by Zoe Marriott
I wanted to speak to you again, she continued. Because you survived the first time. I do not always mean to but – snap! – you break so easily. I did not break you, did I? I am getting closer now, though. Do you feel it? Do you feel me coming closer to you? I can almost see your world from here. Almost touch… A sudden, shocking sound, broken and hollow. I will be there soon. Soon. Soon I will touch…
“Touch my world?” I whispered.
It used to be mine once. All mine. So pretty. So bright and warm. I cannot go there now. Crunch. Little bones all poking out. I have been in the dark too long. I have. But my pets can get through. Yes. I am close enough now for that. I send them one by one, two by two. A shrill little giggle. Flap, flap. They will find you, you know. They will find my treasure. They have no brains, but they never get tired. They never give up. Sniff sniff. Flap flap. One by one, two by two.
The Shikome.
And the realization was cold as ice sweeping over me and suddenly, just as I knew I couldn’t move, I knew who it was that I was speaking to, who it was that had brought me here.
My lips shaped the name. “Izanami?”
Drip, drip, drip.
A soft, ragged moan filled the cavernous darkness – a moan like a thousand years of wailing and begging and tears, a thousand years of grief and sorrow, and loneliness too great for any creature to bear. I couldn’t think around it. Couldn’t think at all. I lost track of fear. Forgot who I was. Heat spilled down my cheeks, burning in the ferocious chill. My soul wailed for something it had never had.
A tiny hand, icy cold, covered in something sticky-wet, cupped my cheek.
The touch jerked me back to myself. I went rigid, breathing through my mouth. The stink of blood clogged my nose.
Tears for me. She sighed. I think … I think I will be sad when you die, Yamato Mio. All things die, and you will not give me what I want. But I will be sorry.
I could almost taste the blood, lying in a furry coppery coat on my tongue.
Dripdripdrip.
The sticky fingers flexed on my face.
He comes.
I jumped, startled by the sudden urgency in her voice.
He is vicious when he is afraid. So vicious! Oh! Beware, little birdie. He is very frightened now…
Light exploded in the backs of my eyes. For a split second, I saw the red forest, Shinobu’s shocked dark eyes staring up out of his pale, pained face, and his blood-stained hand clutching at his chest where he lay in the red and gold fallen leaves. I saw a green, leaf-shaped blade flashing down towards him—
Dry-retching, I staggered back, away from the sink, away from the treacherous, dingy grey reflections in the mirror. My spine flopped like over-cooked pasta and I ended up on my knees, hands supporting my weight on the cracked lino of the floor, under the frantically flickering fluorescents.
The iron taste of blood was still in the back of my throat. I could still see that vivid snapshot of Shinobu’s shocked face and the green, oddly shaped blade plunging down towards his heart. I could still remember that beautiful dream of lying with Shinobu in the grass in the golden sunlight. Only it hadn’t been me lying there with him, had it?
Or had it?
Was it a dream? Was any of it a dream? All of it?
Am I going mad?
With one hand on the side of the basin, I dragged myself to my feet, wobbled to the door, and almost fell out into the corridor. My one thought was to get back to Jack and Shinobu. I barely noticed the lights in the corridor start to flicker as I passed beneath them, hanging onto the plastic rail fitted to the wall. The katana was still pulsing in its harness, sending discordant jangles of energy fizzing through my skin. Shut up. Shut up. I get it. Stay away from mirrors from now on.
Which way was it from here? Had I turned left before or, or…?
The sight of the large vending machine made me sigh with relief. Now I remembered. Straight on. Letting go of the plastic rail, I walked unsteadily past a health-care worker who hesitated in front of the machine, her finger hovering in midair over the buttons. But as I turned, I stumbled. My elbow glanced off her side.
“Oh! Sorry – I didn’t…” My voice came out overbearingly loud and I let the apology trail off as two things occurred to me.
First, the hospital had got really quiet. Not silent. I could hear city noises, traffic rushing by outside. But that was all. I couldn’t hear voices, machinery, or that terrible moaning from earlier. All the usual hospital sounds were gone. Just gone.
