Shadow of the Fox

by Julie Kagawa

  With ringing shrieks and cries, the amanjaku surged forward, swarming into the courtyard, as Daisuke and Okame raised their weapons. The ronin’s bowstring hummed, releasing arrow after arrow, and demons screamed as they died. Daisuke took several steps forward, putting himself between us and the horde. For a moment he went perfectly still, only his pale hair rippling in the wind. Then, as the first amanjaku reached him, he exploded into motion, his sword a blur as it sliced through demons, so quickly he was moving on to the next foe before the amanjaku realized it was dead.

  “Yumeko!” Reika snapped, jerking my attention away from the battle. “This way, before it’s too late. We have to find Master Jiro!”

  A bark rang across the courtyard, Chu peering at us from the doorway, looking impatient. Reika sprinted forward, kicking away an amanjaku as she leaped over a rubble pile, making the demon yelp in pain. With one final look at the three humans, surrounded by amanjaku in the shadow of the massive oni, I followed.

  Demons chased us, leaping from the walls and crawling from beneath the verandas, scuttling toward us in a red, blue and green swarm. I dodged a pale blue demon, avoiding the spear it thrust at me, and leaped over a second as it swiped a kama sickle at my legs. Fox magic rose up, but before I could think about throwing kitsune-bi around, Reika shouted “Light” and flung an ofuda at the group of demons in front of us. The paper exploded in a blinding flash that caused the mob to shriek and cringe back, covering their faces. We scrambled between them, leaped up the steps onto the veranda and ducked through the entryway of the castle.

  “Close the doors!” Reika cried, spinning and putting her shoulder to one of the heavy wooden barricades, Chu barking and dancing around her feet. I rammed my palms into the second, pushing as hard as I could, and the doors gave a reluctant groan as they swung shut. Reika shoved a cracked board through the handles, just as a blow rattled the outside, followed by the angry voices of the amanjaku.

  “There,” she panted, backing away. “That should hold them for now.” I dared a quick glance around, seeing a dark hall with wooden pillars marching down the center, though everything in it—shoji screens, fusuma panels, shelves and bits of pottery—was smashed to bits and covered in filth.

  “Something has been very messy,” I pointed out. “I suppose demons aren’t very good housekeepers. Do you think there could be more?”

  “Inside the castle? Merciful Jinkei, I hope not.” Reika dusted off her hands. “The real question is, where is Master Jiro? This is a huge castle. How are we going to find him?”

  With a glow of light, the hitodama floated through one of the walls, swirled around us and drifted away down a narrow corridor. I nodded.

  “Follow the light,” I said, but at that moment, an amanjaku carrying a large bone appeared at the other end of the chamber. Spotting us, he pointed the bone in our direction and let out a high-pitched yowl that reverberated through the halls of the castle.

  I pinned back my ears, as answering shrieks and hisses began echoing out of the darkness. “I suppose that answers one question.”

  “Go!” the miko cried, as Chu darted after the hitodama and the sound of scrabbling claws rang out around us. We fled, following the bobbing light down long corridors, through empty rooms with shredded wall panels and overturned furniture, hearing the snarls of the demons as they closed in.

  As we rounded a corner and burst through yet another door, we found ourselves in a large, spacious chamber of polished wood and high ceilings. Torn, filthy tatami mats covered the wooden floors, and the walls were lined with weapon racks. Empty now, but I could guess this might have been a sparring or training area once.

  Unfortunately, we could run no farther. Across the room, a large amanjaku wearing a samurai helmet grinned at us triumphantly, as demons poured into the chamber through a hole in the wall, hissing and cackling as they spread across the floor. Turning around, we saw that the way we’d come was blocked, too. Demons surrounded us, grinning madly as they crept forward, pointing blades, spears and claws in our direction.

  Heart pounding, I drew my tanto, as Reika pressed close and Chu backed up, growling and showing his teeth at the approaching demons. They laughed and snickered, crimson eyes bright with bloodlust, knowing we were trapped.

  “What now?” I whispered, suddenly remembering the first time I’d run into a horde of demons. Tatsumi wouldn’t be coming this time; we were on our own.

