Deadly Flowers

by Sarah L. Thomson

  Two brushed my face, feather-light. One lifted open the front of my jacket and another reached inside toward the secret pocket there, fondling the pearl through the cloth like a blind beggar stroking a cherished coin.

  A fifth tendril slipped slowly around my neck.

  I heard the faintest gasp from Saiko. She was awake. Good.

  I sat up abruptly, and my right hand, holding my knife, came out from under my cheek to slash through the rope of hair twined about my neck.

  Okui screamed, the sound doubled as it came from two throats. I punched her as hard as I could in the mouth on the back of her head, sending her sprawling, facedown, to the floor.

  Moments stretched out as they do sometimes in battle, as if I had minutes to consider every move.

  Saiko leapt from her bed to fling open the screen and unlatch the shutters of the nearest window. Moonlight streamed in.

  Ichiro sat up, kicking off his quilt, looking baffled.

  Okui, on the floor, whirled to face me. Now her eyes were open. Crouched like an animal, she bared her teeth, and her hair reared up over her head, a dozen snakes poised to strike.

  “Out!” I shouted.

  Ichiro had the good sense to snatch up his sandals before diving through the open window.

  I sprang off my bed, grabbed my quilt, and threw it at Okui. It hit her right in the face, and her hair seized hold of the slippery silk, wrestling with it, blinding her further.

  Saiko was out the window now. I grabbed my pack and followed, or tried to.

  Before I made it outside, something soft but heavy as a cudgel slammed into the backs of my knees, knocking me down. My forehead cracked hard against the window frame, and everything around me went black, and sticky, and slow.

  My senses came back in a moment, but that moment was too long. A black rope had already seized my shoulders and flipped me over onto my back, and Okui loomed above me, her face one ravenous snarl.

  There was a heavy weight on my legs, so I could not kick. A snake of hair lashed at my eyes. I threw up my right arm to fend it off and now my wrist was pinioned, the knife in that hand useless. White froth bubbled at the corners of Okui’s mouth.

  Then something heavy smashed through the window and smacked Okui full in the face.

  She shrieked like a wounded bird. The hair around my wrist loosened.

  The tree branch, for that’s what it was, swung back and hit Okui again. I wrenched my arm free, slashed with my knife, and caught her cheek. She howled, falling back, and I wondered how she’d explain a knife wound to the man who owned her, the next time he came to visit.

  The weight on my legs was gone. Hands seized me and hauled me out through the window. Saiko and I fell to the ground in a heap, and Ichiro slammed his branch at the window again, giving us time to scramble out of reach.

  I looked back to see Okui gripping the window frame, her hair storming about her bloodstained face. But she made no move to climb out after us.

  “You’ll wish you’d stayed inside with me,” she spat. It was awful to see what rage and thwarted hunger did to her face. And before I could react, her hair seized the shutter and slammed it shut.

  SIXTEEN

  The path we’d followed to reach Okui’s house had vanished. To my right, the white stones in the grass still glimmered in the moonlight, but now they led from the plum tree with its ghosts of blossoms straight to a dense thicket of vines and thorns.

  “What was she?” Ichiro gasped.

  We retreated to the left across the clearing, moving away from the house. Here no thicket blocked our way, and we pushed between cedars and young oak trees, stumbling over roots, clutching at each other for balance.

  “Another bakemono. A double-mouthed woman,” Saiko answered, her voice low. “You’ve heard of them.”

  “Hearing isn’t seeing.” Ichiro’s voice sounded unsteady, as if he were shivering. “Kata? Are you all right?”

  I nodded before I remembered that they couldn’t see me. “All right,” I whispered. Then I spat out a curse.

  My pack. My pack!

  It had slipped from my hand when my head had struck the windowsill. My sword had been in there. A tinderbox for lighting fires. Most of our money, too, although I’d tucked a few coins into various pockets for safekeeping. What a fool I was, my brains addled by one good thump. How would we manage now?

  “What’s wrong?” Ichiro was worried. “Did she hurt you?”

  I breathed in slowly, breathed out even more slowly. The pack was gone. There was no getting it back. It would do no good to worry Ichiro over the loss, or to curse myself.

