by Jadie Jang
He leaned in closer, leering manically, until I laughed.
“It’s traditional for kitsune to turn into beautiful women, but that’s because men had all the power and mobility and agency in the old days, so they were more interesting. Also, back in the day the women were much more up on their old wives’ tales and harder to fool. Nowadays, women are a lot more interesting than they used to be—and a lot more credulous—so we’re branching out.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Wanna be lured?”
I sat back from him and regarded him seriously.
“Stop smiling and look serious,” I said.
He tried, but he could only manage to return to a mostly straight face with just a touch of a smile. Oh my. Yes, yes, I could see how this guise would lure straight women. And gay men. And anybody else who liked to touch men. A lot. Oh my. He was really good looking. Like, shirtless-Rain-in-Ninja-Assassin-covered-with-blood-and-sweat good-looking.
“So this is just a glamour? It’s not your natural form?”
“I’m not restricted to one form, but all of us shifting ones have a form we tend to fall into, and it quickly becomes a default, and feels natural to us. This is mine.”
“But you can look like other people.”
He stood up, lifted his arms, and then faded for a moment. When he … she brightened again, she was a stunningly beautiful woman with Resting Bitch Face. She looked … in fact, she looked like Gong Li. She was wearing a red cocktail dress and her hair was down, and she was smiling … that same damned smile that Todd always had on, except on a woman it looked more knowing, less deprecating.
She took out her phone—which had apparently survived the change intact—from a pocket in the dress and looked at herself.
“Gong Li, huh?” she said, in a voice that rang like a bell. I shivered a little.
“She’s at the top of my freebie list,” I said. I’d gone through a phase in high school, when I was exploring my roots, where I was obsessed with the films of Zhang Yimou, and had fallen in love with his actress/muse. “Hey! How did you know that?”
She smiled. “It’s part of the whole turning-into-a-beautiful-woman-to-lure-men thing. You let yourself turn into the beautiful woman for the specific man … or, in this case, woman. It’s a skill.”
I shivered again. “Dude, please change back. You’re freaking me out.”
She raised her arms and slid back into Todd form.
“So, are kitsi—”
“KIT—SOO—NEH. All syllables equally emphasized.”
“… kitsune all pansexual?”
He laughed. “Most foxes are primarily het, for reproductive purposes, but you never know when a fox is gonna bat for another team just for fun. And when we get older and are able to change form we become whatever that form suggests. I’ve done the beautiful woman thing before … I mean, when I’m in a woman’s form, I’m a woman, and I guess if I’m a woman to lure a het man, I guess I’m a het woman … and if I’m a woman to lure a queer woman I’m a queer woman … I mean, I suppose … Probably best not to put labels on it … unless you’re putting the label on with your own hands,” he leered at me again, stroking his belly in demonstration.
“And … are you a dude fox?” I hadn’t really had a chance to check his undercarriage during the fight and he’d been moving too fast, anyway.
He raised his eyebrows. “Does it matter?”
Without even thinking, I turned into a pretty little Japanese vixen. I whisked my tail at him and then changed back. “You tell me,” I said.
His face froze for a moment, the first time I’d seen him nonplussed. Suddenly, I was embarrassed. Monkey screeched a laugh. “Dude, what time is it?”
He looked. “Whoa, it’s almost three. Bedtime.”
“Lemme get you a blanket,” I said, and started to get up.
He pushed me back down. “Don’t bother,” he said, stood up, and changed back into fox form. Wow, it was true, now that I could get a clear look. He did look like Todd in fox form. He was beautiful, with long, black legs, fluffy oxblood fur and two deliciously bushy tails—tailS, there were two—which waved a gentle smile at me. He opened his sharp muzzle in a grin, leapt up on the couch, circled a couple of times, and curled up—in just such a way that I couldn’t check his junk. He didn’t put his head down until I turned off the light, but he seemed to go to sleep right away.
