Alek sipped the over strong college-coffeehouse espresso and linked his hands together atop the Formica table separating him from the blonde. Robin had dreamy eyes for a prostitute. Eyes like the kids sitting in this coffee house and chatting on emphatically about what college they would attend, what guy they would marry. Robin should have been with this crowd, he thought, not out on the streets.
Robin lit a cigarette. “That’s how I came to know Edward Ashikawa.”
Alek bowed his head, looked up at the girl from under his tangle of undone hair. “Edward Ashikawa...the head of the Yakuza here in the city?”
Robin nodded. “Actually, it was a small bit pimp working for him that took me in, but I caught Edward’s eye and things just...happened. He brought me into his inner circle and I met his people.” For a moment her storm-blue eyes seemed to darken. “Some were nice.”
“Nice people like those boys who attacked you,” he said.
“And people like Kage.”
Alek jerked his head up, surprised to hear the sound of the name of a master vampire on such an innocent little mortal’s lips. More, to hear the name at all...which he had prayed would never, ever, happen.
Robin read his reaction incorrectly as fatherly concern instead of the deep-hearted terror it had invoked. “Kage’s okay,” she said. “He’ll give you want you want. He watchdogs us at night.”
Alek felt his lips chap under his tongue. His stomach churned with the bittersweet coffee. “Kage.”
“Yeah. He makes people. He also unmakes them.”
Cryptic words. Did he want to pursue this? No. But now, having done what he did, having involved himself with Edward Ashikawa’s property this way, he realized he had little choice in the matter. “Why does Ashikawa want you? Did you take something from him?”
Robin’s eyes crept sideways across the cafe over all the students in their army surplus jackets and French berets and Doc Martens as if she expected the Grand Dragon of the Yakuza--or maybe Kage himself--to materialize any moment and damn her for her sins, whatever they were. “One morning a few weeks ago I woke up and realized I was done with this city. I only wanted to go home,” she said. “About that time someone approached me...a narc, I think. He wanted to get wires on Ashikawa but he couldn’t get into his home office. He said he would get me out, keep me safe, if I planted them. So I did. Kage found out about them and traced them back to the narc.” She took a long sip of coffee and pulled her shawl closer about her shoulders. “The guy called me...said someone was closing in on him and told me where he’d hidden the tapes he’d made. A few days later I came home and found a body on the kitchen table, all messed up...” She closed her eyes and her face froze like a stature. “I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.”
“Your agent must have had backup...someone you can go to...?”
Robin shook her head. “He never told me their names. And I can’t go to the police; Ashikawa owns them. He owns everyone. Everyone is just a thrall to him.”
Again Alek started. You didn’t hear the word ‘thrall’ too often unless you were dealing with a hive of vampires. He wondered where she had come across the terminology. Then again, if the rumors were true, Ashikawa, though not one himself, had several vampire heavies on his payroll.
Vampires like Kage, Debra whispered.
I know.
Ashikawa’s immortal warrior army was one of the reasons he was such a force to be reckoned with in this city. But Alek didn’t want to think about that right now. Didn’t want to think about Kage. Instead he said, “What do you know about his...thralls?”
Robin dropped her eyes. She knew...something. She snubbed out the cigarette and stared at the murky depths of her coffee cup. She ran a hand through her short, mussy hair. “They’re not...normal. The ones like Kage...I can’t explain it to you.”
Silence pushed in between them. Suddenly the outside sounds of clattering dishes and chatting teenagers that he had nearly forgotten about began to intercede on their private world. And he welcomed them. “Fair enough,” he said.
“You’re a cop, aren’t you?” Robin said.
Alek shook his head no.
Robin studied him a long, hard moment, an unlit cigarette dangling from between her first and second fingers. “You fight like one...or something.”
“Do you know what Kage is?”
Robin nodded. “Banpaia. A vampire.”
“I hunt them.”
The slightest surprise fluttered across Robin’s face. “You’re a slayer?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s why you want to know about Kage. You want to kill him?” She sounded hopeful.
