Updates may be slower for this story since I aim to make each chapter a complete "episode" that is just as long as, if not longer than, the first. Suggestions will be warmly received!
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Opacity
Devour
Sango looked torn between wanting to hit Kagome and bursting into frustrated tears. Every logical fiber of her very being was screaming This is not a good idea!, but her stubborn roommate had that look on her face. You know, that one of complete hardheadedness and absolute refusal to back down. Kagome's lips were set in a stern line, her normally big blue eyes were narrowed and unblinking, and her eyebrows were drawn together in the middle. The petite woman even had her arms folded against her chest and one hip jutted out.
"You can't be serious," Sango repeated herself, her voice sounding both aggravated and disbelieving.
"Sango…" When she said her best friend's name, Kagome's voice even broke on the second syllable—she was pleading for understanding. "I can't go back to the way it was before anymore. Now that I know there are… things out there, I can't just pretend that everything's normal. I want to help. I have to."
"They're con-artists!" the brunette protested, gesturing wildly at the two men sitting ten feet away at the rickety kitchen table. "Sure, they may be very attractive and well-built con-artists, but that doesn't mean they're not taking you for a ride."
"Skipping right over the sexual innuendo in there and my crushing desire to respond, 'I don't care if they ride me,'" Kagome countered, an amused smile threatening to break across her face, which would totally ruin the seriousness she was going for, "I saw what I saw. There is no way they could have faked all that, and it's not like they're trying to get money or something out of me. It was my idea to join them on these… these…"
Here, Kagome stopped and looked to the men for help.
"Hunting expeditions?" the black-haired one, Miroku, suggested with a slightly crooked smile.
"Hunting expeditions," she agreed, turning back to Sango; her face was so open and honest that Sango had to struggle to maintain her belief that this was all some kind of elaborate joke.
The two women locked eyes, silently battling it out. Everything seemed sudden to Sango. Two days earlier, Kagome had returned home in the middle of the night looking like she'd been in a bar brawl, with two men tagging along behind her. If the brunette was being honest, she would admit that Inuyasha and Miroku were good-looking enough that even the very practical Sango would have brought them home for a hot meal and a nap on the floor. But it had been two days, and they were still there. Now Kagome had quit her two jobs and packed up her belongings, announcing that she was leaving with them.
"Kagome…" Sango tried again, struggling to sound calm. "What about nursing? What about photography?"
"That's the thing," Kagome argued, her face so animated and excited that Sango almost appreciated the enjoyment her best friend-slash-roommate was getting out of this. "My training as a nurse means I can help them when they're injured, and we'll be seeing abandoned buildings all over the country. I can continue building my portfolio for urban exploration magazines and websites and help save people at the same time!"
Up until that point, both Inuyasha and Miroku had kept their mouths shut. It had seemed like a dream having a safe (and free) place to stay for a few days—it had been just as unbelievable for them when Kagome had told them forcefully that morning that she was coming with them when they left town. They'd even put up with Sango's suspicious and accusing glares. Unfortunately, Inuyasha couldn't stay quiet any longer.
"Look, I don't like this either," he told Sango in an exhausted voice as he pushed away from the table. When he stood up, he towered over the women. The brunette did not appreciate having to crane her neck to look up at him. "But Kagome's right. This is the sort of thing that you can't exactly turn your back on. Once you know, you know."
"But I know, too," Sango argued hotly, jabbing her finger into his chest. "I've seen your hair, and your eyes, and your…"
"I think she's trying to say your ears," Kagome concluded with a giggle. Her eyes flicked up to the top of his head; even though Inuyasha was wearing an old baseball hat, she knew that underneath were two triangles of fur, ones that looked just like dog ears. "You're living, breathing proof of the supernatural."
"And staying here doing nothing doesn't terrify you?" Miroku asked, looking at Sango with sympathetic eyes.
"Knowing that Kagome is running around fighting evil with virtual strangers is what terrifies me," she corrected, unable to meet his gaze. She had learned since their first meeting that Miroku's eyes looked at her so directly, it was like he could see beyond whatever mask she put on. It was unsettling.
"So, are you going to try to stop me?" Kagome asked her best friend softly.
For the longest moment, Sango stared down at her feet, a thoughtful frown on her face. She really, really didn't like this. Any of it. "No; it means I'm going with you."
"How are you doing?" Kagome asked quietly from the backseat, laying her head on Sango's shoulder. The brunette had been tense ever since her declaration that morning, but she seemed to finally relax now that they were on the road.
Thankfully the two girls had never owned many things, and they were already okay with sharing clothes with one another. All of their belongings had fit in only two dufflebags and one backpack in the trunk of Miroku's beat-up SUV.
"I'm fine," Sango said automatically. She then corrected herself by saying, "I'll be fine. I just need to get used to the idea. What did you tell your mother?"
Kagome smiled wryly, flicking her gaze out the window. Space between the buildings they passed was getting bigger with every mile, and she knew they would be out of the city soon. "That we needed to see the world. She was glad to know that Kaede let us out of our lease early."
