An Ill Wind Blows

by Charlie Cottrell

  Maya came jogging up to the mouth of the alley as I was exiting it. “What’s going on in—oh sweet Jesus, why did I look?!” she asked as she made the mistake of watching Vinny dismantle the Sixth Ill Wind.

  “Yeah, it’s a mess in there,” I said over the sound of her violent retching as I deactivated the force field and took out a cigarette. “So, that’s six of those Ill Winds down, one to go. Wonder where Kimiko is.”

  “Probably tracking down her last, um, brother,” Maya said, wiping vomit from her mouth.

  “This whole family is just exhausting,” I said, exhaling smoke. “C’mon. Let’s see if we can’t get back into the office and take a little break.”

  * * *

  The office was dark when I hobbled in, as it ought to be so close to midnight. Miss Typewell had long-since gone home, but she’d left the coffee pot filled and ready for action at the flick of a switch. I turned it on and settled gingerly into my desk chair, sighing with relief as I took the pressure and weight off my bad leg. It was starting to throb with pain, so I took a couple of pain killers from the first aid kit and a roll of medical gauze and set about cleaning and wrapping my wounds while Maya poured each of us a cup of coffee and brought mine to me. I thanked her and took a long, slow sip, savoring the restorative power of ground-up beans and hot water.

  Maya collapsed into one of my client chairs and wrapped herself around her mug of coffee. She was asleep within moments. I gave her a small smile and stood up to take her cup so it didn’t fall.

  I heard a loud crash come from the outer office, like the sound of a window shattering. I drew the lightning gun and flicked the safety off, hobbling out to investigate.

  The large, single-pane window that overlooked Church Street was destroyed, blown in by something that left shards of glass scattered all over the place. I frowned, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. There was only one person it could be.

  “Come on out, Saint Blade,” I said wearily, my gun held at the ready. “I know it’s you. Let’s get this damn thing over with so I can go take a nap.”

  “I’m glad you see things my way,” a voice said from behind me. I whirled around to see a short, thin man of Japanese descent holding a wicked-looking katana. He sliced at me, and I felt the eruption of fire across my belly as the blade bit through skin. I cried out and fell backward, dropping my gun in the process.

  “I am seventh Ill Wind, The Saint Blade,” the man said, stalking toward me. I backed away as quickly as I could, clutching my stomach and hoping he hadn’t cut too deep. I wasn’t in the mood to try to not bleed out again. The Saint Blade held his weapon and namesake firmly, the tip of the sword pointed directly at my throat. The guy wasn’t messing around. “You have defeated or killed my brothers. Only I remain.”

  “I’m sure I’ll kill you, too,” I wheezed, blood oozing between my fingers. “Just give me a minute to catch my second wind.”

  “Too clever by half,” the assassin mused. “In the ten years I have wielded the blade as the leader of the Ill Winds, no one has required my direct intervention. Not until today.”

  “Um, lucky me, huh?” I asked, wincing. I was starting to feel lightheaded, as would anyone experiencing severe blood loss.

  “I’m almost impressed with you, Detective Hazzard.”

  “You sound just like my ex-girlfriend,” I said, slumping over onto the floor. “Of course, she’s in prison for murder, so take that as you will.”

  “Goodbye and good riddance, detective.” He raised the sword, ready to deliver the final blow.

  A challenge was roared from across the room. The Saint Blade stopped in mid-swing and looked up to see his sister, Kimiko, standing there. She held her sword tightly, and her hands were trembling. “Brother, I seek the holy blade. I challenge you to combat.”

  The Saint Blade’s face took on a bemused expression. “Of course, you do,” he said. He stood stock-still for a moment, then turned to face his sister. “Fine. I accept your challenge.”

  I’m not used to being sidelined in a climactic battle. That being said, I was glad it was Kimiko facing off against her brother instead of me. I was already in bad-enough shape without going up against one of the best swordsmen in the world.

