by Zoe Marriott
My footsteps echoed mockingly through the deserted station, making a drumbeat for the questions that taunted me. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do…?
My eyes were drawn to a tall, slender figure lurking near the entrance of the station. He leaned casually against the central pillar that separated the two wide exits, a grey hoodie pulled up to hide his face. There was no particular reason why he made my spider-senses tingle – but he did. I was sure there was something supernatural about him.
Not another monster in disguise, please…
I grabbed my dad’s arm, giving him a warning look as he tried to move past me.
“What’s the matter?” His voice rang out, puzzled and loud. “Why are you pulling faces?”
“Oh, for f—” I muttered.
The figure had heard us. He straightened up, and as he moved I glimpsed a very familiar tail poking out of the seat of his jeans. “Hikaru? Hikaru!”
“Finally!” He trotted towards us, shoving back his hood to reveal vivid green eyes, exactly like his grandmother’s, and his long burnished copper hair. “I’ve been waiting for you for twenty minutes!”
“What are you doing in the mortal world?”
“The king sent me to warn you—”
“Of what?” my father asked silkily, gliding forward to put himself between me and the Kitsune. His hand strayed to that telltale fold of his coat again.
“Um … who’s this guy?” Hikaru asked, eyebrows arching.
“This is Mio-dono’s father,” Shinobu said.
“You brought your dad with you?” Hikaru asked me. “What – you need a permission slip signed or something?”
“Shut up,” I said to Hikaru. “He’s a badass and he knows all about the katana.” I whacked my dad lightly on the arm. “And you – stop it. This is the Kitsune friend I told you about. We owe him big-time.” I turned back to Hikaru. “I can’t believe the king let you come here.”
“There was no other way to contact you. Look, my grandmother’s been scrying – watching London magically to try and keep an eye on you – and it’s not really an exact science, but she knew you were going to be here, out in the open. Bad idea.”
“Why?” my father asked, his eyes still riveted unlovingly on Hikaru’s tail.
“The levels of spirit energy in this realm are peaking. We think a portal is going to open. The Foul Women will swarm through it. Swarm for real. You have to go back to the house; it’s the only place that will be safe for you when they come.”
“We can’t,” I said. “We can’t go back.”
“Look, I get it. Jack is at the hospital and you want to be with her. But both you and she will be safer if you’re miles away from her when the swarm comes for you. They can batter our protections for a year and they’ll never get in.”
“No, Hikaru, you don’t… Jack’s worse. It’s bad. Really bad. It doesn’t matter what’s happening out there. We have to get to the hospital.”
Hikaru rocked back on his heels as if I had punched him. “Is she … dying?”
“We don’t know.” It sounded bald and heartless – but I just didn’t have any words to comfort him with.
He looked away, his body tensing up, and I thought for a second that it was all going to be too much, that he might take off. Instead he swallowed audibly. “OK. All right. I’m in. All for one, one for all. That’s what we said back in the spirit realm, right? I’m your friendly neighbourhood fox spirit. Just point me in the right direction.”
“Hikaru, no,” Shinobu protested. “It is too dangerous in London for a Kitsune.”
I backed him up. “The king told me what happens to foxes who get infected, remember? I saw it myself. I can’t let you come with us.”
“Well, I can’t go back,” he said flatly. “I lied. Her Majesty didn’t send me.”
“What?!” The word burst out of me like a hiccup.
Shinobu interrupted. “Then how did you get here?”
“I snuck out. It was chancy and I almost didn’t make it, but I had to warn you about what she’d seen. I knew I was going to be stuck here for a while – the plan was to drag you back to your house and hide out there until we could work out how to banish those bitches. But if you’re not hiding out, neither am I.”
“You couldn’t anyway,” my father said. His hand had fallen away from his sword at last. “The Shikome are in the Tube tunnels now. There’s only one way out of here.” He nodded to the entrance.
“Then we’re all in the same boat.” Hikaru flashed his sharp, reckless smile. “Cosy.”
