The Fox's God (18 page)

They went as far as the Great Eastern Temple. Nobody liked spirit-world travel enough to use it needlessly and Inari was apparently busy back at the clan house. Grandmother Naoko could relay what was going on if she came by.

They piled into Toshishiro’s room again. He didn’t seem upset by the invasion; he sent off his new minion to “annoy food out of the cooks.”

“How long is your ruse going to work?” Akakiba inquired. “She’ll develop as a woman soon.”

“It’ll last long enough for what I have to teach her. After, Jien can take her with him on his travels. It would be good for her to see a monk at work.”

Jien spluttered and raised his hands in self-defense. “What would I do with a child?” The idea was terrifying; his mind spun trying to find an alternate solution. “Send her to the foxes. They don’t mind special women.”

“That’s a matter for my mother or father to consider,” Akakiba said. “They can find out who might like to adopt her.”

“You could adopt her yourself,” he suggested. “It’s the perfect solution to all your problems! Your mother would be so happy.”

“
No.
” Funny how Akakiba could squeeze so much dislike in one word.

“I think she’s cute,” Yuki said.

Akakiba’s expression dissolved into horror. “You—”

“But we can’t take in a child at this time. Children need a safe, steady household to grow in.”

Akakiba sagged in obvious relief.

Was that a smirk trying to break out on Yuki’s face? Oh, it
was
. He was torturing Akakiba on purpose. That was hilarious.

“Why is it you can get away with horrifying him and I can’t?” he fake-grumbled into his cup. He wasn’t thirsty, but the cup helped hide his face-splitting grin.

“There’s time yet,” Toshishiro said. “A year at the very least before the slow minds around here begin to suspect something is strange with my new apprentice. It’s not a crime to bathe in the city. I shall develop a fondness for street food and a dip taken away from home. Now, let us see what we can do about accommodations for the night. And then, perhaps, a bath in the city?”

Chapter Twenty-One

Mamoru

A
unt Marin set Mamoru and Usagi to guard strange-smelling substances. “Don’t touch any of it,” she warned, “and if the house happens to catch on fire, get out.”

The odds of the house randomly catching fire were pretty low, unless Marin planned to try cooking something fancy again. Last night’s attempt—in celebration of a successful rescue, she’d said—hadn’t gone so well.

“Explosives,” Usagi murmured, watching the containers warily. “Why does she need this much?”

Ah, that was why these smells were faintly familiar. He’d handled and used smoke bombs before, though nothing bigger. It was dangerous stuff in great quantities.

Marin wouldn’t let them watch what she was doing in the next room over, keeping the door closed. Now and then she came out with a sealed chest to put under their care, and hauled more ingredients away.

“Who are we guarding this stuff from?” Mamoru wondered aloud. “The clients?” It was reasonable to assume this was an order made for somebody else—unless Marin had a nefarious plan to send the city up in flames. He couldn’t see how that would benefit her, so she probably wasn’t planning anything of the kind. Probably.

“Could be,” Usagi said. “They might not have paid the entire fee upfront.”

They watched and listened, but no intruders appeared other than a squirrel in the garden. Mamoru watched it closely, but it didn’t seem to be possessed or otherwise suspicious.

None of the sealed chests—presumably full of ready-to-go explosives—chose to explode and kill them while they waited for the work to be done. Domi brought food at midday—he was the best cook in the house, which sadly didn’t mean much—but otherwise stayed away.

Eventually, all the ingredients were transformed into sealed chests. Marin put her head out and called, “Domi! Send a message to tell the foxes it’s ready! And ask how long we have to be on the road.” She peered outside, frowning at the grey sky. “We need closed transport to ensure the powder won’t get damp.”

The foxes?

Mamoru exchanged a look with Usagi; she looked as perplexed as he was. Why in the world would they be doing business with the Fox clan? Was this something they’d asked for in exchange for setting him free?

Habit kept them from asking. If Marin wanted to them to know what was going on, she’d inform them.

