by C. R. Jane
"He can't talk in that form. He has to shift." Balin enunciated every word as if I were the slow one.
I rolled my eyes. If he was going to play it like this, then fine.
"That's the point, isn't it? He's a fucking cat. How is he going to answer anything?"
It was his turn to roll his eyes. "Have you tried asking him to change into his other form?"
"You're joking."
Balin's eyebrow shot up higher than ever.
Fine. I'd play his little game. I coughed to clear my throat for effect. "Cat—"
"You named him Yokai."
"I did not."
"You did so. You named him Yokai and he owned it as his true name."
I perked up. "A true name isn't that something you're born with?"
"Some people don't know their true name, or even their true form, until they discover it. Either because someone named them or touched them in some way."
I knew just enough about juju to know that love and bonds were powerful things. I thought about Vesper, my best friend, and her love with Deimos. I allowed myself to think about that and, for the first time in a long time, about the possibility that I could be missing out.
I shook the thought from me. The sooner I played this game, the sooner it was done.
"Yokai. Please change into your other form so you can answer my questions. If that's okay with you."
I could have sworn that his eyes grew bigger. They shone like glass and swallowed up his face. The change was quick. It wasn't like the werewolves who shed their skin physically, which was kind of gross sometimes when it was a juvenile werewolf. So much goo.
This was an instantaneous kind of change. Like a blink and it was there.
When I took him in, his eyes were huge, but he had a face like a cherub, with a bowl haircut. He squatted in front of me, all knobby knees and angular arms. I felt like they could break at any moment. His ears were long and pointed, with wisps of fur or hair at the end that reminded me of a sprite child or some other elven creature.
A changeling.
"Yokai?" I whispered.
He nodded. "Yes, mistress."
I rolled my eyes then. "Dude, I ain't your mistress, okay?"
To my horror, liquid filled his eyes. "But—but—but—"
He started to hyperventilate and I wanted my feisty hellcat back.
Balin interceded. "She meant that she would rather you not call her mistress. Try 'lieutenant,' remember?" And he fixed his gaze on me. "And the lieutenant will remember that there are some creatures that take words very, very seriously."
I simmered under his reproach. How the hell was I supposed to know that it was so very important for him to know the exact words?
"Okay, Yokai." I paused, the rhyming game less fun than it had been. "Please just call me Troy, or Lieutenant, or hells, even Corbin, all right?"
He nodded. He looked like a little boy to me, but all kinds of juju happened in this world and not everything was as it appeared. "Yokai, please tell me why you let Balin inside."
He blinked at Balin and then at me. "Because I was afraid of the Hunter."
Chapter 6
My heart froze at that pronouncement. "The Hunter? Why do you say that? Who is the Hunter and why are you afraid?"
Yokai seemed like he was trying to process the right words to say. "The Hunter. He moves along the face of the moon, collecting souls that fit his purpose. You have the mark of him on you." The end was swallowed in a whisper.
"And that's why you asked him to come here? Because you didn't think I could take care of myself?" I wasn't as angry as I sounded, but it was still kind of insulting that he would do this on my behalf.
"Well, he was supposed to stay outside. He always stays outside, I make sure," he rushed to explain. "But I panicked and brought him in by accident." Then Yokai looked at me, pleading. "But I was totally gonna open the door and let him out. Except you caught me."
I needed something stronger to drink. I slid my gaze over to Balin. "Still doesn't explain why you didn't just leave."
"I would if I could. You were never supposed to see me." His voice was lethal, like a giant bear trap ready to snap around Yokai. "Yourcat has woven some of the best protections I've seen around your home. They're admittedly very well-made, with barely any cracks."
Something like a hiss escaped from Yokai, but it sounded inhuman from his throat. "There are no cracks! Nothing harms my mistress." As if realizing what he'd said, he swiveled those large eyes back at me. "I mean, lieutenant. Say, does 'lieutenant' mean mistress? Or lady?"
It was Balin's turn to swallow a garbled noise that sounded awfully close to suppressed laughter. I just ignored him. "Sure, kiddo. Tell me something. I have standard-issue shields the precinct gives me. What kind of protections have you been talking about?"
The boy-cat shrugged his bony shoulders. I could practically count every vertebra on his spine. "The usual." He started ticking points off on his fingers. "We have a tentative alliance with the Rat King and his horde; I offer fresh meat for them so they won't need to consume their own young. I offer daily sacrifices to The Guardians of Portals—"
I balked. "Sacrifices?"
He nodded. "Yup, usually mice, those are easy. Sometimes the Rat King helps when he has to punish one of his own."
I swallowed. "You mean those dead rodents? Those were little offerings?"
"Yup. Sacrifice. Blood and flesh. Where was I?" he mused, trying to capture his train of thought.
I held my hand up. All the birds he'd killed and arranged on the terrace and the mice I'd found on the Welcome mat…did I really need to know all the unseen creatures he networked with? Of course the answer was yes. I just didn't need to know now. "I think I've had enough about blood tonight. Just tell me if you made any deals that I need to personally honor."