  In the darkness, I found Ichiro’s arm and patted it clumsily. “No. I’m not hurt.” I’d have a lump on my forehead, but that was all. The demon had not injured me badly, though she’d been close enough.

  That mouth, with the lips pulling back from the teeth, like a snarling cat’s. Had she wanted the pearl, or had she been hungry? Or both?

  It didn’t much matter. The only reason I had not been a meal for a demon was the tree branch in Ichiro’s hands and Saiko’s quick thinking.

  Trust no friend farther than you can see her. Trust no ally for more than you’ve paid him.

  They could have run. The two of them had been well outside the window, and Okui’s attention had been on me.

  But they’d stayed. They’d fought. For me.

  “Which way?” Saiko murmured. “Should we wait until light?”

  It was a good question. I’d been disoriented by the time we’d reached Okui’s door. Now—hopeless. Even for a gold coin, I could not have told you which way was north.

  But I was fairly sure we should not wait for the sun to rise.

  There was something under my feet, and I was feeling distinctly uneasy about it. I moved a step, felt something roll, and then heard it crunch.

  I knelt, forcing back my distaste, and felt among dry leaves and brittle twigs.

  A jacket and trousers of soft cotton. Something long as a stout branch, but smoother. Something delicate, tapering and curved. Something round as a melon, and about that size.

  A lucky gleam of moonlight struck through the branches overhead and confirmed what I had already guessed.

  Bones. I’d been standing on bones.

  The clothing was a mottled brown, good for hiding among trees and brush. And before the clouds whisked the light away, I spotted two long slim bones side by side. A long, narrow strip of cloth had been wrapped many times around the bones where their ends had fused together, and a nest of small white finger bones spilled from the bandage.

  It was the kind of field dressing someone might tie around a broken wrist.

  Instructor Willow was not tracking us anymore. She must have avoided the bandits, gotten ahead of us through the pass, and guessed correctly that once we had done the same we would head for the only shelter in sight.

  Had Willow entered Okui’s house as well? Did the double-mouthed woman toss the bones of her meals into the forest for crows and foxes and beetles to gnaw? Or had the instructor stayed outside, watching for us under the trees, and met something here she was not trained to fight? Something that could suck all the flesh from a body while leaving the clothes—and even a bandage—untouched?

  Okui had said we would wish we’d stayed inside with her. As if there were something beneath the moon worse than being trapped in the house of a hungry demon.

  “Downhill,” I said grimly, answering Saiko, as I got to my feet.

  I should never have let us go into that house. I should have known from the beginning that something was wrong. Good food, soft beds, hot baths—was it that easy to throw me off my guard? What kind of a ninja was I?

  And now I was lost.

  It was worse than stumbling through the gardens in the castle of Ichiro’s uncle. Then it had been wood and water and stone against me. Here I felt as if the night itself was fighting back, clawing at our skin with thorny hands, clinging to our hair with dark tendrils, slithering underfoot to make us
trip and stumble.

  Darkness was supposed to be my ally. Did the night know how badly I’d failed? Was this my punishment?

  I untied my wide cloth belt and gripped the loop on one end with my left hand. I gave the other end of the belt to Saiko. Ichiro held on between. We straggled down the slope, ducking under branches we could only dimly see, stumbling over roots, slipping on drifts of pine needles. When one fell, the other two did as well. But at least we stayed together. Maybe I wasn’t the ninja I’d once thought myself, but whatever my failures, I’d gotten the three of us this far. I wasn’t about to let the predatory darkness swallow any of us up.

  We’d paused for a breath when I heard it. A heavy, soft footfall. I heard it again, when we started moving once more.

  My eyes were useless. It was a world of gray and black, every shadow darker than ink. Anything could stay hidden just by standing still.

  All I had were my ears, and I wasn’t sure what they were telling me.

  The footsteps were too quiet to be booted feet, too heavy to be a fox or a badger, too stealthy for a bear. I’d heard of a giant cat with fur like a flaming coal. The thought made me want to dash for a mouse hole. Even climbing a tree would not save us from a hungry, hunting cat.

