The Borderkind

CHAPTER 7

L ight snow fell on the tarmac at Bangor International Airport, the gentle cascade of white illuminated by the runway lights as the plane touched down. Sara Halliwell stared out the window, her forehead against the glass, and stared at nothing as the pilot taxied toward the terminal.

Everyone stood up before the seatbelt light was off. Sara stayed in her seat. Only when the door was open and people began to file along the aisle did she stand and retrieve her bag from the overhead compartment. It was smaller than a suitcase but larger than an overnight bag, and heavy. With the strap over one shoulder, she listed badly to one side.

She shuffled along the aisle, face slack, tired but all too awake. The flight attendants stood just outside the cockpit and smiled pleasantly as she got off the plane, then Sara was in the throng moving up the gangway into the terminal. People hurried by her. A crewman pushed an elderly black man in a wheelchair. She went around them, but neither of them glanced up.

Once upon a time, an eighteen-year-old Sara had driven into Canada to go skiing with her girlfriends. It was raining lightly, just spattering the windshield, but in the dark she had not realized it was freezing rain, and the highway had become a sheet of ice. Then something about the sound of the rain on the roof of the car troubled her and she frowned and gently tapped the brake.

She had crested the hill. As she did, she saw the brake lights flash on the car in front of her. It started to skid, sliding as if in slow motion down the other side of the hill. Ahead, cars collided, one after the other, first two, then five, and then there were at least nine vehicles careening into one another with a crash of metal, gliding so gently into their collisions.

Sara had not tapped the brake again, nor had she accelerated. Instead, she had steered, carefully, skirting around a slowly spinning car and weaving through the wreckage. Even as she made it through to the other side, a car came over the hill behind her going much too fast, and the resulting crash made a thump like a cannon shot into the air.

Yet Sara had slipped through, as though she had been invisible. Untouchable. She felt that way now. Moving up the gangway and into the airport, anonymous and invisible, she was untouchable.

But fate had already touched her, after all.

Fate had been Jackson Norris on the phone just after ten o’clock last night. Just hearing his voice she had caught her breath. A phone call from Jackson Norris could only mean the worst.

When she left the gate area and walked past security, he was there waiting for her. The man was fortysomething, but the raccoon-dark circles under his eyes made him look ten years older. Haggard and tired, he looked too thin and his hair was much grayer than the last time she had seen him, back in the spring.

Still, he managed a sad smile for her as she went to him.

“Hello, Sheriff.”

He held her at arm’s length, like a long-lost uncle who hadn’t seen her since childhood. “Sara. You look great, kid.” The sheriff took her bag and slung it over his own shoulder. “And I’ve told you before, you’re long since old enough to call me Jackson.”

“Not sure I’ll ever be old enough for that,” she said, and she kissed his cheek even as they began to walk through the airport.

The sheriff led the way, already fishing out his keys, though it was no short walk to the parking lot.

“How’s life treating you, kid?” he asked. “You still the glamour girl, taking pictures of all those pretty models in their underwear?”

Sara smiled. It was an old conversation. One they repeated over and over. “Still taking pictures,” she confirmed, though for the first time since she could remember, she was traveling without her camera. She felt bereft without it, and yet also weirdly free. “Though I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s not quite as exciting as you make it sound.”

When the sheriff chuckled, she saw the deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and the gray bristle on his chin. He’d skipped shaving today. That wasn’t like Jackson Norris at all.

“Because you’re a girl,” he said. “I don’t know how a man can take photos like that and keep his concentration on the job.”

“Good thing I don’t have that problem,” she said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm he would never understand.

They rode the elevator up to the parking garage in silence, both stewing, contemplating, worrying. Walking to the car-his Wessex County Sheriff’s Department official vehicle-the sheriff moved a little too fast, as though he wasn’t ready for the rest of their conversation. The real part. The unfamiliar, unrehearsed part. He put Sara’s bag in the trunk and went around to unlock her door like a true gentleman. He even held it open for her.

Sara only stood and looked at him. “Where’s my father, Jackson?”

