by Ren Warom
* * *
Rather than turning tail, fleeing was a tactic.
Run to get caught. Run to catch.
Cornered by an unfortunate traffic incident, Lucian, Jessamine and Iyawa opt to ditch the car and head for a building they might conceivably use to entrap and dispatch the Yakuza looking to take them out. It’s an oddity. A bright, ugly twenty-floored ’scraper perched atop an old pavilion-style building built on three levels, each crowned with an ornate roof painted the same stinging greens and reds of the ’scraper above, the tiles tipped in gold rendered dull by the livid colours surrounding it.
The double doors of the entrance are yellow wood. Tightly shut. Windowed in an extravagant fan shape, framed in bamboo. Straightening his jacket and adjusting his cufflinks, tutting at the blood stains, Lucian holds his hand out to assist Jess from the car, teetering gracefully on her usual heels. He rather thinks they look too patrician for this building, sleek as greyhounds next to the cheap splendour of Imperial tile-work.
Ah well. Best to make an entrance and forestall any misconceptions.
Iyawa strides ahead to the double doors and holds them open, revealing the whole of the ground floor to be an open-spaced heya bustling with rikishi dressed only in traditional mawashi practicing their stretches, undergoing vigorous massage or having their hair teased into chonmage. The heya abounds with the smell of chanko nabe and the rich fragrance of pomade, cut through with the biting reek of sweat and the unmistakable musk of testosterone.
Jess squeals in delight, informing the entire open ground floor of her presence. The first response is a sort of slow-motion horror, every eye in the place turning to her like she’s impossible, some form of visual anomaly designed to confuse. As it becomes clear she’s actually standing there, a physical being as opposed to a mirage, horror morphs to disgust, to rage, to choleric outrage, provoking a wave of furious shouting in English and Japanese.
Thick, sweat-sheened arms point to the elaborately painted scrolls on the walls. Jess reads the kanji with cool eyes. Bites her lush bottom lip.
“I think I’m surplus to requirements,” she whispers, too loud, too amused.
Lucian pulls her to his side, winks at her. “No vaginas allowed.”
Several of the biggest wrestlers quit shouting and take aggressive steps toward them. They’re pushed aside by men in suits, basically slabs of muscle, probably augmented, who appear through bamboo doors built flush to the walls and barge their way up to Lucian, demanding he either send the woman back outside or both of them leave. When his immediate response is to ignore them, one of the men grabs Jess’s arm as if to remove her himself.
“My dearest love, you appear to have something on you.”
Lucian’s voice slices into the heya like a shark’s fin, a prelude to razor-toothed murder. Before it, like swimmers sighting a fin in the water, the shouting dies down to silence. The man with his hand wrapped around Jess’s arm flexes his fingers, his eyes shifting from Jess to Lucian and back again. Whatever he sees makes him swallow.
Jess grabs the wrist of the hand around her arm with her free hand, jerks and twists, producing a snapping sound so thick and crunchy several rikishi fold over and vomit on the floor between their feet. The suit falls to his knees, mouth working, only a whistle of air coming out. His eyes bug out, staring at his wrist. Disbelieving. She coughs elegantly to capture his attention. When it’s not forthcoming, she bends over him, sliding her hand up his oddly canted wrist to lace her fingers through his.
Taking her sweet time, she presses her palm down, applying pressure. He screams. She presses again, harder, lowers her face until their noses are almost touching.
“I’m confident you’re pleased to welcome me.”
His eyes bug, but he refuses to answer. She presses again. His scream is interrupted by a heavy slam as the doors behind open to a stream of Yakuza. Word of the brutal slaughter of several of their number in their lounge must have spread. These Yakuza have thrown aside guns to take up blades. Simple, utilitarian katanas, much used from the wear on the blades, and much sharpened from the glint on the razored edges.
“At last,” Lucian says, drawing his own blade—not a katana, but long, cruel and wicked sharp. “A proper fight.”
The silence, the stand-off, lasts only until he’s finished speaking, and then explodes, genned suits lurching forward in concert with the Yakuza. Wrestlers stepping up to join in, a tidal wave of rippling flesh encasing impressive muscle. Iyawa rolls his sleeves up, exposing powerful forearms. This is where they thrive. Lucian has no doubt they’ll survive this as they always survive.
