Volume 8 - Gratitude, Chapter 54 - A Frightened Neighbor

"Atlas Convenience Store. How can I help you?" Yuisu mumbled into the phone. She'd normally have a more professional attitude while at work, but it was after midnight and she was bored and tired, nearing the end of a double-shift.

"Yuisu? Is that you? Oh thank God," the voice on the phone blurted.

"Huh, who is this?" Yuisu asked.

"It's Yamato. You have to help me. I don't know who else to turn to, well, except for Agent Will, but I couldn't reach him, even though I tried over and over and so I called your house but there was no answer there either and I don't know what to do now—"

Yuisu cut him off. "Woah, calm down, Yamato! Take a breath, then tell me what's wrong."

"Misaki's missing," he started, his voice cracking a little. "But it's different this time. She took all of her stuff with her. She didn't leave anything at all, not even a note." Then he broke into sobs so loud that Yuisu had to hold the phone away from her ear.

Yuisu looked around the convenience store, empty of customers and employees alike. Can I close early? I think my manager would understand. She spoke into the phone again, "Yamato. I'll help you, but I have to do a couple things first. In the meantime, I need you to calmly and carefully look for any clues in your apartment."

After a gooey sniffling sound, Yamato whimpered, "Okay… thanks, Yuisu…"

"I'll be at your house in about 45 minutes. Stay strong," she said, then slammed the phone down and rushed to close up the store as fast as possible.

After that, Yuisu jumped into her trusty red truck and sped towards home at reckless speeds. "Haru, you're being enlisted back into harpy-rescuing service," she muttered as she drove. "I hope your skills haven't gotten rusty since your military days."

Yuisu sprinted through the house and ripped her bedroom door open. The noise made the sleeping harpy on the bed stir, but she settled back down, at least until Yuisu pounced on her.

"Haru, get up. I need you."

"Go 'n read some porn then, Yuri-su. 'm sleepin'…" Haru mumbled as she pulled a pillow over her face.

"Not like that! Misaki's in danger!" Yuisu yelled. "We need you to help find her."

That got through to her. Haru sat up and opened her golden eyes wide. "What do you mean?"

Yuisu grabbed a shirt and pants at random from Haru's dresser and tossed them at Haru. "Yamato called me, crying his eyes out. Apparently Misaki took all her stuff and left without saying anything. It doesn't feel like her at all."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound right. Something's definitely wrong." Haru tried to get dressed quickly, but Yuisu ended up needing to help. When she was all dressed, she looked down in horror at how awfully the pink shirt and green pants clashed.

Yuisu shoved Haru towards the door. "There's no time to worry about fashion, Haru. I told Yamato we'd be there ASAP."

"Alright, alright. At least it'll be dark, so no one will see me…" she grumbled.

The two women dashed to Yuisu's truck and Yuisu tore off down the mountain. For anyone that didn't know the road as well as she did, it'd be suicidal to take the turns at such high speeds.

When they reached the straight and level road at the bottom of the mountain, Haru turned to Yuisu and asked, "So what do we know?"

"Not a lot. He said she left without saying anything or leaving a note, and she took all her belongings. It sounds like it happened while he was at work."

Haru's head tilted as she thought. "Hmm, maybe a bad breakup? Or something to do with her family? Did she ever talk about them?"

Yuisu shook her head but kept her eyes on the road ahead, illuminated only by the pickup truck's headlights and a sliver of moon. "No, I have no idea what her life was like before we first met her."

Haru frowned. "I wish we had Iormu with us. Remember how she puzzled out that blood thing at the inn? She'd figure this out."

Yuisu sighed and said, "I thought about that, but time is of the essence, and Iormu's too big for my truck. If we still don't have a lead in the morning, I'm definitely getting her involved."

The truck screeched to a stop outside Yamato's apartment building. It was a small two-story complex of about a dozen apartments, and it was surrounded by old trees. Haru and Yuisu jumped out of the truck and ran toward the building.