"Your mother is far too understanding," the brunette muttered. Quietly, she wondered whether it was a good or bad thing that her parents were dead—she had no one to explain herself to, other than her younger brother who was away at college. Kohaku had sounded surprised and maybe even confused, but he'd merely wished her luck on their 'road trip.'
"Mama is one of a kind," Kagome agreed.
In the front seats, Inuyasha was driving while Miroku studied a road atlas. The men had been suspiciously quiet ever since the women had forced their company on them, but Kagome had a feeling that they were actually happy to have people with them. Didn't it get lonely on the road with only each other to talk to? At the same time, the photographer figured the hunters were also worried about her and Sango's safety. They had two more backs to watch now.
"What did you do before this?" Miroku asked suddenly, peering over his headrest at Sango. "I mean, I know that Kagome was a nurse with a secret love of photography. What were you?"
"A waitress," Sango commented, a sour look on her face. "Actually, I was a waitress twice-over—at a diner and a bar."
"Sango could never decide what to do with her life," Kagome explained, resolutely ignoring the glare her best friend shot her way. Hell, the four of them were trapped in an SUV for who knew how long. It seemed like a good idea to get to know each other better. (It didn't really occur to her that this was something she should have done before deciding to travel with a couple of strangers who killed monsters for a living.)
"Maybe I always felt out of place because I was born to do this," Sango joked weakly.
With a smile, Miroku shook his head at the girls. "You never know, that might actually be true."
"How'd you get involved?" Kagome asked, her eyes wide.
"The old fashioned way—revenge," he explained, glancing back down at a map. He gave Inuyasha some directions to the highway before looking back at Kagome, who looked ready to burst with curiosity. "A demon killed the man who raised me. After I killed it, I knew I wanted to hunt down more of them so no one else suffered like I had. I came across Inuyasha, who was having some sort of identity crisis."
"I'm a half-demon," Inuyasha griped from the driver's seat, the frown evident in his voice even if no one could see his face. "That would give anyone an identity crisis," he said, scowling. "And I was following in my father's footsteps, just to be clear."
"We joined forces to take out some vampire—and the rest, as they say, is history."
"And it doesn't bother you that he's half demon, half like the thing that made you an orphan," Sango pointed out. She was many things, but shy was not one of them. The brunette had always been very direct, while Kagome tended to edge around subjects to avoid hurting people's feelings.
There was a moment of silence as Miroku considered her question, fairly giving it some thought before answering. "No," he said eventually. (It may have been Kagome's imagination, but she could have sworn she saw Inuyasha let out a quick sigh of relief.) "First of all, he's only half demon. Second of all, just like not all humans are good, not all demons are bad."
"Was your father—or mother—a good demon, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked carefully.
"My father supposedly was," he responded. His voice sounded a little funny, but Kagome couldn't put her finger on why. "He was only around for a few years after I was born. Before my mother sat me down and explained what I was, she used to talk him up all the time—about how regal and fair and perfect he was. I think it was supposed to make it easier on me to accept the fact that I was only half human."
"Sounds like a lot to live up to," Kagome commented quietly, unable to stop herself. When she looked up, she noticed that he was watching her in the rearview mirror. She met his eyes and a beat passed before he finally glanced back at the road. "So!" she said suddenly, her voice a little too loud and her cheeks feeling a little too warm. "Where are we going?"
"Our next planned stop was a hospital about three hours away," Miroku explained, his finger pointing toward something on the map that the women couldn't see from where they were sitting. "Patients have been going missing for almost a month now without explanation. Three dead bodies were reported in the woods just beyond hospital grounds."
"Patients?" Kagome echoed. "So… this is a hospital currently in operation?" To everyone's surprise, she sounded disappointed. "I guess I don't need my camera then." Although she had broken her camera in the asylum two days earlier, she had an old backup under the bed back at the apartment. It wasn't as expensive or good as the one she'd lost in the struggle with Naraku, but it would do for now.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Inuyasha said sarcastically, again looking up to locate her face in the rearview mirror. This time, his gaze did not send tingles down her spine. "I didn't realize that when you volunteered for monster hunting that you only wanted jobs that take place in creepy, abandoned buildings."
The look Kagome sent him was not pleasant, but at least she seemed properly ashamed of herself.
"Kagome, your addition to our team came at a very opportune time," Miroku interrupted. The excitement in his tone made both girls wary. "Since it's a hospital, and you're a nurse, you can get us in, right?"
"I was a nurse," Kagome corrected. "I quit, remember?"
"But you still have an ID badge and the knowledge," Inuyasha pointed out. "You can say you're covering for a sick nurse—We have reports that a lot of the staff are freaked out and calling in sick or outright quitting because of the disappearances."
"And once I get into the hospital under false pretenses," Kagome asked slowly, looking only a little upset at the idea of lying, "what do you expect me to do?"
"Research."
Kagome groaned at Miroku and Inuyasha's simultaneous answer. "I didn't like research when I was in nursing school, why would I like it now?"
