The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (28 page)

What are you prepared to sacrifice?

CHAPTER 18

M
y fingers tightened into fists in Shinobu’s coat. I forced the memories and the choking sense of panic down, deep down inside.
I won’t let go
.

My father reached out tentatively and touched my hand. “You’re like ice. Are you really OK?”

I drew in a slow, deep breath. “I am. I have to be.”

I opened my eyes again and uncurled my fingers from the coat fabric, straightening my shoulders with an effort. “Anyway, we can’t go back. What if there are more Shikome in the tunnels?”

My father muttered a swear word.

“How many of those firebombs do you have left?” Shinobu asked him.

“Not enough.” Dad’s hand moved to my shoulder. His eyes searched my face. Finally, he nodded. “OK. Let’s go.”

I tried not to let them see how much worse the desperate fight with the Shikome had made me, but it was hard. My body still wouldn’t
move
the way I needed it to. The sensation of being in a nightmare was growing. But there were no nightmares for me any more. The things I dreamed were all real now.

Shinobu put his arm around my shoulders, taking some of my weight. “You are not all right,” he said softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, just as softly. “She doesn’t have time for it to matter. We have to get there. I can’t leave her there alone to…” I cut myself off before I could say the next word. I didn’t even want to think it.

His worried frown deepened, but he didn’t argue. He knew the truth as well as I did. Yes, in any ordinary situation I’d be a liability. But I was the sword-bearer. The not-so-secret weapon. Without me, there was no point in going anywhere. In its saya on my back the katana was throbbing gently, content to wait. It knew soon I would be down to zero choices again. Soon I would be faced with my dying friend, and I would have to decide…

Would the seal break if I called the sword’s second true name while it was sheathed?

Could I possibly control its power, command it to do my bidding, if I unsheathed it?

Did I have the strength to resist it long enough to save at least Jack before it took control of me?

Would Shinobu be able to stop me before the blade used me to kill someone – maybe even someone I loved?

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 standards – 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.