InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Demons ( Chapter 5 )

~~Chapter 5~~

~Demons~

 

-=0=-

 

 

Kurt reshouldered the knapsack as he trudged through the dense trees of the familiar old forest. He'd spent years in these woods, hiding from the insane old codger who lived there. He hated the place even as he felt the old familiarity of it seep into his psyche. How many times had he huddled under these trees, telling himself that once he got out, he'd never come back again?

 

Yet here he was, retracing the paths that he'd despised. The irony of the situation was not lost on him, though. The one man that he had always maintained that he'd never ask for help . . . and, well, he needed it now.

 

It irritated him to no end that he wasn't able to completely remove the little demon's disguise. He'd tried for almost a whole day before giving up and readying it for transport. He'd combed through every text that he owned, had tried everything that he could think of to remove the concealment, to no avail, and that, more than anything, had goaded him into making the trip to this God-forsaken area of the world.

 

Trudging through the trees, he let out a deep breath and shook his head. Best just to get over with, and fast.

 

It took him a few hours to hike through the forest, though he did stop here and there to stare at a few different places that he remembered from his youth. Funny how the area hadn't really changed even though his perception of it had. How large had the trees seemed when he was a boy? How many times had he stared up through the branches, hating how alone he felt? Afraid to let anyone get too close . . . afraid that only bad things happened to people who tried . . . Even the old man . . . he'd kept him at a distance, too . . .

 

And he still did, didn't he?

 

“Don't . . . tell . . . Live, Kurt . . . live . . .”

 

The memory didn't dredge up the same emotions that it used to. It was entirely different now, wasn't it? His father hadn't understood a damn thing, had he? He'd honestly thought that Kurt could just forget what he'd seen that day—forget about it and move on.

 

He'd moved on, hadn't he? His body had aged, his mind had matured, but something deep inside him had been destroyed—murdered that day, along with the rest of his family, leaving him with a lifetime of nightmares. So many emotions had been decimated. He'd learned to function by blocking out everything that could possibly hurt him. He'd forgotten how to smile, how to laugh. He'd trained himself to look through humans, shoving them to the very recesses of his mind as he buried himself in his training. He'd attended college to study medicine—not to help people, but to aid his cause in identifying those monsters by the differences in simple biology. Spending more nights in the library than he had in his dorm, he'd read everything that he could find on the occult, on things that went bump in the night.

 

There was truth behind legends, fact behind lore. All he had to do was to strip away the romanticism that had been built up around these beasts. Some called them vampires, others called them poltergeists. Still others called them gremlins or even aliens, but Kurt knew better. They were demons—monsters—ghastly visions of grotesquely distorted humans. Thing was, they weren't human, not at all, and he, better than anyone, knew this to be true.

 

So he'd listened to Old Granger's instructions on how to paint just the right symbols on a strip of paper—different symbols for different things, and they worked, didn't they? They worked . . .

 

Old Granger had taught him a lot of things, even if Kurt was loathe to admit it, and while he knew that the old man was about as bent as a paper clip, he'd also managed to live well into his late eighties and still counting. Having spent a lifetime being able to see those same monsters that plagued Kurt, he'd also managed to avoid the fate that had befallen Kurt's family years ago. Crazy, maybe, but he was a survivor, and that had to mean something, right?

 

Snow started to fall though it was blunted by the tree cover. Kurt had read in the paper over a cup of coffee and a stale doughnut—breakfast at a local diner—that a pretty bad storm was blowing in—the first of the season albeit definitely not the last. Winters in the northeastern corner of Minnesota were harsh, and it wasn't uncommon to find himself snowed into the small cabin with Old Granger for company for days on end during the winter. Those were curious times, he recalled. Old Granger normally found new and oftentimes annoying ways to pester his grandson. One time, it was the beads created from a mixture of tree resin and badger's blood—it had reeked so badly that Kurt had wanted to cry while it boiled slowly on the wood burning stove. Old Granger had been sure that the bracelet he created from the nasty things would make them invisible. It hadn't worked, of course, and the old miscreant had maintained that it was because Kurt had ruined the mixture. Impossible since he'd refused to go anywhere near it.

