Once out of the alley, Keiko expected Yui to release her hand, but to her surprise, Yui increased both her grip and her pace. She squeezed through a gap in the crowd, swerved around a woman with a stroller, shouldered a young man with headphones out of the way, and darted forward as if determined to put as much distance as possible between the alley and their flight.
“Ginza Station is a few blocks away,” she said as they passed a large building with rounded corners and a square clock tower on its roof. “The crowds are thicker there. We can’t afford to get separated.” Her gaze swept the streets ahead and – alarmingly – behind.
“Ginza Station? But that’s the wrong way. Aren’t we supposed to go to the Palace?”
“I know where I’m going, Keiko. You have to trust me.”
They crossed another intersection, Yui speeding ahead, while Keiko ricocheted behind like an out-of-control trailer. A ubiquitous stairway opened before them, and Yui plunged into it with Keiko in tow. They reached the subway’s wide, brightly lit concourse in seconds. The tiled floors, with their alternating shades of gray, were so like piano keys that Keiko half expected music to fill the air as she sped over them. Garishly windowed shops flashed by, here an electronics store, there a clothing boutique.
Yui’s frantic pace continued until she reached a large bank of vending machines at the end of a crowded walkway. After buying a pair of tickets, she rushed down yet another flight of stairs, this one feeding onto the subway platform. Gleaming white walls met them at the bottom, the floor itself as clean as a hospital’s.
Keiko had heard about Japan’s pristine subway system, but she wasn’t prepared for the reality. Awestruck, she wandered away from Yui and strolled about the station, taking in everything, including the elderly man with wispy white hair who swept the immaculate floors. Keiko wondered if he did it all day. From the looks of things, it was more than possible.
She left the man to his work and ambled down the platform, stopping when a slight breeze tickled her cheek. Instinctively, she turned and made her way back to Yui.
“What?” Yui asked. She was seated on a bench of pale wood by the stairs, her purse seemingly forgotten on the ground beside it.
“Isn’t this our train?” Keiko tossed her head at the tracks.
Yui blinked. “Train? What train? We still have another ten minutes. There. Look.” She pointed to an illuminated sign dangling from the ceiling.
“I don’t care what it says – even if I could read it.” Keiko sighed. Nobody ever listened to her. At eighteen, she was too young to be taken seriously and too old not to be. She shrugged. “Maybe we just got lucky. Maybe the sign’s wrong. I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that a train’s on its way.”
Yui shot her a skeptical look. This was a woman who thought she knew more than she did.
Keiko sighed again. She shifted her body toward the tunnel and waited for her hair to fan away from her head. “Here, see? A train pushes the air down the tunnel. You feel it before you hear it. Everybody knows that.”
“This isn’t right,” Yui muttered. “Japanese trains run on schedule. That train would have to be a full ten minutes early, and that never happens… not ever.” She stood slowly, woodenly.
“You’re sure?” An irrational feeling of dread fluttered in Keiko’s chest, some instinct both powerful and undeniably clear.
Yui nodded, her face grave. “Yes, Keiko. I’m sure.”
Keiko moved away from the rails. The strengthening draft clawed at her, hot, dry, and stronger than it should have been.
“I’ve never felt that before.” She clutched her throat.
Yui’s head snapped toward the tunnel entrance. “What? You’ve never felt what before?”
“The heat. It’s like an oven in here.”
Face paling, Yui followed Keiko’s gaze down the tracks. “Our train doesn’t come from the left. It’s a northbound train. They only approach from the right.”
“What are you talking about?” Keiko started to say, when a throaty growl boomed out of the northern passage to silence her. Air rushed ahead of it in powerful blasts, each stronger than the last – blisteringly hot and accompanied by a hellacious glow that tinted the station’s white walls with amber. “What was that?”
In a flash, Yui seized Keiko’s jacket and forced her to the ground. “Stay down! You need to stay down! I didn’t go through all the trouble of crossing the Boundary just to have you incinerated!”
Dropping to one knee, she dragged Keiko with her, her face lifting to meet the flickering glow. It churned faster now, coming down the tracks in a rush of sound and light. A wave of intense heat seared across the platform. Keiko’s mouth went dry. She stared at Yui, but the question she wanted to ask died on her lips.
