Finished The Return: Nightfall

This book has a very interesting pair of antagonists:  kitsune.  In The Return:  Nightfall, two twin kitsune named Misao and Shinichi play horrible games that could destroy Falls Church, Elena's town.  In a trilogy I have read by Christopher Golden--the Veil Trilogy:  The Myth Hunters, Borderkind, and The Lost.  In this trilogy, the kitsune is a protagonist.  She is flawed, but she is basically a good being, whereas in Nightfall, this fox spirit legend is very evil.  In common, they both are shape-shifters able to shift between fox and human forms.  In the Veil, that is pretty much the end of her talents.  While human, she wears a beautiful red fur coat and is lovely.  As a fox, she is very fast and tricky and can lure hunters from their prey.  In Nightfall, the kitsune can take any form they wish and can magically influence the flora in the woods as well as enchant human perception of the world.

Doing a little research through my "World of Enchantment" reference encyclopedia, I discover that the "kitsune", the fox spirit has a duel nature.  Some kitsune serve the god of agriculture--she would appear to be the Kitsune of the Veil Trilogy.  There is included in the volume I checked of a kitsune who surfaced in India--a beautiful courtesan who could shape-shift into a white fox with nine tails.  She hated children and, for entertainment, loved to see children and women suffer.  After destroying the court of the ruler of India, she fled and resurfaced in China where she again pretty much destroyed the court of the Emperor of China.  Fleeing to Japan, she attempted the same thing with their emperor until discovered by a mirror which showed her mirror image to be a fox.  This broke her magic and she fled to a remote part of Japan where she languished in loneliness until she turned to stone.  To this day, anything that approaches this stone dies.

I found no mention of a male kitsune...this would appear to be an invention of L. J. Smith.

I have now started the third book of the third and last Chronicle of Thomas Covenant:  Against All Things Ending.  Since this "Chronicle" has four volumes, I am on the ninth book of a ten-book series.  When I left "The Land" at the end of the last book, the world was in dire straights, Linden having just set in motion events which would lead to the end of the world.  So far, she has attempted to absorb the enormity of what she has done and figure out if there is anything at all she can do.  She is consulting pretty much all the historical figures of "The Land", people who have memory of history, and now has met a totally new being who appears very interesting.