This is a longer chapter almost entirely because it goes into some detail of what it is the "bad guys" are planning. That's important in situations like these, isn't it? Maybe it isn't. I don't know. But I felt the need to explain just what I was driving at with all this stuff.
Gotta have an idea of the finish line.
.
By the time Roland strode back into the warehouse the next morning, Daimon was already seated at the folding table. He'd found writing supplies, and he'd scribbled something out on a spare sheet of paper. Roland sat down opposite his prisoner—he'd have liked to use a nicer word but didn't see much point in pretending—and Daimon slid the paper across the table in his direction.
"So," said Roland, nodding, "you're ready to negotiate. Good."
He turned his gaze downward and read quickly.
Daimon, for his point, was silent. He waited with all the animation of a stone sculpture. For all Roland knew, the man's vocal cords were damaged, and he couldn't talk; Roland hadn't seen what Seto had done to the old man, but it had obviously been bad enough to stop him up short.
There was still gauze wrapped around Daimon's neck.
Roland scowled. "You aren't serious."
Travis, standing behind Roland, leaned over his compatriot's shoulder. "What's he asking for, Chief? Helicopter? Private island? Brass statue?" The amusement left his voice as soon as he saw the paper. "Fucking how muc—"
"Enough." Roland stood. "We're done here." He cast a scathing glance at Daimon's offer and turned on a heel. "I'll come back later. Decide whether or not you intend to be serious. I'm not your circus monkey, old man, and it's about time you realized the position you're in."
He stalked away, and Travis followed.
"What now?" Travis asked, once the door clanged shut behind them.
"I'm going to play the over-emotional patsy," Roland said. "You're going to back me up. When I tell you to get the money, put up resistance exactly once. The only way to get one over on this demon is to let him think he's winning. He already underestimates us. Thinks we're too stupid. We're going to prove him right."
"You got it, Chief."
A soft, grating, iron-on-concrete rasp called out from behind them: "It would seem that you are the ones who aren't willing to be serious."
"Follow my lead."
Travis nodded. Roland grabbed the door, wrenched it open, and stalked back inside. "You want to know how serious I am?" he asked, letting the words scrape past his teeth. "You get one chance to explain this lunacy."
Daimon held out his hands and leaned back in his chair like it was the most comfortable seat in the known universe. "You are asking that I betray a man who is, by your own estimation, all too ready to kill me." His voice was barely there. Like it was haunting his throat. But the one thing at which Daimon had always been an undisputed master, which Roland admitted even at his angriest, was getting someone's attention.
"Mm-hm," Roland grunted.
"My life," Daimon went on, "is the most precious thing I own. If I return to my master as I am, it may be true that my life is forfeit. I will grant you that much. That said, if I am unable to protect myself, then I am surely dead if I don't return. The odds are not in my favor. You said you could protect me. Here is how you can protect me. Was your offer honest? Or are you pretending?"
Roland growled low in his throat.
Closed his eyes.
One. Two. Three.
He opened them and snapped a glance at Travis. "Go," he snapped. "Do it."
"Uh, Chief, are you sure you wanna do this without talking to—"
"Go!" Roland stomped back over to the table, swept the slip of paper into his hand, and pushed it against Travis's chest. "You call me 'Chief'? Prove it. Do what I say."
Travis grimaced. Roland turned just so—such that Daimon had no way of seeing his face—and winked. "You, ah. You got it." Travis gave a curt little nod. "It's gonna take a while."
"You have an hour."
Travis whirled around and vanished.
Roland slammed his palms against the little folding table and leaned in over Daimon's squat little form. "Let's get one thing straight, you old demon. You get nothing until you talk. I extended an olive branch, and you've demanded a fucking tree. It's not cute, it's not funny, and I'm not going to be gracious about it. You're the one who has to prove his worth here. Not me."
His voice cracked.
Daimon's old, wrinkled face curled into a subtle little smirk.
"You think you've got the upper hand here?" Roland demanded. "You think you know how this game is played? You think you have leverage here?"
