Seven Deadly Shadows

by Courtney Alameda

  “I’m not going to hurt her, brother,” Ronin snaps.

  “I can’t trust anything you say,” Shiro says. “You’ve betrayed us all.”

  Ronin stares Shiro down. “I don’t expect you to understand—”

  “Don’t pull the manga villain card on me,” Shiro spits. “You’re getting people killed!”

  A sob hitches in my throat, drawing the brothers’ attention.

  “Get out of here, Kira,” Shiro says, shifting his gaze back to his brother. “I’ll deal with Ronin.”

  He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I turn and run, nearly tripping over my own feet. Strange, dark lumps now line the shrine’s paths, blood spreading like inkblots under their lifeless forms.

  You’re getting people killed!

  Another sob burns in my throat.

  Please be safe, Grandfather, I beg him in my head. I need you to be safe.

  I sprint up the path to Grandfather’s house and throw the front door open. “Ami!” I shout. “Ami? Where are you?” I find my sister’s homework forgotten on the kitchen table, and hear sobbing coming from one of the cabinets. Ami whimpers as I open the door, looking up at me, blinking. Snot trails from her nose and crusts around the top of her lip.

  “Kira?” she asks in a voice so small, it sounds even younger than her six years. No matter how annoying she may be, she’s still my little sister. Seeing her frightened breaks something inside me. “What’s going on? Are there terrorists attacking the shrine?”

  How does a six-year-old know about terrorists? And how am I supposed to answer her question? I can’t tell her monsters are attacking our family’s shrine—for one, Mother would never forgive me. Two, it sounds crazy even to my ears. The shrine is supposed to be warded. Protected. Safe.

  “Something like that.” I take a knee beside her. “Grandfather wants us to hide in the motomiya till they stop. We need to go, okay?”

  She nods, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. I pull her to her feet. Staying low to avoid being seen from the house’s numerous, darkened windows, I lead my sister out of the kitchen and into the entryway.

  Shoes—Grandfather’s and Ami’s—sit neatly against the wall. I glance down, realizing that in my panic, I forgot to remove mine upon entering the house. The offense makes the knot in my gut draw tighter.

  “Hurry,” I whisper to my sister. Ami slides her feet into her shoes, fat tears still rolling down her face. “Don’t make a sound once we’re outside, understand?”

  “Okay,” she says, sniffling.

  “One, two—” I mouth the word three and open the door. I keep hold of my sister’s hand as we step outside. The sky looms so dark it swallows all light, including the stars. I don’t know if the yokai have enchanted the sky somehow, or if the stars have turned their faces away from us.

  The grounds lie silent. I guide Ami past the front of Grandfather’s house, keeping to the shadows under the eaves, listening for footsteps. We slide past the topiary bushes without being spotted or followed.

  The motomiya stands apart from the rest of the shrine, hidden in a copse of trees. The wooden structure is about thirty feet by fifteen, with a clay tile roof and a checkerboard lattice on the outer wall. A shimenawa rope hangs over the door lintel, denoting the motomiya as a sacred place. With Ami in tow, I slip through the open doorway and then tiptoe across a floor that sings like a nightingale. I give the altar inside little more than a cursory glance.

  Hurry, I hiss to myself. Kneeling, I run my hands over the floorboards, wincing as wooden slivers prick my skin. I flinch when my hand brushes up against the corpse of a dead mouse. Swatting the bones away, my fingers locate the right wooden knot. I slide them back toward my knees, counting the number of boards. One. Two. Three.

  I dig my fingernails between the third and fourth boards, drawing up a secret, sawtooth trapdoor. A breath of chilly, arthritic air puffs out to greet me. I shepherd Ami down the steps first, slip in behind her, and carefully lower the trapdoor over my head. It settles into its frame with a groan.

  We huddle on the steps under the door. Only the faintest bit of light ekes through the floorboards. The rough steps were cut from stone many centuries ago, and their chill leeches the warmth from my body. The air here smells of mold and decay, almost like a tomb.

  “Kira?” Ami whispers. “W-what’s going on?”

  “Shush,” I whisper, wrapping my fingers around hers. “We have to stay quiet down here. Understand?”

