Part Five
“I knew this would happen,” Omi fumed. “You shouldn’t have gone without me!”
“Omi, lie down,” Ame said.
Seimei had been put in the other bed in Omi’s room, after his shoulder had been set. He’d then proceeded to fall fast asleep, with Hokuto holding his hand.
“But I’m supposed to protect them!”
“They did a fine job on their own,” Ame lied smoothly. “Now go back to sleep.”
“But - ”
“Omi-chan,” Hokuto said tiredly, “you’re giving me a headache.”
Omi shut up.
“Oh, geez, I need to call Dad and Father . . . they’re going to flip out . . .” Hokuto buried her head in the sheets next to Seimei.
“And well they should,” Omi muttered, not letting anyone hear except Ame, who gave him a death glare.
Hokuto sighed and gently slid her hand free from Seimei’s. “There’s a phone in here, right?”
“I don’t think it makes long distance calls,” Omi said.
“I’ll use the cell phone.” Hokuto started digging around in Seimei’s backpack. She steeled her nerves and dialed.
Seishirou, as usual, picked up.
“Hi, Father,” Hokuto said miserably, and burst into tears.
Seishirou blinked, then called out, “Subaru-kun, pick up the other phone.”
Ame walked over and put an arm around Hokuto’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Hokuto-chan.” She took the phone from the crying girl’s hands. “Ohayo, Seishirou-san,” she said calmly. “Sorry about Hokuto-chan . . . she’s a little upset.”
“So I gathered.” Seishirou’s voice was calm but tense.
“What’s going on?” Subaru asked anxiously.
Ame outlined the day’s events, leaving both parents speechless.
“But they’re all right?” Subaru finally asked.
“Aa, the doctors said Seimei really just needed to sleep it off and that his arm would be sore for a while. They’re only keeping him overnight. He’ll be out before Omi.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Omi muttered in the background.
“Omi, stop your muttering,” Ame called over.
Seishirou rolled his eyes. “What about Hokuto, is she all right?”
“Hai, she’s just hysterical,” Ame said, shuffling around and finding a box of Kleenex for her friend. “I mean, Seimei did almost get his throat slit.”
Subaru made a strangled noise of dismay.
“Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t say that to you, being his parents and all,” Ame said.
Seishirou sighed. “Subaru-kun, calm down. He’s fine.”
“I think we should go to England and make sure,” Subaru protested.
“Subaru-kun, you’re going to smother them.”
“My son was just nearly killed,” Subaru snapped. “I don’t think wanting to check on him constitutes smothering.”
Seishirou considered this. “Good point. But you’re in the middle of a job. So am I, for that matter.”
“But . . .” Subaru’s voice trailed off.
Ame interrupted. “Look, we’re coming home as soon as Omi is out of the hospital. You don’t need to come here.”
“Are you sure?” Subaru asked.
“Yeah. I mean, what’s left for us to do? Hayashi-san will take care of all the legalities for us. We’ll be home in three or four days.”
“All right,” Subaru said. “Is Seimei awake?”
“No, he fell asleep as soon as we got here.”
“Is Hokuto calm enough to talk to?”
Ame glanced at her red-eyed but now calm friend. “Sure. Hold on.” She handed the phone to Hokuto.
“Hi,” Hokuto said. “Sorry about freaking out . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” Subaru said. “You’re both okay?”
Hokuto rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Do you want us to come get you?” Subaru asked, ignoring the impossibility of it.
“No, we’re okay, really, and we’ll be home soon.”
“Well, all right,” Subaru said doubtfully. “Give me the room number so we can call back in the morning.”
“Oh, I’m just using the cell phone, but we’re in room 312.”
“All right. We’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“We love you.”
“Love you too. Father, why don’t you ever say that?”
“Yeah, Seishirou, why don’t you?” Subaru asked.
“Because if they’re my children, they’re smart enough to know that I love them, without hearing it from me every time they call home.”
“Seishirou-san?”
“Nani?”
“Shut up.”
Hokuto smiled. Hearing her parents’ amiable bickering made her feel better in an oddly comforted way. “Okay, well, I’m gonna go,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Jaa, Hokuto-chan,” Subaru said.
“We’ll call tomorrow,” Seishirou reassured her, then both of them hung up.
Hokuto folded the phone and shoved it back into Seimei’s backpack, then slumped back into the chair. “What about dinner?” she asked wearily.
Omi glared. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I wasn’t suggesting I do so,” Hokuto said.
“I’ll go pick something up from the cafeteria downstairs,” Ame suggested.
“Okay,” Omi said, relaxing a little.