"Quite clearly, I do," said Daimon. "You are quite intent on having me speak to you, after all. I have information which you need. Information you aren't going to get from anyone else." He gestured. "Or are you telling me that you're letting anger control you over something as trivial as pride?"
"Anger. Control me." Roland grunted. "You know nothing about what controls me."
"This world." Daimon shook his head. "I wonder about it. Truly, I do. You certainly seem quite ready to be done with me. To make me pay for my impudence, perhaps. Yet here you sit. Sending your lapdogs to do my bidding. I wonder: did your master tell you to be gentle with me? To be better than us? He seems the type."
"Now you're proving how little you know."
"Don't I?" Daimon chuckled; it sounded like coughing. "He could have been done with me, if only he'd pushed the plunger. But he didn't. It seems to me that the Master Kaiba of this generation, at least here in this corner of the universe, has lost something. There is . . . an edge missing."
"He's injured," Roland said, defiantly. "Don't flatter yourself."
"I am no fool. Neither are you. The one thing for which I will credit that boy is that he was clearly trained properly. Particularly for a man just moments out of a coma, he was quite impressive. It nearly brought a tear to my eye. You know, something else I wonder: was a man wearing my face responsible for that? I think I should have liked to meet him."
"Flattery isn't going to get you anywhere. Not with me."
"I offer no flattery." Daimon's eyes hardened. "I only speak of my observations. He held back from the killing blow. I imagine he cannot stomach that. He cannot bring himself to make that leap. Squeamishness, perhaps. Or pride. Does he think himself too good for that? I won't pretend to understand that part. Be that as it may, here you sit, instead of him, and you're so clearly itching to put an end to me. Yet you aren't. I think you can't. I think he's made it quite clear what his expectations are, and you are nothing if not a loyal dog. You will not defy your master's word, will you? And you think to convince me to defy mine? Just how persuasive do you think you are?"
Roland took his chair, opposite Daimon. "You talk too much," he said.
Daimon grinned openly this time, revealing two rows of perfect, gleaming, blisteringly white teeth. Against the dusty brown of his weathered lips, they practically glowed. "You," he said, "and your master operate under the confines of the law. You wish to differentiate yourself, perhaps, from I and mine. Am I not correct? You wish to be able to say, in earnest, that you will not sink to my level."
"You haven't the faintest idea how we operate."
"He risked his life to save strangers. Oh, they wore familiar faces, that much is true. I know this situation well enough. I've been briefed. But you know just as well as I do that they aren't his parents. They aren't his blood. Yet still he risked himself for them. And a mighty risk it was. Our people are well-trained. Or have you missed just how long your master was out of commission? He is likely to never operate at full capacity again. I shouldn't be surprised if he loses the use of that arm entirely."
"You'd like that."
"Listen." Daimon's voice softened. He sounded almost kind. "He feels responsible for that family. It's a noble thing. Heroic, even. But that comes with limiters."
Roland grimaced. Elected to remain silent.
Daimon stretched leisurely. "Here is what I think," he said. "I think that your master has had plenty of hardship in his life. Particularly in his youth. I think he would have scores of notes to share with the boy I know. But I think the man responsible for those notes, whether he shared a name with me or not, wasn't quite qualified to forge a weapon. Not like me."
"People aren't weapons."
"Aha," said Daimon, holding up one gnarled finger. "You see? There we have it. You may as well have admitted it outright. Too noble for our methods."
Roland's face twisted with irritation. "You talk too much," he said again.
"I think," Daimon went on, "that not nearly enough of that boy's innate softness was tempered out of him. I mean, look at his brother. Listen to him speak on the subject of his Niisama." He said the word, that sacred title, like it was rotted meat on his tongue. "That loyalty is borne of love. It wasn't melted down and fired into conviction. Speak to the other boy. The failure. Listen to him talk about his brother. You will see the difference. I built a weapon. I raised a soldier. Your master is a pretender, he is no real Kaiba, and he will crack. He will break under the pressure of our assault, and he will be buried."
Roland slammed a fist onto the table. "Do you know how many men have tried to bury him?!" He drew in a breath, let it out, drew in another, let it out. Played every part involved in reining in his temper. "You're not saying anything I haven't heard a thousand times. Nothing new in this song of yours. It all rhymes. It all matches. You may as well play a recording."
