The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(48)



“I don’t think a simple knife is going to be of much help,” Hiro said. He’d tried to argue as much earlier when I’d insisted on finding new knives.

“‘Simple’ knives are the most useful,” I said. “With church grims, for instance. And that Jorogumu we met in Yokohama.”

Neven looked away from me at the mention of the Jorogumo, but Hiro only raised an eyebrow.

“A Jorogumo?” Hiro said. “Well, that hardly would have hurt her.”

My hands stilled on the scroll.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Well, most Yokai won’t die from stab wounds,” Hiro said slowly, as if it should have been obvious. He’d kicked off his slippers and crossed his legs in a half-lotus position, and was rubbing his foot without seeming to notice. “You didn’t know that?”

I looked down at the scroll and finished rolling it back up with more force than necessary. Did that mean I hadn’t actually killed the Jorogumo? I’d felt so satisfied when I’d slit her throat, but now I felt like a fool.

“I suppose it makes sense that Reapers wouldn’t know things like this,” Hiro said.

Something in my chest clenched at Hiro referring to me as a Reaper, but I forced the thought aside.

“Most Yokai are not easy to kill,” he said. “To destroy them, you have to destroy whatever gives them their essence. For instance, do you know Kuro Bozu?”

Neven and I shook our heads.

“They’re black creatures that feed on the breath of sleeping humans,” he said, grimacing. “They suck the breath out of humans’ mouths and noses and ears with these long, serpentine tongues. It makes the humans very ill. But I’ve heard stories of vengeful humans who killed the Kuro Bozu by ripping its tongue out.”

Neven shuddered. My own tongue curled up in sympathy.

“Then there’s Tenjoname, the gremlin who lives off the filth that he licks from dark homes with tall ceilings,” Hiro said. “It is said that the only way to kill him is to get rid of his filth by scrubbing his skin from his bones.”

“I don’t want to participate in skinning anyone,” Neven said, tipping his head back like he was trying valiantly not to vomit.

“Well, Yuki Onna is an ice and snow spirit,” Hiro said, “so I imagine her weakness involves heat.”

“Then we’ll bring enough fire to turn her into Yokai soup,” I said.

Hiro nodded. “The village that she’s said to haunt has plenty of supplies for making large fires,” he said. “They need it to stay warm through the winter. I’m sure they won’t mind us liberating some of it from them.”

“It doesn’t matter if they mind,” I said, shaking my clock in front of Hiro to remind him what I could do. “They’re not going to stop us. No one will get in my way.”

Neven grimaced, but Hiro smiled as if pleased, his dark eyes somehow brighter, as if backlit by a thousand stars.

Hiro rowed us back across the river, the city of Yomi disappearing into the perpetual night behind us like a distant candle that had been extinguished. He led us onto the sandy shore and through tall beach grass that prickled at our hands and thighs, shifting restlessly even though there was no discernible wind.

He waved his hand and hundreds of paper lanterns blinked to life, hanging from tiered hooks around an open-air shrine. The lanterns formed a crown of light hovering above the dark and polished wood of the shrine, illuminating the many footprints in the sand.

He picked up a long pole with a hook on the end and used it to hang his lantern among the others.

“Do these belong to the other Shinigami?” I said.

Hiro nodded, setting the rod down in the sand. “Everyone is upstairs working, it seems.”

Rather than stepping into the shrine, Hiro walked around the side to a stone tub under a slanted roof. The tub trickled with water from an overhanging system of pipes, and several ladles hung from the rim.

“What are you doing?” I said.

Hiro paused and turned around, raising an eyebrow.

“We have to purify ourselves first?” he said, as if I’d forgotten to brush my teeth or put on shoes. “You can’t bring the darkness back to the living.”

Neven and I observed Hiro and mimicked as he washed his hands and mouth with one of the ladles. He must have realized that we had no idea what we were doing, but tactfully said nothing. Were we supposed to do this before coming down to Yomi the first time? I decided out of embarrassment not to ask.

But while Neven washed his hands and only clear water fell back into the basin, the water from my hands turned a sour shade of dark green, polluting the rest of the small pool. Neven jumped back, dropping his ladle as I stood frozen, hands dripping in water that had turned to sludge.

“It’s okay,” Hiro said. “Sometimes the darkness clings to some people more than others. That’s what the purification is for.”

I said nothing, watching as the sludge dripped like spoiled molasses from my hands. Why had the darkness chosen me and not Neven or Hiro?

Hiro pulled a cloth from his pocket and took my wrist with a strange gentleness, wiping the darkness from my hands. It sloughed off easily, like dead skin, but somehow I didn’t feel like I’d been purified.

When we finished, Hiro turned back to the shrine and slipped out of his shoes, then picked them up and tucked them under his arm.

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