Tears and Shadow (kitsune series)

by Morgan Blayde

  At one point, Aimi jumped to her feet, kicking away the piano bench without missing a beat. Her whole body bounced in time to the block chords she was banging out. Engaged despite my animosity, I found my head bobbing to the music, my feet and hands tapping along. Grudgingly, I had to admit, as musical collaborators, they were awesome.

  Clapping, cheering, the lady ninja were caught in the web of Crunch’s charisma. I expected them to whip out their cell phones soon and wave the glowing display screens in silent support. After a particularly enjoyable song, even I clapped. That moment was spoiled when Aimi glanced at me, eyes flashing green, a triumphant smirk on her face. Yeah, Crunch knew he was good. He wallowed in it.

  The double doors opened behind me and a wash of light from the hallway hit me in the back, casting my shadow forward. Aimi kept playing, as a wave of tension brought the kunoichi back to wary professionalism. I turned in my chair to see who had this effect on them.

  Ryuuza said two words, “The miko.”

  At first, she was a shadow in the doorway, but as the door closed and she came forward, I made out more details. She wore a bright red leather duster, opened to reveal a tight crimson sheath underneath. The woman looked mid-thirties with flawless, deathly pale skin, and black hair that hung to her waist in the back, just touching her eyebrows in front. There were shoulder-length side bangs in front of her ears, framing her narrow face. She crossed to our table where the illumination from the piano stage was stronger. Her eyes were Asian, dark and intense, and her crimson lipstick matched her coat. Hanging at her throat was a single piece of creamy jade on a gold chain.

  My stomach clenched. This was the woman from my dreams who’d stolen Tukka! I was puzzled; she didn’t seem to recognize me. Ah, I remembered; I’d been wearing that stupid hat and pink veil in the dream. Great, now I just had to find out where she had him stashed.

  Seiza and Ryuuza stood and bowed, showing respect. I hastened to stand, but didn’t attempt the bow, knowing there was no way an untrained westerner could possibly get it right. Only Aimi persisted in ignoring the new arrival. Ryuuza explained things in Japanese; at least that’s what I assumed. I doubted they were exchanging fashion tips.

  The miko’s gaze swept me. A small frown appeared, and a furrow between her eyes. Though she sensed something about me that troubled her, she slid her glance to the more immediate problem, Aimi. The miko called out sharply, but the playing never wavered; a medley of horror movie theme songs, I realized.

  The miko said something to Ryuuza and Seiza.

  Seiza waved her hand toward the door, and the kunoichi vanished like smoke in the wind. Seiza followed more sedately. Ryuuza rounded the table, took me by the arm, and hauled me toward the lobby.

  I said, “What the—”

  “They need some alone time,” Ryuuza said. “We’re going where it’s safe.”

  NINETEEN

  PARRIER-DOLCH: German term for using a

  dagger’s cross guard to trap a sword blade.

  We stood in the lobby, facing the double doors of the piano lounge. They were shut and guarded by two of Ryuuza’s kunoichi. Someone, probably the miko, had slapped little rice paper banners on the doors. The papers were covered with inked squiggles—Shinto spells—like the ones that had trapped Tukka in dream space.

  The charms had allowed me out of the lounge, but I’d felt their magic; an immaterial pawing accompanied by flashes of heat against my aura. I think if the spells had been written with kitsune in mind, instead of ghosts, I might not have been able to leave. I had no doubt that the miko had placed similar banners elsewhere to form a circuit around the lounge. This time, there’d be no running away for Crunch.

  Did I feel sorry for him?

  Hell, no. He’d left his grave, now he could go back and lie in it.

  Motion from the corner of my eye had drawn my attention to a customer coming into the hotel. I turned, staring at a familiar hot blonde in a tight turquoise jumpsuit with metallic-gold jacket, matching bracelets, and earrings. Even her lipstick was metallic gold. Her hair was artfully piled and sculpted, the work of a high-priced salon—or maybe kitsune magic. It was Cassie, hiding in plain sight. She wore gold-rimmed sunglasses. I suspected that underneath she probably had metallic gold eye-shadow as well. She tugged a small suitcase on wheels toward the lobby desk. Behind her, Fenn and Onyx followed, having been pressed into service as baggage handlers. Between them, they probably had eleven or twelve suitcases of varying sizes. She asked the clerk for a couple of rooms.

