The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden

by Zoe Marriott

  In the darkness of a drain far below, Rachel’s poor contorted body gently untwisted, her pain and anguish lifted from her along with the black stain, tarry and vile, that had been the legacy of the Nekomata’s bite.

  The light found everything. Malignant cells that had turned people’s own bodies against them, awful injuries that had lost too much blood, dangerous swellings that pressed against the wall of the skull, irreparable wounds to the tissue of the spine, broken bones, infections, cuts and bruises. Lifted away, dissolved, healed. All over London, people who had been thought past hope suddenly opened their eyes.

  The black clouds of the Underworld swirled around the katana’s column of light, spinning faster and faster, shredding and dissipating under the force of the power that drew them down. The Shikome – dead and alive – came with the clouds. They were sucked, shrieking and flapping, into the vortex, and then disintegrated. They blew away on the wind as harmless powder.

  A colossal black mushroom-shaped cloud gathered over my head, over the rooftops of London. At the heart of the cloud was the dead black eye of Yomi with its savage white moon. Far away there was a crazed screaming, a wail of denial. Izanami was fighting the katana, fighting to keep the rupture she had made in the veil between the realms open.

  Then, as the white column of light broke from the sword’s tip and fell, Izanami’s gateway to hell snapped shut.

  The white column scattered into millions of star fragments and tumbled down over me and my father and Hikaru, protecting us from the blizzard of glass that blasted through the air. The windows – every window for miles – had shattered under the immense pressure of the katana’s power. The waves of white fire were returning to the sword now, flowing back and folding into the blade. Last of all they drew all my hurts and injuries away, healing me where I stood.

  For a moment I was whole, and Shinobu was holding me, and everything in the world was right.

  I felt a ghostly kiss brush over my lips and invisible fingers tuck the tangled hair back behind my ear.

  Then the light winked out, and I was alone again. All that was left was a drifting blanket of pale grey clouds and piles and piles of glittering glass fragments everywhere.

  “Shinobu?” I whispered. “Shinobu?”

  There was no reply.

  Slowly, moving like an automaton, I lowered the blade again. It lay quiescent in my grasp, its energy nothing more than a faint hum against my skin. Finally silenced. I eased it back into the saya on my back, and sank down onto the pavement, among the broken glass.

  I was vaguely aware of my father and Hikaru stirring, getting up. They came to kneel beside me.

  “Midget Gem,” my father whispered. “Mio. Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

  “What happened?” Hikaru asked. “Where’s Shinobu?”

  I didn’t respond. There were no words in the icy black hollow inside me. My dad put his arms around me, urging me to lean against his shoulder, but my body was stiff and unco-operative. There was nothing left. It was all gone. Shinobu had taken it all with him, and I didn’t think anything could ever fill me up again.

  Time passed. Overhead, the late afternoon sun, golden red as it began to set, broke through what was left of the Yomi clouds. Emergency vehicles arrived at the site of the freak, “localized storm”. People came and went. Eventually my father and an EMT urged me to my feet and made me sit inside an ambulance. The EMT fussed over me, trying to get me to talk and searching for injuries. There were none. None that anyone could see anyway. The wound inside me was one that no one would ever reach.

  More time passed. The EMT left me alone after a while, and drew my father off to one side of the vehicle while they had a heated, anxious conversation. I picked up words like “traumatized” and “non-responsive”, followed by “admit for observation” and “psychiatric evaluation”.

  For the first time I felt a flicker of something – rejection, refusal – in the emptiness. My muscles twitched and tensed, tingling with pins and needles as I quietly got off the trolley and stepped down, slipping around the side of the ambulance and blending into the crowds of survivors and bystanders that had gathered around the edges of the spectacular car pile-up.

  Instinct drew me forward, past the flashing lights of police cars parked on the pavement, past the orange painted cafe, past the place where my father had fallen, past the place where I had plunged the blade in…

  I found myself standing at the line of bollards that separated the no-parking zone from the car park, a little way from the hospital entrance. Others milled around me. I ignored them.

