The Queen Of All Strange Things

35

Andrew and I had never been this much terrified during our entire lives, okay except when we got stuck inside the stomach of a Mongolian Death Worm (that's another story) and the time where we almost became Vampire beverage (another story for another time) but this incident has a rank within the top ten, I can assure you that.

The two of us backed away from the back seat. The other passengers did the wise thing and stood up from their seats. Andrew ran back to his seat, threw my backpack at me and unfolded our weapons. Cleo leaped out of the bag, 'Watch it!'

I caught the bow and quiver that Andrew tossed at me, which was followed by a heavy cloak. He pulled out his samurai sword and drew it which glowed in a faint blue glow.

I looked around at the passengers who were gaping at us, especially the girls. The driver looked at his mirror and said, 'Hay! That's the ruckus?'

Before I could register anything Cleo shrieked with her tail standing on end and behind us, a glowing ghost dog materialized with a wisp of smoke.

He bowed his head, 'Konichiwa, Hime-sama.'

The clique of girls screamed.

I drew an arrow at the dog, even though I doubted arrows worked against them, even if the arrows were magical since the dog was well.... Japanese?

'What did he say?' asked Andrew who was holding his sword in front of him.

'Greetings, Princess,' I translated.

'Princess?'

'I know,' I said. 'It sounds really, off.'

Cleo shrieked from behind me.

'Get lost, cat,' growled the dog as it advanced forward. 'Taramen-sama sends his regards and wishes to the prince and princess to return once again to the kingdom.'

'What's he saying?'

'Bird-man wants us back.'

I really never realized that I could understand Japanese. Now that I think about it, that means I can watch Anime without subtitles and read Japanese Manga.

'If you return peacefully_'

Cleo hissed again.

I guess her petrifaction does not work on ghosts.

Four of the passengers in the bus stood up like synced robots. One of them included one of the girls. Her friends tried to desperately pull her down to her seat.

'Inugami,' said Andrew from behind me. 'They can possess people.'

Okay. That was bad. We could not shoot or slice people so we weren't left with many options.

I scooped up Cleo and ran out of the Bus following Andrew quickly stuffed Cleo into the backpack as the four possessed passengers leaped out of the bus. I guess they people they were sing weren't that fit for running since the ghost dogs immediately left them in the rain and followed us in their ghostly peter-panish way.

I almost stopped running, distracted by the floating/running dogs.

'AMETHYST!'

I snapped back to my senses and ran after him. And oh, how we ran. The rain made it worse since the road was slippery and there were vehicles all around us honking due to all the commotion. Have you ever raced against spirits? Trust me it's futile. The only luck you have is to have some spirit repellent in hand. And since there were so much honking and ghosts floating around, the traffic slowly started to move which made it worse focus to run without getting hurt. So I followed Andrew who sprinted in between cars like a pro. To by passers, we must have looked like Katniss Everdeen with a bad haircut and Ninja Assassin Junior.