 

Another time, Old Granger had gotten it into his head that Kurt was possessed by a spirit demon, and all because he told his grandfather to go get bent when the old man had told him to walk into town for a bottle of whiskey. Even at twelve years old, Kurt wasn't entirely stupid. Trudging thirty miles into the nearest town for a bottle of booze in three feet of snow during a zero-visibility blizzard was just not something that Kurt was willing to do. So instead, Kurt had sat in a stout old chair while Old Granger performed a ritual that was probably closer to a Native American war dance than an actual exorcism. Kurt had rolled his eyes but stayed perfectly still for nearly three hours until Old Granger was satisfied that the demon had left his body.

 

Come to think of it, a lot of Old Granger's child-rearing skills were probably akin to abuse. Still, Kurt couldn't complain too much. After all, his upbringing had helped to shape him into what he was . . .

 

Still, going back to that place . . .

 

Straightening his back and steeling his resolve, Kurt hastened his step.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Cain Zelig sat back in the thickly cushioned chair, elbow propped on the armrest and his fingers curled over his lips as he frowned at the document in front of him. It was a request for asylum from yet another European family—this one from London—who felt as though they were in danger of being blacklisted by the long reach of the MacDonnough. `Makes the fourth family this year,' he thought with a frown. Two of the three had been accused of high treason outright, and charges had been pending against the third, and they'd barely been able to escape before the hunters had been sent in. According to the correspondence, that was probably close to the same in this situation, too, and the worst of it was that Cain knew damn well that Kensington was one of MacDonnough's generals.

 

Heaving a sigh as he shifted his gaze out the window, his turbulent thoughts were soothed almost instantly by the mere sight of his mate as she wandered along the tree line on the outskirts of the yard with Munchy, their nine month old Rottweiler-Collie mix puppy gamboling along beside her. Cain grimaced but smiled. It was easily one of the ugliest animals he'd ever seen, but for Gin, it had been love at first sight. `Oh, well,' he thought with a shake of his head. `She took me home, too, didn't she?'

 

“There's a reason you don't get a damn thing done,” Ben Philips commented mildly as he strode into the office.

 

Cain didn't turn away from the window. “I'd much rather look at her than at you,” he shot back just as mildly. “You're not nearly as pretty.”

 

“I'll agree with that,” Ben replied with a chuckle as he settled into the chair opposite Cain's desk.

 

“See what you can find out on the Kensington situation, can you? And I need the information as quickly as possible.”

 

Ben sighed but remained silent for several moments. Cain was the one to break it. “He's going after his own generals now,” he muttered, his irritation apparent despite the hint of a smile that had surfaced as he watched his mate stumble backward when the exuberant pup barreled into her.

 

“I'll talk to Myrna.”

 

Cain nodded. “He didn't say why he's being exiled,” he remarked, tossing the missive onto the desk for Ben to look over if he had an inclination to do so.

 

Ben picked it up but didn't look at it right away. “There's been a lot of unrest there ever since . . .”

 

“Ever since he issued a hunt for his own daughter,” Cain finished when Ben trailed off. “Yeah, I know.”

 

“I don't know how much truth there is to it, but I heard a rumor that there's been a movement of late to allow both her and Morio back into Scotland. Something about the line of succession.”

 

“Fat lot of good that'd do . . . Morio wouldn't go back there if you paid him.” Cain frowned and finally looked away from the window. “The line of succession . . .? How can that be in danger when he recently had a child?”

 

“A girl,” Ben pointed out, “and from what I understand, there's also rumor that MacDonnough's mate passed on recently.”

 

“That's not possible,” Cain stated incredulously. “Everyone would know about something like that, don't you think?”

 

Ben shrugged.

