She was drying the dishes when Tsuzuku came in, started fixing a tray with
cups and the coffee pot. "Matsuri-chan, I will help you with the chores in a
little while. I need to talk with Hajime first, if you don't mind?"

 "Of course not, Tsuzuku-kun! But will you take out the trash first? It's
starting to gas me out. I'll take the tray in for you."

 "Your wish is my command, Mademoiselle." He gave her an elegant bow and
small grin.

 "Oh, stop!" She blushed.

 "Matsuri-chan, you do so much for us and we rarely tell you how much we
appreciate it, so let me flatter you once in a while."

 Matsuri beamed with pleasure. "It is nothing much, Tsuzuku-kun. I wish I
could do more."

 "Ah, but it is, Cousin! None of us could survive long with out your care or
cooking."

 "Thank-you, Tsuzuku-kun." She bowed. "Now, enough flattery and take out the
trash." She commanded regally with a playful gleam in her eyes as she picked
up the tray and headed for the den.

 Tsuzuku smiled to himself as he pulled the bag out of the can, tied it as he
headed out the back door and across the yard towards the outside trash cans
by the back gate. All of them did depend on Matsuri for so much, but she was
eighteen now and should be out looking for a potential husband, not focusing
all of her energies and attention on them.

 He had just put the metal lid back on the can when a wolf-whistle from the
top of the high brick wall snapped his head up. He threw the lid of the can
frisbee like at the dark clad figure with the gun at the same time something
hit him hard at the base of his throat, just above the inside corner of his
collarbone. He saw the lid connect squarely with the middle of his attacker,
knocking him backwards and into the alley then swayed and stepped sideways,
trying to keep his balance as the world began to spin. Why hadn't he sensed
this one coming?

 "Hajime!" He tried to yell, but it came out as a whisper as his muscles went
heavy and lax. He fell to his knees, catching himself on his hands. He shook
his head, trying to clear it, the numb spot at the base of his throat flaring
into throbbing, stinging life. He managed to reach up and pull the dart out,
glared at it as he slid forewords headfirst onto the grass and floated into
unconsciousness.

 Hajime was sitting at his desk, sorting papers into piles, back to the open
picture window when Matsuri came in with the coffee.

 "Anything interesting?" She asked as she bent to set the tray down on the
little table between the two big overstuffed chairs in the center of the den.

 "Maybe. They've hidden their trail well, it's hard..." Matsuri glanced up as
he stopped suddenly, saw the dark back lit figure standing framed in the
window, balancing on the sill, a gun pointed at her cousin's back.

 "Hajime!" She screamed, threw herself between them. The dart caught her in
the right shoulder, spinning her around and knocking her to the floor.

 Hajime whirled in the desk chair, barely managed to turn enough so that the
dart skimmed across his chest, leaving a long tear in his shirt as it
continued on to lodge in the wall. He threw himself out of the chair, rolled
for the thick protection of one of the armchairs as the form in the window
sprang into the room, trying to track him. He needed to make this quick so he
could check on Matsuri. He launched himself up and over the back of the
chair. Another dart dug a shallow furrow across his cheek then he was on his
attacker. He realized it was female but was so angry he didn't care as he
closed one hand around her neck, the other grabbing the wrist with the gun
and ran her backwards into the wall across from the door.

 "I've had just about enough of you people." He growled, tightening his hand
around her throat and punctuating each word with a bang up against the wall.
The gun fell out of her hand but she grinned at him as her face started to
purple. He narrowed his eyes at her, then let out a startled grunt as three
darts slammed into his back in rapid succession.

 "What?" He hissed, startled as his body began to go limp. The woman caught
him as he sagged against her, began to fade out.

 "Piece of cake." Tamanji grinned as she carefully lowered Hajime Ryudo to
the floor. "Took you long enough." She scowled at the two dark clad men who
moved into the room. The towering hulk of the pair had the baby of the family
tucked limply under one arm, the smaller lithe form had Tsuzuku Ryudo draped
over a shoulder.

 "Any problems?" She asked her partners as she pulled the three color coded
darts out of the eldest Ryudo's back and rolled him over. Two where coded
yellow for the youngest, one red for the second born.

 It had taken Doc only two weeks to find just the right combination of 'herbs
and spices' that would have the effect they wanted on a dragon and the
correct dosage for their quarry's weights. But then he had something that all
the secret labs of The Four Sisters did not. Three willing dragons to
experiment on. At thirty mil for one and ten mil apiece for any extra's, they
were all willing subjects. She made a quick calculation as Lee muttered a
curse as he shrugged Tsuzuku off his shoulder and let him drop heavily to the
floor.

