The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (22 page)

Happy to oblige
, the sword’s metallic, inhuman voice whispered in my mind.

In my hand, the katana burst into vaporous, prismatic flames.

My muscles shuddered as the sword’s power hit them and I let out a wild yip, not sure if it was pain or joy. Strength surged through me like a bomb detonating.

One of the Foul Women got over its shock and careened towards me. It slashed at me with one massive paw. I sliced its wrist open and kicked it straight in the gut. The momentum of the kick sent me flipping back – my body spun into a dizzy, cartwheel, three hundred and sixty degrees around the creature’s body. I reached out wildly and grabbed a handful of hair. A second later I thudded to a stop against its back, between the stinking, chittering arches of its wings. The monster went mad, clawing at its own shoulders as it tried to reach me. I anchored my foot in the small of its back, dragged the head up, and cut its throat in one swift movement.

Isn’t this fun?
the sword murmured softly.
You and me together?

I was laughing uncontrollably. “Yes! More!”

The monster thrashed, its gurgling sounds mixing with the hyena cackle of my laugher. It plummeted downward. I launched myself off the dying Foul Woman’s shoulders, white flames still enveloping me and finally felt myself begin to drop, hurtling towards the concrete.

“Can I survive the fall?” I asked the katana.

You can survive anything, my lovely child, so long as you have me…

Shinobu’s arms snatched me from the air, whirling me around. The white energy crackled around us both, exploring him eagerly. I pushed away without looking at him, skipping around the body of the fallen monster as I searched the sky for any sign of the remaining Shikome.

“Where are you? Come out, come o–out!” I sang. My voice was strangely distorted, silvery and metallic in my own ears. That only made me laugh more.

The second Foul Woman rose over the edge of the roof. It was the one Shinobu had wounded. Its vile smell slapped me in the face, and I grimaced, lifting the burning katana. “Come on, then! Let’s see what you can do!” I waggled the blade enticingly. “Don’t you want this? Here, birdie, birdie!”

The creature wheeled in the air, flapping away from me like its tail feathers were on fire.

“Aw…” I said. “So boooring.”

Shinobu caught my free hand and began tugging at me, trying to get me to follow him. I yanked my hand away.

“Come on!” he said urgently.

“What’s the hurry? We won!” I laughed again, prodding the giant clawed foot of the dead Shikome. It flopped sideways, which struck me as hilarious. I kicked it again, and again, making the stupid ugly monster dance there on the concrete. Something snapped loudly – a bone giving way under the force of my stamping boot. I let out a joyous cackle. God, it was so much
fun
to break things!

I wonder what they look like inside
, the sword whispered.
Want to cut it open and find out?

Yes. Yes, I did. Hack it up, pull it to pieces, shred it apart… I raised the sword. Shinobu swore under his breath. He grabbed my face and peered into my eyes. Then he reached over my shoulder with one hand and fumbled with the harness, pulling the gleaming black-and-gold saya out.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I jerked away hard enough to send me into a little spin. The world whirled around me and I felt a strange pang of alarm, as if something inside me was … afraid?

You never need fear anything, as long as you have me
, the katana promised.

Yes, that was right. I stretched out my arms, almost purring under the loving stroke of the blade’s energy. That was right. No fear. No worry. No past or future. Only the sword. Only my beautiful sword…

“Sheathe the blade,” Shinobu commanded, his voice rudely breaking into my train of thought.

“What? Why?” I whined. “I don’t want to.”

“Just do it.”

“No!” I danced back as he stepped purposefully towards me, the saya in his left hand. “Why are you ruining everything?”

He is jealous. He wants me for himself. He will take me away from you. The sword’s warning sent a shiver of horror through me.

“Get back,” I snapped, bringing the blade up. I pointed my weapon at the boy holding the saya, warding him off as the beautiful flames danced along the shining edge of the metal.
Mine, mine, all mine
. I would kill anyone who tried to take it away—

“Mio. Look at me. It is me.”

Don’t listen to him. Stand firm, my lovely one. I will protect you.