  Then claws skittered on rock. Cats don’t hunt with their claws out.

  “Did you hear …” Saiko whispered.

  “What?” Ichiro sounded panicked.

  “Nothing!” I said sharply. “Keep going!”

  There was no point in whispering. The thing knew we were there.

  A faint, dull glimmer up ahead hinted at an end to the dense forest. Would whatever was tracking us stay in the trees? Or would it spring when it sensed we might escape?

  Full-grown trees were giving way to saplings and scrubby bushes. Slower walking. I went first, breaking a path as best I could.

  Something scuttled through the tall grass to my left. Something whipped through the air, too quickly for me to spot.

  Something sighed, a vast exhalation of breath.

  “Just the wind,” Saiko said firmly, before Ichiro could ask.

  “This way.” I pushed forward. It was better to be a moving target than a standing one.

  We broke out from under the trees. Moonlight burst down as we kicked loose from brush and vines, shadows clinging to us like cobwebs. I thought we’d done it. We were free. We could run.

  Actually, we could fall.

  My eyes, dazzled by moonlight, didn’t see that the ground gave way right where the forest ended. There was a steep earthen bank. I rolled down it. Since Saiko and Ichiro were still holding the belt, they both fell with me. We all ended up on hands and knees in thick, greedy mud.

  We struggled to our feet, and I tried to get my bearings. We’d landed on a river plain, the one we’d seen from the ridge earlier. That meant that somewhere not too far from here was the road.

  A road was good. It meant firm ground for running, and clear lines of sight in at least two directions. It meant people. A road was made by humans, and would lead to humans. I hoped.

  A glint of light in the distance might be the river. The road had run alongside of it. So for now, that river was our destination.

  “I’m sinking!” Saiko wailed. I groaned, splashed to her side, seized her arm, and dragged her over to a clump of stringy grass. One end of my belt was still in my hand. I thrust the other end at her.

  “Hold this and follow me,” I told her. “Walk where the grass grows. That way you won’t—Ichiro! Stay over here!”

  “Come this way!” the boy called back. He was already farther away than I liked.

  “You don’t know how to do this!” I growled, and stepped into the muck, pulling Saiko after me. “Wait!”

  And then I heard it. Or rather, I didn’t.

  Everything became still. All the forest sounds that had become so familiar vanished.

  Whatever had been tracking us had slunk to the earthen bank above our heads. It wanted to reach us before we’d gotten far.

  “Run!” I yelled, so that Ichiro could hear, too. “But—Ichiro, no! Watch where you’re going!”

  Ahead of us, Ichiro sprang over pools and puddles, his feet seeming to find a secure clump of earth each time. But his luck wouldn’t last; it couldn’t.

  What madness was this? Why was I following him? He was nothing but a child. He wasn’t trained. He was no shadow warrior, no warrior at all. He’d be up to his chin any minute now, and then what would I do? Keep running and leave him? Stay to haul him out and be eaten?

  I dragged Saiko forward, stumbling and slipping. “Ichiro, wait!” I shouted, slid off a clump of soggy moss, and fell in myself.

  I was up to my knees. The mud was sharply cold, and it seized my feet and calves tight. I let go of my belt as I went down, so I would not pull Saiko in with me. Even so, she staggered and fell to her hands and knees, luckily landing safe in a patch of grass.

  But she dropped the belt, and it flopped into a patch of muddy water, too far for either of us to reach.

  Nausea, as cold as the mud that held me, surged up in my gut. A ninja shouldn’t fear death. I’d thought I didn’t. But to be trapped here—stuck, helpless—waiting for claws to rip me, teeth to tear my muscles from my bones—

  Darkness was closing in. Clouds sliding over the moon? No, a thick bank of fog had rolled over us.

  No sign of Ichiro. The idiot boy was probably drowning somewhere. I tried to work my left leg free, and then my right. I wasn’t sinking. I could get out of this. But not quickly. It would take time. I didn’t have time.

  “Give me your jacket,” Saiko called. “I can pull you out with it. Hurry!”

  My hand had gone to my collar when a long snake flew out of the darkness and slapped me in the face.

  “Grab it!” Ichiro’s voice.

