Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,4

no idea how I—”

“Unless you can teleport back, you’re stuck traveling the way the rest of us do. And that’s going to take some doing,” he said. “But for now, we both think it would be good to come with us.”

“You don’t understand,” I said, a little too forcefully. We were starting to draw attention from the passers-by. “It’s imperative I get home; I might be able to . . .” It suddenly occurred to me: Even if I could go back, what could I do? I felt nothing of the bracelet’s power now. The Makers had stripped it from me, along with nearly all of the jewels I’d so painfully found and accumulated over the past months.

“You’re tired, you’re hungry, and you’re scared. We can help. Come, now, it’s not far.”

It was eerie, hearing the cadence and rhythm of Ash’s voice change as he switched from his own voice to communicating what Okamura-san silently conveyed to him. I nodded. “Okay, yes, you’re right. Thank you.”

We went around to the parking lot, and a car was waiting for us.

“Where are we going?” I asked as Okamura-san began to drive.

“Not very far. Just across town,” Ash said. “We’ll see my sisters there. Here.”

He handed me a small lacquer box and a paper-wrapped set of chopsticks. I removed the top and found unidentifiable foods inside—amid the green wet stuff, the pinkish wet stuff, white stuff, and the lumpy brown stuff, the only thing I recognized was what I assumed was raw fish and rice. Didn’t matter, though. It was all very pretty and beautifully arranged, but I demolished it, eating with a scary need. I didn’t raise my head until I knew I’d eaten everything edible in the box and a few things that maybe were meant to be decorative only.

Remembering my manners way too late, I closed up the box and said, “Thank you. Um—”

The old woman laughed, and Ash said, “There’ll be more at home. We want to get a vampire to look at you before you eat too much.”

“Thank you,” I repeated gratefully. Just taking the edge off my terrible hunger reminded me just how much more I wanted to eat, but it helped. I sagged into the car’s seat, feeling so tired and sore I couldn’t make one thought connect to another. I settled for simple questions.

“Where am I? How did I get here?”

“Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture,” Ash said. “I don’t know how you got here.”

“I mean, like, are we near Tokyo?”

“No, we’re on the Japan Sea. The west coast, say, just opposite Tokyo. Very rainy, known for its seafood, to which I am allergic, and for its well-preserved samurai districts—”

I bit back my impatience; local commerce was all very good, but . . . “Yes, but . . . why would I be here? And, more importantly, how did you know I’d be here?”

“Rose saw you. She’s been really antsy lately, so when she got a bead on it, we were all too ready to get on a series of planes and travel for about twenty-four hours. Why here, I’m not certain, but Okamura-san tells me there is a tradition of strange happenings, in addition to shapeshifting yōkai and kami, associated with this place.”

“Wait—what? Who’s Rose?”

“Rose is my sister, and so is Ivy. We’re the Dickson triplets—you’ve probably heard of us. We’re from Milwaukee originally, but we’re going to college in San Francisco.”

Which told me exactly nothing. But by this point, I’d run out of coherent thoughts and found myself dozing. I hadn’t realized how much of the trip I’d missed until the car jerked to a stop, waking me up.

I followed Ash and Okamura-san into the house, feeling more disoriented with every step. The past—well, I’d say it had been only four or five hours since I woke up in the States this morning—had been filled with fighting and death.

Another woman, younger than Okamura-san and dressed in a business suit, came to meet us at the doorway. She bowed, greeting me, and I managed to do something similar, I hoped polite, back. I moved to step in, and Ash said, “Shoes! Anywhere you see a change in the floor—going up or going down, but especially outdoors to indoors? That means you need special shoes. Or no shoes. You need to keep clean areas, uh, uncontaminated with shoes.”

I followed his suit, exchanging my boots—laces knotted and broken, scuffed and scarred—for a pair of slippers that were lined up outside the door. They were just