Kitsune Tales: Two Short Stories (4 page)

What little
relaxation Yuri had managed disappeared in a rush of angry shock. She even felt
her tails stiffen as she stared down at the little lizard. "How did you
know that?"

"I have
occasional contact with your…Mr. Webb. And we
mo'o
are quite…perceptive." The lizard sounded for
all the
world like it was smirking. "But that is neither here nor there. I have a
simple question for you, Yuri of the
kitsune
."

"Moe-oh?"
Yuri asked. She knew it was risky to ask an unknown creature with so much power
too many questions, but she couldn't help it. She had never heard of a thing
called a
mo'o
, and she thought she knew all the
creatures that had stayed on Earth when the wall went up between the worlds.
Finding out she didn't made her stomach and her chest go tight. How much had
Piccolo and the others kept from her? If this creature had contact with Webb, they
most certainly knew it existed
;
so why hadn't they
said anything?

The lizard
laughed. "Perhaps the term 'dragon of the water' would appeal to you
more."

Yuri's heart
jumped into her throat and she couldn't help but wonder if it was too late to
bow. The sheer amount of magic rolling off the little creature practically
screamed 'dragon,' but Yuri hadn't known there were dragons in this part of the
world, let alone ones that looked like sea-glass-colored geckos. If she had
known, she would have watched her temper earlier. She tried to force words past
her shock. The most respectful apologies she could manage came out in a rough
burst of shaky Japanese.

If there was one
thing Yuri remembered from her mother's teachings, it was
never
disrespect a dragon.

The
mo'o
chuckled again. "Or I might have made things
worse. My apologies,
hoaloha
."

Yuri swallowed as
best she could past the lump in her throat.
A dragon,
apologizing to
her
?

"
Tullia
has something of mine," the
mo'o
said when Yuri remained silent. "A pearl that I enchanted to help me to
change my shape. Will you help me to retrieve it?"

"Yes."
Yuri said it before she could think. It was a bad idea--if not outright bad
luck--to refuse to aid a dragon. Her body, however, didn't agree with her mind.
It chose that moment to increase the pounding behind her eyes and remind her
that she probably wouldn't be able to walk more than a few steps. She dropped
her head into her hands with a frustrated groan. "But she took my magic.
I'm useless like this. I can barely think straight."

Wet little lizard
feet touched Yuri's knee again. This time, she didn't flinch away. The dragon's
voice was soft and gentle. "You are stronger than you think,
hoaloha
. If I can ease your pain, will you aid me?"

Yuri lowered her
arms and stared at the little water dragon. She almost felt a compulsion to
help. But if they both wanted to take down the siren, weren't they really
helping each other? Besides, Yuri didn't really want to risk offending a
dragon. Not when doing so would likely destroy the luck she'd spent years
creating. Yeah, she told herself sarcastically, that's a great rationalization.

Slowly, she
nodded.

"Very well,
hoaloha
. Lift me up to your face and I will lend you some
of my own power." The dragon pushed away from Yuri's knee, balancing on
its hind feet.

Yuri tried not to
look too uncertain as she offered her cupped hands. Once the dragon had
settled--cool and damp--into her palms, she slowly lifted it up to her face.
That close, she could almost imagine she saw the huge, elegant dragon trapped
within the tiny body.

The
mo'o
began a quick, lively song in what Yuri vaguely
recognized as Hawaiian. Its tail swayed behind it in rhythm with the chant. It
leaned forward in Yuri's hands until its cool snout pressed against her nose.

The feeling of wet
scales against her skin was a strangely comforting feeling.
At
least, until a sneeze tickled just below the bridge of her nose.
She
inhaled sharply, trying to resist the urge. She couldn't blow snot all over a
dragon!

The
mo'o's
song grew softer and sweeter and Yuri's urge to
sneeze grew stronger.

She sniffed again.
This time, she inhaled the scent of coconuts and roasting meat, tropical rain
and lava. She breathed in the fish-and-blood scent of the dragon's magic and
felt a flame light beneath her breastbone, like a fire on a long night, or the
slow burst of a long-dormant volcano.

