by Zoe Marriott
I closed my eyes, blocking out the disturbing sight of the strange graveyard around me, and tried to focus only on the sound. “Keep talking, Dad. Just … keep talking to me.”
He gave a choked laugh. “As the father of a teenage daughter, I have to say I never expected to hear that request.”
I climbed further up the towering heap of crushed crystals I’d been lying on and saw, about six feet overhead, a chink of light breaking through the roof of the geode. There was a hole, about the size of my two clenched fists. Through the gap, I could see my father’s face.
He’s all right. He’s alive. Thank you. Oh, thank you…
“It’s – it’s really good to see you.”
He laughed again, and I saw his hand swipe over his eyes. “Never thought I’d hear that, either.”
“Are you OK? You’re not hurt?”
“A bit banged and bruised, but nothing serious. What about you? You bashed your head pretty hard on the ice.”
“I’m f – er – I’m OK, too.”
“Vision blurred? Do you feel sick?” he questioned anxiously.
“No, Dad. I’m OK. Shush for a minute – just let me… I have to…”
Predictably, he kept talking anyway. I tuned him out as I climbed to the very peak of the crushed heap of crystals, trying to get closer to the gap where he was. I stretched out to my full height and searched for handholds in the walls, but their steeply concave shape and razor-sharp crystals made them impossible to climb.
Nursing my scraped and bleeding hands, I squinted up at the ceiling. I could jump. It wasn’t that far of a distance for me, not any more. But there was nothing to grab onto up there. If I tried to anchor myself on the crystals, I could lose a finger. If I jumped too hard, they might skewer me. And the hole was far too tiny to jump straight out of. Maybe Dad could make it a bit wider from his side…?
“There has to be a way up,” I muttered. “There has to be a way out.”
“Mio, will you please listen to me? I tried everything while you were lying down there unconscious. You wouldn’t answer me, you weren’t moving and I couldn’t even see if you were breathing. I was desperate. I hacked at this wall with my sword, kicked it, punched it, tried to claw it apart with my bare hands. Nothing works. The rock on this side is like iron. There aren’t any other openings.”
I rubbed my pounding forehead, realized I was getting blood on my face and sighed. “I don’t get it. How did I get in here while you’re stuck out there?”
“The katana blew the cavern apart. It blew the whole glacier apart – I’m standing in the melting ruins now. The impact threw me back through the wall, but you went through the floor. Through this hole. By the time I could climb down, the hole had begun to close up again. It was already too small for me to get through, and it’s still getting smaller. It’s half the size now that it was fifteen minutes ago.”
I tried to think through the pain and the exhaustion weighing my body down. “So this gap, the one we’re talking through, soon it’ll just close up?”
“I think so. Try using the katana again. It got you in there. It ought to be able to get you out.”
“Right.” I reached back to the saya on my back … and found it empty. “Shit!”
My stomach lurched. I whirled around, sending crushed crystals flying and nearly skidding off the heap.
I had been holding the sword when I bashed my head against the ice wall. He was in my hand. But he hadn’t been in my hand when I woke up. Where had he gone? Dad didn’t have him. He had to be here. He had to be here. I raked at the heaped-up shattered crystals with both hands, smearing the pale fragments with blood. In my blind panic it took me nearly a full minute to remember that I had the ability to summon the blade to me.
“Shinobu!” I shrieked. “Shinobu, where are you?”
The crystals shifted under me – and exploded in a whirlwind of powdery crystal dust. The katana’s hilt slapped into my bleeding palm, fitting into place like a part of my own body. My spine went weak and quivery with relief, and I held the hilt in both hands, eyes closed, head bowed.
When I opened my eyes, I gasped.
“What is it? You found it, didn’t you?” my dad called down.
“No – I mean, yes – but look!”
I held the sword up above my head so that my dad could see.