There was, tied at the low gate surrounding the house’s yard, a hidden string. Whenever someone passed through, the disturbance set off a tiny gong in the house, warning them of visitors. Other strings were laid out on the roof or across the garden, linked to different gongs. If those sounded, it would mean intruders. Or curious squirrels, but that hadn’t happened yet.

The sound of a gong froze Mamoru for the two seconds it took for him to identify it: the front gate. “I’ll greet them,” he told Usagi, scrambling off and leaving her alone with the explosives. It couldn’t be the foxes since the clan house was far away and they’d only gotten back to the city themselves.

Opening the door, he came face to face with Akakiba.

He was a
shinobi
, trained to keep his cool in all situations, so he didn’t shriek and pull out all his weapons to defend his life. The noise he made was purely one of surprise. And the move he made was only a twitch of discomfort at finding an enemy at his door.

“You’re supposed to be in the north with the expedition,” Mamoru said accusingly. “You can’t be back yet, it’s impossible.”

“We cheated,” Akakiba said. “
You’re
Marin’s new junior
shinobi
? How did that happen?”

Obviously the samurai had no idea what had passed at his own clan house recently. Well, good. The entire thing had been humiliating. Bugs got trapped in vases, not people.

Seeking a neutral answer, he went with, “You could say she cheated, too.” Then, remembering what Usagi was currently guarding, he added, “Are you here for the…stuff?”

“If it’s stuff that explodes, yes,” someone said from behind Akakiba. It was a local
sohei
, looking tall because he was wearing high clogs rather than flat sandals, and looking familiar because he’d been with Akakiba in Kyoto. Jien, his name was.

There was a second samurai, too—Yuki. He didn’t speak, looking around in the deceptively innocent manner of someone used to being the one watching his partners’ backs.

“Come in,” Mamoru said neutrally. “Aunt Marin shouldn’t be far.”

Marin dropped from the roof, landing lightly behind Yuki. “I’m here. Did you get the message? How many days will it take to travel where we’re going?”

“We have instant travel,” Akakiba said. “Similar to Domi’s method.”

Marin pursed her lips. “You expect me to go with you and hope I come out at the other end?”

“We do need you to set it off properly. We wouldn’t strand you in between.”

“So you say.”

“I’ll take you through, Marin,” Domi said as he joined their gathering. “You can’t have everything. I can take a little risk to make you feel safer, or we can take the risk of trusting them.”

“Half-half,” Marin said. “Domi can take me and one chest. They can take the children and the rest.”

Children? Him and Usagi? He didn’t want to go anywhere with foxes. Especially if explosives were involved.

“Don’t make that face, Mamoru,” Marin told him cheerfully. “I’ll avenge you if they get you killed. I promise.”

“We’ll stay at the clan house overnight,” Akakiba said. “Or until the skies are properly clear. We’ll proceed to the site at that time.”

“We have no choice, do we?” Marin said. “We’ll accept your hospitality but be aware I can ignite this stuff the moment we land if we step out into a trap. There won’t be much left of whoever might try to attack us.”

“I thought samurai were the ones with the suicide fetish,” Jien said.

“Oh, they are. But it is the
shinobi
way not to die without taking an enemy or two along.” Marin beckoned to them lazily. “Come, come. The stuff is in the back.”

A fox Mamoru didn’t recognize took them through the spirit world. He and Usagi staggered back into the real world looking around for danger. They were on a deserted mountainside, with a tall wall and gates visible a little way off—the Fox clan house. The sky was grey, but not as threatening as it had been in Nara.

Domi and Marin appeared seconds after them, the latter tense as a coiled snake. When she relaxed, it was a sign they could do the same.

“I despise traveling this way,” Usagi moaned, leaning against him and breathing shallowly.

He supported her gladly, taking in the pleasant smell of the camellia oil she used on her hair. He personally didn’t mind the other side, found it pleasantly familiar. Being half-spirit must have protected him from the travel shock that affected humans.

