See Part One for Disclaimers

Part Two

For her part, Mandy settled onto the couch, skinned out of her denims and snuggled under the blanket.  She watched the man turn out the lights and listened to the soft sound of his bare feet on the floor as he walked into his bedroom.  She knew an intense desire to follow him.  She'd slept alone for a long time, there was a longing inside of her to not sleep alone tonight.

"He's your cousin," she told herself silently.

No, he's not. another part of her shot back.  You promised a dying woman you'd find him.  You've found him.  Drop the subterfuge and get it on.

How the hell did I get so crude?

The same way you get to Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice.

Yeah, right.  She pounded the pillow into submission and thumped her head down onto it.  Not tonight.  He has a headache.

Morning came far too early.  The birdsong was bad enough, but the scuffle of feet on grass was too much.  Mandy sat up and looked around.  Out the back, she could see her host working with a sword.  For a moment, she felt chilled to the bone.  She told herself to breath.  There were no signs that this man was one of  them. Absolutely none.  Still, the clean slices and passes of the gently curved katana were beautiful to behold.

She folded up the blanket and padded into the bathroom.  When she came out, brushing her hair out, he was apparently finished with his sword practice and sat in meditation on the wooden platform she'd noticed at the edge of the back yard.  Part of it seemed to be built out over the water.  The yard fell away in a small cliff, no sandy beach on this edge

of the island.  Expensive house, expensive property.  She wondered what Jonathan Raven had done to acquire the funds to live as he did.

He was aware of someone approaching, silently.  His mind was clear.  He was centered in his universe.  The steps were quite, but not stealthy.  "Good morning, Mandy."

"Good morning.  Nice dragon."   She commented on the tattoo that covered his left shoulder blade.  "Mean anything, or just like the design enough to sit through the torture?"

He looked around at her.  The gaze was innocently inquiring.  "Not a question most people ask."   Europe and America did not put much stock in tattoos, their associations left mostly to the underground subcultures of street gangs and Goths.  She knew enough that his might be more than just a decoration.

"I'm not most people."

True enough.  "No, you're not," he agreed.  "I received it while I was training with the Black Dragon Clan."   Yes, the flicker of recognition in her eyes.  Now where would she have heard of the Black Dragons.

"Wow.  Good thing the triads didn't know I had a seriously Japanese cousin, huh?"

"Triads?"

"Yeah.  Ran with a couple of Triad gangs in San Francisco for a while.  Very big on tattoos.  Very anti- Japanese.  Very deadly."

"I should think they'd be more concerned with the Japanese criminals."

"Yakuza.  Yeah.  Nasty bits of work."   Her eyes grew darker.  She shook her head.  "Sorry.  Bad time in the Empire," she joked.  He looked blank.  "You've been on another planet, haven't you?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Star Wars?"

"The laser platform the government wants to build?"

"No, the movies the government named the platform after."

"Movies?"

"Yeah.  Based, loosely, on the Samurai Trilogy with -- oh, shoot.  Not Akira Kurosawa, the actor -- Toshiro Mifune!  That was it!"

Jonathan was lost and looked it.  Popular culture was not one of his strong points.  "Missed it completely, I guess."

She laughed.  "Oh, my.  Maybe we should further your education.  Do you even have a TV?"

"Yes."

"Good.  Tape rental."

"Tape rental?"

She sighed.  "You do live on another plane of existence, don't you?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"OK.  Try this.  Movies have been released to the public on video tape.  There are places you can rent them so that you may view them in the privacy and comfort of your own home."

"Actually, I was aware of that."

She laughed.  It had an infectious ring to it.  "Good.  I was beginning to suspect that the real Jonathan Raven had been kidnapped by aliens and replaced."   OK, that one went over his head as well.  "Bad joke.  Comes from people acting out of character and someone looking at them and saying something like "who are you and what have you done with -- insert appropriate term --?  --- You missed that part of popular culture completely, didn't you?"

"I think so.  I think I'm glad I did."

"Ah."

"Hungry?"

"Starved."

He led the way to breakfast.  He was surprised when he didn't get the usual questioning look over his preference for a Japanese style breakfast.  Nor did she seem to have a problem with chopsticks as eating utensils.  "You are full of surprises."

The sticks stopped halfway between plate and mouth.  "Oh?"

"I don't often meet people who aren't Japanese who use chopsticks with such dexterity."

"Triad," she responded as monosyllabically as she could and continued eating.

Of course, the Chinese tended to retain the cultural preference for eating sticks as well.  Breakfast continued in silence.

