Volume 8 - Gratitude, Chapter 55 - On The Run

Haru idly scratched at the pavement with her talons. "Maybe you're right, Yuisu. There's no sign that this footprint has anything to do with Misaki. It's not like we found one of her feathers over here, or anything."

Yuisu sighed. "Alright. Well, let's go back inside. You might notice something Yamato and I missed."

Haru followed Yuisu and Yamato up the stairs and into his tiny apartment. Yamato showed Haru through the rooms, but nothing stood out as unusual. Then Haru stopped and sniffed the air. "Huh," she said, "Something smells odd."

Yamato looked at Haru with hope in his eyes. "Like what? Is it a clue?"

"Like smoke. Have you had any smokers over to visit recently?"

Yamato shook his head. "Nope, though my neighbor smokes cigarettes on the porch sometimes."

Haru walked around the living room and then shook her head. "No, this is definitely from inside, and it doesn't smell like regular cigarettes…" She sniffed the air again then wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sharp smell. "This is kind of familiar…"

Yuisu asked, "You think someone who smokes was inside the apartment?"

Instead of answering, Haru suddenly cried out, "Oh! I smelled this out in the parking lot when we first arrived!"

Yamato and Yuisu exchanged an excited glance, then Yuisu asked, "Can you track it? This might be the trail we need."

Haru nodded. "I can certainly try."

The trio ran back outside and down the stairs to the parking lot. Now that Haru was looking for it, the tobacco smell couldn't be more obvious. In addition to the smell lingering in the area, a light breeze was carrying the same scent from somewhere else.

Haru turned her head all the way around and grinned back at the others. "Oh yeah, I've got the scent. It's coming from the south, and I can definitely follow it. You two should get in the truck and try to follow on the ground. I'll point the flashlight down as I fly so you can see me."

Yuisu nodded and pulled Yamato towards her truck. As they climbed in, Yuisu said, "I need you to watch for Haru's light while I focus on the road."

Yamato swallowed hard, steadied himself, and said, "Okay, I'll do my best."

A window on the black stretch Hummer rolled down and Gure's huge face glared out. "Alright, Sado. We're clear to drop her off with the boss's driver at the south side of town. He'll drive her down to Tokyo."

"Got it, got it," Sado responded. He dropped his hand-rolled cigarette on the ground and crushed it underfoot. Then he walked around to the driver's side door and climbed in. He kicked the limo into drive and it pulled slowly away from the curb. "Ugh, this thing's got the turning radius of a train," he grumbled to himself.

As the limo got moving, Sado rolled down the dividing glass and called into the back, "So where's the meeting point?"

Gure barely lifted his head from the seat he was sprawled across as he answered, "The park just past the town limit. Sakura Creek Park, I think it's called."

"Alright, alri—" Sado started, but he cut off as he saw a strange flickering light in his side mirror. It stayed there, even as the limo got up to cruising speed. "Hey, Gure… Do you believe in aliens?"

"What? No. Shut up and drive the car."

"I am driving the car, but there's also a weird light following us," Sado whined. "It's like twenty feet up, and it's really creeping me out."

Gure rolled down the window and stuck his head out. He looked back and up, and sure enough there was a beam of light there, swinging around wildly as it followed the limo. He pulled his head back in and said, "It's probably just a kid with one of those drones, but we can't let anyone see us make the drop off. Speed up."

That was an ogre in the window! I bet that footprint was his. And that smoking guy's driving, Haru thought. They must have kidnapped Misaki! Haru looked back and saw Yuisu's headlights in the distance, but she had no way to contact her without losing sight of the limo.

"Time for some desperate measures…" Haru said to herself, then she pulled her wings back and dropped into a dive.

Within seconds, Haru was right behind the rear bumper of the huge limo, flying dangerously close to the fast-moving blur of pavement below. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins and her mind was laser-focused on the task at hand. Feathers flew as she flapped her large, powerful wings harder and jogged sideways to the left side of the limo, then darted forward.

Her talon that wasn't grasping the flashlight rose up, and with one swift motion, she lashed out at the left rear tire of the Hummer. Her razor-sharp claw slashed right through the rubber and the tire deflated with a BANG. Then, as quickly as she had come, she fell far back and out of sight, hoping that the driver hadn't spotted her in the side mirror.

