8. The Soul Bond #2
I did my best to keep the rage out of my voice. "What did you sacrifice?"
Her bottom lip quivered. A tear broke loose from her eye, ran down her cheek, and fell from her jaw into the dark between us. “Kenji. . .n-not now. . .”
There was so much grief and sadness in her eyes that my heart crushed within my chest. “What did you do, Tora?”
“The war is here. We have no more time.” The Death Guardian stepped close and raised a large bowl between us. "You must drink."
I did not let go of Nyomi. "Tora? Answer me."
"Let go of me and drink." Nyomi’s eyes could barely stay open now. "P-please."
Out past the trees the guns kept firing: rifles, then heavier ones, then the antiaircraft batteries answering a plane overhead.
More hooded figures came over to grab Nyomi.
I tried to move her out of their reach, but they wouldn’t let me. "Tora. Answer me—"
"Drink, Kenji." Her fingers curled into my shirt and pulled, weak, insistent. "P-please. H-hurry."
Gunfire rolled up the slope behind us.
Men roared as they fought.
More planes sounded.
The war climbed the island toward this clearing, and she was asking me to drink while she bled from a wound I could not find and cried for a sacrifice she would not name.
There is no war without her. There is no focus if she is in pain.
“Let me go, Kenji.”
“I can’t.”
“You must. T-the war. . .”
Yoichi got on my side. “We’ve got her, Kenji. Let them hold her—”
“What fucking sacrifice?!” I yelled at him. “Is she going to be okay?!”
“Yes. She will be okay.” Yoichi nodded. “She’s fine. She’s just weak from the sacrifice. That’s it—”
“What happened?”
“The war is here.” Yoichi pointed to my other side. “Finish this.”
I looked and the Death Guardian held the bowl in front of me. “You must drink. There is no other way. Do not let your Tiger’s pain be for nothing.”
Her pain. . .
My eyes watered.
With her eyes still closed, Nyomi whispered, “Hurry.”
The Death Guardian gestured to the bowl. “Once you do this, her strength comes back, and she will be fine.”
I turned to Yoichi. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “When you do the sacrifice her energy and immediate healing will occur.”
“You better not be lying to me.” I let go of Nyomi and quickly took the bowl.
They held her.
“Thank. . .you. . .” Nyomi let out a long breath and leaned her head against the chest of one of the red figures.
Please, God. Don’t let anything happen to her. She’s more than just my Tiger. She’s my Heart. My Soul. My everything.
Another plane came in low over the clearing.
We all looked up.
It was so close that the wind of it pressed the hooded figures' capes flat.
Next, an antiaircraft shell screamed up after it and burst just wide of the wing.
Missed. Damn it.
The plane zoomed across the dark, and in the half-second of moonlight I saw the size of it—one of the massive ones, broad-bellied and heavy.
That one carries men. Probably hundreds of them. There’s no more time.
I looked down at the bowl.
The Death Guardian’s voice grew shaky. “We must hurry. Already we all should be fighting right now.”
I raised the bowl to my mouth.
The cold rim touched my lips.
The liquid was warm.
Metallic like blood.
Bitter with some powder and other liquid.
Old in a way I had no word for, like swallowing something that had been waiting in the dark longer than my bloodline had carried a name.
What the fuck is this?
The liquid coated my tongue and went down thick and bitter, and my stomach clenched against it.
The Death Guardian signaled to Yoichi.
He pulled a blade out.
"Finish drinking, Kenji," the Death Guardian said.
I tipped the bowl and the last of the liquid hit my throat.
Oh, God.
Pain erupted at my temple.
Fuck!
A hooded figure took the bowl.
“And now to strengthen your Tiger.” Yoichi grabbed my hand, and before I could understand the motion, the steel opened my palm in one clean, stinging line.
“Ah!!” I looked at it.
Blood welled fast and bright across the skin. My jaw locked. The beast in me lunged toward the pain, hungry, ready to snap the wrist that had cut me.
The Death Guardian nodded. “Bring the Tiger over for the Dragon’s blood. It will strengthen her for tonight.”
I widened my eyes and raised my hand.
They carried her to me.
She sluggishly opened her eyes and could barely grip my hand.
I shivered. “Tora, how much pain are you in?”
“Enough.” Her fingers trembled around my wrist.
"Lick his blood." The Death Guardian's voice dropped soft over us. "For this moment, it will give you strength."
Nyomi lowered her mouth to the wound, and she licked the blood from my palm.
And it did.
I felt it happen against me. The shaking in her hands eased. Her spine drew up by a fraction.
She slowly blinked and some of the exhaustion washed out of her face. For one breath she was almost herself again.
Right when I was going to ask her what the sacrifice was, this unbearable pain surged within my body.
What?!
It climbed fast, and it was a fire racing up a fuse.
“Ahh!” I doubled forward.
More pain ripped at me from all sides of my body.
Oh fuck!!!
My knees hit the ground.
The figures chanted.
The Death Guardian watched me. "The Soul Bond has begun."
More pain began to rip my insides apart.
“Oh GODD!!!” I screamed and dragged my hands up in front of my face like I could stop it. That was when I saw the black lines spreading across my palms.
The pain rode the lines wherever they went.
It burned and it froze at the same time.
And on the island, the war went on without me. Planes overhead. The guns pounding at them. Gunfire boomed across the island from every side, and I heard men loudly fighting and screaming, men shouting and the crack of rifles and the wet ugly sounds underneath them.
The Death Guardian turned from me to all of them, and her voice rose over the gunfire. "You know your positions! You know the mission!"
She lifted her chin to the hooded crowd, and the moonlight ran along the lines of her face.
"This is our island. It will never fall into the hands of a man like the Fox.
It belongs to our bloodline. Our Dragon.
Our ancestors' bones are buried here in this sand.
Tonight we fight like we have never fought before.
And remember. . .the Little Tiger. We do this for her too. "
The red figures bowed their heads.
The Death Guardian screamed, “Go!!!!!”
In a blur, they rushed off into the dark, red capes streaming behind them, swallowed tree by tree, running toward the sound of the guns.
Toward the war.
And the pain continued to battle within me.
FUCK!!!
All strength left my arms, and I dropped from my knees to the dirt. My cheek hit the cold ground. My hands shook with more black lines.
“Kenji?” Nyomi’s voice rose over me. “What’s happening to him?”
I could not get up and could barely breathe around the pain.
"Take the Tiger to the Bamboo Garden," the Death Guardian called to someone.
No.
The word fought its way up through the agony.
No. She must be off the island. Get her to the boats. Get her to the water. Get her away from all of this—
"No, Kenji. We can’t do that now." The Death Guardian crouched down into my line of sight. Her eyes found mine. "Even if you hadn’t done the ritual, we would have never let the Tiger leave the island.”
Tremors of pain scraped through me.
The Death Guardian rose. “If you are both on the island together, your powers will be stronger."
She heard my thoughts. . .
“I will see you on the battlefield, Dragon.” She walked off.
Hooded figures gently lifted Nyomi and carried her away.
No! No!
I tried to call her name, and nothing came. The pain had taken my voice the way it had taken my legs.
TORA!!
I reached for her anyway.
My fingers dug into the dirt. I clawed at the ground and dragged my body a few inches after her, and a few inches was all the world would give me.
Nyomi's head turned. Her eyes found mine over a red shoulder, and then the darkness took her.