Mai had already spotted it. This was the only place a person could buy alcohol at the Game Show and thus primarily attracted a certain sort. If it seemed odd that an organization like the Yakuza would frequent a video games show, Mai knew it was not. The younger gang element played video games just like any other young Japanese. The older element liked to peruse and safeguard their investment—the fact that they owned one of the biggest video game developers in Japan was a badly kept secret.
Since its early days, the Game Show had become a tradition for most people. Once a year they made the pilgrimage. Once a year they met gamer friends and talked over the last three hundred and sixty five days. Once a year they became consummate geeks, lost in the herd.
Mai spotted the man she was looking for straight away. He was thin and rangy, hard-faced, and wearing dark clothing which covered every one of his gang tattoos. He sat toward the back of the bar, among a group of fellow gang members, giving death glares to any unfortunate soul who passed close by. The Yakuza might enjoy the Game Show to a point, but they did not want to make friends here.
Mai took a breath. “Tokyo Coscon part two,” she breathed. “Here I go again.”
Hibiki melted away, choosing a clever vantage point whilst pretending to watch some super-geek playing the new Final Fantasy installment. Mai headed for the bar, taking a slow walk, making sure every gang member noticed her. Truth be told, it wasn’t a tough job. A blind man in a snowstorm would have sat himself down just to watch her walk.
She leaned over the bar to be sure their attention was properly focused. “Got any milk?”
The bartender put down his towel. “Baby-changing station’s back by the entrance doors.”
“Oh. How about a pint then?”
“Got a preference?”
“Not really. Surprise me.”
“I’d love to.” The man turned away from her stare and pulled down a glass. By the time it was full she sensed she was no longer alone.
Without turning around she took a sip. “Can I help you?”
“Me and the boys have a bet goin’. Which one of us gets to peel those tight leather pants off tonight.”
Mai spun in place, leaning back with her elbows on the bar. “Well, you’re certainly going the right way about doing that.”
It wasn’t her target, just one of his minions. She nodded over at his table. “A bet, eh? And just for taking my pants off. What’s the take?”
“So far? About a thousand. Why? You interested in taking a cut?”
Mai didn’t answer, just made a show of looking the gang over. “If all you wanna do is take my pants off . . . doesn’t seem worth my time.”
The minion laughed. “There’s more than that laid out on the table. Much more.”
“Mmm, sounds good. But it’s not quite fair. There’s only six of you.”
The minion almost choked. “Hey lady, you should be a little more—”
“Careful?” Mai smiled wickedly. “Careful’s for the weak and the powerless. And believe me, I’m neither.”
By now her target was taking more of an interest, clearly wondering what was being said. He stood up and beckoned her over. Mai thought about her parents, about Gyuki, about Hibiki and Chika. She thought about the clan master and all the dreadful things she had witnessed as a child growing up in his community. There really was no option here.
Her target, a man called Hikaru, called to her. “Are you a cosplay girl? I thought I knew them all. Are you new to the circuit?”
Mai felt six pairs of eyes watching her as she walked up to him. “Freelancer. Thought I would give it a try this year.”
“Are you alone? You look a little familiar.”
“Don’t you recognize me? I’m a movie star.” Mai let out a little giggle. “And no—my boyfriend’s around somewhere playing his games.” She rolled her eyes on the last word, showing her distaste.
“Ah I see. So you were dragged to the show were you? And you want to what . . . teach him a lesson by playing a little game of your own on the side?”
Mai shrugged. “Why not? I’ve already decided this is going to be my year of firsts.”
Hikaru grinned. “I could think of a few ‘firsts’ right now.”
Mai let the giggle out again. “How would you know?”
“There’s a restroom just over there. I’m guessing that’d be your first ‘first’. Wanna try?”
“Only if you have a little stamina. I’m sick and tired of the nightly five-minute desperate Hail Mary passes.”
Hikaru exhaled. “Jesus, you’re fuckin’ hot. C’mon. Ichiro, Kyo, watch the doors. No one gets in, you hear me? No one. Hey, girl, what’s your name?”
