Shadow of the Fox

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Shadow of the Fox Page 10

by Julie Kagawa


  But the other more pressing reason was me. I was highly discouraged from interacting with outsiders because of the danger I represented, the risk that I could lose myself to the demon in the sword. Emotion was especially dangerous, because Hakaimono used it as a gateway into the soul. Rage, fear, uncertainty; the stronger the feeling, the closer the demon came to overwhelming its host. I’d been warned, numerous times, that if Hakaimono fully took control, there was no going back. I would become a monster, and they would have no choice but to kill me.

  But I was on a mission for the daimyo of the Shadow Clan, Lady Hanshou herself. I’d been sworn to retrieve the scroll and was expected to obey, even if it cost me my life and the lives of those around me. Failure was not an option.

  “So,” the girl ventured. “Do we have an agreement?”

  8

  Two Souls for the Road

  The stranger was silent, considering. We stood very close, and I could see every detail of his face—the high cheekbones, the full lips, the scar down his forehead and across the bridge of his nose. But his eyes... They were a luminous purple, the deep, brilliant shade of an iris flower, and yet, gazing into them caused a chill to spread across my neck and creep down my back. They were blank, revealing no emotion; showing no compassion, empathy or understanding. No hint of a soul beneath. I had never been truly afraid of another person until now; despite even Denga-san’s threats, rages and numerous punishments, I’d known in my heart that the monks of the Silent Winds temple would never hurt me. But this boy... He might be young, with the face of an angel, but there was no mistaking the truth in his eyes. He was a killer.

  And yet, this soulless killer might be my best chance to reach the Steel Feather temple alive. The thought made my heart pound wildly, but after watching him slaughter the amanjaku, seeing how easily he cut them down, an idea had formed in my mind—a wild, risky, probably very dangerous idea. The demons would be hunting me once they figured out the scroll was gone. The oni could be hunting me, and much as I wanted to avenge Master Isao and the others, I was no match for that abomination.

  I trembled, feeling a huge painful knot in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t seem real, that they were gone. That only this afternoon, I was lighting the candles of the main hall and wishing I was somewhere else. I had never been beyond the forest. I didn’t know where to go, or how to talk to people. My whole life, I’d spoken only to monks, kami and the odd yokai in the woods. I had to take the scroll to the Steel Feather temple; I’d promised Master Isao I would, but I wasn’t sure how to get there, or what I would do if I ran into demons.

  But...this human could kill demons. Quite easily, in fact. He might be as dangerous as the monsters themselves. If he were protecting me, any demon, yokai, or murderous human who wanted the scroll would have to deal with him first.

  There was just one small problem.

  He, too, was after the Dragon’s prayer. Whether he had been sent to retrieve it like the demons, or had come of his own volition, the reason didn’t matter. I could feel the narrow, lacquered case hidden in the furoshiki tied around my shoulder, and my heart pounded. If he discovered I had the scroll, I would be just as dead as the monsters dissolving in the breeze. I was going to have to be very careful, and choose my actions wisely, or my would-be protector would turn on me.

  Briefly, I had the sobering thought that Master Isao would not have approved of this sham, of me lying to this boy to get him to accompany me to the Steel Feather temple. Denga would have certainly seen it as more fox trickery and deception. But I wasn’t a warrior; I couldn’t chop things to pieces with a sword, and all I knew of the outside world was what the monks had taught me. My temple was gone, my family had been slaughtered by demons before my eyes and I had been given a near impossible task. Not to mention, there was the notion that I had been left at the Silent Winds temple for this very moment. To somehow protect the scroll from everything that wanted it. I wasn’t certain what to feel about the whole vision thing, but I knew that if I thought about it now, I would bury myself in a deep hole and never come out again. I couldn’t do this alone, and I had no one else to help me. As the old tanuki had said just this evening: I was kitsune, yokai. Not human. This was what I was good at.