  It wasn’t a snake at all; it was a thick, soft vine. I seized it. “Now!” the boy called. He’d braced himself. I clutched the vine and pulled. It held. Ichiro’s weight gave it strength, and I dragged myself free.

  “Follow the vine!”

  This fog—where had it come from? It stung my eyes and was bitter in my throat. Blind, I let the vine lead me. Ahead of me, Saiko had grasped it, too.

  We both crawled, splashing through mud and water, but somehow Ichiro had found a safe path. We didn’t sink. Then the earth sloped up under our hands and feet. We were on a dirt causeway that cut across the swamp.

  How had Ichiro known this was here?

  The nausea hadn’t left me. Now it doubled. I put my head down and crawled forward on the raised dirt roadway, too dizzy to try to stand. I’d felt this bad only once before, when I’d been a child, back at the school. I’d lain on my mat with a fever for three days. Even Madame had come to look at me, and a priest had brought medicines, bitter to swallow, that only made me feel sicker than ever.

  It had been Masako who’d crept away from the practice yard every chance she got to wipe my face with wet cloths and whisper encouragement in my ear. You will get better, Kata. This will pass, Kata. Soon. Twice she’d brought me soup from her own bowl and spooned it, a trickle at a time, into my mouth.

  And oddly enough, now Masako was next to me. Her plain face had grown pretty, though, and she was wearing an elegant kimono of white silk and ornaments as white as bone in her hair.

  How funny that she should be here, in this swamp at night. But I was glad to see her. I didn’t think I’d ever thanked her for taking care of me, so long ago. Now I’d have a chance.

  “Close your eyes!” she ordered me.

  A funny thing to ask anyone to do. It was not as if I were going to bed. But now the thought of sleep was in my head, and I could not get it out. How long since I’d lain down in a bed and gotten to stay there? How long since I’d rested without being up half the night on watch, or being attacked by hungry demons, or kidnapped by courteous bandits? Sleep, yes. I would go to sleep. I’d feel so much better when I woke up.

  Masako actually growled at me, and sh
e seized my arm and gave me a shake. “Close your eyes!” she insisted.

  Before I could do it, Ichiro screamed.

  Some of the black fog seemed to have blown away. I could see Saiko now, on her knees, both hands to her head. Ichiro crouched behind her, and his back was to me. He was staring at something crawling up the causeway.

  Masako was shouting something. Something strange. It seemed to be, “Don’t look!”

  But of course I had to look. How else could I know what I was fighting? I was fighting something, wasn’t I? I always was.

  I saw—

  It was only for a heartbeat, before I turned away. But in that moment, I saw a roiling black shadow that reminded me a bit of Okui’s hair: alive, furious, ravenous.

  Inside the dark mass was a snake’s tail, lashing madly. Flaming stripes blazed along the thing’s back. There seemed to be a small, furry head, and in it a monkey’s mouth screeched, with a sound that drove into my ears like a nail. It hurt to look at the crawling thing. Pain jabbed into my eyes, blossomed and burst in my head.

  My stomach heaved, and before I knew it, I was throwing up into the dirt. My eyes closed tightly as the spasm squeezed my stomach and throat, but in that instant, my mind cleared a bit, and I knew what was attacking us.

  I groped, seized Saiko’s arm, and shook her. “Shut your eyes!” I ordered, without opening mine. “Ichiro! You, too! Shut your eyes!”

  A nue. Merely to be near it could bring on the wrenching illness that had seized us all. Trying to look at it would only make things worse. My single glance had made me feel like my brain had been tied into knots inside my skull.

  I pushed myself to my knees, and then unsteadily to my feet.

  “Down!” I shouted. “Flat!”

  I hoped their minds were clear enough to obey me.

  I’d sparred while blindfolded often enough. I’d made my way from the school’s storeroom to the roof, and from there to the ground, without using my sight. But during those times, I’d been able to count on my brain and my sense of balance. I hadn’t been trapped in a black whirlwind inside my own head.

  Clumsily I slid one of my knives out of its sheath at my wrist. Stroked the smooth, chilly steel with my fingertips. Pricked the pad of my left thumb with the point.