by Rhys Ford
Barely coming up to my chest, she peered at me, an odd quixotic expression on her face. She had a heart-shaped face, plump cheeks blushed pink, and black hair she held back from her face with a simple strip of white fabric. There was a sense of serene grace about her, but the set of her jaw and the frank way she assessed me and the loft assured me this tiny woman was no pushover.
“No, no, I am fine. I can’t stay long. I asked Tufa to stop here for a moment so I could speak with you. I’m on my way to the hospital,” Yukiko said, gliding toward me, a tiny juggernaut of a woman. “Let me look at you.”
It was odd staring down at a woman who wore bits of my own face. She didn’t look old enough to be my grandmother, and we, oddly enough, had the same mouth. When she smiled, her cheek dimpled like mine did. I could see why my grandfather fell in love with her. She was a picture-perfect embodiment of a traditional Japanese woman, an antique of a person wrapped around a devilish twinkle. Her kimono was ankle-length and informal, an ombré of light spring green running down to a dark cherry red. Embroidered cherry blossoms ran thick around its bottom hem and cuffs, thinning out to a few sporadic clusters near her waist, and her hunter-green obi was tied in a loop. A pair of simple black sneakers peeked out from under the kimono when she walked. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see tabi on her feet, and there was something endearing about her small fashion rebellion.
“You look like him. The Takahashi.” The disgust must have shown on my face, because she tsked at me. “Not… you have the look of him when he’s asleep. When he isn’t fighting the world. When he used to believe people were sometimes good.” Her fingers lifted, making a slow journey across my mouth, then down my chin. “This part is me. Your father looks more like my father. It’s funny how that is.”
“I can’t tell you what he looks like… my father,” I confessed. “It’s mostly been the Takahashi. And well, my mother before she died.”
“I should have been there as well.” Her crestfallen face was heartbreaking, and if I’d been older and not related to her, I might have fallen in love with her right then and there. “I left you to him. You were… always his.”
“You didn’t come here to compare our faces.” I gently took her hand away from my cheek. “But I’m glad you came. No matter the reason.”
It might have been stupid to let her through the door. After all, this was a woman who’d survived decades as my grandfather’s mistress. For all I knew, she was deadlier than the assassin who’d made it his dying wish to kill me. No one would suspect a damned thing if Trent found me stiff from the effects of a fast-acting poison or if I’d somehow pitched myself out the window and over the balcony.
But a part of me hurt at being alone. It wasn’t in my nature, and I’d been distancing myself from everyone… from everything… because I couldn’t trust my own family not to kill the people I loved. Now I hurt because I wasn’t used to someone’s touch or their laughter in the silence I’d wrapped around me. Trent, for all his oddness and disjointed understanding of the world, was a damned sight healthier inside than I was, and it took him, someone who had no one, to make me realize what I’d been missing.
I wanted her there. I wanted to be there for her. I wanted to drive up to that damned house of hers on a Saturday afternoon and take her down for sushi boats and crepes or out on a skiff to haul crabs up from the Bay with Trent. I wanted to do all the stupid familial domestic things I’d grumbled about doing in the past. I wanted—needed—my life back. Needed to live beyond the badge. So if letting Yukiko through the door without thinking about it was going to get me killed, I was ready for that too, because up until a couple of days ago, I hadn’t truly been living.
“There wasn’t time to say thank you that day.” Another rueful expression, this time laced with mock horror. “I can’t believe you shot him.”
“He was going to kill my suspect. I worked hard to bring that assh—assassin down. How would it look if I let Sofu kill him?” Bob came to investigate my empty cereal bowl, nudging it across the counter in the hopes of getting it filled with tuna. “I saw your face when you saw who’d kidnapped Jie… who’d thrown you in there with her. You were… shocked. You recognized him. Am I right?”
“No, you are right. I did… I know him.” She reached over to pet Bob, who pathetically took the affection as her due and promptly flopped over onto her back for a belly rub. “Your grandfather knows him as well. His name is Sato—well, you’re aware of that now. He used to kill for Akemi’s family… specifically, he used to kill Takahashi for Akemi’s family.”