The katana had changed. The steel had somehow sheared off, or melted away, transforming the elegant, classic curve of the katana, with its single silver cutting edge, into something … different. The blade was no longer curved but straight − a dense black metal, marked with faint flame-shaped ripples that radiated out from the centre. Ragged silver cutting edges ran along each side, making the blade double-edged. Right above the familiar pierced circle of the sword guard, the blade was narrow, but it widened in the middle and then narrowed again at the tip, coming to a wicked razor-edged point. It was like a black and silver flame that had been caught and frozen in a metal shell. A blade like a flame… Why was the shape so oddly familiar to me?
The green blade flashes down in the red light—
I flinched from the memory – and felt my eyes go wide. Not a flame. A leaf. I’d always seen that green blade as a leaf. But it wasn’t exactly alike. That sword, including the hilt and guard, had clearly been carved from a single piece of some blotchy greenish stone. This one was still metal, still had its black-silk-wrapped grip and tsuba. It just had the shape of the green blade—
The blade that Izanagi had plunged into Shinobu’s chest.
“It looks almost like a Greek xiphos,” my dad said incredulously. “Except that it’s far too long. How in the world did the blade take that sort of damage without shattering? How did it take any damage at all, when it’s supposed to be indestructible?”
“I don’t think it did…” I said hesitantly. “Ebisu said … he said that after Izanagi murdered Shinobu with the sword, after he bound Shinobu’s soul to the blade, Izanagi laid the ‘seeming’ of an ordinary katana on it. He made the sword look like the Yamato katana that Shinobu carried into the battle with the Nekomata. It was another layer of protection, another reason for the Yamato family to cherish the blade, because it belonged to their fallen son. The magical blade − the one that Izanami wants so desperately, and Izanagi wants so desperately to hide − wasn’t a katana. It was never really our katana. That was just its disguise.”
Which meant the sword wasn’t damaged. It was the illusion that had broken, or perhaps just begun to flake away, revealing the true shape of the legendary meitou beneath.
My dad swiped his hand over his face again. “Look, put that aside for now. The important thing is to see if the katana can make this gap wider so that I can climb down or you can jump up.”
I knew the answer to that. The sword was already out of its sheath, already in my hand, already unbound … and its energy was barely a murmur. I’d used both its true names up there in the ice cavern. There was nothing else to call on.
Still, I had my father stand back from the rapidly closing hole in the ceiling and pointed the sharp tip of the leaf-shaped blade at it as I called both true names again – Shinobu and Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. The hilt didn’t even quiver in my grip. There was no spark of flame, no wave of energy, nothing. Nothing.
“It’s not going to work,” I said wearily. The hole was the size of one of my fists now, and I could only make out my father’s eyes staring anxiously down at me. “I can’t get up there. You can’t get down here. Is there anything – any kind of a path, or opening − anything up there that seems to be leading you forward?”
“I don’t think…” There were some faint crunching noises. “No. Only the stepping stones.”
I let out a long, deep sigh. “The dream realm separated us.”
“What?”
“You know exactly what I mean. That’s how this place works. Ebisu said that the only way we’d find the wakizashi is by moving forward – but there’s only one way forward now, and it’s down here, where onl
y I can use it. This wasn’t an accident. The dream realm separated us. Dad, I think … I think you have to go home.”
There was a long, tense pause, and I saw his eyes squeeze shut. A moment later his hand came through the hole in the ceiling, reaching down towards me.
He was too far away. We were never going to be able to touch. But I reached my free hand up to him anyway, closing my fingers on empty air and imagining his strong, bony hand grasping mine.
“I don’t want to go,” he said roughly, his hand withdrawing so I could see a little of his face again. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you again.”
“It’s OK, Dad,” I told him firmly. “There’s nothing else you can do. I must be close to the end now. I’ll practically be right behind you.”
I heard his long-suffering sigh – the same sigh that used to set my every nerve on edge, and which I was now so perversely fond of. “Use the water to call Ebisu if you have to, Mio. Don’t kill yourself trying to find this wakizashi. We might need it, but it’s still not worth your life. Nothing is.”
“I know,” I said quickly, hoping it sounded convincing. “I’ll use the water if I have to.”
