InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Guilt ( Chapter 21 )

~~Chapter 21~~

~Guilt~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“Next time you're running late, you'll call, understand?”

 

“I understand . . . I promise . . .”

 

He should have known better than to believe Isabelle when she promised to do something. He really should have known that she'd forget about it. What he hadn't expected was that she'd forget about it quite so soon since she'd just made that promise to him the night before.

 

Griffin sighed. He was relatively certain that she was just trying to test him. Why else would she deliberately be gone long after she should have been home without as much as a word to let him know that she was running late? When she did get home, he was going to let her know that her thoughtlessness was not something that she was going to get away with; not by a long shot . . .

 

The kitten mewed plaintively as she rubbed up against Griffin's leg. Pausing just long enough to scowl down at her, he stifled the urge to sigh and resumed his stance by the window, glowering out at the falling evening.

 

`It figures,' he thought with an acerbic snort. `Just because she can't see the danger she's in, she's thumbing her nose at me . . .'

 

`Do you really think that's so? I mean, Isabelle might not believe you about that, but it doesn't mean she'd pull another no-show just to piss you off.'

 

Narrowing his eyes at the empty road, Griffin could feel his frustration rising. `Wouldn't she?'

 

`No, she wouldn't, and that means one of two things.'

 

`Do tell.'

 

`Well, either she's in trouble—' His youkai's words were cut short by Griffin's low growling. `—or she's gotten herself caught up in something important.'

 

`What's more important than picking up her damn phone to tell me that she'll be late when she knows exactly how I feel about it?'

 

`. . . Do you really want me to answer that?'

 

Griffin snorted, unaccountably irritated at himself for being bothered by Isabelle's absence, in the first place. `Important, huh?' he mused grudgingly instead.

 

`Sure . . . she is a doctor, after all . . . maybe one of her patients needed her.'

 

Damned if that pacified Griffin, either. It still didn't hold water; not in his mind. Isabelle could have found time to call. Glancing over his shoulder, narrowing his glower as he willed the telephone to ring, he felt his hands closing over the window sill; felt his claws sink deep into the thick wooden frame.

 

The kitten mewed again, and Charlie wuffed quietly, lifting his head where he lay by the hearth, looking as though he were expecting something, too. He was waiting for her, wasn't he? Waiting for Isabelle, just like Griffin was . . .

 

Where the hell was she?

 

He hated it, didn't he? He hated how empty the place he called home felt whenever Isabelle was gone. He didn't fully understand exactly how she'd managed to insinuate herself into his life, and he knew deep down that he ought to be scared as hell. It'd been so long since he'd looked at anyone to give him a semblance of comfort just from their proximity, and somehow . . .

 

Why didn't she call?

 

Pushing himself away from the window, Griffin stooped down and scooped up the kitten, idly stroking her head as he shuffled off toward the basement. At the rate he was going, he'd end up wreaking havoc on everything inside his house if he didn't do something to distract himself fast. Standing around, staring out the windows and listening for the telephone to ring was going to drive him mad . . .

 

The soft click of claws on the floor told Griffin plainly that Charlie was following him, too. Just before he padded down the stairs, he stopped and looked back, staring through the doorways toward the foyer and heaved a heavy sigh at the vast expanse of emptiness before obediently trudging down the stairs after Griffin.

 

Dropping onto the sofa with a heavy sigh, Griffin let the kitten down and leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. He hadn't slept well the last few nights; even worse than normal, and it was starting to catch up with him. Worse had been the dreams that he couldn't quite remember; ones that jerked him awake an hour after he'd finally managed to doze off. Body drenched in a cold sweat and unable to remember even the smallest detail of those dreams, it had taken a while to calm himself down; to reassure himself that there really was nothing wrong. He wasn't sure why he knew deep down that those dreams somehow involved Isabelle, but he did. She'd be in trouble, and he . . . he hadn't been able to save her . . .

 

And maybe that was the real reason why her conspicuous absence bothered him.

 

Flopping back, he closed his eyes and willed himself to settle down. She'd call, he told himself. She promised . . .

 

Closing his eyes against the ambient lighting that erupted in a dull ache in his head, he tried not to listen to the silence. Isabelle was going to laugh at him, wasn't she? She'd smile and say that there wasn't a reason for him to worry, in the first place. She seemed so certain of that, didn't she? Too bad Griffin tended to be way too pessimistic to believe her.

