The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (16 page)

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

The green blade flashes down in the red light—

Don’t let go!

I exhaled, forcing myself to stand still, to resist the urge to stalk out of the room after Rachel. Slowly, with a great effort of will, I reached up and pushed the katana back into the saya on my back.

The moment the blade rested in the saya, I felt my emotions settle under my control once more, and my mind clear.
It’s getting stronger. It’s getting worse. Oh God
.

Don’t think about it now. You can’t break down now. Focus on Rachel and Jack
.

Focus on what you have to do
.

“You’re wrong,” I told Shinobu finally. “Letting go isn’t the answer. If this being on Museum Street is so ancient and wise, he can tell me how to save Rachel as well as Jack. Because I’m not abandoning her. Not again.”

She ran. She didn’t know where she was going – didn’t dare stop long enough to look, or even to try to recognize the buildings that wheeled dizzily past her eyes. Some panicked remnant of common sense led her into the shadows. She scuttled down alleyways, hid behind rubbish bins, and ran – always ran – from the sight or sound of people. She muffled her painful, gulping sobs with both hands over her mouth, terrified of what would happen if someone heard. If someone saw. If someone tried to help
.

There was no help
.

She would never, ever forget Mio’s face. Covered in blood – covered in claw marks – eyes huge and dark with fear. Not fear of Rachel
.

Fear
for
her
.

Mio could have killed her at any moment. Rachel knew that. She’d seen Mio fight. But Mio had only wanted to help Rachel. She’d let Rachel hurt her without even trying to defend herself. And Rachel had nearly killed her for it. She had
wanted
to
.

Kill. Slash. Rend.
BITE
.

“No,” she whimpered, and kept running
.

The urge to keep going, to get far, far away from home, from anyone she cared about, drummed in her blood, echoed in every heartbeat. She focused everything she had on it. It was all she had left
.

She found herself on scrubland. Some abandoned building site, the chain-link fence half-fallen down into the litter of rubble from demolished houses. Everything was covered in nettles and ivy. Instinctively she headed for the shelter of a tumbledown corrugated iron shed. Graffiti was sprayed over the walls like blood. Inside it was crawling damp, and the floor was heaped with old fag ends, crumpled beer cans and broken bits of drug gear. It stank of vomit and urine
.

It was safe
.

She huddled in one corner with her arms wrapped around her body, rocking gently
. Don’t go back. Don’t ever go back. Stay away. Don’t go back.

Her gums itched fiercely. So did her hands and face. Shudders ripped down her back. It felt as if her flesh was squirming, as if something was … was bubbling up underneath. Trying to shed her humanity the way a snake does its old skin
.

Hunt. Bite. Drink…

No!

“Hey, bitch! What you doing in here?”

The voice was young, male and aggressive. The kind of voice that would have made her breathless with anxiety – would have made her hurry away without looking back – on any normal day. Now she curled into a tighter ball and dug her burning fingers into her upper arms
.

“I’m talking to you! This is my place – get your ass out now.”

An eerie laugh, high-pitched and hiccuping, leaked out of her lips. “Go away.”

“What did you say?” The voice cracked with surprise and indignation, revealing the speaker’s youth. “You’re gonna regret laughing at me, bitch. You just made the worst mistake of your life. I’m gonna cut you up.”

She raised her head. A boy, no older than fifteen, stood against the light. She got a vague impression of a pasty, belligerent face, and knock-off gangsta gear. He clutched a tiny flick-knife in one hand. The other hand was hanging onto his baggy trousers. They looked like they might fall down any minute
.

But it wasn’t his looks that interested her. It was the smell. The rich, delicious smell that flooded her nostrils, like no flavour she’d ever experienced before. It was irresistible and beckoned her, forcing her out of her miserable huddle into a tense, ready crouch. The scent of anger. Fear. Human blood
.

Drink…

The laugh that spilled out of her this time was different. It was deep and gloating. It was the laughter that had haunted her nightmares. The Nekomata’s laughter. The boy’s expression twisted with terror as he caught sight of her properly for the first time
.

Strike. Claw. Bite
.

The itching in her fingers sharpened into a fierce, satisfying burn as black claws unsheathed themselves. She scraped the air, stretching her hands out luxuriously
.

