The yellow jorōgumo limps toward me. Splatters of blood cover her face and torso, and there are long gashes in her left side. She pauses a few yards away, giving her lasso a rough, cruel tug. The spider silk tightens around my body till I can barely breathe.
“My sisters are dying because of you, girl,” she says with a hiss. The jorō spiders advance. One crawls up my shoe and onto the flesh of my calf. I kick it off, but two take its place, crawling over my boots, up my thighs, over my abdomen, and inside my jacket. I shriek as the first set of fangs tears past my tights and into the flesh of my leg.
The yellow jorōgumo gives the lasso another yank. “For that, my children will devour you slowly, bit by agonizing bit.”
Another jorō spider sinks its fangs into my ankle. I bite my tongue, not willing to give this demon the pleasure of hearing me whimper. It is harder to ignore the spider that nips my abdomen, and I squeeze my eyes shut to handle the pain.
Just a little closer . . . , I think, shaking my head to dislodge the spiders crawling over my cheek.
“My, my,” the jorōgumo says, easing another step forward, letting her guard down, “you are a proud one, aren’t you—”
Before she can strike, a shadow drops from the trees with a great whoosh. A glint races through the spider-woman, slicing through her from the crown of her head to the bottom of her thorax. Slowly, the bisected parts of the demon shift and open like two gory petals. The monster’s viscera hit the ground with a wet slap. The little spiders scatter, disappearing into the shadows as fast as they came.
A man in white lands a few feet away, dark blood dripping off the edge of his sword. His hat tumbles down after him, revealing two white fox ears sticking out of his long, silvery hair. Nine bushy white foxtails cascade from his backside.
He turns.
It’s Goro.
Eleven
Yoyogi Park, Meiji Shrine
Tokyo, Japan
“What are you doing here, Kira?” Goro asks as he cuts my spider-silk bonds off me. He helps me to my feet. “Your mother said you’d come to Tokyo, but you should be at home, behind the protective wards I wove into your parents’ house!”
“Protective wards can’t help me now,” I say, my voice trembling. “Didn’t you hear . . . about . . . ?”
Grandfather.
Just thinking the word triggers a sob in my gut. It hits my lungs, rising through my chest like a tsunami. I throw myself into Goro’s arms, overwhelmed by the swell of emotion. He hugs me back, his embrace so fierce it’s almost as if Grandfather himself is here. Almost, but not quite.
Goro puts a hand on the crown of my head. “I know. The Grandmaster phoned this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” I say through my tears. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save him.”
“Don’t be,” Goro chides me gently, releasing me to arm’s length and taking my shoulders in both hands. “I knew Hiiro better than anyone, and he would have been happy to trade his life for yours. And if there is a blood moon on the rise, not even I could have stopped Shuten-doji’s beasts. Do you understand?”
“I know, but—”
“No buts,” Goro says. “There is nothing you could have done, not as you are. If you want to survive the blood moon, you will need to become better, hmm? Stronger than me, stronger than your grandfather. You must prepare for a future that honors Hiiro’s sacrifice.”
I sniffle, then manage a short bow.
“Kira!” Shiro jogs down the path, drawing our attention. A regular-size Oni-chan runs beside him. Shiro spots the oozing jorōgumo corpse on the ground and halts, his attention snapping to Goro and me.
“Thank you, Goro-sama,” Shiro says with a bow. “I regret that my failure to protect Kira forced you to intervene on her behalf.”
“Nonsense, young kit,” Goro says with a smile. “That’s the most action these old bones have seen in decades. Come. I will have my acolytes deal with the mess we’ve left. The three of us have much to discuss. But”—Goro points to Oni-chan—“you will have to wait outside, nekomata. I’m sure you understand.”
Oni-chan growls and flattens his ears, but Shiro kneels and chucks Oni-chan under the chin with a knuckle. “Be good, and there will be an entire yakitori stand in your future, got it?”
“Meow?” Oni-chan twitches his dual tails, his eyes bright with mischief.
“Okay, okay,” Shiro says, rising to his feet. “Deal.”
Goro chuckles. As he heads down the path to the shrine, he says, “You shouldn’t make deals with nekomata—that cat has two more tails than you.”
Shiro blushes so bright, it’s obvious even in the shadows. “I-I, I mean I should say that I—”
“Come,” Goro says, turning down the path. “It is a perfect night for a good cup of tea.”
Shiro mutters to himself as we follow Goro. One of the elder kitsune’s great, hoary white ears swivels backward. His smile turns into a wolfish grin. He leads us under the main torii gate and onto sanctified shrine grounds. The shrine’s slatted wooden fence seems so flimsy; but I remind myself it isn’t a shrine’s fences or walls keeping the demons out in the first place. The purity of these grounds keeps most yokai away.
Or at least it should.
We step into a courtyard lit with traditional stone lanterns. Their orange flames dance brightly, transferring their warmth to my spirit. The gentle light illuminates the Meiji’s wooden walls and the turquoise-colored tiles along the roof’s gables. In comparison to other shrines I’ve seen, the Meiji Shrine has an understated, quiet magnificence to it; while it doesn’t have the Heian Shrine’s brilliant colors or Fushimi Inari’s vermilion gates, this shrine rivals them easily. It’s a perfect place to enshrine the kami of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. Their presence brings me peace: the tension seeps from my muscles, and the pain from my spider bites eases. For the time being, Shuten-doji’s minions cannot harm me.
“I’ve never been to the Meiji Shrine before.” I keep my voice low as we pass the shrine’s other priests and miko. “It’s beautiful here.”
“I enjoy it,” Goro says, motioning for us to step off the veranda and cross a small street. “But it will take time for Tokyo to feel like home. I lived in Kyoto for more than a hundred years; it is the land where the gods walk, and I used to be able to hear their voices on the wind if I listened hard enough. Tokyo is far too busy for that.”
We follow Goro to a private apartment on the shrine grounds. He taps a security code into a slatted, pine wood screen, and then slides it open for us. The garden beyond isn’t large—no more than ten by ten feet—but life bounds from every corner of the space. Large fronds and flowers spill from clay pots, all of which look hand-thrown. Goro used to be an avid potter, and it looks like he has continued his craft here in Tokyo.
“Tea?” Goro asks as we step into his genkan entryway to remove our shoes.
“No, thank you,” I say.
“Oh, but you must have tea,” he says, ushering us into his kitchen. Even at a shrine as grand as the Meiji, the priests’ living quarters are modest and simple. “It will be wonderfully restorative after an old-fashioned fight with the yokai, hmm? I’ve received a Sencha leaf from a friend at the fox preserve in Shiroishi. I was waiting for company to try it.”