Celliers, on the bed, snoring lump. Of course.

Kate opens the door when she hears the knock, smiling as she sees who's
there. She's got on a purplish nightshirt and a scarlet Asian dressing
gown over that. "Come on in, don't worry about Jack...he's dead to the
world. So what was all that about outside, with the policeman and all?"

Kitty's already dressed in her usual fashion: jeans and a T-shirt with the
yellow silhouette of an apple. "I'm not sure I got the whole story on it
either," she adds over her shoulder to Seishi as she enters, "so I was
kind of hoping..." She's not actually /physically/ dragging Seishi; that
would be mildly ludicrous. But she keeps glancing back to the other woman,
as if she were concerned Sei would wander off if left unobserved.

Celliers is contentedly cuddled facedown into the pillow, hair tousled.
Not a twitch there - he's sleeping the sleep of the just. Or the pure at
heart. Or something. Or else Kate's just worn him out.

Seishi has come along docilely enough; she's standing more or less at
Kitty's elbow, pushing sweat-soaked black hair out of her eyes with the
back of her hand. Apparently Kitty grabbed her at the end of a workout.
She's not sulking--doesn't look particularly displeased--but she's a
little withdrawn, and when she inclines her head and says, "All right,"
her voice is quiet and without animation.

Kate gestures to the other (unused) bed in the room, and to the chairs
that you always find in a hotelroom, next to that small round table with
the wrapped up glasses and ice bucket. "So what did you find out, then?
Does it have anything to do with us?"

Kitty seats herself cross-legged on the bed's edge, hands settling into
her lap. She glances across at Jack with a momentary grin. "The quick
summary is, two tourists were found dead day before yesterday - drowned -
no immediate sign of foul play. We don't have /proof/ it has anything to
do with us, yet, but it seems pretty likely." She glances to Seishi, who,
she apparently presumes, knows more.

Seishi settles down cross-legged on the floor, letting a breath hiss out
through her teeth. "That pretty well covers it," she tells Kitty, voice
neutral. "John and Carita have figured out that we don't need to find
anything special to recreate the stones--except the ritual. Which we don't
have."

Kate settles into one of the chairs. "So do we have any idea where to
start looking? Or is that something that's going to lie entirely on
Constantine's shoulders?"

Kitty grimaces slightly. "Constantine and Valeria are looking. But
Valeria's scared of us, and Constantine - trying to get /him/ to give out
information, even if it could help him?" She darts an apologetic look at
Seishi. "I'm sorry. Be proud of me, though - I /didn't/ hit him
yesterday."

Seishi nods grimly. "I know," she tells Kitty. "At least for the moment,
we're in their hands. They're the only ones who know what it is they're
*looking* for in those books of Valeria's."

Kate says "So she brought books with her, then? That's good." She sighs.
"The thing I hate most is the waiting around, being unable to do anything
or help with anything. Kitty, what did you wind up doing the other day
with pretty-boy's computer?""

Kitty admits, "I wrote a program to simulate us for the monitors,
basically - more or less random movement inside the house, skewed a little
to keep the couples together a little more often." She props her chin on a
hand. "There wasn't a whole lot useful on it, but we got enough to be
pretty sure his employers don't know when their plans are going down,
either. I wonder if they're waiting around, too."

"If my guess about what happened to those tourists is right," Seishi puts
in tightly, "they aren't *just* waiting around."

Kate nods her head. "This reminds me uncomfortably of an old Bill Cosby
routine where he asks, 'How long can you tread water? Ha ha ha...'"

Kitty glances at Kate, and replies deadpan, "What's a cubit?"

Seishi's mouth twitches slightly. "Yeah, well," she murmurs dryly. "That
would be a lot funnier if it weren't about to happen to us. And somehow, I
don't think an ark is all we need."

Kate sighs. "Hmmm. You know, what bothers me is this whole 'I'll let you
go free' thing that Ilistair was suggesting. After what we did to him? I
would think he'd be wanting a front row seat for our sacrifices. Instead
he decides to help us? This screams 'set up'."

"On the one hand," Kitty says slowly, "yeah, the behavior's bizarre. On
the other - if he /wanted/ to set us up, all he would've had to do was
wait for another round of experiments - he /knew/ we were planning them,
seeing if Seishi could get over the fire, or if Pete could maybe counter
it a little the way he did during the fight, or if Holmes could analyze it
enough to figure out its properties and how to get rid of it - and let one
of the tries work. We would've been loose, he still could watch us - as
long as he stayed away from Holmes, anyway - and we wouldn't've suspected
a thing." Again, she looks to Seishi as if for confirmation.

