Taliesina blinked in the back of my head. Damn. I didn’t know ghosts could do that.
I felt his icy breath on the back of my head as he spoke. “Why fight it? You belong in my arms.”
I arched my back, dropped my head down, then threw my head violently back. The back of my skull pounded into his face, jarring him. He lost focus for a split second. His ghostly fire peeled off of me, and before he could recover, I was through the floor. Spinning, I wafted downward.
He came through the ceiling in hot pursuit.
I slipped through the next floor, into a lower room where the lights were out. Only my dull orange shimmer provided light until he caught up. His green light mingled with mine, painting the space a muddy eggplant color. Where I fell, he flew, moving faster. His arms wrapped around me again, an embrace that took us through another floor, then another.
As we broke into the cafeteria on the first floor, I flared with aura, stopping myself in an aisle between tables. A human torch with a glow spreading across the carpet in ragged streamers, I shoved Crunch off me. He vanished, dropping into the parking garage below. I scrambled up, knowing he’d be back in moments.
Damn, just when you want a shadow man, they’re nowhere around.
The dining room was empty. The staff hustled in the kitchen, getting ready for lunch. I could see them across the serving counter. I threw myself toward the kitchen, ghosting through a wall to get inside. Avoiding people that might shock me with their auras, I snatched up a long-handled steel spoon from a counter and ducked down so no one could see me from the dining room. A server stood a few feet away, breaking down empty boxes from a dining delivery.
Crunch’s voice materialized behind me. I spun and found his head and shoulders poking into the kitchen from a wall.
Gripping my spoon, hefting it like a club, I poised dramatically. “You are about to look very much like a dead baby seal.”
He held his hands up defensively, but his lips twitched in a smile. He came fully through the kitchen wall.
I swung a little slow, hiding my real speed.
He caught my arm.
As I knew he would. I didn’t fight, but moved closer, using my aura to press him back against the metal sink. Unlike human aura, his ghostly fire lacked repulsive force—not that it didn’t hurt. I gritted my teeth and hissed at him. “Why don’t you just go away?”
His face went hard and stiff like a ceramic mask waiting to be painted. “You know what I want.”
I glowered through lowered lashes. “Something like this?” My free hand clutched his shirt, pulling his head toward mine. I tilted my face and slowly kissed him. His lips were cold, mashed against mine. Stiff at first, his mouth turned pliant, eager. He groaned in pleasure. His lips parted and his tongue emerged, flicking my lower lip, jamming into my mouth. I opened my eyes wide. His ghost fire tasted like I’d just licked a battery. He himself tasted of … nothing. Focused on the kiss, his eyes were closed. He thought it safe to savor the moment. His free hand slid toward my butt. Typical male—some things don’t change with death.
I brought my free hand up to take the spoon from my trapped hand. Lowering the spoon, I drove it into his chest like a spear.
He screamed, but quickly lost voice, thinning to nothing as he lost cohesion. Ignited plasm flushed over me, an emerald steam bath. My aura’s orange flames shielded me through the process. Once it ended, I released the spoon. Free of my touch, it crossed over and hit the floor with a sound I couldn’t hear this side of the veil. Several of the kitchen workers looked at the spoon, then each other, shrugging in mutual incomprehension.
Iron poisons ghosts, grounding out their manifestations. Crunch could reform yet again, but I’d bought some time. If I got out of here quickly, he might not be able to track me down.
I phased my body through the kitchen wall to the dining room.
Crunch was there, eyes ablaze, teeth gritted. His hands curled into fists. His rough outline jumped in places. His legs were translucent, his feet non-existent. No way. He shouldn’t be able to show his face so soon. This impressed me.
Roughened by pain, his voice hissed, “That ... wasn’t nice.”
I shrugged. “You deserved more, but I was improvising.”
He smiled coldly. “I’m good at that too.”
He faded from view, but I still felt his presence, a curdling displeasure that chilled the air as I crossed back, taking on weight, hearing the bustle in the kitchen, seeing normal colors once more. I hurried away, bursting into the lobby, past the receptionist’s desk. I’d have continued on to the main elevators, but Cassie was there, coming in through the front door with Shaun in tow.
