Other shadows moved beyond the windows. First one and then another solidified into dark silhouettes, limned with orange from the sun that streamed around them.
“What the hell is Kirata?” he demanded, staring at Frost.
The winter man dropped the corpse of La Dormette and rushed at Oliver, grabbing his arm, ice numbing him to the bone.
“Run!” Frost commanded.
The advice was unnecessary. Oliver was already moving. In his privileged life he had experienced terror only in nightmares, hurtling headlong down dream corridors, breathless and beyond reason. But this was no dream.
Frost released him and then the two of them were running side by side. Oliver hopped over a shattered, withered Red Cap. Kitsune flitted across his field of vision just ahead, and beyond her he saw that slightly open door, the one that had fascinated both of the Borderkind since they had entered the castle. He risked a glance back and saw the Hunters leaping through the windows. They landed heavily, skidding on the hard-packed sand, and then let momentum carry them on. Sprinting toward the door and leaping over the Hunters’ victims, he had only the briefest glimpses of them. Towering things, some on four legs and others on two, with massive shoulders and forearms. Shadows played across them and in the rush of his own flight and their pursuit it was difficult to make out their features, but they seemed to be cloaked much as Kitsune was, though their fur was a bright orange and black.
“Oliver!” the winter man shouted.
Too late.
He caught his foot on the papery corpse of a Sandman, boot crushing the husk even as he stumbled and fell to his knees. His heart clenched and he ceased breathing, certain that death was coming for him. With his free hand he pushed off the ground and he could feel it pounding with the stampede of the Kirata. The breeze brought a thick, animal stink and he nearly choked on the smell. As Oliver scrambled to his feet one of the things roared, a sound like the sky split with thunder, and the others joined in. He took a deep, terrible breath, filled with the aching, sorrowful certainty of his own death.
The steps to that open door beckoned, just ahead. Frost had stopped and now raced back toward him. Kitsune was on the stairs, hesitating. Oliver pistoned his legs, launching himself over another corpse and then throwing his entire body forward, sacrificing caution for speed. Off balance, he reached his arms out as though he might grab hold of something in front of him, some lifeline that could haul him from the grasp of the Kirata.
The winter man was fifteen feet away.
A Hunter slammed into him from behind, driving him to the ground. The heat and stink of the thing overwhelmed his senses. Utter, frenzied terror made Oliver twist and fight to escape the smothering weight of the beast. One heavy hand battered him, turning him onto his back, and then it slammed onto his chest, driving the breath from him, claws pricking his skin and drawing a trickle of warm blood.
Kirata. They did not wear robes. The fur was their own. From the name and the beast’s face he was sure the legend was Asian, but he had never heard it before. They had the heads and upper bodies of Bengal tigers, orange fur striped with black, but their lower bodies seemed almost human. The Kirata’s strength was terrible, and the vicious light in its eyes stole Oliver’s last vestiges of hope. Its black lips pulled back from long, gleaming fangs and it roared, buffeting his face with rancid breath.
He dug his bootheels into the floor, trying to escape the deadly weight of the thing. It roared again and raised its other paw, claws out. But its fangs had his attention. One of them was missing. He felt the smoothness of it in the palm of his hand.
Oliver let out a primal, guttural scream as he drove that fang into the throat of the Kirata. It roared in pain and twisted back and away from him, and then he was free. But the others were there, nine or ten of them, stalking toward him.
The winter man appeared at his side, shouting at him to stand. One of the Kirata lunged and Frost lashed out with his left hand, driving the icy daggers of his fingers into the monster’s abdomen, impaling him. The moisture in the tiger-man’s body froze, his eyes icing over and crystals forming on his fur. The Kirata fell to the sand, dead or dying.
Something leaped over Oliver from behind, a streak of fiery crimson. Scrabbling backward, afraid it was another Hunter, he jumped to his feet. His weapon still jutted from the throat of the first tiger-man and his hands clutched uselessly at the air. The thing that had jumped him crouched, seemed to brace itself there, and barked a warning at the advancing Kirata.
It was a fox. A single, ordinary fox.
When it glanced back at him, he recognized her jade eyes.
“Oliver, move! There isn’t enough moisture in the air for me to hold them off very long!” Frost shouted, even as he extended his frozen talons and raked the chest of the nearest Kirata. A frigid wind began to whip around them all.
Kitsune the fox darted past one of the tiger-men and sprang up, transforming in mid-leap to the exotic woman he had first encountered. Her red-fur hood flew back as she sank her teeth into the tiger’s neck and tore.
Oliver ran up the steps, momentum nearly causing him to fall again. He caught himself on a gritty railing of hard-packed sand and then he was at the top and the door was just a few feet away. It swayed in the winter wind Frost had crafted and the change in air pressure began to swing it closed.
“No!” he shouted, and lunged, hitting the door with both hands, banging it open wide.
Kitsune darted up beside him and wrapped her arms around him. He had crossed the threshold and she pulled him back. For just a moment Oliver resisted but then he let himself go, let her supple strength take him away from salvation.
She shifted so that she was beside him and she reached toward the doorway. The darkened corridor beyond wavered out of focus and Oliver squinted, unable to look directly at the flux in the air.
“Now we go,” Kitsune growled, and she propelled him through the door with her. There was a momentary feeling of resistance, like walking into water, and then they were through.
* * *
The town center was astonishing, like a thing from a postcard half a century old. Oliver felt as though he had stumbled into Bedford Falls, the little town from It’s a Wonderful Life. He and Kitsune had emerged in the middle of an enormous park in the middle of the snow-covered town. To one side was a picturesque train station with a genuine steam train puffing at the platform, awaiting passengers. To the other was a two-lane street with an old-fashioned movie palace, restaurants, a ski shop, a bakery, and a few clothing stores. Everywhere the trees were strung with a rainbow of Christmas lights that blinked warmly in the night. Giant wreaths were hung on each telephone pole along the street.
It was so utterly perfect a picture of Christmastime in New England that Oliver shook his head, not believing it. The little town square seemed even more unreal to him than the world beyond the Veil.
Shouts and laughter came to him through the trees and he caught sight of children playing in the park, hurling snowballs on the run and pelting them at one another. Beyond them, straight ahead, something yellow gleamed in the dark, low to the ground.
“Oliver. We should move on.”
Her voice sent a shudder through him. When he looked into Kitsune’s eyes he could only think of the fox he had seen. He would not even ask the question, for the answer was so obvious. Of course it was her. In the world of possibility he had discovered, it was the only reasonable answer. Her cloak was real fox fur, of course. Her fur, somehow. He remembered the press of her body against him as she had dragged him back from the doorway, forcing him to go through with her so that he would be able to make the border crossing, and the recollection of the feeling of her melded to him sent an electric tingle through his body. Her touch was sensual, even in the midst of danger. He wondered if it was part of the magic of her legend, or simply his reaction to her. Or perhaps—