Foxy Lady

Jack has fallen asleep on his couch earlier. When Jack wakes up, he sees a fox staring at him in his small living room. Jack quickly sits up, staring back at this animal. Jack has been a city boy, and he has never liked going to the zoo, so he doesn't believe he's ever seen a real fox in his entire life. Only in cartoons and on TV.

This is a fox, right?

The fox's eyes are shiny and they look kind of evil to Jack. He thinks the fox might be smiling. Can an animal smile?

Suddenly, the fox jumps up. Jack's first reaction is to grab his gun but he then realizes he doesn't have it anymore.

"Shit!" Jack quickly lunges to his left, trying to avoid the fox jumping at him.

But he hears nothing and feels nothing jumping on him. He looks back at the spot where the fox was at.

The fox has now turned into a girl. And that girl is Nitte.

"Holy shit! Nitte?" Jack exclaims, subconsciously moving backwards to be away from her.

"Hi! Did you sleep well?" Nitte walks over to the couch and sits next to him.

"Were you that fox earlier?"

"Yeah. I thought you wouldn't have been surprised since you knew I could shapeshift."

"Well, I guess I just didn't expect to see a fox."

"What did you wish to see? A wolf like yourself?"

Jack thinks that comment is strange.

"No. So this is how you come back to my apartment then? As a fox? You do know that there are no foxes in New York City, right? You're going to make the news if you run around like a fox."

"No. I run around like a rat first. Then I changed to being a fox and watched you sleep." Nitte says all of this like it's something mundane.

"Where did you go? I'm pretty sure you have been gone longer than just returning a motorcycle." Jack asks.

"Well, let's just say I took a side trip and go hunting a little."

"Oh my gosh. It's really annoying that you keep speaking in riddles." Jack rolls his eyes.

Nitte laughs out loud, "Don't worry, my dear, I will take you out and we will do it all together."

"OK, yeah, do what?"

"Killing people and scatter them around."

"Wait a minute, you do this too? I thought only Keith does that?"

"I help him do some. But shhh, he doesn't know that I tell you that."

Jack is truly annoyed now, "Just tell me what the hell is going on?"

"So, Keith probably wants you to help find out about me. And then, he's going to persuade you help him kill some people. Me, I want you to help me find out about him, and, I don't really need you to help me kill people, but I have a few questions that I cannot answer. Or, you can say, they are like puzzle pieces that I need to put them together to see a picture. So, you can help me with them."

"I believe he is going to pay me. Are you going to pay me to do any of the things you just listed?" Jack smirks.

"I will pay you one way or the other. Do not worry about the details."

"OK. Will you leave my apartment at some point? I'd like to actually sleep."

"You can sleep when I'm here," Nitte puts her hands on Jack's body.

*** *** ***

Nitte is a mixed-race girl. She isn't even sure what ethnicity she should identify herself with. She is part white, part indigenous American, and perhaps some Asian in her. Her blood relatives spread from Arizona, New Mexico to Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada.

She has always been quite skinny and tall. She is... kind of pretty, but not the typical kind of beauty. There's a wild look in her eyes that many men find sexy. Even so, she had no luck in finding the right man. Every guy she was with was violent towards her.

When she was 17, she was almost beaten to death. That was the 12th time, done by yet another boyfriend. She really thought that was it. That was the end of her life.

She fell into a dream-like coma. In the dream, she saw all kinds of spirits from different places. She wondered if that meant she had lineage tracing back to all of them.

The first one that spoke to Nitte was a beautiful female that had thinly exquisite, slanted, single-eye-lid eyes. She looked like a Chinese painting on one of the restaurants Nitte had once seen. This lady had long black hair and nice fur coat. The lady told Nitte that her name was "Fox Fairy."

"Fox Fairy? Where are you from?"

"I am from China originally."

"What are you doing here? I didn't think I was in China."

"You are not, but I was once brought over to America by a Chinese railroad worker in the late Qing Dynasty. He had once chopped off a fox's tail and brought it with him when he came to America to work. He thought that as a souvenir and lucky charm. But I hated him, of course, because I needed my tail. I needed all my body parts to die peacefully."

Nitte looked at the back of Fox Fairy's back, and it was true, Nitte couldn't see a tail.

"My hatred and my years of hunting practices in the American desert have helped me become a fairy. And because I have lost my tail, I can easily transform myself into a human woman. That's why, you can see me being a woman right now."

"You are very beautiful, Fox Fairy." Nitte touched the Fox Fairy's golden fur. It felt really soft and warm.

"Thank you." Fox Fairy smiled, but her smile looked scary to Nitte.

"Why are you in my dream?" Nitte asked.

"You are almost dying, Nitte. I found you, because I can see you have a lot of hatred, too. I wanted to impart my power to you, which was to create chaos and dangerous temptation."

Nitte then felt like someone put a blanket on her but she saw nothing. Was that the transition of power?

"You shouldn't be played by men anymore. You need to make all the men beg you for forgiveness. Any man that was not nice to you."

"I have that power now?"

"Yes, Nitte. And in return, please find my fox tail for me. And bury it in the land that will connect to the middle of North America."

"But how do I find your tail? The Chinese railroad worker must have been dead for years and years?"

"You'll find the great great grandson of that Chinese railroad worker one day. You will see. You can smell him."

Then, Fox Fairy disappeared.