Eyes Wide Shut

Um, I was listening to the soundtrack to the 1st Harry Potter movie, then Fall Out Boy, then Maria Mena while I wrote this. The combination of the music made me oddly descriptive. So I warn you that it might be boring and… I hope it all makes sense.

Chapter Thirteen: Fighting Back

The pheromones in the air were so thick, if there had been a human woman in the room, she would have walked out pregnant. With twins. It took a lot to make Kouga truly nervous and fearful these days. If he had been human, he would have been sweating profusely and his body would have been wracked by tiny shivering. But he wasn’t human. He was a wolf demon, thank you very much. Not just a wolf demon, but a kick ass fearless leader wolf demon. Being a kick ass fearless leader wolf demon granted him some other outlets for fear and nerves. He just smelled bad. Fear and nerves has a distinct scent; sickly sweet, sour, with the sensation of overwhelming heat. He had walked into the lounge this morning smelling of fear and nerves. He smelled like a prey animal.

Although his pack had, over the years, distanced themselves from the true instinct driven war mongering tribal life of the past, they were still demons. When their leader, fearless leader, walked in smelling like a hunted thing, they were lost. Wolf demons were some of the most instinct driven species of demons in existence. They didn’t simply rely on their leader for guidance; they relied on him to hold their world together. Submissive members looked to him for what to do; he ordered, and they obeyed. Protecting them from becoming slaves to other dominant members, while in the same breath making sure they had a stronger counterpart. They loved him for it. The dominant members of his pack looked to him for literal complete control. He kept them in line with an iron fist. Breaking up fights before true injures occurred, helping them while they struggled with the urges ripping through their bodies. Keeping the damn testosterone levels down. They loved him for it.

Beyond creating and keeping the almost obsessive loyalty of his pack, a leader truly did control the actions of everyone in his family. Sometimes through violence, sometimes through love, but always through scent and pheromones. The blood of the alpha male contained something extra. Kouga, and all those who came before him, were able to control their family through the release of specific pheromones. To calm an angry male, Kouga would simply think ‘calm’ or usually ‘calm the fuck down you idiot’ and his body would release some chemical that literally took over the others body, shut his mind down, and made him calm. If he wanted some tail, literally, he would think about sex and every available female would come sniffing. Whether they wanted to or not. A leader could find a spot upwind of his pack; think ‘fight, fear!’ and they would be with him in an instant. Through his scent, he could “hostile takeover!’ every member of his family and make them do what he wanted. And they had no way to stop it. The downside of this, besides the obvious, was that if the leader couldn’t control his emotions and therefore his scent, then his pack was subjected to every whim and bad mood that struck. Packs with weak leaders like that died off quickly. Kouga was not a weak leader. He was strong, in control and never let his emotions unbalance the tenuous peace treaty what was his family’s life. Until now.

Kagome had been missing for over two weeks, and no one had any idea where she was. Or even if she was still alive. During her absence, there had been seven new murders. Countless teams of every flavor demon had scoured the area surrounding Shippo’s building, all of them finding the same thing. A dead end. With various degrees of success, all the teams had followed her trail to just outside a nearby parking garage that upon further investigation contained Kagome’s car. Then her scent disappeared; covered up by an overwhelming essence of night. Almost the scent of a lightning storm, the hunters could only conjure the image of an overwhelming blackness in their minds. Melodramatic, damn frustrating, and if he actually thought about it; really damn scary. But his people were plowing resolutely onward, showing no signs of faltering because their leader did not falter.

Until now. Until that fucking phone call in the middle of the fucking night. That was two fucking weeks late. Some bastard had the balls to call him up, in the middle of the night. Then left him to curse into silence for a few minutes before a wonderfully melodramatic and chilling voice came on. The voice unformed him that Kagome was safe, and that he and his colleagues were not, in an way, connected to murderer. “My dear man, no… we are not your enemies”. Kouga was instructed, for his own benefit, not to continue his efforts to find her, as it would be a waste of his time. “And I’m sure that a man such as yourself, in a position that you find yourself in, has much better things to do than continue such a fruitless search. I’m sure you understand”.Kagome was going to be kept until they had no further need of her, then she would be returned safe and in the same condition as they found her. And thanks so much for your cooperation.

