The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  “And hey,” he said. “She’s wrong about you.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  But he knew she didn’t. And there was nothing he could do to convince her otherwise.

  Chapter 8

  “Hey Kit,” said Santiago. He leaned against the wall just outside of the entrance to the boardwalk. His arms were crossed and he wore a self-satisfied smirk that had always irritated Yukiko. She hadn’t seen him in decades, but his smile had not changed at all. His clothing had, of course. He was hatless, as was the modern style, and his tawny hair was tousled. He wore jeans and cowboy boots and she supposed some women might have found him attractive. She was not one of them.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said.

  “It’s what you are.”

  “I am not a kit, not for at least a century.” She smelled, discreetly, for her spirit ball. There was no scent of it on him, not even a residual feeling.

  “Kitsune then,” he said.

  “I’m Myobu.”

  “All Myobu are Kitsune.”

  He was correct, of course. Kitsune, the fox spirits of her homeland, were either Myobu, law-abiding and friendly to humans, or Nogitsune, the wild foxes.

  “But not all Kitsune are Myobu. My kind have a code.”

  He motioned toward the entrance archway to the boardwalk. Pulsating yellow and orange lights spelled out Luna Park in arching letters over the gate. On either side of the words hung two mermaids made of green, yellow and red neon lights. Their tails flicked up and down in abrupt flashes, and their blond hair jerked in waves, as if they were underwater.

  “The god you served is dead,” said Santiago. “Dead and gone.”

  They continued into the park, passing the ticket booths. Yukiko was not about to use any of her magic to fool a human into letting her have tickets, nor would she use her real money.

  “Leave him out of it,” she said.

  “If you say so.”

  “Did you call me here to bug me about things that are not your concern? If I recall, you needed my help.”

  “I needed a consultant. Not help. I never said the word ‘help.’”

  “Oh, that’s right. The legendary Coyote. Never needed help from anyone. And yet, he sends me a letter, a paper letter, in this day and age, to ask me to come and check something out.”

  “I didn’t know your e-mail address or phone number. All I had was that old address. It’s not like you kept in touch.”

  “And why would I?”

  They had stopped at the railing that overlooked the beach. Santiago rested a booted foot on the lowest railing. No one else would have seen it, but the way he looked out over the crowds of people, the way his head tilted up slightly to catch the scents, were inhuman. She could almost see his muzzle, his golden eyes, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in a cunning grin.

  “That was a long time ago, Kit.”

  “Only by their standards,” she tipped her head toward the people on the beach.

  “Two tails, I see,” Santiago said, glancing at the plush tail that hung from her belt. “Wishful thinking, Kitsune.”

  “All you’ll ever have is the one. That and the stink under it.”

  “Touchy, touchy.”

  “You’re being an ass.”

  “No, I’m being myself,” he said. “I cannot change my nature. And you didn’t used to wear a fake tail.”

  “You know damn well why I have it. My shadow is the same as it ever was.”

  “So if people see the shadow, they think it comes from that thing. Cute.”

  “One does what one must.”

  She smelled and felt for her spirit ball again. Nothing. If Santiago had taken it, he had not handled it himself.

  “Do you feel it?” Santiago said, becoming serious.

  “Yeah. There’s something. It’s over there.” She motioned toward the haunted house ride and the employee section.

  “What is it?”

  “You can’t tell?”

  “No. Can you?” He turned and looked at her. He was really and truly worried. Yukiko thought back. She didn’t think she had ever seen him like this before.

  “It’s bad then,” she said. “I know this place, this borderland, attracts things. But I thought all the metal, the people, all those things would keep most otherfolk away.”

  “If it was otherfolk, we would know what it was. This is something I’ve never smelled or felt before. And I’ve been around a long time.”

  Yukiko knew that he had. While she was only a little over a century old, he was practically ancient. He was still watching her.

  “Shit, Yukiko. What happened to you?”

  She drew back and looked away. “If it was you, Coyote, I swear on the bones of my master and god that I will make you suffer.”

  “How are you still alive? I mean, can your people live without your spirit ball?”

  “Yeah, we can live. Not well, but we can survive.”

  It would be a half-life, a life like the humans around her, an endless series of ordinary days without her abilities. Such a life would be worse than death.

  “Who took it?” he asked.

  She looked into his face. He was an expert liar, she knew that. He had sometimes boasted of the fact and took great pride in his so-called art, so she knew she would learn nothing from studying him. But she still tried to tell if he was sincere.

  “I thought you might have something to do with it,” she said.

  “No, not me.” He looked toward the rides and the game booths. “Do you think something here did it?”

  “Definitely. It happened last night. I’d like to know what could do that. It’s not exactly a common talent.”

