Fiddleback Trilogy 2 - Evil Ascending

by Stackpole, Michael A.

  "I haven't had one since conception, so nothing's new there."

  "Run, run the way you always do."

  "I'm leaving, but not because that's what you command me to do." Sin tossed down the rest of the whisky. "I'm going because I'll be beyond your reach. I know, in the long run, that will bug you worse than having me be under your thumb here."

  Sin hammered his fist down into the armrest. How could I have been so stupid. He orchestrated that confrontation. He knew what I'd do. I shouldn't have given him the satisfaction.

  Erika slid into the open seat beside him. "Mind if a catch my breath?"

  Sin shook his head. "I welcome the company. Are you based in Phoenix or Tokyo?"

  "Phoenix, but I have two weeks in Tokyo after this run." She tucked her blonde hair behind her left ear. "Business or pleasure in Japan for you, Mr. MacNeal?"

  "Sinclair. I don't honestly know. New job, so I hope a bit of both."

  She patted him on the knee. "I hope so, too." She glanced at her watch, then tapped the flat LCD screen built into the seat in front of him. "Are you going to watch the movie? It won a number of awards."

  "I know he's supposed to be the best since Olivier or Gibson, but I can't see Macaulay Caulkin as Henry V. I may just get some sleep."

  A tone sounded from back in the main cabin. "Well, sleep tight. I'll wake you before we land. Sweet dreams."

  Erika awakened Sin as the jet began its descent into Narita. The pilot brought the plane in smooth and level, touching down with only the slightest bump when the gear hit the ground. Sin looked out through the rain-streaked windows at the gray airport. The vision of a future nightmare that had prompted environmentalists to protest the opening of the airport back in the 1970s had come true. The creeping concrete plague had spread out from the airport and stretched as far as he could see.

  Sin completed the immigration forms Erika passed out. He noted he was staying at the New Palace Hotel. He peeled the barcoded stickers off his ticket sleeve and affixed them to the Customs portion of the form. Erika collected it along with all the others from first class, then led those privileged passengers out through the forward bulkhead. They filed down a short corridor to a pleasant, if antiseptic, waiting room.

  Erika handed the forms to a balding Japanese man in a blue and gray uniform, then headed back to the plane. "It was nice to meet you, Sinclair. Perhaps I'll see you in Tokyo."

  "That would be a most welcome surprise." He reached out and took her hand.

  She folded him into a hug and whispered, "I put your form on top, so you should get through first."

  He gave her a little extra squeeze to let her know he appreciated her effort, then reluctantly let her go. He found himself a seat in the waiting area and almost instantly regretted his choice. A wide-hipped matron with a fox-fur muffler sat down next to him and wedged her doggie-carryall between them. The Sharpei/Lhasa apso mix in the cage looked like a mountain of shag carpet with eyes. The woman crooned at the dog in low tones which could have been English, except for the -izzie, -uggams and -ookums suffixes.

  "Mr. Sinclair MacNeal?" the immigration man called out.

  Sin stood and crossed to the inspection station. He presented the ID card Coyote had gotten for him and saw the immigration official take special notice of it. "Konnichi- wa."

  The man looked unimpressed with Sin's Japanese. "How are you today?" he asked amid stamping various forms.

  "Anmari."

  "Just okay? Well, it is a long flight, isn't it?"

  "Hai."

  "Mr. MacNeal, you need not speak Japanese to me. I am fully conversant in your tongue." The older man's gaze flickered toward a screen after he ran Sin's ID through the reader. He frowned, punched a button, then ran it through again.

  "Do-shitan-dayo?"

  "Nothing is wrong, Mr. MacNeal. I thought I had something here, but it appears not." The man hit Sin's immigration form with one final stamp. "Your luggage will be sent directly to the New Palace Hotel. Please enjoy your stay in Japan."

  "Domo arigato." Sin took his ID back from the immigration officer and passed through a little hallway and out a door to the main international concourse. He glanced at the overhead signs and started the long trek to the rail terminal to catch a train into Tokyo.

  Coyote is good. Somehow he managed to get the security alert on my identity reversed or canceled. He has influence here in Japan, which scores more points for him. Sin shook his head. When he'd left Japan three years before he'd done so under his own steam, but only just barely. In fact, until the jet had gotten out of Stinger missile range of the island, he wasn't willing to bet he was going to make it. Since that time, visitors had mentioned how he was considered persona non grata in the land of the Rising Sun.

  Slipping into the thick line of people heading toward the train station, Sin concentrated on letting their voices and the cadence of their words bring him back to the time before he left. After his father had stolen Christina, Sin had left the United States to work in Japan. Hired on as a security consultant, which initially meant he was to escort visitors from the US and keep them out of trouble, he rose up through the ranks at Raibyoin Corp fairly swiftly. His no-nonsense attitude about trouble, as well as his ability to act tough or use a gun, meant a lot in Japan.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sin saw an improbably large Japanese man in a dark blazer move off a stool at a noodle stand. The man wore a pair of dark sunglasses and was clearly attempting to project an air of menace. Sin found him almost laughable, but the man moved into the stream of traffic in an effort to cut him off.

