

Imaginary: Kyo

By Jillian Kulp

Copyright 2013 Jillian Kulp

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Prologue...

Kyo was tired of running. Beyond exhaustion, his legs felt like jelly even under his small frame. His breaths came in deep, rasping gasps, as if he were smothering and crying out desperately for someone to remove the pillow from his face. His lungs felt like they were on fire, burning him inside-out, his heart pounding as if it were about to explode, not only from running faster than he ever imagined he could for the past twenty minutes, but from the terror that was urging him to continue on, despite feeling like he would lose consciousness at any second. The forest had been a blur to him, a stumbling, futile effort to run in the midst of vines, trees and bushes, with branches scratching at his face the entire way. Even now, as he ran wildly through the populated streets at night, everything seemed a universe away, even if he knew he was trudging through this one, here and now. He failed to take notice of the stares he received from the strangers he passed, some more concerned than stunned – here was surely a mad blond boy racing for seemingly no reason, with that panicked expression his only explanation. They had no idea that it was the truth, what his face told them: that he was running for his life.

The only distraction that tore Kyo from the mantra of Get away, get away, get away that looped through his mind was a familiar line of lights only a few blocks in front of him. And when he spotted the sign in front of the red brick building, an alarm went off in his head:Stop!

Kyo literally skidded to a halt only a few steps past the walkway into the police station, his head whirling to glimpse the saviors inside, and in that blind half-second, he didn't see the large heavy-set cop coming towards him. And the cop didn't see him either. Kyo collided with the man, who was twice his height and probably three times his weight, and sent the man's Styrofoam cup of coffee to the ground – followed by both of them.

"Whoa!" the cop exclaimed, grabbing at him out of shock. "Slow down there, kid, what the—"

Kyo didn't have time for pleasantries as he saw the cop start to smirk at him while helping him to his feet. The only thing he had time to do was blurt out the first thing he could think of. "Help me!" he sobbed, groping at the cop's arms. "Please, you've got to help me, or I'll die tonight, please!"

"Hey, hey," the cop said soothingly, having regained his stance on both feet and putting two reassuring hands on Kyo's shoulders to try to do the same for him. "Slow down, kid, just take a deep breath and—"

"I need help, I need someone to protect me, please, you don't understand—"

"Maybe if you explained it to me, I'd—"

"I can't waste time explaining things, I need help!"

"Kid, take a breath, calm down—"

The cop's flippant attitude only sent Kyo deeper into his hysteria. He jumped up and down, flailing his hands in the air. "I can't calm down, he's coming after me!"

"Who? Who's coming after you?"

"I found him, don't you see? I know what he's thinking, I know what he did, I know what he's gonna do, and he knows I know and he's gonna..." Kyo choked off, panting heavily, absently reaching up to his bruised throat. With a manner of hopelessness, he swung his other arm out to the air, gesticulating wildly in the direction he had just come from. "He's gonna kill me!"
Chapter 1

Kyo sat on the end of a wooden bench inside the police station, holding his head with his free hand and glaring down listlessly at the handcuff on the other, which was also attached to the arm of the bench. He thought it a bit unnecessary to have cuffed him, but then he had been a bit out of control when he'd begun hearing the threats in his mind again and knew the man was close by. He'd really wanted to point exactly in the direction of where he knew he was, or thought he might be, and tell the policeman to just go and get him, but all that had come out had been a series of obscenities and tortured screams as he lunged at the officer, attempting to beat at him with his tiny fists. Of course the officer had tackled him easily to the ground to protect himself, had dragged Kyo into the station easily enough as well. But it hadn't been until nearly an hour after Kyo had collided with him when he finally began to settle down.

And he didn't just settle – he crashed. He'd been slumped on this bench with the handcuffs keeping him there against his will since midnight, and it was now going on one-thirty in the morning. At first he had been wary of being out in the open like this, chained to a bench like an animal, or a criminal, a perfect target, a sitting duck just waiting to be fed on. But then his senses reminded him that he was in a police station; the man would have been crazier than he thought to enter here to do him in. He knew he was safe in here – even with the odd stares he was getting from the other officers who passed him by. He could have sneered at them, could have taken up his usual snarky attitude with the quirked eyebrows and a nasty, "What, never seen a blond Jap before?" But instead he kept his attention on the door out of the corner of his eye, too worried about seeing that familiar face through the glass than to deal with straight-edge cops eying up the strangely dressed, pierced and tattooed blond Japanese boy...with blue eyes.

Soon, the officer who had run into him – or whom he'd run into – came to him and sat beside him, offering Kyo a cup of water.

"I thought of giving you coffee but then thought better of it," the cop smirked as he settled in next to him on the bench.

Kyo wanted to say something nasty back, it was on the tip of his tongue, just behind the multiple piercings on his lips – but when he took the breath to spit it out, he realized he simply didn't feel like saying anything now. He kept his eyes low, suddenly feeling extremely tired and embarrassed. All he did was mutter a quiet, "Thanks," and sipped at the cool liquid. It did feel awfully nice on his burning throat. His energy had died down since his run out of hell, but the sweat was still trickling down his back and in his matted hair. He knew he needed a shower, but he didn't smell that bad. He just felt exhausted, his eyes dry and his skin numb, yet tingling in some areas, like he'd experienced before – his hand, his cheek, his neck, all tingling. All the places he'd touched...

Kyo felt a sudden urge to vomit and leaned over, starting to gag. Startled, the officer lunged for a waste basket across the hallway.

"Whoa there, kid," he exclaimed, and slid the basket over to Kyo's feet just as Kyo lost what had to have been his meager dinner from late that night. The officer sighed and sat back down next to him as Kyo convulsed and retched. He put a comforting hand on the back of Kyo's neck and sighed again.

"You must've seen something pretty scary back there, huh?"

Kyo sniffed and spit into the trash one last time, regaining his composure and wiping his mouth carefully with the back of his free hand. He looked up at the cop with a dull stare, his face pale and his strangely light blue eyes bloodshot and puffy.

"You have no idea."

For a moment, the officer was a bit put off. He stared into Kyo's somber gaze, felt a chill run through him, then cleared his throat, trying to distract himself. He'd never seen a kid this young look so dead already – an Asian kid with some hair dye and color-changing contacts was nothing, really. But this kid looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Judging from the few background details he'd been able to get out of the screaming maniac he'd brought in around midnight, Kyo seemed to have had a pretty normal life. No drugs, no violence, no nothing – except a few quirks like his appearance. Lots of kids, from every walk of life, liked to stand out visually. But right now, he looked as jaded and worn out as a forty-year-old whore with a junk habit. He felt sorry for the boy.

The officer stood, deciding it was best to just get down to business, and grabbed a box of tissues from the nearest desk, tossing it to Kyo. "Here. Clean yourself up. You say you saw the killer?"

Kyo wiped at his nose with his free hand clutching the tissue. He kept his eyes on the ground.

"How do you know it's the same guy we've been hunting?"

Kyo continued to stare, unblinking. "I know him," he whispered.

"You know him? You just told me a few minutes ago you didn't know who he was—"

"I meant..." Kyo closed his eyes. Things were becoming complicated now. His head was beginning to spin. He was going to be sick again. "I don't know him. But I know him."

The officer gave him a funny look. "You sure you ain't on something?"

"I'm not," Kyo whimpered. "I swear to you, I'm not, you can test me, I don't care, just...just don't let him find me..."

"Could you pick him out of a line-up?" the cop asked sarcastically.

Kyo lifted his gaze and stared up at him, that same dull, flat expression that made the cop shudder earlier.

"I could tell you exactly where he is. Right now. This second."

The cop ignored his discomfort and challenged him, "Oh yeah? So why don't you try me?"

"The sewer," Kyo spat at him. "Down by the railroad tracks across from Route 9. He's planning something."

Kyo felt his mind slipping, skidding, down a spiral he couldn't explain. He continued to sit on the bench, but he felt himself plummeting further into this inexplicable trance that came over him, more often in recent times. Rather than fight it, as he usually did, he was too tired and just gave into it.

"He's planning something," he went on in a strange voice. The vision flashed through his mind again, making him gasp. He was staring at the police officer, but seeing through him. "He's searching for something. For an answer." A grin slowly crept over his face, stretching the scratches on his cheeks he'd sustained in the forest. "He's trying to figure out how the hell I know him." The grin turned to a sardonic smirk. "Just as you're trying to do the same. Right now."

The officer watched him carefully for a long, silent moment.

"What's wrong, officer?" Kyo said, breaking the uncomfortable silence with a giggle that could unnerve even the sternest judge. "Afraid I'm right? Or you're just tryin' to figure out why I got blue eyes?"

The officer grunted, then mumbled, "Yeah, well...You'll be talking to the chief in a few minutes. And contact lenses can do miracles these days, so whatever. Clean yourself up."

"I don't wear contacts," Kyo said absently. "And you already told me to clean up."

"Well...keep doing it." Thoroughly unsettled, the cop turned and walked away.

Kyo's smirk stayed only a moment longer, as he was slightly amused, in his delirious state, by how sensitive these other people could be sometimes. It was so easy to scare them.

But soon he was back to staring gloomily down at the handcuff on his wrist. He knew that he was so small that, with some effort, he could slide out of it and run away. But he also knew what waited outside for him was much worse than what these policemen could do to him. He could take the humiliation, the contempt, the fear. He could take anything, except this bloody curse, whatever the hell it was.

He had a choice. But Kyo stayed.

The police chief was a hard-looking man with a rough face, a bulbous nose, and wispy tufts of grey hair on either side of an otherwise bald head. Had he been in a more relaxed state, or perhaps a more animated one, Kyo might have been afraid of the man's ice-cold stare and white-knuckled fists. He seemed cross, but Kyo figured he'd had a long day, as he probably had every day. He seemed to be very busy and didn't feel like dealing with a shaggy-haired Asian kid who must have looked to everyone else like he was trying to be more American with his very non-Asian characteristics – that, and his ridiculous story. He wasn't afraid, but as soon as he was sitting there, uncuffed and with a blanket over him, Kyo suddenly felt stupid.

It was now two in the morning and the police chief was grumbling to himself as he read through some papers in front of him.

"Fluty says you saw something. Got attacked or something." Even the man's voice was gruff and nothing to mess with.

"Yes sir," Kyo answered in a meek whisper.

"Says you attacked him, too. Fluty, I mean."

Kyo lowered his eyes and cleared his throat. "I was...scared, sir."

"Okay. I don't have time to fool around here, so let's just get right down to it." He tossed the papers aside and leaned over the monstrous desk in front of him, glaring down at Kyo as if he were an insignificant ant crawling over his shiny shoe. "What did you see?"

Kyo blinked a few times, averting his gaze, and stuttered, "I-I...I'm not sure...I'm not even so sure that I actually saw something as much as...well..."

"Come on," the chief barked at him. "If you saw something, you saw something, and we could use the information. You're claiming you know the guy who's hacked up five people now, that you saw him doing it, and now you're clamming up? Don't mess with me, kid, I don't have the time. Now if you saw something, make a statement. If you didn't, I'll charge you with assaulting an officer—"

"It wasn't like that," Kyo interrupted, his voice stronger now. "It's not—It's not that simple."

"Is there a body? Did you see it? Can you tell us where it is?"

Kyo held up his hands, shielding his face from the questions as if they were material objects being thrown at him. "I can't...I can't answer your questions, not how you want me to—"

"Then why the hell are you here?"

"He was after me," Kyo finally blurted out. He paused to take a deep breath, and that was when the chief saw how shaken he was. He tried a different approach.

"So," he started, slightly more level, "a man chased you? Attacked you and chased you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"A little before midnight. Tonight."

"Why?"

"I...I touched him."

The chief narrowed his eyes at the hands covering the small face. "You touched him? Did you bump into him and he exploded?"

"No, I...Our hands brushed against each other..."

"And he attacked you?"

"No, I..." Kyo trailed off, letting his hands drop into his lap. "I can't...can't piece it together anymore..."

The chief drew in a long breath, then let it out slowly, as if counting down from a particularly high number to keep from hitting a small child. "So there was no body?"

"I didn't see one...Well...I did, but..."

"You did but you didn't?"

Kyo squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them with the back of his hand. "You wouldn't believe me."

"I wouldn't believe what?"

Kyo hesitated, then finally opened his eyes again and looked directly at the police chief. "I entered his mind. Unintentionally."

The chief stared at him silently.

Kyo laughed, a choking sob, and shook his head. "I told you...You wouldn't believe me. It's absurd even to me, or it would be, except..." Kyo felt a hole opening up inside himself and compensated for it by lifting his feet onto the chair, clutching his knees and lowering his head. Sitting in the fetal position in the chair, he at least felt comfortable. But not right. "It's not the first time...I don't know how, or why, but...it's just...it just happens sometimes...if it's the right time..." Kyo sighed heavily. "I'm sorry I wasted your time."

To his surprise, the chief leaned back in his seat and gazed at him curiously. "So you...entered this man's mind. Just by brushing against him."

Kyo nodded reluctantly. He was sure the next step was a phone call to the loony bin. He wondered if the walls would be as white as they had been a decade ago...

"And this has happened before?"

"Yeah," Kyo whispered, toying with one of the hoops through his lower lip.

The chief nodded. "First of all...how did you meet him?"

At this, Kyo's fingers stopped moving and he lifted his head to gawk at him. "Meet him?"

"How did you come so close to touching him?"

Kyo couldn't answer. He was just stunned the man was actually listening to him –seriously. And not reaching for the phone.

"Mr. Harper."

"Huh?" Kyo sat up straighter.

"How," the chief repeated in an exaggerated clear voice, "did – you – meet – him?"

"Um..." Kyo paused, then held up a finger. "You don't think I'm..."

"I don't think you're what?"

Kyo glanced over his shoulder, out the window to the bustling people in blue and black uniforms just outside the office, then back to the chief. "C-Crazy?"

"Mr. Harper, you say you saw something – or felt something. You say you know this man, though you don't know him. So...Go on."

The police chief rolled his eyes at the tall, looming figure standing at the front desk as he stepped out of his office. That small, discreet smile told him everything, yet he knew he would still have to hear about it as he came over to him.

"Brian. I was just about to call you—"

"I know," the man said, adjusting the lapels of his dark trench coat. "I just got it today," he told the chief distractedly, gesturing proudly to the coat. "Nice, huh?"

The chief sighed. "You look like the next kid to go berserk in a high school."

"Aw, now, that's unfair – trench coats do not mean—"

"Would you get over your fashion statement, Hercules? I've got an issue to deal with."

"Ah, right. So who's the newbie, George?"

The chief opened the half-door to the back and let the tall man through. "Come on back to the office and I'll fill you in on the case."

"Hey," Brian asked, as if just thinking of something, and pointed to the chief in mock shock. "Why haven't you brought us in on this case yet anyway?"

"Shut up, Brian," the chief grunted as he led the way to the back office.

Brian followed obediently, but continued with his fake puzzlement. "And now suddenly, at almost three in the morning, you want to call us up for help? That seems a bit odd to me, George."

"Stuff it, Warlock."

"Why, I was under the impression that you fellas had leads on this guy already, that our help wasn't needed—"

George stopped at the door to his office and faced Brian with a steely glare. "Shut your babbling British mouth now or I'll have you tossed out of here on your ass before you can blink. I'm only doing this out of the goodness of my heart because this poor kid is confused and scared to death. I figured maybe I'd humor him, maybe meeting you would do him some good. Got it?"

Brian gasped, putting a hand to his chest. "Why, George! Not only am I shocked that you have a heart, but..."

"Screw you."

"You doubt my powers as well?" Brian blinked at him curiously.

The chief sighed for the tenth time. "I've about had it with your so-called department."

Brian smiled widely at him. "Well, it's been a pleasure working with you all these years as well, but you know...a paycheck's a paycheck, George."

"Look," George muttered, leaning in closer to him to keep the conversation confidential. "Frieder may have been into all that psychic mumbojumbo bull, but I think I've made it very clear, my stance on the subject. But Frieder was my friend, as strange as he was and as strange as that may seem; we were partners for twenty years before he got the promotion. My letting you get involved with anything around here anymore is just out of respect for him, because I know he trusted you psychos, for some insane reason."

"That insane reason that got you, oh, how many was it again? Fifteen criminals last year?"

"I don't count a measly bike thief among a pack of hardened murderers and robbers, Brian."

"That kid should've been in juvie since he was eight, George. That was, after all, when he started smoking his mother's cigarettes and stealing from her wallet."

"Would you knock that off?"

"What?"

"That `I'm so smart I can read the past' bullshit of yours. I'm not buying it."

"It's true, read his file, he admitted it. Besides, if you're really tired of hearing about the past, I can divulge that, had we not nabbed him when we did, he would have gone on to bigger and better things. Like getting involved with a group that will have wanted to blow up the Pentagon—"

"Listen!" the chief hissed. "You're not on this case, y'hear me? I'm only bringing you in here because this kid's convinced he knows who's been doing these homicides that've been keeping us busy for the past three months."

"Busy?" Brian glanced out over the office at the meandering cops, mingling at the coffee machine and the water cooler. "Yup, sure seems like they've got tons of evidence to go on, doesn't it? How many suspects did you say?" Brian cupped a hand around his ear.

The chief grumbled and reached for the handle.

"What was that, George?" Brian leaned closer. "I can't hear you – what was that again? What?"

George paused, giving him an icy glare, and spat out, "Read my mind, then, you ass."

Brian stood up straight again and beamed at him. "None. I don't need to be psychic to know that."

"This ain't involving that crap Frieder was into, Brian," the chief said coldly. "You're here to use that otherwise useless degree you have. You sailed across an entire ocean to get it, might as well put it to good use, right?"

Brian shrugged nonchalantly. "And what if this kid isn't crazy, but just has something...a little extra?"

"I don't know, I don't care, just clean him up and get him out of here. Take him back to your voodoo house or whatever you want to call it."

"And if he's just nuts?"

"Then take him to a hospital or something! You're the one with the diploma—"

Brian rolled his eyes. "Degree, George. I worked for a decade to get it, it'd be nice for others to acknowledge it by its true title."

"Whatever. I'm no psychologist, I'm just a cop."

"And a pleasant one you are, George."

Just as they were about to enter the office, the chief stopped again and turned to him. "And speaking of your little commune over there, the next time you see that French whore you work with, tell it to stop hitting on my men. It's...you know...embarrassing."

Brian just laughed. "What's wrong, George? You afraid of your boys experimenting with the wrong drugs? Gender confusion can be a very powerful aphrodisiac."

Brian studied the boy with gentle caution. He immediately felt pity when he laid eyes on him. The small frame curled up in the wooden chair seemed so helpless, so confused. When Kyo lifted his head to look up at him, Brian could almost feel his heart breaking.

But his demeanor was hardly what caught Brian's attention. What made him have to pause in the open doorway and gaze at him for nearly a full minute before entering the room was what the police chief hadn't seen – what he couldn't see: the thick, pulsing blue, violet and red lights around the boy, spreading out several feet from his physical form before dissipating at the edges and meshing with the physical world. Surely, Brian knew, once this night was over, its intensity would weaken, but at this moment, the light that surrounded him was an overwhelming field of confusion and uncontrolled power.

No wonder the kid flinched whenever anyone came within a few feet of him.

The boy's eyes were certainly characteristic of Asian ancestry – Brian correctly guessed Japanese – but the oddity to them was that they were a clear blue color. Brian could sense that the boy didn't need glasses, and he wasn't wearing contacts just for show; his eyes truly were that almost unheard of shade of blue for an Asian man. But what concerned Brian even more was not the color, but the tired and chaotic paradox within them. His pale, scratched face made him seem even more vulnerable than his position in the chair, and his sweat-drenched long blond hair hung in limp strings around his sunken, hollow cheeks. In so many ways, from just one look at him, the boy seemed so innocent and awkward, so fragile and endearing. But very frightened.

But Brian could already feel that this was not someone to mess with. Whether the boy knew it or not (most likely not, judging from how chaotic his aura appeared), he was not one to simply walk away from without looking over your shoulder. The only tell that gave this away was the manner in which he watched Brian with even more caution and skepticism than he was receiving from the tall figure standing above him.

"This is Brian Warlock," the police chief coughed to Kyo as he sat behind his desk again. "Don't mind the last name." He smiled wickedly at Brian. "He had it changed when he founded his little department here."

Brian wasn't even paying attention to the mocking tone. He sat down in the chair beside Kyo and put out a hand, attempting to take the trembling one clutching a bent knee. Kyo immediately pulled away, covering his hand with the blanket.

Brian drew back and tried a different approach. "Hi. I'm Brian. Brian Warwick. I'm originally from England, hence the accent. George here says your name is Kyo. Kyo Harper. You were adopted when you were still a baby and grew up here. Hence your American accent. Am I right?"

Kyo's shoulder twitched and he looked away vaguely.

Brian put out his hand again, in offering now, instead of taking. "Do you trust me?" he said in a heavy tone.

Kyo swung his hand back around with a look on his face that clearly screamed, Are you insane? "Of course not," he scoffed, despite the tremor to his voice.

"Why?"

Kyo's distracted gaze focused briefly on the trench coat Brian was wearing, then lost its attention again and wandered around the office. "What're you, a wanna-be teenage terrorist?"

The police chief started to laugh out loud, a hacking laugh that gave away just how many decades he'd been hitting the corner store for cigarettes. Brian shot him a warning look and the chief smothered his smile, coughing and clearing his throat until he was silent.

Brian shrugged his coat off and leaned closer to Kyo. He tried again. "You need to trust me."

Kyo let out a choking sound, something like a chuckle but more forceful. "And why on earth should I trust some guy who just walks in here from who the hell knows where and feeds me that line?"

Brian reached out and gently touched the tips of his fingers to Kyo's cheek – the exact spot which still tingled even now, hours after being mauled by that monster. The incredible difference was when these fingers brushed over his skin, the tingling immediately began to ebb, until it was gone completely. Startled, not only by the action itself, but by the effect of it, Kyo gave a start and sat up straighter.

"Because," Brian said in a quiet voice, "I can help you."

And inside his head, Kyo heard his voice as well:  Because I'm just like you.

Kyo finally turned in his seat, looking straight at the somehow comforting stranger beside him instead of eying him up with a sideways glance. Without an exchange of words, Kyo somehow understood what he meant. He swallowed hard, his throat dry and scratchy from screaming and talking all night. "You can't save me."

"No," Brian confessed with a small smile. "I said I can help you. I can't save anyone. But I can help."

"Can you protect me?"

"I can try. But only from certain things."

"Can you protect me from him?"

"I'll try my best."

"Can you protect me from...you know...it?"

Brian snickered. "No.  It is with you. It's part of you. It is you."

Kyo whimpered and huddled down deeper into the blanket. "I was just hoping I would be schizophrenic."

"Some people," Brian explained, his eyes flickering over to the chief briefly, "think that's all it is. That's what they would believe. But I know it's different. Schizophrenia, if you want to get technical, is a term meaning `split mind.' Which isn't even accurate, really, because schizophrenics' minds aren't split, more like jumbled. Your mind isn't split, Kyo. It might be a bit jumbled at the moment, but not in the same way. Actually, your mind is more united than you know.  Your mind is just more advanced than..." Brian drew in a long breath and cast a quick glance towards the chief again.

"Hey," George snapped angrily.

Brian chuckled and moved on, turning back to Kyo. "You're just different. You have special abilities."

"Hardly call them special," Kyo muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"But they are," Brian insisted. "It'll take time, a lot of energy and practice and learning, but you can learn to control it. With our help."

Kyo just sighed and slumped in his chair, staring out into space.

"He's tired," Brian told the chief without looking over this time. "We'll take him in, give him a place to stay, find him something to do. We'll talk him through it."

"He'll be out of our hair?"

Brian whipped his head around to him. "What this boy knows could be invaluable to you."

"He recognized a killer and got freaked, so what?"

"Even if that was all it was, it would be important. But it's more than that, George." For the first time, Brian was addressing the chief seriously. "He touched him, he felt him, and from what I gather from a preliminary mind search-"

The chief snorted. Brian hardly noticed; he rarely noticed any of the obvious signals of discomfort from non-believers anymore.

"—he knows more than even he knows."

"You're crazy."

Brian quickly reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small notepad, documenting something briefly before returning it.

"What was that?"

"Number three hundred and forty-two."

"What?"

"Times you've called me crazy. Now, what I mean is, this boy...I don't know how or why, but he shares something with the killer."

"What? A mother?" the chief chuckled. "That'd be a hell of a lot easier if you ask me—"

"No. Kyo's Japanese. The killer is American. That's all I could get out of him."

"What? You didn't even ask him anything about the kill—"

"I read it, I heard it, the echoes of the man's voice in his mind. He's American. Probably from the Midwest, from the sound of the accent."

The chief rolled his eyes. "The kid's Japanese and has the same accent as me, that doesn't prove—"

"There was a glimpse of his face, and he was not foreign. Laugh if you like, I don't care – obviously. But I'll bet you anything that Kyo is right. That I'm right. And you won't bet because, even if you're skeptical, you're still afraid to doubt me. Because I've always been right before."

George hesitated for a moment, then let out a breath and leaned forward. "Go on."

"They have a bond. Sometimes these things happen, people with no similarities or connections, they just share something. They could have nothing in common, but something in the universe – fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it – connects them in a way no one else can understand. Not even they can understand it."

"But you claim to be able to read others' minds all the time—"

"Yes, but it's a superficial reading. This kind of connection is much deeper, much more thorough...much scarier, much darker. I—We, all of us who work for you – we are able to see things, visions, tell what someone is thinking. We can see the past as it truly was, we can see the present for what it truly is, and we can tell the future, we can see events before they happen. But it's very rare for a person to connect so directly with another. If I touched you right now-"

The chief slowly leaned back in his seat.

"—I could tell you what you had for breakfast on May 19th, 1984. I can tell what you're thinking right now – although, again, you don't need to be psychic to tell that you think I'm bullshitting everything I'm saying right this second. But I could tell you, word for word, the thoughts going through your mind. And I can tell you that tomorrow evening you're going to pop a tire going home after work."

The chief sighed. "Typical."

"But," Brian went on, "it's all just a vision – extraordinary in and of itself, I'll admit. But I can't tell you what you're feeling. I can, actually. But it doesn't affect me in any way. I can identify it. I can't identify with it."

The chief squinted at him. "You're saying...this kid..."

"He knows this man. He knows what he's thinking, what he's feeling, what he's doing – what he's going to do. Kyo and this killer, they share a connection. Kyo told you, I'm assuming, that this has happened before."

The chief nodded.

"But never like this."

He paused. "He didn't really...mention..."

"He obviously didn't come running here saying that some guy down the street is planning on selling dope to an elementary school kid, did he? Even if he did know that, it wouldn't affect him. It's sad, but it wouldn't get to him like that. He brushed against this man while he was taking a late-night walk in the woods..."

"What was he doing in the woods—"

"That's the answer. The answer he tried to explain to you but couldn't find the words to tell you."

The chief glanced at Kyo, still conscious with his eyes open, but not uttering a word. George began to suspect a set-up, a conspiracy. He wondered how Brian would know all of this – surely they had to have set this up. Screaming kid, hysterical, comes to a police station at night, coincidentally his station, claiming to know a murderer and to have had visions about him. Then Brian comes in and whisks him away, after rubbing in the chief's face all the information this kid might have on the killer. Psychic psychos: one; police chief: zero.

What George wasn't aware of was the electricity between the two figures in front of him. He couldn't see it, couldn't feel it. What he was unable to see was the connection Brian had made with the boy, and the story Kyo was giving to Brian through only semi-conscious thoughts. He was staring so hard at the floor that he couldn't speak; he could only think to Brian what he wanted to say, and Brian spoke for him. It was draining to communicate at all, but sometimes the physical manner was just too exhausting. Especially with someone planted so firmly behind walls of denial as the chief.

George sighed and tossed a pen across the desk in resignation. "Okay. I'll humor you. Tell me."

"He always felt a little disconnected from reality. A little more stuck in a dream world than most kids. But things were different for him. Ever since he was small, as far back as he could remember. His parents thought him autistic for a while, then just depressed. A depressed three-year-old. They thought he couldn't make friends at school because of his appearance – a blond-haired, blue-eyed Asian. They thought he was an albino, but genetic tests disproved that theory. He was just born this way. A freak, some people called him. His adoptive parents, they thought the kids' teasing was what made him talk to himself, the imaginary friends. They didn't realize that he actually saw the people he was talking to. But they weren't people – they were images, past existences, spirits, ghosts, if you will. And they comforted him.

"It's unusual for these things to happen so young, unless someone is born with these powers, these abilities. For some they come later in life, for most not at all. A few, however, are born with it. From birth, they can do things no other child can do. Kyo was a quiet baby, hardly ever fussed, because there were so many things he already knew, and there was always someone around, even when his parents weren't. So these things were already there. It wasn't until he was older that he began having the visions, the dreams. Some were nightmares.

"When he was eight years old, Kyo had eight dreams in the span of a few months about people being murdered. Young blond boys. Boys his age who looked a lot like him. His parents took him to a shrink, since he didn't know what else to do except run to his parents when he got scared. He was diagnosed as having schizophrenia, considering he admitted that he saw people and heard voices...And then, before they could start him on any medicines or therapy, the dreams stopped. He still had his moments over the following eight years, but for the most part, everything was normal.

"But then he had a dream one night, eight years ago, that a man took advantage of a teenager, another physically small blond boy, and killed him. Kansas. It had happened in Kansas. It was only on the local news at first, but then one murder became a string. Eight killings. It became a national sensation, on every news channel in every state. It was similar to the murder spree that had happened eight years before, only with sixteen-year-olds. That's where Kyo saw and heard about it, on the news. He hadn't known any better the first time because what eight-year-old watches the news regularly? This man was a serial killer. Kyo was sixteen when these murders happened, all within a few months. Kyo knew better now and knew there was something going on – but he didn't know what. He dealt with the nightmares on his own, afraid to be called crazy by his parents or other people again. They'd had him institutionalized once before when he was fourteen for his so-called `visions,' nothing to do with the murders, but other random events and what they thought were hallucinations. Again, the schizophrenic label was tossed around, but he showed too much sense and cognition to really fit the symptoms. But during this murder spree, he was afraid of that happening again, so he kept it to himself. He still didn't truly believe that something was real between the killer and his dreams, but he had a hunch. The murderer was never caught, but the murders eventually stopped. So did the nightmares, again.

"Eight years later, the dreams started happening again."

Not moving a muscle, his eyes still fixed to the ground, Kyo began speaking himself now, in a low, haunting voice.

"The dreams were up to five. I have to go to work tomorrow. I have to get up early. Five. So I went to bed at ten."

Brian and the chief looked over at him. George watched him with a strange, confused expression; Brian watched intently, partly concerned and partly curious. And partly proud – at least the kid was in control enough now to speak. That was a good sign.

"Go on," Brian urged him.

"He's just rambling—"

Brian shushed the chief quickly, still watching Kyo, and then waited quietly.

Kyo blinked once, again, and then continued, "I had to go to bed. I didn't want to. I don't like to sleep when this happens. I feel sick. Or...edgy. Nervous. Anxious. Excitable. I just know something's going to happen. I feel chills and...darkness..." He closed his eyes and took in a sharp breath.

"I woke up at eleven exactly. Sweating. Shaking. He was right in the middle of it, I knew, I could feel him. He wasn't far. I had to...get there...to stop him...I was so tired, so tired of all these murders, so tired of feeling every little thing he did, all the anger and regret and attempts at doing it right this time – so maybe he wouldn't...go...Maybe he wouldn't die this time..."

"Who wouldn't—"

Brian held up a hand to the chief again to silence him.

"I had to stop it," Kyo went on. "I had to, I had to tell him it was useless, that he's never coming back, that he severed that connection and he gave it to me, unintentionally, and he's not still out there somewhere, he's gone. After he'd been killed, he came to me. He could sense me and my ability. The boy found me, started telling me things...He came to me several times when I was small, told me that he was a good father, just had a few things wrong...He was always angry..."

The chief shook his head. "What the f—"

Brian threw him a glare and mouthed Shut up!

Kyo slowly raised a hand to his head, shaking. He twisted his fingers in his hair, tugging lightly. "I had to go to him, tell him to let go of him, to forgive himself. So that I could sleep peacefully and he wouldn't have to kill anymore." Tears started welling up in his eyes, his throat hurt, but Kyo persisted. "And I got up and got dressed and started walking, just started walking, following the feelings, and they got stronger and stronger...And I knew what he was doing, what he was thinking...None of them were him, he wanted them to be, but none of them were him, so he had to kill them. The sixth one...a twenty-four-year-old blond man with a tattoo of Bugs Bunny on his arm. Because he liked Bugs. So did his son, the one he's looking for. Bugs was his favorite..."

Kyo's voice became weaker as he spoke, catching in his throat. "And he realized it wasn't him, and he had to kill him. I saw it, before I even got to the forest, I knew I was too late, that it was over. But I had to get to him, I had to find him. I had to tell him. But I was too late, I couldn't stop him...

"I saw him coming out of the trees, and even though it was dark, he saw me too, and he stopped, and he knew, and I knew, and I realized suddenly what I was doing – who he was, what he was after. I was too scared to move at first. I ran behind a tree when he came after me. I hid, but he found me – I brushed against his hand and saw all of it, all the murders, all the things he'd done, all the things he wants to do – if I didn't stop him. I knew he'd found me, he had felt me near him, and he grabbed me by the throat and held me up against the tree. I tried to push him away, tried to tell him what his son wanted me to, but he was choking me. And I saw what he wanted to do to me, and I panicked, and he came closer and kissed my cheek and said I was the one, the one he'd been looking for. And I screamed, and somehow – I don't know how – there was a flash of light...it knocked him back, and I got away, just ran and ran and ran until I saw the police station, and all the way I could feel him coming after me. Not because of what I saw, not because of what I knew, not because we're a part of each other – but because of what he wants from me."

The chief leaned forward, frowning. "Which is...?"

Kyo finally shifted his gaze from the floor to the chief. "He wants to do to me what he did to his son when he was eight years old. He was too rough with him, though – it killed him. So every time he does it to someone else, he has to kill them if they're not dead when he's finished."

"What does he do?"

Brian smirked. "Isn't it obvious?"

The chief hesitated for a moment, then cringed. "That's just sick."

"He's a serial killer, George. What do you expect? A healthy, well-informed banker from Wall Street? It could happen, true, but not in this case. This guy raped his kid and accidentally killed him, then continued to do the same to anyone who resembled his son – at eight year intervals, and always with victims who would have been the same age his son would have been at the time. But after he rapes them, if they're not already dead from the beating, he has to finish them off. Because that's the way it happened, when it happened with his son. And because once he's...you know..." Brian trailed off uncomfortably.

George squinted at him. "What?"

Brian cleared his throat, reminding himself that he was a professional here. No need to get squeamish (even though Kyo certainly looked so). "After he's sated his need, the spell breaks and he realizes that the person he's with isn't his son. So he has to get rid of them so he can continue his search."

"It's in the woods by the park," Kyo cut in suddenly, before the chief could think of anything to say to Brian's theory.

"What is?" George asked dumbly.

Brian sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. "And you're the chief?"

"What is he talking about?"

"The sixth body. I'd say time of death would be about...eleven...ish."

George glared at him.

Brian returned the look with his usual small smile. "Sir."

Brian led a very exhausted and disheveled Kyo into the large house around five in the morning, carrying two suitcases.

"I don't know about this," Kyo said unsteadily as he cautiously surveyed the kitchen they walked into. "I have to be at work in an hour..."

"You're not going to work," Brian told him matter-of-factly, setting the suitcases down. He stood up straight and looked down at Kyo steadily. "You're staying here."

"Well, yeah, I assumed...that's why you asked me to pack my clothes and stuff."

"We can go back later for the rest of it, if you want."

"Okay. But I have to be at work in an hour—"

"For a psychic, you're having real trouble grasping the here and now."

"Huh?"

"I said, you're not going to work."

Kyo shook his head. "I have to—I have to pay rent, I have bills—"

Brian held up a hand to silence him. "Everything will be taken care of." He smirked. "Courtesy of George the Wonderboy. No, seriously, we'll take care of it for you."

"Who said I wanted to move in here for good? I thought this was just a safe house."

"It is a safe house. It's a safe house for those of us with abilities the outside world can't really accept yet. We're getting there, with some true believers, like the chief before George, but we're not fully accepted yet."

"You mean we're...throw-aways?"

"No, not at all. The people who live here, we're invaluable to the world. They just don't realize it completely yet. Believe me, once you meet the rest of them, you'll feel better about the whole thing."

Kyo's gaze focused, for no apparent reason, on the coffee maker on the counter beyond Brian's arm. "What is the whole thing, then?"

Brian took a breath and put an arm around his shoulders, leading him towards the doorway to the dining room. Just as they were about to cross the threshold, there was a click and whirring from behind them. Kyo turned to look over his shoulder.

"What was that?"

Brian barely seemed to notice until Kyo pointed it out. "Oh. That's just Simone making the coffee."

"But there's no one in there."

"No." Brian smiled. "He's upstairs."

Kyo stared up at him, dumbfounded, and swallowed hard. "He can do that?"

Brian cocked an eyebrow at him. "And you can't?"

Kyo lowered his eyes. "Not when I want to."

"Only when it's too much?"

Kyo shrugged.

Brian nodded. "No control. You have it, but you don't really have much control yet. You can move objects without touching them."

"Tele...Tel..."

"Telekinesis. Yeah. We all pretty much have that. Except Tom. But then, he can bend iron with his hands. It takes a strong mind to do that."

"And strong hands."

"Exactly."

"How big is he?"

Brian smirked. "Six-foot-three, one-ninety."

Kyo shook his head. "That can't be right—"

"Oh." Brian led him across the room with a sneaky glance downward. "But it is."

As Brian led Kyo through the house, giving him the tour, bodies and objects flew this way and that, and Kyo barely had any time or energy to let it all sink in. From what he could tell, sense and feel, eight people apart from themselves were moving around, moving things around, while waking up and getting ready for the day.

They walked up a spiral staircase first, and at the very top Brian gestured to a door to their right.

"Simone's up there. He's probably the only one who can take the heat of the attic. He's not really French, George just thinks he is because of some encounter they had once where Simone was feeling kind of randy and wanted to pull his chain. I'll keep the descriptions short. Simone's a Seducer, which means he not only possesses normal psychic powers like reading minds and telekinesis, but he can control lesser people's minds and convince them of things – much better than lie detector tests or torture devices. He also likes to trick people into believing he's a woman – and he can make it look, to the observer, that he is."

Kyo gulped. He was starting to feel a bit out of his league.

Brian turned them to the left and walked slowly down the hallway in front of them, pointing when appropriate. At the first door to the right, he pointed and said, "Tom and Shannon room in there. They're both English, from London. Tom's the one who basically has super-human strength. Not really psychic, per se, but even if he's not, he has powers that are above and beyond even the most advanced human – and that's good to have on the team. He also has the ability to consume more than the average amount of alcohol, and he's always testing to see how many he can put away without getting too drunk. In other words, Tom likes to party. He also likes to work on cars and motorcycles – another bonus for us. Shannon's not much older than you, and he's kind of new as well. Has a ton of potential, but he's still learning. He's only been here for a little less than a year, came over to go to school like I did, but ended up getting expelled... Um, he accidentally started a fire at the university he was attending when the professor criticized his work and took it out on him the wrong way."

"Let me guess - Chemistry?"

"No – music. He's a musician. But he's a firestarter."

Kyo giggled. Brian glanced down at him with a stern expression.

"I'm serious."

Kyo's smile faded and instead his eyes became wide. "Oh. So...don't make him mad?"

"Well," Brian chuckled, "he's learning to control his anger now. See, Shannon's a very laid-back kind of kid, but he internalizes his anger. When it gets to be too much and he doesn't know how to express that he's angry..." Brian shrugged and threw his arms out in front of him. "It just comes out as fire."

Kyo nodded slowly. This was better than Clue, he thought deliriously. It had to be another ridiculous dream. Something too strange for reality.

"Stranger," Brian cut in on his thoughts, "than dreaming of murders as they're happening?"

Kyo grew sullen and lowered his head.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Brian told him gently. "Just don't take your powers for granted. And don't be so naïve as to treat them with disrespect. They are serious. Accept that you have them. That's the first step. Kind of like admitting to a drug problem. After that, you can learn to control them. I know that you've always known you were different, but even in you I can sense some doubt."

"It's just...too absurd," Kyo admitted sheepishly. "Me? Psychic?"

"It seems absurd – but look at the facts. Remember what you said in the office?"

"Not really."

"You were in trance. Sometimes you can't remember all of what was said. But it happened. I was there, the chief was there, and going to him would be better, if you want proof, because he's a non-believer. Best to get the facts from someone who doesn't believe, because when something happens that they can't explain, they usually use a swear word to describe it. Remember that, it helps, I promise."

Kyo smirked. As strange as he was, Brian actually made him feel very comfortable. He began to relax a bit, and noticed that he wasn't shaking anymore.

Brian led him down the hallway more, and gestured to the door at the far end. "That's where the brothers room."

"Brothers?"

"Well, we call them The Brothers, but they're not related at all, actually. The three of them have just mastered – or are working on mastering – the three aspects of a form of spirituality that was started by three brothers in Tony's ancestry. He doesn't have any actual brothers himself, so when he saw the powers manifesting in the other two, he encouraged them to be his other two. It's a different kind of psychic, I suppose. Tony is the oldest – he's older than me, nearly forty – and he's basically the lynchpin of that group. See, those of us who are psychic, and I use the term loosely in this instance, all have the ability to touch on every aspect of those powers. However, we're all in different stages and have strengths in different areas. Like I said, Shannon's a firestarter, Simone's a Seducer. These `brothers' here are all at their different stages. Tony's strength lies in seeing the past – seeing dead people, ghosts, as you did when you were an infant. He can see past events, and in many cases, he's been able to come in on an investigation and, by touching a dead body, can relive the experience of what the victim went through."

Kyo tried to stifle his groan.

Brian nodded. "I know. It's not a pretty business, but it helps. But there's a danger in that – in reliving the experience, the body can react to what it's seeing, or thinks it's seeing, in a physical way."

Kyo winced. "You mean..."

"With every dead body you touch to explore, you risk your own death. There was an incident a few months back where Tony had to be rushed to the hospital because he'd lost too much blood."

"He...saw someone's death..."

"A stabbing."

"And he...was stabbed in the vision as well?"

"No – he just bled internally. Luckily they were able to save him." Brian sighed heavily. "I don't know what I would've done without him. That was a bad case, though. Tony recovered, but he was shaken for quite a while. He and I have been at this a long time, we should be experienced enough by now and know all the ins and outs. But it just goes to show you, with this sort of thing, no matter if you were born with it, like you were, or if you grew into it, you just never know what can happen."

Kyo groaned again. "You're not advertising this curse very well."

"Blessing," Brian corrected.

"Yeah – bleeding internally just from having a vision of a stabbing? And my own experiences with having to watch while some maniac tries to amend his screw-up from sixteen years ago? Seems a helluva lot like a curse to me, if you don't mind."

Brian shrugged. "Take it as you will, then. But one day you'll think differently. Tony," he continued, "is, like I said, almost forty. He and I pretty much started this place together. He's Chinese and likes the quiet life. You know, books, lemonade, a little weed now and then. But mostly he works with one of our other people downstairs on autopsies."

Kyo blinked wearily. "Oh yeah, the quiet life...less."

"Exactly. Alex is what you might call the `middle child.' And as such, he doesn't think he gets enough attention, therefore he creates it himself. He likes making up stories, but we all know when he's lying. I'm just not sure he knows anymore. Anyway, he and Tom enjoy partying a lot together, as any twenty-six-year-old would. Alex is Scottish, and his strongest path is the present. He's empathic, he can tell your emotions very clearly and can feel them along with you. You're familiar with that, obviously."

Kyo shuddered. "Too familiar."

"It becomes easier once you get a handle on it. You can distance yourself, even from feeling those things yourself. He can see things of relevance that are happening at this moment – like if he got on your wavelength, so to speak, and could connect with you, since you have a connection with the killer, he could probably indirectly see what he's doing at this moment. He's also an excellent lie detector, like Simone, because he can read a person's mind if the feelings are strong enough. A lot of times, with psychics in general, it's a lot of guessing, of feeling and surmising, but pretty much on target. With Alex, or others like him, he can read exactly what someone is saying to themselves.

"A word of warning about Alex, though – he's extremely friendly, but he also loves practical jokes, so...just check the seat before you sit down anywhere."

Kyo sighed. "Great. Now I really gotta watch my ass."

"Precisely. Then there's Matt. He's your age, and he's able to see visions of possible future events. If he touches someone, like you touched the killer tonight, he can see what will happen to them, what could happen to them, depending on if it can be stopped or not."

"Can he...see..."

"Yeah," Brian answered quietly. "He can see if someone's going to die. He's, um, kind of quiet these days, since he acquired that ability, and I think it's because, unless it's unnatural or can't be avoided in order to let something else better happen, he's not allowed – none of us are – to interfere with what is supposed to happen."

Kyo snapped his head up to him. "We're not?"

"Well, in the right case. For instance, if Matt ran into some guy at the store and saw that he was going to go home that night and rape his daughter, he could do something about that. But if he touched an old guy's hand and saw that he was going to have a heart attack that night, there's nothing he can really do for him. If Matt bumps into a girl tomorrow and sees in her future that she's going to divorce her husband, he can't really do anything about it, especially if she's doing it because he's beating her, or if she's found someone she truly loves. See? Sometimes stopping bad things from happening can make a situation even worse."

Kyo rubbed his eyes, suppressing a yawn. "I guess."

Brian noticed him trying hard to keep his eyes open and smiled. "You're tired. I should let you get some sleep."

"No, I gotta go to work in less than an hour—"

Brian pretended not to hear him and pulled him back up the hallway to the stairs. As he walked, he continued, "Anyway, Matt's English, I brought him over a few years ago, while Tony and Alex met each other in Scotland years ago and started working together. Matt's in a techno music phase and does a lot of meditating. Tony insists it's to calm himself and keep level because of all his new abilities manifesting. He's young and new and trying to get a handle on all his abilities, and there will be more to come as well. So he's a bit like you. He's very focused on learning how to handle his powers and wants to get them down right. He has a good heart, he would probably feel guilty for weeks for not doing something about that hypothetical guy who dies from the heart attack. He's very sweet."

They made it back down to the first floor, and Brian pointed towards a door to the right. "Jo and I room there. He's twenty-eight, was the first person to come to us after we'd founded the department – Tony, Alex and I started it ourselves, and Jo just kind of wandered into our realm soon after. His abilities include being able to speak in foreign and ancient tongues while in trance – and sometimes not even while in trance. We call him `the rambler,' because he tends to just babble on about ridiculous things, even when he's not trying to channel some force or energy. He's Japanese, he was born and raised there, only came over here a few years ago, but his translations are impeccable. He likes punk music and uses horseradish on practically everything." Brian turned around, paused, then turned back and added, as if just realizing it himself, "He also wears an awful lot of black. I don't know why, but his entire wardrobe is black. I need to ask him about that sometime."

Brian turned again, taking Kyo by the arm, and gestured to another door to their left. "And this is where Morgan rooms, and you'll be down in the basement with him – don't worry, it's completely furnished and insulated, ventilated and protected. It's just that he's the only one who has a room to himself, besides Simone and his sauna attic. And, well, with one more person, we wouldn't have anywhere else to put you. The `brothers' only room together because that room is big enough to fit three people.

"Anyway, Morgan has extraordinary scientific skills, which is a plus, especially when we're dealing with doubters from the outside, working with the police and all. When you need hard proof and not just some bloke off the street who claims to have visions about criminals, you need proof. He also has psychic abilities, somewhat, but mostly he's just a bloody genius. He pretty much tries to keep his abilities from the outside world, because he wants them to believe that he's a normal person who's just trying to prove that what we claim is true.

"He does, however, have a better grasp and understanding of science; therefore, of all of us, he is much better at controlling the weather."

Kyo gave a start.

Brian smiled proudly. "I thought I'd throw that in there somewhere. Yes, we're able to do that as well, although most of us aren't as good at it as he is. Well, none of us, really. But if it's a crappy day outside, I mean, really horrible, then we all know to leave Morgan down in the basement to his experiments. Just leave the guy alone until he's out of his funk."

"And...I'm going to be rooming with him?"

"Yeah. Oh, he's a great guy, trust me. Just a bit reserved, a bit quiet...I mean, he's not scary or mean or anything. He's a nice guy, very laid-back. He just likes to keep to himself a lot. Matt brought him over with him when he moved here from England because they're old school mates. He still thinks Matt's a nutter, but we put that down to childhood rivalry or something... Okay, maybe he can come across as a bit abrasive sometimes..."

Kyo flinched. "Again, your sales pitches aren't going over too well here."

"Sorry. But he likes the basement, because it's safe down there, and it's built really nice so that he can do his experiments."

"Yeah, you said that. What experiments, exactly?"

"Um, yeah...Science experiments. And, um...once in a while he'll, you know...bring a corpse down for an autopsy or something, but," Brian cut in after rushing through the last statement, as soon as he saw the expression on Kyo's face, "don't worry, because he'll give you fair warning and you don't have to sleep down there every night."

Kyo sighed and closed his eyes. "Sleep. You know, for all the fear that last thing you just told me put into me, I could still just sleep for the next hundred years. Even next to a corpse." He groaned and slumped against Brian's arm, not even realizing the close proximity without any kind of adverse reaction. In fact, it was pretty comfortable leaning on the taller man. "Oh, but I have to go to work in less than an hour—"

"Hey," Brian said firmly, turning and taking Kyo by the arms to hold him upright. "Look at me."

Kyo obeyed.

"Listen to me carefully, okay? You aren't going to work. We all have jobs here, yes—"

"And so do I."

"What do you do?"

Kyo hesitated, lowering his eyes. "Um...work in an arcade..."

"Well, you're not really using your abilities very productively there, are you?"

"Or paying my rent productively either...but it's fun..."

"Right. Well, all that aside, you don't have to worry about it. We're taking care of it for you as we speak."

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean, this month's rent is on us, as are the rest of your bills. But after they're paid off, we're cutting you off from that. We're keeping on for the rest of this month's rent so you can have some more time to move out of there, to move in here. If this is really what you want, and from what I felt in the station tonight, it's what you want."

"What is?"

"Living here. Working for and with us while you learn how to control your powers."

"Working for y—for what? Who says I want to live with you?" Kyo demanded, suddenly feeling slightly defensive.

"You did."

"When?" he snapped, trying to yank out of Brian's grasp.

But the bigger man's hands were far too strong for him – and in all honesty, he was too tired to really care after a few seconds.

When Brian sensed Kyo was ready to be reasonable again, he lowered his head to meet his gaze on eye-level (which was a pretty tough maneuver, but which he managed somehow without looking or feeling too ridiculous). "When you said you wanted to be protected. If you live alone, this man will find you and do to you whatever it is he wants. And there will be no stopping him. If you truly want to help yourself, and want help from us, you need to do this. It's your choice, but I think you know what your decision will be."

Kyo watched him carefully for a long time, then turned away, sulking, "I was liking living alone..."

"Trust me," Brian assured him with a warm smile. "You'll like it here too."
Chapter 2

Kyo felt himself being gently awakened from a deep, dreamless sleep. He was almost certain that everything that came back to him as he slowly lifted his eyelids had been a dream he couldn't quite remember, but when his vision began to clear and he didn't recognize his surroundings right away, he knew it had been real. That and the aching in his legs told him that the bit where he ran for his life for what felt like an eternity were dead giveaways.

He wasn't quite awake yet, though, and the realization that it had all happened made him want to sleep more. Not even Brian's hand on his arm nudging him carefully could disturb him.

"Kyo," he whispered.

"What is that thing?" came another unfamiliar voice, accented similarly to Brian's slightly rough English drawl.

"What thing?" Brian asked the invisible person.

"That."

"It's a telephone. Twenty-first century technology, Morgan, check it out."

"No, I mean that thing on my bed."

"It's not your bed, it's the extra bed."

"Well, I had my books on it last night, and now the books seem to have morphed into some kind of..."

"Human being?"

"What is it?"

"Who."

"I said `what'."

"It's a person, Morgan."

"Good for it.  Homo sapien, okay. What's its name?"

Kyo heard Brian sigh wearily, then to him, whisper again, "Kyo."

"Kyo?" the other voice said from somewhere at the other end of the basement. "Isn't that an Asian name?"

"Go figure, Morgan, because this homo sapien just happens to be Asian, you twit."

"Anyway."

Brian nudged him again. "Kyo, wake up."

Kyo was tired of listening to the conversation about him, right in front of him, as if he didn't even exist except on a slide. That was the only thing that made him open his eyes again. He turned over onto his back and looked up at Brian blearily.

"Hm?" The light cascading down from the windows near the ceiling told him that he hadn't gotten but a few hours of sleep. "What time is it?"

"Nine."

"Nine? That's only three hours...or something..."

"You can come back and sleep again after."

"After what?"

Brian averted his eyes for a moment to the telephone receiver in his hands. "I just talked to George – you know, the chief. Real sweet man you met last night..."

Kyo swallowed, noticing that his throat was dry and sore.

"They found it."

"Found what?"

Brian lifted his head, holding his gaze steadily. "The body. In the woods. Right where you said it would be."

Kyo closed his eyes and let out a breath. Somehow, he'd managed to make himself believe that it had all just been some kind of twisted joke, like a chemical mix-up in his brain, like déjà vu. He would have been content enough to sleep less than three hours with the comfort that it would all go away, it had all just been too absurd for something to actually come of it.

But when Brian told him, the bottom opened up from beneath him and Kyo felt himself plummeting again, his stomach churning.

"Same description as the last five," Brian went on. "Young man, twenty-four. Blond hair, blue eyes, small frame. His name was Mitchell Sparks. He, um...His parents identified him twenty minutes ago. The forensics team and the police are collecting evidence as we speak."

Kyo groaned and covered his face with the blanket. "I don't want to know about the evidence..."

"Kyo." Brian pulled the cover down from his head, and in that instant, when Kyo looked up at him with that fear painted all over his small face, Brian felt so sorry for him. He almost couldn't bring himself to do what he knew he had to do now. The boy just looked so tired. But the chief had been clear in his request – no, demand.

"Kyo...George wants to talk to you. Face-to-face."

Kyo's eyes grew wide. "Me?"

"Well...Not only is it procedure, considering you told them where the body was, but...we think you have more information that could be of help."

Kyo stared at him for a long time, then ventured carefully, "They think I had something to do with it."

Brian drew in a breath, but said nothing.

"No," Kyo groaned, "no, no, no...I didn't tell them so they could try to frame me, I told them because I thought I was gonna be next! They were supposed to help me!"

