The Night Itself (6 page)

I suppose that explains why I didn’t feel the car hit me. There was no pain. Just a sort of … nudge. I flew up, and the world did a gentle roll around me, everything coming apart, lights and trees and cars scattering before my eyes like colourful pieces of broken glass.

Then I hit the ground. I landed on my front and skidded for a few feet before I came to a halt. I still couldn’t feel anything, and it was
quiet
. I’d say “dead quiet”, except that’s too accurate to be funny. I never realized how loud my heartbeat was until it stopped.

And all I could think was,
Thank God I landed on my front
.
Thank God I didn’t destroy the katana. Thank God
.

Then it started to hurt. Pain was closing in on me, cold and dark, like a vice, compressing me from all sides at once, crushing down until everything was reduced to a bright chink in the agony, a gap that let me hear Jack screaming and see her running feet. The gap kept closing down, getting tinier and tinier until it was nothing but a pinprick and it just seemed easier to close my eyes…

Heat pulsed on my back like the heartbeat of some massive creature. It broke through the agony for a second, and in that second, I heard another voice.
Mio
, it whispered.
Take my hand. Don’t let go
.

I knew his voice. I had never heard it before in my life, but I knew it. Mentally I reached out through the darkness and the cold, and felt that same warmth close around me, embracing me, lifting me up, up, away from the pain—

And I was somewhere else.

The light was red. The sun was setting beyond the forest, streaking the sky with fire, shining through the autumn leaves that shivered down on to the battle
.

A man and a … a
creature
fought beneath the trees. The man weaved, leapt and spun, avoiding the nine slashing tails of the creature. He moved faster than any human should be able to move. He was a black hurricane, a whirlwind of flashing silver blades and flying dark hair. I could not see his face – but his big, tanned hands were clenched white on the handles of his swords
.

His swords…

In one hand he held a short wakizashi blade. In the other he held a black and gold katana that glittered in the red light. My katana
.
Mine
.

But here it was his. Everything about the way he moved, the confidence with which he wielded it, shouted that. And he fought furiously, as if the survival of everything he loved depended on winning
.

The creature was a thing of terrible darkness, its body rippling and shifting in the air like oil on the surface of water. Long tentacles of that darkness lashed and whirled at the warrior, scraping white chunks out of tree trunks and gashing great holes in the earth. Its face was the most awful thing of all, a nightmare that melded human with feline – red lips and fine brows, an elongated jaw and bristling needle fangs. Yellow, inhuman eyes
.

The man moved into a complex pass that turned the blades into a silver blur. Two of the creature’s limbs went flying. Black liquid spattered over the red leaves. The warrior darted forward into the gap and struck deeply, cleaving a hole where the creature’s heart should be
.

The creature let out a high-pitched shriek that shook the trees. The man leapt back, swords at the ready. More black liquid gushed out of the wound as the thing writhed, its limbs drawing in with a convulsive movement, like the legs of a dying spider. The drifting mantle contracted, folding in on itself
.

The man’s muscular back seemed to relax a little, but he took another, wary step back before he lowered the blades to his sides
.

The creature shrieked again. One of its limbs shot out, streaking across the clearing like a black whip. A jagged claw hit the man squarely in the chest and then ripped away in a spray of blood
.

The short sword dropped from the warrior’s left hand with a clatter. He clapped his palm over his heart. Staggering slightly on his feet, he watched as the shadow creature convulsed. The beast twisted down into a knot of blackness, and … solidified. A second later it was no more than a rough stone figure, barely a foot tall, in the shape of a cat
.

The man sighed, shoulders sagging as if a terrible weight had been lifted from him. Blood spilled through his fingers with the movement, cascading down his chest, soaking the material of his kimono. Almost gracefully, he crumpled, still clutching my – his – katana in his right hand
.

He fell among the red and copper leaves and I saw his face for the first time
.

He was young. Much younger than I’d thought when he was fighting. Not a man, after all. A boy, maybe only a couple of years older than I was
.