  I don't like this at all. Sin feigned moving deeper away from the behemoth, then cut for the noodle shop itself. The large man clawed his way back through the crowd to get at Sin, but by that time Sin had already passed beyond the counter and into the kitchen. The help in the back started shouting at him, but he smiled and repeated sumimasen to each of them, then he headed toward the back door.

  This is too easy. They've anticipated me. Sin turned the knob on the rear door and let the latch slip free. Then, leaning back, he kicked the door open as hard as he could. Cutting through the doorway low, he arced a right fist into the belly of the man on his left. The man doubled over, so Sin straightened him with a knee to the face then backhanded him down the security hallway that linked the various airport shops.

  Retreating one step, he put his back to the far wall and watched the door lethargically swing shut again. The man who had been standing behind it clearly had not expected it to open so swiftly. The doorknob had caught him in the groin, and he slowly sagged to the floor.

  Sin started to laugh aloud when another man slowly applauded from farther down the corridor. Sin looked at him, then nodded. "Konnichi-wa, Takagi Kazuo-san."

  "Konnichi-wa, Sinklaru-san. It is good to see you again, my friend." The stocky young Japanese man bowed to Sin, then shook his hand. "It has been three years, has it not?"

  "Hai." Sin smiled and looked at the man's hands. "I see your oyabun still hasn't got any of your fingers in a jar."

  Kazuo shrugged. "Uncle Takeshi sees too much of himself in me, I think. Now I see you've not lost any of your old piss 'n' vinegar."

  Sin shrugged appropriately. "They weren't bad, but I was looking for, and therefore reacting to, another threat level."

  "Ah, your friend Nagashita. Yes, well, you will love this: After he missed you when you left Japan, he was elevated to colonel and put in charge of the Internal Defense Cadre!" Kazuo clapped his hands. "Now that pit bull is at the emperor's beck and call—and largely out of our hair."

  "To paraphrase John Paul Jones, give me another run at old Yamashiro Nagashita, and I could make him emperor." Sin draped his arm around his Yakuza friend's shoulders. "Give me a lift to my hotel, old friend. I smuggled two bottles of Glenfiddich out of Phoenix. One can be for your uncle, but the other we'll use to toast the good fortune of the IDC."

  "And then you will tell me why you have returned?"

  "That I will, K
azuo, because the only way I will do what has to be done is with your help."

  Rajani knew as she stared down at her sleeping body, that she was dreaming.

  The snake lay coiled beside Rajani, using her body as a shield between itself and Rex. Mickey had curled himself up into a ball with Rex curving his body to fit along Mickey's spine. Dorothy lay between Rajani and Mickey with her fingers tangled in her brother's dark hair. At their feet, a bed of coals glowed from within a circle of stones.

  Above them, dark clouds hid the wide, starry bowl of the sky. Earlier in the day, when their last ride left them off outside Ash Fork, the sky had been blue. The thought of camping out in what had been the Prescott National Forest seemed like a pleasant adventure. The arrival of the midsummer monsoon clouds as the day cooled made Rajani reassess her judgment, but the kids did not seem to mind.

  Even as she studied the wooded landscape around her, it began to shift. A putrid green light bled into the clouds and all the pine trees picked up the malevolent glow. Red streamers shot through the clouds and the rusty pine needles began to pulsate as if they were metal and being heated. Unconsciously, Rajani raised her hands to pull in the heat she knew should have been present, but instead felt herself being drained of warmth and vitality.

  The landscape began to blur into a green-red maelstrom. The colors thickened, flooding over her and her companions. The bloody red ground curved up and the green sky down to capture her in a sphere. Where the two bowls met, little eddies swirled the colors together, locking the bowls together with a black line.

  What is this? She reached her hands out, and even though they did not seem to touch the inside of the sphere, she felt resistance at the black line. She tried to twirl her fingers in the direction opposite the swirls that had locked things down, but she could not get the line to separate again. I'm trapped.

  Above her, the green dome began to boil. As she looked up, a crystalline lattice with a curiously web-like design worked into it drilled down into the sphere. It glowed rhythmically with power. Needle-nosed and possessing a slender body, it slid into the sphere and left a gaping hole behind it. Rajani began to will herself toward the opening, but the crystal swerved toward her and sliced across the surface of her right thigh.

  She cried out in pain, but quickly recognized the agony as being well beyond physical. She broke through the wall of pain and for a second found herself eavesdropping on the thoughts of Fiddleback. No match! blasted into her brain, then the crystal had passed on and took the pain with it.

  Rajani felt herself drawn along behind the crystal auger like a swimmer caught in the wake of a ship. Her first impulse was to resist it, but then it swooped down toward Dorothy and her brother. She let herself be pulled after it and reached out with her left hand to touch the aft end of the pulsing gray crystal.

  Again the pain hit her, but she steeled herself against it. «No match!» She shot into the matrix as it plunged in at the children. She felt the searching drone check itself and saw a tantalizingly brief glimpse of the search target. Not Jaeger/Coyote! the drone concluded and began to spin furiously.

