Chapter 17

I swing my head toward the eyes, my legs tense. The eyes blink out of sight. I shudder and walk faster, passing between pools of halogen light. In the darkness, I glimpse a woman, silhouetted against a ramp leading deeper into the garage. Her mane of hair stirs slightly in a subterranean breeze. She looks at me, her eyes glowing.

“Yukimi?” I whisper.

Gwen tugs me onward. “Come on. What are you looking at?”

I look away for a second, then back—but of course the woman is gone. The fox inside me creeps to the forefront of my eyes, sharpening my night vision. When the doors to the elevator swish open, the light within blinds me. Eyes watering, I follow Tsuyoshi, Michiko, and Gwen, with a backward glance into the black.

The elevator ascends to the level of the hospital’s ER. Tsuyoshi ushers Michiko to the reception desk and starts speaking in rapid Japanese, too fast for me to catch much at all. Or maybe it’s because my head is muddled from the smell of the parking garage, or the whispers of Yukimi in my mind.

A nurse takes Michiko to a bed where they unwrap her homemade bandage and daub antiseptic on the glistening red punctures in her arm. The temperature in my face drops by several degrees and I have to look away.

“Octavian,” Tsuyoshi says gruffly, “why don’t you and Gwen find something to eat?”

“Good idea,” Gwen says.

She doesn’t look as pale as I’m sure I do right now, but I’d bet twenty bucks she’s ravenous from her shapeshifting.

Michiko twists her mouth and stares at the nurse working on her arm. “How much longer will this take? I was halfway through preparing fried rice for dinner.”

The nurse shakes her head. “You need stitches.”

“Oh?” Michiko says. “The wounds seemed fairly shallow when I first examined them.”

“Michiko,” Tsuyoshi says, his voice rumbling.

They start arguing again, and I slip away with Gwen. I lead the way back down the hall to an elevator. Luckily, the buttons are labeled in English as well as Japanese.

“Cafeteria sounds like our best bet,” I say.

Gwen grimaces. “Hospital food.” A growl escapes her belly.

“Your stomach thinks otherwise,” I say.

She laughs, and I try to smile, but there’s a strange prickling along my spine—something is off.

Turns out hospital cafeterias in Tokyo are like those pretty much anywhere else: clean, boring, and smelling a little too much like antiseptic for your appetite to survive. Gwen loads up a tray with a bowl of rice, tofu, fish, seaweed, and so on, while I linger behind her, trying to figure out where that uneasy feeling is coming from.

“I’ll check out the vending machines,” I say, as an excuse.

“Sure,” Gwen says. “I’ll snag that table in the corner. Oh, no, that lady is walking toward it…” She scrambles to load food on her tray, which would be comical any other time.

I meander over to the vending machines, keeping my pace carefully casual, pretending to be only mildly interested in my surroundings. There’s no one unusual in the cafeteria, no one Other, but then why is the scent of yōkai magic still tingling in my nose?

I rummage in my wallet for some coins, not really caring whether I buy seaweed crackers or instant soup. I glance up, yen in hand, and see myself reflected in the glass belly of the vending machine.

Ah. Of course.

My face looks a lot calmer than I feel. Inside my rib cage, my heart is drumming a frantic beat. The noppera-bō slides into place beside me, a white faceless oval that looks almost ordinary overlaid against the cheery colors of the food in the machine.

“You can’t speak without a mouth, can you?” I say.

The noppera-bō’s blank face ripples like an invisible hand is sculpting features from a blob of white clay.

“Tavian.” Gwen touches my elbow. “Ready?”

I blink, and the ghost is gone.

I growl under my breath. “You scared off the noppera-bō. It was going to tell me something, something important. In the reflection of the vending machine—didn’t you see it?”

Gwen stares at me, her eyebrows raised. “No.” Her eyebrows descend. “Here?”

“Yes!” I’m sweating now, for some reason.

“Tavian, there are a ton of people here.” She glances at the vending machine again, then forces a smile. “Aren’t you hungry? I tried some of the tofu here, it’s pretty good. Kind of squishy, and I know you don’t like silken tofu, but—”

“Gwen.” I rub my forehead, my palms slick. “I’m not hungry.”

She shakes her head. “You need to eat. This is dinner.”

