1 Prologue

The church service had been straightforward enough. A few hymns, a couple of prayers and three readings. Saki Kyomachi had given the third reading, brushing away her tears with a lace handkerchief as she spouted some nonsense about death being the beginning and not an end. Twice she looked down from the lectern and caught Ryouma"s eye and she had smiled encouragingly. Ryouma sat towards the back of the church . The irony wasn't lost on him that the man being lauded in the windows was a confirmed Elven killer who Ryouma was fairly sure had long ago slaughtered and raped Elves. There were more then two hundred mourners crammed into the church. Plenty of famous faces were dotted around including three members of parliment, two newspaper editor, and writers, actors and televison personalities who regularly appeared in the glossy Sunday supplements. Danny Kingstone had been a truly evil guy but he had a lot of friends. Several times during the service Ryouma had noticed a group of men in the front pews turning around to look in his direction. There was half a dozen of them, big man in black suits, with browny hair and hard eyes. The vicar was in full flow now. Saki held the flower up to her lips and kissed it softly. Ryouma knew she was going to toss it into the grave and he had a sudden urge to run over to her, grab the flower and tell her the truth about her godfather, that Danny Kingstone had been a member of the order of five bahamut and believed that sacrificing Elves was the way to amass power and money and to guarantee a place at a legendary dragon in the fires of hell. She wouldn't believe him of course. Who in their right mind would? Danny Kingstone had been a family friend from before she was born, and his death hit her hard. Her parents wouldn't believe him either.

As Ryouma stood watching Saki toss the flower into the grave he was aware of two men moving up behind him. He turned to find them looming over him.They both had close-cropped hair and were wearing black raincoats.

"Ryouma Kensuke?" Growled the taller of two men

"Who wants to know?" Asked Ryouma, trying to sound more confident then he felt

"Don't fuck around, are you Ryouma Kensuke or not?"

"Of course it's him" said his companion. His accent is smoother and more polished,as if he'd gone to a halfway decent university.

"What do you want?" asked Ryouma

The shorter of the two men reached inside his raincoat and Ryouma stepped back, half expecting a gun to appear in the man's hand. The man smiled."Nervous type huh?" He took a Metropolitan Police warrant card holder from his coat and held it out. His companion did the same and they flicked them open at the same time to reveal two warrant cards. Detective Inspector Jon Peter and Detective Constable Takeru Missaki. "Superintendent Dante wants to see you" said peter.

"I'm in the middle of something here" said Ryouma. He gestured over at the grave.

"In case you hadn't noticed, body's in the ground, looks like it's all over to me" said peter "And it's not as if you're part of the family, is it?"

"What's this about?"

"Superintendent Dante will tell you himself" said peter. "Please don't give me a hard time, i've had a really shitty week"

Ryouma looked at his watch, then over at the grave where Saki was standing looking tearfully down at the coffin. The inspector was right of course. Ryouma wasn't a family. He was only there because Saki asked him to be there. And there was definitely something hypocritical about his attendance, considering that he was the reason Danny Kingstone was dead. "Okay" said Ryouma."Let's go"