  Santiago watched a couple go by. “You said there was something over by those rides?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, let’s go have a look-see, shall we?”

  “I’m not going to help you.”

  “What?” he looked genuinely surprised. “This is your home also. Not LA, but this part of their country. If something happens here, it’ll affect you as well.”

  “How can I trust you? How do I know you didn’t take my spirit ball?”

  He seemed to be thinking it over. “You can’t. You can’t trust me, and I didn’t take your spirit ball. But I can tell you this. If I had, would we be standing here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I had your spirit ball, you’d be on your back in the hotel room. Or I would be. After we played naughty geisha for a few hours first.” He grinned wickedly.

  “You’re a racist bastard.”

  “How can I be racist if I don’t have a race?”

  “You look white to me.” Yukiko wondered if he had modeled himself after a modern movie star. But then, Coyote had looked this way since at least the early twentieth century.

  “For the last couple centuries, this appearance has allowed me to do as I please. And before I was white, I was brown. You would have liked me then. I didn’t used to wear so much clothing. I change with the times. How come you haven’t?”

  “My kind don’t change like yours. Besides, by the time I got here, there were plenty of Japanese in America.”

  “So will you help me?”

  “If you’ll help me get my spirit ball back.”

  “I can’t see that there’s anything I can do, but it’s a deal. I’ll do what I can. First off, you can talk to Red Fawn.”

  “What is he?”

  “She, and she’s just a person. Old. Very old. But a person.”

  Santiago headed toward the rides and Yukiko kept pace beside him. She didn’t like how he was luring her across the park, as if she had agreed to help him. But if he had any way to help her to discover her attacker, s
he supposed she had to take her chances.

  “How could a human possibly help me?” she asked.

  “She works here during the day, at the stage show. She can feel the change here too.”

  “How could a human feel that? They’re not capable of it.”

  “Now who is being a racist?” He smirked.

  “It’s not racist, it’s a fact.”

  “Whatever. Then don’t talk to her.”

  “Would she know who might have taken it?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Coyote found the only ticket booth run by a woman and started chatting with her. Yukiko knew what he was up to and left him alone to get his tickets. He might have had money, in fact, he almost certainly did. He loved cars and fancy restaurants and exclusive clubs. But he wouldn’t pay for anything if he could get it by trickery. It was a sort of personal policy of his. He returned a few minutes later with a strip of tickets. He didn’t offer half to her, but tore off enough for both of them to ride the haunted house and then put the rest in his shirt pocket.

  “Will you introduce me to this Red Fawn?” Yukiko asked while they waited in line.

  “Best not to. She and I had a disagreement. She doesn’t like me much.”

  “That’s a shock. What did you do to her?”

  “It was nothing. A little misunderstanding. But she runs the Chumash show that’s going on during the Jacaranda Festival.”

  They boarded the haunted house ride and when the car was at the back of the ride, where the scent of other was strongest, Santiago kicked at the car with the toe of his boot. For anyone else, nothing would have happened. But for him, the safety bar popped up.

  “Come on,” he said and jumped out of the car and into the dark.

  “I can’t hide myself,” she whispered after she had climbed out of the car and hurried behind a plywood coffin. Other cars with riders passed by on the track. She hated asking him for anything, even if it was in order to help him. But without her regular power, she was close to helpless.

  “I’ll do it,” he said, and before she could say anything, she felt his presence, his smell, spin around her loosely, then tighten like a coil, until it touched her skin. The sensation was both pleasant and repugnant to her. Like fatty meat fried in too much oil, delicious and sickening at the same time. She wanted to shake it away, to replace it with her own power. But she could not.

  They moved through the ride and then ducked into an access corridor. An employee walked past them, oblivious to their presence. If Yukiko did anything to draw her attention, like speak or move too closely to her, she would be seen. But if there was any way for the girl’s mind to dismiss the movement from the corner of her eye or the thing she thought she heard, she would do it. Humans were sweet and gullible things, most of the time.

  Coyote was not. The employee passed and Yukiko looked at the back of Santiago’s head as he walked on ahead. He was a liar and a thief. She couldn’t let herself be lulled into any false sense of trust. And if he had taken her spirit ball, she would tear his throat out.

  They moved down a back corridor, but the scent, the tingle, she had felt the previous day was still there.

  “Do you feel anything?” asked Santiago.

  She paused. “Yes, but not quite as much as there was before.”

  “You mean you felt more when we were across the park?”

  “No. I came yesterday to check things out.”

  “Tricky, tricky,” he said, pleased.

  “Nothing tricky about it. You called me, I wanted to know what I was getting into. Little did I know I’d be attacked.”

  Coyote glanced at her. She couldn’t see his expression well in the dark, but he seemed to be evaluating something. “So you couldn’t smell or feel anything from across the park?”

