Shadow Dancer (Kitsune series) Page 14

  Recovering, I was susceptibility to the cold. It further dragged down my defenses; Ryan had picked his time well for kidnapping me.

  One of the moth-winged women studied me, and spoke to the rest, “She’s suffering.”

  One of the others shrugged. “So?”

  “If she comes out of the change as a dominant she’ll remember this.”

  The other mothwoman shrugged. “Not many survive the attempt or we wouldn’t be so few.”

  I growled low in my throat. Going to be a lot fewer when I get my hands on some serious fire power.

  “We should get things started.” The mothwoman who’d almost been sympathetic to me joined hands with two of her sisters. A fourth woman closed the ring. They stood under a high branch, lifting faces toward it. Each opened their mouths and their tongues jutted out like swaying serpents. Spitting cobras was more like it. Milky strands shot from tongue tips to the branch, hitting close together. The wet cords reminded me of something that might have come from a silkworm. With the cords anchored, the women moved counter-clockwise, winding the strands into a tight rope.

  I watched the winding, fascinated despite my dread. After a dozen or so feet, the threads were cut by snapping jaws. I was pulled up and dragged over to the four weavers. They took the bottom of the rope and wound it around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides. I was lifted and turned so that more loops secured me. When they finished, I dangled several feet off the ground, almost vertical with a slight forward lean.

  This is so not good.

  The males arrived, piling up armloads of leafy green vines that seemed impervious to winter’s approach. The leaves were rounded hearts with pale stripes cutting them in half. Serena towed Ryan over to the vines and shoved his face in it. “Eat!” she ordered.

  Gratitude flushed through me; I wanted his eyes elsewhere. Having almost everything bared, I burned with embarrassment, though the rest of the moth folks showed little interest in what I had to offer, swinging on my tether like a naughty piñata.

  Ryan ate. And ate. And ate. Like a starving man at a free buffet. He chewed the leaves and stems furiously while the rest of the crowd hummed a tuneless drone. The sound—and fireflies dancing on the wind, painting us a sickly yellow-green—created a scene straight out of the fairy courts. These winged people, with their half-changed bodies, could well have been the inspiration for such legends.

  Finished, Ryan climbed to his feet. He’d lost some of his human qualities. His face was lightly fuzzed, his mouth wider than possible on a human. His antennae had revived, growing feather-duster fluffy, sitting up like a house plant rescued from neglect. The whites of his eyes were crimson, the irises black as sin. No warmth lay in his expression as Serena stayed close, walking him over to me. She was taking no chance that my pheromones might free him of her control. I wondered if that was all the attraction I’d ever had for him, my smell.

  Kind of a let down in a way.

  I kicked him as he got close, which made me swung backward on the rope. Fortunately, I missed the trunk of the great oak.

  Serena’s enforcer caught me, gripping my hair tightly to control me. “No more games.” His cold stare and flat tone were pure threat. “You don’t really need eyes. if I get irritated, I’ll pluck them out and feed them to you.” He let go of me and stepped back.

  I stayed very still as Ryan embraced the sticky strands holding me, his head level with my stomach. Piñata-girl, the ride—I’d make a killer attraction at Disneyland.

  Serena stepped back and nodded decisively.

  The surrounding moth folk opened their mouths wider, but the droning died. Their orangey tongues slithered out like fire hoses and spewed white foam, like I needed to be extinguished. The wet stuff coated Ryan and me. The pulpy goop clung thickly to my back and legs, and piled on my head like shampoo lather. On the plus side, I was no longer on display. The stuff was oily and sharply aromatic, cutting off the chill, but I grew concerned that I’d become incased, unable to breathe.

  “Ryan,” I hissed. “Snap out of it. We’re being buried alive in this stuff!”

  “My body can absorb nutrients and oxygen from the cocoon,” he spoke with no urgency in his tone at all. “I will breathe for you through the change, and feed you. I am your life.” His tongue slithered out of his mouth, creeping up me, seeking my mouth.

  He planned on shoving that thing down my throat! I clamped my lips shut and forced my head to the side. That tongue of his followed my motion. I jerked my head the other way.

  “It’s all right with me if you want to die in your cocoon,” Serena said. “Bonding with Ryan is the only chance you have. I’d take it if I were you.”

