The Night Itself

by Zoe Marriott

  “Jack—” I began, hurrying out into the garden after her.

  She ignored me. “You kicked that monster’s ass, man. You have to help us get my sister back.”

  I edged forward, preparing to grab Jack, but Shinobu met my eyes and shook his head slightly. When I looked at the Kitsune’s face, I saw why. He was gazing at Jack’s spiky white, pink and purple hair, purple jacket, black fingernails, skin-tight black pants and knee-high biker boots with the dazed, admiring look that men usually reserved for someone who looked like Jessica Alba. In a bikini.

  He bowed reverently. “I’m Hikaru. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Jack. Jack Luci,” Jack said. She bowed back, a movement I recognized from martial arts. “And my sister—”

  “Is Rachel. I heard,” Hikaru said. He looked torn for a second, then sighed. “I wish I could help. Honestly. But you saw that thing. It had nine tails.” He waved his own tail apologetically.

  Jack gave him a bewildered look. “It was terrified of you.”

  “Not me. I was here representing the London Kitsune. That’s why I got the awesome entrance, with the light and everything. I happened to be closest when your friend here called in his favour, so I was imbued with the authority of my king. And the king can call on every Kitsune in the city. I’d never be a match for a nine-tails otherwise.” Seeing that Jack still looked confused, he explained: “Animal spirits like us grow a new tail every hundred years, right? That thing’s been alive at least a thousand years. I’m not even a hundred yet. So it’s ten times more powerful than me. It’d eat me for a light snack. And I mean, literally.”

  “There’s a Kitsune king?” I said slowly. “There’s a Kitsune king in London?”

  “Yeah. Anywhere there are foxes, there are Kitsune,” Hikaru replied absently. He was still staring at Jack.

  “And he owed you a favour?” I asked Shinobu, since Hikaru obviously wasn’t going to give me the time of day.

  Shinobu nodded. “When I was a little boy, before the Yamato family adopted me, I came across a fox caught in a snare in the woods. I felt sorry for it, so I set it free. He turned out to be a Kitsune. He spoke to me, told me that he was a prince, and that he was in my debt. He promised to repay me if ever I called on him, no matter where or how.

  “That prince is the King of the London Kitsune now,” Hikaru said. “Lucky coincidence. But Kitsune never forget their debts, and all the kings come from the same family. Even if you’d been in the Antarctic, the nearest foxes would have tried to help.”

  “Then won’t he help again?” Jack asked. “If he’s Shinobu’s friend—”

  “It’s not like that, Jack-san. The Kitsune are honourable, and they always keep their promises, but the debt is now paid. They no longer owe me anything.”

  “We don’t get involved in human business these days,” Hikaru said, matter-of-factly. He averted his eyes from Jack with what looked like a painful effort. “I mean, it’s not like you guys are all that friendly to foxes, you know? Rat poison, traps, guns. And that’s just in the city. So, I really should be going now…”

  Jack ran her fingers through her hair and tugged at it. The white tufts sticking up through her fingers made her look like Goth Tinkerbell. “We’re not like that. Rachel loves animals. She’s always putting food out for strays and hedgehogs and birds. She’d help you, if it was the other way round. You can’t just leave her to get eaten. Won’t you do anything?”

  Hikaru, who was halfway back to the bush, stopped. “Me? What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t understand why any of this is happening, but this is my sister. She didn’t do anything wrong. Please help us!” Jack moved towards him and caught the trailing edge of one of his sleeves. She tugged on it, an uncharacteristic, helpless gesture.

  The fox spirit gazed into Jack’s face, clearly torn. “Look, I don’t want that thing running around my city any more than you do. But there’s not much I can do about it, really. I just don’t have the juice.” He sounded genuinely upset. I suppose he wasn’t to know that he was the wrong sex to ever have a chance with Jack anyway.

