InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Delirium ( Chapter 51 )

Scowling as he caught the phone receiver between his shoulder and his ear, Ashur inserted his credit card for a few seconds, then pulled it free before dialing the number, grimacing as the traffic, heavy on the highway less than fifty feet from where he stood at a payphone in the far corner of the gas station parking lot.

"Philips."

"Ben, it's me.  I'm about midway to Edmonton.  Have you heard anything else?"

Ben grunted.  "No, actually, but I did call Larry Rowland, and—"

"Larry Rowland?"

"He's one of Cain's top hunters," Ben clarified.  "He lives up that way.  Anyway I sent him out there to that address.  Turns out there's nothing there.  It's an empty lot . . ."

"Son of a bitch . . ."

Ben sighed.  "Anyway, then I called Myrna, who called an acquaintance of hers—Attean Masta—and she asked him if he could check around, see if anyone knows this guy—anything—and he told her that he was spotted in a club in Quebec City with one Ray Johnston, buffalo-youkai."

"When?  When were they spotted?" Ashur demanded.

"A few days ago," Ben replied.  "If you'd gotten yourself another phone—"

"Spare me the lectures, Ben," he growled.  "Damn it . . ."

Hanging up the phone, he ran back to his car . . .

Uttering a low groan, Ashur slowly opened his eyes.  On the one hand, he still felt ridiculously tired, like every bit of his energy had been depleted, all in one fell swoop.  But he also didn't feel as though he was going to puke, either, and, aside from the exhaustion, he really couldn't say he felt that bad, at all . . . Still, the weariness that he just couldn’t shake was harsh . . .

Shifting his gaze to the side seemed to take an extraordinary amount of effort, but the sight of Jessa, huddling in an overstuffed chair, was enough to reassure him.  Curled into one side of the chair, her temple, leaning against the high back, hair falling around her in a glorious disarray, feet drawn up, tucked into the corner against the far arm of the chair, she sat in much the same way as she might if he held her, cuddled against his chest.  She was sleeping, but from this side, he couldn't see her other eye where she'd taken that hit, either.  For a brief moment, he considered, reaching over, waking her, but in the end, he couldn't do it—didn't have the energy, nor the heart, to wake her . . .

He tried to smile as he watched her sleep, as he drew from the sense of calm that surrounded her in those moments.  As weary as he was, the idea of sleep just wasn't as appealing as it should have been.  As the light that glowed outside the French doors filled the room, as she huddled just a little closer to herself, he let out a deep breath, wishing that he had the strength to reach out for her, to pull her over onto the bed, into his arms, and knowing that he simply did not.

Letting his eyes drift closed, he was almost asleep when a sudden tremor in the bed beside him made him force his eyes open again.  Kells huddled up close against his side, and Ashur managed a wan smile.  Just as quickly as the smile came, though, it faded when he saw the two marks, still marring the child's forearm—fang marks . . . Running his thumb over the slight indentations, he frowned as he pulled the child a little closer, a little more securely against him.  'Kells . . . He was . . .? But . . .'

And yet, even formulating that much of a coherent thought brought on another wave of exhaustion, too, and even as he thought that he wanted to ask Jessa about that, he could feel himself, drifting back to sleep . . .

The skies were a strange, sickly greenish gray, even with the night that was fast approaching, and yet, the darkness held a hint of the offish shade, a hint of something foul, clinging to his skin, closer than the rain, as he dashed toward the porch, up the steps, only to stop abruptly.  Eyes flaring wide in the hazy, stingy light of the waning day, something deep down made him turn, made him vault over the railing, goaded him into a sprint as he rounded the mansion, as he tore off toward the open fields beyond the house.

He didn't have time to stop, to think about where he was going.  A voice in his head had somehow taken over, and that voice . . . 'Jessa . . .'

Shaking his sodden hair out of his eyes, he dashed a soaked sleeve over his eyes to clear his vision, even if it was only for a moment.  Every instinct in his body was screaming at him—literally, screaming—that he needed to hurry, that he had to move faster . . . It didn't matter how he knew, didn't matter what he told himself, what he thought.  The overwhelming sense that she was in trouble, that she needed him, was just too much to ignore.

