Page 25 of Shadow of the Fox

The other people in the room hadn’t noticed the intruder. They were still straightening up, recovering from being nearly knocked down, twice, by the mysterious wind. If I didn’t leave, the weasel thing might keep coming back and slashing at others with those wickedly curved blades. Besides, I was curious, intrigued by the presence of another yokai, and a full-blooded one at that. It might be common to see them in the woods or mountains, but they tended to avoid large towns and places with lots of people. If the weasel yokai had shown himself to me here, it was for a reason.

Wiping my cheek with the back of my sleeve, I left the inn and hurried back into the streets of Chochin Machi.

The yokai flowed with the wind, flitting from place to place, invisible when it was on the move, reappearing when it was stationary. I followed it down the main street, watching as it flew from rooftop to rooftop, making the lanterns sway wildly in its wake. People stumbled as it passed overhead, holding on to their robes and parasols as the wind gusted by.

“What strange weather,” someone muttered as I passed. “I wasn’t aware that Chochin Machi was so windy.”

I followed the creature down a narrow alley, watching the lanterns overhead dance and bounce until it turned a corner and we came to a dead end. With a blast of wind, the weasel thing twisted into the air and vanished. I waited, but neither the wind nor the yokai reappeared; the air was still and silent, and the passage was empty.

I frowned.So that weasel thing just wanted to trick me. And now I’m lost.I gazed around, wondering if I could retrace my steps back to the ryokan. Except I had no idea where I was.Denga-san would find this hilarious.

A soft chuckle came from behind me, low and mocking. “Well, hello, little fox. Wandering lonely back alleys all by yourself?”

I spun. A woman stood atop a roof, framed by the light of the moon. She was tall and slender, wearing an elegant kimono decorated with swirling white clouds against a sky blue background. Her hair was long, unbound and rippled like strands of ink in the wind. Billowy sleeves draped her arms, hanging nearly to her ankles, as she regarded me with pale, icy blue eyes.

“Um...hello,” I greeted warily. “Is this your alley?” The woman didn’t move, and I took a cautious step back. If she realized I was kitsune, she probably wouldn’t take kindly to a strange yokai in her territory. “I’m just a little lost, so if you could just point me in the right direction...”

The woman’s full lips curled as she looked me up and down. “Vermin,” she remarked, making me frown. “A filthy and revolting vermin. Just like my kamaitachi.” She raised her arm, and the weasel thing appeared on it with a blast of wind that whipped at my hair and clothes. “But at least they’re full-blooded yokai, and somewhat useful. You’re just a pathetic little half fox, aren’t you?”

I laced back my ears. “Well that’s not very nice,” I said, feeling kitsune-bi spring to my fingertips. “We’ve only just met. Besides, foxes arenotvermin—I think you’re mistaking me for a rat or cockroach.” I took a few cautious steps back. “But I seem to have caught you on a bad night, so I’ll be leaving now—”

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, vermin.”

She swept her arm out, and a blast of wind ripped at my clothes, making me stumble. At the same time, I felt a blinding pain in my leg, the feeling of being cut with a knife, though I saw nothing strike me. It happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to yelp before my leg gave out and I collapsed to the ground.

Gasping, I looked up to see a second weasel appear on the woman’s other shoulder, beady eyes in its black-masked face glaring down at me. The edge of the sickle growing from its foreleg was smeared with blood.

“My name is Mistress Kazekira,” the woman said, as both weasels glared at me from her slender shoulders. “I am one of the kami-touched, what the common folk call a wind witch, and the kamaitachi are my familiars. So don’t think you can just run away, little vermin.” She stroked one kamaitachi’s head, but there was no affection in the gesture, only possession, and the weasel yokai cringed away from her touch. The wind witch didn’t seem to notice or care. “And I see you are as simpleminded as you are common,” she went on, wiping her hands together as if they were dirty. “I didn’t lure you out here to chat. I brought you here to kill you.”

