InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Monsters ( Chapter 12 )

~~Chapter 12~~

~Monsters~

 

-=0=-

 

 

“Come on, Kurt . . . you know this song, don't you?”

 

Kurt kicked the scuffed toes of his tennis shoes in the dirt and shrugged.

 

Mary glanced over his head, casting Marcus a worried frown. Marcus smiled in an encouraging way and continued to poke marshmallows onto the sharpened end of a stick. “Here you go, champ. Toast those up as much as you want, and I'll help you put together a s'more.”

 

Kurt didn't reply, his large violet eyes staring blankly at the dancing flames. Marcus wrapped Kurt's little hand around the stick and helped to position it over the campfire. “You got it?” he asked.

 

Kurt's arm locked into place, and Marcus let go, reaching behind him for another stick and another handful of marshmallows. “These are really cool, huh, Mary?” he went on. “Red, white, and blue marshmallows . . . who'd'a thunk it?”

 

Mary smiled and slipped her arm around her nephew's shoulders, giving him a gentle squeeze as she brushed his long bangs out of his face and kissed his forehead. “We can go fishing tomorrow if you want,” she offered, her tone overly bright.

 

Slowly, Kurt turned his head, his eyes searching her face in the semi-darkness that had fallen. `She looks . . . like Mom,' he thought suddenly. His eyelids burned, and he wanted to look away. She smiled, scrunching up her nose and squinting her eyes just like his mother used to do. “Why do you look like Mom?” he whispered with a confused shake of his head. She looked like her, but she wasn't, was she? His mother . . .

 

“Well, sweetie, it's because your mama and I were identical twins,” she said quietly, her smile faltering but not disappearing. “You miss her, don't you?”

 

Kurt didn't answer. The question seemed dumb to him.

 

She sighed and winced, and the smile that returned was more apologetic than bright. “Of course you do. I'm sorry, Kurt.”

 

“Hey, hey! Burning mallows!” Marcus said with a laugh as he grabbed Kurt's stick and shook it high to extinguish the flames. “How about we try again, champ?”

 

Kurt stared at his aunt for another long moment then turned to face his uncle. “Those aren't red,” he stated flatly. “They're pink.”

 

Marcus chuckled and swatted the bill of Kurt's oversized baseball cap. “Actually, they're black now,” he joked.

 

For the briefest of moments, Kurt smiled. Mary gasped softly, pressing her hand to her chest as tears sprang to her eyes. “I like the white ones,” he finally said.

 

Marcus nodded, winking at Kurt as he tossed the pink one he'd been about to jam onto the stick into the fire. “White, eh? I like the classics, myself.”

 

“Daddy did, too,” Kurt said at length.

 

Marcus smiled and nodded. “That's because your dad was a smart man . . .”

 

Eyes flashing open as the dream dissolved, it took Kurt a moment to regain his bearings as he blinked in the dim, filmy light. The room was silent, eerily so, and he sat up quickly, throwing his legs off the cot, leaning forward and clenching his head in his hands as he tried to steady his breathing.

 

`Damn it,' he thought, clenching handfuls of hair and tugging. `Damn it . . .'

 

Stumbling to his feet, he stomped over to the utility bathroom, jerking hard on the cold tap and filling his hands to douse his face with water. Hands shaking, he couldn't steady them—couldn't deal with the lingering traces of memory that clung to him, that wouldn't let him go.

 

Leaning his forearms on the sink, he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. `Sh-shit . . . even . . . those memories . . . hurt . . .'

 

That was why he hated to sleep—shadows of things best left forgotten . . .

 

It took a long time for his thoughts to clear . . . seconds slipping by with the uneven stream that fell from the leaky faucet. Straightening up, he splashed another handful of water on his face and let out a deep breath. Slowly, his heartbeat was starting to return to normal as a semblance of his self-control resurfaced.

 

Shutting off the tap as he wiped his face on his shoulder, Kurt sniffled as he caught his reflection in the mirror. Violet eyes still bright, wild, hair sticking up here and there, he looked like he was completely spooked, and maybe he was. Skin leeched to a sickly pallor, he hated the weakness he could discern in the expression on his face.

 

`Damn it . . .'

 

Drawing a deep breath, he pushed himself away from the sink, telling himself that he was just being stupid, that he outgrew that sort of thing a long, long time ago.

