Chapter Text
“Grandfather!” D cried in horror. The younger Kami had turned away from the refrigerator, to see Sofu gasp and fall to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. His call made the other two Kamis whirl around, as well.
Lord D gasped: “Father!” and knelt down awkwardly next to his parent, taking up one of Sofu’s slim hands in his own. “Father? Can you hear me?” he said urgently.
“What happened?” Chun Lian asked his brother.
D shook his head. “I don’t know. He just fell down like that.”
“He is unconscious,” Lord D said, looking up at his children with distressed eyes.
“That can mean only one thing,” Chun Lian said grimly.
D stared at him. “Daniel!” he gasped in sudden, horrified understanding.
Chun Lian nodded. D ran out the door of the kitchen and bolted for the sitting room. There he found his mate, and Stephen, with Christopher, and T-chan. “Leon!” he cried, pushing through the beads. “Grandfather collapsed in the kitchen just now! Something must have happened to Daniel! He left to go to that candy shop down the street to get us something for the trip. And Leon,” he went on as the cop gaped at him, “He had Fox with him!”
“Christ!” Leon yelped. His hand went for the gun at his waist. He started to dart away alone, but Stephen ran after him. “Go back inside,” the blonde told him grimly, but Stephen shook his head.
“No. If Daniel’s hurt, you’ll need help.”
Leon didn’t have time to argue, so he let it drop. The two of them ran out of the shop, and down the street. They saw a small crowd near the end of the block, gathered around a still form lying on the sidewalk. Leon cursed again as he pushed his way through. “Let me by!” he yelled. “Police!”
This magic word made the crowd dissipate discreetly. No one wanted to get involved. Leon knelt down next to Daniel, turning him over. He groaned when he saw three bullet holes in the front of the SWAT Commander’s shirt. He put his fingers to Daniel’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “He’s alive,” the blonde reported to Stephen, who looked relieved. Leon’s free hand scrabbled at the front of the shirt, baring Daniel’s torso. Both of them could see that the bullet wounds were already closing. Leon thanked anything that might be listening for the Kami mating bond.
Then he heard Stephen ask in an apprehensive voice: “Leon? Where’s Maoh?”
Leon looked around wildly, but there was no sign of the baby. And any potential witnesses to what had gone down were already gone. “Fuck!” he screamed in frustrated fury. “Stephen, we’ll have to carry him back to the shop,” he told the younger man, who nodded.
Leon stuck his gun in his belt and the two of them hoisted Daniel’s stocky body between them. Fortunate they both had the augmented strength brought on by the Kami mating bond, so they were able to carry their friend down the sidewalk toward the pet shop by themselves. Stephen’s teal-blue eyes were anxious. “Who could have done this, Leon?” he asked. “And why would they take the baby?”
Leon’s mouth was a slash. “I think that the answer to both of those questions is Liu Shen Wei, Stephen,” he replied tightly.
“But I thought…he left?” the younger man gasped.
Leon shook his head. “Obviously not. He wants Granddad to tell him where this Well is, and the best way to do that would be to get a hold of someone or something that would make him tell. And let’s face it – what better thing than Fox? What parent wouldn’t do anything to get their kid back? I don’t know who went to China, but it obviously wasn’t this Wei guy.”
Stephen groaned. “Hell,” he said. “What do we do now?”
“Nothing. We can’t do anything until Sofu regains consciousness and we can ask him what he wants to do. After all, its only speculation that Wei is still here, and that he took Fox. It could have been a mugging gone very wrong or something,” he added.
Stephen looked skeptical. “That doesn’t sound very probable,” he remarked.
“I never said it was. I’m just saying that we can’t go running around looking for this guy until we know more. I don’t like it any more than you do,” he went on when he saw Stephen’s expression, “But we have no choice but to be patient at this point.” They had reached the door of the shop, which flew open. They carried the unconscious Daniel inside as D exclaimed in horror at his condition.
“Somebody shot him, D,” Leon said to his mate grimly, “And they…took Fox.”
The Kami’s hands rose to cover his mouth. “Oh, no!” he cried. “Oh, Leon!”
“It’ll be okay, honey,” the cop said soothingly. He and Stephen began to carry Daniel down toward his room and the blonde spoke over his shoulder. “I promise,” he said, although he wasn’t sure how he was going to carry this particular promise out. But somehow he would. Somehow.
Sofu’s eyes flickered open slowly. He found that he was lying on one of the couches in the sitting room, with his head on Lord D’s thigh. His child was staring down at him anxiously, a stricken expression on his face. “What…happened?” the elder Kami asked in puzzlement.
“Oh, Father,” Lord D said in anguish. “You collapsed in the kitchen. B-Because…someone…shot Daniel,” he went on, barely able to speak coherently.
Sofu felt panic and horror race through him. He sat up abruptly, not caring about any residual weakness. “Who? Why would someone…” his mind began to work, and he said in a voice that rang with understanding and horror: “Liu Shen Wei.”
