Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3) (27 page)

Luce eyed the sky, a worried look on her face. The clouds covered the horizon now, so we couldn’t check on the sun’s progress, but it was light enough to see colour returning to the world.

“I hope she doesn’t forget what she’s doing and fall asleep in there,” she muttered.

“Relax,” I said, though I felt far from relaxed myself. “Why do you always assume the worst?”

“Because that way I only get pleasant surprises, not nasty ones.”

“Here she comes!”

A dark bun, held in place by a long, lethal-looking hairpin, rose from the water, soon followed by the rest of Miyako’s head. Did she walk on the bottom of the lake or was she swimming? Her progress seemed too smooth for swimming.

My hopes that she might be fully human now were dashed as she heaved her hideous bulk up onto the shore and approached the teahouse. Between her soft white hands nestled a carved wooden box. I eyed it doubtfully. It wasn’t very big. Did it really hold the hoshi no tama of all the kitsune?

She placed the box on the window sill and bowed, scattering drops of water from her hair.

“Is that all of them?” I asked.

She opened the box to display its contents, which gleamed with yellow light. It was like looking at a box of golden eggs.

“This is all you gave me. Thirty-five hoshi no tama, and the one you took before makes thirty-six.”

That would be Kasumi’s, which Daiyu still held in Sydney. It would be up to Kasumi to secure that one.

Were there truly only thirty-six kitsune left in the world? Kasumi had said they’d been hunted almost to extinction, but I hadn’t realised quite how dire the situation was. No wonder the children were so carefully guarded. They’d be worth their weight in gold.

“Thank you.”

I took the box and stepped back hurriedly, anxious to be out of the jorogumo’s reach. But she only smiled, as if my fear of her was only her due.

Then she lifted her head, sniffing the air. “Someone comes.”

Faster than I had imagined the bulky spider body could move, she melted away from the window. I turned, just as Akira crested the rise above the lake. It was bright enough now to see him clearly, and his brows drew together in anger at the sight of Luce.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why do you spend so much time with this wyvern?”

We moved up the path to meet him, conscious of the jorogumo lurking somewhere among the ornamental bushes. I didn’t like to turn my back to her, but I had no idea where she’d gone. Hopefully back to her cave to sleep. There was no sign of her, not even a ripple on the lake’s still surface.

“I had business to attend to.”

“Here?” His gesture took in the lake, now catching the orange glint of the sky as the sun rose. Then his gaze fell on the box in my hands. “Is that the hoshi no tama?”

He looked up, not quite suspicious yet, but aware something strange was going on. Luce moved casually to place herself and her sword between the two of us.

And of course Blue’s potion chose that very moment to expire. I felt a peculiar ripple run over my body, from my head down to my toes, and saw Akira’s eyes widen in shock. He roared in baffled fury, and leapt forward.

Luce’s swing nearly took off his head, but he managed to avoid it by rolling to the side. That didn’t turn out to be such a great move. Two monstrous hairy legs darted out of the bushes and snared him. His roar changed to a squeal of surprise.

Luce and I fell back as Miyako reared to her full height, her beautiful face contorted into a vicious snarl. Her legs worked to roll him in webbing, but he had a knife out, and was hacking at her and the webbing. When the terror of the moment wore off, he would think to take trueshape, and then she’d be in trouble.

Even as I thought that, the spider body convulsed. At first I thought he’d stabbed her, but then I saw it was the other way around. She had a stinger on the back of her abdomen, like a bee’s, and she’d curled her body to bring it into play. As it withdrew from his back, venom dripped from its point.

Maybe Luce had got it all wrong, and it wasn’t the jorogumo’s fangs but her stinger that dragons needed to worry about. How effective would the poison be? It wasn’t the full du recipe, but it might slow Akira down enough for Miyako to drag him into the lake and drown him.

“Think he’s toast?” I asked as we backed slowly away from the struggle.

“If we’re lucky. Let’s not hang around to find out.”