As if to underline his words, there was a harsh, seagull cry from the stairs leading down to the Underground. The hiss of dry feathers drifted up to us like the warning noise of a rattlesnake’s tail. I didn’t think they’d be able to squeeze themselves up the stairs very quickly, but I did know that they would die trying.
Shinobu clasped Hikaru’s arm. “It will be an honour to fight by your side again.”
Hikaru nodded, then turned away. As he did I saw the grin drop from his face, leaving it pale and set.
My father unsheathed his blade on my right, and Shinobu did the same on my left. The need for secrecy wasn’t exactly gone, but it was a lesser concern now. I was betting anyone out on the streets of London in the next few minutes would have far scarier things to worry about than us anyway. By unspoken agreement, we moved towards the exit.
I drew the katana, feeling its sudden excitement buzz against my palm. The energy travelled through my body, loosening my tight muscles a little. Flames flickered, ghostlike, down the sharp silver smile of the blade’s edge – tempting me, reminding me of the power and strength I had tasted before, the power it could still offer me, if only I—
No. Shut up. Just shut up. I haven’t called your name. I haven’t invited you in. I don’t want to hear a single word out of you. You are not in control of me.
Not yet, the blade whispered.
I averted my eyes quickly from the mesmerizing flames and forced my legs to move.
“Do you have a weapon?” my father asked Hikaru.
Hikaru laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. “You’ll see it soon enough.”
He had said once that he was too young to control his lightning like the other Kitsune did. Hikaru was a single-tailed spirit fox, only twenty years old and born here in the UK. But he had managed to open the gate of the Nekomata’s lair for us when Hiro and Araki – both hundreds of years old, with multiple tails to prove it – had been unable to. So I let myself hope he had something good hidden in that tail of his.
The moment we cleared the exit and stepped outside, it was obvious we were going to need whatever help we could get.
An icy wind wailed around the station’s rain shelter. It tore at our clothes and hair with sharp fingers. I could feel the spirit energy buzzing in it, stinging like paper cuts on my skin. In the time we’d been underground the sky had been swallowed up by a thick canopy of low-hanging clouds that seemed to slither over the rooftops. It was almost dark. Even in December, it shouldn’t be as dark as this, this early. The unnatural dusk had caused the streetlights to spark to life up and down the street and on the traffic island in the middle of the wide dual carriageway. The orange glare of sodium lights did battle with the creeping shadows, and lost.
Around us, the broad sweep of pavement was nearly deserted, the stalls of the famous street market empty and hidden under stripy waterproof coverings. All the shops and cafes had closed. A middle-aged lady scurried by, clutching a shopping bag to her like a shield as the gale buffeted her. Her wide, anxious eyes passed straight over Hikaru and Shinobu as if they weren’t there, then skittered anxiously from me and my father. She walked faster, ducking her head.
“Where do we need to go?” Hikaru asked. “I’ve never been to the human hospital.”
I pointed across the road with my free hand. The Underground station was directly opposite a pelican crossing. Right now the thoroughfare was quiet by city st
andards – though not quiet enough to make a straight run across both lanes of traffic possible.
“Once we’re on the other side,” I said, “we’ll follow the main street for about a hundred yards, then turn that corner, past that cafe that’s painted orange. There’s a narrow-ish pedestrian-only road that’ll take us to the hospital entrance.”
“Easy-peasy, right?” Hikaru jerked his shoulders. “Five minutes, tops.”
“Oh yeah,” I muttered. “It’ll be a doddle.”
I met Shinobu’s eyes for a moment. In the strange light they looked opaque, almost black. He raised an eyebrow. I tried to squeeze out a smile for him.
“I don’t like the look of that,” my dad muttered, craning his neck back to stare at the clouds.
Understatement of the century. “Then let’s go before it gets any worse,” I said. The words came out like an order.
I stepped forward and the others came with me, naturally forming a triangle with my father and Shinobu on either side of me and Hikaru one step ahead.
“Shikome are attracted to bright colours, loud noises, and anything that runs away from them or moves quickly,” my father said, voice low. “Walk slowly. Keep your head down. There are thousands of humans in this city. Maybe they won’t realize who we are.”
