by DD Barant
“Because I’m not from here and I don’t care how many people I upset to get to the answers I require. That could cause you a great deal of unpleasantness.”
“I see. And if you were to learn the facts behind the demise of this presumed employee, you would simply go away.”
“I might.”
“I doubt that.” He smiles. “However, I’m being rude. My name is Isamu.” Isamu bows his head, ever so slightly. “And you are Jace Valchek, are you not?”
He says something in Japanese to Tanaka, then laughs. I let it pass. Isamu ignores Charlie completely, which somehow irritates me more.
“Yeah. So how about helping us out, Isamu? After all, it was one of your own that got killed.”
“She was a person of no consequence. Were this a family matter, I would deal with it myself; but as the persons responsible are outsiders, I am willing to let outsiders eliminate the problem.”
Persons? “Thank you,” I say cautiously. “What information can you give us?”
His answer surprises me. “I can tell you who killed her—and why.”
“And in return?”
“We will discuss that later.”
Tanaka switches to English and interjects, “We will not enter into such an ill-defined agreement—”
It’s my turn to cut Tanaka off with a gesture. I agree with him, but I want to hear what Isamu has to say. “I’m listening.”
He turns back to the fire and places the poker back in its stand. “The blood trade is very important to my people, not just for reasons of profit and influence—though it generates both—but for reasons of tradition. The sakazuki ritual is how members of a clan declared loyalty to their leader; in times past, the oyabun symbolically shared his blood by sipping from a cup of sake and then passing the cup to his second-in-command.”
His chuckle is a small, dry rasp. “Once we became kyuuketsuki, that ritual changed. Now, we drink human blood mixed with sake. The vintage and quality of the blood is important, as a sign of both respect and status. They say that humans will never become extinct in Japan, because then the gokudou will have nothing to drink.”
He pauses, as if waiting for me to comment. I don’t. After a moment, he continues.
“Human blood commands a very high price in Japan. Fresh is always best, of course, so the local supply is much coveted. Clans guard their sources jealously, perhaps even with a bit too much zeal.”
“You keep them prisoner.”
He shrugs. “A valuable commodity must be protected, sometimes from itself. To produce a fine wine you must tend the soil, nurture the grapes, choose the correct time for the harvest. Sometimes you must add things to the equation; other times, you must subtract.”
“You take away their freedom and their blood. What’s left?”
He meets my eyes and smiles. I realize that, unlike Tanaka, I can’t read him at all . . . and then I start to understand what he’s talking about.
There are all kinds of things a human dairy cow doesn’t really need. Eyes. Ears. Hands . . .
A quick glance at Tanaka’s face is all the confirmation I need. The horror in my eyes produces only a satisfied nod from Isamu. “Efficiency is something of an obsession with my countrymen. How to generate the highest-quality product at the highest volume? There was much experimentation in diet and exercise regimens. To an outsider these experiments might seem cruel, but they were being done in the interest of the greater good.”
His smiles vanishes. “We are the greater good now, Miss Valchek,” he says. “You are merely the remnants of a failed species.”
“You’re telling me the killer was one of your . . . donors.”
He chuckles again. If he does it one more time I may push him into his own damn fireplace. “Ah, if only! No, I’m afraid he has never been within our grasp. He is a member of a terrorist group known as the Free Human Resistance; we acquired an entire cell of them, without knowing what they were. He alone escaped, and somehow managed to later locate his comrades. By that point, though, they had already been . . . modified.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t take that well.”
“No. He slaughtered fifteen of my men and then executed every one of his former colleagues. I’m sure he thought of it as a mercy.”
“I can’t imagine why. His name?”
“His true identity is hidden. He is known in the human underground as the Impaler.”
“Catchy. Let’s see if I understand this, Isamu. You want me to catch some local maniac who’s robbed you of your own personal blood bank, because you haven’t been able to catch him yourself. That about right?”
“He is the same man who killed Keiko Miyagi.”
