InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Spiral ( Chapter 34 )

"Philips. "

"Ashur, hey.  It's Bas."

Leaning back in his chair, Ashur frowned.  "Bas . . . Did you meet with the MacDonnough?"

He heard the heavy sigh as his frown darkened.  "Yeah, I met with him," Bas allowed.  "Damned old bastard, anyway . . . He refuses to discharge Jessa's estate, and he insists that the accident report is exactly how he got it . . ."

"Then get a-hold of the mechanic, can't you?"

Bas grunted.  "That's what I've been trying to do for the last four days.  The guy's fallen off the face of the earth or something.  Shop's gone and everything.  No records, no nothing."

"That sounds awfully suspicious."

"Doesn't it?

Dropping his pen on the desk, he slowly rubbed his forehead.  "So, what now?"

"Well, Dad is willing to go through the channels to get her estate released to him since she's being given amnesty, but it's going to be a while because the only way to do it is to formally petition Sesshoumaru, and I have no doubt that he'll rule in her favor, but you know how much of a hassle the process is.  We have to build a case against her estate remaining under the blanket of the European tai-youkai, prove that it's in her best interest to have jurisdiction transferred to Dad, et cetera, et cetera . . . We can do it.  It'll just take time . . ."

"How long are we talking?  Ballpark?"

Letting out a deep breath, Bas drummed his claws on the table—Ashur could hear it all, as plain as day.  "Six months?  A year . . .?"

"But no one can touch it, right?"

"No, they can't touch it.  No one can.  The entirety of her estate is just sitting in escrow.  About the only bonus is that, until a rightful heir is named, whether it's her or her future mate, no one can do a thing.  Well, they could sell things off but the proceeds all have to go to the estate, so basically, it can be added to, but it cannot be taken from—at least, not in her case."  Bas suddenly chuckled, but it wasn't an entirely amused sound.  No, it was a little more ironic than that.  "Be easier if she'd just find her mate.  If she did, that old bastard would have to release her estate, one way or another."

Ashur grunted.  "That's what I'm afraid of . . ."

"You mean, this supposed, ‘betrothed’ of hers?"

"Is that what MacDonnough's calling it?"

Bas cleared his throat.  "Yep . . . Look, I've been checking into the duke's son, too . . . From what I've found out, though, he's not here."

Ashur grimaced.  "That's what we kind of thought."

"As far as I can tell, no one knows exactly where he is, but since no one knows where she is, either, there's that.  Just keep an eye on her."

"I already knew that," he said, unable to keep the clipped tone out of his voice.

Bas sighed again.  "I'm going to hang around here awhile longer, see if I can't overstay my welcome . . . I'm going to try to dig up something on the mechanic, although indications seem to be that he's either dead or just vanished . . ."

"Killing someone outright?  That doesn't exactly sound like MacDonnough's MO—unless he sent one of his hunters after him . . ."

Bas snorted.  "I'm sure he didn't do a damn thing to dirty his own hands.  Anyway, I've got to go.  I'm meeting Cassidy for dinner.  She has a few connections that she said she'd check into for me."

"Cassidy?"

"Inutaisho—Gunnar's sister.  Much nicer than he is, though . . . Almost as pretty, too . . ."

"That's messed up," Ashur muttered.

Bas laughed.  "I'll give you a call if I find out anything else."

"All right. Thanks."

The call ended, and Ashur sighed as he dropped the phone onto the desk.

To be honest, he hadn't actually thought that Bas would make any more headway than they already had, but he'd hoped . . . He should have known better . . .

A soft knock interrupted his musings, but he didn't have to look up to recognize the familiar youki that slipped over him.  Breaking into a small smile, he glanced up anyway, rising to his feet as he held out a hand to her.

She stared at it for a long moment before slowly stepping toward him as he rounded the desk, as he pulled her into a tight hug and sighed.  "I've wanted to do this for the last two days," he murmured, kissing Jessa's forehead as she melded herself against him.

"Where's Kells?"

"Manami took him into the city to see a movie," he said.  "You were out riding, so he pouted that he didn't get to say bye before he left."

She nodded.  "So . . . they'll be gone awhile?"

"Well, a couple hours, probably . . ."

"Are you . . . busy . . .?"

He chuckled.  "Nothing I couldn't put off for a bit . . ." Bringing her hand up, he kissed the back of her knuckles.  "Did you have something in mind, Jessa?"

Her cheeks reddened prettily as she slowly shook her head, as she lifted her other hand, toying with a condom packet, slipping it around her nimble fingers.  "Do you?"

Taking it from her, he leaned down to kiss her, savoring her quiet sigh as she slipped her arms around his neck, her fingers twisting around the length of his ponytail.  The taste of her lips, as soft as the morning dew, was enough to wrench a groan from him, and he pulled her against him, hands running over her back, her waist, her hips, as she opened to him, as her tongue flicked against his . . .

