A/N: I'm not dead! I'm so sorry it's been, what, 6 months? Good god. Enjoy!
Chapter 16 -
Mickey-Jo shivered underneath the piles of furs. Her labored breathing sounded like an evil robot through the apparatus. Her skin, usually an olive-tinged tan, was pale and washed with blue. Hiei had been watching her condition deteriorate for hours now.
"It is the Cold Death." the 'nurse' had told him. She turned out to be a demon he had worked with many, many years ago. A healer who traveled with the band of demons Hiei was part of. Kama. "There is a poison in the air of Demon World deadly to humans. It is worse underground. Humans are creatures of light, the do not adapt well to demon caves. The Ekrichii, the large worm you fought, leave spores in the tunnels to find prey and weaken it for easier capturing. All of these things are draining her life away. They will make her body colder and colder, until her heart freezes and her blood stops pumping."
Hiei grimaced. "Is there some sort of cure? Surely humans the insane cat on the mountain had stolen would have escaped into the caves?"
Kama sadly shook her head. "No. There is no cure. The only hope we have is to keep her temperature up and her body hot to keep the blood flowing. Keeping the air toxins out of her lungs will help too." The demon gently stroked Mickey-Jo's hair. "In her weakened state the sickness spread that much faster."
Hiei pulled at the collar of his cape. With the fire going full blast it was hot in there, even for him! He looked down at the tatters and only briefly wondered why he even still had it on before ripping it off and throwing it into the blaze.
At Kama's raised eyebrow he only smirked. "More fuel."
Kama stood up from Mickey-Jo's bedside. She paused a moment at the human's whimper. When she neither moved nor made another sound, Kama walked over to the fire and touched the large black stones warming by the hearth. They were hot to the touch. "Come, Hiei. Help me wrap these stones so we can lay them beside her."
Wrapped in thin fabric, the hot stones wouldn't burn Mickey-Jo's skin, but give much needed warmth to her freezing body. Surrounded by the stones the cowgirl seemed to not shiver quite as much, but the blue tint to her skin didn't go away and her breathing did not even out.
Hiei's lip curled. This is just wasting time, he thought, And where the hell is Kurama? He stalked out of the hut without a backward glance to Kama's stare.
"We've been walking for-EVER." Yusuke whined. "How far is it?!"
"Shouldn't be too much farther now," Daisuke told him. "Unless an Ekrichii has moved the tunnels again."
"A what?" Kuwabara asked.
"You have those down here?" Kurama asked Daisuke.
The scarred man nodded. "Yes, the Ekrichii was one of the things She told us she would rid us of. Great, giant centipedes with black holes filled with fangs for mouths, pincers and they spit poison. I haven't seen one in a long while, but my daughter who still lives in the village has told me there was one spotted very recently."
Yusuke blanched. "Wonderful. I just love Demon World."
"How much farther is the village, Daisuke?" Kurama asked. He could sense they were very deep underground. Being surrounded by the rock and stone was messing with the link he had with Hiei. Kurama knew all of them were anxious to see that the fire demon and equally fiery cowgirl were alright. He wasn't sure how they would find the demon without Mickey-Jo's unique tracking skill. A lot was still at stake, and they had precious little time for setbacks. Already, this little diversion was taking up time that should have been spent finding the demon's hideout.
Kurama sighed almost inaudibly. Killing Gala was unfortunate but necessary he reminded himself. It was obvious from the few minutes they had spent in her company she had lost her grip on reality. A woman with that much power and that little mind was very dangerous. Still, the part of himself tied to Youko lamented the loss of such a beauty and her unique… talents.
Yes.. her talents…
"Hey Kurama, you ok?" Kuwabara had dropped back to talk to the redhead.
Kurama cleared his throat and nodded with a smile. "Yes, I'm fine. It's just been a while since I've been underground."
"Yea! It's giving me the creeps! I don't know how some people stand it." Kuwabara said with a shudder.
"It's certainly not for me." The fox demon frowned at the taste of something odd on his tongue. He sharpened his vision on the air in front of him. Human eyes would not catch the miniscule, faintly glowing particles that floated in front of him. Alarmed he called out to Yusuke and Kuwabara.
"Hold your hand over your mouths! Now!" He said. "Or your shirt, something to try to filter the air."
Kuwabara clapped his hand over his mouth immediately. Yusuke stopped and looked at the fox with an eyebrow raised. "What's up, Kurama? Demon World air doesn't affect us, remember?" He flexed an arm. "We're too strong!"
"Do as I say, Yusuke. This is something completely different." Green eyes darted around and tried to see past the ring of the lights they carried. "The spores the Ekrichii leaves behind are especially harmful to humans. The amount of power you have to filter the toxins of Demon World will not work against the spores."
The teen grimaced and tugged his shirt up and over his mouth. "So this Ekrichii is a bad mofo, huh?"
"The worst underground predator in this province of Demon World," Daisuke spoke up. His voice was frightened. "The great worms once nearly drove my people to extinction."
"Why didn't you leave the mountain?" Kuwabara asked.
Daisuke sighed. "And leave what generations before us had built? No, we could not." He was silent for a moment. "Though, if we had, maybe She would not have gotten such a hold on us."
A slight rumble in the rock and an echo of something made the group pause nervously. Daisuke rushed to the wall and felt it, closing his eyes in concentration. After a moment he opened them back up again with a relieved intake of breath. "It is moving away. But we must be quiet, and we must move fast."
Hiei paced the outside of the village where the lights were dim and seldom used. He had been trying to reach Kurama, Yusuke, or even the dimwit Kuwabara for what seemed like an hour. No one could be contacted. All that was there was blankness. He had a feeling the massive amounts of rock had something to do with it.
A fissure ran up the side of the wall when Hiei punched it. Frustration did not suit him. He got violent when he was angry. We do not have time for this human inadequacy. He thought, All of this rock is annoying.
What he wouldn't say is that his pride was nicked from getting indirectly bested by Gala. That was the sort of thing that happens to the Detective and his buffoon of a sidekick. Not him. Then to be found by Kama while dragging a sick human along…
Hn.
Hiei sent a rock skittering into the darkness beyond the ring of torches. Though, he supposed it was best Kama found them. She was a human-lover. Seeing Mickey-Jo in her state nearly sent her into a panic. Hiei ignored her accusations and glares while toting the unconscious human girl to the underground village. Her nagging had finally stopped when they reached her hut and she was busy stripping the girl of her ruined clothing and cleaning the various wounds. Kama had always treated the human slaves with too much kindness. They did not learn their lessons with kindness. They learned with control and pain. Kindness gave them airs, which resulted in unproductive slaves. It was best when she left the troupe and returned home, here in the mountain.
Though it was a pity her time with them did not harden her soft heart.
"Hiei!" Kama called from her hut. "You are needed!"
He expelled his breath in an irritated sigh.
When he reached Mickey-Jo's sickbed, Kama had told him to do the most outrageous thing he ever heard. Shock rooted his feet to the ground.
"You want me to WHAT?" He yelled at the healer demon.
Surely he had misheard her.
Surely she was not asking him to do what he thought she was.
Surely.
A/N: Wunderbar! A cliffy! Demon sicknesses are no joke, yo. It's like bird, swine, cow, human, and foot flu all rolled into one. Except you don't throw up. Cuz that's just gross.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!