Saffir blinked as he followed Dresden into his basement apartment.  "Did something happen since last I was here?  It's been years, but it feels as though you strengthened the wards."

Artemis glared at the tall Nemesian.  "Is there any year you people didn't taint?" he spat at him.

Saffir again ignored him.

"I did. Don't ask," said Harry. "Help yourself to whatever you can find in the fridge. I need to prepare some things." Moving one of the rugs aside, he proceeded down into the sub-basement, leaving the man and the cat to themselves for the moment.

Artemis opened his mouth again, and Saffir pierced him with cold sapphire eyes, an intense regality coming to him that the white feline had never seen before.  "The last time I was here, I was an idiotic nineteen-year-old trying out a new power," he hissed.  "It's been a very long time since then.  And you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to me in front of the wizard.  He's the only hope either of us have of finding Minako-san."

The cat hissed softly in return and held Saffir's gaze, but the former heir of Nemesis didn't blink.  The impromptu staring contest was interrupted when a large grey tomcat - easily twice Artemis' size - landed beside them with a thump. Somewhat warily, it sized up the new arrivals, especially Artemis, whom the grey cat sniffed suspiciously.

Artemis was no fool.  He immediately turned his attention to the grey cat, as did Saffir.  While the man looked on, the white cat carefully sniffed back.  He had no desire to get in a needless tussle with such a huge feline.

After taking the time to size Artemis up, the large cat let out a low growl and decided that he wasn't a threat, and if he was, he could mop the floor with him, and dashed off.

It was about then that Harry came back up, carrying a smallish tote bag in one hand, and carrying a human skull under his arm.

Saffir was rubbing his wrist where the hair bracelet normally rested; it was Artemis who spoke.  "What, precisely, is the skull for?" he asked curiously.

"I tried a simple trace with a tool of mine," the wizard explained, putting the tote bag down on the floor, "but I didn't get a thing. Which suggests that she's behind some fairly potent wards. So I need a little bit of extra oomph, which requires some details that I can't be arsed to memorize."

He passed the skull to his free hand and set it down on a nearby coffee table, and as he did so, its eyes filled with orange light. "And thus my superior intellect is called upon," it said, with a voice that showed vague traces of an English accent. "And I do have a thing for blondes."

Artemis jumped two feet in the air and landed with his fur puffed out, but it was nothing more than a bemused blink compared to Saffir's reaction.  The blue-haired man's face had been swamped with mingling fear and hatred as he jumped away from the skull, yelling something incomprehensible in his native tongue.  His legs collided with a low-standing table, and he toppled backwards onto the floor.

Harry blinked several times. So did the skull, which was to say that its eye-lights flickered in an approximation of a blink. "What the hell has gotten into you?" said Harry sharply.

The skull looked perplexed, inasmuch as a skull could look perplexed. "Wise-man? I'm flattered, really, but I second tall, dark and crazy's sentiment."

Artemis' ears had flattened to his head as the skull said 'Wiseman,' but he shook himself quickly as Saffir picked himself up.  "The Wiseman is dead, Saffir," he said to the Blue Prince quietly.  "The Sailor Senshi made certain of that." 

Saffir took a deep breath and glanced at Harry.  "I apologise.  The last time I saw a talking skull..."  He found an interesting spot on the wall to look at.  "It killed me."

Harry opened his mouth as if to comment, but froze, then closed it again and covered his face with a hand, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "Don't want to know, don't want to know..."

"Chalk it up to differences in magic and forget about it," Artemis advised briskly.  He'd almost forgotten, but Saffir's reaction to the skull had brought back the memory of the other man's death in spite of the senshi trying to help him.  Luna had once told him that Usagi still heard his scream in her nightmares.  He leapt onto the back of a couch and washed his tail for a moment, then added, "Minako-chan is in danger."

"That's why you hired me," said Harry, grabbing a notepad and writing some things down, occasionally having the skull check something. "I could use your help, Saffy," he said, without looking up. "Whoever has your friend is likely using a kind of magic with which you're more familiar with than I."

Artemis choked at the nickname; Saffir magnificently ignored him.  "Not necessarily," he replied.  "There's all kinds of magic in the worlds – I use one sort, the senshi another, you a third."  He hesitated.  "Though I did study as many as I could when I was younger," he admitted.  "No sense in being taken by surprise."