Seishi shifts her seat on the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest and
wrapping her arms around them. "Yeah," she affirms, looking up at Kitty.
"There are about a million ways he could have set it up that wouldn't have
left us second-guessing the whole thing and looking for the catch. And..."
her shoulders lift in an abbreviated shrug. "I don't know. John said he
was human once. Maybe there's some of that humanity left. If these demons
have their way, it's not just our lives."

Kate asks, "Speaking of John...what about him? Is he still set to be
auctioned off to the highest bidder? Or is he going to be allowed to go
free too?"

Kitty mutters almost under her breath, "Or maybe he just really likes
Harrod's." She glances over to Kate, then, startled. "I didn't think of
that." Given the way she's been snarling about John the whole time, the
amount of worry she shows for a moment might be a little surprising. "He
was supposed to be - it's only the, uh, employers, right? So it shouldn't
- we shouldn't have to worry?" If we can pull this off.

"It didn't really come up," Seishi drawls quietly. "I think it's probably
a moot point if we can't find a way to keep them from summoning the
Leviathan."

Kate nods. "And I guess there's no point in sending some of us to Miami or
to Cuba, since it would have to be John and Valeria to do that too. So we
just hang out here."

Kitty makes a face. "They'll have to tell /somebody/ what's going on
eventually. Three points of the triangle, and only two of them, right?"

Seishi sighs quietly. "I'm sure they'll tell us, when there's something to
*tell.* But in the meantime..."

Kate ticks off on her fingers. "We're talking about the Bermuda Triangle,
right? South Florida, Cuba and the islands of the Caribbean. Those are the
points. The Sargasso or Caribbean sea in the center." She frowns. "In the
meantime...we wait. Though I suppose if we have to wait, there are worse
places. The jacuzzi is nice. So is the beach."

Kitty shakes her head at Kate. "Miami and Puerto Rico for the other two
points, where the murders were, not Cuba." She rakes hands through her
hair. "You know, it /still/ sounds bizarre to say that kind of thing.
Gah."

"Stay off the beach, Kate-chan." Seishi's voice is toneless, muffled by
the knee she's resting her cheek against. "The demons are in the water."

Kate nods. "Point taken."

Kitty glances aside at Seishi uneasily, then leans somewhat precariously
to reach a hand toward her, not quite touching. "You okay?"

Seishi's reply is a moody 'mmm.' "Oh yeah. Demons drowning people,
Leviathan going to eat us all, Holmes-sama is having premonitions of doom
or... something, and there's nothing I can do but *wait.*" She raises a
hand, thumb and forefinger a scant inch apart. "*Slightly* less than
okay."

Kate looks up. "Holmes is having premonitions of doom? When did this
happen?"

Kitty actually starts, which very nearly winds up with her falling off the
bed. "Wait, what?" she echoes Kate, sliding down a little more
controlledly to the floor. No thumps. They might wake the Jack.

Seishi hunkers down a bit more, as though she means to simply draw into
herself altogether. "I don't know *what* his problem is," she grumbles.
"Who ever knows what's going on in his head, anyhow?"

Kate shakes her head. "But what did he tell you?" Kate slips out of her
own seat, to sit on the floor with the other two women. "I mean,
premonition and Holmes just don't jive. I thought he never said a word
unless he had facts to back him up, even when it came to demons!"

In a strange and mildly disturbing way, it's like a gaggle of teenage
girls, really. Except for, oh, topic. "Exactly," Kitty says, and bites
back the urge to add 'Share?' toward Seishi. She has /not/ just chopped a
decade off her age, really.

Seishi hisses an exasperated sigh. "He hasn't said anything. He's been
about as garrulous as a little box turtle since we left Beacon Harbor.
Maybe it's just because he's out of his element; I don't know."

Kate sighs. "Well, that's that, then." She glances over at Jack, and then
at her watch. "I /ought/ to wake him up, I suppose...but then again, why?
There's nothing we have to be doing but waiting." She stands up. "I think
I'm going to get dressed and wander down to the resort restaurant. Maybe
I'll be a good little wife and bring sleepyhead here some breakfast in
bed."

Kitty gets to her feet, absently and needlessly offering a hand toward
Seishi. "Kate, that's /distressingly/ cute. Go you." Her smile flickers
for a moment, but it's brief. "At least we know where the dreams came
from, though."

Kate grins, and pulls a sundress out of her bag, heading into the bathroom
to change. "See you both soon!"

Seishi reluctantly unwinds enough to take the hand Kitty offers and pull
herself up to her feet. "We'd better clear out and leave the newlyweds
alone, huh?" she suggests, with a note of cynicism that doesn't suit her
at all.