He had been urging her to use his name for years. Now that she did, he flinched. The sheriff glanced away and let out a breath, then lifted his gaze to meet hers as though his head weighed a thousand pounds.

“I honestly don’t know. There isn’t any news, Sara. You know if there was, you’d be the first to know.”

“So this law firm hires him to go look for one of their lawyers in fucking England-a guy who maybe murdered his father-he goes missing, and all you can tell me is that there isn’t any news?”

Hysteria tinged her voice. She knew it, and hated it, but could do nothing about it. Once upon a time, Jackson would have chided her for her language. Tonight, he said not a word. Small town guy he might be, but he wasn’t stupid.

“We know he and Julianna Whitney, who was with him, chartered a boat to take them out to an island off the coast of Scotland. It was in the middle of a snowstorm, apparently. But your father and Ms. Whitney went ashore on the island. When they didn’t come back, the charter captain went looking for them, but there wasn’t a trace. There was a fire on the island. The people who live there won’t say how the fire started. None of them report having seen your father or Ms. Whitney. I’m not sure what else I can say.”

December wind breezed through the garage. Sara shivered and ought to have zipped her jacket, but it was as though someone else was feeling it, someone else was cold.

She leaned against the car and stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Sheriff, what was my dad doing moonlighting for some law firm? I know…I mean, I don’t see him much, but we talk. He never mentioned doing anything like that. Sheriff’s detective pays all right, doesn’t it? So what was he doing this for? Going to England? In his whole career, he’s never done anything like that. He’s a cop in Maine. That’s all he ever was or wanted to be. So here’s what you can do. You can tell me how it happened. How did he end up going there in the first place?”

For a long moment, Jackson Norris stared at her with those raccoon eyes and a twist to his mouth like he’d just eaten something sour. Then he left the door open and walked around to unlock the driver’s-side door. After he opened his door, he paused and stared at her over the roof, past the rack of blue emergency lights that were, for the moment, unlit.

“Politics, Sara.”

Incredulous, she stared at him. “What?”

“I owed the firm a big favor. A lot of favors. Chances are, I wouldn’t be sheriff if it hadn’t been for their support. They wanted to play this investigation a certain way-do it quietly, try to protect their image, all of that-and I played along. Oliver Bascombe is one of theirs. Nobody really thinks the guy killed his father, but chances are he knows who did, or why. So when they wanted help going and fetching the lawyer in London-”

“You loaned them my father,” Sara said quietly, stomach in knots.

“Not quite. They asked if I’d give him some time off, if I’d object to them giving him a freelance investigation job. I paved the way, Sara, but I couldn’t have ordered Ted to take the assignment. It’s not my jurisdiction. Bascombe and Cox offered him work, and he took it. Hell, kid, you know what he’s like when he wants to close a case.”

Sara tasted bitterness in her mouth. “Better than anyone.”

Her father was a good man, but he had never been a good father. Not when it mattered. The job had always come first. And now, here she was, taken away from her life and her work because the idea that something might have happened to him made her frantic. Because, despite the distance that they could somehow never bridge between them, she loved him desperately and had never known what to do about that.

She slid into her seat and closed the door.

Only the crackling of the police radio broke the silence as the sheriff drove them away from the airport. He wasn’t going to be getting many calls down in Bangor, but still he did not shut it off. Habit, Sara supposed.

How she had wished for someone to blame this on. It would be so convenient to be able to hate Jackson Norris for putting her through this, or even her father for making her think maybe they would never be able to solve the problem of the awkwardness between them.

But there was no one to blame. And nothing to do but wait, and ask questions, and hope.

The snow was falling outside, heavy flakes that drifted gently to the ground. The way the snow danced on the darkened highway ahead was mesmerizing. Sara watched it, and let herself be captivated. Taken away.

“What was that?” the sheriff asked.

Sara frowned. “Huh?”

“You said something. I didn’t catch it.”

For a second she did not know what he meant. Then she realized that she had spoken, almost unconsciously.

