Chapter Three



Ginji sighed and looked up from the morning's notes. They'd been halfway round the district already, checking all the reliable and unreliable sources they had, and he ached for a nice platter of sushi. But look, here was Rena, with a plate piled high with ham sandwiches. What a pity Ban was out there making sure the parking meter was paid up for once. He'd have to be sure to save his partner some sandwiches. Well, at least two. Perhaps one.

"Here you are," Rena said softly, putting the plate on the table. Her eyes were soft and dark with concern. "Ginji-san . . ."

Ginji held himself back from grabbing a sandwich, caught by something in her tone. "Yes, Rena-chan? What is it?"

She fiddled with the edge of the table, pale fingers and painted nails tapping against the dark wood. "Ginji-san -- I had a dream about you last night. You and the others."

"Sit down, Rena-chan." When she obeyed, Ginji reached across the table to take her hands and stop her nervous twitching. "Tell me about it. It may be important." And that was true -- he believed in dreams in any case, and she'd been one of Lucifer's chosen servants in the whole kami-cards mess before he had been dealt with. Ginji sometimes wondered what had happened to the man afterwards. But it was entirely possible that she might have intimations or premonitions. She'd had power. Even now that particular strength was gone, he could tell that she wasn't entirely powerless.

Rena paused to collect her thoughts. "You were dancing," she said hesitatingly. "You and Ban-san. And Himiko-san. And there were other people there who I know I knew, but I can't remember who they were. There was music, but -- it wasn't formal dancing, nothing like that. It was just dancing."

"Dancing with each other?" Ginji put in when she paused.

Rena shook her head. "No. Just -- dancing. Then the music stopped -- I think there had been drums -- and someone called out about the light, no, it was the sun, saying where did the sun rise and where did it set. And everyone replied, you three as well, and something about opening the way. Then you were all clapping, all at once, like people knocking on the door."

Ginji listened, fascinated.

"There was a smell in the air," she went on, dreamily, eyes fixed on the air as she struggled with the memory. "It smelt like some of the alcohol that the Master has behind the bar. Some of the strong spirits. There were fires in the background. There was a dais, no, an altar towards one end. Someone was standing there. Then Himiko-san was singing, really singing, about opening the way, and she was calling someone's name, but I couldn't understand it, and there was someone behind her who I didn't know but I felt I should know, and then --" She broke off, and shook her head. "Then I woke up."

"You can't remember anything else?" Ginji asked.

Rena shook her head mutely.

"Thank you." He squeezed her hands. "That may be very important. I'm glad you could tell me about it, Rena-chan."

"Ginji!" Ban called from the doorway. "Stop pestering the poor girl and come on! I think we could try -- hey! Are those sandwiches? Were you trying to starve your partner, you --"

"Ban-chan!" Ginji protested, his mouth full of sandwiches as he hastily tried to secure a fair share of the food. Crumbs sprayed across the table. "Rena-chan was just telling me about her --"

"I'll teach you not to steal my food!" Ban howled, and flung himself across the room in a classic tackle, snatching the plate before it could hit the floor and getting Ginji in a headlock mid-pounce.

Rena scurried back to the kitchen, giggling.

---

Nearly sunset, and the day had been practically fruitless. Ginji gnawed on his knuckles and brooded. He'd managed to put off actual thoughts about the murder and kidnapping by concentrating on what they were going to do about it, and how they could find out about it, but the dearth of useful information turned his mind more and more towards the image of a friend's body lying in his own blood, and another friend missing and god alone knew what was happening to her, and all the other things that made lightning spark in his veins and dance behind his eyes.

No. No, he wasn't going to go that way. He and Ban would find out what had happened and deal with it appropriately. He clenched his hands around the notebook which he'd been leafing through, trying to find a name on The Invincible Ban-sama's Big List Of Contacts (at least, that was what it said on the front cover) who'd know something about current kidnappings or murders or virtual reality or anti-Mugenjou planning or even if anything big was going down.

Opposite him, Ban tossed aside the local newpaper in a pile of loose pages, and muttered something obscene.

Perhaps this was the wrong moment to ask if he'd found anything useful.

