Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) (23 page)

A headache set in by the time I reached the highway.  Standing on the center line, I looked down both sides of the road.  No vehicle in sight.  I reached up to brush back a lock of hair.  The heel of my hand brushed skin where I didn’t expect any.  I probed with fingertips and found a large bump.  I checked the rest of my forehead and found a second goose egg.  The bumps were squishy, like the ones on my back had been before wings had popped out.  From the positions, having seen the moth people up close, I knew what was coming next: antennae.

‘Cause I’m just not enough of a freak as I am.  What’s coming next?

Yap! 
Taliesina wanted my attention.

I closed my eyes and looked into my mind’s shadowscape.  I saw her: a large fox shadow with golden eyes and antennae, nine tails, and—by golly—large moth wings of brown and gray, flecked with molten gold.  In this vision, I was running on the wind with tufts of orange flame around all four ankles.

Taliesina seemed to be telling me this was my ultimate metamorphic state.  Or maybe that was just her wishful thinking. 

I shook off the image and opened my eyes as a vehicle braked next to me, as if the driver could see me waiting for a ride.  I’d have been concerned, but I recognized the station wagon and the driver.  It was Great Scott the Mouse Whisperer and his Indigoer.  Twice now, when I’d been desperate for a ride, this guy had shown up out of nowhere to provide it.  I was beginning to think he ran a preternatural taxi service, except he’d never taken a penny from me.  This was the first time I’d seen him from the ghost realm though.  He looked the same, except his aura was a pure and shining white gold with the area over his heart a silvery blue.  I had no idea what that meant, but I thought it was good.

He rolled down the window and stuck his goofy face out the window.  He was unshaven and had a disarranged, white-guy afro of curly brown hair.  His gaze raked the space I was in, but his focus remained vague. 

I was standing on asphalt so I figured the Hysane would
read
the ground and come after me, unless they’d gotten tired of waiting and had settled for just getting zombie-demon Ryan in their clutches.  I
crossed back,
running around the grille of the car.  My aura and Scott’s snapped out of view.  The indigo of the car burst up out of the ashen color it had been as all the world’s colors returned.  Scott saw me from the corner of his eye and pulled his head back in.  His face turned to follow me as I came around and got into the front passenger’s seat.  My wings elastically flattened against the back of the seat, taking no damage.  Watching out for the mice he traveled with, I made sure the way was clear before I carefully closed the door. 

A large gray mouse poked its head out the hole where a radio should have been.  A white mouse sat on the dash, watching me with unblinking red eyes.  A brown mouse came past my headrest, ran down my shoulder, and paused on my pants leg, staring up at me with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.  A hungry gleam.  A black mouse with garnet eyes glowered up at me.  Sitting on the tip of my left shoe, he flicked his hairless tail like a whip.  For some reason, a Devo song played in my head.  The phrase “Whip it, whip it good” echoed repeatedly. 

Scott hit the gas and we surged down the road, heading south.  “Good to see you again,” he said.  “What have you been up to?”

“The usual,” I said, “fighting for my life against all comers.  Speaking of which, Scott, have your furry pals been fed lately?”

“No, not really.  They finished off the beer nuts last night.  Actually, I’m on my way to buy lettuce before they start in on the electrical wiring or the brake lines—again.”

“Always a thrill to ride with you, Scott.”

He threw me a fast grin, his usual air of world-weary innocence firmly in place.

The road behind us was clear of moth people and Hysane.  The way ahead was open.  No police barricades or black helicopters setting down.  We’d soon reach a truck stop and restaurant area.  Virgil and the gang might be there, or could have called in the black helicopters to go airborne.  Further down the road was the Van Helsing School for Gifted Slayers where Madison and Fran lived with their peers.  The HPI was farther on.  Beyond
that
lay a scattering of small communities.  All of this meant I’d have to pick a destination soon.  A small challenge, finally.  If not for the starving mice, I’d have breathed a sigh of relief.

TWENTY-THREE

“Otherness isn’t far at all.

It just might come if you call.

Don’t search for what can’t be unseen.

Hide in the safety of your dream.”

                                           
              —The Safety of Your Dream

                         
                                   Elektra Blue

We passed the highway reststop and kept going.  Scotty spoke without taking his eyes off the road.  “You can’t bug out on the world yet, Grace.  You made a promise to your friend Madison.  Besides, running only works if you run toward something, not away.”

I looked at him.  “Just who are you, anyway?”

“Nobody special.” 

Several of the mice looked at him as if they couldn’t believe what he’d said. 

Scotty slanted me a sideways look.  “You said you’d have your friend’s back when she went to face her mom, the wanna-be vamp.”

“You know an awful lot for a mouse whisperer in an indigo station wagon,” I said.

He looked at me again.  For a moment—like a magical glamour falling away—his face shone with an inner light, young and perfect, molded from starlight into a dream.  His tired eyes held galactic depths never fathomed.  In those terrible reaches, galaxies—pinwheels of light—danced in endless spirals of joy.  Ghost-white wings fanned out from his back as if the car had lost all substance, or some new dimension had opened to my senses.  Several loose feathers fluffed past me, vanishing against my door in small pools of light.  A feather settled on my hand and melted like a snowflake.  My hand warmed, glowing soft white for a moment.  Then the blaze of light and his wings faded and he was just Scotty again.  His bright smile was for me alone, a thing to treasure, having nothing to do with hitting on me.  He’d simply shown me his heart, asking nothing in return.

“You’ve seen unnatural evil,” he said.  “Those shadows prove the Light.”

“You’re not…?”

