The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden

BOOK: The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden
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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

In loving memory of David Marriott
.
You were always there for me
.
I know you’ll always be with me
.

PREVIOUSLY IN THE NAME OF THE BLADE TRILOGY…

I
n search of the perfect costume for the fancy-dress party she’s attending with best friend Jack, Mio Yamato steals a priceless antique katana from her family’s attic. This turns out to be a big mistake. Paranoia and monstrous visions descend on her, causing her to run into traffic. While unconscious, she dreams of a beautiful warrior boy fighting a nine-tailed cat-demon – a Nekomata. An explosion of power from the sword heals Mio, but she is spooked and tries to put the katana back in its box in the attic. She can’t. Trying to walk away from the sword makes her physically ill.

When the Nekomata from Mio’s dream appears and tries to take the katana, only the arrival of the dream warrior boy saves her and Jack from the monster’s claws. After they escape, they learn that their mysterious saviour, Shinobu, has been trapped in the katana for five hundred years.

Foiled, the Nekomata kidnaps Rachel, Jack’s older sister. Shinobu calls for help from the Kitsune, immortal spirit foxes who owe him a favour. Mio, Jack and Shinobu travel to the spirit realm with a friendly fox guide – Hikaru – and meet with the powerful Kitsune King. Mio convinces the fox spirits to fight the Nekomata with her, but in the process realizes the danger of the katana’s incredible powers.

At the monster’s lair in the mortal realm, they enter into a desperate battle. Shinobu sacrifices himself to save Rachel, and Mio gives into rage, bonding with the sword to destroy the Nekomata. Once the cat-demon is dead, Shinobu’s wounds miraculously disappear, and he wakes up. Mio and her friends leave the site of the battle triumphant, but knowing their fight for control of the katana has only just begun…

CHAPTER 1

FAREWELLS

T
he Kitsune were celebrating.

Their court – a massive natural amphitheatre, hidden deep underground – echoed with wild music and giddy laughter. Immortal fox spirits in both human and animal form wandered up and down the grassy terraces and danced around the huge golden trees that ringed the steep earthen bowl. They had been eating, drinking and making merry for hours. Some of them were making so merry that it was kind of hard to know where to look.

“They are relieved,” the king said. His young-sounding voice drifted down to where I stood with Shinobu and Hikaru at the bottom of the Kitsune throne, a low green hill at the centre of the amphitheatre. Despite his grave tone, I thought I saw a hint of pearly fangs – a foxy grin just twitching his whiskers – as he looked at his subjects acting like kids on the first day of the summer holidays. “It has been a long time since any of our people marched into battle. Some feared that victory over the Nekomata could only be bought with our sorrow.”

I met his acid-green eyes for a fraction of a second. The sheer weight of ancient power there made my spine go loose and jelly-like. In its new, finely crafted leather harness on my back, the katana gave a sullen buzz.
You shut up
, I ordered it. The last thing I needed right now was the sword interfering again. I transferred my gaze to the king’s paws and stared at them determinedly.

A faint sensation of warmth in the pit of my stomach told me that Shinobu, who stood a little way off to my left, was staring at me with the same concentration I was giving to the king’s feet. A part of me needed to meet that look – yearned to, the way that you yearn to rest when you’re tired or eat when you’re hungry. But I couldn’t. When we arrived back in the Kitsune Kingdom we were separated almost straight away, and by the time we saw each other again all the old awkwardness – and some new, extra awkwardness for good measure – had somehow sprung up between us.

What was supposed to happen next?

Were we going out now?

Did people even go out with each other five hundred years ago?

He hadn’t exactly asked or anything. But he had kissed me, so maybe that counted…

And why did any of that matter to me when he made me feel the way he did? He’d fought for me, died for me, and I’d thought he was lost forever – but then he came back, just like a miracle. I flinched from the memory of the scaffolding pole breaking through his chest, the blood gushing up around it like a red flower…

The green blade flashes down in the red light—

I flinched.

Hikaru cleared his throat conspicuously at my elbow. I’d let the silence drag on too long. The king was waiting. I rubbed at burning eyes with the palm of one hand and tried to force my sleep-deprived brain to whirr into gear.
Inter-dimensional diplomacy now. Freak-out later
.

“The Kitsune Kingdom should be proud, Your Majesty,” I said, finally. “Your people marched right up to the gateway of Yomi with us. If it weren’t for them, we’d never have made it in there. They were incredible. Especially Hikaru.”

Hikaru shuffled in place, his face slowly flushing dull red.

A tiny sizzle of blue-white lightning passed between two of the king’s nine tails. The fan-like spread, one for each of the hundred years that he had lived up to the age of one thousand, marked him as the most ancient of the immortals here. “But even with my best warriors at your disposal, it was you who slew the Nekomata, sword-bearer. Alone. Though its powers were beyond anything my Araki-san had seen in all her long life.”

