TWENTY-SEVEN
STEEL CAGE MATCH: A wrestling exhibition
where actors pretend to inflict horrific violence
upon one another inside a steel cage.
I threw myself back from the second wave of demon tears. Several of them hit the concrete bowl underfoot, deflected in wild tangents. I backhanded another tear out of my face, a feat I couldn’t have managed if I’d actually thought about it. Stumbling back a few more steps, I fell in front of Tukka. Tired of standing, he’d dropped to the floor so his head was next to mine.
He said, Onyx right, surprise attack best. Miko just not distracted enough for him, but she plenty busy now.
“I gotta try and cross over.”
Demon there—not good idea. Tukka do it. In a minute. After rest.
I shook my head no. “It’s my job. Besides, the demon needs the miko beaten. I think he’ll let me do that.”
Not like it, Grace take big chance.
“Don’t care.” I hugged his big head and kissed him on the jowls in case this was goodbye. The walls of space shifted around me, stretched like cotton candy by the force of my will. The usual flutter went through my stomach as gravity bled to a lower level. An electric tingle glided over me, as colors shifted to gray tones, except for the kanji printed everywhere. In the ghost realm, it still shone like frozen flame, more reddish than the orange haze aura that sheathed me.
I felt a big dip in my strength from the transition, but didn’t feel like I was going to run dry too soon.
I scanned the area for the demon, hoping he was nowhere between the miko and me, and not too close either for that matter.
What I didn’t expect was that he’d tap me on the shoulder from behind, his bitter cold icing the air I breathed. A strange scent engulfed me … something foul and maggot-sweet that made me wrinkle my nose, on the edge of sneezing. Slowly I turned, knowing if I obeyed my instincts and tried to run, his instincts would kick in and he’d pounce with killing force.
Human-shaped, he stood sheeted in cold, black flames. His back spewed thick, crooked struts of shadow, beaded and slagged like half-used candles. Straight-razor feathers clung to the struts. The whole figure seemed ragged, tattered, blasted by some awful heat from which he never fully mended.
His eyes were red stars as he leaned in, sniffing at my aura.
My eyes widened in fear. I trembled. Taliesina trembled within me, none of her thoughts bled into mine. She was shocked into uselessness; it was up to me to save us. I reached for the weave of space to slip across the veil to safety, but his shadow fire lapped my aura and I was held in the ghost world against my will.
Long, bony arms wrapped around me. Claw tips pricked my arms. My horror grew as the demon grinded intimately against me. Like an acid cloud, his carrion breath soured the air around my face, dissolving the brief scream I barely eeked out. My burning eyes brimmed with tears.
“What have we here?” he purred.
One of his hands loosened. The demon’s claw grazed down across my stomach, then up to settle between my breasts where he paused, as though considering ripping my heart out. Perhaps that would have ended the fun too soon, for his hand gentled, continuing up to tease my throat with a scrape, the mere promise of death.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to reach back to the hood of my chocolate brown hoodie, and pull it forward over my eyes, cinching the drawstring tight. I wanted to curl up in a little ball and roll away like a dust bunny. I wanted to live, and didn’t think it was going to happen.
Soft, tantalizing, the pads of his fingers caressed my cheek, with claw tips lightly trailing.
Shivering, I drew a ragged breath, but my new scream hung stillborn inside my throat, unable to escape.
“So small. So pretty. So fragile.” His words fluttered—like mourning cloak butterflies dancing in the air on black-tissue wings—an omen of nothing good.
Try to act normal, I scolded myself. Don’t let him see you as a victim or you’ll be one. I opened my eyes, telling my heart to slow down and stop trying to pound out of my chest.
He circled behind me and let his chin slide over my shoulder. Cat-like, he rubbed his abrasive face against mine, murmuring, “I hope you last longer than the last snack thrown to me.” His tongue rasped across my cheek, slithering, leaving a residue like a muddy snake.
My heart dropped into my stomach; I know that wasn’t possible, but that’s how it felt as one of his hands came around my body, sliding across my right breast in a possessive caress, claiming me as his chew toy. His claw dropped to my waist, to the large silver buckle on the belt Cassie had loaned me. Playfully, his hand closed, and I heard a soft, complaining screech as the metal crumpled.