Cassie grinned. “Hey, Kiddo, we’re here to take you into custody.”
ELEVEN
PLAYING THE PRIZE: the public testing of a
student for advancement in schools of Defense.
Cassie’s eyes were warm sapphires set in an utterly symmetrical face framed by a fierce golden mane. She wore a white turtleneck, gold blazer, and her pants were black denim, tucked into calf-high boots, armadillo with silver tips. She wore hundred- dollar designer sunglasses, and a crimson band that held her hair back from her face. The band matched her lipstick and nails. A women’s Rolex glinted gold on her left wrist. Tall, lean, and hungry looking, she had the all the beauty I’d always wished I had
Shaun had traded in his workout clothes for a charcoal suit. He might have just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine. His shirt was pale blue, his suit’s kerchief icy lavender. He wore a smoke-blue tie, but it dangled below the top button which was undone. The clothes toned down his muscular physique, but couldn’t hide broad shoulders. He moved with the smoothness of flowing water, making me wish I had him out on a dance floor.
“I need to get some things,” I told Cassie.
She took me by the arm and dragged me to the front entrance. “Don’t bother. We’ll buy whatever you need.”
Hmmm. Is she trying to buy love—and a place in my life—after giving me up for sixteen years, or does money just not matter to a kitsune with magical powers?
Taliesina stirred in my mind, her incandescent yellow stare beaming through the darkness she wrapped herself in. It’s not like we aren’t worth it.
We pushed through the glass doors and started across the outer concrete apron that led to the front drive. Cassie and Shaun locked step with me, each at an elbow. I felt like a protected witness being moved to a safe house, and not for the first time. I remembered my brief stay at Spirit Ranch and the pitched battles fought there, and quickly dashed those images away, longing for the time, just a month ago, when I could go places alone without having to escape to the ghost realm for solitude.
Autumn wind brushed my face and teased my rusty-brown hair, a color that could have been borrowed from the fallen leaves scrapping along the concrete. Overhead stretched a thin tattered canvas of cloud. Behind that veil, the sun—an orange coin—dangled low over the grasping branches of the forest. Dusk still lay a few hours away.
We followed the curb past a silver Lexus. Beyond, a lanky figure leaned against a candy-apple-red Jaguar X-type sedan. It was Virgil Langley, spy-dude. He wore the same black suit, gloves, sunshades, and Cheshire cat grin as always. “You can’t run or hide,” he said.
Wanna bet? Hands on hips—the very picture of jaunty-but-cute defiance—I stopped barely out of reach, what my fencing book calls “out of measure.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Cassie copy my posture. It didn’t seem like she’d known he was coming.
She nodded a greeting. “Virgil.”
Shaun stayed quiet.
Eyeing Virgil with suspicion, I kept my voice low and growlish, “What do you want?”
“I know you were going to settle in with Cassie, but I can’t spare the time to ease you into things. I need you to come with me to a crime scene, and it’s going to be rough.”
“How rough?” Cassie and I asked the question in unison, as if we’d rehearsed. I guess we were more al
ike than I’d thought.
Virgil took off his shades. His skin was a little ashen, his eyes bleak. He rubbed the inner corners, and replaced his shades. “Worst I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s no way to break in a newbie,” Shaun said.
Cassie draped a protective arm over my shoulders. “If it’s that bad…”
I was glad of the support, but… “My decision…” Ms. Griffin was counting on me and I don’t want to let her down—again. “Let’s go.”
Virgil nodded and placed the shades back on his face. He ambled to a black van with windows so tinted, they were impenetrable. I’d thought the Jag was his, but apparently not. He was just the kind of guy who leaned on other people’s cars.
Cassie looked past me at Shaun, holding her cupped hand toward him. “Give me the keys.”
“If I wanted to be stuck in a back seat, I wouldn’t own a fast car,” he said.
Her hand remained out, a silent demand.
Such a control freak...
He sighed, handing over the keys with a small tinkle. “Just keep all four wheels on the road.”
She frowned at him. “Of course, Grace will be aboard. She’s the one thing I’d never risk.”