"Because," Miroku said with a lopsided smile, "now it's research on monsters!"
"Thank you for helping us out at this time, Ms. Higurashi," the elderly doctor said in a wheezing voice, blinking very large, protruding eyes at her. Everyone else in the hospital was really spooked and jumpy, but this guy seemed totally fine—if a little spacey—to Kagome. "Where are your scrubs?" he asked, looking behind her as if he would find them hanging there.
"Oh, well," Kagome hedged, glancing around at the other nurses. The ones who passed her rose eyebrows primly at her jeans and t-shirt. Thankfully, she'd at least had an extra badge from the hospital she'd worked at sitting in the bottom of her purse. "I didn't want to look out of place and hoped I could borrow a set of this hospital's scrubs," she explained finally, mentally patting herself on the back for sounding so believable. Sango would have been proud!
"Ah, yes. I see! I see!" he wheezed.
"Doctor—"
"Call me Totosai," the old man interrupted. He was small and bony, and his doctor's coat looked ridiculous draped over his jutting shoulders.
"Totosai," Kagome began again, pasting a friendly smile on her face. "Once I change into a uniform, I was wondering if I could get a quick tour of the hospital. Starting with the morgue, maybe? I mean," here, Kagome scrambled to find another logical explanation that wouldn't make the doctor suspicious, "we should start from the bottom up, right?"
"Yes, yes," Totosai said vaguely, looking distracted. This was the Chief of Medicine?
After Kagome changed into an extra set of pink scrubs, she returned to the hallway, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. Totosai had waited for her, and if possible, he looked even more out of it.
"Come along," he told Kagome, leading her toward the elevator. "To the morgue."
She trailed after him, playing with the hem of her top. As they passed hall after hall, Kagome was careful to look around and note anything unusual—Unfortunately, there wasn't anything that caught her eye. "I heard there have been some… incidents lately," she said finally, unsure of the best way to bring up the topic she really wanted to hear about. Other than the fact that the place seemed deserted and there was an abnormal number of air ducts, she hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. "Is that true?"
Totosai glanced at her over his shoulder, tutted, and then jabbed at the 'down' button to call the elevator. "Rumors," he muttered dismissively. His quivery voice quivered more than usual.
"Ah," Kagome mumbled, following him into the elevator. "I could," she started, her words wavering, "I could help. Maybe."
Again, Totosai glanced at her. His bulging eyes appraised her—this petite girl who had appeared at the front desk, asking to help out less than twenty minutes earlier. He had not gotten to be Chief of Medicine for nothing, so he made sure to call and check the hospital listed on her badge to make sure Kagome Higurashi really was a nurse. They told her that she was, but she had also recently quit. It was unusual, but Totosai was desperate for someone to help fill in, even if he wasn't sure of her motive.
"We found one of our missing patients just after dawn this morning. I will show you his corpse, but you must promise that you have nerves of steel, missy," Totosai agreed finally, returning his gaze to the air in front of him. Kagome fidgeted at his side.
"I can handle it," she told him uncertainly.
When they walked into the large morgue, Kagome suppressed the shudder that ran through her body at the wall of cooler doors. Behind each handle was a body.
"Here," the Chief muttered, going straight to a drawer in the middle of the wall. Kagome trotted after him and peered over his shoulder as he slid the body out. The silhouette hidden under the white sheet was weird, but she couldn't figure out why until he drew the sheet back.
Quickly, Kagome clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from saying anything that could take away from her tough-girl image.
The body was nothing more than a pile of bloody bones, the muscle and flesh stripped from them like the man had been some kind of meal.
"Oh," she muttered, disgusted. "That's not normal."
"No, it's really not," Totosai agreed, covering the body back up. "This is the sixth victim this week, the tenth since the disappearances started a month ago. Ten bodies, but twenty-two missing people."
"So there are more like this out there somewhere?"
The Chief shook his head sadly. "Perhaps some are still alive. Unfortunately, no one can find anything. The security cameras and the staff have noticed nothing abnormal. People just go missing. Two or three from locked rooms, even."
"That's disturbing." Kagome shuddered again. "Do you have any ideas, doctor?"
A beat passed as the Chief considered her question, but he eventually shook his head to indicate that no, he didn't have any theories. "When you offered to help, you did not mean with the fact that my staff is short on nurses, did you?"
Kagome shook her head. "I'm sorry. Was I that obvious?"
"You need to work on your spying methods," Totosai advised with a gap-toothed smile. "That said, if you can make this stop, I would greatly appreciate it."
"I might need some backup," she warned. "I have some friends waiting outside. Can I bring them in?"
"If you keep quiet, then you can do whatever you want. However, I believe you might find it easier to investigate if you wait until nightfall when only a skeleton crew is running the hospital."
Carefully, Kagome considered this. "Okay," she said finally, in a bargaining kind of voice. "How about this? I let them know that we can begin once the night staff comes in, and until then, I help with the rounds and nursing?"
"Perfect."
