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Chapter 3
Koga watched in silent horror from his perch atop the rooftop.
This was certainly a very unexpected chain of events…
He had followed the coordinates provided to him by Yamada and upon arriving at Wraith's hotel, expertly snuck into the room that she had set up shop in. In glancing around the room, nothing of interest caught his eye.
He crossed to the center of the room and closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, trying to catch her scent.
Unfortunately not much was really registering.
He hated hotel rooms. Too many people in and out.
It was hard to catch a specific scent, especially if you didn't know the specific scent you were trying to mark in the first place.
He sighed.
He really didn't want to go through her bag, but he didn't feel as though he had much of a choice. Remembering the stoic face from the picture, he imagined that whatever clothes the woman had packed, and it didn't seem as though she packed much judging by the small size of her suitcase, would most likely be laundered and pressed, not leaving much in the way of personal scent.
He'd have to try.
He opened the small bag, making note of the items and their position within. When carefully looking through the contents, his previous thoughts seemed to prove correct regarding the state of the clothes within – all laundered and folded neatly into two identical twin stacks.
He leaned in and took a whiff, his mind working to process the scents. He could make out the faint odor of cleaning chemicals along with a layer of flowered perfume - most likely fabric softener.
He abandoned the suitcase, once again looking around the room.
She must have left something behind.
He walked over to the small bathroom located in the left hand corner of the room. There, neatly folded jeans and a button down blouse, along with some undergarments, were stacked on top of the lowered toilet covering. At some point she had showered and changed.
BINGO!
Happy for the discovery and how much easier it was going to make his mission, he leaned over and picked up the stack of clothing. He devilishly thought about smelling the undergarments, but decided against it. He learned that particular lesson trying to be a smart ass in the past. Just because the woman was beautiful to look at, didn't necessarily mean that she smelled good, and the last thing you want to do is smell someone's nasty panties.
He choked at the memory.
Pulling his thoughts together and trying to focus, he selected the blouse from the pile and brought it up to his face, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes in an attempt to commit the woman's scent to memory.
Her scent was light, a cross between the ocean and flowers. It was sweet, unique… and … and …
Very fucking familiar.
The pain in his temple returned, so intense in its ferocity, his body folded over. His hands flew up, clutching his throbbing head. Nausea flooded over him.
Who the hell was she and why was he reacting this way?
His brain struggled to remember, to place the scent, but he kept coming up empty. For a moment, while willing the pain to subside, he randomly thought about the past when life had been so much simpler. He barely remembered a time when there was no worry about world wars and weapons of mass destruction. There was a point, albeit it felt like a dream now, where he was able to exist free of much worry outside of having enough food and protecting his tribe from outside forces – demon and human alike.
There was also that Naraku thing. His mind chided.
Koga thought back to that particular adventure. Though a dire experience at the time, the memories brought welcomed warmth into his heart. He remembered having to give up his jewel shards for that particular cause.
He blinked and his headache subsided, some of the cobwebs dusting his memories finally clearing away.
Christ, that had to be over five hundred years ago!
Suddenly Koga felt very old indeed.
He caught a glance at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. A tall man with tan skin and piercing blue eyes stared right back at him. He looked no older than thirty in human years.
If it took five hundred years for him to look like a thirty year old human, he wondered how many more years he had left until he could finally surrender to the silent and welcome peace of death.
Clearing his depressing musings from his mind, and finally feeling a bit more centered, he exited the bathroom, making his way towards the room's window. With Wraith's scent fresh in his mind, he set off to track the elusive woman down.
He caught up to her within the hour, silently tailing her and keeping his distance.
She was pretty good, effectively blending into the shadows; she left no obvious tell of her presence. If not for his canine tracking abilities, combined with his superior sense of smell, he probably would have lost her.
He smiled to himself.
Yup, still got it! He thought.
A devilish grin was plastered on his face.
He watched as she confidently made her way along as if driven by an unseen force, pausing from time to time as if to re-calibrate some internal compass, determinedly plowing on. She stopped near what looked to be a vacant house at the edge of the woods. She silently studied the home before moving out of sight into the accompanying darkness of the property.