“I know who you are,” I mumbled. “I know what you’re after. Stop it. You – just get away from me—”

Shinobu stepped forward again. This time I refused to step back. Suddenly the very tip of the blade was dancing a hair’s-breadth from his throat. Shinobu stood perfectly still, his eyes riveted on my face, arms opened wide as if to embrace me.

“My love,” he whispered. “Sheathe the blade. Please.”

I could feel the katana pulling me forward, yearning for the sweet moment when it would meet flesh and pierce it—

Yes. Yes. We can be free, just you and me…

NO!

The internal voice was so loud that my whole body jerked. My arm was suddenly moving, whipping the blade away from Shinobu. My fingers flew open, letting the sword clatter to the ground. Shinobu dived after it and seized the hilt, slamming the flaring, sparking blade back into the saya.

The instant that the guard clicked against the koiguchi – the scabbard mouth – my body went cold. I staggered. Shinobu caught me before I went down, and I clung to him, burrowing into the warmth of him as he held me up. I let out a muffled sob.

“Shit,” I whispered. “Shinobu, I – I didn’t…”

“I know,” he said, stroking my head with a hand that shook. “You didn’t know me. I hardly knew you…”

“It was worse than last time. I didn’t even realize what was happening. It – it unmade me.”

It hadn’t been like being drunk. Or even like the time I sat next to that guy at a party who turned out to be smoking a spliff, and I accidentally got high. No matter how trashed you got, and how stupid or dizzy or sick or angry it made you act, you were still
you
. The katana had literally made me into someone – something – else. It had tried to make me into what it was.

It was so inhuman. So cold. So utterly ruthless. The sword didn’t want to heal or help anyone or any living thing. It would never do anything but destroy and ruin if it had the choice. That was why it had made me stronger and faster; not to protect me, but to make me a better tool. A better weapon for
it
to wield.

I shuddered against Shinobu and he squeezed me so tightly that for a second I couldn’t breathe. Then he drew back, picking the sword up from where he had dropped it at our feet. The need to wrench the katana away from him flared inside me. I squashed it, even though the effort made me shake more than ever. He put the weapon back in its harness between my shoulders.

“We do not have much time,” he said. “That thing will lead every Foul Woman it can find back here.”

“It’s all right. I can manage.” My knees gave out as the last word left my mouth, and he caught me again.

“We will go carefully,” he said.

I nodded. My head felt wobbly on my neck.

I did my best to keep up as Shinobu led me on a slower and more cautious scramble over the roofs, away from the site of the battle. He helped me to slide down a steep gable, lifted me over a bank of solar panels, and stopped me falling three times as we crossed what felt like acres of tiles, lead and asphalt.

“Sorry,” I gasped.

I hate you
, I told the sword silently.
I hate you. I hope you know how much I hate you
. The thoughts didn’t stop me from checking to make sure it was secure in the shinai carrier as we went.

“Hush,” Shinobu said, taking both my hands to pull me up over a section of fancy wooden balustrade. “No apologies from you. You saved us.”

I slipped and landed hard on both knees with a noise like a ripe melon dropped on a rock. “Ouch,” I whispered feebly.

I managed to get my eyes to focus on Shinobu’s pale, anxious face. He crouched in front of me, his big hands the only warm spots on my shivering body as he carefully cupped the back of my head and the small of my back to keep me steady. It occurred to me that he was injured, that it ought to be impossible for him to bear my weight, to look after me like this. But somehow he did it anyway.

“This is not working,” he said, casting a swift, worried look at the sky. “We are not moving fast enough.”

I blinked tears out of my eyes and tried to take stock of where we were. Not a roof. A sort of roof-terrace garden that jutted out from the side of a taller building. A long bank of French windows ran alongside us, the rooms beyond – thankfully – shielded on the inside by white blinds. I was kneeling on wooden decking, and pots filled with miniature trees and shrubs crowded around us. Some metal patio furniture and a barbeque filled one corner. A little plastic shed sat in the other. My watery gaze zeroed in on it. It was roughly the size of two phone boxes shoved together. Its back wall was situated against the wood-clad building, and it was secured to the decking with metal loops.
Shelter
.

“Do you think we could both fit in that?” I asked Shinobu.