Totosai and Kagome shook on it, and they left, chatting amicably. They both missed the fact that a pair of eyes glittered from an air vent set high in the morgue's wall.
"I know I've told you before that abandoned insane asylums were creepy," Sango muttered, walking very close to Kagome's side, "but hospitals at night are equally disturbing."
With a laugh, Miroku promised, "Don't worry, I'll protect you!" It went unsaid, but he wasn't joking.
"Have you ever shot a gun?" Inuyasha asked, offering a revolver to the two girls. To his surprise, Sango took it, easily adjusting her grip to a proper one.
"My brother and I used to go to the shooting range with our dad," Sango explained, cocking the hammer and holding the gun out in front of her, closing one eye to line up the shot with the exit sign in the distance. "I was pretty good at it."
There were footsteps echoing in the adjacent corridor, so the brunette quickly checked that the safety was on before stashing the gun in the waistband of her jeans. Totosai had promised Kagome that he would spread the word that the four of them would be in the hospital ("I will tell my staff that you are undercover police officers," he suggested knowingly. Kagome wondered if he was one of the rare few who knew that there were monsters out there… and people who hunted them.), but a loaded gun would unsettle just about anyone.
"We'll split up into teams and start searching. There has to be a way for the monster to be getting in and out without people noticing," Inuyasha said, sounding very much like the leader. "You girls take the basement and the first floor; Miroku and I will take the other six," he decided.
"Inuyasha," his best friend scolded, glancing between the other hunter and the women. "We can't leave them alone. It sounds like whatever this thing is, it's eating people."
Kagome grimaced. "What is it with monsters and eating people? Personally, I'm finding that gross. I mean, like really gross. Do people taste good or something? Please tell me that these things actually roast and season us first."
Chuckling, Sango shook her head in disbelief. "Kagome, I worry about you sometimes."
"Fine, fine," Inuyasha muttered, ignoring Kagome's sidebar on the etiquette of eating people. "Sango with me, Kagome with you," he suggested, pointing to each person as he mentioned them.
"Yes!" Kagome exclaimed while holding up her fist to bump it against Miroku's. He just laughed and shook his head at her. "We've proven that we're a good team in the past, right?"
"Right," he agreed. "Remember, there are actually people here, so shoot carefully and don't scream."
"Even if we're getting roasted like a stuck pig?" Kagome joked.
"Even then," Miroku replied seriously. "This needs to be a quiet job. We don't want to scare anyone here more than necessary."
"Stay close," Inuyasha mumbled to Sango, tilting his head in the direction of the elevator bank just off the lobby. "We'll start at the top and work our way down. This is your first job, so I don't know, try not to get killed, alright?"
There was a heavy silence as the four looked at one another, and the women were struck by the fact that they were in way over their heads. They had, technically, volunteered for it. It didn't help that they were still a group of total strangers, girls versus guys—but Kagome had meant what she'd said; now that she knew there were things out there that needed to be stopped, she couldn't go back to a normal life. She had to help, somehow. And Inuyasha and Miroku had almost seemed happy when she decided to join them. You know, deep down. It made her heart feel funny when she thought about how lonely, scary, and miserable their lives had to be out on the road without a home, always fighting.
Feeling emotional, Kagome reached out to Sango and enveloped her best friend in a tight hug, burying her face in the brunette's shoulder.
"Be careful."
"You, too," Sango replied with one last squeeze before pushing Kagome away from her. "Don't do anything stupid."
They split up into their designated teams, and Kagome led Miroku toward the stairwell. They would start with the morgue.
Sango followed Inuyasha, scrutinizing his tall form as he strode ahead of her. She wondered, in that vague sort of way people do when they're avoiding thinking about something else (like flesh-eating monsters), if the half-demon had suggested they team up because he didn't want to be alone with Kagome. She'd seen the way the man had been looking at her friend, like the petite woman was some kind of puzzle he just couldn't figure out.
"So, do you have any theories?" Sango asked, nodding at the two women standing by the nurse's station not too far from the elevators. They looked suspicious, but they nodded in return; one of them even smiled.
"Yeah," the hunter mumbled, punching the button to call the elevator. "I don't know what it is, but I think it's living in the walls."
To her embarrassment, Sango actually jerked her eyes to the walls as if the thing would be right there peeking out at her from a peep hole. Naturally, there was nothing unusual about the white walls on either side. "That's kind of creepy."
"Well, this job isn't all sunshine and butterflies."
"You are the most cheerful person ever," Sango pointed out sarcastically. Actually, Kagome was the most upbeat person she had ever met in her life. If that saying about opposites attracting was true, she could totally see a relationship developing between the snarky half-demon and the friendly ex-nurse. Of course, as Kagome's best friend, she would have to advise against that. "Doesn't it disturb you that we're hunting something that could pop out of the wall at any second?"
Inuyasha shook his head, his eyes following the numbers as they lit up according to where the elevator was. "Not really. Nothing surprises me anymore."
