A Fox's Maid (41 page)

Shōnen
style!

“
Now isn’t the time for that, idiot!” Lilian’s enraged voice filled the empty room.

…
Sorry, my bad
.

Chapter 11

Not Human

“
I’m telling you! I saw Lilian with animal ears and two tails! And she destroyed Professor Nabui’s door with a single punch!”

“
I’m sure you’re just imagining things.”

“
But I’m not!”

Christine sighed in exasperation. After stomping out on Kevin (something she was starting to regret), she’d found herself wandering the school campus. She hadn’t felt like going home. After a brief run-in with Lilian, she’d gone to the main office building to see if she could find Kevin and apologize―w-well, maybe not
apologize
apologize, but, well, make up somehow.

Then she’d run into Lindsay. The girl had been freaking out. Apparently, someone had decided to reveal their yōkai form in public.

Really, Lilian, you just had to transform in broad daylight where everyone could see you? You couldn’t, I don’t know, wait until you got home to do that?

Gotta give the girl credit. She’s got balls. Nyahaha!

Quiet you!

There was a reason that yōkai didn’t reveal themselves to humans anymore, beyond the sheer stupidity of doing so in this day and age. While the many yōkai races were in a state of cold war with each other, they had established a common set of rules, which all yōkai were required to adhere to. The first and most important of these laws was to never reveal your identity as a yōkai to humans.

Sometime in the mid-1800s, humanity’s technological capabilities had skyrocketed. While this normally wouldn’t have been a problem, it became a serious issue for one simple reason: the advancement of human weaponry.

Centuries before the invention of the musket, yōkai had been the pinnacle of power on earth, and humans were but their playthings. Only the
Miko
and
Shinto
Priestesses, along with a few powerful humans possessing unusual abilities, were capable of combating them. Yet those remarkable humans had eventually died out, having been hunted down to the last bloodline during the
Meiji
era in Japan.

However, all that had changed within the past century. With the invention of firearms, high-yield explosives, chemical warfare, intelligent missiles and, of course, the nuclear warhead, humanity had risen to power and now stood at the top of the food chain. Meanwhile, yōkai, the very creatures who had once oppressed humans, were forced into hiding.

Christine thought it was the ultimate example of poetic justice.

“
I swear, everything I’m telling you is true!”

Christine shook her head to refute Lindsay’s claim. Regardless of her feelings toward Lilian, she couldn’t let a human know what the redhead was; a creature beyond the understanding of humanity.

“
Look, Lindsay. I’m sure you think you saw something, but that’s not―”

Christine gasped when Lindsay grabbed her shoulders and slammed her back against a wall. Hard. Her surprise was such that she almost bit her tongue.

“
What the hell, Lindsay?!” She glared at the tomboy. “What was―”

“
Shh!” Lindsay pressed a finger to Christine’s lips, causing her to blush at the feel of someone else’s skin on her mouth. “Don’t speak so loudly. Lilian just walked by.”

Lindsay removed her finger and peered around the corner to spy on the redhead. After a moment’s hesitation, Christine followed suit, crouching underneath the tomboy and poking her head out from behind the wall. She imagined they made for a comical sight, like something out of a bad spy movie.

They watched as Lilian stormed across a sidewalk with all the grace of an angry bull seeing red.

“
She looks angry,” Lindsay murmured worriedly. “I wonder why?”

“
No,” Christine shook her head. “She doesn’t look angry. Angry is ‘I can’t find my damn keys’ or ‘where the hell is my lunchbox?’ Lilian… she’s not angry. She pissed.”

Christine’s description was, indeed, far more apt than Lindsay’s. Angry did not do Lilian justice. Her lips were peeled back in a fierce snarl, and her canines looked strangely sharp, far sharper than usual. Further accentuating her boiling rage were her eyes, which glowed like two emerald moons reflected off the surface of a murky green lake. Her hands were clenched into fists. They shook violently, and the knuckles had turned a deathly white. Crimson trails of liquid ran down her hands as sharp nails dug into the flesh of her palms.

Lilian didn’t even seem to notice.

“
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so angry before,” Lindsay whispered. She sounded frightened. Christine couldn’t blame her. An enraged yōkai was not something a human would ever want to see, advanced weaponry or not.

“
Neither have I.”

“
Where do you think Kevin is? Do you think he’s the reason she’s so angry?”

“
Possibly.”

“
What do you think we should do? Follow her?”

Christine knew that she should tell Lindsay to forget what she just saw and go about her business. However, her own curiosity overrode her common sense. She, too, wanted to know what had made Lilian so livid.

She nodded.

“
Follow her.”

***

When most people thought of Eric Corrompere, they usually thought of a person so lecherous, so perverted, that he couldn’t possibly be human. And for the most part, they would be right. Eric was a pervert. He peeped on women every chance he got, he played eroge imported directly from Japan, and he had an extensive stash of hentai on his hard drive. Yes, few people in the world were more salacious than him.

However, that didn’t mean he was an idiot. When Eric wanted to, he could actually be quite intelligent. After all, it took cunning and skill to secretly install several spy cameras in the girls’ locker room and have no one notice for months―the fact that they were always found eventually and he got the crap beaten out of him by a horde of vicious, angry teenage girls afterward notwithstanding.

…
Right.

Regardless, Eric wasn’t the idiot that everyone made him out to be. He had a good head on his shoulders. He was smart, cunning, and more than capable of making intelligent and well thought out decisions.

So, when he saw Lindsay and his Goth Hottie following his Tit Maiden, he did the most logical and well thought out thing he could.

“
Hehehe… I wonder where you sexy little creatures of mammarific proportions are heading off to.”

