Foxfire: Veil of the Nine Phantoms

32: Collision I - Coven

May 6 - Sadayoshi

Sadayoshi stood on the balcony of the old Gibraltar Point Lighthouse, looking out toward the skyline of Toronto. Bolts of lightning danced in the sky above the CN Tower. The raiju's lightning storm continued for half an hour, bursts of electricity lighting up the dark clouds, but then suddenly it stopped.

"So they got the raiju. A pity..." Sadayoshi said. He could have interfered and tried to save the yokai, but he was content with sitting back and enjoying the show. After all, why would he risk his neck for a beast who would never do the same?

A pale translucent figure of a middle-aged man, the ghost of the first lighthouse keeper John Paul Radelmüller, stood to the side of the kitsune. Sadayoshi had learned about the story of the lighthouse keeper's murder from his sister. About two hundred years ago, soldiers who visited John Paul Radelmüller for his bootlegged beer murdered the lighthouse keeper in a drunken rage. Now his restless ghost haunted this lighthouse evermore.

The ghost stared at Sadayoshi, eerily quiet, and Sadayoshi shifted his position to stare back at the spirit.

"Quit staring at me," Sadayoshi said. "Shoo. Go away."

The ghost silently floated away.

Sadayoshi turned his attention toward the gloomy waters of Lake Ontario. A dark wave rose up, approaching Gibraltar Point Beach. A humongous dark shape emerged from the waters, then shrank into a black humanoid form like a moving shadow, and walked toward the lighthouse. The shadowy humanoid stared up at Sadayoshi standing on the lighthouse balcony with its two round eyes which were as bright as torches.

"If you have something to say, spit it out," Sadayoshi said. He stood with his arms crossed, finger tapping his arm impatiently.

"Yes..." the umibozu said, its voice gravelly and distorted.

"Well?"

"There was a kitsune... and a tengu woman... along with a yuki-onna... and a witch..."

"Was it a vixen?"

"Yes... it appeared to be so..."

"Colouration?"

"Black... with white-tipped tails."

Sadayoshi whistled. "Hoshiko and Satsuki. My father will be pissed. It's just our luck to encounter them now, of all times."

Sadayoshi remembered a time when Hoshiko and his father were once friends. Back when his mother was alive, the three were close. His heart warmed at the thought of how he used to play with Hoshiko and his mother as a child, back in the innocent days of youth when his family was happy. He remembered the gifts that Hoshiko gave to him; she gave him a set of clothes so he could practice impersonating humans. Then he recalled the memory of the thoughtless slaughter of his mother, and he didn't care about those days anymore. His father and Hoshiko were enemies for life now.

"That yuki-onna. There can only be one in this city. It has to be Fuyuko. To think that she'd end up joining our enemies. Tsk tsk. A real shame. She was a real cutie. I especially loved how cute she looked when she glared at me." Sadayoshi smiled, remembering the yuki-onna's pretty face. The kitsune never forgot a pretty face, especially one as beautiful as hers.

Sadayoshi returned from his reverie to find the ghost of the lighthouse keeper staring at him.

"Can you stop that?" Sadayoshi shouted.

***

Sadayoshi flew toward a large church in Toronto's West End and landed next to the entrance of the large building on Gladstone Avenue. St. Anne's Anglican Church was grand, built out of brick with a Byzantine-inspired dome that was over 23 metres tall, and two bell towers that framed the entrance.