"That still puts you a step above me. Come hither," he said, gesturing for him to come close. Out of the bag, he took out a canister of salt and the bracelet of hair. With the salt,  a circle around himself and Saffir, and passed the tiny slip of paper to him. "Chant the words on the paper in time with me, put your hand on the hair, and visualize your friend," said Harry. "This is going to be a very complex scry, and I've never tried something like this before."

"Hai," he replied absently, his eyes already scanning the paper.  "This is... Latin?  Interesting choice."  He put it down and placed two fingers against the slender bracelet and called up one of his most recent memories of Minako, fixing that image firmly in his mind's eye.

"Ish," said Harry, putting his hand on Saffir's. "Now. Concentrate." Closing his eyes, the wizard began to chant.  Saffir followed suit, his pronunciation infinitely better than the wizard's.  Stupid correspondence course.

Harry's world had gone dark. Everything around him shifted into utter blackness as the spell began to take hold. He could just barely perceive Saffir. Harry sped up the chant slightly, and Saffir did likewise.

In the distance, he could begin to make out a vague figure. A Japanese woman with waist-length blonde hair. Harry felt himself smile as he focused on her image...

The magical equivalent of a large metal security door slammed down, cutting the figure off from sight.  Saffir hissed in fury and pushed with his own magic, trying to tear the ward down; the ward pushed back, knocking both men off their feet and throwing them into the wall hard enough to stun them.

Harry felt the impact of the spell, and subsequently the wall, and after that he knew nothing.

 

He woke up not long after with a white cat standing over him.

"Good, you're awake," he said.  "Did the spell go wrong?"  There was concern in Artemis' voice.  Across the room, Saffir lay facedown on the floor, breathing shallowly; this may have been the result of Mister having decided the blue-haired man made a perfectly good cat bed.

Harry stared at the cat, his eyes still trying to focus. "I...think I saw her," he said, still sounding daze. "So we know she's alive. But...somebody kicked us out. Somebody with a lot of power."

The cat hissed.  "That isn't good.  I'll have to alert the other senshi – by the way, your phone rang while you were out."

Muttering and nursing one hell of a headache, Harry shambled over to his phone and dialled up his voice mail.  "It's me," Murphy said briskly (she never bothered to leave her name anymore). "Call me back as soon as you can. We want to pay you."  A click as she hung up.

Somewhere within Harry's brain, it clicked that Money was good and helping Murphy was good, and thus doing both at the same time was Twice Good. Or something. He still felt a bit muzzy as he dialled her number.

There was a groan and a mumbled curse from the corner as Saffir began to come around. 

She picked up and, in her blandest phone voice, said, "Special Investigations, Sergeant Murphy."

"Insert wisecrack here," muttered Harry.

He heard her eyebrows go up. "Hi yourself. You sound like you've got a hangover."

Harry chuckled humourlessly. "I wish. Long story, don't ask. What can I do for you?"

"Our old headache Jaspis is back, but he's not the problem this time. Just the reporter." She filled him in on the crime scene, and added, "So I figure it has to be magically caused and probably motivated."

Harry paused and took in the details. "Hey Murph, do you believe in freak coincidences?"

Both Saffir and Artemis looked up at that, Saffir getting to his feet in a smooth motion that knocked Mister off his back. 

"I'm a cop. We're not allowed to believe in coincidences. Says so right on the badge."

"You'll never guess who just hired me."  Harry gave Murphy the thirty-second version of what had gone down, and added "If these cases are unrelated, I'll eat my hat."

"You haven't got a hat," Murphy said, quite sensibly. "Didn't it get eaten by a troll?"

"I'll buy a new hat," snapped Harry, "and then I will eat it."

She chuckled. "Pity we can't combine these cases without getting the FBI involved."       

"Dresden, what's going on?" Saffir asked, unable to keep the concern from his voice.

"Hold for a moment," whispered the wizard, holding the phone aside. "Have you checked up on Lapis recently?" he asked Saffir.

"She made it quite plain to me that it was over when she married," Saffir replied.  "And then I got a little busy what with the dying and yet not being dead.  No, I have not."  A pause.  "Not her too!?"

Harry said nothing, but nodded quickly. "That Jasper guy called Murphy."

Artemis opened his mouth, but Saffir glared.  "Later, Artemis."  He turned his attention back to Harry.  "And?"

"And...that's all I have so far." He put the phone back to his ear. "We might just have some serious trouble afoot. Won't that be a shocker. When can I check out the crime scene?"

