"I see you have met," Uncle said unsurprisingly. "May I introduce you to the chairman, chairwoman in this case, of Aesir Academy."
"Hello, Kaede."
The guys took a knee, Roki included.
"Rise. We don't do that here."
They did, visibly shaken by our distinguished visitor.
"I assume you were going to tell everyone about your visit this morning and wished for one of your Uncle's fabulous shields, so you would not be heard by wolfish ears?"
I nodded, still in shock. Unsure if she was pissed that I was going to blab, I just couldn't handle the secrets anymore. Not from Roki, especially. He was starting to see through them.
"You may."
"Wait, you're the Chairman of the Board?"
"Yes. And your request to leave Aesir Academy has been summarily dismissed. I assume you do not have a question as to why?"
"No, ma'am."
"Good."
"Wait…" Rome protested, and Uncle Tatsuo shot him a look that would have silenced a charging army. Not Rome, though. Nope. "If she goes home, Fenrir loses his herald. He won't wake up, and everybody will be safe."
"If Kaede leaves, he will simply find another herald," Freya said coolly.
Rome felt the frigid bite in her response and shut up.
"Then how are we going to keep her safe?"
Freya stood. "That is simple. She and I have devised a plan that will solve everyone's problem."
"What is that?" Uncle Tatsuo had apparently not been made aware of the plan.
"She's going to kill Fenrir."
Chapter 19
The silence in the room was deafening. The looks the four men were giving the goddess were unpleasant. And the beating of my heart was reaching hummingbird proportions.
"You expect my niece to kill…a god?"
"Sure. Mortals killed gods all the time back in the old days. They just need the right weapon!"
The looks she was getting weren't any better. At least Uncle had asked the question I'd been too afraid to ask. "The gods themselves couldn't slay him! At best, all they could do was subdue him, split his soul and body, and bind him! How in Helheim do you think this scatterbrain, no offense my niece, is going to kill him?"
"None taken, Uncle." I knew it, and up until lately, had been proud of the fact.
"What has changed?" Tatsuo crossed his arms over his chest, practically glaring at the formidable god before him.
She smiled, almost evilly. "He has shared his bonds with her. They are becoming one."
"The tattoos? Gleipnir?"
"More than that. Have you seen her vixen as of late?"
"What?"
She turned to me. "Show him, my dear. Show him your fox."
The color drained from my face. The only one who knew was Fenrir and Lornca…
"That is right, Kaede. Lornca's mate is the one who served you tea." She grinned proudly like she had outsmarted a teenage deviant at her own game.
"Kaede?" Tatsuo asked concernedly.
I sighed and shifted. Might as well get it all out in the open.
There was a collective gasp as my newly acquired fox-wolf hybrid form came into view. I circled, slowly chasing my own tails so everyone could get the whole effect.
"Kaede-sama?"
I gave Roki a sad look, as effectively as I could in my new form, and lowered my eyes in apology. Unable to stand the looks I was getting, I shifted back.
"Well, that was unexpected."
I turned to Roki, and he winked at me. He had seen it before but had the tact not to mention it. I should have known better. "You still love me, even if I'm a little husky?"
"Still beautiful."
"And deadly," Freya chimed in. "If anybody can kill him, it is she."
"With what weapon? No blade forged in Asgard, Migard, or any of the nine realms may harm him!"
Freya sat back down in Tatsuo's chair. "There are other realms. Midgard seems to be the constant in all of them, a realm of many beliefs, gods, and pantheons. She, herself, has only just stepped into ours. She's had a weapon forged in none of the nine realms at her disposal all her life…"
"My katana." They were gifts from the Inari-kami. The Japanese god of agriculture, wine, and blacksmithing. They were forged in his hearths in the heavens and stayed there until we called for them. It was a gift to all kitsune, nogitsune, and inari foxes. It was the one remaining thing I still possessed from the Inari-kami.
I missed sake.
