07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

shining as silver as her hair.
Matt and Meredith simultaneously closed the SUV’s doors. Matt left the engine running
for a quick getaway.
They walked around the garage so that they could see the front of the house. Meredith,
not caring what she looked like or whether she seemed cool or in control, wiped her hands, one and
then the other, on her jeans. This was the stave’s first—and possibly only—true battle. What counted
was not appearance, but performance.
Both she and Matt stopped dead when they saw the figure standing at the bottom of the
steps in front of the porch. It was no one they could identify from the house. But then the crimson lips
opened, the delicate hands flew up to cover them, and wind-chime laughter came from somewhere
behind the hands.
For a moment they could only stare, fascinated, at this woman who was dressed all in
black. She was fully as tall as Theo, fully as slender and graceful, and she was floating equally high
off the ground. But what Meredith and Matt were staring at was the fact that her hair was like Misao’s
or Shinichi’s—but reversed. Whereas they had black hair with a crimson fringe on the bottom, this
woman had crimson hair—yards and yards of it, with a black fringe all around it. Not only that, but
she had delicate black fox ears emerging from the crimson hair, and a long sleek crimson tail, tipped
with black.
“Obaasan?” Matt gasped in disbelief.
“Inari!” Meredith snapped.
The lovely creature didn’t even look at them. She was staring at Theo in contempt. “Tiny
witch of a tiny town,” she said. “You’ve used nearly all your Power just to stand up to my level. What
good are you?”
“I have very small Powers,” Theo agreed. “But if the town is worthless, why has it taken
you so long to destroy it? Why have you watched others try—or were they all your pawns, Inari?
Katherine, Klaus, poor young Tyler—were they your pawns, Kitsune Goddess?”
Inari laughed—still that chiming, girlish giggling, behind her fingers. “I don’t need
pawns! Shinichi and Misao are my bond-servants, as all kitsune are! If I have left them some freedom,
it has been so they can get experience. We’ll go on to larger cities now, and ravage them.”
“You have to take Fell’s Church first,” Theo said steadily. “And I won’t let you do that.”
“You still don’t understand, do you? You are a human, with almost no Power left! Mine
is the largest star ball in the worlds! I am a Goddess!”
Theo lowered her head, then lifted it to look Inari in the eyes. “Do you want to know
what I think the truth is, Inari?” she said. “I think that you have come to the end of a long, long, but not
immortal life. I think you have dwindled so that at last you need to use a great deal of Power from
your star ball—wherever it is—to appear this way. You are a very, very ancient woman and you have
been setting children against their own parents, and parents against children across the world because
you envy the children’s youth. You have even come to envy Shinichi and Misao, and let them be hurt,
as revenge.”
Matt and Meredith looked at each other with wide eyes. Inari was breathing rapidly, but
it seemed she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“You’ve even pretended to have entered a ‘second childhood’ to behave girlishly. But
none of it satisfies you, because the plain, sad truth is that you have come to the end of your long, long
lifetime—no matter how great your Power. We must all take that final journey, and it is your turn
now.”