"I have to call him back and schedule it, but since he's just as eager to have his sister found as I am, I don't think it'll be long."

"Good. I'll keep in touch." And he hung up. As he did so, he fell down onto the nearest chair-like surface, clutching his head. "Somebody get me a quart of rum and an ibuprofen the size of a hockey puck."

"I don't think the rum will help," Artemis said as Saffir swore. 

"Lapis Lazuli and Minako-san... what is going on?!"

 

Jaspis' body no longer hurt, but he was still trying to get a hold of a nanny for Topaz while he had to work and look for Lapis – meaning his line was busy for hours.  At last he took a break to feed his nephew and himself.

Almost immediately the phone rang.

Jaspis glared at the phone, but caught it in a mental grip and floated it to his head.  Screw the hard way; he had telekinesis.  "Darkstar."

"This is Sergeant Murphy. I have a consultant on board with your case and was wondering if it's a convenient time to examine the scene."

"Yeah, it is," he replied, keeping the strain from his voice.  "I want her back."

Tactfully, she ignored the second sentence. "Ten minutes, then," she said, and hung up.

 

Saffir had just finished explaining the short version of his initial visit to Earth to Artemis when Harry's phone rang a second time.  The wizard winced a bit as the ringing irritated his headache, then picked it up. "Dresden."

"It's me again. How soon can you be driving?"

"Fifteen minutes, give or take?"

Murphy made a dissatisfied noise. "I suppose your client isn't in any better shape."

"Good suspicion. Where is the place?"

She gave him the address. "As soon as you can possibly get there without breaking too many traffic laws or getting yourself killed."

"I make no promises," he said, right before hanging up. he then turned to Saffir. "I'm going to take ten minutes to gather my thoughts and let my brainmeats stop pulsing. Do not disturb."  With that, he went down to the basement, stopping only to pick up the skull.

Saffir made a similar comment to Artemis in Japanese, closed his eyes, and slipped into meditation himself, a dull blue glow shimmering around him.

Finding himself essentially alone with a grumpy Mister, Artemis promptly leapt onto a counter and remained quiet.

 

Karrin Murphy waited impatiently outside the apartment block and did her best not to fidget.

Hopefully this would go off well, even more hopefully Jaspis and Saffir would get along, but in the end all she asked for was for Harry to arrive on time.

Soon enough, she heard the tell-tale sound of an incoming Volkswagen Beetle.

In a moment, the Beetle screeched into view, only speeding a little, to Harry's credit.

"Evenin', Officer," he called out the window as he parked. "This where the party's at?"

The passenger door opened the moment the car stopped and a tall, blue-haired man stumbled out, looking pale.  "You're mad, Dresden!" he yelled.  The voice sounded like Saffir, but the accent was completely different, and he seemed... darker of skin than he had been the last time she'd seen him.

Murphy's jaw dropped. "You're Saffir?" she demanded. He was considerably older as well, closer to Harry's age than the nineteen he should have been. Had Harry somehow gone blind?

Harry rolled his eyes a bit. "You'll be a whole lot happier if you don't ask," he said.

Saffir's mouth quirked in a somewhat tight smile.  "It's been a long time for me, Sergeant," he said softly.  "And I've changed in more ways than one."

"Apparently," she muttered, without giving Harry the benefit of an answer. "Civilians stay outside the police tape."

Saffir looked confused.  "Do we count as civilians?"

"You do," she said. "Harry's on contract with us. Usually, anyway. Come on, it's on the second floor."

The men turned to follow Murphy upstairs as a white cat bolted from the Beetle and leapt a goodly distance to land on Harry's shoulder.

Harry turned to look at the cat. "You're probably a civilian too."

Murphy shot him a sidelong glance. "Hit the ale a little too hard?"

The cat purred and said nothing.

Harry looked at the cat eye-to-eye, then back at Murphy. "Forget it, I'm not playing this game. I saw that cartoon with the frog. Let's go. Lead on."

Murphy rolled her eyes, but said nothing more until they arrived at Jaspis's door. She knocked, ignoring the police tape festooned around the handle with magnificent unconcern.

 

Jaspis was cradling his now-sleeping nephew against his shoulder when he heard the knocking.  He gestured, and the door opened a crack.  "Speak friend and enter," he called.

"Does police count?" Murphy asked. "I've got Dresden."

"Hi there," Harry chimed in. "Miss me?"

"Not especially," Jaspis replied.  "Door's open, come in."

"Don't mind if I do."