"Nothing?" Sango echoed with a smug smile. "Not even a pretty girl who risked her life to save you and your buddy in an insane asylum?"
Okay, he had to give her that one.
He just grunted, but Sango knew she'd pushed a button. It must be driving him crazy trying to figure out what was going on inside Kagome's head. The two women had been friends for years, and the brunette was still surprised on a weekly basis at the depth of Kagome's compassion and curiosity.
"Do you regret agreeing to let us join you?" Sango pressed, watching his profile carefully. Their ride finally arrived, and the two boarded the elevator.
"At the moment? No. But as soon as one of you gets hurt…"
For a minute, Sango was quiet. "Would you blame yourself?" she asked finally, thoughtfully.
"Maybe. Miroku would for sure," Inuyasha grumbled, crossing his arms against his chest and leaning against the wall as they moved toward the top floor. The children's ward, if he remembered the directory right. "He's that kind of person, you know, the kind who expects everything to go according to plan, and when it doesn't—which, of course, happens every single time—he thinks it's his fault."
"Sounds like a good man to me," she replied quietly.
When Inuyasha opened his mouth to reply, he was cut off as the lights suddenly clicked off and the elevator jerked to a stop. He stumbled and reached out to grab Sango's elbow, steadying her. After several very long seconds, there was a whirring sound from deep within the hospital—the generator had kicked on. The lights flickered to life, but they were very dim and a reddish color. The two shared a concerned look before Inuyasha started to search the elevator for a way out.
They were trapped.
Four (and a half) floors below them, in the basement, Kagome pried her arms off of Miroku. To her undying shame, she had actually screamed (a very quick, high-pitched yelp) when the power went out. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and Miroku's attempt to soothe her by patting her on the head like a dog was failing miserably.
"Oh, crap," she murmured, looking around; her fear of the unknown was finally overtaking the excitement and adrenaline rush. The reddish lighting was the result of the backup generator—every hospital had to have one in case a power outage occurred so any patients on life support would be okay. It made the morgue look extra spooky. Knowing that there was a monster somewhere made everything even worse.
"Hey, everything's going to be fine," Miroku assured her cheerfully, but his confidence had clearly faltered. "Here, have a knife," he suggested, unsheathing an eight-inch combat knife that had been hidden somewhere under his jacket. Kagome marveled at its appearance.
"O-okay," she agreed shakily, taking it from him. "Should we see if we can figure out why the lights went out? We're already in the basement; maybe we should check the fuse box."
"Marvelous idea," the hunter complimented, tilting his head in the direction of the doorway. "Let's go investigate."
It didn't take an engineering degree for the duo to figure out that the power outage was caused by something chewing through all the unprotected cables and wires. Some were still sparking, so Miroku held Kagome back while he examined the situation from a safe distance.
"I'm assuming the monster did that," Kagome offered timidly.
"I'm thinking that's a safe bet." Miroku's normally chipper voice was grim. "I hope our partners in crime were off the elevator when this happened."
"It wouldn't crash, would it?"
"No, but they would be stuck inside. We better go check; they'd be sitting ducks in there."
When the pair surfaced from the basement, they found the hospital in chaos. The bare-bones night staff was checking on patients and trying to assure everyone that the power would be back on soon.
"Shhh," Kagome heard one nurse soothe a little boy with his arm in a sling. "Everything's fine. It's all okay."
"But," he cried, scrubbing at his tear-stained cheeks with the back of his free hand, "I heard something."
Kagome reached out and grabbed Miroku by the wrist, making him pause. When he looked at her questioningly, she tilted her head toward the boy and his nurse.
"What did you hear?" the nurse asked patiently, crouched down and rubbing his tiny shoulder.
"I don't know," he mumbled, sniffling. "There was a slithering noise, like a snake or somethin', in the wall behind my bed."
Miroku sent Kagome a meaningful look, and they took off at a faster clip toward the elevator. At the first floor doors, Kagome pressed her ear against the cold metal and listened intently. She thought that she could hear voices echoing down the elevator shaft, but she wasn't sure.
"Anything?"
Kagome shook her head. "I don't think so, but they could be further up. Maybe we should try the next floor?"
"Let's head straight to the children's ward," Miroku suggested instead, pulling a beat-up cellphone from his back pocket. "I'll just try calling Inu—"
"No cell phones in the hospital," an agitated nurse snapped as she passed by, plucking the cellphone from Miroku's hand and scurrying away with it. The two looked after her with twin looks of disbelief on their faces. Did she just—?
"I guess that decides it," Kagome said faintly, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the stairwell. She wasn't looking forward to the climb since the generator did not power any lights in there. It was pitch black and even coming up from the basement had put her nerves on edge. "To pediatrics!"
The stairwell was empty, but at least no one saw them huffing and puffing after several flights of stairs. At the top, Miroku poked his head through first, noticing that the top floor was even more deserted than the others. The disappearances must have really affected people's willingness to check in at that hospital. There was a clatter that made Kagome jump out of her skin, and a young nurse ran by—the red light distorting her shadow on the wall eerily—and she was soon out of sight.