He never should have left her, even if he thought that what he was doing ultimately was for her—protecting her from the threat Jorges Mormount posed, and wasn't the damn joke on him . . .?  He’d jumped at the bait like a fool, and he’d left Jessa alone.  Lips curling back in a snarl, he pushed himself harder, sprinting through the field so fast that his feet barely touched the grass. If Mormount as much as touched a single hair on Jessa's head?  'Dead . . . Fucking dead . . .'

As if in response to Ashur’s thoughts, the rumble of thunder, the crack of lightning that split the sky, illuminated the skies for an ominous heartbeat, and in that second, he skidded to a stop, spotted a bedraggled and discarded clump of what had to be the length of Jessa’s hair, laying forgotten on the ground, and that, even more than anything else, set off another round of alarm bells, tolling precariously in his head, and he shot forward once more.

Breaking over the rise of a hill, he stopped short, just for a moment, long enough to gasp, to growl at the scene laid out before him: the staggering illumination of Jessa's flame didn't reach far, and the rain hammering down, only made things worse.  Unable to see more than the shaky and wavering images of the girl and the serpent youkai, who bore down on her, little more than a blur of rancid motion, but she caught his fist, flipped him neatly, tried to run.  Mormount kicked her feet out from under her, and Ashur uttered a harsh curse, dashed forward once more . . .

He barely had time to react as Jessa pulled herself off of the ground, staggering, unsteady, as the serpent-youkai reared back to strike.  She looked dazed, and as worried as he was about her, at the moment, he just couldn’t stop, couldn’t hesitate.  Hurling himself forward, praying he'd make it in time, he grunted as his body jerked to an abrupt halt, as the flash of crazy-blinding pain, erupted in his shoulder, near the nape of his neck, as the cold, cold rain was tempered by the hot gush of blood, of the brackish poison that hit him a second later, and he raised his hands, focusing on the surge of youki he sent straight down into the earth at his feet . . .

A deep and ominous rumble shook the ground in response to his command, a pillar of mud and grass and earth shot up, closing over the serpent.  Even as it obeyed his will, he could feel his control slipping.  Already, a numbness was settling into his fingers, his hands, his arms, and he knew damn well that he didn't have nearly enough time or control to finish it.  "Jessa!  Get up!" he barked without turning his head, without daring to look at her, lest the last of his control falter.

She didn't answer him right away, and despite his resolve not to, he glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see her roll over, pushing herself to her hands and knees, to her feet.

"I can't hold him, damn it!" he yelled, shifting his attention back to Jorges' immobilized body. Within the pile of earth, Mormount was fighting, struggling to break free.  Gritting his teeth, he forced more of his youki in a vain attempt to stabilize the earthen prison, but the flow was jerky, uneven, and he could feel it, slipping from his control.  "Can you hit him?"

"Hit him?" she echoed, her voice a little shaky, a little disoriented.  She must have understood, though, and a moment later, a beam of fire shot out of her hands, hitting the muddy pile in a blast of flame and smoke, her fire evaporating all the water, only to leave behind a solid earth pile of condensed rock.

Letting his hands drop as he panted for breath, he turned to face her, his expression foreboding despite the pallor that was fast washing into his features.  For one quick moment, he started to growl, but he thought better of it after catching the almost stricken expression on her face, and he let it go turning instead to look at the ugly mound of congealed rock.  Then he lifted his foot, let it fall hard.  The mound sank back into the field, leaving no trace behind that it had been there at all.  The serpent-youkai was gone, his body crumbling with the rest of the rapidly decaying rock . . .

"I’m . . . I'm sorry," he said, stumbling toward her.  "I . . . I shouldn't have . . . left . . ."

"You're poisoned," she said, lurching forward to intercept him, ducking under his arm, holding him with one arm around his back as the ball of flame she'd used to illuminate the field sputtered out.  "We've got to get you back . . . Devlin can help you . . ."

"Your . . . face . . ." he murmured, narrowing his unsteady gaze on her as he reached up, fingers unsteady, gently touched her cheek.  "Your . . . hair . . ."

"You've got to help me," she insisted, shaking her head as she winced.  "I canna carry you . . ."

