InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Transient Truths ( Chapter 8 )

~Chapter 8~

~~Transient Truths~~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

The smoke was thick—so very thick. His eyes throbbed, burned from the acrid smoke that infiltrated every pore on his body as he staggered through the debris. Unable to grasp the fleeting idea that the desecration that he was forced to witness was all that remained of the peaceful little village, he shook his head, rubbed his temple with his blood-stained claws.

 

Wiping away the fine gray dust that clung to his cheeks, he coughed so violently that he fell to his knees in the middle of the village near the well. The desolate sounds of cracking timber; of falling rooftops and groaning structures rang in his ears; loud like thunder, and he smashed his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes closed as he fought to understand . . . or was he simply trying to forget . . .?

 

Opening his eyes, he blinked in confusion as he stared at the body on the ground before him. Slowly—so slowly—he reached out; pushed the man's shoulder to get his attention. He lilted from side to side but didn't react. Swallowing hard, he pushed the village headman a little harder, and the man rolled to the side. Tongue hanging out of his slack mouth, skin leeched of color as his hair stuck to the blood-soaked ground, he seemed to mock him, didn't he? Staring into the blank, dull eyes of the dead man, he uttered a harsh little cry—not quite a sob, not quite a groan—and fell back, pushing with his feet in a concerted effort to get away from the macabre vision. He couldn't escape the body that was laying askew, legs bent and twisted at odd angles; his face was frozen in a grimace of pain, a mask of fear.

 

Uttering a smothered whimper, he rolled to his knees, shrinking away from the body of one of the village's women. She, like the headman, seemed to be caught in a silent scream, and he choked out a terrified sound as he turned on his heels, nearly tripping over his own clumsy feet. His body ached. He could feel his blood seeping through the tattered remnants of his clothing, clinging to him, cloying at him, and he ran . . .

 

With a sharp gasp, Griffin sat up, clutching his chest with a shaking hand. His heart hammered hard against his ribcage, and he squeezed his eyes closed as the remnants of the nightmare stifled to his mind. Body drenched in a cold sweat, the thin cotton shirt he wore clung to his skin in an entirely unpleasant way, bringing to mind even more of the memories that he couldn't help but remember. He gulped hard, smashed his fists against his eyelids as he tried to force himself to calm down. `God . . . oh, God . . .'

 

It never went away, did it? It wouldn't, and he knew it as certainly as he knew anything in his life. It was all transient, those truths that he tried to hide, and he was weary . . .

 

Pushing himself to his feet, he staggered out of the bedroom and down the darkened hallway to the bathroom and slipped inside. The harsh light from the fixture over the sink made him grimace, and he blinked for a minute while his eyes adjusted to the incursion. His face was drawn, pale, lips quivering as he drew a succession of unsteady breaths. The white shirt was translucent with the dampness of his sweat, and with a sigh, he fumbled with the buttons before yanking it off and tossing it into the hamper beside the sink.

 

He turned away from the mirror and turned on the water taps. Sinking down on the closed toilet seat, he slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. He hated mirrors, didn't he? Hated to look at himself; hated to see . . .

 

Stripping off the rest of his clothes, he climbed into the tub and pulled the white plastic shower curtain closed, letting the tepid water wash away the lingering remnants of the dream—of the nightmare.

 

`It was worse than normal, wasn't it . . .?'

 

Gritting his teeth at the softly voiced question, Griffin reached for the bar of Ivory soap and concentrated on washing instead of answering.

 

`Maybe it was simply the stress of the day.'

 

`The stress . . .?' he echoed almost absently, scowling down at his chest. His fingertips brushed over the puckered flesh, the conflagration of scar tissue that traversed his skin, and he barked out a terse, humorless laugh. `Stress . . .'

 

`Brandon will be fine. It was just a broken arm.'

 

Griffin snorted. `How can you say it was just a broken arm, like it was nothing at all? Humans are weak, aren't they? Weak and . . . and . . .'

 

His youkai sighed. `Weak and easily killed. I know. You know. Like it or not, that's the way of it, though. There's not much you can do about it, and even if you could, would it really be right?'

 

`And what's that supposed to mean?'

 

`You can't change the world. You tried that once before—maybe not in the exact same way, but close enough, don't you think?'

 

`That's not what I . . .' He grimaced. `It wasn't like that.'

