Destiny's Child (Kitsune series Book 3) (29 page)

It starts when it starts.

He hung up.  I handed the phone back to Faith.  She said.  “Hey, he hears as good as me.”

“Probably better,” I said.  “He’s a shape-shifter.  Coyote.”

“If you don’t want him,” Fran said, “I’d throw myself on that grenade anytime—just to help you out.”

For some reason her offer pissed me off, but I smiled sweetly.  “I’ll let you know.” 
On a rainy day in Hell...

“I’m not going to wait for him,” Maddy said.  “I can’t take a chance with mom’s life—I’ve got about a hundred thousand ‘I-told-you-sos’ saved up and she’s getting every one.”

“We need some kind of plan,” I said.  “It would be nice to know how many more thralls will be inside, and if there’s more than one vamp.”

“It will be sundown by the time we get there,” Fran said.  “I say we go and kill anyone coming at us.  Treat this like a battlefield situation.  Pulling punches can get us killed.”

“Sure,” Faith said.  “How about we park a block away, sneak around back, and go in covertly while Van Helsing stirs things up by kicking in the front door?”

Maddy nodded curt confirmation.  “I like it.  Faith, give him a call.  Tell him not to start the action until we’re in place.”

Faith made the call, laid out our strategy, and listened for a while before hanging up.  “He says it would be his pleasure, he’s proud of us, and he wants us to use the buddy system so no one faces danger alone.  Vamps move too fast to take chances.”

“’
Kay,” Maddy said.  “Fran and I will be team one.  You guys are team two.  Faith, try not to accidentally stab Grace or my mom.”

“You know I’m head of my class, right?” Faith sounded offended.

Stab?

I studied Faith’s cane.  It was golden bamboo, flattened, with a rubber tip on the oval bottom.  She hadn’t been using a cane before, but had one now.  Looking closer, I saw there was a hairline seam nine inches down from the top.

As if feeling my stare, Faith turned her face to me.  “What?”

“That cane, would it happen to be—”

“My preferred weapon.”  She pulled on the top piece and the bamboo parted, revealing several inches of sword—a straight katana—with the wavy, frosted edge that folded metal gets in forging.  She slammed the hilt against the sheath, hiding the blade once more. 

“Isn’t it dangerous using a sword with no handguard?” I asked.

Her blind eyes stared at me.  “What’s your point?”

“Never mind.”  I was quickly forming the opinion that all slayers were as crazy as me.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Maddy asked Fran.

“Positive.”

We cruised past the structure.  I saw a two-story, white-walled church with steeple, and darkened stained-glass windows front and sides.  The sign on the building said: Cypress Avenue Community Church.  Italian cypresses lined the edges of the property.  Beside the small, country church there was a long structure, probably a fellowship hall for special events and potlucks.  It was dark as well.  Turning the corner, heading for the back of the property, we passed a realty sign that said the church was for sale.

I wondered if the vamp and his thrall entourage were renting the empty church, or if they’d simply moved in without telling anyone. 

The black exterminator van stopped in front of the church.  We only had so long to get in place before all Van Helsing broke loose.  Feeling the pressure, Madison surged ahead.  There was a side road to a small back parking lot.  The black van and sports car used by the thralls were there in plain sight. 

“I’m just going to drive in there,” Maddy said.  “Got a hunch time is bleeding out.”

Our way to the back of the church was closed by a two-sided gate made of steel poles.  The gate was secured by a chain and padlock.  Maddy braked, killed the headlights, and eyed the obstruction as our vehicle throbbed at idle. 

“We could ram it,” Fran suggested brightly.

“And lose all possibility of surprise?” Maddy said.  “Assuming they haven’t posted sentries to watch all approaches, we might already be discovered.”

“In case they’re too busy with internal problems,” I said, “we should stay with stealth a little longer.  Tell you what: I’ll take care of this quietly so you guys can drive in.”

“What are you going to do?” Faith asked.

I took off the ski cap I’d swiped, and my quilted coat.  Unwrapping my wings from my sides, I fluttered some circulation back into them, and deepened my voice to sound mysterious, “I’m going to unleash the power of my shadow force, or something.”

Crouching, I stood on the back seat, my head and shoulders bent just under the roof.  I pulled on the weave of space and a tingle raced along my limbs.  Being nighttime, the world already looked gray except near the occasional light, but as I
crossed over,
everyone’s auras ignited around them in bright blues, gold, and purples mostly.  With gravity grown weak and my materiality in flux, I jumped and ghosted through the van’s roof.  To those inside, it would have look like I’d vanished into thin air.

Once my feet cleared the roof, I let my orange haze of aura leak out my feet.  The top of the van was solid under me, just like I wanted, as long as I wanted—or at least as long as my aura stayed strong.  I leaped off the roof, soaring toward the locked gate, and found that my revived moth wings gave me a little extra lift. 

I touched down, landing by the chain and padlock, and grabbed it to stop myself.  As I did, I concentrated on my left hand, pulling out of myself some of that mysterious darkness that lived in the back of my mind with Taliesina.  Her golden orb eyes were watching to see what I would do.

Inner darkness filled my left palm, obsidian plasma that leaped up, shaping itself into a shadow sword edged with orange haze—a weapon born of both of my natures.  I slid the sword tip gently against the chain, scraping it, and the metal frosted and severed, falling in broken pieces.  I’d used this sword on an enemy ninja once, before I knew what it could do.  She’d shattered pretty much the same way.  I still carried that weight on my soul, though my mind had insisted I’d had no choice back then.  It had been kill or be killed.  I’d do what was necessary here, but I hoped we could get to Elektra and bail with her without things getting too out of control.

Wishful thinking
, Taliesina said.

“Yeah,” I answered, “but it’s the only kind I got right now.”