Backing away to fool them into following, he guts the first one who dares to get close, laughing as, beside him, Jessamine grabs one in the crook of a deceptively strong arm and breaks his neck, the crack loud and brash as a starting pistol.
* * *
The body smashing through the shuttered window of the fifth floor of the heya ’scraper tells Vivid and Raid they’ve hit ground zero for the fight. Screeching the bike to a messy halt, Vivid abandons it on its side, running in behind Raid.
He indicates the absolute wreckage of the ground floor. “We missed the initial fun.”
Vivid weaves through the mess to the shoot. “Then we go find the current fun. Fifth floor, I believe.”
On the fifth floor they find a crowd of wrestlers, huge genned bodyguards and Yakuza who’ve cornered a hulking Nigerian.
“Iyawa, I presume?” murmurs Raid, his eyes wide.
Once a work of sartorial art, Iyawa’s suit is ripped in several places and bloodied, his knuckles are wrecks, his face locked into a feral snarl. He shows no sign of slowing down, the crowd around him keeping a careful, or more likely fearful distance. You do not underestimate a man willing and able to fling another man out of a fifth-storey window. Vivid catches Raid in a pretty serious side eye of said window.
“I’m not going near him.” He says it almost like a mantra. “I hate heights.”
Rolling her eyes hard enough to give herself swirling aura hallucinations, Vivid drags him past. “No need, you have a gun.”
“You think shooting him would do a damn thing? He’s tripping on so much adrenalin it’d take two clips to put him down. I have precisely a third of one left.”
“Wastrel. Doesn’t matter, we’re after Lucian anyway.”
“We are?”
“We are. We have personal beef.”
“Pretty sure they work in concert. He’s not their boss or anything.”
She sniffs. “I don’t give a fuck how they work, he’s the ace of fucking spades. I want him.”
“You want that I back you up, or you happy to let me go for Jess?”
“Chances are they’re fighting together,” she says. “Joker and Harley of the crime world.”
“Fair enough. Lead on. As long as I don’t have any chance of being thrown out of a window I’m good.”
Up the next flight of stairs, they find nothing but trails of blood and bodies slumped into heaps, several of them are Yakuza still hanging on to life. Vivid could honestly scream. Moral quandaries are her least favourite thing— she tends to pick being moral over giving herself an easy time. So, let them die or not? Amiga could. Amiga would just leave them there. But dammit to fuck she is not Amiga and wouldn’t want to be. Being trapped in that bear-trap of a mind even momentarily would snap her sanity like a finger caught in a vice.
Her only option here is caving to the possibility of being stonewalled out of this whole deal. Negotiating with herself the remote possibility of it being okay, considering Umi’s far enough away to give her time to get to her ace, Vivid IMs their location and the status of the Yakuza on the stairs. Maybe she’ll get points for that if not leeway once Umi turns up. Maybe she’ll only be banned from Tokyo on pain of death instead of flung out the docking bay into space. The wishful thinking embedded in that “maybe” makes her want to hurl.
Three more flights of stairs up they encounter Jessamine, fighting Sumo wres
tlers and Yakuza alike. She’s dishabille, her bra exposed, her hair down in messy waves, her body covered in bruises and deep cuts and loving it. She fights like she’s not feeling any of the damage. Raid swallows.
“They’re not normal,” he mutters.
“Neither are you, and you’ve got a third of a clip; make use of it. Cripple the bitch,” Vivid replies, and shoves him toward the action. He’ll be all right, likely won’t even need those bullets. Jessamine’s almost done whether she likes it or not. No one can hold their own for that long and the Yakuza are baiting her like they’re baiting Iyawa, making her wear herself out, dancing just out of reach every time she gets close. Her blows are already getting clumsy. Once she’s worn, she’s done.
