The Way of the Fox (33 page)

“Hmm...” Kuno cast his mind carefully back over the conversation with the maid. “
No. Apparently not.”

“So
Hanako was in there alone…”

Interesting...

They walked along, mulling theories over in their minds. Tonbo stayed to the rear, keeping a careful watch behind them towards the keep. Chiri paced quietly along beside Kuno, her thoughts deep and her elementals floating softly in her wake.

“The Raiden have not questioned Hanako about her visit to the castle. Surely this is a
startling oversight?”

Kuno nodded. “Raiden Katsura
is taking no real steps to investigate his father’s death. And now we have a secret gold mine in a supposedly poor fief…” He kept one hand resting upon his sword hilt. “I am intrigued – and concerned.”

Sura had been niggling away at other thoughts entirely. She looked across to Tonbo.

“Tonbo: what would happen if the guard at a house of high class courtesans was found to be having a love affair with one of the maids?”

“Not good.” Tonbo nodded, seeing her thoughts. “
It could be bad. If the maid was intended to become a high ranked courtesan.”

Kuno looked around. “
He would certainly be dismissed. If he caused too much trouble, he might even be driven from the town.”

Tonbo scowled. “
Or worse. If the girl was a favourite of Lord Raiden, then the entire brothel would be at deadly risk. It would be easier to dispose of the guard entirely.”

Chiri was aghast. “
But Mama Ippongi seems so nice!”

Kuno scowled.
“She is a business woman. She cannot have ronin making free with her girls. Some high paying customers insist on exclusivity – and Lord Raiden was a butcher. Not a man to be crossed...”

Sura scratched at her neck.

“Where do brothel madams find girls?”

Kuno made a face – clearly disapproving of the entire process.

“Peasant families with too many mouths to feed – or orphans found wandering the streets. The brothel keeper takes them on. Those they groom to become courtesans are then expensively trained – music, poetry, calligraphy, dance. The girl therefore has a debt that she is now required to work off before she can go free. Easier to do so as a high paid courtesan than as a lowly maid.”

They walked onwards, turning off into the broad lane that led towards the village inn. Sura mused, her tail swaying behind her as she walked. She put her spear over both shoulders, hanging her arms over the shaft.

“There is a pattern here. Hanako is in love with Benten. I think he may even have followed her here from her last house in that other town.” The fox clucked her tongue. “The deaths in this town only started after Hanako arrived. We have a dead courtesan – a renowned sneak and gossip. And the laundry girl. Hanako and Benten seem to meet up in the laundry. It may be the only secret place where they can meet.” Sura gave a frown. “Did Hanako kill the courtesan and the laundry woman because they had discovered their secret romance?”

Chiri shook her head, quite
unconvinced.

“
Forgive me Sura san. But Hanako seems very sad, and very sweet – and very much in love.” The rat wrinkled her nose. “I do not think she is a murderess.”

“Yeah – yeah... I know. I liked her. She’s a smart one. But something’s sure going on.” Sura puzzled it all over. “There’s a possible Hanako link to the other murders here as well. We had r
ough boys who prey on people running errands to the market. People like Hanako and the other maids! And a bad ronin – another person who harassed girls...” Sura turned to look back down the street towards the brothel. “But why Lord Raiden? What motivation could such a girl have to deliberately murder a lord?”

Chiri paused and joined Sura,
peering through the darkness at the distant lights of the castle.

“
Sura san! Do you think Hanako san may have truly murdered Lord Raiden?”

“Well – the haunting in the forest was fake. Maybe the haunting in the town is as well – a fake curse to cover a string of mortal murders.” Sura wrinkled her nose in thought. “
It would have to be by poison. She’s a herbalist. And the bodies are always found without a mark! But with a grimace of terror. Of terror? Or muscle contraction caused by a poison?” Quite certain that the pieces were all falling into place, Sura turned to face the others and planted her spear butt first on the ground. “Guys – I think what we have here is a case of murder! There’s clearly not a spirit or a monster in sight!”

