He saw his father run vertically up the near wall and vault onto the monster’s back, alighting with knife points foremost. The monster spasmed as the points went in. His mother leaped high into the creature’s face and punched two fingers through one of its eyes. Its tusks slashed at her, but she backflipped out of reach and landed on the floor ten feet away.
Django struggled to free his sword arm. The cold hand of panic seized his heart at the webbing that plugged his nose and mouth. What was more, numbness was spreading through him quickly.
But his sword arm was free. He couldn’t reach the monster. But maybe he didn’t have to.
He focused his will on channeling all of his remaining Fire essence into the sword. Then he slashed toward the monster’s abdomen.
An arc of blazing light burst from the sword, up through the tsuchigumo’s cephalothorax—the forward of its two body sections—and out its ventral carapace.
The beast screamed with ten thousand voices.
Django’s strength was diminishing, his consciousness ebbing. But he slashed again.
Another searing arc leaped from the ancient blade and exploded through the tsuchigumo’s abdomen.
A torrent of ichor gushed from the smoking wound—and then an avalanche of human heads, bursting and bouncing as they rolled out of the tsuchigumo’s body and spilled across the floor of the cavern. Hundreds of them, thousands, as fresh as if they were just taken, their faces twisted into frozen masks of horror and terror, every victim the tsuchigumo had ever devoured. They bounced and rolled over Django’s restrained body, a nonstop flood that filled the cavern knee-deep, thigh-deep.
The tsuchigumo flipped onto its back, flinging Chen Xiu thirty feet across the cavern, where he rolled and skidded to a halt.
Django waved his sword weakly, unable to call for help.
Hage recognized Django’s peril first. He swept aside the layers of severed heads, seized handfuls of silk, and ripped them away with his huge, three-fingered claws.
When the silk came away from Django’s face, it was like ripping off the biggest, nastiest, stickiest band-aid ever. He dropped his sword and ripped the silk out of his mouth with his free hand. A great, spit-soaked wad of it peeled out—it was even stuck to his teeth and the back of his throat, making him retch—but in its absence, he sucked in a huge gasp of air.
With his eyes clear, he could see the smoking carcass of the tsuchigumo twitching on its back. The avalanche of ichor had made the floor of the cavern sickeningly sticky, and the lake of severed heads was thigh-deep in places.
Hage helped Django to his feet, ripping away the last binding shreds of silk with a sound like heavy-duty Velcro and a side of ichor-squelch. That’s when Django saw by the tsuchigumo’s aura that it was dying, but not dead.
A moment of realization shot through him. He stumbled around its twitching body until he could reach its hideous head.
Then he took a deep breath, gathered his will, and sent the attention of his will from his Celestial pool, down through each of the six others. In so doing, he sensed the mahō of this ancient predator and blasted a mahō spear through the tsuchigumo’s Celestial pool, shattering its connection to all the universes and then each of its pools in succession. The spider’s essence gushed into him like a fire hose, cramming him—snapping, crackling, thundering, pounding through him—and then a thunderclap shook the cavern and multicolored lightning burst from Django to strike the surrounding walls and stalactites, raking across them and sending everyone else ducking for cover. His brain boiled with scarlet heat that wasn’t heat.
He staggered and collapsed, his flesh feeling thick and scaly like a crocodile’s hide, his legs like pillars of immovable stone, his hands like twenty-pound sledgehammers, his head heavier than a cinder block against the floor.
Voices came muffled through the roaring and ringing in his ears.
“What the hell was that?”
“What happened?”
“Our friend Django here has gotten a bit of a gift.”
Django stumbled to his feet, his body feeling like tons of raw stone. His pelvis seethed with energy. All of his pools were full to bursting. He felt as immovable as a mountain but also as chaotic and destructive as an avalanche.
His Earth pool, situated near his tail bone, was ready to Awaken. The mahō essence thrumming through his body made him feel like the plucked string of a bass guitar, in tune with the earth under his feet.
He could return to the mortal world now and face Yuka’s overseer.