There was a creak as the door swung open. "Boys!" Hevn declaimed, silhouetted in the doorframe as both Ginji and Ban turned to look. The setting sun tinted her pale skin, gilding her long pale arms and bare stomach, lying across her exposed cleavage. She was in rich purple silk today, bandeau and long skirt, with a headscarf twined around her hair and shadowing her face in a seven-pointed dark halo. "I've got some news for you!"

Ban was up on his feet without a moment's pause, twitching with eagerness. "About . . ."

Hevn tilted her head coquettishly as she stepped inside and let the door swing to behind her. "Really, Ban-kun! Would I come to you with anything that wasn't worth bothering about? Yes, it is about what you asked earlier, and yes, I have found out something which might be related, and if it wasn't for the importance of the situation --"

"Yes, yes," Ban broke in. "What is it?"

Hevn bit her lip prettily. "Well, this may be total coincidence . . ."

But it's not, Ginji thought. I can feel it in my bones.

". . . but I've had word that this evening there's a very important and non-legal cargo going out of this district on a particular route, and as I haven't heard of anything else going on, I think there's at least a good chance that it might be what you want."

"You've got the route, right? And who's taking it?" Ban asked eagerly.

Hevn sighed. Her bosom palpitated magnificently. "That's the bit you're not going to like."

---

The rushing evening wind blew Ginji's hair into spikes. He leaned his elbows on the roof of the car, standing up on his seat and with his upper body protruding through the skylight in the car's roof, and squinted ahead into the gathering darkness. "No sign of them yet!" he called down to Ban.

"I know there isn't!" Ban called back from where he was hunched over the steering wheel. "But don't worry, we'll catch up with them soon! And we've still got the nitro-booster equipped!"

Ginji swallowed. "Ban-chan, what if --"

"And my darling little Subaru-360 can't be beaten!" Ban ranted on. "With its V-Max twincam 1200 cm cubed motor, and --"

"Look!" Ginji cried with vast relief, pointing to the lorry that had just loomed into sight. "There they are!"

"Fine." Ban stamped on the accelerator. "Get that flag out!"

Ginji reached down into the back seat, and pulled up a tablecloth which they'd borrowed from the Honky-Tonk. Hopefully it would still be in one piece to return to Paul later. He flapped its white length in the air hopefully, trailing it like a banner. "Truce!" he yelled, mustering all the sincerity he could manage. "Truce! We just want to talk!"

The lorry slowed just as the Subaru jumped forward, and Ginji found himself level with and looking through the window of the lorry as he waved the tablecloth desperately. Himiko was staring out at him calmly, one bottle already between her fingers, but stoppered, still stoppered, so she wasn't going to try anything yet. Mr No-Brake's face was a shadow behind her, turned towards the road ahead and focused on it as much as any man with his lover.

"Himiko-san!" Ginji called again. "We need to talk!"

The lorry groaned and slowed, and Himiko wound down the window. "What are you two after?" she shouted down to Ban and Ginji from her higher position in the lorry. "Is this some sort of trick?" A darker figure drifted into silhouette behind her, leaning over her shoulder in a flow of black trenchcoat.

"No trick!" Ginji steadied himself in the Subaru. The wind dragged at the tablecloth, trying to snatch it from his fingers. "It's about a friend of ours! You know her -- her name is Ren, the pharmacist's granddaughter from Mugenjou! Are you carrying her?"

Himiko blinked. "Her? No! We've got medical specimens, that's all."

"Are you sure?" Ban leaned out through his window, ignoring the road for the moment, and stared up at Himiko through narrowed eyes. "Definitely?"

"Would it make a difference if we were, Midou-kun?" Akabane's whisper carried over the sounds of wind and car and lorry, and Ginji shivered. "If you felt it necessary to fight us over this . . ."

"Truce! Truce!" Ginji yelled desperately, waving the flag up and down as vigorously as he could. He could hear Akabane laughing.

"Yeah, well -- if you were told that it was medical specimens you were carrying, and it's actually a kidnapped girl, where does that leave you, Himiko?" Ban leaned one elbow on the car's window frame, and grinned cheerfully up at the lorry window. "Now I'm not going to tell a professional like you how to handle things, but if you've been lied to about the cargo, correct me if I'm wrong, but that breaks the contract, doesn't it?"

Himiko hesitated, then shifted in her seat to look up at Akabane. "He has a point, Doctor Jackal. If we have been lied to about what we're carrying, then we are no longer obliged to abide by the terms of the contract."