A shriek drew their attention.
Miroku leaped out of the stairwell, Kagome close on his heels, and rounded the corner to find the nurse they had just seen sprawled on the ground. Blood was pooling underneath her body, and it looked like it was pouring from her side. Her pink scrubs were quickly stained red. While Kagome crouched down to check if she was breathing (she wasn't), Miroku scoured the walls for any sign of the monster. A scraping sound overhead drew his gaze up.
"What is it?" Kagome asked, struggling to keep her voice steady as she reached out and closed the nurse's eyes. They were wide open but already glassy.
The hunter took a step forward and reached up to grab the edge of a swinging ventilation screen. It was dangling, attached to the wall by a single screw, and left the air duct open. The yawning space was two by three feet wide—big enough for a body to fit through. A bloody hand print was on the wall next to it.
"I think I know how it's getting around the hospital unseen," he muttered, eyeing the space critically. It was higher up on the wall, above his head. He wouldn't be able to look inside without something to stand on.
A skittering noise echoed from inside the duct-work, and Kagome jumped away from the wall when she heard something behind the plaster. "Oh, my god," she hissed, coming to stand next to Miroku. They took several steps back, peering at the wall like something might break through at any second. Once they were far enough away, backed almost to the opposite wall, Kagome noticed movement in the darkness.
A pair of glittering eyes appeared, watching them from the opening.
Without any hesitation, Miroku pulled a gun from a holster hidden under his jacket and shot at the eyes. Even though the gun went off right next to her head, Kagome didn't hear the expected bang. She figured the long cylinder attached to the front was a silencer or something, muffling the noise quite a bit, although she'd never seen one before to confirm that suspicion.
There was a wet thud, and the eyes blinked out. Kagome took a shuddering breath, but it felt like she couldn't fill her lungs fast enough.
"What is it?" she gasped, realizing that she'd grabbed hold of Miroku's arm in a strangling grip again. One by one, she pried her fingers loose.
"Don't know," the dark-haired man muttered, dropping his aim to the ground but keeping the gun out. "I think we should find Inuyasha and Sango, though," he said, glancing around the hallway.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good plan."
They backtracked to that floor's elevator bank, and again Kagome put her ear to the closed metal doors. She closed her eyes, straining to hear anything—there were definitely voices, but they still sounded far away.
"I think they're below us," Kagome decided, pulling away to look Miroku full in the face. She didn't like how worried he looked. "I think they're also between floors. Can we get them out without the power on?"
"We'll have to try. Back to the stairs."
Kagome groaned.
For the third time, now on the fourth floor, Kagome listened to the elevator shaft and concluded that Inuyasha and Sango must be dangling halfway between that floor and the floor below. She rapped her knuckles against the door. "Hello?" she called, placing her mouth next to the small gap in the middle where the doors folded together when sliding open.
"Kagome?" It was muffled, but she definitely recognized Sango's voice.
"Yeah, it's me!" she shouted. "We're going to try to get you out, okay?"
Someone tapped Kagome on the shoulder then, and she spun around on her heel with a squeak. Thankfully, it was only Miroku. In his hand was a crowbar. "Found this at the nurse's station," he explained cheerfully, shooing her away from the doors.
He had to put his entire weight into it, but he finally managed to prize the doors open with a grating metal-on-metal sound. There was about two feet of open space, and Kagome could just barely make out the tops of Sango and Inuyasha's heads through the open hatch in the top of the elevator. Kagome guessed that they had been in the process of trying to climb out the top when she and Miroku had found them.
"Need a hand?" she joked, getting to her hands and knees and leaning through.
Inuyasha got to one knee and locked his hands together, nodding at Sango. The brunette put her foot on top of his interlaced fingers, and he lifted her upward until she managed to grab the edge of the hatch. After the brunette had hauled herself out and found her balance standing on top of the stationary elevator, Sango grabbed Kagome's hand. Working together, the girls managed to get her through the gap while Miroku kept the door open with the crowbar.
"Hurry," he mumbled, his voice strained. His forehead was shiny with sweat, and his face was turning red.
Quickly, Kagome and Sango both reached their hands into the gap. Inuyasha launched himself through the open hatch with a lot more power and grace than the humans could have managed and, even though he probably could have done it himself, grabbed their hands. They pulled backward as hard as they could, trying to use their own bodies as leverage to get him high enough to climb through the narrow opening. To help, Inuyasha put his booted feet to the wall and tried to counter his weight by pushing himself up.
Just as he wiggled through the gap, Miroku lost his grip on the crowbar, and the doors slid shut with a screech. It took several minutes for them to catch their breath. Except Inuyasha, who, as a half-demon, wasn't anywhere close to winded but still looked like he was suffering from strained nerves.
"It's in the walls," Inuyasha announced when it appeared the three humans had gotten control of themselves.
"We could hear it in the elevator shaft, trying to find a way in," Sango explained, getting to her feet and helping Kagome up from where she was lying on the ground, looking exhausted. "Did we hear someone scream?"
