Nine Lives: Providence Paranormal College Book Nine

by Perry, D. R.

  “Um, I’m sorry. I can’t.” Margot shook her head. “None of the items in the photo anchor those particular creatures.”

  I heard the faint creak of wood under duress, then turned my head to see Karen Gunn’s hands gripping the edge of the prosecution’s table, knuckles white as bleached bone.

  “For the record, please state your level of Summoner education, Miss Malone.”

  “Oh. I’m a doctoral candidate with just about a year left to go, Mr. Ichiro.”

  “When did you become a doctoral candidate?”

  “Objection, irrelevant.”

  “Overruled,” Judge Fiori said. “Credentials of an expert witness are relevant, Miss Gunn. The answer, Miss Malone?”

  “Nineteen sixty-eight, Your Honor.”

  “What’s taken you so long?”

  “Vampires weren’t allowed at PPC until Headmistress Thurston took over. When I got turned, the school suspended my candidacy.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.” Mr. Ichiro bowed his head to Margot, then turned to take his place at our table again.

  “Redirect.” The left corner of Karen Gunn’s mouth pulled into a smirk that could have beaten one of Blaine Harcourt’s for cockiness by a country mile. “Miss Malone, you were one of the defendant’s students before you got turned. Did he have anchors for Grims and Spites during that time?”

  “Yes.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.” Karen stayed in her seat but turned her head to look at the person sitting behind me. She smiled. “The Prosecution calls Professor Nathaniel Watkins to the stand.”

  I stood up to help, but Josh got there before me. He wheeled the professor’s chair toward the witness stand, where he offered help, but Nate Watkins shook his head and took a few shuffling steps before being seated. They swore him in, and Miss Gunn wasted no time.

  “When did you first meet Pavlo Brodsky, Professor?” The prosecutor clicked toward the witness stand, stopping next to that poor court reporter again.

  “My father sponsored him when he immigrated from Russia in 1944.”

  “So, you were a baby.”

  “Yes.” Professor Watkins nodded. “I don’t remember a time when I haven’t known my colleague.”

  “What’s your opinion of the defendant, Professor?” Miss Gunn smiled.

  “He’s a pretentious jerk.” Professor Watkins gave Brodsky a smile as sour as vinegar. “Some of his research topics are outdated and insensitive.”

  “Inhumane, then?”

  “No.” Professor Watkins shook his head. “I said ‘insensitive.’”

  “So, the defendant has engaged in such behavior?”

  “Oh, all the time.” Professor Watkins grinned. “Miss Malone does it too. Ordering wild creatures around is generally insensitive, in my opinion.”

  “Have you ever witnessed Pavlo Brodsky behave inappropriately toward people, human or otherwise?”

  “He’s behaved inappropriately toward me, yeah.” The professor’s lips twisted into a smirk. “He tried to ground me instead of leaving that to my parents.”

  “Tell me about the incident between you and your colleague on the day Headmistress Thurston announced the new open admissions policy at the college.”

  “Oh, we nearly came to blows over the fact that vampires were allowed.”

  “Explain.” Karen Gunn smiled like she’d just gotten a royal flush in a high-stakes poker game.

  “I thought it was a great idea. Brodsky didn’t. Mostly he worried that campus wouldn’t be safe with vampires allowed to live and study there.” Professor Watkins stroked his goatee. “And he was right. The campus isn’t safe.”

  “I thought you said you disagreed.” That poker victory smile froze like a deer in the headlights.

  “I did and still do, but for a different reason.” The professor gazed at the prosecutor exactly like she was one of his students about to utter an incorrect answer. “Vampires and shifters and faeries should be at PPC because it’s desire and hard work that make a great student, not their diet or shape. But the campus isn’t safe, and it’s not the students at fault. It’s the people objecting to them.”

  “No further questions.” Karen glared like a Gorgon at Mr. Ichiro as she headed back to her table. He sat like a serene gadfly on the surface of a pond until she was seated.

  “Professor Watkins.” Mr. Ichiro rose and faced the man in the witness stand. “Tell me about last fall, when my client asked for your help.”

