The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (21 page)

The problem was that she had a feeling
.

It had been getting worse for a while now, the weird, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that said,
Something’s Wrong. Something’s Wrong.
She thought she might be sick if she didn’t get hold of Mio again and make sure that nothing bad – well, worse – had happened to any of them
.

Stop freaking out,
she told herself
. Rachel’s safe. Shinobu’s safe. Mio’s safe. They’re all together and they’re working on figuring this out. Everything is going to be OK.

But the sickening feeling kept on getting worse. Jack clutched a pillow to her stomach. Maybe she was just imagining these spooky feelings. Maybe she felt sick because she was going to hurl. That would have been a relief, actually
.

The patient in the bed on her left began to sob softly
.

Somewhere further away – at the other end of the ward – a high-pitched, shrill note rang out. A heart-monitor alarm. A couple of seconds later several sets of footsteps thundered past. Metal rings clattered as someone dragged back the curtains around a bed
.

“Get the crash trolley! Page Doctor Amadine!” a woman shouted
.

Jack squeezed her eyes shut, trying to mentally block out the sounds of the nurses’ attempts to resuscitate the unknown patient. This was the third time someone had flatlined in the last two hours
.

The longing to be out of this place, away from the terrible noises, the stinging smells, bright lights and pastel colours was intense. She wanted to go home. She wanted her own stuff, and Rachel, and her mum. A small, long-denied part of her even wanted her dad. Not that he would care, the bastard. He’d never pick her up in his arms and carry her to her bedroom and tuck her in again, even if he was here, instead of living it up in California with a girlfriend who was only eight years older than Jack. He’d checked out of being a father way before he actually had the guts to pack his stuff and leave. And she didn’t care
.

She didn’t
.

She didn’t…

She could imagine herself back in own room and her own bed, with her skull duvet and Mr Ringo the stuffed lemur waiting for her. The thought made tears prickle in her eyes
. Am I delirious?

She reached up to brush the tears away—

A small hand snapped closed over her wrist. Jack opened her eyes to stare incredulously at…

“Rach? What are you … doing here? What…?” Jack’s voice trailed off as she took in her sister’s appearance
.

Rachel stood motionless in the gap between the curtains, her face as blank and expressionless as a wax doll’s. Her hair was … different. Black and stringy. Wormlike. Was it – was it moving? It seemed to shift and curl as if it had a life of its own. Her eyes were closed. Dark, veinlike marks spiralled out from the delicate skin of her eyelids, giving her face a sick, bruised look
.

The small hand tightened on Jack’s wrist. “Ow! Rachel!”

Rachel’s eyes opened
.

They were black. Absolute black. No visible pupil, no whites, nothing. The eyes of a shark. Or something worse
.

Jack could feel the blood draining out of her face. Her head spun. Now she really did feel like she was going to hurl
. Shit, shit, shit.

“Rachel Elizabeth Luci,” she said, voice trembling. “You … you stop it with this
Exorcist crap
… right now or I swear to God … I will tell Mum.”

Rachel slithered forward, her movements boneless and yet somehow awkward, as if she wasn’t at home in her body. Her mouth gaped open and stayed open, unmoving, as a thin, plaintive voice echoed from inside her throat. “Don’t scream.”

That isn’t Rachel.

Jack gritted her teeth. “I’m not screaming.”

“So frightened. Poor little birdies, flutter flutter – crunch. They always scream.”

“Hey!
I’m not screaming.
Now let go … of my arm.”

There was a long pause. Rachel’s mouth stayed open, her eyes remained wide and unblinking. A tiny frown creased her brow. “You are … not afraid?”

Actually I’m about three seconds away from peeing my pants, but I’m effed if I’ll admit that to you.
“Are you kidding? I’ve seen … scarier shit than this … in the Harry Potter films.”

Rachel’s fingers slowly uncurled from their painful hold on Jack’s wrist. Jack wrenched her arm away and cradled it protectively against her chest, feeling the deep throbbing in her skin that meant she was going to have bruises. More bruises
.

Rachel’s head tilted slowly sideways, the black eyes still staring, her mouth still gaping open
.

Jack’s eyes flicked to the curtains. They felt like a barrier, but they really weren’t. She could fall off this bed and roll and two seconds later she’d be out in the ward in public, screaming her head off, surrounded by people
.

But Rachel would still be here. And that thing, whatever it was, would still be … possessing her. How had this happened? She was supposed to be with Mio. She was supposed to be safe! “Who – no,
what … are you? What do you want?”

“Ah … you don’t know.” The voice trailed off into a ringing, unnerving laugh
.

A shiver shuddered down Jack’s spine. It showed in her voice when she spoke. “Obviously not … so why don’t you … tell me?”

“Your friend knows. The little one – not so little any more – such an angry little birdie. She’s stronger than she looks. She might survive all of us. Or … maybe not.” The strange laugh trilled out again
.

Jack could feel her face scrunching up. “Mio? You’re talking … about Mio?”

“I tried to talk to her again. I can almost touch her now. She’s warm. You are all so warm, and I have been cold for so long. But I cannot reach her mind just now. I need her to know. Things. Things about my beloved, my captor, my king. He tells everyone lies about me… I want her to know the truth. I want her to know why I need the grass-cutting blade. It is the only thing that can free me.”

The sad little voice trailed off and Jack felt a weird stirring of pity
.

“So – you came into … Rachel’s body to tell me that so I can tell Mio?”

“Yes. This one, this body, you see … my servant supped upon it. Now she is open to me. So useful.”

My servant…?

Oh my God. The Nekomata.

Pity dissolved in a surge of horror, and then both of those were eaten by fury. Jack’s hands curled into claws and she tried to lunge forward across the bed. Her body flopped weakly, legs caught up in the covers. She thrashed, her own heartbeat deafening her
.

