Stolen Dreams

Chapter Seven

Bourbon Cowboy

The half-demon, Inuyasha, sat with his back against the wall in the empty nursery. His sword was propped against his shoulder, his ears and shoulders drooped forward. Even though his mate was now passed out from exhaustion, in his mind he could still hear her screams of anguish upon finding her children stolen from their beds.

"Inuyasha! The children!" Kagome had stopped to check Kaede's and Grandpa's pulses where they lay sprawled just inside the front door. She had asked them to stop and check in on the children before they headed home. The old priestess must have arrived just as the kidnappers were leaving. Even though Inuyasha knew what he would find upon entering the nursery, he had still sprinted up the stairs with Koga, Ayame and Sesshomaru. "They're gone." He didn't know which one of them had said it first, staring at the empty cribs. Ayame had dropped to her knees and howled while Koga and Inuyasha tore the blankets off of each bed despite knowing they would find none of the missing children hidden beneath a lump in the sheets. Inuyasha barely kept himself from tearing the floorboards up. That's when he heard Kagome begin crying for Shippo and he felt his blood turn to ice again.

They found Shippo, Kohaku, Sota and Takehiko locked in one of the bedrooms downstairs. The door was plastered shut behind a wall of mud. It took Miroku and Sango several minutes before they were able to free the boys. Kagome had grabbed Shippo up in a fierce hug and had since forbid him to leave her side. It was Takehiko, the young wolf prince, who had described their attackers. "They were like men made of red clay with no souls," he had said, turning to look at his father, "The same ones who haunt my nightmares." Inuyasha watched as Ayame and Koga exchanged worried glances, knowing that they had never told Takehiko about his kidnapping when he was a baby.

The adults had spent all night searching for the missing children. Inuyasha had interrogated Ayame relentlessly for anything she might remember regarding her abduction by Kikyo five years past. There was no doubt in anyone's mind, having heard the description of the attackers, who the real enemy was. Kikyo had finally made good on her promise to get revenge and much as Inuyasha hated to admit it, there was very little they could do now.

So Inuyasha sat with his back against the wall in the empty nursery. He tightened his grip on the sword resting propped against his shoulder, wishing for an enemy he could see to slay. He flicked his ears slightly as he felt his adopted son, Shippo, settle on the floor next to him. Had Inuyasha's mind not been otherwise occupied, he would have wondered when Shippo had become so tall as to have his head now reach Inuyasha's shoulders when sitting beside him. For a while the young fox demon was silent. Finally he whispered, "I'm sorry, Inuyasha."

The half-demon looked down, taking in the misery evident in Shippo's posture and expression. "It's not your fault, Shippo," he said in an uncharacteristically kind voice, "You could not have stopped them on your own anyway. Remember five years ago when Kik-" he paused, loathe to say that name, "When she sent those monsters to kidnap Ayame and Take? Not even the entire wolf tribe could stop them."

"But maybe I could have done something..." Shippo flicked his tail in aggravation.

"Look, it doesn't matter now," Inuyasha stood, tying his sword back to his waist, "All that matters is getting them back. We will get them back." He looked down at this young demon he had adopted as one of his own. "Why don't you stay in our room tonight? Your mother will be frantic if you aren't there when she wakes up." He held out a hand and helped Shippo to his feet. Shippo made an attempt at a smile, "Thanks, dad."

~*~

Kagome awoke slowly. Her eyes blinked open wearily, and she rubbed at them, trying to dispel the horrible nightmare she had been having. One arm reached out to her mate, but found his side of the bed cool and empty. She frowned and glanced out the window where the sun was just beginning to rise. Then her eyes alighted on the small cot set beneath the window where Shippo was snoring quietly. Why is Shippo not sleeping in his bedroom with the other boys? She wondered to herself, a feeling of dread starting to creep its way into the pit of her stomach.

The priestess slipped out of bed and reached for her robe only to find that she had fallen asleep fully clothed. The knot in her stomach tightened. Still, she padded across the room to pull the blanket up to cover Shippo's shoulder and kiss him on the forehead. When she turned around, Inuyasha was standing in the doorway. His eyes were moist and his posture slumped. "It wasn't a dream, was it?" she asked him. When Inuyasha shook his head, Kagome raised a hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs as she crumpled to the floor in a heap.

Instantly, her mate was beside her. Inuyasha did not attempt to help her stand. Rather he propped himself up on his knees, wrapped his arms around his wife, and rocked with her back and forth – sharing in her misery. At some point Shippo woke and joined his parents on the floor. Kagome hugged him close, kissing his head and promising "I won't let anything happen to you. I won't let them get you, my baby. I won't let them get you. I won't let them get you."

