I dipped my head slightly, acknowledging her point. “Just as you promised, Mrs. Hollis, it is now on the inside.”
She nodded, looking pleased. “It is because of you that Suzume-chan earned her white,” Atsuko said, surprising me. I knew that it had been the action of following me into the fight against Luca that had put the white fur on Suzume’s previously entirely black tail, but she had always dodged around any of my questions, so it felt odd to have someone address the subject so overtly. “The two of you are changing each other, forming new shapes, like wax brought near a flame.” Atsuko’s expression changed ever so slightly, taking on a warning tone. “But do not forget what you are, Fortitude Scott, and what my granddaughter is.”
There were a lot of ways to take that, particularly given the relationship that I had with Suzume. There were also a lot of conversations that I very frankly did not want to have with this extremely intimidating woman, so I chose the most diplomatic yet honest answer that I could—“I would never forget that Suzume is one of the kitsune.” As I finished it, I wondered if what I’d said was idiotic, meaningful, or just fortune cookie nonsense.
Whatever it was, it at least got me off the hook for a moment, as Atsuko make a small “hrmph” sound, then finally got to the meat of the issue. “I did you a service once, young vampire, when you were desperate and on your own.”
All too easily, the memory came back to me. I’d been trying to track down a European vampire, Luca, who’d been visiting my mother’s territory and hunting the young girls of Providence. With my brother forbidden to help me and Prudence unwilling, it had been Atsuko who’d given me the information I’d needed. “Yes, you did. And I owe you a favor.”
“You do,” she agreed, her eyes gleaming.
“Are you calling in that favor?” I asked. It certainly seemed likely, but Atsuko also seemed entirely capable of just bringing me in and pointing out, godfather-style, that she still held my marker.
“Most certainly.”
I waited for a long second, waiting to find out exactly what she wanted. Atsuko was in no hurry, however, simply watching me from across the table, her eyes slowly scanning over me, assessing my reaction. “Have you ever wondered why the kitsune have freedoms and power within this territory that other races can only dream about, though I was alone when I arrived on alien soil?” she asked, surprising me with the sudden whiplash change of topic.
“The question has crossed my mind,” I said cautiously.
“I arrived here, and invited your mother to my house. It must have been a very long time since anyone dared ask Madeline Scott to go anywhere, and she came, I believe, partly because she was amused. She arrived at the stroke of midnight, and I sat and served her tea. We spoke of many things, for she had never traveled to Japan and was very curious. At the end of the evening, she asked me what I could offer in exchange for a place in her territory, and I invited her to come to tea again the following evening. Again, she arrived at midnight, and again we spoke and drank tea. Again she asked her question, and again I invited her.” Atsuko reached one delicate hand, the skin wrinkled and hanging yet the skin almost luminously perfect from any mars or age spots, and lifted a teacup off the tray, balancing the thin china in her hand, tilting it this way and that and watching the way that the light brought out the beauty of the finish. “And we did this for a hundred nights.”
I listened to her story, transfixed by the almost fairy-tale quality of it, trying to imagine my mother coming here and sitting where I was, and being served cups of tea by a young fox-woman who had just arrived in America.
“On the hundredth night, Madeline Scott did not ask me what I could offer—instead she made me her offer, one of protection in the shadow of her throne, and freedom for me and those who would follow me, for my daughter Izumi was already growing in my belly.”
I stared at her. “Mrs. Hollis, I don’t want to suggest in any way that I don’t admire and appreciate your tea . . . but why would my mother offer you this?”
Atsuko smiled very thinly. “Your mother was a creature of centuries, and she understood the value of patience. She appreciated that I, though still very young, could appreciate patience as well.” She tilted her head back, looking at the ceiling, or perhaps looking back at events of the past that now only she was alive to consider. “Your mother would have done well in Japan, for she was wise, yet cruel; thoughtful, yet also ruled by her heart when it came to her children. She was a creature of multitudes, and one who understood that, while so many in this land crave simplicity.” She replaced the cup onto the tray with the slightest clink, a sound that nevertheless had a strange ring of finality. “The old way of your mother is gone now, however.”