His skin was golden, turning pale now as his blood drained away. Long hair lay in a shiny pool around the strong, angular planes of his face. His eyes were almond-shaped, long-lashed, endlessly dark. There was no fear in them. They were as calm as still water, reflecting the sky. This boy was beautiful, and unafraid. And he was dying
.

His lips shaped a word I could not make out. I stared at his mouth, moving closer as I tried to understand what he was saying. Those peaceful eyes shifted, just a little, until they almost met mine
.

He smiled painfully. Peacefully
.
“Mio.”

I heard footsteps crunching stealthily through the fallen leaves. The boy’s eyes flicked away from me as a shadow fell over him
.

A green, leaf-shaped blade flashed down. Darkness fell over me like a thick, velvet cloth
.

No!

I shot upright, my fingers clawing at the air. I had to go, I had to. I had to get to him, to help, to hold onto him…

Wait
. My head throbbed and tears made my vision swim and blur. I blinked rapidly, putting both hands over my face.
Wait. I remember…? I remember
. A forest. A monster. A boy with – with my sword. The boy who said my name. He was dying, lying there
dying
– he was calling for me – and I didn’t help him. I hadn’t done
anything
. I let him go. I rocked backwards and forwards in agony as a terrible sense of loss pierced through me.
Why did I let him go…?

“Mio, please stay still! Please! Can you hear me?”

The pleading voice finally got through. I forced myself to look up. Jack was kneeling next to me, and the light from the moon showed tears pouring down her face. I was sitting on tarmac. In the middle of the road. “Jack?”

“Thank God,” she said, fumbling for her phone. “You’re going to be all right, OK? I’m calling an ambulance.”

“What?” I whispered. The suffocating feeling of grief was beginning to fade. I looked around, bewildered. “What – what happened?”

“Just stay still!” Jack reached out, then hesitated, her hands hovering in the air, as if she didn’t dare touch me.

“Did I fall?” Then I gasped. “Oh no!”

I whipped my arms back – ignoring Jack’s yelp of protest – to pull the katana out of the shinai carrier and inspect him. Not a scratch. I turned him over and over, double-checking, and let out a sigh of pure relief. He was pristine.

There was a weak pulse of warmth under my hand on the grip. For a second I held the sword to me, taking comfort in the familiar/unfamiliar weight and shape. I stroked my fingers along the saya once and felt the last of the Dream’s grief dissipate. I sighed again, easing him back into the shinai case. Then I got quickly to my feet.

Jack sat on the ground for a second, gaping at me. As she swore and scrambled upright, her phone popped out of her hand and hit the tarmac with a clatter. We both bent to pick it up; I got to it first. As I straightened, I looked around again. Why were we in the middle of the road outside Natalie’s house?

I froze. “There was a car.”

“The bastard didn’t stop. You – you flew twenty feet. You flew! You shouldn’t even be conscious. I thought you were dead.”

Slowly I stretched out my arms and legs, staring at them in the strong moonlight. The sturdy fabric of my kendogi was ruined – shredded in some places – and covered in dust and dirt and bits of glass. But the skin showing through the holes didn’t have a scratch on it. I touched my face. Rolled my head experimentally. Nothing. Even the headache was gone.

“I’m OK,” I said, hearing the surprise in my own voice.

“How the effing hell can you be OK?” Jack demanded shakily.

“Good question,” I muttered.

I dreamed again
. I dreamed right here in the middle of the road. The same Dream as always, but this time – this time
I remembered
it. Who – who was that
boy
? That boy with eyes full of the sky…? Why did I feel like I was supposed to save him? Like it was up to me to hold onto him?

And why wasn’t I dead?

“Mio…” Jack’s voice broke.

I reached out and shoved her phone into her skirt pocket, then hugged her hard. The bare skin above her fairy wings was icy cold, and her whole body was trembling.

“I don’t know, Jack. I just don’t know. Hey, you think I should get a lottery ticket?” My own voice cracked.

Jack let out a strangled laugh and smacked me lightly in the shoulder with her free hand. “You idiot. You ran right out into the road. What were you doing? I told you to wait for me. Why didn’t you wait?”

