Sleepless (Curse of the Blood Fox Trilogy, Book #1) (4 page)

“Let me have one,” Traken said,
following closely. I pulled the plate away from his reaching hands.  

“No, get your own.”

“There were no more on the table.”

“Too bad. Wait, or find something
else.”

I felt a rush of air in my left ear
and turned sharply. Traken bent in and snatched an egg from the other side. A hiss
escaped between my teeth.

“Keep your paws off my food.”

His smile was of a riling sharpness.
“Stop me.”

Like that the night whirled onwards,
and I had as little control over it throughout as I had at the start. Traken
and I, together for some reason, traveled from booth to booth trying everything
we could, from pastries filled with berries to breaded cheeses on sticks, to
turkey legs drizzled in spicy and bizarre sauces. I had not had so much food
from so many different places all at once in a very long time. Traken seemed to
be enjoying himself too, in his own strange, impatient way. He would
persistently thrust food in my face to try, making me feel obligated to share
mine with him.  

We saw tumblers and acrobatics, and I
threw a few sacks into a narrow barrel to win a prize. I got them in, but the
vendor didn’t accept it because I knocked over the barrel in the process. It
didn't matter because I was merely trying to prove to Traken that I could. He
was, likewise, just as competitive. We saw a group of sorcerers dancing with
their shadows, hand-in-hand, and he started dancing with all their shadows
and
his own just because he could. The poor dancers actually begged me to get rid
of him.

At one point we were both eating apple
pieces covered in chocolate on sticks, watching small children impress the
crowds with their juggling. I peeked over at Traken and saw him staring up at
the sky; my gaze followed. It was still too cloudy to make out.

“Can't you tell even without seeing
it?” I asked. “You said magic-users are greatly affected.”

“We are, but I can't just tell. I
would have to use a lot of magic, and even then... how could I know for sure?
Any elation I feel now could just be from the festival.”

There was a moment of silence. So, he
was actually having fun. It wasn’t an act? I licked a bit of chocolate off my
thumb.

“Traken, I don’t think I’ve ever asked
you. What kind of work do you do for your lord?”

“I'm an assassin,” he said without
pause, a familiar smile slipping onto his face. “Are you shocked?”

“Scandalized,” I said, as if I could
be. Everything about him came with a twist. “What kind of people do you kill?”

“Anyone he wants. It might be you next.”

Black-hearted, but I’d known that. “How
often do you kill?”

At this he laughed. “A lot here, a
little there. Mostly I gather information. I'm very stealthy.”

“I had noticed,” I said. His grinning
face leaned closer to mine.

“Are you scared?”

A smile tugged one side of my mouth as
I bit into another apple slice. “I don’t see why you would count yourself so
lucky, Dogboy. What is your lord like?”

“He is... different. Very good at
drawing power towards himself. A born leader, some might say.”

“He has been following me these last
fifty years, so why now? What does the Week of Colors mean to him?”

“That is a lot of questions,” Traken
said with a grin, tossing his empty stick on the ground. “How many times have
we danced this, kitten?”

Calculated as always. Open, but never
enough. “One of these days you’ll slip.”

“You’ll find out yourself if the time
is right.” He leaned towards me. “Your eyes... I see it again. They're changing
colors. I have never once noticed, not in all this time. How do they do that?”

I turned my head quickly, a cold dread
rushing down my spine. It had been a mistake leaving the cone hat behind, even
for the sake of blending in. I walked away, ribbons fluttering sharply in the
air behind me, but he was on my heels.

“You have to tell me.” There was a
twisted sort of glee in his voice. “The great Blood Fox has a strange and
miraculous power, and I need to know what it is. I was honest with you, wasn't
I?”

“How would I know that?” I asked. I had
to stop mid-step when he hurtled around me and trapped my shoulders with his
heavy fingers. His expression lit.

“There, there they go again! They just
went from orange-red to yellow. What does that mean?”

“Get away from me,” I told him
thickly. Panicked and unconscious of what I was doing, I whipped a dagger out
of my long sleeve and aimed. He drew back instantly, but not in time to avoid a
deep cut in his forearm. Blood splattered onto the front of my robe.

