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Previously: take one | take two | take three | take four | take five
SO LIKE I KNOW THIS IS TECHNICALLY LATE? But the awesome thing about your own journal is that you can totally set your own schedule! :|b Also I've been ... not so much busy this week as distracted; apparently, it doesn't matter if I've seen "Boom Town" five times, because if you play it for me again, I will just sit and watch, entranced.
Today, we learn that Sen is sometimes something of a jerk! ONOEZ.
I have been wanting to write other fic, but cannot seem to sit down and focus on anything. :( I sort of think either grumpy tengu or else vaguely-porny not-okay catboys, but I'm easy? Maybe drabbles would be good for me! ... uhhhhm.
Actually, you know what? I'll do it. GIMME DRABBLE PROMPTS, fic or even for Ghost Story (haha, aren't I so presumptive? BUT I LIKE IT) -- anything that'll work as a, uhm, "palate cleanser" for my brain-meats. Yahhh. :|b
Also, everyone should go watch episode five of Genshiken 2. Especially if you're well-versed in yaoi/BL tropes.
+++++
She found them in the deepest of the store rooms, with Roy seated at the table, with a set of gleaming silver knives and a small inkpot and brush set before him, and Vincent sitting opposite of him, head in hands. Avery was fussing in the cramped attached kitchenette, clanking together cups and cutlery with an almost determined clumsiness. Sen dragged out the third chair and dropped herself into it, reaching out to prod Vincent's leg with one foot. He turned his head long enough to glance at her, then looked away again. She leaned one elbow onto the table, tapping the fingers of her other hand restlessly.
"So," she drawled, pulling the word out into multiple syllables. "When were you gonna tell me about Maya?"
Vincent's shoulders stiffened. It took a long time before he answered, "It's not anything to worry about."
"Right," she drawled. "It's *so* not anything to worry about that it's made you go into some sort of pissing alpha-male contest with Ken when he doesn't even know who the hell-- heck you are. In fact, he probably thinks you're a psychotic freak now, he was smart enough to guess what you were with just a few hints, and let me tell you, you so didn't help him feel better about the whole thing." She leaned forward, glaring at the top of his bowed head. "He's a good kid, you know? He's trying, that's better than most of the newbies have been doing. Hasn't even complained that much, when you get down to it."
"Sen," Avery said anxiously, when Vincent remained silent. "He knows, he's sorry, it's just--"
"No," Sen said. She pushed at Vincent's leg with her foot again, more like a kick than a nudge this time. "You know what? I get it. It sucks, what's happening to Maya. But at the same time? *My grandson* has this giant learning curve he needs to catch up on, and I will kick your ass if you botch this up for him."
Vincent sighed, the sound muffled by his hands. He lifted his head; his eyes were red and tired, but he'd managed the smallest of smiles. "I didn't realize you cared so much," he said.
She kicked his leg again. "You know, just because *some* of us don't spend all our time *angsting* about our families doesn't mean we don't care."
"I wasn't aware that actually keeping up with one's family was angsting," Vincent said dryly, then moved his leg out of the way when she tricked another kick. "He doesn't seem so bad, that grandson of yours."
It was as much of a peace offering as Vincent ever gave. Sen made a face at him and leaned back in her chair, tossing one arm back over the head and propping a foot against the table. She looked over at Roy. "You almost done with those?"
"Almost," Roy said placidly. Four of the six knives were lined up by his right elbow, and someone deliberately looking would be able to see a hazy net of light surrounding each individual blade. He dipped his brush into the inkpot and trailed it delicately along the knife in his left hand, right where the blade fit snugly into its hilt. The blessing-spells weren't difficult so much as time-consuming, and Roy had a steadier hand and greater patience than Sen could ever manage, unbothered by the pure silver worked into the knives. "Another hour. Maybe two."
Sen made a face at him. "Great. Don't rush on my account or anything," she said, and tipped her head back before she actually saw the smile tug at his mouth.
"You don't have to stay," Vincent said, but he'd relaxed as well, less hunched and gathered in his seat. "In fact, maybe we'd prefer it if you got up and took a walk instead of making a nuisance of yourself here."
"Didn't you know?" She squirmed in her chair to arrange herself more comfortably, sliding her foot further onto the table for balance. "Making things difficult for you is one of the great joys of my existence."
"Sometimes," he said, completely straight-faced, "your very existence makes things difficult for me."
"Vincent," Avery said, though he sounded more amused than scolding. He brought over a laden tea tray and set it down on the table, nudging Sen's foot aside as he did. He hitched one hip onto the table and picked up a steaming mug to cradle between both hands. "Sen, you too. I've looked over the samples you've brought in -- are you certain this is the same man from last year?"
She huffed, reaching for a cup of her own. "I'm pretty da-- er, darn sure," she said. "And if I wasn't, Roy is."
Both Avery and Vincent turned to Roy, who blew gently on drying ink and set his fifth knife aside. He looked up at them in turn and shrugged.
"It smelled the same," he said. "Both of the revenants had the same fingerprints all over them. If it's not him, it's a good copycat."
"Forget *good*," Sen grumbled. She swung both feet on the table again, ignoring Avery's cleared throat. "It'd have to be, like, his freaking twin brother or something." She frowned, setting her teeth against the rim of her cup with an audible clink. "Why?"
Avery put his hands down and laced his fingers together. Vincent scooted forward in his chair, laying a hand on Avery's knee, and even Roy looked up, the last knife balanced on his fingertips.
"The samples you brought keep changing," Avery said, low and apologetic, like it was all his fault. "I can't get anything to stay in focus, and I can't even be in the same room with them for very long before I start feeling sick ..."
"Wait, wait, *what*." Sen sat up, her feet thumping back onto the floor; Roy put the knife aside, his expression grim. She leaned forward, ducking down until she could meet Avery's eyes with her own, and sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, man, are you trying to tell me he's *fallen*? The whole demonic shebang?"
