Before I can answer the goons do it for me. They throw the Jeep’s doors open, grab us roughly by our arms and shoulders and roughly haul us out. I’m quickly relieved of my gun, and Hollett of his wand. Two of them hold me firmly by the arms while the rest spend more time going over him, removing his belt pouch and pulling what seems a comically long series of items from his pockets and setting them aside, everything from pebbles to a short braid of colored string to what look like a pair of green plastic army men. Once he’s suitably disarmed they march us over to the long, uneven walkway that leads up to the Gamagori house.
Twenty-Seven
The walkway, slightly graded to the same gentle incline the house rests on, would be pleasant to walk on if I didn’t have two guys holding my outstretched arms up at nearly a crucifixion angle.
Two of the crowd dart ahead to open a door that looks like it once hung in some castle’s dungeon entrance. I get shoved through first, though I can hear Hollett being manhandled behind me. We’re in a long hallway with eggshell-colored tiles and a tasteful bluish-white paint job. Every few feet a simple wooden shrine has been carved into the walls, each one holding a single, elegant carving of Japanese iconography. A samurai, sword held high overhead. A half-scale reproduction of an ancient helmet, its face shaped to look like a demon’s. A woman with a slender but enormous bow drawn to its fullest, arrow nocked and ready. Simple and dignified.
The hallway goes in a straight line, more or less, but I am roughly detoured down the left wall at one point around a small mountain of luggage that is laid out in the hallway. Easily forty suitcases, garment bags and thick, heavily inscribed foot lockers. Looks like the circus is leaving town.
We pass through an archway into a huge, cube-shaped room with a domed ceiling. Several pieces of white upholstered furniture are spread around the room with mathematical precision, perfectly calculated to make the most of the floor space and still allow face-to-face interactions. A gas-powered fireplace dominates one wall; the rest are bare except for the occasional empty hook.
Kenta Gamagori is sitting in a large chair by the fireplace, his elbows on his knees and his head hanging low. A tanto knife dangles from the fingers of his right hand, identical to Nariko’s. Probably it is one of hers. He’s staring lifelessly at the small wooden carving still hanging around his neck on a new leather cord.
Standing an arm’s length away from him, like a stern owner watching over a willful puppy, is Sota Gamagori. He’s wearing an expertly cut suit of basic black with a matching silk shirt and tie. His glare is as empathetic as the grill of a cement truck, but his shoulders look like they’re sagging just a bit, barely enough to notice. He’s a man under a heavy weight.
“Going on vacation?” I ask him.
“We are leaving this town before sundown.”
“You won’t find that to be easy,” I tell him. “The Aegis is here. They’ve got the town on lock down. Anyone who’s even brushed up against a magical energy will be taken to a holding facility and quarantined. Every road is under surveillance and the bay is on lockdown. There’s no way out.”
His expression looks almost like pity that he has to deal with imbeciles like me. He doesn’t give me any words, just shakes his head in exasperation.
“What are you doing here, Mr. DeLong?” he asks with his heavy voice. “You must have realized that after yesterday’s events I could kill you without regret.”
“I’m sure Kenta told you what happened,” I return. “There was nothing any of us could have done.”
“He has described your encounter in great detail, including his own failures. That is the reason I didn’t have you killed on my lawn.” He focuses his broad vision on me. “I knew much about you before yesterday, including your occasional attacks of recklessness. It should be no surprise to find you here, yet it is. What is so important that you would risk your life to see me?”
“If Kenta told you what happened,” Hollett says, “then you know that it’s not over. You heard what happened in the town last night. It’ll start over again when the sun goes down unless we stop them, and DeLong and I can’t do that alone.”
“And how exactly do you plan to stop it?”
I take a deep breath, which isn’t easy considering the pain coming from my still barred arms. I can’t predict what Sota will do if he doesn’t believe us.
“We believe that if we kill the first kiovore then all the rest will be cured. The curse will be broken.”
Sota’s monolithic face betrays a flash of interest. “You have proof of this?” he asks.
