by Zoe Marriott
“The Harbinger?” Shinobu asked softly, urging me to sip more water. His expression was calm, but his eyes were terrible.
All I could do was nod.
“Rat-bastard,” Jack mumbled. Her hands clenched and unclenched on the blanket. “Talk, Mimi.”
I took one more sip, then let Shinobu take the glass away. He brushed my cheek, tucking my tangled hair behind my ear. I could feel his hand trembling.
“He wanted to punish me,” I said. My voice crackled and broke. It felt like I was trying to talk through a mouthful of sand. “He said … I’d unsealed the sword. Something about how the sword wouldn’t answer to him any more. And it wouldn’t. He tried to call it to him, but it fought.”
I looked down at the sword and realized with a shock that my fingers were still clamped around the hilt, knuckles standing out purple and yellow with the strain. My hand was numb. The blade lay still in my grasp, without a hint of vibration. Maybe it had exhausted itself.
I tried to open my fingers and couldn’t. The effort made sharp cramping sensations shoot down my wrist. This had happened once before – the last time the Harbinger had attacked me. Was it possible that the sword hated and feared him as much as I did? Am I clinging to the katana right now? Or is it clinging to me?
Shinobu saw my problem and took my hand in both of his large, warm ones. He chafed at my fingers, deftly massaging the joints until they began to loosen. “The Harbinger hurt you to punish you?” he prompted me quietly.
“Said he was teaching me a lesson. Repeated the thing he said before, too, about how if I weren’t the last Yamato he’d kill me. And … and he talked about you, Shinobu. He called you ‘the cloaking spirit’, but I’m sure he meant you. I think he’s the one who did this to you. I think he’s the one who trapped you in the blade.”
Shinobu’s hold on my hand tightened minutely. He stared down at the sword, motionless, eyes screened from mine by the thick fan of his eyelashes. His face was smoothly blank. The very lack of reaction gave me a lurching sensation deep inside. “Shinobu—?”
He gave a little tweak to my fingers and unpeeled them from around the sword hilt. I dropped the katana next to me on the bed with a gasp of relief, flexing my hand. My palm was marked with faint pink lines from the silk tsukamaki, but otherwise unharmed. I could hardly believe the skin wasn’t burned to a crisp. There wasn’t even a blister.
Jack kicked her legs feebly under the covers, demanding my attention. “Did you … at least … cut him up … this time?” The effort of producing this many words clearly exhausted her and her head slumped back on the pillow.
“Not exactly,” I said, hesitantly. I shifted my position to stare at Rachel, who hadn’t moved or said a word since she’d closed the curtains and stationed herself at the foot of the bed.
She looked exactly the same as normal. She looked like Rachel Luci, Jack’s bossy-but-mostly-OK sister who I’d known practically my whole life. A friend. Safe.
Oxygen deprivation and a whack to the head could make people see things – but I couldn’t have imagined everything I saw. I couldn’t have imagined what Rachel did. There was no way I would have escaped from the Harbinger on my own, not this time. She’d dragged him right off me. She’d scared him enough that he fled out of the window, freeing the hospital from his spell, which had held every other human in the place frozen, even Shinobu. Rachel had saved me, for sure. But how had she broken free? How had she done any of it? I couldn’t forget that strange yellow fire I had seen in her gaze. I didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t feel right.
Her eyes were brown again now, the same familiar brown as Jack’s. Those familiar eyes were pleading with me. Don’t, don’t. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t say anything in front of Jack.
Shinobu had picked up on our silent communication and was looking at Rachel warily, clearly realizing that something was wrong. Jack was still lying on the pillow, eyes closed, but she was going to pick up on the silence in a moment.
I bit my lip. Then I picked the katana up and quickly returned it to its place in the harness on my back, before grabbing the metal foot board of the bed to lever myself to my feet. “We have to go.”
Jack’s eyes flicked open. “What?”
“Whoa, Xena,” Rachel said. “Stay right where you are. We don’t need you passing out again.”