 

Striding out of the bathroom, he ignored the little demon. It'd be too dark to see whether or not it really was looking at him, but then, he didn't need to verify it. He could feel its eyes following him, could sense the unmasked curiosity behind its gaze. Swiping up his sweatshirt, he tugged it over his head before dropping into the creaky chair and grabbing the book he'd brought along.

 

“Are you . . . all right . . .?”

 

Ignoring the softly uttered question, Kurt's scowl deepened as he buried his nose in the book. If he didn't know any better, he might have actually thought that it sounded sincerely worried. It was trying to fuck with him, wasn't it? Kurt's jaw tightened. `The hell it will.'

 

It sighed quietly but continued to stare.

 

Stubbornly refusing to acknowledge its presence, Kurt forced himself to read a couple of pages; forced himself to keep his eyes averted from the cage in the middle of the floor.

 

It cleared his throat. He didn't look up. “Um, I . . . I have to . . . to go to the bathroom,” it said in a whisper.

 

Kurt didn't answer, either. The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him. It felt sorry for him, didn't it? That realization ticked him off just a little more. How dare that creature—that monster—pretend to have feelings like that? How dare it try to . . . to humanize itself when he knew damn well what it really was.

 

It was nothing more than a monster—a living phantasm—a demon that preyed upon humans, that wanted to destroy them . . .

 

And that was something that Kurt would never, ever forget.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Kami, this seems so . . .”

 

Evan Zelig shot his cousin a darkened glower as the two ran silently over the rooftops in the northwestern quadrant of Chicago. Morio didn't look like he had any desire to finish that thought, which was just as well with Evan. It was something that both of them had acutely felt during their time searching for any trace of Samantha. It was also something that no one—no one—wanted to admit out loud, either . . .

 

Heaving a sigh as he told himself that Morio wasn't trying to be obnoxious, Evan drew to a halt atop the Perode Communications Corporate Office building, planting his hands on his lean hips as he silently surveyed the city. “It's like searching for a needle in a fucking haystack,” he muttered.

 

Morio stopped beside him, his expression more serious than Evan could ever remember having seen on that particular cousin. “I'm starting to wonder if she's even here,” he admitted.

 

Evan nodded. He'd wondered about that, too. After all, thanks to his damn brother's reluctance to admit that he'd lost contact with her, they'd lost a few valuable days, hadn't they? By the time Evan had heard what was going on, he'd slipped out of the Zelig mansion and caught the first flight out, irritated as all hell that the powers-that-be were wasting even more valuable time in sitting around Cain's office discussing tactics and motives when the thing that mattered—the only thing that mattered—was finding her.

 

So he'd scoured the city, checking every business, every hotel, every motel he could find. He'd found the bar where she'd had a drink, probably while scoping out Benoit. The bartender had remembered her, grinning lecherously as he'd recalled her silver hair and deep blue eyes. He'd said that she hadn't been in there long, simply sipping her drink while she talked on a cell phone. No, he didn't overhear her. He just recalled that she had a damn fine ass . . .

 

Morio frowned at his phone when it rang, the sound empty and hollow and thin. “Hello?” he answered as Evan continued his perusal. “No, nothing,” he went on. “You having any luck?”

 

Evan snorted when his own cell phone rang, though for entirely different reasons. Half tempted to ignore the caller since he really didn't feel like arguing with his manager about his whereabouts, he shook his head but answered the call, anyway. “What?”

 

“Nice, Roka. Where the hell are you? I got a bus, a band, about a hundred gigs, and no damn main attraction,” Mike Murphy grumbled.

 

“Something came up, man,” he said, unable to keep the hint of irritation out of his tone. “Cancel.”

 

“What?” Mike blasted—Evan had figured that he would. “You didn't just say . . . shit, you did . . . Listen, Roka, I can't just cancel! These shows have been sold out for months! Months!”

 

“Some things are more important,” he growled, “and this is one of those things.”

 

Mike heaved a sigh. Evan figured he was probably slumping in his chair, furiously rubbing his forehead. “This isn't like the time you took off with that dancer—what was her name? Mississippi or something? Just to fuck around on Nassau, is it?”

 

Evan grimaced and glanced at Morio, who was still listening to whoever had called him. “Listen, Mike . . . Sam's missing. She disappeared while she out on a hunt. I gotta help look for her.”

 

Mike was silent for a few moments. “Jesus,” he muttered, his tone registering late worry. “Yeah.”