 

Cain snorted. “So he goes out and finds another woman stupid enough to let him intimidate her into marrying a bastard like him. Problem solved.”

 

“He was challenged; did you hear?”

 

That got Cain's attention quickly enough. “He was?”

 

Ben nodded. “Yes, and he won, but from what I understand, there was a . . . problem.”

 

Cain's expression turned dubious, and he shrugged. “Problem? What sort of problem?”

 

This time, Ben chuckled, and it wasn't a particularly nice one, at that. “Let's just say that the equipment is still there, but parts of it are . . . missing.”

 

Cain flinched. “You mean his . . .?”

 

“Not enough to make him a eunuch, but enough to kill the libido.”

 

“Ugh,” Cain grumbled, shaking himself as he tried to get the entirely too-vivid image out of his head. “More information that I wanted or needed, I think.”

 

Ben looked like he was inclined to agree.

 

“How'd you find this out, Ben?” Cain pressed, shaking a cigarette out of the slightly crumpled pack that he'd been carrying around in his pocket.

 

Ben shook his head and reached forward to nab the pack out of Cain's hand. “Myrna. Apparently she hacked into the MacDonnough's system and found a memo.”

 

Cain took his time, lighting the cigarette before tossing the gas station dark blue Bic to Ben. “Why was she doing that?”

 

“Gunnar wanted her to, apparently. Wanted more information on our friend, Benoit.”

 

Cain frowned. “Why did he want that?”

 

Ben shook his head again then chuckled. “Myrna didn't know. She swears that she got more peace when you had her under lockdown under the special crimes headquarters.”

 

“She like her new place?”

 

Ben shrugged but smiled. “the penthouse in the tallest building in Maine? Damn straight, she does. She said to tell you `thank you'.”

 

Cain nodded since he was the one who had secured the apartment for her. He'd let her go last summer, and she'd promised to keep working for him. Good enough, as far as Cain was concerned. The woman was frighteningly good at gathering intelligence . . .

 

“I tell you, that woman is hell on the ego . . . You ought to have heard some of the things she said . . . I swear, I'll never, ever commit anything to computer that I don't mind if she finds out. I sincerely thought that she was going to pass out from laughing at the poor bastard.”

 

Cain shook his head and turned back toward the window again. Gin caught sight of him and smiled but quickly shook her head and wagged a finger at him when she noticed the burning cigarette dangling from his lips. Cain almost smiled though he made no move to put out the offending thing.

 

“So the generals want to ask Meara to come back?”

 

“That's the rumor.”

 

Cain considered that for a long moment then snorted. “Even if Morio would—and that's a huge if—MacDonnough will never allow it,” he predicted. “Besides, he still has the young one—what's her name?”

 

“Aislynn,” Ben supplied.

 

Cain nodded. “Right, Aislynn . . .”

 

“Yes, but she's still a child. If something were to happen to him now, it doesn't matter that he's exiled Meara. Since Aislynn is still too young, Meara would be MacDonnough's heir by proxy, regardless—or more to the point, her mate would be.” Narrowing his eyes on Cain, Ben lifted an eyebrow. “Why am I explaining all of this to you? You're tai-youkai. You know how this works.”

 

“Not really,” Cain argued but grinned just a little. “I have an heir, remember?”

 

Ben's retort was cut short by the curt knock on the door seconds before Larry Rowland stuck his head in. He looked tired, but he nodded before stepping inside the room. “Figured I'd check in.”

 

Cain stood up and strode over to grab a bottle of water out of the small refrigerator across the room. Larry never drank anything else, as far as he knew. “Think fast,” he said, tossing the bottle at the hunter.

 

Larry caught it with one hand and popped the top. “Thanks,” he muttered before draining half of the liquid in one go.

 

“I take it you got him,” Cain remarked, not bothering to clarify of whom he spoke.

 

“Didn't have to. Sam got to him, first.”