“I don’t want to kill anyone. But since he’s servant to Edward Ashikawa, that means he’s made me his enemy for interfering with Ashikawa’s boys.”
You made an enemy of him a long time ago, Debra began.
Hush...
Robin looked glum. “That was my fault.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Oh please, Debra huffed. Don’t be such a crusader.
Robin looked around. “I shouldn’t fucking be here.”
“How’s your ankle?”
The one boy, Ponytail, had done a good job on her as she struggled. She had a minor fracture in her left ankle. He could tell by the swelling and by the pain in her face.
“I’ll live.” She got up, balancing against the table as if to prove it.
“You won’t get very far on that ankle,” he said.
She looked up from beneath her heavy bangs. “I don’t suppose you’re a slayer for hire, then?”
9
He carried her up the last flight of steps to her apartment. It might not have been necessary--she seemed capable of walking on her own, albeit very slowly--but the sooner she got off that swollen ankle the better. He set her down on the landing outside the door and waited for her to unlock the half dozen deadbolts on the door.
The building was your usual run-of-the-mill firetrap. The halls were trash-littered, the walls septic, the doors lining the halls up and down covered in layers of graffiti that passed in some slum lord’s opinion for paint. A typical Lower East Side dream palace. Ever since Alek had bought the Covenhouse and made it his home he had forgotten what some of the really wonderful places in New York looked like.
Like where we grew up, Debra said.
“Yes.”
“What’s that?” Robin asked as she turned the last bolt.
“Sorry,” Alek said. “Just thinking aloud.”
Robin smiled. A pretty smile. “I do that too. Ever notice how people look at you odd when you do that, even though they do it themselves?”
“Human beings are odd,” he whispered.
“Yeah. We are.”
He wondered what they meant, but he hadn’t the courage to ask.
So this was home. A three room flat in a nearly derelict project. Exposed copper pipes a hundred years old. Brick interior walls. Naked light bulbs. Threadbare carpet. More threadbare sofa--it didn’t look safe, but he was about to ask Robin to sit down on it anyway so he could take a look at her ankle when he was distracted by the shuffle of a sneakered foot from the opposite side of the bedroom door.
He drew his katana--there was no point in hiding it from Robin; she’d been privy to it in the alley earlier--and moved on silent feet to the door.
Robin said, “Wait…no...”
He ignored her. All he cared about right now was who was lurking in the bedroom.
The light peeking out from under the badly hung door was obliterated momentarily as the person moved back a step. Oh no you don’t, he thought. You aren’t getting away that easily. Taking the doorknob in one hand, he pulled open the door while moving deftly to one side. He expected someone at any moment to come barreling out--and he wasn’t disappointed.
But what came out did surprise him.
“Mom!” cried the boy as he charged out of the bedroom and threw himself into Robin’s arms, almost toppling her over where she stood. S
he caught her balance at the last moment and then returned the child’s strangle-like hug. Robin was so small she didn’t seem capable of lifting the child’s full weight into her arms, but lift him she did--and, in fact, swung him around once before setting him down on his feet.
“Hey...how’s my big tiger today?
“Made this for you,” the boy said emphatically, holding up a crumpled piece of construction paper with a splattering of watercolors on it.
“A red sun?” Robin said, looking at it as if observing a grand piece of treasured art.
The boy nodded. “Had the dream again.”
Something flitted across Robin’s face, but it came and went too quickly for Alek to determine what it was. Then she looked again at the boy and smiled.
The boy was not looking at her, however. He was staring at Alek standing in the corner of the room, his hands folded across his sword.
Alek caught a glance of the paper in Robin’s hand. There was something there...a man in black with black hair, drawn in a childish scribble but still clearly recognizable. Alek might have dismissed it then and there, except the man was holding a long stick in his right hand.
A stick or a sword.
“Danny,” Robin said to the boy as she broke eye contact with Alek, “This is a friend. He’s going to stay with us tonight.”
I am?
You are? Debra.