“Maybe. You said ‘persons responsible’ earlier. Who else is involved? Any chance they might also belong to this Free Human Resistance?”
He frowns; he probably isn’t used to anyone talking to him like this. “It is very likely, yes.”
“Sure. Except I doubt the guy I’m chasing is a local, and he seems to hate thropes just as much as pires. If he is this Impaler, I don’t think—”
“He is working with a shape-shifter.”
That stops me. Isamu is no doubt very well connected, but I doubt if he’s seen the case file from the McMurdo killing.
“Also,” he continues, “I did not say he was local. The FHR is international in scope.”
“It’s true,” Tanaka says, not meeting my eyes. “But in Japan their activities are modest. Nothing high profile, not like this.”
“Maybe they’ve decided to get a little more proactive,” I say. “Most serial killers commit their first murder after an inciting event—often some kind of trauma or loss. You think putting a group of maimed brothers-in-arms out of their misery qualifies, Isamu?”
“I think,” he says quietly, “that I have had enough of your insolence.”
“You sure? ’Cause I’ve got plenty to spare.”
“I do not think that you do.” His voice is colder now, no pretense of being polite. “You come into my home, asking for assistance, and repay me with disrespect. I am your superior in position, in age, in species, and in gender. Your grandfather’s grandfather was soiling his diapers when I was feasting on my hundredth virgin, and I am a thousand times more powerful now than then. You have no idea who you face.”
His eyes have gone bloodred. I really hope Charlie’s faster than this guy.
“I have never tasted animal blood,” he hisses. “And for every life I have taken, I have mixed their blood with ink and recorded it on my body.”
He drops the silk robe around his feet. I know about the Yakuza tradition of full-body tattoos, but the pictures I’ve seen have always been intricate and colorful: tigers and dragons and demons, from mid-calf to neckline to elbow.
Isamu’s are different.
They extend over the same regions, but that’s where the similarity ends. The ink is black, the lines delicate, and they portray only one thing over and over.
Faces.
Men, women, children, each one wearing an expression of horror, pain, or fear, a tapestry of suffering captured in flesh. The tattoos are staggered by size, smaller faces in front of larger ones and smaller ones in front of those, and somehow I know that these are actual layers added over the years, not a single design. The layering gives the faces depth, and the one feature that is never obscured is their eyes: their eyes, screaming and pleading and weeping. It’s like the whirlwind I saw at the crime scene, magnified a hundred times and frozen in place.
“I know exactly who I’m facing,” I say. “That’s kind of what I do. And you don’t impress me any more than the other monsters I’ve put away.”
“I’m not the one you should be worried about. Didn’t you wonder about the absence of guards?”
Oh, crap.
“Ryuu was born—by the Western calendar—in the year 1508. He studied the art of ninjutsu from the time he was fifteen until his thirty-first year, when he joined the ranks of the kyuuketsuki and
ceased to age. He continued to practice his craft, first for any daimyo who would pay him, then exclusively for us. He has spent five centuries perfecting his skills. Do you really think your two-legged beast or your man of sand can protect you?”
A five-hundred-year-old ninja. Don’t know why I didn’t see that one coming. “That sounds like a threat.”
“I have changed my mind. You are far too impulsive and ignorant to accomplish anything; your best use is as partial compensation for the loss of my stock. I can only hope your blood is sweeter than your tongue.”
I glance back at Charlie. He doesn’t look worried.
“Bring it on,” I say. “Ring your ninja-summoning gong or whatever the hell it is you do.”
Tanaka takes a step forward, holding his hands out imploringly. “Please. There is no need for this to become adversarial—”
“There is no need to summon him,” Isamu says. “Ryuu has been here all along. . . .”
My gun is out and pointed at Isamu’s head before he can finish his sentence. He stares at me more or less the same way I’d stare at someone brandishing a trout.
