Unseelie # 14
Inuyasha actually weighed less than she would have guessed. His intensity and hyperactivity made him look bigger than he was. She would have sworn he was close to six feet tall and two hundred pounds until she hefted him up. She had always thought of him as tall and he wasn't. If anything, he was a little less than average height when compared to modern Americans.
He weighed maybe a hundred and fifty, and she was guessing he stood five foot six, five foot seven. Shorter than Xander by a couple of inches, and she'd never even noticed that. He was a couple inches taller than she was at most -- when she picked him up, she discovered he was skin and bone and wiry muscles, plus lots of hair -- scrawny, really. She had to gather his hair up and throw it over her shoulder to keep from stepping on it. His hair was a heavy mass of thick silken locks. Why was it that guys always got the good hair?
It was amazing how someone so small could wreak such havoc in a fight.
By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, he was coming around. She set him back on his feet when he demanded to be put "fucking put down," and then she started to unhook Tessaiga from her belt.
"You know how to use a sword, right?" Inuyasha didn't make a move to take his treasured blade from her hands, surprising her. He stood with his arms folded and a wary look in his eyes that probably didn't have anything to do with her. He was very vulnerable, and he knew it. His fighting style depended on brute strength, and now he didn't have any.
"I know enough." She had done a fair amount of training with various edged weapons -- and her Slayer strength and reflexes made use of a blade almost instinctive.
"Hold on to it." Inuyasha shook his head vigorously. "I can't wield it as I am, and if it doesn't activate it could break in a fight. There's nobody left alive who could fix it."
"Oh." She hesitated. The sword was so very important to him; he wasn't kidding about deciding to trust her. But he was right that she should use it -- she could already sense that the sword was responding to her. Her Slayer abilities included a certain sensitivity to magic. "Okay."
He glanced around the great hall. The trolls were gone, and the remnants of the meal remained on the floor. She guessed that the vampire had ordered his men away, so as to avoid more of them being killed. Good minions being so hard to replace, and all that. Inuyasha pointed at one of the doors. "They brought us in through an entrance this way."
He had been conscious when they'd been captured, she recalled -- though likely playing dead. Since he knew the way out, she gestured, "After you."
He rubbed his wrist, perhaps anticipating another round of agony. "How long was I unconscious?"
"A minute or two."
"So I have about twelve or thirteen minutes until this thing activates again. Let's go. If we can get back inside the hotel, I'm sure Kagome can get this off of me. I'm can't take another ..."
"You two are persistent as hell." A cool voice purred behind them.
It was the hitokiri. Buffy turned, dropping her hand down to draw Tessaiga. The hilt pulsed in her hand in apparent acknowledgment of the impending fight. "Stay behind me," she told Inuyasha. "I keep my promises."
"Oh, don't worry." He sounded a little bit bitter. "He's all yours. -- Buffy, be careful."
The hitokiri had a new sword in his hand -- one that was suspiciously fancy looking. Buffy guessed this one would not be broken so easily as the last.
"You're going down, pretty boy," Buffy promised him. She pulled the sword from the sheath. As she did, it flared.
It was like holding onto a nuclear reactor of raw power. What had been a dull, battered old blade was suddenly alive with energy. It transformed in her hand to its full glory -- a katana three times the usual size, glowing, wildly powerful. She was surprised by how well balanced it was, and how light it felt -- it seemed to be a living thing in her hands.
"Hey, it worked!" Inuyasha crowed behind her. "Get 'im, Buffy!"
She ignored that. If she wanted to stay alive in this fight, she'd need to use every skill she'd ever learned. She wasn't bad with a sword, and her reflexes were superhuman, but the hitokiri was significantly better trained. And Tessaiga was an unfamiliar weapon. She waited for him to make the first move, schooling herself to patience.