“Ouch! You thorny brat,” he said,
playful affection in his voice. He licked his wrist. “You should be careful
with those things.”

“You’re the one who needs to learn
caution,” I said, eyes narrowing. “You do not know where you step until you've
already stepped too far. I'm giving you a warning.”

“Well, if you say it like that, you
know I'm going to want to know more.”

The look on his face infuriated me. A
few people had already stopped to look at us with horrified expressions. I knew
problems would erupt soon if we stayed like this, so I shoved him away and
threw myself into the moving crowd, hoping to lose him in it. Faces blurred and
swam out of focus, and sounds and smells grew strong. I could feel more than
hear him give chase. Traken was a hunter at heart, like me, and no matter how
much I weaved and plowed through throngs of laughing, singing, tumbling people,
I had the awful feeling that he could still find me. He always had throughout
the years, after all.

I finally stopped outside a plain tent
with a black curtain veiling the entrance. The sign outside said, “One
half-silver for the fortune of a lifetime!” Unsurprisingly, there was no crowd
hanging around it. It was the most expensive fortune-telling I had ever heard
of.

I have the money, though, and Traken
would never believe I went in here
,
I convinced myself. I stepped through.

Inside wasn't the usual array of
flashy pillows, burning incense, and crystal balls. In fact, the tent smelled
rather like mold. There was a bare table with two chairs, at which a rather
strange man sat. He was long, bald, and had thick, walnut-colored skin stretched
tough like dried hide. It was hard to tell whether he was old or young. His clothes
were plain, and he had several rings and bracelets that didn't look
particularly valuable but had strange markings. A magi-globe hovered above his
table and lit the small tent.

“
Not only is he expensive, he doesn't even act the part
,” I whispered under my breath, awed
by the approach.

“I don't need to,” he said, though my
muttering had to have been out of earshot. “My results speak for themselves.”

I shut my mouth, duly intrigued, and
sat down. I placed my half-silver on the table.

“You have blood on you,” he told me.
His voice was gentle and smooth, articulated precisely. I felt out-classed and vulgar
in his presence, simple as he was, and I actually found myself feeling guilty
as I looked at the stain on my robe.

“I apologize,” I said. “This
happened... this person I know, he... and it got on my... look, he deserved it.”

He started laughing, a silky sound
that warmed me like hot soup on a cold, miserable day. I looked closely at his
face; his eyes were glazed over with filmy white. He was blind.

“I wasn't talking about your clothes,
but about your soul,” he said, crinkles forming around his eyes. “You are older
than your body, so much vaster, and each piece holds the treacherous scent of
lost life. There is a deep, impenetrable darkness at your core, a thing that is
your beginning, and possibly your end. I can't look at it, it blocks all who
seek it.”

“That's alright,” I said, somewhat
crestfallen. “I’ve never been able to find my ‘beginning’ either.”

“Don't go yet,” he said quickly, as if
he realized I was about to stand. “I can still see your path, Blood Fox.”

My hair stood on end. All the seers and
ancients I had hunted down over the years, with no results. Each told me
nonsense that led nowhere; each told me little things that were never what I
wanted. Could he really see?

“The answers you've been seeking are close.
The end is in sight. If you follow the path that lays itself out before you,
you will find what you are seeking. Know this, however... almost all outcomes
in that direction point to your death. The future is never set; it is a
crossroad of many possibilities. You must be wary of your choices and sure of
what you want.”

My heart was beating fast. I knew what
kind of person he was now... an Angelblood. They had, up to that point, only
been beings of rumors to me, rare and impossible, but it was the only
explanation in all my experience that fit. How long had I searched for such a
creature? These were people born with eyes that only saw time, the flow of it
behind and in front. They usually lived short, complicated lives, or so the
stories went. Most of the tales were tragedies, full of Angelbloods who killed
themselves rather than face greedy power struggles and the knowledge of what
could always be ahead. A desperate sorrow swelled in my chest.

“I am sorry,” I said, without
thinking. I paused, unsure how to articulate why I was.

