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Kagome cracked her eyes open, and sat up in her bed.
What time is it?
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table and shuddered.
Two a.m.?!
Why was she awake? Then she heard a second ring of her cell phone.
Right...
She dug through a pile of clothes on the floor until she found her tiny black mobile phone.
"Hello?" She said groggily through the receiver.
"Good morning." Said a vaguely familiar voice. "You are now agent Kagome Higurashi. Please come by the department to pick up your badge and gun."
"Couldn't you wait until civil hours in the day?" Kagome muttered, falling back onto the bed.
"Why would I do that? There's something that you might be interested in here... I believe there is a new case."
Kagome sat back up so suddenly, her head spun. "A new case?! A murder?"
"I think so, but I'd like for you to take a look at it, kitten." The man on the other end purred. "Besides, It's boring here without a nice girl to talk to."
Kagome shuddered. "Inuma? Are you mixing business with pleasure?"
"No, kitten. I do not think that murders are pleasurable. Please be here as soon as possible."
Kagome opened her mouth to respond, but the tone at the other end confirmed that he had hung up.
She rubbed her eyes sleepily, and began to get dressed, hoping against all odds that she didn't have to wake up this early every day.
Around three a.m., Kagome was trudging up the stairs to her office miserably. She wished that she could just go back to bed and enjoy a nice warm breakfast.
"Not a chance in hell," She muttered.
"Kagome!" Inuma said happily, striding up to her. She looked as if she were ready to kill. "I have something to show you. I just got a fax from New York."
"Any chance you could have faxed that fax to me?" Kagome growled darkly.
"Not a chance in hell!" He said with a wink. She blushed.
Kagome followed him back into his office, and he lifted up a piece of paper off of his desk. She felt her blood chill in its veins. It was a photograph of a body. He handed to her, and held it to her face. What she saw on the man's chest scared her even more.
"Illuminati," Inuma said, concerned.
"Ancient satanic cult. Said to have been extinct hundreds of years ago." She said in monotone, still staring at the photograph. The man had been stripped naked, and his neck was twisted all the way around so that Kagome could only see the back of his head. Bile rose in her throat. She never had a huge strength with dead bodies.
"Have you ever read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons?" Inuma asked.
"Yes."
"Then you must recall..."
Kagome flipped the fax over and gasped. "But this is the genuine symbol! No computer has been able to duplicate it!"
"That's not what worries me most. The man you see is Hitowa Mototsuke. He was one of our university's best students in science. He was also very religious."
"Was he..." She paused, trying to calm her nerves. "Catholic?"
"Yes, just like the book. I'm afraid..."
"What is it?"
"The student was doing research on... Typhoid fever."
Kagome gasped. Typhoid fever was one of the most destructive viruses carried by water. It didn't have an antidote.
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Meanwhile, across the world, generals in Venice stared worriedly at a dark monitor.
"Che cosa è esso? Non lo gradisco." An army official muttered to his partner, who was pale and shocked.
Camera #86 showed something it was not supposed to. A canister, about two inches in diameter, and six inches tall was placed on a LED screen, which read 9:34:09.
21:34:08.
21:34:07.
21:34:06.
It was slowly counting down, but to what, he didn't know. Never the less, it gave him chills to think about it. There was a strange gas-like substance that seemed to be swirling lazily through the vacuum.
21:33:56.
"Sicurezza di chiamata." The general rumbled in his thick Italian. The other guards rushed from the room, and two stayed and placed phone calls.
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Kagome was telling Inuma how serious the matter was when his cell phone rang. He gave her an apologetic look, and withdrew it from his pocket.
"Moshi Moshi." He paused.
"Che cosa? A Venezia?" He said quickly in a language Kagome did not understand.
"Ciò è molto seria. Ottengale immediatamente le vostre protezioni!" He flipped his phone over, and turned to Kagome.
"Ever been to Italia?"
She shook her head no.
"Good, cause Venice here we come."
"You mean to tell me they planted a weapon of mass destruction in Venice?" Kagome blurted, paling even worse.
"Sì."
"Ohhh no!" Kagome gasped.
"What is it?"
"The target isn't the people, Inuma! It's the churches!"
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"Master..." A hooded figure bowed low before a man sitting in the shadows.
"Is it done?"
"Completed."
"You have served me well." The man's teeth glinted in the dim light.
"I could only hope for your praise, Sesshou-maru..."The man said, standing up, and removing his hood. He was strikingly handsome, his square features accented by aqua blue eyes that shone in the dark. His hair was pulled back, and his head was lined with a symbolic band.
But what was so interesting about this man wasn't that he was handsome, or that he had blue eyes, but that his ears were pointed at an odd angle. When he smiled, his canines flashed dangerously.
"The reign of youkai is soon to come. You will get your compliments in the end."
"Yes, master."
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End of chapter 2!!
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