Soul Shock, page 12
“It’s how that night went.” I lowered my eyes, stepping back. Didn’t want to challenge her here, not yet. “That’s how I remember you. Full of joy and love.”
“I do what I promised. I cure those who come to me of the Rot, taking their hope and fear to burn the twilight from their lungs. If they want more, they must offer more. Sweat, toil and blood. I take what I am given. In return, I offer hope.”
“This place smells of desperation, not of hope,” I said.
“In this world, hope is for those humans who will dig for it. To turn over the rotting logs and find the shining bugs beneath,” she said.
I risked a glance up at her. She came a little further into the dim light of her garden. Rey’s flannel hung open on an emaciated figure. Vines of ivy grew through slashes between her ribs, to track along the veins of her arms and legs. The largest wound, however, was in her chest over her left breast. Tiny ivy leaves covered the hole but I could see the puckered flesh around it. In the darkness behind her something thrashed with her agitation.
“By Luna’s glow, Rey!” I exclaimed as I took in her form with horror.
“I’m not Rey!” She hissed, jumping down from her hollow to slash at me with thorn-like claws. They sliced across the hairy forearm that I raised to block. “She left me here an empty husk! She should not spare me the smallest fragment of her heart! Just the burdens of her promises!”
The cuts burned like nettles, and she lashed out at me again with a frustrated snarl. The claws whistled with power as I dodged back. Two tails, plaited with ivy and rose thorns, rose over her shoulders like twin vipers. I didn’t see the third tail until it had coiled around my leg. Its thorns dug into my flesh.
“Now you come here telling me you want to be friends, when can I smell that heart on you!” She shrieked and that tail jerked hard, ripping my leg out from under me. The surroundings blurred and a wall struck my body.
I rolled down the wall to realize she’d thrown me against the tree. I sat up and leaned against the trunk, grasping my side. Luna’s cooling touch already flowed into the bones, but I fought off the urge to embrace the full strength that wolf-me offered.
The Green-Tailed Lady stalked toward me. “You want to be friends?! You want to fix me? Bring me the passions of that night. I am building myself around nothing but cold memories. Bring me Rey’s heart!”
18
“Sorry, I’m no good at stealing hearts,” I coughed, watching her bare feet approach me. “Besides, you could have done it last night at the gala.”
She seized either side of my neck with both hands and hauled me up to her eye level. Panting lightly, I stared into her torch-like eyes. “You know why? Because I remain bound not to feed upon her. Would you like to know what isn’t? The heart itself. Can’t you see what it’s doing to her?”
“No, and please,” I reached out and placed my hand against the center of her chest, “Don’t tell me.”
A malicious grin spread across that muzzle. “It’s all part of the plan to rid herself of the promises that bind her. It will slowly hollow out Cindy’s passions until it is the heart that beats within her chest. Her humanity, her empathy, will dwindle to nothing. Your kind-hearted friend will be as sly and greedy as Rey once was because that’s who she’ll be. Rey by a different name. A halfling unbound. To save her, you have to snatch it away.”
I edged my fingers a little closer to the wound in her chest. “That sounds a lot like a Rey plan. Wheels within wheels, but you know what?”
“Do not believe me? I hold all of Rey’s memories. That is her plan for your friend. Don’t you want to stop your sweet friend from becoming a callous monster?”
“All Rey’s plans broke when it came to Cindy. She never understood her own love. Rey’s heart loves Cindy. I’m sorry she was so cruel to you, her child.” I plunged my hand into the leaf-covered hole in the Green-Tailed Lady’s chest. Her eyes widened in shock as my fingers curled around an object about the size of a pea that pulsed with alternating warmth and cold.
The young goddess’s face spasmed through hurt, then rage, before settling on fear. She tried to pull away, but I held the heart firm. “Let it go! That’s… not yours. You need me! I protect them all from the rot. It’s still there, waiting.”
