The Night Itself (5 page)

“What’s that?” Kylar asked.

“Part of my costume,” I said shortly.

“It’s her mega-ultra samurai sword!” Jack said, doing jazz hands. “I can’t believe I forgot. It’s, like, a thousand-year-old family heirloom.”

“Five hundred years,” I corrected sharply.

“A real samurai sword? Oh my God, I have to see this,” said one of the other girls.

“Come on, get it out!”

“I–I can’t,” I stammered. “It’s dangerous.”

Mine!

“She’s right. If you want to see it, you need to get back and give her some room,” Jack said.

I knew she thought she was being helpful, but honestly… I could have brained her with the katana just then. Everyone scrambled back and the next thing I knew there were twice as many people staring at us, all trying to figure out what was going on. Someone snapped on the overhead light, making us all blink.

Just flash them the sword and get it over with. What’s the big deal?

Sick, irrational panic churned in my stomach, but I forced myself to get up and pull the sheathed katana out of the shinai carrier. The living-room light flashed over the brilliant shine of the black lacquer and golden flowers. The music was too loud for me to hear the
Ooooh
, but I could sense it.

A sneaking pride helped to soothe my uneasiness.
That’s right. He’s gorgeous, and he’s all mine
. Slowly I drew the blade from the saya. Light flashed along the curved surface like the sharp, white smile of the crescent moon.

“Holy crap,” someone said.

“You are so hot right now,” Kylar said, moving a little closer. “
Angelina Jolie
hot.”

Jack snorted. “Dude, that’s not a compliment.”

“Anyway,” a boy called Simon interrupted, “she looks more like the girl from that vampire film – you know the one who had the leather pants.”

“That was Angelina Jolie,” Kylar said, annoyed.

Sarah from my tutor group shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. He’s talking about the one who was in the lipstick adverts. She’s Bulgarian, I think.”

“No, she’s, like, Russian!” someone else chimed in.

Huh
. OK, well, that was a lot less dramatic than I’d been bracing myself for. I slid the katana back into his saya and the saya back into the shinai carrier, then settled him onto his place on my shoulder again. By the time I looked up, everyone was so busy trying to work out the name of the girl from the lipstick ads that they all seemed to have forgotten me completely. I was relieved and then irritated at myself for being relieved. Why was I being so freakish tonight?

I turned to Jack to suggest more drinks – and saw the shadow coming out of the wall.

A dark stain unfurled against the bright terracotta wallpaper, tendrils whipping from the centre and hardening into claws as it dragged itself through the bricks, into the room. I gagged on the stink of it: wet animal, greasy fur, and something long dead and rotting.

The seething mass dilated like the pupil of an eye, spreading up onto the ceiling. It clawed across the plaster, leaving black streaks wherever it touched. Thick, glistening globs of liquid, like half-congealed blood, dripped down onto the people below, staining their hair and clothes and spreading across their skin. No one seemed to notice.

The thing twisted, and suddenly – horribly – I could see a face in the black. A face that might have been human, except for the eyes. Yellow, cat eyes, with vertical pupils. The thing blinked slowly, searching. Its gaze fixed on me.

It surged across the ceiling towards me.

I tried to scream but all that came out was a choked gasp that was lost in the voices and music. I staggered back, grabbing Jack by the shoulder to try and push her out of the way. But the room was too crowded. Jack and I both bounced off the people standing next to us and I nearly went down. Jack caught me before I hit the floor.

“Jesus, you look like you saw Sadako,” she said as she hauled me up. “What’s wrong?”

“Did she drink too much?” Sarah asked. “Mio, are you going to be sick?”

Kylar and several others immediately leapt back out of range and Natalie appeared beside us like a frizzy haired genie. “Not on the carpet! Get her into the bathroom!”

“I’m not – there was – I saw…”

I looked up at the ceiling.

The thing was gone.

My eyes darted to the place on the wall where the shadow had emerged. Nothing. I looked back at the circle of people gathered around me. The glistening stains were gone from their skin. Half had their phones out so if I heaved on the carpet they could post it on YouTube.

“Mimi, you seriously don’t look good.” Jack patted me on the back.

