The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (7 page)

I gulped a fiery mouthful of air, then rolled dazedly over onto my front –
too slow, too slow
– and heaved myself to my knees. My skin prickled with awareness as I waited for the next blow to fall. The doorway was empty. I gasped in another breath, easing to a crouch and bringing the katana up.

Was now the time to unsheathe the blade?

Another painful breath.

But Jack was so close. They were all so vulnerable. It wasn’t safe.

Still no sign of him.

Was he in there with them right now?

I coughed, gritted my teeth, and launched myself out into the corridor, gaining my feet in a shower of dust and plywood splinters.

There was no one there. I couldn’t hear anything. My own heartbeat and ragged breathing blocked out the unnatural quiet of the frozen hospital. The overhead lights flickered manically. The entrance to the ward where I’d left the others was only a few steps ahead – the way partially blocked by an empty trolley, its grey blankets trailing onto the floor. The second I went forward, he was going to attack me again. I knew it. Unless he was already attacking my friends while I stood hesitating.

There were no good choices here.

“Hey!” I screamed. “Where are you, you coward? Too scared to face me?”

This time the blow caught me between my shoulder blades. I flew across the corridor and crash-landed onto the abandoned trolley, which careened into the wall and bounced off. I toppled to the floor. The trolley smashed down beside me.

My eyes had squeezed shut. I forced them open – and saw the terrible dense blackness of the Harbinger hovering above me, just out of reach.
There you are, you bastard
. One of my hands groped and found the metal rail of the trolley lying on the ground next to me. A grunt punched out from between my gritted teeth. I heaved.

The trolley soared up over my head and cleaved through the Harbinger’s darkness like a knife. I scrambled to my feet and threw myself the last couple of steps into the ward. There was just enough time to locate the curtained sanctuary of Jack’s bed with my eyes. Just enough time to find the narrow opening in the pastel fabric and trace the straight lines of Shinobu’s back, and Jack’s sleeping face on the pillow. They were where I’d left them. They were OK.

Then the Harbinger was on me.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t get the chance. Darkness flooded down around me, solidifying into stinging black and gold fibres that wrapped me up like a fly in a cobweb. I was hoisted off the ground, and spun helplessly in the air as the strands writhed over my body, gluing my arms to my sides and my legs to each other. The katana’s energy, imprisoned inside the saya, screamed and smoked. Wisps of fire licked out around the hilt. The dark fibres of the Harbinger winced from it, but it didn’t matter. I had waited too long to free the blade. I was as trapped now as the katana was.

Something pale glowed in the dark cloud. It was the Harbinger’s face, awful with rage and less than an inch from mine. His nose almost brushed my cheek. Icy cold, sickly sweet breath washed over my skin. The blank white eyes were on fire and pulsing in his face.

“
You
. How dare you defy me? How dare you escape me? Vile, ugly mortal. Your stubborn spirit has always been a thorn in my side.”

The blackness tightened. My ribs creaked under the strain. “What – what are you t–talking about?” I choked. “Why are you – doing this? I protected the sword—”

He hissed with fury. Something coiled around and around my throat. It tightened, then solidified into fingers. Bony knuckles jabbed the underside of my jaw as his hands flexed, pressing on my windpipe. I wheezed.

“Protected it? You have unsealed it! For five hundred years it was protected – in less than three days half my work has been undone!” He shook me viciously. My back slammed into something. I was on the floor now, crushed by his weight as he compressed down into the shape of a man again, growing rapidly denser and heavier on top of me. I could feel his bony hips pressing into my thighs, his sharp elbows grinding against my ribs.

He bared his teeth. They glistened like polished metal, the incisors sharp as scalpels. “It is mine! It was always mine! Now it will no longer answer to my voice. This is your doing! If I had known what you would do, I would have ripped your soul in two when I had the chance. If you were not the last of your line, I would do it now. This is your final warning, your last lesson in humility and fear. Attempt to work against me again and I shall exercise no clemency.”

Bluffing. Has to be. He needs me, or he wouldn’t have wasted all this time on me already
. I shook my head. The movement sent his maddened face spinning in my vision.

