Oni-chan growls and flattens his ears, but Shiro kneels and chucks Oni-chan under the chin with a knuckle. “Be good, and there will be an entire yakitori stand in your future, got it?”
“Meow?” Oni-chan twitches his dual tails, his eyes bright with mischief.
“Okay, okay,” Shiro says, rising to his feet. “Deal.”
Goro chuckles. As he heads down the path to the shrine, he says, “You shouldn’t make deals with nekomata—that cat has two more tails than you.”
Shiro blushes so bright, it’s obvious even in the shadows. “I-I, I mean I should say that I—”
“Come,” Goro says, turning down the path. “It is a perfect night for a good cup of tea.”
Shiro mutters to himself as we follow Goro. One of the elder kitsune’s great, hoary white ears swivels backward. His smile turns into a wolfish grin. He leads us under the main torii gate and onto sanctified shrine grounds. The shrine’s slatted wooden fence seems so flimsy; but I remind myself it isn’t a shrine’s fences or walls keeping the demons out in the first place. The purity of these grounds keeps most yokai away.
Or at least it should.
We step into a courtyard lit with traditional stone lanterns. Their orange flames dance brightly, transferring their warmth to my spirit. The gentle light illuminates the Meiji’s wooden walls and the turquoise-colored tiles along the roof’s gables. In comparison to other shrines I’ve seen, the Meiji Shrine has an understated, quiet magnificence to it; while it doesn’t have the Heian Shrine’s brilliant colors or Fushimi Inari’s vermilion gates, this shrine rivals them easily. It’s a perfect place to enshrine the kami of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. Their presence brings me peace: the tension seeps from my muscles, and the pain from my spider bites eases. For the time being, Shuten-doji’s minions cannot harm me.
“I’ve never been to the Meiji Shrine before.” I keep my voice low as we pass the shrine’s other priests and miko. “It’s beautiful here.”
“I enjoy it,” Goro says, motioning for us to step off the veranda and cross a small street. “But it will take time for Tokyo to feel like home. I lived in Kyoto for more than a hundred years; it is the land where the gods walk, and I used to be able to hear their voices on the wind if I listened hard enough. Tokyo is far too busy for that.”
We follow Goro to a private apartment on the shrine grounds. He taps a security code into a slatted, pine wood screen, and then slides it open for us. The garden beyond isn’t large—no more than ten by ten feet—but life bounds from every corner of the space. Large fronds and flowers spill from clay pots, all of which look hand-thrown. Goro used to be an avid potter, and it looks like he has continued his craft here in Tokyo.
“Tea?” Goro asks as we step into his genkan entryway to remove our shoes.
“No, thank you,” I say.
“Oh, but you must have tea,” he says, ushering us into his kitchen. Even at a shrine as grand as the Meiji, the priests’ living quarters are modest and simple. “It will be wonderfully restorative after an old-fashioned fight with the yokai, hmm? I’ve received a Sencha leaf from a friend at the fox preserve in Shiroishi. I was waiting for company to try it.”
Shiro and I settle at the kitchen island, sitting in stools as Goro fills a metal kettle with cold water. I decide not to dither with small talk: “What did the Grandmaster tell you about what happened at the Fujikawa Shrine?” I ask him.
“The Grandmaster is unclear about the night’s events.” Goro shoots a playful yet somehow reproachful glance at Shiro. The younger kitsune flattens his ears and drops his gaze, as if in apology. “Apparently, the Okamoto brothers have yet to make a full report. Where is Ronin? I’ve heard he’s quite meticulous, so I’m surprised he didn’t call the Elders straightaway.”
Shiro sucks in a breath. “You don’t know?”
“Kitsune know many things, but I’m not a mind-reader,” Goro replies, measuring out a heap of tea leaves. I can smell their sharp, spicy scent from where I sit. He sets the leaves down, and when he lifts his gaze, I swear he looks ages older than before. “Tell me he wasn’t lost in the attack?”
“No,” I say. “Not exactly.”
“But Ronin is not here with you.” Goro’s gaze slides to Shiro, who turns his face away. “Ah, so he has taken your mother’s offer to become her heir. That news brings me great sadness. I expected better from Ronin.”
