by Anne Stuart
Hana Hayashi had left the urn with her, and the knowledge of where the ancient ruins were located. The Shirosama needed both of those things to make his ritual complete. A crackpot ritual that would signal the onslaught of Armageddon, or as close to it as one powerful maniac and a hundred thousand followers could enact.
And history had already proved that that could be pretty bad.
They could trust Takashi O’Brien to do what needed to be done. He was just as much of a realist as the rest of them—you couldn’t survive in the twilight world of the Committee without being able to see things clearly, unemotionally, and make the hard choices. Summer Hawthorne was just one more in a history of hard choices, one that Taka would make without blinking.
These things took their toll eventually. Peter could no longer work in the field, while some operatives got deliberately careless, stepping in the way of a bullet. Others perfected their image as a cool, soulless automaton. No one—not even Peter Madsen—knew what roiled inside Isobel herself.
She smoothed her pale blond hair back from her perfect face. No one had any idea of her real age—in their line of work they used the best plastic surgeons—and she knew the image she presented to the outside world. A well-preserved beauty, anywhere between thirty-five and sixty, with the best face money could buy. If anyone saw her naked, her body would prove the lie, but no one ever did.
Right now she felt as if she were ninety years old, and as ugly as the turmoil inside her. She couldn’t go on like this. These decisions were part of her daily life; she couldn’t let them destroy her. Summer Hawthorne had to die—it was that simple.
Madame Isobel Lambert reached once more for her cigarettes, dry-eyed, practical, cool-headed. And if her hand shook slightly there was no one to see.
Summer never thought she would sleep, but she had, soundly. She had no idea what time it was when she woke up—her watch was somewhere back at her house and the darkened bedroom had no clock. Light was coming in from the clerestory windows overhead, muted, shadowy, and she didn’t know whether that had to do with the weather or the time of day. Her sense of reality was astonishing. It could be any time from five in the morning to five at night, and her body was giving her no signals whatsoever.
She pushed the sheets aside and climbed out of bed. She’d slept in her underwear, which in retrospect seemed ridiculous. She should have just stayed in her clothes—the baggy black T-shirt and jeans he’d brought from her house. At least he’d brought the fat jeans. She kept three sizes: fat jeans, which were miles too big for her, regular jeans and skinny ones. If he’d brought the skinny ones she would have been miserable; she needed to be ten pounds lighter to even begin to be comfortable in them. The fat jeans were way too loose, but right now she liked the extra folds of fabric around her, and she could have slept in them quite comfortably.
She didn’t remember when he’d left her in the room. Had he helped her get undressed? She didn’t think so; she’d remember if he put his hands on her. She wasn’t used to being touched by beautiful men. She wasn’t used to being touched at all, and she preferred it that way. She could remember almost nothing. At one point she’d been in his car, wrapped in her bedspread, in the next she was lying in her underwear in his bed.
She couldn’t say much for his taste in clothing, at least as far as she was concerned. While he was elegant bordering on fashion model, the clothes he’d brought her were baggy and too big, including the plain black granny panties and industrial bra circa the time she’d been on the pill and gone from a thirty-four C to a thirty-six D, thanks to hormones. He must have taken one look at her and decided she was a sloppy pudge. That shouldn’t bother her at all, given the circumstances. But it did.
A far more overriding concern was how absolutely famished she was. She hadn’t had time for dinner last night; she’d been too busy working on last-minute details for the museum reception. And during the party she’d been too caught up in circulating and trying to keep away from her mother’s slimy guru to eat. And of course, things had gone to hell in a handbasket right afterward, and she had sincerely thought she would never want to eat again.
Now she was starving.
She pulled on the baggy clothes, looking around for her shoes, then remembered she’d taken them off outside the bungalow. She needed those shoes.
The more Summer thought about it, the more she knew that getting away from her companion was as important as getting away from the Shirosama and his followers. She had no reason to doubt that it was His Plumpness who was after her, but she didn’t have any particular reason to trust her guardian angel, either. He might have snatched her from the jaws of death a couple of times, but she still couldn’t bring herself to put her life in his hands. Why would a Japanese bureaucrat appear out of nowhere like James Bond and rescue a hapless museum curator? It didn’t make sense.