Avery sat still as stone, then nodded, the gesture so minute she almost missed it. On his knees, his hands began to tremble, and each individual freckle stark against his skin, cut through by the symbol on his cheek. Vincent half-rose, placing a hand on the small of Avery's back; Avery leaned into it, closing his eyes. Roy looked at Sen, who let out a whistle through her teeth and back into her seat, limbs splayed and boneless in shock. She lifted a hand and scratched at her cheek, staring blankly into space.
"Well, *damn*," she said.
+++
"Change of plans," Sen announced, as soon as Ken picked up his phone. "Me and Roy are gonna be there in like fifteen minutes. Don't go anywhere, okay?"
"Huh?" He blinked, red pen dangling loosely from one hand. His pile of students reports was only half-finished, though it was already dark outside. He had the bedroom window cracked open for ventilation -- the night was warmer than it had been for some time, and his apartment could grow painfully stuffy without any outlet for moving air. "Sen?"
"I'm serious," she said. There was a brief burst of static, and when it cleared she was saying, "--sucks, but it's worse than I thought it was. Just stay put and don't let anyone else in. You're wearing the necklace Avery gave you, right?"
He blinked and looked down; he could just barely see part of the chain disappearing under his shirt. "Yeah," he said. "I haven't taken it off all day."
"Really? That's good, no, that's really good!" Sen sounded relieved. "Promise me, okay? Don't take it off, and don't leave your apartment. I don't care who comes knocking, don't--"
In the background, he heard Roy say something, and a muffled noise as Sen said something directly to him before going back to her phone. "Just do it, okay?"
"I told you before," Ken said, propping the phone between ear and shoulder. "I wasn't planning on going anywhere today, I've got a ton of work to get through by Monday." He paused as her earlier words sank in. "Wait, you're coming *here*? Why?"
"You're so gonna hate this," she said matter-of-factly, and it sounded rather like she was on a bus from the background noise, "but I can't tell you right now. Just trust me on this, okay? I haven't lead you wrong yet, have I?"
"I'm not so sure about that," he said dryly. He jotted a few comments onto the report before him and circled misplaced sigfigs. "You said the charm would be enough. What changed?"
"My information," Sen said. "Can you just promise? For me?"
"Yeah, sure," he said. "You're not spending the night, though."
"Ten minutes," Sen told him, and hung up.
Ken had to put his pen down to get hold of his cell, looking at it for a moment before switching it off and placing it on the side of his desk, away from clumsy elbows or his half-filled coffee. Only partly paying attention, he totaled up the docked points from the report, wrote the grade and circled it twice, then tossed it aside. Sen's phone call had only been one in a whole series of minor distractions, following flash games, an email from Elizabeth buried in the handful he'd received from students throughout the day, and the peculiar weight of the cat's eye around his neck. He'd gone for hours at a time throughout the day without even noticing its presence, but twice he'd turned his head and felt it *burn*, like someone had dropped hot ash directly onto his skin. Both times it passed quickly as it came, but his concentration had been thoroughly broken enough to send him wandering around the confines of his apartment, though never quite enough to send him outside.
With a groan, he capped his pen and dropped it, sliding his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. They ached in time with the dull headache gathered in his temples, and he pressed his fingertips against them, trying to will the pressure in his skull to recede. It didn't help much.
He was groping blindly for his coffee when he heard the voice.
It was whisper-soft, almost drowned out by the wind outside, and it sounded exactly like Yuki. The words were lost before he could make them out, fading into mumbling obscurity. He frowned, pushing back in his chair and leaning towards the window, straining to hear. Just as he was about to write it off as his imagination, the wind picked up and he heard it a second time, this time clearly enough to hear his own name drawn out, Kennnnnnn, like a dying sigh.
Ken slid his fingers through the slats of his blinds and scissored them, peeking outside. The streetlight directly across from his room was lit, and standing at the edge of the yellow-tinted spotlight was a familiar-looking person. He squinted and leaned until his forehead was pressed to glass and plastic, pushing his glasses up his nose for a better look; as he did, the figure turned around and waved, apparently right at him, before it stepped fully into the lamplight and lifted its face.
Yuki?
He pressed both his palms to the flat of the window, squinting hard at the appearence of his sister. She tilted her head and smiled; he could see that and her wide-open eyes even from the distance. Both look stilted, awkward -- *off* in some undefinable way, and worry blossomed as a twisting ache in the pit of his stomach. Ken took a breath and glanced back quickly, reaching for his cellphone. It rang as soon as his fingers brushed it. He jumped and turned back to the window, and saw Yuki had her own phone to her ear, still staring up at him and grinning. The display had her name.
Meeting her eyes from across the street, he opened his phone. "Hello?"
"Hey," came his answer, Yuki-but-not; unlike the double-voice that had overlaid Rob's the other night, it sounded more like someone trying to do an impression of Yuki, just a little too high to match perfectly. "Ken. Keeeeeen. Kenny! It's me."
"Yuki?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral. "You haven't called me Kenny in years."
"Awww," she crooned, and he saw her lips form the word, pursing into a tight bow. "Don't like it, Kenny?"
"If I remember," he said, "the last time you did I was ten, and I got in trouble for hitting you."
She tsked and took a step towards him, so that her face faded back into obscuring shadows. "Hitting little girls? I'm ashamed, Kenny. What sort of big brother are you?"
"Older and wiser now." He wanted to step back from the window, but she began walking towards his apartment with a smooth hip-rolling gait that Yuki had never used in her entire life. "Mom and Dad know you're out here this time of night?"
She paused; he could still see the top of her head, but nothing else. "Oh, well, that is a question, isn't it. Maybe they do, maybe they don't." She laughed, so much like and unlike his sister that it sent a cold chill through him. Worry spooled out into dread and Ken gripped the windowsill with his free hand, straining to keep her in sight when she began to move again. "You could call and ask them yourself, if you wanted."
"I'm on the phone with you, though," he said. "C'mon, you want to tell me?"
Again she laughed. "We could keep this going *all night*," she said brightly. "Maybe we will. I'll be there in a minute."
