Chapter 41: Repelled By Magnetic Attraction

There were a great number of questions.

Joey was alive and mending and there was no medical reason on Earth for that to be possible. The doctors had to perform several surgeries to remove most of the shrapnel in his body, but the hundreds of lacerations that were internally bleeding seemed to heal on their own. It was, by all accounts, a miracle.

Hirutani was dead. A vein in his lower abdomen ruptured and he bled to death before hospital staff could reach him. I had no guilt over Hirutani although I was certain, on every level, that I was responsible for his death. I would have made the same choices had I to do it again. Pharaoh and I tacitly agreed that we would not tell Joey anything about the process we used to restore his life. He would learn of Hirutani's demise in due course and I saw no reason to distress him in his delicate health with petty details.

After Joey slipped into the coma, and Pharaoh and I left the waiting area, Honda had gone into Joey's room to sit with him only to find his bed was empty. There was a mass search of the hospital building and grounds, but for several hours, the dying man was simply gone without a trace.

No one could explain how I left Hirutani's room - indeed, apart from the American guard's testimony, there was no evidence that I had even been in his room. The KaibaSecurity officers were strangely silent on the matter. They acknowledged that I did ask about the prisoner, but they both seemed unsure as to where I went next. There were no fingerprints of mine anywhere in his room and no trace of my alleged sexual tryst with Hirutani. No one saw me exit the building, but after the time of my alledged visit, no one had seen me anywhere in it, either.

Pharaoh had been seen leaving the building, but no one had seen him return. There was no record of him returning on any security camera and yet no one could explain how he - or I - were found several hours later in Joey's room - with the missing Joey returned.

KaibaCorp booked an entire floor of a nearby hotel. All of Joey's friends and his Mother stayed there. Anzu had to go home to get Hianko, but returned quickly bringing Sera as well. Ishtaaru came in from California to take care of them - and, in truth, the rest of us as well. After she arrived, however, none of Joey's friends or family left New York until the hospital released him in the middle of July.

In an act that I will never understand, Joey insisted on going to Hirutani's gravesite directly from the hospital. Pharaoh, Lioness and I watched as Joey laid flowers and said prayers for the creature that was responsible for his near-death.

"I know you don't get it, Tak." Joey said as we helped him back into the car. "But Tani's kinda like you - not a whole lot of people loved him." He shrugged and winced. "I - I think -" he hesitated and looked out the window. "I had to at least say goodbye."

We all were recovering.

For Honda and Anzu, Yugi and Mai and most of the others, it was purely emotional. Kawai and Sera seemed to handle the situation with more ease; Sera even confessed to me that she was glad it was not her, that it was not her hospitalization that upset everyone.

Pharaoh and I both had physical wounds to go with our concern for Joey. The bullet that grazed me left a line the length of my cheek and a nick in my ear. Everyone claimed that it was hardly visible, but I'd caught all my friends staring at it at least once. I could have covered it with make-up, but it seemed appropriate to have a scar as a badge of honor for Joey's life. The scratches Pharaoh received in the Shadow Realm - and refused to explain candidly - healed and did not fade, leaving him with twin marks from the front of his shoulder to the back of his arm. He, too, bore them somewhat proudly.

Joey's torso had always been scarred, but his many surgeries had added to the collection. Now, he had two bullet holes on his back and, just over his heart, was a mark that looked more like a scarab had been carved into his chest. Joey laughed when he saw it and promised to have the good luck symbol tattooed there.

All Federal and Local charges against Joey were dropped. Interpol offered him a job, starting after he recovered. I turned it down for him; neither Joey nor Pharaoh would ever have to work again.

August was a blur. Pharaoh and Kawai were spending the bulk of their time taking care of our beloved. They were constantly assisting him with medications, therapies, or simple things like relieving himself - which literally turned my stomach when I tried to assist.

But they seemed to handle his physical needs with more aplomb and so I saw to his financial and legal needs alone. It was a fair trade as far as I was concerned. I spent twenty hours a day talking to doctors, talking to police, talking to press or arguing about inflated invoices with innumerable vendors.

In the remaining time I had available, I tried to make sense of what had happened - was happening - to Pharaoh, Joey and I. Key to this was that I remembered what had transpired in the Shadow Realm. The history, the magic, the power. The death and rebirth. I remembered what I had been and what Atemu and I had been to each other; I remembered what Joey had been to me, and to us.

I remembered the day Atemu and I first met - the beautiful young prince who became King - rather abruptly - shortly after our meeting. Only a month later, we performed the ceremony making me Pharaoh's Priest - which would have been a formality only and not a true mystic bonding had we not taken each other's virginities on the temple alter. That had been the real blood bond - the wrist scars we both carried meant nothing.