He shot her a quirky smile. “All the same, I reserve the right to pistol whip and dump out unruly drivers.”
Cassie grinned. “A man after my own heart.”
Uh-oh, I didn’t like the sound of that.
Cassie went to the driver’s side. She used the remote on the key ring to pop the locks for everyone. Shaun opened the front passenger’s door for me. I got in up front. He slid in behind me. After we belted up, the car rumbled to life. We caught up to the van, crossed the compound, and headed out the main gate, onto U.S. Route 259, heading north, away from Deedsville. We soon shot past the Ultra-Sonic Drive-in, as well as the front gates of Van Helsing’s School for Gifted Slayers. Even with the windows up, I could smell the garlic beds that graced the property, a deterrent to vamps that might come calling in the dark of the night.
I thought of Fran and Madison, and wished we could have stopped, but … Elita caught a cross bolt to the heart last time we visited.
My inner fox chimed in, And her ghost hates you with blinding passion. Do we really need more drama right now?
Probably not.
An hour later, evening set in. Passing cars became dark blurs behind headlights. As we passed several small towns and the houses strung out between them, Cassie plied me with personal questions I couldn’t answer with a yes or no. She seemed to want assurance I’d been loved and well cared for by my human family. I was tempted to spin an entertaining fiction telling her I’d been beaten regularly and kept chained in the cellar, but knew I couldn’t pull it off with a straight face. Besides, I didn’t want her to track my family down and kill them. I sometimes got the feeling she was one horrendous day away from the psych ward, and I didn’t want to be the straw that broke the kitsune’s back.
“I was loved and well cared for,” I said. “But I never got a pony.”
Shaun coughed. “Neither did I.”
A few miles later, we veered erratically for a second when Cassie found out my big sis was a stripper.
“Nice role model,” Shaun’s words were delivered in a tone of bland sarcasm. “At least the money is good.”
Cassie growled low in her throat. “Do you want your head in a sack?”
Shaun parried the threat, coming right back with, “Well, if it’s a very nice sack…”
The black van led us to a town called Wizard, past a fire station, a community church, and a pool hall. We went straight through in about three minutes. My request to stop for burgers and fries was declined.
“We don’t want to lose Virgil. He’ll get grumpy. There are emergency rations in the glove box,” Shaun said.
I looked. There was a box of chocolate chip granola bars. I ate one. Then two. Then three… These things are addictive. I put the last few in my coat pocket for later.
Outside of town, the hills were gentle and forested, with scattered houses set off from the road. The black van pulled into a driveway. We followed. It took a while before the gravel road pierced the surrounding woods and an old, two-story farmhouse became visible. Two red eighteen-wheelers were parked on a side lot, having dug deep furrows into the dying grass.
The trucks were nondescript, lacking logos, and the government plates were muddy. A slaughterhouse picnic had been set up; a folding table near Coleman lanterns, a Sterno stove, an open cooler holding sports drinks, lunchmeats, and wieners, hopefully all-beef. Bread, buns, and depleted bags of chips were out as well. Empty paper plates contained the remnants of meals. I’d just missed a proper dinner. Again.
Several men and a woman in military fatigues appeared as we parked and climbed out. The people here wore Kevlar armor, helmets, com links, knives, and what were probably flash and smoke grenades. Automatic weapons hung over their shoulders. They nodded at Shaun and Cassie, but my presence drew intense stares. I had the oddest feeling I was being assessed for my threat level, with an eye toward being put down—hard. They stifled my first impulse to go and grab some food.
Virgil sauntered over. “At ease, guys. Don’t spook the new recruit. That’s my job.”
I decided; at the first suspicious move, I’d go all Casper on this bunch.
“This is Grace,” Virgil said.
Cassie went ahead and pulled him off to the side for a private word or two. Shaun followed them, which left me cooling my heels.
A woman stepped toward me, her hair and eyes dark, no makeup, but pretty without it. She gave me a slow, once over. “What are you: day-walker, fey, a psychic friend?”
“Kunoichi.” I stood in perfect stillness, trying to look inscrutable and all things ninja.
