The Book of the Wind

by Carrie Asai

  We walked, exhausted, back to the room. “You wanna watch TV?” Teddy asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Teddy unfolded the cot for himself. He actually was going to sleep on it. I was amazed. Who was this new Teddy? He had totally mellowed out. He flipped on MTV and, to my surprise, started to watch an episode of Sorority Life. I’d watched this a couple of times with Cheryl.

  “You like this show?” I said, laughing.

  Teddy shrugged. “It’s much more interesting than Fraternity Life, that’s for sure.”

  I bit my lip. Teddy’s affinity for cheesy TV shows was kind of charming. Hiro didn’t watch television.

  “That one girl is like mega-pledge,” Teddy said, pointing at one of the girls who was pouring her heart out on the screen.

  Hiro would probably say this kind of television was drivel. We both sat transfixed by the idiotic events that were unfolding on-screen.

  Suddenly a thought drove into my head.

  Hiro. Had he called?

  My pulse started to race. I waited until Teddy had fallen asleep—he snored!—and then checked my cell phone. Nothing. No messages. No missed calls. As Teddy slept, I snuck into the hall and dialed Hiro’s number again on my cell phone. It was busy. Hopefully Karen had given him the message. I hung up the phone and went back into the room to sleep.

  The next day Teddy and I lazed around the pool and walked through the park again. We watched a whole marathon of Sorority Life. I kept sneaking into the hallway (claiming to get ice, candy bars, soda, whatever) to call and check the messages. Nothing. No red lights, no blinking, no missed calls. No notes at the front desk. I scanned the road for Hiro. Nothing. Where was he?

  I dialed his number again and again. I must have dialed it twenty times. It was always busy. “What the hell?” I said out loud to the empty room. Hiro could have taken the phone off the hook to prevent me from calling again. God, maybe he really didn’t want me to come back. My spirits dropped.

  Later that night I snuck into the hall to try the line again. I couldn’t think of Karen’s number, and information didn’t have it listed. She’d probably changed her number after her kidnapping. I began to realize that Hiro wasn’t coming. He was serious. I was to forget him. I really had to do this on my own.

  I lay in bed again that next night. Teddy drifted quickly into sleep, but I stayed awake, terrified. I crept into the hall with my phone and dialed the number one more time.

  It rang.

  My heart started to pound. This was the first time the call had gone through. I checked my watch. It wasn’t too late, only about eleven-thirty. It rang once more, and then I heard a voice.

  “Hello?”

  It was Karen.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but I was frozen with fear. She sounded totally pissed off. I heard Hiro’s voice in the background. Before I knew what I was doing, I hung up.

  They hadn’t gone anywhere. They’d just taken the phone off the hook, hoping I wouldn’t call. Karen’s kindness must have been an act.

  How dare Hiro just drop me like this? Wasn’t this totally against the bushido code? Wasn’t he supposed to be looking out for me? How could he be so…heartless? Had some sort of terrible spirit occupied his body, telling him that he must never, ever speak to me again? What was the point of even taking me in the first place if this was going to be the end result?

  I tossed and turned in bed in a rage, feeling angrier and angrier with Hiro. Finally, worn out, I decided I couldn’t think about it anymore. I had to formulate a new plan for myself.

  I had to move to plan B.

  10

  I was standing on the edge of a canyon in Joshua Tree Park. There was no one around. The sun was coming up, making the rocks red and gold. It was gorgeous. I was wearing the Chloé dress that Teddy had bought me. My hair was up. I wore new shoes. I felt like a princess.

  Hiro appeared. He wore a swanky suit and his hair looked like it had been cut and styled. It even looked like he had highlights. He smiled broadly at me.

  “You came!” I breathed in. I was ecstatic.

  “I’m here,” he said. “It took me two days, but I’m here.”

  I gave him a hug. “It’s been terrible without you,” he told me. “My world was just crumbling. I had no idea….”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  A shadow fell over us. There was Teddy, dressed in a long robe. His hair was arranged in disturbing, devil-like spikes on his head. He was holding, of all things, a torch. In the other hand, he was holding the Whisper of Death.

