by Zoe Marriott
The ground jumped under my feet. Beyond Araki, the other side of the throne erupted with electricity. A new rupture. A small crowd of Kitsune – four of them, none older than a two-tails – stumbled out. They were ashen-faced and covered in dirt; one of them, splattered with blood, was clutching at her arm. She collapsed face-first into the grass and lay there, gasping for air and shaking with what looked like agony. The others hastily drew away from her.
Araki darted forward, falling to her knees beside the Kitsune girl. I saw with horror that the girl’s twin tails were withering, the lush reddish fur turning powdery grey and shredding off before our eyes. Horror turned to disbelief when the dignified Araki threw back her head and let out a terrible wail.
The Kitsune who had come through the rupture with the injured fox spirit picked up the note, their voices joining into a low, wavering keen of sorrow. The noise spread through the amphitheatre, celebrations dying away as the whole assembly of fox spirits fell still in the aching song of grief.
“What’s happening to her?” I cried out over the wailing. “Can’t someone help her?”
Hikaru didn’t even look at me. He lifted his face to the canopy of trees above and howled.
I felt Shinobu’s hand grasping mine, trying to pull me towards the rift. I shook my head, yanking free. I couldn’t leave. They needed help!
The king’s tails flicked in my direction. It was as if a massive hand had scooped me up and tossed me straight at the waiting blackness of the open rupture. I tumbled inside. Shinobu landed half on top of me with an “Oof”.
“Wait!” I shouted, struggling to get up.
It was too late. The light had vanished and the rupture closed.
The Kitsune Kingdom was gone.
Klara Wozniak pulled the little cloth cap off her head in a puff of flour and stuffed it into her locker with one hand, swiftly undoing her tight French plait with the other. Long, curling strands of dark hair fell around her face, and she shook them out, sighing with relief.
“You think you’re in a shampoo advert or something?” Sharon, the other baker’s assistant, sneered as she walked into the back room.
Sharon’s blonde hair was about three inches long, ragged-looking, and tipped with orange after an ill-fated home-dyeing attempt. Klara knew Sharon was just jealous – and in a bad mood because she had been scolded for messing up the iced buns – so she didn’t bother to reply. No time for bad thoughts today, she reminded herself, changing out of the white baker’s overalls and back into her usual uniform of jeans, T-shirt and jacket.
Her boyfriend had managed to get a couple of days off from his job at the warehouse, and Klara had the next two days free too. She wanted to enjoy the time to the fullest. If she knew Stephen, he’d be making her breakfast in their tiny flat right now. She could feel the silly smile on her own face as she remembered her twenty-first birthday, when he’d presented her with scrambled eggs, toast and a pink rose in a jam-jar.
She wrapped her scarf – a present her baba had sent from Poland for that same birthday – around her neck. She fingered the ends of the brightly coloured scarf for a moment, remembering the letter she had got from her grandmother the day before. The old lady was getting eccentric. Baba claimed to be having bad dreams about Klara, and actually begged her to come home, as if she really thought Klara was going to up and leave her whole life just because of one of Baba’s silly premonitions! Baba was famous in Klara’s village for her so-called sixth sense, but Klara and her father had never set any store by it. Especially since Baba claimed Klara had a little of the gift too. That always made her laugh. She’d never had a vision or seen a spirit in her life.
Still smiling, Klara slammed her locker shut and scooted out of the bakery’s rear door into the small back street the business shared with a book/coffee shop and a pub. It was frosty cold, but the sky Klara could see between the roofs was primrose yellow, tinged with baby blue. It was going to be a beautiful day. Even the strong smell of burning and rot in the air – probably from the skip – couldn’t ruin her mood.
“Hey, Klara!” Sharon shouted, shoving the door open just as Klara was about to slip past the skip and out onto the main road. “You didn’t wipe down – it’s your turn.”
“No, it is not.” Klara turned back reluctantly. “It is yours. I did it yesterday.”
“You’re always skiving off,” Sharon whined – without, Klara noted, bothering to deny it.
