I heard cloth tearing and saw that Fenn was ripping off his jeans. I looked away from all he was exposing, my face flushing. I noticed that Missy and Evil were leering at his nakedness. That really ticked me off. I was about to bitch-slap them both with a shadow sword when I was distracted by sounds of pain from Fenn. He dropped to his knees, muscles writhing, bones melting into new configurations. Fur spread down his neck in a wave to cover him—as he grew a coyote tail to match the rest of him. Nothing of his human nature was left. For the first time, he’d given into his kachina heritage, drawing on its full power. A big, slavering monster of a coyote, he dwarfed the two white foxes, grinning at them like they were impudent mice whose bones he intended to crunch in his jaws.
The foxes edged in closer to Inari.
The stone golems came closer, hedging us in even tighter.
Tukka got this. His thought was a blaze of assurance.
I slid a glance across Inari and the Trickster. “Then that means they’re mine.”
The Trickster raised an eyebrow. “She’s a goddess and I’m a cosmic force, and you think you can handle us?”
I smiled and kicked off my shoes. “Anywhere else, no, but here and now? Oh, yeah! And it will serve as an object lesson to the bitches of ISIS and anyone else stupid enough to come after me.” Stripping off my clothes, I made a pile at my feet. “Or haven’t you noticed that—despite taking a lot of crap from the universe—I always win in the end.”
A typical guy, Fenn stopped growling at the foxes to look me over. When he saw that the Trickster was doing the same thing, he snarled at his dad.
I had other things to worry about than modesty. I already wore the orange haze of my aura. I reached inside for Taliesina and the darkness, turning the pocket of soul inside out. I gasped as my legs buckled, melting, reforming. A coating of darkness moved up from my toes like leggings. The blackness continued past hips, moving up my torso and down my arms. My face went icy cold like the rest of me as shadow and aura sheathed me. I was a living copy of my sword. My wings remained, beating furiously as three fox tails grew in. My face lengthened until I could see the tip of my snout as well as bobbing antennae. I ended up shadow, fox, and moth—all human elements shed except for my heart.
And I had ass to kick!
THIRTY-TWO
“Armed by the Sun,
the Monster Slayer chants,
‘Come and die, come and die!’
As ravens sweep the sky.”
—Raven
Elektra Blue
My antennae writhed in the desert wind, feeding my brain various scents and their ranges. I knew where the closest water hole was, where the tastiest plants could be found, and I knew that the wild foxes were here as well, hiding, sneaking up on the bitches of ISIS. I was free to concentrate on my two opponents.
I crouched to spring, a wave-like motion that ended with me flying through the air toward the golem the Trickster sat upon. He jerked his feet up as I snapped my jaws where his toes had been. Kicking off the golem, I evaded one of the creature’s massive hands making a grab for me. Arcing through the air, I saw Tukka cut loose with one of his infra-sonic roars, a thing more felt in the bones than heard. It was his secret weapon, used against dragons, demons, and the occasional rock golem. The one he faced crumbled, shattering. He turned to another.
Time conveniently slowed, or maybe it was my perceptions that speeded up. I turned in flight and smacked Inari across the face with my body, taking her down to the ground in a flutter of robes. She squealed like a girl. I wondered how long it had been since she’d done any of her own fighting.
I rolled off her and regained my feet.
I’d have had the white foxes after my hide, but Fenn lunged at them, forcing them away from Inari.
I sent a thought to Tukka. He spun toward the Trickster’s golem, leaped with a nimble grace uncommon for a creature his size, and slammed the golem back so it took several steps in search of balance.
Inari sat up and spit out a bit of fluff I’d shed, and she did not look like a happy camper. Gathering her legs under her in an entirely lady-like fashion, she frowned, sweeping her jeweled fan at us, scolding. “Stop that. Such behavior is unrefined, and does you no credit whatsoever.”
Taliesina was in my head, answering. So just call me a rude bitch!
Vixen, I corrected. And she won’t. That would be rude.
