Bone Walker (20 page)

And I wasn't sure at all if I could bear his harmony either.

Once we entered the park, it didn't take us long to find the
nogitsune
. A great stone lantern marked the park's entrance on the eastern end of the street we'd followed, and there, far enough away from the tang of the cars parked along the curbs, I picked up a tangle of traces that were part magical resonance and part plain, simple scents. How much the others sensed, I couldn't have told you. But all our steps quickened as we followed the walkways deeper into the park, away from the buildings to the west. Even Millicent, old as she was, kept up. Christopher and I deliberately matched our strides to hers, letting the Sidhe go ahead or keep pace with us as they would.

The boys were waiting for us on a curving path with benches along one side and terraced steps at either end. To my relief, Jake's white-furred fox form was in plain sight. To my distress, he was standing clear and obvious watch over Carson, who lay stretched out along one of the benches. Only as we all drew closer along the path did I see Carson stir, which let my heartbeat resume its normal rhythm.

Then I saw the
nogitsune
. Two of them, not all three—the brindled grey I'd last seen threatened by Melisanda, in fox shape like Jake, and the woman who'd been the three-tailed black-furred creature who'd led the fight. She stood in human form and fully clothed. I had no doubt in my mind that she was more than capable of pulling off Jake's trick of having her clothes change with her if she needed to shift.

As one, her head, Jake's, and that of the other
nogitsune
snapped up at our approach. They'd caught our scent. Christopher and I glanced at each other, and by unspoken agreement let Millie pull ahead of us as we came down the steps on the path. Seamlessly, as if they'd rehearsed it, Melisanda and Elessir fell in behind us.

Jake pulled his head away from Carson's chest as we approached, and in a blur of radiance, transformed back to human shape. Thankfully, he looked entirely unharmed, and he flashed us all a brilliant smile as he saw us. I couldn't quite say the same for Carson. My other housemate sat up stiffly on the bench where he'd been resting, and that let me see the scrapes along his face and how he had an arm curled around his ribs. But he did at least look alert. I had to fight down the impulse to run to the boys and hug them both. There was protocol to observe here, protocol Millicent had clued the rest of us in about on the way down. Under the circumstances, the sight of them more or less intact would have to content me for now.

“We're glad to see you boys,” Millie said. That wasn't part of the protocol per se, but then, she was in the best position of the lot of us to play loose with the social niceties. Laying her shotgun back along her shoulders, the politest her stance ever got when she was on official business, she looked back and forth between my housemates and the golden-eyed woman watching us all. To the latter, she added, “I'm Millicent Merriweather, Warder First of this city. With me are my Warder Second, Christopher MacSimidh, and Kendis Thompson, mage. The Sidhe are Elessir a'Natharion and Melisanda of House Kirlath. We're here to talk. Will Mr. Tanaka be translating for us?”

The grey
nogitsune
strode up to flank the woman, but remained in his fox shape, watching us with suspicious eyes. His leader let no such obvious mistrust into her expression, though her bearing was watchful, her chin held high. “I am Makiko Asakura,” she said. “I have enough English to speak for myself. I will say if I need Mr. Tanaka's assistance.”

“That'll make it easier,” Millicent said, giving her a gruff nod and another to the
nogitsune
beside her. “And your friend here?”

“He is my son. Hiroshi Asakura.”

I nodded to myself, noting Asakura as the family name here. Jake had taught me just enough about Japanese naming customs that I guessed that had the
nogitsune
not been addressing English speakers, the woman probably would have given their family name first. Other than that, though, I had nothing. I could only keep quiet and be grateful that Three-Tail—no, I corrected myself—Makiko Asakura was apparently bilingual.

“How about the one my Warder Second kicked out past the Wards?”

The
nogitsune
woman's mouth tightened for an instant, a sign she wasn't feeling remotely friendly, protocol and social niceties be damned. Yet no suggestion of that escaped into her voice as she answered, “My other son. Ryuji Asakura. He remains beyond your city's boundaries, Warder First.”

