Shadow Dancer (Kitsune series) Read online

  With a sigh of longing, I set the locket aside and slid into the water stream, closing the sliding glass doors behind me. The warm water needled my flesh pleasantly, sluicing down to my feet. Eyes closed, I lifted my face into the water, brushing wet hair back from my face. The weight of confidence and self-reliance dropped from my back as I lost myself in the sensation.

  Alone—unobserved by roommate or camera—I let tightly knotted emotions unclench. My body shook, tears falling to mix with the spray. I held myself, muffling a sob, maybe two.

  A soft knock came from the bathroom door. “Grace, are you all right?”

  It was Drew. I wiped away tears and stuck my head out of the shower. “Fine.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I know this sounds crazy, but my gift just kicked. I

  suddenly felt that someone in here was very lost.”

  I hunched as my armor enclosed me again. When pride’s all you’ve got, you cling to it. “I’m trying to take a shower here.”

  “Okay.”

  I closed the shower door and picked up a scented bar of glycerin soap. Blackberry. Armed, I washed myself clean. I borrowed some shampoo that sat in the shower, and soon had my hair washed as well. Killing the water, I stepped out, toweled dry, and dressed for bed. I left the bathroom and carried my dirty laundry back to the room. They went into a plastic bag Jill handed me without a word. The bag went into my closet. The main lights were out. Jill’s desk lamp provided the only light. This gave the room a cozy feeling that helped me relax.

  I snagged a chocolate bunny from my stash, taking great care in the selection. In my mind, I began to build images, designing a dream to call my best bud to me across the dreamscapes. Of course, if he were in the real world or the shadow realm, this wouldn’t work. No, he’d come. Somehow, I felt sure of it.

  I slid between the sheets. Their soft crispness felt wonderful. I closed my eyes, turning my back to the light. The chocolate lay on the pillow next to me, the scent filling my head as I called over my shoulder, “Goodnight, Jill.”

  “G’night.” I heard her pad to her desk and power up the tower. Soon, the soft clacking of keys lulled me to sleep.

  * * *

  The hills were milk chocolate like the sky. Marshmallow clouds clumped on the horizon where a red sun melted the edge of the world into a thick, sweet sea. White chocolate grass jutted nearby, cover for chocolate bunnies scampering past trees sculpted from chocolate with rice-crisp bark. Crushed peanuts formed a gravel road underfoot. Either end would take me where I needed to go since dreams obeyed their own logic.

  If all this doesn’t get his attention, nothing will.

  Several of the bunnies stopped to look at me curiously, wiggling whiskers, staring with dark red eyes. The knowledge of doom lay there. They were Easter fodder and knew it.

  I visualized a pastel green and pink egg, striped, big as a boulder. It thrust up out of the nuts in front of me and I sat down to wait. With any luck, he’d find me fast.

  Moments dissolved like cotton candy on the tongue. The red sun sank from sight and a huge white chocolate moon rose, brightening the heavens with her velvet face. Blue flecks of star fire swam elsewhere in the dark chocolate sky. The bunnies were gone, but owls made mournful inquiries, gliding by like caramel-scented ghosts.

  A savage howl ripped the sky as something monstrous thundered through the trees. The nearby forest trembled in fear. Small branches snapped. Large limbs shattered.

  I stood, facing the coming onslaught with resignation.

  Grace! A dark mass broke from the woods, pounding my way at great speed, claws gouging the turf. He glowed teal blue, his eyes lavender lanterns. The beast’s thick mane had been teased into rings. His snout bobbed, catfish whiskers trailing. A fu dog in all his glory. If not for his size, he might have just wandered off from a Chinese restaurant display.

  “Here I am.” I waved and braced myself.

  He plowed me into the nuts, laying me out. Hanging over me, his great tongue swathed my face, dripping slobber.

  I shoved impotently at his bulk. “Ewwwwww, git off, already.”

  Grace not happy to see Tukka?

  “Sure I am, but do you have to knock me down every single time? Do I look like a play toy?”

