Sunset Coven 20.

Chapter 20.

“… And that brings us to today, and the reason why our fearless leader is, once again, spread out on his natural habitat, a.k.a. the bed, recovering from injuries.” River finished his tale of woe and wonder with a flourish.

Toren had stopped wiggling to try to loosen the ropes and the gag Joslyn had wrestled him in soon after River began the snitch speech, resigned to his fate. There would be no stopping Joslyn now from invading every aspect of his business, she lived to gossip about him, and generally make life difficult for him, what are siblings for. Toren had wanted to keep his relationship with Suri private, only for him, as it should be between mates, but it seemed the fates liked contradicting him on principle.

Joslyn was stunted silent, which was something new. She was looking at the far wall with a glazed look on her face that belied the fast-working brain she actually had. Oh, the possibilities! These were some exciting news! Things could change so much, with a little push here and a small shove there, the chances of fun to be had were enormous.

Her eyes began to close with sharp glee and she started to slowly rub her hands together, spooking the fire out of Toren and River, when a loud ringing suddenly filled every corner of the Dragon Nest, the warning bell telling them that a group of dragons were currently under attack.

Joslyn sprang into action while River freed Toren, the three of them running for the command center room.

“My lord!” yelled a soldier coming out of the room, “A third nest in Mongolia has been bridged! The guards were able to respond against the surprise attack but are losing ground quickly!”

“We’ll go there at once, call the gateway and have them prepare us a portal.” Toren breathed fire as he and River ran for the artillery room to prepare while Joslyn took her position behind the monitors, she put on her headset and began commanding the action.

“Units 1 and 2 report to artillery, units 1 and 2 report now for 404 in Mongolian nest.” She took a look at the working video surveillance cameras, “It’s those dammed Templar Knights again. Dragons, give them Hell.”

Joslyn wondered once again how the army of human zealots were discovering all the secret locations of their nests, they had to have Lore help, there could be no other way, but who would be stupid enough to reveal themselves to humans? And religious nuts at that? Who could betray the Lore like that? The Dragons had kept to themselves for a long time and other than their petty inner squabbles (dragons would fight to death to keep their treasure and steal everyone else’s, among other stupid things) had managed to keep their enemies to the minimum. The suspect list was relatively short, but someone sooner or later would make a mistake, and then they will know who it is, and then blood will run free like a beautiful waterfall of vengeance, pain and retribution. She would see to it.

Joslyn debated with herself for a second, and decided to call Jack Jammer of the Sinn-Jammers into the battlefield, now was as good a time as any to see what he was made of.

********

Suri was faking-patting her hair dry in a vain attempt at delaying the verbal attack her aunt was sure to unleash on her.

“Are you actually trying to hide behind a crusty old towel? You have stooped to new lows dear niece.” Jime glared at her.

“No, no, I am not hiding behind anything…” Suri stalled, “My braids will get impossible if they got wet you know and I don’t have the necessary hair products to fix-”

“Oh, my God!”

Suri and Jack cringed at the volume level of Jime’s screech.

“Sit your ass down!” Jime signaled a chair for Suri to flop down.

“I can’t- I will- You have to-” Jime tried once again to reign in her anger, managing just a little bit, “Right, the time for being the cool aunt is over, you listen to me young lady, I’ve been here before, with your dad, and lemme tell you, neither screaming sense into his bleeding ears nor bitch-slapping him to the moon and back help him with the problem, so you’ll have to suffer something different.”

Suri paled.

“The Darkness is a wily manipulative thing, it will make you crave it like a drug, which is why I’ve decided you will go the 12-step-program way.”

“What? But that’s ridiculous! Those programs are bullsh-”

“Language!”

“I am not an addict.” Suri pouted, realizing that when Jime policed her cursing she was in deep shit.

“The first step is admitting you have a problem. You are letting the Dark control you, once it happens a first time it will happen again, you cannot be tempted, you DO have a problem, you ARE currently addicted, you WILL SUCCEED TO BEAT THIS THING.”

“Does he have to be here?” Suri tried to deflect the attention on Jack. “I don’t feel comfortable airing my dirty laundry in front of him.”

“Don’t worry about me, witch girl. I learned a long time ago to stay out of your family drama.” Jack grumbled.

“Don’t you mean Jime’s?”

“No, yours.”

“What does that mean? I don’t know you, my parents don’t know you…”

“Someone else knows me.”

“What?”

“Stop! Focus! If you don’t follow the program, Suri, I will arrange an Intervention on you! I will get together all the people that love you, family, friends, frienemies, passing acquaintances, random people off the street, you name it, so we all gang up on you!” Jime screamed.

Suri’s eyes widened with dread, “You wouldn’t dare!” She gasped.

“You bet your ass I will.”

