“About Elektra, too?” Fran asked.
“Uh, that might have come up.”
“Grace!” Maddy screeched. “He could stake her just for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Slayers look upon thralls as criminal accomplices to vampires. Thralls have been known to accidentally catch a bullet or two when vamp nests are uncovered during the day.”
“Maddy should get to kill her own mom,” Fran said.
Maddy and I both looked at Fran.
She flushed and looked away. “I’m just saying, if it’s necessary and all…”
“Look,” I said, “I made it clear that this was something you needed to handle yourself, but that Fran and I would have your back. I think he’s okay with that. Maddy, you’re the top slayer in this school. He’s let you lead missions off campus before. Why should this be any different?”
Maddy threw herself into a chair, sprawling like her bones were melting, her face staring at the ceiling. “Because objectivity gets compromised when friends or family have gone over to the dark side for milk and cookies.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” I jerked a thumb toward the kitchenette. “I’ve got beer and pizza if you need to refuel.”
Fran ran for the kitchenette, calling back, “I could kiss you!”
“Me, too.” Maddy raised her voice so Fran could hear her. “Bring me back a beer. Or two.”
I shuddered at the thought of the three of us exchanging lip-locks, and picked up the remote. “I think one threesome today is about my limit.”
Suddenly, Maddy was looking at me rather strangely.
Innocently, I met her gaze. “What?”
TWENTY-FIVE
Virtue’s melted in the flame
where all good deeds are punished.
We love our heroes in the wind,
battered, bruised, and freshly tarnished.
—No Good Deed
Elektra Blue
I used the phone in the little office section to call both of my mothers. I still intended to go underground—once Madison’s mom was dealt with—until then, I didn’t want my moms hearing from someone that I was here. They’d charge over and try to talk me out of what I needed to do. As it was, much drama still ensued through which I muttered “I know, I know,” “I’m sorry,” and “Really, I’m okay,” as the conversation required. I held firm to not giving up my location, reminding us all how well that turned out last time. After teary heartfelt endearment, I hung up my last call, weary as all my recent adventures came down on me like a mudslide. I yawned as I went to the kitchenette and located a piece of pepperoni pizza. It neither put up a fight, nor lasted long. I opened the refrigerator door. Someone had fetched me a six-pack of bottled water, leaving it by the beer. Maddy had only allowed herself half a beer after all. The rest had been put back.
I pulled a water bottle out of the fridge, calling out, “Thanks, Maddy.”
We two were alone. Fran was off to class. They were taking shifts on me.
Never turning her head my way, Maddy mumbled, “You’re welcome.” her words nearly lost in the TV sounds of the girl’s volleyball competition she was watching. I had no doubt though that my distracted guard would turn all spinning-Tasmanian-devil-ninja should a threat suddenly appear.
“I’m taking a power nap.” Letting icy freshness chill my throat and tongue, I swigged half the bottle. I recapped it and let myself walk into the side of the bed. I crashed face-first onto bouncy blissfulness. My mind shut down.
I swam out of darkness into a dream. Not one of mine. This was a dream of Tukka’s, or one he’d commandeered. The nighttime streets were rain-slick. Puddles reflected the neon signs of assorted businesses. I couldn’t read the writing—not unusual in a dream—but they were in Japanese so they’d have been a mystery to my waking mind as well. Most dreams were fuzzy photographs of the waking world. This was more drawn and brushed, a creature of multi-media. Black lines gave form. Opaque inks filled in a lot. But there were watercolor washes as well.
A pedestrian in a black coat scurried by, huddled in on himself, suggesting this was not a good neighborhood to be in. He cast me the quickest of glances, and thereafter ignored me. I kept on walking in high heels, my body sheathed in a tight red dress with a side slit. A gold dragon meandered down my skirt. He clutched a pearl in one stitched claw. I felt the top of my head and found my hair piled high, held in place by filigree-headed pins.
