“This can’t be real,” I muttered as I stared at a cat-woman chatting on her cell phone across the street. No, not the Halle Berry Catwoman. That wouldn’t have been weird, not in SFO. This fine lady was dressed in a cardigan and jeans like a normal Jane, but she had the head of a calico cat and a matching tail waving behind her.
Did Halloween come early? I wondered. I supposed she could be wearing some kind of mask that covered her whole head, but I couldn’t figure out the waving tail thing. Was it animatronic?
Blue eyes with cat-like pupils met mine from across the street as we both waited for the light to change. I gave her a weak smile, but her eyes narrowed in suspicion, just like Janet’s had earlier. Swallowing, I looked away, my heart hammering in my chest. What was going on?
Oh crap, I thought as the light changed. You’re gonna have to pass her in the street.
Gripping my handlebars tight, I pedaled into the street and forced myself to look at the woman. I almost toppled off the bike as our gazes met again—her blue eyes were perfectly normal now, and there was no sign of a cat’s head or tail. My heart rate ratcheted up, and I pumped harder, wanting to get away before she changed back into a cat.
A block and a half later, I forced myself to a stop.
What is wrong with you? I scolded myself, leaning against a wall. My lungs burned like I’d run a marathon, even though I’d pedaled maybe three blocks total. My heart was trying to pummel its way out of my chest, my skin was clammy with sweat, and I felt faint.
You’re not feeling well, I told myself firmly. You’re obviously hallucinating. Maybe you’ve caught some kind of weird bug. Yeah. That was it. Cat people didn’t exist, and neither did goblins, or whatever I’d seen when I’d looked at Janet. I was gonna go home and sleep off whatever this was so I could resume my life tomorrow.
And if it turned out that Shota had given me a bad case of food poisoning, I was gonna rip him a new one the next time I saw him.
Decided, I resumed the rest of the journey on foot, walking my bike alongside me. If I really was hallucinating, I had no business steering any kind of vehicle.
“You don’t want to do this,” a low male voice said, and I froze. Something about it was familiar, tugging at my chest like a long-lost ghost from the past. Turning to my left, I saw a tall, athletically built guy standing in the alleyway. He was confronting a masked girl in a kimono, who was clutching a katana. For a moment I wondered if maybe she was a kabuki performer—Japanese theater performers were traditionally men, but times were changing—except that katana looked wicked sharp. The sliver of sunlight that managed to filter in through the alley glinted off the edge of the blade, making the folded steel shimmer.
That’s definitely not a production blade.
The woman let out a high-pitched giggle that caused the hair on my arms to rise. “Am I pretty?” she asked coyly in Japanese, canting her masked head to the side.
The man’s broad shoulders stiffened. “There’s no need to go down this route—”
“Am I pretty?” the girl asked again, her voice harsh this time. Her pale hand tightened around the hilt of the katana, and I gulped. Oh my God, she was gonna kill him!
“Yes,” the man said tightly, and I wondered why the hell he wasn’t hightailing it out of there. Why was he even talking to this crazy woman? He should be calling the cops! I had reached for my cell phone to do just that when the woman slowly lifted her mask.
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed, stumbling back at the sight of her face. It was absolutely horrific—someone had slashed her mouth from ear to ear, exposing the bloody insides of her cheeks and her rows of back teeth. The loose skin flapped as she whipped her head around to face me, and bile rose in my throat as glowing blue eyes met mine.
A memory flickered in my mind of an old Japanese folktale, but before I could catch it, the gruesome woman raised her katana and charged me with a scream of pure rage.
“Dammit, no!” the man shouted, chasing after her. The crazy woman slashed at my face with her sword, but I somehow managed to duck. Unfortunately, grace and I aren’t exactly best buddies, and I landed on my ass on the sidewalk.
The woman raised her sword again to strike, but before she could bring the blade down, a glowing piece of paper smacked into the side of her face. Howling, she dropped the sword, clutching at the paper—an ofuda, I realized, staring at the Japanese characters scrolled across the vertical slip of paper. Shocked, I turned toward the man, who already had another one in his hand. I thought he was going to throw it at her, but instead, he grabbed my hand and hauled me to my feet.
“It won’t hold her for long,” he shouted. “Run!”
“My bike!” I cried as he pulled me down the street, but there was nothing for it. Looking back, I saw the monster-woman writhing in the street, clawing at the thing on her face. A chill shot down my spine, and somehow, I knew deep down that she would get it off soon enough, and then she’d be after us.
“Come on!” the man yelled impatiently, yanking on my hand. I could see him more clearly in the street now—he was Japanese, with tanned skin and long, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Good-looking, and that strange something tugged in my chest again, making me want to slow down and study him some more. But there was no time, so I turned around and pumped my legs hard, running as fast as I could. Even so, I tripped and stumbled on cracks in the sidewalk—the man’s legs were much longer, and I couldn’t keep up with his breakneck pace.
A furious shriek echoed down the street, and I looked back to see the monster-woman running after us. Cursing, my…savior? Kidnapper? New best friend? Anyway, he knocked a food cart over, scattering dango and onigiri across the sidewalk.
The vendor swore, shaking his fist at us, but my companion didn’t bother with so much as an apology. Instead, he knocked down two sandwich board signs and a table, then dragged me into an alley and shoved us through a metal door.
“What the hell is going on?” I yelled as we stumbled into the kitchen of a ramen shop. The heavenly smells of pork bone broth and boiling noodles would normally have made my mouth water, but at the moment my stomach was flip-flopping around in my abdomen like a dying fish. “Who was that woman?”
“I think the more important question,” the man growled, hauling me away from the gawking kitchen workers, “is who the hell are you?”
“Umm, excuse me,” the chef said, appearing at the man’s elbow, “but this isn’t really the place for—”
The man slapped a fifty-dollar bill on the metal counter. “Leave us alone.”
The chef scowled, but apparently fifty bucks was his price, because he slipped the money into his apron and slunk back off to his workstation.