Eight Million Gods-eARC

by Wen Spencer

  “Mr. Freaky, the yokai?”

  “He’s not yokai!” Nikki cried and stabbed a finger at Atsumori who was opening his mouth to counter her. “Just hush!”

  “Oh, that is seriously creepy cool.” Miriam had taken several steps away from Nikki and was watching her argue with “herself.” “But who the hell is the samurai?”

  Nikki rubbed her face. “He is Taira no Atsumori, the kami from the Kyoto Shrine.”

  “Wow,” Miriam breathed.

  Nikki pushed on, explaining about how Simon worked for Shiva, how the goddess had possessed him and had him tied up someplace, her meeting with Leo, Chevalier, and Sato. She ended with finding Leo’s accident scene. “I have a plan to save Simon and Leo.”

  “If it involves your mother, it’s a stupid plan. All she’ll do is drug you and drag you back to the United States. One of these times, you’re not going to be able to get free of whatever hell she locks you in.”

  “I know. If I went to her first, she wouldn’t help me save Leo and his father. She wouldn’t even believe they existed. She’d put it down to proof that I’m crazy and ship me home.”

  “Right,” Miriam said.

  “But if I get shit deep in trouble, she’ll come roaring in with the cavalry.”

  Miriam snorted with disgust and took off walking. “Stupid plan.”

  “That’s not the whole plan. That’s the fail-safe!” Nikki shouted after her.

  “So what’s your plan?” Miriam kept walking.

  Giving a little scream of frustration, Nikki threw up her hands and chased after her. As they continued toward Kiss Kiss, she explained her entire plan. Miriam made raspberry noises at every point.

  “Getting Shiva involved sounds dangerous for you and everyone else,” Miriam said starting to point out flaws in her plan. “Last thing you need is someone else trying to lock you up because you write weird shit. And these two—Chevalier and Sato—they sound like they might kill Kenichi after they question him.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “This is my boyfriend we’re talking about.”

  “When did that start?”

  “After you and I visited that one time. I went back.”

  “You fell in love with him?”

  Miriam blew out her breath. “I don’t know. Almost every word out of his mouth is a lie. It’s just . . .” She sighed. “You gave me Kenichi’s section to read, and it felt like I had found a male version of myself. My parents wanted a boy, and they kept having kids until they got one. I was just failure number three. And then I was so weird, always seeing things that weren’t there, talking to invisible people, being mad that daily horoscopes in the newspaper were wrong. I think if they hadn’t shipped me off to boarding school, my mother would have had a mental breakdown.”

  “Oh, Miriam, I’m sorry.”

  “You are the last person on this planet that needs to feel sorry for me. My life has always been easy compared to yours. I know my mother loves me—I creep her out—but she loves me. I would be a lot more screwed up if I didn’t know that to my core. Still, I’ve always wanted that fairy-tale parent’s love, you know the one, where we wore matching outfits, mother and daughter outfits, she took me to work on daughter’s day, and we talked on the phone every day for an hour.”

  “That would drive you nuts.”

  “Yes, I know it would, but there’s an little girl inside of me that wants all that extravagant show of affection. The equivalence of your parents screaming ‘I love you’ as loudly as they can, because when I was a kid, I didn’t understand love enough to see that they did love me very much. That love can be deep and quiet and still. I read Kenichi’s first section, where he buys that ring and thinks about going home and flashing it in his father’s face and maybe, just maybe, getting respect that he could afford something so expensive, and then getting the phone call that his father was dead.”

  Kenichi had taken off the ring and flung it in the Dontonbori canal. Nikki had been slightly mystified by the act, but Miriam had cried when she read it.

  “He’s so much like me,” Miriam whispered. “He wanted that proof that his father loved him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you were dating him?”

  “Because you’d tell me I was being stupid—because I was—and you tell me the truth when I’m being stupid. It’s one of the reasons we’re friends.”

  The admission surprised Nikki. She’d never had the courage to put their friendship under the microscope to see what it was that kept them friends. She couldn’t afford to be disillusioned.Nikki realized that Miriam was still walking determinatedly in the direction of the club. “I didn’t want you to get involved in all this—craziness.”

