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Author of 13 Stories |
Twelve
Timing
It was in the middle of trying to figure out the second question that he realized he had not, in fact, been hit by a car, and that Hiei, Yukina, and Shizuru were all either sprawled, standing, or screaming in his living room. He also realized that his injured arm suddenly felt more along the lines of 'injured and painful' than 'injured and healing.' In the confusion, he'd fallen, landing on that arm with all of his body weight. His final realizations were that he was being rained on, and that there were birds. Birds everywhere. A black, screaming swarm of birds.
He pulled himself up shakily, using the railing around the balcony for support, still dazed, still not entirely sure what was happening. Shizuru was shouting from just inside the doors, but the words were indecipherable above the racket the crows and the pounding headache in his ears were making.
Dazed, he turned, facing a flash of orange light and a spray of dark red. Suddenly, singed feathers were tossed through the stormy air, and hot blood was on his skin; he could taste it, he was breathing it.
Kuwabara stood with Jigen-tou in hand, slicing at battalions of crows. They went down in groups and were immediately replaced. Just beside Kuwabara, Kuronue was slashing at the flock
Murder, groups of crows are called murders
with hands and claws, his eyes wild, distressed, furious. Something from the direction of the living room flew into part of a cluster; Kurama recognized the leg of his coffee table braining an unfortunate crow and following down the hundreds of feet to unforgiving cement. Another chunk of table lodged itself in the wing of a different crow, and it spiraled into one of its group. Down they went, screaming.
A hand grabbed him. He was pulled roughly back from the railing, and was surprised to find it was Yukina dragging him in. She was talking. Or, maybe she was. Her mouth was moving but he could swear no sound was coming out.
God his head hurt. He looked around dumbly for something to fight with, finding instead Hiei, crouching down, hands over face, blood seeping from between locked fingers.
His ears popped, and suddenly noise was a reality he had no part of. Someone, impossibly, had put the world on mute. He turned again, watching the silent play of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds: Remastered as it was acted out before him.
Yukina had let Kurama go in favor of going to Hiei and attempting to pry the fingers away from his face. Shizuru stood not two feet from them, tossing whatever she could find at the crows. Beyond her Kuronue grappled with a crow that was rapidly becoming man sized and shaped. Then Kuwabara, Jigen-tou ablaze, cutting down what he could, battling off with his free hand what he couldn't.
Shizuru's next throw hit the man-crow-thing that was scrabbling for Kuronue's eyes square in the temple, knocking it on its side. Kuronue tossed it away, making a grab for Kuwabara as he did. Another man-bird-thing was falling down on them, feet/talons out to slice the skin from their faces. It missed, and they dove for the door. Yukina gestured, and the open doorway was a sudden wall of ice. Steam rolled off the ice in sheets, countering the humid air in the room.
The first sound to break through the haze of silence surrounding Kurama's head was the sound of shattering glass. He turned, back towards his room.
"The windows..." He was unsure whether he actually spoke the words or was just thinking them. Either way, everyone turned to stare down the hallway to his room, the little den, and the bathroom. More glass shattered, and then the door to his room bulged out like a jellyfish bloating on the tide. Then it splintered, spilling faux-wood splinters out into the hallway. He jumped back, colliding with Kuwabara and Kuronue. A thing that was now more man than crow stood in the broken doorway, hunched down, eyes wild, wings mantling over its shoulders. It was bleeding.
No. Not bleeding. Blood did not skitter the way the blackness dripping from the Tengu's mouth did.
Not blood.
Spiders.
Kurama would have run, right then and right fucking there, if it had not been for the tortured screech coming from the area of his closet. Another Tengu, more crow-like than the one blocking the door, was dangling Misa from a back leg. The cat was writing, screeching, flailing with her claws desperately. The Tengu lifted her above its head, as if curious, and then opened its beak wide, ready to swallow her whole, claws and all, as neatly as a pill.
