Spirits of the Noh (16 page)

Kara jumped a little at the sudden vibration in her pocket. With a soft, self-deprecating chuckle, she pulled out her cell phone, which she’d silenced when they had been breaking into the school. Sakura was calling.

“Hey,” Kara answered.

“Where are you?” Sakura demanded, her voice low.

“Almost there.”

“You’d better hurry. We heard something, maybe someone calling for help. Mai panicked. She went around the back and I think she’s breaking in.”

“Shit,” Kara muttered. “Be there in a minute.”

She hung up and as she slid the phone back into her pocket, she glanced up at Hachiro. “We’ve got to hurry.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Ren asked, still trying to steady his breathing.

Hachiro took Kara’s hand and squeezed it. He gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s go.”

Ren held up a hand. “Wait, wait, please! Just give me a minute.”

Kara smiled and grabbed his hand, now locked between the two guys. “Sorry.”

Then they were off and running, the two of them dragging Ren along despite his wheezing protests. In moments they came in sight of Miss Aritomo’s house. Veering to the right, they hid as deeply in the shadows of the buildings as they could manage.

“Sakura!” Kara called in a rough whisper.

“Why are you being quiet?” Hachiro asked, frowning. “Aritomo-sensei is not home.”

Ren hit his arm. “Think. Just because Aritomo-sensei isn’t here, that doesn’t mean the Hannya is also gone.”

Kara shivered, remembering all too clearly the sight of the evil spirit transforming and then vanishing inside Miss Aritomo’s prone body.

When she called out a second time, Sakura emerged from beside the building on their right, a darkened laundry, and beckoned them to her. Kara, Ren, and Hachiro hurried over, and Kara felt vulnerable and exposed under the glow of yet another streetlamp. She exhaled as they stepped into a darkened alley beside the laundry, where Sakura had apparently been hiding.

“Did you get everything?” Sakura asked.

“We think so,” Ren told her, patting the box in his hands. “It’s just so strange to think that any of this will make a difference. We should have guns or knives or something.”

Hachiro nodded. “A baseball bat.”

Kara looked at him.

“What? It worked before.”

“The baseball bat helped, but it wasn’t what got rid of the ketsuki, or kept Kyuketsuki from coming into the world. The rules of things like this are very peculiar, and sometimes don’t make any sense, but the secrets are all in the stories themselves. If the monks destroyed the Hannya with the sound of bells, and Aritomo-sensei purposely left them out of the play … Look, maybe this will work and maybe it won’t, but if it doesn’t, I don’t have another plan, and a baseball bat isn’t going to help.”

Ren cocked his head, looking across the street at the darkened house. “It might.”

The sound of an approaching car made them step deeper into the alley and they fell silent as they turned to watch it pass. But the car did not drive past. The engine rumbled and the vehicle slowed, and a moment later the headlights turned left, casting an ugly yellow light onto Miss Aritomo’s house as the car pulled into the drive. A moment later, the headlights went dark and the engine silent, but not before Kara saw the open trunk, and the bicycle jutting out of it.

“Oh, no,” Ren said.

“Kara, it’s your father,” Hachiro whispered.

She barely heard them. Staring, wondering how the teacher had persuaded him to drive her home, and if it had been Miss Aritomo or the Hannya doing the talking—how did that work, having a demon riding inside your mind?—Kara started out of the alley.

Sakura grabbed her shoulder. “Wait.”

Kara shook her off and took one more step before Ren lent a hand, he and Sakura preventing Kara from going any farther. Hachiro stepped in front of her, blocking Kara’s view of the house. Her pulse raced, gaze darting around. Her skin prickled with frenzied thoughts and fears, and she looked up into Hachiro’s eyes.

Car doors slammed. Her father would be taking Miss Aritomo’s bike out of the trunk now.

“Why would she bring him back here?” Kara demanded. “I thought … I don’t know if Aritomo-sensei knows the Hannya’s inside her, and my dad’s got nothing to do with the play, so I hoped he would be safe. But if she’s bringing him here, I have to stop him from going inside.”

“No,” Hachiro said firmly. “We have to stick to the plan. Just a couple of minutes and we’ll go in. He’ll be all right.”

At the sound of Miss Aritomo’s front door closing, anger flashed through Kara. “You don’t know that.”

She pulled away from her friends, stepped past Hachiro, and stared at the house. A light had come on downstairs.