It seemed pointless to remind him that the sword – and I – stank of an energy that the Yomi creatures could sniff out from miles away. So I said nothing. We headed straight for the crossing. I pressed the WALK button for form’s sake as I reached the kerb, but kept my eye open for a break in the traffic. Now was not the time for respecting traffic laws.
The wind whistled between the buildings, making the bare branches of the trees lining the street opposite moan and creak. Hikaru and Shinobu’s hair whipped around their faces. My father’s black coat billowed out behind him.
I had a sudden vision of a massive tide of energy breaking through the city streets. A rising maelstrom of power, inimical to human cells. To human life. I grabbed the metal pole of the pelican light to keep my balance as that power washed over me. My other hand tightened around the silk wrappings of the katana’s grip. It pulsed fiercely in response.
A black cab whizzed past us, exceeding the speed limit by at least ten miles an hour. A heartbeat later, there was a horrific squeal of tyres. I turned in time to see the taxi swerve to the left and mount the pavement about five metres away. It ploughed straight into the abandoned stalls of the market, sending metal trolleys and chunks of plywood flying. The cars behind the taxi careered across the road as they tried to avoid its rear end and the debris of the crash. Bumpers crunched and metal shrieked. But my attention wasn’t on the effects of the accident. I was staring at the cause.
A Shikome was crouched on the taxi’s roof.
The monster’s cry rippled through the wind as it straightened, spreading its wings out to their full, rattling span.
The car door popped open and the taxi driver staggered out, clutching his bleeding head. The Shikome’s front paw swiped at him—
And the man was down on his knees, unharmed apart from the cut on his forehead. Silent as a shadow, Shinobu leapt onto the boot of the taxi, his swords flashing. The monster roared as two long gashes opened on its chest and abdomen, gushing amber. Shinobu ducked its talons and thrust his blade out again. His sword hilt thudded home in the centre of the Foul Woman’s chest.
He was leaping off the car before the creature had even begun to fall and sprinting back towards us. He was shouting; the wind ripped his words away, but his sword tip pointed over our heads. We turned.
The clouds were boiling, dilating around a black hole in the sky, a gaping maw of absolute darkness. There were no stars in that dark, nothing except a pure white full moon. A moon where no moon should be. The black hole was an entrance to Yomi – and it vomited Foul Women.
Dozens of them swept down towards us in a wave, chittering and screaming as they came.
“Run!”
We scattered into the road, dodging around the slowed traffic. Car drivers honked and flipped us off. A motorcyclist zoomed around me, nearly hit my dad, and ditched his bike, skidding over the tarmac. He rolled to a halt in the gutter.
A Foul Woman swooped on me, talons outstretched. I dodged a car and ducked, but the claws grazed my head. Blood spilled down my neck, burning hot on my chilled skin.
Shinobu’s wakizashi caught my attacker a glancing blow to the side. It shrieked, wings pumping as it skewed in the air. I forced my shaking legs to propel me upwards, thrusting the katana up into the Foul Woman and dragging the blade through its flesh as it passed. The monster shot up out of reach of our swords, injured but not incapacitated.
The sword throbbed with frustration at being deprived of its kill. I can help you. Let me in…
“No! Shut up!”
Another Shikome dived. Shinobu dipped under its back talons, the deadly claws missing him by a millimetre. A third Foul Woman stooped to join the battle.
Fire flared directly overhead as one of Dad’s bombs caught the first monster right in the wing. It lurched sideways, struggling to stay in the air, then dropped – and hit the two creatures below. The unnatural wind screamed around the burning Foul Women, whipping the blaze up. I grabbed the back of Shinobu’s coat and hauled him out from beneath the firestorm—
Directly into the path of a lorry. The driver honked desperately, unable to avoid us.
Hikaru was suddenly there, yanking us forward. We all staggered onto the traffic island together. The lorry shot past.
“Idiot!” the driver screamed out of the window.