“How did you know about that?” Shiro asks. “I thought nothing leaked from the Twilight Court—Mother kills anyone who speaks to outsiders of her plans.”
“When you grow into your power, Shiro, you will understand,” Goro says, resting his hands on the kitchen island. His aged hands look like Grandfather’s did, wrinkled and brown, like the strongest roots of an old tree. “You will know things about people, simply by looking at them. Just as I can see Kira has made a foolish deal with Lady Katayama.”
I flush. “I thought you said you weren’t a mind-reader!”
“And I am not, but the truth is plain on your face.” Goro chuckles, turning to gather three handmade teacups from his cupboard. “What sort of quest has she sent you on? Has she asked you to gather songs from nightingales and weave them into silk so fine it feels like a breath of air? Or perhaps she wants you to fetch her a ruby from Amaterasu’s own crown? Does she have you taking the beaks off tengu in Okinawa, or locating the very snow that birthed a yuki-onna?”
“She wants shinigami,” I say. “Seven, to be exact, to help us protect the Fujikawa Shrine.”
“Seven shinigami,” Goro says, clucking his tongue. “Seven to fight a rising demon lord, more like. A full cabal of them. My goodness, Lady Katayama is ambitious, isn’t she?”
“Do you think it will work?” Shiro asks.
Goro sets the teacups down in a line. “Perhaps. Though I don’t think you have considered all the implications of this scheme, Kira. A shinigami’s role in this world is to reap the souls of the living. They are death’s messengers, and therefore impure. They cannot be allowed to step foot on sanctified shrine grounds.”
“But the shrine’s already been defiled,” I say, thinking that Goro’s right about one thing—in Shinto, death is unclean. I can’t have both shinigami and Amaterasu’s holy protection of the shrine. “I won’t consecrate the Fujikawa Shrine again until after we have destroyed Shuten-doji.”
“This is foolishness, child.” Goro frowns, tapping the island with impatient fingers. “Shinigami are broken creatures. They reap the souls of the living to keep themselves from withering into oblivion, because the life force of the souls they gather can sustain them, at least for a time.”
“You mean the butterflies?” I ask, thinking of the shifting, winged patterns on O-bei’s kimono. “Shinigami feed on the souls they reap?”
“No, not quite,” Goro says. “The souls are eventually released and allowed to pass into Yomi. It’s more of a . . . symbiotic relationship, in which a soul helps to sustain the shinigami in exchange for protection during their transition into death. You can’t trust these creatures to help you destroy a demon. They have no motivation to help you.”
“I’m not sure I have a choice,” I say.
“You always have a choice,” Goro chides me.
“Who else could I possibly turn to for help?” I ask, spreading my hands wide. “Many people believe the yokai are fairy tales made to frighten children, not a reality hunting them from the shadows. These days, most human priests can’t even see the yokai anymore.”
“I agree that the world is not as it once was,” Goro says, “and that many people no longer believe as they once did. But that doesn’t mean death itself is your only recourse.”
“Well, I’m open to suggestions,” I say. I won’t deny that I’m frustrated.
My words draw a heavy sigh from Goro. “I didn’t say I had any, at least not off the top of my head. Perhaps the Grandmaster would know how best to approach this situation?”
“With all due respect, Goro-sama, no,” Shiro says, cros
sing his arms over his chest. “Hell no. If we go to the Grandmaster and his council, we’ll be stuck in an endless cycle of bureaucracy, meetings, and pointless hand-wringing. And while I don’t agree with everything my mother does, I can trust her motivations.”
“Can you really?” Goro asks. “You two may think you’re clever enough to use Lady Katayama for your own ends, but she has been manipulating people for a thousand years. I don’t trust her.” Goro shoots me a dark glance, which I interpret to mean and neither should you.
“She wants Shuten-doji dead, just like us,” Shiro replies.
Goro lifts a single, bushy brow.
“That’s good enough for me,” I say.
Goro sighs again. “Very well. But I can’t imagine your grandfather would approve of this plan.”
“No,” I say softly. “I don’t think he would, either. If we knew where the hidden shard of the Kusanagi no Tsurugi was, we might be able to do things differently—”
“Bah!” Goro says, waving a hand. “Its presence in the Fujikawa Shrine is a myth, nothing more.”
