"So you're sure Kagome is okay?" Sango had not let Kikyō's words go since the text message.

"She has ways to tell me if she's not safe," Kikyō countered. "And she didn't use the codeword."

But… what if Kagome had forgotten the codewords they used to use in college and really was in danger? But… Kagome would not have gotten the first message off if that was true.

"What about the other one? The silver-haired guy?" Kagura asked, resting her chin on Kikyō's shoulder.

"She didn't mention him," Kikyō answered.

"So… Kagome sends us a cagey heads-up after a demon creepily speaks Latin at us like the second coming," Kagura frowned. "To tell us to stay put, waiting for Wormtongue, apparently?"

"Seems so," Kikyō sighed, running her hands through Kagura's sleek hair.

It had been, what, 24 hours since they'd watched a demon explode on its way into their trap? After speaking some sort of strange screechy Latin?

They'd searched the sub-basement of the Pierre for anything that could lead them to what the hell happened, only to discover the husk of yet another one of those machines in the back corner of the boiler room, not 30 feet from where they'd had the confrontation.

The flash had been distracting, yes, overwhelming even, but had it really taken them out of commission long enough to miss whoever it was that set the device to overload?

It was exasperating. And Sango was like a bloodhound who had picked up a scent, only to find the trail had gone cold. She'd muttered to herself all the way home, growling and playing with the snap of her holster (no one liked it when Sango did that…). Because Wormtongue and the silver-haired man had gotten away. Again. All they had were the words of a demon, and a device someone set to overload.

Then came Kagome's text.

Sango had been pacing the perimeter of the living room for at least the last hour, stopping once in a while to stare at a seemingly random patch of carpet, then scratch her head and growl. Kikyō and Kagura had learned that this was Sango's 'deduction time,' and it was best not to disturb her. And Sango's outward aggravation matched Kikyō's inward turmoil.

You are not allowed to send a fucking warning text and not update us
Kikyō glared down at the message to Kagome she planned on sending, hesitating for only a moment before hitting send.

Kagura's arm roped around Kikyō's shoulder. "Took you long enough."

"I have to trust her," Kikyō sighed. "She wouldn't send a text message like that and then just… up and disappear."

On our way
Kagome's reply was quick.

"I think she's bringing Miroku," Kikyō stated, only mildly surprised to see Sango flinch and turn a little red.

That would make sense. Miroku had been hovering lately. A lot. Mostly around Sango. Mostly while attempting to flirt with Sango.

"Just what I fucking need…" Sango clearly thought she'd said it under her breath; she had not.

"I think you two are cute," Kagura piped up, leading Sango to stutter and grumble. Kagura did always have a knack for saying exactly the right thing to trip up whoever it was she was talking to.

It certainly had worked on Kikyō… (Though neither of them really had much desire to regale their explorations with their friends. Kikyō was still trying to come to terms with being gay…)

"Right. I already broke into a building and flashed my badge and lied…" Sango now was mostly grumbling to herself. She'd been loudly dealing with her existential crisis for the past month. "I should date a criminal too… that would make everything just so fucking clear."

"You're doing it again," Kagura called. "Just fuck him and get it over with. Girls always go for bad boys."

Sango's answering stutter made Kikyō laugh.
Yep, she really liked her girlfriend's sense of humor.
Kikyō had a girlfriend!

It happened just after the rampaging demon that she and Kagome took out from the roof of WPIX. She was high on adrenaline, and Kagura offered to drop her off at her apartment. Kikyō had said yes.

Then Kikyō asked Kagura if she wanted to come up and have some chamomile tea.

Then they kissed.

And Kikyō had never felt so good. Never felt so clear, like she was finally letting her soul tell the truth. Because Kagura's lips and skin were soft, and when she said Kikyō's name, it was like the drab colors of the world sparked to life. Kagura had been tender, and patient, and was taking the relationship at Kikyō's pace. Which was slow. It felt… refreshing and nice and… for the first time ever, right. That Kagura was gorgeous and genius and funny helped. A lot.

Before Sango could retort to Kagura's jab, there came a knock on the door, and Kikyō felt the familiar hum of Kagome's reiki. When Sango opened the door, there was Kagome, and a tall and long-haired man who was wearing a red hooded sweatshirt and dark black jeans.. Someone Kikyō had never seen before. Had Kagome really brought her distraction with her to Sango's?