"It's the first unit on the second floor. I'll go talk to Yamato. Can you check for clues out here?" Yuisu called out.

"Yes, ma'am," Haru responded, falling back to her military habits.

Yuisu bounded up the stairs two at a time and hammered on the door, but before she could hit it a second time, it opened. Yamato stood there, his messy hair even worse than normal, and his eyes bloodshot from crying.

"Thanks for coming, Yuisu. I don't even know what I'd do if you didn't. I guess I'd call the police, but I don't know how much they'd help with liminal matters…" he said, his voice low and exhausted.

Yuisu waved a hand and said, "No problem. Haru's outside looking for clues about where Misaki went. Did you find anything in here?"

Yamato stepped back into the little apartment and sat down on the floor with a FWUMP. "Not really. She took all of her stuff, and even some of mine. Why would she take my toothbrush?"

Yuisu kneeled down and rested her arms on her knees, still covered by her forest-green work pants. She looked Yamato in the eyes and spoke softly, "Yamato, did you two have a fight or anything?"

He immediately shook his head. "No! We were just fine. She was impatient to visit you girls, since she hasn't seen you since before your trip, but she was okay with waiting 'til the weekend."

As Yamato was talking, Haru had stepped up to the open front door. When he paused, she spoke up, "I think I found a clue. With your crappy human night vision, you'll need to bring a flashlight to see it."

"I've got one over here. Well, unless she took that too…" Yamato said as he walked to the kitchen and dug into a drawer. "Yeah, it's here." He turned the flashlight on and it worked fine, but his hand wouldn't stop shaking, making the beam of light flick around nauseatingly. "Sorry," he said, and handed it to Yuisu.

The harpy led the two humans out to a corner of the parking lot, then put out her wings to stop them from walking too far. "Look down here on the ground."

Yuisu pointed the flashlight at what seemed to be a tire track in the dirt and leaves that had gathered in the corner of the lot. "A tire track isn't unusual in a parking lot, Haru."

"Look what's next to it, though," Haru said, pointing with a wing.

There were several footprints, but one stood out above all others, and it was fresh. "Holy crap, look at the size of that bootprint. How tall must that guy be?" Yuisu blurted when she saw the 18-inch long impression in the dirt. It had thick treads like a work-boot, and there was a symbol in the center of the heel.

Haru nodded and said, "At least seven feet tall, if not closer to ten. And I recognize that logo. Legendas makes custom clothes for uncommon liminals. I got custom-fit talon covers from them once." She looked at Yamato and asked, "Ever seen anyone that tall around here?"

He shook his head. "Never."

Yuisu asked Haru, "Any idea what kind of liminal it is?"

Haru shook her head, but Yamato meekly raised a hand. "Uh, maybe an orc? There's an orc in town about that big. I, uh, even have his phone number, well, his host's."

Haru and Yuisu's eyes lit up in unison and Yuisu said, "Oh yeah, the bouncer!" She fidgeted with her hair in thought for a second, then said, "Well, we should call him, at least to figure out if this boot print is just a red herring."

Yamato pulled out his wallet and dug out a business card that read, 'Brutus Benihana. Bouncer, Bodyguard.' With shaking hands, he punched the number there into his flip-phone, but hesitated before pressing 'call'. "Uh, Yuisu? Can you do the talking? I'm not sure I could, uh, keep it together."

"Sure thing." She took the phone and pressed the call button. "Hello?"

Over the sound of loud music, a deep male voice said, "Hello. Sorry for the noise. Give me a sec to get to a side room." After a few seconds, he added, "Alright, Brutus Benihana. May I ask who's calling?"

"Uh, I'm Yuisu. We met once at the Wild Life. I was with a white harpy," Yuisu started.

"Oh yeah, I remember you two. Kyle said he saw you again, riding in a friggin' sweet Hummer! What can I do for you?" Brutus said.

"Uh, I should give you some context first. I'm here with Yamato, who I think you met before? He had your business card, at least," Yuisu said and looked to Yamato questioningly.