Several of the guys showed sudden animation, crowding each other as they surged in. One of them looked only three years older than me. He loomed six-foot-four, with rugged good looks, lean waist, broad shoulders, sandy hair, and emerald eyes—everything you’d want to drool over. If I couldn’t have Shaun this guy would make a good consolation prize.
Blazing gold eyes opened in the back shadows of my mind. What is it about you and older men?
I shrugged. I’m just attracted by hotness.
Hot Dude smiled. “Really? That’s so cool. I bet you got moves on top of moves.”
“You being into Ninjitsu and all,” another guy said.
“Hey,” another guy said, “Can you do that Death-touch thing? That could come in hella handy.”
“My skills are a bit more specialized than that,” I said.
“You got that right.” Virgil was back and Cassie and Shaun were gone, along with the Jag sedan. I wondered how Virgil had managed that. As he made introductions, and I filed away the names with the faces. The woman was Sanchez, the handsome giant, Kendall. Virgil caught his eyes. “You stay with the kid.”
“Why does ninja-girl need a babysitter?” Sanchez asked.
I fielded that question. “Because after being rocketed to Earth from a dying planet, I was bit by a radioactive ninja, but I’m still learning to use my powers.”
Virgil looked at me.
I showed him a blank face.
He turned to Sanchez. “That clear things up for you?” His voice clearly said it better.
“Fine with me,” Kendall said. “Sweet-thing’s easy on the eyes.”
“Flirt on your time, not mine,” Virgil said. “And don’t let Cassie hear you. The kid is hers.”
I saw eyes widen all around. Apparently, my long-lost mom wasn’t the type to flash around baby pictures. Then again, she probably didn’t have any. That struck me as incredibly sad. “Where are Cassie and Shaun?”
Long overdue, Virgil finally took off his sunglasses. He looked somehow more real. “We got a lead on those ninja chicks that are after Shaun. They’re checking it out.”
That figured; Cassie cared as much for Shaun as she did me. If only she’d develop an interest in some
one else’s prospective boyfriend…
Sanchez punched Kendall in the arm. “Keep your mind on business. I just got you broken in. Don’t waste my hard work by getting killed.”
Kendall shrugged off her warning. “This here is just clean-up.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” Virgil took my arm and pulled me into motion. “We’re going over to the site of the massacre, uh, crime scene.”
My throat began to tighten with fear. My voice came out low and gruff. “There’s been what, a zombie attack?”
Virgil lengthened his steps and shook his head no. “A rash of thefts. Word on the street is that top dollar is being paid for relics.”
I ran a little to keep up. “Relics, like the sword of Susanoo that the kunoichi were after?” I saw a connection.
“Yeah. Anyway, encouraged by the new market, a local ne’er-do-well thought it was a good idea to rob an Indian burial mound. The spirits of the dead tracked the robber down, taking possession of his family.”
Several more figures left the rigs and fell in with us, handing out night-vision goggles that looked like hi-tech binoculars strapped to the face. Nobody gave me any cool toys. The possibility of ancient vengeful spirits had me on edge. “Anybody got a spare knife?”
Virgil slowed his long-legged ramble so I didn’t have to jog, not that I would have minded. The rest of the troops had rifles in hand, sending silent messages back and forth with dancing fingers. I memorized the gestures, trying to interpret their meaning. Virgil lifted a hand to halt us at the porch. I studied the old farmhouse. The windows were lit. No one seemed to be moving inside. Sanchez murmured into her headset. A moment later, she nodded. “The tech team reports all quiet. No sign of imminent resurrections from the remains, or poltergeist activity. We’re almost done vid-phoning the scene for the command center.”
Vigil nodded. “Let’s go.”
The guys moved with a ready, but relaxed, air, piling onto the porch. I smelled the metallic tang of blood. A lot of it. Kendall laid a hand on my shoulder, holding me back as the rest went in. “It’s not pretty in there. I know Virgil wants you to see this, but you don’t have to prove anything. If you feel like you’re gonna lose it, get the hell out.”
Tears and Shadow (kitsune series) Page 9