She moved out of sight. Ken was about to risk opening the window to lean his head out when he saw a brilliant flash of green light to his left. Over the phone, he heard Yuki's voice scream, and *now* it sounded exactly like his little sister, like the time when they were kids and he'd turned his head for just a split second and she'd rolled off the kitchen counter, cracking her head on the way down. Before he could think to stop himself he dropped his phone and went sprint off, out of his apartment and tearing down the hallway with his heart caught somewhere in his throat. Around his neck the amulet burned, growing hotter with every step, so he grabbed at the chain and yanked at it.
It refused to budge, so he dropped it, this time on the outside of his shirt, in time to throw the front doors open.
A small figure lay on the stairs before him, tucked into a ball with its arms over its head. It looked up briefly at him, and he jerked back: the face had been Yuki's once, but now it was distorted, with her lower jaw extended and her forehead lifted, as though someone hand put their fingers to her eyebrows and just shoved upwards until the skin had stuck. Half of it was wet with blood, and through the cuts, he could see shiny wet gray skin underneath. She tried to smile as she pushed herself up.
"Kenny," she rasped, the sound wet and harsh. "Kenny, it's me ..." She reached for him and Ken recoiled as a booted foot came down hard on top of that hand.
He looked up at Sen as she ground her heel down, expression poisonously pleasant. Around her was an electric green light that made him think of phosphorescence, with darker and brighter patches forming a constantly-shifting ring around her. She crouched down and took a handful of dark hair, yanking it up so that the not-Yuki was forced to stare upwards, past Ken and into the dark arch of the apartment's doorway.
"Hi," Sen said, her voice dripping sweetness. The malice in her eyes was unmistakable as she leaned down, her hair sliding forward to frame their faces like a curtain. She put her other hand on not-Yuki's chin, pinching its jaw shut. "It's *me*."
The thing's eyes rounded with something very much like terror. It hissed and began to scrabble at the stairs, leaving wet black stains across the cement. Sen jerked its head up higher and held out a hand; Roy stepped out of the shadows and handed her a knife whose blade gleamed in the strange green light. A line of symbols was drawn along the sharp edge, tiny and distinct, glowing pure white. Carelessly, Sen flipped it in her fingers and pressed it to the not-Yuki's throat. It gurgled, sounding terrified, its wild eyes still fixed on Ken.
"Please, Ken," it said in Yuki's voice. Without the phone's distortion, it sounded more like her than before, like she did when she was sick or tired or just afraid. Under Sen's heel, its fingers twitched. It strained its body forward as far as Sen's grip on its hair and hand would allow "Please, oh god, Ken, help me, please--"
Ken took a step forward and flinched as sudden pain exploded in his chest -- a tiny condensed burst of heat from the amulet around his neck. He yanked at the chain again and saw that the material of his shirt was smoking faintly. The chain itself was just barely skin-warm, but he could see the steam from the cat's eye itself.
He looked up in time to see Sen press the knife harder against the thing's throat and pull. It jerked, a wet noise dying in its throat that might have been Ken's name. A thin, brackish stream of liquid spurted from the injury, where the skin had peeled back to reveal more gray flesh. The smell was sudden and horrible, like overripe meat left in the sun, and the fact that stared blankly up at him still looked enough like Yuki to make Ken's stomach turn. He staggered over to the side and dropped to his knees to throw up in the bushes.
In his hand, the cat's eye went cold.
"*Damn* it," Sen said fiercely. Ken couldn't make himself look, even when he heard rustling noises, then a series of low wet thuds. When something touched his back, he jumped, one arm lashing out. It glanced across something warm and solid and got him a pained yelp from Sen. He peeked, and she was sitting next to him, fallen back in a sprawl, rubbing her jaw and looking at him in surprise. The green fire from before was gone completely, and all that was left was the light from the lamp across the street.
"Okay," she said. Roy bent to help her up, and their bodies huddled together hid the third one from Ken's sight. "Okay, ow. We really gotta work on that whole 'gratitude for people who saved my sorry ass' part of your attitude."
Ken swallowed. His gaze flickered down, to where the dark stains on the stairs were no longer quite visible. "... Yuki?" he asked softly.
"No," Sen said. "Not really. Look, can we--" She looked around and seemed to shiver, pulling her coat tighter around herself. "Let's go inside, okay? It's cold."
He wiped his mouth with the back of one sleeve. The rotting meat smell still lingered in the air, though at least his gag reflex seemed to have settled. When he looked at Sen and blinked, he could see the afterimage of phosphorescent fire around her on his eyelids.
"What are you?" he asked softly.
Sen and Roy exchanged glances. She gave a small shrug. "Your grandmother," she said.
Ken shook his head slowly. "No," he said. "What *are* you?" He flopped one hand listlessly. "Just. Tell me what." He looked at Roy for the last, and was duly surprised when the other man just shrugged. Sen approached him again, slipping her hands under his arms and pulling him up to his knees, at which point autopilot took over and he rose unsteadily the rest of the way to his feet. She tucked the cat's eye necklace back under his shirt, where it chafed against raw skin, and took his wrist in her hand.
"Inside," she said gently, and guided him home.
+++
Once back in the familiar close quarters of his apartment, Ken let himself be pushed down onto the living room loveseat. He folded his hands on his knees and stared at them, half-aware of Sen perched on the arm beside him, of Roy walking the perimeters of the room before eventually coming to stand beside Ken, so that he was flanked by the two of them.
"I thought," he said, and paused to swallow and clear his throat, "I thought I was getting used to this. Uh. Whatever all of it is. I thought, but then ... that ..." He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. "That thing ..."
"A shapeshifter," said Sen. "Probably some variation of the Púca or skinwalker." She shifted and nudged his leg gently with one foot. "Your sister's fine, Ken. You can call them, if you don't believe me, but I swear that they're all safe."
Roy's hand slid into his vision, offering his cellphone. Ken took it quietly, holding it loosely in both hands.
He looked up and licked his lips. "A Púca, you said," he whispered. "What're those?"
