Thunderbird’s dream; the living kernel of Thunderbird’s story of itself.
Burn, little kernel.
I reached again, coaxing the kernel to life. With each gasping, rib-cracking breath torn from my body the flame burned brighter. Every cell in my body wept from strain, but, finally, the dream burned hotter than Thunderbird’s sun, pouring heat and energy into every individual cell in my body, filling me with exultant, molten strength.
An eagle’s piercing scream came from overhead, shattering the endless blue into jagged edged puzzle pieces that tumbled away, revealing white colonnades against a sky heavy with swollen stratus. Portland drizzle settled on my face. Lovely, wonderful clouds. Delicious drizzle.
“What has she done?” Kwaskwi shouted.
“She’s Baku,” Ken said.
Only an instant of ecstasy, then the blowback kicked in. A flaring heat journeyed up each vertebra in my spine to the back of my neck. An ever-expanding, rhythmic pulse filled my hindbrain. Burning rings radiated out from the base of my neck through my skull, a constant pressure cooking bone. Spikes pierced my temples on either side. My lungs wrung out a gasping sob. A sour taste on my tongue like Dad’s fermented natto beans. I’d done it. I’d eaten Thunderbird’s waking dream and broken its hold over me. Now I was brimming with Thunderbird’s harrowing, golden essence.
Death-magic.
Ankeny Square, fuzzy from rain, appeared in full color. Blue jays coated the arched colonnade across the street. Cloudy water cascaded from the granite base of Skidmore Fountain into the pool, the only movement in the square.
Ken faced off with Kwaskwi and a Ducks guy. The men leaned slightly forward, as if fighting to stay upright in gale force wind, the tang of pent-up violence stinging the air.
Distant thunder rumbled.
More energy flowed upward from my belly into my splitting head. I blinked away tears, giving myself a little shake and tottered to my feet. Ankeny Square promptly tilted on one axis, colors threatening to spin like a sodden kaleidoscope.
“Back off,” I croaked, stumbling forward. I reached under Ken’s outspread arm to tap the Ducks guy on his green chest.
The guy went flying, smacking across the Outback’s windshield with a meaty thump.
Ken whirled. “Koi!”
Smacking the Ducks guy had released a smidgen of the molten pressure doing its best to crack my skull. I pressed the heel of my palms to my temples. Think. Think. What should I do? Urgency kept my thoughts from settling anywhere useful.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Are you okay?”
“Just ducky,” I said, and took a step toward Kwaskwi.
“Whoa there.” He held both hands out in front of him. “Stand down.”
Every bone felt impossibly heavy, dragging down my flesh, aching and pulsing to the same beat pounding at my brain. My eyeballs burned in their sockets. “Where. Is. Dad?”
Ken stabbed his chin in the direction of the MAX stop. “He’s under the awning, out of the rain.”
“I delivered him safe and sound,” said Kwaskwi. “I fulfilled our bargain.”
For a moment, the air around me flared golden, burning inside my lungs like I’d swallowed a fistful of Dad’s freshly grated wasabi.
Far off, the thin wail of a siren cut through the thick, damp air. Kwaskwi stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The corner of his mouth quirked up.
“No worthy token was offered in exchange for my generous care of Herai Akihito,” Kwaskwi continued. He drew a small item from his pocket and held it in a weathered palm.
My pinkie ring.
He flipped it, overly casual, into the fountain.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Ken said to the still-groaning Ducks guy uncurling himself from the Outback’s hood. His compatriot made as if to slip out from behind the driver’s wheel, but thought better of it after a glare from Ken.
“Not exactly safe and sound,” I ground out through clenched teeth. It took all my strength not to give Kwaskwi one of my little taps.
“Do you name me oath-breaker?” Kwaskwi drew himself up. Those huge front teeth flashed, and from the high arches of the square’s whitewashed colonnades came the angry squawks of jays.
“You did something to him,” I said. “He is locked in Thunderbird’s dream.”
“He is Baku,” said Kwaskwi, with a lazy smile. “Just like you.”
“This isn’t natural, I—” A burning sensation ripped through me, cutting off my words. The world turned hazy, pivoting on the axis of Kwaskwi’s grin.