Ahead of me, I saw Tukka in profile, waiting at the mouth of an alley. He looked well. His teal blue skin glowed softly, as did his lavender eyes. He felt stronger, radiating a deep inner peace that had been missing for awhile. His big head swung my way as I arrived. I gave him a hug. A rumble vibrated his chest like a motor kicking over.
“Hey, Tukka, what’s up?”
Glad you made it. Big trouble coming. We’ll be needed.
“Needed for what?” I considered the way his imagination had dressed me. “A sushi buffet?”
Listen.
I did. I heard the throaty rumble of motorcycle bikes. Soon, the street was flooded with dark-clad riders in leather jackets, boots, and helmets. A few of them wore gray chains as accessories. Headlight beams slashed the gloom. The swell of light caught Tukka and me, pulling us out of shadows, but he didn’t seem concerned.
“This is your big trouble?” I asked.
Nah, this happens all the time. Wait and see what they run from.
The riders passed and the gloom thickened. The machine growls and snarls faded, and I heard a metallic boom in the direction they’d come from. The ground shook. I tottered on my heels, and reached out to lean against Tukka. He was forever my rock, and even more unmovable than ever.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Tukka told you. Big…
“Trouble,” I finished.
Another humongous THOOM shook the block. Then another. They were coming faster, taking on the pattern of footsteps.
I had a wild suspicion. “That’s a mecha, isn’t it? You’ve got us trapped in an anime dreamscape. Any moment now a giant-blue-monster-robot-piloted-by-hostile-aliens is going to walk down this street, flashing death rays and burping missiles.”
Not at all; giant-red-monster-robot.
Oh, God. “And how are we supposed to fight something like that?”
Tukka grinned at me. Glad you ask. Better stand back.
I backed away, sliding along the rolled-down metal wall protecting someone’s storefront business. Tukka stalked out into the empty street, passing parked vehicles that were small, just a little bigger than clown cars. They looked even smaller compared to his two-ton mass. Impossibly—except this was a dream—Tukka reared on hind legs like a Kodiak bear. There were metallic clicks and clacks as sections of him rotated and flipped. I didn’t know where the extra bulk was coming from, but he soon loomed to ten times his original size. Through all the morphing, his skin became replaced with steel plating. Fins jutted out of his back. Around the ankles, his hind feet wore glowing bands. Their radiant force lifted him a foot into the air, allowing him to hover.
Tukka’s much-enlarged head was chrome with filaments of lavender light radiating from the eyes, patterning the canine face. His jaw dropped open, revealing a place with a pilot’s chair and holo screen display boards showing the status of Tukka’s mecha systems. Amplified, an eerie mechanized version of Tukka’s voice boomed from loudspeakers as the approaching footsteps grew ever louder.
“Grace, get in! Time of battle is upon us.”
THOOM!
I groaned. I just know I’m going to regret this. “Hey, there’s no ladder. How am I supposed to get up there?”
THOOM!
“Your wrist.”
I looked at my wrist. There was a platinum band there that lumped up like a wrist watch, though such a mechanism was missing. The lump had a flashing lavender circle. “What do I do with this?” I asked.
THOOM!
“Raise the band over your head and yell, Metamoriffic!”
“That’s j
ust silly,” I said.
THOOM!
Bypassing the mecha’s sound system, Tukka touched thoughts with me: You want to feel childish and stupid, or you want to get stepped on?
I raised the wristlet over my head and shouted, “Metamoriffic!”
Icy curtains of energy crackled around me like aurora borealis. Pink and blue starbursts ghosted through me. I could barely see myself. My clothing dissolved in a quick decay. Ribbons of teal light came out of nowhere, wrapping my limbs, my torso. The bands fused into a clinging, tinfoil cat suit. A vestigial cape mantled my shoulders, forming a cobra hood behind my head. A cold kiss of light sparkled across my forehead, solidifying into a jeweled tiara. Touching it, I could feel the fine filaments and little jewels. A belt of interlocking platinum plates cinched my waist. Lavender gloves and boots completed my look.
THOOM!
I studied myself as best as I could as the fireworks drained away. “How is this as good as a ladder?” I asked.