 

In his mind, he could almost remember the dreams that had been plaguing him. They seemed so near, just under the surface of his cognizant memory, but he couldn't reach them, no matter how hard he tried. He could almost make out vague images, more of shadows dancing over a blanket of white light like the trace outlines of the most fleeting of thoughts, but the white was tinged with the color of blood, darker around the edges of his mind's eye. Whispers in his ears that didn't quite form coherent words . . . or maybe it was the steady howl of the wind . . .

 

A stab of emotion rose in him, roiling like the angry ocean just before a storm. There wasn't a complete sense in it, but if he'd been forced to put a name to it, he might have said that it was despair; a sadness so thick, so choking, so full of sorrow that it removed the bitter edge from the underlying sense of malice. If he could just understand . . . His brain felt groggy, dull and slow from the nights spent staring up at the ceiling in the haze of darkness shrouding his bedroom . . .

 

His breathing steadied, evened out, softened into a constant rhythm in the quiet. He didn't feel his fingers uncurl from the tight fists he held clenched against his sides; didn't realize when the kitten cautiously crawled onto his lap only to curl herself up into a tiny ball of fur, her nose tucked into the down of her tail.

 

And he slept . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

The clunk of the nondescript black canvas bag on the table was lost in the general commotion of the establishment as Haruo slipped into the vacant chair with a smug grin on his face. “Mission accomplished,” he said in a lousy affectation of the English language, probably picked up after watching a few too many gangster movies.

 

Alastair didn't blink and didn't take his eyes off the young Japanese man, slowly reaching out and snagging the bag, drawing it across the table but not bothering to look inside. Haruo reeked of the baser smells that made up his human body though Alastair kept his features blank despite the revulsion that raced up his spine. The vaguely wild look in his glassy dark eyes gave away the obvious influence of whatever he'd found to achieve a cheap high.

 

`Pathetic,' Alastair thought with a mental snort. Humans were far too weak-willed, interested in thrills that only lasted a moment; never once bothering to look at the bigger picture. It was their weakness, and weakness could always be exploited . . . “And you did as I instructed?” he asked curtly, his Japanese a far sight better than Haruo's mangled English.

 

Haruo nodded, crossing his arms over his chest in an entirely smug sort of way. “Vandalism,” he quoted. “Exactly as you instructed, boss.”

 

Owlish gaze raking over the unwitting patrons in the bar, Alastair didn't respond right away as the prosaic nature of humans struck him yet again. Vile creatures, weren't they? Always dashing off from here to there, always hurrying from one meaningless task to another like a succession of ants on parade . . .

 

A volatile half-grin twisted the corners of his lips as he stood up, dismissing Haruo without as much as a second glance, grasping the bag's strap and pulling it off the table and heading out of the bar, not surprised in the least when the young man shot to his feet and dashed after him.

 

`Humans are far too simple to manipulate,' he thought in an absent sort of way as he pushed open the door and stepped onto the busy Tokyo street. The electric lights that lined the boulevard lent a measure of courage to those who believed that safety dwelled in the light, and while Alastair would savor the opportunity to prove how pathetic they really were, he couldn't; not yet . . .

 

“Oi, boss!” Haruo complained, darting around people milling on the sidewalk to catch up with Alastair's long gait. “You pay me, yes?”

 

Alastair almost smiled. “That was the agreement, wasn't it?” he murmured.

 

“Yes, yes!” Haruo said, his voice registering his obvious relief.

 

Alastair paused long enough to spare the human a condescending glance, an enigmatic little smile. “Of course,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I am a . . . man of my word.”

 

“There was just one notebook,” Haruo went on, anxiously dancing around Alastair in a nervous, anxious sort of way. The human's antics reminded Alastair of a common mongrel begging for table scraps, but he narrowed his eyes and considered Haruo's claim, discounting the thought as though it were of no real consequence. “You sure you don't care if I keep the other shit?”

 

Alastair veered to the right, stalking up the cement steps that led to the overpass footbridge that traversed the busy street below. It was very empty at this time of night, and aside from two people—a couple, or so it would seem—he didn't sense any others. “What you do with whatever you found does not interest me,” he rebuked coldly. “You mean to tell me there was only one notebook?”

 

“Yes, yes,” Haruo said, nodding emphatically as he waved a hand toward the bag clutched in Alastair's hand, sniffing loudly as his right eye took on an involuntary twitch. He looked completely strung-out—a fact that did not go unnoticed by the observant youkai . . .