  “Brodsky came into my office looking like a train wreck and told me he couldn’t sleep. He’d been having nightmares again, same as right after he immigrated here.” Professor Watkins sighed. “I asked him if he was back in therapy again since that helped him before. He said he was, also that he’d tried Sominex and Ambien, and a few stronger pills, too. But he wanted me to help him find something magipsychic even though such devices are highly regulated.”

  “And did you help him?”

  “I tried to. I called a Psychic friend, but it went nowhere. The last time I asked Pavlo about the sleep troubles was right before exams last year. He said he’d found a solution on his own, and it was taken care of.” Professor Watkins smirked.

  A pencil clattered to the marble floor under the prosecutor’s table. Professor Brodsky leaned back in his chair, shoulders finally positioned at a level approaching normal.

  “Thank you, Professor Watkins.” Mr. Ichiro bowed his head to Judge Fiori. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  A shuffle, rustle and click sounded to my right as Karen Gunn closed her briefcase. Two bright red splotches high on her cheekbones were the only color left on her face. Her eyes glittered like bullet casings on cracked pavement.

  “The State rests, Your Honor.”

  We took a recess. Professor Watkins stuck around, which I hadn’t expected, given his condition. If it were me stuck out of my body for five months and change, I’d have wanted to curl up under a blanket with a good book for a year and a day.

  During the recess, it was my turn to help. I had to manage the pictures I’d looked over and feed them into the device connected to the magipsychic display. After court had convened again, Mr. Ichiro presented evidence while I brought each piece into view for the court on the display.

  The contents of Pavlo Brodsky’s medicine cabinet, photos of his bedroom and home office, and his laboratory at PPC all took a turn on the magipsychic equivalent of an overhead projector. The final display was a report from the Extrahuman Registry.

  Brodsky’s official record designated him as a Summoner and listed every creature he could summon. The Grim was there, as was the Spite. The last page of the Registry’s record contained a Psychiatric evaluation, but most of it was redacted. The parts we could read included diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Insomnia. This record showed the name of his most recent Psychiatrist and our list of witnesses for the next court session.

  Judge Fiori adjourned the court for the evening. I gathered the file and handed it to Mr. Ichiro. The trial wasn’t anywhere near over, but I had an agreement with a Faerie monarch to honor and had enough field experience to keep my internship. The sleepless half-day was catching up to me. I had to hope I could handle whatever the Under decided to throw at me.

  As it turned out, the Faerie realm was the least of my troubles.

  Chapter Five

  Tony

  I woke without dust and ash in my nose, wondering whether I was a ghost like Horace and company. Then, I started hacking up a lung as though I hadn’t breathed in days. My body trembled like a soprano’s voice above high C, probably a side effect of feeling like I’d been entombed in ice. I tried to get a grip but couldn’t, and figured if I wasn’t dead, I might soon be.

  Something that felt like a silk-wrapped brand pressed against my forehead. I opened my mouth, voice straining, but I didn’t scream. Not in the human sense, anyway. What came out sounded like the springtime catfights that always broke out behind the old house on Broad Street wh
ere I grew up.

  “Hush now.” The white-hot sensation at my brow toned down to a front-of-hearth warmth, then dissipated to settle the permafrost chill in my bones. “Be at peace while you still can, Godson.”

  I tried opening my eyes, but they balked like a team of spooked mules. I tried a few more times before they cracked open to let in light and sight, but after that, I had to blink because I couldn’t believe my stubborn old peepers. No extrahuman in his right mind would have if they’d woken from death and the first thing they saw was a Kitsune. I felt less like a cat of the shifter variety and more like one in a box, dead and alive at the same time, or maybe neither.

  “You don’t exist.” My words creaked like the gate to a neglected graveyard. “Either that, or I really am sleeping with the fishes.”

  “Tch.” The woman shook her head, red-brown curls bobbing around her heart-shaped face. “Feathered things are much better for sleeping with than fish, don’t you agree?”

  “So, am I dead like you?”

