Free The Night Itself by Zoe Marriott Page A

harder, but it made no difference. The monster’s limbs held me like steel cuffs.
    The tentacle wrapped around the sword was beginning to crumble away like dried-out clay. The creature’s head was tilted back, its eyes shut, deep growls rumbling out of its gaping maw.
    Mio!
It was a cry of agony from the sword.
Mio!
    In a burst of desperation-induced strength I arched my back. The muscles in my stomach tore as I swung my legs up and kicked out with everything I had.
    Both feet hit the cat-monster square in the chest. I bounced off backwards, wrenching the katana with me. The tail holding the sword disintegrated in a cloud of brownish ash. The monster howled as it lost its grip on the blade.
    There was a boom of thunder, so close that it seemed to go
through
my body. My bones rang together like bells. White energy exploded from the blade, ricocheting off the walls like the sparks of a Catherine wheel, blinding me. The sword’s grip was ripped from my hands. At the same time the monster let go of my wrists. I fell to one knee, shielding my face from the light with my arms.
    The beast screamed again. I forced my watering eyes open and stared in disbelief. A tentacle lay on the ground, sliced cleanly through. Dark liquid bubbled up from a wound in the monster’s side.
    Standing between me and the monster, my katana in his hands, was a man.
    He wore a black kimono. Glossy dark hair streamed down his back almost to his waist. As I stared up at his profile, an electric thrill of recognition travelled though me.
    It was the warrior from my dream.
    I grabbed one of the railings and hauled myself up. “Who – who are you?”
    He stared back at me for a wordless, timeless instant. I didn’t think it was possible, but he might have looked as shocked as I felt. He sucked in a deep, ragged breath, as if to speak – but instead whipped his head round to stare at the monster again. Powerful muscles bunched in his back as he lifted the katana. Thick, black liquid dripped down the shining blade.
    Then he spoke. He spoke with the sword’s voice.
    “My name is Shinobu.”

CHAPTER 6
IMAGINARY FRIENDS
    “Y
ou?”
The cat monster hissed at the boy fiercely, gobbets of spit spraying out between its fangs. “I ripped out your heart five hundred years ago in the red forest! You should be dead, dead, dead!”
    “Five hundred years?” the boy repeated. He sounded shaken. The point of the blade trembled in the air. “It can’t be…”
    The monster’s eyes gleamed. Its remaining limbs shot forward, sharpening into deadly black claws as they curved around the boy.
    He snapped to attention. I saw a flash of a pale, set face, as the sword scythed out in a shining, silver arc. Two more of the creature’s tentacles fell to the ground.
    “Back!” the boy shouted.
    The creature let out a high-pitched scream that made my eardrums vibrate, and scuttled away, trailing through its own black blood. “You shall not imprison me in stone again!”
    “Well, it seems I failed the first time,” the boy said grimly. “I must try harder.”
    “Vile humans!” the creature said, lips peeling back over its fangs. “You have no right to the sword! It is not for you. It belongs to my Mistress. Give it to me!”
    Mine
.
    “No!” I cried out.
    The boy’s sky eyes flickered to me and the memory of his death speared me like a knife; the blood spilling through his fingers, his pained wheeze as he fell.
I can’t watch him die again
. I shook with relief as I heard sirens echoing in the distance.
    “The police! The police are coming!” I babbled. “They have guns! You’d better run now, or they’ll shoot holes through you, you stupid cat. Can’t you hear them?”
    The monster’s face showed confusion for a second. “Guns…” it whispered, grimacing, as if the word tasted bad. It stared at the boy, its tentacles lashing indecisively. Then a look of cunning crossed its face and it drew back, its shadowy form billowing upwards into an arch, like