 

`Wasn't it? It's not such a horrible thing . . . a little idealistic, especially coming from the likes of you, and rather misguided though you tried, but not horrible, either.'

 

Shutting off the shower taps and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Griffin shoved the curtain aside and reached for a towel. At the rate he was going, he was going to remember every single moment of his life that he'd rather not think about, and all before the sun rose.

 

It didn't take him long to dry off and get dressed, tugging on the clothes that he'd carefully hung on the back of the bathroom door just before heading to bed. He caught sight of his scar-ridden chest as he buttoned up his shirt and winced. Though the wounds had healed long ago, the angry welts lingered as a constant reminder of the magnified shortcomings that he couldn't overcome.

 

A lifetime of mistakes . . .

 

Taking the time to straighten the towel over the rack after meticulously sopping up the droplets of water that had pooled around his feet after his shower, Griffin let out a deep breath as he reached for the door handle, satisfied that he felt a little more like himself; a little more in control. Going back to sleep was out of the question. He wasn't sure how long he'd slept, anyway, but his hip ached from lying in bed, in the first place. Even if he wanted to get more rest, he didn't try to fool himself into thinking that it'd be possible. `Might as well get some work done,' he thought as he lumbered off toward the kitchen to put the kettle on to heat.

 

The click of claws on the hardwood floor drew Griffin's attention, and he tilted his head to the side as Charlie padded into the room. He stopped just inside the doorway and pushed back against the floor, yawning wide as he wagged his tail a couple of times and proceeded to stretch.

 

“Can't sleep either?” Griffin asked, his gruff tone as close to gentle as it ever could be.

 

The dog sat down, his tail sliding across the floor in a whisper of movement as his mouth dropped open to accommodate his ever-panting tongue.

 

“Slobber on the floor, and I'll use you to clean it up,” Griffin warned. Charlie wagged his tail harder.

 

“Great . . . you're as stupid as you are ugly,” he remarked, turning back to the stove to light the old gas burner with a match. “I think I feel sorrier for you than I do for myself . . . guess that's something, huh?”

 

Charlie half-grunted and half-groaned at him as a string of foamy slobber dangled from his gaping maw.

 

Griffin winced, lips curling back in a mask of undisguised distaste as he quickly reached for something to catch the drool. “Ugh . . . you're nasty,” he stated with a scowl, wiping the moisture away with a dishtowel. His sense of satisfaction for having averted dog-slobber on the floor was short-lived, though. Scowling at the towel, he shook his head and stood up, glancing meaningfully at the garbage can before striding over to the sliding doors that hid the washer and dryer from view. It would wash out, wouldn't it . . .?

 

He scowled at the towel in his hand. Then again . . .

 

Tossing the towel into the trash can, Griffin shot the dog a narrow look before digging another cloth out of the drawer and stomping out of the kitchen. With a sigh, he grabbed the permanent marker off his desk and wrote `dog' on the edge of the towel. The last thing he wanted was to dry the dishes he ate off of with a drool-infested cloth, after all, and if that wicked she-devil who considered herself to be Charlie's owner laughed at him, he'd wipe her dishes with the cloth and see how she liked it . . .

 

Sitting down rather heavily, Griffin hunched over the translation notes. At least the journal was relatively short. He was almost finished with that. The research, he was certain, would prove to be a lot more challenging . . .

 

`Fellowes made another offer for the research, and he didn't take `no' very well. After considerable arguing, he finally left the lab, but not before saying that we would regret our decision to keep the research to ourselves. Kennedy believes that he does not pose a viable threat. I, however, am not as sure as he is . . .'

 

“`He',” Griffin muttered, letting his face fall into his cupped hands with a heavy sigh. “Eaton Fellowes . . .”

 

The man's name kept coming up again and again. It couldn't be a simple coincidence, could it? He glanced at the clock: four in the morning . . . Definitely too early to make a phone call, no matter what the reason might be . . .

 

Jerking bolt-upright in his chair, Griffin pushed his chair back and peered down between his legs. Charlie—tank of a dog that he was—had managed to ferret his way half under the desk. His nose was cold and wet—entirely uncomfortable on Griffin's bare feet. Staring at him for a full minute, Griffin finally stood up and grunted for Charlie to follow.

 

The dog padded down the hallway after him, cocking his head to the side when Griffin stopped outside Isabelle's door. “Go bug her,” he rumbled, opening the door and gesturing for Charlie to go inside.

