She led Simon and Key into a dark room where many other people were gathered together tightly. There was nothing else in the room but a closed theater curtain along one wall. Wealthy-looking Indian men stood waiting, alongside confused tourists from all over the world.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Simon asked the man next to him.
“Not really.”
“How did you get here?”
The man looked at him. “They promised me it would be amazing. Something I could only see in Bombay. They said if I wanted to see a human being eaten by a strange and unusual animal, I could come here and watch it happen, for a price. I paid almost as much as my Mercedes-Benz, I think.”
Simon could not help but look at him, revolted. He’d paid a fortune to see someone die.
The man did not seem a bit ashamed, just nervous with excitement.
“They’re going to kill someone,” whispered Key, fear in his voice now.
“It’s a Dragon operation,” said Simon quietly. “A little money on the side. The girl must be working with the beast.”
But there was no sign of Panna, just a clicking at the door. Simon and Key were locked in the room with the crowd.
“If I know our enemy,” said Simon, looking around carefully, “after the show, we’re all going to die…”
Aldric and Taro were snooping around the outside of the decrepit palace with the giant minarets.
“This way,” Aldric ordered, pointing to an alley.
Taro scowled. “I am not your Tonto.”
He insisted on going the other way toward a busier road. Aldric went along; he had no better idea where to begin. There were people everywhere on the streets with terrible deformities, some shuffling along with their arms shrunken to nothing, others with missing eyes, and still others with no legs at all.
Taro watched them, a hand on his hidden pistol.
“I thought,” observed Aldric, “the sword was the soul of the Samurai.”
“It is. You may notice we carry two of them, long and short, honed to perfection. But the bullets contain Dragonfire, and that kills Dragons.”
“Hard to control, though.”
“Yes, but we manage it. We have all kinds of tricks, if you’d open your mind to them.”
“What about tradition?”
“Tradition is good. Living is better. We follow bushido, the Samurai code, but we are not stupid. Now let me work.”
Taro’s eyes were focused on a young Indian couple.
“What is it?”
“You can find it anywhere,” Taro said.
It was clear what Taro meant, watching the couple. Love, affection, human emotion.
“Even in the shadow of the Dragon,” he muttered. “This woman in danger. Alaythia? I envy you.”
Aldric looked at him. “Why should you?”
“She is in danger because of her feelings for you. You know it as a fact. She cannot hide it. Not so for me. Sachiko has developed the power to hide emotion from the Serpents. She has become a master of hiding these things, and who can ever tell what’s in her mind now? Think of it. You don’t even remember knowing her before.”
He seemed to want an answer, but Aldric’s memory of that earlier time was lost—gone except for a few murky images. Sachiko was powerful.
Taro cleared his throat. “I don’t know whether Sachiko still has feelings for your brother, or not.”
He moved on. Aldric had no way of knowing how to reply.
Sachiko had been delayed by a large group of bleary-eyed customers at the teahouse who had swarmed around her when their tea had run out. The staff at the teahouse had escaped her questions by ducking out the back way, but the dazed, tea-addicted men had seen Sachiko pass behind the counter to check out the back rooms, and some had mistaken her for the owner of the establishment. And they wanted more tea.
She tried politeness, but was forced to shove her way past the group, knocking some of the customers to the ground. She came out of the teahouse frustrated, having searched it thoroughly, seeing all manner of Dragonsigns—flies, wasps, and centipedes crawling from teacups—but no Dragon anywhere. It had departed, but only recently.
Now Kyoshi was gone. Sachiko was furious. Simon St. George is a horrible influence, she thought, pushing through the crowd, searching for the boys.
Nervously, she searched her heart. If the Dragon had him, she would sense it, wouldn’t she?
She nudged past a heavyset businessman and slammed directly into Taro, headed the other way. He looked at her in surprise.
“I can’t find them,” she panted. “They were right here; I told them to stay put—”
“You lost the boy?”
