Page 31 of Old Secrets

He snickered, shot his smuggest smirk my way, and headed for the door. “Not only am I going to ask you, I’m going to play at being a defenseless, injured wolf who couldn’t possibly do anything at all unless my vixen puts her teeth to good use.”

“James Thomas, you’re the worst!”

He smirked at me. “Only if you don’t bite me like you mean it, Karma.”

EIGHT

“Have I smelled this bad the whole time?”

A sad truth of the world smacked me in the nose.

Foxes reeked.

With wide eyes, I stared at my husband, horrified over the possibility I’d been torturing him and everyone around us with a rather pungent odor. How could anyone stand being in the same building with me, let alone the same room? Of all the obstacles we’d faced, would the natural funk of fox be what did us in?

“What’s wrong?”

Whimpering, I nodded my head at the hundreds of adorable foxes, all of them stinking to high heaven while charming us with their excitement and plush coats. “Have I smelled this bad the whole time?”

Jake’s shoulders shook, and he bowed his head. While he made a valiant effort, a choked laugh escaped him. “You don’t smell like a regular fox, Karma.”

I spent an inappropriate amount of time sniffing my arm in search of the scent markers, indicating I might have a severe stench problem. “Are you sure?”

While I struggled to determine if I’d been torturing everyone the whole time, Jake crouched to introduce himself to the many foxes scampering around. As the shrine tried to make sure they received an appropriate diet, he’d been given a bowl of meat, which he fed to the eager animals. Undeterred by the smell, he managed to pet a few of them, who basked in being shown a scrap of attention.

A few of the braver animals came up to me and stared up at me with adoring eyes. While the fox in me struggled to come to terms with the domesticated state of our mundane counterpart, I joined Jake in introducing myself to them.

“I am sure that you don’t smell like these foxes. You have a faint but pleasant musk that indicates there’s something fox about you, but it’s a pleasant undertone. For the most part, I get crisp apple from you, as does Amelia.”

Our friend was nearby, kitted and ready to serve as judge and jury for any Greenwich operators who might show up to rain on our parade. From the few signals I’d caught from the Inquisition members infesting the shrine, at least three of our targets had been spotted.

I left the identification for those qualified for the work and did my job, which involved pretending to be oblivious, thus the perfect bait. “I’m not going to be happy if I can’t identify who I need to shoot, Jake.”

“You’re going to be a fox starting within five minutes. Aiko just gave me the signal we should go explore the shrine and other buildings.” Jake finished feeding the animals and headed over to the building where the shrine’s attendants fed the furred residents. As planned, he went inside to be taken on a tour while I explored the actual shrine itself, which was dedicated to all things fox. A miko monitored the shrine, and once one of the witches outside signaled, she led me deeper inside the building under the guise of showing me a more private section of the building.

We were met by a woman with my face, and I doubted I’d ever adapt to having the equivalent of a twin. We considered each other with open scrutiny. Someone had done a good job of styling our hair to be the same; even if hers was longer, the bun would hide the extra length. As planned, we wore the same clothes, which added to the surreal nature of the meeting.

“When you shift, concentrate and focus on how you wish for stealth,” the woman instructed. “It will help you be small, like our natural kin. Your…” With a puzzled expression, she nodded in the direction of the auxiliary building I’d left Jake to tour as part of our ruse.

“Mate,” I supplied. “Wolves like him form bonds with their partner, who they call their mate.” As I’d finally learned how to identify the smell, I held out my arm. “If you sniff carefully, ignoring the predominant scents, you will smell something that is spicy, like cinnamon and hot chocolate. That’s my mate’s scent marker. Mine is a crisper smell, a little sweet, like an apple.”

While her expression remained puzzled, she sniffed at my arm. “Yes, I do smell it. A mild undertone, but present. The magic of it is strong and runs deep, however, like the roots of a tree or a mountain. As long as this pleases you, then it pleases me.”

“Why wouldn’t it please me?” Jake and I still had a long way to go, but we would get to where we were going eventually, step by painful step.

Assuming, of course, I didn’t stink us out of having a relationship.

“Some of us are born with those tendencies. I am not one of them, but your father is. He is a most annoying creature, often overcome with unbecoming amounts of sentiment. Still, he serves some use, so I keep him around. I also serve some use for him, so he keeps me around. You must have inherited his nature.”

Well, that would color things for me for a while. Without the possibility of her being my mother being broached yesterday, I would have struggled with the concept. Still, until I asked, I wouldn’t learn the truth. “Are you my mother?”

“I have that honor, although I have not yet earned being called such. This should begin the process of reversing past but necessary evils.” With her eyes narrowing, she gestured to an adjacent room blocked off with a shoji screen. “You will become your fox in there, and when you are finished, you will leave the shrine through a small flap. It is a den for some of the foxes and those who are in need of warmth and comfort in their old age. We are perceived to be protectors of the little ones, so they will not mind your passage. We will have time to discuss more. Your role is to observe and to understand us, myself and your father, better. This should be a simple enough working. They are only five.” Straightening, she offered the sort of smile I expected from a serial killer about to begin her hunt. “There will be time enough for talking soon enough. Your firearm, if you do not object to loaning it to me?”

I reached into my jacket, retrieved my Glock, and offered it to her. A thousand questions bothered me, but one stood out among the others, and would haunt me until I asked. “Was I stolen?”

She sighed, and she stowed my weapon in her holster, hiding it beneath the same coat I wore. “Yes and no. Our chance to keep you was stolen from us, but we sent you to safety because an opportunity allowed for us to do so. You had been born last, late and weak, and our enemies believed you would die of your own accord and did not slay you. The rest of your litter perished within a few hours of birth. As though knowing what your fate may be, you stayed within my womb as long as you could. It cost you, but you survived, somehow.”

That changed a lot, and having aspired to work in CARD for so long, I believed her. I’d heard her anguish in the voices of mothers struggling to cope with the loss of their child before. “They left me alive so you might watch me die?”