Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) (14 page)

THIRTEEN

“You’ve come for me at last.

You cross your heart and swear,

you’ll take my secrets to the grave,

and maybe bury me there.”

                                     
                 —Can I Count On You

                             
                              Elektra Blue

“Don’t read too much into this,” I murmured.

He murmured back, “I know your heart’s divided, but as long as one of the pieces is mine, I can wait to get the others.”  His warm lips covered mine once more, not too wet, firm, demanding, hungry…

He made my stomach flutter, but I pulled away.

He could have stopped me, but didn’t.

“Shaun?” he asked.

“And Onyx, and you.  All of you mean something to me.  I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t be sending mixed signals.”

“Whatever you
want
, I’m what you
need,
but
I can wait until you figure that out.”

“What if I don’t wind up loving you that way?”

His grin was feral.  “What’s not to love?”

I hesitated. 

His face hardened.  His eyes glowed soft amber.  “Do I scare you?  This beast inside me?”

“No.  I’ve a beast too.”  I thought of the mothman DNA mixed into mine, the wings that sprouted from my back every few weeks.  When they first showed up, I’d had Fenn rip them off.  The next time, I’d had surgery.  Fox didn’t bother me, but as a mammal, I wasn’t comfortable with insect parts.  That felt less human, like too much was being lost.  “Fenn—” I stepped
up to him, grabbing his shirt, not letting him run from questions I wanted answered.  “In that other place back there, more of you went coyote than normal.  If you want to, you can go
all
coyote, right?”

“Well, uh.”

“You don’t want to.  You’re not that comfortable with the kachina side of yourself, are you?”

“No.”

“But you took on that extra bit of change to reach me, to be there for me.”

His voice grew harsh, gruff, as if man and beast were speaking together, united on this one thing, “I’d die for you.  I have before.”

And wasn’t
that
a surprise, that proximity let his dead body borrow enough of my lifeforce to reboot his own, healing him.  That he could use me this way had made me doubt him, that and overhearing him talk to his dad about how useful having a kitsune around could be.  I’d distanced myself from him for a while, but when he’d fought the Egyptian hell-beast Am-heh for me—summoned to earth last Halloween by ISIS—I’d relented in giving him the cold shoulder.  I still wasn’t sure that was wise.  So many people wanted to own me; I wanted someone around who simply cared for me, no hidden agendas.

“I try to avoid Dad’s old stomping grounds,” Fenn said.  Time runs funny over there, not always linear.  And you saw what it did to you.”

I stared at him blankly.

He explained, “That shadow force you used to bring us back to Earth, I don’t think you could have unleashed it anywhere else.  You’re still years away from growing into the depths of your true power.”

I thought of Shaun, musing out loud, “Years away from anything I want.”

It was like Fenn could guess my thoughts, “Grace, Shaun keeps his distance because you’re jail bait.  It’ll be two years before he lets himself look at you any other way, if then.  Meanwhile, he’s not going to keep it in his pants.  Guys are guys.  You’re setting yourself up to be hurt.  As for Onyx, if you can’t accept
your
shadow-man blood, how are you going to embrace someone else who’s living darkness?  I may not be as exciting as some, but I will never hurt you.”

I wanted to believe that, but…  What had his dad said when Fenn arrived? 

“About time you got here.”

Fenn’s coming hadn’t caught his dad by surprise.  Fenn had been expected.  Could the whole thing have been a trick, something planned to encourage me to latch onto Fenn in the first place?  I really didn’t want to believe that, but I couldn’t entirely rule it out.  I couldn’t just ask him flat out either.  I’d wind up hurting a friend, or getting a lie from someone pretending to be a friend.  Neither would help me.

Why is love so damned complicated?  Maybe I should think about becoming a warrior-nun.  Are there any Shou-lin temples in Texas?

Grace!  There you are! 
The voice in my head pulled me around.  I saw Tukka and some of his buddies bounding down the hill, coming out onto the flat rock.  He’d looked better in my dream, eating dream chocolate.  In the real world, he couldn’t have any.  Chocolate had turned out to be addictive, weakening him dangerously over time.  That was how the miko had managed to capture him, and why I’d gone on a mission for Virgil to get my best friend back.

All two tons of his teal blue, leathery self stopped just a romp away.  His lavender-pearl eyes drank me in. 

“I always thought fu dogs were smaller,” Fenn said.

Tukka sniffed at Fenn with mild dis
dain, then turned luminescent eyes on me.
  Grace should have stayed in hospital.  Tukka worried.  We tracked you down
. 

He could do that, stepping in and out of the human world, the ghost world, or people’s dreams, but the Trickster’s world had apparently thrown him since he hadn’t found me there.

So how had Fenn? 
The thought bothered me.

Tukka noticed the brand on my arm. 
We get rid of that soon, if I have to bite off demon’s head.

That drew Fenn’s attention to it.  “That’s not just some weird temp tattoo?  Grace, when did you get a demon brand?”

I’d been keeping it under wraps—or rather, under long sleeves and sweaters.  The fall season had helped me out there.

“Long story.  Can we save it for later?”  We were in the open, exposed.  “How about you show me where we’re spending the night so we can get under cover?  Besides, I’m hungry.  Changing into a fox and back, getting kidnapped by the Trickster, and escaping across numerous dimensions makes a girl hungry.”

Fenn nodded once with adamant decision as he shuffled priorities in his head.  “Right, follow me.”

Tukka huffed. 
Grace follow clan.  We protect our own
.  He and three of his
people
surrounded me, nudging Fenn back. 

He’d hopped smartly to keep his toes from accidentally getting crushed.  Instead of getting angry, he smirked and waved the fu dogs on.  “Sure, lead the way.  Knock yourselves out.  As long as Grace is kept safe, I can watch for people and
things
skulking about.”

