by Zoe Marriott
A car turned onto the road and drove towards us. My hand crept to the hilt of the katana as I watched it approach. The car’s headlights blinded me for a second, then it was gone. I blinked and let my hand fall away from the sword. The warmth of the hilt lingered on my palm.
“Chill, my lady,” Hiro said. “They can’t see you when you’re with us.”
“No one could see us earlier either – when we were running from those cats. It’s freaky,” Jack said.
“No, it’s normal,” Hikaru corrected her. “We’re only half here now. One foot in this world, one in the next. That’s part of using spirit magic in the human realm. People – people who’ve never been exposed to our magic, I mean – find it nearly impossible to notice us or process what they’ve seen if they do. It’s the same with any creature not indigenous to this realm. We’re veiled from mortal eyes. We can break through it if we really want to, by touching a human skin to skin or getting in their face and looking right into their eyes. But most of the time it’s better not to be seen. Having your police after us is the last thing we need.”
“All right, fine. Let’s just get going,” I said. The sword, its saya pushed through my white sash, was humming faintly. It was eager.
The Kitsune army reformed around us, and we moved down the street at its head, with Araki and Hiro prowling ahead of me, and Shinobu, Jack and Hikaru behind. I looked around as we walked, trying to work out where in London we were. It was completely unfamiliar. If I had ever been here before it would have been in daylight, when everything was different.
Traffic roared in the distance. Another car passed us without slowing. A barge hooted somewhere out on the invisible River Thames. The steady stomp of our feet made those other sounds, those familiar London sounds, seem unreal. This city, with its bright lights and busy people, clubs and hotels and roads, well lit and wide awake even at this time of night, seemed unreal. It had nothing to do with us, with the unseen army that marched grimly towards a battle with a monster no living person but us had seen in five hundred years.
We were of another time and place. A hidden London of shadows, and silence, and sword points.
Hiro and Araki turned left. I stopped dead, and the army came to a halt behind me. Directly ahead, illuminated by floodlights, was a massive, brick structure with four circular, white towers that glowed in the darkness.
Jack let out a huff of surprise. “Is that…”
“Battersea Power Station?” I finished.
“It is the fortress that the beast has commandeered for itself,” Araki confirmed.
Jack muttered, “Crap.”
Which just about summed it up.
When they said “lair” I had a mental image of, say, an abandoned house or a creepy alleyway. Those would have been bad enough – but at least they would have been easy to get into, and no one would be watching or getting in the way. All right, Battersea wasn’t actually a working power station any more, and all the dangerous bits of machinery had been cleared out years ago. But it was a London landmark, a tourist attraction, surrounded by walls and checkpoints and with regular patrols of security guards.
“Cat-breath commandeered this place?” Jack asked. “We had to sign a book and wear badges just to get in!”
“You’ve visited the lair before?” Araki asked, surprised.
“It was a school day trip,” I said absently. “Some arty people had set up a gallery in the main hall. Jack’s right – I mean, how did the Nekomata get past the guards?”
There was a short, uncomfortable silence. I looked around to see everyone giving me pitying looks. A couple of brain cells fired up and supplied the answer to my question.
They only stop hunting when they’re full.
“Those poor men,” I whispered. Their families probably wouldn’t even realize they were missing until tomorrow. After that, it would be a lifetime of missing them.
All my fault.
Shinobu found my fingers where they were clenched on the sword hilt. I let my eyes fall closed for a heartbeat as he briefly clasped my hand, soaking in the tingling warmth of his wordless touch. Gratitude – and something else, something I didn’t want to try to name right now – flooded through me. It straightened my back and lifted my chin. OK. OK, I can do this.
I opened my eyes and looked at the place again.
In most places the beige brick wall that surrounded the old power station was topped by a steel mesh that took the barrier to nearly twelve-feet high, but here on the road there was a lower section of metal fencing, including the security gate, all covered in warning notices and health-and-safety signs. It was just a bit higher than my head. It made me dizzy to realize that meant it was probably about six feet.
“How are we getting in?” I asked.
In answer, Hiro and Araki stepped forward and knelt down, each of them cupping their hands for me to use as a step. I forced myself to ungrit my teeth because clearly I was expected to set an example for the troops here – but I was never going to get used to using people’s hands for a step.
I put one booted foot gingerly into Hiro’s palm. He supported my weight easily. I reached up and caught the crossbar about six inches below the spiked points of the fence shafts and lifted my other leg. Araki supported it and boosted me up. For an instant I was paralyzed with panic: spikes, spikes, spikes, oh heeeelp…
But then I realized that my upper body was already past the spikes and my arms weren’t trembling under the strain of holding me up. It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to lift my boot out of Araki’s grip, lodge my heel on the crossbar between my hands, balance there in a crouch, and then drop down to land lightly in the concrete yard.
I looked around. Beyond the old power station, the river stretched out, glossy black and streaked with white-and-orange reflections, topped by a slightly unfamiliar view of the familiar city skyline. There it was. The real world.
A world that Battersea was no longer part of.