“You’re right, I do need you. I need you strong. Not as a sinister imp hiding in the dark of trees and gardens. I need you as you were born. As Portland remembers you.” I closed my eyes and conjured up Rey. Every scrap of the Fey that had burrowed into my psyche. I traced the pathways which Rey had drawn strength and emotion from. The moment she had corrupted so I remembered myself as a three tailed fox girl when I had first cheated on a test. From those I gathered up every fragment of Rey’s performance during the Dead Night. Greenie here had the memories, the mechanical happenings, but not the sensation of life that had moved every body and limb to her music. At the time, I had focused on other things, shutting it out to move independently, but they were all there. Intensely so, flowing through the bond of Rey’s oath. The pain of the wounds Rey had cut into herself to allow the energies of the city to wash through her, washing away her basic nature to that passion, that love for Cindy, for the City. I offered that swirling chaos of emotion up to the tiny heart I held in my hand.
It drank, my awareness of Rey during that night ripped away from me with a tearing sensation in my head and heart. It ran up to the moment of Cindy and Rey’s wedding and grabbed hold of the entire experience.
No! Mine! I twisted the connection closed and snatched my hand out of her chest, letting go of The Green-Tailed Lady’s heart.
With a small yip, she collapsed. I caught her, pulling her to my chest. Bad idea.
She bit me. Those thorn teeth sinking into my right tit. I let loose a loud yelp of pain and shoved her back. She stumbled, falling down onto her knees.
“Abby!?” Victoria’s voice cut through the jungle.
“It’s fine! I’m alright!” I shouted back and cradled my injured lump. The puncture-tears burned as if hot sauce had been injected into it. I gritted my teeth and beat my fist against my thigh as I prayed for Luna’s healing to kick in a bit faster.
“How dare you!” The Green-Tailed Lady gasped out in between panting like a dog. “I did not yip! Ask for…“ She tossed back her head, letting out a, Yip! Yip, Aiieee! As the building’s buried PA system burbled to life, pulsing through the garden with the peppy beat of the battle song. Her vine-entwined hand at the wound over her heart, green flame leaping out between her fingers. A convulsion passed through her body and her oversized head cracked, falling away as a mask. She looked up at me with human features that were almost Rey, but not quite. Broader cheek bones, wider mouth that grimaced as she growled. The vines wrapping her limbs bloomed into small roses ranging in color from moon pale to the darkest crimson. The wave of flowering swept through her and down her tails, each of their tips blossoming into a massive rose.
The flowering spread out into the garden, hidden buds opening with the snap of good bubble gum. Overhead, a branch moved, bathing her in a pale shaft of moonlight. The newly bloomed flowers glistened as if covered by dew as she relaxed, as if the light itself soothed her pain. “Your compassion,” she finished with a whisper.
I chuckled through my own clenched teeth, “In your own words, we hunted as a pack, and that lasts longer than a single hunt. I don’t want the Green-Tailed Lady to be a demon bound to protect the city.” My own recollection of the night seemed watery, the high fidelity of the battle dream-like and uncertain until I arrived at Andrew’s giant gravestone. “I want a Green-Tailed Lady that loves the city as she did when she was born. Friends keep each other from spiraling if they can.”
She stood, some of thorns falling from her vines like cut hair clippings, and regarded me with shining green eyes that were no longer aflame. Slowly she buttoned up her tattered flannel top, the hole in her chest knit over with woody-looking vines. “Promise you will never touch my heart again without my permission, and I will forgive you for this trespass.”
“You were attacking me,” I noted.
“Swear it!” The very ground snarled beneath me.
With a sigh, I touched my ring. “I swear on Luna’s light that I will never again touch your heart without permission.” As soon as I spoke the words I felt the oath squeeze my heart.
She walked up to me with the beat of her song and abruptly turned her back on me, leaving bare inches between us. “Hold me as a friend.”