  “No. I had to get close to it.”

  “I can smell a little,” he said, looking down the corridor. “Like an itch.”

  “I wonder what it is.”

  “And here I was, thinking you’d be helpful,” he said. But his tone was joking, not cruel. She may be Myobu, helper of mankind and friend of the just, but that didn’t mean she’d put up with any nonsense. She decided that she’d leave if he got to be too insufferable. Except, now she was tied to his geographical area, unable to leave until she regained her spirit ball.

  The employee access corridor ended in a T shape, with one hallway going off to the left and one to the right. Both of them paused, smelled and headed left without a word. There was a door at the end, and Santiago reached for the handle without hesitating. Yukiko almost stopped him, but then, what purpose would that serve? If they surprised some people, the worst that would happen is that they would be told to leave. Still, she was nervous and hoped the room would be empty.

  Perhaps she had grown soft by living in modern times. She had heard tales of her kind, when they were strong and fierce. Was she now afraid of a few park employees?

  “No one home,” said Coyote.

  The room was a break room, old and musty. The smell was here, but it had been some time since its source had been present.

  “A person,” she said.

  “You think it’s coming from a person?”

  “Must be. It’s stronger in this room than in the corridor. I’d say it’s something that moves, so a person.”

  “Or an animal. Don’t forget those.”

  “I include our kind and otherkind when I say ‘person.’”

  “How fair-minded of you,” he pulled open the refrigerator and took out a half-finished bottle of soda. Someone named Kim had written her name on the label with permanent marker.

  “What’s fair-minded in including us?” she asked.

  “No, I mean, including us, them and the otherkind in one big group. Like we’re equals.” He took a gulp of the purloined soda and offered it to her. She refused and opened the break room door.

  “I can’t believe that after living as long as you have, you still hold to those outdated ways,” she said.

  “Aww, now don’t be like that.”

  They both fell silent and stood with their backs against the wall as an employee passed. He was a regular human, not the source of the scent. Once he was gone, they headed down the hall. Santiago opened the outer door and held it for her.

  “I will be like that,” she said. “They’re not toys of the gods or anything like that. They’re like us.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, Kit. Then you fall in love with one and see how much he’s like you thirty years on, or fifty. And before you know it, your grandkids are dying while you live on and on.”

  “Sounds like you have personal experience.”

  They had emerged near the dime toss and Santiago stopped. “You want to find Red Fawn, you head down that way.” He pointed. “The stage show is on a couple times a day.”

  “You sure you won’t come with me?”

  “I’m on Red Fawn’s shit list. You’re better off without me. But I’ll be around. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’d better stick around. Because if I don’t find my spirit ball soon, I’ll hunt you down, no matter how far you run.”

  “You’re so cute when you talk like that. I’ll keep my ears open about it.”

  She had no doubt he would. And if there was any way he could get the ball for himself, he would do it. But then, being enslaved to Santiago was not the worst fate she could face. There were far more sinister beings, ones that would not simply enslave her to play naughty geisha.

  Chapter 9

  Astrid carried two gift bags, one large and one small, from her mother’s car to the front door. Her graduation celebration had started a few hours earlier at a local pizza parlor. Somehow, her mother and aunt had come to an agreement on payment, and Astrid, her m
other, Elliot, Aunt Ruth and her aunt’s boyfriend had enjoyed a decent dinner. Astrid’s mother had told everyone at the table how proud she was of her beautiful daughter. She had even said that she was happy about her acceptance to Columbia and how she knew that Astrid would become a great artist.

  Her mother had given her high-end colored pencils from the art store. It was an extravagant gift, and her mother had kissed her cheek when Astrid had stammered out a shocked thanks.

  Astrid pulled her keys out and was wishing that she or her mother had left the porch light on when her stomach dropped. There was a package partially hidden in the planter to the side of the door.

  She didn’t know what was inside it, but she knew from whom it came. It was a medium-sized envelope, the yellowish type that came with a layer of bubble wrap cushioning inside. She picked it up and, as expected, it was addressed to her. It had no postage sticker, nor did it have any stamps. It also had no return address.

  She shoved the envelope down inside the larger of her two gift bags, the one from her aunt with the navy blue wool peacoat that would keep her warm in the New York winter. It had been a very thoughtful gift, and Astrid appreciated it all the more knowing that her aunt had probably had to scour the clearance rack to find it.

  Astrid heard her mother’s car door bang shut and she pulled the tissue paper up over the envelope and got her key into the lock. She knew better than to mention the envelope to her mother.

  She had gotten out of her jacket and had put both bags on her bed when she heard her mother close the front door.

  “You didn’t get the mail,” called her mother from the front room.