InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Crawl ( Chapter 6 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Jessa groaned as she rolled over in bed, yanking her pillow over her head as she sought to block out the noise coming from the traffic on the street below.  Not for the first time, she had to wonder why there wasn't some sort of law against blaring one's car horn at the bloody crack of dawn.

'It's not really the bloody crack of dawn,' her youkai-voice pointed out.  'And you're the one who forgot to close your window—again.'

'Quit talking.  I'm going back to sleep.'

Except, she realized after ten minutes of futile effort, she wasn't going to do that, at all.  So, she was in a pretty shoddy mood, all things considered, as she sat up straight, her blankets crumpling around her waist as she heaved a heavy sigh and slowly rubbed her face.  Glancing at the clock told her everything she didn't want to know: nine in the morning.  For some reason, that made her want to cry . . .

'Because you didn't get off work this morning till nearly four, and by the time you got back home, it was closer to five . . .'

She smothered a sigh.  After she'd finally gotten home, though, she'd had to take a shower to wash off the stench of the club, and then she'd been unable to go right to sleep, either.  When she'd looked at the clock, it was nearly a quarter after six . . .

She was slowly getting used to working at the club, though, so that was a bit of a relief.  At first, she hadn't actually believed that she ever really would.  Carol was quickly becoming a very good friend—the first real friend she'd ever had, if she were completely honest.  Given that the girls who attended the Saint Finian School, an all girls' parochial boarding school, were all of the most wealthy, the most noble of families in Ireland if not the United Kingdom as a whole, the level of rivalry was high, and the more notable one's family was, the worse she was usually treated, and, given her father's name and the rumored wealth associated with it, Jessa hadn't actually made any friends there, and when she'd enrolled at the All Saints Secondary Academy in Dublin, she'd been too busy, studying for her Leaving Certificate, to be bothered.  She'd passed with flying colors a few months after she'd turned seventeen, making her one of the younger ones in her year, anyway—something she'd always felt but hadn't really cared about.

The truth of it was that Jessa had never gotten along with other girls her age, and it was something that she'd never really understood.  It always seemed like the other girls had singled her out for whatever reason: snubbing her, spreading rumors, or just flat-out trying to bully her.  She'd ignored them easily enough, at least until she'd closed the door of the private room that her father had paid an exorbitant amount of money for.  Only then had she ever cried, but her pride had only allowed that a handful of times, too.  No, her escape back then had always been in seeking out the nearest stable—not difficult since her parents made sure that every school she attended had stables, and that they let her bring her beloved Derry along—the gorgeous white and black Gypsy Cob horse they had given her for her twelfth birthday.  Back then, she had spent so many nights in the stable, sleeping beside him in his stall, much to her parents' dismay.  When the trials of boarding school had gotten to be too much, she'd saddled up Derry and had gone for long, long runs through the countryside around Dublin . . .

'Who cares about all of that?' she thought stubbornly, deliberately trying to ignore the nagging ache that surged through her at the very thought of the horse she'd had to leave behind.  That, more than anything, had been horrible, really.  As it was, she could only hope that Kermit, the stable hand who had worked for her family forever, it seemed, was allowed to stay to care for Derry, along with the rest of the horses, still on the grounds . . .

She sighed, letting her head fall back as she stared blankly up at the ceiling.  In the nearly two weeks since she'd started waitressing, she'd managed to accumulate almost three thousand dollars that she kept neatly in her underclothes drawer.  By the time she turned eighteen in a few days, maybe she'd have enough.  Carol had said that she had an extra room if Jessa was interested.

So, just why was it that the idea of moving out was not nearly as appealing as it was before . . .?

'You know why, silly girl,' her youkai scolded lightly.  'And you're right.  When he's not being a complete and utter ass, he can be quite personable, can't he?'

She snorted inwardly.  'Just because he's taken me out to dinner with Kells a few times does not mean that he's not still an arrogant ass,' she argued.

'And he's bought more food than that disgusting lunch meat, he called it . . .'

'A few fruits and some carrots and celery really aren't 'food'.'

Rolling her head slowly from one side to the other, she let out a deep breath.   She really ought to go back to sleep, but she knew she couldn’t.  She'd always had trouble going back to sleep once she was roused in the morning.  If she were lucky, maybe she'd be able to get in a nap before work tonight, but given the fact that Kells seemed to love to drag her around everywhere, she rather doubted that.  That child was entirely too precocious, too unpretentious, too undeniably sweet, and she had to wonder, however vaguely, just how Ashur could ever really discipline him.  She couldn’t even be cross with the lad, let alone scold him . . .

