Both girls sail by me, inches from my head, and hit the ground. The other ghost has Okiku pinned, nails raking into her face.
I don’t even think. I swing the spike and impale the spirit squarely in the chest, pinning her against the rock and keeping her immobile.
“Ki!” I drop to my knees and drag her away from the squirming, shrieking ghost. Okiku’s eyes are closed, and she isn’t moving. Her face is drawn, far more desiccated than she should be.
On the wall, the dead girl hisses out her triumph and tries to lunge forward, the stake sliding a bit when she does. I slam a second stake through her midsection, right in the center of a pink flower woven into her white kimono, and she screams. A third and a fourth keep her shoulders restrained. I stumble back. The ghost scratches at the air, clawing in my direction, but I hold up the doll and let the recorded incantations do their work.
She screeches more unintelligible sounds at me, but I keep the doll leveled in her direction until she feels the inevitable tug. Before my eyes, she melts like vapor, seeping into the doll I’m holding until all that remains of our encounter are the four spikes still embedded in the wall—
“I’m scared” is what she finally manages to say. “I want to see Akeno.”
They’re walking down a dank, dark tunnel. Her hands are bound, and there are guards to prevent her from escaping. It doesn’t matter, because she feels too faint to break away. Her movements are sluggish, and she reels from side to side, unable to walk straight.
No one listens to her. The silent procession continues, and she does her best to keep in step. She feels lethargic, as if her mind is slipping away from her despite all her intentions.
Up ahead, she can see the back of the kannushi’s head, the rattle of beads as he walks. She does not recognize the other priests because they are all dressed in white robes, faces hidden beneath masks. She and the head priest are the only ones dressed differently—he in his ceremonial garb and she in her favorite kimono of coral peonies.
“I’m scared,” she says, but it’s a ghost of a cry, and no one listens.
The passageway leads to an underground cave. As they approach, she sees snatches of light streaming in from above, and her eyes widen when she sees the magnificent tree before them. It reaches up to the rock ceiling. The tree is clearly dead, its branches black and leafless. And yet, it seems very much alive. The withered gnarls of its branches curl and uncurl like spindly fingers beckoning at them. Shadowy shapes hang from its branches, some wriggling, but her vision has become blurry, and she cannot focus to see what they are.
The priests file into the cave, but the kannushi does not move and neither do the two priests at the girl’s side.
“We must do something first,” the kannushi tells her, and she can only nod dumbly before she is ushered into another tunnel.
She must have dozed off while walking, for she recalls little until she finds herself standing before a yawning pit. Her mind shrinks at its size.
“Would you like to see Akeno before we begin?” The kannushi asks. She nods and does not know why she grows more afraid when he asks this.
“Then come here, Mineko. Here. Look.”
He leads her to the edge of the pit. Shaking, she looks down and sees—
—and I come back to myself. I’m still corkscrewing the spike into the doll’s chest, though this is no longer necessary. For a moment, I can see the spirit juxtaposed onto its face, gnashing sharp teeth in the hopes she can score one last blow. But her image fades, and she recedes into the doll, which watches me with burning midnight eyes.
The kannushi didn’t need the boys for his rituals. Nothing in The Book of Unnatural Changes or Kagura’s notes ever mentioned their importance beyond their marriage providing another layer of protection for the girls. But Kazuhiko’s research did mention one other thing:
To rule the gate, it is important that the last sacrifice must be willing.
But to close the gate, all seven sacrifices must suffer to slake hell’s hunger.
Was that the kannushi’s intention all along—that the boys’ fates increase the girls’ suffering?
Danger averted, I crawl back to where Okiku is still prone on the ground. “Ki,” I plead, lifting her in my arms. I need her to be all right.
I’ve seen Okiku wounded in action before. There was a particularly nasty earth spirit lurking near a small shrine in Kyoto that surprised us both. It took weeks for her to recuperate, despite my fussing over her and her wounds that didn’t heal. They only went away after she spent two weeks hibernating inside my body, curled up beside my heart. I’m reminded once more that being immortal doesn’t mean Okiku can’t be dealt a mortal blow from a power stronger than she is.
She opens her eyes and looks at me. Her face is impassive, but her eyes are painful to see. “I am tired,” she whispers.
“I’ll handle this,” I promise. “You need to hide here for a while,” I say, tapping my chest. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”