Aya glared up at the mirror, still half-crouched over the sink, cold water from the paper towel clutched in his hand running down the back of his neck and soaking the top of his sleeveless black tee. His head hurt so badly that Yoji’s smirking reflection looked like it was draped in a veil of wavering red. He had spent an entire fruitless day casing Tashi-San’s Cute-Cute Dream Land for signs of their current targets and riding the Spasm over and over with Ken – Weiß’s official "Fount of Useless Roller Coaster Trivia" – to keep up their cover . . . and the day wasn’t over yet. He felt feverish, frustrated, vaguely nauseous and very, very tired.

He was in absolutely no mood for Yoji to be cryptic.

"Which would mean . . ." Aya prompted gruffly.

"Which would mean," was the smug reply, "that following Omi all over the park like a dirty old man with a pocket full of candy has finally paid off. They took the bait."

Closing the distance between them in one long stride, Yoji spooned his slightly taller body suggestively against Aya’s before producing a smallish piece of glossy paper from the pocket of his low-hipped jeans. He bopped the redhead playfully on the nose with it, chuckling when Aya straightened and snatched it impatiently away. As Aya turned it over in his hands, Yoji took the opportunity to mooch a sip of the soda Aya had left sitting on the sink, pulling a face at the long-since flat bitterness of the taste.

"I’ve been invited to join the game," he continued. "Tonight. With as many ‘like-minded’ friends as I care to bring along. I may invite you . . . if you ask nicely."

Aya’s only answer was a derisive sniff.

The back of the invitation was coated in what looked like plain silver foil, but only at first glance. Etched into it was an elaborate holographic bar code, probably differentiated from one invitation to another and obviously designed to keep the uninvited away. The front of the paper was dominated by a full-color image of what looked somewhat like a Mardi Gras mask, done in glazed white porcelain in the shape of a wolf’s face. It was decorated with paint, beads and feathers, mostly blue shot through with silver, and a sapphire glittered in the corner of one empty, black eye, poignant as a frozen teardrop. A single word – Masquerade – was written in silver foil in a flowing, rather foppish font across the top, "Midnight, Dream Land Center" in smaller, blue foil print at the bottom.

Jackpot.

"They’re holding the game *here*, on Dream Land property? Don’t they usually find participants in one place and put on their show in another?"

Yoji shrugged. "Last big bash of the season before they move on, and old Tashi-San’s been particularly cooperative; I guess they decided it was worth the risk."

Aya tipped the arm Yoji had draped across his shoulder to check his watch. It was about half past nine – half an hour to closing – time they would need to check out the Center while still able to pass it off as the curiosity of legitimate guests. He tried to slide out from between the sinks and Yoji’s body but, unfortunately, the concept of necessary reconnaissance seemed for the moment to have escaped his usually conscientious companion. It had been replaced by an overwhelming fascination with the strip of pale belly revealed by Aya’s shirt when he stood up straight.

"Yoji . . ."

"Shhhhh . . ."

He’d begun tracing very slow, very distracting orbits around Aya’s exposed navel with the palm of his hand, working systematically lower, his breath lusty and humid as he took to nibbling Aya’s ear. Aya was having a surprising amount of difficulty finding the ambition to slap him away. God knew he didn’t really want to. They both needed this so badly, something to distract them from the frustrations of the day and the dangers of the night, from life as Weiß. It had become almost a habit, a good luck charm. Ever since that first night . . . but no, this was neither the time nor place.

Yoji could be damn persuasive when he got it into his head, though . . .

Aya’s eyes slid closed when Yoji’s other hand clasped his cheek, tipping his head away so that Yoji could get at the cool, damp flesh of his throat. Damn him. He knew perfectly well that Aya had an extremely sensitive neck, that sucking on it like that was the quickest way to shut his brain right off. Yoji’s hips pressed Aya tight against the bank of sinks, almost painfully now, trapping him completely.

Aya reached up to grab the arm wrapped firmly around his shoulder and neck, pulling at it in feeble rebellion. His head hurt too much to argue; his voice refused to take on the air of authority he attempted to lend it. He tried to achieve the same effect with his piercing eyes.