Second, the woman in front of the vending machine was still in her half-bent position, staring at the buttons. She hadn’t looked around when I hit her. She hadn’t even flinched. I was suddenly, horribly, sure that she wasn’t breathing.
With the katana still rattling against my spine, I reached for the woman’s shoulder. She didn’t respond when I made contact. Her arm was as rigid and unmoving as the arm of a chair. She was frozen.
I had seen people frozen like this before.
Izanami had said: He comes.
The Harbinger was here.
CHAPTER 5
LESSONS IN FEAR
Shadows and blood…
This was the third time he had come for me.
Beware, little birdie.
The third time he had come for the sword.
You belong to me. The sword belongs to me. Everything belongs to me. If the sword is lost, you will die, hell shall open, and shadows and blood will devour this world.
I eased my hand away from the too-stiff flesh of the woman’s shoulder. Adrenaline flooded my system and my pulse thrummed in my ears like a trapped wasp, trying to get out. Everywhere I looked, there were doorways into wards, offices and nurses’ stations. No noise disturbed the unnatural quiet of the hospital floor. No hint of movement. He could be anywhere.
Little birdie in an ivory cage…
He could be with Jack and the others right now.
The lights flickered silently, like the strobes in a club. He was doing this. He was trying to scare me again. And it’s working…
Acting on instinct, I reached into the loose collar of my sweatshirt and pulled the sheathed katana free from the leather harness. As I took the hilt in a firm two-handed grip, the sword shuddered painfully between my hands. The heat of its energy was spiking against my skin. Even holding it with both hands, I couldn’t prevent the blade from trembling. Was it afraid too? Reacting to my fear? Or just eager to be freed?
The desire to unsheathe the sword was almost painful – but the very strength of that desire warned me that I shouldn’t give into it. Not yet. I was surrounded by people here, and I didn’t know for sure if I could control the sword or its powers.
The safety catch – the sword’s saya – had to stay on until I had no choice but to fight.
I put my back to the wall and began to sidle down the corridor in the direction of Jack’s ward. The lino floor seemed to stick to the soles of my boots like glue. Each footstep was a laborious, maddeningly slow effort, but Shinobu, Jack and Rachel were completely unprotected. I had to get to them. I had to make sure they were OK.
The lights flared suddenly, stabbing my eyes. I squeezed them shut for a split second. When I opened them again, the corridor was black. Pitch black. I froze. It was the middle of the day. Even with no lights, it couldn’t possibly be this dark.
Then the lights came back on. They flickered faster than ever. The katana rattled in my hands.
Some instinct made me cast a glance over my shoulder.
In the corridor behind me there was a blot of coruscating darkness, a black hole in the fabric of reality. It had the shape of a man. Where its eyes should have been were two circular holes, blank and blazing white.
The Harbinger.
I whipped round and pelted down the central corridor. My throat rasped with panicked, shallow breaths. Doorways and frozen people blurred past on either side of me.
The lights went out again. My boots squealed on the lino as I skidded to a halt, too terrifie
d to move. The black air around me pulsed with menace. Where was he? Where was I?
The lights flashed back on.
The black shape was directly ahead of me, close enough to touch.
I dived sideways into the nearest opening in the wall. An office. Filing cabinets. Desks. Frozen secretary frowning at a heap of files. Door.
Swerving past the woman, I wrenched the door open and found myself in another corridor, almost identical to the first one. I slammed the door shut behind me and ran again, dodging around more motionless people.
A shadow flashed across a Perspex window in the wall ahead. I stopped in my tracks.
He was still in front of me. Between me and the others. What was he doing? Herding me away from them? Holding them hostage?
What if he had already hurt them?
I spun on my heel and ran back the way I’d come, bolting through the office door, out into the main corridor, towards the lifts. At the last second, I turned – nearly tripping over my own feet as my boots snagged on the linoleum floor again – and barged through the emergency fire doors.
