Page 30 of Between Ghosts and Gods

Ruo swished their tails from side to side, clearly agitated that they had not caught their prey. Kasu slipped off the cat’s back and took a tentative step towards Arun. But just as she reached out a hand, a piercing scream made her jump. It sounded close.

“This way!” Ruo bounded down a path so narrow Kasu and Arun had to squeeze through it sideways.

They emerged onto yet another alleyway backing onto a theatre and stopped frozen in their tracks.

A man lay dead in the middle of the ground. It was not obvious that he was a demon at first. Kasu had thought him a ghost until she noticed the third eye on his forehead – squeezed shut it looked like no more than a thin scar. He was dressed lavishly in at least seven layers of silk. A wooden token carved into the shape of a winter iris hung around his neck. Kasu frowned. His clothes were far too extravagant for a casual stroll around Ghost City.

A flash of white fur disappeared around the corner ahead. The wolf! Kasu and Arun swerved past the body and gave chase, only to come face to face with a tall wooden fence at least ten feet tall.

It was a dead end.

The wolf jumped impossibly high, landing on the very top of the fence with all the grace of a tightrope walker.

“Definitely a curse,” Kasu muttered as every eye on the wolf’s body peered down at them.

The ball of star silk hung between the wolf’s jaws.

“That’s mine!” Ruo hissed.

The wolf jumped down the other side of the fence. With an outraged yowl, Ruo teleported after it.

Arun rammed his shoulder against the wooden boards. “We can’t let it get away! Can’t you pass through this?”

Kasu shook her head. If her body had been fading away, on the cusp of disappearing for ever, she might have been able to slip through the solid wood, but that was a dangerous position to put oneself in.

Arun swore beneath his breath. “That curse went straight for the star silk. Why? Do you think they know something about my mother?”

That was a possibility, though perhaps it wanted the silk for the same reason as Ruo – it was a fancy ball of thread. At any rate, it was impossible to catch up with the curse now. Instead of racing about like headless chickens, they could only hope that Ruo would catch the wolf. The ball was the one thing the fortune teller could use to track Arun’s mother. Without it, their search would be a lot harder.

Kasu placed a hand on Arun’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Arun hit his fist against the fence once more for good measure.

Reluctantly, they returned to the body they had found in the alleyway. Despite the way Kasu’s stomach tied itself in knots, she forced herself to kneel next to it. With trembling hands, she closed the demon’s eyes and muttered a quick prayer to the heavens. Demon though he might have been, everyone deserved a respectful forever death.

“What now? Do we just leave the body here?” There was a note of impatience in Arun’s voice. Kasu had a feeling he was hoping that she would say yes.

A white moth fluttered past Kasu’s face. She looked up as its wings brushed past her cheek. A moment later, a second then a third moth flew past, gathering into a swarm. A storm of white wings filled the alleyway, swirling around and around until they formed the vague shape of a human woman.

“Little ghosts, what have you done to my actor?”

In a burst of furry wings, the moths scattered, and the fortune teller stood in their place.

Before anyone could speak, the fortune teller tilted her head back and opened her mouth. A pair of stick-like arms reached out from behind the woman’s lips and grabbed hold of the side of her face. A pair of antlers emerged next, protruding from a long head of white hair. Bells laced around those dark brown antlers rang as if announcing the arrival of something monstrous.

The thing inside the fortune teller’s mouth pushed and pushed until it had thrust its head and torso into the open air. The fortune teller flopped to the ground, her sagging body pooling around the creature’s feet. The thing shook the woman loose the way one would a discarded bathrobe and stretched to its full height.

Those antlers; that long white hair that fell to the ground; that skin like tree bark; the moths covering the creature’s eyes… Kasu recognized the entity standing before them.

It was the Pale Lady, the demon ruler of the western quarter.

It was too late to run.

“What did you do to my actor?” the Pale Lady repeated.

“I— We— Nothing! We didn’t do anything! We heard a scream and then we – we found him lying there!” Kasu sharply stepped away from the corpse, hands raised. So the demon had been an actor. That would explain the lavish clothes.

Arun pushed his way in front of Kasu in a defensive stance, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword, ready to draw. Horrified, Kasu grabbed him by the arm.