Chapter 01
Baba didn’t think she could do it, no sirree. But the young apprentice could too live up to the Mistresses’ expectation, yes sirree. Ejuth tried to think of ways to prove herself to Uranai Baba while she cleaned the dust and ash from their latest lesson. After all, didn’t every apprentice deserve an off day? True, Ejuth had more then her share, but still…
A particularly fowl wind blew ash that Ejuth had just swept into neat piles all over the place again. Ejuth turned to glare at the fowl culprit, a poultrygeist, level 2C. The fowl fiend cackled again.
Damn that bird! Why Baba insisted on keeping it as a pet, she would never know. Just because she was neat and methodical, whereas Baba was…
Ah, what good would that line of thought do? Nothing would come of it.
“Ejuth! Do you have this place clean yet?” asked Baba. She came into the room and sneezed as the poultrygeist blew up even more soot into the air.
“Damn! Get that bird back into its bottle! That’ll make it easier to clean up in here.”
Baba walked toward the door. She shot back, over her shoulder, “I’m going to visit Roshi. You can take care of things while I’m gone. Don’t blow up the place!” She ran out the door.
“Yah, I have to take care of your pet,” Ejuth murmured, groaning. “I have to take care of everything around here. And for what? So you can neglect my training. Oh, why did I have to become your apprentice?”
Well, enough groaning. She may as well catch the phantom pheasant. (Even if chicken wasn’t pheasant, she told herself. She just liked the way it sounded.)
Grabbing the bottle that the poultrygeist roosted in when not bothering her, Ejuth turned to face the poultrygeist. “Come on, Fowltunia, it’s time to take your nap while I clean this mess up again,” she cooed to it.
It was only a Class One C, Cornish Cackle demon hen. She watched the hen’s hideous wings spread, revealing its black and red, shrunken breast. It had a mouth instead of a beak, with three inch long, sharp, black teeth. Spurts of angry red flame erupted from cracks in its scaly, lime green hide. Six inch long, black talons, writhing as the cackle demon hen kicked her backwards bending, jointed legs.
It backed away from her as she approached it, creeping toward the cackle demon. Almost there, she thought. Soon the Infernal thing would be out of her hair…
A young, muscular fellow with dark hair and eyes chose that moment to enter the shop. The ward and guard which kept the cackle demon confined only applied to the closed door. The cackle demon ignored the door as a rule. But it chose that moment to flee out the door and down the street, shrieking at the top of its ectoplasmic lungs.
“Shit!” Ejuth wouldn’t catch it now. Uranai Baba’s pet cackle demon had escaped, again. It wasn’t her fault, damn it!
“Excuse me,” said the young man. She turned to glare at him. He might be handsome with those dark eyes, but that was no excuse for what had happened. Then, she started crying. That’s it, she couldn’t take it any more.
Baba would kill her.
