of the pressure on the kitsune so the poor little fox could think, Damon, on the other hand, increased the pressure briefly, then released it back to the previous level.
"Is that better?" he asked solicitously. "Can the cute little foxie think now?"
You...bastard...
Angry as he was, Damon suddenly remembered the point of all this.
"What happened to Elena?Her trail runs out up against a tree. Is sheinside it? You have seconds left to live, now. Talk."
"Talk," seconded another voice, and Damon barely glanced up at Misao. He'd left her relatively unguarded and she'd found power and room to change into her human shape. He took it in instantaneously, dispassionately.
She was small-boned and petite, looking like any Japanese schoolgirl, except that her hair was just like her brother's - black tipped with red. The only difference was that the red in her hair was lighter and brighter - a truly brilliant scarlet. The bangs that fell into her eyes had blazing fiery tips, and so did the silky dark hair falling over her shoulders. It was striking but the only neurons that lit in Damon's mind in response were connected to fire and danger and deception.
She might have fallen into a trap,Shinichi managed.
A trap?Damon frowned.What kind of trap?
I'll take you to where you can look into them,Shinichi said evasively.
"And the fox can suddenly think again. But you know what? I don't think you're cute at all," Damon whispered, then dropped the kitsune on the ground. Shinichi-as-a-human fountained up, and Damon dropped the barrier just long enough to let the fox in human form try to take his head off with one punch. He leaned away from it easily, and returned it with a blow that knocked Shinichi back into the tree hard enough to bounce. Then, while the kitsune was still dazed and glassy-eyed, he picked him up, slung him over one shoulder, and started back to the car.
What about me?Misao was trying to curb furious and sound pathetic, but she really wasn't very good at it.
"You're not cute, either," Damon said, recklessly. He could get to like this super-Power thing. "But if you mean, when do you get out, it's when I get Elena back. Safe and healthy, with all her bits attached."
He left her cursing. He wanted to get Shinichi to wherever they had to go while the fox was still dazed and in pain.
Elena was counting. Go straight one, go straight two - untangle crutch from creeper, three, four, go straight five - it was definitely getting darker now, go straight six, caught by something in hair,yank , seven, eight, go straight - damn! A fallen tree. Too high to scramble over. She'd have to go around it. All right, to the right, one, two, three - a long tree - seven steps. Seven steps back - now,sharp right turn and keep walking. Much as you'd like to, you can't count any of those steps. So you're at nine. Straighten yourself because the tree was perpendicular - dear heaven, it's pitch dark now. Call that eleven and -
- she was flying. What had caused her crutch to slip, she didn't know, couldn't tell. It was too dark to go frisking around, maybe finding herself a case of poison oak. What she had to do was to think about things, to think so that this all-pervading hellish pain in her left leg would quiet down. It hadn't helped her right arm either - that instinctive windmilling, trying to catch something and save herself. God, that fall had hurt. The whole side of her body hurt so much -
But she had to get to civilization because she believed only civilization could help Matt.
You have to get up again, Elena.
I'mdoing it!
Now - she couldn't see anything, but she had a pretty good idea which way she'd been pointed when she'd fallen. And if she was wrong, she would hit the road and be able to backtrack.
Twelve, thirteen - she kept counting, kept talking to herself. When she reached twenty she felt relief and joy. Any minute now, she'd hit the driveway.
Any minute now, she'd hit it.
It was pitch black out, but she was careful to scuff the ground so she would know, the minute she hit it.
Any...minute...now...
When Elena reached forty she knew she was in trouble.
But where could she have gone so far wrong? Every time some small obstacle had made her turn right, she'd turned carefully left the next time. And there was that whole line of landmarks in her way, the