  What that?

  “Never mind, just let me up.”

  The two-ton fu dog leaped aside, his stubby tail wagging as he looked around.

  Grace make wonderful world. Tukka eat it all.

  “If you want the real thing, you have to step out of my dream, to where my body is.”

  Tukka do that too.

  It was necessary that he know where I’d moved to, and the best way to convey that information was to just bring him to me from a dream. “Wake me up when you arrive.”

  You betcha.

  Darkness swept out from him as if black syrup were drenching everything, spreading to all horizons. The stars guttered out. The moon was swallowed, breaking into shards, then ever smaller pieces. Soon, endless night lay all round, waiting for another dream. I lost track of Tukka and sank into that void until…

  * * *

  A massive paw on my shoulder bounced me awake. I sat up in bed. Tukka looked bigger in reality than in my dreams. The chocolate bar on my pillow was gone of course; fu dogs have their priorities. His purple eyes were still luminescent, as was his leathery, teal blue hide. These were familiar, but the solidity of him struck me as new. In dreams, and in the shadow realm, gravity and inertia mattered little so he never seemed completely real. But here, I knew better. Here, an incautious step could break toes. A playful bound could leave me crushed and broken. Good thing Tukka knew this too.

  His thoughts danced into my head, Tukka smell more chocolate.

  Needing Jill to sleep through all this, I whispered, “Not tonight. We have to make it last. I don’t know when I’ll get to a store again to stock up.”

  His rubbery lips quivered, eyes staring. One more, pretty please?

  “Oh, all right. But that’s it.”

  I rolled out of bed, seeing easily. The compound lights outside made the yellow curtains glow near my desk. I stole over and eased open a drawer, grabbing the first bar that came to hand. I tossed it wrapped. Paper, foil, and chocolate core, the whole thing vanished down the fu dog’s maw in an instant. He didn’t seem to even chew.

  I walked back to him and patted him on a beefy shoulder. “There, happy?”

  Tukka happy. Grace best pet ever. Next time, bring more chocolate.

  “Tukka, you are the pet. You don’t feed me. I feed you.”

  Is it my fault you can’t eat dreams?

  “Never mind. Next time, I’ll meet you behind the back wall in the woods. You will do your usual sweep for demons and take care of them before I cross over, right?” The shadow realm is dangerous enough with the usual ghosts.

  Tukka promise. Good night, Grace.

  “Good night Tukka. Thanks for finding me.”

  Off in search of interesting dreams to traipse through, or shadow-realm ghosts to tease, Tukka grinned and faded, only a soft swirl of air marking his departure.

  I went to bed, lifted the covers, and slid in.

  Jill’s voice quivered across the room, a forced calm with a hint of hysteria,

  “Grace, we need to talk.”

  Oh, crap!

  FOUR

  I sat on my bed, hugging my knees, still riding out the storm. The lights were on. They’d been on twenty minutes. Hurricane Jill stomped about, gesturing dramatically, her eyes as wide as those of the Powerpuff Girls’ on her blanket.

  “Most people have a dog or cat. Not you! No, you have a rhino. A blue one. Oh, and not just any blue rhino, a blue ghost rhino.” She rolled her eyes heavenward, an appeal to God for strength, or maybe sanity in an insane universe. “Jesus with a happy meal, girl!”

  I shrugged. “Technically he’s not dead, or a rhino, and it’s not nice to make light of Jesus—he might be listening.” Memories tumbled through my head—every Sunday school
class I’d ever attended and every church service. My parents never went, but made a point of sending me. I’d gotten spooked one day in church when golden eyes opened in the back shadows of my mind—God checking in? I didn’t know, but I stopped going about then. I was comfortable with a distant god in heaven, not so much with one right inside my head.

  “Dammit,” Jill said, “I’m going to need a nightlight after this. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve used a nightlight?”

  Looking at her bedspread, I wanted to say—Last week?—but managed to clamp down on the comment so it didn’t escape.