Jaspis looked tired, even as he held Lapis' son in his arms.  When he saw Saffir, however, all exhaustion drained away.  "Erbeprinze!"

Saffir raised a hand.  "Don't ask," he said dryly.

Jaspis was silent a long moment, then said finally, "Don't tell."

Murphy blinked--just how had Jaspis recognized Saffir without the physical attributes to help?--and was mildly disappointed-- it would have been nice to see drama in a family other than her own for a change. She kept it off her face, though.

Without further ado, Harry sauntered into the room and immediately set to work, closing his eyes and attempting to sniff out spell residue.  At first, all he got was a vaguely annoying sense of familiarity – that he had encountered magic of this kind before.

Artemis frowned, leaping from Harry's shoulder and trotting under a couch.  There was a sudden startled curse, and the cat returned, this time with something in its mouth.

Harry turned his attention to the cat and knelt down. "What is it, boy? Timmy fall down that darned well again?"  Murphy raised an eyebrow again, but did not speak.

Artemis glared at him and spat the object – an expensive looking pen – down on the ground.

Harry picked the thing up and looked it over. "Okay. It's a pen."                       

"Was it Lapis'?" Murphy asked.

Saffir had gone white.  "No.  It's Minako-san's."

"Precisely," the cat said.  "Whoever took Minako-chan also took your... friend."

 

~*~

 

Lapis Lazuli couldn't help but be impressed with Sailor Ve— Minako; even in her head, she had to refer to the shorter blonde as Minako lest she slip up – with Minako's skill with the hair pins.  She had got them out in record time and was now leading their way down the hallway.  Both of them were still weighed down with the magic-blocking manacles, but Lapis had tested them and found that they didn't block magic so much as use pain to discourage the use of it.  Pain she could deal with.

Said pins Minako bent back into their proper shape before she utilized them for their proper purpose: holding her hair back from her face.  Her bare feet betrayed little sound as she stepped carefully along the cold floor.  She moved slowly, for stealth purposes and so that she could have the opportunity to braid her hair.  Last thing she wanted was to be in the middle of a combat situation and have someone get a handful of her hair.  

She wished she had her henshin wand.  If nothing else, the magical 'boost' would be helpful for when they ran into enemies.  For now, she just kept her eyes and ears open, pausing a moment when she finished her braid to rip a shoulder strap free of her top to use as a hair-tie.

Lapis wordlessly took the position of rear guard, making sure that nobody would take them from behind.  Recapture would not help them escape – and if they were caught, what few resources they did have would be confiscated.  It was all or nothing, and both of them knew it.

The former noble had no doubt in her mind that if it came down to the wire, both of them would kill for their freedom.

Minako stayed in front.  The corridor was softly lit so no shadows were cast but the senshi felt exposed all the same.  Contributing to that was the lack of any real place to hide if someone found them.  She listened hard but heard nothing, and continued on.

She saw what looked to be a T-section up ahead.  Good.  She would feel better to have the chance of peering around a corner before going on. 

The steady clop of hard-soled shoes (or more likely boots) echoed faintly.  Listening hard, she frowned to herself when she heard they were approaching.  She ran lightly to the corner, knowing the footfalls of those approaching would cover the slapping of her own feet.  Her peripheral vision noted how Lapis followed suit.

The blonde crouched before the corner, one leg tucked under to support her weight while the other was loosely flexed.  Watching and listening, she held herself until the first man passed--mercenary, Minako guessed, from the outfit and accessories she spotted (utility belt, and a combination of firearms and bladed weapons within easy reach) before she lashed out one long leg to trip up the two following behind.  She only managed to knock down the closest of the trio, but the man on the other side of him was close enough to stumble over Trip when his step faltered, sending both of them sprawling to the ground.  

Minako reacted quickly.  She lunged forward and snatched the pistol from Trip's side, thumbed off the safety before neatly shooting him then Stumble in the head.  And just as she was bringing the weapon up to add the last guy to the body-pile he screamed and crumpled to the floor.  

Pale sky-eyes looked to Lapis questioningly.  The report from the gun would've been loud enough; the scream wouldn't have helped.  Nothing to be done now, though - she simply wanted to know what the blue-haired woman had done.

Lapis' eyes were dark, and there was a sudden sense of power around her.  "My Clan has the ability to take energy," she said quietly.  "He won't wake for a week at least."  On closer inspection, the younger woman was sweating; using her power must have hurt her.