"A nurse," Miroku confirmed grimly. "She's dead."
"It's getting around in the air ducts," Kagome told the other two. "And it has to have hands and fingers, because it's been screwing all the screens back into place. If it hasn't been, then someone would have noticed, right?"
"Right," Inuyasha agreed, grinning at her. (He looked good when he grinned, plus it seemed almost like he was proud of her for coming to that conclusion, so naturally her heart skipped a beat. It didn't mean anything. Really.) "Glad to see you're still alive," he said, almost-but-not-quite teasingly.
"Where is everyone?" Sango asked, realizing that the hallway they were in was abandoned.
"Totosai wasn't joking when he said this was a skeleton crew. Except for the lobby downstairs, we've barely seen anyone." Kagome ran a hand through her bangs, realizing that her hair was falling out of its ponytail. Her heart was pounding, her hands were sweaty, and every little noise made her jump, but she realized that she felt excited. A good kind of excited, even. "Now what?"
The men shared a look, communicating something silently that Kagome and Sango could only guess. For all they knew, the hunters had come across something like this before—but to the girls, it was an entirely new experience. Something living in the walls, devouring people. Hunting the supernatural in such a natural setting, surrounded by normal human beings.
"We need to draw it out," Inuyasha said finally, peering at his shoes instead of into anyone's eyes. He wasn't saying something.
It took a few awkward beats before Kagome realized what he was getting at. "You mean you need bait," she clarified, her eyebrows drawn together in the middle of her forehead in a stubborn frown.
"We need bait," Miroku agreed, looking apologetic.
"I'll do it," Sango volunteered immediately, reaching out to hold Kagome's hand. They interlaced their fingers together and squeezed, silently giving each other support.
However, Kagome shook her head firmly. "You know how to shoot a gun better than I do. I'd be more convincing bait, and I'd rather know you were out there with them watching my back."
The two women had a silent battle of wills, fighting it out with their eyes, but in the end Kagome won. (As she often did.) Sango retracted her hand from Kagome's and folded her arms petulantly across her chest.
"Fine, but you better not die," the brunette snapped. The others could see the concern hidden under the spark in her eyes.
"I promise I won't," Kagome said in a soft voice, even though she knew she could promise no such thing.
The four put their heads together and hashed out a plan. Every time a nurse or a patient ran by, they were both relieved and spooked to remember that they weren't alone in the big hospital. Still, the generator was the only source of power, so everything glowed red with the dim emergency lights. It couldn't be too much longer before an electrician, and possibly the fire department, was out there poking around.
"Still have the knife?" Miroku asked Kagome.
She nodded affirmatively and reached down, pulling the blade out from where she'd wedged it between knee-high boots and her pink nurse's scrubs. When Totosai had given her the hospital's uniform to wear earlier, there hadn't been any extra shoes, so she'd been stuck with her boots. Honestly, she looked a little ridiculous, but no one had said anything.
Sango pulled her in for a fierce hug before letting go, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "Don't do anything reckless," she ordered sternly.
"Of course not. I'm always the picture of practicality," Kagome joked weakly. "Really, I've got you guys, right? Plus, don't forget, I totally kicked Naraku's ass."
"That is kind of true," Inuyasha admitted grudgingly. No one mentioned that he hadn't been around during the final confrontation because the evil spirit had knocked him out cold. "Monsters aren't spirits, though, so don't expect this to be the same thing."
"Yeah, yeah," Kagome said dismissively. She still sounded nervous. "I'm counting on you," she reminded the other three, looking each one in the eye. Quickly, Kagome reached out and grabbed Sango's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly before stepping forward to kiss each man on the cheek. Inuyasha even reached up and placed his fingertips on the spot she had kissed, as though he needed to confirm her lips had just been there.
"Good luck," Miroku said with a wink.
Without another word, Kagome turned around and walked toward the stairwell by herself. The others would follow later, but for now she needed to prove to the monster that she was separated from everyone else. In the dark, she carefully felt her way up three flights of stairs and entered the top floor by herself. The first place she went was where she and Miroku had left the dead nurse's body.
It was gone.
Her stomach twisting into knots, Kagome examined the ground and started to follow the smear of blood along the white tile. She stepped very softly, but the heels of her boots echoed around her in the abandoned hallway. Along the wall, since it was the children's ward, were paintings. In the light, they were probably fun and reassuring, but in the creepy red glow of the emergency lights, the painted expressions on the clowns and doctors and children looked distorted and murderous. Kagome gulped.
The blood trail went past several closed doors. Kagome could hear movement behind some of them, even some whimpering, but she figured it was just children afraid to come out during the power outage. Finally, the blood took a turn to the right and disappeared under the closed door of the floor's staff break room.
