I started, forced a smile, and then focused on my man. My Warder, still solemn of eye yet oddly calmer than he’d been when we’d left my house, for simply being out and about in his bonded city seemed to center him. “You’re the Warder,” I said as cheerfully as I could. On impulse I squeezed his hand and let a bit of my magic roll down into the contact, hoping it would bring me something of what he felt—something of his peace. “I’m just along for the fresh air and your handsome face.”
Warmth bloomed between our joined palms, and for one long, breathless moment I let myself indulge in it, closing my eyes and narrowing my awareness until that prickling brightness took over my blood. Through it, I could sense what Christopher did and the echoes of the life of the city all around us. People were going about their business in the nearby shops and restaurants and in the cars and busses that roared past us on Lake City Way. If I stretched my senses far enough, I could note their presences all along the residential streets only a short walk away. More than that I couldn’t sense. Everything else just blurred together for me, white noise filtered by the green-golden sheen of Christopher’s power. I expected that after practicing blending my magic with his so often. Most of the time the din of so many lives was too much for me, and I had no idea yet how Millicent and Christopher bore it.
But I didn’t expect the burst of energy that exploded like a new sun across my thoughts, standing out with painful brightness against the lesser wash of life energy around it. By pure reflex I scrubbed at my eyes with one hand while still clutching Christopher’s with the other—fruitlessly, for at least in that one instant, that flare of a life left me dazzled and blind.
I had no time to ask Christopher if he’d sensed the same thing. Nor was that even necessary. Even before I’d recovered my senses, he was already moving. Only the grip of his hand kept me following him until my sight came back into focus.
“What in God’s name was that?” I gasped as we hustled along the sidewalk, heading eastward.
“I don’t know,” said Christopher, almost more to himself than me. His expression had sharpened with an intensity I rarely saw in him unless his bouzouki was in his hands, and distinct alarm besides. “Not Sidhe, I can tell that much from here.”
The street we followed grew narrower and more residential a few blocks to the east, and I soon caught glimpses of Lake Washington past the houses and trees ahead of us. Behind me the roar of traffic dulled but never vanished from my hearing, a jarring counterpoint to the peaceful silver of the water. As Christopher ran I kept up easily with him, about which I’d have been proud if I’d had any thought to spare. I was fitter now than I’d been before my faerie blood’s awakening, more agile. And I, not Christopher, spotted the sleek canine shape bounding over the top of a hedge and sprinting across someone’s yard. Living with a kitsune housemate as I did, the shape of the creature was instantly familiar. Its color, however, was not Jake’s flawless snow-white. This kitsune, if in fact that was what I’d seen, was a deep red-tipped brown, like mahogany wreathed in flame.
Its head whipped around as I caught sight of it, and even from several yards away I could glimpse angry yellow eyes. That it saw us I had no doubt, for it bayed angrily and redoubled its speed. As it bounded away I spotted another one, a big brindled gray keeping pace with it, and I cried to Christopher, “What the hell?”
“A hunt,” he told me with a grimace. “And I’ll know what they hunt, as long as it’s on my earth they’re doing it!”
We gave chase of our own then, weaving down alleys and side paths until we made it to the Burke-Gilman Trail down at the very edge of the lake. I pulled ahead of Christopher and made it out onto the trail’s paved stretch first, but not until he caught up with me did I know where to head next: north, towards where the alien scent of the fox creatures and the jab of unfamiliar magic rose together to guide me.
Finally, I spotted what the kitsune were hunting. A child was running along the trail.
“Oh, hell no,” I growled, calling up as much speed as I could muster and leaving Christopher behind once more, greenery blurring past me to the left and right. With a spike of trepidation, I saw the two kitsune loping in from either side to pace me, moving every bit as fast as I was. As I drew closer to the child, she glanced over her shoulder in obvious terror—and as her gaze crossed mine, with eyes like a pair of glowing embers, I realized I’d found the source of the brightness we’d sensed from several blocks away.