♫ Big lizard in my backyard, can’t afford to feed him anymore, big lizard in my backyard, bustin’ down my neighbor’s door♫

The tension was broken while Suri and Jime looked at Jack and Jack’s singing ass cheek.

He pulled his cellphone out, checked the screen, “I need to take this, I’ll be outside.” and walked out.

“Sumbitch… he knows punk rock from the 80s… I’ll have to add again the cool points he lost.” Jime reluctantly said between her teeth.

“Tia, what does he have to do with my family? You have to tell me! You never tell me anything.”

“I don’t have to anything, young lady!” Jime got a besieging look and grabbed Suri’s hands, “Baby niece, this is serious, come on, you know first hand how this goes down, just one look at your loser father and you know. You’re intelligent enough to understand that you’re standing on the edge, and you have the courage and power and self-awareness to overcome the Darkness, please, don’t let it win. I couldn’t bare it if you-” Jime had to stop talking before her voice cracked and the tears rolled out.

The silence prolonged with Jime overcome with regret, feeling useless once again while her precious family got dragged down. How many times would this happen again and again? And then Jack-ass had to go and almost blurt out the one secret she could never tell them, the very reason why she would never forgive Jack, and his treachery. If Siti was here… none of this shit would have happened.

Jack walked back in at that moment, all brisk efficiency, “Listen, something suddenly came up and I need to go for a while,” He glanced at Suri wondering if he should mention anything but decided he would not go into that mess, “I’ll leave honey-boo with you.”

Jime rolled her eyes, “Thank you so much, how magnanimous.”

“Where are you going next?” He grunted.

“Japan.” Jime sighed, feeling deflated.

“I’ll catch up with you there, bye.” And with that he left.

“So…” Suri ventured, “Japan?”

“Yes, task number 4, in case you forgot, Operation Dog Fight, I thought we could go try capture that Kage Inu Yokai.”

“O.k.”

“We’ll need to go through the Underground, I want to buy something at JapanTown and have a talk with an old friend.”

“Hai.”

“What? Oh, yeah… you know Japanese. You better translate everything correctly to me, we don’t need to be taken advantage of for being stupid gaijins.”

“Right.”

“Right!” Jime got up and grabbed Suri’s hand, dragging her outside, where mustang Jack awaited. “Dearest sobrina, cast your senses out and tell me is Jack is really gone.”

Suri closed her eyes and let her mind eyes wander around a fifty mile radius, checking for signs of Jack.

“He’s gone.”

“Right,” Jime chuckled, “Now, I think you’re going to like this, hehehehehe.”

Jime dragged Suri to mustang jack and opened the driver door, making Suri sit there, she ran around and sat on the passenger side, chuckling evilly all the while.

“Tia, you’re creeping me out.”

“Get over it, now do as I say, think of all the things you like about this car, how much you love it, how you want to have children with it-”

“I do not have sick sexual desires regarding this car, tia, that’s your weird ass.”

“Just do it! Concentrate!”

“Fine.” Suri closed her eyes again and concentrated.

“Now, rub your hands all over the steering wheel in a loving manner, be gentle.”

“And then you tell me I have problems…” the sarcasm dripping from every word Suri mumbled, but she did it.

A small blue light appeared in her mind, Suri felt a weird sense of connection with it, it felt… metallic somehow, but nice, like talking with a dear friend after a long time, she went with her instincts and let the blue light touch her, she touching it back, recognition surrounding them, enveloping them in a soft cocoon.

Suri opened her eyes and she knew. Mustang Jack’s secret. It was magic. “WOW!” She gasped.

“My turn will be next!” Jime giggled, “Now, let’s get moving!”

“To the Underground, JapanTown!” said Suri.

Mustang Jack roared to life and took off into the sky while Jime and Suri laughed with joy.

“I just knew this car was special!”

“Do you think that’s why my magic sometimes went wonky with it?” asked Suri, “Because there was some weird clash between it and the car’s?”

“That’s what I thought too! I wonder what else it can do… aside from playing music all on its own.”

“It plays music? So I never needed to hook up my iPod in the first place, and you never would have abused it and spend my hard-earned money, and I never would have thrown it out the window, and-”

“Fine! Fine, but I gave you money to buy a new one, didn’t I?”

*********

Cruising through the Underground in a kick-ass ride was the best. Jime and Suri adapted quickly to mustang jack’s newly discovered awesomeness. Suri enjoyed her favorite Super-Junior album, moving to the beat, while Jime checked her lip-gloss in the passenger mirror. Suri had found out that whatever she wished, the car had to give, in the limits of what could be found in a car, of course. But today anything was possible, and mustang jack seemed to understand that now that he was connected with other people besides Jack.

“Uwa!” Jime suddenly said, “I just remembered that MTV show, Pimp My Ride, you think I could make honey-boo pimp itself out like that?”