Steeling her nerves, Kagome slowly turned the doorknob with one hand. In the other, she clutched the combat knife but hid it behind her back. The door swung open, revealing a shadowy room full of tables and chairs and—
In the far corner was a hunched figure; wet chewing noises could be heard. Kagome took a step into the room, and the figure suddenly stilled. When it turned its face toward Kagome, she had to struggle not to gasp or scream. A pale face with long, dark, stringy hair and pointed teeth dripping with blood. The thing was eating the dead nurse. Already, Kagome could barely recognize the corpse as a human's.
The monster had the head and the torso of a woman—a naked woman, Kagome was startled to realize—but there were more than two arms. Each hand clasped a wet looking lump that Kagome was too afraid to look at closer, knowing it was pieces of the nurse. Below the feminine waist stretched a long body, almost like a snake, but lined with spidery-looking legs. The tail, or whatever it was, twisted around all the tables in the room.
"Oh, my god." Kagome couldn't help herself, and she realized with a start that it was her that was speaking. The realization of what she was looking at kicked her brain into high gear. "You're a centipede."
To her abject horror, the monster actually started laughing.
"My friends call me Mistress Centipede," the thing said in a voice that sent chills down Kagome's spine. It was a woman's voice, but angry and hoarse and more than a little demented. "My meals don't get much of a chance to call me anything."
Instinct kicked in, and Kagome whirled around. She took off back down the hall the way she had come, her heart racing. Behind her, she heard a clatter as the monster knocked over several chairs while in hot pursuit.
"Crap, crap, crap," she shouted, rounding a corner too fast. Her momentum threw her into a wall, bruising her shoulder. Scrambling to regain her balance, she kept running, hoping she'd given the others enough time to come up the stairs after her.
"Come back," the thing called after her, its voice almost singing in its excitement. It sounded thrilled. "I haven't had to chase a meal in a long time."
Naturally, of course, Kagome tripped.
The ex-nurse fell to her knees with an impact that rattled her teeth, and she quickly rolled to the side just in time for the monster to miss when it lunged. The tail or body segments or whatever and its many legs whipped past her as the thing skittered several feet away, sliding across the tile, carried by its own momentum. Swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat, Kagome plunged Miroku's knife into the arm closest to her, and a thick, black liquid squirted out.
"You bitch!" the creature roared, diving again at the girl. When it got close, Kagome noticed with a lurch just how long its fangs were—long enough that they could easily go through one side of her neck and out the other. With a scream, she rolled to the side again, feeling the air rush by her cheek as the monster narrowly missed.
"This was a really bad idea," Kagome gasped, crawling away on her hands and knees. The material of her scrubs made her slide across the floor, and the blood trail plus the gunk pouring out of the thing's wound made it even more slippery. "Oh, man," she hissed, feeling another gust of wind as the monster made another pass at her.
"Hey, ugly!" someone shouted.
Both the centipede and Kagome looked up in time to see Sango brace herself down the hall, feet spread shoulder-width apart and her arms held up, aiming the revolver in front of her. "Eat this!" the woman snapped, pulling the trigger three times as quickly as the gun would allow. The bullets slammed into Mistress Centipede's torso, and even more of the ghoulish blood pumped out.
Finally, Miroku and Inuyasha appeared behind Sango, and Inuyasha lifted the shotgun that Kagome vaguely remembered from their Naraku adventure. As the creature swayed back and forth, held up in the air by its long tail and many legs, the hunter ran down the hall to get closer. He pumped the shotgun once before leveling it—in a very macho sort of way, he only used one hand—and took a shot, and one of the human-looking arms on the torso blew off. Blood splattered the wall behind the monster, along with the buckshot that had missed the target. Inuyasha pumped the shotgun again and aimed more carefully.
This time, he took off the head.
The creature's body collapsed, and Kagome barely managed to dodge before she was crushed. With a squeal, she jumped over a tangle of tail and ran into Inuyasha's arms, mostly because he was closest, but also, maybe, because she decided it was a good excuse. As if it were instinct, his arms wrapped around her protectively, the shotgun bumping against her calf.
"Next time, you can be bait," she told Sango resolutely. "That thing was disgusting."
A slow clapping startled all of them, and when they turned around, they found Totosai, the bug-eyed Chief of Medicine, standing in the stairwell doorway.
"Well now, it seems you've left me quite a mess to clean up!" he exclaimed, surveying the massive corpse. A second later, there was a resounding clicking noise from somewhere deep below them and all the lights flickered to life. "Ah, there they are. They hooked up a larger generator to help power the hospital until the wiring can be fixed," he explained.
Under his unblinking gaze, Kagome realized she was still clinging to Inuyasha. Quickly, she removed her arms from around his waist and stepped back.
"How are you going to explain how the power went out?" Miroku asked curiously.
"Rats," Totosai clarified sagely. He nodded his head once. "I think I'm going to blame all of this on rats."
Before anyone could say anything else, there was a sizzling noise. Kagome spun around, seeing that the centipede's body appeared to be…
Melting?
"Disgusting," she repeated with a haughty sniff. "I'm so done with this one."
The ex-nurse marched toward Sango and grabbed the brunette's hand. Together, the two women went into the stairwell, leaving the rest of the cleanup to the boys.
