Destiny's Child (The Kitsune Series)

by Morgan Blayde

  Change of venue, change of rules. The physics of the subconscious weren’t those of the waking world. Already this place was having an effect. My dream self was articulate and insightful, my sense of plotting sweeping toward a perfect answer! If only I was this insightful in the waking world, I might have sold a few of my stories. Not yet published, I yearned to be a writer. This was my chance to show I had the talent to match my calling.

  Hi, Grace. Glad to see it’s you kidnapped this time. Was getting old for Tukka.

  “Tukka!”

  I spun around, leaping off my rock seat, and there he was: teal blue hide, curly mane, lavender eyes burning lantern-bright, and two tons of dense, heavy muscle. He grinned, showing off formidable teeth. Miss me?

  I hugged him as Taliesina danced around us, the moth on her back working her wings furiously, trying not to be dislodged.

  I pulled back. “What happened to Fenn and the Trickster?” I had a half-memory of a new gate opening, taking us to a world of living rock. Since then, impressions came and went, tasting my thoughts as if my shadow self were tapping into me in search of clarity. Maybe she wasn’t trying as hard as she might to eat me. If that were so, maybe I could reach an understanding with her that would give me—us—our stolen lives back.

  Taking no injury, Tukka waded through some black grass, snapping the blades, making a discordant jingle of chimes. Fenn taken prisoner like me. Tukka tell him to sleep, see Grace. Not sure he understood.

  Sexy hunk coming? Taliesina’s mental voice was sharp with hope.

  “I thought you wanted Shaun,” I said.

  Nah, we want Fenn now.

  “We do?” I said.

  I thought about it. Maybe here, my heart isn’t as impervious to change as I’d thought. Or maybe Taliesina likes anything male.

  Male and cute, Motherella said.

  These multiple manifestations of me were getting weird in a dizzy sort of way. Whoever said multiple personalities were fun? I shook off the thought, bringing my mind back to the very big problem at hand. Leaning against Tukka’s side, I filled him in. “We were about to come up with a battle plan for getting me back in charge of me. You can help.”

  Tukka not great at thinking deep, better being ruggedly handsome.

  Taliesina and the moth just looked at him, faces blank as if they were holding back thoughts of contradiction.

  He stared back at them. What?

  Taliesina looked away. Nothing.

  I sighed. “Can we focus, people?”

  “On what?” Fenn stood beside me, wearing black jeans, a black tee-shirt, boots, and a scalp wound that sent a trickle of blood down the side of his face.

  I pushed off of Tukka and grabbed Fenn’s arm, staring at his injury. “What happened to you?”

  “Huh?” He saw my stare and touched his head. A goose egg was there, but he didn’t seem to feel any pain. His hand came away, fingertips wet with blood. “Oh. Tukka faded out on me, saying he was going dream-walking to see you. I can’t physically enter dreams, or dream on command…” he scowled as if that limitation pissed him off, “…so I was forced to smack my head into a wall and knock myself out.”

  Good plan, Tukka said.

  I wasn’t sure if Tukka was joking or not.

  Taliesina crept up to Fenn. She delicately sniffed his butt.

  Embarrassed, I shook my head at her.

  She stared back. What?

  I didn’t answer. My attention was caught by the low-hanging sky. It dimmed, running through a dozen shades of ever-darker gray until true black arrived. The winds went dead calm. The obsidian grass stilled, its song dying out with a whimpery sigh. Two slashes opened in the darkness overhead, flaring to become crimson eyes staring down. The eyes distorted, belling outward as a face formed. A copy of my face, but with fox ears.

  “I guess my kitsune nature is proving too stubborn for her escape it altogether,” I said.

  Matching my upward stare, Taliesina wrinkled her nose, wiggling her whiskers. Or maybe she just likes fox ears.

  So much for luring her here, Tukka said.

  “Anyone got a plan?” Fenn asked.

  As I flashed back to a recent dream, an unsettled feeling lodged in my gut. “I’ve got one. Not a good one, but…”

  Tukka looked at me and grinned. Mothership has come, Grace. You know what to do.

  Needing space, I moved away from everyone, remembering to watch my step and stay on the white gravel so I wouldn’t cut my feet on shards of grass. A deep growl wavered in my throat. “I really hate it that it’s come to this.”

