Storm Born ds-1

by Richelle Mead

  The car suddenly lurched dangerously onto the side we weren’t sitting on. My back jammed into the steering wheel, and we half-tumbled onto the other side. Kiyo’s arms went around me, pulling me toward him in an effort to shelter me with his body and keep me from falling. Guess I shouldn’t have undone his seat belt earlier. Fortunately, the car didn’t flip all the way over, and a moment later, it slammed back down on the side we were sitting on with a jaw-rattling crash.

  “What the-” I began.

  In the dark, I could just barely discern Kiyo’s wide eyes staring beyond me, through the windshield. “I think we should get out of the car,” he said quietly, just as something heavy and solid slammed down on the hood behind me. I heard headlights smash. The entire car shook.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. We kicked open the driver’s side door, and I scrambled out. A smell like rotting fish slammed into me. Kiyo started to follow me out, and then the car was lifted up from its front end and slammed back down to the ground. Glass and metal crunched as the motion tossed Kiyo back in the car. The windshield cracked like a spider’s web.

  Fear for him shot through me, but then I finally saw the culprit, and fear for me shot through me.

  It looked like one of the fuaths, I thought. A fachan, possibly. If so, he was far from home since they were native to Ireland and Scotland. Still, the Otherworld had become as global as the human world, and you never really knew what could pop up where.

  He looked like something you might get if Bigfoot had sex with a cyclops and then their offspring moved to the Deep South and interbred for another century or so. He was almost eight feet tall and every part of his grossly muscled body was covered with hair-matted and smelly hair that needed a thorough washing. One giant eye, its color indeterminable in the starlight, peered out at me. One extra hand extended weirdly from the right side of its chest, and an extra leg hung off of its hip. The leg didn’t seem to help him walk; I wondered if it and the extra arm did anything at all or were just used for effect.

  Seeing me, he left the car alone and started lumbering forward. Hopefully Kiyo would be able to get out now. I reached for my gun and discovered it was gone. Son of a bitch. It had slipped its holster either from grappling with Kiyo or when the car had tipped.

  “Get my gun out!” I yelled back toward the car.

  Meanwhile, I took a few cautious steps back, assessing how to handle the fachan. Fachans, despite inhabiting the earth, originated in the Otherworld. They could therefore be banished back there. They also crossed to this world in a physical form, which meant they could be killed. I had both athames in my belt. Silver would be more effective, but iron would probably do some damage too. Okay. I just had to manage one of those while keeping it from getting too fresh with me. No problem.

  He swung one of his long, almost awkward-looking arms at me, and I intercepted it, stabbing him in the hand with the silver athame. I pushed as hard as I could, shoving through tendons and bones. The creature shrieked and jerked his hand back. My hand was on the hilt, but he moved too quickly, too strongly. He took the athame with him. Shit.

  “Kiyo!” I yelled.

  I took out the iron athame and darted over to his right side, opposite the car. The fachan was bigger, but I was smaller and therefore faster…right? My blade snaked out, digging deep into the soft flesh of his stomach. This time I made sure to bring the athame back with me before he moved and took this one too. Blood, looking black in the dim lighting, gleamed where I’d cut. I put some distance between us. I just needed to slow him so I could snag a few moments for the banishing.

  But he wasn’t slowing. He hadn’t seemed happy about the injuries, but he still kept coming for me. I kept the distance between us, wanting to injure him without getting within his range. It was kind of hard when it felt like his arms were as long as my body.

  He swung out his uninjured fist, and I ducked it, using the opportunity to draw blood again. As I did, something occurred to me. His blow, had it landed, would have done some serious damage. Very serious. It had had no purpose, save to inflict as much brute pain as possible. I could understand the tactical advantage of rendering me unconscious before sex, but being in a coma-or dead-might complicate the prophecy a bit.

  My blade bit into him again, and I followed with a sharp kick to his side, dodging at the last minute. We soon developed a little dance. His large, muscled arms would swing out at me, and I would sidestep and get in my slash or kick. Considering my fight with the mud elemental had been two days ago and I wasn’t entirely in peak condition yet, I felt my performance here wasn’t too shabby.

