by Phil Gabriel
At my inquiring look, she said, “I choose to wear your collar. It’s a symbol of our connection. If it makes it easier for you to trust me, I will continue to wear it.”
She looked down at her feet. “I hope to wear it for a long time,” she said before turning away and walking towards our gate. I suddenly felt ashamed about teasing her with my story about the queen.
Picking up the items from the basket, I put my wallet and iPad away, leaving the shintai ring that housed Akiko’s spirit in my palm.
Walking away from the Security Gate with Kitty-Sue, I absentmindedly slid the ring onto my ring finger. It was the first time I had worn it since gifting it to Akiko.
The ring pulsed on my finger, the warm, gentle constriction more intimate than a kiss.
Kitty-Sue, walking quickly to keep up with my long steps, turned suddenly and grabbed my arm. A glance at my face and the pleasure there caused her to narrow her eyes and frown. Reaching out with her preternatural reflexes, she snatched the ring from my finger.
“Scott-san,” she said, “I will just hold on to this little token of commitment.”
“Jealous of ghost?” whispered Akiko, barely heard above the thrum of the crowd. “Miss flesh-and-blood is worried about wisp?”
A quick stop at the restroom allowed Kitty-Sue to recover her knives. She and Akiko exited the restroom looking much more confident. I wondered what they had discussed.
As we walked to the business class lounge, Kitty-Sue looped her arm through mine, indicating she wasn’t holding a grudge about Akiko and the ring.
After getting coffee, drinks, and snacks, we found a table in a corner of the room. A small circle ensured nobody else could hear us.
I reviewed with Akiko the techniques we would use to minimize magical interference with the aircraft. Powerful magicians have a destabilizing effect on technology. If a powerful enough magician rides on an airplane, the airplane will crash.
By use of meditation and some minor spell-work, Akiko and I could avoid interfering with the aircraft’s electronics.
Sure, Akiko could easily survive a crash; I could probably survive a crash; and Kitty-Sue had a fifty-fifty chance, more if I helped her. But the hundreds of other passengers wouldn’t survive. So, we did the exercises to cut down on our magical emanations.
Akiko, who had no need for a ticket and hadn’t seen our itinerary, was looking at our destination on the monitor. “Scott-Sensei,” she asked, “we’re going to San Francisco first, then New York?”
“Not quite,” I responded. “We need to make a stop in another city first. I have some business to take care of.”
“So where do we go?”
“Las Vegas,” I replied.
“Las Vegas!” both girls said in unison.
“Oh, can we see a show?” asked Akiko.
“Can we get married there?” asked Kitty-Sue.
“Yes,” I replied before Kitty-Sue’s question registered. At her immediate look of pleasure, I had to continue, “To the show. A definite ‘no’ to the marriage.”
At her look of disappointment, I had to say, “Anyway, I thought you said you never wanted to get married.”
“No,” she replied, “I said I could never marry a common magician.”
Her emphasis on common tripped an alarm in my head. What had changed recently that moved me from common to uncommon? The story about my knighthood? Really? Getting tapped on the shoulder by a queen with a big knife suddenly made me marriage material? There hadn’t been a lot of pomp and ceremony. Hell, we had both still been naked when it happened. Was she one of those royal groupies who got hot at the thought of getting close to a royal? That could explain her sudden warmth.
“Doesn’t having a fae prince’s magic sword choose me as her wielder rank higher than a knighthood?” I said. “Hell, the knighthood isn’t even in my real name.”
“My auntie doesn’t recognize fae royalty,” replied Kitty-Sue. “She tolerates human royalty, so you having a knighthood is a big plus.
“If you had told me this before the meeting with my auntie,” she said, “we could have handled things differently.”
“I thought I handled your aunt pretty well,” I answered.
Kitty-Sue’s eyes went wide in disbelief. “You insulted the queen of all kitsune! If she didn’t have a good sense of humor, you would have been in big trouble.”
“If the queen of your trickster clan can’t take a joke,” I replied, “screw her. I’ve faced down dragons, djinn, and spider-goddesses.”