Later, much later, Kurama would think back and imagine the next few moments as being not unlike a benign possession in the same way Raizen's sudden takeover of Yuusuke during that battle so long ago. Now, though, his body moved without any real consent from his mind. A hand - Kuronue's - was on his arm. Whether holding him back or holding him up he could not tell. A smooth roll of the shoulder released Kuronue's grip and he moved forward, conscious and unconscious of what he intended to do. He bent, taking into his hands a splintered chunk of what was once his door. It was long, thin, sharp. For now, it would have to do as well as a sword.
The Tengu that blocked his doorway was speaking, or something like speaking. It and the pained yowling from his cat were the only things he could hear. Or perhaps it wasn't hearing so much as paying attention over the growing static in his mind.
Good, hoomunz, it said, its voice thick, hissing around the tiny spiders that crawled in and out of its disgusting black gullet; through its awful, beaky nose.
Good hoomunz. Gib uz de gat, gib us de draidor, an all wi' be well. Good, good-
And it kept right on talking, right on spitting little black spiders with every word while Kurama walked up to it in a dreamlike slowness that was like swimming in cotton. It kept on talking, right up until Kurama took the blunt end of the splinter firmly into one hand and shoved it right up through the roof of the Tengu's mouth. It bled to his satisfaction then, blackish-red ichor sliding like oil from the wound, down the splinter, staining his hand. Most of the tiny spiders scattered, repelled or repulsed by either the blood or whatever force (and that's what it had to be, didn't it? He couldn't possibly be doing this on his own. No human could do this) propelled him.
Easily, like a knife from soft butter, he removed the splinter, turning his attention then to the Tengu that held his poor, struggling cat. It had stopped halfway through the motion of readying the cat to eat to stare at him, head cocked, its eyes saying Excuse me, but you can't possibly have just done that.
Hey, he thought back, wondering a moment if he was actually voicing the reply, I'm just as confused as you are. Completely free of his thoughts, his hand moved to spin the splinter in the air, catching it at the tip. A lazy (to him, it seemed almost like slow motion) flick of his wrist sent the makeshift weapon spinning through the air, missing his cat by degrees, and lodging business-end first in the Tengu's eye.
A look of dull, almost distracted surprise filled the Tengu's face and it dropped the cat, who limped pitifully across the room to curl up behind Kurama's legs. The Tengu clawed at its face for one minute... two... and then collapsed, as dead as its partner, half sprawled on Kurama's bed. Satisfied with this, Kurama bent and picked up his cat, cradling her against his chest. There were more Tengu, circling around the building, flying at windows, screaming.
Then, thunder. A roll like a kettle drum followed by a crack that made Kurama's heart stop. He clutched at the cat, the cat clawed him, and he backed away, into Kuronue. Lightning flashed in his eyes, The sky went from white to black and back again like a strobe. The crows blackened the windows, lightning flashed between their feathers as they flew into the apartment, talons and beaks destroying whatever they could get at.
"Move! Both of you, move!"
Behind him, there was a flash of orange-golden light, and the feeling of ice. Kurama tried to back away further and stumbled into Kuronue. They hugged the wall, slipping over ice that had once been his carpet, staying out of the range of the lancing arrows of reiki from Kuwabara. Kurama realized belatedly that Kuronue was shielding him with a wing, warding off the crows so intent at tearing them all to pieces. He shudderd. And then, it stopped.
Call them off, for now.
Tadashi jumped, startled. His hands hovered over the glowing sphere of the kitsune-bi, and then hastily closed over it to kill the light that filled this part of his room. The jewel burned his hands, but he paid the pain no heed.
He knew whatever pain a burn could bring was nothing compared to breaking his promises to the shadowed voice.
"Call," he licked suddenly dry lips and cradled the stone to his chest. The power was searing his hands, a smell of burnt meat wafted through the air. "Call them off?"
Yes. They have fulfilled their purpose, and the day comes on swift wings.
Tadashi mentally counted the hours. It would be dawn soon. Had the night gone so fast? Ah, he would not complain. He had no choice.
