Chapter Twenty-two: Bad Start to the Day

Kagome rolled over in her bed, the sheets becoming tangled in her legs and soaked with sweat. She whimpered, but didn't wake up from her deep sleep.

In her dream, there was a man, only she couldn't see his face, in fact, she couldn't see him at all. She could only feel his presence, and the sensation caused fear to rise like bile in her throat. She was afraid, yet strangely drawn to him. There was sensuality about his very presence that she couldn't deny.

She rolled over, her blankets falling to the floor in a quiet 'plop' of fabric. She clenched her sheets tightly in her fists, and cried out, but still did not wake up as she saw what was coming next.

He was calling to her, asking her to come to him, but everything was covered in a thick mist all around her, and so she didn't know which way to go, only that she needed to get as far away from wherever she was. She turned and turned, the mists getting redder as a moon rose before her, glowing with an unearthly sheen.

But the moon was black… it was an eclipse.

At that moment, she saw an outline, coming towards her through the mist. And suddenly he was standing before her, and his face, extremely handsome in the mist, looked red as he leaned to her, his lips inches from her own. His silver hair billowed behind him in silky waves… almost fluttering like a bird's wing in the breeze while his blood-red eyes burned like embers into hers.

She felt an intense thrill of fear knife through her heart, but she was frozen to the spot and couldn't move. She shut her eyes as he pressed his lips to hers in soft kiss…

It was like she could hear his thoughts, and they mesmerized her, and they were what held her to the spot. She then felt his clawed hands grab hold of her upper arms and held her where she stood—her eyes snapped open again and she stared in horror as he opened his mouth to reveal two pointed fangs and leaned down towards her neck…

She fought, harder and harder, until a scream wrenched itself from her lips and everything went black.

Kagome's eyes snapped open and she sat bolt-upright, gasping for breath as she stared around her room. She blinked several times before she was able to remember where she was and what happened last night. She ran her hand through her slightly damp hair, and her sweaty face as she leaned back onto her pillows—listening to her heart return to its normal pace. What a nightmare… it had started off so sweet and beautiful the night before, but somewhere, it had turned from a wonderful dream into a terrible nightmare. She groaned as she stretched out on her empty bed and… wait a minute! Empty?

She sat bolt-upright once again and stared around her room… she was alone.

Oh, no. Shippo! Rin! What was she going to do? What if they got up and…

Suddenly she heard talking downstairs and she felt her heart sink. She jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. 'Oh, please,' she begged. 'Please, please, please, don't be downstairs with the rest of my family. Please, don't be here…'

You think that she would know better than to hope that luck was on her side. When she sprinted into the kitchen, to her utter horror, she saw the rest of her family sitting at the table with Shippo and Rin.

She felt terror grip her heart and started pulling her hair. 'What are they doing? Why are they talking to them?' she thought in panic before she gasped and began shaking her head violently, 'No! They're gonna find out that they're vampires!'

"Oh, you don't say, Rin?" Mom suddenly said and Kagome stared at the calm look on her face. Rin and Shippo were both sitting at the table, their little legs now kicking in mid-air. Shippo, who had one of Kagome's blankets covering everything but his face—which hide his tail, feet, and ears—was building a tower of pancakes, and Rin was talking eagerly to Sota who was laughing at the story she was telling.

"And so there was this field full of white lilies! Kohaku took me there once and it was… oh!" she just noticed Kagome standing there and waved ecstatically. "Kagome!"

"Hello dear," Mom said as she tipped a few slices of sizzling bacon onto Sota's plate while Grandpa took a sip of coffee. "Kagome why didn't you tell us that you were babysitting these two?"

"Yeah," Sota said through a mouthful of toast. "We all came down here to find these guys sitting at the table and said that you were watching them for your friends. I thought that we walked into the wrong kitchen for a minute."

"It's not that I mind at all dear," Mom said brightly as she passed some toast to Shippo, "But I wish you told us about this first."

Shippo just shook his head at the offered toast. "No thank you!" he said happily and went back to building his pancake tower, using syrup to cement them all together.

"Oh," Kagome said, starting to calm down, realizing that they don't know that the kids were vampires yet. "Well, it all happened all of a sudden you see?" Kagome answered truthfully as she slowly came to the table and sat down. "I was talking to some friends last night and they… ah… had a big problem to deal with last second… a-and asked me to watch the kids… you know? It was kinda sudden and…"

To her horror, Rin went on, "Yeah, they're off fighting a hoard of vampires and we're too young to fight and so they asked us to…"

"Yes," Mom laughed, as she passed Kagome a plate of food, who was twitch horribly. "You've been talking about it for awhile. And why are your friends fighting vampires again?"

Kagome looked up startled, Mom knew and she didn't care? She knew her mom had always been strange but the idea that she didn't care that these two were vampires and…

"No, you see we're all vampires too, but there's this big vampire jerk that we've been fighting for 500 years came after us while we were having a meeting. So, we came here so they could fight and not have to worry about us getting hurt. Course, I'm not too worried. We have Lord Sesshomaru on our side and he's going to take them all down!" Shippo answered for her as he finished his tower by toping it with a fork.