"We need to go, Yoji. Now."

"Oh, no," Yoji scolded, evenly meeting Aya’s black-rimmed plum gaze in the mirror with his own rich green one, reaching down finally to stroke the redhead through the fabric of his black cargo pants. "I already told you. I worked hard for that invitation. If you want to go, you have to ask nicely . . ."

A well placed elbow got Yoji to back off just long enough for Aya to spin around and plant a defensive knee between the other’s legs. He didn’t use it, though; not yet. He wasn’t sure he could manage it once Yoji took his face in his hands and drew him in for one of those deep, deep kisses he was so damn good at. He wasn’t sure he cared to. It took an effort of will to break away, whereupon Yoji immediately began playing with his nipples through the damp material of his tee shirt.

Aya couldn’t quite stop his own soft moan. "Worked hard, did you?" he whispered into Yoji’s ear. "You spent the entire day sitting around, smoking and looking like a full-time lecher. How was this any different from your usual routine?"

"Touché," Yoji allowed, his half-laugh, half-sigh a puff of warm air in the hollow of Aya’s throat, "but, seriously, we’re talking about stalking Omi here." He drew back, gazing solemnly into Aya’s eyes. "Have you ever tried having lecherous thoughts about Omi?"

Aya blinked at him.

"Exactly. It’s like considering kicking a kitten . . . for pleasure." He shuddered melodramatically. "The two concepts don’t mix well. Thinking about Omi and sex at the same time just makes a body feel dirty. I don’t know how Ken manages it."

"Oh, please. Yoji, I know you. There’s nothing you don’t think about at the same time as sex." Aya’s fingers played with the soft green weave of Yoji’s shirt, tangling in the long, belled sleeves and dangling laces. "Sex is the backdrop of your entire universe . . ."

Yoji grinned, running his palm up the length of Aya’s neck. "So, why do you bother putting up a fight, then?" He twirled one of the long locks that framed Aya’s face around his forefinger, his lips almost touching Aya’s own. "I spent the entire day thinking about you, you know, just to keep up a hard-on I couldn’t use . . ."

"Touché . . . but," Aya laid a hand on Yoji’s chest, stopping him mid-lunge, "the Center . . .?"

"Handled," Yoji answered between nibbling on Aya’s fingers. "We’ve already seen what we can from the outside. Omi’s schematics will tell us more about the inside than we can learn from here without giving ourselves away."

"The others . . .?"

"On the Spasm, actually. Once we attracted Masquerade’s attention, there was no more reason for Omi to sit still and let me ogle him." He chuckled. "Ken was more than happy to ride with someone who actually enjoys roller coasters for a change."

"The door . . .?"

"I locked it when I came in behind you."

"Right."

It was never shy between the two of them, not once the verbal jousting that sufficed them for foreplay was done. Aya’s shirt was gone before he was fully conscious that Yoji was at it and then he was being lifted up onto the rightmost sink. His body against it triggered the tap and he gasped sharply into Yoji’s urgent kiss as ice cold water ran down the back of his pants. It ceased to matter a moment later when those pants joined his shirt and Yoji’s dark jeans and boots in a wet, muddled pile by the garbage.

Yoji paused to survey his conquest. Aya sat still to let him do it, perched naked in the corner of the countertop . . . or rather, naked except for his boots and a rugged iron cross on a leather thong around his neck. He shivered in the October evening chill that seeped in under the door.

Dominance was a part of this for Yoji, unsurprisingly, but it was a part that Aya didn’t begrudge him. If it pleased Yoji to possess something wild and fierce that only he was allowed to control, it pleased Aya to be able to surrender that control to someone who could – for these too short interludes from insanity, at least – handle it. In a universe that seemed determined to crush them all, shatter them, rend them to pieces in body and mind and soul, Yoji could protect him.

Yoji could make him forget.

"Soap dispenser . . ." Yoji murmured huskily.