  “I’m small fry,” he went on. “If you were going to have any chance of standing up to Nightmare Kitty, what you’d need to do is get the king on your side. Which, er, would be tough. Although … it’s not exactly normal human business when a nine-tailed vampire-cat-demon is involved…” He shook himself. “Hey, how did you kids get mixed up with a Nekomata anyway? That’s old magic. Are you a sorcerer or something?” He gave Shinobu a narrow-eyed look, as if he suspected him of somehow dragging me and Jack into a bad, nine-tailed vampire-cat-demon-hobnobbing crowd.

  Shinobu raised an eyebrow at me. A little reluctantly I brought out the katana, which I had been hiding behind my back. My injured arm twinged sharply with the movement. “The Nekomata wants this.”

  Hikaru’s mouth dropped open. He took a step towards us, as if unable to resist. His eyes flicked from me to the sword and back again. “That’s where the power aura is coming from? I thought it was this immortal dude.” He jerked his head at Shinobu.

  Shinobu began: “I am not immortal—”

  Hikaru flicked his hair over his shoulder impatiently. “Whatever, man. You’re, like, five hundred years old. Just own it.”

  “I am not immortal,” Shinobu repeated patiently. “But until very recently, we believe that I was imprisoned within the sword. We don’t know precisely where its powers came from, only that the Yamato family have been its guardians for centuries.”

  “Your family?” Hikaru asked me, slightly reluctantly.

  I nodded.

  “But that’s a meitou.”

  Jack and I exchanged a blank look. “It’s a what?” I asked.

  “A legendary sword! A spirit sword! I don’t know how you’re even holding it – it should be burning your hand off. How would a human family get hold of something like that? How would you possibly protect it?” He hesitated, then blew out a deep breath. “All right. This changes things.”

  “In a good way or a bad way?” Jack asked anxiously.

  “Well, on the one hand, a Nekomata plus a meitou equals not ordinary human business. So I guess that’s good for you. But, on the other, this is obviously a lot bigger than a random Nekomata visiting London. That sword … it’s an object of power. You sure you can’t take care of Nightmare Kitty yourself?”

  “If I could, I would,” I said fervently. “The Nekomata nearly killed us twice. Whatever power the sword has, it’s not mine to use.”

  “You sure about that? Looks to me like it’s working on you already.”

  I stared at him blankly. “What?”

  He squinted at me, his gaze unexpectedly shrewd. Then he looked at Jack again. Finally he nodded sharply. “Screw tradition. I’m going to beg for an audience with the king. Maybe he can make sense of this mess. I’ll come back an hour after sundown and give you the skinny. In the meantime, stay in the house. Nothing can get in while our protections are on it. You’ll be safe.”

  “You will come back?” Jack asked. “Promise?”

  Hikaru’s face took on a stern, noble look. “My word is truth. I shall return.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said tremulously.

  The fox spirit’s face softened. His hand lifted as if to touch Jack, hesitated in the air, then fell. Finally he stepped back and bowed again. “See you after sunset.”

  As he turned away his shape whirled into a tornado of copper and white that compressed his human form down to a much smaller one. A second later a beautiful young dog fox trotted towards the myrtle bush and disappeared into the leaves.

  I bundled Jack upstairs to her own flat before she broke down. I knew it was coming and I knew she wouldn’t want to do it in front of Shinobu, or even me. Ever since her dad had walked out, Jack hated anyone to see her like that. She let me open her front door for her, then pushed me firmly out into the hallway, staring at the wall behind me rather than meeting my eyes. “Going to get cleaned
up. Might be a while. I’ll come down when I’m finished.” Her voice broke on the last word and she slammed the door in my face.

  Inside the flat, there were a series of bangs and thuds, and a smashing sound. Finally the low humming noise of the shower came on. Maybe Jack would feel better when she’d washed off the dirt.

  Right. Monsters are flying at you like confetti and your sister is being held prisoner by something out of a horror film. A hot shower will make everything dandy.

  Awareness whispered across the back of my neck, and I turned to see Shinobu standing guard on the stairs behind me.

  “You didn’t need to follow us up here,” I said in surprise. “You heard Hikaru – the house is safe.”