“I didn’t pass out before,” I said indignantly, even though I was still hanging onto the bed for balance. “Listen, Jack, the Harbinger is focused on me, on Shinobu, and on the sword – but it’s only a matter of time before someone else gets caught in the crossfire and is badly hurt. And I’m not helping you or anyone else by just sitting around here, anyway. We need to figure out what we can do to fix this – all of this, the Harbinger, the Shikome – the way we did the Nekomata. There has to be an answer out there.”
Shinobu nodded slowly, considering my words. “The Harbinger may have fled for now, but if the sword remains here, he is sure to return. We are surrounded by the ill and vulnerable, including Jack-san. It is not the place for a confrontation.”
“Hey,” Jack protested. “I’m – fine. I can … come … with you.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, reaching out to grab her hand. Her fingers twitched in mine. She was trying to squeeze back. My knees buckled, and I ended up leaning on the bed with my free hand, desperately trying to keep my expression neutral. My voice came out slightly strangled as I finished. “But nice try, though.”
Jack’s gaze searched my face. Then she closed her eyes, her head moving in the tiniest possible gesture of assent. “Fine.”
“I’ll go with them,” Rachel said, to Jack’s obvious surprise – and my secret relief. I needed to get her alone and find out what was going on with her. “You just need to rest anyway, Jack. You’ll be safe here. And if these two clowns are going to do any good at all, they’ll need all the help they can get.” She dug in her coat pocket and started unloading things onto the top of Jack’s locker. “I’ll leave you my iPhone and earbuds for if you get bored. Here’s Mum’s emergency credit card if you want to buy anything, OK? You know the pin. Call me if you need me.”
Jack nodded again, squeezing her eyes closed for a second. When she opened them, they fixed on me. The intensity of her stare made her seem even smaller and more pathetic hunched up in the pale blue hospital gown; the uncharacteristic lack of argument over being left behind drove home to me just how terrible she must be feeling. Jack always fought. Only … not today.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, a little hoarsely.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But I promise I’ll figure it out.”
CHAPTER 6
LITTLE BIRDIE
I had voted to take the Underground route home from the hospital. I couldn’t imagine any huge, winged monsters would be able to get at us on the Tube or in the stations, especially if we lost ourselves in the crowd.
So it was kind of a shock to find there was no crowd.
It was a weekend afternoon, and Christmas was in a few days. There ought to have been tides of bad-tempered people heading out to do shopping or hauling their pre-Christmas-sale bargains home again. Instead, the station felt like an echoey ghost town. When we got on the Tube, there were precisely two other people in our carriage – a woman standing right next to the doors with a scarf pulled up over her face despite the uncomfortable humidity in the train tunnels, and a man sitting on the opposite side, as far away from everyone else as possible, who kept darting worried looks at us. I couldn’t tell if it was because Shinobu’s presence was playing games with his perception or if we just looked mad, bad and dangerous to know. Maybe both.
Self-consciously, I checked the hood of my father’s old sweatshirt, which I’d pulled up in an attempt to hide the rapidly darkening necklace of bruises around my neck. I felt Shinobu, who was sitting on my right side, stiffen as he caught the movement. His gaze flared with the same dark fury I had seen in the hospital, and then dropped to the floor
. His big hands clenched into a single fist on his knee.
“They’re no big deal,” I said, trying for breezy unconcern. It didn’t quite work; my throat actually hurt like hell, and my voice was raspy and rough.
“Please do not lie to comfort me.”
I sighed. “Well, stop beating yourself up, then.”
“This is the second time that you have had to fight him alone.” He paused. When he spoke again his voice was nearly as hoarse as mine. “You could have died.” His hands flexed and clenched again.
I chewed on my lip for a moment, then haltingly reached out to lay my hand over his. A tingle of the natural electricity that was always waiting between us made my breath catch as Shinobu instantly turned one of his hands over and twined our fingers together. He lifted his eyes from the floor to meet mine.
Maybe now he would listen.