“I–I think…”

Ojiichan’s voice darted through my head again.
One who remembers. One who endures. One who is hidden
.

He must always be hidden…

Always? What had Ojiichan said exactly?

“I need to sit down,” I managed to mumble.

“You can take her into the sunroom,” Natalie suggested uneasily, clearly still watching for signs I was about to ralph on her precious shag pile. “It’s quieter in there.”

She pushed through the gawping people to the far end of the room, shoved a coffee table out of the way and opened a set of French doors that I hadn’t noticed earlier.

“OK with you?” Jack asked me, putting her arm around my shoulders.

I nodded and followed Natalie into the other room. Predictably, it had a tiled floor and was mostly made up of windows, with more doors leading outside. The glass might as well have been brick now; with the lights on, the windows were dark and opaque, solid shadows. I shuddered. Jack guided me over to a wicker sofa. The saya dug into my side again as I sat down and I shifted, readjusting him. I could feel Jack’s concerned gaze on my face, but I couldn’t look at her.

“Uh, I’ll just … leave you be then, OK?” Natalie said, already halfway back out of the door. “Like, call me if you need anything.”

The door shut and immediately the noise of the party surged up again on the other side, muffled and distorted by the glass doors.

“Can you put the light off?” I asked, rubbing my forehead. My head hurt, and the darkness gave me an excuse to avoid meeting Jack’s eyes. As the overhead light went out, the windows turned from black to deep blue. I could see walls and grass outside, and no one could see in here.
I relaxed a little.

“Sorry,” I said after a minute.

“Don’t be stupid. This is my fault, isn’t it? I should have let you eat the fricking lasagne. I didn’t realize you were
this
starved.”

“It’s not that.” I hesitated for a second, then admitted, “Something’s wrong. I’m seeing weird things. Like hallucinations.”

Jack went on the alert, her body tensing up like a bloodhound catching a scent. “Shit. Did anyone give you a drink other than me?”

“Um … yeah, Kylar did, but—”

“Shit! I can’t believe this! He spiked your drink. I’m going to rip off his—”

“Kylar didn’t spike my drink,” I broke in. “I’ve been feeling off all night. Since…”
Since I stole the sword
.

And all of a sudden it did feel like stealing. Because all this weird stuff, these feelings, the flickering lights, had started then. Right after I got him out of the box, out of all those layers of embroidered cloth. Maybe I ought to have spent less time trying to remember my dreams and more time trying to remember my grandfather’s exact words about this katana that my family had been looking after for five hundred years.

Hiding
for five hundred years…

I think I did something really stupid
.

“Mimi, if you’re seeing things, it’s the only explanation. The stuff they put in drinks can play tricks with your memory and—”

“Just leave it, Jack,” I said, my voice coming out sharper than I meant it to. I took a deep breath. “I–I’m going to go home. You can stay if you want.”

She shot me one of her stabbing looks. “Right, I’m going to let my drugged, seeing-things friend stagger home, alone, in the dark because I’m just that awesome. Shut up and let me call a taxi.”

“That’ll be way too expensive. Look, I feel better now, OK? Let’s catch the Tube back. It’s faster anyway. The walk and the fresh air will probably help.”

Jack hesitated. “If you start feeling funny again you need to tell me straight away.”

“I will. I will!” I said, jumping up and going to the doors that led outside into Natalie’s garden. When I didn’t wobble or collapse, I could tell that went a long way to reassuring Jack. She put her phone away.

But it didn’t reassure me. I already knew I hadn’t been drugged.

One who is hidden. Always hidden…

Ojiichan hadn’t been messing about that day. And he hadn’t just been talking about my dad. You’re not supposed to wave hidden things – ancient things – around at parties, for fun. I had been feeling wigged and uneasy from the second I took the sword. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I was desperate to get home and put the blade back where he belonged again before—

“Before someone finds him,” I whispered.

“Are you talking to me?” Jack asked.

“No, I’m muttering to myself. All part of tonight’s delightful package of crazy.” I pulled open the French doors, letting in a whoosh of freezing air that smelled of damp earth and exhaust fumes. “Hell. Our coats are in the dining room.”

“Hang on a second and I’ll get them. I’ll grab Natalie if I see her and tell her we’re off too.”