 "Bastard broke one of my ribs." He pressed his palm against his right side
as he moved to sit on the edge of one of the chairs and poured himself a cup
of coffee.

 "You think that's bad?" The big red haired man glared at his white-blond
 companion as he gently put Amaru down on the carpet by his brothers. "I've
got a pencil stuck all the way to the eraser in my thigh, the little shit!
Hey, Lee, this one is even prettier than you are!"

 "Fuck off." Lee muttered back, eased himself gingerly back into the chair.

 "Jonah, gun." Tamanji commanded. The red-head put it into her hand and she
took careful aim at Hajime and put another yellow dart into him at the base
of his throat, just to make sure.

 The twins came in, nodded. "House is clear." Then moved to take up guarding
positions, Rahne at the door and Ayisha at the window.

 She pulled down her mike, said "Pick up. Doc, come on in." As Jonah went to
sit in the other chair and stretched out his injured leg.

 She watched Doc shrug out of his pack and start pulling out gear, felt
strangely disappointed. It had been too easy. She gave an involuntary
internal shudder as he started to lock the high tech collars that were very
effective psionic dampers and neural scramblers around the Dragons necks. She
had volunteered to test that piece of equipment when it had arrived from the
Dupont research boys and had loathed the disjointed awareness it had
produced. She hadn't been able to do more than basic tasks during their test
of it and those with difficulty.

 Doc seemed to have his end of things well in hand. She went and stood over
the girl. She recognized her as Matsuri Toba from the briefing pictures. This
one had the Blood in her too, but apparently so diluted that it hadn't made
her anything special. She squatted down and pulled the dart out of her
shoulder and wondered if she'd survive the dose meant for Hajime Ryudo,
shrugged as she tucked the spent cartridge into her jacket pocket. Wasn't her
problem. Silly girl should have just turned and ran. They'd have let her go,
she wasn't on their list.

 She went to the bookcase across the room, pulled the third dart she had
fired from the spine of a thick book, headed for the desk and the dart in the
wall behind it.  She glanced at the mounds of papers, frowned as she
recognized names, shuffled through them. Busy, busy boys. This would have to
go with the pick up team.

 "Do we wait for the fourth one?" Lee asked, sipping his coffee as he watched
Jonah take the silently offered forceps from Doc and use them to pull the
pencil out of his leg with a growling curse.

 "No." Tamanji answered curtly. It annoyed her that they had missed one, but
she had learned from experience not to get too greedy. The operation had gone
pretty flawlessly. If they stayed for Owaru Ryudo, they'd be winging it and
that's when screw-ups happened.

  A gleam of gold from under the desk caught the corner of her eye. She
leaned down and stretched her arm under to pick up the doubled plastic bags.
She took in an involuntary gasp of air as she recognized the golden eye
staring back at her.

 "Are you O.K. Tammi?" Jonah asked, seeing her stiffen by the desk.

 "Oh, yes, I'm just fine." She said with a cold smile matched by the gleam in
her eye as she opened the bags.

 She kept a good hold of it as she brought the scarf out and let it unfold
down with a soft hiss of fabric. She couldn't believe it. The scarf? Now she
wished she hadn't killed the Order's observer that had been stationed on the
Ryudo house. But that is was here could only mean one thing. She smiled
meanly, cat-footed behind the chair Lee was sitting in, tossed it up and let
it settle over the handsome white haired young man.

 "What?" Lee hissed in a startled voice, grabbed for the fabric but Tamanji
flicked it up out of his reach, came around the chair making sure she stayed
out of his range.

 "Look what I found, Lee!" She grinned, twirled, let the fabric wrap around
her.

 "No way!" Lee bellowed, trying to grab the scarf.

 "Seems like the choice was made and it wasn't you! I wonder which one it
is?" She slunk towards the unconscious Ryudo's, Lee glaring at her with
stunned disbelief.

 Doc eyed her suspiciously, reached over and started to peel the back off of
an adhesive patch that held a small dose of the drug that had brought the
Ryudo's down. It took something with the force of a bullet to get through
dragon skin but he had discovered that topical suspension delivery
applications worked just as well on dragons as humans. He held it ready as
she let it dangle over the youngest.

 "Huum, not this little dragon." She glanced at Lee gave him a playful smile.