I glance at Charlie. He’s got one hand inside his jacket, like he’s going for a gun himself. There’s a man dressed all in black standing behind him, holding a three-foot-long sword in exactly the same pose as the samurai statue in the hall.
I’ll never forget the sound it makes when it slices into the back of Charlie’s neck.
FIVE
You know the sound a golf club makes when it hits sand? That kind of dry, chuffing noise as metal strikes silicon and then sprays everywhere? That’s what I’m expecting—but that’s not what I hear. Instead, there’s a muffled thwang, and the katana stops dead no more than an inch into the back of Charlie’s neck.
Charlie spins, pulling something from inside his jacket at the same time. The katana, firmly embedded, is yanked out of Ryuu’s hands—leaving him nothing to counter the eighteen-inch blade Charlie’s now swinging in a tight backhand arc toward the ninja’s own neck.
Poor Ryuu. I mean, I can only see his eyes, but in the second before his head topples to the floor and explodes into dust, he sure looks surprised. Guess a five-century-old ninja doesn’t really expect to be outstrategized by a walking bag of sand—even one in a pin-striped suit.
I’ve got the drop on Isamu, but of course that doesn’t mean anything to a target who isn’t afraid of guns. He leaps straight at me, probably intending to rip my arms off and beat me to death with them, and I shoot him many times. Many, many times. He refuses to explode in a disgusting display of gore and instead is merely propelled backward to his starting point. This produces a look of intense irritation on his face, which just doesn’t work for me. I was hoping for something a little more satisfying—fear, horror, maybe the dawning realization that he is well and truly hooped.
Oh, well. You take what you can get.
Something large and hairy launches itself through the air past me, heading for Isamu, and I realize Tanaka has stepped up to the plate. He lands on the oyabun in a snarling tangle of claws and fangs, and then comes flying past me an instant later going the other way. Isamu’s not just irritated, he’s a lot stronger than he looks.
But now he’s facing an angry thrope, a grim golem, and an extremely pissed-off Federal agent. One who’s busy reloading her .454-caliber irritant, granted, but still. Which is when he obviously realizes now is the time for plan B and dives under his desk. Maybe that should be plan C, for “cower.”
But then the desk starts to sink into the floor, and I realize it’s B after all—B for “basement” and “buh-bye.” The old elevator disguised as a desk trick, of course.
White vapor starts spraying from overhead vents. Charlie doesn’t hesitate—he scoops me up with one arm, hits the top of the sinking desk running, and vaults straight at the heavy drapes on the other side. I have time to hope Isamu doesn’t believe in shutters, and then I’m being smothered by musty velvet while glass smashes all around me. Charlie lands on his back and I land on him, which knocks the breath out of me but is vastly preferable to the other way around.
I quickly untangle myself. A white mist curls out of the shattered window behind us—I don’t know what’s in it, but it can’t be healthy. Charlie stands up, the sword still embedded in the back of his neck, and yanks it free by the handle. It makes a sound like a rusty nail pulling out of an old board.
“You all right?” I say. Tiny grains of black sand are spilling out of the tear in his plastic skin.
“Yeah. Lemme see about getting us a ride outta here.” He looks around. “Where’s Tanaka?”
The sound of more smashing glass answers us. Tanaka’s over by the limo, dragging the chauffeur out the window by his hair. The driver’s putting up a struggle, but stops when Charlie strides over and lays the blade of the katana against his throat.
“Tell him he’s driving us back to town,” Charlie growls. Tanaka raises two wolfy eyebrows in a question, and Charlie frowns. “Oh, right. Well then, just put him back in the driver’s seat and keep this handy. He’ll get the idea.”
Charlie hands Tanaka the katana, still holding his own weapon in his other hand. I get my first good look at it as he slides it back into its sheath in the lining of his jacket; it’s a gladius, a Roman short sword.
“Hail, Caesar,” I say as we get into the backseat of the limo and Tanaka and the chauffeur get in the front. “You got Colosseum sand in your family, Charlie?”