“Thanks, Jack. You’re a bright shiny star.”

“Damn straight.”

The noise of the party made me wince as Jack slipped back into the living room. I thought it would be a while before I wanted to dance again. I’d be lucky if my freak-out didn’t end up being the number-one story when I got back to school in January, and by that time Chinese Whispers would have made it common knowledge that I’d done a topless lap dance for Kylar and projectile vomited on Natalie.

The chilly air felt good. I breathed in deeply, stepping past the threshold of the sunroom and looking out at the night.
Calm down. You’ll be home soon. You can hide the sword soon
.

The room was built onto the side of Natalie’s house, so next door’s wall was straight ahead. The garden – just a little patch of grass with a few shrubs, like mine at home – was on the right side, and the gravel parking area in front of the house on the other. The streetlights twinkled too brightly through the bare branches of the trees, making my eyes water.

I blinked and squeezed my eyes shut, but when I opened them, coloured dots were still darting through my vision. They came together in the shape of a man.

He was turned sideways to me, so that I could only see his profile in shadow. He wore a robe – no, it was a kimono – that gleamed dully with gold embroidery. A costume, like mine? Except that it didn’t really look like a fancy-dress outfit. And he didn’t really look like he belonged at this party.

He was very tall, but sort of slender, like a kid, with arms and legs that seemed too long for his body. Something about the shape of him was subtly off, the proportions skewed. The more I stared, the more
off
he seemed. Abruptly I was convinced that he wasn’t anyone Natalie had invited here. He was … wrong.

The man turned his head towards me. The light reflected from his eyes – no, no, that wasn’t the light. There were twin holes in his face, glowing eerie white. They had no iris, no pupil. Those weren’t
eyes
.

For a second I was so frozen with fear that I felt like I’d turned into a piece of the wall behind me. This guy was real.
Real
. And he was so, so wrong. I couldn’t even explain how terrifying he was. He could have pulled out an AK47 and aimed it at me and I wouldn’t have been able to whimper, let alone run.

He could see it too. He smiled a triumphant, gloating smile.

And just like that, I was mad. More than mad.
Furious
. This guy was trying to scare me on purpose. I didn’t know why, or how, but he was trying to drive me crazy, and he thought it was funny. My feet came loose from the ground and I flung myself down from the doorway, gravel crunching under my feet, my breath making wheezing noises in my ears. The noise of the party had faded away to silence behind me.

“Who are you?” I said. My voice came out shockingly loud; too many drinks.

He carried on smirking. “I am the Zenpyou. You would call me … a Harbinger. The bringer of fate. I come to remind you, child of the Yamato, of your sacred duty to protect that which you bear; a duty you seem to be taking far too lightly. Has your family already forgotten the consequences of failure?”

He stopped, like he was waiting for me to say something back. Waiting for me to get on my knees and grovel?

“Are you high or something?” I demanded. “What are you on about?”

His smile faded abruptly; his stare turned assessing. “You? No. It cannot be.”

“What do you want?”

He made a sound of disgust. “I have told you.” He turned away with a restless, contemptuous shrug. “Remember what I have said, sword-bearer.”

He began to walk towards the road. His back shimmered like a mirage as he moved into the light.

“Where do you think you’re going? Get back here!” I charged after him, so angry that I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing.

The shimmering light spread out behind him, a wake in the air, like the disturbance a ship makes in calm water. The straight, everyday lines of houses, trees, streetlights, the pavement under my feet, the sky above me, all rippled, streaming and blurring past my eyes. I forced myself to keep running. I couldn’t tell the ground from the sky, but my feet were still hitting solid earth and I could still see the man’s lanky shape ahead of me.

“Mio! Stop!”

It was Jack’s voice, shrill and frightened.

The streaming ripples brightened until they blinded me. I threw up my hands to protect my eyes. There was a noise, coming closer, a rising wail, like a—

A car horn.

H
ave you ever been hit in the face? Really hit? So your head snapped back and you landed on your rear end wondering what the hell happened? You don’t actually feel it at first. The harder the blow is, the more numb you go. I mean, your face just seems to disappear, and for a minute you think your eyes are going to drop right out of their sockets because they’re the only thing that still seems to be working.