The Trickster abandoned his golem, blurring into a dark shadow, launching himself into the air as a raven.
I ran at a golem that Tukka had cut in half with his roar, leaving legs and a pelvis as a sculpture vaguely resembling something from Stonehenge. I used the rock bench as a stepping stone for extra height. My jaws snapped shut on a bit of tail feather, but the raven got by me with an indignant squawk.
I landed, spitting out a feather.
Machinegun fire ripped the air. A quick glance informed me that Dhonar and his wild foxes were taking down the witches, stripping them of weapons, and all their jewelry.
Hey, Taliesina said, bandits gotta make a living, too.
I heard a yelp from one of the foxes as Fenn got a grip on a foreleg, dragging the beast down. The other fox lunged in, jaws gripping Fenn’s neck. Fenn crunched the foreleg, breaking bone, and shook off the other fox, turning a lemon yellow stare on it that said: Your turn!
The earth shook, reflecting Inari’s rage as she brushed dust off her pretty robes. The soil around her became rich, black loam. Grass sprouted, growing visibly until it brushed her knees. Plum trees exploded from the ground, going from sapling to mature tree in moments. Cherry blossoms grew, flashing through various seasons so that fruit littered the ground and various storms of pink-petal snow thickened the winds, swirling around as a zephyr passed through.
My antennae warned me to pay attention to where the raven had flown. I looked for the Trickster. He wasn’t hard to find, having reverted to Coyote. But where Fenn was the size of a couple of dire wolves, Coyote was huge—big enough to smack down a Kodiak bear. This was the proto coyote, a creature of this world, and a terrible force to reckon with.
If he sought to intimidate me, he was out of luck. Just weeks ago, I faced down a living darkness that could drown a world—my father. And I am my father’s daughter.
I let the feeling of flesh slide away from my mind. A shiver of fear went through me. It seemed that the pieces of me were about to fly apart, but I swallowed my fear, casting it fully into shadow. Even my kitsune fire fed the darkness, sinking into me as I became all shadow. My fox shape softened, sloughing away as I stretched, whirling high and higher until I dwarfed Coyote.
He stared up at me, the fire of his gaze reduced to chips of yellow ice.
Movement, I found, was not something I did, but something that happened when I desired. I wanted great fanning wings to mock his Raven nature, and they formed. I desired tentacles to grasp and crush, and they formed. I desired a fox head with jaws to crunch his bones, and the change occurred, new substance pouring out from the deep fathoms of my core.
Nimble, he danced away from my tentacles, yelping in true fear, all his former smugness crushed—as I was going to crush the rest of him.
Only Fenn was there, blocking my path, staring up at me with his father’s eyes. But not his father’s heart. He’d given his heart to me, whether I wanted it or not. And now he was going against his heart to save his father. I didn’t like it, but I understood. Maddy had been this way, fighting to save her mom even though their bonds were all but worn away.
But why should I care about anyone else? There’s only shadow and that which feeds it. I want the Trickster. I hunger to strip away his substance, his power, to consume everything around me until there is only me … alone … forever alone…
Then Tukka’s thoughts were falling into me, diving deep. Come back, Grace. You can’t be only shadow. It will destroy you. Your shadow will destroy us.
I tried remembering being flesh, bone, and kitsune fire.
The sensations iced over,
distant as bubbles trapped under a frozen lake, as unreachable as distant stars.
Taliesina, help me remember. Taliesina?
I couldn’t find that part of me. Was she lost? Buried in the darkness? Consumed?
Why should I care? We’re so often at odds. Do I even need her?
The callousness of the thought shocked me, and I realized it wasn’t mine. The thought came from the shadow side of me. Her strength was growing; her hunger terrible and endless. Soon, she would devour me, too. I had let her awaken before I had the strength to control her.
Oh, God, what have I done?
