Ok, first and foremost I want to apologize for not updating in so long, I could give u guys a number of excuses, but let's just admit it, I'm EXTREAMLY lazy, and I want to thank the people who reviewed, I didn't get to many reviews but that doesn't matter, cause anybody that didn't sux! So here we go:
Jenfrog: I agree, Companions of the night is SUCH a good book. While I was reading it, I was kinda thinking, Wow, this sounds a lot like Kagome and Inuyasha, and well there u go, thank you so much for reviewing! You get pocky!
BlueMoonDog: Thanx so much for ur review! I also only very recently read the book too, and I just loved it a lot. You get a pocky stick!
CrazyInuHPfan: thank u so much! But the credit for the "having u on the edge" is due to the author of the book Vivian Vanse Velde, if u get a chance, read the actual book, cause I'm gonna change this story a little. You also get pocky!
Lostfaith2887: Thanks again for the suggestions, and for the e-mail. Hope u didn't get in trouble for sending it to me. Have some Pocky!
Ok, now's the part where I have to say that I don't own Inuyasha or get my ass sued….hmm, decisions decisions, well, I REALLY want a new car, and my parents cant get it for me if we have to hire a lawyer so….sigh…(in bored tired voice) I don't own Inuyasha or Companions of the Night.
Last time on "Companions of the night":
The one holding her pulled her in for a closer look…
BACK TO THE STORY!
Chapter 2:
He was a black man, the only one of the group who was. He was also also about twice the size of anybody else there. Taller. Broader. Kagome's arm, even padded by her jacket, was lost in the massiveness of his hand. "She's just a kid," the big guy said, which sounded encouraging, except for the fact that he was practically breaking her arm.
Kagome nodded emphatically.
"This other one's barely more than a kid. They make 'em when they're still kids?"
Nobody said anything, and Kagome wasn't sure what the right answer was. She didn't even understand the question. No, she suspected. Under the circumstances, no to everything except the suggestion that they send her home.
Before she could get her voice working again, one of the other two grabbed a handful of hair, and her head was forced around to face him. "I didn't do anything, "she managed which seemed an even safer answer. "Please don't hurt me."
The black man, still holding her arm, used his free hand to feel over her arm.
Kagome felt her knees start to buckle. Better to be passed out for this anyway, she thought.
But the man was moving down her arm, which was an unexpected direction, to her hand, which he jiggled as though to see how well it was attached. Then he crunched her fingers together, but when she winced, he stopped. "I don't think she's one of them," he said.
"I don't think I'm one of them either," Kagome agreed.
"Shut up," said the man who was still holding her hair.
"Why are you here?" the third man asked, the one who'd been in charge of tying their prisoner.
And it was only when Kagome shifted her gaze to him that she recognized him: seeing his black hair and dark purple eyes, it was the guy who ran the place. Mr. Quick-Clean himself, who sat there all day reading the Bible and trying to get people to read his religious pamphlets.
"Why are you here?" he repeated, sounding even more menacing than before.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just came to get my little brother's bear." She tried to indicate Footy, but he was in the hand whose arm was being slowly pulled out of its socket.
Footy drooped and landed with a soft plop.
"You've seen me here before, she continued. What's he doing? She thought all the while. Drug dealers and gang members don't encourage people to read the Bible.
"You know me," she insisted. "My name is Kagome Higurashi. I come here with my mother, Laura, (AN: I don't know her real name, I just think she looks like a Laura) and my brother, Souta. My mother always buys a helium balloon at the Lift Bridge Book Shop before we come here, and she ties it to Souta's wrist so that we don't lose track of him because he's shorter than the machines."
She couldn't tell from the man's face whether he recognized her or not. "We were in this evening after dinner, Souta forgot his bear under the counter near the door. But you must have found him, or somebody did, because when I came in, he was up by the cash register."
The man looked from her to the bear. Finally ,finally, he nodded. "Yeah." He nodded again. He told the others, "They come in once or twice a week."
"Always after dinner?" asked the one with his hand still in her hair.
