The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (9 page)

I couldn’t let her fall a second time. Not without a fight.

Slowly, fighting against every instinct that was howling in my body, I reached out and put my arms around Rachel again. The Nekomata’s monstrous eyes – Rachel’s eyes, the way they had looked in that hospital ward – shone in my mind, and I could almost feel its sharp teeth – her teeth – sinking into my neck. Shivers crawled up my back.

I squeezed her until she let out a tiny squeak.

“Listen,” I whispered in her ear. “It’s going to be all right, Rach. We’ll figure this out. I promise I’m not going to let you down this time.”

I heard her gulp. Then she hugged me back.

After a little while, we both straightened and let go of each other. Rachel grabbed the ends of her scarf and rubbed it over her face, scrubbing away tears. “O–OK. I guess. OK—”

We both jumped as a piercing scream rang out behind us. I spun round, moving automatically into a fighting stance as my hand flew to grab the katana’s hilt. Shinobu appeared at my side like magic.

A young man had collapsed a few feet away. A girl was crouched next to him, desperately trying to hold him still as she yelled for help. The boy’s body sprawled stiffly on the station steps; his limbs twitched and jerked. A thin line of drool leaked out between his lips and trickled over the livid purple rash that spread down his neck.

And there, caught on the collar of his shirt, I saw a dull, greyish wisp. A feather.

A Shikome feather.

In the next instant the wind swirled around the pair, and the feather was swept away.

All around us other commuters were backing away, their faces caught in frozen masks of disbelief and fear. Someone in the crowd broke and fled. Suddenly everyone was running, scattering in all directions, more screams rising up to tangle in the air like smoke.

A lone security officer puffed down the steps, walkie-talkie in hand, and bent over the convulsing boy. She didn’t get too close. “Calm down now,” she shouted over the girl’s screams. “Calm down. I’ve got an ambulance on the way.”

I started forward – and was jerked to a halt as two pairs of hands grabbed my arms to hold me back. “What are you doing?” I asked, looking at Shinobu and Rachel with bewilderment. “That man—”

“Doesn’t need your help,” Rachel said urgently. “Unless you think having another one of those harpy-things swoop down on him would be therapeutic? One was close enough to drop a feather on him, and they’re attracted to the sword, right? We need to go. Now.”

My eyes automatically shot up to the metallic wintery blue sky. I couldn’t see anything, not even a cloud, but with all the roofs surrounding the station, a Shikome could be hiding anywhere. I stopped resisting and reluctantly let them pull me away under the glass portico of the station.

“… have released the security guard without charge. It’s believed the investigation into the break-in at the British Museum, which resulted in the death of assistant curator Belinda Dowling, has been linked to the murders of three security officers at Battersea Power Station last night, although detectives would not confirm how. The investigation into both incidents is ongoing.”

The newsreader pursed her lips, her face pale under the regulation layers of foundation and blusher. Her gaze was more than usually fixed as she stared at the scrolling white text on the blue autocue screen. She cleared her throat and launched into her final segment as the producer’s countdown ended in her ear
.

“And back to today’s main headline: Hospitals in the central London area are dealing this morning with a sudden influx of cases believed to be due to unknown, airborne contaminants. Initial symptoms include convulsions and a rapidly spreading rash. The London Primary Care Trust has stated that over the past twelve hours around two hundred patients have been admitted to local accident and emergency departments displaying the same symptoms. However, a source from one hospital puts the correct number at three times as many, with more still coming in.”

In her mic’d ear, she could hear the unusual silence in the production room. One of the researchers had a teenage son in the hospital right now. He’d left the house right as rain that morning. Half an hour later he had collapsed in the middle of the street
.

Tiny beads of sweat glittered at the newsreader’s hairline. She took a deep breath and continued. “Health Secretary Daniel Anders has urged the public to remain calm. In a statement given just a few moments ago, we were told that there are no official plans for a quarantine of the city at this time. Emergency measures are already in place, and specialist teams are hard at work to discover the source of the contaminants. However, it is advised that the public avoid all non-essential travel, and if possible stay in their own homes
.

