InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Statues Without Eyes ❯ The Mission ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: I know some of you are kinda squeamish, so since I don't want any reviews saying “omg, why didn't you warn me? That was sooo bad!!!!11” I'm going to warn you now. This chapter does have some disturbing imagery in it. Just a warning. Of course, if that sort of stuff bothers you, why are you reading a horror/crime story in the first place? lol Anyway, this chapter took a while, I ran into a snag partway through, so some of it may seem a little forced. Sorry about that. And I'm not promising any quick updates. Life is busy for me, and I write when I get the chance. With that said, on with the story!

 

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the original plot of Inuyasha. I do own my plot though. Chapter title and quote belong to 30 Seconds to Mars.

 

The Mission

 

Entangled in a missing memory
A violent oversight
A formless order will give rise
To something some new world is here to seize

 

0o0o0o

 

 

Kagome paid the taxi driver and got out, looking around for Kouga. After a few minutes, she spotted him leaning against a wall next to the subway entrance and walked over to him. At first he didn't acknowledge her presence, but she knew that he had seen her coming towards him. His behavior was worrying her and she couldn't tell if he was mad or just tense. He looked like he expected to be attacked at any second.

 

Finally, he snapped out of whatever daze he had been in and stood up straight, grabbed her hand and started to walk. He didn't say anything though, and that both worried and annoyed her. She wanted to know what was going on, and she wanted to know now, if just so she could have some time to prepare herself for whatever was ahead.

 

“So, are you going to fill me in on what's going on or not?” she asked cautiously. At first, she didn't think he would reply, he just kept up his pace and looked ahead with a intense expression on his face. She figured they couldn't be far from wherever he was taking her since he hadn't picked her up in his patrol car. Then he sighed and slowed to a stop, but still looked ahead, not at her.

 

“There was another attack tonight.” Part of her wanted to say, what else is new? But she refrained, realizing it was in bad taste. So she just waited for him to continue. “The…the chief says that you used to work for them, off-the-record, and that he thinks you could help us with the case. I don't know how, and I definitely don't like the idea of you out in the field, but he says we're desperate, which we are, and need to use every angle there is. Kagome, you…you don't know what this thing does. It's not right for him to put you in this danger and…Dammit!” he shouted, punched at the wall next to him.

 

For a long while, he just stood there, breathing heavily with his eyes closed and his lips tightly drawn. Kagome didn't know what to say, so she just stood there, hand still in his, and waited for him to calm down. When she was younger, she would have spoken words of encouragement, telling him everything would be all right. Now, she just didn't feel like lying.

 

She knew the police chief was right to want to exploit every tool they had available. She knew this murderer was on a killing spree and needed to be stopped. She also knew that she would probably be in more danger this time that any other time she had helped the police. But she had always had a innate sense of right and wrong and she knew that she couldn't just not help once she was asked. Hell, there had been times she had helped even when not asked. It's just the way she was.

 

So she knew that she couldn't spout lies to him, and that she couldn't tell him that she wouldn't help, that she would stay home where it was safe and forget all about this. No matter how much she wanted to. She had to try to help. Besides, there might even be a chance she couldn't. She would have to be sure to tell the police chief that.

 

She hadn't had a vision in three years before last month. So maybe she would be able to tell him that everything would be ok.

 

But before she could open her mouth, he had regained his composure and was walking her towards an alley across the street where there seemed to be quite a lot of police activity. She shivered, thinking of the last time she had been in an alley just like this one. He pulled her closer too him, a reassuring hug, before walking away from her into the alley. She hesitated a moment, then followed.

 

At first, she wasn't sure where he had gone, but then she saw him heading towards her with another man whom she was unfortunately quite familiar with.

 

“Hello, Kagome.”

 

“Hello, Sesshoumaru. I wish I could say I am happy to see you, but I'm not. No offence meant, of course,” she said in her best professional voice. Sesshoumaru stood stoically in front of her, though he raised an eyebrow at her greeting. He really couldn't expect anything more from her though, she mused, after their latest parting a month ago. In short, he had called her ridiculous and very vaguely implied that she should cut down on the prescription medications.

 

Sesshoumaru seemed to accept her greeting though and motioned for her and Kouga, who looked a bit shocked and not a little confused, to follow him. Up ahead was the center of activity and Kagome felt a hard lump form in her throat as she realized what exactly was in the center of all those people. It should have dawned on her as soon as Kouga told her what she was being brought here for, but for some reason the actual detail hadn't sunk in until now.