 

It wasn't possible, was it? Avis had said that Kichiro Izayoi, the touted genius offspring of InuYasha, was the most likely to have the research, damn it, and Alastair had believed that it made perfect sense. Who better to complete the project than the lauded prodigy; the nephew of the Inu no Taisho? `Who, indeed?' he thought, gritting his teeth together as Haruo prattled on, gloating over the spoils he'd stolen in an effort to hide the real reason for the break-in.

 

Stopping under a lonely streetlamp in the harsh circle of light that did nothing to dispel the blackened shadows made all the more sinister by the glow of the city below, Alastair jerked the bag open and snatched the notebook. Haruo's eyes kept darting to the knapsack. The fool had left his plunder in it, which accounted for his seeming skittishness.

 

It only took a few moments of scanning through the pages for him to realize that it didn't contain the information he sought. Nonsense—obviously some form of shorthand, but it couldn't possibly be the research that Alastair was after . . . With a muffled curse, he shoved it back into the bag and threw the bag at Haruo. “Incompetent!” he hissed, narrowing his cold gaze on the human.

 

Haruo barely managed to hold onto the bag as he stumbled away from the irate youkai. Eyes flaring wide, skin paling fast, he looked like he couldn't believe what he was seeing, and the thrill of his consuming terror crackled in the air. The echo of his own pulse resounded in Alastair's ears, and he licked his lips, tasting the fear as his eyes flashed from stagnant black to crimson with the throb of his beating heart. “You failed,” he ground out, lifting his claws; cracking his knuckles. The sound was deafening, heard over the seemingly distant hum of traffic on the street, and Haruo reacted in kind; backing away; as far away as he could.

 

He let out a frightened little yelp as he butted up against the railing, his right arm flailing helplessly as he struggled to retain his balance. He didn't take his eyes off the youkai as his fear grew stronger; as the sense of absolute revulsion thickened in the air like a palpable entity.

 

Alastair advanced on the pathetic human, savoring the all-consuming sense that invariably accompanied the hunt. The sense that he was a power unto himself, like a god in the mythos of long-gone societies where the omnipotent ones could raze a world with little more than a quirk of will . . . It was how the order was meant to be, and it could start with this insular human . . .

 

Curling back his lips in a silent snarl, his fangs glinting in the wan light of the street lamps. He would not abide carelessness, and failure? Alastair erupted in a visceral growl, a sound borne of frustration.

 

Haruo was babbling, uttering inane words that lacked the basest sense of coherence. There was no one to help him; no one to save him, and as the boy muttered something that almost reminded Alastair of a prayer, he was struck once more by the frailty of the human mind. Unable to comprehend the things that they could not explain, Haruo called Alastair a demon, an ogre, a Buddha.

 

Advancing slowly on the miserable being, Alastair fed off the emotion that seethed and rolled. With a strangled shriek, Haruo tried to run, tried to escape, but Alastair was faster, stepping into his path every time he tried to turn, to flee. Staggering back away from the enraged youkai, Haruo tripped and faltered, his balance impaired by the drugs surging through his system. Swinging one arm wildly as he sought to regain his footing, he stubbornly refused to let go of the bag, and maybe that was his ultimate mistake. Alastair lunged toward him, and in his haste to get away, he toppled over the low railing, his expression a pathetic mix of fear, of panic, of the inevitable fate that awaited him on the street below.

 

But inasmuch as Alastair wanted to watch, to savor the moment, some baser part of his conscious reminded him that he could not afford such a luxury. His body disintegrated before the thought solidified, taking on a hazy red light as he zipped away from the overpass, away from the curious eyes of anyone who might have looked otherwise. Below him in the night, he could hear the screech of tires, of a woman's ear-piercing shriek as a thousand sounds converged.

 

And still he didn't dare stop. Time was of the essence now. He didn't doubt for a moment that they would send out an investigator of their own. The prodigy would not be lax enough to allow the trespass to go unremarked, and while Haruo could be easily tracked, Alastair needed to get out of Tokyo before his involvement was discovered . . .

 

`Besides,' he thought as he shot through the night sky toward the blinking lights of Tokyo International Airport. It'd be simple enough to buy a ticket and be on the next flight out of the country. `I think I need to talk to Avis . . . in person . . .'