 

Charlie stretched out on the floor with his muzzle in his paws and whined.

 

Griffin snorted. “Don't give me that. She's your mistress, and I hate dogs.”

 

He whined a little more.

 

Griffin waited another minute before pulling the door closed with a sigh. “Just as annoying as her,” he mumbled under his breath as he headed for the kitchen once more. “Figures.”

 

The damned dog trotted along behind him.

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“Gavin Jamison.”

 

“Hey, Gavin. How was your flight?”

 

Gavin smiled at the welcoming sound of Isabelle Izayoi's warm voice and leaned to the side to set the suitcase on the floor as Jillian hurried past him with her pale pink carry-on bag. “Oh, uh, Is-Isab-belle, hi . . .” he stammered, face reddening at the mere sound of a female voice. He supposed some things just couldn't be helped, after all . . . in the confines of his office where he worked as a stock broker, he was okay when it came to talking to women. Outside of the office, however, it was an entirely different ball game, so to speak, and Isabelle, despite her friendly demeanor, was just about as frightening a woman as there was. Confident, beautiful, smart, strong—all excellent qualities, of course—but somehow the combination of those things in her was enough to set Gavin on edge. Sure, Jillian possessed those qualities, too, but somehow they seemed so much less intimidating in her; maybe because he'd known her for so long . . . “I-i-it was good. Longer than I'd like to dwell on, but decent. How's the translation coming?”

 

She sighed. He could hear the hospital intercom paging another doctor in the background. “I'm almost finished with the journal,” she said. “In fact, that's one of the reasons I was calling . . .”

 

“W-what about it?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning as a sense of foreboding raced down his spine.

 

She laughed at the hint of trepidation rife in his tone. “Oh, nothing bad . . . I just thought you should know that Jillian's biological parents weren't responsible for implanting the bio-chip in her . . . according to the journal, her uncle did it after her father died and without her mother's knowledge.”

 

“How is that possible?”

 

Isabelle sighed. “It's entirely possible. If he told her he was doing something like, say, and amniocentesis, then he could have easily injected it into the fetus—Jillian—without her mother knowing.”

 

Gavin shook his head, trying to get a better understanding of exactly what Isabelle was saying. “I see . . .”

 

“She was upset about that, right?”

 

He sighed, dragging his long fingers over his face in a weary sort of way. “Yeah. Yeah, she was.”

 

“Good, then. You can tell her that they didn't do it.”

 

He nodded, staring off in the direction of the hallway where Jillian had disappeared. “You find out anything else?”

 

“Not yet. I'm working on it.”

 

“You still don't know exactly what they were researching?”

 

She paused for a moment and cleared her throat. “Not . . . exactly . . .” she hedged. “I mean, I have an idea of what it was, but I'd like to make sure before I say anything. Is that all right?”

 

Gavin wrapped an arm over his stomach as a thoughtful expression filtered over his face. “Yeah, sure. I understand. Cuts down on conjecture . . . At least you're making progress.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good. I'll let Jillian know.”

 

“Gavin . . .?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Did you get to see Dr. Avis before you left?”

 

He sighed again, this one long and drawn out. “Uh, no . . . I'm sure everything's okay, though . . . Cain said that his tracker is still working, and he hasn't left Australia.”

 

“Can they pinpoint exactly where he is with that?”

 

“No. It works on international boundaries. If he left the continent, they'd know, but he's free to do what he wants so long as he stays where he's been exiled.”

 

“If Grandpa says it's fine, then I'm sure it is,” she stated. “Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you. My break's over, so I've got to go.”

 

“Thanks,” Gavin said as Jillian strolled back into the living room once more. “I'll be sure to tell her.”

 

“Bye.”

 

“Bye.”

 

Clicking the cell phone off, Gavin let it drop on the table before turning to face his mate. “That was Isabelle,” he said as Jillian slipped her arms around Gavin's waist.

 

“Oh? Is everything all right?”

 

He nodded and kissed Jillian's forehead. “Yeah . . . she just wanted to tell you . . . She's translated some of the journal.”

