Ghosts and Grudges Read online

  Those eyes were magnetic—they were the kind of eyes that could hold a woman’s attention whether they sparkled with laughter or darkened with brooding anger. The kind of eyes that pulled you right in and made you feel as if he could see every inch of your soul.

  And so what if he looks like a celebrity hottie? I scolded my fluttering heart. That doesn’t mean he has the right to manhandle you.

  Depends on what kind of manhandling we’re talking about, a wicked voice in my head said. I shoved that voice back into the dark depths from whence it had come and finished my perusal.

  He stood a good six inches taller than me and was dressed in a black button-down that strained against his broad shoulders, jeans that hinted at powerful thighs, and a pair of black boots that looked like they could do some serious ass-kicking. A clunky-looking keychain hung from a lanyard attached to his belt loops, and though I was curious about that, it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of him.

  “Are you done staring yet?” the man asked, a hint of dry humor in his voice.

  I frowned at him. “What’s your name, anyway? The least you could do after almost getting me killed is tell me who the hell you are.”

  “Getting you killed?” he sputtered. “Why, you—” He stopped himself, clearing his throat. “You’re getting us off track.”

  “Didn’t realize we had an agenda.” I folded my arms across my chest and leaned my hips against the table behind me.

  “Fine. My name is Raiden Takaoka, of the Takaoka Shaman Clan.” His eyes narrowed. “We’re the only shaman clan in America, or so I thought. Which clan are you from?”

  “Shaman clan?” I echoed. “Is that some kind of joke? I’m not from any clan.”

  Raiden rolled his eyes. “Everyone of Japanese descent is from some kind of clan. What’s your name?” A suspicious glint entered his eyes. “You look familiar for some reason.”

  “Aika Fujiwara.” You look familiar too, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud. Frowning, I mulled over his words. Sure, maybe back hundreds of years ago Fujiwara had been a clan, but I didn’t know much about my family history. As far as I knew, I’d been born and raised here in America.

  My father had died when I was little, and my mother had never remarried, so she’d raised me on her own. An unexpected pang of sadness hit me as I remembered how, when I was little, my mom had always stared at the picture of the two of them she’d kept by her bed before she turned in for the night.

  She prayed for his soul every night, hoping that he had found peace in the afterlife. And I could tell from the look in her eyes whenever she talked about him that she was still deeply in love with him. She often said that if the cancer did take her, at least she would get to see him again.

  “Are you all right?” Raiden asked, as my eyes began to sting. His gaze softened with concern, ruining my preconceived notion about him being an overbearing asshole.

  “I’m fine.” Embarrassed, I tried to blink the tears back, but one slipped down my cheek. Angry, I swiped at it. “Why are you asking me about my family anyway?” And why was I getting so emotional? Was the recent incident with my mother bringing all these feelings back to the surface again?

  “Because I wanted to know if you were from a shaman clan, since it’s obvious you can see spirits,” Raiden said matter-of-factly, as if crazy talk weren’t spewing out of his mouth. He leaned against the back of a steel refrigerator, studying me with eyes so dark they were nearly black. “I’m not familiar with the Fujiwara name, but it’s possible you could be from some obscure shaman clan that died out somewhere.”

  My skin went ice-cold. “Spirits?” I echoed. “You’re trying to tell me that thing was a ghost?”

  Raiden nodded. “The Kuchisake-onna,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see her around here, but I guess she migrated over somehow. I had hoped to capture her, but you screwed it up by screaming your head off when she took off the mask.”

  I glared, about to protest, when suddenly the memory that had been niggling me earlier burst forward. I’d read about the Kuchisake-onna in a Japanese fairy tale book my mother had given me when I was ten—far too young, to be honest, because some of the tales were pretty gruesome.

  The Kuchisake-onna was a woman whose face had been slashed open by her husband after he found out that she’d cheated on him, and she’d returned as a vengeful spirit to torment him. She carried a katana, and always either wore a mask over her face or covered it with a fan or scarf. The tale went that when she came across a man, she would ask him whether or not she was pretty. If the man said yes, she would take off her mask and ask him again. If he answered no, or screamed, she’d slash him from ear to ear so that he’d resemble her. If he said yes, she’d walk away…only to follow her victim home and brutally murder him that same night.