  “Like I’m not already?”

  “I just wanted you to call my mother if things go south.”

  “I’m just supposed to let my best friend go off and get killed? To just wait around until some bitch of a goddess unleashes a wave of massive death and destruction?”

  “Yes! Wait. How do you get death and destruction?”

  “This is one of your books. If you could write Nora Roberts romances, your mother wouldn’t be trying to lock you up in a loony bin. It’s like you tune in to a supernatural event, and anyone that is destined to interact with that event picks up the same psychic signature. You tune in to radio-station freaky and write what you hear.”

  Miriam was taking this better than Nikki had expected. But this was Miriam, who lived for spooky weirdness. Who owned a dozen different tarot decks, Ouija board from the 1800s, and had dragged her out to graveyards.

  “Okay, yes, this has all the earmarks of ending like all my other novels. I can’t tell how yet, but you know the pattern. It starts quiet and innocent, and next thing you know, people are running and screaming and the walls are covered with blood . . .”

  “And it ends with everyone dead,” Miriam finished. “How am I supposed to walk away after you tell me that your characters are real people? Those two little boys we saw at Yasaka Shrine, the Chigo and the boy in street clothes, that was Haru and Nobu. And the kid we’ve been cheering during the high school baseball championship is Chitose. We know these people; we can’t abandon them.”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be protected. And that works both ways. Do you think I could live with myself if I just walked away and let you fall?”

  Nikki knew Miriam enough to know the answer to that. “I’m not letting you walk into that nightclub alone to be kidnapped.”

  “How are you going to stop me? Do I need to remind you that I’m a black belt in aikido, jujitsu, and tae kwon do?”

  There was that; Miriam been taking various martial arts classes since first grade, fed by a love of Power Rangers. Nikki suspected that Miriam wouldn’t actually hit her, but she did have a point.

  “Besides, I’m not going in alone.” Miriam grinned. “You’re coming with me.”

  26

  Kiss Kiss

  Like most of Japan, Dontonbori was weirdly huge and small at the same time. It was a single street that ran beside the Dontonbori canal. The street started out open to the sky and looked much like Times Square, with every square inch covered with neon billboards. A block or two later, a roof spanned the street, creating a mile-long indoor mall—with cross streets carrying automobiles. At one time, it had been the pleasure district of Osaka and had barely shed its origins.

  The boys trolling the streets for women marked the various host club entrances. They were easy to spot. Their hair was bleached and ironed and then spray glued into impossible spikes. They slouched on the curbs, hands in pocket, scanning women as they came down the street, looking for signs of wealth. The expensive manicure with jewel-studded fingertips, the Gucci purse, the Prada shoes, and the glitter of jewelry. With smug smiles, the boys would glide in like sharks smelling blood in water. They would flatter, tease, cajole, and beg, trying to entice the woman into the club.

&nbs
p; Kenichi’s scene was one of the first that Nikki wrote after arriving in Japan. Nikki had scouted the host clubs in the gray early morning, avoiding the boys.

  Miriam had read the scene and then insisted that they visit one of the clubs for authenticity’s sake. “The more research you do, the better the scenes get.”

  They’d made one pass through Dontonbori, dodging the boys and giggling over the impossible hair. They studied the head-shot photographs posted outside all the clubs, rating the boys on their looks. Nikki chose the club that “felt right” and picked the boy to “stand in” for her character. As Miriam led the way to Kiss Kiss, Nikki realized that she had led her friend straight to the very real man who was already tugging at Miriam’s heart.

  Nikki paused at the door into the building’s lobby to scan the dark street. Where were Chevalier and Sato? She couldn’t spot them. She thought Leo had told them to meet him here. Had they given up? Gone looking for him? Or were they already inside?

  “Elevator is here,” Miriam called.

  Nikki’s heart was banging hard in her chest as they rode a tiny elevator that smelled of cigarette smoke up to the third-floor nightclub. She could feel Atsumori shimmering inside her, making her skin feel glove tight. “It’s never good when the heroes go up against the villains. It’s like they’re like matter and antimatter. They usually mutually destruct. Violently.”