“God?  No.  That’s well above my pay grade.  I’m your guardian angel.”

What?  Wait!  Really?

“I have one of those?  With all the trouble I’ve been getting into, I thought you were on permanent vacation.”

He sighed.  “Flowers need storms.  Perfect protection withers them.  A life kept from struggle is not blessed.”

“Yeah, but still—”

“When things were bad, did you stop to think how much worse they could have been?”

“I … guess not.”

“People are oblivious to a lot of the help they receive in life.  It’s always ‘why me, why me, why me, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.’  The five minute delay in heavy traffic is never appreciated, though it keeps them from a three-car pile up elsewhere where they would have died.  No matter the apparent chaos, there is always a plan.”

I let the subject drop, just saying, “Thank you.”

He paused, mouth open—as if there was much more to his gentle rant—but his easy smile returned.  “My pleasure.  So where do I drop you?”

“You’re right about
Madison.  I need to keep my promise.  Drop me off at the Van Helsing School.”

He nodded.  “An honorable decision.  We fight best for ourselves when we fight for others.”

“Uh, sure, I guess.” 

Heaven sure seems to have a weird way of doing things
.

While I had Heaven’s ear, so to speak, I thought I’d ask a question that had been bothering me.  I’d grown up thinking I was a normal teenager.  I’d gone to church, even though no one else in my family had bothered.  I’d actually liked it.  “Do you think God minds that I’m not human?  I mean, I’m kitsune, for Christ’s sake, and a few other things.”

The car surged down the highway, the outside a blur of trees.  Scotty took his time putting an answer together.  At last he said, “God is love.  He doesn’t restrain that love.  Hell will one day be full of people he loves, who went their own way instead of His.  All He asks for is faith.  Every touch of faith is answered, no matter who it comes from.  I’m not human either, Grace.  It’s not a requirement.”

That made me happy.  I was almost able to ignore the mice creeping around me until we pulled up to a private drive.  I opened the car door and got out carefully so the mice wouldn’t escape.  “Thanks again, Scotty.”

He smiled.  “Just doing my job.  See you around.”

I nodded, carefully closing the door.  The indigo station wagon pulled away. 

I turned toward the front gate in the outer chain-link fence, a fence capped with razor wire.  Beyond it there was a no-man’s land filled with rows of
concertina wire
, three-foot spirals stretched like killer Slinkys.  Then came the second fence, and another gate.  Cameras panned my way, sending my image ahead to whoever was on duty inside at the monitor room.  I stopped at the intercom, pushing a buzzer.  I was kept waiting a few minutes, left to enjoy the rich stink of garlic.  Along the main drive were mulch-covered fields, dormant with fall, but the earth still wore a residual stench as a badge of honor.  I had yet to meet a vampire, but all this security made me respect their prowess as enemies. 

A deep, querulous voice burst from the intercom.  “Grace, what are you doing here?  Where’s Drew and Madison?”

“We got separated.  We were run out of our safe house by paparazzi, mothmen, and some Hysane.”

“No kidding?  Paparazzi?  That must have been scary.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“I’ve ordered one of my kids to drive down and pick you up.  Come to my office when you get here.”

“Sure.”

  I cooled my heels, watching the sloping drive beyond the gates, and felt a cold dribble down my face.  I brushed the skin and found clear, gooey muck.  I felt higher and discovered that the bumps had burst.  Loose bits of skin felt like wet tissue, pulling off easily in my hand.  There was no tenderness, no pain—just antennae: thin, feathery fronds that arched up and out, tasting the wind.  The wood smoke I smelled was now joined by a flash of butter amber inside my head with a hundred shades of variation.  I think my brain was trying to integrate an entirely new form of perception.

I blotted my face dry and looked up.  A white van had appeared, growing larger as it approached at high speed.  Someone had a heavy foot on the gas pedal.  Remote-controlled, the gates opened in unison, clearing the drive.  The van shot through, passed me, and made a skidding turn.  Somewhat slower, it came back, braking to a stop.  I opened the door and hopped in. 

I didn’t know the leather-clad student behind the wheel.  He wore a silver crucifix and crossing bandoliers that held vials—probably holy water—and wooden throwing knives.  He was thin, lanky, hands impatiently patting the wheel as if the need for speed was burning him out.  He watched me buckle up, ice blue eyes veiled by cinnamon-brown bangs.  His head jerked in time to the metal rock spewing out of the van’s CD player.

Surprisingly, he made no comment about my antennae.

“Set,” I said.

“Cool.”  He floored the gas pedal.  We surged ahead, acceleration pushing me firmly back against my seat.  I didn’t have to look to know that the gates were sweeping shut behind us as we raced uphill.  At the crest of the drive, we veered from the three-story, white-brick mansion—with butt-ugly gargoyles on the roof—to enter a large garage.  The sliding doors were up, exposing four other parked vans matching the one we were in.  The walls were lined with power tools and work benches,
and there was a cork-board holding an assortment of keys—everything in its place. 

My driver killed the engine, hopped out, and slammed the door.  I did the same, and rounded the front of the van, falling in behind him.

He said, “This way,” as if I weren’t already staying a step behind him.  He led me through a door, turning down a passageway that had the same dark red carpeting I remembered from past visits. 

Good color for hiding blood splatter.

We passed through another door, entering the mansion, and threaded a hallway lined with classrooms.  We had the hall to ourselves since classes were in session.  Another turn and half a hall later we stopped outside a frosted glass door with a gold handle.

“You’re on your own from here,” the slayer said.  “I’ve got to get back to Melee 101.”