I remembered the Aegean Ambassador who brought a young sacrifice to my temple; they had named it 'Jocxiph' - literally "joke sword" - because the boy was so androgynous they originally thought it a girl. When I discovered the child was a true hermaphrodite, I consecrated it to Set and kept it as a temple slave. Pharaoh and I treated it like a treasured pet. I remembered becoming Pharaoh in my own right and taking Jocxiph as my First Wife - becoming Joey's Groom both for my own joy, and to eliminate any maneuvering by my royal court.

My heart still belonged to Joey; my soul still belonged to Pharaoh.

I didn't see much of Pharaoh or Joey, however, even after we moved into a three-bedroom condo in September. Most often, when I was home, the others were sleeping. On the rare occasions they weren't, none of us had the energy to do much more than talk quietly.

It made things easier for me. The less I saw of Them, the less I thought about Them. The less I remembered feeling Joey die.

For those few minutes, I felt a despair I have never known. It was worse than the day Mokuba got lost; worse even than his kidnapping. It was worse than any physical pain could ever be.

With the 'evil' side of my nature intact, I had wanted to gather as much power as I could and kill everyone involved with Joey's death - the thieves, the security operatives, the gun makers, Pharaoh, myself...

The Gods - or whatever really controlled the Shadow Realm - stopped me. They took that 'evil' energy from me and gave it to Joey. It had helped to bring him back. That was good.

But without it, I felt ten years old again. I wanted to do nothing except hold Joey and Pharaoh in my arms and never let them go.

When I was ten, that behavior annoyed Gozaburo. Doing it now would cripple KaibaCorp. I had to separate my emotions from this. I had to stay focused on things other than Joey bleeding, Pharaoh weeping...

I woke suddenly. I had fallen asleep in the chair beside Joey again and someone was shaking me gently. "Come on, dude. It's totally bedtime for you."

It took me a moment to realize that it was Joey waking me.

"What are you doing out of bed?" I asked him, trying not to yawn.

"Trying to get you in it." He laughed softly. "I must be losing my touch. It didn't used to be this hard."

"I'm fine." I yawned again. "You need to rest."

"Only if you do." He pulled me forward. "Lay with me. Bed's cold."

I found myself too tired to argue as he pulled me under the covers with him. We had been warned not to sleep with him - in either sense - until the stitches were removed and even then, nothing athletic. I'm sure I protested my being there, but honestly, I wasn't entirely sure I said the words out loud.

When I woke again, Joey's head was on my shoulder and Pharaoh's arm was across both of us. There was sunlight streaming in from the one spot where the drapes were not closed tightly. Part of me never wanted to move again.

Muffled from down the hall, however, I could hear Kawai-san arguing with a male voice.

I flexed my shoulder until Joey turned of his own accord. I had fallen asleep fully dressed so I was more or less presentable. I pulled myself up and tried not to stagger to the door.

Once I was in the hallway, I stretched and tried to put myself into some semblance of order. I could hear the argument more clearly. I quietly moved to where I could see them as well.

"I don't care who you are!" My Lioness was telling someone in the living room. "You can either wait until he wakes up or you can go back to Norway -"

"Nawlins." The man snapped back with a rather thick accent. He was a stocky, with shoulder-length black hair and arresting green eyes. Under other circumstances, I would have found him delightfully attractive. "Look, lady, this stuff is serious and I -"

"I would suggest you stop yelling at the woman I've chosen to call mother." I said, yawning yet again as I entered the room. "Or I may react badly."

"Seto!" Kawai moved to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Go back to bed," she told me in Japanese. "Morimoto is already sending security to get him."

"Thank you, Mother," I replied in English. "Yes, coffee would be lovely."

"Wait!" The American exclaimed. "You're him, ain't you - Set Kaiba, right?" He picked up a handful of papers and tried to shove them at me. "If you'd just look at this mess and tell them there's been a mistake..."

"Send it to my office. I am in the middle of another issue."

"I been sent it there! I done talk to yo' office a dozen times. They keep saying you'll deal with it when you get back, but if-n we wait any longer we gonna lose that green building permit and..."

Green building. 'Nawlins' he'd said. Or 'New Orleans' to the rest of the world. "Who are you?" I took the papers.

"Duke Devlin, Senior Engineer for KaibaLand Nawlins. Not for long after this stunt, I know, but..."

I waved him silent as I read the papers and tried to piece together what had happened over the last few months. "Kawai - coffee!" I snapped as I sat down and spread the papers out on the coffee table.