The liquid soap was pink and it smelled like bubble gum, but it was slippery and that was all that mattered. Aya squeezed out a few dollops from his clumsy angle and reached down to coat Yoji’s cock with it. Yoji was still fighting with his own clinging shirt, damp and floppy as it was, but he gave up quickly when Aya started to caress him. The redhead only managed a few strokes before Yoji dragged his hips forward, forcing him to grab Yoji’s shoulders or lose his balance. Then Yoji was moving inside him, hard and sweet, and he arched his back into the pleasure.

As they found their mutual rhythm, Yoji took to suckling Aya’s neck again, pulling and biting in an obvious attempt to leave a mark. It was the Alpha in him again, marking his territory. Aya closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the mirror, further exposing his throat in a classic sign of submission that escaped neither of them. His headache hadn’t faded but it was getting easier and easier to ignore as Yoji pounded into him, targeting that special spot inside with every stroke.

A sudden shadow flitted across Aya’s face and his eyes snapped open, focusing instinctively on the source. There was a ragged moth trapped in the lamp over the mirror, beating itself against the bulb as if it thought to find deliverance there. Its tiny wings cast monstrous, overlapping shadows, refracted by the cut glass globe covering the fixture. The trick of the light multiplied its singular struggle a thousand times, a million. White, white wings, soft as innocence, and still the shadows were black and jagged as grief . . .

Aya squeezed his eyes shut tight, digging his fingers into Yoji’s left shoulder, into the tattoo whose outlines he could trace in the dark. He wanted no part of this dark irony now, not when he had been so close to the blessed forgetfulness he sought, but the image had burned itself into his brain. He tried to block it out, to refuse it, to focus on nothing but Yoji and what Yoji was doing to him. Stubborn as the vessel they resided in, his thoughts held that focus but drifted in time instead, to another night in Yoji’s arms.

He found himself remembering one of those philosophical, pseudo-intellectual conversations that only seem to come in the wake of a particularly non-intellectual, even animalistic bout of copulation. Only when the body feels warm and safe and cherished enough can it challenge the darker recesses of the mind. Aya couldn’t remember exactly what he’d asked – the sort of thing only a mind half asleep and content to remain so could formulate, he was sure – but the answer had stuck with him, flattering and frightening at the same time.

"We devour sin," Yoji had said sagely, a cigarette that Aya was fairly sure wasn’t filled with tobacco bobbing about with his words. "We gobble it up like candy, as if we don’t really feel it sticking tight to our souls, because that’s our job. It’s our fucking *calling*: the Big Guy’s latest, greatest scapegoats. We’ve taken on Christ’s own job, Aya. Just without the family connections . . . or the retirement plan. I don’t expect any of us will live to see thirty either."

He’d laughed then, bitterly, clinging to Aya as if almost afraid of what he meant to say next. "So maybe I feel like God owes us a little happiness after all the dirty work we’ve done for Him. Maybe I don’t give a shit if He thinks of that happiness as a sin and a blasphemy or not. It’s all smoke and mirrors anyway: Despair parading around with ‘Hope’ written in big, black letters on her forehead. I’d rather take what pleasure I can from the beauty of the lightning than sit around waiting for it to strike, or trying to pretend that it never will . . ."

Aya twined his fingers into Yoji’s light brown hair, silently willing him to stop nibbling and just *bite*, draw blood, tear flesh, rip him out of the aimless half-dream his day had been. "Harder," he groaned urgently, crying out when Yoji immediately obliged him in a different way. This was good. This was right. It made him whole and gave him a purpose he might otherwise have lost long ago. He almost whimpered with the loss when Yoji disengaged from his throat.

"Open your eyes," Yoji ordered.

He couldn’t, not with the moth still battering itself to death above him. He could still see the shadows playing across his eyelids, hear the flutter-clicks of its movements in the globe. Yoji pulled him closer, a hand behind his head forcing him upright.

"Look at me." Gentler, broken with grunts of effort but just as firm. "It’s all right, Aya. Open your eyes."