  I held the stranger’s gaze as he thought about my offer, sensing a desperate struggle within him. Finally, he nodded and stepped back from the tree, taking his terrible sword away from my neck. “All right,” he said. “If this is the only way to get to the scroll, then I will take you to the capital, and then to the Steel Feather temple. But...” His eyes narrowed, cold and icy, and he raised his sword so that the moonlight reflected down the length of steel. “If you deceive me, or try to run, I will kill you. Understand?”

  I nodded, ignoring the stab of fear that accompanied the feeling of relief. Not that I had any intentions of sneaking away, but I had no doubt he wasn’t making idle threats. With a sigh, the boy finally sheathed his weapon, and the subtle light coming from the blade vanished, plunging us into darkness.

  “The capital is a few weeks away on foot,” he stated, calm and businesslike as he stepped back. “My horse fled earlier this evening, so we’ll have to walk, at least until I can find a new one. Are you well enough to travel? Do you have what you need?”

  “Yes,” I replied. Being raised in a temple of ascetic monks, I’d never owned much, and the few possessions I’d had were probably cinders and ashes now. I had my sandals, the clothes on my back, a knife and a piece of a scroll of ultimate, wish-granting power, hidden in my furoshiki. That would have to be enough to get by.

  “I don’t suppose you have travel papers, do you?” the boy asked.

  I blinked. “No. What are travel papers?”

  “They’re...” He shook his head. “Never mind,” he murmured, dismissing the matter. “It can’t be helped now. We’ll deal with the problem if it arises.”

  “Ano,” I added as the human turned away. “What’s your name?”

  He hesitated a moment, then replied in a low, empty voice, “Kage Tatsumi.”

  Kage. Kage was the Shadow Clan, a family of secrets and hidden knowledge, according to my studies. It seemed fitting for the dark, cold-eyed boy in front of me. “I’m Yumeko.” I tried to smile, though with his back turned he probably wouldn’t see it. “Thank you, for taking me to the capital, Tatsumi-san. And, you know, saving me from the demons.”

  He didn’t give any indication that he’d heard. With a quiet “Let’s go,” he stepped forward and vanished into the shadows like he was part of the night itself. I glanced once more at the sky, at the smoke and embers still rising over the treetops, marking the end of a way of life.

  Closing my eyes, I whispered a quick prayer to Jinkei, the Kami of Mercy, and Doroshin, the Kami of Roads, for Godspeed and to guide everyone to their final destination, before I turned and followed Kage Tatsumi into the dark.

  PART 2

  9

  The Lingering Soul

  Being a ghost was an exercise in patience.

  When Suki was still very young, her mother would tell her ghost stories in the flickering candlelight of home. At the end of the day, while Mura Akihito was in his shop, slaving over his newest masterpiece, Suki would sit on a stool as her mother swept or cooked, and listen to tales of beautiful women betrayed or abandoned by their lovers, who pined away until their bodies died but their yearning lived on. In these stories, it was always the women who died of broken hearts, Suki noticed. Who took their own lives in grief. Or who were brutally murdered and returned for vengeance. Sometimes, immoral women became something terrible and unnatural. A greedy woman might grow another mouth in the back of her head that consumed all the food it could find. An unfaithful woman might discover that, while she slept, her neck elongated to incredible lengths as her head roamed around freely, licking up lamp oil and attacking small animals. In the most wicked cases, the woman’s grief, jealousy or rage wou
ld turn her into an oni, a hannya, or even a terrible giant serpent, demons that always met their ends on some great samurai’s sword.

  Terrible fates, the soul that had once been Suki mused, floating soundlessly down a narrow castle hallway. Certainly, the women who turned into such monsters were grotesque and to be pitied. But right now, she thought she would much rather be a demon.

