by Erin Johnson
I crossed my arms and scoffed. “Right. So you can attack us? Or poison our coffee?” Nice try, losers.
Emi winced, as if my words had been a physical blow.
Haru shook his head. “No. It’s not like that. Here—” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand.
Francis dropped to a crouch, coiled to attack, and a ball of glowing blue light flared to life in Hank’s hand.
Emi whimpered and Haru shook his head. “I’m just handing it over.” He turned the pointy end of the wand towards himself and offered Francis its handle. Without looking up, Emi pulled hers from her pocket and held it at arm’s length toward our vampire friend.
Nose in the air, Francis plucked them away with his long-nailed fingers and tucked them into an inside pocket of his long, black cloak.
Haru held up his palms. “Honestly. We don’t want more trouble, but we’re afraid Mai might wake up and…. We don’t want her to find us gone.”
I pressed my lips tight together as Hank and I exchanged glances. My stomach tightened as my gut felt pulled in two directions. On one hand I didn’t want to trust these two—we’d caught them red-handed scrawling threats all over our house and breaking windows. They’d been terrorizing us for days!
On the other hand, they seemed so nice and Mai was so cute. I couldn’t fathom what would prompt them to vandalize our house, but my instincts told me they didn’t intend to hurt us.
I shrugged at Hank. “I’m okay with it. But we keep their wands… and make the coffee ourselves.”
Francis nodded. “So be it.”
Haru looked at Hank. He sighed and shook his head at the two of them on the ground. “Fine. I know what it’s like to lose trust in a parent. But if you try anything, we take you straight to Chief Abe.”
Emi nodded and lifted her eyes, glancing at each of us. “Thank you.”
* * *
Back at the diner, Hank magically pulled some chairs down from where they hovered and we gathered around a small, square table. I heated us up some water and poured everyone cups of coffee. I added a generous amount of cream and sugar to mine—I needed all the help I could get to stay awake.
The adrenaline rush of catching Emi and Haru had worn off. We gathered around the table, a few candles casting the only light in the dark diner.
My head swam with drowsiness as Hank folded his hands around his warm mug beside me. “All right.” He spoke in a hushed tone so as not to wake up Mai. “Explain yourselves.”
Haru and Emi exchanged worried looks. Emi dropped her head, her eyes tight, and slid her fingers between Haru’s, holding his hand. My eyes widened. Not exactly the way most stepmothers interacted with their stepsons.
Haru let out a shaky breath. “Emi and I have been together for some time now.”
Ooh. My eyes widened. Scandalous.
Francis’s brow twitched. He sat a few inches taller than the rest of us, magically hovering above his chair with his legs crossed. “How risqué.” He sipped his coffee.
I shot him a look. Right. He and Rhonda were the experts on risqué.
Emi jerked her head up. “I know what you’re thinking, but we didn’t kill Daichi.” Her pleading eyes searched our faces.
Haru’s brows drew together and he looked pained. “Not intentionally, though we may have driven him to his death.”
Hank frowned. “What does this have to do with you destroying our house?”
Emi licked her lips. “Our affair began the night of the great typhoon… the night Daichi disappeared.”
Hank and I exchanged wide-eyed looks, and suddenly I didn’t feel the least bit sleepy. This was getting juicy. I nodded and leaned forward, gripping the handle of my mug. “Go on.”
Emi cast a glance toward the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, then she turned to us and lowered her voice. “Haru and I have been friends since we were little. We were the same year in school, and we were always close, but… neither of us made a move to become more than just friends.”
A muscle in Haru’s jaw jumped and he looked down at his hand, entwined with Emi’s. “I often wonder if this would all have turned out differently if I’d just told you how I felt.”
Emi shook her head and her loose bun bobbed at the nape of her neck. “The past is the past. We can’t change anything now.”
She looked up, and the candlelight cast flickering shadows across her face. “I come from a big family. I was little when the monsters came, but the attacks put my father out of a job for quite some time and we struggled, financially. We were still struggling when Daichi expressed interest in marrying me.”
Her face grew slack and her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t love him. And I told him that, told my family….” She shook her head. “But everyone was pressuring me still. He was one of the richest men in town, and everyone said I’d never get a better offer, and that marrying well would save my family, especially my parents, from a life of poverty—” She buried her face in her hands, and Haru gently rubbed her back.
He shook his head. “I should have expressed how I felt, but my father was a man you didn’t cross. He was used to getting his way, and when he set his sights on something he wanted, he got it—always.” He sighed. “I was scared and I let that fear get the better of me.”
I bit my lip. That sounded rough, for both of them.
31
The Great Typhoon
Haru continued to rub Emi’s back. “My father and Emi married. And I couldn’t take being in the same house as them.”
I took a sip of my coffee. Yeah, I knew how that felt. I’d nearly lost my mind being cooped up in Shaday’s palace before the arranged wedding between Hank and her. I could only imagine what I would’ve done if they had gone through with it.
