He had gone too far. He had neither the right nor the cause to callously slay Azure. Now it was time for her to think, plan everything with absolute care, and then act. She must kidnap the Mustang; she must make sure that Tannim would follow it. But the result of that would not be what Madoc supposed. She would best Madoc at Madoc's own game.
And, fates willing, feed him his own black heart at the end of it all.
* * *
Shar crouched in the gravel of the driveway of Tannim's house. Her fur was almost black under the pale moon, and she laid out the last components of her spell with care. Her tail lashed as she spun out the energies, linked them all in together, and flung them with handlike paws at the Mach I—
She held her breath, waiting, as the spell settled into place, a gossamer web of her power laid carefully over the layers and structures of Tannim's spells on his Mustang. As delicately as this was made, it still might set off his alarms—
It didn't, and she let out her breath in a rush. It had been damned difficult to get past all his mage-alarms and shields and this close to his parents' house, even wearing the true-fox shape. She had never been so close to triggering someone else's protections in her life, and she suspected that only her form had kept her from setting off all those alarms. It would have been disaster if she somehow set off the protections on the Mustang.
She had known from the moment Madoc opened his mouth to order the Mach I's capture that Tannim would, if the car was merely taken, simply write it off as a loss. He would know it was going to be bait in a trap. When he refused to come after it, Madoc would insist that she make good on the Challenge, assuming that Tannim would have to choose some other weapon.
The trouble was, Tannim could still choose racing. He could have the damned Victor GT sent down here to him if he wanted. He could buy two identical cars off a showroom floor.
Madoc would know she could not match him on a race course. He could do something stupid to hex the race, but he would do it in the mortal world, where he could not operate as freely as she could. Yes, she could work this into Madoc's downfall, but there would be a sacrifice she no longer wanted to make.
Madoc would murder Tannim, as he had murdered Azure. SharMarali Halanyn vowed, on the spirits of her ancestors, Madoc Skean would have no more victims.
She had to do something to make it look as if the Mach I's disappearance was an accident. If it happened while he was doing something to the car, he would not assume it was a trap.
So, she laid in a spell to open a Gate to the appointed place the moment Tannim tried to set another spell of any kind on his car. With her nipping at his heels, it couldn't be long before he did just that. She would be ready to snatch his car away before he knew what was happening.
And since the Mach I would not end up anywhere near Unseleighe domains—as per Madoc's orders—he would assume that something had backfired in the spell he had set, and come after his wandering Mustang.
Or so she hoped, for his sake. If he did that, she had a chance of saving him and engineering Madoc's downfall.
The only other way of saving him would be for the two of them to join forces and take Madoc on. She knew how strong she was—and in a head-on confrontation, Madoc would win over her. He was the better fighter. The strengths of the kitsune lay in subterfuge, trickery. The strengths of the dragon—
She had not learned. Not well enough. Her father had not taught her enough to become a rival to his power. If Ako had remained with Chinthliss, perhaps—
Perhaps changes nothing, she scolded herself, and crept carefully down the driveway, still in fox-shape. She was strong enough to hold her independence only because Charcoal would not challenge Ako and her family, and because the Unseleighe did not realize how she had come to despise them. They thought they still ruled her, and permitted her what they thought was the illusion of independence. She could not protect Tannim alone. He could not withstand the full power of the Unseleighe alone. His friends from Fairgrove could not reach him before Madoc murdered him, if Madoc struck without warning.
They would have to join forces, and for that, she would have to show herself as his ally.
She looked back over her shoulder at the house once she was safely outside the perimeter of Tannim's shields. A single light burned in the room she knew was his.
What was he doing? Trying to extract information from her carefully Cleansed gloves? Thinking? Dreaming?
Of her?
She shook her head violently, her ears flapping, and sneezed. Then she spun around three times, a little red fox chasing her tail, and reached through the thrice-cast circle for her Gate to home.
* * *
Tannim pulled the Mustang into Chinthliss' slot just before sunset. His mentor had told him on the phone when Tannim called him this morning not to bother to appear before then; his own researches would not be completed before dark.
So he and Joe cruised around Tulsa in the afternoon. Fox still hadn't put in an appearance.
But the mysterious, dark-haired woman in her black Mustang certainly did. She was tailing them.
She made no attempt to hide, but she also made no further attempt at contact of any kind. In fact, the two times he had tried to turn the tables on her and force a confrontation, she had managed to vanish into the traffic.
She stayed no less than three cars behind him, and no more than five, no matter what route he chose; even when he was certain he'd managed to shake her, she always turned up again. He thought he'd lost her when they pulled into one of the malls, but when he and Joe came out again with more clothing for Joe, she was there, parked three rows away from the Mach I, watching them.
When he stopped to fill up the tank, she was in the parking lot of a fast-food joint across the street. When he turned onto the Broken Arrow expressway, she followed right behind. He got off and thought he'd lost her for sure when he didn't see her following on the little two-lane blacktop road he'd chosen—but as soon as he came to a major intersection, there she was again, as if she had somehow known where he was going.