“We just came from Doctor Laveau’s clinic,” Hollett says. “There’s a man there that we saw bitten last night by the one kiovore we know was killed. He’s healing. Slowly, but he’s healing.”
Sota nods his ponderous head slowly, digesting the information. He walks around Kenta to stand in front of the fire, deliberating.
“What is it you would have of me?” he asks.
Moment of truth. If he’s going to kill us, it’ll be after my next words. “We need Kenta,” I tell him.
He actually laughs. It doesn’t last long and it’s not what I’d call jolly, but for just a moment he’s overcome and can’t hold it in.
“Get them out of here,” he tells his goons. Immediately they clamp down on their holds, and it feels like my shoulders are about to dislocate.
“Damnit, Gamagori, we can stop this,” I yell.
“Go ahead and stop them,” he answers as we’re dragged back into the hallway. “Or do not. I do not care. We will be far from here by sundown. We will return once the crisis has been settled.” He turns his square back to us. Hollett and I are struggling against the goons, but they have us by numbers and leverage. We’re almost in the hallway when a quiet voice stops them.
“Stop,” Kenta Gamagori whispers.
“What did you say?” Sota demands, whirling on his son with surprising grace. Kenta is still sitting, staring at Nariko’s knife.
“I will go with them,” Kenta whispers.
Sota looms over him. I can see the veins in his neck bulge like iron cables. “You will not,” he thunders.
Kenta hesitates for a moment, then draws himself upright. He can’t bring himself to look his father squarely in the eye, but he does better than I’d expected and brings his face up high enough so that Sota can see his expression.
“Let them go, Father,” he says. His voice is timid and shaking, but it’s actually growing stronger. “I am going with them.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Sota is furious at Kenta’s disobedience, but as he looks at us I can see something else in his eyes, something underneath the rage. Fear.
“I helped start this,” Kenta says. “I can’t go on letting other people pay for my mistakes.”
“Kenta, you don’t understand.” Sota’s tempered down the fires, but nobody would mistake him for tranquil right now. “You are the last of my children. You must not put yourself in danger.”
“If I’m right,” I interject from the mouth of the hallway, “we might still be able to save Nariko.”
“You are a fool,” Sota spits at me. He aims eyes that could burn at the guy holding my right arm and he dutifully cuffs me in the back of the head hard enough to jar my teeth. A polite warning. Sota looks back at Kenta. “You have a duty to your family.”
Kenta takes a breath, holds it, then lets it out slowly. “Yes, I do,” he says. “But I also have a duty to fix my mistakes. All of what happened is our fault. Me and Celeste. We started this, and if I can end it then I will. Especially if there’s even a chance that I can get Nariko back.”
“I will not let you go,” Sota’s voice is so tightly packed with emotion that it breaks.
“You speak of duty,” Kenta responds. “I have failed our family. Brought shame down on us all. If I can’t make it right, if I can’t at least try to fix the damage I helped start, then I’ll have to find another way to restore my honor. The old way.” With that, he holds the tanto knife in a
firm grip and pats it against his belly.
Horror washes over Sota’s face, followed quickly by impotent rage and then reluctant acceptance. “I will send out finest guards along with you.”
“No,” Kenta parries. “I won’t put anyone else in danger.” He walks over to a heavy black-and-gold trunk in the line by the hallway arch, opens it and reaches inside. When he pulls his hand back it’s wearing the same thick canvas glove he tried to use against me, clenched in a thick, unwieldly fist. He crosses the room with a purpose and stares holes in the guards holding us. “Release them,” he orders with newfound steel in his voice.
The guards look at each other, then at Sota, clearly baffled by this change in the family dynamic. They can’t be comforted by what they see. Sota’s face has gone as rigid and inscrutable as one of Lisa’s victims. Whatever thoughts are flying through his head, he’s keeping them locked up tight. Finally, he gives a curt nod.
