InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Patchwork Family ❯ A Yamaha, A Bugatti, and the Meeting of Felix ( Chapter 31 )

A/N: All Inuyasha characters and references belong to the creator of Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi and published by Shogakukan. Any other characters are more than likely my own creation. If I borrow directly from another story I will do my best to make sure I give credit where credit is due. I will be pulling some material (ideas and inspirations) from Burn Notice, the Greywalker series, Scorpion, Supernatural, and Lockwood & Co.

Thanks to chika_alternita for your review! No worries, much more to come I write when I can.

*** A Yamaha, A Bugatti, and the Meeting of Felix

When the bathroom door opened Kagome saw Inuyasha standing in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest. She sighed and put her hands in her sweater’s front pocket. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

He snorted and turned to head back to the private garage bay. “Are you kidding? The second I take my eyes off you you’re a magnet for trouble.” At the look she gave him he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Not a judgment, just an observation.”

Kagome pursed her lips on a “hmmm” sound and retrieved the Yamaha manual from the workbench. Inuyasha kicked his tools and rolling seat to the far side of the garage and begun working on the other side of the car. She took up a position on a parts box closer to Inuyasha and went back to reading diagrams for about a half hour before her attention began to wander. Between her impulsive checks of the open back door, she noticed the heap of metal next to her in the corner, shoved against the wall, somewhat resembled the illustrations she’d been studying most of the afternoon.

She reached out a hand to run her fingers over chilly, scored metal. The beat up motorcycle looked dejected on a metal cradle, necessary to keep it upright. Further back in the corner she saw a small heap of bright red body plastics with other bits and pieces. She flipped through the manual, identifying the parts she could see next to her one by one, teaching herself their names, running them like a pattern through her head.

Inuyasha looked up to see her glancing between the manual and the bike, running her fingers along a collection of twisted wires, looking for their path through the system. As he’d worked on the third rotor he’d kept one eye on her. There was no mistaking that the business with Hiroki had wound her up pretty tight again, but it hadn’t been long after she’d started examining the bike that something about her seemed to relax. He could feel that buzzing anxiety of hers fade to silence as she got more involved in the puzzle before her. The memory of her slim hands reassembling his Glock surfaced and he remembered what she’d told him. ‘I’m good at things with pieces.’

She jumped and looked over when he spoke. “That scratch and dent is a Yamaha FZ-07. I rescued it from a junk heap a few weeks ago. Most of the hard stuff is back on there already, and Gabe’s finished the electrical work.”

She turned her eyes again to the stack of scarred metal thoughtfully and Inuyasha pushed a wrench set closer to her with his boot. “I fixed the plastics with bondo already and the paint is dry, so they need to go back on. The seat is in three sections over there against that stack of tires.”

Her eyes widened a little and her fingers twitched once against the manual page. She looked at the wrenches speculatively for a second and said, “I don’t want to damage your bike. I’ve never done anything more than change my own oil. I might screw it up.”

Inuyasha’s brain stalled for a second as he pictured her sliding under a car to change oil, half covered in grease. Suddenly his pants felt tighter and he cleared his throat, trying to pull himself back on task. He shrugged. “If you screw it up you can take it apart and try again. Like I said, it’s nobody’s baby. I pulled it out of the trash after somebody wrecked it and threw it away.”

Inuyasha pointed out the parts in the corner that still needed to be reassembled and showed her where to begin. Without further conversation she got to work. Kagome had a hard time focusing through a muttering tension that seemed to skitter louder and louder through her mind, and she wondered if she was getting a headache. Every so often she would flip through the manual again where she left it open on the floor. Inuyasha tried to concentrate on his own work, but having Kagome only about ten feet away from him, helping to rebuild a motorcycle, was a more distracting proposition than he’d realized.

Kagome, was working on attaching a rear-set foot peg when she felt a familiar shudder of movement; an offbeat sigh of the air to one side of her. She looked over her shoulder, and saw a foggy outline against the wall, over a stack of tires. The mumbling static in her head was more distinct and she recognized it for what it was. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized. ‘Boy’ she thought. ‘A few days mostly insulated in an empty stretch of Dead Space and I’m spoiled.’ The outline was man shaped, and seemed to be lounging on the tires. There was a sense of agitation pressing restlessly against her chest, but it wasn’t her own.

A glance over the frame of the bike showed her Inuyasha was distracted with his own work, or at least, was facing the other direction enough that she could risk a quick look. She frowned down at the foot peg and closed her eyes, tugging herself internally so her mind shifted slightly left of center, letting a small sliver of herself slide against the Dead Space. She didn’t want to actually go into that outermost layer of spirit world, but rather, she rubbed against it gently, like a cat might wind against someone’s ankle to welcome them home.

When she opened her eyes again, the light of the garage looked a little paler, tinted with wisps of silver and extra shadows. The form sitting on the stack of tires next to her had resolved so that she could see him clearly. The man had an angular face, dark eyes, and wiry dishwater blond hair that stuck out in all directions. In her view, he was made of a pale combination of light and shadow that flickered now and then. His form had a texture that was sometimes smooth and sometimes grainy with visual noise and color. There was a shifting about his presence, a constant movement in whatever stuff it is that ghosts and spirits are made of.