Kagome glanced up at Mom and her jaw dropped open at mom's smiling face. "That's nice sweetie."

Mom then walked around the table and put bacon on Kagome's plate and whispered, "You have such imaginative friends, Kagome. Honestly," she laughed lightly. "Vampires. I think they might've overloaded too much on Halloween candy and the sugar rush hasn't worn off yet. In fact, they asked me if I could keep the curtains closed because they don't like sunlight."

Kagome blinked several times and stuttered out, "Y-yeah." She sighed with reprieve. Of course, Mom thought that they were only pretending they were vampires. Thank god for that.

"Shippo?" Mom asked as she looked towards Shippo leaning tower of pancakes. "Don't you want to eat?"

"Nope," he answered, making a popping sound with his mouth. "I only drink blood." Hearing that spoken so calmly by a kid was oddly chilling to Kagome.

"Yes," Mom answered with a nod. "Of course, vampires only drink blood. But don't you think that you're going to be a little hungry later?"

"Nope," Rin answered grinning. "We ate a lot last night when Miroku brought a lot of squirrels and…"

"Ok!" Kagome called as she got up and said, "I probably should take you both home right now."

"Now?" Rin asked in disappointment. "But Inuyasha said…"

"He asked me to take care of you last night and I promised to take you both back first thing in the morning," Kagome forced a smile. "So why don't you both come up with me for a minute… I just wanted to tell you two something."

"Ok," Shippo said hopping down from his seat, but to her terror, she could see his tail sticking out from the fabric. Panicking, she quickly grabbed them both and took them upstairs so fast that she was a blur—hoping that her family didn't notice anything strange. Once they were safely in her room she turned to them and demanded, "What on earth were you two thinking?"

They both looked confused so Rin asked, "What are you talking about?"

"You going downstairs like that?" Kagome said frustrated. "It's hard enough for me to keep the fact that I'm friends with a coven of vampires a secret from my family, but if you go down there and start talking about it I'm going to be in even more trouble."

"But you said that we can meet your family in the morning," Rin said, her smile fading, and for some reason this only made Kagome feel guilty and she got down to her knees to look them both in the eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said taking several calming breaths. "But you have to understand that my family doesn't know anything about vampires."

"Then we can tell them!" Shippo added, letting his blanket fall to his feet, but before he could go on, Kagome cut him off.

"No! We can't do that!" she almost yelled. "My family doesn't know that I'm friends with vampires, and if they did, I don't know they would let me help you!"

The both blinked in mystification, clearly not understand to what she was talking about. Thinking fast, Kagome said, "Ok, there are good vampires and bad vampires right?"

They both nodded.

"Well, they might think that you guys are bad, or might become bad later on," Kagome thought up quickly.

"Well that's not fair," Rin said huffily as she folded her arms and pouted.

"Yes," Kagome admitted. "Yes, I know it's not fair, but we have to play this carefully. And…" she suddenly thought up. "But there's another reason. If Naraku ever found out that they're helping you, then he might come after them, right? So it's for the best if they don't know who or what you are. So please, don't tell them anything unless I say it's ok, ok? I mean, I really like you both and I want to help you… and even thought I only met you last night, I want to help you guys out."

They both looked a little disgruntled but nodded in agreement. Just at that moment they heard a knock on the window. They all looked over in the direction. "Huh? Inuyasha is that you?"

"Is it safe to come in?" Inuyasha's voice called out.

"Inuyasha," she sighed in relief as he opened the window and climbed in. As soon as he touched down, she flung her arms around his neck for a brief moment before stepping back to examine him. He seemed to be alright… he had a few dark bruises on his face and hands, and his clothes were torn and dirty… but other than all that there were no signs of him ever being in a fight.

"Inuyasha!" cried Shippo as he bounded forward. "There you are! What happened? Did you beat Naraku? How many did you take down? Who took on the most? Where did…"

"Keh," Inuyasha said focusing on the little kid as Rin also came forward. "Keep talking and I won't tell you anything."

Once he fell quiet, he turned back to Kagome and explained, "Naraku did launch an attack. It was only a few vampires… but we took care of them."

"So Naraku didn't come then?" Rin asked in frustration.

"Keh, 'course not," he grunted. "Coward can never fight his own battles. That's what he does. He takes advance of others to fight for him and if they don't get killed, he kills them off later once he realizes that he doesn't need them anymore."

"What a jerk," Kagome said shaking her head. "But what about the others? Sango, Miroku, Ayame… all of them? Are they all…?"

"Fine, more or less," Inuyasha answered. "A few minor injuries but hey, we've had worse, nothing you need to worry about."

Kagome let out a sigh of relief as Rin tugged on Inuyasha's paint leg and asked, "What happened?"

"I told you didn't I?" he answered annoyed. "Naraku sent a few vampires, hoping to ambush us but we were able to deal with them. We did a thorough check around town, but we couldn't find a trace of him anywhere. He disappeared again."

"Great," Kagome whispered, biting her lip.

