The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (10 page)

I managed to squeeze out a few cheerfully untruthful lines about what was going on here in London. I told her I missed her, but resisted getting too mushy. Even the best parents know that’s a sign they need to get suspicious. When I’d closed the email with a few kisses, I decided I’d deal with the second message from her later. I didn’t have any more generic perkiness in me right then.

What I really wanted to do next was combat my sense of helplessness by fetching my laptop and Googling “Shikome/Foul Women”, “Systemic anaphylaxis – treatments” and anything else that might possibly offer us an idea about how to help Jack. But realistically, I knew it would be a waste of my time. Wiki wasn’t designed for this sort of scenario. And Rachel was right; we needed to be grown-ups and feed ourselves. I was shaky, headachey and a bit dizzy already, and none of that was going to improve if I refused to eat. Then maybe we could have some sort of a brainstorming session or something…

I dialled the nearest takeaway place, and ran into a brick wall. A recorded message said they were closed for the foreseeable future due to the current health crisis. The next nearest takeaway didn’t even pick up. Tucking the katana under my arm, I went into the kitchen – aware of Shinobu silently shadowing me – to try the menus pinned to the cork-board on the wall.

No answer. Recorded message. Recorded message. Number out of service.

I dropped the phone onto the breakfast bar and rubbed my forehead tiredly.

“Is there a problem?” Shinobu asked, still in that careful tone.

“Not really. Just … things must be worse out there than I thought. Everywhere’s closed. I can make us something.”

I put the katana carefully down on the edge of the worktop. It glowed against the plain wood surface like a black star.
Like Shinobu’s eyes when he’s angry…
I shook that thought off and made a shooing gesture in his direction. “Go and sit down in the living room.”

“You look tired.” It was a statement, not a question, but I wasn’t fooled. I could hear the unspoken questions – the same ones he was always asking – jostling under the surface.
How are you coping? Are you all right? How do you feel? What will you do next?

Involuntarily my nails began to beat out a rapid tattoo on the counter. I knew he wasn’t the cause of my frustration and anxiety, but … I was the one who’d been tossed around like a rag doll in that hospital ward. I was the one who was trying to figure out the sword’s influence on me. I was the one hanging in there, waiting for some sign of his feelings that he apparently couldn’t be bothered to give. I had enough problems. Why was I constantly having to tiptoe around reassuring him that I was fine?

What if I wasn’t fine, dammit?

“Mio,” he said heavily, reclaiming my attention. “We need to talk.”

Apprehension tingled through me. I made myself turn to face him. “Well, that sounds like fun.”

My sarcasm bounced off without leaving a dent. “Earlier today – before Jack-san was attacked – I meant to speak then, but I did not have the chance.”

Earlier today when I told you that I loved you?
I took a slightly shaky breath. “Yes?”

“I can sense that something has changed.”

I nodded. “OK.”

“Things have altered between you and the sword. You said that the compulsion is growing stronger, but I think it is more than that. I am right, am I not?”

It was like stepping into what you thought was a warm shower – and being drenched with ice water instead. I let out a choked, incredulous laugh. “That’s what you want to talk about?”

“Please,” he said gravely. “Tell me how you defeated the Nekomata alone. Tell me what happened to you after I … when I fell.”

The scaffolding pole broke through his chest, blood gushing up like a red flower…

The green blade flashes down in the red light—

I flinched, then sighed. “Nothing. Nothing really … happened. We fought. I won.”

His eyes were fixed on me like lasers. I could almost feel the burn on my skin. “I do not believe that is all.”

I drummed my nails on the countertop again. “I don’t know exactly. After … after I saw you go down, I got angry. Very angry. And I screamed your name, but I think the sword took it as an invitation because it spoke to me again, but it didn’t …
do
anything. I mean, it didn’t blast the Nekomata into smithereens or open a wormhole and suck it into space. The blade caught flame, and I suppose it probably boosted my strength and speed again, but … I had to use what Ojiichan taught me. I had to do my own fighting. Then after I’d killed the demon, the sword tried to talk to me about making some kind of deal and I told it to piss off and shoved it into the saya. And I haven’t taken it out since. Even though I really, really, really want to.” I stopped abruptly, breathing hard, and looked him in the face for the first time since I’d started talking.