She didn't have to wait long -- in a swift rush so fast she almost couldn't see him coming, he darted towards her. Tessaiga seemed to move of its own accord to block that blow; it was as light as a feather in her hand. She batted the vampire's sword aside and kicked at his hand with her foot, just as Tessaiga flashed green and gold.
A burst of power threw the vampire into a wall. He lost his weapon, and hit the wall hard enough to stun him.
"Hey! Nice job!" Inuyasha, as a cheerleader, was somewhat disconcerting. Inuyasha was grinning, an expression that normally would have bared his fangs. Now he just flashed her an even row of perfect white teeth.
After a somewhat alarmed look at Inuyasha, she walked over to the hitokiri, kicked his sword away under the table, and yanked him to his feet. She wasn't gentle when she slammed him face-first into the wall. "You might be a good swordsman, but you're no match for good old fashion magic. Tell me how to get the bracelet off Inuyasha."
"My bracelet ... it's the master control." The vampire gasped, as she leaned on him hard enough to bend his ribs. Up close, he smelled as bad as he looked -- he reeked of body odor and old blood and dirty clothing, with a tang of smoke added to the mix.
She peered at the bracelet after swallowing hard to fight a nauseous reaction to his stench. It was wrapped tightly around his slim wrist; the grime on his skin was worn away by interaction of metal and vampire sweat. "This comes off?"
"Yes. Take it off me."
She reached to remove it, grabbing his wrist and looking for a clasp. She spotted a tiny latch on the bracelet and tried to pry it open. Light exploded and the next thing she knew she was flying through the air. She hit Inuyasha and they both went sprawling. Tessaiga clattered across the floor until it smacked into a wall, where it reverted back to a dull and battered old blade.
The vampire laughed. Then, with a sneer in his voice, he said, "You're so naive, Buffy."
"Yeah, but you're dead!" It wasn't exactly the most original thing in the world to say, but she leaped for the sword, and managed to reach it before the vampire could grab her. She rolled over and shouted, "Kaze no ala kazaaaam!" and pointed Tessaiga at the vampire.
Precisely nothing happened, except that Inuyasha made a startled choking noise behind her. She swore and scrambled to her feet and swung a killing blow at the vampire -- who was far faster than she was, and who ducked under the strike, and caught her in the wrist with his elbow. Her hand spasmed and she dropped the sword as he simultaneously lunged for her throat with his fangs bared.
She flung and arm up and he bit her wrist, not her neck. The hitokiri pinned her down, however -- he weighed less than she did, but he made good use of what mass he did have by planted his knee in her gut and holding her wrists with his hands. She couldn't get leverage to throw him off. And now he was reaching for her throat ... she was going to die.
Inuyasha swung a chair at the hitokiri. He missed -- the man made another one of those impossibly agile leaps out of the way -- but Buffy was free.
"Thanks," she gasped, as she picked the sword back up.
"If you're going to use my attacks," Inuyasha said with a sneer, "Get them right -- look out!"
She'd looked away from the vampire and he was back, moving with blinding speed. She flung her hand up with the hilt of the sword gripped in it and his teeth collided with her fist. She then jerked her knee up, catching him between the legs so hard he was lifted off the ground. And when he doubled over with a startled ooooooffff of exhaled air, she chopped him in the back of the head so hard he went down with a thud and stayed down. Even vampires, if hit hard enough, could be knocked out. And nobody ever expected a knee o' doom in the middle of a sword fight.
Buffy shook her fingers out -- she'd laid into him so hard that her fingers were tingling, and her knuckles were gashed open. "If he had any supernatural abilities beyond normal vampire," she said, "I'd be dead right now."
"You really know how to fight," Inuyasha responded with respect. He was also standing funny -- sort've protectively hunched. And he looked a bit pale. She would have laughed if she hadn't been winded by the fight. Men!
"I've been doing this since I was fifteen." She was surprised that he was impressed by her fighting abilities. He was engaged to a Slayer, after all. She bent over, grabbed the vampire by his hair, and yanked his unconscious body upright. "You got anything to tie him up with?"