  “You are still safer if I am near, Mio-dono.”

  I sighed wearily. “You have to have worked out by now that I’m not a lady.” Not much of anything, really…

  “You are my lady,” he said quietly, looking away.

  Something unbearably sweet moved inside me, forcing a short, shaky sound – half-laugh, half-sob – out of my lips. I tried to straighten away from the wall, and wavered on jellylike legs. Shinobu came forward quickly, reaching out to steady me. His hand closed around my bad shoulder and I hissed with pain. He snatched his hand back, staring at the blood streaking his palm. “You are hurt!”

  “Oh, yeah. Some splinters got me. I thought you’d noticed.”

  “If I had noticed, I would have attended to it before,” he said, almost angrily. “Where are your medicinal supplies?”

  “Um … like a first-aid kit? My dad has them all over the place. There’ll be one in the big bathroom, I suppose.”

  “Take me there at once,” he commanded. He gently wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me against him to support my weight.

  “I can walk,” I protested half-heartedly as he guided me towards the stairs. He ignored me.

  Within a few moments I was perched on the edge of the tub. Shinobu, who had already opened the first-aid kit, was swiftly laying its contents out on the bath mat. He’d had to ask me what most of the things were, since the packaging was unfamiliar to him, but he seemed to know what he was doing. As he worked he muttered something under his breath in Japanese.

  “What was that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing. But if you are ever hurt again and you fail to tell me…” He let his voice trail off threateningly.

  “What?”

  He stared at me, hard, before saying, “I shall be cross.”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to hide my smile.

  “You may think it funny,” he said seriously. “But your suffering also hurts me.”

  “What? Like, physically?”

  “No.” His gaze faltered, and he turned away. “Inside.”

  I stared at his straight, broad back as he tied up the long sleeves of his kimono and began scrubbing his hands. Did he realize that he’d said the one thing that would force me to listen to him? I couldn’t bear to think of my actions causing anyone pain like that. Especially not him. He’d had five hundred years of suffering already.

  When his hands were clean, Shinobu carefully started peeling off my battered coat. It was … harder than it sounded. The lining of the left arm was glued to me with dried blood. I had to grind my teeth together to avoid whimpering as Shinobu tugged at it.

  He muttered under his breath in Japanese again. This time I didn’t ask.

  After a minute he took a face cloth, wet it with warm water and began sponging the fabric. It stung like – well, just about like you’d expect. The adrenaline had definitely worn off and my whole arm was throbbing, sending spikes of pain up my neck and down to my hand. Eventually the blood cement came unstuck, and Shinobu managed to ease the left sleeve off. He tossed the coat into the bath.

  We both looked down at my arm and stared in appalled silence.

  The shoulder of my long-sleeved T-shirt was soaked with blood. Several needle-like splinters, an inch or so long, poked grotesquely through the fabric. Shinobu turned away abruptly and started washing his hands again.

  I bit my lip. This was a weird situation. People sometimes say, This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, but you always think it’s bull. I got the feeling that as much pain as I was in right now, Shinobu really was feeling it just as badly, if not more. I had a bizarre urge to apologize.

  Hands clean for the second time, Shinobu knelt on the floor beside me. He was so much taller than me that this made our faces level. He leaned over to peer at the injured place on my upper arm, picked up a pair of tweezers, and then cupped the inside of my arm with his other hand, holding the wounded area steady. His knuckles brushed the side of my breast.

  I shuddered convulsively, then felt my face flood with heat as Shinobu went still.

  When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Tell me if anything is too painful to bear.”

  I fixed my eyes determinedly on the mirror over the sink. The face staring back at me had a feverish look, with spots of colour high up on its cheeks and eyes that glittered strangely. I looked like some other version of myself, a Mio I had never met before.

  He began to pull out the splinters embedded in my arm. The first couple came free with nothing more than an uncomfortable itching sensation. The third made me twitch; my hands balled into fists.