  “I could take offense,” the Kitsune said, “but I won’t. Yes, these are real.” She reached up to stroke one of her black-tipped pointed ears. She giggled as something moved to her left. “And these are real, too.” I stared at the tails that shouldn’t be attached to this woman. “Reality is amazing, and full of all kinds of surprises.”

  “Yup. You’re definitely not just a regular fox shifter.” I blinked a few more times. “They only get one tail and can’t do the partial shifting thing.”

  “Your perspective guides your assumptions, of course. If only the king and all his courtiers could look at this situation as you do.” She released a low chuckle.

  “The Goblin King?” I looked at her face, noting the mirthful twinkle in her eyes. I squinted at the ears again, and the tails, willing my eyes to bring them out of focus the way you’re supposed to when trying to see through a glamour. But this wasn’t a glamour. The crazy lady actually did have tails, plural.

  “Yes. Only one of the king’s tithed subjects ever saw me for what I truly am. Please, ask me more questions. I love adding to my ledger in the credits column.” Her smile was similar to a vampire’s but the canines had thicker points. Her laugh barked like some know-it-all terrier, and I bet dollars to donuts her tongue would have lolled out if she’d been more amused. She’d just implied that the faerie rules about favors applied to her, too. I wasn’t sure whether that was true because ancient accounts of Kitsunes differed. Fun.

  “Kitsunes are extinct.” I couldn’t remember much more about the magical fox shifters than that. Being dead or whatever had probably scrambled my brain because I should have known better. I’d read something about how the tails worked but couldn’t recall exactly what. I put the thought off like delaying Windows updates while finishing homework.

  “Yes.” The Kitsune shook her head. “And no.” She nodded. “Kitsune are only just barely not extinct. We shouldn’t be.” She unwound a glimmering red scarf from the hand she’d held against my forehead, slipped something into her pocket, then draped the fabric over her ears. She looked more like a character on that TV show about the flying nun than a magic fox trying to hide her identity. “Honestly, what do they teach you at that school?”

  “I’ve learned a lot, actually.” I pressed my palms against the mossy earth, trying to sit up. It wasn’t very effective. “And please, ask me more questions, nameless Kitsune…er, Lady. Yeah, you’re dressed like a faerie lady. I’d bet you’ve visited the king a time or three.”

  “Ah!” She clapped her hands. “Yes, even if the lessons are inferior to what I’d teach, you’ve minded your studies both in and out of the classroom. My work in the Under is nearly done, though. And that’s one of the many reasons I’ve decided to, hmm…” Her lips curved up. “Reconnect with my godson.”

  “But I was—” I shivered. “No, I couldn’t have been dead.”

  “Oh, but you were.” She barked a single sharp laugh. Her eyebrows tilted downward, drawing together as she narrowed her eyes. “And you don’t remember? This is the eighth time you’ve suffered fatal injuries, you know.”

  “You’re more annoyingly vague than that self-absorbed dragon-man, Blaine Harcourt.”

  “Oh, stop.” The Kitsune held her sides and shook with laughter. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all decade! Dragon-like? And comparing me to a Harcourt, no less. Oh, that is literally rich!”

  I wondered whether all Kitsunes had mood swings like this one seemed to. “Look, I’m not asking you any more questions, Lady Godmother Kitsune whatever, but unless you like being called ‘hey you,’ a name would be nice.”

  “Call me ‘Kiki.’”

  I breathed a sigh of relief at the fact she hadn’t asked me to call her my Lady or even worse, some weird short form of godmother that might show her up as even more egotistical than Blaine. After that, I sucked in a breath that got caught in my chest when I tried to get up again. I hissed like gravity itself threatened my territory, then turned on my side. Something was wrong with me, and it wasn’t only my being mostly or all dead for however long, either.

  I stared across the moss past Kiki’s slipper-clad feet. Past the line of trees I lay under, dark waves greeted a black sand beach. The ocean horizon stretched, full of tequila sunrise colors that didn’t progress. In this place, time was a feature of the landscape. The breeze hummed and sang with magic I wasn’t sure how I sensed. I stared at my perfectly normal human-shaped hands, then reached up to touch my face. I had whiskers and not the kind you get with five o’clock shadow, either.