Shinobu turned to look at it, then cast another unhappy glance at the sky. “I think we will have to.”

My knees twinged in protest, but I managed a heavy, stumbling walk towards the shed, with Shinobu’s arm around my waist lending support. In its carrier on my back, the sword buzzed, agitated. It wanted out.

Not a chance
, I told it fiercely.

The sword had done this to me. On purpose. I was sure of it. It had pushed my body so far and so hard that it had almost crippled me. If I was unable to run, I would have to fight. And in this state, the only way I could fight would be to call on the blade to help me again. When that happened, it would take hold of me – of my mind – exactly the way it just had. And take hold of me more firmly and more easily than before.

We had to get out of this ourselves.

The shed was closed with a plastic latch and a small metal padlock. The flimsy plastic stood no chance against the hilt of Shinobu’s sword. Within a second he had wrenched the door open, helped me inside, and wedged himself in after me.

The small space was lined with shelves of gardening tools and barbecue accessories. I folded up, my backside hitting the wooden deck with a bump, and squashed as far into the corner as possible to make room for Shinobu to sit next to me. He coiled himself up and wrapped his larger body around mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The steady rhythm of his breathing and heartbeat calmed my own, like a lullaby.

Shinobu was that kind of a person. The type you could rely on to calm you down, to help you, to do whatever was necessary to keep you safe. It was who he was. He’d sacrificed himself in his first life, back in ancient Japan. And then again, to save Rachel. He was determined to do the same thing now, blindly and unthinkingly, without even trying to look for a way out. He was so busy protecting everyone else that it never occurred to him to try to protect himself.

“I won’t let you go.”

I hadn’t meant to say it. The words were hardly a whisper. But I could tell from the way he tensed that he had heard. His dark eyes met mine in the half-light. We both took a deep breath; it was a toss-up for who would start arguing first.

The shed went dark. Something had blocked out the sun.

The burning, rotten stench of the Shikome drifted in to us, faint but unmistakable, and enough to make me cover my nose with my hand. I could just make out that distinctive dry chittering noise somewhere overhead.

The shadow slipped away, and light trickled into the shed once more.

Another shadow darkened the shed … and passed.

Another.

That wasn’t one Foul Woman circling. It was lots of Foul Women.

I kept my palm clamped over my nose and mouth, trying to muffle the sounds of my breathing. Shinobu didn’t seem to be breathing at all. We huddled together, motionless apart from my slight trembling. The Foul Women seemed like single-minded hunting dogs, relentless and faithful to their Mistress, but without any logic or common sense of their own. Even if they could smell the sword’s power, the fact that they couldn’t see it or us might be enough to throw them off. Just long enough for us to get out of here.

Maybe.

The shadows kept circling. I tried counting them, but it was impossible to tell how many there were. How many had Izanami managed to send into the mortal realm by this time? Too many. That was all I was sure of.

Go away. Go away. There’s nothing here
.

Fly away, you stinking freaks
.

I froze in horror as the shrill, tinny notes of “Wind Beneath My Wings” filled the air inside the little shed. My hand shot down to my pocket, my finger stabbing the phone’s power button. The music cut off.

Shinobu and I stared at each other in the stillness. Outside, even the faint chittering of dry feathers had gone quiet. Light shone through the vents in the walls. The moment seemed to stretch on for a breathless eternity.

Go away, go away, go away…

An eerie, triumphant shriek rang out above us. The walls of the shed rocked as shadows swarmed over it, wing-beats filling the air like thunder. We both flung ourselves flat. Something hit the shed. It rocked back, then tore away from around us. The metal rivets holding it to the deck pinged off the wall of the building. Chunks of wood and pieces of gardening equipment flew. There was a distant crash and then we were lying in the open, completely exposed.

Nowhere to run.

CHAPTER 15

F
ive Shikome – including the one that Shinobu had wounded – raged above the terrace. The strength of their wing-beats swept plant pots up to smash into the walls, sent the patio furniture tumbling across the decking. Soil, ruined plants and shards of terracotta whirled across us. My nails dug into the smooth wooden planking. I hung on for dear life. Only Shinobu’s weight, half on top of me, kept me from getting blown away.