“Your regard for me is flattering, Omi-chan,” Ame said, then left the room.
Omi looked anxiously at Seimei. “You’re sure he’s going to be okay?”
“Hai, hai.” Hokuto rested her head in her hands. “He’s just a little banged up. Stop thinking you failed in your duty and all that crap. I know what you’re thinking.”
Omi looked downcast. “I should’ve been there.”
“You were busy sleeping off surgery. Give yourself a break, Omi-chan. You’ve already saved his life once on this trip.”
Omi made a face. “Oh, fine.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Seimei awoke to the fact that his shoulder hurt like hell and he had no idea where he was. He remembered up to Hokuto killing Xiang, but everything after that was one huge blur. He didn’t remember leaving the building at all.
His eyes cracked open. It took a minute for his vision to clear, then he looked around. He was in Omi’s hospital room, in his pajama pants and in the other bed. Omi was sound asleep in his own bed. Hokuto was sitting in the chair next to her brother, also asleep, her cheek resting on the mattress.
Ame was sitting in a chair across the room. Her head was nodding, but she looked more awake than anyone else. “Ame-chan?” Seimei asked, voice hoarse.
Ame looked up, blinking awake. “Eh? Oh, Sei-chan, you’re awake.” She yawned and stretched. “How are you feeling?”
“My shoulder hurts. And I’m thirsty.”
She got him a glass of water from the bathroom and glared at him when he started to reach for it. “Don’t move, baka. Here.” She held the glass to his lips and helped him drink. “Your shoulder was dislocated. They popped it back into place.” She looked at him carefully. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Up until Hokuto . . .” Seimei shivered. “But nothing after that.”
“We cleaned up and got out. You didn’t miss much. Fortunately, we managed not to leave any fingerprints, so we should be okay as far as legalities are concerned.”
“Okay. How’s Omi?”
“He was angry. We got him calmed down though. Oh, and we called your parents. Hokuto broke into hysterics so I had to explain to them. They agreed to not get on the next plane providing that we came home the minute Omi was out of the hospital.”
Seimei smiled a little. “Sounds good to me.”
Hokuto’s eyes flickered open. “Ehhh?” she murmured sleepily.
Seimei managed another smile. “Ohayo, Hokuto-chan.”
“Mmmf . . . five more minutes, Sei-chan . . .” Her eyes slid shut.
Seimei blinked. Usually, he was the one saying that. “Hokuto-chan, if you can always get me up, I can get you up.”
“Oh, fine . . .” Hokuto yawned and looked around, the memory set in. She gaped. “Sei-chan! Are you all right?”
He grinned at the panicked look on her face. “Hai, hai, daijoubu.”
She leaned over him gingerly. “Are you okay to hug?”
“I think so. Just take it easy on the shoulder.”
Hokuto carefully wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his good shoulder. “I was worried about you . . .”
“I know, but I’m all right,” he reassured her.
Hokuto nodded and pulled away, wiping her eyes. “Naa, how ‘bout some breakfast?” she asked cheerfully. “’S too bad that Omi-chan can’t cook for us, but . . . Ame-chan, wanna go pick us up some food?”
Ame looked between the two of them resignedly. “I suppose I could be talked into doing that. Should I get enough for the four of us?”
“Sure!” Hokuto grinned at her friend and fished for her pocketbook. “Uhm, here, have some cash . . .” She pulled out a wad of money and handed it to Ame.
“I’ll be back,” Ame said, and left the room.
Dr. Litton came in a few minutes later. “Oh, Mr. Sumeragi, you’re awake. How’s that shoulder feeling?”
“It’s sore, but okay,” Seimei answered. “And you can call me Seimei.” He let the doctor poke and prod at him for a minute.
“Yeah, that’ll be fine. Just try not to use it much, okay? Don’t lift anything or stuff like that.”
“Okay,” Seimei said.
Litton went over to Omi, who was blinking himself awake. “How are you doing today, Omi?”
“Can I get up now?”
“Not if you don’t answer my question.”
“So if I answer your question, you’ll let me up?”
“That depends on the answer.”
“I’m fine. Can I get up now?”
“No.”
“Why not? I said I was fine.”
“Because you’re only lying so I’ll let you get up, and you know it. Now hold still.”
Hokuto giggled. “He’s got you there, Omi-chan.”
Omi glared at her, obviously not finding this anywhere near as amusing as Hokuto. He waited in silence while the doctor checked on him, firmly biting his lips so as not to make any noise when it hurt.
“You can probably get up tonight, okay?” Litton said, pulling Omi’s blankets back up to his shoulders.
