Shadow Dancer (Kitsune series) Page 18

  Hand no longer guarding her throat, Madison arched an eyebrow, studying my face. “What’s the difference?”

  That’s what I want to know. I stabbed a chunk of steak and stuffed it in my mouth.

  “What did you do?” Anthony asked. “Sleep through Creatures of Mythology?”

  Madison shrugged. “You know me: light on academics, strong on kicking ass.”

  Anthony smiled tolerantly and went on, “Well, celestial foxes are benevolent, belonging to Inari, Japanese goddess of rice. Wild foxes aren’t malicious, but their misbehavior can come close.”

  Wow. I’m special, though possibly in a bad way.

  The hair at the nape of my neck bristled a warning. Everyone at the table tensed. Chet went pale. Winston Raphael Emerson—he was the cute one—drew a wooden knife from inside his jacket and tested the edge with a thumb. The whole room went quiet, the way the woods can get when a predator passes, looking for small and tasty critters to munch on.

  And here I am, sitting with my back to the door. Sometimes I think I’m too stupid to live.

  Anthony picked up my box and handed it to me. “Here, I think you’re going to need this.”

  With the package in my arms, I stood, scooting my chair back with my straightening legs. I turned slowly.

  Cassie stood there in pink designer jeans with a silver link Concho belt in the loops. The pants were carefully faded and artistically slashed at the knees. She wore an expensive top, beaded with obsidian glass, a raw silk jacket, and black leather boots with silver buckles. Her hair was windswept, her lips rouged with blood-red lipstick. Her lashes trembled as tears gathered in her eyes.

  Gawd, no! Hit me, punch me, kick me—anything but tears.

  I found them welling in my own eyes.

  “Hi, Cassie, I’m sorry I—”

  And then she lunged.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Cassie jerked me into an embrace, adroitly relieving me of the boxed sword at the same time. It thu-thumped to the floor, as I gasped for breath. Her arms were steel bands, inescapable, confining, possessive...

  “Really … sorry…” I squeezed the words out as she squeezed me.

  She murmured in my ear, “My own fault, should have handled it better.” She released me only to seize my hand, tugging me toward the door. “C’mon.”

  “Hey, where are we—?”

  “We’re just going outside a few minutes. There are things you need to hear, privately…”

  About time.

  “…Then you can rejoin your friends, if you still want to.”

  We crossed the room. No one occupied the hostess station when I went by. Just as well. They’d have thought I was skipping out on the check. Cassie opened the door and dragged me outside. There was a black Jag there. Dealer plates were still on it. Shaun relaxed behind the wheel, smiling, waving a hand at me as I approached. The radio was pumping out some dinosaur rock from the eighties, something with a lot of synthesizer and electric drums. A woman was singing across three octaves, something about being alone—like that was a bad thing. Shaun mouthed the words along with her, but the singer still wasn’t satisfied. I wished he had that kind of attention for me—when we weren’t fighting witches, zombies, mothmen, or shadow beasts.

  I stood in front of Cassie, arms folded across my newly expanded chest. The posture felt weird. I shoved my hands into pockets instead. I remembered how she hugged him when he first showed up at the camp. “You guys are partners. Anything else?”

  “Well,” her lips twitched with a hint of humor, “I might have a few thoughts along that line, but I don’t think I’m his type.”

  “Oh.” Then he’s fair game!

  Cassie sat on the hood of the Jag.

  Shaun winced, but let it go.

  Her mouth set in a firm line. “Grace, I need you to promise me a few things.”

  “Hmmm.” I nodded along with the vague sound, hoping she’d mistake it for agreement.

  “You need to stay out of the ghost realm as much as possible. It would be good if you never went in there again, but that ability might save your life one day, and I don’t want to be unreasonable.”

  “You?” I widened my eyes in mock surprise.

  “Don’t be a smart ass. I don’t like you playing with demons, ghosts, and spell-beasts. You need to keep a low profile so no one can track you down.”

  “Who’d want to?”

