A Mortal Song (9 page)

I jerked the flute from my mouth, blinking. “I’m sorry,” I said, as evenly as I could manage. “I need to go outside for a minute.” And then I dashed, half-blind, for the front hall.

Takeo started after me. He reached for me when I stopped to fumble with the door handle, but I pushed his hand away. “No,” I said. “I just need a moment alone. I’ll be all right. You—you find the best room for the training.”

I ducked outside, hearing him through the door making some excuse to the others. Maybe telling them that I was missing the kami friends and family we’d left behind on Mt. Fuji, that I was afraid of what would become of them if we didn’t return soon. But as I brought my hand to my lips just in time to smother a sob, I knew that wasn’t the whole truth. That the answer was much more selfish.

As much as I was frightened for them, in that moment I was even more afraid of what would become of me.

I
’d just convinced
the tears to retreat and the hitch to leave my breath when I heard the doorknob turn behind me. It couldn’t be Takeo—he’d never intrude when I’d told him I wanted to be alone. I stepped to the side of the tiny concrete porch, clutching the flute. The evening air shifted around me, thick and tinged with ozone: the smell of a brewing thunderstorm.

Keiji poked his head through the doorway. When he saw me, he seemed to decide it was safe to come out. He closed the door behind him, scooted past me, and hopped up to sit on top of the gate. The heels of his sneakers tapped the metal bars.

“You know, if
I
were the one who just found out I had magical powers, I’d be a lot more grateful to hear it than Chiyo is,” he said in his offhand way. “I don’t suppose you could tell me I’ve got some secret ability I never knew about too?”

My fears were still twisted tight inside me, but somehow the arch of his eyebrows and the playfulness of his tone made me smile.

“Sorry,” I said. “Not as far as I know.”

“Oh well. I guess I’ve been doing all right as a regular human being so far.”

He grinned back at me, in a slow, easy way that lit up his coppery eyes despite the dusk falling around us. As if he really was happy being what—who—he was.

“So what’s up with you and what’s-his-name?” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“The tall guy with the sword. Are you two a couple or something?”

To my annoyance, I blushed. It didn’t seem fair that I could feel scared and amused, irritated and embarrassed, all at once. At least when I’d thought I was kami I’d been able to pretend I had a nature that was somewhat consistent.

“No,” I said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“No offense intended,” Keiji said. “I just wondered.”

Something Chiyo had said came back to me. She’d asked Keiji if he was turning into one of her “admirers.” He
had
been paying enough attention to her to notice her talking to us. “Isn’t it Chiyo’s boyfriend you should be worried about?” I said.

He shrugged, bumping his legs against the gate. “He assumes every guy who hangs around her must be trying to date her. Untrue.”

“You had some other reason for watching her?”

“A better one,” he said. “I
knew
there was something going on with her. She’s cute, I guess, but not so pretty it makes sense that half the boys in school would be chasing after her. And the teachers would never let anyone else get away with hair that wild. And she never seems fazed by anything, like she just floats above bad grades and arguments and... there had to be more going on with her than met the eye, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. I did.

Keiji fell back into his previous self-mocking tone. “So I was trying to figure it out. I’d already eliminated a whole lot of possibilities—vampire, government cyborg experiment, mystical princess from another dimension. I’ll admit, I hadn’t thought of kami.”

“You seem to be taking it pretty calmly,” I remarked.

He paused. “Like I said before, I’ve done a lot of reading into the supernatural. And if you keep your eyes open, you see things that can’t always be explained. It’s nice to know I wasn’t just imagining all that. And it’s pretty hard to argue with the demonstrations you and your sword-wielding friend have given.” His grin returned.

My sword-wielding friend might have already started Chiyo’s training. I glanced toward the door. “I—”

“So, I guess you lived on Mt. Fuji?” Keiji said before I could excuse myself.

“Yes. All my life.”

“That’s, what, like a hundred years? Do kami get old?”

“Seventeen,” I said. “And they do. Just slowly.”

“Seventeen,” Keiji repeated. “So if Chiyo’s so powerful because she’s kami, how did those ghosts manage to defeat all the kami who were already on the mountain?”

I stiffened. “They had a demon leading them,” I said. “Takeo thinks it was lending them power. And there were many more of them than there were of us.”

