Evil Ascending

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The whistled hiss of a weapon being swung through the air echoed up and out of the training area as Coyote swept past it. He stopped and listened for a moment, but heard nothing. He concentrated and forced himself to wait passively for any sensation in the room, but it remained psychically silent. No feelings, no sound, nothing.

  He smiled to himself. The sound of one hand clapping.

  Silently, he slipped into the shadowed training room and slowly descended the stairs. He moved so painstakingly slow that tired and tight muscles threatened to cramp on him, but he persisted. Step by step he went down. He let the cold of the stones bleed up through his feet, and he visualized his outline vanishing within the darkness.

  After 30 minutes, he had reached the halfway point in his descent. A dozen steps remained in his trek, and with each step his feeling of closing on his prey increased. He sensed himself the hunter, yet did all he could to banish that feeling. He knew for certain, because of its ability to mask itself, that the thing he sought had skills beyond those he himself possessed. In an instant, this thing could turn on me and, doubtlessly, destroy me.

  His eyes took a long time to adjust, due to the near-absence of light. Coyote looked out into the long, deep room, searching for any hint of his adversary. As happens when one stares out into the darkness for a long time, he saw shapes flit past. He could not be immediately certain they were not just floaters in his eyes, but when they resolved themselves into consistent, if odd, patterns, he decided they were not.

  Again he heard a sound. The light snap seemed, to him, to be the sound of a silken sleeve slapping itself around the haft of a pole weapon, or otherwise being stressed into making a whip-crack sound. He immediately turned his head to lock onto the sound, and he saw the black shape dart off through the pillars. Then another snap sounded from the far left, and a third from deep to the right.

  Without conscious thought, Coyote knew that three such sounds after so much silence was not a mistake. It was a trap and, in that, he was meant to orient on the final sound. If I am supposed to look there, then . . .

  He launched himself from the steps and out into the darkness to his left. He snapped his left foot up through where he sensed a momentary spark of surprise. His foot met resistance, then the thick wooden shaft of a naginata snapped. His leap carried him beyond the broken weapon and through the echoes of the thunder crack.

  He landed in a low crouch, then pulled his head back and let his body roll into a backward somersault. Ending on all fours, he did a right-shoulder roll back toward the stairs. He brought his left arm up, forearm perpendicular to his upper arm, but parallel to the floor, and swept it up in an arc to protect his head. It deflected a kick wide and Coyote rolled out from under it.

  His arm stung. That would easily have fractured my skull had it landed. Clutching his left arm to his chest, he started a left-shoulder roll back the way he had come. Slapping his left hand flat against the stone, he stopped the roll in the middle and pivoted his body so both his legs scythed through the space parallel to the course of his roll.

  His opponent somehow saw enough of what was coming that he leaped up above the attack, but did not clear it entirely. Coyote caught an ankle, and he felt the creature's center of balance shift. He heard his foe land on the floor, but not heavily enough to cause injury, then it rolled away in the whisper of silken robes.

  Coyote pushed himself off the floor and leaped to his feet, but his fatigue left him feeling disoriented in the darkness. He half-turned to the left, seeking any clue that could help place him in the room, then stars exploded before his eyes as a kick caught him above the left eye. His head snapped around to the right and his stunned body tumbled off in that direction.

  He hit the ground and bounced once. Regaining momentary control of himself, he let his body spin, and then twisted around so he could let the momentum bring him to his feet again. As he did so, however, he ran into the side of the stairs and smacked his head against the stone.

  Huge shimmering balls of light burst like fireworks in his vision. He shook his head and closed his eyes, but nothing would banish them. His left hand snaked back and felt blood coming from the wound in the back of his head. I need help.

  Something in the darkness grabbed him by the armpits and lifted him like a child onto the steps. Coyote opened his eyes and stared at the thing, but the light balls made seeing anything clearly impossible. "What are you?" The thing's eyes burned with a scarlet light. Coyote succumbed to the sudden and overwhelming desire to sleep.