Kitty-Sue couldn’t hide her smile at my contrary nature. “Yeah,” she said, “and ten minutes with my sister almost killed you. The queen is much more powerful and tricky than my sister.”
Reaching for her hand, I said, “That’s why I’m happy you’re with me. You’re the sneakiest, most underhanded ninja assassin I know.”
A comment that might have angered another woman brought a huge smile to Kitty-Sue’s face. “You say the sweetest things,” she whispered as she leaned in for a kiss. The pupils of her slitted eyes widened as she got closer.
“I Padawan,” Akiko said, interrupting our kiss when our lips were only an inch apart.
It took a couple of seconds for me to shift gears as we both turned to her. “What do you mean?” I asked.
At the same time, Kitty-Sue said, “You mean like Star Wars?”
“Hai, hai, hai,” said Akiko as she ticked off her points on her fingers, starting on her pinky. “My sensei is a knight; he belong to magical order of White Knights.” She paused at this and raised an eyebrow.
“Her Majesty’s Sorcerous Service,” I replied. “We’re more gray than white. Anyway, I never really attended the meetings.”
Ignoring my interruption, she continued, touching her middle finger. “He controls enormous force; he has magic, glowing sword that can cut anything; he find and save apprentice,” she finished, holding up her thumb and aiming it at herself.
At each tick of her fingers, her appearance changed: long flowing hair braided itself into a long tail, and her school uniform changed colors and shape to become a brown tunic and pants outfit with leather boots and belt. Her enormous breasts strained at the fabric of the tunic.
“I Padawan, you my Jedi,” she announced with pride.
“Oh my,” giggled Kitty-Sue. “Your life is like a trashy fantasy novel.”
I was saved from further embarrassment by our boarding being called.
Thirteen
Welcome to Vegas
When we arrived in Las Vegas, we grabbed a taxi, and I gave the driver an address in Henderson. I caught a puzzled look from Kitty-Sue. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but I nodded towards the driver.
Kitty-Sue frowned in concentration, and a kitsune bubble appeared around the three of us. “Now we can talk,” said Kitty-Sue. “Why are we going to Henderson? I thought we would be staying in a nice Las Vegas hotel?”
“Most magicians,” I said, nodding at Akiko to include her, “don’t like staying in places with low magic concentration. It leaves us with little to work with for defense. Casinos and the areas around them don’t have much ambient magic.”
“So, you can’t do your tricks,” said Kitty-Sue. “So what? Lack of human magic doesn’t bother me. I can still protect you.” She nodded to herself and leaned back with arms crossed. “Plus, I really wanted to have twenty-four-hour room service.”
I looked out the window, taking in the sere landscape of Las Vegas, so very different than Tokyo. The flight had taken us across ten time zones, dropping us off in the morning hours of Las Vegas. Even in the air-conditioned cab of the taxi, we could feel the thrumming heat of the morning sun.
As we drove down Paradise towards Henderson, I felt the ebbs and flows of desert magic. I could tell that Akiko was performing the same exercise. Kitty-Sue waited with the patience of a predator for us to come out of our reverie.<
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As we neared the gated compound where I had a home, I shook off the trance and pulled out the remote for the gate. We were finally dropped off in front of my two-story stucco house.
We entered the house through the front door, cold air enveloping our bodies as the door closed. Kitty-Sue smiled and waved her tail in the cool air as she asked, “Do you run the air conditioner all the time? Seems a waste, since you spend so much time in Tokyo.”
“No,” I replied. “I have an Internet-connected thermostat. I set it to turn on before we arrived.”
I opened my satchel and pulled out the two large bags I had snuck through customs, as well as Princess. Princess emitted a quiet hum of contentment, as if stretching after a long crouch.
Kitty-Sue held out her hand and said, “Princess, would you like to explore the house with us?”
I was surprised when a zither-like tone that sounded remarkably like “Yes” came from Princess and she leaped from my hand to Kitty-Sue’s. Unlike her reaction to Naughty-Sue, Princess didn’t have to be forced to accept Kitty-Sue’s touch. I remembered Kitty-Sue calling Princess a “bloodthirsty instrument of war” several days ago. Guess that had warmed Princess’ heart to this particular kitsune. They had a lot in common.