‘Fucking, cock-sucking, puss-filled, cowardly bastards.’ Kouga thought as he walked across his lobby in the direction of the lounge. ‘I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.’ Anger, fear and hate reduced his abdomen to a pit of undulating pain. His fingers unconsciously curled towards his palm, digging in and drawing blood. He stopped a few yards shy of the door.

‘What the hell am I supposed to tell them? Our ace in the hole, our only hope at catching this monster is gone. Beyond our reach. Beyond the reach of their leader... How am I supposed to tell them that we have almost no chance of finding her?’. Kouga felt the fight trickle out of him. They were fighting a loosing battle against and enemy without a face. These murders were just the first step before…. Something. It was an unspoken though that they all shared. If they couldn’t find this thing when it was openly leaving bodies in its wake…what would stop it from coming after them? ‘Nothing. Nothing is stopping it from coming after my family’. Kouga felt the chill of true fear seep into his body for the first time in three hundred years. He raised his head, uncurling his fingers and flicking blood to the floor. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

The first thing that hit outsiders about the lounge, when all his family was inside, was the heat. Apparently a group of wolf demons created more heat than other groups. The first thing that hit Kouga was the familiar, comforting, ever moving pattern of scent and splayed bodies. To outsiders it looked as though his people had walked in, looked around, shrugged, and fell over. In reality there was a pattern to it. He could tell who had been fighting, who had made up and who had made out by how his people chose to sit, curl and lay.

Upon his entering, the harmonious pattern of scent fell away like ash in the face of a tornado. His people reacted to the fear and despair in his scent. Within moments, his dominant males were at attention and in fighting stance, unconsciously moving to protect the females and weaker members. He saw several of them wake up a few seconds later. His dominant females were a beat behind their male counterparts; literally throwing younger and weaker members behind an abrupt wall of claws and teeth. Ignoring how they landed so long as there was someone stronger in front of them. Again, he saw several of them come fully awake at the sound of bodies hitting the wall. His younger and weaker moved a beat behind the dominant females; dropping into defensive positions. By this time all had had time to awaken. The movement was over in less than five seconds.

Ahh, the power of scent.

Kouga simply looked out at his family though a filter of utter consuming despair. He wanted so badly to release them from their instinct created cages, but he found himself unable to dispel the despair and fear signals from his scent. So for these minutes, his people were slaves to his emotions. They remained unmoving; the majority of them simply unable to push their personalities past the unyielding power of their instincts. So Kouga’s empty gaze was returned with empty eyes.

Finally, painfully, Ginta clawed his way past the iron bars Kouga’s scent had placed upon his mind. Looking upon his oldest friend he felt his heart contract. He had never seen such a look of such loss, such utter hopelessness since the day he came to terms with Kagom-. Kagome. That had to be it. There was news on what happened to Kagome. He forced his body, muscle by muscle, to ease out of fighting stance and he looked at Kouga once more. It was not a pretty sight. Hate, fear, despair, and a myriad of other unnamable emotion crossed his face. With each emotional pulse, another wave of mind rending scent hit the pack. He needed to do something fast. Somehow he managed to convince his body that it was okay to move away from the pack. He slowly paced to Kouga.

“Kouga… we will always love you. No matter what happens. We will follow you. We will protect you.” At his words, Kouga’s eyes shot to his. Surprise etched into his features. “I know Kagome would say the same thing if she saw you. She would also tell you to stop being an idiot about this because there is nothing you could have done.” In response, Kouga frowned. But the next wave of scent that was released no longer had quite the same sharp, sickly edge to it. At a loss for words, Ginta simply leaned foreword and wrapped his arms around Kouga. Sometimes you just need to be touched, to make sure that you are still you. Kouga stiffly raised his arms in return and looped them over Ginta’s shoulders, not quite hugging back. But it was enough to give his family their minds back. Claws retracted, bodies reluctantly creaked out of crouches, and apprehensive faces abounded. Ginta leaned back to look at his friend.