  A win-win situation.

  “How exactly were you planning on subduing her?” I asked. “Since the Kuchisake-onna kills regardless of your answer?”

  “Ah, so you are familiar with the tale.” Raiden’s eyes glinted with something like approval. “There are ways to get around it by giving confusing answers that are either yes or no. The plan was to catch her off guard and use one of my own spirits to help subdue her. But I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.” His lips thinned. “She’ll probably kill someone else tonight.”

  Guilt swamped me at the idea that the crazy, sword-wielding woman was still out there because of something I had done. “I just don’t understand how she can be a ghost,” I protested. “Aren’t ghosts non-corporeal?”

  Raiden shrugged. “Some of them are, which is why shamans have to join with them in order to use their powers. But a ghost with a grudge is a powerful thing. Killing her own husband didn’t bring the Kuchisake-onna peace—it only corrupted her heart further, which is why she can’t pass on. It is the duty of a shaman to purify these souls so they can move on to the afterlife.”

  I pressed the heel of my hand against one of my throbbing temples. So many questions were swirling through my head, questions I could spend all night asking. But foremost in my mind was the desire to shut myself in my room, crawl under the covers, and pretend like this had never happened. I had no room in my life for ghosts. I might be a reiki practitioner, but I was pragmatic. I didn’t believe in ghosts.

  “Look, I’m sorry I screwed up your…purification ritual…or whatever it was you were trying to do,” I said. “But I don’t really have time for all this. I have to get home to my mother.”

  “Are you telling me you’ve never seen a ghost before today?” Raiden’s eyes widened.

  I shook my head. “Nope. And I don’t plan on seeing one ever again.” I pushed myself upright, then made to move past him. “Nice meeting you, Raiden.”

  Raiden slapped a hand against the opposite wall, nearly clotheslining me. “Oww!” I complained as my chest slammed into his rock-hard forearm. He had some serious muscles hiding underneath that shirt and jacket. “What is your problem?”

  “You can’t just walk away from this,” he said. “Once you gain the Sight, you have it for life, Aika. It’s not something you can wish away.”

  I scowled. “Well I’m damn well going to try,” I snapped, shoving at his arm. Unfortunately, my attempts to move it were about as effective as shoving at a brick wall. “Are you going to let me go? You can’t hold me hostage in a restaurant all night. Fifty bucks can only buy you so much time.” I slid my gaze sideways, toward the chef, who was watching us again. I knew that if things got violent he would step in—it wasn’t in his best interests to have a fight break out in his kitchen.

  Raiden sighed. “At least let me take you home,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon, and you’ve lost your bike.”

  I cursed. “I have to go back and get it,” I said, ducking under his arm. “It’s my only mode of transportation!”

  Raiden snagged my wrist, pulling me to a stop yet again. An electric current shot through the veins in my inner arm at the skin-on-skin contact, and I jerked, startled. His
eyes flashed, as if he’d felt the same thing, and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in my lungs. He was way too close.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said gruffly, to my surprise. “I’ll pay for you to replace it. It’s not safe for you to be wandering around, especially now that you can see the ghosts. They don’t like knowing that others can see them for who they really are, and if you don’t know how to defend yourself you can get killed.”

  An icy chill rippled down my spine at the dire note in his voice. As much as I didn’t want to believe Raiden, I also didn’t want to get myself killed by my closed-mindedness. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

  “Fine,” I said. “I live in the Richmond district.”

  “All right.” Raiden finally let me go. “We’ll call a cab, then.”

  We went back to the main street, and I blinked—the sun was already setting, bathing the tops of the buildings with gilded light. Just how long had he and I been arguing? Raiden flagged down a cab, then held the door open for me so I could get in first.

  Pretty gentlemanly behavior, I thought as I slid along the faux-leather seats, considering he was yelling at me before.