  “The Trickster, Mirror Maidens, those of your father’s blood, my own family, our own kind: anyone afraid, in need of a miracle, or an advantage. Guess the best thing to do is show you.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  She stood and the music from the car was bitten off, leaving utter silence. Car sounds in the parking lot vanished as well. I looked around and saw people suspended mid-step. Above, a vee formation of geese hung in place, nailed to the blue-gray sky. Even the morning sunlight had a honey-thick stillness to it. Then I remembered, Anthony had said that kitsune can bend time and space.

  “You’ve stopped the whole world!” I said.

  “Not even I have that much power. I’ve taken us out of time, between seconds. No one can travel through time—current’s too strong. You have to move outside the flow, coming to shore, then you can choose a point of reentry. This gets us anywhen. To get anywhere, we have to bend space as well. This isn’t much different from what you do when you pass into the ghost realm. When we return, it will be to the same moment we left, so no one will ever know.”

  “Does Shaun or Virgil know you can—?”

  “No. I make a point of doing this rarely.”

  “But you wanted me to know.”

  “I want you to see, to understand. This is the best way.”

  She shimmered with a golden light. The air stayed still, but ghostly fingers lifted her hair. Her eyes blazed yellow, as her face lengthened, fuzzing up. Her ears migrated to the top of her head. Her nose darkened, bracketed by whiskers. Though five tails grew in behind her, her body remained human. Cassie lifted her hands and wrenched the air. The parking lot blurred around us like we were riding the hub of a roulette wheel. The spin slowed as she put on the brakes, and a new world surrounded us.

  The tarnished-copper sky would have been dominated by a vast, tangerine sun, but it hung low on the horizon, giving little warmth. The grass underfoot crunched, withered and brittle, rusty, hazed with weeds that were frost-blue lace. Farther away, black boulders—streaked with iron pyrite—formed islands and shoals. Surrounding the lea, scrawny trunks with interwoven branches were flat shadows in mist that tasted of rosemary and thyme.

  I spun a slow circle, taking it all in, finding sage green clouds on the opposite horizon, a thin gauze dimming the ghostly glow of tarnished-copper moons.

  “We’re not in Texas anymore, Toto,” I muttered.

  “Obviously not.” Cassie set off at a brisk pace. “This way.”

  I followed, having little choice except to humor her. On my own, I didn’t think I could make it back. I was scared to try. “The same galaxy at least?”

  “No, parallel universe.

  Golden eyes opened in the back shadows of my mind as Taliesina surfaced into my awareness. Her words were a lilting wind in my head; The unburied past: close as a prayer, far as a dream swallowed by darkest nightmare...

  Oblivious to the commentary, Cassie went on, “I spent many years here for your sake, living out an illusion of tortured grief. I wanted you to see—to understand—you weren’t abandoned. I have always loved you, even if it’s been from a distance.”

  We were past most of the rocks, right up against the woods. They’d gained depth as we neared, and I could see vines like barb-wire with leaf blades that could have been carved garnet. My mother, the one that raised me, had a ring that same color. The vines encircled the trees, swelling over surfaced roots, forming a kind of carpet on the forest floor. Without hesitation, Cassie darted in between two saplings.

  I followed, tugged on by curiosity and the pain in her voic
e. “What you’re about to see happened soon after I left you with your new family.” She stopped, spinning to toss me a commanding glare. “Nothing must be changed. Everything must play out just as it did.”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  “Just remember…” She turned her back to me and pressed on, winding around trees, kicking her way through fronds that glittered like blue-green dragonflies. Soon her pace slowed to a stealth creep. She whispered over her shoulder.

  “Listen, we’re close. Keep low, and stay quiet.”

  I matched her cat-burglar demeanor, placing my feet carefully so I wouldn’t crack a twig or kick a stone. This was fun. Perhaps there was a future for me in becoming a ninja. I wondered what the pay was like.

  Cassie eased to the ground and used a pile of black boulders as a screen, peering around them into a new clearing. I settled beside her, my senses straining. A small stream cascaded down a black rock face from a high bluff. Time after time, the water splintered on jutting rocks, creating a dozen lesser streams that formed a pool feeding a single stream once more.