The fu dogs retreated the way they’d come, herding me along an uphill trail toward the camp’s Admin
Building and the surrounding cabins.  My yellow-white sundress was not usual autumn wear.  Fortunately, due to my kitsune power to travel the ghost realm, I wasn’t very sensitive to cold.  I’d had to hide that growing up, taking clues from those around me.  It was an odd relief to be surrounded by people at HPI that didn’t expect normal from me all the time.  The same was true for being here with Fenn and the boys.

Leaving the hillside, we stepped up onto a forest plateau.  The rich smell of pine was a cheerful hug.  We passed several outlying cabins, stone huts really, each large enough for about ten kids. 
Tight accommodations for fu dogs
.  We took a wide, flagstone trail toward the Admin Building, ignoring dirt trails to various cabins that I hadn’t seen on my last, rather hectic visit.  Soon, we reached the main structure.  Just as I remembered, the three-story lodge was serviced by a gravel drive.  An empty drive.  The place had a long-shut-down air to it.  Virgil’s people had done a good job of repairing the damage, and disposing of all the pet cemetery zombies we’d fought here.

There was no smoke from the chimneys and no lights turned on in the ground floor’s lounge, or the adjoining mess hall.  The upstairs windows were dark, square eyes keeping their secrets.  Last time I’d been here with Ryan—God rest his traitorous mothman heart—there had been soldier-of-fortune types in camouflage, helmets, and assorted weaponry casually leaning against the wood posts of the front porch.  Federal Marshals had been scattered elsewhere on the property, looking for trouble.  Trouble had come, and people had died. 

I was glad this time no normal humans were at risk.  Fenn and Tukka wanted to protect me and knew the risks.  They could handle a lot by way of trouble.  That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to worry about them.

We went up onto the porch.  Tukka ordered one of the fu dogs to take position there.  The rest went inside with Fenn and me.  I saw why a fu dog was needed on the porch.  One of them had accessed the locked building by kicking in the door, breaking its lock and splintering the door jamb. 

Fenn muttered, “If you’d just have waited, I could have picked the lock.”

“You can do that?” Without waiting for an answer, I fired off another question, “Can you teach me to do that?”

He flicked on a light switch and the lounge lit up in golden tones, as did the hall past an office, leading to the kitchen where I’d first met Shaun.  Those memories drew me, that and the promise of food.  Virgil had stocked the pantry last time.  With any luck, the food would still be there, just needing to be cooked.

I also remembered a landline on the kitchen wall.  I needed to check in with both my mothers.  They’d be worried to death after my kidnapping from the hospital.  I was a little worried too, remembering how I’d left my human mother sprawled on the hospital floor, gassed like so many others.  I felt a sudden flood of guilt at not having checked up on her before this, even though I knew Fenn would have told me if something really bad had happened to someone close to me. 

I turned on the kitchen light and found the phone.  I knew both of my mothers’ cell phone numbers by memory.  Question was—who got called first?  Whoever lost out was bound to go all drama-queen on me.

Well, might as well piss off both of them.
I called Shaun’s number instead, remembering too late about Fenn’s heightened hearing.  He’d know, even from the other room.  And he’d be pissed off as well. 
Wonderful.  I am so cursed.  Why don’t I ever think these things through?

Shaun answered on the second ring.  “Hello?”

“Hey, Shaun, it’s me.”

“Grace, where are you?  Are you all right?”

“For now.  Fenn and Tukka are looking after me.  I probably won’t be able to get back for awhile.  I’m where you and I first met.”  Somehow, I didn’t want to use names over the phone.  Some wanna-be spy part of me was being careful.  “So how’s Cassie and, uh, mom doing?”

“As you’d expect, they’ve been freaking out.  I think they’ve actually been competing to see who can be the most freaked out, if you know what I mean.  I, uh, just a minute.  Cassie is here.”

I could easily imagine her ripping the phone out of Shaun’s hand, nearly taking a finger or two at the same time.  Her voice exploded in my ear, making me wince and pull the phone away so I wouldn’t be deafened. “Grace, baby, are you okay?  Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine.  I got away, and I’m being looked after by Fenn, Tukka, and some of his boys.  When can you get here?”

“Where’s here?” she asked.  “I can leave right away.”

I heard my human mom yelling in the background, “Not without me!”

I hurried to end the call while I could do so cleanly.  “Shaun knows.  Ask him.  Listen, I gotta go.  See you soon.  Bye.”

“Grace, I—
”

I hung up, sighing heavily, and realized that both Tukka and Fenn were staring into the kitchen, having listened in.  Fenn said, “You all right, Grace?”

I nodded mutely.

Tukka said,
Any food in here?

Fenn muttered, “That was going to be my next question.”

I smiled.  “I’ll check.  If worst comes to worst, I can call Shaun back and have him stop on the way to pick up an armload of pizzas.”

Two arm loads
, Tukka said. 
Help me forget about sweet, yummy goodness of chocolate
.

He noticed my glare and added,
That I no longer want.  Tukka tough, strong.  No monkey on Tukka’s back.
  He turned his head though, as if to make sure.

Hiding a sad smile, I turned back toward the kitchen.  My glance slid across the window set in the kitchen’s backdoor.  The sunlight framed a shadow that I thought I recognized: a deathly pale face with a sloppy mane of red curls, clothing smudged by dirt.  The shadow moved closer, placing a hand flat against the window.  Since the surface stopped the hand, and this was daylight, chances were low this was a ghost. 
Ryan,
the half-morphed mothman who’d tried to rape me.  The mothman who’d force-fed me his tongue—until I bit it off and choked, gagging on his blood.  Here was the traitor I’d left for dead after caving in his face and snapping his neck.  Silent, he stared at me with big compound eyes that whirled with red and yellow.