by Jasmine Walt
“A little warning would have been nice!” I snapped, peering up at Raiden from beneath Shota’s arm.
“Sorry.” Raiden blushed. “I’ve never actually used this thing before.”
“Are you all right?” Shota asked, rolling me onto my back beneath him. His worried gaze searched my face. “Did you get hit anywhere?”
“No.” I pushed myself up into a sitting position so I could take stock of myself. I was a bit dusty, and covered in snow, but fine otherwise. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” Shota offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet. For once, he didn’t attempt to pull away, but wrapped his fingers a bit tighter around mine. Normally I would have been annoyed, but his face was pale, and there was a cut on his forehead from where a piece of shrapnel had hit him.
Discreetly, I sent a bit of healing energy into Shota to ease the pain from the wound. His eyes flew wide as color returned to his face, and I grinned up at him as his shocked gaze met mine.
You’re not the only one with tricks up your sleeve.
“Why did you do that!” the shaman shrieked, interrupting our moment. He scrambled to his feet, his face deathly pale now. “You’ve ruined our only way out of here!”
“I’m sure there are other ways to get down this mountain,” Raiden said dryly, sheathing the sword. “I just didn’t want you forcing us back out. Besides, the shrine-maker can make another one, can’t he?”
“Our shrine-maker is inside the tomb,” the shaman said sharply, jabbing a finger behind him. A path had been cleared through the trees. It led to a cavern entrance flanked by two enormous stone statues of a man and a woman. A strange, shimmery haze hung in front of the entrance that reminded me of an oil slick on pavement, and I assumed that was the barrier keeping Kai inside. “As is every other shaman who has attempted to go in there. They all went in, and never came out. I heard some terrible screams, but…” His voice shook a little, and he swallowed. “We have no idea whether or not they’re still alive.”
“How many people went in?” Raiden demanded as my stomach turned leaden. “Were my parents amongst them?”
The shaman shook his head. “Your parents are safely back at headquarters. We’ve retreated for now, until we can figure out how to safely reseal Kai without getting killed.”
Raiden nodded curtly. “Very well. Is there a path that leads to the water?”
The shaman blinked. “There is, just through there.” He pointed to a path to our left. “But why would you go there?”
“There’s a way to get into the tomb,” Raiden said. He stalked in the direction the shaman had pointed. “Come on, guys.”
“You can’t go in there!” the shaman protested as we started toward the path. “You’ll die, just like the others!”
“We’re going to rescue the others,” Raiden called, not bothering to look back. “Stay here and guard the entrance. Don’t let anyone else through. We’ll be back soon.”
He stalked through the trees, leaving the shaman gaping after him.
Shota and I hurried to catch up with Raiden. “You sound pretty confident,” I said as I came abreast of Raiden. “Considering that we have no idea what we’re doing.”
“Someone has to be,” Raiden said, shaking his head. “That guy looked like he was about to piss himself. I’m nervous as hell, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cower in the corner like a scared puppy. Not after we’ve come all this way.”
I nodded, understanding. Raiden was putting his game face on—not just for that shaman’s benefit, or for mine, but to show Kai that he was unafraid to face him. Show an enemy weakness, and you’ve already given him half the battle. I read that in a book somewhere, and it seemed more appropriate now than it ever had in my life.
Taking a deep breath, I dispelled the anxiety in my chest and forced myself to stand taller.
No matter what lay in store for us, I would not show fear. It was time to fight.
The sound of ocean waves crashing against the cliffside reached my ears, along with the tang of sea salt. A few moments later, we emerged from the trees at the edge of a cliff. We peered over the edge, and my stomach flip-flopped at the sight of the sheer drop—it had to be at least two hundred feet.
“Well, shit.” Shota scrubbed a hand over his lower jaw. “I thought we’d use a feather ofuda to get down, but the drop is too high. The winds would blow us way off course.”
