InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Overcast ( Chapter 48 )

Struggling to control his anger, Ashur glowered at the blood on his hands—the blood that was doubtlessly covering the telephone receiver—as he waited impatiently for Ben to answer.

"Hey, Ash.  Miss me already?"

"Hardly, you ass," Ashur growled, then he grimaced and sighed.  "I need you to look someone up for me.  I'm going to, too, but the faster I get some answers, the better."

"Okay. Who are we looking into?"

"Jorges Mormount—serpent-youkai—French-Canadian . . . I need to know where the hell he is."

"All right," Ben said, his words drawn out slightly, and Ashur figured that he was writing down what he'd told him.  "How fast is 'faster'?"

"Like, yesterday," Ashur muttered, catching the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he keyed in a search of his own.  "I want to know where he is, what he's doing, right now."

"Jorges Mormount . . . Tell me why that name sounds familiar . . .?" Ben asked.  In the background, he could hear the click of a keyboard.

Ashur grunted, scowling at the screen when the official files opened, giving the man's last known address as Paris, France.  "He was one of the dissidents," he replied.  "He was on that list I gave you."

"Oh, good, then he should be in the system, for sure."

"Except the last known address is in France, and it's pretty damn obvious that he's not there now."

"What's going on?"

With a sigh, slowly flexing his fingers of his right hand—the one he'd broken his phone with—Ashur gritted his teeth.  "They've found me," he said, figuring that it was enough of an answer, knowing that Ben would understand.

"Son of a bitch . . ."

Ashur sighed.  "I fought one last week—Ray Johnston.  He won't be a problem anymore, but . . . but he got some . . . some pictures."

"Of Kells?"

Willing back a fresh surge of rage, Ashur licked his lips.  "Of . . . Of Jessa."

Ben grunted.  "Yeah, but . . . just getting a picture of someone on your estate isn't that big of a deal.  I mean, I get it: you don't want her getting caught up in this mess, and—"

"Jorges Mormount knows about her, too," Ashur cut in, unwilling to tell Ben the rest of it—of what the pictures actually were . . .

"Did he threaten her?"

"Yeah . . . Yeah, he did."

"Damn . . ." Ben let out a deep breath, the click of his keyboard coming through the line once more.  "I'm not getting too much different info here, but—wa-a-a-ait . . . Okay, yeah, I've got an address.  Not sure if it's accurate or not, but it's in Canada, about twenty-four-hundred miles away, give or take—the address is Edmonton in Alberta.  I'll send it to you."

"Just tell me," Ashur said.  "I broke my phone."

"Oh, uh, sure . . . Got a pen and paper?"

"Yeah."

"234 Faveur Court, Edmonton, Alberta . . . Do me a favor and grab a new phone before you take off."

"I don't have time, Ben," Ashur replied, dropping the phone into the cradle as he stashed the paper into his pocket and pushed himself to his feet and strode out of the office.  Glancing at the clock, he grimaced.  Kells wasn't due out of school for another couple hours, but Jessa could pick him up.  The real problem was the nearly forty-hour trip by car, and even if he ran, it would still take a while.  He could use his energy form, but it was taxing, and if he planned on fighting, he really couldn't afford to waste that amount of his energy reserves . . .

Stifling a growl, he grabbed his car keys off the table near the door.  "Jessa!" he hollered, jamming his feet into his shoes.

He felt her presence, but she didn't speak.  Standing at the top of the stairs, she stared down at him, her hair falling over her turned face.  "I have to go, so pick up Kells after preschool," he said abruptly.  "I'll be gone a couple days, at least . . ."

"Where?"

"Don't worry about it," he grumbled.

"But—"

"It's not important, okay?  Just . . ." He grimaced, willing himself to calm down, willing himself to remember that she . . . She really wasn't the problem in this equation.  "I'll be home as soon as I can," he said, his tone losing much of its bluster.

"Okay," she said, her voice dropping, almost meek-sounding.

He turned on his heel and strode out of the house, not giving himself a chance to ponder her strange response.  No, the only thing on his mind was locating Jorges Mormount and burying him . . .

Stumbling into the living room after tucking Kells into bed for the night, Jessa raked a hand through her hair and tried to avoid, looking at the clock since it couldn't be more than half an hour since the last time that she'd checked.

"Still no word from Ashur?"

Letting out a deep breath, she bypassed the sofa, shaking her head, and poured two glasses of wine before heading back and handing one to Devlin.  Settling on the other end of the couch with her feet drawn up before her, she pressed the soles together, letting her knees fall open, cradling the glass of wine between her hands in the diamond void created by her legs.

With every moment that passed, the reasons that she came up with for Ashur's sudden departure were growing.  Most of them were borderline ridiculous, but the ones that stuck in her head were downright frightening to her—everything from an emergency with Ben and Charity to official business for the tai-youkai, both of which were entirely feasible, except that she'd called Charity to fish for answers without actually asking straight-out, only to draw a complete blank.

