by Phil Gabriel
I expected him to attack, but he didn’t. By following Kitty-Sue’s gaze, I could tell that he was moving to stand in front of us, about twenty feet away.
He came into visibility slowly, as if appearing was painful for him. His form wavered in and out of visibility, looking as if a stiff breeze was all that was needed to blow him away.
All bullshit of course. I had also read Sun Tzu. Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
Once his form was completely visible, he bowed to me, then gave a much shallower bow to Kitty-Sue. I matched his bow, an acknowledgment of equality. Kitty-Sue, in keeping with her presumed appearance and status, bowed much lower.
Kitty-Sue spoke with the samurai for several minutes. I waited calmly, expressing no interest in the conversation. Of course, the samurai noted that my apprentice now was in human form, no longer a spirit. The plan was for Kitty-Sue to use this to convince the samurai that I was such a powerful magician that I could even return the dead to life.
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
All we needed for the plan to work was for the samurai to express a wish for a new life. I could then force him to pass on, dooming him to his “new life.”
The samurai drifted around Kitty-Sue, examining her from all angles. He was careful not to approach too closely. He took a few deep breaths, despite the fact that ghosts don’t need to breathe, to examine my student with all senses. Kitty-Sue’s pheromone control made it possible to duplicate Akiko’s scent perfectly, so even this test was passed.
The samurai finally faced me again and bowed, much lower than before, to show respect for the level of power I had demonstrated. Then he spoke at length.
Kitty-Sue turned to me and said, “Takeda-san says that he fears he is too weak to accept a new life.” She paused before continuing, “Unless his essence is revived by the return of his armor. Even then, he feels it is time for him to move on, as per your previous agreement.”
I triggered a spell, one I had used several times in the past. A door appeared, hanging in midair. A door to the afterlife. The door looked different depending on the viewer, colored by their perceptions. The spell took about ten percent of my reserves.
“Please tell Takeda-san that he needs expend no effort to cross over,” I said. “I have provided the means to allow him to go to his reward. Without donning that armor that no doubt holds painful memories for him.”
By the quickly quelled look of astonishment on his face, the samurai hadn’t expected me to be able to perform any powerful magic inside his onsen, where he controlled all magical flows. Returning Akiko to life was powerful magic, but with the proper resources, could be accomplished.
Too bad our vows prevented us from stealing a life to bring the real Akiko back.
Creating an afterlife portal without using ambient magic was much more impressive than reviving a ghost.
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
Now it was up to Kitty-Sue to use her talent as a liar to trick the samurai through that door.
And she was a magnificent liar. From the snatches of the conversation I could understand, she cajoled, enticed, and promised heavenly rewards once the samurai passed on.
Hell, she could have talked me into going through the door even though I had a lot left to do in this world.
But all the talk was as nothing to the samurai. He refused the chance at a new life. He was fixated on his vengeance, insisting that he would pass on only after his armor was returned.
If only he could have been convinced to request I give him another life. I would have shoved him through that door into his next life faster than one of his damned arrows.
The advantage of him arguing with Kitty-Sue was that I was bound to tell the truth, as was the real Akiko. Kitty-Sue was free to ignore his comments and continue her attempts to convince him.
The eloquence of Kitty-Sue’s speech ran up against the iron-hard stubbornness of an onryō, a vengeance ghost. They were incredibly single-minded. The samurai turned to me and made his demand clear, holding out his hand to receive his armor.
Driven by my vow to return his armor, I reluctantly reached into my bag and pulled out the helm I had received from Ashley. I handed it over first. As he placed the helm on his head, the ancient metal merged with the ectoplasmic helmet he sported.
The addition of the helm increased his power, as well as his control over the magical flows of the onsen. Where before, he had only enough control to deny the magic to anyone else, now he could absorb more of the onsen’s energy.
But the helm wasn’t enough for him. He continued to hold out his hand. The slightest grin on his face showed he knew I had the rest of his armor and had to return it to keep my vow.
