Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) (12 page)

I concentrated fiercely, holding my own image in mind.  Heat flushed through me.  My foxy form burst into cold
foxfire that wound around me, stretching higher, pulling me upright onto two feet—two human feet.  As I straightened, red-orange fur fluffed away on the wind, leaving bare, lightly-freckled skin.  The fire drained into me, filling me out so that I was full-sized once more.  I looked down at my flat chest with a deep sigh sifting through my spirit.  A larger bra size was one change I would have embraced.  In the plus column, my side showed only smooth skin.  No surgical scar lingered.  I might never have been shot at all. 

I hurriedly dressed, leaving the parasol where it was.  I’d have preferred a straw hat actually.  And there it was on a steamer trunk in the back of the wagon.  I helped myself to it, and used the attached pink scarf to tie it on.  Dressed, and starved, I headed back to the campfire.

The Trickster sat on a sun-bleached piece of tree-trunk that should not have been in the middle of a desert.  Another similar prop had been dragged to the opposite side of the fire circle.  I sat there, leaning forward, forearms on my knees.  The canopy created a nice shade.  The poles holding it up were white cedar.  The breeze sweeping through brought relief, though I wouldn’t have said no to a frosty glass of lemonade.  Or a soda.  There was a canteen at the feet of the Trickster.  I pointed at it.  “What’s in there?”

He smiled.  “What would you like to find inside?”

“Mountain Mist Cola.”

He picked up the canteen and tossed it to me. 

I caught it, unscrewed the cap, and took a cautious sip.  I stared across the fire at him.  “It is Mountain Mist Cola.”  I leaned my head back and guzzled heavily.  Leaning forward again, I replaced the cap and set the canteen down.

His smile widened.  “Told you.  By the way, you’re welcome.”

“Huh?”

“You were going to thank me for saving your life, I believe.”

“Uh, yeah.  Thanks.”

“Please stop,” he said, “your enthusiastic gushing is embarrassing me.”

I scowled suspiciously.  “It’s not that I’m ungrateful, but how did you happen to know I was in trouble?  And how did you know where to show up—in the nick of time?”

“You forget who I am.  An incarnation of the Trickster.  Old Coyote in human form.  I am Chaos-Bringer.  A force for change in all realities.  And you, my girl, are a cornerstone of the future.  There are several alternate worlds waiting in the wings to exist.  Which one comes to be depends on the path you choose for your life.”

“That can’t be true.  I’m not that important.”

“Not yet.  But that will change.”

“Not if I can help it.” 
I have a big enough target on my back as it is.

“You
can’t
help it.  Some rip glory from the stubborn teeth of a belligerent universe.  Others are born as Destiny’s Child.”  He whipped a finger my way.  “Like you.”

I just glowered.

He sighed, bent forward, and removed the lid from the pot with the peach cobbler inside.  The thick caramelized aroma grew stronger, making me drool.  He spooned some onto a tin plate, added a spoon, and stood.  He skirted the fire to hand me the dish.  “Here, you’ll feel better with some food in you.”

I took the plate and dug in.  I blew over the first spoonful, careful not to burn my mouth.   Warm, buttery crust, cinnamon and sugar, mushy peach, simmered for hours with all the steam locked in—even in this heat, the bubbly stuff was a delicious treat.  The only thing missing was vanilla ice cream. 

“Want some ice cream with that?” Trickster asked.

I stared at him.  “You know every trick.”

He gave a short bark of a laugh that reminded me of Fenn.  “Goes with the territory.”  He picked up a white Styrofoam cooler that I knew hadn’t been there before.  He opened it and pulled out a round carton and an ice cream scoop.  I stood and circled the fire, returning to my seat with melting ice cream plopped onto my cobbler.  “Speaking of territory, where exactly are we?”

“This is a world more real than others, more barren too.  This is the proto-world of Native American legend.  Here is where the Great Spirit worked out the archetypes, getting the patterns right before shaping your world.  In this place, the stars come to earth as kachina—the star people—to dance the night away, climbing threads of light at dawn to return to the black web jeweled by stars.  Bear is here, and Snake, Sun and Moon, Badger, and Grandmother Spider among others.  This world once had men, but
the people—
as they called themselves—migrated to your world long before the pilgrims landed.” 

“Looks like
Arizona to me.”

“Find the right trail and believe, and you could walk to
Arizona from here.  You can walk anywhere from here—past any ward or barrier—if you know the trick.  We are everywhere and nowhere, at a kind of cosmic crossroads.  Here, more than anywhere else, reality is a point of view, an opinion.”

“So, like Dorothy in Oz, I can go home and not even need ruby slippers.”

“If you know the trick, but I can’t let you go just yet.”

Reluctantly, I set my plate down, stood, and put my fists on hips.  My voice went frosty, “What do you mean you won’t ‘let’ me?”

He smiled at me, tugging a little on that fake priest’s collar of his.  “Well, you see, I sort of lost you in a bet while playing cards.  I got to turn you over to
her
.  Of course, I never said I wouldn’t rescue you from
her
clutches, eventually.”

“You don’t own me to give me away.  And who is this
her
you keep mentioning?”

He grinned.  “Well, darlin’, there is an old belief that you become responsible for a life if you save it.  And I did save your life.  So, I’ll hand you over, and you’ll save my life, and we’ll be even.”

Frustration bubbled deep in the caldron of my soul. 
And to think, I never used to be a vengeful person
.  “Even?  Oh, no, but I’ll get even.  You can believe that.  And you never did say who this
her
is.”

