Coming to my senses, I scrambled away as Onyx landed. Two guys with swords; it’s not safe getting in the middle of that.
Wocky let me get away, grinning at Onyx and the interesting diversion he made. The demon forged a sword of his own, not of shadow, but of bloody light the same color as his beaming eyes. His wings folded against his back, an armored shell.
Guards were running in from the far walls. With the distance they had to cover, I didn’t know if they’d do any good at all. Unlike the guests, they were slowed down by wearing full armor, black of course. It was the predominant motif here.
Red light sword and shadow blade met in a clash that sent red sparks dribbling to the tiles. Onyx collapsed into shadow to let the demon sword ghost through him harmlessly. The prince reformed and slashed, but it was Wocky’s turn to go black-plasma cloud, reforming elsewhere to attack on a surprising vector. There were times I wasn’t sure which black roiling was demon or shadow man. In those transitions, the flashing red sword jagged like lightning, dancing chaotically in the air.
The guards surrounded the two combatants, milling in indecision, unsure how to intervene.
The crowds had settled down to watch the show. Several of the men punched the air as if they, too, were hacking away with swords. Muscular sympathy, everyone loves a good fight.
It occurred to me that no one was watching what I was doing.
Time to haul tail—tails actually—and run! I smiled and pulled my aura inside my skin, sinking into the floor.
THIRTY-NINE
COUP DE GRCE: noun (kü-də-gräs). 1: a deathblow or death shot administered to end the suffering of one mortally wounded. 2: a decisive finishing blow, act, or event
With all but the top of my head submerged in the great hall’s tiled floor, I skimmed along, a bump skating around peoples feet, between them. The worm’s eye-view of the crowd was weird, but so was this whole situation. Fortunately, it was resolved, except for the rather daunting task of escaping an alien dimension where my father had absolute power, and getting home. Wherever home was.
One step at a time, I decided. Let’s find the front door first.
Skeptically, I grazed a woman’s stiletto heeled combat boots—had to be a Goth thing—and kept going. She hopped and shrieked, which set off a flurry of excitement, not the good kind, among the nearby women.
Trailing aura in my wake within the floor, I made good time. I soon broke into the back section of the room, getting behind the crowd. That left me twenty feet to an exit where four guards still held to their post despite the frenzied sword play between Onyx and Wocky. I drew a deep breath and fully submerged into the floor.
Darkness blinded me as I slowly counted inside my head. I never reached ten. On nine, I shot into the open, emerging where a long flight of black marble steps slanted down to a black-glass street. I should have hurried away and hugged all the cover I could find, but I stopped short, unable to resist gawking at monolithic towers that dwarfed anything I’d seen in Dallas or Fort Worth.
Crouching on the stairs, I realized I was burning up my aura to no purpose. I tugged on the local ghost realm veil. It passed over me with a tingle. Gravity settled me more firmly in place. The world’s gray tones seeped color, making the scene even more impressive.
The sky was dusty rose, with violet and blue clouds. Two crescent moons hung near each other, scathing across a city of obsidian glass. The sky was brighter in one spot where either a sun was setting or rising out of sight. From the large number of people on the street, evening seemed more likely. There were cars shooting down the street, but nothing Detroit had ever made. These had fins, spoilers, and hovered inches off the road, moving with soft electric hums. The streetlights and headlights reminded me of halogen lights back home; bright, blue-white, and glaring.
People passing the bottom of the stairs looked up at me and froze.
Oh, yeah, hurry, hurry! The circus is in town! See the three-tailed fox girl. Don’t get too close, people. She bites.
The crowd’s rubber-necking took on a life of its own with ever more people stopping, staring, unwilling to miss something good.
I closed my eyes and prayed for strength, as I felt wet moth wings unfurling from my back, lifting into the air to dry. Just can’t get rid of the things. I felt a mounting pressure to get out of sight. I fluttered my limp wings in distress, despising the new muscle growth that let me work them. New nerves sensitive to the air flow and temperature were telling me things I didn’t want to know. The curiosity was contagious. I opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder at moth wings that were gray and red, with big yellow spots on the upper tips like the glowing eyes of some malevolent creature.