For a couple seconds, the limo rolled on, despite its flat tire and the awful grinding sound the bare wheel made against the road. Then, as Haru had hoped would happen, the brake-lights came on and the huge SUV slowed and pulled over onto the shoulder.

Haru kept her distance, and turned the flashlight off with a flick of her talon. If Yuisu just keeps driving straight ahead, she can't miss us.

The limo stopped, the doors opened, and two figures stepped out. Only a couple seconds after that, the sounds of an argument carried through the calm night air to Haru's sensitive ears.

"A blowout? So much for taking care of the bossman's company property. Did you drive over a fuggin' chunk of metal or something, Sado?" a deep voice shouted.

"Hey, hey, I didn't see anything in the road, Gure. It ain't my fault. How about you just put the spare tire on and we can get going again. The longer we sit here, the more attention we attract," a nasally voice replied.

"Why should I change the tire? Your shitty driving broke it, and if you're worried about attracting attention, what do you think an 8-foot ogre on the side of the road's gonna do?"

"Fine, fine, I'll do it. Go check on the harpy, in case all the noise woke her up."

That was all the confirmation Haru needed. Now she knew for sure that these men had kidnapped Misaki. Her vision went red with rage and her only thought was, I'll teach those pieces of shit to mess with harpies… She silently landed on the road behind the limo and dropped the flashlight. She'd need both legs free for what she had planned.

Before Haru could act on her fury, a small red truck screeched to a stop behind the limo. The truck's headlights illuminated the back of the Hummer, and blinded the scrawny devil working on the rear tire.

His nasally voice whined, "Shit, shit, someone wants to 'help'. This day just keeps getting better…"

Yuisu and Yamato both flung their doors open and scrambled around to meet Haru, who was crouched by the back bumper of the familiar Hummer. Yuisu realized that it was the same exact limo that Yuisu and the girls had ridden to the Wild Life not long ago.

Yuisu asked, "What's going on, Haru? Is Misaki in there?"

Haru nodded, then raised her wing to her mouth in a shushing gesture. She wanted to keep the element of surprise.

Yuisu didn't care about stealth. She was more concerned for Haru's safety. "I don't like the feel of this one bit. We should call Brutus and Kyle."

Just then, a tan-skinned liminal stepped around the corner of the SUV. Haru immediately slipped around the other corner and out of sight, leaving Yuisu and Yamato to deal with the devil.

The horned man spoke first, "Hey, hey, thanks for stopping, but we don't need any help today. Just gonna put on our spare and be on our way. Seeya!" He shooed them with both hands, doing a very poor job of acting natural. His scary black horns and devilish appearance certainly didn't help.

Yamato stepped forward. He wasn't normally an intimidating guy, but he was a couple inches taller than Sado, and he was livid. He drew himself up tall and roared, "I know you have my Misaki! Let her go, or else!"

Sado's lips stretched into a wicked grin and his red eyes gleamed in the headlights. "Or else what? You two humans can't so much as touch me or it'll be an international-level incident," he sneered.

Yamato didn't back down. His chest rose and fell rapidly and he yelled, "I don't care! You're the one breaking the law!" He pulled back a fist, but he froze as a figure loomed up behind Sado.

A deep voice said, "What law is that, huh?" The massive ogre stepped into the light and glared down at Yamato and Yuisu. "You got no proof at all, so you should just get back in your tiny truck and drive away."

What happened next was almost too fast to see. A white blur pounced from the top of the Hummer. THWAP! The knuckles of a clenched talon whipped across Sado's jaw. THUD! A knee crashed into Gure's solar plexus, knocking his breath out of him with an OOF!

Barely a second had passed and nothing but bright white afterimages remained where the two hired goons had been standing.

Haru crouched with a knee poised above the ogre's throat, just in case, but he seemed to be fully out of it. Haru's kick had been delivered with martial precision and with more than enough force to take the larger liminal down for the count.

Yamato and Yuisu were too surprised to speak, at least until Yamato's concern for Misaki got him moving again. As he ran toward the side door of the black limo, he yelled back, "I'll check on Misaki!"

"Ugh…" the laid-out devil groaned feebly, blinking up at the night sky from where he lay on the dirt shoulder. "What hit me?"