"Hey, hey, calm down." Brian put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me. They're not accusing you of anything, okay? ...Not yet anyway...But you did come forward, and you knew something that proved to be true. Now, the law is going to scrutinize you for it, yes – but you have us behind you, so we'll make sure they'll keep their distance."

Kyo eyed him warily. "You?"

"You wanted our protection, right?"

"From the killer – I didn't think I'd have to be protected from the damn cops!"

"Look, I hate to put you in this position, because it makes it seem more like I'm blackmailing you or something, but I have to do it. I have to give you an ultimatum."

"What ultimatum?"

Brian put a hand over Kyo's and looked him straight in the eyes. "I felt it last night, your resistance. I know you don't want to do this because you just want your old life back, no matter how confusing it was to live a normal life with these...things...these abilities you couldn't control or didn't know anything about. But now you're in a dangerous situation. Not only do the police think you're involved in the murders, since you were able to lead them right to the body and gave them details only someone who had been a part of it would know, but now you've got a serial killer who more than likely has you at the top of his list for being lucky number seven."

Kyo squeezed his eyes shut tightly. "I think I'm gonna be sick..."

"But—"

And it was a very strong "but."

"—we can protect you, and that's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Kyo nodded.

"Look. It'll be hard. It'll take some getting used to. But if you stay here with us, if you agree to work with us, then you'll be a part of the investigation – not a suspect."

"How could I have done anything to that guy, huh?" Kyo demanded hysterically. "That Sparks kid – he may have been small compared to the killer, but he was still bigger than me, I couldn't have done what that guy did to him!"

Brian shook his head. "The more you say about it, the more it seems like you were there."

"But I wasn't!"

"You were."

Kyo snapped his head up to glare at him. "I was not there and you know that."

Brian leaned over, closer to his face. "You were there, Kyo," he hissed. "Your body was only walking there as it was happening, but you were there. Don't you see?"

As Brian continued, realization dawned on the younger man, understanding calming him down.

"You know things that no one else does besides the killer himself. I believe you, we all believe you – but those who don't believe us will need more proof. If you work with us, you'll be an investigator – a profiler. If you bail out on us, we can't protect you, and the police can charge you with whatever they want. Because you've told them things before they even found the body that only someone who was actually there would know. And you live alone. You have no alibi. As for your size – a five-foot Chinese woman once lifted a car to save her baby from an explosion. A scientific phenomenon, yes, but still scientific. Adrenaline, what someone is able to do under that stress, it's scientifically proven to be true. Not even the most advanced scientist can yet blindly accept that these abilities we possess are scientific, not some superstition. If it weren't scientific, we wouldn't be able to control it like we can. But when faced with something that can drive a person wild, that person can sometimes do amazing things. The police would try to say that, somehow, you're so disturbed that you could do those things to that man, and that you did. And with your history, the institution and diagnoses, no matter how well or poorly they stuck, it wouldn't seem so far-fetched to a court of law. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Kyo took a few shaky breaths, then summarized, "If I leave now, they'll arrest me and charge me with the murders, or at least this one, because I know things no one else does. Evidence be damned. They just want a criminal to pin it on because they have nothing else to go on and it's making them look bad. If I say I'm working with you, I can stay here and learn to live with this."

"Right."

"So..." He lifted his gaze to Brian again. "Besides having to live with nine strangers, what's the catch?"

Brian tried to give him a warm smile, but it only turned flat and pitiful. "You have to revisit it with us."

"What do you mean?"

"Morgan and I are going to the scene," he told him. "They didn't want us on the case, but now that you're involved and I told George you would be working with us...they want you there."

Kyo literally fell back against the headboard of the bed, gawking at him. "Go back? I've never even been there! I mean, you know, not literally—"

"But maybe being there will revive some memories...so maybe you can lead us to this guy before he..." Brian trailed off, thinking better of his choice of words – the boy was already terrified enough as it was, no need to remind him of his predicament. "Before he acts again."

But Kyo knew what he was saying. He shut his eyes and groaned, slumping over onto the pillow. "I can't feel him anymore—"

"The connection is weak right now because he's not on a spree, his energy is low, especially the morning after a killing. You can't detect him, but he's there. So what we have so far is a motive: a psychotic man who keeps reliving what he did to his own son, always revolving around the number eight – eight victims at eight year intervals. We have what he's after: males with blond hair and blue eyes, small in stature and build. Because they resemble what his son looked like, or what he would have looked like at these ages. We have a general location: the last two killings were in the woods, at opposite ends, but still in the same woods. You mentioned him being in a sewer last night, planning...Um, well, planning—"

"Planning on how to get me," Kyo finished flatly. "And trying to figure out how I know him."

Brian cringed. "Um, yeah. Except..."

"Except what?"

"I don't think he wonders how you know him anymore. It's startling when it first happens, confusing...but then the two parties involved usually...well, they can't explain it, but they just know..."

Kyo shuddered. "Like I just know that I know him."

"Right."

"So he also knows it's just some kind of freakish cosmic connection?"

"Well, if you want to put it that way...yeah."

Kyo let out a crazed giggle and let his head sway in the other direction. "I guess I should tell my boss I'll be out for a while."

Brian hesitated, then informed him, "Um, I already did."

Kyo glared at him.

"I hope you don't mind."

"Gee. Not at all," he replied cynically. "While you're at it, d'you mind calling my folks and letting them in on the deal?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I had to cover for you somehow."

"Did you tell him I've gone schizo again and am in an asylum for my own protection? Or did you just go easy on him and tell him the truth, that I'm after my psychic serial killer friend before he hacks me up next?"

Brian blinked, not even noticing the resentment in Kyo's voice. "I told him he wouldn't be requiring your services anymore, that you've been hired elsewhere."

"Damn. There goes my severance pay. I could've just gone in there and vomited on his desk."

"I thought you said the arcade was fun."

"The arcade was.  He wasn't. As much as I did there for as little as I got, it was still my job."

"Well, now you have a career."

"It beats those bloody tech schools," came the voice from the other side of the basement. Suddenly the tall, well-dressed figure appeared in Kyo's view. He was relatively average looking, but there was something off about him – maybe the way he kept glancing around at everything but the main subject in front of him. And his lips seemed to be permanently glued to his face in a cynical smirk that didn't look much like a smirk at all.

"This is Morgan," Brian introduced him. "He's our scientist. He works with the police department and a detective agency in the city in the forensics department. He can also freeze time."

Brian stood from Kyo's bed and started up the stairs, leaving Kyo to stare up at the looming figure warily.

Kyo gulped. "Freeze time?" he asked in a small voice.

"Right," Morgan said. "So, what'd you do with my books?"

"Um...what?"

After drearily changing into some new clothes, a black sweater and a pair of clean black jeans with a large black studded belt, Kyo dragged himself up the stairs in search of a bathroom, toothbrush in hand. His mouth felt disgusting, he was having a nicotine fit, and his stomach was doing somersaults. As soon as his feet touched the first floor and he smelled bacon in the air, his insides twisted and felt as if they were gutting themselves. He slapped a hand over his mouth and groped for the wall with the other, dropping his toothbrush on the ground. He tried to remember where Brian had led him earlier that morning, but any hint of rational thought sent his mind into a whirlwind of pain and his stomach into waves of nausea. He eventually ended up sliding down to the ground, feeling faint, holding his stomach with his arms and keeping his eyes shut tightly.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, trying to regulate his breathing and keep from dry heaving. Everything around him began to sound strange to his own ears – unfamiliar sounds and voices, echoes from the kitchen and from above him, sending his mind into a panicked shock.  He knew nothing.

He didn't know how he (and his toothbrush) ended up on the second floor. He vaguely remembered a pair of gentle but firm hands against his arms, his mind twirling around madly as they slowly led him up the spiral staircase. But the actual movements were a blur to him. He was suddenly opening his eyes, looking down into a toilet bowl as he coughed and gagged, but since there was nothing in his stomach after the previous night's vomit, he only spit out saliva and acidic juices from his empty stomach. He felt the cool hand against the back of his warm neck, and instead of jumping out of surprise that he wasn't alone, he closed his eyes again and felt comforted. He had no clue who was helping him, but whoever it was, was being more caring than anyone had treated him in the past twenty-four hours. Brian had tried, but mostly it was just words that held no real meaning for him yet and a promise that hadn't quite been fulfilled.

This immediate comfort, this stability against the back of his neck, this was the only thing Kyo could focus on and feel safe about, without the convulsions in his stomach. He heard himself, his strangled gasps as he fought to catch his breath, the sounds echoing through the linoleum-tiled bathroom.

Then a soft, lilting voice near his ear asked, "Better?"

Kyo wiped the tears from his face and the sweat from his forehead, blinked a few times, and glanced over his shoulder. The young man who knelt beside him had to have been one of the brothers Brian had told him about. His eyes were wide and round and blue, his skin pale but not in a sickly way, his hair dark and short but somehow still sloppy, and his voice was gentle, chipper, and had the same type of accent Morgan did.

Kyo swallowed a few times, stifled another gag, and nodded. "I think so," he whispered hoarsely, then coughed a few times. The man reached up to the sink beside them and pulled down a cup of water.

"Here, rinse."

Kyo obeyed, then allowed the young man to help him to his feet and over to the sink. As Kyo brushed his teeth, the man flushed the toilet and came back to stand next to him. As soon as he was away from him, Kyo felt a chill and his stomach began to hurt again, pains from vomiting. But as soon as he returned, placing his hand on Kyo's neck again, the pain subsided and Kyo could breathe more easily.

"It's hard right now," the man told him as he brushed his teeth. "You've been through so much in one night. There were many times when you needed your strength, so you lost a lot of it. A psychic connection does that, even with the smallest of things. Moving a knife from the counter to the table can weaken you, although not nearly as much, especially once you get the hang of it, as, say...reading a person's thoughts."

Kyo spit and rinsed his mouth again, then stood up to face the other man, who was just barely taller than him. Before he could say anything, the man smiled and held up another cup with water in it.

"Drink. Slowly. You need your strength. Water is always good for strength."

Kyo hesitated, then obeyed again. As he sipped the water, a little at a time as the man instructed him, he studied him silently. He was a very handsome young man, with a cute, friendly smile and an unusual light reflecting from his eyes. Kyo couldn't quite explain it, but somehow they seemed to not only reflect light, but give it as well. He was very slender, perhaps even moreso than Kyo himself. Beneath a white t-shirt and a layer of flannel, there were long, lithe limbs with virtually no muscle or volume to them at all, but just as the gentle touch on the back of his neck told Kyo this young man was small, the firmness that he felt told that there was some kind of strength there.

Kyo realized that he was staring and sheepishly cleared his throat, averting his eyes. "Thank you," he said, his voice still small and weary.

"No problem," the man answered, but his arm remained curled around Kyo's shoulder, his hand still holding him.

They were quiet for a long time, and Kyo began to feel a bit uneasy. Not physically – in fact, he was feeling much better. But the silence between them, as this strange but attractive man held him in what seemed like a half-embrace, began to make him wonder what was going on. He knew he felt something, some kind of energy, perhaps a psychic one, flowing through him, beyond his control, but he wasn't sure what to say or what to call it.

As if reading his thoughts – which he probably was doing – the man shushed him. He bowed his head, his eyes closed, deep in concentration. Kyo was about to ask him what he was doing when he was suddenly hit with a wave of euphoria – he could only think of it as power and energy. His head snapped back unconsciously and he gave a start, clutching at the skinny man's arm, the cup of water falling to the floor. He closed his eyes and felt himself going limp, a wave of darkness enveloping him, but when he opened his eyes again, he was standing upright, with the man holding both his arms steadily, watching him with a small smile.

"Feel better now?"

Kyo swallowed, utterly confused, but when he turned to move, he found it much easier. The aching had subsided, his body felt warm and not so lifeless as it had felt a moment ago. He suddenly thought to ask if what the man had done to him was...well...legal?

"What—"

"You were weak," the other answered, letting go of him. "You're going to the crime scene, right?"

"Uh...how did you...Did you..."

"Brian and I had a conversation last night, before he came to get you. He left me a dream this morning as you were being asked questions at the police station. He told me a few minutes ago in person that he was taking you back to the crime scene. So...I knew you were weak. You could use the energy right now."

Nevermind the "left me a dream" part, which was a puzzle all its own; what just happened to him was enough to try and work out. Kyo squinted at him. "You mean you..."

"I gave you some of mine. It's not much. It's really only a quick fix. It'll wear off in a few hours. It's like...if your body is rebuilding itself, okay?"

Kyo nodded.

"It's working constantly. Resting speeds up recovery. But you have to do this thing right now, going to see the chief and being at the scene of the crime, so not being able to rest puts off that recovery, weakens it even more. But with my energy in you, it sort of puts the recovery process on hold, feeds off the energy I've given you until that's run out, and then you're back to how you were downstairs, when you passed out. Like I said – a quick fix. But it won't make you any worse than when you first started."

Kyo absorbed all of this slowly, nodding his head with perfect understanding. Then he asked, "What?"

The man laughed and patted his shoulder. "You'll be okay. Just don't let them keep you there too long or you'll pass out at the crime scene. Just remember – always take care of yourself first."

Kyo nodded. "Yeah, um...Th-thank you. That was...it was...Um...you're..."

The man held out his hand. "I'm Matt, by the way."

Kyo shook his hand and introduced himself, despite figuring it was a futile thing, as Matt seemed to know him already. He then asked, "But don't you feel the effects of giving me your energy?"

Matt shrugged nonchalantly. "A little. I'm pretty hungry right now. But I've been doing this longer than you, so I'm used to it."

"Oh."

"Don't worry – you'll feel the same way eventually. Brian is a good teacher. We all are, but he's taught all of us some things too. Well, except Tony. The two of them learned these things together."

"Learned?" Kyo looked at him questioningly. "I was under the impression that...you know...Brian was born with it."

"Like you?"

"Well, I...Yeah, I guess."

Matt smiled his adorable smile and shook his head. "No. He's like most of the people here – they came to him as he grew older. Only one other person here has ever had the gift from birth. It's been said that the person who's born with it will probably be the most powerful of all of us."

"But it's not Brian?"

Matt shook his head. "He's just a very good teacher."

"Which one—"

"Matt!" came another voice from behind the door, interrupting Kyo's question. The shout was followed by a series of frustrated pounds. "Open up, man, I gotta take a leak! And I mean, like, bad!"

Matt snickered. "That'll be Tom." He checked his watch. "Nine twenty-five. Never fails. Pissing out last night's beer."

"But I thought you were all up at five...I could've sworn I heard you all, saw you guys moving around..."

Matt paused, eying him up curiously now. "You're really quite powerful, aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"No, we don't wake up before eight. What you saw and heard was the future. Probably your energy level caused your powers to mix things up in your mind and you thought you were seeing the present."

"B-But...But Simone turned on the coffee maker, Brian was right there, we both saw it – or, well, heard it—"

"Kyo," Matt explained patiently, but not patronizingly, "you were very tired and in shock last night. When a psychic is tired and in shock, they experience things they think are really happening. Stress can do that. They're weak and the images can fly by very fast, without any meaning. Think about it: Brian was showing you around, and you were seeing and hearing things. But did you once bump into someone, or did anyone say anything to you?"

Kyo paused, trying to remember. "I...I don't think so."

"So we weren't physically there. We're all pretty friendly people, generally very outgoing. We would have surely stopped to say hello if we'd actually been there with you. You were experiencing the future, without it actually happening. Make sense?"

Kyo put a hand to his head. "Uh...Not really, but I think I understand. B-But the coffee—"

"That was real. Simone can make coffee in his sleep. And he does. When Brian is working with the police on a case, he's out until very late, or very early, and he likes to have coffee waiting for him when he gets home. Simone made it his duty to keep a, uh, virtual ear out for him, an ethereal ear, so to speak. That's a word you'll hear a lot, especially from Brian. Anyway, when Simone hears or senses Brian come in, he'll turn on the coffee maker."

"In his sleep?"

Matt's smile grew wider and he leaned closer to him. "And just imagine – once you can control your powers, since you were born with them, you'll probably be even stronger than that."

Kyo shuddered. "I'm not sure if I want to be."

Kyo stuttered through a very rushed introduction to Tom before being tossed out of the way in order for the Human Bull, as Matt called him, to claim the bathroom. He was quite an attractive man, with a slightly Cockney accent, and Kyo remembered that Brian had said he was from London originally. He was just as Brian described him, a little over six feet tall and lithe, but like Matt, Kyo could sense the strength in him. More strength, he noticed, than any person he'd met before. But then, as Brian had said, that was his gift, having so-called "superhuman" strength. Even if he was in a rush to use the toilet, he was still able to offer Kyo a friendly, tooth-filled grin before slamming the door in their faces.

Matt excused himself, then, saying that he had to go back to his meditation, and disappeared down the hallway.

Feeling more energetic and more awake – not to mention not so sick – Kyo was finally able to handle the idea of breakfast. The smell of food as he descended the staircase was now a welcome sensation. He didn't care who or what was making it – he just wanted some.

Kyo entered the kitchen to find the room almost completely devoid of people. There stood only one small, darkly dressed figure in the corner, back to him, dressed in tight black slacks and a small black t-shirt. Nothing else, not even shoes.

"Um..."

"Would you like bacon or sausage with your eggs?" came a voice that could have been either male or female – it was low and sultry enough for a seductive woman, yet high and smooth enough for an effeminate man.

Confused, Kyo hesitated near the doorway. "Um...bacon?"

The head lifted and a pair of pitch-black eyes painted with black kohl peered at him from behind a shoulder-length veil of silky black hair. "Are you asking me?" the crimson lips said, almost teasing.

Kyo shrugged faintly. "I, uh...I don't..."

The figure turned and Kyo found he was staring at a very beautiful, delicate woman with dark hair framing a pale face. But she had a brilliant white smile. "Have a seat. I'll make something up for you. You've got a busy day ahead," she remarked, her accent becoming more obvious the more she spoke.

As he sat, Kyo felt puzzled. He thought for a long time, not even hearing the sizzling from the burner in the background, and couldn't for the life of him remember Brian mentioning a woman living there. He wondered if perhaps they had a maid come in to prepare food for them, and maybe clean a bit. The place was spotless, so it seemed. There wasn't a dish in the drainer or the sink, his sinuses didn't hurt from any dust or mold, and the kitchen smelled of some kind of lemon cleaner, beneath the strong odor of a very good breakfast being cooked.

A few moments later, the girl was standing beside him, elegantly scooping some scrambled eggs onto his plate, which he hadn't even realized had been there. A second before, there hadn't been anything in front of him. Now he could smell the bacon just beneath his nose.

"Here you go," she said politely. "Don't eat too fast or you'll be sick all over again."

"Thanks."

She smiled brilliantly at him again and nodded. "You're welcome." And, for all her elegance, the next second she broke the spell by tossing the steaming pan in her hands into the empty sink, making a loud clattering that echoed noisily throughout the kitchen and the rest of the otherwise quiet house.

Kyo winced at the sound.

"Sorry. I'm not the best of housekeepers. Or the best waitress, but my boss hasn't noticed yet." She slid into a seat next to him at the table as he began to eat – slowly, he remembered when he felt her eyes glued to him.

"So," she began in her slow drawl, absently fingering the salt shaker in front of him. "Where do you come from, Kyo Harper?"

He paused in his chewing and glanced over at her, startled. "How did you know my name?"

She leaned forward and patted his cheek with small, thin fingers, the tips painted a deep blood red. She smiled mysteriously at him. "It's rude to talk with your mouth full, dear."

"Simone."

The girl snapped her head up when she heard Brian's voice in the doorway to the back door. Kyo spun around to look, too. Brian was hardly paying them any attention, just rummaging through a stack of envelopes, presumably the mail.

"Quit with the tricks," Brian said nonchalantly. "You've been off the streets for four years now, you don't need to do that. Besides," he added as he came over to the table, putting a hand on Kyo's shoulders. He passed the girl a knowing smirk. "He's not a one-nighter. He's here for keeps." And Brian left the room, adding over his shoulder, "We're leaving in ten minutes, Kyo."

Stunned, Kyo turned back around and found the same person in front of him, but slightly different. The outfit was the same, the face was pretty much the same, with the same make-up and hairstyle. In reality, the only way Kyo could tell that this was Simone, "the Seducer," truly male, was that there were no bulges beneath the tight silk shirt. He was the most androgynous person Kyo had ever seen.

And now Simone was pouting. "Aw," he huffed, the faux French accent completely gone to be replaced by another English one. "He takes the fun out of everything."

"Oh," Brian added, sticking his head back into the room, "and George asked me to tell you to stop conning his men into one-night-stands."

"But all the good ones are cops!" Simone wailed. "How am I supposed to enjoy my gift if I'm not allowed to use it?"

"I'm not saying don't use it. Just use it more wisely."

Simone glanced over at Kyo and gave him a knowing smile. "I thought it was wise, especially the last one. Size of a battleship, let me tell you..."

"Please don't," Brian interrupted in a pleading voice. "You can get plenty of guys being yourself. Besides, George hates us enough as it is. You know I would enjoy any joke at his expense, but he's serious about this. Makes the police force here look bad. Or something along those lines."

"What? I thought being seen with a former French prostitute would be something like winning the Nobel Prize over here."

Brian sighed wearily. "You'd have to be a current French prostitute to gain that kind of respect."

"Well," Simone pouted some more, "it wasn't my rule to stop."

"But you took the challenge. You see, Simone, it's all about choice. And besides –you're not French!"

From out of nowhere, an egg shot across the room, right towards Brian's forehead. Brian reached up and, as if catching a feather, snatched it away without breaking it and tossed it back to Simone with a smirk. "Knock it off. You're late for your shift at the diner." And he was gone again.

Kyo turned back to Simone. "So...you're the Seducer?"

Simone carefully placed the egg on the table, then lazily spun it around on its tip. He sat back with a sigh and put his hands behind his head. "Yeah," he confessed, watching the egg spin around and around. "That's me."

"Well...You know...I'm sorry to be up front about it, but you don't really need that...ability...to trick people."

Simone smiled at him, throwing him a grateful glance. "You flatter me. But it's not really sex that I'm after, despite what everyone thinks of me." He leaned against the table and put the tip of his index finger on top of the egg to stop it from spinning.

"It's not?"

"No. But I take what I can get."

"So...what are you after, then?"

Simone chuckled. "What do you think? What's the one thing in this world everyone could do with having an abundance of?"

Kyo stared at him blankly, then finally shrugged.

"The thing is," Simone went on forlornly, "it's so much trouble, especially here in America where they think romance comes in a heart-shaped box of chocolates, to find a really good man. You know?"

Kyo hesitated, then shook his head. "I really...don't."

"Ah, of course," Simone pouted some more. "Well, either way. Especially with these things, these abilities or whatever you want to call them...It's just very difficult, as I'm sure you know, being in a relationship and leading a normal life. You know?"

Again, Kyo could only shrug in response.

Simone stared at him awkwardly, his finger still holding the egg in one place. "You don't know?"

Kyo was quiet for a moment, then admitted sheepishly, " Well...I never really..."

"Oh," Simone blurted out, "I thought you meant you weren't gay. So you...you never had a girlfriend either?"

Kyo looked up at him; he could feel his cheeks burning. "Um...I've never had anyone, actually."

Simone made a pitying sound and put a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, you poor thing. Must've been a hard struggle for you, eh? Putting up with all of this on your own. I know I went through hell myself, before Brian found me, that is."

"He found you?"

"He finds all of us. He knows where to look. He knows what we need, what we want. And if he can give it to us, he will."

"What did you want?"

"Well," Simone sighed dramatically, "at that time, I just wanted a normal life. Just wanted to be normal. He couldn't give me that. So he gave me the next best thing: come to America with him and his friends, and he could teach me to be as normal as I could be. With just a little extraordinary touch to me." He smiled widely and held out his arms. "I'd say it worked out, wouldn't you?"

Kyo smiled back faintly and answered uncertainly, "Hm. Sounds like a success story."

"Yeah," Simone admitted, his smile fading, "but not even my powers can find me my love. Maybe it's a French thing, this obsession with loving someone, having someone love you."

Kyo furrowed his brow, reminding him, "I thought Brian said you weren't really French—"

"Hush, darling," Simone scolded absently before going on, "Even when I was selling myself, I always made sure to have some kind of feeling with the person I was with at the time. It's really quite draining, actually. To have emotions entangled with a different person every night. But that's where my powers came in handy. I could truly make them feel like they were in love with me. And I felt like I was loved. But in the end, they were gone back to their normal lives, and I only had money to get something to eat and find a warm place to sleep." He sighed again, leaning his head on a delicate hand. "I was never normal. I only started feeling normal when I came here, with Brian."

He lifted his finger from the egg, but it continued to stand upright. He turned to look at Kyo and smiled again. "That Brian. He's a good egg." He glanced at the clock on the wall and suddenly jumped up. "Oh! I'm late! Well, it's not the first time. Besides, I can make them believe I've been there the whole time. Well, au revoir." He leaned over to give Kyo a kiss on the cheek, then glided easily out of the house, as if he were floating.

Kyo looked back down at his breakfast, felt a slight chuckle pass through him, and realized that one day, he might be saying the same thing to someone else. Most likely not as flamboyantly, though.

Kyo laughed to himself and shook his head. It was beginning to feel like too much for him to wrap his head around, so the only thing left to do anymore was laugh.

As Simone walked by the window outside, the egg on the table lost its balance and wobbled onto its side, then slowly began to roll towards the edge. Without noticing or seeing it, Kyo felt a twitch in his arm. A second later, he looked down to find that he had caught the egg just as it had fallen over the edge of the table. He hadn't even realized that it had stopped spinning.

Kyo sighed, placing the egg carefully in the middle of his plate, and closed his eyes. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

As he, Kyo and Morgan drove over to the crime scene in the same car, Brian insisted that just because a group of psychics lived in one house didn't mean that all they did was sit and stare at each other. In order to prove this, he chose to physically tell Morgan what they knew so far about the investigation. Brian confided that it was not only to keep them relatively "normal," but considering Tom had no psychic powers at all and Morgan had only a few, it would have been rude to exclude them from mental conversations.

Kyo sat between the two of them in the front seat, as the backseat was overflowing with books and papers which Brian didn't feel like cleaning up. Kyo stayed huddled in his jacket, wishing it would simply dissolve him at will, but not even his so-called "powerful" mind would allow that to happen. He stared straight ahead, and even if the energy Matt had provided him with was working, he still felt queasy as Brian retold the story to Morgan aloud. He chose, instead, to focus on other things.

What else would he need to pick up from his apartment? He would have to contact his parents and let them know that he had a new mailing address and phone number. He would have to make up some excuse to avoid the third-degree and the disapproval. His parents hadn't been keen on the idea of him moving out of his home state in the first place, what with his history of mental instability, but he had been certain that it would be a good move for him.

Little did he know that, when he thought he was moving away from whatever was causing the nightmares and oddities in him, he was only moving closer to them. Of course he hadn't mentioned that to his parents three years before when he'd decided to move here; he used the excuse that he wanted to see some more of the country, as any twenty-one-year-old with a savings account and marketable skills would have wanted. No, it had nothing at all to do with the past, not wanting to sleep in the same bed he'd been in for years, waking up again with cold sweats and trembling limbs...

Kyo realized that his thoughts were centering around the cause of his nausea again and thought of other things to distract himself.

Matt was a nice man. The same age as him, though a little taller and most likely much more in control and experienced. That he'd even paid attention enough to help him up off the ground had been a promising start, Kyo thought. The concern for a complete stranger Matt showed made him very endearing.

He hadn't exchanged many words with Tom, but at least he'd been kind enough to acknowledge him. He'd been in a rush anyway, and Kyo could certainly relate. He couldn't hold that against him.

Simone had been odd. Kind overall, but in a strange way. It was as if he took his abilities so lightly that he could make fun of them. Though when he started talking about love, it was obvious that he wished, like Kyo, that he didn't have them in the first place. They may have been advantageous in some areas, but in leading a normal life, it was obviously going to be difficult.

Unless, Kyo thought, attempting to be optimistic, he lived a life with someone who was able to understand and relate. Unless he could find his "partner," his "soul mate," in someone else who had similar abilities.

Kyo didn't let himself dwell on these possibilities – or impossibilities – for too long, for it made him equally nauseated. Always worrying about the future, when he could probably just close his eyes and tell it himself. At least, that was the impression Brian's talk gave him. But he didn't really want to. What was the fun of finding out all about your own life before you've even lived it?

"You can't do readings on yourself," Brian's voice suddenly cut into his thoughts.

Kyo sat up straighter and glanced over at him. He gave Kyo a sideways look and smiled a bit.

"I'm sorry," Brian said, "I just couldn't help but overhear what you were thinking. No, it wouldn't be any fun, but it's impossible as well." He shrugged. "Maybe we just don'twant to so strongly that we won't allow ourselves to, but none of us have ever been able to tell what will happen to ourselves in the future. It can only be done by another seer, and even then, with that much psychic energy condensed in one area all at once, it's a bit harder to see. With normal people, it's quite easy, though draining. But if you try to tell the future for another person with your own gifts, it can get very confusing, very foggy. The energy builds up and blocks the truth. Lies and mistellings can only result from it. Besides, in our line of work, it's hardly valuable."

Kyo suddenly felt brighter, more at ease, when that sparked something to ask about that wouldn't make his stomach hurt. "You keep saying I have a career now and you're involved with the police. But didn't Simone leave to go to a job at a diner? What kinds of other things do you guys do?"

"Oh, well, see, we all are sometimes involved in cases from the police, when they need us, but we all have our day jobs too. Tom's been a mechanic since he was sixteen years old. As you already know, Simone was a prostitute over in England when I found him, and when I told him he couldn't do that while working for us, since it's illegal, especially while working for the police, he took a job waiting tables at a diner. Morgan, like I said before, is a forensic pathologist. Alex and Tony run a Kung Fu school with two other instructors. Shannon plays in a club band. Jo works in a record store. Matt isn't working right now, he's too busy with his meditation and learning to control and enhance his powers, so the other two pretty much take care of him. And I teach a part-time class at the community college in town."

"Oh. What class?"

Brian smirked. "Psychology." He made a sharp turn onto a long, winding road, and Kyo fell against Morgan's arm. Morgan nudged at him to sit up and he did.

"So," Kyo said, clearing his throat, "you all have regular jobs, then."

"Yup. They don't pay extremely well, but they keep us fed. The money we got from Frieder was a big help."

"Who's he?"

"He was my professor when I was still at school. Tony and I took the same Criminal Law course Frieder taught at the university here."

"You were in Criminal Law?" Kyo asked, a bit surprised.

"I wanted to be a private investigator at first, before the psychology area really piqued my interest, but I didn't have the money to get the degree I needed to become a professional. Frieder, Tony and I struck up a good friendship, and Frieder eventually discovered that Tony and I had some...unusual talents. We discovered, then, that he'd also studied the occult and psychic phenomena when he was younger, my age at the time, in school. He was really into it and recruited us to work for him. Immediately. At the same time he was teaching that course, he was on the police force as an investigator. Eventually he was named chief of police, and with his authority, he opened up our department. That was about five years ago."

Kyo raised his eyebrows. "You two must've been really smart. You and Tony, I mean."

Brian smiled over at him, with a look of humble pride on his face. "I was two years ahead of everyone else in my age group, and Tony had been out of school for at least six years before that. He moved here with Alex the same year I started at the university. He took the course as a hobby, I took it out of necessity, and that's how we met. Once he and I and Alex opened the department, we had Matt join as well. But I was finished with college in England when I was fifteen years old, which is a little ahead of schedule."

Kyo let out a low whistle and chuckled. "I guess being psychic, and knowing what to do with it, has its advantages."

"Yeah. I don't know how I was able to cultivate the powers on my own, but once I got started on controlling them, the rest seemed to come naturally. As if I knew inside, myself, how to do it. Even if I hadn't been born with them, as they came to me, I could figure out how to use them, what they were good for. Maybe it has to do with natural states as well. I can already tell that you're naturally a kind of energetic, jumpy, anxious thing. No offense, but you are. But I'll bet having those kinds of horrible nightmares when you're eight years old can give you good reason to be that way. Then there's me, or someone like me. I'm generally and naturally a very laid-back kinda bloke. So when I discovered I was developing these abilities, it was like...like finding a birthmark you hadn't seen before, if you're not a hypochondriac. `Oh, that's interesting, I wonder where it came from?' I didn't exactly flaunt it, but I experimented. But meeting Tony and Frieder opened up a lot of doors for me."

"So Frieder taught you more?"

"Well, no. He really was less informed than me or Tony. I learned an awful lot from a pair of sisters who run a magic shop in town, but not from Frieder. He was more interested than informed. He trusted us, though. He knew us and was impressed with us. I finished my schooling, going instead for Psychology and Education, and ended up teaching at the university. Tony already had degrees in Business and Physical Education, that's how he was able to open the Kung Fu school with some other students he'd graduated with years ago. Alex had been studying under Tony since he was a teenager, so he took up a job instructing too, when he was ready.

"Frieder was just a good friend after our course with him ended," Brian continued, his voice sounding a bit sad now. "He really believed in us and came to us a lot when the police were having trouble on a case. He had to do it on his own, really, because even if we're considered an official department, no one wants to admit it. The general consensus is that we're all just a bunch of lunatics who got on Frieder's good side. Anyway, he was killed two years ago in the line of duty. To our surprise, he willed his entire estate and earnings to us. Me and Tony. Before, Tony, Alex and I had just been rooming together in a little apartment in the city, getting in contact with the others if we were needed for a job, by phone and having meeting places, the whole undercover bit. Suddenly, because Frieder had no other family, no wife or kids or brothers or sisters, and his parents had died when he was only thirty, we inherited his entire life savings and his house and property. So we decided to move in, all of us, and put all the money he'd left us into a savings account. We only use it if we really need to, and that's only when we need a lot of money to pull off a ploy to catch a criminal – or pay property taxes."

Kyo took all of this information in quickly, feeling like he was being fed a textbook that he couldn't quite understand. By the end of it, he was feeling dizzy. He smiled deliriously and giggled. "Sounds like the A-Team."

Brian smiled and shrugged. "I guess you could call it that...something like that. Only instead of Mr. T., we've got –"

"Psychics," Kyo finished with another giggle.

"Yeah. Basically."

"Damn. So...Frieder's dead?"

Brian nodded. "Two years now. After he was killed, George took his place as chief of police. Which, in a way, wasn't great, because he's one of the many who thinks us all insane. But, it's also good, because he and Frieder were partners for decades, great friends. So we know that George, no matter what he himself believes, will honor Frieder's wishes, and one of them was to keep our department connected with the police. I'll admit, we haven't exactly been able to pay the bills with the money we've made in the past two years from them, showing how they'll keep us, but only in the basement, so no one will know and laugh at them. But I'm grateful that at least George recognizes that we can be helpful. Even if we've solved a dozen cases in the last year that they couldn't, George still has a problem with admitting when he's wrong."

"Hm," Kyo muttered. "Sounds like my dad."

Brian glanced down at him. Kyo was beginning to look a bit pale again. He was pale for an Asian man in the first place, but now he was starting to look a little sick.

"He's the one who tried to have you committed, right?" Brian ventured.

Kyo sighed heavily, but didn't answer.

"When you were sixteen?"

"Fourteen," Kyo corrected. "I guess so." He turned his head to look out the passenger door window. He didn't feel like talking about himself. He had almost started to feel a bit better about the whole thing, even about having these unusual powers. When he didn't have to think about it. But when Brian stopped talking about the others and focused on him again, Kyo felt the sudden urge to look away and ignore it.

Brian just smiled knowingly and turned back to concentrate on his driving. "You'll be fine," he said, though he wasn't sure Kyo had heard him.

It was ten o'clock exactly when Brian pulled his car over to the side of the road, where several other vehicles, mostly police cars, were parked. As soon as Morgan got out of the car, he headed in the direction of the yellow tape wrapped around several trees down the embankment, where five other people stood, taking photographs and talking lowly to each other, poking at things Kyo couldn't see. He stayed in the car, feeling stiff and nervous, watching as Morgan joined them. The pathologist squatted down next to another man in a black uniform and listened intently, pulling on latex gloves, as the police officer informed them of what they had found so far.

Kyo jumped when he felt the hand on his shoulder and snapped his head up to look at Brian, who was watching him with a concerned expression.

"You okay?"

Kyo swallowed and shook his head.

"Look, I know you're scared. But you can do this."

Kyo hesitated, then nodded faintly. Brian tugged at his arm and commanded, "Let's go," and, reluctantly, Kyo crawled out of the car and followed him – very closely – down the embankment to where the other officers were gathered. Kyo immediately recognized the police chief from only a few hours before and grimaced. The man looked every bit as intimidating in the outdoors as he did hidden behind the huge desk in his dimly lit office.

"Here we are, George," Brian greeted him in a chipper tone. "Let's see, what've we got here today? Oh, a lovely murder case! How wonderful."

The chief glared at him but said nothing.

Brian stopped walking when he was a few feet away from the chief and Kyo stumbled against him. Brian put a hand on Kyo's back, a reassuring touch.

"You wanted to see him," he said to the chief. "So I brought him."

George squinted at Kyo, then glared at Brian again. "What's he doing here? I told you to take him to the station—"

"He's not a suspect," Brian told him firmly.

"Brian, you blatantly disregarded my order—"

"He's working with me," he offered matter-of-factly.

The chief gawked at him, then regained himself and said gruffly, "He can't work with you if he's a suspect—"

"Exactly. Which is why he's working with me."

The chief drew in a deep breath, obviously fighting the urge to punch Brian dead in the face. His own cheeks, even in the cool morning air, flushed red with anger. Kyo felt dread building up inside of him, and he almost became certain that the chief would bark an order to one of his lackeys to cuff him again.

Instead, George turned away and stalked off towards the crime scene, shouting over his shoulder, "Just keep him away from my men!"

Brian held up a hand, waving at the chief's back, and called out pleasantly, "Will do, sir." He turned back to Kyo with a smug smile. "See? Easy as that."

Kyo narrowed his eyes at him. "You told me he wanted to see me."

"Yes – at the station. That means behind bars. Bringing you out here, I just secured your safety from being thrown in the slammer because of his irritation."

Kyo wasn't sure whether to thank or hit the man himself – not that his fists would do any harm. But he supposed if it was keeping him out of jail, Brian must have known something of what he was doing. He decided to trust the guy and instead directed his attention to the police chief as the older man stalked away. Kyo shuddered. "He seems mad."

"Oh, don't worry about him. He's got high blood pressure, that's all. See what eating doughnuts and coffee for thirty years will do to you? Oh, and then there's the matter of the serial killer case he can't solve, but it's pretty much the same in the long run... C'mon." He tugged on Kyo's jacket sleeve and began to walk back up towards the road. Kyo followed obediently.

"Where are we going?" he asked finally when they were standing on the gravel road again.

"I don't know," Brian admitted, though he was still moving. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his long black trench coat and focused his gaze on Kyo. "You tell me."

Kyo shook his head. "I don't follow."

"Well, you don't really need to see the crime scene itself – you were already there."

Kyo winced. "Don't remind me."

"Sorry, but I have to."

Kyo let out a long breath, staring at the ground as their feet aimlessly trudged along. "So...where do you want me to take you?"

"The tree where he found you."

Kyo laughed out loud, gesturing to the forest with his chin. "Look at it! It was dark! There are thousands of trees here! I'll never be able to remember exactly which—"

"Yes, you will," Brian assured him simply, confidently. "I promise you, when you see it, you'll know."

Kyo hesitated again, then blurted out helplessly, "What's that going to do anyway? I mean, what they're doing down there is probably more important—"

"All they're looking to find is how the guy did it, and maybe evidence as to who he is. We already know how he did it. We even know why.  You even know who he is. They're after that physical evidence that gets in the way of a psychic's word. It's what they need. We don't need that, do we?"

"Then what're you after, bringing me here under the false pretense that George wanted to see me?"

"The connection."

"The one I have with him? The killer?"

"Yes."

"But I don't need to search for it. Isn't that intrinsic?"

"Yes, but like I said before, right now that connection is weak, a lot weaker than it was last night, because he's not in the middle of it right now. If we want to stop him before he does it again – before he finds you – we have to strengthen the connection again so you can do what you did last night."

"Which was?" Kyo snorted. "Scream and run away like a terrified child?"

Brian was kind enough to ignore Kyo's self-disgust. "Be able to tell us exactly where he is at this moment. To be able to see what he's doing and feel what he's feeling, to see what he's thinking—"

Kyo suddenly held up his hands in defense, backing away from his new friend. "No way, huh-uh, you're not making me do that again—"

"Kyo," Brian reasoned gently, "it's the only way we can—"

"I'm not doing it!" Kyo shouted, halting in his footsteps all together and not caring what kind of attention he might have been pulling with his voice. "Do you know how seriously disturbed this guy is? Do you have any idea of how messed up he is? No? Well I do! I know every single little reason behind every single little thing he does, and it's all as insane as it seems, every bit of it! And do you know what being inside that monster's head does to me? It makes me want to kill myself! Not because of these stupid powers, not because of the horror of seeing blood and guts and death right in front of my own eyes when I'm trying to just get some sleep, but because it's so mortifying to know that something, a person, filled with that much rage and hate can even exist in this world! I don't hate myself to the point of wanting to die, I hate this madman I'm connected to so much that I don't even want to exist in the same dimension as him! Shit!"

Kyo threw out his arms in exasperation and stomped over to the side of the road, slumping down on the gravel and holding his head in his hands.

Brian waited for a few moments to let Kyo calm down, then slowly made his way over and knelt down beside him. He didn't say anything; instead, he waited. And he got what he was waiting for.

Kyo was crying, quietly, but a few seconds after Brian came over to him, he sniffed and let out a cynical chuckle.

"I just want to know why, you know?" he said forlornly. "Of all the random people in this world...why do I have to be connected to him?"

Brian bit his lip, then offered softly, "Maybe for this reason."

Kyo wiped at his face with his sleeve and sniffed again. "What reason?"

"Well..." Brian gestured to the crime scene. "This. It's uncanny, the potential I can feel inside you. I haven't been able to feel that in someone, that strongly, in a long time. You could do so much with it. And maybe your first test is to find this monster, as you call him, and..."

Kyo waited for him to go on. When he didn't, he lifted his head and looked up at him. "And what?"

Brian shrugged. "I don't know. That's up to you."

Kyo stared at him for a long time. He was finally beginning to understand what Brian meant. It was a horrible thing for him to have to deal with – but only someone as strong as himself, according to Brian, with his abilities, could handle it.

It was only a matter of coincidence and consequences that he ended up where he did when he was born, how he came to his parents, what country he lived in. But Kyo realized what Brian was saying: it was really no coincidence that he had decided to move to this state. It was no coincidence that he had moved into the apartment he had, in the city he had. And it was no coincidence that Brian had been at the police station minutes before the chief had decided to give him a call.

This was what he was supposed to do. This was, as they always said in the movies, his destiny.

"We all have our demons, Kyo," Brian said in a soothing voice. "For normal people, it can be anything from a fear of heights to a drug addiction. We're beyond all of that. Our demons are real. Real, physical manifestations. They're not inside our heads, they're not childhood traumas or mental head games. We are unable to participate in those things because our minds are more advanced. We were given these gifts, so we can't allow ourselves to take advantage of that easy way out. We have to be stronger. None of us have had easy lives, especially socially, but they cannot scar us, because we have duties to carry out, responsibilities. We can't let those burdens weigh us down like they would destroy anyone average. Every living soul on this planet has demons they have to face. Because we are unable to take part in the simpler ones, like a fear of heights, we have to face scarier ones. Ones that would cause someone of lesser strength than yourself to do what you wanted to do since you were eight years old. That person would have been locked up decades ago, if they hadn't succeeded at suicide before that. But the reason we have these demons, Kyo...They're there for us to face. To conquer. So we can move on, move higher. So we can become stronger while making this place safer."

Kyo was quiet for a long time, contemplating Brian's words seriously. Finally, he asked, "Do you believe in God?"

Brian smiled. "Of course. I did say we're advanced, didn't I?"

Kyo sighed, staring off into the woods. "I was never sure myself. You claim I'm so powerful, could be so much more than I already am. And yet you're so sure of something I can't even claim to acknowledge as truth. I have no faith."

Brian folded his hands together and held them to his mouth, thinking. "You know," he said into them, "I believe that God has a plan for all of us. Individually. I've no idea what its resulting outcome is supposed to be, but I truly believe that it's for the greater good. At the same time, we're able to work on ourselves. It's a win-win situation."

"But what is it all for?" Kyo demanded. "Heaven? Some idiot's concept of a better life after this one?"

Brian shrugged. "That's subjective. It is whatever you want it to be. Everything we do is a means to an end, or so people would have you believe. Thinking about that end might drive you crazy. Maybe you should just look at yourself, look at the world, look at the people you care about...and think, maybe you should do these things, not for yourself, not for any kind of heaven or some other philosophical or theological debate. But just do it because you know you're doing good. Don't look for a reward. Just do it for the pure essence of doing it."

Kyo tried, but as soon as he was about to say something, his voice broke off and he bowed his head, shaking it wearily. "I just...I'm not strong enough..."

Brian moistened his lips, then leaned closer to him. "Then do it," he said softly, "to save yourself. Kyo, you can only get better from here. If you do this, I promise you – I promise you – things will get better. But you have to face him first. And to do that, you have to face what happened last night. You have to. If you don't...then that evil you fear so much will continue to exist – inside him and inside you, relatively – wherever you go. You'll never escape it. You'll never escape him, whether he finds you or not."

Kyo closed his eyes, taking in a deep, shaking breath. The woods were quiet and still. They couldn't even hear the voices from the crime scene several yards away from them. The only thing Kyo could hear were the words Brian had just spoken. They ran in his head minutes after he said them. The words seemed threatening, the meaning terrifying; Brian's voice was the only comfort in the whole experience.

"And God," Brian added lightly, "she's a very pretty woman." He gestured to his coat. "She'd have to be omniscient to know one of my guilty pleasures is a good silk lining in a warm black coat. I wouldn't normally divulge that information to anyone. Somehow, she just knew. I guess you could say that we are closer to God than any other human being. But being part god also gives you responsibilities – to keep people, including yourself, safe from the evils that terrorize us. We're just the unfortunate souls who have to face them. In this situation, it's a tough question: who's more unfortunate, the people this man has killed, or you, who has to witness and experience every single one of them, without having any say in the matter?

"But apart from all the heavy, loaded questions, I think it would do you a great deal of good to learn from me, from us. You could experiment, find your limits, if you, in fact, have any. And who knows? Maybe one day you can use your powers to do something so earth-shattering that even you will be proud to be a freak. I personally enjoy being a freak, but I get the impression you're not too keen on this type of freakishness yet. But when you finally do something you can feel proud of, then you'll know...So whether it's ridding the world of a particularly evil, twisted man, or being able to create the world's largest ice cream cone with only your mind, a carton of milk and a bag of ice, you'll find some use for your...freakishness."

Kyo glanced sideways at him warily. Brian only returned the look with a warm, serene smile.

Brian Warwick was a very odd man. Somehow, this fact made Kyo feel better.

"All right," Kyo said after a while, lifting his chin up from his chest. "Where do I start?"

Chapter 3

Kyo approached the looming tree with a sense of dread rising from within his gut. It nearly made its way out through his throat and into the physical world around him, but he was able to keep himself calm with the thought that Brian was right behind him, watching him carefully. He didn't know why he trusted this man so much already, even if he had taken him in and was apparently going to be taking care of him. Perhaps the guy was using some sort of psychic power on him to make him believe everything he said.

Of course, so far, he had been right, so what was to keep Kyo from believing otherwise? He seemed to be the only really compassionate one, besides Matt, who understood everything he was going through. The idea that Kyo would be able to find the exact tree where the man he was connected to had "met" him seemed ridiculous; yet, within ten minutes, by some unknown force, Kyo had listened to Brian's instructions about feeling with his mind, reaching out with his subconscious to feel the residual vibrations from the "attack" less than twelve hours before, and, despite his own disbelief, Kyo had been led straight to it.

For a while, Kyo simply stood several feet away from the tree where the man had nearly strangled him, then left him with the marks of a mental connection by touching him; as he drew nearer and nearer to the spot where it had happened, Kyo could almost feel his hands on him again. The tingling had returned to his skin where the man had touched him, his cheek and throat, and as he stood there, staring at the old tree as if it were his nemesis, he could feel those specific parts of himself burning with a white heat he couldn't even begin to explain. It wasn't painful, yet it wasn't comfortable either. It made him turn his head, slowly, barely breathing, to look back pleadingly at Brian.

Brian merely stood a few feet behind him, watching curiously, and he nodded his assurance to him. With that one gesture of his head, Kyo knew this was the only person in the world he could trust anymore.

Brian's eyes strayed from Kyo to the tree, studying it as if it were a corpse. "This is it." He wasn't asking, and although Kyo wasn't surprised that Brian knew, not only from his own actions and reactions, but just because Brian would know that sort of thing, he was a bit disturbed by how certain Brian sounded.

When Brian began to move forward, Kyo reached out and took his arm, his fierce gaze practically burning a hole through the bark of the tree as he rasped, "What're you doing?"

Brian smiled calmly down at him, even if Kyo wasn't paying attention to him. He reached down and gently pried Kyo's hand off of his arm. "It's all right. I just want to show you something."

Kyo watched reluctantly, and hesitantly stepped forward, when Brian walked up to the tree and put his hands on the bark. He pressed his cheek against it.

Kyo stared at him, bewildered. "What the hell—"

Brian broke away from the tree and, without changing the expression of concentration on his now grave face, he reached up and began scratching and peeling away the bark of the tree.

"Brian..."

"I'm not mad," Brian assured him, though his actions would have suggested otherwise. "Just trust me." He paused momentarily to reach into his pocket and retract a switchblade. Kyo shuddered when he saw it, suddenly fearful of what was going to happen. Brian merely opened it to help him in the task of pulling the bark off the tree.

Kyo glanced behind his shoulder as he heard footsteps in the leaves and brush beyond their position. For a moment, he feared that the police chief would come into view and proclaim Brian a raving lunatic – which, for all this confusion was worth, wouldn't have been a good thing for Kyo; as strange as he was, Brian seemed like he was sure he was on to something.

Kyo was relieved to find Morgan approaching them instead, his hands in his pockets, elbows hanging lazily at his sides.

"Whatcha got there?" he asked Brian, as if a tall man in a dark trench coat tearing away at an innocent tree was nothing out of the ordinary.

Brian continued with his work as Kyo looked for any sign of what was going on in Morgan's face. Perhaps he had the answers as to why Brian was doing this...

Brian stepped back finally and, with a heavy breath, gestured for Kyo to look at the tree. He sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. "See there? There's your proof."

Kyo turned back to the tree, one large circular patch now skinned out of it. And that was when he felt his heart leap into his throat.

He had seen the insides of trees before. He knew of the circles which indicated their ages; he knew some bled sap during certain times of year; he knew what a sapling looked like before it became an adult tree with those thick layers of protective bark.

So he knew that the blood red stains behind the bark of this tree were not natural. And when he saw the color painted there, as if someone had taken the blood of the boy who had been murdered the night before and hid it in that tree, he knew. It was no lie.

Kyo tore his gaze away, feeling lightheaded.

"So what's this prove?" Morgan was asking Brian, though his voice, to Kyo, sounded a million miles away.

"It's a reaction."

"What kind of reaction?"

"Well," Brian began, speaking more to Kyo than Morgan, though Kyo seemed to be in a state of shock yet again, "when two powerful energies converge, a trace is always left behind. In this instance, since Kyo and the murderer are connected, and they were so close that they actually touched at a time when the energy level between them was strong, it left a physical mark on the world. On the tree where they, um, `met.' Sometimes the traces seem like nothing, invisible to the naked eye; sometimes they're overwhelming. Depending on the people. It's a danger to keep so many powerful people in the same house as we do, really, because something will always happen. Luckily, we're not bad people, so the traces aren't exactly bad things. Morgan, have you ever gone into Simone's room when he and Alex have, um... Well, after, I mean—"

Morgan stared at him blankly. "I've rarely been to the second floor of the house. That's not because I don't know where it is either."

Brian chuckled. "Right. Well, anyway, I'm not sure how to explain it, especially to someone who might not see it. But if you go in there later, at least for a few hours, you can sense something. If you look at the walls, they glisten, but they're not wet."

"I'm surprised they aren't – from what I hear, Alex can—"

"No," Brian said, sounding insulted. "Not that. It's a residue, yes, but not the kind you're thinking of – two psychic entities merging. In their case, because they do like and care about each other and both are sane, sensitive and good people, nothing bad is left over. But that's also another reason why it's so important for people like Kyo and Matt to be able to control their powers, because if it goes unchecked, who knows what will happen?"

Morgan nodded slowly. "So that's why Matt's so big on the meditation stuff, right?"

"Exactly. Sometimes these emotions not many other people can see – I mean, physically see – can become very confusing and...well...honestly, if it's not taken care of, it could drive someone insane."

Morgan raised his eyebrows. "So that's what happened."

"When?"

Morgan met Brian's gaze. "To Jo."

Brian rolled his eyes. "He's not crazy. He's just...weird."

"But he's awfully private about whatever happened to him to make him how he is. He doesn't say much about it. Haven't you ever wondered?"

Brian shrugged it off. "Maybe something went wrong while he was developing his powers that threw him off a bit and made him...import, in a way, some unusual abilities..."

"Abilities? Brian, the guy's like a psychic with Tourette's."

"Whatever. The point is, whatever happened is his business."

"But you always say no secrets – because if we keep secrets, who knows what demons we could bring home with us? Or awaken again, if you want to put it that way-"

"Look," Brian huffed, becoming irritated with Morgan's irrelevant questions, "the point is that Kyo and this man met, they were physically connected after Kyo had been born with a psychic connection to him, and this man is obviously not right in the head – just look at the proof."

And that was exactly what Kyo was doing. He wasn't staring at the tree anymore, but at Brian's fingers. They were stained as red as the color under the bark of the tree. For a moment, Kyo thought that Brian had scraped himself while tearing at the bark; then he realized that the red on his fingers was blood – wet blood – and not Brian's at all.

"He killed the tree?" Kyo asked in a small voice.

Brian smirked, shaking the blood off his fingers and searching for a tissue in his pockets. "Not exactly. But in your case, the residue, the trace of meeting the other end of your connection – which just so happens to be a psychotic killer – is blood."

Kyo lifted his eyes to Brian's. "Whose blood?"

Brian hesitated, then admitted, "I really don't know. Maybe nobody's. Maybe it's the universe that's bleeding. You two definitely are connected – but I think this trace is a sign."

