Page 12 of Cherry Moon

“Do you know how much that cost?” I complained, swinging my blade in warning.

Forged by Uncle Ryoka, the katanas struck fear in the hearts of all dickheads.

“Filth will leave! Filth will leave!” the mazoku spawn chirped, hopping from foot to foot.

What was this monstrosity based on? The mazoku loved basing their spawn around creatures from Japanese mythology. Twisted versions, nasty versions. Couldn’t say I recognized this motherfucker, despite reading up on a lot of this stuff—some creatures were purely a myth, some were not. Basically, the lines were blurry, and reality was one big soup of craziness.

My babies appeared before me, growling with their hackles raised. They smelled the taint of the mazoku, feeding it back to me like the elite furry helpers they were.

Thanks, babies, I thought at them.

The creature continued bouncing between its chicken feet, not making a move. “Come to clean! Come to clean!”

“You taking the piss?” I fired back. “Clean? With the mess you’re making on my carpet?”

“Come to clean! Come to clean!”

“Yeah? And I’m here to stab.” I went to rush the fucker, but it changed. Just like that, in a blink of the eyes, a sudden shift from blobby horror to…to…

“Mama Rita?” I rasped.

Surprise hit me in the guts. I flinched, lowering the blade. Mega thrown off, the pain storming back into my skull.

My ex-bestie, long dead. She’d been one nasty piece of shit even when pretending to be my ride-or-die. An elf, a total nightmare, and the one who hacked off my right arm with a piece of glass before G shot her in the head.

Because of her, I’d have this blue bionic arm for the rest of my life. And I was cool with that now, learning to embrace it, to love it.

But seeing her face again just…dammit. It shat on everything.

“Fuck,” I wheezed, the sword suddenly feeling too heavy, the past dragging rusty claws across my sanity.

“You all right, sweets?” she said, cocking her head.

Her voice. Her damn voice. It churned my stomach, a sound so rotten I’d cut my ears off to never hear it again.

I dropped the katana, my hands shaking.

“It’s not… It’s not possible.” I swallowed a ball of terror. “This is a trick.”

She looked as I remembered her before the truth came out about her affair with my father, and her being Zach’s mum. She was a big woman with curly raven hair speckled with gray framing an olive complexion. She still wore her big yellow glasses attached to a chain, her silver elf eyes sparkling behind the lenses.

This ain’t happening.

By the tenshi, every detail was correct. Her elf goddess birthmark sat below her left eye—the moon and star inside a sun that all elves had on random parts of their faces.

She even wore one of her famous jumpers, yellow with two puppies asleep by a fire, paired with baggy purple trousers and some ugly green sandals.

“Miss me?” she asked.

This ain’t real.

“I… I…” I couldn’t speak. She seemed so real just by standing there.

“Speechless, sweets?” She chuckled. “I know. It’s been such a long time, hasn’t it? I’ve missed you.” Her nostrils flared. “We enjoyed some good times, didn’t we?”

Words solidified on my tongue.

Snap out of this! It ain’t real!