Slowly, slowly, Aya obeyed. Yoji’s deep, dark green eyes studied him intently, too near to be obscured by the shadows, too near to take anything from them but a faint shimmer, like a strobe light flickering too fast to be discerned. He was moving still harder now, thrusting even deeper, but his gaze stayed fixed and steady on Aya. Even as Aya felt himself slipping over the edge into orgasm he was unable to break that link.

Aya’s vision spiraled down into depths of green and black as his essence poured out onto Yoji’s stomach and chest, releasing the pressure that had been building deep inside him with a rush of ecstasy. It almost felt as if his heart beat easier for the purging of it. It certainly beat faster. Yoji followed him a moment later, his eyes flickering to the side for an instant before he let himself go. He pinned Aya with the intense, green fire of his eyes even more than his body as he thrust one last time, painfully hard, and spilled himself deep inside Aya’s body.

Yoji let his head fall on Aya’s shoulder, catching his breath, but his hands fell to the countertop on either side of him almost immediately, supporting his weight without actually touching Aya in any affectionate way. Aya gasped in pain when Yoji pulled his softening member out too quickly for comfort. He pushed Yoji off, working up the best glare he could on such short notice. Smiling a smug but oddly contrived-looking little smile, Yoji leaned forward to whisper "play along" into Aya’s ear before bending to retrieve his pants in a very uncharacteristic hurry.

"That was great. Thank you," was all he said.

He had his wallet halfway out of his pocket before Aya noticed the two figures standing in the half-open bathroom doorway.

They looked to be park custodians; the taller of the two, the blond, still had a grip on the keychain dangling from the door, and both bore armfuls of cleaning paraphernalia. Both were dressed in the embarrassingly bright pink jumpsuits that marked Dream Land employees and both wore expressions of shock and disdain, particularly the shorter, darker one. Their frowns deepened when Yoji pulled a few crisp bills from his wallet and deposited them in Aya’s lap. Aya himself looked at the money as if Yoji had just tossed a matched pair of dead rats at him, shock overwhelming any thoughts of modesty.

Yoji didn’t give him a chance to protest before he made what was obviously – to Aya anyway – a big show of noticing the two intruders for the first time. He covered himself with his crumpled pants, looking startled and embarrassed and more than a bit angry at being "surprised" like this. The anger took the fore, as if they should have known better than to unlock a door that had no business being locked in the first place.

"Common *whore* . . ." the dark-haired one whispered, staring bug-eyed at Aya, then began to gasp like a landed fish. The taller one had hit him in the small of the back with a plunger, knocking his breath out. That and Yoji’s frantic, behind-the-back signal to Aya to let it go were the only things that saved the little weasel’s life.

"Couldn’t the toilets wait a few minutes to be cleaned," Yoji asked sarcastically, scrambling hurriedly and unwashed into his jeans, "or will they go on strike?"

The taller one smiled humorlessly.

"They can wait . . . as I thought you could have, considering our earlier conversation . . ."

"Nobody told me I was prohibited a little pre-party tail," Yoji groused glibly, arranging himself. There was a semen stain on his shirt. He calmly washed it off with a damp paper towel.

"Of course not. As long as it doesn’t keep you from playing," he gave Aya an appraising up and down glance before offering them both an obsequious bow that somehow managed to look superior at the same time. "Such invitations are rare, prized things, and I’d hate for you to miss out just because you’ve . . . worn yourself out."

Ah. The Masquerade operatives Yoji had managed to con. It all made at least a little bit more sense now. Aya put on a suitably blank expression, as if he had no idea what all this talk of parties and invitations could mean.

Aya had avoided Yoji all day but he hadn’t entirely avoided Omi; it would blow their cover wide open if it was revealed that Yoji had any kind of real relationship with a friend of the "victim" he’d been stalking. They couldn’t take the chance that these two hadn’t seen them together, since they’d obviously seen Yoji and what he’d been doing. As things stood now, in fact, it would probably be too great a risk for Aya to attend as Yoji’s guest. He’d just have to find a place in the rafters running comm with Omi until the mission got into full swing.