The relief when the two thugs locking out my arms release their grips is almost enough to make me swoon, and I can see identical relief on Hollett’s face when his two release him. We stand up, both of us shaking life into our arms. The guards step away, leaving me, Hollett and Kenta facing each other. He hands me my gun and Hollett his thorn wand and the items from his pouch, then extends his arm towards the door. Hollett and I glance around, trying to guess if this is some kind of setup, but it all seems clear so we casually head for the door. A last glance back shows Sota Gamagori’s blank stare following us all.
I climb behind the wheel of the Jeep and sit there, Hollett in the shotgun seat and Kenta in the back. I turn the key, not knowing what kind of response to expect, and I’m relieved when the engine fires to life with a healthy growl. Whatever magic went into the EMP spell must have been temporary. “What do you want me to do?” Kenta asks.
“The original kiovore,” I say. “How do we find it?”
He looks mystified. “How should I know?”
“You and Celeste found it once. We need you to find it again.”
He shakes his head. “There wasn’t all that much real research. Most of the stuff in that book was just word of mouth.”
“That book?” Hollett asks. “You got all your information from just one book?”
“Like ninety percent of it.”
“Where is it?”
For a moment he looks like he’s going to answer, but at the last second he locks his mouth down tight. Frustrated, I try another tack.
“Where’d you get it? The people in this town who have private libraries aren’t exactly the kind who open their doors to a pair of kids, especially from your families.”
“We just found it.” His face gives a little twitch, and for just a moment he can’t meet my eyes. He’s lying, and I don’t need magic to tell me that.
“Did it say where the kiovore will go to ground during the day?”
“Best we could figure is that they like to build nests, but if they can’t get to it any dark place will do.”
I take a breath to steady myself. “Okay. How did you find it the first time?”
“Oh. Well, the book says that anywhere they go the magic around them fades. Kind of like they drink it in out of the air, you know? So, we looked for places where there was less magic than the rest.”
“But how did you tell the difference? It’s not like you can see magic.”
“Want me to show you?”
I’m not going to strangle him. I’m not going to strangle him. It’s my new mantra. “Yes, please,” I say through clenched teeth.
“My car’s already packed. I’ll be right back.” He bounces out of the Jeep and practically leaps for his car, happy as a puppy. He’s back in a minute, arms full and grinning like a new father.
“You have to be kidding me,” I say in shock.
Celeste and Kenta’s secret weapon is a sleek, white quad-copter drone about four feet across. It looks like a mechanized butterfly, complete with folding retractable legs, an X shaped wing array and an antenna-like protuberance from its dorsal plane. A round curve of tinted glass the size of a silver dollar is mounted to a GoPro mounted on the underside of the fuselage. It looks more metallic than its plastic cousins, and I suspect more than screws and batteries went into its construction.
“It was perfect,” Kenta defends their work. “We needed to see a large area at once, so we made up a camera lens that would show differences in ambient magic.”
“You did?” Hollett sounds impressed. I pass the drone back to him and let him give it a once-over. “That’s pretty sophisticated.”
“Well, Celeste figured most of it out. I just put it together. I’m good with stuff like that. We flew it all over town. It took us three days since that farm it was buried in is so far out of town, but we got it.”
“Where do you get the images?”
Kenta pats his cell phone. “There’s an app for that.”
I’m amazed despite myself. It’s not easy blending magic and technology. Most adepts won’t even try it with any kind of seriousness. That Celeste figured out how to do it tells me that we lost a brilliant mind when she died. Crazy, yes, but also brilliant. It’s almost as impressive that Kenta managed to make it work. As a magical engineer he’s got a lot of potential.
“Great,” I say. “Hollett, how’s it look?”
“I can fly it,” he says finally. He carefully stows it and the controller in the trunk. He gets in the passenger seat as I climb behind the wheel. Kenta moves to enter the back seat, but I stop him with an upraised palm.
“Thanks, Kenta,” I say. “Now we just need your phone and your glove.”
Suspicion narrows his face. “Why? I’m coming with you.”