When I looked back from the top of the rise, they had reached the edge of the lake. Akira had both arms free and was hacking furiously at Miyako’s legs. One of them dragged at an odd angle, but she was still determinedly pulling him toward the water. A gap in the clouds showed the sun three-quarters above the horizon. If he could hold on until she was forced into fully human form he would make it. Was it wrong of me to cheer for the spider?

Luce and I dashed up the path to the house. Things would get ugly fast now I no longer looked like Daiyu. The first guard who saw us spent a second too long in confusion. He didn’t know who I was, but had seen Luce in Daiyu’s company before, and didn’t realise she was hostile until an instant before her sword took off his head. His gun was only half out of his holster when his body thudded onto the verandah.

We raced along the verandah to the west wing. A servant girl shrieked and dropped the bowl she was carrying at the sight of Luce’s gory blade. It rolled on the wooden floor with a clanging that sounded loud as a gong. No doubt it would soon summon guards to investigate. We left her screaming in our wake. Speed was our best option.

Luce didn’t bother opening the door when we arrived at the kitsune living quarters, but leapt straight through the paper screen. The woman inside sat up from her bedroll with a small squeak of alarm at the sight of us.

“Quickly!” said Luce. “Find Toko.”

The woman scrambled to her feet, and I noticed she was fully dressed, in dark pants and shirt, ready to go.

“Follow me.”

We hurried down the corridor after her. She shouted something in Japanese—probably “time to party!”—and doors flew open as we passed. Toko appeared in one, and his eyes lit up at the sight of the box I carried.

“You did it.”

I shoved the box at him. I could hear guards calling to each other outside. “I hope you’re ready to go.”

He nodded, and hugged the box to his chest. “We need nothing more than this. We are ready.”

A child whimpered, and was quickly hushed. He opened the box. A sigh of relief rippled through the assembled kitsune at the sight of their hoshi no tama softly glowing. Eager hands reached out to receive them, and the box was soon empty.

An angry roaring outside penetrated the solemn hush in the corridor.

“Who is that?” Toko asked.

Damn. Sounded like the jorogumo had come off second-best after all. “That’s Akira. Get ready to fight.”

“I have a better idea,” said Toko. “May I?”

He reached out before I could guess what he meant and plucked several hairs from my head, passing them out among his kin. A young woman did the same to Luce.

I’d seen a kitsune transformation before, but it was still fascinating to watch. Each kitsune placed the stolen hair on their own head, then held their precious hoshi no tama up to their face and breathed in its shining yellow aura. As the golden light suffused them their features changed, and just like that, there were three new Kates and three new Luces standing there, dressed identically to us.

It was quite the experience, being able to see yourself from the outside like that, but I had no time to decide if my arse really did look big in that. While I’d been focusing on my own clones, the other kitsune around us had changed too. All but the children were now dressed as guards. One even looked like Akira.

“Toko?” I asked, a little hesitant, even though they hadn’t moved.

“Here,” said the Akira one.

“You guys have been busy.” It must have been difficult to obtain a hair or personal possession of so many people, particularly here, where the kitsune threat was so well known. Whoever had stolen a piece of Akira must have had nerves of steel. Dragons were very careful of their personal effects. I couldn’t imagine the danger they must have faced to get it. “What now?”

“Now the games begin.” Toko gave a fierce grin, and it was the pleasantest expression I’d ever seen on Akira’s face. He nodded to one of the Kate and Luce pairs and they ran out onto the verandah.

I heard the real Akira’s shout of rage and the sound of a gun being fired. I winced. As if that was the signal, the kitsune scattered, leaving one pair of “guards”, Toko, Luce and me.

“This is going to be interesting.” Luce’s grin matched Toko’s.

We hurried down the corridor toward the main wing of the house. Two guards still stood there, keeping stoic watch against marauding kitsune, though their attention was clearly on the distant shouts and occasional gunfire. They stiffened to surprised attention at the sight of Toko.

“What are you doing here, fools?” he barked at them in irate Japanese. Luce obligingly translated for me. “The kitsune have escaped while you guard empty rooms. Go join the hunt!”

“At once, master.” They both bowed low, and before they could straighten again Luce and one of our pretend guards bashed them into unconsciousness. We stepped over their crumpled bodies and moved on.

“Where to?” Luce asked.

