Shadow of The Fox (Shadow of the Fox #1) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,50

tossed my hair and caused me to stumble forward. The wind swirled through the doorway, ripping at the curtains and extinguishing the lanterns inside and out, plunging the room into shadow.

As I straightened, a lock of my hair suddenly fell to the floor, sliced clean through, as if by a very sharp blade.

My eyes widened, and a flutter of alarm went through me. I looked up to see a pair of beady red eyes watching me from atop one of the lanterns on the ceiling. They were attached to a furry brown creature with a pointed muzzle, small rounded ears, and a long, sinewy body.

A weasel? I frowned. An ordinary-looking weasel, except...

My mouth fell open. Except for the long, sickle-shaped blades growing right out of its forelegs. Curved and deadly looking, they extended behind the creature’s elbows and glimmered in the darkness of the room. Not a normal weasel at all, I realized. A creature that possessed magic or other supernatural powers. A yokai.

Like me.

The weasel thing hissed, baring sharp yellow fangs, leaped off the statue and disappeared.

Another wind sliced through the ryokan, flapping the curtains, making me wince and stumble back. As I regained my balance, I felt a stinging sensation against my cheek and put a hand to my face.

My fingers came away smeared with blood.

Heart pounding, I looked through the doorway. The weasel thing was perched on the roof of a wooden vendor stall across the street, still watching me with eyes like embers in the shadows. I dropped my hand from the shallow cut across my cheek.

It wants me to follow it.

The other people in the room hadn’t noticed the intruder. They were still straightening up, recovering from being nearly knocked down, twice, by the mysterious wind. If I didn’t leave, the weasel thing might keep coming back and slashing at others with those wickedly curved blades. Besides, I was curious, intrigued by the presence of another yokai, and a full-blooded one at that. It might be common to see them in the woods or mountains, but they tended to avoid large towns and places with lots of people. If the weasel yokai had shown himself to me here, it was for a reason.

Wiping my cheek with the back of my sleeve, I left the inn and hurried back into the streets of Chochin Machi.

The yokai flowed with the wind, flitting from place to place, invisible when it was on the move, reappearing when it was stationary. I followed it down the main street, watching as it flew from rooftop to rooftop, making the lanterns sway wildly in its wake. People stumbled as it passed overhead, holding on to their robes and parasols as the wind gusted by.

“What strange weather,” someone muttered as I passed. “I wasn’t aware that Chochin Machi was so windy.”

I followed the creature down a narrow alley, watching the lanterns overhead dance and bounce until it turned a corner and we came to a dead end. With a blast of wind, the weasel thing twisted into the air and vanished. I waited, but neither the wind nor the yokai reappeared; the air was still and silent, and the passage was empty.

I frowned. So that weasel thing just wanted to trick me. And now I’m lost. I gazed around, wondering if I could retrace my steps back to the ryokan. Except I had no idea where I was. Denga-san would find this hilarious.

A soft chuckle came from behind me, low and mocking. “Well, hello, little fox. Wandering lonely back alleys all by yourself?”

I spun. A woman stood atop a roof, framed by the light of the moon. She was tall and slender, wearing an elegant kimono decorated with swirling white clouds against a sky blue background. Her hair was long, unbound and rippled like strands of ink in the wind. Billowy sleeves draped her arms, hanging nearly to her ankles, as she regarded me with pale, icy blue eyes.

“Um...hello,” I greeted warily. “Is this your alley?” The woman didn’t move, and I took a cautious step back. If she realized I was kitsune, she probably wouldn’t take kindly to a strange yokai in her territory. “I’m just a little lost, so if you could just point me in the right direction...”

The woman’s full lips curled as she looked me up and down. “Vermin,” she remarked, making me frown. “A filthy and revolting vermin. Just like my kamaitachi.” She raised her arm, and the weasel thing appeared on it with a blast of wind