He was making it sound like I was a hero, which was laughably far from true. Hikaru, Araki, Shinobu, Hiro and Jack had done … amazing things. I had messed up – again – and let the sword take me over. Let it take my human anger and twist it into an inhuman desire to kill and destroy. The battle with the Nekomata had been over very quickly after that. And if I hadn’t managed to kill it so quickly, I wasn’t sure what would have happened to me. Just a few minutes longer, and I might not have been able to resist the sword’s beguiling voice in my mind when it offered me power in return for its “freedom”, even though every instinct I had told me that the sword’s idea of being free was most definitely not a good thing for me or the world.

But this wasn’t the time to kick my own butt over that. Or the place, either. I had to keep it together and get us home.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly like that,” I mumbled. “But … thanks.”

There was a pause. It felt significant. I tried to figure out what else I should have said.

“Sword-bearer.” The king’s voice rang like the toll of a warning bell. “You have not yet asked for the favour that was promised you.”

“Oh.” I blinked a couple of times in my bewilderment and ended up looking the king in the face again by accident –
damn
– before I managed to glue my gaze to his ear.

After we’d left the abandoned power station at Battersea, the fox spirits had hustled us straight back through a rupture in the veil between the mortal realm and the spirit world. We’d washed in steaming, opal-green hot-springs under the trees while the Kitsune brought us delicious food and ministered to us with strange potions and ointments that magically numbed the pain of our various injuries. I’d taken the brunt of the Nekomata’s attack last night, and after our little disagreement on who was going to be wielding whom, the sword had shown no signs of being willing to heal me the way it had when I had the car accident, so I’d really appreciated those potions. Once we were fed and fixed up, the Kitsune gave us clean clothes to replace the shredded, blood-covered ones we’d fought in. I had new leather boots that fitted me as if they’d been hand-tailored for my feet, and a new back harness for the katana. The plain wakizashi and katana that Shinobu had borrowed for the battle were taken away and replaced by a much finer pair with silver wrappings and a saya inlaid with mother of pearl.

The Kitsune had lavished particular care on Rachel, and by extension Jack, since Jack wouldn’t leave her sister’s side even if Rachel had been willing to let go of Jack’s hand. Being kidnapped and held captive by a psychotic cat-demon had already pushed her to the limit. Jack’s and my mostly unedited confession of just what had been going on before and during her ordeal – swords of mass destruction, trapped warrior spirits, immortal armies and all – had been too much. Rachel was almost catatonic with shock by the time Hikaru had carried her into the spirit realm. But the last time I’d checked, Jack and Rachel were tucked under a tree listening to soothing music and drinking warm drinks, with Rachel just nodding off on Jack’s shoulder. They’d both looked much better.

The spirit foxes had treated us like treasured members of their own family who had returned from some legendary quest. And since no one had mentioned the favour that the king had promised me again, I’d sort of assumed this treatment was their way of paying us back for taking the Nekomata out while managing to bring Hikaru and all the other soldiers back alive.

You should never assume anything when dealing with supernatural creatures
. I ought to have learned that by now.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I hadn’t forgotten, but I thought…” I gestured at myself and then at Shinobu. “I thought that your kind attention to us was payment enough for any service that we – um – might have performed for you.”

There was another growling silence. Hikaru rolled his eyes at me. His blush had faded to leave him tense and pale.

Crap. What did I say? What
didn’t
I say?

Shinobu took a step closer, his large frame unmistakably shielding mine. My hand brushed against his sleeve, and suddenly, regardless of everything else that was happening, I
had
to look at him.

Those endlessly dark eyes were waiting to meet mine. Our gazes connected with an almost physical shock, and the strange connection between us leapt up, alive and dangerous, like the arcs of electricity that danced between the king’s fanned tails. I stopped breathing as I heard Shinobu’s sharp intake of breath.

There you are
, the yearning part of me whispered, deep inside.
I’ve got you. I won’t let go
.

One of Shinobu’s eyebrows quirked expectantly.
You can do this. Go on
.

I made myself start breathing again and reluctantly turned my attention back to the immortal ruler stewing in front of me.
All right, he’s right. I
can
do this. Focus
.

“If the offer of a favour from Your Majesty still stands,” I began, “would it be possible for me to hold it in reserve for now? I wouldn’t want to waste such a – a precious thing by failing to consider it properly.”

Hikaru let out a little sigh, and his tail drooped in what looked like relief. The king inclined his head regally. “A very wise request, Yamato-dono. The Kitsune shall stand ready to serve you.”

Thank God
.

“Now that all matters of business have been discussed, I thought you would wish to return home. We shall summon your other companions from their rest, and a new rupture from my throne to your place of residence in the mortal realm will be readied.”

In other words:
Get lost, humans
. Fine by me.

“Your Majesty is very thoughtful,” I said. “Thank you again.”

The king inclined his head once, stood, and was gone. I blinked. Either he was very, very fast, or he’d just gone invisible. Something to bear in mind for the future…

Then I saw Jack and Rachel heading down the green terraces towards us – and Rachel was walking under her own power, without hanging onto Jack. Long, damp hair fell around her face in thick curls that the world never usually got to see. There was a faint flush in her golden-brown cheeks, and the blank stare from earlier was gone. She looked better than Jack even, since Jack still had a black eye. Relief brought a huge grin to my face. The fox spirits’ medicine and music had done an amazing job.

BOOK: The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden
8.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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