She sighed, rubbing her her face wearily.  All that aside, her living arrangements at the moment weren’t entirely intolerable.  No, the biggest problem she’d had so far was last night, actually.  As long as there wasn't a repeat of that, it'd be fine, wouldn't it?

She flopped back down, rolling over to bury her face in her pillow.  She really didn't want to think about that; not really . . .

"Jessie!  Can you grab that trash and take it out for me?  Kind of busy here," Roger, one of the bartenders for the night, hollered over the din of noise as Jessa set her tray on the counter to take her break.

"All right, sure," she said, hurrying around the bar to grab the bagged-up garbage.  She'd long since given up in correcting people who got her name wrong.  For some reason, everyone other than Carol seemed to think that her name was Jessie.  Maybe it was her accent . . .

Ignoring a table full of half-drunk, late-twenties men who hollered at her as she moved toward the black baize doors that led to the kitchen with the trash in hand, she let out a deep breath as the greasy smell of too much fried everything stung her nostrils, and she rubbed her nose to stave off a sneeze.  She heard the doors to the front of the house swing open and closed behind her, but thought nothing of it, fluttering her hand as a couple of the cooks called out to her in Spanish as she passed. They were nice enough, maybe.  Too bad she didn't understand a word of what they were saying.

The cooler air outside the delivery doors was welcome despite the myriad of dark and dank smells that lived there.  The sounds of the club still hadn't stopped ringing in her ears as she sniffled and strode over to the dumpster that sat just outside of the wan circle of tepid light, she tossed the bag over the high side and turned around.

She gasped, eyes widening as one of the men from that table grabbed her around the waist, shoved her back against the dumpster as he leaned down to kiss her.  She tried to push him away, but her arms were caught against her sides, and even though he was human, he was a very buff human, a good half a foot taller than she.  The beer on his breath was almost enough to choke her as she gagged and struggled to get away, and when he tried to shove his tongue into her mouth, she bit down.  Hard.

"Bitch!" he shrieked, shoving her hard as he stumbled back a step.  Her head thumped against the unforgiving metal, and she grimaced, her breath whooshing out of her in a rush as his fist connected with her stomach, doubling her over as she fell to her knees . . .

The next thing she heard, though, was the sound of heels, clicking fast against the tired asphalt, followed by the man's crazy scream.  "Get the hell out of here, you bastard," Carol's voice registered.  "Come back again, and I'll let Rock beat on you until there's nothing left for your mama!"

"Fuckin' bitches . . ." the man muttered between grunts of pain as he lurched away down the alley.

Jessa pushed herself up, letting her temple fall against the cool dumpster as Carol watched him go before she dropped beside her, pushing her hair out of her face, cupping her cheeks in her hands as she examined her face.  "Are you okay?" she demanded, her voice unnaturally harsh.

Jessa nodded, still catching her breath as she winced.  "How . . .?  How did you—?"

Carol barked out a terse laugh as she smoothed Jessa’s hair back again and planted a kiss on her cheek.  "I kicked him in the balls," she said, as though Jessa ought to have known as much.  "I saw him follow you, so I followed him . . . Damned bastard . . ."

Rubbing her face with shaking hands, Jessa pushed herself to her feet, wincing as she sighed and brushed off her clothes, absently thankful that the short skirt was black so it didn't show dirt like the white halter top she wore did.

Carol stood up, too, reaching over to straighten the straps of the top that circled around the back of Jessa's neck with a frown on her pretty face.  "Here, your hair's all . . ." she sighed and shook her head, using her fingers to try to fix Jessa's hair.  "Oh, honey . . . Are you okay?  I can cover your tables if you want to go on home . . ."

Jessa cleared her throat, grimacing as the ache in her gut twinged.  She'd be all right by morning, she figured, but at the moment, it felt like someone had tried to twist her intestines into knots.  "I'm fine," she lied, forcing a wan smile, solely for Carol's benefit.

Heaving a sigh as the memory faded, she winced.  That was entirely too close for comfort, wasn't it?  Carol had suggested that she get a small can of pepper spray, just in case, but Jessa scowled.  She didn't really need that, did she?  What she needed to do was to pay attention better.  Somehow, she'd gotten lax, which was a really dumb thing to do.  If she had been more alert, she'd never have been caught so off guard, and the perceived sense of weakness that she felt as sharply as she had at the time was enough to bring back the surge of ugly anger once more . . .

"Never," she muttered, tossing the blankets aside as she swung her legs off the bed.  Something like that would never, ever happen again.  She wouldn't let it.


"I . . . don't know that this is a good idea . . ."

