The inside of Ambrosia's house was a lot larger than the outside, or so it seemed to Ellis, an airy place like an old hunting lodge, and just a little bit creepy at night. While they poked around the slightly-unkempt entryway, the enchantress rummaged through her back rooms, clinking and crashing around, occasionally depositing potions or bags on the little table near the staircase. When she was satisfied that she had all she needed, Ambrosia gathered them in a circle at the foot of the staircase and had them sit in a circle holding hands while Connor stood in the center.
Ambrosia did a little chant and then pulled away from Ellis's hand to dribble something on the floor - a few drops of shiny metallic stuff. It slowly oozed toward Connor, spreading out and sliding under him until it was a big oval mirror with Connor standing at its center.
"This is a mirror of spirit-sight. It will show us the truth of the spirit realms beyond what our eyes can perceive. But to see through it, we must request a vision. I'll say a sentence and then you all repeat after me… got it?"
"Got it!" they all said.
"We call to the realms of the spirits. We come with no malice, though one of our own has been harmed. We seek sight into your world, and then we will leave you to slumber."
Ellis repeated the words, and she felt that little nexus of power deep within her shimmer with the ritual, the tiniest bit of energy blebbing off and spreading around their circle, and she felt energy flowing from Ambrosia and smaller, cruder threads of energy spooling off from Anderson and Bailey - she intuited that, whatever spirits they were contacting, they needed energy to feed off of to awaken and carry out a request. And they did awaken, or at least stir, from their slumber of the abyss, and the mirror of spirit-sight came to life. It glowed, faintly at first, but soon shining brightly enough that it lit the whole room and nothing was visible in its surface but a pale white light. Then it darkened as the image resolved, and Ellis gasped when she saw it - a great shadowy maw, a many-toothed mouth slowly devouring Connor. The many mandibles and pedipalps of the maw projected right through the mirror, reaching half-way up Connors legs, moving so slowly that Ellis could barely register it… but they were moving. And beyond Connor's body, Ellis saw a ghostly blue likeness of Connor struggling. It struggled soundlessly but was ensnared by the great maw of the daemon.
"Ow!" Bailey gasped. She pulled away from Anderson and Ellis, and the mirror splintered with a great crack! The circle lost its power and faded.
"A circle is only as strong as its weakest member," Ambrosia stated.
"Hey, I'm not weak," Bailey pouted. "I do gymnastics and yoga."
"Magically weak - like a muscle, though, it can be strengthened," Ambrosia stated. "Now we know what's gotten to your friend, at least: a daemonic bond. A parasitic being has latched onto him and it's devouring his soul. Daemons are slow eaters, but they aren't thoughtful - sylph daemons latch onto mortal souls to gain purchase in our world and then they slowly swallow them. They swallow all at once, but it takes a while for a human soul to be swallowed, during which time they incapacitate the user so they cannot fight back. If your friend isn't freed from the daemon's maw, his soul will be devoured by the next new moon in…" she glanced out the window. "…thirteen days. If you cannot free him before then, his soul will die and this body will be an empty shell."
"Which we do… how?" Ellis asked.
"A powerful kitsune could just do battle with the daemon and defeat it - but, alas, you only have one tail, and your magic is no more powerful than mine. But you do have the potential for great power, which the daemon will be naturally drawn to. If you go to the site of the daemon's power with your friend - the bastard's still trapped within the manor until your friend's soul is devoured - and attract its presence by breaking a shard of the mirror we used to see it in the spirit world, you can lure it away from your friend and draw it toward yourself. Then, all you need to do is trick it while you escape."
"Which I do… how?"
Ambrosia shrugged. "You're a kitsune. Be tricky."
+++++
Yes, according to mythology, kitsune were supposed to be tricky. But, to Ellis, that seemed more like a deep-seated personality trait and not one that she necessarily had. Sure, she was reasonably smart, had good reflexes, and had once ranked 4th in the Mana Adventures Unlimited: Puzzle Challenge event, but she wouldn’t have described herself as 'tricky'. She sure hoped a trick came to mind when it came time to trick a daemon.