That soft laugh rang out again. He
already knew. “Don't pity me, old one. I am far better off than some, as you
will find. I thank you for your kindness, though. It is rare to consider the
feelings of the messenger, and so I will give you a piece of important advice.
You attract faithful companions. If you seek these answers you are looking for,
whatever the cost, it will benefit you to trust the man with the dog.”

“Dog? What dog?” I asked. The man held
a pocket watch up to me. The hands were almost on nine o'clock.

“You're going to be late,” he said.

Suddenly I remembered the time slot that
I had picked for the bathing room at The Little Flower. I stood up quickly; I
didn't know why, but I felt like I was in a hurry.

“I have to... wait, it's not like the
bath is that important. I'm—”

“No,” he interrupted. “You have
already lost enough time. Certain events only take place within a scheduled
course. You can’t be late. Go.”

I felt myself backing out quickly, and
bowed my head before the curtain door of the tent swung back over his face. My
legs propelled me down the streets, strange pathways forming through the hordes
of people every time I was sure I wouldn't be able to squeeze through the next
bunch. The only thing that rang clear in my mind was that these were the first
clues I had stumbled upon in a long time. I wasn't about to give them away just
because I didn't understand.

The private bathing area I entered was
a small outdoor courtyard with fragrant flowers and newly-planted vines just
beginning to cling to the tall walls. Only one door led to it, lockable from
the inside. A tile path from the doorway led through the grassy courtyard to
the middle, where aquamarine tiles spread out into a square surrounding a large
tub in the ground. A hand pump sat at the edge, and when I started pumping, hot
flowing water came pouring out into the clean basin. I wasn't sure how Madam
Jin had managed it, but her new addition was a magnificent piece of work.

Inside the large bath there were steps
to sit on, and beside it there was a stone shelf where Madam Jin had left out
all sorts of scrubbing materials and soaps that smelled like jasmine. I
stripped off my stained festival robe and under-cloths, my many belted daggers
and especially those ridiculous ribbons, though they were difficult to remove
and took some of my hair with them.

It was as if time had ceased to
matter, now that I was here. I entered the water and submerged myself entirely
in its warm body, made vast by my closed eyes. As it consumed me, nostalgic
memories sprouted behind my eyelids. I saw a winter’s day, sixty years ago or
more, as I bathed alone in a hot spring surrounded by mounds of snow. A white
fox had appeared and stared at me. It was only a moment, a meaningless moment,
but I had many of those. I had so many memories, little pieces of time that I
could call up under just the right circumstances. Yet the ones I wanted most
were damaged, missing, and the oldest of all.

I stayed under for a while, and when I
finally came up again I felt light-headed but slightly more whole. I played
with each soap and scrubber that Madam Jin had set out until all the layers of
dust and grime had been rubbed away and my long hair felt soft and loose.  

I was to my shoulders in the water and
combing out each strand of hair slowly with my fingers when I heard a noise
like a shuffle behind me. Danger seemed far away in my relaxed state, so I
merely turned my head and wasn't surprised at all to see that a black dog had
suddenly appeared. He stopped behind me, but not out of propriety... I had unwrapped
my swords and placed them next to the edge of the bath, unsheathed. Both beautiful,
tinted blades glittered dangerously.

I turned back to combing my hair,
checking the sky above through heavily-lidded eyes. Still just clouds. “Found
me, did you?”

“I have a theory,” he said in answer.
“Would you like to hear it?” There was clacking from his dog-nails as he
settled down across the tiles. I tilted my head, one ear towards him, to show I
was listening.

“Since I’ve known you, you have always
traveled alone, and you have always covered your face. Before this hat it was a
scarf wrapped around your head, and before that, a veil. I always thought it
was because you had so many people after you, and you didn't want to be known. Your
disguise was always changing. It seems obvious now, though, that your main
reason must have been your eyes. Somehow, they mean something important to you,
don’t they?”

I didn't say anything.

“I suspect the changing colors reflect
how you feel, considering the times I’ve seen them change so far. In fights, I
can understand why this would be a problem for others to witness… but in
general, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference, would it?”

I watched the ripples in the water as
my hair swam along the surface. Traken's tail swished.