"A sign of what?"

Brian bit his lip anxiously. "I don't think you two were supposed to meet."

"Why?"

"Because bad things could happen."

"What sorts of bad things? Ethereal or physical?"

Brian drew in a deep breath. He hated to tell Kyo the truth, because it was obvious, how deeply horrible the boy felt about the entire thing. But he had to be honest with him. "Both."

Kyo closed his eyes and hung his head low. "I never should've gotten out of bed last night. I should've just taken the nightmares and let it all blow over and wait another eight years for the next one..."

"Don't think like that," Brian said easily, finding a tissue finally and wiping the blood off. He handed it to Morgan. "Maybe we can find something in that," he told him. Morgan took the tissue and stuffed it in his pocket. Kyo thought briefly that perhaps it would be better to put it in a plastic baggie or something, like police usually did with evidence; but then he had to remind himself that these people weren't the usual run-of-the-mill police officers. Actually, they weren't even police officers at all. They were just...

"Insane," Kyo whispered.

"Hm?" Brian leaned closer to him. "What'd you say?"

Kyo lifted his head again. "This is insane."

Brian shook his head quickly, seeing the direction the boy's reaction was taking. "No, no, no. Please don't start to think like that. We've brought you this far, haven't we?"

"And I don't really want to go any further," Kyo murmured quietly, almost to himself.

"Kyo—"

"I mean it," he went on, still in that stunned, soft voice. "I really should've just ignored the whole thing. At least dreams aren't reality—"

"But this is different!" Brian grabbed Kyo by the shoulders, a little too fiercely. He loosened his grasp when he saw Kyo flinch, but didn't let go. "Don't you see? I know it's scary, it seems insane, but it's not! Those dreams aren't dreams, Kyo. You saw that there was a body back there. That's what makes you different from most people: your dreams are reality. You can't take that for granted. More people will die – possibly even you. You have a responsibility to take this seriously."

"Why?" Kyo demanded harshly. "I didn't ask for this, I didn't want it—"

"But you have it," Brian said coolly, standing straight again and letting go of him. "And there's a reason you have it."

"And what's that reason? Tell me that."

Brian lifted one eyebrow at him. "I don't know. That's for you to find out. It's your choice – but you can either pretend it's all a dream and let this man find you and kill you, or you can wake up and do what you were meant to do."

Kyo looked into Brian's now cold and unrelenting eyes; he meant it. But Kyo glared back with as much determination – and more fear.

Without another word or question, Kyo broke the staring contest and, turning his back on the two tall figures, walked away.

Morgan glanced at the small blond kid walking away from them, then back at Brian. The man was unmovable. Morgan's gaze went back and forth between the two of them a few times, and each time, Kyo's shape became smaller and smaller. He nudged Brian.

"Hey, uh...Aren't you gonna go get him?"

Brian stared after him, too. But, since he wasn't gifted like the others, Morgan was unable to read his mind. All Brian did was take in a deep breath, straighten himself up, and say firmly, "No."

"No? But this kid's got all that power...Well, according to you. He could be great with us. And hell, he's got a direct satellite dish in that little blond head of his, pointed right at the killer. And you're just gonna let him walk away? You nuts?"

Brian seemed quietly furious for a while, but with that last statement, all of his frustration seemed to dissipate into something else. Something...more withdrawn and regretful. He mustered a smile and assured Morgan – though it felt more like he was trying to assure himself – "He's confused. He's scared. But he's also wildly intelligent."

"So what? Charlie Manson's kinda bright, too. Look where he is."

"No, not Kyo. He's different."

"How?"

Brian watched until the boy disappeared out of the woods. He smiled again. "Because he'll be back."

Over an hour later, Kyo entered the small apartment on the eighth floor of the highrise in the city with a sense of pure exhaustion. Just entering his home and looking at the old used furniture made him even more tired. Thinking about the last twelve hours defeated him. He fell into the battered upholstered couch a few feet in front of the black and white television, which hadn't been on for over two days now (it gave him a headache around this time to watch television), and stared at the blank screen with an overwhelming feeling of lethargy enveloping him.

He had many reasons to feel this tired, of course, but when he checked the time on the nearly ancient round ticking clock hanging on the wall above his treasured copy painting of The Scream, he realized that it was going on twelve o'clock and that the energy Matt had given him, which seemed like a lifetime ago, was probably now wearing off. No wonder he felt as drained as one of Dracula's victims.

He sighed, not even energetic enough to cry out of fear or confusion or boredom, and rested his gaze on the blank television screen. At least he was home. And not just anywhere, but his home. The familiar surroundings were the only things that comforted him. He felt like a zombie just waking up from the dead and trying to understand that he was no longer alive. Just...there.

Kyo didn't know how long he sat motionless there, barely blinking, not even hearing the normal sounds of cars on the street far below him or shouts from down the hall or the regular thumping from the neighbors above him. Normally, these things got to him, especially at night when he was trying to sleep, and he could almost time when the next footfall against the floor would yank him out of his drifting dreamstate. But today, a day when he was supposed to be at work, these things barely even touched his senses.

Kyo sat in his worn and torn couch for what he estimated to be about three straight hours. During that time, he allowed his mind to wander aimlessly. He thought of his family, wondered what they were doing right now. He wondered if his father was taking his medication regularly for his heart, and if his mother was still making those awful greasy meals for him. It had only been a year since the doctor had told him that if he didn't start eating better, he would surely have a heart attack before he turned sixty. He tried to think about old friends back home but couldn't really recall any that struck him very deeply. He hadn't "hung out" with many people back then, had mostly taken to holing himself up in his room reading about ghost stories and Leonardo da Vinci and Marie Antoinette. Because they were things that, to him, were hardly real. Any escape from the mundane every day – or the confusion of every day for him – was a welcome.

It wasn't until he'd moved here that he'd been able to come out of himself, even a little bit. Enough to get himself a decent job (decent only in theory, not in pay or hours). He had, for the most part, kept to himself, yet had been able to meet a few people and had gone drinking a few times with some he considered acquaintances, though he could hardly say he knew much about them. Most of the people he knew lived in the highrise with him, and he kept out of their way and only helped when they knocked at his door. He was okay with plumbing, so he helped the tenants on his floor from time to time, but apart from that, from knowing a few people by their first names and others by "Mr." or "Mrs.", he wasn't too fond of socializing. Something would inevitably go wrong, he just knew.

He saw them nearly every day, even worked with his neighbor Sam who lived across the hall. He said his usual hello's and goodbye's and loaned movies and borrowed CD's and chipped in for delivery food now and again. He'd watched Lydia while Mel did her laundry and had taken care of Sam's albino hamster when he'd gone to visit his mother back in Hong Kong. He had picked up Toru's precious leather coat from the dry cleaner's after some "motherfucker" had stupidly spilled beer on it in a nightclub. It was like having roommates, but ones you didn't have to see all the time or let know when you were going out. Roommates you could lock out when you didn't want to be bothered, and who wouldn't take offense if you didn't want to be bothered. They were just people who, through one way or another, had ended up meeting each other and depending slightly on each other when small favors had been needed.

Kyo glanced at the clock again and saw that it was going on four in the afternoon. He heard the familiar sounds echoing down the long corridor, the stamping of feet and below that, a rippling rumble sliding past every door. That would be Sam on his skateboard. Across the hallway, the rumble stopped and the clacking which interrupted Jane and Terry's argument from next door (a couple Kyo had made a point of trying to stay out of sight from, seeing as they were always arguing) signaled that Sam was finished with his business downtown. Kyo knew he would be going to work in less than an hour. Sam preferred the nighttime shift, considering that was when the arcade was busiest.

Kyo briefly wondered if Mel had business in town herself that day – perhaps going down to shop for cheap fruit at the outdoor market instead of the grocery store, because, as he knew from her "I've been a single mother for three years, I know what it's like" rants, the market was always less expensive than those "money mongers" in the stores. As he thought about offering to watch Lydia tonight, despite his exhaustion, to let Mel have a night off to herself for a change, just to be able to witness the pure simplicity and beauty of naïve youth again, there was a knock at the door.

Kyo sighed when he realized he hadn't locked the door. He was sure it had to be Sam, who would wonder why he was home and not at the arcade. "Who is it?" he called. At least he wouldn't have to get up from his comfortable spot.

The door creaked open and the small, impossibly skinny figure stood hesitantly in the doorway, a curious and timid face poking itself inside – and that face made Kyo freeze up in shock.

"I thought you'd be here," Matt smiled at him.

Brian and Morgan returned to the house around six that night. Nearly everyone else was home, Brian could feel as they pulled into the driveway, but not everyone. When they walked inside, Tom was sitting at the kitchen table flipping through an automechanics' magazine while Simone was at the stove, cooking something that smelled delicious, dressed up in a poet shirt, broom skirt and no shoes, bitching at Tom to clean himself up first before sitting down to dinner. Tom ignored him. When he heard the back door close, Simone glanced over at Morgan, watching him take in the aroma of his French cuisine with a pleasant smile. Then he let his eyes fixate on Brian.

"So, what did you find out?" he asked.

"Well," Brian began as he swung a long leg into the air to catch the edge of the chair across from Tom. He slid into the backwards seat and told them, "The police claim to have a lead, though I'm sure it came less from the forensics evidence they collected this morning and had more to do with Kyo's incident last night – just don't let the boys know I know what George is thinking."

"Ah," Simone said, and turned to show off his cuisine. Brian raised his eyebrows and nodded with approval. "So," Simone continued, readying a plate for his friend, "where's the little whippersnapper?"

"Huh?"

"The blond," Tom offered. "The Japanese albino that was here this morning."

"He left," Morgan answered, still hanging around the doorway and casting long glances at Brian, who was obviously taking great pains to avoid noticing the way Morgan watched him.

"What?" Simone demanded haughtily, directing his own heated gaze at Brian.

"Elfy has left the building," Morgan said with a smirk. "Someone seems to have scared him off."

"Brian!" was all Simone had to say.

Brian, meanwhile, was staring very solemnly at the tabletop, clearly not pleased with the events of the day either. But he cleared his throat and insisted half-heartedly, "Don't worry. He'll be back. He just needs some time away. It's quite a lot to take in all at once. Give him some space, he'll come around."

Tom scoffed at this, barely raising his eyes from the magazine. "That kid'll be dead by tonight if you just let him out there for the psycho to catch. You don't need to be psychic to see that he's thinking he's flipped his own lid and he'll probably do anything to make it stop."

Brian shook his head, though even he seemed unconvinced now. "He just needs some space," he repeated shakily. "And maybe a little comfort, before a little convincing. It's already being taken care of."

"How?" Simone demanded, hands on his hips. "Did you send someone on a secret mission?"

"I didn't have to. I don't always give directions, Simone. Sometimes the smart ones take the initiative."

Simone stared at him blankly, clearly not getting what he was talking about. Brian just waved it off sullenly. Deep inside, though, Brian knew that Matt was already out there, alone, feeding off of his energy and meditative state. He had already located their new friend, no matter how much the kid refused to acknowledge them as such yet, and he would work his natural magic on him. And it wouldn't take all that much to convince him; Kyo was smart, he would know that Matt was right. Brian knew that, no matter how good he could be to Kyo, sometimes someone else who really did know exactly what you were going through was the best person to talk to. He wasn't offended. It was just fact.

Still, his fingers fidgeted and squeezed and pinched themselves repeatedly as he fought the urge to go after the kid himself. The smell of Simone's dinner was enticing – but he was too focused on waiting to hear the phone ring, or seeing Matt leading the blond haired boy back inside the house, to take much notice anymore.

A moment later, a man appeared in the kitchen from the dining room, dressed in all black with bare feet, his dark, greasy hair a wild mess, his face unshaven. No matter how downtrodden he looked, he beamed a slightly unstable smile at all of them in recognition and headed for the refrigerator. In a fake childish voice, he sang to them, "Tuna, tuna, tuna, it's stinking up my soul; tuna, tuna, tuna, it's eating the world whole!" As if that were his only greeting to them, he opened the refrigerator door and stuck his head in, then his arms, then emerged with a loaf of bread and a container of ready-made tuna fish. Without another word, but still with that giddy, child-like smile on his face, he shuffled out of the room.

"Where are you going!?" Simone shouted at him. "I'm already making dinner here!"

The man called back in a sing-song voice, "Yes, we have no bananas!" Then, in a dead-on impersonation of William Shatner, his voice getting fainter as he climbed the stairs to the second floor, "Oh no! A horny green toad! I must...seduce...purple...alien chick!"

Morgan looked down at Brian. "I take it Jo's still working on his week-long viewing of all the old Star Trek episodes?"

Brian sighed. "If he wakes me up one more time with that damn theme song, I'll kill him."

Simone stared at Jo's trail of breadcrumbs. "That boy needs a hooker."

And only a moment later, Brian was up and out the door without any explanation.

After his departure, Tom snickered, still flipping through his magazine. "Bloody hell. Haven't seen him this worked up over a single recruit since..."

"Anyone," Morgan finished.

Simone sighed and motioned violently to his beautifully created dinner. "Isn't anyone interested enough in food to want mine?"

Kyo felt the hands on him before he realized that he'd been asleep.

"Helloooooo," came a sing-song voice from in front of him.

He slowly opened his eyes and gave a start, stiffening, when he saw how close the face was. At his own startled sound, Matt jumped back and shouted wordlessly. Regaining himself, he explained, "You went into the kitchen for a few minutes, then came back out here for a while and fell asleep again."

Kyo blinked hard, trying to remember what he was doing with a paper bag of sandwiches in his hands and something else he didn't want to look at in the other concealed one. He squinted up at Matt. "What time is it?"

Matt glanced back at the clock behind him. "Almost nine-thirty."

Kyo shook the sleep from his head. He hadn't slept so soundly in quite a while, but then he supposed all the activities from the night before and this morning had drained him thoroughly. He eyed up the small man still lingering around in front of him.

"You're still here?"

Matt smiled at him, shrugging nonchalantly. "Of course. I said I'd stay until you saw reason, remember?"

"Oh, right... Why do I have sandwiches?"

"I made them for you. I figured you'd be hungry but wouldn't know what to eat, so I made them for you before I came over. I can't cook very well, but I make a mean sandwich."

Food aside, what Kyo had really wanted – needed – was to be alone. But this wasn't going to happen, obviously. He thought about telling Matt to go home, again, but it had been a futile effort before, and still was now.

"Here," Matt instructed, gesturing to the bag as he took a seat in the mismatched lounge chair beside the couch. "Eat."

Kyo obeyed, slowly taking one sandwich out and unwrapping it, but as he moved to brush the plastic aside, he felt something slide off the top of his leg and clatter to the floor. Matt looked down to see, but Kyo didn't have to. He remembered now, and the thought sent a minor shockwave through him.

"I was going to kill him," Kyo murmured, barely feeling the bread against his fingertips as Matt stared at the large knife on the floor. "Even with you here, even during the day, I was sure he was going to find me, and I was going to kill him."

Matt dragged his eyes back up to Kyo and he smiled faintly at him, comfortingly. "It can get that strong sometimes. The fear. But you have to remember, Kyo, these things, they can be very complicated. You have to think about them very thoroughly before you do anything.  Especially with us, because we have to consider the repercussions more than most people. They can be very serious for people like you and me."

Kyo smirked. "Do you guys have to discuss every single minute detail before acting out a plan then?"

"Usually, but that's just for safety. But when I say people like you and me, I mean just that. Not all psychics. But people like you, and people like me."

Kyo studied him closely, narrowing his eyes. "What're you talking about?"

Matt gave him a small smile again. "Remember earlier today, in the bathroom, when I was talking about the people in the house?"

"Yeah."

"And I said that Brian wasn't born with it and you were surprised."

"Right."

"Then I said that there—"

"There's only one person there, well, besides me, who was born with those powers."

"Yes. And those of us who are born with it, well, we can do almost anything, really. We are that powerful. But the problem is that, well...it takes so much training, it can take a whole lifetime to learn how to do it all. That's why we have to learn how to control ourselves so much. You know?"

Kyo just stared at him. "You mean...you're the other one?"

Matt smiled sheepishly. "Well...yeah."

"You were born with them?"

"Yup. Just like you."

"So...But I thought you were one of the Brothers."

"I am. But the other two weren't born with those powers. I am training to be their third energy, yes, I am their third energy. But I have more abilities than them. I can really learn to do all that they can already do, but they wouldn't be able to do each others' powers, or mine. Get it?"

Kyo nodded faintly. "Yeah. Man...That must be hard."

"Yes and no. It's not hard because I was born with it, so I don't have to look hard for the energy or power to do things. It is hard to control, though. And it makes me very tired and hard to be around people sometimes. I'm sure you noticed it's hard to be around people too?"

Kyo scoffed. "That has nothing to do with my powers, though."

"Well, it partly does. Because you can't control it yet, you're able to read their thoughts, even if you don't realize it. You know what they're thinking, so it can be pretty disturbing sometimes. Blocking them out, consciously or unconsciously, is draining too. You know when people talk about feeling vibes or whatever? It sounds bad, like bullshit or something people who follow the Grateful Dead would say. But it's true. And you and I are natural receptacles for those vibes. We can tell if someone doesn't like us within the first ten seconds of meeting them. And we're right. But it doesn't have to be so overwhelming. You can learn to control when you want to be so receptive and when you just want to hang out with a nice person without having to read or know everything they think and feel."

Kyo sighed, lowering his eyes. "If?"

"If you come and live with us. Learn from us."

Kyo closed his eyes. "I like where I live. I may not have many friends, but I like the solitude. I know my job isn't much, but at least I got it on my own and I love it."

Matt raised his eyebrows at him, Kyo could feel it.

"Well, okay," Kyo admitted, "maybe not love, but it...it was something. It was mine."

"Just as these powers are yours," Matt reminded him. "You see, I know you're sad or upset because you say you didn't ask for them, but...they're still yours. You can learn to do what you want with them. We can teach you those things. I can help you. I will help you. I'll show you ways to stay calm and relaxed so you won't get so...worked up over these things. I'll teach you meditation, which you'll probably want to do most of the time. I can spend hours meditating. Just to keep the confusion down and my energy up."

Kyo cracked his eyes open and gave him a sideways glance. "You and Brian both, I swear."

"What?"

"Neither of you should be salesmen."

Matt chuckled. "But really, the meditation helps to keep you kind of...straight. Balanced. Centered."

Kyo sniffled and wiped at his eyes. "I'm still not sure...I really liked being on my own. After three years, I was just getting used to it here. I was starting to like it. Now I'm just supposed to drop it all and come live with you guys? A bunch of people I don't know when it's taken me this long to get comfortable here? I can't do that, Matt, call me weak or whatever, but I'm not as good as you are. I can't give that all up, I don't really want to be a...an investigator or whatever it is you guys want to call it."

Matt leaned closer to him. "You do remember that you agreed to help Brian with this case, right?"

Kyo sighed miserably. "Yeah."

"So that's a promise you made that you have to keep. As for living with us...well...I wish it could be different, because I know, even more than the others, what it's like. How hard it is to make friends, to know people. But to learn how to control yourself, you really do need to be around someone else who knows what they're doing, all day. And when you get to the point where you don't need someone with you all the time, you have more time, more freedom to do what you want. See? I've only been here a couple of years and I'm here talking to you on my own."

Kyo groaned. "A couple of years?"

Matt shrugged. "Maybe you won't be as hard to train as I was."

"I don't know about that," Kyo muttered bitterly. "I'm obviously not the most agreeable guy around. You seem to be more open to that sort of thing, learning and that."

Matt smirked. "Oh, you didn't know me a few years ago."

Kyo looked up at him. "So?"

"So...I was horrible."

"Really?"

Matt nodded. "I was so stubborn, very cranky...I didn't want anything to do with it. My `brothers' and Brian dragged me here to do this. I didn't want to, really. Not at first. But I changed. I learned things, and it helped me deal with it better, and I felt better about all of it. I felt better about myself. Now I have all the people in the house, including my `brothers,' and I even know some people from the city too. It took me a while to realize why I was so stubborn and cranky – because I was afraid of it, afraid of myself."

Kyo scoffed. "I could've told you that years ago."

"Right – so you're way ahead of where I was when I first started. Plus I was younger, too. You're my age right now, right? And so you know that what I say is true, that deep down you know we're right and it's what you need right now. You're more, um, logical than I was when I first started. You're still very young, but not too young, in the head, you know?"

Kyo considered his words, and considered the person sitting in front of him. If anyone else knew what he was going through, the things going through his head, it would be Matt. Brian had had him nearly convinced before; but he'd still had so much resistance that he'd walked away from him and Morgan without even looking back.

But now, with Matt sitting here, talking sense to him, taking a step back from it, of course it would seem like nonsense to stay still. Common sense said to take their offer. But he couldn't do that. He had to stay right where he was, because otherwise, how on earth would he be able to think clearly about it?

Funny, how usually he had to step back from a strange situation to take stock of things, and in this one, he had to be in it to understand what was going on.

Kyo sighed. "I guess...I really don't have any choice, do I?"

Matt glanced down at the knife on the floor. "You do. But I tell you now, nothing ever works out how you think it will. Do you want to take that risk?"

Kyo stared at the knife, then glanced behind him, out the window into the darkening sky above the city.

He was out there, somewhere.

Reluctantly, he shook his head. "No."

"So you want to learn how to control it?"

"Not particularly...I'd rather not have it."

"But the fact is, you do."

"So...then yes."

"Good. That's a first step. I love Brian, but he sometimes drives into things with a little too much..."

"Drama?"

"Um, well, he's not exactly a very dramatic guy. Just upbeat, I guess. Some people can mistake that for drama. Simone's dramatic. But not Brian."

"He lays on that mystery pretty thick though."

"He's just being careful. But he can rush things sometimes. You just have to learn when to tell him to slow down. He won't get mad, he'll understand. But he doesn't know your limits yet. I was stopping him a lot when I first started. But you'll also work with Tony, and as good as Brian is as a teacher, Tony's a bit better at the timing thing. He can teach you a lot about patience and that sort of thing. It'll be hard, but don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Kyo chuckled. "Gee, whatever is there to be worried about?"

Matt took note of his sarcasm and just smiled. "I mean, don't worry, because I'll be there. I'll watch out for you. Remember, you and me, we're in the same boat. As they say. Though I never...really...liked boating," Matt added, slightly confused at the metaphor. "I got seasick."

Kyo stared at him blankly.

Matt smirked. "I never really got that saying anyway."

Kyo blinked heavy eyelids at him. "I think...I'm very tired."

"Do you want to go now?"

"Yes...No...No wait...You made me sandwiches..." Kyo babbled, staring down at his hands in his lap, still clutching one of the sandwiches. "They look good. But I'm not hungry anymore."

Matt realized that Kyo was rambling now, so he focused his attention back on him. "You really need to sleep." He stood up then, reaching for Kyo's arm. "C'mon, let's get you into bed."

As Matt tried to drag Kyo to his feet, the Japanese man froze, shaking his head. "I can't sleep – he'll see me if I sleep..."

"Which way is your bedroom?"

Kyo gestured with his finger. "But I can't sleep yet. If I do..."

Matt sighed, leaning over a little. "Do you want me to call Brian? Maybe we can get you back there to sleep."

That made Kyo stop, unsure of what to say.

And then, as if on cue, the knock at the door caused Matt to lift his head. Kyo, on the other hand, still sat like a statue, his eyes wide.

"Is it him?" he whispered hoarsely, his body feeling stiff and immobile.

Matt went to the door instead, and a few seconds later, a familiar black trench coat surrounding jeans-covered legs stepped in front of Kyo's vision.

"Speak of the devil," Matt snickered, then made himself scarce by ducking into the kitchen.

Kyo was relieved – in a manner of speaking. He was still tense enough that he couldn't move, one hand holding the sandwich and the other clutching his knee fiercely. He stared straight ahead, even as Brian knelt down in front of him to come into eye-contact.

"How'd you find me?" Kyo croaked.

Brian gave him a strange look. "I'm psychic." He glanced away, then admitted in an almost shamed tone, "Plus we have your address from the file George has on you."

Kyo blinked wearily, rolling his eyes ever so slightly, though not out of exasperation. His eyelids fluttered, and as he tried not to pass out, Brian went on in a quiet voice – the most desperate Kyo had heard him yet, and that caught his attention.

"I've been pushing too much, too fast," Brian sighed. "I'm sorry for that. I have to remind myself...I have to remember that this is a totally different situation than most have been in, in the house. This is me, coming to you, asking you to please be a part of our team, because your abilities would really help us. Even if there weren't this psychotic killer on the loose, or even if there were and he wasn't after you, I'd be asking you. But that's the point – I'm not here to give you an ultimatum, and I'm not here to threaten you. I just really want to ask...please...come back with us. Stay with us and let us help you with this."

Kyo bit his lip, looking down at his hands. He set the sandwich aside, brushing some crumbs off his lap, and turned back to Brian with a lowered gaze.

"I came back here," he admitted, "in the hopes that...he'd find me." His voice was flat, dull, lifeless. Resigned to accept his fate, it seemed. "I wasn't sure if he'd get me first or if I could take him on and set things right, but I...I came home fully aware that he could find me. I figured...I figured, maybe I could save that last person, and more in future years, if he came to me instead. You said the connection goes both ways – he'd be able to find me if and when he got desperate enough. This way I wouldn't have to involve anyone else. It would just be him and me, until the end of it."

Brian choked back a plea, covered his mouth with a hand before mumbling, "And if you hadn't succeeded?"

Kyo shrugged helplessly. "At least I'd have given it my best shot."

Brian hesitated, then, still gnawing his lip and keeping his eyes averted so as to not have to catch Kyo's gaze in his own, he reached out and took one of the limp hands on Kyo's legs. "It wouldn't have been your best, though. It was a selfless and noble thought, but it wouldn't have been...you could do much better than that."

Kyo let out a heavy breath, slumping his shoulders. "Apparently. But it was the only thing I could think of."

Brian nodded his understanding. Then he swallowed hard, studying the small hand in his own, running his fingertips over the smooth skin.

"You've had your turn to be selfless. So let me be selfish now."

Kyo squinted at him, not certain of his meaning.

Brian finally looked up at him, and a surprise to them both, there were tears in his eyes, a pleading to his voice and expression that he hadn't meant to let sneak out that much. But he went on anyway.

"Kyo...You're so immeasurably special, you don't even know..." he said, his whisper strained. "There is so much I can feel inside of you, so much you haven't even touched on...You have potential beyond words. There's something so utterly unique and...almostmagical about you, that it would have been a sin to waste that on one psychotic man who has this ridiculous, violent obsession and ritual he has to carry out for no real reason. Besides that, I would have felt responsible. I wouldn't have been here to protect you, like I promised you. I told you when we first met that I would do everything I could to protect you. And if anything had happened to you, I would've..." He choked off, his chin dropping to his chest so he could catch his breath.

Kyo gave him a queer look, not sure what was going to come out of his mouth next; he supposed he could try to use some power on him – but he really wanted to just hear Brian say it.

"Please," Brian hissed, squeezing his hand tightly. "Please come back. Come home with us. Come be with us so we can help you. Come home...with me." He lifted his head again, looking Kyo straight in the eyes. "Now that you're in my life, I can't imagine you not being there."

Kyo stifled a smirk, reminding him, "We only just met last night—"

"And yet this feeling is this strong in me," Brian insisted, leaning closer. He paused, hesitating for a moment, then dared to reach up and touch Kyo's cheek tenderly, staring into those impossible eyes which stared back imploringly. "Let me—let us take care of you. You are worth so much more than you can possibly imagine, Kyo. To the world, to our group – to me. And if he were to find you, if he were to do anything to you...I don't think I could live with myself.

"Yes, there are all the benefits of learning to control your powers and get a handle on them, and there's the hope that we'll be able to catch this guy before things get out of hand.

"But I'll lay it out plainly for you, in all honesty and in all my selfishness: I want you to be with us. With me. I want to protect you. Please, let me be selfish, just this once, and let me help save you."

Kyo realized he was barely breathing, and the fingers touching his cheek, in an exact copy of how that murderer had touched him the night before, but completely different...

All the excuses he'd had in his mind, the reasons he'd told Matt and objections he'd raised to Brian before – suddenly, they didn't mean a thing, melting in his head before they could even reach his lips. And after swallowing hard one time, he found himself nodding shakily.

Brian let out a breath of relief and managed a weak smile. "Thank you," he murmured, and dared to brush his lips briefly over Kyo's other cheek before pushing himself to his feet. He held out a hand to the much smaller man, giving him a warm look. "Want to come home now?"
Chapter 4

Kyo woke the next morning in a panic, remembering shreds of the night before, and he suddenly felt the anxiety of being alone in his apartment, figuring that it wouldn't be such a good idea to be there, where the killer could easily locate him.

It wasn't until he was sitting up on the unfamiliar bed that he more clearly remembered the night before, and seeing the dark outline of Brian in bed next to him caused the rest of it to come rushing back.

He wasn't at home alone. He was at the house. Matt had stayed with him for hours, just talking to him, and then Brian had shown up and, in a rather revealing manner, had pleaded with Kyo to come back to the house with them.

The fact that Brian was still in bed, right next to where Kyo had been sleeping, in just his boxers suggested a bit more than what was true.

Kyo himself was still fully clothed, except for his boots and his studded belt. He remembered coming back to the house and starting to head towards the basement room where he'd stayed earlier, but Brian's hand on his arm and the look on his face had somehow caused him to relent and go with the larger man into his connected apartment shared with "the rambler," who was already inside watching Star Trek. Without letting Kyo interrupt the engrossed man from his task, Brian had pulled him out of the open kitchen and living room area to his own bedroom. Once inside, the now silent leader of this group of misfits had merely gestured for him to take his boots off. Startling him further, as Kyo stood up straight again, Brian had taken it upon himself to help unlatch the heavy black belt from around Kyo's tiny waist, but all he did was set it aside and motion for him to lie down. Kyo was too tired at that point to wonder what was going to happen – but all that did happen was Brian shut out the lights and crawled into bed behind him, placing a hesitant but comforting hand on Kyo's arm, and whispered to him to get some rest, he would be there to protect him.

And once again, Kyo managed to fall into a state of such relaxation and security that he didn't even dream.

Upon waking, however, he felt jittery and uncomfortable, even if there were no signs that Brian had done anything suspicious during the night. The older man kept on snoring away in the dim hours of early morning, and Kyo tried to compose himself, trying not to think about what sleeping next to another man might mean for him.

Not that it would have been horrible, he guessed, but it wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting when Brian had first asked him to stay.

And then there was a thought in his head – a very specific thought, in a very specific voice. It was Matt, telling him to come out into the kitchen to talk to him and get something to eat.

Kyo shook his head briefly, but the voice and the request were still there, insistent. He supposed this must have been what it was like to live there every day. He didn't have the control to respond to Matt mentally, so he quietly obeyed and slipped from the room, leaving Brian to continue sleeping.

Kyo yawned as he made his way into the kitchen, where Matt, dressed in a warm pair of black pajama pants and an oversized red knit sweater, was standing in front of the stove holding a frying pan. He smiled when Kyo came in and gestured for him to have a seat at the table.

"I sensed you were awake, so I thought I'd invite you to breakfast."

"Ah. Um, thanks. But you said you're not good at cooking—"

"I'm all right with breakfast. You know," he said as he swirled something in the pan, "for all the nonsense he spouts while he's awake, Jo's dreams are even harder to interpret."

Kyo glanced over his shoulder at him. "You can do that? I mean, intentionally?"

"Oh, yeah! It's amazing, the things we can do when we're properly trained."

Kyo's gaze was drawn now to the refrigerator across the room. The door seemed as if someone hadn't closed it right, and was slowly creaking open before his eyes. A carton of eggs jerkily opened and two eggs slid carefully out of their places, floating, unaided, towards the stove. Kyo opened his mouth, but found he had no voice to warn Matt of the escaped eggs' silent attack on him.

To Kyo's surprise, Matt just looked back at him and smiled again. The eggs stopped right next to him, still hovering in the air. Matt took one without looking and cracked it open, spilling the contents into the now sizzling pan.

"Telekinesis," Matt reminded him.

Kyo felt like slapping himself. "Oh, right."

"Just another bonus we have. If we didn't feel a natural urge to move around, we could be among the laziest creatures on the face of the earth."

Kyo was getting tired of the too-obvious hints over what awaited him for training. He'd already agreed to it, there was no need to rub it in his face. Instead, he cleared his throat and, absently brushing his fingers through his hair to get the bedhead out, he asked, "So what's Jo dream about? Getting babbled to more than he can talk?"

"No, but it was pretty strange. See, watching people dream isn't as draining as reading someone's thoughts. The dreamer's more vulnerable and their instinctive blocks are down, so you don't have to contend with them trying to hide their thoughts. It's mostly just sneaking into their heads while they're asleep and watching a movie."

"Isn't that a bit too intrusive?" Kyo questioned warily. "Like, a violation of privacy?"

Matt shrugged. "Yeah, it can be. But I know Jo doesn't care, and besides, I wasn't very tired last night because I'd spent half the day meditating and the other half bugging you, which doesn't take much effort at all. So I didn't feel like sleeping, so I watched his dreams instead. That was the best movie I've seen in a long time. Much better than that Titanic flop. To me it was just a titanic bore."

"So what was the dream about?"

Matt opened the breadbox without touching it and directed two slices of bread into the toaster. "Well," he started, hitting the knob down with his fingers and cracking the other egg into the pan mentally, "it began with him flying a spacecraft over some purple planet, shooting at all these flesh-eating zombies attacking bunnies. No doubt an inspiration from all those Star Trek episodes he's been watching. Then the space craft crashed into a giant disco ball in the sky, and he ended up being thrown into the middle of a club floor, doing the chicken dance with Lara Croft and a midget. And all these people were surrounding the floor, cheering them on, yelling – well, he dreams in Japanese, it's just one of his things I guess. Do you know Japanese, being raised here?"

Kyo shrugged uncomfortably. "A little. Well, yeah, actually. But I don't usually speak it. It's more a second language for me, and I don't have anyone to speak it with, so...But I studied it since I was younger and it came pretty naturally to me."

"Well, Jo's Japanese, so now you two can hold conversations none of us can understand. Anyway, they were all yelling at him in Japanese, but in English, the best translation I can figure is that they were chanting, Eat your greens! Eat your greens! Which is maybe a sign that he knows he's malnourished?"

Kyo shrugged again, clueless. He had only briefly seen Jo, fully absorbed in the television the night before, so it wasn't like he had an idea about the guy's health.

"Anyway," Matt continued, just as the toast popped up. He scraped the scrambled eggs onto a plate and reached for another plate for the toast. "Then Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee came in from above, like floating down or something, and they started fighting over who would get to tango with him. The dance floor turned into one huge fight scene! Then Lara grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out this door, and the two of them ended up in this dark alleyway. She gave him a watergun and the two of them started hiding behind garbage bins, shooting at these invisible enemies. But the guns didn't shoot bullets, or even water – just fortune cookies. Then the invisible enemies came out from nowhere, suddenly visible, and they turned out to be bunches of broccoli. And they were all chanting Save the vegetables! Save the vegetables! Kill the Beegees! And Jo dove into this bin to escape, and he ended up falling out of a plane, doing a freefall with no parachute!"

Matt smirked as he cleaned out the frying pan and came back to the table holding both plates. "That's when he fell out of his chair. He'd fallen asleep watching his marathon and lost his balance. You and Brian had already gone into bed, so he just stumbled into his room and passed out. Here."

Matt was handing him the plate of toast.

Kyo flinched. His stomach hurt from being so hungry, now that he was paying attention to it. Not even the idea of flesh-eating zombies could change his stomach's mind. He accepted the toast, then his eyes rested on the eggs in anticipation. But Matt didn't make a move to give them to him.

"Are they ready?" he asked innocently.

"These?" Matt took a seat across from him, setting the plate in front of himself. "These are for me."

Kyo looked down at his toast and then back up at him accusingly. "What? Hey!"

"Listen," Matt assured him as he salted his eggs and dug into them. "Trust me, you shouldn't have them."

"Why not?"

"Because," Matt explained levelly, "you'll puke them up faster than you can eat them."

Kyo cringed. "Really? You're that bad a cook?"

Matt rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "No. Well, I am, but I'm good with eggs. But the reason you can't have them yet is because after what you went through the other night and yesterday, it's best to stay light with your food for a little while. Bingeing will only make it worse."

"But you made me all those sandwiches to eat yesterday—"

"And you didn't nibble on one. That just makes your stomach even weaker now. Trust me, it's best not to go overboard when you use a lot of energy like you did the last couple of days. It's like how you're not supposed to sit down right after running a mile, or you'll pass out. Same goes for us and eating."

"B-But...I didn't use much energy yesterday," Kyo protested. "I was just sitting there waiting—"

"And what you didn't realize, which I could see and sense from outside your building, was that you were seeking out the murderer's presence. You didn't even know you were doing it, but you were, and that was sapping your already drained energy even more. Food intake is very important in our lives, how much and what kind and when – another thing you'll learn when you start training with us. See, we teach you how you can live with these powers, the best things to do to keep you feeling good and normal. As you can see from just looking at us, most of us are pretty small people, weight-wise. We're all pretty thin, some more than others – though you've got some muscle to you, that's a good thing. But you could still stand to put on a little more weight. It's a good thing we found you when we did, otherwise, if that guy hadn't killed you first, you probably would've started to waste away, since you obviously don't know how to handle your physical body with your powers."

Kyo cringed. "You make it sound like a disease. Like diabetes or something."

"Well, it sort of is. Really. See, it's a very physical thing, this metaphysical stuff, it interacts and can interfere with our chemical make-up, our physical bodies and development. Your family probably always wondered why you were so small."

"I'm Japanese," Kyo reminded him dully. "We're not really known for breaking the six-foot barrier on average."

"Yeah, but you're shorter than me, man, and that's saying something. You probably stopped growing a while ago because you were using your powers and didn't compensate for them. Let me ask you, were you always tired as a teenager?"

Kyo scoffed. "Who isn't?"

"True enough. But you were anemic, too."

"Yeah, so?"

"So you weren't getting enough iron – enough energy. You didn't eat a whole lot, and you used your powers a lot, without realizing it. On a growing form, that's going to have repercussions. I'm sure I wouldn't have been much taller either, but I think my own growth was stunted too. But I also have the genes of having a high metabolism and just generally being slender. I'm guessing you do too?"

Kyo hesitated uncomfortably, giving a half-shrug this time. "I dunno. Never knew my real parents."

"Ah, of course. Well, anyway, it's give and take. That's why we have Simone to make us meals, because he's so good with that stuff. If we were normal people, we would probably either be regular size or too fat, but because we use so much energy in our work, in what we do, we burn it all off anyway. It's better than diet pills."

"So why do you get the eggs again?" Kyo asked with a smirk.

"You wouldn't feed someone who's just had surgery a big piece of raw steak, would you? No, you stay light for a while, a day or two, and then you move up to harder things. Toast is good enough for now."

Kyo sighed and began to stand up. "Fine—"

"No butter," Matt scolded, not even looking up from his eggs.

Kyo gawked at him, freezing in his spot. "None?"

"Nope. Too heavy."

"But I can't eat dry toast!"

"Why not?"

"It's tasteless!"

"Be thankful you've never eaten English food. Sit and eat."

Kyo rolled his eyes, but finally gave into his deprivation and slumped back into his seat, relenting.

"Trust me," Matt assured him, digging into his eggs without a care, "you'll thank me for it later. When I first moved here and was so stubborn, like I told you before, I didn't believe Brian when he told me that. I went and ate a burger straight after one of my first training sessions."

"What happened?" Kyo asked, munching daintily on the dry toast.

"I threw up five times in one day. My stomach just couldn't handle it."

Kyo grimaced. "You guys aren't all vegetarians here, are you?"

"No, not at all. We just watch what we eat very carefully. We order pizza and Chinese food and everything. But it's like if you pull a muscle at work – you don't stop working and you don't stop moving, you just keep doing it, only carefully. And in a little while, you can do jumping jacks again."

Kyo stared down at the table. "I've never done jumping jacks in my life."

"Well, you don't really need to, do you?"

"God..." Kyo stared out the window for a moment, then confided in him, his eyes still glued to the sunlight outside, "I really thought that guy was gonna come after me last night. Really. I thought he was gonna hunt me down and kill me. I was convinced he was closeby." He directed his gaze onto Matt again. "Sounds silly...huh?"

Matt didn't look like he was going to laugh at all. He returned the gaze and told him in all seriousness, "He was around. But I put a shell around us so he couldn't sense you. I blocked him out."

Kyo was about to ask him "You can do that?" again, but he knew he shouldn't have been surprised anymore. Of course, he didn't need to ask; Matt could read his mind. And he just smiled.

"You see it as a curse," Matt said as he finished up the rest of his eggs. "It can seem that way as long as you can't control it. But it's not a curse. We're special."

Kyo rolled his eyes slightly. "Yeah – I've been called that too."

Matt didn't seem to hear him. As he got up and went to clean his plate in the sink, he informed him, "Well, after you're done there, we'll go wake up Tom and Morgan and the four of us will go back."

Kyo sat up straighter, forgetting about his uninteresting breakfast. "Back? To the apartment?"

"Yup. To finish packing and moving you over here."

"Y-You're sure it can just take the four of us?"

"Really only one, but you and Tom will need me there for the protective barrier to keep the guy away, Morgan will want to be around to direct you in where you can and can't put things back here, and you'll have to be there to tell Tom what to take and what to trash."

"I have furniture, though – a bed, a couch, a chair—"

Matt shrugged carelessly. "And we have a sitting room on the second floor that's only half full. And we have Tom. Your point is?"

Kyo remembered Brian's informative speech about Tom's strength and slowly slithered back down into his seat. "Okay. Nevermind."

It was only noon by the time Tom and Morgan had almost everything packed into the pickup truck back at Kyo's apartment, and Kyo himself was left standing in a nearly empty room, fidgeting and worrying over if he'd gotten everything. Matt was there to help calm him down and assure him that if things weren't in plain sight, they were already packed away. Sam, Kyo's neighbor and former coworker (who was still in shock over his friend's sudden departure from the arcade and now the highrise as well), had come over too, being awakened by the noise of the move and wanting to see what was going on. Kyo was still in too much of a whirl of change to take much notice of him, but Matt introduced himself as Kyo's new roommate and got talking to the Chinese kid rather easily. He was the one to provide Sam with Kyo's new address and phone number, in case Sam or anyone else had need of him, and Sam had to laugh at his small friend, who was standing in the middle of the empty room, smoking a cigarette and chewing his fingernails intermittently, meanwhile muttering to himself as he eyed up the apartment closely.

"He's a little afraid of moving, I think," Matt explained.

Sam chuckled, a toothy grin on his face. "You'd think he move to Buenos Aires or something! This place only about mile away."

Matt nodded at the kid's broken English. "It really isn't all that far, but I get the impression that Kyo's a little neurotic."

Sam looked over at him in confusion. "He never goes to gym."

"Huh? No!  Neurotic, not aerobic."

"Oh. What's neurotic?"

"Nervous. Twitchy. Paranoid."

"Ah, paranoid! I know that one. Yeah, man, Kyo very paranoid. He tell me once that if U.S. government knew what he knew, they would lock him up, do experiments on him or something."

"Nah, the U.S. government doesn't even want to acknowledge that we exist..."

"They take care of alien though."

Matt laughed. "What?"

"It's true! I read it."

"Where'd you read that?"

"National Inquirer. Only piece of good reading around. Besides comics."

Matt shook his head, still smiling. "Ah, the intelligence of today's American literature.."

After much debate and arguing, Morgan finally gave in and let the kid come with them back to the house, riding with Morgan and the rest of the cargo while the other three crammed themselves in the front seat. Once there, Morgan and Kyo climbed out and immediately started grabbing bags from the back while Tom waited for them to clear some room for him to get the bigger stuff; Sam, however, glanced to his right and stopped dead in his tracks, dropping the duffel bag in his hand. Morgan slammed into him and grunted, "What the hell!?"

Sam was standing perfectly still, staring in awe at the huge backyard, the large duck pond down the slope of a green hill, and the wide blue sky above them. He turned to Kyo and pointed towards the bottom of the small hill.

"They got ducks!" he squawked excitedly, jumping up and down.

Morgan looked back at Kyo with a ridiculous expression on his face. "He always this excitable?"

Kyo just rolled his eyes. "Ignore him. The novelty will wear off in a few minutes."

Morgan directed the jittery boy to pick up the bag and continue on into the large house. It was very obvious how stunned Sam was, having lived in the tiny apartment in the middle of the city for over a year now, and not much better living conditions back in Hong Kong before that, just by the way he gawked at everything and muttered Cantonese swear words under his breath in astonishment. Even the quaint little kitchen he was led into made him go wild with compliments, marveling at the magnets on the refrigerator and the pretty yellow window curtains.

Morgan set Kyo's bags down on the dining room table and muttered to the blond kid, "It doesn't take much to amuse him, does it?"

"He's not dumb," Kyo assured him. "He's just, um...deprived."

Morgan smirked and cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Come on," Kyo reasoned. "You saw where we live – where I lived. Bring a city kid to virtually a country house, that's what you get."

"You don't seem shocked by it."

"I've been here before. Besides that, I was brought up in a middle-class family in the suburbs in another state. He's from the Hong Kong projects. He was surprised I had window curtains in the apartment."

"Well, I shouldn't be surprised," Morgan mused, taking in the dining room with his eyes and a comfortable nod. "I was pretty taken aback by this place when I first moved in here a few years ago with Matt. I was from a pretty shitty tenement section in London, of course a house that had more than three rooms was impressive enough. But," he added in a dry tone, "I didn't go ga-ga over the curtains."

Kyo scoffed. "The chandelier probably had to fall on your head for you to notice it at all."

Morgan kept the smirk on his face. He recognized that tone of voice. He slapped Kyo on the shoulder. "I like you, kid," he announced. "I think you and I have a similar attitude. Good thing we're roommates."

Kyo cringed. "Please – no dead bodies without fair warning."

"Promise." Morgan chuckled at the fearful expression, then plodded to the basement door and disappeared downstairs with an armful of Kyo's bags.

Kyo sighed as he studied his scattered belongings on the dining room table. He put his hands on his hips, trying to figure out what to do next – or first – and then Matt came into the room, dragging Sam along with him. Matt was obviously very amused by Sam's reaction to the old-fashioned, large house.

"Come on," Matt giggled, pointing to the table. "Put the stuff down there."

Sam obeyed, then turned to Kyo with the joy of discovery painted all over his face. "They have cow salt and pepper shakers doing it!" he announced with pride.

Kyo squinted at him. "Doing what?"

"It!"

Kyo glanced at Matt for help, but Matt just bowed his head, smothering his laughter.

"And – and – t.v. in kitchen!" Sam continued. "Kyo, I take you place! You no want to stay, can I?"

Kyo smirked. "Sorry, kid. I think Mel and Toru would miss you."

Sam's smile faded. "Oh, right. Well, they can come too—"

"Sam," Kyo interrupted, patting his friend on the arm, "you can come visit whenever you want, okay? But you just take care of the other two and Lydia for me for now, all right?"

Sam sighed heavily, looking around the dining room sadly. "Guess so – hey! Water fountain!" And he dashed around the table to study the figurines on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.

"Ah, that was fun," Kyo deadpanned.

Matt regained his composure and cleared his throat. "Um, Brian is in a meeting with the police chief right now, but he'll be home in another hour. That's why he had to send Morgan instead of coming himself. Anyway, he'll want to talk to you when he comes home, just tell you about the rules and let you know what kind of schedule your training will demand. But, hey, at least you don't have to work, we'll be supporting you for a while now—"

Upon hearing that, Sam called Kyo a nasty name in Cantonese.

"Oh please!" Kyo scoffed. "You and your measly five hour a day job! Oh yeah, you're just so overworked!"

Sam grinned and turned back to the decorations.

"Anyway," Mat continued, "it's Friday, so most people are home, but not doing much of anything. Except me, of course, and Morgan's schedule is kind of, uh, sporadic."

"Yeah, I got that impression."

"He's gonna be working a lot in the next few days, though. Since they found that body and all. The forensics unit will probably call him in by this afternoon with something they can't figure out. It always happens that way with paranormal cases like this one. The killer will leave marks or traces normal people can't, um, identify, and they'll get Morgan in to look at it because he knows more about that stuff, since he lives with us. Hey, did you know he can freeze time?"

Kyo cringed. "Um, I think someone mentioned that to me before."

"Yeah. It's pretty cool. Um, Simone will be home in a few minutes, he worked early today. He works at a twenty-four hour diner and works different shifts nearly every day. Shannon's sleeping because he has a show late tonight with the band. Alex is sleeping because the school is closed today so he doesn't have to be anywhere special. Tony's in a meeting with our accountant. Tom'll be going back to the shop once he's done here – automechanic. Brian is seeing George. Jo's probably still watching his marathon. I'm here. Morgan's downstairs. You're here. Sam's there... What's he doing?"

Kyo didn't even look up to see Sam balancing a ceramic angel figurine on his nose like a seal.

"I never ask," he responded instead. "Who else is here?"

The angel slipped off of Sam's nose and he groped to catch it before it smashed to pieces on the floor – but without even a second glance, Matt grabbed it mentally and, right in front of Sam's eyes, the angel floated up and set itself daintily back on the mantelpiece.

Sam stared at the angel with huge eyes, then looked back at Kyo and Matt, who were still talking. He pointed at the fireplace as he came over to them.

"You see that!?"

"See what?" Kyo asked.

"Angel fly!"

"That was me," Matt informed him. "We don't care if you play with things, but if that angel breaks, Simone will have your head."

A few hours later, after Matt had given Sam a ride back to the apartment highrise, Kyo had everything either unpacked or sorted. He decided to take a break from it, since Morgan had indeed been called away, which gave him the solitude and freedom of having the room to himself. But now he needed to get out of the basement for a while, if only to put some space between himself and his possessions. As soon as he stepped foot in the dining room, Kyo was startled by how quickly the table had been set for dinner. He hadn't even heard Simone come in, but now he was standing by the doorway to the kitchen, holding an oven mitt in one hand and a spatula in the other, and was yelling at someone in the kitchen, "Put that down! You know you're allergic to chocolate and that's for dessert anyway!"

"What do I get for dessert then?" came a voice Kyo hadn't heard yet, although the accent was very similar to Sam's.

"You get cheesecake."

"But I had cheesecake last night!"

Simone finally noticed Kyo standing in the dining room. "Oh good, you're here. Come on, help me with the roast."

Kyo cringed at the word. His mother's "roasts" had always turned out to be heaps of either overcooked or undercooked dead meat that he couldn't help but imagine had once been trotting around lazily in green pastures. Or something splattered by the side of the road that she'd secretly salvaged. He was no vegetarian, but he believed the carcasses of dead animals deserved better treatment than what his mother's cooking would do to it.

He reluctantly followed Simone into the kitchen and finally saw the face that belonged to the whining person. He was Chinese, of course, and the way he was easily lifting the roast from the oven and directing it onto the large plate in the middle of the kitchen table, unaided as he sat several feet away from the oven, told Kyo that this had to be the oldest "Brother" that Brian and Matt had talked about, the one he'd started the department with.

"Hello," he said, his accent very heavy but his English wording impeccable. "I'm Tony, Brian's told me a lot about you. Though I haven't gotten to see the bastard in three days. But we've been talking, keeping in touch, and I get the feeling it'll take a hell of a lot of time for you to get used to this place, but I'm sure you'll like it once you do. And don't worry about the roast – Simone is a very good cook."

Kyo swallowed. There was something about this man, just being in his presence that overwhelmed him. He tried to put his finger on what exactly was causing this feeling when Simone stepped up beside him and explained it to him.

"Tony's an old soul," he said. "I mean, some people are born with their powers, like you and Matt, and that's unusual anyway. But Tony's been around these parts – meaning Earth – several times already. He developed his powers in his adolescence, but he's very wise and very, um..." Simone grinned at Tony. "Old!"

"Shut up, you whore," Tony spat at him.

"So," Simone continued, "when someone who's gifted with natural-born powers like yourself comes across an old soul like Tony, there's quite a powerful vibe in the room, you know?"

Kyo swallowed again and nodded.

"Your best bet," Tony told him, standing from the table, "is to listen to Brian and take in what you can, but I'll be the one who'll actually be instructing you. Are you all right? You look kind of pale."

"He's always like that," Simone informed him.

"No, I mean, more than usual," Tony insisted. "Oh, that's right – Matt has you on the dry toast diet, doesn't he?"

Kyo nodded vaguely.

"Well, it's a good idea, otherwise you'll be sick all night. Maybe you shouldn't have the roast tonight."

Kyo's stomach churned at the idea of dry toast again. "Please—"

"You can have bread and butter," Tony offered, reaching into the refrigerator for the butter. "And it's good bread, too, home-baked. Let's see, what else? Maybe a salad would be good, though I wouldn't put too much dressing on it if I were you. Ummm...Simone?"

Simone was already making up the specialized dinner plate for Kyo. He made both things that Tony suggested, then added a blueberry muffin to the side and offered it to Kyo with a bright smile.

"Now, eat it very slowly and carefully," Simone instructed. "Try not to go too fast, though I know you're starving. And chew a lot – if you're gonna throw up, it's better not to throw up big chunks of things, you know? Not only does it hurt your throat, but damn, it's nasty too!"

Kyo stared down at his plate disdainfully at the mention of vomiting again. He looked back up at Tony with such a pathetic expression that the older man burst out laughing.

"I'll get you some water," he offered, nudging him towards the dining room. "Go on and have a seat. The rest of the family will be here soon for dinner."

Dinner was, put quite simply, absolute mayhem to Kyo's eyes. Objects were flying everywhere, salt and pepper dispensers were sent back and forth through the air, up the table and back down to someone else. There were so many people around the long table that Kyo wasn't even sure if he knew how many there were. He knew he didn't recognize a few faces, but he was so out of it that he was unable to recall all the information Brian had told him two nights before, therefore he wasn't sure who was who.

Morgan was the only one not immediately present, as he was still working with the forensics team on the crime scene. Apparently, they had found a "strange residue" on one of the nearby trees which they couldn't quite identify. Brian had laughed out loud when he heard that news, but Kyo only felt chilled.

Now he was feeling better, though. He took a look around the table, trying to place everyone. He recognized Tom, Matt, Brian and Simone, of course; while Brian had the head of the table, and Kyo immediately next to him, Tom and Simone sat across from him, bickering over who had eaten more of the nearly vanished potato salad. Tony sat at the other end of the table with Alex to one side of him, a muscular and smiling man with a full beard and long, unruly dark hair, and Matt on the other. Alex was attempting to aim a spoonful of the potato salad at a small blond who could have been the day to Matt's night. Paying attention to everyone else's conversations, Kyo surmised that the blond "kid" was Shannon, the musician fire-thrower who relit the candles with his eyes every time Alex wanted to be frustrating and blow them out.