Inuyasha glanced around the room and spotted draperies in front of a window -- the hall had windows, but the drapes were all pulled tight across the glass, rendering the room suitably gloomy for an evil elf's lair. Inuyasha reached up, grabbed a rope pull for the drapes, and yanked with all his might on it. The rope came down on the third tug, along with a couple of spiders and quite a bit of dust.
"Aaauuugh!" Inuyasha stamped on the spiders.
"Big bad half demon's scared of bugs?" Buffy couldn't resist teasing him.
"I nearly died of a spider bite once, woman," he said, irritably. "And I'm vulnerable in this form. So excuuuuuuse me for being damn paranoid." He inspected the bare, callused sole of one foot. "Though that spider was a good bit bigger than these."
Vampire now thoroughly trussed up, Buffy slung him over her shoulder. "Let's get out of here. Tell me, what did I do wrong with the sword early?"
He smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Yeah, I would. Pretty boy here is easy enough to deal with ..."
"You call that easy?" He gave her an incredulous look. "He about bit your head off!"
Buffy snorted. "I took out a Hell God once."
"... Okay, point. All in a day's work, huh?" He fell into step beside her, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of the tattered and filthy remnants of his jeans. If her own filth was to the level of Inuyasha's, she was glad she didn't have a mirror to look in. Because, eww.
Well, witty reportoire always worked to make her feel better. She tossed her hair back and said, "No, usually, they're a lot bigger and a lot slower and dumber."
"That wasn't an insult against me, was it?" Now his look was suspicious. He stared at her from beneath his begrimed bangs. He had dirt and blood smeared on his cheeks. It was amazing how growly he could sound even as a human. Kagome swore he was nicer as a man than he was as a hanyou; Buffy wasn't seeing it.
"Hardly." Buffy was surprised he'd even think that she was making a dig at him. At the moment, she was liking him. He grew on you, particularly in the middle of enemy territory, when he was acting like a true hero. "You're not stupid. Oh, I figured you were in the beginning, when we first met. But I think we both know the truth. You're okay, Inuyasha. And you're not stupid."
He flashed her a smile. "Took you long enough to figure that out, woman."
"Though you are an illiterate, hot-tempered asshole. I'll grant you ..."
"Hey!" He protested. "I can read. I do it for fun, bitch."
"What, manga?" She'd clearly struck a nerve. Good. It would keep her mind off the mess they were in. "And bitch? Call me that again and I'll feed you soap."
"I like to read." He scowled at her. "I'm not stupid."
"You just speak in short sentences using small words, yeah, yeah."
He snorted, and then asked her -- in a perfect upper-crust British accent -- "Would you prefer that I talk in literate, even erudite, sentences in a manner befitting a properly educated gentleman?"
She was so shocked she stopped short and stared at him. He'd just done a pitch-perfect imitation of Giles at his stuffiest, even losting his customary growl. Without the deep, resonant tones in his words he sounded distinctly different.
Inuyasha scratched himself in a spot that gentlemen didn't normally scratch in front of ladies, and said in his normal voice, "Thing is? I'm no gentleman. And I'm not going to put on no fucking airs for no fucking buddy. Got that? Yeah? Good."
"Yeah, got it."
"Kagome's got light years more brains than me." Inuyasha continued walking towards the exit. She shifted her armful of stinky unconscious vampire and followed him. "Which is okay. I got enough to function with. That's what matters."
They made it to the entrance to the keep before the bracelet fired again. With a grunt, Inuyasha went down and stayed down -- his eyes rolled back in his head and he quivered and shook but was clearly, blessedly, passed out. He didn't have anywhere near the stamina as a human as he did as a hanyou. This was probably a good thing, at least in this specific instance.
"That'll kill him eventually. His heart will stop. Humans weren't meant to take that level of pain."
It was the vampire, who was trussed up and lying at her feet. He'd woken finally.
