanked Rat Boy into the space between the crates seconds before the beast flung itself at Hiei.
"Help him!" Rat Boy pleaded with the girl.
Her gray eyes blazed with a gold flame. "He doesn't need anyone's help."
Springing to his feet, Hiei dodged the monster's onslaught, flung off his long black coat to reveal a black shirt with sawed-off sleeves.
It also revealed that he was armed with more than just a scarf: he wore a sword, sheathed at his back.
A fire also began to blaze about him, but this fire was pale and crackling, smelling not of sulfur but of blue ice so cold it could burn at a touch.
Hiei spoke, his voice as calm and dangerous as when he had paid for the paper carnations. "Your opponent is me."
"Turncoat." The monster who had been Naruse Shingo lifted his black lip in a buzz-saw snarl. "Traitor to your race! I knew who you were ever since that runt described you."
"The price of fame," replied Hiei.
"I don't see any back-up troops, though. Just you, the pipsqueak and a girl."
Hiei didn't shift his gaze from the copper monster. "I don't need backup to handle small fry like you."
The monster bellowed in rage. "Don't you take me lightly!"
Fire Hair pushed Rat Boy behind her. She faced the battle, crates to either side of them, their backs to the warehouse wall, the catwalk above. As a stronghold, it was the best Warehouse 13 had to offer.
Hiei told the copper monster, "I'll give you a sporting chance. Tell me who else is in on this, and I'll send you to jail instead of Hell."
The monster guffawed. "You don't scare me."
"I should."
"Think I'd turn tail on my associates?"
"Why not? They'd do it to you in a heartbeat."
"Not with this kind of payout," the monster retorted.
"Especially with this kind of payout." Hiei sighed, shaking his head. "You make Kuwabara look like Albert Einstein."
"And you make belly-crawling warehouse rats seem big an' tough. After tonight, I'll be able to buy and sell the likes of you ten times over."
"Sing," Hiei replied, "and I'll go easy on you."
"You want a song? How's this?" The monster roared again, shaking the walls. Rat Boy covered his ears.
"Why does the Makai always produce such fourth-rate thugs?" Hiei snorted. "You can't think past the end of your own snout, and you're not even likely to give me an interesting fight. Still, business is business." Hiei held out his arms, hands palms-up. "It's go time. Come at me any way you like. I won't even draw my sword."
Rat Boy knew a fight was coming. His teeth were chattered. He clenched his jaws until they hurt.
Fire Hair said, "How long have you known that watchman?"
"A week."
"And he's never turned into a youkai before now?"
"A WHAT?"
"Youkai. A creature of the underworld. Like that one."
"N-no."
The youkai lowered his massive head and flexed muscles that writhed like snakes under copper skin. His wreath of blood-red fire flared. He launched himself at Hiei.
But Hiei wasn't there. From the catwalk, he rocketed down, landed a mid-air kick to the copper monster's head.
Grunting, the copper monster rolled away, sprang to his feet and charged, but Hiei simply wasn't there again. He materialized ten feet in front of the monster.
"He's fast!" cried Rat Boy.
"You don't know the half of it," said Fire Hair.
"That all you got?" Hiei taunted.
"You're startin' to annoy me."
"That's the point," said Hiei.
Black lips curling back from his hyena's fangs, the monster accelerated until he was nothing but a copper blur, Hiei an evading black blur.
"The fun begins." The girl pressed Rat Boy back against the wall with one hand, flicked back her sweat jacket with the other, revealing a shoulder holster. She drew a small gun.
Rat Boy knew virtually nothing about guns, but this one, with its diminutive size and matte black finish, looked tiny even in the girl's hands, too small to kill anything larger than a starved mouse.
She asked, "Any accomplices that you know?"
"Accomplices?"
"Does this guy work alone?"
"I've never even seen 'this guy' until now."
The battling pair pinged around the warehouse with such speed that Rat Boy lost track of their movements. "Down!" Fire Hair commanded, and the whiplash in her voice dropped him to the floor like a stone. Raising his head, Rat Boy saw the monster change course in mid-stride.
This time, he was not going for Hiei but for Rat Boy and Fire Hair. With a two-handed grip on her gun, Fire Hair raised it, aimed, pulled the trigger. The gun made only a tiny snap of sound and no kick back, but its muzzle flash lit the grinning face of the copper monster.