THOOM!
Tukka’s mecha-voice answered, “You are Princess Shadow-Fox, heir to kitsune throne, Daughter of Shadows, the warrior of lust and justice! You must believe in yourself—and jump.”
I rolled my eyes and jumped.
The force of my effort was expanded geometrically. Even though this was not the ghost realm, I sailed in a high arc that carried into Tukka’s mecha jaws. As I landed, I caught the pilot’s chair, turned, and slid into it. The wrap-around holo-screens showed me little that made sense, but several of them gave me exterior views so I could see what was going on around me.
THOOM! THOOM!
And there was my enemy. A giant robo-cat—half cat, half human female. Her limbs were polished steel. Her skimpy bikini was indeed a flaming red, as were her mittens and stiletto-heeled boots. Her metal hair was red, as were the huge glowing lenses of her eyes. Her breasts were high, round globes and were doubtless designed to splay open, revealing weapon-ports. She had rounded ears on her head, and a lashing red tail with a white tip.
As I watched, she waved with one hand. “Nyan!” the Japanese version of a “meow” filled the air, rocking Tukka, spinning him, slamming us both back a moment until his automatic force screen engaged and stabilized us. Many of my monitors were flashing red and yellow warning messages.
“We can’t take many more of those,” Tukka’s synthetic voice burst from a speaker near my head. “Fight back!”
“But I think she was only being friendly.”
“Grace, no time for touchy-feely kumbaya moment. This is war!”
“If I’m piloting this thing, we do it my way,” I said.
“Kat must go down before mother ship gets here.”
“We’ll see. How do I make this thing move?”
“Grab stick between legs.”
“Now I know a male designed this thing.”
I grabbed the joy-stick and wrenched it sideways.
“Careful, Grace, you break that, I’m in trouble.”
The g-forces slammed me back in my chair. The images on-screen blurred as we swiveled to face Mecha-Kat. I shoved the stick forward. We stomped closer. Mecha-Kat held her ground, but her tail lashed ever faster. I stopped within arm’s reach of her.
Lights were blazing in all the windows overlooking the city street we occupied. Car alarms were sounding. In the distance, I heard police sirens drawing nearer.
I reached out and petted Mecha-Kat’s head.
Mecha-Kat rumbled out a purr.
“Don’t fall for it,” Tukka shouted. “No kat can be trusted.”
Indeed, it was a trick. Her painted-on bikini top revealed seams this close up. Those seams parted. Each boob hinged open in four equal triangular pieces. Smaller mounds were just inside, the warheads of missiles. Fire and smoke belched out around the heads of the boob-rockets.
“That’s crazy! The blow-back of her own weapons will damage her as much as us,” I yelled.
“This dream, Grace,” Tukka reminded me. “Not need to make sense.”
Oh, yeah.
“Shields on full!” I cried.
A blast of light washed the images off the exterior screens. Other screens were listing damaged systems. More and more, red flashing lights were everywhere. We rocked back, falling heavily. The forward screen showed a view above the street.
“Just tell me we got some kinda ultimate weapon built into this thing,” I said.
“We have Sword of Annihilating Space,” Tukka said.
“Why the hell didn’t you say so before now?”
“Must always save ultimate sword for final moment. It not work, we have no power left for anything else.”
The compartment around me shuddered. The forward view screen showed that Mecha-Kat was sitting on my mecha’s chest, pounding at its face with cute little cat punches. The steel around me groaned under the ringing blows.
“How do I use this sword thingy?” I asked.
“Can’t,” Tukka said. “Power too low.”
“Can we get more power?” I asked.
“Secondary emergency system, highly experimental.”
“What do I do?”
A karaoke machine extended from the overhead bulkhead. A microphone on a telescoping rod shot into my face, pointing like a gun.
“Song from the heart, Grace. Power of lusty teen hormones will fuel quantum weapon.”
Oh, wow. That was rather far-fetched, but then so was the fact I was inside a mecha fu-dog fighting a giant, robo, mecha cat with red mittens and a willingness to use them.
