The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary

Author:Kathryn Tanquary
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2015-10-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The smell hit Saki before she even saw the outhouse. If the ice cream she’d eaten at the Bon dance hadn’t been so long ago, she would have gagged it all up again. She carried the bucket of cleaning supplies with one hand and pinched her nose with the other, clamping down until the pain was as bad as the stench. The grasshopper guards would only take her so far before retreating to the shelter of the shrine walls. Saki stood alone in front of the squat little building, wondering whether she would be in more danger if she ran or if she stayed. Light from the braziers along the edge of the courtyard caught the garden flora and cast undulating shadows on the walls of the outhouse as the fetid smell seeped into Saki’s pores.

The tengu poked his head out from under her cloak. Although his gigantic nose had been turned into a beak, the smell still seemed to affect him powerfully.

“Your marbles,” he choked. “Get out the marbles.”

Saki dropped the bucket and dug around in her pouch. She took one out, then held it up for the tengu.

“What should I—?”

The tengu thrust his beak into the glass, which became a mask over his face.

“Ooh, I see…” Saki fished out a second marble and did the same.

The odor was still powerfully rank, but the marble masks let them breathe without retching. The glass felt secure enough, but Saki took no chances. She clamped her hand over it and moved to push open the outhouse door.

Not even the moonlight that filtered through the vents could soften the sight of such squalor. Slime slicked the floors and oozed up the walls. The water basins were yellow and cracked, the mirrors fogged and splattered with crusty specks. Grime covered every inch of the walls. The toilet stalls were walled off with crooked doors, but Saki didn’t want to imagine what was hiding behind the wood.

A stream of hot saliva dripped onto her shoulder.

Crouched on the ceiling, a ghoulish spirit with a long tongue looked down at her with bugging black eyes. The stench rolled off the spirit in waves, and Saki held her breath through her mask, too disgusted to be scared.

“Have you come to tidy up?” the spirit asked. Its tongue was too long to fit into its mouth, so the words sloshed around its lips.

Saki couldn’t hold her breath. She sucked in just enough air to reply, “Are you the one making this place so dirty?”

“Not dirty, filthy!” the spirit exclaimed. “I couldn’t have done it without all of that glorious slug slime. I’m so grateful to that precious lady for making this place so deliciously filthy.” The spirit’s tongue licked a long trail of slime on the wall. It smacked its lips as if the slime were the most delicious treat in the world.

Saki craned her neck to get a better look at the Filth Licker. “Do you know if the lady ever left anything behind?”

“Of course,” the Filth Licker replied.

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