The Vampire Detective - chapter two
Title: The Vampire Detective
Author: Leonawriter
Word Count: 7,321 (ish)
Rating: T (for vampiric issues)
Disclaimer: I don't own most of these characters. I do own the story and anyone I thought up myself. Inspiration goes to Aoyama Gosho, Ellen Brand and others.
Spoilers: Just about anything up to 'Shinichi Kudo's Murder Mystery'.
Warnings: Vampires. Just... vampires.
Characters/Pairings: Canon pairings. Most of the main cast and includes MK.
Notes: I know it isn't all that read here, but I'm posting it anyway. I do intend to update once a week.
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Chapter two - The Key and the Door
'All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.'
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Conan crept through the large house - more like a mansion, really - with as little noise as was possible. In more normal circumstances, he would have called out for whoever lived here, but this wasn’t normal. He knew the guy could move quickly. He just didn’t want to have to learn the hard way how quickly. The idea that they hadn’t bought the act and that at this time someone else had already been hurt, that the murderer was in the place already, haunted him.
He had to warn those people. Before anything did happen.
His search took him into various rooms before anything happened to show him where to go. Carpets, tatami, tapestries and wall hangings all met his feet and eyes, the musky scents of dust, old wood and a conglomeration of various other met his nose, at one point surprising him with an idea of food - not too badly done or even forgotten.
It was silent. Conan supposed that that was the strangest and most puzzling thing of them all. Apart from the odd noise he made and the noises from outside, nothing - not even a mouse, as the saying went - could be heard. To say it was getting on his nerves - not to mention spooking him just a little - was an understatement.
He started to get a clue that he was getting closer when the rooms had less dust in them and - perversely - more antiques. Some had notes next to them. From Maria, for Juan. Remember Milan, read one. Another, this time in Japanese, read For an eternal friend, don’t forget us! Seigan Miho and Hanashika Taiho. The second was dated a couple of decades back. Weird.
This whole place is weird, thought Conan. It’s. . . how long since I came in through the door? Feels like ages. Hours. Wait. It couldn’t have been hours! Ran’s in danger! How could I just - argh!
He scowled in front of yet another doorway, a room on one of the lower levels. A hand went up to his head, the other taking off the unneeded glasses for a moment, to let him think as himself. A thing he really needed to do right then.
I’m awful! That’s what I am! I already had enough evidence. I’m sure. And yet here I am, wasting time, just because . . . because of what? Just to try and help someone?
He growled at himself again. This. Is. Not. Helping. Anyone.
Through the door it was, then.
Or rather, as he would refer to it later, through the rabbit-hole.
Even the door didn’t creak. The room was dark, too. Not pitch-black, but full of enough shadows that nothing came into clear-cut colour either. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he realized that for the first time, he had entered an occupied room. There were actually two people in it. The first, surprising him and drawing his attention because of the unusual sound, was pacing holes in the carpet. The man - just barely, possibly only a few years older than he was supposed to be - was wearing American style jeans, white T-shirt (which glowed slightly in the dim lighting) and a black leather jacket. The entire combination made him look like someone off of the film set of Grease. Conan froze, half wondering as to who in the world these people were, all this way out here, with a murderer on the other side of the street, when he noticed the other occupant of the room.
It was a woman. He noticed that the first moment he saw her - facial features, hair length and posture in the high-backed chair. She was leaning forward, arms resting on thick armrests, hands crossing each other, face tilted forward slightly. She gave off an aura of bemusement, though whether it was at him or at the guy pacing with his hands in his pockets, he didn’t know. He didn’t dare move. There was something awfully wrong about this - all of it - and he couldn’t shake the feeling. It didn’t help when the woman finally spoke.
“You can stop your pacing now. The wait is over; he’s here.”
There was amusement in that voice. A voice that spoke perfect Japanese yet with a curious lilt, as if there was an old sort of accent in it’s layers that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. The American’s pacing stopped, but he could still hear and see a sort of fidget about him that was reminiscent of someone who wouldn’t ever be able to truly sit still. The after-echoes of the woman’s voice stopped.
