InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Desperation ( Chapter 46 )

~~Chapter 46~~

~Desperation~

 

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“Half . . . youkai—magical creature . . . a creature that can heal itself . . . So you've said before. What's that make your other half?”

 

“The other half? Monster, of course . . .”

 

The . . . the other half . . .

 

Kurt sucked in a sharp breath—a painful breath—as his eyes widened, as he gawped stupidly at her. `Her . . . her other half . . . is . . . human . . . and the humans . . . are the biggest monsters of them all . . .'

 

Those damn white-coats . . . they had done this to her; broken her until she begged then cut her wide open . . . They'd hurt her over and over again, and . . . and he'd done nothing . . .

 

`But she can't be . . .' Kurt thought as he stared at her, as he struggled to make sense of what his eyes showed him. `Why didn't she . . .?'

 

Grimacing as soon as the question whispered itself in his head, he knew the answer, didn't he? Would he have believed her? Would he have wanted to? And even if he had . . . why the hell would she ever want to be anything like that when humans were the ones who had done this to her . . .?

 

“Shit!” he hissed, remembering a moment too late that she was hurt—gravely so. He was sitting there pondering the mystery of her, and she . . .

 

“Hold on,” he told her, his voice rough, raw. Somewhere deep inside him, the trained doctor part took over; the part of him that knew what to do even as the rest of his brain struggled to function. Snatching up the stethoscope he'd commandeered from the supply cabinet, he checked her vital signs: pulse weak and thready but steady enough . . . her breathing was a little shallow but not too labored . . . Pupils dilated—she had dark brown eyes . . .? He needed to get that bleeding stopped, damn it . . . It was hard to say how much blood she'd already lost, and that was a problem, but . . . It was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, to move her aside so that he could stand up, so that he could grab the supplies out of the medicine cabinet. Bastards hadn't bothered to even bandage her, had they? What the fuck were they thinking . . .?

 

Who cared what they were thinking? He wasn't going to leave her here for them to abuse. He was a damn fool for not getting her the hell out of there sooner, wasn't he?

 

“She needs blood,” he muttered as he yanked the stethoscope off and tossed it aside. She needed it desperately . . . but . . . “Stay with me, little demon. Stay with me . . .”

 

“That was after they took about five or six bags of blood from me . . .”

 

His chin snapped up as those words faded from his mind, and he stumbled as he rolled to his feet, taking off at a dead sprint. They kept blood on the second floor, didn't they? Without bothering to try the elevator, he smacked the door to the stairwell open without breaking his stride, racing up the steps, stumbling, faltering, but moving onward with a purpose, and that purpose . . .

 

“Fuck!” he bellowed as he grasped the handle and rattled it hard. The door to the lab where the blood was kept was locked, not that he'd actually thought it wouldn't be. Uttering a string of curses under his breath, he spotted the fire extinguisher hung on the wall nearby and strode over to yank it down. Panic was warring with reason inside him. She needed blood, didn't she? She needed it desperately . . . Lifting the extinguisher over his head, he stared at the Bio-lock as he quickly took aim.

 

Suddenly, though, he stopped. If he broke the Bio-Lock, he'd get in, maybe, but not without setting off the security alarms, which would bring all four of those idiots up here, fast, and while he figured he could take them all easily enough if he had to, the little demon . . . He wasn't entirely sure of how bad her condition really was, did he, and doing something stupid, like starting a fight with the guards . . . that was something that he really couldn't risk; not right now . . .

 

`Shit!' he blasted as he dashed for the stairs again.

 

The trip back down to the basement took less time than it had in going up. Vaulting over the railing to get downstairs faster, he grimaced when he landed hard but kept moving. Even then, using her blood for a transfusion was the best idea, but even if he had managed to get in there, it would have taken some time for it to warm up enough to give it to her, anyway, and time wasn't something that he had.