Lord D nodded. “We think so,” he said. “And Father….he took Maoh,” The younger Kami said.
Silence. Sofu’s face was an expressionless mask at this news. “I see,” he remarked as coolly as though they were discussing the weather.
“Father?” the worry and puzzlement in Lord D’s voice made the elder Kami reach out to touch his arm reassuringly. “It will be all right, my son,” he said, in a voice of steel. “I assure you.”
Lord D stared at his father as though he feared the elder Kami had taken leave of his senses under the multiple shocks he’d just gone through. “How is Daniel now?" Sofu asked as he began to rise to his feet rather shakily.
He is healing, Father, but still unconscious,” Lord D replied. “Leon and Kazuhari-san went out to canvass the neighborhood and see if they could find witnesses to what happened, and my sons are with Daniel. Stephen is calling Agent Cooper and Jill to tell them what happened.”
“I expect that Liu Shen Wei will be contacting me soon,” Sofu remarked, still in that disturbingly calm voice. “To make a deal with me. A trade – the location of the Well of Eternity for my son’s life.” His face could have been carved from marble, and Lord D’s stomach churned as his anxiety ratcheted up even higher.
“Will you tell him, Father? Where the Well is?” Lord D asked.
Sofu’s head turned, and his golden eyes met his son‘s wide purple ones.“No,” he replied in a clipped tone of voice. “I will not.”
Leon and the yakuza boss returned to the shop a bit later, both frustrated by their lack of success. They found everyone except for Sofu upset and agitated – the older Kami had apparently told Lord D that he would not reveal the location of the Well even to get his son back. Lord D was in tears, while his mate tried vainly to comfort him. Jill and Garreth Cooper had arrived, both anxious over Fox’s fate. Chun Lian and D were trying to reason with a coolly composed Sofu, but the elder Kami had dug in his heels and refused to listen to them. All he’d say was: “I made an oath, I will abide by it,” when people tried to talk to him.
D got up and came over to his mate, when Leon walked into the sitting room. “Oh, Leon, I don’t know what to do,” he said softly. “Grandfather is being stubborn, and moreover I’ve never seen him act quite like this before. I’m afraid for Maoh…” he trailed off, biting at his lower lip a little in his distress.
The blonde pulled him into his arms. “I’m sure that Granddad knows what he’s doing, D,” he said stoutly. “Besides, bargaining with a guy like this Wei is a bad idea anyway. If we give him what he wants he has no reason to return Fox. He might just decide that the baby’s dispensable at that point…” seeing the anguish on D’s face at his words, he hugged the distressed Kami again. “Trust him, D,” he said softly into a shell-like ear. “I’m sure that he has something up his sleeve.”
Sofu was sitting very still on one of the couches, his hands folded in his lap. While Leon said those things to reassure D, that expressionless mask-like face creeped him out. What was Sofu thinking? What was going on behind those golden eyes? The canny old spirit HAD to be planning something, didn’t he? Or was this the Kami version of extreme shock? He could only pray that it was the former and not the latter, or they were completely screwed.
Before he could say anything else, the bell on the shop door went. Everyone turned toward the sound, their bodies stiffening. Chun Lian rose to his feet and glided through the beads, followed by his mate. But the yakuza boss came back into the room quickly. “It is simply a customer,” he reported.
Silence fell in the room. It was a heavy, tight silence and Leon was glad that the boys had been sent into the back by Chun Lian. Christopher was so sensitive that he’d be bound to be badly affected by this atmosphere. And he didn’t want the boy to know about Daniel or Maoh until he had no choice but to tell his little brother something. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that…
More time passed. Nobody knew quite what to say. Stephen dragged his distressed mate off and forced him to lie down, fearing for the baby if Lord D continued to be this stressed. Garreth Cooper reported to Leon that he’d called and told the F.B.I that Liu Shen Wei had not left the country after all, and they were to be on the look-out for him. Not that this would do much good since the guy was most likely still in Chinatown…Still, he’d be able to call in back-up if he needed it. Leon was grateful to hear this. He never thought he’d be happy to hear that the F.B.I was getting involved in his personal life, but in this case he’d take all the help he could get.
Several more customers came and went. Chun Lian manned the front shop, with Kazuhari at his back each time. The yakuza boss didn’t want to leave his new mate alone with someone as dangerous as this Liu Shen Wei, should the tong boss come to the shop to bargain with Sofu. Everyone got more and more tense as time passed and there was no sign of the Chinese criminal. What if he didn’t intend to come at all? Why had he taken Maoh then? What if…? Nobody wanted to think that last thought, but it hovered in the backs of their brains anyway.
Suddenly, the door opened, and a man with a sharply-planed face strode confidently into the shop. “Hello,” he remarked in Mandarin to Chun Lian, who had stiffened behind the counter. “I’d like to speak to Sofu D.” his arrogant confidence made the Kami’s hackles rise, and his mouth tightened as he struggled not to say something sharp to the tong leader.