  Ami nods against my arm, her cheeks as wet as my own. We hold very still. Long minutes pass. My knotted nerves begin to unravel. Perhaps the demons won’t find us here, hidden inside the motomiya, under a layer of protective wards older than the stones themselves. This shrine is a special place, one that may have been blessed by Abe no Seimei himself. Its power is ancient. Formidable. When the rest of the shrine burned down five centuries ago, only the motomiya remained untouched.

  For a few moments, I allow myself to believe we’re safe . . . until another shout rings from the garden outside. A scream cuts off mid-breath, strangled into a wet, whistling sound. Cringing, I squeeze my eyes shut and clap my hands over Ami’s ears. She pulls one of my hands off, stubbornly. She hates to be treated like a child, even if she’s acting like one.

  A voice sings through the garden, winding down to us. It no longer sounds like a child’s voice, but one that cracks like bones being burned. The sound rasps over my skin:

  “Ushiro no shoumen daare? Who is behind you now?”

  The air grows thorny, filling the shadows with sea urchins’ spines. Static crackles in my ears, raw and electric, as the light between the boards flickers, fights, and finally dies.

  Heavy footsteps scrape the floorboards overhead. The yokai’s stench slips into my nose, heady as plums rotting in the summer sun. A bit of dust rains between the cracks in the floor, catching in my hair and eyelashes. My bracelet burns so hot it sears my skin. I bite my tongue to keep from crying out; I don’t dare move, not even to slip the bracelet off. If the creature finds us, we have no place to run.

  The storage area under the motomiya isn’t much larger than the small shrine itself.

  Tap-tap. The rap of claws echoes through the cellar. Ami trembles and wraps her arms around my waist. My head whirls, and I silently chant a prayer Grandfather taught me, which stops my vertigo for a few breaths.

  Tap-tap, in the middle of the shrine floor.

  Tap-tap, by the altar.

  Tap-tap, near the trapdoor.

  “Ibaraki-sama, lord of ogres,” someone says. Despite the wheeze of his breath, I would recognize the timbre of Grandfather’s voice anywhere. He sounds like he’s badly injured. My heart squeezes at the thought, but at least he’s alive.

  Ibaraki, I think, biting down on the tip of my tongue. Why does that name sound familiar?

  Grandfather continues: “You have come down . . . from the mountains . . . but for what purpose?”

  “Don’t pretend you’re stupid, priest,” the ogre says. “You know why we’re here.”

  “I . . . most certainly . . . do not . . . ,” Grandfather rasps.

  “Lies!” The creature spins. “You have hidden the last shard of a holy sword in this place for five centuries. My master, the demon king Shuten-doji, has recovered all the pieces but one. Where is the last shard of Kusanagi no Tsurugi, sword of the Sun Goddess?”

  “This shrine . . . has been rebuilt many times . . . ,” Grandfather replies. “Everything . . . lost. You . . . must . . . go.”

  The yokai growls, but not in the way a wolf might. This sound gets mangled with a scream. It rakes my soul over sharp spikes, deflating my courage. The floorboards squeal as the monster charges forward.

  Grandfather shouts the first syllable of a kuji-in exorcism mudra.

  Another vicious shriek rends the night.

  Silence seeps out in the aftermath.

  The floorboards jump when something heavy hits them. I startle, clapping a hand over Ami’s mouth. Her small whimpe
r dies under my palm. Grandfather groans. Blood drips through the floor, spattering my knees and scalp, cooling on my skin. When I squeeze my eyes shut, but tears leak out. I can’t hold them back, not when the mixture of horror, pain, and shame cuts so deep.

  I thought my worst enemy was Ayako.

  I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  “We will find the last shard,” Ibaraki says. “The next full moon will rise as a blood moon, weakening the Sun Goddess’s power over this world. When that happens, my lord Shuten-doji will return to this mortal plane to make the Light suffer for the oppression of our people.”

  Grandfather’s answer dies with his final breath. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. I’m listening to my grandfather’s last moments, and there’s nothing I can do to save him. If Grandfather could not defeat this demon, what chance do I have?

  The yokai’s steps crunch over the flagstones outside, fading into the shadows.

  Ibaraki. I sear his name into my memory, repeating it over and over again. Ibaraki killed my grandfather. The thought turns into a cold, hard kernel of hate inside my heart. Ibaraki killed my grandfather, and his master is Shuten-doji.