“Hang on.” I lifted the wrist that had my bracelet on it, where I’d attached the rest of the charms Raiden had brought. “We haven’t tried this bird one yet,” I said, tapping the tiny wooden bird. It flared to life beneath my touch, as if begging to be summoned. “Maybe whatever this is can fly us down.”
Raiden glanced warily at it. “It’s worth a shot. Let’s hope it’s big enough.”
“Maji,” I said, willing the yokai to appear. Yoki blazed from the tiny charm, and I held my breath as the familiar blue ball of flame burst into life in front of us. A shrill bird call raised the hair on my arms, and the ball swirled into the form of an enormous, red-skinned man wearing a black kimono and a pair of geta—Japanese-style clogs. He stood at least ten feet tall, with a gigantic nose that protruded about a foot from his weathered face and a bushy, mad-scientist-like mane of hair. A sword and fan were tucked into his belt, and he sported a huge pair of blue-gray wings on his back. Like an ugly, red-skinned angel.
“Holy crap,” Raiden breathed, his eyes wide. “That’s a tengu!”
“A whoziwhatsit?”
“Indeed I am.” The tengu inclined his head, regarding me from beneath his bushy brows. “You are the one who summoned me?”
I nodded. “My friends and I need to get to the bottom of this cliff. We were hoping you might fly us down.”
The yokai looked surprised. “You merely want a ride down to the cliffs?”
“Well, yeah.” I bit my lip in confusion. “Are we supposed to ask for something else?”
The tengu puffed out his chest. “The last time I was summoned by a yokai shaman, I fought in battle with him. I am not merely a form of transport—I am a fierce warrior, and I punish those who are impure.” His face contorted into a fierce scowl as he looked toward the cliffs. “I am aware of Amatsu’s great, evil presence down in those cliffs. I would be honored to fight by your side against him.”
“And we would be honored to have your help,” Shota said as I blinked up at the tengu. “But before we can fight, we must get down to the cliffs.”
“Of course.” The tengu flapped his wings, and his form blurred, as if he was vibrating on high speed. He shifted into a gigantic bird with a yellow beak and silver-blue feathers, then settled onto his belly. “Climb onto my back,” he instructed.
We did as he asked, which was no mean feat—the feathers were slippery, and I had to grip great handfuls of them to keep from falling off. Somehow, we managed to find the middle of his back, and settled there as comfortably as we could. Since there was no harness, we lay flat on our bellies and grabbed fistfuls of his plumage.
“Hold on tight,” the tengu instructed right before he flapped his wings. I tucked my face into his feathers as he kicked up dust and twigs. My stomach shot straight into my throat as the huge bird launched himself off the cliff’s edge, tucking his wings tight against his body.
“Woohoo!” Raiden and Shota yelled in unison as we plummeted straight down. Their faces were shining, and they sported identical grins, as if this was the best thing that had ever happened to them.
A few seconds later, the tengu snapped its wings out, catching an updraft, and we began to soar toward the bottom of the cliff.
“Wow.” I let out a relieved breath, my stomach sinking back down to my abdomen as it realized we were not, in fact, going to die. “I thought I was going to pass out for a second there.”
Raiden snorted. “You afraid of heights or something?”
“No,” I snapped defensively. “I’m just not used to diving off cliffs on the backs of mythical birds.”
The tengu laughed, apparently able to hear us even over the whistling wind. “I would not let you fall,” he said. “You have nothing to fear so long as you are on my back.”
That’s easy for you to say, I grumbled silently as we banked toward the cliff edge. The tengu landed in the sea, spraying us with salt water, and I groaned. It seemed like I was going to spend the rest of my life smelling like the sea.
“So now what?” I asked, reaching into the pouch and pulling out the stone of ebbing tide. I handed it to Raiden, then pulled out the other stone. “How do we find the entrance?”
“Well, since I don’t see it, I’m guessing it’s below us,” Raiden said, gripping the stone in his hand. White sparks shot from between his fingers as he shut his eyes and exhaled slowly, and the wind around us whipped violently.
“I’m not sure—”
My words were cut off as the water beneath us lurched downward like someone had jerked the plug free in a full bathtub. The water began to swirl downward, and as it did, a cave in the cliff in front of us was slowly revealed.