Matt, meanwhile, was eating his food slowly and methodically, staring at the top of the table while he chewed, deep in thought. Tony spoke to him in low tones now and again, but Matt would only respond with a nod or a shake of the head. Tony didn't seem to notice any kind of odd disturbance, obviously, so this must have been what Matt was like most of the time. And then, when Alex was sure he had Shannon perfectly in target range, Matt blinked hard and the spoon bent backwards, sending the entire contents all over Alex's lap instead. The Scottishman fussed a bit, but Matt and Shannon exchanged knowing smirks without a word.

Then there was the man sitting right next to Kyo that made him feel uneasy. He was dressed entirely in black, his tangled black hair was a greasy mess, and every now and then he would mutter something completely incomprehensible. He barely even lifted his face from his plate, concentrating mostly on shoveling food into his mouth; if Kyo hadn't known any better, he would have wondered how on earth this man could eat so much and be as slim as he was. Though he wasn't as skinny as Matt or Shannon, who looked as rail-thin as Sam was, he wasn't quite as big or muscular as Tom or Alex. Although Tom was no body-builder, despite the fact that he probably had more strength than four body-builders put together.

But there was something definitely strange about this man. Nobody had even bothered to introduce him to everyone that night at dinner, but after catching a glimpse of him the night before, Kyo figured that this was Jo, "the rambler." Considering most of the words coming from his full mouth made no sense to Kyo, he knew it had to be him; he recognized bits of Latin, one phrase of French, and a few more bits of Gaelic, but most of it sounded like some kind of ancient dialect not even Jo himself would be able to identify.

Brian must have noticed Kyo's intrigue in his neighbor, because a few moments later, he was leaning closer to him, saying quietly, "Don't be put off. Jo's kind of a strange case. He's hard to communicate with directly because his existence is mainly based on being a conduit for ancient souls."

Kyo squinted at him in confusion. "A conduit? God, that must be horrible – you know, lonely or something..."

"I guess. Jo hardly notices. He's a channeler – they're born normal, but then an incident will occur which will render them...well, virtually dead, basically. But having enough life to continue on..."

"A vegetable?" Kyo hissed.

"Sort of. But not quite. It's hard to explain."

"So try me."

"Well...he isn't really himself anymore. There are bits and pieces of him in there, fragments, whatever, that come across now and then. But over half the day is spent just having these spirits go through him. Some of them have something to say, some of them don't really care. They just notice a conduit sitting down to dinner and say, `Hey, I haven't tasted roast in over a century, think I'll have some.'"

"So he's being used by ghosts?"

"In a way. But he has one that guards him constantly. Watches over him, so to speak. It'll fight out a bad ghost or a demon if it tries to take control of him. Jo is too fragile to do that himself. If he tried, he'd probably either die or go completely insane."

Kyo blinked. "So he's not insane already?"

"Oh, no. He's still in there, like I said. But even when he's himself, he doesn't make much sense. That's nothing bad, though – he's a bit like Sam, you know? Kinda goofy, childish. He loves television and video games. Also loves music, especially punk music. Like I said, he works in a record store – part-time only, though. He wouldn't be able to handle a full-time job."

Kyo glanced over at Jo curiously. The man, who seemed to only be in his early twenties, finally noticed him and grinned. He waved without a word, then went back to eating.

"So it only happens after a bad accident?" Kyo asked Brian.

"Yeah. If the circumstances are right. God, Jo was just some punk kid from Kyoto twelve years ago. Then some freak accident happens, we don't even know what happened to him, he's never told us, and really, I'm not even sure if he remembers. It happened when he was sixteen."

"Sixteen?" Kyo asked incredulously. "That guy's nearly thirty?"

"Twenty-eight, yeah."

"God. Hardly looks it."

"Yeah, well, he most likely looked like hell when the accident happened. He was nearly dead, and somewhere in there, he ended up inheriting or creating or accepting – we have no idea yet how it happened – these powers to be able to communicate with and speak for the dead. Not only the dead, but other energies as well. He once contacted a group of electronic particles that were starting to develop into a slightly human-brain-like form in another part of the solar system."

Kyo gawked at him.

Brian smirked. "Yeah, um, that connection was fast and fleeting, though. The next thing we knew, before Morgan could even get the recorder going, Jo was back singing the A-Team song – right before Cleopatra invaded him and demanded to know where her precious gold headpiece had gone." Brian rolled his eyes, as if all three of these things were an every-day occurrence, just an annoying little blip in the normal, average day around here.

"The A-Team!?" Kyo gasped, mortified.

And then chaos erupted at the other end of the table when Matt began having a fit – apparently Alex was teasing him because "You have a nose on your face!"

Kyo sighed. His new roommates.

Chapter 5

One word Kyo could use to describe the first week of his training was "exhausting." Another was "preposterous." Not only did he have a hard time understanding all the information that was being fed to him; he was having a hard time believing more than half of it. The only things he was certain of were the things that were mentioned that he had already experienced. By now, he had accepted that he and this mysterious killer had a psychic connection, but he was having more trouble believing Brian when he was told he could one day learn how to fly.

"It's not the Superman, man-as-bird kind of flying you see on television," Brian tried to reason. "But eventually you'll be able to learn techniques which will enable you to...well..."

Kyo had just given him a strange look and deadpanned, "Fly?"

Brian rolled his eyes. "Not like the Flying Nun...More like...well, you know those Chinese movies with the special effects which make it look like the people are—"

"Flying?"

Brian had given him a bitter glare and muttered, "Well, when you say it, it just sounds ridiculous."

"Because it is," Kyo had scoffed.

"Fine, okay," Brian had sighed, shaking his head. "You want to go on being stubborn and difficult, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you."

"Oh no," Kyo had said sarcastically. "He's gonna send the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz to attack me!"

"You really don't take me seriously, do you?"

"Well, I've been here a few days now and everyone else seems to have their feet firmly on the ground. Doesn't that say something?"

"Yes – that not all of them have that ability."

"I was going more for the explanation of you need to keep your head out of the clouds. Or at least away from Tony's weed smoke."

"You know, I've looked up your name, and `Kyo' is supposed to mean `cooperative' in Japanese. So why the hell won't you cooperate with me?"

"Please – I may look like this, but I was raised American. We're a bit more stubborn than that."

"Y'don't say."

This was what instruction was like for Brian and Kyo. But no matter how difficult Brian thought Kyo was being, all he had to do was remind himself of how Matt had acted when he'd first moved in with them and started his training. He had been much the same way, and now, only a couple of years later, he was one of the strongest energies there and was even more serious than Alex about using his powers.

Kyo was easily accepting of many things; but the flying thing, he simply couldn't picture it, and giggled over the idea every time Brian brought it up.

Maybe Kyo wouldn't learn how to fly – if for no other reason than he thought the idea too absurd. Brian thought this was a disappointment; he would have loved to see the little monkey try to dodge trees in the forest when he threw him into it one day.

Morgan knocked on the adjacent apartment door at the bottom of the spiral staircase and waited until Brian opened it to announce, "It's about damn time. My 'roids are acting up."

Brian snickered and let him into the mini-apartment, which only held an open kitchen and living room and a full bathroom between two bedrooms. Morgan took a seat in one of the recliner chairs and slung it back to put his feet up.

"What'd you do with him?" Brian asked as he sat on the long couch, which was full of various books and papers.

"Who?"

"Kyo. He went with you to see George, right?"

"Yeah."

"So where is he?"

"Oh, he's watching a marathon of Ren and Stimpy with Jo upstairs. I think after everything going on, he just wants some amusing stupidity to relax him."

Brian rolled his eyes. "Now there's some quality educational material."

"Well, ya know, Brian, we tried to pick up a copy of The Dummies Guide to Psychic Powers to keep him reading, but for some reason no book store around here has it."

Brian sighed. "Well, can't say Jo is much company watching telly."

"I think Ren is secretly his guardian ghost. He just doesn't want to tell us."

"What did George have for you?"

"Well," Morgan began, putting his hands behind his head and slipping further into relaxation mode as his eyes wandered around the room, "he wanted to make sure we weren't just harboring a fugitive by letting Kyo stay here..."

"And?"

"And I practically had to pull Kyo's teeth out to make him use some powers to prove that he's not just some regular bloke off the street. So he moved a couple things for George with his mind and George backed off. Hey, you got a nice painting in here – why do you get the nicest room?"

"Morgan."

"What?"

"George?"

"Oh, right. Well, going on some of Kyo's information, George has some other investigators working on the case to do some background digging, trying to find out about any child murder cases in Kansas from sixteen years ago. It'll take a lot of time, but as long as Kyo's with us, he should be okay, and Kyo did some internal-external feeling around, he's still a little wobbly on that but he's getting better. He said he doesn't think the murderer is hunting down anyone else right now. He's mostly just waiting for Kyo to be left alone so he can strike, basically, which, let me tell you, thrills the kid to death."

"Because Kyo is connected to him. Nevermind him being any specific number, seven or eight," Brian concluded. "He'll deviate from his ritual to get that nuisance out of the way. But until the target's out of the way, he won't be hassling anyone else for a while."

"We can only hope, anyway."

"Normally the psychotic mind at work would stick to its ritual, but there's something about Kyo that intrigues him, so he's setting everything else aside to get to him. Both ways of thinking are warped, but he's still very methodical and strong to hold onto his goals."

"You got mints?" Morgan asked in surprise when he saw the small bowl on the table next to the chair he was occupying. He picked one out and held it up for inspection. "What, you got halitosis or something?"

Brian glared at him. "It's for the dog. Now, would you concentrate—"

"You don't have a dog," Morgan reminded him, popping the mint into his mouth.

"Then it's for Jo."

"Jo has halitosis?"

Brian sighed. "We were talking about the killer, weren't we?"

"Right. Well, you were; I wasn't. But if you want to drag me back into that whole fiasco, fine, let's talk more about him. So it's like an obsessive compulsive thing?"

"Yeah, normally. It would go against his ritual to kill more than eight people, and if Kyo hadn't shown himself that night, he would've made his quota by now and disappeared again. But he knows Kyo knows about him, so he's saving the remainder of his kills for, well, him. And if we're lucky, we can stop him from getting to Kyo and saving an eighth victim as well."

"And Kyo stayin' here's gonna keep the guy from going on another spree right away?"

"Right. The guy's psychotic, but not stupid. He knows somehow that Kyo's got powerful friends who will protect him."

"So when do we get to turn the mad dog loose on the killer?"

"Well...when he's ready."

"And how ready is he?"

"Well...it's good he's learning the internal-external feelings, and his control over his telekinesis is improving...but he's still not nearly ready enough to face the killer."

Morgan rolled his eyes. "Could you be a little bit more vague there, Professor? Are we talking weeks, months, decades...? Because after a while, this guy might just snap if he doesn't get his prey and go after whoever he wants anyway, and Kyo will be afflicted with having to watch again."

"He still has trouble discerning between what he considers real and truth and what really is real and truth. And they're very separate."

"So he's like a nonbeliever, but one who has the powers."

"Yeah. Most people are, I believe, but he was born with it, so he can't deny having them. Like, he could sit here getting angry as hell trying to convince you that he's normal, meanwhile in the background that pretty painting behind your head would be burning to ashes."

"Ah. Another Matt, right?" Morgan chuckled. "I love the guy, but damn, Brian, to be honest, when we first came here, I spent three months wanting to shove my foot up his ass."

Brian cringed. "Could we knock off the thug imagery?"

"Sorry. I'm from London, what'd you expect?"

"You can take the slag from the city but you can't take the city out of the slag."

Morgan spit the mint out at him. "So what's up for now, boss?"

"Well, Kyo's not nearly ready to go out wandering the streets on his own. But I think he's ready to meet the sisters."

Morgan scoffed. "You kiddin' me? He'll turn and run the other way, probably taking the storefront window glass with him."

"They might be mysterious—"

"Downright spooky if you ask me."

"If Polly ever heard you call her spooky—"

"I've called her spooky to her face!"

"Anyway," Brian said curtly, "they might be mysterious, but I think their knowledge will help him.

Morgan smirked. "And, if nothin' else, at least ya got a coupla pretty faces to look at."

"Well, if he's into them, anyway."

"Yeah – that's a funny thing. Why is it most of you guys seem to be a little on the pansy side?"

Brian rolled his eyes again. "Like I said before, Morgan, we're able to connect to parts of our brains most people can't even locate. Gender isn't much of an issue sometimes when you truly connect with someone."

"Ah, so that belief that all people are naturally bi ain't a myth?"

Brian shrugged. "I can't say for sure, but in my experience, yeah."

"Okay. Then how come I haven't been able to find an attraction to anyone yet?"

"You're just a freak."

"I knew that much. When're you takin' him?"

"Taking who? I'm not seeing anyone—"

"No! I mean Kyo, to see the sisters?"

"Oh, right. Well, maybe at the end of the week. It's his third, and he's getting a bit frazzled by now, so I think a week with Matt working on meditation would have a calming effect on him. Maybe ease him into it rather than shove it all at him at once."

"You mean like you been doin'?"

"Shut up. And get your filthy boots off my recliner."

Thursday afternoon, Kyo trudged up the spiral staircase of the large, old house. He was practically pulling himself up, after having spent over two hours with Tony going over the uses of touch for reading a person. Every time he thought he had it covered, Tony would introduce something else to him, a new technique or a new method or a new use. He was exhausted just thinking about all the things he still had to go through, and all the things he'd done already. He wasn't as reluctant or stubborn with Tony as an instructor as he was with Brian, though he didn't know why – perhaps it was the way it was presented, considering Brian was a college professor and Tony was a martial arts instructor. They were both very good teachers, but they had different ways of teaching.

Plus, Tony seemed extremely serious about his work; Brian was a bit more aloof about all of it in a way – not goofy like Alex, but looser than Tony's mystical approach. So putting up a fight with Brian was, well, just more fun. But he learned an awful lot with both of them.

Learning any of it, however, was difficult, not only on the mind, but now his physical body was starting to suffer as well. He was eating healthy, probably for the first time in years, if ever, because of Simone's carefully selected meal choices, but he was feeling a lot of exhaustion lately. Brian and Tony had discussed this with him and decided that it had not much to do with physical functions at all, but perhaps a psychic drainage from all the work he was doing now. Even just in training. So they agreed that Kyo should go to another person to learn about conserving energy, and the best person to learn that from was Matt.

Meditation had always seemed like a lost cause to Kyo; he'd always wanted to try it, but he was always either too wired to concentrate on it, or too tired to put out the energy to do it. Either way kept him from trying. So Brian and Tony had urged him to go to Matt to learn how to do it no matter how he felt. Apparently, he discovered, there was more to it than he thought, and it didn't require you to be either calm enough or energetic enough. That was what it was for, actually: to equalize the balance of energy within oneself.

He tried to remind himself of this as he climbed the staircase, but in the end he decided that he was just too tired to remind himself of anything except what they had told him to do: go to Matt.

Instead, Kyo found Alex standing in the hallway on his cell phone, a medium-sized rubber ball slung under his other arm. He caught sight of Kyo coming his way and finished his phone conversation.

"So I'll see you tomorrow night then? At the club. Do you want me to pick you up? Okay, I'll see you there then. G'night." He folded his phone closed and shoved it into his jeans pocket, then turned to Kyo, holding out the ball.

"Hey, you wanna play?"

Kyo eyed the ball warily. "Play what? I'm not into basketball. Or any type of sport, come to think of it..."

"No, it's not basketball. Look – it's a Goofyball!"

"Goofyball?" Kyo eyed it even more skeptically now.

"Yeah. Goofyball."

"How does it work?"

"Well, you turn it on, and it makes this constant noise as you throw it back and forth, and then every so often, it goes off and starts to shake and laugh hysterically, and then it goes `Goofyball!' in this really funny voice, and whoever is stuck holding it when it goes off like that is the loser." He beamed at Kyo gleefully. "Wanna play?"

Kyo grimaced and shook his head. "Thanks, but that's okay."

"Aw, what's the matter?"

"I don't like playing games where someone is dubbed a loser," he said, not even really sure if that was why. He just wanted to find Matt and tell him his message and then maybe go to sleep or something. "Call it a childhood trauma."

"Aw, it'll be fun!" Alex held up the ball to his face, giving him a ridiculous smile. "Please?" he begged. "Please! Share in the ball's goofy-woofy-goodness, Kyo! Share!"

Kyo cringed. "Uh...no. Where's Matt? He's supposed to teach me meditation."

"Ah," Alex said, tossing the ball into the air. "I know where he is."

"Where?"

"But I can't tell you."

Kyo rolled his eyes. "Why not?"

"Because you must play a round of Goofyball with me first in order for me to appease your aching mind."

Kyo drew in a deep breath, exasperated, and folded his arms over his chest. "Cut the crap, Alex, just tell me where he is."

"Ooh, someone's in a sour mood tonight! Nope."

"Please," Kyo deadpanned. "There, I'm being nice, is that enough?"

"Nope. Not enough." He tossed the ball into the air again and caught it, then said in an exaggerated deep voice, "None shall pass! Unless he plays...Goofyball!"

Kyo gritted his teeth and lowered his arms to his sides. "Fine," he said through his clenched teeth. "I'll play one round and then you tell me where he is."

Alex squealed and turned the ball on, then tossed it to him. It went back and forth, back and forth, between them for a good long time as the ball made this unbelievably annoying sound, which made Kyo think of a demented cartoon character going, "Guh...guh...guh..." repeatedly.

Finally, the ball went off right in Kyo's hands and Alex doubled over in laughter, pointing at him and chanting, "Loser! Loser! Kyo is a loser!"

Kyo gave him a vicious look and turned the ball off, then hurled it straight at Alex's head. It bounced off just as Alex stood up straight again and sent it flying upwards instead of sideways. As if not even noticing that something had just conked him on the head, Alex smiled down at him. A second later, the ball fell back into his hands.

"Fun, huh? See, you're happy now, aren't you? I can see you wanting to smile."

Kyo glared at him. "Delirious."

"Great! It worked!"

"Where's Matt?" Kyo demanded.

Alex gave him a smug smile and gestured with his thumb to the door behind him. "In his room."

Kyo sighed and groaned at the same time, then trudged by the annoying twit towards the door. Just as he was about to open it, Alex called to him, "You might not want to disturb him right now though!"

Kyo paused and glanced back at him. "Why not?"

"Because he's meditating. He hates being disturbed when he's meditating."

"That's what he's supposed to teach me."

"Yes," Alex agreed, coming closer to the door, "but he takes his meditation time very seriously. Here, look – but be very quiet. I've heard before that sometimes observation is one of the strongest forms of learning. So observe."

Slowly and quietly, Alex turned the doorknob and inched the door to the bedroom open. Sitting in the middle of the large room was Matt's huddled form, though it wasn't exactly huddled. He was sitting cross-legged on a comfortable looking mat, a few candles encircling him. His hands were resting in his lap, his eyes were closed, and his back was perfectly straight. Kyo watched him for a few long moments, taking in every detail: the way he sat, the calm look on his face, his fluttering eyelids, which suggested that he was deep in trance or deep in meditation, his eyes still moving around beneath the closed lids.

As he watched, looking closer, Kyo began to make out a vague shape around Matt – a formless shape lacking any boundaries surrounding him and emanating from him. It seemed to reach out to everywhere and nowhere at once, and it was all coming from the diminutive Englishman's figure. Inside this, which Kyo realized, thinking back on his lessons so far, was Matt's aura, he could see flecks of light and darkness, switching and rearranging and being given to and taken from him. Kyo watched in quiet fascination.

Then the spell was broken – as the obnoxious yellow Goofyball was hurled into the room and came crashing down on Matt's head, knocking him over and screeching "Goofyball!!!" in that silly voice.

Kyo was about to turn around and yell at Alex, but the next thing he knew, he was being shoved harshly into the room. He stood there dumbly, gawking at the door, as Matt whirled around from where he'd fallen.

"Kyo!" Alex yelled from the doorway. "How rude! Can't you see he's meditating!?"

"What!?" Kyo spun around to Matt and blurted out, "That wasn't me!"

Matt, however, hardly seemed troubled – just annoyed. He picked up the Goofyball and hurled it back at the door. "Alex! Go find yourself a playmate, for God's sake! I'm busy!" he yelled violently. The hysterical laughter died down as Alex ran down the hallway with his ball.

Matt cleared his throat and looked at Kyo with a pleasant smile. "Hello. Something I can help you with?"

Kyo was the only one in the kitchen when the frantic pounding on the door began, and he was glad for it. When he opened the door, a carton of milk in his hands and his hair messy from just waking up, he was startled to see Mel standing in front of him, looking even more pale than usual for her already fair skin, her eyes red around the rims. She was panting.

"Mel, what is it?" he asked in a rush.

Mel gasped, staring at him, and said something in her first language that Kyo didn't catch right away. He remembered vaguely that she was originally from Russia, but she had moved here when she was a teenager and rarely spoke her mother language anymore; even her accent was so subtle it would be hard to tell she wasn't local.

"What?" Kyo asked.

Mel swallowed, raking a hand through her own scattered blond locks, shaking her head. It was as if suddenly she couldn't recall one word of the English language, she was that shaken. She only knew one word that Kyo would understand.

"Toru...Toru.."

"What? What about Toru?" Kyo knew that, though they hardly spoke about it, Mel and Toru had struck up something like a romance the year before, and the secretive, dark man (who Kyo wondered was part of a mob group or something...) had become like Lydia's father. So if something was wrong with Toru, it was no wonder Mel was so upset. "Come on, get in here," Kyo ordered, pulling his friend inside without even bothering to ask how she knew where to find him – he already knew somehow that Sam had informed her, and possibly even told her a bit about the strange things he'd seen the day he'd visited.

As soon as they were inside, Mel started babbling quite loudly, almost gibberish, but Kyo could make out the words eventually. This noise caused more within the rest of the house. Within a few seconds, Brian and Simone were also in the kitchen with them. By then, Kyo had abandoned the milk on the table, and was kneeling in front of Mel, whom he'd forced into a seat at the table.

"Slow down, Mel," Kyo was saying, trying to calm her. "Start from the beginning. In English."

Mel looked utterly lost, but Brian cut in with an unexpected, "She doesn't have to revert to English, you were doing a damn good job speaking Russian just now."

Kyo snapped his head around to him, squinting. "What?" he asked as if Brian had just turned into a cactus. "Are you insane? What the hell are you hearing—"

"He's hearing what you don't realize," Simone supplied simply, nodding his agreement with the larger man. "You did it the other day with Sam, too – you were speaking perfect Cantonese and understanding every word he said too. Didn't you know you could do that?"

Kyo reached up to scratch at his mop of yellow locks, utterly confused and about to deny it all, but he was also too concerned about Mel and Toru to dwell on this new information. All he said was, "No, I, uh, never...Well, hell, if I'm speaking other languages without realizing it, all the better." He turned back to Mel and asked, "How did you get here anyway?" And as he spoke, he couldn't tell what came out of his mouth; to his own ears and mind, it was a blend of two of his own voices, now that he paid attention. And Mel seemed to understand perfectly, even in her panicked state. When she answered in Russian, he clearly heard in his head, "I walked – well, ran most of the way. Sam gave me your address and I don't have a car, but I couldn't wait for the bus."

"Sam...Where is he right now?"

"He's at my apartment, watching Lydia. I needed to come see you, he said you can do things...I thought maybe you could help...It's Toru..."

Kyo stopped paying attention to the new revelation about his language ability – Mel wasn't the easily excitable type, so seeing her this scared had Kyo immediately worried as well.

Meanwhile, Matt had entered the kitchen, and the three firmly established members of the house watched in intrigue as the new Japanese kid conversed with the half-sobbing Russian woman as if he were speaking to one of them.

When there seemed to be a break in the conversation, Matt leaned over to Kyo and asked, "Hey, you okay?"

"She's really upset," Kyo noted pointlessly. "She can't speak very well right now, but from what I gather, Toru hasn't been home for the past two days. She doesn't really keep tabs on him, strictly speaking, but she'll notice if he's not there for a certain period of time. Thing is, she thinks there's something wrong because he mentioned the other night before going out late that he had to take care of a deal one of his boys was making that was going bad. She hasn't heard from him since."

Mel was crying openly now, not even trying to stop herself. She covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook violently, but she fought to not make too much noise.

Kyo bit his lip, accidentally snagging a hoop on a tooth before freeing it, and said to the others, "She's asking for our help. To find him. To contact him somehow." He focused his attention on Brian. "Can we do that? Is it possible?"

Brian was deep in thought already, trying to figure out a way to help Kyo's friend. Finally, he cleared his throat, putting his hands on his hips in a very business-like fashion. "It's pretty hard to locate someone we barely know unless there's a direct psychic connection. Now, none of us really know this Toru except Kyo and, well, obviously, uh..."

"Melora," Kyo finished for him. "Or just Mel."

"Okay. But even that's not a mental connection. Kyo and Toru are just friends. It seems this Toru and, uh, Mel are more involved than that, but that still doesn't make up for something physical. With no one here to physically touch, it'll be hard and it'll take a lot of energy. Between all of us. We might even have to get someone else to come down..."

"What if," Matt suggested, "we use something that Toru owns? Or something he touched? Would that work?"

Brian considered this and nodded. "It might be more helpful. It would definitely be easier to find his energy wavelength, especially if it's..." He paused, glancing at Mel, then remembered that she wasn't thinking clearly. "Especially if it's low because he's hurt or something."

But obviously Mel wasn't that out of it; upon hearing that, she immediately broke out into a loud, helpless sob. Simone gasped with pity and started to move over to her, but Brian stopped him. As kind as Simone was attempting to be, Mel didn't know him and seemed more comfortable with just Kyo being that close to her right now.

Kyo, meanwhile, had leaned back on his heels and was thinking hard, studying his friend silently.

"Ask her," Brian ordered. "Ask her if she has anything on her right now that's Toru's."

Kyo obeyed, and Mel slowly let her hands slide off her face. She sniffled and jerkily checked her pockets, looked around herself, and when she came up empty, she slumped back in her seat, shrugging helplessly. Her eyes teared up again. She said something to Kyo, her voice catching in her throat.

"She was in a rush, didn't think to bring anything," Kyo mumbled.

"That's understandable," Simone said comfortingly, though it didn't seem that Mel could understand him.

Suddenly, Kyo spoke up, his eyes still glued to Mel but his question directed at Brian. "Does this...thing...have to be a thing?"

All three figures standing above the old friends looked down at Kyo in confusion; Mel stared down at her hands, shaking her head helplessly.

"What do you mean?" Brian asked.

Kyo obviously had something going on behind those pale blue eyes of his, Brian could tell. Something he thought was impossible, but something Kyo didn't think was so unbelievable.

"There's really only one thing that Mel brought with her that...belongs, in a way, to Toru," Kyo explained.

"Which is?" Brian asked.

Kyo gestured to the shivering girl in the chair. "Herself."

Brian narrowed his eyes at him, not only unsure of what to say, but of what he was thinking.

Instead of explaining himself, Kyo turned back to Mel and put his hands over hers. "Mel," he said steadily, "look at me."

At first she didn't respond.

Simone glanced up at Brian and whispered, "Isn't that kind of possessive?"

Brian shrugged and watched closely as Kyo continued whatever it was he was up to. At least the boy was attempting something on his own this time; it was too bad it took an incident like this to get him to come out of himself enough and actually try his powers, but at least it was working.

Kyo repeated himself, this time the words coming out in Russian, as easily as if he were speaking English. (Or Japanese, for that matter.)

Mel finally obeyed, her sad and anxious eyes falling on Kyo's – and then, suddenly, into them.

"Listen to me carefully, okay?" Kyo was speaking to her in her own language, in a soft but encouraging voice. "Do you understand me?"

Mel nodded slowly.

Brian watched curiously; he was impressed to see the small, warm glow starting to emanate from Kyo. Where he touched Mel on the top of her hands, Mel's skin began to glow as well; of course Mel couldn't see it. But she could probably feel it.

"Mel, you love Toru, right?"

She nodded immediately.

"And you know he loves you, right?"

Again, she answered with only a nod.

"You once told me in private that you felt like he was your other half. Do you still feel that way?"

"Yeah," Mel squeaked out.

"And you know that no matter what happens, you two cannot be separated from each other. Okay? Understand?"

Mel was finally calm by then, and she sniffled and nodded.

"I need you to concentrate," Kyo spoke now in English, and she seemed able to understand him as well as usual. "Can you do that for me? Can you do that for Toru?"

"Yeah."

"You do exactly as I say and everything will be okay. Just stay calm and relaxed, and concentrate." Kyo squeezed her hands firmly, his head still tilted upwards to watch Mel's face.

"Just think of him, okay?"

Mel immediately winced and tears streamed down her face.

"Don't think of the bad stuff," Kyo redirected. "Don't think of the other night or today. Just think of him. Think about his voice, his face, how much he loves you, how much he loves Lydia – think about that, okay? And concentrate on that, and only that."

Brian drew in a breath when he realized what Kyo was doing. Simone, however, needed a bit of help.

"What's he doing?" he whispered.

Brian actually felt himself growing a bit...giddy. He smiled a little, then tried to smother it; this was no time to get excited. Well, maybe it was, but in front of Mel, it was definitely inappropriate.

"He's improvising," Brian hissed back to him. "In a way that only he can."

"What do you mean?"

Brian licked his lips and leaned over, keeping his eyes on what was going on in front of him. "You know how we always talk about connecting with people? Like how Kyo has that psychic connection with the killer? And those are the only people who can really feel or sense the other in a way that no one else can?"

"Um...yeah."

"Kyo's proving that a psychic connection doesn't have to always just come from the head. There can be other kinds of connections between people."

Simone tilted his head to the side. "What other kinds, then?"

Brian patted his chest. "Heart."

Simone put a hand to his own chest. "Oh! That is so sweet! Love can connect two people just as well as the mind can." He turned back to watch the scene, whispering to Brian, "Very French, too."

Brian rolled his eyes. "According to you, everything with a positive connotation to it is French."

"Well, it is."

"And you're not even Fr—"

"Say the words and I will spike your coffee with speed tomorrow."

Brian shook his head, fighting to keep from rolling his eyes. "I hate France."

"So," Simone continued, "Kyo is using Mel as a..."

When Simone trailed off, Brian suggested, "Conduit?"

Simone glared up at him. "Well, I was going to say `a thing to connect us to Toru,' but if you wanna use conduit, fine, whatever the hell that means."

Brian stared down at him dully. "I take it back, I don't hate France. I just hate you."

Matt shushed them, bringing their attention back to Kyo and Mel, who were now both deep in a trance, locked together by their hands. Every day, Brian noticed, the blond kid surprised him more and more, even despite his petty arguments and squabbling with semantics; Mel's entire being was engulfed by Kyo's energy now, outlining her body in the chair. Kyo was in control now, but Mel was doing the leading.

Everything was peaceful for a long time. The entire house seemed to have become perfectly still just to allow Kyo to finish his search through Toru's lover. Brian began to feel a bit uneasy with how long the two of them were "under," but then, as suddenly as it seemed that they had gone into the trance, Mel jerked out of it, and Kyo's energy returned fully to him.

Mel sat up straight in her chair, giving a start. Kyo stared back up at her with equally wide, surprised eyes.

Brian moved forward, putting a hand on Kyo's shoulder. "Are you all right? Damnit, I knew I should've warned you that it can be scary – or immensely draining—"

"No," Kyo gasped. "We're fine – sort of. I mean, I'm not drained at all. I don't feel..."

Mel suddenly burst out into a horrified sob, doubling over, directly opposing Kyo's last statement.

"Well, physically, I mean," he added under his breath, then started scrambling to get to his feet.

"What happened?" Brian exclaimed. "What did you see? Anything?"

But it was clear that Kyo had no time to answer those questions concretely. He was already up and moving, a little jerkily, and Brian realized what he'd taken for shock from the trance was actually shock from what they'd seen. Nevermind the triumph of the fact that Kyo saw anything at all, using a completely improvised medium, one that Brian had never even considered viable. Whatever they had seen was what had worried them both to this extent.

"We have to go," Kyo said in a rush, grabbing at Mel's arm. "We have to take the car, we can't make it on foot –"

"Kyo, what's going on!?" Brian shouted as the small form practically yanked the taller one out of the chair and pulled her in the direction of the door to the outside. Simone and Matt followed after them in confusion. Brian was right behind Kyo.

"It's Toru," Kyo panted, grabbing for his coat and already shoving the car keys into Brian's hands. "He's hurt, really bad, we have to get there before it's too late."

"B-But—" Brian stammered.

"It's okay, Mel, don't worry," Kyo assured his friend in a quiet voice, rubbing her arm affectionately. Then he turned to Brian, as if switching personalities, and ordered fiercely, "Get the damn car and drive!"

"I don't even know where we're going!" Brian protested.

"I'll tell you, now just go!" Kyo shoved the giant man out the door before he could say anything else.

Simone glanced at Matt. "Should we go too?"

Matt shrugged. "Sounds like they might need all the help they can get."

"So then we should go?"

"I guess."

Kyo stopped at the end of the path that led to the back door and spun around, shouting at them, "You guys coming or what!? Move your asses!"

Matt and Simone exchanged startled glances.

"Pushy little bugger, ain't he?" Simone quipped.

"Well, he's got good reason – that's his friend out there. No matter how much he insists he doesn't have any, he obviously does. Just takes a lot for him to see it."

"Yeah." Simone smirked. "Ya know, I kinda like Kyo better when he's being aggressive."

"Gives him promise."

"That too. But I just meant I think it's funny."

Chapter 6

Mel was surprisingly very quiet in the car as Kyo directed Brian in the front seat. Matt and Simone sat in the back with the sullen woman, cramming her into the middle and both trying to console her with encouraging words. Mel seemed to barely hear them, only staring straight ahead at the road in front of them.

Brian, however, was more involved with the convoluted directions Kyo was giving him.

"Where the hell are we!?" he exclaimed at one point, bending over the steering wheel and squinting at the street signs. "I've never been to this part of town before—"

"Obviously," Kyo said matter-of-factly, "if a guy's checking up on a gang or mob deal, he's not gonna set it up on the main streets, now, is he?"

"Well, no, but...but where the hell are we!?"

"I don't know," Kyo shrugged. "This is just where I saw him."

"Wait a second, you mean you don't even know where this place is?"

"Well, not on my own, no—"

"So how're we supposed to get back out then?"

"We'll figure out a way!" Kyo shouted irritably. "Now would you just stop whining and drive the damn car!"

"Guys," Simone cut in from the backseat. "Settle down, you're bickering like an old married couple, and you're upsetting poor Mel!"

Kyo glanced over his shoulder to look at his friend, who was still as a mannequin and staring straight ahead, expressionless.

"What're you talking about? She hasn't moved a muscle since we got in the car."

"Fine, then," Simone snapped, "you're upsetting me!"

"Yeah, like that's a chore," Brian muttered.

"I am a very fragile creature," Simone pouted. "I don't like it when people shout."

"Oh, come on!" Kyo spat at him. "You can make me believe you've got tits, why not make me believe you can grow a pair down there, for God's sake!"

Simone stuck his tongue out at him.

"Um," Matt put in gently, "could we, maybe, do you think, possibly act a little more like adults right now—"

Kyo and Brian both turned to shout at him, "Shut up!"

Matt raised his eyebrows, shrugged, then turned back to tend to Mel. And a second later he was scolding Simone for "accidentally" trying to put his hand between Mel's legs.

"God, could you have some respect!" Matt exclaimed. "The girl's boyfriend could be dying!"

Simone cleared his throat and turned his head to the front again. "I was just patting her leg, that's all. It's a gesture of comfort."

"Stick to the arm area, okay?"

"Oh, she doesn't mind, does she? Mel?" Simone nudged her arm.

Mel responded by staring straight ahead.

"See?"

"The girl's in shock, Simone, Jesus!" Kyo reprimanded. "Leave her alone—no, left!"

The car swerved and jerked in the opposite direction. After Matt caught Mel from stumbling over and caught his own balance, he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Gee, we're all great in a crisis, aren't we?"

"Of course we are," Simone said defiantly, sticking his chin out. "This is what we were trained to do, right?"

"Yeah – we've got a neurotic whirlwind driving the car, a verbally abusive midget navigating, a sex maniac who gets turned on by danger, and a catatonic vegetable. No wonder George hates us."

"Forget the police, man," Kyo muttered. "I think we're ready for the FBI."

Matt scoffed. "More like the circus."

"And I suppose you're the voice of reason in all of this?" Simone challenged.

"As a matter of fact, uh, yes."

"Eat me, yoga boy."

"You ruin my appetite. And it's meditation, not yoga!"

"Oh, sit on it and levitate, why doncha?"

"Kids," Brian scolded lightly. "Be nice. Kyo, where the hell are we?"

When Kyo finally instructed Brian to stop the car, they all piled out, Mel needing help from Matt and Kyo to get to her feet on the ground. As he dragged himself dramatically out of the backseat, Simone stumbled against the car. Brian glared at him.

"Oh, don't even fake it, my driving isn't that bad."

Simone held out a hand to him. "I need help walking."

As Simone reached out to grab his arm, Brian huffed by him, shaking the hand off grudgingly and calling him a nasty name.

"Which way?" he asked as he came up behind Kyo.

Kyo paused as he held onto Mel's arm for a moment, then let go of her and started walking steadily to the left, down a small embankment towards a lakeside pier. The others followed after him, trying to keep up. Simone brought up the rear, calling to the others (who weren't listening) that he was going to throw up. No one seemed to care.

"Out here?" Brian asked, catching up to Kyo and looking around them. "It wouldn't be here, would it? If someone hurt him out here, surely the fishermen would've seen it," he insisted, gesturing to the numerous docks and fishing boats lined up in the water. A few men in rubber boots and dirty t-shirts were watching them, pausing in their work to give them funny looks.

"It wasn't in broad daylight," Kyo reminded him. "It happened several hours ago..."

"Hours ago? You think he—" Brian hesitated when he remembered that Mel and Matt weren't far behind them. He leaned in closer to Kyo and asked quietly, "You think he could have survived that long?"

"I don't think it was a fatal wound," Kyo confided. "But if left untended, I'm sure it could become one. I could still feel him when I touched Mel just a minute ago. He's still...here."

"I still can't believe I've never seen this part of the city before. I thought my work took me all over the place..."

"Mostly only the fishermen know about this place because it's where they work," Kyo told him. "Not many people who don't go to the fish markets in town on their own would come around, though no one else really knows about it."

"No one knows about it? Why not? It's not a bad place. Kind of pretty, actually. Well, maybe it's not as pretty at night. Still, during the day it's not bad."

"Well, think about it – you look at that water and tell me if you'd want to go swimming in it. Mel swears by the outdoor markets for a lot of things, but not fish."

As they came closer to one empty dock, Brian glanced down at the brown, almost greenish filthy water and cringed. "Hm. These guys don't sell their catches to any big name brands, do they?"

"Not that I know of."

"Good."

"Why?"

"Just wanted to make sure so I'd never buy it."

Kyo chuckled, but soon forgot about humor when he felt a strong vibration roll through him, one that shook him visibly. He paused in his walking and Brian put a supportive hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?"

Kyo's face went pale and he swallowed hard. "He's not far," he said, his voice strained.

A moment later, they heard a noise behind them and turned to see Matt trying to lift Mel off the ground. She had obviously felt the same vibration Kyo had, and was kneeling on the ground, clutching Matt's arm fiercely and trembling.

Matt looked up at them helplessly. "What—What do I do?"

Kyo regained his strength and ordered, "Keep her there, don't bring her any further. Brian and I will go down."

Brian spun around to him in surprise. "Down?"

Kyo was already halfway gone, his legs and waist disappearing behind the river bank below the dock. Brian gawked at him.

"Down in the water?"

Kyo winced as the cold liquid immediately soaked up into his combat boots and crawled up his pants to his waist. He let go of the dock as his feet hit the rugged bottom of the lake.

"It's only to my middle here, so it should barely reach your knees," he deadpanned to Brian as he waved at him to follow. "It's the shallow end. C'mon, we can only get to him from here..."

And Kyo disappeared underneath the wooden boards. Brian stared down at the uninviting water apprehensively, glanced back to where Matt and Mel were huddled, Simone not far behind them, then back to where Kyo had disappeared.

"Um...are you...are you sure?" he called down through the slats of wood.

Kyo immediately reappeared below him and grabbed at his ankle, almost making Brian jump back in fear. "Would you come on, you big baby!" Kyo hissed, splashing at him irritably. "It's just water! Maybe not the kind you wanna swallow, but still just water." And he ducked under the dock again.

"I know," Brian mumbled to himself as he took off his long black coat. "But it's cold water..."

"He's here!" Kyo shouted as Brian was removing his boots.

Brian paused and grabbed the edge of the dock, leaning over to look underneath and see, from an upside-down angle, Kyo kneeling on the muddy embankment at the beginning of the wood planks. Beside him lay a long, dark figure, half in and half out of the water. Brian couldn't see much else, like the man's face or any blood, just a long black trench coat and Kyo trying, with his small frame, to inch the man up onto the embankment and out of the water.

"Oh hell," Brian breathed; when Kyo moved the man only a few inches, even under the shadow of the dock, Brian could see the bloodstains where the man's back had been only moments before. Without worrying anymore about the temperature of the water, he yanked his other boot off and jumped in. Just as he was about to go under the dock with them, the clatter of Simone's shoes echoed above him and he stood up again.

Simone knelt down in front of him, actually serious now. "What's going on?"

"He's here – don't let Mel come over here, just make sure she stays out there, and go back to the car."

"How can I do both at the same time—"

"Look, just tell Matt to keep her there."

"Okay. What should I do?"

"Go back to the car." Brian reached into his coat pocket and pressed the keys into Simone's hand. "There are some blankets in the trunk. Bring them out here, and use the cell phone in the glove compartment to call an ambulance, okay? Call 911 and get them out here. Tell them we're at Monty's Pier, okay? Can you remember that?"

"Monty's Pier, got it. Okay – what's the number for the ambulance?"

Brian stopped just as he was about to go under the dock again, and peered at Simone dully. "9...1...1," he said in a flat voice.

"Right, got it."

As Simone ran off to carry out his duties, Brian had to take a moment to roll his eyes and shake his head. His group was amazing, and yet could be some of the densest humans he'd ever known.

It took a lot of struggling, but working together, Brian and Kyo were finally able to get Toru, who was now unconscious, out from underneath the dock. Kyo had seen, but tried not to think about, the large dark stains where Toru had been. He was still warm and breathing, though his breaths were very strained and ragged. They pulled him out into the water, as close to the embankment as they could manage, and then Brian pulled himself onto the dock and reached down to take Toru under his arms and pull him and his now soaking wet coat, which made him weigh twice as much, up out of the water with a little boost from Kyo. As soon as Toru was out of the water, Brian pulled off the water- and blood-soaked coat and let it fall with an audible thud to the dock. Then, somehow, he managed to actually pick Toru up, feeling the strain in his back but doing his best to ignore it, and carry him onto sturdy ground while Kyo pulled himself out of the lake, following after him quickly.

Brian carried the limp body over to where Simone had laid out the blankets about twenty feet away from the dock, setting Toru down carefully and immediately taking a second blanket and wrapping it around his torso. Simone was still on the phone with the ambulance, but as Kyo came up behind them, Simone finished the call and snapped the cell phone shut.

"They're on their way," he informed them. He glanced down at the unconscious man. "Now what do we – oooh," he said, raising his eyebrows in intrigue. "Another Japanese guy, huh?" There was a hint of a smile on his face.

Kyo glared up at him as he knelt down beside Toru. "You're unbelievable, you know that?"

"What?" Simone asked haughtily. "I just think we should do our best to keep the guy alive, that's all."

"Ummm, okay..." Brian was kneeling on the other side of the man, holding his hands out helplessly. He glanced up at Kyo. "Oh crap."

"Crap isn't good. What now?"

"Brain fart."

Kyo gave him a ridiculous look. "What? Are you in first grade or what?"

"I forget, I forget! What do we do now? I don't think he needs CPR, he's still breathing—"

"Brian!" Simone whined. "You have to save the handsome man – I mean, the poor man!"

Kyo rolled his eyes, muttering over his shoulder, "The poor handsome taken man."

Simone just blew a raspberry and leaned over closer.

"He's losing blood," Kyo told Brian, back to the serious situation. "He's already lost a lot and he's losing more even as we speak."

"So? What do you want me to do about it? I don't have any loose packets of blood on me that I'm not using right now!"

"Isn't there something we can do until the ambulance comes? There has to be something!"

"Pray?" Simone scoffed.

Brian blinked, suddenly hit with an idea. "Kyo – use your powers, you can probably give him energy."

"I can't do that! I can't even fly!"

"Would you forget about the flying thing already!" Brian swatted him on the head. "Just put your hands over his wounds—"

"Where are his wounds?"

"Uh...I don't know..."

"Wait a second...You mean, you want me to heal him?"

"Matt can do it, that means you probably can too."

Kyo winced, reluctantly shaking his head. He shrugged helplessly. "I...I don't know how yet."

Brian bit his lip, glancing over his shoulder to where Matt was standing over Mel, who was kneeling on the ground, hugging herself tightly and watching the scene from thirty feet away, rocking back and forth deliriously. Brian turned back to Kyo.

"Should we chance it?"

Kyo flinched again. "I don't think Mel can deal with this right now..."

"Then switch with Matt!"

"Oh...right." Kyo stood up, about to step over Toru's unconscious body and head towards Matt and Mel, but when he did stand up, he found that they were already on their way over. "Damn it!" he hissed, running towards them. He tried to wave his arms at Matt, telling him with his mind not to let Mel any closer. He saw Matt pause, reaching out to take Mel's arm, but the girl was in a daze. As if there was only one thing on her mind and nothing else could distract her. She easily shook Matt's hand off and walked quickly over to Simone, who was standing right above Toru's head.

Simone put his hands on Mel's shoulders, trying to warn her, "Mel, maybe you'd better go back over with Kyo now—"

Mel pushed him away without even looking, her eyes locked on her lover's limp body on the blanket. Brian looked up at her helplessly. She was there now, no point in trying to tear her away anymore.

Kyo and Matt were still a few feet away, watching carefully. Kyo was almost sure Mel was about to lose it. The mixture of pain and disbelief on her face was all anyone had to see to know how upset she was, even though she hadn't uttered a word since they'd left the house.

Instead of collapsing into despondency or becoming inconsolable, though, Mel simply knelt down slowly next to Toru's head, looking into his face with tears in her eyes, and reached out to touch his hair, smoothing it back. She sniffled and leaned over, touching her cheek to his and saying something so quietly that only Brian could hear her, but the only thing Brian could understand about it was that it was another language. And it didn't sound like what she'd been speaking at the house, so it must have been Japanese.

Toru's head suddenly snapped back a few inches and there was a gagging sound in the back of his throat. Startled, Brian lurched back. Mel tried to hush Toru, now growing more panicked herself. She looked up at the others with red-rimmed eyes and begged, "Please, help him, please..."

Suddenly remembering what they were trying to do, Brian shook his head to snap out of his daze and turned to Matt, waving him over frantically. Matt obeyed and took a seat on the other side of the injured man. Kyo came too, kneeling beside Mel and putting a hand on her shoulder to try to ease her away. But Mel even pushed him away, all her attention back on Toru now. She shifted into a sitting position on the ground and lifted Toru's head a little, cradling it in her lap and leaning over him, whispering to him the same phrase over and over again. As Brian directed Matt to do as much healing as he could until the ambulance got there, Mel stroked Toru's hair and cheeks lovingly, pressing her lips against the damp forehead.

Again, Simone put a hand to his chest and let out a little peep. Kyo stared up at him in confusion. Simone just smiled and dabbed at his eyes with the back of his other hand. "That's just the sweetest thing I ever saw!"

Kyo rolled his eyes again. "You're such a girl."

Simone just sniffled in response.

Kyo turned back to the body, watching intently as Matt put his hands over Toru's chest and stomach. He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. For a while, as he held his breath, nothing happened. Kyo wondered if Matt was too tired, or maybe Toru was beyond healing by this time. But a few seconds later, after it seemed like they had all been holding their breath as Matt was, there was a slow rush of warm air from Matt's mouth, and Kyo's eyes grew wider as he saw the faint blue glowing coming from his hands. The glowing grew in intensity every few seconds, and slowly spread over Toru's entire body, completely enveloping him. As the calming blue glow spread to his top half, where Mel was still holding him, not even aware of whatever it was Matt was doing to her lover, the light even seeped into her hands and legs, anywhere she touched Toru. Kyo was startled by Matt's strength – and the only way he knew how strong he really was, was that Mel, being conscious and already physically fine, received his healing powers; her reaction was slightly different from the one Kyo himself had had the first time he'd met Matt in the bathroom, but certainly obvious. Mel's shoulder tensed for a second beneath Kyo's hand and she gasped, but then her muscles relaxed again and she – unlike Kyo had that first time, when he'd been so unwilling to accept anything that had been offered to him because of his resentment and confusion – accepted the power into her willingly.

Kyo bit his lip in thought. Perhaps they were right; perhaps Mel was more open to all of this than even he himself was. Not even "perhaps." It was plainly obvious. Mel had even less of a clue as to what Matt was doing, but if it was working, it seemed to be fine with her. Perhaps it was their different personalities, which would have fit as well: Kyo's acceptance of Matt's healing had been almost grudging, therefore slightly painful at first, and then when he'd finally given in, it had been euphoric, as erratic as Kyo's own emotions; and Mel? Mel just looked so calm and peaceful, a little startled at first, but then much more at ease. It was that quiet innocence that Kyo liked about her. And obviously, it was the same reason Toru loved her so much.

It occurred to Kyo that to be able to tell how to approach different people with these powers, how to transfer them to another subject, had to be one of the most difficult things he would ever have to learn. And seeing the help it was doing now, he definitely knew he wanted to learn it. When just a few minutes ago, Mel had been panicked and hysterical, and then practically catatonic with shock, now she was covered in Matt's faint blue glow and whispering to Toru gently, and the confidence in that quiet whisper was more than Kyo could have ever shouted. Kyo had to wonder how Matt had known how to approach him, with that almost surprise-attack on him in the bathroom the first day they'd met; and even if Toru was unconscious and would have no reaction, how had he known not to disturb Mel from holding him because perhaps she could benefit from it too? And how had he known that Mel would be so accepting of it? He didn't have to grab her by the arms and shush her. He only had to do it.

Kyo knew only a few things: he had a lot to learn, and probably a lot of it would come from Matt; Mel was more of a believer than even himself; and, simply put, Matt was damn good at what he did.

As if to prove that last thought, through the dim glow, Kyo watched in amazement as Toru, who had been lying half in the water bleeding all night, slowly turned his head to the side a few inches, his breathing becoming stronger, and, even with his eyes still closed, whispered deliriously, "Mel....ora..."

Mel put her lips close to Toru's ear and whispered back, "I'm here."

Toru took a strangled breath, his eyes fluttering a bit but refusing to open.

"He's awake," Brian murmured.

Matt shook his head faintly, his own eyes still shut tightly. "He's trying to say something...It's urgent...He has to tell him..."

Brian squinted at him. "Huh? Tell who what?"

"Oh God," Matt winced.

"Please, Matt, just a little longer."

"Brian," Matt whimpered, "it's too much—"

Brian gestured wildly to Kyo. "Help him!"

Kyo threw his arms up in exasperation. "I don't know how!"

"Oh my God," Simone groaned, walking over between Kyo and Matt. "For Christ's sake, even I know this much." He grabbed Kyo's hand off of Mel's shoulder and slapped it down on Matt's. "Now," he instructed, taking over Brian's role, "you don't even have to do anything, but you'll feel the draining."

"Draining!?" Kyo exclaimed. He gave a start when he suddenly felt what Simone was talking about. It was almost painful, but the only thought that kept him from yanking his hand away was that Matt needed his help, that Toru needed his help. So despite the obvious drop in his energy level, the feeling of the ground opening up beneath him and swallowing him whole, he struggled to keep his grip.

Simone's voice came to him from what seemed like a half a world away. "You'll be extremely tired after this is over, but it'll be worth it. And you can replenish yourself, you always can. Now, if you were more trained, it wouldn't be so bad – you could tell what areas of energy Matt needs, tap into them yourself and send them out. But since you're not very experienced and Matt is very weak right now, he'll take anything he can get, therefore he's probably sapping energy from any area he can get ahold of. It sounds lecherous, doesn't it? But like I said, no matter how much anyone ever takes from you, it's mental, it's metaphysical, it's ethereal – therefore it can't disappear, you can replenish it. Now if you get a bullet through the heart, you get a bullet through the heart – there's only so much you can do. We can't make blood. But what we're exchanging here is energy, and energy can come from so many different places, including our own brains."

Kyo had enough of this energy Simone spoke of to turn his head and glare up at him, grunting through gritted teeth, "What the hell do you mean, `we'?"

Simone smiled. "I put your hand there, didn't I? I helped."

Kyo rolled his eyes.

Brian, meanwhile, was shaking his head in wonder. "This is amazing..."

"Oh, you're so useless!" Simone hollered at him. "Look at you, sitting over there, watching everything and just saying it's amazing. What've you done!?"

"And you're just so integral yourself, aren't you?" Brian shot back. "What did you do? `What's the number for 911?'"

"Hey, I said what's the number for the ambulance – there could be a different number for the ambulance."

"No there couldn't! What the hell are you even talking about!?"

"Besides," Simone added haughtily, "I put Kyo's hand on Matt's shoulder, so there."

"Well I lifted a Japanese guy out of the water!"

"So what?"

"Did ya se him? He's really really tall!"

"Uh, guys," Matt groaned weakly, "kinda breaking my concentration here..."

"Right," Brian muttered, clearing his throat. "Sorry."

"Melora," Matt mumbled.

"What's that?" Brian asked.

Matt shrugged. "I don't...Melora!"

Mel snapped her head up, her eyes wide. "Huh?"

"Oh," Brian mumbled, almost embarrassed. "That's Toru. Right."

"He can't..." Matt shook his head vaguely. "He can't speak. It's too hard."

"What's he trying to say?" Simone asked.

"He wants to tell Mel something."

"Enough with the anticipation, Matt, just say it—"

"I'm trying to! It's in Japanese, for Christ's sake, I can only translate and heal at one time for so long!"

"Don't listen to Simone," Brian instructed. "Simone, shut up. Matt, just concentrate."

Matt bowed his head low. "Don't...Don't go..."

Mel lowered her head to Toru's ear again. "I'm here, I'm not going—"

"—back," Matt added.