He managed another couple steps before stumbling over his own feet, crashing down in the grass as Jessa screamed his name . . .

Ashur opened his eyes, yawning in the quiet of the darkened bedroom before glancing at the clock and heaving a sigh.  Nearly 5:30 in the morning . . .

Pushing himself up with a grimace as his muscles protested the movement, he swung his legs off of the bed and almost gingerly got to his feet.

If he'd been out of bed since he'd been poisoned, he didn't remember, but he figured that the stiffness in his body was from inactivity.  To be honest, he had no idea, just how long he'd been sleeping, and he vaguely remembered, waking up long enough to see Jessa, in the chair beside the bed, and Kells, in the bed with him . . .

Making a face as he stumbled off to the bathroom, letting Kells sleep since he didn't know how much rest the child had gotten, either, he sighed, grimacing as he ran his hand through his hair, only to discover that the entire length of it was ratted, matted and entirely bedraggled . . .

And he didn't look much better, either, he realized as he blinked and stared at his reflection.  Cheeks sunken and hollow, eyes almost recessed in their sockets . . . His shoulder where the miscreant had bitten him was still all black and bluish, even though it really didn't hurt.  Even his chest looked a little diminished, and not for the first time, he had to wonder, just how long he'd been knocked out.  All in all, he looked like hell warmed over, and that just figured, he thought with a heavy sigh.

Slapping the wall panel to start the flow of water, he didn't bother to wait for it to warm as he stepped under the tap and hissed out a sharp breath when the cold flow hit him, full-force.

Slathering on the conditioner in an effort to untangle his hair before he tried to wash it, he was rather surprised that he managed to untangle most of it with just his fingers easily enough.  He supposed that it hadn't helped that he'd spent two days, driving without bothering to stop at a hotel, and therefore, had gone without a shower, too, and then, the night of the storm, and who knew how much tossing and turning he'd done during the bulk of his fever from that damned Jorges Mormount's poison . . .

But the thought of the poison stopped him for a moment as he rinsed the conditioner from his hair.  He was poisoned, wasn't he?  He distinctly remembered it . . . When he'd leapt in front of Jessa, when he'd taken the hit, meant for her . . . He'd felt the poison, absolutely—a ridiculous amount of it, he'd thought . . .

'So . . . if I had that much poison in me, just how were they able to counter it?'

'Wouldn't it be better to ask 'who'?'

Taking his time as he worked the shampoo into a thick lather, Ashur frowned at his youkai's somewhat blunt redirection.  'Who . . .?'

'It was youkai poison, Kyouhei . . . That kind of stuff cannot be treated at a regular hospital—not even a youkai hospital, unless they're dead damn lucky and have someone like Charity around, who can create an anti-venom with relative ease, but you remember, don't you?  Even when you were treated for the poison your mother created, you felt like hell for . . . days, really . . . It took that long, just to chase all of it out of your system, and even once they’d managed to counteract it, it still took a week or more before you were able to really feel physically okay again, and you know, right now, we feel pretty damn good, don't we . . .?'

'All right, then, why don't you just tell me what you know instead of making me play a round of Twenty-fucking-Questions?'

'That's just it.  I really don't know anything more than you do.'

He frowned as he tipped his head back, rinsing the shampoo from his hair.  'What do you mean?  You're normally conscious, even if I'm not.'

His youkai grunted.  'Not this time.  Something about that venom smacked me, too.  I just shook off the grogginess myself last night . . .'

He made a face.  'You're absolutely useless, aren't you?'

'Go to hell, Kyouhei-sama . . . Anyway, if you think about it, it's pretty obvious that we weren't ever taken to a hospital or we'd probably still be there now, which means we were healed here, and that'd be fine, but the only ones here are Kells—we know he couldn't have done that—and Jessa—and she couldn’t have, either.  Carol's human, so it most certainly wasn't her, Laith's mononoke, and they're not known to be able to heal, either.  That really only leaves Devlin . . . Come to think of it, just what the hell kind of youkai is he, anyway . . .?'

The sudden flash of Devlin, looking exhausted as he leaned over him, shot through his head, and he frowned.  At least, the was pretty sure it was Devlin, but why had he looked so damn different . . .?

