A Mortal Song (14 page)

What was wrong with me? I wanted Takeo. My mind knew that. So why didn’t the rest of me?

It seemed like a betrayal to be kissing him and not feeling all the things I’d felt with someone who wasn’t him.
That
was wrong. I braced myself to pull back, to apologize, to I-don’t-know-what.

Then a cry echoed up the stairs.

I flinched away from Takeo with far less grace than I’d intended, but it didn’t matter. We were both running for the stairs before I had time to think about it.

“Get out of here!” Chiyo shouted, and something clanged, and Keiji said in a tone so grave and terrified it made my chest ache, “I really think you should listen to her.”

A pungent, oily smell filled my nose as we dashed past the third floor. I skidded down the next flight and caught myself just before I hit the bottom step.

Two tall, gangling creatures, one with a shock of white hair and the other bald and lumpy-headed, were circling Chiyo and Keiji, who were trapped in the middle of the room. Another, with curved horns that jutted along its shoulders, stood at the top of the stairs that led to the first floor. It glanced at me, and I saw it had no nose, only yellow reptilian eyes and a grin full of jagged teeth.

Ogres.

Chiyo stood in a defensive stance, her hands raised, ki glowing between them. Our enemies weren’t attacking yet—she shouldn’t have been wasting her energy. But she hadn’t had time to learn that, had she? Beside her, Keiji brandished a bamboo walking stick that must have been the only weapon he could find. It quivered in his grip.

Takeo had slid his bow from his shoulder. He nocked an arrow and drew back the string in one fluid movement: a perfect line from him to the nearest ogre’s head.

The ogre by the lower staircase leapt at us, faster than I’d have thought a creature that large could move. Its knobby fingers wrenched at my side as I dodged it. I shifted into the ethereal state instinctively, but the thick ki that oozed off the ogre’s body dragged on me as if I were still perfectly solid. I stumbled across the floor, pulling the short sword Takeo had lent me from its sheath.

With a thud and a
crack
, Takeo’s arrow twanged into the wall over my head. I whirled around. The ogre had pinned him down, and Takeo was struggling to draw his own sword while keeping the thing’s hands off his neck. His bow hung in two limp pieces over the stairs.

“I think we should bring these ones back,” his attacker said in a rough warbling voice like water over gravel. It slammed both of Takeo’s arms against the stairs and turned its head to its companions. “The kami, at least. They match what our new friends said to look for, don’t you think?”

“Ogres running errands for ghosts?” Keiji said, his voice shaking. “Well, now I’ve got no respect for you at all.”

“The human dead are claiming the spirit world,” said the creature closest to him. “Only the stupid don’t join the winning side.” It swiped at Keiji’s stick. Keiji winced and dodged backward, jabbing the bamboo staff toward its abdomen. The ogre snapped off the top third, sending the piece clattering to the floor.

“Stop!” A blast of energy rippled from Chiyo’s hands and hit the ogre in the chest, so hard it staggered backward. As she struck out with another surge of ki, I raised my sword and lunged at the ogre that held Takeo.

It hadn’t expected me. One of its arms thrashed out as I grabbed its legs and plunged the sword into its calf. I clung on, holding my breath against the stench of its skin, and heaved back. At the same moment, Takeo kicked its belly. The creature gave an
oof
and we both toppled over.

My tailbone jarred against the floor, my ankle twisting. I bit back a gasp of pain. Midori’s wings hummed by my ear, anger winding through her distress. The ogre whipped around, and I threw a ball of ki into its eyes. It reared back, sputtering, right into the swing of Takeo’s sword.

The kami blade sliced straight through its neck. The ogre’s body slumped over me, its head rolling across the floor to smack into Rin’s broken table.

“Mitsuoka!” Chiyo shouted, and reached out to Keiji. He tossed the walking stick to her and ducked. Ki flared along the length of the bamboo staff. As the second ogre charged at them, she rammed the end of the stick into its face. The wood sizzled through the mottled flesh of its forehead. The creature spasmed and crumpled to the floor. Chiyo stared at its shuddering body.

That had to be the first time she’d killed anything. And in her distraction, the last of the ogres hissed and stabbed out at her with its knife-like claws.