The silence ended when Ski arrived.  "Jonathan."

"Shoes."

"Oh, yeah."   Ski had managed through the front door and across the house before Jonathan's reminder caused him to stop and kick off his shoes.  He tucked them under one arm as he continued toward the two.  "Mornin'," he bobbed his head toward Mandy as he realized she was there.

"Good morning.  Uhm -- why don't I leave you two to talk."   She picked up her plate and glass and walked into the house.

Ski sat down across from Jonathan who serenely finished his breakfast.  "Yes?"

"I don't know who she is, but she ain't Amanda Bright."   He wasn't happy about watching his friend's face cloud over.  "At least, she ain't any Amanda Bright I can find."   He set a file down on the table between them.

There was a long silence.  Then the younger man reached over and picked up the file.  The girl's finger prints had come up negative.  She wasn't in any data base to which they had access, so she probably wasn't in any data base at all.  Of the three Amanda Brights Ski had located information on, one was an ancient tribal artist of the Navajo who used only a portion of her name to sign her wares.  One was a middle aged teacher in Saskatchewan.

The third was in her late twenties and had disappeared about three years earlier.  The third was the story "Mandy" had spun when she first met Cousin Jonathan.  Only the age was wrong.  So was the accompanying picture.  A pleasant faced, thin blonde gazed out of the picture.  She looked older than her age, worn.  Ski watched his friend's face harden as he scanned the information.

He got up, setting the file down, and strode into the house.  It was empty.  The dish and glass had been washed, dried and put away.  On the counter lay a thick, leather bound, dog eared book.  It was a half sized loose leaf notebook.  He picked it up.  It was a diary.  Amanda Bright's diary.  He frowned as he read the first page.  Amanda had been diagnosed with a terminal disease.  Very rare.  No cure.  She had apparently started the diary soon after the diagnosis.  It started as a morbid analysis of every ache and pain.

It became clear that Amanda's nature was brighter than that.  And the account soon became one of small triumphs as she outlived the doctor's prognosis.  She had deliberately divested herself of everything she owned, acquired a nationally accepted debit card and walked out of whatever life she had once called hers.  The open road had called, and she had answered.  He leafed through the diary swiftly, looking for some hint of who the woman was who now called herself Mandy Bright.

A few pages from the end, when the writing began to degenerate, he found a name and a description.  "She has the most outlandish name.  Jarial.  At least, that's what she's using now.  So alone.  So young.  And yet not young at all.  I see lightning in her eyes.  And something else.  Sometimes someone else looks at me out of her eyes.  Not all of them are as nice as she is."

Two pages farther on:  "I made her promise to find him.  I know I won't make it now.  It doesn't hurt, but everything is failing.  The clinic wants to put me in the hospital.  Silly people.  I won't go.  But I made her promise.  He needs to know we didn't forget him, we didn't abandon him.  Well, we did, but not because we wanted to.  Dad couldn't.  There just wasn't any way.  Not then.  I hope he will forgive us."

The final entry, in someone else's hand.  "Amanda Bethany Bright.  11:40pm.  January 3, 1991.  May the angels keep thee."

"She's dead."

"Who is?"

"Amanda Bright."

"So, who's the girl?"

"I suspect a young woman named Jarial who befriended Amanda Bright the last few months of her life."

"So, why's she passin' herself off as Mandy?"

"I don't know.  But I intend to find out."   He wondered if Daniel was still alive.  Something neither the Black Dragons nor the Agency had told him.  No ties outside.  He wondered why he felt more saddened than angry.  Maybe all his work was paying off.



Mandy Bright or Jarial or any number of other names she had ever used, was walking determinedly no where in particular, the pack on her back seeming oddly lighter and heavier at the same time.  "I tried."   She kept telling herself that.  She had tried, she really had tried to do what she thought Mandy would have wanted.  She had tried to experience meeting Jonathan Raven as though they really were related.  It hadn't worked.  He was just too good at what he did.  Whatever that was.

She sighed.  "You would have liked him."   She changed direction, heading for someplace she knew, someplace she had to go before she accessed her fund transfer Monday and left Hawaii for a while.

Some time later, there was a phone call placed to Jonathan Raven from his good friend Ski who had finally managed to locate the girl who had claimed to be Jonathan's cousin.

"Where?"

"Cemetery.  The big one with the little urn cubicles."   Ski wasn't actually being cryptic, he was just describing a place that gave him the willies.

"Thanks."