He waited for several moments before moving to the adjacent rooftop across the street, trying to, once again, catch sight of her.
Most likely, she was calling in for backup, which made the most sense in the current situation. Koga sniffed the air and confirmed that her position on the property had not changed.
Seeing as how he would most likely be here until additional agents arrived, he pulled his tactical Urbana sniper rifle from the strap that was currently affixing the lightweight weapon to his back.
Might as well set up in the event that Sleeper becomes wise to her position.
He laid his body flush against the roof and unfolded the legs of the gun.
Using the scope of the weapon, he quickly scanned the windows and entry points of the home. Upon seeing nothing of interest, he continued to guide the scope outwards over the surrounding property.
It was at this point that he caught a glimpse of a black blob shuffling across the grass.
Koga looked up, removing his eye from the lens of the scope, using his perfect eyesight to hone in on Wraith's movements, even in the dark of the moonless night.
What the fuck is she doing?
As though somehow hearing his silent question, she froze, ceasing her movement towards the house. A minute ticked by and the woman rotated her head as if examining the windows of the house that were now facing her.
Koga lowered his eye back to the scope.
This woman is a sensory type and something just spooked her.
He once again scanned the windows of the home.
He wasn't able to see any movement from inside the house.
He quickly lifted his head, scanning the grass again for Wraith with his eyes.
The woman suddenly jumped into a crouched jog and silently threw herself against the side of the house. This time, she turned her head and looked directly at him.
Impossible.
His eye once again lowered to the scope.
Adjusting the magnification he zoomed the lens backwards, away from her face, until he could finally make out her features.
She was staring directly at him, horror etched into her current expression.
Koga's instincts started to kick up, a shallow nervousness was rising from his belly.
What is going on? There is no possible way that she should be able see me. His mind rambled.
From what he remembered from her file, her abilities did not include super-duper telescope vision, or something just as absurd.
But, her file did actually mention that she had the ability to locate key people of interest. He remembered.
Koga guessed that at this very moment in time, from his present sniper position located directly across from her current exposed position against the house, he was very much so, a key person of interest.
He inwardly groaned as he watched Wraith sashay along the side of the home, before he lost sight of her completely. He mentally cursed himself when the lights surrounding the property, apparently motion activated, came to life, drowning the house in a bath of heavenly light.
Kagome frantically began to push the buttons on her smartphone's keypad when she was interrupted by the telltale electricity that was once again building within her. It took everything she had not to fire the gun that she had poised in her right hand accidentally.
Someone was here, and it sure wasn't Sleeper.
This was the presence of the rooftop stalker.
Her pursuer, to their credit, was expertly silent. If not for her powers, she wouldn't have registered their presence, which was currently looming over her from the tree tops.
How in the world was this person able to get over here so fast? That's not even possible!
The person seemed to lurk there a moment longer than they should have, as if inviting her to make the next move.
Kagome, slowly, with movement that she prayed was imperceptible, pushed her phone back into her pocket. Then, calling upon her years of training, she shifted her weight, turning quickly and aiming her Glock in the direction of the intruder.
She sure didn't hesitate when she pulled the trigger and fired.
The bullet shot forward and the initial sound of the blast was deafening. The tiny explosion had momentarily managed to lite up Kagome's field of vision.
Her attacker was on the move.
She took a step forward, expanding her energy while trying to once again lock onto her target.
If she had fired that bullet at anyone else, it would have struck its intended target. Koga condescendingly thought to himself.
Unfortunately for her, albeit older and a little slower than he used to be sans the jewel shards, Koga was still pretty damn fast with some amazing reflexes at his disposal.
Who shoots first and asks questions later? He thought.
He tried to ignore the chain of events that had led to this current predicament.
He had gotten too close to her and put her into a panic. For all this woman knew, he was probably trying to kill her.
Nope. Not my fault. This chick's a bonafide lunatic. He chanted to himself, trying to glaze over his obvious responsibility in the matter.
"Step in only if absolutely necessary and make sure that no one is aware of your presence." Yamada's words repeated through the chatter of Koga's self-absolving thoughts.