“So,” he said, sounding ludicrously
happy, “the only question remaining is... why do you hide them like that? What
do they mean to you? I have seen many things in my time, but not once have I
found eyes that can change like that.”

Silence again. I was recalling what
the Angelblood had said.

“…it will benefit you to trust the man
with the dog.”

Traken wasn’t a man
with
a dog,
he could
become
a dog. To an Angelblood, was that the same thing? Or was
there someone else down the line whose fate was supposed to intersect with
mine? It wasn’t the greatest clue, which meant it was up to me to decide on my
own.

I had always been careful about whose
ears my story fell into, and trusting Traken with it seemed like a bad idea on
all counts. But the answers I was searching for... if they really were so
close, I needed to take the opportunity however I could. I had carried it with
me for so long; could it really hurt either way?   

“How much do you know about me,
Traken?” I asked. The pause after that was one of surprising hesitation.

“Well, though I have been chasing you
around for the last fifty years, we haven’t exactly spent much quality time
together. I know that you wander aimlessly. You fight people, lots of people,
though I’ve never been clear on the purpose. You have lots of amazing and
frightening rumors that follow you around. You're part of no magical
denomination as far as I've been able to gather, but you have to have something
of it about you. Otherwise how could you be so old? You look the same as when I
started following you fifty years ago.” His tail beat the stones again. “I
suspect you haven’t lived as long as I have, though.” He sounded like he had
won something.

Being a sorcerer of any kind meant
Traken could have slowed his aging process down to the tiniest of crawls. True
immortality, the kind that made you invincible and ageless, just wasn’t
possible, but dealing with the supreme energies of the world did all kinds of
untold things to one's body. Depending on how well he managed his power, he
could be practically as old as the country itself. I couldn’t imagine why
anyone would choose to live that long, though. My own days weighed heavy
enough.

“How old?” I needled. Traken tsked.

“Never ask magic-users their age...
you should know better, Santo. It's rude.”

I flicked water backwards where I thought
his muzzle might be. “How much does your lord know about me?”

“He doesn't share, he orders. I'm just
nosy.”

I stretched my arms out and leaned
back against the edge of the tub. “The eyes and the lifespan... they're not
because I have any powers. I don't remember much, or even if they started at
the same time, but I’m pretty sure I was born normal and boring.”

I stopped for a moment. This would be
harder than I thought. These memories still clung closely to the knives in my
heart, but I forced myself onward.

“It happened on a night like tonight,
actually. That’s the only part of that day that stays vivid in my memory… it
was during a festival. My whole village was celebrating. It wasn’t a big
village like this one, though the name of it long ago left me. We were remote,
very, very quiet. Peaceful. I can still remember a few things about my life
before that, even though they aren’t important. I had a dog, and a father. I
was growing into an adult, only just becoming wise to the rest of the world. I
had no idea, then, how vast and lonely it was. That night something happened,
and what did has always been blurry in my mind. Something attacked us. It was a
massacre of blind killing. The people who did it didn't even want anything,
they just killed. We couldn't stop them.”  

“How did you survive?” Traken asked.

“Maybe luck? I can't remember much,
and that hasn’t changed since the day I woke up after it happened. It’s as if
there is a hole there. There are bits, though. Hazy pieces. I remember trying
to fight back, though it must have been pretty useless. I had never fought
before. I remember someone coming at me with a sword.”

I stopped and started laughing. The
noise sounded strange in the small, empty courtyard. “You know who saved me? My
dog did. His name was Hino. I thought it was a joke the first time I saw you,
Traken. You came to me as a dog, and you looked exactly like him. Then you
started
talking
. It was just bizarre.”

He huffed behind me, and I waved one
hand backwards at him. “I'm not crazy, I knew you weren't him... just, you
surprised me. He died that night when he saved me. He attacked the person with
the sword. I can still see his body clearly, bleeding in the dirt, as if that
were the one image I was allowed to keep. I don’t remember anything else, I
just woke up in a field somewhere I didn't recognize. I've searched for my
village ever since... I can't find it, or its remains. I can’t find anything or
anyone from that time at all.”

There was silence. I was staring up at
the cloudy sky, lost in thought, when Traken did finally speak.

