Ryohei was back in town, watching a specific police warehouse. With more than a little help from the same obake, Chul Soon was able to lure Ryohei away just long enough to slip in, grab the statue, and get out.
Seeing his brother sitting on a shelf had shocked Chul Soon. He had almost left him there, alone with his sad eyes. After running from hole to hole for another three days to make sure no one followed him, his initial surprise had turned to annoyance, and then anger. The statue drew back the missing piece from Chul Soon’s bag on the second day. His brother’s statue was whole. He could bring him back, but should he?
“I’ll at least have some help…” Chul Soon mused as he stepped back into the dank cave. “You will right your wrongs, brother, even if it kills you.”
It was easy. All he had to do was get his brother a new spirit. In the meantime, he would figure out the much larger problem of manipulating Chul Moo into helping to kill all the Matsumotos. Chul Soon let go of his hold on humanity, giving himself over to the primal instincts at his core. Yellow fangs enclosed the statue.
“Time to go see some old friends,” the black-haired wolf growled around the wood. Together, they ran through dark and secret places.
NEW YEAR’S EVE
No one chooses how they come into the world. I was certain there was nothing I could do, no choice, no control. I was so angry. Angry all the time. It was not in my nature to internalize, and so anger became hate…
The soft winter moonlight reflected off the small white hills around David Matthews as he walked along a familiar path through the Matsumoto Forest. He paused to brush a flake of snow from his blond hair, his hard blue eyes carefully observing every detail of a familiar pine. His bare feet moved quickly through the cold slush between the trees. He had recently turned fourteen, but his height and western features made him appear several years older to his Japanese friends.
David was more than a Junior High student in a foreign land. He was the inheritor of a tradition thousands of years in the making, yet he felt himself to be much the same as when he had arrived in Japan just months before. Of course, the excess childhood fat that had defined so much of his previous life had melted away in face of the tough Matsumoto training. Even without them, the life of a normal student would have eventually gotten him into better shape. Maybe. David smiled as his path curved around a thick tree. Most of his classmates were not under threat of constant sword duels, as he was whenever he stepped outside his room. One four-walled room and school, the only places he could truly relax, not that school was very relaxing. He also had to admit that his other half would probably scare the pants off just about anyone at Nakano Junior High, that is if he did not cute them to death first.
Kou, the tiger god within him had also grown in the last two months. Since helping to wipe out the ōkami lair in downtown Nakano, Kou had grown to nearly six feet long from tail to snout. He had refined an air of fierceness that allowed him to convert his usual kitten-like personality and big eyes into something far more dangerous.
The kami was as much a part of David as his own thoughts, as much as any part of his body. Transforming, David left a thick winter kimono behind and let Kou paw through the soft new snow. One of the benefits of having a kami within him was that as long as they had paws and fur, they could stay quite comfortable in the falling snow.
Above, an unintended squawk alerted them to a small gray bird hurtling from among the white tipped tree branches. Kou sat back and looked up, his tongue slid out with an unconscious movement he had picked up from David. His black tongue licked his furry lips as the little missile dived un-steadily at him. The baby phoenix spread its small wings in an attempt to airbrake. Veering off, the unstable bird flopped into a pile of snow in front of Kou.
“Still having trouble landing?” the tiger asked aloud in his purring Japanese. “What if you break your wing again? Injured animals do not stay off predators’ menus for long.” David chided Kou as the tiger’s mind conjured visions of the little gray-feathered bird becoming their next meal. Around them, the snow melted from the heat Reimi radiated.
“I don’t get to fly as much as you run. And Takumi isn’t around to help me,” the phoenix said, her voice high and lilting.
“Speaking of Takumi, he asks that you try to stop running into trees. He keeps coming back sore.” David’s blue twinkled in Kou’s eyes as the tiger’s mouth and throat formed his own voice. Ever since that day at the Matsumoto Shrine, David had gained the ability to speak and understand Japanese perfectly. It was a necessity—while most Japanese studied some English, few spoke it fluently.
“He never lets me change,” she pouted. “You two are lucky. You can speak with each other, while I am cut off from Takumi. Anyway, Happy Birthday. Natsu and Rie should be on their way.”
“Everyone will be on their way,” Kou said. “The New Year’s Shrine ceremony will start soon.”
“And my birthday was two weeks ago,” David added.
“Reimi!” Natsuki’s voice floated along the path behind them.
“Oops. Looks like I’m in trouble. She doesn’t like it when I fly off. I’m harder to follow than you are,” she said sulkily.
The little phoenix sprang out of the puddle and pumped her wings. She flew just high enough to clear Kou’s head and land between his shoulders. Reimi wobbled precariously as she tucked her wings in. Kou grudgingly allowed her to wait there for the girls. Although he was not cold, he could easily feel the warmth that spread out from where Reimi sat on his back. The phoenix exuded a heat that changed with her mood. Happy as she was, Reimi would have burned a lesser being than a tiger god.
The two kami were far from being completely comfortable with each other, but David insisted Kou try to be nice—despite the tiger’s instincts to go for a taste of the little bird.
‘Remember the last bird you ate? You still had feathers stuck in your teeth when you transformed,’ David thought. Kou replied by reliving the memory of the hunt, which made keeping Kou from slinking off for a snack even more difficult.
Natsuki and Rie appeared from behind a stand of trees, the pair huddled together against the cold. Natsuki was the tallest girl in their class, yet was still shorter than David. Her newly-cut short black hair hung around her ears, glowing with moonlight reflected off bits of snow. Her features were so much softer than the hard angry lines David had remembered when they first met, but that only served to hide the strength of her will. Rie had kept her long black hair and it shone faintly in the moonlight. More willowy than ever, she still radiated a kind of graceful power, albeit tinged with an occasional shadow.
“I can’t believe you two aren’t cold. It’s freezing out here,” Natsuki frowned, pulling her coat tighter as they approached the adolescent tiger and gray bird. “Your sister says ‘Happy New Years’ by the way. Just got her email.”
“I feel like my contacts are freezing,” Rie said, stamping her feet. David cringed at the reminder of his failure. Though Rie never seemed to blame him, David still felt responsible for her abduction by the Jeong brothers. Chul Soon, and perhaps even Chul Moo, were still out there somewhere. His only condolence was the certainty he would see them again.
Reimi took the opportunity to jump onto Kou’s head, interrupting his thoughts as she opened her wings to fly the last few meters to Natsuki. Kou snapped at her tail feathers as they flew by, just out of reach of his fangs. His tail twitched in
