Frail Human Heart Read online

  After turning the light off again, I sat down on the edge of the bed, clasping the sword upright between my hands so I could lean my forehead against the silk-wrapped grip.

  Are you … are you there?

  Are you there?

  Nothing. I braced myself.

  Shinobu?

  The moment I let myself think his name the flashback hit, tearing away my bedroom, dark and quiet, and flinging me back, back there—

  The cold pavement under my knees. My father lies on the ground in front of me, rash turning black on his face. The fading rumble of Hikaru’s lightning, and the stink of burned hair and feathers. Foul Women shriek and swirl overhead.

  His face. Pleading, begging me. His lips still wet from mine. The faint resistance as the blade slices through muscle and flesh, the awful thud as the sword guard hits bone. That sharp gasp of agony, and his eyes, the eyes I love so much, too full of pain in that final moment to see me…

  My stomach convulsed; bile rushed into my throat, burning like acid. I tumbled over the edge of the mattress, one hand thudding onto the floor to keep my balance as I threw up into the plastic wastepaper bin by the bed.

  I knelt there, hollowed out and numb, until the arm which was holding my weight began to tremble. My other hand had kept hold of the katana. I still couldn’t let him go. I could never let go. Because when I held the katana in my hand, I held not only the fate of the world – but the soul of the boy I loved.

  Slowly, I hauled myself back up onto the bed. Then I curled up around the katana and closed my eyes.

  CHAPTER 2

  WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

  B ack when he’d been obsessively reading The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings in the Great Library in his grandmother’s palace, dreaming of a human life of freedom and adventure and change, Hikaru had never had any idea how confusing it would all really be. Take this, for instance. Gatecrashing a wild rave in someone’s student house was very different to being invited into a friend’s home – their family home – for the very first time. There were rituals for this, ways to make your respect and gratitude clear. But those were Kitsune rituals, designed to be performed in the spirit realm. Not for humans, in a human building in the mortal realm. No one seemed to expect anything of him right now anyway, and it was both liberating and terrifying.

  All his life, people had pushed and pushed and pushed at him. No achievement was great enough, no amount of effort or talent impressive enough to meet everyone’s expectations. But what was he, really? Nothing. Just an infant immortal of no significance. Painfully young and unprepared.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  Mio’s father was sitting in the armchair in the living room, lost in thoughts that looked unpleasant to say the least. He had a mobile phone clutched in his hand. Hikaru guessed that he was nerving himself up to call Mio’s mother. Jack – lovely, funny, angry, sweet-smelling Jack – was still hunched over the hall table, her shoulders tense with strain, one of her strong, long-fingered hands clutching the edge of the table as she played the messages from the answering machine, hoping for one from Rachel. Her eyes kept straying back to the stairs. Personally, Hikaru wasn’t sure if he wanted Mio to come back down right now so they could figure out a way to somehow help her, or if he preferred her to stay up there so he didn’t have to see the dead, frozen look on her face again.

  Hikaru had only known these people for a few days, but they had been pretty hellish days, and they had all been through a lot together. He had seen Mio Yamato fight, cry, freak out, seen her pushed to the absolute limit of what any person should have to endure. And through it all, she’d shone. There had been a light inside her, a sort of shining that made them all willing to follow her, even when the Underworld broke loose around them and it wasn’t certain whether anyone would get through the next five minutes alive. Now it was as if that light had flickered out. Shinobu had taken it with him.

  He already missed Shinobu. He couldn’t imagine how Mio must feel. What had happened out there in those awful moments when Mr Yamato was dying and the Shikome were swarming on them? He had turned away to defend Mio and Shinobu with his lightning, only to look around and find Shinobu … gone.

  What had Mio done in those desperate moments when Hikaru’s back was turned?

  And what had it done to her?

  Hikaru had never had human friends before. He didn’t know if they were always like this, so frighteningly fierce and fragile. But he did know that the less they expected from him, the more he wanted to give them.

  “Nothing,” Jack muttered, as the last of the phone messages ended. “Why hasn’t the inconsiderate cow called? She must know that we’re worried sick.”

