The Night Itself (28 page)

“In other words, you’re ready to kick some demon-cat butt, right?” I said lightly.

“Damn straight,” she said, with a sharp nod as her arm went briefly around my waist to hug me back.

We let go of each other and looked away. I blinked rapidly, carefully ignoring Jack’s surreptitious sniff.

Hikaru appeared in the same place Jack had, vaulting up to join us. “Yamato Mio-dono!”

I groaned. When Shinobu called me that, it was cute. Not so much with Hikaru. “Do I look like a lady to you?”

“More like a ninja princess,” Jack soothed.

I gave her my look. “Not helping.”

“Tough luck,” Hikaru said. “Now you’ve earned the court’s recognition you have to act a certain way. That means all titles all the time from here on. Get used to it.”

“Fantastic. What’s going on, anyway?”

“Turns out that as soon as His Majesty got Shinobu’s call for help and realized there was a Nekomata on the loose, he sent spies out to track its movements in case it tried to break through into our realm. They just came back. The beast’s gone to ground. They think it found a lair.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Good, because if it’s picked a permanent hiding place, that’s where Jack’s sister will be. Bad, because they only stop hunting when… Well, when they’re full.”

Jack and I both cringed.

“Ick,” Jack said.

“More than ‘ick’. If it’s managed to feed that much, its powers will be at their peak. The lair might be a bit tricky to get into. Lucky for you, we’re coming along.” He smiled, a bright flash of teeth that reminded me of his devil-may-care attitude when he’d first turned up in my parents’ back garden. That felt like years ago.

“Are we ready to go then?” Jack asked eagerly.

“I think so. But before we go anywhere, the king begs a word with the sword-bearer.”

“Lead on, She-Ra,” Jack said. “We’ll follow slowly, so you and His Foxy Majesty can chat.”

Shinobu somehow managed to get a step ahead of me as we headed down off the terrace, and directed a fierce glare at anyone who happened to be in my path, clearing them out of my way.

“Hey, Hikaru,” Jack said behind me, her tone deeply casual. “Mind telling me what that whole, er, kissing thing back there was about?”

“If you don’t know, I don’t think I can tell you,” he replied, a little quiver of nervous laughter in his voice.

“Oh. Well. So probably there’s something about me that I ought to, um, tell you then—”

I nearly slipped and plummeted down the side of the bowl on my face.
Right now? You’re going to break his heart right this second?

“Don’t,” he broke in hastily. “Not before we go to fight. Whatever you want to say to me, and whatever I want to say to you, should wait until your sister is safe and we’re not both holding deadly weapons.”

There was a little pause.

“OK.”

Phew
.

We reached the bottom of the terraces and Shinobu and I sped up, leaving the other two behind as we approached the low hill. The king, still in fox form, was back in his place on its brow. Midori and Tetsuo, on the other hand, were gone. Araki and Hiro were back in their human shapes and stood to attention at the base of the hill. They bowed deeply when they saw me coming.

The king dipped his head for half a second. I bowed back to him, but interpreted Shinobu’s quick warning glance to mean that I shouldn’t return bows from underlings. I’d gone up in the world. In more ways than one.
Who knew that all I had to do to get respect was blow a place up with my crazy-ass sword and grow four inches in thirty seconds?

The katana’s hilt quivered under my palm, as if it was laughing.

“Yamato Mio-dono,” the king began gravely. He was firmly back in formal mode, though the power of his voice had been dialled way down. Or maybe it just affected me less now. “In answer to your request for aid, I am sending fifty of my strongest and bravest with you tonight. Your fight is a vital one. Find the Nekomata and rid London of its foulness, and you will have erased any debt incurred for the loan of my people in this battle.”

He hesitated, then gave a foxy shrug. “I also send with you my most beloved grandchild, against my will, I might add. I’ve tried to talk him out of going but, short of confining him to his den, I don’t think I can. He’s as brave and pig-headed as his mother ever was. He’ll put himself in danger just to prove he’s strong enough to handle it. And so I ask you to take care of him for me. Make sure he comes to no harm and we shall all be indebted to you. Will you promise to do this?”

