Chapter 6

Gwen rears with a fierce whinny, her hooves flashing. The gray mastiff makes the mistake of sneaking behind her, and she kicks him in the ribs. He crashes against a wall and slides down, whimpering. The yellow dog cringes, his tail between his legs. Katashi barks at him, disgust clear on his face. I grab a chunk of concrete and hurl it at the black dog. It hits him between the shoulders and he whirls, snarling.

“Leave us alone,” I say.

I sound much braver than I feel. I actually want to pee myself.

Blood trickles down Katashi’s face, and he blinks it from his eyes. He stalks toward me, stiff-legged and snarling, his impressively yellow teeth bared. I circle away from him, toward the bigger and meaner pooka. Gwen huffs, her breath stirring my hair.

“We don’t want to fight you,” I say, “but we will.”

Katashi charges, his jowls trailing ropes of drool.

My legs lock as the black dog barrels toward me. Thoughts dart through my head rapid-fire—don’t let him bite Gwen—don’t let him bite you—hurt him before he hurts you.

I lunge for a nearby garbage can and grab the lid like a shield. Katashi leaps, his legs tucked beneath his body, his jaws aiming for my neck. I raise the lid to meet him. His head crashes into the metal, his weight driving me to the ground. He lands on top of me; his claws dig into my stomach as he drags himself up.

A wildcat scream splits the air.

Katashi leaps from me, and I climb up in time to see a cougar crouched and ready to spring. Katashi runs for the street, his tail held low. The cougar blinks into the shape of a black horse again. Gwen lands a well-aimed kick on the dog’s rear. Katashi stumbles and falls, his nose hitting the dirt, then scrabbles up and keeps running. The yellow dog follows without a backward glance, and the gray mastiff limps after them.

As they leave, Gwen snorts as if to clear the stink of the dogs from her nostrils.

“Thanks,” I say. “Pooka to the rescue.”

She rolls her golden eyes, then trots toward me and shapeshifts back into a girl. I offer my jacket to her so she doesn’t have to be totally naked, and she snatches it from me.

“What the hell happened to you?” she says. “I tried calling you—”

“My phone’s battery died. Sorry.”

“Why did you even run off in the first place? When I came out of the bathroom, you were already halfway across the park. I yelled at you, but you didn’t stop. Did you not hear me?”

I wince. “I thought you were the noppera-bō.”

Her eyebrows go sky-high. “Really? You’re telling me you saw the noppera-bō again? And it looked like me?”

“Gwen.” When I hold her hands, I discover they’re shaking. “I’m okay.”

She narrows her eyes and tries to yank away. “You’re not okay. You just got into a fight with some big-ass dogs.”

“Big-ass dog-spirits, to be exact,” I say.

Gwen tugs my jacket closer around herself. “Inugami?”

I nod. “Apparently part of a yakuza gang.”

She pales. “Some inugami gangsters just saw me shapeshifting?”

“How would they know it was you?”

“Tavian. I’m the only pooka in Japan.”

“Exactly. They have no clue what a pooka is.”

Gwen shivers, her arms dotted with goose bumps. “Damn it, it’s freezing. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are your clothes?”

She scowls at me. “Where do you think? In an alley. Ruined. I shapeshifted into a hawk as soon as I lost sight of you.”

“Do you want to buy some new ones?”

Her scowl deepens. “Tavian, the nearest clothing stores are in Harajuku. I think I’ll pass.”

“I thought you liked that dress with the—”

“Tavian.”

“So you’re going to walk through Tokyo naked?”

“Of course not.” She pulls off my jacket and hands it to me, which seems counterproductive. “I’m going to ride in your pocket. Put your jacket back on.”

This doesn’t make any sense, but I do as she says. She rolls her neck to get the kinks out, then shapeshifts into a little ferret with golden eyes.

“Oh.” I hadn’t seen her in this animal form before. “Ingenious.”

I kneel, holding out my hands, but she climbs up my leg, her claws pricking through my jeans, and crawls into the front pocket of my jacket. I reach into my pocket to make sure she’s settled all right, and she nips my finger almost hard enough to break skin.

“Okay, okay, we’re going.”

We manage to get on the metro without encountering anything more than salarymen at lunch hour, swarming around every station in search of yakisoba, teriyaki, sushi, and McDonald’s. My stomach rumbles ominously, and I know Gwen must be starving—shapeshifting burns hundreds of calories, according to her, and she has the appetite to prove it. When I linger in front of a Bigness Burger, a little tempted by the barbecued eel sandwich, Gwen makes an impatient squeak.

“Do you want me to buy some?” I mutter, trying not to be the crazy guy talking to himself.

Gwen peers out of my pocket and nods.

I sigh. “All right.”

She disappears back into my pocket, and I walk into the Bigness Burger. Inside, Ki-chan’s cartoon face is plastered everywhere, grinning manically. I swallow my pride and order a “kitsune burger” with fries. I sit at a corner table and poke bits of burger into my pocket, where they disappear to the sound of sharp teeth gnashing. That should keep Gwen satisfied.