  Fenn’s gaze stabbed, scanned me quickly, and skipped away. Tension bled from his body. Tough Guy had been worrying about me. I liked that.

  Onyx saw me and grinned, all but panting. His brazen stare moved down and up to settle on my boobs. He lifted an eyebrow as if to ask: padded bra?

  I scowled.

  Satisfied with having pissed me off, he grinned hugely, black eyes glittering like polished stones. He faced the perky clerk, but didn’t give her the same leering treatment. Was he trying to show me he could be faithful, at least to whichever girl he was out with at the time.

  “Something going on we should know about?” Ryuuza asked.

  I became aware that both she and Seiza were watching me watch the new arrivals. I turned into their attention, putting my back to Cassie and the boys, and sighed with exasperation, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Just kill me!”

  “Happily,” Seiza said, “but why?”

  I used a thumb to point over my shoulder. “That’s my mom.”

  “Really?” Ryuuza said. “So she’s kitsune too?”

  Seiza, hearing this for the first time, looked like she’d been sucker punched. “That’s what you are?”

  I ignored Seiza’s question, answering Ryuuza instead, “Yeah. I think she’s checking up on me in her blindingly obvious way.”

  Seiza’s gaze shot over to the guys. Lust sizzled in her voice, “Who are the stud-muffins? Your brothers?”

  “No relation,” I said. “They’re with Mom.”

  Ryuuza studied Fenn and Onyx. “Your mom has great taste, and the cash to afford the best. Think she might loan her boy-toys to me for a while?”

  “I’m not going to ask. I’m just going to pretend she’s not here.”

  Cassie called to me from the desk, her voice soaring to fill the lobby. “Hi, Baby-doll, come give momma a kiss.”

  I felt my face heat up.

  Seiza grinned at me in obvious enjoyment. “You heard her, baby-doll. Go give mommy a kiss and a hug. That’s a good girl.”

  “You can ignore her,” Ryuuza said, “but your mom won’t go away. I know, I have one just like her, except she’s Japanese, and obsessed with making me a traditional lady from some past century.”

  “Bite the bullet, Baby-doll.” A sudden pain filled Seiza’s eyes, softening them. “Just be glad you have a mother. Not all of us are so lucky.”

  Slim, strong arms grabbed me from behind, wrapping me in what might have passed as a submission hold. Cassie’s boobs pressed into my back. Her warm breath slid across the side of my face. “What a surprise, finding you here of all places.”

  I wiggled free and turned, surprising us both by hugging her back. “Hi, Mom. Don’t call me Baby-doll, especially in front of my friends.” I pulled away, and pointed. “This is Ryuuza and Seiza.”

  Cassie smiled brightly at them, taking off her sunglasses to get a better look. I was right; she was wearing gold eye-liner. It set off her sapphire eyes spectacularly.

  Fenn and Onyx fell in beside her, left and right. Fenn was reserved. I remembered we hadn’t parted on good terms. Maybe he blamed himself that he hadn’t been there to defend me when Onyx made his play in the Laundry Room.

  I’d actually forgiven Fenn, not that I’d told him that. As for Onyx … I was waiting for hell to freeze over. In fact, this was a good time to show him just where he stood with me. I reached inside Fenn’s open jacket and seized his black tee. He didn’t resist as I pulled him over, turned his face asid
e, and planted a kiss on his cheek. He smelled of coffee, maple syrup, and pancakes. I remembered seeing a place down the block; The Pancake Emporium. That would do for an impromptu date. I hauled Fenn toward the lobby entrance, calling back to Ryuuza. “Don’t wait up for me, and if I’m missing in action, don’t come looking.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Onyx objected. “What about me?”

  I shot a glance over my shoulder at Seiza. “You want to handle that for me, he’s all yours.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “There’s a sword I wouldn’t mind falling on.”

  True to her word, she jumped on Onyx, grinding her lips against his. He looked slightly terrified, but a little grateful as well. Men! Go figure. I faced forward, winding my arm around Fenn’s.