“Ne; obasan, how did you know I was coming here? You must be clever to know that!” He covered up his nervousness with a childish giggle, but that didn’t help him when faced with twin stares. There was a short silence, broken by first an incredulous snort and then . . . laughter. As if he had told them a really good joke. Dammit. I can’t give myself away, but I have to somehow get them to realize the danger they’re in. The danger Ran and the others are in. “Ne, obasan?”
The woman’s laughter died out quickly and she stood in a graceful, fluid motion. Walking over to the side of the room opposite to Conan and the American, she traced patterns on the wall. “You’re the detective. The tantei. You found us. Even when there wasn’t really that much to go by. . .”
Conan stared unashamedly in shock. Does that mean - could it possibly mean - that she - they - led me here? Left some sort of trail? Knew what was going to happen? He found himself shaking with anger. If they’d known . . . If they’d known, they could have done something about it! Not just stood around waiting!
“You knew?! A man died and Ran and the others are in danger and I came here thinking I could help but all the while you knew and did nothing about it, but you could have! Why didn’t you?! Why the hell didn’t you?!”
For a second time the two were staring at him, but this time there was no laughter. He was all too aware that it hadn’t really been Conan giving that speech; it had been Kudo Shinichi, incensed and furious. The man glanced at the woman, who deflated slightly with a sigh.
“And that the whole crux of the matter,” she said, as if quoting some old and famous book. She was now speaking so quietly that he could hardly hear her. “We knew that something might happen. Not what. We couldn’t appear. If we did, then he would run. We would only be able to follow. No matter how fast we were.”
“So we left everything to the normal people, the guys he wouldn’t suspect.” This time it was the American, and although his accent was good, his Japanese sounded like it had been taught to him by someone with a heavy Osaka-ben. “Figured if he was arrogant enough to call out detectives - a famous one, even - then we could use that against him.” He let out a breath, seeming to be more than slightly disturbed. “I still - the idea that he’d - actually do that. . .”
Conan was still fuming. “It doesn’t matter what you thought the guy would do. You could’ve done something.” As he was saying this, his mind backpedalled to what the guy had just said. Wait. Waitwait. That guy said detectives - as in plural. As in more than just Mori-san. As in . . . me?!
He backed away a step, but the woman smiled as if nothing was wrong. “And what, my dear tantei, would you have done if you had seen two strange people arrive and disappear with an acquaintance of yours only days after receiving word of a possible tragedy?”
He knew he was stuttering, eyes wide and arms windmilling, but he couldn’t help it. Not only had they both now said and implied that they knew that he was a detective in his own right, but the one thing that really got under his skin was that dammit they were right. He hated it, but he could see what would have happened. He would have thought that the tragedy in the letter was related to them, not knowing what he did now.
“I- bu- but - ! I mean - it’s just that - those people back there - Ran’s still in danger, dammit!” He clenched his fists, not nearly as intimidating or meaningful as it should have been. “I can’t afford to just stand here arguing with idiots when she’s in the same house as a killer! If they tried to do anything to her now, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Even if I was-”
He cut himself off before he said anything more incriminating. They were watching him, now. Both of them. But not as if he’d grown a second - taller, maybe - head, or even as if he’d said anything weird at all. They were just looking at him, almost expectantly. The worst thing was - he wanted to speak. That was the part that was ignoring the sensible bits of him that were screaming that both of the strangers were downright dangerous. That people shouldn’t just trust people - strangers - that quickly. That strangers didn’t learn your secrets that quickly unless they’d been watching you - following you.
Dammit, what’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t even be thinking things like that. Ran’s in danger right now, and for that matter, so am I. If these guys really do know who I am, then more than that, my identity’s in danger. These people could tell the others. I don’t know how they know, but Ran - she’d hate me.
“You must really like her,” the guy said softly, now leaning against the wall with his hands behind his head with his eyes closed. “That girl. You know that person’s still there, yet you’re still not afraid. It doesn’t matter what they might do to you.”
Conan didn’t - or at least tried not to - give them any indication of whether or not they were right. He stood his ground, not moving an inch yet ready to move at a moment’s notice.
“Y’know,” the guy continued, opening his eyes to look straight at Conan, “that kind of thinking’s suicidal. Especially for one who can’t live up to it.”