There had been flashes of awareness, of being part of something called Grace. Now I was awake. I … I did not know what I was. The concept of one—of alone—was all I had. All else was other. Everything existed to feed me, to define me by contrast. Odd, whirling through my shadow, these thoughts, so developed, so mature… but I am newborn, the I that is I.
I looked down at the scurrying things on the ground, many of them running away. Were they small, or had I become big? There were stone men, broken and still. A woman and white foxes hid in a new grown patch of jungle. Verdant green, blazing with life, it looked so different from the miles of surrounding wasteland. The jungle was not of this place. Its life was not rooted here. I felt the energies of the world. I heard its voice, a whisper of words that would not resolve into sense. This place defied my hunger.
There were three beasts: one leathery blue, two others that were furred, sharing an aspect. They remained to face me. Why? Have they no hunger to live? To grow?
I pushed forward, my darkness whirling, cutting into the dust and rock that supported me. Great, flat strands of my darkness reached for them, dipping to the burnt ground.
They cast themselves aside, but didn’t run far.
The blue beast screamed at me, a sound that was feeling, a throbbing punch that sank into me, churning my substance. Feeding me, as all things must.
The blue one’s thoughts stabbed into my shadows, cutting my purpose with confusion. Grace! Wake up. Tukka know Grace in there. Grace!
I was named, but the name did not fit. Yet I could not throw it away.
So I ate it. All names would come to me, would be me, in time. Hungry, so hungry!
One of the furred ones grew. I felt it pulling in the life of the world, eating as I wanted to. The song of the world made the beast bigger. And bigger. It stared at me, eyes gold fire. It showed me white teeth, sharp teeth. It, too, hungered.
I wondered if our hungers could devour each other. Would there be stillness? Peace. Would the emptiness go away, or was that all I could be?
The beast backed away. Its eyes lifted to the bright ball of fire in the sky. The light of it wove together in a shaping, a making I did not understand. The beast howled, but I felt its thoughts, a pattern that called out for the sky and the earth to feed it.
Unfair! They would feed him, but not me!
The singing beast with chanting thoughts wove light and strength into its fur. It gleamed. It shone. Its fur waved and lifted, bristling with power. It thought its fire could hurt me, could stop me.
No, I will take you. You will be in me. My darkness will swallow your light. And I will take the other beast into myself, into the I. Where are the other two?
Black, feathery filaments protruded from me, combing the winds, seeking… They were behind me. Attacking? I felt energies, a bending and twisting of nothingness. My shape collapsed inward, then reformed. I was watching the two other beasts, and I had taken on a form like theirs with small differences. The darkness behind me had sprouted three tails. An odd detail that somehow seemed right.
My shadow assumed form from a memory, giving the fragment life. I am … fox?
The word summoned a contradicting flash of sepia across my awareness. No, I’m kitsune.
That thought seemed very important to some deep buried part of me that resisted digestion.
A flat shard of light appeared beside the small beasts. It grew, a dazzle that stretched until it was even larger than me. The winds coming through the light tasted different from those of this world. A word came to me. Gate. This was a way elsewhere, to where another world waited to be consumed. That thought made me happy. Happy? What use did I have for emotions? Were they, too, not something to be devoured?
The large, furred beast hit me from behind, sinking into my darkness where I wanted him. Now I could…?
He defied my hunger, my emptiness, protected by the energies this world gave him. My darkness slid off him like common shadow, and his presence within me hurt! His presence moved me, shoving at what he should not have been able to touch. How could this be? Another word floated up from the sediment of consumed lives: magic—the defiance of death, and darkness, and my gnawing need.
And then I was through the shard of light to elsewhere. The desert was gone like a succulent dream. I stood on four legs of shadow, my three tails lashing winds that tasted of silver and copper, the stench of bubbling metals. Canyon walls soared past me, closing me in as if the earth would eat me in some way. The stone was layered: mauve and violet fading into tan, flaring into rose, then ochre. The strip of overhead sky was tarnished copper with wispy, green-tea clouds.
