It’s not that I have to do these exorcisms. I’m not responding to some higher calling that insists I don a cape, cowl, and tight spandex to rid my city of crime. I’m not about righting wrongs. All these creatures I’ve been trapping and killing during the last several months—there’s no real purpose to it. I tell Sondheim not to meddle in things he has no understanding of, but I’m just as guilty. I mess around with spirits, test the boundaries of my fears, see how far I can step over the line without falling over.
Besides, Okiku delights in the hunt. She ended life as a victim and started death as an avenger. She doesn’t kill for any higher purpose. She doesn’t need a reason to take someone’s life. She does it because she can. And I get that. I’ve been a victim for most of my life. She changed that.
I tell myself I’m doing this—ridding the world of these things that go bump in the night—because I want to. I tell myself I’m doing this because I’m not going to spend the rest of my life as prey.
I tell myself it’s an adrenaline rush.
And, admittedly, that’s where the stupidity comes in.
Okiku senses where my mind is wandering, and curiosity crosses her dead, mottled face.
“I’m all right. Let’s finish this.”
She smiles again.
Together, we stand and watch the night burn.
Chapter Two
Girls
I used to forget it was Okiku and not the masked woman of my childhood in the room with me. I used to wake up screaming with nightmares. The only times I’ve ever seen Okiku look helpless are when I buck out of bed covered in sweat and crying. She’ll wrap her withered arms around me; she’s not used to comforting anyone, but she tries all the same.
Then a miko of Chinsei shrine, Kagura, offered to teach me the rituals, teach me how to exorcise the demons in my head and the demons around me. “To protect you,” she said. Everything I know about containing spirits, I learned from the former priestess.
The first exorcism I performed on my own was nine months ago in Japan. The ghost had appeared to be a kindly old lady, asking for something sweet to drink. When I produced the doll and apologized, she was no longer kindly. Or old. Or, after an unexpected transformation, a woman.
Kagura scolded me, said she wasn’t teaching me these traditions so I could go out and be proactive without supervision. If she’d had her way, it would have been at least two more years before I could execute these rituals on my own.
I pointed out the need for constant practice and that Okiku was there to make sure I got out with my skin intact. It took a lot of convincing—and stretching the truth about how frequently I use these talents and on what—though Kagura has never stopped worrying. Between her and my cousin, Callie, I’ve got all the mothering I could ever need.
After I caught my first spirit, I slept like a baby for the first time in months. Most mornings arrive easy like that now.
This morning, I wake sputtering out tangles of hair. Sometimes I suspect that Okiku’s dark locks have their own sentience. They slip beneath my pillow and burrow into my blankets. A chosen few wrap around my arm like a protective cocoon.
All the while, Okiku never moves. She’s curled up on the ceiling, near the headboard, and her hollow eyes stare straight ahead without blinking. To call what she does “sleep” is like calling couch surfing an extreme sport.
You’d think that waking up every day to see what most people would consider a dead body would have driven me crazy a long time ago. But dead bodies don’t smell of incense and eucalyptus. Okiku’s scent dances into my bedsheets and lingers on my skin.
I roll out of bed, tired but too keyed up to sleep, the adrenaline still somersaulting in my bloodstream. I hop into the shower. Okiku is a considerate roommate, quick to leave me to my own company the instant she thinks I’m getting naked. It’s a good compromise, because she’s the only reason I bother with clothes when I’m in my room.
By the time I’m out, she’s awake, hair tamed and thrown forward over one gaunt shoulder. A book is open in her lap. Words fascinate her, and this month, she’s all about Murakami Haruki novels. She looks up from the page, staring mournfully out the window. I recognize the look on her face. It’s why she’s been so distracted. Okiku enjoys catching spirits and chasing after dolls, but that’s not the reason she’s here.
“Another one?”
She nods and points a finger out the window, as if the perp she’s after is just around the corner.
Okiku has never been wrong when it comes to tracking down murderers. I could almost pity the guy. Almost. “That’s five in three months. You’re on fire, Ki.”
“I see no conflagrations.” Okiku’s sense of humor died centuries ago with her physical body.
“How about we find him tonight? That sound good?” I know better than to put myself between Okiku and her target when she’s marked the hunt. Drag things out for too long, and she gets ornery. The faster she can get her hands on whatever asshole she has in her sights, the better it is for everyone involved. Except for the person in question, of course. It’s Friday, so I figure I can sleep in during the weekend to make up for these two nights of vice.