Fox and Faun

by Dani Smith

  No … no!!

  Aura turned toward Iona, cackling mercilessly.

  “This girl is a bold one!” she cried into the wet night, and the crowd bellowed its agreement. Aura shuffled forward, holding the Jade aloft, her weird good eye glittering.

  “Two men she has seduced, and the child she carries can belong to only one of them. She has betrayed your master, your protector! And now, her mettle shall be tested.”

  Ashe saw Iona shift, moaning. Her body shuddered, and he knew why.

  Labor, she’s going into labor.

  He shrieked at Drake, who only pressed his foot deeper into Ashe’s back.

  “Let her go, bastard!”

  Aura spun on him, snarling.

  “Silence, you scum!” she hissed. “You shall bear the brunt of this test.”

  She raised the Jade, and the ball floated upward, crackling, its green foxfire cast upon the crowd, which moved hypnotically in its glow, overcome by the mind control it bestowed. In her other hand she dragged the long cutting of Iona’s hair as she stalked forward, shuffling through the rain, her face a grotesque sneer.

  “You think you know magic?” she hissed at the quaking, huddled fox girl. “I know magic as it was long before it fled the satyr bloodlines … long has it ripened in my veins.”

  She bent and lifted Iona’s chin, and Iona stared defiantly up at her wizened face, the colors in her eyes flashing.

  “You damn yourself, old woman,” Iona whispered.

  Aura grinned, her eyes narrowing. “If you love your faun boy, then save him. Three great transformations I will set on him, and you must hold him as tightly as you did when he reared inside you, aye! For if you let go, he dies horribly, and Drake will see to it that your child does as well!”

  She grasped Iona by the hair and dragged her across the tarmac, the rain beating down harder. Drake finally lifted his big foot from Ashe’s back and kicked him forward, shoving him across the city street, laughing uproariously as he did. His big hands gripped Ashe’s vest, tearing it from him, leaving him cold and bare in the rain. The lovers were tossed against each other, and as Ashe felt Iona’s hands grip him, something changed.

  “Iona, get away,” Ashe pleaded just as the world whirled away from him, and he lost all control.

  Chapter 27

  Iona wrapped her arms around Ashe, gripping him tight as the transformation took hold. Thick fur filled her hands and the snarl of a great wildcat roared in her ears.

  Beyond the city square, she could hear Omnia screaming her name, caught in Snow’s clutches.

  The great beast that was Ashe bucked beneath her, snarling, its dumb animal mind unaware of the precious being that clung to it. It yowled and snapped, scratching at her, but she clung to it, her eyes squeezed shut, focusing only on who lay trapped beneath the creature’s sinewy, twisting flesh.

  She felt his form shift, felt a great beating of wings pummeling at her, a sharp beak stabbing at her face. The monstrous wings struck her on all sides, lifting her into the air, and still she clung, her fingers digging into masses of musty feathers, even when she felt something give sickeningly inside her.

  Aura screeched into the night as the crowd heaved and shouted all around, and Iona felt the last transformation take hold. Somewhere, Drake was laughing.

  She was flipped from the air and tossed to the cobbled street below, her back cracking as she hit the ground. She clawed at the thing that pounced atop her, a black wolf the size of a vehicle snarling above her, rotten meat and death on its breath. She turned her drool-spattered face away, avoiding the gleaming fangs snapping at her throat and breasts, and dug her fingers into its sable fur and the knotted, powerful muscle beneath. She held tight, ignoring the blood she knew was seeping from between her thighs.

  I have you, Ashe. I have you … as you have me.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, summoning every bit of magic rushing through her Kit veins: the magic of generations of fox fey, most of whom needed no magical objects to wield what came naturally. Pain wracked her body and she cried out into the night, above the rowdy shouts of the encircling mob, summoning the spirits of her nearest and dearest: Shiva, Tabia, the priestesses who had fallen at the monastery as Drake’s betrayal came full circle.

  Mother, Sisters … help me. Help me reach him before it’s too late.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes and stared up into the fierce, beastly face that was her lover. The wolf was still growling, a low rumble in its throat, but now it was still, staring down at her. Its eyes were gold, as gold as sunstones, and she stared hard into them, the peacock colors of her own gaze beginning to shift rapidly. She moved one trembling hand up and stroked the tall black crest of fur that ridged its skull and back, remembering how she had gripped a handful of Ashe’s mohawk and pulled playfully, making him laugh and groan at the same time.