Inuyasha looked out the window at the gloomy sky and said, "Hey, do you know where the Shikigami café is?"

"The Shikigami café?" Kagome repeated in bewilderment. "Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with what happened last…"

"Why don't you take the kids and meet us at the café a little later?" Inuyasha interrupted.

"What?" Kagome stuttered in surprise. "You just had to fight for your lives last night and now you want to go out?"

"Why not?" he asked, grinning slightly. "Where's the fun if you've got to hide forever? Besides," he looked back at the dark sky, "It's supposed to be cloudy all day—maybe even snow. It should be good for everyone to get out. And besides, we never had a chance to tell you everything last night before we were interrupted. So all you have to do is get the kids out of the house and come straight to the café in about an hour or two ok? We should be able to finish talking."

Before Kagome could agree, or disagree, he already was out the window and hit the ground running. Coming out of her shocked state, she ran to the window and called out, "INUYASHA! COME BACK HERE!"

But it was too late, he was already out of her sights. Sighing, she turned back to the kids and said, "You know, life used to be so easy before I meet him."

Shippo nodded, "You get used to it," he said as he went back to the door but Kagome beat him to it.

"No," she said quickly, "We have to get to the café today in an hour right?"

"Yeah," Shippo said in confusion. "So let's go."

"Not yet," Kagome told him as she looked down at her wrinkled clothes and said, "Just wait here for a few minutes so I can change."

Kagome rummaged through her messy closet for about 10 minutes until she found something presentable and changed into a pair of practical jeans, a tight t-shirt, and her favorite hoodie before she came back and picked up her purse.

"We going now?" Shippo whined.

"Sorry," she whispered as she covered him with the blanket and picked him up.

"HEY!" he called through the cloth and Kagome said, "Sorry again, but my family doesn't know that you're part fox yet, and it's for the best we keep it that way. Please?"

Shippo finally found a way to free his head from the blanket and looked grumpy as Rin started laughing. Gathering her courage, Kagome went down into the kitchen to see that everyone but Mom—who was clearing the table—was gone. She took a deep breath and asked her, "Ah, Mom?"

"Yes, dear?" she answered as she finished cleaning up. "Oh, Kagome you hardly ate anything and so…"

"No," Kagome said almost too quickly and had to take a few deep breathes before she could force a smile and say, "I'm fine, Mom. In fact, I was wondering if I could borrow the car for a little while? I need to take Shippo and Rin home."

"Already?" Mom asked as she straightened up and glanced at the two kids in disappointment. "I was hoping they could stay for a little longer than that. It's so nice to have little children in the house again."

"What about, Sota?" Kagome asked rolling her eyes.

"HEY!" her brother called from the other room. "I heard that!"

"Sorry, mom," Kagome went. "But I promise they can come again real soon."

'Hopefully, without telling her they're vampires,' she added in a afterthought. "But you see, I just got a call from Inuyasha and…"

But she wished she said any other name but his because Mom's eyes glowed and she went for the car keys in her pocket. "Of course dear," she said happily. "Inuyasha… that handsome young man who walked you home the other day?"

Kagome's face glowed red as Rin and Shippo laughed. She put Shippo down and told them to go out and wait by the car for her as she finished talking with her mom. But when they left, she saw them smirking all the way to the door.

She turned back to her mom with a frown and said, "Mom… about Inuyasha…"

"Yes, dear?" Mom asked. "He truly was a unique looking young man… but he must've been very sweet if he wanted to walk you home. Now, how long have you two been dating?"

Kagome went even redder as she heard Sota sniggering from the next room. "Mom, we aren't, I repeat, AREN'T dating! He and I are just friends and that's it! Yeah, he walked me home, but don't friends do that all the time even when they aren't going? Really, there's nothing like that going on between us."

But she might've just been talking to a brick wall for all the good it did, Mom clearly was so happy that her daughter finally found a man that she wasn't even listening.

"Oh, you must bring him over for dinner sometime," she said as she pushed Kagome to the door. "I would love to meet him. Well, don't let me hold you back any longer. You're probably already late for your date."

"MOM!" Kagome cried. "IT'S NOT A…"

Slam. Her mom had just shut the door behind her before Kagome could finish speaking. Stunned, she groaned in annoyance as she turned to the two vampires sitting on top of her mom's car and were laughing good-naturedly at her.

"I bet Inuyasha would love to hear that," Rin said as Kagome unlocked the doors.

"Don't you dare tell him!" Kagome threatened. "The day's only started, but I'm exhausted. So please, can't you two play some kind of game until we reach the café?"

Kagome started the car, glanced back at the two of them playing a game of eye-spy…

Now, in the short time that she met them… she already loved Shippo and Rin dearly… but this was going to be a long car ride.

(Sorry for the long time. But this story is really difficult to write. I've also been working on another Inuyasha/Kagome story that should be going on soon. Sometime in the next day or so, I'll be putting up a quick preview on my profile. So if you want to look at it sometime tomorrow and tell me if it sounds good. I would appreciate it. Hope you enjoyed this chapter… until next time.)