“If only Shaun were here…” I sighed.
“I know, Moppet, I’m sad too that we can’t wait for him.” Missy dragged me off the bed, into a wheelchair someone wheeled over, having dragged Kendall away from the door. “But the fighting’s getting heavy downstairs. My diversionary force will be pulling out soon, drawing off your protectors so we can bail by another route.” She threw a blanket over my lap.
TMI: too much information.
The only diversionary action I wanted to know about involved me and Shaun in a passionate lip-lock. The sunlight through the windows shifted to an oily green, coloring my skin gecko. That was interesting. I giggled, holding up my hand, staring. Five fingers became ten, then five again as I wiggled them. And giggled. Wow. Whatever she’d given me was the good stuff!
The women picked up a shot comrade and followed, as Missy took me to a waiting elevator. Unconscious on the elevator floor, my mom blocked the door, a spilled hospital tray next to her.
Mom! Get up from there. You’ll get your clothes all dirty.
They dragged her out so most of us could go in. Those that couldn’t, ran for the stairs. Through the closing doors, I looked with great concern at my squished Jell-O. Pieces of it quivered in fear. Poor thing.
The doors shut. Missy pressed the button for the top floor.
My hand no longer looked green, having turned both smoky and tangy like a good bar-b-q sauce. I licked my thumb to confirm the sensation. It tasted fuzzy.
Missy squeezed my shoulder with a grip like a raptor. “We’re going for a fun little helicopter ride. You’re in for a real treat.”
“Oh, I’ve done that before, with a mothman.”
One of the girls snickered as the doors opened.
Missy glared at her. “Something funny to you?”
The girl straightened, losing expression. “No, Ma’am.”
We left the elevator at the top floor, joining with the others from the stairwell. They wheeled me off, ignoring questions from curious onlookers. Chair and all, I was carried up a last flight of stairs to the roof and set down. They wheeled me across the roof, through bright sunshine and a blustery wind. The rooftop shone, mostly white gravel, although someone had taken red spray paint to create an intricate pattern right smack dab in the middle. It looked as if some of the white pebbles had been killed and had bled out, giving their all for art.
A voice in the back of my head said, Spell circle.
We sent some empty spray cans rolling as we passed. The roof door slammed shut and locked with a click.
The whump-whump-whump of rotor blades announced the arrival of a blue and gray helicopter that looked dolphinesque with its stubby beak of a nose. It descended to the far side of the roof, settling on skids, a honeycombed barrel hanging under its belly. I softly sang, “Rocket’s red glare, bombs bursting in air…”
We stopped well short of where it settled. Someone blocked our way, a shifting shadow, surrounded by curling red flames. It took me a moment to recognize the figure.
Cassie! She’d come to see me off.
Piercing the whump-whump of the rotors, her voice slashed out, shedding modern phrasing as her centuries-old nature immerged. “You have erred grievously, laying hands upon my precious daughter. Release her now and I promise you merciful deaths.”
EIGHT
“Is that a dog or dinosaur?
I’m just too stoned to see.
So I’ll throw a bone and run away
from the Death-of-me.”
—Perilous Paths
Elektra Blue
Missy flicked her fingers Cassie’s way.
Responding to the command, several of her evil minions lunged forward. They held machine pistols by front and rear grips, the ammo clip in the middle between their hands. The guns chattered, breathing fire and blue smoke. Spent casings spun through the air, littering the rooftop.
Either my senses were completely unreliable—for some reason—or time was broken, out of joint like a big dawg. The chopper’s whumping became a drawn-out, sludgy drone. The gunfire attenuated, turning brittle. Cassie’s screen of dancing flames slowed, fire taking on a weird glassy sheen. It seemed I could actually see the spinning slugs melting to nothing.
Whatever they tranqued me with is off the hook!
Cassie faced the weapon fire fearlessly, as though it were a summer shower. Her face melted, reshaped, and darkened with rusty red-orange fur as she waded forward. Her golden eyes brightened, incandescent coins in her head. Long, pointy ears appeared atop her head. Fox ears. Her head became a fox’s, though the rest of her remained… Wait a minute. Is that a fox tail flopping out of her pants?