“Yes,” I agreed, understanding washing through me. “I think I know what your favor will be.” Exhaustion and despair warred.
“I believe you do, but I shall speak the words.” The look in her dark eyes was pure steel. “Kitsune autonomy is to be protected at all costs. I know that your sister will seek to erode this, but you will be my wall and guard. My daughters, and granddaughters, and great-granddaughters, and all my line that lives in this land, shall be free.”
“And you think that I can do this?” I asked.
She smiled. “I think that you will have to.” Atsuko tilted her head in that particularly vulpine way and stared at me for a long second, then nodded, almost to herself, and said, “Your mother understood patience, little vampire, but you do not. Have a care that you do not leap into the fire because you fear not moving at all.”
On that unsettling note our interview ended, and Keiko returned to walk me back out to my car. All of the foxes remained in the room with Atsuko, but I heard one small yip as the front door closed behind me, and I knew that was Suzume.
“I’m not used to seeing so many foxes in one area,” I noted to Keiko, breaking the silence between us. “I’ve gotten to see a lot of your cousins at the bar, of course, but until now the only groups of foxes I’d ever seen were the triplets.” Yuzumi’s three-year-old triplets, Riko, Yui, and Tomomi, were rambunctious little bundles of fur and trouble that liked nothing better than playing fetch and getting tummy rubs. It was hard to compare my mental image of them, with Riko’s ongoing fixation with chewing my sneakers, with the two poised lines of posed foxes that I’d seen today. “They seemed . . .” I hunted my brain for the right word, finally ending lamely with “ . . . comfortable.”
Keiko’s eyebrows shot practically up to her hairline, and for a second she stumbled. I grabbed her arm just as she regained her balance, and between the two of us she stayed on her feet. She wrapped her hand around my arm, bringing her free hand over to rest on top of it, so that I was in the strange position of escorting her to my own car as if we were on our way to a cotillion. She was thinking hard for a second, then finally said, very slowly, “It’s our true form, Fort. The human skin is the deception.” Her dark eyes dug into me. “It can be easy to forget that about us. To the bears, for example, it is the human skin that they wear as the true face.” We reached my car, and for a second she remained beside me, her hands still pressed against my parka-clad arm, a thoughtful expression passing over her face. “In some ways, Fort, I’m actually a little envious of my sister.”
“Oh?” I asked, surprised.
Keiko nodded. “She can wear her true shape around you without fear, interact with you without burdens. It’s the thing I most wish that I could do around Farid—have him see me as I really am, and accept it.”
I stared at Keiko, shocked at the extent to which she’d just laid a part of herself bare to me, and completely uncertain how to respond. Apparently none was necessary, because she gave me a shallow nod, an echo of her grandmother’s movement, withdrew her hands from my arm, and began a measured walk back up the driveway, the walkway, and inside the house.
I watched her walk away, not getting into my car until I saw the door close solidly behind he
r, despite the cutting wind that numbed the exposed skin of my face and hands. Then I unlocked the Scirocco, started it up, and slowly backed out of the driveway to start the drive back home.
I’d known that Suze’s true form was the fox, of course—she’d told me very early in our friendship. But having her in fox form in my apartment had always seemed like a game to her, a way to scamper around and cause mayhem, and later, after we’d started sleeping together, it had begun feeling awkward when she wasn’t in her human form, the one that I could recognize as not just my friend, but also my lover. But Keiko’s words echoed in my head, forcing me to look through Suze’s lens—that perhaps when I woke up beside a fox in the morning, it was because she felt comfortable enough with me that she didn’t have to wear a mask while sleeping—that she could really be herself.