And then, there were worse thoughts, too . . .

"She's nothing more than a good fuck . . . and even then, she's a little clumsy—not really that good . . ."

Those words, as she's stood outside the office, hand flat against the barely opened door . . .

God, she was stupid—really and truly stupid—stupid and naïve and . . .

'Stop it!' she told herself sternly, biting back the wash of tears that thickened in her throat, stung at her aching eyelids.  'Just . . . Just stop it . . .'

"He was . . . How do you say?  He was my, uh, one love?  But he cannot . . . cannot . . . forget me?"

'Ashur . . . did you go to her . . .?  To . . . To Hana . . .?'

She really wasn't anything more to him than a simple distraction, and she . . . She was fool enough to hope . . .

"You know, when you asked me to come over, I didn't realize that I was the one who was going to be doing all the talking," he said, tilting the glass to his lips.  "You're going to tell me what's the matter.  The only thing we have to discuss is how we're going to get there.  As I see it, you can either make me play Twenty Questions to get 'round to it, or you could just skip the fun and games and go right in for the kill.  Your choice."

She couldn't even muster the will to smile at his attempt at levity.  "I . . . I really don't want to talk about it," she muttered.

"You'll feel better if you do," he coaxed.

She sighed, shook her head, scrunching up her shoulders, as if she needed to pull back into herself.  "Let's talk about you," she countered in an attempt to sidetrack her own line of thought, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear, as she struggled to latch onto something—anything—to change the subject.  After all, she'd spent all afternoon, crying over everything that she'd heard . . . She . . . She didn't feel like repeating all of it—not right now, anyway . . . Besides, if she allowed herself to do that—if she fell into that pit again . . .

"Me?  I'm dead damn boring, Irish.  I've told you that."

She shook her head stubbornly, willing away the bleaker thoughts that had no answers, not for her.  "You're not, but it seems like we always talk about me—about my problems.  You know, I can't even tell what kind of youkai you are.  What are you?"

He blinked and chuckled and drained his wine glass before setting it on the coffee table.  "Top secret," he deadpanned.  "If I told you, I'd have to kill you, but I like you, so don't make me do that."

She managed a wan smile, letting her temple fall against the back of the sofa.  "It's odd," she went on, almost in a monotone—a very lyrical monotone.  "When I look at other youkai, even in their concealments, I can usually tell what kind they are, but you . . ." She trailed off with a frown, ". . . I . . . I can't tell . . ."

"It makes me mysterious; don't you think?" he asked her, blue eyes sparkling, shining.

"You're no’ mysterious," she retorted.  "You're an eejit."

He laughed.  "An eejit?  You called me an eejit?"

"If the shoe fits . . ."

He grunted.  "I can't believe you called me that . . . I thought you were better educated than that."

"An eejit is an eejit, regardless of education," she pointed out.

"Touché."  Standing up to refill his glass, he changed his mind and retrieved the bottle, instead.  "Does your mood have something to do with your Ashur?" he asked, careful to inflict more nonchalance than he probably needed to.

"He's no' my Ashur!  He's no' my anythin'!" she bit out before she could stop herself.  Pressing her lips closed, her head snapping to the side, staring at the wall, she stubbornly refused to say anything more as she concentrated instead on not tearing up all over again, as she squelched the hurt, the pain, that surged through her, yet again.

"The two of you are fighting again," he concluded with a sage nod. "I see."

She sighed.  "It's no' like that . . . An' I . . . I doan wanna talk about it . . ."

"Ah, but you're upset enough to revert to your bloodthirsty Irish brogue?"  He sighed.  "All right, I'll drop it, but you know I'm here for you, right?"

"Bloodthirsty?" she echoed, arching an eyebrow as she stared at him.

He nodded.  "All you Irish are a bloodthirsty lot—almost as bloodthirsty as the Scots."

She snorted.  "No one's as bloodthirsty as the Scots."

He shrugged. "Except you Irish . . ."

"Buggar off," she muttered.

"If I did that, then you wouldn't get to hear my pearls of wisdom, now would you?"

"You have no room to talk," she informed him.  "You lot lost your colonies to a bunch of trigger-happy Colonial heathens."

He sighed.  "This . . . is true . . ."

Satisfied that she'd made her point, she slugged back the contents of her glass and held it out to him, wiggling it to ask for a refill.  Hopefully it was enough to sidetrack him away from the current line of interrogation, and she sighed.  That aside, she really couldn't help but wonder just why he was acting so cagey about his youkai type.  Besides, she didn't want to think about the other stuff anymore, which was the main reason why she'd demanded that Devlin come over, in the first place . . . "So, what kind of youkai are you?"

He grunted.  "Nice try," he told her with a shrug.  "I'll tell you what: I'll drop my questions about Ashur if you'll drop your questions about my heritage."

She considered that and snorted indelicately.  "Fine," she allowed with all the ill-grace that she could muster.  "But what are we going to talk about then?"