“He wanted me to come home for Christmas,” she said, watching the snow, looking at the holiday lights gleaming on evergreens and strung from buildings as they drove away from Bangor. Tomorrow night was Christmas Eve.

“Guess he got his wish.”

The wind was blowing from the west, or Kitsune would have caught the soldiers’ scent before it was too late. Later, she would wonder if there was more to that failure than merely the direction of the wind, if the confusing feelings that swirled in her heart had distracted her. But by then, such questions would be meaningless.

It took longer than Kitsune had expected for them to reach the Orient Road. Many years had passed since the last time she had passed this way, and even then it had been from an entirely different angle. In those old times, she had not even been aware that Twillig’s Gorge existed. That had been a hard journey, as she recalled, and it was a dark irony for her to learn now, so long after, that had she only traveled a few hours to the west she might have come upon that sanctuary.

But that was an old story from her life, and she did not want to dwell upon it.

More than three hours after they left the gorge, they had come to a sparse forest of ancient growth trees. Skirting its edge, they had passed a pond upon which sat the ramshackle remnants of a long-abandoned grist mill. A short way further they came upon a small house, a kind of way station from an age gone by.

Then, at last, the Orient Road.

Kitsune had journeyed the length of that road more than once. To the southwest, it led toward Perinthia. To the east, all the way into the furthest regions of Euphrasia, into the deepest and oldest parts of the world beyond the Veil. That was where her home lay, the forest where she had been born, far back in the mists of time and the ancestral memory of an entire region.

But Kitsune had not passed through that forest in two hundred years and had no desire to return. All that waited there for her was the bitter, aching memory of a more vivid, more vital time and a life full of passion and playfulness. Another age.

The present was a pale shadow of the past, but it required her attention. When the sorcerers had created the Veil, they had done so to protect the purity of the legendary worlds. Kitsune believed they had failed. It was not a pleasant thought. Indeed, these recent days it had been only the presence of Oliver at her side that lightened her heart. He was a good man, smart and strong and simple. Despite his harsh opinion of himself, there was nobility in him that was becoming more and more difficult to find amongst the legendary.

In the shadow of the tall pines, she glanced at Oliver. She knew that he was devoted to another, but Kitsune desired him. It troubled her, that desire, for she did not understand it. For a human, Oliver was brave enough, and he was charming and full of heart, but he was still ordinary. Kitsune could not make sense of what she felt for him, but that did not lessen its power.

He longed for Julianna, the woman he would have made his wife. But she was a world away, and he might never see her again. In time, his devotion to her would lessen.

Kitsune could wait.

As they passed the dusty way station, whose roof had been staved in by a fallen pine, Kitsune spared a thought for Frost and Blue Jay, and all of her kin. Part of her longed to be with them, to search for answers and vengeance in Yucatazca. But that was not to be.

She cast another glance at Oliver. He sensed her regard and looked over, one eyebrow raised. A ripple of pleasure went through her and she smiled at him. Oliver smiled back, puzzled. If he thought her enigmatic, Kitsune did not mind.

“We go east from here,” she said.

Kitsune did not recall how far it was, precisely, to the stone circle where she could enter the Winding Way. For his part, Oliver did not ask, so she said nothing. It seemed more likely to her that they would be on this road all the way to the Sandman’s castle in the eastern mountains, and that was ten or twelve days’ walk on human feet. With nothing by way of provisions, they would have to forage or rely on the kindness of strangers. There were towns along the way, but with the Hunters after Borderkind, and the warrant sworn out for Oliver, they would have to be very careful indeed.

These were her thoughts as they turned east on the Orient Road and set off. The old forest grew denser the further east they went, and the hard-packed earth of the road was overrun in places with grass and weeds. The Lost Ones traveled only when they first crossed through the Veil. Once they had settled, they tended to remain settled, and their offspring rarely left the places of their birth. The legendary traveled more frequently, but usually only moving amongst the larger cities of the Two Kingdoms. Farmers took their harvest to market, tax collectors gathered tithes to the monarchs, but other than those, few ventured beyond their own borders.