He recoiled, spun, cricking his claws to launch another slashing strike at Hiei. Hiei wasn't there.
Rat Boy got to his feet. "What is that-youkai-after?"
"What spilled from a broken crate a while back." Fire Hair took a step forward and scanned the room, gun-first.
Leaving Hiei, the monster sprang for them again, claws outstretched, so close that Rat Boy could smell his foul breath.
But before he reached them, the monster snapped back and slammed against the opposite wall.
Hiei had done the slamming. "You keep going for the woman and the kid," he said, in that dangerous calm voice. "Don't."
"I'll go for whatever the hell I want!"
"Fine." Hiei turned his back on the monster. "Knock your idiot self out." He strolled toward Rat Boy and Fire Hair.
His back to the beast, Hiei could not see the copper monster bare his fangs, glare at his opponent, could not see him crouch to spring, claws at the ready.
As Rat Boy opened his mouth to shout a warning, the monster hurtled toward Hiei.
0-0-0-0-0
Warehouse 13 (Part IV: Hidden Truths)
There was a blur of black and copper, the horrible wet sound of tearing flesh. A gasp of pain.
Rat Boy cried out.
Hiei stood upright, unharmed, the monster behind him. The monster was impaled upon a slim, curving silver blade. Hiei still grasped its handle, sword-arm stretched behind him.
Sulfur reeking purple blood spray-painted the warehouse floor. The blood hissed where it lay.
Incredibly, the monster was still alive. "Y-you said you weren't gonna use your sword."
Hiei lifted an eyebrow. "Slipped my mind."
He gave a single sidewise jerk of the sword-bisecting the copper monster at the waist.
Rat Boy half-hoped to see Naru-san to rise from within its steaming body, confused, blinking.
The monster toppled to the floor.
Hiei cleaned his sword on the coppery hide, then smacked the weapon back into its sheath. He strolled toward Fire Hair and Rat Boy.
Fire Hair walked out to meet him. "Way to go. Kill first, interrogate later."
Hiei nodded in the direction of the monster. "He's not dead just yet. Your turn."
The girl hurried to the monster.
She crouched at its side, murmuring, but was there for mere moments. Then, in a single hiss of dark, coppery smoke, the monster evaporated, and the girl came back.
"Did you get anything?"
"Some."
Rat Boy gaped at them both. Who were these two? And what on earth were they, to defeat a monster like that?
Shivering, he surveyed the chaos: splintered crates, shiny white bricks spilt on the warehouse floor. But of the copper-skinned beast, nothing remained.
"Naru-san," he whispered.
"Put the kid in the office," said Hiei.
"What for?" Fire Hair gave Rat Boy a pitying look. "He's already seen everything."
Rat Boy glanced at the smashed crates and their contents. Bricks wrapped in plastic, each about the size of a paperback book. He shot an inquiring glance at Fire Hair.
"Drugs," she said. "Maybe coke. Maybe heroin. That was just a sampler. The real shipment's due tonight."
Hiei raised an eyebrow. "You got all that out of him before he vanished in a puff of smoke?"
"I work fast."
"Big payout for a youkai like that."
"In spades," she agreed. "But he didn't work alone."
"Naturally."
Rat Boy glanced at Fire Hair and Hiei in turn. "Drugs? And more on the way? Aren't you going to do anything about it?"
"We're just the hit squad." Fire Hair ran a hand through that bright hair. "Only part of the team."
Hiei added, "Now we secure the premises and wait for the forensics men." He took something that looked like a girl's compact from one pocket, thumbed a button, spoke into the compact. "They're on the way."
"That monster..." Rat Boy trailed off.
Hiei shrugged. "A Shifter like that can assume human form for a while."
Fire Hair added, "A youkai who can change shape."
"I see." He didn't, but Rat Boy's voice was calm enough. "Then where's the real Naru-san?"
Hiei and Fire Hair exchanged somber looks. Hiei turned, walked into the office. Rat Boy and Fire Hair followed. Inside, Hiei made his way to the storage closet.
The twin steel doors of the closet each had a chrome handle. Hiei laid hold of the handles.