“Pay attention!” he raged on. “There will be no more mistakes. I shall bind the cloaking spirit to the blade again. I shall seal it anew. All will be as it was! No one wins against me. No one. Not ever!” The words had a desperate, feverish edge. It sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.
Almost as if he’s afraid…

He is vicious when he is afraid
.

He took one of his hands from my throat, his long, pale fingers spreading out as shining white energy crackled between the joints. It was too bright to look at. I could barely make out what he was saying now – the blood was pounding in my ears too loudly. Lack of oxygen made my vision fade in and out.

“Come. Come!
Answer me!
”

He was trying to summon the sword – to take it away from me the way he had before. And the katana was fighting. The heat of the sword’s power scorched my skin. Every fold of silk on the hilt burned into my palm as the blade vibrated in my grip, its energy tearing the air with a shrill scream of defiance. I would have screamed too if I’d had enough air. But the Harbinger was holding my windpipe closed. Blackness was eating away at the edges of my vision. Nothing remained but a pinprick of light…

And in that pinprick, something moved.

A cloud of curling, toffee-coloured hair. Golden skin. Dark eyes that glinted almost yellow as one small-boned, delicate hand reached out.

No, Rachel, no. Get back. Get away while you can…

Rachel pounced, grabbing a handful of the Harbinger’s hair. She yanked his head back with an enraged scream. His mad, pale face contorted, and his fingers loosened on my neck. I choked on the sudden flood of air. Rachel’s other hand curled around the Harbinger’s throat, her manicured nails sinking into the pale flesh. White fire bubbled up around the wounds; it dripped down onto me like blood. The Harbinger shrieked as Rachel dragged him away from me, out of my blurry sight.

There was an immense shattering sound: one of the windows running down the side of the building must have broken. Exhaust-scented wind blasted my face. Shocked voices cried out everywhere – sounds of machinery and movement rushed back.
Time warp over…
I rolled up onto my hands and knees, coughing and gasping for breath.

Arms closed gently around me, helping me up. My head lolled back and I saw Rachel’s pinched face, her glittering yellow eyes.

“You’re OK, Mimi,” she whispered. “I’ve got you. Just breathe. You’re OK.”

You never call me Mimi
, I tried to say, but I just coughed some more and let Rachel take my weight.

A second later we were both through the gap in Jack’s curtains. Rachel eased me down and I slumped on the edge of the bed as she nipped the curtains closed again. Outside I could hear nurses and patients exclaiming over the broken window. Inside the flimsy barrier of the curtain there was silence as everyone stared at me. Shinobu’s eyes burned like black stars. I winced from them, only to meet Jack’s, sunken and fearful in her pale face.

“What
happened
?” she whispered hoarsely.

Another cough raked through my chest. Shinobu rushed to snatch the plastic tumbler from Jack’s bedside locker and fill it with water.

“Drink this,” he said, taking my free hand and wrapping my palm around the small glass. I was still unsteady. He had to keep his hand there, guiding the water to my lips. The first taste of the lukewarm liquid burned like acid, but the next one was glorious.

“The Harbinger?” Shinobu asked softly, urging me to sip more water. His expression was calm, but his eyes were terrible.

All I could do was nod.

“Rat-bastard,” Jack mumbled. Her hands clenched and unclenched on the blanket. “Talk, Mimi.”

I took one more sip, then let Shinobu take the glass away. He brushed my cheek, tucking my tangled hair behind my ear. I could feel his hand trembling.

“He wanted to punish me,” I said. My voice crackled and broke. It felt like I was trying to talk through a mouthful of sand. “He said … I’d unsealed the sword. Something about how the sword wouldn’t answer to him any more. And it wouldn’t. He tried to call it to him, but it fought.”

I looked down at the sword and realized with a shock that my fingers were still clamped around the hilt, knuckles standing out purple and yellow with the strain. My hand was numb. The blade lay still in my grasp, without a hint of vibration. Maybe it had exhausted itself.

I tried to open my fingers and couldn’t. The effort made sharp cramping sensations shoot down my wrist. This had happened once before – the last time the Harbinger had attacked me. Was it possible that the sword hated and feared him as much as I did?
Am I clinging to the katana right now? Or is it clinging to me?

Shinobu saw my problem and took my hand in both of his large, warm ones. He chafed at my fingers, deftly massaging the joints until they began to loosen. “The Harbinger hurt you to punish you?” he prompted me quietly.