He was muttering to himself about something not being trash but after a second he went still and the annoyed look on his face disappeared in the wake of his surprise. When he spoke he sounded very much like he must have sounded when he was alive, except that the way his voice shifted along with the rest of him, it sounded as if he was speaking with a recording, as if his voice were layered on top of itself. “You aren’t looking at me are you?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

She looked away from him, trying to decide if she was up for this yet. The man unfolded himself from where he was sitting and got to his feet, cautiously optimistic. He was tall, and looked as if he were several years older than her. He was wearing a leather jacket over a button down shirt. Dark blood covered one side of his torn jeans and heavy work boots. “Can you see me?” he asked again, a little more insistent. When her eyes settled on him again he said, “you DO see me. I know you see me. Don’t act like you can’t.”

Kagome flicked a glance over the bike again to make sure Inuyasha couldn’t see before she nodded once and whispered very quietly, “yes. What’s your name?”

The man laughed out loud in wonder and relief, running his hand through his hair. “Felix… my name’s Felix. How can you see me? No one’s been able to see or talk to me since…” He stopped speaking and his expression lost some of its excitement. He sat back on the edge of the tire stack and braced his hands on his knees as he said, “I’m not sure when. I had an accident... I slipped… I think.” After a second he said, “it feels like forever. Then other times it seems like it was this-morning.”

Kagome nodded slowly. She knew time was a little funny for the denizens of the DS. It was different from person to person, creature to creature. She whispered, “so you know then?” The initial meeting was always difficult, especially with spirits as coherent as this one seemed to be. ‘He can’t have been dead long,’ she thought. He seemed so completely human, and himself- so completely intact. That sort of awareness usually began to deteriorate over time, excepting cases where spirits were contorted and corrupted into revenants.

Felix’s frown deepened. “I know what?”

Kagome sighed softly and whispered, “that you’re a spirit form now, a… a ghost?” She’d been doing this for several years on her own now, but she still had a hard time handling this part as gracefully as her grandfather had.


He’d always taken off his hat and said, usually still in his native French language, “well, I’m sorry to say, but you’re walking the dead roads now, friend.” ‘Je suis désolé de le dire, mais vous êtes à pied les routes morts maintenant, ami.’

The old man would shrug his shoulders and hold out his hands, effectively adding in a non-verbal way, ‘oh well, that’s the way things are; what can we mortals hope to do but go along with it.’

Sometimes they knew they were dead, and sometimes she had to tell them, make them believe it. It was always hard when the latter was the case. But Felix shook his head and shrugged. “I know I bit the big one, if that’s what you mean. It was messy,” he said with a snort, “kind-of hard to miss.”

She gave the ghost a sympathetic look and nodded, whispering quietly. “Do you know what happened?”

Inuyasha asked over his shoulder, “say what now?”

Kagome bit her lip a second and shook her head, though her half demon friend wasn’t looking at her. “Nothing…” she said. “Just... talking to myself.”

She gave Felix a thoughtful look and held up a finger in the common, ‘wait just a second’ gesture. She pulled herself up stiffly and started to walk away. The half translucent man stood again, looking upset. “You aren’t leaving are you? I won’t be creepy, I swear, please…”

Kagome paused behind Hiroki’s car and shook her head, holding up her hand again and gesturing for him to stay put. She couldn’t sit here and talk to Felix out loud. Inuyasha would think she was nutty as a fruit cake; and though she knew it couldn’t last, she was growing to value whatever it was they had. She wanted to hold off the inevitable change in the way he would regard her as long as possible. Nobody looked at you the same way after they thought you might be crazy... or at least slightly unhinged.

The yellow backpack Rosalind had given her was sitting on the workbench and she dug through it for her small notebook and pen. She brought the items back with her and sat down on the floor behind the bike again, flipping the pages open and showing him the page that said, ‘I’m Kagome, nice to meet you.’

The man nodded once, his eyes flicking to Inuyasha. “So is that guy your fiancé? He seems ok… for a demon. I’ve seen him in here a lot.”

Kagome blushed and wrote, ‘NO. He’s a new friend, but so far a good one. His name is Inuyasha.’

Felix looked at her slightly askance. “I know what his name is. This is his place I think. It seems like he’s the one giving orders anyway. Not that it’s any of my business, but why are you sucking face with this guy then if you have a fiancé?”

Kagome looked at him for a second, completely confused. Felix rolled his eyes. “You just told that joker that was in here earlier you had a fiancé, and then this demon comes out and nearly tosses the guy into my neck of the woods… so to speak. And…” The man stopped for a second, remembering something else. He frowned, perplexed as he said, “you gave him a different name.”

She realized he must have been sitting there in the corner the whole time, watching. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed him before. Felix had seen Hiroki come in, make a nuisance of himself, and then leave. He’d seen Inuyasha holding her against the side of the car before Gabriel had walked in. Well that was… awkward. She blushed harder and shook her head. She wrote in her book for a minute and then held the page up for him. ‘Inuyasha’s just a friend and I don’t have a fiancé. I was trying to get that guy to leave me alone. I don’t know him. I didn’t want him to have my real name.’

Felix thought about this a moment and asked, “are you a demon or something? You couldn’t just give him a shock? Like you did Inuyasha? That was really…” He paused, searching for words. Then he went on to say, “I could feel it. Whatever you did kind of rippled on this side. And it was hilarious- by the way.”

Kagome smiled ruefully, shook her head, and wrote, ‘I’m a weird human, but I’m human all the way. And no, that trick only works on demons. Hiroki is annoying but he’s got no demon blood far as I could tell.’

After a second she wrote, ‘do you want to tell me what happened while I work on this?’ She gestured at the bike parts in front of her when she showed him the page.