  Quit sniveling, Motherella said. I need to survive. That’s what important.

  Taliesina nodded. That goes for me, too.

  “Grace. Incoming!” Fenn pointed upward.

  The sky had formed hair and a neck for the floating face. Shoulders appeared. An arm broke through the cloud, spearing down at us. The shadow-fox was a swimmer emerging from an upside-down sea. Her lips were tight across her teeth. The red light of her eyes hazed the air and tinted the white rock clearing pink. On the ground, our shadows were red as well.

  I raised a fist high over my head in defiance. A band of stars twinkled around my wrist. A platinum band materialized. On the back of my wrist, a bump on the band had an engraved circle that flashed lavender. “Metamoriffic!” My voice echoed into infinity, then doubled back on me. I felt silly. It didn’t help that Fenn and Motherella both snickered at me. “You guys tell anyone about this and you’ll be sorry,” I warned.

  The firestorm came. Icy jags of energy crackled around, searing the air. Spinning coins pastel pink and blue passed through me as if I had no substance, a living dream. My clothing misted away. Ribbons of teal light came out of nowhere, wrapping my limbs, my torso. The bands fused into a clinging, tinfoil combat suit. A miniature cape, draping from a hood behind my head, fluttered from my shoulders in a wind that sprang upward from my feet. Platinum stars danced across my brow. The haze melted into a jeweled tiara. Interlocking platinum plates appeared, cinching my waist. Lavender gloves and boots formed as well.

  Just what I always wanted to be—an anime warrior of love and justice!

  Tukka go mecha-Tukka? he asked.

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ve always believed that ultimate weapons need to be used right off. Nothing good ever comes from waiting.” Besides, the shadow-fox had covered half the distance to the ground. I had no time to waste.

  As dramatic music swelled out of thin air, Tukka, Motherella, and Taliesina formed a chorus line, singing in three-part harmony:

  “Between a rock and a harder place,

  We face the fury of our times—

  Dandelion fluff in the wind—

  Don’t let the dream of us die—

  Fighto, fighto, fighto…”

  A pearlescent energy expanded from my raised fist. It took the shape of a big violet-blue broadsword with a cross-shaped hilt. White lightning spiraled around the length of it. The winds under me roared even stronger, lifting me into the air as a crater formed in the ground, and the little rocks were fused into a steaming glaze.

  “Tachyon Soul Sword Attack!” In anime tradition, screaming out the name of the combat technique you use increases your power exponentially. I didn’t know why, but I needed all the power I could get as I pointed my energy blade dead center of the shadow-fox’s face. That done, I screamed a medium-high note, and felt an answering vibration in the hilt I held. I poured out my soul’s defiance: every thought of love and friendship I could disgorge, every hope I’d ever fought for, every dream for a bright future.

  Fight, Grace, Fight! Taliesina urged. We can’t die here; we’re still virgins!

  Take out an ad on TV, why don’t you?

  The note I sung took on a ragged, desperate edge as my lifeforce poured into the sword. Just like in the dream I’d had back at the Slayers school, raw, cosmic fury cast out wings of lavender, extending sideways from the blade as a spire of light slammed up into the shadow-fox’s face.
Her red-eyed stare was washed back, the bloody glow shattered into fuzzy coals that drifted earthward. She screamed, hunger becoming disbelief. My beam bored into her face, cracking it like an obsidian mask. Then charcoal motes mixed with the red, both fading to nothing as they reached the woods and the clearing.

  I had won in the dream. I wasn’t sure what that meant for all the pieces of me outside the dream. There was only one way to find out.

  I looked down at my friends. “Wait here.”

  Fenn reached up toward me. “Grace, take me with you.”

  I shook my head at him. “Not this time. Stay here. If I don’t come back,” I shrugged, “give your heart to someone else.”

  “I’m available,” Taliesina said.

  I refrained from pointing out to her that if I didn’t make it, she probably wouldn’t long survive either. Though separate in a dream, we really were just on person. Only Motherella had a chance to survive, being a recent add-on with only shallow ties to the rest of us. I spun, rising like a bullet above the black-glass woods. The ebony sky had paled to charcoal. The rose-gray moon was visible once more. I shot across her face, driving to the limits of the dream, the point where I’d burst out of it, into whatever awaited.