“No. He lost himself!” She found herself fuming at Taro; it wasn’t like him to blame her.
“Just calm down,” he said. “We need to get everyone in one place, and we’ll find the boy together. No more separations. Where are the others?”
“I thought Aldric was with you.”
Taro shook his head. “He wouldn’t stay with me. He came back to find you and the boys. Call the others to the corner, there, and we’ll regroup.”
But another voice called behind her. She turned to see Taro coming for her again, running through the crowd at a distance. How did he get there? And Aldric was with him, shouting, the sound absorbed in the rustle of voices. She looked back, and the first Taro had a sinister look on his face.
It wasn’t Taro.
It just looked like him.
Sachiko went for her sword as the first Taro’s form rippled away in a familiar mirage wave, transforming into the gold-silver Dragon of Japan. “Careless woman,” hissed Najikko, and he calmly batted Sachiko’s sword away.
Sachiko pulled back fast, narrowly missing a slashing claw.
With a swipe of her arm, she pulled one of the pins from her hair and stabbed the Serpentine forearm, buying herself the time to step back.
“Sachiko!” The real Taro was now standing with her, sword ready, as Aldric rushed out in front.
The people around them screeched in a fearful chorus.
The Japanese Dragon sneered at the crowd. How sad for you all, losing your composure this way. There’s no reason to be disturbed. Just a few human beings about to be mercilessly killed, filthy trash to be burned away. Go about your business. This is nothing more than a long-overdue roasting of flesh.
Inside the building, the locked door could not be budged. Simon and Key shuffled through the collection of excited, tittering tourists, as they tried to find a hidden doorway. There had to be a different way out.
Behind them, the crowd gasped as the curtains opened to reveal a long window made of thick glass. From where he stood, Simon could just glimpse a tiger prowling beyond the window in a wooden cell. Then another tiger entered the arena. And another.
“It’s about to happen,” he told Key.
“I don’t want to see it,” Key replied, keeping his eyes on the wooden walls around him, searching for a latch or hinge or any telltale sign of a doorway.
But Simon could not look away. A trapdoor opened beyond the window, and a man fell into the tiger pit.
“I can’t find anything,” Key was muttering.
Simon stood on tiptoes, peering past the huddled onlookers.
“Wait a second,” Key was saying, “There may be something here…”
But Simon was distracted, moving up, pulling himself a little higher by grabbing on two men’s shoulders so he could see better.
The man in the pit rose from the ground, and Simon could see him clearly.
Oh, no.
It was Mamoru.
In a narrow alley not far away, Aldric and Taro rushed forward with their swords, seconds after Sachiko emptied a small pistol of silver bullets. But the Japanese Dragon took the attacks unruffled and unperturbed.
He had recovered from their last battle. Now he hissed in pain, but held his ground easily. As fast as a switchblade, he kicked Aldric to the ground with his metallic
leg, as Taro swung his katana sword, landing a blow on the Creature’s artificial limb.
Quickly, two tongs clicked out of the Dragon’s leg and grabbed the sword. The Dragon pulled back, the sword now latched to his leg and swiveled into position as if it were the Serpent’s own katana. He lifted the sword by the handle, wielding it.
Taro was shocked. The Serpent grinned, trying not to be pleased.
You took my leg, the Dragon thought, I’ll take your life—with your own dirty sword.
Sachiko saw her husband was left open. Hands shaking, she hurried to reload her pistol.
Aldric threw himself forward, his dagger splintering the Japanese Dragon’s chestplate.
The Dragon spun, his wingblades whishing for Aldric’s head. He missed.
In the steely Serpent’s mind, the words of the firespell kept flashing. The power he held within wanted escape. Burn it, burn it all, the fire in him was saying. You can cleanse this entire place of its sickening, diseased vermin.
Calm, the Dragon thought, perhaps just a touch, then, just a little fire to let out—
Sachiko felt a sharp pain in her head as the firespell begged the Dragon to kill.