Epic kewl.
Fox mixed with human, I wondered if I could do the half-and-half thing too. I fingered my cheeks, kneading them like dough. “Foxy face, foxy face… Where are you?” Damn. It didn’t work.
Missy gave me a long stare, her eyebrows arching as though my words were incomprehensible, or maybe it was just me. She dragged her attention back to the battle.
The machine pistols were empty, and rather than reload, the gunners let their weapons hang from straps as they drew gently-curved katanas. With aching slowness, Missy’s goon squad fanned out to hit Cassie from all sides.
She brought her hands together. A bar of golden light welled up in a column from her fists. Her surrounding flames weakened as the sword formed, as if one gave life to the other.
Time healed, back in joint again. All the figures moved at normal speed again. Sounds lost distortion. Screams of exertion from the hit squad made a shrill chorus. Cassie whirled in their midst, skimming across the red, painted design on the white gravel.
I’d seen that pattern somewhere, recently. But where? If I could only view it from above…
Movement drew my eyes away from the spray-painted puzzle. Cassie’s light-sword slithered and fluttered like a tiger’s tail as she turned away blows, that is, those that didn’t miss entirely due to her nimble footwork. Shaun danced better, but she wasn’t bad. Several of Missy’s gal pals fell dying—hacked, slashed, or gutted as opportunity allowed. Tar-like blobs splattered the rooftop from Kevlar vests melted in spots at the kiss of Cassie’s sword. War cries were replaced by screams of pain and piteous moans. And through it all, a fierce, predatory grin never left Cassie’s face.
Ah, this is what it means to be kitsune!
Exhaustion set in as if I’d just run a marathon, but my head was clearing of whatever drug I’d been given. I felt nausea and fought the urge to hurl. What was I doing sitting here, watching the show as Cassie risked her life for me? Once I was out of danger, Cassie could disengage and wait for back-up. I reached for the veil, but paused, smelling something putrid-sweet like rotting, maggoty flesh. I knew that scent, or one like it.
Demon!
But not Wocky. This was stronger, sharper. There might well be quite a few. Something had drawn them to the battle. Suddenly, my wheelchair became the safest place to be. Cassie had to smell them too. It explained why she wasn’t taking shortcuts across the ghost world, popping in and out of sight.
Missy stepped forward, showing me her back.
That left just one of her soldiers guarding me, a thin, gaunt blonde with mean eyes. She saw me eying the machine pistol in her hands, and glowered at me. “Don’t even think it,” she warned.
Missy looked over her shoulder. “She’s coming out of it, Evelyn?”
“A little,” my guard answered. “Drugs aren’t working quite right.”
Damn! There had to be something I could do. What had Michiko said about fox spirits? I dug it out of my near-perfect memory: they can create fire, walk in dreams, and create very real illusions—according to legend… How much of that was true? And helpful? Illusions and fire. Cassie had no trouble crafting fire into armor and sword. I could do a sword, but that was about it, and where my sword was all shadow and flame, Cassie could make a freakin’ laser-beam saber. Frustration gnawed at the lining of my stomach. There was so much
more I needed to know.
Missy lifted her hands, gesturing strangely as though writing on the wind. She laughed as her girls, wounded and not, grew silent within the spell circle, crumpling to lie still and discarded on the gravel.
Cassie paused, still a few steps inside the design. Her gaze shot to Missy, then traced the pattern she occupied. Speed blurred her as she leaped, but the response came too late—she hit the edge of the pattern and was flung back inside by a barrier that briefly lit up a sickly yellow as she touched it. In sympathetic response, my whole body jolted as well.
Everything came clear. The pattern on the roof was the focus for a spell. Missy was an awful terrorist, but apparently a great witch. Her dark mojo also explained why demons were getting underfoot lately. Either she was trafficking with them, or her vibe was drawing them in like ants to a picnic.