Felix’s smile faded a little and he nodded slowly. “Yeah… sure. I crashed my bike. Wet roads plus loose gravel… you do the math. I woke up a few times in the hospital but I don’t remember much of that. Then I was sitting in a garage, not as nice as this one though.” He looked around appreciatively and said, “that one was full of junk; wrecked cars and stuff.”

Kagome listened to Felix talk while she began to work the bolt for the foot peg again. As close as she could figure from his somewhat jumbled recollections, he’d died in the hospital, and when his ghost had become conscious of itself, he’d been in some kind of impound garage. It was possible he’d been attracted to the wreckage, since that was how he’d died. He’d described his awareness seeming to drift in and out from time to time, told her he’d sort of ‘woken up’ in a few different places before he’d been here.

The ghost thought he’d been at Inuyasha’s garage for a month, but he couldn’t be sure. Finally, she was able to connect the dots more directly and the reason for his presence here became obvious. She’d been flipping back and forth between two parts of the manual, trying to find something when Felix came over to kneel on the floor next to her. He immediately pointed out the place where the part she was working on was initially supposed to connect.

“It’s a little tricky,” he told her. “This model is built a bit different, and I think those instructions do a bad job of showing you how it works. That… and I rebuilt this bike myself, so I made some changes. It’s sort of a hobby I’ve had since I was a kid.”

She mouthed ‘thank you’ and gave him a friendly smile. She paused to write, ‘you work on bikes?’

“Just this one,” he said with a shrug. She frowned a little and he patted the plastic cover over the gas tank. “This is my bike. At least…” he frowned now too. “I’m pretty sure, the important bits of it anyway. You’re friend salvaged some parts from someplace else, but mostly he repaired the originals where he could. I think I was a lot more messed up than the motorcycle,” he said, a little darkly. His expression lifted a bit and he sighed, falling to sit on his butt and leaning back on his hands.

A short time later Kagome was working with her back to Inuyasha. She was listening to Felix where he stood, watching from the other side of the bike with his arms crossed over his chest while he told her about where he’d lived. Felix stopped talking when there was a loud clang and Inuyasha swore. His grip had slipped on the tire iron when he’d glanced up and saw Kagome, one knee braced against a foot stool, bent over the bike to reach a screw on the other side of the casing she was working on.

‘Yeah,’ Inuyasha thought. ‘Those pants fit just fine.’ If he didn’t find a way to eventually convince her they could have more than friends in each other… ‘I’m going to lose my fucking mind,’ he thought, exasperated.

He couldn’t remember ever having a female affect him this much, ever. It was interesting, but aggravating at the same time. Kagome looked at Inuyasha over her shoulder and raised a brow. He just shook his head and cursed under his breath again, picked the tire iron back up, and returned to his work. He made sure not to look up again until he’d finished spinning all the lugs. Felix smirked as he watched Inuyasha turning the iron and muttered, “he is soooo in it deep.”

Kagome paused and leaned one elbow on the handle bars, raising an eyebrow in a request for clarification. Felix laughed and said, “you.”

When she still looked at him he snorted incredulously. “You were here earlier right? When he was all over you? He’s got it hot for you big time. He was just checking out your ass and I thought he might start drooling.” The ghost cocked his head a little to one side as he looked over her head at Inuyasha. “It’s almost kind of pathetic actually... or it would be… if I hadn’t just seen him almost put that other dude through the wall.”

Kagome rolled her eyes, but her cheeks were red again and she shook her head. Felix raised his eyebrows, entertained by her embarrassment. “Cooome on, you’re hot stuff. You have to know that.” He looked her up and down pointedly but she didn’t dignify the statement with a response. Felix was a little surprised. Most women preened at least a little when complimented, even if it was in a way they found slightly vulgar. But not Kagome, it seemed. He put his hands on his hips and said with a smirking grin, “seriously. Some guy must have made moves on you before now. I bet there’s a line of broken hearts a mile long. I’d totally do you.”

Her wrench slipped in a manner not dissimilar to Inuyasha’s iron a moment before, and she swallowed hard, shooting an annoyed look at Felix, who was finally picking up on her discomfort.

Inuyasha did a run-of-the-mill check on all fluids, then crawled into the back section of the car’s carriage to replace the nitrous tanks. Privately he thought they were a bad idea, considering the way Hiroki drove. The man didn’t have the skill to be using these kinds of modifications and one of these days he was going to get himself killed. It was a shame really. This was a nice car and Inuyasha had worked on it regularly for the last year. He disliked the idea of seeing it wrecked. He slid the first tank into place and paused, feeling that familiar, uncomfortable buzz start up again in his head. It wasn’t as loud as it had been earlier but it was definitely there.

He glanced out the back window to see Kagome standing very still, leaning on the bike and looking into the corner of the wall. He gave the coupling in his hand a last twist and crawled out of the car, straightening to look around. There wasn’t anyone there and he couldn’t figure out what might be causing her such anxiety all of a sudden. His frown deepened, as Kagome still didn’t move, leaning against the bike where she’d been working, her shoulders stiff with tension. When he came over to stand next to her she jumped and looked over her shoulder.

Inuyasha raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What’s up?”

She smiled tightly and shook her head, pulling her knee off the bike. She chewed her lip, eyes glancing at Felix and then back to Inuyasha. The half demon was looking at her with a little concern and she forced herself to relax, pulling fresh air into her lungs as she dropped a screwdriver back into the work tray. “It’s nothing, Just getting a small headache I think.”