A great
blazing, skeletal ghost blasted from a side alley and lunged straight for Sura. The gigantic screaming shape plunged towards her, and the fox dove wildly aide, squealing like a scalded monkey. Kuno and Tonbo dove and rolled, coming back up onto their feet in expert style as the huge, ravening ghost looped and swirled above the street. Sparks cracked and flickered in mid air.

The ghost
was a great, spectral skeleton in ragged chunks of armour – fingers clawed and jaw snapping. Twice the size of a man, and vast with power. It plunged to street level and hurtled itself at Sura once again. She dove aside, then rolled back up onto her feet, perfectly poised for battle. The ghost smashed over a street lamp, spilling oil and setting a blue, flickering fire splashing out over the street. The fox swirled her spear around her, the air all about crackling with power. Light gathered and flashed into her spear.

“
Spirit lance!
”

The spear blade glowed with a searing white light. Sura raced forward and sliced at the ghost. The creature wrenched wildly up and away from the spear. Tonbo raced forwards, swinging his tetsubo. The weapon passed clean through the ghost. A flick of the monster’s spectral tail clipped Tonbo, and a sizzling arc of power cracked into him, catapulting him backwards through a fence. With her eyes on the spectre, Sura raced across to Tonbo. She helped drag him up out of the ruined fence, his hair crackling with residual power and positively standing on end. Sura called back to Chiri, past the blazing pool of oil.

“You guys will need magic weapons!”

The rat girl nodded, keeping her eyes on the ghost as it whipped and plunged down below nearby rooves, circling to attack. She sent Daitanishi and Bifuuko circling up into the air, both elementals sparkling bright.

“Dearest friends, heed my call. Club of Earth! Sword of Air!”

The little air elemental plunged down and merged with Kuno’s sword, making the entire blade glow with life. Daitanishi sped into Tonbo’s tetsubo. With his huge spiked weapon now shimmering in his hands, Tonbo stood up, shed bits and pieces of the broken fence, and looked about for the ghost, ready to pound it clean back into the grave.

The ghost came straight at them.

The creature gave a silent scream, claws extended, trying to seize hold of Kuno. Sura side-stepped, raking her spear along the monster’s side as it flashed past, and the ghost blazed, clearly stung. Its charge veered slightly aside, and Kuno whirled, sword flashing as it sliced into the ghost. The monster coiled back on itself, wildly angry. Tonbo crashed his tetsubo into the ghost’s shoulder, and the creature was somehow solid beneath the blow. The massive shock of the impact slammed the monster aside.

The ghost whirled, snapping
and snarling. A jagged arc of light suddenly shot out from the monster’s claws. Sura, Tonbo and Kuno were all hurtled wildly aside, falling and skidding across the road. The ghost surged, gathering great snapping arcs of energy that seared across its bones, then plunged towards them, flashing across the ground with lightning speed.

Sura met it with her spear planted butt-first against the ground. The ghost crashed into the spear point, and great tendrils of power seared wildly through the air. Pinned on the
crossblades, the ghost ravened at Sura and tried to shove closer. Power seethed and crackled, unable to travel down the spear haft. The crossblades held the monster at bay, even as its claws slashed wildly at Sura’s head. Power snapped and crackled, making her hair stand ridiculously on end.

Chiri
sped to the blazing pool of lamp oil. She flung out a hand towards the rippling wash of flames.

“Friends of the nezumi, come! Your playmate summons fire!

“Flame natagama!”

Two small,
flickering creatures made from flame surged up out of the fire and flung themselves into Chiri’s weapons. The rat ran and made a ferocious leap, long hair flying as she sliced into the monster’s flank with both blades. The ghost reeled, two blazing wounds cut across its bones. Chiri cut and hacked into it again. Power arced out of the ghost, sizzling uselessly into the ground. It lashed at Chiri, and the rat ducked beneath the whip of scorching light, slicing at the monster once again. With the ghost still held on the point of Sura’s spear, Tonbo rose and crashed his tetsubo down onto the monster. Wounded, the ghost roiled sideways. Sura whipped paper seals out of her robes and swiped them with stiffened fingers, charging them with power. She flung two papers down onto the ground, trying to make a cage to trap the ghost – but the monster immediately leapt up and away, swooping over the roof of a hut to disappear from view.