Yeah, because I wasn’t near freaky enough before.
With a sigh, I pushed off the stairs, running down them. The waiting crowd darted out of my way as I bared fangs at them.
The sidewalk was black volcanic glass like everything else. The curbs were rounded to leave no sharp edges. I fell into the usual lope I used when going for distance. People got out of my way as I reached them, passing storefronts and markets, teased by the tantalizing glimpses I got. Something was wrong with my silhouette in the black glass reflections of the buildings. I looked wrong. Different. I looked down at my breasts, noticing they were definitely bigger, another side effect of my moth DNA slipping the leash.
Always a silver lining. Too bad the enhanced bra-size went away when the wings did, a blessing and curse tied together.
I noticed nobody else was wearing leggings, or an open-back hoodie and vest, but I’d be a little less distinctive if I could at least get my human face back.
Hard to concentrate on changing while running though. Gotta get some privacy.
An area opened up on my side, a park that looked like it might have come from my world, looking for me. I turned in, bolting past swings, slides, and what looked like tiny saddled monsters made of plastic, balanced on great springs. Kids were mounted, bouncing in place, swaying forward and back. The children whooped and laughed, their parents off in the distance on benches, cradling drinks in their hands, chatting gaily to one another.
I slowed down, anxious not to draw attention. As it was, a couple of the kids had gone stiff and pale with shock seeing me go by.
I felt a flood of guilt. Yeah, the boogieman is real. It’s me. Now go get some therapy.
I saw a jungle gym, mostly stairs, sliding poles. Climbing bars and a big tunnel filled with shadow. No one seemed to be using it. My fox hearing heard nothing inside. I ducked in, going to the middle where I sat in a half collapse, panting, my tongue lolling out. My wings were between me and the inner wall of the plastic tunnel, as were my tails, adding cushion. From the feel of wind, I knew both ends of the cylinder were open.
I just have to stay here until dark drives everyone away. Meanwhile, maybe I can do something about how I look.
I shut my eyes, trying to relax. I used visualization to imagine myself as I wanted to be, as I used to be before Cassie took me for a makeover and I wound up with metallic red hair falling straight to my waist. I hadn’t seen anyone here with anything other than black hair, but reddish-brown wasn’t as weird as the supernatural dye job the fey beautician had given me.
I felt the muscles of my face realigning. The plastic wall pressed in against my back and butt as other things went away. I wanted a mirror. I made do, looking at my paws, uh hands. They were back again, minus the nail polish I’d once put on. I fingered my nose, chin, and cheeks. I expected my bust to be way flatter as well, but the boobs remained. Cool. I felt my hair. Straight, as if freshly ironed. I pulled a handful of strands close to my eyes. Despite the gloom, I could tell the color was metallic red. Damn, fey magic. I was going to have to go back to the same salon to change my look. Such alterations were beyond my power.
Stirred by a playful wind, red fur, like bloody dandelion fluff, danced around me. Melting away, my tails shed heavily. The waist of my leggings no longer felt tight enough to cut me in half. He
re in the gloom, I could pass for a native.
Which was good, I heard some of them coming my way. They were speaking words I couldn’t understand, rounded sounds like river rock, liquid syllables that made me want to hear more, like music. The mixed timbre told me I was hearing a child and an adult male. I scurried to the other end of the tunnel, dropped out, and moved back into a little clump of trees and shrubbery. Screened by the drooping branches of what looked like a black-painted willow, huddled on the ground, my back to a wall, I wrapped my arms around my knees.
The voices in the park went dead quiet all at once. The silence felt ominous. I had a bad feeling. I rocked forward onto hands and knees and crept up to a bush, peering around its edge. Everyone in the park was heading my way. All eyes were locked on me. Crap!
They stopped ten feet away, a half ring of bodies, adults and children, none of them showing a hint of fear or uneasiness. Freakier yet, they opened their mouths in unison and spoke in Khorde’s voice, a perfect chorus, “Grace, don’t run. I just want to talk to you.”