Straining, he reigned in the energy that spilled from the kitsune-bi, fueling the storm and forming their flighted warriors to the building he could only dimly see far off in the darkness. What a surprise, realizing how close the fox had lived for all this time. How easy it would have been to just walk into his home and kill him, without all this subterfuge. Without having to deal with the unpleasantness of their former prisoner.
The storm subsided, the crows dispersed. The jewel in his hand ceased it's burning, the glow dying down to a dull ember's light. Tadashi felt the presence of the voice next to his ear, and the feeling of numbness on his cheek like a kiss. Job well done.
Now I go to do my work. Rest now; soon it will be time to move again.
And then it was gone, and he was alone. He opened his hands, looking at the circular burns on his palms, blackening under the force of the heat that had cooled to stone in the jewel.
Soon.
The thunder died. Not the lingering, rumbling death of a natural storm, but a sudden stop, like a light switch being flicked off.
Kurama peeked out from within the circle of Kuronue's wings, glancing around at the destruction. Underfoot, the carpet was already beginning to thaw after Yukina's attack. it was littered with crow corpses and marks where Kuwabara's reiki had hit wide. A quick look into his room showed even more destruction, dead crows, and everythign covered in an inch-thick layer of ice.
He sighed, stepping carefully out into the hall to see. Kuronue's hand lingered on his shoulder, but fell away. He glanced back at Kuronue, who was bending to examine one of the bodies. Kurama, feeling very much like he was tresspassing, stepped a little further away, giving him room.
There was a sting, right underneath his wrist. Kurama turned his arm to look, juggling Misa (although he didn't need to, her claws were holding her in place just fine) to his injured as he did, ignoring the jab of pain. There, half-drowned in the blackish blood that covered his arm to the elbow, was one of those nasty little black spiders. He sneered at it and smacked his wrist against the wall, leaving a smear of blood and the spider, it's legs twitching in a final death spasm. he then tried wiping his arm on the side of his pants, only succeeding in smearing the blood around further. It was like slimy grease, and didn't seem to want to come off.
"Shit, they don't hold back, do they?" It was Shizuru, standing now next to him and surveying the damage. It was impossible to tell if she was talking abou the birds or her brother and Yukina.
"I don't..." he began, but trailed off. he looked at his wrist again, and then past Kuronue into the living room, where Yukina was bandaging Hiei's face while Kuwabara held a flashlight for her. What had happened to him? He gestured vaguely. "Something bit me." Two sets of eyes snapped to him, and he held out his blood-smeared arm. "A spider," he clarified, feeling very much like a small child. He wasn't thinking on the same level as usual. Vocabulary was becoming difficult to manage. Kuronue took his hand to examine it, and Shizuru went immediately back to the living room, calling for Yukina.
"Since when do Tengu work with spiders," Kuronue was murmuring, trying to wipe the blood away. "And these Tengu... they're too young to take human shape."
Kurama looked at him, completely at a loss for what to say. He was saved from having to think harder for some kind of reply by Shizuru returning and dragging him by the shirt collar to the living room. There he saw Kuwabara balancing a salad bowl full of water on one hand and holding a roll of paper towels in the other, trying to navigate the wreckage and set them down within Yukina's reach. Hiei, now laying sedately on the floor, looked like he'd fallen asleep. There were fresh bandages over his left and third eyes, blood already starting to soak through. The bandages were covered with the remains of Hiei's warded bandana. Kurama shuddered.
"What happened to-"
"Siddown," Shizuru cut him off, plunking him on the floor next to Yukina. He felt embarrassingly like a rag doll.
Kuwabara managed to put down the bowl and the towels without mishap, then taking Misa from Kurama's unresisting hands. Yukina began cleaning away the ichor, with little success. Frowning, she examined the wound closely, pulling his skin taut, peering close as if she could see whether or not there was venom. She probably could, for all Kurama knew.
"A spider bite?" She asked, reaching for her kit. She pulled out gauze, rubbing alcohol, tiny scissors, and medical tape, laying each out by her knee in order of use.