Jonathan looked at his watch and shook his head.  How long would she be here?  He moved swiftly out to his car, a sense of being watched caused him to survey the area.  Nothing.  He shrugged it off and drove to the cemetery.  Ski met him at the front gate.

"She's still there."

"Wait here."   The taller man walked softly in this place of death that looked so alive.  The grass was green and even.  The plants, set as memorials and to make the setting as pleasant as possible for the living who visited here, seemed unnaturally without movement.  He crossed the gravel walk and entered the building reserved for those cremated and their visitors.  Odd concept that.  He was a little surprised that there were as many rows of urn walls as there were.  He walked quietly, nodding to the occasional -- mourner?  visitor -- he encountered.

He heard her voice softly talking before he saw her.  Cautiously, he approached the end of the row.

"He got miffed.  I mean, it's understandable.  He's got a really good radar sense for people lying to him.  Then he turns into a thunder cloud.  It never occurred to me he'd have so many information connections.  So, I walked out.  I left him your diary."

He chanced a quick look.  She was standing, almost leaning her head against the wall.  Her fingertips were touching the plaque in front of her, and there were several small figurines sitting on the ledge in front of the plaque.  She reached in her pocket and pulled out another small figure.  Muttering something he didn't quite catch, she set the figure on the ledge, and a watery laugh escaped her.

"You're running out of room for your herd.  I hope you can hear me.  I hope you can know that I tried.  But I'm not you.  And he's not the type to put up with mysteries or conundrums, or figures that don't add up.  I'm sorry.  You would have liked him.  There's a lot of caring under that hard shell.  And the shell's got some soft places, too.  I think they're pretty new.  It's like he really wants to reach out, but he has a very, very hard time letting people reach back."

She gently stroked each figurine with her fingertip.  "His friend is a trip, as they say.  There's a lot of caring on both sides.  no story tho'.  Didn't stick around long enough to get it, or even try.  Well, I think I've given all the visitors on both sides of this wall way too much to think about.  I guess I'll go hit the ATM and put up with the alien ATM charges.  Sounds like the things come from another planet.  Dangerous planet, at that.  I'll stop by again."

She picked up her back pack and walked to the opposite end of the row before turning toward the exit.  Curious, Jonathan went to look at the plaque.  Amanda B.  Bright.  There was a row of little cow figures on the ledge in front of the plaque.  All were exquisitely carved, frozen motion.  A few wore whorls of color on their sides and heads.  He knew of no religion for which these were symbols.  Perhaps Amanda and her friend had collected small figures like this.  He walked to the end of the row and turned toward the exit.

He found her standing about five feet away from the jeep frowning at it.  "What are you doing here?" she demanded of him without preface, and without turning to face him.  Her stance indicated a certain amount of anger.

"Looking for you."

She turned to face him, a hardness in her making her seem suddenly much older.  "Why?"

"I read some of the diary."

"So?"

"So, I thought I might owe you an apology."   HUH?

She considered this.  "Why?  I mean, I could see you thinking I owed you an apology, but not the other way round."

"I'm not certain I appreciate what you did, but I understand it, I think."   He was surprised to see tears form in her eyes.

She turned away.  "Well, it's over.  Done with.  Don't give it another thought."

"Need a lift?" He tried another tack.

"No."

"A meal?"

"No."   Sniffle.  Sniff.

"Someone to talk to?" he asked softly as he stepped up behind her.  He hesitated, then reached out and pulled her into his arms.  She resisted slightly, then yielded and turned her face into his shoulder.  He held her and let the grief wear itself out.

She sniffed and inhaled shakily, ineffectually brushing at her face with one hand.  "Sorry."   The word was muffled by her position against him.  He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to her.  She accepted, wiped her face off and blew her nose solidly.  She regarded the piece of cloth for a moment and tucked it into her pocket.  "I'll get it washed."

"Don't worry about it.  Do you have a name?"

She regarded him with those wide dark, still damp eyes.  "Of course, I do."

"Could you tell me what it is?"

"Nope."

"No?"

She shrugged her shoulders and backed out of his loosened grip.  "You'd just know who I am then.  Probably decide I needed sending home, which I don't."

"If I promise not to try to send you home?  Mandy and Jarial are nice names, but I don't think either one is yours."

She grinned at that.  "You  are scary."

"Not too scary?"

"Keshthal."   What the hell do you think you're doing! a part of her mind shouted in alarm.

"Keshthal -- ?"

"Dah bosh Neth."