The road was quiet.

“It’s peaceful here,” Oliver said, as the breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, whose shade kept most of the day’s heat from them.

“Most of this world is peaceful,” Kitsune replied. “It’s only those few fools who are desperate to draw blood that ruin it for the rest of us.”

Oliver glanced at her, no trace of humor on his face. His brow furrowed. “Yeah. It’s pretty much the same way in my world.”

“I know. Legends mirror the human world far more than anyone here wishes to admit.”

The hush of the wind accompanied them. Dust devils eddied up on the road. Deep in the woods, creatures skittered through the underbrush. A bird began to sing, and others replied.

Ahead there was a bend in the road, but Kitsune could hear the trickling of a brook. As they approached, she saw a stone bridge that spanned the little brook, and beyond that there was a weathered old house that looked as though it had been uninhabited for years.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Kitsune to catch Oliver’s hand in her own, twining fingers together like any couple out for a stroll in the country. For a moment, he left his hand there, warm in hers, and it was pure contentment.

Then Kitsune’s ears pricked forward. She frowned, breathed in the scents on the air, and turned back the way they’d come.

“What is it?” Oliver asked, breaking away from her.

“Hoofbeats. One rider, coming fast.”

“What do we do?”

Kitsune glanced around. “The bridge.”

They ran. The sound of the brook grew louder, but it was a gentle burble quickly lost in the thunder of approaching hooves.

Kitsune and Oliver reached the little bridge but did not cross. They ran beside it and down a small incline to where a swift, shallow brook rolled over gray and black stones that glistened wetly. There were far too many people, legendary and Lost, hunting them now. Better to just let the rider pass than risk being identified and having their position given away.

Her hood was back and her cloak floated behind her as she ran. Oliver thumped down into the brook, water splashing his heavy boots, and they ducked into the damp, shady hideaway underneath. Oliver’s breath came fast and his exhilaration was contagious. Kitsune looked at him and felt desire overcoming her. The rugged stubble on his face and the flush of his skin made him seem wild, for a human, and his blue eyes were alight.

Hooves hammered the road, not far off now.

“You there!” a voice boomed across the brook. “Identify yourselves!”

Oliver flinched and Kitsune spun, dropping into a lower crouch, fingers hooked into claws.

On the other side of the brook, in amongst the trees, several Euphrasian soldiers moved toward them. Kitsune counted five, then a sixth appeared from the woods, hitching up his pants as though he’d just relieved himself. Four of them hung back a bit, studying them with curious bemusement, but the two at the front, both officers from the insignia on their chest plates, were gravely serious. Some kind of patrol, she presumed, though what they were doing out here in the middle of nowhere, and on foot, she could not imagine.

Kitsune glanced back to the west and saw the rider approaching. The horse galloped toward the bridge, perhaps a hundred yards away. He had no chest plate, nor a helm, but he wore a band tied around his right arm that fluttered in the wind: green and yellow, the colors of King Hunyadi.

“Come out of there! Show yourselves, now, and answer the question,” snapped the nearest of the officers. He stepped into the brook and the metal sang as he drew his sword.

“What are you, Clegg, a fool? You can see it’s him,” snapped the other officer, older and more stout than the first. His beard was gray, but his eyes were bright with vigor.

Kitsune stood and stepped, rigid as a queen, from beneath the bridge. “Captain Clegg, is it?” she said, and her tone gave both men pause. “Are you in the habit of waylaying travelers like highwaymen and brigands?”

Clegg took a step nearer. The sun gleamed on his silver helm and on his blade. “Your name, miss. And that of your companion.”

“Damn it, Clegg-” began the other officer.

“Shut your gob, Sergeant Matthias!” Clegg snapped, but he did not turn his attention away from the travelers. He was wary, this one, though not as canny as the sergeant.

“I am Kitsune,” she said, and then she stepped aside, giving them their first full view of Oliver. He came out from under the bridge and stood to his full height, and they could see the scabbard that hung from his belt, and the insignia upon it that matched the one on their chest plates.

