by Sara Hanover
Hironori slashed with his sword. Remy whirled out of range, her shield catching the edge of the katana and responding in a swirl of sparks. Joanna the first came in at Remy’s side with a vicious high kick that missed Remy’s temple but caught her in the elbow with a sharp crack, and her arm flailed helplessly in response. Remy tried to shake it off only to reel to one side in pain, her limb useless. Her defensive shield shattered.
I skipped back with a high squeak, pulling Evelyn out of the way again, and seriously considering dumping her overboard—surely with those boobs she’d float. But I had no idea what, if anything, lay waiting in the gray fog roiling about us. It could only be there to hide our movements, or perhaps we’d transitioned to another plane, just as my father had—anything might be possible.
Remy spat out, “Cease and desist, Hironori.” She tucked the hand of her useless arm into the waistband of her jeans and put her left hand up, and another shield shimmered into place. Not as wide, not as brilliant, not as dense but undoubtedly still powerful. All six of her red and white hounds gathered at her heels, jaws gaping.
“By what authority?”
Her lips thinned as they locked gazes. “By whichever authority scares you the most.”
“Neither the Society nor Malender can touch me now.”
“But they already have. Where is your sacrifice?”
Hironori looked at me. “Neither is safe by any degree.” And before he finished speaking, he lunged.
Not at us. Not at Remy. His sword swept out and to the side, and took out three of her hounds with one shrieking cut. Their blood splattered out in a wave of crimson and, like their bodies, disappeared in midair.
Remy threw me a look, her face pale, deep etches by the sides of her mouth, pain or worry, I couldn’t tell. I pulled Evelyn back another foot or so as the spiky fox figure began to advance on us again. Joanna Two opened her fox jaws in a wolfish grin, tongue lolling out, looking less like Joanna or her twin with every step. I could feel the evil rolling off her like an oily stream of malice.
“You can’t save both. I will have one or the other,” it said, rolling the last “r” as if savoring its flavor and warning me to pick one.
I put my palm up, and in the midnight flow of the fog and mist and lantern light around us, the stone glowed, a miniature sun beaming in golds and ivories. The obsidian flecks that inhabited it only shaded the rays of its light, making them that much stronger.
Spike shrank away from me, throwing a paw over her face, showing me her hindquarters, and her tails lashed out. They flipped across me, full of shards, sharp and burning, and I shook them off, aiming my palm at them. One of the furry tails shriveled in on itself and turned into black crumbs, falling like ash to the deck. Joanna let out a scream of fury, and threw herself at us, her original self missing a foxtail as well. I’d managed to wound both of them.
Hironori threw his katana at Remy. It whipped end over end before straightening out and thudding deep into her chest, as true as any arrow. She dropped to her knees, her good arm flung up, her lips moving, but her voice cut from her throat. Her hounds melted into the air.
I stepped into Spike, throwing a left hook I’d only seen thrown in the movies but praying I could land it. Openhanded, I missed her jaw, catching Spike in the throat with the stone full-force. With a guttural choke, Spike tumbled backward, heels over head, across the narrow boat and then going over the side with a squeal, splashing into water and fog that hissed and spat with the fury of a boiling cauldron. I waited half a moment to see if she’d boomerang out of the river, but the fog and water swallowed Spike down.
Evelyn croaked, “Look out!”
I got half a turn in as Joanna jumped me.
Hand-to-hand we grappled, my stone quiet as though emptied of power, her fox form and girl form fading in and out. One moment I had paws and teeth gnashing at me, the next Joanna in high martial art form, with me bobbing, weaving, and scrambling for all I was worth.
Remy wrapped her hand around the hilt of the katana, looking up at Hironori, attempting to keep him from pulling the sword out. Froth bubbled from the side of her mouth, staining her chin crimson. He closed on her with slow, deliberate steps, leaned down and, with a grunt, wrenched his blade out of her. It came free with an awful sucking noise that reached my ears even as I rolled to the deck and away from one of Joanna’s lethal kicks. I also heard the last, keening sound Remy would ever make as she sank to her side, curled in agony as blood pumped from her chest and soaked her slouchy sweater dark.
