Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,29

water. A jagged wall of fog rolled toward us, thick and opaque, reaching out like misty talons. Seeing a tendril coiling around the boat, the human let out a whimper, and the rhythm of the oars faltered.

“Merciful Jinkei.” The human trembled, eyes wide as he stared at mist creeping into the boat. “The island is already coming for us. The curse will swallow us whole. I…I cannot…”

I smiled at him, showing fangs. “Would you care to take your chances in the water, then?”

“Kami, no!” His face drained of its remaining color, and he grabbed at the oars and started pulling with renewed vigor. “Heichimon protect me,” he whispered, making me curl a lip in disgust. Heichimon was the god of strength and courage. He despised demons, the undead and anything “tainted,” and was often depicted as a proud human warrior crushing an oni underfoot. His name was a curse among demons, and were it not for the fact that the human was taking me to the island, I might’ve ripped the tongue out of his head for speaking it.

The boat surged forward, and we pressed on, into the wall of white.

The fog closed around us like the jaws of a great beast, muffling all sound. I could barely see the front of the vessel as it sliced through the water. Near my feet, the human was whispering a continuous chant of protection, calling on Heichimon, Jinkei and the rest of the kami to protect him.

“You’re wasting your breath,” I told the quivering mortal, and he flinched. “Can’t you feel the taint of Jigoku, infusing this place? There are no kami around to hear you. All you’re doing is attracting the attention of whatever is lingering on the island.”

The human ignored me, continuing to mutter prayers under his breath. I contemplated breaking his leg; that would certainly give him something else to think about, but he would probably scream and alert everything lurking in the fog, which would get me no closer to my destination.

There was an angry stirring in my mind, reminding me that Tatsumi was still there, still watching everything that was happening. He’d been so quiet that I’d almost forgotten about him.

I smirked. You know where we’re going, don’t you, Tatsumi? Well, keep watching, because there’s nothing you can do about it. And I have a feeling the island isn’t going to let us float right up without some kind of trouble. Not with the amount of corruption in the—

A pallid white hand latched on to the edge of the boat, rocking it sideways, as something hauled itself out of the lake. It had been human once, but now it was nothing but shrunken flesh and gleaming bones draped in rags. A naked skull, dripping with algae, turned hollow eyes upon the fisherman, who screamed in terror as a bony claw reached out and hooked his collar. Before I could do anything, it yanked him over the edge. The man’s shriek was cut off as he hit the water and vanished beneath the surface.

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, I did try to warn you,” I said, as the bubbles from where the human had vanished into the water faded away. Voices echoed out of the mist, garbled mutterings and faint whispers; impossible to pinpoint which direction they were coming from. With a sigh, I drew Kamigoroshi, bathing the fog around me in flickering purple light. With the taint of evil infusing the area, it wasn’t surprising that the bodies of humans that had died in the lake would rise to hunt the living, but I found slaughtering walking corpses rather pointless. It was no fun killing something that was already dead.

The unmanned boat drifted lazily through the water, but I was not about to sit down and take the oars. Especially when, through the fog, I could hear quiet splashing getting steadily closer.

Another pale arm exploded from the water, and a drowned specter hauled itself up the side. It stank of death and rotten fish, and its clothes were nearly rotted away. A tortured moan escaped the naked skull as bony fingers reached for me, seeking to pull me down to the depths. I smirked at its impudence.

Kamigoroshi flashed, cutting through the spindly neck, sending the skull toppling back into the water. The headless body jerked and fell away to join it, and the water around me started to boil.

More corpses lunged out of the water, rocking the boat as they grabbed the sides and crawled over the