“Tonight?!” Omi glared even more vehemently.
“And not before,” Litton said sternly. “All right? If you try, you may hurt yourself worse. Okay?”
“Oh, fine.” Omi sighed.
“I’ll be back later,” Litton promised, walking out of the room.
“I can’t wait,” Omi muttered under his breath. Fortunately, nobody heard. He looked over at Seimei. “Are you all right?”
“Hai, I’m fine.” Seimei looked away. He felt a lecture coming on.
He was right. “Hokuto-chan, can I have a few minutes to talk to Seimei without your smotheringly cheerful presence?”
“Awww . . .” Hokuto pouted.
“Actually, wait until Ame gets back.” Omi looked around. “Where is Ame?”
“She went to get breakfast. She should be back any second,” Hokuto explained.
Ame arrived only a minute later. She distributed food and they ate in silence. Then Hokuto stood. “Ne, Ame-chan, let’s go for a walk. I’m stiff from sleeping in that chair.”
Ame blinked in confusion, but allowed Hokuto to tug her out of the room.
“You wanted to lecture me?” Seimei asked.
“Yeah.” Omi swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, holding onto a chair.
“Hey, didn’t the doctor tell you not to get up?” Seimei asked, attempting to sound severe.
“Stop me.” Omi wobbled his way over to Seimei’s bed and sank into the chair Hokuto had been occupying. “Now be honest. You’re all right?”
“Really, I am,” Seimei said. “My shoulder hurts, that’s all. And okay, yeah, I’m an idiot. We shouldn’t have gone without you. But I knew you wouldn’t be able to come for a few days, and we couldn’t let anyone else get killed. And besides . . . I was really angry at them. For hurting you.”
Omi sighed and looked at the floor. “Well, okay, I’ll give you that; I’m pissed enough now to go out hunting for them - if they weren’t all dead already - and you only got your shoulder dislocated.” He shrugged. “But you should be more careful.”
“Hey, it was the shoulder or I would’ve gotten my throat slit,” Seimei said defensively. “Which would you prefer?”
Omi sighed. “Okay, okay. I was just worried, that’s all.”
Seimei nodded and smiled at his friend. “Me too.”
Omi leaned down and, extremely carefully so as not to cause either of them further injury, hugged him. Then he pulled away and looked at the floor, looking embarrassed.
“So why did you want Hokuto to leave?” Seimei asked.
“Two reasons,” Omi said, tottering back to his bed. “One, I never could’ve gotten out of bed. She would have stopped me. Two, I didn’t want her to see me being sappy. Are you kidding? She carries around a little notebook to write these things down in. Ways I Can Tell Omi Cares.”
Seimei grinned. “Yeah, with a sub-category of how she might be able to use it to blackmail you.”
Omi smirked. “Yeah, I don’t want anybody knowing I’m not a cold-blooded bastard.”
“Omi-kun, I’ve got news for you. Nobody thinks you’re a cold-blooded bastard. That’s more my father’s style.”
“Quiet, you.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A few hours passed in peace, then Hayashi came in. “Ohayo, Hayashi-san!” Hokuto said cheerfully.
Hayashi looked somewhat less than cheerful. “Ohayo, minna,” he muttered. “We have a slight, uh, problem.”
“What’s wrong?” Seimei asked, straightening up a little.
“Several members of the Chinese ministry were killed last night. In the same fashion as before. They were members of the faction vying for independence.”
The others paled. “That’s not possible,” Hokuto said. “I mean . . . you saw the mess. They were the ones responsible. We tracked them. We’re sure of it.” She looked around for support. Seimei nodded.
“Then there must be more than one,” Hayashi said.
Seimei deflated. “Oh, great.”
“We’ll just have to track it, too,” Hokuto said firmly.
“Shouldn’t you call your parents?” Omi asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Why?” Hokuto asked. “They’ll just freak out and hop on a plane. Why bother them? We’ll wrap up this new problem and be home before they know it.”
Omi looked at her. “I think you should call them.”
“I think we shouldn’t.”
“Hokuto - ”
Seimei cut them off, seeing that the argument was only going to go in circles. “Look. Why would he - or they - or she - oh, whatever! Why would they go after members of the Chinese ministry? This whole thing was Chinese in origin. That’s the last people they’d want to kill. There’s more here than we’re seeing.”
“Someone picked up their technique?” Ame suggested.
“That’s hardly plausible,” Hayashi put in.
Seimei nodded. “You can’t just pick this stuff up.” He looked at Hayashi. “How many people were killed last night?”
“Four.”
