A Plethora of Deities X: Dancing With the Sphinx: Foxtrot

By Jonathan Edward Feinstein

The local zoning board is blocking Wade's Lizzie's attempt to open a dance studio when a pair of water spirits from Japan request Wade's and Lizzie's aide in dealing with a problem among the kitsune. Can they possibly fight city hall from thousands of miles away?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329272071

Book preview

A Plethora of Deities X: Dancing With the Sphinx: Foxtrot

Dancing with the Sphinx: Foxtrot

A Plethora of Deities: Book 10

by

Jonathan Edward Feinstein

Copyright © 2015 by Jonathan E. Feinstein

All Rights Reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Megafilk Press, Jonathan E. Feinstein, 923 Drift Road, Westport, MA 02790

Cover art: Oedipus and the Sphinx. Attic red-figured kylix, c. 470 BC. Etruscan Museum, the Vatican.

ISBN: 978-1-329-27207-1

Stories by Jonathan Edward Feinstein

Gaenor’s Quest

The Red Light of Dawn

The Black Clouds of Noon

The Rainbow of Dusk

The Cold Clear Skies of Midnight

The Maiyim Stories::

The Maiyim Tetralogy

World of Water

Men of the Earth

Island of Fire

Gods of the Air

Three Stories of Maiyim

A Deadly Union

An Interesting Title

A Shattered Family

Ars Nova Magica (and related side stories)

The Maiyim Bourne

The Staff of Aritos

A Promising Career

A Fine Adventure

The Tears of Methis

Freshman Orientation

The Book of Candle

Dry Dock

Ars Scientiaque Magicae

Unexpected Reactions

Hypothetical Notions

Theoretical Bases

   Lift Off!

Required Components

Experimental Proofs

Desired Results

The Terralano Venture

Agree to Disagree

By the Light of the Silvery Moons

There Goes the Neighborhood

Down Time, Ltd.

Down Time

Taking Time

Time Out

Show Time!

Double Time

A Plethora of Deities

Downhill All the Way

In the Sky with Diamonds

The Seed

The Tree

Tempting the Fates

Teasing the Furies

Inspiring the Muses

Dancing with the Sphinx :Waltz

Dancing with the Sphinx :Tango

Dancing with the Sphinx :Foxtrot

Chasing Rainbows (Forthcoming)

The Wayfarers

A Land without Borders

A World without a Name

A Nation without Maps

A Country without Unity

A Continent without Form

An Ocean without Charts

An Empire without Order (Forthcoming)

The Pirates of Pangaea

An Accidental Alliance

The Unscheduled Mission

A Planned Improvisation

The Forced Alternative

Other Stories

Elf Alert!

A Study in Ethnology

Off on a Tangent

Author’s Foreword

Once more unto the breach…

Zazel (the first human cannonball)

I like being able to finish a series or, in this case, a subseries. It gives one a real feeling of accomplishment. Normally, this feeling mixes with a touch of sadness because I am concluding a project that I have been working on so long that the characters are like close friends and they are friends I will not be seeing again, at least not as they are at the time. In the A Plethora of Deities series, that does not seem to be the case. There is always another story to tell and my favorite characters keep coming back if only for a cameo appearance.

Even this time, in which I conclude the trilogy that makes of Dancing with the Sphinx, I know this is not the last time I shall be seeing any of the main characters. In fact, as I write this, I am about to begin the next story, Chasing Rainbows, which will lead into Care and Feeding of your Elder God, which, in turn, will likely lead into yet another story that I have yet to think up.

In any case this time around I’ll be resolving the on-going issues involving Wade and Lizzie as they attempt to establish their school of dance as well as taking them off to Japan because… Oh wait, it’s easier to read the story, isn’t it?

Enjoy!

Jonathan E. Feinstein

Westport, MA

April 20, 2015

Prologue

Kenji looked at the bartender and ordered his favorite whisky, Suntory Hibiki.

Make that two, a beautiful woman said from just to his left and specified, The twenty-one year old stuff.

It was more than Kenji wanted to spend, but one look at the woman and he changed his mind. She was older than he was, but he estimated the difference in their ages could not be more than a few years and she was gorgeous. Athletically slim, she may have had the hard muscles of an athlete too. That was not as obvious in her conservative, but loose-fitting outfit. She had a pretty face, framed by long dark brown hair that had been expertly styled. Her makeup was so expertly applied that Kenji thought, at first, she was wearing none at all. However, he reminded himself that no one looked that good without a few little accents at least.

