Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) (15 page)

Reaching my limit, I screamed like a girl.

FOURTEEN

“Angels weep at my grave as I dare awaken,

protesting all that was not lost

when only hope was taken.”

                                                    —If I Should Wake Before I Die

                
                                       Elektra Blue

Fenn rushed in and swung me toward him, away from the horror at the back door.  His arms encircled me and he dragged me to the side as Tukka burst into the kitchen, slammed the table and chairs out of his way, and galloped through the back door, shattering it and part of the jamb as he plunged outside.  Waves of hate had rolled off Tukka.  I’d have seen their actual color, but I wasn’t in the ghost realm.  His growl started audibly, but quickly sunk to subsonic levels; a throb felt in the bones, a stir of nausea in the stomach.

Then I realized why.  This wasn’t because I was threatened.  That had been happening since I was a kid, too curious to leave the ghost realm alone.  No, this was about Ryan being a mothman, mortal enemy to dogs everywhere.  Mothmen ate dogs.  No mothman was going to eat a fu dog, but still…

Another fu dog charged in from the hall, thundering through the kitchen.

I pulled free of Fenn, turning.

The fu dog ran out the ravaged door, then the third one passed through, hurtling outside.  The last fu dog—stationed on the front porch—never showed, holding position with great discipline.

“Grace,” Fenn pulled me back around to face him, “what did you see?  Why did you scream?”

“It was Ryan.”

Fenn stared.

“I’m not crazy,” I said.

Fenn continued to stare.

“You know we never did recover his body,” I said.

“Well, I suppose he might have been brought back to life somehow.”

I frowned at him.  “What?  You think you’re the only one who can pull off that stunt?”

“Yeah, me and my dad.”

“You better think again, kachina-boy.”

“Not my strong suit.  I’m a man of action.  Speaking of which,” he gave me a push toward the hall, “go around to the front porch and stay with the fu dog on guard.”

His push got me across the threshold.  I stopped in the hall, turning back.  “What about you?”

“I want to see what’s left of Ryan when Tukka gets through not-playing-well-with-others.  Ryan came back from the grave once.  We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.  And if there’s someone else out there using Ryan against you, maybe I can sniff them out.  Though no one should have known we were coming here.”

I wanted to go with Fenn, but he’d put on his tough-guy-looking-out-for-my-lady face. 
No arguing with that
.  I went away from the kitchen door, but not into the front lounge area.  Alone in the hall, I pulled on the veil,
crossing over
to the ghost realm.  The usual electric tingle stirred the fine hairs of my arms and at the nape of my neck.  My stomach fluttered as gravity slackened, increasing the power of my muscles, like a human suddenly transported to Mars.  Gray appeared as if the world had been magically turned to graphite, but my orange-haze aura blazed up around me, a visible reminder that this was not my world, though I’d trespassed here all my life. 

I hopped toward the kitchen doorway.  My aura kept the wall solid as my foot hit there, and I changed course.  Floating into the kitchen, I found it empty.  Unseen, I went outside, following Fenn like a ghost.  He should have remembered I’m not big on doing what I’m told.  He stood there, having nothing to do.  Off the porch and under a pine, Tukka had one of Ryan’s zombie arms pinned down with a paw.  Another fu dog had a paw on Ryan’s stomach, pressing down firmly.  A third fu dog growled like a diesel motor, glaring down, drooling on Ryan’s face while baring sharp, white teeth. 

Ryan didn’t struggle.  He didn’t seem to mind the indignity of being a prisoner.  His face lacked expression.  His lips stayed closed, thankfully hiding the remnant of the prehensile tongue I’d gnawed off weeks ago. 
Eeeeww.
  I still dreamed about that sometimes, waking up in a cold sweat.

I launched from the edge of the back porch, going all flying squirrel in the lesser gravity.  Fenn never looked at me as I drifted past him, landing near Tukka.  Oddly, the fu dogs all turned their heads, registering my presence.  Usually, I met Tukka in the ghost world or a dream.  I couldn’t remember us being like this, on different sides of the veil.  I hadn’t realized how sharp his senses were.  He nodded a greeting, and turned his attention back to Ryan.

On closer examination, Ryan wasn’t looking too hot.  His pasty gray skin gave no evidence of rot, but no sign of blood flow either.  His wings had rips that hadn’t mended.  His nose was crooked, broken, showing the damage of our last encounter.  I was only glad he wasn’t all gaping wounds, and a wormy shambler like some zombie from a horror movie.  I stepped past Tukka.

Ryan’s head shifted.  His gray, compound eyes seemed to stare at me.  I couldn’t see their red-yellow whirl, then I could.  A smoky haze of black flame wreathed him.  His body ghosted up through the fu dogs holding him down.  They stared around, spinning, losing track of him.  His wings fluttered.  He came right at me.  His mouth opened and his ruined tongue slashed about.

Tukka popped into the ghost realm, his teal blue coat shining with brighter light.  His eyes blazed lavender as he caught sight of Ryan closing in on me. 

Grace, watch out!

I had a split second to decide between
crossing back
to the human world, or dealing with Ryan myself.  I gripped an imaginary sword hilt, pooling aura in my palms.  A sword of orange fire with a core of obsidian shadow jutted up.  The sword revealed both sides of my kitsune and shadow-man nature, but revealed nothing of the taint to my DNA from the mothman fluids Ryan had once pumped into my bloodstream and down my throat.

He fluttered—moth like—into my flame, paying no heed to the danger of my sword.  The sword dissolved tissue, sinking into his shoulder, becoming embedded.  No grimace of pain distorted Ryan’s eerie blandness.  A film of frost spread out to whiten his whole torso.  His wings beat as if in slow motion.  He reached for me with the arm closest to his wounded shoulder, and the whole arm came off with a brittle snap, languidly drifting to the old pine needles littering the ground.  That, too, caused him no distress.