I had seen this place before. I’d seen pictures of it taken at night. But it had never looked like this. I would bet my entire savings account that any normal humans who came this way tonight would find their eyes passing right over it, their attention wandering, until they forgot they’d ever glanced at the old power station in the first place. Its outline wavered as if I was staring at it through cloudy water filmed with oil. Nothing – not the lines of bricks and windows or the shapes of the towers, things that should have been straight and reliable – would stay still to be looked at. Everything here was changing. Receding. The stink of the beast breathed off it.
The old power station was like us now. Halfway in the next world. But the next world for the Nekomata wasn’t the spirit realm.
It was the Underworld.
My muscles tensed, ready for battle. I turned round, impatient for the others to arrive. Then I blinked. I’d climbed over that fence? With just a leg-up?
Holy crap, I am a ninja.
Jack’s face appeared behind the spikes. She wore a grimace of effort as she dropped her glaive over the top, then scrambled after it. Shinobu came next. No surprise that he vaulted over with one hand and landed with a mere bend of his knees. A wave of Kitsune warriors swarmed after him, making the human defence seem about as insurmountable as a steep kerb.
“With these guys helping, taking the Nekomata out is going to be a piece of cake,” Jack said as she walked up next to me, looking back at the fox spirits admiringly.
“Bloody, screamy, stabby cake,” I agreed.
It took about thirty seconds for that idea to go right out of the window.
Hikaru dropped down casually and trotted towards us … and staggered. He caught himself straight away, but the movement was so uncharacteristic that I looked at the ground to see what had tripped him. There was nothing there.
“Huh. I thought… What?” Hikaru put his hand to his head.
Behind him another Kitsune tripped, but this one hit the concrete and didn’t get back up. Araki, who had nearl
y reached us, suddenly slumped to her knees, shudders wracking her body. Hiro weaved sideways. The charge of fox spirits crumpled as if they had been clotheslined.
“Mio!” Jack cried, grabbing Hikaru as he wobbled. Shinobu went to help her.
I swore. “Back! Get back over the wall!” What was the word I was looking for here? Oh, right. “Retreat!”
Shoving, dragging and even in some cases lifting bodily – which answered the strength question, because, yes, I was definitely stronger – we managed to get the Kitsune back over the fence. Araki was so out of it that it took me, Shinobu and Jack working together to bundle her across the spikes.
As soon as we were back on the other side, most of the Kitsune began to perk up again. They stood around looking indignant, grumbling and swearing as they got their balance back and the colour returned to their faces.
“At ease,” Hiro mumbled from where he sat in the middle of the road, his head between his legs.
Hikaru, apparently none the worse for wear, took off his long, white coat and wrapped it around Araki, who definitely was. We eased her down to sit on the pavement next to the giant NO PARKING sign. She was grey-faced and clammy looking, fine trembles making her fingers slip as she tried to pull the coat closer around her.
“Araki, what’s the matter?” I asked, kneeling next to her. “Tell me how to help you.”
“Can’t,” she gasped out between chattering teeth.
Hiro crawled towards us to sit cross-legged on Araki’s other side. His tails were twitching and his brows were a straight, angry line, but his hands were careful as he tested Araki’s pulse and peered into her eyes.
“I think she will be all right in a few moments,” he said. I noticed that he looked older suddenly, and his speech patterns had turned formal. He must make an effort to seem so young; stress had made him revert to a more natural way of expressing himself. “The Nekomata is more powerful than we thought. It laid a trap for us in the ground. The moment we breached its barrier it began to sap our magic. The oldest were the most badly affected. I’ve never felt anything like it. It must be incredibly ancient.”
“I don’t get it,” I said as I absently rubbed Araki’s back. “The thing only has nine tails, like your king.”
“His Majesty is nine hundred years old. Spirit animals stop growing tails when they reach one thousand years old,” Hikaru said. “Most don’t reach that age – we may not die of natural causes, but there are plenty of other hazards to take us out. Once you pass a millennium your power goes up exponentially.”
“So you’re saying that thing could be thousands of years old?”
“That is how it felt to me,” Hiro confirmed.
“No,” Shinobu said decisively, and we all turned to look at him. “I have fought this creature three times now. It is a terrible beast, yes, but there is no way any of us could have won, even once, against a creature as ancient as you say. It would have swept us aside like dust.”
“Yeah, he’s right,” Jack said. “Mio and Shinobu sliced the thing up, like, a few hours ago. And it ran from your fox fire then too.”
“Perhaps some other force – some other being – is lending it strength,” Hiro said slowly, troubled. “But what that may be, I cannot say.”
My Mistress, the Nekomata’s voice crooned in my head.
I forced myself to speak up, pushing the unsettling memory away. “These protections. They didn’t seem to get to me. Jack, what about you?”
She nodded. “Didn’t feel a thing.”
“I was also unaffected,” Shinobu said.
“So then the trap is like the mirror image of the one that caught us when we passed into the spirit realm,” I said, working it out as I went. “It’s keyed to react to magical creatures, but not humans. Which makes sense, since … well, humans are the Nekomata’s prey. Most of us aren’t a threat to it, and it wouldn’t want to keep free food from wandering in.”
