Blood Of The Heart

By AriznGlori

A/N: This is for tyler-is-mine. Happy now?

Merry Quanzicanamas! I don't know what you all celebrate, so the whole world now must obey this new doctrine: QUANZICANAMAS (otherwise known as December) IS THE NEW HOLIDAY SEASON! Hey, I know! Try to say Quanzicanamas five times fast, ok? Drum-roll please… ('-,-') KITTY! I WANT SALMON, DAMMIT!

Disclaimer: Just because I write about them doesn't mean I own them…They just make great characters that are fun to mess with! So, yes, they were on my Christmas list, which I mailed directly to Rumiko Takahashi. Look that way! Wait a sec… there's a , a , and a , but no down arrow? I'm confused…O.O;

Chapter 10: Fire And Snow

As the fire spread across the dusty floor and the piercing scream sundered the air, a tower of flame, solid as iron, shot from the open pages of the burning book, hit the ceiling, and shot through, searing a hole right up through the house. Kagome, pinned to a bookcase by a strong invisible force, stared in horror as the tower ignited the plaster ceiling, and a dome of fire covered the room.

She moved her eyes to see Inuyasha, who was flung against a book case on the other side of the room before collapsing to the floor. And, as she watched, the edges of the spreading inferno drew around him, and she knew that if he didn't move, he would die.

She was the only one who could save him. She had to get off the wall.

Pulling at her invisible bonds, she knew that she was not strong enough to free herself, and her breath was shortened as smoke filled the air. That awful scream of death went on. The fire descended from the ceiling onto the upper shelves of the book case, and she was now feeling the heat from both above and below.

She struggled nonetheless, and, crying out to God, she managed to fall off the book case, a foot from the spreading fire on the floor. She ran around its perimeter, coming to Inuyasha, who was seconds from getting his hair burned off. Grabbing his limp arm, she dragged him as far as she could, which was only a foot.

"I can't get you out of here!" Kagome yelled at Inuyasha's unconscious form. "Wake up! Wake up!" Desperate, she slapped the man's face again and again, and pounded on his chest until she heard "Go away bitch. I'm sleeping…"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried, tears streaming down her face from the smoke that now began to block her view of him, and she coughed violently as she beat upon him.

"Inuyasha! Fire! Get up! Please!" she wailed, crying honestly. "We have to get out or we'll die." The awful scream went on.

"Please Inuyasha! Please! Ferdinand the Emperor is dead! Wake up!" she said, knowing what would happen. Indeed, in the midst of the burning house, Inuyasha sat up, held Kagome tight and sang, "God be praised! He's dead! Kagome darling, don't you see? The empire will fall back into the hands of the Pope, and we'll be free! Bavaria will become her own country now! Halleluiah!"

Kagome laughed in relief. If Inuyasha would get up for anything, it was politics. She watched as he took in his surroundings. He looked unimpressed. "I made it to Hell, and, besides the heat and smoke, I'm fine. Huh."

Kagome slapped him. "This isn't hell! Miroku and Sango's house is burning! We need to get out!" Inuyasha gaped at her.

"Kagome, you get out. I have to go and get Miroku!"

"What?"

"He's upstairs!"

"O-okay…" Kagome stumbled into the foyer, which was steadily filling with smoke, and opened the front doors, flinging them wide enough to get a strong winter gust inside the house, hoping it would help to put out the fire.

Running outside, Kagome was met by Sango, who came running through a gated alley along the house's left side. She was frantic, distraught, and crying.

"What have you done?!" she cried. "What have you done to my home? To my husband?! MIROKU!" Kagome gaped at her friend, who collapsed onto the snowy front lawn, weeping bitterly, shrieking in fear and sadness, and she was horror-stricken. Kagome turned to look at the house. What looked bad inside looked worse out here.

The column of fire that shot through the ceiling continued, unbroken, up into the gray sky. Dark clouds from the north came down to greet the strand of flame, and the sun was knocked from its pillar in the air, and had fallen upon the roof, which was bearing a halo of dancing, burning gold.

The windows all along the house's right side were leaking smoke and ash from their gaps, and the shutters burst into flame. Sango screamed as she saw shadows flitting in the upper windows, where the master bedroom suite was, with Miroku inside.

Kagome knelt by her friend, embraced Sango tightly, held her weeping, panic-stricken comrade close, and she felt tears of her own stream down her face, and she then knew that it was a mistake to have forgotten to turn away Inuyasha before even stepping outside the Wolf's Den.

