That was news to me. Still, I enjoyed the warmth of Fenn against me, the strength of his arms made me feel safer—a little—as more and more power came down the line. The first donor collapsed. Tukka gently closed his mouth over the dragon-man’s head and picked him up, dragging him away. Undaunted, the next donor stepped up, restoring the broken connection. My personal aura was a bonfire now. By the time the next few volunteers had to be dragged away, Fenn was done in as well. He staggered back against Argent who lowered him to the ground. Raven hopped into the air and became a column of darkness that resolved itself into Trickster’s human form. He picked Fenn up, slung him over a shoulder, and saluted me in farewell. Fenn protested leaving but was too weak to stop his dad from opening a gate to elsewhere. For a moment, I smelled sage and hot desert wind. Then the gate closed, taking them away.
More of the Hysane passed before me, and I felt my thoughts splintering at the edges. My heart hammered. My breathing went ragged. My hands trembled as sweat trickled down my face. Seeing how I suffered, the donors went to gripping my hands with punishing force, determined to hurt me as much as possible with their energies. The one currently gripping my hands wore a translator. As he hissed, words appeared from the device at his throat. “Burn with our rage, burn with our hate.”
My own anger leaped up in me, clearing my head a little. “It’s funny how you bastards never think you should have to pay for the pain you dish out to others. If your people had a moral compass, this wouldn’t be happening.”
The dragon-man tightened his grip, his claw-tips prickling the backs of my hands.
I glared at him. “Ease up or die.”
He searched my face to see if I was serious. Whatever he saw made him loosen his grip. Adding extra emphases, the Hysane behind him smacked the offender in the back of the head, hissing a comment that went untranslated.
After my donor collapsed, Tukka booted him off to the side with a great deal of energy. The Hysane spun across the rusty sand, bouncing, spinning out at last to lie unmoving. I think the rest of the Hysane got the message; they behaved.
My legs were close to buckling but more and more Hysane were coming, desperate to do anything to save themselves.
I called to my shadow self: If you feed on this, can you control yourself and not go crazy?
I can control myself, Mistress.
I hope so. I needed my shadow self strong enough to eat the monster ghost, and not get eaten herself. If you go down, we all do. I’m trusting you.
I will not fail you. Us.
Motherella said, Get me killed and I will never speak to you again!
I think she was totally serious.
Taliesina’s golden eyes closed in my inner shadows as she curled up and lay down. Wake me when it’s over—if I’m still alive.
I dumped most of the power I held into the darkness. My shadows lapped it up, and I felt a release of pressure like an escaping balloon decompressing in flight. I think my shadow self could have drank endlessly, but we eventually ran out of donors. I kept the energy of the last two for myself, causing my shadow self to mutter in irritation: Hey, I was going to eat that.
Bitch later; we’ve got work to do. I shot Tukka and Argent a look. “You guys coming?”
Tukka not miss it for all the carob in the world.
Lead on, Argent said. I’ll try to get you out if you fall in battle.
Inari approached alone. She’d sent her sacred foxes away and doubtless intended to follow, getting clear while she could. Everyone’s confidence in me was underwhelming. Inari placed her hands on my shoulders and stared into my face. “Should you survive, I will seek you out and reward your efforts on behalf of the natural order.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me now?”
She smiled. “If you fail, it would be a waste of time. This way, you have something to fight for.”
“How very Zen of you,” I muttered.
“Now you know what I’ve had to put up with for centuries,” Argent said.
Inari shot him a haughty look of contempt and walked away without another word. A vertical plane of green light appeared in front of her. She walked into it and vanished. The dimensional gate closed behind her.
“Good riddance,” Argent said.
Hysane were piled up everywhere, only a few still awake. I had no one to send me off to battle with best wishes. Part of me wanted Cassie with me, or Shaun, but not Maddy and Fran—they still had a lot to deal with. “Better this way, I suppose. If this doesn’t work, there will be fewer to pay the cost—fewer ghosts pissed at me.”