The yellow eyes in the back shadows of my mind blinked. Taliesina rallied, her thoughts slipping into mine: Momma’s going to be pissed. She liked that belt.
I didn’t point out that we had a worse problem to deal with.
I thought of my shadow sword and my kitsune flame. They’d probably only irritate the demon. I wasn’t strong enough to fight a creature that couldn’t die, so that left reason. But my thoughts decayed as I tried to turn them into words. They grayed with despair, morphing, looping in my head. I’m gonna die … I’m gonna die … I’m gonna die… A virgin, too. So unfair!
Taliesina said, We can take him—Right?
How?
Her eyes blazed brighter as she dug deep for courage. Fight smart, not hard. I was told.
I drew a deep breath and crammed terror into a tiny, mental box. I slammed the lid, locking it down. I’d indulge in wild hysterics later—if there was a later. Calm. Be calm. Don’t even think about how the fight’s going against the miko. Forget everyone’s counting on you. Yeah, right.
I had to get the bad guy to see me as a real person—not an object to be used and torn apart for pleasure. I had to intrigue him into mercy, reminding him why he needed me to live. I had to give up acting like prey.
The demon’s tongue dangled, slapping wetly at the right corner of my jaw, then down to the frantic pulse in my throat.
Mr. Kitty! Taliesina picked a hell of a time to bring up my new cat. He too had claws and a wicked disposition, toward me at least. When wound up, his claws emerged, snagging flesh like fishhooks. Trying to jerk away made the claws dig deeper. Prey could never escape. I’d learned to push into the cat, opening myself up to more pain. Soothed, his claws retracted, leaving minimal damage.
Hmmmmm. Maybe something like that will work here.
The golden eyes in my head bobbed, a nod of approval. The sharp, white teeth of my inner predator were bared in a grin.
My left arm could still move somewhat freely. As the demon’s hand returned to my belly, I placed my hand over his. I drew his hand up and pressed it against my heart like something cherished. I made a pleased rumble in my throat, and rubbed my cheek against his. A quote from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky described my ghastly companion well: the jaws that bite, the claws that catch...
“Wocky!” I said. “Don’t scare me like that.” I turned in his hold, facing the beast. I offered him a childish pout. “I thought you wanted to get out of this place. It’s boring here. We really ought to go.”
Startled, he pulled back a little, staring down at my face, his bald head vulturine, jutting on a long, bent neck. He sniffed for the fear I’d buried deep. His stiff face stretched like a rubber mask as he bared triangular, obsidian teeth, multiple rows that would have made a shark proud. He spoke with a genteel air I thought downright weird, “You imagine you’re vital to such an occurrence?”
“Hah!” I lightly whacked him with the back of my hand, feeling an icy sting as I marveled at my audacity. I remembered a poem about a smiling lady who rode off into the jungle on the back of a tiger. I’d always thought that great fun. In the end, the tiger returned smiling, the lady inside him. Why had I never seen that as a cautionary tale?
I suppressed a shudder, closing the gap between us, hugging him as if it was no big deal. If I onl
y had Lewis Carroll’s vorpal sword to snicker-snack your fool head off … or Michiko’s storm sword... I wished she was here.
“Oh, I brought you something.” I dug into my pocket for a miniature candy bar, still carrying such things out of habit. I held it out to him. It had poisoned a fu dog, maybe...
The demon’s hand twitched free of mine. I could almost smell his curiosity. I tried to cross over as he broke contact. Nothing happened. The demon was still jamming me—I need more distance.
His eyes narrowed in a web of wrinkles that suggested great age. He took the chocolate and dangled it before his eyes. His hand closed into a fist, crushing the chocolate, and opened again. The crushed mess fell at his feet. His head tilted to the side as he caught my stare.
“You’re not afraid I might rip you into bloody chunks and drink your soul?” he asked.
The fate he described was easy to imagine, but I clung to the role of insanely brave air-head, and huffed at his suggestion. “Of course not. No one eats their friends, not even monsters.”