I saw Araki and Hiro’s surprised looks. Clearly this was not an idle request.

No pressure then
.

But we weren’t going into some desperate, last-stand type of situation here. The Nekomata was a horrific, terrifying monster, and I shuddered just remembering it, but I had fifty Kitsune on my side now. Shinobu was right – anyone would lay odds on kitty getting made into fox kibble before the night was out. We ought to be able to keep Hikaru from doing anything stupid while we were at it.

I bowed again. “I will do my absolute best, Your Majesty.”

The king showed his fangs in a small, sharp smile. “Having seen a sample of your power, I am content with that.”

“We move out on your command, Mio-dono,” Araki said.

I quickly checked to make sure Jack and Hikaru were ready and then nodded to Araki in what I hoped was a businesslike manner. “Then move out!” I said.

Araki let out a high, ululating cry. The Kitsune stamped in unison and turned to face the king, forming two, long ranks.

At the king’s feet, a string of electricity sizzled up out of the grass. Then came another, and another. They waved in the air, unfurling and stretching like living things. They reminded me of speeded-up footage of growing plants I’d seen on nature programmes. The tendrils of lightning touched and wound together, forming a sort of wreath on the side of the hill. A wreath of elephantine proportions.

The grass framed by the circle of electricity shimmered and faded away, leaving a gaping black hole, wide enough for several people to walk through side by side. Araki lifted her arm and shouted again. The soldier Kitsune repeated her shout and marched forward.

“You might want to close your mouth,” Hikaru whispered directly behind me.

“You might want to stop sneaking up on me before I put a bell on you,” I retorted, pressing a hand to my heart.

“Careful. He’ll get all excited,” Jack said dryly.

I appreciated the effort she was making and awarded her a laugh, albeit an unconvincing one.

Shinobu sighed in mock exasperation. “Children, please. Must I separate you?”

Hikaru grinned a sharp grin. “No way. In it together, Mio said. Where you go, we go.”

“All must obey the ninja princess.” Jack spun the glaive in her hands, watching the last pair of Kitsune disappear into the shadowy gateway. We moved forward as one. Jack and Shinobu fell in behind me, with Hikaru bringing up the rear.

“Farewell.” The king’s voice drifted after me as I stepped through the opening. “And may the gods show you kindness. Whatever kindness they have…”

I
t was a tight fit Between, and the light from the amphitheatre disappeared behind us as soon as we were through the gateway. There was a moment of utter blackness. I could hear Jack grinding her teeth and the breathing of dozens of people packed in all around me. Then a circle of light bloomed ahead. In a tight, organized formation, with no pushing or scrambling, the Kitsune moved through the gateway.

I emerged onto a wide road, with the blocky white shapes of warehouses and tall, barbed metal fences shielding industrial yards on either side. Yellow sodium streetlamps illuminated the gleaming metal spires of cranes poking up above the street. Beyond them, the moon was nearly full and painted a rusty off-white by light pollution. The shadowy ranks of Kitsune were neatly arranged by one of the fences.

Hiro detached himself from the back, bowed to me, then focused on something above my left shoulder. I turned just in time to see a dark circle snap shut, revealing a mound of construction debris.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“As close to the Nekomata’s lair as we could get,” Hiro said, looking around with his usual bright, interested expression. “The rupture beneath the king’s throne is the most versatile one we have, but it still needs a certain amount of green matter to anchor to.” He gestured to tufts of sickly looking grass and weedy flowers that poked out from among the wreckage of bricks and broken chunks of concrete and sand.

A car turned onto the road and drove towards us. My hand crept to the hilt of the katana as I watched it approach. The car’s headlights blinded me for a second, then it was gone. I blinked and let my hand fall away from the sword. The warmth of the hilt lingered on my palm.

“Chill, my lady,” Hiro said. “They can’t see you when you’re with us.”

“No one could see us earlier either – when we were running from those cats. It’s freaky,” Jack said.

“No, it’s normal,” Hikaru corrected her. “We’re only half here now. One foot in this world, one in the next. That’s part of using spirit magic in the human realm. People – people who’ve never been exposed to our magic, I mean – find it nearly impossible to notice us or process what they’ve seen if they do. It’s the same with any creature not indigenous to this realm. We’re veiled from mortal eyes. We can break through it if we really want to, by touching a human skin to skin or getting in their face and looking right into their eyes. But most of the time it’s better not to be seen. Having your police after us is the last thing we need.”