Further up the heya, Lucian isn’t doing quite as badly as either of his cohorts. She imagined him a similar animal to Iyawa and Jessamine, but seeing him in close quarters, watching the quiet, neat way he dispatches the last Yakuza in the room as she comes too close, drawn by his careful manoeuvring, she realizes he’s more like Amiga than they are. Cold. Deliberate. Ruthless. Iyawa and Jess are passionate beings, they let their feelings rule—Lucian can switch his off, if he has any. It makes him harder to predict, harder to bait.
She slides into the room, keeping to the walls. Evaluating. Vivid’s not weighed down with false modesty or needless pride, she knows her strengths, her weaknesses, has no issue with admitting to being outmatched. Lucian duPont is better than her. There’s no version of a close-combat fight where she wins without sustaining serious injury or dying. Odds are high on the latter. But here comes that lack of false modesty—she has a way to beat him, and she never has to come within spitting distance.
He cleans his blade, watching her. His eyes are cool blue. Icy. The opposite of Shock’s startling brightness. “You’re not quick enough to hurt me,” he says, as if he’s offering her a way out. “You’ll die. Is that what you want to be known for? Failing?”
“Not really.”
“Then why don’t you leave?”
“I have business with you.”
He lets out a laugh, genuinely amused. “You? Business? What business could you have with me? None of you are of any use to me at all. All I want is the Haunt— he’s the only one of you with any worth.”
Shit, he’s not even bothering with scorn, like the idea of her being his equal in any way isn’t even worth that much effort. Good. That makes this simple. Vivid needn’t bother with formalities, honour, or playing fair. Snagging her semi-auto, hidden down the back of her jeans, and still packing a carefully conserved half clip of ammo, she shoots out his kneecaps, blowing bloody craters into the fine material of his trousers. They barely even crease as he crumples, knees first, which frankly has to hurt like the worst thing fucking ever but he doesn’t make a sound.
Creepy. As. Fuck.
The knife he was cleaning drops from his hand as he hits the floor, she shoots that too, sending it skittering across the room. Pot shots. Like taking out cans on a wall, minus that satisfying ping and clatter. These sounds may be even better. They’re the sounds of winning. And the look on his face? She’d frame it if she could, if that wouldn’t be super ghoulish. This may be the first intimate meeting he’s had with the element of surprise, at least from this direction. Fair to say, she’s really enjoyed popping that cherry for him.
Picking her way over the bodies he’s left on the floor like refuse, Vivid makes her way over to him, maintaining that careful distance. His eyes track her movement. There’s not a hint of wariness in them. He’s not scared.
“The gun is a surprise, I’ll admit.” His voice sounds no different. If not for the brutal paleness of his skin, she’d think him unaffected.
“You’re out of my league,” she admits, quite happily. “Knew it as soon as I walked in the room. Guessed you might be even sooner. I’m no Cleaner, I’m just a bitch who likes violence.”
He shifts. “You’re a coward.”
Vivid takes a moment to consider that matter-of-fact accusation. Not even an accusation really. An announcement. Even lying there, grievously wounded, he’s judged her worthiness as an opponent and found her wanting. Fascinating. She imagines it must have been like this for Amiga with Twist. But Twist underestimated Amiga. Big time. And Lucian? He’s failed to understand something important about her. Something intrinsic.
“It’s not cowardice to know your limitations,” she says, skirting around him, never once taking her eyes off him. She doubts his brokenness. Wants to give him the chance for a fair death, but not if it means endangering herself. Yeah, he feels like danger even lying there with his knees like fucking chuck steak. “I’m not fucking suicidal.”
He raises a brow. Could he be any more calm? He’s not normal. In ways she’s not seen. Ways she never wants to see again. “What are you then?” he drawls. “Hmmm?”
Stunned by how well she’s hiding the waves of unease lapping at her spine, Vivid offers him her most beautiful smile, because she’s had it with watching him. The only thing she wants this man to do right now is die. Before she loses her nerve.
“What am I?” she says. “I’m really fucking good at planning.”
Raising the gun, she shoots him, right in the centre of his forehead. One shot. Clean. She resists the urge to empty the clip into his face to make sure, even though this feels like a double-tap situation. But she does wait, breath baited, to make sure he’s definitely gone and she backs out of the room when she can bring herself to leave, because those pale blue eyes of his didn’t close, they just dimmed really, really slowly, the life fading with such reluctance she’s convinced he was in there wrestling to stay alive. To drag his body across the room after her.