I squirmed out from under the headless body, reaching for the sword still imbedded in its leg. Takeo jumped down the stairs. The ogre must have heard the whistle of his blade. It spun suddenly and flung itself under his strike and toward me, just as I dashed forward.

I tried to stop, but my feet slipped on the polished floor. As I threw myself backward, the ogre caught the flying strands of my hair. Midori’s ki pulled away from me like roots ripped from the earth. The ogre’s fist closed around her with a sickening crunch.

“No!” I choked out. I slammed at the creature’s leg with my heel, but it was already wrenching me around as it dodged Takeo.

“Let go of her,” Chiyo yelled as I raised my sword to hack at the fingers that held me. A blinding glow seared through the room. The ogre gurgled and grabbed at the only solid thing within its reach: me.

With its last gasp of life, it dug its claw under my chin and slashed straight through my throat.

I fell. The ogre did too, fouling the air with the stench of its burning flesh. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. My throat was full of pain and a hot, wet rush. My head hit the ground, my cheekbone cracking.

My lungs seized. I stared across the floor toward Midori’s mangled body. Her wings had been crumpled like tissue paper, her exoskeleton smashed. The facets of her round eyes gazed dully at nothing. My own eyes filled with tears.

If you hurt them badly enough, if they’re already weakened, kami can die. Midori had given me so much of her ki for so long, she hadn’t had enough left to heal from an injury that serious.

And I wasn’t any kind of kami.

I watched the scarlet puddle spreading out from under me.
That’s my life
, I thought. My life spilling out and slipping away, just like that.

Icy, spidery fingers wound through my spirit and gripped on. They tugged at me, down, down toward the gaping darkness of the afterworld. It was so big, so big and so dark and so
empty
...

Panic jittered through my mind.
No
. I tried to reach, as if I could hold myself in the world of the living if I found something to grab on to, but my arms wouldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my feet. A chill crept through my chest.

I was sinking, sinking far too fast to catch.

A
s my vision hazed
, figures scrambled around me in a blur of motion. Shouts echoed past my failing ears. The room grayed.

A shaky touch brushed my temple. A voice babbled frantically. The light contracted, swallowed up by the cold, empty dark—

A brilliant glow burst in my head, sending a blast of energy rippling through me. It faded, and then sparked again. My muscles jolted. The taste of rot flooded my mouth. I gurgled, shuddered, and wretched. The brightness flared once more, and my lungs heaved. Air rasped into them down my newly sealed throat.

I coughed, the effort rattling my body. My stomach turned over. As I gagged, my lips brushed a pool of something viscous soaking the floor beneath me. The hands that had touched me flitted away from my face.

“Sora?” Takeo said. “Sora!”

I turned my gaze slowly. My vision doubled the figures around me and then blended them back into one. Takeo was crouched at my side, his jaw tight. Chiyo knelt by my head, smiling even as her shoulders trembled. And Keiji stood by my feet, his hands fisted, his mouth set in a firm, pale line as if he were trying not to vomit.

Which maybe he was. That stuff on the floor—that was blood. My blood. He’d just watched me all but die.

The only reason I
hadn’t
died was that Chiyo’s ki had saved me.

The memory of that yawning blackness rose up, blotting out every other thought, and I started to shiver. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. My body quaked as I drew my knees to my chest. My arm was wet, my cheek sticky. More blood. Strands of hair streaked crimson across my shirt. I shivered harder, squeezing my legs and pressing my face against them.

I was supposed to have centuries before I faced that place. Millennia. So many years I got weary counting them. Not seventeen. Seventeen was nothing.

But I was human, and this was how humans died. In an instant, a claw ripped across a throat.

My neck still ached. When I swallowed, my throat stung. My eyes burned, but crying seemed somehow pointless. Crying didn’t even begin to express the terror knifing through me.

Terror, and a swell of shame.

I hadn’t died, but Midori’s body was still lying crushed and strewn on the floor, too far gone for even Chiyo’s power. Midori, who had stayed with me, played with me, and guided me on my adventures for as long as I could remember. Who had let me keep up this charade of being kami at the expense of her life. How many years had
she
had?

I closed my eyes. A fresh bout of tremors swept through me. Next time Chiyo might not be here. Next time the darkness might take me too, and I would never come back.