I eat the fries while glancing at my reflection in the windowpane. Every time I glimpse somebody behind me, my heartbeat goes from zero to sixty in two seconds flat. But I don’t see the noppera-bō again; maybe there are too many witnesses for it to reappear.

Why is it haunting me at all?

~

By some stroke of amazing luck, I sneak into my grandparents’ condo with the key Michiko provided earlier and make it all the way to the bathroom with Gwen-the-ferret still riding in my jacket pocket. I lock the door and Gwen crawls out. I let her shimmy down my leg. She shapeshifts into a girl and stretches, her back cracking.

“I’m not doing that again any time soon,” she says.

“I wasn’t suggesting it,” I mumble under my breath.

I pretend like I’m not checking her out, but she notices and rolls her eyes. She turns on the water and climbs into the shower, yelping at the heat. I exit the bathroom and look for a laundry hamper where I can drop off my jacket—it stinks like inugami.

Michiko catches me red-handed by the washing machine. “Octavian!” she says. “When did you get home? Where’s Gwen?”

“She’s in the shower. We just got back.”

Michiko peers into the laundry hamper. “Did you enjoy Harajuku?” Something in her voice shrouds the sentence with implied meanings.

Did you get lost? Mugged?

Did you not even go to Harajuku?

Were you two fooling around?

I plaster a smile on my face. “Hai! It was a little crazy, though.”

Michiko nods knowingly. “Tsuyoshi was worried that it might be too much for Gwen.”

Too much? Before we left, Gwen ticked off a list of Japanese things she wasn’t really interested in seeing: bonsai gardens, excessively stodgy museums, geisha, ikebana flower arrangements, tea ceremonies. She’s not very good at sitting still when there are places to be explored. If anything, running into those inugami was probably her idea of excitement.

To Michiko, I say, “Maybe we will go somewhere quieter tomorrow.”

She smiles, her eyes crinkling with crow’s feet. “Dinner will be at six.”

“Arigatō.”

I slip into Gwen’s bedroom and start reading her textbook on yōkai. I stare at the entry on noppera-bō, then flip to the page on inugami. Nothing much, just stories about how dog-spirits are loyal to humans, and how they love hunting down evil field foxes.

You smell like her. Like Yukimi.

An excellent reason to kill you.

“Hey.” Gwen stands in the doorway, wrapped in one towel and wringing her hair with another. “You can have the shower now.”

“Thanks,” I say.

She frowns. “Are you sure you’re okay? You still look sick.”

I blow out my breath through my nose. “Remember how I had those random pains? Here?” I rest my hand over my heart.

Gwen’s face twists. “Tavian, you said you were better!”

“It wasn’t bad enough to mention before,” I say. “But since last night… it’s worse.”

She steps closer to me and grabs my hand, her grip tight. “Tavian,” she murmurs, “what if this has something to do with the noppera-bō?”

“‘You need to go. She is coming.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s what the noppera-bō told me when he was pretending to be you.” I stare out the window, my eyes unfocused.

“But who is ‘she’?” Gwen says.

But there is a man standing before me, and he has no face. The snow doesn’t even touch his dark suit, just falls right through. He’s thin like rice paper. Like a ghost.

“My mother?” I say, so softly I’m not sure it’s audible.

Gwen’s hand slides from mine. “What?”

“The noppera-bō shot my kitsune mother in my dream.” I grip my hair in my hands. “Who is he? How did she know him?”

She shivers. “You don’t even know if he’s on your side.”

“I need to find out.”

Gwen takes a deep breath, then nods.

I head for the shower. Steaming water beats against my head and back. My thoughts dissolve in the heat, swirling inside my mind, until a single word floats to the surface.

Yukimi.

Yuki, snow. Mi, beauty. Snow beauty.

My mother’s name? Does she have enough of a reputation around Tokyo that those inugami would recognize me as her son?

I only ever knew my mother as Okāsan. I never knew her kitsune name, her true name, the source of her power. She promised I would know her name when I was old enough to have a kitsune name of my own; she promised she would teach me all the magic she knew. But of course her promises are as good as dust.

I shut off the water and step into the fog. I towel off my hair, then reach to wipe the mirror clean. Before I can, my muscles lock. A thin line streaks the mirror, as if an invisible finger is trailing down the fogged glass. Faster, then, more lines appear: kanji characters.

The invisible finger ceases to write.

I stare at the kanji. The only character I understand is the one for “now,” which could mean all sorts of things depending on the other characters. I run out of the bathroom clutching my towel, grab my Japanese-English dictionary from my bag, and sprint back. My fingers shaking, I flip through the tissue-thin pages. Kanji characters aren’t alphabetical, so it takes me minutes to find the first, then the second, then the rest. When I do, I’m not sure my translation is right.

Leave now. It is almost too late.