“Why an S?” Madison asked.
“Stands for Stupid Man,” I answered, “my least favorite superhero.”
As buildings passed on either side, Fran piped up from the back seat, “But, isn’t ‘Stupid Man’ redundant?”
Two fire trucks passed us as a red blur, their banshee wails piercing my brain.
I spoke past clenched teeth, “Definitely.”
How am I going to explain this mission going sideways to Ms. Griffin?
Laughter uncoiled in the back shadows of my mind where golden eyes glimmered open. You could always hide under your bed.
Not an option. She has scary, magical powers; she’d find me.
SEVEN
MISURA LARGA: distance at which a strike
can be made by a step, by a pass, or by a lunge.
When I got back to the HPI headquarters, the lobby receptionist informed me that Ms. Griffin had flown to Washington D.C. to consult with several government agencies. Fenn and a couple other students had gone with her. I was thankful for the reprieve, considering how things turned out at Kenny’s Bar-B-Q.
I took the elevator up to the residential floor, and entered the student lounge. This was the only place that felt normal. Elsewhere in the building, a peaceful, low-energy stillness held sway. Drew spotted me, and held up beside the vending machines, her arms full of chocolate snack cakes, white fudge-covered pretzels, and orange sodas. She’d ignored the healthier apple slices and granola bars as if they were poison.
Bouncing along beside me like an excited puppy, she filled me in on the latest happenings: Jill was shopping with her mom, Hammer was off playing a round of golf to relieve the stress—like that was going to work—and our white-coated, paranormal researchers were busy stalking the shadow men around the complex.
Drew and I entered the corridor that led to the girls’ rooms, passing a security camera. I waved at whoever might be on duty in the monitor room. “What about Onyx?” I asked, surprised he hadn’t already popped up to annoy me.
Drew looked at me from the corners of her eyes. A sly smile appeared. “You kinda like him, don’t cha? I mean, he’ so hot!”
Define “like,” I said.
“Getting tingly and breathless as his dark, smoldering eyes drink you in, and having your heart pound right out of your chest, just before love’s full rapture ignites the universe in an orgy of passion.”
I laughed a little, “All that is ‘like’?”
We entered our suite, and Drew followed me into my room. She dumped her snackage on my bed as I shifted mental gears, resigning myself to the boredom of homework and laundry … until a glance at my desk startled me. A new computer sat there, minus a keyboard. The tower ran silently. A blue LED in front told me it was on. I spotted palm-sized speakers, and a note card with a red bow taped to an upper corner of the flat screen.
I went closer, picking up the card and dropping into my chair. Bending over my shoulder, Drew read the card. “The eagle has landed? What’s that, a password?”
The monitor clicked on, and a desktop wallpaper appeared. “I’d say that’s a definite yes.” On screen, I saw a Mad Magazine cartoon—Spy vs. Spy. The black-clad spy was being sawn in half by the white-clad spy—good guys winning. This is Virgil’s his handiwork. Hey, why no keyboard or mouse? I looked along the edges of the screen. “No icons either.”
“Are they desired?” the voice was smooth, lacking inflection and direction. The little speakers seemed to throw the words the way a ventriloquist might.
Drew looked around. “Who said that?”
“You may call me Computer, or any other designation you like. Do you desire icons?”
I shrugged. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
The screen filled with icons. Ah ha! A keyboard wasn’t needed. The thing was voice activated. “Kewl!” This was going to make doing schoolwork, and my creative writing, so much easier. But wait a minute, could I accept this thing without strings attached; strings Virgil would inevitably pull? Well, he had his own people for life-and-death stuff. Surely, he’d only use me to gather intel. Cassie would disembowel him if he put me in any real danger.
Off to the side of my desk, I saw an envelope laying face down with my small mailbox key weighing it down. I picked the letter up, letting the key slide to the desktop with a short-lived clatter. The flap was loose and slightly damp. I sniffed. A sharp, chemical taint adhered to it, as if some weird concoction had been used to neutralize the glue. Jill must have brought in the daily mail from the lobby before she left—mail Virgil had thought nothing of opening for me.