  Reika pulled out an ofuda and gave me an impatient look. “What do you mean ‘what now’?” she snapped. “The demonslayer isn’t here, kitsune!”

  Oh.

  I felt the grin cross my face before I could help myself. No Tatsumi. No demonslayer, or unwitting humans who thought I was something I wasn’t.

  “Chu!” Reika called, drawing back the ofuda, which started to glow. “Guardian form now!”

  She hurled the slip of paper into the air, where it flew toward the dog and burst into a ray of light. The small orange dog threw back his head and howled, and as he did, swelled to ten times his previous size. His fur changed color, turning a brilliant red, and a golden mane fell around his neck. Now he was the size of an ox, with massive shoulders, a curly flowing tail and a thick, blocky head that was a cross between a dog and a lion. A komainu, I realized in awe, the living incarnation of the statues that sat next to the shrine’s torii gate. Chu, or the guardian spirit he had become, let out a booming roar that shook the timbers and sent several demons flying with one swat of his enormous paw.

  Shrieking, the amanjaku swarmed the room, their attention riveted on the majestic beast in the center of the floor. Taking one step back, I felt the familiar rush of fox magic rise to my fingers, and this time, did nothing to stifle it. As the horde closest to me rushed forward, I raised my arms, blue fire dancing at my fingertips, and sent a wave of kitsune-bi into their faces.

  The amanjaku screamed, cringing back from the supernatural flames, covering their eyes as the column of foxfire roared through the chamber, casting everything in a blue-white glow. The fire wouldn’t burn, nothing was in danger of incineration, but in the seconds of pandemonium that followed I grabbed a handful of reeds from the floor and hurled it into the air, sending fox magic after it.

  As the reeds fluttered down, a few dozen Yumekos and Reikas filled the room with small pops of smoke, eliciting yelps of alarm from the shocked amanjaku. As the replicas scattered, and the amanjaku began stabbing at them in a panic, I snatched up a pebble and threw it at the helmeted demon, where a second Chu materialized in front of him with a roar. As the demon howled and fell backward, slashing wildly with his blade, his helmet came off, rolling across the planks, and stopped in front of a pillar.

  Darting around the edges of the chaos, I peered through the bedlam for the real Chu and Reika, hoping they were all right. The shrine maiden stood in the center of the room, purifying ofuda in each hand, hurling them at passing demons. Where they touched, there was a burst of power, and the amanjaku writhed away into smoke as they were exorcised. Chu rampaged around her, swatting the demons that got too close with huge clawed forepaws or crushing them in his teeth. For now, both looked like they were doing fine. The hitodama hovered overhead, casting the room in hazy light, waiting for us.

  I sprinted to where the helmet lay forgotten next to the pillar, snatched it up and put it on my head. Fox magic flared, and in a puff of white smoke, my appearance changed. Gazing down at myself, I no longer saw the elegant white robes of the onmyoji; I saw a squat, ugly body with festering red skin, tattered rags and hooked claws. I chuckled, and it sounded evil and raspy in my ears.

  A green amanjaku rushed up to me, snarling and chattering, making frantic gestures back toward the room. I couldn’t understand a word it was saying, if it was even using words, but it clearly thought I was the commander of the horde of amanjaku, which was unfortunate for it. I stabbed the demon in the chest with my tanto and it blinked at me in shock, before writ
hing into tendrils of smoke and vanishing into nothing.

  Well, that’s useful.

  Bounding back into the chaos, I began slicing unwitting demons into smoke clouds while they were distracted by the dozen or so replicas still dancing about the room. Fortunately, amanjaku didn’t appear to be terribly smart, and would chase illusions of me around the room with maniacal persistence, hacking at them until they popped with a puff of white smoke and a single reed, drifting to the ground. When this happened, the amanjaku seemed to think it a victory, for they would jump up and down, pumping their fists in the air, before hurling themselves at the next replica. Slipping through the confusion, I stabbed one demon after the other, sending them back to Jigoku.

