A Mortal Song by Megan Crewe Page B

Chiyo’s so powerful because she’s kami, how did those ghosts manage to defeat all the kami who were already on the mountain?”
    I stiffened. “They had a demon leading them,” I said. “Takeo thinks it was lending them power. And there were many more of them than there were of us.”
    The truth was, though, I didn’t know exactly how the ghosts had overwhelmed the palace. The mountain had been our safe haven for uncountable centuries. The demon couldn’t have more energy than all the kami put together. If it had only been a matter of numbers, the kami would have gotten the upper hand as soon as the ghosts exhausted their weaker ki. There had to be something more.
    “And Chiyo’s the most powerful of any of us,” I finished. “And she’ll have the sacred treasures.”
    Keiji leaned forward, and the glow of the lamp over the doorway reflected off his glasses. “So it’s really all on her,” he said. His smile fell. “Just how messed up is the world going to get if she can’t get rid of them?”
    “She can,” I said, wishing I completely believed it myself. A vision is not a guarantee . “But while we’re preparing... The rhythms of the natural world have already been disrupted. So many of the kami who helped keep it in order are trapped. It’s too much for those who are left. The weather, the tides, the earth, the volcano in Mt. Fuji... but we’ll free the mountain before the situation worsens too far.” I hope .
    “Why did this demon and a bunch of ghosts come after the kami anyway?” Keiji said. “I don’t remember ever reading about ghosts getting together to fight kami. I’ll check my books just in case, but it can’t be that common, anyway.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “They never bothered us before.” The information Chiyo and I had found about possible Omoris hadn’t offered any clue to that either. It still didn’t make sense to me.
    “None of you had, like, pissed off some ghosts recently or something? There has to be a reason, right?”
    “I don’t know ,” I said, my frustration slipping out before I could catch it.
    “Sorry,” Keiji said, his voice softening. “I’m just trying to understand. From the stories that have been recorded, however much truth is in them, it sounds like ghosts are pretty big on revenge. And demons—take the meanest person you can imagine doing the most horrible selfish things, and that’s who’ll turn into one. The more you can tell me, the more I might be able to figure out what’s going on. How to stop them.”
    “So... a person can turn into a demon?” I said. I had a vague sense that I had heard the idea in a tale somewhere, but we hadn’t talked about demons much on the mountain. At least, no one had with me. I’d thought of them as beings like kami or ogres, who simply came into existence as they were from the start.
    “I don’t know how common that is,” Keiji admitted. “And maybe those myths aren’t true at all. But there’s more than one story where something happens around a person’s death that makes them so incredibly angry or vengeful they become consumed by the emotion and it transforms them. Did it seem like this demon was created that way?”
    “Maybe,” I said. Kenta Omori. “We don’t know a lot about it.”
    “Well, I can try to find out more about different types of demons too. I think I’d better leave the physical combat to your friend with the sword. I’m surprised he left the mountain—he seems like the type who’d want to stay and fight.”
    “He did want to,” I said. “So did I. But someone had to come for Chiyo.”
    Keiji cocked his head, and a moment of silence stretched between us. I should be going back in to help with Chiyo’s training right now, but the intentness of his gaze behind the shine of his glasses held me in place. My fingers tensed around the flute.
    “Both of you had to come?” he said casually.
    “It’d be risky to send only one,” I said. “What if something