Shafts of sunlight spiked through the square’s gray stones, punishingly hot.
“What did you do?” I ground out. Sapphire and gold bled up through the stones, down from the sky, spreading in pools. The top of Skidmore Fountain reflected the blinding light of a summer sun Portland wouldn’t see for months.
Thunderbird’s dream seized me again with a taloned grip. The kernel burned and burned and burned, and still my shoulders ached with the remembered strain of flight…
It was too much. Too much to contain in the vulnerable flesh and bone cage of my body.
I would explode.
Ken put a firm hand to the small of my back, keeping me upright. Warmth from his hand penetrated the sodden layer of my hoodie. Along with the pressure, came a forest-cool strength, reinforcing fragile boundaries just enough to keep breathing through the pain.
“We are not backwoods savages,” said Kwaskwi. “Your Council’s purist dogma is outdated. Now, Bringer, you can give them eyewitness testimony we are not weak. We spit on their rules about how to live with humans.”
“You can be sure I will tell the Council of this,” said Ken.
Sirens pierced the air, only moments away now, and Ullikemi’s spice-thick scent became a choking miasma.
I needed to get to Dad. Then get us as far away from Kwaskwi and Thunderbird as possible.
“Take me to Dad,” I said to Ken.
“Slam, bam, thank you Ma’am.” said Kwaskwi. “I feel so used. Don’t you want to stay for the showdown?”
“Showdown?”
Kwaskwi swiveled, launching himself into the Outback just as a police car screeched to a halt under the colonnades.
“Thunderbird gave your father his deepest dreams. Thunderbird’s name will do Ullikemi no good when the two of you burn with his essence.”
The door slammed shut on his wide grin. Through the open window Kwaskwi waved a lazy hand. “Bye bye, little carp. Good luck with the dragon.” The Outback pulled away.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And I’d worried eating Thunderbird’s dream would cause him harm.
More doors slammed. Ken’s hand tensed into a fist again on my shoulder blades.
“Police,” he said. “Can you walk?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Things are going all blurry again…”
Rain pounded us, a sudden downpour redolent with spice and salt. Ken made a frustrated sound. The fist at my back slid around my shoulders, and he picked me up like a sleepy child, cradling me to his chest.
“Sir.” A male voice from the other side of the square. “Portland Police, we need to have a word with you.”
Ken ran for the awning.
“Please halt!”
We reached Dad’s slumped form, propped against the Mercy Corps building’s brick wall. I slid down Ken’s body, landing on wobbly feet.
“The police will—”
“Trust me,” he said, darkness bleeding from pupil into white, planes of his face shifting.
Showing me his true face.
I dropped down to squat next to Dad. His mouth was slack, drool gathered at one corner, but his eyes were open wide, staring and sightless.
Not sightless. Consumed by brilliant gold and ocean blue, flying with Thunderbird.
A trance that could so easily claim me, too.
Hold it together.
Dad’s face went blu
rry. I blinked. He, no, she had long, blonde hair tied back into a ponytail and a china-pale face with eyes as blue as the awning above our heads.
What the hell?
I glanced at Ken and almost burst out laughing. He’d changed his true face to a younger, male version of the woman. Kitsune illusion.
“Sir?” said the policeman, arriving out of breath. “Didn’t you hear me? I asked you to halt.”
“Sorry, dude,” said Ken in a California surfer boy voice. “Had to get out of the rain.”
The policeman had apple-cheeks covered in a lush, red beard. He should have been wearing flannel and making bio-fuel on his organic farm rather than chasing suspicious men downtown.
“It’s always better to cooperate with the authorities.”
“What can I do for you?”
Officer Bio-fuel stared at the illusion covering Dad. “We’re looking for a Japanese male, possibly suffering from dementia, reportedly being held against his will.”
Ken shrugged, his arms spread open. “Haven’t seen anyone like that.”
“Ma’am are you okay?” Officer Bio-Fuel said to Dad. When he received no reply, the policeman turned to me. Did Ken have illusion covering me as well? “Ma’am,” he said, moving to block Ken. “Is this man causing you some kind of trouble?”