  He looked grateful as well, and a little suspicious besides. Amber eyes glowered under thick brown eyebrows. “Are you just using me to punish Onyx?”

  I smiled up at him. “Uh-huh.”

  He grunted. “Okay, I can live with that.”

  We’d reached the glass doors leading outside when we were stopped by a loud popping sound. Fenn spun, dragging me around him.

  “Careful,” I said.

  He stared back past everyone outside the lounge doors. I followed his stare. The stained glass windows in them had blown out, leaving a few colored shards in place. Green light poured out past the broken glass, hazing the air. Translucent, pale blue arms thrust out of the windows, elongating so clawed hands could seize the throats of the two kunoichi guards. They kicked vigorously as they were lifted off their feet.

  One of them pulled a sai and stabbed. The three-pronged dagger melted the middle of the ghost’s arm. Freed, that guard used her weapon to cut her ninja sister loose as well. Ryuuza and Seiza moved toward the guards. Cassie stopped them. I saw why; the green light was stronger, beaming between the doors and all around them. The wood shuddered, cracking under a ferocious onslaught.

  Attracted by the fuss, the desk clerk had come out into the lobby and was staring wide-eyed, her mouth gaping. “I said you could play the piano, not put on a rock and roll blast-out with full pyrotechnics!”

  Fenn left me to rein her in. “I’d get back behind your desk if I were you. Things are about to get ugly.”

  I started toward Cassie when she threw Ryuuza and Seiza down on the carpet. The little paper charms were blackening, turning to ash. Whatever Crunch was doing, the miko wasn’t even slowing him down. I suddenly wanted to know very badly how Crunch was getting the best of her. That information could help me when it came time to springing Tukka from her grasp.

  I reached for the walls of space. They resisted, sliding from my mental grasp as if freshly oiled. I redoubled my efforts and got a grip, as dimension space bucked, oscillating wildly to the warring energies inside the lounge. I crossed over. My gut wrenched, my heart pounded, and I struggled to breath. The electric tingle I usually felt was a white-hot wall of current. I flailed through, muscles clenching painfully until I finished the transition in a lobby reduced to gray tones and silence.

  I recovered on golden hands and knees, gasping, sweat dripping off my face. I needed a few seconds to shake off the reaction. Fenn didn’t give me those seconds. He was back, looking for me, dancing around. His lips moved, shaping my name. He stumbled into me, his legs catching my ribs. His legs had no impact, but his aura stung, kicking me into a roll. The sensation— coming so soon after the weirdly difficult cross over—was salt poured into gapping wounds.

  With a great deal of feeling, I said a few bad words that ladies aren’t supposed to know, and only managed to pick myself up because of the lighter gravity this side of the veil.. Looking around me at a mass expulsion of ghosts from the lounge, I felt like cussing a little more. I now understood how Crunch had beaten the barriers. As the local king of ghosts, he’d summoned all within range. So many ghosts packed into the lounge had over-charged the Shinto wards, burning them out. Now that containment was down, the ghosts were lingering, confused, uncertain. Crunch seemed too busy to tell them what to do.

  There were half-torso floaters, and fully human looking ghosts of all ethnic types. Other spirits manifested as will-of-the-wisps; basketball sized spheres of cold ghost-fire, wobbling in the upper air, tossing blue-green rays of plasma around like some freaky new kind of disco ball.

  Ghosts had died old and young, some without visible wounds, many with damage that indicated how they’d died. One wraith looked like he’d been thrown through a windshield, his face cut into bleeding ribbons. A lanky Goth high schooler with heavy black mascara and nail polish wore an ectoplasmic rope around his broken neck. A nude, water-logged teenage girl had effectively cut her wrists, longwise, not straight across the veins. Her wrists bled freely with every soggy step she made. The blood and watery footsteps evaporated in her wake.

  A gangbanger strutted past me, proudly sporting a dozen knife punctures and a couple gun shots. The shot to the back of his head had to have been by a .22 since the bullet hadn’t come out his face. The light-weight slug had bounced around the inside of his skull, carving his brain into so much frothy red tapioca. He nodded and hissed, “Wass-up?”