Inside the clan house, they were greeted politely enough, though nobody smiled or made conversation beyond what was strictly necessary. It was understandable, given the bloody battle their clan had fought against theirs. They returned the politeness, and the coldness too. Except for Domi, who appeared to be the kind of person who was friendly with everybody unless and until they gave him a reason not to be.

“Lovely gardens,” Domi observed as they were shown to their temporary quarters in what looked like an old storage shack standing apart from the rest of the warren-like network of buildings. It was nestled right up to the outer fortification wall and its floor was dirt hidden by new and fresh-smelling bamboo mats.

Thank you,
Kiba said. He was the only fox other than Akakiba—who had the task of ferrying the chests—to stay in close proximity to them.
We spend much time tending them.

“I was expecting to see the clan leader, but I understand why you wouldn’t want to expose him to us needlessly,” Marin murmured.

Accidents happen,
Kiba said.
Should you have made a mistake with your explosives, you will unfortunately be the ones to suffer for it.

Them,
and
a chunk of the fortification wall,
and
half the gardens,
and
maybe the next building over, Mamoru silently corrected. The foxes didn’t grasp exactly how big this explosion would be. That might be for the best. He didn’t want to sleep outside on the road.

Marin sniffed. “I don’t make mistakes.”

Food was provided. Marin looked from the spread to Mamoru. Chopsticks in hand, he dutifully took a few bites out of every single plate. “I don’t taste anything odd.”

“We’ll wait a while,” Marin said.

Domi looked tolerantly exasperated, but he nonetheless folded his hands to wait. “Such paranoia.”

When Mamoru failed to fall over dead from undetected poison, the others reached out for sustenance.

Marin wrinkled her nose at the cold soup and Domi laughed at her. “You wanted to wait. Now eat.”

Usagi ate daintily, whispering between two bites, “Shall we tell them about Advisor Yoshida?”

Hmm. If the person to whom Advisor Yoshida leaked information had sent men to steal the Soul Eater, they were probably far up north wondering where the expedition had gone. It wasn’t a problem.

“They don’t know the swords are here,” he said. Usagi would understand the underlying reasoning.

The monk named Jien appeared to have been delegated to play friendly guard, probably on the idea they wouldn’t be as wary of him as they were of foxes. As far as Mamoru knew, Jien had no specific grudge against them.

“The clouds are drifting away,” Jien said, eying the sky outside. “We might be safe from rain tomorrow. I’d rather not sit near explosive stuff longer than I have to.”

Marin patted the nearest chest. “It’s perfectly safe, as long as nobody starts a fire.”

Usagi gave Mamoru a rueful smile. “I didn’t expect to come back here. I hope we can go home soon.”

Was Nara “home” already? Well, they could have done worse. He smiled back. “The circumstances aren’t so bad. We’ll be fine.”

As if to prove him wrong, half a dozen foxes spilled in the garden, purposefully moving their way. They didn’t look happy.

“Trouble,” Mamoru said, to draw the others’ attention.

Jien leaned out the doorway, calling out, “What happened?”

A fox called back, urgently, “Did any of them leave? Do anything?”

“No,” Jien said. “They’ve all stayed in here with me.”

The fox samurai’s shoulders sagged. “But if they didn’t do it, who did?”

“Do what?” Domi inquired.

We’re missing the sword
, Kiba said, bounding inside.
Have any of them—

“No,” Jien repeated. “They just got here and haven’t done anything other than eat.”

The boy is half-demon. Has he gone unresponsive at any point?

“I know what it looks like when people leave their bodies. He didn’t.”

Mamoru was quickly taking a liking to this monk. It was refreshing to meet someone who didn’t assume all and any trouble could be blamed on the nearest
shinobi
.

It couldn’t be so easy,
Kiba said, sounding aggravated.
Who, then?

“How about the scribe?” Jien said. “He’s suspicious.”

Inari says she’s been with him so often he’d have had no opportunity for it.