“Maggie.” She giggled and took his hand, giving him the full fantasy. The look in his eyes told her he had totally bought it, as had every one of his cohorts. Were guys really so easy? she wondered. A pair of leather pants, a giggle, and a bit of sex-talk. Was Drake that easy?
Or was it just the bad guys and their raging, repressed hormones?
Hikaru led her toward the restroom, crossing a short length of blue carpet. The orange symbol for the gents glowed above the door. Mai slowed and looked around, feigning sudden doubt, but actually scouting the area. Hikaru pulled her hand hard, leaving no doubt as to his intentions and chivalry, and she let herself be dragged through the door. Inside, everything was stark white, bright and relatively clean. Hikaru turned her around and forced her against the wall, hands first.
“Stick your ass out, Maggie. You’re gonna experience a first your geek boyfriend wouldn’t dare ask you for.”
Mai wiggled. “Do it. I’m nothin’ if I’m not a dirty freak.”
“And when you’re snuggling up to him tonight.” Hikaru shifted his pants down. “Remember this!”
It was the moment she had been waiting for. In her past experience as an undercover agent for the Japanese agency, she had learned that a man never fought the same with his tackle hanging out. She whirled, slamming an elbow into his ear. Before he could utter a screech, her hand gripped his voice box so hard his face instantly turned white.
Mai grabbed the only thing about him that wasn’t hanging as limp as a wet rag and pulled him close. She whispered in his ear. “Little Hikaru,” she said. “That was so easy. I have been sent to kill you. Do you know me now, I wonder?”
Pure terror suddenly lit the Yakuza boss’s eyes. He knew. At last, the old legends were starting to come back to him. The searing humiliation, the outrageous memories.
“Mai Kitano,” she said. “A name that’s whispered with some reverence around these parts, or so I’m told.”
The man didn’t move a muscle. He was hers to control. “So,” she whispered into his bleeding ear. “Still think I’m hot?”
Despite the situation, Hikaru nodded.
Mai stepped away. “Well, I guess I am pretty.” She laughed. “One squeak, Hikaru. One squeak and I’ll end you.”
The Yakuza boss motioned at his pants.
“Oh, put it away, Hikaru. I couldn’t even scratch my nose with that thing.”
Mai pulled him to the far wall. “Now listen. Like I said, I have been sent to kill you. The Tsugarai sent me. I’m willing to give you a pass this time . . . but I need your help in return.”
“What?” Now that Hikaru was fully clothed again, part of the swagger had returned. “What could I do for you?”
“Pretend to be dead,” Mai said. “For about three hours.”
“Pretend . . .” Hikaru shook his head in disbelief. “How would I do that?”
“The Yakuza are a close-knit gang,” Mai said. “It’s possible and believable that they would not want your death broadcast around immediately. Just disappear, Hikaru. For a little while.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll come back for you one night. And that twig dick will be the least of your worries.”
Hikaru remained silent as he weighed his options. His next words proved there was at least a little intelligence
behind the ever-present red haze of lust and brutality. “The Tsugarai. I know they own you. This is your homecoming, yes?”
“They do not own me,” Mai hissed. “Nobody owns me.”
“I’m just saying . . . we don’t exactly love the Tsugarai either.”
Mai stared. “You’re offering to help?” The idea hadn’t occurred to her.
“Rock ‘n’ roll.” Hikaru grinned.
“I have all the help I need,” Mai told him. “But one day . . . maybe one day. Another time.”
“Just come around wearin’ those pants and I’ll know you need me.” Hikaru touched his finger to his nose like a conspirator. “I’ll know.”
Mai nodded. “Agreed. But Hikaru, listen. Don’t fuck me on this. You will regret it.”
“When you say it like that,” the Yakuza boss said. “I’m just putty in your hands.”
“More like a pussy in my hands.” Mai doubled him over with a hard blow to the solar plexus. “That’s for being a gang-rat piece of shit. Now, stay here and do as you’re told.”
She exited the restroom swiftly, inviting both of Hikaru’s guards over with a saucy little wink and closing the outer door after them.
“We voted,” one said haughtily. “I’m first.”
Mai smiled. “Oh, alright then.”
