and stepped into view. The yurei monk, in his straw hat and still holding his metal rod, met my gaze over the stones and raised an ethereal eyebrow.
“He sees us,” Tatsumi growled.
A piercing shriek made my blood run cold, and a gaki hurled itself over a headstone, jaws gaping like a rabid wolf. Tatsumi spun, Kamigoroshi clearing its sheath in an instant to strike the spindly body from the air. But his hand came free of my grip, and I felt the tearing of magic as the spell dissolved, like a stone hurled through a spiderweb. All through the cemetery, gaki were turning to look at us, eyes blazing bright with hunger, their hisses and shrieks rising into the air.
Tatsumi stepped forward, the cold purple light of Kamigoroshi washing over the stones, matching the chilling look in his eyes. “Go,” he told me, swinging the blade in front of him. “Talk to the monk. I’ll keep them off you for as long as I can.”
I looked up at the approaching gaki, torn between running toward the monk and pulling out my tanto to stand with Tatsumi. Fox magic flared, making my hands tingle, and I wondered if a ball of kitsune-bi to the face would slow the gaki down, even as it exposed my true nature.
As the first gaki drew close, something streaked through the air behind it, striking it in the back. With a shriek, it pitched forward, the shaft of an arrow protruding from its neck, and dissolved into green mist. Another jerked and went careening over a headstone, and a third crumpled to the dirt in a tangle of flailing limbs, before writhing into nothingness.
“Okame,” I breathed, sparing a quick glance at the top of the hill. I could just make out a lean figure silhouetted on the roof of the shack, just as another gaki screamed and tumbled into the weeds. Tatsumi waited patiently as the first wave drew close, his blade held loose at his side.
“Yumeko.” His voice was eerily calm, though I heard a ripple of something terrifying underneath, a barely restrained bloodlust that sent shivers up my spine. “Go.”
I went.
I darted between headstones and wove between the aisles of rock, searching for that ghostly shimmer of white. It waited for me in the shadow of the trees, standing patiently beside its grave, a bemused expression on its pale, glowing face. I dodged around a headstone to avoid a gaki and winced as its claws raked four white gashes into the rock. It scuttled around the grave, jaws gaping as it reached for me, when an arrow hissed through the air and struck the back of its neck. It dissolved with a chilling wail, and I hurried on.
Gasping, I stumbled past the last of the gravestones, darted around a tree, and was abruptly standing before a transparent figure in white.
“Well.” The monk’s voice was a shiver of an icy wind, the echo of a long-forgotten emotion. His face blurred in and out of reality, like a pebble dropped into the reflection of a pond. “This night has been full of surprises. Hello, little fox. What brings you to my lonely corner of the village?”
I drew in a breath, not surprised that he knew what I really was. He didn’t sound like an onryo, the terrible grudge spirit that Tatsumi had spoken of. His voice was calm, pleasant even, and maybe a little sad.
“Konbanwa, yurei-san,” I began, as a shriek rang out behind me in a flash of purple light. Tatsumi was keeping the gaki busy, as he’d promised. “Oh,” I went on anxiously, “is it proper to call you yurei-san? I haven’t spoken to any ghosts before this.”
His hazy features lowered into a frown, but he seemed more puzzled than angry. I hurried on in case he took offense. “Please, master monk,” I implored, clasping my hands together in a bow, “the people here have suffered greatly at the hands of their own loved ones. I’ve come to ask if you would lift the curse. You were dealt a terrible wrong all those years ago, but none of these people were responsible for your death. And it must be terribly boring, drifting around as a ghost. Surely your desire for vengeance has been satisfied by now.”
“Ah, little fox.” The ghost of the monk bowed his head. “I wish I could. It was never my intention to place such a powerful curse upon this village. I was...angry...back then. Though time for me blurs and runs