 

Jillian stiffened in his arms, and Gavin winced. Any mention of the research tended to set Jillian on edge. A painful reminder, he supposed. He could only pray that this information would make her feel a little better about the entire affair . . . The idea that her biological parents would have done something that had ultimately led to her being abducted hurt her, and if there were something that he could do to lessen the upset for her, then he would, and this news . . . well, he was sure that it'd be a huge relief to her. “The journal,” Jillian repeated, her pale blue eyes clouding over moments before she buried her face against Gavin's chest.

 

“The journal,” he agreed, “sort of. She wanted me to tell you that it said in there that your biological parents had nothing to do with the bio-chip. She said that they didn't know about it, either.”

 

“R . . . really?” she asked, a hopeful lilt in her voice as she leaned away to stare at him. “They . . . they . . . didn't . . .?”

 

He shook his head and smiled. “No.”

 

She swallowed hard, a sheen of tears lending a glassiness to her gaze. “So they . . .?”

 

“I told you that they wanted you,” he chided gently. “How could they not?”

 

He caught the first tear that slipped down her cheek and brought it to his lips to lick the moisture off his fingertip. It was something that she had told him long ago that her great-great-grandmother said would make a wish come true, and while he was a little too pragmatic to believe in such things, he had to admit that the idea that something as whimsical as making wishes was inviting.

 

`I wish . . . I wish that Jilli will always smile, just for me . . .'

 

“What'd you wish for?” she asked, her voice husky from the tears that thickened in her throat.

 

“If I told you, it wouldn't come true, would it?” he teased with a gentle smile.

 

She smiled, too—her eyes luminous, glowing with the hesitant light of cautious relief despite the tears that lingered. “I love you, Gavin Jamison.”

 

He sighed and pulled her close, closing his eyes as he buried his nose in her hair, as he inhaled the sweet scent of her. “I love you, too, Jilli . . . Jamison.”

 

“Gavin?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Will you . . . take me to bed?”

“W-I-you-oh . . . oh . . . okay,” he relented despite the scarlet flush that stained his cheeks.

 

Jillian giggled softly, pulling away from him only to take his hand and tug him back toward the bedroom. He couldn't help the flush that heated his cheeks anymore than he could help the nearly instinctive reaction to tell her that he wasn't about to do any such thing. Years of habit were so deeply ingrained in him that it would take him awhile to forget that he didn't really have to try to put her off . . .

 

Of course, he had a lifetime to unlearn that, didn't he?

 

And the practicing . . . well, he didn't mind that too much, either . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Griffin held the telephone receiver to his ear and scowled at the dog who was sitting on the floor beside the reclining chair doing his best to lick Griffin's feet. “Do it and die,” Griffin grumbled, pinning the dog with as formidable a glower as he could muster. The damned dog ignored him.

 

“You called me just to threaten me?”

 

He grimaced and pushed against the footrest, bringing the chair upright once more. “Sorry. Wasn't talking to you.”

 

Attean Masta chuckled, the sound muffled slightly by the phone connection. “It's been awhile. How are you?”

 

Catching the phone between his ear and his shoulder, Griffin planted his hands on the arms of the chair to push himself to his feet. “Not bad,” he replied. “How's Maria?”

 

“She's fine; fine . . . tell me why you called?”

 

He let Charlie into the back yard and closed the door with a sigh. “I can't just call to see how you are?”

 

“You could,” Attean agreed slowly, “but you don't. So tell me, what's the trouble?”

 

“I, uh . . . I need your help.”

 

“My help,” Attean mused. “Must be big. You never accept anyone's help.”

 

“That's not true,” Griffin grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I let you and Maria help me before.”

 

“With complete ill-grace, if memory serves . . .”

 

Griffin made a face. However true that might be, it held very little bearing on the current need for assistance. “You ever heard of a guy named Eaton Fellowes?”

 

“Hmm, no . . . can't say I have. I can ask around . . .”

 

“Yeah, please.”

 

“Please, even. Wow . . . Interesting . . .”

 

“Not that interesting,” Griffin argued. “Anyway, I need to know where he is . . . I need to know anything you can find out about him.”

 

“You don't believe in asking for small favors, do you?” Attean teased then sighed as he pondered Griffin's request. “Consider it done, but answer one question.”

 

Griffin grimaced and let his breath out with a whoosh. He didn't wait to hear the question, either. He knew Attean far too well not to know exactly what the hanyou was going to say. “I can't go into detail. Suffice it to say that he . . . he might pose a threat.”

 

Attean didn't answer right away, and when he finally did, Griffin winced at the overstated nonchalance in his tone. “To you?”

