Ichor : Blood & Secrets

Chapter 38

But we had a little poem, too, and sometimes we even wrote it with our signatures on it. How did it go?” Casie cast her mind back a year, two years, more. Then she recited:

“Just because you heard it, doesn’t make it true.

Just because you read it, doesn’t make it so.

The next time that you hear it, it may be about you.

Don’t think that you can change their minds, just ’cause you know—you know!”

As Casie finished, she looked at Klaus, suddenly feeling the urgent need to get to Lucien. “We’re almost there,” she said. “Let’s hurry.”

Arizona was as hot and barren a state as Casie had imagined. She and Klaus drove directly to the Juniper Resort, and Casie was depressed, if not surprised, to see that Matt was not checked in.

“It can’t have taken him longer than us to get here,” she said, as soon as they’d been shown up to their rooms. “Unless—oh, God, Klaus! Unless

Shinichi caught him somehow.”

Klaus sat down on a bed and regarded Casie grimly. “I guess I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this—that the jerk would at least have the courtesy to tell you himself. But I’ve been tracking his aura ever since he left us. It’s been getting steadily farther away—in the direction of Fell’s

Church.”

Sometimes, really bad news takes a while to sink in.

“You mean,” Casie said, “that he’s not going to show up here at all?” “I mean that, as the crow flies, it wasn’t all that far from where we got the cars to Fell’s Church. He went in that direction. And he didn’t come back.” “But why?” Casie demanded, as if logic could somehow conquer fact.

“Why would he go off and leave me? Especially, why would he go to Fell’s

Church, where they’re looking for him?”

“As for why he’d leave: I think he got the wrong idea about you and me— or maybe the right idea a little early”—Klaus raised his eyebrows at Casie and she threw a pillow at him—“and decided to let us have some privacy. As for why Fell’s Church…” Klaus shrugged. “Look, you’ve known the

guy longer than I have. But even I can tell he’s the Galahad type. The parfait gentil knight, sans peur et sans reproche. If I had to say I’d say he went to

meet Caroline’s charges.”

“Oh, no,” Casie said, going to the door as a knock sounded. “Not after I told him and told him—”

“Oh, yes,” Klaus said, assuming a slight crouching position. “Even with your sage advice ringing in his ears—”

The door opened. It was Octiva. Octiva, with her petite frame, her curly strawberry hair, her wide, soulful brown eyes. Casie, in a state to disbelieve the evidence of her own eyes, and still not through with the argument with Klaus, shut the door on her.

“Matt’s going to get lynched,” Casie almost screamed, vaguely annoyed that some knocking was going on somewhere.

Klaus uncrouched. He passed Casie on the way to the door, said, “I think you’d better sit down,” and then sat her down by putting her in a chair and holding her there until she stopped trying to get up again.

Then he opened the door.

This time it was Meredith knocking. Tall and willowy, with her hair falling in dark clouds around her shoulders, Meredith radiated the intention to go on knocking until the door stayed open. Something happened inside Casie, and she found that she could get her mind around more than one subject at once.

It was Meredith. And Octiva. In Sedona, Arizona!

Casie leaped up from the chair where Klaus had put her and flung her arms around Meredith, saying incoherently, “You came! You came! You knew I couldn’t call you, so you came!”

Octiva edged around the embrace and said to Klaus in an undertone, “Is she back to kissing everyone she meets?”

“Unfortunately,” Klaus said, “no. But be prepared to be squeezed to death.”

Casie turned on him. “I heard that! Oh, Octiva! I just can’t believe you two are really here. I wanted to talk to you so much!”

Meanwhile, she was hugging Octiva, and Octiva was hugging her, and Meredith was hugging both of them. Subtle velociraptor sisterhood signals were being passed from one to another at the same time—an arched eyebrow here, a slight nod there, a frown and shrug ending with a sigh. Klaus didn’t know it, but he had just been accused, tried, acquitted, and restored to duty—with the conclusion that extra surveillance was necessary in the future.

Casie snapped out of it first. “You must have met with Matt—he had to tell you about this place.”

“He did, and then he sold the Prius and we sort of packed on the run and got plane tickets here and we’ve been waiting—we didn’t want to miss you!” Octiva said breathlessly.

“I don’t suppose that would have been just about two days ago that you bought your tickets here,” Klaus asked the ceiling wearily as he lounged with an elbow on Casie’s chair.