“You would get your own work done faster if you spent less time worrying about mine,” Klara said firmly. She was already reaching into her pocket for her mobile. Stephen would be waiting.
Sharon muttered something nasty about immigrants under her breath. Klara hesitated just for a second, the urge to respond rising up like bile in the back of her throat. She bit it back. She’s not worth it. She’s not worth it…
The alley went dark, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. A sudden gust of that awful rot-and-burning scent stirred Klara’s hair, filling her ears with the eerie sound of dead leaves scattering over concrete. But there were no leaves on the ground. Instinctively, she glanced up.
A great misshapen thing was crouched on the roof above her, talons digging into the wall of the bakery. Its monstrous wings blocked out the sky.
Klara’s knees gave way and she hit the ground next to the skip, hard. The mobile flew from her hand as she flung her arms up over her head.
No. It was impossible. It couldn’t be real. There was no such thing as monsters. No such thing.
“What are you doing, freakshow?” Sharon demanded. “Euw – what’s that smell?”
Klara realized that the other woman hadn’t seen it. She was coming closer. Idiota!
“Shut up!” Klara managed to choke out. The rising stench of death, singed hair and decaying flesh made her gag. “Get down! Get inside!”
It was already too late. Darkness and dry chittering filled the alley as the thing swooped. Sharon let out a shrill, terrified scream – then went silent.
Klara didn’t have the chance to scream at all.
CHAPTER 2
BROAD DAYLIGHT
“We have to go back,” I said. I reached the living-room wall, spun around and paced back to the fireplace. “We have to. Something’s horribly wrong there.”
“The king sent us through the rift himself. I do not think they want our help,” Shinobu said, very gently, from his place in the corner by the bookshelf.
“Maybe not, but they’re our friends, and you don’t just … leave your friends to die.”
“Come on, Mimi,” Jack piped up from the sofa. “They’re Kitsune. They’re not that easy to kill.”
“Something was really wrong,” I insisted, hitting the fireplace with the flat of my hand and then pacing away again. “You didn’t see that girl just lying there. You didn’t hear the noise they were making—”
“No, but I’ve been listening to you rant about it for the past ten minutes,” she interrupted. “Look, don’t you think that I want to know what’s going on too? I care about them as much as you do. But they’re not answering. The only way to get back is if they open a rupture on their side and they’re not answering us. So what’s your plan? Start digging under the mulberry bush and hope you hit the spirit realm before you get to the earth’s core?”
I stopped pacing and stared down blankly at the carpet. “There has to be something we can do.”
There was a snort of muffled laughter from the window seat. I turned round to see Rachel slumped with folded arms in the glow of weak, wintery sunlight. One of her hands was playing with the end of the woolly scarf she’d wrapped around her neck.
“This isn’t funny,” I told her.
“No, but you are.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Here’s a newsflash: This isn’t Gotham City, and you are not Batman. You’re a fifteen-year-old girl with some kind of dangerous energy weapon that you have no idea how to control – and everywhere you go, you leave a trail of destruction beh
ind you. Gee, what a shocker that your foxy pals don’t want you around.”
We all stared at her in shock. I sank slowly down onto the arm of the sofa. Jack knelt to put her hand on my shoulder.
“That was harsh, Rach,” she said sternly.
Rachel sighed. “Sorry, OK? But this situation is nuts.”
“I know that,” I muttered.
“I don’t think you do,” Rachel said. “I – I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.”
“Yeah, we get it,” Jack said. “Monsters, magic, mega-swords. It’s freaky.”
“No, I mean I can’t believe we’re having this discussion.” Rachel sat up, swinging her feet down to the carpet. “This one. Why aren’t we having a discussion about us and what’s going to happen to us next? Mio, that nightmare – the Nekomata – threatened us with its ‘Mistress’ coming after the sword. She could be coming right now. So why do you still have the sword? Why isn’t it on the bottom of the Thames?”