He’s got one hand clamped on the back of his neck now, but I don’t know if it’s because he’s in pain or is just trying to keep from leaking. “Standard Enforcement golem issue, rookie. What, you think all I’m good for is standing back and throwing silver? A pitching arm ain’t much good in a toe-to-toe brawl.”
The limo starts up and we roar away. From the acceleration, I’d guess Tanaka’s providing the driver with plenty of incentive. “How about your indestructible neck? That standard issue, too?”
“Nah. I stick a piece of rebar in there if I think a situation might go sideways. Makes it a little hard to move my head up or down, but at least it stays attached. Had a guy break a meat cleaver in half on it once.”
“How do you—I mean, do you have a zipper back there or something?”
“Something like that. I’d show you, but I’m trying not to hourglass all over the seat.”
“What happens if—”
“I die. Lose too much of my internal body mass and the spell that brought me to life pops like a soap bubble. It might be black and grainy, but it’s still my blood.”
That stops me for a second. I’d only known Charlie for a day, but I’d already started thinking of him as indestructible. “You’ll be okay, though, right?”
“Sure. Just take me to the nearest beach for a quick transfusion.”
Asshole. “How about we work on stopping the bleeding first?”
He digs something out of his breast pocket with one hand and hands it to me. “You mind? I can’t really see what I’m doing.”
I stare at the gray spool in my hand. “This is duct tape.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, we don’t have any ducks with sword wounds back here.”
I’ve got a partner who fixes himself with duct tape. More accurately, I’ve got a partner who needs me to fix him with duct tape. I sigh and peel off a strip. “Lean over, Daffy. You want one layer, or two?”
I half-expect us to be attacked on the way back to Sapporo by armored hearses full of vampire commandos, but we make it without incident. I get Charlie patched up, and he tells me the gas Isamu released was probably a nerve agent laced with silver—deadly to thropes and humans, debilitating to pires. “Might have even done me some damage,” Charlie says. “Depends on what kind of voodoo it was mixed up with. Lems don’t breathe, but there are some nasty spells out there. Mess with your mojo, you know?”
We let the driver go a block away from the train station and he doesn’t even waste our time with the obligatory death threats bef
ore leaving in a squeal of tires. We walk back to the train and get on board. Tanaka wants to tell the engineer to take us to Tokyo; he obviously thinks it’s a good idea to keep moving, an idea it’s hard to argue with.
I do anyway.
“Look,” I tell Tanaka. We’re standing in virtually the same spot the last time we argued, and he’s reverted to nonwolf form. “If we run, we’re actually more vulnerable. At the station we can get local enforcement to back us up in case Isamu tries some kind of frontal assault. But train tracks are just too easy to sabotage.”
“Which is why we should leave quickly. He will require time to prepare; despite his anger, he will not act rashly. I promise you, once we are out of his immediate sphere of influence, he will wait and plan. If we stay, he will see it as a further affront and will attack simply to save face. Leaving is our wisest option.”
I glare at him. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s backing down to a bad guy. Every cop instinct I have says you never, ever let them think they have the upper hand: it’s not pride, it’s a matter of leverage.
But sometimes you have to pick your battles. And standing this close to Tanaka, I can feel the conflicted anger coming off him—he wants to stay and fight just as bad as I do, maybe even more so because this is his country and his culture. Hell, it’s his biology.
And despite all that, his own experience is telling him we should run.
I let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Okay. You’re the expert in this situation, I’m going to listen. We go.”
He leaves the car to tell the engineer, and I throw myself down in a seat. It’s where Charlie finds me a few moments later, staring out the window.
“Where we off to now?” he asks, sitting down beside me.
“Tokyo, apparently. Tanaka says leaving Isamu’s territory is our smartest move.”
“And you decided to do it anyway?”
“How’s that hole in your head? You need another one?”
“I’m fine, thanks. I always carry some replacement soil with me, so I’m all topped up.”