“Let me see—” Octiva began, but Meredith said flatly, “Yes it was. What?

It made something happen to you?”

“We were trying to keep things slightly ambiguous for the enemy,” Klaus said. “But as it turns out, it probably didn’t matter.”

No, Casie thought, because Shinichi can reach inside your brain whenever he wants and try to take away your memories and all you can do is try to fight him off.

“But it does mean that Casie and I should start off right away.” Klaus continued. “I have to do an errand first. Casie should pack. Take as little as you can, just the absolute essentials—but include food for two or three days.”

“You said…starting now?” Octiva breathed, and then she sat down abruptly on the floor.

“It makes sense, if we’ve already lost the element of surprise,” Klaus replied.

“I can’t believe you two came to say good-bye to me while Matt watches over the town,” Casie said. “That is so sweet!” She smiled radiantly before adding, in her own mind, And so dumb!

“Well—”

“Well, I still have an errand,” Klaus said, waving without turning around.

“Let’s say we’ll leave here in half an hour.”

“Stingy,” Octiva complained, when the door was safely shut behind him.

“That might have only given us a few minutes to talk before we start.” “I can pack in less than five minutes,” Casie said sadly, and then got tangled up in Octiva’s previous sentence. “‘Before we start’?” “I can’t pack just essentials at all,” Meredith was fretting quietly. “I couldn’t store everything on my mobile, and I have no idea when I’ll be able to

recharge the batteries. I’ve got a suitcase of stuff on paper!”

Casie was looking back and forth at them nervously. “Um, I’m pretty sure I’m the one who’s supposed to be packing,” she said. “Because I’m the only one going…right?” Another look back and forth.

“As if we would let you set off into some other universe without us!”

Octiva said. “You need us!”

“Not another universe; only another dimension,” Meredith said. “But the same principle applies.”

“But—I can’t let you come with me!”

“Of course you can’t. I’m older than you,” Meredith said. “You don’t ‘let’ me do anything. But the truth is that we have a mission. We want to find Shinichi’s or Misao’s star ball if we can. If we could do that we think we could stop most of the stuff going on in Fell’s Church immediately.” “Star ball?” Casie said blankly, while somewhere in the depths of her mind, an uneasy image stirred.

“I’ll explain later.”

Casie was shaking her head. “But—you left Matt to deal with whatever supernatural stuff is going on? When he’s a fugitive and has to hide from the police?”

“Casie, even the police are scared of Fell’s Church now—and frankly, if they put him in custody in Ridgemont it might be the safest place for him.

But they’re not going to do that. He’s working with Mrs. Flowers and they’re good together; they’re a solid team.” Meredith stopped to take a breath, and seemed to be considering how to say something.

Octiva said it for her in a very small voice. “And I was no good, Casie. I’d started—well, I started to get hysterical and see and hear things that weren’t there—or at least to imagine them and maybe even make them come true. I was scaring myself out of my mind, and I think I actually was putting people in danger. Matt’s too practical to do that.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I know the Dark Dimension is pretty bad, but at least I won’t be able to put

houses full of innocent people in danger.”

Meredith nodded. “It was all…going bad with Octiva there. Even if we hadn’t wanted to come with you I would have had to get her out. I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but I believe that the demons there were after her. And that since Lucien’s gone, Klaus may be the only one who can keep them

away. Or maybe you can help her, Casie?”

Meredith…overly dramatic? But Casie could see the fine tremors running under Meredith’s skin, and the light sheen of perspiration on Octiva’s forehead that was dampening her curls.

Meredith touched Casie’s wrist. “We haven’t just gone AWOL or anything. Fell’s Church is a war zone now; it’s true, but we didn’t leave Matt without allies. Like Dr. Alpert—she’s logical—she’s the best country doctor there is—and she might even convince somebody that Shinichi and the

malach are real. But besides all that, the parents have taken over. Parents and psychiatrists and newshounds. And they make it almost impossible to work openly anyway. Matt’s not at any disadvantage.”

“But—in just a week—”

“Take a look at this week’s Sunday paper.”