As I stared at Missy’s back, my heart flamed with hate. She’d thought nothing at all of sacrificing her people to trap Cassie. I was in the hands of an utterly ruthless bitch.
Evelyn shouted, “You keep going through our newbies like that, we’ll need another recruitment drive.”
Missy shrugged and turned back to me, eyes overly innocent, a saccharine smile in place. She raised her voice to be heard over the bludgeoning whumping of the helicopter, “Well, that was fun. Don’t worry, my darlings, there’s more ahead. Shall we go?”
“I’d rather chew glass,” I hissed.
Her smile widened. “In due time, Precious.”
Golden eyes in the back of my mind opened, ablaze with warning. Taliesina chided, Be harmless. Look for weakness. Stupid to invite injury.
Damn. She had a point.
Missy caught Evelyn’s gaze, “Evil, keep a close watch on her. She’s tricky. Smart too, accelerating her metabolism to burn the drug out of her system. It’d be nice if we could do that.”
Evelyn produced a pair of restraints and cuffed each of my wrists to the wheelchair armrests. She set them tight, too tight, enjoying the girrrrr of aggravation I gave her.
Missy strolled on, curving around the summoning circle she’d set. Evelyn pushed me along in Missy’s wake.
On her feet, Cassie padded along the inside of her prison. Her hands glided along the barrier, making patches of it muddy yellow. Her tail lashed vigorously. Her fire seemed gone, out of reach, her sword evaporated. The mask of her human face returned—jaw clenched with impotent rage, muscles jumping below the skin. Her eyes were on me, shadowed with grief, offering silent promises.
I knew she wasn’t giving up. She never gave up. She’d come for me, somehow. She’d search for me under every boulder in hell if she had to. I felt a small coal fanning off the cold fear in my heart, and craned my neck to watch her over my shoulder for as long as possible.
Taliesina watched through my eyes, hunched miserably in my mental shadows, her ears drooping, tails quivering with irrepressible frustration. Mommy…
The pilot came out to help manhandle my wheelchair through the gaping hatch, stowing me out of the way like so much luggage. Not even a window seat.
The pilot and Evelyn made several trips to get the wounded that had been carried to the roof. They were stacked like a cord of wood. The copter doors slammed shut. I suspected the helicopter was close to its weight limit, if not over it. Obviously, Missy had never intended to take the majority of her troops to safety this way. She’d intended them to be cannon fodder all along.
Cold bitch, Taliesina said.
We lifted into the sky. My stomach lurched uncomfortably. Though outwardly calm, I wanted to tear at the thin chains that manacled me to the chair. After leaving the roof and the demon stench, it was probably safe to cross over and slip the cuffs, but with my energy down to almost nothing, I’d pop back into view and still be at the mercy of my guard. Better to bide my time since only my life was on the line now.
Missy squatted by my side, her eyes intense, searching. “We need to talk, Dear Heart.”
“Sorry,” I yelled over the engine sound. “Can’t hear you.”
Her hands fluttered and she mouthed what sounded like random consonants and vowels—no language I knew anyway. The engine went silent, but it didn’t feel like we were falling. I guessed Missy had conjured some silence for us. She said, “I’m going to get some answers from you.”
“You will.”
“Yes,” she hissed, channeling her inner snake. “It’s just a matter of how much damage you want to take before you come clean.”
She didn’t seem to understand I’d agreed with her. “You’re right.”
She blinked in surprise, her face and posture relaxing. “You sound sensible.”
“I know my limits. I wish they were a little less narrow, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. The truth is, I don’t know a heck of a lot you’d be interested in. I’m just a high school student who got sucked into a whole lotta trouble. Need to know how to conjugate a verb or split an infinitive, I’m your gal.”