Hugging a living rose bush is only slightly more pleasant than it sounds. Every thorn available seemed to poke at me, but they didn’t pierce my skin. She smelled much sweeter than she had a few moments ago. After listening to the beat pulsing through my feet for maybe a minute she spoke. “I remember being held, but not this warmth.” The same tails that had tossed me into the tree coiled around us. Her green-furred fox ears twitched as I stroked them. The thorns that poked my skin turned aside as she relaxed against me. “This is about the Fey Knight, is it not?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “She’s warded parts of the east side against us; we need a way to track her.”
She laughed. “Ah ha. A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
“It’s a fact that I’m not particularly good at popping by for no reason,” I allowed.
That got a giggle out of her. “If Luna needed a social butterfly, she chose poorly. Joy is among the youngest of the Knights of Summer, elevated to knighthood as the walls between the Crossroads and the Dream began to thicken. She’s the least martial of Summer’s knights, as she detests her own suffering.”
“I can’t attack her directly due to troubles with Secret’s mother,” I explained, feeling my warmth leaching into the goddess.
“That is troubling; unchecked, there are few fey that can spread their influence faster. She peddles easy happiness, and only the most driven of mortals can resist her personality. To fight her via the chessboard will be difficult; she will be very good at gathering pawns. You will have to risk some important pieces,” she said, and for a moment I found myself somewhere else, standing on a black square. Next to me Secret smiled, wearing a bejeweled dome of a crown with a cross jutting from the top. On my left Victoria stood in a red cloak, beyond her, Cliff sat astride a black horse. Across the board Joy twirled a queen crown around her finger, protected by a row of stone cats.
“I don’t play chess,” I growled. “And I won’t use pawns.”
“The gambit’s already opened; if you don’t choose your pieces, she’ll choose them for you as she captures them.” She pulled herself from my arms and stretched, the tails slipping away from my body. “We’re all on the board whether we like it or not. I have to prepare for my own match against Summer. There was once a separate Court of Spring. Maybe there will be again.” Her body swayed to the beat, her tails starting to swish along.
There had to be a different way than using people as pieces; maybe if I could simply prevent her from gathering anything. I prefer whack-a-mole to chess. “Greenie, is there any way to track her? That pink smoke she breathes seems to be scentless.”
“Greenie?” She laughed, her hands twirling, leading her body into a dance. “Call me Renata, my friend. Renata, the Green-Tailed Lady, I like it. As for finding Joy, you are in luck because we overlap somewhat.” She kicked out, foot catching her cast-off face and propelling it straight into the air where she caught it. Bracing it with one arm, she broke off the nose with a twist, and the rest of the mask dissolved to splinters. She tossed it at me and I snatched.
I opened my hand to find a canine nose sculpted out of tightly coiled vine.
“You gave me a piece that I had been missing. So I offer this. It will enable Victoria to scent out Joy’s glamour on the faintest breeze when she wears it,” she said.
“It won’t root into her face or anything?” A repayment for a favor was hopefully less dangerous than a straight-up gift, but I needed to be sure.
“She is death aspected, it will not harm her in any way.“ Rey’s familiar sly smile played on Renata’s lips.
“Right, only her.” I closed my fingers around the nose, found it oddly cold and wet against my palm. “Good bye for now, Green-Tailed Lady.”
“You will come visit me more often. I cannot… cuddle with my worshipers.” With a nod of dismissal, she spun into her dance, and a curtain of vines opened for me. As I passed through the tunnel the garden had made in itself she sang out, As I rooooooam! The beat glitched, then grew in volume. When I stepped back over the altar the garden thumped as if it were a club on a late Saturday night.
The corridor that led outside had so many bodies in it that it resembled a club, except nobody had drinks nor danced. Victoria sat cross legged as a black-furred wolf-woman, and Secret, in humanish mode, faced down a horde of society members. Secret swiftly hugged my hip and declared, “You’re back!”
“What did you do to our Lady?!” The same man who had blocked our way in now blocked my way out.
“No more blood sacrifices; they were making her sick,” I snapped at him.
His face twisted with affront. “You cannot dictate the- gurk!”