When he frowned she waved him off. “I’m fine. Really. Finish what you’re doing. I’m going to put the side casings on this thing.”

Inuyasha gave her a searching look and now she found herself standing in front of two frowning males, one oblivious of the other. Felix watched Inuyasha look her over again, but not the same way as he’d done before. This was a discerning examination, as if he was looking for physical damage to her person. Kagome, for her part, was blinking at him, slightly surprised. As she was viewing him from a layer of space closer to the spirit world, she saw faint flashes of red and silver light clinging to his hands, running up his arms to disappear beneath the fabric of his shirt. It was all she could do to keep her thoughts from her face as she pondered the new knowledge that Inuyasha had access and means to manipulate some kind of magic. She knew some demons did, but though she’d felt it clearly from Sesshomaru, she hadn’t gotten that impression from Inuyasha. ‘Interesting…’ she thought.

For a second Inuyasha looked into the corner where she’d been staring before, one ear turned slightly outward, listening, as his eyes searched the empty space in front of the tires stacked against the wall. The way he focused for a second, Kagome almost wondered if he might sense Felix was there. But then Inuyasha sighed and seemed to accept her words. When he turned back to the Mustang, Felix looked at Kagome curiously. “What was that about?”

Kagome circled to sit on the floor again at the other side of the bike. She picked up her notebook and pen to write. ‘He can tell when I get upset. Demons can smell it pretty easily, and he’s…’ She paused a moment, chewing her lip, then wrote, ‘sort of well tuned to me right now.’

Felix’s frown returned and he considered this information before he asked, “was it something I said?”

Kagome smiled wryly and wrote, ‘let’s blacklist my love life as a conversation topic. I don’t want to think about it.’

The ghost crossed his arms over his chest again and said slowly, “oooookay… fair enough I guess.” His eyes flicked back to Inuyasha for a second before he added, “can I say one thing first?”

Kagome let out a long suffering sigh but gave him a look that clearly said, ‘go on…’

Felix looked thoughtful and a little sad as he told her, “let me just say that guy wants you big time, and as the dead one here, I’d like to remind you that a love life is worth having because nothing lasts forever. I wish I’d done more with mine. I was with someone off and on again for years- and I wish I’d found out where that could have gone. I always thought I’d get to it later.”

She considered this advice and nodded once, looking at the exposed wiring in the side of the bike as she swallowed the hard lump in her throat. She wrote, ‘I hear you, but we really can’t talk about it with Inuyasha here, unless you want him to get all worked up. It’s a long story, complicated.’

Felix sighed and sat down next to her, catching her eye and giving her a nod. “Okay, I got it, so let’s get back to work on my baby then.”

Kagome rolled her eyes, but smiled a little as she wrote, ‘what is it with men and their toys? That car Inuyasha is working on was described earlier as “the love of Hiroki’s life.” I’m proud of the tech I work on sometimes, but really…’

The translucent man grinned and shrugged. He watched as she started sorting through a box of nuts and bolts. As she was laying out the handful of pieces she needed, Felix frowned at the side of the bike. Kagome looked at him as he reached up, his fingers passing through the metal of the engine as he said, “hey… Kagome. Nothing against your friends but… this isn’t right…”

She looked at the wires he was pointing to, and then back at the manual, before muttering very quietly, “the yellow and white wires? I saw that earlier, thought it looked strange.”

Inuyasha crawled out of the car again and closed it up, tossing the empty nitrous tank he’d pulled and checking the time. It was just about 5 p.m. He walked around the bike to find Kagome had yet to put the final casing on. It sat next to her on the floor while she poked through the wiring in the side of the bike. He dropped to sit on his heels next to her, unknowingly on the opposite side from her ghostly friend. “How’s it coming?”

Kagome frowned and quickly flipped her notebook shut where it was spread next to her, displaying her side of her conversation with Felix. She was chewing her lip like she didn’t want to say something again. Inuyasha sighed and pulled the manual out of her hands to look at it. The pages open were addressing the ignition system and he asked, “what’s the trouble?”

She sighed and tilted her head a little, continuing to look at the wiring. Felix rolled his eyes on her other side and said, “just tell him the guy did it wrong. If my bike is going back out on the road it needs to work right.”

Kagome narrowed her eyes at the ghost a little in frustration and looked back at the book. Slowly she said, “it might be nothing. I don’t know enough about what I’m looking at but...”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. Why was so much with her like pulling teeth? When she saw the impatient look on his face she surrendered and worked her fingers in between two sections to touch a metal box. “This is the amp breaker right?” she asked, echoing the information Felix had just given her.

Inuyasha nodded. “Yeah.”

She moved her fingers up to a different piece in a more central location, “and this is the ignition switch…”

“Yes,” Inuyasha and Felix said together.

She frowned again and traced one of the wires that connected the two pieces, “then…. shouldn’t this be the same kind of wiring that goes from the ignition switch to the brake light switch… and the horn?”

Now Inuyasha frowned and leaned in closer to look. Felix looked a little annoyed. “If he says this is fine… he should NOT be working on a Shelby GT.”

Kagome gave Felix a look and pursed her lips, inconspicuously placing a finger over them for a moment to shush him. After a second of silence she said to both of them, “unless it is supposed to be the same as what connects the ignition switch to the dimmer… or they’re interchangeable, they might be from what the book says.”

Inuyasha shook his head and snorted out a laugh. “No you’re right… I’ll be damned.”

