Chivalry put one hand on my shoulder, patting me soothingly. “She’s right, Fort,” he said. I still hesitated, but his hand moved to the back of my neck, not pushing but just gently guiding me forward. I gave in then, and I dropped my head willingly and drank. My mother’s blood was thick, and I had to suck hard to get it into my mouth, where it seemed to sizzle on my tongue, and I shuddered as I felt the path of each drop down my throat and into my body. I was dimly aware of Chivalry removing his hand, but then the rush and excitement of my mother’s blood, hinting at strength I couldn’t even dream of, washed over me and the rest of the room dimmed, my world tightening around me until all that existed was my mother’s wrist and my own mouth.
Feeding was always like this, but suddenly the memory of pulling Matt, unconscious and bleeding, toward me flashed in my mind, and fear lit my brain back up as I wondered whether that was the future that waited for me on the other side of transition—more than twenty years of a surrogate uncle’s love disappearing in a wave of hunger that wiped away all identity and ties. I pulled my head back sharply, away from Madeline’s wrist. She let me go, as she always had in times like this, but then another hand shot forward, grabbing my hair and forcing me back down to the blood.
It was Prudence’s voice, hard and determined, that said, “None of that squeamishness, baby brother. This task does not call for weakness.”
I pushed back, trying to get away, but she was older and stronger than I was, and neither Madeline nor Chivalry spoke or interfered with what she was doing. I was unable to resist the blood when it was right at my mouth and I continued to drink, long after I would normally have stopped, Prudence’s hand remaining, inescapable, determined that I would drink to her satisfaction. I was completely full when Prudence’s hand finally relaxed and let me up. It took me a few blinks to adjust to the room again, and I felt shaky, both from nerves and the rush of energy and excitement that bubbled up inside me.
The blood that remained at the surface of Madeline’s wrist sank back inside her, and the cut tied itself together as I watched. But as she pushed her sleeve back down I noticed that she was shaking and somehow seemed smaller, weaker, diminished even, her face almost gray as she seemed to crumple up inside, looking suddenly as tiny and harmless as a truly human old woman. Chivalry reached past me, stretching out one hand to steady her, but in a sudden flash the old woman was gone and Madeline whipped her head around, those lips drawn back to reveal her fangs in a clear threat, her blue eyes bright enough to cast their own glow in the room. Chivalry’s hand froze, then wrapped quickly around my shoulder instead, giving me one small tug toward him, away from my mother. Then she blinked and the glow was gone and her mouth relaxed, once again hiding what she was.
I was stunned and confused. “Mother? Are you . . . okay?” It felt strange asking the question or even letting it flicker my mind as a serious consideration. She was infinitely more powerful than I was, had spent centuries reigning as the dominant power on the entire Eastern seaboard, but I found myself asking it anyway.
Madeline pulled herself upright and waved one hand like a grumpy senior. “Go, Fortitude. Bring me back the true head of the skinwalker.” Despite the tremors still running through her, she gave a very hard, extremely bloodthirsty smile that left no doubt in anyone’s mind who we were dealing with. “I have a space on my wall that needs a change in décor.”
I felt oddly reassured by that statement and got up with Chivalry, allowing him to herd me out of the room and back to the main foyer, Prudence close at our heels. When we stood at the front door, Chivalry cut a hard look at Prudence, even as he started talking to me. “Call me if you need anything, Fort.”
Prudence smiled at him, her fangs still out. He met her gaze for a long minute, glancing away just before it would’ve been long enough to be considered a challenge. She was a century older than he was, a vampire just coming into her prime, far stronger than him. Chivalry backed up slowly, then headed up the stairs to his room, probably to change clothes before returning to the hospital. He glanced backward just once, to give me a significant glance, then turned the corner and was gone.
