Blueeyeddevil06, thank you so much for being my beta!
Yamato cursed as he stepped out of his home and came face to face with a man in a short sleeve shirt with yakuza tattoos showing on both arms down to the wrist; they were both blue and green dragons. He wondered if it was all the very long hours at work that made his brain register that the tattoo wasn't that of one of Diamond's blood sacrifices. It made him smile.
Then everything went black.
Mamoru answered his phone; Artemis was calling, and he figured it had to do with Usagi. He was startled when he heard, "I already called Usagi, and she's on her way here. I need you to come to Yamato's home. He's been…He's missing, and there are signs of someone being dragged. They weren't trying to hide this."
Mamoru's brain registered the fact that Usagi was going to beat him to a crime scene, and his gut clenched. He tried to remind himself she was a four-hundred-plus-year-old vampire with mythic abilities. But his heart didn't care. He loved her more than anything, and he worried about her.
When he arrived, Usagi was walking around the crime scene freely, and not one cop was commenting. He looked at Artemis questioningly, and he said, "she's a compelling woman."
Rolling his eyes, Mamoru walked over, then whispered, "I'd be annoyed, but she doesn't even have to compel me to get what she wants."
Usagi, across the lawn, said in a sing-song voice, "I heard you."
Mamoru turned to her, smiling, and said, "I'm okay with that. It's true."
She walked over to Mamoru and Artemis and quietly said, "whoever did this doesn't know the supernatural is involved on Yamato's side. They want something else from him."
She nodded slightly as she saw a detective pick up the fabric she had noticed. The place was teeming with cops and detectives. It didn't surprise her since one of their own was missing. She turned back to Artemis. "Diamond wants you to figure out his guys took them. Otherwise, this was spectacularly bungled. What threat other than the obvious could they be making?"
Mamoru shocked Artemis with his detective skills when he said, "he's a distraction. They want all the cops and detectives here, and they know…what have we left vulnerable by all being located here?"
Artemis grew wide eyes, and Usagi was gone in a flash. Mamoru looked panicked. "Where did she go?" Artemis was already running for his vehicle, and Mamoru dashed to catch up with him and barely got into the car before it was careening down the road.
Mamoru was second-guessing hopping in the car when he saw the look of raw terror and desperation on Artemis' face. He was driving erratically and cursing.
Mamoru's phone rang, and Usagi yelled, "tell him I got her!"
"Artemis!" He yelled. "Usagi has her!" The car whipped to the side of the road, and Artemis put his head down on the steering wheel and wept.
"What is happening?" Mamoru asked.
Just then, a colossal explosion rocked the part of the city not far from where they were. It seemed like it was utterly silent for a second, and then the city was a cacophony of noise. Sirens of every type went off seemingly at once. Fire trucks, police vehicles, and ambulances. On top of that, the shockwave from the blast set off hundreds of car alarms. Mamoru watched in shock as a fireball launched into the sky, and black smoke seemed to blanket everything.
He then turned to Artemis in astonishment, and that's when Artemis said, "the police station. We left the fucking police station improperly manned. Luna was working in the basement; there isn't cell reception down there. She was doing that because she is pregnant."
Mamoru just handed over his phone that he hadn't hung up. Artemis choked out a sob when he heard Luna say, "I've never traveled that fast before."
"I wouldn't have been able to get to you in time."
Luna said, "well, you're not in this alone, are you? I would think that after being a cop for a while, you'd have learned that you can always count on your team."
"I almost lost…"
"Come home. I'm waiting for you there."
He hung up and gave the cell back to Mamoru and noticed his stone face. "What?" He asked.
"Nothing."
"You're not going to hurt my feelings by admitting you're upset that Usagi ran into a building she knew was rigged to explode. Not for a second do I think you didn't want Luna saved. You're upset over her seeming lack of self-preservation." Mamoru just sighed and nodded.
Yamato woke up gagged and tied to a cold metal folding chair in a storage space somewhere. A bright light with a bare light bulb was shining directly in his face. He almost laughed. It was like something out of a detective movie spoof.
He heard shifting and suddenly a TV switched on to the news and he didn't want to laugh anymore. The police station and half of each of the buildings next to it were in rubble. Breaking news was rolling as live footage came in of the smoking creator.
"You're getting on our nerves," he heard out of the darkness. "It's tricky starting a gang war between two rivals when you keep pointing out that we did it."
"Nothing to say in your defense," another voice said out of the darkness, taunting him.
Then he saw a silhouette step between him and the bright light. All he could make out was a dark shape. Well, that and the glint of the gun. He wished he didn't see that.
Bang!
Yamato's ears were ringing, but he didn't notice. His leg was in excruciating pain from the bullet hole now in his leg, and he howled out. He hoped it was a clean shot and didn't nick a major vein. He didn't want to bleed out and be left to rot.
He saw the gun glint in the light again.
Bang! Bang!
He heard two bodies hit the floor. He was just glad neither was him.
"Shit, you're bleeding! Where's a vampire when you need one?!"
He heard a gun placed on the ground and watched a man use his belt like a tourniquet. Once that was done, he watched the man use his cell phone and make a call. "Makoto, I'm sending you my location. I need you here quickly. I found Yamato."