† † †

Inuyasha was slowly making his way up the sweeping stairwell to the burning second floor, which moaned and groaned and poured forth soot and fire to block his way. The walls up here that separated the bedrooms were crumbling in the heat, revealing their brick and wood insides, and the scattered bits of hay-insulation were fueling the blaze.

Pieces of the plaster ceiling in the hall fell on him as he stepped daringly into the searing west wing, where the fire held its source up here. The scream ceased, leaving him to hear the walls crumbling, the doors exploding, and everything else give way, except, miraculously, the floor. He made it to the master bedroom alive and, for the most part, unharmed.

Grasping the brass doorknob, he hissed as the heat burned his hand. He wrapped his hand in a bit of cloth he tore from his shirt. He then kicked the door in, as sparks rained down. A huge blast of heat hit Inuyasha so hard he could have sworn he made it to Hell's grinning gates. The fire's light beat unmercifully upon his eyes, the smoke plunged its suffocating arms lovingly down his throat, and covered his view.

Gagging, Inuyasha wrapped the rest of his shirt around his mouth and face, leaving room for his eyes. He tried to crawl, but only got so far; the floor was even hotter than the air. He satisfied his need by crouching, and scuttling through the room oddly, rather like a crab; but still he was granted no mercy.

God! It's like I'm walking through boiling water. I can't breathe, can't see, can't bear my body to be here. Miroku, where the Hell are you?!

"MIROKU!" A shrill cry from outside echoed. It must be Sango. Wait! Miroku's not responding…I can't hear him! Miroku! Is he alive? Oh God, Oh God, what do I do if he's dead?!

"MIROKU!" Inuyasha called as a burning ceiling beam fell in his way, breaking into cinders. "Miroku, answer me! Where are you?! MIROKU!"

"H-help me…Inuyasha…" came a rasping voice in a corner. Inuyasha turned, and saw his friend, a little black mass in the far corner of the room, waving a sweaty hand. Miroku was right next to the flaming column that went from floor to ceiling and beyond, right in the source of the inferno. Inuyasha stepped carefully to him, picked up his friend, and threw him over his left shoulder. Inuyasha grunted painfully.

"Miroku, you need to lose weight," Inuyasha said, trying to lighten the grim situation he was now in. Just as he turned to go back to the door to the hall, another huge chunk of the ceiling fell down upon his path, a smoldering mass in his way, with no route around it. "SHIT!" Inuyasha roared. Just then, an echoing boom with the force of ten cannons shook the house, throwing a cloud of smoke and flame up in the air, and ripping the floor out from under Inuyasha's feet. Inuyasha and Miroku fell.

† † †

Outside, Kagome and Sango felt a deep rumbling in the earth, and they looked at each other in surprise, then at the house, then at the crowd that gathered in the drive and stared in terror at the burning mansion. The two looked back to the house, and saw the lower floor full of darkness instead of flames, as if the fire suddenly was sucked in on itself. Then, all hell broke loose. From within the library, a great explosion echoed, and every window in the house blew outward at the girls and the crowd.

The upper floor shuddered, gave way, and fell in upon itself, and the fire was suppressed; the rest of the house was blown out, and the lower floor's walls splintered like toothpicks, and the entire mansion was laid flat, and from the gaps where the windows and doors were, great tongues of flame shot forth, and everything within fifty of the house was charred, including the vast garden, and all the plants burned. The sky was black, except for that single strand of fire, shooting up into the heavens.

---

In Vienna, the Emperor walked out of his home, sighing at how bleak the war looked. As he stared at the horizon, he noticed a great black cloud in the mountains, and among those clouds, a thread of fire in the sky. He crossed himself in shock and went to pray.

---

Sango stared at the still-smoking, still-burning remains of her house, a great mansion of ash, with only the stone bones sticking out of the rubble, twisted and melted in the unimaginable heat of the fire. Now, she let loose a scream that was so sorrowful, so hopeless and so lowly that it shamed Victoria's echo of her son's death.

And in this scream, no one in the crowd spoke, and Sango let her savage woes loose, and bitterly she wept, and she called out, in a ghostly cry that none shall ever forget, "MIROKU!"

And it never ended.

To this day they say, that at the ruins of the mansion, you can still hear her cry on the wind. Kagome took a shuddering breath, and let loose the name that no one remembered in this terrible moment, and she cried out with all her loving heart, "INUYASHA!" And she threw herself in agony upon the ground.