“So she married Takahashi and Sato was out of a job?” I asked, ashamed by my cat’s begging. “Like any of the families run out of people they want murdered?”
“It was personal… is personal for Sato. He hates the Takahashi. That feud burned long before any of us were born, and he’s stoked its flames.” Her eyes grew sad, and she stepped back from the counter. “It became more personal when I took up with Takahashi. Akemi’s defection was hard enough to swallow, but… my loving your grandfather was too much for Sato.”
I opened a bag of treats, then tossed one at Bob to stop her mewling. “Why would Sato give a rat’s ass about what you and Takahashi got into?”
“Let me show you,” she murmured, loosing her kimono from her neck. “Then let me explain.”
Pulling back the layers, she exposed her shoulders, a porcelain canvas for the vivid orange-and-ebony mottled wings shimmering up through her skin. They glistened, a strong monarch pattern stretching in sweeping curves across her shoulder blades and down her spine. They caught the light, the depths of her captured wings shifting colors when she moved. Three winks of red dotted on her right shoulder, a trio of subdermal stars nesting together above the top ridge of her right wing. She stood there for a few seconds, then pulled her kimono back into place, smoothing her hair when she was done.
“You’re half fae.” I tried splitting the numbers, calculating what I knew of my bloodline, which seemed made up mostly of killers, criminals, and bootleggers on my mother’s side. “And related to him. Those are his wings. His stars—”
I’d nearly killed my own great-grandfather. Pinned him to the ground like he was nothing more than a museum specimen and then threatened to shoot him. The burden of their crimes slammed down into my spine, and I had to lean back against the counter to keep upright. I had too many questions about everything, but most of all, why did it always have to circle back to death?
“I pulled more human than you did, but our wings… you have markings as well. Just… your mother’s instead. It’s part of the reason your grandfather is so enamored with you. The Tombo.” This time she reached for me instead of the cat, putting her warm hand on my arm, and I laughed softly, acknowledging the old man’s thing for dragonflies. “Sato was training me to take over for him. To kill as he did. And I’d started that path, but your grandfather and I… I was Kodama. At least we were considered Kodama.”
“You fell in love with Takahashi. Someone from a clan you’d sworn to kill.” Rubbing at my face, I tried to get my brain to stop processing every random thought hitting it. “Crap. This is….”
“I was very young when I went to Takahashi, nearly eighteen, but I’d already lived… I’d already killed. I counted myself as a woman, and if I’d been anyone else in our clan, I’d have been married years before. Sato had plans for me. Plans that didn’t include your grandfather. And besides, I wasn’t really a part of the clan. Certainly not enough to marry the Takahashi heir to connect the families. Only Akemi could do that, because she’s the Kodama’s true daughter.” Adjusting her obi, Yukiko continued, “Still, Sato’s always wanted revenge for me choosing Takahashi over him. For choosing anyone but him.
“When he contacted me to tell me he was dying and wanted to make amends, I believed him. Instead he repaid my trust by drugging me, binding me, and throwing me into that shed.” Her skin shifted, lightening from a deep brown to bronze. “He stole the lives of my staff and tried t
o kill my lover—and my grandson—because in his mind, I’d taken away his life, his dreams. Akemi forbade him to act against the Takahashi clan on pain of death.”
“And now that he’s dying, it doesn’t matter what Akemi dictates. He really was going to finish what he started.” I tried to sort something out of the million and one things I had on my tongue. “Shit. Sato’s nuts. That would have broken everything back apart. It still might.”
“You lack Takahashi’s eloquence, but I am sure you can work on it. Kodama and Takahashi agreed Sato was acting on his own accord. That puts the Kodama in a bad spot but one they can recover from. There will be restitution, but that’s something for them to resolve. Right now, I am only concerned about you.” She patted my arm. “I came here to ask something of you. I wanted to ask if you would allow me to be a part of your life. Without involving the family. Just you and I. I want to get to know you. To talk to you. Maybe to give you guidance in dealing with the man we share in our lives.”
