Читать книгу The Sword of Kuromori - Jason Rohan - Страница 12

Kenny was on his feet before he realised what he was doing.

By the time he was out of the glass doors, his mind had finished arguing with itself. One side was saying to keep out of it, that this was nothing to do with him, that it was dangerous and that he was leaving anyway; the other side said simply that someone was in trouble and he had to do something.

‘Hey! What are you doing?’ Kenny shouted. ‘Leave her alone!’ He made his voice as loud and as deep as he could while he fumbled for the whistle.

‘Hnh? Nandayo ?’ The four shapes moved back from the fallen girl and Kenny saw a jumble of black jumpsuits and leather jackets with Chinese writing on them, biker boots, long red sashes tied in an X-shape across the chest, headbands – and a baseball bat, a wooden sword, a metal pipe and a length of chain.

‘Uh-oh’ Kenny muttered, looking around for anything he could use in defence. Suddenly, this wasn’t such a great idea.

Two of the bikers moved behind him, cutting off his escape. He glanced into the restaurant, but the diners were oblivious. The lead biker slapped the metal pipe against his open palm and sized up the teenage boy standing before him.

‘Ki demo kurutta ka?’ he said, dragging the last word out into a sneer.

Kenny fought the urge to run. Instead, he pointed at the pipe and broke into maniacal laughter, quick and high-pitched, like a hyena. The biker blinked and took a step back from this foreign lunatic. In that moment, Kenny moved. He threw the whistle hard, aiming at the man’s face, and closed in, grabbing for the pipe before he could swing it.

‘Aiee!’ the man shrieked as the whistle hit his eye. His grip loosened and Kenny wrenched the pipe free.

‘Duck!’ Kiyomi screamed and Kenny dropped, feeling the rush of air as the baseball bat swept over his head. It smacked into the man who was clutching at his eye and knocked him to the ground. Still crouched, Kenny swung the pipe hard to his left. There was a sharp crack as it connected with a kneecap, another scream, and the biker holding the bat crumpled to the floor. Kenny sprang up and saw the remaining two, one with the chain and the other with the kendo sword, rushing him. Kiyomi dragged herself across the ground towards her bike.

Kenny twirled the pipe – like a baton – and edged away from the biker with the chain. Thinking quickly, he lowered the weapon, offering his opponent an opening. The man took it and swung the chain. Kenny brought the steel tube up to meet the flail. With a rattling clang, the chain wrapped itself round the pipe and Kenny pulled back sharply with all his strength. Caught off balance, the man stumbled and fell, releasing his grip on the metal links.

Three down, one to go, Kenny thought, but he was too late. The man with the sword bore down on him, raising both arms high above his head and then bringing them down. Kenny raised an arm to protect himself. There was a snarl, a flash of fur and then more shrieking. The man fell backwards, his hands clawing to fend off Poyo whose sharp little teeth were clamped to his crotch.

The last biker standing, the one who had been wielding the chain, looked at his companions – one on the ground with cracked ribs, one writhing with a broken kneecap and one with an angry tanuki attached to his privates – and decided it was time to go. He turned on his heel. And stopped.

The old lady in the raincoat had emerged from McDonald’s and was directly in front of him. She swayed gently and stared at him hungrily. Her eyes were small and beady, glinting red in the street lights, and her long grey hair was waving even though there was little breeze.

The biker looked from Kenny to the old woman and back. He shrugged and continued marching towards her, an arm raised to shove her aside.

That was when Kenny’s stomach lurched as he caught sight of a forked tongue flickering over the old lady’s lips. Something was horribly wrong here. ‘Wait!’ he shouted at the biker, raising a hand in warning. ‘Stop!’

The biker hesitated and the thing in the raincoat pounced. He was flung to the ground, spread-eagled, with the creature on top of him, its mouth clamped to his.

‘Ew, gross!’ Kenny said, backing away.

Kiyomi shook her pounding head to clear it and hauled her bike into an upright position. She heard Kenny’s warning shout, looked up, and her blood chilled. ‘Kenny . . . ’ Kiyomi said, her voice low but in a tone not to be argued with. ‘Get back here, now . . . We can still get away. Poyo, jubun da.’

Poyo unclamped his jaws from the biker and sniffed the air. His eyes grew wide and he bounded over to Kiyomi, whimpering. She picked bloodied, matted hair out of her eyes and pulled herself up on to the bike.