"One of the little black ones that were... er, in the Tengu," he replied, juggling with Misa again, who was trying to crawl into his shirt. Yukina shook her head, wiping down the bite and the surrounding skin with the alcohol. That, at least, seemed to get most of the blood off.
"You hit your arm when you fell, too," Yukina was murmuring, one cool hand resting on the bandages she'd put there earlier in the day. Kurama managed not to wince.
"What happened to Hiei?" He managed to ask finally, settling back and letting Yukina work on him.
"One of them big buzzards got him," Shizuru said, casting look at Kuronue that was imperceptible. Kuronue stared back, unmoved. The temperature in the room became impossibly colder. Shizuru pulled a sad-looking pack of cigarettes from her back pocket, floundered for a lighter that wasn't there, sighed, and returned the pack to her pocket. "They went for his eyes," she muttered, going to the one unruined couch. She seemed hesitant to sit, and then did, flopping down bonelessly, exhausted. "what time is it?"
No one answered. She glanced around, and settled her sights on Kurama. "Don't you have a clock in here?"
He shifted uncomfortably, earning a displeased noise from Yukina. "They're all digital," he muttered lamely. Shizuru's glare intensified. He found himself praying that she'd leave it at that and not ask the question he knew she was going to.
"You don't have a single wall clock in here?" Oh, thank you universe, for never giving the weary a rest.
Kurama looked down, embarrassed. "I don't like the ticking noise," he admitted, feeling a hot flush crawl up the back of his neck. Did she have to humiliate him like this? He was horribly aware of her stare not wavering. Then she sighed, sinking back into the couch. He had a sinking feeling she'd ask him about it again later. And then tease him mercilessly about it.
Silence drifted through the room again, broken only by the flutter of wind through the now uncomfortably airy apartment, and the distant sirens of the city.
Yukina sighed when she finished with Kurama's arms, the left bandaged neatly with gauze where the spider had bitten, the right set from wrist to shoulder, now numb with whatever healing magic and medicine she had used on him. Kuwabara took the opportunity to speak up then.
"I don't know about the rest of you," he said, glancing about the room, "but I'd feel a lot better if we were somewhere else. I've got my truck, and it isn't too long a drive to Genkai's place. We don't know how long this calm'll last, and I don't like taking chances."
Kurama smiled. It would always be 'Genkai's Place' for them, no matter how long it had been since she died. He nodded.
"I'm for that. Kuronue?" He looked to the Tengu, who seemed surprised to be addressed. Kurama tried a reassuring smile. "It's a temple we all trained at. Much more defensible than here, out of the city." That seemed to relax Kuronue a bit, and the Tengu nodded.
"I can't argue, I'm just a tagalong here. If you say it's safer," a shrug, more with wings than shoulders, "then it's safer."
Kuwabara crossed the room, handing Misa back to Kurama, then bending to hoist Hiei over one shoulder. "Let's get going now, then. I don't want to be here when they come back."
The rustle and clatter of everyone moving to go seemed overloud in the windy silence. Kurama held onto the cat, hooking one of the grocery bags (Shizuru demanded they take it all with, considering the trouble they'd gone through) over his elbow. Kuronue grabbed a bag as well, following behind. Yukina and Shizuru brought up the rear. Kurama didn't bother locking up; didn't even take a final glance as they trooped mutely down the hall to the emergency staircase. He only stopped when they began to pile into Kuwabara's truck, glancing up the tower to his window. Black feathers still fluttered on the breeze, their fall like dry rain.
Never in his life had Youko needed to deal with a claustrophobic demon. A few humans, yes. One of note who was a partner in China for a few months before the hiding in dark places drove the poor man's nerves until they were shot. Humans didn't like being confined to dark places. For them, it was apparently a terrible, horrible thing. Most demons, however, didn't suffer the same affliction.
Except for Kuronue.