When I pulled within five feet of her, a third kitsune, the biggest one yet, bounded down onto the trail ahead of us both. The child screamed. So did I, but I didn’t spend time caring. Instead I sprang for the little girl, closing protective arms around her and throwing us both sideways, hard, into the grass.
I came up again with her behind me, and the three fox creatures closing in. The newest one was solid black from ears to tail—no. Tails. It had three, and each was raised in warning every bit as aggressive as the baring of sharp white teeth. For one second, maybe two, my mind blanked. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember if Jake or Millicent had ever told me whether a kitsune with more than one tail was important. This one, though, was even bigger than Jake’s myobu form, and that was disturbing enough.
Then it shifted form, not at all with the same smooth blur of Jake’s change, and that disturbed me even more.
Its tails lashed, its head snapped hard to the left, and without any further warning its entire body rippled in ways that flesh and bones and muscle were never meant to move. As it reared onto its hind legs, fur retreating upward to become a long fall of hair, it clearly became a she: a woman shorter than I was, with a honed, lean frame and flawless golden skin. A few streaks of white in her mane were the only hint that she was probably many years my senior.
When she spoke, her voice was a few hairs shy of a growl. “Elfling, get out of our way. Do not keep the nogitsune from what is ours.”
“I don’t give a fat flying damn who or what you are. Three grown creatures against a kid? Not cool.”
“And not happening in my Warded city,” Christopher called. He’d caught up with me, and now stood just a few yards down the trail, his hands spread out and glowing. His magic rolled along the trail in a tide, surging through the ground beneath my feet and arcing up to charge the very air.
The lead nogitsune whirled and snarled out something in Japanese. Then her two companions pivoted and charged at Christopher.
Fear and anger crackled through me, combining to stoke my magic into a white-gold flare that I hurled at the nearest vulpine tail. It bowled the brown nogitsune into the wall of earth and ivy along the trailside, and at the sight, a vicious smirk curled my lips. After the night I’d had, with all the worry about Jude and Elessir churning inside me, I was ready and raring for a fight. Not that Christopher or I were any great experts yet, but our powers knew each other, roiling together to collide over the infuriated fox creatures.
As if unseen giant hands had seized it and flung it far out of our range, the brown nogitsune vanished. As it did the unclad woman who’d confronted me screamed her own rage, a shriek that modulated down into a deeper and throatier growl as she shifted back to her four-footed form. Halfway through her change, she sprang at me.
I had no time for pride that Christopher had just pulled off his first banishing, or to wonder where exactly he’d transported opponent number one. The little girl was still behind me, clinging to me with thin and frantic arms. I had to pry her off of me, because the three-tailed black nogitsune was charging in my direction. “Go!” I yelled. “Run, kid! Run!”
There was no time to see if she obeyed me before the nogitsune slammed me to the earth. Her front claws tore into my chest and limbs, hot gouges of pain that blurred the edges of my field of vision, already tinted bright with the fiery hues of magic. I took the injuries as a personal insult, but at least in the middle of my adrenaline rush, they didn’t stop me from clapping my hands together hard and shooting a cannon burst of force right into the nogitsune’s face.
She writhed and reared back, but not enough that I could throw her off me. Didn’t stop me from trying, though. With all my might I pushed up off the ground, physically, struggling to win enough breath to slap her upside the head with a second round of power.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the gray nogitsune harrying Christopher, more skillfully than its brown compatriot had done. It leaped and dodged every time he sought to latch on to it, never letting him corner it long enough to pull off what he’d done with the brown. Then it feinted at me. With an oath, Christopher started playing defense. He backed towards me, even as I rolled with the creature I was fighting in a whirl of fists and fangs along the trail.
I could barely budge her. Fit though I might have become, my strength hadn’t shot up along with my dexterity. Nor was I sure that my new grace was a match for her. She was every bit as swift as I was, and she sprang out of the way of my second bolt. It did little more than singe her fur.