Whatever the significance of that question, the laundry owner looked straight into his eyes. "No. Saturdays, too, sometimes. Saturday mornings or afternoons."
The one loosened his grip on her arm, still holding on though she no longer had to stand on tiptoe, and the other let go of her hair entirely. That one said, "Bad timing now, though."
You can say that again, Kagome thought.
Instead, he said, "She could've become one of them since last Saturday."
Kagome's heart sank at the look this possibility brought to the owner's face.
"Maybe," he said.
"One way or the other," said the one who still had her arm, "we can't let her go, not till this is over."
"This" had to be their prisoner. "This" probably meant killing him. She saw that he hadn't lost consciousness after all. She was tempted to promise that if they let her go she wouldn't go to the police, she wouldn't tell anybody what she'd seen. But she couldn't do that with him looking right at her. And they wouldn't believe her anyway.
"Don't be afraid," the owner told her. "Not if you're what you say you are."
What? Kagome wanted to scream at him. I haven't SAID I'm anything. What do you THINK I am? But it was probably best not to say anything that might be construed as argument.
The owner said, "Nobody wants to hurt you."
She had serious doubts about that, but she forced herself to nod.
"We're just going to keep you here till morning. Then we'll bring you home ourselves."
"What are you going to do to me between now and morning?" she asked, her voice quavering uncontrollably.
"Nothing," the owner assured her. "Sit here quietly and don't give us any trouble, and we won't even have to tie you up."
Her voice got even more quavery as she looked at their prisoner. "What are you going to do to him?"
The one who'd been pulling her hair answered, "That's none of you're damn business."
The owner gave him a be-quiet look. To Kagome, he said, "If he behaves himself, we won't lay a finger on him either."
"We won't need to," the hair puller said.
"Let her go, Roth," the owner said to the man still holding her arm.
And slowly, as though ready to grab again if she even thought of trying to escape, the big black man, Roth loosened his grip.
"See," the owner said. "We can be calm and reasonable. Sit down" – she sad immediately, on the floor, right where she'd been standing- "don't talk, don't interfere. There's more to this than you could ever understand."
Kagome nodded. She was sitting facing the young man. There was a ghastly smear of blood on the floor where they had dragged him backward, indicating an injury to his leg, though she couldn't see anything because he had his legs under him, which had to hurt. And there was more blood running down the side of his face from a cut she could, thankfully, barely glimpse under his dark hair. His eyes were black- she'd noticed that when he'd first looked at her. Dark hair, dark eyes, fair skin. His coloring emphasized the redness of the blood that had spattered his white SUNY Brockport sweatshirt. Of course, the shirt wasn't proof that he actually went to the college.
But he looked like he might. Probably a freshman-she guessed he wasn't that much older than she, maybe nineteen, which would put him at about half the age of the two men Kagome had never seen before: Roth, who looked like a football player, and the hair puller, who had the football jacket. NEW YORK GIANTS, it read. The laundry owner had to be in his twenties, maybe even the same age as the young man.
And none of them-none of them- fit Kagome's picture of gang members or drug lords or international terrorists.
The owner went to the pay phone on the wall behind the desk, where he dialed a number without having to look it up. Whoever he was calling must have been asleep or away from the phone, for it took the interval of several rings before he said, "Sango?...Yeah, its Miroku. We're ready…At the laundry. Ken's dead. I'll explain later…Sango, there's no time for that now. Come around the back- the door's looked." There was a longer pause, during which Kagome thought she was going to faint from fear: somebody was dead already. Then the owner sighed. "Of all the…Well, hurry up about it…Yeah, I know." He hung up.
"What now?" the man named Roth asked.
"She needs to stop for batteries for the video camera"
"Dimwit." Roth said it with resigned lack of enthusiasm, as though they were used to this Sango- whoever she was- being a dimwit.
On the other hand, judging by the look the laundry owner, Miroku I think is what his name was, maybe Sango was Mrs. Quick-Clean.