Aya boiled internally. It had been a necessary evil, he knew, but Yoji still might have picked a less . . . disgusting cover. Aya took the bills, trying his best to look as if they were an expected benefit and not something he’d as soon have thrown back in Yoji’s face. He started to get up to retrieve his own pants, turning toward Yoji just in time to intercept Yoji’s toss with his face.

Oh, Yoji was going to pay for this one when the mission was done.

Yoji just grinned at him. "Look me up sometime, Red. You were sweet," he offered with a casual wink. He glared at the custodians until they got out of his way, paused to retie a loose boot-lace as if he hadn’t a worry in the world, and disappeared in a little puff of October wind. The door closed slowly behind him on its air-cushioned hinges, leaving Aya naked and alone with the two staring, safely jumpsuited intruders.

Yoji wasn’t just going to pay; Yoji was going to die.

Walking stiffly with a pain that wasn’t show – though it had felt fabulous at the time, Yoji had been rougher than usual throughout – Aya retrieved the rest of his clothes and slipped swiftly into the handicapped stall. He mouthed a silent prayer of thanks when he noticed there was a sink inside as well, giving him the much-needed chance to not only dress in private but clean up as well. Outside, the two custodians bickered briefly in voices too low to discern before setting at last to mopping the floor in a very messy fashion. Aya had a feeling they were operatives first and custodians last, as uncomfortable in their cover as Aya himself. He couldn’t quite work up any sympathy for them.

Crouching before the tipped mirror as he sponged himself off with wet paper towels and liquid soap, Aya could easily see the reddish-purple outline of a hickey where his throat joined his shoulder. It would only get darker as the night progressed, but at least Yoji had had the courtesy to put it where his shirt would cover it. He didn’t mind being marked any more than he minded being possessed, in private, but that didn’t mean he was particularly interested in announcing such things to the world.

He was as clean as he was going to get in a matter of minutes, dressed in a few more, and already on his way to the door when he noticed the puddle of black leather still lying on the bathroom floor. It was Yoji’s jacket, his current favorite next to the one he wore on missions, butter-soft and with a reproduction of his winged cross tattoo printed on the back. He loved that jacket like a child. There was no way he would have left it behind accidentally.

Aya sighed. Yoji and his damned unwelcome chivalry, the endless gestures he’d gotten used to making when he was still dating his string of beautiful but decidedly high-maintenance women. Yes, it was cold and yes, Aya was going to be caught out in it with wet clothes and no jacket, but he still resented the presumption. He was half-tempted to leave the thing behind but, despite everything, he wasn’t quite that angry. At least Yoji hadn’t morphed into a complete asshole to cover himself. Aya did take a certain pleasure in noticing a few mop-water stains on the jacket, though.

Casting a craftily nonchalant glance at the custodians, Aya scooped up the jacket – which was a few sizes too big and very obviously belonged to his "John" – and headed for the door again with it draped over his shoulder. The blond custodian was waiting there, mopping the same little patch of floor he’d been mopping since he’d started. He gave Aya yet another up and down glance which Aya returned, trying to intimidate him out of the way as Yoji had done. It didn’t work quite as well for him.

"Now," the blond said, quite calmly.

Aya’s left leg was suddenly enveloped in a white hot halo of screaming pain, centered around the needle the darker custodian had just plunged into his thigh from behind. He spun, knocking the syringe away before his attacker could empty it entirely, but his leg was already a cold, dead thing that responded to his sudden motion by dumping him on the soapy floor. He could feel whatever poison the operative had injected him with traveling up his body, turning his flesh first to fire and then to unresponsive ice as it went.

Refusing to panic, Aya kicked out with his other leg, catching the darker man in the shin and taking him to the floor with a howl of pain. A blow to the man’s face with the heel of his boot shut him up readily enough, and Aya pivoted to deal with the blond. He managed to take the other man’s feet out from under him but he wasn’t quick enough to block the mop handle that cracked him on the side of the head. He fell to the floor on his side, dazed and glassy-eyed, giving the drug the time it needed to finish taking effect.

"Perfect," the blond purred, brushing aside a lock of Aya’s thick auburn hair to get an unobstructed view of his face. Only muzzily conscious, Aya could do nothing to protest, could barely breathe as the blond stroked his cheek like an affectionate mother. "Isn’t he perfect, Tolith? This one will bring the Prime back into the Hunt for certain."