  I will make them pay for their crimes against me, my grandfather, and this shrine. But first, my sister and I need to survive the night.

  Several minutes shudder by. Five, ten maybe, with no sign of the yokai. Police sirens roar in the distance. Releasing Ami, I open my eyes and wipe my cheeks with the backs of my hands. I place my palms on the trapdoor over our heads, gasping when something pricks my palm. It’s softer than a shard of wood or a nail, and doesn’t break the skin. Reaching up, I tug a small object between the boards. I run my fingers over its sharp, bloodied corners and gasp when I realize what I’m holding.

  It’s the shikigami fox, soaked in my grandfather’s blood. And somewhere in the distance, I hear the yokai singing:

  “Kagome, Kagome. Kago no naka no tori wa . . . circle you, circle you. The bird in the cage . . .”

  The yokai’s voice fades into the police sirens. I crush the little fox in my fist, its points breaking the soft flesh of my palms. My bracelet stops burning. It’s all I can do to keep from screaming until these walls collapse and bury me in my grief and shame.

  Kagome, Kagome. We are the birds in the cage.

  And the monsters will come for us.

  Four

  Fujikawa Shrine

  Kyoto, Japan

  I hurl the crushed shikigami fox to the ground. “C’mon,” I whisper to Ami. “We should go.”

  “Kira?” Ami whispers. “Are you sure? Where’s Grandpa?”

  “I think he’s . . . he’s not well,” I say, because how am I supposed to explain to a six-year-old that our grandfather has been murdered by a monster?

  “What was that voice?” Ami asks. “I-it felt like it was scratching the insides of my head.”

  “I wish I knew.” I give the trapdoor a heave, but it doesn’t budge. Blood drips between the boards and spatters on the stone steps. I cringe as it strikes my cheeks. It’s still warm. “We have to go, okay? I’ll answer your questions later, I promise.”

  “Okay,” she whispers, though I’m not sure it’s a promise I can keep. For now, my grief will hide behind the twin forces of my shock and terror. Once I get Ami somewhere safe, I can process my pain and choose my next steps. But until then, we need to survive. Using all my strength, I push up on the trapdoor, pressing my back into the boards. The hinges scream and protest. Grandfather’s body rolls off with a heavy thud.

  The door blocks the worst of Grandfather’s injuries from view, though his arms and legs are angled in crooked shapes. My heart jolts. Not every part of him appears to still be . . . attached. A black pool stretches across the floor, puddling in the deep scores left by the ogre’s claws. The meaty air feels too warm. My stomach lurches.

  In the distance, police sirens cruise closer.

  I swallow hard. This violence may be my last memory of Grandfather, but it doesn’t have to be Ami’s.

  “Close your eyes and hold my hand,” I tell Ami. We start up the steps and she stumbles, blind. I tug her up the last step and pull her against my side, shielding her from Grandfather’s corpse.

  My sister and I creep out of the motomiya. Though I can’t see them, I can hear police officers shouting at each other, their voices harsh. Hurried. I wonder if I am condemning them to the same fate as the priests, should the yokai have lingered in the wake of the attack . . . but there’s nothing I can do to save them. My warning would fall on deaf ears. What could I possibly say in a police investigation? That my family’s shrine was attacked by yokai, and that those yokai were searching for a sword that was supposed to be kept in a shrine hundreds of miles away?

  What do you say when the truth sounds like fiction?

  “Where are we going?” Ami asks in a small voice. “What about Grandpa?”

  “Grandpa wants us to run, Ami,” I whisper, biting my lip to hold in my tears. “No! Don’t open your eyes yet. Hold on.”

  Ami and I sneak around the small shrine. Our footsteps crunch in the pebbles and dry leaves. A shout goes up. I freeze, fearing the police have spotted us, but no. They’re calling for backup, ambulances, and aid. They must have found the priests’ mangled bodies, not my sister and me.

  My sister sniffs, but follows me obediently. I lead her toward the back gate, the one hidden in a high hedge. It’s so old, only my family knows about it. It groans as I tug it open, twigs snapping off and pattering against my arms and chest.

  “Okay,” I say, “you may open your eyes.”

  Ami’s eyes snap so wide, their whites seem to glow in the darkness. When I try to tug her into the thicket, she digs in her heels, leans back, and pulls at my arms with both hands.