  Sighing, I ran that hand through my hair and stopped when it made contact with one pointy ear, as furred as Kiki’s own. I sat finally, still reeling from the strongest bout of déjà vu I’d ever experienced. After that, I looked up. Kiki had just finished wrapping a black and gold shawl around her waist, covering her tails. My mind finally connected some dots.

  Kitsunes were magical shifters. No one was sure whether they had inherent magic like dragons and Tanuki or used an enchanted item like Kelpies and Selkies. The accounts agreed on one thing, however. In the Under, they’d remain in a partially human form, although that didn’t happen in the regular world unless they had to do a bit of magic—usually air and lightning—which combined to make the Foxfire they’d been known for. The more tails they had, the more power, with nine being the most one could carry.

  I’d also read that Kitsune actually separated from the form they weren’t using, leaving half of themselves behind in the Under whenever they weren’t shifted. This extended their lifespans like faeries. I wasn’t sure whether asking them questions worked the same way, but Kiki sure acted like it did.

  Mundane shifters got stuck in their animal shapes in the Faerie realm. Bobby or Josh would have to go on all fours and limit their vocabulary to growls and barks here—except here I was, not sounding like a Meow Mix commercial or craving sardines. I sat contemplating my ears and whiskers, then reached behind me to check on my latest suspicion. Yup, I had a tail, too.

  “I’m not in my cat form, Kiki.” I stopped staring at the ocean and looked at her. “And I want to know why.”

  “You’re awfully perceptive for a fellow who’s spent most of the last week dead.” She smirked and offered me a hand up, which I refused. “All you need is deductive reasoning to make a huge discovery. Or ask me another question, Antonio.”

  “Ugh.” I wrinkled my nose at the name I never used. “It’s Tony. And stop talking like a fortune cookie; I get it already. I’m some kind of magical shifter. Should have figured that out after I whipped out a glamour in the Grim attack at the Nocturnal Lounge.” Glamour came naturally to me after that first reflexive usage. I still had no clue why or how, but I wasn’t about to ask Kiki more questions if it’d put me in her debt, godmother or not.

  “Now you begin to understand.” She clapped her hands. “I love new discoveries.”

  “Must suck, then. Being stuck here for however long.” I sat up on my own, considering she’d
started using her hands to clap instead of help. Sitting, I could manage. Standing, probably not yet, even with help.

  “That doesn’t matter now. You’re starting a whole new adventure.” This time, Kiki rubbed her hands together like a dragon might have while gazing at a pile of gold.

  “Thanks, Lady Obvious.” I rolled my eyes, internally refusing to refer to her as “Captain.” That rank was pretty high in the Under. A captaincy was two ranks past a lord or lady. It was right up there with knight, but it carried more authority at sea.

  “The best thing about this particular beginning is, it’s the end of something else.” Kiki gave that barking laugh again. I hadn’t decided whether I liked it yet, or her, for that matter. After all, I didn’t have the best track record with parental figures.

  “I hope you’re talking about an end to my time here in the Under so I can go home.” I wasn’t about to tell her that going home would likely get me killed. Again.

  “No. Today is the first day of the rest of your lives, Tony Gitano.” My godmother smiled.

  I wondered whether this Kitsune was actually my spiritual guardian or just pulling one over on me, but if she followed faerie rules, she couldn’t flat-out lie about something that important. Neither monarch could abide lying about family.

  “I bet you don’t even know what a fortune cookie is, Kiki.” I flicked my tail in her general direction.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” She licked her chops. “So much crunch, and they taste like cyanide smells. I love them so.”

  “Great.” I lowered my head, face-palming with both hands. Kiki the Kitsune was nuttier than the almonds in those cookies. Morbid, too. But whether that was cat lady or serial killer kooky, I couldn’t tell. Either way, I wasn’t comfortable being alone with her anymore.

  “There’s got to be someone else around who can help me.” I lifted my head, then turned to face the dark side of the demesne. “Gee! Gee Nome! That little twit’s got to be around here somewhere.” I put my hands on either side of my mouth and called a third time for the friend of my undead friend. Hey, I’m a Rhode Islander. I know a Gnome. “Gee!”