Sharp outcroppings of stone clung to its mouth, making it appear like the maw of some great beast. As I stared, cool mist began to drift out from it. I shivered instinctively. Something inside felt dark and, well, evil. It was like staring at your closet at night when you were a kid and knowing there was a monster inside ready to eat you. But unlike then, there really was a monster waiting for us. Probably more than one monster, if Amatsu and Kai were summoning yokai to do their bidding.
“In there!” I said, directing the tengu toward the cave. It nodded once and flapped its wings, lifting from the sea and moving toward the cave. As we breached the entryway, the temperature dropped twenty degrees. My breath came out in a cloud of dark mist as the light from outside faded to a pinprick.
“Now where?” the tengu asked as it landed on a hard rock wall. We all looked around, but try as I might, I couldn’t see anything.
“Maybe we need to make the water go back up?” I said, glancing at Raiden. He still had his eyes shut, and his face was taut with strain.
“Try it,” he said, taking in a breath and opening his eyes. The stone in his hand stopped glowing, but the water didn’t rise either. “I guess you don’t have to maintain the spell. I thought if I stopped concentrating, the water might rise. That must be why there were two jewels.”
“Okay,” I said, gripping the jewel of rising tide and shutting my eyes. “I’ll try to make the water rise, then.”
As I concentrated on the stone in my hand, I felt its power just like it was an ofuda. It made me instantly glad I’d learned how to use them—I was able to direct the water to rise almost effortlessly. My eyes snapped open a second later, and triumph filled me as I saw we were rising upward toward a cavern. As the water touched the stone inside our tunnel, it began to glow with effervescent algae that reminded me of Ryujin’s palace, illuminating a pathway that the tengu followed.
A moment later, we found ourselves staring at a small cavern in a wall a few meters to our left.
“Guess that’s where we’re going,” Raiden said, hopping off the tengu and jumping onto the outcropping in front of the cave. He offered me his hand.
“Right.” I took Raiden’s hand and jumped onto the rock, Shota right behind me. “Whoa,” I said as we followed him into the cavern, the tengu bringing up the rear. He’d shrunk into a smaller version of his natural form so he could fit through. “Check out this mural.”
I plucked one of the bamboo torches hanging on the wall and lifted it higher so I could see the painting better. It stretched all the way around the circular cavern room, a progression of scenes, and as I looked closer, I realized the woman who appeared most often was the same woman the kami back at the café had been drawing. A princess who wore my face.
“It’s the story of Kai, Haruki, Kaga, and Fumiko,” the tengu said. His gravelly voice was sad, and I turned around to see him gazing at the mural with a grave look on his face. “It looks like someone blacked out Haruki and Kaga’s faces on all of these.”
Shocked, I turned back. Sure enough, two of the four characters depicted in the murals had their faces completely blotted out.
“Why would someone do that?” I asked, moving closer to the paintings.
“Because they’re trying to cover up history,” Raiden said tightly. His dark eyes blazed with anger, and he snatched a torch off the wall. “Come on, Aika. We already know the story.”
“Raiden, I think there’s more here that the dragon king didn’t tell us!” Shota called. His eyes were shining with excitement as they scanned the mural. “Just wait a moment!”
But Raiden was already stalking off, and I didn’t want to stay here in the cavern without him.
Shota and I exchanged frustrated glances. “We’ll have to look at this later,” I said with a sigh, even though I agreed with Shota. “We can’t let him go on ahead by himself.”
“Fine,” Shota grumbled. We hurried after Raiden, down a hall that split off the cavern entrance. I tried not to think about the way the narrow walls pressed in against us, leaving very little room to walk. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but the fact that we were miles and miles below the surface, with no real map, and the sure knowledge that an evil god and shaman were waiting up ahead, was enough to freak anyone out.
No fear, I reminded myself, and lifted my chin a little higher.