  “Ashe,” she whispered. “See me. Hear me.”

  The wolf stared, unblinking, its gaze captive to her own. Iona felt another contraction ripple through her, felt the baby in her womb move fluidly, ready to make its entrance. She lifted her shorn, bloodied head and whispered one last command to the faun boy caged behind the beast’s eyes.

  “Drake. Get Drake. And the witch.”

  The wolf blinked, huffing softly, and whined. It licked her cheek, its long tongue lapping at her tears, her sweat.

  You hear me, Ashe. You hear me.

  The wild crowd suddenly stilled, its cry dying as the wolf backed away from the girl lying broken in the street, blood seeping from beneath her shift and onto the dirty concrete. Drake turned slowly in the rain, as did Aura, both of them seeing the beast that was their prisoner facing them down, its black shoulders hunched, its gilt eyes glaring in their direction. A low, rumbling growl went up from its throat. Drake sucked in his breath, and for the first time the Doomhand chief looked afraid.

  “Oh. Shit.”

  The wolf took Aura first, springing on the old woman with flashing jaws and fangs like knives. Aura went down screeching incoherently, her final dying thought one of disbelief that the Kit girl had bested her. The Jade went flying from her grip, winking out as it did; and clinked to the hard asphalt with a crack, sparks of errant green light shooting off into the night. Behind Aura’s slaughter, Drake shouted in alarm, tearing his revolver from the holster at his hip and firing blindly through the driving spring rain. Ashe spun away from Aura’s crumpled, mangled body and sprang on his friend’s killer and his lover’s betrayer, sprang on the tyrant who had brought so much misery to so many.

  Drake went down screaming, and the wolf that was Ashe tore him open with his claws and fangs, spilling his intestines in a rich steaming mass across the dirty wet blacktop. Drake continued to scream jaggedly when the wolf tore his lower jaw from his head, the flesh at the corners of his mouth tearing like paper, screamed until the gouts of blood from his destroyed face choked his voice to a gurgling moan. The wolf’s maw opened grotesquely wide and it sank its fangs into the dying satyr’s face, the power of his yawning jaws crushing Drake’s skull to pulp.

  Drake’s mangled body slumped to the street like a sack of wet sand; what was left of his skull hit the bloodied asphalt with a wet slap, scattering bits of grey matter across the city center. The wolf crouched over the body, growling, its gold eyes glowing through the pelting rain.

  As the Jade had hit the hard ground and cracked, the spell on the mob was broken. They scattered, screaming in terror, trampling each other as they fled the beast, sure it would come after them next. Many of Drake’s guards followed suit, ready to save their own skins in quick order now that their master was dead. Snow, still gripping Omnia, screamed at them to stay, but in his distraction the injured unicorn maiden bit hard into his hand. He screamed, enraged, striking out at her; she tumbled into the street and crawled away as Snow was swept up in the melee and trampled into the street by the stampeding crowd.

  In the end, most of the mob scattered and the streets quieted, save for a few stragglers huddling in
the rain, hugging each other, bewildered. There was blood everywhere. The destroyed bodies of Drake and Aura lay like heaps of shadow in the rain, forgotten.

  Omnia crawled to Iona, sobbing, enfolding her slave sister in her arms. Iona stroked her fingers weakly through Omnia’s rain-soaked tresses, shushing her gently.

  “They came,” she whispered, and Omnia looked down at her, her pink eyes streaming.

  “Who?”

  “My Mother Shiva. My Sisters. I felt them here. They gave me their strength.”

  She looked down at the swell of her belly, stroking it gently.

  “She felt them.”

  Omnia slowly helped Iona to her feet, supporting the laboring fox girl. Iona moaned in pain, and as she stood a thick stream of blood gushed from her body, pooling thickly on the street beneath her.

  “Ashe,” she whispered. “Where—"

  “Hush,” Omnia whispered, leaning her head against her sister’s. “We’ll find him.”