Drew said, “You’ve been waiting to hear from this publisher, right?”
“Yeah, might be my big break.” I read the letter with shaking hands. Despair settled in my stomach like a cinder block as I read a rejection letter from Wildest Fantasy Magazine. I growled. A freakin’ form letter. Again.
I could suddenly see Virgil as my literary secret agent: dark sunglasses, black suit, singing the virtues of my latest manuscript with a 9mm in hand. An evil chuckle escaped me. Gawd, it was so tempting … but did I really want to succeed that way? Was I that desperate? Well, yes, but there were limits I needed to keep to, in order to be the human I was raised as. Surely, my incredible—if unrecognized—natural talent should be enough.
I left my chair and carried the rejection to the shoebox in my closet. When I was seven, I’d held another shoebox, one filled with newspaper and a small, dead bird that had flown into my window to escape some danger. Instincts sometimes betray us. I’d cried over the bird, and dug a hole in the garden for a formal burial, presided over by my dolls and me. My heart had felt like a small stone flung into a cold, murky pond. I felt that way now, putting the letter in with all the others in another shoebox.
I shook myself mentally and went back to the desk. Drew handed me an orange soda as I passed her. “Bad news, huh? Sorry.”
I shrugged, slapping on a brave smile. “They that live by the pen shall die by the pen.” Deep sigh.
Needing distraction, I focused on my new PC. “Computer, do you come with WIFI?”
A window opened on my screen, a search page with a Google box and a blinking cursor awaiting command. “State subject or web address when ready,” Computer said.
“Don’t you think you need to start some laundry first?” Drew said. “Your closet seems rather empty.”
“Yeah, guess you’re right. Do you have stuff to do too?”
She grinned. “No, I take my stuff home and Mom has the servants do it for me.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Drew’s family had made gazillions in the oil industry and built a corporate empire. I was surprised they hadn’t sent her off to HPI with her own butler and maid. Maybe Ms. Griffin had said no.
A ding hung in the air. My computer said, “You’ve got mail.”
I do? “Computer, open.”
A window opened showing me an in-box with a single message waiting to be read.
“Open message,” I ordered.
The speakers played Witchy Woman by the Eagles as I read the text:
Dear Grace,
I hope you appreciate this little gift. Anytime you want to contact me, just tell the computer. It will do the rest. I look forward to working with you in the future. Have a nice day J
--V
Hmmm. Working with me in the future? It sounded like Virgil knew something I didn’t. “Computer, delete e-mail. Close window.”
I stared at the screen, thinking of the homework I’d let pile up like dirty laundry. “If only you could write me a twenty-five page report on Ernest Hemingway’s impact on American Literature, I could die happy.”
“Order received,” Computer said, “execution proceeds.”
“Really?”
“Gottcha.” A brief picture of a cartoon fox appeared on screen, its stiff legs poking up, tongue lolling out of an open mouth, its only visible eye an X.
Dead fox, very funny. “Stupid Computer.” What did I expect? Virgil had
definitely programmed this thing to irritate me on general principle. He so needed to grow up.
I went to my closet and pulled out the laundry bag. “Hey, Drew, you got some detergent I can borrow?”
“I’ve heard there are machines in the laundry room that dispense small boxes of it. Bleach too.” She popped the tab on a soda, drifting over to my desk. She sat down in front of the screen. “Why not take your assigned reading along and get it out of the way while you wait. I wouldn’t leave my stuff unattended. The boys around here have been known to take mementos of relationships they wished they had, if you know what I mean. I think there’s a competition going on: ten points for plain white panties, fifteen for most other colors, and twenty for anything with lace, black, or red.”
“I take it this has happened to you?”
“More than a few times. You’d think there’d be security in a high-security building.”