He opened his mouth to ask if everyone was okay when he remembered Cat.
The tiger still lay against the cavern wall, the pale fur of his ribcage and muzzle soaked with blood.
Feeling as if his skin were turning to stone, crumbling and crackling with each movement, Django waded through the morass of heads to reach him. Cat’s aura was weak, but he was still breathing. When Django finally reached him, he laid a hand on his enormous head and opened his Celestial pool to sense Cat’s health.
A shredded lung. Four shattered ribs that caused further damage with every breath. He would die without immediate healing.
“Cat, can you hear me?”
Blood bubbled from Cat’s nose.
“Help me roll him over so I can touch the wound,” he said.
Three companions stepped close to help roll over the thousand-pound feline.
Then Django noticed something. “Hey, where the hell did the warlock go?”
The other three shrugged.
“That ungrateful son of a bitch!” Django said. Further evidence that mahō users were not automatic allies. But there would be time to curse him further later.
They eased Cat away from the wall onto his other side. The wound looked horrendous, a sucking puncture that Django could fit three fingers into, with chips of splintered bone visible at the edges.
He didn’t know if he could heal a wound that severe. “Okay, here goes.”
Gathering his Celestial essence—difficult with the wild surges of Earth mahō coursing through him—he concentrated on cleaning and knitting the flesh and bone and organs. His awareness fell into a sea of blood.
But also power.
It was like coming to the shore of a vast lake with fathomless depths and untold mysteries. Cat was the reincarnation of a human sorcerer, of that there could be no doubt. Django tried to peer into those dark depths for hints of identity, a face, a name. Even the moment of death might offer a clue. But it all lay hidden beneath a glimmering surface that obscured its depths.
Cat’s warm, furry side breathed a little deeper, but Django’s Celestial pool was already sputtering close to depletion.
“It’s working,” Hage said in his deep oni voice, but then he was a tanuki again, offering his tail end. “Here, squeeze my jewel sack again.”
Django grabbed Hage’s scrotum again and squeezed, sending a multicolored, multi-scented, multi-flavored, multi-textured jolt up Django’s arm into his Celestial pool, redoubling the strength of his effort.
It was enough.
The blood on Cat’s beautiful coat remained, but he was whole again. His eyes blinked open. “You saved me.”
“You were a goner,” Django said.
“Curse me for underestimating the spider’s reach,” Cat said. He took one look at the still-smoking carcass. “Well done!”
“Yeah, you took one for the team.”
“Thank you. I should hate to start the reincarnation cycle again. My work is not done.”
“Oh? And what work is that?”
Cat licked a huge paw with an oven-mitten tongue and rubbed his whiskers. “I’m not sure. But I’ll know when I’ve done it.” He licked the blood from his nose and face. “Oh, dear, I do look a mess.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
DJANGO’S BODY ROOTED into the earth itself. He could feel the heartbeat of mountains, pulses of magma like blood far below the surface, the stony skin of the world alive with vegetation, bodies of water teeming with creatures. But underneath it all,
the earth was immovable, eternal—the foundation of everything.
He became that foundation, able to fill himself with the strength of stone, the immutable will of a mountain.
His Earth pool, the Root of All Things, had Awakened.
Here in the bowels of a tsuchigumo’s lair, in Jianghu, he had reached Level Four.
He could now face Habu.
Meanwhile, as Django meditated, the rest of them spent the next hour scouring the cavern and its adjoining alcoves for living victims. He roused himself in time to see they had, in all, freed twenty-seven humans, three deer, two horses, a Mongolian pony, an ox, two camels, and a llama, as well as six tanuki, all of whom were long-lost friends of Hage, resulting in much rejoicing. They also discovered—and quickly dispatched—three cocooned kappa.
“No sense letting those vile creatures out to cause trouble,” Hage said.
The humans mostly looked confused, but they were grateful to be free.
What struck Django was the disparity in their costumes. None of them wore any sort of modern clothing, but instead Japanese, Chinese, and Korean garb from centuries past, and few from the same era.