The truth was, though, I didn’t know exactly how the ghosts had overwhelmed the palace. The mountain had been our safe haven for uncountable centuries. The demon couldn’t have more energy than
all
the kami put together. If it had only been a matter of numbers, the kami would have gotten the upper hand as soon as the ghosts exhausted their weaker ki. There had to be something more.

“And Chiyo’s the most powerful of any of us,” I finished. “And she’ll have the sacred treasures.”

Keiji leaned forward, and the glow of the lamp over the doorway reflected off his glasses. “So it’s really all on her,” he said. His smile fell. “Just how messed up is the world going to get if she can’t get rid of them?”

“She can,” I said, wishing I completely believed it myself.
A vision is not a guarantee
. “But while we’re preparing... The rhythms of the natural world have already been disrupted. So many of the kami who helped keep it in order are trapped. It’s too much for those who are left. The weather, the tides, the earth, the volcano in Mt. Fuji... but we’ll free the mountain before the situation worsens too far.”
I hope
.

“Why did this demon and a bunch of ghosts come after the kami anyway?” Keiji said. “I don’t remember ever reading about ghosts getting together to fight kami. I’ll check my books just in case, but it can’t be that common, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They never bothered us before.” The information Chiyo and I had found about possible Omoris hadn’t offered any clue to that either. It still didn’t make sense to me.

“None of you had, like, pissed off some ghosts recently or something? There has to be a reason, right?”

“I don’t
know
,” I said, my frustration slipping out before I could catch it.

“Sorry,” Keiji said, his voice softening. “I’m just trying to understand. From the stories that have been recorded, however much truth is in them, it sounds like ghosts are pretty big on revenge. And demons—take the meanest person you can imagine doing the most horrible selfish things, and that’s who’ll turn into one. The more you can tell me, the more I might be able to figure out what’s going on. How to stop them.”

“So... a person can turn into a demon?” I said. I had a vague sense that I
had
heard the idea in a tale somewhere, but we hadn’t talked about demons much on the mountain. At least, no one had with me. I’d thought of them as beings like kami or ogres, who simply came into existence as they were from the start.

“I don’t know how common
that
is,” Keiji admitted. “And maybe those myths aren’t true at all. But there’s more than one story where something happens around a person’s death that makes them so incredibly angry or vengeful they become consumed by the emotion and it transforms them. Did it seem like this demon was created that way?”

“Maybe,” I said.
Kenta Omori.
“We don’t know a lot about it.”

“Well, I can try to find out more about different types of demons too. I think I’d better leave the physical combat to your friend with the sword. I’m surprised he left the mountain—he seems like the type who’d want to stay and fight.”

“He did want to,” I said. “So did I. But someone had to come for Chiyo.”

Keiji cocked his head, and a moment of silence stretched between us. I should be going back in to help with Chiyo’s training right now, but the intentness of his gaze behind the shine of his glasses held me in place. My fingers tensed around the flute.

“Both of you had to come?” he said casually.

“It’d be risky to send only one,” I said. “What if something happened on the way here?”

“I guess that makes sense,” he said. “Or... maybe you came because you’re the girl they switched Chiyo for.”

My throat closed up. In that first second, all I managed to do was stand there, lips parted and soundless, like a fool.

Keiji dipped his head. “I thought so. Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else has a clue. But I saw how you looked when Chiyo’s mom asked about her real daughter—and Chiyo just turned seventeen—and the way you ran out here—”

“I’m worried about my family,” I said roughly, scrambling to recover.

“Except they’re not your actual family.”

“You have no idea—”

“No,” he agreed, and stood up with a thump. “I know that. I just have more of an idea than everyone in there. I won’t say anything, of course.”

He touched my arm, just for a second, his palm warm against my skin. A gesture of reassurance. My heart stuttered despite myself.

“There’s nothing to say,” I insisted, jerking back.

A tremor rippled through the ground beneath us.
The mountain is so unhappy
, I thought.

And inside the house, Chiyo screamed.

As her shriek pierced the air, light blazed from the house, so bright it seemed to sear straight through the walls. It burned into my eyes. I groped for the door handle and dashed inside.

“What the—” Keiji said behind me. Chiyo was lying on the living room floor, her knees curled to her chest. The light was coming from her, flaring from her body in quavering streams, hundreds of times more intense than the usual glimmer of ki that seeped out of her. I dropped my flute and shielded my eyes as I dropped down beside her. Takeo was already there, Mr. and Mrs. Ikeda hovering behind him.