“All right, fine. Let’s just get going,” I said. The sword, its saya pushed through my white sash, was humming faintly. It was eager.

The Kitsune army reformed around us, and we moved down the street at its head, with Araki and Hiro prowling ahead of me, and Shinobu, Jack and Hikaru behind. I looked around as we walked, trying to work out where in London we were. It was completely unfamiliar. If I had ever been here before it would have been in daylight, when everything was different.

Traffic roared in the distance. Another car passed us without slowing. A barge hooted somewhere out on the invisible River Thames. The steady stomp of our feet made those other sounds, those familiar London sounds, seem unreal. This city, with its bright lights and busy people, clubs and hotels and roads, well lit and wide awake even at this time of night, seemed unreal. It had nothing to do with us, with the unseen army that marched grimly towards a battle with a monster no living person but us had seen in five hundred years.

We were of another time and place. A hidden London of shadows, and silence, and sword points.

Hiro and Araki turned left. I stopped dead, and the army came to a halt behind me. Directly ahead, illuminated by floodlights, was a massive, brick structure with four circular, white towers that glowed in the darkness.

Jack let out a huff of surprise. “Is that…”

“Battersea Power Station?” I finished.

“It is the fortress that the beast has commandeered for itself,” Araki confirmed.

Jack muttered, “Crap.”

Which just about summed it up.

When they said “lair” I had a mental image of, say, an abandoned house or a creepy alleyway. Those would have been bad enough – but at least they would have been easy to get into, and no one would be watching or getting in the way. All right, Battersea wasn’t actually a working power station any more, and all the dangerous bits of machinery had been cleared out years ago. But it was a London landmark, a tourist attraction, surrounded by walls and checkpoints and with regular patrols of security guards.

“Cat-breath
commandeered
this place?” Jack asked. “We had to sign a book and wear badges just to get in!”

“You’ve visited the lair before?” Araki asked, surprised.

“It was a school day trip,” I said absently. “Some arty people had set up a gallery in the main hall. Jack’s right – I mean, how did the Nekomata get past the guards?”

There was a short, uncomfortable silence. I looked around to see everyone giving me pitying looks. A couple of brain cells fired up and supplied the answer to my question.

They only stop hunting when they’re full
.

“Those poor men,” I whispered. Their families probably wouldn’t even realize they were missing until tomorrow. After that, it would be a lifetime of missing them.

All my fault
.

Shinobu found my fingers where they were clenched on the sword hilt. I let my eyes fall closed for a heartbeat as he briefly clasped my hand, soaking in the tingling warmth of his wordless touch. Gratitude – and something else, something I didn’t want to try to name right now – flooded through me. It straightened my back and lifted my chin.
OK. OK, I can do this
.

I opened my eyes and looked at the place again.

In most places the beige brick wall that surrounded the old power station was topped by a steel mesh that took the barrier to nearly twelve-feet high, but here on the road there was a lower section of metal fencing, including the security gate, all covered in warning notices and health-and-safety signs. It was just a bit higher than my head. It made me dizzy to realize that meant it was probably about six feet.

“How are we getting in?” I asked.

In answer, Hiro and Araki stepped forward and knelt down, each of them cupping their hands for me to use as a step. I forced myself to ungrit my teeth because clearly I was expected to set an example for the troops here – but I was never going to get used to using people’s hands for a step.

I put one booted foot gingerly into Hiro’s palm. He supported my weight easily. I reached up and caught the crossbar about six inches below the spiked points of the fence shafts and lifted my other leg. Araki supported it and boosted me up. For an instant I was paralyzed with panic:
spikes, spikes, spikes, oh heeeelp…

But then I realized that my upper body was already past the spikes and my arms weren’t trembling under the strain of holding me up. It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to lift my boot out of Araki’s grip, lodge my heel on the crossbar between my hands, balance there in a crouch, and then drop down to land lightly in the concrete yard.