  Jill stopped pacing to glare at me. “Please tell me we aren’t having any more things popping out of the woodwork, crawling out from under the beds, or waltzing from the closet—not tonight, not any night.”

  I sighed and answered her softly, trying to ease her down to a less strident tone.

  “I’m not in charge of the entire universe. Weird things happen around me. All I can do is promise not to invite any … thing … here.”

  Jill flopped onto her bed and covered her face with her hands. “Do you know what you’ve done to my world view?”

  I slid off my bed and went to the closet, dragging out my empty suitcases. I dropped them to the bed, zippered maws wanting to be fed. Back in the closet, I took down hangers of clothes. This was a problem I could definitely run from.

  “What are you doing?” Jill asked.

  “I’m doing you a favor and getting out.” I couldn’t help the tears in my eyes, coming without permission.

  Jill flounced off her bed and hurried to me, grabbing my arm. “Don’t be crazy!

  Who said anything about you leaving?”

  I pulled free, turning my back, surreptitiously daubing my eyes. “It’s for the best. You can say what you want about me, just please don’t say anything about Tukka.”

  Our door opened. I looked over to see a sleepy-eyed Drew in a red silk robe with black dragons on it. She staggered in, stifling a yawn, her pink hair in feathery disarray, her glasses off her face. “What the heck are you guys doin’ over here?” She struggled to focus at a bare wrist, as if a watch were strapped there. “Don’t you know it’s … ummm … late?”

  I carried the clothes I held to my big suitcase and laid them there. “I’ll sleep in the TV lounge tonight and ask for my own room in the morning.”

  Drew went from sleepy to wide awake at warp speed. Eyes widening, she turned from me to Jill. “Hey, I’ll take her if you don’t want her.”

  “Hell no,” Jill said. “I already told her she didn’t have to go anywhere. A ghost whisperer isn’t so bad.”

  Damn! She’d outed me.

  Drew swung back my way, trembling in excitement. “You’re a medium?”

  “Petite actually.”

  Ignoring my anxiety-spawned humor, Drew grinned. “I love ghosts. I’ve always wanted to see dead people.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please, can we keep this under wraps? I don’t need any more weirdness about me getting out.”

  Jill suddenly looked all solemn. “Look, we’re all friends here. You want our silence, fine. Now do me a favor and stay. The next talent Griffin brings in here might be an ax juggler or a wereturtle. I’m not taking chances.”

  “I want equal time,” Drew demanded.

  “She can do sleepovers if she wants, but I’m her roomie,” Jill said.

  I half-heartedly groused, “Nothing like having everyone else decide my fate.” They’d had me at ax-juggler. Deep down, I didn’t really want to go. I drew a deep, calming breath. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

  I started putting everything back. Jill and Drew helped so the chore went faster. Afterwards, I sat on my bed, Drew stretched out next to me, staring. “So, what did I miss?” she asked. “I want all the details!”

  “I’d rather talk about the people that tried to kidnap me.” Jill and Drew had one of my biggest secrets now—I might as well burden them with one more. Besides, they might know something useful.

  “Kidnap!” Drew’s mouth fell open. With an effort she closed it. She shook her head. “Man, I miss everything.”

  Jill dragged her desk chair over and sat near the end of my bed. “Now I know I’m not getting any sleep tonight. Okay, Grace, from the top.”

  I ran through it for them, skipping over how I got out of the backseat of the black sedan. I added the little detail of the matching earrings, sharing my suspicions of Elita.

  “Pretty flimsy,” Jill said.

  “We’ll have more after I beat a confession out of her.” Hearing my words, I wondered if I really meant them.

  Drew sat up, folding her legs under her. “You won’t get that far. The way this place is wired, security will break things up before you go too far.”

  “Maybe.” I could always pull Elita into the shadow realm. Let security rescue her there!

  “That’s a rather strange expression on your face,” Jill said.

  “A little scary,” Drew added.

  Hmmm. Maybe that was going too far. Elita would learn as much about me as I’d learn from her. I could better use my power by spying covertly. Eventually, she’d lead me to those who’d tried to grab me. Then I’d call in the cavalry.