“Fine, but I’m more of a shower singer than anything else.”
We lurched as another kat punch landed.
“Just … sing!”
My mecha head lurched to the side. The metal face was crumpling. Another few blows and the cat-fist would be pounding on me.
The opening theme to an anime unscrolled from memory. I found myself repeating the lyrics, tweaking them a little:
“Between a rock and a harder place,
We face the fury of our times—
Dandelion fluff in the wind—
Don’t let the dream of us end—
(Fighto, fighto, fighto, fu dog-sama)”
“It’s working, Grace. The tachyon soul-forged sword is forming!”
There it was, on-screen, floating between Mecha-Kat and me—a thing of pearlescent energy, gleaming soft blue and violet, a big broadsword with a cross-shaped hilt. She reached for the weapon and screamed as lavender-white lightening unspooled from the hilt, melting her mittens to drippy red slag. I reached out and—through some kinda neuron-link—the mecha fu dog copied my motions. I closed my hands on empty air, and my mecha seized the sword hilt. Systems winked back on-line. Snow-filled screens cleared up. My mecha rose, rotating until my hind feet were under me, lifting me to hover over the much-shattered street.
Mecha-Kat had been thrown off, but gathered herself to fight on. Her blazing stare should have been on me, but she peered up into the sky.
I looked into the overcast evening sky, where a massive shape shoved away clouds washed by city lights. I saw the underside of a dark disk with trillions of little lights dotting it. The light pattern kept changing, forming intricate patterns reflecting an alien intelligence. The mother ship!
Tukka’s synthetic voice boomed, “Strike, Grace, before city is buttered toast!”
I lifted the sword overhead, pointing it dead center at the vast hovering mass. Only chance is to disintegrate the whole thing at once so pieces don’t rain down all over the city, killing millions. I screamed a musical note so high it made me cough, and go lower in range.
My warrior spirit poured into the sword. Raw, cosmic fury made wings of lavender light extend sideways from the blade. Then a spike of light shot up. It hit a protective barrier defending the mother ship. The barrier flamed pink-white, then went down, blasted apart. And my beam hit a second barrier. Weaker, it went down in a moment. And my beam hit a third defensive barrier.
Talk about redundancy.
The note I was screaming—second C in treble clef—had gone ragged and was failing.
“Just a little more, Grace.”
Somehow, I held on. Sheer intestinal fortitude, I suppose.
And the mother ship became an incandescent disk, flashing cherry red, then white, and then it was gone, a spray of white sparks whirling off in a vortex toward space. I’d done it. Tokyo was saved. I was a hero.
Woohoo!
So why were Japanese military planes zooming straight at me, unloading their missiles as if I weren’t in the heart of the city?
TWENTY-SIX
“With eyes that see too clearly,
And a bottle of absinthe,
I dream of blood and thorns,
And other merriments.”
—Green Desire
Elektra Blue
Choking, I bolted upright in bed. My throat felt raw, as if I was breathing crushed ice. Unseen fingers gripped my throat. My antennae writhed, and I could swear I tasted mint raspberry—the flavor of ghost. Cold fury invaded me, numbing my chest, as the ghost’s other hand dug for my heart, trying to still its rapid-fire beat. I felt cool air on my back and realized that someone—probably Fran—had cut slits in my shirt so my moth wings could poke out. My tee no longer restrained them. They fluttered in furious distress.
I tried to call out knowing Fran or Maddy would be close by. I couldn’t force out the thinnest whisper. Fine then.
I yanked on the weave of space, pulling a tingling wave across my body. My body was suddenly lit with a haze of orange aura. My stomach trembled as gravity bled away and the bedroom shifted into gray tones. Crossing over, I could now see my enemy. Elita. I’d felt her clawing fingers on my throat before, when she was newly dead. That I had simply ignored. She was stronger now, her rage had fermented. She had one hand, an iron band on my throat, while the other was sunk into my chest, squeezing my heart.
Destiny's Child (The Kitsune Series) Page 18