"What?!" came the man's harsh response as he threw off of himself a piece of a book case, emerging from the rubble with Miroku over his shoulder. "We're alright!"

"Inuyasha?" Kagome stared in shock, so lost at this sudden turn of events. Inuyasha walked from the rubble, shirtless, covered in soot from head to toe, and he stood if front of Kagome. "What?" he asked again. Kagome stood, stared at him, at his brown eyes, bright against his charcoal-gray face. She slapped him, hard, across the face.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO US?!" Kagome wailed happily, thankful that her friend was alive. "We thought you were dead! DEAD!"

"That book case was heavy, and when I fell through the ceiling with this guy, it hurt a bit! Now go figure!" He laid Miroku on the snowy ground in front of Sango, who stared in open amazement. She looked down at her unconscious husband, and she was so amazed that he was still breathing that she didn't notice Mother Kaede running up the drive with a host of nuns and a horse-drawn cart. They immediately grabbed the man and laid him gently on the blanketed bed of the cart, and Mother Kaede grabbed Sango by the arm, pulling her into the cart as well.

"W-where are we going?" she asked in terror, looking back at her burnt home; tears welled up in her eyes anew as she saw her gardens, so well-tended, burning, blossom by blossom, tree by tree. She crossed herself.

"We are going to the convent house, where ye shall be safe," said Kaede, who looked with pity upon Sango, and great sympathy upon the ruins of the house and gardens. She looked over at Inuyasha and Kagome, gesturing them to come onto the cart as well. They did so, Kagome helping Inuyasha along.

"What is happening, Mother?" Kagome asked worriedly, glancing back at the ruins of the mansion. "Why is this happening?"

"Ye got too close to his secret, and he burned you," Mother Kaede answered. "I fear that ye were going through the library, looking too closely at some books…"

"I went to look up the family of Kikyo Lamarr," Inuyasha murmured, "and to see what this Kikyo woman looked like. Then, the book lit itself on fire and started screaming. I got thrown into a wall, and I guess I got knocked out." He glanced across the wagon at Kagome, who nodded.

"We must hurry then," Kaede said worriedly, looking up at the fading sky. "He will activate his plan soon. He will wait no longer for ye to snoop. Ye are in more danger now than if ye had nooses around ye little necks. Sister Margaret!" Kaede looked at the nun who was driving the wagon. "How much time do we have left to get to the convent house?"

Margaret looked up at the sky and said, "Not more than ten minutes." Kagome felt a dropping feeling in her stomach. She shot a frightened glance at Inuyasha, who looked just as scared. But was it an act? She stared at him for a couple of minutes. He looked back at her.

"What? Do I look like a monster?"

"How about not giving her the opportunity to answer?" Sango said dryly, now back to herself knowing she and Miroku were safer. She was stroking Miroku's bangs with a cloth, cleaning great amounts of ash off his hair before wiping his forehead.

"What?" Inuyasha glared at the girl.

"Why, you're covered in soot, and I hope you get a good old scrub-down at the convent house," Sango said snippily.

"Pretty mean are you to the one who saved your husband's life!" Inuyasha growled.

"And the one who started this disaster by snooping! Now Miroku and I have no place to live! Our wealth was in that house! It's all gone! Everything! Just like Kohaku!" Sango ranted, crying again. "If you were looking up stuff related to the Count, you should've told me!"

"Shush Sango!" Kagome said softy, rubbing her temples in frustration. "This is a very big mess-up we're in now!"

"I know! I've lived here a lot longer than you have. I know more!"

"So let's sort this out and discuss it when we reach the convent house." Kagome was so confused. Why is this happening now? How can she be handling it? What is going to happen next?

"Five minutes!" Sister Margaret called out. "We have five minutes to get in the convent house."

They were at least a quarter-mile down the road from the cathedral's group of buildings. The horse picked up speed, pulling at a sturdy gallop that wasn't fast enough. The sun sank in the west, falling behind them. Yet to their north, among the towering mountains, Night brewed.

Descending in waves from the north and the east, it seemed that the demon army was right in the heels of the clouds. Howls from all over town announced the coming of the wolves, and people who were on the street heading home began to run, screaming, to the buildings that stood alone in barren yards, snow-bound and frozen, avoiding the shadowy alleys where the red eyes glowed.