Closing my eyes, I called my blade and didn't even need to look to see if it was there. I could feel it humming in my hand. Holding it out before me, I opened my eyes.
"It is too dangerous," Tatsuo said calmly. "He will sense her intent and end her life before she even gets close to him."
"His body is bound by Gleipnir and hidden by Hel herself so she can bolster her powers with his. It is not Fenrir that you need to worry about, it is her. She will not give his body up easily."
"I still say it is too dangerous."
"Good thing it is not your call, child of Jormungandr."
Tatsuo let out a hissing breath and nodded. "Fine, but if she is not up to the task, we will not force her."
"But she has already given me her oath."
"What?"
Freya smiled and looked at me. "Isn't that right, child?"
Ruh-roh. "Um…about that. She's right, Uncle."
"What? How? When?"
It was Rome who answered. "While we were in class, and she was alone. She went to say goodbye to David. I smelled him on her at dinner and thought she hugged a jacket of his, or something. But I also smelled two kitties on her. Now it makes a little more sense."
I blushed and nodded.
"So, when you told me David said goodbye to all of us…"
"He really did. I just didn't think you'd believe me."
Roki smiled.
My uncle called a chair into being, how I didn't have a clue. One second it wasn't there, the next it was as he sat down on it. "Kaede…"
"I know. I screwed up. Shocker, right?"
"No. You did not. You were coerced by gods into this little play. I just wish it had been someone else."
"More capable?"
He shook his head. "With a different mother. She is absolutely going to take my tail, if not my head, for this."
"Too bad you only have the one, huh?" I flared my nine behind me and grinned at him.
"Little shit."
"Learned it from my uncle."
∞ ∞ ∞
"Anybody else having serious déjà vu right now?"
"With the volcano, yes. The ride, not so much," Rome shouted over the wind. "I would have preferred riding in one of the charons' cabs…"
I had to agree with him. Freezing my little foxy ass off while riding a chariot through the skies of Iceland on my way to Hell wasn't exactly traveling in style. But when a god offers you their personal mode of transportation, refusing is not an option.
I was pretty sure Fress and Kottr heard our conversation. They gave us disdainful looks over their harnessed shoulders.
"No offense!"
They sloped down, and I nearly fell out of the chariot. Inertia was not my friend. Before we left, Uncle Tatsuo had given me a thirty-pound necklace, carved from bone, and covered in draconic runes. I was pretty sure it had been carved for a dragon. It was that big. I looked like Flavor Flav. But it was like a portable shield generator. When I pressed a series of the runes, it turned on or off, casting a shield much like the one Tatsuo could cast. It would at least keep Fenrir from knowing what we were up to, and hopefully stop Hel from realizing we were taking a stroll through her back yard.
As for finding Fenrir's body, Tatsuo had told me to, "Follow my heart." Whatever that meant. Freya didn't seem too worried about me finding him, either.
I looked around the larger than normal chariot at Rome, Remy, and Roki. Pain gripped my heart. David's absence was something we were all ignoring and finding it impossible to ignore at th
e same time. We all felt it. Nobody talked about it. Geri was missing, too, but neither Tatsuo or Freya trusted her to go with us. She was a child of Fenrir and bound to him and me through Gleipnir. He might feel her presence even through the draconic shield.
As the chariot passed through the cave on the side of the volcano, we all instinctively ducked. There was plenty of room, but nobody wanted to get decapitated by a stalactite. When the cave opened up into a large cavern, Fress and Kottr set the chariot down on the hard-packed earth. As soon as we filed out, they shifted, and the chariot disappeared
"Where to?" Fress asked while I looked around in wonder.
The cave opened in two directions. The one leading south led to the city of the dead, home of Hel. I pointed in the opposite direction and answered, "That way," and took off at a brisk pace, wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and all the dead souls that could burn your flesh with just their touch.
"Do you feel Fenrir?" Roki fell into step next to me.
"No. I feel a hankering not to be surrounded by dead people."