"You." Sango suddenly rounded on the man, tugging Kagome behind her back, then bodily blocking the entrance to her house. What the hell was going on?

"Sango—" Kagome tried.

"No, Kagome. You don't know who this is!" Sango snarled, not letting Kagome go, and not taking her eyes off the stunned man. "I don't know how he did it, but this is the guy!"

"Sango, just let me—" Kagome attempted to speak again.

"How did you do it? Hair dye? Contact lenses?" Sango advanced on the man, who shrunk, but did not retreat.

"I know who he is, Sango!" Kagome finally shouted loud enough to distract Sango, at least momentarily. "He—he told me. Everything."

"Can… can we be filled in on what's happening?" Kagura asked, holding tight to Kikyō's arm at the strange sight in front of them.

"This is the silver-haired man," Sango pointed accusingly at him; he still stood awkwardly in the doorway.

"His name is Inuyasha," Kagome growled. "And if you invite him in, we can explain everything."

Sango did not move; she simply glared. Then, finally, she sighed, and moved out of the way, letting the man—the silver-haired man, Inuyasha—sneak past her.

"Damn, Sango, don't let anyone tell you that you're not good at your job." Kagura was scrutinizing Inuyasha, "I can see the resemblance. But…"

"But he is disguised right now," Kagome answered, walking immediately back to Inuyasha's side, taking his hand into hers. Gently. Tenderly.

"Oh, hell no." It had only taken that one gesture for Kikyō to piece together the puzzle. "Goddammit Kagome, you fucked him?"

Some of Kagura's colorful language had rubbed off on her.

"I—yes?" Kagome turned a little pink, but that had nothing on the shade of red that covered Inuyasha's face. "Before I knew he was… well… um. Yeah."

"So you're saying that this Inuyasha, who's been setting off portal devices throughout New York City came to you, seduced you, and you're totally cool with it?" Sango had moved to stand between Kikyō and Kagura, and Inuyasha at this point. Ever the protective den mother. "We haven't figured out what that last demon was saying but—"

"He was speakin' Latin." Inuyasha finally spoke; his baritone voice was gravelly, almost like a snarl. No wonder Kagome liked him.

"You speak Latin?" Kikyō eyed the man, who was starting to stand a bit straighter and lean a bit closer to Kagome.

"Yeah, it's um. It's my native tongue." Inuyasha fiddled with a brilliant blue stone necklace on his neck. "Kagome… should I—?"

"Yes. Let them see you," Kagome reassured, her soppy eyes meeting his soppy eyes. It was almost as if… as if… they were in love.

This is a new one, Kikyō thought sarcastically. She could remember the men that came and went from Kagome's life back in college: musicians and athletes and artists. What was adding a demon to the mix? Then again, who was Kikyō to talk, as she'd been repressing some very important things about herself for a really long time. Maybe Kagome finally found she was demonsexual, and had met her match. A match who released demons into New York City.

Kikyō let her reiki flare, drawing looks of surprise from both Inuyasha and Kagome. She didn't much care. If Kagome had stupidly brought the very man into Sango's house who seemed hellbent on setting demons free in New York, Kikyō sure as fuck was going to make sure that Inuyasha knew he was seconds from understanding the last moments of the purple demon… just before he exploded into little bits all over the street.

"Stop threatening him!" Kagome's exasperation was clear. Kikyō decided to ignore her.

"If he behaves, I'll behave." Kikyō narrowed her eyes and stared at the man, who seemed to shrink again in response to her reiki.

"I p—promise," Inuyasha said, and the earnestness in his voice almost made Kikyō feel… guilty. Almost.

Dude had been releasing demons into New York City, after all. It was okay for him to be frightened.

"Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, Inuyasha, show them what you showed me." Kagome nudged him, and with a sigh, Inuyasha set a spark of something (yōki?) into the pendant on his necklace.

It was instantaneous. His hair drained of its black color, leaving it silver, and his ears disappeared, replaced with… dog ears on the top of his head. His eyes transitioned from purple-gray to amber like a sparkler on a summer's eve, and… he had fangs.

Kagome had slept with a demon. And the demon had real honest-to-god dog ears and fangs.

"The ears are certainly new…" Sango said, walking up to inspect the demon standing in front of her. "How many are there—like you—in New York?"