 

She was still breathing though it sounded a bit more labored in his ears. Hunkering down beside her, he spared a minute to check her vital signs again before he reached for bandages. She'd told him once that she couldn't be stitched, that she wouldn't heal, but as he stared at her arms, he wasn't so sure. Hands shaking, he forced himself to pull the lacerations open, to see what those bastards—the white-coats—had done to her. Cut straight down, clean to the bone, or so it seemed. From the position of the wounds, he knew damn well that they'd likely cut into her artery and either they hadn't meant to and therefore didn't too badly or her body had already healed the most dangerous wounds. She was still bleeding fairly heavily from both arms though her left one seemed to have sustained worse injury than her right . . .

 

“Why didn't you tell me . . .?” he muttered once more as he worked, as he wrapped bandages around her arms. He had to get her out of there, and he had to do it now . . . The sound of her, begging them not to do it, echoed in his head—that pitiful plea . . . but why? After all the weeks that she'd been put through hell after hell after hell, why now? Why would this have broken her down . . .?

 

Glancing around wildly, he scanned the room for something—anything—that he could use to get her out of there—hopefully something that wouldn't draw too much attention. The trashcan that he'd cleaned out for her baths stood nearby, and he flinched. The idea of putting her into something like that to get her out of there was almost more than he could stand, but . . .

 

But he had to try to get her out without the security guards noticing, and he couldn't carry her and fight them off at the same time, if it came to that. “I'm sorry,” he muttered over and over again as he scooped her up and carefully set her into the sturdy plastic can. Why did she seem so much more diminutive in human form?

 

Grabbing his coat and knapsack, Kurt covered her with the coat to hide her from the security cameras and hit the panel to deactivate the barrier over the doorway before he headed for the door, carrying the trashcan and moving as fast as he could toward the elevator.

 

He punched the button and waited, making a face when he realized that the damn thing was all the way on the tenth floor—the top floor. Digging out his cell phone, he dialed a local taxi company. “Yeah, hi . . . I need you to send a taxi over to 298645 Levone . . . in the alley beside it—the service doors,” he said, checking the pulse in her throat and grimacing. It was weakening . . . “Hurry.”

 

“Is that a business?”

 

“Yes. Bradford Medical.”

 

The dispatcher rattled something, and he hung up, dropping the phone into his pocket as the elevator doors slid open.

 

`Damn it, this isn't how this was supposed to go . . .' he thought as he pulled the can into the elevator and smashed his fist against the `1F' button.

 

“Hold on,” he muttered, smashing the heels of his hands over his eyes and rubbing hard. “Just hold on, okay . . .?”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“It was a barrier . . . another barrier . . . a barrier inside a barrier . . .”

 

Pacing around the office with a glass of scotch in his hand, Cain said nothing, simply listening as Kichiro told him everything that InuYasha had told him over the phone early this morning.

 

“They've got a scent, but Evan said it was some guy who was looking to rent the place. I don't know, though . . . seems awfully suspicious that the only room they could really smell him in was that one in the basement . . .”

 

Cain nodded slowly. “Go on.”

 

Kichiro sighed and rubbed his eyes. “According to the old man, that whole building felt like . . . like a vacuum . . . The barrier outside wasn't constructed to keep youkai out as much as it was to . . . hide whatever was inside there . . . At least, that's how sounded to me . . .”

 

Mulling that over for a moment, he considered it with a frown. “Like a . . . a what? Like a youki privacy fence or something . . .?” Cain mused.

 

Kichiro snorted at Cain's oversimplified description. “Yeah, something like that . . .”

 

“But they haven't found the guy yet?”

 

Kichiro shook his head. Cain frowned. It struck him, just how much older, how much more haggard the hanyou looked these days, not that he could blame him. He felt that way, himself . . .

 

Of course, seeing the hanyou in human form for the night . . . Well, that was more than a little odd, too. It also served to remind him that it also meant that Samantha was, as well, and that was more than enough to make Cain nervous, and he could feel Kichiro's own worry, as acute as it was. That he was in here with Cain instead of out there with Bellaniece because he didn't want her to sense it, too . . . that spoke volumes, in Cain's opinion . . .

 

“And your mother?” Cain asked, more to keep Kichiro talking than anything else. Distraction was the name of the game, and while Cain would be the first to admit that he thought Kichiro was an assmonkey, he'd also have to allow—at least, to himself—that the hanyou was a decent husband to his daughter, and a damn good father, too.