“The prime minister, on day three of his official visit to India, was unavailable for comment, but is said to be preparing to return home early. Public health officials urge…”

The newsreader paused, blinking rapidly. The white writing was wavering in front of her eyes. In her ear, the programme’s producer made urgent noises as her silence stretched on. She cleared her throat again
.

“Health officials urge anyone showing symptoms to contact…”

The newsreader shook her head, but instead of clearing it, the movement sent the bright lights of the studio into a dizzying whirl around her. She sucked in a sharp breath
.

“Contact the NHS helpline for—”

The lights were moving too fast. She felt sick. Oh God, she couldn’t be sick on national television. She would never live it down; her career would be over. She tried to turn away from the hulking shape of camera one, but the chair skidded away from under her and the next thing she knew, she was flat on her face, cheek crushed into the ugly grey studio carpet
.

“Helpline…” she whispered. “Help.”

People were shouting and running around her. Hands grabbed the back of her Chanel suit and tried to turn her over, and suddenly the whirling lights exploded in her head and she screamed
.

By the time someone cut the live feed, four million people had witnessed the newsreader’s seizure and the spread of the purple rash that appeared, like dark magic, on her face
.

But no one noticed the tiny wisp of a grey feather that clung to her teased blonde hair
.

CHAPTER 7

W
e were all tense and wary on the walk back to the house from the Tube station, stopping frequently to duck into doorways and check the sky.

Just how stupid were the Foul Women? That was what I wanted to know. The one we’d seen had only made those strange seagull cries –
could
they talk? Did they have the intelligence to lay a trap for us? Or were they really like animals, who had no conception of the future, and would just flap around London following all the different trails of the sword’s scent until they caught me out in the open somewhere?

Our house, warded against supernatural attack with the collective powers of the entire Kitsune Kingdom, was the one safe refuge we had. The idea of a Foul Woman – maybe more than one this time – hiding somewhere, lying in wait for us to return, made my heart pound unevenly. I was intensely conscious of the katana humming in its harness. I thought it would warn me if we were about to be attacked, but that was concerning in itself; I didn’t want to rely on the sword.

We paused at the turn-off to my road. “If there had been more than one of the Foul Women here this morning, I am sure they would have attacked together,” Shinobu said reassuringly. “We must have killed it before it could call any others of its kind.”

“Let’s run anyway,” Rachel said uneasily. “Even if they are birdbrains, they still might get lucky and spot us from the air.”

We took the pavement at fast clip and reached the house with no sign of any winged monsters. I slammed the front door shut behind us and made for the living room, ripping my dad’s sweatshirt over my head as I went. One smooth movement had the leather harness off and the katana free. My right hand found its place on the hilt, the left gripped the saya. I slid the saya back – just a little – an inch. Then two. The sight of that beautiful black-and-silver blade, marked with the long flame-shaped ripples, eased me in some way I couldn’t name.

Mio… The blade’s silvery voice breathed into my mind.

I gently snicked the lacquered sheath back into place before the sword could speak any more. This was enough. I sat down where I was, rocking gently as the sword’s energy drifted around me like the steam from a hot bath, touching my face and twining around my arms.

The silence in the room finally penetrated. I looked up to see Rachel and Shinobu both staring at me. Shinobu was stationed in the doorway, on guard despite the wards on the house. Rachel had slumped tiredly on the arm of the other sofa. They couldn’t have looked more different, but their expressions were identical.

I hadn’t even realized until that moment what I had just done. I stared down at the sword as if it was a snake that might bite me. But even then I couldn’t quite bring myself to let it go.

“You really meant it, didn’t you?” Rachel said, voice hushed. “You’re like … like an addict craving a fix.”