“She already tried that,” Jack said. “We told you. It doesn’t work.”
“Mio-dono is compelled to protect the sword. She cannot be parted from it without unbearable suffering,” Shinobu said, his voice deadly serious.
“Oh, really?” Rachel snapped. “Unbearable suffering like, say, being strung up on the wall of an abandoned warehouse and tortured by a monster that wants to eat you alive?”
Jack recoiled, speechless. Shinobu bowed his head, his face very grave.
I swallowed hard, all too conscious of the weight of the faintly buzzing sword on my back. Is it listening?
I tried to ignore the insistent pulse of energy, but when I spoke, my voice didn’t come out strong and calm like I wanted. I sounded … defensive. “If I could get rid of the katana somehow, believe me, I would do it. But I can’t let it fall into the wrong hands. It’s too dangerous for that. Nuclear-bomb dangerous. I don’t really know what it could do if its powers were unleashed. The Nekomata seemed to be able to smell it, or sense its energy somehow, so even if I could hide it, more creatures might come after it – us – anyway, and without the sword in my hand I couldn’t even fight them off to protect us. We have no choice but to keep hold of it.”
Rachel glared at me for a long moment. Then she stood up. “That’s it. I’ve had enough of this crap. I’m calling your parents.”
The room seemed to tremble around me; my voice came out in a sort of roar. “WHAT?”
Shinobu was out of his corner in a flash, his hands closing over my shoulders. I realized that I’d launched myself off the sofa at Rachel. He was holding me back by both arms. Jack was on her feet too, hovering, like she wasn’t sure who to protect from whom.
Rachel didn’t flinch. She lifted her chin and stared me straight in the face. “I said I’m calling Mr and Mrs Yamato. This mess is not my and my sister’s responsibility. It’s not even yours. The sword belongs to your family and that means it’s up to them to figure something out. They need to get back here and deal with this.”
“Deal with it? Deal with it how?” I demanded. “What, you think my dad can turn up and slay demons for us? Just because they’re adults that doesn’t mean they can handle this. They won’t believe us, they won’t know what to do, and they might get killed!”
“So might we! And you just want to put your hands over your ears, close your eyes and sing ‘La la la, I’m not listening’!”
“Oooookay,” Jack said, sliding between me and Rachel and making calming motions in the air. “Can we dial this down a notch?”
The sight of Jack playing peacemaker was enough to freeze both me and Rachel for a second. Jack took advantage of the pause. “Let’s not turn on each other now. When friends fight, the monsters win, right?”
“Jack, tell her that we can’t bring my parents into this.”
Rachel bristled. “Don’t try and get my sister on your side!”
“She’s got the right to her own opinion even if she is your sister!”
“Her own opinion? That’s rich! Did she get a vote before you dragged her into this mess?”
Shinobu let out a little grunt of effort. I realized that I was straining forward against his hands – and with my still unfamiliar new strength, he was actually struggling to hold me.
Jack was hanging onto Rachel’s arm with both of hers. “Stop it!” she shouted. “Just stop it! This isn’t helping. Mio, don’t shout at Rachel – she’s been through enough, it’s not fair.”
I shut my mouth with a snap. Rachel grinned. The expression congealed as Jack turned on her. “And you, don’t start bossing people around and giving orders. You are not in charge here. It’s Mio’s sword, and she saved your life with it. She gets to make the decisions.”
“Wrong. The parents left me in charge,” Rachel snarled. “Which means I get to make the decisions about what goes on in this house.”
“I said stop it!” Jack grabbed a handful of her own hair and tugged. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Fine!” Rachel screeched, her voice hitting a pitch that raked up every fine hair on the back of my neck. “Take her side then. Whatever!”
She marched to the door into the hall and threw it open, turning back at the last moment to stab me with a vicious look. Her narrowed eyes glinted in the sunlight. She was so furious that they looked almost yellow. Then the door slammed behind her.
Jack grabbed me into a crushing hug. I hugged her back, feeling her shoulders jerk just a little, exactly like mine were. “It’ll be OK. I’ll talk to her. I got your back, Maverick,” she whispered.