“So, I left. I went off to college in a town on the coast and stayed there for a few years.” His throat bobbed. “Until we got word that the typhoon was coming and had to evacuate. I figured that Emi and I both had moved on. That time and distance would have diluted my feelings for her, and that in the case of this emergency evacuation, I could handle being in that house with her and my father for a couple of days.” A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “That didn’t end up to be the case.”
Emi’s dark eyes flashed to his face, then she looked at me. “I can’t tell you what I felt, knowing he was coming home. There was never any love between Daichi and me, though we went through the motions and had settled into a routine that worked for us.” She shook her head. “But there was no joy in my life. Then we got word that Haru was coming back and—” She looked down at the table. “My hands wouldn’t stop shaking for days leading up to his arrival and then…” Her voice grew choked. “Then, the day he was to arrive, the train was delayed. And we got word that it had been attacked by a monster and quite a few people had been killed.”
The color drained from her face. “I thought I’d lost Haru forever, that I’d never have the chance to tell him I loved him—that I’d always loved him. I felt as though I’d been hollowed out. Like I was a shell of a person, empty on the inside.”
Haru squeezed her hand. “I survived the attack and the train crash, though.” He gulped. “And I’d felt the same way. As though I’d been given a second chance in life and that I couldn’t waste it by keeping my feelings bottled up anymore.”
Emi nodded. “Haru and the others had barely made it inside Kusuri’s walls before the storm hit. Daichi got word that he was needed to identify the body of a criminal he’d prosecuted many years before and went back out into the wind and rain to the morgue.” Emi gulped. “Leaving Haru and me to take shelter in the basement… alone.”
Bow chicka wow wow. I frowned to myself. Iggy was getting into my head.
Even in the dim candlelight, the flush on Emi’s cheeks showed. “Neither of us could hold back our feelings any longer, and they just… overflowed.”
I glanced at Hank. Even though everything they said made it seem like they had a pretty strong motive for kil
ling Daichi, I couldn’t help but find the story romantic. Hank kept up a stony expression though.
Francis had been picking at his long nails, but his head jerked up when Emi mentioned taking shelter. “The house has a basement?” He looked from me to Hank.
That’s right. We’d forgotten to tell him about finding the locket. “Yeah. But it’s dark and cold and—” I shook my head. “What am I saying? You’d love it.”
The vampire lifted a long finger. “I call dibs.”
Hank’s eyes widened. “You got it.”
I frowned. Speaking of the locket…. “Is that why we found your necklace down there?”
Emi’s blush deepened and she dropped her eyes. “Yes. I must’ve lost it that night.”
Haru took over the story as Emi kept her eyes down. “Like Emi said, our passions just took over. But we also didn’t expect my father to come back that night. Rain and wind lashed the windows. We figured he’d stay at the morgue and wait out the typhoon. Which is why we were doubly shocked when he banged at the basement doors, then peered into the low windows and—and caught us.”
I grimaced. Er. Awkward.
Hank narrowed his eyes. “What happened next?”
“It took us a minute to, uh—collect ourselves, and by the time we threw back the basement doors to let him in, he was nowhere to be seen.”
I frowned. “You were just going to let him in?”
Emi hugged her arms tight around her middle. “Obviously, it wouldn’t have been comfortable, but we couldn’t just leave him out in the typhoon.”
A line creased the space between Hank’s brows. “You weren’t concerned he’d fly into a rage?”
“Oh, I’m sure he was in one.” Haru shook his head. “But he wasn’t a violent guy—I wasn’t worried in that way. Though I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d punched me.” He sighed. “He’d probably have cut me off, sent me packing… but he was my dad. I couldn’t leave him out there.”
Emi nodded. “We called for him, but the wind howled and we didn’t see him anywhere. We pulled the doors closed and locked them. Then we heard footsteps inside, but the basement doesn’t have a direct door to the house, and after a couple of minutes, the footsteps stopped.”
I frowned. How strange.
“It was a bad night.” Haru let out a heavy breath. “In the morning, the rain and wind let up enough to brave going outside. We searched the house. There were broken windows, some blood on the floor in the kitchen—not a lot, but no sign of my father. It wasn’t until the end of that day that we realized he wasn’t at any of the town’s shelters, or with friends, and we reported him missing.” He searched our faces and his dark eyes landed on mine. They grew pained. “We never heard from or saw him again.”
32
Mai
Only the shadows cast by the candlelight moved as we sat in silence for several long moments. I thought over everything they’d said. “What do you think happened to Daichi?” My eyes lifted to Emi’s face.
She looked to Haru. “We’ve talked that night over a thousand times.” She pressed her lips tight together, then let out a sigh. “I think he was so distraught that he didn’t want to be trapped down in that basement with us and he went back out to head to the town’s shelter, or to a neighbor’s cellar.” Her face pinched with pain. “Trees were uprooted that night, fences pulled out of the ground. I think he must’ve been hit by flying debris and the rain washed his body away. That’s why we never found him.” Her face crumpled and she choked on a sob. “We drove him to his death.”
Yeesh. What a heavy burden to bear.
Hank frowned. “What about the blood in the kitchen?”
Haru shrugged. “Maybe he’d been hurt a little on the way from the morgue to the house? Or maybe he tripped and fell in the kitchen? It was dark that night and he was, as Emi said, distraught, I’m sure.”
