thinking about hating to die in such a juvenile color was running away from the bit in the middle, the dying bit. But the ogre holding her moved her around as if she weighed nothing, and Bonnie kept having little thoughts - were they premonitions? Oh, God, let them not be premonitions! - about going out of that red window in a sitting position, the glass no impediment to her body being thrown at a tremendous force. And how many stories up were they? High enough, anyway, that there was no hope of landing without...Well, dying.
Shinichi smiled, lounging by the red window, playing with the cord to the blinds.
"I don't even know what you want from me!"Bonnie found herself saying to Shinichi. "I've never been able to hurt you. It was you hurting other people - like me! - al the time."
"Well, there were your friends,"murmured Shinichi. "Although I seldom wreak my dread revenge against lovely young women with red-gold hair."He lounged beside the window and examined her, murmuring, "Hair of red-gold; heart true and bold. Perhaps a scold..."
Bonnie felt like screaming. Didn't he remember her? He certainly seemed to have remembered their group, since he'd mentioned revenge. "What do you want?"she gasped.
"You are a hindrance, I'm afraid. And I find you very suspicious - and delicious. Young women with red-gold hair are always so elusive."
Bonnie couldn't find anything to say. From everything she'd seen, Shinichi was a nutcase. But a very dangerous psychopathic nutcase. And al he enjoyed was destroying things.
In just one moment there could be a crash through the window - and then she'd be sitting on air. And then the fal would begin. What would that feel like? Or would she already be fal ing? She only hoped that at the bottom it was quick.
"You seem to have learned a lot about my people,"Shinichi said. "More than most."
"Please,"Bonnie said desperately. "If it's about the story - al I know about kitsune is that you're destroying my town. And - "She stopped short, realizing that she could never let him know what had happened in her out-of-body experience. So she could never mention the jars or he'd know that they knew how to catch him. "And you won't stop,"she finished lamely.
"And yet you found an ancient star bal with stories about our legendary treasures."
"About what? You mean from that kiddy star bal ? Look, if you'l just leave me alone I'l give it to you."She knew exactly where she'd left it, too, right beside her sorry excuse for a pil ow.
"Oh, we'l leave you alone...in time, I assure you,"Shinichi said with an unnerving smile. He had a smile like Damon's, which wasn't meant to say "Hel o; I won't hurt you."It was more like "Hul o! Here's my lunch!"
"I find it...curious,"Shinichi went on, Stillfiddling with the cord.
"Very curious that just in the middle of our little dispute, you arrive here in the Dark Dimension again, alone, apparently without fear, and manage to bargain for a star bal . An orb that just happens to detail the location of our most priceless treasures that were stolen from us...a long, long time ago."
You don't care about anybody but yourself, Bonnie thought.
You're suddenly acting al patriotic and stuff, but in Fel 's Church you didn't pretend to care about anything but hurting people.
"In your little town, as in other towns throughout history, I had orders to do what I did,"Shinichi said, and Bonnie's heart plunged right down to her shoes. He was telepathic. He knew what she was thinking. He'd heard her thinking about the jars.
Shinichi smirked. "Little towns like the one on Unmei no Shima have to be wiped off the face of the earth,"he said.
"Did you see the number of ley lines of Power under it?"Another smirk. "But of course you weren't really there, so you probably didn't."
"If you can tel what I'm thinking, you know that story about treasures was just a story,"Bonnie said. "It was in the star bal cal ed Five Hundred Stories for Young Ones. It's not real."
"How strange then that it coincides so exactly with what the Seven Kitsune Gates are supposed to have behind them."
"It was in the middle of a bunch of stories about the - the Düz-Aht-Bhi'iens. I mean the story right before it was about a kid buying candy,"Bonnie said. "So why don't you just go get the star bal instead of trying to scare me?"Her voice was beginning to tremble. "It's at the inn right across the street