Dark Tempest (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 2)

  Fighting to stay calm, she stepped backward, retracing her steps to the spot where she’d first realized Shiro was gone. She would wait there until he found her. She bit hard on her lip. He would free himself from that giant web, wouldn’t he? He could summon his swords and cut himself free before the web spinner arrived to see what it had ensnared.

  She was trying hard not to think about what had spun that web. No one who goes into the valley comes out again.

  Focused on keeping her panic contained, she retreated another step. Her back hit something strange—something that resisted her movement but wasn’t wholly solid. Her stomach plummeted in terror and she flung herself away.

  She moved about six inches before being yanked back into place. With her heart in her throat, she looked up. Sticky gold threads crisscrossed behind her, stretching to the nearest trees. She’d backed into another web. But how? She’d just walked safely through this exact spot!

  Dropping her bow, she lunged forward again only to be pulled back by the elastic web. Barely containing a scream, she thrashed as the utter, consuming terror of being trapped, of being helpless prey for a monster, emptied her head. Her flailing arm hit the web and stuck for a petrifying instant before she tore it free again.

  Think. She had to think. Forcing herself to stop, she sucked in rapid breaths and examined the web. She remembered the sound of Shiro’s clothes ripping. Yes, of course. Her clothes were stuck to the web, not her skin, and with her arms free, she could shed the clothing binding her in place.

  Careful to keep her arms away from the web, she slipped the straps of her bag off her shoulders. Her torso came free, leaving the backpack stuck in place. Only the lower half of her body was trapped now. She bent toward the ground, the bottom hem of her coat and the back of her hakama still glued to the web, and scrabbled at the snow until her hands found a tree root. Using it as leverage, she pulled with all her strength. The web bowed.

  With the snap of breaking threads, she came free all at once.

  She collapsed into the snow. Gasping, she rolled to her feet and turned back to the web. Her bag hung from it, empty straps dangling. Taking hold of the straps, she braced herself and heaved. The web curved toward her but didn’t release its victim. The bag was fused in place.

  She swiftly inspected it. Her quiver of arrows stuck out through the open zipper on top of the bag, the dark fletching contrasting with the endless white fog. Maybe she could cut the threads with an arrowhead. She slid the quiver free, plucked an arrow out, and swung the quiver over her shoulder. As she reached for her bag again, it wobbled on the web.

  Her fingers froze in place, hovering a few inches from the strap. The bag gave another little shiver, moving all by itself. No, it wasn’t the bag that was moving. It was the web.

  Scrambling back a step, she looked up.

  In the mist ten feet above her head, a dark shape floated in midair. Then two long, thin legs uncurled from the body, reaching downward like searching fingers. With the instinct of a small, hunted animal, she slowly crouched down, never taking her eyes off the dark shape, and picked up her bow from the snow. Then she crept away from the web.

  The enormous spider picked its way down the shivering strands. Its front four legs were freakishly long, twice the length of its body, while the back four legs were shorter. The flat center of its body was a dull gold, with faint black stripes marking its elongated abdomen. Its legs, smooth on top with stiff bristles on the underside, were banded in matching colors. From front legs to back, it was at least three feet long.

  Her heart raced in a frenzy, choking her. She continued slowly backing away, her bow extended behind her so she wouldn’t walk into another web. The spider climbed down, motions paced and precise, until it reached her bag. One long front leg reached down and tapped the fabric.

  So fast she would have missed it if she’d blinked, the spider pounced on her bag. Bulbous protrusions on its face extended and it sank a pair of giant, glistening fangs into the front of the bag. Wet strings of venom dripped from its mouth as it dug the curved barbs into its prey.

  She didn’t realize she’d audibly gasped until the spider stilled. Its head came up and six black eyes stared—a cluster of four in the center and two larger ones on either side of its head. A pair of tiny, arm-like appendages on either side of its face wiggled busily, sliding over the fangs as though preparing them for another bite.