“Which is where he's going to stay until I'm satisfied there's a reason I can let him back in,” said Millicent. “What brings you to Seattle, Ms. Asakura?”

“My youngest child. My daughter Saeko.” Now Ms. Asakura's attention lashed out to encompass Christopher and me. “She was the child these two prevented my sons and me from reclaiming when she was running wild. We fear she is now lost.”

Shit
. What had we done? “Is it true she's a dragon?” I spoke up. Jumping in probably wasn't wise, but if we didn't need Jake to translate for us, it suddenly seemed best to cut straight to the chase. “How does that work, if you're a
nogitsune
?”

She focused on me, nose crinkling, eyes darkening with impatience. “That is a foolish and impertinent question, elfling, coming from one who clearly should understand the joining of those of different kinds.”

Right. Duh. I clamped my mouth shut, kicking myself, since she was right; the daughter of a Seelie mage and her mortal husband shouldn't have had a problem making the leap to other unrelated types of beings making their own children. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elessir suppressing a smirk. Christopher, Jake, and Carson all looked as uneasy as I felt. Melisanda was stoic and unreadable, though half her attention was locked onto the grey-furred Hiroshi, and her hand was not far from her sword. Millie for her part shot me a quelling look, but also said, “The girlie does have a point, though, even if she doesn't know it yet. By running wild, Ms. Asakura, I take it you mean that your daughter's first change is coming?”

Some of the tension in the other woman's bearing eased, hostility giving way to raw worry. “Yes, Warder First. Saeko is a strong child, strong as her father. Her strength makes her rash and fierce, and she will change early because she is so strong. I must find her before that.” She inclined her head towards Melisanda. “I sent this warrior to bring you to talk so that I could ask your help.”

My heart sank, and from the looks on most of our faces, I could tell I wasn't alone in that. “We'd best tell her everything, Millie,” Christopher said, and when the older Warder nodded, he went on, “Ms. Asakura, I apologize for my part in our fight—”

“Me too.” This interruption, I felt better about. “We didn't understand. I'm sorry.”

“But we've seen your daughter again, and she's in more danger than you know,” Christopher finished.

On the tail end of his words the wind began to rise, heavy with ozone and the imminent threat of rain. Soft laughter rang out from somewhere nearby, and despite the high child's voice, its very rhythm was thunder.

“Oh, there'll be danger all right. You have no idea.”

We didn't have to look hard to find her, since she was impossible to miss. With a sudden crack of lightning she appeared just behind us on the path—just behind me, in fact, and I whirled in alarm to see the girl who'd brought us all to this place hovering over a foot above the pathway's stairs. Saeko had long, straight black hair like her mother's, whipping loose about her small face in the wind holding her aloft. From head to toe she was glowing, and she offered us a smile that might have been adorable if she weren't looking at us with the bone walker's eyes.

“
Konbonwa, okaasan. Konbonwa, oniisan,
” she said, which made Makiko and Hiroshi Asakura both cry out, their howls of dismay eerily similar despite erupting from human and vulpine throats. Then she turned her attention to me. Her smile got wider, and when she slid seamlessly from Japanese to English that sounded
way
too like Jude's, my skin crawled. “Hi there,
chica
. Give my regards to Her Majesty, won't you?”

Even before she finished speaking, a great rolling wave of protective power rolled towards me from Christopher, stronger even than Millicent's, springing forth to unite with his. They were both a split second too late—and I was too distracted by the shock of a body slamming into me to raise any defense of my own against the hammer of light and force the
alokhiu
hurled into my chest.

Then I was falling, scrambling for balance in air gone thick with magic, falling far greater a distance than any law of physics should have allowed.

And then I was somewhere else.

I landed so hard that for a few terrible moments, my existence narrowed down to breathless, blinding pain. The sheer physiological need to haul air into my aching lungs trumped everything else, including conscious thought. One gasp, two, and only after I'd pulled that off did I regain enough coherence to take stock of where I was, what shape I was in, and what the
hell
had just happened.

