Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) (5 page)

Dottie hurried out of the room, and I felt the cold receding, telling me Michiko was staying with her.  That left me to deal with Lela.  She looked down at me and made a shooing motion.  “Git, critter.  Me and dogs don’t get along.”

I’m a fox.  F-O-X.  Look me up in the dictionary.

I heard the throaty rumble of a car in the drive. 
That’s right—the alarm system would have called Shaun’s cell phone. 

Lela’s phone played something incomprehensible by a thrash-metal band.  “Crap!”  She jumped a little. 

And I thought I was high strung
. 

She answered, “Yeah, okay.  Once we’ve
skragged
him, pull the van up front.  We’ll bail.”  She pocketed the phone, drew a blue-steel automatic, and moved to the entrance of the office, ready to ambush whoever entered from outside.

Shaun!  Oh, no you don’t!
Snarling, I launched into the air. 
Not on my watch!

Lela jerked toward me, swinging her gun.  The muzzle flashed.  Once.  Twice.  I choked on the smell of powder, blinded by the muzzle flash as a slug punched through the outer end of my right collar bone, near the shoulder.  The slug seared through me, tumbling out past my ribs.  The other shot ripped through the cluster of my tails, hitting nothing but fur. 

I thudded at Lela’s feet, leaking blood onto Shaun’s carpet.  I gasped and whined, back legs kicking as shock and pain raced along my nerves. 

Note to self: next time don’t snarl when attacking.
 
Definite tip off.

Shaun’s voice spilled from memory:
When shock sets in, feeding into it takes you out of the game … permanently.

Lela swung back to face the door, holding her gun ready, cradled in both hands, extended in front of her.

My front, right leg wouldn’t take my weight.  Just standing proved a monstrous task.  A
leap was clearly beyond me.  My ears perked.

Running steps outside, on the porch…
 
No, Shaun.  Stay back.  I’ll deal with—

The front door exploded inward.

Lela held her breath and her fire, waiting for someone to pop in and die.

I lunged, which is to say I fell against her ankle and bit.  Hard.

“Effin mutt, git off!”  She kicked her leg to shake me.  She didn’t want to accidentally shoot herself, or move her gun from the front door.

Pain filled my world, what should have been a sea of red except foxes are colorblind and can’t see that color.  Repeatedly, I thumped onto the carpet as she flailed her leg, hissing at the pain I caused.

The sharp crack of gunfire sounded, but not from Lela.  She retreated into the office to avoid the spray of gunfire, dragging me with her.  Someone had stuck a gun through the door, blindly firing off a clip. 

Lela was on her knees now, waiting for the gun to empty.  This gave her a chance to swing the grip of her automatic down, beating me. 

Crap, think a rib broke.  Lung might be punctured
.

Graying, my thoughts and whirred about like hummingbirds in a poppy field.  Weakness made my body limp, but anguish tightened my jaws, making me bite even harder, fangs grinding on her ankle bones. 

If I’m going, your leg’s coming with me.  Foxes keep what they take, even if it tastes like sour grapes.

Her gun butt came down on my gunshot wound.

I yelped, staying unmercifully conscious, fighting for breath, forcing my eyes to focus. 
Dammit, she got away!

But she’d taken her eyes off the hallway an instant too long.  A tall, thin shape filled the office door, gun in one hand, taser wand in the other.

Virgil?  I was killing myself for Cassie’s boss?  Hey, wait a minute..!

As she surged up from the floor, he thrust the wand at her.  The taser prongs
zapped
blue current between them.

No, you idiot!  She’s packing C4 with detonator caps.  If you hit them…!
 

She exploded backward. 

A concussive wave kicked me across the room, flinging me under a desk, as bloody fragments of Lela splattered everywhere.  Deafened, I wrapped around the base of a chair, adding to my injuries, smearing around more blood.  Dazed and hurting, I gave up on staying conscious and slid into arms of darkness…

…until that bitch gave me up.  I felt like crap served with a side of aggravation—
where the hell were the EMTs, with all the good drugs?  Hello, I’m bleedin’ here.
 
Hard to breathe…

Someone loomed over me.  I couldn’t lift my head to see who.  My nose didn’t seem to be working.  And I couldn’t hear a thing.  It couldn’t be Lela.  She was cat food now.  Virgil couldn’t be much better, as close to the blast as he’d been.

Gentle hands explored my injuries.  The touch
still
hurt. 

Yes, dammit, the wound goes all the way through.
I whimpered as things moved inside me that weren’t supposed to, but the touch brought healing warmth.  Pain receded as some kind of barrier formed, filtering impulses from outraged nerves.  Vision sharpened.  My hearing dialed up.  Tears brimmed as I realized I wasn’t going to be deaf for life.

“Damn, Cassie, you’re a mess.”

Virgil?  How can you even be alive?  And … why are you calling me by mom’s name?  Do I look like a high-maintenance blonde?

Miraculously his sunglasses were still in place.  His clothes hung in smoldering rags, the pale skin underneath covered with tats that seemed to writhe, subtly change shape from moment to moment.  Faded with age, the blue ink avoided the usual themes, blending arcane geometry with foreign writing and symbols.  A circled Star of David occupied the center of his chest. 
The guy’s a wizard or something, maybe Grand Pooh Bah
.  Well, of course, that made sense.  Heading up a Preternatural Response Team, he’d need an edge to slug it out with foreign jinn, rogue vamps, weres, and whatever.