He rolled his eyes.  "Anything but those two things, I guess," he said.

"Fine, fine," she muttered.

He sighed, reaching out to steady her hand with the glass in it as he poured.  "Okay . . . So, what else do you want to know?"

Jessa shrugged.  "You said you ran away because your da was trying to arrange your marriage, right?"

He nodded, refilling his glass, too.

"Who?"

"Who, what?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Who did he want you to marry?"

Her question gave him pause for a long moment as a thoughtful scowl surfaced on his features, and then he shrugged.  "I don't know," he replied simply.

"How do you not know?" she challenged.

He snorted, the sound of it, caught in the glass he held poised at his lips.  "He didn't say, and I didn't ask. Bad enough that he wanted to see me mated off like that. Who cares?  I'm not about to agree to marry someone I don't know, I've never met, who isn't my mate, and has no chance of ever being.  I've watched my parents muddle through their own loveless marriage.  I'll pass, thank you very much."

"They were unhappy . . ." she mused, more to herself than to him.

He sighed, scrubbing at his head with his right hand, making the already half-spiky tufts stick up just a little bit more.  "Well, that's a stretch. I mean, they weren't unhappy.  It's more like they were pleased enough to simply coexist, but Father always did his thing while Mum did hers.  Most of the time, she lived in one of the country estates while Father liked the bustle of London . . ."

She blinked.  "Where did you live?"

He shrugged.  "During most of the year, I had to live with my father.  Tutors and all that . . . During holidays?  I . . . tried to stay with Mum whenever Father would allow it."

"That sounds . . . perfectly awful," she said.

"Not really . . . Father tended to get sick of my face quickly enough—and I might have helped him to reach that realization, too . . ."

Narrowing her gaze, she slowly shook her head.  "What did you do?"

He chuckled, but the sound of it was a little raw, a little jaded.  "What else?  Pouted.  Threw tantrums.  Acted the spoiled git.  Worked magnificently—until Mum decided that she wanted to redecorate one of the estates.  I just happened to be in residence at the time, and I suppose that's why he held me responsible—because I should be able to gainsay Mum, just because she's a woman . . . Anyway, she shipped off all of the gloriously hideous antiques that Father liked to keep.  Had a damn fit when he found out.  Banned me from staying with Mum for a couple years, if memory serves . . ."

"Over furniture?"

He nodded.  "Father likes . . . rare and unusual things . . ."

She frowned.  Something in his tone—a certain level of bitter irony—something that Devlin wasn't given to expressing often . . .

It bothered her, didn't it?  It bothered her a lot . . . "Sounds like your father's the eejit," she muttered.

He chuckled again.  "Quite so.  It's exactly as Haviland said: Father's too stuck in the past to bother to live in the present."

"Who's Haviland?"

He seemed surprised by her question, and then he shrugged.  "My sister."

"You have a sister?"

"Yes, but I've not seen her since I was . . . four?  Five?  I just remember the last time I saw her.  That's what she said just before she gave me her puzzle box."

"What kind of puzzle box?"

"Eh, this old thing.  It's made out of gold, but I've never actually been able to open it.  I started to throw it out once.  I was . . . I was so angry with her at the time—angry for disappearing on me . . . I mean, I was eight or so, so I couldn't comprehend just why she'd abscond like that. I . . . I understand it better now, though, so I'm glad I didn't actually get rid of the old thing . . ."

"How old is she?" Jessa asked, setting aside her glass, wrapping her arms around her ankles as she brought her knees up to rest her chin on them.

"I . . . don't rightfully know.  She was a lot older than me, though . . ."

"And your mother hasn't heard from her, either?"

A strange sort of hardness flickered over his face—an expression that she'd never seen before on him.  Something about it sent a distinct shiver down her spine, and she supposed, if she were pressed for a reason why, it would have to be an easy matter of Devlin, who smiled and laughed and made droll commentary . . . Maybe she simply hadn't realized that he had that kind of emotion, locked away inside himself . . . "Father paid her to leave."

"What?"

He shrugged.  "He couldn't use her, so he broke ties with her.  That's how he is.  It's not that he's unduly cruel, I guess.  I mean, he didn't have her killed or anything—that I know of.  It's simply that he will discard you once you've outlasted your usefulness to him."

Slowly shaking her head, unable to really wrap her brain around the things that Devlin was telling her, Jessa frowned.  Something about the whole thing struck her as utterly bizarre, wholly unnatural.

He sighed.  "I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that the entire situation is completely bent, and you're right."  He chuckled softly, casting her an apologetic kind of look.

"The truth isn't nearly as pretty as the illusion, is it?" she murmured.

Standing up, wandering over to grab another bottle of wine out of the wetbar, he chuckled.  "It rarely is, Irish.  That is to say, it's been my experience that it never actually is . . . It's why we dream—because the dreams are so much prettier than the stark, naked facts."