She finally vanished when he pulled into his folks' driveway, hot and frustrated, and doing his best not to take his frustration out on Joe.
He certainly hoped that Chinthliss would have better news for him than all of this.
She hadn't shown up on the drive to the hotel, so that was a plus. Maybe following them around all day, between the power-shopping and the aimless driving, had been driving her as buggy as being followed had driven him.
She sure as hell hadn't learned anything interesting. Unless it was which stores had his favorite brands of clothing.
They piled out of the car and started up the walkway in the blue dusk. Chinthliss met them at the door, letting them in without any of his usual banter. That was enough to make Tannim take a closer look at his friend. Chinthliss had a very odd, closed expression on his face.
"What's wrong?" Tannim asked bluntly.
Chinthliss shook his head and waved them both to seats on the couch. The two gloves lay on the table, in the exact middle, side by side, both of them palm showing. As Chinthliss took his own seat, Tannim watched him closely. Something was definitely up.
"I believe I have the identity of your challenger," Chinthliss said, abruptly, with no warm-up. "I don't know why she has challenged you, for certain, but I can guess. And I hope that I am wrong."
"So who is she?" Tannim asked when Chinthliss had remained silent for far too long.
Chinthliss drew himself up and tried to look dignified, but succeeded only in looking haggard. "I would rather not say," he replied. "It involves something very personal."
That was the last straw in a long and frustrating day. Tannim lost his temper. Chinthliss liked to play these little coaxing games, but Tannim was not in the mood for one now.
"Personal, my—" Tannim exploded, as Joe jumped in startlement at his vehemence. Then he forced himself to calm down. "Look, lizard," he said, leaning forward and emphasizing his words with a pointed finger
. "I've told you a lot of stuff that was damned personal over the years, when it had a bearing on something you needed to know. You know that nothing you tell me will leave this room. Time to pay up. I have to know this stuff. It's my tail that's on the line, here!"
Chinthliss licked his lips and tried to avoid Tannim's eyes. Tannim wouldn't let him.
Finally Chinthliss sighed and let his head sag down into his hands. "It is very complicated and goes back a long time," he said plaintively, as if he was hoping Tannim would be content with that.
Not a chance. "Ante up, Chinthliss," Tannim said remorselessly. "The more you stall, the worse I'll think it is."
Chinthliss sighed again, and leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. "It all began twenty-eight years ago, in the time of this world," he said, surprising Tannim. Huh. He wasn't kidding about it being a long time. That's a year longer than I've been alive.
"This occurred in my realm. There were two young males, constant rivals. One was called Charcoal, and one, Chinthliss," his mentor continued. "They both courted a lovely lady of the kitsune clan. She was young and flirtatious, and paid the same attentions to each. Very—ah—personal attentions. Chinthliss was the one who temporarily won her, mostly because Charcoal became insufferable. But it was not Chinthliss who fathered the daughter she bore."
Tannim sat bolt upright. Chinthliss—and a kitsune?
"The daughter was charming and talented, and Chinthliss had no qualms with accepting her as a foster-daughter, even though Charcoal had gone beyond being his rival and had become his most vicious enemy. But—he had many things on his mind, and eventually the Lady Ako became disenchanted with the lack of attention he paid her, and left him." There was real pain on Chinthliss' features, the ache of loss never forgotten and always regretted. "When she left him, she took her daughter. He never saw either of them again."
He opened his eyes at last, and Tannim locked his lips on the questions he wanted to ask. "That was when Chinthliss realized that he needed others, and began looking for someone—yes, to take the places of Lady Ako and SharMarali. Stupid, I know, for one person can never replace another, but I have never been particularly wise, no matter what my student might say to flatter me. . . ." His voice trailed off for a moment, then he looked Tannim straight in the eyes. "I never found anyone to match Ako, but I did find an eager young mind to teach, a protégé, someone to take the place of little Shar. That was why I gave him the name, `Son of Dragons'; not only as a joke on the name of his real, blood parents, but because he became a kind of son to me."
Tannim licked lips gone dry, and prompted him gently. "Is this—Shar—the one who's been following me?"
Chinthliss nodded painfully, as if his head was very heavy and hard to move. "I don't think there can be any doubt," he said. "Especially since there is only one kitsune-dragon I know of, and in the past, I heard rumors, rumors I had thought I could discount. I thought that Lady Ako had Shar safely with her; the rumors were that not long after I began teaching you, Charcoal asserted his parental rights over the girl and took her off to be trained by himself and by his allies. The Unseleighe."
At Tannim's hissing intake of breath, Chinthliss grimaced. "You see, the rumors I heard were that he intended to make her into the opposite of you."