"Just me," Inuyasha answered, holding Kagome's hand so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. "I—uh—arrived here about… 10 years ago."

Kikyō narrowed her eyes. There was some memory, lurking on the edge of her recollection, that marked 10 years as significant. Why was her brain telling her it had something to do with Kagome?

Holy shit.

"The Central Park incident! Kagome, the silver-haired man. Is… is Inuyasha..?" Kikyō remembered. She remembered the first time that she and Kagome talked demons. She remembered the way that Kagome looked off into the distance and regaled a tale of walking through Central Park, and seeing a flash and there was a silver-haired man. The memory of it had stalked the edge of Kikyō's mind, but it wasn't until they started referring to him as silver-haired instead of white-haired that the memory had begun to manifest.

"One and the same," Kagome said, relieved. Almost like this new information was going to smooth out the whole bringing the guy who'd been setting off little reverse cyclotron bombs throughout the city.

"Uh. Yeah. And… I was tryin' to open all those portals so I could…" Inuyasha was talking to his feet. "So I could go home."

"There is a demon world, Kikyō!" Kagome looked absolutely elated. "Like we hypothesized! And not only that, but—but, Inuyasha here figured out how to turn our theories into working machines."

"We know." Kikyō crossed her arms. "Because we have the WPIX device. I still really really want to know why Inuyasha decided that now, this moment, when we almost caught the last one, was the right moment to come out of hiding."

"Inu—" Kagome started, but Inuyasha touched her arm and nodded, stopping what she was about to say. Kagome nodded back.

"Those who would dare to know the truth in this moment should know that their day of reckoning is upon them. The die is cast—Naraku comes for your judgment day! He will destroy the world, your world, as he destroyed his own. The way is open now. He will come!, is what the demon said." Inuyasha trembled a little as he spoke. "If I'd known that, I'd have stopped. A long fucking time ago. After the first one of those things."

"But… you watched as a demon basically turned 2nd Ave into its own personal Benihana," Kagura broke in—Kikyō could hear the rage in her voice. "And you still opened one after that."

"Actually..." Kagome lifted her index finger, the move she used when she was about to correct someone. "That was Inuyasha's partner. Well, ex-partner." At the quiet that had taken over the room, Kagome continued. "I guess Wormtongue had been paying attention, and managed to make a new device himself."

"Well fuck me," Kagura huffed. "So now we don't just have anime furry over here making portals that are letting horsemen of the apocalypse in, we have Wormtongue too?"

"Onigumo," Inuyasha murmured, just loud enough to hear. "His name is Onigumo. He… found me about a year ago. And he handed me a book: your book."

"So you were the two people who bought it," Kikyō drawled—damn, Kagura's sarcasm was rubbing off on her too.

"Y—yeah. Uh. I don't know how he knew what I was, just… that he knew. And he wanted to help me get home." Inuyasha was finding words more easily now. "I wanted to go home, uh, back to my world. And your book sorta… paved the way. So I started workin' on making the reverse cyclotrons and sparked 'em with my yōki. I always did it where Onigumo told me to, and just… figured we were gettin' unlucky."

"And now?" Sango stepped forward; the fact that even Sango's muscles had stopped twitching must've meant that she thought he was telling the truth too.

"I don't fucking know," Inuyasha replied, exasperated. "He once said that they needed to go in specific places so we could make one stable enough to—"

Stable enough to…

"Holy shit!" Kikyō burst out. She couldn't help it. Everything suddenly made sense to her. "Sango, pull up Google maps on your computer. I think I know what's going on."

42nd St and 11th Ave
130th and Lexington
97th and Amsterdam
42nd St and 2nd Ave
61st St and 5th Ave

"Is that all of them?" Kikyō asked as Sango added the dots to each of the locations.

"Y—yeah," Inuyasha answered.

"Kagome, what do these look like to you?" Kikyō turned her attention to her friend, whose face was pale and eyes were wide; yep, Kagome knew what Kikyō was getting at.

"Ley lines," Kagome said. "Sango, can you draw an X connecting 130th and Lexington and 42nd and 11th? And one connecting the other three?"

"Gimme a sec. I need to move the map to a different program if we need to draw on it." Sango replied, but did as she was asked.