“I can’t get close to him. Not with everything he does,” I cautioned her. She’d been a phantom up until a few days ago, and shifting my life to make room for her… there was room. I’d make room, but I had to be clear on a few things. “I’m a cop. If ever I catch him doing something illegal, he’s going to wish I’d just kill him already. That’s not going to change.”
“No, I know that. But he is… going to change,” she replied. “He knows he will not bring you to his side if the family remains as it is. He will need to change that, but he will get resistance, perhaps even violently so, but he is determined to do right by our family. The Takahashi can be more than what they are, and he feels you are the one to do that.”
“I can’t promise anything other than… I’d like it if you were a part of my life,” I conceded, smiling gently at her when she kissed me on the cheek. “I… miss having family. Okay, family that’s not trying to kill me.”
“Good, then you can also be a part of his while he is laid up in the hospital. It is a neutral place, one where you can meet without having to bend your massive egos,” she teased. “Promise your grandmother you will go see your Sofu. At least once. Let him… apologize to you. Or as much as he will.”
“What does he have to be sorry for?” I frowned as she moved toward the front door. “I’m the one who shot him.”
“He shouldn’t have involved you in this, and then there’s his pride. You were right when you said he couldn’t help himself. If he is going to trust you to do something, then he needs to let you do it. That is what he needs to apologize for.” She waited for me to open the door for her, subtly enforcing manners I’d already been taught. “I will call you once he is home, and we can see where it goes between us.”
“Looking forward to it.” I opened the door, and she turned toward me, stopping on the threshold. “What?”
“You do know Bob is a mimic dragon, yes?” Yukiko motioned to where my cat sat squatting on the counter, eating the cereal out of the box she knocked over.
“Yeah, I know,” I confessed sheepishly. “But she likes being a cat, and, well, it’s not illegal to own a cat. Downside is, sometimes she gets in the fridge and sucks all the eggs out of their shells. But we’re working on that.”
I kissed my grandmother on the cheek and watched as she headed down the hall toward where the Maori and my cousin waited. After closing the door, I straightened the cereal box, then wrestled my twenty-two-pound shape-shifting lizard over to the couch and sprawled out onto the cushions, arranging Bob on my chest.
Stroking her back, I waited until I heard her squeaky purr, then kissed the top of her furry head. “Grandma’s got some cunning there, Bob. That’s a woman who knows things aren’t always what they seem.”
THAT’S HOW Trent found me, dozing on the couch with Bob the Cat stretched over me and oozing out the occasional grumpy rumble when I breathed too aggressively for her liking. My partner tossed his gun and keys on the counter, then came over to kiss first the cat’s forehead, then my mouth.
Pulling back, he smacked his lips and asked, “You ever notice Bob tastes kind of like chicken?” Wincing, he clarified, “Okay, that sounded a Hell of a lot better in my head. Not like eating chicken, but… that smell pigeons and other birds have. That powdery taste their smell leaves in your mouth.”
“No, I get it. And yeah, it’s the breed.” I sat up, much to her royal pseudo-catness’s displeasure. I got a hiss, then a tail shimmy as she moved from my lap to Trent’s. “My grandmother was here. Came to share all kinds of interesting gossip… starting with—did you know she’s a retired almost-assassin? Oh, and the old guy? Red stars all over his wings? Sato? That’s her father. So, not only did I shoot my grandfather, I also shish-kabobbed my great-grandfather. ”
Trent’s face was priceless, growing more so as I filled him in. By the time I got to my grandfather’s actual wife losing her grip on Sato’s reins because of his health, Trent’s eyes were glazing over. Grunting, he maneuvered the cat into a more comfortable position between us.
“I… wow, okay, so you’re descended from a family of assassins and criminals. No holiday family dinners for us, then. We’ll need food tasters—”
“My mother’s family are cops and distillers—might have been some bootlegging along the way, but decent folk. It’s the Takahashi side that’s really a slaughter circus waiting to happen.” I jabbed my elbow into his ribs as I turned sideways, laying my legs over his lap to annoy the cat. She shifted, flowing her body over my shins, and began to knead my knees in retaliation. “I’m not all bad. You’re the one from a secret military organization who took in spliced orphans.”