"Normally? They like to play pranks," Sen said. She hooked her ankles together, swinging them against the arm of the loveseat. "They like a good laugh at the expense of humans, but they normally don't try anything with deliberate malicious intent." Ken saw her exchange an uneasy look with Roy before she went on, "And they never pay house-calls like this, not unless you're living on a farm and haven't paid them their share of the crops."
Ken nodded. Slowly, feeling like a man trapped underwater, he hit the speed dial for his mother's phone and brought it to his ear.
After two rings, it picked up. "Hello? Ken-chan? You're calling late, is something wrong?"
"Mom," he said. He looked first at Sen, then at Roy, and cleared his throat. "Hey, is Yuki there?"
"Of course she is," his mother said. She sounded surprised. "Why?"
"I just ..." He looked down, picking idly at a loose thread on his shirt. "Just wondered. You know. I thought--"
"Still, it's a good thing you called me instead," his mother went on. "Yuki-chan's lost her phone, doesn't even remember where she last saw it. Papa's probably going to take her to get a new one tomorrow."
"Oh?" He blinked. "Did you have the old one deactivated, then?"
"Yesterday, yes!" His mother sighed; he could easily picture the headshake accompanying that tone of voice. "After we tried calling it over and over and it wasn't anywhere in the house. Honestly, I worry about that sister of yours, Ken-chan, she's almost seventeen and she's still losing things like that--"
"Sorry, Mom," he interrupted. He stared at Sen, whose expression was unreadable. "I gotta go."
"Eh? But wait, Ken-chan--"
"Love you," he said. "Sorry."
He hung up and let his arm drop. "Yuki's phone is missing," he said.
Sen shrugged. "Not surprised," she said. "Even the best shapeshifters usually need something that belongs to the person in question, when they're trying to take a specific human form." She kicked her legs again. "It probably stole your sister's phone and used that as its focus point."
Ken dropped his head again, staring at his hands. "It looked like Yuki," he said quietly. "I ... you just killed someone who looked like my little sister."
"It wasn't, though," she said, sounding utterly matter-of-fact. "It was just pretending to be her. Problem taken care of, so let's move on to the more important things--"
"More important?" Ken stared. "That thing *took my little sister's face* and you killed it without even thinking about it."
"It was going to kill *you*, if you don't remember," Sen said sharply. She drew herself up and frowned at him. "And hey, didn't I tell you to stay in your apartment?"
"Doesn't it bother you at all?" he asked incredulously. "She's -- Yuki's your grandchild too! If it had really been her--"
"If it had really been her, like there and like that," Sen growled, hunching her shoulders, "then she would've been so consumed by the thing inside her that there'd be nothing left worth saving." At Ken's stunned look, she made an irritated noise and hopped off the loveseat arm to pace. "Remember what happened to your friend? If anything like that gets into you for long enough, it just starts sort of -- *eating* at you. Literally. And after a while ..." She spun on her heel to look at him and drew a line across her throat. "There's no more you, just the thing that's wearing your skin."
He rubbed his palms together, meeting her eyes without flinching. "So if that happened to me," he said evenly, "or any other member of my family, you'd just. Kill us like that."
She looked exasperated. "Is anything I'm actually saying getting through to you?" she asked, throwing her arms into the air. "Demons, Ken! Real, one hundred percent genuine demons! *That eat your soul.* Are you getting this?"
"I'm saying that maybe you don't just have to kill them," Ken said. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You could try saving them. Especially if it's someone from your family."
For a moment Sen continued to stare. Then she let out a hissing sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, squinching her eyes shut. "Oh, god," she said. "You're one of *those*."
He straightened, his hands tightening on his knees. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"One of *those*," she said, flapping her free hand at him. "Those people who're so obsessed with shades of gray that they don't remember there sometimes IS just ordinary black and white."
"I'm not saying that," he began, but Sen had already gone on, her voice rising in volume as she went:
"Look, all I'm saying is that there's a certain point where nothing you can do is going to save *anyone*. Doesn't matter if you're a freaking angel, there's still a limit, and that thing out there wasn't even salvageable in the first place." She began to pace again. "There's some moron out there who thinks he's a bigshot wizard who's summoning freaking anything he can get his hands on, and *you're* worried about--"
"Sen," Roy said quietly.
Her tirade cut off at once, and she rubbed her face again, an irritated noise rising in her throat. Roy moved away from the couch, his hand brushing her shoulder as he passed her. He looked at Ken.
"It's late," he said. "There probably won't be anything else coming tonight, but it'd be safer for us to stay." He looked to the window behind the loveseat, and Ken followed his gaze, wondering if the body of the not-Yuki had just been left where it lay, or dragged off to the bushes, its throat slit and eyes glazed and staring. Bile rose in his throat, and for a moment he thought he would be sick.
Instead, he leaned back a little, his breath hissing out through his teeth. "I'd rather you not," he said, but got to his feet, giving Sen a wide berth as he crossed the room. He pulled two blankets from his closet and returned to hand them over. Roy accepted them with odd gravity. Sen had flopped down onto the loveseat again, one arm over her face; though she lay in a loose sprawl, there was a set to her shoulders and mouth that betrayed her lingering anger.
"There will be more coming," Roy said quietly as he tucked one of the blankets around Sen. She muttered sourly at him, but didn't otherwise move. "Things that will continue to steal the shapes of those you love, in order to try and get to you. They'll use whatever they can to wear you down, and you're not yet old enough to put it behind you."
"And she is?" Ken asked, crossing his arms. "What is she?"
"Your grandmother," said Roy. He straightened and looked Ken straight in the eye, calmly unflinching as he'd been before, as he always was. "And she loves you. Remember that."
Ken opened his mouth. He looked at Sen, who'd moved her arm enough to glare back; she also appeared unapologetic for her outburst, anger still clear in the tenseness of her body. There was a dark smudge on her cheek -- a bruise or ichor or worse, he couldn't tell in the dim lighting.
