Bone Walker (15 page)

“I love you too, Kenna,” Christopher said when he paused for breath at last. “It's careful I'll be for you indeed, and you do the same for me.” He gazed down at me with eyes as bright as sunlight. “For now, let's go find our Jude.”

After that heartening exchange, though, we had to do the last thing in the world I wanted to do: split up.

For one thing, the shopping core of downtown Bellevue wasn't just Bellevue Square. It was a whole cluster of interconnected buildings and shops, joined by skyways as well as sidewalks, too large by far for us to search as efficiently if we stayed together. For another, much as I hated to admit it, we had to keep Christopher as low profile as possible until we were sure of whether he could truly draw power from this city as well as Seattle—whether he'd be able to force the bone walker out of Jude on his own, or at least subdue her enough so we could get her back to Millicent. Which meant I had to take point on the search.

And that was fine with me. I left my man to pretend to browse in an electronics shop, and as we parted ways I sensed him seeking a connection to the Bellevue earth, to find his place in its unfamiliar web of living energy. His magic's status on this side of the lake might have been in doubt, but mine had no such geographical constraints. If anything, now that we were outside Millicent's range of influence, I felt it rev up with greater energy. In response to my mood, it pooled behind my palms, waiting for me to let it strike.

Instead I gave it something else to do and threw open my perceptions to the crowds moving through the buildings all around me. Against the backwash of countless human presences, even closer now as I was, it took me several minutes to pinpoint the same shrouded echo of Jude I'd picked up before. Once I had it, I backed off hard, not wanting to warn her I was coming. My true, actual friend would have had no idea of my magical probing—but this changed Jude, this
alokhiu
-Jude, was another question entirely. I didn't want to give myself away to her until and unless I had to.

Assuming I hadn't already.

But I tried not to think about that.

The echo was enough to lead me to her, though, and I found her at a cluster of tables and chairs near a gurgling fountain. She was sprawling indolently in the chair she'd chosen, the last of a chocolate sundae before her on the table, and she was taking her sweet time savoring every last bit of chocolate syrup from her plastic spoon. All perfectly normal, even Jude-like, at first glance—except for the part where her body language had completely changed and how she'd apparently dropped ten pounds in the hours since I'd seen her last.

Shit
, I thought as soon as I saw her. Jude wasn't Sidhe or even Warder; she had no magic whatsoever for the thing that had invaded her to feed upon. It didn't take much to guess that it was nourishing itself from what Jude's mortal frame
could
provide: her flesh.

How long would she have before it burned through her from the inside out?

It took everything I had to hide my worry behind the brightest smile I could fling across my face. “There you are, babe!” I chirped as I approached. “Ready to go costume-hunting?”

With a grace I'd never seen her possess, Jude rose from her chair and held out her arms to me. “Oh yes. Ready and eager,” she said.

Wary as I was, the strong force of habit of hugging my friend propelled me nonetheless into her embrace. Only when we connected did I realize
bad idea
, for the same cold, hungry grasp I'd felt lock on to me from Elessir sank into me from the ring of Jude's arms. This time, though, I was prepared. I hadn't taken off the wolf's head necklace since the fight with the
nogitsune
, and it flared now beneath my shirt. My magic crackled with it, channeling extra strength into that Ward, just as I'd done many times now with Christopher.

Jude flinched against me and then pulled back. As soon as she broke the contact, the invisible spikes of ice retreated from my flesh.

“What kind of a greeting is that for your best friend, Kennie darling?” she inquired. Her tone was perfectly conversational. Her gaze never left mine, though. If I hadn't already known something else was at home behind her eyes, that stare all by itself would have given her away. It was far too old, too knowing, and too self-satisfied to be the Jude Lawrence I knew.

Busted. I knew it. She knew it.

Shit.

“Let her back behind the wheel, and I'll greet her properly,” I said.

“Oh, I'll let her have her body back when I'm done with it. I'm not staying in this pitiful human shell a moment longer than I need to.”

“Then get out of her right now. You're going to kill her.” I didn't speak up, since I didn't dare risk anybody overhearing what would be the undisputed weirdest conversation anywhere in the entire mall. People had a way of instinctively shying out of my proximity when my magic was high, but just one person of unusual sensitivity would be all it took to draw far too much attention. “Just like you almost damn near killed Elessir, only faster.”