“You don’t have to prove you’re a hero to anyone,” he said quietly. “Not me. Not even yourself. I love you.”
My throat closed up and the only reply I could manage was a choked grunt. I nodded, hoping he saw it. I heard another crunching sound above as he moved, and then the muffled sound of his voice speaking Ebisu’s name.
Light flashed in the closing gap like lightning and left silence behind.
He was gone.
I eased myself down onto the heap of crushed crystals and stared up at the hole where I’d last seen my father’s face. New crystals were rapidly spreading around the edges like blue frost. Soon you wouldn’t even be able to see where the gap had been. The heaped-up crystals slipped and settled, as if they had a life of their own. It wasn’t very comfortable sitting on them. I would get up in a minute. Just another minute.
My fingers trembled and then tightened around the familiar grip of the sword. In the beginning it had been just me and the sword in that attic. Just me opening the box. I had started this whole thing by myself. That was how the dream realm or its guardian wanted me to finish it.
The pile of crystals heaved beneath me, hard enough to send me tipping sideways off my perch. I jumped to my feet and scuttled back, instinctively bringing the sword up into a two-handed grip. Was there something in there? Another monster?
“Show yourself!” I said, my voice coming out high and sharp, just this side of panicked. “What are you?”
In answer, a hand thrust up out of the crystal shards. A human hand. There was a faint, hoarse cough. And then an impossible voice gasped, “Help!”
CHAPTER 14
HOMECOMING
A iko had finally convinced Rachel to set her down on her own two feet about thirty minutes ago. She’d immediately regretted it, mostly because of the smart high-heeled leather pumps she’d chosen to put on this morning. They weren’t at all comfortable to run in, and she thought she was probably getting blisters. If she’d known that she was going to spend her morning fleeing across London and dodging – dear Lord – a variety of mythological monsters, she would have worn trainers. This was what happened when people kept her out of the loop.
She leaned tiredly against the wall of the alley where Rachel had called a halt. “And none of you – not a single one of you – thought I might perhaps have needed to know any of this before I came back to London?” Aiko asked.
Rachel gave Aiko a quelling look over her shoulder. “Can you keep your voice down, please?”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon. Am I failing to take the news of the impending apocalypse calmly enough?”
A tiny grin curved one side of Rachel’s mouth. “Now you sound like your husband.”
Aiko narrowed her eyes. “You are grounded. All of you. So very grounded.”
“If you say so, Mrs Yamato.”
“Not Takashi, though. Grounding is too good for him. I’m still debating whether I’m going to kick his lying arse out onto the street or set all his clothes on fire.” She paused. “Maybe I’ll do both.”
Rachel turned away from the mouth of the alley. “Everything seems to be normal out there, but after that giant spider-woman this morning, I just have a bad feeling. I think we should go now. We have to be quick, OK?”
Aiko sighed, whipped off her high-heels, and stuffed them into her shoulder bag. With the other hand, she arranged her house keys so that the sharp metal poked out between the fingers of her fist. She’d learned that in a self-defence class, and now seemed like a pretty good time to give it a go. “Fine. I’m ready.”
Rachel cast a doubtful look at Aiko’s bare feet. “You sure you don’t want me to…?”
“No, thank you. Honestly, I can walk down my own street without help.”
“Run,” said Rachel with conspicuous calmness. “We’re going to run.”
She turned and stepped out of the gap between the two buildings. Aiko followed – and came to an immediate dead stop as she surveyed the carnage. Practically in front of her house there was some kind of giant, winged carcass, burned to a crisp, blackened bones poking out. Crushed and dismembered monster parts were littered everywhere, along with gooey spatters of rusty blood. Up and down the road, windows were barricaded on the inside. Someone had driven an old Ford Fiesta into the railings at the end of the street, and it had overturned and been abandoned there. Aiko had been trudging – occasionally running and quite often hiding – across London with Rachel for nearly two hours now, and she had witnessed some way-out and terrifying things. But seeing her own peaceful home turf transformed into a war zone out of some violent video game? That was shocking and heartbreaking in a completely different way.