“How odd. After that point, you had
changing eyes and a longer lifespan? Nothing else?”

I snorted... that was Traken's way,
for sure. He was not one to pity or empathize over death and violence. I
suppose, though, I wouldn't have been happy to finally tell my story to someone
like him only to have them pity me.

“Nothing else I would tell you, Dogboy.
I don’t like people seeing my eyes. I don’t like seeing them myself. They are
only reminders of
that
. It may seem a strange habit to you, but I am comfortable
with it.”

“Why did you tell me this?” he asked.
He sounded a bit condescending, like he was telling off a child.

“It didn’t seem something worth
hiding,” I said, though it did. Then an idea occurred to me. “You know magic.
Do you know anything that could do something like this? Maybe a curse?”

Traken snorted through his nose. “
I
don't deal in curses, and I never plan to. They lack finesse... if you're going
to kill someone, just kill them, don't drag it on and on and make it messy.”

“You like 'em quick, huh?” The small
smile on my face hid my disappointment.

I heard him lick his muzzle. “If we're
still talking about kills. But no, I know of nothing, curse or otherwise, that
does those things. As far as I know, a magic-user can only extend their own
life thanks to their patron source, they cannot extend someone else’s.”

Suddenly explosions filled the air. My
head shot up as bright green sparks of light twirled and twisted like serpents
above us. The music out in the marketplace grew that much louder.

It was as if the whole sky had
suddenly opened up at that moment, alight with the most beautiful colors as
stars swirled together in the blanket of blue and black, twinkling and dancing
in a hypnotizing fashion. Their centerpiece was the large, full moon.

“It's green,” I heard myself say
faintly. A rich, vibrant, leafy green. I would have been awed, if that awe
hadn't been sharply counteracted by the sinking feeling in my gut. Was this the
path the Angelblood had spoken of, then?

“So, fate is revealed,” Traken said,
as if mocking my thoughts.

“A mysterious lord that tries to
kidnap me on the Week of Colors, and a strange blind man’s advice,” I said
softly to myself, then sighed. “Traken, why do you think he wants me there?”

“I know nothing,” he said dispassionately.

I took a deep breath. This was it. The
moment of choice. “I know you're not going to like this, but I think I will
come with you after all.”

I heard him clamber back up onto his
paws quickly.

“What? Why?” He sounded comically
disappointed, but it was hard to tell if it was real or not. I often wondered
if anything about Traken was real.

“A little bird told me that I'll find
what I'm looking for.”

“I wouldn't trust too many birds if I
were you. They're rather silly.”

“This doesn't mean I'm going to accept
whatever your lord demands, or that I don't know I'm walking into something strange.
It could be a trap for all I know, and you definitely wouldn’t tell me. Just
don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If I wanted to escape or kill you, I
would find a way. Sorcerer or not.”

“You'd have a lot more trouble doing
that than you think.”

“I don't believe you even know what I
can do,” I said. Suddenly we both stopped. The presence of some foreign entity
tingled up my spine, and then I heard a slight rustling. It was near the door.

“Someone's got a peeper,” Traken said,
half-singing his words. Madam Jin had gone more for elegance than sturdy design
with her choice in doors. It came off its hinges a little to allow for vine-like
wooden carvings that curled all around the outside, which left significant
cracks that someone could peer through if, say, no one was outside to catch
them because a festival was going on and they were really, really determined to
be absurd.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I said,
standing up out of the water and gingerly picking up one of my swords. Both
ancient, beautiful blades were equally deadly, but Valentina would be perfect
for this job. She loved the taste of the corrupt and depraved. Her ruby-tinted
blade glittered in the bright green moonlight, and as I touched her the air
thrummed with her energy.

Long hair clung to the curves of my
body and water droplets cascaded down my bare skin as I moved quickly and
silently towards the door. There was a small rustling against the frame, and
the knob jiggled. Someone was trying to pick the lock. I leaned forward, and
caught the scent of fish.

With careful, decisive aim, I pulled
back and plunged Valentina's ruby blade straight through the soft wood. There was
an instant scream. When I unlocked the door and swung it open, Bartalow kneeled
before me, holding his middle. Dark blood poured from between his fingers.