He shook his head vigorously. "Oh, of course not, Lieutenant. I've maintained the balance."
"He's done well protecting this home, as well as his own back, Lieutenant." There was something about the way Balin said that, all quiet and shit, as if I didn't recognize that Yokai'd been doing these things for me. Of course I did. I just wanted to know why the fuck he felt it was necessary.
"Yokai, you've done a great job. Appreciate it, really. But why did you feel the need? You don't feel safe?" I tried to be careful with my words. I didn't know which God tribe was offended by what and frankly I never cared to know enough to learn the difference.
For my Demon Cat, though, I wanted to make an effort, especially after all he'd done.
"The Hunter. He's scary. He's kept on the Outside, but sometimes he can be called," he said.
Concern lanced my heart. "Have you met him? Has he crossed your path?"
Yokai shook his head. "No. But he's out there. And he will come for you."
I wanted to pull my hair out. This was all rumor and gossip, urban legends that some unnamed person had experienced. Meanwhile, there were a couple of murders that were being left unsolved while I entertained the fantasies of a vagrant and a scared boy.
I was done.
"Fine. Okay. I get it. You inadvertently let Balin in, you feel bad about it, and want me not to die now that I have a mark on me." I turned to Balin. "I apologize for kicking your ass. I don't apologize for gloating about it." I gave him my most innocent smile.
Balin looked unamused. "My thanks for only beating me up. And I don't accept your apology, as sincere as it was." He dropped the ice pack on to the coffee table. "But this conversation is not done. I am interested in learning more of the Hunter and his mark. And Lieutenant? I did not miss the fact that the Hunter is a familiar term for you. Bukuro, the Hu
nter is very dangerous indeed, but is also firmly outside of our veils. Are you sure that the Lieutenant is marked?"
I felt a new perspective shifting as I took in a couple of facts. Balin couldn't see this mark. He hadn't known about the Hunter and its presence in my life. And he didn't care that I knew of his uncertainty.
I kept those facts locked up until I could examine them better. I cracked my knuckles.
Bukuro/Yokai swallowed. He looked like a lemur with his huge eyes and oddly proportioned limbs and fingers. I wanted to scoop him up and hug him to me.
"No one knows him. Not really. He has a shadow that he casts and when it touches a life, it forms a mark. You are so marked, Lieutenant."
I wanted to cross my arms to hide the shiver that crept over my body. Instead I clutched tighter to my gun. "How come I don't remember seeing new branding on me?" I asked.
Yokai responded. "It's on your aura. Usually, your auric shields swirl around you all pink and purple. Beautiful. But now. It's gotten a little...black."
Only years of questioning suspects on the force kept me from blurting out, My aura is pink and purple? I looked at Balin. "Well, his shields are black."
"His are supposed to be black. Yours aren't. Yours changed because of the mark, not because it is part of you."
Well, shit. Pink and purple were evidently part of me, but not black. There went all my black-heart-and-soul jokes.
"How did the mark get on me in the first place, though? Aside from the hotel, I haven't been anywhere unfamiliar. In fact, I've been in the safest areas of the city." Namely, my precinct and Janus Holdings.
Yokai shrugged. "I don't know how to call a mark. Only that most lore says that it appears on someone, and then the Hunter passes over, and then…death." He whispered that last word—as if that would help anything.
I looked at the man who was supposed to have the black aura. "So, what now, Blondie? You gonna tell me that the reason you were here was to save my life?"
He just looked at me like he would keep silent until the end of time. Fine. I didn't need him for answers anyway, especially now that Yokai could tell me all that I needed to know. Sort of.
"Well, I guess that answers that. Thanks for stopping by and sorry about the…you know." I waved my hand over his body, indicating the pain I inflicted on him.
Balin slackened a little, as if he had been a taut wire that was suddenly cut. "Always a pleasure, Lieutenant." He moved with his usual animal grace toward the window.
"Uh, you know that you can use the front door, right?"
He stared at me, fire burning behind those normally placid eyes of his. "This way is more direct."
I huffed. "Of course it is."
"It's because he travels through the moonbeams. Faster that way, Lieutenant."
Every time Yokai said "lieutenant," I somehow felt like he was calling me mistress. I heaved a sigh. "Something tells me that that mode of transportation is relevant somehow?"
"Yes. Thanks to the equinox, the veils are thinning, making it very easy to travel through them." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Especially for the Hunter who marked you."
I looked over at Balin. "And you don't know much more about this Hunter, do you?" Of course he knew. I could see it all over his face. It was why he wanted to leave so fast, probably run all the way back to Deimos.
Balin clenched his jaw. "Think of him like a harbinger of death. The patient eye for his lord, Chaos, scouting worlds for him to devour. He's almost like a hit man, marking those who would be destroyed. He and those of his kind...they walk outside and between. Their marks...almost none of them survive. They are the shadow that falls before you and the one behind you. That is all you will be able to see and feel before you are gone."