  Ryan looked more and more like a marshmallow-man spitting out a snake. The white stuff was hardening into a thick, wet shell. Soon, we’d be in our own private little world. Intimately connected, symbiotic organisms, mated. My heart hammered as I wondered how long it would take for my physiology to be corrupted, my DNA rewritten by this weird alchemy of theirs. I could feel a penetrating heat, a prickly irritation that made me wish I could scratch—everywhere.

  Only my face was spared the white spray. Moving my head to avoid Ryan’s tongue grew more difficult as the foam hardened around my neck. The tongue retreated into his mouth.

  “Don’t fight me, Grace. I’m doing this for both of us.”

  I stared into his eyes. They were fully human again. “You want to rape my throat,” I accused, “tying me to you forever. She’s not even forcing you.”

  “It’s for the best, really. You’ll learn to love me. It will be easier when you’re not—”

  “Me anymore? No matter what I am, you will never have me!”

  He scowled, eyes turning compound, flashing red with an internal glow. He forced his foamy hands up and seized my head, locking it in place with inhuman strength. I kept my mouth closed, my teeth clenched, as his tongue reemerged.

  Serena approached. The torn pieces of Ryan’s wings were in her hands. They crinkled as she wrapped them around my head and Ryan’s, a travesty of a wedding veil. More of the spray hit the covering, helping a not-too-roomy shell to form over us. From the outside, we must look like a modern art exhibit—one you’d need shovels to move. His tongue tip pried at my lips, trying to force its way in.

  Resisting was tiring. I had to end this … on my terms. I dug deep under my social conditioning for the savage beast in us all, and opened my mouth.

  A foot of hot, pulsing tongue surged in, driving against my tonsils, hitting the top of my throat, and turning downward. I choked and gagged. But also bit down—hard—jerking my head viciously, sawing with my teeth. They seemed to be growing. My gums bled as I chewed through Ryan’s tongue, severing it.

  He choked me while his severed tongue bitch-slapped my face, smearing me with acrid mothman fluids and partially digested vines. The lashing stung, but I ignored it, whipping my head loose from his grasp in a frenzy of desperation. The violent thrashing helped me clear my throat of the blockage and I could breathe again. Adrenaline and fear tweaking my system left a copper after-taste in my mouth.

  Ryan’s rage passed; at least, he stopped slapping me with his wounded tongue. My eyes had adjusted strangely; I was seeing far better in the darkness than should have been possible. I looked him in the face. It had fuzzed over. His eyes were compound, his antennae in full bloom. He opened his mouth wide, recessing his tongue. But a dozen smaller filaments snaked out. As one, they struck!

  The tendrils stabbed into my chest, shoulders, and one of them bit into my neck. They burned, pumping god-knows-what into my bloodstream. Rage ignited, a scathing wash, as my skin bubbled like sunburn blisters up and down my legs. He was forcing the change on me. I had to fight, had to stop—“Aggghh!” My head throbbed and a roaring filled my ears. I could smell my own scent altering, becoming sharp, acrid, and musty. The skin of my back felt like it was splitting, as if something were growing out of me ... wings?

  No! I won’t allow this. I won’t!
<
br />   Though I’d been failing all night, I reached for the folds of space, trying to force my way into the ghost realm by sheer force of will. My stomach fluttered as I hovered at the edge of crossing over—unless I was growing a mothwoman stomach inside me and had confused the sensation. My skin tingled, but the splattered-on chrysalis—and Ryan—still held me. I added to my struggles any of the cold fire that would come to me. Wispy, flames burst from my finger tips, crawling up my hands. Icy flames seeping from my face. Ghost fire danced over my heart, clinging to Ryan’s tendrils, but doing no damage I could see.

  As if tainted by impurities from my body, the ghost flame shuddered through blue and green flare ups. Breathing became difficult. My whole body shook as muscles spasmed, trying to reform. My bones felt like they were softening, searching for some other shape. My gums bled and I tasted a sweet iron tang. My guts twisted, forcing a shriek that turned into a kind of yip as my vocal chords writhed. Thoughts grew difficult, fragmenting, reforming, seeking new bandwidths.

