Ben went flying across the tatami. “Fuck!”
“Language,” said Midori.
“She punched me! On the same eye Ken did.”
My knuckles throbbed. I tried to make my angry face into one of apology. Midori bustled over to help Ben stand up, and then took her by the elbow. “Ken needs a transfusion. Go wash your hands and arms in the sink with antibacterial soap.”
“Silver cannula?” said Pon-suma. Midori gave a brisk nod, and then the two began breaking open antiseptic bottles, surgical tape, and other implements of torture.
Kwaskwi approached from the door with his hands held up in the air. “Don’t attack. Innocent bystander, here.”
I gave him the Marlin death-glare.
“Koi. You’re reacting from eating the Black Pearl’s dreaming. Do something with the energy, walk it off.” Ken’s quiet voice pulled me back to him. I reached for his hand, still hanging over the side of the table where Pon-suma had abandoned it.
Ken opened his eyes. “Go with Kwaskwi. I’ll be fine. Ben and Midori won’t let anything happen to me.”
He didn’t include Murase in that. I put my hands safely behind my back. “I can handle it.”
“If you’re leaving, leave,” said Midori. She was all gloved up holding a syringe filled with a clear liquid. Pon-suma slipped a large needle into a vein in Ben’s hand while pushing me aside with his bony hip.
“What, I’m free to go now?”
Pon-suma gave me an irritated look.
“We could go hit a bakery and get you some curry bread or chocolate croissants,” said Kwaskwi. “They might have mochas.”
My mouth filled with saliva. But no. No running away from this mess. Not even for a mocha. I shook my head.
Murase gestured over to the other table. “Let’s sit, then. We should discuss what happened.”
No shit, Sherlock.
Kwaskwi settled down next to me on the tatami while Murase fetched a small, traditional, long-handled kyuusu and looseleaf tea from the kitchenette. He poured water over the leaves from an electric hotpot and then set out a different set of tea cups of fine, green porcelain. The one nearest to me had a thin web of cracks in the side that had been plastered with a shiny, gold substance.
“We’re not the enemy,” Murase said.
Kwaskwi gave a laughing scoff.
“You kidnapped me and put me in a freezing cave with a giant dragon.”
“I don’t think she appreciates your flavor of friendship,” said Kwaskwi.
I punched him in the shoulder, making his chains rattle. “You also kidnapped and tried to force me into Thunderbird’s thrall when we first met.”
“True,” said Kwaskwi, utterly non-plussed. He turned to Murase. “So there’s hope for you yet.”
I punched him again.
“My eldest interrupted at an inopportune moment.”
“Wait, your eldest?” I repeated.
“That’s an interesting wrinkle,” added Kwaskwi.
Murase stiffened, giving a little nod. Murase was Ben and Ken’s father? He was full Kitsune, then. I glanced to where Pon-suma and Midori were finishing up binding a splint along Ken’s left leg while Ben sat quietly on a chair tethered by a tube to her brother’s inner elbow. Ken’s face showed a glazed, relieved expression. That syringe must have contained some bomb-ass pain killers.
Dad came walking slowly and stiffly into the room, the left side of his face creased with sleep but his eyes clear.
“Dad,” I said, pulling a few more zabuton cushions over next to me. “You’re awake.” And lucid. He nodded in response, eyes flickering over my torso and face.
Murase offered Dad tea in the gold-webbed cup with precise movements redolent of ceremony. Dad received it in both hands and bent over, bathing his face in the fragrant steam. “This cup is cracked and repaired, different from its brothers—it wears its unique history. Now it is more beautiful because it was broken.”
Was Dad having one of his confused spells? But he seemed so himself right now. Tired, yes, but inhabiting his body with the military posture he was known for before Alzheimer’s, or actually the fog that came from refusing to eat dreams.
“If only we all wore our histories so visibly,” said Murase.
“You already know I am broken, don’t make the mistake of thinking it has made me weak. If you take her to the Black Pearl again, you will make me your enemy.”
Something warmed inside me at the strength in Dad’s voice. He was almost the gruff Master Sushi maker behind Marinopolis’ busy sushi counter again—doling out commands to be acted upon at once or else. Murase stiffened, his face as grim as Dad’s. “We are organized far beyond what you remember, Herai-san.”