  The two of them squared off against each other, their swords held at the ready. I could see the tension in Kimiko’s body language; every muscle was taut, every limb was straining to contain her fury and energy. The two of them spoke in low tones to each other, but they spoke in Japanese so I had no idea what words passed between them.

  For several moments, neither one moved. I could hear the wind whistling through the broken window, hissing around the shattered shards of glass, howling as it swept across the office and blew papers and detritus about in swirling eddies.

  When they struck, it was almost too fast to follow with the human eye. One moment, they were standing stock-still. The next, the swords flashed, Kimiko shouted a wordless challenge, and the two of them were at each other’s throats. Swords clashed and raked across one another, throwing off sparks. They broke away, spinning, and Kimiko cut in low under her brother’s defenses. He leapt, avoiding her cut and bringing his own sword down in a tremendous overhand blow that would have split her in half if she hadn’t dodged away at the last second. The sword dug into the floorboards, carving a massive gash through them. Kimiko rolled to her feet and swung in a wide arc, trying to take her brother’s head off. He danced back, easily dodging, then reversed direction and thrust forward with the Saint Blade. Kimiko spun away, barely avoiding the sword’s brilliant point.

  It became clear after less than a minute of the exchange that Kimiko, herself an expert with a bladed weapon, was entirely outclassed by her brother. The leader of the Ill Winds was more skilled with the blade, more adept at reading his opponent and predicting her moves, and simply stronger and faster. Kimiko, I realized with dawning horror, was going to lose. And, after he’d killed her, the brother would kill me, too.

  Well, fuck that.

  There’s no honor in interfering in a duel. Especially when it’s a duel between two siblings. There’s a very specific code of conduct for these things, and interfering is a big no-no. It’s, like, rule #1 for bystanders: don’t interfere.

  But I wasn’t playing by their game. I wasn’t following their code. I didn’t have much available to me, but I could find a way to help.

  His concentration was unshakeable. I wouldn’t be able to stop him with some stupid little trick. Whatever I did would have to be big, splashy, and obvious.

  I grabbed the desk lamp sitting on Miss Typewell’s desk and yanked the power cable out of the wall socket. Though it took every ounce of strength I had left, I hobbled forward toward the ninja assassin, raised the lamp high, and hurled it at his head as hard as I could.

  The lamp smashed into his head and shattered, throwing him off-balance and distracting him from skewering his sister. Kimiko took the opportunity afforded to her by the distraction to run her brother through, instead.

  The blow caught him by surprise. It pierced his guts and kept right on going, the tip of her blade poking out his back just next to the spine. He dropped his sword, but didn’t fall. Instead, he backhanded Kimiko, knocking her to the floor but leaving her sword stuck through his torso.

  “Shame!” he cried, turning to me. “You have no honor, Detective Hazzard.”

  “Well, it wasn’t doing me any good, so I got rid of it,” I replied, my own wounds making their various presences known in a variety of painful ways. I shifted to my good leg, or my less-bad one, anyway. “Besides, you’re just a killer. Killer’s don’t get treated with honor.”

  “I’m an assassin! The best in the world!” he snarled. He still hadn’t removed Kimiko’s sword from his guts, though there was a pretty good chance the blade was all that was holding those guts together for him.

  “Sure, go ahead and call yourself whatever you want. You’re still just a guy who kills people for money. There’s no honor in that.”
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br />   The Seventh Ill Wind gave me a blank look, then his face shifted into a cruel smile. He chuckled. “Well, maybe you are right, Detective Hazzard. I know I am dying now myself, and with death I find a certain clarity. Nothing matters now except the task I was given. My brothers and I swore to kill you, and so I shall.” He reached down and grabbed the handle of the sword. With a faint tremble, he began to pull, removing the blade from his body inch by ponderous inch. The bloodied blade emerged from his wound, and the feral grin on his face hardened into a ghastly rictus. “Die, detective,” he growled, raising the sword high.