Youko could kind of understand why Kuronue was having a mild fit as they picked their way through the narrow caves that led down the mountain, and would be charitable and attribute it to the urgency of the situation, but it was annoying. After an hour of "Are we there yet?" Youko had made it quite clear that he'd leave Kuronue in the tunnels if another word was said on the matter. It was difficult enough going through these tunnels alone, more so now.
He had to force thoughts of his home out of his head. He had to not think of how much he loved being there, of how eventually someone would dig through the rubble and find the place, that his old treasures and memories and life would again be compromised. He had to force himself to be optimistic, to remember that picking up and moving at a moment's notice was nothing new, that he would move on and eventually forget the place. He had to then remind himself that the forgetting part was a lie, and that losing the one stable home he'd had in his life outside of a brothel thousands of miles away was probably going to be an issue for a long, long while.
Still, it was better than dying. It was better than losing to Sojobo, that idiot, and surrendering everything he'd worked for with inevitable struggle.
Think of it this way, he told himself, picking along a path that had partially caved in. You lost a home, but you gained a partner. Besides, while Kuronue was no substitute for 'home,' he wasn't all bad. Intelligent, a quick learner, strong, and easy on the eyes. Loyal, too, or at least loyal on a more-than-immediate-interest basis. Of course, that loyalty could be singularly attributed to self-preservation, but Youko had over the last hour and few minutes convinced himself that it would be unwise to look a gift horse in the mouth.
A rumble and a sudden thin waterfall of earth shook him out of his thoughts. He looked back at Kuronue, who had gone still as stone behind him, eyes wide with barely-suppressed panic. Even a few feet away Youko could smell the terror rolling of Kuronue in waves, and applauded him for not up and running the way Youko knew he wanted to.
The shifting of dirt and rock slowed to a trickle, leaving a little mound on the pathway, barely a foot high. The rumbling, however, did not end. It was a low snore at times, then a gasp of noise that echoed down the tunnels. Youko could see that Kuronue had started shaking. Taking pity on him, Youko motioned him to stand closer so they could speak.
"Explosives," Youko explained, his voice hardly above a whisper. "They sound close. If we're lucky and quick, we can make it out on the northern end of the base before they reach down there. I don't think they'll bomb further than the peak, though." He hoped they wouldn't.
Kuronue didn't answer; his body language was enough. Youko beckoned him to follow, choosing a slightly faster pace through the tunnels. If they were bombing the mountain and not just burning the trees... They probably knew he and Kuronue had escaped by now. He was sure that he wouldn't be the only one who lived on the mountain to know of the caves and tunnels. And, knowing it was futile, he hoped that no one would think to try and follow them.
A sharp turn in the tunnel proved almost fatal. Youko backed up hurriedly, clamping a hand over Kuronue's mouth for silence. He'd seen, at the end of the turn, a dim, flickering light. He couldn't smell fire, at least not over the dank of the caves and the acrid stench of the explosives that echoed above their heads. But, there was a fire down there, and if he listened hard between blasts, it was being tended.
He motioned for Kuronue to stay, handed over his pack, and slunk silently down the tunnel towards the fire. The bombs thundered overhead. He could feel the forest dying.
Focus.
Down there, not more than fifteen meters away, two figures huddled around an ill-concieved fire burning in the pit of a few fallen stones. The fire was smokeless, but hot. He could feel it warming his skin even from this far away.
One of the figures spoke.
"S' which one'r we s'posed to kill?"
"Neither, if we can help it," grumbled its companion. "They want 'em for something. Can't do it if the fox is dead, worthless if the little prince dies."
A sound of discontent. Someone stirred the fire.
"Wha they wan' th' fox for?"
"He's got something they need." A rustling noise, like a shrug. "Some thing he stole."
Youko edged closer, bringing his hand to the nape of his neck. Rose seeds clung to his hair there, ready for him to pull them into deadly life. Then he froze. Kuronue was right next to him, melting into the shadows so well he hadn't even been able to detect the Tengu's presence until they were less than a few inches away. In Kuronue's hand was a dagger, curved and wicked and sharp enough to cut the air in half. A brief glance passed between them.