I grabbed The Scarlet Letter off my dresser, and slung my stuffed laundry bag over a shoulder to dangle by its drawstring. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m jumping on your computer. I want to see what this baby can do. Maybe my dad will buy me one.” She leaned forward in my chair. “Computer, where did you come from?”
Big red text appeared on screen: CLASSIFIED INFORMATION. The computer said, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to delete you.”
Drew and I groaned over the weak humor.
Needing quarters from the change machine in the laundry, I grabbed some ones from my purse and headed out. Two girls in the hall came abreast as I headed for the TV lounge. I didn’t know their names or much about them, but they knew me—flattening against the wall to give me plenty of room for passing, their eyes wide, cautious, a little afraid.
Really, you’d think I was Fenn. I swung to face them. “Boo!” I said.
One of them went “Eeep!”
I hurried on, into the half-full TV lounge. A blonde with glasses waited by the elevator. She turned to stare, giving out a short, involuntary scream that brought down a curtain of silence. At the pool table, a guy in cords and a bronze pullover sweater froze, bent forward in shooting position. The people seated near the TV, looked back over the furniture at me like I’d grown a second head. I knew I’d been involved in a lot of weird stuff since getting here, and people they knew had died, but still…
I glared at everyone. “What is it with you people?”
Motion returned. They went on as if I weren’t there, except their voices were low and hushed.
I stormed around the oriental screen that formed a corner for part of the lounge, and entered the short hallway behind it. I passed the back elevator, and quickly reached the end of the hall. The clack of weights came from the weight room on my left where someone was working out. I turned right, entering the laundry room. It was empty at the moment. I tossed my bag onto a washer and went to the change machine. With quarters in hand, I bought detergent and got my wash going.
I noticed deep quiet. The sound of weights had stopped across the hall. I turned with my book in hand and saw Onyx in the doorway, a sassy smile in place as he looked me over. Sweat dripped in slow runnels down his face and torso. He wore black sweatpants, but no shirt, flaunting his abs. What he lacked in muscle mass, he made up for with chiseled definition. I dragged my gaze to his face, where his black eyes seemed to pull attention the way a black hole sucks light.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“You know what I want.”
His intense, black stare stabbed me, bringing a flush to my face as he advanced. My mouth was suddenly dry. I had trouble swallowing.
“I want your panties,” he said. “I’ve heard about the competition among the boys. Because of the danger involved, your panties have a triple bonus points attached to them. It’s a good way to start my collection.”
“They’re all in the wash. Come back in a couple hours.” After I’ve gone, you perv.
His grin widened. “All in the wash? I don’t think so.”
He moved with a burst of speed that caught me off guard though I’d been watching for something sneaky. He flung a throwing star that severed the cable to a security camera mounted near the ceiling. Another star lobbed underhanded hit the space over the threshold, and gave up solidity, uncompressing as a sheet of shadow that filled the doorway so no one else could come in.
“What did you do that for?” I demanded.
His momentum brought him to me. His hands gripped my shoulders, jerking me into an embrace. My book fell and smacked the tiles. He pinned me against the washing machine, his arms flowing around me like pythons. “Some things should be kept very private,” he said, as his lips swam in close for a kiss.
I whipped my face away, and concentrated the force of my will, tugging the veil to open a passage to the ghost world. I felt gravity flutter then settle down, strong as ever. The electric tingle on my skin was sucked away as if some empty battery were recharging itself off my life force. Somehow, Onyx was cutting me off from my last line of retreat. I was trapped.
His tongue flicked and then his teeth lightly nipped my earlobe.
A shiver of delight went down my spine, but I hadn’t asked for this. I thrashed in his arms, glaring. “Let me go, or I’ll scream.”
His smile evaporated, but he didn’t let me go. “I am well practiced in the arts of love. I know I can make you happy, Grace. Just give me a chance.”
I went still, pulling my aura deep inside, fanning its cold blaze in my heart. He could cut me off from the energy of the veil, but not from my own foxfire. A few seconds more was all I needed to blast him into tattered scraps of shadow man. A normal fireball wasn’t going to do the job.