"Daddy!" Kells hollered, seconds after the slam of the door jerked him right out of the moment.  Jessa gasped and hopped away from him, smashing the back of her hand over her lips as the boy tore into the office at break-neck speed.  "Jessa!  You can come to the movie, too!" he yelped, hopping up and down in his excitement.

"I forgot my phone," Manami said, poking her head into the office, wiggling the device back and forth.  Her smile widened as she glanced from Ashur to Jessa and back again.  "Uh . . . Kells . . . We're going to be late if we don't hurry."

Jamming the condom into his pocket, thankful that he'd been holding it in his hand, Ashur intercepted the heightened brightness of Manami's gaze and stifled a low groan.

"Daddy!  Can you and Jessa come, too?" Kells asked, looking entirely too excited at the prospect of them all going to the movies together.

"Oh, don't you think it'd be fun?  Just the two of us?" Manami interjected before Ashur could answer.

"But I want Jessa an' Daddy to come, too . . ." Kells grumbled, his disappointment very, very obvious.

Jessa shot Ashur a quick glance before tucking her hair behind her ear and stepping forward.  "That sounds like fun, Kells," she said, reaching for his hand as she smiled down at the boy.

Ashur smothered a sigh.  "You just want me to buy you popcorn," he muttered.

"Can I have a soda, too?"

"No," Ashur replied, grabbing his phone and following the others out of the office, cursing under his breath at his rotten luck—and his son's impeccable sense of timing . . .

"You weren't kidding at all, were you?"

Jessa glanced up at Ashur and made a face before turning her attention back to the poor fool who sat beside Manami at the fire pit as the crackle of the flames reached into the darkened sky.

"Is that why you invited him over?" Jessa asked, leaning against the railing, casually sipping her drink.

Ashur didn't deny it.  "He almost spilled that drink on her," he remarked.

"I don't think I've ever seen him as rattled as he is around her . . ."

"Daddy!  Look!" Kells exclaimed, holding up a glass jar that he was using to collect fireflies.  Jessa had popped holes into the lid for him, and he'd spent the majority of the evening, running around the yard, catching the poor, hapless insects.

"Are you going to let them go before you go inside?" he asked rather pointedly.

Kells nodded.  "Yeah, or they'll die," he replied before taking off again.

Ashur heaved a sigh.

"You know, they'd make a cute couple—if he could stop acting so goofy around her," Jessa said.

"She'd kill him," Ashur predicted.

Jessa rolled her eyes, but giggled.

Ashur shook his head as she stepped away, watching her slip into a chair at the fire pit beside Devlin.  It was the first time he'd actually spoken much to the Englishman, but he seemed all right—when Manami wasn't right there, anyway.  Something about Manami turned the man into a fumbling mess, as far as Ashur could tell.  It was a little odd, really, but Jessa found it amusing as hell . . .

"I want a hot dog!" Kells exclaimed, setting the jar on the nearby table and hopping over to Jessa's side.

She laughed and ruffled the boy's hair, standing up to shove a hot dog on a stick for him.  Then she knelt behind him, helping him to steady the skewer as he held the hot dog over the flames.

'She's damn good with him, isn't she?'

He slowly nodded.  'She is.'

'She'll make a damn good mama one day, don't you think?'

He snorted.  'She's eighteen—nowhere near ready for a baby . . .'

'Well, no, not right now, this second.  Eventually, though . . . I mean, she wants a family . . .'

'And just how would you know that?'

His youkai sighed.  'It stands to reason, baka . . . Besides, don't you want them?  More babies?'

Glancing over at Kells, Ashur narrowed his eyes, considered all the sleepless nights, all the midnight feedings, the diaper changes, the temper tantrums . . .

'And the contented sighs and the smiles that you knew were just for you . . . The pride when he learned something new, the knowledge that he was truly happy . . .'

Yeah, so those things were nice, he had to admit.  Even so, he hadn't really thought about it, had he?  The idea of really starting a family, to add to the one that Kells had now . . .?

He wasn't sure why the idea seemed so foreign.  He supposed that after everything that had happened that he simply had stopped considering a future that was so uncertain to him, or maybe . . . maybe he just never had thought about it, to start with.  Given his family, the way they operated, he'd never really wanted to bring anyone into that, hadn't wanted anyone to actually see exactly what was going on in that house . . .

And somehow, that sounded just a little more pathetic, didn't it . . .?

'And it didn't help, did it?  Seeing Hana . . .'

Grimacing inwardly at that blatant reminder, Ashur turned on his heel, wandered away—away from Jessa and Kells and Manami, somehow needing the space to think, to breathe . . .