  “But see, they don’t want to hurt us,” Miriam said. “And we are quite willing to hurt them.”

  Nikki wasn’t sure if this was as comforting as it sounded. She found herself nodding as Atsumori agreed, but she wasn’t sure which of them he was siding with.

  The door opened to the lobby of the third floor. A drunk woman was lying on the ground, laughing at the pretty young man trying to coax her to the elevator.

  “No, no, I’m not ready to go,” the woman cried, clinging to the host’s legs.

  “You’re out of money.” The host pried her free and got her up as Miriam and Nikki skirted around them. “I’ll have to pay for all your drinks if you stay.”

  “But if you loved me, you’d pay for . . .” And the elevator closed on her protest.

  Inside the club door, there was a tiny cubbyhole office and the club’s greeter. “Welcome,” the greeter said in Japanese. “Who is your main host?”

  Miriam slapped down a hundred thousand yen bill, paying their cover, and said in loud English, “Hi, there, I just want to see my boy for a minute. I’m just going to go find him.” And plunged into the nightclub.

  Nikki scurried after her. “Aren’t we supposed to wait?”

  “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” Miriam quoted something that sounded like the Art of War.

  Atsumori grunted in agreement.

  They darted through the nightclub. There were dozens of booths, their high backs forming bubbles of privacy. Safe from prying eyes, well-dressed women were courted by handsome hosts.

  Halfway through the club, Miriam ducked into a booth, yanking Nikki in after her. “Yakuza.”

  “There are at least three here, and they’re not human.” Nikki slipped the katana off her shoulder and undid the lacings of the bag.

  Miriam eyed the katana. “Let me be attackman. You play defense.”

  Nikki nodded. Those were the positions they’d played on Foxcroft’s lacrosse team. Miriam’s aggression made her a star player, but Nikki had discovered a secret love of full body check on snobby girls to bleed off life’s frustration.

  Miriam peeked over the top of the booth. “Okay, he moved. Let’s go.”

  They found Kenichi in the far back with a woman who was having a champagne toast. He and several other hosts were gathered around her with microphones, shouting compliments and urges to drink as a bottle of champagne was opened with a loud pop.

  “Drink!” the hosts shouted as a towel was held under the woman’s chin and she chugged from the bottle.

  Kenichi was in the fine white suit from the scene that Nikki had written. Unlike many of the other host boys, he hadn’t bleached his hair, and his black hair and dark eyes were accented beautifully by the white fabric. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, showing off heavy gold chains.

  Last time Nikki saw Kenichi, he had seemed as rich and polished as his gold chains. Compared to Leo, though, he seemed as fake as jewelry from a gumball machine.

  Kenichi was in mid-shout when he saw Miriam bearing down on him. His eyes went wide, but he kept shouting until his gaze moved to Nikki. He froze in mid-shout.

  Oh, yes, there is an angry god bearing down on you, scumbag.

  “I need to talk to you.” Miriam caught him by the wrist. “Now.”

  “Miriam-chan, I—I’m doing a call. I can’t . . .”

  Miriam applied pressure to some pain point, making him yelp, and twisted his arm up behind his back. “Yes, you can.”

  They started back through the nightclub, heading for the front door. Despite the fact that that Miriam still had hold of him, Kenichi kept focused on Nikki.

  Miriam suddenly shoved Kenichi into an empty booth. “There’s a yakuza at the door.”

  If they didn’t find out anything before the fighting started, this was going to be pure stupidity on their part. Scratch that—it probably was already pure stupidity.

  “Where are they?” Nikki snapped, surprised when it came out in Atsumori’s deep growl of Japanese.

  Miriam’s eyes went wide at the fluent Japanese, but she said nothing.

  “Where’s who?” Kenichi seemed genuinely confused by the question.

  “The goddess that your family worshipped and the gaijin she is possessing.” Nikki said.

  Miriam twisted Kenichi’s arm a bit, making him wince. “We know that you called me here to turn me over to her.”

  Shame washed across Kenichi’s face and was hidden away. “She would have killed me.”

