Vampires, Kitsune, Spiders, Oh My

She cried out, a sharp yelp of pain. My rage flared, and a single, angry shot from my pistol obliterated the creature's head, splattering us all with its remains, leaving its fanged jaws still clamped firmly in her leg.

Before we could even attend to her, a dry, rasping sound came from above. Two more of the widows, their forms nightmarish silhouettes against the high, vaulted ceiling, descended upon us. They spat thick, white ropes of webbing that instantly pinned my arms to my sides, Ashley suffering a similar fate. They dropped from their webs, pouncing, their many eyes gleaming with triumph.

The future, it seemed, had narrowed to a single point, and that point was Xiao Ru. But she was a statue carved from the twin materials of pain and hesitation. A strange impulse broke through my terror. I screamed, and the name I used was not hers, but a private, foolish sound I had invented for her in my thoughts, a name that had never before been burdened with the weight of being spoken aloud.

"Ruru!"

Her head snapped up. Her eyes went wide, and I felt, rather than saw, a sudden shift in the very air around her. The foolish, tender name had barely left my lips when the change occurred. I could hear her heart then, and its rhythm was that of a deep sea bell, struck once, its single, abyssal note sustaining itself indefinitely. The hesitation, the fear, the very girl I knew seemed to be burned away in an instant.

In her eyes, two small, captive auroras ignited, shimmering with a beautiful and wrathful light. Her movement was not so much swift as it was acausal; the luminous bow was simply not in her hand, and then it was, a solid thing coaxed from a rumor of light.

She drew and loosed, and a volley of arrows made of pure spectral fire erupted from her bowstring. They did not fly so much as they descended upon the pouncing widows, each a single, burning syllable of a word that meant no more. There was a sound like boiling oil, and the creatures, wreathed in golden flame, simply… melted, their chitinous forms dissolving into pools of steaming, vile sludge. Embers of this holy fire drifted down and touched the webs that bound us, which vanished into fine, white ash.

Freed from my bonds, I saw Ashley stumble away, her face a pale green. She coughed, a deep, shuddering retch, a shivering revulsion shaking her entire frame. I drew my pistol, the motion a useless, reflexive thing. It was not needed. Xiao Ru had become an engine of destruction, her movements a blur of terrifying grace. She loosed her arrows in trios, each set of three finding its mark, and with every release, three more of the horrors simply ceased to be.

In the space of a few heartbeats, the great hall fell silent, the chittering horde reduced to naught but smoking puddles on the stone. Only one remained: the shy creature from before, now frozen in absolute terror.

The furious light in her eyes was gently reabsorbed into her. She sighed and walked to me, her hand offered. As our hands touched, a silent and complex conversation took place. Our gazes met, and I saw the return of the gentle girl I knew. The sight caused a beautiful and dissonant chord to be struck within me—a sound composed of terror, wonder, and a deep, aching relief that stole the air from my lungs.

My gaze drifted to the last, trembling widow. I opened my mouth to begin an interrogation, to demand answers with what authority I had left. But Xiao Ru cut me off—she turned her head toward the creature, her expression now cold and commanding.

"Where are the children?" she asked, her voice quiet, yet carrying the burning anger of the flames she had just unleashed.

The creature hesitated, its eyes darting to the floor. But Xiao Ru's glare was a physical thing, a spear of pure will that seemed to pierce right through. The widow flinched, then slowly, fearfully, lifted one of its spindly forelegs and pointed toward a great, winding stairwell at the far end of the hall.

Xiao Ru nodded once. Ashley, who still looked ill, let out a shuddering sigh, her eyes never leaving the last, trembling widow as we gave it a wide berth. Together, we walked toward the stairs, into the next circle of this castle's private hell.

---

The castle's interior was a maddening jest, a serpent of stone eating its own tail. For what felt like an age, each winding stair and shadowed corridor led us only back to where we had begun. Exhaustion, a thin, cold wine, began to fill my limbs, and the will to press onward became a guttering candle flame. At last, we slumped against a stone wall in a corridor identical to the last, the air thick with our shared fatigue.

Ashley, with a tired grimace, produced her lacquered box and placed a single crimson bead upon her tongue. I, in turn, looked to Xiao Ru, who offered her hand without a word. I took her finger gently between my lips, the prick of my fangs a small and necessary secret, and drew from her a small measure of that sweet, living warmth.

I felt the life kindle within me, but as I drew back, a low rumble from Xiao Ru's stomach broke the stillness. A paleness had crept into her features, a delicate and alarming fragility. I released her hand at once. "What is it that you eat?" I asked, my voice a soft thing in the quiet hall, having not paid attention to what she had been snacking on during the case.

Her eyes took on a distant, dreaming look. "Berries," she sighed. "A feast of roasted meats glazed in the juice of wild berries, with sweet fruits piled high…"

A faint, sad smile touched my lips as I exhaled. I wished, with a strange and aching sincerity, that I could conjure such a meal for her. Her own meager rations were long gone, and my thoughts began to drift to the grim logistics of our return, of how we might even find our way out of this stone prison… out of the forest with the children. How would she manage?

“When we return, I shall provide you with the feast of feasts.” I felt compelled to say, and would undoubtedly make true, if only to see the serene look on her face again.

But before the thought could continue, a strange vibration touched my senses, a disharmonious hum in the air—something was coming.