I pulled the armor out of my satchel and lifted it up. To a magician’s vision, it glowed with energy. Delicate traceries of inlaid runes spider-webbed over the armor, magical energy conductors almost as good as my dragon blood tattoos.
I couldn’t keep a look of despair from crossing my face as I handed the armor over. The samurai smiled in triumph as he grabbed the armor and slithered his ectoplasmic body inside. I stepped back as he donned the armor to allow room to maneuver.
Kitty-Sue moved faster than humanly possible, placing her body between me and the samurai. Still my bodyguard, even though our plan was in tatters. My hope now was that the samurai would be compelled to fulfill his vow and pass through the door into the afterlife.
I nodded at the door and said through Kitty-Sue, “Our bargain is almost finished. It’s time for you to go to your reward.” Which I hoped included centuries of torture.
The samurai laughed, the first time he had displayed strong emotion. Buoyed by the power conferred by rejoining with his armor, he placed a hand on his sword and shook his head.
A part of me wondered at how someone could so easily break a vow, while the rest recognized that an honorless rōnin would have no problem breaking the latest in a long string of broken vows.
Kitty-Sue spat a sentence at him in archaic Japanese. His eyes narrowed in anger, but he held back. He had no idea of the power that this reborn ghost magician could wield.
His eyes darted back and forth between us. Any attack aimed at me would have to go through Kitty-Sue and her unknowable talents.
Instead of attacking, he sped away, making a beeline for the edge of the warded onsen, eager to escape and start killing. He was confident that the added energy of his armor would be enough to shatter the wards.
Deep in my soul, I felt the clash of his armor against the wards. The wards I had tied to my life force as reinforcement. Less than a second later, the sound of the crash rang through the glade.
He was back in a flash, spectral eyes glowing a fiery red and radiating menace. He halted in an inertia-denying second when he saw my hand on the pommel of Princess.
“Takeda-san,” I said calmly, “your only exit from this glade is through that door.” I nodded at the floating portal. Kitty-Sue translated my words, but the gestures were clear.
In a whispered aside, Kitty-Sue said, “Couldn’t you just hocus-pocus the door in front of his flying ass?” Kitty-Sue was very practical. Too bad the rules forbade those kinds of tricks.
“You have to choose to go through the door,” I said, both to the samurai and Kitty-Sue.
The ghost samurai, who had waited centuries to escape, crossed his arms. Every line of his stance indicated he knew the wards would soon fail and all he needed to do was be patient a bit longer. The glow from his eyes faded away.
“Takeda-san,” I said, taking a gamble, “your only exit is through the door to the afterlife. I have reinforced the wards with potent magics. As long as I live”—Kitty-Sue gave me a sharp glance to let me know she didn’t like telling the samurai this— “the wards will hold. I’ll come back in a hundred years to see if you’ve mellowed.”
I backed away from the ghost, motioning for Kitty-Sue to precede me down t
he trail. She gave a minute shake of her head. It was her job to protect me, not mine to protect her. I had a brief struggle with my conscience, then realized that if I died, so would she, and the wards would be down, freeing the samurai.
We were halfway across the glade, backing away slowly, when I noticed the samurai’s eyes. With each step we took, they pulsed with red, becoming brighter and brighter. I tightened my grip on Princess and loosened her in her scabbard.
Perhaps he interpreted this as fear, perhaps he just snapped, but the samurai attacked. He flowed across the intervening distance much faster than a human could move.
But not faster than a kitsune. Kitty-Sue was in front of him. Instead of facing his charge head-on, she slid to one side, the sound of Velcro releasing accompanying her change in stance. Then as he neared, she was grabbing his chest-plate and twisting, throwing the samurai to the side. I had once seen an Aikido master perform a similar move, but not that fast. For once, the armor was an impediment to the samurai, as it remained solid, allowing Kitty-Sue to use it as leverage.