Prudence gave me a wholly nonreassuring smile and linked her arm companionably with mine, tugging me along until we were strolling together out into the parking area where the cars waited. I didn’t like touching her, and I could feel my skin crawling at her proximity, but I forced myself not to comment. Too much was riding on my ability to control this potentially explosive situation and my sister’s actions, with far too much at stake to pull my arm away like I desperately wanted to. We finally reached the cars, the Fiesta looking even scruffier than usual in its spot between Chivalry’s Bentley and Prudence’s gleaming new Lexus.
Having my sister as my backup, with me in charge, was not something I’d ever expected to happen, and it was already itching at me. “So, what are we going to do?” I asked her. “Storm Underhill?”
Prudence turned to face me, shaking her head slightly. “Underhill is older magic, brother. Not even our mother could enter and find her way out again without the permission of the elves. Its entrance may lie in our territory, but it is a hole no sane person would enter.” She gave me a cool smile. “No, we don’t go to the powerful ones. We’ll hunt sideways, toward their mixed-blood scions. Find me one of those involved in this business and I’ll shake out all the information you could desire.” The gleam in her eyes left no doubt as to how she would “shake out” that information. Prudence took great pleasure in being the bogeyman Madeline used to keep the races that lived in the territory toeing her line.
Prudence continued. “I will need to gather some belongings and find suitable lodging in the city. You will need to rest.” She reached out one long, perfectly manicured finger to touch my cheek. I flinched automatically, but the expected sharp pain failed to materialize, replaced instead with just the dull sensitivity of a week-old bruise. Her smile widened at my surprise. “You should never refuse Mother’s gifts, brother. That will be gone by tomorrow, and you can renew your investigations.” With her free hand she reached into her small clutch purse and removed a business card, which she handed to me. “Call me when you have determined your next step or if you need me to do something.” Her voice turned serious. “Do not hesitate on this, Fortitude. You’ve done well so far, but a skinwalker is nothing to toy with. They were not exiled simply because of their poor table manners—they are dangerous. Even to us, if we are not on our guard. Especially for you, so vulnerable still in body and mind.”
It was like talking to a body snatcher, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Why are you doing this, Prudence?” I asked suspiciously.
She lifted one carefully tweezed eyebrow and smiled coyly. “Doing what?”
“You know what.” Her finger was still resting against my face, and I pushed her hand away, not hard, but firmly. “We don’t like each other. Your birthday was ruined this year when Luca didn’t kill me like you’d hoped. Now you’re offering to help me out? What’s in this for you?”
The coy smile widened, became as close to genuine as I’d ever seen on her face when my life wasn’t in danger. “You’ve grown up since I last saw you, little brother.” She pressed both hands against my face, holding them there with just enough firmness that I knew I wouldn’t be able to dislodge them. “Things are changing. You are changing.” She leaned in, her perfume swirling around me, and I couldn’t suppress my shudder as she whispered, “I am curious.” Then she let me go and walked over to her car, pausing just as she reached down to open the driver’s-side door. She smiled again. “I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Prudence?”
“Yes, little brother?”
“What was wrong with Mother? Is she . . . sick?”
She gave me a long, considering look, the bright moonlight darkening her hair until she seemed constructed entirely of black and white. When she answered, Prudence’s voice was gentler than I’d e
ver heard it before. “She’s old, Fortitude. For all her power, all her strength, even for her there is only one path that age will lead to.” She shook one admonishing finger. “Don’t forget to call, or I’ll have to track you down.” Then she got into her car and drove away.
Chapter 7
I pulled into Suzume’s driveway at just before one in the morning. My phone battery had died while I was in the mansion, and I braced myself for what I might find inside. If Matt remembered, then I was going to have to convince him to keep his mouth shut. I had no idea how that could happen.
I knocked, and Suze let me in. Her eyes went immediately to my face, and she raised her eyebrows. “Looking a lot better, Fort,” she said, and I could hear the speculation in her voice. I’d glanced in the vanity mirror a few times on my drive up, amazed at the way my injuries had healed almost fast enough to see.