 

He almost smiled. He was getting more comfortable with the idea that the girl had chosen to be a hunter even though the grandfather part of him still wasn't entirely thrilled. That didn't mean that he was unhappy with the skill she'd shown thus far. Of course, it also didn't mean that he was about to offer her a job working for him, either . . . “Good.”

 

Larry nodded. “If there's nothing else, then I'll be going. Been meaning to spend some time fishing . . .”

 

“Fishing?” Cain echoed with a raised eyebrow. “Just take your phone with you, okay?”

 

“Ayuh,” he muttered, finishing off the bottle of water and tossing it toward the trash can as he turned to leave. “Oh, yeah,” he said, turning quickly once more. “I almost forgot . . .”

 

Cain frowned as Larry dug into his pocket. He pulled out something and looked it over for a moment before flicking it at Cain. He caught it as his frown darkened, opening his hand to reveal the flash of metal that he knew well enough. It was one of Samantha's shuriken. “Where did you get this?” he called out.

 

Larry stopped again and turned back with a shrug. “With Benoit's remains,” he replied simply. “Why?”

 

A savage surge of foreboding shot up Cain's spine. “Did you see her?” he demanded, his tone a lot sharper than usual.

 

Larry shook his head, giving Cain a rather conspicuous look. “No . . . that's why I brought that back,” he said. “She hasn't checked in?”

 

Slumping into his chair again, Cain held the throwing star between his fingertips and let it spin slowly. “She doesn't check in with me,” he replied.

 

Larry stared at Cain for a moment then slowly nodded. “All I found were Benoit's clothes and that.”

 

Cain considered that in silence. The shuriken were a gift from Samantha's parents, he knew: a symbol that she had finished her training, and they meant a lot to her. She wouldn't have just left one behind, especially if it was right there in plain sight. No, something about this just wasn't right . . . “Larry,” he said as he reached for the phone, “would you mind holding off on that vacation . . .?”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Hey, Dad,” Bas said as he lifted the phone to his ear. “You going to be home later? I think I need to talk to you . . .”

 

“Bas, did, uh, Samantha check in with you?”

 

Frowning at the abruptness of his father's question, Bas sat back, dropping the ink pen that he'd been using to jot notes in the margins of a police report. “No, not yet,” he admitted. “Did she call you?”

 

“No,” he replied then sighed. “When's the last time you heard from her?”

 

Unable to control the wince that surfaced on his features, Bas gripped his forehead and cleared his throat. “She checked in to let me know that she'd acquired the target,” he said.

 

“That's the last time you heard from her?”

 

“That was three days ago,” he went on. “I was going to come over in a bit to tell you about this . . .”

 

“Have you tried to call her?”

 

Bas grimaced since he figured that Cain's reaction to what he was about to say wasn't going to be any better than his was. “She's either out of range or she's shut it off,” he admitted.

 

“What? Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?”

 

“Listen, Dad,” he went on, “Sam's gotten a little . . . irritated lately. Thinks that we constantly second-guess her. Sydnie was afraid that she . . . that she might have been a little irked when you sent Larry in to cover.”

 

“I don't care if she was irked or not,” Cain growled. “You should have told me about this sooner, Bas!”

 

“They've had some storms around there, too, and they knocked out some stuff. We were waiting to see if she'd call once power was completely restored.”

 

Cain didn't answer right away, and Bas forced down the irritation that he felt like a pup caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “So why didn't you call me this morning?”

 

Letting out a deep breath, Bas shook his head. “I was waiting for the manager of the motel where she was staying to get back to me. He said that he'd check the tapes to see if he could find out the last time she'd gone into or come out of her room.”

 

“Larry got back a bit ago,” Cain said, his voice much huskier than it normally was. “He found Benoit's remains . . . and one of Sam's shuriken.”

 

Bas closed his eyes tight, clenching his jaw. His bad feeling . . . but he'd told himself that he was overreacting . . . “Shit,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Damn it . . .”