Casie took the Ridgemont Times from Meredith. It was the biggest paper in the area of Fell’s Church. A banner headline read:

POSSESSION IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

Under the headline were many lines of gray print, but what really caught the eye was a photo of a three-way fight between girls, all of whom seemed to be undergoing seizures or contortions impossible to the human body. The expressions of two of the girls were simply those of pain and terror,

but it was the third girl who froze the blood in Casie’s veins. Her body was humped so that her face was upside down, and she was looking directly at the camera with her lips skinned back from her teeth. Her eyes—there was just no other way to put it—were demonic. They weren’t rolled back in her head or malformed or anything. They weren’t glowing eerily red. It was all in the expression. Casie had never seen eyes that made her sick to her stomach before.

Octiva said quietly, “Do you ever sort of slip and get that feeling like, ‘Oh, whoops, there goes the whole universe’?”

“Constantly, since meeting Lucien,” Meredith said. “No offense meant, Casie. But the point is that all this has happened in just a couple of days; from the minute the adults who knew that there was something really going on got together.”

Meredith sighed and ran fingers with perfectly manicured nails through her hair before continuing. “Those girls are what Octiva calls possessed in the modern sense. Or maybe they’re possessed by Misao—female kitsune are supposed to do that. But if we could just find these things called star balls

—or even one—we could force them to clean all this up.”

Casie put the newspaper down so she wouldn’t have to see those upsidedown eyes staring into hers. “And while all this is happening, what is your boyfriend doing during the crisis?”

For the first time, Meredith looked genuinely relieved. “He may be on his way as we speak. I’ve written to him about everything that’s happening, and he was actually the one who said to get Octiva out.” She flashed a glance of apology at Octiva, who simply lifted her hands and face to the heavens.

“And as soon as he’s finished with his work on some island called Shinmei no Uma, he’s coming to Fell’s Church. This kind of thing is Alaric’s specialty, and he doesn’t get spooked easily. So even if we’re gone for weeks, Matt will have a backup.”

Casie threw her own hands up in a gesture similar to Octiva’s. “There’s just one thing you’d better know before we start. I can’t help Octiva. If you’re counting on me to do any of the things I did when we fought Shinichi and Misao last time—well, I can’t. I’ve tried over and over, as hard as I could, to

do all my wings attacks. But nothing has ever come of it.”

Meredith said slowly, “Well, then, maybe Klaus knows something—” “Maybe he does, but, Meredith, don’t push him right now. Not right this minute. What he knows for certain is that Shinichi can reach in and take his memories—and who knows, maybe even possess him again—”

“That lying kitsune!” Octiva spat out, sounding almost proprietory. As if,

Casie thought, Klaus was her boyfriend. “Shinichi swore he wouldn’t—” “And he swore he’d leave Fell’s Church alone, too. The only reason I have any faith at all in the clues that Misao gave me about the fox key, is that she was taunting me. She never thought we’d do a deal, and so she wasn’t trying to lie or be too clever—I think.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here with you, to get Lucien out,” Octiva said.

“And if we’re lucky, to find the star balls that will let us control Shinichi.

Right?”

“Right!” Casie said fervently.

“Right,” Meredith said solemnly.

Octiva nodded. “Velociraptor sisterhood forever!”

They laid their right hands over one another’s quickly, forming a threespoked wheel. It reminded Casie of the days when there were four spokes.

“And what about Caroline?” she asked.

Octiva and Meredith consulted each other with their eyes. Then Meredith shook her head. “You don’t want to know. Really,” she said.

“I can take it. Really,” Casie said in almost a whisper. “Meredith, I’ve been dead, remember? Twice.”

Meredith was still shaking her head. “If you can’t look at that picture, you shouldn’t hear about Caroline. We went to see her twice—”

“You went to see her twice,” Octiva interrupted. “The second time I fainted and you left me by the door.”

“And I realized I could have lost you for good, and I’ve apologized—” Meredith broke off when Octiva put a hand on her arm and gave her a little push.

“Anyway, it wasn’t exactly a visit,” Meredith said. “I went running into Caroline’s room ahead of her mom and found her inside her nest—never mind what that is—eating something. When she saw me, she just giggled and went on eating.”

“And?” Casie said, when the tension got to be too much for her. “What was it?”

“I think,” Meredith said bleakly, “that it was worms and slugs. She would stretch them up and up and they’d squirm before she bit them. But that wasn’t the worst. Look, you had to have been here to appreciate it, but she just smirked at me, and said in this thick voice, ‘Have a bite?’ and suddenly my

mouth was filled with this wriggling mass—and it was going down my throat. So I was sick, right there on her carpet. Caroline just started laughing, and I

ran down again and picked Octiva up and ran out and we never went back. But…halfway down the path to the house, I realized Octiva was suffocating.