Tukka not mind dying, but can wait. Wait long time. Grace don’t worry. Grace be fine.
If we wind up ghosts, we’ll be eaten by the enemy, Argent pointed out. There will be no time for regrets, so you might as well wallow in them now.
I sighed. There’s a cherry thought.
I walked toward the center of the arena. Argent and Tukka stayed beside me. As we arrived, I drew a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and tugged on the weave of space. Gravity slackened and the usual electric tingle passed, as the landscape went gray, leaving only our auras to brighten the ghost realm. I held my hand up before my face. The orange haze of flame I expected was gone. In its place, my aura fluttered a sick brownish purple that somehow felt heavier and denser.
Tukka looked at me. Grace can’t wear the Hysane energy too long. Even without monster ghost poison, it will damage her.
“Speaking of ghosts…” Yes, I’m changing the subject. “I don’t see any.” There wasn’t a single stray ghost in the arena; the area had been perfectly cleansed.
Tukka used a massive tone of thought, Grace ...Tukka serious. Clocking running out.
“Sure, I understand.” I wrapped the fingers of one hand in Argent’s fur so we’d stay together. I didn’t worry about Tukka getting lost. He had a way of staying beside me no matter what, when he wasn’t otherwise distracted. “Let’s do this!”
“Without me?” a new voice intruded.
I spun around. It was Wocky, wearing Ryan’s body! His compound eyes held whirling tones of carmine and rust. His segmented, glossy black wings poked out of his back, replacing the mothman wings that should have been there.
I glowered at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking after my investment. And what do I find? You’re going down the throat of Hell, without me? How rude!”
Tukka tensed, glaring and rumbling. Cautiously, he edged closer to Wocky.
Argent stayed next to me, baring teeth.
Wocky studied the giant white fox with obvious delight, then looked back to me. “Oh, you’ve brought lunch!”
“Don’t even start,” I warned the demon.
Time was burning away, and nothing I could say was going to keep Wocky from following. I did the smart thing and saved my breath, diving into the ground. A recent shudder of the earth had collapsed the top dozen feet of tunnel, but that didn’t stop any of us. Tightly reining in out auras, we ghosted past the blockage and dropped one after another down the shaft. I noticed that the earthen walls of the tunnel were veined with black crystal sludge. Some instinct in me warned against touching the contamination.
Tukka had no choice, big as he was. He repeated brushed the shaft wall. As immaterial as the rest of us, this shouldn’t have mattered, but the glittering tar smeared off on him, crawling like a living thing over him, flattening into bubbling patches as it seemed to heat up. It was a horrible parody of the demon mark I wore on my back, between wings.
Concern was a knife in my ribs, piercing my heart. “Tukka!”
Tukka fine. We. Keep. Going.
The loose material of my makeshift toga dusted the wall, and came away with black stains that soaked in, stiffening the fabric. The black grew, rippling out. I ripped the toga off me, as the black on my feet—shadow slippers from my shadow self—grew up legs, sheathing my whole body in a shadow-made cat suit. I looked like a burglar, or maybe a stealth-mode superhero. The toga clung t
o the tunnel wall, soaking into it.
Argent and I were leading the descent. Tukka tumbled just above. Occasionally, I’d catch glimpses past him of Wocky. The demon’s claws scrapped some black off the wall. He tasted the sludge and smiled. “Not unlike blue cheese dipped in diesel oil, mixed with black glass grit.” I heard the scrap of his claws as continued to nibble.
I wished Tukka were also immune. I’d give him my protective shadow-suit if there were any way. In the dark glow of my purple-brown aura, the fu dog was sparkling more and more. He shuddered as if in pain, but made no sound of distress. That would only have slowed us down.
Falling in a frozen posture of rearing, the celestial fox’s white fur seemed to repel the corruption. None of it clung to him. His head was at my waist. He stared up my chest, into my eyes. I see you have mastered the technique of being naked without being naked.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Wocky yelled. “I saw her first.”
Tukka saw her … first. His thought was edged in pain he could no longer hide.