Kitty-Sue, Princess, and Akiko explored the house while I set up the coffee maker. The main door opened to a sitting room. A short hallway led to a combination living room and kitchen in an open space design. Stairs in the living room led upstairs to the master bedroom, spare bedrooms, and my study.
I used the remote to turn the stereo on to a random station. The strains of the John Denver classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads” wafted through the air. “Is that you, Euterpe?” I whispered.
At the smell of fresh coffee, the girls came back downstairs. Kitty-Sue placed Princess on a kitchen stool, so she had a good view of us. I made a cup of coffee the way Akiko preferred, ghosted it over to her plane, and then made tea for Kitty-Sue before making more coffee for myself. As we sat at the kitchen table, I could see Kitty-Sue was puzzled. She hadn’t known about this side of me.
She finally decided on a light tone. “So,” she said after sipping her tea, “no castle for our knight?”
Akiko giggled at the thought. Her clothes, which had reassumed their schoolgirl shape on the airplane, suddenly morphed into her Padawan outfit.
A memory of a lonely granite structure on an island off the coast of Sardinia, inaccessible to all but magicians, sprang into my consciousness. “Not really,” I said. Going back would require killing someone I had once cared for, so that castle was lost to me. Damn strega.
“A knight with neither castle nor king,” said Kitty-Sue in a voice that reminded me very much of her aunt’s.
“Ah,” I replied, “but I have a loyal retainer as a bodyguard and a formidable squire, as well as a weapon of great renown.” I took another drink of my coffee, enjoying the smoky flavor. “What more do I need?”
“Yes,” said Kitty-Sue, “what more do you need?” As she spoke, Akiko directed her gaze towards the stairs that led up the bedrooms, and she took a silent, deep breath through her nose.
I sniffed and couldn’t smell anything out of place. Just the scent of furniture polish, floor cleaner, and the faintest whiff of the lilac perfume my housekeeper doted on.
With a flash, I realized what Kitty-Sue was talking about. She had smelled something in my bedroom. “Kitty-Sue,” I asked sharply, “have you been sniffing my sheets?”
She looked embarrassed for a second, then turned her head away and gazed imperiously out the window. Akiko giggled at the scene, making her breasts jiggle under her tunic.
A momentary urge to explain and apologize came and went in the same second. No way in hell was I going to start down that road. “Kitty-Sue,” I said, “I hired you to be my bodyguard, not my mother!”
She looked at me with feral intensity, and I regretted returning her knives. I matched her stare and gathered energy. The air filled with tension.
Akiko, ever the peacemaker, said, “Scott-Sensei, she just wants to protect you! We could tell another woman had been in your room.”
“Another woman?” I asked. “The only woman who comes here while I’m gone is the housekeeper...” My voice trailed off as I realized Kitty-Sue had smelled the lingering scent of my fifty-five-year-old housekeeper. “You’re jealous of my housekeeper?”
“Why not?” asked Kitty-Sue. “She’s closer to your age than I am.”
Reaching across the table to caress her arm, I said, “Kitty-Sue, she’s older than two Christmas cakes. I have no interest in her. She’s no more than an employee.”
Her face was still turned away, but her tail wrapped around my wrist, the soft fur stroking my arm. From the side, I could see her trying to stifle a grin.
“So,” she finally asked in a quiet voice, “am I more than a bodyguard? More than a mere employee?”
Before I could answer, Akiko said in a whisper, “Am I more than Padawan?” I could feel her sadness through our mental link.
“You’re both very important to me,” I said, getting out of my chair and hugging Kitty-Sue. I looked up at Akiko, intangible to humans, and nodded to her to come closer. She drifted in and touched my arm that encircled Kitty-Sue while she stroked Kitty-Sue’s tail with her other hand. I felt the spectral tingles of her ghostly fingers and saw the hairs on Kitty-Sue’s tail rise at her touch. I sent a wave of welcome down our psychic link.