Yui wasn’t paying attention to her. Instead, she stared into the light with an urgency that brought twisting knots to Keiko’s stomach.
“Fiyorok,” Yui hissed, scrambling back into a low crouch. “I was afraid of this.” The first blast of air had loosed her hair, and it now whipped behind her, shining black silk hideously streaked with reflected flame. The image of the burning courtyard flashed through Keiko’s head, the man’s hands lifting, the creatures flanking him. Mesmerized, she started to stand. She had to know whether or not she’d imagined it. This felt connected, but she had to be sure.
She tried to worm her way around Yui for a better look, only to have Yui haul her back.
“No! I told you to stay down! No arguments! When I tell you to do something, you do it. Do you understand me?” A flash of golden light filled the chamber, and Yui shielded Keiko with her body. “Look away!” She raised her arms. “Protect your eyes!”
“What?” Keiko yelled.
A loud roar filled the chamber. She heard Yui’s voice but couldn’t make out what she’d said. Yui didn’t seem to hear her either. She was about to repeat the question, when a great phalanx of fire erupted from the tunnel’s mouth.
Dazed, she looked from one end of the subway to the other, saw the horror, cursed her helplessness, her weakness. Passengers flared like torches. Paint peeled from stone, blackened, then ignited. Glass burst, metal melted.
Keiko tried to deny the reality, but acrid smoke and climbing temperature made it impossible. Her fist gripped the front of her shirt, the other lay rigid and trembling at her side. She imagined the touch of fire on skin, the sharp blistering pain, the sickening smell. Bravery failed her, reason failed her.
The firestorm consumed everything and everyone in the subway – everyone, she realized, but Yui, who knelt before her on the station’s only remaining sliver of pavement. A lone figure kneeling amidst pulsating streaks of striated energy – indigo with faint traces of gold – that somehow held back the inferno. Her arms were thrust outward, crossed right over left at the wrists, her palms facing the fires, fingers splayed as though warding off a blow.
Keiko, a voice said in her head. An awareness followed it – a presence she recognized as Yui. You need to do exactly as I say. I’ve raised a shield for protection, but I need to concentrate to maintain it. Stay down and keep out of my way. Do you understand?
“Shield?” Keiko shouted. “What shield? What are you talking about? What’s happening? And how are you talking to me like this? It’s…it’s…” She fished around for the right words and was just about to say “impossible” when a rumbling pulled her eyes to the smoking gash to her left. Fear froze her lips, and only a great effort convinced them to move. “We have to get out of here! We have to get out!”
Another growl echoed throughout the chamber, this one accompanied by an eerie staccato pounding. Keiko’s pulse beat in time with the sound, the two growing louder in her ears. Light bloomed at the tunnel’s mouth, alternating red and yellow, bringing still more heat.
Keiko glanced at the stairs. Too far. The thumping had already reached the tunnel entrance. Smoke stung her eyes, making it hard to see without blinking. A harsh scent filled her nose, and she recoiled, knowing the source.
She heard the northern passage collapse, the rhythmic pounding reaching it, growing louder. Slowly, as if invisible hands conspired against her, she looked back as the head of some terrible beast shot into the wrecked and burning station.
Glittering scales of red and gold sparkled through the smoke, vast armored plates that burned with an internal fire. A pair of huge spikes sprouted from the top of an enormous reptilian head, the long, snake-like body behind sporting a series of smaller, razor-sharp spears that began at the base of the creature’s powerful shoulders and tapered toward its whip-like tail.
“I’ve seen you before,” Keiko whispered, too enchanted to be afraid. “Back on the street, in front of the alley.” She frowned. “But where is the other one. The blue one?” She crawled forward, but an invisible force slammed down in front of her.
Are you trying to get yourself killed? Again, Yui’s voice sounded in her head. Fury burned her face.
Keiko tried to talk, but the huge creature silenced her. Its head swept the station, and when its gaze landed on Yui, its carnelian eyes blazed. “AHK-KIIIIKKKOOO!” it bellowed. Spittle dripped from its lips like liquid fire, torching whatever it hit.
Keiko recoiled, as much from the choking combination of smoke and flame as from Yui. Her heart thudded in her chest. She ran a hand through her hair.