The KaibaLand parks were designed to be a 90% solar energy. In Arizona, it was the most cost efficient way to keep people from dying of heat stroke at KL-2 - use the sun itself to power the air conditioning. In Japan, the method was so efficient, KL-1 was actually selling power back to the Prefecture.

Now, with KL-3 under construction in Louisiana, we decided to experiment with hydro-solar power and make half of the rides water rides to reinforce the theme. Someone, however, made an error and sent a standard generator to the site. It had been installed to keep construction moving, but it could not work with any of the other systems. Now, construction was at a complete stop - needing either the generator replaced or the park redesigned. As an added complication, the State agency that had issued building permits based on Green construction had inspected the site and now we were accruing daily fines for non-compliance.

"Get my phone." I said to no one in particular.

The front door opened abruptly and a security team pushed in, guns drawn.

"Stand down." I snapped before Kawai or Devlin had recovered from the shock of their entrance. "Kawai, get my phone. You, who's your CO?"

"Lt. Hopkins, front!" He yelled over his shoulder.

A young woman with several insignia stepped forward. She looked at me, the paperwork around me and made a gesture. The men behind her dropped to 'at ease' as she bowed respectfully to me. "Kaiba-sama, Morimoto-san asked us to secure this address."

"Thank you. We are secure." I sipped the coffee Kawai finally brought me. "How did this man get in here?"

She hesitated. "We were told to watch the parameter and not interfere with movement inside the building, sir."

I shook my head. "This man should never have gotten in here. As a point of fact, I am very glad he did, but he could just as easily have been an assassin and this could be a very different conversation. Above your head, Lieutenant, I will deal with the appropriate persons. For now, station two men outside this door, two at the elevator and return the rest to their former positions."

"Yes, Boss!" she pointed to two men and signaled the rest to exit with her.

"Kawai," I said when the door closed. "I realize that you want things to be as quiet and home-like as possible, but safety is not an area where we compromise."

"I was feeling like I was living in a prison."

"Better to live in a prison than die with a very quick bullet."

"Seto!"

"Joey surviving means that he will, eventually, be able to testify against some very unscrupulous people. Killing you and anyone else in front of Joey will mean nothing to them." I had to smile. "I'd like to retain at least one parent."

She tried not to smile, but failed. "Honestly, Seto. I don't know why I bother." She handed me a cell phone. "Is this what you were looking for?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"Ah! You do know how to say it. I was wondering."

I glanced at Devlin who was grinning at the floor. "Yes. Thank you for the coffee as well. Pardon my rudeness; I was distracted."

"And exhausted. You should go back to bed and deal with this tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, I may have lost the whole site." I dialed Mokuba. "I promise; I will take a day off as soon as this is resolved."

It was a disaster. The generator we needed hadn't been built because the design specs were so new, no one knew how to achieve them. Neither Mokuba nor Noah was apprised of the problem because it was KaibaLand specific. Mokuba sent a team of engineers from KaibaEnergy, then pulled Soichiro kicking and screaming out of his lab, and flew him to the Louisiana site to design and build there with Devlin.

The next day, I joined them. Gratefully.

"When are you coming back?" Pharaoh asked when I had neither returned nor called after three days.

"This will take time to resolve." I told him. "I don't know when I will be able to visit again."

"Visit! When are you coming home, Priest? Your place is here."

I glanced up at Soichiro and Devlin even knowing that they could not hear him. "I have asked that you refrain from calling me that."

"It is who you are."

I took another few steps away from the worktable. "I do not have time for this discussion now. I will call you when it is convenient." I hung up.

Everything was fine so long as nothing reminded me of 'Them'. Of the torment of feeling Joey die. Of the older, but still-viceral anguish of seeing Pharaoh step into the living death of the Void. Of the heartbreak of knowing that I will lose them again - and they will lose me. Joey and Pharaoh both returned from the Afterlife, but there will be no return from the Underworld for me.

The claw marks on Atemu's shoulder were visible scars on his otherwise perfect skin, his blood given for Joey's life. For me, restoring my 'puppy' was more costly. Divine Set, in Chaos and Wisdom, had made his claim on my soul clear. The price I paid for Joey's life here was my Hereafter.

How could I love Them? All love ends in death. Only Kaiba was eternal. I could put my hope, my faith, my belief in Kaiba. The only cost was my heart; I could live without that.

I put the phone away and took a few deep breaths until I stopped shaking. There was no reason for a simple phone call to cause such a response.

Soichiro and Devlin had continued working without me, Soichiro's short salt-and-pepper mop contrasting against Devlin's long black waves, just as Soichiro's wild theories had contrasted against Devlin's practical applications. I had bridged the two and, between us, we were creating hydro-solar innovations that used the Mississippi River flood patterns to power the system. We were actually looking forward to hurricane season and its floods.