“After it! We can try and trap it!” Sura pointed to the left. “Hook
around and chase it back this way! I’ll lay out the seals!”

Sura staggered towards an alley, feeling
somewhat numb and scorched, with hair and tail frizzed out like a cloud. Chiri, Tonbo and Kuno ran down the road, hoping to head off the monster and chase it back into the trap. Sura picked her place and swiftly laid out her paper seals. She backed away to the corner of the alley, ready to fire off her spell.

Tonbo, Chiri and Kuno plunge
d through an overgrown garden, past astonished householders, then caught sight of the ghost as it hovered in a market place filled with old decaying barrels. The monster was drawing power out of the ground – its wounds sizzling and healing. The rat girl and the two warriors thundered towards the ghost, and it whipped about. It pulled away, still sucking power up out of the walls, the trees, the ground –  then whirled and sped straight towards Sura’s ambush. The fox backed away, using herself as bait, waving her hands to draw the ghost right into the shields.

“Yes yes yes! This way! Hey ugly – over here!” The ghost saw Sura, and the monster’s eyes filled with
absolute rage. The fox skipped backwards, waving her hand. “Over here, you undead git!”

Sura pumped a fist in joy as the ghos
t raced straight into the alleyway. But her jaw droped as the monster looped completely around the paper seals. It roared overhead as Sura ducked, then hovered in the street with sparks crackling wildly into the dark.

C
laws out, it sent a deep surge of power sizzling towards a cart filled with firewood. The cart lifted high into the air. The monster looked straight at Sura, its teeth barred. The fox’s ears fell.

“
Oh bugger!”

The cart came tumbling wildly through the
air, straight for Sura. She ducked it by a whisker’s breadth, and it smashed into the corner of an abandoned house, shattering the wall. The ghost rose and plunged towards her, hurtling great blocks of firewood towards her head. Sura ducked, then jumped, scrabbling aside as logs slammed into the ground. The last one came straight for her face, missing by a miracle, to shatter floorboards right in front of her nose. She leapt back to her feet and saw the ghost reaching for yet more firewood, which it rapidly flung in a mad volley straight towards her.

The fox wailed and ran off along a row of porches. The ghost came in hot pursuit,
its sizzling power bolts seizing mattocks, old stone lanterns, roof tiles and porch posts and flinging them wildly after her. Lethal missiles smashed into walls as Sura wove, ducked and ran. Everything metal all around the ghost seared and roiled with sparks. Wooden roof tiles exploded out and away as the spectre rampaged past.

“Guys! A little help here!”

Sura leapt from a porch and through a deserted garden, hoping to find a route that would starve the ghost of its ammunition supply. Instead, she raced past a huge old log with a felling axe. In an open shed beside it there was an entire wall hung with hammers, saws, sickles, awls and rusty chisels. The fox stared the tools, her ears wilting.

“Oh mother pus bucket...!”

The ghost snatched for the tools. Sura sped off in another direction, tail flying behind her. She saw a line of houses that promised some sort of cover. The fox flicked one glance back over her shoulder as she ran – and saw a great mass of rusty metal tools coming straight towards her like a solid wall.

There was an old stone statue of
Kwannon at the edge of the houses up ahead. Sura leapt behind the statue, changing into fox form and leaving her clothes behind. She flattened herself against the stone an instant before the metal tools slammed into the houses all around her. Chisels and sickles crashed into the stone statue, ricocheting away, striking showers of sparks. Kwannon’s head was severed by a spinning axe – the blade almost taking off Sura’s ears. The stone head landed with a thump behind her, gazing up at the fox with an expression of mild annoyance. One wall of a house groaned and fell into the alley, peeling clean away from the rest of the structure. The fox dashed off through the wreckage and into the now-open house.