The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(79)

Hiro tapped my arm and pointed. I followed his gesture to a pile of leaves on the side of the hut.

A baby fox slept among the crinkled brown and red leaves. She couldn’t have been bigger than my forearm, her tiny tail tucked up against her chin, triangular face tilted sideways on a pillow of branches. Another tail swung in her sleep, followed by many more red tails, all waving in a bright fan before settling back to the leaves.

“Mikuzume!” the old woman’s coarse voice called from inside.

The fox startled awake, bright blue eyes opening.

Hiro grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a plum tree, drawing the darkness over us. I peered through the veil of night at the baby fox glancing back and forth with star bright eyes, probably wondering where the sound of footsteps had come from. Her large ears swiveled, her tiny jaw opening in a yawn and letting out a catlike squeak. She scooted her front paws forward in the leaves, closing her eyes as she stretched. All of her tails fanned out behind her like a crimson display of peacock feathers. I counted nine of them swinging back and forth.

“Mikuzume!” the old woman called again. “Come to bed!”

This time, the fox hopped to her feet and pranced around the back of the house, out of sight. I heard a door slide open and a little girl’s voice calling “Here, Grandma!” before the door slammed shut again.

This was the great monster I was meant to dismember. My stomach felt full of rocks.

Hiro released the darkness around us, stepping back from the tree.

I took Neven’s clock in my left hand and the night went still. In the infinite moment before I woke Hiro with my touch, I ran my fingers across the bite marks in Neven’s clock and wished he were here. Not to see me become the monster he already thought I was, but to force me to be cold and unbreakable. What a selfish thought, to want my brother to be traumatized just to comfort me while I murdered. I couldn’t think about Neven anymore without feeling nauseous shame in my stomach, so I reached out and touched Hiro’s hand, breaking him from the time freeze.

He only took a moment to look around at the frozen night before turning back to me. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said. “I’ll wait for you in the backyard.” Then he walked around the house and disappeared in the dark.

Standing before the house reminded me too much of my time as a Reaper, when I’d waited in hallways and listened to the humans’ mundane conversations and unhurried footsteps, going calmly through their evening routines with no notion that soon I would come in to end them. Their ignorance had always given me a sick sense of power, as if I were Death himself and not merely his puppet. But now that I truly wore the gloves of Death, I felt no self-importance, nothing even close. Instead, nervousness rattled in my stomach in a way I hadn’t known since my first collections. I didn’t want this power.

I crossed the lawn, my footsteps across the grass the loudest sound in this silent world. The front door was predictably locked, so I walked to the side of the house.

It’s just like a collection, I thought as I slid open a paper window and slipped inside. You’ve done this thousands of times.

The hut had only one room, in disarray from the toys and cooking supplies. Tamamo No Mae and her grandmother had gone to bed, lying next to each other on reed mats and blankets. The grandmother lay on her side, stiff and unbreathing from the time freeze, while the girl lay on her back, arms raised up beside her head. I had hoped to find her in her fox form so I could see her as more of an animal, but she lay as a human beside the old woman, dressed in a white nightgown with sleeves that covered her hands and a hem that passed her toes.

I slid my hand behind her head and lifted her up to my shoulder, careful to touch only her clothes and not her skin. Her body was stiff from time freeze, but still warm and soft and smelled of autumn from her nap in the leaves. I carried Neven like this when he was first born, I thought, and had to stop walking until I could force the thought down and lock it away. I couldn’t think about Neven right now.

I unlatched the door and stepped out into the backyard. Hiro stood waiting with his bow and arrow as I lay her down in the grass a short distance from the house.

“Are you ready, Ren?”

I swallowed, nodding and taking a few steps back. I looked up at the stars as Hiro nocked his first arrow. For a few seconds of tense silence, he took aim. Then the arrow whizzed through the air and cut wetly into a flesh target, my jaw locking as I imagined where it had struck. He didn’t hesitate to nock a second arrow, that too sinking into flesh with a wet thwack. Was it truly so easy for him, or was he only pretending for my sake?

I heard him set his bow down in the grass, then he approached me and placed a hand on my back. He guided me toward the girl, still peacefully asleep but this time with an arrow stabbed through her heart and the side of her neck. It was easy to pretend they weren’t real when the time freeze had congealed her blood and she wasn’t awake to feel or show pain. I didn’t need to feel sympathy, because I knew this much alone wouldn’t be enough to kill her. Nothing truly terrible had befallen her yet.

I pressed Neven’s clock to the inside of my wrist and looped the chain around twice, securing it there. Hiro stepped back as I unsheathed the katana and held it in front of me with both hands.

This is easy, I told myself. It’s the easiest mission you’ve had.

When I killed her, Izanami would free me from my curse. I could build a safe home in Yomi for myself and my brother. I would wear red robes, and all the creatures in Yomi and Earth would have no choice but to respect me.