by Gary Jonas
“Because you’re working with Nori.”
“I’m working for Cho. I want her to have a mother and a father. I want her to live as normal a life as possible. You fuckers have the most dysfunctional family I’ve ever seen. You’re willing to kill each other over the ability to create an army of werewolves.”
“Do you have any idea how much the werewolf serum would be worth?”
“I don’t give a shit. And I think deep down this bothers you, too. I know it bothers Nori.”
“No it doesn’t. Nori would kill me if he had the chance.”
“And you’d kill him.”
He shook his head. “I’ve had plenty of chances to kill Nori. In fact, my decision not to kill him is why Crimson Sun got the werewolf serum and Crimson Moon did not. I don’t expect you to care about any of that, of course. But if you truly want to help Cho then side with us. Once we even things out so both companies have the serum, Ichiro and Wakumi will both be safe. And that means Cho will have her family.”
“Nori doesn’t want to kill Ichiro, and you don’t want to kill Wakumi. Does this really come down to two brothers who can’t communicate?”
“I trusted him once, and it cost me.”
“Maybe it cost him too.”
Another ninja entered the room. He leaned close to Shinobi and whispered in his ear. Shinobi nodded.
“Thank you,” Shinobi said. “Let me know when they start coming down.”
“They’ve started already, sir.” The ninja left the room without even looking at me.
“My brother and your witch friend have begun their attack. It’s time for you to choose a side.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Shinobi rose and pressed a recessed button on the wall. A TV screen slowly lowered itself from the ceiling. He turned it on and the screen revealed a series of security camera footage. He pulled a remote attached to the side of the TV with Velcro and started flipping through the settings until he had one large view with multiple views beneath the main picture. Now he could scroll through the camera views on different floors to switch between the action.
He settled on a screen showing a hallway. Amanda walked behind two samurai with swords at the ready. They didn’t encounter any resistance. The rest of the hallway was clear.
“Alas, I don’t have sound,” Shinobi said.
“You also don’t have any men.”
“Why sacrifice my men?”
“Why not gas the hallway?
He laughed. “We don’t have enough of the gas.”
The samurai swept down the hallway, passing under the camera, which turned to follow their progress. They moved all the way to the end of the hallway before backtracking, but Amanda didn’t go with them all the way. Instead, she popped her head into a meeting room.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Shinobi asked. “Your friend went after you first.”
“This isn’t the same meeting room,” I said.
“They all look the same,” Shinobi said. “We moved you while you were unconscious. At great risk, I might add. If you’d been able to shake off the effects of our fentanyl derivative, you could have killed a few of my people.”
“Fentanyl can be deadly,” I said.
“Do you feel any ill effects?”
“No,” I said.
“Because we’ve come a long way since it was used at the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow.”
“So where am I now?”
“Elsewhere,” Shinobi said.
“Thanks for being so specific. Sure makes me want to trust you.”
He smiled and switched cameras. “Give me your word that you’re on my side, and I’ll trust you.”
“I’m on Cho’s side.”
“And if you’ll side with me, I can be on Cho’s side, too. Working together, we can keep Ichiro and Wakumi safe so Cho can have a family.”
A group of five samurai swept down a hallway checking every room. They encountered zero resistance.
“They’ll do a floor by floor search,” Shinobi said.
“Are we even in the same building?”
“Yes. They’re going to find us eventually. I’m sure you’ve noticed that we haven’t attacked them. I await your decision, Ms. Chan.”
Shinobi’s phone buzzed so he took it out and glanced at the screen. He nodded.
“Good news?” I asked.
“Ichiro is five minutes from the change. Would you like to watch that?”
“Switch channels so we can watch ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.’ I try to catch it every year.”
“I meant in person. I believe you when you say you’re on Cho’s side. As such, I’m going to cut you free. Once you see I’m telling you the truth, you’ll realize you’ve been helping the wrong side. Trust has to begin somewhere.” He turned to one of the ninja. “Mr. Ito, give me your short sword.”
Mr. Ito handed him a sword. Without any hesitation, Shinobi cut me free. “You really are in a trusting mood,” I said shaking off the ropes.
He handed the short sword to me. “I assure you, I am on the level.”
I nodded toward the other ninja. “He still has a sword.”
Shinobi looked at the ninja. “Give her your katana.”
The ninja hesitated a moment, then drew the blade and presented it to me.
“Now you have two swords and I am unarmed.”
“I don’t know if you’re brave or stupid,” I said, looking for the angle. There had to be one. The guy had an army of ninja.
“I just want you to help us keep Ichiro alive when my brother arrives.”
“What about Wakumi?”
“She is safe.”
“Guarded by ninja ordered to kill her should anyone enter the room?”
He called the ninja guarding Wakumi on Facetime. “Change of plans,” he told them. “Should Kelly Chan come to the room, you are to release Wakumi into her care alive, and assist in protecting her. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He ended the call. “Satisfied?”