Conan saw red. It was clear now that they knew - really knew - who he was, but they were also mocking him? How well he could protect Ran? It didn’t matter whether or not it was the truth; that was too far.
“But then again,” the guy carried on light heartedly as if he hadn’t just angered the economy-sized detective, “You’re doing better than I would. What with being a murder magnet and all.”
He squawked this time, anger lost in indignation. “I am not a murder magnet! Most people have been planning things long before I get there, I’ll have you know.”
There was a feminine snort, an obvious attempt to hide laughter, and he had to all but physically force himself not to relax. He was scared to find that he was finding it harder and harder. A smell, not unlike a sweet perfume, didn’t help. Or it did. Depending on which side of the rabbit hole you were looking from.
It was sweet, but not sickly so. There was a subtleness about it that hinted and whispered of flowers and smokes. A blunt edge that promised dreams and illusions.
Wh- what’s happening to me? His vision swam, his legs buckled beneath him. I - I feel all woozy . . . Balance went bye-bye and he fell forwards, blacking out as he did so.
When he opened his eyes, he found that he was lying on something soft. Being cradled in the arms of the lady. The nice lady. The dangerous lady. They were both the same. It didn’t matter. Nothing ever did, since it never really made sense in dreams anyway.
That was all he could think that it could be. What else? In real life, people’s eyes didn’t glow like that. His vision still blurred. At least he could still see the smile on her face. She had a nice smile. Just another reason why it had to be a dream. Real people didn’t have teeth that long. She was cold, too. Not freezing, just cool. He absently wondered whether or not her voice was cool in this dream-world, too. Ran’s was warm.
He fidgeted suddenly, wishing that he could wake up. There was something he was sure he should be remembering, but . . . what?
“Do you trust me?”
What? Why would she ask that? It was a dream; nothing was ever as it seemed in dreams. But she hadn’t hurt him, wasn’t going to. How did he know that- ? Trust . . . trust you.
He felt rather than saw the lady smile as he took a long blink. Black and white, black and colour. . . Something about red. Ran likes red.
“What would you do for her?”
The question was only murmured this time, almost as if they were talking to themself. But he didn’t have to think - never would have to with a question like that. Anything. I’d do anything. To protect her. Anything. . .
A sigh. Why a sigh?
“For her. . . would you die?”
He wasn’t even too thrown. In a way, he already had died for her. He’d become little, all but abandoned his old life. If it meant Ran was safe. . . he’d go through death and back again. It’s only a dream, but it feels so real. If . . . if Ran needed me. . . and because of me, success was inevitable. . . I’d willingly . . . anything.
“Do you believe in magic?”
No. Magic goes against science. It doesn’t make sense. It can’t be controlled. But dreams can’t be controlled either; so maybe dreams are a kind of magic?
There had been a sort of irony in her voice. Maybe he hadn’t needed to answer. Dreams were a kind of magic of themselves; in dreams, your wishes could be made real and your hopes realities. In his dreams, sometimes he was Shinichi again. Sometimes...
“If. . . if vampires were real. . .what would you choose?”
This, he thought with a detached sense of calm amusement, had to be the strangest dream he’d ever had. Maybe the lady didn’t know that they weren’t in the real world anymore; they’d long since fallen down the rabbit-hole. Logic had waved merrily goodbye a while back - this was now a place of magic and the supernatural. A place where words became reality more than science and facts.
Of course, if that was all true, then there were vampires in his dream-world. That they were dangerous went without saying; things like that always were. With his kick-shoes on, he was dangerous. So was Ran, even without anything to help her.
Ran.
Ran wasn’t just dangerous. She was. . . in danger.
Now.
She was in danger now.
He couldn’t tell or remember much more than that, but reality mingled itself with the ideas of dreams and wouldn’t let go.
He noticed belatedly that the lady - he was still practically lying across her, he realized; Ran would throw a fit - was silent and unmoving, waiting for a reply of some kind.
He looked up at her again and actually looked and remembered. Her eyes, her smile, her skin, her laugh, her everything in how she moved. She wasn’t evil. Not like he’d read them to be; not like he’d thought they’d be; not like the . . . person . . . back at that place would be if he was a part of the dream-world as well.