“I will get him,” he said coldly, gliding away toward the sitting room. Liu Shen Wei eyes the silent Japanese man standing near the counter, but chose to say nothing to him. He felt that he was holding all of the cards here. He wasn’t concerned about the yakuza boss because of that fact.
Sofu appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. “Liu Shen Wei,” he said in that calm, cold voice he’d been using since he’d woken up.
“Sofu D,” the tong leader replied in a triumphant voice. “You know why I’ve come.”
“Yes,” Sofu replied. “Please come in here and I will speak with you,” he went back into the sitting room, telling everyone gathered there to leave. He wished to speak with Liu Shen Wei alone.
Several people would have protested this, but Sofu merely looked at them. Somehow they just couldn’t disobey the elder Kami, not when he was like this. Everyone, human and Kami alike, reluctantly left the sitting room. Liu Shen Wei smirked at them as they passed, and Leon snarled silently, and had to force himself not to pull his gun and pop the sadistic bastard here and now. The tong leader pushed through the beads, leaving everyone else standing out in the shop, wondering vainly what was going to go on between man and Kami in the sitting room.
Sofu turned to look at Liu Shen Wei, his hands folded together in front of him. “You took my son,” he said in a voice that dripped icicles.
The tong leader smirked. “Yes, I did,” he replied. “And I killed your lover so that you would know that I’m serious about this. Tell me where the Well is, Spirit, or I swear that your baby will not survive the day.”
Sofu’s lids fell over his eyes, and he surprised Liu Shen Wei by sighing quietly. “Humans,” the Kami remarked. “They always believe that violence is the answer to everything, and that they can take what they want without consequences. An erroneous belief, actually. Especially in this case,” his voice had taken on a strange quality that made the hairs prickle on the back of the tong leader’s neck. “You should not have shot my mate nor taken my son, Liu Shen Wei,” the Kami went on, lifting his lids so that his golden eyes could meet the tong leader’s. “That was your last mistake.”
Those eyes – they were BURNING. A cold, ferocious, golden fire poured out of them as Liu Shen Wei found himself pinned in place. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak – he could only stand there with his mouth gaping open as the Kami said: “Now you will realize too late how very dangerous it is to anger a Spirit, Liu Shen Wei. You will tell me where my son is.”
He might have protested that he’d do no such thing – but he couldn’t speak. And something was happening, something was sweeping over him – he was drowning in molten gold, it was sweeping him away…and that was when the pain started. Agony such as he had never known flooded through him as an alien energy swept through his brain like a hurricane. It sorted callously through his thoughts, his memories, everything that he was, and he could do nothing to stop it. Even if he hadn’t been silently writhing in agony, he wouldn’t have been able to prevent the Kami from raping his mind. Then the energy found what it was looking for, plucking the memory out of his brain neatly.
'Even though you deserve it, my kind are not killers, Liu Shen Wei,' the alien power in his skull commented coolly. 'But I will make it so that you will never harm anyone again as long as you live,' then claws sank into his brain, and reduced it to so much mush, while the tong leader screamed and screamed inside of his own head…
“Leon!” the blonde responded to Sofu’s imperious call, darting into the sitting room. The sight that met his eyes made him come to an abrupt halt. Sofu was standing there looking completely calm and unruffled – and the tong leader was lying on the floor, his eyes open and a line of drool trickling from his mouth.
“Granddad, what did you DO?!” the cop yelped.
Sofu looked at him. “I merely asked him where my son was,” he said. “He of course chose not to answer me, so I extracted that knowledge from his brain.”
“Uh…” the blonde didn’t know quite what to say. “What’s wrong with him?” He asked, casting a weirded-out glance at the man lying on the floor.
“I’m afraid that he has a good deal of brain damage,” Sofu said serenely, “From which he will never recover. Do with him what you will, Leon.” Then he lifted his voice again. “Kazuhari-san!” the yakuza boss appeared in the doorway.
“Kami-sama?” he said.
“I have an address for you.” He told Kazuhari. He gave the yakuza leader an address in Chinatown, then added: “My son is being held in a room on the second floor, fourth door from the left. Please take your men and go and retrieve him if you would,” Sofu said it as though he were asking Kazuhari to stay for tea.
The yazuka boss glanced down briefly at the prostrate Liu Shen Wei. “As you wish, Kami-sama,” he said with a slight bow. He left the room hurriedly, to carry out his task.
Sofu looked at Leon. “I am going to go and check on my mate,” he told the cop. “Do what you wish with him,” he glanced down at Liu Shen Wei, then glided from the room.
Leon shook himself out of his trance. Oh, man. Sometimes he forgot just what kind of a being he was mated to. It was only at times like this that he was reminded of just how powerful and otherworldly Kamis were. And Lord was he grateful that they had no reason to dislike him…