"Plenty of other hiding places," Kitty says firmly. "Though I wouldn't
suggest my room. Pete's pretty bad company before noon. Or three, if he
can get away with it. Outside, maybe? Before we get accused of playing box
turtle ourselves."

Seishi quirks a quick, faint smile. "Fair enough," she agrees more mildly.
"Lead on?"

Kitty does so, uncertain only once or twice as they work their way through
the place. Once outside, she keeps close by the buildings rather than
venturing down to the beach. "There's got," she says finally, "to be
something we're overlooking, somewhere."

Seishi tucks her hands into her pockets, head lowered as she walks
alongside Kitty. "I know," she says on a sigh. "I just don't know where it
is we haven't been looking. And the only ones of us with much experience
in this kind of thing are... John and Valeria again."

Kitty glances aside at Seishi. "You've fought this kind of thing before.
You /told/ me the story." She half-laughs, then, weakly, and adds, "And
I'm not sure Valeria counts for experience."

Seishi laughs weakly. "That was a little different. I guess we could ask
John if there's some kind of magic sword we could use against the
Leviathan the way we did to Acathla, but... I don't think I'm going to be
able to face it down with just a mudra and my sword."

Kitty reasons, "We don't have to face /it/ down." Yet. Her voice is a
trace less confident than usual, though; she made the mistake of rereading
the appropriate verses of Job. "Look, we know the nest is still at least
partially trapped. Right? Or else they wouldn't've needed pretty-boy in
the first place, they could've gotten to us themselves. So right now, the
most we need to worry about is /them/."

"Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of things," Seishi concedes, and falls
quiet for a while, turning this over in her mind. "We don't know how many
of them there are," she says at last. "Or if there's any way we can kill
them. Something else to grill Valeria about."

Seishi pauses a moment, then amends, "...or Ilistair."

Kitty nods back to her. "If we can get Valeria alone, without Constantine
there, it might work better -" And then the younger woman's eyes widen a
little further at the addition. "That ... makes a lot of sense. It's
really disturbing. But it makes sense."

Seishi jerks her shoulders in a half-shrug, the corner of her mouth
turning up. "He's dealt with them directly. Maybe we can't trust a word he
says, but... it's worth asking, anyhow, if he'll tell us anything."

"Even lies and half-truths would be more useful than what we've got now."
Kitty glances in the direction of the water, uneasy for a moment. "They'd
at least give us someplace to /start/. And who knows? He might tell the
truth." She's seen people make almost as strange reversals. Heck, she
dates one.

Seishi mmms quietly, pausing to contemplate a bed of delicate-looking,
frilly white flowers. "As unlikely as it seems, I can't help but think he
really might. Of course, I could just be fooling myself. It's still worth
asking after."

Kitty regards the blossoms as well, silent for a few seconds. "We managed
to hurt him - surprised, unprepared, and not having the faintest idea what
we were doing, we managed to /hurt/ him. Maybe that made him do a little
thinking."

"Maybe it did," Seishi agrees in a murmur, nodding slowly. "I'd like to
think so, anyhow."

Kitty settles down to one knee, bending her head to take a closer look at
the shape of a petal. "How could anyone want to become a demon in the
first place?"

Seishi's voice is emotionless and a little distant when she answers, "Oh,
I don't know. Power, I suppose. Immortality." She's looking off past the
flowerbed now, dark eyes gone unfocused. "Why anyone would want to live
forever, I don't know."

"Maybe if they're afraid of what comes after." Kitty half-turns, still
kneeling, to look up at Seishi - then falls silent, and follows her gaze
into the distance, very still.

Seishi doesn't seem to have heard Kitty at first; she's silent for some
time, attention turned inward, with an abstracted air. "Maybe so," she
agrees finally, in that distant voice.

Kitty swallows. "You know," she says conversationally, not loudly, after
Seishi's finally spoken, "that's just a little creepy."

Seishi blinks, coming back to reality with an almost audible snap and
looking toward Kitty with an expression of mild puzzlement. "What is?"

Kitty climbs to her feet again, gesturing somewhat fruitlessly with both
hands. "When you go off someplace like that. You almost look a little like
-" She cuts herself off, not finishing the sentence.

Seishi doesn't say a word. She just looks, quirking a brow and adopting an
expectant look. All right, cough it up.

Kitty admits, looking a little disturbed at herself for saying it,
"Claire." She hesitates. "Like you're seeing something nobody else is."

Seishi actually looks a little chagrined at that. "No," she replies,
looking down at her toes. "Not seeing. Looking for it, maybe, but not
seeing."

Kitty starts, "What're you -" And then cuts herself off, and blushes.
"Sorry. Personal question. Never mind."