I still didn’t trust him. There had to be an angle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Shinobi led me down a hall to a set of double doors. The doors opened into a large open area. Stacks of long tables lined the back wall, and on the opposite wall I saw metal poles with the open dividers of what had to be a serving line. This was the cafeteria, though it wasn’t being used as such. A group of perhaps a hundred ninja stood in rows, waiting. Shinobi talked to a woman in a lab coat, while Ichiro stood with his hands chained to the ceiling.
When I stepped into the room, the ninja spotted me immediately. They started toward us, and I smiled. I had two swords and an attitude, and I wasn’t afraid to use them.
“No!” Shinobi yelled. “Do not attack her!”
The ninja stopped advancing. On one hand, I was disappointed, but on another I wondered if maybe I’d misread Shinobi. He’d been following orders before. Was he still following orders, or was he doing like Nori and changing things up on the fly without reporting to headquarters? “Ichiro is about to change, Ms. Chan.”
“I’ve seen this movie,” I said, but I watched with him.
“Do not do this,” Ichiro said. “Please!” He went into a longer talk, but spoke in Japanese. I suspect it was more of the same. The final word turned to a growl as the effects of the moon took over.
He leaned his head back and fur sprouted on his cheeks. His face contorted, extending slightly, but looking much more like Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man than David Naughton in An American Werewolf in London. Of course, this transformation wasn’t brought about by special effects and makeup. Instead, the fur that grew, the fangs that formed, the claws that broke through the fingernails, and the howl that erupted from the beast’s throat were all real.
Third night. The werewolf struggled against his chains. They rattled, and cracks formed in the ceiling.
The woman in the lab coat didn’t care. She approached the werewolf as if it were a harmless puppy. She jammed a needle
into the beast’s vein and withdrew some blood. Then she stepped away and started working at her station doing who knows what.
Shinobi went over to help her.
The werewolf rattled his chains and roared. The ceiling cracked more, and I knew he was going to pull those chains free soon, but I had no clue how long that would take.
Keeping a wary eye on the rows of ninja, I moved toward Shinobi. Nobody moved to stop me. The werewolf pulled down his arms with all his might, and plaster rained on the floor. A giant metal beam crashed through the ceiling, but didn’t fall to the floor. Instead it settled on supports. It made a terrible noise, but the chains were attached to the metal. That meant the werewolf wasn’t going to pull free unless it could actually break those chains.
I approached Shinobi, keeping out of the werewolf’s range.
It growled and howled.
“Sorry, Ichiro,” I said.
As I neared Shinobi, he turned toward me and smiled. “Moment of truth,” he said and opened his shirt. The doctor plunged a needle directly into his heart like an adrenaline shot to a heroin overdose patient. She thumbed the plunger down, injecting some of the werewolf blood directly into Shinobi’s heart.
It had to hurt, but he didn’t show any pain on his face.
“How long will it take?” he asked.
“Your blood will circulate through your system in about a minute,” she said. “I don’t know how long it will take for you to feel the effects, though.”
“I’ve been working so hard,” he said.
“You’re trying to become a werewolf?” I asked.
“Trying? My dear, Ms. Chan, I’ve done it. And if all goes well, I’ll be able to do the transformation in less than a minute.”
Was this his angle? I didn’t know whether or not to kill him. If I killed him now, he wouldn’t be a werewolf. If I let him live, he might transform and try to kill me.
As try was the operative word, I let him live. For now.
“Why?”
“Nori is a werewolf,” he said. “I need to be one as well. Anything he can do, I can do as well.”
“Not better?”
“This is not a song, Ms. Chan. This is my life. I’m older than Nori. The gift he was given should have been mine.”
“You call that a gift?” I asked, nodding toward Ichiro.
“Yes. Ichiro is weak. He’s had a year to master his wolf, and he failed. I can feel my wolf growing inside my heart even as we speak. With strength and with presence of mind and will, I shall control my wolf from the start.”
Shinobi closed his eyes and twitched.
I gripped my swords just in case.
“You have nothing to fear, Ms. Chan. When I change, I will not harm you.”
He stiffened as though he’d eaten too much ice cream and given himself brain freeze. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He opened his mouth, clenched his teeth, and his ears started to grow. Fur broke out on his hands, chest, and face. His teeth extended into fangs. Claws broke free. He tensed, dropped to one knee and bowed his head. When he looked up, his eyes were red, and he completed his metamorphosis into a werewolf.
He rose, studied his clawed hands.
“The wolf is mine,” he said. His voice sounded like he’d been gargling glass.
I kept the swords ready.
“I must test myself,” he growled.
He moved past me to the center of the room. He ran toward the door, leaped, touched one foot onto the wall, flipped back to his feet to land on the floor. He spun and raced across the room, leaping from the halfway point all the way to the wall on the opposite side of the room, covering twenty feet in the air.
He loped back toward me and shifted back to human form as the lope became a walk.
“It’s invigorating,” he said.
“And you started out with total control,” I said. “I’m impressed.”
“We’ve been working on the thought processes involved for months,” he said. “Once you understand them, it’s almost second nature.”
“So why can’t Ichiro do it?”
“Have you ever dropped acid?”
“No.”