I definitely didn’t want to talk about it, though, and I said, “I could say the same about you,” while looking significantly at her chest. She’d changed shirts, into a soft gray flannel men’s button-up that I guessed she’d liberated at some point from a boyfriend. The top few buttons were undone, revealing part of the cuts she’d received in the fight with the skinwalker. She must’ve found a quiet moment to shift forms at some point because the cuts no longer looked fresh and angry, but were heavily scabbed over and almost faded. The kitsune were able to heal injuries quickly in their natural form—unlike the were-creatures, which were people who could take an animal form, the kitsune were foxes who could take a human form.
Suze apparently decided to shelve the rest of her questions about my fast healing, though from the glance she gave me I knew that line of inquiry was only postponed, not forgotten, and waved me inside. Keiko was sitting inside on the sofa, and she curled her lip in clear disgust as I walked in.
I kept my mind on priorities. “How’s Matt?”
“He’s okay,” Suze said reassuringly. “He woke up on the drive here. Definitely wasn’t feeling good, but apparently he’s got a head like a cement brick. We tucked him into Keiko’s bed.”
Which explained Keiko’s bad attitude. “Should he be sleeping?” I asked. “He was knocked out for a while. He might have a concussion.”
“It’s fine. The doctor checked him out. He’s sitting in there with him now, giving him one last once-over.”
“Doctor?”
“Oh yeah.” Suzume shot a frosty glare at her twin. “Keiko’s boyfriend. The one she said she broke up with two months ago.”
Keiko’s expression was equally chilly. “You were happy enough to use him to check out the human.”
“It shouldn’t have been an option,” Suze said.
There was a lot of tension between the sisters, enough to make me regret that I couldn’t just make an excuse and hide out in the bathroom while they snapped at each other passive-aggressively. This was far too reminiscent of Thanksgiving dinner with my family. But I needed answers about Matt, so I stepped closer to Suze, wincing as that placed me directly in the path of those very intense stares. “What does he remember?” I asked her.
Momentarily distracted from her familial gripe, Suze answered me. “We got lucky. He remembers seeing something weird about Soli, but he thinks that the head knock messed with his memory.” And the topic having been raised again, she took a small step to the left to be able to give Keiko her undivided glare. “Keiko’s doctor agreed.”
“He has a name, Suze,” Keiko said, shifting her weight as she sat in a way that reminded me uncomfortably of what Suze looked like in her fox form right before she sprang.
“I have no intention of learning it.”
Frustrated, I cut in. “Seriously, ladies? Pretend I’m company.” Now I was the focus for both of them, but their expressions were simmering with hot temper. I could deal with that better than an icy sibling battle. I asked Suze, “Where’s Lilah?”
“She called a cab once Keiko got here. Said that she wanted to see what she could dig up at work tomorrow, and needed to make sure that no one suspected she’d had a long night.” Suze turned to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of Moxie soda and pouring a glass for me without being asked. I winced a little at the sight of it, but took the glass without a fuss. Moxie was a New England concoction whose taste was like the distilled essence of old ladies, mothballs, and cats. But while I was glad that playing hostess gave Suze something to do other than bait Keiko, there was a weird undercurrent to her voice when she talked about Lilah, one I wasn’t sure I could identify.
When in doubt, ask. “What’s wrong? Did you change your mind about trusting Lilah?”
She pushed the glass into my hand and gave me a considering look. “No, she’s being honest with us about her motives,” Suze said slowly. “And if the elves are breaking Madeline’s laws, then it’s in her own best interest to help us figure out who the ringleaders are so that when the Scott retribution comes, which it certainly will, only the guilty get torn to shreds.” She shifted the subject quickly and sounded much more normal. “And speaking of bloody carnage, tell me what happened when you filled your family in.”
I nodded toward the closed door that led to Keiko’s room. “Aren’t you worried about them . . . ?”
