The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 70: The Unluckiest Number

Bureau of the Sky, Heaven:

Aurelia sat back, stunned. Above her seal floated an image of a demon army camped on the common lands of the Claymouth Barony. Right next door to Cassia Quarta's reincarnation!

Even as she stared in open-mouthed disbelief, a rock macaque attacked a farmer who was walking next to his ox-drawn wagon. The farmer shouted and tried to punch the demon, while the yellow ox bellowed, tossed its head, and bolted. Into a dry ditch. With a crash, the wagon overturned and splintered, and green beans and carrots and summer squash went flying into the dirt.

A horde of duck demons arrived next, the local bandits. Quacking furiously, they chased off the rock macaque and hovered in front of the farmer. The connection was too crackly for Aurelia to make out their words, but they seemed to be checking whether he was injured.

He was not, but the way he waved his arms and pointed at his wagon indicated that his profits were. The ox was bellowing and flailing its legs, struggling to get back on its hooves, so the duck demons flew over to it, lined up along its back, and heaved. The ox staggered back upright, and the farmer ran his hands over its side. A relieved slump of his shoulders suggested that it was all right too.

Meanwhile, other ducks were waddling around, picking up green beans in their beaks and collecting them into a pile. The farmer folded his arms and glared. Without a wagon, how am I supposed to get them to market? he seemed to complain.

That was bad. Cautious inquiries with the Director of the Bureau of Human Lives, the Goddess of Life, and her Assistant Director, the God of the Hearth, had indicated that the people of Claymouth weren't praying for help against the demon army yet. But if this were how it was acting, then it was only a matter of time.

"Show me Honeysuckle Croft," Aurelia commanded her seal, feeding more power into it this time.

The image blurred and reformed into a view of Honeysuckle Croft. Little Taila – who was so tall now! She was growing so fast! – teetered on the edge of the vegetable patch, arguing with her mother in this life.

Mistress Jek's furious voice crackled through the seal. "No! Absolutely not! I forbid it!"

"But I want to go seeee him! He saaaaid I could go seeee him! He said he was going to give me a riiiide!"

Jek Taila! snapped another voice. What did we say about speaking properly?

Miracle of miracles, Taila actually lowered her volume to appeal to a small oracle-shell turtle on the windowsill. "Mr. Turtle, Lord Maggy said he was going to give me a ride. I want my ride!"

A ride? On the back of that wild boar demon?

How had that wild boar demon gotten close enough to Taila to promise her anything? To talk to her at all? What in the name of the Jade Emperor on His Dragon Throne were these people playing at?!

She knew she should never have trusted That Demon. She'd thought – she'd hoped – that a former fox would be clever enough to see that it was in her own best interest to uphold her oath and keep Jek Taila alive – but no. Obviously no. Obviously That Demon was just so evil that she thought it would be funnier to summon a demon horde to the very doorstep of the child she was supposed to keep alive so one of those demons could then tempt the child into getting eaten.

This farce had gone on long enough. Aurelia would uphold her end of the oath and wrangle as much positive karma out of the Accountants as was fair for That Demon's "achievements" – she gritted her teeth – but this had to end now. Even with that catfish demon lurking in the river, Cassia Quarta was better off without That Demon in her life. She always had been.