by Martha Carr
“Great, I just got off the radar, and now I’m back on it.”
“How are the dark families treating you these days?”
“For some reason they took the bounty off my head, but I am getting nervous because they are so quiet. I sent one of my contacts out to get more information about what they’ve been up to. I don’t want to just forget about them because they lifted the price on my head. If anything, I want to keep a closer eye on them.”
“That’s exactly what I would do. They aren’t to be trusted.”
In the background, a bell sounded and Leira could hear pounding footsteps.
“My dear, I have to go. Gotta keep these kids under control. I don’t know much more about the Yakuza than that, but if I hear anything from the professors here at school I will let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a problem. Now, let me know about the speech, and please call your mother. She constantly worries about you.”
“I will.” Leira chuckled. “Love you.”
“Love you too, and be safe.”
“Always.”
Leira hung up and shoved the phone back into her pocket. She walked to the kitchen door and Yumfuck looked up, the remnants of his lunch in the fur around his mouth. He nodded and took a swig of his grape soda, setting it down with an ahh.
“Sometimes the greatest mysteries are hidden, but even if they are, they can only be as deep as the bottom of the box.”
“Very true, little Yoda.”
12
The streets of LA were back to the normal hustle and bustle that plagued the city daily. Street sweepers pushed the debris from the fight to the side of the road, citing an earthquake to any who asked. None of them questioned it. They just went on their way, too accustomed to the shaking and trembling that occurred on a regular basis. Two blocks down was a tall glass-fronted high-rise, one that only the rich and famous could afford. The top floor of the building consisted of a single penthouse, the largest condo in the building.
Rich mahogany floors gleamed throughout. The kitchen sported marble countertops and every piece of equipment the personal chef would need to create five-star meals. The hallways were adorned with fine Japanese sculptures and historical Ninja fighting uniforms. Centuries-old paintings of Japan hung on the walls, produced by some of the most talented artists in history.
To the left was the sunken living room, with furniture of the best quality upholstered in and accented by silks and linens imported from Japan and designed by one of the Yakuza men. The view from the balcony was the best in the city, overlooking the bright lights and beyond. Every sunrise and sunset could be viewed from the 360-degree balcony, but the owners rarely stepped outside to take in its splendor.
Inside, what remained of the mob team sat around, stoically ignoring their wounds but angered that they’d been bested. That battle should have been theirs. In fact, there should have never been a battle. They had kept their plans to themselves, moving in the shadows and looking for only a few specific artifacts. Someone had ratted them out, and whoever the woman, the vicious green-haired troll, and the sword-wielding wizard at her side were, they had meant business. She was powerful, but if she had been alone they could have overcome her. Unfortunately, she worked with a team, and had reached out to anyone with a wand or power to help defeat them.
It had been a long time since the Yakuza had been in a fight that had left so many of them dead or injured. They had laid low for years, training in secret and planning their next move. Once the veil lifted, they were ready to move forward, to follow their leader’s plan and once again rise to power. This had been promised through their own prophecies, but after that afternoon of fire and death it seemed they were farther gone than they had originally realized. When the dust had cleared, the bodies and runaway soldiers were signs to many that their day had come and gone and the fight was no longer worth it.
Though they were of Japanese descent, the majority were from Los Angeles, their heritage tied to the original Yakuza who had migrated to Japan centuries before. They had magical backgrounds. Most were wizards and witches who had been trained by some of the most ruthless Japanese leaders in history. However, the rise of the Yakuza was anything but secured, and all it had taken was one sloppy battle to shatter their courage and commitment to the cause. Leira had done far worse to the Yakuza than she realized, but within the doubt and fear, a new dawn was rising.