Hiei turned the handles and pulled. The doors creaked open.
Rat Boy expected Naru-san's body to tumble out. But there was only a mop and bucket.
In a way, that was worse.
Rat Boy stared at the locker until Fire Hair said, "I hear them... The rest of our crew is here."
Rat Boy shivered. "Maybe they should dredge the harbor."
0-0-0-0-0
Warehouse 13 (Part V: Blood Tide)
A couple of hours had passed since the battle. Warehouse 13 was populated with about a dozen people Rat Boy didn't know, some of whom had questioned him patiently. He told them all he knew.
The questions finished, he sat on a crate outside the watchman's office near Hiei and Fire Hair.
Floating in the delayed reaction of shock, Rat Boy thought none of it seemed quite real yet. All he wanted now was to stop thinking, but he couldn't.
His time at Warehouse 13 had come to an end. And his life would never be the same.
A tough-looking priest ambled into the warehouse with a bulldog's gait. He nodded at Hiei and Fire Hair.
The priest had salt-and-pepper hair cut short. His piercing eyes were dark, almost black as he studied Rat Boy. He murmured, "Ah, another little pissant to trouble me overburdened heart."
Fire Hair introduced him as Father Brian McCormick. Given the priest's square jaw and a nose flattened not by nature but right hooks, Rat Boy half-guessed the priest had been a Golden Gloves boxer, even before Fire Hair mentioned it.
His presence bulked large, though he was a mere head taller than Hiei, with whom he now spoke in a low voice and stilted Japanese, every now and then flicking a glance at Rat Boy.
Fire Hair extended a hand. "Let's leave them to it and go into the office."
With people in the warehouse taking pictures, dusting for prints, and pointing instruments at the floor, Rat Boy was happy enough to follow her. "You're something like secret agents, aren't you?"
"Something." He was shivering; she threw her own jacket around his shoulders. "How about a drink?"
"Make it a whisky, straight up."
"You'll get tea and like it."
Rat Boy pulled up a chair while she boiled water for tea. Then she handed him a mug and sat behind the desk. Before he knew it, Rat Boy was telling her about St. Francis Xavier's orphanage, leading up to his stay at Warehouse 13.
Then he stopped. The jacket, the tea. Though only a few years his senior, Shayla Kidd was mothering him.
Anger boiled through him like a blood tide. He, who had never known a mother, banged the mug on the desk and shot to his feet. "Stop it!"
She raised an eyebrow. "Stop what?"
"Manipulating me!"
Without moving, she spat, "Sit down!"
Rat Boy collapsed on the floor. Right where he was. Not even seeking the chair.
It was the same whiplash voice she had used on the docks, against the teenage boys. Stunned, he looked about the room.
"That was manipulation," she said, folding her arms. "The part before was common decency."
Tears stung his eyes. He dashed them away.
It wasn't Fire Hair's fault he'd been dumped on a doorstep and never had a real home. Rubbing his tailbone, he got to his feet, and gingerly settled back in the chair. "There's something about your voice, isn't there?"
"Something," she agreed.
"Why is that priest here?"
"We'll get to that. But you have a genuine talent for paper flowers. And we have a thing or two in common, you and I."
He took another sip of tea. "With you?"
"My parents died when I was six. My grandfather sent me to a convent school out in the desert, a state called Arizona."
"I'm sorry," he said automatically.
"Nothing to be sorry for. Why'd you leave the orphanage?"
"I just left. Not exactly sure why except I needed to-" He hadn't left so much as felt driven to seek-what? Surely not his mother.
Someone knocked on the office door. Hiei popped his head in. "We're done here."
Shayla Kidd rose and stretched.
"Just picked up the accomplices," Hiei went on. "Outboard motor heading for the warehouse, bigger ship lying out in the harbor. Two on board the motorboat, one human and one other youkai, both singing like canaries. Yuusuke, Kurama and the idiot were waiting onshore. Nothing those three couldn't handle in their sleep."
"But I don't understand why Naru-san let me stay," Rat Boy said. "All I did was interfere with his plan-"
"He needed a fall guy," said Hiei.
"If things went wrong and he got caught, he'd have pinned the whole thing on you," Fire Hair added.