“ We aren’t mad. We are only frightened for you. You are our leader, but we are your family.” Kouga hugged Ginta softly, as if afraid he would vanish. He released his friend slowly and looked at his pack, his people, his family.

“I’m sorry”

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Kagome awoke to pain, blinding white light under her eyelids, and a bone deep sense of rage. She was lying on her back on what in any other situation would have been a very comfortable feather bed. She slowly eased herself up from the nest of sky blue down comforters and pillow to rest with her back on the headboard. Her back felt as if an malevolent chiropractor had gone to town on her back and neck. Not to mention the headache. The room was an elegantly appointed bedroom. The sky blue fabric theme was carried over gracefully to the pillows resting in the plush, endearingly well used, looking chairs near the built in bookshelf and tastefully carved armoire. The bookshelf covered three of the four walls and was filled to capacity with old leather bound books. The fourth wall was taken up by the armoire and large oil painting, which had to be an original, of a small boat caught in the middle of a storm at sea. The floor was a spectacular array of warm, homely mismatched rugs that covered most of the beautiful cherry wood floors.

The lighting was low, soft and comforting and came from a low hanging sky blue blown glass chandelier over the bed. The king size bed in which she rested on was an antique sleigh bed of cherry wood that matched the floor and armoire exactly, giving the whole room a disturbingly homey feel. It was opposite an innocent looking door. There were no windows. After coming to the realization that she was wearing a lovely cerulean blue, a shade that tastefully matched the fabrics in the room, silk nightgown, Kagome decided that she was going to be angry for the duration of her stay. She defiantly threw the covers off of her and slipped slowly to floor. She tried not to feel grateful for the rug that undoubtedly protected her feet from the chill of the wood floors. After her mind stopped trying to leave her head in an attempt to escape her headache, she walked to the door. After a few moments of mindlessly starring at the antique brass door knob, she reached out and opened the door.

The room beyond was a chokingly elegant living room, sans windows. Another bookshelf, this time in an almost black oak, wrapped around two walls. The floors were a dark oak, not the same shade as the shelves, but similar enough to keep the eyes attention. Three huge dark caramel leather couches formed a semi-circle around a large dark oak, matching the book shelf of course, armoire. She would bet anything that there was a TV that cost more than her house hidden in there. Behind the couches was a reading area; fashioned out of two large comfortable looking chairs with large dark blue pillow and a small wooden table which of course matched all the other wood, and an antique brass lamp. There was large oil painting, another original, of a large library with shelves that reached to the sky with a skylight that let deep blue moonlight in. Next to the reading station, there was another too innocent looking door. Catty corner to that, on Kagome’s right was another door. After a moment of deliberation she walked to the door to her right.

This door opened onto a, windowless, kitchen. It was, needless to say, elegant and breath taking. All dark woods, gleaming stainless steel and luminous granite countertops, it made her want to cook just being in it. There was a center island larger than her whole kitchen complete with bar stools. Before she had time to catalogue more, the sight of a single sandwich positioned in the exact middle of the island on a gleaming white plate porcelain plate killed her attention span. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. A few quick steps took her to her prize. Within moments she had consumed half of it. Within moments, her eyes got heavy, her movement slow, and she slid to the floor.

-------

Again, Kagome woke to pain, blinding white light under her eyelids, and a bone deep sense of rage. She was again lying on the big sleigh bed. Kagome shot into a sitting position, viciously ignoring the throbbing in her head.

“The damn sandwich… how could I have been so stupid?” Kagome muttered, running her hand through her greasy hair.