I caught sight of my dad, a slim silhouette outlined against the fire in the sky. He whirled out of the lorry’s way, vaulted the metal safety barrier on the traffic island, and sprinted down the length of it towards us.
The burning monsters plummeted into the road like meteorites.
The lorry rammed straight into them.
The car following the lorry rear-ended it and juddered under the impact of the car behind. More and more vehicles skidded and crashed to a halt. The air was filled with the crunch of metal and the shrill drone of car horns. The lorry that had hit the burning Foul Woman had already caught fire. The driver was limping away from the vehicle with his arms over his head.
Hikaru shouted: “It’s going up!”
We didn’t question him. I hit the ground, new bruises throbbing to life on my knees and elbows.
With a hollow whoomph, a fireball enveloped the lorry. The explosion lit the underside of the low black clouds with vivid, dancing orange. Chunks of flaming debris spewed across the road and into the air. Another Shikome fell from the sky, with fire streaming from its wings. The creature crashed into one of the bare trees on the other side of the road, sending jagged branches, some of them alight, cascading down into the next lane of traffic.
“Oh my God…” I wasn’t sure which of us said it. We were all thinking it.
The traffic on both lanes lurched to a halt, people flinging open their doors and fleeing onto the street. Their abandoned cars made a higgledy-piggledy maze on the tarmac.
“Is anybody hurt?” my dad yelled over the wind. “Mio?” A long, shallow cut bisected his eyebrow, trickling blood down his cheek. The left shoulder of his coat was singed.
“I’m all right!” I looked at the other two, who both nodded. I tried to clear a space in the throbbing of my heart, the pounding of my head, to think. “We have to go!”
“Stay low and use the vehicles for shelter!” Shinobu shouted. “There are too many of them to fight.”
“And don’t let the feathers touch you!” my father added.
Crouched low over our bent legs, we scurried through the abandoned cars. My back and thigh muscles trembled, and the rough road surface grazed my knees and free hand every time the wind gusted at me and knocked me off balance. Overhead the sky was full of Shikome. They rioted, ripping the roofs off the stationary vehicles, smashing car windows, screaming. The wind stank of burning m
onster flesh and the sickening decayed stench of the living creatures themselves.
In my hand, the sword was pulsing steadily now, calling to me, begging me inside my mind. Let me help you. Let me make you strong. Let me take your pain…
No!
As a group we reached the kerb and came to a halt, crouching in the shelter of a battered Land Rover and a florist’s van that had skidded up onto the kerb. Before us was the broad, bare pavement that we needed to travel down to get to the pedestrianized road. Right now it looked like a barren wasteland. There was no cover there, no shelter. Once we stepped out, we’d be completely unprotected.
Hikaru cast a glance up. “I think they’ve lost track of us.”
“They’ll soon see us when we leave the cars,” my dad said grimly. “I’ve only got one Molotov cocktail left. Bright ideas?”
Hikaru bared his teeth as if he was nerving himself up. “I think I’ve got something. But it’s a little … risky.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked. “Listen, Hikaru, don’t be reckless—”
“Sez you,” he shot back with a ghost of his usual grin. A pang went through my heart. That was Jack’s line.
Shinobu said, “Once they realize where we are, it will be impossible for us to escape. We must have the element of surprise.”
“He’s right,” my father said.
“Then let’s go now,” Hikaru said. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”
I grabbed his knee and gave it a squeeze. “I do. But be careful. I don’t want to lose you out there.”
“Right you are, cupcake,” he said, his grin a little stronger. He squeezed past me, turned his head left and right as if measuring distances, then nodded decisively. “OK, I’ve got this. When I say run, you run. Go on three. One, two…”
Crouched in filthy, icy cold water below the surface of the city, Rachel could feel the storm breaking somewhere above. A low, ululating croon vibrated in her mouth – a mouth filled with blood and razor-sharp fangs. The unrelieved blackness of the storm drain was bright as day to her now, but her eyes didn’t see the tunnel. They were focused somewhere far away, somewhere deep within.