  Ignoring him, I hurried on, weaving through the ghostly gallery. Loose objects floated around the room. I fanned my cold foxfire ahead of me. The spirits flinched and dived out of my way. These low-class ghosts lacked the power-level to throw ghostly jags of energy back at me. That made running through them a lot easier. The oblivious humans had been drawn from the doors, distracted by the arrival of hotel security that needed to be appeased before the cops were called.

  Inside the lounge, there was no darkness. Radiant ghosts had displaced it. Crunch stood on the piano, his body wreathed with ghost energy. Hyper-charged by all the attending ghosts, he was bleached out by green-white fire. Light streamed from his eyes and mouth, making him a supernatural lighthouse, as he roared defiance.

  Collapsed behind him on the piano, Aimi sprawled, senseless. No exorcism needed, that was one problem solved.

  I looked for the miko, and didn’t find her. Then I looked up. She was pinned to the ceiling, held there by four floating chairs, her hands trapped so she couldn’t reach any more of those paper and ink charms she carried. A pastel green ghost with a skull for a face was up there, licking the miko’s face as she squirmed and struggled.

  I went to the edge of the dais and stared up at Crunch. “Okay,” I said, “party’s over. Send everybody home.”

  He lowered his face, glaring at me. An evil smile stretched his lips. “Ah, exactly who I want to see. I believe you have a sword I want.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I was playing them. These guys have my fu dog and I’m trying to get him back. The sword I showed the girls upstairs is a fake.”

  Coming straight at me, he stalked to the edge of the piano. Glowing footsteps lingered on the wood behind him. “If you don’t have it, you can get it. If you’re not willing to, why shouldn’t I pull you into pieces?”

  I rummaged inside my head for a good answer to that question.

  A child’s voice answered for me. “Because I won’t let you.

  I spun around. It was Michiko in her sailor suit school uniform, the true sword of Susanoo clutched by the hilt, in both her hands.

  She said, “You’ve stirred things up enough, rampaging around like a bully and a tyrant. It ends here and now. I challenge you for your territory.” Her grayish white katana was twice as long as any I’d seen. Pearlescent fog thickened the air immediately around it, as ragged blue lightning spiraled down the blade, vanishing at the octagonal disk that served as a hand guard. Thunder shook the building like the fist of an angry god.

  I jumped, drifting between Michiko and Crunch. “C’mon, guys,” my voice turned wheedling, “Do we really have to do this now?”

  They screamed in unison: “Yes!”

  TWENTY

  COUP DE JARNAC: early Renaissance term

  for a crippling blow to the back of the knee or

  ha
mstring. Used in a famous judicial duel, it

  was not new, but did become quite notorious.

  The hotel shuddered as thunder broke, announcing a storm rampaging over the building. Not a good omen. But, Hey! How was I hearing thunder while in the ghost realm? My gaze shot to the sword of the storm god Michiko held. If I had to guess, I’d say the relic was breaking the rules with impunity.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Crunch make a shoving motion to the side, ghostly green fire trailing his hand.

  An unseen wall of force smacked me out from between him and Michiko. I tumbled through the air and immaterially skimmed through a couple tables. Hitting the floor, I blurred my hands with orange wisps of aura, clawing the carpet to stop myself. By then, I was back at the entrance to the piano lounge.

  I should have just walked away. I had nothing invested in who won, but my goal was to get the miko to lead me to Tukka. For that, I needed to be on her good side. Here was a chance to rescue her and do just that. I gathered myself and sprang to a tabletop, bleeding aura to make it solid under my feet. From there, I spring-boarded into the air, angling for the four chairs pinning the miko to the ceiling.

  The green ghost that had been licking her face—leaving a residue of slime that wouldn’t be visible in the human world—saw me coming like a flame-wrapped comet. He fled the airspace, but there were still dozens of ghosts drifting about the lounge. Fortunately, they were staying well clear of the looming battle. Getting killed teaches vulnerability like nothing else.

  Arriving, I latched onto one chair with both legs and an arm, and used a free hand to worry at the other chairs holding her secure. They didn’t budge. I swung flaming feet and double kicked a chair. Its seat and legs remained, but the hourglass-shaped back broke away. Taking on my orange glow, the back fell languidly until the glow faded, and then—crossing back—it crashed to the floor at full speed.