Marin yawned theatrically. “You’re going about this the wrong way. It doesn’t matter who did it, what matters is finding where the Soul Eater went. Find out whether any of your suspects have left the clan house since the time you suspect the sword’s been missing. If they haven’t, then the sword is within the walls. Look under floors, under buildings, on rooftops, under vegetation, and in food stores.”

“Listen to the
shinobi
,” Jien said. “They know all about thieving. I’ll go tell the men at the gate not to let any humans out for now. With me, boy.”

Mamoru blinked. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

He looked to Marin, who didn’t object. “Okay.” He took off after Jien—not quite running, but hurrying. He couldn’t help but ask, “Why me?”

“You can’t sneak out of your body if you’re busy following me. And if your friends get spooked enough to try to leave Domi-style, we’ll still have you to tell us how to operate the exploding stuff.” He paused to breathe, added, “The foxes seem jumpy about you. Half-demon, they say. I don’t see the difference between you and them, but saying so probably wouldn’t make them any happier.”

How ironic that the person least taken aback by, and least suspicious of, his special circumstances was a human and a monk. “Thank you.”

The guards at the gate were women lounging with spears. They were wearing
hakama
, but otherwise didn’t attempt to pass for men.

“We have a bit of a crisis going on,” Jien told them. “Don’t let any humans out the gate until Kiba or Takashi say the problem is solved.”

The women looked at each other and one spoke up. “Hachiro went out moments ago with a friend. He said he wanted to go buy a gift to thank the clan for our hospitality.”

Jien gaped. “Hachiro? Impossible. It has to be a coincidence. How long ago?”

In answer, the women set their shoulders to the giant doors and heaved. That told Mamoru they were fox women, not human ones. Swinging outwards, the doors revealed two distant figures far down the road.

“That’s them,” one woman said.

Jien chewed his lips and looked at Mamoru. “You can take down a grown man, yes?”

“If I have to,” he said prudently, “but I’m not willing to fight anyone with
that
sword.”

“Great! Let’s go find out if this is a coincidence—if it isn’t, you take the smaller man and I take the bigger one. He’ll be the one with
that
sword.” To the guards he said, “Let Takashi or Kiba or Akakiba know what’s happening, right now. We might need help.”

Jien took off. Mamoru followed, but he wasn’t certain why. Maybe because he didn’t want a decent person like Jien to get killed?

Behind him, he heard one guard say to the other, “I never understood that monk. He says not to let humans through, and out he goes. You go see Takashi and find out what’s going on.”

Mamoru didn’t have the legs Jien did, but he had an advantage he could draw upon to catch up.

“Slow down,” he told Jien as they rapidly ate the distance between them and the potential enemies, who’d just gone around a bend on the descending trail. “They’ll be suspicious if we come in running.”

“You’re right.” Jien skidded to a stop and started again at a sustainable jog. “I’ll pretend we’re looking to join them for shopping. That’ll allow us to get close and find out if they have the sword.”

As they came strolling around the bend, Jien called out, “Hey, Hachiro! We want to go shopping too!”

Until now, it hadn’t been apparent that the man named Hachiro was a hulking giant. But now they were much closer, it was
quite
obvious. The giant turned, waving. “My friend! Come, come!”

“That’s not suspicious behavior,” Mamoru pointed out. “Is he a good liar?”

“As far as I know, not at all,” Jien said. “I don’t—”

While Hachiro was still waving, the man at his side punched him in the side, and fled into the forest.

Now
that
was suspicious behavior.

“Help Hachiro!” Jien said, and plunged into the forest.

Hachiro, when Mamoru made it to his side, pulled a sharp, thin dagger from his flesh. “I don’t understand,” he said plaintively, staring at the blade. “Why?”

Mamoru pried the blade from the giant fist and took a sniff. No poison, as far as he could tell. “I was told somebody stole a special sword.” He was not going to tell this intimidating man that he’d been under brief suspicion. “I think we just found out who took it.”