"Fine," he said at last, and turned his back on them both.
SO LIKE I KNOW THIS IS TECHNICALLY LATE? But the awesome thing about your own journal is that you can totally set your own schedule! :|b Also I've been ... not so much busy this week as distracted; apparently, it doesn't matter if I've seen "Boom Town" five times, because if you play it for me again, I will just sit and watch, entranced.
Today, we learn that Sen is sometimes something of a jerk! ONOEZ.
I have been wanting to write other fic, but cannot seem to sit down and focus on anything. :( I sort of think either grumpy tengu or else vaguely-porny not-okay catboys, but I'm easy? Maybe drabbles would be good for me! ... uhhhhm.
Actually, you know what? I'll do it. GIMME DRABBLE PROMPTS, fic or even for Ghost Story (haha, aren't I so presumptive? BUT I LIKE IT) -- anything that'll work as a, uhm, "palate cleanser" for my brain-meats. Yahhh. :|b
Also, everyone should go watch episode five of Genshiken 2. Especially if you're well-versed in yaoi/BL tropes.
+++++
She found them in the deepest of the store rooms, with Roy seated at the table, with a set of gleaming silver knives and a small inkpot and brush set before him, and Vincent sitting opposite of him, head in hands. Avery was fussing in the cramped attached kitchenette, clanking together cups and cutlery with an almost determined clumsiness. Sen dragged out the third chair and dropped herself into it, reaching out to prod Vincent's leg with one foot. He turned his head long enough to glance at her, then looked away again. She leaned one elbow onto the table, tapping the fingers of her other hand restlessly.
"So," she drawled, pulling the word out into multiple syllables. "When were you gonna tell me about Maya?"
Vincent's shoulders stiffened. It took a long time before he answered, "It's not anything to worry about."
"Right," she drawled. "It's *so* not anything to worry about that it's made you go into some sort of pissing alpha-male contest with Ken when he doesn't even know who the hell-- heck you are. In fact, he probably thinks you're a psychotic freak now, he was smart enough to guess what you were with just a few hints, and let me tell you, you so didn't help him feel better about the whole thing." She leaned forward, glaring at the top of his bowed head. "He's a good kid, you know? He's trying, that's better than most of the newbies have been doing. Hasn't even complained that much, when you get down to it."
"Sen," Avery said anxiously, when Vincent remained silent. "He knows, he's sorry, it's just--"
"No," Sen said. She pushed at Vincent's leg with her foot again, more like a kick than a nudge this time. "You know what? I get it. It sucks, what's happening to Maya. But at the same time? *My grandson* has this giant learning curve he needs to catch up on, and I will kick your ass if you botch this up for him."
Vincent sighed, the sound muffled by his hands. He lifted his head; his eyes were red and tired, but he'd managed the smallest of smiles. "I didn't realize you cared so much," he said.
She kicked his leg again. "You know, just because *some* of us don't spend all our time *angsting* about our families doesn't mean we don't care."
"I wasn't aware that actually keeping up with one's family was angsting," Vincent said dryly, then moved his leg out of the way when she tricked another kick. "He doesn't seem so bad, that grandson of yours."
It was as much of a peace offering as Vincent ever gave. Sen made a face at him and leaned back in her chair, tossing one arm back over the head and propping a foot against the table. She looked over at Roy. "You almost done with those?"
"Almost," Roy said placidly. Four of the six knives were lined up by his right elbow, and someone deliberately looking would be able to see a hazy net of light surrounding each individual blade. He dipped his brush into the inkpot and trailed it delicately along the knife in his left hand, right where the blade fit snugly into its hilt. The blessing-spells weren't difficult so much as time-consuming, and Roy had a steadier hand and greater patience than Sen could ever manage, unbothered by the pure silver worked into the knives. "Another hour. Maybe two."
Sen made a face at him. "Great. Don't rush on my account or anything," she said, and tipped her head back before she actually saw the smile tug at his mouth.
"You don't have to stay," Vincent said, but he'd relaxed as well, less hunched and gathered in his seat. "In fact, maybe we'd prefer it if you got up and took a walk instead of making a nuisance of yourself here."
"Didn't you know?" She squirmed in her chair to arrange herself more comfortably, sliding her foot further onto the table for balance. "Making things difficult for you is one of the great joys of my existence."
"Sometimes," he said, completely straight-faced, "your very existence makes things difficult for me."
"Vincent," Avery said, though he sounded more amused than scolding. He brought over a laden tea tray and set it down on the table, nudging Sen's foot aside as he did. He hitched one hip onto the table and picked up a steaming mug to cradle between both hands. "Sen, you too. I've looked over the samples you've brought in -- are you certain this is the same man from last year?"
She huffed, reaching for a cup of her own. "I'm pretty da-- er, darn sure," she said. "And if I wasn't, Roy is."
Both Avery and Vincent turned to Roy, who blew gently on drying ink and set his fifth knife aside. He looked up at them in turn and shrugged.
"It smelled the same," he said. "Both of the revenants had the same fingerprints all over them. If it's not him, it's a good copycat."
"Forget *good*," Sen grumbled. She swung both feet on the table again, ignoring Avery's cleared throat. "It'd have to be, like, his freaking twin brother or something." She frowned, setting her teeth against the rim of her cup with an audible clink. "Why?"
Avery put his hands down and laced his fingers together. Vincent scooted forward in his chair, laying a hand on Avery's knee, and even Roy looked up, the last knife balanced on his fingertips.
"The samples you brought keep changing," Avery said, low and apologetic, like it was all his fault. "I can't get anything to stay in focus, and I can't even be in the same room with them for very long before I start feeling sick ..."
"Wait, wait, *what*." Sen sat up, her feet thumping back onto the floor; Roy put the knife aside, his expression grim. She leaned forward, ducking down until she could meet Avery's eyes with her own, and sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, man, are you trying to tell me he's *fallen*? The whole demonic shebang?"