  “Have to … hurry,” Iona panted.

  Omnia looked all around, peering through the silvery sheets of rain falling all around. She began to move Iona toward shelter—a closed storefront whose dripping overhang offered some protection from the downpour—when her foot struck something lying in the street.

  She bent and plucked up the cracked Jade, looking it over in one hand as she clutched the drooping Iona in the other. Iona sagged against her and whispered something breathily, and the damaged crystal sputtered to light again, glowing eerily in the rainy gloom. Omnia pulled Iona across the street and beneath the building overhang, clutching the sputtering Jade against her breast.

  “Sister,” Iona gasped, raising a trembling hand and pointing into the silvery sheets of rain beyond their shelter. A shadow approached, jogging toward them, and a familiar voice broke the rainy night, calling desperately.

  “Iona!”

  With the death of Drake, Ashe had shed his monstrous form out in the night and had come back for that which he held most dear.

  Chapter 28

  Ashe emerged from the steadily pouring spring rain, running as fast as he could toward the two women huddled under the building overhang.

  Iona was leaning perilously on Omnia, barely able to stand, and the first thing that Ashe saw was the blood. It bloomed across the front of her shift where her thighs met and streaked her legs to the knees in horrible crimson rivulets. When Iona saw him, she reached for him feebly, pushing away from Omnia and lurching for him, her eyes widening

  Ashe caught her as she fell, sweeping her against his chest before she could collapse to the ground. He sank to his knees with her clutched against him, feeling the blood soak into his shirt and trousers, hot and cruel. He cuddled her head in the crook of his arm, calling her name again and again.

  “I’m sorry!” he cried, his heart shattered.

  Her eyelids fluttered and she looked up at him, skin ashen and grey.

  “Nothing to be … sorry for. Not your fault. But time … is short.”

  “I’ll take you anywhere you need,” Ashe whispered. “Tell me what place is safe.”

  “Take me … to Yellowseed,” she whispered. “To the monastery. Please. Don’t let me die here.”

  Tears bullied their way into Ashe’s eyes, and he blinked them back angrily. “No. No, no, no. You aren’t going to die,” he hissed. “You’re going to have this baby, and we are going to raise it together.”

  She smiled wanly, and there was something terrible in it. “Take me … to Yellowseed,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

  “Ashe, friend, we need to get her indoors!” Omnia hissed.

  Ashe blinked up at Omnia standing there in ragged clothing with her horn broken. He looked down at Iona, who slumped in his embrace.

  He hissed at her, shook her gently.

  “Iona,” he whispered. “Iona … we’re leaving. Don’t go to sleep. Please.”

  “Tired,” she murmured, and he shook her harder.

  “Ashe, bring her here,” Omnia said urgently. Ashe lifted Iona up, terrified at how limp she was, at how she already burned with fever. Blood pattered the dirty concrete sidewalk beneath his feet.

  “Snow’s coming,” Ashe whispered. “We have to hurry.”

  Omnia stared at him through the rain. “How—"

  “I saw him. He’s hurt, but alive. And he’s pissed. We need to run now.”

  They should not have been worried. In the rain, the lines of the city seemed to blur together, and they melted away like spirits.

  They moved from street to street, Ashe clutching Iona against him, whispering unendingly for her to please, please, stay awake. Miraculously, she did, despite the blood dripping from her steadily and staining the asphalt and concrete beneath them as they fled.

  Ashe guided them through a broken fissure in the wall at the edge of the city and out into the woodlands beyond.

  “Where are we going?” Omnia sobbed, exhausted. “We can’t carry her all the way to Yellowseed!”

  But Ashe and Quinn had been preparing for their escape before the betrayal of Zeb the airship captain. Just outside the great city wall, in a small makeshift stable, they found a wagon hitched up to Quinn’s big motorbike, packed up with food and ammo, weapons and blankets and furs. Omnia hurriedly spread some of these out in the floor of the wagon and Ashe lay Iona on them, terribly aware of the blood that continued to leak from her body. She was shivering uncontrollably, her face moon-pale in the wet blue night. Ashe whispered to her breathlessly, begging her to hang on for just a little longer. She moaned periodically as a contraction struck, making her curl into herself. Omnia hopped into the back of the wagon and sat with Iona’s head in her lap, pulling furs up around the quivering fox girl. She held the flickering Jade out to Ashe, who took the cracked bauble in his hands.