"A wise choice, unless the god we seek is, in fact, in the city of the dead…"
Damn him and his logic. Closing my eyes, I felt around to see if anything seemed out of the ordinary. It took all of a second to realize I wasn't going to feel shit on the inside of a magic bubble. "Uhh… Can't feel anything with this necklace. And I'm not shutting it off until we are safely back at the school. Or Fenrir is dead."
"So, we are to stumble around blindly?"
"I guess."
"That seems a better choice than broadcasting our location to the gods."
I nodded at Hiroki. "Glad you agree."
"Might I make a third suggestion?"
"You know, you might have led with that and saved us some time bantering."
"I enjoy your witty responses."
"What is your suggestion, Roki?"
He smiled and shifted, scenting the air with his delicate fox nose.
"Show off."
He winked and led the way. I debated shifting, too, but Roki's nose was a hundred times stronger than mine. He spent much more time in his fox form than I did, but I wasn't sure if it was that, or just his physically enhanced body that made it that way. I sucked at everything, even being a fox.
He rounded a bend in the cave, and I worried until we caught up, but he was waiting there for us. "I smell decay," he whispered through his muzzle.
"More dead people."
He nodded.
"Guards," I whispered over my shoulder and felt a ripple as the twins shifted into their hellhound forms. They shouldered me aside and took the lead.
Fress and Kottr surrounded me, letting just their hands shift and extending their claws. "Stay between us," Kottr rumbled.
There was a brief clash of metal against metal, and the crunching of bone. Rome and Remy made an effective wall, and I couldn't see what they had come across until they spread out in a hollowed-out section of cave, a narrow doorway on the other side. The six skeletal guards were strewn about the room.
"I…fall to pieces," I sang as we passed through. Everyone turned and shot me a warning glare. "What? They can't hear."
The Romies shook their heads. Even in hound form, I couldn't tell them apart by looking at them. They shifted back quickly, unable to fit through the doorway with their massive frames. Even in their human forms, it was a tight fit. Luckily, the corridor wasn't very long, and my claustrophobia didn't have a chance to kick in.
We stepped out onto another balcony with stairs on both sides, leading down to…the city of the dead. For a brief moment, I hoped it was a different city of the dead, but the half-destroyed center where Hel had clawed her way through was only moderately repaired. Their public works department left a lot to be desired. The northern passage led to the same damn place, just a different way.
"Fuck me." I leaned over the natural stone ledge to get a better view.
"You have a horrible sense of propriety and place," Rome chuckled.
"Huh?"
"You said… And then you bent over the… Never mind."
"Did you just make a dirty joke at a time like this?"
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm proud of you." I grinned at him. "Wait. You're Rome, right?"
"Yeees?"
"Just making sure."
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "What now, fearless leader?"
"Guess we're going to town."
"Maybe not…"
I turned to Roki, who had shifted to see over the ledge a little better. "What?"
"Just looking at the destroyed portion of the town."
"Yes?"
"Hel came at us from underneath the city of the dead…yes?"
"Yes."
"That would suggest that there is more to Helheim beneath."
"You think she has him chained up in the basement?"
"Hai."
"Makes sense to me, but we're still going to have to go into the town to go down."
"Perhaps not," he said and motioned me closer. When I was standing next to him, he pointed at the outer walls behind the city, a part we would not have been able to see had we taken the southern branch of the cave system. We would have come out overlooking the front. By taking the northern passage, we were looking at the city from the side. "See the passages along the wall behind the city?" He pointed off to our right where the cave wall and floor met. Barely visible, three stone doors were nestled closely opposite a gate in the city wall.
"Huh. Told you we were going the right way."
"Yes. You are brilliant. Think we can get to those doors without being seen?"
"Well, the dead aren't the most observant of people, but maybe we should shift and split up. A few strays would be even less noticeable than six people walking through a vast open cavern."
"As I said. You are brilliant."