With her next
breath, the desire to sneeze was gone. So was the exhausted ache in her bones.
She felt strong and awake again, ready to track down the siren and fix her
mistake--preferably before Piccolo arrived.

The
mo'o
sat back in Yuri's hands with a satisfied snort. Its
tail curled around one of her fingers. "Well,
hoaloha
,
how do you feel?"

"Amazing,"
Yuri breathed. It felt like she was bursting with energy, like she could run
around the world without stopping, every cell burning like a star. She smiled
gratefully at the little dragon. "Thank you…oh. You didn't tell me your
name."

"Call me
Kaimana
," the
mo'o
replied.
It shifted in Yuri's hands, bracing one little foot against her thumb.
"Now. Let us go and retrieve what is ours."

It took ten
minutes for Yuri to duck out the back of the medical tent, change into a
miniskirt and tank top, situate
Kaimana
on the
handlebars of her "borrowed" Vespa, and guide the scooter out of the
beach parking lot. She shouted over the noise of the traffic. "Why did
Tullia
steal from you in the first place?"

Kaimana's
little lizard toes curled tighter around the
handlebar. "We argued about her power over humans, and how she ought to
use it. She stole the pearl to aid her in staying on land without drying out,
so she could attempt to find a mortal who is immune to her spell-song."

"Wait, you
knew her before she stole your pearl?" Yuri carefully stopped the Vespa at
a red light, ignoring the fat creep in the convertible beside them. Let him
stare; he'd probably seen weirder things than a young woman talking to a
lizard.

The light turned
green as
Kaimana
replied, "We were very close
for several years. You could say we were lovers, as much as a siren can
love."

Yuri bit her lip
instead of replying. How did she get herself tied up in a lover's quarrel
between a dragon and a siren? Was that going to make getting the pearl back and
protecting the mortals more or less difficult?

The little
mo'o
gave directions with its feet and tail until they
wound up at La King's Confectionary on Strand Street.

Yuri parked the
Vespa on the street between an old pickup and a shiny new SUV. Smoothing down
her wind-ruffled hair, she climbed off the scooter and offered her hand to the
mo'o
. She frowned at the colorful paint on the candy store
window. She couldn't feel any magic beyond the crashing power inside her, and
she couldn't smell anything except car exhaust, seawater, and fresh-baked
waffle cones. "Are you sure this is the right place,
Kaimana-sama
?"

The lizard-dragon
crawled into Yuri's palm, its little feet soft and cool. "I'm sure. She's
inside. Be careful,
hoaloha
."

Yuri swallowed
hard. She'd already rushed in and gotten her ass kicked once. She wasn't
exactly jumping up and down to do it again. "Maybe we'd be better off
waiting for Piccolo after all."

"The magic I
leant you will not last that long."
Kaimana
looked up at her with reptilian eyes the color of storm clouds. "And I
desire what was stolen from me. This shape is…inconvenient."

Yuri bit her lip.
She didn't want to think about losing this incredible star-bright magic,
especially if it meant going back to that pounding headache and exhaustion.
Instead, she took a deep breath and stepped into the
thickly-sweet
air of the candy shop.

The sound hit her just
after the smell--the squealing of children, the screeching of metal chairs on
hardwood floors, the low hum of the ice cream cases, and the loud country music
over it all.
 
It was almost enough
to make her wonder if her ears would start bleeding. All the same, she
carefully made her way up the wide stairs and into the main shop, dodging a
group of young children chasing after each other.

"I don't feel
her," Yuri whispered to the little
mo'o
, who had
crawled up to perch on her shoulder. "And I can't smell her, either."
 

"She's
here,"
Kaimana
insisted.

Yuri felt slightly
nauseous. She wanted to stop the siren from causing more harm--and a little
payback was in order--but she hadn't thought it would be in a place packed to
the gills with mortals. Simply having so many humans around meant she had to be
extra-careful with her magic and fistfights were out. Her siren-catching
options were dwindling too fast for comfort.