The darker one took a moment to respond and, when he did, it was through the muffle of a broken nose. "Hunt? The Prime hasn’t called a Hunt in years, hasn’t even bid on the game since last autumn. He won’t Hunt a common whore, Kalen," Tolith sniffled. "This one’s too strong anyway. Too strong for the game."

"We took him down," Kalen reminded him haughtily.

"We’ve been doping his concessions all day. We shouldn’t have had to take him down at all! We should have been able to just walk in here and fetch him."

"You’ve simply gotten too used to drugging weaker prey, Tolith," the blond said disdainfully, rearranging the long ponytail he had mussed in his fall. "Properly dosed, he will be an exquisite prize for the Prime."

"We can’t offer him! He’s a common *whore*!"

"Yes, so you keep saying . . . though your choice of the word ‘common’ seems inappropriate to describe such a creature."

The blond was stroking his body now, feeling of the muscle, testing him like a horse he was considering buying. Aya made a last ditch effort to stir himself and only succeeded in filling his vision with stars, almost blacking himself out in the process. Kalen laughed tolerantly as he got to his feet.

"I admit, I was as surprised as you to discover his occupation, but that’s why we run blood tests on all the subjects before we put them in the ring. If he’s tainted, we’ll get rid of him . . ." He trailed off, thoughtful. "In the meantime, we must get him ready."

"But, Kalen . . .!"

"Oh, do shut up." Kalen took a deep breath, continuing in the same calm and condescending tone he’d been using. "Consider this, then. If I’m wrong, you’ll finally have the ammunition you need to have me removed from Masquerade, as you’ve wanted for so long. They might even kill me, or offer me up in the game. However," he started tying Aya’s hands as he continued, "if I’m right, the Prime will smile on us both. We may even be promoted into the higher ranks. We can at least get off procurement and disposal duty."

Tolith snorted, but Kalen’s words seemed to have calmed him down, if not convinced him. He at least put his anger aside long enough to help load Aya into the cleaning supplies cart, into the orange canvas bag usually used to haul garbage back to the dumpsters. Aya’s last sight before unconsciousness claimed him was of empty garbage bags being piled around and over him so that they could roll him straight to the Center with none the wiser.

"Bombay . . .?"

"No, he’s not up here with me yet," Omi’s voice cut in, tinny but recognizably annoyed over the transmitter in Yoji’s ear. "Now keep off the comm before you give us all away!" The scrambled connection closed with a sharp click.

Ken patted Yoji sympathetically on the leg. "Calm down, Yoji. He’ll get here. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was already around."

"I know, I know."

Yoji let his eyes wander, taking in the venue. It was quite standard for a small theme park’s amphitheater, with several rows of molded plastic seats in bright colors surrounding an oval-shaped dirt arena. The arena was empty for the time being, the sort of place a horse exhibition or small circus show might take place. The crowd wasn’t huge but it was more than big enough to get lost in, faceless enough to lessen the inhibitions of anyone who wanted to play.

Dark beasts. Every last one of them. Yoji rubbed at the dull throb in his temples.

"Hey, you all right?"

"Yeah, I’m fine." He dropped his hands almost guiltily. "I think I caught Aya’s headache."

Ken gave him a speculative look.

"And that’s all that’s bothering you?"

Sighing, Yoji wished for the hundredth time that places like this weren’t so damn strict with their non-smoking policies. "I’m just worried . . . you know, that he’s still angry at me."

Ken laughed out loud at that, but at least he had the courtesy to look embarrassed about it. "Yoji . . . .I mean, duh! First off, this is Aya we’re talking about. He’s always angry at someone. And second . . ." Ken couldn’t stifle another guilty laugh. "You nailed him in a public restroom and then paid him for it. In front of witnesses. I don’t think ‘angry’ is going to cover it. ‘Pissed’ might come closer."

"But our cover . . . they never take prostitutes, only the ‘innocent,’ which gave him that much more protection, and I certainly couldn’t admit that I knew him . . ."