It was the first time since that evening that he'd allowed himself to think about it.  After three years, it hadn't taken him more than ten seconds to realize that he still wasn't ready to deal with her—wasn't sure he ever would be.  The anger was still there—the rage that he felt that had managed to lay waste to the centuries of friendship they'd shared . . . It still felt like the ultimate betrayal, and it was still too fresh, even after three years: too fresh, too raw, and entirely too close . . .

And yet, some small part of him knew, didn't he?  Knew that he would have to deal with it, at least on some level.  Maybe he wouldn't have to face Hana again, but Jessa . . . The confusion on her face, the questions that she hadn't had the heart to raise . . . But he'd seen them awash in her gaze, even if she had realized that he just couldn't tell her . . .

Because telling her about Hana would open up too many doors, would raise more questions in her head that he wasn't sure if he could answer . . . Even now, as he'd gained perspective, as he'd managed to separate himself from the past on some level . . . There were days when he still had trouble, reconciling the things he knew, the things he'd grown up with, and the more time he spent with Kells, the more surreal it all seemed.

What he'd discovered over the course of the last three years was that, for every one of those things that he cherished: the smiles, the laughter, the tears, the triumphs, and even the failures, with every one of those things had also come love—a love that he hadn't understood on that day, when he'd stood there with a crying newborn in his hands.  He hadn't understood because he'd never felt it before.  He'd had to learn it, and it had started with Kells.

"His name is Kells . . . It's a . . . A movie I watched years ago . . . It was about a boy who helps his master, who's writing the Book of Kells—the secret of turning darkness into . . . into light . . ."

Ashur smiled wanly as the echo of his words, spoken so long ago, echoed in his head.  ‘And . . . And he is, isn’t he?  That’s what he did . . . Kells . . . Kells is light—pure light . . .’

Jessa . . . She knew that love, didn't she?  Understood it because it had been given to her freely, and maybe that was the reason why she could, in turn, give the same to Kells, regardless of whether or not Kells was her own.  Somehow, Kells had managed to breach her defenses, and if there was nothing else that she could do to earn his unerring devotion, she'd found his one weakness, hadn't she?

Everything, everything, revolved around Kells.  Whether by accident or design, he'd burned bridges because of Kells, had turned his back on Hana because of what she'd done, because of what she'd nearly cost him . . . and maybe it was Kells who had forged that bridge that had led him to Jessa, too . . . and just how ironic was that, really . . .?

"Ashur?"

He stopped at the sound of that voice, slowly turned to face her as Jessa wandered toward him, one arm crossed over her stomach, the other holding onto the length of her hair.  Skin glowing, eyes shining, she stopped beside him, leaning her head to the side as she slowly regarded him, searched his face in the waning light, in the thickening shadows.  

"Are you all right?" she asked quietly.

"Fine," he replied, forcing a thin smile, solely for her, willing her to believe, to accept his lie as truth.  "Everything's good."

She didn't believe him.  He knew she didn't.  Still, she sighed, smiled just a little.  "I'm . . . I'm going to put Kells to bed," she told him.  "Then I guess I'll . . . I'll go to bed, too . . ."

He caught her hand as she started away.  "Leave you balcony doors unlocked," he said.  "I just . . . I just want to hold you . . ."

She stared at him for a long moment, but finally, she nodded.

He sighed as she walked away—wondering, not for the first time, just what the hell he thought he was doing.

"Something good?"

Ashur blinked and glanced up, taking the snifter of brandy that Manami offered him as she sank down on the sofa beside him, leaning forward to look at the report he had been trying—and failing—to read.

"Ontario?  Anything interesting?" she asked, settling back with her knees drawn up beside him.

"Not really," he replied, dropping the stack of papers on the coffee table with a heavy sigh.  "They didn't mention that being a general could be one of the most boring things in the world."

She laughed quietly, softly, reaching out, brushing his bangs out of his face with her gentle fingers, with her feathery touches.  "I'm leaving in the morning," she said.  "Cain called.  He has a job for me."

"Do you honestly like hunting, Nami?" he asked.

She shrugged.  "No, not really," she replied.  "Someone's got to do it, though, right?  And . . . And I promised."

"Oh?  What promise?"

She smiled, but it seemed a little sad.  "When I wanted to learn how to fight . . . The one who trained me made me promise that if agreed to do so, that I'd use what he taught me to make sure that what happened to him wouldn't happen to anyone else . . ."

"What happened to him?"

She shrugged, as though her tale was of no real consequence—or maybe she simply didn't want it to be.  "When he was small, his parents were killed—killed because of what they were."

"Which was . . .?" he prompted when she trailed off.

The look she leveled at him was dark, mysterious.  "They were jigoku," she said.

His eyebrows lifted.  "Hell-youkai?  But those are just a . . . a myth—a legend . . ."

