Page 10 of Night of the Dragon

Reika shook her head, then turned to the gathered civilians. “Is there perhaps a back door we can sneak through?” she asked. “So we don’t attract the attention of the dead outside?”

A few of them nodded. “This way,” said the woman, and led us through the sake house to a singular door at the end of a storeroom. “This leads into the alley between the sake house and the restaurant next door,” she told us in a hushed voice. “From here, the docks are due west, and the warehouse sits at the south end of the dock. Be careful.”

“We’ll try our best,” Yumeko said.

The woman clutched Yumeko’s sleeve. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you. Kami protect you all.”

She hurried away, leaving us alone in the darkened room. Reika let out another sigh.

“Well,” she said softly, glancing at us, “any ideas of how we’re going to get past an army of raised dead?”

“Cut a path right through them?” I suggested.

“That’s not very subtle, Kage-san.” Reika frowned. “And we don’t know how many we’re dealing with. There could be hundreds of them out there, maybe thousands. We’d be letting the blood mages know exactly where we are.”

“I fail to see another way.” The miko’s jaw tightened, and I shrugged. “Unless you want me to go alone. I can get past them unseen, head to the warehouse and deal with the mages, but I can’t take all of you with me.”

“No.” Immediately, the noble shook his head. “No one goes alone, Kage-san. Not that I doubt your abilities, but we cannot lose you. This is our war. We fight it together.”

“Right.” The ronin rolled his shoulders back. “So, it’s the old kick down the door and slaughter anything that moves approach, after all, is it? Seems to be our favorite. Not sure how many dead things I can kill with a handful of arrows, but at least I’ll make a juicy target.”

“Wait,” came Yumeko’s voice, and a ripple of fox magic went through the air. She turned and held something up to her face: a pale, smiling mask that seemed to glow in the darkness. “I have an idea.”

5

Fooling the Dead

Yumeko

Iopened the door cautiously, peeking through the crack. A quiet alley greeted me. At the moment, it was empty, and I took a furtive breath to calm my heart.

I hope this works.

“Kami, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Reika whispered at my back. “What makes you think this is going to work, kitsune?”

I glanced over my shoulder. The miko’s face was hidden behind the white corpse mask, but I had no doubt she was frowning at me. The others pressed behind her, wearing the same white masks and looking quite dead. Their skin was a bloated gray, their clothes torn and bloody; Okame even had the illusion of an arrow jutting from his back, and one side of Daisuke’s long white hair was stained red. A group of masked walking corpses was possibly the grimmest illusion I’d ever had to craft, and the strain of keeping so much fox magic active at once was starting to wear on me, but it was the best solution I could think of.

I gave the shrine maiden a weak smile, even though it was hidden by my mask. “Well, they didn’t seem to know the difference between an illusion and the real thing when we first ran into them,” I said. “I’m hoping they can’t see through fox magic, and that we’ll be able to walk right up to the warehouse.”

“It’s never that easy.”

“Maybe it will be this time.” I peered up and down the alley, making sure it was still vacant, and nodded. “All right, it looks clear. Just...act like you’re dead, Reika-san. Shamble a little.”

She glared daggers at me, but I ignored her and stepped into the alley.

Almost as soon as I did, there was a shuffle at the end of the street, and a body lurched into view, hitting the corner of the sake house. It gazed at me with flat gray eyes, and I froze, wondering if it could smell my breath and hear the pounding of my heart, sure indicators that I was not one of the raised dead. But after a long, chilling moment, the corpse turned and staggered away, and I breathed out slowly in relief.

“You are blessed by Tamafuku himself,” Reika muttered behind me. “Let’s hope that great luck of yours holds until we reach the warehouse.”

Carefully, we headed toward the docks, trying to stay out of sight but notlooklike we were trying to stay out of sight. It was almost impossible. Living corpses filled the streets, shuffling aimlessly through the mud or just standing in place, staring at nothing. They didn’t appear to notice us as we passed, however; it seemed the illusion, or the presence of the white masks hiding our faces, was working.

Through the cloying stench of blood and decay, I caught the faint, clean smell of the ocean and heard the lapping of waves against the stones. We passed through the space between two buildings, and the docks came into view, a series of long wooden walkways stretching over the water. A few smaller ships and fishing boats bobbed gently closer to shore, and a single large ship sat alone near the end of the docks.

There were a lot more raised dead here, ambling down the docks and even stumbling over the decks of the ships. But the greatest numbers swarmed around a long wooden warehouse at the far end of the docks. I could feel a darkness emanating from the building, a magic that felt like squirming maggots and buzzing flies, the unmistakable taint of blood magic.

I looked to the others, seeking their eyes behind the masks. “What now?” I asked.

Tatsumi met my gaze. “Keep going,” he murmured, his voice very low. “The warehouse is our target.”

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