“It knows you?” she panted. This wasn’t happening. “I don’t understand. What’s going on, Yui? Yui, what’s wrong?”
Yui’s arms had fallen to her sides, and she staggered toward the twisted rails as if stunned. The creature towered over her, swaying from side to side like a giant cobra.
“Lower your shield!” it boomed.
The indigo light around Yui flickered like a guttering candle. Keiko’s breath caught. That sphere was the only thing keeping them alive. If it went out…
Lunging forward, she grabbed Yui by the wrist and hauled her away from the platform’s edge. Yui resisted, and Keiko tugged harder. She felt like she was dragging a wheelbarrow through mud. Sweat poured over her body, but at least the shield around them held firm. Yui was stronger than she looked. Feet planted, legs cramping, Keiko leaned back and pushed against the ground. The final surge was enough. Yui flew at her, and together they fell to the platform in a jumble of arms and legs, Yui on top, Keiko wheezing beneath.
The jolt reawakened Yui’s mind. She gave Keiko a weak smile before climbing to her feet. “Thank you, Keiko.” Straightening, she threw back her shoulders and spun to face the huge shape towering above her. “You shouldn’t be here, Fiyorok! Go back to the Boundary. My father won’t attack a guardian, but I will. If necessary.”
The dragon brought its head down in a rush of orange fire. “Silly girl. You really think you can hurt me, don’t you?” A great roar rolled from its throat, a laugh perhaps. “I admire your courage, but your ignorance is beneath contempt. You have so much to learn.” Rearing onto its hind legs, Fiyorok inhaled sharply then thrust its body forward, jaws gaping. Smoke and flame issued from the creature’s mouth, the two rotating into a single stream that slammed into Yui’s shield and sent both Yui and Keiko careening into a far wall.
Up became down as they tumbled on, blood rushing in and out of Keiko’s head like sand in a whirling hourglass. She tried to fix her eyes on a slab of broken concrete to keep from getting dizzy. That turned out to be a bad idea. She couldn’t see where they were headed and was therefore unprepared for the impact. It jolted through her entire body, wrenching her gaze as they spun again, this time on an entirely different axis.
Yui righted the glowing orb before it hit anything else, and to Keiko’s chagrin, headed back to the beast.
Amusement glinted in Fiyorok’s eyes. “You are not worth the effort, little one. Go home to your father and enjoy what little time you have left.”
The scarlet climbing Yui’s neck made Keiko think of a thermometer dipped in scalding water.
“Don’t listen to it! It’s just trying to provoke you.”
The dragon’s gaze landed on her, and it laughed dismissively. “So, the Trickster’s vaunted wisdom has finally failed him. How interesting. My master will be thrilled to hear it.” Fiyorok turned its back and leaped for the tunnel. It smirked as it ran, as if daring Yui to follow.
For a moment, Yui seemed to consider it. Then, head shaking, she glared at Keiko. “What did you mean when you asked about the blue one?” Now that the monster had gone, the glowing orb around them became more pronounced.
“The other one?”
“No time for games. Did you see it? Do you know where it is?”
“They were statues – outside the alley. One was red, the other was blue. I saw them again inside. With that man, the one with the fire.” Keiko shivered. “They weren’t statues then.”
Yui said something in Japanese that sounded like a curse. Her eyes darted back to the tunnel. “It’s time to go.” She grabbed Keiko by the arm and wrapped it about her waist.
“Go? Go where? We can’t get out. The stairs are blocked.”
“We have to get to my father right away. He needs to know what’s happened.” Yui wiped her forehead with the back of her hand in a futile attempt to clean away a heavy residue of dirt and sweat. “Hold on!” She drew the energy bubble in close and launched it from the platform. “We’re going for a ride.”
Instantly, they shot upward.
Keiko’s stomach plunged to her feet. The indigo light was only a few feet from her face, but despite its sizzle, she didn’t notice any heat. She did hear the roaring wind and the rumble of exploding pavement as Yui rocketed high into the night sky.
In seconds, the whole city spread out beneath her like a sea of stars. She should have been afraid, but she was too overwhelmed by what she saw to feel anything but wonder. For the first time since her father’s disappearance, she smiled broadly and let out a delighted squeal as the ground spun away beneath her.