 

“Mama was able to remove the inner barrier. She's been looking for the guy along with the old man, but . . .”

 

“But?” Cain prodded when Kichiro trailed off.

 

Kichiro shook his head and leaned forward, scowling at the floor. “But it could just be coincidence, right? This guy . . . maybe he was just looking to rent the place, and if that's the only room that had anything in it—that's what they said—then it makes sense that he might have taken more time, looking around in there than he might have otherwise.”

 

Cain nodded but didn't really respond. He could understand, of course. Kichiro was loathe to get his hopes worked up, only to have them dashed yet again, wasn't he? Ever since they'd sent those flyers to the generals, it seemed like the creeps were crawling out of the woodwork. Cain had gotten a couple prank calls, sure, but Kichiro had gotten more, and whether that was because Cain was tai-youkai so they didn't dare tease him or because Kichiro was her father, Cain didn't know. Either way, it pissed Cain off. After all, the man's daughter was missing. Did he really have to endure some idiot's twisted idea of a perverse joke, too?

 

Crossing the floor, staring out the window, Cain let out a deep breath. “When are you going back?”

 

Kichiro let out a deep breath and shook his head. “In a couple days,” he replied. “Couldn't get a flight till Wednesday . . .”

 

With a nod, Cain drained the last of the scotch in his glass and set it on the small table beside him with a heavy thud. It frustrated him beyond all reason, to be stuck here like this, unable to do a damn thing but make calls that led nowhere and take calls that meant nothing, and yet it seemed like it was all he could do, didn't it?

 

He heard Kichiro stand up, heard him sigh as he headed for the doorway.

 

“You know,” Cain said, stopping him in his tracks. Out of the periphery of his vision, he saw Kichiro stop and turn, dark eyes unfathomable in the ambient light. “I wish I could do more,” he admitted at length.

 

Kichiro uttered a terse snort, digging his hands into his pockets, he leaned in the doorway and stared at his feet for a minute. “Don't want you out there,” he muttered after a significant pause.

 

Cain turned to stare at him, his eyes darkening at the perceived slight. “Is that so,” he challenged quietly.

 

Kichiro shrugged and slowly shook his head. “No. If you were out there . . .” Lifting his chin, he scowled across the study, his eyes unfocused, his expression thoughtful. “Belle needs you here, and I . . . I appreciate it, too . . . Besides, if . . . if Samantha were to call . . . Well, she'd know that you'd make sure she was safe.”

 

Caught off guard by the quality of his words, Cain nodded and smiled just a little. “You'll find her,” he said quietly, the strength of his conviction delineating his words. “You'll find her, and you'll bring her home.”

 

 

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

The hallway was clear, but he could hear voices punctuated with laughter coming from the security office. If he could get her out of there without raising their suspicions, then . . .

 

“Hey, Doc! Where you going?” Mazer called as Kurt strode past.

 

Kurt didn't answer as he kept moving. The guard followed him into the hallway. “Hey, Doc!”

 

He didn't dare stop; he really didn't. “Just taking out the trash,” he gritted out, his irritation surging in an almost perverse way. `Trash, indeed . . . damn them . . . Damn them . . .!'

 

Mazer shot him a speculative look; a suspicious glance. He stepped toward the trashcan, as though he wanted to look inside. Kurt let go, his hand snapping out to grasp Mazer's wrist. “It's just . . . trash,” he growled under his breath.

 

Mazer stared at him for a long moment without blinking. “Then you don't mind if I look.”

 

“Yeah, I think I do,” Kurt replied, stepping between Mazer and the trashcan, only one thing repeating in his head: he was not going to let them see her; not like that—not ever like that. “Step back.”

 

The guard didn't take his eyes off Kurt as he tilted his head to the side as though he were sizing Kurt up. “Why are you covered in blood?” he asked slowly.

 

Kurt narrowed his gaze on the man. “I don't know,” he replied tightly.

 

“You do something to the demon?” Mazer pressed.

 

Kurt didn't deign to answer that.

 

Mazer didn't look happy with Kurt's lack of a response. “I think I need to ask you to step away from that trashcan,” he said.