Bas Zelig, the future North American tai-youkai, shot Ashur a questioning glance, thick arms crossed over his even-thicker chest as he shrugged off-handedly.  "It'll be fine," he insisted, brushing off Ashur's very obvious concern.

"Putting a bokken in that one's hands is a disaster, just waiting to happen," Ashur predicted, pinching the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes against the aforementioned disaster that he could feel approaching, like the ground that rumbled well before one ever saw the train, buzzing down the tracks.

"Look, Daddy!  Look!" Kells exclaimed, waving the bokken wildly in the air as he hopped up and down like a demented bunny.

Bas whistled sharply.  His son, Bailey straightened his back and held his bokken at his side, as did Bas' foster son, Daniel.  Kells stopped, too, and slowly lowered the one in his hand.  "That's not a toy, Kells," Bas growled, intentionally inflicting enough sternness into his tone to get his message across.  "It's a sword—a weapon—and we do not ever play around with weapons.  Understand?"

Kells nodded rapidly.  "Sorry!"

"Don't let anyone catch you doing that again."

"Okay!"

"If anyone catches you, swinging it around or otherwise disrespecting it, then you'll have to give it back until we decide you're old enough to have it back again," Bas warned.

Kells nodded quickly, casting a quick but anxious glance at Ashur, who was mirroring Bas' stern expression.  For a brief second, his lip quivered precariously, but he drew a deep breath and choked down his own upset.

Satisfied that he'd made his point, Bas nodded.  "Okay, boys.  Take turns teaching him now to block," he said to Daniel and Bailey.  "And Bailey?  For the love of all that's holy, take it easy on him.  It's his first lesson."

"Bas . . .?"

"Hmm?"

Ashur cleared his throat.  "Don't take this the wrong way, but . . . You should come live with me for a few weeks . . . Just long enough to get him to behave better . . ."

Bas chuckled.  "Oh, I don't know, Ky-Ash . . . He seems pretty damned well-behaved to me.  Just a little hyper—kind of like Evan, come to think of it."

"Oh, kami," Ashur sighed since he was more than a little familiar with that particular Zelig . . .

Chuckling softly as he watched the boys, teaching Kells how to hold the bokken, Bas relaxed slightly.  "So, Ben tells me that you're letting Myrna's cousin stay with you?  How's that going?"

Ashur never got a chance to answer as the French door behind him opened, and the girl in question strolled outside in a thick gray sweater, a pair of black shorts, and a steaming mug of coffee clenched in her hands.  She looked adorably rumpled, her hair sticking up in wild disarray, and when she met his gaze, she nodded, mumbling, "Morning," as she lifted the mug to her lips with both hands.

Bas blinked and shook his head, clearing his throat as he glanced at Ashur.  "Myrna's cousin, I take it?"

Jessa nodded.  "Jessa O'Shea," she supplied.

"I'm Bas Zelig," he replied with a curt nod.  "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," she said, her gaze shifting over to the boys.  Bailey was still showing Kells how to properly hold the bokken.  "What are they doing?" she asked, inclining her head at the boys.

"They're learning how to fight," Ashur said.

"With swords?"

He shot her a glance, only to look back again at the complete and utter confusion on her face.  "Of course," he added.  "Didn't your father know how?"

She slowly shook her head then nodded.  Then shrugged.  "I . . . I don't know," she said.  "I never saw him, uh, spar with anyone, no . . ."  She wrinkled her nose as a thoughtful little scowl surfaced.  “Well, he did have a sword, come to think of it . . .”

A strange suspicion crept up his spine, and he frowned.  "Don't you know how to fight?"

She uttered a curt laugh, as though what he'd said was absolutely ridiculous.  "Of course not!" she scoffed.  "That's . . . That's utterly barbaric, don't you think?"

"Actually, no," he replied.  "You mean to tell me that your father didn't even teach you basic self-defense?"  He could see on her face, the very second her mind shut down, closed him off, just as she had done the morning after her arrival when he'd inadvertently said something about her father then, as well.  "I'm not insulting your father," he pointed out.  "I just find it hard to believe that any father wouldn't teach his daughter at least some basic self-defense; that's all."

Bas cleared his throat.  "Well, technically, Dad didn't teach Belle, either . . ."

Ashur shot Bas a quizzical look.  "What?  Wait, what?"

Bas blinked at the odd look he was receiving and shrugged.  "It just never occurred to him to do it, and if Jessa's family weren't the kind that needed to know how to fight, it makes sense that he didn't think to teach her, either.  Besides that, Bellaniece is hanyou, and he was more worried that she’d get herself into a situation that she couldn’t control, and if that happened, if her youkai-blood took over, we-e-ell . . ."