She’s halfway down the stairs and almost running when she realizes she’s shaking. Not adrenalin, not all of it. Not any of it. When she tells the story of this moment, and she will, probably many times over, probably drunk, she won’t omit this part. It’s important to be honest about what scares you. And that guy? That fucking creepy, slow to die son of a bitch? He’s scared the living crap out of her.
Back downstairs, Jessamine is on the floor, bleeding from several strategic bullet wounds, her hands in ties. Actual ties. Yakuza ties. Expensive, tastefully patterned silk. From the intricacy of the knots, she can see Raid has indeed been holding his own. She grins at him.
“Where are the Yakuza?”
“Taking out Iyawa with tranks of all things. Umi’s down there supervising. These two are heading back to their HQ for a little Yakuza-style justice.”
“Nice. Are we in trouble?”
“Hell if I know. They left me to tie up this bitch though, so I think no.”
“Where’s my Lucian?” Jessamine demands. “Bring him to me.”
Vivid glances at her. “He won’t be joining us,” she says, savouring every word, letting none of her fear of him show. That would ruin the moment. “He tendered his resignation. I accepted.”
Jessamine’s screaming, not broken, not loss, but the sawed edge of unfiltered rage set to explode, follows them down the stairs, playing soundtrack to the silent approval of the Yakuza, to Umi’s gift of a respectful nod as they pass. She has Iyawa trussed like a roast joint, unconscious, his face all but unrecognizable behind massive bruising and swelling.
Out in the street they can still hear Jessamine, her rage pitching upwards to awful grief, even over the noise of the traffic. Over the roar of the bike. Trying to block it out, Vivid IMs the other Hornets, giving them the heads up to get gone and meet her back at the shuttle. Despite Umi’s graciousness, a swift exit might be prudent. Pulling on a helmet, because courting bad luck is a bad idea right now, Vivid tries to block out those screams, the memory of Lucian’s pale eyes, gradually dimming, but they stay with her all the way back to the shuttle, echoing in her head like gunshots.
Don’t Upset Your Aunty
The domed apex of a tower on Hong Kong Hub is a vast, sun-drenched solarium groaning with carnivorous plants and resonating with the
somnolent hum of a million dragonfly wings. A small path winds through the vegetation, marked by miniature prayer wheels, bright red and gold against the green; leading to a central island, a collection of wrought-iron tables filled with seed pots and cuttings, and a bamboo waterfall, clicking softly under the dragonfly hum.
At the tables, tucked neatly into a motorized wheelchair and dressed like a jewel, is a tiny woman, her face wrinkled as fine crepe fabric and set into an expression of perfect serenity, framed by silver-grey hair formed into a chic, smooth ofuku decorated with elaborate combs. Orbiting that head like a thousand gleaming moons, as if magnetized, is an accompaniment of lazy dragonflies.
At her feet, a man kneels: trembling. She’s paying no attention to him at the moment, busy crooning loving words to a dazzling array of curling monkey cups tangling down from the roof of the conservatory between leaves sharp as green swords, their delicate bowls of red-speckled green glowing like veined lanterns. The tiny lady cups one bowl and another in hands neat and smooth as a girl’s, offering praise, the odd sharp word if one bowl is perhaps not quite to her liking.
Once she has seen to each bowl in turn, she reaches out, snake-swift, to pluck a gleaming emerald-green dragonfly from the air. She holds it for a moment as it settles, languid in her palm, trusting as a dog and then, her eyes greedy, she pops it into a monkey cup whole and still wriggling. Watches as it struggles to free itself, managing only to slide deeper and deeper, its hum becoming louder and more frantic as it goes.
“That’s my female nepenthes,” she says to the man on the floor. “Look at how splendid she is. They love dragonflies, you know. The bigger and fatter the better. Nutrition is important.”
Cowering even lower to the floor, the man whimpers. A tall, suited woman steps out from the ranks of lush vegetation. Her black boot flashes forward, striking his ribcage with a muffled thud. He chokes, curling up around his ribs. The woman leans over him and grabs his hair.