By the time they were done with the ritual, it was too late at night to go to Ravencrest Manor and Ellis thought it would be best to go well-rested. Anderson's parents were back home, and so staying at his place was out of the question. So Bailey took Ellis and Connor back to her place because her dad didn't care what she did as long as her grades were good (and they were) and her mom was out of the picture. Bailey parked along the street and showed them inside. There, they ordered Connor to eat and use the toilet (he wouldn't do it unless asked, but he still needed sustenance and bathroom breaks just like anybody) and sleep in Bailey's sister's room, since she was off at university. Bailey retrieved a sleeping bag from the basement and set it out for Ellis.
"Is that okay? You can sleep in my bed if you want…"
Ellis yawned. "The floor is fine. In fact, I think kitsune might prefer it."
"Do you prefer it?"
She shrugged. "I don't know yet. Last night and most of the day, I slept under Ambrosia's porch in fox form. So I'm sure a sleeping bag on the floor won't be a problem."
She found the inside too warm but ended up sleeping just fine on top of the sleeping bag. Sometime, just before dawn, Bailey's cat padded into the room and crawled on top of Ellis, waking her briefly. Ellis's eyes cracked open, and she and the cat regarded one another for a long moment. Apparently, Ellis passed muster and the cat curled up, purring from its spot on Ellis's belly, and she managed to sleep for a few more hours afterward, awakening to the cat licking the soft fur on her cheek. She giggled and pushed it away, wondering whether kitsune licked themselves for grooming. She figured they probably bathed like humans and used combs and brushes instead of their tongues.
Bailey awoke a few minutes later and, when she returned from the bathroom, proceeded to lay out about a hundred articles of clothing for Ellis to peruse.
"These are my clothes from last year. I really filled out over summer…" she poked at her substantial bust, a respectable bust that Ellis had admired in the past… "so none of these really fit me any more, but you're about as tall as I am and a little bit thinner, so they might fit you."
They did fit her. Perfectly, in fact! Ellis had always had a fascination with women's clothes, mostly with the way the girls at school filled them out, and it had taken him until 10th grade to figure out that he liked guys, too, because guy clothes just didn't encapsulate the same sort of sexual advertisement. He'd thought a lot about women's clothes, but hadn't ever had a chance at much hands-on experience. But now she did, and Ellis was ecstatic about it.
Panties? Bras? Itty bitty shorts? Butt-hugging jeans? Baby tees? Yes, please! Skirts? Ellis found that she loved skirts. Unfortunately, there were only two sets among Bailey's old clothes since you didn't outgrow a skirt when you filled out, at least not when you were as figure-conscious as Bailey, so she'd only gotten rid of the ones with matching tops that she'd outgrown. But Ellis knew she had to have those two sets, a pretty floral summer dress and a more modest green skirt that would be perfect in autumn. She twirled in the summer dress and laughed and Bailey showed her how to apply makeup.
Ellis tugged at the floral fabric of her dress. "I think this one is my favorite. I can really have it?"
Bailey nodded. "They'd get donated otherwise. But you should probably wear the jeans today."
Ellis pouted. "The jeans?" They were nice enough jeans, but something in the novelty of wearing a dress absolutely thrilled her. In human form, looking down at svelte, hairless legs, at her slim waist billowing out in the floral bloom of her skirt below, it was by far her favorite thing that she'd ever worn. "Why the jeans?"
"Because you're crawling into a creepy mansion, remember?"
"Not until tonight. I'll wear this today and then change into some jeans later… okay. Oh… but I'll need something to put them in… um… can I borrow, like…"
Bailey sighed. "I'll find an old piece of luggage you can use."
Aside from her new, gently-used sundress, which she wore out of Bailey's place that day, Ellis managed to pack about five complete changes in the smallish red suitcase that Bailey brought up from the basement. She double-checked that it was definitely okay to take the clothes… though her expression probably suggested that it would break her heart if Bailey said 'no', because it would have. And then she confirmed that she could take the rest once she figured out where she was going to live, since she couldn't very well go back to an all-boys group home.