  Coyote's eyes opened as Mong prodded him. Lying at the base of the stairs, Coyote saw three of the monks standing around him, and he felt the pressure of a bandage around his head. "Did you see?"

  Mong held his hand out. "Quiet. You took a nasty fall. You should have gotten something to eat after your meditation. You were weak and took a misstep."

  "I did?"

  Mong nodded slowly. "A getsul heard you cry out as you fell. We came immediately and stitched you up. I don't know what you dreamt about while you lay here, but it is time to return to your room."

  Coyote closed his eyes. Nice try, Mong, but the dream remark went too far. There was something here. Something more substantial than the sound of one hand clapping.

  Despite the throbbing pain in the back of his head, Coyote forced himself to conjure up the last image he had seen. He melded all the views of it he had seen into one, then deleted the distortion caused by the balls. Piece after piece slid into place, and he suddenly realized where he had seen the black face with white tusks and red eyes before.

  I fought the Yidam down here. He opened his eyes and saw his thought confirmed by Mong's unguarded glance at him. Fine, Mong. You play your game, and I'll play mine. Do what you will, but I guarantee this: In the end, I'll know why a Buddhist demon exists in the heart of this monastery and why you keep this such a deep, dark secret.

  Sin lay back in bed as Erika sat up and reached for a cigarette and her lighter. He stroked her back with his right hand. She smiled at him, the lit her cigarette, drew deeply on it and sent a plume of smoke up toward the ceiling.

  She offered him the cigarette, but he shook his head. "Never developed the habit, I'm afraid."

  She smiled, the cherry on the end of the cigarette putting a rosy glow on her face. "I quit a long time ago, but a cigarette still tastes great after sex." She raked the fingernails of her left hand through the damp hair on his chest. "With you around, though, I could become a regular chain-smoker."

  Sin picked her left hand up and kissed her palm. "Ah, but smoking is bad for you. You'll have to get plenty of exercise to counteract those evil effects."

  Erika smiled at him and laughed lightly. "That could become a deliriously wonderful cycle, you know." She yawned.

  "My thoughts exactly." Sin suppressed his own yawn. "I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted."

  Erika nodded and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray on the nightstand. "Tired but very, very happy." She slid down beside him and pulled the sheet up to her waist. Doubling the pillow over, she lay on her left side and smiled at him. "An hour or two of shut-eye, then see what we can do to raise the price of Phillip Morris stock, shall we?"

  Sin reached down and pulled the sheet up to her shoulder. He kissed her on the tip of her pert nose, then slowly slipped out of bed. "I'm going to hit the shower for a second here, to cool off. Be back before you know it."

  As he stood up she said, "Wait."

  "What?"

  She held her right hand out, thumb erect, as if she were an artist trying to judge relative sizes of objects in a painting. "Just wanted to memorize you so I get you right in this dream I'm planning."

  "Oh?"

  "It will be wonderful." She yawned and stretched. "Wake me when you get back, and I'll show you all about it." She closed her eyes and feigned sleep, then winked at him and snuggled beneath the sheet.

  Weaving slightly unsteadily for his first step, Sin stumbled to the bathroom and shut the door before he
flicked the light on. Its brightness stung his eyes, but he shielded them with his left hand, then leaned heavily against the sink. Lowering his hand, he looked up at his reflection and shook his head.

  I'm sure Coyote is going to love your spending this much time cloistered with Erika. He smiled as he remembered what she looked like in the electric-blue dress currently decorating his living-room floor. If he saw her in that dress, he'd understand. He might not like it, but he'd understand.

  He opened the shower stall's smoky-glass door and stepped in. He set the water on medium and pointed the nozzle toward the wall. As the door snapped shut behind him, he yanked up on the water control handle and started a stinging spray from the shower head. He let it warm up and swung the nozzle in line with his head.

