The bottle fell, a long, scything arc ending in her throat and a spray of blood, thick and hot and bright. And Hana did what any thirteen-year-old girl would have done at that moment.
She started screaming.
Explosions tore across the night, dragging Hana from her reverie, back into the world beyond the window glass. She saw the harbor was ablaze, firelight spray-painted across southern skies. Great walls of black cloud rumbled and crashed above the city, the smell of burning chi entwined with the growing promise of rain.
“Izanagi’s balls,” Yoshi shook his head. “Someone’s riled about not getting invited to the Shōgun’s wedding…”
Hana tried to shake off the dread, closed her eye, frowned. “I can’t see much. Can’t feel many rats around.”
“Fire is making the little ones nervous. Big ones are opening shop on a fresh corpse two blocks north. Dinnertime.”
Hana left her vantage point near the window, knelt by the table, rocking a little, back and forth. She stared at Yoshi’s straw hat, at the jagged, broken-bottle cut running through the brim. Refusing to remember.
“Where the hells is this boy?” Yoshi hissed.
“Maybe we could go look for him?”
“You fixing to go outside in all this?”
“Jurou’s been gone all day, Yoshi. Aren’t you worried?”
“Safe to say.”
Yoshi chewed a fingernail, falling mute. Hana looked toward the window again.
“Gods, it sounds like the whole city’s coming apart…”
She reached out again with the Kenning, felt dozens of tiny sparks converging to the north. She could feel their hunger, taste their stink at the corners of her mouth. She reached toward Daken, prowling western rooftops, just on the edge of word-range.
There’s a group of rats north of the hotel.
… so . .?
So be careful on the way back.
… i am a cat …
There’s a lot of them.
… meow . .?
All right, fine. If you get eaten, don’t bitch to me. What can you see?
… people running fighting men in white iron with growling swords …
Can I use your eyes?
… of course …
Lashes brushed her cheeks as she slipped behind Daken’s pupils. He was looking down into a cramped alley three floors below his perch, and she clutched the table, fighting off a sudden rush of vertigo. The docks around Kigen Bay were ablaze, black smoke and seething flames. The clouds were full of Phoenix sky-ships, darting and weaving like swallows, occasionally opening up with barrages of shuriken-thrower fire into alleys and houses.
chug!chug!chug!chug!
They could smell stagnant water, urine and trash below, ripe with flies’ eggs. Chi exhaust, ash and dust, the reek of pollution that had seeped into the city’s skin. And high above it all, drifting arm in arm with the smoke came the stink of charred fat. The reek of burning hair.
Hana could hear the crowd through his ears, roaring flames, ringing bells.
Be careful out there, little brother.
… still have one or two lives left …
She broke the contact with half a smile, mind drifting over the city. Feeling around one last time for corpse-rats, trying to catch a glimpse of the Kagé who must be behind these attacks. She found most of the Upside vermin gathered in that swarming knot two blocks north. They were a multitude, too grizzled to fear the flames, knuckle-deep in fresh meat and fighting amongst the guts. But a short spit from the edges of the feast, Hana felt a faint spark of distress.
The girl frowned. Pressed her lips into a bloodless line. Focusing tighter, she centered on the pain’s source. Felt the tear of broken glass in his insides, rolling onto his back, tail tucked between his legs as he screeched. Tasted his blood on his tongue, lolling from their mouths, clawing at their own belly to make the agony go away.
She pulled back, felt more of them—other fading sparks crawling into storm drains and writhing in the gutters. Rolling over and clawing at the sky, twisting into little balls of mangy fur and slowly turning cold.
Something was wrong.
She could almost taste it now; a faint undercurrent of pain, little flares struggling away from their fellows and curling up on themselves, snuffed out like candles in a monsoon wind.
Bad meat.
“Yoshi…” She looked up from the floor and into his eyes.
“What?” He surfaced from his reverie, rose from his crouch. “Did Daken see Jurou?”
“Yoshi, I think someone’s poisoning our rats…”
The door slammed inward with a sharp crack, just as the window shattered. Four figures rushed in from the hallway, another tumbling through the broken pane, landing in a crouch amidst a shower of falling glass. Hana rolled aside as the lead door-crasher swung a tetsubo at her head, smashing onto the cushion where she’d knelt a moment before. The second man through the door raised a plain but functional-looking sword and took aim for Hana’s throat.
Yoshi leveled his iron-thrower at the figure crouched amongst the broken glass. The man stood with a scowl. Hana caught a glimpse of small, piggy eyes, swollen, cauliflower ears.
“Gambler,” Yoshi hissed.
The pig-man lashed out with his war club, caught the iron-thrower across its nose and sent it spinning into the wall. A bright flash of light, a hollow boom as the shot in the chamber discharged, crossing the room to introduce itself to the door crasher’s right eye. The man spun on the spot and collapsed onto the thug behind him, painting the man’s face with a gout of warm, fresh red. Yoshi landed a kick on the pig-man’s thigh, tendons popping as the kneecap gave way.
Hana snatched up the fallen man’s club as she scrambled onto her feet, taking in the assailants with a desperate glance. Just another alley fight, just another scrap over a crust of bread or a place to sleep, the kind of brawl she’d lived with since she could walk. She shrank back, a short feint, then dropped to her knees and drove her war club’s haft into one assailant’s groin. The man squealed like a stuck corpse-rat, and Hana’s double-handed haymaker broke his jaw, teeth spilling across the piles of iron coins.
The pig-man lunged forward as his knee gave way, slamming his war club into Yoshi’s ribs. Studded iron cracking bone, breath spraying from the boy’s lungs. The pair fell into a tangle, flailing like children, all bloody knuckles and elbows. Yoshi gasped for breath, eyes full of tears. The pig-man locked his wrist and flipped him onto his belly, leaning into his shoulders with all his weight. The boy cried out, free hand scrabbling for the smoking iron-thrower laying just too far out of reach.
The blood-soaked gangster and his unstained comrade kicked aside their friend’s corpse and brought their weapons to bear on Hana—another iron-shod tetsubo and a pair of punching daggers. She smashed one knife aside with her club before a blow sent her flying through the rice-paper wall. Her weapon spun from her grasp as she crashed to the floor, coming to rest in a tangle of bedclothes. She heard cruel laughter as a knee was planted between her shoulder blades, felt heavy weight on her back, a stunning blow to the blind side of her face, her good eye pressed into the pillow.
“Is this your bedroom, little girl?” Someone grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her back. “Nice sheets.”
“The bitch broke my wrist!” The call came from the main room, hoarse with pain.