Alokhiu-
Jude grinned, a feral and thoroughly Unseelie expression that had no business existing upon my friend's human face. “He's still alive? Damn. The Queen will be displeased with me.” Then she laughed, her voice lowering, taking on cadences of silk and silver. “Of course, Her Gracious Majesty isn't here. And you are. So young and strong and delectable.”

She seized my hand, and my body swayed with a palpable sensory memory: how I'd shivered at the lure of the bard's voice and, when he chose to unleash it, the warmth of his smile. I shivered again now, for in that alarming instant, her face seemed to shift in my sight. Brown eyes became Elessir's midnight blue, and skin that was normally a light golden-brown turned white as moonlight. The ghostly scent of him rose up in my awareness, mingling with the scent of Jude's actual body, and even her touch felt like him. As I faltered, she pulled me closer, close enough to murmur delicately into my ear, “Let me in, Kennie. I could feast on you for months, and you could save your precious Judith's life, and even my darling Elessir's. You care about them both, don't you?”

I paused, not wanting to admit any such thing—and the
alokhiu
took her chance. Her arms snaked around me while her breath tickled against my cheek, and one of her hands planted itself in my hair. My necklace was hot against my chest, but then again, the rest of me was suddenly wreathed in numbing, drugging cold.

“Aren't your arms heavy?” she whispered. “I can support them for you. Let me.”

She was right. As if they'd turned to chains of ice, my arms suddenly dragged from my shoulders, and I could move them only in one direction: around her waist, to let her press up tight against me.

“Your heart flutters like a hummingbird, pretty Seelie girl. It's because you're tired. Let me be your heartbeat. Let me be your breath.”

Her lips traced a path from my ear to my jaw, and wherever she touched, my skin flushed with heat that began to override my Warded necklace without touching the cold settling into my thoughts. Thinking… that was hard. Even the thought of taking another step, never mind the actual motion, filled me with exhaustion. Surely it would be easier to let her do it for me?

No!

In a last-ditch effort I grabbed hold of my magic, driving most of it down through the floor beneath my feet to seek the earth—and the rest of it into my necklace, to fortify the Ward. It worked, just enough to let me reach the distant cresting wave of Christopher's nearby power and to push Jude's overcrowded body back from me, the old-fashioned way. With my fists.

Whatever the bone walker might have expected out of me, two pops to her solar plexus wasn't it. She staggered back from me, panting, and nearly toppled over the chair she'd been sitting in before. The commotion was a problem, but I couldn't take the time yet to see if anybody around us had noticed. Instead I hurled my power out to link up with Christopher's, and the moment I did, I felt a rush of relief that he was on his way.

Problem was, Jude's uninvited guest sensed him coming too.

Her head snapped up. The echo of Elessir was gone now from her face, but its expression still wasn't
Jude
. It was pure, unmitigated fury. “Bellevue is not a Warded city,” she hissed.

“Guess again,” I snapped back.

She hadn't ever really fallen, yet another sign that Sidhe reflexes were in charge of my friend's mortal body, and now she crouched, catlike, as if preparing to spring past me. Without warning, a different signature of power rippled somewhere not far away—and her feral smile unfurled again.

“Oh, that'll do
nicely
,” she purred.

And promptly vanished.

Though he himself was
kitsune
, Jake Tanaka had so far encountered very few of the Sidhe of either Court.
Fey of all kinds abounded in San Francisco where he'd grown up, and a good many were in Seattle now. But both cities were actively Warded, and in Jake's experience to date, neither the Seelie nor the Unseelie cared to congregate for long where human magic was rife. And while San Francisco had its share of unaffiliated Sidhe, San Francisco didn't have Millicent Merriweather as its Warder. The only Sidhe in Seattle, to the best of his knowledge, was Kendis herself.

He did not, therefore, have much knowledge to draw on for how to handle Melisanda.