Koga could have laughed.
He was pretty sure the entire neighborhood was alerted to his presence at this point, which reminded him that he needed to bring an end to this muddled dilemma immediately. The only problem with that was, no matter which direction he tried to disappear into, Wraith seemed to easily follow his movements with that gun of hers, granted she was always a few seconds behind him.
There was no way a human was going to be able to keep up him, Koga decided, even if that human happened to have sensory type powers.
He had to end this.
He could hear the muffled sound of sirens a few miles away. In a few minutes the police would be closing in on this fun little gun party in the woods.
If he could get behind Wraith, he would have a few moments in which he could subdue her. Of course, the woman thinking that he was very obviously sent to kill her, was going to put up one hell of a fight once he did.
It couldn't be helped.
He pushed his legs hard, adding a few additional seconds to his lead. Zig-zagging across the trees, he tried to throw her off, and it worked.
Confused, Wraith struggled to keep up with his plan of attack.
It only took a moment for him to see an opening.
He pounced.
It was already too late to redirect the attack when Kagome became aware of her target's presence behind her.
It was also too late to stop the man's left hand from snaking its way across her waist and engulfing her in a tight and unwelcome embrace.
And it was way, way, too late to stop the man's right hand from sliding down her free arm and dislocating her wrist.
Koga effectively wrenched the gun from Wraith's now broken grasp, his right hand currently free to find a new home over her mouth, silencing any scream the woman would have made.
Pain shot through her arm.
On reflex, Kagome forcefully swung her leg up backwards, trying to land the mother of all kicks to this man's balls.
It would have worked too, if Koga's instincts hadn't forced him to raise his knee at that very moment.
The kick was painful.
Koga bit his lip trying to refocus the sharp pain that was quickly spreading through his shin elsewhere. He thanked God he was able to block the kick from its originally intended target. She definitely would have destroyed his manhood.
Unforgivable.
For a moment he considered snapping the woman's neck. She was trouble, and he sure wasn't as amused by this mission now as he had been at the start.
He decided on a gentler tactic, praying that she had the presence of mind to digest his words at the present moment.
Koga leaned forward chancing a low rushed whisper into her ear. He chose to keep the message simple, hoping it was easier for her to digest in her current state of mind.
"Wraith, stop. I'm on your side. I'm agent Fang, an assassin with R.O.O.T. General Yamada assigned me to shadow you. I'm here to protect you." He paused letting his words sink in.
Wraith stilled. She seemed to consider his words.
He faintly felt her muscles twitch beneath her skin and came to the realization that the bitch was going to try to make a break for it.
His eyebrows knitted together in annoyance.
He tightened his hold of her waist, and leapt, bringing them both into the trees.
As they landed on a nearby branch, she did not fight his hold and Koga took this to be a very good sign.
"Listen Wraith, I know you don't trust me, but if I were the enemy, I could've easily taken you out several times over already." He huffed, exasperated. "I don't want to hurt you. Anything you want to know I can try to explain, but right now, we NEED to get out of here."
As if reinforcing his words, the sirens grew louder.
The police seemed to now be stationed in front of the lit up house.
"First, I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth, and then, I'm going to get you out of here. Do NOT scream." Koga pleaded.
The man removed his hand as promised, and promptly turned Kagome's body around so that she could face him, their current position on the tree branch making it near impossible for her to further attack him without falling to the ground and breaking a few bones along the way.
Kagome wasn't really sure what she expected when she turned to face the man. It was so incredibly dark out that she could barely make out his features. She stared up at him to no avail, willing the faint traces of adrenaline that were pumping through her veins to somehow subside.
Koga did not spare the other agent a glance. He instead immediately bent down, catching Wraith's waist with his shoulder and slinging her over his back like some kind of new age human backpack.
"What the hell are you doing?" She hissed.
"Getting us out of here." He grumbled, crouching down yet again and springing forward, jumping across the trees.
The escape was rather quiet, Kagome thought to herself.
With every leap, Fang's long hair seemed to whip across her face. A few minutes in and she wanted to tear it from his head.