At the last second, I stopped myself.
Eyes a lavender furnace, teeth bared in a horrific snarl, Tukka appeared from thin air behind Onyx. The fu dog’s enormous muscles bunched in high relief under his leathery, teal hide as he crouched to spring, quivering with eagerness. Things were about to get truly ugly.
Onyx whirled to meet the attack, throwing me under the counter where clothes were folded. I hit the wall and stopped, as time slowed. I saw all two-thousand pounds of Tukka slam Onyx into the washing machine I was using, denting and flinging it back into caving drywall. Mixed with the sounds of impact was Onyx’s ummph, as he lost air. I heard his ribs crack sharp and loud. Telling me that bone fragments had been driven into his lungs, misty darkness spurted from his lips, evaporating midair.
Tukka backed up, preparing for another charge.
Half dead, Onyx somehow stayed on his feet. His face went pale, more so than normal. A broken hose sprayed water into the air, some of it raining on his back, plastering his hair down across his eyes. Hunched forward, his arms wrapped around his middle. His torso rippled, not quite going to shadow. I think he was having trouble focusing enough through the agony to unmake himself and heal up.
Stretched out on my stomach, I lifted a hand toward Tukka. “No, stop, you’ve done enough.”
Tukka growled, looking at me from the corner of one eye, an eye filled with murder. He wasn’t going to stop.
I thrust out all the cold fire I’d been building, letting it form a wagging orange wall between Tukka and Onyx, winding around to the dark curtain blocking the door. The shadow barrier to the hallway collapsed.
“Tukka, it will just make more trouble for me. He’s a prince; you think his people won’t take it out on me if he dies?”
Tukka wasn’t afraid of my fire, but it stopped him long enough to absorb my words. He swung his great head fully my way, looking me over. His thoughts pounded into my head, Grace all right?
I crawled out from under the counter and used it to pull myself up. “Yeah, peachy keen.”
I heard the elevator in the outer hallway open. Feet were thudding toward the laundry. Security. Taking out the camera had been a big mistake. Tukka being here was another. I didn’t want him taken out, mistaken for the bad guy. I shooed him away, letting the wall of flame drop to n
othing. “Get out of here, now. I’ll see you on the dream planes later tonight.”
Tukka nodded, his massive shape winking out, sliding into the ghost world, as he beat a hasty retreat.
Onyx wavered, his voice husky and pained, “Should have remembered … you have … oversized friends.”
Dark Suits crowded into the room, guns drawn, held in a two-handed brace. Most of the security men wore headset phones. They paused to stare.
Onyx pitched forward with a dying sigh.
The lead security guy caught and eased him to the wet tiled floor, then holstered his Berretta and checked Onyx’s vital signs. The team leader barked commands into his comm link. “Send a medical team to the laundry room right away. We’ve got a VIP down and barely breathing. Use the back elevator.”
Several more Dark Suits came over to me, guns still out, but lowered. It didn’t look like I was about to be shot, for which I was grateful. One of the guys, blond hair in a gelled buzz cut, got in my face. “You want to tell me what the hell just happened in here?”
My hands were trembling now. I laced them together to make them stop. My voice seemed oddly calm as it emerged. “He tried to force himself on me.”
“Yeah?” Buzz Cut looked over at Onyx, the crumpled washer, the damaged wall, and then back at me as he holstered his gun. “I don’t think he’ll be making that mistake again.”
EIGHT
“We are the music makers, and
we are the dreamers of screams.”
—The Anti-Wonka
Back in my room, nestled in bed, my mind slid toward sleep, my subconscious seeking Tukka in dreams space. He was my companion in the waking world, in dreams, and in the ghost realm. The downside of this was the wide areas to cover when I wanted to track him down. There had been an air of uncontrollable rage and desperation to Tukka in the laundry that worried me greatly. I needed to see where Tukka’s head was at.
Tears and Shadow (kitsune series) Page 6