Kyo squinted at him, though he found it painful to even move by now. "Huh?"

Matt was panting now, sweat starting to form on his forehead. "Don't...Don't go back there...Where? Toru, where?...I know you hurt, I know you're scared, but please, please use English, I can't—" He opened his eyes suddenly and turned his head, looking directly at Mel with a stunned expression. "Kyo...set-up...He knows...deal...He saw...It wasn't them, it was him...crazy...He knows...Don't let Kyo...go back..." Matt was shaking now, his face damp with perspiration.

Brian tried to reach out to him, grabbing his arm. He had to let go or else he would lose it. "Matt, don't—"

"Mel, don't let Kyo go back, he knows—"

Toru broke his concentration when he let out a choked half-sob and his head fell back limply into Mel's arms.

The corner of the waiting area in the emergency room where Brian, Kyo, Matt and Mel sat was quiet and tense. Simone had been sent to get Alex, who had demanded to know what was going on, hassling his weary "Brother" mentally while he sat home alone, knowing something was wrong. Since Alex's motorcycle was being repaired in Tom's garage and Brian didn't want him bothering Matt anymore mentally, he had agreed to send Simone to pick him up and bring him to the hospital. Kyo had been surprised that Alex cared enough to want to be there, but Matt just told him quietly that Alex cared more than he usually let on, with that aloof attitude and carefree nature of his.

Kyo tried to comfort Mel for a while, but when she only sat and stared at the carpet, not even hearing the crying of a wounded child on the other side of the room, Kyo gave up and tried to ask Matt how he was.

Matt was exhausted. The nurses who had taken Toru into the emergency room had asked if he needed medical attention as well; Brian had stepped in and just said he hadn't slept all night. They wouldn't have understood the physical drainage the kind of mental energy he had been using could cause. It was best for them to just stay away and let Matt rest.

But when Kyo tried to speak to him, Matt seemed lost in his own world, mumbling different words to himself, in English and repeating what he'd heard Toru saying in Japanese. He was trying to piece together Toru's convoluted message without much success and just tiring himself out even more.

Kyo gave up on communicating with him as well and turned to Brian, having something on his mind anyway.

"I've been wondering about something," he began softly.

"What's that?" Brian seemed to be the only one who was slightly normal; even Kyo was shaken and worried about Toru, not to mention the physical strain the energy transfer had had on him. Brian, however, was merely there and curious and calm now. As the other two were absorbed in their own thoughts, Kyo cleared his throat and ventured to speak as quietly as he could.

"Well...you told me before that we aren't supposed to interfere in others' lives. Yet you told Matt to help Toru, to try to heal him."

"Right."

"The statement and the actions directly oppose each other. I don't get it."

"Well...it's difficult to explain. The simplest way I can is...well, Mel asked for our help."

"So...that's it? We can't interfere unless we're asked to?"

"Like I said, it's quite complicated. Even though we deal in the ethereal, perhaps the karmic and cosmic powers around and in us, we all hold firmly to the one basic belief that we, all humans, can decide our own destiny, our own fate, if you will. If, like in this instance, someone is desperate and comes to us, pleading for help, we aren't going to refuse them – we will help as much as we can, and even then, as you can see by Toru's condition, it isn't enough. Sometimes no matter what other powers you can use, someone's fate is final."

"So if you can intervene and change some cases, why can't you volunteer it? Give the person an option?"

"Well, let's not get carried away here. Remember, we're in a unique situation because we all have certain powers and there's no doubt among us. Leaving the sanctuary of our own home, however, leads to a lot of difficulties – even with the police chief, who is, in a way, our boss. He obviously doesn't buy a lot of our stuff, yet he accepts what he can swallow because there's physical proof of it in front of him. He can't explain it and therefore doesn't like it, but he won't turn his head away from a cold, hard fact. A lot of other people, in fact, probably most other people, aren't quite as accepting, if you even see his reactions to things we've done or said or shown him in the past few years as accepting. Some people would drag us through the mud over it, throw rocks or just call us crazy. But above that, if, say, Matt were to run into a guy on the subway and find that this man had lung cancer from smoking and would eventually die of it, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

"Why not?"

"For many reasons. First of all, the guy would think he was insane if he told him that right after saying `hello.' Not only would the guy think he was crazy, but Matt might be facing harassment charges or something. Second, even if the guy did believe him, who's to say he didn't already know it? Maybe he knows and is doing something to change it; maybe he knows and doesn't care. It comes down to the idea of respect – just because we can see and know private things doesn't mean we should see and know them. It's a matter of personal privacy. Maybe the guy knows about his own disease and doesn't want others to know – that's his decision. So is whether he does something about it or not. But even so, he brought that on himself, so he made his own destiny – whether he does something about it to fix it, or at least try, is also up to him.

"Now, if a guy came to us saying he has lung cancer and could we please help him, we'd be obligated, by being able to do the things we do, to at least try all we could. Like doctors. I really have no idea how much we could change a cancerous lung, but if we could make it even a little better, and that's the best we can do, the rest is still up to him, to stop smoking or get chemo or whatever. But you see, even if we do `interfere,' in that case, it's not unacceptable because someone came to us in need, took their fate in their own hands and asked for help instead of not doing anything and letting it go down a different road. Do you get it?"

"Um...sort of. Mel came to us, so we had to help in any way we could. She outright asked us to help Toru."

"Right. Toru might be in a coma, but there's a chance for him now, because of the fact that Mel showed up at our door, asked us for help, you led us there and Matt did what he could to heal him. If Mel hadn't come, Toru would probably be dead by now."

"But Mel has an advantage over most people: she knows us, she knows what we do, what we can do. You can't leave the responsibility up to the rest of the world to come seeking us out when they don't even know about us. Or even how real these powers are."

"That's true. But it's not our responsibility either. It's no one's. It's all decided by fate."

"But you just said we control our own fate."

"Right."

"How can they control their own fate if they don't have all the information?"

"Their options are out there. They need to research them all and decide for themselves if what we do seems viable to them. If someone is desperate enough, as Mel was desperate enough, they'll go to any means, even if they're not all that certain of them at first. Why do you think George waits so long to bring us in on so many of the police investigations? Because he doesn't truly believe, no matter what he's seen, in psychic abilities – he still labels it as loony, not as true science. If he brought us in on these cases sooner, they'd be solved faster. But it's not our place to force it. This kind of work is very...intricate and tedious. And very new, hard to get across. Besides all those things working against us, we have the disadvantage of low numbers. Just look at us – we've just made it up to ten people with supernatural or superhuman abilities, two who aren't even technically psychic, and look where I had to search to find them: China, Scotland, England, here – I had to travel the globe just to find nine other people apart from myself who had some sort of unique or psychic ability, who wasn't opposed to the ideas, who either readily accepted their powers because they already knew about them, or who eventually came around because they couldn't deny what they were able to do. Now, you take ten people, maybe about four or five outsiders who have a belief in them, and you try to calculate how many people we'd be able to help, assuming that they'd all believe us anyway. We're certainly not going to be lining the blocks, Kyo. Most people would rather turn their heads, and since there are so many of them willing to take other paths to their fate, we can't do anything but leave them to their own wills. We can't go around like televangelists, preaching the word of the psychic. We'd get locked up, if not worse! Of course we'd probably be able to break out, but that's not the point..."

"So you can't volunteer information either?"

"Not unless it's asked for. The first time Sam was over at the house and saw so many things happen that we don't even think of, like Matt catching a dropped ceramic piece, we were lucky that it was someone so accepting of something as freakish as what it really is. Maybe one day we can convert more people like that, but like I said, Sam and Mel seem to be ready to accept a lot. Sam was excited to see it, while you, on the other hand, the one with the powers, was so bloody resistant at first. I know you saw it too, what happened out there tonight with Toru and Mel, and Matt told me what happened when you two first met, how he gave you that energy kick and how you reacted. It's a natural `What the hell is going on here?' kind of reaction. Sam and Mel reacted to seeing and experiencing our powers in a very unique way. Not many people in the world can take that kind of power in and not have a severe reaction to it. It seemed to come very naturally to both of them, and with Mel, it flowed right through her like it was supposed to. It's just funny, how two non-psychics like them can be so accepting of it within minutes, while I'm still trying to convince you."

"That's not fair! I do too believe now! I...just can't get past the flying thing, that's all."

Brian only had time to give him a surly look before they were interrupted by Alex and Simone's presence. Alex looked flustered and concerned, putting a hand on Kyo's shoulder.

Of course the most obvious question tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop himself: "What the hell happened!?"

Chapter 7

Brian stared through the window of the single room, his arms folded over his chest and his demeanor every bit as solemn as the atmosphere around him. Tony stood with him, watching him carefully. Brian studied the back of Mel's blond head as she sat in the room next to the hospital bed, holding Toru's hand. He was glad that he was on the other side of the glass; he wasn't sure if he could handle hearing that constant beeping from the heart monitor.

Tony waited a long time before drawing in a long breath. "So how do we go about doing this?"

Brian finally tore his gaze away from the window to look at him. "I'm not sure."

"I know Mel's a believer, but do you really think she'd approve of me invading her lover's mind while he can't do anything about it? What if there are things in there I'm not supposed to see?"

"Well, there are always things we're not supposed to see," Brian pointed out. "So don't look for them. Only look for the things we're after."

"You know it's difficult for me to tell the difference sometimes. And sometimes something I think is unimportant turns out to be the key to whatever it is we're searching for."

"I know."

"Should we really be doing this?"

"Hey," Brian snapped, "she asked us for help. Mel's convinced that it was Toru's own gang that turned on him. But she doesn't trust anything to do with the gangs anyway. Except Toru, of course. What if it was something else? What about the message he was trying to give her?"

"From what Matt was saying, Kyo's involved. He doesn't have anything to do with the gangs."

"Exactly."

"He kept saying `He knows, don't go back.'  Who knows? Don't go back where?"

Brian hesitated, as if he had an idea, but doubted it enough to keep quiet. He shrugged.

Tony shook his head. "I know even less about it than you do, so if you've got any idea..."

"I just know we have to do something about it," Brian insisted. "We have to figure out what really happened to Toru to figure out what his message means."

"Why, exactly?"

"So we can protect them."

"From what? Having it happen again? What if Toru dies? Then it can't happen again."

Brian shook his head fervently. "I honestly don't think it was the gang, and if he dies, that would end it right there, they wouldn't go after people he cares about. But he was adamant to send a message to us, which makes me think it's not the gang..."

"What else could it have been?"

Brian cocked an eyebrow at him. "Think about it, Tony! That type of situation, those people – they rarely go after the real target. Don't they usually go after the people they care about first? Get to them some other way before they go after the person who wronged them? Torture them before they kill them?"

"Being shot four times in not so vital places wasn't torture enough? The pain is enough to scare even the hardest hitman."

"That's just it. They went after Toru. It just doesn't seem like a gang hit."

"Because they think he's got nothing else, they think he's got no one close, so who else were they going to go after? Mel? Kyo?"

"Mel is understandable – she's his girlfriend. But Kyo...they're just kind of friends. If this was a gang thing, and they already knew about Mel, why is she still alive and he's in the hospital bed? And why would Kyo be brought up?"

Tony drew in another long breath and stared through the glass, leaning against the window frame. "He said it was a set-up. What was? Toru going to meet with his gang, or something else going on that we don't know about yet? Is there a set-up going on right now that involves Mel and Kyo?"

"Besides," Brian went on in a low tone, "even if it had been a mercy murder, since he was apparently one of the best hitmen in the gang, they would've just shot him in the head. They didn't want him dead. They wanted him maimed, sure, but well enough..."

"...to pass on the message?" Tony finished.

Brian glanced over at him pointedly, licking his lips as he tried to put the pieces together in his head. "I don't think this was his gang. It's something else, something I don't think I'm going to like. The suspect isn't in the gang. Whoever it is, is linked to Kyo."

Tony shook his head. "That's really bloody far-fetched, Brian. Kyo was friends with the guy, yeah, but he never made any sign that they were more than just casual acquaintances."

Brian shrugged that off. "I'm thinking it was desperation. C'mon, Tony, isn't it obvious? This killer is losing his grasp on him, since we've got him under safe protection at the house, and he's desperate to find other avenues to find out who Kyo is, how he knows him, before he gets caught. He wants to get to him, and we're preventing that, so he's going to the next level – the people he lived around. But we can't know for sure...There's only one way to find out, really." He pointed at the window. "And it's through that brain."

"For Christ's sake, Brian," Tony hissed at him, "the woman's boyfriend is in a coma and all you want to do is invade the vegetable's memories?"

"For the sake of saving Kyo? And Mel?" he added as an afterthought. "Yes. He was the only one who was there that would know what really happened," he said sharply, giving Tony a stern look. "And he's certainly in no position right now to tell us. Hell, if he woke up right now, he probably wouldn't even remember. And who knows if he'll wake up at all to get the truth? We need to know, Tony, so that we'll know who we're supposed to protect."

"Why not try protecting the poor guy who's on the brink of death, Brian? We can't just go running around sticking our minds into others' business."

"But it's not just his business anymore. Something in his message was directed at Kyo, he was trying to warn him about something very dangerous. We need to know.  I need to know."

Tony tried to protest again, but his voice failed him as he saw the determination in Brian's eyes, and his true meaning sank in; Brian was willing to risk anything for this kid – and that was simply not like Brian. This went far beyond just his role as one of the leaders of the house; this had become personal for him.

Tony sighed and bowed his head.

Brian put a hand on his shoulder. "Look," he said softly, "I know you're concerned about Toru's well-being, but at the same time, I know the real reason you're so against this."

Tony lifted his head to look Brian straight in the eyes, but he didn't speak.

"I know you hate doing it," Brian went on. "I know it's dangerous and scary. But these are things you can do, this is something you've been gifted with. You need to use it to help, Tony. Look, if I could do it, you know I'd take your place in a second. But I can't. I may act like the bigshot around the house, but you know as well as I do that my powers are virtually useless next to yours. I've always been envious of you guys, I've always been impressed with the things you can do. But my own curiosity isn't even as important as what's really at stake here. Don't do it to impress me, don't do it because I'm ordering you to, though I could technically pull rank on you if I had to. Do it because Kyo could be in danger – Kyo and Mel could be in danger – if we don't find out what's going on."

Tony lowered his head again, glowering through the glass at the motionless body in the hospital bed in the other room. Brian stepped closer to him.

"Please," he begged him in a hoarse whisper. "I know it's obvious for you now, so please...help him."

Tony closed his eyes and sighed. "How do we get Mel out of there?"

For almost an hour that afternoon, the room containing the comatose man remained otherwise empty. It wasn't Brian, but Kyo who took the initiative and urged Mel to return to her apartment – only to gather her daughter and some things for themselves and Toru, and to give Sam a message. Alex and Simone agreed to go along as protection, but it was necessary to go back and pull some things together, because if and when Toru woke, he would be needing new clothes and other items. At the same time, Kyo suddenly felt overprotective of his old friends, and despite years of referring to them as just "acquaintances," he suddenly was pleading with his new roommates to let his friends stay with them, if going back to the highrise was a threat.

Surprisingly, no one from the house objected, and Matt even suggested telling Sam to come as well, just to be safe. So the two new roommates and Mel returned to the highrise together to carry out the instructions, at the same time having Matt contact people left at the house to make some space in the common room on the second floor for four potential temporary guests.

But the hour went fast, and when Alex and Simone returned with Mel and a very small, apprehensive-looking blond girl in tow, almost all of them went into the room to put away some clothes and decorate with what little they had – several childish drawings little Lydia had done for Toru while he had "been away."

Mel seemed hesitant to let the three-year-old into the injured man's room; Kyo could sense this the moment they walked into the waiting area. So he purposefully put himself in the girl's line of sight and crouched down to greet her. Lydia, seeming frightened at first because she didn't know what a hospital was, immediately saw the familiar face and suddenly beamed, rushing up to him and giving him a big hug.

"Ko-Ko," she squealed, holding up a fabric doll with hair almost as blond as her own. "Look what Sammy gave me!"

Kyo completely ignored the bemused smirk from Alex and the easily touched simper from Simone over the cuteness of the scene, focusing all his attention on the little girl he'd known since she was an infant. Though he was small himself, he made her look like the doll she held in her own hands, and sitting on the floor with her in his lap, he easily distracted her from the potential trauma of seeing her surrogate father lying in a coma.

"Thanks, Kyo," Mel sighed, hovering for a moment to talk to him. "I hope you don't mind watching her for a bit."

"Not at all," Kyo assured her, noticing how exhausted she looked.

"I told Sam about the message, and that we'll be staying with you for now, and he promised to come to the house after his shift tonight. He was packing a bag when we left. I think he's a little too excited about staying at the house."

Kyo shrugged it off. "City kids need some country time now and then," he mumbled, then turned to Lydia and made the doll attack her face in a flurry of kisses, causing the little girl to giggle hysterically and fall back into his lap. "Right, city kid?"

Mel managed a half-hearted, weak smile for a moment, then trudged after the other two to tend to Toru and the room.

Meanwhile, Brian was glaring at Tony from the other side of the waiting room while the older man watched the scene with a dim grin. Tony could feel the intense heat emanating from his friend, but refused to acknowledge it. Instead, he watched Kyo talk and cuddle with the little girl for a long time, determined to put off the lecture he knew he would get if he paid Brian any attention.

Matt, who was as exhausted as Mel seemed, was currently in the fit of a disturbing dream. He rolled over on the couch and reached for something in the air, muttering, "Don't go back...don't let him go back..."

Tony dared to glance over at his "brother" with concern, but then caught Brian's glare full-force and winced, turning his head away again. "Christ, Brian, would you knock that off?"

Brian made his way across the room and stood above the chair Tony was sitting in. "We had an opportunity and you blew it," he uttered stiffly.

Tony sighed and slumped further down in the chair. "God, Brian...you don't get it, do you?"

"Get what? We had a good hour there where we could've gotten some useful information. What happened?"

"I told you, I hate doing this."

"But it's your job—"

"I haven't seen a penny for this particular job yet, thank you!"

"Greedy bastard."

Tony groaned and ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Come on. You know that's not the real reason."

"What're you afraid of?"

Tony snapped his head up to him, leveling his own fierce glare at the taller man. "Oh, come on, Brian. You know what happened."

"Tony, that was four months ago!" Brian hissed, crouching lower towards him.

"And I haven't done it since, I was so damn scared!"

"We brought you back!"

"Barely. And what good did it do anyway? I nearly killed myself to find out that this idiot we were trying to learn about was a drug addict! I don't want that shit in my system, nor do I want to bleed from non-existent stab wounds again!"

"But Toru isn't a drug addict."

"How do we know that!? From what I gather, he's at least part of a gang, probably a mob! I have no idea what these people I go into have done, what they have, and we still don't know enough about all this shit to know what I could be bringing back with me when I leave them! Do you really want to risk my life like that? To risk two rather than just one?"

Brian knew he had a point; but at this time, he wasn't as concerned about logic as he was about facts. He suddenly found himself grabbing Tony by the arm in a state of pure fury.

"And do you know how many lives are on the line here? Not just one, not even just two, but who knows how many!?"

Tony pushed him away, breaking free of his grasp. "Don't you come at me like that, you bastard!" he nearly shouted, then caught himself when he glanced over at Kyo and the little girl, who had paused for just a second to look up at him obliviously.

Brian waited until the other two were preoccupied again, and slid down off of the chair, kneeling in front of Tony instead. "Listen to me," he begged, his acidic tone replaced by a pleading one, "think of Toru's message, okay? He mentioned Kyo, he mentioned Mel, and he himself is lying in that hospital bed right now. A machine is breathing for him, Tony."

"And you want me to go into him in that state? God, how do I know I won't need a bloody machine to breathe for me when I get out of him?  If I can get out of him? It's so easy for you to be so bloody generous and noble when it isn't your life on the line!"

Brian closed his eyes, sucking in a sharp breath. He lowered his head, and the two old friends were silent for a long time.

Finally, Brian lifted his head again to look up at Tony calmly. "Look," he said evenly, his voice even softer than before, "I know it's scary. You're right, I don't know what it's like. I can't even begin to imagine..."

Tony shuddered and looked away from him.

Brian paused, then hesitantly put a hand on his friend's arm. "But Tony, please. Please just listen to me, okay?"

Tony swallowed. "Okay, I'm listening."

"We have to make sure Kyo is okay. I made a promise. If he was mentioned in Toru's message, then that means he's in danger somehow. If we want to find this killer, we have to keep him alive. Besides that, he's our friend, and a damn good student, you know that."

Tony looked down at him warily, nodded reluctantly, and added, "Not to mention that, to you, he's a bit more than that, isn't he?"

Brian hesitated again, gnawing on his lower lip sheepishly. "It... Whether he is or not isn't..."

"Look – I get it. You have feelings, I know that. Sometimes they're stronger for certain people. No need to get so bloody shy about it."

Brian drew in a deep breath, fighting through the discomfort to get to what he really wanted to say. "Anyway, he may be difficult sometimes, but he's still good. He'll be valuable to us. Christ, he's valuable anyway, just as a person. But if we don't take care of him, what'll happen to him? We just don't know. We need to protect him. And to protect him, we need to know what we're up against. The only way we can find that out is if we find out what really happened on the docks. Apart from that, Toru is obviously worried about Mel and Lydia – and Kyo. He might have good reason to be. I'm sure, since his last thoughts were of Mel, that he would want us to take care of her as we would one of our own. He may wake up, he may not, but either way, we have an obligation to carry out. Tony, Mel begged us for help, we have to help him. Even if he wasn't Kyo's friend, we would have to, but the fact that he is just adds to the reasons to be careful with him. And again, if we're going to do that, we need to know why Toru was so urgent to get this message to her. Matt can only do so much, especially now that he's used a lot of his energy today. We need you, Tony. You're the only one who can do what you do right now. Please, Mel begged us, Toru begged us...and now I'm begging you, to please help us."

Tony mulled over Brian's plea in his mind for a good long time, nearly ten full minutes. The entire time, Brian knelt right in front of him, grasping his arm and awaiting an answer. After what felt like an eternity, Tony finally let out a long breath of air.

"I'll do it," he answered unwillingly.

Brian squeezed his arm with relief. "Thank you."

Tony looked over at him with sad eyes. "But promise me something."

"Anything."

He swallowed hard and lowered his eyes to the floor. "If anything happens to me, you do anything you possibly can to get me out of there. You understand me? Anything."

Brian nodded. "I promise."

"And..."

"Yeah?"

Tony grimaced, keeping back his tears. "If anything does happen to me...and you can't stop it...take care of my brothers, okay? Make sure they don't kill each other."

Brian smirked and ruffled Tony's hair affectionately. "I won't have to. I can't, really – you're the only one who can break those two up—"

"Brian, please?" Tony said seriously, his voice strained.

Brian's playful air dissipated and he nodded. "I promise."

Tony nodded back. "Okay. Now," he said, sniffing a bit, "give Mel a little while with Toru. I need some time to prepare anyway."

"Okay. Then what?"

"Then make her take Lydia and go back to the house. She needs to get some sleep anyway, she looks dreadful."

"Got it."

"Don't tell her anything about this. She can't know."

"Um...why not, exactly?"

"Because if she knows, she'll want to be there, seeing as she loves Toru and wants to know what happened too. And we really don't know how bad it was, so it could be pretty bad, and Mel might not really want to know what went down last night. Besides that, if she's there, Toru might sense her and his own subconscious might get twisted and distracted if he feels that she's there. She has to go home, make Alex take her or something, get security to drag her out, I don't care how, just make sure she's not around."

Brian nodded. "I'll take care of it. How much time do you need?"

Tony drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Give me two hours."

Two hours later, after much protesting and debating, a very weary and teary-eyed Mel let herself and Lydia be escorted out of the hospital to Simone's car by Alex. She practically did have to be dragged out, but when she nearly passed out on the elevator, she realized that they were right: she needed to get some sleep, in a real bed. As awful as it was to be away from Toru at a time like this, she figured it would be best if she was as physically strong as she could be for the remaining time Toru was unconscious. She wanted to be there for him completely when he woke up.

She didn't want to think about the possibility of him not waking up.

As Alex drove Mel and her daughter back to the house, Brian set up the hospital room in the fashion Tony had taught him before. Nothing very fancy, but Tony would definitely not be able to concentrate with the heart monitor beeping and the harsh lights. There was nothing that could be done about the monitor, but Brian dimmed the lights and lit some emergency candles from the bag Tony always carried around. He also took out some incense and burned it on the nightstand next to Toru's bed, next to the chair Tony would be sitting in. He made sure the chair would be comfortable for his friend, then fixed the chair on the other side of the bed so that he could face him. When he was finished preparing the room, Brian went to the waiting room, where Tony had already begun his meditation. He gently put a hand on Tony's shoulder and, without a word, helped his friend to his feet and led him out of the waiting room, down the hall to Toru's room, and inside. Brian knew Tony was already in trance from the slow and methodical way he moved, the slight sway of his head, and the focused, steady gaze in his eyes, which looked at nothing and everything at the same time. He helped Tony into his chair, closed the door, and took his seat in the chair across from him.

Brian watched him carefully as Tony had taught him, making sure that Tony wouldn't get too lost in his trance that he would become a vegetable like Toru was himself. Brian knew about the dangers of this kind of activity, of the risk that Tony put himself in every time he snuck into a person's mind, especially if that person happened to be dead or, in Toru's case, comatose. Brian knew the signs that Tony would show if he started to slip too deeply into it, and still, after how many times they'd done this together over the years, Brian could feel himself trembling a little with anxiety. He was always afraid of losing his closest friend this way, especially in cases like this where he would have to pressure him into it.

But Tony seemed perfectly fine right now. He was sitting Lotus-style in the chair next to the bed, holding Toru's limp hand with his eyes half open and staring, the concentrated energy around him only visible to Brian, who was able to sense his friend's power with his physical and metaphysical self. Even sitting a few feet away, he could feel Tony's expert mind moving into and through Toru's subconscious. But he couldn't see what Tony was seeing.

Eventually, Tony began to speak, as he had trained himself to do when he was relating to another party what he was seeing. He told Brian that he was on the pier. It was late, maybe one or two in the morning. Very dark. No one else around, no fishermen. He was sitting on the dock, listening intently, waiting. He had told Mel that a bad deal was taking place, but now that he had arrived, he was confused himself as to why nothing was happening. His boss had been the one to call him with the emergency, and his boss was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't even find the kid he was supposed to be helping. So he sat on the dock and waited for any signs of life around him.

It seemed like forever until Toru finally heard footsteps in the distance. One set...two...three...four. He stood when the footsteps came closer, turned cautiously to face whoever else was at the pier with him. Even in the dark, he could recognize two of the forms. One was very vague, but he knew he recognized him. The second form was very familiar; he'd been seeing this man for years now, he could recognize him anywhere. The third and fourth figures were a mystery to him, complete strangers, but the taller one, with one look, Toru knew was someone he would rather not know. The two he knew were Chinese; his boss and a messenger, the one who had informed him of the meeting. The other two were different; one looked vaguely Asian, if he squinted, and was small with unkempt hair and glasses; the fourth was American, large and threatening, a disturbing sense coming from his shadowed eyes.

The second form began to speak. Not to him, though. He said out loud, "Boss?" But the man he'd known for the past several years, who had taken him on despite his Japanese ancestry into the Chinese mafia, ignored him and continued listening to the messenger. Toru listened instead, almost not believing his own ears. His disbelief began to filter the words, only letting snatches of this suddenly distrustful messenger's monologue sneak through to his brain to be processed.

"...double-agent...evidence that our best hitman...cheating his own master...heads of the organization to prove it..."

Toru shook his head, more to himself than to his boss. He would never – it was a set-up. He knew it was a set-up.

His boss suddenly came into focus as he drew closer, a look of utter betrayal and pain on his face.

"Stole money that was to come to me," he was saying. "Never knew you worked for this scoundrel..."

"I never did," Toru managed to spit out with disgust, glaring past his boss's shoulder at the stoic large man behind him, the American. "I would never..."

"Why, Toru?" his boss asked pointedly. "Whatever did he have to threaten you with that you would turn against me? Against us?"

Toru felt his throat clamp shut as the other man chuckled softly, his mouth twisting in a strange smirk.

A set-up. Whoever this man was, whoever these two men were, they were setting him up. He had no clue why, no idea what they were after.

He tried again to protest, but the large American stepped closer then, and his eyes became visible in the dim light of a lamppost several yards away. There was something wrong behind his eyes. Just looking at him made the hair on the back of Toru's neck stand up. He spoke in a haunting voice, telling all lies, saying that Toru had devised a plan by using his neighbor as a holder. His boss asked him if he had ever given his neighbor pieces to hold. Toru denied it all, but his boss wouldn't listen. When the large American man recited a familiar address, Toru couldn't help but look surprised – how had he known...?

"So your face confirms it," his boss sighed. "No matter what your mouth says, your face betrays you, Toru. You know this address. You know who lives there. And you've been using him as a holder to sneak my money from me..."

With reluctance, the boss turned away and told the other two to do as they pleased, he was no longer part of his family. If he died, so be it; if he lived, at least he knew Toru would have the intelligence to stay quiet and leave his family alone.

He respected Toru; had loved him for the past several years. He couldn't bring himself to claim definite death on him. But he couldn't be a boss without having a hard edge. He left with the messenger, denouncing him, and let the other two do what they pleased.

Toru began to panic. He called out to his boss, pleaded with him to believe him – but his boss wasn't listening anymore. He had enough evidence, though Toru wasn't sure what this evidence was, and no matter how contrived Toru knew it was, the boss wasn't interested in hearing more.

Once they were gone, the American came right out with it: "I only knew where you lived because you work under the darkness of night, just as I do. It was easy to find his presence when I followed you home several times. He was searching for me too. This neighbor. I'm sorry to have to involve you in this – truly, I am." He didn't sound sorry at all. "But it was necessary. I needed to find more about him. When I find what I'm really looking for, there won't be anything you can do about it."

Toru stared back at him, utterly baffled. He didn't even know this man, what could he possibly want from Toru? He had no time to ask, for as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, there was a loud cracking sound in front of him, a spark of light, and Toru felt the searing pain tear through his abdomen, doubling him over. He groped for his own gun, which he hadn't even thought of by this point to use, and ripped it out of its holster by his hip. He pointed and pulled the trigger, but the pain threw off his aim enough that he missed the huge man by several inches. That's when he attacked, tackling Toru to the dock. They wrestled and squirmed for a long time before Toru took another bullet in his arm, making him drop his gun into the water beneath them.

Gasping for air, Toru demanded desperately to know what he wanted.

Then that voice filled his head again, shaking him inside.

"I've seen you before, as I've been watching him for a while. I can't get close to him, he's being kept safe by others. But you have a way to get to him. So I took it."

"What're you talking about?  Who are you talking ab—"

"I don't care about you.  Toru. Where is he?"

Another bullet in his shoulder made Toru cry out in anguish, which was something he rarely ever did, not even when he'd been sliced up in a knife-fight back when he was a teenager in Tokyo. But the third bullet tearing through his flesh made him weaker, and the confusion he felt over whatever this psycho wanted was tearing at his mind. Along with something else...some other force, one he couldn't pinpoint, a generalized aching in his head that was scraping and scratching for some answer...

"Who is he?" the American demanded again, pulling back to stand and loom over him.

Toru had no idea who he was talking about – a neighbor, one of his neighbors... Terry? Sam? Mr. Saunders? Kyo?

Wait...Kyo had moved out... Was there a reason for the sudden abandonment? Could this have been—

Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. Toru suddenly knew the answer, and he spat a glob of blood at the man.

A fourth bullet tore through his other side. He had no idea what kind of damage the man was causing, but in any case, it hurt like hell.

The man dropped to his knees beside Toru, leaning over close to him. "Tell me," he hissed, "his name, and where he went. Or maybe I'll just have to drop in on another pretty blond you know very well..."

Melora... There was no way this monster was going to get to her...

Toru struggled for a strangled breath, heaving out a strained curse at him.

The man grabbed him by the shoulder, digging his fingers into the wound there. Toru couldn't keep back the scream of pain. He was startled that there was actually someone who could take him down – needing to shoot him a bunch of times first, of course, but it was someone nonetheless.

"I've got it," came another voice suddenly, and the man froze, his hand still stuck on Toru's shoulder. He turned his head slightly and waited. The voice sounded young, shaky – scared. "The name and address – I know where it is. You can stop now."

The man turned back to Toru, his teeth clenched tightly. "Then I guess we're done here. I could be here when you die, I have another slot open. If I'm here to feel your life leaving you, as I've been there with all the others, then that could make him my special number eight. But you...you're just not my type. "

Toru managed to look up at him through bleary eyes. He had to warn him, had to tell him to be careful, that this madman was after him... Delirious and unthinking, he mumbled wearily, "K-Kyo..."

The hand clenched him tighter, as if having a spasm. "Is that his name?" The voice came out as a rush of relief and giddiness. "Kyo?" The man laughed, a frightening crackle in the still night air. "His name is Kyo. Beautiful."

Toru winced, wishing the man would kick him in the head for him, as he was in no position to do it himself. Why had he let it slip? What was this man after? Why did he want Kyo?

"Thank you very much," the man said, regaining his composure. "I won't be the one to kill you. Maybe the tide will, but I won't. I'm sorry about your friend, but if it's any consolation, you've helped me a great deal." And he rolled Toru off the side of the dock, into the shallow water.

Brian saw when Tony's head tilted backwards, his eyes fluttering and his throat starting to seize up. He gasped and jerked himself out of the chair, slapping his friend across the face.

"No drowning!" Brian shouted. "Wake up, Tony! Don't you go into that water with him, get out! You hear me?  Out!"

He shook his fiercely, wrenching Toru's hand out of Tony's, and slapped him again. After a tense moment, Tony finally breathed in again, clearly and fully, and his eyes popped open wide. He stared up at Brian with a ghastly expression.

"Jesus," he whispered.

Brian looked down at the body beneath him, then let go of Tony's shoulders and stood back a bit. He stared down at Toru for a long, silent moment.

"He went through hell to keep him safe."

"And screwed up without realizing when he was doing it," Tony added.

Brian rolled his eyes. "How was he supposed to know?"

"Right."

The room was quiet for a long time. Finally, Tony ventured, "I suppose we have a lot more problems than we realized."

"Yeah. We should go to George. Tell him we suspect we're being watched or something. We need all the protection we can get."

Tony gnawed on his lip, then asked hesitantly, "What should we do with Kyo?"

Brian chuckled morbidly. "You mean besides keeping him in a cage in the basement where no one can get to him until he's got himself straightened out enough to confront this maniac? Um...I've no idea. We can protect him as best as we can, but if there's some other person working with this guy... Why would he have someone else working with him?"

Tony crooked an eyebrow upward. "Seems like all your digging for psychics passed over one."

Brian threw him a dirty look, then hunched down on his chair and glowered at the floor.

Tony shook his head sadly, gazing at Toru. "All he wanted was to protect them. Kyo and Mel both."

Brian rested his chin on clenched fists and sighed. "Yeah. Guy probably didn't even have a clue that someone had been watching him all this time.  Or Mel. Kyo's been out of the apartments for weeks. Psycho probably was going nuts trying to relocate him."

"It's a damn good thing Kyo had the foresight to get them to our house."

"Yeah..." Brian stared at the motionless figure in the bed. "Hell...He might not be psychic, but I'm ready to treat this guy like one just for trying to be a hero."

"Yeah – look where it got him."

Matt was careful as he approached the dark form huddled on the windy pier. The last of the fishermen was packing up for the night, but he didn't even pay any mind to either of them. Probably because he couldn't see them.

Matt knew not to startle the already startled soul, so he walked up behind him carefully, warning him softly of another presence. Slowly, Toru turned his head to look behind his shoulder. When he saw that Matt was actually looking right down at him, he almost started crying with relief.

"You...You can see me?" he asked.

"Of course."

"How...How can you see me?"

Matt shrugged nonchalantly. "I can see a lot of things. I can see most things others can't." He knelt down beside Toru and stared out over the dark water. "It's nice out here."

"Yeah," Toru agreed. "But I'm feeling cold. I don't feel this cold most of the time."

"Do you know why you're here?"

Toru paused, then ventured, "It's where I was killed?"

"Well...not exactly. I mean, do you know why you're here, like...why you're still here?"

Toru shrugged. "Maybe heaven didn't want me."

"No. Well, honestly, I don't know. But what I do know is that you're still here because you're not supposed to die yet."

Toru snapped his head up to look at him. "Who...Who are you?"

Matt gave him a warm smile. "I'm no one special. Just wanted to let you know you still have a chance."

Toru gazed at him strangely for a long time. "Are you an angel?"

Matt chuckled. "No. I'm just someone back on earth who has certain powers."

Toru narrowed his eyes at him. "I don't know you."

"No. I'm a friend of your lover's. A friend of Kyo's too. But you don't know me."

"But I...I feel like..."

"Like you do?"

"Yeah."

"Probably residue left over from when I gave you my energy."

"Energy?"

"Yeah. You were right over there," Matt said, pointing to where Toru's body had lain before. "You were bleeding a lot, losing energy and blood. I put my hands on you and gave you some of my energy. A lot of it, actually."

Toru stared at him in awe. "Why?"

Matt shrugged. "It's what I do. I can do it, so I did it."

"But...I'm not the best person..."

"But you're a person. And you're someone important, someone who means a lot to other people. A lot of people pulled together today to save you."

"So...am I saved?"

"Not exactly."

"You keep saying that."

"Well, because a lot of this is very vague, very grey. There's no black and white. There's no definite answer. We don't know a lot about this sort of thing yet, it's still being studied, though we're probably doing the most research and experimentation with it than anyone else in the world. My theory is that you're still here because it's not your time to go yet; you weren't fatally wounded. You just lost a lot of blood and the wound in your shoulder cut off some oxygen to your brain for a bit. But you had help, so it's not like it's going to seriously affect you."

"Then...Why am I here? Am I a ghost?"

"Not exactly," Matt repeated with a smirk. "Seriously. You, as you are now, are a collection of energy, both your own and a bit of me as well. You're lingering because you were shocked out of yourself when you were shot. You didn't realize it. But by the time that guy rolled you into the water, you were no longer in your body. Since then, you've just been wandering around." Matt turned slightly, gesturing behind them. "There. You spoke through me over there. You were trying to tell Mel and Kyo to not go back to the apartment, because you thought someone would be coming for them. But your work was done, they're safe now. Well, sort of. But to keep them safe, you have to go back to your body. You have to reunite with yourself."

"How do I do that?"

Matt smiled. "Just come with me."
Chapter 8

Four days after Toru woke from his coma, the three extra guests in the house had begun to settle into a routine in their temporary home. Mel worked a steady eight-to-four shift at a local factory, so her schedule took priority over everything else, especially since she had to get Lydia to daycare by seven. Simone had suggested she leave the three-year-old at home with them, and everyone else had offered to take shifts watching the sweet and very obedient little girl, but Mel was adamant that Lydia keep something regular in her life, now that their home was insecure. Besides, she insisted, she'd already paid for the entire month, and she didn't want to be more of a burden on them than necessary. They had all disputed that point, but she was a headstrong woman who was appreciative of their offers, but still had to decline.

That didn't mean that Kyo was off the hook, however. He and Sam, perhaps by previous familiarity, were somehow obligated to help out where Toru used to, until he would be released that afternoon – and even then, he would need time at the temporary home to recuperate before he could return to his usual assumed surrogate father duties.

Kyo had become used to the previous few weeks' schedule of not having to wake until after nine, so when his alarm went off at six o'clock for the fourth day in a row, he grumbled incoherently and fought the urge to throw the thing across the room at Morgan, who was still in bed and sound asleep despite the noise.

But in all honesty, Kyo didn't mind. He just did a few things to help his friend and her daughter, and then he could return to sleep. Except today, however – with the incident taking so much energy out of himself and Matt, even meditation time had to be cut out for a while. But today was the day he was to resume his lessons with his friend, and he wouldn't have the chance to go back to sleep.

Still, it was better than worrying over his three old friends being targets in the highrise. He wouldn't have been able to sleep at all if he'd known they were in danger and he hadn't done anything about it.

So after some dramatic sighs and a few false starts, he finally dragged himself out of bed and trudged up to the second floor – being sure to "accidentally" kick a stray shirt off the stairs to land right on Morgan's face. Kyo smirked as he heard the muffled, "Wanker," just as he reached the first floor.

And, just as he had the previous three mornings, he found Lydia already awake and dressed. The surprise he'd discovered on the first day was that he'd found her in the adjacent apartment, sitting silently with Jo while he watched television, neither of them saying a word, but giggling at the exact same moments.

After that, the novelty wore off, and Kyo always knew where to find her every morning. The two had struck up an unusual but, in a strange way, understandable friendship. Since Jo could barely function past a childlike level, and Lydia was a child, it started to make sense. He still spouted off lines of gibberish now and then in front of her, but she just found it funny. And he had turned out to be much more pleasant with the young girl than even Kyo had suspected.

This morning, like the three mornings before, Kyo opened the door to the apartment and peered inside to find them the exact same way: Jo sitting on the couch in front of the television, legs crossed, with the petite blond sitting in his lap like sitting on a swing. Both were hunched over, concentrating fully on the screen in front of them, and now and then they would both giggle or laugh out loud. Both had eyes full of wonder glued to the television, completely lost in the absurd cartoons.

"Lydia," Kyo called, hating to break up the bonding but knowing that Mel would, as she always was, be in a rush to get moving, but it was important for the girl to at least get something to eat before they left the house. "It's almost six-thirty."

"I'm here!" the lilting voice called to him. But there was still no movement from the couch.

"Okay," Kyo said, and stepped further into the room, peering around the couch to catch a glimpse of the cartoon. "What are you guys watching this morning?"

"Spongebob!" Lydia squealed, giggling just as Jo's shoulders shook in a quiet chuckle at something on the screen.

"Ah, that again. Well, come on, Simone's probably already making your breakfast. We don't want to keep him waiting."

"Ohhh," the girl sighed, "okay..." And as Jo leaned back in his seat, she hopped off his lap and started galloping towards Kyo. She paused in the doorway and turned back, waving. "Arigato, Jojo!" she called in her tiny voice. "See you tonight!"

Jo actually tore his gaze away from the television for several moments to give the girl a rare but adorable grin. He waved back, saying in an equally childlike voice, "Bye-bye!" And after she disappeared into the dining room, Kyo caught a faint look of disappointment on the other man's face before turning back to the screen.

"Sorry, Jo," Kyo offered. "It's just the timing thing..."

Jo suddenly blinked hard, his head twitching, and he mumbled, "I get it, thanks." Then he let out a wordless grunt and his head twitched the opposite way as he twisted oddly on the couch to get into a different – seemingly uncomfortable – position. But somehow Kyo knew he preferred to have one leg bent over an elbow as he flopped onto his side, staring upwards at the screen. Kyo had caught him in these odd positions before, and it didn't seem to bother Jo at all, so he never asked.

Kyo shrugged it off and turned to follow Lydia into the kitchen, but she was already there, squealing over the cartoonish fish-shaped eggs Simone had made for her this morning. Her obvious approval made Simone beam, and he looked at Kyo with wide, shining eyes. "I could make you some too, Ko-Ko—"

"Shut yer face," Kyo snapped automatically, yawning and scratching at his floppy hair as he trudged over to the table. He scooped the little girl up with one arm and made a whooshing noise to make-believe she was flying before setting her upright in one of the chairs, then slumped into the seat next to her.

It had become a joke by now; Simone thought the little girl's nicknames for everyone was adorable, but his absolute favorite was how she called Kyo "Ko-Ko." Even "Jojo" didn't have the same ring to it, he said. This both flattered and embarrassed Kyo, so he'd started responding with the same smartass answer every time and now couldn't stop himself, not even with Lydia right there.  Lydia could call him that, but when Simone said it, the sneering retort just seemed to come tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop it.

"My God," Simone sputtered as he scraped the breakfast onto a plate. "Every morning I see you, you have a different pair of horrendous pajamas on."

Kyo shrugged, still playing absently with his hair. "Yeah, so?"

"So...aren't you a bit old for pajamas?"

Kyo just shrugged carelessly and snorted. "They're comfortable, what do I care?"

"Well, I'm just saying... Don't you have anything a bit more...um..." Simone glanced down at Lydia briefly, then whispered confidentially, "A bit more risqué?"

Kyo gave him a ridiculous look. "Why would I?"

"I'm just asking. We adults have to have some fun sometimes, right?"

"With bed clothes?" He looked down at his blue cotton button-down shirt and pants that were too long for him, then back up at Simone with disdain. "I'm just sleeping in them. Besides, risqué isn't really in my vocabulary."

"Why not?" Simone asked, almost sounding insulted himself.

"It just ain't, okay? What's the point?"

Simone raised his eyebrows at him, offering suggestively, "Well, there could be someone who wouldn't mind seeing you trying something a little more..."

Kyo blinked hard before his eyes went wide. "Wha... Why?"

Simone stared at him dully for a long moment, then rolled his eyes and turned back to the stove. "Oh, forget it. You're hopeless."

Kyo screwed up his face in confusion, then glanced at Lydia. "D'you know what he's talking about?"

Lydia just stuffed a fish-shaped scrambled egg into her mouth and giggled.

"Good."

It was nearly six o'clock later that day when Mel, Matt and Alex returned to the house in Simone's car with the still weak and injured Toru. He hadn't questioned their choice to stay with the psychics at all, considering he knew what danger there was in going back to the apartments. He and Matt, who had stayed with him in the hospital during the day since Mel had to work and he didn't, had struck up a close friendship, and Toru had gushed repeatedly over Matt's abilities and talents, not to mention his helpfulness in saving his friends and himself.

It took a while to physically get Toru out of the car and into the house, and even Kyo had to lend a hand to get him up the stairs to the second floor to the common room. But once the injured man was settled and comfortable, Kyo was relieved to step back and see Mel and Lydia fawning all over him, seeming more like a family than they ever had before. He smiled to himself over this, and the sense of pride and accomplishment he felt in having a part in rescuing them all, including Sam, made him think of all those times Brian and Matt had told him he would one day be glad to have his powers. Now he knew they were right.

Mel doted on Toru all that night, because she knew someone else would have to do it the following day, and Lydia sat obediently by Toru's side – careful not to hug or cuddle him too tightly because he was still hurting – and told him all about what she was learning from the people at the house. She especially went on about "Jojo" and all the cartoons they had watched together.

At one point, when Lydia had fallen asleep and Mel was getting some soup for Toru, when Kyo was trying to scoop the girl into his arms to set her on one of the couches she had become comfortable sleeping on, Toru managed to snag the smaller man's wrist and pull him closer, giving him a slight hug and thanking him genuinely for all his help. Kyo just offered a meek smile and awkwardly accepted the thanks, not used to seeing Toru so intense about something like this. He supposed it was another kind of reward, seeing sides of people he didn't expect. Toru had always been a quiet, dark character to him, even just when sitting around the coffee table in Mel's apartment with her and Sam and Lydia, sharing Chinese food and watching some silly t.v. show. He wondered briefly what Toru would do, now that he was out of the gang ring, but seeing how weak he was at the moment, he supposed any kind of change would be for the better. He clutched Toru's hand and assured him he was happy to help, and would continue to do so until Toru could act on his own again.

The next day, Kyo went through his usual routine of pulling Lydia from Jo's couch and getting her to eat breakfast before her mother whisked her off to daycare, then, instead of going back to sleep, went to check on Toru next. He took the "patient" a light breakfast of his own, and the two talked for a while about trivial things until Toru became tired. Kyo helped him lie back on his designated couch to sleep some more, then went to pursue his own activities.

Kyo poked his head through the door to the Brothers' bedroom quietly to find Matt sitting in the Lotus position on a pillow in the middle of the floor. He sat straight, his arms at his sides, his hands resting on his lap. His eyes were closed. Kyo squinted as he tip-toed into the room and shut the door gently behind him, unsure of how to approach him when he was this deep in meditation, but he had to speak with him. He attempted to clear his throat lightly, but it was obvious that it would take more than that to get Matt's attention. He thought about walking up to him and sitting in front of him in the exact same position until Matt felt his presence, but decided against it; it might be too startling – or too mocking.

Kyo stared at him in confusion, squinting again. Usually when Matt was meditating, Kyo was able to see his aura around him; he was usually able to see it anyway, but even moreso when in meditation. But the familiar glow around him was no more than it was in his waking state; in fact, it was a tiny bit dimmer than usual. For a moment, Kyo worried that Matt had been using his powers a little too much lately, not only with Toru but in training him.

He was about to turn around to go find Brian to mention this to him when he was caught off-guard by a slight snorting sound. He stopped and looked closer at Matt, and finally noticed that his eyelids were fluttering a bit. He squinted yet again and took a step forward. Sure enough, a second later, Matt let out a light snore and his head tilted forward a bit.

"Hey!" Kyo exclaimed.

Matt suddenly sat up straight again, blinking his eyes wide open and looking around himself wildly. "Wha—What the—"

"Whaddya think you're doin'!?" Kyo hollered at him, pointing at him accusingly. "You're always yelling at me for that, that's not fair!"

Matt looked up at him with those big blue eyes and stared innocently. "Huh?"

"I saw that!" Kyo snapped. "You were sleeping!"

Matt straightened his shoulders. "Was not," he said indignantly. "I was meditating." He closed his eyes again and regained his composure.

Kyo gave him a ridiculous look. "You snored!"

"Did not," Matt said out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes still closed.

"You little sneak—"

"Sh," Matt warned him. "You didn't see anything."

"You're cheating! Here I am working my ass off every day to become this great psychic person, and one of my oh-so-disciplined instructors is using his meditation time to sleep!"

Matt opened one eye to look at him. "Was not. You're hallucinating. This is a dream." And he closed it again.

Kyo rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air, and turned back to the door.

"Kyo?"

He turned back to him with a wordless scoff.

Matt was peering at him again, now hopeful and almost apologetic. He smirked. "Don't tell Brian, okay?"

Kyo sighed wearily and trudged out of the room. Of course he wouldn't tell Brian.

Kyo sat upright in his bed, panting heavily and not even feeling the cold sweat that had broken out on his skin. He stared into the darkness of the basement room he shared with Morgan, but didn't see anything familiar. This darkness seemed deeper, heavier. This was a surprise, because after several weeks of living at the house, he'd begun to feel comfortable there and had become accustomed to waking up in the basement. But even if he knew he was in his bed, he felt blind.

"Hey," came a lazy voice from what seemed like far away, but was only a few feet to his left. "You okay?" Morgan asked him, barely awake himself.

Hearing Morgan's familiar voice, however distant, was a comfort to Kyo. At least he knew now that he wasn't in danger. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was safe, yet he couldn't find his voice at all.

"Hey," Morgan said again, sitting up in his own bed and waking up a little more. "Kyo. Midget."

Kyo clutched the sheets in his small fists, staring straight ahead and breathing heavily. Again, he didn't answer. He couldn't.

Morgan saw that Kyo was obviously in a state of trance. He may not have had all those psychic abilities that many of the others did, but he'd seen it enough to recognize it. He carefully climbed out of his bed and went to Kyo, sitting down gently on the mattress in front of him. In the dim light that shone through the windows near the ceiling, Morgan could see the boy's wide eyes staring out into nothingness, so pale that they seemed almost translucent.

Morgan was a bit put off at first; he knew that sometimes these trances could have physical effects on the medium, but he'd never seen someone's eyes go practically white because of them. Even sitting close to him, Morgan could feel some kind of turmoil fighting its way through Kyo, and Morgan had never been able to feel those sorts of sensations from any of them before. He actually shuddered involuntarily.

Morgan cleared his throat and grabbed Kyo by the arms, shaking him. "Kyo!" he said loudly. "Wake up. C'mon, kid, snap out of it—"

Kyo let out a strangled sound and a hand, like a claw, suddenly bit into Morgan's arm fiercely. Morgan yelped and jumped back, Kyo's nails digging deep scratches into his skin. As soon as he let go of Morgan's arm, his hand clamped down onto the sheet again and gripped it tightly.

Morgan stood from the bed, utterly confused, and backed away from him warily. "Hey, mate...what's with you?"

Kyo's eyes finally lifted from the fog that they'd been in and focused directly on Morgan. Again, Morgan shuddered, swallowing hard. He had no idea what was going on, or what to do about it.

Kyo stared at him with huge, wild eyes, still that chilling pale blue color that Morgan had never seen before in anyone, let alone an Asian man. Kyo opened his mouth wide, tilting his head back a bit, and managed to take in a harsh, choking breath, and when he attempted to let it out, all that came out was a weak, forced sound. But it almost sounded like a word.

Morgan hesitated, the movements Kyo was making causing his skin to prickle. He almost expected another head or a demon to come seeping out of that wide open mouth. He gathered his courage when the pleading eyes looked to him, and he dared to take a step closer to him. "What?"

Kyo immediately lunged for him, grabbing Morgan by the arms and letting out a frantic screech, this time clearly audible: "God, help me!"

Morgan gave a start at being leapt at, but he recognized Kyo's panicked voice, knew that it was his own, and this time he didn't back away. He held Kyo up easily, thinking it was a good thing the guy was so small, and lifted him by his arms until he was kneeling on the bed, looking up at Morgan desperately.

"What's wrong?" Morgan asked, actually betraying his usually cool exterior and sounding every bit as panicked as Kyo did. He didn't even feel the painful grip Kyo had on his arms anymore.

Kyo again threw his head back, his eyes shutting tightly this time, and struggled to take in a breath of air. This time when he forced it out again, he hissed, "He—choking—me—"

Morgan immediately settled down and smirked, sighing with relief. This, he thought, he could deal with. He put a comforting hand on Kyo's shoulder, prying his hands off of his arms. "Oi, mate, it's okay – you're just having a nightmare. You know, remembering when that bloke tried to strangle you—"

But Kyo was adamant. He shook his head wildly, his eyes now filling with tears. He groped again for Morgan's shirt. "Can't—breathe—"

Morgan shook his head back at him and patted his shoulder. "Just calm down, you're working yourself up into a frenzy over nothing—"

"Morgan, help me!" Kyo begged, his voice rough and wretched.

Morgan made a face at him. "C'mon, mate, you're freakin' me out here."

"Not—dream—"

"Kid, he's no psychic, he can't do anything to you right now, you're safe with us—"

A split second after he said that, Kyo's head snapped back so hard that he lost his grip on Morgan's shirt and fell on his back on the bed. It definitely did not look like he'd done it on purpose either, and that made Morgan's heart rate jump a few notches. Startled, Morgan jerked backwards too. He watched with a bewildered expression as Kyo fought with some invisible force that really did look like it was strangling him. Kyo kicked at the air and flailed his arms wildly, his screams cutting off almost before he could get them out as the hands neither of them could see tightened around his throat.

