Coming to stand, I fastened the katana to my belt, shrugged on the backpack, then approached the bookshelf where all my favorite heroines resided. The Rift had sent Tokyo back to the Dark Ages, and now the only heroines on offer were the women in my books. I valued them beyond measure. They were all women who kicked butt in their own special way and made a difference, just like Watanabe-san said I was making a difference. The group included: Hermione, Katniss, Tris, Clary, Alina, Frankie, Milena, Veronica, and Celaena. I snagged the first in Celaena’s series, Throne of Glass, thinking she might appeal to Kenshin.
I found him scanning the books in the fantasy section and handed over my precious, in near perfect condition, still smelled amazing, copy of ToG. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.” I paused realizing my mistake, then re-clarified. “That’s not to say I don’t want it back, though. There’s a bookmark inside. Please don’t dog-ear the pages.”
Kenshin fought a grin. “Sheesh, V, I’m not a monster. I would never dog-ear your pages.” He bowed. “Many thanks for the loan.”
Outside, two horses were waiting for us—a black mare and a blood-red stallion with a black mane. I normally preferred females regardless of the species, but I was immediately drawn to the stallion. He was stunning to look at, and something about his smell was beyond appealing. I offered him my hand.
“Watch out for…” Kenshin’s words died away as the gorgeous beast smacked his lips atop my open palm.
“What’s his name?” I asked, scratching the stallion’s forehead and behind his ears as he leaned into me.
Kol was straining against Yuki’s grasp wanting to come over and meet the stallion. “He is a devil,” she whispered.
“His name is Ryuu,” said Kenshin, approaching, hand held out in a mirror image of mine. His eyes were full of wonder.
Ryuu immediately pinned his ears and bared his teeth, lunging for the proffered hand. Kenshin jumped back, nearly tripping on the curb and landing on his butt. He flailed and awkwardly managed to save himself. “He’s my father’s breeding stallion. Mean as sin. Our nicer horses were out of the stable or I would have grabbed a more suitable one.”
“Seems plenty nice to me,” I cooed into Ryuu’s ears. His name was Japanese for dragon and that’s exactly what he reminded me of. A wild, untamed, mythological creature that could breathe fire. I loved him already.
“He’ll turn on you,” warned Yuki. One arm wrapped protectively around Kol, she rolled up the sleeve on her other arm to reveal a mouth-shaped scar near her bicep. “He’s unpredictable and dangerous.”
I stuck my left foot in the stirrup and pulled up and onto the massive animal’s back. Once in place, I glanced over my shoulder and smiled at Yuki. “We’re a match made in heaven then because so am I.”
Kenshin mounted the mare, his body shaking with silent laughter. “Wish me luck, Yuki and Kol, because traveling with the red ghost is going to be interesting. Or deadly.” He paused to focus on the heavens and whisper a prayer. “I’m hoping for the former. If the latter occurs, please lay me to rest next to our mother, Yuki.”
Yuki nodded as Kol’s eyes went huge, and his chin dropped. “I will,” declared Yuki, bowing low and solemn.
I reined Ryuu away from the group and broke into a trot. “Oh, for God’s sake. You are all so dramatic.”
Chapter 10
Ryuu was a dream to ride as we set a solid pace heading out of Tokyo to the west. During my time with Juro and Hana, we’d kept to the south of Tokyo, which was the zone least irradiated. I hadn’t seen much of the west, and given how little of the world was available to see, I enjoyed the unique views. Sure, the landscape was a dystopia, but at least it was one I hadn’t seen before. We rode by new broken down temples and different abandoned neighborhoods, passing through strange areas of devastation as Kenshin quietly hummed and whistled old Japanese folk songs. On hour three we stumbled across a group of ten snow monkeys warming themselves in a thermal pool, steam partially obscuring their charismatic pink faces as it rose off the water.
“That hot pool looks pretty good right now,” said Kenshin, pretending to shiver. “Too bad we’re not far enough along to warrant stopping for the night. We could join the saru. They seem game for a party.”