“That ‘myth’ got my grandfather killed,” I say. “Can you be sure the shard isn’t in the Fujikawa Shrine?”
“No, but even so,” Goro says, “nobody’s seen the thing since the sword was broken some five hundred years ago. Finding a shard of the Kusanagi is an impossible task.”
“I’ve been given a few of those lately,” I say with a sigh. Shiro places his hand on my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “You don’t happen to know any shinigami looking for work, do you?” I ask with a self-deprecating smile.
“No, not really.” Goro clucks his tongue. He’s thoughtful for a moment. Steam begins to curl from the kettle’s lip. “But when your grandfather was young, we used to find a shinigami drinking on the shrine’s front steps after dusk. He never said much, and he was never drunk . . . but every time I saw him, I sensed deep, centuries-old waves of regret spilling from him. I suspect he was a priest at the shrine, long ago.”
“Do you know his name?” I ask.
“Your grandfather nicknamed him ‘Shimada,’” Goro replies. “He resembled the movie character, and Hiiro was a fan of Kurosawa’s at the time. I haven’t seen this man for many years . . . but there are tales of his like around Tokyo. Stories of a shinigami who dresses like he’s stepped out of samurai-era Japan. He wears a red haori jacket—no, blue? I will search for him tomorrow, while you scour the city for anyone who might be willing to help. And as for you, Kira—”
The teakettle shrieks, startling me.
Goro grins. “We should probably call your mother.”
Twelve
Shibuya District
Tokyo, Japan
Two nights later, our luck hasn’t managed to grow good fruit. No matter how hard we try, Shiro and I haven’t managed to recruit a single shinigami. We have no problem finding them, of course. Death gods stalk every neighborhood in the city. We see them in train stations, cafés, parks, street corners, and shops. They haunt the hallways in hospitals and follow elderly couples onto buses. But none of them are willing to help us.
Goro hasn’t fared better. No one in Tokyo has seen the shinigami he remembers so fondly, nor does any clan have a record of him.
“You weren’t kidding when you said this was going to be impossible,” I say to Shiro, pulling my coat tight against an icy evening breeze. Shiro and I are waiting for a bus back to Shibuya—after being attacked by yokai in Yoyogi Park, Shiro and I try to limit our searches to the daylight hours. It’s difficult to waste time at the ryokan when each sunset brings us closer to the blood moon . . . but like Goro always says, You can’t save the world if you’re dead.
The bus stop itself provides no shelter from the weather, and the snowflakes tumble down in clumps. It’s so cold, I’m starting to consider taking shelter in the laundromat behind us. The yellow light streaming from its windows looks cheerful and warm.
I shift my weight to the other foot, shivering. “How many times were we rejected today? Eight? Ten?”
“Thirteen,” Shiro says, blowing into his cupped hands to keep his fingers warm.
“Let’s hope we can find shinigami in Kyoto, then,” I say. With Goro’s help, I talked Mother into allowing me to stay in Tokyo for a few days. Goro told her I should recover in Tokyo, under the watchful eyes of the priests at the Meiji Shrine. Mother believed him and gave me till Wednesday to return home. That’s the day after tomorrow, so we’re running out of time. “I’ll have less time to look in Kyoto, though—school will take up a lot of my day.”
“Kira, Kira, always with her head in a book,” Shiro says, teasing me lightly.
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t have a choice. If my grades drop, I’ll lose my place at Kōgakkon and my parents will be really upset with me.” Though I admit, my time at Kōgakkon hasn’t been everything I’d wished it to be. My last high school wasn’t as prestigious, but I hadn’t been bullied there. Plus I had a few friends. Sort of.
A bus pulls up to the stop. It almost seems to exhale as its doors open. Shiro and I move aside for the passengers trying to board. “On top of that, Goro says I need to start learning onmyōdō.”
“I thought you wanted to learn onmyōdō?” Shiro says.