The grey-and-white flecked walls of the stairwell closed in around me. My footsteps sounded like a drumbeat as I dashed down one flight of steps, hit the next set of doors and burst out onto the floor beneath Jack’s. I shot along the main corridor, skipping and twirling to avoid knocking over the frozen patients and staff. A grunt of pain escaped me as I collided with the emergency doors at the other end of the hall. I broke through them and hit the stairs again, running upwards this time. My leg muscles were on fire now. I laboured up the steps, then pushed open the emergency doors on Jack’s floor and ran out. There. Jack’s ward was on the left, straight ahead.
Where was the Harbinger? Had I managed to outrun him? Was he already here?
Everything went black again.
The blow to my chest lifted my feet from the floor. I flew backwards, the breath whooshing out of my lungs. Something that felt like wood splintered under my weight as I crashed down. The lights came back on and my watering eyes took in a narrow space lined with shelves. A storage cupboard. I had smashed its door. There was no other way out.
I gulped a fiery mouthful of air, then rolled dazedly over onto my front – too slow, too slow – and heaved myself to my knees. My skin prickled with awareness as I waited for the next blow to fall. The doorway was empty. I gasped in another breath, easing to a crouch and bringing the katana up.
Was now the time to unsheathe the blade?
Another painful breath.
But Jack was so close. They were all so vulnerable. It wasn’t safe.
Still no sign of him.
Was he in there with them right now?
I coughed, gritted my teeth, and launched myself out into the corridor, gaining my feet in a shower of dust and plywood splinters.
There was no one there. I couldn’t hear anything. My own heartbeat and ragged breathing blocked out the unnatural quiet of the frozen hospital. The overhead lights flickered manically. The entrance to the ward where I’d left the others was only a few steps ahead – the way partially blocked by an empty trolley, its grey blankets trailing onto the floor. The second I went forward, he was going to attack me again. I knew it. Unless he was already attacking my friends while I stood hesitating.
There were no good choices here.
“Hey!” I screamed. “Where are you, you coward? Too scared to face me?”
This time the blow caught me between my shoulder blades. I flew across the corridor and crash-landed onto the abandoned trolley, which careened into the wall and bounced off. I toppled to the floor. The trolley smashed down beside me.
My eyes had squeezed shut. I forced them open – and saw the terrible dense blackness of the Harbinger hovering above me, just out of reach. There you are, you bastard. One of my hands groped and found the metal rail of the trolley lying on the ground next to me. A grunt punched out from between my gritted teeth. I heaved.
The trolley soared up over my head and cleaved through the Harbinger’s darkness like a knife. I scrambled to my feet and threw myself the last couple of steps into the ward. There was just enough time to locate the curtained sanctuary of Jack’s bed with my eyes. Just enough time to find the narrow opening in the pastel fabric and trace the straight lines of Shinobu’s back, and Jack’s sleeping face on the pillow. They were where I’d left them. They were OK.
Then the Harbinger was on me.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t get the chance. Darkness flooded down around me, solidifying into stinging black and gold fibres that wrapped me up like a fly in a cobweb. I was hoisted off the ground, and spun helplessly in the air as the strands writhed over my body, gluing my arms to my sides and my legs to each other. The katana’s energy, imprisoned inside the saya, screamed and smoked. Wisps of fire licked out around the hilt. The dark fibres of the Harbinger winced from it, but it didn’t matter. I had waited too long to free the blade. I was as trapped now as the katana was.
Something pale glowed in the dark cloud. It was the Harbinger’s face, awful with rage and less than an inch from mine. His nose almost brushed my cheek. Icy cold, sickly sweet breath washed over my skin. The blank white eyes were on fire and pulsing in his face.
“You. How dare you defy me? How dare you escape me? Vile, ugly mortal. Your stubborn spirit has always been a thorn in my side.”
The blackness tightened. My ribs creaked under the strain. “What – what are you t–talking about?” I choked. “Why are you – doing this? I protected the sword—”
He hissed with fury. Something coiled around and around my throat. It tightened, then solidified into fingers. Bony knuckles jabbed the underside of my jaw as his hands flexed, pressing on my windpipe. I wheezed.