A very angry set of golden eyes came into view. "I did," Haru growled, "and unless you want a second helping, you're going to answer some questions."

Sado tried to cower, but he was flat on his back and there was nowhere to go. "Sure, sure! Anything!"

Haru started with the most important question, "Is Misaki alright?"

"Yeah, she's fine, I swear!" Sado mewled pitifully. "We just gave her a sleeping pill. Since she's so small, we started with a half dose, and we never needed to give her any more!"

Haru pressed a vicious-looking claw against his shoulder and leaned close, showing her sharp teeth. "Alright. So far so good, Sado," she said, using the name she overheard earlier. "Now, why did you kidnap her?"

"Our boss back in Tokyo wanted her, for good luck or something," he babbled. "He hired us after he heard there was a black harpy living out here. I never got the full story, since Gure's the one that does all the talking to the bossman."

During Haru's interrogation, Yuisu stepped a few feet away and tried to reach Agent Will on the phone. It was nearly two in the morning, so she wasn't really expecting an answer.

RING, RING, RI— Suddenly, Agent Will answered, "Yuisu? Were you the one calling all night?"

"That was mostly Yamato," Yuisu said. Then as calmly as possible, trying not to get too upset with Agent Will, she asked, "Why didn't you answer?"

He took on an apologetic tone. "My phone battery died and I just got home to charge it. I saw a bunch of missed calls but I haven't had a chance to check my voicemails, then you called." Finally, he asked, "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, something was wrong"—Yuisu looked in awe at Haru, who had just taken down two frightening men in seconds without breaking a sweat—"but it's mostly under control now. We just need you to send someone to arrest some extraspecies kidnappers."

Two hours later, Agent Will walked Haru and Yuisu through the halls of a police station toward the exit, wearing his standard black suit and sunglasses, despite it being four in the morning. "Sorry about the paperwork, and thank you two so much for all your help, and your quick action."

He glanced back over his shoulder for an instant, then whispered, "I didn't want to say this around Yamato, but if you hadn't acted so fast, we might not have been able to find Misaki and catch those guys. That abduction was a pretty professional job and we don't have the technology to do DNA analysis on rare liminal species. It could have been weeks before we tracked them down."

Haru stepped forward and put her face right up in Agent Will's. It seemed she was still riled up from the hectic evening. "What about their boss, that shady businessman who owns the limo company?"

Agent Will smiled. "Oh, our Tokyo department just arrested him, and we've got enough evidence, including signed confessions from his goons, to put him away for a while. It's going to take more than a crow from heaven to guide him out of this one."

Yuisu raised one tired eyebrow. "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

He chuckled, then said, "There's a myth that the Yatagarasu, a mythical crow, came down from heaven to guide the first Emperor of Japan to the region of Yamato, where he started his kingdom. That superstitious businessman must have thought Misaki would guide him to greater wealth."

"'Yamato'? Like our Yamato?" Yuisu said, then squinted her eyes at Agent Will. "Did you assign Misaki to Yamato's house because his name was in that myth?"

With a smirk, Agent Will said, "I'm not at liberty to discuss how specific hosts and homestays are paired." When they reached the front door, he pointed a thumb back into the police station and said, "I've gotta go check on a sleeping beauty and her prince charming. You two should go home and get some rest."

Yuisu nodded and stepped out the door, saying, "Seeya around, Agent Will."

As she climbed into the driver's seat of her truck, she mentally thanked the police officer that had given her some coffee earlier. That caffeine was all that was keeping her going so early in the morning. She and Haru were both exhausted, so the drive was pretty quiet, at least until they neared the house. Yuisu spoke up, "So, Haru…"

Haru blinked sleepily. "Hmm? What's up?"

"Uh, when you beat those guys up…" Yuisu started, then trailed off.

"Yeah, sorry for not telling you that I had combat training," Haru said sheepishly. She didn't like showing that side of herself, a side she left behind when she quit being a harpy enforcer.

Yuisu shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Seeing you like that, so angry and powerful…"

Haru cringed, assuming that Yuisu had been scared by it.

Yuisu turned and looked at Haru with revitalized eyes and a lewd grin. "It was fuckin' hot."