I squeezed my gun handle. The physicality of it, the heft of it real and solid in my hand. I needed that grounding to remind me of the ways of this world.
"A hit man...a metaphysical bogeyman. Well, goddamn." I said under my breath.
"There is always a chance that we're wrong. We'll find out more tomorrow."
I ignored the "we." It felt too much like he was working with others and keeping me out of the loop. The other possibility felt too much like he and I would be working on this thing together.
Both options annoyed me. "You could be wrong, but you suspect it's true."
Balin nodded, then paused a moment. "You have the power of word made flesh, Lieutenant. You keep it under wraps from those who are closest to you, but think about getting more formal training to hone it."
I looked to him and then to Yokai.
"That is the power of a Goddess, Lieutenant," Yokai said in reverent awe.
I didn't like that near-worshipful look in his large, glassy eyes. "Now, now, no need to be throwing the g-word around." Just because I had Voice didn't mean I was God-blessed in any way. Any practitioner or born talent could do that, right?
"Whatever I need to do won't be getting done tonight, I'll tell you that much. So go on and do whatever it is you need to do, and I will actually get some sleep."
He left, even though I half-expected him to lecture me. I didn't need that in my life. I'd asked Yokai if he was cool with me just calling him Demon Cat or Cat like I'd been doing. He seemed fine with either option.
I padded back to my bedroom. Despite what I'd said, I wasn't getting any sleep tonight, not by a long shot.
I did a mental recap of everything that had just happened.
Balin had been using my cat to see stuff around this neighborhood. Hells, around my apartment. I only chose to believe that he stayed outside because of how unfamiliar he was with the layout of my apartment.
My cat that I'd dubbed Demon Cat and playfully named Yokai years ago was actually a shape-shifter.
And oh yeah, there was the mark of a Hunter on me just as the Hunter's Moon was on the rise. And no one knew who the Hunter really was or how the mark got on me in the first place.
I logged onto my computer to tap into VPN for the database I needed. While that was warming up, I heated water for my French press. While the coffee steeped, I opened up my new murder board.
I pinned all that I knew about the victims on there, which wasn't a lot since they were virtually unidentifiable, but I was hopeful that some kind of magic would reveal itself.
My coffee timer beeped that it was ready and I sat back to survey my work. I sipped the liquid that was too hot and set it back down. Hands behind my head, I reclined to see all the pieces and how they could form a whole.
I shivered awake to cold energy wrapping around me. Dead silence greeted me, like the muted sounds and pressure of being in an airplane cabin. My shoulder rig was still on, but my gun wasn't in its holster. Where had it gone?
"You'll have no use for your gun, Lieutenant."
I opened my eyes to see a female at that gawkish tween age. Her hair was long and plain and her outfit was kind of dour. She looked like she wore one of those long voluminous gowns that magazine catalogues would label "Canterbury Tales" or "Juliet Shakespeare" or whatnot.
"So, what or who are you? The ghost of Christmas past?"
She tilted her head at me, as if listening to something else. "Oh, that was a joke." The way she blinked at me told me I shouldn't quit my day job to be a comedian. "We're not here to talk about what could have been in your life, Lieutenant. At least, not unless you want me to." She was petting Demon Cat, who was laid out by her side on the bed that I was supposed to be sleeping in.
Well. This was the first time I'd ever woken to a ghost in my room. This was the sort of thing that happened to, well, anyone but me.
"Okay, so why are you here?"
"I'd been bothering the Brightling, but I realized that I could visit with you for a while."
I nearly gagged on the coffee I tried to swallow. Who the fuck was the Brightling? "For a while. Do you mean like a few hours, or..."
"It's so hard to keep up with time. But I figured that I could be here for you until you no longer needed me."
And why the sudden need?
"Because you have a mark of the hunter on you." She answered my unspoken question. She came to me then, very quickly. If I'd blinked, I would have missed her. "I figured it would be easy enough to keep you company, shield you here at your home."
"I already have blessings on me." I pulled up my sleeve and pointed to the simple mandalas there. "Tattooed right after graduating from the Academy and upgraded as I went up the ranks." In fact, I needed a new application now that I was officially a Lieutenant. Maybe I needed to see Ricci tomorrow.
"Yes, I see, but they didn't protect you from the mark and they don't keep shades from darkening your door, now do they?"
She said it in such a casual manner, but there was something left unsaid. All that shadow talk that Balin had brought up. Made it seem like I was being lined up inside the Hunter's crosshairs or something.
"What should I call you?"
She thought for a moment. "Raya."
"Okay, Raya," I said as if I were interviewing any other witness, "how should I go about finding protection from this supposed Hunter?"
"You know any good witches?"
Chapter 7
"You're all set." Ricci put some of her healing salve on the tattoo, one that didn't interfere with the juju she placed on the art. She did her work pro bono for the squad whenever she had the time to fit people in. She always made time for me.
I eyeballed her handiwork. Simple, understated, and effective. Perfect. "Thanks, Ricci. Say, if you were looking for someone who wanted to make a talisman, something protective, who would you call?"