I’d choose it, he thought, unaware that, like with all of his other answers, it had come out into the world as the slightest sound. One that couldn’t be heard unless one had uncanny hearing. For her. For the others. To go against them.
And all of a sudden, she was no longer still. Silence rang out as something flashed in lamplight, but the not-boy would be damned if he admitted what he’d seen, dream or not.
It hurt. Some said it didn’t, but they were lying. There wasn’t much pain, but it was enough to put cracks in the world he had fabricated around himself. Reality came crashing down around him with a horrified gasp. Denial, pure and true, reigned. I’m still dreaming. This can’t be happening. There’s no way this can be happening.
And yet in the back of his mind, the place where the dreams still existed and made sense in that way that only dreams do, his mind was putting things together.
“If . . . vampires were real . . .”
If dreams were intruding into the realm of reality, then vampires were real.
“. . .what would you choose?”
And if they were real, then that changed everything. The mystery back at the house, the town itself, the strange mansion he was in and the pictures on the walls with their messages, the man and the woman he’d met, the vampires. . .
If they were real, would he make the same choice? The reasons he’d had for choosing before had been ones he would have used in his usual, sane mind, if sanity included things like this.
So what was the difference now?
His dreams became interwoven spiderwebs of fractured realities as the part of his mind that wasn’t in denial slowly came to the fore, weaving new patterns into what he believed and unwinding where it wasn’t needed any more.
He ignored - tried not to think about - the one last thing that was needed, focusing instead on other things. He absently thought of Ran. Not of how she would react, but her face, her laugh, her anger, the passion in her face when she was doing something she truly believed in. Don’t worry, Ran. I’ll come back to you. I’m coming back.
In the end, he wasn’t sure which it was that caused him to truly lose consciousness; the red hot pokers being jabbed wherever pain could be felt or the sudden feverish heart attack that made him see double.
She sighed, a mix of worry and relief. The child that wasn’t a child lay in her arms, unconscious but not unfeeling or unchanging. She could see the sweat forming already. Footsteps came closer, and she rose, careful for her burden. Together she and he walked up to ground floor, to a room where they laid him down.
Her companion took a deep breath.
“You do know,” he said, “you’re going to make one hell of a lot of enemies like this.”
She laughed softly. “I know.”
He let out a long whistle before giving way at last, chuckling.
“You always were one to attract trouble.”
“I know that, too. I attracted you, didn’t I?”
“True.” A snort. “But - a vampire detective? The whole underworld’s gonna be up in arms.”
She gave him a rather victorious smile tempered with mischief, not unlike one that he’d seen frequently ever since she had found him in New York.
“And why not? There should always be a first for everything.” She wiped a bit of sweat from the boy’s forehead. “Besides; he chose it for good reasons. I could see it. That’s more than I could say for so many others. . .”
With a sigh, a tired sigh, she left, leaving behind them very little that had not been in the room before.
One small note on a piece of paper. A suit of clothes - just in case. And one boy, not a boy, changing, becoming.
Wakefulness - for once - came slowly. Not unlike climbing out of a cavern of duvets, except this time there was an orchestra of drums waiting for him at the top once he’d actually woken up. He blinked. The drums weren’t going away. Well, at least it wasn’t only his head throbbing. He always had really bad jitters whenever that happened. He blinked again. There was something fuzzy about his vision . . . oh, yeah. He rubbed at his eyes, wiping away remnants of sleep. Okay. So where did I put my -
Glasses?
Shinichi glanced around with wide eyes (wide, bugged eyes) and fought down bad words. The room. He didn’t recognize the room. And, what was more, he had a problem. A big problem. Usually he had a little problem, but right now, it was, well . . . big.
Somehow, someone who knew about him - they had to know about him, or else why would there be a set of clothes just over there his size - someone who knew about him had for some reason been able to and had slipped him one of the temporary cures one Haibara Ai had developed and made him carry around with him. Just for emergencies.