Kenji was a copywriter, here to meet with a new client. It was his first job as the lead writer and he was understandably nervous. Unable to sleep, he had come looking for a drink. He was in Kyoto on a tight budget and staying in a capsule hotel, but why not splurge a bit on the whisky even if he was unexpectedly buying for two?

The bar, chosen only because it was just around the corner from Kenji’s hotel, was decked out in fashionable 1960’s retro style and the bartender actually poured the drinks by hand. More modern bartenders might have used a modern dispensing system that made them look more like programmers from that period. The tender put two glasses on the bar before them and poured each shot with practiced eased.

Leave the bottle, the woman instructed. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Kenji flinching at the thought. It’s on me, she assured him with a soft smile and added, Call me Natsuki.

No, I insist, he began.

Don’t be so old-fashioned, she admonished him with a sly chuckle. I can afford it, and you… Well, you are obviously on your way up in the world, but not quite there yet. Don’t worry, that takes time and we are only young once.

Kenji gave her a tentative smile and raised his glass to her before taking his first sip. In truth, he had never tasted the twenty-one year old Hibiki before. It had the delightful spiciness and clean finish of all the Suntory whiskies, but this twenty-one year old version was ambrosia and nectar combined. Kenji thought, The Scots can say what they like, but this is truly the king of all whiskies. He took another sip and savored the smooth, slow fire that warmed him all over.

Nice, isn’t it? Natsuki asked, she took a long sip to emphasize her question. Kenji merely nodded and proceeded to lose track of the evening until he suddenly realized they had managed to drain the bottle. She rose gracefully from her bar stool and took his hand.

Kenji was not nearly so graceful on his feet and it was only when he tried to stand and walk that he realized just how inebriated he was. Natsuki smiled slightly and hummed a few tuneless notes. For just a moment Kenji thought he felt energy flowing into him from where they held hands and while he was still quite tipsy, he was now able to walk even if his mind was foggy.

Natsuki led him only two blocks from the bar and into a much classier hotel than the one Kenji had booked for himself. The elevator was several times larger than his capsule for one thing and when they reached her room… The room was tremendous. Kenji had never seen a hotel room of this size outside of American movies. I’ll just be a minute, Natsuki told him with a smile, slipping into the bathroom.

Kenji smiled back, but the smile froze on his face when her skirt swirled just a bit to expose the tip of a furry tail. He shook his head and a wave of dizziness nearly knocked him to the floor. Instead, he sat down heavily on the edge of the broad queen-sized bed and tried to clear his head. He had imagined it, of course, or else it was a false tail. He had known cosplayers who had made themselves up as kitsune and other fantastic creatures. Natsuki seemed a little old to be that sort, but you never knew.

Suddenly, there was a slight yip from the bathroom and Natsuki swore softly in a foreign tongue. Kenji thought it sounded a little like Korean and was certain she had just said something like Damned tails!

Kenji got unsteadily to his feet and started making his way to the door, but Natsuki had returned and stopped him just a step from his escape. Such a shame, she told him in the same seductive voice she had used all evening. I had planned to make this enjoyable for you first, but, oh well. She locked her lips on to his. It looked like a kiss, but she was drawing his breath into her and he was unable to fight or even scream.

A moment later, he fell dead to the floor as Natsuki licked her lips, savoring all she felt.

Part 1 – Three Step

One

Hold it, mate, Ihy stopped Wade. His acquired North Yorkshire accent seemed to grow just a bit thicker than normal. I’m not following this. Ihy was the boy-god of music and dance from ancient Egypt, although over the millennia he had allowed himself to grow older until his outward appearance was that of a young man in his late teens. Wade had always wondered why Ihy had never been asked to show his driver’s license or other identification in a bar, but decided it must have been just another minor miracle of divine magic. Or perhaps because Ihy had claimed to have invented brewing he got a free pass whenever he was thirsty for a mug of beer. There’s one in every pantheon, Wade thought silently.