One Japanese man had his head shaved and hair styled in a samurai topknot. He found his katana and wakizashi half buried under a couple of deceased victims near where he’d lain. He spoke with courtly politeness and somber demeanor.
A Chinese man of about thirty, dressed in a changshan tunic and trousers, had his hair styled in a queue, a long braid that stretched to his waist, with the front of his head shaved. He moved with the kind of easy grace that bespoke extensive kung-fu training. Had Django known, he could have had several more potent allies during the fight.
When all the cocoons were opened and everyone was assembled, Hage and his fart-lights led the animals, then the humans up the passageway to the world above.
Emerging into the tumble-down mansion, they found the front doors hanging ajar, and the sky’s glacially slow turn to dusk still in progress. They all gathered on the terrace outside, looking toward the coming night.
“What do we do now?” some of them asked.
“Go back to our lives,” said another.
Django looked at them all in turn. What a fascinating assortment of people. They all talked for a long time, enjoying the company of other humans after their long, nightmarish imprisonment.
An elderly couple spoke a Chinese dialect so archaic even Chen Xiu couldn’t understand them.
Some of the escapees had been born in Jianghu and lived their whole lives here. What era of the mortal world they or their ancestors belonged to, they could not say. Some were farmers, others craftsmen, others fishermen. Some of them were martial artists who had found a way to enter the Realm of Rivers and Lakes to cultivate their skills, just as Chen Xiu and Naoko had.
The tanuki transformed into humans and used their magical charm to coax the larger animals down the mountain stairway. For the horses, ox, camel, and llama, it was a dangerous trek down the ancient stair in the dusky light. As the llama and camel disappeared over the lip of the terrace heading downward, Django scratched his head in bemusement.
After profusely thanking Django, Hage, Cat, Chen Xiu, and Naoko, the humans followed the animals down the mountain face.
Sensing that their adventure was coming to an end, Django didn’t want to let Hage, who stood now in tanuki form looking somewhat tuckered out, get away too quickly. He bowed deeply. “Thank you, tanuki-tono, for your help. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
Hage’s fur puffed as he returned the bow. “I suppose you’re wanting to ask me again about the Yamabushi Scroll.”
Django slowly replied, “I know it’s much to ask, but her life depends on it, and probably mine as well.”
With a grunting sigh, Hage sat back on his haunches, crossed his arms, and rubbed his whiskers. He looked up at Django with narrowed eyes and a stern demeanor. “You acquitted yourself well down there. I can see the honor in you, something most humans lack. You even saved several of my people, and for that I am grateful. What do you intend to do with the Scroll?”
“Present it to the Gotairō so that the Black Lotus Clan can’t have it, hoping they’ll give Yuka, and me, another chance. Then I’m going to find her, and take her away from the Black Lotus Clan. I’ll burn it to the ground if I have to.”
“That would certainly make both Jianghu and the mortal world a better place.”
“Hage-sama, if you tell me where to find the Scroll, I will be in your debt forever.”
Hage laughed. “Forever, eh? Have you any idea how long that is?”
“Not as well as you, I’m sure. How about until you choose to discharge the debt?” He could feel Hage’s eyes not only scrutinizing him but looking deep into his soul for any inkling that he might use the Scroll for nefarious purposes. He took several long, deep breaths, awaiting Hage’s satisfaction.
“After all those decades of suffering and bloodshed,” Hage said, “I was sick to death of the human world. When the country finally settled down under the Tokugawa regime, I decided it was time for me to go. But I had to hide the Scroll somewhere no one would look.”
Django’s heart beat faster, but he held his tongue.
“Do you know Kunōzan Tōshōgū Shrine?” Hage asked.
Django shook his head.
“It’s a shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu on Mt. Kunō.
“Ah! Near Shizuoka.”
“I’ve never heard of Shizuoka, but yes, on Kunōzan. I didn’t think anyone would disturb the Great Shogun. And there’s a lovely view of Mt. Fuji.” Hage’s eyes got a faraway look. “Ah, it’s beautiful from up there.”