  Rajani withdrew her hand, but let herself remain in position to draft off the crystal construct, it whirled through the sphere and broke out through the other side. The globe that had been her reality exploded like a balloon shot through with a bullet and she burst out through into a realm of darkness and twinkling starlight.

  Looking out, she saw other lights dip and dive through the dark. They shot in at glowing lights like moths attacking flames, and she realized these mobile lights were other searcher drones akin to the one she followed. They are searching for Jaeger/Coyote. Is it safe to assume he knows of Fiddleback's defeat?

  "Safe assumption, but a dangerous game you play here."

  Rajani felt a strong, firm hand on her right arm. She glanced down as the hand jerked her around and noticed a gold ring of a curious design on the ring finger of an utterly black hand. «Is it you they seek?» She sent, then she realized the human silhouette was that of a man. "Who are you?"

  The man jerked her toward him, yanking her free of the crystalline probe. "What were you doing? Are you mad?"

  "I don't understand."

  "Look at yourself!"

  She did so and realized why his voice carried as much alarm in it as it did. A golden nimbus surrounded her. The gold lines running from the backs of her fingers up along her arms and shoulders radiated out through the fabric of the flight jacket she wore. Assuming for a moment that every light in the sky was another person, they were candles in comparison to her sun.

  Except him. He radiates nothing.

  "The drones are hunting Coyote but, even so, I am not anxious to make myself a target."

  Rajani nodded sharply, then concentrated. She brought her mental defenses into play, neatly snuffing the glow surrounding her. "Who are you? What are you?"

  Again the man-thing ignored her questions. "You have to leave here. Your trick to deflect the hunter away from the child worked because the creatures monitoring these devices are slow and stupid. Unfortunately, your display may have alerted others. You must return and protect the child."

  «Who are you?» She sent such vehemence that a tremor shook the man holding her. A golden bolt of energy seemed to emerge from her forehead and punch through his chest. His eyes and nostrils lit with goldfire, then black again subsumed it. He jerked back, releasing her, and held his head in his hands. In that confusing moment she caught wrath and wraith from him, but nothing that really answered her question.

  "You are very good, but out of control. Look!" He pointed off into the sky and she saw a dozen of the probes orienting themselves on the both of them.

  "I am sorry . . ."

  "Save it. Protect the child; he is in danger." The shadow man pointed down toward the glowing circle of light below them, and Rajani saw a smaller triangle of red lights moving in toward it. "You deal with that problem and I will take care of the probes. Go, now!"

  Rajani pointed her toes and raised her arms. She slipped down through the darkness as if it were a greased tunnel and arrived at her destination far more swiftly than she could have hoped. Above her she saw a silver-blue light outline the man, then it metamorphosed into a glowing silver behemoth that smashed two of the probes together into blazing dust.

  Rajani felt a wrenching sense of chaos as she touched and reentered her body. She forced it awake, snapping her eyes open. She rolled over to her right and touched Dorothy's leg. "Wake up, Dorothy, wake up."

  "What?" Dorothy brushed blonde hair from her face. "Geez, what happened to you?"

  Rajani felt a cold stickiness on her right leg. She looked down and saw a dark splotch on the right thigh where the crystal had touched her. I'm bleeding. She pressed her hand to the wound and black blood oozed up between her fingers. "It's nothing, Dorothy. Get Mickey up. We have to move out."

  "Aaha?" Mickey asked as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.

  Rex stretched, then sat and scratched himself. Suddenly his head came up and with it came the fur on his spine. A low growl rumbled from his throat, then he looked over at Rajani and stood. From the dog she got a sense of duty tinged with growing fear as she tossed some sticks on the coals. Rex looked back out into the shadows surrounding the campsite and barked once.

  The yipped howls of a dozen canine throats answered him. Mickey reached out to Rex, but the dog moved beyond his grasp to position himself between the boy and the threat. Likewise, Rajani moved forward while Dorothy picked up a big stick. Alone, Mickey clutched his blanket and huddled down to make himself a small target.

  He's small physically, but his fear is immense! Sheer terror radiated out of the boy, and Rajani renewed the defenses she had erected earlier. She structured them to let low levels of emotion through, but to cut her off in case of a huge emotional outburst. I cannot afford to be blinded.

  "Hush, Mickey." Dorothy grasped the knotted pine branch in both hands. "They're coming, Rajani."

  Behind her the
kindling caught and the fire flared to life.

  Rajani saw it reflected in a galaxy of eyes barely three feet off the ground. As she watched, however, one set drifted up and forward. A lupine head skylined itself and, as the creature moved in toward the circle of light, Rajani saw him complete the transformation from a wolf to a ruddy-furred wolfman.

  "Grrrreeeeetings," the creature growled seductively, infusing the word with insincerity. He eyed Rajani up and down, then Dorothy. Only on Mickey did his gaze linger, and Rajani felt pleasure rippling from the wolfman so strongly that it almost brought a smile to her face.

  Forcing his emotions aside, Rajani snarled. "Leave here. There is nothing here for you."

  "Perhaps you are not for me, nor she, but he is a tender and tasty little morsel." The wolfman squatted down and barked sharply at Mickey, making the boy jump. "Oh, yes!"