I extracted the broken chain and crouched down.  I let the links drop a small distance from my hand.  Once out of my aura the chain fell under full gravity.  I was counting on the shortness of the fall to keep the sound down for those on the human side of the veil.  That chore done, I eased the right-hand side of the gate out of the way, creating enough room for our van.

As it crept past me, I ghosted through the side of the vehicle and
crossed back
, becoming visible once more to Fran and Maddy.  Though she couldn’t see me, Faith’s face turned toward me as my weight settled into the seat.  “You want to tell me what you just did?” she asked.

“Bent the dimensional walls, summoned a bi-polar sword, and sliced open the chain on the gate.  We can drive through now.”

“Fascinating,” Faith said.

“Awe and wonder later,” Maddy said.  “We’re here to save my mom or avenge her.”

“And kill the vamp if he gets in the way,” Fran added.  “That will so help my mid term grades.”

Maddy let the vehicle creep closer, but not too close, not wanting the engine to be heard.  Forty feet from the building, she killed the ignition and turned in the driver’s seat to address Faith and me.  “Fran and I will go in first through the church’s back door.  You guys take out the tires on those vehicles so no one gets away, or can chase us if we want to make a fast getaway.” 

I nodded.  “I see a door in the back of the fellowship.  We’ll go in that way, get everybody surrounded.”

Maddy had her phone out.  She texted a message to Van Helsing, and put her phone away.  “Let’s do this!”  She turned back around and eased her door open, sliding out.  She left the driver’s door ajar, not wanting to slam it, and circled the van to hook up with Fran.  Together, they slunk off like menacing shadows. 

Faith followed me out my door.  I left it open as well.  “What if someone steals
our
van?” I whispered. 

Faith whispered back, “It has GPS.  We can also explode it by remote control if necessary.  Van Helsing thinks of everything.” 

“I hope so.”

She locked her arm in mine as I started to move.  We cat-footed it over to the Nissan NV Passenger van.  Faith drew her bamboo-hilted sword and made quick work of slashing tires.  She repeated the process on Elektra’s Corvette.  “Hate to do that to innocent vehicles,” Faith hissed, “but this is war.”

I snagged her arm and tugged her along with me.  “Okay, no talking from here on in unless it’s very, very important.”

She nodded a couple times, a fierce grin on her face.  As we went, up to the fellowship hall, she canted her head, listening to the whispery slap of out footfalls.  Like sonar pulses, they painted the world for her in colors I couldn’t imagine.  We stopped by a door.  I summoned my shadow sword once again, but didn’t use it as Faith gripped my arm tightly.  She had the side of her face pressed up against the door, listening intently, and then broke off, moving her lips close to my ears.

She whispered, “Someone’s inside.  I hear muffled sounds.”

I whispered back, “Give me thirty seconds to clear the way.”

Faith grinned at me and said, “Give ‘em Hell.”

I
crossed over
, intending to go in and do exactly that.

TWENTY-NINE

“Dance with me heart to heart,

knives concealed, sharp smiles drawn.

Pain is pleasure, mingled and lost,

when the light in your eyes is gone.”

                          
                            —The Final Dance

     
                                        Elektra Blue

Crouched outside the fellowship hall, I was sheathed in my orange aura.  I poured it out of my fist around a core of shadow, forming a sword of darkness and light.  Armed, I sprang through the wall beside the door, ghosting inside.  The room was dark, but enough light spilled in through the long, narrow windows to let me see rows of tables and chairs, unoccupied, awaiting purpose.  I landed on tiles, and swept the gloom for prey, my antennae rippling.

And there was the thrall, an older male with an acid-washed, tattered aura—a smoky brownish gray.  He sat in the kitchen at an island area used for food prep.  A laptop faced him, bathing his face in a pale light.  He wore glasses reflecting light, masking his eyes.  His head was down.  His lips moved as if he were talking to himself, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

I had a choice: open the door and risk alerting him to us as Faith entered, or taking the thrall first.  I went with the second option, bounding his way, gaining lift from my baby moth wings.  I didn’t want him dead, just down and out for awhile, so I collapsed my sword as I flew into the kitchen, phasing through a solid wall by pulling my aura into my body.  I landed on the island area, looming over the laptop.  I pivoted into a punch that drew strength from my legs and from the way I turned my hip into the blow.  All the muscles of my back fed my fist power as I centered aura there.  Leaping flames trailed from my hand as I hit him from across the veil.  Had the vamp been remotely using the thrall’s senses, they’d have seen the blow coming.  As it was, the thrall’s head snapped back, glasses flew, and dimming surprise covered his face briefly before unconsciousness took over.  His chair crashed back, spilling him to the ground.

“Oh bleep!”  I shook my hand.  I’d rolled my fingers tightly and had kept my thumb outside the other fingers—everything done right—but it
still
hurt.

With a thought, I rifted the fabric of space, falling through, closing the tear behind me.  Gravity strengthened.  I lost sight of my aura.  The tingle of
crossing back
faded.  I heard the back door getting kicked in.   Faith had heard the commotion and become impatient.  Looking for me, she called into the gloom, “Grace, are you all right?”

“Over here.”  Momentarily forgetting her blindness, I waved at her through the cutout space where food was passed out into the main hall.

She ran to the cutout, following my voice.

“There was a thrall here working on a laptop.  He’s having a nap, so let’s move on.”

“Check what he was working on first,” Faith said.  “It might be important.”

I looked at the display screen.  There was a web page being prepared, an announcement of an upcoming memorial concert featuring the orange-haired thrall, in a Goth-whore outfit only a rock star could get away with.  “Yeah, Elektra is definitely on the way to an early grave.  He’s probably working on this here because nobody wants to tip her off before Conrad takes her out.”