He smothered the thought. He and Max were always going to be looking in the mirror at death. That was what they were made for. He was going to have to learn to deal with it if he wanted to be with her, and there was nothing else in the world he wanted more. He remembered the first part of Magpie’s prophecy: You will have your heart’s desire. That was Max. He knew that now. It had become more than clear when he thought she had died. But how could he have her and still be Prime? If part of a prophecy was true, then it all had to be. He had the amulet. The rest would fall into place whether he liked it or not. It was just a matter of time.
His hands jerked on the wheel and the Mustang fishtailed. He straightened out, forcing himself to concentrate on the road before he wrecked them again.
“Want me to drive, Slick?”
“No,” he said curtly.
“Then do you mind staying on the road?”
He did not answer.
“Something bothering you, Slick?”
“None of your business.”
“I thought you wanted to be my business.”
He grimaced. She had him there, and he sure as hell did not want to destroy the fragile roots of their budding relationship. Neither did he want to tell her about Magpie’s prophecy. “I am just hungry,” he said finally.
This time it was her turn not to answer. She gave him a long look and then rolled down her window and stared out at the black water of the lake.
They came through Clearlake and stopped at a Taco Bell for food. Just outside of town, Alexander was about to follow the split to Highway 20, when Max stopped him. She had a map open on her lap. “Take 53 south. It will hit Morgan Valley Road, and that will bring us in the back door of Winters.”
He did as told and soon they found themselves winding through the foothills leading down to Lake Berryessa, just west of Winters. Max tapped her feet and twisted her fingers together nervously. It was not like her.
“How pathetic is it that I don’t know if I’m more worried that they’ll be dead or that they’ll still be alive and pissed at me for pretending I was dead all these years?” she asked suddenly.
“What if you had told them?” he asked.
She grimaced. “They probably would have tried to come and rescue me. Even knowing what I’d become. Especially Tris.”
“Giselle would have taken that well.”
“The witch-bitch would have killed them, if she couldn’t stop them some other way. Then I would have killed her, no matter what it took.” A flicker of pain crossed her face and smoothed away. No doubt her compulsion spells telling her she should never even think about killing Giselle.
“So in letting the lie that you were dead stand, you protected your family.”
“They won’t see it that way. They’ll just see that I lied for years and that I hid from them.”
“They will have to get over it. You could not have done anything different.”
She snorted, but did not argue. He started to reach out and grip her hand, but pulled back. He felt as explosive as dynamite. One spark—one touch from Max—would ignite him into a conflagration. This was not the time or the place.
“Any chance your cell phone is working?” she asked suddenly.
He handed it to her. Hers had disappeared with her clothes and weapons in the enchantment around Shasta. She tried it, then tossed it onto the dash. “Nothing. If we don’t make it back, I hope Giselle takes in everyone I sent her.”
“We will make it back,” he said.
“You sound awfully certain. You got a crystal ball I don’t know about?”
He shook his head. “I have no intention of dying before I get you into bed.”
“Oh? Do I get a vote on that?”
“Not anymore,” he said, unsmiling. She had told him all she needed to when she told him she wanted him.
“You sound like a caveman.”
“If that is what it takes.”
She said nothing after that. He drove the next sixty miles as quickly as he dared. The road was winding and narrow, and it was still more than an hour later when they passed the Lake Berryessa dam. As they started a descent toward the valley and Winters, Max sat forward in her seat, staring out the windshield.
The land was dry and rucked up like a blanket, with a sparse sprinkling of trees. They wound through the progressively lower hills, following a river that ran alongside the road.
They came around a bend and Alexander slowed to a stop. Ahead, the way was blocked by a wall of white smoke. It was too thick to see through, and it swirled as if stirred by wind, but maintained a static line across the blacktop. Outside of it, the night was calm. Crickets chirped, and birds called.
Max opened her door and got out. Alexander shut off the car and did the same.
“Where is your family’s orchard?”
“Over that ridge and southeast a little ways.” Max pointed to the left. “Maybe a couple of miles at most.” She walked toward the white wall of smoke. “Smells like woodsmoke. Sweet, though. Like honey and hay, too. Ever seen anything like it?”
He frowned. Something tickled at his memory. He walked closer until he was only a few inches away. He closed his eyes, smelling and tasting the air. Yes—woodsmoke, honey, and hay. Those things for certain. But also— He tilted his head, concentrating. There, under it all. A sift of musky fur and a hint of dry death. He stepped back. “I think—yes, it must be obake.”
“What is an obake?”
“Obake are shape-shifters from Japan. They begin as animals or even objects with souls and can transform into human form. Some are ghosts that can transform. This smoke is of the bakemono—the ghost variety.”
“So what do they want here? Winters doesn’t strike me as a top-of-the-list target for the Guardians.”
“My guess is territory. Japan is a small place and the Guardians are ridding the world of the human infestation. These obake might have been given this place as a reward for their service to the Guardians.”
“How do you fight them?”
“Same as most Uncanny creatures. Steel slows them down and cutting them apart kills them. Obake are not particularly strong, but they are clever, and they have numbers.”