My voice trembled, threatening to break, “We don’t have to do this, Tukka. We can just … quit. Someone else can save this world.”
He shuddered, shaking his massive head no. Tukka fine. We almost there. Might as well … save day and be stuff of legend.
“That’s a lad,” Wocky said. “When the contamination seasons your corpse, I shall honor your passing by eating your courageous, crystallized heart.”
Don’t do Tukka no favors.
I heard evil joy resonating in the demon’s voice, “A fitting tribute, really—you as part of me for eternity. It’s quite an honor.”
“Wocky,” I said, “shut the hell up.” My voice surprised me; sounding like it belonged to a cold, ruthless bitch capable of anything. That had better be true, for all our sakes.
We dropped into a vast cavern with stalactites—like bristling tonsils—jutting across a domed ceiling. The farthest reaches of the space were lost in inky darkness that pressed in with a crushing presence. Our aura’s lit the space immediately around us, rolling the oppressive darkness back a bit.
Which way? Tukka asked.
Follow me, Argent said. I smell unclean energies over here. He led the way without a backward glance.
As we followed, I sniffed the air and fanned my antennae. Nothing came in. It was like my senses were derailed. Probably the overload of the Hysane auras I’m carrying. No help for it, I suppose.
We came to a break in the cavern floor, and dropped down a crevasse into a lower chamber. Now, I felt the roiling energies of the monster ghost. Swirling sheets of violet and green fire lay ahead, caging a golden sphere of light with a woman’s screaming face forming and breaking in a surging of riptides. I thought the entities were small and close, but we bounced on in the low gravity of the ghost realm for minutes. Eventually, were did get close, the battling entities swelling until they loomed like a skyscraper over us, part of their essence sliding into extra spatial dimensions of folded space.
Okay, Argent said, I got you here. The rest is up to you.
“Fascinating,” Wocky said. “What the hell is it?”
The death of this world, Tukka said.
More like the rape of this world by more ghostly energy than I care to think about, I thought. The monster ghost had fed well on the soul of the world. We were witnessing the birth of a demon-god. In fact, it might already be too strong to stop. But I gotta try.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Before us, quite appalling,
the soul of a world in distress.
Phantom cuties everywhere.
Glory! What a mess.
—Ballad of the Shadow Fox
Tukka
Argent sat on his silver haunches, his straggly tail flicking casually. Only someone who is half shadow can survive the miasma long enough to get things done, so I’ll leave this to you.
“Good idea.” The demon smiled and folded himself into a seated posture, legs crossed, his forearms on his knees. “If you get into trouble, Grace, just scream beautifully and we’ll get you out somehow—maybe.”
I looked at Tukka. “You’re sitting this fight out, too?”
Tukka have utter faith in Grace, but there needs to be Plan B in case Plan A crashes and burns.
His words warmed me, but his appreciation and a buck would only buy me a donut. I mock growled at him. “Fine, leave all the heavy lifting to me.”
Tukka jump in once you distract monster-ghost. Catch him by surprise.
“Yeah, that’s going to work,” Wocky said.
“Whatever.” I sighed and bounce-walked closer to the co-mingled entities. Truth was I did have a plan, a dangerous, very scary plan. Flashes of violet and green lightning burned the air, making ozone. I opened my mind, spilling my intentions to my other personas. There was stunned silence in my head, then they got busy backing me up as I vaulted into the heart of this world.
I was blind once inside the preternatural storm. But Motherella took over the sensory apparatus of my antennae, interpreting their in-put so I didn’t have flashes of color across my mind or weird flavors bursting across my tongue. She read the currents and found an eye in the storm where the planet was holding her own against the monster-ghost. I dived that way, my wings beating furiously. My inner darkness did her part, sucking in all the energy that should have fried me.
There was a sudden stillness as the monster-ghost registered my entry into the battle. I braced, hoping that my darkness—without the boost we’d had on the proto world—could swallow what was coming.