  “So,” he said casually as the cab eased into traffic. “You work at Shabu Shabu House?”

  I nodded—he must have recognized my uniform. “My mom and I run the restaurant together.” I didn’t see any reason to tell him that, right now, I was the only one running the place. I winced as I remembered all the paperwork I’d skipped—I would be having a very full day tomorrow.

  “I see. And you’ve never noticed anything…odd, about any of your employees?”

  I was about to shake my head when I remembered how Janet had changed from her normal appearance to a weird, monstrous, mummy thing. My stomach turned as the memory of her yellowed, sunken eyes and skeletal arms filled my head.

  “I see that you have,” Raiden observed quietly, switching to Japanese so we wouldn’t be overheard by the driver. “She’s a gaki.”

  My mouth dropped open. “How…how do you know that?” Was this guy friends with Janet? Surely I would have noticed if she was hanging around a hunk like this.

  “I’m a shaman. It’s the family business to know which yokai are hanging about town, and Janet has a file. She’s actually been working at the café since the day it opened, under different guises.”

  “Well that explains why she’s always eating,” I muttered, trying to wrap my head around it. I couldn’t deny that the hallucination I’d seen looked pretty much exactly like a gaki. Gakis were tormented spirits who were constantly hungry and thirsty, but no matter how often they ate, they could never satisfy themselves. And Janet had a constant habit of taking frequent food breaks. She always brought in a huge bag filled with snacks to tide her over on every shift.

  “So, if you know that Janet is a yokai, how come you’ve left her alone?” I asked warily. “Or do you not hunt down every yokai that you find?”

  Raiden shrugged. “She does no harm, so we leave her be,” he said. “The reason she is so attached to your café is because it once belonged to an ancestor of hers.”

  “Oh.” Sadness swept through me—what must it be like to be tied to a spot for all eternity, simply because you couldn’t bear to part with something that had belonged to a loved one? But I shook it off—I couldn’t let myself be swept into all this stuff. I needed to focus on my medical degree and keep the shop running at the same time. I hoped to start working in cancer research, and if my mom went back into remission, that might buy enough time for me to help find a real cure for her.

  A slim hope, but one I clung to daily.

  “You need to come by my family’s shrine,” Raiden said, breaking my train of thought. “I get that you don’t want to be a shaman, but since you obviously are one, you need to learn the basics of how to defend yourself.”

  I scowled. “Just because I can see ghosts doesn’t mean I’m a shaman,” I argued. “Maybe I’m just clairvoyant. Ever think about that?”

  Raiden threw back his head and laughed, flashing perfect white teeth. The sound raised the hairs on my arms, and I couldn’t figure out if I was annoyed or turned on, which really pissed me off. Why did he have to be so damn attractive?

  “Denial doesn’t suit you well,” he finally said, his gaze hard again. “You’re a walking statistic right now, Aika, and as a shaman, I can’t just stand aside and watch you get killed. You need to learn what you’re dealing with.”

  A walking statistic? I drew myself upright, indignant, and prepared to give him an earful.

  “The archaeological dig between the coast and Mount Koya has taken an unsettling turn,” a female voice on the radio said, distracting me before I could give Raiden a piece of my mind. I leaned forward to listen—my mother had been following news of the dig intently. She hadn’t been home to Japan in years, but she was still very loyal to the country, and the idea that an important piece of history might be uncovered was exciting to her. “The archaeologists found a tomb halfway up the mountain, hidden in a forest cave that has never been explored until now. Several team members went into the newly excavated tomb yesterday but did not return. Tremors have been shaking Mount Koya since then, and some of the more superstitious residents even say—”

  A loud crack rent the air outside, followed by a sizzle. I jumped in my seat as all the street lights went out, including the traffic lights. The radio hissed, turning to static, and the driver, an Arab wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt, swore.

  “Must be a power outage,” he grumbled. “I was listening to that, too!”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Raiden murmured in English, his eyes narrowing on the radio. “I wonder what those archaeologists found at Koya-san.”

