Seven

Kuro

"Looks like we'll make it home before dawn," Kuro said.

"Yeah, let me just walk this guy to someplace safe," Joe responded through their earbuds.

"Haven House is just a couple blocks away," Kuro offered.

It was a halfway house that took in humans who were struggling to build a foundation for themselves, stone by stone, upon which they could build a new life. The key was that Haven House chose humans who were still persevering. They didn't take in those who had given up and were just grabbing opportunities, only to slide back into despair.

Kuro and Joe made sure to know where the shelters and halfway houses were in the city. They'd had no choice but to stay in those places in harder times, when even their pooled resources weren't enough to give them shelter and food.

And as a bonus, some of the worst examples of humankind lurked around the homeless, preying on their own kind. When Kuro or Joe needed sustenance and didn't have time to be subtle, those were targets they could take that no one would miss if one of them lost control.

Haven House seemed fairly new, established in the last couple of years. They also were open at the oddest hours. It would be a good place to drop this man, as safe as they could manage, at least.

"Hopefully, they take newcomers this late," Joe grunted.

"I've got a hunch they do," Kuro responded.

"I'll take your hunches over another person's facts anytime."

Kuro watched Joe leave his prey slumped against a dumpster in the alleyway just below. The mugger had been Joe's third, after a night of club and bar hopping. On the other side of the dumpster was the man's victim, a young man barely old enough to buy his own alcohol. The guy—boy, really—had been slurring his words and unsteady on his feet when the mugger had jerked him into the alleyway and started to divest him of his wallet and valuables. The attacker hadn't been gentle about it, pausing to get in an extra nasty kick here and there.

Joe had intervened and fed off the attacker. At that point, Kuro only had to remind Joe to stop because of temper rather than hunger. It was a good thing Kuro had been up on the rooftop, where distance had helped him keep a leash on his own temper.

"The two of you really do work well together."

Kuro spun around to face the speaker. The stranger stood in the shelter of the rooftop structure that gave access from the stairwell up to the top of the building. The night seemed to deepen around the figure, swallowing light from the surrounding buildings and streets in an unnatural way. The man had the presence of mind to be standing downwind too, so Kuro couldn't even catch his scent.

Whoever it was, they weren't an average human or Kuro would have noticed his presence earlier. Magic was in play, wrapping the user in shadows to avoid detection, at least until Kuro knew they were there. Now that he was aware of them, he could see through the magic to the person hiding behind the illusion.

Vampires had a similar ability, but this man was breathing and had a healthy flush to his complexion. Besides, most of the vampires Kuro encountered seemed to have taken on an otherworldly attractiveness, while this man was, honestly, overwhelmingly average.

Werewolves didn't tend to bother wrapping themselves in magic to hide. Their pack magic helped a hunt go unnoticed too close to populated areas, but as a fox spirit, Kuro had enough wildness to sense when pack magic flowed through an area.

The man could be fae. There were so many kinds out there, there were most likely some that used shadows this way. But Kuro was pretty sure that any fae with the attitude this man was projecting would've glamoured their outward appearance to be somewhat more remarkable than this, and not so…basic.

Kuro tipped his head and considered. No crow feathers or raccoon tail. This man wasn't likely to be a tengu or tanuki. He was regrettably not as familiar with South or Southeast Asian supernaturals. He and Joe hadn't run into many in their travels around the United States. If this man was from another continent, Kuro had no idea what kind of supernatural he was.

And he was taking too long thinking about all of this. He shook his head, trying to focus his thoughts. There had to be something wrong. He normally removed himself from a potentially dangerous situation, then considered the possibilities. Was there a spell in progress?

Kuro let a growl roll up from his chest, his upper lip lifting to show a hint of teeth.

"Don't shoot the messenger." The man held his hands out to the sides. "I'm just here to give you a message from Babel."

Kuro guessed the man was speaking metaphorically. It wasn't likely he knew that Kuro was carrying a firearm loaded with silver bullets. It was equally unlikely the man knew Kuro was also armed with a steel knife and a pair of wooden chopsticks that would do in an emergency. It was always wise to be prepared for the usual supernatural suspects. Or maybe the man did know exactly who and what Kuro was, and it still didn't matter.

"What's the message?" Kuro asked.

"Our mutual employer simply wanted me to remind you and your partner that you need to make amends for the contract that was broken earlier this year," the man said lightly, as if the message he was passing on was of no particular consequence.