 

“I'm sending Larry and Cartham in to see if they can find anything else. Give me the room number and the address of the motel. She's been taking the scent tabs, right?”

 

“Right,” Bas admitted. “I-I'll go, too.”

 

“No,” Cain barked, the groan of his desk chair erupting in the background. “Sydnie needs you here. Ben's calling everyone. Just get out here so you can brief us with what you do know.”

 

“Right,” Bas agreed, hauling himself out of his chair. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

 

Clicking off the phone, he dropped it into his pocket as he headed for the door. Damn it, he'd listened to Gunnar when he said that Bas was just being paranoid. He'd told himself that he was worrying over nothing. Samantha was good at what she did, even if everyone, including himself, wasn't particularly happy that she'd chosen such a violent line of work. Maybe that was why he'd been so reluctant to call in the troops, as it were.

 

He muttered something to Connie as he headed for the door. So wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't really pay much attention to anything else, he headed out of the office without breaking his stride. `Damn it, Sam, where the hell are you?'

 

The sounds of traffic, of everyday life were his only answer as a bitter wind blew over him, the whisper of snow hanging in the air.

 

Ducking into to the alley beside the office, Bas spared a moment to look around, and seeing no one in the near vicinity, he vaulted onto the building and set out at a sprint.

 

Time was of the essence now, and he could move faster this way than he could in a damn car . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Kurt opened the creaky old door and stepped into the small cabin, noting that it hadn't really changed since the last time he'd ventured this far out. It was amazing. It was ordinary. It was . . . completely unsettling.

 

“Old—” cutting himself off when the crazy old coot stepped out of the shadows to heave a handful of dirt right into his face, Kurt coughed and waved a hand to dispel the dust, glowering murderously at the old man—at least, he would have, had he been able to see through the cloud of tears that filled his eyes. All in all, he figured that he looked pretty damn stupid. “Hell, old man! Is that any way to—” He sneezed. “—greet me when you haven't seen me in awhile?”

 

Old Granger snorted, thumping the end of the gnarled walking stick on the plank floor. “And just whose fault is that, I'd like to know? Ingrate . . . you've always been an ingrate . . . Now you come a-traipsin' in here, reeking of them demons . . . come back to do in the old man, have y'?”

 

Sniffling loudly as he shoved the door closed behind him, Kurt brushed at his shoulders and hair, grimacing since the melting snow combined with the dirt was making a mess of him. “So you going to tell me what that was for?” he complained.

 

“Been up to no good, boy. I can tell it from your aura. Purified, that's what you are.”

 

Kurt sighed. He'd figured that it was something like that, anyway. “I didn't need purified,” he grumbled as he followed Old Granger into the cabin.

 

“So you say,” Old Granger shot back. He was pulling various jars off the shelves, muttering to himself about this and that. Kurt wrinkled his nose and stepped back, knowing damn well that the old man was trying to figure out what else he could throw at him.

 

“I brought this out for you,” he said, pulling a fifth of Jack Daniels out of his backpack and thumping it onto the table.

 

Old Granger snorted. “Cut the crap, boy. What do you really want?”

 

Kurt almost smiled—almost. “You don't think I came out just to see you?”

 

“I know you didn't come out just to see me,” Old Granger retorted as he grudgingly eyed the liquor. “What'd'ya do to it?”

 

“Not everyone is as bent as you are, old man,” Kurt pointed out. “I didn't do anything to it . . . but if you keep drinking it like water, it might do something to you . . .”

 

“D' you know how old I am?” Old Granger grumped as he broke the plastic seal on the neck of the bottle. “When you're as old as me, you can say whatever you want and do whatever you want! You can even fart wherever you want and piss wherever you want, too, so don't lecture me! Just shut up and . . . and find me a glass.”

 

Kurt shook his head but retrieved a reasonably clean glass from the stack of dirty dishes near the rusted old sink. “What do you know about the more powerful demons?” he asked, setting the glass on the table beside his grandfather.