What, is everyone on this planet just a puppet with his hand inside them?
Wary, I stood and took a step out of cover. “So talk.”
“She was right. Trouble will seek you out, even here. Your destiny’s too strong, woven in the fabric of many worlds.”
Again, this mysterious SHE.
“So, you’re letting me go?” I asked.
The crowd continued to mouth Khorde’s words, “No. I am better able than most to deal with whatever comes, but I need your cooperation. Don’t fight me on this. You’ll just wear us both down, and you’ll still be here in the end.”
A blur hit me from the side. Claws grabbed my hoodie. Ribbed, black wings fluttered, dragging me into the sky.
Below, the crowd shouted, “Grace!”
“I have claimed her,” Wocky screamed. “She bears my mark. She is mine, and no other’s.”
The park became a small patch of green, as we climbed in a spiral, surrounded by black, ridged towers with tinted windows, and balconies. A ziggurat-looking thing with cut-outs had a flat roof with no railing or access door to the inside. Wocky brought me down here, where higher buildings surrounded us like a cage. I had the feeling their backs were turned, and that they were largely unconcerned by my fate.
I hit the roof and rolled to my feet, summoning my sword of fire and shadow. I crouched, balanced on the balls of my feet. I figured he’d be on me by the time I crossed over and got half way through the roof to the lower floor. Better settle this here, where no one else will get hurt.
Wocky’s eyes were dead calm, cold, the red flame swallowed by endless depths of night. He stood relaxed, wings folded, prepared to take his time hurting me. His grin slowly stretched his face. “I told you, I always pay my debts.”
My stare shot past Wocky to the skyscraper behind him. Its silhouette rippled, changing drastically until I could have sworn I was seeing a giant’s back with a small neck, and a hunched forward head.
Wocky said, “I’m supposed to turn around to see what you’re staring at? You’ll stab me, run away, or both. Such an old trick…”
The building turned, showing me my father’s monumental face, a thing of pure obsidian glass. He spoke, “Get away from my daughter.”
Wocky sighed. “Well, now I look stupid.” He turned, lifting his face in the process. He stared. “I didn’t know shadow men could do that.”
I walked up beside him, letting my sword collapse to nothing. “I didn’t either.”
Wocky strengthened his voice, “She’s not yours. She wears my mark. She’s mine.”
I studied my bare arm where the demon mark had been. It hadn’t come back. I looked at Wocky. “What mark?”
He shot me a sideways glare. “It’s on your back now.”
“What!” I grabbed my shoulder and did my best to peer over it, straining my neck. Trying to see, I turned like a fox chasing her tail. “That can’t be right. Those things hurt going on. The only thing I felt was the itching and swelling from the wings growing in.”
Wocky spoke to me out of the side of his mouth. “They hurt going on because that’s the way I like it. That isn’t a hard and fast rule.”
“You son of a bitch!”
“That’s not technically accurate. As a created being, I wasn’t born. I have no parents. Look, just take my word on it. The mark is there, and it’s not coming off unless I want it off. That means I can fill your nights with nightmares, your days with sufferings to pale all you’ve ever felt. Do you need proof?”
I held up both hands, patting the air between us. “No, no, that’s not necessary.” I remembered vividly the last time he’d awakened the brand. One taste of that was enough.
Wocky addressed Khorde, “You can keep her here, but her life is mine to claim when I want. I don’t even have to be here to do it. To free her, you have to kill me. She just about managed it. I don’t think you’ll be so lucky. I’m not going to let you pin me on a shadow sword again. I’ll go intangible and stay that way so long as you’re anywhere close.”
The building clenched an obsidian fist. I thought for a second Khorde was going to pound Wocky through our building, bringing the whole thing down in a shower of fractured glass—me included—but he restrained himself. After a brief silence, he unfurled his fingers and let his hand swing back to his side. The weight of defeat slumped his shoulders. His voice boomed, “So tell me what you want?”