A huge spectral hand formed. It was violet, the fingers crackling, wreathed with green phosphoresce. The hand came at me, closing with every intention of crushing and burning me to nothing.
But my darkness drank the spectral energies, unmaking the manifestation. The hand thinned and swirled into the darkness that covered me. Through the first attack, I kept moving, using mothy perceptions to ride the currents ever deeper. And then I slammed against the soul of this world, falling into her golden light. Her resistance slacked a heartbeat as she tasted the Hysane energies that suffused my aura.
Trust me, I begged. Become me.
The planet argued: You cannot hold me. It will destroy you.
I am my mother’s daughter. I will bear whatever comes.
So be it. She poured herself into me. Pain came as every molecular strand strained its bonding. I felt my mind expanding with an awareness that transcended the four basic dimensions. And that became my salvation. I pulled the planet’s soul into me but didn’t keep it, shunting the new presence into folds of time and space that were here and not here. The golden blaze of fire cleared from my mind and body, but was still attached in a way human physics could never properly explain.
And I was falling in a void where the planetary soul had been. I could have fed her to my darkness, but my shadow self might have consumed her and died in bloated satisfaction. This way, I was safe from burning out, having become a living gateway to what the monster-ghost wanted.
His confusion at losing his prey felt palpable. As I landed on the cavern floor, hunger and rage came crashing in along with the shell of the monster-ghost as it closed around me. Jags of lightning thrashed to either side of me, scoring and blackening the rock. A spectral face formed; a jade mask with violet eyes. Crinkles formed between the eyes. The mouth was stretched in a rictus of displeasure. The face screamed at me, teeth parting as if he’d bite me in half.
I cut loose with the firestorm of Hysane energies I’d absorbed, bleeding my aura out so that I popped out of the ghost realm. This didn’t get me out of the monster-ghost. Its chaotic blaze of spectral energy occupied both sides of the veil, tattering under my attack, but reforming just as fast, its attention fixed firmly on me. Without a planet’s soul to possess, he’d chosen me to focus on. I think he sensed that if it took me over, he could find where I’d stashed his previous meal.
I smiled coldly, opening my arms to embrace him. “Come on in, you phantom bas
tard. Let’s see you get past my shadow.”
Oh, yes. I am so very, very empty. The darkness inside me vibrated with hunger, a shadow filling my mind, a cold need seeping throughout my body.
The entity rushed in, hitting me from all sides. I shook, battered, nerve endings on fire as ghostly energy crawled over me.
My shadow self laughed, unleashing bands of darkness that tangled in the ghost-fire. The black coils scooped the monster-ghost, dragging in more and more until in funneled out of the world, into my inner shadows. Fold after fold of darkness wrapped the invading ghost, stripping away his strength, consuming him whole. Toward the end, the monster-ghost realized that he was trapped in a black whirlpool. He struggled to withdraw, thrashing, casting off spectral embers of himself, but he continued to sink as those embers cooled into nothingness.
The last of the battle occurred in darkness as the ghost light failed. Outside of the ghost realm, I had no auras to illuminate the scene. I might as well have been swallowed along with the monster-ghost.
More, more, more…
My knees buckled and crashed to the rock floor. I caught myself with my hands. “No, we’re done here.”
No! The shadow I wore in place of clothes stiffened with petulance. Want more!
“There is no more. We’re done.”
A greenish light appeared—a floating ball that bobbled over Wocky’s palm as he approached. The light stained Argent’s white fur, and soured Tukka’s teal blue hide. The fu dog’s eyes were lavender lanterns.
I want them, too.
“No, Tukka and Argent are friends, and Wocky would probably give you indigestion.”
I want.
I put a growl in my voice. “Behave.”
Why.
“Because monsters don’t eat their friends. Friends feed you love. Eat your friends, and the loving ends, a sad fact of life.”
Yes, Mistress. Sorry.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m proud of you. You did good, kid.”
A flutter of vibration rippled through my inner darkness. Thank you, Mistress.
“It’s Grace. You can call me Grace.”
Destiny's Child (The Kitsune Series) Page 27