Yamato nodded and whispered, "Yeah, we met him at the market a few weeks back."

Yuisu added, "He was with a little black-feathered harpy."

Brutus said, "Yep, great kid, though I thought he was in a bit over his head with that girl."

Yuisu cringed. "About that… She's missing, and we were hoping you could help us figure something out. There's a huge boot print here, and we're wondering whose it could be. We were thinking an orc"

"How huge? Kyle's like 7 feet tall, but his feet are actually smaller than mine. He made it sound like all orcs are like that."

"So an 18-inch boot print probably isn't an orc's?" Yuisu asked.

"Oh, definitely not. I've seen a lot of liminals at the club and none of 'em had feet that big. My guess is one too big to fit comfortably indoors, like an ogre or cyclops."

"Thank you so much, Brutus," Yuisu said, meaning to end the call.

"Hold on, lady," Brutus blurted out. "It sounds like you're getting into somethin' serious. You want some muscle? I'm a bodyguard too, you know. and I can bring Kyle."

"I don't think we'll need it, but I'll call you back if things go that way."

"Good. Now you take care. I gotta get back to work, but I'll have my hand on the phone. Seeya."

Yuisu closed the flip-phone and handed it back to Yamato, then she looked back and forth from him to Haru. "Well, it definitely isn't from an orc. Probably something bigger, like an ogre or cyclops. I'm still not convinced it has anything to do with Misaki, though."

Two blocks away, a black stretch Hummer limousine idled on the side of the road. Heavily-tinted windows obscured everything except the faint glow of lights on inside.

"Are you sure you got everything, Sado? I ain't calling the boss until we're sure we did the job right," a deep, rumbling voice said. It belonged to a huge, dark-skinned man with military-cropped blond hair and a dark, well-tailored suit. He'd be about eight feet tall standing, but he was sprawled across the plush seats that ran along the left side of the limo.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm positive, Gure," a nasally male voice replied from the opposite seat. "I even grabbed extra stuff if I wasn't sure. It'll totally look like a breakup. Girls love to steal your stuff when they leave." Sado was a scrawny man with reddish-brown skin, black hair in a short ponytail, and two curved horns wrapping around his head. A thin black tail ending in a spade shape constantly whipped through the air behind him. Like Gure, he wore a suit that made him look far more professional than his behavior did.

Gure sat upright and said, "Hey, not all girls are like that. You're probably just an asshole to them." As he got up, the shiny black horn sticking from the center of his forehead scraped the ceiling. The ogre quickly ducked down, but it was too late and there was an already obvious tear in the cloth ceiling.

"Whoa, whoa, watch the roof!" Sado shouted. "The boss owns the whole limousine company, so you just damaged his property, you know." He shook his head and said, "It's bad enough that we have to try to be sneaky in this flashy limo, since your huge ass won't fit in anything else."

"Shut up, Sado," Gure rumbled angrily, "If you're sure you got everything, I'll call the bossman and tell him we got the girl."

"Wait, wait, why's he even want this girl again? Ain't black birds supposed to be bad luck or somethin'?" The scrawny devil peered toward the back of the limo. Several plastic trash-bags full of clothes and other belongings were piled next to a black-feathered harpy in snug pink fleece pajamas. She was seatbelted in, but she was deep in a drug-induced sleep, oblivious to the world.

Sado mumbled to himself, "I guess she's pretty cute, but I like 'em with bigger melons."

Gure rolled his eyes and said, "Some myth about Yatagarasu being sent from heaven to lead great men, or some shit. I don't fuggin' know. Now shut your annoying yap so I can call."

"Fine, fine," Sado said in a huff, "I'm gonna have a smoke." He opened the Hummer door and climbed out into the quiet night. He took out a hand-rolled cigarette from a fancy metal case and stuck it in his mouth. He shielded it from the slight breeze and lit it with a match. After taking a slow drag, the sharp-dressed devil mumbled, "Yeah, yeah, that's the stuff. Reminds me of home."