Which was apparently my cue to wake up completely and start spinning out. Not about Todd and his thing (that was too fresh and I could spin out on that later) but about Slim Shady and his seeming invincibility. How do you defeat an embodiment of dark thoughts? I mean, this “foreign creature” had clearly found some way for him to operate outside of his normal parameters. Before, when he could only suck out the soul of someone who gave in to dark thoughts, there was a clear defense. But this guy? He’d been made immensely more powerful, able to attack anyone at any time—or any time at night.
But why now? Had it gotten loose from its captor? Or had its captor sicced it on us right now? Was it hungry? Was it part of a plan? If it was being controlled by the foreign creature, to what end? I punched my pillow but it was fresh out of answers.
How could I fight it?
My brain was just circling, but the center of that whirlwind of thoughts kept resolving into a thought that I didn’t want to think: Tez might have to go through with it. He might have to bond with the walking stick. I might not be strong enough to kill this thing and if I wasn’t, no one else in the Bay Area would be. But the power he’d get from this thing—I remembered the shockwave that came after Tez struck the werewolf with that stick; he’d be more powerful than that, much more—maybe that would be enough. If he didn’t bond with it, if he destroyed it, he might be destroying our only hope of killing, containing, or driving this creature away permanently. Would we just wait until it killed every powerful supernat in the Bay Area? Would we just let it get more and more powerful until no one could stop it? Would it eventually consume the world? Would it consume me?
… and … I found I was reluctant to tackle this question, but it was a more deeply pressing one for me: who—or what—the hell was Slim Shady’s captor? The “foreign creature”? Was that the “same kind of thing” like me that Bu Bu had mentioned? Was it a creature like me? Was it … was it my … parent? Was it an evil creature? A monster? Was I an evil creature; a monster?
It turned out, that was the thought that had been stuck like a thorn in my mind, keeping me from sleeping. And now that I had drawn it, the whirlwind turned into water swirling down the drain. My last thoughts as I fell asleep were of certainty … and sadness … and fear …
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Monday, October 24, 2011
Maya’s Apartment, San Francisco
When I woke up, the late morning sun was streaming full in the window, Todd was gone, and a piping hot cup of tea and an equally piping plate of double loco moco were sitting on my table, set with cutlery and a napkin. Where had all this food come from? I didn’t have ground beef or eggs or gravy in my kitchen, I was pretty sure. Or napkins. Was this a kits … kitsune ability? To gin up breakfast from thin air?
Not really caring about the whys that much, I devoured the whole in under five minutes. It was delicious and tasted homemade, down to the gravy. And I’d been really hungry. It was only when I was finished and taking the plate to the sink that I found the note he’d left under it. It read:
“Have appointment. Filled ur fridge. Pathetic. Must learn 2 cook. Free tonight. Call for bodyguard.”
I checked the fridge. Yes, indeed, he had filled it: fruits, veggies, meats—so many meats—kimchee, cheeses, even bacon. I checked the cabinets: yup. All sorts of basics. Grains, cereals, nori, canned stuff. Not so much my thing, but he’d replenished my depleted fruit crisper, and that made him alright in my book.
Monkey screeched a sudden warning and I rushed to the freezer. Whew. No, he hadn’t thrown out my frozen fruit pies and dinners, although he had left another note here:
> “Stop eating this crap. Fresh food below.”
I tried to take out one of the frozen dinners, but it was stuck fast to the one below it. I tried to take the whole stack out, but discovered it was all stuck together, and all stuck to the inner panel of my freezer. I checked everything in the freezer: all of it prepared food with lots of chemicals. Sure enough, it was all stuck to the freezer’s insides. I looked more carefully and realized that Todd had poured water all over everything, including his own note about the crap, and frozen it all together. Now I’d have to defrost the freezer to get everything out, and the food would all be ruined in the process.
“Dammit!” I yelled aloud, while Monkey, in my head, nodded and said: respect.