  “She’s close,” Omnia whispered. “Hurry, Ashe. Drive fast! Use the Jade to guide you.”

  He said nothing, only jumped into the saddle of the big bike and brought the machine to roaring life, blasting out of the dripping stable and onto the muddy road beyond. He gunned the throttle, the wagon bouncing and creaking as they rushed along.

  The woods blurred by as Ashe egged the engine on. He recalled how, the last time he traveled this road, Quinn had ridden beside him, laughing in innocent delight despite the terrible errand they had been on. He swiped angry tears from his eyes with the back of his fist and continued on.

  The clearing in which Yellowseed had once nestled loomed up before him, a huge flattened expanse of charred ground and broken stone walls. Ashe guided the bike-drawn wagon through empty streets that shone with rain, trying to remember where the monastery had stood. Burned out hulks of houses loomed on either side, punctuated here and there by trampled, rotten garden plots. It was a sad cluster of abandonment that made his heart clench. He heard Iona cry out as another contraction struck, this one closer than the first, and he fought the despair back as fiercely as if it were a living enemy.

  Suddenly, the Jade winked brightly and flashed ahead of his motorcycle, its green light expanding outward in a brilliant jewel-toned wave. In its weird, eldritch light, Ashe saw the village high street widen, revealing the towering shell of the monastery looming before them, just as lightning split the swirling sky above it, outlining it in harsh relief.

  “There!” he heard Omnia shout over the wind and the rattle of the wagon wheels below them. They swung around near the steps of the monastery, and Ashe killed the bike’s engine with a sputter and a cough.

  He leapt from the saddle and ran around to where Omnia was already lifting Iona up.

  “Quick,” he breathed as he pulled Iona into his arms. “Bring as many of those blankets as you can carry.”

  Omnia was staring up at the ruined glory of the monastery, her wet hair streaking her cheeks and arms like spilled white paint. Her pink eyes were filled with light.

  “Come on!” Ashe shouted, and she blinked back to reality, bundling blankets and furs into her arms before hopping down and fol
lowing him up the shiny-wet marble steps.

  The fire that Drake had set a year ago had gutted much of the building, but when they entered the blackened doorway and lightning split the sky once again, Ashe found himself gazing up at the statue of Kitsune. The huge carving was badly blackened by smoke and flame, but he could still make out her proud fox’s face, her carved collar and bracelets, the graceful folds of her skirts, her joyfully dancing arms. A wall of soft moss had sprouted behind her, creating a new tapestry against which she seemed almost glorious again.

  Iona stirred in his arms, whispering. He bent low to hear her over the rumbling thunder and the driving rain on the broken roof above.

  “Under the statue,” she murmured. “Where I hid the Jade. Where the saints lie sleeping … take me there.”

  He did as she asked, carrying her into the opening under the statue’s pedestal and down that same shadowy corridor with Omnia at his heels, the Jade lighting the way as he hurried along. The Jade murmured to itself, but he had ceased to pay attention to what it said. All that mattered was the woman curled against his chest, and the life she was about to bring forth.

  Ashe led Omnia down into the crypt, now a dusty space where the vases lining the walls and sitting on pedestals held only rotten flowers. The prayer fount where he had first found the Jade stood silent, covered in cobwebs, its carved bowl dry. The dead lay just as they had when he had first come here, their bones covered in a thin layer of shimmering dust. Ashe looked around the mausoleum, and then down at his beloved. Iona’s eyes were open, and she was gazing around the room pensively.

  “This is a good place,” she said before another contraction struck, making her bend and moan in his arms, a sound that went beyond pain, beyond life.

  Omnia spread blankets and furs on the dry dusty floor and bundled Iona up where Ashe laid her. She sat with the laboring fox girl’s head on her knees, stroking her hair gingerly as Ashe rushed in and out, carrying food and supplies in from the wagon. When he came in the final time, having pushed the bike and wagon into the shelter of a burned out building nearby, Omnia was waiting anxiously for him by the entrance to the mausoleum.