  I waited.

  A few minutes later the automatic doors opened and people – dozens upon dozens of people – began to spill out.

  They walked or ran or skipped, and the ones waiting outside surged forward and greeted them there in the car park of the hospital in a euphoric explosion of happiness and hope and joy. Behind the escaping patients, through the hospital doors, I saw lines of medical staff, white-coated doctors and nurses and health-workers in blue uniforms. They looked exhausted, dishevelled and disbelieving. But more than any of that, they looked happy. It’s not every day that all your patients get up and walk out of hospital on their own two feet.

  The car park frothed around me like a stormy, laughing human sea.

  Like a spire of rock in the sea, I waited.

  At long last, she came.

  Hikaru walked beside her. She was dressed in the wrinkled clothes she’d been wearing the day before – was it only the day before? – when she arrived here in an ambulance. Her hair, obviously in need of a good wash, stood up around her head in untidy tufts that made her dark roots even more obvious.

  There was no sign of a rash on her face.

  She was OK.

  She was alive.

  The moment she caught sight of me, her face lit up with a massive grin. She broke into a sprint, streaking away from Hikaru and through the crowds straight towards me.

  She smacked into me so hard that we both nearly fell to the ground. Then I was enveloped in a crushing bear hug. I felt her breathing hitch as she grabbed handfuls of the back of my top.

  “You did it. You did it again. You saved us all.”

  Not all.

  I was taller than her now. But nothing in the whole world could have stopped me from burying my face in her shoulder right then and crying.

  We stood there like that for a long time. The other patients and their friends and relatives ebbed and drifted away. The medical staff trailed out of the hospital lobby. Jack never let go. Even though I was gasping and shaking and wailing, sobbing like a baby, soaking the arm of her pullover with tears, she never let me go.

  After a while, Hikaru patted me sorrowfully on the back and disappeared. He came back a few minutes later with my dad.

  “Mio! There you are. My God, where did you—!” His voice cut off as he did a double-take at the sight of me weeping on Jack’s arm, and sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Never mind.”

  I blinked my tear-swollen eyes at him. The rash that had marked his cheek was gone, just like Jack’s. And the nasty gash over his eyebrow had healed up without even a scar. Hikaru – brave, reckless Hikaru – who had nearly turned himself into a pile of ash trying to help us, was staring at me with a mixture of concern and eagerness. And I knew that somewhere in a horrible, dank sewer tunnel not too far away from where we stood, Rachel was lying, cold and uncomfortable and dazed with shock – but human again – waiting for us to find her.

  The cold emptiness inside me was still there. It might always be there. I had lost something so precious, so irreplaceable to me, that I knew I could never be quite the same. A part of me had gone with Shinobu into the dark, and I would never get it back.

  But I hadn’t lost everything. I still had all of this.

  I had all of them.

  Something new stirred in the hollowness, gradually taking shape, taking form, hardening until it was as tough and heavy as steel. Determination. Implacable, unbr
eakable and cold.

  I wouldn’t lose anyone ever again. I wouldn’t need someone to sacrifice themselves for me ever again.

  I would never let go again.

  “Mimi, what happened to you? What happened to Shinobu?” Jack’s voice was hushed. She reached up to push the tangled hair out of my eyes. I flinched from the touch and gently disentangled myself from her hug, putting some distance between us.

  I’d had my moment of weakness. Now the time for weakness was done.

  “Please tell us what’s going on,” my father said, a note of pleading in his usually dry tones. “Just talk to us. Tell me that you’re all right. Tell me you’re OK.”

  Hikaru nodded. “Come on, kiddo. Give us something.”

  “I’m fine,” I said flatly. “I’ll tell you everything, but not now. We need to go and find Rachel.”

  “Rachel?” Jack breathed. “Oh my God, is she—”

  “She’s been through a lot. She needs us to take her home. I know where she is – it’s not far away. Come on.”

