“I promise,” I said, taking theletter.
“Good.” Tsukuyomi waved his hand. A crescent-shaped object that looked like it was crafted from pure moonlight appeared in his palm, and he handed it to me. “This sliver of moonlight will pulse when someone is telling alie.”
Whoa. So it reallywasmade of pure moonlight. “How is this supposed to help us defeat Kai?” I asked as I took it from him. The sliver was cold in my hand, but even still, it hummed withpower.
“That is for you to discover,” the moon god said. He waved a hand and disappeared in a flash of silverlight.
“Huh.” I turned back to Raiden and Shota, who both looked nonplussed. “Why do I feel like I just gotbilked?”
“Shhh!” Raiden hissed, scowling at me. “He might be listening. You don’t want to piss him off, not after he gave you such a valuablegift.”
“Shit.” I hadn’t thought about that. “You know, I’ve spent my entire life believing that gods don’t exist. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to that there might bekamiwatching my every move.” The idea sent an unpleasant shiver down my spine, and my shoulders hunched instinctively. It was bad enough that Big Brother was taking over the country—did I really need gods butting into my life all the timetoo?
Shota gave me a gentle smile, as if he could tell exactly what I was thinking. “It’s part of being a shaman, Aika. The responsibility of being able to bridge the gap between theReikaiand the human world means we don’t get to live normal lives like otherpeople.”
“Really? After getting attacked by a human-sized frog, riding the back of a giant sea turtle, stealing a monkey king’s liver, and attending an undersea ball, I would never haveguessed.”
Raiden chuckled. “Don’t forget fighting off animated corpses, talking to gods, and preparing to take down the most evil god in the Japanesepantheon.”
That sobered us up. “Right. We should probably get going withthat.”
I pulled thekyuubiback inside my body, then turned toward the door. Alongside the fire burning in my veins from myyokaiwere fear and anticipation—Kai was on the other side. I knew it in mysoul.
“Aika,” Raiden said as I began to walk toward the door. There was a warning note in his voice. “You should let me go first.” He tried to move in front of me, but I pushed him aside, my feet moving as if of their own accord. I didn’t know why, but something told me I had to be the one to open this door. I had to go throughfirst.
The moment my hand curled around the brass doorknob, a feeling of peace and contentment swept through me. It felt like coming home, like I was on the verge of entering a paradise, a safe haven. As if fate had been leading me to this door since I was born, and that the beginning of my life waited beyond thethreshold.
But how could that be? My enemy, the man who had killed innocents, and who had stolen my mother away, was waiting beyond thatdoor.
I half-expected the handle to be locked. But it gave easily, and the door swung open into a grand hall, the kind you might find in adaimyo’scastle. Thousands of paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, shining light onto the glossy, dark wood floor whereyokaidressed in beautifulkimonosdanced and performed tricks with fire and illusion magic. The walls wereshojiscreens, with beautiful artwork of pastoral scenes painted onthem.
And toward the back of the room, sitting on a dais, wasKai.
Even if I hadn’t recognized him from the murals on the walls, I would have known it was Kai. Something deep inside me flared to life in recognition, and I felt a surprising surge of affection. He was dressed like adaimyo, with gorgeous gold, black, and red armor, his long black hair pulled back from a sternly handsome face and tied into a samurai topknot. But what surprised me the most were his eyes—they were a golden-brown, with laugh lines branching out from the corners. The eyes of a human man, not a power-hungry shaman possessed by a darkgod.
Those warm eyes met mine from across the room, and the whole world stopped. The dancers froze in their positions, the lanterns stopped flickering, and I stopped breathing. An intense longing filled my chest, followed on its heels by bitter sadness and disappointment. Part of me wanted to run to this man and throw myself into his arms, part of me wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake sense intohim.
And the rest of me was confused ashell.
“Fumiko.” Kai rose from his seat, joy blazing in his eyes. The dancers parted, and shock rippled through me as I finally saw my mother. She was sitting next to Kai, dressed in a silk white robe, staring numbly into space as if in a trance. “You came back tome!”
“I didn’t come back for you,” I spat, ignoring the fact that he’d called me Fumiko. I was vibrating with rage now, the fuzzy feelings gone. “I came for my mother. What have you done toher?”
But Kai wasn’t listening. His gaze had moved to Raiden. “You,” he hissed, paling with anger. “It wasn’t enough for you to take her away to the afterlife, you had to come back with her too? I should have known you couldn’t leave well enoughalone.”
“How typical,” Raiden growled, grasping his dragon blade in both hands. He sounded different, his face a diamond-hard mask of anger. “It’s always about you, isn’t it? I see that being stuck in a cave for two thousand years hasn’t made you any less selfish,Kai.”
“What are you two talking about?” I cried, stepping between them. My heart was pounding hard now as animosity crackled in the air between them, and for some reason, it tore at me. I didn’t want these two tofight.
Which was absurd, because the entire reason Raiden and I had come herewastofight.
“You’re trying to tell me that you don’t know what you’ve done?” Kai sneered, looking at me. There was so much rage and betrayal in his eyes, it stole my breath. “You didn’t just bring any shaman into my tomb with you, Fumiko. You brought Haruki andKaga!”
23
“Wait just a damn minute!”I yelled, jumping in front of Raiden and Shota as Kai drew his sword. “You can’t just throw stuff out there like that and then attackus!”
Kai glowered at me, his hands tightening on the hilt of hiskatana. “I’m not attacking you,” he said. “It’s Haruki that I want tofight!”