It was a lot to think about on my drive home, particularly given the massive headache of having to protect fox autonomy from my sister. Apparently Atsuko would not be open to any compromise measures either. I took a minor comfort in the thought that, given the complete lack of progress that the Scotts were making on important and pressing issues, the subject of the kitsune might never actually even come up.
That thought actually wasn’t that comforting.
My phone rang, and I had to scrabble around in my coat pocket for it, barely avoiding rear-ending the car in front of me that had apparently decided that driving at night, even on roads completely clear of snow or ice, required going about thirty miles an hour slower than the flow of traffic. I managed to change lanes, and gave the caller ID a quick check. It was Lilah, so I answered it.
“Fort! Hey! Listen, I was so sorry to hear about your mother—I meant to call you earlier, but I didn’t want to intrude, and then I started wondering if I’d waited too long, and then I really got—”
I stopped her before she could continue laying out the convoluted thought process that surrounded the post-death phone call. “Hey, it’s no problem, really. I appreciate it.”
“Great!” she chirped brightly.
A long pause stretched, laden with awkwardness.
When neither of us seemed able to fill the silence, I said, “Well, I appreciate you calling, and we should definitely get together sometime.”
“Yeah, yeah, we really need to,” she replied, and the brightness was gone now, leaving just a wall of subtext that hit me like an anvil.
“Lilah . . . is there something you need to talk about? Like, business kinds of things?”
“Yes,” she said, relief clear in her voice.
“Do we need to set up a time to meet?”
“Actually,” she said, and now I could hear how stressed she was—definitely an 8.5 on the stress Richter scale. “I was really wondering if you could come over right now.”
“Really? Now?” I checked the time. “It’s going to be at least seven by the time I get to your house, Lilah. I’m driving in from Exeter.” I liked Lilah—and since I’d made her the liaison between my family and the Neighbors, who were the human-mixed scions of the last elves on Earth, with the whole group falling somewhere on a sliding scale of psychopathy, she’d certainly had her hands full. But after an afternoon of tea ceremonies and double-speak, and a morning of political immobility, what I really wanted to do was go home, put on my sweatpants, and eat ice cream straight from the container while watching the original Terminator movie. That didn’t seem like much to wish for.
The volume of her voice suddenly dropped dramatically, and I wondered for the first time if someone was with her. “It’s not just me who you need to talk to.”
“Is this about Iris?” I asked cautiously. Lilah’s younger sister had been having a rough few months, ever since we had only barely managed to stop her from being forcibly impregnated after her parents had drugged her and handed her over for the process—and that was even discounting the whole issue of her actually being three-quarters elf and kind of creepy.
“No.”
This was starting to feel like a game of twenty questions. I made sure to add considerable significance to my next words. “Lilah, do I need to bring anything extra with me?” I wondered whether that had actually conveyed my meaning. I resolved there and then to develop an agreed-upon panic code word with everyone I knew so that monitored phone conversations could still effectively be used to warn people that heavy ammunition was required to resolve a hostage situation. Something innocuous, like “pita bread.” Or “Snuffleupagus.”
“No, Fort, it’s nothing like that,” Lilah said, finally relaxing and sounding halfway normal. “I’m okay, and I’m not in danger, but it’s Neighbor business, and it just can’t get put off any longer.”
I sighed a little, wishing that Atsuko’s tea ceremony had been slightly more British in its approach to snacks. I had the definite impression that I was going to regret going to this meeting on an empty stomach. “Okay, I’ll come straight over.”
Lilah lived in a generic brick apartment building in one of the Providence suburbs, far enough away from the center of the city that there was a little space between apartment buildings, and that they weren’t individually any taller than two stories, but also close enough that there was regular bus service at the stop on her corner. The perk of Lilah’s building was that everyone had their own separate door, with no common hallways, just shared walls. Her door opened before I could even ring the bell, and I wondered how long she’d been pacing in her living room, peering out the window and waiting for me to arrive.