  “She probably has a good reason,” Hikaru said tentatively.

  “A good reason? There is no good reason to run off and leave me freaking out this way.”

  Hikaru shrugged. “She might need a bit of time to get her head straight before she faces us again. She seems like that sort of person.”

  “That kind of… How would you know?” Jack demanded. “You don’t even know her. You don’t know any of us!”

  He flinched inwardly. “Maybe. I know that Rachel loves you, though. She’s going to come back.” He met Jack’s gaze, even though the sight of those lovely, dark, heavy-lashed eyes focusing on him made his whole body go tight. “She will.”

  Jack stared back at him defiantly for a heartbeat. Then she crumpled, hiding her face in her hands. Hikaru struggled with himself for a minute – I could move in for a hug. That would be OK, right, not creepy? But what if she does think it’s creepy? Damn, I over-thought. Now it’s definitely creepy – and settled on reaching over and lightly rubbing her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t know what I’m doing. First I blow up at poor Mio. Now I’m having a go at you. I’m a hot mess.”

  “It’s OK. Don’t worry about it,” Hikaru said. “We’re all messes here.”

  Behind them in the living room, Hikaru heard Mr Yamato clear his throat. “Aiko?” he said into his phone. “It’s… I’m sorry – let me… No, she can’t come to the phone. She’s… No, she’s not OK. I don’t know, Aiko. I … don’t know what to do.”

  I had dozed off and woken, dozed and woken again. I was so tired that my whole body ached with the weight of exhaustion. But I couldn’t give in to it. I forced my eyes open and stared down at the katana.

  I know you’re in there. I’m right here. I’m right here with you. You’re not alone.

  Can you hear me?

  Shinobu?

  Still no response. No spike of energy, no tingle in my skin, no voice in my head. Nothing. If Shinobu’s spirit was cloaking the katana so tightly that the blade couldn’t speak to me any more, then why couldn’t Shinobu communicate with me in its place? He had before, on that first night, in the road outside Natalie’s house, when I was dying.

  Shinobu. Please. Please?

  I had to hear his voice. Grasping the hilt more firmly, I slid the blade free of the saya. The distinctive black and silver ripples of metal glowed in the moonlight. I drew in a slow, even breath. And held it.

  I visualized everything inside me – the dark, flowing shadows of my soul – reaching out, reaching into those flame-shaped markings, into the fibres and atoms of the folded steel. That was where Shinobu was. We were so close. He had to know I was there. That he wasn’t lost and alone again.

  I had to be able to reach him.

  Shinobu. Shinobu. Shinobu.

  My lungs burned, begging for air. Sparks burst across my eyes. The sword trembled in my hands.

  Answer me!

  My vision narrowed to the shining silver of the blade’s cutting edge. I caught a glimpse of my own eye staring back at me, reflected in the polished metal. My dilated pupil seemed to open up like a black hole. It swallowed me.

  I fell.

  The warmth of the sun on my face. Long grasses whispering. A fleeting echo of laughter.

  A low, ra
mbling house, with a steeply pitched, thatched roof and yellow-brown walls, tucked into the curve of a forested hill. A clear stream dancing beneath ornamental bridges in a garden. Mountains beyond, blue and mist-shrouded in the midsummer sun. The sleepy scratching song of cicadas. A deep, commanding voice calls out:

  “Hajime! Mae! Mae! Ato!”

  The smell of warm, polished wood and fresh sweat. Long dust motes spiral in auburn rays of sunlight filtering through rice-paper screens fixed over large, round windows.

  A man stands to one side, arms folded, his neat topknot and beard streaked with grey. His face is stern, his gaze keen, but crinkled lines around his eyes and mouth show that he laughs often, and deeply. In the centre of the room, two children – a boy and a girl, no older than ten or twelve – circle each other, holding bokutõ, old-fashioned wooden practice swords. Both are dressed in plain black kendogi. The boy is tall and skinny, his back very straight, his limbs lanky in that funny puppyish way that means he’ll probably be a giant in a few years. The girl is small, delicate, with wrists and ankles like fragile bird bones. Her hair is drawn severely back, but strands have worked free around her ears and forehead and are plastered to her warm, golden skin. The small, pointed face is taut with determination, but her large, dark eyes are shining.