“Friends…?” the word sounded new to him as if he’d not quite worked out its meaning. His hand returned, tracing the outside of my left arm, teasing the orange haze of my aura. His breath continued to sting my eyes. I lowered my head and tears of irritation ran down my face.
“You don’t,” shameless sob, “want to be my friend?”
His hand withdrew. A moment later, he caught my chin and lifted it. His eyes cooled from red embers, becoming black pits, windows to a timeless abyss. “I wouldn’t say that. You’re probably lying, but it amuses me to hold you to your word. You and I are going to be the best of friends.” Impossibly, his grin grew even wider, nearly dissecting his head.
I gasped. Where he’d touched it, my arm burned as though a branding iron had flamed through my hoodie. My body jerked, but he held me fast. The pain receded, but it took a while before I could manage words. “It hurts,” I complained.
His grip loosened.
I sagged into him.
He cradled me in a parody of a lover’s embrace. “I know. You’ve been very brave.”
In place of pain, bone-deep cold crept in. I’d never be warm again.
He dumped me on the floor and stepped back, his one step equaling three of mine.
Finally clear of his inhibiting influence, I should have crossed over immediately, but my first impulse was to see what he’d done to me. The hoodie he’d touched had blackened and rotted, falling away to reveal bare flesh and my sports bra. I craned my head to see my arm. A black squiggle—a rune resembling leaping flames—was seared there. The surrounding skin was puffy, as though venom were seeping into me from the mark.
“As my friend, you must be proud to bear my name. Don’t worry,” he said. “The etching won’t harm you—unless I want it to. It will let me find you again and keep poachers off.”
Sitting back on my heel, I peered up at him, a thousand mental fragments trying to form a single cohesive thought, Poachers?
“My name on your flesh will tell other demons you are mine.”
As if one demon’s not bad enough.
He squatted opposite me, claws dangling off his knees. “You’re being rude.” Inner laughter shaded his tone. His dark bottomless eyes were invitations to drown. “I’ve given you my name. You should tell me yours.”
“Oh, sorry. My name’s Grace.”
He blinked. Once. Twice. Then threw his charred face back and laughed from the gut. Harsh as tearing metal, the sound suggested he was ages out of practice.
I scowled at Wocky, wondering what the hell was so funny about my name.
He mock-wiped a crocodile tear from leathery, desiccated flesh. “Are you my saving Grace, I wonder?” Languidly, he stood, half-turning away as if I were utterly safe from him. I wasn’t deceived—I knew the incredible speed he harbored. Without at least a soccer field between us, I couldn’t relax, and probably not even then.
His once broken, badly healed wings folded from view with brittle clacks and a swish. His black coal eyes heated into red embers. He made a shooing motion with one claw. “Go on. Save us both. If you can.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
BOTTA SECRETA: a secret attack or
Special hidden technique of a school or
Master.
I have to believe I can save us all, or I can’t even try, then where will we be?
I yanked the veil past me, crossing over. The usual tingle shot across my skin as gravity strengthened and gray tones shifted, allowing color back into view.
Teal blue boulder, eyes like lavender lanterns, Tukka still blocked the gate in the fence. He panted, all done in but unwilling to collapse until I was out of danger.
I cast a quick glance at Onyx. He’d become a pool of living darkness that didn’t as much as twitch. I had no idea of how to help him with the mystic charm he’d ingested. Maybe Cassie knew how to help him.
Meanwhile, Fenn had cast away his pride, making a show of how he could barely stand with a twisted ankle. Seeing the blaze in his eyes, I knew he wasn’t done fighting. This was just a ploy to get the miko to count him out. Once she got used to the idea he was helpless, and turned her back on him, I knew Fenn would be on her even if he had to hop to the attack.
Still, he was out of leading the charge, like Onyx and Tukka.
Sanchez and Cassie circled the miko, alternating attacks to confuse her, and divide her attention. With the basket of demon tears at her feet, the miko occupied an area of floor that glowed bright red, an interlocked puzzle of abstract symbols mixed with Japanese Kanji—the written expression of her will. The air over her head glittered red where jewel shards swarmed, waiting for her to direct them. I knew everyone would be better the faster she went down, but I needed a strategy.