Alek opened his mouth to say...what? He closed it again and only looked at the boy, this little carbon copy of Robin, but with dark glistening eyes and black tousled, too-long hair.
Robin said, “This is Danny...my son.”
Alek tried on a wan smile, then thought about what he must look like--a man in a long black coat holding a sword like some kind of jonin Samurai about to go into battle--and he put the katana away as discreetly as possible. Somehow he still didn’t think he looked harmless, but it would have to do. The boy looked at him as if expecting something. Shit. He never knew what to say or how to act around children, having never had any of his own.
He crossed his arms and tried to smile. “Hi, Danny.”
Danny smiled at him. A wondrous, brilliant smile. “You’re the dream man,” he said. “Hi.”
10
“Does Danny have those dreams often?” Alek asked as he finished bandaging Robin’s ankle. The swelling was still bad and, frankly, he had no idea how she would cope in the next few days without some kind of medical attention, but she would not listen to him about seeing a doctor.
“What dreams would that be?” Robin asked innocently as she grimaced from the tightness of the bandage. She glanced briefly at the kitchenette where Danny sat busily scrawling on whatever he could find—old fliers, fallen bits of wallpaper. Anything, it seemed.
He reminded Alek of himself as a child.
“The prophetic kind,” he said.
“He’s only four. He has all kinds of dreams,” Robin answered, but the strain in her voice said much more. Please don’t ask me about Danny’s dreams. Please let’s change the subject.
“You should get this looked at,” Alek said as he fixed the bandage. “I don’t see how you’ll be able to work tomorrow night.”
At least his attempt at hitting her with that logic worked. Robin suddenly looked worried. “I’ll manage.”
“I really wish you’d see a doctor.”
“Doctors ask questions.”
“I know one who won’t. He works out of St Vincent’s. We grew up together.”
Robin bit her lip. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Alek gently moved her ankle out of his lap and onto the sofa cushion. “I really can’t stay, Robin.”
Suddenly the look of pain in her eyes was replaced by the daunting look of complete panic. Had she not been injured, Alek was afraid she might have sprung right into his lap. A thousand thoughts seem to flit across her eyes, as if she were desperately seeking something that would hold him, something...anything that would make him stay, anything at all. Then she settled down and lowered her eyes. “Look...I’m asking you to stay for Danny’s sake, not mine. I can take care of myself. It’s just...I can’t protect him from Kage. I can’t fight something like that, you know?”
“And you think I can.”
Her watery eyes opened. “You’re a slayer.” She seemed to gather her courage. Then she said, “I don’t have very much...but I’ll give you anything you want as payment. Anything you need. Whatever it is…”
He knew what she meant.
“I’m not like Kage,” he said.
“Charlie called you a banpaia. A vampire.”
“I’m not a vampire.”
For a moment she frowned, and then her face softened and a look of surprising relief filled it up. “But you are a slayer.”
“Yes. Not all vampire slayers are vampires.”
Robin smiled. “Please stay? Just for tonight?”
Alek watched her face a moment. Then he got up off the sofa and wandered to the window. It looked out over a dead end alley. Secluded. Fire escape several floors below. Cornices here. Even gargoyles, which were perfect for purchase. It was like welcoming Kage right into her apartment. After hesitating a moment more, he said, “Just for tonight.”
11
It was the shuffling sound that woke him. He sat up in the antique rocking chair-seemingly the only decent piece of furniture in the whole seedy flat--and blinked at the bright blue light of the silent television. He looked toward the door of the bedroom where Robin and Danny slept. It was sensibly closed as it had been when Robin went to bed. A few hours earlier she had put Danny to bed, then stood in the living room as if expecting Alek to pounce on her the moment Danny was out of sight. When he wished her a good night and sat down in the rocker and turned the archaic television on to an old movie channel, she almost seemed relieved. Relieved and maybe a touch disappointed.
No...he didn’t believe that.
The sound again. From outside the window.
The fire escape, Beloved.
I hear it.