“Well, I have. I once watched Tokyo melt before my eyes. I saw the carpet come to life with little beings rolling toward me in undulating waves.”
“How nice for you.”
“Ichiro dropped acid with me, and it had no effect on him.”
“And?”
“You’ve spoken with him. He’s not the brightest bulb on the branch. With hallucinogenic drugs, one must have a certain level of intelligence in order to properly experience them. The same is true of the werewolf gene. One must have a certain level of mental capability. Ichiro doesn’t have anything to work with.”
“He speaks at least two languages, so he can’t be that stupid.”
“He grew up in America and in Japan, but he led a sheltered life.”
“You and Nori both talk about Ichiro like he’s inferior. Maybe strength has nothing to do with it. Maybe his curse has the werewolf gene permanently set to on, but those with the serum are able to shift theirs on and off at will.”
“As it happens,” the doctor said, “that is my working hypothesis as well. As Wakumi’s curse changed when she was pregnant, I believe nature gave her the power so her bloodline would continue. It’s also why nobody else’s blood will work. Ichiro and Wakumi were cursed at the same time. We tried using the blood of one of the samurai last month. It was useless.”
“Whatever you say, doctor,” I said.
Shinobi turned to the doctor. “How much blood can we safely take from Ichiro?”
“Enough to create five more wolves. Maybe six.”
He nodded and turned to the rows of ninja. He pointed to six men and had them line up. He adjusted the order based on his best fighters, and the doctor began drawing blood, mixing a serum and then injecting each man in turn.
A ninja rushed into the room. “Sir, Nori found the hidden basement entrance. They’re on their way down.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Shinobi gathered his ninja werewolves together. “Men, we’re about to have company. Don’t shift to wolf form immediately. I want them to think they got here in time. We’ll shift to attack once the melee is underway.”
The werewolf ninja nodded. They folded into the lines of other warriors, and as they were all dressed the same, it was impossible to tell which were now capable of the change.
Shinobi smiled at me. “Are you with us now?”
“There has to be a better way to handle this,” I said.
“When Nori and his team enter, their number one priority is going to be to kill Ichiro. They don’t want us to have their ability to shift.”
“Bit late for that,” I said.
“Indeed, but they don’t know that, so they’re going to try to kill Ichiro. Nothing else will matter to them.”
“I have a better idea,” I said. “Come with me.”
I walked to the doors.
He didn’t come with me.
“Let’s see if we can handle this without any more bloodshed. Get the door.”
Reluctantly, he walked over, opened the door and started to follow me out. He glanced back at his men. “Be prepared for battle in case I don’t return.”
Shinobi and I stood in the hallway and waited. We didn’t have to wait long before Nori, Takeshi, Amanda and the others came around the corner. The samurai all had swords at the ready.
I gave them a nod. “Hello, everyone,” I said.
“Where’s Ichiro?” Nori asked.
“She betrayed us,” Takeshi said.
Amanda shot me a WTF look. Shintaro, Pat, and the rest looked to Nori for leadership, so when he stopped a few yards away, they stopped too.
“Where is he?” Nori asked.
“We’ll get to that,” I said. “What we’re going to do right now is talk this out because you neglected to mention that Shinobi here is your brother.”
“Not anymore,” No
ri said.
“I hate domestics,” I said. “You’re both part of a dysfunctional family, and your lack of communication is getting people killed.”
“He kidnapped Wakumi,” Nori said.
“You hid Ichiro from him, so you’re even. Near as I can figure it, you guys developed a werewolf serum and you refused to share.”
“The partnership was severed last year,” Takeshi said. “They relinquished all rights when they parted.”
“Oh, that’s right, you’re the businessman,” I said. “What’s a life worth?”
“Depends on the life,” he said. The way he grinned made me want to slap him, but this was a negotiation, and I refused to let him bother me. There was a time when I’d have answered the way he did, right down to the grin. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d probably answer the same way now. Maybe that’s why it bothered me.
“Nori,” I said. “You and Shinobi may be estranged, but you’re still brothers. Wakumi and Ichiro didn’t ask for what happened to them, and as far as I’m concerned, they should both be allowed to live.”
“It’s all about Cho to you,” Nori said.
“This should be about family to you.”
“We’ve been more than patient,” Takeshi said.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I said.
“We’re equals in the company, and Nori defers to me on the business front, just as I defer to him on matters of battle. This is a simple business decision. They’re trying to steal our property. But Nori and his father are too sentimental to make the clear and obvious choice.”
“Takeshi,” Nori said. “Let’s hear them out.” Nori turned his attention to Shinobi. “Will Mother agree to a merger?”
“Will Father?”
“For the sake of Ichiro and Wakumi, perhaps we should try to bring the companies back together. Will you work with me?”
“You can’t be serious,” Takeshi said.
“Look at the odds here, Takeshi. Shinobi has both Ichiro and Wakumi, and Kelly has made it clear she’s not willing to fight with us. And if she won’t fight, I don’t think Amanda will help us.”
“You got that right,” Amanda said.
“So we should try to work a deal.”