+++++
By the time sunset rolled around, Ellis had experienced a very full day, first sneaking into the group home and retrieving all of her valuables (one laptop, thirty-seven dollars in assorted Canadian and American currency, and three hundred twenty-seven mangas), running to S*Mart to buy flashlights and a stun gun on Anderson's 'emergencies only' credit card. After all, if this wasn't an emergency, then what was? Ellis didn't think stun guns would work on daemons, but she figured it was worth a shot. Then she managed to get Connor bathed, fed, etc.
In his state, Connor could follow basic instructions, but taking a good shower wasn't one of them. Ellis had to climb in to help him clean, and she burned with shame at the arousal she felt when looking at his slim but nude and undeniably male body. Here Connor was, a virtual zombie, and when Ellis finally had him naked, which she'd dreamt of doing for months, her body responded. Her face flushed, she felt heat between her legs, her heart fluttered in her chest, and she had to turn the water cold to cool herself off - poor Connor! Connor had very little fat and enough lean muscle on his small fame that he didn't look starved, only slim. Maybe, after she saved Connor, he'd like the new Ellis as much as she liked him?
Ellis got him dried and dressed and back to the bed, where she curled up next to him and took a cat nap… a fox nap? She took a fox nap, waking up in kitsune form with Connor's inert hand somehow atop her head, where she kept rubbing into it, as if he might start petting her at any moment. Did foxes like to get petted? Now Ellis knew of at least one who did.
After her nap, it was evening and Ellis knocked on Bailey's door to let her know she was as ready as she was going to be to head to Ravencrest Manor. Bailey texted Anderson and they headed out, arriving at the house a bit after nine o'clock. Anderson was already there, and he'd brought Leo and a pretty, dark-haired girl that Ellis vaguely recognized. She waved and the girl just stared dumbly back at her… something wasn't right with the girl.
"Um… wow… you really did turn into a fox girl," Leo muttered.
"Told you," Anderson said.
Ellis nodded. "Is she… what's the deal with her?"
"This is my Cousin Nora," Leo said. "She had the same thing happen to her that happened to Connor… or I think she did. Since she was zombiefied one day after the new moon, I thought… well… I thought that maybe she's still in there and we can save her. You'll help her, too, right?"
Ellis had never seen Leo so worried and was a bit annoyed that he'd cornered her into a spot where she couldn't, in good conscience, say 'no' to him. She frowned, her little kitsune snout drawing up to expose a row of pearly, sharp teeth. "Of course I'll help her," she sighed. "But it'll be a lot harder with two zombie kids to look after."
"That's why I'm going in with you," Leo stated.
"It's too dangerous," Ellis stated.
"I've got my own flashlight and stun gun and everything…"
"You're too big to fit…"
"Anderson and I just spent the last thirty minutes knocking out the frame around that old window. I'll fit."
Ellis threw up her hands. "Fuck! Fine! You're Cousin Nora's chaperone, I'll look after Connor and, if we see a daemon, you do what I say, okay?"
Leo saluted smartly and winked. "Yes, madam fox! Waiting for orders to commence!"
Ellis led them into the manor, slipping through the open cellar window and assisting Leo as he lowered Connor and Nora through the opening. Then Leo squeezed himself through but, being so much bigger than the rest of them, he barely fit through the enlarged opening, wincing and sucking in breath as he took a few splinters in his side. Ellis crouched down and picked the splinters out of his friend, giving the wounds a good lick to clean them.
"What are you…" Leo asked, stumbling away from her.
Ellis blushed. "Sorry… fox instinct. Come on."
