A/N: Note, this was inspired by Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, but only inspired! It may have some similarities, but just with a strong female lead character (Kag, who else, doigh?) and a world of vampires, demons and the like… and her being a slayer. But that isn't a really original idea in the first place. I just wanted to do a fic with Kagome as a STRONG leading character. She really needs to be kick-ass sometimes, right?
Oh and disclaimer… INSERT STANDARD DISCLAIMER HERE
Beginnings…..--
Kagome growled at her reflection and, for no other reason than she needed something to do with her hands, began to plait her hair almost angrily.
Almost waist-length jet black hair gradually fell into a messy braid and then trailed heavily down her back.
She pinched her cheeks then, trying to bring some colour to her pale face.
Having a naturally pale complexion was bad enough, until you threw in the fact that she did most of her work at night, and had developed a bad case of photosensitivity.
Or hatred toward the world during the day.
She stopped pinching when it began to hurt, and then realized she had probably done nothing more than bruise her own face.
Ijeet.
She bit her lip and studied herself clinically for a brief moment.
She wasn't beautiful.
Not classically.
Sure, she was pretty enough. But that wasn't it. She was… maybe captivating was the word.
Or maybe not..
Leave it at interesting and be done with it.
She drew looks, and not just because she was attractive. She was petite, maybe 5'6" in a good pair of shoes. She was thin, wiry even, with small features and her saving grace was her raven hair and overlarge grey-blue eyes. Like cloudy ice.
But she had been told that she had 'something'.
Yep. Just what every girl wants to hear.
Maybe it was her gifts, talents, whatever you want to call it. Or maybe it was the sense of 'mystère' she exuded.
'mystère' roughly translated as 'knowing more than the average person can handle and still sleep at night.' Or: 'killing the things that give little children, and grown-ups too for that matter, nightmares for a living.'
Yep.
That was Kagome. A bad-ass killer.
She snorted.
'Get over yourself, Higurashi.'
Kagome turned from the mirror with a snarl and tried to ignore the scarring that just peeked over the top of her simple collared button-down shirt.
Kagome wasn't so much of a killer, so much as a highly paid mercenary.
A damned good one if she did say so herself. And she did.
She left the bathroom and went to her bedroom, easily avoiding obstacles in the dark of her apartment from memory and found a pair of worn jeans slung over the headboard of her bed and pulled them on.
Time to make some money.
She strapped a simple leather sheath over her denim-clad thigh and ran her fingers over the handle of the knife it held absently, but affectionately.
She often considered why she didn't opt for a gun, but that was a moot point. She didn't know a hell of a lot about them, didn't care to, and besides, most of the jobs she dealt with involved creatures that were more than a match for gunpower.
Knives of silver was where it was at.
And if you weren't allergic to a bit of silver, she was adept enough with a knife that it didn't make much difference.
Besides, she just plain didn't like guns. They were so..
She cut the thought off, aware that it was slightly hypocritical, if not pig-headed to baulk over the violence of guns when she killed for a living.
Kagome considered throwing open the heavy black curtains that shrouded her apartment in darkness and kept the day out, but discarded it. Although letting the moonlight into her apartment was appealing, she was going out anyways, and she'd probably be so exhausted on her return that she wouldn't remember to close them.
Which led to much cursing when the sun woke her up from her much needed sleep.
Kagome let her overlong shirt hide the knife at the top of her thigh, and added a wrist -sheath on her left arm and let her shirt hide that as well.
Then she threw on a pair of sneakers, a light corduroy jacket, and grabbed her keys off the hook by the door and left her apartment with a sigh, using the fire escape so she wouldn't have to deal with neighbors, although who else would be up at one in the morning ready to prowl the streets was a mystery.
Work called..
Beautiful.
She tossed her braid with a grin. She loved her job. She felt alive when she was out in the city at night. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the feelings of the city at night were patently unique.
Dangerous. But hers.
She lived immediately downtown, mostly because she had no car.
It was a simple equation, Kagome plus car equaled dead pedestrians. The city nightlife pulled at her other senses so strongly, that the one and only time Kagome had gotten behind the wheel with the intention of learning to drive she had hit no less than three parked cars.
Magic and transportation were unwilling to mingle.
So she hit pavement and walked the three blocks to her unofficial office, letting the night air wash over her and soothe her soul.
In reveling in the feeling of being alive, Kagome failed to notice the golden eyes that followed her movements from a table outside a night café, of which the city was famous for.
If she had caught the barely suppressed shudder and moan accompanying that watchful gaze, she probably would have beat the life out of its owner with intense satisfaction.
But of course she didn't.