A perfume I hadn’t smelled in a long time wafted from Kitty-Sue. It was her “happy” scent. She only put it out when she felt safe and loved. I had missed that smell.
After our coffee break, we split up to do our respective tasks. Kitty-Sue, who hadn’t slept on the plane, slipped upstairs to take a nap. I noted she stripped the bed and changed the sheets before taking a nap.
Akiko and I stepped into the small backyard of my home. The temperature in late March wasn’t bad, around seventy degrees. Nothing like the killer temperatures in the summer.
Akiko looked around, using her inhuman senses to feel for the flows of magic. She could see the flagstone-style patio and the small fruit trees arranged around the perimeter. I could see her count the five trees and make out the pentagram design created by the trees.
“I thought that Las Vegas was too dry for trees?” she inquired.
“Oh, it is,” I said. “I had to put in a trickle feed irrigation system.” I pointed to the small plastic tubes that dripped water around the base of the small fruit trees. “I have the pump set up to a timer that keeps the trees alive.”
We sat in the center of the yard, surrounded by a pentagram of living wood, desert sun beating down, and communed with local spirits and mystical energy flows. It’s a process hard to describe to mundanes— magicians need to acclimate to the local energy streams. The best way I’d heard it described was the difference between an artist shifting from using a brush to using a pencil. Talent is still expressed, just using a different means, using what’s available.
I had worried about Akiko adapting from the tumultuous energy of Tokyo to the slow energy flows of Las Vegas. She caught on quickly, needing very little instruction to adjust. She had almost reached the limit of what I could teach her. My Padawan would soon leave school.
“I didn’t know that magic in different place be so hard,” she said as she practiced the changed patterns needed to use the local magic.
“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s why magicians don’t travel much. It’s hard to adapt to different magic. Kind of like adapting to a different language.”
“Scott-Sensei,” asked Akiko, “who teach you to adapt? When you learn to use different magic?”
“When I left Tennessee,” I answered, “I was sent to Vietnam. The magic there was so different I was useless.” Worse than useless. All my spells and cantrips turned out wrong. From being a shit-hot magician in Tennessee, I became a jinxed bullet-magnet in Vietnam.
“It took me about six months to learn how to adapt to the l
ocal flows.” Six months in a POW camp: starved, terrified, working constantly to figure out how to get the damn magic to work again.
Akiko tilted her head and regarded me. Despite the fact that English was not her native language, she had realized that I had skipped the “who” part of her question.
Instead, she said, “Thank you for teaching me, Scott-Sensei. Going straight to New York would have left me helpless.”
Nodding, I said, “Now that you know the method, you should be able to adapt quickly to new areas. You will still have problems in regions with no magic.”
Nodding to herself, Akiko recounted the places I had listed, “Churches, prisons, and mental institutions. All to be avoided because magic has abandoned these places.”
“Not just those,” I said, “anyplace where humans pray or implore for Fortune to smile on them. Pile enough desperate people up in a place and the magic is drained.”
I unkinked my legs, stretching them out in front of me. “Can you think of any other places?”
Smiling in realization, Akiko said brightly, “Casinos! People pray for luck!” Holding up an index finger, she continued, “And Pachinko Parlors!” naming the Tokyo version of slot machines. “That’s why we don’t go to casino hotel!”
“And how would you,” I asked, “a creature of Fire, Air, and Spirit, protect yourself in a place of no magic?” I leaned back on my hands, absorbing the bright sunlight.
“Hmmm,” Akiko muttered as she made the “null magic” gesture with her hands. It was kind of like a programmer using comment markers to work on a line of code without running it. Any gestures made after the “null magic” gesture were inactive. Her humming continued as she worked on the vocal portion of a protective spell. I watched her intricate gestures and heard the power of her vocalizations.
Damn, she was good! Her spell was much better than any I could have taught her. I remembered my teacher, very near the end of my apprenticeship, telling me that he had learned as much from teaching me as I had learned from him. At the time, I thought it was hyperbole. Now I understood what he meant.