"We have every intention of making up for our perceived breach of contract." Kuro wasn't going to actually confirm that either he or Joe were in breach of contract.

There was a little wiggle room for interpretation. Better that it was referred to as claimed by Babel and the people who had drawn up the contract. The moment he and Joe stated they were in breach of contract was the moment Babel could own their lives.

"You are a smart one, Yamamoto Kuro." The man chuckled. "Nine-tailed. Kitsune."

Alarm shot through Kuro. None of those was his true name, but they had been ways to call him for long enough that the three of them used together had a measure of power. The other man began muttering too low for Kuro to hear, and adrenaline kicked in, clearing the remains of whatever spell had messed with his thoughts earlier.

Witch .

Kuro threw himself to one side, desperately hoping to dodge whatever new spell was coming his way. He was too far from the edge of the building to jump off the roof, and having been named three times, attempting to evade the spell was probably futile. But he had to try.

He felt the spell wrap around him, even if he couldn't quite see it. It smelled of sour sweat and carried the tang of spilled blood. It was a spell wrought with power gained through fear and pain. It coiled and twisted around him, slipping over his form as he struggled against it, drawing tighter and tighter around him.

Kuro rolled on the rooftop surface, struggling to regain his feet. Fighting to breathe.

The naming hadn't been completely accurate, that was why it wasn't taking hold immediately. The witch would've had to invoke Kuro's true name three times for that. Kuro struggled, releasing a measure of his own power in a burst, trying to break free.

It might've worked—the magic loosened briefly—but the witch pointed a finger at Kuro and a fresh onslaught of magic wrapped around him, reinforcing the spell. It tightened around him again as he stumbled toward the edge of the roof, his senses jangling with the beginnings of panic.

He was kitsune, a kind of yōkai, a supernatural of Japanese descent. One of his forms was a fox, and his power was such that he had not one, not three, but nine tails. At some point in his life, Kuro had gone by those three names for long enough to give the naming enough of a hold on him to be dangerous if it was backed by sufficient power. And there was a terrible amount of power behind this spell casting.

Kuro opened his mouth to cry out at the pain of the spell contracting around him, his skin burning and his joints grinding. No sound made it out as the spell stole the air from his lungs.

Apparently, Babel had felt it was worth supplying this witch with the number of victims needed to cast a spell on a nine-tailed kitsune and make it stick. That would have been a lot of torturous murders. Kuro crouched low, struggling to take action. Even if he managed to throw himself over the side of the building, the spell would follow him.

The man laughed again. This time the sound rolled across the rooftop, a grating laugh full of malicious intent. The spell constricted Kuro from every direction until he felt compressed, forced to lie on his side and curl up into a ball. It went further than that, applying searing pressure to every square centimeter of his skin, like he was being forced into a mold too small for him.

It was more than physically painful. The spell hooked into his spirit with a hundred thousand tiny piercing pinpoints and burned the edges of his being until he couldn't even pant anymore, barely able to hold onto consciousness. Footsteps approached. Kuro didn't have the energy to lift his head and watch his attacker come near. He could only open his eyes and look up, way up, at the man standing over him.

"It took a lot of sacrifices to gather the power for this spell, fox demon," the pain witch said. There wasn't a hint of regret in his statement, only that pleasant, matter-of-fact tone. "Babel was willing to pay a bundle to send this message to you and your partner. I'm interested in how this will change your dynamic. That oh-so-efficient coordination between the two of you. Remember that mistakes made have unpredictable consequences."

The man walked away as Kuro stared up at the night sky. The cold breeze ruffled his fur. He'd returned to his fox form, been forced back into it, like he'd been stuffed inside his own body. His magic wasn't responding to his demands to change shape back to his human form. Hell, his body wasn't responding to his order to stand on his own four paws. He was lying there, vulnerable. Too exhausted to move. And the pain witch was getting away.

A metal door was pulled open with a creak, the door to the stairwell.

"You know," the witch called, "I honestly thought a nine-tailed fox would be a bigger adversary."

Rage flared in Kuro's chest, searing through him as his own magic shoved against the bindings of the spell the pain witch had cast on him. If Kuro hadn't already been bound, his power would have been enough to destroy his attacker and the entire rooftop with him. But he'd been overconfident, stupid.

It burned. The admission, his power confined within the witch's spell—everything burned until the backlash of it seared through every fiber of his physical body. Even the individual hairs of his fur coat hurt.

He was helpless, and he hated it.