My reaction was a pure, unthinking instinct. I threw my shoulder into Xiao Ru, sending us both tumbling to the floor. In the same instant, two slivers of dark metal, like silver fish leaping from the shadiness of murky earth, flew past where our throats had been and clattered against the far wall. Daggers.

Ashley was on her feet in a flash, her languor burned away by the sudden violence. With a snarl, she crushed another blood pill between her fangs, releasing a crimson powder that clung to her lips in a delicate and menacing patina. Her eyes, in turn, took on a new luminescence, that of two hungry embers fanned by a sudden breath, and with this new sight she began a slow and patient interrogation of the darkness from whence the attack had been born.

From the oppressive darkness at the corridor's end, they emerged with a sound like the slow, patient decay of a fresco, a dry, whispering slither of pigment turning to dust. From the waist upward, they were women, clad in silks the color of a chemical burn, a pink so garish it seemed to hum. This human portion, however, was merely the lure of a deep-sea anglerfish, for below, their bodies were the thick, muscular coils of great serpents. Two had hair like ordinary women, but the third, the largest, wore a crown that was a failed and restless alchemy, a writhing mass of living, hissing snakes, each one a separate, unresolved thought.

Xiao Ru's face went a bloodless white.

Ashley let out a low, incredulous scoff. "Spiders you find endearing," she muttered, "but you fear… snakes?"

I said nothing, my teeth grinding together with a grim anticipation as the creatures fanned out, their serpentine bodies forming a constricting circle around us. The largest lamia now underwent a slow, tectonic uplift, her human torso rising from her coils as the serpents of her hair began their own terrible song, a sound like hot oil being dripped onto a super-cooled surface, a frantic and chaotic sizzling.

"This," she sneered, her voice a rasping hiss, "is what the feyborne cower before? A pathetic little fox and her vampire escorts?"

A laugh erupted from her, a grating, obnoxious cackle that seemed to go on for an uncomfortably long time, bouncing off the stone walls. It was so prolonged that her two companions exchanged a brief, awkward glance, a look that clearly communicated, really?

In the moment she paused to draw another breath for her tirade, I raised my pistol.

The shot was a deafening crack that tore through her laughter. Her head, and the crown of snakes upon it, simply ceased to exist, replaced for a fleeting instant by a fine, red mist that painted the wall behind her.

A breathless hush fell, broken only by the soft thump of the leader's headless torso collapsing. Her two subordinates let out a tandem shriek of pure, abject terror. The smaller of the two dropped her dagger with a clatter and, with a speed I would not have thought possible, turned and slithered away into the darkness from whence she came.

The middle-sized one, however, simply froze, coiling in on herself in a posture of complete submission. She began to whimper, her voice a surprisingly light and airy thing, a child's plea from a monster's body.

I kept my pistol trained upon her, but I hesitated, my finger hovering over the trigger. Behind me, I felt a tremor. Xiao Ru had recoiled, taking a step back and clamping her hands onto my shoulders, hiding her face behind my back as a small, frightened noise escaped her throat.

I lowered my pistol, the scent of gunpowder a pointed acrid perfume in the stale air, and began a slow walk toward the cowering serpent. My advance was made awkward by the trembling fox who clung to my back… her claws digging in; her face buried between my shoulder blades. A series of small, pathetic whimpers, like those of a distressed fox cub, vibrated through me. I felt a faint heat rise in my cheeks at the intimacy of it, a sensation I did my best to dismiss.

I stopped before the creature, which looked up at me with a single, tear-filled eye, the other squeezed shut in terror. "Who are the feyborne?" I asked, my voice level. "And where are the children being held?"

Before the snake-woman, who was shivering so violently her scales made a sound like rustling leaves, could answer, a panicked shout came from behind my ear. "Snakes eat foxes!" Xiao Ru cried, her voice muffled by my coat.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Ashley staring at Xiao Ru with an expression of such pure, unadulterated dumbfoundedness it was a masterpiece of stupidity in its own right.

I tried to ignore it, turning my gaze back to the snake-woman. She gulped, her throat convulsing. "The feyborne…" she stammered, her airy voice trembling. "They are... witches—and then some. They have taken the fox children for a… a ritual… To summon a creature from another place…"

The words struck me like shards of ice, piercing through the fog of my new existence to the raw wound of my arrival. A ritual. To summon a creature. The images assaulted me, unbidden like broken glass: the chanting, the arcane symbols drawn in blood, the circle of robed figures… and Mary. God, Mary. Her face, pale with terror in the flickering candlelight as they prepared the sacrifice. My sacrifice. Where was she now? What had become of her? I was lost, adrift in the dark sea of my own past.

A crisp snap of fingers directly beside my ear shattered the memory like a gunshot. I flinched, my focus returning to the damp, torchlit corridor of the castle. Ashley was peering at my face, her own expression a mixture of annoyance and something that might have been concern. Just might.

"Detective? Are you all there?" she said, waving a hand before my eyes. "Makai to detective…"

The memory of my own violent birth into this world receded, leaving a warm coal in the pit of my stomach. I cleared my throat, the sound a dry rasp, and blinked the past from my eyes, rubbing my bottom lip. My gaze fell upon the cowering serpent.

"Where," I asked, my voice a near whisper, yet it held the edge of a blade, "are the children being held?"

The creature gulped, its voice a fearful tremor. "I… I can show you."