But. . . who? Who would do that kind of thing? If they knew about him, then it couldn’t be a prank - you just didn’t do that kind of thing as a prank. It was damned dangerous. And not just because the cure had the added side effect of possibly killing him every time he used it. How could they have slipped it to him, anyway? It wasn’t like he’d even had breakfast before - before . . .
His head chose that moment to start pounding again. Argh. Thinking later. First - he cut himself off with a blush as he realized. - clothes. That comes a most definite first.
The embarrassment didn’t leave his face until - even after - the entire suit of clothes had vacated their position nearby and been relocated to a place where they were more . . . needed.
A further look around the room concluded that it wasn’t all that big. The style reminded him of somewhere he’d been recently - the word ‘mansion’ cropped up, as did a flash of something else - leading him to believe that he hadn’t gone too far from the last place he’d been before he’d blacked out. Other than that, there seemed to be an old-style desk of some sort with a phone on it, a chair, and that was about it. The door was half open, so he hadn’t been kidnapped here. And if he had, his kidnappers were being pretty complacent. The only thing that was properly secured was the window on the other side of the room.
In actual fact, he realized with a dry throat and a still-pounding head, there was one other thing. Several other things, all piled neatly onto a chair. With a . . . note stuck just as neatly on top. Trying carefully not to think too hard on the hows and the whys, he picked up with hesitant hands the little rectangular scrap of paper that some part of him, for some reason, really didn’t want to know to much about, didn’t want to be looking at it too closely, didn’t want to be reading it . . .
Luckily - or unluckily, depending on which side of the rabbit-hole you favoured - the detective part of Kudo Shinichi’s brain took over with all the curiosity of a cat. A cat that knew the old adage about Those Who Poke Their Whiskers In Where They Aren’t Supposed To. And yet there he was, Poking.
The plain white piece of card was pretty unremarkable, to tell the truth. But that wasn’t what had Shinichi in shivers, in turns caught between the shock that meant the relaxing of muscles, making him almost drop it, and the fear - no, make that terror - that made him grip the offending note hard so that no-one else could ever see the accusatory words written in elegant calligraphy, the last two words in just-as-elegant English letters.
Catch the killer, cover the crime.
You’ll know what I mean, Mr. Detective.
His hands suddenly loosened their grip on the missive, letting it flutter to the floor as they went to his head, which was now pounding with all the ferocity of total recall, everything in the smallest detail which his detective’s mind had picked up. He remembered. . . everything. The interrupted breakfast to the murder scene to exploring the huge mansion to finding the strange man and woman to - oh, kami - getting knocked out - only I wasn’t knocked out, was I? - to - oh, kami.
Kami, no.
But I remember.
Catch the killer . . . cover the crime.
Dammit, this is stupid. And it was. He was a detective; he didn’t believe in fairytales or ghost stories or horror movies or anything from the Twilight Zone. He was being stupid. He was a detective. Detectives - and especially this detective - weren’t supposed to freak out at things like this like . . . like. . . like little children. Detectives handled things logically and with-
“!!”
Damn, that hurt! Only that time it hadn’t been a headache. It had been a full-blown full-body ache. Everywhere that there was something in him that could hurt, had hurt. Not, however, in the same way as it was when he changed from Conan to Shinichi or back again. No. That was more of a heart-attack-and-fever. He sort of remembered vaguely feeling like that before passing out, but that wasn’t what he felt like now. Now felt like - like all those times he’d trained too long when studying soccer or karate. Like those fewer times when he’d just become Conan again and his muscles were protesting. Except it wasn’t only in one or two places like when he’d strained something; this was all over. And it hurt. A lot.
His mouth felt dry. Maybe he was being poisoned somehow? He immediately discarded the notion - why go to all the trouble of having him big? And everything else that had happened?
He gritted his teeth. Why indeed.
Absently, his tongue skidded over the roof of his mouth for strange tastes anyhow. Didn’t hurt to be cautious. But then his tongue skidded over his teeth and he was sent into a whole new wave of panic.
I have fangs!?
I - but that - that’s impossible -!