  Retreating another step, she slowly placed the arrow in her hand against the bow. Cautiously, she lifted the bow and took aim. The spider’s mouth twitched hungrily and it stretched out its long front legs, as though reaching for her across the space between them. She drew the string back to her cheek.

  A heavy weight slammed down on top of her head.

  The arrow shot into the fog as long legs curled over her. A bloodcurdling scream ripped through her throat as she ducked and thrashed, trying to throw the spider off her. She caught it with the edge of the bow and tore it off her back, flinging it to the ground. It reared up, taller than she was, its front legs waving and fangs extended. Faster than she ever had in her life, she snatched another arrow, nocked it, and fired.

  At the last second, the spider dropped down and the arrow struck its bulbous abdomen instead of its head. It shuddered in soundless pain but didn’t even step back. Through her panic, she realized she’d forgotten to add her ki to the arrow. With a final quiver, the spider flexed its fangs and lunged at her.

  She screamed again, thrusting her bow out in front of her. The spider hit it and bounced off, legs waving in the air. She grabbed another arrow and nocked it.

  “Shukusei no tama!” she cried and fired the arrow.

  It whooshed through the air, glowing white, and hit the spider in its underbelly. Light flashed brightly and the creature slumped in the snow, legs limp.

  She spun toward the web where her bag still hung, dripping venom, but the first spider was nowhere in sight. She grabbed another arrow and laid it against the bow, ready to draw it at the first sign of movement. As she panted, her hands trembling, the bag wobbled on the web once again. Her gaze snapped up.

  A dark, hazy shape hovered among the branches above her. Then she saw the second one. Then the third. Her knees weakened as she counted five giant spiders clinging to invisible webs twenty feet above her head. Almost simultaneously, they extended their legs and began to move.

  Her courage broke. Whirling around, she bolted through the trees. Thuds sounded behind her and she glanced back to see the spiders dropping to the ground and scuttling after her, their legs a blur. Screaming in her head but too terrified to make a sound, she ran blindly through the mist, dodging trees as they appeared out of the endless white.

  A cluster of trees loomed ahead of her. In the wide gap between two, a golden web spanned the branches. Skidding to a stop in the snow, she faced the web. A human-sized hole had been torn in it, the ragged edges black as though charred by fire.

  “Shiro?” she shouted. “Shiro!”

  Silence was her only answer. She whirled around, looking back the way she’d come, bow and arrow at the ready, but she couldn’t see anything through the mist. Were the spiders following her? She looked up.

  A spider dropped out of the fog. She jolted backward and it landed in front of her, raising its front limbs threateningly. Backpedaling, she snapped her bow up. The spider dropped onto all eight legs and retreated swiftly. She took aim.

  Another spider lunged out of the mist from her left. The moment she spun toward it, the first one lurched toward her from the other side. Whirling around, she retreated on trembling legs. A third spider dropped into the snow directly ahead of her. She jerked her bow toward it but didn’t fire. The threat of the arrow was the only thing keeping them away from her, and if she shot one of them, the other two would attack before she could draw another arrow.

  Panting, she continued to retreat. A fourth one picked its way casually down a tree trunk, legs moving in eerie, graceful waves. Its black eyes watched her.

/>   “Shiro!” she screamed desperately. How far could he be?

  The spiders inched closer as she swung her bow between them like a pendulum. A fifth one descended from the branches above, hanging upside down by a golden thread. Struggling to breathe, she retreated step by step as the spiders advanced on her. Should she fire? Should she run again? She was pretty sure they were faster than her. The fifth spider lowered to the ground, the thread trailing behind it, and joined its fellows.

  Spread in a half circle, the spiders pressed closer, shrinking the gap. Emi pulled the bowstring back to her cheek, summoning her ki as she prepared to speak the incantation.

  The five spiders lunged at her.

  She hurled herself away as she fired at the nearest one, too startled to utter the purification incantation. Her back hit something soft behind her at the same time her arrow struck the spider in the center of its cluster of eyes. It dropped to the ground, legs shuddering violently before it went still.