There were holes in the carved rock: windows and doors, porches with columns, ramps and stairs, and belled chambers scooped out of the stone, half exposed, with tunnels from deeper in the canyon wall.
A … city. Sterile yet beautiful.
Odd, that did not seem like my thought, but it came from within me.
Movement caught my attention. I swung my head to the side and feathers of darkness bounced from my brow, bringing a taste of dreams: sweetness melting into pleasure. It was the blue, furless beast with the shaggy mane around its head, teasing me with thoughts of ... chocolate: the identification was a flattened bubble fighting up through my depths.
The pain in me left as the great beast shed its size, its shape. I watched it fly free of my darkness on wings the same color. Despite this voiding, indigestion continued—in my shadows a weak current stirred, a struggle that began with naming reasons to live: Raven, Tukka, Fenn…
No, there is only emptiness and hunger, darkness upon darkness—me!
I was answered, No! I will not be eaten. I will not lose everything. You can’t have my life.
The blue beast stopped retreating from my shadow jaws as did the beast named Fenn.
A thought cut into me from outside, a shout of joy: Grace! Tukka knew you were in there still.
The beast called Fenn writhed, pulling back, its form changing until it stood on two legs, pale skin exposed. Human, but the same beast-yellow eyes in place, eyes that peered into my depths with a strange a hunger that nearly surpassed my own.
“Grace, don’t you dare leave me!” His voice lowered to a broken whisper. “I love you.”
I had no time to try and understand this love he spoke of. The canyon walls pressed in, closing above me, driving me to move, or be crushed—and burned, for the rock was melting around me, a thick liquid I could not absorb. It kept my shadow form off balance, sliding. I was being driven to a place where the creatures of this world wanted me. Another bubble of understanding rose in me, an identification: Hysane. This was their world.
The rock swallowed Fenn and Tukka, clearing them out of the creeping river. Not fair! They were mine. I had seen them first.
I resisted being handled, fanning moth wings from my back, pushing back at the closing rock with my paws as my lower tentacles beat at the glowing river of melted rock. My darkness could not eat into the rock. Its life was too strong. My shadow antennae rippled and I tasted magic that would not give itself to me. My feet skidded through the sludge of melted stone. I had no choice now but to let myself be herded, and see where this tunnel led.
THIRTY-THREE
Cross your heart and hope to die.
Stick a needle in your eye.
You can’t escape—go ahead and try.
The Shadow Fox h
as come.
—Ballad of the Shadow Fox
Tukka
A forest carved from obsidian clawed at a flat iron-gray sky. A rose-gray moon hung like a pearl just out of reach, waiting for some dragon to come along and collect it. I stood in a clearing, on smooth, white river rock. Breaking the surface in splotches, black blades of volcanic glass looked sharp enough to flay open our skin and shed blood. The wind across the glossy grass made a breathy song moving in and out of harmony.
Why would I make a dream like this?
Taliesina said, This is a race memory from your darkness. A copy of the place that gave life to shadows long ago. You ripped this image out of your shadow self when she tried to purge us.
On Taliesina’s back was a moth, a monster moth with slim black limbs and a gray-brown tube of a body. Her wings were two feet wide and twice that long. The red-haired insect wore my triangular, foxy face and a frown. She stared down at her flat chest—flatter than mine—and said, I’m so cursed.
I scowled. “Hey, Motherella, that’s my line.”
Taliesina took a prancing step then whirled back, as if searching for an approaching miracle to help us out. So, how do we break out of this dream and bring our shadow self back under control?
I’d aborted her attempt to eat us, building us a dream instead. All the years I’d spent dream-hopping with Tukka had paid off. I could form dreams, shape them, step in and out of them, and make shields of them. That’s how we’d hung on, but hanging on wasn’t enough.
We can’t break the dream, Motherella warned. It’s protecting us.
I found a small boulder to sit on that wasn’t pointy and dangerous. “Right, what we have to do is lure our shadow self in here, then we can use the dream as a weapon against her.”
Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) Page 23