He was staring at me with horror. “You communicated with the blade? You … made some kind of – of
bond
with it? Why did you not tell me?”

“Why would I?” I asked defensively. “Look, it’s not like there’s anything you can do about it. I messed up, I get it. I let the sword in somehow. I didn’t mean to. What more do you want?”

“I want you to talk to me!” he snapped. “Tell me what is happening and how it affects you! This is important. I had a right to know!” He slapped one hand down flat on the counter. It made a sound like a gunshot. The katana rattled.

I jumped in surprise and reached out to put my hand over the hilt before it could fall off onto the floor. As my fingers closed around the silk wrappings, I felt the angry thrum of the sword’s power and suddenly my own temper ignited.

“What. The. Hell?” I snarled. “You have the
right to know
? You don’t have the
right
to know anything about me. It’s not like I know everything about you! You don’t get to decide what I should and shouldn’t do because you’ve appointed yourself my bodyguard. I don’t belong to you! I don’t owe you anything. If I wanted this kind of crap, I could have phoned my damned father.”

The look of surprise and – yes – hurt on his face was oddly satisfying. “That is not what I—”

“No, you’ve said enough. Get out of my face. Go away. I don’t want to look at you right now.” He hesitated and it was the last straw. “GET. OUT.”

Without another word he turned on his heel and stalked back into the living room. I put the sword back down onto the counter, ripped the fridge open and furiously started grabbing the ingredients for sandwiches, which was what I had intended to do before Shinobu came in and started throwing his weight around.

Seriously? Seriously, he was going to take that attitude with me? I slammed a plate down and started buttering bread with a fury.
I’m supposed to tell him everything when he tells me nothing? He can’t even bring himself to tell me that he
likes
me!

Maybe he didn’t like me. He’d never said that. Ever. All he’d ever said was that I was important to him because I was the one thing he had when he was trapped in the sword. He might still be in love with
her
, for all I knew. I sliced a sandwich in half with a vicious movement. The knife skittered over the chopping board.

Maybe he’s just … clinging to me now that he’s out. The way that someone who’s drowning will cling to any old chunk of wood that floats past in the sea. The way a man lost in darkness will cling to his last candle
.

The way a boy who lost his entire family in a single moment might desperately fight to protect the one person he has left…

Shit.

How could I have forgotten that? How – Jesus,
how
– could I have completely ignored the fact that for Shinobu, it was only yesterday that his world disappeared forever? It was barely an eyeblink since he died protecting them, and he knew he would never see them again. Never get to say goodbye. He was completely adrift in a different time, in an alien world … and I was all he had.

He was scared it would happen again. The fact that he had lost his last girlfriend would just make that even worse. If I had gone through what Shinobu had, I would be a psychotic mess. But Shinobu wasn’t. He wasn’t even that overprotective. He’d never tried to stop me from fighting. He just wanted me to be honest with him.

And I’d turned round and annihilated him for it.

Oh God. Oh God, what did I just do?

I dumped the butter knife in the sink, grabbed the sword and rushed into the living room.

Shinobu was standing with his back to me, staring out of one of the living-room windows into the street. His hair hung over one shoulder, leaving the line of his spine looking exposed and somehow … vulnerable. One hand was knotted into a tight fist on the wall above his head. He was utterly motionless. Like a rock.

The sight was horribly familiar. He’d gone like this once before. Only yesterday, actually, after I’d accidentally reminded him of everything he’d lost. He’d sort of curled into himself, curled around the pain, frozen as if one unwary movement might shatter him. And now I’d done it again, but this time it wasn’t just an ignorant mistake. I’d deliberately hurt him.

That time I’d left him alone. I’d walked away and left him to deal with his feelings by himself.

Well, not this time.