Felix threw up his hands and ran them through his messy hair. “Finally! Just tell him to fix it.”

Kagome closed her eyes for a second, wishing for patience and thinking that perhaps she really would have that headache after all.

Inuyasha let the manual fall to the floor and looked down into her perplexed face with a grin. “Gabriel made a mistake in the wiring,” he said. “This is going to be great… I gotta tell him.”

Kagome’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Oh no, don’t. It probably would work anyway right?”

“Only for a week or two- trust me, you want you’re brake lights to be functional. It’s sort of important,” Felix said.

Inuyasha shook his head, unwittingly agreeing with Felix again. “Not for long it wouldn’t. Sorry, this is too good, and I owe him a kick for earlier.” He flipped open his phone and speed dialed Gabriel. After a second the demon picked up the call and Inuyasha’s grin widened. “Hey buddy, if you got a second, you should come back here and take a look at something.”

His ear twitched as Kagome’s stomach let out a growl and she put her face in her hands with a groan of exasperation. Inuyasha added, “and bring the cooler. There better be two sandwiches left or you’re a dead man.” He flipped the phone closed. “You should have said you were hungry. You probably should have eaten something over an hour ago.”

Kagome shrugged and sighed as she picked up the piece of plastic casing and started to move it into place. “I forgot about food.”

Inuyasha grabbed the casing from her and set it down on his other side where she couldn’t reach it. “Ohhh, no you don’t. This is too good to pass up. You know how long Gabriel’s been doing electrical work?”

She hid her face in her hands again. “Inuyasha I’m going to feel like a jerk. Please don’t.”

“He started working on motorcycles in the 1960s! You’re 19 years old and haven’t done more than spend an afternoon with a pile of parts… and you caught his mistake. Kagome- you’ve made my day.”

She glowered up at him and started to say, “but I didn’t- ” She stopped. What was she going to say? The ghost haunting the bike was the one who insisted there was a mistake?

She shot Felix a look out of the corner of her eye and he smirked. “You did too. You caught it, you just second guessed yourself. I was sitting right there, I saw what happened.”

Kagome rolled her eyes as the door squeaked and Gabriel walked in holding the lunch cooler. He closed the door behind him and made his way to their corner. “What’s going on?”

“The resident electrician’s messing up my bike is what’s going on,” Felix crowed mockingly.

Gabriel must have seen Inuyasha’s grin then because he dropped the cooler on a crate and raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know why you’re so happy?”

Inuyasha pointed at the bike. “I put Kagome to work on the Yamaha. Come take a look. She found something interesting.”

“And wrong…” Felix added in a sing song voice.

Kagome moved her glare from Felix to Inuyasha for a second, before she turned an apologetic and deeply guilty expression on Gabriel. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. I thought maybe I just didn’t understand something right, or I wouldn’t have said a word to him.”

Gabriel, now looking confused, walked around into the tight corner to stand behind Kagome and kneel down for a look. “What is it? Did you pull something lose?”

Felix shook his head and said, “nope. Actually, she’s not half bad for a brand new bike mechanic.”

Kagome reached into the bike’s innards again and pointed out the wires attached to the amp breaker and ignition switch. It took a second, but then Gabriel swore and stood up again, looking a little disgusted. Inuyasha howled with laughter, Felix looked smug, and Kagome was slightly mortified. Gabriel smacked Inuyasha in the shoulder. “Shut up, everyone makes mistakes. Remember when you got halfway through trying to install the wrong exhaust system on that last year? That was totally worse than mixing up a wire on a junker motorcycle.”

Felix straightened a little indignantly. “Hey, watch who you’re calling junker buddy, that was a great bike. It is a great bike.”

Inuyasha’s laughter subsided but he was still grinning. “Yeah, but you gotta admit, it stings a little, knowing a girl whose never worked on a bike before caught it after one afternoon with a book.”

‘And a dead motorcycle mechanic whispering in her ear…’ Kagome muttered internally to herself.

Gabriel adopted a smug look and said, “maybe I did it on purpose to see if you’d catch it. Maybe I’m clairvoyant and knew she would be coming to work on it, and decided to leave her a test. Maybe… I’m actually a motorcycle Yoda...”

Felix snorted and looked at the demon skeptically, then transferred his gaze to Kagome. “Is this guy for real?”

When Kagome still looked distressed Gabriel winked at her and smiled ruefully. “It’s fine Kagome. Don’t worry so much. Even the mighty will be humbled I guess. If you leave that casing off I might have time to switch in the right wiring tomorrow.” The lion demon stood back again and looked the bike over. “This is the first time you’ve touched a bike?”

Kagome shrugged, absently rubbing her stiff leg. “Yeah, I spent a few hours reading the manual first though.”

Gabriel shook his head and grinned, walking over to open the cooler. “You’re somethin’ I’ll give you that. Here… catch.” He tossed a ham sandwich in her direction and she just managed to catch it. He picked up the last sandwich in the cooler and held it up. “Inuyasha, this emotional turmoil you’ve brought on me requires more fuel, I’m sure you’ll understand.” With that he turned and started walking back to the door.

Inuyasha swore and went after him. “Come back here with that!”