"So I thought," she agreed.  "I was wrong.  He was one, too—the last one, to my knowledge.  His parents were killed by someone who wanted to harness their powers.  Their bodies disintegrated before he could, but even so . . . Shishou was old when I met him—old and lonely . . . He refused to search for his mate, never tried.  He was afraid of passing on his heritage, but he taught me all I needed to know about the art of assassination, and the day that he said that I had mastered everything he could teach me, he . . . He walked away, and I never saw him again.  A year later, I received his ring—his father's ring—and when I saw it, I knew he really was gone."  Taking a long drink from her snifter, she uttered a shaky laugh.  "I've never told anyone all of that," she admitted.  "I thought that it'd hurt a lot more than it does . . ."

Ashur sighed, staring at the amber liquid, slowly swirling it around.  "I . . . I saw Hana the other night," he said.  "I'd taken Jessa to dinner, and . . . and there she was . . ."

"I can't imagine that was good."

He shook his head.  "She asked me about him—about Kells . . ."

“Oh . . .”

He grunted, not trusting himself to say anything at all as he tossed back all the booze in the glass.

Manami untangled her legs, taking his empty snifter and taking her time, refilling both hers and his before ambling back over, pausing long enough to hand his back before sinking down on the sofa once more.  “It’s a small world sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Too small,” he muttered, his jaw ticking as he grappled with a fresh surge of irritation, crushing down the almost perverse desire to go find something to smash into bits before he gave into the urge.

“You’re sure that there’s no way you can see past what she did?”

That question earned the swan-youkai a very dark look.  “Could you if you were me?”

Letting out a deep breath that sent her bangs, straight up off of her forehead, Manami slowly shook her head, smoothed the suede cushion beside her as she considered her own feelings on the matter.  “Probably not,” she finally said, her shoulders, bobbing in a curt shrug.  “That child . . .”

Ashur sighed, too.  “Yeah.”

Sipping her drink, she seemed entirely thoughtful.  The tick of the clock on the mantle, the crackle of the small fire on the hearth, was the only sound in the room, and Manami finally cleared her throat, as a gentle preamble to lessen the shock of her voice, breaking the fallen silence.  "Have you told Jessa anything?  About Hana?"

"No."

"But the two of you . . . There's something there.  I don’t blame you.  She’s an absolutely gorgeous girl, isn’t she?"  Holding up a hand to silence his protests before he could start making them, she smiled.  "Give me some credit, Ashur.  I'm not stupid . . . So, just how serious are you?"

"I . . . I don't know . . ."

"Don't know or just don't want to think about it?"

That earned her a darkened scowl.  "I can't . . . get her out of my head," he confessed.  "I just . . . When I'm near her, I . . ." He grimaced, heaved a sigh.  "If I . . . If I tell her about . . . about Hana—about everything . . . She’ll think . . ."

“That you’re a monster?” Manami supplied quietly when Ashur’s words failed him.

He winced, his gaze, falling to the floor beneath his feet, as though he didn’t have the right to even look at Manami.  “Something like that.”

“But you’re not,” she told him.

He shook his head.  “Denying something doesn’t really make it true,” he retorted.

"That girl's been through hell the past year," she told him quietly, gently.  "She's been through more than many adults do in their entire lifetimes, and if you honestly think she won't understand, then you're wrong.  I'd bet my life on that . . . It's in her eyes, if you stop, if you look.  She's older than some centuries-old youkai in some ways—in the ways that should matter."

He shook his head.  "How can I ask her to understand a things that I don't even understand?  For the last three years, everything I’ve had, I've given to Kells, and I . . ."

She reached over, placed her hand on his cheek.  "So, what are you doing with her, then?  Ashur, I've seen the way she looks at you when you're not paying attention, when she thinks that no one can see.  I’ve seen the way she listens when your name is mentioned . . . She's wearing her heart on her sleeve, and you . . . You need to see it—see her . . . and maybe . . . Maybe you're the only one who can truly appreciate, just how much she's had to deal with because you've done the same thing—dealt with the same stuff—for the last three years—maybe longer—too."

He didn't answer her, said nothing as he continued to stare at the glass in his hand.

She yawned and uncurled her legs, pushing herself to her feet.  "I'm going to bed.  I have to get an early start in the morning, but before I do, I'll tell you one last thing, and you can take it or leave it; it's entirely up to you."

He sighed.  "What's that?"

She smiled.  "I've been all over the world a number of times.  I've traveled from Japan to France to Asia and here.  I've seen so many faces come and go, but I tell you this: I've never, ever met another woman quite like Jessa O'Shea, and I know that I never will again.  If she's your one?  You grab onto her and don't let her go, Ashur, because she's rare, and she's beautiful, and if you let her go, you'll never find another like her again."