I kicked back as Joanna crouched low over me, looking for the same killing blow as her father had delivered, but I connected, bare heel to her temple. I’d been in some field hockey brawls and knew some moves so dirty that I’d been removed from games. It knocked her down with a whoosh of breathy surprise. I launched myself onto her, grabbed her by her ears, and began to knock the back of her head to the deck again and again.
I couldn’t do it hard enough to hurt her the way I wanted or had to, and before I could hit her a fourth time, Hironori socked me in the jaw with a fist wrapped about the handle of his katana.
Stars burst inside my eyes and nailed me flat. Quiet followed. When my vision cleared, I saw Hironori standing over me, sword held high over his head, Joanna at his feet, her arms wrapped around his knees as if to anchor him. I found myself down on one knee and looking up at the two of them.
“Relinquish the stone willingly, Tessa Andrews, or I will cut it from you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BEFORE I COULD MOVE, dodge, or even roll overboard to what had to be a nicer fate than what I looked at, Joanna wrenched herself from her father and grabbed Evelyn. She bared her teeth at me, her foxy self shining through again.
“Do not move.”
I didn’t want to surrender. The thought of it rose in my throat like bitter bile and I spat it out. The katana curved across my vision, shining silvery keen except where smeared with Remy’s blood.
“Let her go!” My throat went raw with vehemence.
Hironori looked to his daughter.
“No, Father! Not yet. I have not failed you yet.”
“No,” he answered softly. “Not yet. But we may make a bargain and still gain what we want.” He looked back to me, considering.
“I want the flash drive back. My father exonerated. And my friend safe.”
“That might be difficult. His proclivities were well known. He could not stay away from a gamble. A sad story, his, following in his aunt’s footsteps. She was the first to owe me much, much money. He came in to make good on her losses, and he did. He saved her paltry pension and properties, and she swore off her favorite vice, but by then, we had him hooked. He’d forgotten that the house always wins.” Hironori smiled thinly. “Gambling is like an opiate to many people, as sure an addiction, and generally legal. I cannot bargain the drive with you. You mean our downfall. The only thing I can offer is her life and yours.” A moonlight from beyond the fog glittered on the upheld blade.
Did he mean Aunt April? My great-aunt with the rigid spine? Like the moon filtering through, some sense of my father’s actions came to me. I looked up at Hironori. “Businesses can be moved.”
“As can stones.”
His eyes, dark and shadowed, gave away nothing more. If I relinquished the maelstrom to him, he didn’t have to keep to any deal we’d make. I knew that but pretended to be considering his offer, weighing my options.
Joanna held none of the patience her father did. “Don’t treat her like an equal! She has no options, and I have my souls!” Joanna shook Evelyn like a limp doll. Evelyn responded by vomiting on the two of them even as Joanna raised her fist and a second shadow, watery and blurred, twinned the first. Insubstantial. Barely visible, but there. So much for falling overboard, I thought sadly. The Hashimotos skipped back a step or two from the spew.
I had only slowed them down. I
hadn’t stopped them. I didn’t know if I could.
But then . . . I wouldn’t know if I didn’t try.
Evelyn wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and gave me a sideways smile. She knew me from the field hockey fields as well as the classroom. Her gaze slanted across the deck behind me, and she arched an eyebrow.
I hazarded a quick look and saw, lying in the shadows of the rim between deck and railing, a rusted golf club. A three-iron, if I wasn’t mistaken, forgotten by golfer and crew and left to the elements, tucked almost out of sight. But it took a long time for a good golf club, even abused, to go bad. I rolled to my right, grabbed the club, and came up swinging at Joanna. Hironori moved as one with me, and the edge of his sword caught the shaft of the golf club. We hooked, and metal against metal sang in a high-pitched squeal as my club slid off the katana.