  A sudden flash, a glint of light reflecting off a brilliant piece of metal, cut across the Saint Blade’s body at neck level. He froze in place, the sword still held aloft and dripping his own blood down his back. His eyes slowly rolled back in his head, the sword fell from senseless fingers, and his body began its inexorable collapse. About halfway to the floor, his head parted ways with his body, dropping faster than the rest of his black-clad carcass and hitting the floor with a muffled, organic thump.

  Kimiko stood there, her family’s sacred sword gripped tight in her hands, her chest heaving from exertion or emotion or maybe both. Her eyes met mine, she lowered the sword, and she began to weep openly.

  Part Three: Let the Dead Stay Buried

  I.

  I wanted to hobble over to Kimiko, to console and comfort her in that dark moment. I’d seen it happen to lots of people over the years, had even experienced it myself a time or two. It’s never easy putting down a loved one, even if that love isn’t what it used to be. While I’m sure she was satisfied with her victory, I was also sure it felt at least a little hollow.

  “Hey, Kim, good job,” I said, breathing as deeply as I could. I didn’t feel like I was getting enough oxygen. “Um, a little help, maybe, if you’re in any position to give it? I’m kinda dying faster than I thought I was over here.” Kimiko stared blankly at me for a moment before running out of the room. “Typical,” I said. “She’s around for the slicin’ an’ dicin’, but when it’s time to clean up all the blood, she just takes off.” I slumped further down on the floor, feeling a sort of peacefulness start to come over me. If I was going to die, this wasn’t the worst way to go out. Not the best, either – that involved a barrel of the finest aged whiskey available and a vat of pudding – but not a bad way to die.

  “Detective, wake up,” I heard a voice command. My eyes snapped open. At least, I meant for them to snap open. They may have fluttered open weakly, as I wasn’t much in control of them at that point.

  “Wha?” I mumbled.

  “Maya is gone,” the voice said.

  My brain started turning over like a cold engine. “M-maya?” I asked.

  “Yes. We need to stitch you up and go find her.” My eyes remembered how to focus around that time, and I caught sight of Kimiko with a towel and a first aid kid. She had my shirt up under my armpits and a bottle of iodine in her hand. “Hold still, this will probably hurt.” I felt the sudden sting of the iodine against my wound like a line of fire across my belly.

  “Yow! What the hell, Kim?” I yelped, now much more alert.

  “We do not have time for you to dawdle, detective,” she snapped. “You must help me find Maya.”

  “Sure, I get that, but I lost a lot of damn blood just right over there,” I waved in the general direction of where I’d been standing when her brother took a swing at me. “Are you gonna put all that back in?”

  “No,” she replied, a needle and thread already in her hands and the stitching already begun. I hadn’t realized she was a field medic in addition to being the best assassin I knew. “I have another plan.” She tied off the stitches and cut the thread with her teeth, then reached into the first aid kit and pulled out a massive syringe.

  “Um, what the hell are you planning on doing with that thing?” I asked, more than a little terrified.

  “I’m going to jab it into your heart,” she said, and did just that.

  * * *

  Let me tell you what they don’t tell you about adrenaline: it’s an amazing thing. With most folks, when you die, that’s it. You’re dead now. No more living for you. You take a massive needle filled with adrenaline and pump it directly into their heart, it won’t do much.

  But you take that same needle, pump its contents into a living, still-beating heart, and you stand back, because good God are the fireworks about to start.

  * * *

  “Jesus Christ,” I gasped. My chest felt five sizes too small for everything it was supposed to contain. And it was heaving. “Is my chest about to explode? I feel like my chest is about to explode. Should I be able to hear colors? You sound orange.”

  “Calm down, detective,” Kimiko said, helping me get to my rather unsteady feet. “Take deep breaths. We do not have much time if you wish to rescue Maya.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea, let’s go do that.” I hobbled over to my cane and picked it up, then my taser. My heartbeat was starting to regulate, and I didn’t feel like I’d just swallowed an entire package of pop rocks and batteries all in one go. Properly armed again, I felt as ready as I was going to get. “Right, let’s go.”

  “Go where?” Kimiko asked.

  “Um, to find our computer expert, obviously,” I said. “C’mon, you’re the one who said we needed to save her.”