Wade, on the other hand, was completely mortal. He had made his fortune back in the 1990’s during the Tech Boom and unlike a lot of his colleagues managed not to lose all his money in the crash. Since then, he had drifted around, doing whatever caught his fancy until he ran into his latest business partner. Together they had decided to open a dance studio and had found the perfect location in the middle of an artists’ colony in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

It’s very simple, Wade told him patiently, waving his own beer mug around vaguely. After getting the bad news, Wade had decided he needed a drink and had walked with Ihy down the street from City Hall until they found a likely looking bar. It turned out there were quite a few to choose from. We cannot open the dance school. Is that simple enough for you?

Yeah, I got that, Ihy snapped. Now would you mind explaining why?

It’s a government thing, Wade replied after finally downing half his beer. You do understand about governments, right?

Hey, my worshippers invented government, sport! Ihy laughed.

I doubt that, Wade shook his head. I suspect government was invented the first time two australopithecines decided to see who got to decide where they would forage for the day. Come to think about it, government was probably invented the first time any two creatures wanted to know who was stronger.

No, no, no, Ihy disagreed. Government is a cognitive process. You need thinking persons to make one work.

How many politicians have you actually met? Wade countered.

Counting all the Pharoahs? Ihy asked. I think they all claimed to be relatives at the time.

To you or each other? Wade retorted.

Yes, Ihy nodded. Seriously, mate, why can’t we open the school?

It’s the Planning Board, Wade finally explained. The Ropeworks Building is technically zoned for residential use. It used to be zoned for business, but they rezoned it just a few years ago when it was remodeled.

But everyone in there is a professional artist and they use the place as their gallery, Ihy protested.

Technically, they are running out of their home offices, Wade told him. The Condo Committee didn’t think we would have any trouble running a dance school there, but the Planning Board calls our sort of business ‘commercial.’ Now if our section was a detached building from the rest, we could probably ask for a rezoning of that unit and maybe they might have allowed it. I probably would have had to grease a palm or two and honestly, I don’t know who to butter up in this town. Anyway, I went in with the president of the Condo Committee because they have almost as much to lose as we do, maybe more.

How so? Ihy asked.

If we can’t open the school, they have to buy the condo back from us, Wade explained. It’s in the fine print of the sales agreement. They had the right to say who could use the property and how, so in agreeing to let us buy in, they have to buy us back out again and at five percent over our cost, should we be unable to open either due to the Committee’s reversal of decision or a case like this in which the City blocks us. Naturally, they try to be very careful not to let that happen, but none of us thought this would be a problem.

Could be worse, Ihy decided, You’ll make a profit on the deal.

I didn’t want to make a profit, Wade pointed out, not that way. I don’t really care if the school runs in the red a little. I’m doing this for Lizzie and the rest of you too.

I appreciate that, Ihy nodded, So what do we do now.

Well, Wade paused to finish his mug, in spite of the old axiom, we’re going to fight City Hall. The Condo Committee is offering to split the legal costs of an appeal, so we’ll appeal the ruling. I’m pretty sure there are others running dance schools out of their homes somewhere in this state. I spoke to the Condo’s lawyer on the phone and he’s willing to take the case and even thinks we have a good shot at winning the appeal. An appeal isn’t all that expensive in legal fees, really, but if the Board refuses to change its mind, the next step would be going to court. That is expensive and the lawyer tells me he would advise against it.

Why would he do that? Ihy asked. He gets paid either way, right?

He would probably rather make the same money winning a case, Wade replied. The chances of winning this sort of thing in court are slim to nothing unless we have proof of misfeasance or malfeasance.

Misfea… Ihy tried out the unfamiliar words.

We would need to prove they had ruled incorrectly, by accident or with ill intent, Wade translated. We might not even find a judge willing to hear the case. Either way, I doubt we could demonstrate that. We may not like it, but the zoning of neighborhoods is exactly what the Planning Board is there for and it is their job to make sure that the use of land is in accordance with its zoning.

Okay, Ihy nodded, so when do we appeal?

Not until the end of the summer, Wade replied. The Board will not be meeting again until after Labor Day and that’s several months away. However, we are filing for the appeal date tomorrow morning. After that, it’s a matter of waiting until we can have a chance to make our case.

You want me to refill that for you? Ihy asked. From the look of the way he was holding his hand over the mug, Wade thought the young-seeming god meant that all too literally."

Uh, better not, Wade decided. "I’m driving, remember? Besides,