Authors: Zoe Marriott
“I’m all right. It’s OK.” My voice came out weak and trembling, and I wasn’t sure that I was telling the truth. I helplessly patted whatever bits of him I could reach.
Deep shudders worked through his body as he rocked me. I remembered what he’d said before – that me getting hurt caused him pain too. He’d been telling the truth. Despite the warning ache from my shoulder, I put my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. I needed the comfort as much as he did.
“I’m OK,” I repeated. “It’s all good. But I just need to know, was I a—?”
“Fox,” Hikaru said, moving into view behind Shinobu’s shoulder. “Yes.”
Shinobu’s arms tightened until I wheezed. Slowly, he let me slide down to stand on my own two feet. For a minute more we clutched at each other, unwilling to let go.
“I’m fine. Shinobu, I’m all right.”
“This time,” he said, voice flat. I felt his hands curl into fists against my back.
I twisted my head to meet his gaze – but he wasn’t looking at me. His furious eyes were fixed on Hikaru.
I shifted back and, reluctantly, Shinobu let go. Immediately I stepped in front of Hikaru, shielding him from Shinobu’s wrath. But not from mine. “Explain.”
“Look, I know you must have a lot of questions. But we need to get going.”
“Why?” I asked. The word came out like a fox’s bark, and I coughed.
“Um, take a look around. Where’s your friend?” Hikaru said.
I turned in a circle, searching for Jack in the green landscape. There was no sign of her. “Oh my
God
! Jack’s a fox too! Where is she? Why didn’t you say before?”
“I’ve been trying to,” he snapped. “She’s bolted, and we have to find her before somebody else does.”
C
lose to, the wall of rock wasn’t nearly as flat and featureless as the brick walls of my parents’ house. It was more like a cliff, riddled with crevices and cracks. Which was a good thing because I’d only ever been rock-climbing once, and I had about twenty pounds of ropes and safety harnesses attached to me at the time. Right now, I had nothing.
Shinobu had discarded my dad’s leather coat for the climb and I could see the muscles standing out on his arms and legs as he climbed ahead of me, apparently without effort. I made a grab for a handhold, dug the toe of my boot in and pulled myself up. My good arm was trembling and my bad arm was sending shards of pain shooting up and down my spine. I was puffing like a steam train, my face felt like it was glowing, and sweat was sticking my hair to my cheeks and forehead.
Attractive
.
“Hikaru, how did this happen?” I demanded between pants.
“The transformation ward is a protective mechanism, like Between,” Hikaru called down. He was about six feet above me and wasn’t even breathing hard.
I gritted my teeth. Ignoring the rock scraping my knuckles, the pain in my shoulders, my injury, and the sweat trickling down my skin, I climbed faster. “Go on.”
“Anyone who, by accident or design, stumbles through one of our portals ends up in fox form. That way we can safely round them up and shove them back where they belong without worrying that they’ll learn or steal anything or manage to convince anyone that what they experienced was real. Normally it’s easy. But normal humans don’t run from the smell of magic. They don’t know what it is. And when you panicked, Jack bolted too.”
“And you didn’t warn us about this?” Shinobu’s voice was icy.
“Dude, do you think I’d bring a bunch of humans here if the ward was operational? The king disabled it before I left. It shouldn’t have been an issue!”
Shinobu heaved himself up onto the roof slope beneath the trees. He crouched down to give Hikaru his hand. Hikaru clasped it and sprang lightly up to stand on the narrow ledge which, in the real world, would have been the guttering above Jack’s bedroom window.
I gritted my teeth harder. I wasn’t going to be springing anywhere. Every muscle I had was twitching with the strain of clinging to the rock. Clearly PE three times a week wasn’t doing as much for my upper body strength as I might have hoped. I found another handhold and pulled myself up, swallowing a groan of effort.
Shinobu reached down towards me just as my fingers slipped off a slimy chunk of moss. Both he and Hikaru yelled in panic. Desperate hands seized me before I could fall. For a minute I was dangling in midair, with Hikaru clinging to my left wrist and Shinobu gripping my right elbow. My bad arm didn’t like that at all. Grey things nibbled at the edges of my vision.
Between them they hauled me over the edge of the wall. I sat down with a bump and put my head between my knees, taking deep, slow breaths and waiting for the grey nibblers to fade.