His scream followed her all the way back to the game stations, but she barely heard. She was trying to force an ominous new thought from her mind—the one whispering on eldritch wings that whilst she had killed the mostly innocent money launderer, she had spared the totally guilty Yakuza boss’s life. A worrying reflection, but not one she could allow to confuse her now. This was the hour she had been waiting for. Everything had led to this. It was time. All her life she had been waiting, training and fighting toward this very moment.
It was time.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Drake saw Smyth overcome a ragged bunch of mercenaries below and silently thanked Alicia for her ingenious foresight. Thanks to her, they now had only half as many enemies to deal with. He lingered by the back of the burning chopper, easing the Delta man’s passage with a few well-placed shots. Men twisted and fell before him. The raging fire licked at the buildings all the way up to the roof. The scream of officers giving orders and men shouting in agony sounded little different in the chaos. When Smyth barreled past Drake and rejoined the group, Alicia grabbed him and planted her lips on his.
“Beautiful one,” she shouted. “Very well done, Smythy, ya mad, angry, little bastard.”
Smyth backed away. “Ah, thanks.”
Drake swore. “Look lively, guys. This ain’t gonna be pretty.”
A knot of Kovalenko’s men, temporarily cut off from their comrades by the inferno, charged at them. At the precise instant when their weapons coughed, Drake’s team flung themselves every which way but loose. Drake hit the dirt, landing prone on his back, shooting between his own feet. Dahl threw Karin into a doorway, took a bullet in the vest, and returned fire without missing a beat. Alicia and Smyth ducked and sprinted to the right. Komodo slipped behind the chopper, his face lit by the flames.
The first runners collapsed at Drake’s feet, and he had to roll to keep his legs free. Sand and grit turned into a red mush of spilled blood. A man launched himself headlong, coming down on Drake’s stomach. A knife slashed. Drake watched the blade pass between his armpits. When the blade struck dirt, he fired into the man’s abdomen, making him twitch. Cognizance soon vanished from his eyes.
A merc stamped past. Drake reached out and tripped him. He scrambled until his back was against the wall. The merc came at him with a knife and pistol. Drake kicked the pistol aside as it fired, sending the shot skyward, and danced along with the thrust of the knife. In the first eight seconds the merc didn’t make a mistake, staying sharp and lethal. Two seconds later, he had lunged a few inches too far and paid the ultimate price.
Alicia and Smyth joined Komodo in finishing off the last of the attackers but, by then, another sizable group were negotiating the flames.
“Fall back,” Drake shouted. “Ammo’s low.”
“You hear that?” a voice suddenly screamed. “Did you? They’re almost dry. Take them! Take them now!”
Drake met the eyes of the others. There was no mistaking the gravelly voice of Dmitry Kovalenko, no matter how perversely excited it sounded. Drake looked at his colleagues, searching hard for their inner resolve, and found pure fire and steel and a will tough enough to withstand hurricanes.
“This battle just became worth every fucking cut and bruise,” Kinimaka grunted. “Everyone here owes this bastard the harshest death.”
“Be careful of his bodyguards,” Karin said. “Mordant and Gabriel. I read about them. They’re said to be the hardest, most dangerous men the penal system has ever seen.”
Kinimaka grunted. “I can second that.”
Drake readied his weapon and turned to face the roaring flames. “The cavalry can’t be far away,” he said. “But this battle ends here and now. We stand.”
Dahl stepped to his right shoulder, Alicia to his left. Komodo, Kinimaka and Smyth ranged out behind him. Karin Blake moved to her boyfriend’s side.
“We stand.”
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
Through flames of light and shadow they came, the last of the Blood King’s army; faces cast in flickering fire; eyes blackened into demonic pits by the lowering dark; teeth bared and mouths spread wide as if all they wanted was to devour their enemy.
Initially there were a dozen of them. They were followed by Kovalenko himself, flanked by Gabriel and Mordant, The Twins grinning fiercely. This was their arena, their element. This was where they would shine.
The two forces paused for a beat, every man and woman there recognizing the significance of the moment. Who would win and who would die? This place, right here and now, was where the real warriors would prove themselves. Courage was everything. Those who turned away, those who ran, would keep running forever.