"You could release him." She turned around.
"What, and spoil all the entertainment in watching you two grovel? What are you going to do when you get to the hotel?" The vampire rolled his eyes.
"Oh, I have plans." Buffy toed the vampire. First she needed to get back into the hotel. Then she needed to see what sorts of supplies Angel and Willow had on hand. However, she had a bit of a idea that might actually turn into a plan.
--
Kagome was keeping watch when the barrier beyond the hotel's front door flared with brilliant red light. Buffy's voice echoed through the room, "... a la kazaaaaam!"
Much to Kagome's shock, Buffy lunged through a sudden opening in the barrier. She was carrying Tessaiga in one hand, and had a red-haired figure thrown over her shoulder. Kagome's heart leaped into her throat in instinctive fear -- there were a lot of ways Inuyasha could be parted from his sword, but none of them were very good.
Slayers are part demon. Of course she can use the sword. Why didn't I think of that before?
To her relief, however, a very human Inuyasha followed on her heels just as the doorway through the barrier closed. He was filthy, bloody, battered and bruised, but blessedly alive. Kagome demanded, as Buffy dropped the vampire on the ground, "Anything coming after you?"
"Not immediately." Buffy sounded tired.
"Good." And then she turned to Inuyasha and tackled him with a squeal of relief. "Inuyashaaaaa!"
He folded his arms around her and held her close. He squeezed her so hard her ribs hurt. "I was worried about you," he whispered.
"Yeah, me too. You got purified? How the hell did you get purified?"
"Sort've." He nuzzled her neck. Had they been alone, she suspected he would have thrown her down and made love to her until they were both limp with exhaustion. Cryptically, he answered, "This old dog learned a new trick."
"Will wonders never cease." She kissed him, to take the sting out of her teasing words. There weren't any real words to describe the relief she felt to see him alive. So she didn't try to express herself in any way other than by wrapping her arms around his waist and engaging in a very undignified, very improper public display of affection. Once upon a time she'd have blushed to her toes to be seen kissing Inuyasha like this ... well, a couple years in America, and a several months as his girlfriend, had changed her outlook on a lot of things! Then, when they came up for air she asked, "Are you cursed or will you turn back on your own?"
"Buffy!" Willow's shout of greeting made them both look up, before he could answer her. Inuyasha didn't let go of her, however; his arms remained locked around her. He was sometimes like this after a close call. She knew she was his rock, the center of his universe, and she leaned into his arms. He needed the physical contact for a bit longer. Whatever had happened on the other side of the barrier must have been pretty bad, if Buffy was wielding Tessaiga and her hanyou was human!
"Wil, oh, good. I got a couple jobs for you -- first, re-demon Inuyasha, will you? Right now."
Priorities, Kagome realized. Buffy was a lot smarter than she seemed at first impression, and one of her first priorities would be to restore Inuyasha -- and his fighting abilities -- to hanyou form.
Kagome felt Inuyasha breath a soft sigh of relief. He had issues with vulnerability all around; he didn't trust these people, she knew, and it would be too easy for somebody to get physical with him when he didn't have his powers to defend himself. Xander could probably take out the human Inuyasha.
Absently, she thought, I really should work with him on hand-to-hand as a human. There's plenty of mortal humans who can kick ass and take names. He was athletic even as a human; he needed to learn to some fighting styles that didn't involve brute strength, fangs, and teeth and a whopping powerful sword.
"Oh! Oh, sure. I can do that." Willow nodded as she came down the stairs. She snapped a quick incantation off in latin. "That's easy-peasy."
Inuyasha gasped as the magic hit him, and threw his head back and snarled. Kagome didn't let go -- there was nothing that Inuyasha could do that could scare her -- and after a second, his hair white once more, his eyes amber, and his claws and fangs back. He was himself again and he let out a deep sigh of relief. "That's more like it. Thank you, Buffy. Willow."