  “Teddy!” I said. He was staring at me. He looked angry.

  “Hello, Hiro,” Teddy said. “I see you’ve come for Heaven.”

  Hiro didn’t say anything. I saw him move into a battle stance. Crouched down, his arms in front of him, his back tense.

  “Teddy, what’s all this about?” I said.

  Teddy looked at me. He had some weird sort of turquoise paint on his face. It swirled out from his nose and curled around his ears. It looked completely bizarre. “Well, Heaven, you said that you would give Hiro forty-eight hours. Two days. And his two days are up. Now I have to eliminate him.”

  “What?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  Hiro turned to me. “You made a promise in your head?” he said. “You only gave me two days? Don’t you realize it takes two days to drive here?”

  But it didn’t take two days to drive from L.A. to Joshua Tree. Even I knew that. I stood there, tongue-tied. Another figure stepped from behind Teddy. A smaller, stealthier figure.

  Ninja.

  To be more precise, the ninja from the wedding. I recognized the crest on his obi.

  I gasped.

  The ninja’s eyes glowed an eerie shade of red. He stared right at me. “So, we meet again,” he said to me. “Hello, Heaven Kogo.”

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

  The ninja walked closer to Hiro and me. I looked at Hiro. Do something! I wanted to tell him. He looked terrified. He stood there, completely disarmed. I trembled.

  “You gave Hiro forty-eight hours,” the ninja said. “That’s not very much time, is it?”

  “Well…,” I started.

  The ninja held up his hand to silence me. “You gave him forty-eight hours, and now his forty-eight hours are up. Now he must die.”

  “No!” I said. Teddy handed the Whisper of Death to the ninja. They’re in cahoots? I thought angrily, looking fiercely back and forth from Teddy to the ninja. Hiro stood there, as if he were in suspended animation. “Move, Hiro!” I yelled. But Hiro was frozen.

  My eyes flew open. Sweat had soaked the sheets. How long had I been sleeping? What time was it?

  I raised my head. Teddy was still asleep. The clock said six-thirty. I had been tossing and turning all night, trying to figure out what to do. Hiro really wasn’t coming for me. I had to make a plan for myself. I thought I’d figured out something good, although after that dream…

  But no. Teddy had told me truthfully that he was on my side. I really did believe him.

  I had a plan B. It involved Teddy.

  I heard the rustling of sheets. Teddy sat up straight and looked at me. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I answered, covering myself with the blanket. I went to the bathroom quickly and stared at myself in the mirror. Okay. You have to do this. It’s plan B.

  I stared at my features. My skin was looking tired and worn out. My eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. My hair was standing every which way. At least my black eye had faded. I tried to smooth my hair down a little and straighten out my T-shirt. I pulled on my jeans and went back into the room.

  Teddy had put on his jeans, too. “You’re up early,” he said. “I guess we can see the morning sun this way.”

  “Teddy,” I said in a loud voice, perhaps to sound convincing, perhaps to rouse myself from the weird dreams I’d been having.

  “I’ve decided,” I continued. “I’ve thought about it long and hard. We sh
ould get married and go back to L.A.”

  Teddy stared at me. My heart pounded.

  His jaw dropped open and he broke into a gigantic smile. “Are you serious?” he said.

  “Yeah…of course.” I tried a smile.

  He blinked a couple of times. “Whoa, Heaven. I’m…I’m amazed.” He stood up and took my hands. “Really?”

  “Yes,” I said, now smiling wider.

  Teddy gave me a gigantic hug. “This is great,” he said. I could tell he was really overwhelmed. “We’ve…we’ve got to get out of here, then. Let’s go back to L.A. now, today. Let’s pack up and leave.”

  “Okay,” I said. My heart raced. The sooner we went, the better.

  It didn’t take us long to pack up. All I really had was my dress, my purse, my extra underwear, and my sleeping T-shirt. Days had passed and I’d survived on a couple of things from a bag and had been to Vegas and back. Pretty amazing. I wondered, fleetingly, what Katie was doing right now. Had she just gotten back from a party? Was she sleeping? Was she thinking about me? Was she shell-shocked? Had she called the police?