Ashur rolled his eyes and slowly shook his head as he continued to regard her carefully.  "I'll teach you," he stated with a marked frown.  "Maybe it was safer for you back in Ireland, but the city can be a fairly scary place.  People get mugged here every day or worse . . . Every woman—every person—should know how to defend themselves, at the very least."

For a split second, he thought that she just might argue with him.  A flicker of . . . something . . . surfaced on her features, but it was gone before he could rightfully interpret it.  In the end, though, she just bit her lip and nodded.  "Okay," she agreed reluctantly.


"You're youkai, so, what can you do?"

Crossing her arms over her chest under the baggy folds of the gray sweatshirt that he'd tossed at her to train in, Jessa cocked her head to the side and slowly regarded him as she considered his question.  "What do you mean?" she finally asked with a shake of her head and a confused frown.

Ashur shrugged as he paced the stone patio under his bare feet.  "I mean," he said, planting his hands on his hips as he kept moving, "you're a fire-bearing-youkai, correct?  How much control do you have over it?"

"You mean, can I start fires?  That sort of thing?"

He nodded, but gave a little shrug.  "Yes, but what I really mean is, can you do it whenever you wish?  Or is it something that you can only do when you're emotionally agitated?"

She didn't look like she was entirely certain, and Ashur pivoted on his heel to point at the wrought iron fire pit nearby.  Striding over to it, he dug into the metal locker off to the side and pulled out a few small logs along with some smaller twigs to drop into the empty pit.  Then he stepped back and gestured at it.  "Can you set it on fire?"

Hooking her hair behind her ear, Jessa scowled at the wood in the pit.  For a minute, nothing happened, and Ashur frowned.  She didn't even know how to harness her own youki to create fire without having it sparked by pure emotion?

'Just what the hell was her father thinking?  The rest of it?  Okay, but this?  Holy damn . . .'

She let out her breath in a sudden whoosh, shaking her head as she furiously rubbed at her forehead.  "I . . . I can't . . ."  She sounded so angry, as though she thought that her failure was of her own making, and a lot of Ashur's initial irritation dissolved.

He sighed and stepped toward her, holding out his hand as he approached.  "Give me your hand," he said, twitching his fingers to encourage her.

She stared at his hand for a long moment before slowly, hesitantly, sticking hers out.  He took it and turned it over gently, palm-side up.  "There . . . Now, concentrate.  Stare at the center point of your hand and concentrate on extending your youki, gathering it there in your palm."

She licked her lips, her brow furrowing as she tried to do what he said.  He stepped behind her, leaned down to whisper in her ear.  "Your element is fire.  You can do this.  Focus on creating a spark.  It doesn't have to be a big one.  Even a small one will do . . . Just see it in your mind . . ."

He blinked as a few little sparks ignited in her hand, only to fizzle out in faster than a second.  She tried for another minute before letting out her breath in another loud gasp, her hand dropping as her shoulders slumped slightly.  "I . . . I'll try again in a minute," she said, breathing hard as she shook her head and impatiently shoved an errant lock of hair back behind her ear.

"You're angry," he said softly, stepping around her, frowning at her as he read her aura.  Then he nodded.  "So, we're done."

She shot him a withering glance.  "Done?  But you said—"

"And you're angry," he stated again.  "You cannot learn to control your youki if you're angry."

She glowered at him in an entirely petulant sort of way, crossing her arms over her chest as she lowered her chin and peered up at him through the thick fringe of her eyelashes.  "I'm not angry, I'm frustrated," she grumbled.  "There's a difference."

"It's still a level of emotion that clouds your rational thought," he maintained, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at her, his expression stony, impassive.  "The clearer your mind, the easier it will be for you to focus your youki and to use it."

The look on her face proclaimed her doubt, and with a loud sigh, Ashur unleashed a surge of youki straight into the ground below the stones where he stood.  A moment later, a sudden quake shook the patio, but not hard enough to disturb the pavement.  Her chin lifted as her eyes opened wide.  "You did that . . ."

"I could have done much worse than that," he told her.  "But even doing that much is a lot more difficult if my emotions are out of my control . . . It’s the difference between one little tremor that cannot be felt, five feet from me or wrecking the entire yard and bringing that townhouse down in the process."

She digested that for a moment, a thousand thoughts, flitting through her brain as a myriad of emotions surfaced on her features, only to disappear before he could rightfully discern them all.  "Okay," she said, lifting her shoulders as she drew a deep breath and held out her hand again.  Closing her eyes, she breathed slowly, obviously concentrating, and Ashur nodded, his gaze lighting in silent approval, as a tiny spark flickered to life, burning brightly in the palm of her hand . . .