~*~

At some point during the day, all the men gathered in the living room to discuss what was to happen next while the women attempted to console each other (having already made their husbands more anxious with their thirst for blood). Mrs. Higurashi and Kaede clucked over the anxious mothers, trying to soothe nerves with tea and herbs and kind words. In the living room, Miroku stood staring into the dying embers in the fireplace. He clenched his hand into a fist and for the first time wished that he had his wind tunnel back if only to use it on that witch. For that was what Kikyo had become. No longer was she a good and righteous priestess in Miroku's mind. She was a devil worshiping kidnapper. Miroku struggled to bring his mind back to the present, listening to the wolf guards explain how the children's scent trail ended at the forest – as if the children had simply been swallowed up by the earth itself.

"Our best bet is to guess Kikyo's hideout," Koga grumbled, "Since we cannot sniff it out we'll just have to outsmart her."

"Are you sure Ayame remembers nothing of her imprisonment?" Inuyasha asked for probably the hundredth time, "She was Kikyo's prisoner for two weeks, surely she remembers something!"

Koga growled low in his throat, "She has already told you everything she knows. Stop harassing my mate, dog breath."

The use of the old insult brought Inuyasha back to his senses. He "feh"-ed as a way of apologizing and glanced over at his brother. Sesshomaru was staring out the window across the lawn up to the bone eater's well. Finally the oldest demon spoke, "Inuyasha, you are the one who knows her the best. You spent the most time with her and it is you who must figure out where she would hide."

"Maybe that was true at one point," Inuyasha slumped into a chair, "But I don't know her anymore. The Kikyo I knew died sixty years ago."

"This Sesshomaru is not interested in your inadequacies." Sesshomaru leveled his cool gaze on Inuyasha, who prickled under the insult, "Regardless of whether or not you are intimately acquainted with her now, you still are your own best hope for finding the children. Use your head. Where would Kikyo go to hide from you?"

Trying to ignore the insults, Inuyasha thought on it for a moment then hopped up to get a map. He laid it on the table and the other men bent to look over it with him. Inuyasha circled several small villages, some nearby others on the far side of the country. Some were in forests, others by the sea. Koga scoffed, "Why don't we just check every human village on the island!" Inuyasha glanced up at him, "If we had enough people. Look, before Kikyo killed me she used to hide from me in any human settlement, knowing that I hated them. But these villages," he pointed to the ones marked on the map, "are the ones with the most significance to her." He raised his eyes to Miroku's face, meeting his best friend's gaze. "It's a start."

~*~

If any of them had thought to check the cave where Kikyo had nursed Onigumo back to health, they would have found the children that night, destroyed the witch and that would have been the end of it. Kikyo thought herself too smart for them, and had risked holding the children hostage in the bandit's cave before moving them to her true destination. The children were all huddled in a corner, in the darkest chamber of the cave – far underground away from the light of day. They were disoriented, scared, tired and hungry. Izoyia sat between the other two girls, behind her brothers. With one hand she held tight to her human friend, with the other the wolf princess. The boys holding hands too, stared into the darkness of the cave waiting for the witch to return. None of the children knew who Kikyo was, being too young to have ever heard the story of Naraku.

When the mud monsters had first deposited them into the dark cave, the children had all begun to wail. They were frightened and disoriented. So when the woman stepped from the shadows looking just like their mother, they wanted to believe they were rescued and the nightmare was over. Tounga and Izoyia had started to rush toward the woman, crying "Mommy! Mommy!" Tasuki, however, had caught her scent. "Don't go near her!" He cried, stopping his siblings from running to the witch, "That isn't mommy. It's not even alive!" Mizuki, the young wolf princess grabbed Izzy's hand and growled as threateningly as she could at the intruder.

"Go away!" the young princess growled, one chubby hand holding tight to her friend.

The undead priestess had just smiled menacingly, "We're going to have to work on that attitude if we're all going to get along."

Suzume hugged Tounga around the middle, their violet eyes filled with tears. Together, all the children began to cry.


Author's Note: Another short chapter, I know. The pace of the story starts to pick up from here, more action and adventure stuff upcoming. What you can expect in the coming chapters: Sesshomaru and Rin must return to their duties ruling the western lands, Koga faces ridicule from some members of his clan, and Shippo sets out with the other boys to try and track down his siblings. Kikyo lovers beware, she's got her hands full with some mighty uncooperative hostages!

As always, don't forget to let me know what you think! Read and Review!

BourbonCowboy