“Stop moaning.”
“Coming from you? All you ever do is moan. About everything!”
The man chuckled. “True. He’s not here. Come on.”
They moved away.
Babs’s eyes had gone wide, looking less watery and more alive. “You killed the Butcher Hound?”
“I did.”
“Well done.”
I’d sat with her until it was safe for me to carry on and ended up in this pretty square, miles away from the crappy dump poor Babs had been living in. I couldn’t give her anything but thanks and well wishes. There was fuck all I had to help her. Damn. She didn’t deserve to be in this city. A nurse who gave her life for others finds herself homeless in her afterlife? It was a sodding miracle she hadn’t been caught by the hound. Really was.
Commotion behind me. I turned, seeing nothing, but hearing the marching of soldiers.
“Time to go.” I got back to peddling, heading over the bridge.
“There he is!” a female voice boomed behind me.
I just made it through a small passageway before the gunfire cracked.
Chapter Fifteen
Gabriel
I sat at a table with Mrs. Wallace.
Mrs. Wallace.
This wasn’t happening.
Her gnarled hands were wrapped around a steaming mug of tea. “I’m sad to know a handsome lad such as you is dead, Gabriel.”
I’d told her I didn’t know about Aki’s fate.
Mrs. Wallace brought Aki’s face up into my mind. Not that it wasn’t always there, but more the memories of him and her on the bench outside his flat, talking, him being so kind to her, worrying about her. Before we’d set out for Japan, High Alpha had taken Mrs. Wallace to The Spire for protection, along with Aki’s day vampire friends who ran The Teacup café, because Hitoshi himself knew how much Aki cared about the dear old woman and the vampire couple.
And now Mrs. Wallace was dead.
Aki would be heartbroken. I was heartbroken. Every day she’d gone to that same bench to wait for the sun, to wait for the day vampires to wake up again and open their café and let the normality return to her life.
That would never happen now.
Settled with her tea, she started talking. “Heart failure. It was bound to happen after the stress of that dreadful werewolf incident.” She frowned, the dark skin of her forehead creasing even more than it was. “Combine terror with a body like mine, and you’re bound to run into dangerous territory. I thought all the aches and pains would go when I died, that I wouldn’t be an old woman anymore. Not very fair, is it?”
I shook my head.
She smiled. “The High Alpha was very kind to me, as was his wife. They both made sure to settle me into The Spire. I had a room down the hall from theirs. How special was I?”
“Very, Mrs. Wallace.”
“Such a sweet man. I can see why our Akira likes you.” She winked. “Wonderful people indeed. Reassured me all the time, made sure I had everything I needed, and I got to meet little Riku. What a cutie pie! Just like his big brother.” She chuckled lightly. “I want you to know I died in comfort, Gabriel. I really did. My heart was too weak, couldn’t take any more shocks and surprises. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, at least I didn’t get my head bitten off.”
“There is that.”
“See? There is light in all things.” Her smile was fading. “I’ll miss the light that was Akira.”
“I know, Mrs. Wallace.”
“Let’s hope he’s not here. I don’t want to see his face anytime soon.”
“I’ll have to agree with you.
She lifted her mug with shaky hands, sipping her drink.
The eyes of Jessie and Mitesh were burning holes into my back. I didn’t turn to look, never taking my eyes off Mrs. Wallace. Not until… I don’t know. I just wasn’t ready to get up and do anything else. Not yet.
“I’ve been here for three days now. How lucky for me to find myself in a house next door to Mitesh over there.” She waved behind me. “Lovely boy. And right opposite a café.” She laughed softly. “Me and my cafés.”
“Do you know about the hound?” I didn’t want to scare her, but it was an important factor of city life.
She nodded. “Dear Mitesh told me, then Gerald and Jessie. I’m already a part of this family in such a short space of time. How wonderful. Talk about being blessed.”
It seemed the tenshi were at least looking out for Mrs. Wallace, landing her in the laps of good people.
I ignored the inner question, again, about how much the tenshi actually cared about us if this city was what was waiting at the end, no matter what. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Is it so shocking? I’m old. I would say it’s far more devastating that you’re here. So much promise, so young. You and Jessie and Mitesh. That is a terrible fate, not me and my dodgy heart.”
The café door flew open. A man staggered in, panting.
I was on my feet. “What’s wrong?”
He sucked in some air before speaking. “Something’s going down outside. Crimson Army is chasing a man on a bike.”
I was outside in an instant, Jessie right behind me. People were gathering on both sides of the street, looking in the direction to my left.
A bike rider who looked like—
Guns cracked, and everyone ducked, including me. The rider fell, rolled across the asphalt, and drew a katana.
“Aki!”
I broke into a run.
Chapter Sixteen
I saw G step out of the café, Bob and Rose dancing around him.
Fucking soldiers had got the gain on me!
But G was there. G! Right there!
A bullet caught me in the left shoulder, and I went down, bike clattering and me rolling across the road. Pain exploded from the impact point all down my arm, but I was ready to fight.
One katana out, with the good arm, I got ready to take the wankers on.