Ice twisted my stomach. “Why?” I struggled to my feet, feeling my leg throb and pulse like it was on fire, and nearly collapsed again. My foxfire had sputtered out; I raised an arm and called it to life again, a blue-white globe flaring in my hand. It wouldn’t hurt them, but maybe they didn’t know that. “I haven’t done anything to you, or your weasels. Why are you doing this?”

The wind witch laughed heartily, her hair writhing madly around her. “Oh, little vermin,” she chuckled, raising her arm. The two kamaitachi crouched on her shoulders, blades gleaming as they targeted me. “If you cannot figure that out, then you really are too stupid to keep living.”

“So loud,” sighed a new, unfamiliar voice behind me. “At least you could have the courtesy to kill her quickly. Some of us are trying to sleep, after all.”

Startled, the wind witch lowered her arm, and I turned toward the voice. A body sat on one of the barrels close to the wall, cloaked in the shadows cast from the roof. Raising its head, it stood and walked into the light.

My heartbeat fluttered, whether in awe or fear, I couldn’t tell. A man stood before me, tall and slender, the moonlight casting a silvery halo around him. His billowing robes were a spotless white, trimmed in red and black, without patterns, markings or a family crest to identify him. His hair was very fine, even longer than the wind witch’s, and a bright, stunning silver, the color of a polished blade. An enormously long, curved sword was strapped to his back, the sheath dwarfing a katana’s by several inches, the hilt doubled in length. Lazy, heavy-lidded eyes, like molten gold, met my gaze, then slid past me to the witch standing overhead.

“You’re making an awful racket,” the stranger said in that low, vaguely wry voice, as if he found this situation amusing. “It’s fortunate humans are all deaf, or they would hear you for miles. Does it really take such elaboration to kill one little half fox in an empty alley?”

“Seigetsu-sama,” whispered the witch. Her face had gone pale, the wind dying to a murmur as she stared at him. “What are you doing here? Do you know this vermin?”

“The half-breed?” The stranger’s lips twisted in a smirk. “No, I was just in the area, and decided to take a nap. By all means, continue.” He waved at me in an offhand manner and started walking away.

My heart sank. I had thought the stranger was going to help me. He looked powerful, with his golden eyes and giant sword; even the wind witch seemed afraid of him. Kazekira smiled triumphantly and raised her arm, her clothes and hair beginning to snap in the wind once more.

“Although...” The stranger stopped, rubbing his chin, and glanced up at the witch again. “They say kamaitachi move so quickly, the naked eye cannot comprehend them. I’ve always wondered if that was true.”

Reaching back, he drew his weapon over his head, lacquered case and all. Holding the sheath in his left hand, he slid one foot back until he was in some sort of stance, his empty hand hovering a few inches from the hilt of the giant sword.

“Let’s play a game,” the stranger said, a vicious smile crossing his face as he stared at the witch. “You send your familiars to kill this half-breed, and I try to cut them from the air before they can reach her. If the kamaitachi are as fast as the stories claim, they should be in no danger. If not, well...” He lifted one lean shoulder in a shrug. “You can always find more, right?”

The wind witch stiffened. On her shoulders, the two kamaitachi cowered, looking reluctant. My heart pounded as the silence stretched out. The beautiful stranger didn’t move, his hand steady and motionless over the hilt of his sword, ready to draw steel in the blink of an eye.

Finally, Kazekira raised her chin and sniffed. “Much as I would like to play your game, Seigetsu-sama,” she said in a lofty voice, “I don’t think I can convince my cowardly vermin weasels to cooperate, so you’ll have to excuse us.” With a sneer, she glanced in my direction. “Consider yourself lucky, half-breed. You get to live tonight. But Seigetsu-sama won’t always be around to protect you. My kamaitachi and I will see you soon.”

A strong wind gusted through the shrine, stirring dust and making the lanterns sway. The wind witch rose into the air, robes billowing around her, and drifted away over the rooftops. In seconds, she had disappeared.

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