“As for my companion, as you can see, he bears the Sword of Hunyadi himself. Now you shall sheathe your blade, or his will be drawn.”

The rider was twenty-five yards from the bridge.

Clegg stepped nearer still, the water washing over his boots. He raised the tip of his sword and pointed it at Oliver. “Your name, sir!”

“Captain, you’ve seen the sketch. It’s him,” Sergeant Matthias shouted. “It’s the Intruder!”

With a roar of frustration, Clegg rounded on the sergeant. “That’s enough of you. There are protocols to be-”

Kitsune glanced at Oliver, the thrill of mischief rising up in her, no different from the arousal that burned in her. The situation was dire, but danger was delicious.

“Fight,” she whispered.

Then she lunged at Clegg, copper fur cloak floating behind her on the air as she practically flew across the space that separated them. Even as he turned, she grabbed his wrist, turned the point of his sword toward him and plunged the blade into his chest with such ferocity that his arm broke in several places.

He fell onto his knees in the brook, and blood pooled in the water.

Kitsune kept moving. With less than a thought, she transformed into a fox, splashing across the brook and barking. The soldiers beyond Matthias were shouting to one another in a panic, drawing swords, one of them rushing back into the trees.

“Come, then, myth!” Matthias called. “Traitor!”

She darted forward, his sword came down, and the fox leaped aside. The blade thudded into the dirt, and Kitsune snapped her jaws down on his wrist, fangs sinking into flesh. Matthias cried out and released his weapon, and then Kitsune was past him, running for the others.

The horse and rider reached the bridge, the clop of hooves on stone echoing off the woods and the water. But the horse neighed loudly as the rider-a messenger for Hunyadi, if his armband was genuine-drew back on the reins.

The messenger began to shout at the soldiers.

Kitsune glanced back. Sergeant Matthias was reaching for his sword, scrabbling on the bank of the brook. Oliver wielded the Sword of Hunyadi, pointing it at him as he approached.

“Stand and surrender,” Oliver said loudly.

The fox growled as two of the soldiers rushed toward her. One carried a sword and the other a pike. He wielded it with the expertise of a master, and she hesitated a moment, then raced around the swordsman, putting him between herself and the man with the pike.

The swordsman swung.

Kitsune leaped at him, jaws closing on his crotch. Blood spurted from his soft parts into her mouth and he screamed shrilly. The other soldiers all shouted furiously, and that brought them running. There was no longer any hesitation. If confusion or wariness had held them back before, it was gone now.

The man with the pike kicked the screaming man out of the way, and he fell to the ground, hands clutched over his bleeding, mutilated groin. The pike waved before Kitsune, the blade feinting toward her again and again, and she realized he was only buying time for his fellow soldiers to reach her.

She transformed again, becoming human in the space between heartbeats. Her cloak blossomed around her, black hair falling across her face in a curtain as she moved.

Kitsune grabbed the pike even as he thrust it at her. With the strength of her kin, she snatched it from his hands. The soldier backed up quickly, stumbling and nearly falling.

Behind her she heard a shout, and turned to see Matthias splashing mud and water at Oliver’s face. Oliver took a step back, and twisted so that it spattered only his left cheek. And as Matthias roared and jumped at him, Oliver sidestepped and drove the blade right through the sergeant’s exposed throat. Metal covered the soldiers’ upper torsos and heads, but their throats were bare.

Matthias could not even scream.

The horse neighed again and reared up, front hooves waving in the air. But the messenger was clearly an expert horseman and held on easily.

“Murderous bastard!” the messenger shouted. “You’ll face the gallows for that.”

Kitsune heard Oliver laugh.

Then a chorus of shouts was raised and she turned to see the other soldiers running toward her. But instead of the few she expected, there were more. They began to stream from the woods, where they had been encamped. She had thought it a small foot patrol, but this was an entire detachment of soldiers, several dozen at least.

She swore in ancient Japanese.

“Kitsune!” Oliver called. “This way!”