  A few yards ahead of her, Lady Satomi sauntered down the narrow corridor of the abandoned castle, parasol swaying, unaware of the soul trailing behind her. After the terrible night of her death, Suki had attempted to follow the woman, but had lost her in the twisting halls of the castle. Alone, the ghost that had been Suki had drifted aimlessly from room to hallway to courtyard, bewildered and confused. She’d been certain that, before she became a ghost, she had been a maid at the imperial palace. How she’d come to this dark, abandoned castle was a mystery; the last thing she remembered was delivering a coil of rope to a storehouse in the imperial gardens. But this castle was definitely not the emperor’s golden Palace of the Sun. Everything felt cold, lifeless, abandoned. Even the demons were gone. After feasting on her body, Yaburama and the smaller demons had departed the castle as well, and with no company but the spiders and rats, time had blurred into a bleak, lonely haze.

  But this evening, Lady Satomi had returned, striding through the halls of the abandoned castle as if she did so every night. Stunned, Suki trailed behind her, keeping out of sight while she pondered what to do.

  Her first thought, of course, was vengeance. To haunt Satomi relentlessly until she went mad from guilt. But, unlike the ghost stories her mother used to tell, where the spirits could curse and even physically harm their victims, Suki’s interactions with the world were limited. She had no body; her insubstantial form passed through everything she touched. If she thought about it, she could manifest as a ghostly version of her old self, but if she lost focus, she would revert to a glowing ball of light. Speaking was difficult and required effort to remember how, and even then, her voice came out faint and breathy. In the stories, some yurei were powerful onryo, grudge spirits whose rage and hate manifested into devastating and sometimes fatal curses, but Suki had no idea how to do that. And even if she did show herself to her murderer, Lady Satomi didn’t seem the type to be distressed about the ghost of her former maid.

  So she followed her, trailing the woman soundlessly through the empty halls, until Satomi pushed open the front doors and stepped into the courtyard again.

  It was full of demons. Suki froze in midair, trembling, before darting behind a dead bush to peer through the branches. Amanjaku skittered over the stones, snarling and waving crude weapons at each other. In the center, the terrible form of Yaburama towered over the mob, casting them in his shadow.

  Lady Satomi strode through the mob, ignoring the demons who hissed and cackled at her, face serene as she walked toward the oni. From Suki’s perspective, as she hovered behind a chunk of broken wall, Yaburama seemed to be in a bad mood, baring his teeth at any amanjaku who got too close. As Satomi approached, a green amanjaku darted out of her way, and the oni gave it a savage kick that booted it over the wall. Lady Satomi watched as the demon went sailing away, a bemused look on her face, before looking at Yaburama.

  “Well, I could say something about your temper, but at least you’re on time tonight.” The woman sniffed, then gave an amanjaku that had been edging too close to her robes a warning look. “But, sadly, time is waning, and I have much to do. If you would kindly give me the scroll, Yaburama, we can end this unpleasant association, and you can go back to doing...whatever it is you demons do until you’re summoned. So...” She held out a slender white hand. “The Dragon scroll, if you would?”

  The oni let out a growl. “I don’t have it.”

  “What?” Lady Satomi dropped her arm, eyes narrowing. “Do excuse me, Yaburama, but this is the sole reason you were summoned from Jigoku, yes? Why I sent you to that temple of ki-using fanatics, because I thought, surely an oni like Yaburama would have no trouble with a bunch of bald old men. What do you mean you don’t have the scroll?”

  “The scroll wasn’t at the temple, human.” The oni glowered down at her. “I killed every monk there, including the master, and tore the temple apart looking for it. There was no scroll.”

  “And you’re certain you killed everyone?” Satomi’s voice was calm; she could have been asking a maid if she’d looked everywhere for a favorite teacup, not casually discussing the slaughter of an entire temple of monks. “No acolyte snuck out the back and managed to escape? No monk harnessed their ki to a trio of sparrows and flew over the wall?”

  “No,” growled the oni. “I killed everyone. There were no survivors.”