The temperature had dropped markedly since leaving Tokyo, and a rare, early spring snow dusted the ground. Kenshin was right, it was too early to stop. We had hours of daylight left, but we could pause for a moment and enjoy the monkeys. Juro had taught me…no matter how bleak my day, there would always be something to appreciate. Something that made life worth living. Given all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, the serenity offered by the snow monkeys was likely to be one of the few truly good moments available until Midori returned. “Water break?” I asked.
Kenshin nodded. “Why not.”
I pulled the leather satchel, scuffed and scratched from years of use, around to my front, but instead of digging out my water bottle, I grabbed the Polaroid camera. When I’d put new batteries in the camera, it showed that two pictures remained of the old film. The roll was probably worthless, but there was a chance it wasn’t. I didn’t want to waste any of my new/old film on documenting the snow monkeys but could spare one or two shots that might not even turn out. I held the camera up and looked through the viewfinder to frame a shot. The action seemed entirely too normal. So normal that I felt a pang of loss over what could have been. Valaria Valentin, photographer extraordinaire.
“What’s that thing?” asked Kenshin. “Some sort of weird binoculars?”
Binoculars? I burst out laughing. “It’s a pre-Rift camera,” I informed him, not unkindly. It wasn’t his fault he was young. In a way, I envied his never having known a different world.
“Wow. It still works?”
“I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.” I reframed the shot, held my breath and clicked. To my shock and delight a Polaroid print slid out from the front slot. The film might be bad, but at least the camera worked. Kenshin sidled his mare up next to Ryuu to get a better look.
“It’s white,” said Kenshin, stating the obvious.
“Give it a second. It takes a bit of time for the picture to appear.” I shook the blank paper, waiting…no…praying for an image to appear. For some reason, I wanted to share with Kenshin the magic of it. Slowly but surely, the outline of the snow monkeys developed, followed by more detail until I finally held a somewhat hazy, but fairly good photograph.
“That’s amazing,” said Kenshin. “I would have loved to live back when tech like this was the norm. What an incredible world it must have been.”
“Indeed.” I smiled, my jealousy at his naivety evaporating. An old saying popped to mind—it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Perhaps, it was a blessing to have lived pre-Rift. It certainly gave me insights about how life could be. “I have one shot left. Hop off your horse, and we’ll take a selfie with the monkeys.”
“Selfie? That sounds vaguely sexual. I’m not—”
I swung off Ryuu in one fluid motion. “Don’t be stupid. It’s when we take a photo of ourselves with the monkeys. You know…to commemorate the moment.”
“Oh. Okay,” said Kenshin, stowing his water bottle and dismounting.
We gathered opposite the animals and squatted to try and get ourselves in frame. “You have longer arms. Hold the camera and click this button when you think we’re in frame.” Kenshin scooted closer but leaned away at the same time. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m trying not to touch you,” he growled, inching still closer. “I don’t want you to knock my block off because I lost my balance and brushed up against you.”
I grimaced, regretting the selfie idea…should have just snapped a second shot so we could be on our way. Instead, I grabbed Kenshin’s arm and pulled him close. “Take the shot already.”
He did.
And we ended up with a pic of our foreheads, along with half a snow monkey in the background for the wi
n.
I stuffed the camera back in my bag along with my first shot, handed Kenshin his selfie, and mounted Ryuu. “Let’s get out of here,” I snapped, feeling guilty for wasting time. What had I been thinking? They were just monkeys. And a selfie? Really? I wasn’t a kid anymore.
Once back in the saddle, I galloped away and didn’t slow until Ryuu was noticeably winded. “Sorry for getting carried away, boy,” I said, patting his neck. Ryuu was a lot faster than the mare, and it took Kenshin several minutes to catch up. He said nothing as he pulled alongside, instead whistling happily as if I wasn’t a total weirdo. The wind still and nature quiet…the clomp of hooves, the creak of leather and Kenshin’s sprightly tunes filled the silence.
“Can you sing?” I asked, wondering if his abilities extended beyond whistling and humming.
“Am I annoying you?”