She had been so very close, but she had let Sleeper get away.
No, correction. Fang had allowed Sleeper to get away, completely ruining her mission.
She sighed.
As much as she wanted to place all the failure squarely on Fang's shoulders, she did begrudgingly have to accept her own shortcomings as well. She should have called Yamada the moment she came across that house. There were plenty of places in which she could have hidden in order to place that phone call before going onto the property.
Her abilities had led her to the target, but for some reason, she didn't trust herself enough, opting to get closer to the house.
She fucked up.
As if finally sensing the bag of moody depressed aura currently slung over his left shoulder, Fang bit out a few words of comfort.
"This isn't your fault. It's mine. I got too close to you. I messed up." He said.
Kagome interpreted his jumbled sentence fragments to be some sort of half assed apology.
In that moment Kagome decided that she didn't like Fang very much, but she did have to admit she was starting to grow very fond of the low timbre of the man's voice.
She randomly wondered if he would whisper sweet nothings into the ears of his victims before killing them...
Huh? Where the hell did that come from?
She'd been reading too many dark romance novels lately. This was hardly the appropriate time to have such immature thoughts about her colleague, especially when said colleague happened to screw her entire mission up in addition to snapping her wrist.
Oh yea, that.
The memory enraged her.
"Was it really necessary to break my fucking wrist?" She spat. I'm a righty, you know. It's going to be really hard holding a straight shot with my left hand if I have to. And what about all of my reports? Do you know what it's like trying to type with only one hand? ... "
Koga's eyelid started to twitch involuntarily.
This woman was seriously a real pain in the ass. He had been carrying her for the past half hour trying his best to get her back to her hotel without further incident. But with the way she was carrying on, he was way past the point of feigned patience and he let his temper get the best of him.
He jumped down to a dimly lit alleyway, unceremoniously swinging Wraith over his shoulder and onto the ground. The woman made a comical "ooof" sound as she bounced on her ass in the dirt.
"ASSHOLE!" She bit out between clenched teeth.
She scrambled to get to her feet, limbs flailing furiously, shouting at him in hushed angry tones. "What the hell are you doing, you JERK! You know, I don't have to take this shit from you! I don't know why Yamada sent you here, but you should go straight back to wherever you came from and leave me the hell alone!"
She stood up and marched over to him. Her beautiful features twisted into a hateful scowl.
And right when she got about three feet from her soon to be victim... she felt all the air leave her lungs.
His face.
This was impossible.
She stared at him stupidly, jaw slack from shock.
Her mind scrambled at a furious pace trying desperately to process the sight before her.
That's it, he thought, the crazy lady finally went and lost the rest of her marbles.
He stared at her wide eyed expression wanting to laugh at her. So he did.
His obnoxious fit of laughter failed to elicit any response from the woman who continued to stare at him, openly gaping.
He secretly wondered if she was ok.
Maybe she was in shock?
He didn't think she had any injuries aside from the one he had given to her to stop her murderous rampage back there in the woods.
Perhaps I've missed something?
He eyed her, giving her the once over.
It looked like she had just seen a ghost.
"Have you suddenly gone dumb?" he asked her.
"Not that I can blame you." he said. "I know it must be hard coming to terms with the fact that you've done nothing but insult the sexiest man you've probably ever laid eyes on." He teased, flashing her his most charming fanged smile.
She blinked.
He watched as the emotion in her eyes changed. They went from wide with sudden shock to sad, somehow openly pleading with him.
He frowned.
What the hell was wrong with her?
"Wraith are you alright?" He asked. "Are you hu...
He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence.
She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, her eyes never leaving his.
A few seconds passed this way before the mood suddenly shifted.
Koga suddenly became very aware of Wraith's body and how she was currently pressed up against him. She was so close that he could have simply leaned down and kissed her, had he wanted to. Her small rapid breaths were lightly tickling his neck.
A deep heat had started to spread through his body. But, before Koga could act upon any of the physical impulses that were starting to make their way into his brain, one barely audible word tumbled from Wraith's pink, plump lips, forcibly ripping him back down to Earth.
"Koga."