"Bloody hell," Morgan uttered, dumbfounded. He'd seen a lot of stuff since moving in here, but he'd never seen this before. It almost looked like something out of a horror movie. The lurching, struggling form with nothing there to fight against, but something definitely being there – just out of their vision, perhaps. Morgan glanced around himself cluelessly, trying to find something that would give him an idea of what to do. He felt himself growing more and more panicked as Kyo's defense began to weaken, his muffled screams turning to weak gasps. When one hand fell limply to the mattress and his eyes began to close, Morgan gave up on doing anything ingenious and simply grabbed him by the arms, yanking him off and away from the bed. Still, Kyo was losing consciousness. He shook him hard, slapped him a few times, but there was no response from Kyo except a slight whimper just before his head jerked back again and his voice was cut off.

Morgan growled incoherently and picked Kyo up, cradling him in his arms like a child, and started up the stairs. He kicked the door to the dining room open with his foot, swore from the pain, then limped over to Brian's door and started kicking at that with his other foot, yelling for him as loud as he could.

Finally, a sleepy-eyed Brian opened the door, wiping at his face. "What the hell do you wa—" He cut off sharply when he saw Kyo twitching in Morgan's arms.

"I don't know what's happening," Morgan blurted out, pushing past Brian to get into the room. He laid Kyo down on the couch and turned to Brian, who looked as stunned as Morgan had when he'd first realized that Kyo wasn't dreaming it. "He just started choking and then said something about being strangled—"

"It's not a dream?"

"No! God, Brian, look at him!"

Brian did, and was startled to see red marks appearing on Kyo's throat, vaguely in the shape of a hand.

"Jesus," Brian whispered, kneeling down beside the couch.

"He's not breathing!" Morgan yelled at him. "Do something!"

Brian took a deep breath and closed his eyes, placing his hands on Kyo's throat where the marks were forming. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, Kyo's head twitched and he let out a stifled cry, took a few rough breaths, then his eyelids fluttered and he opened his mouth wide to take a long, clear breath. When he was breathing regularly again, although somewhat raggedly, Brian took his hands away and opened his eyes, looking down at him with concern.

When Kyo blinked his own eyes open wide, clearly thankful to be breathing again, Morgan noticed that his eyes were darker now; still the pale blue that he was used to seeing, but not that nearly blank white ice blue they'd been before. Kyo looked like himself again.

And acted as himself again too. As soon as he regained consciousness and was alert, he sat up straight on the couch, his attention darting back and forth between Brian and Morgan fearfully as a violent tremble began to overtake his whole body.

"What the hell just happened!?" he demanded. His gaze came to rest on Brian and he snapped again, "What the hell was that!? What the hell is going on!?"

Brian shook his head slowly. "I...I don't know..."

Kyo put a quivering hand to his throat and winced, then swallowed hard and focused on Brian. "W-What did you just do?"

"I—I forced them off."

"You mean you felt them?"

Brian nodded, but he looked every bit as confused as Kyo did.

Kyo cursed loudly, his head flopping back on the arm of the couch. He let out a moan and turned his head to Brian. "So apparently he can get to me now? Even while I'm here, in the safe house?"

Brian chewed on his lip as he mulled the incident over in his mind. "No...I don't..."

"What do you mean, no?" Morgan demanded, also sounding quite angry. "You saw him, Brian, someone was choking him but nobody was there! I'd classify that as a psychic phenomenon, wouldn't you?"

"But it was too weak to come from a trained psychic," Brian protested. "I felt it, the connection, it wasn't...it wasn't very strong."

"Not very strong!?" Kyo yelped. He pointed to his throat, to the red marks there. "You call that weak!? I couldn't breathe, Brian!"

"Listen, I know that," Brian snapped. "But that's not what I mean."

"What do you mean then?"

"I mean...The power of the action was strong enough to choke you, strong enough to leave marks, yes. But the source of that power wasn't very strong. I could feel it, it wasn't a very...trained source. They relented very easily when I put a block against them. Either it's an amateur, or was working through someone with similar powers to us, which really would weaken the source."

Kyo was about to say something smart again, but the puzzled look on Brian's face stopped him. He was obviously concerned about Kyo, but there was something deeper going on here, Kyo could tell. He straightened himself up on the couch and eyed Brian up carefully.

"What're you saying?" he asked hesitantly.

Brian bit his thumbnail anxiously, thinking back to what Tony had described while perusing Toru's memories of the night he'd been shot. There had been two people there. Two. He stared at the ground as he mulled this over for a while, then dropped his hand and looked directly at Kyo. "If I'm right in assuming he was working through another medium, then..."

Morgan sighed heavily. "Then we've got someone out there who has powers like you guys, but who ain't so nice."

Brian nodded. "That's what I'm saying."

"Oh damn it," Kyo groaned. "And somehow, the bastard who's after me managed to find him."

"Or her," Brian added, "though from what I could sense, and from what else I know, I don't think it was a female presence." He informed them of Tony's vision and the other person who had been at the docks that night. "He said the other guy seemed young, afraid. So maybe he's not really a vicious person...but he has some pretty useful powers, and unfortunately, our killer somehow stumbled across him – and knows how to use him."

"That could just be a cover," Morgan pointed out. "You know, maybe this person really is a woman and covered it up on purpose to hide their identity. Like Simone can do."

"Yeah...Could be they just have a very masculine output."

Kyo suddenly chuckled, bordering on delirious.

"What?" Brian asked sharply.

Kyo cleared his throat and tried to smother his smile. "Um, nothing," he said, his voice trembling.

"What?" Brian asked again, more irritably this time.

Kyo shook his head. "I'm telling you, nothing—"

"C'mon—"

"Well...you know...masculine output..."

Brian rolled his eyes and stood up again. The kid was probably just trying to cover up too, cover up how terrified he was with some kind of perverted jab. He waved at him to get off the couch. "Go back to bed. You need some sleep."

But Kyo grabbed his wrist and spun around on the couch, letting his feet hit the floor. "Uh-uh," he said firmly, staring at Brian with wide eyes.

"Why not?"

"What the hell d'you mean, why not? Why the hell do you think!?"

"Look, calm down, okay? They caught you off guard, but now you're more aware. And so are we, so we can stay alert of anymore intrusions."

Kyo hesitated, but still wouldn't let go of Brian's wrist.

Brian sighed heavily, rolling his eyes again. "Fine. You wanna stay with me?"

Kyo swallowed hard and nodded.

"Okay. You can stay in my bed, it's big enough for the both of us, as you'll remember."

"Hey!" Morgan exclaimed, pointing at him. "How come you get the biggest bed?"

Brian glared at him. "Because I'm the biggest guy here. So shut up."

"Are not."

"Am too."

"Are not!"

"I am too!"

"Um, excuse me?" Kyo cut in. "No offense, Brian, but what if I don't want to sleep next to you in bed? Won't people get the wrong idea?"

Brian scoffed. "Certainly not. If anything I hope they get the right idea. And besides, you've done it before, why act shy now? Now come on. Morgan, go back to the basement and don't wake me up again unless it's a case of life or death."

"It was!" Morgan reminded him.

"Oh. Right. Well, just remember that, then. C'mon, kid," he said, tugging at Kyo's shirt. "You can sleep in the bed, just don't expect me to read you a bedtime story."

Kyo threw a nasty glare over his shoulder at Brian as he made his way into the bedroom. "Right, like I want one."

"Careful," Brian warned, pointing a threatening finger at him. "Or else I'll make you sleep with Jo."

"You fart on me, I'll climb into your dream and kick your ass."

"You could only kick my ass in a dream, you dwarf."

"Then maybe I'll just do it for fun."

As they disappeared into Brian's bedroom, Morgan paused at the door to shake his head. "Man," he mumbled to himself, "they really are an old married couple already. Simone was right."

Matt was yanked out of his sleep by the powerful jolt of energy flowing through the house. After checking around the bedroom, making sure that both of his Brothers were fine and sound asleep, he tip-toed out of the room and down the hall. He peeked into Tom and Shannon's room and saw them both unconscious as well, completely oblivious to the disturbance. Matt shook his head, feeling fuzzy and disconcerted. He wondered if he'd imagined it.

But then he heard the sounds of panic coming from the floor below, and he tip-toed over to the spiral staircase. He listened intently as Brian released the invisible hands from around Kyo's throat, heard the entire discussion between the three other people who were awake downstairs, and felt his stomach churning. So it hadn't been a dream after all.

He clutched the top of the banister tightly, feeling sick to his stomach. He had always been afraid of this, though had never mentioned it to anyone else: the possibility of another force working against them, just as powerful but not nearly as compassionate. After all, there was usually a tug of war between good and evil in every situation, and he had been waiting all this time to find that war in their situation. Besides the every day evils of the police chief degrading them.

Matt was worried, though; obviously the killer was desperate enough to go to others by now, and in all this time that they'd been trying to train Kyo for a fight to the finish with this guy, he hadn't been wasting his own precious time either. He'd had enough time by now to seriously injure someone who had become a close friend, so of course Matt shouldn't have been surprised that he was now working on another plan to finish his business before he disappeared for another eight years.

Matt knew that something had to be done soon. Whether Kyo was ready for it or not.

Chapter 9

Brian stood in the middle of the field next to the small convenience store twenty minutes from the house and waited. He knew most people would probably think him strange for just standing there, but he'd done this many times. If everyone in the house had a specialty in their powers, his would be the ability to locate other sources of power. He had used this technique to find several of the others, except the ones who had come to him, like Jo and Shannon. He knew it would come in handy now. Since Kyo was with Tony today, Brian had used his time off to do some serious meditation and pinpointing techniques. He knew Matt had gone to the magick shop to check with the sisters about feeling any new energies a few days before, but Brian was relying mostly on his own senses. It had taken him days, but he finally had tracked the familiar energy he'd felt a few nights before to this place.

He found it funny that it mostly came from this area, considering it was so rundown...and close to a convenience store. He wondered briefly if one of the cashiers was the missing psychic he was searching for, but after stepping inside a while before, he knew it wasn't any of them. Whoever this person was came here an awful lot, but Brian knew he would have to be patient and wait for them.

He was waiting for nearly an hour, sitting in the grass in the field next to the store parking lot, across the street from an abandoned warehouse. He began to regret wearing the long black coat and heavy combat boots he was used to, since the sun was beating down hard and making him sweat. He was hoping that this heat wave would soon break into a thunderstorm when he was suddenly caught off guard by another presence. He snapped himself out of his wishing mode and switched to being cautious and observant again.

He stood from his place in the grass and looked over towards the store, where the feeling was coming from. There were four vehicles parked there, one agitated man wearing a bandana arguing on the payphone, two girls in school uniforms standing near the trash can giggling, one woman smoking a cigarette sitting on the edge of the cement landing to the store itself, and another man, practically a kid, small and walking with a purpose, crossing the parking lot in a faded red t-shirt.

Brian studied all of them carefully, taking in even the smallest of details, from the phone man's gold tooth to the short man's mop of curly brown hair to the jittery woman on the step's shifty eyes. It could be any of these people, Brian thought to himself as he slowly made his way back to the store.

As the schoolgirls and the red-shirted man disappeared into the store, Brian stood at the edge of the parking lot and tried to inconspicuously study the remaining two figures. He was convinced at first that it was the man on the phone, considering the rough way he spoke to whoever was on the other end; whoever this person was, he or she probably was as angry and confused as the killer was. But when he focused his energy on him, Brian knew that he wasn't the one. He just had a bad temper. Instead, he concentrated on the woman. Brian knew immediately that she was emotionally and mentally unstable; he could sense it. This would have been a perfect medium for the killer – if she had the power to do the things this source had done. But when Brian got psychically closer to her, he knew she wasn't the one either.

Brian was beginning to become flustered. He knew he needed patience to do these things, but he hadn't used his powers like this since he and Tony had recruited Matt to be the third Brother; at least they had known about his powers up front. He hadn't needed to locate someone. It had been a few years by now, he guessed. No wonder he was losing his patience.

Just as he was about to forget the whole thing, turning away and starting back to cross the field, Brian stopped. He heard the door to the store open and felt his energy suddenly collect and pull him back – almost knocking him over, in fact. He regained his balance and turned to see where the pull was coming from. Brian was actually a bit startled when he realized that the strong sense inside of him was dragging him directly to the small, bespectacled youth in the red shirt, who was now crossing the parking lot again with the long, steady, but slightly awkward gait of someone who was self-conscious about their height (or lack thereof). His hands in his pockets, a cigarette in his mouth, his shoulders hunched and his head down, he was obviously doing this trek for about the tenth time that week. And it was only Tuesday.

Brian drew in a deep breath, gathering his energy, and protected his own presence with a shield similar to the one Matt had used before to protect Kyo and himself back at Kyo's apartment. When he thought he was safely covered, Brian started to follow the young man.

His target unknowingly led Brian across the busy highway, past the abandoned warehouse, down through a deserted street which was home to the rest of the now defunct factory. Brian followed silently, noticing small things as he gained on the man, though it was quite difficult, as his legs seemed to somehow be even longer than Brian's. Brian noticed the downtrodden neighborhood, the dirty buildings and garbage-littered streets; he also noticed that he had been waiting in that field for a very long time, for now the sky was becoming darker. But he realized that it wasn't as late in the day as he'd thought; it was simply overcast, and the thunderstorm he'd been hoping for was probably going to catch him without an umbrella. He felt a few drops of rain on his face and rolled his eyes, but continued on.

The young man eventually came to a long two-story building on the corner of a particularly nasty section of town. The only other people on the corners were obviously hookers and a couple of guys speaking quietly to each other by a streetlamp – probably a drug deal. Brian shuddered and pulled his coat around him tighter. He followed nearly half a town black behind the man as he crossed the parking lot to the rundown motel, then stopped by the edge and merely watched him as he climbed a set of metal stairs leading up to the second floor. Brian saw him take a few long strides, even with his shorter legs, down the outside corridor to reach the third door on the balcony, then disappear inside.

Brian raised his eyebrows. So the guy lived in a cheap and creepy place. He had to admit that it fit the situation. Even if he wasn't sure what the situation was. He wondered briefly how the killer had tracked this guy down, but didn't dwell on it too long before heading for the metal staircase.

Once he reached the door the man had entered, Brian paused, staring at the handle. Now what? he thought. He had known what he was doing before, when approaching a powerful source to recruit for the department, but now that he was here, he realized that these were very different circumstances. He was here to confront a potentially evil and strong enemy. How was he supposed to approach that?

Brian sighed and shrugged it off. Best to talk things out first. He knew he could win if there was any kind of struggle – the guy was obviously untrained, perhaps as confused about his powers as Kyo had been when he'd first come to them. He knocked at the door a few times, then waited. He waited an awfully long time, then knocked again. When there was no response, he leaned over and squinted to see inside the dirty window, but the lights inside the room were out. He couldn't see a thing. He knocked a third time. Still, no answer. He wondered if he had the right room, stepping back and counting down the doors until he got to the third; he was right, the man had come straight into here. He considered knocking again, then decided against it. Instead, he reached for the door handle, and was surprised to find that it was unlocked.

Brian opened the door a crack and peeked inside. It was very dark now, the sky clouding over and blocking the sunlight that had just been there a few minutes before. There was one other window in the room, in the wall across from the door, but it let in little light itself, only casting a few eerie shadows here and there. Brian could barely make out the shape of a bed, a dresser, and a chair. There was another door on the other side of the bed, surely leading to a bathroom, but it was closed. Perhaps he'd gone in there and was deciding not to answer the front door.

Brian took a deep breath, forgetting about his protective shield now, and stepped inside the small, cramped room. He blinked a few times, his eyes trying to adjust to the dim light. He figured that even if he couldn't speak directly to the man he'd just followed, he could probably snoop around and find out a bit more about what was going on...

Just as he was about to reach for the small penlight in his jacket pocket, Brian was startled by the creaking behind him. The door slammed shut and he started to spin around – but a hand on his shoulder shoved him back the other way. He immediately felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through him, tensing all of his muscles. It all happened in a split second – the door slamming shut, the hand pushing him forward, then the hard, round edge of something metal pressing into the back of his head, and the sound of a hammer being pulled back on a gun.

And the quiet, demanding voice behind him, ordering, "Don't move."

Brian froze obediently, but even if the man hadn't made the suggestion – or command – he would have done the same. He hadn't expected this. He hadn't even felt the man's presence in the same room, but there he was, right behind him in the dark shadows. Pressing something dangerous against his head. A slight fear made Brian wonder if this was the man he'd been following – or perhaps the killer himself...

The room was silent for a few moments, then the voice behind him spoke again. His tone was quiet, but threatening nonetheless. "You feel that?" he asked, poking him with the round metal. "Just to let you know, that's a .38 pistol I've got pointed at your head there. I ain't much for aim, but I think I've got a nice shot at this point. So I suggest you answer me quick before I lose my temper."

Brian swallowed hard and slowly took his hands out of his pockets. "Hey, mate," he said, lifting his arms cautiously into the air. "Just calm down—"

"Shut-the-hell-up," the man snapped irritably, reciting the order in perfect rhythm, like four hard bullets pounding into Brian's brain. "Who are you? Why you followin' me? What d'you want?"

Brian's eyes searched around the dark room, wandering aimlessly as he answered, "My name is Brian."

"I'm so sorry," the man spat at him. "What do you want, Brian? Talk fast, I'm losin' my patience already."

"I followed you because I wasn't sure who you were. I...I just wanted to talk to you."

"So talk," the man snapped. "And fast."

"Okay," Brian started. "You might not believe me, but my friends and I have abilities most people don't. There's a man, a murderer, who's after one of them. We believe the guy was using a medium to get to him the other night, to keep him quiet about the things he saw him do. Because they're linked, psychically. The killer doesn't have powers of his own, but my friend does, so we think the guy is using someone with powers to get to my friend, to hurt him."

"What's it got to do with me?"

"We think you're the medium.  I think, I mean."

"Why do you think that?"

Brian drew in a deep breath. Just by the tone of the guy's voice, Brian knew it was true; he knew all about it. He was just waiting to hear it from Brian.

"Because I can feel you," he answered. "I sensed you. I found you."

"Wonderful," the man said dryly. "So now you found me. Congratulations. So now what do you want?"

Brian wet his lips and swallowed hard again. "I want to know why."

"Why?"

"Why you're working with him. Why you're against us. Is there something wrong? Did we do something to offend you? Does he pay you well? What've you got against us?"

There was a long silence in the room, but the gun was still planted firmly against the back of Brian's head. It was so quiet that the only sounds Brian could hear were the shallow breathing behind him and the patter of rain on the window.

Finally, the man said bitterly, "You wanna know why I helped that crazy bastard the other night?"

"Yes."

"Let me put it this way: when he hunted me down, I was in the position you're in right now, and he was on the other side of the trigger. That's why I helped him."

Brian blinked, startled. "Huh?"

The man let out a tired, cynical chuckle, then ordered, "Grab your crotch."

Brian gawked into the darkness in front of him. "What?"

The man jabbed at his head with the gun. "Do it!"

Brian obeyed, though with a smirk.

"You see?" the guy said. "See how easy it is? Now, you try sayin' no with a true psychopath behind the trigger."

Brian let out a sigh of relief when he felt the edge of the gun disappear. He began to turn around, slowly. He was startled when he faced his target – and found the man, though still in the shadows, to be nearly Matt's meager height. He truly did look like some nerdy kid just out of college, with his messy, dark curly hair and thick-framed glasses. And the eyes behind those glasses didn't look like the harsh, crazy eyes Brian had been expecting. The lazy half-smile on his face just enhanced the image of an innocent student caught in the middle of a war.

This wasn't the picture of a man Brian had suspected to be working with a homicidal maniac. He just looked like a regular mid-twenties guy, but perhaps with more noticeable bags under his eyes.

The kid smiled wanly at him, his throat moving in an attempt to speak, but nothing came out. He gulped and tried again, and this time his voice came out, though strained. "There's a difference between us, though."

"What's that?" Brian asked gently.

He tossed the gun to Brian. "His was loaded."

Stunned, Brian let the kid walk right past him to the bed, where he sunk onto the mattress and leaned over, holding his head in his hands. Realizing he was still trembling a bit from the shock, Brian fumbled with the gun until he opened the chamber – and sure enough, there were no bullets.

Brian let out a long breath and stood over him, taking a step closer. He tossed the unloaded gun onto the bed and looked down at him curiously.

"So who are you?"

The kid sniffled and ran a hand through his unkempt dark locks. He seemed even more shaken than Brian himself was. "I'm no one," he muttered miserably. "Just some stupid idiot who got found out by a whack job."

"You're not no one," Brian insisted. "I've felt you. You're actually very strong."

The kid just scoffed.

"Really. And besides," Brian added with a smirk, "you're the first person I've met who's dared to give me an order that I took without question. That's something special."

"Cut the crap," the kid snapped. "You wanted to come here for a reason. What is it?"

"Well, I got my reason. He forced you to use your powers by holding you at gunpoint."

"Great. Glad to satisfy your curiosity. Now go away."

Brian glanced around the dark room for a moment, then knelt down beside the bed. He looked up into the young man's tired face. "What's your name?"

The boy lifted his eyes to him and stared. "What do you want to know that for?"

Brian shrugged. "I'm naturally curious."

"You're a nosy little bastard, aren't you?"

"You could put it that way, too."

"Look, I ain't out here to make friends."

"Then what are you here for?"

The man drew in a deep breath, his face calm and expressionless. "To die."

Brian blinked, but kept up with the beat of the conversation. "You could've done that the other night. But you didn't. You could've let that guy blow your brains out, but instead, you strangled my friend nearly to death—"

"I didn't want to, okay?" The man sat up straight and blurted out irritably, "JesusChristAlmighty, I let the kid breathe, okay? You saw how easily I let go, I didn't want to hurt him, just doin' what I had to do to get the nutcase off my back!"

"Why you? Why did he use you? Is he still using you? Why's he making you do these things?"

"Because..." He trailed off, shaking his head. He looked directly at Brian. "If you're so into this powers thing, then you know a bit about them, right?"

"Yeah."

"So answer me this: considering psychic phenomena, where's the main source, so the lore goes, of that power?"

Brian shrugged. "Either you're born with it, or it develops over time."

"Develops – in your brain."

"That's generally what's believed."

"And what if it didn't occur naturally, so to speak?"

Brian hesitated, picking his own brain to remember all his research. "Um...well..."

"Think, Brian. Christ, even a murderer was able to figure it out!"

"There have been instances, allegedly, where people who weren't born with it or who...who didn't develop it naturally...um...there were rumors of cancer patients having abilities...or something like that."

The man tilted his head to the side, giving Brian a funny look. "Uh-huh?"

Brian stared back at him, puzzled. "There were cases a lot of people don't know about...where patients developed some of these abilities when brain tumors were found..."

The man gave him a mock look of shock. "Y'don't say!"

Brian squinted at him. "It's really unusual, though. It really doesn't have much backing to it."

The man smirked. "Well, someone else saw that episode of The X-Files and believed it."

"Huh?"

He sighed. "You're so concerned about your friend, the one I let go. Well, it ain't been a fun ride for me either, man. I came here for work a year ago, next thing I know, company folds, I'm out a job and cash, and migraines just make it worse. As if I'm made of steel, things just keep happening and I'm expected to take it. I lose my apartment, have to shack up at a sleazy motel, I eat scraps when I can't afford noodles, then I turn around, and my doctor tells me I've got a brain tumor." He turned his eyes onto Brian. "How's that for fate?"

Brian stared at him, unsure of what to say.

"Suddenly," he went on, "I'm getting into people's heads, somehow managing to figure out that the fact that I can reach for a pen and it's there when it was just across the room isn't very normal. So I use it, why not? I've gotten nothin' but crap in this life so far, why not enjoy something unique and special while I'm still around? Then a week ago, some twisted bastard gets it in his head that he needs to find someone to help him with his psycho bull. Where's he go? The place where I get treated for my illness. Well, he somehow finds out about all these patients, tracks them down one by one, finally finds that I'm the only one who's got these powers since getting the tumor. And the jackass corners me in my own room, shovin' a damn gun in my face and sayin' I gotta do these things or else he'll waste me right there and then! Christ, I'm ready to die, but not like that! I've prepared myself for the inevitable already, I know I'll go eventually, probably sooner than later, because of this thing in my head, but I didn't want some crazy jerk blowin' my brains out all over the bed, y'know? What a mess!"

He let out a long sigh, slumping his shoulders. "Christ, I didn't mean to hurt Kyo, man. Really. But in that situation, you'll do anything just to defend yourself, y'know?"

Brian nodded solemnly. "Yeah."

"All I want," he went on wearily, "is to die in peace."

Brian eyed him up quietly, then asked, "How long do you have?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Never been clear on that."

"Can't they do anything about it?"

He winced. "I'm poor white trash. All they can do is gimme pain medication and watch me deteriorate. Can't even afford a proper hospital room to shrivel up and die in."

Brian cautiously lifted a hand and placed it gently on top of his. Startled, the man jerked back, but Brian kept his grip on him.

"What you want?" he snapped.

Brian looked at him steadily. "You have a headache right now?"

"It's part of my everyday life, man."

Brian squeezed his hand briefly, watching him as he shuddered and tried to pull away. A moment later, he stopped struggling and closed his eyes. He lowered his head and took a shallow breath.

"Better?" Brian asked.

The man swallowed hard and nodded vaguely. "Yeah. A bit."

Brian studied him closely, keeping his hand over the smaller one on the bed. He searched through his mind, heard echoes of voices and past experiences, knew that everything he'd said was true. He smiled a little. "Darren?"

The man lifted his head, his eyes wide open now. "What?"

"That's your name? Darren?"

The kid sneered at him, snatching his hand back. "Go ahead and laugh, Brian."

"No...It's nice."

Darren rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything.

Brian sat back on his heels and cleared his throat. "I know some people who could help you."

Darren chuckled bitterly. "They got white coats? I'll run the other way if they do—"

"No. They're my friends."

Darren stared at him warily, then ventured, "They all as creepy as you?"

Brian was startled when he pulled his car into the driveway next to the large house to find that his was almost the only vehicle there. He only saw Morgan's VW van standing all by itself by the unused garage (Tom preferred to play with his mechanical toys in big, empty spaces, so the garage was his playpen, while the cars sat out in the rain and snow in the driveway). Brian was puzzled by the emptiness of the driveway; he hadn't told anyone to go anywhere or to do anything. Where could they all have been? He knew that there was a chance that there were still others inside – Jo wasn't allowed to drive; Toru and Mel didn't have cars, seeing no sense as they were city dwellers; Sam only had his skateboard; Shannon didn't even have his license.

Darren followed Brian into the house, gawking at the beauty of the place, which Brian obviously wasn't ogling himself at the moment. He marched straight through the back door, through the kitchen, and into the dining room, where they found Mel and Toru having a quiet dinner with Lydia.

"Hey," Brian said, panting from rushing inside so quickly. "Where – is – everyone?"

Toru slowly turned his head towards him, and the very deliberate motion made Brian give him a double-take. "Not here," he answered simply. "Well, most of them."

Brian finally caught his breath and stood up straight, narrowing his eyes at them in turn. "Not here? What exactly do you mean, they're not here?"

Mel shrugged lamely, answering in that same sluggish manner, "They're...out there? As in, not here."

Brian rolled his eyes. "Well, where are they?"

The two adults exchanged puzzled glances for a long moment, then turned back to him.

"Alex and Simone went to a club to get trashed and laid – their own words," Mel answered.

"Tom went to a friend's house to help fix a motorcycle," Toru added.

"Matt and Kyo went to find that killer guy."

"Morgan came back from the police station quite mad and called us all bastards and went to his room."

"He had a bad day," Lydia supplied helpfully.

"Shannon and Jo left saying something about a ridiculous circus," Toru went on.

"And Sam is upstairs sleeping," Mel finished.

They beamed happily at Brian when they were through.

"Did we do a good job?" Mel asked.

Brian was gawking at hem. "They what!?"

The lazy smiles greeting him fell at his answer. "Huh? Not a good job?" Toru asked lazily. "I thought it was a good job."

Brian waved them off easily and muttered, "Damn it, why'd they go after him!? Kyo's not ready yet! He's gonna get himself killed – for Christ's sake!"

"Hey, Bri-Bri?" came the little voice from the table. "Is there really a circus in town?"

Brian turned and stared down at her for a long, silent moment. Then, without answering, he let out a huff and demanded, "So where's Tony?"

"Oh, right," Mel groaned. "We forgot Tony..."

"It's bound to happen," Toru assured her. "There are a lot of people here—"

"Where is he!?" Brian snapped urgently, startling the dazed couple.

"Oh, right—"

"Please say he went with them—"

"He went to see someone named Polly."

Brian growled and raked a hand through his hair. He shouted a rather severe curse at no one in particular and Mel pursed her lips, eyebrows raised, and reached over to cover Lydia's ears.

Brian spun around and ran out of the room, leaving the sleepy-eyed family and a puzzled Darren still there.

"Hi," Lydia waved at him cheerfully, as no one else seemed to have taken notice of the short man.

"Hullo," he said uncertainly.

"Nice night, huh?" Mel commented.

Darren squinted, trying to see if any of their eyes were dilated. "Uh, yeah. A bit rainy though."

"Is it?" Toru asked. "That's good – we need it."

"Yeah," Mel nodded knowingly. "This drought we've been having is awful..."

Brian suddenly shot back into the room, grabbed Darren by the shirt, and yanked him out after him.

"Nice meetin' ya," he called to the strange little family.

"Yeah," Toru said sleepily. "Yeah...you...too..." And he turned back to the dessert pie the three were sharing.

"I like the circus," Lydia commented.

"Damn it, those idiots," Brian muttered, more to himself than to Darren, as he sped through the streets of town in his car again. "What're they thinking, huh? What the hell could've happened to make them think – I mean, c'mon! He can barely meditate for fifteen minutes straight without getting antsy, how the hell is he gonna confront him now?"

Darren cleared his throat, as if gently reminding Brian that he wasn't alone. "Um, excuse me, but...where exactly are we going?"

"To the forest," Brian answered. "Because that's where Kyo will go, I'm sure, since that's where he first met the guy. But first we're gonna get some backup."

"Backup?"

"It's never smart to go alone – or even with just two people. Always best to travel in packs."

"Erm..." Darren was suddenly starting to feel a little troubled by this whole situation. "D-Do you mean we're...we're going after that...guy?"

"I don't know, maybe – all I know is that I'm going after Kyo and Matt before they get themselves...blown up or shot up or hacked up or whatever else the maniac can think of."

Darren cringed. He didn't like the sound of this at all. "Um...you sure I need t'come?"

Brian glanced over at him briefly, his eyes wild. "Of course you do! You're another link to him, aren't you? It might come in handy."

Darren sank lower in his seat and tried in vain to disappear into the vinyl covering.

"Besides," Brian continued, "I'm not really as interested in going after him as I am about getting to them before he does. Christ, this time of night, and they're out there looking for him? Why don't they just call him on the phone and invite him over for a midnight slaughter!?"

Darren attempted weakly, "Well, those people back at the house didn't seem too upset..."

"That was a trance." There was a loud thump and the car rocked momentarily. Darren looked over at Brian to see him grimacing. "Damn it!" he hissed, then went on normally, "They would've never stood for letting them leave that late at night, not in this situation."

"Why'd you curse?" Darren asked in a small voice.

Brian shook his head. "I didn't do it – it was Matt. And it wasn't a curse, really, just a trance. Matt must've figured that if Mel and Toru were straight, they would've never let them go."

Darren tilted his head to the side. "But...they seemed like a couple to me."

"What?"

"That man and woman at the house."

"Oh. Yeah, they are."

"Then wouldn't that generally mean they are straight?"

"I mean sober."

"Sober?"

"I said!" Brian snapped, a little more irritably than he'd meant to. He calmed down and said more gently, "I said, they were under a trance, kind of hypnotized, into believing that it's all right. That's why they were moving and talking so slowly, like they were half awake."

"Ohhh...I just thought they'd smoked some really good...um, anyway," Darren went on, clearing his throat. "But no, I mean, back there, when we hit a bump – why'd you curse?"

"Oh..." Brian grimaced again. "Um...you don't want to know."

Darren sighed. "Poor kitty."

"Shut up, I'm still trying to tell myself it was a giant centipede and deserved what it got."

Matt followed closely behind Kyo as the small blond boy walked aimlessly through the dark forest, only one hand-sized flashlight as their guide. Or so it would seem to anyone else. In fact, even Matt was unsure of where exactly they were going, but Kyo seemed to know what he was doing. At least, that was what he kept telling Matt.

It had been twenty minutes into the first meditation session Kyo was in that he was able to stand sitting completely still for more than ten minutes when it had happened. His concentration had been broken quite swiftly with the strong feeling of desperation that entered his mind – a feeling that, even he could tell by now, wasn't his own. He had been startled by it himself, but Matt, instead of stopping it and trying to continue with the meditation, urged Kyo to pursue what was coming to him. Uncertain but willing, Kyo had agreed, and discovered something that came a close second to his greatest fear right now – the man was not about to attack him, but it was obvious that he was tired of trying to find a new way to get to him. He had to disappear soon, he could feel the police closing in on him, he had to finish this before he was found. Kyo could feel the killer's anxiety and knowledge that time was running out, and his stomach turned when he realized that the man was losing what little grasp on reality he still held. The killer was going to strike again, that night, Kyo knew – but it really didn't matter who he went after anymore. The constant waiting and calculating itself had driven the man even crazier than he already was, and he didn't want to wait around for someone to find him.

When Kyo had told Matt of this, an icy chill spreading over his body with a strong sense of dread following behind it, they had looked into each other's eyes and knew what they had to do.

Matt hadn't liked putting the hypnotic trance on Toru and Mel, whom he'd come to trust and regard as very good friends in the past week. But there was no other way to get past them. After a few attempts at calming them without powers, including lying, and failing miserably (as not even Lydia believed that he and Kyo needed to go to the store to get munchies at ten o'clock at night), Matt had put the adults into a trance and assured Lydia that he and Kyo would be fine, then they had been able to slip out the back door easily with no other obstacles.

But now that they were deep inside the dark and eerie forest, alone, with only a small flashlight and their wits as their guides and weapons, Matt was beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea after all. Matt had been all for getting it done and over with as soon as possible – a few days ago, when he wasn't putting himself directly in harm's way on purpose. But now...

Kyo obviously seemed to think the same thing, but he insisted that they had come too far, they might as well keep going. His voice, however, trembled as he said it.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Matt whispered to him – even if they were the only ones in the forest, he didn't want to act too sure, lest the psycho jump out suddenly from behind a tree with a gun.

Kyo swallowed hard, shuddering as they passed a familiar tree. "I'm sure," he whispered, and averted his eyes from the blood stains that still remained where Brian had scraped away the bark. "He's in here," he whispered back, even more quietly than before. "I can feel it."

Without another word, Kyo continued on, Matt close behind him, and let the nausea in his gut lead him in the right direction.

"Damn you, Brian!"

Brian muttered a nasty name under his breath as he dragged a severely drunk Alex (who was attempting to dance with his fingers pointed in the air and singing the Beegees' "Stayin' Alive" in a shrill and very off-key voice) out of the club and to the car on the side of the street. Simone was a few steps in front of him, his heeled shoes clacking noisily on the cement sidewalk as he stalked along grudgingly. He didn't even consider that anyone else who might have been around (which they weren't) would have thought it odd to see a particularly androgynous man walking out of the club in thickly heeled shoes and a leather miniskirt. Then again, Simone had other things on his mind.

"What the hell, man," Simone spat at him as they reached the car. "I was just about to get some action in the loo before you had to come waltzing in and ruin my fun! And for what? Because Matt and that crackpot dwarf got it in their tiny little heads to go after the very thing that makes Kyo wet his bed at night?"

Brian rolled his eyes. "He doesn't wet his bed—"

"What the hell are we supposed to do, huh? You're dragging us out there to look for the morons in the woods, it's the middle of the night, and I'll bet you didn't even bring a bloody flashlight!"

Brian paused in his attempt to open the car door for Alex, while still making sure Alex didn't collapse on the pavement. "Uhh...I've got a penlight—"

"See!? I knew it! My God, you're almost as stupid as they are! Christ...Now I've gotta go out there and get my shoes all mucked up—"

Brian finally managed to yank the door open, and Darren scooted to the side as Brian set Alex on the edge of the seat, his feet still hanging out over the curb. Alex immediately flopped backwards, his head landing in Darren's lap, and he screeched, "Ah-ah-ah-ah, stayin' aliiiiiiiive..."

Simone set an icy glare on Brian. "That's right – stayin' alive. And I suppose you think he's gonna be a help in that, is he? He can't even remember his own name."

Brian cringed. "It's not even eleven – I didn't think he'd be this trashed so early..."

"Brian," Simone reminded him in a cool tone, "Alex is trashed twelve hours out of the day."

"Well...you're not..."

"Oh, yeah, great – what am I gonna do if we run into this chap, eh? Switch from male to female until his orientation switches back and forth so much that it twists in on itself? Or his ears drop off his head in confusion? Yeah, that's a real big help, ain't it?"

"Well, you know more about the technical stuff than I do!"

"Are you kidding me!? You're the one who taught me all that—"

"But remember the night at the lake, when we found Toru? You helped there—"

"I put Kyo's hand on Matt's shoulder, Brian. Anyone could've done that, including you – only you were too absorbed in gaping at things you've seen a hundred times before to pay attention and do it!"

"It's fascinating!" Brian replied firmly. "And so what if it still makes me giddy to see it?"

"Giddy!? Brian, you were catatonic!"

Darren cleared his throat, trying to get the drunken man in his lap to notice him while the other two bickered outside the car. "Um...are – are you all right?" he asked hesitantly.

Alex's head lolled around on Darren's legs for a moment, then he smiled widely, his eyes closed, and he narrowly missed jabbing the kid in the eye as he thrust a finger into the air and cried out, "Macho macho maaaaaan..."

Darren wrinkled his nose. "You smell like a brewery, man."

"Yeah, well," Alex muttered. Then he called out, "You two done fightin' yet? C'mooooon, kiss 'n make up so we can go..."

Darren glanced out the open door to see Simone, hands planted firmly on his hips, getting right up in Brian's face. They were both talking at the same time, very heatedly.

"They fight like that all the time?" he asked reluctantly.

"Eh," Alex slurred, "not all the time...sometimes there're plates involved...come to think of it, I think they only touch when they're trying to strangle each other..."

Darren winced. "That doesn't sound like a very good friendship."

As if confirming this, Brian was already pointing at the car and swatting at Simone's head. "Just get into the damn car and stop fighting, bitch," he ordered sternly, shoving Alex's legs all the way into the backseat and slamming the door shut.

"Bitch!?" Simone yelled haughtily. "That wasn't the kind of way I like to be called bitch, you bastard!" Yet he climbed into the passenger seat all the same.

As soon as the other two were safely in the car, Simone turned in his seat and directed his gaze onto Darren. "Oh great. Who's the stray, Brian?"

With a great sigh to start it off, Brian told them the story of how he met Darren as he drove wildly through town. When he was finished, they were on the back roads, heading towards the forest. Simone (who was holding on for dear life) glanced back over the seat at Darren with a smirk.

"So you held a gun on him, eh? Please – describe it in great detail. I want to know what it's like, since I haven't been able to experience it for myself yet—"

"Watch it," Brian warned.

Simone heaved a sigh that rivaled Brian's and slumped back in his seat as they were all serenaded by Alex's version of "Brick House."

"So how're we gonna do this, huh?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over Alex. "Just run into the woods and trample it down until we find them? What if we find him first? What protection have we got?"

"Um..." Brian smiled shakily. "Brilliant minds?"

Simone shot him a nasty look. "Alex is drunk, Darren's too confused to be any help, so I guess that leaves only me."

"You want me to smack you into next week?"

Simone looked back over his shoulder, eying up the baffled new person in the back seat. "What about your gun? You had a gun, right?"

"Eh...I don't really use it. It was just a scare tactic. Don't got any bullets."

Simone seemed amused by this. "So...you get a gun for protection, and you don't even put any bullets in it?"

"I didn't intend to...to shoot anyone," Darren admitted sheepishly. "Like I said, just a scare tactic. Left it at the motel anyway."

Simone groaned and let his head knock against the window. "We could've at least thrown it at him."

"Bloody hell."

Grunt.

"Bloody circus if you ask me."

Grunt.

"Stupid bloody idiots. Reckon they're off their bloody rockers."

Grunt.

"Think we oughta've asked Shanahan along?"

Grunt. "Why?"

"Said he's always wanted to see spontaneous human combustion."

Grunt. "Kid's traumatized enough as it is. Besides, we're already here."

"True. He's still got loads of work to do over the summer."

Grunt. "His mum wouldn't like him out this late. Too dangerous."

"Yeah, reckon it is."

Grunt.

Shannon stopped walking and sighed, lifting his head to look up through the leaves in the trees. The light from the moon was awfully bright tonight, though it wasn't much help in these woods. He lowered his head again.

Grunt. "Why'd we stop?"

Shannon shrugged. "Heard somethin'."

Grunt. "Where?"

Shannon lifted his hand and pointed with a bony finger in front of them, gesturing to Jo where he'd heard the shuffling in the trees.

Grunt. "Him or them?"

"Neither," Shannon answered, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets and continuing to walk. Jo continued on as well by his side. "It's Brian and Simone. And someone else."

"Ah." Grunt. "They come for him too?"

"Nah. Reckon they're out for the other two. Bloody stupid of `em."

"Erm..." Grunt. "Isn't that what we're out here for?"

"No."

"Then what're we out here for?"

Shannon held up the pack of marshmallows from under his arm. "A nice stroll. And maybe a bonfire."

Jo abandoned his usual grunt for a chuckle.

"Bloody circus," Shannon repeated under his breath. "About time someone stopped talkin' and started doin'. I say good on Kyo and Matt. Get things done."

Jo grunted in agreement. He lifted his own head as they continued to walk, staring up at the nearly full moon. "It's really pretty."

"Yeah, it is. Oh, wait – fire, or the moon?" Shannon asked when he noticed where Jo was looking.

Jo rolled his eyes and just grunted.

"Right, okay, the moon then. But the bonfire..."

"Calm down."

"God, I can't wait to get this over with. Bloody circus, this..."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, then Jo grunted. "Think they're lookin' for us?"

"Nah. They won't even notice us."

"Why's that?"

"`Cause they're too wrapped up in their own problems to pay attention. It's okay. Better that way, really. Easier to get around, y'know?"

Grunt.

Chapter 10

And Shannon was right. Having left Alex in the car, singing drunkenly since he thought he was still in the nightclub, Brian, Simone and Darren were staggering through the woods, so intent on trying to find Matt and Kyo before the murderer found them first that they didn't even hear Jo and Shannon speaking to each other only a few yards away. Of course, both of them had rather soft voices to begin with, but they were making no attempts at lowering them either. But they could have shouted and the other three wouldn't have noticed, as they were searching desperately for Kyo and Matt.

On the other hand, while Shannon and Jo strolled through the forest at an easy pace and chatted easily amongst themselves, Brian and Simone hissed whispers to each other in the dark, trying to stay together; Darren, too confused to say anything, just followed behind wordlessly, attempting to piece things together on his own. Matt and Kyo didn't speak at all, however; too afraid of being found before finding who they were looking for, they didn't dare even whisper to each other, only communicated mentally and with body language, when they could see each other – they had abandoned the flashlight, Kyo stuffing it into the large pocket on the side of his cargo pants, too afraid to give their own location away. Of course, they were doing this by counting on Matt's protective shell around them so that the killer, if he was able to feel Kyo's presence as Kyo was able to feel his, would at least be confused by the muffled or distorted senses.

But the protective force around them proved to be little help. As he and Matt moved deeper and deeper into the forest, Kyo was struck several times with more than just mere feelings of where the man was; suddenly, as they drew closer, he was overcome with stronger, more powerful images – violent, red images, riddled with anger and desperation. Kyo had to stop several times, panting heavily even though they were walking slowly, and once, he even needed to lean against Matt for support.

"What is it?" Matt asked him, holding Kyo's arm carefully. "Do you see him?"

Kyo had his eyes shut tight and nodded, then shook it the other way. "No, no...I see...it's him..."

"You're seeing what he sees?"

"Yeah...yeah, I think so," Kyo answered breathlessly.

"And it's stronger now? Clearer?"

Kyo nodded weakly.

Matt swallowed hard, glancing up at the trees in front of them in anticipation. "Well," he said in a haunting voice, "looks like we're on the right track."

Kyo whimpered in response, clearly showing his reluctance to keep going. But he knew it was pointless to turn back now. This was what he had to do, whether he was ready for it or not. He drew in a deep breath and bravely took a step away from Matt's comforting hand. He continued to lead them.

It seemed as if they'd been walking for hours, though in reality it had only been a little over one hour since they'd entered the forest, and most of that time had been spent wandering around aimlessly, Kyo trying to get a firm grasp on the senses he knew he needed to feel where the killer was. But now that they were close, Kyo didn't need to wander anymore. He only walked slowly because he dreaded what he was going to be up against.

The number of trees eventually began to dwindle, leaving great patches of dry earth and green grass, black in the dark, between them. There was less noise out here, less chance of making a twig snap under a foot, or running into a bush. Soon, Kyo led Matt to the very edge of the forest, perhaps a mile or two away from the road. The trees continued along the edge of a large field, but in front of them, as they stopped cold at the very edge, was empty except for large tufts of a dark sea of grass. The brightness of the moon shone down on the empty field, and Kyo looked around with wide eyes.

It only seemed as if the place were empty; Kyo knew the truth. He knew because he had to stop and cringe against the pain that suddenly shot through his head, one like he had only ever experience once before – when he'd been attacked by the very person he was looking for now. Kyo gasped and suddenly slumped over, holding his head in his hands.

"What is it?" Matt asked worriedly, putting a hand on Kyo's arm to keep him from collapsing to the ground. "What do you see? Is it him? Can you see him? Do you know where he's going?"

Kyo groaned loudly and reached out an arm, grabbing for something else to support him. He stumbled a few steps and landed against a tree, clinging to it.

"Kyo, what is it!?" Matt demanded, now standing right in front of him. "Are you all right?"

Kyo slowly lifted his head, trying to see past the visions of blood and the horrid screams echoing through his mind – memories of the man's prior murders. And he saw what the man was thinking, at that exact moment – saw him acting out what he wanted to do, how he wanted to finish Kyo off...

Kyo groaned again, feeling nauseated, and tried desperately to bring Matt's face into focus in front of him, no matter how frightened or concerned his friend looked. Anything to distract him from what was going on in the killer's mind right now would have been a relief.

But then he saw a flash of something that he couldn't distract himself from. Kyo froze, his eyes growing wider, and stared past Matt all together – right over his shoulder, in fact. Matt noticed the panic welling up in Kyo's eyes, his mouth hanging open but nothing coming out. And the same sense of dread Kyo had been feeling was now seeping into Matt.

Matt slowly turned his head and looked cautiously over his shoulder. There, only ten or so feet away, stood the monstrous man with the insane grin plastered on his face. What made the sight of him even scarier than usual was the moonlight over his shoulder, casting strange, eerie shadows on only one side of his features.

Matt gasped and whirled around, half standing in front of Kyo and half feeling an urge to turn back and take off himself. But he couldn't – he couldn't because he knew this had to end, here and now; also, he couldn't, because suddenly he became preoccupied with keeping Kyo there.

"What're you doing!?" Matt yelled, grabbing Kyo by the arm and pulling him back. The small body jerked easily back against the tree and Kyo wailed, grabbing at his frayed locks of blond hair.

"I can't!" Kyo hollered at him. "I can't! Please let me go, I can't do this, it hurts—"

Matt struggled and fought with him, muttering to him that he couldn't very well run out now, now that the man was right in front of them.

But Kyo was lost in a panicked frenzy. He clawed the tree, even threw punches at Matt and slapped at his hands to let him go, trying with all his might to get away. But he was fighting a losing battle, as every time he seemed close to escape, a searing pain and grotesque vision blinded him and sent him curling up against the tree, screaming in agony.

Matt finally realized what the man was doing to him – somehow, he had no idea how, the man had figured out how to take the power Kyo was emitting, whether he had control of it or not, and seize control of it himself – sending it right back at him. But with his own added touches. He knew because he could see the sickening delight in the man's demeanor, in the shadows of his grimacing face, as he saw how Kyo was crumbling.

"No!" Matt finally cried, grabbing Kyo by the arms and spinning him back to face him. "You can't let him! Don't let him do this! Kyo, don't you see? Don't you see what he's doing? Don't let him, you can stop him! He's trying to make you weak, but you can stop him – fight him back, Kyo—"

Matt suddenly grunted with the pain of Kyo's knee slamming into the inside of his leg – a narrow miss, he realized with a jolt of adrenaline. He gasped and then tried a different tactic. Matt reached up and grabbed Kyo by his head, clutching his face in his hands firmly, but gently. In a split second, the second Kyo could have easily broken free and started running, Matt had lowered his head, shutting his eyes tightly to give all his concentration to this, and was not putting all of his energy into strengthening the protective shell around the two of them. Very slowly, Kyo's twitching body settled, and soon, Matt lifted his head and opened his eyes to see the bright blue aura around both of them.

Through the blue haze, Kyo stared back at him wearily – but much calmer than before, his screams having died down to deep breaths. He was still trembling violently, but he wasn't fighting him off anymore. There was a certain look in his eyes now. There was realization in them, and resolution. He gazed at Matt with this expression for a long time, until Matt was sure that he was actually listening again.

"You can stop him," Matt whispered fervently. "You have to stop him. Don't let him control you."

Kyo swallowed hard and nodded vaguely.

And then something quite unexpected happened. Matt blinked once, then again, and then several times in a row – and Kyo noticed the blue light surrounding them wavering, fading, flickering dully. Kyo looked to Matt questioningly, but suddenly there was a look of pure exhaustion on Matt's face. In the next instant, his hands slipped weakly from Kyo's face. Kyo, by reflex, tried to catch him as Matt began to collapse, but it was no use – he barely had enough strength to keep his knees from knocking together. Matt crumbled to the ground, obviously unconscious.

The absolute calm and resolution Kyo had been feeling from Matt's energy only moments before now suddenly evaporated, and the violent tremors of fear and pain rolled right back into him at full force. He looked down at Matt's limp body, cursing his friend mentally for always putting forth too much so as to drain himself so quickly, and then back up at the killer – who was now stepping forward, closer to him.

Kyo fought off the urge to flee – as frightened as he was, he still remembered Matt's words, and knew he was right. He hadn't come all this way to just turn around and go straight back. He had to do something, he couldn't keep letting this maniac crawl inside his brain and drive him crazy like this.

But what was he supposed to do? he thought frantically, looking around himself and trying to find some place inside where there was some kind of power. It didn't help that he was now hyperventilating...

He was so wrapped up in trying to think of something useful to do that he hadn't even noticed how close the man was now. He took one step over Matt's limp form and stepped right up to Kyo. No matter how hard he pressed back against it, the tree behind him refused to swallow Kyo whole and hide him. He instead did the stupidest thing he could have done – looked straight up into the man's dark, hateful eyes. And in the next instant, his mind was ablaze with a torturous pain. Kyo could only scream again, groping at whatever was in front of him – which just happened to be the man's shirt. He felt a heavy hand encircling his throat, cutting off his cries, and then felt himself being lifted off the ground. He kicked out against the man, his feet bouncing back into the tree as he scrambled and fought to get free, but he was still unable to even get a breath into his lungs.

Then Kyo heard something that made his heart leap – faint shouts from far away, and the tighter the man held him, the farther away everything else seemed to get. He felt his energy seeping out of him, his kicking growing less and less fierce. It was hopeless now.

But then he heard the voice again, shouting his name, gradually getting closer...and he recognized it. Brian...

He was there. He had come after them. After all this, Brian was there, and the panic in his voice told Kyo that he was truly fearful of what was about to happen. The idea of Brian, the guy he'd gotten to know so well over the past several weeks - a bit more than just "well," after the terror only a few nights before of being choked by an ethereal hand and too afraid to sleep - being thrown into that kind of uncontrollable panic just because of him...

Maybe Brian hadn't been lying when he'd said all those sweet things the other night...not just to calm him down, but telling him the truth, about how hard he'd fallen for him...The way he sounded right now certainly seemed to prove it...

Kyo felt a surge of pure emotion jolt him out of his near-sleep. He had no idea where it came from, but he certainly wasn't thinking about that now. In fact, he had no idea what he was thinking at all. The only thing he did know was that he was angry with this monster for doing this to him. He was so tired – exhausted from this night, from the long walk and endless searching. But most of all, he was so damn tired of having more than one person inside his head.

In the next instant, Kyo realized dully that he was on the ground, and he was breathing.

Brian, Simone and Darren had started running when they'd cleared the forest and heard Kyo's screaming. They had seen everything that had happened from the moment when Matt had collapsed. It was taking them still longer to get from where they'd emerged from the forest to where Kyo was being strangled against a tree – as had happened before – by the killer.

But then they stopped, still hundreds of feet from them. They didn't stop because they were afraid, or because it had finally hit them that they were running towards a serial killer. They stopped, or rather, Brian skidded to a halt and held out an arm to stop Simone, because of how far the monster had been hurled back into the air. He landed with a thud several feet away from the tree, and Kyo stumbled to the ground, leaning over and panting heavily, even if they were too far away to hear him.

"What're you doing!?" Simone cried at Brian. "We have to go help him!"

"No," Brian ordered, almost against his own will, grabbing Simone by the arm and shoving him behind his back again. "Don't get in the way," Brian warned, his eyes locked on Kyo's trembling, heaving body.

"Get in the way of what? The guy taking a charge at him?"

Brian shushed him loudly and held up a hand. And they watched, with increasing surprise, as the man fought to stand up again and again, but was knocked backwards every time. It was as if there were an invisible giant standing right there in front of him, punching him fiercely every time he moved. But Brian knew it was no giant – he saw how Kyo flinched every few seconds, breathed heavily for a moment, then held it as he flinched again. And every time he concentrated like that, the man flew back more.

When the man was twenty feet or so away, Matt suddenly twitched and slowly raised his head. He looked around himself for a few moments, puzzled, trying to piece things together. He saw the killer several feet away, bouncing back farther in the next instant and letting out a pained grunt as he hit the ground, and then looked back and saw how Kyo was clenching his fists fiercely, kneeling on the ground with his bent legs at his sides like a child, pressing his knuckles into the ground. Matt shivered and, with some difficulty, pushed himself out of the range of Kyo's temper and back into the forest. He was too weak to help Kyo now, but he certainly didn't want to get in the way either. He pulled himself behind a tree and collapsed against it, panting heavily with the effort it took to move.

