by Zoe Marriott
Izanami was clearly as crazy as a sackful of ferrets. She gave me the creeps all right. But Izanagi? He was way worse. He was sane and he knew what he was doing – to me, to London, to Shinobu. He just didn’t care. Izanami’s monsters could wipe out the whole city and he wouldn’t lift a finger to stop them, so long as he was safe. He’d successfully evaded the consequences of betraying his wife for all these years and clearly had no intention of stopping, regardless of how many innocent people got hurt.
“Mio,” Shinobu began quietly.
“Don’t.”
“Mr Leech gave us an answer. It was not … the one we were hoping for. That does not mean we can pretend we never heard it.”
I ground my forehead against my knees. “Don’t.”
“Mio—”
“I can’t talk about this.” The feelings boiling inside me were too much. I couldn’t articulate them, couldn’t even fully comprehend them. It was too much. I needed it all to stop. I just needed it to stop for a minute and let me think. “We have time, OK? We have some time to figure something else out, so we don’t have to talk about this.”
“We do have to talk about it,” he said, his voice a mixture of pleading and resolve. “Look at me. We have to – to try to decide…”
A choked noise burst out of my throat and I slammed my fist down on the concrete beside my hip as I looked up at him. “Decide what? What? How to kill you? How to put you back in the dark, but this time forever? Shinobu, there has to be another way. Some way out of this. There has to be. Do you honestly think I could do that to you? Just take away your life? It would be murder! I can’t – I can’t even…” The words dried to dust in my mouth as I stared at his face.
It was a stranger’s face in many ways, with unfamiliar expressions and changing moods that often seemed to lie before me like some undiscovered country, waiting to be explored. But at the same time, it was already as beloved, as familiar to me, as the sky or the sun, or my own reflection. Shinobu’s dark eyes were tormented now – shadowed with sorrow and despair and something more. I had never seen that expression on his face before, not even when he lay dying alone in the red forest. And I realized that he was afraid. As afraid as me.
A terrible pang went through my heart. I shook my head wordlessly. No. I won’t let go.
He took my hand and ran his fingers gently over my knuckles. “You know that the choice … this choice is mine to make. Not anyone else’s. Not even yours.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I whispered. “Why are you just accepting this? Why won’t you fight? It’s like … like you want to go back into the dark. Like you want to die.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to call them back. But it was too late. Shinobu dropped my hand and straightened away from me, his face hardening.
I could still never have predicted what he would say next.
“I am already dead.”
I jolted as if he’d stuck a live wire into me. “That – that’s not true.”
“It is. You know it is,” he said. His voice was quieter now, but somehow more emphatic for that. “You saw it for yourself. A piece of metal thicker than your arm pierced my heart and I walked away from it without even a bruise. Since I entered this world again, I have not slept. I have not eaten or drunk. Hardly anyone can even see me. I am dead. I have known this since the moment I opened my eyes on the floor of Battersea Power Station, and you have known it too, even if you would not admit it to yourself. I am a sundered spirit, walking the earth in human form. This state of things cannot endure. I cannot endure. This – the end – was always inevitable.”
Inevitable.
The word echoed through me like a deep, inescapable rumble of thunder. Everything I thought I knew fell away.
I got up and, wheezing shallowly, I staggered away a few steps. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even look at him, although I could sense him getting to his feet, coming after me.
One of my hands jerked up, palm facing him. He stopped dead.
“That’s what – that’s what you think? The whole time? The whole time we’ve been with each other that’s what you thought?”
For however long I may stay by your side, I will have all that I need. Those words had seemed so romantic to me. I thought he was telling me some pop-song sentiment about how love was the only important thing to him. But he’d meant the exact opposite.
He didn’t expect to be around long enough for anything to count.
Something burst open inside me. I whipped round, both my palms smashing into his chest. The blow shoved him back a step, but his face registered no shock, only sadness. That made me even madder.