“Wow. They’ve never gone after that many before in one night,” Hokuto said.
Seimei frowned. “Four people, members of their own party.” He looked at Hokuto. “They’re tying up their loose ends.”
Hokuto nodded. “Anyone who knew about it.”
“That means we’re next,” Ame pointed out.
“Thanks, Ame-chan,” Hokuto said.
“Just trying to help.”
Seimei dragged them back on topic. “So it shouldn’t be too hard. We set up wards and wait for them to come. Hayashi-san, you’re a target too, you’ll have to wait with us. So now maybe we can see exactly who we’re fighting.”
“Will it wait until tonight, do you think?” Hokuto asked.
“Probably, but no guarantee,” Seimei said.
Hayashi frowned. “I shouldn’t stay here all evening - ”
“Well, sorry,” Seimei said. “But Omi can’t leave the hospital yet. And no offense, but if it came down to staying here to protect him, or going with you, I’d stay here.”
Hayashi sighed. “All right, I’ll stay here.”
“We can send out for dinner,” Hokuto proclaimed. “It can be like a picnic or something!”
Omi closed his eyes. “I have a headache.”
“You always have a headache,” Hokuto complained. “You’re no fun at all.”
Omi let out a long-suffering sigh. “No. No, I’m not. Let’s have dinner.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Omi was the first to drift off to sleep. Seimei set up wards around the room and then also went to bed, mumbling, “Wake me up when the world starts to end . . .” Hokuto put a ‘do not enter’ sign on the door and curled up in the chair next to her brother’s bed. Ame and Hayashi volunteered to stay awake.
“After all,” Ame said, much too cheerfully, “if it’s just a person, I can zap them!”
“Of course,” Hayashi said, as if this explained everything.
Hours of silence passed. Hayashi began to wonder why he was waiting there. Ame fell asleep. It was just past two when Hayashi saw a shadow in the corner. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, assuming that he was just getting tired. The shadow didn’t go away. In fact, it started to get darker. And bigger.
Hayashi leaned over and shook Hokuto. “Uh . . . uh . . .”
Hokuto sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Hmm?” she asked sleepily. Then she saw what Hayashi was staring at. “Uh oh.” She leaned over Seimei. “Sei-chan? Sei-chan, wake up.”
Seimei opened his eyes. “Has the world ended yet?”
“Wait five minutes,” Hokuto said.
Seimei sat up and saw the shadow. “Uhm . . .what is that?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not human and it looks mean.” Hokuto quickly woke Ame and Omi up. There was a moment of panicked conference, then the shadow lunged towards the wards. Energy crackled and it retreated a few feet. It came again more cautiously, extending what looked like clawed hands.
“Oh God. Oh God.” Hokuto seemed to have forgotten the rest of her vocabulary.
“Seimei-kun - ” Omi’s voice cracked. “You do know what to do if that thing gets in past the wards, right?”
Seimei fished out some ofada. “Try to blow it up,” he said wanly.
“Try?!”
“Then, if that doesn’t work, make a running dive for the window,” Seimei suggested.
“We’re five stories up!” Ame protested.
“I don’t think it matters.”
“You can hold them, though, right?” Hayashi asked. “It couldn’t break through them last time.”
“No, but if it gathers energy from its victims . . .” Hokuto looked worried. “Which looks to be the case since their souls aren’t moving on.”
“What the hell is it?” Omi asked.
“My guess would have to be a classic, old-fashioned demon,” Seimei said. He had his hands folded in prayer position; he was concentrating on the wards. “Hokuto-chan, I wouldn’t mind some help with this!”
“Right, right,” Hokuto said, hastily folding her hands and following suit.
There was a long moment of tense silence except for the crackling of the energy and the muttered chants of both twins.
After what seemed to be forever, the shadow began to fade.
“Did you fight it off?” Hayashi asked.
“No, it gave up,” Seimei said, slumping back in exhaustion. “And I’m willing to be that what it’s going to do is go kill a whole bunch of people and come back tomorrow twice as strong.”
Hokuto moaned and sat back in her chair. “We can’t hold it off forever. We’ll have to imprison it.”
“Uh huh.” Seimei looked at her. “And we do this how?”
“Now will you call your parents?” Omi asked irritably.
“I think we’d better,” Seimei said. “They’ll be on the next plane, of course, but at this point I’ve stopped thinking that this is a bad thing.”
Hokuto nodded and handed him the cell phone. “What time is it there?”
“I don’t care,” Seimei said, and dialed.
For once, Subaru picked up the phone.