  At this, a pair of smaller demons near the oni’s feet began jumping up and down, chattering in raspy, high-pitched voices. Suki couldn’t understand what they were saying, but Yaburama spun around, looking murderous, and grabbed for them. One demon yelped in alarm and fled into the crowd, but the other wasn’t fast enough and was snatched up in the oni’s huge claw. It wailed as the monster lifted it off the ground, waving its arms and babbling, until it was at face level. The oni rumbled at it in a guttural, ominous voice, and the demon squeaked an answer, still squirming helplessly in its grip.

  With a growl and a flash of fangs, the oni clenched its fist, crushing the demon inside. Blood shot from its nose and mouth and ran from its ears, before it dissolved into coils of reddish-black smoke that writhed away on the wind.

  If Suki could have cringed at the display of violence and blood, she would have, but Lady Satomi only looked amused. “Oh, do let me guess,” she said as the oni opened its fist, letting the last of the smoke dissipate. Blood stained his claws and fingertips, but he didn’t seem to notice. “In all your murdering and killing and reveling, you let someone slip away through your big stupid fingers. And now they have the scroll.”

  The oni lowered his arm. “There was...a girl,” he rumbled, sounding reluctant and annoyed at the same time. “The amanjaku chased her into the forest, but she managed to escape.” He paused, his face darkening even as his eyes narrowed and his voice dropped to a low, terrifying growl. “With the help of the Kage demonslayer.”

  The Kage demonslayer? Suki didn’t know that name, but the crowd of small demons went quiet and still, as if the very word terrified them. She wondered what kind of person could scare a horde of maniacal hell-demons, and if it was someone she would ever want to encounter.

  “Well,” Lady Satomi said, after a moment of brittle silence. Her voice could have frozen the lake in the emperor’s garden and sliced all the fish in half with its edge. “This presents a problem, doesn’t it? Tell me, Yaburama, if this girl is with the Kage demonslayer, whom I imagine Hanshou also sent after the scroll, how are we going to aquire it without losing an entire village’s worth of demons?”

  The oni bared its fangs. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “No. You’ve done quite enough.”

  The oni snarled, looming over the woman. But Lady Satomi actually turned away from him and gazed at the scattering of crows on the walls and in the dead trees overhead.

  “Hear me!” she called, raising one hand, and the feathered creatures stirred, ruffling wings and raising their heads, gazing down with beady eyes. “Find them, my karasu!” Satomi ordered. “The girl and the Kage demonslayer. Be my eyes, seeing where I cannot, and show me what I am dealing with. Go!”

  The crows took wing with a cacophony of harsh cries, spiraling into the air and disappearing into the dark. Lady Satomi watched them go, a dark swarm flying into the roiling clouds, before turning back to the heaving, growling oni.

  “A temper tantrum is not becoming, Yaburama,” she commented, and opened her parasol as drops of rain began to fall. “You had your chance and failed. If the girl and the demonslayer are traveling close to towns, an oni dropping in with a mob of amanjaku is not going to go unnotic
ed, and I would like to keep the headaches to a minimum until I have the scroll in my hands. There are others I can call upon to take care of this.” She pondered a moment, twirling the parasol in her hands. “Kazekira and her disgusting familiars still owe me a favor,” she mused. “And they won’t draw the eye of every soul in the area. Yes, I think that will work.”

  She glanced at the oni, and her voice became sweet and crooning. “There now, Yaburama, the problem has been dealt with. You just stay here, like a good dog, until I have need of you again.”

  For a moment, Suki thought the oni might spring forward and tear the head from Satomi’s slim white neck. But then, he let out a snort and stepped back. “Fool mortal. You underestimate the Kage demonslayer. He may look human, but he is a worse monster than I am. Remember this when you need my protection from his sword.”

  Satomi raised a perfectly arched brow. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She turned and strolled away, back toward the castle doors, parasol bobbing behind her. At the steps, however, she paused and looked directly at the place where Suki was hiding, a small smile crossing her lips. Chilled, the soul that had been Suki winked out of sight, becoming invisible. By the time she gathered the courage to peek out again, the woman was gone.

  10

  The Road to the Capital

  We were being followed.

 

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