  Emi wrenched forward but her body didn’t move. Golden threads glimmered in her peripheral vision but she couldn’t even turn her head to see them. Her hair was glued to the web. Her back, upper arms, and legs were all stuck. She had jumped backward right into it.

  As the spiders casually drifted closer, ignoring their dead comrade, she realized they’d deliberately herded her into the web like a sheep into a pen. Pain lanced her muscles as she fought to free herself, even one arm. If she could get one arm out, she could try getting out of her clothes.

  The spiders scuttled closer. The largest one reached the far side of the web and climbed onto it, picking its way toward her. Its mouth-like appendages wiggled as its long fangs uncurled, glistening wetly. It approached with slow caution, filling her vision with its dull gold body and beady cluster of lidless eyes. One leg stretched out, the clawed tip reaching for her as it extended its fangs.

  She screamed, writhing madly in the web.

  From out of the fog, bright light flashed. A white shape hurtled out of the mist and into the cluster of spiders. Blue and white flames rippled off the fox’s fur as his three tails lashed behind him. With red eyes and face markings glowing fiercely, he grabbed the spider’s leg in his jaws before it could touch Emi and wrenched it off the web.

  All four spiders swarmed toward the kitsune. Impossibly agile, he vaulted away and spun around, grabbing another one by the leg. Fire erupted from his jaws and he tore the leg clean off. He dashed and whirled among the flailing, lunging spiders, his wolf-sized form far better suited to fighting the spiders than his two-legged human form. Kitsunebi sparked to life around him, the fiery orbs spiraling through the air. They bombarded the spiders as Shiro danced among the creatures, so fast he was a streak of fire and fur. Flames trailed behind him as he caught them one after another, ripping off limbs as his kitsunebi barraged them.

  When he at last stopped moving, only maimed, burning bodies were left, their dismembered legs scattered around in the snow.

  Shiro whirled toward her as fire burst over him. His human form appeared. As he sprang toward her, his kitsunebi streaked ahead of him and ripped through the web all around her. She sagged, her bow slipping from her quivering hand as he grabbed her.

  “Emi!” He pulled her up and set her on her feet. His hands clamped around the sides of her head and he lifted her face, his gaze sweeping frantically across her features. “Are you hurt? Were you bitten?”

  “I—”

  He released her face and swept his hands over her shoulders and down her sides, scouring her body for injuries. He spun her and checked her back, then turned her around again to face him.

  “Shiro, I’m fine.” Still winded, she dizzily gripped his wrists so he couldn’t spin her again. “They didn’t bite me.”

  His eyes swept her face again, the markings on his cheeks glowing faintly, and he finally nodded.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, stooping to grab her bow.

  “What’s happening? What are those—”

  “Tsuchigumo,” he growled, holding her bow out to her. “Spider yokai of the spirit realm. We walked right into a damn nest, and we need to get out of this forest before—”

  He whirled around, hands flying up. A gargantuan shadow dropped out of the fog and slammed into him. He fell back into Emi, driving her into the ground and landing on top of her. The back of her head struck a root beneath the snow, jarring her skull like a hammer strike.

  In the instant where pain and shock caused time to slow to a crawl, she saw everything.

  Shiro was on top of her, crushing the air from her lungs, his back to her and his arms extended in front of him. On top of him was a nightmarish monster. The spider was four or five times the size of the ones that had attacked Emi. The markings on its massive body were bright, vibrant yellow, with a blood-red band across its bulging abdomen. Its endless legs writhed around them, scraping at the snow as it pressed down.

  In his hands, Shiro held her bow. He’d pushed the thin band of wood into the colossal spider’s mouth and his arms trembled as he strained to hold the spider back, its deadly fangs hovering only a foot from his unprotected flesh.

  She saw all this in a single instant. Then with a loud crack, the bow splintered in two.

  Fire exploded out from Shiro as the spider’s fangs plunged toward him. The spider reared back with a loud, furious hiss, and Shiro’s weight vanished off her. For a moment, Emi couldn’t make sense of his sudden movement.

  Then the giant spider retreated, dragging Shiro with it—dragging him by the fangs buried deep in his shoulder.