 

“I don't know when I'll be back,” Evan went on. “Just . . . refund the money for the tickets and release my apologies.”

 

“No problem,” Mike said. “You just find her, okay?”

 

Evan clicked the phone off and heaved a sigh of his own. Mike had only met the girl once after a show in Oklahoma City. She'd been in the area after a hunt, and he'd talked her into coming out to see him. She'd been awed by the entire affair—she'd never been to a concert before in her life—not a real one, anyway, and Mike, who hadn't minded escorting her around all evening to give her the VIP treatment, had adored her.

 

She'd followed him during the pre-show insanity as Mike took care of a thousand small details that had slipped past until the last moment. She'd stood just offstage while he performed, her eyes shining as she sat back and enjoyed the music. Half way through, she'd managed to talk the stoic youkai into escorting her down into the audience. He'd said later that she had complained that she couldn't rightfully see everything from her vantage point. Evan wasn't sure how long it had been since Mike had actually braved the insanity of the frenetic crowds, but in his estimation, it was good for him, and Mike hadn't complained at all . . .

 

Evan smiled a little at the memory of that night in particular. Everyone loved her, didn't they?

 

So why in the hell would anyone hurt her now . . .?

 

“You find out anything?” he asked when Morio dropped his phone into the inner pocket of his black leather jacket.

 

Morio shook his head and winced. “The old men aren't having much more luck than we are,” he admitted. “Guess Bas and Gunnar had just checked in, too, and the old man was on the phone with the hunters . . .”

 

“I'm starting to wonder . . .” Evan mused then heaved a sigh and slowly shook his head.

 

“What's that?”

 

“I'm starting to wonder if she's even here,” he confessed quietly, his scowl darkening as he glowered over the cityscape stretched out before them.

 

Morio sighed and slowly nodded. “That's what my father said, too.”

 

“Damn it, she could be any-fucking-where,” Evan growled.

 

Morio chuckled though the sound was a lot emptier than usual. “Yeah, and that's what the old man said . . .”

 

Evan grunted and pushed off the roof, clearing the thirty foot gap between buildings with Morio close behind. He wasn't about to give up, even if it did seem impossible. Samantha needed him, and he'd be damned if he'd let her down . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Samantha huddled in the corner of her cage, thankful that she was hidden in the shadows. Still acutely embarrassed over the situation, she figured that she'd do well to make herself as unnoticeable as possible, at least for the moment.

 

She'd tried to hold it; she really had, but she had to pee too desperately to do it. She wasn't entirely sure that he'd listened to her when she'd told him that she needed to go, but she couldn't help but try. He'd taken her to the bathroom before, hadn't he? She'd hoped . . .

 

In the end, she'd done what she needed to do, her face flaming with mortification that was at least somewhat eased by the darkness that she was blessedly allowed. But the sound of the drain gurgling below her was deafeningly loud in the stifling silence as she bit her bottom lip and tried to console herself by repeating that she just didn't have a choice.

 

It hadn't helped much.

 

Actually, it hadn't helped at all.

 

Still, she reasoned as her acute embarrassment had receded, something was bothering the holy man; something that he'd dreamt. She'd been sleeping, herself, when his soft moans, his harsh breathing had roused her. She hadn't meant to say anything to him about it. Knowing deep down that he really wouldn't want her to comment, she'd tried to stay quiet when he'd come out of the bathroom.

 

It was the expression on his face, she supposed, that had done her in. He'd looked so . . . so pale, so worn that she hadn't been able to remain quiet. He'd looked a little afraid—no, not afraid, exactly . . . It was more of a mixture of sadness, complete horror . . . and a lingering sense of loneliness . . .

 

And she'd forgotten for that moment that they weren't really friends, and while common sense told her that he was nothing more than her warden, she'd sensed that strange sort of familiarity from him that she couldn't even begin to comprehend.

 

She closed her eyes and wished that she could go back to sleep. Kami, it was difficult to do that here. Trapped in a room that smelled like everything and like nothing at all, she wondered absently if this was what it would be like to be trapped inside a vacuum.

 

`How long will we be here?' she wondered, willing her mind to take her somewhere outside, somewhere far away.

 

`Maybe we shouldn't think about that,' her youkai murmured in a comforting tone.

 

`I wonder what he was dreaming about . . .?'

 

`What does that matter, Samantha? We need to figure out how we're going to get out of here, don't we . . .?'