We were working a lot - many days we were in the lab for ten hours and in the field for twelve more. My birthday came and went without my notice - I discovered the flood of voice and e-mails the next day. For Soichiro and I, this was nothing new. We'd set up a pair of mats and slept in the lab on some nights. For Devlin - married only two years - it seemed more difficult. His wife called daily.

Their conversations seemed odd to me. He was constantly telling her that we were working and assuring her that we were all 'good Christian' men. After one particularly long conversation, he hung up and sighed.

"So look here, fellas. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. My momma makin' a turkey with all the trimmings, a mess of ribs and greens and Lulu made her famous cornbread and a sweet potato pie and if I don't bring ya'll round fer supper tomorrow, I'm gonna be in a world of trouble." He smiled weakly.

I paused and looked at Soichiro. "I think we can take a day off."

"You go on." Soichiro said, studying our latest model. "I want to adjust all the switch points."

I shrugged and arranged for a car.

On the way to his home the next day, Devlin seemed nervous. "My Lulu," he said again. "She a real pistol. Now if-n she say anything strange, don't you never mind."

"Strange how?" I was beginning to wonder what sort of evening I should expect.

"Well, like I say. We're a good Christian family with good morals. Lulu turned me away from a dark path and I'm forever grateful to her for it. And I haven't strayed - not even once. But sometimes Lulu sees what might be a temptation and, well, she just loves me with all her heart."

"Drugs?" I asked and he shook his head. "Alcohol? I can assure her you have not associated with any loose women."

"I told her that! I told her that you were not the kind of boy that did that sort of thing. I told her, you were good to yer momma and all that kind of thing."

"Then I'm sure there will be no problems tonight."

"Yeah." We rode in silence for a while. "Thing of it is, see, and I guess I should have told you from the start, but, well it don't really matter now so..."

"Devlin, you don't have to justify your past to me. I could care less about your religious practices. And if she asks, you do realize that I'm more Buddhist than any other faith." I smiled faintly. "Although that's not accurate either."

"Oh, I know. And she'll be alright once she sees you're Asian - I mean, Japanese." He winced.

"We all look alike." I said mildly.

He blushed faintly. "You don't look like anybody else."

I started to say he didn't either, but I stopped. "Actually, you look remarkably like a man I know in Japan. He's the only other person I know with green eyes." His blush deepened. "They're quite attractive, you know."

"Now see that's just the kind of comment that would set my Lulu off!" He looked away from me. "Ain't Christian."

We arrived shortly thereafter to a small home in a quiet suburb. I was introduced to Momma, Lulu, Bubba, Sissy, Uncle Lou and PawPaw. They all looked at me with suspicion, but Lulu was almost hostile. I was becoming quite curious as to what Devlin's temptation was.

Dinner was heavily soaked in Creole spices and quite good. I complimented Momma and Lulu several times. Momma began to fall under my charm, but Lulu's eyes narrowed even further.

"Does your wife cook, Mr. Kaiba?" She asked me finally.

"I'm not married." I admitted. "I have a professional chief - although this meal easily compares to any of hers."

Momma demurred, but Lulu went on. "That don't give your girlfriend a fair shot, what with a real cook making all your meals."

"I don't have a girlfriend." I pointed out. "And my boyfriends don't seem to mind."

"Boyfriend!" Devlin exploded.

"I KNEW IT!" Lulu whirled on her husband. "You done gone back to the devil!"

"No, now wait just a minute!" Devlin put up his hands in defense. "He never said nothin' 'bout no boyfriend!"

An argument ensued and I was virtually forgotten as Devlin was all but demonized for his apparent sexuality. He swore repeatedly that he had not strayed from the 'righteous' path, but my presence was taken as proof positive that Devlin had been consorting with evil.

Finally, I stood up. "Enough! That you would insult any guest in your home is rude to be sure, but perhaps you have forgotten that I am Devlin's employer as well - the bias I have listened to tonight would be more than enough to terminate the man." They fell silent.

Except of course for Lulu. "Now you just see here, Mr. Kaiba... !"

"Mrs. Devlin, I assure you that your husband's job is quite safe. I would never fire a man simply because his family was rude." I bowed low enough to make a point. "In Japan, we acknowledge even our foes with some respect and we do not judge his morals by the thoughts he keeps to himself." I tried to meet Lulu's eyes, but she was looking at the floor. "Devlin, this evening has been illuminating. I will expect you tomorrow morning at eight AM, sharp." I left.