'You kill,' Youko mouthed, motioning to the speaker with the strange slur. The other one he would bind for interrogation.
Kuronue nodded, and in a blur of dark on dark, he was gone. A breath later, and one figure slumped over. The other rose clumsily, and fell back to the earth again, bound by thorny vines neck to foot. The fire glittered in the horrified gaze of the remaining bandit, and the smell of urine and terror suddenly made the cavern seem like a very small room.
Youko spared a moment to watch Kuronue move away from the fresh corpse, carefully cleaning the dagger as he leaned nonchalantly against the cave wall. Youko was very impressed. A second ago, the Tengu had been shaking, terrified. Now, all competent business. Youko felt something akin to fondness swell up inside of him, but he pushed it aside for now.
He loomed over their captive, glowering down into horrified eyes. A human, how disgustingly petty. That Sojobo was employing humans to try and stop them just served to make him angrier.
"I am going to kill you," Youko said, punctuating this with a sudden growth of thorns. The captive gave a cry of pain that was a little too shrill for Youko's tastes, and whimpered pitifully. "How you die is your decision. You can give me all the information you have, and go quickly into the next life, or I will leave you here to be a living flower bed for the next century or so. If you are entertaining the idea of someone finding and rescuing you, stop now." He ignored the stench and crouched down, bringing his face close to the horrified bandit. "No one will. When I bind a man, he stays bound. Understand?"
The bandit nodded. Sweat was pouring down his face, and the smell of blood began to rise to Youko's nose. He smiled. "I will give you a moment to consider your options. Kuronue?"
Kuronue glanced up from his cleaning, his eyes cold with business. Youko smirked approvingly.
"I would like you to count to three, to give this man time to think." Kuronue returned the smirk and twirled the knife in the air.
"One," Kuronue drawled. The bandit was starting to shake. Youko looked down at him boredly.
"Two," the smell of piss was thicker now, and the bandit looked like he was about to retch.
"Thr-"
"I'll tell you! I'll tell you! The lord, he paid us in advance! We've been setting up in here for weeks, bandits from the south all along the caves! He, he, he..." the man started to cry, shuddering like a small child, snot and tears streaming down his face. "He promised horses and gold and free reign of the valley for ten years. Ten years! I just wanted the gold, it wasn't personal, I just wanted the gold! I JUST WANT-"
The last echoes of the bandit's cry filtered down the tunnels a moment, and then died as well. The thorns withdrew, slipping back into vine, vine to sprout, sprout to seed. Youko sneezed, and then stood. Kuronue had sheathed the knife and disappeard back down the way they came, returning a moment later with their packs. Youko took his gratefully, and tried without success to think of something to say.
"All down the caves," Kuronue murmured. From this close, Youko could see that his face had grown quite pale, and that the bravery was just on the surface. Solid, but not complete. Somehow, that made him feel more confident about Kuronue's abilities.
"We'll be able to avoid some of them, the rest we'll have to kill." He paused, noticing how ill Kuronue looked at that. "Are you all right with that?"
Kuronue waved a hand. "I am, I just wish we were out of here now." He was shivering again, Youko noticed, and his wings were mantling over his shoulders, like he wanted to take flight immediately.
"Soon," Youko promised, surprised at the soothing tone his voice took. He surprised hismelf even more seconds later as he reached out to touch Kuronue's arm. Kuronue didn't flinch, but seemed to calm.
"Soon," Kuronue repeated softly. Youko nodded, then gently turned the Tengu until he was facing the tunnel they needed to leave. "Once we're out safe, I want you to fly ahead of me. Southwest, as fast as you can."
"Won't you-"
"I'm fast enough; I'll be able to follow you. Fly for an hour, and you should see a waterfall valley. Wait for me there. Understand?"
Kuronue nodded mutely. Youko turned, stamped out the fire, and then proceeded down the tunnel, Kuronue at his side. Overhead, the bombing had stopped, and the storm sounds of fire shivered down through the rock of the mountain. Youko shuddered, and quickened his pace.
Soon.
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