The Japanese Serpent opened its jaws to throw flames—but Aldric slammed his other hand into the Dragon’s throat. The glove vanished deep into the creature’s gullet, as it gurgled in shock. With his other hand, Aldric pressed the Dragon’s chest, trying to begin a deathspell.
The Serpent spit fire—but Aldric had found its torching organ at the middle of its throat, so when the flames blasted out, they came in an uncontrolled, twisted torrent upward, blowing the Japanese Dragon’s own head off in a silver-gold explosion, and sending Aldric flying backward in the alley.
Aldric’s gloved hand smoldered as he rolled, fighting the fire on his armor.
A small blast of metallic-tinted flames burst open in the alley.
Simon shoved his way forward through the crowd to the window where he could see Mamoru struggling with the tigers. The oversized Samurai still had his body armor, but the felines were huge and muscular, throwing him about, slamming his unprotected head against the walls.
Simon banged on the glass. It was too thick to break easily. The patrons shouted at him and tried to pull him out of the way. They wanted to see this.
“Simon!” Key called. “I’ve found a way!”
He was staring through the slender slats of wood that made up the walls, at a series of butterflies slipping in, apparently out of nowhere. “There’s something in here,” Key was yelling. “Just beyond this room.”
Simon barely heard him. He was calling to Mamoru, who threw back one of the tigers, which stunned the others for a moment, as he looked at the glass, frantic for help. The bulky Mamoru had an instant of recognition. “Simon!” Then he looked horribly confused. What was Simon doing in there?
But one of the tigers rammed into him, clamping his arm in its jaws.
“Mamoru!” Simon called.
Key looked away from the passageway he was trying to pry open. “Mamoru?”
Just outside in the alley, the Japanese Dragon had erupted in fire.
Aldric fell back and watched as the Japanese Serpent’s body reacted. Headless, it remained standing as fire flooded from its neck in a blinding glow, flames of gold and silver leaping high in the narrow alley.
As Taro and Sachiko stared in shock, the beast stooped, its seven-foot frame only half-visible amid the blindingly bright fire. Tendrils of silver and gold shot out of its neck, and quickly wormed through the fire beside it, snatching up the Dragon’s roaring head. In one swift action, the wiry limbs pulled the Serpent’s head through the flames and quickly restored it atop the towering creature’s body.
And now, despite its Buddhist philosophy, it was angry.
The Dragon of Japan was very, very angry.
Simon finally remembered he had his sword, but, crowded by onlookers, he could not get any space to swing it against the glass. Mamoru was still struggling with the tigers valiantly, but the huge man was no match for them.
People were pulling at Simon, not sure what he was doing with the blade, and he fought against them viciously, furious at himself for not being stronger. He toppled one man, who fell against the crowd, shoving them back. Simon could hear Key yelp in response, somewhere behind him, pushed back against the wall.
But Simon’s sword struck the glass. Once. Twice. The strong steel nearly shattered the window.
“Are you out of your mind?” screamed a fat American man, grabbing Simon’s arm. “There are tigers in there!”
“That’s why I have to get in!” yelled Simon, and he punched the man in the gut.
Mamoru was being pounced on, the tiger’s fangs scraping uselessly on his chestplate, but the weight of the beast was crushing the hapless Samurai.
Simon swung for the glass again.
Crack! Crack! Crash! The window shattered, surprising the tigers.
They looked over at Simon, rattled and ready to strike, mostly out of sheer surprise.
Panicked and screaming, the crowd surged backward, and the pressure of their bodies on the rear doorway forced the passageway open, and an escape route presented itself.
“Simon!” Key shouted, fighting the crush of people. “There’s a way out!”
Too late. One of the tigers leapt for Simon through the broken window.
The crowd screamed louder.
Chapter 30
CORNERED BEAST
OUTSIDE THE BUILDING, ALDRIC faced a challenge of his own.