She grabbed Connor's wrist and led them onward, into the basement room and up the stairs, her keen eyes scanning for any hint of a daemon or other nasties. From Ambrosia's description, Ellis understood that the daemons were likely to be scarce, their attentions focused on devouring the souls currently in their possession, until their attention was piqued by something else. Indeed, the house felt vacant and mostly-inert, the energies within it slower and more subdued than they'd been the other night. Perhaps the full moon had powered the magical mechanisms within the manor, and perhaps it was simply recharging after transforming Ellis. Or maybe it was something completely different - she couldn't claim to understand the workings of the house.
"This room is… wow. It's classy antique but brand-new…" Leo whispered.
They were in the upstairs parlor, with its Edisonian lamps, oiled leather, and sepia-colored globe. It was a strange experience to Ellis, because she could see both the old, shabby, deteriorated décor of the place and the warm, well-maintained décor of a carefully-maintained old room. Maybe it was her kitsune eyes and maybe it was just knowing that both appearances were there, but it was like seeing double. She wondered which was real - when she ran her finger along an end table, she could feel both the glossy varnish of well-conditioned wood and the rough, splintery edge of a badly-worn surface.
She led them up the long, winding staircase. She counted out forty-two steps, and she ascended them effortlessly. Her body was light and its lean muscles well-conditioned, built for bounding through kilometers of dense woodland in the moonlight. They entered that long and shadowy upper corridor, the one whose end was never quite visible - for all Ellis knew, the thing went on and on forever, its mouldering green wallpaper repeating over and over infinitely, door upon door of creepy rooms continuing into the blackness. Immediately, cold prickles ran down her spine and her fur stood on end, her lips pulling back to bare sharp teeth, and she forced herself to calm. They were being watched.
Of course they were being watched. There were probably dozens of beings trapped in the mirrors of the corridor. Daemons, to be sure, but Ellis had no idea whether all of them were evil. There was an awful lot she didn't know about spirits. If she was being honest, she knew next to nothing about spirits, magic, or being a kitsune - despite, in fact, being a magical, spiritual, kitsune. Against a powerful daemon, what could she possibly do?
"What now?" Leo whispered.
Ellis realized she'd been standing there for a long minute, staring into the interminable darkness of the corridor. Nora and Connor stood to either side of her, staring blankly into space. Leo, breathing heavily, scanned his flashlight back and forth, the light reflecting back with an odd glimmer whenever he shone it into one of the mirror rooms. Ellis could feel eyes upon them - eager eyes, malevolent eyes, watching and waiting.
"No matter what you do, don't break a mirror. Don't even touch it," she whispered. She reached into the little leather purse she'd borrowed from Bailey and pulled out the shard of mirror. "I have no idea what's going to happen here, but… here goes…"
The shard of mirror broke in her hand - it was a fragile thing, crumbling like old lace as soon as she snapped it and settling to the floor as a silvery dust. And the moment that Ellis broke the thing, she felt the house shift. Suddenly, dozens of eyes were fixated upon her, eyes from all directions, but especially from the mirror rooms. Angry, intense eyes that yearned for her energy. The far, infinitely-reaching length of the corridor, already dark, seemed to darken more, and Ellis's sharp eyes gradually resolved a shadowy thing lumbering at them from the blackness - the daemon! Behind her, Connor took in a deep breath.
"What?" he mumbled. "What's happening?"
"Run!" Ellis shouted.
They dashed back down the hallway five or six paces before colliding into Leo's muscular back like a big, meaty wall. He'd frozen in place. "Uh… there's another one coming," he said.
Ellis tugged on his shirt and pointed into one of the rooms. "Go into there - and don't break anything! I'll try to distract them!"
Leo, Connor, and Nora crowded into the room and Ellis pulled the door shut, barely managing to avoid the sweeping attack of a daemon - oily dark with shimmering scales and a pointed tail. Ellis wasn't entirely sure how daemons worked, but her impression was that all they had to do was get pretty substantial contact in order to get their hooks into your soul and incapacitate you like a wasp stinging a tarantula with paralytic and then taking its sweet time to lay its ravenous young inside the poor thing. That is to say, she couldn't let the daemon touch her at all if she could help it - daemons, for there were two of them. She felt the shadow daemon loom behind her and make a lunge.