And then, from higher up—from the attic, it seemed to Kara—there came a piercing scream that rose and arced and then died out, leaving horrible silence behind.

“Mai,” Sakura whispered.

Kara spun, grabbed the box from Ren’s hands, and tore it open. She looked up at her friends, who were staring at her.

“Hurry!”

14

K
ara and Hachiro stood just outside Miss Aritomo’s house. She cocked her head, trying to get a glimpse of her father through a window, but despite the inside light, nothing seemed to be moving within. The sickle moon cast a dim yellow gloom over the buildings and the street. Kara glanced at Hachiro, swallowed hard, and nodded.

“That should be long enough,” she whispered.

Sakura and Ren had gone around the back of the house, following Mai’s path. However she had gotten in, they would as well. Which only left the front door.

“Ready?” Hachiro asked softly.

Kara nodded, and he reached into the cloth sack that he had taken from the art room and withdrew one of the Noh masks that Miho had made, handing it to her. Kara stared at it. The visage seemed almost genderless, a white-haired, grimly pale expression permanently fixed upon it. A villager or a monk, she thought. As she watched, Hachiro pulled a second mask from the bag, this one with a thin tangle of beard marking it as male. Surely it must be one of the monks.

Hachiro donned his mask, fitting the string behind his head. Kara took a deep breath and did the same. Ren and Sakura had taken their masks with them. There were two others in the bag—the one they’d brought for Mai to wear and another that Kara feared might have been a mistake to bring along. That fear gnawed at her, but they would know soon enough.

Kara looked at Hachiro, hating the way the mask obscured his features, but his eyes were still there, soft and kind. She nodded and pointed at the door.

“Let’s go.”

Hachiro took a deep breath. He had the sack grasped in one fist and in the other he clutched a small iron bell. Kara reached into her pocket and pulled out her own bell, two fingers inside it to keep it silent until the right moment.

This is insane
, she thought. They didn’t really know if any of this would work. It was all pure conjecture. But in her time in Japan, reading folklore and Noh plays—and from their brush with Kyuketsuki—she had learned that somehow, over time, the stories themselves seemed to have rejuvenated some spirits. The supernatural beings that survived in Japan were no longer worshiped, and so drew their remaining vitality from the stories and plays about them. The stories had reshaped them, in some way.

And if the stories could shape them, then wearing the masks of the monks who destroyed the Hannya in
Dojoji
would give them a certain power over the creature. It would almost expect them to defeat it, and that would give them an advantage.

Or so Kara now believed.

In moments, she would discover if there was any truth to that theory.

The bells, though, were different. There were so many instances in Japanese legend of the sound of bells warding off or weakening evil, even destroying it. The masks might give them an advantage, but the bells could actually be a weapon. If they were lucky. If they were right.

Hachiro stepped up to the house and slammed his foot against the door, just beside the knob. Grimacing, he launched another powerful kick, striking the same spot. In quick succession, he struck the door twice more, and the lock gave way with a splinter of wood. The door swung inward and Hachiro didn’t hesitate. He burst into the house, and Kara followed.

Her father and Miss Aritomo were standing at the bottom of the steps. It looked like they had been about to go up, belatedly responding to the scream from the attic. Rob Harper had a heavy lamp in his hand, apparently to use as a weapon, and Miss Aritomo held a long kitchen knife. They both looked startled, and if Kara had not seen the Hannya slipping into the art teacher with her own eyes, she would never have thought that Miss Aritomo was anything but terrified at that moment.

At the sight of her and Hachiro in the masks, Miss Aritomo screamed. Kara’s father came toward them, wielding the lamp.

“Dad, wait!” Kara said.

“Kara?” he muttered, too confused to be angry yet.

“Get away from her, Harper-sensei!” Hachiro barked, sliding away from Kara, watching Miss Aritomo closely.

Maybe the Hannya’s not here
, Kara thought.
That could be, right? It’s not in her now.

“Hachiro, it might be in the attic. That’s why Mai was screaming.”

“Mai? What is Mai doing in my attic?” Miss Aritomo asked. “What is going on here? Why are you wearing those masks? You have a lot of explaining to do!”

Sakura and Ren appeared from a hall that led toward the back of the house. They moved slowly into the living room, fanning out so that the four students had Miss Aritomo surrounded, with the stairs to the second story her only route of escape. They had also donned their masks, and clutched iron bells in their fists.

