by ZV Hunter
Path of Shadows
Deathwalker Series
By: Z.V. Hunter
Copyright 2016 by Z.V. Hunter
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / IgorKovalchuk
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This is a prequel story to the Deathwalker Series.
Enjoy!
I GRIPPED THE SWORD in my palm.
The leather, freshly wrapped and black as ink, was damp and smooth against my skin. The blade was silver and the same sort that samurai used to wield. It glinted in the candlelight that flickered around the room. We lit them in favor of the ceiling lamps because when calling upon a Calamity it was best not to get electricity involved.
It didn't react well to the otherworldly presence.
I stood in one corner of the room—cardinal north.
Rika stood to the east and Mimi to the west. Straight across from me, in the south side of the room, Aki met my eyes. We all stood at the edge of the great circle we'd drawn upon the ancient wooden floors of the Shrine with white chalk. It was part of the Shrine's inner sanctum where the most elaborate ceremonies took place. And the most secret ones.
This was the latter.
"Are you sure about this?" Aki asked. Her hands rested on her hips, and they dug into the red fabric of her hakama. The white of her top was as crisp as the tulips on the Shrine's grounds—the ones planted when it was first built over a hundred years before.
We were dressed identically in official Shrine Maiden garb, though only Aki and Mimi were fully initiated since I only turned eighteen last week. The wide-legged pants were traditional and would be my official uniform once I took over.
I curled my toes into the cold floor and listened to the rain pelt the roof. With all the doors closed, it was easy to forget the world outside. The Shrine itself was draped in darkness. Yoyogi Park, which skirted it, closed several hours ago, and we'd spent the time since then preparing the ritual.
In truth, it felt like we'd spent the last two months preparing it.
Ever since my mother died.
My stomach clenched, and I wiped my sweaty palms on my hakama. "I don't really have a choice. Without a proper weapon, I can't be Meiji's Priestess."
"We're here to help you with that. Right?" Rika asked and grinned a toothy grin. A long bow and arrow set at her feet. Unlike the rest of us, her hair wasn't long and braided down her back. Rika recently chopped hers short. She wore it spiky and had threatened to bleach it platinum blonde, but Aki managed to talk her out of it.
Shrine Maidens couldn't have unnaturally colored hair. It was part of the rules, though I wasn't entirely sure Aki didn't make it up.
"She's right. We could help you do anything if you need us to," Mimi said and smiled ,though hers wasn't as wide or as reassuring as Rika's. Her fingers trembled against her crossed arms. "Since we've never tried this before maybe we should practice with something smaller."
"Like what? A butter knife?" I asked.
Rika snorted.
Aki frowned.
Mimi gave me a weak shrug. "Well, maybe not that."
I squared my shoulders and tried to look more self-assured than I felt. In truth, my heart pounded. Though the room was smoky and cool, a drop of sweat slid between my shoulder blades, and my skin felt like ice and fire all at once. It took all the composure I had not to let my hands shake or my voice tremble.
We'd never tried this—we'd only read about it. My mother wanted me to put it off until I came of age, and she'd promised to aid in the ritual. If she were here, she'd have been standing in my place.
Instead, I was alone.
Adrift.
Everything since that night two months ago felt like a terrible dream that I'd wake up from any moment, but it wasn't.
I'd seen her body laid out at the Gokoku Temple. The Monks prayed over her for days before the cremation. Then we had the funeral, and even Kuro Abe (a bastard Conjurer from the powerful Abe family) showed up and had the nerve to tell me he was sorry for my loss. As if he'd ever been sorry for anything that happened to me. He, along with all the others, gave me a tidy sum of cash. Which surprised the hell out of me since my peculiar abilities weren't looked on with any reverence. Far from it. But I guess some traditions hold sway no matter what. In total, I had more than enough to get away from Neo-Tokyo altogether.
Travel to Europe or America. My mother always said she wanted me to go to university in the USA, but now how could I?
If I didn't take over the Shrine someone else would.
A quick glance at Aki twisted my stomach. She wouldn't need a Calamity Weapon to run this place. Her power came straight from Ame, the power of Takama-ga-hara—the Realm of Gods—as it was.
Mine didn't.
But Rika, Aki and Mimi all utilized Ame power that could help me.
I lost the ability to access Ame power and gained something else instead. Something nowhere near as useful: the power of Yomi from Yomi-no-kuni, the Land of the Dead, and the power of Makai from the Spirit World. The second is the same power Calamities use. It's not nearly as helpful as it sounds.
Meiji is one of the premier Shrines in Neo-Tokyo, and it protected the city from ghosts and monstrous spirits called Calamities—the creatures that reside in the Spirit World and harm humans. They aren't really ghosts, though they can be if a ghost sucked in enough Makai power (and was vengeful enough) to become one.
Calamities can be anything from ancient gods to tanuki to an overly large snake. No human knows how many exist or all the forms they take. Rumor has it that many gather for Hyakki Yagyō, the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, but no human has ever seen it. Or lived to tell about it.
But while they could all use their power to subdue Calamities, I had my own unique gifts.