  At least until I moved too slowly, and he caught me with the edge of his hand-his extra hand. Apparently it wasn’t useless after all.

  It was a glancing blow, but I flew backward, into the car, up onto the roof, and into the windshield. The glass-already cracked and fractured-shattered upon impact, and sharp, excruciating pain burned through the side of my stomach as I hit. The skin there was still bare and uncovered from where I’d stripped in the car. My head felt like a cartoon character had just dropped an anvil on it, and for a few seconds, I couldn’t get my body to do the things I wanted it to do.

  The fachan lurched toward me, his limbs and their bulging muscles swinging, and I didn’t have anywhere to go. He grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me up high. I knew in those slow-motion seconds that he was going to slam me down and that I would be dead. As it was, the jerking, lifting motion alone made my addled brain scream.

  Suddenly, the fachan’s head tipped back, and a look of agony crossed his face. His hold on me released, and I dropped back to the hood. It was much less painful than what he’d been about to do, but it still hurt. I frantically tried to sit up and see what had happened, but everything spun.

  Some wolf was attacking the fachan. No, no wolf. The colors and shape weren’t quite right. The ears were more defined, the tail haughty and white-tipped. It was a fox. It was Kiyo. But he was bigger than I’d ever seen him, which was why I’d mistaken him for a wolf. He was huge, muscled and powerful, and his teeth were tearing into the fachan’s back.

  The fachan turned and swatted him away. Kiyo took it with grace: hitting, rolling, and then getting right back up. I wished I could do that.

  I still felt like crap, but my vision had righted itself. Peering into the car, I could see where my gun had rolled across the passenger seat and lodged between it and the door. Beyond me, I heard blows and yips as Kiyo and the fachan continued their fight.

  Gingerly, I started crawling back into the car on all fours, careful to avoid the shards of glass ringing the gaping remains of the windshield. I didn’t do a very good job and brushed sharp points in a few places. They stung my skin. Worse, I could do little to protect my hands when forced to creep over the broken shards covering the dashboard.

  At last I made it inside and retrieved the gun. Grabbing it, I worked my way back to the driver’s side seat and took aim at the fachan still grappling with Kiyo. Only, my hand could barely hold the gun up. That was no good. I shifted and held the Glock two-handed. My arms still shook, but I was steadier now.

  I watched them pace and attack each other, moving fast. Too fast, I worried. I was likely to shoot Kiyo in the process. But I had to try. Nothing was hurting this thing. It was unstoppable. I didn’t want to try to banish it at full strength, particularly since I’d never get close enough to put the death symbol on him and speed his passage. I therefore needed him wounded and easy to send over.

  Taking aim, I waited for a window of opportunity, for a broad target on the fachan. There. The bullet bit into his back, and he jerked in surprise. It slowed him just enough. I fired again. I kept firing until I’d unloaded the entire clip into him. He made horrible noises and staggered slightly. I half-expected him to keep coming, but then Kiyo the Giant Fox leaped at his chest and knocked him to the ground, teeth tearing into what appeared to be the fachan’s throat. Ew.

  My wand was in the car. I swapped it with the gun,
and called upon Hecate, focusing on the snake wound around my arm. My mind slipped this world, opening the gates, and I aimed for the fachan’s spirit. My will, pouring through the wand, seized him and ripped a hole between the Otherworld and my world. It was harder than usual. “Mind over matter” might be the adage, but the mind was reluctant to obey when the body was so weakened and had had its head slammed into a windshield.

  My path to the Otherworld was clear. But then, seeing him start to get up, despite Kiyo’s mauling, I decided I didn’t want him potentially coming back. So I pushed my mind past the Otherworld, brushing the gates of the world of death instead. I felt Persephone’s butterfly flare on my arm as I connected with her domain. The fachan roared as it recognized the tug. He resisted me, his body and spirit presenting a formidable match for my own.