Standing at the window of the large condo with his hands crossed behind his back was a wizard that was not so easily unnerved. He had been born in Japan and raised in LA, and knew the old ways as if he had been in those times. Reo Moni stared out the window with the hood of his floor-length brown robes pushed back. He watched as the clouds passed overhead, the smoke from the battle drifting in the distance. While the others didn’t think they had stood a chance against so many magical creatures, Reo thought differently. He imagined a mob stronger than before, using the technology of the times to move to the forefront as they faced the next and possibly final Golden Age.
“Things were not as we thought they would be,” one of the men remarked, coming up next to Reo.
Reo kept his eyes on the horizon. His mind was clear, as always. He was one of the only ones left who could maintain a clear head regardless of what was happening around him. He could see the brightness of the sun through thick storm clouds, and he knew there was a place for his people in the future.
“Are we so weak that the loss of one battle will be the destroyer of our kind? Have we not learned the ways of the Yakuza? Have we not trained mercilessly for centuries, sometimes in the light, others in the shadows?”
“Too many of us were lost,” the warrior replied. “We were not prepared for the world that has grown to face us. Perhaps this is the end of the Yakuza. Maybe we were not meant for forever.”
Reo shook his head, keeping his emotions even. He wanted to be angry and lash out at such words, but he knew they came from a place of fear, and meeting fear with anger would only distract him further. His father, his grandfather, and many generations before them had stood in his shoes, facing an uncertain future with the knowledge and power of Yakuza on their backs. All had been victorious…until him.
“The loss was merely a setback. A wake-up call that we are in need of stronger training. I was not aware that when we rose from the shadows we would be so easily scared.”
“The loss was the final straw in a long line of issues for the Yakuza, issues that you can only remember through your father’s eyes.”
Reo turned and looked at the warrior. “Issues that were worked through, creating a stronger alliance between warriors. Our fathers and our fathers’ fathers would be ashamed at all those that took to their heels and ran today. They would scoff in our faces and call us weak, reminding us that it not only takes strong magic and strong bodies to be a Yakuza warrior, it also takes the ability to fall and get back up. These men are disgraceful.”
“I agree, but remember where so many of them came from—a life of pleasures and trinkets, not the life you and I had. We trained from birth, living the way, breathing the way, and doing nothing but preparing for our time as warriors. Reo, you were born with a leader’s scroll in one hand and a wand in the other. You were made for this. The others—most of them were not. Do not forget that not all of the Yakuza come from such strong beginnings.”
“You are right,” Reo agreed. “Not all of them have, but all of them need to. I will rebuild. If the Yakuza wants to die, then I shall let it have its peace. I will rebuild a group that knows the way, knows the training, and knows how to use magic to help crush our opponents. Our wisdom and power will force those around us to kneel in reverence, choke on fear, and look at us as if we are the only true warriors alive today.”
“I am with you, Reo,” the warrior told him, bowing his head.
“So am I,” a voice from behind shouted.
Several of the men spoke up, always having looked at Reo as a leader in his own right. T
he rest hung their heads while gathering their things and left quietly. Reo let them go without a word. He did not want a troop of men beside him who didn’t believe fully in his leadership or the cause.
“Good.” Reo rubbed his hands together. “We will embrace a new dawn as ‘the Harriken.’ Those of you who have chosen to walk this new path, rest now, heal your bodies and minds, meditate to the old ways, and create a field of solitude around yourselves. We will not only retrain ourselves, we will also train the new brand of warriors toward a brighter future—one where our names are known and our tactics are feared.”
Reo nodded at the men and walked down the hall to his bedroom. The old leader had run, too tired from the years in the shadows to go on, but Reo had emerged, taking over to build a stronger future. He shut his bedroom door and stared at the armor on his wall. It had been his great-grandfather’s, worn into battle with the Yakuza many times over. The blood from his death still stained the magical leather, but it was a mark of honor, a show of true valor.
