Eight Million Gods-eARC by Wen Spencer Page B

raven-winged eyebrows and eyes so dark that they were nearly black. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail that was twisted up into a topknot. He was dressed in a somber blue kimono, black tabi socks and geta sandals.
    “Wh-wh-what?” She glanced around, trying to fit him into the destruction around her. What was a teenage boy doing here in the middle of the night, dressed as a samurai?
    “I didn’t know that he set fire to my shrine.”
    “I-I-I’m sorry. Your family owns this shrine?”
    “For eighty generations, yes, they have served me. I do not know what will happen to it now. There are no sons to inherit it; Misa was to marry a boy from Nara. Ichiro would have adopted him as a son and passed the shrine to him.”
    Nikki frowned, trying to understand who this boy was and if she had somehow greatly wronged him. Currently everything was refusing logic and order and she was floundering lost. “She’s dead?” Nikki was no longer sure who “she” was though. Yuuka? Misa? Were they same girl?
    “Yes,” the boy said bitterly. “He killed her and raped her and hid her body in the dead leaves.”
    Nikki closed her eyes against the vivid memory of George’s fear and anger suddenly turning to lust and need. Oh god, what have I done?
    The rain turned to a heavy downpour, and she stood there, uncaring, weeping.
    “Come.” The boy took her by the arm. “The storehouse wasn’t touched by the fire.”
    He led her into the darkness.

    In the back corner of the shrine area there was an old Edo-period storehouse with stark white walls. Unlike the storage shed, it had a massive padlock that looked centuries old. Apparently, though, it was not truly locked, as the boy tugged the padlock off without producing a key.
    “I’m Taira no Atsumori,” he said. “You may call me Atsumori-kami. My name is written with the kanji for honest and then the kanji for prosperity.”
    The double doors creaked open and he walked into the cavelike darkness.
    “I have a light.” Nikki turned on her flashlight. The walls seemed a foot thick, and the only window set above the door was tightly shuttered. How could Atsumori see anything? She could hear him, though, opening up wooden drawers somewhere in the back.
    “There is a lantern here,” Atsumori said. There was a flare of light, brilliant against the black, and when she could see again, he had a small old stone dish, filled with oil, with a burning wick draped over the edge.
    “Yeah, that looks safe.” She edged into the building. The light danced off tall tansu with metal-reinforced drawers and high rafters strung with paper festival lanterns. There was no sign of electric outlets or overhead lights.
    “I can protect you here.” The boy rooted through the drawers of the cabinets. “Once we leave the shrine, though, I will be dependent on you.”
    “What?” She felt like she had come in at the end of a conversation.
    He handed her a fine linen towel. “You can dry yourself with this.”
    Nikki buried her face in the towel. It smelled of pine and cedar, like it had been stored with potpourri. “I’m Nikki Delany. I’m so sorry about everything that happened.” She felt tears welling up again as she thought of all the madness she had accidently spilled out onto this serene place. “I—I don’t know how this all happened. I don’t even know how I got here.”
    “I brought you here.”
    Nikki laughed into the towel. “No, no, I mean—I don’t remember how I got to this shrine.”
    “I brought you,” the boy said with quiet intensity. “I killed the tanuki that attacked you in your home and brought you here.”
    Nikki lowered the towel to stare at the boy. He was sitting on the floor in the pool of light cast by the oil lantern. He watched her with calm detachment. He couldn’t have said what he just said—one of them must be misunderstanding the situation. She played the conversation back. And ran through it a second time when it came to the same illogical