"Two minutes!" They were just drawing up the front gate that lead to the main walk through the dead garden before going up the stoop to the convent house's door, beneath the words which resounded in their minds as the shadow on the ground ripped over the buildings across the street. Quickly, they hopped out of the wagon, and ran for the door, Sango and Kagome and Inuyasha helping to bear Miroku along.

"One minute!" The sun was gone. The last rays of light were banished as the shadow ate away everything, consuming Heinrich in a mouth of darkness. The Night was on their very heels, and they made it inside just as the last light lifted off the ground to allow the shadow to consume the cathedral and its surrounding buildings, and the last thing the light touched was the rose window of the cathedral.

Darkness had taken Heinrich once again.

Inside, the nuns led Sango and Miroku up the stairs to a well-furnished and very comfortable sick-ward. Not one patient was in the room, though it was full of comfortable beds with stuffed pillows and thick, warm quilts as well as bed-curtains.

"Ye all shall stay at the convent," Kaede said as the nuns left to do their chores and daily activities. "This wing of the second floor is all common-rooms and a small indoor kitchen. It is quite a nice area, but so few ever use it, since so few ever come here for sanctuary anymore," Kaede said, glancing at the weakened Miroku. "Alas, I fear that it will be frequently used again. But now ye must bathe Miroku. Lady Sango, there is a bathing room just down the hall, always full of warm water that is changed daily as you need it. You can clean Miroku there, and then let him sleep here."

Sango nodded, and looked to Kagome and Inuyasha to help her. The three managed to get the weakened man to the large bathroom while Kaede left. Sango turned to the two while she sat Miroku down on a plain wooden chair next to a great porcelain tub, filled with steaming water.

"You can go now. I need to do this task… Unless any one of you do…"

Kagome and Inuyasha looked at each other, then at Miroku, then at each other, and turned green. "No," they said in unison. Sango sighed and smiled as they left. She turned to Miroku as the door shut behind them. "Okay, now where to start…"

-------------

Kagome was now back to remembering what Naraku had said. This is all Inuyasha's fault…He's somehow behind all of this… "I don't know…It doesn't seem likely that this is all his fault."

But who was the one who made you upset and cause you to go to the Wolf's Den? Inuyasha. Who was the one who conveniently saved you from Kouga? Inuyasha. Who was the one who wanted to open that book? Inuyasha. Who was the one who was with you when it started the fire?

"Inuyasha…"

"Yeah?"

"Huh?" Kagome looked over at him. "I wasn't talking to you, you know."

"Well, sorry…" Inuyasha went over to a small porcelain wash-basin on top of a table, and used a wet cloth to wipe off all the soot he could get at without taking a bath. "Kagome, do you have any idea what's doing on?"

"Not really…Why?"

"Well, Kaede seems to know a lot more than she's letting on…Like why the book burned, and who's doing it."

"Duh," Kagome pointed out. "She's Kikyo's sister…And Kikyo was a very good person in life…"

"Do you know how she died?" Inuyasha asked quietly.

"No, but she lacks eyes and flesh on her fingers…" Kagome thought out loud. "I think someone gouged them out. A very painful and violent way to die, don't you think?"

"Well, her husband did it, hung her, and then buried her alive when she didn't die after all that…" Inuyasha murmured quietly as two nuns passed, going down the hall to several other rooms.

"How do you know this?" Kagome sat up in shock, and looked at him oddly. Are you the vampire, Inuyasha? Are you the Count?

"Miroku knew. H-he told me."

"Oh…"

"Kagome, do you have any bad dreams still? When the fire started you said it was another nightmare…" Inuyasha said softly, trying to change the subject.

"I have terrible dreams like that all the time now… It's really awful. I don't like to go to sleep. But I wrote all about them in my diary."

"Really? Well, pull them out and tell me about them."

"Inuyasha…"

"Yes?"

"I left my diary in the house."

- - - - - - - -

That night, no one in the convent house slept except for Sango and Miroku, the two who needed it most; Kagome and Inuyasha were on the verge of sleep, but still very much awake despite the beds, so comfortable, enveloping, and soft. But the demons outside slept not either. In fact, tonight they were louder and more horrifying than ever before.

The nuns were up and bustling all night, and Inuyasha, who left the door to the hall wide open, watched as the nuns ran up and down the hall, busy with holy water jars, crucifixes, and chains of silver that clanked and chimed ominously. The clouds seen outside before were gone now, back to Schloss Nachtigall to haunt the ruined castle. The stars glittered brightly, but away to the east, more clouds came. They were not like smoke or darkness, but like snow, and were gray against the moon and stars. Kagome, who's bed was next to a window, looked upon them, and watched as they covered the sky and the snow began to fall.