  The soft roar of churning water contrasted the moans and sobs of a woman in tattered, grimy robes. At one time, the clothing had been well-made, expensive. Binding the waist was a twelve inch sash, wound and tucked so it wouldn’t dangle. The material over her right ribs had darkened with blood, a stain now dry and stiff. Obsidian pins glittered, holding her hair in a pile, baring the thin column of her neck. A few strands of hair escaped confinement, giving her a harried look. Smooth, hand-sized stones taken from the water formed a small cairn near her. A jeweled dagger leaned against the stones. The blade possessed an ornate hand-guard, an iron butterfly with stained-glass wings, making it more a toy than a warrior’s weapon.

  The lady slumped in despair, weeping. A small gasp of breath escaped me as I saw the reason. She faced a small cairn of stone piled beside a mound. A chill went down my back. It was a small grave that could only have accommodated a child. Sadness welled up in me. I swallowed a lump in my throat, my heart tearing itself in sympathy.

  Poor woman.

  I jerked my head to the side, hearing thudding hooves. Riders on whip-tailed horses with dappled rose-gray coats broke into the clearing on my right. I stayed low, knowing I couldn’t draw their attention without distorting this past event. There were six men, scratch that, kitsune. Fox faces stuck out of their dusty hoods, their cloaks dragged horizontally behind them until they reined in, horses dancing in place before settling down. The way they dressed reminded me of people at Renaissance fairs that mix and match centuries. The brass-hilted swords sheathed at their sides looked more like scimitars from Arabian Nights.

  One of the riders shouted, pointed at the kneeling woman. The words weren’t any language I knew. Cassie touched my shoulder. I felt a twisting inside my head, then the words untangled, becoming English.

  “—Run her to ground at last.” He slid from the saddle, jerking his sword free.

  An older rider with silver fur raised a hand, holding him back. “Be cautious, we’ve lost too many on her trail as it is. We must distrust all that we see here.”

  Another rider dismounted. He ignored the advice, keeping sword sheathed, running forward. “Cassandra!”

  Cassandra? I looked at Cassie by my side. I mouthed the words, “That’s you?”

  She nodded, her face a blanched white, old pain stirring like shadows in her eyes.

  The silver-furred rider cried after the running man, causing him to stop short. “Ivian, ‘ware her! It’s a trick. She wants your heart’s blood most of all—you who gave her over to be the Dark One’s bride, and bear his child.”

  “A sin I will pay for forever,” he said.

  I looked back to the Cassie of long ago—my mother—hunted down by her family like some rabid beast. Why? My gaze went to the small mound. Is that supposed to be my grave.

  His face florid, Ivian yelled back, “My sister’s rage cannot be greater than her love.”

  As if suddenly aware of their presence behind her, Cassandra snatched up the dagger and staggered to her feet. Her face was haggard, dusty except for where tears had cut a path. Her steps were unsteady. The vacant expression of utter desolation was replaced with venomous hatred.

  If looks could kill, maim, and bludgeon…

  Ivian flinched under her glower, falling back a step. Softening, his voice broke,

  “Cass, it’s me, your baby brother.”

  She lunged at him, slashing with the knife, parting his shirt and maybe a little more. He drew his own knife to fend off her blade as it returned along the path it had just cut. The combatants surged together, struggling. Then the other men joined in and she was pinned down, howling in frustrated fury. Her face went foxy, gaining pointy teeth. Several men repositioned themselves hastily to keep those jaws from snapping shut on their arms. The silver-haired kitsune leaned on her, pressing a hand against her throat, choking her.

  She fought them with the last flicker of consciousness, then lay there helpless, limp and ragged, her tongue lolling out of her muzzle.

  Several kitsune raised scimitars, preparing to kill Cassandra … Cassie, but her brother had staggered over to the small grave and slumped to his knees. “Leave her alone!” he cried. “We’ve done damage enough.”