“Hi Dad,” Seimei said, unbelievably grateful that he wasn’t going to have to explain all this to his far-more-formidable father. “We have a, um, small problem. Is Father listening in?”
“He’s making tea. Why? What sort of problem?”
“Just would rather explain it to you . . . you’ll be less . . . you’re far more comforting than Father.”
“Uh oh. What’s going on?”
“Well. Remember how we said we’d killed the person killing people? That sounded so lame. Anyway. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it kinda wasn’t him. He was kind of controlling a demon, we think, and now that we killed him the demon is kind of on the loose. And, um, kind of after us.”
“A demon.” Subaru appeared to be having trouble wrapping his mind around this concept.
“Excuse me?” Seishirou asked as he walked into the room. He handed the mug of tea to Subaru. “What demon?”
“The one that is apparently after our children,” Subaru told him.
Seishirou blinked. “What?” It wasn’t an ‘I didn’t hear you’ what, it was a ‘I better not have heard that’ what.
“Pick up the other phone, Seishirou,” Subaru said.
Seishirou hastily did so. “What’s going on?”
Seimei explained it all again, hoping neither of his parents freaked out. Seishirou wasn’t prone to freaking out, but Subaru was. Then again, an angry Seishirou would have much more dire consequences.
Seishirou took this explanation fairly calmly, then said, “Well, my plan is that we get off the phone with you and get plane tickets.”
“I don’t have any problem with that whatsoever, but we need some sort of spell now,” Seimei said. “You won’t get here before it tries to eat us again. Even you guys will need at least some notice to get plane tickets. And this thing is going to want to eat us as soon as it can. It hasn’t moved in daylight before and I don’t know if it can, but it might. And it’ll be stronger tomorrow. We need a binding spell in case you don’t get here in time.”
Subaru flinched.
“I would suggest the same one you used for the Tree,” Seishirou told Subaru. “Those spirits have to have been stronger than one demon.”
“We don’t have a tree,” Seimei chipped in.
“Anything would work, really. A stone, a crystal ball. Can you get something?”
“We can find something, yeah,” Seimei said. “We can raid Gaijin occult shops. Hokuto will love it.”
“Find something that isn’t breakable,” Seishirou advised.
“Do you have any paper? I can give you the spell now,” Subaru said. “You’re lucky that I have it; I had to research for days to come up with it the first time.”
“It was impossible to pry him away from his books,” Seishirou said with a smirk. “Then again, he was trying to save my life, so I suppose I should be grateful.”
“You? My Seishirou-san? Grateful? Sure. The day you’re grateful is the day I drop dead.”
“Then I’ll just have to be sure I’m never grateful, Subaru-kun.”
Seimei grinned. He could practically see his dad blush. “Hey, Hokuto-chan! Father and Dad are being cute!”
“Reaaaaallllly?” Hokuto leaned over and called into the phone. “Go, Dad!”
“Why not go Father?” Seishirou asked, sounding insulted.
“Because you hardly need encouragement,” Subaru told him.
“Go find the spell, Subaru-kun.”
Subaru sighed. “You see the way he treats me?” he asked his son.
“You want me to go get it?” Seishirou asked. “I will if it’ll make you feel better.”
Muttering something about patronization, Subaru put the phone down and wandered into his study.
Seishirou took this opportunity to ask, “So are you kids really okay?”
“Yeah, just a bit shaken up,” Seimei said. “I mean . . . this is hardly what I expected of our first job.”
“It’s hardly what we expected either,” Seishirou said, “or else we wouldn’t have let you go.”
Seimei smiled a little. “You can’t protect us forever, you know.”
“We can try.”
“Seishirou-san?” Subaru said, picking up the phone again. “You make an amusing mother hen.”
“Subaru-kun?”
“Nani?”
“Give them the spell.”
“Of course,” Subaru said, grinning smugly. “But I win this round.”
“Just wait,” Seishirou said.
Subaru sighed and read the spell to his son. Seimei noted it down carefully and then read it back. “Is that it?”
“Yeah. Be careful. We’ll be there as soon as we can, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Uh, where are you?”
Seimei laughed a little and gave them the name of the hospital and the room number. “If we’re not there, just ask at the desk.”
“Okay. We’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah.” Seimei said his farewells and hung up. “I have a spell,” he said. “We need a container.”
“We need sleep,” Hokuto moaned.
“Aa,” Seimei agreed, slumping backwards. “Why don’t we go shopping tomorrow and pick up a pendant or something? We can go to hokey magic stores and see if we can find anything useful.”
“Pretty jewelry?” Hokuto brightened.
“Sure.” Seimei closed his eyes. “Tomorrow.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++