“Shut up, demon!” Sakura snarled at Miss Aritomo.

“No, Sakura,” Ren said, staring at their teacher. “Look at her. I don’t think she knows it’s in her.”

Kara thought he was right. The expression on Miss Aritomo’s face made it clear—she really didn’t know. Somehow the Hannya had gotten into her and used her body as a host. Perhaps it influenced her from within, but she had no idea she had been possessed. When it left her body to prowl the world, it somehow lulled the teacher into unconsciousness, as Kara had seen with her own eyes.

Her father put the lamp down on a small table and stared at his daughter. He spoke in low, measured tones. She had never seen him so furious. “Kara, you’ve gone much too far now. This is … it’s too much. It’s going to change everything.”

Guilt and doubt surged up in her and she started to flush, averting her eyes. For several seconds, she almost crumbled under his gaze. What could she do? Call it off and apologize? Run from the house?

No.

“I know what I saw, Dad. This is real. We’ve been to Yamato-sensei. He believes us. He’s talking to the police right now. But if you won’t believe your own daughter—if you really think I’d take it this far on some crazy whim—all you have to do is go up to the attic and find out what Mai was screaming about.”

He hesitated, obviously confused, and Kara knew she’d finally gotten through to him. Her father turned to look at Miss Aritomo, but even as he did, the art teacher’s eyelids fluttered and she began to collapse. He caught Miss Aritomo before she could fall, but she lay limp in his arms, arms akimbo, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The kitchen knife she’d been holding fell from her hand and skittered across the wood floor.

“Yuuka?” her father said, alarmed. He knelt down, laying her gently on the floor, still cradling her head and upper body. “Yuuka, what’s wrong? Wake up!”

He twisted to look at Kara. “Call an ambulance.”

“They’re not going to be able to help,” Hachiro said.

“Please, Harper-sensei,” Sakura began. “Get away from her.”

He glared at her, then at Kara.

“Move back, Dad,” she said. “You don’t understand.”

“Call an ambulance, goddammit!” he snapped, then turned back to Miss Aritomo. He slapped her lightly on the cheek. “Yuuka. Yuuka!”

With a scowl of frustration, he cradled her head with one hand while, with the other, he fished out his own cell phone.

“Dad!” Kara shouted. “Get back!”

For Miss Aritomo’s head had lolled back in his grasp. Her mouth opened wide and a darkness formed deep in her throat. Yellow eyes peered from the inside of her distended lips, and then the serpent slid out, all rippling shadows and hateful glare. It hissed, the sound filling the room until it seemed to come from every corner and from beneath every piece of furniture.

Rob Harper must have heard the noise, for he turned to look. At the sight of the Hannya emerging from its host, the woman with whom he was falling in love, he dropped his cell phone with a clatter on the floor, and yanked his hand away from Miss Aritomo. Her skull thunked down and he tried to scramble away, but too late.

The serpent darted toward him, fangs sinking into his wrist.

“Dad!” Kara cried once more.

Her father tried to stand, but already the demon’s venom began to slow him. It blossomed from horned snake to horned demon, growing in an eyeblink into the hideous visage that hung on the wall in Miss Aritomo’s classroom. But this was no mask. The Hannya wrapped its arms around Kara’s father and hauled him upward until his feet were dangling several inches above the floor.

Its tongue flickered out in a long hiss and its flesh shifted again, becoming a snake-eyed woman of exotic beauty. The Hannya whispered a hiss into Rob Harper’s ear and, staring over his shoulder from behind, grinned at Kara with the twin glint of two sharp teeth.

“Remember, later,” the demon said, in a quiet, almost dainty voice, “that he didn’t have to die. Know that I killed him because you interfered.”

Miho could still feel the effects of the Hannya’s venom. Her bones were stiff and her muscles ached and her head felt stuffed with cotton. But she was alive, and thanks to Mai—of all people—she thought she might get to stay that way. When the girl had first come through the attic door and seen the ruin of flesh and bone that had once been Daisuke, of course Mai had screamed. Miho whispering to her from the shadows only startled her into screaming louder.

But when Mai saw Wakana, she had begun to calm down, and to think. Miho had moved to block both girls’ view of Daisuke’s corpse as Mai fussed over the bruises and cuts that Wakana had acquired in the attic. Wakana had not told Miho much—she was so disoriented and weak herself—but it seemed she had hurt herself trying to force her way out of the attic, and that more than once the Hannya had bitten her, filling her blood with that paralyzing venom.