Oh boy. He had already taken over my diet. I knew enough about weres—and he was a sort-of were, despite what he’d said—to know that feeding and sharing food was a big deal to the canids; it was the mixture of human and canine social behavior that made food so central. This was mating behavior.
And these groceries … he must have spent well over $100 on these! He was a were, and Asian, so he’d never, in ever, let me pay him back. But he would definitely use it to push his way in. He was already doing so.
Hoo boy.
I grabbed my phone, found his number, and spent $2 of my entertainment budget on a ringtone for him: “Twentieth Century Fox” by the Doors. I needed advance warning the next time he called.
Monkey noted my chagrin, tapped me politely on the metaphorical shoulder, and then screeched in my metaphorical face. Here was an extremely good-looking, terrifically ass-kicking (Monkey loved asskickers) would-be lover, who provided food, and was, astonishingly, interested in my hadn’t-had-a-date-in-months ass. What was the fucking problem?
“The Eye of the Tiger” started playing on my phone and I literally ran to answer it. Monkey crossed my metaphorical arms and hmphed. Monkey was a proponent of the bird in the hand; the bush needed to get laid.
“Hello?” I said rather more breathlessly than I would have liked.
“Maya?” Tez asked, rather less confidently than I’m sure he would have liked.
“Tez! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just … um, I’ve made a decision, about the … you know what. I don’t wanna say. I’m being paranoid.”
“No, the you-know-who is definitely listening, and I have it on very good authority that they have a special division that watches us. So yeah, maybe avoid key words.”
“Really? ‘Cuz Ayo’s been saying a lot on the phone …”
Ayo was able to magically obfuscate our phone calls, but I didn’t know how to do that, and evidently, neither did he.
I paused to find a way to tell him this and then gave up “… I’ll talk to her,” I promised.
“Okay. Uh … I don’t know why I’m telling you this. … I guess it’s because I wound you up in all of this … tangle … and I kinda feel like you have a right to know. I’m sorry about all of this, by the way.”
He trailed off. I let the silence sit. He took an audible breath.
“Anyway. I’ve decided not to go ahead with the … thing … this week. I’m gonna try to destroy it instead. Maybe … maybe that’ll work. I don’t know. I just know that I can’t do it, and I don’t think I should.”
He stopped again and I just stood there, holding the phone to my head. I thought I’d left the possibility open for this decision, but I realized in that moment that I had been expecting him to take it on: the power, the responsibility.
I would have.
Immediately I felt unsure. Who was I to say what was right or wrong in this situation? Who’s to say how much future I would sacrifice for the good of everyone else? Who was I to judge him?
But I did judge him. It was Monkey who judged him, but … I judged him. And it was more of me than just Monkey, really. That terrifying, delicious, frustrating, gorgeous man, the one who had seen what I could do and still liked me, that man had disappointed us … me.
I tried to think on the other side of the question: freedom! Longstanding dreams! Autonomy! An open book in life! But none of those things tasted good in my mind. I tried to be happy for him. But I couldn’t in that moment.
And he knew, he knew that thing was after me.
I realized that the silence had gone on too long when he cleared his throat.
“Uh, so anyway, I just wanted to say that I’ll probably be a little off line for a while, taking care of Amoxtli and dealing with the … thing. So … you won’t hear from me for a while. But I’ll see you around, later, when … when things settle down. Okay?”
Yeah right. He’d chickened out in front of me. He was never gonna call me again. And … had he forgotten that thing was after me? He must have. Yes, he must have. There’s no way he’d just leave me hanging in the breeze … Not that I needed him. I had Ayo, and … and Todd. And we’d figure something out. And it was Tez’s whole life. I had no right to …
“Tez,” I said, then stopped.
“Yes?” he asked after a moment. He sounded … hopeful, as if he really thought I could say something that would make things better.
“Just … watch your back, okay? … And call me if you need help.”
“Okay.”
Another pause.
“Okay,” he said again, “bye.” And hung up before I could reply.
I wasn’t sure if I would have said “bye,” even to stay on rhythm. Because I didn’t feel that this was an end. Or maybe, more precisely, I didn’t feel that this was the right end.
