Kuro scratched his ears with a paw. Some piece of demon flesh must have plugged them. The dowager empress had not just begged a Dark Kitsune to protect her son. The dowager empress would never beg.
“Or continue to cower there. You’re doing a fine job of that.” The dowager empress shook her head and rose to her feet.
She aimed a blow at the ghost. She winced as the blow pulled on the wounds on her thigh and back, but the attack was fierce enough to force the ghost to retreat, her attention firmly on the dowager empress.
Distracting the ghost so that Kuro could reach the next sliding door and find Ren. But — but demons overran the compound. Demons faster and stronger and hungrier than Kuro. Protecting Ren from them was a fool’s errand.
But that was why he’d leapt over the palace walls. He certainly hadn’t come to watch. His body had reacted before his mind had ever come to the conclusion. He wanted to protect this human. This stupid human who barely understood how his city worked. This idealistic human who refused to allow the Undesirables to disappear just because they had no rank. This gullible human who thought Kuro had stayed with him for Ren’s company.
The dowager empress threw her shoulder into the ghost, and they tumbled away from the sliding doors. Kuro didn’t ask twice, but bounded across the room.
“Do take your time, dear,” the dowager empress said.
“This would be easier if you hadn’t starved me,” Kuro snapped before he crashed through the panels. Paws didn’t slid open doors very well.
Where would Ren be? He wouldn’t hide. Kuro crashed through the panels into the next room, scattering splinters and torn painted paper.
He sniffed the tatami mats for lingering traces of Ren, but the dowager empress’ blood, the smoke bombs, the chaos outside all colluded to hide his scent. Ren could have walked across the mats minutes or days ago.
Kuro would have to find Ren the human way. He crashed through sliding doors after sliding doors.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
Where was Ren? He couldn’t be — he mustn’t be — he had to be here. Kuro had come to rescue him.
He reached Ren’s private room. Just two days before, Ren had grinned at him across a pile of blankets, and now…
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Ren had unrolled only one futon. The closet door remained partly open. Kuro whined. Ren had set up the second futon inside the closet, as if he knew foxes loved small dens.
Kuro shook his head. He needed to find Ren, not moon over a stupid futon. He ran to the alcove. The Kusanagi was missing from its stand, but the Imperial Mirror and Jewel had been left. Kuro barked. Idiot! That must mean Ren had run, but not to save himself.
Where the hell was he?
Kuro swivelled his ears behind him, attracted by a sickening squish. It almost sounded like a blade piercing flesh. Oh, that was not good. A slurp followed as the blade was pulled out. The spurt of blood, the patter as it rained over the tatami. Lips gasping for breath that never quite inflated the lungs.
The fall of a body. The last beat of a human heart.
Ren’s mother was dead. Ghosts didn’t bleed, they didn’t fall to the ground. Kuro heaved in a breath, his sides inflating. She’d died to protect Ren, to keep the ghost from entering and finding her son, when her son wasn’t even there.
The blade snagged against a pillar. The floorboards creaked as if something walked over them, but even with his fox ears, he didn’t hear footsteps. Just creak, creak, creak as if the wood screamed. Another snag of steel against wood.
Her miasma approached first, damp soil and ashes thickening the air and soaking his fur. He shivered, but couldn’t shake free of the chill.
Kuro strained his ears, desperate for some last sign, but the creaks distracted him. But Ren wouldn’t remain. He would have been the first to face down the demons. He was probably already dead, and Kuro risked himself to save a corpse.
The broken panels rattled as she glided through them.
That thing was no ordinary ghost. She possessed a mind of her own. She possessed goals. She led the Night Parade. She shouldn’t exist.
She came closer and closer and closer.
Kuro wasn’t staying. He threw himself against the closed screen panels, breaking through onto the veranda. Samurai poured into the garden and raised their swords.
Dogs swarmed around the pond as Kuro dodged around their masters. They chased him and nipped his sides. He barked back at them, but a whine broke any intimidation he might have had. He was bigger, but size didn’t matter. He scrambled around them, kicking his legs out and hoping he smashed his paws into their muzzles. He couldn’t play it safe. He charged the wall.
Archers took their positions, arrows nocked. Didn’t these humans have demons to fight? The samurai called back their dogs.
He jumped as the archers loosed their arrows. Canine whining filled the air, and for a moment, he delighted in the death of those demon-hunting dogs caught in the volley.
Until he landed on top of the wall and felt the bite of arrow heads in his flesh. His throat felt raw from whining. The humans had called back their dogs. Only he’d been hit. Stupid humans.
His body hurdled forward. He scrambled, but his claws slid on the tiles. He managed to turn his body, but fell over the side. He hit the dirt in a cloud of dust that choked him.
A sandal pressed into his neck, then pain lanced through his entire body as purification power sizzled his nerves. Kuro tried to rise to his feet, but he couldn’t even tell which part of his body was his paws. He collapsed to the ground, and the power flickered out.
He blinked at the man standing over him. He wore a priest’s white kimono and conical black hat and that infernal smile. “Too big for a six-tatami room, really? More like two mats.”
Kuro’s limbs twitched, the closest he got to standing. The onmyouji had trapped him again, and this time, the Shogun didn’t have any Sun Princes to eliminate.