His knife trembled in the air. “What – what—?”

“Hmmm…” she purred, bouncing on her toes. “What if I cut you up instead?”

The boy let out a choked squawk. The knife hit the concrete with a tiny ping. He turned and fled
.

Chase. Tear. BITE
.

CHAPTER 11

I
fetched the kitchen first-aid kit from under the sink, and Shinobu quickly sponged the drying blood off my face and neck. He applied antiseptic and then a pad of gauze and some tape. The dressing covered most of my cheek. Even so, it had to be less eye-catching than the trio of deep claw marks Rachel had left, slashing across my face. They stung like mad, a constant reminder of the torment Jack’s sister had to be feeling right now. There was no time for a hospital visit, stitches, or any other fussing. I just had to hope I wouldn’t scar permanently.

The top the Kitsune had given me – God, was it only the day before? – was soaked with blood over the whole left arm and shoulder. There was no way I could wear it out of the house, but I didn’t have anything else. I already knew that none of my old clothes was going to fit me. Mum’s things had been too small since I was twelve, and my dad’s were way too big.

The only wardrobe I could realistically raid was Jack’s.

I rummaged in the key drawer and found Dad’s keys to the old servants’ staircase, as well as his spare keys to the flat. Silently, Shinobu and I headed up the stairs. I didn’t bother trying to tell him that he didn’t have to come with me. It wouldn’t do any good. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this on my own.

Jack’s room was in chaos. The duvet had been ripped off the bed and flung into a corner. The huge pile of books and magazines that had reached nearly halfway up the wall had either fallen or been pushed over and was scattered all across the floor. Random objects had been tossed everywhere. Books, DVDs, old cuddly toys. One of Jack’s karate trophies had left a big black dent in the purple wall and then broken into three pieces on the carpet.

A stuffed toy – a grizzled, grey animal with a long stripy tail and a missing ear – sat in the centre of the pillow on the bed, leaning against the headboard.

“Ringo the Ringtail,” I whispered, recognizing him.

I was looking at the panic and fear Jack had felt after we realized the Nekomata had taken her sister.

“Are you all right?” Shinobu asked.

I jerked my head at him – not sure if I was trying to nod or shake. Jack didn’t even know what was happening to Rachel. She had no idea. She was lying in a horrible hospital bed, alone, waiting for me to save her. Waiting for her best friend and her big sister to come back, any minute, and fix all this. And Rachel? She was alone too, lost and afraid, traumatized and changing and out of control. I’d failed so badly. Failed them both, lost them both.

It might already be too late for Rachel. And I didn’t know how much time Jack had…

A large, warm hand came to rest on my back, between my shoulder blades. Shinobu didn’t speak, or ask me if I was all right again. He just waited: a calm, reassuring presence, demanding nothing, there if I needed him. I forced myself to breathe calmly, waiting for the wave of emotions to pass over me. After another moment, I nodded. “I’m OK. I just want to get this over with.”

The massive wardrobe, decorated with stickers and posters of Jack’s favourite bands, stood in the corner. I went to it and opened both the doors – then stepped back in amazement.

It was like something out of a fashion spread. Footwear was aligned in two perfectly straight lines along the bottom of the wardrobe, with boots at the back and shoes at the front. Each pair was polished and had a pair of socks folded up in the left shoe or boot. Above the shoes, Jack’s clothes were hung up on fancy padded hangers, organized by colour going from black through grey, white, pale pink, dark pink, purple and then blue. One quarter of the wardrobe was taken up with closet shelves, where every item, from T-shirts to jeans to scarves, was folded into a perfect geometric square that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve with two helpers, a ruler, and sticky tape.

I turned my head and looked at the chaos of the room. Then I looked back at the wardrobe.

No wonder she never let me see inside before
.

“Jack, you big fat fake.” I let out a laugh that was half sob. “Look at this. Look! She’s the worst neat freak of them all, and I never even knew. I never even knew…”

Trying not to mess anything up too much, I searched through the neat piles of T-shirts until I found what seemed to be a plain, scoop-necked white top with short sleeves. I pulled it out, but when I unfolded it, there turned out to be a tattoo-style design on the front: a skull sitting on a bed of gleaming emeralds, with a green snake poking out of one eyehole. In Gothic lettering underneath, it read
WELCOME TO MALFOY MANOR
.