Avery sat still as stone, then nodded, the gesture so minute she almost missed it. On his knees, his hands began to tremble, and each individual freckle stark against his skin, cut through by the symbol on his cheek. Vincent half-rose, placing a hand on the small of Avery's back; Avery leaned into it, closing his eyes. Roy looked at Sen, who let out a whistle through her teeth and back into her seat, limbs splayed and boneless in shock. She lifted a hand and scratched at her cheek, staring blankly into space.
"Well, *damn*," she said.
+++
"Change of plans," Sen announced, as soon as Ken picked up his phone. "Me and Roy are gonna be there in like fifteen minutes. Don't go anywhere, okay?"
"Huh?" He blinked, red pen dangling loosely from one hand. His pile of students reports was only half-finished, though it was already dark outside. He had the bedroom window cracked open for ventilation -- the night was warmer than it had been for some time, and his apartment could grow painfully stuffy without any outlet for moving air. "Sen?"
"I'm serious," she said. There was a brief burst of static, and when it cleared she was saying, "--sucks, but it's worse than I thought it was. Just stay put and don't let anyone else in. You're wearing the necklace Avery gave you, right?"
He blinked and looked down; he could just barely see part of the chain disappearing under his shirt. "Yeah," he said. "I haven't taken it off all day."
"Really? That's good, no, that's really good!" Sen sounded relieved. "Promise me, okay? Don't take it off, and don't leave your apartment. I don't care who comes knocking, don't--"
In the background, he heard Roy say something, and a muffled noise as Sen said something directly to him before going back to her phone. "Just do it, okay?"
"I told you before," Ken said, propping the phone between ear and shoulder. "I wasn't planning on going anywhere today, I've got a ton of work to get through by Monday." He paused as her earlier words sank in. "Wait, you're coming *here*? Why?"
"You're so gonna hate this," she said matter-of-factly, and it sounded rather like she was on a bus from the background noise, "but I can't tell you right now. Just trust me on this, okay? I haven't lead you wrong yet, have I?"
"I'm not so sure about that," he said dryly. He jotted a few comments onto the report before him and circled misplaced sigfigs. "You said the charm would be enough. What changed?"
"My information," Sen said. "Can you just promise? For me?"
"Yeah, sure," he said. "You're not spending the night, though."
"Ten minutes," Sen told him, and hung up.
Ken had to put his pen down to get hold of his cell, looking at it for a moment before switching it off and placing it on the side of his desk, away from clumsy elbows or his half-filled coffee. Only partly paying attention, he totaled up the docked points from the report, wrote the grade and circled it twice, then tossed it aside. Sen's phone call had only been one in a whole series of minor distractions, following flash games, an email from Elizabeth buried in the handful he'd received from students throughout the day, and the peculiar weight of the cat's eye around his neck. He'd gone for hours at a time throughout the day without even noticing its presence, but twice he'd turned his head and felt it *burn*, like someone had dropped hot ash directly onto his skin. Both times it passed quickly as it came, but his concentration had been thoroughly broken enough to send him wandering around the confines of his apartment, though never quite enough to send him outside.
With a groan, he capped his pen and dropped it, sliding his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. They ached in time with the dull headache gathered in his temples, and he pressed his fingertips against them, trying to will the pressure in his skull to recede. It didn't help much.
He was groping blindly for his coffee when he heard the voice.
It was whisper-soft, almost drowned out by the wind outside, and it sounded exactly like Yuki. The words were lost before he could make them out, fading into mumbling obscurity. He frowned, pushing back in his chair and leaning towards the window, straining to hear. Just as he was about to write it off as his imagination, the wind picked up and he heard it a second time, this time clearly enough to hear his own name drawn out, Kennnnnnn, like a dying sigh.
Ken slid his fingers through the slats of his blinds and scissored them, peeking outside. The streetlight directly across from his room was lit, and standing at the edge of the yellow-tinted spotlight was a familiar-looking person. He squinted and leaned until his forehead was pressed to glass and plastic, pushing his glasses up his nose for a better look; as he did, the figure turned around and waved, apparently right at him, before it stepped fully into the lamplight and lifted its face.
Yuki?
He pressed both his palms to the flat of the window, squinting hard at the appearence of his sister. She tilted her head and smiled; he could see that and her wide-open eyes even from the distance. Both look stilted, awkward -- *off* in some undefinable way, and worry blossomed as a twisting ache in the pit of his stomach. Ken took a breath and glanced back quickly, reaching for his cellphone. It rang as soon as his fingers brushed it. He jumped and turned back to the window, and saw Yuki had her own phone to her ear, still staring up at him and grinning. The display had her name.
Meeting her eyes from across the street, he opened his phone. "Hello?"
"Hey," came his answer, Yuki-but-not; unlike the double-voice that had overlaid Rob's the other night, it sounded more like someone trying to do an impression of Yuki, just a little too high to match perfectly. "Ken. Keeeeeen. Kenny! It's me."
"Yuki?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral. "You haven't called me Kenny in years."
"Awww," she crooned, and he saw her lips form the word, pursing into a tight bow. "Don't like it, Kenny?"
"If I remember," he said, "the last time you did I was ten, and I got in trouble for hitting you."
She tsked and took a step towards him, so that her face faded back into obscuring shadows. "Hitting little girls? I'm ashamed, Kenny. What sort of big brother are you?"
"Older and wiser now." He wanted to step back from the window, but she began walking towards his apartment with a smooth hip-rolling gait that Yuki had never used in her entire life. "Mom and Dad know you're out here this time of night?"
She paused; he could still see the top of her head, but nothing else. "Oh, well, that is a question, isn't it. Maybe they do, maybe they don't." She laughed, so much like and unlike his sister that it sent a cold chill through him. Worry spooled out into dread and Ken gripped the windowsill with his free hand, straining to keep her in sight when she began to move again. "You could call and ask them yourself, if you wanted."
"I'm on the phone with you, though," he said. "C'mon, you want to tell me?"
Again she laughed. "We could keep this going *all night*," she said brightly. "Maybe we will. I'll be there in a minute."