Chiyo let out another cry. “It hurts,” she whimpered. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts...” The last word trailed off in a hiss. I touched her shoulder gingerly, and her skin singed my fingers. I flinched. The light emanating off her grew even brighter.

“What’s happening?” I said to Takeo.

“I don’t know,” he said. “A moment ago she was fine, and then... this. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s almost as if her ki is on fire.”

“Can you stop it?” Mr. Ikeda demanded. “Whatever it is, it’s hurting her!”

He’d hardly finished speaking when Chiyo shrieked even louder. Heat was wafting off her now, prickling against my face.

Takeo lay his hands on Chiyo’s abdomen and closed his eyes. A cool wash of ki slid off him into her. The air chilled, the burning light dimmed slightly, and Chiyo’s eyelids fluttered open. I reached for her arm. She was still feverish but no longer flaming.

Midori tugged at my hair, sending an urgent wave of energy through me. I directed it into my hands with thoughts of ice and snow. The ki raced through Chiyo’s flesh and smashed against a white-hot wall inside her.

It wasn’t enough. This had to be some sort of magic, and it was too powerful for Takeo, Midori, and me to subdue, even together.

My gut twisted. I could think of one being who’d shown seemingly immeasurable powers. But how could the demon have known to target Chiyo? How could he have found her from so far away?

“We can ease the pain,” Takeo said to the Ikedas, “but we can’t stop it. If she had full control of her powers, she could shield herself from within, but...”

Chiyo squirmed, gasping. Eventually the three of us would be too drained to continue offering what little help we could now. What if Omori had something even worse up his sleeve? We’d have nothing to protect her with.

Nothing here.

“A shrine’s protections keep out ill-meaning spirits,” I said quickly. “Would they destroy dark magic too?”

“They very well might,” Takeo said. “Good thinking.” He turned to the Ikedas, keeping one soothing hand on Chiyo’s side. “Leaving may be the only way we can help her. We’ll return if we can, but if our enemies have found us somehow, it won’t be safe for us here until we’ve defeated them.”

Mrs. Ikeda nodded. “We understand,” she said shakily. “Just look after her, please.”

She bent to brush her fingertips over Chiyo’s hair, and Mr. Ikeda did the same, in a silent goodbye. Then they stepped back, tears shining in their eyes.

“Chiyo,” I said, leaning close, “we’re going to help you get up. We have to go, but we’re going somewhere that should stop the pain, okay?”

All she managed in response was a grimace. As Takeo and I lifted her to her feet, she sucked in a sharp breath. I set her arm over my shoulder and slid mine around her back, and Takeo did the same. Ki hummed between us.

“Where’s the nearest shrine?” I asked Keiji, who’d stopped gaping long enough to sling his messenger bag over his back.

“There’s one a few blocks from the school,” he said, coming with us to the door. “It’s really small.”

Chiyo’s blazing glow flooded the street as we darted outside to a crackle of thunder. “Over here,” Keiji said, pointing to the left. We’d just stepped onto the sidewalk when two dim, legless figures drifted into view farther down the road.

Before I could speak a warning, one of them turned our way and let out a shout.

“Ghosts!” I said, and abruptly I understood. This
had
to be Omori’s doing—and it wasn’t just to hurt Chiyo, but to track her down as well. When she’d first flared up, the light must have been visible from miles around. It was a signal fire to the demon’s ghostly allies.

“Sora,” Takeo said as the ghosts raced toward us, “you go ahead, feel for the most powerful shrine close by, and find a clear path to it. Keiji, take Chiyo’s other arm. Hurry!”

I lifted Chiyo’s arm from my shoulder to set it on Keiji’s and bolted away from the ghosts to the opposite corner, pulling an ofuda from my pocket as I ran. “This way is open!” I called. Takeo sprinted after me, his ki speeding along both his and Keiji’s feet.

We tore down the street toward a faint sense of stillness I sensed amid the city’s buzzing energy, which I guessed—and Midori agreed with a tickle of affirmation—was a shrine. In that moment I was glad that humans had build so many everywhere they went, even if their belief had faded. But we’d only made it a few blocks when a trio of ghosts charged out in front of us. I spun around. Two more had joined the couple lagging behind us. Ethereal knives flashed in their hands.

We might have been able to fight them all, but not while dampening the fire in Chiyo. If she flared up again, who knew how many others would find us?

I rushed to a side street. We might be outnumbered, but any kami could outrun a ghost.

“Here!” I said. “Faster!”