  The kitsune warriors with raised swords looked to the silver-furred one for his command. He stared at Ivian and then the cairn of stones. “Aye,” his voice aged, turning gravelly. “Leave her be. The threat is past. The Great Destroyer’s daughter is dead.”

  “No,” one of the others cried, “It’s a trick.”

  “We will soon know,” the old one said. “Open the grave. Let us see the monster laid within.”

  The monster? They mean me.

  The world bent around me, colors swirled, mingled, and drew apart once more. I picked myself up off the walk in front of Shaun’s car. The radio music pounded in my head. I felt weak, as if I’d stayed too long in the ghost world and it had thrown me out. My heart thudded in my chest as I gasped for breath, wiping sweat from my brow.

  Cassie was sitting on the car again. No, slumped was more like it. She looked like she’d finished a marathon, bonelessly wilted on the hood, way too much like the Cassandra we’d left in the past. She struggled to sit up.

  I reached out to help her. Surprisingly, she let me.

  Shaun opened the car door and stuck his head out. “Cassie, are you all right?”

  She ignored him, locking eyes with me. “That was for you, so they’d stop looking. I went back to live with them, a pitiful creature, lost in grief, given to fits of madness. I returned time and again to that grave until they moved it, and locked me away in the care of the Shrine Maidens. Even then, there were some that suspected, that watched me carefully—”

  “An empty grave wouldn’t have fooled them,” I said.

  Cassie’s eyes narrowed. “Whoever said it was empty?”

  “Who was in my grave?” I demanded.

  “Your human family had just lost a child. Being dead, they had no more use for her. I did. That’s why I gave you to them to raise. I pay all my debts—coin or blood—it’s the kitsune way.”

  A terrible, awful suspicion filled me. “The child I replaced…”

  Cassie looked at me, suddenly still. “Yes?”

  “What did she die of?”

  “They said it was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome—SIDS.”

  I whispered, “Was it

  “If I’d had to kill, to make room for you in this world, I would have. Fortunately, the child needed no assistance from me.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  I drew back from Cassie. My heart chilled as shock coursed through me. I stared, and shuddered in revulsion. I no longer doubted her love. In fact I thought it possible she loved too much, a concept I’d not considered a bad thing—until now.

  “Don’t judge me by human standards,” she said, “I’m not human.”

  “But you’re in the PRT. You pass judgment all the time, killing
whatever’s called a threat.”

  She shrugged. “Hypocritical, I know, but a girl’s gotta make a living, and I’m good at what I do. Besides, the job comes with access to special weapons and information not otherwise available. Abusing the position has allowed me to keep track of you through the years. Any time random evil came anywhere close to you, I was there to put it down.”

  My mom, the stalker. “Does Shaun know all that?”

  “I think so, but since he’s a freelance operative—and my best friend—he hasn’t felt the need to bring it up with Virgil.”

  Another thought occurred to me. “Cassie, what am I that even other kitsune think I’m a monster? Who—what—is my father?”

  “You heard them: ‘the Dark One, the Great Destroyer.’”

  “What does that mean?” I hugged myself, wondering if I really wanted the answer.

  “I feared him at first. I went to him as a bride, a political arrangement designed to save my people from a war we most likely would not have won. The names given him are slander from those who equate vast destructive power with evil. The Wild Hunt of the Fey, the Night Processions of a Hundred Demons in Japan, the Council of Blood that rules the vampire clans with an iron fist: these are lesser powers compared to your father. Though far from safe, he is good to his people … and to me.”

  She pushed off of the Jag and stepped up to me, her eyes molten gold.

  “Nothing in your blood makes you a monster, Grace. It was simply feared that as his daughter you would inherit too much power to be easily managed.”

  “You still haven’t told me what he is.”

  “He is Khorde, Lord of the Arghain. They are the Boogie Men, the

  Monsters-Beneath-the Bed—a race of shadow-shapes thrown upon the walls of eternity. They live in the ghost realms of countless worlds, neither demon nor ghost, simply … other.”