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Izayoi Kichiro stood in the middle of the lab with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face as he surveyed the destruction of weeks—no, months—of work. All the test tubes that he'd been carefully observing were nothing more than shards of glass left in puddles of congealed fluids that stained the pristine white counters in mottled shades of amber.

 

He'd taken countless samples from various hanyou, himself included, as he sought to isolate the gene that caused infertility on all but two nights a month. It wasn't a huge deal, in and of itself, but finding the source and figuring out how it worked might well prove to be something that could benefit hanyou later on. So far he'd figured out that the sperm in hanyou semen tended to live much, much longer during the fertility period when hanyou babies were produced, and conversely, the human sperm produced during the hanyou's period of vulnerability normally died within minutes of being ejected from the host. It was a curious thing, especially when compared to human samples—the trade off, he supposed, for only being viable two times a month. Now all the research he'd been working on was lost, and he'd have to start from scratch.

 

The trill of his cell phone cut through the shocked silence that had fallen, and with a heavy sigh, he dug the device out of his pocket, sliding it open to answer the call.

 

“Hello?” he answered, dragging a weary hand over his face.

 

“Hi, lover. I thought I'd call to see if you were on your way home yet.”

 

Not even the velvety sound of his mate's voice offered him much comfort, but he smiled wanly—barely a trace of emotion. “Not yet,” he admitted.

 

“Oh? What's wrong? You sound a little upset . . .”

 

He sighed, knowing that Belle was liable to take the news about as well as he had. Damn it, he had stopped in to pick up his notebook—a notebook that was missing at the moment—only to find . . . this. If he'd been just a little sooner, he might have been able to apprehend the hooligan, and the biggest concern wasn't really the break-in since the lab was insured and everything that had been destroyed could be replaced. No, it was the missing notebook that worried him most despite the knowledge that even if the thief tried to make sense of the notes, there wasn't really anything that could be discerned, written as it was in Kichiro's own version of short-hand. Still, it was the log he was keeping on the daily findings with the latest research . . .

 

“The lab was broken into,” he finally said.

 

Belle gasped. “You're kidding . . .!”

 

“I wish.”

 

“Were they after your research?”

 

“I don't think so,” Kichiro replied, scowl darkening as he took in the sight of the broken doors of the medicine cabinet he normally kept locked. “The guy might have been after the meds in lockup,” he mused, sparing a moment to glance at his watch. It'd been almost ten minutes since he'd called his twin brother, Ryomaru. To be honest, Kichiro was surprised that he hadn't arrived already. “Probably some pup looking to score a cheap high.”

 

“Youkai?”

 

He shook his head then nodded as Izayoi Ryomaru strode into the lab. “Human,” he explained. “Look, Belle-chan, I'll be home shortly. Ryo just got here, so . . .”

 

“Okay,” she said. He could tell from the slightly muffled quality of her voice that she was biting her bottom lip and pondering what she'd been told. “Be careful.”

 

“I will,” he promised, sliding the phone closed as he turned to face his brother. “What took you so long, fat ass?” he grumbled, kicking a pile of loose papers that were scattered on the floor.

 

“Well, I was in the middle of something that took a little precedence over your phone call, baby brother,” Ryomaru shot back with a wolfish grin. “Can't up and leave Nez unsatisfied, can I?”

 

“Nasty,” Kichiro remarked, ignoring the `baby brother' comment since he was technically younger—albeit by a mere few minutes. “Anyway, what are the odds that you can find the little fucker that did this?”

 

“Not like you to sound so vindictive,” Ryomaru pointed out with a raised eyebrow as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against one of the lab tables.

 

“Don't rightly care that the lab was ransacked, other than the pain in the ass of re-doing the samples,” Kichiro remarked with a sigh as he surveyed the carnage once more. “The little troll stole my notes, though . . .”

 

“Oh, well, balls,” Ryomaru grumbled since he knew the gist of what, exactly, his twin brother was researching. “Ain't no one ever told you not to put so damn many things in writing?”

 

“Not like they'll figure out what they have, anyway, but I'd feel better if I had the notebook back.”

 

Ryomaru nodded slowly, pushing himself to his feet once more and carefully picking through the debris, scowl deepening as he rather thoughtfully sniffed the area. “You going to call the police?”

 

“Yeah. Figured I'd wait until you gave the place the once-over.”

 

“Thanks,” Ryomaru muttered.

