Carrie Vaughn - Kitty's Big Trouble

“Grace?” I asked softly.

“Just watch,” she said. “And be quiet. Be respectful. You think you can do that?”

Normally, I could never promise to be quiet. Somehow, I didn’t have much of an urge to speak just now.

“What’s happening?” Ben said. I shook my head, so he turned to Cormac.

“Never seen anything like it. Neither of us,” he said.

We entered the room.

THE NINE-TAILED FOX bounded forward like a puppy greeting its favorite person. Its final leap took it into the lap of a woman, middle-aged and full-bodied, seated in a chair, ornately carved and lacquered in black and gold. Cooing, the woman gathered the animal close, scratching its ears, rubbing its flanks, bringing her face close so the fox could lick her chin and nose, which it did joyfully, and the woman laughed.

The woman—she must have been of average height, of normal size. But she seemed to fill the space. Her face was kind and beautiful, though what must have been smooth porcelain features when she was young had softened to make her more approachable, more motherly. Her thick hair, black and shining, was twisted into a knot and held in place by sticks carved from a milky green stone—jade, maybe. The robe she wore over a multilayered gown was silk and shining, royal blue, with dense images embroidered in gold and silver, belted around her waist with a braided gold cord. She smelled like incense and peaches.

Her chair’s arm on the right-hand side was carved in the shape of an angry, bulging-eyed tiger, its stripes painted like daggers. The left-hand arm was shaped like a dragon, body twisted around on itself, slender whiskers trailing from a mouth full of teeth. On the back of her chair stood a large black bird, a crow. It hopped back and forth, snapping its beak and shaking its feathers at us. It had three legs, three sets of claws to scrabble at the wood.

The chair sat on a wooden porch overlooking a nighttime garden, however impossible that should have been. We were in a room, in a tunnel system under downtown San Francisco. And yet, a pond spread out from the porch, its surface dark and glasslike, reflecting back the image of a blossoming tree that grew from the shore nearby. From the branches hung red paper lanterns that gave off a peaceful light. Across the pond I thought I could make out buildings, carved railings around more porches, lit windows, tiled pagoda roofs that didn’t seem out of place here—an entire palace complex.

I smelled fresh air and the scent of peach blossoms. My mouth watered.

Grace knelt, her hands pressed flat together and touching her nose, her eyes tightly shut—praying hard, keenly devout. She may not even have been breathing.

Anastasia stared, and her expression altered, slack wonder pulling into grief, lips pursed, brow furrowed, eyes narrowing until I thought she might cry. Finally, she covered her face with her hands and sagged.

Behind us, Sun quietly closed the door.

We waited. No one could hurry this woman or make demands. She could ignore the tableau before her forever, and that would be fine. And what a tableau—two Chinese women who obviously knew who and what she was and were awed into immobility; and three white-bread American tourists, rude and ignorant, cowboys in a china shop, as it were. If we didn’t move, maybe we wouldn’t break anything.

Then there was Sun Wukong, who looked on her as a friend. That look made me relax a little.

Finally, she kissed the fox on the top of its head and urged it away, stroking the length of its body, including the batch of tails, as it hopped off her lap and took up the position of a sentinel under a pedestal table next to the chair. It wrapped all its tails around its feet like a big fur stole.

She straightened, regarded us all, then focused that regal gaze on Sun. “Well. Sun Wukong, I gave you a simple task and look what happens. Always trouble with you!”

“And yet you keep trusting me. Look, I had everything under control—”

She raised a hand, and he stopped. She turned her gaze on the rest of us. I suddenly wanted to apologize. This felt like I’d been brought to the principal’s office.

“Grace Chen,” the woman on the throne said, her voice gentle. Grace, her nut-brown skin flushed with emotion, bowed even lower.

The woman began speaking to her in what I assumed was Chinese. I didn’t understand, but the tone was kind, not at all accusing like it had been a moment before.

I glanced at Anastasia, hoping for a translation, but her eyes were tightly shut.

Sun saw my look and translated. “Xiwangmu is telling her that her family has done well, guarding the Dragon’s Pearl for these centuries, but the task is finished now. She’s releasing the family from its vow.”

Grace was looking up at her now, smiling.

“Xiwangmu?” I whispered.

“She is the Queen Mother of the West.” Sun raised a hand to silence my next question and watched.

Anastasia stepped forward, shocked and appalled, her hands closed into angry fists, and spoke a sharp sentence in Chinese. Sun jumped to stand between her and Xiwangmu, blocking the vampire’s way with his staff. Anastasia hissed at him, and he laughed, at which she snarled and turned away.

The woman on the throne regarded her a moment, then spoke. I didn’t understand the words, but the tone was reproachful. Anastasia didn’t turn around, but as the lecture went on, her back bowed, her shoulders slumped, and she seemed like a child being punished for something horrible that she’d done.

Maybe this wasn’t my world and maybe I didn’t belong here, but I had to find out what was happening.

“Um, I’m sorry, excuse me…” My voice sounded wrong and startling. I inched forward. The fox sitting under the table flattened its ears and bared its teeth, and the woman on the throne, Xiwangmu, flashed her dark gaze at me. If the door behind us was still open, I’d have been tempted to flee. “I know Anastasia’s kind of obsessed, but she’s my friend, sort of, and … I want to help.” I didn’t know how I could help when I was in so far over my head. But that was why I asked. If that elegant woman told me to leave, to forget about all this, what would I do then?

She studied me, and in my belly Wolf curled into defensive huddle, cowering at the scrutiny. Ben was standing behind me; I could feel his warmth, and that settled me. But this so wasn’t our territory.

When the woman smiled—a slight, amused curl of her lips—my knees went wobbly with relief.

“This is not your battle, child,” Xiwangmu said.

Encouraged, I said, “Anastasia asked me to help, so it is. Her enemy—the one who has the pearl now, and Henry—is my enemy, too.” And your enemy, as well. None of us alone could stop him. Well, maybe she could stop him by herself. I got the feeling she could do anything she wanted.

Everyone else was watching me with the air of witnessing a wreck. Quiet and respectful, Grace had ordered. Hey, I’d tried …

The woman leaned back in her throne. “Do you know why she hates Gaius Albinus, the one called Dux Bellorum?”

Anastasia flinched at the name; I glanced at her, trying to read her, but she was trapped in her storm of emotion.

“Not exactly, no,” I said.

Xiwangmu turned to Anastasia. “You’ve not told anyone your story, have you?”

“No one,” Anastasia said, stifled and hoarse. “Not even you.”

“And yet I know it, for you were mine before he made you his.”

I looked at Anastasia, trying to parse what Xiwangmu had said, considering the implications. It changed the meaning of everything Anastasia had ever said to me. I’d never guessed. Maybe I should have.

“Anastasia? Roman made you a vampire?” I said. She didn’t answer.