CHAPTER SIXTEEN

*

Wind. Cold. Dirt. And more snow...

Inuyasha groaned, barely able to open his eyes. He could smell that he was someplace unfamiliar, but where... Vague memories began to form. He remembered being dragged off the precipice by a wind stronger than any other he'd encountered. Even Miroku and Kagura hadn't hit him that hard. The last thing he remembered was smashing his head into a rock, and then nothing...

"Ow, my head," Inuyasha mumbled. Gingerly he touched the back of his head, only to wind as his claws brushed a wound. His thick white hair was matted with blood. "Damn it... how far did I fall?"

He started to get up, then fell back on his stomach. He'd gotten dizzy the moment he tried to get up.

Must have hit it pretty hard, he thought, digging his claws into the dirt. I hope Kagome's okay... I can't smell her from here. She'll probably go wanderin' off by herself if I don't come back for her soon. Dammit. If I hadn't smacked my head I could be up that in a minute.

A cold wind blew through the dark cave, and Inuyasha felt his hackles rising. It was already frigid; an injured human would have never woken up in his place. He shivered, trying to work his way onto his hands and knees. There was something down here -- a dangerous, cold something -- that had tricked him with Kagome's voice. And Inuyasha hated being tricked.

"Where are you?" he growled at the darkness. "Coward! Sitting in the mountains and waiting for people to freeze before you attack! Why don't you come out in the open and fight me?"

The only answer was the wind whistling somewhere deeper in the caves.

"Coward," Inuyasha growled again. His fingers were starting to ache. A human would probably be dozing off and freeze down here. He pricked his ears, listening. Nothing but more wind.

"Dammit!" he whispered. "Nothing can be that quiet. It's here -- I can feel it. But I can't hear or smell a thing. What kind of demon is this?"

He gingerly got to his knees, swaying slightly. "Kagome!" he shouted. "KAGOME!"

Then he sat down heavily, rubbing his hands together. "Yeah, like she'll listen," he muttered. "If she can hear me, she'll probably just think it was the demon that sucked me down here."

Another stab of pain went through his head. "Just so long as she's safe," he murmured.

*

Kagome's boot slipped on the rock outcropping. For a moment she thrashed, clutching at chinks in the cliffside, then caught herself and clung to it. She looked down, and wished she hadn't. The chasm was still a huge, yawning mouth that didn't seem to have a bottom.

I wish I were like Inuyasha, she thought. I can't get a good foothold in this place! "At the very least, I wish I had some rope." She made a mental note to pack rope on her next expedition into the feudal era -- as if she weren't carrying half her belongings anyway.

"Inuyasha?" she called over her shoulder. If she had to, she'd ask him questions that only Inuyasha could answer -- stuff like what had used a man's body to try to take the jewel from her, when she had first come to the Feudal Era. Or what she had done to Mistress Centipede. Something!

Her numbed fingers slipped, and in her desperation Kagome clung to the cliffside with her knees and elbows. I never realized how much I depended on Inuyasha, she thought. He can leap tall buildings in a single bound, right? I mean, normally I wouldn't even try to climb down a cliffside inside a mountain with no rope. But if he's hurt, I have to help him.

A dark thought flitted over her mind like a moth. Kagome brushed it away. I won't even think about that, she thought. He's too tough to get killed by just a fall.

Another thought crossed her mind, one that frightened her more than the thought of the emptiness under her feet. "But it isn't just a fall," she murmured, resting her face against the cold stone. "Something down there pretended to be Inuyasha and tried to suck me down into this chasm. He's alone with it now, and he might be hurt. I don't know how I can help, but I have to do something."

She poked around with her foot for another chink in the rock, then froze. Something was whirring and rumbling down in the depths of the mountain. Inuyasha's muffled voice came up past her, on a breeze.

"Oh no," Kagome whispered.

A blast of wind tore from above her, blinding and deafening her. Kagome flinched and pressed her face against the cliff, trying to keep her fingers wedged in the rock face -- until a searingly cold gust tore her loose and threw her down into the vortex.

TO BE CONTINUED