 

As they got nearer, Kagome fought the urge to retch from the horrid smell and tears came to her eyes as she overanalyzed what exactly those smells were. Kouga put a reassuring arm around her shoulders, but it didn't make her feel any better. And when the crowd parted for the three of them she found that her amateur academic guesses were right.

 

Lying on the ground was a young woman who would never go to her office to work, would never go to the home she had probably been heading for, or ever see any of her family ever again. She wouldn't read books or watch movies or laugh or cry, and as Kagome observed that there was no ring on her ring finger, she would never marry either.

 

No matter how many deaths she had heard with her clairaudience, or how many bodies she had seen when she worked with the police, it never stopped affecting her. There was never a time that at least a slight tear came to her eye, and she hoped it was always like that. She didn't want to be numb to it like, oh, say, Sesshoumaru seemed to be.

 

The woman had been completely torn into, and her insides were on display from the wound in her stomach. It looked as if she had put up a fight because her arms were clawed and one of her legs had a large gash in it as if something had made to grab her when running. She had other wounds, many still bleeding, which meant that she had only recently died, but the major ones where on her stomach and on her throat where it had been slit so deep that the woman had almost been beheaded.

 

Kagome turned away, unable to keep looking at the young woman's wounds, or the painful look forever frozen on her face. Or at least frozen on her face until the body, because that's all she was now, was taken to the morgue. So instead, she fixed her stare on Sesshoumaru.

 

“Sesshoumaru, even I can tell that she's only recently deceased. Doesn't that mean that whoever or whatever did this could still be around?” He looked vaguely annoyed at her question, but answered anyway.

 

“It's likely, which is why we have our entire force patrolling the streets for any signs of it. If it's still out here, we'll find it,” he said in his usual aristocratic drawl.

 

“I'm not so sure,” she muttered. Both Kouga, who had been silent for the entire time they had been in the alley, and Sesshoumaru looked at her questioningly. “Um, I just mean, it's been on the loose this long, it seems like it knows how to stay hidden. Plus, I don't know about you, but I just don't think a human can do this sort of thing. The wounds look like something an animal would inflict, and they are kill wounds like those that a predator would employ. Granted, there are the other wounds, but those look like they came from a scuffle -- not the actual kill,” she said, looking back at the body and then at the two men. Kouga seemed completely taken aback, and Sesshoumaru just looked mildly interested. Which was saying a lot for him.

 

“The only thing is,” she continued before Sesshoumaru could say what she was about to say herself, “an animal would be caught by now. As powerful and skilled killers as they can be, they're not smart enough to have eluded capture for this long. It would take a human for that. The only thing I can think of is that it's both; a human using a trained animal to kill these people. But that doesn't really make sense either because there's too much room for error in that. So I'm not entirely sure…”

 

“As interesting as your take on this is, I didn't bring you here for that.”

 

“I know,” she said. If there was anytime to tell him, now was it. She took a deep breath and braced herself. “But I don't know if I can help in the way you want me too. I'll try and help any way I can, but I haven't heard anything for three years. Well, besides that one time last month and there hasn't been anything since then. It's not something I can control, Sesshoumaru.”

 

He looked at her. That's all. Just looked at her. Then he said, “You had better hope for the sake of this murderer's past and future victims that you can change that. I'm going to give you all the information we have on the murders and photos and some samples of the evidence. And I don't think I need to tell you that it'll be a federal crime if you show it to anybody I don't approve beforehand. Perhaps the information will help. If not, take up meditation, prayer, religion -- I don't really care what you do. Just do what you have to so you can do your job.”

 

 

0o0o0o

 

 

It only took a few minutes for Kouga to drive her back to her apartment, but it felt like hours and neither of them made a move to get out of the car after he had parked them in the parking garage. They just sat there, with the engine idling and the occasional voice coming in over the radio. Overall, the atmosphere was simply oppressive and Kagome wasn't sure how much more she could take of it.

 

Finally, Kouga broke the silence.

 

“Kagome, would you like to fill me in on what happened back there?” he asked, voice almost dangerously quiet. She looked at him and he reminded her more of an animal, a predator to be exact, than a human. If she didn't know him, she would be running right now. As the case was, she just decided this wasn't a conversation she wanted to have in the car.

 

“Why don't you come up? I'll make some coffee and explain everything. It's too cold to sit out here. And I don't really like the idea of being out here with the murderer on the loose anyway.”

 

Luckily, he agreed.

 

0o0o0o

 

 

“And just when were you planning on telling me that you were clairauda…clairdea…psychic?” he finally got out after struggling with the word and giving up in preference of the broader term.

