The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (6 page)

My fingers found the glass … and passed through.

She lies back in the long grass, pillowing her cheek on Shinobu’s knees. His legs – along with the rest of him – have grown as quickly as the grass itself this past year, and the girl feels more as if she is curling up on a pair of solid logs than on human flesh. The wind stirs the grass into a soft murmur around them, making dancing patterns of light and shade on the insides of her closed eyelids. A sleepy smile tilts her lips
.

“Are you laughing at me?” he asks, his voice a low rumble. “What makes you smile?”

A blunt, callused finger brushes the stray wisps of hair gently behind her ear. Her smile creeps wider as the girl remembers all the times that finger has played with her hair just so. Even the very first day she met him – as mere strangers, mere children – he had been unable to resist those rebellious, untidy strands of hair
.

The girl praises her ancestors a dozen times a day for granting her the blessing of hair that he loves so well
.

“Tell me,” he commands, his voice tickling her ear as his shadow falls over her like an embrace. Laughter trembles the edges of his words. “You know you cannot keep secrets from me.”

She opens her mouth to frame some careless, teasing phrase – and freezes as another voice, a terrible voice that does not belong here in the living world, falls upon her ears
.

Sunlight,
it hissed
. Oh, the sun. I had forgotten how it felt…

I cried out as the light disappeared, snuffed like a candle doused with water
.

Blackness. Without shape, without shade, without end. It flooded my eyes and ears, poured into my mouth like smoke. Trying to see anything was like … like trying to outstare the vacuum of space
.

Something dripped near by. Thick, slow drips that landed in more liquid. The sound echoed, giving me a sensation of space, vast empty space all around me, like standing on the top board at the swimming pool
.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Someone was watching me. I could feel their gaze on my face, like fingers grazing my skin. They could see me. I couldn’t see anything but they could see me. Was I blind? Was this what being blind was like? I didn’t dare move. Not even an inch. I knew – somehow I knew – that if I moved, I would fall
.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Cold breath, scented with rust, ghosted against my cheek
.

Yamato Mio…

I bit a scream in half. I wanted to flinch, to back away – but I couldn’t move. I had to be still. I had to stay still. My fingers curled and uncurled
.

You are frightened again.
The blood-scented whisper caressed my ear
. Always so afraid, little mortal. I can hear your poor heart, pitter-patter. A tiny bird, trapped in an ivory cage. Poor thing. Poor birdie. Little wings, so fragile. Snap. Crunch. All broken.

I knew that singsong, child-like voice. I knew it from a dream
.

Was that a dream?

Was this?

“I can’t see you.” The words came out as a harsh croak
.

I know,
she said, pleased as if I’d praised her
. You did not like seeing me before. It distressed you.

I remembered. The mirrors all around me. The reflection. The woman who had my face, and eyes like a shark. “When you … you looked like me?”

I could not look like me. Too much. Little birdie would have stopped beating. Snap. Crunch. Broken.

That was almost – almost – lucid. Even in the midst of my fear it seemed as if she was making more sense this time around. That, or I was getting closer to insanity
.

I wanted to speak to you again,
she continued
. Because you survived the first time. I do not always mean to but – snap! – you break so easily. I did not break you, did I? I am getting closer now, though. Do you feel it? Do you feel me coming closer to you? I can almost see your world from here. Almost touch…
A sudden, shocking sound, broken and hollow
. I will be there soon. Soon. Soon I will touch…

“Touch my world?” I whispered
.

It used to be mine once. All mine. So pretty. So bright and warm. I cannot go there now. Crunch. Little bones all poking out. I have been in the dark too long. I have. But my pets can get through. Yes. I am close enough now for that. I send them one by one, two by two. A shrill little giggle. Flap, flap. They will find you, you know. They will find my treasure. They have no brains, but they never get tired. They never give up. Sniff sniff. Flap flap. One by one, two by two.

The Shikome
.

And the realization was cold as ice sweeping over me and suddenly, just as I knew I couldn’t move, I knew who it was that I was speaking to, who it was that had brought me here
.