“Would the king change his mind?” Shinobu asked. His hand found its way to the centre of my back between my shoulder blades, long fingers sliding under my shinai carrier and spreading out there. I sighed, my tension easing a little.
“Not a chance. He gave you the right of safe passage, and that stands until he’s spoken to you himself.”
I lifted my head. I was so dirty that if I decided to lie down flat here I’d be perfectly camouflaged. There wasn’t a green smudge or a fleck of dirt on Hikaru’s white leather coat, and his hair was still perfectly braided, but that neatness just served to emphasize the suppressed fury glittering in his green eyes. For the first time, I thought he looked like he might be capable of using the weapons that littered his outfit.
“Can you explain that safe passage thing to the noobs, please?” I asked.
“It means he gave you his word that you could travel here unharmed. And he doesn’t go back on his word. Ever.”
“Apparently
someone
doesn’t know that,” Shinobu said.
Hikaru flashed his fangs. “Are you trying to suggest something?”
“Would you like me to suggest something?”
They stared at each other.
Warning: Testosterone levels reaching critical
.
I held up my hand. “What did you mean about getting to Jack before something else does? Isn’t this Kitsune territory?”
Hikaru shook his head. “The Kingdom of the Kitsune is underground. We’re on common land now, which means anything could be drifting around here looking for lunch.”
Oh, lovely
.
“Well, then let’s find her quickly, OK?”
“Fine.” He got to his feet. “Follow me. And if you hear the trees whispering to you, ignore them.”
The trees … what?
He strode away through the gnarled trunks, his white leather coat snapping out behind him. I glanced at Shinobu. He gestured for me to go ahead of him, casting a wary look around us. Guarding my retreat again. I nodded and went after Hikaru.
There was no sign of any fox, let alone a Jack-ish one, among the trees. Big, waxy, red petals showered down on me as I walked, and I shook them out of my hair, noticing that none were falling on Hikaru or Shinobu. When I rested my hand on the trunk of the nearest tree, it shuddered like an animal, sending more petals spiralling into my hair. J
ust when you think things can’t get any weirder…
A thin, silver snake curled around a branch overhead. Its flickering tongue was black. I hurried past.
“Where is she?” Hikaru muttered. “Jack? Jack!”
“It’s no good,” I told him as I caught up. “She can’t understand you. I don’t know if you can normally understand English in fox form, but I couldn’t. You just sounded like you were mooing.”
“Mooing?”
I dodged round a tall, jagged rock outcropping that looked like an ancient standing stone. It corresponded to one of our chimneys. “Yep. And your magic really stinks too.”
“Great,” Hikaru muttered. “You know, my grandmother always warned me that my weakness for pretty faces would do me in one day. I’m really pissed off that she’s going to be proved right.”
We found Jack standing on the very edge of the peaked roof. Her nose was pointed at the flat roof of the building next door, which, here, was a wide, grassy area. It was as clear as day that she was thinking of jumping. The gap was about three-feet wide. The drop was thirty feet at least. Jack had been on four paws for all of twenty minutes. A quick glance at Hikaru’s face told me what he thought her chances were of making it.
She was paying no attention to us at all, apparently not deeming us a threat. But I knew how quickly that could change.
“Ideas?” I asked softly.
“Try talking to her,” Shinobu said in whisper. “She might not understand what you’re saying, but maybe she will recognize your voice.”
“Just don’t make any sudden movements,” Hikaru advised. “One slip, and—”
“Yes, thank you.” I cut him off before he could terrify me more and crept slowly towards the fox Jack.
She was beautiful – slender, compact and muscular. Her pelt was dark red, with no white at all, and her paws, the tip of her tail and her ears shaded to chocolate brown. I thought she was bigger than a regular fox, but I wasn’t an expert on the species. She still wasn’t big enough to make that jump. Typical Jack, biting off more than she could chew.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “You’re kind of cute as a fox, you know. You’d get such a kick if you could see yourself.”
One of Jack’s large ears quivered a little, but she didn’t turn her head. I left the shelter of the last tree and froze, unable to force myself to walk any further. It was just too scary out there in the open. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled up to the edge of the cliff.