Joanna ducked away, and as she did, Evelyn disappeared into thin air. Off-balance, Joanna staggered to the rail and stared, wide-eyed and openmouthed at the hole in reality. Evelyn was just . . . gone.
I shouted, “It’s about time!” I spun about to free my golf club and got ready for another hit. I heard a soft chuckle behind me and made a note not to back up. Hironori closed in with a soft hiss, his lips thinning in concentration, his wrists flexing slightly as he waved his sword in intimidation. He didn’t intend to be parried off the club this time; I could see his focus on my hands. My wrists, one of which he intended to slice through, freeing the maelstrom stone. I had an ace up that sleeve, though, and kept the club head down, ready to swing up with all the driving power I could manage. I wasn’t feared on the field hockey team for nothing. Settling my feet on the deck, I could feel the vibrations of the boat as the seen and the unseen moved upon it.
Hironori twitched as he began his drive toward me. I tightened my grip. Two little marbles rolled past me and thumped into his samurai-sandaled feet, exploding with all the smoke and fury of a great flash-bang. He pirouetted, missing me entirely, and I grabbed his hand, deflecting the blade toward Joanna. It swooped downward, burying itself in wood and splinters and severing that spiky shadow entirely from her. One-handed, I clubbed it a number of times, ending up with a nice slice to knock it overboard into the fog and sizzling river waters surrounding us. I didn’t know if it would surface yet again, reattached to her, but I didn’t have time to worry as the smoke cleared and Hironori homed in on me once more.
This time I swung first, a backhanded slash to the knees. I connected but he didn’t buckle like I’d planned. With a swish of his samurai robes, Hironori sidestepped the brunt of my hit, grinned, and came back swinging, the edge of the blade so close as I ducked that I could count two new notches in its silvery steel. He drove me back to the deck, on one knee again.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was toying with me or the instinct that said Joanna would attack at my blind spot at any moment. My unseen ally had his hands full of shielding Evelyn so I couldn’t hope that we could double-team them, plus we had the disadvantage of Remy’s fallen body in the middle of the action. For a flicker of a moment, I thought I saw Remy flinch but knew that couldn’t be possible. Hashimoto felt my hesitation, I think, and leaped at me, sword lowered for an upward swing, and I put my hand up to stop him.
And then I realized that I had very obligingly given him a clean shot at cleaving my hand from my wrist, freeing the stone.
My palm flared in scorching pulses and I let out a cry. Joanna let out a low, derisive laugh and vaulted Remy’s body to close on me, to finish off whatever her father left in his wake. Like a mirage, searing waves flowed out of my hand, rippling across the front of me, and my father’s image rose in the midst of the torch. I don’t know how he got there but he had. He brought his hands up, a shield spreading out, halting the Hashimotos in their tracks. I let out a startled gasp and heard a muffled one behind me as well.
“Call the name,” he said, and added in warning, “I can’t hold them long, Tessa.”
And I knew he couldn’t because although he used whatever ghostly power he could summon, the stone itself drew from me, and I could feel what little strength I had left rapidly draining away. Its heat and light pulsed in time with my heartbeat. But what name did he want me to call? Brian? Hiram? Steptoe was already here, and hiding with Evelyn under that suit coat of his. To bring him forth would put Evelyn out in the open as a pawn again, and about all Simon could do was lob more flash-bangs. Carter? It was the only other name I knew I might be able to count upon.
He must mean Carter Phillips, and if he came as a member of the Society, he could bring some heavyweight backup. I drew a quavering breath to name him.
The broken hulk that was Remy moved in her puddle of crimson. In a valiant, death-dying move, she arched upward, straightening. Her lips fell open. With breath she should no longer have held, she cried, “Malender! Malender! Malender!”
Oh holy, no.
That was so not the name I would have summoned.
The fog that had been roiling about the boat grew darker and dense, and then black as a starless and moonless sky. It crawled over the railings onto the boat, carrying a weight with it that made the boat shiver and dance on the river. In fact, I think the whole world shuddered. I scrambled to my feet, keeping the shield deployed, and backed up until I heard Steptoe grunt softly in warning and thought I could feel the heat of their two bodies against my bare feet. I wanted to take our leave, but the now oily cloud settling about us looked about as easy to get through as a brick wall. I would be stuck here until Malender was through with all of us.