“And this smoke? How dangerous is it?”
“The moment we enter it, they will know where we are. It hides them, and it tells them about their enemies. Breathing it will probably not be healthy.”
“How long can someone survive in it?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“So the less we’re in it, the better,” Max said.
He knew she was wondering how humans could have survived it for three days. But her face was calm and focused, her emotions shoved down where they could not interfere.
She turned around. “Let’s go that way.” She started up the hill.
“Wait.” Alexander went to the car and took out the two swords. He shoved one into the witch chain around his waist and handed the other to Max, who did the same. Next, he grabbed the bandoliers of grenades and extra ammo clips, doling them out between them.
At the top of the hill, they stopped to survey the expanse of smoke that hovered like a low fog for miles. Alexander looked north, putting a hand on her shoulder to draw her attention to the smudge of crimson on the horizon.
“It’s close,” she said, her jaw knotting as she squinted at it. “We’d better hurry. We’ve only got a few hours before dawn. We can’t wait till tomorrow to escape, or we’ll be caught up in the wild magic.”
She ran down the slope to the bottom and turned to follow the long V between the ridges. Alexander kept pace with her. They came again to the smoke wall and stopped.
“How far from here?”
“Maybe another half-mile or so. Jim said he thought he saw a thinning near the farmhouse. Let’s climb up there and see what there is to see.”
She bounded up the hill and scanned the smoke above the orchard. “He’s right. See it? Over there—you can see through it a little. Do you s
ee a light?”
A spot of orange flickered and did not disappear. “It could be a fire or a signal.”
“Maybe that’s for us. Maybe Jim wanted us to know he got through,” Max said.
“Either way, it is at the farmhouse, right?”
“Pretty close.”
“How far can you jump with that feather?”
She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully.
“With a passenger,” he added. “We are going together.”
“Never thought otherwise, Slick.”
“Right.”
She grinned and then shrugged. “No idea. We’ll get closer than here, however far it is.”
“If we land in the smoke, we will not be able to keep our bearings. The smell and the silence of it will overwhelm our senses. It is what bakemono smoke does.”
“Won’t that be more fun than a barrel of piranhas?”
He unwrapped his witch chain and fastened himself to her, holding his sword in his right hand. “So we do not get separated.”
“Let’s go, then,” she said, and walked back up the ridge a ways. She turned and wrapped her hand around his wrist. He did the same. “Just don’t accidentally skewer me with that thing when we land. Ready? On the count of three. Run and jump. One, two, three!”
They lunged forward, running as fast as their Shadowblade magic allowed. Just before the wall of smoke, they leaped into the air. Alexander clamped his hand tight on Max’s as he began to fall. She held him equally hard. They rose above the filmy white ocean, heading toward the light.
The milky smoke curled and twisted with phantom shapes as they drifted above it, slowly sinking. They could not have been more than a hundred yards from the light when they dropped into the smoke.
“Close your eyes,” Alexander told Max. “Keep them closed until we get to the farmhouse.”
The white curled around them both. It felt like ghostly hands, as well it could have been. Although bakemono wraiths could touch, they were not physically dangerous until they took their human form, but they could lead people astray in the smoke and walk them off the edge of a cliff.
Alexander tried to keep himself facing the farmhouse. He jolted as he landed. A moment later, Max settled beside him with a gentle thud. He did not wait, but started off in the direction he remembered, slowly swinging his sword out in front of him to feel his way.
He had held his breath as he entered the smoke, and now he let it out, drawing another. It was cool against his skin, but it burned his nose and down into his lungs. His eyes itched, despite being closed, and his face felt tight, like all the moisture was wicking out of him. Not good. It would be easy to get disoriented and be turned into a dry husk within a few hours. The thought was frightening, given how long Max’s family had been submerged in it.
He went as fast as he dared. Voices whispered, and there were growls and yips all around. He fought the urge to open his eyes. Although he had never encountered bakemono before, he had heard enough stories to know what not to do. Keeping his eyes shut was crucial to finding his way.
They were in the orchard. Low-hanging cherry limbs batted him in the face. He kept one arm up to ward them away and swept the sword back and forth before him.
It was becoming harder to breathe. His lungs felt like they were filling with sand. He pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, but it did no good. The smoke went right through.
He counted his steps. They had been maybe a hundred yards from the light. He was going slowly, so he thought a hundred and fifty steps should put him in the right vicinity.
Something brushed his leg. He kicked out, hitting nothing. A hand pinched his ear. Another slid up his thigh to his stomach. He slapped them away, this time hitting flesh. There was a trill of laughter, sweet and silvery. Obake turned into beautiful humans to lure their prey. Another reason to keep his eyes shut.
He kept walking. He felt the tug of Max on the other end of the chain as she, too, knocked away attackers. Her breathing was labored like his own.
At last he thought he had gone far enough. He groped for Max. “I am going to look. You might not be able to trust me after that.” He coughed, his tongue so parched he could not swallow. It felt like the sharp spines of a thistle were drilling into the back of his throat. It was nearly a minute before he got himself under control.