He then screamed in pain as the guy dug through his leg for the bullet. He felt his vocal cords crack as it was dug out. It was after that the gag was removed. Then suddenly, a woman was by his side, telling him to drink her blood. He obeyed, and the pain disappeared instantly.
The man said, "I'm Nephrite. Sorry about that, but she couldn't heal you with that bullet still in you. Well, she could, but then it would be stuck."
In a raspy voice, Yamato said, "you just saved my life. Thank you."
"Usagi wanted you saved. It was a pleasure."
He heard Makoto huff, "you'd have saved him anyway."
"Not in time! I didn't know they had him until she told me."
Yamato sagged in relief.
Artemis stared at the television in his apartment, clutching Luna to him. He heard Usagi sigh and end her phone call. "Yamato is safe. He was shot in the leg, but he's healed now. Nephrite found him." She knew more—that Yamato was almost killed, but she didn't want to add to an already horrendous day.
Mamoru pulled Usagi into his arms. "I'm so relieved." He then focused his eyes on the screen. "How many were killed?"
Artemis replied. "Way too many. I don't even have a speculation for you on the number. I just know it was two less than it would have been." He caressed Luna's belly. She wasn't showing, but Usagi had tapped out the heartbeat for them that she could make out.
"Gosh, this is going to be hell, moving forward," Luna whispered, watching the news. "So many dead. And every funeral I go to, I will know it could have been mine." Luna looked over at Usagi. "How do I ever thank you?
Usagi just shook her head, "nuh, unh. That's not how this works. I had to save you, Luna. Don't you know I love you too? I can't lose you either."
Diamond laid back in his bath full of blood as he watched the news show the wreckage of what had been a police station. He smiled and sipped from a glass of champagne. No one had yet dared to tell him that Yamato had been saved. So at the moment, he felt entirely at ease. The estimates of the terror attack had left him hopeful, and he watched as the confirmed number of dead ticked up and up. He wanted to make a name for himself, and this would definitely do it.
Once he was dried off and feeling incredibly refreshed, he called for his brother. "Sapphire, who do you think I should put in charge of the next phase?"
"Jadeite, Sir," Sapphire replied quickly. "He has the mind for the kind of brute force this will need."
Diamond pondered it and then nodded. "Very well, have him start distributing the drugs in the surrounding territories. They will be wary of going after us now that they see even the police aren't safe."
Sapphire bowed low and instantly went to prepare for a meeting with Jadeite in the morning.
Hours later and the four were still standing in Artemis's apartment. He hadn't let go of Luna for a moment. Mamoru was sitting next to Usagi on the couch, holding her hand, watching her, lost in her distracted mind. He kept quiet and just hoped being there comforted her.
Finally, she said, "I need to hire someone to help me."
"Do you have the money?" Mamoru asked. He was willing to help out by offering to pay them.
She laughed at him, and even though it was at his expense, he didn't care. It was the first smile he'd seen all that horrible day. "I'm wildly wealthy. I have the money. I might hate math, but I can compel honesty out of people and have them invest my money."
She got back on the subject. "I wonder if I missed this coming somehow."
"You couldn't possibly have figured this out. Who could have?"
"We know more of what he is. We were okay with the increased police force on the street because they weren't going after him. They weren't looking in the right direction. I need someone who knows what is really going on and knows how to look into everything. Not to mention someone with solid and trustworthy contacts inside the department."
Luna looked over her shoulder at Usagi, rolling her eyes. "And it would keep me away from the police station."
Usagi chuckled, "thank you for accepting my job offer. The pay increase alone should please you. It's a one hundred percent increase from your previous salary, and you get to work from home."
Luna felt Artemis holding his breath as he waited for her answer. It was his decision to stay quiet that tipped her over the edge to say yes. As he waited for her response, she kissed his cheek. "You are a dear man. I love you." To Usagi, she said, "yes, I will take your offer."
Usagi beamed and leaned on Mamoru's shoulder. "You can take a breath now, Artemis. I think you're turning blue."
He did just that, loudly. "Normally, I'd weigh in and tell you my opinion, Luna, but I couldn't be rational about this job offer. Thank you for taking it."
Luna said, "it helps that she's right. I'm a detective, and I know what to look for. You can help gather data too. They weren't looking in the right direction on this, and that got so many killed."
Mamoru's face pinched in pain as he looked at the TV. "324 confirmed dead so far."
There was a knock on the door, and Usagi looked through the peephole. She left Artemis to keep holding Luna. She saw Yamato on the other side of the door and quickly opened it and pulled him inside. Nephrite and Makoto were still standing in the hall.
Nephrite asked, "can she help you? I need to get to Diamond. He hasn't called us all in yet, but we want to find out what we can and now when all the most talk in the rank and file will be going on. Ami is on her way too."
Once Usagi let Makoto in, too, she turned and saw the ashen faces of the humans and Makoto's frozen visage. In the background, Breaking News was still showing, and the death toll was now at 343.
She noticed everyone in the room was looking at her. It was for a good reason. She'd seen glimpses of hell before in the centuries she lived. Still, she never grew immune to the pain of such wicked acts.
"Mamoru, my love, it's time for a new place to live."