Page 3 of Between Ghosts and Gods

Kasu smouldered. Most ghosts just didn’t try hard enough. They weren’t good enough. Yes, following the Heavenly Principles was difficult, but that was the point. It was their fault they were in the under-realm in the first place; of course the heavens would make it difficult to return to the cycle of souls. But Kasu would show the others that it could be done. She would prove them all wrong.

“I need to change my clothes,” she said. A messy appearance suggested a messy heart and mind, and when your mind was a mess how could you meditate on the noble virtues of the heavens?

Banse stood back and let her pass.

Kasu made her way around the back of Camellia House, beneath the building’s overhanging eaves and across the stony courtyard. The staff dormitory was hidden within the shadow of the gambling parlour, looking on in silent judgement as she approached.

Pushing open the crooked door, Kasu headed upstairs to the large, empty room where most of the staff slept. The surrounding closet doors were painted with faded murals depicting the three realms – the heavens with its hundreds of gods, the world of humans below, and the under-realm at the bottom, where demons and ghosts dwelled together.

She brushed her fingers over the painting of the gods. The staff had drawn over their original faces with rude scribbles, but Kasu liked to imagine what they might have looked like before – unblemished and beautiful, illuminated in the golden glow of divinity. What must it be like to live and work in the heavens, where everyone was gentle and calm and dignified? Probably the exact opposite of the chaos she was surrounded by every day.

Her hand moved from the painting of the heavens to the one depicting the mortal realm. The tips of her fingers ached with longing. If only she could give the image a little push and step through it into a world of sunlight and flowers and windswept fields.

Holding back another sigh, she slid open the closet door.

A strange, dizzying smell was coming from the cabinet on the highest shelf.

Kasu pulled out the drawers of the dresser beneath and arranged them to form a set of steps, which she climbed until she was able to reach the top of the closet.

The moment she opened the cabinet doors, a person fell out.

Kasu tumbled to the floor, the reed matting scraping against her back. Before she could recover, someone slapped a hand over her mouth. Kasu froze.

A figure kneeled over her. With his back to the light, she couldn’t make out the intruder’s face, but there was no mistaking what he was. A human. A still-living mortal.

She didn’t understand. How had he managed to get into Ghost City?

“Quiet!” he hissed. “Don’t say a word!”

Chapter Three Kasu

It wasn’t POSSIBLE. Living humans couldn’t enter Ghost City; the red gates of the under-realm only opened for the demonic or the damned.

The smell of burnt sugar and fresh bread wafted from the human, as if he were the most delicious thing in all the three realms. It made Kasu’s head spin and her mouth water. She wanted to cover her nose, but knew that it would do no good. It wasn’t really a scent that she was reacting to but the stranger’s aura – the irresistible pull of his mortality that made her want to consume him whole.

Do not eat the human! Do not eat the human! Do not eat the human! Her stomach was growling. She was starting to drool. How humiliating. How could she call herself a follower of the Heavenly Principles if she could not leash her appetites and control her ghostly nature?

Once he seemed convinced that Kasu wouldn’t scream, the mortal moved his hand away from her mouth. As he leaned back, the light from the window caught the curve of his face.

He appeared to be roughly the same age as her, give or take a few years: too young to grow anything more than a wisp of a beard, but old enough to wield the sword at his hip. He was dressed in clothes Kasu didn’t recognize – a dark blue tunic that reached his knees, belted around his waist with a golden sash, above horsehide trousers and dark leather boots.

A living human. Something strange flitted inside Kasu’s chest as she gazed at him – a tight, uncomfortable irritation like an itch beneath her skin.

This could only end badly.

“Y–you’re a human. And alive.”

“And you’re … surprisingly solid for a ghost. No, maybe you’re not a ghost. Are you a demon?” The young man’s voice was tired and rough, like he had not slept in several days.

Rather than answer his question, Kasu wriggled free and retreated to the corner of the room, as far away from him as possible.

“How did you enter Ghost City?” she demanded. “Why would you want to come here? Who are you?”

The stranger opened his mouth to say something when the sound of footsteps alerted them both to someone approaching the room. Without a second’s hesitation he vaulted out of the dormitory window, dropping all of two storeys to the stony ground below.

“Wait!” Kasu threw herself against the sill and watched as the stranger ran away from Camellia House. With a hiss of frustration, she dashed back out of the room just as a fellow ghost in green robes reached the top of the stairs.

“Oh, Kasu, have you seen—”