He bowed to the vision of his grandfather in his head and walked to the table by the window. He opened a drawer and pulled out a hand-crafted wooden box with the seal of the Yakuza burned into the lid. He slowly reached inside and pulled out an item wrapped in silken fabric. He placed it on the desk and untied the twine, and the cloth fell away to reveal a carved wooden bowl that was hundreds or possibly even thousands of years old. The stains of use were apparent in the discolored interior.
Reo ran his hand along the bowl’s edges, feeling the smoothness of the hand-sanded wood. The bowl had been a gift, something that had been passed down from generation to generation to both ensure a long steady line and keep the artifact in the family. Reo sat down in the chair and closed his eyes, feeling the vibration of magic in his hands. He recalled the voice of his father as a memory of the past played vividly.
“Son,” his father had said when Reo was only sixteen years old, “you have trained for ten years with the Yakuza, and it is your turn to step forward and shine. Your magic is more advanced than any wizard I have seen, and your mind and body are enlightened. You will go great places, but I foresee that your path will not always be simple. At some point, you will have to forge your own path while carrying on the path of the Yakuza.”
The young Reo had looked down at the bowl and back at his father, slightly confused. “Why do you give me this bowl? The insides are stained and the wood is old.”
“Sometimes magic lies where we least expect it.” He smiled. “This bowl has been passed down through the family for centuries. It is from Oriceran, and made of a very powerful magical wood. Each one of us has bestowed some of our magic on it, waiting for our turn to pass it to our heir. This bowl, when endowed with a secret recipe of herbs, becomes the doctor, not the tool. Anyone who drinks the mixture from this bowl will heal faster than anyone on Earth or Oriceran.”
Reo shook his head, opening his eyes to find himself back in his room. He had possessed that bowl for only three days before his father was killed in battle. Reo had run to his side with the strong mixture, rubbing it over his father’s wounds, but it had been too late. The mixture was to heal, not bring back from the dead, which was where his father had already ventured. A knock on the door startled Reo from his thoughts, and he rewrapped and replaced the bowl in his desk. His partner and fellow warrior Ranfore leaned against the doorframe.
“Tell me about our new family.”
Reo smiled at his friend, who was known to be light-hearted. They had conquered many things and many places at each other’s sides through the years, and Reo was comforted to know he would not be on his own. Ranfore may have been lighthearted when it came to Reo, but he was vicious and raw and gave little thought to the sanctity of life—which made him a perfect Harriken soldier.
“We will move quickly, using the bowl of my family to heal those currently wounded. We have an opportunity—still unknown to most—to take Los Angeles as our own. It will be only the beginning, and though a few have honored and pledged themselves to me, they will not be enough. We will recruit others, and it will be simple since we will own Los Angeles, keeping it as our temple city. From there we will rebuild, only this time we will aim larger. We shall take the Yakuza back to its roots—back to Japan—and spread the Harriken across the world.”
Ranfore grinned mischievously before walking over to the window and looking out. He never held back how he felt about things, at least not with Reo. His thought processes had gotten the two of them out of more lethal situations than he wanted to remember.
“I feel as if the prophets set this defeat today in motion. It cleared the weak away and brought the strong to the forefront. The days of the Yakuza could not carry on forever, and it is time to start fresh, strong, and ready to take hold of our future. The Harriken will be the dawn of a new age of magic, and you are the perfect one to lead us. You have been preparing for this your whole life.”
Reo walked over to Ranfore and looked out over the city. “And so have you, brother. We have both prepared for this day, even if we didn’t know it was coming. The Yakuza’s alliance with the human police will no longer be sufficient with the rush of magical people who will be flooding through the gates soon. We will establish ourselves before that begins, and by doing so, we will rise to the top before it is even defined. We will take up watch over the entire world, the magical people coming to us for protection.”
Ranfore smirked and folded his hands behind his back. The two men stared into the dark clouds in the distance where lightning flashed and thunder crackled in the darkening skies. The power was stronger than Reo had imagined, but he was ready for the rise of the Harriken. It was in his blood.