She moved out of sight. Ken was about to risk opening the window to lean his head out when he saw a brilliant flash of green light to his left. Over the phone, he heard Yuki's voice scream, and *now* it sounded exactly like his little sister, like the time when they were kids and he'd turned his head for just a split second and she'd rolled off the kitchen counter, cracking her head on the way down. Before he could think to stop himself he dropped his phone and went sprint off, out of his apartment and tearing down the hallway with his heart caught somewhere in his throat. Around his neck the amulet burned, growing hotter with every step, so he grabbed at the chain and yanked at it.
It refused to budge, so he dropped it, this time on the outside of his shirt, in time to throw the front doors open.
A small figure lay on the stairs before him, tucked into a ball with its arms over its head. It looked up briefly at him, and he jerked back: the face had been Yuki's once, but now it was distorted, with her lower jaw extended and her forehead lifted, as though someone hand put their fingers to her eyebrows and just shoved upwards until the skin had stuck. Half of it was wet with blood, and through the cuts, he could see shiny wet gray skin underneath. She tried to smile as she pushed herself up.
"Kenny," she rasped, the sound wet and harsh. "Kenny, it's me ..." She reached for him and Ken recoiled as a booted foot came down hard on top of that hand.
He looked up at Sen as she ground her heel down, expression poisonously pleasant. Around her was an electric green light that made him think of phosphorescence, with darker and brighter patches forming a constantly-shifting ring around her. She crouched down and took a handful of dark hair, yanking it up so that the not-Yuki was forced to stare upwards, past Ken and into the dark arch of the apartment's doorway.
"Hi," Sen said, her voice dripping sweetness. The malice in her eyes was unmistakable as she leaned down, her hair sliding forward to frame their faces like a curtain. She put her other hand on not-Yuki's chin, pinching its jaw shut. "It's *me*."
The thing's eyes rounded with something very much like terror. It hissed and began to scrabble at the stairs, leaving wet black stains across the cement. Sen jerked its head up higher and held out a hand; Roy stepped out of the shadows and handed her a knife whose blade gleamed in the strange green light. A line of symbols was drawn along the sharp edge, tiny and distinct, glowing pure white. Carelessly, Sen flipped it in her fingers and pressed it to the not-Yuki's throat. It gurgled, sounding terrified, its wild eyes still fixed on Ken.
"Please, Ken," it said in Yuki's voice. Without the phone's distortion, it sounded more like her than before, like she did when she was sick or tired or just afraid. Under Sen's heel, its fingers twitched. It strained its body forward as far as Sen's grip on its hair and hand would allow "Please, oh god, Ken, help me, please--"
Ken took a step forward and flinched as sudden pain exploded in his chest -- a tiny condensed burst of heat from the amulet around his neck. He yanked at the chain again and saw that the material of his shirt was smoking faintly. The chain itself was just barely skin-warm, but he could see the steam from the cat's eye itself.
He looked up in time to see Sen press the knife harder against the thing's throat and pull. It jerked, a wet noise dying in its throat that might have been Ken's name. A thin, brackish stream of liquid spurted from the injury, where the skin had peeled back to reveal more gray flesh. The smell was sudden and horrible, like overripe meat left in the sun, and the fact that stared blankly up at him still looked enough like Yuki to make Ken's stomach turn. He staggered over to the side and dropped to his knees to throw up in the bushes.
In his hand, the cat's eye went cold.
"*Damn* it," Sen said fiercely. Ken couldn't make himself look, even when he heard rustling noises, then a series of low wet thuds. When something touched his back, he jumped, one arm lashing out. It glanced across something warm and solid and got him a pained yelp from Sen. He peeked, and she was sitting next to him, fallen back in a sprawl, rubbing her jaw and looking at him in surprise. The green fire from before was gone completely, and all that was left was the light from the lamp across the street.
"Okay," she said. Roy bent to help her up, and their bodies huddled together hid the third one from Ken's sight. "Okay, ow. We really gotta work on that whole 'gratitude for people who saved my sorry ass' part of your attitude."
Ken swallowed. His gaze flickered down, to where the dark stains on the stairs were no longer quite visible. "... Yuki?" he asked softly.
"No," Sen said. "Not really. Look, can we--" She looked around and seemed to shiver, pulling her coat tighter around herself. "Let's go inside, okay? It's cold."
He wiped his mouth with the back of one sleeve. The rotting meat smell still lingered in the air, though at least his gag reflex seemed to have settled. When he looked at Sen and blinked, he could see the afterimage of phosphorescent fire around her on his eyelids.
"What are you?" he asked softly.
Sen and Roy exchanged glances. She gave a small shrug. "Your grandmother," she said.
Ken shook his head slowly. "No," he said. "What *are* you?" He flopped one hand listlessly. "Just. Tell me what." He looked at Roy for the last, and was duly surprised when the other man just shrugged. Sen approached him again, slipping her hands under his arms and pulling him up to his knees, at which point autopilot took over and he rose unsteadily the rest of the way to his feet. She tucked the cat's eye necklace back under his shirt, where it chafed against raw skin, and took his wrist in her hand.
"Inside," she said gently, and guided him home.
+++
Once back in the familiar close quarters of his apartment, Ken let himself be pushed down onto the living room loveseat. He folded his hands on his knees and stared at them, half-aware of Sen perched on the arm beside him, of Roy walking the perimeters of the room before eventually coming to stand beside Ken, so that he was flanked by the two of them.
"I thought," he said, and paused to swallow and clear his throat, "I thought I was getting used to this. Uh. Whatever all of it is. I thought, but then ... that ..." He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. "That thing ..."
"A shapeshifter," said Sen. "Probably some variation of the Púca or skinwalker." She shifted and nudged his leg gently with one foot. "Your sister's fine, Ken. You can call them, if you don't believe me, but I swear that they're all safe."
Roy's hand slid into his vision, offering his cellphone. Ken took it quietly, holding it loosely in both hands.
He looked up and licked his lips. "A Púca, you said," he whispered. "What're those?"