“I knew?” The words were a scream. “I was supposed to know? I didn’t know! I thought we were going to have a future together! You kept everything – you kept all this – a secret. You pretended it was real! You let me believe it was real!”
“Mio-dono—”
“Don’t call me that! You let me believe in us. How could you do that if you never believed yourself?”
I went to shove him again. He grabbed hold of me and dragged me against him, wrapping his arms around me. “My beloved. I’m sorry.” He whispered raggedly into my hair, speaking in Japanese.
“What? What are you saying?” I demanded, struggling furiously. “Speak English!”
“There are lies that are sweeter than the truth. I am sorry, Mio. I let you believe because I wanted to believe. I let you hope because hope was all I had.” His fingers clenched in my hair almost painfully as I tried to pull away.
“Let go of me, you—”
“Listen to me! Do you think I want to go? How can you think that? All I have ever wanted is you. A life with you. I would do anything to stay. Anything. I love you.”
The words sounded like they had ripped out of him, dripping blood. It was obvious that it had taken everything he had to say them. I couldn’t doubt him. He was telling the truth. That almost made it worse.
“You’re so selfish.” I hit him half-heartedly in the back with my fist, then again, a little harder. “How could you do this? How could you kiss me? How could you let me fall in love with you?”
He laughed shakily. I felt him kiss my hair, his arms tightening even more. “You are right. I am selfish. I do not deserve you, Mio. I never did. After Battersea, when I knew that I had come back as something different, I should have drawn away from you for your sake. But all I could think was that if I had died then, at the Nekomata’s hands, I would have died without ever touching you. Without kissing you. Without having you in my arms like this. I would do anything to stay with you – but I cannot change my fate. I cannot change what is. And if I have to go back into that prison, back into the darkness and the cold, I want to take the warmth of you and the light of you with me in my heart. Without it, I won’t survive.”
Love and fury and sorrow roiled inside me until I could barely see straight. “We don’t know how to put you back. There has to be another way. There has to be another way. There has to be another way.” That was all I knew right then, my only truth. “Maybe Mr Leech is wrong. He admitted that he doesn’t know everything – he didn’t know about you being alive and out of the sword! Maybe I can control the sword! I’m stronger than he thinks. I could try. Maybe I don’t have to use the next true name at all. I might be able to get enough power just with the first one. I’d have a better chance then. Or … or … and, anyway, we don’t know how to put you back.”
He cleared his throat, letting me pull away a little so that he could look into my face. “These dreams you have been having are not just dreams, we both know that. I think you have been seeing these things for a reason. I think … I think that … when the time comes … you will know what to do.”
The green blade flashes down in the red light—
Frost prickled down my spine. My eyes shot to the clouds, where a pair of birds circled downwards, growing bigger. And bigger. Those aren’t birds.
I screamed, “Foul Women!”
We hit the concrete as the first monster swooped down on us.
CHAPTER 14
DIVINE INTERVENTION
Jack forced her head to turn on the pillow despite the pain in her eyes and neck and stared at her sister’s phone lying on the locker next to the bed. It was too far away. It hadn’t seemed that far a couple of hours ago when she dropped it there after calling Mio and her sister, but it was now. She just couldn’t find the energy to roll over and reach out for it.
The problem was that she had a feeling.
It had been getting worse for a while now, the weird, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that said, Something’s Wrong. Something’s Wrong. She thought she might be sick if she didn’t get hold of Mio again and make sure that nothing bad – well, worse – had happened to any of them.
Stop freaking out, she told herself. Rachel’s safe. Shinobu’s safe. Mio’s safe. They’re all together and they’re working on figuring this out. Everything is going to be OK.
But the sickening feeling kept on getting worse. Jack clutched a pillow to her stomach. Maybe she was just imagining these spooky feelings. Maybe she felt sick because she was going to hurl. That would have been a relief, actually.
The patient in the bed on her left began to sob softly.
