Chapter 30

I freeze at the edge of the street. People leave the crosswalk to point at me, one of them snapping a flash photo. Shit, I have to move. I’m out in the open like a plate of meat on the sidewalk. It’s almost hilarious, really, that the moment I leave Yukimi, bam, inugami.

Dread curdles my stomach.

The big gray mastiff, Ushio, is nosing around the corner of the street. Sniffing my trail. The brothers, Yuta and Katashi, follow him in human form, arguing with each other.

Illusions, illusions, think of something good, think—

Polished black shoes click on the pavement in front of me.

Akira? I look up.

The man wears a dark suit, his iron-gray hair sleek, his face every bit as wrinkled as Tsuyoshi’s.

“Stop running,” Zenjiro Matsuzawa says. “You look tired.”

If this is a dream, now would be a very good time to wake up.

“What the fuck?” Katashi jabs his finger in my direction. “He’s standing right in the fucking street!”

Ushio lunges, but Yuta yanks him back on his chain.

“I found him,” Zenjiro says. “No thanks to you dogs.”

Katashi shuts his mouth, but his face looks purple with fury. Yuta half-walks, half-slides toward me, dragged by Ushio. The mastiff growls and licks his chops, great ropes of drool swinging.

“Back,” Zenjiro says.

He speaks in a gentle old voice, but the inugami instantly do as he says. Ushio even sits like an obedient dog, his droopy eyes hopeful. Yeah, hopeful he can rip out my guts.

Zenjiro bends to my level. “Do you know who I am?”

I nod.

“Good.” He nods back. “Come with me.”

A black BMW idles on the street. The driver opens the door for Zenjiro—for me, too. Like I’m going to jump in there, still as a fox, or maybe after changing back into a naked human.

Like I’m that stupid.

I bare my teeth at Zenjiro. I don’t care if we’re related by blood; he’s unknown and untrustworthy. Toenails click on the sidewalk behind me, and I see Ushio fidgeting, itching to attack.

“I know who you are,” Zenjiro murmurs. “Octavian Kimura.”

Is that a threat?

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. I could attack him, fling an illusion at him that would make him scream. But the inugami would be on me in a second. Their teeth would drive past my pelt into my flesh. I don’t even know if Zenjiro would stop them.

I meet Zenjiro’s eyes, my face a mask. Then I walk past him toward the BMW, my head held low, my tail between my legs. He exhales in a puff of air. The driver’s gaze flicks down at me, and I see a glimmer of disgust in his eyes. I pause, look over my shoulder.

Zenjiro waits patiently, ready to climb in after me. A wind whips down the street, driving sleet into our faces. He brings his arm up to cover his eyes, and the inugami squint against the cold.

Go.

I lunge under the car, skidding to the other side, reappearing in the middle of the street. A taxi barrels toward me, headlights blinding my eyes. The driver’s eyes widen and he yanks the wheel. The taxi’s side mirror screeches along the black gloss of the BMW. I leap out of the taxi’s path, zigzag between bikes, cross the sidewalk.

Behind me, I hear Katashi shouting, “Let me at him!”

The blaring of a horn overpowers Zenjiro’s reply.

I chance a backward glance and see traffic piling up, see Katashi ripping off his clothes and sprouting fur while Yuta grabs him by the shoulders and yells at Ushio, and Zenjiro…

He stands at the edge of the road, his head bowed.

I falter, and my paws skid on the icy road. No, I can’t stop. I swing my head forward and point my muzzle downwind, letting the wind carry my scent away from the inugami. I dodge the reach of artificial lights, melting into the black night that pools in the cracks of the city. Silence swallows the pursuit of the inugami. I keep running.

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.

I disappear into the shadows of the trees as snow falls thick and erases the world around me. Adrenaline spent, I trudge through the snow, my muscles quivering. I make it to a pine and let my legs collapse beneath me. My breath clouds the air.

This is inugami territory. I have to get out of here, and soon.

I can’t cover that much more ground as a fox; I should change back into a human and take the metro. Hopefully the slight change in my scent will confuse the inugami long enough for me to stay ahead. Hopefully the snow will bury my pawprints deep.

I drag myself to my feet and nudge my fox form, trying to push it out of the way, but it won’t budge. Come on. I need to change back to human. They don’t let foxes on the metro.

My rib cage creaks as it resists the transformation. Pain lances my heart, and I stagger. It feels like I never had a human form, like fox is all I’ve ever been and ever will be.

Shit. I force my eyes to stay open. The anburojia must be wearing off.

But this is the wrong body. Do I need to eat more anburojia before I’ll find the strength to change back?

Yukimi has some. We only ate two of the fruits…

No. Not her. I need to find Gwen, and my grandparents, and warn them. I glance at a pay phone and sigh. Even if I managed to reach the receiver and fake some coins, what am I going to do, yip? Right now I’m as good as speechless. Unless…

With the last bit of my strength, I start digging. I claw away a little den in the snow where no one will see me, and crawl inside. Curled in a ball, I can almost pretend I’m not cold.

I shut my eyes. Time to sleep. To dream.

~

The river lounges among the trees, its silver skin shimmering with reflected summer leaves. I float face-up in a backwater pool, my eyes open toward the sky. A fly buzzes lazily around my eyelashes, then lands on my cheek. I feel its tiny feet crawling down.

Nasty itchy little creature.

I lift my arm to swat the fly, but my arm doesn’t move. My fingers twitch in the pool, and they feel wrinkled, bloated, like I’ve been in the water for too long. The fly keeps crawling.

Footsteps crunch the gravel along the riverside.

Good. Maybe someone will come and swat this fly for me. I’m getting tired of drifting here alone.

The bushes rustle, and there’s a flash of copper hair. Gwen.

A thought nibbles at the back of my mind. I need to tell her something, but I can’t remember what. I’d frown if my face weren’t paralyzed. And damn it, this fly is annoying.

Gwen scans the riverside, and her gaze falls on me.

“Oh my god.” The color drains from her face, and even her freckles go invisible. “Zack! Come quick!”

Zack? Her ex-boyfriend? What’s he doing here?

Gwen presses her hand to her mouth, her eyes watering, picking up some of the water’s reflection. She inches her feet toward me until she’s close enough to touch me, but she looks disgusted. Finally, the fly buzzes away from my face, and she gags.

What’s wrong with her? What—

“Zack?” she calls. “Where are you?”

I try to open my mouth to talk to her, but my lips won’t move. And then I realize why.

I’m dead.

In Gwen’s dream, anyway. She told me about this: the first time she saw a dead body—two, actually—water sprites floating in a poisoned pool by the Stillaguamish River in Klikamuks. Back before I first met her, back at the beginning of the serial killings.

This is nothing more than a warped memory.

Gwen paces at the edge of the riverside. “Tavian,” she says. “Tavian, what happened to you?”

I clear my throat, and water gurgles in my windpipe.

Gwen’s eyes snap open wider. “Tavian?”