Read a Sample: Caught

Gathering

Shimabara, Southern Japan, 22nd May 1792

The screams of the dying summoned Tenzen from his garden. He stepped through the veil into the human realm… straight into a puddle of cold, dirty water. More mud than water, he realised, yanking his boots free. The ground was a mix of sodden earth, splintered wood, sharp-edged shingles, and unidentifiable debris. Not a tree, not a house had remained standing. The city of Shimabara was gone, obliterated twice over.

Tenzen could read the signs. The mountain that had guarded Shimabara’s back and had provided its bounty as long as people had lived here, now gaped like a hungry maw. Its flank had spilled out in a devastating rush of rock and rubble, burying half the town. Reaching the harbour, the slide had rolled on into the sea, creating a giant wave that wreaked havoc on the other side of the bay before returning to seal Shimabara’s fate.

The dead numbered in the tens of thousands, and their screams had reached right into Tenzen’s garden.

He turned his head from side to side, taking in the devastation. Salt spray stung his cheeks and the wind coming off the ocean tore his long hair out of its clasp. He gathered it with impatient fingers, twisting it into a tight braid.

Tenzen rarely needed to visit the human realm. Most souls recognised the time of their passing and came to him of their own accord. Here, though, death had taken thousands by surprise. Many had survived the landslide, only to fall to the giant waves a few hours later. Souls clustered above the destroyed town like blobs of dark smoke, confused and uncertain.

And already the predators circled high above.

Krull and hyeshi—minor demons who feasted on fresh souls. Souruita—who sought the souls of children to ensure their own youth and longevity. And the worst of all, rafeet, demons who thrived on fear and pain, who captured souls to torture them.

Shimabara drew them as a banquet would draw starving humans. And it was Tenzen’s task to stop them.

His swords appeared in his hands, blades gleaming with purple fire. It proclaimed his status to everyone who saw him, souls and soul-eating demons alike.

There was no ideal place for this fight, no large space free of debris where he could move unimpeded. Tenzen’s boots slipped on the treacherous footing made by loose soil and inches of water as he sought level ground.

He found it at the point where the landslide had reached the sea. There’d been no houses here, and the wall of rock and rubble had protected a small area from the worst of the wave. A few puddles dotted the ground, but Tenzen could move without tripping over roof beams or cooking pots or tangling his feet in netting or cloth.

He claimed his space and opened his mind, blades ready.

Souls rushed to him as their saviour, but so did the predators, sensing easy pickings. They swooped down, alone or in pairs, intent on snatching souls from the air, only to meet their end on his blades. It was messy, bloody work, but Tenzen soon found his stride, hacking and slashing, fighting for every soul that came to him.

It was not a task he’d chosen for himself, but even if he had, he would not have walked away from Shimabara.

For hours he gathered souls, while humans died around him. They breathed their last trapped under tons of rubble, perished from wounds and broken bones. Some succumbed to grief the moment they realised they’d lost everyone they’d had. Tenzen blocked their screams and sobs from his mind. He pictured his garden and focussed on his task with detachment and a steely determination that had served him before.

When darkness fell, fires bloomed on the rubble-strewn field that had once been a city. Survivors clustered around each one, unaware of the battle raging beside them, sharing what little food they’d scavenged from the devastation.

Instinct had sent them to the upper part of the city, close to the mountain that had laid waste to their town. It left Tenzen standing near the harbour, surrounded by the corpses of Otherworldly predators, and laden with souls to take back to his garden—not that any of the humans knew it. In the human realm, only the dead and the Yuvine could see him. And there were no Yuvine in Shimabara.

Tenzen shoved beheaded demons out of his way, cutting open their chests to destroy their hearts. Sweat, mud, and blood soaked him to the skin. Exhaustion numbed his limbs. Had he truly expected the Yuvine hunters to show? Or was his mind, weighed down with too many gathered souls, indulging in wishful thinking?

“Yamakage Jumon would have been here,” he muttered to himself. It was true. The first Yuvine had never forgotten what it was like to be human. He’d worked for his gifts and didn’t take them for granted. Not like his descendants who—

Quiet weeping met his ear. He scanned the area to his left and then his right and saw nothing but corpses and ruined houses. When he turned, however, he found a young woman, not much older than a girl, sitting amidst the wreckage. She curled over the lifeless body of a baby still in its crib, half buried under rubble. Beside her lay a young man, dead from a crushed skull. Their souls hovered close to the young woman, who was ashen under the layer of sticky mud.

Her soul scrabbled to free itself and Tenzen narrowed his eyes, intent to see past the wet, dirty dress that nearly hid her from view.

A blow to her middle had torn her spleen and liver. She was in pain, her abdomen filling with blood, and she already lacked the breath to cry out. Left as she was, she’d be dead by morning.

Tenzen stepped closer. She raised her eyes to his as if she sensed his presence, and Tenzen chose that moment to end her life so her soul could join those of her man and child.

Alerted now to the difficulty of spotting survivors, he walked the length of the harbour with his senses spread wide. But even after a second circuit, he found no more souls.

He bowed his head in respect and then parted the veil and returned to the Otherworld.

He stepped from deepest night into mid-morning, the early autumn mist all but burned off by the sun. Scents drifted on the breeze, a mix of damp soil, ripe apples, and a few late blooms.

Exhausted from the night’s work and with his mind on his garden, Tenzen walked blindly through a curtain of shimmering grey tendrils. They clung to his hair and clothes and—with each step he took—they gathered closer, grew into strong ropes, and drew ever tighter… until they stopped Tenzen’s progress and held him trapped.

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