“I don’t really know that either. I saw something…”
The Harbinger
. I shuddered. “Look, I’ll try to explain later. Can we just go home for now?”

“Are you crazy?” She pulled back to stare at me. “We have to go to the hospital!”

“Look at me, Jack. There’s nothing wrong with me! I don’t even have road rash. No one’s going to believe I was hit by a car. If we go to A&E they’re going to think we’re wasting their time. They’ll throw us out. Or worse – call Rachel.” I was shaking myself now. Too much had happened tonight, and I couldn’t process any of it. “Please, Jack.”

Jack studied my face, then looked around helplessly. A few houses down a young couple was coming out, swaddled against the cold, with a Labrador puppy on a lead. They were pointing up at the dark streetlight outside their house, shaking their heads. This year’s top boy band was blaring out from Number Five. Everything looked completely normal.

Jack grabbed my hand. “Fine. Let’s go before my head pops.”

Square chunks of safety glass crunched underfoot as we stepped up onto the pavement. I squinted down at the mess, realizing belatedly that it was unusually dark because
all
the streetlights were out. The only reason I could see to walk was because of the nearly full moon. “What’s all this glass? And what happened to the streetlights?”

“The glass is
from
the streetlights,” Jack said wearily. “When you were lying in the road there was some sort of power surge. All the lights flared up – too bright to look at – and then … then they just exploded.”

Bel Downing swore when the lights in her tiny office started to flicker. Her finger slammed down on the “Save” icon and she sighed with relief when the command executed without the computer crashing. Damn power surges.

She reached for her mug of tea, found it contained only cold dregs, checked the time and swore again. No wonder her back was killing her. She had to stop doing this. It wasn’t like the British Museum was going to spring for overtime when she was writing her own dissertation.

When the lights had stopped blinking, she shut down her computer and had a long, spine-cracking stretch, trying to decide what takeaway to hit for dinner. She was weighing up noodles versus pizza when she heard an unmistakable sound echo down the empty corridor outside.

“What—?”

There it was again. For God’s sake! How had a cat got into the museum?

Remembering the chaos wrought by a trapped pigeon a few months before, Bel got up hastily and pushed the door of her office fully open. She peered up and down the shadowy corridor, but there was no sign of any living creature there.

She internally debated fetching one of the night watchmen. What if the cat was on the move? In the five or ten minutes it would take to get help, the stupid animal could have got into anything. Another meow made her mind up. The sound was coming from the Japanese rooms. She headed in that direction, passing the shadowy statue of Kudara Kannon as she entered the first room. Her footsteps echoed softly. Did she dare put on the powerful overhead lights? She couldn’t walk around in the pitch-dark, but she didn’t want to scare the cat into hiding with a sudden flood of light. After a moment she switched on the display lights instead. The soft spots highlighted the exhibits and gave her enough light to move around without falling over anything.

Bel heard another pitiful meow and felt a momentary pang of pity for the lost cat. She wasn’t much of a pet person, but all this noise must mean that the poor thing was frightened and wanted to be found.

“Here, puss,” she said, making kissy noises as she moved deeper into the gallery. “Here, kitty. Where are you? Come out.”

There was another meow, this time from right behind her. She turned quickly and sucked in a sharp breath, mouth falling open.

One of the exhibits – an ancient stone grave-offering, about a foot high and roughly carved in the shape of a cat – was broken. Shards of rock glittered in the display case amid a pool of dark liquid. The liquid flowed, thick as blood, down the sides of the broken exhibit’s pedestal and had somehow squeezed out under the sealed glass of the case to drip onto the floor. Torn between disbelief and fascination, Bel hesitated, then took a step back.

Her shoe squelched. She looked down and saw that in the few seconds she had stood gaping, the black liquid had circled her feet.

The hairs all over Bel’s body raked up as a low, wicked chuckle echoed through the gallery. One by one, the display lights began to wink off, plunging the room into deeper darkness.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.