“Oh my God,” I managed to mumble. “Seriously? Top Gun quotes are never going to be cool, Jack.”
“Sez you, She-Ra.”
My choked laugh was nearly a sob. Jack let go of me, knuckling her eyes, and disappeared out of the room after her sister, leaving me alone … with Shinobu.
I stood very still. He was just as still behind me. Right behind me. So close that I imagined I could feel his breath disturbing my hair and the warmth of his large body sheltering mine. I wanted to turn around into his arms and just sink into him. But I couldn’t even bring myself to look at him. I just couldn’t.
“Mio…”
“Sorry,” I blurted, tearing free of the magnetic pull of his presence. I fled, taking the stairs to my bedroom two at a time and then slamming the door shut behind me.
The iPod dock said it was ten-thirty in the morning. This time yesterday the most terrifying thing in my whole world was the Nekomata. I would have promised anyone anything if they could just tell me that we would be able to get away from it, to survive it.
And we had. It was gone. I had cut its head off myself. Yet somehow the world was a more terrifying place than ever. Rachel was clearly not OK. Jack was struggling to cope with a sister and a best friend who were both melting down in different ways. I was half-sick with feelings for a boy who was – let’s face it – a complete stranger.
And Rachel was right: None of us knew what might be coming after the sword next.
Who was this great “Mistress” that the Nekomata had been willing to die for? It had feared her and threatened us with her arrival right to the end. Shinobu had argued that the cat-demon could be the servant of any number of powerful supernatural beings from Yomi, the Japanese Underworld … but that had been before Battersea. Before we had found ourselves fighting beneath the moon of Yomi, had seen the mortal realm warped and twisted and made into a tiny piece of hell on earth, just for us.
I couldn’t escape the fear that there was only one being in Yomi powerful enough to do that. Izanami. The Mistress of Yomi.
The Goddess of Death.
Slowly, with clumsy fingers that felt too long and thick, I took off the sword harness and dropped it on the floor. The sheathed katana gleamed in my hands, black and gold. Beautiful. I could feel its power humming through my palms, singing with the same strange note that seemed to run in my own veins now.
“How am I supposed to protect you? Why me? Why us?
”
It didn’t react. Its power kept on humming and my blood kept singing. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that it wasn’t speaking to me – that it still couldn’t communicate while it was sheathed. The memory of the sword’s inhuman, metallic voice in my mind made me shudder with revulsion. It had been inside my brain, inside me. But even as I shuddered, a part of me was overwhelmingly tempted to remove the saya now, to reveal the crescent moon silver of the cutting edge and feel the white-hot flood of the katana’s power engulf my body.
A part of me? Was it really a part of me that felt this way? What if this urge to unsheathe the blade was really a part of the sword? Its intelligence, its will, its voice, still inside me. How could I ever know?
“I hate you,” I whispered. My voice was so quiet I could barely hear it over the heavy percussion of my heartbeat. “I hate you.”
The sword was responsible for every bit of pain and suffering and fear I had known in the past two days. It had put Jack, Rachel and the Kitsune in danger. It had caused the deaths of those innocent men and women who had been caught and eaten by the Nekomata. I hated the fact that the sword’s powers had already altered me, that my body was no longer solely mine. For years I had prayed for some long-delayed growth spurt to come along; now I wished that I was back in that old, familiar frame, even if it was smaller and weaker. At least it had been mine. By changing me, the sword had taken possession of me. My newly long, newly strong legs and arms were the property of the katana.
What did that make me?
I didn’t even know yet how much influence – or control – it had over my mind. In the horror and blood of the battle at Battersea, when my body had seemed to move on pure instinct and I never had a split second to stop and think, had I really been making all my own decisions, or had the katana moved me, thought for me? In that moment when Rachel’s life was at stake and I’d had to make my choice between her and the sword – when I had hesitated – had the hesitation been mine, or the sword’s?