She had the—the worms and things—in her mouth and her nose. I know CPR; I managed to get most of them out before she woke up vomiting.

But—”

“It was an experience I would really rather not have again.” The very lack of expression in Octiva’s voice said more than any tone of horror could. Meredith said, “I’ve heard that Caroline’s parents have moved out of that house, and I can’t say I blame them. Caroline’s over eighteen. All I can add is that everybody’s sort of praying that somehow the werewolf blood will win out in her, because that seems at least to be less horrible than the malach or the—the demonic. But if it doesn’t win out…”

Casie rested her chin on her knees. “And Mrs. Flowers can deal with this?” “Better than Octiva can. Mrs. Flowers is glad to have Matt around; like I said, they’re a solid team. And now that she has finally spoken to the human race of the twenty-first century, I think she likes it. And she’s been practicing the craft constantly.”

“The craft? Oh—”

“Yeah, that’s what she calls witchcraft. I have no idea whether she’s any good at it or not, because I don’t have anything to compare her to—or with—”

“Her poultices work like magic!” Octiva said firmly just as Casie said,

“Her bath salts certainly work.”

Meredith smiled faintly. “Too bad she isn’t here instead of us.” Casie shook her head. Now that she had reconnected with Octiva and Meredith she knew she could never go into the Darkness without them. They were more than her hands; they were so much more to her…and here they were, each prepared to risk their life for Lucien and for Fell’s Church. At that moment, the door to the room opened. Klaus walked in, carrying a couple of brown paper bags in one hand.

“So everybody’s said bye-bye nicely?” he asked. He seemed to have trouble looking at either of the two visitors, so he stared particularly hard at Casie.

“Well—not really. Not as such,” Casie said. She wondered if Klaus was capable of throwing Meredith out a fifth-story window. Best to break it easily to him, by degrees….

“Because we’re going with you,” Meredith said, and Octiva said, “We forgot to pack, though.”

Casie slid quickly so that she was between Klaus and the others. But Klaus just stared at the floor.

“It’s a bad idea,” he said very softly. “A very, very, very bad idea.” “Klaus, don’t Influence them! Please!” Casie waved both hands at him in a gesture of urgency, and Klaus raised one of his hands in a gesture of negation—and somehow their hands brushed each other’s—and tangled. Electric shock. But a nice one, Casie thought—although she didn’t really have time to think it. She and Klaus were both trying desperately to get their hands back to themselves, but didn’t seem to be able to. Little shockwaves were running from Casie’s palm all through her body. Finally, the disentanglement worked and then they both turned, in guilty unison, to look at Octiva and Meredith, who were staring at them with enormous eyes. Suspicious eyes. Eyes that belonged in faces saying “Aha!

What have we here?”

There was a long moment when no one moved or spoke.

Then Klaus said seriously, “This isn’t some kind of pleasure trip. We’re going because there’s no other choice.”

“Not alone, you’re not,” Meredith said in a neutral tone. “If Casie goes, we all go.”

“We know it’s a bad place,” Octiva said, “but we are definitely going with you.”

“Besides, we have our own agenda,” Meredith added. “A way to cleanse

Fell’s Church of the harm Shinichi has done—and is still doing.” Klaus shook his head. “You don’t understand. You won’t like it,” he said tightly. He nodded at her mobile. “No electric power in there. Even owning one of those is a crime. And the punishment for just about any crime is torture and death.” He took a step toward her.

Meredith refused to back away, her dark gaze fixed on his.

“Look, you don’t even realize what you have to do just to get in,” Klaus said bleakly. “First, you need a vampire—and you’re lucky to have one. Then you’ll have to do all sorts of things you won’t like—” “If Casie can do it, we can do it,” Meredith interrupted quietly.

“I don’t want either of you to get hurt. I’m going in because it’s for Lucien,” Casie said hastily, speaking partly to her friends and partly to the innermost core of her being, which the shockwaves and pulses of electricity had reached at last. Such a strange, melting, throbbing sweetness for something that had started out as a shock. Such a fierce shock for simply touching another person’s hand….

Casie manged to tear her eyes away from Klaus’s face and tune back into the argument that was going on.

“You’re going in for Lucien, yes,” Meredith was saying to her, “and we’re going in with you.”