Seishi laughs quietly, shaking her head. "No, it's okay. Just... answers."

Kitty looks wry. "No /wonder/ Holmes pulling his head into his shell is
getting to you."

Seishi dips her head, admitting, "Maybe I'm overreacting about that." She
scuffs her toe absently against the manicured grass she's standing on. "I
mean, it's not like this is a happy place for him to be... demons, occult
rituals, et cetera, ad nauseam."

"No," Kitty says more slowly, "it's definitely not. We're all a little on
edge. Most of us more than a little."

"Yeah," Seishi murmurs, "no kidding. I just kind of have this feeling...
that he's expecting something. And he won't tell me about it." She kicks
at the grass this time, leaving a little crescent-shaped indentation in
the sod. "Maybe there's nothing to tell. Maybe it's just a feeling. I
don't know."

Kitty drops her own gaze to the ground, studying the crescent, and slides
one hand into a pocket as she does. "Last time Pete and I decided not to
tell each other about something, we didn't get things straightened out for
most of a month. And it took a demon in Carita's kitchen to do it." She
glares at an inoffensive patch of grass for a moment, then looks aside,
over to Seishi, more concerned. "Have you asked him about it?" Holmes, not
Pete. The distinction's fairly clear.

Seishi laughs shortly, still contemplating the grass. "Oh, yeah, because
that's worked so well for me in the past." She looks up again, finally,
meeting Kitty's eyes again. "Even on his best days he's never exactly been
forthcoming about things he's not a hundred percent about."

"And these aren't his best days. I getcha." Kitty half-smiles briefly, and
adds, "Wonder if we can get a movement together to take September out of
the calendar after this year? Kids in school would love it. And we'd have
/so/ much less frustration." There's unease under the joking. Holmes is
expecting something; what are his deductions telling him?

Seishi smiles a little, halfheartedly, with a touch of that same unease.
"We'd run out of months eventually."

Kitty agrees, "Besides, to shorten the year that much we'd probably have
to mess with Earth's orbit, and that's just going all kinds of bad
places." She takes a deeper breath. "Wonder if we can get anything useful
out of a local newspaper." Something to do short of infiltrating the
embassy.

"We could look," Seishi muses. "I doubt there'll be anything to help with
the occult end, but... it's not like we really know what we're looking for
anyhow."

Kitty nods, glancing back toward the hotel buildings. "And if John and
Carita have much more trouble finding the ritual - well, we'll be -" Her
eyes widen suddenly. "Oh, God."

Seishi stiffens, turning sharply to look in the same direction that Kitty
is. "What? What is it?"

Kitty takes a careful breath. "Has anybody talked to Carita about the
third stone?"

Because it seems the 'oh, God' was meant for something Kitty thought of,
not something she saw, Sei turns back to face her, relaxing a fraction.
"How do you mean?" she asks, a little wary and more than a little
confused.

Generally, Kitty having that reaction to something she sees is accompanied
by taking cover. "What Carita said, about Miami and Puerto Rico. In both
places, the guardian of that point was killed, and the stone was
destroyed. We've got an eye on Carita. Fine. But do we need to be guarding
the stone here, too?"

"Oh, God," Seishi echoes now, with a faint note of disgust. "We'd better
ask about that, and soon."

Kitty grimaces. "And we'd better see if there's anything we can come up
with on the other guardians' deaths." She pauses. "Or maybe not. If those
were Ilistair..."

Seishi nods slowly. "I was under that impression, since the demons have
been confined." She pauses, biting her lip in thought. "But Carita is a
lot closer to them. We'd better be careful."

Kitty returns the nod, flicking a glance one way and another. "Could've
been Ilistair or somebody he hired. Or they could have other agents -
maybe demon, maybe not. And yeah. We're in walking distance of the caves
she said they were under - /real/ close."

Seishi smooths a hand distractedly over her hair. "According to what we
know, they can get out into the water, but not onto land." Her mouth
twists into a grimace. "Yet. I don't think it would be a good idea to keep
counting on that."

Kitty asks, "And do the caves even count as land? Or water? Most of them
have enough water in them... I'm thinking staying above-ground for now
might be a good plan."

Seishi agrees grimly, "Sounds like a plan. Carita said they hadn't made it
into the actual Crystal Caves yet, but that was several days ago. I don't
think we should count very much on that staying true either."

Kitty replies quietly, "I'm wondering if that's where the tourists were.
And the stone -" She doesn't finish, but Carita said it before: the stone
at this point of the Triangle isn't far from the Caves.