  Chapter 11

  Terror immobilized Emi. She couldn’t look away from Shiro, from the fangs piercing his body.

  On his knees in the monster’s grasp, he grabbed the spider’s face with one hand. Fire sparked in his other, and as his sword appeared in his grip, he thrust it upward. Flames erupted over the blade as he rammed it deep into the spider’s underbelly. The monster dropped him, recoiling with a hiss so loud it was almost a scream. Pale fluid gushed from its body as it retreated from him with flailing legs and loud hisses.

  Then Shiro’s sword fell from his hand and he slumped to the ground.

  Emi’s paralysis broke. She surged to her feet and flew to his side. Grabbing his arm, she tried to drag him up. He sagged sideways into her.

  “Shiro!” she gasped, her voice cracking.

  His weight was too much for her and he slid to the ground, half on his side. Blood trickled from the two large puncture wounds that went straight through his shoulder from front to back, but the clear, shining fluid that coated the wounds scared her the most.

  “Emi,” he said hoarsely. His eyes, already glazed and losing focus, rose to hers. “Run.”

  “W-what?”

  “Run. Before she comes back.”

  “She? The spider?” she stuttered, looking up. The monstrous arachnid huddled a few dozen yards away, scarcely visible in the fog. “Then get up so we can run.”

  His hand closed on her sleeve. “You have to run.”

  “Not without you. Get up, Shiro.”

  “Emi …” His eyes lost focus entirely and his eyelids drooped.

  As she sucked in a panicked gasp, she realized how slow his breathing was. “Get up, Shiro!”

  His hand slipped from her arm and thumped limply to the ground. He stared sightlessly, his chest rising and falling with sluggish breaths, each slower than the last. His sword suddenly dissolved in a surge of flames.

  “Shiro!” She shook his shoulder violently, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Shiro, get up! I can’t run away without you!”

  She grabbed his face, turning it toward her. His hooded, glazed eyes didn’t see her. Beneath her palms, his skin was cool, almost cold. Her heart compressed, squeezed beneath the weight of agony. No. No, this couldn’t be happening.

  Amaterasu! Help me!

  Her internal cry echoed within her, but the kamigakari mark was silent, yet to recover after her battle with the kami. She was alone. No
one was going to save her or Shiro.

  A loud hiss broke into her frenzied thoughts. Her head snapped up as the colossal spider sidled closer, dripping white blood into the snow. It was coming back for them—for Shiro. Her hands clenched around his face. She wouldn’t let that monster have him.

  Burning fury like she’d never felt before boiled up inside her, fueled by anguish. She pushed to her feet, stepping between Shiro and the spider. She wouldn’t let the yokai have him. She wouldn’t let him die. Not yet. Not before she could remove the onenju and give his memories—his life—back to him. He couldn’t die before he got his life back.

  The rage churned violently inside her as she looked up to meet the spider’s black stare. She slipped her hands into her sleeves and withdrew her ofuda.

  “You can’t have him,” she said, her voice husky as determination built inside her.

  A breeze, the first one she’d felt since entering the forest, whispered over her, teasing her hair and cooling the tears on her cheeks.

  The spider reared up, towering over her with its legs outstretched and fangs bared. She gripped her ofuda tightly as the breeze swirled around her, sending the mist into wild eddies across the ground.

  The spider charged.

  She threw herself forward, diving beneath the lethal fangs. Jumping up beneath it, she slapped an ofuda against its underbelly. “Sotei no—”

  The spider lurched off her and a thick leg whipped out, striking her in the chest. Agony speared her ribs as she flew through the air.

  The breeze surged, whirling around her in a sudden gust. Somehow, impossibly, the wind swept beneath her, halting her fall and pushing her upright. She landed neatly on her feet. Panting, she looked around in confusion. What had just happened? The wind had caught her, just as it had when Amaterasu had used Emi’s body to fight Izanami. But Emi’s kamigakari mark was cold and devoid of magic. She couldn’t feel any of Amaterasu’s power inside her or around her.