"Not a problem." Buffy's response was casual, but Inuyasha's absent gratitude raised Kagome's eyebrows -- and her curiosity. Inuyasha seldom thanked anyone, and never someone he didn't like. Willow's name had been tacked on as an afterthought, but his 'thank you' to Buffy had been completely genuine.
"It's about time. Kagome ..." he started to say something to her. Whatever comment he meant to make was lost in a strangled cry. He went down hard, dragging her with him, clawed hands clenching painfully around her upper arms. She turned a betrayed look to Willow and demanded, "What did you do to him!"
Inuyasha clung to her. He was shaking. Worse, she could feel his heart racing through the his rib cage, and his breath came in quick, short puffs.
"I didn't do anything!" Willow sounded hurt.
"Willow didn't do it." Inuyasha gasped. "Damn vampire. Get it off!"
He thrust his wrist towards her, displaying a golden bracelet. When she cautiously touched the bracelet it tried to zap her with an evil aura. Instinctively, she blocked it with a burst of purification energy. The thing was positively malignant, and, now that she turned her attention to it, she could sense it must be causing Inuyasha terrible agony.
"Please. Please. Please. Kagome, make it stop. Please make it stop."
His begging was alarming to her. Inuyasha didn't beg. It was totally out of character for him to even acknowledge pain. With a growled oath she purified the damned thing. It clicked open, a hidden hinge revealed, and she ripped it off his wrist and threw it hard against the wall. It sparked on contact and then fell to the ground where it lay, occasionally making a vaguely electrical noise.
Inuyasha melted into her arms, eyes closing. He'd passed out. She quickly checked his pulse, which was slowing down to a normal rate even as she touched his throat. Then she cradled him in her arms, ignoring various stinks that had to be far more offensive to his sensitive nose than to hers, and demanded of Buffy, "What the hell happened to you two?"
Buffy didn't immediately acknowledge Kagome's question, to her frustration. Instead, she thrust her captive vampire into Spike's care with a quick, "Be careful. He's a bit of a bad ass."
Spike regarded the problem for a moment, then thumped the red-haired vampire over the head with his fist. The hitokiri slumped unconscious. "Now he's less of a bad ass. Why are we not staking him, luv?"
"Because he's an important minion and knows important stuff." Buffy sighed. "And now I have to wait for him to wake up to get information out of him."
"Buffy," Kagome interrupted, patience exhausted, "Why the hell is my hanyou half dead?"
"Because he chose to suffer pretty nasty levels of pain rather than to kill me." Buffy's explanation was delivered with a toss of her head, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "And, ewww. I need a bath. Then I need an orb of Thesu-vesuvius-whatsit."
Willow supplied, somewhat hesitantly, "Thesulah?"
"Buffy, I need more information than that. What happened to Inuyasha?" Kagome was ready to strangle her.
"Yeah, that, Willow." Buffy frowned at Kagome, "Inuyasha's tough. He'll be okay. He'll come around in a minute or two."
"I'm pretty sure Angel's soul is present and accounted for right now, given that he's not trying to kill everyone." Spike said, with a bit of a smirk. Kagome's felt slightly dizzy as she tried to track the conversation. What the heck did Angel's soul have to do with anything they were discussing now? Spike continued, "Though I bet you could use the orb to take his soul away and then we sic Angelus on the Unseelie. Ooh! That'd be bloody entertaining."
Kagome decided she had no clue what that banter was about, and Buffy was obviously distracted, so she turned her attention to her fiance. She shook Inuyasha gently, trying to rouse him. He took a deep, ragged breath. His eyelids fluttered, revealing slits of amber, and he groaned. Finally, everyone fall fell silent, waiting for him to wake up. Without opening his eyes, he muttered, "Kagome, next time Buffy asks us to help out, just say no."
Buffy's voice held a grin that Kagome didn't even need to look up to see. "'Just say no' went out of style in the 1980's, Rover."