Rat Boy was drained, exhausted, wanting nothing more than sleep and forgetfulness, but sleep was far away. "Am I free to go now?" Rat Boy inquired.
But to where? Keep moving.
"That one wants a word with you." Hiei jerked his head in the direction of the fierce-looking cleric, who stood with arms folded, waiting. "And he one knows how to deal with halfbreeds."
"Half what?"
"Half youkai," Hiei replied.
Fire Hair said, "I didn't get the chance to ask before, but which parent was the youkai?"
"I'm h-half a-I'm l-like t-that horned-?"
Hiei gave a ghost of a grin, but the girl said, "There are all sorts of youkai, Sweetie, and not all of them are monsters."
He was clutching the front of his shirt. He let go. "Then I won't turn into whatever he did?"
"Of course not," Fire Hair assured him. "When we first came into the warehouse, I meant I didn't sense any other youki; we already knew yours."
"You could tell? Just from that one encounter?"
Fire Hair nodded.
"These." Rat Boy spread his hands, displaying the small webs between each finger. He shook back his hair. "And my ears. I'm not just ugly, or deformed?"
The two gazed at him. "He's small," Hiei began.
"But not a water sprite," Fire Hair replied. "And they can't breed with humans."
Their words spun around his head. He couldn't take in any more surprises. "Please," Rat Boy said. "Please. I'll probably never find out. Maybe I don't even want to. And I've had enough for one night."
"More than enough," Fire Hair agreed.
0-0-0-0-0
Warehouse 13 (Part VI: Daybreak)
It was nearing dawn. Rat Boy had already packed his flower kit. Apart from that, all he owned was one duffel bag filled with a change of clothes.
The priest walked over to them, once again assessing Rat Boy. He said at length, "I could use some help at the Immaculate Heart Rectory. Meal service, cleanup and so forth. You'd have a place to stay and time for your flowers."
Rat Boy bit his lip and looked away. "I don't know..."
Father Brian added, "I can't force you to contact the orphanage, sure an' they're worried sick over you and all. But understand one thing: this is for you alone to decide."
It had never occurred to Rat Boy that the nuns who had raised and educated him would worry about his disappearance. How selfish he had been.
He ought to be grateful to have escaped death as well, to have found another place to lay his head, but for all his 16 years, Rat Boy had considered himself human. And now?
He walked around inside the warehouse for a time, thinking, while the others watched. Thinking did little good. He was exhausted. His world had been turned upside-down; he felt dizzy with it. Yet they waited patiently as he paced. He wore himself out with it and came to no conclusions.
Then remembered he was still wearing Fire Hair's jacket. He returned, slipped it off and handed it to her.
Rat Boy gazed around the warehouse one last time: crates and catwalks, floors and ceilings. He took a deep breath. "I've made up my mind to go with Father Brian."
Fire Hair's clear gray eyes looked into his. "Living there might not be so bad."
A taxi was on its way. Fire Hair-Shayla Kidd would always be Fire Hair to him-led Rat Boy out, then through the aisle between warehouses. Hiei and Father Brian followed.
The dove-gray sky showed it was near morning. All around the harbor stretched, yawned, and stirred. Water licked at pilings. Ropes creaked. Scents of salt and creosote rose.
The girl took Rat Boy's hand and did not recoil at the touch. "You know what would look especially good? If you dip your carnation petals into watercolor for a contrasting edge."
"Taxi's coming," said Hiei.
"You know," said Fire Hair, sketching the idea in the air, "just the very edges, where you make the ruffles."
The cab drew up, stopped in front of them, its motor purring, steam puffing from its tailpipe.
"Women," grumbled Hiei. "They have to explain everything three times over."
The cabbie put Rat Boy's belongings in the trunk. Father Brian clambered into the cab.
Fire Hair went on, "Especially if it was a white flower."
Hiei grunted. "Now there'll be no stopping her."
"With nice crisp edges," she said, flashing Hiei a look.
Rat Boy got in the cab, and as they pulled away, he rolled down the window for a last whiff of salt and creosote.
Why restrict himself to paper flowers? Clay, wood, or tiny seed beads might prove fascinating.
Even if you stayed in one place, keep moving.
-30-