He followed them.

Okay. So maybe Eric Corrompere wasn’t that smart after all.

***

Lilian had a newfound respect for Kevin.

She’d never realized how difficult riding a bike could be. Her first attempt at trying to ride Kevin’s bike ended with her crashing into the school fence. After emitting some surprisingly foul expletives from her pretty mouth, she hopped back on the bike and tried again.

She ended up crashing into a cactus.

It was a very irritated kitsune who arrived at the Swift’s residence. Her clothes were a mess, her hair had twigs in it, her body was covered in scratches, and her mate wasn’t with her. She could deal with the first three issues, but that last one really set her off. No one messed with her mate.

Lilian didn’t bother taking off her sandals when she entered the apartment. She only planned on staying long enough to look up the location of the Just 4 Anime store on Kevin’s laptop. It shamed her to admit it, but she’d been so angry about Kevin’s kidnapping that she hadn’t realized she had no clue where the store was until well after leaving school.

“
Lilian-sama.” Kotohime walked out from the kitchen, startling her. “Welcome home. I am glad to see that you have arrived safely.”

“
Right, safely,” Lilian grumbled.

“
Is something the matter, Lilian-sama?”

“
Nothing. Anyway, I’m going to get something, and then I need to head out again.”

“
I see,” Kotohime paused. “I notice that Kevin-san isn’t with you. Have the two of you gotten into some kind of altercation?”

Lilian did not like the way Kotohime’s face twisted into an expression of mild satisfaction. Not at all.

“
No, we haven’t gotten into an argument. We’re just… I’m just…” Quick, Lilian! Think fast! “Shut up! I’m thinking as fast as I can!”

“
Lilian-sama, please do not antagonize Author-san. And please answer my question.”

Lilian grumbled incoherently.

“
What was that?”

“
I said Kevin asked me to get something for him.”

“
Really?”

Lilian’s nod was very emphatic. “Yes. He asked me to grab his, uh, his backpack!”

“
I see. His backpack, is it?”

“
That’s right.” Lilian nodded some more. “Kevin is working on something right now, but he doesn’t have all the materials he needs, so he asked me to go back home and get his backpack for him.”

“
Uh huh.” Lilian tried not to squirm as Kotohime stared at her with eyes that were harder than steel. “And why, may I ask, did he not come all the way over here himself?”

“
Um, uh… that’s a good question…” Lilian’s mind traveled a hundred miles a second. “It’s because he’s… he’s just so busy!”

“
Busy?”

Kotohime’s flat look made Lilian most uncomfortable. She didn’t let onto this fact, and crossed her arms under her bust. “Yes! Busy! He is very busy with, um, stuff. So! When he said he needed to get some supplies from home, I offered to get them for him.”

A single, delicate eyebrow rose in response to her words. “I thought you said he asked you to get them for him?”

“
He did! It’s just that, well, it’s just…”
Oh great. Come on, Lilian. Think. Think!
“
Ah! Right. Upon hearing that he needed supplies, I offered to get them first, and then he asked me to get them.”

“
I see.”

Kotohime stared at Lilian. She stared hard. Lilian broke out into a cold sweat, her eyes looking anywhere but at her maid.

“
Very well.” Lilian sighed in relief when Kotohime dropped the subject and went back into the kitchen. “Though you and Kevin-san shouldn’t stay out much later. Dinner will be ready in about an hour, so be sure to come back by then.”

“
Okay.”

Lilian could not move fast enough. She rushed into her bedroom, printed out a map that showed her where Just 4 Anime was, grabbed Kevin’s backpack (she had to keep up appearances), and flew out of the house.

She never noticed Kotohime’s eyes following her.

“
Hmm…”

***

Three people watched as Lilian flew down the stairs, hopped onto Kevin’s bike, and took off down the road.

“
Where do you think she’s going?” Lindsay turned to look at the other two people hiding with her behind a black Ford truck. “Do you think she’s going to find Kevin?”

“
Who cares about Kevin?” Eric said loudly, having joined the two girls while they were spying on Lilian. He slid over to Christine until their shoulders were touching. “So, Goth Hottie, now that we’re alone, hows about you and me―GUF!”

“
Idiot!” Christine hissed like an angry viper. “Don’t say such stupid things!”

“
Yeah.” Lindsay crossed her arms and pouted. “And besides, you two aren’t alone. I’m still here, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“
Quick! Let’s follow the boob head before she gets too far away.”

“
Right. Wait.” A pause. Lindsay stared at the lolita. “Boob head?”

“
N-n-never mind that! Just hurry!”

“
All right. All right. Let’s go.”

The two females took off, rushing down the street at a quick trot while also trying not to be seen by Lilian.

Back where they’d been hiding, Eric Corrompere groaned and held his cranium, which had a large, frost-covered lump the size of Texas on it. “W-wait for me… ugh… I think something inside of my head just broke…”

***

Kevin Swift woke up with a splitting headache. His tongue felt dry, his mind was filled with static, and there was an annoying ringing in his ears.

Groaning, he opened his eyes and saw nothing but a white blur. Even after his vision sharpened, white remained the only visible color.

Turning his head, Kevin surveyed his surroundings. There wasn’t much to the room. He saw a drab gray door several yards away, next to a glass window that he couldn’t see through. It was probably one of those one-sided windows, the kind he’d seen in police movies. What were they called again? He couldn’t remember.

He tried to assess his situation, to ascertain his whereabouts and figure out how he ended up… wherever he was, but that proved immensely difficult. His thoughts kept slipping away like wet, slimy eels. Electric eels. Just trying to remember induced what felt like several thousand volts of electricity running through his brain.