I had barely had time to formulate this thought when “Oohh Child” went off.
“What?” I asked, impatiently.
She didn’t comment on my rudeness, it had really been that kind of week. Month.
“You were right,” she said. “They had her this whole time. Dalisay. Her body.”
I wanted to hit someone. “I take it the culprit was our Slim Shady.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t call him that. He’s killed too many. It’s disrespectful.”
She was right, of course, and I didn’t want to have to say aloud that Shady terrified me too much to be treated seriously. “What the hell happened, anyway?”
“Well, we were partly right. The Hung For Tong were the last ones to see her. Apparently the nalusa chito found her there and killed her right in front of them—right in front of Bu Bu, in fact. They were worried the aswang coterie would blame them for not protecting her. It was in one of their buildings so it really was their responsibility. And they were also worried that she was an accident and that it was really after one of them. But I facilitated a sit-down with them this morning and they came clean. They’d even kept her body, not sure what to do with it. Apparently, they weren’t even agreed on the idea of selling her wings.”
My mind was still a bit fuzzy, but one thing popped up clear. “Ayo, what did they say about the …?” I couldn’t find the words, but she knew what I was after.
“I remember there was some confusion as to whether there was one creature or two. It seems that Dalisay came to negotiate and one of their lieutenants showed her to a sort of reception room and left her alone there while he fetched the boss. Apparently there was an extra piece of furniture in the room when they came in that nobody noticed. When the lieutenant returned with the boss, they found that piece of furniture gone, replaced by some sort of homunculus—”
“Or a large monkey—”
“Yes. And there was also a shadow creature attacking Dalisay. So they called for help, and focused on trying to remove the shadow creature from Dalisay, and by the time they thought to look for the homunculus, it was gone. Apparently Bu Bu came in and chased the shadow thing out of the room and up onto the roof, where it disappeared. I’m guessing that Bu Bu either heard about the homunculus later, or possibly encountered it himself up on the rooftop. But,” she sighed, “I’m afraid we’ll never know … not from him at least. I’m thinking they might have happened on Dalisay in the street—she had parked sev
eral blocks away—and followed her there. And I’m guessing that since it seems that Dalisay was the first victim, the, uh, homunculus might have been there to direct the Nalusa Chito the first time, and thereafter was able to let it, uh, hunt by itself.”
We sat in silence for a very long time. But I didn’t make very good use of that time. I didn’t really want to think about the implications of a thing like me siccing its soul-eating slave on me.
Finally, Ayo spoke: “Listen, Maya, I’m not trying to pry, or encourage you to break a confidence, but what the hell is going on with Tez and that damned Huexotl? Is it the piece that the Aziza mentioned in his story?”
I hesitated, my mind whirling with desire to get her take on it … and, let’s be honest, to offload this heavy responsibility onto a real adult. But if I wasn’t an adult … and if this responsibility wasn’t clearly mine and mine alone …
“Okay,” she said crisply, “Let me talk, then. Nobody currently in a leadership position in the Bay Area’s supernatural community is indigenous to the Bay Area.”
“What does this have to do with the price of tea in—”
“Let me finish. This means that the Bay Area is, and has been for nearly two centuries, without strong supernatural guardianship. It’s like this all over the United States, but mitigated in most places either by some continuity in various Indigenous peoples, or by the continuity built by settler colonist or immigrant communities who maintain a constant presence over a long period of time. Or both. But in ports of entry like San Francisco, where the Indigenous populations are so embattled, and where there are constant boom-and-bust cycles which bring new populations in and take old populations out, and where, now, all the old neighborhoods are being gentrified, stability is a much, much bigger problem. The slings and arrows that affect humans affect supernats just as much, and in the same ways. Because of what I just said, the Bay Area is supernaturally chaotic.”
“Ayo, I always thought that you were the supernatural leader here. I thought that’s what Sanc-Ahh did.”