  An angry shout made me pause. I looked up, just in time to dodge the wakizashi of the amanjaku commander whose helmet I’d stolen. The demon hissed and ranted at me, baring his fangs and swinging his blade in short, furious arcs. I dodged and parried with my shorter dagger, backpedaling across the room until I hit one of the pillars, then instantly ducked as the amanjaku swung his sword at my head. The blade hit the beam, lodging in the wood for a split second, and I snatched a leaf from the floor as I rolled away. The amanjaku commander yanked his sword from the post, spun around and came face-to-face with two more of himself. One wearing a helmet, and one not.

  For a moment, he squinted in confusion, trying to decide which was which. Then with a howl, he lunged at me, the demon with a helmet, sinking his blade deep into my chest.

  Or so he thought. The amanjaku wailed, clutching at the sword, before it exploded in a puff of white smoke, the helmet falling to the ground with a clank. The amanjaku commander barely had time to blink in shock before I lunged through the smoke and stabbed him in the heart.

  As the demon snarled and twisted into fading wisps of darkness, I became aware of the silence in the room. Feeling hostile eyes on my back, I spun around to find myself in the shadow of a growling Chu, his lips pulled back from his enormous fangs, tensing to lunge.

  “Chu, wait! It’s me.” I shook off the illusion in a puff of smoke, noting how very large the dog spirit was up close. As the mist dispersed, I yanked the leaf from my head and held it in front of his nose. “Not a demon,” I told him, as his nostrils twitched. “Just a kitsune. One who has thought nothing but nice things about you since you appeared in tiny dog form. See?”

  The komainu looked wholly unimpressed; with a snort, he turned and padded back to Reika, standing alone in the center of the room. An ofuda was held between the shrine maiden’s two fingers, meant for me, I realized. Of the amanjaku, nothing remained but a few bits of stolen weapons and armor. The replicas were gone as well, pieces of straw blowing limply across the floor.

  I took a deep breath and let it out in a puff. “Well, that was...exciting,” I remarked, as Reika lowered her arms, the ofuda vanishing somewhere into her robes. Chu shook himself, and shrank down to a normal dog again. I was trembling, not with fear, but with the thrill of using so much fox magic all at once. Never in my sixteen years had I been allowed to unleash my full power, to really see what my magic could do. It was exciting and heady and a little bit frightening, knowing what I was capable of. Was this the power Master Isao warned me about? What the others were afraid of?

  Kitsune magic is the power of illusion. You might think it useful only for mischief, but seeing something that isn’t there, or making people believe you are someone else entirely, can be a dangerous, terrifying force. Use it carefully, lest you become an instrument of chaos.

  “Your ears are showing,” Reika remarked in a flat voice, bringing me out of my thoughts with a start. “I can normally see a faint outline, but they’re fully exposed now. Probably a side effect of using so much of your power.”

  I swallowed, resisting the impulse to reach up and touch them. “Do you think they’ll go away eventually?” I asked, knowing that, if my ears were visible, my tail probably was, as well. That would be a definite problem if Tatsumi or any of the others saw them. “What will we do if they don’t fade before we leave the castle?”

  “Worry about it when we get there,” the shrine maiden answered. “We have to keep going.” She looked at the hitodama, who still hovered near the ceiling, glowing faintly. “If you are truly here to help us,” she said, as the glowing orb trembled, “then lead on. And let us hope that there are no more ‘surprises’ ahead.”

  The hitodama hesitated a moment. Then it floated from the ceiling, circled the room once and flowed out another door.

  No more demons ambushed us on our way through the ruined castle; either they had fled or we had killed them all. The light wove unerringly down narrow hallways, through more empty, destroyed rooms, and finally led us to the top of a wooden staircase that led down into the dark.

  “He’s close,” Reika murmured, as Chu glanced up at her and wagged his tail. “I can feel his presence now. Hurry.”

  After descending the flight of stone steps, we came into a large room. Torches stood in the corners, flickering with ominous red flames, and cells with thick wooden bars lined the walls, but all were empty.