I swallowed hard, and slowly, slowly bent over to place the katana on the sofa. My fingers spasmed and twitched, fighting me as I forced them to release the warm, gleaming lacquer of the saya. It took a lot of effort to straighten up again and leave the sword there. I was shaking as I walked across the room to stand behind Shinobu, but I forced myself to ignore the need to turn back. This was about Shinobu now, and I had to focus on him.

He gave no sign that he had heard me come into the room or approach him. Slowly – even more slowly than I’d moved when I put the katana down – I reached out and put my arms around Shinobu’s narrow waist, leaning into the warm, dense muscles of his back. I pressed my lips between his shoulder blades, resting my palms flat on his chest. The warm pines-and-smoke scent of his hair and skin met my nose.

Immediately I felt the nearness of him affect me. My heart pounded harder than it did when I thought the Shikome might be lying in wait for me. I couldn’t get control of my breath. I rested my forehead against his shoulder and squeezed my eyes shut against the heat of tears. But at the same time, I could feel a terrible, cold tension easing out of me. Like I had come home. Like I was where I was supposed to be, and I was safe.

Shinobu always made me feel safe, even when my feelings for him scared the crap out of me.

At first it was as if he didn’t even notice me embracing him. Maybe he’d gone somewhere so far away that he really didn’t. I just held on, tight, pressing myself into the hard planes of his body in wordless apology.

Come back. Come back to me. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go
.

I won’t let go
.

I felt a little shudder go through him – a ragged breath dragged into his chest. His hand unclenched and dropped from the wall to his side. And then it lifted to touch mine; a tentative caress of his fingers across my knuckles that became more confident when I didn’t move away. He laced our fingers together, his big hand cradling my smaller one.

“You have it completely wrong,” he said finally, his voice so quiet that I could barely hear it. “I do not … I have never felt that you belong to me.”

My heart throbbed like a wound. “Why not?”

“Because it is the other way around. I am yours. Completely.” He stopped, sucked in another uneven breath. “You own all of me. Forever, for as long as you live. And as long as I may stay by your side, I will have all that I need. Everything that I need.”

And I had wanted some pat twenty-first century declaration of love?

The tears spilled over and I turned my face to the side so that they wouldn’t soak through his T-shirt and give me away. Something tipped him off, though. He turned suddenly and took my face in his hands. His thumbs stroked the tracks of moisture away.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I said all that to you. I was wrong.” My voice trembled and broke, but I forced myself to meet his eyes.

They were dark and very serious, and full of silvery grey shapes like clouds. But his lips quirked up on one side into a crooked smile. “Not completely wrong. I had no right to shout and demand answers, and for that I am sorry too.” He stopped, and I knew he was waiting.

I sighed, a long painful exhalation. “The katana wants something from me. I don’t know what, not really. It said ‘freedom’, but … what does that mean to a sword? It can’t get at me while it’s in the saya, but I can still sense its energy. Pushing at me. Pushing constantly, trying to get in. When I fight with it, I hear it in my mind, talking to me, trying to influence me. And when I say its true name … that’s when things get really scary because I’m not always sure what thoughts, what feelings, are mine and which are…”

My voice trailed off as I remembered touching the sword, its grip, at the exact second that I had flown off the handle just now. But the blade had been sheathed. And I had already been annoyed and touchy. It couldn’t influence me that much through the saya. It… I … I couldn’t face that possibility.

Shinobu drew me closer, pressing his forehead against mine. “We must find out how to break the compulsion and free you, before it damages you in some way that is irreparable.”

“I can’t waste time on that. No, listen, Shinobu – I’m as desperate to be rid of the sword and the compulsion as you are to have me rid of them, believe me. But everything I said to Rachel before still stands. Helping Jack and getting rid of the Shikome is more urgent than anything else. And we need the sword to do that.”

His arms were almost crushing me. I felt his lips against my hair. His voice shook when he spoke. “Then fight it, Mio. You must fight it with everything you have.”

“I will,” I promised, even as the deep pull of need was already drawing me back to the place where the sword rested on the sofa.

“Euw. God save me from lovey-dovey teenagers,” Rachel said from the doorway. I hadn’t even realized she was there.