Somewhere further away – at the other end of the ward – a high-pitched, shrill note rang out. A heart-monitor alarm. A couple of seconds later several sets of footsteps thundered past. Metal rings clattered as someone dragged back the curtains around a bed.
“Get the crash trolley! Page Doctor Amadine!” a woman shouted.
Jack squeezed her eyes shut, trying to mentally block out the sounds of the nurses’ attempts to resuscitate the unknown patient. This was the third time someone had flatlined in the last two hours.
The longing to be out of this place, away from the terrible noises, the stinging smells, bright lights and pastel colours was intense. She wanted to go home. She wanted her own stuff, and Rachel, and her mum. A small, long-denied part of her even wanted her dad. Not that he would care, the bastard. He’d never pick her up in his arms and carry her to her bedroom and tuck her in again, even if he was here, instead of living it up in California with a girlfriend who was only eight years older than Jack. He’d checked out of being a father way before he actually had the guts to pack his stuff and leave. And she didn’t care.
She didn’t.
She didn’t…
She could imagine herself back in own room and her own bed, with her skull duvet and Mr Ringo the stuffed lemur waiting for her. The thought made tears prickle in her eyes. Am I delirious?
She reached up to brush the tears away—
A small hand snapped closed over her wrist. Jack opened her eyes to stare incredulously at…
“Rach? What are you … doing here? What…?” Jack’s voice trailed off as she took in her sister’s appearance.
Rachel stood motionless in the gap between the curtains, her face as blank and expressionless as a wax doll’s. Her hair was … different. Black and stringy. Wormlike. Was it – was it moving? It seemed to shift and curl as if it had a life of its own. Her eyes were closed. Dark, veinlike marks spiralled out from the delicate skin of her eyelids, giving her face a sick, bruised look.
The small hand tightened on Jack’s wrist. “Ow! Rachel!”
Rachel’s eyes opened.
They were black. Absolute black. No visible pupil, no whites, nothing. The eyes of a shark. Or something worse.
Jack could feel the blood draining out of her face. Her head spun. Now she really did feel like she was going to hurl. Shit, shit, shit.
“Rachel Elizabeth Luci,” she said, voice trembling. “You … you stop it with this Exorcist crap … right now or I swear to God … I will tell Mum.”
Rachel slithered forward, her movements boneless and yet somehow awkward, as if she wasn’t at home in her body. Her mouth gaped open and stayed open, unmoving, as a thin, plaintive voice echoed from inside her throat. “Don’t scream.”
That isn’t Rachel.
Jack gritted her teeth. “I’m not screaming.”
“So frightened. Poor little birdies, flutter flutter – crunch. They always scream.”
“Hey! I’m not screaming. Now let go … of my arm.”
There was a long pause. Rachel’s mouth stayed open, her eyes remained wide and unblinking. A tiny frown creased her brow. “You are … not afraid?”
Actually I’m about three seconds away from peeing my pants, but I’m effed if I’ll admit that to you. “Are you kidding? I’ve seen … scarier shit than this … in the Harry Potter films.”
Rachel’s fingers slowly uncurled from their painful hold on Jack’s wrist. Jack wrenched her arm away and cradled it protectively against her chest, feeling the deep throbbing in her skin that meant she was going to have bruises. More bruises.
Rachel’s head tilted slowly sideways, the black eyes still staring, her mouth still gaping open.
Jack’s eyes flicked to the curtains. They felt like a barrier, but they really weren’t. She could fall off this bed and roll and two seconds later she’d be out in the ward in public, screaming her head off, surrounded by people.
But Rachel would still be here. And that thing, whatever it was, would still be … possessing her. How had this happened? She was supposed to be with Mio. She was supposed to be safe! “Who – no, what … are you? What do you want?”
“Ah … you don’t know.” The voice trailed off into a ringing, unnerving laugh.