Mr No-Brake grunted something, but Ginji couldn't catch it over the noise of the lorry wheels. He did hear part of Akabane's answer. "-- of course, Lady Poison, if one chooses to abide by the letter of the contract . . ."

"Hey!" Ban shouted, getting both Akabane's and Himiko's attention. "You want the other side of this? You really want it getting around that two -- three -- of the best transporters in the business could be lied to and manipulated into carrying a false cargo?"

"If it is only medical specimens, we've got no reason to stop you!" Ginji added, trying to think of something that'd convince Akabane to go along with it. "We'll just leave -- we won't do anything to slow you down or get in the way -- but if you just take a look at the cargo, if you can come back and tell us for sure it's not Ren --"

"Bah." Himiko unsnapped her seatbelt, and slipped out of her seat, wriggling past Akabane, who nodded politely to her as he slid smoothly into the vacated space. "Ban! Ginji! I'll go look at the cargo -- there was nothing in the contract about us not checking it to make sure it was in acceptable condition. But if it's just specimens, then not only do you get your tails the hell out of here, but you owe us one! Right, Akabane, Mr No-Brake?"

"Entirely acceptable," Akabane agreed smoothly.

"Deal," Mr No-Brake grunted. The lorry slowed another notch, slipping down a gear.

With a sigh of relief, Ginji stuffed the tablecloth back down into the Subaru, and concentrated on standing up straight and not letting his knees tremble at the thought of what Akabane might consider a suitable favour.

Akabane leaned on the window frame, one hand holding his hat in position against the gusts of wind. His hair blew out to frame his face. "So, what is this, Ginji-kun? Why should your friend Ren have been kidnapped?"

"We don't know!" Ginji resisted the urge to slide back into the car and let Ban handle the dialogue. Better if Akabane-san is talking with us than fighing us . . . "Her grandfather Gen was killed and she was kidnapped, but we don't know yet who did it!"

Incredibly, Akabane frowned. "Gen the pharmacist was killed?" he inquired in tones of mild puzzlement. "Are you certain?"

Ginji nodded frantically. "He was killed some time last night. They found his body this morning. Makubex is investigating . . ."

Himiko reentered the lorry cab, and murmured something to Mr No-Brake. The lorry slowed and came to a rumbling stop.

Ban slammed on the Subaru's brakes, and was jumping out of the car before Ginji could extricate himself from his half-in, half-out position, or the way that the emergency stop had left him folded over the car's roof. "So! Were we right?"

Himiko gave him a quick nod, then turned to the two men in the cab with her. "Doctor Jackal, Mr No-Brake, I apologise. I am afraid that we have been lied to by our principal. The case in the back holds a young woman who certainly looks like Ren the pharmacist's granddaughter from Mugenjou."

"Mmm." Akabane settled back in his seat, adjusting his hat. "Of course, one could argue that technically speaking, she is a medical specimen -- according to some standards." But there was something underlying his tone which caught Ginji's attention.

He wants to be persuaded. He's curious about something. He isn't going to break his usual cover by admitting it, or tell us what's going on, but he's genuinely curious. "A medical specimen has to be physically, um, real, doesn't it, Akabane-san?" he offered, then quailed as Akabane's gaze moved to him. He wouldn't actually attack me without warning me first, he doesn't play any other way . . .

"It is hard to see how it could be otherwise, Ginji-kun," Akabane agreed politely.

"Right," Ban said firmly, in a that-settles-that tone. "Ren from Mugenjou is virtual. She's not physically real. Which means that if the person in the back of your van is Ren, then she's not a medical specimen. And if it's not Ren, then we apologise and will leave you to get on with things. But the only way to find out . . ."

". . . is to wake her up and ask her," Himiko agreed. For a moment, despite the professional overlay of calm responsibility, the relief was clear on her face. "Would you agree, gentlemen?"

"Huh. Guess so," Mr No-Brake contributed. One hand stroked the smooth curve of the lorry's steering wheel. "I'll go with the majority on this one."

"And I believe I agree as well." Akabane slid from the seat, rising to stand beside Himiko. "I see no other convenient resolution to the problem."

Ban shot a glance at Ginji, and Ginji read in his partner's eyes, This is all too easy. Watch your back.

Ginji nodded, and levered himself out of the car. "Fine. Let's do it."

---

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