 

“Clairaudient,” she corrected, “and I wasn't.” At his bark of protest, she continued, “I just didn't see the need, Kouga. I hadn't heard anything, anything, for three years before last month, and nothing since then either. I just didn't think I needed to bring up something that pretty much destroyed my life when I was younger now that I finally have things back together again. I'm finally happy and I can finally live and be treated like a normal, sane person. Do you know what it's like to be in the psychiatric ward of the hospital? To be ignored by your family? I do. And I don't like to revisit those memories.

 

“Now, I might have told you about how I used to help the police on occasion, but that was only if it ever came up. To tell you the truth, I didn't, and still don't, see it as something that I absolutely had to tell you. Now you can fuss that about all you want, but I just did not see the need to tell you. How was I to know that Sesshoumaru would get me involved again?” Her heart rate felt like it was going a mile a minute so she leaned back against the counter and took a deep breath.

 

They long since finished the coffee and she had spent most of the time telling him about her past, but she still left out some details. Like her father. That just wasn't something she really felt like sharing at the moment.

 

She heard Kouga sigh and she opened her eyes to watch him walk over to her. When he reached her, he rested one hand on both of her shoulders and bent down slightly to look her in the eye. She hadn't really noticed before, but he had a few good inches on her. She avoided looking in his eyes though. So far, he had taken it better than she had thought he would, but she was still afraid to see the disgust and disbelief that she had grown accustomed to seeing.

 

After all, who heard voices?

 

“Kagome, look at me.” She did. And was relieved to see none of what she expected. She saw exhaustion, stress, and hurt, but no disgust and no accusations of her lack of sanity. “I just want you to be honest with me. I'll admit, I have some secrets of my own, but if we're heading anywhere we need to establish some level of honesty with one another,” he said, voice strong, yet pleading. He was calling on that damnable charm of his, she knew, but heck if it didn't work.

 

She nodded, then, to change the subject to something that she hoped was lighter, asked, “So where was Ayame. She is your partner and all; shouldn't she have been there tonight?”

 

He sighed and backed up a bit, rubbing the back of his neck. Not looking at her. “Ayame…Well, Ayame is on paid leave. One of the last bodies we found scared her pretty bad, so she's gone up north to stay with her grandfather. That's one reason I'm so worried about you being involved in this case, Kagome. I saw how you put on that professional mask back there and got down to business. And I applaud you for it, I really do. You'd be a fine investigative reporter if that jerk would ever promote you. But still, if this case can affect a hardened police officer like Ayame, and me as well, I just wonder what it will cost you.”

 

She couldn't think of a reply that would satisfy him, not when she was wondering the same, so she just stayed quiet. They stood there like that, in a silence that wasn't awkward or comfortable - maybe it was somewhere in-between, she really didn't know - that dragged on until Kouga's handheld radio broke the silence with a report of a armed robbery. With one last look, laden with a meaning she couldn't quite figure out, he left her to her thoughts.

 

She never thought she'd be glad for a crime to be happening somewhere. The air between them was too tension filled for comfort, and she knew that they both would need some time before they could go back to slightly more easy-going ways.

 

Kouga knew that once she had been brought in on the case, he didn't have much say on the matter, but he was going to be fighting it tooth and nail until it was over. That much she could be certain of.

 

Sighing, Kagome made herself another cup of coffee and prepared herself for a long night of looking at the files of evidence they had picked up from the station on the way to her apartment.

 

0o0o0o

 

Eight cups of coffee later and Kagome was no closer to knowing anything than when she started out. She had thought that if she read the victims profiles it would trigger a `vision', but no luck. So then, she read the crime reports. Nothing. She looked over ever piece of evidence she had been given and nothing had happened.

 

One thing that had come out of it though was the fact that the vics had nothing in common. From what she could tell there was no pattern to the killings. The victims ranged from middle-aged single mothers to homeless junkies to high class suburban teenagers. And the times ranged from early morning to late at night. No wonder the police were having such a hard time with this one. The only thing the victims had in common was the way they were murdered.

 

Brutally mauled. Just like the woman Kagome had seen in the alley. She shuddered, thinking of the woman's wounds and the look frozen on her face. Sleep was definitely not going to be pleasant tonight. If it even came at all.

 

Really, all she wanted to do was curl up on her couch with a book and forget about all of this. Too bad we can't always get what we want.

 

 

 

0o0o0o

 

A/N: Yeah, sorry if this chapter seem forced and kinda to the point, but I promise it will only get better from here. I just have to set up the plot and then we can really get to the fun. And 3000 words! Yay! lol And remember, reviews equal hearts! I adore constructive criticism.

 

-Kassie