  We walked into the lobby. Teddy quickly went to the front desk and paid for the room and the dinner and the clothes that he’d bought at the gift shop with his credit card—I guess it was all itemized into one bill. “Let me help with that,” I said.

  “No way,” he answered. He looked at me and smiled. “You’re gonna be my wife. You won’t have to pay for anything.”

  In the car Teddy leaned over and gave me a kiss. Up close, he didn’t smell so bad—sort of like cinnamon and clove cigarettes. He started up the engine and we drove off. I fidgeted with everything in the car—the windows, the locks, the glove compartment. “Nervous?” Teddy said.

  “Me? No. Not a bit.” I smiled back. “I really think this is a good decision after all.”

  “Yeah,” Teddy said. “So, you want to like have a big ceremony or anything or just make it really small?”

  I looked at him like he was crazy. “Would it be smart for us to have a big ceremony? Considering our…our track record?” I felt a twinge about that dream I’d had last night. The ninja.

  Teddy paused for a traffic signal. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He smiled. “Too bad we can’t go back to Vegas. We could go to a twenty-four-hour chapel. You know, Elvis’s house of love or something like that.”

  I laughed. “Yeah,” I said. “Well, a small ceremony, then. But no Vegas.”

  Teddy hummed along to the radio while I sat and played with the lock-unlock button. My heart was still racing.

  We drove down a long, unbroken highway. All around us was desert and heat. Pretty depressing, but Teddy was on cloud nine, singing along to a Limp Bizkit song. “Hey, you hear that ‘Heaven’s Gone’ song yet?” Teddy asked me. “Can you believe that shit? As soon as we’re married, I’m going to get them to pull that from the air. I don’t want anyone else singing about you.”

  “I haven’t heard it,” I lied.

  “Well, you can’t really understand it anyway; it’s all in Japanese and mumbled, too. It’s not as if anyone here is going to understand what they’re saying—hey, what’s that in front of us?”

  I looked out on the horizon. There was a helicopter heading straight for the highway. “That’s weird,” I said. “What do you think it’s doing?”

  “It’s flying awfully low,” Teddy said. He adjusted the dial on the radio.

  I tensed up. Something about the helicopter reminded me of my dream.

  The helicopter dipped farther and farther, finally looking like it was going to land right on the highway. “Dude,” Teddy said. “Maybe it’s in trouble.” He slowed the car down as the helicopter settled on the ground, its propeller kicking up clouds of dust. The other cars in front of us skidded either around it or off the road. A couple of cars ended up on the shoulder.

  “What do you think…,” Teddy started. The helicopter’s propeller still whirled, but it was firmly settled on the ground now. And then something incredible happened.

  From the helicopter emerged one ninja after another. Cloaked in head-to-toe black.

  I counted fast. Ten of them.

  “Ouch,” Teddy whispered.

  They were coming right for us.

  I quickly looked at Teddy. He looked back at me and nodded. We had to act fast. These guys wanted both of us.

  The first group of three approached me with some low-flying mae geri kicks. I dodged them. Luckily I was feeling a little more together this time, as opposed to my drunken awkward fight in front of Katie’s house.

  I gave the first guy a solid kick to the stomach. Even though I hadn’t been training for a little while, I still felt pretty strong. I think it surprised them—they were probably expecting that with my smaller frame, I’d be an easy victory. The guy staggered backward, surprised.

  But then the next guy jumped on me from behind. I felt his weight on my back and the air was completely knocked out of me. Suddenly I was on the ground. The ninja, breathing heavily, managed to roll me over despite my kicking so that he was on top of me. That was when I made my move. Before he could settle in (and before he could start hitting me), I twisted his body and flipped him over so that I had full access to his throat. Then I started to put him in a choke hold.

  The guy flailed and suddenly lost consciousness. Another ninja was dragging me by the hair. I screamed and let go of the other guy, rolling his heavy body off me. I leapt to my feet. The ninja was ready, knocking me down with a hane goshi move—a throw off his hip. I rolled back up quickly, wincing in pain, and countered with a blow to his shoulder. He raced toward me, but I backed up. Suddenly there was a crack on my spine. Someone was behind me.

  I whirled around and tiger-punched the next ninja in his throat. He gasped for air. I maneuvered over to the spinning blades of the helicopter—they hadn’t turned the ignition off. I could use the shadows to my advantage by using the shinobi-iri methods of invisibility. I had done this before to slide into the shadows and trick my enemy. Hopefully it would work again.

  I glanced over at Teddy. He had pulled out his gun and was waving it around at the ninjas. They backed away. Even I backed away. But then Teddy tried to fire it, and nothing happened. Just an empty clicking noise.

  “Shit,” Teddy muttered. The gun didn’t have any bullets.

  He threw the weapon down and switched tactics, pulling out his knives from under his shirt. Before the ninjas even knew what was going on, he slashed two of them.

  Where had he been keeping those knives?

  I had to concentrate. Only one ninja was down and the others were hungry. One advanced toward me with a long, thin knife in his hand. I slid into the shadows and managed to elude him. I knocked the knife out of his hand. It skidded over in Teddy’s direction.

  “Teddy!” I yelled, then gestured toward the knife. He grabbed it.

  The ninjas, being much more schooled in martial arts than I was, also knew about shinobi-iri. They could slide in and out of the shadows, too. They weren’t like the Yukemura clan, brutish and reliant on their weapons. These guys were experts. I slid into one shadow and bumped haphazardly into one of my assailants. Luckily Teddy was right behind us, pulling out his knife, slashing him across the shoulder. Then he punched him in the face. The ninja dropped like a stone.

  I was kicked from the back again and went flailing to the ground. All at once pain came from all angles, affecting every part of me. My neck. My back. My legs. I felt my organs being crushed. Who was this? I looked up. Two ninjas. Where was Teddy?

  Suddenly Teddy’s shadow fell over them, and he grabbed both by their shoulders and whipped them backward (I’d honestly had no idea that Teddy was so strong). One ninja, however, wasn’t impressed. He lunged at Teddy and flipped him. Teddy crashed to the ground. I heard him heaving, the wind knocked out of him. When his breath came back, he wailed in pain.

  I tried to sit up, spitting out blood. I managed to stand and walk over to Teddy. “Get up,” I said, offerin
g him a hand. “Come on.” Teddy staggered to his feet. There was only one ninja left standing.

  The ninja started to shake as he realized that we outnumbered him. The other men lay in pools of blood or were simply unconscious. Teddy shoved his knives back into his pockets but kept the ninja’s out in front of him. He waved it to the ninja.

  “You want some more?” he growled. The ninja glared at us. “Who are you?” I shouted. “Who sent you?” The ninja brushed by us before we could react and scampered into the helicopter.

  “Hey!” Teddy said, rushing toward the vehicle. “Hey!”

  The propellers began to spin faster. The ninja manned the controls and the whole thing began to lift off the ground. Teddy stood below it, trying to jump up and hang on to the copter’s bottom.

  “Don’t!” I yelled at him.

  The helicopter climbed higher into the sky. The ninja was leaving his nine other men for dead. Teddy walked back to me, staring at them. None were moving, although I doubted we’d killed any of them. “Should we keep one as our prisoner? Make him answer our questions?” he asked.

  “I think we should get the hell out of here,” I said. My heart was racing. Teddy and I had fended off nine ninjas, but I couldn’t help but realize that if it hadn’t been for Teddy’s dirty street-fighting skills, we’d still be trying to battle them. Or worse—losing. They were better fighters than I was. I began to cough madly, spitting up more blood.

  “They were really kicking you,” Teddy said. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” I said. They’d freshened all the bruises from the fight in front of Katie’s house—I’d been beaten much worse then. Honestly, I felt like crying, my body hurt so badly. But I didn’t want to for some reason. Perhaps it was the bushi code inside me telling me not to—don’t show any emotion. Be strong.