Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games by Marion G. Harmon Read Free Book Online

follow so far?”
     
    I nodded slowly, not at all sure I really did but hoping it would make sense.
     
    “Shinto is an animistic religion—Shintoists believe that all things in the world have spirits, kami. The only real difference between the kami in a rock, a person, and even a god, is its degree of power and awareness. Objects in which kami are more than normally aware are considered sacred and made the center of shrines. Trees certainly have their own kami, even here, and in the High Plane of Heaven they are almost certainly as or more aware than we are.”
     
    “So when you said I’d ‘come to the attention’—”
     
    “Yep. You said you haven’t seen Kitsune there since whatever happened that you can’t tell me about, but the tree is always there. I think it likes your company, so it’s talking to you. When you sleep, your awareness of the physical plane fades and it’s able to get your attention.”
     
    “So Hope’s being haunted by a tree ?”
     
    Big bad Grendel and been-there-killed-that Riptide looked almost as freaked as Shell; how were they supposed to protect me from an otherworldly tree ? Despite everything I had to laugh. “Don’t worry Shell, you’ve got dibs. So, does that mean that I’ll just keep dreaming about it? That’s not so bad.”
     
    He put the orange down. “Maybe. Orb, what did you see?”
     
    She’d been so quiet I’d almost forgotten she was there; now she gave me a look which of course I couldn’t read under the mask of her hair.
     
    “You went away, Astra. Physically. For less than a second, a hundredth of a second, when the cherry blossoms appeared. You brought them back with you.”
     

 

     

Chapter Five
     
    “Unless you’re stopping a supervillain In-the-Commission-Of you need papers and a judge to hunt down and bring in the Bad Guy. Work without it and you’re just a super-vigilante and part of the problem. Not glamorous, I know, but nobody remotely sane would have it any other way.”
     
    Astra, Hillwood Graduation Guest Speech.
     
    ----
     
    “When did my life become a fairytale? Because you know, I really should have noticed.”
     
    I’d waited to whine until we got ourselves settled at Restormel. The Hollywood Knights were filming their next movie in Hawaii, but Rook had offered the hospitality of their headquarters while we were in LA. Since Ozma had decided to stay at Lunettes and consult with Doctor Cornelius, I had flown the rest of us and the lift pod to the tower.
     
    “Fairytale?” Riptide opened the fridge in the en suite entertainment and conference area and whistled. Plopping down into the biggest lounge chair, I refused to be cheered by the stocked bar or the beautiful view from the tower’s bay windows.
     
    “A fairytale. I’ve got to go find a friendly fox, and ask him to go talk to a magic tree!”
     
    “Are there trees in fairytales?” He opened a beer and offered it to me. Yeah, right.
     
    I covered my eyes, rubbed them. “There was in the original Cinderella. The blood-soaked version with the sisters mutilating their feet and the stepmom getting her eyes pecked out? She sang to it.”
     
    “The stepmother?” Grendel asked.
     
    “Cinderella. I think.”
     
    “I like your mother. She’s not in any danger, is she?”
     
    I opened my eyes, but Grendel wasn’t smiling. At all. “Do I look like Cinderella?”
     
    “Well she was a blonde,” Shell quipped. Pure reflex; she didn’t look happy at all. “At least according to Disney. And the talking animal really should have been a clue.” Riptide and Grendel both laughed. They couldn’t see her, but they were perfectly used to hearing her through their earbugs. What they also didn’t see was Shelly —she “sat” beside her twin. Once Restormel’s Willis had left us alone, Shell had started relaying her so both of them could be here virtually.
     
    Seeing them side by side was deeply weird. Shell wore virtual cutoffs and an athletic shirt, looking