The Name of the Blade, Book Two: Darkness Hidden (29 page)

“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 monster 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
.

“She is coming…” Rachel moaned, not even aware that she spoke. “So close. So close…”

She felt her spine stretch and ripple, bending in half like a snake’s. The words rose to a high-pitched cat scream as the worst pain yet ripped through her body
.

“My Mistress!”

CHAPTER 19

“T
hree!”

Hikaru darted out from between the cars.

I slapped one palm onto the road and heaved myself up, flying onto the pavement with my dad ahead of me and Shinobu right behind.

There was a shriek of recognition above us. The cry was taken up by a hundred other voices, the shrill, seagull calls making the fine hairs on the back of my neck struggle to rise under their coat of blood. My father glanced back, whipped his head forward again and shouted, “Don’t look!”

My legs shook. Hot wires of pain shot up my thighs and calves as I tried to keep up with my father and Hikaru. The breath tasted bloody on my numb lips, and in my hand, the sword’s energy was scorching the skin, its frustration burning through my tissues like radiation.
Me, me, me!

Shut up!

Shinobu was a shadow at my side. He was holding back for my sake; he would’ve passed me in a second otherwise. I dug the balls of my feet into the pavement, vainly trying to squeeze out some extra speed. Above us, like a towering tsunami gathering to destroy all in its path, the dry rattle and chitter of Foul Women’s wings swept down out of the black sky.

Suddenly Hikaru wheeled round, dodged out of my father’s path, and lifted his hands above his head. As his palms clapped together, I saw his tail whip out behind him. A slender branch of lightning formed over his head, hit his joined hands and …
bloomed
.

Each of his fingers sprouted a tendril, and each tendril sprouted three more. The lightning multiplied silently through the air above Hikaru like an electrical forest growing up out of nowhere in less than the blink of an eye. I ignored my father’s order and looked back, blinking against the silvery after-images the lightning left on my vision.

Hikaru’s single bolt of energy had become an immense net of light hanging beneath the clouds. The unstoppable tsunami of Shikome flew straight into it. Pierced by delicate branches of lightning, the monsters shuddered and convulsed in midair. Their wings still flapped helplessly, like puppets dancing on Hikaru’s string.

Hikaru’s face was dead white, and in the eerie neon flicker of his lightning there was a sheen of sweat standing out on his skin. A pinprick of white light glowed in the pupil of each bright green eye. His teeth clenched in agony. With a snarl, the fox spirit ripped his hands apart.

The web of lightning winked out.

Thunder boomed through the city like an earthquake. The air vibrated – or the ground did – but either way we all staggered. Hikaru fell to his knees as Shinobu and I grabbed at each other for balance. My dad extended his arms like a sailor on the deck of a storm-ridden ship.

Then it stopped.

The stillness was almost frightening. Even the wind had dropped. The katana’s grip trembled in my hand. I thought I could feel its disappointment.

A hundred Shikome lay dead or dying around us, their bodies smoking. On the pavement, on the road, lying on the cars and draped over the rooftops. Their blasted corpses had blanketed the ground around them in drifts of grey feathers, like snow. Shinobu and I exchanged a long, awed look.

When Araki-san said that Hikaru was special, she hadn’t been kidding.

“Are you OK?” I asked him breathlessly. “What – what was that?”

“Ouch,” he groaned, clutching his skull. “Oh great and little gods, this must be what a hangover feels like. It was the heavenly net of a thousand stars. One of my grandmother’s favourites. I … can’t believe it worked. I didn’t know I had that much juice.”

“What would have happened if you did not have the ‘juice’?” Shinobu asked.

“You’d be talking to a pile of ashes.” Hikaru grinned at us weakly through his fingers.

“Hikaru,”
I began, and even I could hear that I sounded exactly like my dad.

“You can shout at him later,” my father said. He caught Hikaru’s hand and pulled the Kitsune to his feet. “Let’s get moving again before—”

As he spoke, a chill breeze sprang up around us. It fluttered around our feet, growing as it rushed between our bodies, moaning angrily. My head snapped back. The clouds over our heads were boiling again, slowly bulging open to reveal a darkness that I knew all too well.

“It’s not over,” I cried. The wind shredded the words. “Come on!”

We fled towards the cafe on the corner of the street, skidding around the hospital signs and onto the narrow pedestrian way. Tall buildings rose on each side of us. On the left side parked cars lined the road. Ahead of us was open space – a line of bollards, ambulances and doctors’ cars – and the entrance to the hospital building.

The first Shikome dived into the street directly on top of me. I ducked down to one knee, slashing the katana above my head. The blade sparked with white flames, slicing through the monster’s hind leg like a paper knife through an envelope. The birdlike creature shot up with a squawk. Its massive paw dangled on a thread of skin.

Another monster took its place, swooping at Hikaru.

“Down!” my father shouted.

Another firebomb – his last – left his hand and smashed into the Foul Woman’s wing. Hikaru ducked under the monster’s legs as it whirled in the air. It crashed into the tarmac, shrieking, wings thrashing wildly. My father leapt back – but he didn’t move quite fast enough.

The tip of a wing brushed his face.

He frowned, confusion in his eyes as his left hand lifted to his face. Then he collapsed on the tarmac like a marionette with cut strings.

“Dad!”

I ran to his side and knelt in the road beside him. He was already fitting. The purple marks darkened on his face as I watched, turning almost black. His eyes were half-closed, their whites gleaming at me through the gap under his eyelashes. His mouth yawned open in a soundless scream. I could hear a voice echoing in the distance, crying the same word over and over and over. The word was “No”. The voice was mine.

We were almost there
.

The green blade flashes down in the red light—

A Shikome stooped over me. I threw myself forward, shielding my father from its attack. Shinobu flashed past; his blades crossed in the air, and the creature reared back, its huge front paws scrabbling at its abdomen where Shinobu had almost disembowelled it. It smashed into the wall, bounced off, and somersaulted over the rooftop out of sight.

Dad’s back was arching up off the pavement, his head thudding against the ground. The seizure was bad, really bad, worse than Jack’s. He was reacting to the taint the same way I had, like both of us were more allergic to the monsters than regular people.

“Help!” I screamed, struggling to hold him.

Shinobu thrust his blades back into their sayas, bent down, and scooped my father up in his arms. I ran after him and Hikaru ran after me as Shinobu carried Dad to a line of parked cars and laid him down on the thin strip of pavement next to the wall of the cafe. I ripped my stained sweatshirt over my head and wadded it up to cushion the back of Dad’s skull as Shinobu held down his flailing hands. I was crying. Harsh, painful sobs that barely let me breathe. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t push it back.

Why isn’t he coming out of it? Come on, please, please come out of it. This can’t be happening!

Hikaru had squashed himself into the gap between the two parked cars next to us. He was staring at my father in horror. “Is he – will he—?”

A Foul Woman skidded over the car roofs, claws raking the metal with a long
screeeeeee
. I flung my body over my dad again as the other two ducked.

“Hikaru, do you have any juice left?” Shinobu demanded.