"I know," Ken assured him, "and Aya knows, too. Stop fidgeting. He’ll be here."

Yoji sighed again. "I know."

"Sheesh. You’d think we were talking about a date, not a mission . . ." He trailed off, studying the crowd in front of them. "Hey, look. That guy’s got a jacket just like yours."

Glancing down at himself, Yoji made a face. "Yeah, they don’t sell many black leather trenchcoats to the sort of Goth freaks who would attend a gig like this, do they?"

"No, I mean the other one, with the cross on the back. The one you gave to . . ." Horrified realization suddenly took all the color out of Ken’s face. "Oh, God. The custom job you loaned to Aya . . ."

Several rows forward and to the left of them, right at the edge of the arena, a tall man was making his way to his seat, newly purchased beer in hand. On the back of his jacket was a perfect representation of the tattoo on Yoji’s left shoulder: a large winged cross, upside down, with the word "SIN" superimposed over it and "WHEN YOU GONNA LEARN" in a half circle beneath. A long, curly brown ponytail obscured part of it, hair that was most definitely not Aya’s.

Fear rapidly making way for anger, Ken leapt to his feet. Yoji pulled him back down in one smooth motion, evenly meeting his savage glare. Ken struggled fiercely but Yoji kept a firm grip on the back of his brown leather jacket.

"Let go, Yoji!"

"No way. If you blow our cover here we’re fucked, understand?"

Ken stared at him, angry disbelief clear in his expressive eyes. "We have to ask him where he got it! What if they have Aya? You were just talking about how worried you were! Don’t you even care?"

"Shut up!" Yoji hissed, slamming a fist into Ken’s shoulder hard enough to make him grunt in pain; at least a slightly saner light seemed to dawn in his eyes. "What the fuck do you know about what I’m feeling right now?"

"We have to . . ."

"No! If Aya’s here and we get ourselves caught then Aya’s as out of luck as we are. We have to wait until we’re sure and know where he is." He was trying to convince himself as much as he was Ken and neither of them seemed to be buying it. "For all we know, Aya got mad and just gave the jacket away, or left it behind. I told you how angry he was."

"Bullshit, Yoji! They’ve . . ."

"Is there a problem, gentlemen?"

Yoji and Ken both whirled on the source of the voice, coming face to face with the very familiar blond who was leaning proprietarily over the back of their seats. The custodian/operative had exchanged his hot pink threads for a smartly tailored pinstripe suit and bright blue tie, but the condescending smirk remained the same. He gazed at Yoji expectantly and it took all Yoji had not to punch the psychotic fuck right in the nose. It looked like somebody had already beat him to it on the guy’s shorter compatriot, whose face was heavily bandaged. Yoji tried not to think too hard about who that somebody might have been.

"That . . ." He forced himself to calm down, not to give anything away in the heat of the moment."

That punk stole my jacket and we were just on our way to kick his ass for him, mister . . . I don’t think I ever caught your name?"

"Kalen," the other responded slimily, "and if the jacket was that important to you then you really should have been more careful of it . . ." He glanced over at Ken, then tossed Yoji a knowing wink, as if either protecting him or acknowledging his taste; Ken didn’t know the man but he scowled at him all the same, picking up Yoji’s distaste for him. "Regardless, you’ll have to worry about retrieving it *after* tonight’s festivities. The show’s about to begin. Only high bidders are allowed to leave their seats after that."

Yoji didn’t bother protesting. Kalen, his companion and all the besuited security people were heavily armed, and none of them looked open to negotiation. He nodded instead. "Of course."

Bowing, Kalen backed away, dragging his friend down the aisle with him. "Good luck," he called back after a moment, pushing aside the other, who looked as if he would have liked to add something. "I’m sure you’ll find . . . *something* worth your time, my friend." A few more steps and the both of them disappeared into the crowd.

Ken’s eyes were huge as he stared after them. "Yoji . . ."

"I know, Ken." Yoji settled into his seat as the lights slowly faded out around them. "I know . . ."

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