“HELL no, that show was super trashy! Honey-boo deserves better, it’s got more class on its hood than an entire fleet of Rolls Royces.”

Jime rubbed all the upholstery, “Yes, Honey-boo, aren’t you the sweetest, bestest car ever.” She cooed.

“Hey, but we’re still gonna call it honey-poo in font of Jack, right? No offence to you baby.” Suri caressed the wheel and the horn sounded once. “I still think of it as jack though it gets confusing… mustang jack…”

“Whatever feels right, I guess, mustang jack knows I like pissing Jack off and that it’s nothing personal against it. And, dammit, I kinda like calling it honey-boo now, even though it will never be a girl car for me.”

“I agree. Well… we’re in JapanTown. Where to, dear aunt?”

“Let’s stop at the Bakamono Novelty Shoppe.”

Suri chuckled, “bakamono…”

They went in and bought various small clear plastic cubes with a little origami monster inside. They looked precious, delicate and cool. Suri wondered why Jime wanted those things, they were pricey too, and Jime spent all the cash she had, but whatever got her off Suri’s back was good for her.

Next they went to a flower shop called Hana-ya.

“Generic much?” Suri’s left eyebrow rose.

The bell on top of the door sounded as they went inside. A beautiful woman sat behind the counter, wrestling with the phone, she was exasperated and shouted random Japanese insults at it as she slammed the receiver down, pick it up again and power-dialed. Jime cleared her throat to call her attention but the woman didn’t respond.

“Sakura-sempai.”

The woman continued to battle with the phone that suddenly started to ring, and when she answered it went dead. “Teme…”

“Sempai.” Jime called louder.

The phone rang again and when the woman’s hand got close to the receiver it stopped ringing, only to start again as her hand got away. This happened in crescendo.

“SAKU-SEMPAI!”

“What?! Oh! Jime-sama! Oh, my God, It’s been so long! How nice, how are you?” She looked at Suri, “This is your niece, isn’t it? It’s so nice to finally meet you, darling, I’ve heard so much about you! Good stuff, only good stuff.” She beamed.

“Yes, this is Suri. Sobrina, this is Sakura, an old friend.”

“Not that old!” Sakura laughed.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Suri replied.

“You have a lot in common now that I think about it, you’re both obsessed with asian boy-bands.” Jime reclined on the counter.

“As if you didn’t like’em.” Sakura huffed jokingly.

“Saku-sempai, I’m really sorry to just drop in like this unexpectedly, but I need a favor to ask, if you could…”

“Sure, but you two have to come stay longer after you’re done with your business, don’t neglect your friends for so long, Jime.” She chastised.

“Yes. Well, if you could contact you fellow Kitsune and ask around where we could come across a Kage Inu Yokai I’d really appreciate it.”

“Now why would you want to get involved with those hentai dogs…”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well,” Sakura glared at the phone again, “I’ll try to call, but you see, this damn phone… it has been possessed by the lamest loser of a ghost ever and now all it can do is make my life a living hell, such a nuisance.”

Sakura sighed and once again picked up the receiver.

**********

As Jime and Suri walked back to mustang jack they continue to laugh.

“You’ll have to get her all the gifts she asked for, go into those Johnny stores and buy all the Ohno Satoshi photos you can get, she won’t leave you alone otherwise.” Jime said.

“Of course, I am not a cheap friend, unlike some other people, I will keep my promise to Saku-sensei.”

“So she’s your teacher now, I knew you’d hit it off.”

They drove to the big car-portal at the end of JapanTown, headed for Tokyo. Sakura had pulled some strings, called in a few favors (when the phone felt like letting her) and got them a free pass, no fee owed through it, so now the girls could travel with mustang jack for once.

“Why did she say those hentai dogs? It’s beginning to worry me, tia.”

“I guess it’s because the fox spirits and the dog spirits have been fighting for a while now? I really don’t know.”

“But hentai means pervert or weirdo or-”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Fine.”

The front half of mustang jack had gone through the portal when Jime said, “Shit.”

“What?”

“I forgot to check the sunrise-sunset tim-” She suddenly flopped down, dead to the world.

“SHIT! Honey-boo, do something!” screamed Suri.

The back-seat's back disappeared, leaving a black hole entrance into the car’s trunk. Jime’s seat flattened and Suri pushed her aunt’s body into the trunk, while the magically anti-U.V. window glasses darkened, protecting the vampire from burning to a crisp. A second later Jime was safely tucked away inside the trunk and everything was back to normal.

“Damn, that was close.” Suri muttered while mustang jack drove through the street and parked in a convenience store parking lot.

“Now what?”

A hand knocked on her window. Suri turned in slow motion and looked at the shining face of a beautiful Japanese guy smiling winningly at her. She blushed.