The door opened and August’s auntie bowed and held it open. “Please, come in.”
I trotted inside, leaving my Lepidoptera entourage outside. August’s auntie led me past the counter to the back room, where August’s grandmother, his uncle, and his mother sat. The entire Komatsu family with the exception of the children and August’s white father. Their faces looked ashen.
I sat, curling my tail around me.
We looked at one another.
“We know why you are here,” August’s uncle said. Mr. Komatsu was a solemn-looking man in the best of times; now his expression was so grave, he could’ve been carved out of stone.
I waited.
“August is dead,” he said.
I sighed. August was the first male son in his generation. The one who would be forgiven every wrong and permitted every privilege, because years later, when his father and uncle were old, he would assume the burden of taking care of Komatsu family. It was a terrible loss for the family.
“We have buried his body. It is our affair,” Mr. Komatsu said.
I shook my head slowly. August was a shapeshifter and other shapeshifters died because of him. It was our affair now.
Mr. Komatsu stared straight ahead.
The grandmother leaned forward. “It’s the woman. Her name is Hiromi. We do not know her family name. It happened seven years ago, just before the flare.”
The flare came every seven years. If a normal magic fluctuation was a wave, the flare was a tsunami. Bad magic happened during the flare. It dissipated after three days or so, but those three days were terrible. The flare before last dumped a phoenix onto the city, right over the Asian neighborhoods. We had another flare this year and I made my family go to the Keep to stay safe.
“The bad magic was coming,” August’s mother said. “People boarded up their houses and flooded the stores to get supplies. Everyone was in a rush. Hiromi came in to buy groceries. I’d seen her before a few times. She looked poor. Her clothes were bad and she was thin. Very skinny. She had her daughter with her, a small little girl. She might have been two or three.”
“The child liked cookies,” Mr. Komatsu said. “We offered some to her every time. Hiromi would only let her have one. Very proud.”
August’s mother took a deep breath. “Hiromi bought her groceries and went out, carrying her little girl. A street person stabbed them outside the door. We found him later. He was a crazed old man. The flare had made him insane. He didn’t even remember doing it. He just stabbed them and walked away. Hiromi slumped against the wall, holding her baby, and people walked by. Everybody was in a terrible rush. Nobody wanted to get involved. Nobody stopped him and nobody helped her.”
How terrible. To lie there and bleed out slowly into the street, knowing your child is dead in your arms. How awful.
“We didn’t know she was dying outside of our store,” Mr. Komatsu said. “When we found her, she had no pulse. She looked dead. We brought her and the little girl inside, in here. They were both cold and neither had a heartbeat.”
“The flare had unleashed a phoenix and the city was burning,” August’s mother said. “We had to go. We left her. Meanwhile, the flare had awakened magic within Hiromi and pulled her back from death, but her little girl didn’t survive. When we came back after the flare, she had woven a cocoon within the store. Before she left, she warned us that everyone would pay.”
I had this sick cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew exactly how this story would end.
“She remembered everyone who’d passed by her as she lay dying and didn’t stop to help,” Mr. Komatsu said. “On the one-year anniversary of her child’s death, a mark and a note appeared on the door of the first family. Hiromi demanded a sacrifice: One member of the family had to go to her so she could … feed. If someone volunteered, the rest of the family would be left alone. They ignored it at first. Three days later she took the family.”
“The families put together our money and hired the Mercenary Guild,” August’s mother murmured. “She killed them. Nobody would help us after that.”
If only I could speak. They had let this monster terrorize them. They didn’t ask for help. They could’ve gone to the Order, they could’ve gone to the cops. They could’ve gone to the Pack—August was a shapeshifter, after all, and his family was in danger. But they didn’t, because everyone was too ashamed to admit that they had let a young woman and her child die alone on the street in plain view. They just took their punishment, paid their blood debt, and lived with guilt. It was the old honorable way and it cost them so many lives.
August’s mother kept talking. “She is growing stronger and stronger. She has turned her cat into a
nekomata
, and it serves her with dark magic. Even her blood is no longer human. She bleeds ichor like a spider. She is growing greedy like one, too. People have been disappearing more and more as time goes by. Every year she marks a new door. This year she marked ours.”
I’d guessed as much.
“I said I should go.” August’s grandmother drew herself upright. “I’m old. I’ve lived long enough.”
“We argued about it,” August’s mother said. “While we argued, August decided that nobody should go. He went to meet Hiromi himself.” Her voice broke and she closed her eyes.
August had died for them. For his family. The first son of the new generation, the heir to the family. They had lost their future and they were crushed.
Because August had disobeyed and fought, Hiromi had toyed with him. She must’ve infected him somehow, and he brought her magic with him to the shapeshifter office. Jim was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now she wanted him. Well, she couldn’t have him. He was mine.
Mr. Komatsu rose and put his arms around his sister. “We don’t know what happened between Hiromi and my nephew. We found August’s body on our doorstep. He was drained. His corpse, it was devoid of all liquid. We buried him. The mark has disappeared from our door. We cannot help you. Now leave us in peace so we can grieve.”
I rose and walked out, leaving the shards of a broken family behind me. I felt sick, but I finally knew what my enemy was.
*
I STOOD NEXT
to my mother by the kitchen window. Through it, I could see the garden and Jim by the tree. It had taken eight hours for Keong Emas to mature and every hour had added years to Jim’s face. His beautiful skin looked dull, as if rubbed with ash. Puffy circles clutched at his eyes. He looked exhausted, drained, like a man who had spent a decade working in some hellish mine. Only the eyes remained the same: sharp, dangerous eyes, backlit from within by a lethal green glow. He had the will to live, but no strength to keep going.