 

“Get out of my way, Mazer,” he growled.

 

“If you don't have anything to hide, then you won't mind if I take a look, right?”

 

“I told you that I do mind,” Kurt growled, stepping into the security guard's path and catching him by the shoulder. “Now if you're smart, you'll get out of my way. Understand?”

 

Mazer stood still for a second then stepped back as he drew his gun and leveled it at Kurt's chest. “Don't make me shoot you, Doc,” he warned.

 

He kicked his foot up and back, sending the trashcan scooting down the hallway a few feet—out of danger, at least for now. “I don't have time for this,” Kurt growled.

 

“I'm going to get a cup of—”

 

Kurt didn't glance at Crowley as the younger man stepped out of the office. He glanced back and forth between Mazer and Kurt a few times with a thoroughly confused look on his face. “Wh-what's going on?”

 

Mazer didn't take his eyes off Kurt, and he didn't lower his gun, either. “Go check that trashcan, Crowley,” he instructed.

 

Crowley shot him a questioning glance, but started to walk forward. Kurt waited about two seconds before barreling straight into Crowley, unleashing a surge of energy that sent him careening into Mazer. The gun fell on the floor and slid to the side, and Kurt gave it a hard kick to send it spinning away. Mazer was trying to shove a dazed Crowley out of his way, and Kurt ran at them, shoving them back into the utility closet beside the security office.

 

He yanked the door closed and ran over to the trashcan. The little demon hadn't moved at all, and he winced at the pale grayish shade in her skin as he retrieved the pad of Post-It notes from the inner pocket of his coat. He could hear the two guards inside as they struggled to right themselves, and he lunged at the door again, catching the knob just in time as Mazer started to open it. He jerked it closed, grasping the pad of notes in his teeth and using his right hand to slap the seal on the door. Touching the writing with his fingertips, he felt the discharge of energy that formed the seal, and while he wasn't entirely sure that it'd work on humans, he figured that the barrier would hold until he got her out of there, at the very least.

 

“Doc! Let me out of here!” Mazer yelled, his voice muffled nicely by the heavy door.

 

Satisfied that they were out of his way, Kurt dashed into the security office, glancing at the monitors long enough to see the two other guards in the break room playing a game of darts. It only took a few minutes of hacking to shut down the telephone systems—he doubted that any of the guards would be smart enough to be able to bring those back online any time soon, and he turned to leave but stopped for a moment when his eye caught on the extended tray of the dump writer. Grabbing it along with the box of archive cards, he stuffed them all into his pocket.

 

The little demon was deathly pale, the bandages that he'd wrapped around her arms soaked through with her blood as he carefully lifted her out of the trashcan. Wrapping her in his coat, he strode toward the doors and turned around to use his back to shove them open as he tried to shield her against the blast of frigid air that hit them as he exited the facility.

 

The taxi's bright headlights turned into the alley, and Kurt hurried over as it pulled to a stop, negotiating the door with minimal effort.

 

“She ain't gonna puke, is she?” the driver asked dubiously as he stared into the rear-view mirror.

 

“Uh, no,” Kurt replied as he pulled the door closed and adjusted her against his chest, shielding her as best as he could.

 

“My ex couldn't hold her liquor, either,” he went on as he fiddled with the toll counter, resetting it to zero.

 

Kurt only nodded, shifting her as he checked her pulse again. If the cabby wanted to believe that she was just drunk, he figured that was all right with him. The only reason he hadn't seen the blood that covered the both of them was because of the darkness in the alley, and even then . . .

 

“Reports say there's another blizzard blowing in,” the driver went on casually as he put the taxi into gear and started slowly down the alley. “Say it'll hit tomorrow or—”

 

The driver shrugged offhandedly, and it wasn't the first time that Kurt had to be thankful for the general apathy that Chicagoans tended to display. “If you don't mind, I'm in kind of a hurry,” Kurt cut in.

 

“All right,” he said, pushing the brim of his cap back and scratching at his thinning hairline as he glanced in the mirror in a completely bored sort of way. “Where to, buddy?”

 

 

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A/N:

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Reviewers

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Final Thought fromKurt:

…Human …?

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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~