It was a threat coated in formal calm, and the hairs on the back of my arms stood to attention.
“Your family has done enough damage,” said Dad. “Don’t embroil Koi further in your politics.”
“You brought the Black Pearl here,” said Murase. “You gave the Council access to its dreaming. Your family created these politics.”
“No longer,” said Dad gravely. “I came back for my daughter, not to continue this travesty of what they call survival.”
Funny, I thought we were here to cure his Alzheimer’s dementia. What did he mean for me? It wasn’t me with the massive problems. Okay, some problems. But I was well on my way to my accounting degree and getting my life in order when his secret Baku past caught up with me.
“We strive not at cross-purposes, old friend,” said Murase.
Uh-oh. Breaking out the overly dramatic and formal Kind-speak meant things most likely were going to hit the fan. I sat up, trying to simultaneously weigh the meaning of Midori and Pon-suma’s fierce whispers behind us.
“I turned my back on the Council and its domineering, narrow-sighted machinations.”
“We are not the Council.”
“Then why do you engage in the same underhanded arbitrary strategies?”
Living with Dad had equipped me well for discerning Japanese-old-man seething under a calm exterior. Murase hadn’t moved, not a blink, in the past minute. Under Dad’s scorn he was frozen as a statue, holding back a great rage.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Midori came over, removing latex gloves streaked with Ken’s blood, and put a hand over Murase’s clenched fist.
“Forgive our ignorance and foolishness, Herai-san. We regret placing your daughter in danger.”
“We are all in danger,” grumbled Murase under his breath.
Kwaskwi pulled a steamed cheese-bread out of his pocket like a magician with a rabbit. “Well, you Eight Span Mirror folks are definitely in for it. Ken and I were only the vanguard.” He ripped open the plastic and set the cheese-bread on the table, giving me a sly sideways look like he was daring me to take it.
Midori exchanged a worried moment of wordless communication with Murase. An instant later she unhooked Ben from the makeshift transfusion. Pon-suma slapped a Band-Aid on her hand.
“What?” said Ben.
“The Council is coming,” said Ken. He yawned, eyelids slowly lowering over feral slits of darkness, a full Kitsune face.
“Go now,” said Midori. She ripped off her gloves and pushed Pon-suma between the shoulder blades.
Kwaskwi stood, stretching nonchalantly, but he wasn’t fooling anybody. He was preparing for a scuffle. I nabbed the abandoned cheese-bread. Kwaskwi didn’t react at all. His focus was solely on Pon-suma.
“Not running,” said Pon-suma.
“Tojo can’t find you here,” said Midori.
“I’m not afraid of the Kappa or the Snow Woman,” said Murase gruffly. “We stand our ground.”
Kappa? Seriously? Kawano was a half-froggy river sprite?
Midori knelt again next to him. “We lost our gamble they would only send the Bringer to retrieve the Baku, but we pledged no direct confrontation. If Kawano-san and Yukiko-san come here, they will have no choice but to punish our challenge to their authority. At l
east for the kidnapping.”
“Not if there was no kidnapping,” said Kwaskwi.
A bit of cheese-bread went down my windpipe. A coughing fit overtook me until Kwaskwi leaned over and thumped me on the back, hard.
“Hey!”
“You’re interrupting the criminal strategizing.”
“Dad?” He’d kept silent, but the set of his mouth and the glint in his eyes told me he was deeply unhappy. “Do you trust them?” I didn’t know if I meant The Eight Span Mirror or the Council.
“Give me your word you will not ask Koi to touch the Black Pearl again and we will lie for you,” he said quietly. “I brought Koi here to show her my hometown.”
It was hard to remember that this was actually Dad’s hometown, like a hundred years ago. “Are you sure?”
“Keeping you ignorant of Kind all these years, of what it means to be Baku, was a mistake. I thought I could protect you. Keep you from my troubles.”
And I ended up a socially awkward hermit afraid I was schizo.
“Isolation isn’t the right answer for the Council or for Hafu,” said Murase. “That is why The Eight needs you, Herai-san.”