Typical Jack
, I thought, hugging the shirt to my chest for a second.
Pretending to be cool Slytherin when she’s actually swotty Ravenclaw through and through
.

I found a long-sleeved black T-shirt and sent Shinobu out so that I could put it on with the white one over the top. Then I finished the outfit off with a loosely fitting dark purple hooded fleece, which hid the katana and its harness as well as anything could. There were tiny vampire bats on the lining of the hood, but otherwise it was about as regulation as Jack got. I checked myself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door.

Well, I was clean. But that was about the only positive. Even fully zipped up, the fleece only partially concealed the necklace of darkening bruises around my throat. Another, older bruise on my jaw was vivid blue-black, while the scratches I’d picked up over my right eyebrow were red and ugly. Shinobu’s white gauze bandage finished the picture of a girl who had been in some kind of horrible accident. How could anyone safely blend in looking like this? I sighed, poking at the gauze.

The katana pulsed suddenly. A wave of heat undulated up my spine, snapping my back ramrod straight. The heat intensified, rippling out through my body to shoot down into my arms and legs. When it reached my face, it seemed to explode, sparks tingling as they travelled across my skin to all the places where I was hurt. I gasped.

The bruises, the scratches, every sign of trauma, had disappeared. Nothing ached, stung or throbbed. For a few heartbeats, as I gaped at the mirror, I saw – I was – a Mio who was completely healed. I saw the Mio I had known before all this began.

Unscarred. Innocent.

Normal.

I clapped my hands to my face – and felt the healing cuts and grazes protest. Instantly the pain of my injuries fell back on me. It was like being caught in a cascade of bricks. I had to lean on the wardrobe door again to stay upright; everything seemed to hurt twice as badly as it had before that second or two of release.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that the image of a perfect me was gone. Gone as if she had never existed.

A hallucination?

An invitation?

The katana hummed. I could feel its energy pushing at me, trying to get into my mind. I shivered, straightening up despite the stiffness and aches.

It doesn’t matter if you were … tempting me or – or punishing me. I don’t trust you. I won’t make any deals with you. If I have to use you, it will be on my terms. You don’t control me
.

You don’t own me
.

I turned away abruptly from the mirror and pushed the bedroom door open. Shinobu frowned when he saw my expression.

“What—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s go.”

He lifted his eyebrows at me, but didn’t argue.

A few minutes later we headed out of the front door, stopping briefly to cautiously check for signs of anything hinky before we stepped over the threshold. The sky was a blinding bright white, the thick high clouds like an opaque paper cone thrown over the city. An icy wind whistled down the street, abrading my exposed skin without disturbing the menacing sense of stillness that lay over everything. But it seemed the Shikome, however many of them there were out there, were still searching for us elsewhere. I turned to lock the door behind us, trying to ignore the uneasy itch on the back of my neck.

“All these tall buildings worry me,” Shinobu said from the step below. “The Foul Women could be anywhere. We must be very alert. And walk quickly.”

We had already agreed that we had to walk it. The bus or Tube would take us miles out of our way and we couldn’t afford to lose any more time.

Shinobu had both his blades at his waist again, and he had buttoned my dad’s long coat up over the top to hide them. In the black leather, with his hair severely braided back and his eyes sharply scanning the sky, he practically shouted
Armed and Dangerous
. I was very much hoping that, at least for today, his invisibility still held.

I clung to the shelter of the doorway for another breath before turning away to march down the steps onto the street. Shinobu fell into step behind me, placing himself slightly to my right. I guessed that was so he wouldn’t get in the way of my blade if I needed to draw it. Which made me feel incredibly conspicuous. I’d walked around London all my life without ever catching, well,
anyone’s
attention. Up until a few days ago I was just Mio Yamato. An average schoolgirl with a cute, honest face. Patently harmless. The kind of girl that little old ladies stopped in the street to ask for directions. I’d never been in a real fight. I thought of myself, carried myself, like a non-combatant.