“No. I just enjoy singing, but no one I know is very good.” Neither Midori, Kol nor Juro had any musical gifts, and I do mean any. Hana was a wonderful singer, but it had been decades since I’d heard her melodic voice.
Kenshin tapped his chin, thinking. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. Coughed. Cleared it again, then began to sing.
My jaw dropped. How in the world did Kenshin know a song from my youth half a world away? The kid inside me wanted to shriek with glee at hearing the sprightly, pop tune, but I managed to curb my enthusiasm and joined along instead, hoping my singing wasn’t terrible.
Kenshin whipped around so fast in his saddle, he nearly fell off. Tilting off to the side, he grabbed the saddle horn and scrambled upright. I grinned back and sang even louder, no longer caring if I carried the tune well or not.
I sang the next four verses alone and feared I’d lost Kenshin, but he soon joined back in, crooning as loud as me if not louder. He began a weird sort of seated dance that involved a lot of arm movements and very little rhythm. Ryuu’s ears flew back at seeing the dance, and he nipped at the air, prancing a nervous jig.
We laughed as we sang the final verses. “How in the world do you know that song?” asked Kenshin, still dancing in his saddle.
“I found an old iPod and jury-rigged it to work on a solar charge,” I lied. “And you?”
“My great, great grandmother who lived pre-Rift was a big Britney Spears fan and had pirated CDs of her work. My dad was into old tech as a kid and found a cache of batteries and an old CD player and became a fan. What’s an iPod?”
“It’s a Taylor Swift song, not Britney Spears. And an iPod is—”
“Who?”
My stomach dipped and rolled as something inside me deflated. I waved away the question. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” And it really didn’t. Kenshin might know a song from long ago…one that I’d loved, but he didn’t know that world or me, and never could. I was a vampire and would always have to hide my true self.
And that was why I worked so hard at maintaining privacy. Being around people and keeping up a facade of youth was exhausting. Lies were exhausting. They kept me from connecting, and that was even more exhausting. So why bother with conversation at all?
The sun—an anemic pink orb—set on the Rift dome as I broke into another gallop.
Before the Rift, Japan had been known as the land of the rising sun. The flag displayed a brilliant red sphere for a land that burned brighter than most.
Now Japan was gone and God’s Island, a shell of its former, proud self, remained in its wake. Instead of rising, its sun…its star…was setting.
Fleeing Kenshin’s camaraderie, I rode for all I was worth towards the plunging pink star.
We were the same that sun and I.
Chapter 11
“It’s a ghost town,” I said peering down at Hayakawa from an outlook on a nearby slope.
“Which means we can’t ride through on our horses and hope to be unnoticed.” Kenshin slid off his mare. “We’ll have to go full James Bond. Stealth mode.”
James Bond? Stealth mode? “You’ve seen the movies?”
“I’ve read the books. All thirty-nine of them.”
“Wow, I didn’t take you for such a bookworm.”
“Don’t you mean book dragon?” asked Kenshin with an impish grin.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, that’s totally what I meant.”
Kenshin slid the reins over his mare’s neck and secured them to a nearby tree, then slung his knapsack over a shoulder. I followed suit with Ryuu but added an apple to thank him for all his hard work.
“I’m liking Throne of Glass, by the way. Thanks for the loan,” said Kenshin, digging around in his bag.
To my surprise, he’d stayed up late reading by the fire once we’d made camp. “Glad you like it. You were up late. Don’t you need sleep?”
“Someone needed to keep watch. You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to bother you.”
I stuffed down a grimace. With my preternatural senses, even if I was asleep, I would have heard someone approach in plenty of time to prepare for an attack. Kenshin needn’t have lost sleep.
He handed me a walkie-talkie as he brought a pair of old binoculars to his eyes. “I think it’s best if we split up. We have no idea where the Kami and priests might be. There’s a lot of ground to cover.”
I couldn’t see anyone below, but I could definitely smell them. Whoever was in town was holed up on the east side, but how I’d explain that knowledge to Kenshin I didn’t know. I crossed my fingers and took a flying leap. “From the layout of town, I think the east side would be the most obvious place for the Kami to set up.”