She was so tired, and the clouds looked as soft as her bed felt. She laid her head upon that comfortable pillow, and breathed deeply the smell of incense that filled the place; intoxicating and pleasurable, the smell was putting her to sleep, and before Inuyasha knew it, Kagome was soundly snoring the night away.

"Inuyasha!" came Kaede's voice from downstairs. "Where are ye? We need ye manliness! Get ye muscular butt down here and hold the door." Just then a low boom sounded. "Hurry!"

As fast as he could Inuyasha threw on his clothes, and ran downstairs, thinking What now? As she came into the tiny foyer, he saw about twenty nuns forcing their shoulders against the doors as Kaede stood right where the double doors met. She was flinging holy water at the wood in cross-like motions as the other nuns held crosses to the doors while pushing.

Next to Kaede stood an old, wrinkled priest with eyes that seemed to pop out, but that was probably because whatever awaited them on the other side of the door was giving out growls and roars like a beast out of hell. He was holding a great black Bible in his hands and praying loudly in Latin all the holy blessings and exorcisms there were to make the awful pounding stop, boom after boom shaking the room.

It's like waiting for Victoria, only if she was there…

"Inuyasha!" Kaede realized he was standing there, dumbfounded. "Come and push! A bunch of old women cannot do this on their own. Oh, and this is Father Totosai, so get along. Not that ye will interact much anyway. What are ye waiting for?! Get over there!"

So, Inuyasha went and pushed on the door, and the booms, though powerful, were lessened in the loudness. The strength of whatever lay beyond the doors amazed Inuyasha. The force it was exerting practically knocked the doors down with each hit; it was as if only crosses and holy water held the thing together now. Several times the force on the other side pushed so hard Inuyasha was flung off the doors for a second. He was so tired, and getting even more exhausted by the minute. The nuns' crosses and holy water seemed to be failing, too. Evil laughter on the other side, dark and dismal as from a coffin, lessened everyone's willpower to try and stop it.

"Kaede, does this always happen?!" Inuyasha growled grumpily.

"Never! This the first time the demons tried to break down the door! What do they want from us?!"

I have a feeling…Please God, don't let me be right…Kagome…keep her safe, Lord. Please… Kagome…

- - - - - - - -

Kagome… She sat up slowly, climbing out of the bed. "Who is it…?" She was just so tired. She had to go back to bed; she needed sleep, but that annoying boom…and Naraku's voice.

Kagome, come to me…I'm waiting…In the church…Come to me, Kagome. Come and let me take you away…

"Away…" Kagome whispered dreamily, moving about in a sleepy haze. "That sounds nice…Wait Naraku…I'm coming to find you…" Kagome moved out of her bed, clad only in her white nightgown of silk. She wandered to the doorway, and out into the hall; she turned to the direction of the foyer staircase.

Not that way…Come around the other way…Down the back stairwell…Kagome, my Kagome…

In her waking slumber, Kagome walked down the hall, took a turn, and went down the back stairwell, so cold, yet Naraku was waiting…She had to get him… The back door was at the base of this abandoned stairwell, rarely used and barred with crosses of silver and doused with holy water and baptismal oils. Kagome easily swung the doors wide, and walked outside, into the snowing world.

The back door led to a covered walk that ran to a side-entrance into the cathedral. She walked along this shining path, up to the locked doors that swung wide at her touch. The warm air from inside the holy building caressed her face, and she was drawn inside this temple of frankincense and blood.

The dim glow of many candles delicately lit the altar covered in Sango's flowers and the rows of elegantly carved pews that stretched onward into oblivion, lost amid the shadows. The stained glass windows shimmered like delicate mist, and the ornate statues scattered on the walls seemed to be alive, and they watched her with disdain as she drifted, silent and shining white, down the central aisle towards the stairs of the high bell tower, enshrouded in darkness.

Kagome…come to me Kagome…I'm waiting for you…

End Of Chapter 10

A/N: Hola! Long update, but I had some problems finding time to write (mid-term cramming). Anyway, I think I'll do great, but my lowest class is, ironically enough, English; so, that's going to be a gamble on my part. Anyways, thanks for all your reviews of Carol Of The Bells. That is now quickly climbing my priority list, but Blood Of The Heart maintains the highest standard. Anyways, good luck to all of you on every endeavor!