“—there is something wrong,” Kagura is saying.
“What?” I switched off the recorder after Yukiko was exorcised, but the chants continue. It’s not the harmonizing of Buddhist monks but one lone voice speaking in a language I have trouble recognizing. I feel sluggish, and I don’t understand the urgency in Kagura’s voice until it’s too late.
Sudden, agonizing pain tears through my head. It’s the last thing I remember before the blackness consumes me.
Chapter Eighteen
The Eighth Ritual
You do not belong here.
My head feels unnaturally thick, like someone packed a planeload of cotton wads into a thimble-sized cranium. There is granite on my tongue, and the taste is disgustedly informing my brain that I’m facedown on the ground again. I turn my head to the side and try to spit, but my mouth refuses to work. My sense of hearing is the next to return.
You are too weak to face me.
It’s a man’s voice, but it isn’t Riley’s. I open my eyes and wait for everything to stop swimming around. I’m still inside the cave and can see the silkworm tree and its cocooned inhabitants, swaying in some unknown wind. A gasp escapes me when I spot Okiku facing the kannushi. She hasn’t had time to heal. Her body is bent over like she can’t even carry her own weight. The ground around her is dark with her blood, as black continues to spill from her wounds.
Kagura and Riley are sprawled on the ground nearby. Whatever hit me got them as well. Riley is unconscious, but Kagura’s awake, though in no shape to move.
The kannushi is smiling at Okiku like he’s already won. I try to lift myself off the ground, but I can’t move either. There is only the boy, the kannushi says through his mask, and Okiku is listening.
“Don’t” is what I want to say, but it comes out as a gurgle. The only way to close the hell’s gate is to perform the seventh ritual. Six have successfully taken place. And Okiku knows it.
Nothing about the ritual says that you can’t use a ghost for a sacrifice if she meets all other requirements.
You have only the boy. Without him, what do you have left?
Okiku turns to me. Her face softens until the beautiful girl she is looks back at me. Her smile is sad and ripe with yearning.
“Nothing,” she whispers,
“Without him, I am
nothing.
Do not take him away.”
“Kiiii,” I gasp. Something feels warm against my chest. The magatama.
I can free you. I will spare him.
He’s lying. He’s going to bind her soul to the ritual, not set it free. I know it, Okiku knows it—but she doesn’t have a choice, or else he’ll kill me immediately. That’s why she’s going to accept.
This wasn’t part of the plan. Hotoke should have been the seventh sacrifice. It all should have ended with her. Okiku wasn’t supposed to be a sacrifice. But she’s going to accept, because she trusts me—even at the cost of her own life.
I risk all for him.
I need to move. Now.
“Kiii.” The magatama grows hotter. Heat curls down my back, toward my arms and legs. It concentrates there, and almost instantly, I feel my limbs thaw. The sensation of pins and needles prickles my skin as I begin taking back control of my body. But there’s something else—I feel the stirrings of a strange presence inside me. I have experienced this countless times with Okiku, but this is different.
Okiku steps underneath the silkworm tree, and a swath of cloth gathers around her. I’m still too weak to do anything other than watch as the silk binds her hands, wrapping swiftly around her legs and waist, climbing up into her chest. The magatama brands my flesh.
“Okiku!”
She smiles at me one last time, and then she disappears amid the swirl of cloth, binding her form forever.
The kannushi is chanting, but the sound is lost in my screaming. She knew. There are two more rituals that can be performed—one to control the gate and one more to rule it. The sacrifices must be willing. To save my life, Okiku gave hers.
While droning on, the kannushi turns to me and picks up the ceremonial knife I brought. He’ll kill me anyway—if not only to increase her suffering but because he can.
And then two hands rise up from my back and something forces itself from my body. Hotoke Oimikado emerges like a contortionist crawling out of a box, her face and throat still horribly mutilated, leering at her father’s apparition through sunken eyes.
The kannushi’s chanting breaks off. He had not expected his daughter’s ghost to use me as a hiding place. Dumbelina, you’re it.