  The strands binding my torso ripped as I flexed my arms. I slid lower in the doughy cocoon, coming eye to eye with Ryan as my feet touched down. I raised my hands between us. They were claws with reddish brown fur on the backs. I slashed apart the tendrils that pierced me. Ryan’s head fell back as his tendrils rewound into his gaping mouth. He slashed back at me, one hand and then the next. I brushed his blows aside, barely feeling them. Then I had his throat in one hand. It came out in my grip with a gush of blood. Giddy with power beyond any I’d known, I crushed his larynx, feeling godlike, invincibly riding a dream.

  Serena called from outside our love nest, “Ryan. What’s happening in there? Answer me.”

  “He can’t.” My throat felt raw. My voice emerged a low rasp, almost unrecognizable. “He’s busy … dying.”

  Ryan shifted to human form to play on my sympathy. But he’d killed it along with our friendship, such as it was. I lashed out with a palm, caving his face in, splintering the cartilage of his nose, driving it into his brain. His head rocked violently back, and I heard the crack of vertebrae as his neck broke. He slumped.

  I caught him. His eyes stared with accusation until I gently closed them.

  “Ryan! Ryan!” Serena’s voice lanced the cocoon. She didn’t seem to have heard me.

  My head felt as though a rail spike had been driven into my skull. I felt my forehead, discovering lumps, twin goose eggs. They peeled open and crinkled branches splayed out, damp and ragged.

  Oh, Gawd, I’ve got antennae!

  My forearms itched, drawing my attention. They bristled. The fur was spreading.

  Nononononononononono! I don’t want to be a bug. Tukka, where the hell are you?

  I slashed the cocoon. It tore like wet cardboard. The cold wind tumbled the pieces away, as Ryan’s body spilled to the ground. I followed, landing on top of him. I lifted my head. There was Serena, staring, retreating under the fury of my gaze. I growled and forced myself up, curving claw-tipped fingers. My antennae bobbed above eyelevel; a minor distraction that ended as they blackened and crumbled to dust, peppering the wind.

  Serena spoke over her shoulder, “She’s changing, but into what?”

  Her thug answered, “Nothing human … or moth. Not with those teeth, those ears.”

  Ears? I paused to feel the side of my head. My ears were gone. They’d moved to the top of my head, long, fuzzy, and pointed. I collapsed as my legs melted under me like wax in a furnace. Strangely, there was no pain. I looked at my legs. The bones were jointed funny, as if walking up-right were no longer part of my design. Holy Spit! I’ve a tail. Two tails. No three! Thick and bushy. They swirled around my hips to modestly cover me. Some other change had come to drive out the one the mothman had tried to engineer.

  Serena stared in awe. “Kitsune, fox spirit.” Awe became fear which she masked in rage. I could smell the stink of her emotions, I wasn’t fooled. She pointed a finger at me, and screamed at her henchman, “Kill her. Now!” I needed to move, but my feet felt mired in clay, unable to respond to my racing thoughts.

  TWENTY

  Kitsune—fox spirit.

  Someone screamed my name. The voice sounded like—

  Machine guns ripped the night, scattering my thoughts. Muzzle fire bloomed across the landscape. Human voices shouted orders. Inhuman voices shrieked with pain, as the mothmen were mauled.

  A dark shape landed on Serena’s enforcer. The giant swayed violently, stumbling, going down on one knee as half his face was ripped loose in a spray of blood. Fenn leaped away as the mothman tried to bear hug his ribs to powder.

  Joshua appeared in his were-liger form, his face a mask of bestial fury. He made a sort of coughing grunt, clean-jerking the enforcer high overhead, bringing him down on a waiting knee in a wrestling-style move that was both flash and power. Josh held his opponent on his feet for a moment, then shoved him away.

  The enforcer tottered like a dancing bear until a katana erupted from his chest. Behind him, Shaun pulled the sword free, and slashed off a few mothman body parts before moving on to the next target.

  Fenn held me against him.

  My head and torso were human but from the waist down, my body was thinking it might want to be a fox. I coughed, blind with tears as euphoria drained away, taking my strength as well. Dwindling, my bones flowed as my tails fluffed away. I became human again, and felt very fragile.

  I whispered his name. “Fenn.”