Gabriel grinned and dodged him, making a break for the door and holding it shut so Inuyasha couldn’t get through unless he wanted to take it off the hinges. Felix was snorting with laughter in the corner and Kagome couldn’t help but chuckle when Gabriel finally let the door swing open again so Inuyasha could see him shove the last bite in his mouth. The guys both looked at Kagome where she was cracking up on the floor. Inuyasha’s eyes flicked to the corner again, just for a second, and his ears twitched outward a little, and in again. Kagome pursed her lips an amusement and asked, “how old are you guys again? Really?”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes but handed her a water bottle. “Here, eat. Enjoy it. Yours was the only one safe from that glutton.”

Gabriel pulled himself up to sit on the trunk of the Mustang. “Glutton? Me thinks the pot call-eth the kettle black, brother.”

Inuyasha sat down on a foot stool next to Kagome and shook his head when she offered him half of her sandwich. “No, eat it. I’ll live. Dinner’s at six so we should be heading home in a half hour anyway. Just eat what you can.” She eyed him, decided it wasn’t worth making a second attempt, and started eating.

Inuyasha picked up the side casing and began turning it over in his hands while he spoke to Gabriel. “Hiroki came by. If you see him around at any point while Kagome’s here, he’s not to be within twenty paces of her. Understand?”

Gabriel frowned and sipped his can of coke. “What happened?”

Felix pulled his feet up on the tire he was sitting on and crossed them, his elbows on his knees, muttering, “the guy was a total tool.”

Inuyasha shook his head, glancing at Kagome. She was looking determinedly at the ignition wiring and didn’t comment, so he continued. “Nothing major, he just doesn’t know when to back off and he turns into a dick when someone tells him no.”

Gabriel’s eyes passed between him and Kagome and he nodded in understanding. “Thirty paces away, copy that.” After a pause he asked, “hey, did you show Kagome the monster?”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand why you call it that. It’s not a monster. It’s a piece of engineering history.”

Gabriel nodded. “This is also true.”

Kagome raised a brow and Inuyasha considered her curiously for a second. Then he asked her, “how did you know about the new drive shaft in the if you’re not into cars?”

The girl shrugged swallowing a bite of sandwich, mumbling, “research.”

He tilted his head a little, “and you just happen to have researched one of the top American made street racing rides?”

She thought carefully before explaining, “street racers aren’t the only ones that like Mustangs. People pay a lot of money for them, buying them legally or illegally. I didn’t lie to Hiroki about my field of work. I was Naraku’s research and security person on all kinds of things while I was there. I had to be good for something or he never would have kept me around.”

Gabriel’s frown returned, and when she just chewed the last bite of her sandwich, he looked at Inuyasha for more information. Inuyasha shook his head. “We’ll talk about it at the meeting tonight. But before we leave…” He stood up and held out a hand to Kagome. She stiffly pulled herself up with his help. Her jaw clenched for a moment as her weight settled on her bad leg and she stumbled when she took a step forward. He caught her around the waist before she could fall and his wrist came into contact with icy cold skin above the waist band of her jeans in the process.

Gabriel had jumped to his feet as well in front of her. She righted herself and was confused when Inuyasha didn’t let her go. He was frowning again and moved his hand around her waist to her back, turning her a little in his arms to glide warm fingers over her side. She grumbled and pulled her sweater down, pushing his hands away awkwardly. “I’m alright, thanks.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Felix was sitting up straighter again, frowning a little also and looking her over in much the way Inuyasha had, as if searching for a problem to fix. She rolled her eyes a little. Another over-concerned male was the last thing she needed right now.

“Kagome, you’re freezing,” Inuyasha grouched. She just shrugged. “The concrete floor is chilly, that’s all. It’s not a big deal. Trust me; I handle cold fine.” There was the chilly concrete, and then there was the fact that she’d shifted a layer closer to the Dead Space for the last hour or more to see Felix properly.

Spending any time close to such a place leeched all the extra heat from her body. When she fully submerged herself in it, she usually came out again a little frosty. It had been the same for her Grandfather. She’d wondered from time to time if it would even be possible for her to freeze to death, considering her body’s tolerance for abnormal levels of unnatural cold. It wasn’t something she enjoyed, but it wouldn’t hurt her. Now she wondered for half a second if that tolerance was the thing that had kept her alive in the cold waters of the river for so long.

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and looked like he wanted to say something, but had brains enough to keep his mouth shut. Inuyasha made sure she was steady before he let her go. “Next time, use a bench or a piece of foam. The last thing we need is you sick on top of everything else.”

Her preoccupied expression flattened into something conflicted and indecipherable before she said a little stiffly, “I know.”

Inuyasha sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pulling the band loose and sticking it in his pocket again. “Do you know what a Bugatti is?”

Kagome’s brows narrowed a little as she searched her memory. “I’ve heard of it but I don’t remember much off the top of my head. It’s a luxury car, right?”

His expression eased and he almost smiled. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he led her between two rows of shelving stacked full of parts and boxes in the opposite corner of the garage. Gabriel stepped around her and helped Inuyasha slide away a car door and several sheets of ply wood stacked against the wall. This revealed the outline of a door with no means that she could see by which to open it. Inuyasha shifted a box to the side on one of the shelves and pressed a barely noticeable switch in the wall. The door panel clicked and slid to the side, revealing a pitch dark open space.

Felix had gotten to his feet and followed them to stand just behind Kagome, hands in his pockets. Nervously he glanced at her and said, “I don’t know if I can go any farther than this… When I get away from my bike I start feeling muzzy… like half of me is missing. It gets worse the further I go.”

