Southern Fried Chapter 7
I'm so sorry this is so late. :( My dad just died so I've been working with my family making funeral arrangements and such. Hope this one isn't too crappy. Thanks for reading. 3
'He's here. I know he's here. Somewhere...'
Mickey-Jo's eyes darted around the populated street corner as if her boogeyman would suddenly appear with a knife and a deadly intent. She continued playing, coaxing a meloncholy lament from the violin's strings. The song was full of longing, just missed chances, and always being just out of reach. She had been out there on that street corner for a while now. She had become desperate enough to use her manipulation to squeeze a little more generosity from the listeners. People had been stopping, but they weren't cooperating. Although it wrung her heart to cheat like this, she didn't have the time or the patience to keep playing until she got enough. She was hungry, Ol'Boy was hungry, and being hungry on hunts led to mistakes. Mistakes with this demon were deadly.
With one last lingering draw of the bow across the strings, she finished her song and knelt down. She had just enough to buy her and Ol'Boy a meal, maybe a little extra. That was all she needed. She was close. So close. This would be the day. Two years of hunting would finally be finished this day. She could almost taste it.
She got something from a street vendor and continued wandering around the outskirts of the city. After their meal, Mickey-Jo pulled Ol'Boy into an alley and knelt down in front of him. She wrapped her hands around his furry head, gently scratching his ears. The hound panted happily and thumped his tail.
"We gonna have to get serious, Ol'Boy." Mickey-Jo murmured to the dog. "We ain't been this close in naerly a year. We cain't blow this chance, boy. Jack is countin' on us."
Ol'Boy whined.
"I know, I know, boy. It's hard. It's been a mighty hard trip but we gots to push just a mite farther. Then we gonna be home free."
The dog regarded her with soft brown eyes. It was if he knew that little speech was more for herself than for him. After all, dogs can't understand English.
"Right. Let's get to sniffin'." Mickey-Jo pulled the little jar with the finger out from her shirt and pulled out the cork. She waved it under Ol'Boy's nose and he sniffed the air. The dog growled and his hair stood on end. She stood up and dusted off her jeans. She settled her cowboy hat more firmly on her head and watched as Ol'Boy trotted in ever-widening circles, nose to the ground. His growls got more and more agitated.
"Tha's right, Ol'Boy. Get mad. Get that scent. Let's find this snake in the grass and cut his damn head off!"
Ol'Boy zigzagged in front of the demon hunter, alternating his sniffing between the ground and the air. Mickey-Jo tensed. The dog always found his scent, always. As Ol'Boy widened his search a frown darkened her face. It usually doesn't take this long. He's never taken this long to find a scent. His sniffer wasn't a plain sniffer.
Once, when Mickey-Jo and her boys were crossing through northern Canada, they lost the trail. It was there they met Adrian Lefluer, a French-Canadian mountain man who raised world-famous scent hounds. After taking her near frozen self in, Lefluer offered to "bless" Ol'Boy after hearing their plight. The mountain man used his energy to grealty enhance a dog sense of smell. His scent hounds were anything super-special, they were just built upon by his abilites. The downside to this procedure was that the dog's eyesight took a hit with the initial change, and progressively got worse as time went on. Mickey-Jo wasn't too worried, and was fully convinced that they would have the hunt over and done with by the time Ol'Boy went blind.
A furious baying brought her out of her thoughts and Mickey-Jo whirled in time to see Ol'Boy racing out of the alley and down the street. Cursing a blue streak, she ran after him. He had finally found the scent. He was loping up the street, oblivious to the pedestrians. Mickey-Jo weaved in and out of the people, apologizing and excusing herself and her dog for interrupting their evening strolls. Ol'Boy didn't bother with the dogs or even the cats he crossed paths with. He was a hound on a scent.
The trail led them on a roundabout path through the outlying neighborhoods. She was convinced she was seen some of these landmarks before. It could be this demon knew he was being tracked and was trying to confuse his trail, or this could be just the meandering and less sinister motive of walking around town. She was more inclined to believe the former.
At last the trail stopped at a run-down section of the neighborhood. There were almost no street lights, no walls were without graffiti, the pavement was stained and cracked, and the smell of trash and filth lingered in the air.
Mickey-Jo shuddered at her surroundings. "Why cain't these damn demons find someplace fancy-like to do their evildoin's?"
She stepped over a puddle of old vomit and made a face. This part of town was disgusting. She hadn't had a proper bath in a long time, being on the trail, and this place was not helping a single bit.
Ol'Boy sniffed in a tight circle before trotting up to the rickety fence of a run-down apartment building. The cowgirl followed apprehensively. This neighborhood was heavily drug influenced. She knew it probably didn't compare to the meth-head rednecks back home, but she did not have the time to deal with any idiots who were cracked out. She breathed a heavy sigh as the hound went up to what looked like the only door to the building. With a building plan like this, it had to be a drug house. No one would see who you were dealing with from the inside unless they followed you, and that was too conspicuous. The number one cause of drug busts was usually following the traffic. The comings and goings. With all the doors to the apartments on the inside, there was less exposure.
Mickey-Jo drew one of her hunting knives as her hound whined and scratched at the door. She made sure her rope was ready to be used, and her voodoo powder was at hand. It was a nifty little concoction that she had gotten from the same priestess who taught her how to shrivel demons. It would hold a demon of limited strength for about 2 minutes. Which was plenty long enough for her.