  “But you don’t know where you’re going!”

  “I betcha I do,” I responded. “Let me ask a couple of clarifying questions first, though. Do we know who took her?”

  “I saw one of Mr. Montgomery’s goons outside the building on the security camera while I was grabbing the first aid kit earlier.”

  “So probably him,” I replied. “Okay, I know where to go. Go grab a car and let’s leg it, lady.”

  * * *

  Kimiko rolled to a stop a block down from Gerard Carson’s jewelry shop Downtown. “Okay, remember the plan,” I told her, getting out of the car as gingerly as possible.

  “Right,” Kimiko said, setting off once the passenger door was shut.

  I hobbled down the street to Carson’s shop and made my way around to the back door. Lockpick in hand, I examined said door. It was a pretty standard deadbolt situation, which I found unusual for a jewelry shop. “Oh well, makes my job easier,” I muttered to myself and set to work. A minute later, the lock was jimmied and I found myself in a dark storage room. I hobbled through the room and into a dark hallway. With cane in one hand and flashlight in the other, I found Carson’s office. As I passed my flashlight across the room, I caught Rupert Montgomery right in the eyes with the beam.

  “Turn that damned thing off, Hazzard,” he said as one of his thugs appeared behind me and turned on the room’s overhead light. I turned to see Narrow Face, one of the goons I’d dealt with earlier. Montgomery was seated behind Carson’s desk, his feet propped on the corner. Behind him stood Flat Face with a gun trained on me. There was a third thug, a tremendously massive guy with no discernable chin under the layers of fat, who had Maya tied to a chair in front of him.

  “Good to see you, Rupey,” I said to Montgomery, who twitched in irritation at the familiarity. Narrow Face came and took my gun and flashlight off me. “I’m surprised you figured out this was where the jewel would be,” I said, leaning casually against the doorframe. His thugs kept their guns on me. “I mean, nothing in any of our conversations would lead you to believe this was the right place. I’ve certainly given you no indication it might be. Except, wait, I did, didn’t I? I told you exactly where I’d be and when, and here you are.”

  “Yes, here I am, ready to recover what is rightfully mine,” Rupert replied.

  “Pretty sure it belongs in a museum,” I snapped. “So why send me on the goose chase, Monty?” He flinched again at the familiarity of a nickname but said nothing. “You knew where the damn thing was, so why the pretense of sending me out to find it? The whole thing just seems like a waste of time and effort.”

  “But your time and ef
fort are worthless, Detective Hazzard,” Montgomery said. “I honestly sent you running about as a sort of amusement for myself. I could’ve come here at any time to get the jewel, but that would have ruined the fun. And now, I can force you to steal it for me.” He gestured toward a large, old-fashioned safe squatting in the back corner of the office.

  “What if I’m done being your performing monkey?” I asked with mock curiosity. Montgomery held up a gun in a gloved hand and pointed it at Maya. “I see,” I said. “Well, I guess I know what I’ve got to do, then.” I pulled out my computer and opened a vid window, displaying the contents of the message from the last clue. I twirled the dial on the safe, entering the combination with practiced ease. With a faint click, the tumblers in the lock were tripped, and the door whispered open on oiled hinges.

  What I found inside made me laugh: a slip of paper and a wire leading to an alarm system.

  An alarm system I’d tripped by opening the safe.

  Go after dark, the note in the clue had read, and now I knew why. During the day, this alarm was probably disarmed, and the jewel was probably kept on Carson’s person. But at night…

  And Mrs. Montgomery had suspected her husband from the beginning. She probably also knew him well enough to know he’d never let a bum like me come get the jewel by myself.

  I reached in and snagged the slip of paper, surreptitiously stuffing it in my pocket and rising. “The jewel’s not here,” I said.

  “What?!” Montgomery snapped, leaping to his feet and pushing me out of the way of the safe. He squatted down, searching the empty safe, as though the jewel might be hiding behind a dust bunny or scrap of paper. It wasn’t.