  Washing down over him, the water felt as wonderful as his time at the Kimpunshima party did. With Erika on his arm, no one paid too much attention to him. This gave him the freedom to listen a lot, and he realized that Kimpunshima had not changed too much since he had lived in Japan. It was still the bastion of ethnocentric fools who gloried in the high salaries their companies paid them to live in Japan, without realizing that, contrary to their self-images, they were not at the top of the food chain.

  What had surprised him was the number, and relative importance, of the Japanese at the party. Most had been identified to him as middle- to upper-level employees with different Japanese corporations. It struck him that the majority of them were American- or European-born or raised and had been selected for ease of interface with the Kimpunshima residents. Still, Sin had been told one person, a handsome young man, was Ryuhito, the emperor's grandson, which would have been a great departure from the sort of interaction he had seen in the past.

  The other odd thing he noticed was a recurring topic of conversation. He had been used to fads of all types traveling like diseases through the Kimpunshima population when he had lived in Japan. At one point, for a month he preferred to forget entirely, it seemed like every European had a Hula Hoop grafted to his middle. Paleo-retro parties built on the 1950s theme predominated the social schedule at the time. He remembered one costume party in which people were required to come as their favorite old television character—and they had to dress in shades of black and white with gray makeup to keep the look genuine. He recalled a nasty fight when Ethel Mertz found Fred with Rowdy Yates and Dale Evans, but in general, it had been harmless.

  The difference he found at the party was that people almost seemed to be proselytizing about Arrigo and Michelle El-Leichter and the Galbro training center they had. At first he thought they ran some sort of business-skill improvement center, but the sense he got from folks was that it was something more. They kept hinting at hidden knowledge, which means they're being conned. One of the things old Horatio might not have dreamt of is that there are folks who are out to separate anyone and everyone from their money.

  Sin heard the bathroom door open and close. "Decide to join me?"

  The shower-stall door swung open. Sin found himself staring down the bore of his own Beretta 9mm pistol. The small, dark-haired Japanese man holding the gun eased the hammer back, then leaned against the wash stand. "It is illegal to possess one of these in Japan, Mr. MacNeal."

  "Then I'd hide it while you have the chance, Nagashita." Sin shut the water off. "I won't tell."

  The Internal Defense Cadre colonel shook his head. "I could shoot you now, you know. I could tell my superiors that you jumped me and that I had to defend myself."

  "They'd never believe you. They know you'd kill me with your bare hands just for the pleasure of it." Sin glanced at the towel on the rack near the shower. "May I?"

  Nagashita nodded and dropped the gun's aiming point to his legs. "I do want you alive, but walking is optional."

  Easy, Sin. This is no time to fool around. He reached for the towel slowly as he looked at the IDC officer. The man wore clothing associated by countless movies with ninja warriors. While his uniform looked traditional, Sin could tell from the tightness of the fabric across Nagashita's chest that he wore body armor beneath it. His bracers and greaves appeared to be formed from Kevlar, and Sin did not doubt that the shuriken on the weapon harness were ceramic instead of metal. A mini-Uzi filled the holster on Nagashita's right thigh, while the more traditional katana had been slung on his back with its hilt protruding just above his left shoulder.

  "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Sin finished drying himself off, then wrapped the towel around his waist. "You can't still be angry about missing me three years ago, can you? I thought you a much better loser than that."

  Nagashita's dark eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He gently let the hammer on the Beretta fall, then dangled the gun from his index finger and extended it to Sin. "That has not been forgotten, but I am merely an instrument of my master's will. My own satisfaction means nothing in the face of his wishes."

  Sin took the gun and popped the clip out. Pulling the slide back, he popped the single-chambered round out and caught it before it hit the floor. He replaced it in the clip, but did not return the clip to the gun. "What do you want, Nagashita?"

  The IDC man opened the bathroom door. "Your living room, now."

  Sin walked out of the bathroom and in the light of the bedside lamp saw that wet, rumpled sheets and cigarette ash were the only evidence that Erika had ever been there. He tossed the gun and clip on the bed, then reached for the pants he had draped over a chair.