“This is why you need them, Koi-chan,” Dad echoed.
“We are your people,” said Ben. “We’ll help you.”
“Unless the Black Pearl drives you bat-shit first,” said Kwaskwi.
“And you,” I asked softly, letting Dad’s familiar care-worn face block all the rest. “Where are your people?”
Dad stared straight back, challenge and sadness tangled in his words. “Gone. They’re all gone.”
CHAPTER TEN
Ben and I, designated most harmless in appearance to Ben’s obvious disgruntlement, were dispatched to the front hall of the museum to await the Council’s arrival. We were to sit around a metal bistro table drinking more tea and nibbling on crustless cucumber-and-cream cheese sandwiches Midori had hastily whipped together.
Midori argued that if the Council saw me and my erstwhile kidnapper just hanging out, they wouldn’t come in guns blazing. She and a belligerent Pon-suma watched over Ken in the backroom where Dad and Murase still traded calm, deadly-sharp barbs about The Eight’s goals, ready to provide backup if things went pear shaped. Kwaskwi flitted back and forth between the groups, ferrying updates and napkins.
“Herai-san is right, you know.” Ben grinned around a mouthful of sandwich. “You need us.”
“Please,” I snorted.
“I can’t imagine growing up without knowing what you are. It’s hard enough growing up Hafu and knowing both sides.”
Silly girl doesn’t know the Hafu of it. Try growing up mixed race-wise as well as mythological creature-wise. “You and Ken are half-human, right? And Murase’s your father?”
Ben nodded. “But Midori isn’t our biological mother, obviously. She’s father’s second wife. My mother passed away a long time ago.” Sadness was in her voice, but only the echo of a once-sharp grief, now a familiar companion.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Murase and Midori are together? That makes sense. A Kitsune genealogy chart appeared in my brain. Murase and Midori at the top with Ben and Ken as their children.
“Don’t be. She had a full, human life.”
Human life. How long ago was she talking about?
Kind lived longer. Did that mean Ben and Ken outlived their mother by decades?
I thought of the vision Ken had given me back in Tokyo. His mother had been wearing a quilted kimono jacket, no electric lights, holding a dying man on a cobblestone street. Definitely pre-World War II. So how old was Ken? He was more experienced relationship-wise than me, of course. But how experienced? Like was he hundreds of girlfriends experienced?
Something tightened in my chest. And what about Marlin? She was completely human, at least I thought so since she didn’t grow up flinching from casual touch. But she was Dad’s daughter, too, so she was at least Hafu. My chest tightened at the thought of Marlin not getting any Kind genes at all—outliving her by decades was unthinkable.
Kwaskwi sauntered in with a plate of apple slices cut so that the divided red peel on one end stuck up like rabbit ears. “So,” he said to Ben, overly casual. “Talk to me about Pon-suma-san. Think you could ship us?”
Ben put down the last sandwich. “You want to hook up with the white wolf?”
Kwaskwi gave his trademarked big-toothed grin, but for the first time, a hint of boyish hopefulness peeked through the arrogance. “He has a partner already?”
“Ah…no… He’s a wolf of the North.” Ben paused, waiting for that to sink in. “He may be Hafu like the rest of us Eight Span Mirror, but his human people have been gone as long as my Mongolian ancestors have been in Japan.”
“Nice,” said Kwaskwi. “I can work the indigenous connection.”
Ben shut her mouth like she’d suddenly realized she was handing Pon-suma over on a silver platter to a seasoned player.
“What happened with the Black Pearl?” said Kwaskwi, clearly changing tack. He pulled up a metal-wrought bistro chair, flipping it around and resting his crossed arms on the back. “Can you set it free?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s very strong, but not exactly awake. She doesn’t seem to understand where she is. At least Ullikemi wanted my help.”
“Murase-san promised not to ask Koi-san to touch the Black Pearl again,” said Ben. “And the Council won’t want her near it until they can confirm her loyalty.”
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“You know me,” said Kwaskwi, producing a tall stalk of something like pampas grass from under the heavy fall of black hair over one ear. He stuck it between his teeth, the very picture of a country hick. “Always looking for an angle.”