 Lee pushed himself off the chair and headed for her, fury all over his face
as she moved it quickly to hang over the eldest. This had to be the one. He
was the most powerful of the four, she knew it instinctively. She wasn't
surprised when it glowed but that it slithered through the tight grip of her
fingers and drifted sideways to cover Tsuzuku Ryudo's face and chest caught
her totally off guard.

 Doc muttered "Shit!" as the green stat light on the second eldest's wrist
monitor started blinking amber, turned red.

 "Shit!" Tamanji echoed him much louder, grabbed the scarf with both hands
and leapt back as Tsuzuku tossed his head from side to side, his eye's
cracking open as a red glow began to flicker haphazardly up and down his
body.

 Doc slapped the patch against his neck, hoping he wasn't too late. He'd seen
the dragon's he worked with do some pretty impossible and incredible things,
but nothing even close to the manifestation that Tsuzuku Ryudo had thrown
when he'd been seriously injured in the failed attempt by the Mulligan
Foundation to capture him. He  took a deep breath, relieved he wasn't going
to be Doc flambe, as the second eldest's stats quickly went back down and the
red LED shifted back to green.

 "That was stupid, Tamanji!" He croaked at her in the scratchy ruin of his
voice. "Put it up. You can play later when we've got them secured."

 Tamanji was already stuffing it unfolded back into the inner bag, frightened
yet excited at the same time. She knew that even drugged if his power was
allowed to awaken, the three of them would be hard pressed to take him, if
they even could! What power! To come up through the drugs and the scrambler
was way impressive! She licked her lips and grinned, her eye's gleaming with
cold calculation. She had plans for Jasmine's dragon.

 She was brought out of her reverie by Doc's, "Back off, Lee. Now."

 She realized the air temperature had plummeted and she growled softly as she
focused on Lee standing by Tsuzuku's head, the beautiful white sparkle of his
power building around him as he glared down at the unconscious Ryudo. She
pulled her gun out of it's holster as she closed the distance between them,
put the cold muzzle against the back of his neck.

 "Lee, touch him and I'll trank you. Then I'll kill you if we survive." Her
voice was calm and soft, yet full of deadly promise. "And I really don't want
to do that. Besides, he's worth so much more like this, don't you think?" She
finished with sweet reasoning.

 "Come on, bud! Chill." Jonah interrupted and grinned at his teasing
reference to Lee's power as he limped up to stand beside him. "Let's go see
if there's any brew in the fridge." He suggested as he crossed his arms and
looked down at the Ryudo and shrugged. "Not worth it. Not now."

 Tamanji's finger tightened on the trigger as Lee's aura flared for a moment,
relaxed with a little internal sigh of relief as it winked out. She really
did like Lee and would have been sad to have to carry through on her promise.
  
 "Pick up's here." Ayisha told them from her position at the window.

 Lee turned towards Jonah, totally ignoring Tamanji and moving himself away
from the gun. "You're right, Jonah. Let's go find a beer. Need a shoulder?"
He offered, his fury seeming to vanish with his power.

 Tamanji stared at their retreating backs suspiciously. She'd have to keep an
eye on Lee. One of the things that made him tick was his vindictiveness and
she knew for certain that another male after the dragon he considered 'his'
was more than he would tolerate. She wondered how she could use that to her
advantage as the pick up team hurried in, dressed as movers. That was apt and
it amused her. She pointed to the desk, two going over to it as the others
started to secure and transfer the Ryudo brothers to the van.

 She looked down at her watch, gave a pleased smile. 9:46. Fifty million U.S.
for twenty-six minutes of work. She could live with that.

*******************

 Jasmine almost bent the steering wheel in frustration, rested her forehead
against it instead. What should have been a thirty minute drive was edging
over the hour mark as she and Elenora crept along the highway in gridlock.
And they were only half-way to Shijuri at that. Elenora glanced up from her
map, said "Be back in a minute." and proceeded to open the car door and step
out.

 "Where are you going?" Jasmine leaned out the window and yelled.

 "Just up a bit so I can see what the next exit is. And I've got to go to the
bathroom!" Her sister called back to her as she disappeared through the once
more stationary traffic.

 "Just great." Jasmine muttered, glanced at her watch. 9:15. "We could have
made it faster on foot. Next time we take a cycle, whether Shubata approves
of them or not." She had moved maybe another forty feet when Elenora slid
back in.

 "Take the next exit, Sis. We can get there on the back roads from here."