Jonathan regarded the young woman seriously for a moment.  Something in her relaxed stance told him that this was the truth, whether he recognized the name or not.  "Keshthal Dabosh Neth.  Interesting name."

"Yeah."   And one unlikely to have touched his life before.

"Hungry?"

She laughed.  "You keep asking me that."

"You keep answering in the affirmative."

More laughter.  The sadness of a few moments earlier seemed to have passed.  "This time, I'll buy."   She caught his troubled look over that.  "Hey, my plastic is as good as anyone's."

"In your own name?"

"Hardly.  But I pay my bills and so my credit is good on this card and a couple of others.  Emergency funds, so to speak."

"All right.  Where?"

"That way!" she pointed as she stepped into the jeep.

How she had managed to discover the best Japanese - Korean - Mongol restaurant in Honolulu was beyond him.  It served both traditional (non Americanized) Japanese fare and the more common Western versions.  It also served Mongolian Hot Pot and Korean delicacies to burn the tongue and tantalize the appetite.  And Keshthal immediately realized her error upon entering.  She'd forgotten how well she had once known the young man who established the restaurant in the teeth of societal disapproval.

Haruki Notama was no longer a young man.  His slivers of black eyes in a plump face were enlarged by thick bifocal glasses.  Unlike many of his countrymen, he had become plump over the years.  Well into his 70's, his hair was white, worn slightly long.  He nodded to the man and woman as they entered, and then did a double take of classic proportions.

"Kay?  Kay Long?  No, it cannot be.  Kay -- "

"My grandmother, Mr.  Notama," she slid in deftly.  "She told me a lot about you."

"Grandmother?  Oh, no?  To young to -- ah, but no."   He bowed slightly, honor, but to one much younger.

Keshthal returned the bow, to the proper depth to greet an elder of her grandmother's generation.  "You honor me to see the resemblance."

"I am pleased that she remembers me.  She told you of the restaurant?"

"Yes, sir.  And I hate to be impatient, but I am so very hungry for the delicious food she told me about."   She managed the perfect blend of wheedle and mischief to appeal to the old man.

He nodded and summoned a waiter.  "Good table for these two.  Granddaughter of an old friend.  -- I will stop by the table."

"I would be honored."

"Long?" Jonathan whispered as they were shown to a table.

"Maternal Grandmother," she shot back without missing a beat.  She could see that he didn't believe her.  This was gonna be rocky.

"Ah.  Striking resemblance, I take it."

"Spittin' image.  Although, I suspect anyone accusing the old lady of spitting would feel the sharp edge of her tongue and the edge of her cane."

The smile didn't quite reach his eyes.  Would she ever just tell him the truth?    And what have you done to earn that trust?

The meal passed without too many hitches.

"Where to now?" her companion asked as they left the restaurant.

"I dunno.  You have someplace to go?"

"Yes.  I do."  He hadn't worked on his house for a while.  Not the one he lived in currently, but one he was building on land still relatively wild.  He wasn't certain why he was considering inviting her along, but he was.  Perhaps it was the hidden depths.  Perhaps it was just the need to share the beauty of the place with someone.  He suspected she would appreciate it.

And it gave him an excuse to leave town for a while, to get rid of the nagging feeling that someone was watching him.

Inside the restaurant, an elegant Japanese business man finished his meal and paid for it.  His eyes never left his quarry as the man and woman got into the so Western vehicle and drove off.  Whenever he was near enough, he felt the tingle that told him another of his kind was nigh.  Good.  That would make his killing of the traitor Jonathan Raven a double pleasure.

Continued

Email the author!
[email protected]

Back to 'Raven' Fanfic Index

Back to Main Library Index         Back to Main Fanfiction Index

Adventures of Sinbad   ~~~     Andromeda   ~~~     Angel   ~~~     Babylon5   ~~~     BeastMaster: The Series   ~~~     Beauty & the Beast
Buffy the Vampire Slayer   ~~~     Charmed  ~~~     The Crow: Stairway to Heaven   ~~~     Crusade   ~~~     due South   ~~~     Farscape
Gundam Wing   ~~~     Highlander: The Series   ~~~     Miscellaneous Fiction   ~~~     Mortal Kombat   ~~~     Mortal Kombat: Conquest
Poltergeist the Legacy   ~~~     Raven   ~~~     (TSAo) Jules Verne  ~~~     The Sentinel   ~~~     Stargate SG1   ~~~     Star Trek: Voyager

I can't fix it if I don't know it's broken, so if you see anything wrong,  please let me know.  Thank you and enjoy your stay!