Then all at once Christopher reached me. We didn’t touch hands, but his magic swept over me in a flood of gold, making mine flare in response. As one we whirled to face the two remaining creatures. They advanced towards us, the black in the lead, all three tails lashing, her teeth bared in a snarl. To my dread, I felt a wave of something roll forward from her, power not unlike a Sidhe mage’s—and significantly stronger than anything I’d ever picked up off Jake. The wolf’s head necklace I wore heated up against my skin, blunting some of that wave’s force, but not all of it. Not nearly enough.
Worse yet, her power slammed against Christopher’s, enough to make him take a stumbling step backwards. Then she spoke. Never mind that she wasn’t in human form. Her jaws moved in human fashion nonetheless, and a voice that was half growl emerged from them. “Two against two. You will bleed if you continue to interfere with business not your own!”
“Shit,” I squeaked. Now I knew what the extra tails meant.
“This city’s earth already knows my blood,” Christopher growled back. “And you won’t be attacking its children as long as I walk its Wards!”
I had no idea what the black nogitsune said in reply, only that it was short, pungent Japanese. Its effect, though, was immediate and obvious. As one, she and the brindled grey charged us.
Two months of hard drilling now came to it. Christopher and I struck in unison, our magic exploding forth to envelop both our attackers. It was our best and only weapon, for only then did I realize Christopher had left his staff at my place, and there was no way the two of us were going to be able to take on the nogitsune hand to hand. Or rather, hand to fang and claw.
Our combined power held off the grey, but the three-tailed black kept coming, not slowed down in the slightest. Her magic crashed right back at us, enough to make me stumble, and even with the living energy of all of Seattle roaring through him, Christopher couldn’t hold his ground. He had to skitter backwards to keep pace with me. With alarm, I noticed he was beginning to sweat. So was I.
When the black sprang at Christopher, we had no choice but to bolt farther along the trail, each of us diving to opposite sides so she wouldn’t pin us both. As I dove, I spotted yet another arrival charging out to join us on the trail.
She ran on two feet rather than four, and she was faster than I was, as swift as the nogitsune harrying us now. Loose golden hair streamed behind her, bright as a battlefield flag, every bit as bright as the naked sword she wielded. Flowing syllables in the tongue of the Sidhe pealed out of her as she leaped without apparent effort straight onto the back of the grey nogitsune. It howled and tried to roll to shake her, to no avail. She rolled with it, and as they both moved, her blade pressed in close to its throat.
Melisanda. I shook off my shock and then scrambled up for a leap of my own when I saw the black chasing Christopher down. She closed in on him, three yards, two, one, driving him farther still along the trail, and I had no chance of catching her before she reached him. They collided with a thunderclap of power. Claws before and behind tore at Christopher’s clothes, but he veritably blazed in response. The ground grew hot beneath my feet as I ran to intervene.
“Hey! Teeth off my man, bitch!” I didn’t have the breath for shouting, not when I was running at top speed and throwing a volley of force ahead of myself at the same time. The cry came out far shriller than I wanted, far less fierce. That didn’t matter. The important thing was getting our opponent off Christopher before she could go for his throat and, if at all possible, to catch her between his power and mine so he could fling her out past the Wards like he’d done before.
We pulled off the first objective.
The second one, not so much.
As if a massive fist had driven upward into her belly, Three-Tails went flailing backwards off Christopher and right into the magic I was hurling at her from behind. She took one dazed step sideways along the trail—and then shook her head, just once, apparently all she needed to rally. Her yellow eyes sparked into greater fury. I had just enough time for a wordless shriek of dread before her power roared right back at me, overwhelming the Ward on my necklace and blasting me right off my feet.
I hit the earth hard. It was alive with Warder magic, magic that knew me as one of its own and rushed into me the instant I touched the ground. Still, for a few seconds all I could do was lie there, stunned, my chest laboring for air and my field of vision drowned in stars. Once I got my breath back, I rolled over onto rubbery limbs and hauled myself to my knees. Christopher needs me stabbed through my awareness, and that was enough to keep me moving. Behind that, though, came a note of disquiet: where’s the kid?