“Fine.”

I jam a few coins into the vending machine and buy some cheap ramen. At the hot water dispenser, I scald my hand and swear. Gwen frowns at me from her table; she hasn’t touched any of her food yet. I sigh and bring my ramen to her.

“Eat,” I mutter. “Don’t mind me. I’m just going crazy.”

“You’re not.” She rolls her eyes. “If you want to talk to the noppera-bō, maybe you should do it somewhere less busy than here. And besides, I’ve never even seen it before, so…”

“So I must be crazy.”

“No.” She lowers her voice. “So it must be trying to talk to you and nobody else.”

I grit my teeth. “I wish I knew what it wanted to tell me.”

Gwen shakes her head and hands me a pair of disposable chopsticks. “Eat. Your brain needs food, you know.” She digs into her bowl of broccoli and rice. “Even if it’s bad food.”

I force myself to consume the ramen—consume, because it’s too mechanical and tasteless to be called eating. Then I sit and wait for Gwen to eat her tray of food. I rest my arms on the table and stare at my clenched hands, trying not to crack my knuckles. Finally, Gwen finishes her dinner and we head upstairs to Michiko.

I trail behind Gwen, glancing at windows with open curtains. What would happen if I went to the bathroom alone, and stood by one of the mirrors? Would the noppera-bō return?

A woman walks ahead of me, her black mane of hair swaying against the back of her lavender scrubs. Why would a nurse or a doctor leave her hair loose? Unless it’s just a quick disguise.

I run after the woman and catch her by the wrist. “Yukimi!”

She faces me, frowning. “Excuse me?”

Not Yukimi.

My cheeks burn. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

The woman gives me a hesitant smile, the kind you give a patient who has a few screws loose, then twists her hair into a ponytail and walks briskly away, back to work.

Michiko and Tsuyoshi stand by a bed, staring at me.

“Tavian?” Gwen takes me by the elbow. “What was that?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Sorry. I made a mistake. Are we ready to go?”

Michiko has her purse, so she must be. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” But cold sweat dots my skin and a strange hollow feeling of dread has taken residence in my stomach.

“You haven’t been,” Gwen says, her voice quiet.

Tsuyoshi clears his throat. “We are already at the hospital. Perhaps you should see a doctor—”

“No, I didn’t mean to worry you.” Damn, how am I going to talk my way out of this one? I paste a smile on my face. “I’m tired, that’s all. The sooner we get home, the better. I should go to bed early.”

Tsuyoshi nods slowly, his eyes guarded.

The four of us leave the hospital together. I’m the last to exit the elevator to the parking garage, despite the tight, stale, claustrophobic air inside, because I keep glancing at the reflective steel walls. Michiko leans over to Tsuyoshi and whispers something in his ear, in Japanese, but one of the words slips on the air to me.

Sick.

And I do feel sick, feverish, my head throbbing with a migraine that must be thanks to the tug-of-war between Yukimi and the noppera-bō fighting for control of my thoughts. I wince at the pain and try not to stagger against the elevator’s walls. Why are my arms and legs shaking like this? Am I about to be puppeted again?

Tsuyoshi hesitates to unlock the Audi. “What’s wrong, Tavian?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. I can’t tell them that I’ve been haunted by the noppera-bō and that Yukimi has been clawing her way inside my skull. They’d think I’m crazy for sure, or at least definitely damaged, if they don’t already think that.

Damn it, damn it, damn it. Keep it together.

“Can we go home?” I say, playing the part of the good little long-suffering grandson. “Please?”

Gwen looks sideways at me, and I know she’s tempted to talk.

“Yes,” Michiko says. “I’m tired, Tsuyoshi. Let’s go home.”

I thank her with my eyes.

In the cool leather-scented air of the Audi, my mind clears a little and I feel stronger leaning against the steel of the door. I rest my sweaty forehead on the window. Tsuyoshi flicks on the headlights and pulls out of the parking garage, ascending to the street. My heart squeezes, and I twist back to look into the parking garage.

Yukimi stands, stark in a cone of light, watching me go.

I suck in my breath and force myself to shut my eyes. When I open them again, she’s gone, and we’re traveling along the streets of Tokyo, blending into the city’s glittering flow.