Page 55 of Shadow of the Fox

We left Yashigi the next morning and for several miles walked down a meandering dirt road through the fertile valley of the Sun Clan. The mountains remained in the distance as we followed the river past farming communities, temples and shrines, open meadows and dense woodland. The scenery was beautiful, the weather perfect in every way; I was fully enjoying the sights and the feel of the sun on my skin.

The ronin seemed less enthusiastic.

“Ite,”he grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck as we stopped in the shade of a bamboo grove. “Kuso, my back is sore. That inn must’ve had the lumpiest futon in the world. It felt like there was a damn pinecone right in the middle of the mattress, but when I pulled it up there was nothing there.”

“That’s unfortunate, Okame-san,” I said. “My futon was so comfortable, it was like I was sleeping on clouds. Maybe it was something you ate?”

He glared at me, suspicion flaring in his dark gaze. “I seem to remember you poking around my corner of the room right before we went to sleep,” he said accusingly. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with my lumpy mattress, would you, Yumeko-chan?”

“Me? What a wicked thing to imply, Okame-san. I mean, you checked under your futon, right? It’s not like I could make a pinecone look like a bit of dust on the floor.” I smiled at him sweetly and tossed a pickled plum into my mouth. I was beginning to get the hang of this sarcasm thing. “Perhaps all the boiled squid was giving you a stomachache?”

“Quiet,” Tatsumi growled. “Something is watching us.”

We fell silent. Around us, the woods were still, beams of sunlight slanting through the bamboo. Cicadas droned, and a breeze rustled the stalks, muffling the sound of approach. I didn’t sense anything dangerous, but Tatsumi possessed an almost supernatural premonition for things that wished us harm. If he said something was watching us, I believed him.

“I don’t see anything,” Okame said, just as I spotted what Tatsumi did. Across the road, a large black crow sat hunched atop a tree branch, feathers bristling like quills, beady eyes unblinking as it stared at us.

Okame, following my gaze, let out a snort. “Oh, how horrifying, a bird is watching us,” he gasped, putting a hand on his heart. “Watch yourself, Yumeko-chan, it might poop in your hair.”

The crow didn’t move. It stared at us with intense, sullen hostility, and I felt a shiver creep up my back. “I don’t like the way it’s watching us,” I said. “It looks...angry.”

“Really? Looks like a bird to me,” the ronin said. When I didn’t answer, he shrugged and unshouldered his longbow. “Here then, I’ll fix it.”

In one smooth motion, he raised the bow and loosed an arrow at the tree, and the muffled thump of the dart striking home rang out a second later. The crow let out a strangled caw and tumbled from the branch in a flutter of wings and black feathers.

As it fell, a strange sensation rippled through the air, a subtle release of power that raised the hair on my arms. All magic had a certain feel, I’d discovered. Fox magic flickered and pulsed like heatless fire. The monks’ ki energy tingled like the air before a storm. Tatsumi’s shadow magic was almost invisible, but it was still there if you were very observant; it felt like a cool, dark mist settling over your skin.

This felt like a million spiders, maggots and centipedes were wriggling under my clothes. I shuddered, but as quickly as it had come, the feeling faded as the magic scattered to the wind and was gone.

“There.” The ronin shouldered his weapon, seeming oblivious to the strange energy pulse. “Fixed. No more creepy birds. We can go now, right?”

Tatsumi sighed. “You might have made it worse.”

Resisting the urge to flail my arms to make sure there were no insects in my sleeves, I walked across the road to where the bird had fallen. Circling the trunk, I saw the arrow tip poking up from the weeds and peered down, expecting to see the corpse of a large black crow.

A chill went through my stomach. There was no body, not technically. The arrow shaft, jutting up from the dirt, pierced the rib cage of a bleached white skeleton, fragile wing bones crumpled in the grass, surrounded by feathers. The skull lay against a tree root, beak open in a last indignant caw, completely bare of skin. It looked like it had been dead for months, rather than the few seconds it took to cross the road.

I swallowed hard, feeling the two boys come up behind me and peer over my shoulder. Okame let out a low curse, as I stepped closer to Tatsumi, glancing up at his expression. “That’s not normal, is it?” I asked in a small voice. “I’m pretty certain that’s not normal.”

“No,” Tatsumi answered, his eyes narrowed to violet slits. “It’s blood magic.”

A shudder went through me. Blood magic. Master Isao had told me about it, once, as a warning. Unlike normal magic, where it was believed the kami-touched were chosen by the gods themselves, blood magic could be performed by nearly anyone, from the lowliest farmer to the highest-ranking magistrate. As its name suggested, blood fueled its power; the more blood spilled, the stronger the spell. It could raise the dead, manipulate emotions, or summon a demon from the depths of Jigoku. But such power came with a hidden, terrible price. Blood magic was the magic of death and corruption, the magic of Jigoku. The more you used it, the more pieces of your soul you gave away, bit by bit, until you were a husk of something that had once been human. Eventually the practitioner was consumed by the darkness of his own making and became one of Jigoku’s own, an oni or other demon, damned to the abyss until the end of time.

“Blood magic.” The ronin curled a lip at the pile of feathers and bones at the bottom of the tree. “Well, that’s great, now I’ve killed someone’s favorite abomination. There’s probably a fuming blood mage out there who’s making a wara ningyo in my image right now.”

“Unlikely,” Tatsumi said. Wara ningyo, straw dolls fashioned in the target’s image, were a common item for carrying out curses, but they needed a bit of the victim itself—hair, blood or fingernails—for the ritual to work. Once, when I was younger and angry at being made to repolish the floor in the main hall, I’d used fox magic to make a bit of straw look like a curse doll and hung it outside Denga’s quarters. It was hard not to wince at what had come next. That was the one and only time I could remember Master Isao being furious with me.

And then, I had another thought, one that turned everything inside me to ice. “Someone sent this thing,” I said, looking at Tatsumi. “To follow us. Because of the scroll.” Quickly, I added, “Because they think we have it. Or that we know where it is.”

“Wait, what?” The ronin stared at me like my ears had suddenly appeared. “Clearly, I’ve missed the first half of this story,” he said. “Back up a bit. Who’s following us? What’s this scroll you keep talking about?”

Tatsumi didn’t answer, but I saw him stiffen. Clearly, he did not like talking about the scroll, especially in the company of the ronin. I didn’t, either. I could feel the scroll case hidden within the furoshiki, my great, terrible secret. But it made sense. Master Isao had warned that many would be searching for the scroll, armies of men, yokai and demons trying to find it. Ruthless mortals who would stop at nothing to acquire its power. And if that was the case, then...

“Whoever is using these dead crows to spy on us,” I continued, as the realization slowly unfurled like a roll of parchment, “could be behind the attack on the temple. The one who sent the demons to kill everyone and steal the scroll.”

I gazed at Tatsumi, who still hadn’t moved or changed expression. “It’s possible, isn’t it?” I asked. “Demons wouldn’t have any use for the scroll. Someone sent them. A blood mage.”

“Yes,” he admitted at last. “Demons...don’t just appear in the mortal realm for no reason,” he went on, looking reluctant to explain. “Either a mortal has been consumed by darkness and has turned into one, or they’re summoned from Jigoku using blood magic. Oni, especially, are extremely powerful and almost impossible to control for long. It would take a talented blood mage to summon and bind one to do its bidding, even for a short while.”

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