There was a lot more to take on this time.
“Aki!” G’s voice made me wobble again, and a bullet hit me in the other shoulder.
Fuck! And I’d been fully recharged to take them down, ready to get to repeating my bullet trick. I dropped the katana as more pain blasted through me. This wasn’t any regular pain but juiced up agony that had my hands shaking violently.
“Shit!” I yelped. What the hell was in those bullets?
“Stay back!” one of the soldiers bellowed—the same woman who’d been barking orders at her crew the whole way.
“Aki!” G called again.
A warning shot went off. “Stay the fuck back!”
The crack of what sounded like a whip and rope came whizzing at my head. Before I could duck, it snapped around my neck and tightened, cutting off my air supply.
Oh, balls!
“Aki!”
I was whipped round to face the head woman who was standing a few feet away from me. “Oh, you have a nickname, Akira.”
She knew my name!
“Aki!”
She was pointing her gun over my shoulder. “Stay out of Crimson Army business,” she commanded. “This filth is a wanted man.”
“If you touch him—”
Her gun went off before G could finish, and someone screamed. A heavy thud behind me.
No! G! No!
“Be warned!” the woman roared. “Stay the fuck out of our business.”
Lightheaded, spinning, no air, fading.
G.
My G.
They’d shot him, and he was gonna be really dead, and there was nothing I could do.
G…
I fell into the dark.
Chapter Seventeen
I woke up from a dreamless KO, head surprisingly not pounding, but every muscle in my body aching to merry hell.
Yeah, scratch the merry stuff. That shit was painful.
From my position on the floor, my left cheek resting on the ground, I
registered the flickering strip light above me. It revealed a cramped cell with black walls and floors of stone, proper cold on the arse cheeks, and some thick metal bars keeping me sealed in.
Not that I had it in me to move right now.
My katanas were gone, and G…
Had been shot.
Don’t be dead…for real. Please.
If that’d happened, if G’d been shafted like that, I was done.
My babies weren’t up for a big journey with whatever the bullets had poisoned me with still swimming around in my veins. My senses on the fritz but not broken. With every passing minute, they were coming back online. Once they were up and running properly again, I’d send Bob and Rose out to find G, and depending on the outcome, I’d know my next moves. Carry on with this trial if he was okay or burn the world down if he wasn’t.
What sort of fucked up shit was this? Get me within inches of my buddy and then whip him away from me in some serious dick move? What was the point of him being my companion to not actually be by my side? No point. Just more bullshit that was seriously starting to drive me all the varieties of nuts.
If I had the energy, I’d get up and bash the bars, shake them, demand to see someone, and generally run my mouth off. It’d make me feel better.
That wasn’t happening.
I sat up, spotting the bed and dirty toilet in the corner of the room. There was a faint dripping coming from the cistern.
I rubbed the back of my head. I had the use of my hands back at least, even if they were tingly with a pins and needles sensation. Fucking shoulders, man. Throbbing away. I touched one. Bandage. How nice of my captor to fix them up. Honestly, though, the pain in my head was worse. Should be, right? I’d been shot in both shoulders. They should be winning the pain game.
I didn’t need to make a fuss to get someone’s attention ‘cos there was someone standing there, hidden in shadows. The crappy light was helping to shield them, but I heard their breathing, saw that it was the shape of a man.
I tried Bob and Rose. They wouldn’t be able to go on a city-wide hunt yet, but they could shed some light here at least. Hopefully.
My gray metaphysical wolves appeared and went to sniff the geezer out. My eyesight kicked up a notch, and I made him out better—a tall and skinny guy, looking like he enjoyed too much time in the sun with his leathery skin. Couldn’t quite make out his eye color, but he favored a blue baseball cap with his blue suit.
He smelled of some mega sharp cologne.
“I’m gonna take it you’re the mayor,” I said.
He smiled, and I pulled my babies back. I was happy muting my sense of sight and not seeing the row of fucking crocodile teeth in his gob. That was one freaky smirk.
“You’ve guessed correctly,” he said. His accent was faintly British—somewhere south maybe. Proper plummy in a way that was as fake as the botoxed foreheads of those banshees belonging to the Krystal dynasty. Seriously, they didn’t move, loaded with fuck knows how much anti-aging mojo. You could never really tell what they were feeling when you saw them on TV. Not that I watched the show much, but the times I’d been unfortunate enough to stain my eyeballs with it, I’d been shocked by the lack of, well, shock.
I was going way off topic with my thinking, but it was proper grim in this cell. The stench of piss and shit was starting to waft out of the loo like it was on some smelly time release. I had to give myself some sort of trivial crap to lessen the ugly.
“Mayor Harold Butcher,” he said. “And I have it on good authority that you’re Akira Murakami—son of the incumbent High Alpha on Earth.”
“Good authority, eh?”
“The man you killed. Colin. He has been most helpful.”
“Not a word I’d use for him, but whatever.”
No response.
“Where am I?” I asked, knowing full well where I was.
“You know who I am, so I would presume you would be aware of your location.”
“Nah, help me out, bruv.”
