CHAPTER FIFTEEN

*

"Shippo!" Miroku shouted. "SHIPPO!"

"Kirara!" Sango called. "Where are you? Shippo! Kirara!"

She shivered suddenly. The wind was still seeping in from somewhere in the near darkness. They had followed Shippo and Kirara's footprints until the snow stopped, and were now stumbling blindly around the tunnels.

Miroku put his arm around her shoulders. "I'd advise that we split up, except..."

"Except we might not find one another again," Sango finished.

"Right. And if night comes before we find the others, we might freeze otherwise," Miroku said. He paused as a faint sound came from one of the passages. "Sango, you have more extensive experience with demons than I have. I sense a faint demonic presence all around us, but so thin that I barely noticed it before. Have you any experience with demons such as these?"

"No," Sango said, patting the stone wall beside her to keep her bearings. "Most of the demons I've slain were animals or insects. They're a little hard to not notice. Something this powerful would have required dozens of demon-slayers." She stared at him. "Or better, an exorcist."

"It's not something I've done very often," Miroku said.

"It isn't?"

"Well, not because of a genuine problem," Miroku said with a small smile. "Unless you count room and board as being a problem."

"Oh, be quiet." Sango shivered again. "I wish Inuyasha were here. He could sniff out Shippo and Kirara."

"Well, in his absence, we'll just have to do our best," Miroku said. He boosted Sango onto a stone outcropping, and as he was climbing up himself, slipped and smacked his face into the ground.

"Miroku!"

"I'm fine," Miroku said, pressing a hand to his nose. A few rivulets of blood seeped between his fingers. "I don't think it's broken. Just a little battered."

Sango unhooked her boomerang and unwound a small polishing cloth from the underside. She held it out to Miroku. The monk pressed it to his nose, mumbling, "Thanks."

As Miroku mopped the blood from his nose, Sango crouched down beside him, and glanced around the dim passages and tunnels. "Miroku... am I imagining things, or have we been going in circles?"

The only answer was a slight squeeze on her backside.

*

"Inuyasha!" Kagome shouted again.

Her voice echoed through the dark chasm. A cold wind blew her hair down past her face. She was creeping down a series of niches in the rock face, a sort of rough ladder. But they were slippery and hard to keep a toehold on. It would be child's play to Inuyasha, but Kagome could barely hang on.

Kagome scrabbled for a dried flower Shippo had tucked in her pocket earlier. She let it drop, and watched it whirl in a spiral before vanishing into the darkness. I don't know much about wind, she thought, but that doesn't look normal.

When the dark shape of an outcropping appeared in the gloom, Kagome slid onto it for a rest. Her fingers were frozen and sore; Kagome could barely move them. Shivering, she stuck her hands under her arms and waited for them to thaw.

Then a faint glimmer caught her eye.

It was a spot of blood on the outcropping, with two hairs in it. Silver ones.

Forgetting about her fingers, Kagome carefully worked the hairs loose of the dried blood. "Inuyasha," she whispered. "He must have fallen and hit his head... INUYASHA!" she shouted down into the chasm. It was probably a bad idea to keep yelling, but if Inuyasha had gotten hurt, she would take that chance. He'd jumped down greater heights without so much as a bruise. But if he had hit his head, and blacked out...

Grimacing, Kagome swung back onto the makeshift stone ladder, and began her descent again.

TO BE CONTINUED