13
The sounds of the rainforest—birds chirping, and drops of water dropping gently onto the leaves of a forest—played from the speakers in Yumfuck’s room. Yumfuck perched cross-legged on his meditation pillow next to his Buddha statue. His paws were laid comfortably on his knees palms up, and his eyes were gently closed. The sounds of the rainforest faded as a gentle bell tolled from the speaker, pulling Yumfuck from his peaceful meditation.
“Ohhhhmmmm,” he chanted. “Ohhhhmmm.”
He let out a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes, letting the light of his room gently rouse him. He rolled his shoulders and breathed in through his nose and out of his mouth. He was really starting to get good at the whole meditation thing. He hoped that one day he would be able to travel out of his body and across the plains, bringing back a large box of donuts from his favorite bakery in Austin.
“The mind is everything,” Yumfuck quoted Buddha. “What you think, you become. Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the maple bacon donut.”
He smiled and hopped off his pillow, turning to Buddha and bowing in reverence. He looked at the clock on his wall, which told him it was nearing eleven at night. Normally, Yumfuck would be preparing for bed with several sodas and a bag or two of Cheetos, but not that night. Crime went on under the moon, and he was not going to sit by and let it continue to happen. When he had created his patrol schedule, he’d decided to add some night shifts. It was Friday night, so hopefully, he would find a lot of criminals to teach lessons to.
Yumfuck scurried to his closet and pressed on the false back, which slid smoothly open. He grew to four feet tall and pulled out a mask and cape that would fit him at that size. This mask and cape were large on him, so if he needed to grow he hoped they would stretch.
He donned his outfit and looked in the mirror, nodding in approval. Yumfuck grabbed his handcuffs and a shiny black baton and put them in the new belt Leira’s grandmother had sent him. He nodded, examining himself from all angles and feeling powerful in his getup. He closed the closet door and walked out, shutting off the lights. As he made his way down the stairs, the blue glow of the television lit up the living room. Leira and Correk were cuddled on the couch watching a movie, and they slowly looked at Yumfuck.
“Where are you going so late?�
�� Leira asked.
“Night patrol. Gonna catch me some criminals.”
“Oh.” Leira nodded, holding back a smirk. “Well, be safe.”
“Hey, if you’re out when the sun comes up you should...”
“Get some donuts?” Yumfuck laughed at Correk. “Of course. Will be back soon. Keep your doors locked.”
“Will do.” Leira saluted him.
Yumfuck opened the front door and slid out into the night. No matter how dark it was, there was no missing a four-foot-tall furry troll in a cape and mask walking down the street. Yumfuck liked it. He thought his presence made a good statement against crime in the neighborhood. As he walked past his neighbor’s apartment building, he looked up. The only light still on was Elijah’s, but he never went to sleep early. Yumfuck nodded, continuing down the block and around the corner. As he turned the corner, he moved into the shadows. Metal creaked down the block and he squinted at a small car. Its windows were fogged, and it was rocking.
Slowly he crept toward the vehicle, keeping low in case the perp looked out. The shadows in the car moved wildly, and inside he could see a woman pinned down by a man. She struggled, pressing her feet against the other door.
“He’s attacking her,” Yumfuck whispered. “Not to fear, Yumfuck is here!”
He snuck up to the car and grasped the door handle, then pulled the baton from his belt, holding it high in the air before counting to three and jerking open the door. The couple froze and the woman looked at Yumfuck, grabbing her shirt and holding it over her bare breasts as she screamed.
“What the fuck? It’s a huge hairy masked hamster!”
“Jesus Christ, dude, good way to ruin the mood. Seriously, have some respect!”
The man grabbed the door and yanked, pulling it closed. Yumfuck stood there trying to comprehend what he had just seen. Finally, it hit him—they weren’t fighting. They were getting it on in the back of the car, and he had just scared the living shit out of the woman. Yumfuck put his baton back in his belt, his cheeks hot with embarrassment.