  “Yeah, babe, it’s me. You didn’t think I’d let you hog all the fun, did you?”

  “None of this,” I coughed, “wuz my idea.” My gaze swept across the tattered

  cocoon, where Ryan’s body should have been. The ground was disturbed. I thought I’d killed him, but he was a were-critter; he might have managed to heal himself enough to crawl off. Then again, ISIS had poured a lot of their magic into these woods. He could be a mothman zombie. I shivered, hoping I was wrong.

  Fenn shrugged out of his coat, pulling away to take it off. A moment later, he covered me with it. He picked me up, standing. The arms that held me were strong, possessive. I had no trouble with that at the moment; tongues weren’t involved. The fur on my hands and arms shed, joining the fur of my dwindling tails. My tailbone throbbed, reabsorbing the extended bone mass. Relief shivered through me. Who’d want to go through life dragging three tails around?

  Shadows writhed on the ground. I looked around. Someone had wound up the fireflies way too much; they whizzed in phosphorescent curves, strobing wildly in panic, winding in and out of the surrounding trees. Soldiers opened fire on winged shadows that climbed high into the trees for cover. Shaun and his katana were dancing, leaving mothmen body parts in their wake.

  Cassie was close by, a combat knife in one hand, its edge scraping Serena’s throat. She’d looked like she’d been knocked to the ground and stomped on a bit. Without hilts, numerous throwing knives pinned her wings to the earth. Spitting blood from a busted lip, Serena tried to fight free, but Cassie handled her like a kitten, holding her down easily. That proved Cassie was more than human, though I’d known it before from her aura.

  Cassie called to Fenn, “Is she all right?”

  Why don’t you ask me? I thought.

  “Yeah,” Fenn answered. “The changes are wearing off. She’s just a little bruised and—‘Grandmother, what big teeth you have!’”

  I felt the inside of my mouth with my tongue. My teeth had gotten large and pointy and were covered in… I spit. My stomach churned. I pulled away from Fenn and let my head hang. I threw up. Dry heaves followed after I ran out of puke. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand.

  Gawd, I need some mouthwash.

  Fenn gathered me back in. “Do you know—you have cute, baby wings coming off your shoulder blades? They look good on you.”

  “Tear them out.” I said.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to have a doctor—”

  “I’ll do it if you won’t,” I threatened.

  “It will probably hurt.”
<
br />   “Let it.” I screamed as he tore them loose, gold, green, and brown tissues, still damp from the cocoon’s nurturing.

  Cassie snarled in counterpoint, pressing the knife in a little harder against Serena’s throat.

  Shaun appeared as the surrounding battle died. He dropped to a knee near Cassie, scooping up fallen leaves to wipe off his blade. “Don’t do it,” he advised. “Heat of battle is one thing. Cold blood is another.”

  “My blood is anything but cold,” Cassie said. “And what this monster attempted is unforgivable.”

  Armored vehicles roared closer, headlights dissolving the darkness. I closed my eyes against the glare.

  Shaun sheathed his sword. “If you kill her, her suffering will be over. Is that what you want?”

  Cassie rose and padded toward me, her voice cold steel as she answered, “Death is too good for her. The government labs can have her.”

  Cassie’s smell enveloped me. I felt safe as she caressed my face, brushing back sticky, yucky hair from my face. At her touch, the swelling in my jaws went down. My teeth blunted … becoming human.

  “It is way past your bed time, young lady.” She escorted me to a vehicle. The driver scrounged up a blanket and threw it over me. I think it hurt him to see me. I’d started the night feeling and looking like road kill—I hated to imagine how my condition had deteriorated since then.

  Huddled between Fenn and some man in fatigues I didn’t know, I yawned, staying only half awake on the drive back to camp. We jounced along in an armored vehicle, swerving around trees, rumbling through moonlight and shadow until finding the highway again. By then, I needed to pee. I held it as the main gate came into view. “Fenn?” I spoke into his chest, using it for a pillow.

  “Yes, Luv?”

  Hmmmm. Interesting response. “I forgot to ask earlier in all the confusion, but what happened to Ryan’s body?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “I need to know—”

  “Father Vincentia’s tracking him down; going to give him Last Rites whether he wants them or not.”