  In the center of the room, a man in a tattered, once-white robe sat cross-legged on the hard stone floor, hands cupped in his lap as if in meditation. His head was bowed, his shoulders hunched and he didn’t move when Reika called his name. Manacles encircled his wrists, rusty black chains that shackled him to the stone floor. A small white dog, nearly identical to Chu, lay motionless beside him.

  Both were encased in a flickering, nearly invisible dome of power, a barrier much like the one I had seen the night the Silent Winds temple was attacked. But this one was much more menacing, radiating evil and corruption, making my skin crawl the closer we got.

  “Blood magic,” the shrine maiden whispered, sounding furious and horrified. She pulled out another ofuda and raised it before her, paused a moment while the paper flared with energy, then hurled it at the barrier. It flew through the air and struck the dome flat, the word for purify written across its surface, before the barrier flickered once, twice and then shattered like wasps swarming from a hive.

  “Master Jiro!” Reika and I hurried forward. As we drew close, I saw that the black chains around the priest had vanished, melting into a line of dark reddish sludge across the floor.

  “Master Jiro,” Reika said again, kneeling before him, while Chu whined and shoved his nose against the crumpled form of the white dog. “Master, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  A shuddering, wheezy breath came from the hunched form, and his shoulders trembled as he raised his head. His face was gaunt, his cheeks sallow and his eyes were sunken pits in his face, looking distinctly skeletal. He blinked at Reika, brow furrowed, as if unsure he was seeing correctly.

  “R-Reika-chan?” he whispered. “Are you...really here?”

  “Yes, Master Jiro,” the shrine maiden returned softly. “I’m here. When you didn’t come back, I knew something was wrong. We’re here to rescue you. Can you stand?”

  “I...don’t know.” The priest tried to straighten, then slumped back with a groan. “I’m weak,” he whispered. “That woman...used blood magic to keep me here. She asked me questions, and when I didn’t give her what she wanted, she started draining my life force. Ko’s, too.” He glanced at the still motionless white dog beside him. Chu had given up trying to nose it to its feet and now sat there whining and looking miserable. “I tried to make her go home,” the priest muttered, “but she wouldn’t leave me. The demons...they would have tormented me even more...had she not been here.”

  Watching the white dog, I gasped as her side rose and fell; it was slight, but it was there. “She’s alive,” I told the priest, stepping around Reika. “She not gone yet. We can still save you both.”

  He peered at me, wan confusion crossing his face. “Kit-kitsune?” he murmured, and shook his head. “I... I must be hallucinating, after all.”

 
Abruptly, Chu leaped to his feet, wagging his tail, as the white dog suddenly stirred. Raising her head, she peered around in confusion, before she spotted me a few feet away, and her lips immediately curled to show tiny fangs. I took a quick step back, retreating behind Reika, as the dog staggered upright. Still glaring at me, she wobbled shakily over to the priest, whose face lit up as he saw her.

  “Come on, Master Jiro,” Reika said, putting one of his arms around her shoulders and gently drawing him upright. He staggered and swayed, but finally got his feet under him. “We’re leaving this place. Let’s hope the others are still alive so we don’t have to face that oni again.”

  “Oni?” the priest gasped, as my stomach twisted. “Yaburama is still here?”

  “You know his name?” I asked. The priest turned wide, fearful eyes on me.

  “Sadly, I do. Yaburama...is a monster. He is one of the four great demons of Jigoku, the oni generals of O-Hakumon himself.” Master Jiro’s face contorted in fear and loathing. “I do not know how that woman, even with her control of blood magic, could have summoned something like Yaburama into this world and not had him turn on her immediately. Even minor demons are difficult to control—an oni like Yaburama would require an extraordinarily powerful blood mage to have any hope of binding him to her will.”

  “We have to get out there,” I told Reika, who nodded. “Tatsumi and the others are fighting the oni now—we have to help them. Master Jiro, you’re the head priest, can you do anything that might stop Yaburama?”

  “I am sorry, kitsune,” Master Jiro said, his eyes genuinely sympathetic. “I am grateful for your assistance, even if I am unsure of your motives, but we cannot stand against an oni of that power. The demon generals are very nearly immortal. If your friends stayed behind to face Yaburama, they are likely already dead.”