As she opened the door she resigned herself to swimming in filth for the foreseeable future. she gripped her knife tightly and stepped over the comatose body laying just inside the foyer. It was a good thing Ol'Boy's sniffer was enhanced and he could concentrate on one scent at a time. Mickey-Jo almost vomited from the stench of unwashed body, vomit, and human waste. How did people live like this? There were no words.
She noticed something as her and Ol'Boy navigated the hallways. The people were laying like they just fell over, eyes open but blank. Some were still conscious, but they didn't bat an eyelash as a cowgirl and a hound dog walked by. Some were singing off key, or scratching so hard they drew blood, or rambling on to invisible people.
There was one girl, she couldn't have been older than Mickey-Jo. She was pretty, and apparently unmarked from the dark world she was in. Mickey-Jo stopped and knelt before her. The girl was slumped low against the wall. Here eyes were open but totally blank. She was breathing, but nothing else was responding.
Her soul had been stolen.
Mickey-Jo didn't need any more proof she was on the right track. This confirmed it.
Finally they reached the stairwell. The air was slightly cleaner, and certainly less populated. Up, up and up they went. Two floors, three floors, four floors. Ol'Boy kept climbing.
"How in the...hell did I...let you...talk me into this...Ol'Boy?" Mickey-Jo wheezed. "Sweet baby Jesus... I'm out of shape. It's a wonder... Dazzle don't just...lay down.. when my fat ass...gets on him."
Ol'Boy stopped at the fifth floor and scratched the door.
"You sure he's there?"
He scratched at the door again and whined.
"Ok, this is the plan, Ol'Boy. We gonna go in there and find out which room he's in. It makes perfect sense why a snake like him is doin' in a place like this. These people are so strung out on them drugs they don't even notice their soul is gone. We gonna trap him like the rat he is. Let's get to it."
Quietly Mickey-Jo opened the door to the fifth floor. There was less open use up here. She guessed most people would be in their rooms. Ol'Boy put his nose to the surprisingly clean floor and made a beeline straight for a door halfway down the hall. He stopped in front of it, every hair on end, growling softly.
"He in there, boy?"
A growling whuff was her answer.
"M'kay. Let's head back, made sure there ain't no more exits."
It didn't take long for her to set up her trap after she scoured all floors of the building for a fire escape, or another exit. There weren't any. Whoever built this place had only one thing in mind. It sickened her. One forgotten crack pipe and the whole building could go up in flames and people would be trapped. Surely they realized this. She passed one guy making out with the wall and figured they probably didn't even care.
She went over everything one last time before getting cozy in the bushes just outside the door. She camped out about 10 feet from the entrance, hoping she wasn't close enough for the demon to sense her when he came out. She was an expert at hiding her energy, and that was her most important ability. What she lacked in raw power, she made up for in wiles. Her method was surprise and kill. Simple as that.
She waited, watching the last rays of the sun disappear.
She waited still, watching the moon rise. He didn't come out.
She waited even more as the moon set and the true dark that came before dawn settled down. Still no sign of her demon.
Mickey-Jo was about to lose hope when she saw movement in the distance. She narrowed her eyes as the figures came closer. In the flickering excuse for a security light she made out the figures of the four boys who she kept crossing paths with. Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei and Kuwabara.
"What in the hell are they doin here?" she whispered.
At that moment, the door to the complex opened and her demon stepped out. He was tall, solidly built, and had an aura of pure, seductive darkness. His green eyes, cold as the taste of mint, narrowed when he spotted the four boys. He crossed muscular arms over an equally muscular chest and chuckled a deep rumbling laugh.
Oh yea... human women positively wet themselves for this sucker.
"Hmm... if it isn't Koenma's errand dogs." The demon purred. "I thought he had no idea where I was."
Yusuke smirked. "I guess you're not as sneaky as you thought you were. You really weren't all that hard to find."
"Yes," Kurama said pleasantly. "All we had to do was follow the trail of the people who's souls were stolen."
The demon grinned and shut the door behind him. Mickey-Jo held her breath. Another few feet and he would be in her trap. He would be caught. He would die!
"Sorry, boys, I don't have time for games today." The demon disappeared.
Mickey-Jo sat frozen as she stared at the spot the demon was just in. The boys scrambled around, looking for any sign of the demon.
"He was just... about... to..." Mickey-Jo almost cried.
The cowgirl leapt out of the bushes, startling a scared yelp out of Ol'Boy.
The boys whirled around and faced pure, angry, southern rage.
"YOU CONSARNED GODDAMNED SONS OF ROTTEN SNAKE SHIT!" Mickey-Jo screamed. She fisted her hat and slammed it on the ground. "I was THIS close. THIS DAMN CLOSE! Y'all ain't got a lick o' sense! Dumber n'a goddammed GOLDFISH!"
"Mickey-Jo?" Yusuke blinked. "What are you doing here?"
She flung an arm towards the door. "I was after HIM. That rattlesnack I been huntin' for two years now!" She sunk to her haunches and clutched handfuls of her hair and screamed wordlessly.
Kuwabara and Hiei stood back, their dislike for the cowgirl demon hunter overriding any sympathy for her hysterics. Kurama stepped forward, a nervous look on his face. "Mickey-Jo please, you're being hysterical. We'll find him again."
She flew up at him and stood inches from him. Her face was red and her whole body was shaking. "You don't understand. You CAIN'T understand."
"Why not? What's going on?"
"HE'S GOT MY BABY'S SOUL!" She raged in his face, spittle flying. Her face suddenly crumpled and she staggered a few steps back.
"He's got... he's got my baby's soul."
:O Oh noes! If you want more, review! Thanks so much for reading!