Brian had to admit that he was stunned by the control Kyo was showing, when they had never even taught him how to do this kind of thing. And this was a kid who couldn't even meditate for more than fifteen minutes before getting anxious, whiney and jumpy. But Brian could see that it was taking its toll on the untrained boy – from his body language, as he was too far away to see his face, he was more and more exhausted with every blow he mentally sent to the killer, and finally, when the man was halfway across the field, Kyo stopped. He lifted his head wearily, looked out over the field, and Brian swore he heard him mutter something like, "Well, that's aw'right for now. Think I'll take a nap."

And he passed out cold on the ground.

Brian continued to gawk. He was gripping Simone's wrist in his, keeping him back unintentionally as Simone tried to run to Kyo and Matt. Darren, taken aback by all of it, didn't fight with anyone to go anywhere or do anything. He simply stood back and watched with the eyes of a bewildered child.

"That was amazing," Brian breathed. "I never knew he could do that much already—"

"Would you let go of me!?" Simone shrieked. "He's coming back!"

Brian blinked and glanced back at the field where the killer had disappeared, and sure enough, he was on his feet again – conscious, and stomping back towards Kyo like he was madder than hell. Back to where Kyo lay vulnerable and helpless and completely unaware that his attacks hadn't finished the guy off.

Brian finally let go of Simone, not sure how much help they would be from this distance, and charged forward as well. He knew who would get there first – but how much damage could he cause if they were close behind him?

The trouble was, they weren't that close behind him. Brian suddenly regretted keeping Simone and himself back so far for so long. As he saw a now conscious Kyo start to pull himself up off the ground, still kneeling helplessly but at least strong enough to hold himself up halfway, he could just feel the kid shaking like a leaf like he had been the other night...

After all that, still the man was coming. Kyo pushed himself, forced himself, up onto his arms, and with a sudden and unexplained flash of memory, he thought he'd try something different this time. Why wouldn't he be able to do it? It didn't seem like anything he tried was failing...except perhaps in the strength department.

So he lifted a hand, leaning his full weight on the other arm, and gestured with a wave at the man coming back towards him.

To his own astonishment, sure enough a blast of fire came ripping out of his hand, a red streak of searing hot flame – but his aim was just a few inches off, and the man jerked his head out of the line of the fire. He looked shocked by the action, but not enough to deter him.

Kyo tried again, at least four more times, but every time, his aim was off, and the man kept coming towards him without hesitation. And by the fifth time, his hand itself felt like it was going to burn off.

So much for Shannon's technique. At least the attempt had worked – but he simply didn't have the control Brian was always talking about. And now his energy felt even more drained, so he sat there, barely holding himself up. And he waited.

Kyo was stunned, shocked, a few seconds later – not only that the man was right there in front of him, but that as soon as he'd reached him, he'd only stopped, leering down at him silently. As if taunting him further, rubbing in his face that his powers were failing him, he'd only been eying him up for the last several moments without actually laying a hand on him. Kyo suddenly tried to remember the boy's words, those things he'd told him from sixteen years before. His brain was on overdrive even if his body was failing him, his breathing ragged and uncertain, the words tumbling from his brain and onto his tongue, but his fear was keeping them back.

And then the man grabbed him by the throat once more, a swift, fierce gesture that nearly – just nearly – cut off his airflow. Kyo winced and felt the words fighting to come out, even if his eyes were glued to the very monster he'd been terrified of all these years.

"I know what you're feeling," he managed to squeak out, as the man was letting him breathe just that much. "I know what...what happened..."

"You don't know anything," the man growled, and slammed him, shoved him so hard that his small body crashed into the tree behind him, and he knew he could feel and hear bones cracking. Kyo couldn't help but let out a cry of pain, but even after some strained attempts at breathing, which came out as pathetic as he felt, he was determined to deliver the message.

"I know," he rasped, his sides aching and throbbing like he'd never felt before. Breathing was becoming more difficult, even without the man's hand grabbing his throat again, keeping him upright. "I know what you did..." His voice was all over, cracking and whimpering and strong at the same time. "You never knew...that blond hair and those blue eyes – he couldn't have been yours," he continued, despite the threatening figure looming over him. "You hated her for it – even hated him..."

With a labored grunt, the man slammed a fist into Kyo's stomach, forcing him to double over despite the excruciating pain it caused him to do so. He groped at the man automatically, trying to grab at his arms to pull himself upward – the pains in his sides wouldn't let him slouch, though he wasn't doing a good job of counteracting the most likely broken ribs he'd sustained.

"I loved that boy," the man growled, leaning close to Kyo's ear. "I loved him no matter what—"

"You did – but you resented him," Kyo gasped, not sure if it was a good idea to hold his stomach. He felt like he was about to vomit from the punch, but just touching his sides made his face contort in agony. "You were sure he wasn't yours – but you loved him too..."

The man grabbed his hair with his free hand, slamming his head back against the tree now too. The blow caused a sharp pain in the back of Kyo's head, and then a low throbbing, and his vision began to blur and double. "I did so much for him," the man hissed. "Too much..."

"Just like you did too much to him," Kyo threw at him weakly.

That earned him a punch in the face so hard, Kyo swore he felt a tooth come loose. He spat blood out of the corner of his mouth, but his lips were too weak, too numb now to send it any further than his own chin and shoulder.

"I took care of that boy!" the man roared, slamming Kyo's head back again, and the reverberations of the attack jostled his already aching ribcage to the point of his being unable to keep back the weak whimper.

And still he persisted. "That night...you were so angry... You came home, and they had dinner for you – and all you saw was the mocking possibility that it was all fake." He stammered through the recollection, causing the man to hesitate in the beating to listen in astonishment. "I know, he told me – he came to me, he told me all about it. How you beat his mother senseless, unconscious. And then you took him, dragged him to another room, cursing the bitch out and swearing up and down that this boy was a mistake, the product of an affair. And yet you loved him – but what could you do? So you did what you felt – you beat him bloody, and that power, that delusion of being in control, it made you so..."

"Shut up!" the man finally screamed, and cracked Kyo's entire body against the tree once more before turning and hurling him at the ground.

Kyo landed with an audible thud and let out a cry of uninhibited pain, despite the pain that caused his broken ribs. Before he could move, the man was on him, straddling his waist and laying blow after blow across his face. Kyo spit out blood meekly, feeling it run down his chin and neck. He could do nothing as the hands in his hair slammed his head back repeatedly; it felt like his brain was being smashed to bits, but his consciousness refused to dissipate. Through narrowed, swollen eyes, he looked up at the monster and hissed, "And you raped him, you raped that poor kid who still came to me saying you loved him. You tore him apart, physically and mentally, and he still believed you were his father, his loving father—"

"Shut your ugly lying mouth!" the beast roared, and grabbed him by the chin, lifting his head slightly. He peered at the bloody face beneath him, smiling vaguely. "All these years...I've been searching for him..."

"He's not here," Kyo struggled to get out. "He's been gone...You left...your wife...with nothing but a corpse to bury..."

The man's smile faltered and he glowered at him, reaching up with his other hand to touch Kyo's puffy lips. "Of course," he whispered, running a finger over the left hoop through Kyo's lip. "What was I thinking? My son didn't have this – he was too young."

And with the last word, he swiftly ripped the jewelry out of Kyo's mouth, though Kyo was too beaten and numb to feel much but a small tearing. He winced all the same, more blood gushing down his throat, and let his head fall back against the ground when the hand let him go.

The man tossed the hoop aside and leaned down close to him. "And then what, huh? Mister Psychic?  Then what!?"

"Then you killed a lot of innocent people," Kyo murmured, even with his torn lip. "He's never...coming back...He's not somewhere out there, waiting for you to find him...He never ran away, he never tried to hide from you...He's dead. By your hand."

And those words alone sent the monster into a frenzy, roaring as he tore open Kyo's jacket and shirt, scratching, tearing, ripping at the limp form's chest, leaving deep, blood-welling scratches where he didn't leave mere red marks on his pale skin. Kyo attempted a few times to reach up, to stop him, to use some of his powers to shove the man away again like he'd done before – but he felt weak, used up, tired. His arms fell uselessly to his sides in the grass, his head lolling and jerking around from the abuse he took. Only when he felt the persistent knee jamming against his thighs did he stiffen his legs, knowing what would come next if he let it.

He struggled, then, twisting and squirming under the man's weight, cursing and whimpering helplessly as he was throttled like a rag doll.

There was a cry from across the field, then, a vaguely familiar voice calling, "Oi!"

Kyo tried to lift his head to pinpoint where the voice was coming from – but he was cut off when both hands suddenly clamped down on his throat, squeezing mercilessly, and he couldn't even force a weak whimper out of his mouth or a choking gasp into his lungs. This time he meant it. He swore he could feel his airway start to collapse.

"Looks like you'll be my lucky number seven," the man boasted wretchedly, apparently not even hearing the other voice in the field. "And I don't care about anything else – after this, I'm done. You're my ultimate prize, Kyo. My favorite kill – and my favorite f—"

The man was sharply cut off by what sounded like a horrific clap of thunder, and then his own wailing scream, and the second he let it out, the iron grip he'd had on Kyo's throat went slack, and Kyo dared to open his eyes.

Above him sat not an enraged, crazed man about to kill him – but a ball of pure orange and blue fire, shifting and squirming erratically on top of him, until it fell to the side and started to roll away from him. Kyo gasped a strained breath and turned his head to watch in horrified fascination as the man engulfed in flames rolled, stood, staggered, fell and rolled again, all the while screaming an ungodly sound of agony. Once when the flames seemed like they were fading from his constant rolling on the ground, there was a sudden blast of sound several feet away from Kyo, and once more the smoldering man was set alight, screeching with a renewed sense of urgency and terror.

Kyo watched, his eyes huge, as the ball of flame became a smaller and smaller object in the distance – and, just a few feet above his head, following after, were the backs of two familiar people, one who kept sweeping his arm towards the burning man as if to fan the murderous flames.

But before he could really make out the forms – though he knew one must have been Shannon, the fire psychic – the voice that had called out a few moments before was now immediately on top of him, hands and arms all askew as Brian came skidding to his side.

"Kyo! Jesus! Oh God, I thought I'd lost you," he was saying in a rush, trying to straighten himself up. "Oh God, what's he done to you? Look at this mess..."

Kyo managed to flicker his attention over to him vaguely and mumble, "Thanks," through his bloodied lips.

But he was surprised to see the state of Brian – he was truly panicked, more than he'd ever seen him before, his head jerking back and forth to take in the sight of the wreckage the maniac had left of Kyo.

"Jesus," he breathed now, huddling over the limp form and shaking his head as if not knowing what to do. "I don't know...God, he really..." He finally caught Kyo's gaze and leaned closer to his face, which he knew was already starting to show the vicious bruises. "I'm so sorry, oh God, Kyo, I'm so sorry," Brian was babbling, attempting to stroke his face tenderly, but Kyo only winced in pain. Brian immediately dropped his hand when he heard a weak whimper, then became stoic and determined. "Okay... Where does it hurt the most?"

Kyo's voice came out a wordless, jumbled mess, bringing more blood and spit with it, and Brian tried to wipe some of it away with his bare hands.

"Can you tell me? Or show me?"

Kyo tried to speak, but all that came out was a crackling tone. Instead, holding his breath, he lifted a hand and gestured to his middle. "H-Hard to...b-breathe," he finally managed to hiss, and Brian nodded.

There was a moment of slight hesitation where Brian swallowed hard, but when he looked down at the mess on the ground, beaten so severely that he was barely recognizable, he drew in a deep breath and admitted, "I don't know if I can do this – but right now, I'm willing to try anything." And with gentle, trembling hands, he carefully reached around to both of Kyo's exposed sides and concentrated deeply.

It took a long time, and the glow was a wavering green color, but eventually, Kyo drew in a longer breath, though it still sounded strangled and forced. But he closed his eyes in relief as the throbbing in his ribcage gradually ebbed and breathing at all wasn't quite so sharply painful. He tried to swallow and nearly choked on the metallic taste in his mouth, then spit the blood out onto his face, drawing Brian's attention. Though it wasn't a full healing, Brian felt it was enough to get by, and he turned his powers on Kyo's throat next. Very slowly, the breaths came even more easily, and Kyo let out a whimper of relief this time, saying in a rush, "Jesus Brian, that burned...I never...I thought I'd never breathe again..."

Brian's concentration broke slightly, and he smiled at the familiar voice coming from the almost crushed throat.

"Good," he sighed. "It's working. Now..." And he lifted his hands to Kyo's face. Although it was still covered in blood, he could sense the crack in the back of the skull, and healed that first. Next he moved on to the swelling eyes, lips and cheeks, and focused a considerable amount of energy on the torn lip, now missing the hoop the man had torn out.

When he felt himself becoming almost spent, Brian pulled back a bit, eying up his work. Kyo was breathing clearly and steadily again, though the scratches on his chest and abdomen were still raw and some bleeding. They were superficial wounds, though. And the face was not nearly as swollen as before, though the blood Kyo had lost was still dribbled and smeared all over. Not that it was necessary, but Brian felt the urge to pull some tissues out of his pocket and start mopping up the mess.

Before he could finish, Kyo was sitting up, swaying a bit. "That was impressive," he croaked, his throat still aching from nearly being crushed.

Brian chuckled sheepishly, but kept his focus entirely on cleaning Kyo up.

"Thank you," Kyo said finally. "You...You really saved me there..."

"Not me," Brian admitted reluctantly. "That was Shannon."

"Yeah, but...after...I didn't know you could heal."

Brian shrugged. "Neither did I, really. A headache here, a scratch there. But...broken bones...head trauma...I guess it's a good thing I tried."

"Yeah...I didn't know I could shoot fire either, but it seems I'm able to."

Brian blinked, looking at him in surprise. "Y-You can?"

Kyo looked pained, even though most of his aches and injuries were virtually gone now. "Yeah...but I don't have the control – or, well, maybe I didn't have enough energy by the time I tried it. But I thought of Shannon and his powers, and I thought...maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to give it a shot."

"And it worked?"

Kyo slumped a little, landing against Brian's shoulder. "Fire came out, all right. But they kept missing him...Oh man...using all this energy...and after he almost did strangle me, for real this time..." Kyo let out a pitiful moan and pressed his face further into Brian's coat. "I just...I just wanna..."

"Sleep?" Brian suggested, also feeling the strain of using his own energy for something new. He'd been surprised that he could use it at all, but he supposed in that moment of desperation, he could have drawn on his power to do anything he'd needed.

And his priority, as he'd just proven, was protecting Kyo.

Without even needing to ask – not that he could, as Kyo had passed out just after his last words – Brian reached under the small man's slightly bent legs and lifted him against his chest as he stood. He felt wobbly himself, but knew he would be strong enough to at least get the unconscious kid back to the car.

Just as he was about to start walking, though, a voice caught his attention and he turned to face Shannon and Jo.

"You had to make him face that," came the chiding remark.

Brian narrowed his eyes at the smaller man, taking note of the snide tone. "You couldn't have let him face his own demon?"

Shannon shrugged nonchalantly, directing his attention to the moon. "Bloody circus, this," he repeated. "Thought it oughtta end." He lowered his head and fixed his gaze on Kyo's unconscious form. "Let the guy get some sleep, would ya, Brian? Y'don't have to risk everyone's lives, y'know."

Brian's smirk faded a little and he lowered his gaze as well. But he didn't protest.

"Don't worry," Shannon added lightly, his attention now wandering over to where the remains of the killer were still shimmering in the dark field. "There'll be more demons for him. There always are."

Brian looked back up at him, then at Jo, who had reappeared at his side, helping Matt to stand next to him.

"Nice night," Jo remarked, glancing up at the stars.

Brian rolled his eyes.

"Here," Shannon said, reaching across Jo to take hold of Matt's arm. "He looks a bit tuckered, too."

Darren, who had finally reached the group with Simone in tow, sensed that Brian was going to be asking for some help for this one, seeing as he literally had his arms full already. He took hold of Matt's arm and helped the other man stand straighter. Matt gave him an odd look, obviously not knowing who he was, but then figured that if he was with Brian and Simone, he must have been okay. So he let himself be supported by the curly-haired man.

"How'd you get here?" Brian asked Shannon as he clutched Kyo's limp body to him tighter.

"Walked."

"You need a ride home? We can make room..."

Shannon was still preoccupied with the tiny fire on the other end of the field. "Nah. We'll walk back."

Brian didn't even need to ask who "we" was supposed to mean. He simply nodded.

"C'mon," Shannon said to Jo, and the two of them started off toward the fire without another word.

Simone was staring after the other two curiously. "What're they doing?" he asked.

Brian shrugged to himself, more worried about getting the small man in his arms to safety. "Maybe clean it up?"

"I don't think so," Simone said, suddenly sounding disgusted.

"Oh?" Brian asked absently. He sounded more like he didn't want to hear whatever Simone was curious about now, as if he already knew and wished Simone wouldn't ask.

"No," Simone retorted, looking up at Brian with an expression of astonishment – and disdain – on his face. "They had...marshmallows."

Brian tried to fight off the wicked smile creeping onto his lips. "Oh yeah? Imagine that."

Simone stammered to Brian a few more times, but never really got anything out of his mouth. It was all right, though, because Brian was more than happy not to hear it. He simply held tightly onto Kyo and began to lead them back into the woods, Simone glancing over his shoulder now and then to wrinkle his nose.

Alex was hanging half out of the car when the others finally reached it, emerging from the woods to hear his slurring voice calling out happily, "Heeeey! Ya made it! Eh, looks like the li'l whippersnapper's all tuckered out, huh?"

Rolling his eyes once again, Brian somehow managed to get Kyo into the backseat next to Alex. Darren and Simone shuffled Matt around as well on the other side, and then climbed into the front seat, Simone in the middle.

"Great," Simone muttered as they settled themselves in and Brian started the car. "All the cripples are in the back. Matt seems all right," he noted, glancing in the rearview mirror to see the handsome man's tired face staring wearily out the window, "just a bit tired. Alex's still swaying like he's in the club. Oh, look, Kyo's starting to come around. God, why couldn't Alex be the one out cold?"

Kyo very slowly began to flutter his eyelids, his head lolling around on his neck. The sight of the car, knowing that he was safe inside it, was a relief, but the confusion overshadowing this rendered him speechless. With heavy eyelids, he stared at the back of Brian's seat as he began to drive, and, too exhausted to do anything else, Kyo simply listened to the voices in front of him, which sounded miles away, echoing faintly within his overwrought head.

"So what was that all about?" Simone's voice floated to him vaguely.

"What was what?" Brian asked, sounding deliberately oblivious.

"With Shannon."

"What do you mean? He saw how weak Kyo got and stepped in. Maybe he knew what we all know – that Kyo wasn't ready to confront him yet."

"Yeah...but what was that look he gave you?"

"What look?" Brian sounded perfectly innocent.

"You didn't see?"

Brian didn't have an answer for him.

"He was glaring at you pretty fiercely, Brian. Tell me you didn't notice."

Brian sighed heavily. "Shannon's a hard card to read."

"You're telling me. We've lived with him for nearly a year now but we barely ever see the kid. And what was Jo doing stalking around with him?"

"I dunno," Brian snapped irritably. "Obviously I don't know a whole helluva lot about my own charges if they're out sneaking around at night..."

"You can't control all of us, Brian. We're all adults here. We're not going to respond to your every order."

"So why do you think I know these things?"

"Because I know you."

Brian spoke again, sounding aggravated. "Look, Simone, you really don't know all there is to know about me or about where we live or the people we live with. How much can you know about a person, huh? Only what they'll let you see."

"So why can't I know? I get the feeling you know more than you're letting on..."

"Because some things are better kept quiet."

"So there is something," Simone blurted out matter-of-factly. "There are things you're not telling us, aren't there?"

"Simone, I advise you to keep your nose out of places where it doesn't belong."

"No, I want to know some things, okay? I'm curious. Forgive me for being concerned about my makeshift family, but no matter how disconnected Shannon and Jo seem to be from the rest of us, I have a right to know what's going on with them, don't you think?"

"Why do you say that? I dole out our assignments as I see fit," Brian said with an edge to his voice. "It doesn't need to be known to everyone else. If I see someone who fits a certain job, I'll give it to them. You don't have to know everyone else's tasks."

"So why do I have none? Am I completely useless? There are loads of things I still don't know, Brian, and I've been here longer than that...marshmallow monger."

Brian heaved a great sigh again. "I'll hand out jobs as they come along to whoever best fits the description," he repeated.

"So that's my use in this organization?" Simone snipped. "If I have to help solve one more useless bike theft—"

"I don't feel like getting into it right now with you, all right, Simone? I've got too much on my mind."

"Oh yeah? Like what? Are you trying to figure out another way to put Kyo's life in danger now that he's free?"

With those last few words, a slow smile began to spread lazily over Kyo's pale face. He hadn't realized what had happened, but from the way they were talking, he had some kind of sense that Simone's words were right: he truly was free.

But he was far too tired to wrap his head around the true meaning of that at the moment. Instead, he sank further into his dreamlike state.

"I want to know," Simone was continuing, his voice even farther than before, "what's going on. I want to know about Jo, how he got the way he is. You've never even told us before. One day he's normal, the next he's a vegetable – what kind of psychic is that? What use is he? And Shannon – if he's not playing with his band or at home sleeping, he's nowhere to be found. What's he doing all this time? Isn't there anything at all you can explain without letting your air of superiority of knowledge get lost?"

"Oh, shut up," Brian groaned. "Simone, just please, shut the hell up."

"And now you talk to me like that!?" Simone shrieked. "What the hell am I to you anyway? Just another `charge'? Christ, Brian, I think this whole professor title you hold at the college has is bloating your head!"

"My God, you're annoying!"

And with a happy smile, Kyo lost consciousness again, with echoes of the comfortable bickering between his two friends sending him off to a very restful, dreamless sleep.

Chapter 11

Kyo slept for only a few hours that night. When he awoke at five in the morning, he found himself in the sitting room at the front of the house, with Simone and Brian still by his side. They tried to convince him to go back to sleep, but although he was too weak to get up, he refused to close his eyes again until someone told him what had happened.

So Brian explained the situation. When Kyo heard that the killer was, indeed, killed, Kyo felt a rush of relief so fierce that he actually began to tear up. He almost didn't hear the entire story, his head felt so light with contentment, but eventually everything sank in. He made sure to make a note to himself to thank Shannon profusely the next time he saw him.

It really was true, then, he realized. He was actually free. Free from the threat of a gruesome death by the hands of that man, free from the cloud constantly hovering over his head of what was to come, free from the terrifying nightmares and the continual death threats in his mind. He was free of those grotesque images of what the killer had done, or what he had been planning to do. The knowledge that this would no longer be a problem made Kyo feel almost too giddy to go back to sleep after Brian's story of what had happened the night before. Exhaustion, however, took hold after a while and wouldn't let him go, so he gave into it.

After another several hours of sleep, Kyo woke again and was so in shock that his life had changed for the better, he had to limp out of the sitting room to hunt Brian down. He only found Simone in the kitchen, making breakfast (only two pieces of dry toast for Kyo and Matt, unfortunately, though he felt like he could eat a horse) and scolding Matt for overexerting himself in a dangerous situation. Matt took the chiding with a mild smirk and just cast Kyo a privately sinister look.

When Simone finally noticed that he was up, he made Kyo sit at the table, but in return, Kyo made Simone retell the story Brian had told him earlier, trying to convince himself that it wasn't a dream. Simone sounded irritated by his insistence and disbelief, but also bemused by the boy's eager gratefulness.

When he asked where Brian was, Simone chuckled wickedly. "He's at the station," he answered, "trying to convince George that a twenty-six-year-old kid killed the murderer last night by setting a ball of flames on him. I expect George will do the same he's always done in situations like this."

"Which is?" Kyo asked.

Matt smirked at him again. "Write a truly fantastic fictional report about how the police arrived just in time and killed the man in defense when he threatened an innocent bystander's life."

"It's the same old story," Simone sighed dramatically as he slipped the dry toast in front of their noses. "We do all the work, the police get all the credit."

Kyo wrinkled his nose – more at the toast than at the "same old story." "Why does he let them do that?" he asked no one in particular.

"Who?" Simone said listlessly as he cleaned up the pans on the stove – with his hands, not his powers.

"Brian. Why does he let the chief treat us like that? Why doesn't he push for the truth?"

Simone scoffed. "Please, Kyo. Brian may be a firecracker to the chief, but he's not stupid. He knows we're damn lucky to even still be a part of the department. As long as the chief keeps shoveling work our way and we still get our checks, Brian doesn't worry himself with getting us our due credit. He only uses it in private, with George, to remind him of our value when George considers getting rid of us. George may be an asshole, but he's not going to cut us off because he knows Brian is right – just doesn't want to admit it."

"Our biggest reward," Matt put in, "is being allowed to do it all over again. We may not gain any fame, but at least we're helping out."

Kyo blinked at him. "How very noble of you all – help is more important than fame, huh?"

"Don't get sarcastic," Matt warned, digging into the toast as if it were the elixir of life. "I know it sounds corny, but it's true. Besides, every solved case is one more brick of fact in the wall George keeps trying to knock down for us."

At that moment, Brian entered the kitchen from the back door, his arrival announced by the screen door slamming behind him. But when they looked up at him, he wasn't angry – just wearing a tight little smile on his face.

"Well?" Kyo asked, almost absently.

"Well, what do you think?" Brian answered, his voice sounding half irritated and half bemused. "The police pulled off some spectacular defense tactics last night when a twenty-four-year-old man was threatened at gunpoint by the serial killer. It'll be in today's paper, I'm sure."

Simone merely rolled his eyes and prepared a plate of food for Brian. "Same old story, right?"

"He wrote that in his report?" Kyo asked Brian incredulously. "Even after what you told me about what Shannon did?"

Brian could only shrug nonchalantly. "Didn't see it with my own eyes, but of course that's what he's gonna say. George didn't seem too keen on reporting to the press that some scrawny blond kid set him on fire with a wave of his hand after the guy was tossed mercilessly around with the mental anger of another scrawny blond kid. Which, by the way, Kyo, I didn't get to tell you before, was a particularly brilliant move on your part. I'm going to have to sit you down sometime and ask you to try and remember exactly how you were able to concentrate that fiercely to be able to do that."

Kyo groaned at the thought of going back to that night to recall every minute detail of what had been going through his mind – when really, he knew, the answer was "not much at all." But Brian would eventually spell it out for him, and of course, Brian would be right, because, as infuriating as it was sometimes (no wonder Simone got easily angry with the guy), Brian always did seem to be right.

"But not yet," Brian assured him, fixing his eyes on Kyo steadily. "First thing you're to do for the next few days is rest. Really rest. Don't do anything. No lessons, no questions, no nothing. Just rest, meditate, and rest some more. When you've got a little more strength back, I'll take you to see the sisters. I still have to introduce you to them, and they can help you recuperate quicker."

"You haven't?" Simone asked, confused. "I thought you did take him before."

"No – I was going to, but then the mess with Toru came up, and I was more concerned about finding Darren than making new friends for our newbie." He directed his gaze on Kyo and smiled. "Soon, though. They're quite a pair, those two sisters. I'm sure they'll love you."

Kyo didn't like the sound of that, and he hesitated in his chewing to let out a meek whimper.

But for the following few days, Kyo obeyed Brian's orders. The only things he did were sleep in his room in the basement, occasionally in bed beside Brian when he felt strong enough emotionally to let himself be comforted – only comforted – by this new, somewhat awkward, relationship they tried to keep quiet (although Simone's mouth wasn't keeping anyone else in the dark about it), watch television with Jo, and meditate with Matt, who was also working hard on trying to rebuild his energy.

In these few days he spent just lying around the house, with no real worries on his mind like a job, food, or being – well – killed, Kyo was finally free enough to be able to notice things he hadn't before. He wasn't entirely sure if these were major changes in the house itself, or if these things had always been there before and he'd just been too wrapped up in himself and his own problems to notice them.

The first major subject he noticed, now that he was spending more time with him, was Jo. He wasn't nearly as odd as he had seemed when Kyo first arrived there. Recalling the dreamlike conversation between Simone and Brian in the car the night the murderer was killed, Kyo realized that what Simone had said was indeed true: Jo was normal as could be one day, and the next, he barely seemed to be there at all. Even when he was normal, he wasn't "normal," but whereas Kyo before thought him unbalanced or odd, he could now see as Jo just being a normal guy – but a very eccentric normal guy. His wild unkempt hair and dark clothes came from being some kind of punk kid in Kyoto , where he and his brother had spent years wreaking havoc on society and trying to find silly things to do to spark up their otherwise mundane teenage lives. He loved his punk music, constantly blaring it from the tiny apartment he shared off the side of the dining room with Brian (which, no doubt, was why Brian was hardly ever in there). He collected toys, keeping them still in their boxes and yelling at anyone who dared to try and open them. He sat for hours in front of the television, either watching inane cartoons or playing video games, blowing things up and driving virtual cars. He had an obsessive passion forStar Trek and other various shows and movies and books, and spent most of his relatively normal conversations referencing or quoting them. He also had a tendency to be hyperactive, so on his "normal" days, he would revert to being an adolescent punk, tearing through the house at top speed and jumping down the spiral staircase five steps at a time – once in a while landing on his head and lying flat on the floor, laughing hysterically.

However, on his "off" days, he wasn't himself at all. He seemed more like a ghost haunting the house, very pale and disheveled, quiet and slow-moving, sauntering around as if gliding. On these days, he barely spoke to anyone, and if he did, it was in strange, broken sentences, and sometimes in different voices. Kyo remembered Brian telling him before that Jo was a channeler of sorts, an empty vessel these days, just reverberated echoes of the past – or present – ghosts in the world. It was difficult to believe, but Kyo saw it with his own eyes, so he couldn't very well refute the idea.

And still, no matter how many times or different clever ways he asked, Kyo was never able to get from Brian how Jo had ended up this way. The way others approached the subject, it seemed a very delicate matter – meaning they didn't know either. He even tried to ask Jo himself about it on one of this "on" days, when he was "normal"; Jo had stared at him blankly and claimed to not know what on earth Kyo was talking about. Kyo had left it at that. Brian flat-out refused to talk about it, saying, literally, "I don't want to talk about it." This made Kyo wonder if anything had happened to Jo because of Brian, but he was too smart to ask that outright.

Another thing Kyo noticed about the house that he hadn't realized before, not before spending all his time there and not before the conversation in the car he had listened to, was vaguely explained a few days after his nemesis' death.

Simone had hit the nail on the head those few nights before: Shannon, mysterious and quiet, was hardly ever home. He came home at night to sleep – sometimes. Other times he was out all night, and no one seemed to know where he was. At least, seemed. But whenever Kyo asked Brian where he was – and he began to ask more often, out of curiosity, and Brian didn't miss this – Brian merely answered, "He's working. He's fine."

As far as Kyo knew, though, Shannon didn't have a job besides playing regular gigs on the weekends with his band. Apart from rehearsal, there was no reason why he shouldn't have been at the house. Many times as well, Kyo noticed that both he and Jo were missing, but again, Brian would answer shortly, "They're working. They're fine."

When he was home, Shannon only ate and slept, and one night he joined Jo and Kyo for a video game. He laughed and talked easily as if he were just another "kid," but there was definitely a connection between him and Jo. He was very cool to most people, even to Kyo, but not in a snobbish way – he just didn't seem to have a lot to say. But with Jo, who was extremely friendly when he was his normal self, he seemed to be with family, like a brother. Kyo found himself laughing harder than he had laughed in months when the two of them got together, but not in a hysterical, over-the-top way; they had a very dry wit about them, and they worked well together. Kyo could see them doing a comedy routine in nightclubs and scoring uncountable gigs with their chemistry.

Kyo had begun to ask more questions about the people he was living with, now that he didn't need to focus on himself so much. Brian was clearly aware of this. At first he seemed aggravated that Kyo was being so nosy. But after a while, it seemed as if he'd given up – or perhaps he'd started to rethink things and realized that Simone was right: Kyo, and anyone else in the house, had a right to know what was going on with the people he lived with, considering, as Simone had mentioned, they were like a makeshift family. So Brian's answers became a bit more courteous, though still very vague.

"Shannon isn't here because he's on a very important assignment," he told Kyo one night. "Jo helps him out sometimes because the two of them work very well together."

When Kyo asked outright, "What assignment do they have?" however, Brian had to give him a small smile and answered, almost apologetically, "I can't tell you that. All I can say is that it's bigger than anyone can wrap their heads around, so it's best not to talk about." And he left it at that.

But a week later, when Kyo was feeling slightly better, at least enough to leave the house finally, some more strings of the mystery began to unravel. Brian obviously hadn't intended them to, but his mistake was taking Kyo to the Magick Shoppe.

If he hadn't been led there, Kyo probably would have missed the place all together. But once he noticed it, he couldn't imagine not having been attracted to the small, concealed store wedged between – of all places – a Christian bookstore and a porn shop on one of the main streets in the city. The street was buzzing with people, but no one else seemed to notice the place either. They would glance at the bookstore beside it and their eyes would light up, or they would cringe and look away; the same with the porn shop. No wonder the tiny place was constantly overlooked.

The store was set in a very old building, in the same complex as the porn shop and bookstore, along with a number of other small shops. But this one was very different from modern day stores. As soon as Brian led him through the glass door, Kyo was overcome with a strong sense of strange belonging, as if he should have known all along that the place was here. Strong sandalwood incense filled his nostrils, and the sights of the store were enough to keep him busy for hours, for how small it was.

It was indeed tiny, perhaps no bigger than his old apartment. But it was packed with so many different objects that Kyo felt lost in the place. One wall was made entirely of shelves filled with old, dusty books, some with shining gold ink on the spines, some more faded. He wasn't even able to catch any of the titles, there were so many of them. From floor to ceiling, thick ones and thinner ones, books seemed to cascade down the side of the wall.

On the opposite wall was another stack of shelves, again, covered from floor to ceiling. The shelves at the top, five in all, were covered in odd pewter shapes – everything from tiny jeweled swords and wizards and shining globes to dragons, gnomes and gargoyles. Here and there, sprinkled throughout, were colorful decorations of delicate depictions of faeries, some wearing blue dresses, some wearing pink, some wearing nothing at all but halos made of what looked like twigs and berries.

On the bottom five shelves were piles of bottles, all different sizes and shapes, every one labeled with a tag stating what it was and the price. Kyo couldn't believe his own eyes when he swore his caught one saying "Eye of Newt." He blinked a few times, but it still said the same thing. Surely it had to be a joke.

He didn't get to look behind him because he was so taken with the two walls that he nearly ran into the round table in the center of the shop, covered with a dark blue table cloth and holding a few racks of beautiful gothic jewelry, rings and earrings and necklaces and bracelets, and a few more racks underneath that held several different decks of tarot cards and instruction books. Another smaller rack to this one's left held packets of various scented incense.

Kyo chuckled to himself. He thought these places were usually just a joke, people too into the "new wave" of witchcraft. But coming into this place felt like...He felt odd to admit it, but it felt like walking into a very quaint and comfortable home.

Brian, however, obviously knew this place so well that the overwhelming sense of comfort and ease in just entering the building was common to him. He strode in easily and went straight up to the counter as Kyo stared at the table he'd nearly walked into. Then Brian's voice reached his ears and he lifted his head, startled.

"Hey, kiddo," Brian was saying in a tone of voice Kyo had never heard before. He actually sounded...much lighter. In fact, as calm as Brian usually was, or as dry as he could sometimes be, he actually sounded happy. "Whatcha got there?"

"Eh...homework," said another voice, and this one startled Kyo even more. It was a higher voice, obviously belonging to a very young boy. Kyo looked to the back of the store, and saw why he was so startled.

Apart from the rack at the very back holding loads of robes and long, flowing, multicolored dresses, on the other side of the room was a small makeshift counter – a slab of what looked like a very smooth rock sitting atop two large stone shapes, one a beautifully cut snake and the other a cherubic child's face – perhaps supposed to be a faerie or angel.

Kyo was mostly startled because he hadn't noticed another human being in the same room, though with the majestic air of the place, he shouldn't have been that surprised. Besides, when Brian stepped aside from the counter, Kyo could understand why he had missed this other person. Sitting on a stool behind the counter, which was covered with a piece of velvet tapestry, coming down only right above the tops of the figures so as to not obscure them, was a very small, very thin boy. He was obviously small, as the baggy black t-shirt he was wearing hung from his bony shoulders quite loosely. He had very dark brown shaggy hair that hung down into his eyes, but other than that, Kyo couldn't quite get a good look at him, as he had his face buried in a large dusty book, opened at the halfway point. Behind him was another large bookcase, this one holding more musty books, but the other half of it was taken up with more bottles and jars and containers which looked like they held herbs. And, on the boy's right side, perched on a piece of wood sticking out of the side of the wall, was a realistic and beautiful ceramic statue of a pure black crow, its eyes closed peacefully and its face half tucked under a potentially powerful wing.

Again, Brian didn't seem to take note of any of this as Kyo did, as he'd obviously been in here too many times to count. He was leaned over on the countertop, peering over the top of the book the boy was reading with a puzzled, annoyed expression on his half-obscured face. From this angle, it looked quite funny, as Brian was so tall and plainly dwarfed the boy hiding behind the book.

"What sort of homework is that, then?" Brian asked curiously, twisting his head to try and read some of it.

"History," the boy said disdainfully.

"Ah, great subject," Brian mused, practically in awe.

The boy scoffed. "Boring," he muttered, and Kyo swore he heard some kind of accent in the boy's voice, though, since he'd only uttered a few words so far, he couldn't quite place it. He was obviously not from around there.

"Boring!?" Brian cried, putting on more enthusiasm to grab the boy's attention. He couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve years old; no wonder Brian was speaking so differently – he spoke normally, really, but with more inflection than usual. "How can you say it's boring? History is terrific stuff! You can learn a lot from it."

The boy smirked, Kyo could tell because part of his left cheek puffed up a bit, but he still didn't raise his head. "`Course you'd say that, Brian," he mumbled, and Kyo stepped closer to the counter, seeing on the boy's other side an antique cash register. As the boy went on, he easily placed the accent as a West London one. "You're a teacher. All teachers are crazy about history. Dunno why. Puts me to sleep."

"Sleep!?" Brian nearly shrieked, and at this, the boy finally lifted his head. Kyo blinked – he was actually a very striking kid, with an adorable face, a shy little smile, and large round green eyes staring up at Brian with what could only be called a typical English boy's dry but timid expression of discomfort.

"It's dull," he said uncertainly.

Brian scoffed. "You can learn a lot from history," he informed the boy knowingly.

"Like what? I can't remember all these dates and names-"

"But they aren't as important as the situations. You can look back and see where others made mistakes, and you can learn not to do the same thing. You can keep yourself from messing up from your own history, too."

The boy wrinkled his nose. "Not like Leo."

Brian blinked back at him. "Leo? Who's Leo?"

The boy lowered his eyes to the book again and scanned the page he'd been on. "Leo the Mob Siilisk."

Brian's eyes grew wide, trying to ignore Kyo's glance of bewilderment at the new word. But before Brian could cut in with anything, Kyo immediately addressed the boy, asking, "The mob what?"

The boy glanced over at Kyo, as if just noticing him as well. He looked a bit wary at first, staring at Kyo with his wide green eyes. But, Kyo supposed, he must have figured that if he was with Brian, he was all right, because in the next instant, he looked back down at the book.

"Yeah," the boy said, as if reading from a particularly uninteresting newspaper article. "About a hundred years ago or so, or it seems that long ago, there was this Siilisk that turned up in Italy. Made friends with some crime boss. Had the guy convinced to trust him. Said the best way to get revenge on someone was to turn their feet into grapes – that way, they could benefit as well and get some good wine from it."

Before Kyo could even ask what a Siilisk was, Brian squinted at the boy and hedged, "And what happened? Do I want to know?"

"Well," the boy sighed, "it was no good. The boss's thugs didn't have anywhere to shackle the people once their feet were gone – kept slipping off with the weight of the cement they tried to lock onto them, so they'd just swim to the surface of the water when they dumped them in. Couldn't walk anymore, obviously, but they'd still get away. Thugs were angry `cause the boss wouldn't stop it, kept letting the Siilisk do it and letting more people escape. They started making threats. The boss was getting into more trouble. He didn't look back at the history, did `e? Finally, the thugs turned on him and executed him, then stuck the Siilisk's staff through his head – in one ear and out the other. Bloody stupid if you ask me."

Brian gaped at the boy when he was finished. The boy noticed and smiled shyly, squirming uncomfortably on the stool. "What?"

"What the hell kinda school do you go to, kid? What kinda stuff are you learning!?"

The boy smiled a little more and laughed.

"I'm serious!" Brian insisted, though his tone of voice was obviously more stunned than concerned. "Jesus, you're not even a teenager yet and you're learning about some poor Siilisk who got a staff stuffed in his head? I thought you'd be learning about stuff like wars and where Washington slept and all that. Maybe how Ben Franklin got syphilis."

The boy was giggling fiercely now. "Yeah," he said. "Right. That's your history, mate, not mine."

"Obviously. God, you think that's boring? Thank God you don't have to learn American history. You might be getting more naptime in school..."

"Yeah," the boy agreed, settling down now. "Maybe history's not so bad after all."

"Your history..." Brian shook his head and stood up straight again. "Man...I wish I'd gone to your school."

The boy shrugged helplessly, almost as if he were sorry about something. "Can't help ya there. You probably wouldn't get in anyway."

Brian stuck his tongue out at him.

"Aw'right," the boy said suddenly. "Enough bull. What you want?"

Brian gawked at him again. "Where'd you pick up that kinda talk? You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

The boy giggled again. "Speaking of me mum..."

"Yeah, where is she?"

"In the back, hang on—" The boy turned around on the stool and, opening a door in the wall behind him, beside the bookshelf, his soft, timid voice suddenly turned to a loud shout. "Mum! You got a customer!"

And he turned back to Brian with that small little smile.

Brian stared at him oddly. "You're supposed to be the quiet one. What's Shannon been teaching you?"

The boy giggled again, but didn't answer.

A moment later, the door opened further, and Kyo had to stop and stare at the woman who came out of it.

She was absolutely beautiful, to put it plainly. She was quite small, perhaps only Kyo's height, but was obviously this boy's mother – she was excruciatingly thin – practically skin-covered bones, but here and there were some very toned, wiry muscles. She wore a long green flowing dress, like the ones she sold, with spaghetti straps, as it was very hot these days. Her feet, Kyo caught a glance before she stepped behind the counter, were bare, but her toenails were painted a scarlet red, like her fingernails. Her long black hair was unkempt, but not tangled or dreadfully messy. In her face, she only slightly resembled her son, but they had one major common trait: the same large, round, beautiful green eyes, though hers were decorated with a kohl outline, making her seem even more pale than she already was. Her full lips were covered in a deep crimson, and broke into a wide smile when she saw Brian standing at the counter.

"Brian!" she greeted him happily, still standing behind the counter, her hands hanging loosely behind her back. "So good to see you – it's been a while." Her accent was a little different from her son's, more middle England than London, but English all the same. Hers was a bit broader and more refined than the boy's slightly choppy, childish voice.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Brian apologized, glancing slightly at Kyo. "We've been a bit busy."

"That's all right, I've heard all about it from Shannon."

"I figured you would."

"Excuse me, Brian, but before we do our business..." Her eyes strayed playfully over to the boy on the stool. "I have some business with my young adolescent," she finished in a mock sinister voice.

The boy was crouched on his seat, obviously aware of whatever it was his mother was going to be confronting him with, a coy smile unable to be covered spreading onto his face.

"Young man," she said firmly, stepping up to him and look down at him – though she wasn't looking very far down, as he was pretty high up on the stool. She brought her arms around from her back to reveal a pair of wire-framed glasses and an opened package of Hostess cupcakes. "Why are you not wearing your glasses, especially when you're reading?"

The boy was staring down at the glasses with an obviously guilty expression. "Uh...Um...Er..."

"And what is this?" she said, shaking the cupcake package. "I seem to have stumbled upon it when making your bed this morning. Now, Shanahan, do you really think it's wise to keep it hidden in your pillow case?"

The boy – Shanahan – winced. "Er...Ah...Um..."

"You little sneak," she said with an evil grin. "How many times do you need to hear it? No sweets until after supper!"

"Uh – they're not mine?" he offered pathetically, actually sounding like he was asking a question.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Oh please—"

"No, really!"

She tossed the cupcake package at him. "Next time, dear, you might want a better hiding spot – I suspect that one's a bit flat by now."

Sure enough, when he unwrapped the second cupcake, it was half the size it should have been. The boy cringed for a moment, then smiled anyway and stuffed it in his mouth.

"You little bugger!" the woman cried, swatting at him playfully as he stumbled off the stool and tried to lunge for the door. She caught him by the arm, stopping him, and shoved something else into his hands she'd almost magically retrieved from the bookcase behind them in the fraction of a second he wasn't looking. "Here, this might work better."

The boy paused and opened the book – to find it was hollow inside. He beamed up at her gratefully. "Thanks, Mum!"

"Whatever," she said in a fake bored voice. "Just don't want anymore crumbs in my pillow cases. Now go finish your homework upstairs – I have to see to business."

"Yeah, okay—"

"Supper's in half an hour! Shanahan!" she called when he was halfway down the hall behind the door. He came trotting back and she gestured to the counter.

"Oh yeah!" He seized the large dusty book and heaved it with him, waving goodbye to Brian and Kyo, and was about to leave again when his mother called him back. This time she shoved the glasses at him.

"Right, right," he muttered, shaking his head at his own forgetfulness.

As if this weren't enough, halfway down the hall, Shanahan had to skid to a halt and come back again. By this time his mother was leaning against the bookcase, her arms folded over her chest, sighing in slightly amused exasperation, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

"My God, you'd forget your head if it weren't already attached. Thank God for that bit of biology," she remarked when he reappeared in the doorway.

He chuckled boyishly and then called, "Sydney!"

To Kyo's surprise, the "ceramic" crow he'd been admiring before suddenly sprang to life, lifting its head from underneath its wing and opening its beady dark eyes. It cawed once to its master's call and hopped off the limb, displaying its wide wing span to everyone as it flew over to Shanahan's shoulder and perched there comfortably. Finally, the boy was gone, his mother calling down the hall after him, "Don't forget to feed him! I don't want him waking me up at three in the morning again begging for corn!"

When that mess had finally all settled down, the woman shook her head and stepped up to the counter.

"Oi, what a day," she laughed. "Sorry about that, he's been a bit giddy lately – you know, summer holidays coming up."

"Has he been getting out at all?" Brian asked her.

She shrugged. "A little. But you know I don't like him to go very far from the shop. Thankfully, his friends' parents are very good at letting them come here. Seems lately they've been on some convoluted quest to find the Holy Grail."

Brian looked puzzled. "Isn't that...supposedly...in another country?"

The woman gave him a wide-eyed look and nodded in exasperation.

"They know that, don't they?"

"Brian, they're twelve – don't you know they know everything?"

Brian chortled. "I remember being twelve. Only difference is, I really did know everything."

"Ah, your arrogance always has made me smile."

"I'm serious!"

She laughed again, then finally turned to Kyo. "You must be Kyo." She held out a dainty white hand to him; he hesitated to even touch her at first, but then realized she may have been thin, but she wasn't about to break, so he gave in and shook it. "I'm Polly, one of the owners of this shop. My sister opened it a few years ago, and last year my son and I moved in with her and I offered to help her out with it. As I'm sure you've heard, this place is always open to you and the other members of the house, as we're quite knowledgeable about your different, unique situations, and we're always glad to help."

Kyo nodded. "Erm...thank you."

Polly grinned again and looked back at Brian. "A man of few words – just how I like them."

Brian stuck his tongue out at her this time.

"So what do you need, then?" she asked.

"Some herbs," Brian answered immediately. "He's had a rough week—"

"Ah, yes, Shannon told me all about it."

"Yeah. So, um, he's feeling a bit weak lately. Just wondering if you still have any of that replenishing medicine."

Polly lifted one eyebrow at him. "Of course. Need you ask?" And she turned to the bookcase behind her, picking out one very large jar, filled three-fourths of the way to the top with tiny brown leaves. She opened the jar and grabbed a plastic bag from behind her, scooping the leaves into the bag as she explained to Kyo the correct usage and directions for taking the medicine. It was a lot of information to take in, but he listened carefully and nodded along with every word. Even when she went off on a tangent about the helpfulness of blending both Eastern and Western medicines and the narrow-mindedness of ignoring one or the other, Kyo simply nodded his presumed agreement with her. During a slight pause, she smiled flirtingly at him and emphasized how much she liked the silent types. And when he hesitantly asked about side effects, she nodded slightly.

"If you start to feel lumps growing on the top of your head, you should come see me immediately."

Kyo gulped, his eyes growing wide...until Brian slapped him on the arm.

"She's kidding," Brian assured him. "The only side effect is if you don't finish it, you'll feel really energetic for a few days, and then crash harder than the worst caffeine crash you've ever experienced. And then you'll be right back to feeling how you are now. But no, you won't grow any horns. I promise."

Polly tittered and shrugged at him. "Sorry, Kyo, but you asked and I just couldn't help myself."

"Don't worry about forgetting anything," Brian continued. "Tony had to use this once a few months ago, back when he did that trick that almost backfired, when he was reliving a death – it sucked it right out of him, he nearly died. That was an extreme case, where he really needed all the help he could get."

"Yes," Polly nodded, now a grave expression on her pretty face. "That wasn't a very good idea, to let him do that. Or make him do it, should I say?"

Brian cringed. "Yeah, I know. I'm starting to learn that, well, some people need boundaries."

"No – you're learning to respect others' boundaries now, Brian," Polly corrected in her motherly tone. "You're incredibly brilliant, dear, but you do have a tendency to get too involved in situations. To the point where you sort of forget the dangers. Whether they involve just yourself or others."

Brian pursed his lips, lowering his eyes to the counter. "Hmmm," he said thoughtfully, then cleared his throat. "You got anymore of that Safely Hallucinogenic Chocolate?"

Polly rolled her eyes and smirked at Kyo. "Typical man – can't admit when he's wrong." She handed the bag to Kyo. "You'll remember those instructions, then?"

Kyo nodded numbly.

"Good. If you forget, just ask someone in the house, they all know about it."

"Oh, I almost forgot," Brian suddenly broke in. "Um, we have a new friend, his name is Darren."

"Ah, right. Shannon mentioned him once or twice."

"Yeah, um, he lives in a motel about a mile or so away. Anyway, he's got a brain tumor—"

"Lovely," Polly muttered. "So what's he able to do?"

"He has some psychic powers, but he doesn't really know how to use them. They just come to him. He's not really interested in becoming any kind of full-fledged member—"

"Which is probably best," she assured him, "seeing as it's an unnatural way to acquire powers."

Brian stared at her, challenging, "Then why was Katy so adamant about Jo?"

Again, Polly shrugged her bony shoulders. "Because...he's good."

"Oh," Brian chuckled faintly.

"Anyway, you were saying?"

"Right. Well, I was hoping maybe...maybe you and Katy could look into some...medicines that might help him with it, so he won't get too sick too soon, you know? I know there's no cure, but maybe...something to keep his headaches at bay. You know?"

Polly looked thoughtful for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "I think we can check into that. I'll mention it to Katy and we can do some digging around."

"Thanks."

"Any time."

Brian reached into the pocket of his long jacket, which Kyo thought it ridiculous of him to be wearing in this heat. As he searched for his wallet, he said casually, "So, how's Shanahan doing?"

"Oh, brilliantly!" she answered enthusiastically. "I swear, Brian, it's the best thing that could've happened, given the situation..."

"Yeah," Brian said shortly, glancing briefly at Kyo. He was obviously cutting her off before she said too much. Kyo stared at him silently, wondering what they were talking about.

"So how much do we owe you?"

"Oh, no charge," the woman replied casually.

"You sure?" Brian looked skeptical. "You guys don't seem to do an awful lot of business, you know. Can you afford a freebie?"

"Of course. You may not realize it, but this place is more than fine financially. Of course we have you all for customers, but we also have other regulars too. And of course many of Shanahan's friends' families come here."

"Ah, of course. Should've known."

"Yeah. So take this one on us, seeing as it's his first time," Polly urged, smiling again at Kyo.

"Okay. Thanks, Pol. We'd better get back. Um, if you see Shannon..."

"I'll tell him to check in."

"Thanks." He turned to Kyo. "Ready?"

Kyo nodded, though he rather liked the way Polly kept smiling at him.

As they were almost out the door, however, Brian paused when Polly called to him again. Kyo turned as well and saw an expression of honest gratitude on her face.

"Thank you, Brian," she said sincerely. "I owe you my life, you know."

Brian waved this off easily. "Don't mention it," he mumbled, and rushed Kyo out of the shop.

Kyo's brain was swimming with questions now. The only reason the walk back to the car was silent between them was that he couldn't figure out what to ask first. But, as usual, as soon as they got into the car, it was as if Brian was reading his mind. Of course, this was probably because he could.

"So," he said with a heavy sigh, not even bothering to start the car yet. "What do you want to hear about first? The sisters? The boy? Or Jo?"

Kyo stammered for almost a full minute.

Brian smirked and glanced over at him. "Well, you're not gonna hear about Jo. I'm sorry, Kyo, but I just can't discuss it. Some things are better left...unsaid."

Kyo bit his lip, then finally settled on, "Who are they?"

"The sisters? Well..." Brian drew in a deep breath, staring out the front window and biting his fingernail. "To be blunt...they're witches."

Kyo blinked. "Witches? I'm guess you don't mean, like, modern-day, New Age, Wiccan type of witches."

"New Age?" Brian snickered. "Hardly. They're old school, all right. Not Satan worshipers – something much different. But `witches' is the best term to describe them. Kyo, it's quite difficult to explain because..." He let out another sigh. "How easy is it for you to believe that you have these...special abilities?"

Kyo hesitated, then shrugged. "It's getting easier. Especially after all I've seen and experienced so far. It's not like I can deny it."

"Right. Because you've seen them and experienced them. So there's fact there. And, apart from what you've experienced personally, there is scientific basis for a lot of it. Whether most people know about it or not, there is.

"Now, seeing as it was difficult for you to believe that...how difficult do you think it would be for you to believe in things like...magic?"

Kyo stared at him oddly. "Witch-type magic?"

"Yeah." Brian continued leveling his gaze out the window, avoiding Kyo's gaze.

Kyo didn't answer.

Finally, Brian said heavily, "I'm not prejudiced. I'm not a non-believer. But a lot of people who, like the sisters – and like my mother – are magically empowered...they might get the impression that I don't believe, considering I won't use people like the sisters in the police investigations. Because, to be blunt, there's no real scientific explanation for it. I firmly believe in the psychic powers we have, but I also firmly believe that it's natural, it's chemical. It's in our blood, in our brains.