“Get out of her,” she panted. “Get out … of my sister! You’ve no right! Get out, get OUT!”

Pain ripped down Jack’s aching neck like a hot wire. She tried to scream again, but she couldn’t get enough breath. Her heart felt as if it had swelled up in her chest, pressing into her ribs, crushing her lungs. Dimly she heard the sound of the heart monitor beside the bed going crazy
.

I have to calm down,
she realized
. I have to stop. I have to lie still.

But her legs wouldn’t stop kicking. Convulsing. Her whole body was shaking now. She tasted blood as her teeth gouged into her tongue. Her head snapped back so hard that white sparks flew across her vision. Then everything went dark
.

Thrashing wings engulfed us in shadow, blasting the vile stink of burning hair and decay down onto us. I squeezed my watering eyes shut and tried not to retch as the Shikome’s vicious, yellowing talons ripped through the air above where Shinobu and I lay.

The Foul Woman shrieked. The momentum of its dive shot it over the edge of the roof.

I flipped to my feet, swiping a forearm over tear-filled eyes. My hand flew back to my sword hilt, then checked. Conflicting instincts screamed at me: protect the blade, hide it, draw it, kill with it. It was the only weapon I had, yet the thought of using it scared me for so many good reasons, especially after what Mr Leech had told us. But Shinobu was on his feet next to me now, both blades bared. I couldn’t let him fight alone.

I gripped the katana’s hilt, preparing to draw it as the first Shikome circled.

A second monster dropped out of the sky right on top of me. Shinobu shoved me aside and struck in a whirl of silver and black, opening a long cut on the Foul Woman’s flank. This one moved fast. Its flailing talons rent open the arm of his leather coat. Livid red sprayed out, splattering over the ground. Shinobu made a muffled noise of pain and dropped his wakizashi. He drove the Shikome back with a vicious jab of his katana. It shot up in the air with a squawk.

Then the first one was on me again. I ducked beneath the wild slash of its claws without even trying to engage. My eyes were riveted on Shinobu. He had ended up a few metres away, with his back pressed to an air vent. One hand clutched the wound on his shoulder. Blood bubbled up through his fingers.

The first Foul Woman dived at me again, coming in even lower than before. Its feet gouged the roof. Chunks of the concrete surface flew up in two huge lines as the monster headed right for me. I flung myself sideways, skidded, and banged to a halt against the air vent next to Shinobu. The Foul Woman skimmed over the edge of the roof, dropped and then gained altitude again, flapping mightily as it joined its wounded sister hovering above us.

“Shinobu, you’re bleeding so much,” I panted. “Can you tell how bad it is?”

His face was ghastly white and stark with pain. “Bad. I need a bandage—”

One of the Foul Women swooped over the vent where we were crouched. We both ducked as the monster’s back paws hit the metal with a deep, gong-like sound. The top of the vent buckled. Amber liquid – the monster’s blood – spurted down over us. It flapped back into the air, squalling.

“At least they are not as clever as the Nekomata,” Shinobu said grimly.

I stripped the katana’s harness and the fleece off quickly, wrestled Jack’s white T-shirt over my head, then pulled the other things haphazardly back on. Shinobu was trying to draw the leather coat down over his arm to get at the injury. I helped him, grabbing the edges of the torn leather and yanking them apart to give us room to work.

My breath stuttered out in panic when I saw the jagged gash that gaped in his flesh. Something yellowish had been exposed – bone or muscle, I wasn’t sure – and the blood was still gushing out around it. It wasn’t healing. It wasn’t closing up. I tore Jack’s T-shirt in half, and on Shinobu’s orders, I bound the wound painfully tight, desperately trying to stop the flow of blood. Shinobu’s clenched jaw and his suppressed grunt of agony made me bite my lip. The first strip of fabric was soaked before I even managed to bind the other half over the top, and I could still see new blood trickling down his fingers. Why wasn’t it getting better? Had something changed? Oh God, what if he had to actually die before his healing ability kicked in? We’d never tested it.

We had to get away from this rooftop, away from the Foul Women. Right now. But how was I supposed to fight monsters that could fly?

I need to fly too
.

In that final fight with the Nekomata, it had literally picked me up off my feet and thrown me at a wall, expecting me to be smashed to a pulp. Instead, with the sword’s help, I had bounced off the bricks – and then … then I had
flown
back at it and killed it, powered by sheer rage and the katana’s energy. It could be done.

The pool of blood under Shinobu’s hand was still spreading. It was frighteningly dark. Arterial blood.

The Shikome were stupid. They swooped down one after the other and then circled for height. It was a repeating pattern – and it had an opening. A weakness.

But for me to use it, I would have to draw the blade. I would need to call its first true name.

I had no other plan, no other ideas. I just had to pray that I would be strong enough to resist the sword, at least long enough to get us to safety.

I eased myself into a runner’s starting position, bracing my free hand on the roof.

“What are you doing?” Shinobu demanded, his voice slurring.

“Getting us off here,” I said, my eyes on the Foul Women.
One … two…
“Just stay down.”

Three
.

The Foul Women skimmed over opposite edges of the roof, and for a moment both of them were too far away to be a threat.

I pushed up and ran, shooting across the roof straight at an air vent on the opposite side. At the last minute I jumped, bounced off the vent with both feet and then went airborne, ripping the sword from its saya as I flew.

I hadn’t realized until then how truly strong I had become. The power of my leg muscles propelled me up into the sky, my body carving through the air like a knife. The returning Shikome scattered around me in birdbrained panic, shrieking. For a split second I felt completely weightless.

Then gravity tugged on me. I felt myself begin to drop. “
Shinobu!
Help!”