 

Kichiro fell silent and stood back, waiting patiently while Ryomaru got a good handle on the intruder's scent. He'd heard far too many times about the difficulty in tracking down a certain smell when a place was overrun with the police after a crime. It was in that vein that he had called his brother before he'd even thought of telephoning the local authorities. There'd be time enough to do that after Ryomaru was finished . . .

 

“I got it,” Ryomaru finally said, sparing a moment to glance over his shoulder and making a face at the empty medicine cabinet. “I'll call you when I find the guy . . . damn baka . . . bet he was strung out when he broke in . . .”

 

Kichiro nodded as his brother stalked out of the lab. The clinic was silent as Ryomaru's footsteps echoed down the hall, growing fainter and fainter as he moved away. Kichiro waited until he heard the heavy thud of the doors that led to the stairwell slipping closed before he opened his cell phone again. It was answered after the third ring.

 

“Tokyo police.”

 

Kichiro rubbed his temple and sighed. “Yeah, I wanted to report a break in . . . the Izayoi Medical Clinic . . .”

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Isabelle slipped the key into the lock and closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself against the frigid steel as she drew a deep breath to steady herself before turning the key and slowly pushing the door open. The early morning sun behind her glimmered and shone, reflected off the mounds of snow that seemed to blanket the world in every direction, as far as she could see, and not for the first time, she had to wonder just how it could seem as though everything was fine when she knew deep down that it wasn't; that it never would be `fine' again . . .

 

`Don't beat yourself up over it, Bitty . . . you did everything you could have possibly done . . .'

 

Grimacing at the soothing quality in her youkai's tone, she shook her head and blinked back a fresh wash of tears that rose to blur her vision. That wasn't true; not at all, and as much as she might want to believe it . . . well, she knew better, didn't she? She knew, and . . .

 

And she'd failed.

 

`Pull yourself together, can't you? Griffin . . . you'll just worry him if you walk in there crying.'

 

Gulping hard, she swallowed down the sob that swelled in her throat. She was tired—horribly tired, and yet she wasn't at all certain that she'd be able to sleep . . .

 

She was supposed to be working today, but she needed to swing past home to shower and change—and to try to convince herself that she wasn't nearly as worthless as she felt—before heading back into the office for work, though to be quite honest, she wasn't at all sure that she'd be able to make it through the day, in the first place. Seeing patients who trusted in her and who thought that she was a competent doctor . . . smiling when she felt like sitting down and having a good cry . . .

 

`One thing at a time, Bitty . . . that's all you really can do, right?'

 

She sighed. `Right . . .'

 

So taking a fortifying breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the foyer.

 

Funny how everything seemed so very normal. The silence of Griffin's home offered her a semblance of comfort that somehow made her feel that much worse though she wasn't entirely sure why. Everything seemed so normal, just as it had been when she'd stepped outside a little over twenty-four hours ago—a lifetime ago . . .

 

A dull thud drew her attention, and she turned just in time to see Griffin stomping through the basement door looking entirely irritated if not still a little groggy. She could tell that he'd just woken up—he must have fallen asleep downstairs—but he stopped short when he saw her, his expression registering a momentary relief just before the harsh mask of irritation slammed down over his features, as he crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at her, and yet . . . and yet she had the feeling that he wasn't nearly as angry as he looked . . .

 

“Just where the hell have you been?” he growled, his tone low despite the obvious anger seething just below the surface.

 

To her horror, she could feel her throat constricting once more; could taste the rise of tears that tingled in her nose and stung her eyelids. “I . . . sorry,” she choked out, pushing past him and hurrying toward the bathroom. “I'm late,” she muttered, hoping that her half-answers were enough to pacify him, at least for the moment.

 

“Isabelle—” he began as Isabelle shoved the door closed and locked it.

 

“Can we talk about this later?” she called, clearing her throat as she stubbornly ordered herself not to cry.

 

He didn't answer for a moment, and she had the distinct feeling that he was seriously considering forcing the door open instead. As the seconds ticked away, as she braced her shoulder against the door—a ridiculous notion since she really didn't have the strength to back it up, she heard him sigh at last and closed her eyes in relief as the sound of his footsteps finally moved away from the threshold.

 

Only then did she move away, taking a moment to turn on the shower taps as the first tears started to fall. What was it that her mother had said once? Tears in the shower . . .

 

No one could ever tell . . .

 

 

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A/N:

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Final Thought fromGriffin:

…Evil cliffie of doom …?

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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~