“I think it’s getting stronger,” I admitted with an icy thrill that might have been fear – or excitement.
What is the sword doing to me?
“The compulsion. The connection.” Those words didn’t seem strong enough any more. It was more like an obsession, hardwired into every part of me.

“So what does that mean? For you?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. My gaze strayed to Shinobu. His dark eyes were unreadable in that particular way of his that forced me to look away.
What is he thinking?

“Rach, what you said before … about the scary voice you heard when you were frozen—” I began tentatively.

“Mio, no offence, but I don’t really want to talk about it right now, OK?” Her tired smile robbed the remark of any bite. She got to her feet. “I’m heading up to change into my own clothes and check on the flat. You probably don’t feel like it, but we need to eat – it’s been hours. Order us some food? I’m not in the mood to cook.”

I forced myself to rein in my curiosity, and nodded. She headed towards the stairs. There was a door on our first floor that led to the old servants’ staircase. Normally it was locked, but Beatrice must have given Rachel the key. I had the feeling that she was desperate for a bit of time alone to process what had happened.

I could sympathize.

After she was gone, silence fell over the living room like a heavy cloth. Shinobu was still looking at me, but I found myself retreating from his gaze as if our eyes were two sets of positively charged magnets. This morning I had admitted to him that I thought I was falling in love with him, and he … he hadn’t said it back. Maybe he had meant to. But how was I supposed to know? It hadn’t seemed to mean anything at the time. Now it meant a lot. If only we hadn’t been interrupted. I’d felt something click between us then, in that moment, as if we were about to get to wherever we needed to be to
know
…

Because I didn’t really know anything. Not about Shinobu. All I “knew” – about his first life, and his family, and who he had been – was what he told me himself. I didn’t think for an instant that he’d lied to me, but it had been obvious, with every word, that he was holding back. How could I blame him for that? It had to have killed him to remember everything he had lost, everyone he was never going to get back. I was sure there were a hundred things he hadn’t brought up – things that were too hard to talk about. Too private. Things I didn’t need to know.

Of course he hadn’t told me about some other girl that he had known then. A girl that he had laughed with and lain in the grass with. A girl whose hair he had touched and played with, the way he always seemed to want to touch mine… He hadn’t told me because it didn’t matter. Love wasn’t a zero-sum game. The feelings he’d had for someone else – might still have – didn’t somehow invalidate whatever he felt for me.

Whatever he felt.

What matters is now
, I told myself.
And the rest of what you saw. You saw
her.
You saw the Goddess of Death. Izanami
.

Little birdie
. That was what she had called me. That was what Rachel had repeated. Could Izanami’s interference explain what had happened to Rachel? What if Izanami had woken Rachel out of her frozen sleep and sent her to help me?

But why would Izanami want to protect me against the Harbinger?

All these unanswered questions were starting to give me a headache.

In an effort to distract myself, I managed to peel one hand off the katana and grab my phone out of my pocket, carefully avoiding any glances in Shinobu’s direction as I turned it back on. I hadn’t been sure if you were allowed to have mobiles in the hospital.

The sight of several missed calls from a number that I hardly ever saw made my eyebrows go up. “What does
he
want?”

“Whom?” Shinobu asked. His voice was neutral, giving no hint as to what was going on in his head.

“Er – my father. He’s called me four times since this morning.” I stared at the logged calls intently, and not just because it gave me an excuse to avoid Shinobu’s gaze. “How can I have managed to annoy him from all the way across the Channel?”

“Maybe he wants to check that you are all right.”

I snorted. “Not bloody likely.”

I’d probably catch hell later for not calling him back. But I was already going to catch hell for so much stuff anyway – there seemed little point in adding to my current stress level. Instead I opened my web browser and squinted at my emails. Two from Mum. One was from yesterday evening, the other lunchtime today. There was no subject line on either – Mum always forgot – but it wasn’t hard to guess what they were about. I opened the first one and sure enough it was a short, chatty email about the hotel and the gorgeous dinner they’d had. Reassurance and caring glowed brightly between the lines. She was still worried about me.