She pulled out a taser, activating the wand so a little jag of blue electricity arced between terminals. “You’ve been trained well. You’re trying to slip kernels of lie past me, sunk in big chunks of truth. You sound very convincing.” Missy swept the nurse’s cap from her head and settled back, getting comfortable on the deck at my feet. Whatever seats had been in here had been removed to increase space and lessen weight. She’d lost psychological advantage by looking up at me, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “You should know, I’m not afraid of breaking my playmates to see how they tick. If you want it to be possible for someone to put you back together when I’m done, you won’t make things too hard for me.” The taser she held up zapped and crackled, adding emphasis. “After a certain point, I stop caring about answers—but the pain goes on … and on … and on…” Her voice turned dreamy with anticipation.
I found it hard to swallow. She was getting scarier and scarier. The only way not to blanch and whimper like a little kid was to get angry, so I did. “Just what the hell do you want with me anyway?”
“Let’s start with that … whatever she was… we just left on the roof. She called you her daughter, but I have old pictures of you with a different mother.”
I shrugged. “Came as a shock to me too. Turns out Cassie’s my biological mom, not the woman who raised me.”
Missy nodded. “That checks with our background research.”
Evelyn approached from the cockpit.
Missy turned her head, frowning. “What is it?”
“We’ve got company. A chopper’s dogging our trail.”
“Take it out.”
“Tech-9s?” She wagged her dainty little machine pistol.
Missy grinned. “No, Luv, use a rocket. I’m in the mood for a big boom.”
I really wanted to punch someone in the face. Hard and often. I wondered if this was how Fenn went around feeling most of the time. As the shock wore off, I shouted, “No, you can’t!”
She laughed. “Oh, I think I can.” Missy climbed to her feet and handed the taser to Evelyn with a terse, “Watch her,” and went forward.
I’d catch hell for this, but I couldn’t let them take out the copter. It was probably one of Virgil’s, flown by some of his guys. I tugged the veil. The electric tingle danced along my skin, lingering longer than expected. I wasn’t sure I’d get through, then I burst to the other side. Gravity fluttered, damping down. The colors turned to gray tones. The wheelchair came along. Immaterial as a ghost, but not one, I pulled my wrists through the metal of the cuffs, freeing myself, but set my hands back down on the armrests. My aura flickered weakly, little more than a vague orange glow. Whatever the MRI had done to me, I wasn’t bouncing back quickly. My aura failed and I crossed back to the mortal side of the veil. Gray tones reverted to full color.
Evelyn stared at me, an uncertain look on her face. I’d flickered out of existence a moment, but I was back where I was supposed to be now. I couldn’t give her time to see that my hands were free. “I smell something burning,�
�� I said. “You must be thinking again. That’s dangerous if you’re not used to it.”
“Little bitch!” She thumbed the taser on and let it crackle menacingly. “Don’t let your mouth dig you neck-deep into a world of pain.”
I rolled my eyes as she loomed over me. “I’m so scared.”
“You’re asking for—”
I rolled sideways in the chair and grabbed the taser. I tried to thrust the prongs into her, knocking her out, but her reflexes were fast. She locked her muscles, and I couldn’t budge her arm. She was scary strong. Her other hand swung the stock of the Tech-9 at me. I swung my head to the side and took a glancing blow that stunned, but didn’t take me out.
I lost the fight for the taser as our helicopter banked sharply. Evelyn was thrown on top of me. Accidentally or on purpose, she triggered the device, jabbing me. There wasn’t so much as a crackle. My anti-electronic mojo had kicked in, draining the taser’s battery. She dropped the useless device, and snapped an elbow into my head. Wincing from the blow, I saw clouds of gray across my eyes that had nothing to do with the ghost world.
Unable to cross over, all my fancy moves were useless. Evelyn shifted, straddling my legs, and jammed the muzzle of the machine pistol against my sternum. Her free hand gripped my throat, squeezing so I couldn’t breathe. She leaned in. Her face hung inches from mine, a vicious smile in place. “Nice try, Buttercup.”
“We got them!” Missy shrieked.
Evelyn’s smile widened. She told me, “You’re done now, but those federal pigs are well done. Count yourself lucky.”
NINE
“We thank you for your sacrifice,
little lamb upon our table.
You gave your life to become stew,
with the most exquisite flavor.”
Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) Page 6