  I focused harder, pushing every ounce of me into forcing him through the black gates. I called on-no, I begged-Persephone to take him.

  At last he went through, his physical body disintegrating as the Underworld sucked his spirit through.

  Only it was pulling more than him through.

  I’d pushed so hard that my spirit had touched more of the world of death than I normally allowed. In my weakened state, my focus wasn’t as sharp about keeping me out. My mind felt like it was being sucked in by a whirlwind, and I had the impression of ghostly, skeletal hands pulling at me.

  “No, no, no, no!” Whether the words were in my head or on my lips, I didn’t know.

  I struggled against the hands, trying to gain a grip on the human world. I would have even settled for the Otherworld. There I could survive, but from the world of death, there was no return. Half of me prayed to Hecate to pull me back through the gates while the other half of me prayed to Persephone to block me out.

  At last I fell back with a snap, my spirit returning firmly to my physical body. My physical and mental senses burned. Almost immediately, I slumped forward, unable to support myself. Only my hand on the edge of the steering wheel caught me from falling out of the car.

  I felt nauseated and dizzy, with too many parts of me hurting to count. Kiyo, still as that giant fox, stood by me, gleaming eyes watching me with all seriousness.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out a tentative hand. His fur was as soft as silk. I stroked it carefully, my motor control still not all it could be. Those fine hairs touched my skin like the lightest of kisses. “That was some trick. How’d you do it?”

  He neither answered nor changed shape, merely nuzzling my hand with his nose. I smiled but then felt too tired to keep holding my arm up. I dropped the hand to my side, feeling something wet and sticky. Pulling my arm up, I saw blood covering my fingers, dark and glistening.

  “Oh, man,” I muttered. The world had started spinning again; black spots danced in front of me. “We need to…go…somewhere. Do something. Change back; I can’t drive.”

  He kept watching me, eyes solemn and intent.

  “I mean it. Why aren’t you changing? Are you hurt?”

  He rested his chin on my knees, and I petted him again, even though I got blood on that gleaming fur. I didn’t get why he wasn’t changing. Could he not hear me in this form? No, he’d always understood before.

  Well, if he wasn’t going to help, I needed someone who could. I had a cell phone in the car somewhere. I could call Roland or Tim. But where was the phone? I couldn’t climb in the backseat, not in this shape. Could foxes fetch?

  Maybe I could summon a spirit for help. Not Volusian, not like this. But maybe Finn? What were the words? How did I call him? It was suddenly too hard to think.

  “Help me…” I whispered to Kiyo. “Why won’t you help me?”

  White spots now danced with the black ones. I closed my eyes, and it felt better.

  “I’m going to lie down,” I told him, stretching back. “Just for a minute, okay?” I rested my head on the passenger seat, lying perpendicular to the seats.

  I heard a soft, almost doglike whine. He must have stood on his hind legs, because I next felt paws and a head resting near my knee.

  “Why won’t you help me?” I asked again, feeling tears spill out of my eyes. “I need you.”

  I heard the whine again, mournful and contrite. My hand reached out, grasping for soft fur. I clutched the strands as though they alone could keep me alive. Then, my fingers lost their grip and slipped away as my hand dropped.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was like dйjа vu. Two fights, two blackouts, and two “mornings after” back in my own bed. Talk about tedious.

  Only this time, I wasn’t alone in bed. I knew Kiyo was with me even before I opened my eyes. I recognized his smell, the way his arms wrapped around me. They held me with delicacy now, not with the fierceness that usually seized him.

  “You don’t quit,” I murmured, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. “Even wounded, you’re still trying to get me back in bed.”

  “I’ve already got you here.” He lay on his side, his eyes staring into mine. Smiling, he ran a hand over my hair, smoothing it back. “I was so worried about you.”

  I snuggled against him, slowly dredging up memories from last night. “I was worried about you too. What happened? Why wouldn’t you change back?”

  “I did…eventually.”

  Well, that was obvious. I waited expectantly, needing more.