Some conclusions, though, he could readily draw. She was of a Seelie House; thus, like his own
myobu
kin, she presumably operated by the Seelie Court credos of order and honor. That she'd come back to Seattle to atone for her previous actions argued for that, and thus far, fighting as she'd done in defense of Kendis and Christopher, she seemed to be in earnest. For the sake of that, and for the sake of helping Kendis, he was willing to see where treating her as a comrade might lead.

At this particular point in time, it led to Kobe Terrace Park.

He didn't have the Warders' direct attunement with the city; he couldn't simply reach out with his magical senses and find every living soul within Seattle's borders. But there was much he could learn simply by respectful requests to the
kami
. They were shyer in an American city than they would have been in Japan. In fact, Millicent and Christopher had no idea of their existence—though Kendis, Jake thought, was beginning to suspect. Someday, perhaps, he'd tell her what the earth and air and water of the city might say to her if she was able to listen.

For now, though, he had to find the
nogitsune
who'd fought with her. Had he been acting on his own, he might have opted to head south to the International District on foot, four of them rather than two. Carson took great care to stay fit, though at the end of the day he was still a human male in his late forties, and in
kitsune
shape Jake could outrun his partner with no effort at all. His senses, both physical and magical, were sharper in that other shape as well. But Carson, who'd already gone with him to Faerie itself, would never have forgiven him if he'd tried to leave him out of their investigations now.

And so in the name of speed and of keeping both their eyes on Melisanda, they took Jake's Mini south through the heart of the city. Or the two of them did anyway; the Seelie opted for the sleek, streamlined motorcycle that seemed to be her chosen means of transport. Jake had seen his share of motorcycles in his life and had even ridden one or two. The bike Melisanda rode didn't look unusually powerful, yet once she was astride it she wove through Seattle's streets with speed and grace that would have dizzied him if he'd let himself think about it. Instead, he focused on keeping up with her. Or at least, as best he could without breaking any traffic laws.

She was waiting for them when he finally parked a few blocks away from the park. Behind her, the motorcycle seemed strangely delicate, oddly fragile. It didn't surprise Jake in the least to catch no scent whatsoever of gasoline wafting off the thing when he and Carson got out of the car. Anyone else might have mistaken the faint lingering hum in the air for electricity, or at least electricity's passing. But no, it was magic, just enough to shimmer across his awareness even in human form.

He knew better than to ask Melisanda about it. If he'd learned anything of the Sidhe, it was that they closely guarded their secrets.

Carson knew it just as well, and as the two of them joined the warrior, he opted for another opening tactic entirely. “Nice handling there,” he said with his best deadpan stare. “Pulled that off like someone we'll assume knows that if this goes pear-shaped in any way, she'll be in a world of hurt.”

“I believe Millicent made that perfectly clear,” Jake chimed in, stepping just ahead of his partner, carefully avoiding any conscious schooling of his own face and frame. “Our visitor's made her intentions plain. No need to be uncivil.”

The Sidhe flashed a glance between them, just enough curl to her mouth to hint that she recognized a good-cop, bad-cop routine when she saw it. But she didn't bother to dignify Carson's challenge with a response and instead coolly inquired, “Mr. Tanaka, I trust you know where we're going?”

Rather than answer her, Jake paused and drew in a long, questing breath, for his hackles were up. Magically speaking, not literally, since he hadn't shifted forms—but even in his human shape he sensed power resounding from somewhere very close by. The earth of the city didn't speak to him like it did to the Warders. But earth and water alike were special to him, for reasons he never shared with anyone but Carson. It was no one's business but his partner's, after all, what Shinto beliefs he held. Or what ties to the
kami
Inari.

And those ties were enough for him to feel the echoes of all three
nogitsune
who'd been on the trail. Melisanda, not to mention Kendis and Christopher, had reported what had happened; now, though, the truth of it hissed warnings across his senses. The
kami
should have spoken to him, even among concrete and brick and steel, but they were strangely silent. In the sudden absence of their voices, the proximity of others of his kind rang all the louder. Christopher had banished one of the younger
nogitsune
beyond the Wards. The second was perhaps younger than Kendis, for the song of his power was soft enough to be safely ignored. But the third's was a ripple that he sensed even from a distance, ephemeral as the northern lights, yet bright and clear.