The little girl was nowhere in sight. Christopher, on the other hand, was more than apparent. How he’d pulled it off I hadn’t seen, but he’d wrestled the nogitsune into a headlock, and he seemed hell-bent on forcing her head down. “I said sit!” he bellowed, his voice gone hoarse and raw.
I might have laughed if I hadn’t been aching in a dozen places—and if Three-Tails hadn’t suddenly writhed in his grip. Her muzzle twisted around, and before I could do more than scream a warning, she sank her teeth into his unprotected arm.
Christopher let out a ragged howl and stumbled, just enough opening for the nogitsune to break free from him completely. Power pulsed in the air, Christopher’s faltering along with him, the black’s gathering itself for her next assault. My own magic roared between my ears. I barely knew what I shouted as I charged back to the fray. All I knew in that instant was that my man was hurt.
Then Melisanda’s voice rang out, and we all froze at what she uttered. “Stand down, fox-woman, or I will open your brother’s flesh with silver and spill his blood on this field of battle!”
I whirled to find the Seelie once more straddling the grey nogitsune, her blade pressed in tight against fur and the weight of her body pinning the creature to the ground. It was the same move Christopher had tried on the bigger and more powerful black, only the warrior had executed it with far more grace. She hadn’t even broken a sweat. Nor was there the slightest trace of dismay in her eyes as she looked up at us. From behind her sword the grey made a muffled sound that could have been either whine or snarl, and to that, her only reply was to press the weapon closer in against his throat.
In one fluid motion Three-Tails leapt away from Christopher, all her attention now upon Melisanda and her remaining companion. She didn’t bother to shift back to human shape as she growled, “Like these others, you interfere in business not your own, Daughter of the Moon!”
“You are making war upon the heir of my House. Shed any more of her blood, and House Kirlath of the Seelie Court will raise all its swords against you.”
What I knew of my own mother’s people was no more than a scant handful of facts, mostly gleaned secondhand from Millie and Christopher. What I knew of Jake’s kind was even less. It seemed plain nonetheless that the nogitsune female knew enough of the Daoine Sidhe to give Melisanda’s threat credence. Or was it just the clear and present danger of a sword against her fellow creature’
s throat?
Either way, I didn’t care. I dashed to Christopher’s side and felt a swift, anxious rush of relief that he was on his feet. That lasted only a moment. He was cradling his arm against his chest, and even before I touched him I felt him hauling further power from the ground, an erratic stream that had to be all that was keeping him standing. Closing my hands around his shoulders, I bathed him in the magic I’d been about to let loose on Three-Tails. A shudder under my touch was the only reaction he gave me. All his attention was on the standoff before us.
The three-tailed nogitsune cast a baleful stare over to her companion and barked out, “Daijoubuka?” She spoke more softly this time, and though once again I had no idea what she’d said, the concern edging into her voice made her question plain enough. By way of reply the grey gave a choked little bark of his own, bobbing his head tightly above Melisanda’s blade. Only then did she switch back to English, saying, “We will withdraw.”
Melisanda sprang up and off from the grey, sheathing her sword as she went. “Go in peace,” she said.
Christopher slid his unwounded arm around me. We held each other up and watched the pair of nogitsune turn and bound away up the hill and away from the trail, back in among the houses that ringed the lake. As they went, the black glanced at us one last time. Her yellow stare still brimmed with fury. She wasn’t done with us yet, I was sure.
At last Melisanda strode to us. When she drew up to arm’s length, she halted and studied us both with the first trace of worry I’d ever seen her direct my way. “Kendesh—” She caught herself and then went on, “Kendis.” Her gaze flickered to Christopher. “Warder MacSimidh. You’re both hurt. Will you permit me to assist you?”
I wanted to tell her to fuck off and pop her one across the jaw for good measure. Neither seemed wise. “Depends on whether you’ll tell us what the hell you’re doing here,” I said instead. “Were you following us?”
The Seelie inclined her head. “I was. I had hoped for another chance to speak with you.” Her mouth quirked, not exactly a smile, yet not entirely hostile. “I hadn’t expected battle.”
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