Falling Through Glass Read Online Free PDF

like the antique sword her father had owned. She knew without a doubt that this katana was very much the same—very real and very deadly.
    She looked around the room again. Why wasn’t she in the same room? Why wasn’t it a shambles? Where were the security people or the paramedics, the police and the firefighters? Where the hell was she?
    Before she could figure it out, the man ordered her to stand. She knew that to refuse would not be wise—even if he insisted on calling her a demon.
    He pointed the katana at her. “Go back to where you came from, demon. Now!” he ordered in Japanese, pointing the blade to the mirror lying face down on the floor near a small lacquered cabinet.
    The mirror!
    Emmi ran forward, fell to her knees and picked it up, making sure it was unharmed.
    It was her mirror, but it was different. It looked newer, shinier, and while it had a dent on the right side, the other nicks and dents were missing from the base. Where had the cloth tacked onto the back come from?
    “Go back inside, demon! You will not have my soul! Not now or ever!”
    “Wha—?” Emmi’s voice died the instant she turned. The guy had the tip of his katana a fraction away from the base of her throat.
    “Go back inside to where you came from.”
    What was happening?
    Was she dead and in some kind of hell for causing the accident that killed her father?
    Was she unconscious and having some freakish dream?
    “Go back now, demon!”
    Shaking in fear, Emmi blinked back the tears that formed in her eyes and prayed she wasn’t screwing up any old Japanese pronunciations. The last thing she wanted was to say something wrong, something that would push this guy over the edge.
    “I’m not a demon. I swear I’m not. I don’t know how I got here. I was caught in a storm at a place I was working. The wall fell on me. There was a fire. That’s all I remember. I’m not a demon. I swear I’m not. My name is Emiko. Maeda Emiko.”
    “Maeda?” he asked.
    “Yes. My family comes from Kanaz—the Kaga han,” she added.
    His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Then how did you come to be in the mirror? He pointed the tip of the sword to her throat. “Prove to me that you are human.”

Chapter Five
     
     
     
    Kyoto
    Present day
     
    Even as the hunt for Emmi was going on within the hotel, Jake knew where she’d gone. He tried to follow but didn’t make it past the hotel lobby as the weird storm hit the hotel dead on. Then, as quickly as it had engulfed them it was gone, much like the devastating tornadoes near his hometown in Oklahoma. The wind died to nothing. The rain stopped and brilliant sunrays poked through gobs of fluffy white clouds.
    At the Uzumasa Movie Village, the nightmare hit him full force. The soundstage they’d been using was a smoldering shambles, and though the authorities tried to hold him back, Jake used his size and strength to shove his way past the rescue workers and into the thick of the devastation.
    He prayed to any deity who would listen to see that Emmi had survived this.
    Calling out her name, he began pawing at the fallen sheetrock, twisted metal and broken glass. After hours of searching and repeated pleas for updates from a sympathetic cop, no trace of Emmi was found.
    Oh, shit. He had to call her mother and brother.
    He was picking his way back through the rubble that had been their set when excited voices of nearby rescue workers caught his attention.
    A miracle!
    No miracle. Dark magic. Drop it. Get away.
    Jake spun around. The sunlight pouring through the mangled roof glinted off unbroken glass. It was the mirror, Emmi’s mirror.
    Where the hell was she?
     
    * * * *
     
    Kyoto
    1864
     
    Emmi licked her dry lips and tried not to flinch. “How do I prove I’m human? Maybe by dying if you stab me?”
    “Perhaps,” he said flatly.
    She did her best to bite back a scream and clutched her hands into fists on her lap. “P-please don’t kill me. I’m a real person. I swear.”
    The man—the