Slim: Book 6

Do Not Use the Elevator in Case of Fire

"Best if I keep my hands free," said Takigawa. "Yasu, stay by me."

"Oh, love, you're so cute when you're worried about me."

"Jeeze, if you're going to be a creep about it..."

Ayako laughed at the two boys, but it came out brittle and strained.

The passing lights in the corridor aggravated my headache, so I closed my itching eyes and settled with curling my hands into Lin's shirt. His thudding feet reached all the way to the center of my brain and my joints. Naru's occasional honking cough made my chest constrict more than my own coughs did. I remembered how sick he had been after the ambulance had crashed and cringed. Hot, painful tears percolated beneath my eyelids.

We had just reached the elevator when a loud crash came from behind us.

"There goes the window," said Yasu. "Your landlord's going to be pissed, boss."

"Stairs," cough Naru. "We can't risk it shorting out the-"

Bing. The doors opened. Lin moved.

"Just get in," growled Ayako. "We're not running down stairs in your state."

I could hear the closing in of space and knew we had entered the elevator. Mad clicking announced someone had started hammering a button.

The hallway had grown eerily silent.

"Close door, dammit," growled Monk.

"Why are the lights going out?" squeaked Yasu.

Takigawa started chanting. The elevator gave a bing, this one sounding a bit more stretched than the first, and the doors whispered shut. The box gave a little shudder.

"Please don't tell me it's in here with us," said Ayako.

"Mai?" asked Naru.

Lin shook me, but he didn't need to. On hearing Ayako I had feverishly leaned or adjusted in that...way that felt so near to me as I was now. Changing your perspective, turning your head to view from a different angle without ever moving your head.

I opened my eyes, squinted against the flickering elevator lights, and looked around. The tears I had kept trapped rolled out like molasses. Everything seemed to shiver oddly, and I couldn't focus on anyone very well. The afterimage of a fox fire-of something burning-hazed or flickered in the corner next to the door. It throbbed with steady life in and out of my view.

"A spirit," I said, pointing towards the door, or more like flopping one hand out from Lin's shirt. My hand hit Yasu's shoulder. The elevator was a tight fit for us all. "Fire. But the eating thing isn't here."

"That must be your father," said Naru. "Maybe even stopped the thing from entering, for all we know. Or he's going to burn us all to death trying to burn the other."

"How is she seeing all this stuff so easily?" asked Ayako. "That was always Masako's strength. Mai only saw spirits on occasion."

"Maybe it's her fever?" suggested Yasu.

I closed my eyes and let myself slide back mentally. The world stopped shivering, and when I opened my eyes again the fire was gone and I could see everyone clearly again. My heart clenched at the sight of my young husband leaning against Ayako's side, his arm over her shoulder and blotches of red across his too pale cheeks. It occurred to me that he should be the one carried by Lin, not me. Lin, after all, was his guardian. Not mine.

I tried to wiggle out of his arms, but was caught in the blanket I had cocooned myself in. Lin's arms tightened around me and I couldn't remember the ground being so far away.

The lights flickered again and the elevator gave a horrible, grinding shudder. No one made a sound and Monk fell silent. Somehow, their quiet terror was louder and more piercing than if they had all screamed.

Then, all at once, the lights went out and the elevator's motor stopped. Darkness swallowed us. No emergency lights came on.

On instinct I shifted again, and non-existent blue foxfire filled my view, though it shone on nothing. I could see no one, nor the elevator.

Monk's chant continued on with more fervor, almost deafening in the tight space.

Something black, long, and slim moved on the edges of the foxfire light. I coiled against Lin, heart jumping to an all out sprint.

The elevator light flickered. The long blackness was revealed for only a blink, as though lit by a flash of lightening. Burnt, red patches marred the charred flesh, cracked like moving lava as it stretched. It's hand had been towards me.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe.

Then Monk broke into the nine cuts.

"Rin Pyou Tou Sha-"

I had never heard him do the nine cuts before. He always gave me the impression that his spiritual energy was too powerful for him to use the nine cuts safely.

"-Kai Chin Retsu Zai—"

I saw the afterimage fox fire slink away.

"Zen!"

A echo of a cringe-the elevator lurched-and the lights feebly came back on. The motor started with a groan.

I couldn't see the arms anymore. The elevator was clear.

I sucked in a breath and fell into a fit of coughing. I slipped back, vision popping with stars, head throbbing. I could hear the others giving exclamations or talking, but I couldn't hear over myself. I tried to turn my head from Lin but ended up curled in on myself.

By the time the attack passed, I had fallen back to my exhausted daze, closing out the light and hiding my face against Lin's shoulder.

The next thing I knew I was being loaded into the back seat of Lin's car next to a shivering Naru. I automatically tried to caterpillar around him, mumbling my displeasure at his discomfort. I tried throwing the blanket on him as well, but couldn't seem to find where the blanket ended or began.

Naru helped, though. He found the blanket edge. So smart.

I heard rain.

Stay out of the water.

Yasu slid in next to me, followed by a very disgruntled Ayako. Four people to the back seat? She was saying.

Naru solved this by bringing me onto his lap. I happily complied, eager to get the chance to stop his shivering.

Yasu started laughing. "Does she even hear herself?"

Only then did I notice that I had been muttering, "warm the boy, warm the boy."

"Shut up," said Naru.

The car engine hummed. Water hushed by. Horns in the distance. Open sky. I could hear it all. But the black of my eyelids were much more welcome. Naru's lap was so comfy, even if the doors handle digging into my back wasn't. I could smell his sweat. I could feel his aching in the arms holding me beneath the blanket. His clammy heat mixed with mine. Illness had made us disgusting.

But, eased by his presence more than anything else, I ignored the foreboding thrum of rain against the windshield and slipped back, deeper than ever, into the darkness.

Rain brought me out. Rain and cold. The traffic of the city sounded far away and Naru's breathing had gone heavy and rhythmic. He had fallen asleep. Arms were lifting me up and away from him. They trembled, struggling to lift me, and the jacket they wore vissshed as the fabric rubbed against itself. So noisy.

Gasping at the cold, my eyes shot open, a protest on my tongue-

To see the side of a face I barely recognized.

My dead father was carrying me.