  Shinobu stroked my inner arm through my T-shirt, murmuring in Japanese. The gentle treatment should have made me feel like a little kid. It didn’t. Even the sight of my own face was too much now. I clamped my eyes shut.

  “Can I go on?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s the last one I can see,” he said, after what felt like an hour. He dropped the tweezers back on the towel, and his hand slipped away from my arm. “Are you a skilled seamstress?”

  I opened my eyes, baffled. “No.”

  “Then this garment is beyond repair,” he said, and ripped the arm of the T-shirt off.

  “Whoa!” I nearly fell backwards into the bath. He grabbed me just in time, his large hands easily encircling my ribcage.

  “A little warning next time,” I said feebly.

  “Hopefully there will be no next time,” he said. “I have done a shameful job of protecting you so far.”

  I chewed on that as he quickly cleaned the wounds in my arm – most of them were nothing more than small puncture-wounds or grazes – picked out a few more tiny splinters and then applied antiseptic and plasters to the worst of the cuts. He nodded, satisfied, and got to his feet to clean up the mess.

  “Shinobu,” I said as I eased off the edge of the bath to help him. “You realize … you know that if it weren’t for you I would be dead, right? You saved me three times. No – four. ” I stopped and shook my head. “The point is that without you today I’d have been toast. I owe you my life. A few splinters are nothing compared to what could have happened. You can’t feel guilty about this.”

  He had his back to me again, but I could see his shoulders tensing up. “You don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?”

  There was a short silence before he spoke again, a new, stubborn note in his voice. “I have to protect you.”

  “Why? I mean – I am incredibly grateful, don’t get me wrong. But you don’t … owe me anything.”

  He didn’t answer and kept his face turned away from me. I went on. “I’m not your responsibility. I’m not some duty you have to fulfil. You’re not a slave. You have your own body again, and – and choices, and a life. You have to believe that.”

  His gaze snapped to mine. The depths of emotion there turned my tongue to rubber.

  “You have no idea—” His voice choked off, then he began again, low and hoarse. “For an eternity, I was trapped in shadows. Barely alive. Aware only of frozen cold and confinement. If I had been sane enough, I would have begged for death. I had no hope, no warmth, nothing. Nothing but that endless dark.” He swallowed hard. “Then I heard a voice. It reached me there in that prison and it drew me
up, out of the blackness and cold. I felt a heartbeat that thrummed like a bird’s, quick and excited. I saw a pair of eyes – so beautiful, the colour of polished rosewood – smiling. Warmth. I will never forget the embracing glory of that warmth. The warmth of your eyes.”

  The silence sang between us.

  “You’re talking about when I was a kid, aren’t you?” I whispered. “I … I only touched the sword for, like, five minutes.”

  “You gave me a part of yourself, and that was everything I had.”

  One of Shinobu’s hands lifted slowly, almost reluctantly. A single fingertip traced the line of my hair, not quite grazing the skin. He moved towards me until his breath was on my lips. “You woke me. You saved me. And from that moment I was yours. All I want – all I have ever wanted – is to protect and serve you. Please, my lady. Tell me that I may.”

  I nodded wordlessly as I stared up at him, fighting to think straight. He was going to kiss me. I could see it in the way his eyes flicked to my lips, how he tensed to move forward, to bridge that tiny distance between us. His hand would curl round my throat. Our mouths would meet. And when they did…

  Then what?

  The realization flashed through my brain like lightning: I didn’t know him. Not really. Suddenly the intensity of his gaze was scary. The strength of what I felt was terrifying. I’d never been like this before. It was too much. Blindly I put both hands up and pushed at his chest, trying to get a little space between us. It was like pushing at a wall.

  “I don’t – I can’t – I’m…”

  Shinobu blinked, his hand falling away from my face. He looked dazed, a little shocked, and then abruptly horrified. He straightened up fully and backed away from me until he was pressed against the shower. “I apologize, Mio-dono. I am sorry.”

  “No, don’t – you don’t have to. I–I just need some room to—” Oh God, I was making it worse. I have to get out of here.