 

He snorted. “Like I'd give a damn if he were after me.”

 

“I see.”

 

“I wouldn't have asked if it weren't important.”

 

Attean sat back in his chair—Griffin could hear it squeak and groan in the background. “So this guy's threatening someone else . . . All right . . . going to tell me who?”

 

“No.”

 

“Didn't figure you would. Do you have any information to go on?”

 

Griffin sighed. “Uh . . . Colorado, near Denver. He was in that area about twenty-five years ago, give or take. Youkai from what I gathered. I don't know what kind.”

 

“That's pretty vague. Eaton Fellowes, right?”

 

He nodded, idly scratching Charlie just behind the ears. “Yeah. That's the name he was using at the time, at least.”

 

“So it could be an alias.”

 

Griffin grunted since Attean's statement was a bit ridiculous in his mind. “Any of us who've lived longer than eighty or a hundred years have those.”

 

“I suppose . . . but some of us use more legal aliases. In any case, I'll see what I can do.”

 

“Oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Anyway, thanks.”

 

His friend sighed. “Sure. Don't mention it. Do me a favor?”

 

“If I can.”

 

Attean chuckled, not surprised in the least that Griffin would refuse to commit himself concretely without hearing him out first. “Never make a promise you don't know if you can keep, right?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

Attean chuckled. “Give Maria a call sometime. She worries about you. For some reason, she likes you.”

 

“Yeah, if I have time,” he said though his tone was noncommittal at best.

 

Attean relented since that was as much of a promise as Griffin ever made. “Good enough.”

 

“Call me when you find out anything.”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

The line went dead, and Griffin pushed the `talk' button to close the connection before setting the phone on the counter. If anyone could get the information on Eaton Fellowes, Attean could. He'd been working for the better part of the last hundred years as a private investigator under various aliases, and he was very good at what he did.

 

`Don't be ridiculous. You know damn well that there are at least a couple others who could have come up with the information and probably faster, if you want my honest opinion.'

 

`There are?'

 

`Sure . . . it's no secret—at least amongst our kind—that the future North American and Japanese tai-youkai do that sort of thing. Youkai special crimes, it's called, isn't it?'

 

`Maybe,' Griffin grudgingly allowed, `but they'd want to know everything.'

 

`Right . . . right . . . and if you told them everything, they'd snatch the research out from under your nose . . . and Isabelle, too, for that matter.'

 

`I don't care about that woman.'

 

`Awfully brave talk, don't you think?'

 

`It's the truth.'

 

`Sure it is—during the day when the sun's shining and the demons have retreated to the shadows.'

 

`Since when do you wax poetic about anything?'

 

`I don't . . . but it sounded good, don't you think?'

 

Griffin snorted and rubbed his forehead. He'd suffered a headache all day, ever since waking in the middle of the night with his body drenched in a cold sweat.

 

`You should have asked him about suppressing the nightmares,' his youkai voice spoke up.

 

Griffin lumbered over to the door to make sure that Charlie was behaving. Chasing his tail around in circles, he looked like he was having the time of his life, and Griffin couldn't help the trace of a smile that twitched on his lips.

 

`I don't need him to do that again,' he maintained with a stubborn shake of his head.

 

`Then why did the idea cross your mind, in the first place?'

 

He sighed. True enough. For the briefest of seconds, he had considered asking Attean to perform the ritual that would help to suppress the dreams once more. He'd done it the first time, just after finding Griffin. The nightmares back then were so awful that they'd leave him feeling as though something inside him was dying every time he closed his eyes.

 

It had worked well enough since then. He'd only had a few instances of the recurring dreams, but the one he'd suffered last night had been the worst he could remember since that time . . . It was so real, like he was there in that time and in that place . . .

 

Rubbing his eyes with a slightly shaking hand, Griffin swallowed hard and turned away from the door. Weariness seeped into his very bones: weariness that had nothing at all to do with the interrupted sleep he'd suffered the night before. No, it was an unvoiced thing, an entity that was constantly lingering just out of sight . . .

 

His secrets were coming back to haunt him, weren't they? Only this time, Attean and Maria . . . they wouldn't be able to save him . . .

 

 

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A/N:

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Final Thought fromGavin:

So they didn't have anything to do with the bio-chip ...?

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Avouchment): I do not claim any rights to InuYashaor the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~