“I wonder what I looked like. I’ll have to ask Shinobu later. This is definitely an experience, right? Maybe not one to share with the grandkids, though, unless we want them to think we’ve lost our marbles and ship us off to the old folks’ home.”
Jack tilted her head slightly. She lifted one paw, and I tensed.
Don’t, don’t, please, please, don’t jump…
She put the paw back down.
I sighed. “Jack, you know what would be really awesome? If you’d make this easy on me and just come over here. Because I’ve got to tell you, I think I’m developing a bit of a thing about heights, and you aren’t helping.”
Lying flat, I inched my leg up and over the roof peak, sucked in a deep, calming breath and then sat upright with one leg on either side.
For the first time, I saw the landscape that Jack was gazing at.
London spread out in front of us, every bit of it green and shining and growing. Where home had skyscrapers, the spirit realm had verdant green mountains, cloaked in mist and topped by gargantuan trees that must have been taller than my house. Where home had roads, the spirit realm had white, winding paths, glinting rivers and waterfalls. Home had parks. The spirit realm had forests that stretched as far as the eye could see. A gust of warm, green-scented wind made me teeter, but I was too spellbound to care. Spirit London
moved
with the wind. The mists shifted and shredded and reformed, the waters rippled, the trees bowed. Golden pollen and leaves and petals glinted in the air.
“Mio,” Shinobu said urgently.
I tore my eyes from the view and saw Shinobu crouched in the trees behind me with a white-knuckled grip on the rock in front of him, as if he was only just restraining himself from grabbing me and pulling me away from the edge.
“Sightsee later!” Hikaru hissed.
Oh, right. Rescuing Jack now. Get your head in the game, Mio
.
I gave the guys an apologetic look and then eased myself a little closer to Jack. The rocky edge of the cliff was biting painfully into my rear end.
“Jack,” I said gently. “Jack.”
She kept ignoring me.
“Hey, Jack!” I said a little more sharply, ignoring Hikaru’s frantic head shake. “Is it too much to ask for your attention for one minute, or what? Come on, snap out of it.”
Both Jack’s ears flicked back, and she danced in place. I held my breath. She backed up a step and turned round. Her yellow-brown eyes regarded me with a puzzled expression that looked really out of place on a fox face.
I curled the fingers of my left hand into the dirt and slowly reached out with the other.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now will you please walk towards me? We’ve been at this for a while and we really need to go and get help for Rachel.”
Jack took a hesitant step towards me, ears swivelling.
“That’s right, Rachel. Remember Rachel? Ace cook, bossyboots, sort of OCD? Your one and only big sister. Rachel is counting on you right now. So get your furry butt over here.”
Jack took another step forward. She was so close now that I could see her cute, little blackberry nose twitch as she scented me. One more step and I could grab her. My fingers were visibly shaking – it was an effort to keep my arm straight – but I didn’t dare move it, or think about the fact that my left arm, my bad arm, was the only thing holding me on this roof.
Come on. Just one more step…
There was a low bird call from the mantle of red blossoms in the trees behind us. With a sound like thunder, a flock of long-necked, white birds took flight, passing over our heads.
Jack’s muzzle jerked up and her back paws slipped on the moist greenery. She skidded, front legs scrabbling for traction.
I lunged as Hikaru did. I managed to dig the fingernails of one hand into the thick fur on the ruff of Jack’s neck while hanging onto the roof with the other. Hikaru snagged her tail with both hands. For a blink, both of us were clinging to a panicked, snarling, wild animal.
Then suddenly Jack – human Jack – was lying there, awkwardly twisted and gasping for breath.
I had hold of her coat collar. Hikaru was lying right on top of her, his head practically on her belly button, both hands clamped on her upper thighs. He stared down at his hands for a second. I saw his Adam’s apple bob. Then he carefully released her and sat up.
“All better,” he said with forced cheer, dusting his hands together.
“What – I was – was I—?” Jack spluttered.
“Yep,” I said, unclenching my fingers from her coat with an effort. “A fox. So was I, for a little bit. And you had great fur, in case you were wondering.”
Shinobu had appeared behind me in one of those silent, lightning-fast moves of his. He took hold of my shoulders and carefully guided me off my precarious perch. Shaky with all the adrenaline and panic, I let myself lean on him for a second.