  Jill touched my arm, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Grace, you all right?”

  “Yeah.” I stared Jill in the eyes. “Tell me about Elita. What’s her talent, and her schedule? Does she ever leave this place … alone?”

  Jill held her hands up. “Whoa, slow down there, one question at a time. First, her talent; no one knows, but Ryan and Ms. Griffin—but the same black ops team that uses Fenn sometimes requests her.”

  It sounded like I needed to pump Fenn about Elita.

  Jill continued, “Elita’s family never visits. She goes shopping with some of us girls once in a while but that’s about—”

  Drew bounced in place, hands slapping her knees. “The school, down the road…!”

  My brow furrowed. “What school?”

  “Military academy, I think,” Jill said. “She goes over there once a week for phys-ed.”

  I had a mental vision of Goth-girl surrounded by girl-hungry soldier boys and felt instant envy. “How’d she get permission for that?”

  Jill yawned and covered her mouth. “Elita has trophies from several martial arts competitions; and the academy’s supposed to have one of the best martial artists in the country teaching there. Griffin couldn’t really refuse. She just makes sure Elita has someone from our security team looking after her.”

  “Hey, when were you going to warn me about Elita’s training? You think I want to get beaten up?”

  Jill shrugged. “You’re Miss Hot Stuff, with a monster for backup. You can handle her.”

  I found myself grinding my teeth. Hot Stuff was what the internet sites had dubbed me, serving up vid footage from the store robbery, along with commentary and speculation on my reality … and bra size. Guys can be such pigs. There were even bloggers out there making stuff up, saying they’d run into me at a rave somewhere. My legend was having a better social life than me. I sighed. I wanted peaceful obscurity, but here I was, almost sixteen, with my very own cult following.

  Drew stared at me. “You got your own monster? When was I going to hear about that?”

  I went to my desk for chocolate bars. I wanted one and it would have been rude not to share. I held one out to Jill and Drew. They snatched them as fast as Tukka ever did. I sat back on my bed, ripping paper. “You guys don’t want to get too deep into my world. It’s dangerous, and I’m not talking about kidnappers.” I lifted my shirt to show three old scars along my side where a claw had partially scored me. If not for Tukka coming along that first time… I shuddered. “A demon did this. And there are things out there even I have yet to imagine.”

  Fascinated by the old wounds, Drew traced one with a finger tip. “Wow, that’s so kewl! All I’ve got is my belly button piercing.”

  “And when where you going to tell me about that?” Jil
l demanded.

  “Huh,” Drew blinked in confusion. “I thought you knew.”

  I huffed. “Does no one get what I’m saying here? I want to protect you guys.”

  “Awww. That’s so cute,” Drew said. “Time for a group hug.”

  Jill bit off a hunk of chocolate. “Please, not while I’m eating.”

  Drew stood up, wagging her half-eaten chocolate bar at my face. “You want to know what Elita’s up to, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you’re going to have to get into that class at the boys school too.”

  Jill sighed. “At last, a rational plan. Grace, you can talk to Griffin in the morning. Tell her you’re freaked about almost being snatched, and you want some self-defense training. Since Elita is already going, they can’t say no to you.”

  I nodded. “Okay, I’ll give it a try.”

  Jill dragged her chair back to the desk. “Good, now can we try going back to sleep? I don’t want to be totally wasted tomorrow. We’re supposed to have some VIPs coming through.”

  “What have you heard?” Drew asked.

  Jill dragged the girl to the door and shoved her out with a firm, “Goodnight.”

  I crawled into bed, pulling my covers up. “Jill?”

  “Yeah?” She killed the lights.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know, just … thanks.”

  “Silly goose.”

  Separated by heavy stretches of darkness, dreams came and went. Some of them weren’t mine—Tukka often found and dragged me into other people’s dreamscapes, the ones he found amusing enough to share. I didn’t mind, except when naked people were involved. What else did I have to do when mostly asleep anyway?