“No, no trouble,” I stammered.
“Can you explain why your friend was carrying you?” He gestured toward Dad. “And what’s wrong with this lady?”
“No, it’s okay. I mean, we’re fine. I just twisted my ankle a bit. We’re going home.”
“Have you been drinking?” he said.
“No, uh, my friend just suffers from narcolepsy.”
Ken arched an eyebrow at me.
I continued my rambling. “We didn’t even drive here, so it’s not like you have to worry about a DUI…”
Officer Bio-Fuel began unhooking his radio.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, trying to stand when an overwhelming tang of spice followed by the sharp sting of salt flooded my nose.
“No, sir,” said a new voice. “It really won’t be necessary.” Hayk walked around the corner of the building, his eyes glowing emerald-green, his voice redolent with eerie harmonics and Ullikemi’s restless, lashing energy. “An instance of total surprise that freezes you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Officer Bio-Fuel’s eyes went wide with shock. The illusion covering Dad and Ken rippled, and then winked out of existence.
“A pleasant surprise meeting you here,” said Hayk…or Ullikemi.
Ken twitched, his face feral, his body in the long, lithe, muscled form I’d come to think of as attack mode.
Pins and needles blitzed my skin as Thunderbird’s energy fizzed and popped in my veins, fighting Ullikemi’s cold magic.
“Let’s take care of boy in blue here first.” Hayk pushed at Officer Bio-Fuel, sending him on a stumbling journey back across the square to the police car. He wrestled the policeman into the front seat and slammed the door.
I reached for the kernel still burning merrily in my belly, opening up to Thunderbird’s golden energy. I wasn’t helpless. Hayk’s power was borrowed from Ullikemi. I would borrow Thunderbird’s to fight it.
The cold sloughed away.
“What are you doing?” Ken gasped through clenched teeth. “Your eyes are all golden.”
Veins racing with Thunderbird’s power, I strained some more, welcoming the fire.
Hayk jogged back under the awning, eyes glowing green. He bent over Dad and put a hand on his forehead, and then fingers on his wrist.
His back was turned—this was my chance. Achingly slow, I got to my feet, knees creaking. Ken’s closest bare skin was a thin stripe of olive between hairline and hoodie. I reached, my fingers pushing through the damp air as slowly as a wooden knife through sticky mochi cake.
The connection engaged with a quick flash of damp cypress needles and kinako scent.
Ken’s fragment.
He groaned, tensing under my fingertips.
I’d broken Hayk’s freeze magic before, but back at the arboretum Ken had radiated heat like Dad’s imported kotatsu heater—this time, fueled by Thunderbird’s dreaming, it was me burning up from the inside. Seconds passed. A bead of sweat trickled down the nape of my neck.
Why isn’t it working? I let Thunderbird’s kernel flare hot again and tried pushing heat into Ken, straining every muscle in a precarious balance like I was on tippy toes over an open campfire.
Ken groaned again.
Where my fingers touched his neck, the skin turned bright red like sunburn.
I was hurting him. My stomach clenched. Dangerous to play around with Thunderbird filling me to bursting, but there was Hayk, touching Dad, and I needed Ken’s help. Pain spiked my head.
“Ken,” I said, molasses mouth forming the word with slow syllables. “Let me dream you.”
The tension in his neck released with a long moan. Like a burst damn, Ken’s dreaming poured in; mist-laced hinoki cypress, the clean, musty scent of damp moss, and the seductive urge to run on muscled, strong legs…
Stronger, more real than anything I’d ever felt before, it pulled me out of Ankeny Square, away from the pain. I was the dream. Me, Fujiwara Kennosuke, in my heart of hearts. At home in this wild, pure place.
Among the trees, a shadow. A slender, small form, dwarfed by the cypress, yet draped in the coruscated lattice of their branches. Closer, and the features resolved into long, dark hair, eyes with a hint of epicanthic fold, and a stubborn jaw. An unsoiled determination, a strength that drew me to the figure as surely as a moth to flame.
A woman.
Koi.
Me?
The vision broke, tumbling me back into myself. My hand still gripped his neck in a stranglehold, but now that storm-brewing electricity sparked between us.