 

Samantha frowned, unable to repress the next thought that came to mind. `Even if I managed to escape . . . what then? Wouldn't they just capture someone else . . .?'

 

Even if she were able to escape, even if she were sure that there was no way that they could capture another youkai or hanyou . . . Even if she believed that it would be all right . . .

 

The overwhelming memory of her anger, her rage, seeped in around her once more. Frightening, obliterating all logical thought of what she should or shouldn't do . . . For that one brief moment, she'd understood exactly why some youkai went out of their ways to hurt humans—she'd known it because she'd felt it, too, and as ugly as it was, uglier still was the knowledge that she might not have been able to stop herself in the end. The barest thread separated her from the ones she hunted, didn't it? The barest thread: the barest scrap of reason . . .

 

In a way, didn't she deserve this? She'd always believed that she was somehow better than those youkai who killed and destroyed and cared nothing for any sort of morality aside from their own, and yet, wasn't she the same? Weren't her reasons just as strong, her beliefs just as righteous? If right and wrong were all a matter of simple perception, then which side really had the right to claim to be superior?

 

She realized now that she'd lived her entire life in a smug sort of superiority, positive that what she was doing was just and even pure. She believed it because she had been raised in it, raised to understand and acknowledge the truth in the idea of hiding her true nature, in blending into the human's world . . . She'd always looked down on those who hurt and exploited humans, considering them to be so much lower than she, herself, was, but how true was it? How much of her understanding was nothing more than a hazy gray pale?

 

Those youkai who hurt humans—youkai like Benoit, and even ones who just stood by and turned a blind eye to the destruction and desecration every day . . . Didn't they wake up in the morning, absolutely believing their ideals to be right?

 

And yet she understood that the idea of hurting and killing just because they were bigger or stronger or faster was wrong. She knew well enough that there was a simplistic sort of beauty to be found in the humblest of moments. Walking to the grocery store on the corner near her apartment . . . watching humans walking their dogs or children riding their bikes on the sidewalk . . . seeing mothers laughing with their babies . . . fathers teaching their sons how to swing a bat to hit a baseball . . . These were the things that Samantha had always found comfort in: the things that she wanted to see again someday . . .

 

Those were the reminders of why she fought, weren't they? They were the reason that she stepped out and hunted down those who had trespassed—the ones who had destroyed a thousand moments just like those without so much as a second thought and without ever stopping to wonder exactly how many of those insular moments they'd managed to end before they'd ever begun . . .

 

But what if she couldn't protect humans from herself? What if that anger, that rage came back? What if the next time, there was no one who could stop her?

 

That question was enough to strike a deep fear inside her; a painful fear that festered and grew. Maybe she belonged here, locked away and confined. Maybe she just hadn't realized before, how very close she was to completely losing her grip . . .

 

A sudden, twisting sense of melancholy swept through her; the sense that everything she knew was just out of her reach. Even if it was supposed to be this way, she couldn't help but wish that she'd had just one more day—another day to tell everyone how very much they meant to her.

 

And even as the innate knowledge that they were out there somewhere, looking for her occurred to her, she squeezed her eyes closed a little tighter. What if they didn't find her . . .? What if they did? What if they searched everywhere and never, ever found her? What then? How long would they go on looking? How long would they sit by the phone, willing it to ring?

 

The answers to those questions were far too painful to contemplate. Much easier, it was, to think about them all as she'd always known them, sitting in their homes with their loved ones close at hand, joking and laughing and sometimes just enjoying one another's silent companionship . . . That was simpler, wasn't it? Smiles, laughter . . . in her mind, that's what she heard, and that's how she wanted it to be.

 

She heard the rustle of movement but ignored it, but she couldn't ignore the scrape of metal when the holy man shoved the water bowl into the cage again.

 

He didn't say anything, turning on his heel and stomping back over to the desk once more. Samantha looked at the dish. There wasn't a lot of liquid inside, but there was enough to entice her, and with a wan little smile, she picked it up and started to tip it to her lips. The rustle of the holy man's newspaper interrupted her, and, flattening her ears just a tad, she tamped down the desire to swallow the water in a few large gulps.

 

He wasn't looking at her, and he hadn't said a thing. It was enough for her, though. That he would think to give her a drink of water . . . well, she didn't care what his reason was. All she cared about was that at least one person in that awful place wasn't a complete and utter monster . . .

 

 

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A/N:

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Final Thought from Kurt:

…Pain in the ass …

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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~