“It makes little difference,” Shinobu pointed out. “The thing is sure to have placed more magical protections on the building itself. If the Kitsune are unable to breach the walls, then none of us will be able to get in.”
“Calm yourselves,” Araki said, lifting her hand. The grey tinge was beginning to leave her face, though she still looked pale. “The creature may have the aid of some unknown ally, but we are not powerless either. Our lack of knowledge merely made us incautious. We can break through this trap if we join together. And even if we are unable to enter the lair ourselves, I am sure we can make it possible for Mio-dono and her companions to do so.”
“What? We can’t send them in there on their own!” Hikaru burst out. “They need us! That thing is a nine-tails. That’s why they came to us in the first place. We should go back and get more help.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Jack said firmly. “My sister is in there and that thing is going to kill her at dawn. I’m getting her out, even if I have to claw the walls down with my fingernails.”
Hiro stood and laid his hand on Hikaru’s shoulder. “This enemy must be faced and defeated. We cannot keep our allies from the battle which is theirs merely because we are unable to fight alongside them.”
I looked away from the expression on Hikaru’s face. It was too painful.
“We’d better hurry it up then,” he said after a second, shrugging away Hiro’s hand. “Dawn isn’t far off.”
The words acted on the Kitsune like a war cry. Even the ones who still looked weak and tottery got up and joined hands, making a neat, square block of bodies in front of the gate. Hiro ushered us to the back and then went to the front to help Araki up with an arm around her shoulder. Hikaru hesitated, clearly torn.
“Brace yourselves,” he warned. “This could get a bit – showy.”
Then he followed Hiro and put his arm around Araki’s waist to steady her.
I stood on my tiptoes between Shinobu and Jack and watched Araki take a few deep breaths. She lifted her face to the sky and began to sing.
It was a strange sound, low and wavering, but beautiful. Fox tails waved gently, hypnotically, in the air behind them. As the other fox spirits joined their voices to Araki’s, the small hairs on my body once again began to stir. Their eerie song gradually gained strength, vibrating through my teeth, my bones, through the katana. The sword rattled against my ribs, and I pressed it tightly into my side with my arm to keep it still.
“Mio,” Jack whispered on my left side. “You still remember, right?”
“Remember what?” I whispered back reluctantly, not wanting to disturb the delicate magic of the foxes’ song.
“What we said about Rachel and the sword. If it comes down to a choice, you put Rachel first.”
Lightning began to spark on the wall and fence ahead of us, flickering and dancing along the lines of the mortar and twining around the vertical metal struts of the gate. I stared at the gathering electricity and remembered the white fire that had burst from the katana and swallowed Midori’s lightning. I remembered an amphitheatre full of immortals blown right off their feet by the power of the explosion. I remembered the fox king’s parting smile that had held both anger and respect, and a tinge – just a tinge – of fear.
I remembered watching suns die in the shadow of the sword’s column of blinding light.
Shadows and blood will devour this world…
It had seemed simple before, at the house. Not even a choice, but a certainty. I knew now that, no matter what, I couldn’t let my friend, my friend’s sister, die. I would fight for Jack and Rachel. I would kill to keep them safe. I would die if I had to.
But would I give up the sword?
Even if I knew that Rachel would be safe, that Jack and Shinobu and I would be safe, even if I knew that by doing it I would buy everyone I cared about some temporary safety … what then? What about the future? The rest of the world? I had seen what the katana could do. The Nekomata was a creature of complete evil. It would be the equivalent of handing over a nuclear bomb that could kill mill
ions to save a single person.
Blood and shadows… Shadows and blood…
Horror made cold sweat break out on my face as I realized that Jack was asking me for the one thing that I didn’t think I could do for her.
“You know I’ll do the right thing,” I said, through numb lips.
Jack gave me a sheepish, sidelong look. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
I’m the one who’s sorry. So, so sorry…
A glance at Shinobu, standing solidly on my right, told me that he understood exactly what the exchange had been about. I wanted to demand reassurance. I wanted to ask him if the sword had already changed me, or if I had always been this cold and ruthless, underneath. But I couldn’t say a word. Not in front of Jack. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer anyway.
Shinobu leaned towards me, his voice nothing more than a brush of warm breath against my ear, a comforting rumble low in his chest. “You are Yamato Mio-dono. You are the sword-bearer. You will do what is right. What is necessary to keep us all safe.”
For the second time his hand brushed over mine on my sword hilt, and then fell away.
But what was right? What was necessary? Would I really care about the world if the people I loved – Jack, and Rachel, and my parents – weren’t in it? Could I make that choice?
What would I be if I couldn’t?
What am I if I can?
Thunder boomed, and I jerked violently. The security gates flew open with a crash, health-and-safety signs dashed to shards against the bricks. The Kitsune’s lightning swept down and hit the ground inside the wall with a sizzle like ice cubes falling into a deep-fat fryer.
“One step forward!” Araki yelled hoarsely.
We advanced. The wave of lightning pushed ahead of us. When I squinted I could see something like smoke – heavy, oily coils – burning off the ground where the lightning crackled.
“One step forward!” Araki called again, more strongly this time. She had pulled free of Hikaru and Hiro’s supporting arms.