It had to be. But that didn’t stop him from spluttering any more than the fact that said - fangs - had just retracted, if that was the right term for it. Leaving no trace that they had been any longer than any other time. K’so. Damn. How the hell am I going to tell, well, anybody about this? If it’d just been the memories, he could’ve put it down to temporary insanity. If it’d just been the fact that he was once again Shinichi rather than Conan, he could’ve put it down to someone slipping him a cure. If it’d just been the fangs, he would’ve been able to put it down to a really sick prank. But -
It was almost as if they weren’t even there any more. Apart from the fact that they tingled strangely every time a new wave of pain hit him. Which seemed to be getting worse and worse every -
He bit his hand at new pain, grimacing when he realized that the pain had brought the elongated incisors back, drawing blood.
Ow. Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow. Oh. Oh, damn. . .
The pain ebbed away to a dull - expectant - throb as the jagged bruises and two now clean cuts started to heal up in front of his eyes.
Copper, he thought, the word coming to mind without his planning on it. It tastes like copper and cherries. Deciding that he and normal life had parted ways a long time ago and now, finally, sanity had also decided that he wasn’t worth knowing and left him to catch up on his more-than-six impossible (or should that be merely improbable now?) things to do before breakfast. He shook his head, a hand going to his eyes. At least I can think now. Don’t think why and just don’t think about it.
The rebellious part of his brain that just wouldn’t shut up, dammit! however, felt yet another piece click into place. The window.
Of all things, that was the one that he found scared him the most. The others had freaked him to his very limits and still continued to do so, but the small fact that he hadn’t been able to see out of the window meant that he hadn’t been able to tell how late it was. The phone on the desk wasn’t advanced enough to display the time, and Conan’s watch was probably stashed away in one of his old blazer jacket pockets. The problem was, even if he could find the watch-come-stun gun, it still wouldn’t help. Time alone wouldn’t be able to tell him when sunset was or even if the sun had already gone down. Not for the first time, Shinichi was trusting his instincts on this one; he’d prefer to look the fool if embarrassed and proven wrong than be burnt quite literally when proven right.
It only took a moment and his fingers had found the phone. They moved without thinking, without needing to think, really, since all other options were out. Agasa-hakase and Haibara were both in the same place as the others, likely - no, more than likely - to be overheard if he tried to contact them. So, of course, for him there was only one number left on his list, and that was the person he was dialling.
Handset to his ear, he tore up from the chair and started pacing holes in the carpet, waiting for them to pick up.
One ring, two rings, three rings, four. It felt and sounded idiotically like one of those playground games he had become much more familiar with over the past year. Five rings, six rings, seven rings, more.
Abruptly the waiting game was over, and suddenly he was getting an earful of angry Kansai-ben.
“This’d better be good, Kudo, because if it isn’t -”
Shinichi cut across him, not having the time to learn new insults and what exactly the other boy would do to him if there wasn’t a good explanation.
“Look, just for once, would you listen, Hattori? I think - no, make that I am in trouble. Big trouble.”
“. . . What kind of trouble are we talkin’ about here, Kudo?”
And for once he was glad that the other detective was as avidly addicted to mysteries as he was and not to mention the small fact that he didn’t always use his head over instinct and heart.
He hesitated, though. Thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two very different things.
“I was knocked out.” It wasn’t completely a lie. “When is it?”
Hattori growled. “First you’re tellin’ me you’re in trouble, then you’re askin’ me what the time is? Mind telling me what’s going on here?”
“I - that’s what I’m trying to figure out!” Shinichi ran a hand through his hair, inwardly wincing at the snapping tones he was using. He sighed. “Someone sent an invitation to the old man to com out here - a weird old place. Town. It’s old, but odd - half western, in a way. Someone got killed -” here he ignored an odd noise at the other end “- and I investigated. I know who the murderer is, I just didn’t have enough evidence to credibly nail them. When I figured there might be link between them and someone else -” He growled, frustrated. He was not going to tell everything to Hattori, no matter how much he trusted the other guy. Some things. . . he shivered. Some things were better left unsaid. “I woke up maybe ten minutes ago. I can’t tell.”
“When was it you got knocked out?” There was something strange in the Osakan’s voice.
“Morning,” Shinichi replied dryly. “Around quarter past ten when the murder took place.”
