Sins of the Soul

Alastor could feel Naphré trembling against him, feel the way each word struck her like a blow. He had no doubt as to the identity of the protagonists of this story. Izanami spoke of Naphré’s parents. Naphré’s was the soul Izanami laid claim to.

“I never replied to his second set of pleas. And so, Naphré Misao Kurata, your soul is mine by right of birth as my granddaughter, many generations removed, and by right of your father’s pledge.”

“Take me,” Alastor said before Naphré could even draw breath. “Keep me. Keep my soul as forfeit for hers.” The thought of her trapped here in the dark, never to see the sun was more than he could bear.

He wanted her to have a life. He wanted her to know joy. He wanted that joy to be with him, but he’d rather she know it without him than not know it at all.

“A trick?” Izanami asked.

“No trick. Let her go. I shall stay.”

“You say this with such ease, soul reaper. And I think you even believe it. I know you stayed in Jigoku to search for her when you might have summoned a portal and left. But how long would you have stayed? How long before you gave up your search?”

“I would have stayed until I found her.”

“So you say.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice was so soft, he almost didn’t hear her. “Men lie.”

He made no reply. No point in wasting breath when he wouldn’t be believed. His thoughts spun as he tried to figure a way to prove his assertion.

“Light,” Izanami said softly, and the area glowed with a thousand flickering candle flames.

Naphré gasped. He drew her against him and slid his fingers through hers. For one shining second, he felt a measure of hope as she let him, then she drew her hand away and his hope was snuffed.

Not that he blamed her. He had lied to her, and he didn’t have much justification for it. At any point, he could have told her about her name in Sutekh’s book, could have explained about Gahiji. He’d chosen not to, and at the time, his reasoning had seemed sound. Now he’d have to pay the consequences for that choice.

The Shikome stood off to one side, her cloak of living insects writhing and undulating in the light. Izanami was several feet closer to them. She was not at all what he had expected. Perhaps five feet tall, very delicate, draped entirely in white. No centipedes. No maggots. Just layers of gauzy white cloth draped about her trim frame.

All around them were bodies in various stages of decay. They were piled in the corners and up the walls. There were maggots and centipedes everywhere, crawling through rotting flesh, out an empty eye socket or through a hole that had once been a nose.

Incongruously, there were massive platters of food beside the bodies. Fresh food. No maggots—they seemed to have interest only in the corpses. There were platters of fruit and meat and bread. Even baked goods.

Alastor stared at the baked goods and an idea sprang roots, one that would offer him the window to carry out what needed to be done.

“Would you take my soul in her stead if I could prove that I do not lie, if I could prove that I will stay on?”

“There is no way for you to prove that,” Izanami said.

“But if I could?”

“Then, yes, I would take your soul in place of hers. But know this, soul reaper, if you were to make such a bargain, there is no going back.”

“Are you insane?” Naphré turned on him, her dark eyes sparking with fury, her mouth drawn in a tight line. Strain etched her features, and something else, some other emotion he dared not hope for. “Go, now, while you can,” she ordered.

She whirled to face Izanami. She was trembling, her limbs shaking, but she executed a little bow and said, “I respectfully request that you send him from me, Izanami-no-mikoto. I am here. My soul is yours to claim. Let him go. Send him back.” She shot him a glance then, and he was both humbled and horrified by the sheen of tears he saw in her eyes.

“Send him back,” she whispered. “Please.”

And that was all it took.

The sound of her begging for him when she would never beg for herself, his proud Naphré.

He let go of her hand. She cried out as he dove for the enormous tray of baked goods and snatched a petit four covered in pink icing. Pink, because it reminded him of her flannel pajamas. Bloody hell, that felt like a lifetime ago.

Nice sugar hit, he thought as he chewed once and swallowed, wanting it inside him as fast as he could get it. Wanting this done.

Naphré stared at him, her face a mask of horror.

“Alastor, no!”

He caught both her wrists and held her as she struggled and pulled. Turning his face to Izanami, he said, “I have partaken of the food of the dead. I cannot return to the world of the living, and having eaten it in your realm, my soul is yours. There’s your proof, Izanami-no-mikoto. Now, let her go.”

The sugared cake hit his stomach and the sugar hit his bloodstream. He felt the kick. He hoped it was enough, because he wasn’t relying that Izanami would keep her word.