“Quite simple my dear, you were already drugged. You weren’t thinking straight, don’t be so hard on yourself” the sound of a very amused male voice had Kagome slowly turning her head to find the source. The source as it turned out was sitting, looking quite comfortable, in one the chairs by the armoire. Expensively shaggy dark hair fell over a face of caramel skin, bones that could cut diamonds and dark eyes. A human, as far as she could tell, in his late forties. He was one of the rare who had been blessed with rather annoying ability to age gracefully. Dressed impeccably in black slacks and a charcoal sweater, he made her feel underdressed in her wine colored- wait wine colored? While she was out, someone had taken it upon themselves to change her into a wine colored silk night gown. A rather low cut night gown actually… Kagome quickly pulled to covers to her chin. At her actions, a chuckle rose from his throat.

“My dear, I’m terribly sorry we had to contain you in such a fashion. But now, I would guess you are hungry for something that does not have any hidden surprises”. He punctuated his words with disarming smile and rose gracefully from the chair. He walked over to the side of the bed she occupied and smile winningly down at her.

“Here now, I think we can work something out in a reasonable fashion” Kagome simply stared. ‘Reasonable? Reasonable? He kidnaps me, drugs and imprisons me. Then acts as if I’m an animal in a zoo! I’ll show you reasonable!’ He smiled again and extended a hand. Kagome let go of the comforter with one hand and extended it. Instead of placing her hand in his, her hand moved directly in front of his face. As he opened his mouth to scream, a stream of piercing white light shot from her hand. Then the stream expanded, filling the whole room.

-------

It had been thirty minutes, and he still hadn’t come out the cell. He had said “give me ten minutes. I’m sure she won’t be any trouble”. Yeah well… maybe she was trouble. Brushing unruly blonde stands out of his face, he leaned forward to press the comm. button on the control panel. After a few seconds an irritated male voice crackled into the room.

“Yes? Yes? What the hell is going on down there?” Ignoring his first instinct to ignore the question out of spite, he pushed his glassed determinedly higher on his nose.

“He’s been in there for half an hour, with no contact. He said to give him ten” The comm. button clicked off.

-------

Five minutes after the transmission was received from the cell watcher, fifteen moved into position. Encased in full body armor, and armed with stun pellets, they were prepared. At the signal they entered the cell. The lead was equipped with a camera on his helmet.

Mark was pissed. They had to suit up, in the middle of lunch, and march down to the containment level for one petite woman. The commander was twenty minutes late. Big friggin deal. As he rounded the corner into the “living room”, he bit his lip to keep from spouting off a comment that would be recorded and cause him hell later. A few seconds later the declared the room cleared. With a jerky motion behind him, five of his mean crept to the bathroom. It was clear. They fell instep behind him as he walked to the “bedroom” door. After another jerk of his hand, he had cover for when he opened the door. Keeping his gun up by pushing it back on his shoulder, he flung the door opened and threw himself to the side. A few tensely silent seconds later, he eased his shoulder around the door frame. His gun followed, then his head.

He almost dropped his gun. The commander was laying face down on the floor, in a pile of looked to his trained eye like blood. The woman was pressed up against the headboard, looking for the entire world as if she was trying to phase through it. She was clutching her hand to her (quite fantastic, if he really thought about it) breasts as if it was injured. He raised his gun, another hand motion, and two men eased into the room. He slowly started walking towards the bed.

“We aren’t going to hurt you” he inwardly winced at how menacing his voice sounded as it resonated off the inside of his helmet. Her head snapped up, hair flying, and set her jaw. He slowly flicked of the safety. At the sight of her almost throwing herself back against the head board, he risked a glance behind him. Four more men had eased into the room. This was getting out of hand. Determinedly, he turned towards her and aimed. Before his finger had finished pulling there was a blinding whiteness, and he knew nothing more.

-------

The prisoner was finally sedated. Seven men were injured in the same fashion that incapacitated the commander. A lucky shot from a man stationed outside the room was what got her.

Hope it made sense; you know the action taking place two weeks apart?

Anyway, I’m thinking about doing a spin off, for Shippo and Rosemary. How they met and other such missing details about them. What do you think? Don’t worry I won’t do it until I finish (however long that takes).

Thanks for reading!