“I want her.” The demon pointed at me. “I want her to fulfill her darkest destiny at my side. She needs the storm to grow, violence to hone her edges. She won’t be challenged under your heavy-handed protection.” Wocky walked to the lip of the building. “I am willing to remove my mark, and release her—if you let her go as well.”
I said, “What? You’re on my side now?”
He turned back to me.
“I know what sleeps inside you, so I have always been on your side, even when you had me a breath away from true death. No one else would’ve thought twice about leaving me to die. No one else, having thought twice, would have gone on to save such a thing as me. That was really stupid, by the way.” He growled that last at me, but there was no actual menace in the sound. In fact, his eyes glittered with something that could almost have been affection. He said, “Why are you surprised I’d fight for you? I owe you my life, and I always pay my debts.’”
EPILOGUE
I was back on Earth, outside its ghost realm. Fenn stood some distance away, on the autumn-killed grass by the pool. The deer-scare had been broken and tossed away. The pool no longer filled.
Khorde was on both sides of the veil between worlds. How that was possible, I didn’t know. I watched him talking to an unseen presence: Cassie. She’d welcomed my return, and sent me on to Fenn while she had words with Khorde. It would take a while, but I figured she and Khorde would eventually work things out.
I was so sleep deprived, I’d moved beyond fatigue to a sort of euphoric punch-drunk state. I wanted at least ten hours of sleep. I doubted that would happen, as a swarm of men in baggy yellow suits approached. They had air-tight hoods with plastic face guards built in. They carried air tanks strapped to their backs, hurrying toward us.
One of the men spoke from inside his suit, his voice electronically amplified, “Come this way. We’ve got to start treatment and get blood samples right away.”
Some of the yellow suits went to Khorde, who clearly looked delusional. They spoke to him, but he ignored them. From the way he was waving his hands around, I knew his discussion with Cassie was getting passionate, and probably very personal. I didn’t know if that was a good thing, or simply inevitable.
The yellow-suit by me was tugging now. “This way, we have a decon shower waiting for you.”
The thought of them taking samples was funny. Nothing about my blood was human. Yep, monster blood had probably saved my life. Later, I’d be happy about that. Right now… My hands were shaking with reaction. Too much adrenaline in my syste
m, for too long. I was crashing big time, needing sugar... needing a lot of things.
As Fenn closed the distance between us, his eyes radiated warmth and welcome, but it wasn’t him I was thinking of. Concern jolted through me. “Shaun! Is he all right?”
Fenn gripped my arm like a vise. His voice turned snarly. “That guy again? What do you see in him?”
Rather than answer, I let the yellow-suits drag me off. Fenn was a friend, a hot friend, but the heart is an unruly beast that wants what it wants. Sort of like my new cat. I can’t make him love me, no matter what do. Love might come in time, or not. His heart has to find its way, as I have to find my own. I won’t apologize for that. Not to Fenn, not to anyone. If Fenn doesn’t like it—or Onyx, wherever the hell he is—they can kiss my ever-loving … tail?
Damn.
It spilled out of the back of my pants, bright red, tipped with white, whisking briskly in the wind like one of those medieval banners armies carried to war. I finally accepted it; I wasn’t human, and I wasn’t going to do a lot of fitting in. A spooky new world had opened up and swallowed me whole, as Khorde had done.
I thought of the sheathed katana in my closet, back at the HPI compound. Resolve hardened within my heart; whether he wanted to or not, Shaun was going to teach me to use my sword. Crossing blades with Wocky had shown me the difference between knowledge and experience. Next time trouble found me, my life might depend on having closed that gap.
Fenn caught up to me as we came in sight of the temple. “What is it?” he asked. “You’ve decided I can die for you, but I’m not good enough for a foxy shadow princess?”
I whined at him, “Don’t make me kick your ass, Fenn. I’m too tired.”
“Hey,” he said, “your little baby moth wings are back. Cute.”
“Like hell,” I snarled. “You want them, you can have them. I’ll get them surgically removed.”
Tears and Shadow (kitsune series) Page 29