Shadow of The Fox (Shadow of the Fox #1) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,14
in the air, tainting everything it touched. The demon in Kamigoroshi sensed it as well and stirred excitedly against my mind, a living shadow coiling about like a snake, eagerly anticipating what was to come.
The staircase to the last floor of the keep sat unguarded in a darkened corner of the castle, at the end of the long, narrow hallway. The aura of evil was stronger here, and tendrils of purple-black miasma trickled down the stairs, invisible to the normal human eye. The railing and wooden steps were starting to rot, and the floor around the stairs seemed blighted and weak. A white moth fluttered in from the nearby latticed window and instantly spiraled to the floor, dead.
Setting my jaw, I started up the stairs, ignoring the taint that swirled around me, trying not to breathe it in. The top floor opened up, thick wooden walls with latticed windows showing open sky. A dark mist writhed along the floor, coming from a pair of thick wooden doors against the opposite wall.
I walked to the doors and put a hand against the wood, feeling the sickness that warped it from the inside, then pushed it open.
A fog of purple-black corruption billowed out of the room and writhed into the air. Pausing on the threshold, I stared into the darkness. The walls and floor of the large, square room were covered in sheets of white webbing that hung from the ceiling and stuck to the floor. They wrapped around pillars and dangled from the rafters, tattered curtains rippling in the breeze. Here and there, clusters of bleached bones dangled from the webs, clinking together like grotesque wind chimes, and a few large, man-size cocoons were plastered to the walls, held immobile in the strands.
I stepped through the frame and heard the door creak shut behind me. The webbing on the floor stuck to my tabi boots, but not enough to slow me down. It rustled as I walked forward, vibrating the strands around me and rattling the bone chimes. I made no attempt to be silent. My target was here; there was no reason for stealth any longer.
A low chuckle drifted out of the darkness, soft and feminine, and the hairs on the back of my arms stood up. “I hear the patter of little male feet,” crooned a voice, echoing all around me, though I couldn’t see anything through the webs and strands. “Has Lord Hinotaka sent me another plaything? Something young and handsome, who yearns to be loved? Come to me, sweet one,” it continued in a haunting whisper, as I gripped the hilt of Kamigoroshi, feeling the demon’s savage anticipation. “I will love you. I will wrap my love around you, and never let you go.”
The last few words echoed directly overhead, just as Hakaimono gave a warning pulse in my mind. I threw myself forward on instinct, not bothering to look up, and felt something catch my jacket sleeve as I dove away. As I rolled to my feet, I spun to face a huge and bulbous form dangling from the ceiling, eight chitinous legs curled around the spot where I had been standing a moment before.
“Sneaky little man bug.”
The huge creature uncoiled its legs and dropped to the floor, clicking as it turned to face me, revealing the head and torso of a beautiful woman fused to the body of a giant spider. An elegant black-and-red kimono covered her human half but looked ridiculously small where the spider’s thorax emerged from beneath it. Looming above me, the jorogumo cocked her head and smiled, tiny black fangs sliding between full red lips.
“What’s this?” she breathed, as I dropped into a crouch and gripped the hilt of my sword. Hakaimono roared through my head, eager and vicious, sharpening my senses and making the air taste of blood. “A boy? Have you come into my lair, looking for me?” She tilted her head the other way. “You are not like the others, the men Hinotaka sends up to my lair, so proud but then so terrified. They flail like frightened crickets at first. But you...are not afraid. How delightful.”
I didn’t answer. Fear was the first thing that had been purged from my body; the most dangerous emotion of all. Fear, my sensei had taught me, was simply the body’s aversion to pain and suffering. A samurai who encountered a starving bear wasn’t afraid of the bear itself, but what the bear could do to him. He feared the claws that