Kagome gave a discreet nod in the ghost’s direction. She shifted her own weight a little nervously as well and Inuyasha gave her a reassuring nod. “Hold on a second.” He disappeared into the darkness and a few seconds later big warehouse lights lining the ceiling came on, brightly illuminating a spotlessly clean garage that could house maybe five cars. Right now, however, there were only three. One vehicle, she recognized as a heavily modified Nissan GTR, and she thought this must be the car Hiroki had mentioned. It was a nice machine, but it paled in comparison to the other, parked alongside it.

Gabriel grinned like he was in his favorite toy shop and leaned against the wall. Inuyasha pointed at the dark charcoal colored car on the left side of the Nissan. “That’s a Zenvo ST1. She belongs to Sesshomaru. The one in the middle is my GTR. That’s what I race in most of the time, especially here in the states. And this thing…”

He gestured to the car on the Nissan’s right side. “This is a Bugatti Veyron.” Inuyasha was clearly proud of these cars, and she could understand why. The Bugatti was sleek and shining, with long, low lines, thick tires, and smooth glossy black paint, excepting thin streaks of crimson and silver along the lower sides.

Kagome walked around the car to stand next to Inuyasha. She let out her breath in a whoosh, impressed. “Holy smokes…” And she had fussed at him about spending a hundred and fifty dollars at Walmart. She couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of investment these cars represented. Gabriel let out a low whistle of approval. “Holy smokes is right. I never get tired of looking at these… Beautiful.”

She nodded in complete agreement. The lights in the parking bay flickered and buzzed then, and Kagome looked up to see Felix still standing near the doorway. The ghost’s form flickered in and out as he shook his head in a manner similar to a dog trying to escape an annoying fly. He didn’t look well, almost as if trying to move was causing him pain. She glanced at Inuyasha, who was frowning up at the flickering lights. She thought for a second and sighed. This really was a sight to see, and as Felix was someone who really enjoyed these kinds of things, she felt bad that she was getting to see it while Felix had to stand just outside of a good look.

Kagome asked slowly, “can I do something kind of weird without having to answer any questions about it?”

Inuyasha raised a skeptical eyebrow and looked down at her. “Like what?”

Kagome smiled a little and shook her head, saying only, “I’ll be right back.”

Gabriel and Inuyasha watched, mystified, as she disappeared back into the garage. Kagome strode past Felix, whispering very softly as she passed him, “follow me. Let’s try something.”

The ghost flickered again, causing the lights to buzz and stutter as he grimaced. Felix followed her and she made her way back over to the motorcycle that had once been his. She scanned the few parts left unattached to the bike and picked up the plastic casing Inuyasha had kept her from installing. She glanced to make sure the guys weren’t looking and whispered quickly, “just follow me and say something if you start feeling all wrong again. Okay? You’d really like what they have in there.”

Felix was shaking his head again, as if he was trying to get water out of his ears. He looked at the part she had in her hands and hesitated. “You think that’ll work?”

She smiled and whispered, “if it doesn’t… I’ll let them think I’m nuts and find a way to wheel your bike in there once it’s done.”

He returned her smile and nodded, looking grateful. Kagome held the plastic panel against her side as she walked back across the garage. She slowed for a second when they got near the shelves, waiting to see if Felix would have trouble, but he walked along next to her without a problem. She smiled in satisfaction and set the plastic panel on the floor inside the door of the parking bay, watching as the ghost walked in and grinned just as broadly as Gabriel had. He turned to look at her before he started walking around the cars, one by one. “I owe you one Kagome. These are wicked cool! What tricks to these guys turn for a living?”

Kagome walked back over to Inuyasha again, trying not to let her eyes settle on Felix too often, lest she start looking even weirder. Gabriel looked from the plastic panel she’d left by the door to Inuyasha, then to her. He started to ask, “what are you- ”

She just shook her head and flushed a little in embarrassment, “not answering questions. Just pretend you didn’t see it.”

Inuyasha and Gabriel traded confused looks for a second before the half demon next to her shrugged and opened the driver’s side door, revealing a deep, black leather interior. It was truly a beast of a car but it had a lot more room in the carriage than she would have guessed. She bent over a little to look inside, bracing her hands on her knees. The broad dash and console were as smooth and sleek as everything else. In the silence of the garage you could almost hear the growl this car would make without even turning it on. It was warm and ferocious at the same time. “Hoooolyyy smokes…” she said again in appreciation.

Inuyasha grinned. “Yeah, this is probably my favorite toy ever. And it’s totally street legal too.” Kagome blinked up at him, curiosity arroused. “How on earth do you have one of these? I remember this thing now. Bugatti… Italian…only 300 made so far.” She began to speak faster in her excitement. She’d read about this on her own when she’d come across it by accident in the course of her research for one of Naraku’s supply contracts. “On the right track with a good driver you can hit 250 in less than 17 seconds. The engine alone has more than 3500 parts…” she murmured, almost to herself as she looked at the dash controls.

Felix came over to see what her fuss was about and stood in front of the car, looking at it with admiration. She continued to spout data she’d absorbed as she walked around the car again, examining every detail. “I mean, really it’s basically two 8 cylinder engines bolted together right? They had to redesign every other system in the car to be able to handle the heat without blowing themselves up or lighting on fire. The brakes had to be made by the company that outfits jumbo jets… 16 aluminum pistons, double clutch transmission to handle the acceleration rate, solid aircraft grade titanium… I can’t belieeeeve you have one…”

Inuyasha and Gabriel were both staring at her as she continued to circle the car. They met each other’s eyes and Gabriel mouthed silently, ‘hot…’ The lion demon shook his head, grinning like a mad man and walked out back into the main garage to finish up for the day. Inuyasha snorted through a grin of his own, waving Kagome over to the passenger side. He slid easily down into the driver’s seat and unlocked her side. She hesitated before gingerly opening the door. He laughed when she looked at him doubtfully. “Come on, sit down. ”

“Are you sure?” she asked, hesitating. Felix smirked and shook his head, wandering over to look at Sesshomaru’s car again to give her a little space.