He was dying.
Poor Jim. My poor, poor Jim.
My mother pursed her lips. “It’s not too late to let him go.”
“It is.”
“Your magic will not work on her. She is an insect demon.”
Arachnid, actually. “I have a plan, Mother.”
My mother turned to me slowly. Her lip trembled.
Oh my gods.
She hugged me, clenching me to her. “My brave baby, you’re the only one I have. The only one. My precious one, my sweet daughter. You’re my everything. I’m begging you, please, please, let him go.”
I smelled tears and I knew she was crying, and then I cried, too. “I can’t, Mother. I love him so much. I just can’t.”
She held on to me so tight, she must’ve been afraid I’d disappear into thin air. We stood holding each other for a long minute, and then she let me go. “All right. I will help you then.”
She picked up the glass jar. Inside it, a single fat pupa hung off the glass wall.
My mother sniffed back her tears. “We go now.”
We went out into the garden, my mother leading the way, and me following, carrying my calligraphy kit and old
keris
in my hand. The dagger curved in a wavy pattern from the asymmetrical base to the razor-sharp point, and the dozen metals that formed the blade shimmered as if the weapon was forged out of silvery running water.
Up close, Jim looked even worse. My family had kept him awake, but it had sapped all of his strength. Only the shell of a man was left.
Jim saw the knife. His lips moved. The words came out slowly. “If you needed a good knife, I’d let you borrow one of mine. You can’t even cut straight with that thing.”
I almost cried again.
My mother looked at me. Last chance to change my mind.
I nodded.
She sighed, opened the jar, and touched the tip of the pupa with her finger. Magic sparked through the tiny cocoon. It cracked and fell apart, breaking into dust. A radiant moth spread its wings in the pupa’s place. Magic washed over me, warm beautiful magic, so potent and strong, it made my heart skip a beat. I held my breath.
Golden and glorious, glowing with a soft light, Keong Emas crawled to the lip of the jar. It fluttered its wings, sending tiny sparks of magic into the air, and took to the air, raining golden dust and minuscule bits of magic. It hovered above Jim, circled above him once, twice, fluttered through the garden, and flew away, far into the trees.
The entire garden lay bathed in a golden glow, tiny sparks of magic gleaming on plant leaves like precious jewels. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
Mother gasped. I spun to Jim. Long strands of spiderweb clenched his neck, stretching upward, growing more transparent with each inch until they finally vanished about three feet above his head.
I glanced at my mother. “Go.”
She set the glass jar down, turned, and fled. The rest of my family followed. In a moment, the garden and the house were deserted. Only Jim and I were left.
I came over and knelt by him. He slumped on the bench. He was so weak, he probably couldn’t even move.
“How are you?”
Ashen lips moved. “Great. Never better.”
“I found out what happened,” I told him. “During the last flare, a woman and her daughter were stabbed in South Asia. They bled out into the street and nobody helped. It was horrible. The daughter died, but the woman survived. She turned into a monster and once a year she demands a sacrifice from the people who ignored her dying.”
Jim’s voice was weak. “How long has that been going on?”
“Seven years.”
“And nobody said anything?”
I shook my head. “They felt ashamed. They tried hiring the Guild, but she killed the mercenaries. It became every family for themselves. August’s family was the last one targeted. He went to fight the monster.”
“With no backup?”
“Yes.”
Jim sighed. “People are idiots.”
“That theory seems likely, yes.”
Jim coughed. “So what now?”
“There are spiderwebs attached to your throat. I’m going to cut them with my pretty magic knife. When I do, you will faint from shock. Then the woman will come back and try to devour you anyway, because her type never lets prey get away.”
“Is that why everyone left?”
I nodded.
“Are you going to curse her?”
“Something like that.”
Jim stared at me. “Dali?”
How did he always know when I was hiding something? “There is a small problem with that. My curses only work on animals and people. Something with blood. Hiromi has no blood. She has insect slime. Remember the
kanji
character you saw on the floor?
Joro,
the whore? That was part of her demon name. That’s why August knew it. His family had been terrified of her for years. She’s
jorogumo
, the whore spider. So I’ll have to be creative.”
And if I fail, you will never wake up.
He tried to rise but managed only a twitch.
“You can’t stop me,” I told him. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
“You should go,” he said. “Leave me.”
“Having a vegetarian blind girl save your behind really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I took his hand and squeezed it, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. “I’m about to cut the web, Jim. You have about a minute, so if there is something you really need to tell me, you have to do it now.”
His eyes told me he understood. This could be the last time we spoke to each other.
“I’m sorry about our fight.”
“I forgive you,” I told him, and sliced through the first line. The
keris
severed it in one short cut. It blinked and vanished. “You just don’t understand what it’s like not to be pretty. It’s because you’ve always been hot.”
He coughed. “Hot?”
“Mhm.”
“Have you ever looked at me?”
“I have. I look at you all the time, Jim.” I severed the second line. It disappeared. A shudder ran through Jim’s body. His legs trembled.
“About Indonesian,” Jim said. “I learned it so I could talk to you.”
Oh, Jim. What the hell, I might never see him again. This was my last chance. I leaned over and kissed his lips.
He kissed me back. It was tender and loving and everything I had dreamed it would be. Tears ran down my face and I couldn’t stop them. I loved him. I didn’t know if he loved me back. He might have kissed me out of gratitude or for some other strange reason, but it seemed so unimportant now. If someone offered me a choice, his life or his love, I would give him up. Even if it meant he would never remember me and we would never speak again. As long as he lived. That’s all I wanted. I just wanted him to be okay.