"Normally? They like to play pranks," Sen said. She hooked her ankles together, swinging them against the arm of the loveseat. "They like a good laugh at the expense of humans, but they normally don't try anything with deliberate malicious intent." Ken saw her exchange an uneasy look with Roy before she went on, "And they never pay house-calls like this, not unless you're living on a farm and haven't paid them their share of the crops."
Ken nodded. Slowly, feeling like a man trapped underwater, he hit the speed dial for his mother's phone and brought it to his ear.
After two rings, it picked up. "Hello? Ken-chan? You're calling late, is something wrong?"
"Mom," he said. He looked first at Sen, then at Roy, and cleared his throat. "Hey, is Yuki there?"
"Of course she is," his mother said. She sounded surprised. "Why?"
"I just ..." He looked down, picking idly at a loose thread on his shirt. "Just wondered. You know. I thought--"
"Still, it's a good thing you called me instead," his mother went on. "Yuki-chan's lost her phone, doesn't even remember where she last saw it. Papa's probably going to take her to get a new one tomorrow."
"Oh?" He blinked. "Did you have the old one deactivated, then?"
"Yesterday, yes!" His mother sighed; he could easily picture the headshake accompanying that tone of voice. "After we tried calling it over and over and it wasn't anywhere in the house. Honestly, I worry about that sister of yours, Ken-chan, she's almost seventeen and she's still losing things like that--"
"Sorry, Mom," he interrupted. He stared at Sen, whose expression was unreadable. "I gotta go."
"Eh? But wait, Ken-chan--"
"Love you," he said. "Sorry."
He hung up and let his arm drop. "Yuki's phone is missing," he said.
Sen shrugged. "Not surprised," she said. "Even the best shapeshifters usually need something that belongs to the person in question, when they're trying to take a specific human form." She kicked her legs again. "It probably stole your sister's phone and used that as its focus point."
Ken dropped his head again, staring at his hands. "It looked like Yuki," he said quietly. "I ... you just killed someone who looked like my little sister."
"It wasn't, though," she said, sounding utterly matter-of-fact. "It was just pretending to be her. Problem taken care of, so let's move on to the more important things--"
"More important?" Ken stared. "That thing *took my little sister's face* and you killed it without even thinking about it."
"It was going to kill *you*, if you don't remember," Sen said sharply. She drew herself up and frowned at him. "And hey, didn't I tell you to stay in your apartment?"
"Doesn't it bother you at all?" he asked incredulously. "She's -- Yuki's your grandchild too! If it had really been her--"
"If it had really been her, like there and like that," Sen growled, hunching her shoulders, "then she would've been so consumed by the thing inside her that there'd be nothing left worth saving." At Ken's stunned look, she made an irritated noise and hopped off the loveseat arm to pace. "Remember what happened to your friend? If anything like that gets into you for long enough, it just starts sort of -- *eating* at you. Literally. And after a while ..." She spun on her heel to look at him and drew a line across her throat. "There's no more you, just the thing that's wearing your skin."
He rubbed his palms together, meeting her eyes without flinching. "So if that happened to me," he said evenly, "or any other member of my family, you'd just. Kill us like that."
She looked exasperated. "Is anything I'm actually saying getting through to you?" she asked, throwing her arms into the air. "Demons, Ken! Real, one hundred percent genuine demons! *That eat your soul.* Are you getting this?"
"I'm saying that maybe you don't just have to kill them," Ken said. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You could try saving them. Especially if it's someone from your family."
For a moment Sen continued to stare. Then she let out a hissing sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, squinching her eyes shut. "Oh, god," she said. "You're one of *those*."
He straightened, his hands tightening on his knees. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"One of *those*," she said, flapping her free hand at him. "Those people who're so obsessed with shades of gray that they don't remember there sometimes IS just ordinary black and white."
"I'm not saying that," he began, but Sen had already gone on, her voice rising in volume as she went:
"Look, all I'm saying is that there's a certain point where nothing you can do is going to save *anyone*. Doesn't matter if you're a freaking angel, there's still a limit, and that thing out there wasn't even salvageable in the first place." She began to pace again. "There's some moron out there who thinks he's a bigshot wizard who's summoning freaking anything he can get his hands on, and *you're* worried about--"
"Sen," Roy said quietly.
Her tirade cut off at once, and she rubbed her face again, an irritated noise rising in her throat. Roy moved away from the couch, his hand brushing her shoulder as he passed her. He looked at Ken.
"It's late," he said. "There probably won't be anything else coming tonight, but it'd be safer for us to stay." He looked to the window behind the loveseat, and Ken followed his gaze, wondering if the body of the not-Yuki had just been left where it lay, or dragged off to the bushes, its throat slit and eyes glazed and staring. Bile rose in his throat, and for a moment he thought he would be sick.
Instead, he leaned back a little, his breath hissing out through his teeth. "I'd rather you not," he said, but got to his feet, giving Sen a wide berth as he crossed the room. He pulled two blankets from his closet and returned to hand them over. Roy accepted them with odd gravity. Sen had flopped down onto the loveseat again, one arm over her face; though she lay in a loose sprawl, there was a set to her shoulders and mouth that betrayed her lingering anger.
"There will be more coming," Roy said quietly as he tucked one of the blankets around Sen. She muttered sourly at him, but didn't otherwise move. "Things that will continue to steal the shapes of those you love, in order to try and get to you. They'll use whatever they can to wear you down, and you're not yet old enough to put it behind you."
"And she is?" Ken asked, crossing his arms. "What is she?"
"Your grandmother," said Roy. He straightened and looked Ken straight in the eye, calmly unflinching as he'd been before, as he always was. "And she loves you. Remember that."
Ken opened his mouth. He looked at Sen, who'd moved her arm enough to glare back; she also appeared unapologetic for her outburst, anger still clear in the tenseness of her body. There was a dark smudge on her cheek -- a bruise or ichor or worse, he couldn't tell in the dim lighting.
"Fine," he said at last, and turned his back on them both.
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