  She lunges forward. The movement is shocking, too fast, too fluid for a child. The boy responds just as quickly. As he turns, I catch my first glimpse of his face.

  Shinobu.

  The scene changes. I’m outside. The same girl – older now, more like fourteen or fifteen, but still tiny and bird-boned – stands in the shelter of a huge tree, one small hand resting on its pale, papery trunk. A heavy canopy of pink blossoms dances overhead, sending petals spiralling down into the girl’s black hair and over her pale blue kimono. She is smiling. A boy walks towards her.

  Shinobu walks towards her.

  This is Shinobu’s past. I’m dreaming his memories again.

  He is taller now. His face shines, alight with happiness. He reaches out to pluck a cherry petal from the girl’s hair, and then smoothes a silky stray strand behind her ear with a quick, practiced movement. The girl turns her cheek into his palm. They love each other. Anyone could see it. It makes the air around them seem almost to glow. It’s beautifully bright, painfully beautiful.

  My heart contracts with a mixture of yearning jealousy and terrible sadness. He lost her before I was even born. Oh, Shinobu.

  Who is she? Who was she?

  The scene changes again. They are back inside the house. Time has leapt forward again – they are older. The girl looks the same age as me, and Shinobu looks the age I’ve always known him − seventeen.

  Something is wrong. The girl’s face is pale and streaked with tears. She stares at Shinobu as if she doesn’t know him. He is still and grave. God, such a familiar expression, that shadow of anguish in his eyes.

  The girl makes an abrupt gesture of repudiation with her hand, palm opening as if to fling something away. She speaks. The words are in Japanese, and I don’t understand them, but they seem to tremble in the air. Shinobu recoils, his whole body jerking. He opens his mouth, but she has already walked away. She does not look back.

  What did she say? What’s happening? What’s wrong?

  I know I’m not really here. Even if this is “real” in any sense, it’s still the past. Hundreds of years ago. I can’t change any of it. But I can’t help reaching out to him with my heart, trying to wrap some kind of comfort and love around his poor bowed shoulders.

  Shinobu. It’s all right. I’m here. I’m always here, Shinobu.

  His back stiffens. Those beautiful dark eyes search the room with an expression of disbelief. And just for an instant, they meet mine.

  A shrill, unearthly wail assaulted my ears, making me gasp with pain.

  The vision, Shinobu, the colours and warmth, everything disappeared as if someone had flicked off the light.

  I found myself on my knees in a dark corridor that stretched out ahead of me as far as the eye could see. The walls were glassy black, rough and jagged. And it was cold, so cold. As cold as death. Clouds of vapour breathed off the warmth of my skin. I could feel ice crystals forming around my eyes and nose. My face and the tips of my fingers were already going numb.

  A woman stood ahead of me in that long, narrow channel of rock.

  Her back was turned to me. She scintillated, burning with a light that made my eyes sting. Every detail of her was as sharp as if I was seeing her through binoculars. Glossy dark hair cascaded in a perfectly straight waterfall over her waist and hips, almost to her knees. She wore a white and gold kimono, decorated with great swirls of intricate embroidery, each stitch as tiny and fine as a grain of sand. She was very slender, and not very tall. One hand, as delicate as a child’s, rested on the rock beside her, the fingers slightly curled.

  Her back shuddered. The faint sound of a sob reached me.

  I knew who this was. I knew. I was looking at the Goddess of Death.

  You feel for him … so much. The sweet, singsong tone sounded so eerie, so wrong, spoken with a grown woman’s voice. Such love. You ache for him. But you will do nothing for me. You deny me. You care nothing for my pain!

  The icy air abraded my windpipe as I sucked in a ragged breath. “I – I can’t give you what you want. I’m sorry.”

  A low moan of despair wavered through the corridor. Her loneliness, unbearable, ancient and cold, washed over me like a suffocating wave.

