Kitsune Tales: Two Short Stories by Emily Kay Singer

COLFAX KITSUNE

 
 
    Yuri crouched on the rooftop beside the motel, squinting
through a pair of binoculars at the people passing on the street below. She
knew Piccolo was here; she could feel his power pulsing, pounding, growing . Rhythmic, tinged with lust. Spiced with music. All
contained in that one male body, wrapped up somewhere in that seedy motel.
    Piccolo had abandoned her immediately after the successful
completion of their last mission. After a day and a half of searching, she
finally knew why the bastard had been so eager to leave. His favorite little
tramp must have offered him a hell of a deal to keep him occupied for so long.
    She should have gone without him as soon as she got their new
orders. Instead, she had wasted four hours worrying, then spent the night
prowling through Capitol Hill. Now she crouched on a rooftop near Colfax and
Moline, spying on the freakishly dull mortals just because she hated going on
these things alone.
    Her last two solo missions had ended in disaster: one with a
dead human and the other with Yuri herself nearly dead. Thinking about either
of them still gave her shivers.
    “Finally,” she muttered as red-brown skin and a dark suit
passed through her binoculars. She twisted and found the narrow-shouldered man
before he disappeared into the crowd. No doubt about it; that was Piccolo.
    Just as she was about to head down to the street, he looked
up and winked at her.
    Cursing under her breath, Yuri tossed the binoculars away.
They hit the cement rooftop with a lens-shattering crash, but she didn’t care.
She’d swipe another pair if she needed them.
    She slipped down the fire escape without a sound and scurried
to the mouth of the alley, where Piccolo leaned against the brick wall, his
ankles crossed. Even before she reached him, she could smell the pungent odor
of sex surrounding him. By the time she stood beside him, the musky, sweet
smell nearly overwhelmed her, making her wide nose wrinkle in revulsion.
    “You couldn’t shower before you came out?” she asked.
    Piccolo laughed, a sound like a timpani in the rain that
always hurt Yuri’s sensitive ears, even though they looked completely human. He
tugged on the neon green ribbon tied around her ponytail. “It’s not my fault
your nose is so sharp. Showered twice, just for you. Now, you want to tell me
why you were spying on me up there, or do I have to guess?”
    “Guessing is much more fun, don’t you think?” she asked dryly
as she stepped out of his reach.
    He pouted dramatically and Yuri fought memories of what it
had been like to feel those full lips trailing the curves of her body, his hand
tugging gently on her concealed fox tails . Not
everyone got a chance to fool around with a literal god of sex, and, despite their best efforts to keep things mostly platonic, the experience
sometimes made it hard to concentrate on the task at hand.
    Which, of course, was probably his goal at that moment.
    She shoved the distracting memories aside and dug a folded
piece of paper out from under her bra strap. “A group of miniature sphinxes
came through from the Flipside yesterday afternoon. All but one are back where they belong. We need to find that last one
and get it through the wall before its magic starts acting up.”
    “And before the hole in the wall closes.” Piccolo refused to
take the paper, instead digging a smart phone out of his pocket and beginning
to tap on it as if the conversation was over. “The hole’s contained, but it’s
already started repairing itself. You should have about three hours, best
guess.”
    Yuri stared at him. “What do you mean ‘you’? You’re coming
with me.”
    He didn’t look up from the glowing screen. “Nope. This one’s
all you, sexy.”
    Terror worked its way through her veins like a silk scarf
through a frosted pipe—cold and smooth. Her fingers trembled as she tucked
the note back into her bra. If he had been teasing her, he would have watched
for her reaction. The