I grabbed him by the throat and hauled up onto his tippie toes. “She’s a goddess of spring and renewal. You cannot treat her as a dog you feed every forsaken scrap you think to toss. You have been corrupting her with the fading of life. The only blood that should touch these grounds is that shed in birthing. Understand me?”
Still, his righteous furor didn’t let him relent. “You cannot speak of our goddess as if you’re some kind of veterinarian.”
Victoria answered him in a firm growl. “She’s a priestess of Luna, the brightest light and ruler of the night. Also she’s a damn good paramedic. You’re very lucky she came.”
“Our lady can speak for herself,” he squeaked, his bravery finally breaking in the face of two wolf-women baring teeth.
The volume of the song redoubled; I glanced behind me to see that the entryway, previously choked with vegetation, now stood open. Invitingly so.
I chuckled softly as I put the man down. “True, but tonight I think she’s in the mood for dancing. Hope you’ve got some spring in your legs.”
“But it’s not time for the festival yet.” Confusion wrinkled the man’s face as the Green-Tailed Lady’s adherents drifted toward the music. Haltingly he followed the flow as I lifted Secret, and along with Victoria, edged my way back into the still-too-warm night. Fatigue washed over me like a wave, and my body pined for an emergency dose of caffeine. I paused, teetered really, at the edge of the embryonic hedge maze. The moat-like shadows had dissipated and Luna’s half face shined proudly. Although my breast still stung like it had been attacked by bees.
“What did you do?” Victoria asked. “Did she help?”
“I reminded her who she is, and that it’s different from what her followers have been treating her as. She gave me a gift for you. It will let us find Joy.” I handed her the nose and she stared down at it. Misgivings plain on her face.
“You did more than talk, didn’t you?” Her golden eyes searched mine. “What did you give her?
“Nothing important. Put that on and let’s find her,” I huffed, her eyes uncomfortably bright.
“No,” Victoria said. “You’re about to fall over.”
“Vicky!” I said along with a canine whine that completely lost me the argument before it really started. I handed the nose to Secret for safekeeping and together we started looking for a safe place to nap.
I didn’t really mean to go to Cliff’s apartment. Not entirely, at least.
19
A sleepy wolf wants what it wants: a safe place to lie down and rest. In my case, with my too-thick-for-summer fur coat, I wanted a place that was cool, too. My tired mind fixated on the nearest place that fulfilled all those requirements: Cliff’s plush leather couch within his air-conditioned apartment. Victoria tried to herd me toward the foot bridge or towards a nice little hollow in Marquam park, but I stubbornly maintained my trot until we stood in the thin strip of woods behind the double garage that houses Cliff’s little mother-in-law unit.
“Merf?” Secret asked from my back.
Victoria grabbed a mouthful of skin on my haunch and gave it a shake. Not our den!
Is soon. I tried to mollify her with a lick, but she snapped at my ear.
You impossible, she huffed, but she still followed me up the stairs. Through the door I caught faint, frantic voices speaking in what human me groggily recognized as Japanese.
He was still up! I scratched at the door and listened for movement inside.
Victoria shoulder bumped me and poked a thing next to the door with her muzzle. A chime rang from inside the apartment. A deep groan came from inside, which opened after a few moments of fumbling.
I pressed myself against Cliff’s legs as soon as they appeared, tail thumping against the floor.
“Abby? Victoria? What’s going on?” he asked in a groggy voice as I closed my eyes. His scent spoke of safety.
“Merf.”
“Yes, hello, Secret. Why are you all on my doorstep?”
In answer I moved past him and into the apartment. His hand swept down my back.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” he asked with an exasperated chuckle.
I entered his narrow living room, stepped up onto his couch and sprawled across the cool leather cushions. Perfect.
“What? You’re just coming in here to lie on my couch?”
I yawned, he had the idea.
Victoria came in grumbling to herself. I popped open an eye to watch her claim Cliff’s recliner and glare at me. You tell him.
“Okay. Right. Make yourselves at home, I guess.” Cliff rubbed at his face. “My life…”