"I think," said the New York Giants fan, "we don't need the camera to get started."
Everybody turned to look at the prisoner.
Kagome thought he was holding up a lot better than she would have. His eyes, above the gag, looked scared but defiant. She would have been crying and trying to let them know she was willing to do ro say whatever it was they wanted of her. Of course, she thought, it was easier for her to think, since she didn't know what they wanted of him.
"Take that gag off," Roth said.
"He isn't going to cooperate," New York Giants said.
Despite what they'd said earlier, he sounded like he was looking forward to the prisoner not cooperating.
"I think we should wait for Sango," Miroku suggested. "Maybe the closer to dawn he'll be more reasonable."
New York Giants took the gag off anyway.
He's waiting for him to say something. Kagome thought, something like "Fuck off Jackass" or "Up yours asswhole" and then he's going to beat the hell out of him.
But the young prisoner didn't lash out at his captors. He spoke, all in a rush, to Kagome: "My name's Inuyasha Takahashi. When you get out of this, tell the police-"
New York Giants kicked him, hard in the stomach.
He doubled over, grasping for breath.
"Don't give her any of that bull," New York Giants said. "You don't want the police in this any more than we do. Less, even."
"Tell them-"
He kicked the boy again, this time in the ribs, since he couldn't get to the stomach. Then he drove his elbow into the kid's back, between his shoulders.
Kagome put her arms up over her head to avoid seeing. And for protection. "Stop it or I'll scream!" Though she recognized the safest course was not to get involved, Kagome was screaming already- or as close to it as she could get, with her throat constricted by terror. "Stop it, stop it, stop-"
She was expecting that they would kick her too, and she was expecting it to be in the face, because she'd just finished with her retainers after two and a half years of braces, and getting her teeth broken was close to the worst thing she could imagine after all that.
But Roth was yelling at New York Giants, "Geez, not in front of the kid," and- even though New York Giants was yelling back, "See, I told you she was one of them"- Miroku did nothing worse than clap his hand over her mouth to muffle her noise. He started dragging her backward, which she took to mean that they would continue to beat their prisoner but they wouldn't force her to watch.
She tried to bite Miroku's hand, but it was sweaty and slippery, and she did little more than pinch him.
"Sidowski" Miroku hissed- another name to remember, along with Roth and Inuyasha Takahashi, if she ever DID make it to the police. "Knock it off!"
Kagome stopped her struggeling when Sidowski steeped reluctantly back from their prisoner. Kagome was amazed that she had accomplished even that.
"She tried to bite me," Miroku told the others, holding up his hand.
Sidowski took a step toward Kagome, looking ready to yank her head off, but the owner held him back with his other hand on his chest, still holding th bitten hand up. "Look," he said. "Look."
What's he complaining about? Kagome thought. She hadn't even broken the skin or drawn blood.
But perhaps that was the point, for Sidowski backed off.
"See," Miroku said. "Just a kid." He grabbed hold of Kagome's shoulders and shook her. "You don't understand," he said to her. "He isn't human."
"what?"
Kagome was still looking at Sidowski, but Miroku said, "Him," nodding toward Inuyasha.
"What?" she repeated.
"He's a demon," Miroku answered. "One of the devils from hell. He kills people."
Their prisoner shook his head, wearing an expression of horror that probably mirrored her own.
Roth took him roughly by the jaw, forcing back his lips to reveal canine teeth that were slightly longer and sharper than normal but certainly nothing to get alarmed about.
A demon, Kagome though. They think he's a demon, and they're hoping very hard that I'm not one, too.
It wasn't enough to step into the middle of what looked to be a ritual execution between rival gangs or druggies or international terrorists. She had to fall into a nest of grade-A crazies.
AN:Ok, so I'm done. To anybody that has read the storie DON'T HATE ME FOR MAKING MIROKU THE LAUNDRY OWNER! Like I have said MANY times, I will be chainging the story a little. Like the whole demon instead of vampire thing….oh well review please, if you don't I will be forced to set my evil goblin on u! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!