It could have easily been his brain, playing tricks on him, he supposed.  Even so, why did he think that what he remembered was absolutely true . . .?  White hair and pale green eyes . . .?

He hurried through the rest of his shower before stepping out, smashing his hand against the wall panel to stop the flow.  By the time he'd dried off and wrapped a towel loosely around his hips, he was somewhat relieved to see that he looked quite a bit more like himself, though he could still use a few good meals, too . . .

Stepping out of the bathroom as he dragged a brush through his hair, he stopped abruptly when he saw Jessa, sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand tousling Kells' hair as the child continued to sleep.

She seemed almost reluctant as she slowly lifted her gaze—not her head, just her eyes.  Shadows lingered in the depths, the shadows, and she seemed almost nervous as the seconds ticked away.

Her hair was grown back—not surprising, although he'd be lying if he said that it wasn't a relief to see—and her face showed no sign of the swelling he'd noticed.  She looked good—damn good—and the only thing that kept him from stepping over, from dragging her into his arms, was that lingering wariness that dug at him, even if he wasn't sure why it was there, in the first place . . .

"You're up," she said finally, breaking the silence in a slightly husky, almost guarded, tone.  "How are you feeling?"

"I'm good," he replied.  "Fine, actually . . . And you?"

"I'm . . . I'm okay," she said quietly.

"How long was I out of it?"

"Four days," she replied.  "You've just been sleeping mostly . . ."

He nodded.

She shrugged, glancing at Kells for a moment before hopping to her feet and skittering to the side as his frown deepened.  "I-I-It's my fault," she stammered quickly, yanking her hair over her shoulder, twisting it hard, twisting it fast.  "He wanted to go exploring, and . . . and I let him . . . a-a-a-alone . . ."

Suddenly, Ashur understood.  "That bastard . . . He attacked Kells first, didn't he?"

"I went after him—I wanted to make him pay . . . Kells is just a child, and he'd never hurt anyone, but I . . ." She flinched, slapping her arms over her stomach in a wholly protective kind of way as her youki snapped in close to her—protecting her, he supposed . . . "But I wasn't . . . wasn't strong enough . . . If you hadn't . . ."

Letting out a deep breath, Ashur took the three strides to reach her, to pull her against his chest, to tuck her head under his chin, against his heart, as he laid his cheek on her hair.  "I'm sorry I wasn't here," he told her.  "None of this was your fault, you know.  It's okay . . . It's okay . . ."

She choked back a sob, her body resisting the comfort he tried to offer, almost as though she thought she didn't deserve it.  "I'm so, so sorry," she rasped out, her voice muffled by his chest.

"Don't apologize, all right?  Everything's . . . Everything's fine . . ."

She pushed against his chest until he let his arms drop, stumbling back before she managed to catch herself.  "Myrna . . . She invited me to go stay with her for . . . for a while," she said, and this time, she didn't meet his gaze.  "She made all the arrangements, and . . . and I . . . I leave tomorrow . . ."

He blinked in surprise at her abrupt announcement, letting out a deep breath as he tried to make sense of it.  Going to stay with Myrna?  He gritted his teeth since he couldn't really argue with that, not when Myrna was her cousin.  Even so, the idea of her leaving for any length of time just didn't sit well with him, especially not right now . . .

'I don't know, Kyouhei . . . Maybe it's better this way.  I mean, you want to get some answers, don't you?  And it'd be easier to get those answers if she's not here . . . I mean, you know as well as I do that Devlin's one of her best friends.  How do you think she'd like it if we confronted him with her here?'

As true as that might be, he still didn't like the idea of her being away.  Then again, it wasn't like it would be that long, and it most certainly wouldn't be forever, in any case.

"How long are you going for?" he asked, turning to grab some clothes out of the closet, careful to keep his tone amiable.

She sighed.  "She said a couple weeks, but—"

"Sounds like fun . . . Sounds like something you need right now."

"Y . . . Yeah," she agreed slowly, almost cautiously.  "I'll, uh . . . I'll go make some breakfast if you're hungry?"

"That'd be great, thanks," he replied.  "I'm starving . . ."

She hurried out of the room, and he sighed, dropping the pretense that he was pleased with her decision, even if he had no intention of trying to change her mind.