Лиза Смит - The Return - Shadow Souls

Meredith blinked twice, swallowed once, and whispered, “Okay.” Then, abruptly, she was her old efficient self again. “Thank you,” she said. “But cleaning up the town might not be such an easy job. It’s already heading toward mass chaos there.”

“And Matt wanted to be in the middle of it all? Alone?” Elena asked.

“Like we said, he and Mrs. Flowers are a solid team,” Meredith said quietly. “And it’s what he’s chosen.”

“Well,” Elena said drily, “he may turn out to have the better deal in the end, after all.”

They went back to the scattered papers. Meredith picked up several pictures of kitsune guarding shrines in Japan.

“It says they’re usually depicted with a ‘jewel’ or key.” She held up a picture of a kitsune holding a key in its mouth at the main gate of the Fushimi Shrine.

“Aha,” Elena said. “Looks like the key’s got two wings, doesn’t it?”

“Exactly what Bonnie and I thought. And the ‘jewels’…well, take a close look.” Elena did and her stomach lurched. Yes, they were like the “snow globe” orbs that Shinichi had used to create unbreakable traps in the Old Wood.

“We found they’re called hoshi no tama ,” Meredith said. “And that translates to ‘star balls.’ Each kitsune puts a measure of their power into one, along with other things, and destroying the ball is one of the only ways to kill them. If you find a kitsune’s star ball, you can control the kitsune. That’s what Bonnie and I want to do.”

“But how do you find it?” Elena asked, excited by the idea of controlling Shinichi and Misao.

“Sa…” Meredith said, pronouncing the word “sah” like a sigh. Then she gave one of her rare brilliant smiles. “In Japanese, that means: ‘I wonder; hmm; wouldn’t want to comment; my gosh, golly, I really couldn’t say.’ We could use a word like that in English.”

Despite herself, Elena giggled.

“But, then, other stories say that kitsune can be killed by the Sin of Regret or by blessed weapons. I don’t know what the Sin of Regret is, but—” She rummaged in her luggage, and came up with an old-fashioned but serviceable-looking revolver.

“Meredith!”

“It was my grandpa’s — one of a pair. Matt’s got the other one. They’re loaded with bullets blessed by a priest.”

“What priest would bless bullets , for God’s sake?” Elena demanded.

Meredith’s smile turned bleak. “One that’s seen what’s happening in Fell’s Church. You remember how Caroline got Isobel Saitou possessed, and what Isobel did to herself?”

Elena nodded. “I remember,” she said tautly.

“Well, do you remember how we told you that Obaasan — Grandma Saitou — used to be a shrine maiden? That’s a Japanese priestess. She blessed the bullets for us, all right, and specifically for killing kitsune. You should have seen how spooky the ritual was. Bonnie almost fainted again.”

“Do you know how Isobel is doing now?”

Meredith shook her dark head slowly. “Better but — I don’t think she even knows about Jim yet. That’s going to be very tough on her.”

Elena tried to quell a shudder. There was nothing but tragedy in store for Isobel even when she got well. Jim Bryce, her boyfriend, had spent only one night with Caroline, but now had Lesch-Nye disease — or so the doctors said. In that same dreadful night that Isobel had pierced herself everywhere, and cut her tongue so that it forked, Jim, a handsome star basketball player, had eaten away his fingers and his lips. In Elena’s opinion they were both possessed and their injuries were only more reasons why the kitsune twins had to be stopped.

“We’ll do it,” she said aloud, realizing for the first time that Meredith was holding her hand as if Elena were Bonnie. Elena managed a faint but determined smile for Meredith. “We’ll get Stefan out and we’ll stop Shinichi and Misao. We have to do it.”

This time it was Meredith who nodded.

“There’s more,” she said at last. “You want to hear it?”

“I need to know everything.”

“Well, every single source I checked agrees that kitsune possess girls and then lead boys to destruction. What kind of destruction depends on where you look. It can be as simple as appearing as a will-o’-the-wisp and leading you into a swamp or off a cliff, or as difficult as shapeshifting.”

“Oh, yes,” Elena said tightly. “I knew that from what happened to you and Bonnie. They can look exactly like someone.”

“Yes, but always with some small flaw if you have the wits to notice it. They can never make a perfect replicate. But they can have up to nine tails, and the more tails they have, the better at everything they are.”

“Nine? Terrific. We’ve never even seen a nine-tailed one.”

“Well, we may get to yet. They’re supposed to be able to cross over freely from one world to another. Oh, yes. And they’re specifically in charge of the ‘Kimon’ Gate between dimensions. Want to guess what that translates to?”

Elena stared at her. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“But why would Damon take us all the way across the country, just to get in through a Demon Gate that’s run by fox spirits?”

“Sa…But when Matt told us you were headed to someplace near Sedona, that was really what decided Bonnie and me.”

“Great.” Elena ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “Anything else?” she asked, feeling like a rubber band that had been stretched to its utmost.

“Only this, which ought to really bake your cookies after all we’ve been through. Some of them are good. Kitsune, I mean.”

“Some of them are good — good what? Good fighters? Good assassins? Good liars?”

“No, really, Elena. Some of them are supposed to be like gods and goddesses who sort of test you, and if you pass the test they reward you.”

“Do you think we should count on finding one like that?”

“Not really.”

Elena dropped her head to the coffee table where Meredith’s printouts were scattered. “Meredith, seriously, how are we going to deal with them when we go through that Demon Gate? My Power is about as reliable as a low battery. And it’s not just the kitsune; it’s all the different demons and vampires — Old Ones, too! What are we going to do ?”

She raised her head and looked deeply into the eyes of her friend — those dark eyes that she had never been able to classify as this color or that.

To her surprise, Meredith instead of looking sober, tossed back the dregs of a Diet Coke and smiled.

“No Plan A yet?”

“Well…maybe just an idea. Nothing definite yet. What about you?”

“A few that might qualify for Plans B and C. So what we’re going to do is what we always do — try our best and fall all over ourselves and make mistakes until you do something brilliant and save us all.”

“Merry”—Meredith blinked. Elena knew why — she hadn’t used that diminutive for Meredith for more years than she could remember. None of the three girls liked pet names or used them. Elena went on very seriously, holding Meredith’s eyes, “There’s nothing I want more than to save everybody — everybody — from these kitsune bastards. I’d give my life for Stefan and all of you. But…this time it may be somebody else who takes the bullet.”

“Or the stake. I know. Bonnie knows. We talked about it while we were flying here. But we’re still with you, Elena. You have to know that. We’re all with you.”

There was only one way to reply to that. Elena gripped Meredith’s hand in both of hers. Then she let out her breath, and, like probing an aching tooth, tried to get news on a sore subject. “Does Matt — did he — well, how was Matt when you left?”