Page 90 of Dragon 7

Chapter fourteen

The Pink Onesie

Hiro

The gold lollipop tasted like honeyed yuzu and white peach. It was a summer garden in my mouth.

Bright.

Clean.

Offensively pleasant for a forest about to fill with corpses.

Damn them.

I rolled the candy across my tongue and hated every second of the expensively delicious experience.

The Silent Ones gave it to me. After they put me to sleep like a child being carried to bed. After they stopped me from getting to my Tiger. After they used their soft little "shhh" sounds.

Then one of them slipped this lollipop into my hand as an apology. I refused to acknowledge the apology. But I kept the lollipop.

Behind me, several feet back in the dark between the trunks, those red figures waited for their entrance into the war.

Hooded.

Soundless.

Patient as funeral mourners.

I felt them there without turning my head. My spine knew exactly where they stood. I stayed mad at them, yet was still glad that they were here. Granted, I would never say that out loud.

Around me, the tree line breathed.

Kaede had his Tengu mask on. Gold leaf at the beak edge flashed when he turned his head a fraction of an inch. His leather gloves were tight to his fingers, and his platinum hair was tied at the nape under the mask's strap.

Daisuke wore his Yamauba. The mouth slit caught the moonlight in a thin silver line. His black mohawk rose stiff behind the mask.

Toma had his Namahage mask pulled over his face. The carved eyes angled downward, so when he tilted his head my way, the ogre stared straight into the dirt at my boots. His purple mohawk poked up between the mask's horns. Tattoos crawled up his throat into the mask's chin guard.

The twins stood beside each other in matching kitsune masks, gleaming black with golden teeth and silver whiskers.

Aki on the left.

Yuki on the right.

Or maybe Yuki on the left and Aki on the right. Tonight, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart and that made me more anxious than I allowed myself to admit.

Kaoru wore the Kuchisake. Pink hair fell past the mask's edge in long pale streaks. His charm was switched off completely. His face—what I could see of it under the slit-mouth woman—was as flat and patient as a man waiting for a train.

Yoichi had on the gold kitsune. And that damn mask had not been carved recently. It appeared older than him and me.

Older than this island.

Expressionless.

Ancient.

A little wrong in a way I had stopped trying to name as I turned from it and put my gaze on Satoshi with his Gozu mask. Iron ox-head. Satoshi held his rifle the way a priest held a holy book.