My mind nagged.  There was something I needed to remember.  Something Virgil needed to know…

“Just take it easy.  An ambulance is coming.  Though how I’ll get them to work on a fox and keep it quiet, I don’t know.”

Finally, someone who knows a fox when they see one.

Shots rang out.  Virgil jerked under the impact of lead slugs, but didn’t get chewed into hamburger—at least there were no exit wounds splattering me with more blood.  Standing, spinning, he spat out sibilant words I didn’t understand, and somehow his gun was in hand.  Oddly, he didn’t use it.  His back was unmarked except for the tats that glowed bright yellow—an activated spell, I guessed. 

Personal shield?  I want one of those.

Now that it was too late, I remembered what I’d been trying to think of—more ISIS scumbags were here, in the house, and a van-load outside.

FIVE

“Heroes bleed; it’s what they do,

casting courage into play.

Some must pay for all the rest

who hide in darkness, turned away.”

                                                      —Heroes

                 
                                         Elektra Blue

I heard the squeal of tires, a racing engine receding.

Scratch that last threat.

Virgil lowered his weapon, staring.

Earlier he’d shoved the desk aside in reaching me.  This gave me a clear view of the hall.  I saw what held his attention.  Dottie was there.  Unseen hands had her by the throat, lifting her off her feet.  Her face was red and her eyes bulged.  She flailed with her empty gun, which did no good.  The choking sounds she made were ugly and satisfying at the same time.  Did that make me a bad person to feel that way?

Virgil said, “Neat trick, Cassie, but a living prisoner will be more useful than a dead one.”

I closed my eyes, letting my head sink to the floor. 
Don’t look at me.  This is Michiko’s work and she’s one pissed off ghost
. 
Too bad you can’t see her.
  I softly growled at Virgil. 
And stop calling me Cassie, dammit.

Whatever Virgil had done to help me was wearing off.  Darkness crowded in again, wrapping my senses in black-velvet folds.

*   *   *

Consciousness returned in broken fragments of pain.  Eventually the puzzle pieces formed a whole.  I lay curled on a gurney being guided into an emergency room.  A white-coated doctor shined a light in my eyes, snapping out orders to scurrying nurses.  Words went past me with meaning, but not a whole lot of importance.

“One lung’s collapsed … massive blood loss…”

“We need an operating room STAT!”

“But it’s a freakin’ fox!”

Light flashed off a federal ID.  Virgil was there, wrapped in a blanket.  His voice smashed out, hard as a fist, “Do everything possible for her, bearing in mind that I have both a gun and a license to kill.”

“We’ll do what we can, but you’ll have to wait outside here.”

Next thing I knew, someone was fitting a makeshift mask over my foxy face as I lay blinded by operating lights.  Under the fur, the demon mark on my arm itched and then burned.  A caustic strength poured into me.  I sniffed day-old road-kill sautéed in sulfur with a bit of moldy sock thrown in.  The odor cut straight through the hospital’s antiseptic scent. 
Wocky? 
Was he using the demon mark to feed me strength?  I hadn’t known he could do that.  Did it mean he could draw strength from me as well?

A valve on a tank turned.  Its hissing whisper brought sleepiness.

Figure it out … later…

In my next slice of awareness, it dawned on me that I was in human form, not fox.  When had I shed fang, fur, and bushy tails?  I hoped it hadn’t been in the middle of my operation.  That was too dangerous to think about.  I stretched out in a hospital bed in a gloomy room.  The sheets were uber-fresh.  Big, fluffy pillows supported me.  The inevitable TV was mounted on the wall, turned off at the moment.  The next bed over was empty and crisply made. 

Near me, a shadow moved with liquid grace.

Shaun
.

His mouse-brown hair came alive with platinum highlights as he peered down, intensity hardening his handsome face, his blue-gray eyes reminding me of storm clouds.  He wore a cinnamon-colored suit with an open-throated dress shirt of dusky tangerine.  Somehow, he never looked quite complete without his katana in hand.

“Grace, I’m here.”

My mouth felt cottony.  His name came out as a thin, rough whisper, “Shaun...” 

Inside my head, Taliesina slowly opened golden eyes.  Lured from her dark retreat in my inner shadows, she advanced fitfully, uncertain, tails whipping with a gentle eagerness.  There was no pressure from her to shift forms, nor did she try to take control of my human form to kiss him as she had that other time.  She only stared out of my eyes at him, her hunger feeding mine, fanning a raw blaze of desire.

Mine,
she said.

Ours,
I corrected her.

She grinned at me. 
Ours
.

“Grace?” Shaun said.  “Why are your eyes glowing a soft, buttery yellow?”

“
A
Kitsune
…
thing.
”
 

I loved the concern in his voice.  That was better than having him bitch me out for bleeding on his carpet.  Of course, he could always do that later.

I noticed a needle taped to my arm.  A tube connected it to a bottle suspended on a steel stand.  Something clear slowly dripped into my veins.  ‘Whuzzat?” I slurred.

“Don’t try to talk,” he said.  “We’re all here, looking out for you.  Just concentrate on getting better.”

Comforted, I drifted at the edge of sleep, losing track of time, vaguely aware of people coming and going, poking and prodding, making comments I didn’t bother deciphering.