“Is she all right now?” Chiyo asked.

“Physically, she’s weak, but she’ll recover,” Takeo said, his voice strained. “But she’s never... When you’re a kami, it’s so hard to be killed, you never really think about death. You never worry— The shock—”

There was a pause. Then Chiyo said, faintly, “So she isn’t a kami then, right? Or she’d have been able to heal herself. You were helping her seem kami with some trick that stopped working. But why would you bring a human girl—?” She paused. “She’s the one, isn’t she? The one they switched me for. That’s how she knew how to act like a kami. Why didn’t she say something? My parents—her parents—she’s supposed to be with them!”

“She wanted to help you,” Takeo said. “And she did. But I’ve already talked with her. She’s going back to Tokyo. This is my fault. I should have made her stay behind before.”

“Isn’t that up to Sora?” Keiji broke in. “You can’t just decide something like that for her. If she wants to—”

To fight more ogres? To face more ghosts with their blades and guns while only the thinnest dribble of ki moved through me? To risk tumbling down into that void, where my spirit would gradually disintegrate into the vast pool of energy that fueled the world. Until I was gone completely.

The thought made my eyes well up and my fingers curl, clutching at the air. I wasn’t ready for that.

“No,” I said. My knees muffled the word. I turned my head. It felt like a great weight on my neck without Midori’s buoyant presence.

“No,” I repeated. “I’ll go back.”

* * *

W
e couldn’t go anywhere right
away. My limbs were so weak I could barely sit up, and the presence of spilled blood was upsetting Takeo’s and Chiyo’s ki. In just a short time, their skin had turned sallow and their movements gone shaky. I suspected they felt almost as sick as I did.

Chiyo tried to follow Takeo and Keiji as they went to get water from the valley’s stream, and collapsed to her knees by the stairs. “I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,” she said, but the battle and the energy she’d expended healing me had obviously taken their toll. Takeo brought her to the first floor and left her there to gather herself as he and Keiji continued their errand.

With the bowls they brought, I washed my clothes and hair. Then they rinsed Rin’s floor until the water ran clear. Despite their efforts, dark stains marred the smooth boards. I wondered if this house would ever be clean enough for Rin to return and live here comfortably.

If she still lived at all.

My mind darted back to the rising cold and the blackness, and I bit my lip.

As we left the old cypress, Takeo carrying me on his back as if I were seven years old again, Chiyo gasped and stumbled against a tree. “Omori,” she gritted out. Takeo clasped her shoulder, and the distress in her expression softened as he must have helped her reconstruct her inner shield.

“We’ll find a shrine,” he said. “You both need to rest, somewhere we don’t have to worry about his magic intruding.”

We came across a tiny shrine on the other side of the valley, with a wooden structure more for presentation than to provide any real shelter. But the protections did their work. Chiyo lay down at its base and immediately fell into a deep slumber, her body and ki finally relaxing. I set myself down on a mossy patch of rock by the stone trough of the shrine’s small purifying fountain. Human visitors were supposed to rinse their hands and mouths with its water to cleanse themselves inside and out, but I couldn’t believe that would purify my spirit, not right now. When I blinked, I still saw the broken pieces of Midori’s body.

I should have released her from her service. I should have accepted what I was, stayed where I belonged.

“I’ll search the forest for any kami who might know what’s become of Sage Rin,” Takeo said, and vanished amid the trees.

Keiji paced by the edge of the narrow grounds. He approached me once, right after Takeo left. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked. “Cup of water? Sweet bread? Magic tricks?”

He wanted me to smile, but his grin was so hesitant, his posture so awkward—so different from his usual easy composure—that I had to look away. That was also my fault, wasn’t it? I’d acted as if I wanted him, wanted something more than our tentative friendship, and then I’d shoved him away. In my thoughtlessness, I’d broken him too.

“I don’t need anything,” I said shortly. “Thank you.”

After that, he left me alone.

Every few minutes, I tested my strength. Without Midori’s ki, the ground beneath me was muted, as blank of feeling as the breeze that grazed my face. At the same time, my awareness of the world
inside
my skin had sharpened. Delicate bones, so easily cracked. Trembling strings of muscle on the verge of tearing. My human body was a fragile husk that one harsh breath might split in two.