“I do, but a month isn’t enough time,” I say, kicking the snow piling up near my feet. It wouldn’t be this cold back in Kyoto, at least not yet. I don’t like the feeling of winter nipping at my nose, reminding me that our time is drawing shorter with alarming speed. We have less than four weeks till the blood moon rises. It isn’t enough time—not to find shinigami for O-bei, nor to pack a lifetime’s worth of magical training into my skull. I won’t be enough against Shuten-doji, not alone. With shinigami at my back and Shiro at my side, perhaps we’ll stand a fighting chance. Maybe.
I don’t like living with so many maybes. In everything else I’ve done in life, good preparation has assured success. But in this case, I can prepare all I want and still lose the whole world.
The snow falls harder. Flakes get stuck in my lashes. I shelter my forehead with my hand, my fingertips naked and tender from the unexpected cold snap. Clouds overhead suck the remaining light from the sky. The snow blurs the glow from the lampposts. It’s close to seven o’clock, and several businessmen wait at the bus stop with us, along with an elderly shopper or two. Nobody has properly dressed for a snowstorm; nobody was expecting it—especially not the weathermen.
“Do you know any shinigami in Kyoto?” I ask Shiro, peering at the oncoming traffic, hoping to see a bus on its way. I stamp my feet to get my blood pumping through my toes, which are barely more than tiny blocks of ice stuffed into my shoes.
“Not any we’d want to work with,” Shiro says.
“We’re sort of desperate,” I say. “Aren’t we?”
“Not that desperate,” Shiro says, narrowing his eyes by a sliver. “Not yet.”
“Even if we could just convince one, I’d have hope that this crazy plan might work—”
A horn screams, startling Shiro and me. My gaze snaps to the center of the road, where a bullet-gray van skids sideways across the icy asphalt. The driver behind the wheel struggles to regain control of the vehicle. The tires turn helplessly against the physics of ice and snow.
The van careens straight for the bus stop.
Before I can scramble out of the van’s path, Shiro yanks me backward. I stumble and slip. We become a tangle of arms and legs on the slick pavement, until the world tilts at ninety degrees and I slide backward. Horns blare. Metal shrieks. Glass shatters. People scream.
I tumble and slide till I collide with something solid, straight, and cold. The impact claps the breath from my lungs. Pain sparks hot, like a poker being jammed into my shoulder.
The street falls silent.
When I open my eyes, I’m smashed up against the laundromat’s glass windows. Inside, several middle-aged women point to something outside; I think they might be laughing at me. But then my head begins to clear, and I
realize the emotion on their faces isn’t humor.
It’s horror.
I sit up. Shiro’s propped up on one arm, cradling his forehead with his free hand. It takes my eyes a few seconds to focus. The twisted metal and broken glass don’t compute. A vehicle has lodged itself between the awning and the metal bus route map. Tongues of orange fire lick the busted-up hood of a van. One yellow blinker still signals psychotically, throwing its yellow light over the chaos on the sidewalk. Behind the spiderwebbed windshield, the driver of the van slumps over the wheel. He’s not moving.
I see the blood next. The stuff splatters across the sidewalk, as if someone took a giant bottle of sumi-e ink and smashed it against the ground. It fans out from the epicenter of the crash, where—
No, I think, my mind unable to accept the scene in front of me. My blood chills. Every hair on my body stiffens.
A man is wound up in all that glass and metal and oil—a man who wasn’t lucky enough to scramble away in time. He now lies crushed between the bus stop and the van. Several of his bones are broken into wrong angles. Glass protrudes from between several of his ribs, and his blood drips from his body, its heat hissing against the snow. His silver hair glints in the low light, and his round-rimmed bifocal glasses lies several steps away. A smudge of blood stains the cracked left lens.
His primal cry tears into the air. The sound seems to have claws sharp enough to rend my heart in two. I scramble back until my back hits the laundromat’s windows again. Tears spring to my eyes. Everything inside me screams to look away, you baka! But I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I should help him, somehow—but what am I supposed to do?
Shiro kneels in front of me, blocking the horrific scene with his body. As he whispers something, my gaze wanders out into the street, where three cars have piled up near the center median. An injured woman screams for help, clutching an unconscious child in her arms, her crushed passenger-side door hanging horribly ajar. Traffic has come to standstill, save for the blaring horns and the distant, high-pitched ambulance wails.
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