"I do, however, seem to be striking a nerve." Daimon touched a finger to the table, traced the dent Roland had just made in its surface. "Perhaps this old song is making a bit more sense than you want to admit."
Roland flinched violently when his phone rang inside his jacket pocket.
He pulled it out, arm jerking back and forth more sharply than normal. He stabbed at the screen as he pulled himself to his feet and reeled off to one corner of the warehouse.
"What!"
"The boss is going to want to know what you're doing with this much cash," came Cole's voice from the other end of the line. "What should we tell him?"
"Tell him whatever you like!" Roland snarled. "Tell him the truth! Lie through your teeth! I don't have time to hold your hand. Just get it done." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "We don't have time to be worrying about details right now."
There was a pause.
Then: "You got it."
Roland jammed his phone back into his pocket and pointedly slowed his breathing. "There was never any man waiting for the boy, was there?" he called back to Daimon. "No escape plan. No getaway driver. If he'd actually done the job, gotten out and went to that shop, he would have been stranded."
"No," said Daimon. "He would have found someone."
Roland turned. "What?"
"Come now. Don't be naïve."
Roland grimaced again. His jaw was tight. He wondered if he'd end up with cracked teeth by the end of this performance. He stalked over to the table again. "What are you driving at?" he asked.
Daimon leaned forward. "Loose ends, Isono-kun," he said. Roland frowned. "Oh, is that not your name? How foolish of me. But this place is confounding sometimes." He shook his head. "Think about it. Won't you?" He held out his hands as though displaying something. "I'm already helping you. You see? I am generous. I am a man of my word. You seem to be working with a certain dearth of knowledge. Particularly when the subject is . . . how a real Kaiba handles this sort of business."
Roland's scowl deepened. "Keep talking," he growled.
Daimon shook his head. "I talk too much, but now I must keep doing it. How mixed your signals are." He chuckled that grating little coughing chuckle again. "You poor man. Truly, finding quality staff must be insufferable in this world. Fine. I will elucidate for you: the boy would have found a man waiting for him, sent by my master, but that man would not have been there to send him home. Mokuba-sama would have been sent somewhere, certainly, but not home."
Roland crossed his arms over his chest, then uncrossed them and set them at his sides. Played at fidgeting. "Don't be coy," he snapped.
"You have been dealing with magic for this long and you haven't worked it out?" Daimon rolled his eyes. "Surely someone has told you about the Reed Fields." At Roland's blank look, he said: "Fine, fine. We'll take another route. Have you been told what my master offered the boy in exchange for his help? Do tell me you bothered to ask."
"He said it was for his brother. That your master offered to help him."
"Yes. Precisely. But his brother is a fucking vegetable. Cursed. Unmade. He sits like a dusty old puppet on a rickety wheelchair someone dug out of an estate sale. He hasn't been a person for months. My master offered to reunite the boy with the man he remembers. Offered the boy a chance to see his brother rise to heights he couldn't imagine. Given the simple fact that dearest Niisama is already a dead man, just how do you think my master intends to do that? Where do you think it likely that these darling brothers would be . . . properly reunited?"
Roland hissed in a breath; he didn't have to pretend anymore. "In Heaven," he said.
"Now you're beginning to understand."
"A man was waiting in that coffee shop to kill him. Whether he failed or succeeded. He was dead."
"It's not as though it's final," Daimon said. "Given all that we're learning about life and the winding turns it can take, surely you understand that. Surely, even you."
"You had this planned from the beginning."
"Not remotely," said Daimon. "No, no, we are not so omnipotent. We simply adapted to the situation as it unfolded." He smirked. "The boy's brother is a body. Useless to anyone and everyone. I ask you, my good man: what would you do if you had a way to make use of such a device? Would you not make the most of your resources? This is simply the most expedient way to go about our business."
Roland's mouth worked soundlessly.
"Who will prevail, I wonder?" Daimon asked. "A soft man made softer, or a hard man made harder."
". . . You sick son of a bitch."