I could see the Calamities. Talk to them. Most of the time, Calamities are invisible to everyone, even those with strong Spiritual power. Not to me.
Not anymore.
I gained that power ten years ago—the day I died.
No, I wasn't a zombie. I came back from Yomi-no-kuni (scared the shit out of a few Monks on the way) and lost my access to Ame all at once. While I still had Spiritual power, it was the wrong kind—the kind no one understood or trusted because it didn't come from the Gods.
It came from the shadows.
The only people in the world who didn't care about that stood in the room with me. The other one died two months before.
This kind of power was only useful if I also had the ability to hurt Calamities. I couldn't without a source of Ame or an iron weapon infused with a Calamity. Hence the need for this sword—a Calamity Weapon of my own.
The ritual would get me just what I needed the take my mother's place.
If we did it right.
If not, I couldn't become the Priestess the Shrine needed me to be.
No pressure, right?
Aki watched me. We'd trained together since we were six. She'd always been at my side, just like she was now. My chest warmed under her gaze. "You're right. When you take over you'll need all the weapons you have, especially if something happened to one of us. Are you ready?"
The candles flickered and the shadows danced around the room. The sliding doors that surrounded us were painted with intricate scenes of bamboo forests, cranes, and creeping tigers. I'd grown up with those familiar pictures, but in this light they took on a sinister edge that sent a shiver up my spine. Still not as bad as walking the streets at night when all the ghosts of the city came out in force.
Calamities wandered the streets during the day, and they took every form imaginable from that of normal humans to giant rolling boulders with sharp teeth and one eye. I never really escaped them. Th
e Shrine was the only real place to get away because of the Spiritual Wards that kept them at bay. Though several powerful Calamities had been enshrined here, and one of them would be my weapon.
After all, the stronger the Calamity the more powerful it would be when bound to a sword.
I stepped to the center of the circle, careful not to smudge any of the chalk, and set the sword on a small table. Beneath it stood the Spirit Vessel, a plain gray vase with the kanji for 'containment' painted in black on the side. The Calamity I'd chosen was in there—the largest and strongest of the Shrine's collection.
The only sound in the room was the floor creaking beneath my feet as I return to my spot. "Okay. Let's begin."
With one last glance to make sure our toes were outside the circle, I started the incantation.
The ancient words were imbued with power and magic, the same kind that ran under our feet. It wasn't the same as the Ame power, borrowed from Takama-ga-hara—Realm of the Gods, that the other Shrine Maidens harnessed lest I wouldn't have been able to use it myself. No, this was a primal human sort of power. The kind that Mages and Witches and Warlocks called upon. It didn't have the power to hurt a Calamity in the long term, but it could contain it for a short while. It was the same incantation used to seal them in a Spirit Vessel or Spirit Stone after they'd been subdued.
And it'd work long enough that we could perform the ritual.
The spell grew with each word. They twirled and twisted around each other as they spilled from our mouths. The light and shadow twisted with them the way the human world is twisted with the Spirit World, Takama-ga-hara, and Yomi-no-kuni—all wrapped up in each other and knotted until it was impossible to separate them.
Whoever said the universe was a simple thing—something that can be taken apart and understood by the human mind didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
The chalk inscription on the floor glowed with the power of our spell. The golden light joined the flickering lanterns.
The shadows fled.
"Now," Aki cried.
Rika lifted the large bow and aimed it at the Spirit Vessel. It was one of those moments when everything could go terribly wrong if she didn't aim perfectly. The arrow could break the Vessel and hit Mimi.
Kill her.
All in an instant.
I watched Rika carefully, but she didn't flinch as she drew back the arrow and let it fly. It shattered the Vessel a second later and stuck in the wood about fifteen centimeters from Mimi's socked feet.
Mimi jolted. Her eyes widened, but she kept chanting with the rest of us.
Good.
If any of us faltered, things would get bad fast.
Black smoke filled the room as the ceramic shattered. The click-clack of many legs tapped against the wooden floor. A scent of rotting filled the air and choked me.
I squinted.
Held my breath.
"What the hell was in that Vessel?" Rika hissed as the last of the incantation died on our lips.
I shrugged. We chose the strongest Vessel. Something my mother had sealed before I was born. None of them could see the thing that came out, and with the smoke in my way I couldn't either.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
An antenna flicked out of the smoke, followed by a hundred legs that tapped with each step. It's segmented body was a deep brownish red, and the legs were as black as the night sky. It twisted and turned in an angry circle.
A Mukade—a giant centipede Calamity.
It hadn't spotted us yet, but when it did—
"Well?" Mimi asked. She held her hands to her chest and her bottom lip trembled. She looked ready to take a step back. She'd been training with Aki and me since we were young and had always been timid. Mimi would've rather spent her days in the Shrine library or sorting the storehouse than dealing with anything supernatural.
Rika had only joined a few years before, but her Spiritual power surpassed Mimi's. She was just as strong as Aki who'd only been second best because of my mother.
"It's a Mukade, but it won't be here long." I hoped my voice didn't give away the shiver that raked up my spine or the squishy sickness that filled my gut at the thought of that thing inside the most sacred part of the Shrine.