Carefully, she
made her way through the crowd, pushing through the line at the chocolate
counter and making her way toward the back of the shop. As she passed the
counter, she snatched a piece of licorice from a jar on display to help calm
her nervous stomach. The store was crowded enough that no one would notice the
theft.

A group of people
stood in front of the wooden gate that separated the main store from the candy
makers, watching a man in a white jacket stretch and fold what looked like
sugar glass. Yuri couldn't see the candy maker very well through the cluster of
taller, fatter mortals, but it didn't matter. Under the smell of peppermint and
human sweat, she finally caught a whiff of the siren's magic.

She was about to
shove her way through the mass of fascinated people when
Tullia
slip out of the crowd. The siren looked far more at ease in the packed store
than Yuri felt. She smiled her shark-tooth smile. "I honestly didn't
expect you to come after me. Stubborn little fox, aren't you?"

Yuri smiled back,
showing off her own sharp canines, but the siren didn't give her a chance to
respond.

"Oh, and you
brought my ex with you. How kind. I do hope you're keeping well,
Kaimana
, darling."

Magic sparked from
the
mo'o
in little, invisible daggers of energy that
made Yuri shiver. But its voice was as calm as ever when it said, "You
know you can't stay here,
Tullia
. Give me the pearl,
and I might be willing to help you accomplish your goals."

Tullia
smiled, her lips stretching thin over sharp teeth,
and shook her head. "It's too late for that, sweetie. I'm burning bridges,
you see--well, metaphorically--and I think I'll be keeping your magic. It's
awfully useful."

"I really
don't want to fight you for it," Yuri said, and instantly regretted it
when the siren turned on her. She could tell that
Tullia
was remembering their little confrontation at the beach. The memory of her
awful failure in the scuffle made Yuri wince internally. She hoped the
embarrassment didn't show on her face. "Just hand it over and--"

"You're
cute," the siren interrupted, a condescending smile on her lips.
"But it's just not going to happen. If you'll excuse me, I've got my eye
on that
sodajerk
over there."

Yuri grabbed at
the siren's wrist. "Don't."
 

 
Tullia
jerked
away. "I'd like to see you stop me, little fox."

"Don't let
her goad you,
hoaloha
,"
Kaimana
muttered. Little lizard toes dug into Yuri's shoulder like claws. "Keep
your head."

No fistfights,
Yuri reminded
herself
irritably. No fistfights, no big
displays
of magic, and persuasion wasn't
working. What else could she possibly do
in the cramped quarters of the mortal-filled candy shop? She glanced
desperately around the crowd, at the humans she was supposed to be protecting.
There had to be something she could do to keep the siren from killing them.

Her eyes caught on
a table near the center of the room. A group of people were just standing up
from around it, leaving a checkers board, the pieces stacked neatly on either
side. If there was one thing Yuri considered
herself
extremely good at, it was games.

"Hey,
Tullia
," she said, trying to hide her grin as she
turned back to the siren. Her mind whirled, putting the vague outline of a plan
together even as her lips kept moving. "You play checkers?"

Tullia
blinked, surprise on her pretty face. "Excuse
me?"

"You need the
pearl to stay on land, right?" Yuri pointed at the emptying table.
"I'll play you for it. You win, I back down and you can do whatever you
want. I win,
Kaimana
gets the pearl back and you go
home for good. Deal?"

Kaimana
squeaked indignantly on Yuri's shoulder. "My
magic isn't a gambling chip! What if she outsmarts you?"

Yuri waved the
dragon's concerns off and watched happily as the siren squared her shoulders. A
haughty opponent was more likely to make mistakes--and way easier to bait into
the game. Plus, if the siren did somehow win, Piccolo and Webb would be there
soon enough to pick up the pieces. She would just have to stall long enough, if
she lost.

"What if I
refuse?"
Tullia
asked, lifting her chin.