My lips shaped the name. “Izanami?”

Drip, drip, drip.

A soft, ragged moan filled the cavernous darkness – a moan like a thousand years of wailing and begging and tears, a thousand years of grief and sorrow, and loneliness too great for any creature to bear. I couldn’t think around it. Couldn’t think at all. I lost track of fear. Forgot who I was. Heat spilled down my cheeks, burning in the ferocious chill. My soul wailed for something it had never had
.

A tiny hand, icy cold, covered in something sticky-wet, cupped my cheek
.

The touch jerked me back to myself. I went rigid, breathing through my mouth. The stink of blood clogged my nose
.

Tears for me.
She sighed
. I think … I think I will be sad when you die, Yamato Mio. All things die, and you will not give me what I want. But I will be sorry.

I could almost taste the blood, lying in a furry coppery coat on my tongue
.

Dripdripdrip.

The sticky fingers flexed on my face
.

He comes.

I jumped, startled by the sudden urgency in her voice
.

He is vicious when he is afraid. So vicious! Oh! Beware, little birdie. He is very frightened now…

Light exploded in the backs of my eyes. For a split second, I saw the red forest, Shinobu’s shocked dark eyes staring up out of his pale, pained face, and his blood-stained hand clutching at his chest where he lay in the red and gold fallen leaves. I saw a green, leaf-shaped blade flashing down towards him—

Dry-retching, I staggered back, away from the sink, away from the treacherous, dingy grey reflections in the mirror. My spine flopped like over-cooked pasta and I ended up on my knees, hands supporting my weight on the cracked lino of the floor, under the frantically flickering fluorescents.

The iron taste of blood was still in the back of my throat. I could still see that vivid snapshot of Shinobu’s shocked face and the green, oddly shaped blade plunging down towards his heart. I could still remember that beautiful dream of lying with Shinobu in the grass in the golden sunlight. Only it hadn’t been me lying there with him, had it?

Or had it?

Was it a dream? Was any of it a dream? All of it?

Am I going mad?

With one hand on the side of the basin, I dragged myself to my feet, wobbled to the door, and almost fell out into the corridor. My one thought was to get back to Jack and Shinobu. I barely noticed the lights in the corridor start to flicker as I passed beneath them, hanging onto the plastic rail fitted to the wall. The katana was still pulsing in its harness, sending discordant jangles of energy fizzing through my skin.
Shut up. Shut up. I get it. Stay away from mirrors from now on
.

Which way was it from here? Had I turned left before or, or…?

The sight of the large vending machine made me sigh with relief. Now I remembered. Straight on. Letting go of the plastic rail, I walked unsteadily past a health-care worker who hesitated in front of the machine, her finger hovering in midair over the buttons. But as I turned, I stumbled. My elbow glanced off her side.

“Oh! Sorry – I didn’t…” My voice came out overbearingly loud and I let the apology trail off as two things occurred to me.

First, the hospital had got really quiet. Not silent. I could hear city noises, traffic rushing by outside. But that was all. I couldn’t hear voices, machinery, or that terrible moaning from earlier. All the usual hospital sounds were gone. Just gone.

Second, the woman in front of the vending machine was still in her half-bent position, staring at the buttons. She hadn’t looked around when I hit her. She hadn’t even flinched. I was suddenly, horribly, sure that she wasn’t breathing.

With the katana still rattling against my spine, I reached for the woman’s shoulder. She didn’t respond when I made contact. Her arm was as rigid and unmoving as the arm of a chair. She was frozen.

I had seen people frozen like this before.

Izanami had said:
He comes
.

The Harbinger was here.

CHAPTER 5

S
hadows and blood…

This was the third time he had come for me.

Beware, little birdie
.

The third time he had come for the sword.

You belong to me. The sword belongs to me. Everything belongs to me. If the sword is lost, you will die, hell shall open, and shadows and blood will devour this world
.