“I’m telling you, you won’t like it. You’ll live to regret it—if you live, that is,” Klaus was saying flatly, his expression dark.

Octiva simply gazed up at Klaus with her brown eyes wide and pleading in her small heart-shaped face. Her hands were clasped together at the

base of her throat. She looked like a picture on a Hallmark card, Casie thought. And those eyes were worth a thousand logical arguments. Finally, Klaus looked back at Casie. “You’re probably taking them to their deaths, you know. You, I could probably protect. But you and Lucien, and your two little teenage girlfriends…I can’t.”

Hearing it put that way was a shock. Casie hadn’t quite thought of it like that. But she could see the determined set of Meredith’s jaw and the way Octiva had gone up a little on her toes to try to look bigger.

“I think it’s already been decided,” she said quietly, aware that her voice shook.

There was a long moment as she stared into Klaus’s dark eyes, and then suddenly he flashed his 250-kilowatt smile at all of them, shut it off almost before it had begun, and said, “I see. Well, in that case, I have another errand. I may not be back for quite a while, so feel free to use the room—”

“Casie should come to our room,” Meredith said. “I have a lot of material to show her. And if we can’t take much with us, we’ll have to go over it all tonight—”

“Then let’s say we meet back here at dawn,” Klaus said. “We’ll set off for the Demon Gate from here. And remember—don’t bring money; it isn’t any good there. And this is not a vacation—but you’ll get that idea soon enough.”

With a graceful, ironic gesture, he handed Casie her bag.

“The Demon Gate?” Octiva said as they went to the elevator. Her voice shook.

“Hush,” said Meredith. “It’s only a name.”

Casie wished she didn’t know so well when Meredith was lying.

Casie checked the edges of the hotel room’s draperies for signs of dawn. Octiva was curled up, drowsing in a chair by the window. Casie and Meredith had been up all night, and now they were surrounded by scattered printouts, newspapers, and pictures from the Internet.

“It’s already spread beyond Fell’s Church,” Meredith explained, pointing to an article in one of the papers. “I don’t know if it’s following ley lines, or being controlled by Shinichi—or is just moving on its own, like any parasite.”

“Did you try to contact Alaric?”

Meredith glanced at Octiva’s sleeping figure. She spoke softly, “That’s the good news. I’d been trying to get him forever, and I finally managed. He’ll be arriving in Fell’s Church soon—he just has one more stop first.” Casie drew her breath in. “One more stop that’s more important than what’s going on in that town?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell Octiva about him coming. Or Matt either. I knew they wouldn’t understand. But—I’ll give you one guess as to what kind of legends he’s following up in the Far East.” Meredith fixed dark eyes on Casie’s.

“Not…it is, isn’t it? Kitsune?”

“Yes, and he’s going to a very ancient place where they were supposed to have destroyed the town—just as Fell’s Church is being destroyed. Nobody lives there now. That name—Unmei no Shima—means the Island of Doom. Maybe he’ll find something important about fox spirits there. He’s doing some kind of multicultural independent study with Sabrina Dell. She’s Alaric’s age, but she’s already a famous forensic anthropologist.” “And you’re not jealous?” Casie said awkwardly. Personal issues were difficult to talk about with Meredith. Asking her questions always felt like prying.

“Well.” Meredith tipped back her head. “It isn’t as if we have any formal engagement.”

“But you never told anybody about all this.”

Meredith lowered her head and gave Casie a quick look. “I have now,” she said.

For a moment the girls sat together in silence. Then Casie said quietly,

“The Shi no Shi, the kitsune, Isobel Saitou, Alaric and his Island of Doom —they may not have anything to do with each other. But if they do, I’m going to find out what it is.”

“And I’m going to help,” Meredith said simply. “But I had thought that after I graduated…”

Casie couldn’t stand it anymore. “Meredith, I promise, as soon as we get

Lucien back and the town calmed down, we’ll pin Alaric down with Plans A through Z,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed Meredith’s cheek. “That’s a velociraptor sisterhood oath, okay?”

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

“Well,” Casie 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,” Casie said. “Looks like the key’s got two wings, doesn’t it?” “Exactly what Octiva and I thought. And the ‘jewels’…well, take a close look.” Casie 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

Octiva and I want to do.”

“But how do you find it?” Casie asked, excited by the idea of controlling Shinichi and Misao. Meredith said, pronouncing the word “sah” like a sigh.