  He promised me. He promised. I only want what I was promised!

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, the words hoarse with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry. I can’t let you destroy my world.”

  Her head jerked. I never wanted to hurt anyone. Crunch. Snap. Little white bones all poking out. I just want what he promised.

  “I know. But you do hurt people. You’ve – you’ve hurt my friends.” I tried to speak as gently as possible. Her sorrow was like some kind of horrific radiation, so powerful it could kill. The cold of it gnawed the heart of my bones. My fingers were blue. I couldn’t feel them any more. I couldn’t feel my lips. “You’re hurting me – right now.”

  Slowly, she turned towards me. Just for a second I saw a flawless white profile – a delicate nose, soft full lips, a beautiful slanting eye fringed with thick black lashes. She looked so young. Years younger than me. Practically a little girl.

  Then she completed her turn.

  I shuddered, doubling up over my knees as I saw her properly for the first time.

  Soft, pale skin hung in torn spiderwebs over the sharp yellow bones of her skull. Her left eye was missing, and the left side of her mouth and the flesh of her left cheek had been eaten away, exposing the teeth all the way to the roots in the spongy bone of her jaw. Worms and insects crawled through the gaps in her flesh. A thin black snake slithered out of the empty eye socket and coiled around her neck before disappearing into a gaping hole in the skin just below her collarbone. The clean white kimono seethed; the fabric was barely able to contain the movement beneath it. Ants, cockroaches, millipedes and gleaming beetles worked busily around the skeletal remains of her feet.

  Give me what I was promised, or it shall be war… the half-rotted face hissed. Maggots gleamed white on the pulpy black of her tongue. And you will join me in hell, Yamato Mio. Soon. Soon.

  Ssssoon!

  Her voice rose into a hideous shriek that pierced my ears like a hot needle.

  I snapped back into my body with a silent wheeze of terror, flying off the bed before my eyes were even fully open. My back slammed into the wall next to the window. I brought the katana up, ready to strike. Fighting for breath, heart palpitating wildly, I scanned the corners of my bedroom, searching every shadow for the awful pale gleam of shredded skin and exposed bone.

  The room was empty.

  Slowly, I let the sword drop. My sigh turned the air in front of my face white. When I looked down, I could see patterns of frost riming the back of my hands. My fingernai
ls were blue-grey in the dim light.

  It was nearly dawn. I had been out of it for a long time.

  With Izanami.

  She’s coming after me. And she is angrier and more insane than ever.

  Before I could begin to process everything I’d seen – the memories that seemed to be Shinobu’s, Izanami’s threats – I heard another scream. Not Izanami this time.

  Someone human.

  I swore and ran for the door, my unsheathed katana in my right hand, its saya clutched in the other.

  The others were piling into the front hallway as I arrived downstairs. I realized they must have been sleeping in the living room when the sound woke them.

  “What is that?” A bleary-eyed Hikaru demanded, rumpling his copper hair with one hand. He was wearing a white tank top, which revealed a slender but surprisingly muscular build with strong, wiry arms. His bottom half was clad in what looked like a pair of my father’s pyjama bottoms.

  “It wasn’t me,” I said in response to Jack’s worried look. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and clutching her purple skull duvet around her.

  “No, it came from outside,” my father said, fastening his katana to his belt with quick, automatic movements. Like me, he was still fully dressed.

  I stepped past him, put down the saya on the hall table and unbolted the front door. The street lay quiet under a thick blanket of sickly yellow clouds. The sun wasn’t up above the skyline yet, but the streetlights had already winked off.

  A woman flashed past the doorway. She was sprinting flat out, thin, pale legs flashing under the hem of her black coat. I had a blurred impression of a dead-white, terrified face as she whipped her head back to look behind her, hair streaming over her shoulders. She screamed again.

  I couldn’t see what she was running from at this angle. It didn’t matter. Under my hand, the faint buzz of energy emanating from the katana’s grip had become a fierce sizzle.

  There was a monster out there.

  I turned to look at my dad. He stared back for a second, his gaze searching my face. Then he nodded shortly, squaring his shoulders.