“The garage. We must get you to the airport. Nowhere in Japan will be safe for you after this.”

That suited me just fine. The sooner I got home, the sooner I could be reunited with Lachie. And then there was just the coronation to get through. The endgame was close.

We hurried through empty rooms and past anxious servants who bowed deeply to Lord Akira and watched him escort his captives, whoever they were. If they wondered what had become of Daiyu they kept it to themselves.

Hakawa appeared, flanked by a pair of guards.

“Lord Akira.” He bowed. “I can’t find Lady Daiyu.”

“She has already gone ahead,” Toko grunted. “I go to meet her. Wait here until we return.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

“Stop them!” shouted a familiar voice from the garden. The screens were open. The real Akira, looking a little worse for wear since the last time we saw him, stumbled toward us. His kimono was ripped and smeared with blood, and there was something not quite right about the way he moved, as if he was having trouble coordinating the movement of his limbs. Shame the jorogumo venom hadn’t finished him off, but it had certainly had an effect.

“My lord!” Hakawa, open-mouthed, stared from one Akira to the other.

“Arrest that imposter,” Toko commanded. “He is a kitsune.”

One of the guards with Hakawa started toward Akira. Akira’s problem was that, at the moment, Toko looked more like the real Akira than he did himself. Toko was dressed immaculately, drawn up to Akira’s full haughty height, whereas Akira himself was slurring his words like a drunkard and covered in filth. There was nothing like being dragged backward through the bushes by a ravening spider-woman to mess with your outfit.

Akira backhanded the guard out of the way. “You fool!
He
is the kitsune.”

He dropped his ruined kimono. The air around him shimmered and a red dragon stood in his place. Oops. Looked like the old taboos were out the window in Japan as well as Sydney.

The dragon drew in a deep breath.
Shit
.

“Incoming!” I reached for trueshape. “Get out of the way!”

I slammed into trueshape, smashing screens and bursting through the roof with a roar. Luce and the kitsune ducked behind my bulk as the red dragon let loose a blast of dragonfire. It rolled off my scales, no more than the pleasant warmth of the sun on a summer afternoon, and licked hungrily at the paper screens. They went up with a whoosh.

Hakawa and his guard burned bright as torches. They had time for one scream before their charred bodies collapsed.

“Go!” I urged Luce, my voice booming above the crackle of the flames.

She went, dragging the kitsune with her, and I leapt out into the garden to face the red dragon. My tail lashed the neatly raked pebbles and sent them flying.

“Who are you?” he growled, but his eyes were having trouble focusing. The jorogumo venom was still bothering him.

“Your new queen.”

I pounced on him, but he collapsed even before my claws touched him, his eyes rolling back into his head. He shimmered back into human form, leaving me feeling rather stupid, like an elephant who’d just made a big deal out of defeating a mouse. I took human form too, and snatched up his filthy kimono to cover my nakedness.

I hesitated over his body for a moment. His face had a better colour than when he’d first staggered out of the garden, and the wound to his arm was healing over. I should probably kill him now while he was still helpless. Leandra would have done it in a heartbeat.

I shrugged and jogged off in the direction Luce and the kitsune had fled. I had a plane to catch.

The kitsune already had the motor running when I arrived.

“Thank God,” said Luce as I fell into the back seat of the black sedan with her. “I was just about to come looking for you. What happened to Akira?”

“He’s enjoying a nice rest in the garden.” I rubbed one bare foot vigorously. After running across the frozen ground my feet were so cold I couldn’t feel them. I dragged the thin kimono a little more firmly around myself, thinking longingly of my thick winter jacket.

“You should have killed him.”

I let my head fall back against the headrest with a sigh. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

“Because it would have been the smart thing to do, and you know I’m right.”

“Next time, then.”

She rolled her eyes at my flippancy. “I hope there is no next time.”

But if there is it will be all your own fault
, her unimpressed face said.

“What was wrong with him?” Toko asked. He had taken his own form again as soon as the car rolled out of the front gate, and watched me now from the front passenger seat. “He seemed ill.”

“Miyako attacked him,” I said. “Got him with her stinger.”