  Dread settled in my gut like a lump of greasy tofu, and I swallowed back a wave of nausea.

  “Looks like this is my stop,” I said as we pulled up in front of my dingy apartment building. I opened the door. “Thanks for the ride,” I said to Raiden, looking back at him. His dark eyes met mine, and even though he’d just pissed me off, I was suddenly reluctant to walk away from him. That tug in my chest grew stronger.

  “Maybe I will come and visit the shrine,” I said hesitantly. There was a connection between us, and I wanted to know what it was. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

  Raiden’s lips curved into a smile that made my nerve cells do what I was pretty sure was the neurological equivalent of a mating dance. “I’d like that.” His voice was dark and just a little bit husky, and suddenly I was no longer quite sure what he wanted from me.

  Could it be that he felt the same pull I did?

  I opened my mouth, feeling like I should say something. But he looked past me, breaking the moment, and his face tightened with worry.

  “I’ll walk you up,” he said, scooting forward. “It’s too dark out for you to be on the street by yourself.”

  “It’s only a few feet away,” I protested as he got out of the cab, but my words were half-hearted. I’d seen some freaky stuff today, and it was nice to have someone at my back who looked like he could actually beat someone in a fight. I was a mean volleyball server, and I’d excelled in dance competitions back in high school. But put a pair of boxing gloves on me, and suddenly I was all thumbs.

  Good thing I don’t have any samurai in my family tree, I thought as I climbed the stairs. And that I’m not a man. I’d be a real disappointment.

  “Don’t be too long,” the cabbie called as Raiden slammed the door behind us. “I can’t sit here forever, you know!”

  Raiden ignored the driver as he followed me up the steps. I turned around, and stifled a gasp when I nearly smooshed my nose into his chest. “W-what are you doing?” I asked as he came to a stop. He was so close I could feel his body heat, and I was struck by the desire to lean in and wrap him around me like a fur coat.

  That doesn’t sound creepy at all.

  Cheeks flaming, I backed up against the door. “I appreciate your concern, bu
t you don’t need to come in with me.”

  “Yes, I do.” Raiden’s gaze darkened as he lifted his head. A bad feeling settled into my chest as his eyes zeroed in on the second-floor window of my apartment. “There’s a strong yoki presence in this place. And it’s coming from that room.”

  4

  “Yoki?” I echoed in disbelief. “You’re trying to tell me there’s a monster in my apartment?” Yoki was the Japanese word for the dark energy generated by monsters—known as yokai. Ki was the Japanese word for energy. Hence, yoki.

  “That’s your place?” Raiden’s eyes widened. “Is anyone home?”

  “My mother!” Fear slammed into my chest as I flung the door open. I dashed down the hall to the front door of our two-story home, Raiden on my heels, and skidded to a stop in front of my apartment door.

  “Okaa-san!” I called, fumbling with my key ring. “Mom, are you there?”

  I managed to get the key into the lock on the second try and shouldered the door open. The stench of something awful, like swamp rot, filled my lungs, and I gagged. Some kind of faint, smoky rainbow haze hung in the air, and I instantly began to feel lightheaded. I clutched at the wall as the room started swaying even though I wasn’t moving.

  “Here.” Raiden slapped a kitchen towel into my hand—one of my own, I dimly realized. “Breathe through this.”

  I did as he asked, and the sensation lessened almost immediately. A weird croaking sound echoed from upstairs, and the hair on my arms stood straight up. “What the hell is that?”

  “Stay behind me,” Raiden ordered, stepping past me. I followed him up the stairs, my heart pounding with every step. The stairway was narrow, and there was no banister up to the upper floor, so I had no idea what was waiting for us.

  Raiden reached the upper landing and immediately began to swear. That croaking sound echoed against the walls, and I dashed forward despite my better judgment. My eyes bugged out at the sight of a gigantic toad with a naginata clutched in its…hand? Paw? Webbing? I didn’t know, but it was insane. The thing stood on two legs and was dressed in a white Japanese-style coat and pants, with a tall matching hat perched on its slimy, brownish-green head.