A low whistle came through with a tin-like voice through the receiver. “That must’ve been one hell of a blow to the head, Kudo.”
His blood ran cold.
“Hattori, tell me.”
“It’s afternoon,” the Osakan said shortly. “Still a few hours ‘till sunset, though.” A pause; good. It gave him long enough that he could remember how to breath again. “Oi, Kudo?” Shinichi felt rather than heard the other’s voice waver slightly in hesitation. “’Neechan. Is she-?”
“She’s still alive,” he answered, brain taking a back seat to what his senses were telling him. “So are the others.” No new scent of blood, other than the familiar one of his own from when he’d bitten his hand.
There was a faint rustle audible from the phone. “Good. Then the bastard’s probably got some sort of agenda; he woulda taken care of things while you were out of the picture otherwise. Which gives you enough time to explain things to me.”
Doki. Doki. He had wondered at one point about that, and it seemed his heart was still as able to pound in his ears as before. That he could still breath was evident in that he’d nearly hyperventilated moments before.
“Ok, Kudo. Just calm down.” It took him a moment to figure out that it wasn’t just his thoughts, that he wasn’t just thinking aloud. “You can explain when you’re a bit calmer.”
Shinichi laughed, for once actually losing his grip and sounding like it. “Calm? That’s a good one. I haven’t been trying to stay calm, Hattori. I’ve been trying to stay sane. When I woke up, I was Shinichi again. Not Edogawa Conan, Hattori. Kudo Shinichi. And before you say anything, no, I wasn’t drugged, I didn’t take a cure and I didn’t even have any alcohol.”
“Mind tellin’ me what you did take?”
“B- nothing!” He could all but see the Osakan’s brows raise in disbelief. They were neither of them naive. Shinichi knew that, and knew that Hattori knew. The slip hadn’t - couldn’t have been, really - enough, but he himself had patched up the pieces of a case far too often to take it for granted that just one little slip wouldn’t hurt. He wasn’t even fool enough to believe that he’d only slipped once.
“Look, Kudo. You know the drill. Either you tell me, or I figure things out on my own. Either way, we’re gonna find out what happened to you. The important thing now is-”
“I already know what happened to me, Hattori.” His voice was now calmer, but on the inside he was just the same as before. It was almost as if he was distant from everything. “I’m not stupid. I know what I am.” He hesitated, remembering what the other had said earlier. Not too long. . . “Oi, Hattori. How dark is it out?”
“It’s getting darker. Dunno how things are at your end, but the sun’s just-”
Hattori cut off, leaving them both in silence once more. Damn. Damn it. That guy just had to be as smart as I am, didn’t he? Only now, he’s going to think I’m insane. Not long now and I’m going to hear the laughter any moment now and I’m gonna be the laughing stock of the entire police force and-
“Oi, Kudo - you still with me?”
-he’s going to tell Kazuha who’s going to tell Ran and that’s bad because Ran hates scary stories which is really bad because I’m gonna have to hide this from her as well or else she’s going to be scared of me and - huh?
“OI! Kudo - you still alive over there - ah, bad analogy. You know what I mean.” Hattori sighed. “Eh. . .”
It sounded like he might have said more, but at that moment they were both deafened by a loud ringing, one which he didn’t immediately realize wasn’t coming from his end, somehow. Had he interrupted the middle of a case? Had there been an accident? Or a fire? What about. . .
“Hang on,” he began to ask, “where are you?”
Hattori simply snorted derisively before answering. “At school, you baka. Where else would I be? Some of us didn’t get a day pass. You rang me in the middle of a lesson and I had to escape both class and Kazuha.”
Oh. Wait. Pause and rewind.
“You know.”
“Yeah.” The Osakan actually seemed pretty subdued by the fact. Or the idea.
“And you’re not freaking out or telling me that I’m crazy?”
“I grew up with Kazuha, you idiot. She’s the one who insists I keep an omamori, remember?” There was a pause and a rustle. “Apart from other things, Mister Only One Truth panicking over stuff he doesn’t believe in is about on par with the world ending. So yeah, I believe you. If there’s one thing an impersonator can’t copy, it’s Kudo in a panic.”
