"Wake up!" I screamed at her, even though I knew I wasn't going to be able to get through. If a disease ravaged goddess wanted to control Revel, there was literally nothing I would be able to do about it.
Stumbling back, I extended my tails and snapped off a ball of foxfire from the end of each one, gathering the magic in a circle around my head. As Revel came at me again, I lobbed the balls at her feet, hoping to trip her up enough that I might pin her down and somehow ... I don't know, fucking restrain her. Because I wasn't going to kill her, that much I was sure about.
I fired off four of the nine foxfire balls before I realized they weren't going to do shit. I was sure Revel was a real powerhouse herself, but with the goddess possessing her, she was insanity personified. Each bit of magic that crashed into her feet, she dodged as easily as she were on an obstacle course, dodging obstacles for fun.
The maniacal grin of her fox mask glared at me as she threw up three balls of her own foxfire using Revel's tails ... and launched them at Mikhail instead. He was hit in the chest and throw back yet again, but he recovered fast that time. With the front of his kimono burned, he threw himself at the mad goddess and ended up with Inari Okami herself standing in front of him.
She lifted her mass of tails and a shimmer flicked across the hair behind her, creating another invisible barrier between me and my boss.
Looked like she wanted me to take this fight on my own.
She's testing me, I thought as I narrowly missed a slice from Revel's katanas. Her red hair billowed out behind her as she spun and followed through with a vicious series of swipes, one of which managed to catch me on the check, spilling crimson droplets of blood into the air. They seemed to hold there for a moment, shimmering brightly before they spattered onto the front of my kimono.
All around us, pink cherry blossom petals swirled around, a river of flowers and sweet, sweet scent to accompany our fight by torchlight.
"What does she want from me?" I asked when I noticed Nix was watching. He'd essentially foisted off Sakura onto Mikhail; I could see them fighting in front of Inari, just off to my left.
"I haven't the slightest," he said, but even though he was sweating and wearing a massive amount of blood on his clothing, he didn't look concerned by the situation. "All I know is that Inari's lovers were infected by this disease, and she tasked me with getting rid of it. Beyond that, I can't say."
I heaved a sigh, circling Revel in my zori shoes, my katana held up and out, my magic boiling hot and wild inside of me.
Even though I knew it was risky, I decided to throw up an illusion, this massive mountain growing between us from the stone courtyard. As I'd thought, Revel ran straight through it and I ducked down, sending her flying over my head and rolling across the ground. She came up quick, but I was on my way to another illusion, this time blooming a large cherry tree in front of the possessed woman.
Once again, she went through the illusion, but I'd thrown a trip wire across its non-existent roots, a thread of magic that wrapped around Revel's body and lifted her straight up into the air. She slashed at the vines, cutting them loose, but as soon as she crashed back to the ground, I lifted my hand up, drew a sigil of binding and locked her in place with my magic. I hadn't had much of a chance to use it before the kitsune-tsukai had sealed my powers away, but holy fuck, was I strong.
It was said that with each tail a kitsune gained, their power increased by a thousandfold. Never had that felt more true than it did right then. At the same time, I was concerned about using my unbound tails. I could go mad; my magic could backfire on me. And yet, as I have fought, that didn't feel true.
It made me wonder ... were the kitsune-tsukai full of shit?
Tossing the katana in my right hand up, I caught the blade and then launched myself forward, using the hilt to hit Revel in the side of the head. If she hadn't been possessed, she'd have dropped; I knew exactly how to hit a bitch to knock her out. Instead, all I got was a split in the skin above her ear and a trickle of blood.
There was a reason the goddess had wanted Revel here, wasn't there? A miko was much easier to possess—and much more powerful when possessed—than a regular kitsune.
Throwing my weapons down, I grasped the sides of Revel's face while she was still bound in place, and thrust every ounce of magic I had into her. I couldn't see her expression because of the mask, but the scream she let out shattered my skull. I felt blood leaking out from both my fox and my human ears. Still, I held on, pushing magic into her until I felt Aika being thrust out.
The ethereal form of the goddess was much the same as the mutated Fox Father and the wolves I'd seen in the caves, twisted and unrecognizable from her true self. With a sob, Revel collapsed and I caught her, but just barely. When her knees hit the stone, Aika grasped her by a handful of red hair and yanked her away, pulling her from my arms.
The goddess' twisted face snarled at me, letting out a shriek that reminded me oddly of Ziff, trapped back at the bottom of the hill in the SUV. She slid right back into Revel's body before I could do a damn thing about it. This time, she was so fast that I wasn't even able to grab my swords before she was clamping her hand around my throat and squeezing.
Revel's beautiful red nails dug into my skin as I kicked out and hit her as hard as I could in the stomach. May as well have been kicking a brick wall for all the good it did. I clawed at her eyes, her arms, but I couldn't get the pressure to stop.
I was suffocating.
My last ditch effort was to shift into fox form.
Fortunately, I was able to slide through her hand and land on all fours.
"Thea!" Mikhail grabbed me by the tails and yanked me out of the way as Revel smashed her katanas into the stone where I'd been standing. He tucked me against his chest as Bennett threw out a punch that knocked Revel's head back so far, I was afraid he'd killed her.
"We can't leave her here!" I snarled as I shifted back and Mikhail began to drag me toward the steps again.
"We can, and we goddamn will," he said, throwing me over his shoulder. Bennett did nothing to stop him, and Nix was already waiting on the second step down. As Mik took off for the stairs, I saw five more gods approaching from the building in the back of the temple, making their way slowly but ominously toward us.
That made eight.
Eight of Inari's nine lovers, infected.
Fuck.
We didn't stand a chance.
As we went for the staircase this time, the goddess let us pass, her invisible barrier gone. But as we moved past her, she reached out and brushed her fingers along my tails, stealing my magic away yet again, cutting me off from it so abruptly that I almost passed out.
The last thing I saw as Mik took off down the stairs was Revel, her red hair billowing in the wind, the fox mask skewed on her beautiful face.
This is all my fault. I brought her to the US, brought her to the temple. It's my fault she's infected.
I knew then that I'd do whatever it took to save her.
Whatever it fucking took.
Even if it meant agreeing to the Earth's ridiculous demands so that I could get my magic back. Because if I came here without it, I wouldn't stand a chance. Hell, I didn't stand a chance now. Yet I knew I had to try. How could I leave Revel up here like this? If the disease didn't drive her mad, the possession eventually would. That was a fucking fact.
So.
If I had to marry Fin, I'd do it. Because I needed him back, and I needed to find Riot, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to accomplish the impossible without my magic.
Thea Hunt, the youngest kitsune to ever have nine tails, and I couldn't even use them.
I'd be damned if I was going to go down in history as a failure ... or a pushover.
For now, I'd agree to whatever the council wanted, but with a vampire, an alpha werewolf, and a skinwalker at my side, I sure as hell didn't think things had to stay that way.
If the kitsune-tsukai wanted a fight, they'd get one.
And I was going to kick their asses.
To Be Continued…