That made him chuckle. “I do not know you well enough to offer such assistance.”
“But you’d patch up my shoulders?”
“I’m keen to keep you in fighting form. For now.”
“Thanks.”
“I wouldn’t thank me, Akira. You have caused much chaos in this city and even killed my hound. To say you’ve caused a stir is an understatement. The king’s interest has been piqued.”
“Great.”
“Much like my hound’s interest. A hybrid creature and a new, dominant werewolf arriving in the city on the same morning? A feast of delights indeed.”
And it failed to get both of us.
“You are to have an audience with the king tonight.” No more hound talk. Sore point? Good.
“Wow, lucky me.”
“Indeed.” He stepped away, features vanishing into shadow. “How long you will keep hold of your death depends on the will of His Majesty. The slaying of the hound is not something to be forgiven lightly. If it were not for the king’s request, my wife and I would have subjected you to the full agonies of our house. Yet we are unable to as of this moment.”
Full agonies? Did that mean I’d be getting watered-down torture?
A door opened, followed by a shadowy figure entering the room, bringing with it the smell of floral perfume. “Is he awake, darling?”
Another plummy voice—the mayoress.
“He is,” the mayor replied. “Come, join us. We’ve just been having a little chat.”
“It is unfair we cannot play with his bowels,” she replied, stepping into view. I didn’t bother trying for a better look. Her pale face was pressed up to the bars. Cruel, icy-blue eyes, a callous smile.
“He’s smaller than you would expect,” she said.
“He is.”
Cheeky fuckers.
“How did you do it?” the mayoress questioned. “How does a scrawny dead runt like you take down a power such as my sweet hound?”
I didn’t answer.
“Those swords,” she said. “What are they to disappear like that?”
They’d vanished? Wicked. Had to love those beauties.
“What are their secrets?” the mayoress added. “Magic of some kind to slip away like that. Yet they’re not with you, are they?”
Kept my mouth shut.
“Silent, are we? I thought you wouldn’t divulge such information. The king will drive it from you, I am sure.” She backed away, smoothing down her mega bright green pantsuit that clashed really bad with her set blonde hair, and started playing with the pearls at her neck.
Wow. A real-life pearl-clutcher.
“The king will crack you like an egg and discover what you’re hiding. We can smell it on you. There’s a falseness to you, a wrongness too.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any deodorant to hand,” I countered.
“Insolent as well. I wouldn’t expect anything less from the state of you. If you had any respect, you would be throwing yourself at our mercy. I’m hoping the opportunity to see you grovel comes our way for what you have done.” She came closer again. “He was our creation, our child, the key to governing this city in the name of the king. You have destroyed the order.”
“Can’t you make another one?”
Her evil eyes narrowed. “I should pull out your tongue.”
“But you don’t wanna upset the king, eh?”
She stared at me for a good minute or so, her husband right behind her. “I would imagine you have brought much shame to your father.”
Oh, okay. This old chestnut. I just stared at her.
“Yes, I would say you have.”
Still didn’t answer the hag.
“At least you can suffer the sounds of screams today,” she said. “We still have plenty of test subjects for the games today. Let their suffering be your song of the day.”
“Boring,” I retorted.
“What did you say?”
She was pissing me off—they both were. “You
heard me. Boring.”
“You think the sounds of torture are boring? What kind of man are you?”
“Don’t know. Why don’t you tell me, seeing as you seem to be really smart and shit? Go on, what kind of man am I?”
She was close to the bars again. “A failure at whatever you hoped to achieve.”
“Still killed your hound, though.”
She smiled. “We will see how confident you are tonight.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
The mayor stepped into view again beside his wife. “He will not be so full of hot air then,” he said.
“No, darling, he won’t. We can only hope to witness the king’s plans for him so we can hear his song of second death. You see, Akira, I rather enjoy the sounds of screaming peasants such as you. Or should that be cattle? That’s all any of you are—lambs ready for the slaughter. Ours. His Majesty’s. We are the gods of this realm, not the tenshi, not the mazoku.”
“Stop talking out your arse,” I replied. “It ain’t working.
They both laughed together, finding themselves mega hilarious for some reason.
I was in the belly of the beast—a belly that needed slicing open from the inside out.
“We shall leave you to think,” the mayoress said, “or whatever it is that occurs inside that skull of yours.”
“Until tonight,” the mayor added, “enjoy the screaming. I’m not so sure you’ll really find them all so boring.”
Husband and wife cackled again, leaving me alone with the flickering light and the stinking toilet.
My eyes watered at knowing I’d been so close to G. I wanted to tell him… I don’t know. I wanted to tell him stuff. Like how I… I dunno.
Stuff had been changing between us. I mean, we’d fucked on the hotel balcony, kissed and… It was more than that. More… What?
I just wanted to hug him, feel him against me again and again, and again until I was sure he wasn’t dead. Really dead.
“Please be okay,” I whispered. “I need you, G. I really need you.”
I let silent tears roll down my cheeks as the strip light went out, and the screams began.
The dickhead Butchers were right. I didn’t find the sounds of suffering boring at all.
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 49