gut, peeling the lotus cobwebs from his eyes. He was alert, awake, veins thrumming with heat that tingled into his fingers and danced in his chest. He leaped down from the hammock and scrambled after her.
Up on deck, the cloudwalkers were gathered by the rails, pointing and babbling. Akihito was already on the starboard floodlight, kicking it into life as the wind whipped in his braids. The globe flickered and came alive, a curling spiral of brilliance in a cradle of gleaming mirrors. The light reached out into the clouds, turning bottomless black to rolling gray. The big man swung the spotlight in long smooth arcs, blinding rain frozen for split seconds in the beam, cutting through the darkness like a razor. The generator behind him growled, spitting chi fumes and mainlining power into the halogen bulb, reaching almost a hundred feet into the gloom; a finger of lightning, bright as the sun.
“Have you seen it?” Masaru roared over the wind.
“Hai!” The big man was elated. “Huge bastard. White as snow. Magnificent!” The ship lurched beneath their feet; Masaru grabbed the rail to avoid a fall. “Hold it steady, Yamagata!”
The captain stood at the helm, swinging the great wheel hard to compensate for the wind. He blinked the rain from his eyes, clad in a blood-red oilskin. “Raijin wants our arses!” he cried. “We’re lucky to still be flying, let alone flying straight!”
There was a loud cry as a great white shape flashed by the starboard side. Masaru caught the impression of jagged black stripes on white fur, wings broader than a man was tall, thrashing louder than thunder. Akihito swung the spotlight to follow its path.
Masaru stumbled to the gear cache and snatched up the Kobiashi needle-thrower, a black tube with a telescoping sight fixed to the top of the barrel. The base of the tube was connected to an iron bottle of pressurized gas that served as a shoulder stock. He slammed a magazine of hypodermics into the receiver, locked it in place and released the pressure valve. Slinging the other magazines over his shoulder, he climbed up to join Kasumi. She lay coiled in the rigging, feet twisted in the rope ladders leading up to the Child’s balloon. Netthrower loaded, a second on standby across her back, thick coils of lotus hemp leading down to the winches bolted to the Child’s railing. Her eyes were fixed over the ’thrower’s sights, following the spotlight arcing through the clouds. Rain ran in rivulets down her face, gathering in her long lashes and falling like tears.
“Are you ready?” Masaru shouted, twisting his feet among the rigging. She nodded once, eyes never leaving the spotlight.
“Give the blacksleep a few seconds to kick in, or it could break its wings in
the net.” The wind wailed; a screeching oni, all the fury of the Nine Hells breaking loose from its throat. The Child swung like a pendulum in the howling storm, thunder echoing down her spine. The cloudwalkers watched the dark, eyes and faces alight with anticipation.
“There!” cried one, pointing into the black. Akihito’s spotlight cut through the rain, fell across a blur of white. They heard a tremendous cry, an animal roar akin to grating thunder, the beating of mighty wings. The ship was knocked hard to port by the storm, nose dipping toward the ground as lightning flashed nearby, and suddenly they had it; picked out neatly in blinding halogen, easily the most magnificent sight Masaru had seen in his life.
It was power personified. The storm made flesh, carved from the clouds by Raijin’s hands, his children let loose to rollick in ozone-flecked chaos. The old tales said their wings made the sound of the thunder. The lightning was the sparks from their claws as they did battle across the heavens. The rain was Susano-ō’s tears, the Storm God overcome with the beauty and ferocity of his grandchildren. Thunder tiger. Arashitora.
“Beautiful,” Kasumi breathed. The hindquarters of a white tiger, rippling muscle bound tight beneath snowwhite fur, slashed with thick bands of ebony. The broad wings, forelegs and head of a white eagle, proud and fierce; lightning reflected in amber irises and pupils of darkest black. It roared again, shaking the ship, cutting through the air like a katana in a swordsaint’s hands. Masaru shook his head, blinked hard. The rain whipping his face, the wind chilling his blood; it all told him he wasn’t dreaming. And still, he doubted.
The beast was immense, a wingspan of nearly twenty-five feet, claws like sabers, eyes as big as Akihito’s fist. Iron hard, sleek and growling, an engine of muscle and beak and claw. He wondered how much blacksleep it would take to bring it down.
“Where the hells did it come from?” yelled Kasumi.
“Let me get two volleys into it!” he cried. “It’s too big!”
Kasumi nodded, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. The cloudwalkers pointed in