 

Old Granger held up the glass, squinting in the candlelight and glow of the fire. He must have decided that the dingy glass was clean enough, though he did spare a moment to blow in it for good measure. That done, he reached up, popped out his upper plate, and dropped the dentures into the cup before slugging down a few gulps from the bottle.

 

“You stay the hell away from them ones,” Old Granger muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. The rough robe he wore over the grimy shirt that used to be white was looking pretty rough. Come to think of it, Kurt didn't remember having ever seen Old Granger without it. It looked like a surplus army blanket, and maybe that's what it had been once upon a time. It certainly wasn't something that was bought in a store, that was for sure . . . “Kill you, they will . . . kill you and eat your eyeballs.”

 

“I'm pretty sure that there are far more tasty parts on my body than just my eyeballs,” Kurt remarked dryly.

 

Old Granger snorted. “There be a mystic quality to the eyeballs, boy. I told you that a hunnert times if'n I told you once.”

 

“The ones that look more like humans,” Kurt went on, ignoring the crazy fool's comments. “How do I remove the rest of their concealments?”

 

Old Granger stopped and eyed his grandson closely. “Didn't I tell you to leave those ones be? Better `n that, run like hell, boy! You ain't no match for the likes o' them! Damn it, I ain't even a match for them! Just run away fast, and don't piss yourself when you're going.”

 

“Their concealments, old man,” Kurt repeated. “How do I remove them?”

 

“You can't! Ain't you never heard a word I said? With them, you can't see but what they want you to, and they don't want you to see what they really is!”

 

“You're telling me that there's nothing I can do to remove their disguise?”

 

“Ain't that what I just said, boy?”

 

Kurt heaved a sigh and shook his head. Old Granger lifted the bottle to his lips again, his stance familiar enough: subject closed, as far as he was concerned. To Kurt, it meant just one thing: Old Granger didn't have a clue. Not surprising since he also figured that the old man hadn't really come into contact with one of the more powerful ones, either.

 

Gritting his teeth against the sense of frustration that rose in him, he frowned. Damned if he'd let that little demon get away with making a fool of him. It was entirely too human looking, wasn't it? That was the reason that it unsettled him, even if he were loathe to admit as much.

 

A small beep drew his attention, and he dug his cell phone out of his pocket. The daily transmission of his bank account balance had failed due to lack of available connection. Not entirely surprising since he was stuck in a cabin deep in the heart of nowhere.

 

He strode outside without a word. It was an iffy proposition, either way. Sometimes he could get signal if he were outside; sometimes he couldn't. Luck was on his side this time, though, and the signal was weak but good enough to download the report.

 

Heaving a sigh, Kurt shook his head as the message opened. As he'd figured, that damn Harlan had only authorized the payment of five-hundred-thousand. If he wanted the rest, he might have to beat it out of the cheap bastard . . . a prospect not without its merit, in his opinion . . .

 

Snapping the phone closed with a muttered curse, he turned on his heel and stomped back into the tiny cabin. “I've got to go, old man,” he said.

 

Old Granger didn't look up. Staring at the dancing flames on the hearth, he looked about a million miles away—he always did when he was drinking. Kurt also knew well enough that Old Granger knew well enough what was going on around him despite the vacant expression on his face.

 

Digging into his backpack again, Kurt set down another bottle of whiskey, a nice chunk of sharp cheddar cheese, a couple pouches of chewing tobacco, and a roll of money secured with a rubber band. “Take care of yourself,” he said, pulling the laces to close the backpack once more.

 

He was almost out the door when Old Granger finally spoke. His voice oddly quiet, he didn't look at Kurt, when he did, either. “You stay away from them powerful ones, boy. Mess with them, and you'll end up as dead as your daddy.”

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~= ~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

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Final Thought fromKurt:

…Let's hope he doesn't lose that cup …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vendetta): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or 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~