The crowd was in a panic now, in a mad rush away from the Japanese Dragon and its unnatural fire. But there were too many people at the mouth of the alley, and they clumped together, crushing each other, as Taro, Sachiko, and Aldric together met the Dragon’s fury.
Use the firespell. Cleanse this place, screamed the power in Najikko’s heart. You can destroy everything right now.
Control, control, his mind cried. Power spent is power lost.
Somehow, he held his true power in check, heeding his own voice.
Still the creature’s eyes burned with rage. It reached back into the bright glowing tower of fire and brought out a silver ball of flame.
The beast grinned. The fireball flew fast out of its claw—a blur of silver—and hit just below Aldric’s head, scorching his armor at the neck, his tunic torched partly away as the fire again grew over his damaged clothes. He rolled quickly, tamping it out, and righted himself painfully, sword ready.
The Dragon let loose a second fireball, its golden light smashing apart as Aldric cut it with his sword. Tatters of flame spattered the alleyway.
Silver fireballs cracked at Taro’s armor. Orbs of gold fire knocked Sachiko to her knees. They broke harmlessly over her armor, but the force battered her to the ground.
The Japanese Dragon was playing.
For all his apparent strength and control, however, he was weakening from this battle, and at least one observer had noticed. High above the fight, in the nearby palace, Issindra was watching. “Don’t show yourself to be so foolish,” she said to the Japanese beast, though he couldn’t possibly hear. “We all know you brought them here to kill me. And now what? They hurt you more than you expected, poor darling?” You’ll need to heal, she thought coldly. You’ll run. You’ll hide in the slums, or in the sewers, or the rivers or the lakes, but I’ll find you. Oh, but don’t leave like this. Kill some of them, dearest, I know you can do it.
Quakes rumbled the palace, the earth pained by the presence of Dragons.
Meanwhile, near the raging battle inside the building, Simon had just created a minor catastrophe by unleashing the tiger.
The big cat leapt at him, but he had room to fall back, now that the crowd was streaming out of the observation room. The tiger’s body lodged in the window, struggling to get at him, clawing, brushing against the glass shards in the frame, as Simon ran for the back door.
Key stood there, awed by the massive animal.
Simon
had to drag him out.
“What about Mamoru?” cried Key.
But the tiger was on their trail now, rushing into the room, chasing Key and Simon down a narrow wooden hallway, where the dozens of onlookers had fled, screaming in the darkness, clambering for escape.
Simon and Key ran right into the thick of them, but were pushed back, to the rear of the throng. Jammed in, unable to escape, everyone turned to see the tiger creeping forward, with too many choices to feed on, too much prey.
It was joined by a second tiger.
“You wanted him out,” said an angry American to Simon, “you got him.”
And he shoved Simon toward the tiger.
Out on the street, the Japanese Dragon, grinning with imminent victory, lifted his flaming claws to his spiked and armored head, setting it alight. The creature rushed at Aldric, its head lowered. He slammed into a wall as Aldric leapt out of the way.
“I feel no anger,” the Dragon hissed aloud. Like surgery, he thought, no anger, just clean, simple cuts, slash slash slash—
The Dragon swung its head again, its flaming crown of jags connecting with Aldric, jabbing him in his side and burning his armor.
“I feel no anger,” the creature repeated.
Taro howled, rushing in with a war cry, landing several blows with his sword on the Serpent’s back. In the same moment, Sachiko struck at the creature with her sword, flashing in terrible efficiency.
But the Tokyo Serpent would not be held back. It angled its fiery, spiky head once more for a deadly blow to Aldric.
“I FEEL NO ANGER!” he raged.
Suddenly, there came a rain of silver arrows out of the sky, thudding into the beast with an angry patter. Confused, the Dragon halted, looking skyward.
Akira fell out of the sky first, then Kisho and Toyo, the Samurai dangling from cables hooked to a high building above the alley, firing crossbows down upon the Japanese Dragon, the whisk and clatter of their shots joining with the sounds of the whipping fire. Aldric looked up and smiled, blood dripping from his lip.
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