Ellis couldn't tell you quite how she managed to leap into the air, push off the wall, land with her hands, and bound away. Clearly, kitsune had some pretty phenomenal agility, and now Ellis did, too. She could run from the things all night, but she couldn't run too far, or they'd start going after her friends. She backed away and darted to the side as the scaled daemon whipped its tail around.
Surrender and your friends shall I release, Ellis heard, whispered words at the edge of her awareness. Surrender to me, O bride of the moon, the other one whispered.
Something deep within the house lurched - it was beginning to awaken, the gears, circuits, and strange capacitors deep within the structure humming to life. Something desperate flashed in the daemons' eyes, the dull yellow glow burning a bright and baleful white. The shadow daemon surged at her, and it was all Ellis could do to leap to the side. She found herself several paces within a mirror maze, the daemons in hot pursuit. She bumped off the walls, off the panes of the mirrors, smacking into one face-first and nearly knocking herself silly. She crawled along the floor, the daemons pursuing her like icy serpents, their malignant energy lapping at her awareness. She dropped her flashlight, scrambled back to get it, and nearly got skewered by a daemonic tail.
Sobbing and pulse pounding, she scampered onward, trying to lose her pursuers at several branches in the maze, but they always seemed to find the path to follow. Finally, the long and labyrinthine corridor of mirrors ended, and Ellis found herself in a small room furnished with nothing but a throw rug and a comfy chair. The only way out was where she'd come from, and she could feel the daemons approaching quickly. They had her cornered and at least one was going to get its clutches on her soul. The flashlight tumbled from her hands and she prepared to face them.
The two daemons came in a moment later, scrapping with one another to be the first in the room. They both surged in, taking in the room, stalking about for Ellis, and finally spotting her two paces out into the corridor about to flee their clutches once again. Both creatures surged toward her and, frozen in terror, the young kitsune was unable to flee. The daemons dove right for her and…
Realizing they'd been fooled, one hissed and the other shrieked, but they were trapped within one of the house's many mirrors. Ellis, in fox form, uncurled from the comfy chair, where she'd been sitting in disguise as an unusually fuzzy red pillow. Some deep instinct within her had guided her in how to project an illusory likeness of herself onto the mirror. She carefully dressed herself again, pulling her tail through the little hole in her jeans, and carefully made her way back out to the main hallway to find her friends.
+++++
"Did you… you know… get them?" Leo asked.
Ellis nodded. "Daemons dealt with. Is everybody all right?"
"I have to piss," Connor said.
"Samesies," Cousin Nora said, squirming uncomfortably. When you were catatonic at the hands of evil daemons, you only went when somebody thought to tell you to.
Ellis leapt at Connor, wrapping him in a hug. "You're back!" she said. "I'm… sorry, I'm Ellis, by the way."
Connor absently stroked at her fur, and it felt wonderful. "Yeah, I figured. Thanks for saving me. Now… can we leave?"
Ellis nodded. "We'd better. The house is about two minutes away from activating. Follow me."
They headed down the narrow staircase, with Ellis looking back every few steps to make sure Connor was still there, her heart thudding - she had her friend back! She felt the house churning to life, things resonating deep underground, vibrating up and into her very bones, lapping at that font of magical energy that resided deep inside her. She could see the magic, an ethereal color beyond normal color that wisped off of the walls and floor like a thick mist, swirling in little eddies as they traversed the main entrance.
In her heart, Ellis was terrified. Terrified of what would happen to the others if they were in the house when the shift happened… and just as terrified as what might happen to her. Would she transform into something else? Or, worse still, revert back to boring, normal, human boy Ellis Vale? She wasn't sure she could live with that. Not after finding what felt like her true form. She dashed across the foyer, but the others seemed to be having trouble, and she was not leaving without them.