There had been a flurry of hand moves when they had touched, too fast for me to follow. Kitty-Sue’s move had put a few yards between them. She held one of her kansashi hair ornaments in her hand. The ornament had been a hidden weapon.
Sneaky Maiko. The knife should have easily pierced the samurai’s armor, but the blade was now bent and twisted.
Kitty-Sue tossed the blade to the ground. “So, silver doesn’t work,” she said. Then she smiled, her feral grin looking out of place on Akiko’s face. “I have lots of other blades.”
The samurai held his hand up in triumph. During their exchange, he had managed to pluck Kitty-Sue’s glasses from her face. His grin said, more clearly than words, “I’ve got you now. I have taken your magic glasses. If you can’t see me, you can’t harm me with your magic.”
“Oh, really,” said Kitty-Sue, drawing one of her crystal blades and throwing it unerringly to hit the samurai in his ghostly eye. “It doesn’t seem to have affected my aim.”
The blade, charged with kitsune magic, would have been deadly to the living and damaging to most supernaturals, but the ghost samurai was tough. He reached up and pulled the blade from his ectoplasmic eye. The blade wriggled in his iron-hard grip, but was unable to move. The tiny, glittering motes of magic faded away from his damaged eye and the ectoplasm reformed, leaving him as good as new. Only a slight dimming of his face indicated how much the recovery had cost him. Unfortunately, with access to the energy of the onsen, he quickly returned to full power.
He threw the crystal blade back at Kitty-Sue, faster than human, but slower than her. She reached up with a lazy motion and plucked the blade from the air. She nodded, as if to thank him for returning her property. Suddenly, she was holding four blades, two in each hand, ready to throw.
The exchange had given the samurai time to draw his sword. Like me, Kitty-Sue preferred to attack from a distance, especially if her opponent was a sword-wielding bastard, so she threw her four blades one after another.
However, just as the yaksha’s club had done, the samurai’s sword deflected the knives. He used the same technique the yaksha had used, aiming one of the deflected blades at me, the man whose death would free him from the onsen. The disappointment on his face when the knife curved around me and flew back to Kitty-Sue’s waiting palm was sweet.
I took a breath and started speeding up my metabolism, I would need every advantage in this fight.
33
Savage Samurai Swordfight
Kitty-Sue continued throwing her blades; each time a knife was deflected, she called it back to throw again. The result was a continuous rat-tat-tat ringing out through the glade, her four knives appearing as a continuous stream of projectiles.
I briefly wondered how long she could keep up this effort as I reached into my bag and pulled out a weapon. I didn’t have my magic .45 and enhanced rounds, but I still had some mundane weapons.
I took my shooter’s stance and brought up my Glock 21 to aim at center mass. A quick look at his backdrop showed clear, and I started firing. The first shot bounced off his armor but got his attention. His damned armor was bulletproofed, so I aimed for his head. Did ghosts have a T-zone?
No matter, now that he knew I was shooting, he evaded my shots like Neo in the Matrix. And he still managed to keep deflecting Kitty-Sue’s blades. My thirteen rounds were soon exhausted with no effect on the fight. I dropped the Glock back into my satchel.
Staying back far enough to be safe allowed the hyper-fast bastard time to evade. This fight would have to take place close together.
I pulled Princess and held her in my left hand, my dominant hand. No screwing around trying to trick him with a right-handed attack and then switching. That trick only worked on idiots and werewolves.
Even with my increased metabolism, he was still much faster than me. I used a portion of my remaining magical reserves to transfer inertia and momentum from my body, allowing me to move even faster. My satchel cinched itself tighter and slid up to stay on my back, safely out of the way.
As I closed on the samurai, I felt Princess reach out through our connection, sharing her skills with me. My steps changed into a smoother gait, keeping my center of gravity perfect for an attack.
I saw Kitty-Sue glide closer, never stopping hurling her blades. I was close enough that I could hear tiny grunts of effort as she threw each knife, the clang as it was deflected by the samurai’s sword, and the smack as the knife returned to her hand for another throw.