The lights aren’t really on ‘cause no one’s home
, I decided.  This was simply an unthinking mess I’d made.  I needed to clean it up, and put Ryan to rest for good. 

I put a foot against his chest and passed on enough aura so he’d be solid before kicking him back a ways.  My sword came out of him.  I crouched in a guarded stance, getting ready to leap and take his head off in one swift pass.

But a winged shape fell out of the sky, bringing an awful stench. 
Wocky! 
The demon crumbled at the edges, going blurry, smoky, as he plunged inside Ryan, taking possession.  The demon’s black flame strengthened Ryan’s smudgy energy.  His compound eyes went from a red and yellow whirling to a solid, ink-filled black. 

Ryan-Wocky grinned at me.  He opened his mouth to speak and I saw the ruined tongue mending itself at last.  “Grace, my little dove, how nice to see … ummph!”

Tukka hit the possessed mothman like an avalanche, taking him down to the ground.  The moth wings beat frantically, but were woefully insufficient to dislodge the fu dog.  Ryan-Wocky pressed against the ground, pushing with demon strength.  Nothing.  Wocky was trapped as long as he held onto Ryan’s body.  Why he wanted it, I didn’t know—except it couldn’t be good.

I squatted down to look closely at the demon, glad that his smell had thinned out.  In my mind,
this was no longer Ryan
. 
It seemed easier to think of the two just as
Wocky
since that was who was in charge of the body.

Tukka growled.  His thoughts were a shout:
Demon take mark off Grace, or Tukka bite head off.

I showed Wocky an expression of serene and sympathetic sorrow.  “He will, too.  I’d listen to him if I were you.”

“He can only damage this body up to a point.”  The fusion of Wocky’s words and Ryan’s voice gave me a slight disconnect from the reality of the scene.  “If the manling is destroyed, I am expelled from his body, and am free to make you suffer through the mark you’ll still be wearing.  Give it up.  You cannot threaten me.  If you wanted me dead, Grace, you had your chance with the ghost girl’s magic sword.  Your bad luck you were foolishly merciful.”

Tukka sighed. 
Knew that was a mistake at the time
.

I sighed in turn.  “Wocky, I saved you.  I put your sliced-apart heart back together and back in your body.  Return the favor and take your demon name off me.  Set me free, please.”  I let my eyes continue to plead for me.

Wocky’s turn to sigh, more of a theatrical hiss really.  “I can’t.  It’s all the hold I have on you.  You are all the warmth I have known in ages, Grace.  I don’t want to be an empty shell again.”

You are such a liar.

He added, “And I’m keeping this body.  It will let me cross the veil and be with you at last.”

Won’t that be a joy?

“If you can
cross over
, why do I have to keep your mark?”

He smiled at me.  “Think of it as an engagement ring.”

“So I’ll be doubly-vulnerable to you, with you getting every advantage?  I don’t think so, Wocky.  Take off the mark or I’ll have Tukka trample Ryan into pulp.  I’ll at least have the status quo then.”

Sadly, Wocky shook his head at me.  “Haven’t you done enough to this poor boy?”

I snarled.  “I mean it.”

Tukka pressed down harder, grinding Ryan into the ground.  Ryan’s leaky aura kept his body from sinking immaterially into the earth.  Wocky couldn’t escape.  We could deal with him now, and had better do so while he was vulnerable to us.

I couldn’t breath.  A heavy, crushing sensation dropped me to my knees.  I gasped in pain and flattened on the ground like Wocky.  It felt like a two-ton fu dog was stepping on my spine.  And the demon mark on my arm was ablaze, as if actual fire were eating its way to the bone.

“Tukka,” I gasped, “Ease up.  You’re killing me.”

He did, but still kept Wocky down.  “Grace, what’s wrong?”

“My demon mark; through it, I can make her feel everything I do, and a lot more.  Now let me go.” 

I hardened my heart.  “No.  It’s just pain, not actual damage.  I can take it.”  I fought up to my hands and knees and glared at the demon.  “Wocky, make me play hardball and you will regret it forever.  There is one thing I can do that will make you as vulnerable to me, as I am to you.  Are you sure you want to push me that far?”

He studied my face.  “You’re bluffing.”

I smiled.  “I’m kitsune.  I cannot lie.”

His lips shaped a frown.  “You’re only half kitsune.  It might be possible for you to lie without temporarily sacrificing your powers.  Have you ever put it to the test?”

“I’m not lying.  The very fact you’re inside a host body works in my favor.  Decide fast.  If I lose patience, I’ll just go ahead and hope for the best.  I’m usually a pessimist, but I hear—once-in-awhile—insane gambles pay off.  Shall we find out how lucky
you
are?”  I grinned, putting all my darkest thoughts into the expression.

I don’t know what Wocky saw in my eyes, but he fell quiet.  I was about to just get on with it when he said, “All right, I’ll take off the mark if your beast will just ease up a little.  But I’m keeping this body.”

I glowered at him, not liking that idea.

Tukka say it’s a deal.

I looked at him.  “Are you sure?”

Tukka looked back at me. 
Trust me.  Tukka smarter than average fu dog
.

He had a plan.  Not one he could talk about in front of Wocky.

I nodded.  “Okay,
you
I trust.”

Tukka pulled back.

Wocky climbed to his feet, giving his moth wings an experimental flutter, testing their lift.  He drifted up a few feet, then settled again.  He turned to face both me and Tukka.  The demon’s eyes went to Tukka’s.  Wocky’s voice emerged with an edge of suspicion, “Unexpectedly decent of you, fu dog.”