Ken yelled. His body seized up like an epileptic, and then released. Hands braced on the brick wall kept him upright.
A twist of fear spiked through my first flash of triumph.
Hayk’s eyes flared emerald green. “What are you doing, Ms. Pierce?”
“Leave now, Hayk,” Ken gasped. “And maybe you’ll survive this.”
At Hayk’s feet, Dad opened his eyes. Thunderbird’s blue-ringed golden iris glowed in his familiar, weather-tanned face.
Wrong. Like a gut punch.
“Ullikemi and I have plans for you,” said Hayk. He palmed the silver knife, still stained with blood, from a sheath at his belt. “This would have been cozier in my office, but her blood spilled here will still give me enough power.”
Dad sat up. His face going from slack to sharp in a heartbeat. “We fly the sun’s golden pathways,” he said in English, the harmonic undertones raising goose pimples along my back and arms. Fear twisted my gut again.
This wasn’t Dad. It was Thunderbird, riding Dad just like Ullikemi rode Hayk. This is why Thunderbird had tried to lure me into taking a fragment the first time we met. Was this Kwaskwi’s plan? To ride me? Use me to power his magics? Use me to kill?
A shiver ran down my spine, then another. They morphed into certified tremors, my molars grinding. A rumble sounded. Not thunder, not from above, but a deep vibration I felt through the soles of my feet.
The great hunks of limestone that paved Ankeny Square were shaking. Ken jerked his hand away from the brick wall as a fine shower of mortar dusted down around us.
“Akihito, shikari shite,” said Ken. Hold it together.
Dad? Was this what an overburdened Baku could do? Shake stone?
Thunderbird’s kernel of dreaming flared in my belly. The burning spreading up through my chest, packed itself into the tips of my fingers.
My bones kindled into a boiling ache. Too much energy and no place for it to go. My heart beat an erratic, mad tattoo within my breast, and every cell in my body throbbed.
Hayk jerked forward. Ken lunged to stop him, but the lingering eff
ects of Hayk’s freezing magic made him slow and awkward. Hayk’s knife sliced through my hoodie at the neck, drawing a burning line of pain across my collarbone.
“Pardon my forwardness, I find I am impatient,” he said, gripping my elbow while a red stain seeped down my chest.
He jerked me close. “Can you feel that? More power than I imagined.” He swiveled, the knife at my throat. “Stay right there,” he said to Ken. “I have two Baku to play with now, but I really only need one.”
Ken fell back a few steps, hands raised in the air.
“A memory you knew but you have since forgotten—” Hayk said. Eerie harmonics rent the air, spiking through my brain.
Images flashed through my mind—bursting through the sandstone rotunda of City Hall to find Dad crumpled inside the mayor’s office—Kwaskwi facing off against the mayor, refusing to give up Thunderbird—the mayor ordering Officer Bio-Fuel back to his squad car—Mayor Hayk.
Inside my belly, something burned fierce, hot. The mayor’s office turned ghostly, superimposed over an open door in the basement of PCC. I shook my head, confused. Hayk’s magic was messing with reality.
Hayk let the knife clatter on the stones and ran the back of his hand through my blood, a rough caress.
“Don’t touch her,” said Ken. “Not even the Mayor of Portland can…” his words trailed away, confusion on his face.
Mayor? Hayk is mayor?
No. That was the magic.
“Yes,” said Hayk, triumph in his voice, “the Mayor of Portland can.”
“No,” I said, Thunderbird’s kernel burning the strange images away. Is that what Hayk wanted? Is that why he bound himself to Ullikemi?
“Just a little cut, and even the Kitsune is affected,” said Hayk. “Maybe I won’t need to take all your blood after all.”
The Mercy Corps building groaned, and mortar dust showered down. An awning pole shrieked, coming loose from its concrete base. A swath of heavy, green canvas thumped to the ground.
“You will not use her,” said Dad, harmonics echoing in his voice.
Hayk laughed. “You think to stop me? An instance of total surprise,” he intoned.
But his words were strangled by a cry of pain. Suddenly released, I backed away.
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