Joe scratched his head thoughtfully. "I can see that," he said. "It all matches, if she's supposed to be the anti-Tannim. Even the car she drives is a Mustang. Late model, old versus new. The same, only different."
"So you see why she would be challenging you," Chinthliss continued unhappily. "And why it's happening here and now, in Oklahoma, where I first found you."
Tannim shook his head and groaned. "Oh, God. I'm in an evil twin episode. If this were a TV show, I'd kick in the screen about now."
Joe snickered; Chinthliss made what sounded like a sympathetic noise deep in his throat.
Tannim looked up at Chinthliss again. "Okay, we can figure it's Shar; we can figure she's sleep—ah—working with the Unseleighe. She's challenging me, and figures she's going to wipe me. Keighvin and Conal said that since I have choice of weapons in a Challenge, I should choose racing."
Chinthliss brightened a little at that. "The laws of challenge are clear on that point; you have the right of any weapon you choose—and I rather suspect that they would never think of racing as a weapon. I cannot imagine how even Shar could best you in a contest of that sort. Unless her allies make it something less than a fair fight."
Tannim leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair thoughtfully. "Okay. Let's assume they do. What can they do? Booby-trap the course, do something to her car to turn it deadly, do something to mine to make it fail on me."
"I can prevent them from interfering with the course," Chinthliss replied quickly. "I have more practice working in this world than they."
"No matter what they do to her car, they have to get it close to mine to make any weapons work." Tannim unwrapped a pop, stuck the paper in the ashtray and the cherry-pop in his mouth. "That just takes a little more finesse on my part. I've had nasties after me. If she's never done combat-driving before, she's no match for me."
Chinthliss shrugged. "Where would she have learned?" he asked. "Who would have taught her?"
"More to the point, where would she have gotten the practice?" Tannim put in. "SERRA keeps an eye out for reports of driving `incidents'; things like that sometimes mean there's a mage out there that isn't trained or mentored. I think we'd have a tag on her if she'd been messing around on her own. Hell, she'd have run into one of ours by now, for sure."
"That only leaves—sabotaging the Mach I," Joe said. "But how do you keep someone from messing around with your car when they can do it magically?"
"Easy," Tannim and Chinthliss said in chorus. "More magic."
Joe sighed. "I shoulda known."
Tannim half grinned. "So," he said, looking into Chinthliss' eyes, "feel up to anything tonight? Time might not be on our side. Your wicked stepdaughter was trailing us all over Tulsa today."
"Mmm. I will help, yes," Chinthliss replied. "Most of today's work was not mine. And I have a few ideas that I would like you to try anyway."
"Shall we?" Tannim rose and bowed, gesturing toward the door.
"Let's shall," Chinthliss said with a sigh. "Tannim, this is not how I wanted to find her again."
"I can imagine." Tannim led the way out to the Mustang. It was fully dark now. The stars above dotted the sky even through the light-haze thrown up by Tulsa. Out in the country they would be able to see the Milky Way.
Joe automatically wedged himself into the backseat, leaving the front to Chinthliss. "If this girl's half kit-whats-it," he asked, leaning over the seat as Tannim pulled out of the parking slot, "would that be why Fox just disappeared and hasn't come back?"
"Exactly so," Chinthliss told him. Tannim let his mentor make the explanations; he was too busy watching for that black Mustang. "Shar's mother is a nine-tailed kitsune; she can shape-change into a real fox if she chooses, or into anything else. She can act and be acted upon as a real human woman. She has powers I could wish I enjoyed. Nine tails is an enormously high rank, and I have never personally heard of or met a kitsune with more tails. The number of tails indicates the rank and power in a kitsune; I doubt that Shar, in her kitsune form, has less than six. FX has only three tails, which is why he can affect nothing in this world; he could not possibly best her, and if he crossed her, she could take one of his tails."
"So?" Joe wanted to know.
Chinthliss shrugged. "So, he would definitely lose rank and power—and there are some who say that the number of tails also means the number of lives a kitsune has. Lose a tail and you lose a life."
"Oh." Joe sat back to digest this.
Tannim knew that the young man must be confused as all hell. Kitsunes, dragons, magic-enhanced cars . . . it could have flattened a less stable person. Maybe in some cases old what's-his-name was right: "that which does not kill us, makes us stronger." It sure seemed
to work for Joe.
Helluva way to grow up, though.
The barn seemed the right place to go, even though they'd have to do any magic on the Mach I "without a net," outside the protections available inside the barn. But with two mages here, one of them a dragon, what could go wrong that they couldn't fix?
Joe went out ahead with a flashlight, just to make sure that their little playmate hadn't booby-trapped the access with tire-slashers. He walked all the way to the side of the barn, examining the flattened lines in the grass, and waved an "all-clear" when he reached the barn itself.
Tannim pulled up beside the barn and got out. Chinthliss followed.
He stood looking at the Mach I for a long time, fists on his hips, feet apart and braced. Then he took a deep breath, and stepped back.
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