He opened his eyes. In front of him was a clear little hollow in the smoke. Inside it stood a trio of beautiful women. They were naked, their bodies curvacious and lush. Their faces were delicate, and their hair cascaded down their backs in riots of red-black curls. Kitsune. Fox obake. They had to be.
They saw him looking and smiled, sashaying toward him, licking their lips and sliding their hands over themselves erotically as they did. They could not disguise their eyes, though—they were hungry for blood. He smiled as if amazed and delighted and looked past them.
In the near distance, the smoke thinned. He could see the glow of the light. It shimmered and danced like a reflection on water. He was headed slightly in the wrong direction. He needed to shift left. He did, squaring his shoulders to his goal. All he needed to do now was walk straight for another twenty yards.
The three women had reached him now and were rubbing themselves on him like foxes scent-marking their territory. They licked his neck and stroked him through his jeans. They smelled of jasmine and honey.
“What’s going on, Slick? Friends of yours?”
Alexander nearly jumped out of his skin as Max spoke. He jerked around, scowling. “You were not supposed to open your eyes. Now, come on. We have to be quick.”
He shoved the kitsune away and strode on. They screeched and came at him. Their mouths were fanged now, and their fingernails were long and sharp. He knocked them aside as best he could, but did not stop. He did not dare get turned around in a fight. He kept his eyes locked on the light, not daring to look away for even a second. The smoke closed back around him. It was patchy in places, blindingly thick in others. Shapes danced in it, and lights flickered all around. He kept his gaze fixed on the one he had seen first.
The kitsune women continued to claw at him. One of them was ripped from his back, and he heard the crashing thud as she was thrown into the air, breaking branches before she landed. The second and third soon followed as Max came to his rescue. More howls and yips sounded, and there was a rustle and snapping twigs signaling dozens of scurrying bodies—maybe more.
“Come on. Hurry!” Three female kitsune could not offer much trouble to a Shadowblade, but if fifty or a hundred obake swarmed them, the two Blades would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It would not be long before they fell under the ravenous tide and were torn to bits.
He broke into a run, Max close on his heels. He stepped on something soft. It screeched, and Alexander fell to the side, losing sight of the light. He thrust to his feet as a flood of furry bodies squirmed and writhed around his legs. Dozens of mouths fastened onto his thighs, calves, and feet, pulling and yanking back and forth. Max was kicking and swearing. He bulled ahead, dragging her after him in the direction he thought he had been going. The smoke was thinner here. It had to be right. He prayed it was right.
The animals—badgers, raccoons, foxes, skunks, squirrels—chased after Max and Alexander. They clambered over one another in a frenzy, raking claws into their prey and snapping at the soft flesh. Something scrabbled up Alexander’s back to his shoulder, and Max snatched it away as it fastened onto the flesh at the nape of his neck.
He chopped before him with the sword, shuffling more than running as he sought to keep his feet beneath him. The witch chain jerked and loosened as Max fought her way through. He heard the whine of her sword cutting through the air and the squalls of obake in pain.
They kept slogging through the shifting tide of bodies, panting as the smoke petrified their lungs. His head spun with lack of oxygen. How much farther? Alexander could not tell. Then suddenly they crossed a ward line. Fire swept over Alexander’s skin and he sprawled into a ditch. The b
ottom was muddy. He leaped to his feet. Max stood in the mud, the witch chain pulled tight between them. Behind them, obake raged at the edge of an impenetrable magic circle.
The air was better here; the smoke wasn’t as thick. Convinced the obake could not break the ward line, Alexander turned to see where they were.
Behind them was a sprawling white farmhouse surrounded by trees. Behind it were two long white barns. But they weren’t what caught his attention. Twenty feet away was a bonfire. It was the light that had guided them. A single figure stood in silhouette before it. He came slowly forward. He was older, in his late sixties or early seventies. His hair was a bleached gray, and his face was angular and tanned, his eyes brown. Lines of exhaustion and worry dug furrows into his face. His gaze was fixed on Max.
“Anne?” he asked in disbelief. “Anne—is that you?”
Alexander frowned in confusion. Max looked stricken. Her clothes were torn from where the obake had clawed and chewed on her, and blood smeared the skin of her face and arms. She let the sword fall from her limp fingers.
“Hi, Dad. I’m back.”
Chapter 16
MAX FELT LIKE THE BOTTOM HAD JUST FALLEN out of the world. She’d known she would see her family, and yet nothing had prepared her for that moment when her father first looked at her and saw that she was alive. Thirty years after her supposed death, she was alive and still looked twenty-one years old.
She had seen her father, of course. From a distance, usually around Christmas and again at Tris’s birthday in the summer. She had watched him and her mother and everyone else growing up and growing older. He stared at her now, shock making his mouth fall open.
“How? I don’t understand,” he said finally. “You look like you did—just like the pictures we have of you.”
Then his face took on a look of dawning understanding and he said the last thing she ever thought she would hear from him. “You’re a witch servant, aren’t you? A Shadowblade, right? The ones who can only go out at night?”
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