“It wasn’t secret. I was in Special Forces, Investigation Division, and the orphanage is in Santa Monica,” he protested with a laugh, dislodging the cat more as he leaned over to kiss me. “Good news—or more good news, however you look at it—Gaines said you’re off desk duty, so we are both officially back on the street. IA cleared you right before I left the station. He told me I could give you the good news since I was heading over here.”
I don’t know what made me wince more, Gaines knowing about us or Bob the Cat excavating a trench in my thigh with her claws. Plucking her claws out of my jeans, I asked, “So he knows about us, huh?”
“Everyone knows about us. We are apparently shitty secret keepers. Okay, cat’s got to go.” Transferring Bob to the love seat, Trent said, “He asked if we’re coming to dinner this Sunday. Apparently you owe him a couple of visits, and he’s calling them in.”
“You ready for that? You’re the one who just kyboshed family dinners.” I sat up, because as wide as the couch was, it wasn’t big enough to take both of our lengths, and neither of us was light enough to lie on the other. “It’s one thing to have people whispering about us behind our backs—”
“Oh, they’re not even whispering,” Trent interjected. “And you can forget about this behind our backs shit. Valdez straight-up asked me if your tongue rolled out and wanted to know what you could do with it. So yeah, I’m in. All the way in. Or at least, I want to be. How about you?”
I was surprisingly calm as I stared down at my future. Things weren’t less complicated than they were a few weeks ago. If anything, Trent added another layer of humanity I was going to have to deal with, but as I lay against him, I found I liked the feel of him in my life.
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied, leaning my head back for a kiss. “It’s good. We’re good. Sure, things are going to get a little crazy, but hey, we work in Dim Sum Asylum. They’re bound to get a little hairy… and scaly… possibly even chewed on a bit.”
Trent had fewer reservations about how well we’d fit onto the couch together, because one moment I was sitting up and the next I was flat on my back with his knees on either side of my hips. His odd warmth-chill was nice… more than nice… on my skin, and when his hand skimmed under my shirt, pulling it up to expose my stomach, my body hummed at his touch. I felt the marks on my back respond, the ambient glow of my wings
flaring up around me, and Trent traced over my ribs and up my arm, playing with the aurora flickering under me.
His kiss was as hot as the feel of his hard body pressing into mine, and I quickly revised my ideas about how small the couch was. Trent’s weight on me was an erotic delight, and my skin sang in response to his tongue laving my throat. His cock was already half-primed, and when I cupped him, teasing him through his jeans, he groaned with pleasure, deepening his growl when I squeezed his heft.
“Gods, I love this. Love doing this with you. Hell, I lo—” He caught himself, probably seeing my head jerk up and feeling my hands still in their exploration of his body. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry for how I feel, Roku. My life’s been too… spare. Not enough people who get me like you do, and I’m not going to apologize for wanting you like I do.”
“No, it’s all good,” I replied, working my fingers through his hair, then pulling him down into a kiss. “I’m not going to apologize for it either—how I want you. How I feel about you. I don’t care if Gaines knows about us. I don’t care who knows. Might be a bit shitty for you because, you know, loving me means you’ve got a target on your back for some people, but if that’s a risk you’re willing to take, then I’m willing to carve up any asshole who tries to take you away from me. In true Takahashi and… whatever assassin clan my grandmother belongs to… fashion.”
“So we’re good, then?” Trent teased, nibbling at the corner of my lips. “And as much as I want to get us over to that bed over there, I’ve got to ask one thing.”
“Sure.” I rested my head on the couch’s arm. “What?”
“Why’s your cat humping my shoe?” He sideways nodded to where Bob straddled one of his leather sneakers, kicking at it with her back legs in an odd thumping beat as she licked around the shoe’s opening. “And since when do cats have forked tongues?”
“Yeah, about that.” I clasped his face in my hands, guiding him back to look at me. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you about Bob the Cat.”