"But, there are some things in this universe that we can't explain away with science, even the most off-beat scientist sometimes won't believe it. I really don't know how to put it, Kyo...Tom has more strength than most musclemen, you know, those scary-looking ones on telly with the faces that look like Ken dolls. But he doesn't look like a huge, buff giant, does he? But it's still scientific – something in his genes, in his chemical makeup, makes his muscles, however thin he might seem, stronger than most people in the world.

"Polly, on the other hand, can channel the spirits of people who died centuries ago. I've looked and looked, but I can't find any kind of actual, scientific basis for this. Jo can do the same thing, but – as I said, I can't tell you everything, but I'll tell you this much – that came about through a number of circumstances which enabled him to do that...through waves. As in...like radiowaves, that sort of thing."

Kyo blinked in surprise. "So that's why, when he's having an off-day, he's just like a transistor? Just picks up things variously?"

"Right. Only now he's been able to control it to the point where he can zero in on certain waves, he can do searches and see where people are, where their energies lie – whether alive or dead. In a way, I can do the same thing, that's how I'm able to find you guys. Difference between him and me is that I can't find energies that don't exist in a physical body anymore. I can't reach the dead like he can. I can only find the living."

Kyo nodded slowly as he took this in.

"Anyway," Brian continued, "that can all be explained, whether we were born with it, like you and Matt, or developed it as we grew older, like most of the rest of us. Or, in Jo's case, through...unusual circumstances.

"Now...the magical world is quite different. It has very little to do with science, with chemicals in the brain, parts of the brain we all have but only a select few of us can tap into. It's not scientific at all, really. It's more...embedded than that. More natural, in a way. And, in another way, more hereditary. I didn't inherit any magical powers from my mother, as is sometimes the case in offspring of witches. You have half a chance when one parent is magical and the other isn't, as it was in my family. My father was just a normal guy – very intelligent, but not a witch.

"The sisters, though...Morgan has a hard time believing them too, after all he's experienced. But he can't doubt it because he's seen Katy and Polly at work, and I've told him a lot of my accounts concerning my mother. He just wishes he could find a scientific explanation for all of it. And, as I'm constantly telling him, the most scientific explanation for any of it is just...genes. Whether you inherit that power from your parents or not.

"Now, that boy in there, Shanahan – he's a witch. Obviously a very absent-minded one, but that just makes him more endearing, don't you think? But his mother and aunt are very powerful witches. I should know – my mother taught them when they were younger, at the same kind of school Shanahan goes to now. Obviously, as you can tell from his history book, it's quite different from any school you or I went to. But they're very well-hidden and they like to remain that way, very secretive and unknown to most of the rest of the world – the magic people, that is. That entire world is just that – it's like an entirely different world, intermingled with ours. Ours which is based in science and fact, which you and I are a part of – but with some extra special abilities. Theirs is a completely surreal world. I've only been to a few places in their, erm, world, let's say – you can't get to these places without either being a magical person or being with a magical person. But they were unlike anything I've ever seen in this one. They can be beautiful and horrible, depending on where you go. Luckily I've only seen beautiful places – my mother took me to where she was born when I was younger. And Katy's taken me back to some places when we were discussing...when we were discussing Shannon's assignment. She had to show me these places so I'd know about them. Because they might be involved in his assignment eventually. I really can't divulge more than that, really, you have to trust me. I just wanted to explain the differences to you a bit so that you'd be aware of them. Because you might, in your work, have to deal with some magical people."

Kyo nodded again, then ventured, "Is that why you're always going to the sisters? For help?"

"Certainly. Like I said before, I've learned a lot from them, more than I could teach myself. They know more about that stuff, and even about our powers, than we do. But there's far too much to learn in one sitting, you know? The possibilities are endless. Of course, we in the house have our own certain specialties we've cultivated..."

Kyo suddenly cut in, "So what's so scientific about Shannon being able to create a ball of fire out of thin air?"

Brian paused, sucking on his lip. "Um..." He winced, shaking his head. "I told you, I can't really discuss it. It's a very quiet assignment. I can't talk about it."

Kyo hesitated, wanting to pursue this, reminding Brian that he himself had managed to summon fire at his own will...but he settled on just nodding. "Okay."

Brian let out another long breath and finally looked over at him. "Anything else?"

Kyo stared back dully. "Yeah."

"Shoot. Though I can't guarantee I can answer."

"You always talk about Polly and Katy. They don't seem to have husbands. But Polly has Shanahan. So...who's his father? Where is he?"

Brian smiled strangely at him. "I..." He tilted his head to the side, shrugging helplessly. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because..."

"Does it have something to do with Shannon's assignment?"

Brian hesitated, then answered reluctantly, begrudging Kyo for being so intuitive. "Yeah. And I know I'm stepping way over the line here and going where I shouldn't tread, but...to be completely honest, he's all to do with Shannon's assignment. And that's really all I can tell you – and I really shouldn't have told you that."

"But I pretty much guessed it anyway. So...why did you tell me?" Kyo squinted at him. "Is it because we're...you know...not just friends?"

"No," Brian chuckled, reaching over to ruffle his hair affectionately. "I told you because...well...maybe I'm hoping...one day you'll find out. And be able to help."

"So why not now?"

Brian gave him a condescending smile. "Because you're not ready. You don't get to find that out until well after you've learned to meditate for more than fifteen minutes straight."

Kyo groaned and slumped back in his seat. "When does my life start getting fun?"

Brian groaned back cryptically as he started the car, "Believe me, if you were Shannon or Shanahan, or even Polly for that matter – you'd wish that's all you had to do."

Chapter 12

Kyo certainly did have a lot of free time, now that he didn't have to worry about losing his life to a maniac he didn't even know. He took to wandering around the house when he wasn't busy with a lesson or tagging along behind Brian to meetings at the police station. Kyo wasn't sure how the others got so used to everyone else's obvious disdain for them, especially the chief's disgust. He barely told Brian anything, yet the man seemed to know whatever George had in his head.

"We don't want that case anyway," Brian would tell Kyo later on the ride home. "It's nothing very important. We have better things to do with our time."

Kyo didn't know what Brian was talking about. He even caught the so-called "leader" of the house dozing on the couch in front of a fire (in the middle of July) on a random Wednesday afternoon. Later, he caught him having a very heated and intense game of Tetris with Jo. Of course, Brian had told him, trying to hide his own cynical smirk, he was very busy doing very important work. All the time. Honest.

Kyo wasn't put off by the apparent laziness of the others. Actually, he enjoyed it, and let himself take advantage of the relaxation time...to go exploring.

He could tell Brian knew what was on his mind whenever he saw him, especially at dinners when everyone was there and Kyo would stare around the table at all the people, then catch Brian watching him with a bemused smirk. But Brian was relentless – he absolutely refused to tell Kyo, or anyone else for that matter, what Kyo wanted to know. And to be honest, Kyo wasn't quite sure he knew what he was so curious about, or why.

Yet he persisted. At first, he tried to engage Jo in conversation a number of times, whether he was having a good day or an "off" day. In either case, Jo wasn't much help. When he was having a good day, he would make silly comments and run from the room, calling Kyo a midget with "mushroom ears," though Kyo didn't have a clue as to what that was supposed to mean. On his "off" days, Jo could barely answer him in decipherable (or even audible) English.

Kyo started out by asking questions about Jo's past, about where he was from and what he'd done there. On a good day, he eventually got out of him, "Come from Kyoto. Didn't do much of anything, really. Made some pretty pictures with spray cans on the sides of factories. Smashed some windows and got yelled at by dog owners. Then I fell into a weird world by a strange set of circumstances and kept going back to it." He turned to give Kyo a wide grin. "But it's fun...muttonchop!" And he bolted from the room.

Kyo had to roll his eyes. He hadn't even had time to continue the conversation, or gotten a word in edgewise. Talking to Jo was difficult in itself, but especially when he started going off about fantasy. Brian said once he supposed Jo had read one too many science fiction books and now thought he lived in one. Kyo couldn't argue.

Finally, Kyo started to get some answers, however vague. He hadn't counted on it at all, but he somehow managed to land alone in the kitchen with a disheveled Shannon, who was rarely ever at the house anyway. That he was there at all was a surprise, but what was even more startling was that he didn't look like he was about to leave anytime soon. He was merely sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal (at two in the morning; since Kyo had nothing else to do, he ended up staying awake very late these days), tapping a socked foot on the floor and reading a magazine. He didn't even lift his head from his reading when Kyo entered the room, scratching his head and yawning. Kyo stopped dead in his tracks when he saw this rare opportunity before him, and he wasn't quite sure what to say.

Without acknowledging him, though he was in clear view from Shannon's position, Shannon heaved a loud sigh and shoved a spoonful of sugary cereal into his mouth. A second later, his eyes strayed upwards, landed on Kyo's slightly stunned face, and he uttered, "You'll get stiff knees standin' there all night."

Kyo figured this was an invitation to sit at the table with him, so he did. They were silent for a long time, Shannon still eating and reading while Kyo just sat there and watched him.

Finally, Shannon sighed again. "What you wanna know?" he asked, his eyes still darting back and forth on the page he was reading.

Kyo hesitated. He hadn't expected Shannon to be so blunt. "Um..." He wasn't prepared at all. "Well..."

"I would've thought you would've written out an interview by now or somethin'."

Kyo squinted at him. "Huh?"

"C'mon. Brian gave you a morsel or two, and I know your kind. You're wantin' the whole pie."

"I'm not sure I follow..."

"He's given you hints. About Jo. About me. About the sisters. Everythin'. But he ain't talkin', so now you're snoopin' around tryin' to find it all. Well, it ain't gonna be easy."

Kyo lowered his eyes for a moment, then lifted them to Shannon again. "Why did you...You know..."

Shannon met his gaze finally, his seemingly innocent grey eyes fixed on Kyo steadily. "I don't."

Kyo smirked. "C'mon. You must know."

Shannon gave a half-shrug. "Not really. Not really all that psychic myself."

Kyo narrowed his eyes at him. "You're not?"

"Not all that psychic. Not good at readin' people's minds. Other things in me sort of...get in the way. Because of how I was born."

"How you were born?"

"Yeah. Y'know. Half `n half. It's a civil war all the time. Anyway. You were saying?"

Kyo stared at him blankly. He hadn't understood a single word the man had just said. "Do you mean you're only half psychic?"

"No, I—" Shannon stopped, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Oh, bloody hell. Nevermind. What did you wanna know? Why did I what?"

Kyo hesitated, then shook his head, as if trying to get the fog out of it. "Oh, I...I was just wondering why you stepped in the other week. You know, the murderer? Why did you off him before I had a chance? When Brian makes such a big deal about...conquering fears or whatever?"

Shannon stared hard at him, then smirked. "You may not believe me, Kyo, but all I can tell you right now is that no matter how terrified you were of that psychopath, it really wasn't worth losing your life over. That's why I stepped in. That's why I chided Brian for being so careless. You don't need to lose your life over something as insignificant as that useless piece of garbage."

Kyo's eyes widened. "Insignificant? That man killed six people – more than that, that was just this year!"

"Yes, yes, and probably would've done you and more in too if no one had stopped him. So what's the big deal? Just another homicidal maniac – off `em if you've got the chance."

"But..."

"But what?" Shannon challenged him. "You wanna try to reason with that sort of human being? Humans are hard to reason with anyway, but try one who doesn't know the difference between his own humanity and insanity. All I know is that you're worth a hell of a lot more than being thrown to some idiot who can't get over raping and beating his own son to death. He was a demented pervert who wasn't gonna get better – get rid of him and move on."

Kyo grimaced. "Kind of harsh..."

"Yeah," Shannon scoffed. "Real harsh that I don't have any sympathy for some human who can't keep his pants on and then feels guilty for it later. Boo-hoo."

Kyo shook his head again. "Well...yeah...but..."

"You think about it," Shannon said sternly, glaring at him. "You have the gift. You were in his head, you saw what he thought and how he felt. It's only been a few weeks, Kyo, have you forgotten all the terror you went through?"

Kyo swallowed hard, lowering his eyes.

"And you see," Shannon went on, "that it's quite difficult to argue with that. You know he was beyond repair. And wasting your life on something that's beyond repair...well, that would've been sheer stupidity. And irresponsible. I admire Brian's dedication and his curiosity, his insistence that humans have to live through things to learn and grow. As humans are actually a very unenlightened race and most of the time don't get it until they experience it. But that was pretty stupid of him and I didn't approve."

"You didn't approve, so you just did your own thing without asking?"

Shannon gave him a sharp look. "Who would I ask?"

Kyo shrugged. "I figured you'd have to check with Brian—"

"Brian is very intelligent, wildly intelligent actually. And very compassionate. And generous, caring, enthusiastic...but sometimes he's too enthusiastic. You wouldn't let a drunk man behind the wheel of a car just because he's happy about driving, would you? It's the same with Brian – sometimes he just gets a little too carried away. He doesn't think so, but you have to keep an eye on him sometimes. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I've seen a lot more and done a lot more. So...I think I have a right to do as I see fit without needing his permission."

Kyo felt a chill run through him. This guy was barely older than him, and he was speaking as if he'd been around the world a thousand times already. Looking at his slight face and innocent grey eyes made Kyo feel like laughing when he heard what he interpreted as arrogance in his quiet, low voice.

But when Shannon looked at him directly in the eyes, Kyo couldn't deny that what seemed like arrogance was much more than that – it was truth. Shannon seemed much older suddenly, though his face still looked as young and fresh as it had a few seconds before. Kyo had to blink and shake his head yet again to get the strange feeling to leave him.

He cleared his throat and tried a different question. "So you and Jo go everywhere together?"

Shannon smirked. "Just about. Well, except when we don't."

Kyo stared dully at him. "Funny."

"I thought so."

"Have you two known each other long? I mean, you've only been here, what, a year? And Brian said Jo came just after they founded the department..."

Shannon nodded, stuffing his mouth with more cereal and turning back to his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled with his mouth full. "He came here before me, because he was in Katy's care, but when I had that incident at the school, Polly suggested I try staying here instead. Try to `get control' or whatever. But Jo and I have known each other for ages."

"Before you came here?"

Shannon nodded. "Before either of us came here."

"Oh. How do you know each other? You're from two completely different countries – continents, even—"

"We could've been penpals who met over the Internet," Shannon suggested to him.

"Oh. So how'd you meet him on there?"

"I said we could've been, but we weren't. That's just an example of how two people from two different countries could connect. But no, I've known him for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"About twelve years."

Kyo blinked, startled. "Twelve years!?"

"Yeah."

"Christ, you must've been, what, fourteen or something?"

Shannon was about to answer him, then paused, hesitating. He shrugged and answered, "It was twelve years ago, I guess."

Kyo studied him closely. Shannon was absorbed in his magazine article.

"How well do you know each other?" Kyo ventured.

"Extremely well."

"Do you know how he ended up...the way he is now?"

Shannon nodded slowly, his eyes still glued to the magazine.

"So...how did it happen?"

"It was twelve years ago, how would I remember?" Shannon answered lazily. "You know—" He gave Kyo an odd look through narrowed eyes. "I was just a kid."

Kyo glared back. "You're awfully moody for such a young guy, you know? I'm just asking."

"Sorry," Shannon said after an uncomfortable pause, and he honestly sounded like he meant it. "I just don't think you should be pokin' around like this. But you're a curious human, and curiosity can be good – but it can also be dangerous."

"Yeah, yeah, it killed the cat and all..."

"Whose cat?" Shannon asked with sudden alarm.

Kyo glanced up at him to see if he was joking. But Shannon was back to his magazine.

Kyo let out a long breath. "Fine. I'll stop bugging you—"

Just as he was about to get up from the table, Shannon stopped him, sitting up straighter in his seat. Kyo turned back to him.

"Look," Shannon said, his voice softer now, "I didn't mean to be rude. I've had some bad experiences in the past with h—with this sort of thing," he finished weakly.

"What sort of thing?"

"Just...explaining things. Anyway, that's not important. If you really want to know, I'll just say simply that I saved you from that man because as terrifying as he was, he was really just an insignificant blip in the scale of our world - of several worlds, in fact. There is so much more to be afraid of, Kyo, and to waste your talents and abilities and gifts – your life – on someone like that would have been a crime. No, a sin. You're definitely worth more than some sick pervert's insane obsession. I didn't see the point in risking your well-being – or your life – just to get you to stand up to someone you weren't ready to confront. And that's the truth."

Kyo saw the honesty in Shannon's face and smiled a little. "Well...thank you, then."

"Any time."

Kyo nodded, then turned to leave. At the doorway, however, he paused and spun back to him. "So what's the situation with you and the sisters?"

Shannon, who had gone back to his magazine, muttered, "I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's my job, not yours."

"But Jo knows – he's even involved, isn't he?"

"Yes, but that's because Jo and I have been together for twelve years."

"So you've been partners? Is that how you know him?"

Shannon thought about this for a moment, then answered, uncertainly, "Yes and no."

"You've been working with him since you were fourteen? Is that right? Jesus! You must be a damn good...well...whatever you are, firestarter or whatever..."

Shannon hesitated, but in that moment of his silence, Kyo blurted out, "Is he difficult to work with, being how he is?"

"Only if you don't know how he is."

"So I take it you know how he is best of all, right?"

"Probably even better than the sisters," Shannon mused, then realized he was talking and cleared his throat, starting to stand from the table. "Well, um, I really have to get to bed tonight. At least a few hours. I'm sorry for all the confusion, Kyo, I really am, but I can't stay up to explain it all, and really, you shouldn't know about all of it either." He emptied his bowl in the sink and walked lazily past Kyo, towards the spiral staircase without anymore explanation.

Before Shannon was even out of his sight, Kyo had made a decision. He knew what he had to do with his free time from now on.

Kyo drank two two-liters of highly caffeinated soda to stay awake for the rest of that night. He wasn't exactly sure why he felt it necessary to stay awake the entire night, but he was certain that if he went to sleep, Shannon, and possibly Jo, would disappear without him even knowing it, and then his whole plan would be ruined. So he stayed awake, sitting in the kitchen, as the dining room and sitting room were both too cozy to risk lounging and falling asleep in. He went to the bathroom an awful lot after drinking all of that soda, but every time he came out, he checked to make sure that one or both of them was still in the house. Jo was fast asleep on the couch in the room that had been the temporary makeshift home of "The Highrise Family," who had since returned to their real homes, and Shannon had spent the night in his own room and remained in bed as well.

Around six, just as the sun was starting to rise and cast morning shadows around the kitchen, Kyo was snapped out of a possible doze when the coffee machine switched on automatically by Simone's will. Kyo shifted in his seat – it seemed anywhere in this house was possible to get comfortable enough to fall asleep – and sat up straighter, wiping his hands over his face. He wanted to be the first one up just so he could see what really happened in the morning.

Not much, he found out. And yet the little that did happen was confusing. After another five minutes of sitting and staring at the coffee pot, which was slowly filling up with black liquid, Kyo heard the sounds of the water pipes from the upstairs bathroom. A few minutes later, Shannon appeared in the doorway, wearing a long hunter green shirt that flowed from his thin shoulders like a waterfall, and simple black slacks. He wasn't even wearing any shoes. His hair was damp from a shower, and he looked much more alert and awake than Kyo felt. He looked startled, however, to see Kyo awake at all.

Shannon paused in the doorway to the kitchen, lifting the strap of a dark green satchel over his head, and eyed Kyo curiously. "Morning," he said, his voice sounding as puzzled as he looked.

Kyo cleared his sore throat and smiled wanly. "Hi."

"You're up early."

"Mm...Couldn't sleep."

Shannon smirked. "Liar," he muttered, then turned to the fridge and reached inside for a bottle. He stood up straight again and took a swig from it, then tucked it away in his bag. "Want some breakfast?"

Kyo blinked. "Love some."

Shannon nodded, then headed for the door. Kyo turned in his seat, watching him. Shannon stopped at the door and glanced back at him, giving him a knowing gaze.

"Well? You coming?" And he disappeared out the door.

After a moment's hesitation, as he was hardly dressed to go out – just a ratty t-shirt, torn jeans and a pair of beat-up sneakers, no socks – Kyo shook his head and pushed himself out of the chair.

He thought for a moment that he'd lost Shannon already when he got outside and was unable to see where he'd gone. He was more taken, however, by the light mist on the ground, throughout the entire green property behind the large house. The ducks down at the pond could barely be heard, and the sight of the dim morning – the sun was going to be blocked out today mostly by grey clouds, he could tell already – was so peaceful, it was almost eerie.

There was a shuffle by the bushes at the end of the stone pathway leading to the back door, and Kyo snapped his head around. Shannon was leaning against the back of the house, peering around the corner at him. "Keep up or you'll miss breakfast." And his head disappeared again.

Kyo drew in a deep breath of the fresh, cool morning air and immediately felt re-energized. He trotted down the rest of the path and turned the corner just in time to catch a glimpse of Shannon turning another corner at the other end of the house. Kyo jogged faster, trying to catch up to him. Luckily, by the time he reached the corner where Shannon had just been, Shannon was standing in the middle of the driveway, bare feet and all, waiting patiently for him.

"Sorry," Shannon apologized as he began to lead the way. "I keep forgetting my legs are longer. I'll try to walk slower."

The two of them walked, then. Kyo had no idea how long it took or how far they'd gone, or even how sore Shannon's feet must have been, but Shannon didn't seem to take notice of it at all. He kept his head steady and his gaze straight, and Kyo was too out of breath from trying to keep up with Shannon's long, steady strides to ask any questions, so it was a quiet walk.

Finally, Kyo realized that they were on the edge of the city. It must have only been twenty minutes, but they still had several city blocks to cover before they finally came to the Magick Shoppe the sisters owned. Once they made it there, Kyo hesitated at the doorway when Shannon went to reach for the handle.

"It's not open yet," Kyo gasped, trying to catch his breath.

Shannon paused, peering down at him with a half-smile. "And?"

"And..." Kyo gestured to his bare feet. "You haven't got any shoes on."

Shannon raised his eyebrows. "You're observant," he commented, then ignored Kyo's protests, and swung the door open easily. Startled, Kyo followed him inside. He had to remind himself that this was probably what Shannon did every day, so what would he know about it?

As they entered, Kyo had a strange feeling of uneasiness; it crept up on him like he knew he was doing something wrong but still wanted to do it, but his conscience was yelling at him to stop. Shannon, however, didn't seem the least bit concerned. He marched straight across the otherwise empty store and ignored the hand-written sign at the counter that said "Employees Only." He walked right to the back of the store and opened the door to the hallway, the door Kyo had seen Polly walk out of a few weeks before. Again, Kyo wasn't certain about this, but Shannon waved at him to follow.

Kyo glanced around the walls as he was led down the hallway to another room at the very end. The entire time, Shannon spoke to him, not even bothering to lower his voice.

"Katy makes the best omelets," he was saying. "She can put almost anything you want into an omelet, and it'll taste like it's meant to be there. I once had a blueberry omelet, and another time, chocolate chip. Sounds disgusting, eh? But it wasn't. She has a knack for that sort of thing, taking two things that don't seem to go together and meshing them in such a way that it's delicious. Well, culinary-wise, anyway. No wonder Simone gets recipes from her all the time. Careful around the staircase," he warned suddenly, and Kyo glanced down just in time to keep from slipping on a large rubber ball sitting on the bottom of a set of spiral steps in the middle of the room.

Shannon chuckled and leaned over, brushing the ball off the step, between the iron bars of the railing, and it bounced down a foot and rolled off into a corner of the empty room.

"Damn kids," Shannon muttered, though with a hint of amusement. "Always leave their stuff lyin' around."

Kyo lifted his head as Shannon started to climb the stairs again. "Is that the boy? The boy witch?"

Shannon sighed. "Supposedly. Nah, really, he is, but he's still a twelve-year-old boy, you know? A twelve-year-old witch, yes, which makes him quite exceptional, but he's still just a kid. You know. Has a habit of picking his nose in public without realizing it, then trying to turn it into a frog because he thinks it's funny."

Kyo grimaced. "Eh..."

"He figures, it's already green, so he won't have to worry about that part..."

"Please...I haven't even eaten yet. I need something in me to throw up."

"He's a sweet kid, Shanahan," Shannon insisted. "But also very demented. Of course, that could be my influence. Morning," Shannon said again. He had reached the top of the staircase, and, a few steps behind, Kyo could already smell breakfast being cooked.

There was a slightly muffled grunt, and as Kyo got to the top as well, he had to stop and blink his eyes several times.

Kyo stood in the middle of one of the most beautiful rooms he'd ever been in before. Again, as with Brian when he'd first brought Kyo to the store, Shannon barely seemed to notice the beauty that surrounded him, ignoring all of it to cross the room to get to the kitchen where the young boy Kyo had met before was now sitting – or, rather, slumping – at the kitchen table over a bowl of half-eaten cereal.

The room Kyo stood in had to have been the living room, because there was no television – just two very old-looking couches (old in style, but not in quality), a seemingly hand-crafted wooden table polished to shine the dim light from the candles in the gold and wooden chandelier several feet above his head, and bookcases, similar to the ones in the store, filled with more books than Kyo had ever seen, apart from a library. But what made the room so beautiful were numbers of velvet tapestries hanging from every wall, depicting several different scenes from stories Kyo remembered reading about when he was in school himself. There was Morgaine standing at the stern of a boat, arms uplifted as she unveiled the mists of Avalon; there was Gandalf the Grey warding off an evil demon on a long, thin bridge of stone in a dwarf mine; there was a dark, insane-looking man with hypnotic eyes standing over the bed of an ailing child – Rasputin? And there were several more.

Kyo was interrupted in his silent study of the tapestries by a woman's gentle voice from the doorway to the kitchen.

"Do you like them?" she asked, her voice quiet and slightly accented; also British, but like Polly's, broad and clear, perhaps from the midlands of England.

Kyo spun around, giving a start.

In front of him stood a woman a few inches taller than himself, with hair the length of Polly's, though with no bangs, and instead of jet-black, it was a blend of several shades of blond. Her eyes as well were not the mysteriously dark green of Polly's, but a bright blue, cold but warm at the same time, and they were fixed on Kyo kindly. Her face was thinner, longer, and her build was as thin and delicate as her sister's, but she was taller, dressed in a simple white dress that just barely covered her pale bare feet.

"Do you like them?" she repeated with a small smile. She wore no make-up, but her lips were still a light ruby red, and her face glowed like Kyo had never seen on any normal human woman.

"Uh...uh, yes, they're...they're beautiful..."

"I don't mean to boast," she said, her eyes straying to the tapestries, "but our mother made them, almost every last one of them. Except that one," and she gestured to the one on Kyo's right, just before the doorway to the kitchen. "That one Polly and I made together."

The picture on the tapestry was of a woman who resembled both Polly and this woman: black hair with streaks of gold, dark eyes with the same glint this woman had in hers, wearing the same kind of dress and robe, with the same high cheekbones, though her jaw was a bit rounder, not sharp and thin like the sisters'.

"This was our mother," the woman explained. "After she died – of natural causes, meaning she was very old – my sister and I wanted to create some kind of homage to her. Of course, Polly insists that our mother's influence shines through in her child-rearing, which, to be honest, is very true. Our mother was very kind and let us do almost anything, but, like Shanahan, we both had good heads on our shoulders to begin with. But I wanted to make something a little more physical, a little more...visual. You see, these tapestries were made by our mother to honor all the greatest wizards and witches that we know of. Whether they were famous, or notorious. From this world, or ours."

Kyo gestured to the tapestry of the dark man hunched over the child's bed. "I wasn't aware that Rasputin was a wizard...or witch."

The woman smiled mysteriously. "There's some controversy over that, but considering the skills he displayed...I believe it's safe to say he had some otherworldly gifts. My mother certainly believed so too. It's odd – the most unlikely of people can hold the most magnificent of powers. Don't you think?"

Kyo stared at the beautiful woman; as different as she looked, she still held the same kind of striking attractiveness that Polly had. He had known from the first moment he'd turned to her who she was, but after her explanation of the tapestry, he didn't doubt it at all.

"You're Katy?" he asked.

She looked back at him and smiled, nodding. "And you're Kyo. You're the new one, right? How are you feeling? Stronger?"

"Yeah, um, that stuff really helped."

"Good. I hope you don't mind the taste of it."

Kyo grimaced. "Well..."

"Because you might be needing it again in the future. At first. Of course, with any kind of supplement, be it Western or Eastern or traditional or herbal, you don't want to rely on it completely. I'm sure Polly gave you the entire speech."

"Yeah, she did."

"We just don't want any weed-addicts – and I mean herbs, not pot."

Kyo smirked.

"Pot's okay," Katy told him with a strange smile. "But any addiction is negative."

"Do you have any addictions?"

"I've tried to rid myself of any that I might have had in the past. I've been pretty good so far. I stopped smoking cigarettes fifteen years ago. I only have a drink a few times a year for fun. I only smoke a bowl with my faerie friends once in a while..." She glanced at him, a mysterious glint in her eyes now.

Kyo cleared his throat. "Faerie friends?"

"I knew you would say that," she giggled, but then ignored his question and continued, "But there is one addiction I cannot seem to let go of." She turned and started back to the kitchen, gesturing for him to follow.

"What's that?"

She waved to him to sit down at the table with Shannon and Shanahan; Shannon was now shoveling eggs and bacon and toast into his mouth, while Shanahan still sat there, his eyes half-closed, staring at nothing. He hadn't touched his cereal since before Kyo and Shannon had arrived.

As Katy made a plate for Kyo, not even asking what he wanted, Kyo watched her carefully. She put every little thing on his plate that he was in the mood for. She set it in front of him and then took a seat across from Shanahan. On her own plate sat one thing: a wrapped chocolate bar. She picked it up and pointed to it, raising her eyebrows at Kyo.

"The makers of chocolate should be punished for creating such an insidiously addictive drug." And with that, she tore the paper off and took a huge, savage bite out of it.

Kyo smirked, then looked across the table at Shanahan. He wasn't wearing his glasses; they were sitting next to the open box of cereal by his elbow, which held most of the weight of his head, which was lying dully in his hand. He stared just past his bowl of now mushy breakfast and after a while, Kyo worried that the boy wasn't even breathing. He looked pale and weak, and his bright green eyes were now glazed...and going crossed.

Kyo was about to ask if he was all right, wondering if perhaps there was something seriously wrong with him. Everyone was so mysterious about everything lately, he wouldn't have been surprised if someone told him that Shanahan was terminally ill, the way he looked right now.

But then Shannon nudged his elbow, giggling, "Wake up, ya brat."

At that, Shanahan snapped his head up, his eyes fixing themselves, and he stared dumbly at Shannon. "Huh?"

Shannon gestured to his bowl of cereal. "Eat, will ya? You're gonna be late."

"Oh...right," Shanahan said softly, poking at the mush disdainfully.

Katy chuckled. "You had enough, sweetness?"

Shanahan nodded slowly, as if every movement took all his concentration.

"Okay." Katy swept the bowl away from him and set it in the sink, and in its place put an already cooked toaster pastry. "Have this and some juice and then Shannon will see you off, all right?"

The boy blinked, and for a second, Kyo was sure he wasn't going to open his eyes again.

"Mmmmkay," he said, his voice very small.

Kyo leaned closer to Shannon and asked hesitantly, "Is he okay?"

Shannon smirked. "Oh please. Is any pre-teen or teenager okay at seven in the morning?"

Morgan chuckled, thinking back to his own school days – and suddenly his concern for Shanahan vanished. Of course the poor kid looked sick – he had to be awake at this time of morning and go into school to try and learn stuff and retain it and understand it. Granted, from what he'd heard before, Kyo was sure that Shanahan's school, whatever or wherever it was, was far more exciting than his own had been.

"C'mon, Shan," Katy encouraged him. "Eat up or you'll be late." She spoke as if she said this to her nephew every day – not irritated, not even exasperated, but just common. Then she turned to Kyo and asked, "So, what brings you here so early in the morning? I figured you never knew which direction the sun rose, considering it took you how long to even come here, and we haven't seen you since."

Kyo smiled uneasily. "Well...I've been kind of...busy..."

"He's a liar," Shannon interrupted. "He's just afraid to come."

"Why are you afraid?" Katy asked.

"I'm not," Kyo insisted. "Well...maybe I..."

"You're just not used to us yet," Katy assured him. "After a while, you'll be treating this place like your second home. Like everyone else at the house. Well, except for Shannon here," she added, glancing over at him. "I think the house itself is his second home. He practically lives here."

Kyo saw his opportunity and dove for it; he tilted his head to the side, as if asking just out of innocent curiosity – which, in fact, it was. "Why is that?"

Katy looked back at him, straight in the eyes, still smiling. "Because of his job."

"Oh. Does he work at the shop?"

"No. But he works for my sister and myself."

"Doing what?"

"Nosy," Shannon muttered, but didn't attempt to stop Katy from answering.

Katy, however, was no help. It was as if Shannon didn't stop her because he knew Katy wouldn't say either. "Being an employee. And a good friend. Sorry, dear, but as you'll find living and working out of that house, a lot of jobs you receive are strictly confidential."

Kyo shook his head. "But I've seen the others – in the past few weeks, I mean, I've seen the others, heard them talk about their assignments with each other. They ask for help and advice, they ask for different perspectives or different talents other people have that they don't..."

"Well, perhaps some jobs and assignments are different, then," Katy surmised, shrugging. "There's just no one else for the job than Shannon."

"What about Jo?"

Katy blinked at him. "What about him?"

Kyo glanced at Shannon to see if he'd made a mistake in bringing it up, as if it could have been a secret that Jo was involved at all. Shannon didn't look the least bit miffed.

"Isn't he helping Shannon out with the...case?"

Katy laughed out loud, then cleared her throat. "It's not exactly a case, Kyo, but yes, Jo and Shannon are working together on this."

"But Shannon's the only one for the job?"

Katy smiled patiently. "Shannon is the only one for the job itself; Jo aids him sometimes because Jo is useful – and he's involved. But it would be best, for us and for the house, if no one else interfered. That's really all I can give as an explanation. There's no better way to put it."

"But Brian knows about it?"

"Yes. He has to."

"So—"

"But he isn't involved."

Kyo nodded slowly. "So...who else at the house knows about it?"

Katy watched him steadily and answered, "No one."

Kyo blinked. "No one?" He glanced at Shannon.

Shannon was shaking his head. "Jo and myself, because we're the ones doing it, and Brian, because he's the head of the house, therefore he should know what we're doing. It's like a rental situation – you have to let your landlord know when you have more than one person living there. We're just borrowing Brian's space, but he should know what the risks are. And now you because..." Shannon chuckled. "Well, because you're nosy."

"Believe me," Katy said heavily, though still smiling a bit, "if we could tell all of them and recruit their help, if it were even possible for them to make a difference, it would be a blessing."

"So why don't you?" Kyo urged. "If we can help—"

Katy was shaking her head already, and for the first time since he'd met her, she actually looked sad. Her eyes strayed to the half-asleep boy on her other side. She bit her nail and said quietly, almost inaudibly, "It doesn't matter. Sometimes not even an army can conquer those more powerful. You just have to know your strengths," her gaze floated over to Shannon.

Shannon was watching her as well. "And who your friends are," he muttered under his breath.

Katy smiled again, sadly, but said nothing.

Kyo sighed slightly. So much for squeezing information out of Katy. His mind was racing and burning with questions, but the sudden numb sadness that came over the others in the room (besides Shanahan, who was about to start dozing with his nose in his pastry) kept Kyo from asking one. He nibbled some more on the breakfast in front of him, though he suddenly didn't feel as hungry as he once did. Finally, he couldn't pretend anymore. He pushed the plate away, apologized to Katy, promised to have breakfast again another time when his stomach didn't feel so weak, and said goodbye. Obviously Shannon wasn't going with him, but Kyo knew that if he stayed in that kitchen for another minute, he would probably end up being beaten for all the questions he would throat at them. Instead, he left.

But of course, he didn't go back to the house. He knew asking Shannon and Katy straight-out about what was going on was not going to work, and would probably just end up angering Shannon more than just irritating him. So Kyo did the next best thing to asking straight-out: he spied.

Kyo amazed even himself with his stalking capabilities. He'd never done it before, so he wasn't even sure of what he was doing, but he somehow managed to keep himself relatively hidden among the crowds of people on the street as he lingered outside the shop, a little way down, and watched and followed when Shannon stepped outside with Shanahan. He followed them down the street without drawing any attention to himself, and yet keeping his eyes at all times on the blond man and the small dark-haired boy in front of him.

He followed them four blocks down the city streets, which were surprisingly busy at this time of morning – people going to work – to the subway. He almost lost them in the shuffle to get to the platform, but then found them again, squeezed against the far wall. He weaved his way through the crowd to get closer, but by the time he got to the other side, they had disappeared.

He was almost about to give up his search for them among the crowds of people when something out of the corner of his eye distracted him from that thought. He saw a hand just around the corner of the platform, and was startled when he drew nearer to hear Shannon's familiar voice and Shanahan's higher, smaller one from just around the corner – where no one was actually allowed to stand to wait for the subway. It was dangerous, that part, because the cement ground only came out two feet or so from the wall, and surely someone was bound to fall straight onto the tracks if they were waiting for the train. But there they were, he saw as he peeked carefully around the corner, standing with their faces to the wall, muttering to each other in quiet voices. Kyo could hear the train coming closer from down the dark track, and he pressed himself hard against the wall when the train slowed to a stop in front of him. Within two minutes, everyone who had been waiting had filed onto the train while everyone who had been on – only a few, at this time of morning – came off and disappeared up the stairs. A few moments later, the platform was eerily empty and silent – except for Shannon's low, sharp voice, which echoed in the silence.

"Wait for it – look at you, you can barely keep your eyes open! How're you even gonna stay awake for your test when you only got three hours of sleep?"

"I only got three hours of sleep," Shanahan answered drearily, "because I stayed up studying for my test."

Shannon giggled. "Didn't your mother ever teach you how to manage your time? Or how about Ollie? You're with him more than you are with me."

"Ollie doesn't have to manage his time."

"True enough. Got money for lunch?"

"Right here."

"Okay. Don't let that prick try to steal it from you again."

"Shannon!"

"What?"

"Mum told me never to say that word."

"What, prick? Well, you didn't say it, did you?"

"Mm...No."

"Your mother is a good woman, Shanahan. You should listen to her. Wish I'd listened to my mum."

"Why? What did she say?"

"How should I know? I wasn't listening."

The boy giggled delirious, just as Shannon sighed heavily.

"Come on, come on, what's the hold-up?" he mumbled impatiently.

"Why don't you do it?"

"I can't."

"Sure you can, you've done it before."

"Half-bloods can only leave on their own. Getting in...that's a bit harder."

"But you've done it before—"

"And you saw what happened, didn't you? Since you're a full-blooded witch, you can get in on your own and even take people with you, when you're trained well enough. We got in ourselves before because of that and because of my one half. But it doesn't always work so well – and I'm sorry, but as beautiful as it is over there, I'd much rather spend my time there with all my limbs, thank you very much."

The boy giggled again. "You did look funny, hobbling all over the place. Lucky thing Olly had his staff on him."

"Made me appreciate my feet much more."

"What about Jo's amulet?"

"Damn. Didn't think of it. He was sleeping anyway. Ah, no need – here he is."

Kyo tried to peek around the corner when he heard a very odd sound coming from the other side – a rushing wind and a very low bass tone, like a musical note but much more powerful than just music. It was a strong, powerful humming, but all he could see when he did peek around was a huge ball of white light coming from the wall the two of them had been staring at all this time. He saw four silhouettes in the blazing light, only recognizing Shannon and Shanahan – Shanahan carrying his school backpack and Shannon still in his bare feet – in the subway station.

Among all this windy noise and loud humming, Kyo was shocked that he could hear anything else at all, but over this noise he was able to make out people's voices. He recognized Shannon's voice as he called over the noise, "Not raining, is it?"

"No," came a second, sounding similar to Shannon's yet all together different – the accent was the same, but the tone was slightly higher and more musical. But it sounded much further away, coming through the light in waves. "Nice day here. Are you coming?"

"Of course."

Kyo squinted, shielding his eyes and trying to make out the forms coming from inside the light. He didn't even think to question how any of this was possible, in the belly of a subway station – perhaps because he had seen enough crazy stuff already that he could believe anything, or perhaps he couldn't argue with it because the glare from the light was so strong that he knew he couldn't be imagining it. He just wished he knew what was going on.

Kyo watched in awe as the first figure from inside the light leaned out, and through a haze, Kyo could see that he looked a bit like Shannon, but taller. He was lean and light, with hair so blond it was almost white, long and tied back in braids behind his shoulders. He was wearing the oddest clothes Kyo had seen, at least in this day and age – brown leather pants that looked handmade and couldn't possibly have been bought in a store, a black shirt that must have been made of some kind of silk, and a thick green cloak with a hood; on his feet, in fact going halfway up his legs, were a pair of most likely genuine leather boots, and on his wrists he wore leather armbands, as if they were some kind of protection.

The tall boy stepped out of the light as Kyo took this all in, and though it still shone behind him, the light faded a bit, so Kyo could make out his face. He had high cheekbones and pale skin, and his eyes mirrored Shannon's grey ones. The two came face-to-face with each other, though the taller one had to look down a few inches.

The one with the long hair smiled and took Shannon by the arm, his hand clamped firmly just below Shannon's elbow. "Glad to see you," he said softly.

Kyo was confused; if this was in fact something Shannon did every day, why did he look so relieved to see the other man? He was nodding at him.

"You too, Ollie. Things all right?"

The man – Ollie – sighed heavily, shaking his head, and his eyes strayed down to Shanahan, who was waiting patiently. "Could be better. Always could be better." He ruffled Shanahan's hair affectionately. "But as long as he's safe, it's always a good day."

The boy smiled up at him, his eyes scrunching up from weariness behind his glasses.

Shannon glanced over Ollie's shoulder at the hazy silhouette behind him, still hovering in the dim light. "What's up with him? Doesn't he wanna see the subway?" Shannon asked with a sarcastic tone.

"Ah, you know Malachai," Ollie chuckled. "Poor thing dreads coming over here. He just wants his grass and trees and hole in the hill. Much like any Etheraul. But of course he's fond of you and Shanahan, so he relents when I drag him along."

Shanahan's eyes brightened a little, as if he were waking up a bit more. "Did he bring Pippa?"

"No, sorry, the dog had to stay home today."

Shanahan looked disappointed.

"Ah well," Ollie said, patting Shanahan on the back. "C'mon, lad, you'll have time after classes to play with the pup. We'll have supper there." He tugged him into the light. "Let's get you to school." And the three of them stepped into the dim light together – it flashed brightly for a second, and Kyo caught another glimpse of the fourth silhouette briefly, another small person, perhaps only a little taller than Shanahan, who looked bulky only because its shape revealed it was also wearing a cloak, as Ollie had been. The figure he could barely see didn't step out of the light, just wavered for a moment, paced back and forth, then stood still as the others entered again and the light faded. As it did, Kyo made out one thing very clearly: the light had been coming out of a doorway, but a doorway that was shaped strangely, like the top of a gate to a cemetery he'd seen before back in his home town. When he was sure that the others were gone, Kyo carefully checked around himself, then inched his way onto the two-foot wide landing in front of the wall where the others had just been standing.

The subway platform had grown dim and quiet again, and where Kyo was standing was even darker. But the little light that did shine from the platform gave him enough vision to make out a very faded shape against the wall in front of him. The shape was not graffiti, not spray paint, or anything of the sort. It was just a marking that looked as if it had been there naturally, though how perfectly designed it was made it impossible to believe that it really was natural. He ran his fingers over the faded markings, trying to figure out what material it was made from. It wasn't marker or crayon or lead or ink, it wasn't metal or plastic or anything he'd ever felt before. But when he touched it, Kyo felt a strange sensation growing in the pit of his stomach and swirling up to his brain.

It was inexplicable – just touching this apparently magical gateway filled Kyo with what he could only describe as unfamiliar nostalgia: he swore he knew this place, wherever it led to, but he had no idea where it was or what it was. He had to close his eyes when he felt the gateway against his fingertips, overwhelmed with a feeling of belonging – and yet he knew he didn't belong.

His fingers seemed to melt into the material; it became like warm liquid silk in his hands as he fought through the darkness of his closed eyes to put a descriptive word to what he was feeling. He was so engrossed in this process that he didn't notice the bright light surrounding him suddenly. It engulfed him, and Kyo gasped when he felt the warmth holding his entire being. He tried to open his eyes and say something, just to reassure himself of where he was – but he couldn't. The sound of rushing wind and a low humming bass filled his ears and his head, to the point where he couldn't even think anymore.

The next thing he knew, Kyo heard silence. Complete and utter silence. He felt no more warmth of the light, and in fact, the only thing he felt was a cool breeze flowing over his face. He blinked his eyes open and received the shock of his life when he found that he was no longer in the subway station. He was nowhere near a city, he knew. He was standing on the top of a small rolling hill – and as he turned his head, he saw that it was just one of several hills. Stunned, he stared around at the greenest grass he'd ever seen and the bluest sky he'd ever been under, and realized that he was in a completely different world.

And right in front of him, on what seemed like an ancient ruin of a smashed stone figure, was the shape that had been in the subway station. And then he remembered: the very same shape that had indeed been the decorative top of the gate to the cemetery of his old hometown.

Kyo stared at the emblem on the stone ruin. He tried to put the pieces together in his head – but it was useless. Especially when his thoughts were distracted by a shrill voice from just behind him.

"Kyo!"

Kyo gasped and spun around, gawking up at a furious Shannon as he marched towards him, his hands clenched at his sides.

But the closer he got, the more obvious Shannon could see the horror and confusion on Kyo's face, because his own fierce expression softened and his hands unclenched. A moment later, he was standing in front of Kyo, looking down at him – even though he was only a few inches taller, Shannon suddenly seemed huge to him.

"I-I didn't mean to—" Kyo stammered, his voice trembling. "I...I just...wanted to see...and I touched it...and I was just...here..."

Shannon's gaze of anger that had melted into concern now changed again – to surprise. "You what?" he whispered.

Kyo shrugged helplessly. "I just...touched it..."

Shannon swallowed hard, and in that long moment of silence between them, Kyo was able to catch a glimpse of the three people standing a few yards away from them: Shanahan, rubbing his bleary eyes and obviously not very aware of the magnitude of this situation; Ollie who was even more striking without the glaring light distracting Kyo's attention from his naturally beautiful face, which resembled Shannon's even more in common daylight; and the third was a very small young man, as he'd guessed, only a few inches taller than Shanahan, with light curly hair that hung carelessly around a square jaw and sharp cheekbones, a pointed nose, and huge, bulging eyes that, even from this distance, were almost an exact replica of Kyo's. He couldn't tell if this unknown boy was gawking at him like that out of surprise or if his eyes really were that large.

"Bloody hell," Shannon whispered, catching Kyo's attention again. He snapped his head up to see Shannon holding a hand to his head. "Okay," he said in his regular voice, "okay, listen to me, all right? Are you listening?"

Kyo nodded numbly.

"I have to do some things here today, okay? Kyo? Do you understand?"

Kyo nodded again.

"But you can't stay here. It's too..." He hesitated for a moment, then let out a breath and his expression softened immensely. He leaned in close to him. "It's just too dangerous, Kyo," he whispered. "You have to go back, all right?"

Kyo gulped and nodded again. "H-How?"

"Just do the same thing – touch the portal—"

"Portal?"

Shannon gestured to the symbol Kyo remembered from the graveyard. "Just put your hand over it and let it guide you back. All right? Do you understand?"

"Y-Yeah."

"Okay. When you get back, you go straight home and talk to Brian. All right? Got it? You have to talk to Brian. Tell him everything – what you saw, what you heard, what you experienced – everything. He'll know what to do."

Kyo swallowed hard again. "Right. Go back. Go home. Talk to Brian."

"Right. Can you do that?"

"Y-Yeah, I think so."

To help him out, since Kyo seemed too stunned to move, Shannon turned him around and guided his hand back to the symbol. "Talk to Brian," he repeated as Kyo felt the warmth enveloping him again. "He'll figure out what's going on."

As Kyo felt himself fading back into the light, he caught a glimpse of Ollie, who had come to the top of the hill again, and Shannon speaking, and what he heard made him dizzy.

"What's going on?"

"Don't know...either the portal is weakening, which is very unlikely since I still can't get in on my own and I'm a half-blood..or there are some things about Kyo not even he knows..."

Epilogue

Kyo sat in the chair across from Brian at the small table in Brian's large bedroom. Jo was lying asleep on the couch in the other room, or perhaps, Kyo thought, he was awake and listening silently. He honestly wasn't sure, so he kept his voice low, but he was also unable to lift his voice much above a whisper because he was afraid it would tremble too violently for Brian to be able to understand him.

Kyo could barely remember his long, dazed walk back to the house from the subway station in the middle of the city, but suddenly he'd been there, at Brian's bedroom door, asking to be let in so he could talk to him. After much stumbling and stammering, Kyo was finally able to tell him all about what he'd seen and heard – and experienced – that morning. It wasn't until halfway into his story that he began to worry that perhaps Brian would be angry with him for snooping so much. His face did change from concerned to irritated, and then muffled fury. But then, to Kyo's surprise (and relief), his expression melted into astonishment when he told Brian about accidentally slipping into some other kind of world, where he'd run into Shannon and the others.

When he finished his story, Brian was absolutely still and silent for a very long time. He had lowered his eyes to the table, obviously deep in thought. Kyo wanted to know so many things, but he didn't have the strength to ask them – because he was almost too afraid to know. The silence between them, through the whole bedroom, was almost too much for Kyo to take.

Eventually, Brian stood, letting out a heavy breath. As if forgetting Kyo was still in the room with him, he started pacing back and forth, biting his fingernails and muttering to himself. Kyo couldn't figure out a word he was saying, though he strained to hear him hard enough that he nearly pulled a muscle in his neck.

Finally, Brian seemed to make a definite decision. He paused at the window that looked out at the pathway to the parking spaces behind the house, and lowered his head. After a few moments, he lifted his head again and looked straight at Kyo.

"Matt's on his way. I think you two should hear this together."

Kyo gulped, nodding, though he really didn't know why Matt needed to be there.

"Before he gets here, Kyo," Brian continued, and as he did, he started looking through the giant bookcase behind him, "let me just tell you that...it's not like this was all planned out beforehand. I knew you were talented and gifted, extraordinarily gifted...but I honestly didn't suspect...this. Even with the physical characteristics, when I said you were magical, I was just being...I was just gushing. You won't understand this right now, but let me just say that Matt has been training for this for some time. He doesn't know about it yet himself, but he knows that he's been training for a very special assignment. I hadn't planned on including you on it, but it's obvious to me that you need to be a part of it. I really hadn't expected to start him – now both of you – on this for some time, but now that this has happened...we still need to check a few things, but I think I know what's going on...And now that it's happened, it would probably be best just to...get started."

Kyo blinked at him, his eyes wide. "Get started on what?"

Brian turned back to him, his arms full of various books and papers. He set them down on the table and pulled one long sheet of paper out, lying it flat on the wooden surface. Kyo looked down at it warily; it was a map. He glanced back up at Brian, who was watching him with very grave blue eyes.

"Your mission."

Kyo sat silently after Matt arrived a few minutes later, staring at the ominous and very unfamiliar map in front of him, as Brian explained what had happened to Kyo. He gave Matt the same kind of speech he'd given Kyo about not expecting this to happen so quickly.

To Kyo's surprise, Matt didn't seem quite as surprised as he himself felt. Matt merely sat back in his chair, slinging a foot onto the opposite knee, and asked, "So what is this mission?"

Brian finally sat down across from them again and let out a long breath. "I'll tell you your mission very briefly, but you aren't to ask any questions – because I will explain things to you after I'm finished." He drew in another deep breath, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Your mission is to help Shannon and Jo keep Shanahan protected...in this world. Not only that, but you are to assist Ollie, Malachai, Polly, and Katy in keeping Quinlan and his followers powerless. In their world."

Matt and Kyo stared up at him expectantly. Brian stared down at the map without saying another word.

Finally, Kyo cleared his throat and Brian lifted his eyes to him again.

"Yes?"

"Um...well...we aren't to ask any questions, but..."

"I know," Brian said, attempting to smile a bit, but it faded almost immediately. "Um, I'm just trying to figure out where to begin."

"Um...maybe by telling us who these other people are?" Matt suggested.

"No," Brian sighed. "I have to go back farther than that. I have to start...with Kyo."

Kyo blinked again, startled. "Me?"

"Yes." Brian shook his head hopelessly. "I know you two will believe everything I say, because of things you've already seen, and especially since Kyo actually experienced the other world, but...well, there, I've said it."

Matt leaned in closer to him, his eyes straying to the map on the table. "Other world?"

"Yes. I-I really don't know what else to call it. `World' is hardly an accurate description for it. It's more like...a...a...different place and time all together. It's like another dimension, but one that's been there perhaps longer than ours, and one that's produced more races and species than we know. And hardly any of them are known to humans. The ones most like ourselves, we've probably all heard of, through stories and other fiction. The thing is, even those of us, Matt, who aren't of that world, but who have the kinds of abilities you and I have, we are more in tune with and capable to connect with that world than average humans."

His gaze strayed to Kyo. "Now...you...I'm quite confused about. But I think there is...well, once it's been accepted as truth that this other world exists, there is a reasonable explanation for this. And I'm pretty surprised I didn't see it at first, come to think of it. But I do live and operate from this world, for the most part, so why would I think that...well..."

"Explanation?" Kyo squeaked out, cutting him off. "For what?"

Brian swallowed hard and said shakily, "For why you were raised in this world without having any idea of what you are or where you came from."

This took Kyo aback, to the point where he literally slammed back in his chair, hitting his head on the backboard. He tilted his head to the side, giving Brian a ridiculous look. "Where I came from? What...What am I?"

"You said you never knew your parents. Your real parents."

Kyo shook his head, shrugging helplessly. "No...My parents told me...they just adopted me, that's all. They didn't know anything about...my real parents..."

"And your appearance – which isn't enhanced by any artificial source already here in this world..."

Kyo gazed at him levelly, his heart pounding. "Brian...What are you trying to say?"

Brian bit his lip for a moment, then returned the steady gaze as he answered him in all seriousness and with a heavy tone to his voice.

"Kyo...you're not human."

# # #

About the author:

Jillian Kulp has been writing stories for her own amusement for over twenty years, usually while listening to music that doesn't fit the scene, or while a cartoon is playing in the background. More adventures of the members from "the voodoo house" will be documented in upcoming books – including a flashback to what really did happen to Jo!
