The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 41: My New Demonic Ally

"We and the older spirits on Earth may still speak this way, but modern Serican has simplified the grammar and added new vocabulary," Flicker continued.

Next to me, Stripey gulped and fluttered his wings, as if torn between groveling at once or staying upright until he figured out who this interloper was.

Helpfully, I nudged his leg with my forefoot and informed him, That's a messenger from Heaven who serves the Star of Reflected Brightness.

I didn't think he needed to know that Flicker was a mere third-class clerk who toiled in the Bureau of Reincarnation under the Kitchen God and Glitter, not in the Bureau of the Sky under the Queen Mother of the West and Aurelia. Not that the duck demon would understand or care about the distinction, of course. But still.

Disrespecting him is the same as disrespecting the goddess.

At that, the duck bowed until his bill nearly hit the ground, his feathers fluttering in agitation. A most entertaining sight indeed. Who'd have thought that a demonic bandit would get so flustered in front of Authority?

Flicker floated over the caltrop rosettes until he could step onto solid ground, then minced his way through the mud. (At least, I could tell that he was mincing – Stripey probably thought that he was taking graceful steps as befitting a Heavenly being.) As the star sprite advanced, his skin illuminated the grasses and bamboo around us with a bright yellow glow. I had to confess, he looked a lot more impressive on Earth than he did in the halls of Heaven.

And then, of course, he ruined it by speaking.

"It's not just the matter of language," he droned. "Jek Lom Vannia's family has always had a slightly adversarial relationship with their neighbors. They claim descent from one of the cadet lines of the Lang Dynasty."

Wait! I blurted out. But you told me that all of Cassius' descendants died out! Within twenty years of his death!

"His direct descendants died out," Flicker corrected me. "But the Loms are related so distantly to the imperial family that it would have made no difference even in the days of the Empire. They have no claim to the throne, just a somewhat inflated sense of their own importance."

Ah. I had noticed that Master and Mistress Jek followed the proper human naming conventions for their children, with all the boys' names ending in "-us" and all the girls' names ending in "-a." None of this "Jonjon" or "Clio" nonsense. Now I knew why: It was because Mistress Jek's family understood the importance of upholding tradition. I approved.

What brings you to Earth, Flicker? Does Her Ladyship have a missive for me? For Stripey's sake, I adopted a formal tone. It never hurt to overawe your intended allies.

Flicker raised his eyebrows, further spoiling the image of a divine dignitary. "Why do you think, Pi– ?"

He caught himself just in time. Now there was another person I'd have loved to recruit for an incompetent Imperial spy.

Far be it for a humble emissary such as myself to speculate as to the motivations of a goddess, I replied.

After all, there was only person who would send Flicker to Earth to talk to me, and it wasn't Glitter. But my conversation with a whistling duck spirit about a bamboo viper spirit shouldn't have rung any alarm bells in Aurelia's mind. We'd touched upon the Jeks only in the most general terms, and Taila's name had never come up. Also, as the Star of Reflected Brightness, Aurelia should be supervising Heaven's New Year's Eve banquet right about now. I couldn't imagine that she had the spare time to monitor my activities.