“That would be me.”  The voice floated in on the wind, sweet as a songbird’s trill.  Earthier scents followed: fresh-plowed earth, fields of poppies, lavender, iris, roses, and lilies.  They were followed by scents of cool forests, carpeted leaves, the mustiness of moss and rotting logs, and the warm aroma of mown hay.  I was nearly overwhelmed by the olfactory calling card as a woman walked into camp.

The horses should have alerted us, but found the woman no threat.  She didn’t look dangerous.  Her eyes had Asian folds and her face was painted white.  Her hair was coiffed high, a pile held in place by jeweled pins.  She wore silks in summer green, belted with a sash of Aspen gold.  A folded, black lacquered fan protruded from that sash, and she carried a leather bag slung over one shoulder, hanging at her hip.  Her feet were encased in beaded slippers.

As she came closer, I noticed a white ceramic fox-face mask hanging around her neck. 

A movement low to the ground drew my attention to the skirt that hid her feet.  Two foxes stuck their faces and necks out from under her robes.  The foxes were albino, studying me with unwavering intensity.

And suddenly, Taliesina was crowding my thoughts, her gold eyes blazing in the shadows of my mind as she looked out of my eyes. 
Inari.

Softly, I repeated the word,
“
Inari.”
 
Like a key in a lock, the name brought a memory of a discussion I’d had with a vampire slayer, back when I first learned about kitsune.  They were associated with the goddess of rice and the harvest.  I’d missed out on meeting the real Isis, but here was another deity.  Or perhaps just someone who’d had that label slapped on them by superstitious folks back in the day.  After all, one person’s goddess was another person’s extra-terrestrial dimension hopper, right? 

Inari gazed at me with a gentle smile in place.  “Are you ready to go, child?”

“I can’t.  My mother will be worried.  She already thinks I’ve been kidnapped.” 
And then there’s my other mother…  How am I going to explain all this?

The white foxes at her feet bared teeth at my reluctance.  “Ggggirrrrrrhh!”

“Enough,” Inari said.  “She has every right to refuse my protection.  The Trickster will simply fend off the wild ones as long as he can while she runs for her life.”

One of the foxes yipped.

“You’re right,” Inari said, “she won’t get far.  There are simply too many
nogitsune
out there.”

The horses nervously stamped hooves, flicking ears, whinnying in tones of dismay.  They looked around, nostrils flaring wide.  I sniffed deeply, trying to catch the scent that had them spooked.

“
Nogitsune
?”  I hesitated to pull the name into clearer focus, ransacking my extensive memory.  I knew I’d regret knowing.  Until this new threat had a name, I could pretend it wasn’t real. 
Just a dream … a dream
.

“Wild foxes,” the Trickster said, “They-Who-Walk-Their-Own-Path.  They will not serve the goddess, and shun the demon path as well.”  He cast me a long, searching stare.  “If the outlaws get you, they will keep you.  Good breeding stock is hard to find off the kitsune home world.”

I heard yipping in the distance, a song of joy, a song of the hunt.

Inari’s smile had a savage edge.  “Are you very sure you don’t want to come and visit with me for a while?”

I smiled back, meaning nothing by it.  “Well, when you put it that way…”

The white foxes darted out from under her skirts, coming right at me.  Except they swerved and went around, growling at full rev.  I spun and watched them climb the rise to its mid-point where they stalled out, holding ground.  The white foxes had grown on-the-run and were now the size of ponies. 

At the lip of the rise, not caring that he was framed against piercing blue sky, a man stood in rough-sewn leather pants, boots, chest bare except for a leather vest.  He was thin with abs of steel and broad shoulders.  His head was covered by a shoulder-length mane of bronze with tawny highlights.  His eyes were dark brown or black, hard to tell at this distance.  He showed no concern at the white foxes confronting him, blocking his path.

His stare slid over me, and went on to Inari.  He spoke to her, “Here to steal another one of us?”

“She belongs to herself,” Inari said.  “Neither mine nor yours by right.”

“Then she is free to come with me.”  His gaze was on me once more as he extended a hand my way.  His demand slapped out, “Come, we are leaving now.”

I laughed at his brazen expectation that I was just going to march up there and hand myself over.  

When I didn’t move, his hand fell back to his side.  He frowned.  “Wrong decision.   You would have done better for yourself by obeying me.” 

A whole line of russet-coated foxes popped up beside him, left and right.  They stared, eerily quiet now.

I felt strong enough to summon
foxfire, but thought it might be expected.  I needed to throw these foxes a curve ball.  I pulled up deep, cold shadow, drawing on my father’s DNA, and a long blade of shadow grew from my fist, jutting out for three and a half feet.  Then I wreathed it in an orange haze of aura to make the darkness more pronounced by contrast.

The white foxes no longer growled.  They’d turned their heads to study my weapon.  A deep quiet set in. 

Inari said, “Demon sword!”

“No,” Trickster said.  “Her father is a
shadow-man.  Only her mother is kitsune.  She is the child of prophecy, the
shadow fox
.”

The stranger on the rim smiled at my blade.  “Oh, ho, that is quite a fang you’ve got there.  So, how’s your bite?”

“Come and find out,” I said.

He laughed.  “I think I will.”

TWELVE

“A serpent’s hiss, a lethal kiss,

a gun left on the table.

Who can resist a wild spin

to find forever’s flavor?”

                           
                              —Lead Poisoning

                                               
Elektra Blue

His wild foxes held position as he came down.   Strangely, the two white foxes made no effort to stop his advance.