Elena checked the edges of the hotel room's draperies for signs of dawn. Bonnie was curled up, drowsing in a chair by the window. Elena and Meredith had been up all night, and now they were surrounded by scattered printouts, newspapers, and pictures from the Internet.
"It's already spread beyond Fell's Church," Meredith explained, pointing to an article in one of the papers. "I don't know if it's following ley lines, or being controlled by Shinichi - or is just moving on its own, like any parasite."
"Did you try to contact Alaric?"
Meredith glanced at Bonnie's sleeping figure. She spoke softly, "That's the good news. I'd been trying to get him forever, and I finally managed. He'll be arriving in Fell's Church soon - he just has one more stop first."
Elena drew her breath in. "One more stop that's more important than what's going on in that town?"
"That's why I didn't tell Bonnie about him coming. Or Matt either. I knew they wouldn't understand. But - I'll give you one guess as to what kind of legends he's following up in the Far East." Meredith fixed dark eyes on Elena's.
"Not...it is, isn't it? Kitsune?"
"Yes, and he's going to a very ancient place where they were supposed to have destroyed the town - just as Fell's Church is being destroyed. Nobody lives there now. That name - Unmei no Shima - means the Island of Doom. Maybe he'll find something important about fox spirits there. He's doing some kind of multicultural independent study with Sabrina Dell. She's Alaric's age, but she's already a famous forensic anthropologist."
"And you're not jealous?" Elena said awkwardly. Personal issues were difficult to talk about with Meredith. Asking her questions always felt like prying.
"Well." Meredith tipped back her head. "It isn't as if we have any formal engagement."
"But you never told anybody about all this."
Meredith lowered her head and gave Elena a quick look. "I have now," she said.
For a moment the girls sat together in silence. Then Elena said quietly, "The Shi no Shi, the kitsune, Isobel Saitou, Alaric and his Island of Doom - they may not have anything to do with each other. But if they do, I'm going to find out what it is."
"And I'm going to help," Meredith said simply. "But I had thought that after I graduated..."
Elena couldn't stand it anymore. "Meredith, I promise, as soon as we get Stefan back and the town calmed down, we'll pin Alaric down with Plans A through Z," she said. She leaned forward and kissed Meredith's cheek. "That's a velociraptor sisterhood oath, okay?"
Meredith blinked twice, swallowed once, and whispered, "Okay." Then, abruptly, she was her old efficient self again. "Thank you," she said. "But cleaning up the town might not be such an easy job. It's already heading toward mass chaos there."
"And Matt wanted to be in the middle of it all? Alone?" Elena asked.
"Like we said, he and Mrs. Flowers are a solid team," Meredith said quietly. "And it's what he's chosen."
"Well," Elena said drily, "he may turn out to have the better deal in the end, after all."
They went back to the scattered papers. Meredith picked up several pictures of kitsune guarding shrines in Japan.
"It says they're usually depicted with a 'jewel' or key." She held up a picture of a kitsune holding a key in its mouth at the main gate of the Fushimi Shrine.
"Aha," Elena said. "Looks like the key's got two wings, doesn't it?"
"Exactly what Bonnie and I thought. And the 'jewels'...well, take a close look." Elena did and her stomach lurched. Yes, they were like the "snow globe" orbs that Shinichi had used to create unbreakable traps in the Old Wood.
"We found they're called hoshi no tama," Meredith said. "And that translates to 'star balls.' Each kitsune puts a measure of their power into one, along with other things, and destroying the ball is one of the only ways to kill them. If you find a kitsune's star ball, you can control the kitsune. That's what Bonnie and I want to do."
"But how do you find it?" Elena asked, excited by the idea of controlling Shinichi and Misao.
"Sa..." Meredith said, pronouncing the word "sah" like a sigh. Then she gave one of her rare brilliant smiles. "In Japanese, that means: 'I wonder; hmm; wouldn't want to comment; my gosh, golly, I really couldn't say.' We could use a word like that in English."
Despite herself, Elena giggled.
"But, then, other stories say that kitsune can be killed by the Sin of Regret or by blessed weapons. I don't know what the Sin of Regret is, but - " She rummaged in her luggage, and came up with an old-fashioned but serviceable-looking revolver.
"Meredith!"
"It was my grandpa's - one of a pair. Matt's got the other one. They're loaded with bullets blessed by a priest."
"What priest would bless bullets, for God's sake?" Elena demanded.
Meredith's smile turned bleak. "One that's seen what's happening in Fell's Church. You remember how Caroline got Isobel Saitou possessed, and what Isobel did to herself?"
Elena nodded. "I remember," she said tautly.
"Well, do you remember how we told you that Obaasan - Grandma Saitou - used to be a shrine maiden? That's a Japanese priestess. She blessed the bullets for us, all right, and specifically for killing kitsune. You should have seen how spooky the ritual was. Bonnie almost fainted again."
"Do you know how Isobel is doing now?"
Meredith shook her dark head slowly. "Better but - I don't think she even knows about Jim yet. That's going to be very tough on her."
Elena tried to quell a shudder. There was nothing but tragedy in store for Isobel even when she got well. Jim Bryce, her boyfriend, had spent only one night with Caroline, but now had Lesch-Nye disease - or so the doctors said. In that same dreadful night that Isobel had pierced herself everywhere, and cut her tongue so that it forked, Jim, a handsome star basketball player, had eaten away his fingers and his lips. In Elena's opinion they were both possessed and their injuries were only more reasons why the kitsune twins had to be stopped.
"We'll do it," she said aloud, realizing for the first time that Meredith was holding her hand as if Elena were Bonnie. Elena managed a faint but determined smile for Meredith. "We'll get Stefan out and we'll stop Shinichi and Misao. We have to do it."
This time it was Meredith who nodded.
"There's more," she said at last. "You want to hear it?"
"I need to know everything."
"Well, every single source I checked agrees that kitsune possess girls and then lead boys to destruction. What kind of destruction depends on where you look. It can be as simple as appearing as a will-o'-the-wisp and leading you into a swamp or off a cliff, or as difficult as shapeshifting."
"Oh, yes," Elena said tightly. "I knew that from what happened to you and Bonnie. They can look exactly like someone."
"Yes, but always with some small flaw if you have the wits to notice it. They can never make a perfect replicate. But they can have up to nine tails, and the more tails they have, the better at everything they are."
"Nine? Terrific. We've never even seen a nine-tailed one."
"Well, we may get to yet. They're supposed to be able to cross over freely from one world to another. Oh, yes. And they're specifically in charge of the 'Kimon' Gate between dimensions. Want to guess what that translates to?"
Elena stared at her. "Oh, no."