  “Being a kitsune isn’t just about the novelty of turning into a fox. It’s more than that. It’s like…I also can turn into-I don’t know-a fox god. No. That’s not right. I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “A superfox?”

  His soft laughter vibrated against my forehead, and he kissed the skin there. “That’s not quite right either. The foxes of the Otherworld are like the progenitors of mortal foxes in this world. They’re stronger, more powerful, wilder. I can change into one of those, but to do so…I almost have to give up my humanity. They’re too animal, too…I don’t know, primordial. When I’m a normal red fox, I’m still pretty much the same as I am now unless I’ve been in that form for a really long time. Then the human part starts to go. But for your ‘superfox,’ I’m already gone in one transformation. I can hang on to only a few human instincts-like that I had to fight that thing and that I had to protect you.”

  I took all this in, frowning. “But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t change back.”

  “It takes time to go in and out of that form. The change is more than physical. I have to give up my human nature to go in, my fox nature to come out. Both are hard. That’s why it took me awhile to even help in the first place. I had to make a quick call, even though it left you undefended. I thought I’d do more damage in the other form.”

  “Yeah, you did do a pretty good job. But you sure scared me there.” I fell silent, recalling those terrible moments of uncertainty while I bled all over myself. “When did you finally change back?”

  “Not long after you passed out, I think.”

  “That would explain why I’m still alive.”

  He nodded. “You lost a lot of blood. You needed ten stitches.”

  I blinked. “Did you take me to a doctor?”

  He grinned. “You bet I did.”

  It took me a moment to catch on. I pulled back the covers and lifted the skirt of one of my racier and rarely used nightgowns-how’d I get dressed in that anyway?-and saw black stitches standing out starkly against my skin, off to the side of my stomach.

  “You did this?” I exclaimed. “You stitched me up? Without a doctor?”

  “I am a doctor. I do this all the time.”

  “Yeah…to cats and dogs. Not to people.”

  “It’s exactly the same. We’re animals too.”

  I eyed the stitches uneasily. The skin around them was red. “Was everything sanitized?”

  He made a disparaging sound in his throat. “Of course it was. The standards are the same. Come on, stop worrying. It was either that or let you bleed to death in the car. I had a kit in the back and used it.”

&nbs
p; “How’d you have enough light out there?”

  “The overhead lamp still worked.”

  I couldn’t believe he’d stitched me up in a smashed car with a vet’s kit. Improvisation at its best. “Did the car actually start?”

  “Sort of…I got us back to the freeway before it died. I found your cell phone and called Tim.”

  “Poor Tim. When I first told him I was a shaman, I think he thought it was as fake as his own Indian charade.”

  “Wait-he’s not actually Indian? I’ve been trying forever to figure out what tribe he’s from.”

  “He’s from the tribe of Tim Warkoski. It’s ridiculous, but-”

  The air in the room rippled, pressure building. I had to blink a few times to ensure the shimmering around us wasn’t in my head.

  Kiyo propped himself up, alert and wary.

  The pressure abruptly faded. A rift from the Otherworld opened up in front of us, and suddenly Dorian stood on a small table in the corner. Not unexpectedly, it promptly broke under his weight, making a horrible crashing sound as its pieces and contents fell to the floor. To his credit, he sidestepped the disaster rather gracefully, easily landing both feet on the floor. I winced, seeing the anchor ring lying among the debris. I’d set it on the table, not considering the consequences of Dorian arriving exactly where it lay.

  “What the hell-” Kiyo started to climb out of bed, but I was in his way. I laid a restraining hand on his chest.

  “No, it’s all right. He’s here for our next lesson. Jesus…I can’t believe it’s that time already.” I’d lost a lot of time since the car.

  Dorian wore his usual simple but fine clothes, covered by another elaborate robe. This one was black satin, edged in silver and small seed pearls. If the present circumstances surprised him, he didn’t show it. He kept his face typically unimpressed and sardonic. His smile twisted as he regarded us.

  “I can come back later if it’s more convenient. I do so hate to interrupt.”