Hironori Hashimoto dropped with a thud to one knee, released his sword, and pushed one fist into his open hand in salute, dropping his chin in obedience. Joanna froze next to him until her father hissed and she quickly copied him. Too late, if I were a judge, because Malender had already materialized, although his now-human form appeared out of the nothing, and he stood as handsome as ever, taking his time to sweep his gaze over me, the deck behind me, and all corners of the party barge until it at last fell upon Hironori and Joanna. I couldn’t see much of his face from my angle, but it looked to me as though his eyes had narrowed and his mouth tightened and his teeth ground before he spoke.
“Hashimoto.”
“Saikōshidō-sha.”
“Supreme leader, eh? Yet somehow I do not feel as though you concede my supremacy. Or my leadership. This—” and he spread his hands about him, “feels like a ritual. One intended for elevation. Perhaps one even meant to surpass my own station. You have a sacrifice. You’ve taken down one of my best lieutenants.” Malender paused, looking both sadly and fondly at Remy before waving a hand, and a bloody stain was all that remained of her. “You’ve even cast covetous eyes on a valuable relic.” He looked directly at me, and the maelstrom stone crackled, its power driving my father into an unsteady reel. He disappeared as Malender beckoned at him, but the stone’s shield stayed, although thinner and lighter than before. “What am I to think?”
I froze as I lost my father again, but then felt a swirl of warmth about me that told me he still existed and had only been sent back to his shelter. I managed a breath as I felt that touch.
Hironori grasped at words to satisfy Malender. “I would have you think that, as allies, we strive to be more powerful and thus more worthy to serve you.” Hironori did not look up as he lied through his teeth. Joanna’s two remaining foxtails swished twice in agitation.
“Commendable if true. I don’t feel truth in the night air, however.” He looked again to me. “Do you?”
I opened my mouth and the first sound out didn’t quite make it. I cleared my throat. “Far from it.”
He pointed at my palm. “Did you intend to relinquish that to them? Or to me?”
“No. Not if I can help it.”
“Was it you who summoned Remy?”
My mouth had dried again but I managed a “Yes.”
“Why?”
/> “She told me she could, and would, help me.”
“Ahhh.” He leaned over, touched a fingertip to the blood, and lifted it to his lips where he tasted it. “Ah, Remy. I think we must have words.”
“She’s dead now, or must be.”
Malender shrugged at me. “Perhaps. Perhaps not entirely. I am disappointed in her actions even as I am intrigued by yours.” He returned his attention to the Hashimotos, and I found myself grateful. Handsome yes, and brilliant against his darker self, and altogether the scariest thing I’d ever hoped to see, because I had the impression that even though he looked human, he couldn’t be farther from it. I felt sincerely sorry for Remy’s sacrifice and prayed that she had slipped away from his grasp.
The three of them began to argue in Japanese, fast and loud. I wet my lips and managed a whisper, three times. I had no way of knowing if it could even be heard, let alone answered, through Malender’s looming presence.
I felt a hand on my ankle. Steptoe whispered, “Sorry, ducks, we’re all full under here.”
“It’s okay.” I thought. “Did you manage to grab up any of my things Joanna took off me?”
“Just your evening purse. Pardon me, but that thing feels like you’ve a cannonball in it.”
I grinned. “Not quite. Shove it out, will you?” The purse bowled up against my ankle and I stooped to recover it. Then, as quietly as I could, I opened it and let its contents seep out in a circle around us, white crystals shining in a thick line that not even the evening wind off the river could disturb.
Joanna snarled. Or maybe that was a foxy snap. Hard to tell, I still wasn’t quite versed in speaking Kitsune. She leveled a hand at me and loosed a few scornful words in Japanese.
The two men swung about on me.
Malender tilted his head. “Tessa, Tessa, what am I to do with you?”