For an instant, everything stopped and the house was filled with pure magical energy, energy so blight that Ellis felt it should have incinerated every fiber of her being. But she felt no pain - no, she only felt the thrumming pulse of her own energy in counterpoint with the magic of the house and, as her own energy surged, the front doors banged open and cool night air rushed in.
"Come on!" she shouted.
She grabbed Connor's wrist and pulled, hoping the others would follow behind them. And, as they ran through the house's main entrance and out into the night, she felt Connor's body changing within her grip, growing smaller and softer than his already-thin wrist. Ellis found herself out on the front walkway, clinging to Connor and trying to calm herself, when the house's doors slammed shut again and Ravencrest Manor went dark.
"What happened?" a silky, sultry voice purred. "Is… is this my voice?"
Ellis rose to her feet and helped Connor up - he was vastly changed. She was vastly changed. Connor was about the same height but, instead of a delicate, boyishly handsome teen, there was a beautiful… well, she looked a bit like a daemon, but not one of those horrible daemons who'd attacked her in the house. She was sleek and beautiful, with little gossamer wings, glittering, curled horns, and a shimmering blue tail that swung back and forth behind her. She was, Ellis realized, a succubus, just as Connor had played an incubus in Mana Adventures Unlimited. She wondered whether the game had some connection with the house and their transformation, or whether they'd simply picked up on their characters subconsciously.
"Well… that was something," a male voice said.
It sounded a lot like Leo, but a bit higher and smoother than his hoarse baritone. It didn't look like Leo, either - the tall, winged, curly-haired young man resembled a fairy… prince? Yes, Cousin Nora had become a fairy prince. Apparently, Ravencrest Manor liked to leverage some sort of gender swap when it transformed people… Ellis couldn't have told you why. And, if her hypothesis was correct, then that meant that Leo…
"Oh… wow. Crap," Leo said. She rose to her feet, slightly taller than Nora and towering over the much-smaller Ellis and Connor. She was a hulking, well-muscled amazon, very close to two meters tall. Ellis would have guessed she was just an unusually large and fit human, but her eyes glowed with a slight inner light and, Ellis recalled, Mana Adventures had a Valkyrie class similar to the Guardian that Leo liked to play. "Wow… I've got boobs." That was a bit of an understatement - they were a bit oversized for her frame, which was already a bit oversized.
Ellis looked down at herself, picking over her purple baby tee and jeans, looking for any subtle changes. "Huh… I guess I didn't change," she said, more relieved than disappointed.
Just then Bailey and Anderson crunched across the weedy lawn from the side of the manor. "I wouldn't say that," Bailey said. "You've got three tails now!"
Sure enough, Ellis now sported three fluffy, flexible fox tails instead of one. Strangely enough, they didn't seem to take up any more space or get in one another's way. They were simply there, sticking out and providing her all sorts of information about her balance, about the area behind her, and about her own nexus of magical energy interacting with the world. Her kitsune tails were a big magical radar dish, and she could scarcely imagine what having nine of the things would be like.
"Wow… so I guess everything worked out," Ellis sighed, and she yelped as somebody squeezed her hand. Connor shot her a sly look and Ellis couldn't help but blush, though it was probably hidden by her fur.
"I'm not complaining," Connor said, her voice a velvet purr, "but how in the hell are we going to explain this to everybody? I mean Nora and Leo have parents and social lives and stuff."
Ellis's three tails swished as she thought, and the cool night air ruffled her hair. She felt the reservoir of magical energy pulsing within her, yearning for escape, and part of her brain whispered: you're a kitsune now, a master of trickery, so act like one! A sly smile spread across her face. "I think I can help with that."
THE END
Haha ^^ This was ... actually cute for a story. A lot less elaborate than your other works that I had read so far. But cute.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
Awwwwwwwwww cuuuuuuuute
My conscious brain wants to say more. To go more in depth to this. But all I can think of is "fox tails go brrrrr"
@DerbyGhost Q: How do fox tails go?
A: However they want, because kitsune are special. But they can definitely go, "Brrrrr!"