"What about this, though?" I fingered the heavy necklace around my neck.
"Might make a good doggie collar," Roki said with a hissing chuckle.
"Fuck off, fox," Rome said grumpily.
"He's right, though," I answered thoughtfully and walked up to Rome. "Rome, would you shift and carry this big heavy collar for little old me?" I ran my finger down his chest and gave him a sultry smile.
"Well. Er…uh."
"So articulate when you're flustered."
He sighed and nodded. "I would love to."
"Thank you, Romeo."
"No. Never call me that."
"You don't want me to be your Juliet?"
"Since they both died at the end, no. I don't."
"Good point," I said, straightening and taking on a more serious demeanor. "Shift, and I'll put it on you. I want to get it from my neck to yours as quickly as possible. Not entirely sure how this thing works, and I think the fastest we get it from me to you, the less chance of it shutting off."
He nodded and stepped back, shifting right in front of me. Magic washed over my skin as he did, sending goosebumps up my arms.
"Ready?"
His head bobbed once, and I lifted the necklace over my head and slid it over his, having to hold down his ears to get it over and onto his neck. The medallion settled against his massive chest. "Good doggie."
His tongue, nearly as wide as my head, shot out and swiped across my face. I shot him a horrified look as doggie drool dripped from my chin. "Oh, my fucking gods. That was disgusting. Bad doggy!" I bopped his nose.
He sneezed and let out a doggie chuckle.
"Laugh it up, furball. The odds of you licking me ever again just went down exponentially."
He gave me puppy dog eyes and whined a little.
"We all need to stay within thirty feet of him for the necklace to cover us. Kitties, keep close. Roki, shift and ride Remy."
He nodded, seeming a little more excited than he should. "You are going to ride Rome-sama?"
"Yerp."
"Congratulations," he said to the shifted Rome and gave him a little
wink. Everyone else shifted and took their positions.
I shifted into my hybrid form and ran up Rome's leg, settling myself on his neck behind his massive head. "Let's go," I said with a little more difficulty than usual into Rome's ear. He nodded and took off at a slower than normal pace, sticking to the shadows where his black fur blended in. If it weren't for the white-gray blob on his back, he would have been totally undetectable.
I turned my head and saw Remy right on his tail. Literally. The black and blue cats were weaving through his moving legs as we walked. Hopefully, by the grace of kami, we would make it to the three doors without a horde of angry skeletons and zombies after our heads.
We almost made it, too.
Halfway to the doors, the gates in the wall opened, and skeletons poured out by the droves. They didn't frighten me as much as the detachment of angry looking spirits that followed them, the ones that burned your flesh if they touched you.
"You see them?" I hissed at Rome. He was touching me, and out of all of them, had the best chance at seeing them.
His head bounced as he slammed on his doggie brakes. I slid over his shoulders onto the ground in front of me. With his massive nose, he pushed me toward the doors and bounded off at the army of undead.
"Fool," I hissed, but my heart swelled a little. He didn't need to beat them, just hold them off for a few minutes. His strides were over double of any of ours, except Remy's. He could catch up once we were through whichever door we picked.
The only problem was, he had the damn necklace. As he bounded on top of the first row of skeletons, I was sure that he had forgotten that little fact.
Taking our chances, I headed for the doors. Up close, they were much larger than I thought, and we were probably going to need both hellhounds to push them open. Without the necklace, something was pulling me toward the furthest door, and I made a beeline for it, as fast as my little legs could propel me.
Skidding to a stop, Roki leapt off Remy and shifted, hitting the ground and calling for his sword. The kitties chose to remain in their much deadlier panther-sized forms with wicked claws and teeth. Remy, too. But I could see him wanting to join his brother in the battle.
I shifted and whistled at Rome, "Come on, boy. Come here. You want to go for a ride?"
A Tail of Two Kitties: A Reverse Harem Academy Tail (The Fox and the Hounds Book 2) Page 18