I watched their faces. They seemed genuinely remorseful… but maybe they were just good actors. “You don’t think he’s still alive?”
Haru shook his head. “How could he be? Where would he have been all these years?”
Emi gripped the table, her eyes wide. “And I wasn’t lying earlier—about the house. The hauntings started after the night Daichi disappeared.”
I leaned back, one hand still wrapped around my warm mug of light brown coffee. Steam curled up from its surface. “I guess that explains why he’d be angry with you—he caught you two, uh… together.”
“There’s another possibility.” Francis looked up and arched a brow. “Maybe his spirit was getting revenge—because you killed him?”
Emi shrank back and edged closer to Haru beside her.
He hugged her to his side. “We didn’t kill my father.” His eyes blazed.
Hank let out a heavy breath. “I’d like to believe you, but you two have a very strong motive. You wanted to be together, and the only way you could be was if Daichi was out of the picture.”
Haru shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I swear.”
Emi glanced again toward the kitchen doors. I guessed that the stairs up to their second-story apartment were through there and she was worried about Mai waking up. A sudden thought had me sitting up straighter. “Mai.”
Emi’s gaze jerked to my face.
“She’s yours.” I gaped at Haru and he flinched, then lifted his chin higher.
“Yes.”
I’d be letting out a low whistle… if I could. “Does she know?”
Haru shook his head. “No one does. We know how it would look, what people would think. That’s why we’ve kept our relationship a secret for the last decade. Everyone would think we’d killed my father.”
“You see?” Emi’s wide eyes searched our faces. “That’s another reason I believe Daichi’s spirit was angry. Like we said, he wasn’t a violent man while living, but once I knew I was pregnant with Mai, his spirit became more aggressive.” Her throat bobbed and tears welled in her eyes. “I could understand him taking his anger out on us, but to try and hurt an unborn child….” She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Haru’s tired eyes grew distant. “We thought we’d been lucky that Madame Shi happened to have been on the same train that I was. Kusuri didn’t have a necromancer before she settled here.”
Emi sniffed. “We still don’t.”
I lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”
“She mostly keeps to herself—lives in the wild.” Haru shook his head. “We thought she could help us. She tried to talk to the spirit, to my father, but it just got angrier. Through her, it told us to leave—or we’d die.”
Hank crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “Is that why you’re vandalizing our house? Thought you’d pass along the message?”
Emi let out a whimper. “Yes, partly. But there’s more to it.”
33
A New Deal
Emi reached across the table and took my hand. I looked up, surprised.
“Daichi’s spirit may be angry with us—but I don’t think he’ll let you, or anyone else, live in that house in peace.”
I slowly pulled my hand back, not sure this whole story was adding up. “But you guys are the ones destroying the house, not a spirit.”
Hank huffed. “I don’t think it’s a spirit that’s punching holes in the roof or breaking windows.” He shot Haru a pointed look. “Or wilting flowers, or scrawling threats—” Hank ticked off their misdeeds on his fingers.
Emi shook her head, her eyes wide. “No, we—” She glanced at Haru beside her and sighed. “We did the graffiti and we did break some windows.”
Francis glared at her, and she shrank back.
“Why?”
Emi’s throat bobbed and Haru gave her hand a little shake. His nostrils flared. “Yoshi and Yori are blackmailing us.”
My breath caught and I looked at Hank, whose wide eyes looked as surprised as I felt. Francis appeared to be more interested in picking at his nails.
“A few years ago,” Haru con
tinued, “they saw us kiss through the windows to our apartments.” He gritted his teeth. “One slipup. We’d been so careful for so long.” He shook his head. “They started blackmailing us then. Our diner was doing well and their clothing shop was failing. They demanded we give our pastries to them to sell. It’s when they opened ‘their’ bakery.” He squeezed Emi’s hand. “Emi’s the talented one, so she’s up before dawn not only making their pastries, but our own food for the diner.”
I frowned. “You alone are making all the desserts and rolls and… everything that Yoshi and Yori sell?”
Emi gave a weak nod and my mouth fell open. I looked to Hank, then back at her. “First of all, they’re really professional and delicious. But secondly, how are you surviving? That must be exhausting.”
She let out a little whimper. “If I don’t make it work, they’ll tell everyone our secret. Mai would be crushed, everyone would think we’d killed Daichi to be together—it’d be the scandal of Kusuri.” A tear trickled down her cheek as she hung her head. She gave Haru a weak smile. “Besides, I’m not doing it all alone. Haru cleans the place for them and does their books.”
Hank’s expression darkened. “So Yoshi and Yori literally do nothing?”
A muscle in Haru’s jaw twitched, and he flashed a humorless smile. “They sit behind the counter for a few hours every morning.”
Hank shifted in his chair, the golden candlelight playing off his square jaw and big, straight nose. “So they upped their demands when they tried to block our bakery from opening and the council denied their request?”
Haru nodded.
Hank shook his head and scoffed. “So when they said they’d be ‘taking things into their own hands,’ they still farmed that off to someone else.” Hank set his jaw, his eyes hard.