Suze gave me a small, smug little smile, the kind she always seemed to wear when she was doing something particularly foxy. Something dangerous swam briefly through her dark eyes, reminding me again of what she was. “Keiko and I are taking care of it. Neither of them will hear anything other than what they’d expect—women’s voices, the coffee grinder, things like that. If either gets the urge to leave the room, those voices will suddenly get into a very loud fight, enough to convince any sane man to sit tight a little longer.”
Suzume had told me many times that fox magic was always as its strongest when it worked with someone’s expectations—like a magical form of jujitsu, using an opponent’s weight against them. Given the way the sisters were interacting, it was no great leap to expect a full-on screaming match to break out at any moment.
I summarized the trip for them. Hearing that Prudence was coming to the city to serve as my backup, both women paled visibly and glanced seriously at each other. When I’d finished, both were quiet for a moment, clearly weighing how the situation had just changed. Suzume spoke first. “I can call my grandmother, ask her to send over some of my cousins to help out.” There was a grim satisfaction in her voice. “Let’s see that bitch think she’s so tough when she’s facing us with a backup of four foxes.”
Keiko cut in. “Four foxes?”
“Takara and Hoshi can handle themselves, and Rei is always up for a fight. I don’t know what Mio’s schedule is, but she could probably clear some space.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?” Keiko got off the sofa and walked around the kitchen island, which up until now had apparently been serving as some kind of demilitarized zone.
“A skinwalker is in the territory, something dire enough that Fort has been given Prudence’s leash. This doesn’t sound like we should be prepared for something big?”
Keiko looked straight at me, and I realized that her attitude toward me was more than just the general dislike that I’d assumed; she didn’t trust me. “Now isn’t the time to be reminding the vampires of our numbers. You’re letting your”—and here her lip curled in disgust—“friendship blind you. Unless Madeline Scott makes a formal request to the White Fox, the kitsune have no part in this conflict.” She addressed me. “You were just in your mother’s company. Did she mention wanting our help?”
I paused, running through the conversation again in my head, then admitted, “No.”
Keiko was watching me carefully, and there was a slyness in her voice when she asked, “But someone mentioned the kitsune, and not positively, didn’t they? Who?”
I glanced at Suze, but she was focused on her sister. Looking back at Keiko, I said, reluctantly, “Prudence
did. But it was just a side comment.”
“About . . . ?” Keiko forced the issue.
“She said that . . . the kitsune numbers were increasing.” Neither looked surprised, and I felt a moment of relief. “But that’s no secret.” Then I glanced again at Suze. I knew her well enough to read the look on her face, and I realized that something much more was at play. “Tell me what she meant.”
She thought about not telling me. I could see from her eyes that a few months, weeks, maybe even days ago she would’ve made a joke and changed the subject. But then she made a decision, and it was clear that Keiko didn’t like it.
“When the kitsune first came to the Scott territory,” Suze said, “it was only Atsuko. A generation ago, it was Atsuko and her four daughters. Now those four daughters have produced twenty granddaughters, all in our prime, and my cousins are at an age to start having families. There are three great-granddaughters already, bringing the total today to twenty-seven foxes, and the floodgates are just opening. We’re stronger than we were when Atsuko negotiated her treaty with Madeline. To a suspicious mind like Prudence’s, I can see how that would be threatening.” She paused, then said with emphasis, “Vampires might be the apex predator in this territory, Fort, but numbers matter as well.”
Keiko elbowed past me to get close enough to talk directly at Suzume, cutting me out of the conversation. “Which is exactly why we need to be careful, Suze. A succession is coming, and we need to stay neutral to ride it out.”
I felt a pang. This was what Madeline’s weakness had meant, as well as Prudence’s comment. The kitsune and everyone else knew that my mother was coming to the end of her life—everyone except me, that is. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. We disagreed over so many things. She had both protected me and sanctioned the deaths of my foster parents. But she was my mother—constantly watching me, caring for me, assessing me, killing for me. It was like loving an old, old crocodile that still occasionally ate people.
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