Seishi finishes the thought for her: "...is in a cavern near here." She
draws in a long breath and lets it out in a huff. "Add it all up, and we
pretty much get 'ugh.'"

Kitty says, "No wonder Constantine's not talking."

"He's looking for the ritual," Seishi reminds. "Which we need. I'm just
very afraid that they're not going to find it in time, and we don't have
any kind of viable plan B."

Kitty looks faintly resigned. "Get Constantine to do the same thing he did
to Jack's knife to all the other weaponry we've got, and try to stop the
nest directly before they can try their summoning thing. Okay, yeah,
that's not a /viable/ plan."

Judging by Seishi's unhappy expression, she agrees. "I can at least get
him to do his thing to my sword," she says, but she sounds more than a
little reluctant about it.

"From the way Ilistair looked," Kitty says a little more cheerfully, "you
might not /need/ it." She hurt him! She did!

Seishi smiles a bit at that. "It'd be nice to think so. Well, we'll see.
He might be able to give us some other ideas about how to deal with them.

Kitty brightens a little more in turn. "He very well might. That'd be a
relief. Always a good idea to know something about who you're working
for."

"Or fighting against," Seishi agrees, more darkly.

Kitty closes her eyes briefly. "You know, I could almost start to go for
Barbara's holy-water-gun idea."

Seishi observes mildly, "Unfortunately, the time we actually tried that
one it really didn't work so well."

Kitty blinks her eyes open again, looking toward Seishi. "It didn't? I
didn't realize it'd been put into practice. What happened?"

Seishi mms, pressing her fingertips to her mouth briefly as she brings the
memory to mind. "We tried the holy watergun, the twenty-third psalm, and a
Shinto incantation--which might, admittedly, have worked better if I were
a miko, or even actually Shinto, but--what ended up doing the trick was my
jumping up and kicking it one, and then running like hell."

Kitty just looks at Seishi for a moment - for a fairly long moment,
actually. Just looks. And then she starts to grin. "You know," she admits,
"I don't know about you, but somehow, that makes /me/ feel a whole lot
better about this situation." Religious ammunition is nice. Martial
artists? Sometimes just a little more reassuring.

"It was just *one* demon," Seishi protests, but mildly, and smiling a
little self-deprecatingly. Wow, praise.

Kitty protests, "You /kicked/ it and it /noticed/. The one time I got
jumped by something like that? I needed a /plane/."

Seishi spreads her hands a little, demurring, "And you walk through walls.
We've all got our talents."

Kitty returns promptly, "In that case, I'll even it /all/ out and start
calling you the goddess of demon-kicking."

Seishi gives an inelegant snort of laughter at that. "Oh, come on. I think
a goddess would be able to come up with some kind of effective solution
for our current problems; I'm just good at hitting things."

Kitty teases, "If that were a 'just,' Pete wouldn't be after me to start
taking classes. Which he has been. About every two or three hours since he
saw you in Carita's house. I think you've got a new admirer."

Seishi's brows lift at this, and she can't seem to decide whether she's
amused or alarmed. "...Oh, dear," is what she finally settles with.

At which Kitty simply cannot help but laugh. "I promise not to let him
stalk you, anyway?"

Seishi laughs quietly, dropping her gaze and shaking her head a bit.
"Assuming we all survive this mess, I'd appreciate it."

"It's okay. He just appreciates competence." Much less breathtaking
artistry. Kitty shakes her head, not laughing anymore, but not losing all
of the grin, either. "Besides. Half of us are just plain too stubborn to
die, right?"

"Yeah," Seishi agrees, and laughs again with a bit less humor. "Stubborn,
or else just too obnoxious."

"Or both. Usually both. /Men!/" Kitty shakes her head, then, deliberately,
laces her fingers together and cracks knuckles. "Right. I don't know about
you, but /I/ want a newspaper. So that I have something to read while
lurking outside Carita's room and waiting for her to come up for air."
She's joking, mostly.

Seishi quirks a vague smile, inclining her head acquiescently. "I think
I'd better go check on people, and make sure we're all still in one piece.
Think you can secure a newspaper without unnecessary risks?" Also mostly
joking.

Kitty gives an exaggerated sigh, and says, mock-moping, "I promise to stay
on the ground. The /whole way/, even."

Seishi has recovered enough of her sense of humor to chide dryly, "See
that you do." She begins to turn away, then pauses to note, "If you do
find a paper, I'd like top see it when you're done with it, if that's all
right?"

Kitty agrees, "No problem. I'll stop by your room? Or catch you in the
hallway, for all I know."

"Whatever works," Seishi agrees, nodding. "I'll see you then." And with
that, she turns and begins to retrace their path back into the hotel.