I eased my hand away from the too-stiff flesh of the woman’s shoulder. Adrenaline flooded my system and my pulse thrummed in my ears like a trapped wasp, trying to get out. Everywhere I looked, there were doorways into wards, offices and nurses’ stations. No noise disturbed the unnatural quiet of the hospital floor. No hint of movement. He could be anywhere.

Little birdie in an ivory cage…

He could be with Jack and the others right now.

The lights flickered silently, like the strobes in a club. He was doing this. He was trying to scare me again.
And it’s working…

Acting on instinct, I reached into the loose collar of my sweatshirt and pulled the sheathed katana free from the leather harness. As I took the hilt in a firm two-handed grip, the sword shuddered painfully between my hands. The heat of its energy was spiking against my skin. Even holding it with both hands, I couldn’t prevent the blade from trembling. Was it afraid too? Reacting to my fear? Or just eager to be freed?

The desire to unsheathe the sword was almost painful – but the very strength of that desire warned me that I shouldn’t give into it. Not yet. I was surrounded by people here, and I didn’t know for sure if I could control the sword or its powers.

The safety catch – the sword’s saya – had to stay on until I had no choice but to fight.

I put my back to the wall and began to sidle down the corridor in the direction of Jack’s ward. The lino floor seemed to stick to the soles of my boots like glue. Each footstep was a laborious, maddeningly slow effort, but Shinobu, Jack and Rachel were completely unprotected. I
had
to get to them. I had to make sure they were OK.

The lights flared suddenly, stabbing my eyes. I squeezed them shut for a split second. When I opened them again, the corridor was black. Pitch black. I froze. It was the middle of the day. Even with no lights, it couldn’t possibly be this dark.

Then the lights came back on. They flickered faster than ever. The katana rattled in my hands.

Some instinct made me cast a glance over my shoulder.

In the corridor behind me there was a blot of coruscating darkness, a black hole in the fabric of reality. It had the shape of a man. Where its eyes should have been were two circular holes, blank and blazing white.

The Harbinger
.

I whipped round and pelted down the central corridor. My throat rasped with panicked, shallow breaths. Doorways and frozen people blurred past on either side of me.

The lights went out again. My boots squealed on the lino as I skidded to a halt, too terrified to move. The black air around me pulsed with menace. Where was he? Where was
I
?

The lights flashed back on.

The black shape was directly ahead of me, close enough to touch.

I dived sideways into the nearest opening in the wall. An office. Filing cabinets. Desks. Frozen secretary frowning at a heap of files.
Door
.

Swerving past the woman, I wrenched the door open and found myself in another corridor, almost identical to the first one. I slammed the door shut behind me and ran again, dodging around more motionless people.

A shadow flashed across a Perspex window in the wall ahead. I stopped in my tracks.

He was still in front of me. Between me and the others. What was he doing? Herding me away from them? Holding them hostage?

What if he had already hurt them?

I spun on my heel and ran back the way I’d come, bolting through the office door, out into the main corridor, towards the lifts. At the last second, I turned – nearly tripping over my own feet as my boots snagged on the linoleum floor again – and barged through the emergency fire doors.

The grey-and-white flecked walls of the stairwell closed in around me. My footsteps sounded like a drumbeat as I dashed down one flight of steps, hit the next set of doors and burst out onto the floor beneath Jack’s. I shot along the main corridor, skipping and twirling to avoid knocking over the frozen patients and staff. A grunt of pain escaped me as I collided with the emergency doors at the other end of the hall. I broke through them and hit the stairs again, running upwards this time. My leg muscles were on fire now. I laboured up the steps, then pushed open the emergency doors on Jack’s floor and ran out.
There
. Jack’s ward was on the left, straight ahead.

Where was the Harbinger? Had I managed to outrun him? Was he already here?

Everything went black again.

The blow to my chest lifted my feet from the floor. I flew backwards, the breath whooshing out of my lungs. Something that felt like wood splintered under my weight as I crashed down. The lights came back on and my watering eyes took in a narrow space lined with shelves. A storage cupboard. I had smashed its door. There was no other way out.