Inuyasha nodded and she carefully lowered herself into the seat next to him. She ran a hand over the smooth leather next to her and craned her neck to see everything. “This is really nice… but how… Inuyasha this car is worth something like 2 million dollars…”

He grinned and nodded once. “Yes it is, a little over 2 million, actually. Replacing tires ain’t cheap either.”

She met his eyes now and said, “but this car is impossible to boost…”

“I didn’t boost it.” He leaned back comfortably in the seat, not looking even the slightest bit indignant at her automatic assumption of theft.

She looked confused for a moment before her eyes got wide. “Are you kidding me? You bought this? Are you crazy?”

He laughed. “It’s been said. You haven’t heard the engine though; if you did you’d understand. I’ll have to take you out some time, once things calm down. This car draws a little more attention than we can afford right now and I don’t fire it up if there’s other people in the building, just in case. You and I know this car can’t be boosted, but there’s a lot of idiots out there that wouldn’t know any better. They might not even know what it was. It minimizes complications if I don’t advertise that it’s here.”

Kagome relaxed into the seat and just sat there for a moment, pulling in the smell of the leather and running her fingers over the surfaces. She couldn’t help but smile. “If you’d told me last week that I would be sitting in a Bugatti today…”

Inuyasha turned in his seat a little to look at her better, fangs flashing in a mischievous grin. “Admit it, you’re a little turned on…”

Kagome let out a thin laugh and blushed. “Um…” she bit her lip and looked away, considering the dashboard as she muttered, “maybe a little.”

He made an amused sound and glanced through the windshield at the clock on the wall above the door. “As much as I would dearly love to take advantage of that, it’ll have to wait.”

She reddened even more and shook her head, looking a little scandalized. “Just because I admit something is a turn on doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere.”

His laugh this time was deeper and a little more suggestive. “Whatever, let’s get going.”

They got out of the car and Kagome picked up the plastic panel from the motorcycle again, giving Felix a clear, ‘let’s go,’ look. Inuyasha looked at the casing in her hands and opened his mouth to ask, but she just shook her head, smiling mysteriously as she walked passed him back into the garage. Felix snorted with laughter at the look on Inuyasha’s face and walked passed him too.

Kagome put the casing down by the bike again and picked up her notebook, waiting until Inuyasha’s back was turned to move her finger in a ‘come here’ gesture aimed at Felix. The ghost came over and she propped the Yamaha manual open on the bike’s seat, holding her notebook in hand so that it looked like she was copying information from the diagram. Felix came around to stand at her shoulder as she wrote, ‘it was nice to meet you Felix. I’ll try to get back here soon but I can’t make any promises about when. Situation is pretty crazy right now. In meantime, is there anything I can do for you, to help? Sometimes when people are stuck like this they have something they want to do or words they need to get to someone…’

Felix frowned and thought, his eyes flicking up to follow Inuyasha for a moment as the half demon moved around, putting things away. The ghost shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m glad you guys are fixing my bike. That’s enough for me I guess. I just…” he paused and said uncertainly, “I’m not ready yet… I don’t think.”

His brow furrowed with anxiety as he looked down at her. “Do you know what’s next? After I stop… uh… hanging around here?”

Kagome shook her head slightly, trying to covertly give him a reassuring look. On the page she wrote, ‘I don’t know exactly, no. But it’s the way the river flows, the way things are designed to work. I DO believe we come back, that there’s a new life waiting for us when we leave this one.’

Inuyasha brought her bag over and set it on the fender of the bike. “Ready? It’s getting late.” She looked up at him distractedly and said, “yeah, just a second.” She went back to writing in her notebook quickly. He looked at the manual and tried to imagine why the heck she needed to be taking notes.

“You know, you can bring the book home if you’re really that into it.” She chewed her lip as she kept writing and shook her head.

Felix read her quick words spilling across the page. ‘Think about it. There isn’t a lot left for you here and you won’t like the long term effects. We’ll talk more about it next time I can come back. Thanks for the help with the bike. It was fun.’

She drew a smiley face next to her words since she couldn’t turn and smile at him without Inuyasha thinking she was losing it. She held the notebook page open for just a second, pretending to look at the manual page until she saw Felix nod. The ghost sighed and said, “okay, yeah… it was fun. I’ll be here. Thanks for taking me in to see the Zenvo. Pretty cool stuff… I’ll see you around I guess.”

Kagome took her bag from Inuyasha and tucked the notebook into the side pocket. As she swung the bag over her shoulder and started to follow Inuyasha to the door Felix called, “you think about what I said too. He seems like a pretty decent guy, even if he eats way too much ramen.”

She turned to look at him and gave him a quick nod and smile before they left. Kagome sighed softly as they started the drive back to Shore House. She knew ghosts weren’t generally conscious of everything all the time, but to be stuck there in such a small radius had to be miserable. She hadn’t seen a ghost tethered that tightly to an object in a long time. Hopefully, she thought, Felix would calm down and realize that he didn’t belong here anymore. If she had to release him manually, it might be complicated.