  Nagashita shoved him from behind. "He just asked me to deliver you, nendo. He said nothing about having you dress."

  Snarling soundlessly, Sin walked to the bedroom doorway and saw six IDC ninja stationed around the room. Two stood at the doorway through which he passed and another two stood beside the main door. The last two bracketed the chair that had been pulled into the middle of the living-room floor.

  The only light came from the bedroom and filtered out and around Sin's shadow. Moving forward and to the side let a tantalizingly brief flash of light wash over the old man sitting in the chair, then Nagashita's black outline covered him. No, it's not possible.

  The voice coming from the chair sounded to Sin to be far too strong for the frail body he had seen. "Forgive me, Mr. MacNeal, but the logistics of having you visit me are more fraught with danger than the reverse. Also, please excuse the fact that you will never see Ms. Conklin again in Japan. Her visitation and work permits have been revoked. It is for her safety."

  Sin shook his head, scattering droplets of water around the room. "I don't understand."

  The little man's silhouette held up its right hand and rubbed thumb against forefingers until a droplet of water evaporated. "This evening you attended a party that included among its number my grandson. Your presence was brought to Colonel Nagashita's attention, and he immediately requested the honor of killing you. You caused him much embarrassment three years ago and, at that time, he requested leave of me to kill himself."

  Sin glanced back over his shoulder at Nagashita. "He always was a traditionalist."

  "As am I, Mr. MacNeal, yet I am a pragmatist as well. Colonel Nagashita was too valuable to me then to let him die, and you are too valuable to me now to let him kill you." His hand returned to his lap. "I need your services."

  "I am flattered, but I already have an employer."

  "I know. I believe he would find my mission and whatever he has charged you with coincide in most important areas. After all, Michael Loring appeared to head up Lorica Industries after the former CEO, Nerys Loring, died amid a strange atmospheric disturbance. I know you are here in connection with that, and I know that storm has been linked with the appearance of a monstrous creature in Phoenix itself."

  The American laughed. "I am afraid I find it easier to believe Godzilla will rampage through Tokyo tonight than I do to believe a monster threatened Phoenix."

  "But if you thought Godzilla or something like it did threaten Phoenix or Tokyo or your family, you would do what you could to prevent it, would you
not?"

  Sin slowly nodded. "I would."

  "And thus I am doing." The old man's head came up. "You have heard of Arrigo and Michelle El-Leichter?"

  Sin nodded again. "Yes. They live in Kimpunshima and appear to have some sort of training institute set up there."

  "I believe they exercise an undue influence on my grandson."

  "Exile them, just like you did Erika." Sin's response came a bit hot, and Nagashita hissed behind him. "Forgive my rudeness, but it seems like a viable solution."

  The old man remained silent for a moment, then spoke again in a lower voice. "I cannot. They have powerful friends who protect them. Exiling my grandson will do no good. He must be shown that they are frauds and stupid so that he can make up his own mind to abandon them. To do that I need someone inside their organization who can reach him and sow doubt in his mind. You are an American, and Colonel Nagashita's disgust with you is well known. I could not manufacture a better agent to be inserted into their school."

  "I understand your reasoning, but why do you need your grandson turned away from them? Can't you just explain things to him?"

  "There are two facts of life in Japan for the Imperial family, Mr. MacNeal. The first is that an industrial shogunate has imposed itself and has, realistically, stripped away the last of the power the emperor ever had. This is especially frustrating for a virile young man who wants to shape the future of his nation. Because of his blood, he cannot enter industry and exercise power, yet because of his blood, he is the best choice to lead his nation."

  The little man's voice picked up new power as he continued. "The second fact, and it is a fact, is one of history. My father renounced his divinity as part of the settlement of the Great Pacific War. He paid that price to preserve his nation and its identity. Christians note their Jesus gave his life for his people. In the same way, my father made a supreme sacrifice. However, his renunciation of divinity does not change the fact that blood of gods runs in our veins.