Note: This is a Petshop of Horrors and Tenshi Ni Narumon crossover. But knowledge of 'Petshop' is really all that's needed to understand that. That and that angel physiology is rather different than what mythology would suggest -- angels have a school. When one has graduated, they become a teacher (it's very hard to graduate), and are what people tend to think of as 'angels', but the students basically look like humans with halos and have all the same needs as humans for food, drink, shelter, and are confined to human-like powers other than mild things (limited telepathy, etc.) That's really all the background information one needs for understanding this story. ^^ Besides, only Raphael and Mikael are from Tennimon in this story; everyone else who isn't Petshop-related is original. Please, give me as much constructive criticism as you'd like! - Haru
Although the Petshop was open for business at odd hours, few people visited after night fell; they were with their family, or their extra work, or their television. Perhaps it was also the darkness of the night; the Petshop was poorly lit, with soft candles and softer bulbs the only source of illumination, and the stairway leading down to the Petshop proper from the street was dark, unlit, forbidding, as if something waited below other than the love, hopes, and dream Count D promised to the patrons of his shop. Perhaps it was that when they reached the bottom, things moved in the darkness and the sweet, misleading scent of incense hung in a heavy fog in the air, speaking of old myths of being lost in another world, a world dangerous to normal humans.
Perhaps it was the jump of startlement and fear they would feel upon weaving past the noises and the smells to find Count D calmly stepping out from behind one of the many diaphanous curtains that hid the contents of the Petshop, calm and ready to conduct business at whatever hour, as if he had been expecting them. Perhaps it was their unsettled feeling as long fingers with curved, delicately painted fingernails swept the room and the deep, slightly-accented voice told you to 'please to take a look around', purple-laquered lips stretching in a beautiful and ultimately meaningless smile as masculinely sharp body stood calmly, stiffly under a silk effeminately-draped cheongsam of some rich colour. Standing like that, as D did with customers he didn't know or ones he knew too well, the Count seemed from another place, another time, as mythological as the creatures he was rumoured to sometimes sell. He might be said to sell dragon, phoenix, kirin, but at these times an edgy patron might find him both more mystical and more frightening than his merchandise.
During the day, such customers, such ordinary work-hour buyers, would expect such things, but at night, their deep-seated instincts would send them away, to a better lit petshop with kittens sleeping in one store display and puppies gnawing on each other's legs in the other.
Dr. Hougan was apparently no normal customer, and was beginning to get on the Count's nerves. "Have you considered my previous proposition, Count?" the doctor demanded without preamble, and D's brows wrinkled.
The doctor had come in once a week for the past month, and D had come to the conclusion that he was more than just a demanding man who did not listen to his own survival instincts -- no, indeed he was a zealot. Prematurely white hair fell into his face, long at the front, short at the back, but didn't hide green eyes that shone brightly and intensely, the full force of his gaze drilling into whatever was his current interest. At the moment, they were focussed on the Count. "Have you made up your mind?" Hougan asked again.
Sighing, Count D placed the tea cup he had been holding on the polished teak table with a light clink. "I have told you; it is not within my capabilities to aquire such a rare creature."
Hougan waved that away. "And I have told you, money is no object. They say you can aquire anything, however mythical. Anything."
D let icy calm fall over him like a cloak, gazing at the doctor coolly from behind his hair, perfectly aware of how unnerving his mismatched eyes could be, glinting their respective gold and violet. "Doctor, have you perhaps considered the moral aspect of what you have demanded and the complications that come with it?"
Again, the doctor shrugged, unconcerned. "I have not asked anything immoral. All I asked for was an angel. A full angel, nothing half-way or incomplete. I assure you, it would come to no harm at my hands."
"It is impossible. Please, leave now." D rose, turned away, a clear dismissal. Q-chan fluttered down from the rafters with a small 'Kyu!', landing on the Count's shoulder. Comically bunny-like with its pear-shaped body and large upright ears, rotund and smaller than a clenched fist, its obesity did not take away the edge of danger even it possessed, demons wings, tail black and leathery against its golden fur and bone-white horns as long as its ears. It cried out again, punctuating Count D's words.
"I will return in a week," Hougan said. "Perhaps you can give me a better answer then."
Count D refused to turn. "The answer will be the same whenever you ask it, Doctor."
"Then I will just have to find another method of aquiring what I seek," the doctor sneered, not moving away. His gaze swept the room, and D finally turned his head to watch as Hougan stared intently at the tea placements for three. "Were you expecting company, Count?"
"Not expecting, no," Count D replied without, emotion. "But I frequently find company despite that."
Hougan turned, abrupt, heading back to the stairs. "Well, then. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I will be back."
D did not sit down until Hougan had clearly left, and then he sighed as he picked his tea up again.
Across from him, Raphael faded back into existance, grin undeterred by the sudden interruption, one arm along the back of the couch, his single wing tucked in safely behind him. His halo lit his face up and glinted off his side-swept brown hair, perminantly bed-tousled, to make it seem to shine, and when Mikael stepped out from behind a curtain, the added glow from the other angel's halo made the whole room light up from its usual shadowy promise to a bright, almost electric brightness. Unlike Raphael, Mikael was a new angel and still held his wings somewhat uncomfortably, shifting them nervously.
"Well," Raphael said cheerfully. "What an asshole. Any more of those nice pecan-cream things, Count?"