"Are you going to be all right?" Minako asked, equally quiet.  The not-waking was useful, though she did have to stop and consider if it would be better to simply kill the man and be done with it.  Fifteen years ago— ten  years ago, she would have done the same.  Disabled and incapacitated.  Killing outright was something she had attributed more to the Outer Senshi then.  

Funny, how stained you'll let yourself become when you want to keep what matters most untainted.  

Fighting youma was one thing.  Easy enough to rationalize their deaths as they weren't human to begin with.  Even those vampires calling themselves the 'Jade Court' (whatever that meant) were dispatched without second thoughts when they attempted to annex Japan by turning those important officials while also seeming to focus on the Senshi in general for their power and Usagi and Mamoru in particular.  And because the Jade Court didn't always turn those who aided them...  It couldn't be helped, not if the Inner Senshi wanted to safeguard their friend and Princess and future Queen.

Any and all threats to the Prince and Princess, the Inners learned to eliminate by any means.  The process was gruelling and heartbreaking, but they learned.  In turn, even though they all could see how much it affected her, Usagi learned to understand the necessity of not stopping the Inners from doing their job.  Even if it had taken the Outers - all four of them - politely but essentially bitching her out as to the why.  No one wanted this, but if they all were to survive for the founding of Crystal Tokyo, then it had to be done.

Even scattered as they were, the Senshi remained ever-vigilant.  They kept regular contact, but she had just had a conversation with Haruka not a week ago discussing her racing and Michiru's upcoming European tour, so she wouldn't expect anyone to really be worrying about her yet.

(Well, except for Satoshi, but now was not the time to be thinking about him.)

Minako continued speaking, allowing for no pause.  "And will you be able to do that a second time without passing out?"

Lapis nodded.  "It's the shackle," she told the senshi.  "It causes pain when I use my powers - I think the pain is supposed to be enough to ruin one's concentration and therefore stop the magic."

"The shackle's iron, so I'm not surprised that it hurts."  Even Minako's senshi powers were seemingly affected by iron - despite their being planetary in source.  (Maybe a quirk of being reborn as human instead of Venusian?)  "What I am surprised about is that you can work magic despite the iron."

Lapis' smile was distant.  "I was trained by Erbeprinze Saffir.  When you're the only daughter of the second-most powerful clan on Nemesis.... you learn to work magic through any and all difficulties."

"Hn.  Handy trick," Minako commented as she turned her attention to the bodies and swiftly inspected the utility belts, memorizing their inventories.  "Do you have any sort of conventional weapons training, Lapis?"

Lapis gave her a blank look.  "Beyond rudimentary swordplay, no.  I've been on Earth less than a year, and spent most of that pregnant."

...Crap.  So much for that idea.

Nodding, Minako quickly transferred more ammunition from the one belt to the other two.  Beyond that, a variety of pellets (smoke and pepper chiefly), a small assortment of knives (throwing and hunting), and a secondary firearm, there wasn't much she found useful.  Pity none of them had a whip or a sword.  Then she would be in her element.

She made do with what she had.  The two belts were cinched about her waist so she had four guns within easy reach.  And when the contents of one belt where exhausted she could use the belt itself as a kind of mini-whip.  Better than nothing.

"Let's get going," she said as she straightened, holding a gun in a two-handed grip.

Lapis swallowed as she looked over the slim blonde.  "R-right."  Gritting her teeth, she held out one hand; blue light gathered around it and over it, forming into a perfect sphere about the size of a softball.  "Which way?"

Minako flipped a mental coin.  "Left," she said before throwing a sideways look at the ball of energy.  Even if Lapis wasn't foe, the glowing sphere unnerved her.

"Jawohl," Lapis murmured absently, falling into step behind Minako.  Looking closely, the Senshi of Love could see that the young woman was trembling, though from fear or from the pain of the iron manacle, she could not say.

Minako moved along silently, even though she knew someone somewhere must have heard something.  The downward-pointed 9mm in her hand didn't exactly have a silencer on it, and noises echoed painfully loud in these empty corridors.  She increased her speed, staying alert for other threats while at the same time attempting to keep an eye/ear on Lapis.  The blue-haired woman had thus far been useful, almost trustworthy, but Minako was not as naive as she once had been.  Right now they had a mutual enemy and a mutual desire for freedom.  Once both were eliminated, nothing could predict what could happen.

In the meantime, she would simply keep her eyes and ears open but her thoughts hidden.