The creature released its lips from the now-still biker and leered up at Kenny, who was rooted to the spot. Blood dribbled down its chin and it began slithering towards him.

‘Run!’ Kiyomi yelled.

Kenny sprinted to her, hurdling the fallen bikers who lay groaning on the ground.

The creature reared up again. Its coat flapped open and Kenny glimpsed rippling coils covered with tiny scales.

‘What is that thing?’ he said, scrambling up beside Kiyomi.

‘Nure-onna,’ she said, wobbling on to the bike. ‘Bad news. Let’s go.’

‘What, and just leave those guys here for its dessert? We can’t do that.’

‘OK, it was just an idea.’ Kiyomi groaned and reached down into a side panel. ‘Here,’ she said, withdrawing a can of Pringles.

‘You’re going to eat crisps now ?’ Kenny said.

Kiyomi pressed her thumb against the end of the can; the fingerprint reader bleeped and it popped open.

‘Whatever you’re doing, can you hurry it up?’ Kenny said. ‘That thing’s getting closer.’

The nure-onna slithered over the three bikers and advanced towards Kiyomi and Kenny. The scritching sound of its scales on the asphalt set Kenny’s teeth on edge.

‘Aim for the head,’ Kiyomi said, handing Kenny the contents of the Pringles can: a short sword in a scabbard as long as his forearm.

‘This? You want me to fight that thing with this – this pocketknife?’ Kenny said, pulling out the blade halfway. It was exquisite, brightly polished, with Japanese lettering engraved on it.

‘Well, duh,’ Kiyomi said, putting her hand to her head and pulling it away, sticky and red. ‘Look, it’s your idea to stay and fight. I’ve got blood in my eyes and I’m seeing two of everything, otherwise . . .’

‘All right, all right,’ Kenny said, moving away from the bike. ‘But I’ll take any help you can give.’

The forked tongue licked at the air. Kenny backed away and the nure-onna closed in. He clutched the wooden scabbard tightly in one hand and gripped the short sword in the other.

‘Uh, you,’ he said. ‘Freaky snake-woman thing. You probably can’t underst–’

‘I know who you are, Kuromori-child,’ it hissed.

Kenny froze. The awful serpentine voice had sounded inside his head; its lips hadn’t moved.

‘And I know why you are here . . . but you will not succeed. A thousand starving yurei cry out for vengeance. You will not stand in their way.’

The nure-onna slithered closer, swaying as the snake body undulated beneath the raincoat. Kenny held his ground, trying not to look at the beady eyes, the long wicked fangs or the flickering tongue. He glanced into McDonald’s, through the windows behind the creature, but no one seemed to have noticed anything unusual happening in the car park. He was on his own.

Turning and running seemed a good idea, but the nure-onna was almost upon him. ‘Kiyomi . . . now would be a good time to do something . . .’ he muttered.

‘Poyo! Kame!’ Kiyomi said.

The tanuki shot across the car park like a guided missile and sank his sharp little teeth into the creature’s tail. It shrieked and in that instant Kenny rammed the scabbard into its open mouth, forcing the wooden case down the open gullet. The nure-onna gagged and Kenny whipped the blade across its neck, slicing through flesh. A startled expression stayed on the nure-onna’s face as its head bounced across the ground and the body flopped at Kenny’s feet, writhing and churning.

Poyo spat out a chunk of tail and retched in disgust, trying to dislodge the taste. He leapt back, startled, as the body crumbled to a fine dust.

Kenny lifted the raincoat with the point of the sword, but it was empty. He wiped the blade on the coat, picked up the scabbard, slotted the sword home and handed it back to Kiyomi. She started up the motorcycle and the engine hummed softly.

‘Come on, we should go,’ she said, scooping up Poyo. ‘One dead biker is going to attract attention. Or are you still going it alone?’

Kenny took in the scene around him: three wounded bikers lay moaning on the ground; one was still; the empty raincoat flapped; and the fine dust eddied away. ‘That thing, it was after me, wasn’t it? These guys just got in the way.’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘And there are more . . . things out there too? More of them after me?’

Kiyomi nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.

‘OK, I’ll come back with you. You’re very persuasive,’ Kenny said and he climbed on to the motorcycle behind her. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘look at the trouble you get into when I’m not around.’

Kiyomi elbowed him, hard, and then opened the throttle, pulling out of the car park so fast that Kenny had to fling his arms round her waist to keep from falling off.