“Thanks. I think.” Hattori snorted again. “But I still don’t understand how you’re just-”
“Later, Kudo,” he growled. “And when I say later, I mean later this time.” The Osakan huffed, sounding disconcerted with something, at least. For a few minutes, neither spoke. There was a kind of quiet tension in the air. Both knew what exactly Shinichi was, even though neither had said as much. Shinichi himself still hadn’t said it in the privacy of his own thoughts, even though that expectant hunger was still throbbing away inside of him.
“So.” The silence was broken with just one word. “What’re you gonna do about that case of yours?”
What? Oh. The case. The case! And suddenly he had a headache coming on of quite a different kind.
“How am I supposed to deal with that? All they know is that - damn. That Conan’s gone missing.”
“You can deal with that much,” Hattori breezed. “You’re not a half-bad bluffer. What’s got me is that the way you’ve said things, the bastard who killed that other guy was just like you. Only he’s been around a bit longer and has homicidal tendencies. Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re right,” he admitted almost reluctantly.
“Then I don’t know how you’re gonna like this, but you’re probably gonna have to get you’re story straight to be able to get the guy in ‘cuffs, Kudo.”
Suddenly, Shinichi didn’t seem to have any breath left any more, and not just because he didn’t need it, now.
“Oi, Kudo, you ok? You not freakin’ out on me?”
“No.” His voice croaked. “Not much.”
Except that she had said the same, or as good as. On the card. “ ‘Catch the killer and cover the crime’, huh?”
“Er, right.” Footsteps. Pause. “Looks like you aughta be safe now. Sun’s going down. You should probably remember to breath before you try anything, though.”
Huh? Wha- ? Ack! Mortified, he proceeded to cough and splutter, making Hattori laugh. When he’d finished, however, his friend continued as seriously as before.
“’you be careful, you hear me? Don’t panic. It’ll help if you don’t go falling face-forward onto any wooden stakes, too, but you don’t me to tell you that. You survive long enough and I’ll be right down as soon as I can, Kudo.”
Shinichi stiffened. “I don’t need-”
“Humour me, will you? And get back to that case.”
With that, the other line clicked dead, a long beeping tone ringing in his ears until he put the handset back down.
He only allowed himself a couple of moments to regain his bearings from the bizarre conversation. Time wasn’t exactly on his side, what with not only the case itself but also himself to fight against. With the case, it was simply a matter of making sure that the murderer didn’t get away, make sure that the police believed the story he was fabricating to go with the evidence. But as for himself. . .
He wasn’t a fool. The throbbing had never died down. It was only waiting, like a coiled snake or a wild cat waiting to pounce. It was expecting.
All he knew was that the next time it actually became impatient, he doubted whether biting down on his own hand would be enough.
He would have to finish the case quickly, to make sure that it didn’t get to that.
AN: Oh, that was fun. Really, it was. Ok, sometimes I felt kinda guilty about what I was doing to him, but the thought of later chapters kept me going, not to mention all the good feedback I've got so far. And the previous chapter didn't even have any overt vampires in it. Hmm... lessee. Things that were always gonna be in the story ever since I started it? The fact that Conan's gone bai-bai. I'm not saying he'll never ever possibly return, just that if he did it'd hardy be for very long. The fact that Hattori got called by Kudo-In-A-Panic never got cut out either, but panickyness got toned down a little.
One major thing was the two original characters. No, they don't have names in this chapter. That is highly intentional, since so far I am unaware of too many original characters with original names that actually work. Those two, y'know, didn't originally exist. In the beginning, it was gonna be about twelve or something, and . . . I dunno. Numbers got shrank until there were only two left, these two, and by that time they'd made their own characters. The guy is actually based somewhat loosely on a Doctor Who companion named Fritz who only appeared in the BBC books in adventures with the Eighth Doctor, and the woman... mystery. An overall feeling of mystery and trustworthyness.
Seigan Miho and Hanashika Taiho were borrowed from Icka M. Chif and friends - from a story that inspired me greatly. I wanted names, and those two came to mind. It doesn't cross with that world, though. (the story being the Price You Pay series)