  “No, she wouldn’t have,” Atsumori stated. “A god is duty bound to protect those who worship them. You are the one person that she will not harm.”

  Kenichi gasped and looked to Miriam. “I didn’t know. She’s just so angry all the time.”

  “Tell us where she is!” Miriam said.

  “They’re at the Imperial Hotel in the Kita district. She’s got a small army there now of yakuza and shrine maidens.”

  Nikki frowned, thinking of the shrine maidens at Inari’s shrine. “If she has shrine maidens, why does she need Miriam?”

  “She’s looking for someone like the gaijin, who she can take over easily and stay with most of the day. She can only stay in the shrine maidens for two or three hours at most. If she’s not careful, she kills them.” Kenichi’s hands were shaking as he took out a pack of cigarettes. He fumbled through lighting one. “She collects Maneki Neko statues. At first it seemed cute; how like a girl to collect dozens of statues of cats. Then one day, she was using one of the shrine maidens to scream at me about my failings. Mid-curse, the girl just collapsed.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “The dead girl stared up at me, slack jawed. The silence was blessed. For a minute, I thought, ‘I’m free of her.’ And then the nearest statue started to tremble. I realized then that she knew that she eventually would kill her shrine maidens and had gathered those statues there to take her spirit when one died. I stood there, wanting to scream, as all those cat statues stared at me with unblinking eyes.”

  He took another deep drag on his cigarette. “I didn’t want to get you involved, Miriam. I’ve seen what she’s doing to that gaijin. He looks like death when she finally lets him go. It’s only a matter of time before she kills him. She’s killed two girls so far, and every day she destroys at least a dozen statues. It’s to the point that everywhere she goes, she leaves a trail of fine dust.”

  That would explain the dust that rained down on Simon in his scene. If things continued the way Nikki’s book normally went, the destruction of the statues was just the beginning of the chaos that the goddess planned. />
  “What is she planning to do? What’s her big picture?”

  His laugh was bitter and edged on hysterical. “You’re asking me? I don’t know. She tells me nothing. According to her, I’m the least useful thing she’s found in the world so far.”

  “You have to be able to at least guess,” Nikki suggested. “Your family worshipped her—you should know who she is—what she wants.”

  “She’s Iwanaga Hime,” Kenichi said. “She’s the daughter of Ohkuninushi. My grandmother used to tell me stories about her. I never believed any of them.”

  Nikki had felt Atsumori cringe at the names. He had recognized them; she could ask him to explain later. “Who does she want revenge on?”

  He took another calming drag on his cigarette and sighed out smoke. “It’s one of those stupid legends. Like Amaterasu hiding herself away in the cave, plunging the world into darkness. To lure her out, Ama-no-Uzume did a strip dance on an overturned washtub, making the other gods laugh until Amaterasu looked out to see what they were laughing at. When she saw her reflection in a mirror hung in a tree, she came out of the cave.”

  Amaterasu was the Japanese sun goddess. Nikki had always assumed that the legend was on par with the Greek legends of Apollo and his sun chariot; entertaining but no way true. Her brain boggled slightly in the sudden awareness that there might be a being named Amaterasu somewhere in Japan and that the story had some type of truth attached to it. Surely the idea that the sun vanished when Amaterasu went into hiding was still just a story.

  “Just tell us about this Iwanaga Hime,” Miriam said.

  “When it was decided to send Ninigi to Japan, the gods gathered in a great hall to celebrate his departure and to gift him with presents. Susanoo, the god of storms, gave him the sword Kusanagi. Amaterasu gave him the mirror that had been used to lure her out of the cave and her necklace to prove that he was her grandson. After the banquet, Amaterasu realized her Father Izanagi’s spear was missing. Iwanaga Hime came forward and said that she had seen Ninigi with a spear. Amaterasu was furious that Iwanaga had accused her grandson. She claimed that Iwanaga was only trying to cover her own crime by blaming Ninigi and demanded that Iwanaga produce the spear. When Iwanaga couldn’t, the gods punished Iwanaga by locking her in a massive stone, deep in the heart of a mountain. There she stayed for hundreds of years until a landslide freed the stone.”