  “No, no,” she cries. “What if there are monsters in there?”

  I can’t help but wonder the same. For Ami’s sake, I steady myself. “I thought you weren’t afraid of monsters?”

  “I-it’s dark now.” She sniffles, rubbing her free hand under her nose. “And I still hear that voice inside my head. . . . Kira, it won’t stop—”

  “Hush.” Kneeling, I press my palm to her mouth. “Listen, the only other way out of the shrine is through the front gate, which would mean we’d have to cross the shrine grounds. The shrine isn’t safe right now, Ami. We need to get you out. Now.”

  Ami shakes her head so hard, she flings tears. “I’m scared.”

  “Me too, okay? Can you be brave with me?”

  She nods and grips my hand fiercely. We fight our way through the brush, using my phone’s flashlight to push back the shadows. I shove the branches away from my face with my hands, glad for my bandaged palms. Twigs grasp at my clothing with knobby fingers. I beat a path open for Ami, sneezing as the dusty air fills my nose. Bits of leaves and broken-off branches drop past the collar of my kimono, and something wriggles against the small of my back. Sap sticks to my skin. I grit my teeth against it all.

  “Kira, there’s something in my hair!” Ami cries.

  “Shush!” The sound barely escapes my lips when a barbed feeling curls around my spine, down my limbs, and pierces my gut. Something clicks and growls behind us. I startle, and my phone slips from my grasp and crashes into a large stone. There’s a glittery clink of breaking glass. The flashlight snaps off, plunging us into deep darkness. Ami sobs.

  I stumble out of the bushes, dragging my sister behind me. “Come on,” I whisper to her. The bushes shiver and whisper with otherworldly force.

  We run.

  The road curves around the back of the mountain, dropping down into the city after a half mile. I urge Ami on, faster. We pass a bakery, a curry house, and a gas station. Two bus stops blur by, plastered with glossy photos of idols and actresses, before my muscles fill with fire and burn down my will to go on. My lungs feel like they’re full of phlegm and hunks of dirt. I don’t breathe, I hack.

  My sister stops and collapses on a curb. Snot has clotted under her nostrils again. I ha
nd her a battered tissue from my pocket. She takes it without looking up at me. I double over, hands on my knees.

  “Come on, we’re almost home,” I tell her softly, straightening up to watch the shadows around us. Nothing moves, but the prickly sensation in my stomach doesn’t go away, either. I tug my sister back to her feet. We jog another few blocks before we reach our house.

  Our family lives in one of the city’s older districts, where the rough-hewn stone walls have stood for centuries. Many of the homes, while new, are built to resemble the structures of a more ancient Japan. Our house sits atop a small hill, behind one of those fat stone walls. My family has owned the land for many generations, but my parents built the elegant home on the hill. Lights glow from within the windows. Father’s study lies dark. Our parents might not be home.

  I take a few moments to knock the twigs from Ami’s hair and straighten her pigtails and school clothing. She’s trembling. I shake the debris from my own hair, and then retuck my kimono. There’s nothing to be done about the blood. It’s splattered all over my shrine robes. I rub at a red splotch on Ami’s face—at least she doesn’t know she’s wearing her own grandfather’s blood. No, that horror is mine to bear, and mine alone.

  Our grandfather is dead. As my adrenaline wears off, those words echo in the hollowed-out chambers of my heart. His blood hardens to scabs on my kimono. Our family’s shrine has been defiled by demons, our trust betrayed by a kitsune meant to protect us. I have lost much of what I love because of Ronin and his yokai allies; and while I’m not certain what I should do yet, that offense cannot go unanswered.

  Ronin. Ibaraki. Shuten-doji, I think, listing their names in my head so I don’t forget. You will pay for your crimes.

  “When you go inside, make sure you don’t skip your evening bath or Mother will scold me again,” I tell Ami as I punch the buttons for the code on the garden gate. My fingers shudder on the keys, making them difficult to press in the correct order.

  She sniffles. “But Kira, I’m so tired. . . .”

  I silence her with a look. As if I’m not? No matter what happened tonight, I’m the elder sister. My word is law. I realize Ami’s only six, but she can’t go to sleep wearing dirt, bug carcasses, and her own grandfather’s blood.