It took two hours before my legs would hold my weight. Another before I could take more than a few steps. I hobbled to the shrine building. A stubby pencil and a few sheets of rice paper lay on a shelf in its shed-like interior. I tore the papers into strips and poured all my focus into printing the characters Takeo had taught me. Every ofuda was a death possibly averted.

I didn’t notice Chiyo had woken until she leaned over my shoulder. “Got another pencil?” she asked.

“I’m almost done,” I said. “How do you feel?”

“Ready to blast a whole lot of ghostly butt,” she said, her eyes sparkling. I wondered what her ki would have looked like if I could see it. “Where’d Takeo get to?”

I told her and added, “I’m sure he won’t be gone much longer.”

She picked up a stick to poke at the earth beneath us. “So you didn’t just know my kami parents,” she said after a long moment. “They looked after you.”

“Yes,” I said, my fingers tensing around the pencil. I hardly had the energy to sustain that old rush of jealousy, but ever fiber of my being resisted this conversation.

“What are they like, as parents?”

“They’re wonderful,” I said truthfully. “Patient and kind and caring. You’ll be happy with them.”

“I wish—” Chiyo started, but I didn’t have to find out what she wished about the parents I would probably never see again, because Takeo emerged from the forest just then. A small group of kami followed him: a marten, a pheasant, and a finch with bright yellow spots on its wings, a doe that regarded us with a slow blink of its dark eyes, a boar snuffling its long snout over the ground beside it, a monkey that chittered what sounded like a remark of excitement, and two humanoid figures who must have pulled themselves from trees or flowers.

“You brought company!” Chiyo said.

“No one is certain what happened to the sage,” Takeo said, “other than there was a great commotion here this morning. But they’ve offered to come with us to Nagoya and help us retrieve the sword in any way they can.”

My spirits lifted a little. It wasn’t an army, but it was much more support than we’d had before. I pushed myself to my feet, stiffening my legs to keep myself from wobbling. “So you’ll go straight for the sword now?”

“I think we should at least discover what waits for us there. We’ve already lost most of a day. If Sage Rin is... unable to join us, then we must push forward as well as we can. When we’re able to.”

His gaze settled on me. He had to see the effort it was taking me to hold myself upright. I hoped he’d believe it was only grief and worry affecting me now. The thought of the ghosts and ogres roaming beyond the shrine’s boundaries sent a stab of fear through me, but I held my tongue. Chiyo was obviously recovered. They couldn’t delay any longer on my account.

“I’m well enough to leave,” I said.

Takeo hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely.”

* * *

T
akeo held
my hand during the run toward Nagoya, steadying my body if not my mind. As night fell, every shifting shadow made my heart thump out of rhythm. It was fully dark when we reached the edge of the city that held the sun kami’s shrine and the sacred sword within it.

Chiyo immediately demanded Keiji’s cell phone, which had refused to locate a signal in the mountains, and gave a little cheer when she checked the display. She dialed, bobbing on her feet as we hurried toward the train station.

“Mom? Are you okay?” She gave us a thumbs up, beaming, and scooted a little ahead as she lowered her voice. “You wouldn’t
believe
what we’ve been doing.”

The sight of her joy broke me from my daze. I wasn’t worried that she’d tell them about me—I’d asked her to let me be the one to explain, and she’d immediately agreed. But her reaction had a bigger implication. “The ghosts didn’t hurt the Ikedas,” I said. “Then how...?”

“They might have simply spied on Chiyo’s parents and overhead them discussing the situation,” Takeo said. “Which means they may not know everything.” He exhaled with what sounded like relief.

Maybe they could retrieve the sword safely. A pang echoed through my chest. After I left, I wouldn’t know. I’d have no idea what was happening.

I touched the raw skin along my throat, and those worries quieted under an icy flash of panic.

To anyone walking by as we approached Nagoya Station, it would have looked as if we were a group of four. The kami Takeo had gathered had made themselves ethereal as soon as we’d entered human habitation. We did have one fully visible companion, though. I caught sight of a sparrow darting between two telephone poles and wondered if it understood what we were doing here.