Onyx and Fenn had shown that brute force wasn’t the answer. With her barrier now out and running, using the ghost realm to blind-side her wasn’t going to work either. I needed a weapon that could go through her shield.
She gestured and shards from the cloud over her head darted like bees through her barrier, forcing Cassie to twist aside from where she attacked the barrier with a sword of golden light. Neat trick, a light version of my shadow sword. I was going to have to get her to show me that later.
I had a sword of my own, a shadow blade I could wrap with my orange aura. If I could only strengthen its power, maybe I could cut through that shield the way Cassie was trying to. On the other side of the shield from Cassie, Sanchez had a knife in one hand, a .45 in the other. The gun was extended, pointing at the miko’s head. I think Sanchez was about to throw away all hope of stealthily defeating the miko, risking shots that were bound to draw enemy attention.
I slunk around to Sanchez, pushing her gun hand down. She stared at me, an eyebrow lifting.
“I can stop her. Give me your knife.”
Without a word, she flipped the blade in her hand and offered me the hilt.
I nodded my thanks and snatched up the weapon. We parted hastily as demon tears whipped between us, surging past. I ran to the edge of the barrier where Fenn waited, testing the miko’s shield with his claw tips.
There was one trick I knew would work, but afterward, I’d be weak and vulnerable. This was an all or nothing throw of the dice. Fenn turned toward me. I ran into him, causing him to catch me reflexively. I grabbed the back of his head, pulling his lips to mine. His eyes went wide, then closed. Probably startled I’d do this in the middle of a fight, he humored me. Guys are good at that.
I drew my lips away and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
But still I hesitated—until Taliesina fused her will to mine. And we stabbed him in the heart. In the back shadows of my mind, Taliesina’s eyes were moon bright orbs. Interesting, I’ve never killed a friend before!
Fenn’s eyes went extra wide with shock and pain. Questions were shadows in his dimming eyes. I swung him so his back pressed against the mystic barrier. I think I saw understanding in his face, but wasn’t sure because he chose that m
oment to die, not even feeling the bloody knife I thrust into one of his lax hands. I held that hand against his chest and shoved him hard.
Literally dead on his feet, the shield no longer reacted to him as a threat. He went through the barrier, falling backward, flopping down next to the miko. The shards she’d launched had returned to her, thickening the cloud over her head. She paused in their use, looking down at Fenn, then up at me, her eyes brightly curious.
“Demon, is that you inside her?”
Beyond the shield, Tukka’s jaw dropped.
Across the miko’s spell circle, Cassie crouched, staring at me as well, but her narrowed eyes showed calculation. This wasn’t shock or even concern in her face. This was a battle mask.
Sanchez was frozen. Her face did show surprise. Horror, too. But she hadn’t been around when Fenn and Ryan had toppled off a building, fighting over me. The tough mothman had splattered, almost dying. Fenn had died. Then his body had jumpstarted itself, draining my life force for energy to regenerate and come back to life. I was counting on him doing it again.
Or I’d be a murderer.
Sanchez yelled at me. “What the hell did you do?”
Pretty obvious, I thought. Oddly, the outrageousness of my behavior seemed to have stopped the fight cold.
No, Taliesina said, just a lull in the storm.
I’d overlooked Onyx. His little sludgy pool of three-dimensional shadow quivered like a protoplasmic monster in a bad sci-fi film. Next thing I knew, he exploded. Bucketfuls of shadow man were slung about. Dark blobs hit the miko shield appearing to flatten mid-air, and slid down to pool at its base. The slaggy black bubbled and writhed where it touched the edge of the spell circle. I looked back where Onyx had been and saw a white rectangle with kanji on it lying on the concrete.
That was the miko’s charm he’d swallowed. He’d found an interesting way to escape its power, and now the far-flung scattered pieces of himself were seeking each other out, wiggling about with waving tendrils like something found under a rock on an alien world.
Tears and Shadow (kitsune series) Page 21