The first thing I noticed was that Lilah wasn’t wearing her glamour, that haze of magic that allowed her to pass as fully human. The main work that the glamour did was on her ears—those sharply pointed ears, thinner at the base than any human ear, that twitched and rotated with all the versatility of a cat’s ear. There was a soft hint of fur along its back, the same copper as her eyebrows. Lilah usually braided her hair over her ears, or wore stretchy hairbands that covered them up—not so much out of fear of her glamour failing, but almost as a security blanket. But today she’d tucked her brilliant copper-gold hair behind her ears and let it trail down her shoulders, and that seemed oddly significant.
She ushered me quickly into her apartment, giving me the smallest headshake when she saw me looking questioningly at her ears. I took the hint and kept my mouth shut, and she put one hand on my elbow and carefully drew me farther into the living room, where a man was standing just inside the room, perfectly positioned so that I couldn’t have seen him when I first stepped inside.
I think he just wanted to see my whole reaction to him, because there was no way to look at him and not have a reaction. He was one of the scions of the elves, that was without a doubt, and carrying a lot more of the blood than Lilah did. Early to midtwenties, and tall, perhaps an inch taller than I was, and I hit the six-foot mark. Like Lilah, he wasn’t wearing a glamour. I’d seen the Neighbors who were genetically close to their forebears before without their glamours, and the sight had not been a pleasant one—the almost reptilian cast of the Ad-hene features didn’t mix well with human bone structure, and there was an awkwardness, almost a repulsiveness, in those Neighbors when they weren’t wearing their glamours. They didn’t have that certain something, that indefinable allure that the true elves had that made strange features compelling and attractive, that overrode the signals put out from the primitive, dark parts of our brains that rejected something as other, as ugly, and instead made it beautiful.
This man had that. His neck was just slightly too long for his body, his features cut at angles that no human would possess, but that weird fey beauty was there, making it hard to look away from him. His hair was pure black, but with a silkiness and a texture that reminded me of Suzume’s fur when she was a fox rather than a human. His skin was pale, not in the translucent way that showed veins and blushes, but pale and glittering like morning frost, almost like a hard exterior. His eyes were the color of plums taken right from t
he tree, and his pupil was vertical, like a lizard’s. It took me a long second to pull myself away from a stunned perusal of his face to take in what he was wearing—he had expensive black slacks, black shoes that had been polished almost to a mirror finish, and a black-and-gray-striped button-down that fit him sleekly and perfectly—the kind of button-down that was sold for clubbing, not actually wearing for business purposes, and didn’t even have a useful breast pocket for sticking notes or cash, and was cut in a way that you weren’t even supposed to wear an undershirt under it. In my experience, it was the kind of shirt most often worn by a complete douche bag.
Lilah touched my arm carefully, nudging me out of my thoughts. “Fort, this is Cole.”
“Cole . . . I think Lilah mentioned you once or twice,” I said, striving for politeness. After all, the way he’d positioned himself for surprise wasn’t enough for me to dislike him—he had to know what he looked like, and I couldn’t blame him for that. As for his shirt, well, there was no such thing as a perfect system.
“Only in the most positive context, I hope,” Cole said, and there was no hiding either the silkiness of his tone or the way that he flicked a very warning look at Lilah.
I immediately hated him. Clearly the shirt remained a proven system for identifying douches. Because I was irritated, I asked, “Didn’t you show up to a date wasted and have to sleep it off on Lilah’s couch?”
Beside me, Lilah had to smother a small laugh, and I could see the sudden, gleeful amusement in her golden-brown eyes as Cole was momentarily thrown off balance. Apparently she wasn’t a big fan of his either.
“Ah, that context,” Cole said through gritted teeth. “I admit that I might not have been on my best behavior, though I’m sure that Lilah remembered to mention that it was an arranged date from the older Neighbors in the hopes that it would result in a pregnancy, which neither of us had any interest at all in partaking in.” He paused and shot a glare at Lilah. “And I cleaned up the sofa the next morning.”
Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel Page 22