Ben stood up, hands gripping the metal edge of the table. “They’re here.”
“You should probably sit back down,” Kwaskwi drawled. “Aren’t we all supposed to be friends on a sight-seeing tour?”
Ben sat down and picked up her abandoned sandwich. My mouth was dry, but my cup of tea was empty.
The museum door slammed open with a bang. Three wiry young guys dressed in black suits and gray ties strode in and took up wide-legged stances in a defensive triangle formation. Their faces had that sharp, feral quality I associated with Ken’s Kitsune face. For an instant, I flashed back to Narita and Red Shirt. But none of them looked familiar. As soon as the lead black suit set eyes on me, he touched a hand to his ear and began muttering rapidly into a mic.
Bald Monk, who was actually Kawano the Kappa, and Tojo came in followed by Yukiko gliding behind like a ghostly snow queen.
“Fujiwara Kennosuke,” demanded Kawano as if Ken were actually standing there instead of the three of us, “what have you allowed The Eight Span Mirror to do?”
Ben stood up again, but Kwaskwi tugged her back down one-armed, still leaning casually on the back of the chair. “Late to the party again, Kawano-san?”
Tojo ignored Kwaskwi, striding over to Ben and gripping her collar in both hands. He jerked her from the seat, twisting the collar so Ben’s airway was painfully constricted. “You have gone too far. You’ve crossed Kawano-san’s line.”
Kawano was silent and still. Waiting for Ken to magically appear and explain? He was utterly unperturbed witnessing Tojo manhandling Ben.
Ben took on the feral Kitsune face, and the guards all tensed. She arched back, tendons straining in her neck, and then smashed her head into the bridge of Tojo’s nose.
Tojo released her with a grunt.
I stifled a cheer. Tojo really was a jerk.
Ben stared defiantly as Tojo put a hand to his nose. “We can’t stand idle and let a group of old fools decide the fate of our Kind.”
“Kind?” Tojo spat, a trickle of blood forming on his upper lip. “I’ll show you Hafu what an old fool can do.”
Flames burst into roaring life around Tojo’s shoulders, arcing into a fiercely burning aura like he was an ancient statue of Amida Buddha o
n his throne. He grabbed Ben again and the flames traveled onto Ben’s arms where they burned.
Ben flung herself away, rolling on the floor and moaning as the sickening smell of charred flesh filled the room. I shrugged off my cardigan and began swatting the flames.
“Enough,” said Kawano.
Tojo grimaced and the flames completely disappeared.
Ben fended off my cardigan. “I’m okay, stop!” She pulled at her shirt, popping off buttons to reveal a black sports bra, but there wasn’t a mark on Ben’s chest. Her neck and arms were smooth and untouched.
Illusion? That was a hella stronger illusion than I’d ever seen Ken use—I’d smelled the burning and felt the heat from the flames. Tojo wasn’t Hafu. I was realizing that might mean Ken’s face illusions were a limited version of what a full Kitsune could do.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
The noise we’d made had summoned the reinforcements. Murase stood in the hall, dignified and grave. He conveyed deference in the slight arch of his neck, but not a drop of fear.
“Kawano-san,” said Murase. He bowed to Tojo and Yukiko as well. “You are joining Herai Akihito on our tour of his hometown?”
Tojo gave an exasperated huff. The three black suit flunkies hurried to form a triangle behind him. From his diminutive height, Tojo sneered down his nose at us as if we were a pack of filthy children caught with hands in the cookie jar.
“You kidnapped the Baku. Produce him and the Bringer now,” said Kawano.
Kwaskwi jabbed me hard in the ribs. “Kidnapped?” I said, voice breaking in the middle of the word. “Dad decided he wanted to show me around Herai-mura.”
Yukiko glided closer to Murase, pinning him with a cold stare. He cleared his throat, and gave way a bit. “Herai-san is in the back room.” Yukiko exchanged a nod with Kawano and then glided down the hall toward the back room.
Kawano waved his hand at the whole room. “The Eight Span Mirror courts war,” he said. “The Black Pearl was endangered. You used Herai Akihito-san.”
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