“It was horrible, and I was scared,” I admitted carefully. “But he didn’t intend to kill me today. He didn’t even mess me up that much, and he could have. He still wants – needs – me to protect the sword for some reason. I don’t know why. I don’t think he really cares that much about the fate of this world, or humans. But for whatever reason, whoever he is, he wants me alive.”
Shinobu frowned again, but it was a thoughtful frown now, not a self-loathing one. “If he is invested in the fate of the katana, why does he not simply take it back and protect it himself?”
“Yeah, I can’t figure it out. He’s way more powerful than me. Look at the way he froze everyone in that place. Everyone except…”
Inexorably, my head turned to look at Jack’s sister, who was sitting in the seat on the other side of me. Shinobu followed my gaze. “Except Rachel-san?”
Rachel shifted away from us. Her eyes looked huge and tense. There was a long, uncomfortable pause.
“Rachel?” I said finally. “You want to chime in here? How did you do it? You broke out of his – his freeze-ray effect. You actually managed to hurt him with your bare hands.”
“I – I … I’m not really…” Her nervous eyes darted away from us. She looked down, fiddling with the ends of her black-and-white scarf. Pity twinged under my ribs.
Rachel had been through so much in the past twenty-four hours. She probably shouldn’t even be out of bed yet. But what she had done to the Harbinger … that should have been impossible. It was impossible for me, even with my katana-boosted muscles and speed. Something was going on, and I needed an explanation. I tried to put as much compassion into my voice as possible. “Come on, this is me, not the Spanish Inquisition. Just talk to me.”
She shoved her glasses up her nose. Her eyes stayed down. “I remember having a really weird dream,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I was stuck. I couldn’t move or see or hear.”
“Right.” I nodded encouragingly. “That would have been when the Harbinger froze everyone.”
Rachel’s trembling hands knotted together. “But then there was this – this voice. This … awful, scary voice.” She shuddered. “It said – she said – The little birdie needs you. Awaken. Move. And I woke up.”
I could feel my eyes bulging. Little birdie?
“And then?” Shinobu was leaning into me now, his chest a warm, solid wall against my back.
The announcement for our stop came on the Tannoy. The Tube grumbled to a halt and the doors hissed open. Before I could even get my feet under me, Rachel was up and bolting out of the carriage.
I shouted her name. She didn’t look back. I was so shocked that I almost forgot we needed to get off here too.
“Quickly!” Shinobu hauled me upright and out of the doors. But we were already too late to catch a glimpse of where Rachel had gone. We jogged up and down the platform peering through the tiled archways.
“Why would she run away like this? It’s pointless. She needs to get on the next train out of here to get home, just like we do.” A sudden image of the way we had found Rachel last night – her wide, staring eyes as she fought the Nekomata’s bonds – made my stomach do a queasy flip. What if it was all finally catching up with her? She could be having a flashback, freaking out – and who could blame her? I tightened my grip on Shinobu’s hand. “Come on.”
Now it was me dragging him as I slapped my Oyster card on the ticket barrier. If an invisible man fails to pay his fare in a busy Tube station, does anyone notice? Not this time. We walked out into the blinding orange light of the low winter sun without interference.
The pedestrianized area between the Tube stop and the main train station was lightly scattered with people – not half as many as I would normally have expected, but still enough for someone to hide among. Light glinted off the windows of the buildings towering over us. The Gherkin’s sleek form almost blinded me. Shielding my watering eyes, I scanned the crowd, trying to make out Rachel’s curly hair and red jumper before she disappeared completely.
“There!” Shinobu pointed.
I saw Rachel’s small form almost opposite me. She was hustling up the steps of the main train station, past one of the giant white mushroom-lights that stood in the courtyard.
We wove through the crowd, dodging briefcases and shopping bags. “Rachel!” I yelled.
All around me people turned around to stare. Rachel froze for a second, then sped up.
“Perhaps we should let her go,” Shinobu suggested. “She might simply wish for some time to herself.”
“Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But…” But we still had no idea what was behind that sudden burst of incredible strength and aggression. And then there was the fact that Rachel had just confessed to hearing a “scary” voice in her mind, speaking the same words I had heard in my dream. Words that might have come from Izanami. I shook my head. “She’s panicked and emotional. She might put herself in danger.” She might endanger other people…
I let go of his hand and put on a burst of speed. Shinobu kept up with me easily, making me realize that he could probably have caught Rachel before, if he’d been willing to abandon me in the crowd. We caught up with her just as she was about to scoot into the giant glass structure that served as the train station’s porch.
I snagged her arm and drew her back out of the thin trickle of people between the twin brick clock-towers, firmly ignoring her attempts to shrug me off. It was the sort of move I’d have pulled on Jack. It was only once I actually had hold of her that I realized I’d been a tiny bit reckless, given that Rachel just might be capable of tying me into a pretzel if she wanted to.
No. This was Rachel. Jack’s Rachel! The bossyboots who had been babysitting and lecturing me about my mess since I was a kid. Remembering that made me feel guilty, which made me mad.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “Why did you go running off like that? Are you an idiot?”
“Let go!” She struggled, apparently not worried about the curious looks we were getting. “Leave me alone!”
“What do you mean leave you alone?” I hissed, hanging onto her arm doggedly. “What if another Foul Woman turns up, like the one that got Jack?”
She winced. Before I could apologize for my trademark sensitivity, she recovered and poked her finger at my face. “It’s none of your business what I do! I don’t answer to you, Mio Yamato. I’m an adult, for God’s sake! I’m nearly twenty-one years old.”
“Then start acting like it! We’re on the same side here. We are trying to help you.”
“How?” Her voice hit a pitch so shrill that it echoed even in the middle of all the deadening sounds of the city. We got a slew of horrified stares. Rachel didn’t seem to notice. “How? You have no idea what happened to me! You have no idea what’s still happening to me…”
All the fight seemed to drain right out of her. Her tense shoulders sagged and, to my horror, big, fat tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks.
Well, crap.
Jack and me … we didn’t do this. We didn’t cry in front of each other. We didn’t do that Reality TV Big Emotional Moment stuff. It wasn’t us. If this ha
d been Rachel’s sister in front of me, I’d have known just how to handle it – let her turn away, let her get herself back together without trying to help. Jack would already have been sucking it up.
But this wasn’t Jack. And Rachel wasn’t sucking it up. She was just standing in front of me in the middle of a crowded London train station courtyard, with one arm wrapped around her middle like she was about to fall apart, crying silent, pathetic tears.
Shinobu’s face filled with a mixture of sadness and understanding. He made an abortive move to touch Rachel, then stopped and stepped back, as if realizing contact from him probably wouldn’t be welcome. “Then you must tell us, Rachel-san,” he said gently. “Trust us with your fears. Trust that we will listen and understand.”
He gave me an urgent look and mimed a hugging movement.
Thanks. Thanks a bunch.
Feeling stiff and uncomfortable, I put my arms around Rachel and patted her on the back. “Shush. It’s all right now. It’s all right.”
To my surprise she flopped against me, burying her head in my shoulder as she cried. It was like … like she’d just been waiting for someone to lean on all along. For the first time it really dawned on me that Rachel and Jack were different. Yeah, they had something of the same attitude, a lot of the same mannerisms, even looked alike if you ignored Jack’s goth thing – but they weren’t the same person. I needed to start seeing Rachel for who she was, not just Jack’s Big Sister.
I hugged her a bit tighter, and patted her back with a bit more enthusiasm. “I’m not going to pretend that I understand exactly how you’re feeling, because … you’re you, and only you can know that. But I can sympathize. Maybe I can even help. Please tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m sorry I’m being such a bitch,” she sobbed into my shoulder. “I don’t mean to be, honestly, but I – I feel different. I’m so angry. There’s this huge bubble of awful stuff inside me and it keeps bulging out.”