As the Count, playing the dutiful host, pushed the tray towards him, Mikael stomped over, angry. "Raphael-sama!" he exploded. "Now is not the time to sit around drinking tea and eating snacks! Not after --"
Perfectly calm, Raphael patted the seat next to him, grinning up at his student-lover. "Now is the perfect time to drink tea, and the snacks are delicious. Calm down, Mikael. The time taken for refreshments won't make a difference one way or another."
Count D watched Mikael visibly deflate, slender shoulders hunching. His longish aqua hair hid his eyes, the perfect picture of despair, until Raphael just grabbed him and pulled the other angel into his lap. "Raphael-sama!" Mikael squacked, wings flaring as he tried to keep his balance. "You... you--"
"Shut up," Raphael instructed, reaching over Mikael's still-spread left wing and picking up another pecan roll, then as Mikael opened his mouth to protest again, stuffing the sweet in. "If you're still gonna talk around that, there's a whole tray here."
Disgruntled, Mikael crossed his arms, drawing into himself as he chewed, feathers ruffled, giving the same general image as an offended parrot. Count D hid a smile at that mental image, and simply said, "You see the difficulty, however."
Raphael nodded, idly stroking Mikael's leg. "Yes. Thank you for getting in contact with me. Us," he corrected as Mikael glared out of the corner of his eye. "Considering what's been happening, this is a compounded problem. A maniac trying to get his hands on one of us would normally be laughable, however--"
"However?" the Count asked, tilting his head and making a deliberately questioning expression when Raphael hesitated.
"Students have been disappearing," Mikael said, distressed. "They've just vanished, not reporting in to their teachers, and-- don't you dare. I'm a teacher too. I have the right to explain this--" that last was in response to Raphael, who had raised another pecan roll menacingly. "Anyhow, they've vanished and their teacher can't find them. Their teacher is normally aware at all times of where their assigned student is. And unlike the teacher, the student can't go intangible at will. They don't know how. That's in teacher-training."
Count D nodded encouragingly. He knew that the angels had a school, and that the only 'true' angels were the teachers -- before a student graduated, they were basically just a human with a halo. Accessible and tangible, which the angel teachers rarely were, at least to anyone who wasn't an angel teacher or student themselves. Still, something occurred to him. "Are the students not usually kept in the School, in Heaven?"
Raphael shrugged. "For the first half of their training. But they have to know what they're giving up and they have to learn to understand humans more than confinement would allow. So they can spend years on Earth as part of their learning process. Half the time they aren't even fully aware what they're there for." He patted Mikael's leg, grinning, and Mikael pinched his hand. "Uhn. See, there's normally very few students at one time -- it's hard to become an angel, after all, and most people don't even believe angels exist. But we've had an exorbantly high number since the year 2000 passed and we've lost three already, with no sign of where they might be."
"You suspect Doctor Hougan, then?" Count D asked, mildly.
"Don't you?" Mikael demanded.
The Count smiled, gently. "It is not my role here to suspect anything, Mikael-san. I run a Petshop, that is all." His expression grew serious again. "Still, if they are, as you say, in human roles here on Earth, then why do you not just confront the police with your suspicions?"
"And say what?" Mikael snorted. "'Please, Mr. Detective, we're teachers from the Angel School, and our students have been disappearing! Recognizable features? Well, they have halos, like this one here, but they don't have wings, like these --' I'm sorry, but I don't believe the police would take us seriously."
"It is a possibility," Count D said.
Raphael shook his head slightly. "Mikael has something of a point. Very few people see us as what we are, after all, when they see us at all. Besides, it's school policy not to release student identities, for this very reason. I mean, people with some aspects of an angel who can be captured -- a lot of people'd want this. You'd know that better than most."
Count D tilted his head, lips pursed as he pondered. "I might not be able to convince the police entirely, but I do know a policeman who I might convince."
The one-winged angel grinned. "Yes, I heard you had an 'in' with the police. And if anybody could convince someone of the existance of forces greater than oneself, it would be you, Count." He gestured around the room. Tetsu, curled up on a cushion, opened one eye to glare sleepily in their direction, then closed it, moving a hand over to bury his face in the crook of his arm. Most people, the Count was well aware, would see a horned dog, not the young teenager Tetsu was. "Even one person with legal connections looking into this 'Doctor Hougan' could help."
"Ah, I see." The Count nodded, clearing the dishes. "You planned on this."
"We did?" Mikael asked.
"We did," Raphael replied, grinning. "Thank you for obliging, Count."
"I will get in contact with the Detective, then," Count D replied, smiling as if he had expected nothing else.
Mikael gave up. "Pass me one of those pecan rolls before you pack up, would you?"
"Sophie! Sophie!!"
The blonde haired girl turned, smiling, as her human schoolmate Riana Hougan caught up to her. She was enjoying Earth so much better now she'd returned to it... everything was so bright and everyone was so nice, and she couldn't wait until her real graduation, when she'd be able to help everyone here. "Riana!"
Pale hair falling around Riana as she bent over double, hands on her knees as she breathed hard, she tried to grin up at Sophia through her gasps. "Hey, do you want to come to dinner with me tonight? I asked Daddy last night, an' told him all about you! He said it's okay, and he hardly ever lets me have people over, and I was just hoping..." She trailed off, anxious.
Sophia tried to think of what she'd be doing tonight. Uriel had wanted to talk to her about something, but he was always telling her to get out among humans, so she decided he wouldn't mind waiting. "Sure!" she agreed. "Let's go!"
Riana smiled.