“Protected it? You have unsealed it! For five hundred years it was protected – in less than three days half my work has been undone!” He shook me viciously. My back slammed into something. I was on the floor now, crushed by his weight as he compressed down into the shape of a man again, growing rapidly denser and heavier on top of me. I could feel his bony hips pressing into my thighs, his sharp elbows grinding against my ribs.
He bared his teeth. They glistened like polished metal, the incisors sharp as scalpels. “It is mine! It was always mine! Now it will no longer answer to my voice. This is your doing! If I had known what you would do, I would have ripped your soul in two when I had the chance. If you were not the last of your line, I would do it now. This is your final warning, your last lesson in humility and fear. Attempt to work against me again and I shall exercise no clemency.”
Bluffing. Has to be. He needs me, or he wouldn’t have wasted all this time on me already. I shook my head. The movement sent his maddened face spinning in my vision.
“Pay attention!” he raged on. “There will be no more mistakes. I shall bind the cloaking spirit to the blade again. I shall seal it anew. All will be as it was! No one wins against me. No one. Not ever!” The words had a desperate, feverish edge. It sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. Almost as if he’s afraid…
He is vicious when he is afraid.
He took one of his hands from my throat, his long, pale fingers spreading out as shining white energy crackled between the joints. It was too bright to look at. I could barely make out what he was saying now – the blood was pounding in my ears too loudly. Lack of oxygen made my vision fade in and out.
“Come. Come! Answer me!”
He was trying to summon the sword – to take it away from me the way he had before. And the katana was fighting. The heat of the sword’s power scorched my skin. Every fold of silk on the hilt burned into my palm as the blade vibrated in my grip, its energy tearing the air with a shrill scream of defiance. I would have screamed too if I’d had enough air. But the Harbinger was holding my windpipe closed. Blackness was eating away at the edges of my vision. Nothing remained but a pinprick of light…
And in that pinprick, something moved.
A cloud of curling, toffee
-coloured hair. Golden skin. Dark eyes that glinted almost yellow as one small-boned, delicate hand reached out.
No, Rachel, no. Get back. Get away while you can…
Rachel pounced, grabbing a handful of the Harbinger’s hair. She yanked his head back with an enraged scream. His mad, pale face contorted, and his fingers loosened on my neck. I choked on the sudden flood of air. Rachel’s other hand curled around the Harbinger’s throat, her manicured nails sinking into the pale flesh. White fire bubbled up around the wounds; it dripped down onto me like blood. The Harbinger shrieked as Rachel dragged him away from me, out of my blurry sight.
There was an immense shattering sound: one of the windows running down the side of the building must have broken. Exhaust-scented wind blasted my face. Shocked voices cried out everywhere – sounds of machinery and movement rushed back. Time warp over… I rolled up onto my hands and knees, coughing and gasping for breath.
Arms closed gently around me, helping me up. My head lolled back and I saw Rachel’s pinched face, her glittering yellow eyes.
“You’re OK, Mimi,” she whispered. “I’ve got you. Just breathe. You’re OK.”
You never call me Mimi, I tried to say, but I just coughed some more and let Rachel take my weight.
A second later we were both through the gap in Jack’s curtains. Rachel eased me down and I slumped on the edge of the bed as she nipped the curtains closed again. Outside I could hear nurses and patients exclaiming over the broken window. Inside the flimsy barrier of the curtain there was silence as everyone stared at me. Shinobu’s eyes burned like black stars. I winced from them, only to meet Jack’s, sunken and fearful in her pale face.
“What happened?” she whispered hoarsely.
Another cough raked through my chest. Shinobu rushed to snatch the plastic tumbler from Jack’s bedside locker and fill it with water.
“Drink this,” he said, taking my free hand and wrapping my palm around the small glass. I was still unsteady. He had to keep his hand there, guiding the water to my lips. The first taste of the lukewarm liquid burned like acid, but the next one was glorious.