“No way, kid. Your dad was right. It’s way too risky.”
Hollett nods. “Sorry, Kenta. We can’t fight this thing and worry about you at the same time. You have to sit this one out.”
“But you can’t even use the glove.”
“No, I can’t.” I jerk my head at Hollett. “But he can. Now hand it over.”
“No way. Did you see what I just went through with my father? You think I’m going back in there after that? Man, you’re fucking crazy.” He sounds indignant now. He also sounds a lot more like a stupid kid than the honor-driven pre-adult he was a few minutes ago.
“Ian’s right, Kenta,” Hollett says. “We’ll work better without you. No offense.”
“I’ll be all right,” Kenta insists, then he holds up his wooden talisman. “I’ve still got this.”
“Two out of the three you made failed last night.”
“But this one didn’t!”
“And we don’t know why, therefore we don’t know if it’ll work again. No dice.”
“Then you don’t get this,” Kenta says, holding up his welder’s glove. “And without this you won’t be able to hold it while you kill it.”
“You think I can’t take it away from you?” Hollett asks.
“You think it’ll work for you?” Kenta comes back. “The answer is no, it won’t. It’ll only work for me.” He jumps in the back seat before I can lock the door and defiantly buckles himself in.
“Damn kids,” I snarl as I gun the engine, taking a corner way too hard as I head south. The sky is the color of pale ink and darkening fast. It’s almost four thirty, so there’s less than an hour until the December sun sets. “Why the hell couldn’t you wait until summer to wake this thing up?” I mutter.
Twenty-Eight
“Well, this is new,” I mutter as we speed down the road.
We’re holding steady at forty miles per hour, taking the main roads in order to avoid the easily congested side streets. Kenta’s hybrid drone is pacing us two hundred feet over our heads, with Kenta piloting it from the backseat and Hollett monitoring the camera on Kenta’s phone from the shotgun seat. It’s covering a swath of the town about a quarter of a mile wide, not bad considering the town itself is only covers about four square miles. We’ve been going for about ten minutes with noth
ing at all to show for it.
We drive in silence, their attention focused on the phone and mine on the road, until the radio powers on with a life of its own. Instead of music, as we all expect, a news report shouts out from the Jeep’s speakers.
“… from five o’clock PM until eight o’clock AM,” the canned voice is reading. “If you are found on the streets in between those times you will be subject to arrest and prosecution.” The voice livens up, free of the shackles of prewritten lines. “That’s per the police department’s official press release, people. I’m sure they’re ready to go if anything like last night happens again, but just to be safe stay behind closed doors. Luckily you don’t have to be alone, though. You’ve got me, Mighty Mike Traebert, locking myself in with you all night and taking your calls, especially if you want to talk about that wolfman video making the internet rounds that looks like it was filmed right outside our very own Parkman Gems right here in downtown Superstition Bay. Now I know it’s the Christmas season, but in honor of our mysterious internet sensation let’s get the mood set right with Warren Zevon singin’ about those Werewolves of London…”
Thanks, Simon. “Clock’s ticking, literally and figuratively. How are we looking?”
“Too damn slow,” Hollett says. “We should have found at least one of them by now.”
“Can you take it up further?” I ask Kenta. “Give it a wider view?”
“If it goes much further up I’ll lose connection. It’s got a ceiling of three hundred feet. When Celeste and I found the first one we were only keeping it at about a hundred.”
“I thought they could go higher than that?” Hollett says. He hasn’t taken his eyes off the screen yet.
“This one’s heavier than most of the commercial ones.”
I steal a glance at the phone display. It’s fascinating to see the shifting waves and flowing patterns, represented in rolling tides of shaded green pixels. It flows across the screen like cloud cover on a weatherman’s screen, sometimes thick and forest green, sometimes thin and pale as an old lily pad, at times so diaphanous as to be almost nonexistent. It moves like it’s alive, shifting and settling with a mind of its own, never the same twice.
No More Devils: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 25