 "Great." She turned on her turn signal, started trying to edge her way
across the three lanes separating her and the exit ramp. They'd made one, no
way they where going to get all the way across before they passed the ramp.
"Elenora, get out."

 "What are you going to do?" Elenora asked with a grin. She knew that look in
Jasmine's eye.

 "Move the car to the exit. Are you going to help me or not?"

 "We shouldn't, you know. Shubata will have a cow if he finds out. And he'll
tell Catherine and we'll have to write another novel on "Why the Order Has
the Rules It Does."

 Jasmine shrugged. "At the moment, I don't care. I'm either going to move
this car or start throwing a temper tantrum. Which do you think is the lesser
of the two evils?"

 "You want me to take the front or the back?" Elenora asked.

 "The back. And be careful that you don't drop it, 'kay?"

 Elenora nodded, moved to the back of the little two door, gave the bumper a
firm shake to make sure it was attached well enough to handle the weight. She
turned and glared at the older man in the car behind them who stuck his head
out his window and yelled, "Get back in your car! We're going to be moving
again in a minute."

 "We'll be out of your way in a few seconds, Sir." She said with a little
bow. She heard Jasmine begin to count down from three, turned back to the
car. On 'One', she hefted the car up and held it over her head. They carried
it  between them as they sidled through the traffic followed by many stunned
and startled looks and a few, "Hey, way to go, girls! Take mine next! Hey, no
fair!"

 The traffic was backed up on the ramp too. Jasmine paused by the red sedan
right where the little triangle of space separated the off ramp from the
lane, shifted her grip and knocked on the driver's window. The man looked
over at them his eye's going wide in shock. She made the universal roll down
your window gesture at him. She wondered for a moment if he would or if she'd
have to yell, but after seeming to realize that a woman holding a car four
feet off the ground one handed wanted to talk to him and it might be
detrimental to his health not to be polite, he rolled it down.

 "Excuse me. We're in a little bit of a hurry and need to get off here. Would
you mind if we cut in front of you?" She asked sweetly.

 "No...uh...fine...whatever you want." He stammered, rolled the window back
up and swore he'd go to the local temple and make an offering as the cars
behind him began to honk as they could see the traffic moving down the ramp.
He waited until the girls had put their car down and gotten quite a ways
ahead of him before he put his car in gear and eased down the ramp, making
sure he left plenty of space between their car and his.

 Finally they were off the exit ramp and into the maze of streets that
created downtown Tokyo. Elenora kept one foot up against the dashboard for
balance as she directed Jasmine through, but finally they where into the
wider straighter streets of the wealthier residential Shijuri section. 

 "Nice houses!" Elenora exclaimed as Jasmine looked at her watch as they
pulled up behind the van with Tokyo Electric written across it's side that
was the Observer's station for this watch. 10:10. It had taken them almost
two hours to get thirty miles. They both piled out, Jasmine reaching into the
back seat to grab the basket with fresh coffee and biscuits as Elenora
knocked on the van door.

 Jasmine looked at her sister questionally as no one answered. She slid the
door open and grimaced, Elenora gasping and pressing closer to her as they
saw what was inside. The Observer had been Tang Mei, a sweet round faced man
with glasses who had been more than helpful yesterday afternoon when he'd
spoken with them about 'his' dragons. His dead eyes stared back at them, his
head twisted around backwards so his chin rested between his shoulder blades.
Jasmine slammed the door shut, put her arm out straight and against it,
leaned her weight forewords, dropped her head.

 "Tamanji!" She whispered in a shocked and angry voice, then lifted her head,
her face and manner calm and composed.

 "Elenora, put this back in the car, please." She handed her sister the
basket as she pulled the slender cel phone out of her pocket, dialed with her
thumb. She hit the number key as the chime sounded, a double check in case of
a mis-dial, waited for it to connect.

 "This is the warehouse. May I help you?" A woman answered.

 "Yes, I'd like to report a problem with a piece of equipment. It's died on
me and I need another one as soon as possible. Better make that two. I'm at
1620 Osha." She hated having to report a death in this manner, but precaution
was the watch word of the Order.

 "I'm very sorry to hear that. I'll have someone get on it immediately. Thank
you for calling." The line went dead.

 Jasmine stuck the phone back in her pocket as she padded up to her sister
who was leaning against the grill of the car and staring down the street at
the Ryudo mansion. She tapped her on the shoulder, made a 'let's go' motion
with her head.