“Said he was teaching me a lesson. Repeated the thing he said before, too, about how if I weren’t the last Yamato he’d kill me. And … and he talked about you, Shinobu. He called you ‘the cloaking spirit’, but I’m sure he meant you. I think he’s the one who did this to you. I think he’s the one who trapped you in the blade.”

Shinobu’s hold on my hand tightened minutely. He stared down at the sword, motionless, eyes screened from mine by the thick fan of his eyelashes. His face was smoothly blank. The very lack of reaction gave me a lurching sensation deep inside. “Shinobu—?”

He gave a little tweak to my fingers and unpeeled them from around the sword hilt. I dropped the katana next to me on the bed with a gasp of relief, flexing my hand. My palm was marked with faint pink lines from the silk tsukamaki, but otherwise unharmed. I could hardly believe the skin wasn’t burned to a crisp. There wasn’t even a blister.

Jack kicked her legs feebly under the covers, demanding my attention. “Did you … at least … cut him up … this time?” The effort of producing this many words clearly exhausted her and her head slumped back on the pillow.

“Not exactly,” I said, hesitantly. I shifted my position to stare at Rachel, who hadn’t moved or said a word since she’d closed the curtains and stationed herself at the foot of the bed.

She looked exactly the same as normal. She looked like Rachel Luci, Jack’s bossy-but-mostly-OK sister who I’d known practically my whole life. A friend. Safe.

Oxygen deprivation and a whack to the head could make people see things – but I couldn’t have imagined everything I saw. I couldn’t have imagined what Rachel did. There was no way I would have escaped from the Harbinger on my own, not this time. She’d dragged him right off me. She’d scared him enough that he fled out of the window, freeing the hospital from his spell, which had held every other human in the place frozen, even Shinobu. Rachel had saved me, for sure. But how had she broken free? How had she done any of it? I couldn’t forget that strange yellow fire I had seen in her gaze. I didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t feel right.

Her eyes were brown again now, the same familiar brown as Jack’s. Those familiar eyes were pleading with me.
Don’t, don’t. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t say anything in front of Jack
.

Shinobu had picked up on our silent communication and was looking at Rachel warily, clearly realizing that something was wrong. Jack was still lying on the pillow, eyes closed, but she was going to pick up on the silence in a moment.

I bit my lip. Then I picked the katana up and quickly returned it to its place in the harness on my back, before grabbing the metal foot board of the bed to lever myself to my feet. “We have to go.”

Jack’s eyes flicked open. “What?”

“Whoa, Xena,” Rachel said. “Stay right where you are. We don’t need you passing out again.”

“I didn’t pass out before,” I said indignantly, even though I was still hanging onto the bed for balance. “Listen, Jack, the Harbinger is focused on me, on Shinobu, and on the sword – but it’s only a matter of time before someone else gets caught in the crossfire and is badly hurt. And I’m not helping you or anyone else by just sitting around here, anyway. We need to figure out what we can do to fix this – all of this, the Harbinger, the Shikome – the way we did the Nekomata. There has to be an answer out there.”

Shinobu nodded slowly, considering my words. “The Harbinger may have fled for now, but if the sword remains here, he is sure to return. We are surrounded by the ill and vulnerable, including Jack-san. It is not the place for a confrontation.”

“Hey,” Jack protested. “I’m – fine. I can … come … with you.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, reaching out to grab her hand. Her fingers twitched in mine. She was trying to squeeze back. My knees buckled, and I ended up leaning on the bed with my free hand, desperately trying to keep my expression neutral. My voice came out slightly strangled as I finished. “But nice try, though.”

Jack’s gaze searched my face. Then she closed her eyes, her head moving in the tiniest possible gesture of assent. “Fine.”

“I’ll go with them,” Rachel said, to Jack’s obvious surprise – and my secret relief. I needed to get her alone and find out what was going on with her. “You just need to rest anyway, Jack. You’ll be safe here. And if these two clowns are going to do any good at all, they’ll need all the help they can get.” She dug in her coat pocket and started unloading things onto the top of Jack’s locker. “I’ll leave you my iPhone and earbuds for if you get bored. Here’s Mum’s emergency credit card if you want to buy anything, OK? You know the pin. Call me if you need me.”