We caught up with Raiden only a few steps away, just beyond a corner. He was standing stone-still and had one hand on the hilt of his katana. He took a deep breath and turned to look at me. Then he mouthed one word.
“Run.”
21
Run.
The word echoed in my brain as Raiden took a step backward. As he did, his shoes squeaked on the tile floor, drawing the attention of two large shadows across the room. They stood before a massive ornate wooden shrine I instinctively recognized as a butsudan.
The shadows spun around, and I instantly realized they weren’t shadows at all. No, they were hideous, disgusting creatures with distended guts and skin like coal. Huge eyes burned in their heads, and as their long, black tongues licked hungrily over their yellowed teeth, saliva dripped from the corners of their mouths. As the left one took a lumbering step toward us, Shota stepped in front of me, one hand pulling his kusarigama free while the other grabbed a tablet from his keychain.
“Stay behind me,” he said, right before he invoked the tablet. “Mezame, Baiken!”
A hitodama exploded from the mortuary tablet, lighting up the interior of the cave with its blue glow. Shota snatched it out of the air, and as he shoved it into his chest, a fiery light exploded from his body. The outline of a samurai coalesced around him, and Shota’s eyes blazed with otherworldly light.
“It’s about time you got a real weapon. Always playing with swords like a fool,” he said in a deep voice that was both Shota and the spirit he’d taken in. He hefted the kusarigama, a delighted grin on his face. “Let me show you how to put these flames to good use.” He spun on his heel and dashed toward one of the monsters, his hand swinging around in an arc as he spun the spiked ball on the end of the chain attached to the sickle. As flames crawled across the chain, Shota sent the spiked ball flying through the air with a flick of his wrist. The flaming steel ball smashed into the charging monster with a sickening thud, knocking it off its feet in a flurry of sparks.
As the creature screamed, Shota jerked the chain back and spun it once more, only this time, flames began to crawl over the ball as well, making him look like a fire dancer as he prepared to attack again.
The creature on the right began to dance from foot to foot, its huge hands waving above its head in a motion that would have seemed carefree if it hadn’t been so sinister.
“Damn nuribotokes,” Raiden said, bringing the dragon scale katana to bear as he moved to my side. “Normally you can get rid of them by trapping them within a circle of salt until morning, at which point they’ll evaporate along with the sun’s rays. But I�
�m guessing that won’t work now.”
“Not unless you have salt and a lot of time,” Shota said, his hands tightening on the grip of his weapon and swinging it even faster, causing it to whirl through the air in a blur of motion. “Have any other ideas?” He took a deep breath, eyes flicking between the two monsters. “Baiken and I can keep knocking them down, but we’ll definitely have to do something fast.”
“Are they dangerous?” I asked as the nuribotoke Shota had knocked down scrambled to its feet.
Its lips broke out into a huge, grotesque smile, and it lumbered toward us once more, but this time the movement was so quick I could barely follow it. The creature’s long arms trailed behind it, and its head fell backward as its legs propelled it forward like one of those disgusting creatures in Attack on Titan.
“Yes, which is why I told you to run!” Raiden said as Shota intercepted the creature, wrapping up its legs with his chain and pulling them out from under it. As the creature hit the ground with a thud, its comrade charged, and this time, Shota’s weapon was too bound with the first nuribotoke for him to stop it. Worse, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
“Raiden,” Shota cried, muscles straining as he fought to keep the creature from escaping. “You have to get that one. If I let go of this one, it’ll get free.”
“Right!” Raiden took a step forward and slashed at the nuribotoke with his katana. But instead of slicing through the monster, the blade slammed into it with a hard clang.
The thrum of the impact rang in my ears as the nuribotoke kept coming, barely slowed by Raiden’s attacks.
As Raiden stumbled backward, the creature’s hands snapped out with whip-like speed, grabbing hold of him by the shirt and hauling him in between the nuribotoke and the tengu.
My yokai pulled up short, its blade glinting in the air as Raiden stumbled, falling off balance. His arms shot out to the side, and the katana in his hands went flying across the room and clattering uselessly onto the stone.