  I moved past Jack, starting towards the back of the hospital, but before I could go anywhere, my father nipped nimbly in front of me, blocking my path. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. His gaze searched my face. “Mio, after we’ve found Rachel and after we’re home safe … what are you going to do? Are you going to be all right? Do you have a … a plan?”

  “Plan?” I looked at him steadily for a moment. Then I reached back and drew the katana from its saya in a single, smooth motion. A soft, pearly gleam of flame rippled along the cutting edge; the sword’s energy seemed to quiver under my touch, almost as if it was afraid. “My plan is to make the gods wish they’d never been born.”

  I turned from him and walked into the gathering darkness.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  So much has changed in my life between beginning work on this book and writing these acknowledgements that I’m not really sure whether I should be thanking those who’ve helped me to write or those who’ve helped me to survive. But either way, there are many who deserve to be thanked.

  Firstly, my family – my mother, Elaine; my sister, Victoria; her husband, Robert; and their three delightful daughters, Esme, Alexandra and Clemence. I love each of you very much.

  Next, with respect and gratitude, to my editor, Annalie Grainger. And to Gill Evans, Maria Soler Canton, Hannah Love, Jo Humpheys-Davies, Victoria Philpott, Paul Black, Sean Moss and all those I’ve worked with over the past year at Walker Books. Thanks are also due to the marvellous team at Candlewick Press, including Hilary Van Dusen and her assistant, Miriam; and to Ann Angel, editor of the Things I’ll Never Say anthology.

  My incomparable agent, Nancy Miles, for her endless compassion and support with all aspects of my life and career.

  The funny, sweet, kind people of Twitter and Facebook, most especially the YA Thinkers, for always being ready with a virtual hug.

  My life-saving, life-changing friends the Furtive Scribblers, who are too numerous to name but too precious ever to be forgotten. I would be a sight less sane than I am right now without all of you.

  The Society of Authors, for the timely grant which made vital, practical research for this and the final book of the trilogy possible.

  Finally, and most importantly, to my father. You slew dragons every day and made me believe I could do the same. You are at the heart of every story I’ve ever written, and every story I ever will. You were proud to be my father. I will always be proud to be your daughter.

  See you, Dad.

  PRAISE FOR

  THE NAME OF THE BLADE BOOK 1

  THE NIGHT ITSELF

  “Japanese mythology meets urban awesomeness (and a swoon-worthy romance!). The Night Itself captivated me.”

  L. A. Weatherly, author of the Angel Trilogy

  “Mio is a wonderful heroine who reminded me of some of my favourite superhero characters, and her connection with Shinobu is touching and believable. The Japanese mythology was refreshing, and I absolutely cannot wait for the next book in the series!”

  Karen Mahoney, author of the Iron Witch Trilogy and Falling to Ash

  “A beautiful, awe-inspiring ride through an iconic London landscape harbouring extremely dangerous secrets. The Night Itself is a fantastic blend of Japanese folk tale and twenty-first-century thriller, populated by characters you will be rooting for at every breathless step.”

  Katy Moran, author of Hidden Among Us

  “I fell in love with sassy, courageous, wise-cracking Mio from page one.”

  Ruth Warburton, author of the Winter Trilogy

  Books by the same author

  The Name of the Blade Book 1

  The Night Itself

  The Swan Kingdom

  Daughter of the Flames

  Shadows on the Moon

  FrostFire

  Love The Name of the Blade series?

  Love Zoë Marriott’s other books!

  The Name of the Blade Book 3

  Frail Mortal Heart out summer 2015

  Visit Zoë online at www.zoemarriott.com and thezoe-trope.blogspot.co.uk

  Follow her on Twitter, @ZMarriott

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published 2014 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  Text © 2014 Zoë Marriott

  Cover illustration © 2014 Larry Rostant

  The right of Zoë Marriott to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-5528-4 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk