Of Cinder and Bone

by Kyoko M

  “Good,” Fujioka said, her smile bright and fierce. “Easy is boring.”

  “They’ll likely be waiting for you at the rail station. They are well-equipped, but poorly trained since the yakuza under his command are younger and less experienced.”

  Kamala eyed her. “How do you know so much about them?”

  “Okegawa once took a brief interest in me. I learned a lot during that time, especially about the unscrupulous ways he lived his life. I left for a reason. His ambitions are childish.”

  “And what ambitions are those?”

  The limo came to a stop and Kenji opened the door, revealing that they’d pulled up to the nearest railway station. Keiko’s paper-thin smile returned.

  “Ask him yourself.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE KILN

  “So,” Kamala said as the two women walked down the sidewalk outside of the Higashi-Kanagawa railway station. “What are the odds that Keiko was telling the truth?”

  Fujioka sent her an appraising look. “You’re getting good at this. Maybe you should have been a sleuth instead of a scientist.”

  “Don’t blow smoke up my ass, Fujioka-san. It’s uncomfortable.”

  Fujioka barked out a laugh. “The chances are quite good. She’s got an agenda fit for a queen. She wants us to find her brother and Okegawa and throw the proverbial monkey wrench in their plans. Besides, I’m sure she assumes we’ll kill each other and she’ll be free to take over as she sees fit. Her old man won’t make it another year, and she’ll have her own empire to run without any troublesome male influence.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Fujioka gathered up her hair and slipped on a ponytail holder, flipping the ends around until it was in a messy bun. Kamala removed the rings on her fingers one by one and tucked them into her pocket; notably the one not containing the firearm. They kept a steady pace and never turned around. If they had, they’d be able to clearly see the four men keeping up with them about fifty paces back.

  “Think she’s playing us?” Kamala asked, pulling her own short hair into a small ponytail as well.

  “Most certainly. However, I don’t think these idiots are part of her organization. They’re sloppy bullies, nothing more. Okegawa doesn’t think we’re worth the trouble of sending his more experienced men, apparently.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  Fujioka shrugged and cracked her knuckles. “Not for my stress relief. Punching a guy’s lights out in only one hit makes my job boring.”

  Kamala shook her head. “Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

  They turned the corner. “Need any refreshers?”

  “Not really. Ears, eyes, groin, nose, and feet. Are you sure I can’t just use the gun to scare them off?”

  “If you were an experienced gun owner, then I’d have no problem with it, but you aren’t. It’s too easy to make a mistake when you don’t use a gun often. We have no way of knowing how one of them would react at gunpoint, and most shooting accidents happen due to panic. Besides, if we have a death on our hands, the investigation ends. Even if you kill in self-defense, you’d be detained.”

  Kamala sighed. “I suppose that makes sense. Where do I meet you afterward?”

  “Our driver is one block away from the front of the convenience store, in a silver car with tinted windows. If you get there first, wait ten minutes. If I’m not there by then, leave without me. I’ll catch up.”

  “I can’t get Jack back without you.”

  “I know,” Fujioka said, a bit softer this time. “I don’t intend to let you. But if worse comes to worst, go to the U.S. embassy and they’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  Kamala frowned. “I don’t want to be safe. I want my best friend back.”

  “And so does he, Dr. Anjali. Don’t be reckless. Be smart. Survive. One step at a time will lead us back to Jack. Now then, are you ready?”

  Kamala took a long breath in and out. “Yes.”

  “Go.”

  The two women stood stock still in the middle of an intersection of modest apartment complexes and quiet homes, where there were only straggling pedestrians and little to no traffic.

  Then they broke off into a sprint in opposite directions.

  The men following them cursed and split into pairs, racing after them.

  The street Kamala chose ran parallel to train tracks and had a large hill on the left side full of grass and lined with potted plants. Her shoes slapped the road as she ran full speed down the narrow one-way road, listening intently to the thundering noise of the men behind her. She’d gained a good distance with the element of surprise, but she knew the limits of her own body. She wouldn’t be able to sprint for long.

  She veered right after reaching the end of the street and had to slide over the hood of a car waiting for the light to change, its driver angrily honking in her wake. The men behind her cursed as they stumbled into it and one of them called out to her in Japanese. She could tell it wasn’t a nice phrase.

  By the time they made it around the corner, Kamala was nowhere to be found. The two men cursed again and split up: one heading down the narrow one-way street ahead, the other going towards the left where there were driveways leading into the apartments and small houses.

  The shorter man had a black suit, no tie, and high-top tennis shoes, and held a butterfly knife down his thigh to keep it out of sight as he eased his way towards the first driveway. Most of its occupants weren’t home, but there were a few cars, so he stooped and checked underneath them.

  After he looked beneath all of them and around the side street, he turned to head back in the direction of his partner. Kamala came out from beneath the front porch and kicked him in the groin as hard as she could.

  The thug squealed and dropped to his knees, his knife sliding several feet away on the road. One hand clutching his wounded genitals, he snarled and whirled around, reaching for her. She ducked the sloppy punch he threw at her and landed a solid jab to his diaphragm. He choked on nothing for a moment, winded, and Kamala hammered him twice in the left ear. He fell to his knees again, gasping and dazed with pain. She delivered a vicious front kick to the nose and he hit the pavement on his back, groaning and bleeding.

  She recovered the knife, flipped it closed, and tucked it into her pocket. She eyed the floored man and then grabbed a potted plant from the yard. She dropped it on his head and he went out like a light. She nodded to herself, dusted off her hands, and hurried towards the direction she’d come from. She froze as she turned the corner.

  The taller, heavily tattooed bald thug stood there, also armed with a butterfly knife. He smiled toothily at her and held a finger up to his lips. “Shhh.”

  Kamala’s heart rattled against her rib cage, cold sweat gathering along the small of her back as she tried not to panic.

  “Come quietly, ojō-sama,” the man said in a heavy accent. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “I know you won’t,” she spat. “You’ll have to catch me first, shithead.”

  She whirled. He lunged after her. His long stride put him only a few steps behind her, and the distance closed between them as she raced toward the corner.

  Kamala’s eyes watered as she ran. Her lungs screamed for air and her muscles throbbed with overuse. She could hear him getting closer and knew if he got his hands on her, she’d be helpless unless Fujioka somehow caught up with them. Every second she wasted evading this man, Jack was suffering. She had to save him. By any means necessary.

  She decided it was time to find out what that meant.

  Kamala planted the ball of her foot, executed a perfect hairpin 180 degree turn, and aimed her fist directly at the man’s throat.

  The man couldn’t dodge or avoid her at breakneck speed. The momentum carried him straight into her fist and the force took them both off their feet.

  Kamala crashed onto the c
oncrete on her back, crying out as the pain lashed up her spine and shoulders, and the edge of her skull smacked the ground. She wheezed and stared up at the blue heavens above her, clutching her right hand. Fire crawled up from her wrist to the tips of her fingers. She might as well have punched solid concrete. Every nerve burned like she’d dipped the appendage in acid and then gave it a salt bath.

  The thug had tumbled head-over-foot after she hit him, and it took her several agonizing seconds to notice his body lying across from her. Gritting her teeth, she pushed to her feet and stumbled until she found her balance, cradling the injured hand against her stomach.

  He wasn’t moving. Instead, he was facedown. One hand was carelessly out in front of him and the other was beneath his upper torso, his legs wildly splayed like he was about to do a one-handed push up.

  Just to be sure he wasn’t faking, she turned him over with her foot.

  Kamala brought her trembling left hand up to cover her mouth.

  The thug’s butterfly knife was lodged in his chest.

  His mouth hung open slightly, as if his last expression had been sheer surprise. The death had been so instantaneous that his eyes weren’t even closed. Blood soaked the white t-shirt and painted his hand and wrist deep scarlet. She could tell by the angle that it had shredded his heart and possibly part of his lung in the fall. Her first instinct to check his pulse shriveled and died with a whimper. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the injury had been fatal.

  Sobs choked her throat, but no sound escaped aside from her quaking breaths. She’d only meant to immobilize him so she could get away. Was he dead before or after the knife went in? Had she subconsciously known this would happen and yet did it anyway?

  Kamala took several gulps of air and forced herself to back away from the fallen man, checking to see if anyone was around. Midday in this prefecture meant most people were at work, so she didn’t spot a witness. Still shaking, she pulled her sleeve up over her still functioning hand, fished out the man’s phone, dialed the emergency number, and then left it next to him as it rang.

  Then she hurried back to the meeting point.

  ~*~

  Fujioka was already sitting in the backseat wiping a travel-size alcohol cloth over her split knuckles when Kamala opened the car door. It took her all of .00005 seconds to realize something had gone horribly wrong.

  “What is it?” Fujioka demanded, her sharp eyes darting outside the car to detect a potential threat.

  “Nothing,” Kamala said hoarsely, shutting the door. “Tell the driver to go.”

  Fujioka barked an order at the man and the car pulled into traffic. “What happened?”

  “I said nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” Fujioka spat. “Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your eyes are bloodshot. I told you to separate and confuse them, not confront them. If I wanted a brawl, we’d have stayed together, but I didn’t want you to get caught in the crossfire. Tell me what happened.”

  Kamala shut her eyes, fighting to keep her voice steady. “It doesn’t matter. I told you we must retrieve Jack by whatever means necessary. No matter what the cost.”

  Fujioka stared her down a moment longer and then cursed softly. “Just one of them or both?”

  Kamala said nothing. She just sat there with her hands clasped, the knuckles blanching, and pressed her forehead against them. It took Fujioka a moment to hear the whispering, and to realize that the woman was praying in Hindi.

  Fujioka opened the small white case on the seat between them. She pulled out a roll of gauze and reached for Kamala’s injured hand. She flinched away at first, then realized what the older woman was doing and offered her hand. Fujioka cleaned up the blood from her knuckles and carefully began to wrap her hand. “One of the men who came after me wasn’t just a common street thug. He was also a mole.”

  Kamala paused, her reddened eyes opening. “A mole?”

  “Yes.”

  “For whom?”

  “That’s the interesting part. Not who I thought. It had nothing to do with Keiko or her father Makoto. He said he worked for the Inagawa-kai.”

  “And you’re sure he wasn’t lying?”

  Fujioka smirked. “I hung him upside down and hit him in the groin with brass knuckles. I’m pretty sure he was being truthful.”

  “Why was he after us?”

  “That is the million-dollar question.” She wiggled Kamala’s fingers one by one, checking for any fractures. “There is a traitor in the house of Yamaguchi-gumi. Someone has been silently putting things into effect ever since they brought the dragon over here, and it wasn’t just Yagami or Okegawa. I thought we would be going in to steal our boy and the dragon back, but it looks like we weren’t told the whole story. There is a war brewing on the horizon.”

  “A war? How can that be? Japan is no different from the other countries that went out of their way to exterminate every last dragon within its borders. Why would they fight so hard to steal ours and make others?”

  “That’s precisely why they’re fighting for the dragon. This isn’t about bragging rights, Dr. Anjali. They want to bring the dragon hunters back.”

  Kamala shook her head. “That’s impossible. The only reason they were able to base a whole culture around dragon-hunting is because there were hundreds of them in all different shapes and sizes. You’d have to try to breed them at an exponential rate for decades to have enough to hunt for sport. It took us nearly a month to give birth to only a clutch of eight, and we had all the proper equipment and access. How could they possibly try to organize something like that without being struck down by the authorities?”

  “I thought the same thing. It’s much more than a group of fanatics. Have you ever heard of the Red Fist?”

  “Yes. It was the fiercest dragon hunter clan in all of Japan. They were credited with over two-hundred kills on record, and possibly a hundred more if the legends are true. They called them Red Fist because they wore dragon’s blood as war paint during the hunts.”

  Fujioka nodded. “Most of the yakuza can trace their roots and find a member of the dragon hunters of Japan in their bloodlines. Inagawa-kai is notorious for still holding the belief that the Red Fist laid the foundation for their organization. They made millions killing dragons and selling their bodies to the highest bidder. They’ve been trying for decades to resurrect them, but every last trial ended in failure. Now that you and Jack have found a way to create the dragons, they want that technology, and they want the dragon as their prototype. When we go, we won’t just be facing Okegawa’s men. They’re going to be under siege.”

  “Gods,” Kamala muttered, covering one side of her face. “It just keeps getting worse.”

  “Yes, it does. That’s why you’re calling the authorities.”

  Kamala glanced sharply at the bodyguard. “If we do that, they’ll shut everything down and the people responsible will scatter. We’ll never get justice if we don’t bring them in ourselves.”

  “Dr. Anjali, we have no choice. We’re outmanned and outgunned. Infiltration was a pipe dream when it was just Yagami’s men, and now we have a rival gang on their way to lay waste to it. We have to involve the authorities.”

  “And what if Jack gets caught in the crossfire? Or Pete? We’ll have done all of this for nothing.”

  “It’ll all be for nothing if we don’t survive long enough to save them.”

  “Then we get there first before all hell breaks loose. We get them and we leave and let the cops sort it out once the dust settles.”

  Fujioka narrowed her eyes. “We? Last time I checked, you aren’t trained in combat or in riflery. Are you telling me you’re ready to go in there knowing that you may never come back out?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re this shaken up over the death of a lowlife criminal, and yet you expect me to trust you, to assume that you won’t fall apart if you have to pull the trigger on someone els
e. I’ve been in this life for years. I’ve done things you can’t imagine, things that make it difficult to sleep at night. Do you understand what you’re about to do? That if you come with me you cannot falter or hesitate or we’ll both die and leave Jack to be torn to shreds by either side of the yakuza? I have seen your will and your desire, and I don’t doubt them, but I can’t vouch for your conscience. Killing someone is a choice. An act of free will. If you do this, then it will never go away. That blood doesn’t wash off, no matter how many lives you save in the future. Knowing all of that… are you still willing to go?”