A polished hardwood floor was beneath me, bright enough that its gleam stung my eyes for a moment when I turned my head just enough to see it. Then it settled down to a quieter gleam of reflected candlelight, and thanks to that light—not to mention the weight of him sprawled across my stomach—I saw that I wasn't alone. Elessir pinned me where I lay, and from the lax way he sprawled, he had to be out cold. With a logic that felt too calm and restrained even as the thought crossed my mind, I decided he must have been the one who'd tackled me when the bone walker had let fly.

And now we'd wound up wherever here was.

There was no sign of the others, I saw, when I began to struggle to sit up and look around. Elessir and I lay in a crumpled heap in a long, broad hallway flanked by statues of chimerical shapes and unnervingly fluid stone forms. We were alone. No Jake or Carson, no
nogitsune
, no Millicent—

No Christopher—

Oh God, Christopher!

As I thought of him, as I thought of the panic that must have swamped him if he'd just seen me disappear, my own composure cracked wide open. I fought harder to sit up now, which only served to jostle the unconscious Sidhe collapsed atop me. That was goddamned fine by me. Lacking any other outlet for my fear, I grabbed hold of Elessir and shook him with all my might. Then I slapped him for good measure, and would have done it again if he hadn't abruptly stirred and seized my hand before I could deliver another blow.

“I'm awake,” he said. “I'm here.”

His voice was thicker than it should have been, putting a bit of a lie to his claim, but I didn't care. I plowed my other fist into him, not carrying where I hit as long as I struck flesh. “Where the fuck is here?” I shouted. “Where are we?”

My magic surged in response to my anger, more easily than it had ever done before. That should have been a tip-off, but I was too busy wrestling with the Unseelie to notice. Problem was, Elessir had nine-hundred-some-odd years' advantage on me in comfort with his own reflexes, and the bastard had probably studied eleven hundred types of martial arts for all I knew. I loved Millicent like a grandmother and Christopher like, well, Christopher, but neither of them had taught me a damned thing about physical self-defense yet.

Long story short, in no time flat he'd pulled me up off the floor and slammed me into the nearest wall, making my already abused back shriek a protest. I kept fighting him anyway, clawing with my hands at the arm he'd pressed against my chest while I prepared to clock him right between the eyes with every last bit of the strangely eager power roiling through me.

Then he stopped me cold with his answer.

“We're in Faerie, Miss Thompson.”

I froze. My magic didn't so much subside as back off for a few moments while my anger gave way to shock. With that, I remembered what
alokhiu
-Saeko had said to me just as she'd hit me with the power burst. My mouth went dry. “She opened a portal,” I croaked.

Elessir nodded, looking graver and more earnest than I'd ever seen him. That look of his sent new panic spiking through my heart. “She did.”

“Take us back!”

“Darlin', I can't. Melorite still has my magic, and I can't do a damned thing till I get it back.”

“Then show me how!” I was starting to tremble, which pissed me off; I didn't want to be so terrified before him. “We can't stay here! The others need me, they need me, if that kid's about to go full-on dragon, I have to help!”

He didn't answer me immediately. Instead he lifted a hand to my cheek, and only when his fingers grazed against wetness on my skin did I notice I'd started to cry. Elessir made no move to wipe tears from my face, or to offer any other such gesture of comfort. If anything, he stared at me searchingly, as if he'd never seen a female weep before.

Maybe he hadn't?

Then he shook himself, jerked his gaze away from mine, and said, “I will. Stars and moon and frost, I don't know if I can teach without my power, but we'll have to do it fast. She'll know we're here.”

Right on cue, as if the damned things had been waiting all along, the heads of the two nearest chimera statues turned towards us in a slow, grinding whisper of stone. Two pairs of eyes filled with will-o-the-wisp fire focused on us. And you'd just know that the statue closest to us, the one that looked best suited to coming to life and chomping off both our heads, was the one that opened its gryphon beak to address us. It didn't move like a human mouth, or even a Sidhe one. It just seemed to exhale a mist of ice-blue smoke, through which a lush and all too familiar voice emerged.