“Live or die this day,” Dahl whispered amongst his own. “Live or die.”
Drake turned to them all. “If this is the last and best fight of my life I could not have stood among worthier friends. Thank you.”
Then the ranks broke and the screams went up. The charge was on. Dahl smashed into one well-built merc so hard he actually sent the man tumbling back into the flaming chopper. The mad Swede didn’t even break stride. He barged aside another man, breaking the guy’s shoulder in the process, leaving him on his knees and heaving with pain. Drake hit a third head on, using his forehead harder than at any other time in his life. Fresh blood spattered his face, and he ran right over the collapsing man. Alicia broke a man’s windpipe without losing a beat.
All eyes were on the Blood King.
If this is the last and best fight of my life . . .
The Blood Vendetta would end today. No more innocents would die. They carved through the Blood King’s ranks; a deadly, unstoppable phalanx of invincible purpose, and it was Dahl, Drake and Alicia who suddenly found themselves facing off with Mordant, Gabriel and Kovalenko.
Time stood still. For them, the whole world might as well have stopped turning. Violent flames lit the scene, flaring, bursting and wreathing between metal, stone and shadow. Kovalenko gave them his most smug grin.
“You cannot beat these men, dah? I am glad it has come to this—to us. A much more fitting end. I could not have written it so well.”
“This madness is finished,” Dahl said. “You are finished.”
“Ah, the great Torsten Dahl. The hero himself. What is it they call you? The Mad Swede? Your family were moments away from good Russian execution, my friend. Moments. They will not survive next time.”
Drake took a step forward. “You killed my friends. You killed Ben and his parents.” He counted each atrocity off on his fingers. “You murdered my team’s families. You might have killed Hayden. Mai. Chika. Jonathan. You kidnapped the bloody President and launched a drone strike on Washington DC. Wh
at kind of demon are you, Kovalenko? Is there even a name for the part of Hell you come from?”
“Meh.” Kovalenko flicked it all away with a shrug. “A man born in blood aspires to be serial killer. A man born of evil father aspires to become good marine. But a man born in war aspires to war.” He shrugged. “It is the way of the world.”
With that, Gabriel and Mordant lunged as one, the pair seeming to share some kind of psychic link. Dahl blocked a strike from Mordant, backing up. Drake met Gabriel head on, and felt the power and fury of the man’s blows immediately through every bone in his body. Christ, this guy hit hard. The manic grin never left the dark-skinned face and the body almost seemed to jive to an inner beat. But the blows were relentless, precise and debilitating. An arm that blocks ten severe strikes is not the arm it once was. Drake strove to get on the offensive, but Gabriel never gave him a chance.
In front of the Yorkshireman, Alicia lashed out at the Blood King. Kovalenko was tough, strong and trained, but he was no match for either the Englishwoman’s skill or her fury. He staggered almost immediately, caught himself, then found he was being driven toward the flames.
“Bitch,” he spat. “I am King. I will end your days.”
“Those men who hang around me and have a God complex,” Alicia said. “Those men who fuck with my friends and family often find their balls being kicked so hard they end up with three Adam’s apples. Here, let me demonstrate.”
Alicia feinted and waded in, jabbing Kovalenko’s throat so that his hand went up, then she put her entire weight behind a knee to his groin. Eyes bulging, the Blood King tried to fall to the ground. Alicia didn’t let him. By digging her fingers into the meat of his throat, she ensured he would stay upright.
“Time for my blood vengeance,” she said, then paused when she heard Drake’s cry.
****
Kinimaka went down on one knee, using his Glock to pick off the slow and the careless. But he knew he couldn’t stay in one position too long for risk of becoming a sitting duck. Not that anyone had ever compared him to a duck, he knew. In the bird comparisons, he’d have to be an albatross. He slipped over to the wall, noting that six mercs remained on this side of the battle. He met a challenge head on, arresting the guy’s swing and literally hurling him off his feet and against the wall. The man connected hard, then fell back, lifeless.
The Matt Drake Series Books: 7-9 (The Matt Drake Series Boxset 2) Page 20