  My sword evaporated from the tip down until my hand was empty. The wristband flashed away, a platinum mist that condensed into ice particles brushing my face, dribbling down my body. My girl-hero anime costume shimmered, dispersing like everything else. Naked, I came into this dream. Naked, I leave it.

  And then there was darkness. Endless. Empty. A wall I hit. Fractured pieces swarmed, then reformed under me—a dark mirror sea that I stood upon. My mind reoriented, and I walked on, hearing gasping sounds of pain in the distance. I should have reached someone, but the sounds never came closer. Then I realized that it was the darkness around me that was injured, sobbing.

  What was that light? Too much to swallow—ever. Too much to possess. But I felt so much!

  I stopped and lifted my face. “You can only have all that by accepting me, by living with me. If you eat me, it’s gone forever. Share my life, and I will fill you.”

  The darkness shivered on the edge of possibilities. A long silence passed. Then my shadow self said, Fill me again. Wound me over and over.

  The darkness thinned to gray murk as it coalesced, forming an obsidian core shaped like me. She was a polished jet statue, glossy, with vague features and stiff, chiseled hair. She opened her arms as I drew near.

  I walked into her embrace, wrapping my arms around—myself. Eyes closing, we fused, sinking into one another, turning until two astral bodies were one in every way.

  I opened my eyes.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Beyond the ashes of a dream,

  where night explodes to day.

  Dragons worm thru beds of rock

  with beguiling games to play.

  —Ballad of the Shadow Fox

  Tukka

  I floated on a miniature island of rock, down a molten-rock river of yellow and red. Heat caged me. I choked in harsh fumes that I hoped wouldn’t kill me, or corrode my lungs. I was back in human form, both kitsune and shadow elements hidden. Unfortunately I still had antennae on my forehead and baby moth wings on my back. And I’d left my clothes on another world.

  I coughed, wishing I had a damp cloth to filter the air I breathed. The bludgeoning scents were so strong my nose was numb, useless.

  I was in a vast tunnel. The lava glow painted everything orangey-red. The curved walls had windows, doorways, balconies, and cut-out rooms scooped from the rock. But I saw no people, none of the Hysane.

  After a while, the island jarred, running aground on a sort of ramp. I was glad I was already lying down so I didn’t topple over like a bowling pin. Ahead, the rock offered a red curtain bracketed by marble columns. I couldn’t see what the heck I was walking into, but pulled myself up and hurried off the island as it crumbled.

  Fine, fine, I’m coming.

  The granite was surprisingly smooth, easy on my bare feet. Now that I thought about it, the island’s surface had been the same way, nothing to scrape my tender flesh. Such consideration from my hosts was highly suspicious. There couldn’t be a good reason why they wanted me in ideal shape.

  Oh, yeah, that’s right. These people have gladiatorial games. Always a right time and place for bloodshed.

  I pushed the middle-spit curtain aside and found a triangular gap four feet deep. Once I stepped inside it, the way back closed behind me. I could hear a sea-sound, the murmur of an incredible number of voices.

  My adoring public, all waiting to see me. Naked. I think not.

  I grabbed one of the curtains before me and yanked hard, staying behind the other one. I made a kind of toga out of the cloth, instantly feeling better, though I could have used some panties as well, and maybe a pair of sneakers. I drew a deep breath and pushed on through.

  Hard, glaring sunlight blinded me as I walked out on heated white sand that made me hop along faster. Adjusting to the glare, I realized I was in a ten-deck coliseum that put to shame anything Rome had ever built. This was at least Super Bowl sized. Maybe bigger. The Hysane lizard folk filled the seats, dusky violet, and pumpkin-headed. I trotted toward a section that contained private boxes. These would be the bozos running the circus, the upper crust of local society.