A shiver shuddered down Jack’s spine. It showed in her voice when she spoke. “Obviously not … so why don’t you … tell me?”
“Your friend knows. The little one – not so little any more – such an angry little birdie. She’s stronger than she looks. She might survive all of us. Or … maybe not.” The strange laugh trilled out again.
Jack could feel her face scrunching up. “Mio? You’re talking … about Mio?”
“I tried to talk to her again. I can almost touch her now. She’s warm. You are all so warm, and I have been cold for so long. But I cannot reach her mind just now. I need her to know. Things. Things about my beloved, my captor, my king. He tells everyone lies about me… I want her to know the truth. I want her to know why I need the grass-cutting blade. It is the only thing that can free me.”
The sad little voice trailed off and Jack felt a weird stirring of pity.
“So – you came into … Rachel’s body to tell me that so I can tell Mio?”
“Yes. This one, this body, you see … my servant supped upon it. Now she is open to me. So useful.”
My servant…?
Oh my God. The Nekomata.
Pity dissolved in a surge of horror, and then both of those were eaten by fury. Jack’s hands curled into claws and she tried to lunge forward across the bed. Her body flopped weakly, legs caught up in the covers. She thrashed, her own heartbeat deafening her.
“Get out of her,” she panted. “Get out … of my sister! You’ve no right! Get out, get OUT!”
Pain ripped down Jack’s aching neck like a hot wire. She tried to scream again, but she couldn’t get enough breath. Her heart felt as if it had swelled up in her chest, pressing into her ribs, crushing her lungs. Dimly she heard the sound of the heart monitor beside the bed going crazy.
I have to calm down, she realized. I have to stop. I have to lie still.
But her legs wouldn’t stop kicking. Convulsing. Her whole body was shaking now. She tasted blood as her teeth gouged into her tongue. Her head snapped back so hard that white sparks flew across her vision. Then everything went dark.
Thrashing wings engulfed us in shadow, blasting the vile stink of burning hair and decay down onto us. I squeezed my watering eyes shut and tried not to retch as the Shikome’s vicious, yellowing talons ripped through the air above where Shinobu and I lay.
The Foul Woman shrieked. The momentum of its dive shot it over the edge of the roof.
I flipped to my
feet, swiping a forearm over tear-filled eyes. My hand flew back to my sword hilt, then checked. Conflicting instincts screamed at me: protect the blade, hide it, draw it, kill with it. It was the only weapon I had, yet the thought of using it scared me for so many good reasons, especially after what Mr Leech had told us. But Shinobu was on his feet next to me now, both blades bared. I couldn’t let him fight alone.
I gripped the katana’s hilt, preparing to draw it as the first Shikome circled.
A second monster dropped out of the sky right on top of me. Shinobu shoved me aside and struck in a whirl of silver and black, opening a long cut on the Foul Woman’s flank. This one moved fast. Its flailing talons rent open the arm of his leather coat. Livid red sprayed out, splattering over the ground. Shinobu made a muffled noise of pain and dropped his wakizashi. He drove the Shikome back with a vicious jab of his katana. It shot up in the air with a squawk.
Then the first one was on me again. I ducked beneath the wild slash of its claws without even trying to engage. My eyes were riveted on Shinobu. He had ended up a few metres away, with his back pressed to an air vent. One hand clutched the wound on his shoulder. Blood bubbled up through his fingers.
The first Foul Woman dived at me again, coming in even lower than before. Its feet gouged the roof. Chunks of the concrete surface flew up in two huge lines as the monster headed right for me. I flung myself sideways, skidded, and banged to a halt against the air vent next to Shinobu. The Foul Woman skimmed over the edge of the roof, dropped and then gained altitude again, flapping mightily as it joined its wounded sister hovering above us.
“Shinobu, you’re bleeding so much,” I panted. “Can you tell how bad it is?”
His face was ghastly white and stark with pain. “Bad. I need a bandage—”