Breathless, she turned to see him charging at the messenger and his mount. The man snapped the reins and the horse snorted and turned, began to run eastward on the road. But Oliver was faster. He grabbed the horse’s bridle with his left hand, sword still brandished in his right.

The animal slowed, chuffing, shaking its head, but Oliver held on. The messenger shouted at him, tried to kick him, and drew his own sword. That was his downfall. He ought to have just tried to spur the horse on. He was a messenger, not a soldier.

Oliver parried the blow and jabbed him in the arm.

The sword fell to the ground. Oliver let go of the bridle and took hold of the messenger, hauling him from the saddle.

Kitsune fled, the soldiers charging after her. As she ran toward him, Oliver mounted the horse. The messenger began to rise, shouting in protest. Kitsune grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged him to the ground. He tried to fight, but she struck him in the kidneys and all the fight drained from him. She untied the king’s colors from his arm and took the standard with her as she raced to the horse and leaped up behind Oliver.

“You’re getting quite good at this,” she said.

“At what, staying alive?”

There was no humor in his face as he kicked the beast’s flanks. The horse began to gallop away from the bridge and the soldiers. Some of the men tried to pursue them on foot, but fell back after only seconds, realizing they had no chance to catch the fugitives.

Two miles further along the road, with no sign of pursuit and without encountering any more troops, Oliver let the horse slow to a canter. Kitsune held on, arms wrapped around him from behind, and enjoyed the closeness.

“That was interesting,” he said dryly.

“My life has been nothing but since I first encountered you.”

“Funny. I could say the same.”

Kitsune laughed softly, but only for a moment. As they swayed on horseback, she became aware of the heavy leather saddlebags that hung on either side of the beast. She reached over and undid the buckle on the left one, plunging her fingers in and withdrawing a small packet of letters, bound with red string, each with a seal of green wax and stamped with the insignia of the king of Euphrasia.

Her heart fluttered. Quickly she untied the string and, clutching the letters against her chest, opened the first one. The greeting alone was all that she had to read.

“Oliver,” she said, her voice a rasp.

“Are you all right?” She had let go of him and now he turned slightly in the saddle.

“Quite a bit more than all right. That messenger was in service to King Hunyadi.”

“Hold on, Kit. I want to put more distance between us and those soldiers. It’s their service to the king that concerns me most at the moment.”

“You’re not thinking. Don’t you want to know what a messenger for the king was doing all the way out here, three days’ ride northwest of Perinthia?”

Oliver pulled on the reins. Now he turned round in the saddle as far as he could and studied her face. “What are you saying?”

“These letters are addressed to His Majesty John Hunyadi, King of Euphrasia, at his Summer Residence at Otranto.”

“So he’s on vacation. So what?”

Kitsune purred low in her chest and grinned. “So, foolish man, Otranto is less than a day’s ride from here. We could be there by morning.”

“But Collette-”

“Get a pardon from the king, and our journey to the Sandman’s eastern castle will be far swifter, far easier. The Hunters still will pursue me, but you will be free to do what must be done to rescue your sister, and halfway to eliminating the death warrant that’s been sworn against you besides.”

Oliver took a deep breath, contemplating. “But what about the Dustman? And how will I get in to see the king?”

“Far easier here than in Perinthia, I would wager. You cannot pass up this opportunity, Oliver. The Sandman will not kill Collette as long as you’re alive; we have established that. We must go to Otranto.”

“And if the king just orders me captured and executed?”

“You will have to convince him otherwise.”

Oliver shook his head, but then looked at her. “All right, which way?”

“Stay on the Orient Road. I’ll guide you,” she said, and as she did, she tied Hunyadi’s standard around his bicep. Oliver was not dressed like a messenger, but they carried letters to the king.

She put them back in the saddlebag and buckled it. Perhaps they might survive another day after all.

Kitsune did not like to think further ahead than that. In particular, she did not want to think overmuch about what would happen when they faced the Sandman.

“Ride, Oliver,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face against his back. “Ride.”