  One box was framed by red curtains and white marble pillars. Inside, a platinum throne was occupied by a guy who was sumo wrestler big, only he had none of the underlying muscle of such athletes. If he could actually get up and walk, I’d be hugely surprised. Pun intended. He wore an outfit made up of delicate gold chains and a crown that sported a blue diamond like a third eye. Fanned wings shot off from the sides of the crown. He had a sort of weary boredom on his face, allowing a scantily-clad slave girl in ugly iron chains to plop small pieces of fruit into his gaping mouth. He reminded me somehow of a big-mouth bass, only not as pretty. Another slave girl went around the lesser chairs in the booth, pouring wine into people’s jeweled goblets.

  On the mortal side of the veil, my baby moth wings weren’t strong enough to lift me. I could only hop from one foot to another, turning around, shielding my eyes, wishing for a pair of cool shades to complete my look. The sand was discolored in places where blood or something had been raked over. All the seating was elevated fifteen feet above the sand. On my level, I was surrounded by smooth, gray wall. The opening I’d come through was gone. I expected that when a new opening formed, I’d meet my opponent, whoever or whatever it turned out to be.

  A dark hole irised open. A warrior in bronze armor stepped onto the sand. He held a shield with a saw-tooth edge, and a short, straight sword that any Roman legionnaire might have used. His helmet was less historical, a sort of bubble of metal that framed his face. He snarled, heading for me at a fast trot. I was still bouncing up and down on the hot sand, eyeing his leather sandals with envy.

  Allow me, mistress. The thought in my head was liquid cool, a gentle murmur from my shadow self. Black shadow coated my feet like socks, bringing blessed relief from the heat. The darkness was feeding on the heat, pulling it into endless emptiness.

  I checked in on the shadows at the back of my mind and found a charcoal version of Taliesina’s fox form. She still had her golden eyes. Instead of a whole moth, she just had moth wings jutting from her back. All my other elements had fused into one image—the shadow fox of legend, I supposed, only pint-sized this time.

  The trotting warrior was getting close, coming on like a runaway train. Going into this world’s ghost realm offered an advantage, but the thought of tens of thousands of lingering ghosts—soured by dying in these games—dissuaded me. One opponent was enough. I let him get almost into sword range, and threw a handful of foxfire into his eyes. My cold, aura flame wasn’t dangerous to most living beings in the mortal realm, but he didn’t know that.

  Startled, he batted at the fire, and skidded aside, taking up a slow, circular orbit around me. His eyes were wary, slitte
d against the glare off the surrounding sand. And he definitely wasn’t Hysane. He might have come from earth, except for the tusks that protruded from his lower jaw. And now that he was so close, I noticed he had an extra finger on each hand.

  I turned with him, but also made a point of spiraling away so he had to keep closing on me.

  Baring yellow teeth, he snarled, and lunged several steps. On the last step, he sprang into the air, sword slashing.

  I reversed direction and dived under him, rolling sideways, and coming up to my feet, my body lightly coated with hot sand. I poured shadow into my palm, letting it lengthen into a shadow blade at the core of kitsune fire. He’d felt my fire and knew it was cold, no danger at all. I smiled. Keep thinking that. Don’t wonder about the shadow inside the flame.

  It was funny, just weeks ago, I’d have been in a dither about killing someone trying to kill me.

  Motherella’s flat voice echoed in my mind’s inner shadows. Squeamishness is stupid.

  My shadow self said, Kill him.

  I didn’t need the advice. My blade telescoped, punching through his unarmored throat. He seized up, muscles locking. Frost formed on his body. Then cracks. He shattered and fell in chunks and rolled on the sand, quickly losing inertia. My sword compressed, becoming a dagger that I held at my side.

  The crowd was silent, stunned. Then it roared. Arms waved in excitement. Many of the Hysane leaped to their feet, tails flailing dangerously, causing more than a few brawls to erupt in the stands.

  Apparently, I’m a hit.

  A couple of slaves appeared in simple tunics, one of them toting a rake. The smaller slave had scrawny limbs, a limp, and seemed to have missed quite a few meals. The other was dull eyed, extra-wide, and had a gray beard with brown edges. They shambled quickly across the sand. Extra-wide grabbed my dead opponent by the ankles and dragged him off while Scrawny raked sand over the fresh blood to reduce the slipping-around factor. I wondered why they bothered. Wouldn’t it be highly entertaining if a fighter went down on his butt at a crucial moment because he hadn’t watched where he was going? Of course, no one asked me.