The samurai changed his stance, angling so that he could see both of his attackers. He was the apex of our deadly triangle, subject to simultaneous attacks, but still managed to deflect both Kitty-Sue’s knives and Princess. Damn, that bastard was fast.
Kitty-Sue moved in even closer, no longer throwing her knives, but using them to slash at the samurai’s arms while evading his overhand slashes with inhuman speed.
For the barest instant, the scene froze. Kitty-Sue was crouched low, both hands holding her crossed knives above her head. At the intersection of those blades, the samurai’s sword was trapped. Glittering kitsune magic flowed over the knives, becoming too bright to watch where their weapons touched.
The bastard was open. I pulled Princess back and prepared a killing thrust while channeling magic through my weapon.
But my strike was too slow. With neither a fae’s time-warping abilities nor a ghost’s ability to ignore inertia and momentum, I wasn’t fast enough to save Kitty-Sue.
The samurai freed his blade and thrust it through Kitty-Sue’s heart. The energy of his blade met with the magic of the phantom dagger that already occupied her heart. The result was a magical explosion that threw Kitty-Sue’s body ten yards away. She landed in a lifeless heap.
Princess and I screamed together, adding more energy to our thrust. Surely no armor forged of man and magic could withstand our attack. We were wrong.
The resulting explosion threw me many yards away. Princess flew from my nerveless grip. I tried to use my arm, only to find it was broken in three places, bones shattered by the released energies.
I looked over the glade to Kitty-Sue’s body, appearing lifeless, and Princess. My Princess was severely damaged, the blade bent nearly to ninety degrees.
“That magic blade will be an excellent addition to my trophies,” said the samurai in English. The bastard had been holding out. Not only was he fast enough to dodge bullets, he had also been pretending that he only spoke that old version of Japanese. Now he stood above my injured body, sword held high, ready to deliver a killing blow, just as my vision had foretold. I hated being right.
I slowed time desperately, spending years of my life force in a futile attempt to delay his final strike.
My palm itched to bring Princess back to continue the fight. Nothing happened. As I looked, the blade attempted to straighten, accompanied by hypersonic screams of anguish. Still, she slid a few inches closer to my hand. I closed my fist, canceling the
calling. Another blow like that would destroy her; I couldn’t risk her destruction. The release of all that fae magic could be worse than freeing the samurai.
My most potent weapon damaged and screaming in pain; magic useless against his armored form; even the formidable Kitty-Sue unconscious or dying; I lay under the sun-dappled tree awaiting the killing stroke of this samurai.
“You could have never beat me,” he said. “Reunited with my armor, neither human, spirit, nor magic can harm me.”
He raised his sword higher, enjoying his moment of triumph. With my death, the wards that kept him trapped in this onsen would fall, allowing him to ravage the descendants of his enemies.
I took my last breath, admiring the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, and the cool feel of the grass under my body.
As the sword started to descend, a body hurled feet first into the samurai’s chest, throwing him back twenty feet. I was astounded to see that the magical armor had dented under the impact of those bare feet.
My savior landed lightly on her bare feet in front of me. An auburn-haired female, muscled like a bodybuilder, moving with the grace of a ninja, advanced on the prone samurai.
“Neither human, nor spirit, nor magic can harm you?” she said in a strangely echoing voice. “How about all three in one?”
I recognized the voices. This was sweet Lady Jane’s body, inhabited by the ghost of Akiko, the most powerful mage in Japan.
The samurai scrambled to his feet. He looked longingly at his sword, which had landed dozens of paces away, then measured the distance to his adversary. No chance to retrieve the sword without turning his back on the new enemy.
With a snarl, he manifested his ectoplasmic bow and arrows, swiftly sending three shafts at Jane and Akiko’s body.
Moving faster than even my speed-enhanced vision could follow, Jane/Akiko snatched the arrows from midair. Transferring all three shafts to one hand, Jane/Akiko whistled, and the arrows drooped like withered flowers.