“And where did you hide the Scroll?”
“In the fool’s tomb, of course. And I placed a concealment on its magic. You won’t find it by searching for its mahō.”
Django knelt in seiza and bowed his forehead to the ground, elation coursing through him, making his blood race.
Hage waggled a tiny finger at him. “You keep that scroll out of the hands of the Black Lotus Clan at the expense of your own life, do you hear?”
“I will. I swear it.”
“Bring an old tanuki an onigiri and maybe some saké when you get the chance, now that you know the way to Jianghu.”
He still had to learn, but his imagination was on fire with the possibilities. He couldn’t wait to get home to his mother’s notebooks and the secrets he had not yet discovered.
She and Chen Xiu had been standing nearby, idly listening to the exchange with Hage. He looked at them, and his heart felt heavy again. He had to leave them, and he could not tell them who he was. All the things he wanted to say swirled in his gut like a cluster of sea urchins.
Chen Xiu said, “You are going back to the mortal world then?”
“I must, soon, yes.” Django’s tongue wouldn’t quite work. Then he asked them, “So you used an old family scroll that had a technique for stepping through the Veil?”
Naoko said, “My family’s history goes back a thousand years.”
“You’re a ninja.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I...recognize the moves.” His tongue went dry and still then. Here was his last and only chance to speak to his parents, and he was bursting with questions and apologies and no way to speak them. Did he dare to reveal his relationship to them? What could he say without jeopardizing his own future?
Chen Xiu said, “Back in the mortal world, in Tokyo, we have a dojo and teach our martial arts.”
Django asked, “How long have you been in Jianghu?”
“That’s difficult to say, isn’t it, especially now that we’ve been imprisoned by the tsuchigumo.”
It struck Django then that this time in Jianghu had made his parents far wiser than their earthly years. As a teenager, he’d found this irritating as hell because they always proved to be right about everything. But in recent years, it had become one of the things he missed about them.
Chen Xiu went on, “Some
gangsters have been leaning on us. It seems so long ago now that we’ve been here all this time.”
Naoko said, “But we have to go back sometime. Our dojo has a good reputation and students who need us.”
Chen Xiu said, “The Black Lotus wanted us to train their thugs. We refused.”
Naoko jumped in, “And by ‘refused,’ he means we beat their asses like sparring dummies.” They grinned at each other.
Django’s blood turned to ice water, and he sighed at the targets they already had on their backs. “Yeah, you have to watch out for the Black Lotus. Please promise me you won’t get involved with them.”
“Oh, don’t fret about that,” Chen Xiu said. “We’re planning to get out of Tokyo.”
Naoko scrutinized Django. “Your Japanese has an accent. American?”
“I grew up in Hawaii.”
“We’re getting the money together to leave Japan,” Naoko said. “I’m a little sad about it, but I’ve always wanted to see America.” She looked suggestively at Chen Xiu. “Maybe we should move to Hawaii.”
Django’s throat was thick. “You ever, uh, think about having kids?”
Naoko said, “Are you kidding? Having kids would destroy my body. I’m using it for other things.” A flirty mischievousness in the way she spoke the last sentence made Django’s cheeks flush.
Chen Xiu said, “We are dedicated to our arts. Perhaps someday.”
“Some faraway day,” Naoko asserted. “Besides, we’re young. And we enjoy being somewhat iconoclastic.”
“Right,” Chen Xiu said. “We are...an unlikely match. Who would have thought a monkey like me could marry a woman this lovely? I am fortunate that love is blind.”
Django’s flush deepened.
Naoko squeezed his hand and said something in Mandarin.
Chen Xiu said, “Indeed, my little flower petal.”
Django said, “Uh, my Mandarin is not so good.”
Naoko said, “It means, ‘Fate brings people together no matter how far apart they may be.’ It’s a lovely saying, don’t you think?”
Seeing this young couple in the early bloom of love, all but overflowing with mutual lust, would have been heartwarming, or at least amusing, if he hadn’t known they were his parents. Now, he just felt like gagging.
Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1) Page 20