For several minutes, Wakana and Mai had embraced there in the attic, with the door yawning wide just beyond them. Miho tried to be as respectful as she could, to give them that time. It was obvious that they both had cared deeply for Daisuke, and grief shook them both as they wept quietly in each other’s arms. But then she could not wait any longer.

“We need to get out of here,” Miho said. “While the house is empty, before it—before
she
comes back.”

Mai kept her eyes shut and squeezed Wakana to her tightly. With a deep breath, she released her. Wakana swayed to one side, barely able to remain standing, so Mai steadied her, then turned toward Miho and nodded.

“I just want to … to say good-bye to Daisuke,” Mai said.

Miho had shaken her head. “No you don’t. Not now.”

“She’s right,” Wakana said. “Daisuke isn’t here anymore. We’ll remember him properly when all of this is done.”

Reluctantly, Mai relented. She put an arm around Wakana and helped the girl toward the door. Miho had gone ahead of them. Even as she put her foot on the landing, there came a crash from far below, on the first floor.

“What was that?” Wakana asked, eyes wide.

Miho and Mai exchanged a glance. “The front door?” Miho said.

“I think so. Your friends are all coming to help us. It must be them,” Mai replied. “But if they’re willing to break in like that—”

“The Hannya must be coming,” Miho finished. “Either that or it’s already here.”

Wakana whimpered, sagging, forcing Mai to bear even more of her weight.

“She should wait here,” Miho said. “If we have to defend ourselves—”

“What? No!” Wakana said, her words slightly slurred as though she’d been drinking.

Mai glared at Miho. “I will not leave her here. If we have to make a run for it, Wakana would be alone. We’ll make it out together, or not at all.”

All Miho could do was shrug. Voices carried from downstairs, shouting at one another. She led the way, hurrying down to the second floor, with Mai helping Wakana descend behind her. Miho hesitated only a moment, glancing around to make sure they were alone on that level of the house, and then she started down to the first floor. Now she could hear the voices more clearly—Kara’s, her father’s, Hachiro’s, and Sakura’s—and the words chilled her.

Halfway down the steps, she paused, holding her breath. Kara shouted at her father, who then began to scream at them to call for an ambulance. Something had happened to Miss Aritomo. But didn’t they know that she was the Hannya? Wasn’t that why they were here?

Miho crept down a few more steps, light from the living room spilling into the stairwell. Something touched her arm and she gasped and turned to find Mai beside her. Despite her fears for Wakana, she had left the other girl at the top of the stairs. That was good. Something awful had begun to unfold in the living room and Wakana would only be in more danger if they brought her into its midst.

Mai nodded to Miho, a signal for them to continue, and Miho obliged. They went down several more steps together, clinging to the walls, and now Miho caught sight of the Hannya wrapping itself around Professor Harper. And it spoke.

“
Remember, later, that he didn’t have to die. Know that I killed him because you interfered.
”

Miho reached out and grabbed Mai’s wrist. She stared, unable to breathe, as the Hannya opened its mouth—the dark beauty of its female guise giving way to grotesquerie as its jaws unhinged—and bent its head as though to tear out Professor Harper’s throat.

“No!” Miho cried.

She and Mai lunged as one and grabbed the Hannya’s arms, their weight and momentum helping them tear the demon away from Kara’s father. Its hiss of rage and frustration filled Miho’s ears, but she heard another noise—a shout of triumph—as Sakura threw herself at Professor Harper, practically tackling him as she forced him across the room, away from the Hannya.

As the demon hissed in their grasp it thrashed against Mai and Miho. Staggering backward, Miho stumbled over the unconscious Miss Aritomo, and then she and Mai were both falling in a tangle of limbs, dragging the Hannya down on top of them.

Mai screamed in pain and Miho flinched as tiny flecks of the other girl’s blood spattered her face. The Hannya writhed in Miho’s grip, flesh shifting as it twisted round, and once again it wore the face of the demon. This close, Miho saw it looked very little like the mask on Miss Aritomo’s wall, or the one she herself had tried to create for the staging of
Dojoji
. Its eyes had huge black slitted pupils, limned with sickly yellow, and nictating membranes slid over those gelatinous orbs. The demon’s wiry hair looked like dried, blackened cornsilk, and its leathern skin consisted of a million diamond-shaped scales.