The centipede was several meters long, and the incisors dripped a deadly poison.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
"Your turn, Yuki," Aki said and her eyes burned into mine. The brightness of the circle faded but her hair was lit up like the sky at dawn. Shadows crept behind her.
The Mukade stopped and turned its huge head toward me.
Great.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and stood firm. Sweat trickled down my brow.
I was the only one who could do this—the only one who could bind this Calamity to the sword. Well, technically a Conjuror could too, but we weren't going to call the Abe family for help. No way in hell.
I had to use the power of Makai to do it, and I pushed aside any doubts. A few times wouldn't hurt me. More than that, and I didn't know. That kind of power wasn't meant for humans, and it ate away at one's soul until it twisted whoever utilized it into a Calamity as well.
After everything I went through to get here, I couldn't let that happen.
"Child of man, you freed me," the Mukade said in a voice that sounded like dry leaves dragged over wet rocks. "Yet you're the one who caught me."
It had too many beady black eyes and two over-sized incisors that could impale a fully grown man. Or easily chop off a limb. The body was so long it curled the bulk of it to stay within the circle, and with the power we'd given it fading, this temporary prison wouldn't hold it long.
"No. My mother did that. I'm—I've no time to speak with you."
Its beady eyes didn't blink, and I saw nothing but my own reflection in them, like staring into a mirror of buffed obsidian. My cheeks were rounder than I'd like, and my nose a little too sharp to fit in with someone like Mimi, who was fully Japanese.
I was only half on my mother's side. I had no clue about my father.
My dark fringe hung lank in my eyes, which were wide and an unnerving violet—the color of death.
The Mukade made a sound like a scuff or a snort of laughter, I couldn't tell which. "Mother? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I smell it now. You aren't entirely a Child of Man. You're a child of Makai and—."
The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I watched my face twist into a horrified frown. "No! I'm a Shrine Maiden, and you're my sword."
If it hadn't goaded me, I'm not sure I'd have stepped into the circle. I faced the Calamity, sucked in a breath and wrinkled my nose. The power radiated from it and hit me like a wave.
I stumbled, nearly fell, but stood firm and opened myself to its power. The cork I'd put over it stuck in place, and I tugged it free. It'd been a long time since I willed this kind of power into me.
Unlike Ame, Makai power wasn't warm and bright. It felt like pulling at wisps of smoke or a spiderweb that had little to no sensation whatsoever. It slipped out of my hands as insubstantial as air.
The Mukade clicked and the incisors pinched. "You think a child of any sort can best me? I'm a thousand years old."
It yanked back, and it felt as if a rope was dragged from my belly. My power went with it. The Mukade sucked it in, and if it did that. . . .
No! I couldn't let it win.
I'd drain it first.
My heart throbbed in my ears and the sweat dripped into my eyes. I blinked it away. Used all the force I could muster to pull at the magic that Calamity housed. If I didn't, it'd devour me and my friends before it went on a frenzy across Neo-Tokyo.
Even if normal people couldn't see Calamities, that didn't mean Calamities couldn't hurt them. And this Mukade would do just that. Blight the city until an exorcist took it down.
Not gonna let that happen.
The Mukade faltered. The power rushed toward me in a torrent, and I su
cked it inside. The grayness of the magic filled me, and a dark mark branded itself on my back—singeing my flesh.
I struggled forward toward the sword. I only had to reach it. Shove the power inside the blade and seal it for the weapon to be complete.
The Mukade moved.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
It twisted and surrounded me in a wall of heaving sides. The legs tapped and writhed like they had a mind of their own.
"Yuki! What's happening?" Mimi cried from somewhere beyond the circle. She sounded much farther away.
I pinched my eyes shut and darted beneath the legs. The little hairs on the ends brushed my cheeks and hair, but I could take a shower later. Any nightmares I had about this moment would be worth it once the sword was in my hands.
I stumbled and lunged toward it.
The table tilted and fell, and the sword rolled to the edge of the circle.
Click-clack.
Legs pinned me down on all sides.
I squirmed and shimmied, but it pinned my hakama to the floor.
Shit!
The problem with this sort of power is it goes both ways. If I can take it, a Calamity can snatch it back.
The Mukade tried. With what strength the monster had left, it pulled on the power I'd taken.
Screw it!
The only way out was to get the hakama off. Not part of the plan, but being in my underwear was better than being dead. I yanked at the bow tied around my waist. The fabric around me loosened. I scooted backwards, wished I were taller, and reached for the sword.
"I won't be trapped again," the Mukade screeched.
Yeah, it would!
With a final huff of effort, I pulled myself free and the tips of my fingers curled around the sword. The words came to my lips as I pushed all the Calamity's life-force into the smooth silver blade.
It glowed in my hands, shone with the newfound power and then—
The sheen faded.
Dulled to gray.
To black.
That wasn't supposed to happen. It should glow and stabilize and the rest of the Calamity should be sucked inside—trapped—and yet the sword cracked, disintegrated from the inside out, and turned to ash.
"No!" I cried as it crumbled into nothing in my hands.