"Central Park," Kagome whispered. "They cross in Central Park. They cross—"

"Where we met." Inuyasha finished Kagome's sentence, his voice no more than a whisper either.

"Okay, here." Sango finished overlaying the two lines on the map. "It's not quite Central Park, if we go based on exactly how these intersect. It's a little bit off. At…" Sango pulled the Google map back up, "CPW Towers."

"Inuyasha, you've been charging the ley lines, adding power to the network so when you activate a portal at that point right there." Kikyō pointed to the starred area. "It'll open wide."

"The way is open now!" Kagura murmured. "Looks like our exploded demon friend is on the same page."

"What the hell do we do?" Kagome squeaked, looking from Kikyō to Inuyasha, then back to Kikyō.

"Those things need reiki or yōki to activate," Inuyasha said, relief threading his voice. "And Onigumo doesn't have anyone else who has either reiki or yōki."

"As long as he doesn't try to kidnap one of our little witches," Kagura growled. "Or get word of my super special sauce devices."

"Let him try," Sango snarled. "Kagura, Inuyasha. I am gonna have one of my forensic artist friends come over to draw this guy. I want to know what I am looking for. As fun as calling him Wormtongue has been, I'd rather it be more descriptive."

"Sounds good," Kagura nodded. "Sango, I hope you don't mind a couple houseguests? I think… I have some ideas. And if there's some big-ass monster demon thing that's trying to break into our world, I wanna get to work." Kagura turned to Kikyō with the glint in her eye, the sexy glint that meant long nights creating new physics and new machines. "Kikyō, girls night at Sango's?"

"Uh, I have a workshop with some of the stuff I've been usin' to make these things," Inuyasha offered. "We could go… grab my stuff. I—I wanna help."

"Look at you finally getting on the right side of all this!" Kagura nudged Inuyasha playfully. "To the bat mobile, then!"

The others began heading to Kagura's van. Kikyō let Kagome take off, before she grabbed Inuyasha to stop him, not letting go of his arm as he turned toward her.

"I love Kagome like a sister." Kikyō channeled her reiki, not enough to burn, but enough that Inuyasha winced at the contact. "If you do anything to her, or this is some sort of trick, do not think I won't waste you."

"I—I," Inuyasha stuttered, but he didn't pull away, even as Kikyō singed his skin. "I know."

His answer was enough. The soppy love in Kagome's eyes? Yeah, it was in his eyes too. And it was genuine.

"Glad we have an understanding," Kikyō whispered, and she wondered if Inuyasha could tell all she meant with that statement.

The trip to Alphabet City was subdued. Inuyasha had slipped his disguise back on, and an awkward silence rang throughout the van. Inuyasha and Kagome were holding hands, staring at the floor as Kagura drove. Sango was playing with the leather snap of her holster (again), and Kagura, bless her, was singing "Don't Stop Believin'" at the top of her lungs. (She never was very good at awkward silences, and the silence that preceded figuring out where a madman was and whether he was going to try to destroy the world was definitely awkward.)

"It's here." Inuyasha pointed to an alley, which Kagura pulled into. "That door, right there."

She parked at the mouth of the alleyway, and everyone left the van, taking extra care to make as little noise as possible, easing the doors of the van closed before recongregating at the door.

"Stay behind me." Inuyasha pounced ahead of them, and even though he was currently 'human,' the feral growl that came from him made clear that the demon lurked underneath.

"Need a little help?" Kagome asked, flaring her reiki.

"He ain't demon or spiritual, so… that's of no use," Inuyasha snarled just above his low growl.

"This, on the other hand..." Sango hurried up next to Inuyasha, her gun now out. If Inuyasha felt any apprehension when he saw Sango's brandishment of metal, he'd hidden it quickly.

Inuyasha quietly took out the key to the door, and in an inhumanly fast flash, it was unlocked and opened.

"Fuck!" Inuyasha howled the moment he'd stepped across the threshold, which sent Sango in, then Kagura, Kagome and Kikyō piled in afterward. "It's gone; it's all gone."

The room that they'd broken into had tables and scraps strewn across the floor, and a single lightbulb that illuminated the space. But instead of clutter and half-built experiments (like in Sango's basement), there was… nothing.

"What does that mean?" Kagome asked, stepping to Inuyasha's side once more.

"That Onigumo has been here," Inuyasha frowned. "And he's taken everything with him."