He opened one eye. "Are you even old enough to remember Nancy Reagan? -- And I'll be fine." He opened the other eye and sat up, pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead for a moment, then added, "You've a cruel streak, woman."
"Muah?" Buffy's look was totally -- and falsely -- innocent.
"I'd tend to agree with that," Spike said. "It's why I love her."
"Masochism. It's what Spike does best." Xander teased him, as he descended the stairs, with Angel following after him.
"Buffy," Angel let out a heartfelt sigh of relief. "Thank God you're okay."
Ignoring everyone else, Angel pulled her into a hug. His low murmur of, "I was worried you'd get hurt ..." was barely audible.
"Hey! Hands off my girl!" Spike protested, sounding outright angry. Then he muttered, fists balled at his side, "The bastard never understood boundaries."
Inuyasha said in Japanese to Kagome, with his arms folded and a smirk on his face, "Those two and Buffy really need to have a good threesome and get it out of their system."
Andrew -- the others were arriving now, Andrew among them -- replied with a snicker to Inuyasha from across the room, "Problem with that is that Angel and Spike could never agree on who'd do Buffy first."
"So they'd need to be creative about sharing." Inuyasha actually sounded crabby when he said that. Kagome promptly blushed to the roots of her hair, and swatted him.
Andrew giggled.
Still cranky, Inuyasha demanded, "What? It's true."
"Inuyasha!" She hit him again. "Don't make me Sit you for being crude!"
"Sometimes, I forget you're only twenty." He scowled at her. Then, in a voice that continued to border on pissed, he again turned his attention to Willow. "Willow, that's dark magic that Buffy's proposing."
"I've done it before." She sounded defensive.
"And we all know how well that went." Xander's frowny face matched Inuyasha's perfectly. Kagome figured Inuyasha's mood was due to embarassment at being vulnerable in front of the others, but she didn't know why Xander was not thrilled with whatever Buffy had alluded to. An Orb of Thesulah wasn't anything Kagome was familiar with -- she was a miko, not a traditional witch.
"Xander, I don't think we have a choice." Buffy extricated herself from Angel's hug and turned her attention briefly at Spike. "Stop pouting, Spike. It's not cute. You'll get your smoochies later. -- Wil, I wouldn't ask, but I think our back's to the wall here. They've transported the hotel into another dimension. It's not Earth out there; it's the middle of an alien battlefield. With, like, yucky demons instead of soldier. That vampire's an important minion and if we can bring him over to our side, we might not only get out of this with our lives, but ahead of the game."
"We're going to die here if we can't break the barrier." Willow nodded. "I can do it. Do we have an Orb?"
"On my desk." Angel gestured vaguely at his office. "I've been using it as a paperweight."
Kagome had no idea why this comment provoked mild laughter from both Willow and Xander, and a roll of the eyes from Buffy. The Slayer continued, "Wil. Do we have everything else you need?"
"Yeah, I think so. Angel's got quite a few supplies in the basement."
"Good. Get things ready. I'm going to go take a shower and get this ick off me -- I swear, I'm never going to use the phrase finger food again! -- Inuyasha, if you want a shower, do it now too."
Inuyasha nodded. His crabby expression eased. Belatedly, Kagome realized he might have been perturbed by his own stink, as well. "Is there water?"
"Tank on the roof." Spike glanced upwards. "Go easy on it, but there should be a few thousand gallons there, so we're good for awhile. It's cold, though, without power."
"Soap?" Inuyasha grunted. Kagome suspected Inuyasha would have taken a bath in icewater at this point.
"Third floor maid's closet." Angel was returning with a glass globe in one hand. "Place used to be a hotel. They left enough of those little bottles of shampoo behind for an army."
With total, and heartfelt sincerity, Inuyasha said, "Thank you." Then he grabbed Kagome by the hand and hurried off towards the stairs, pausing only to wrest a flashlight out of Andrew's startled grasp.