Kenshin cocked his head from side to side as he studied the town. “How do you figure?”
How did I figure indeed? Ugh. “Isn’t it intuitively obvious?” I asked, trying to sound self-assured.
“No. Not really. If anything, the west side with the old industrial warehouses feels like a more obvious choice.”
“My gut says east. Let’s go my way, and I’ll…um…owe you some money or something if I’m wrong.”
“Or we could split up and signal if we find…”
I was about to concede because I didn’t actually need a partner, and Kenshin might slow me down, when Kenshin dropped his binoculars down and turned to me with a quizzical look. “You’ve got a good gut.”
“Huh?”
He handed me the binoculars. “Two robed Kami just came out of the big white building in the center of the east side.”
I didn’t need the binoculars but pretended to use them anyway. “My gut, it never fails.”
Kenshin snorted. “Probably because you feed it so well.”
Over the next hour, Kenshin and I skulked our way, James Bond style, down into Hayakawa proper and over to the east side where we found the big white building, an old hospital. “Thoughts on what to do next?” I asked, liking the option of a broken window on the second floor near a vertical drain spanning the height of the building. The drain pipe, if sturdy, would be easy to climb.
“I think we should wait to see if my friend Akemi comes out. If he does, we can grab him and find out what’s going on inside, and if he’s seen your friend. If we don’t see Akemi, we can go in at dark.”
This was not the response I was hoping for and countered with my drainpipe idea.
“That’s a good point of entry if we need it. The pipe shouldn’t be too hard to climb, even in the dark.”
“Why wait?” I asked, itching to get inside. “We can go now. Everyone will be asleep at night, and it’ll be harder to figure out what’s going on.”
Kenshin eyeballed me as if I were a lunatic. “First, we have no idea how many people are in there. There could be five or fifty-five. Second, we’re harder to see in the night. Third—”
I stopped him before he could continue. “I’ll give you one hour, but if your friend doesn’t come out, I’m going in.” There weren’t fifty-five people inside, but ten humans, each with a signature scent, and one animal of some kind. Unfortunately, none of the humans smelled like Midori. Still, something was go
ing on in the hospital, and I wanted to find out what. I refused to return to Kol empty-handed. Maybe something here could lead us to his mother.
“You’re not very smart for a book dragon,” said Kenshin, frowning. “What if there’s a lookout we haven’t spotted, and they see you?”
I pointed to the opposite side of the building. “You can make a distraction over there. Some loud banging of some kind. I’ll scurry up the pipe while the lookout we haven’t seen yet is distracted.”
“That’s a terrible plan.”
“You just think that because I came up with it.”
“No. It’s because I don’t get to go with you in that plan. I didn’t come all this way to sit outside and be the diversion. If you would be a little patient then—”
“One hour—” I interrupted, voice firm.
“You’re a pain in the butt, woman.”
“Thanks for the compliment, man.”
Kenshin threw up his hands in disgust and sank down to the ground to watch.
For the next forty-five minutes, silence dominated except for the occasional huff of annoyance by Kenshin. As we neared my deadline, however, he decided to get chatty. Probably trying to distract me from my intentions. “You ever seen a real movie?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Me too. I went to the United before it burned down and saw Terminator.”
“High art, no doubt,” I joked, although I didn’t actually know because I wasn’t old enough to watch it pre-Rift.
“It was very entertaining. What movie have you seen?”
“Kindergarten Cop. It had Arnold, too.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
Then in a non-sequitur of all non-sequiturs, Kenshin jumped from movies to the Kami. “Have you ever known a Kami? Like really known one, been friends or what have you?”
Without wanting it to, my mind spun back more than three decades to the last time I’d seen Hana. She’d been a mother to me for longer than my real biological mom but had left me without a word. Or a hug. I didn’t understand it then and still didn’t. She and Juro were so happy, but then out of nowhere Hana began to lose her light. She was short with Juro and easily angered. Then poof, she was gone.
Tokyo's Last Vampire: Division 12: The Berkhano Vampire Collection Page 6