He drew his sword and moved silently to the window. He stayed to one side and discreetly lifted the tattered curtain. Someone was indeed standing on the fire escape. He could see their shadow reflected against the bricks. Then the someone seemed to sense his presence. A moment later the shadow escaped under the eaves.
Alek climbed out onto the rusted grill of the fire escape. He scraped the blade of his sword shrilly against the iron and saw the shadow shiver in response. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the quag-like darkness under the overhanging eaves, but very shortly thereafter he realized what it was. Not a slayer, thank God.
Instead, a very slight--and very unthreatening--little figure crouched against the bricks.
“Danny...”
“You gonna tell Mom?” the boy asked.
Alek climbed out over the cornice of the building and under the eaves and crouched down, resting the sword on his thigh. “Not if you come back inside.”
Danny looked at him with his big boyish tear-stained eyes but didn’t make any move. That left Alek at a loss for what to do. A part of him wanted to fetch Robin and let her deal with the boy--but she was sound asleep. And anyway, he could handle this. It was just a boy, after all, not some bloodthirsty night warrior he was facing.
A scared little boy.
“You shouldn’t cry,” Alek said. “Your mother needs you strong.”
“You sound like Dad. I miss him. He says warriors don’t cry. Ever.”
Alek thought about that, then pointed to his chest. “They do. But only here.”
Danny smiled and sniffed, the tears suddenly vanishing. “You're cool. But your face is weird. Like a mask.”
Alek smiled in return. And then Danny touched his face as if to confirm that it was indeed real and not a mask. He watched the boy’s face, the odd contentment there, and wondered about him. What he saw. What could he possible think “cool” about his wan white face?
But then he saw the fear return…the hard,
undying fear…the child-fear of monsters and the dark. And his heart jumped in his chest a moment before he felt the vampiric presence wrapped him in panic and the shadow fell swiftly over them both. Danger! He jerked backward off the ledge of the building in a swan dive. Wind hit him like knives, tearing through his clothes and hair until he managed to somehow grab the ledge of the fire escape in mid-fall. Metal ripped into his hands. The jar of his body arrested in free fall was nearly enough to make him lose his lunch. His shoulder muscles tore and instantly mended themselves, making his arms and chest feel as if they were constructed of overstretched taffy. His entire body felt as though it were on fire. He bit his lip to keep from crying out.
A black ninja sword cracked the cornice where he had been standing only moments before, its ebony single edge wickedly sharp--sharp enough to chop loose a chunk of the stonework and flick chips of it into Alek’s face. The fact that it had so narrowly missed Alek’s head only made his heart clock that much faster in his chest. His blood drummed in tangent with his runaway heart so that he was sure his ribs should burst from it all “Danny!” he rasped through a wind-scorched throat. “Danny...run!
He was too late. He saw his assailant standing on the edge of the fire escape. He was a small man, dressed all in black silk like a kengo assassin, his face hidden by a chain mail mask. He held Danny with practically no effort at all. And then, with one deft motion of his free hand, he tore away the mask. His face was Kabuki white and devoid of human life, his eyes burning black slits as they opened wide like collapsed stars and began to devour Alek one piece at a time. The vampire was perfect and inhuman and the moment Alek saw those eyes he felt such a despair it was as if he were falling already. All of his strength suddenly wanted to leave his body. All of his life seemed a waste. He closed his eyes against the vampire’s power but the haunted, hopeless, completely fated look was imbedded in his memory for all time.
And then it spoke. It. Because it could be nothing else. “The Slayer,” it said. “What a find.”
Alek grunted as he reassured his grip on the fire escape. As much as he tried, he could not find a toehold anywhere on the building. He was dangling and in danger and he did not want to see those tragic eyes again, but he was more afraid of not seeing what the vampire had planned next, so he looked. This time the shock of those alien eyes burning against his more mundane ones was lessened because Alek knew what to expect, but the horror of them was still there. And the horror still ate at him like a cancer. “Kage,” he managed.
Slayer: Black Miracles Page 4