“Quickly, remember?” Rachel said as she took a firm grip on Aiko’s elbow and towed her forward. “I told you it was bad. Don’t step on those spider legs − they’re sharp. Watch out for the broken glass.”
Aiko gave herself a shake, tore her attention from an eviscerated spider that was nailed to a wall with a shard of iron railing – had her little Mio done that? – and fixed her eyes on home. They scuttled down the street towards the sanctuary offered by her black-painted front door.
They were only a few steps away from safety when a tinny crash to Aiko’s right made them both jump. Rachel immediately pushed Aiko behind her, spinning on her heel to confront the potential threat. Aiko peeked over the younger woman’s shoulder anxiously – then relaxed. It was just a stray dog, rummaging in an overturned litter bin. It was about the size of a Labrador, but shaggy-coated with splotchy black and white fur. Its scruffy tail waved frantically as it buried its head in the pile of refuse. It must have found something good in there.
“Phew,” Aiko breathed.
“The poor thing,” said Rachel softly. “I wonder if its owners abandoned it? The city is no place for a helpless animal to be wandering loose right now…” She took a step forward, making gentle kissy-kissy noises.
The dog lifted its head out of the rubbish. Aiko let out an involuntary noise of horror, and the dog – thing – whatever – responded with a deep, rumbling growl, despite the fact that it had the head, and presumably the vocal chords, of a human being.
“What is that?” Aiko squeaked.
“Back up. Just … back up slowly towards the door,” Rachel said, matching words to actions. She kept her body between Aiko and the thing, and never took her eyes off it.
The dog-creature continued to growl at them, the hackles rising all along its splotchy back as it stalked after them. Its human face was splotchy too – with dried blood. The awful thing was that it was quite a normal sort of face. Rounded chin with a dimple in it, dark hair with a hint of a curl, and human eyes – eyes exactly like the ones Aiko looked at every day in the mirror, except that there wasn’t a person behind them. There was an animal.
A very wild, very hungry ani
mal.
Aiko was so focused on the creature that she was completely unaware of her own front steps creeping up behind her until her heel hit the bottom one and sent her sprawling backwards. Her rear hit the stairs with a thump and her keys and shoulder bag went flying.
Aiko’s sudden movement seemed to enrage the dog-monster. It lowered its head and sprang right at Rachel. Rachel gave a shout and – instinctively, it seemed to Aiko – ducked.
The monster flew over her head towards Aiko. Its jaw unhinged into a great gaping maw filled with strings of drool and rows of sharp teeth. Aiko grabbed the handle of her shoulder bag and whopped the creature right between the eyes.
Miscellaneous items showered out of the bag as the monster yelped as it landed clumsily on the steps leading to the door. Aiko grabbed one of her fallen shoes and chucked it as hard as she could. The solid wooden heel got the monster right on the nose. It yelped again, turning at bay against the door, completely blocking the entrance to the house. Its lips peeled back over its teeth and Aiko could see its muscular back legs bracing for another jump.
Aiko’s hand closed over another object from her bag. She recognized it by feel, brought it up, aimed, and depressed the top, spraying the monster’s face with a concentrated dose of Chanel No. 5. The animal howled. It spun in a circle and then collapsed to scrabble at its eyes with both front paws.
Rachel was dragging at the back of Aiko’s jacket. “Come on, quick. We have to go!”
“We can take this thing!” Aiko cried, on fire. She scooped her other shoe up off the steps and threw that, too, not even wincing when it missed and left a ding in the front door. “Just you find my keys. I’ll kick this mangy mongrel’s—”
“Aiko!” Rachel shrieked. “Will you shut up and look!”
Her pointing finger was aimed squarely at half a dozen new dog-monsters slinking down the road towards them. The lead one was twice the size of the whimpering creature on Aiko’s front doorstep, and its off-white face and fur were almost pink with splashes of blood.
Wild dogs come in packs.