The first thing she needed to do was get the hell away from him. But she couldn’t go back to her house, and she couldn’t turn to her beautiful, brainless mother, who’d probably just hand her over to her beloved master. Her stepfather, Ralph, let Lianne do whatever she wanted as long as it didn’t interfere with Summer’s half sister, Jilly. Summer had learned to take care of herself long before Lianne had met her third husband, and Summer’s mother and stepfather were hardly people to depend on. The best place was the house on Bainbridge Island—she could probably hide out there without anyone noticing until the Fellowship either stole the fake urn and disappeared, or gave up. She really didn’t care which, as long as the real ceramic bowl stayed hidden, out of greedy hands.
Summer had no purse, no identification, no money, which made escape a bit problematic. But not impossible. Once she got away from her rescuer there were a number of people she could contact. The head of the Sansone Museum, William Chatsworth, was a shameless glad-hander and publicity hound, but he would jump at the chance to get rid of her, including forking over money with no questions asked. And there was her assistant and best friend, Micah, who was more reliable. Her passport was in the desk drawer in her office, it was all the ID she’d need unless she wanted to rent a car.
If that failed, she could turn to her half sister, but that was a last resort. Sixteen-year-old Jilly Lovitz was a smart, cynical kid who loved her older sister unconditionally and harbored grave doubts about her mother’s good sense, but Summer didn’t want to put her in the middle of things or draw any attention to her. Last night with its danger and its violence didn’t seem quite real, but it was, and dragging her baby sister into this mess was the last thing Summer wanted to do. No, there had to be some other way.
But Micah would help her with no questions asked. And she didn’t need to worry about Jilly. Summer’s stepfather paid little attention to his wife’s enthusiasms, but he wouldn’t let anything happen to his teenage daughter, and Lianne probably knew that. She could offer up Summer without a qualm, but Jilly would be untouchable, thank God. And that was the most important thing in the world because Jilly was all that mattered.
She needed answers. What was so damn important about her porcelain bowl that people were willing to kidnap and kill for it? What exactly was the Hayashi Urn? And what the hell was going on?
But given the choice between getting out of there and getting answers, escape seemed the wiser choice. She really didn’t want to see her so-called rescuer again if she could help it. He stirred irrational things inside her, things she didn’t want to think about. She needed to get lost, fast, because too many people were out to get her.
And she had no guarantees that Mr. Takashi O’Brien, if that was really his name, wasn’t one of them.
5
His holiness tossed down the last of his Fresca, settled his white robes more sedately around his body and walked into the meeting room of the tabernacle on the edge of Little Tokyo, his head lowered in a prayerful attitude. The contact lenses were an annoyance—his eyes were dry and itchy, and all the artificial drops in the world didn’t seem to help. It would have been easier if he
had blue eyes—going from dull brown to a colorless pink shade was more stressful on the eyes—but it was a price he paid willingly.
It didn’t matter; he didn’t have to be able to see that well. As long as he was in control he had others to do the seeing for him. His vision was clear where it counted: his divine mission to cleanse the world.
The innermost circle was already in attendance, kneeling around the edges of the room, heads bowed so low they touched the floor as he made his stately entrance, his bare feet light on the straw mat. His followers were particularly penitent today, a good thing, since they’d failed him most dismally. Two of their brethren were dead, and if he had his way the other four would follow them.
He took his seat, folding gracefully into a kneeling position despite his weight, and lowered his head in corresponding respect, keeping his expression blank.
“Who wishes to tell me of the disasters that have passed this night?” he intoned.
The one known as Brother Heinrich spoke up. He was one of the Shirosama’s favorites—a former East German gang member who’d found salvation in the True Realization Fellowship. He could be counted on to carry out the most ruthless of disciplinary actions, all without question, but this time even he had failed.
“We have no idea where she is, Master,” Brother Heinrich said in a low voice. “The car was forced off the road and the two brothers were dead inside, and she was nowhere to be seen.”
“How did Brother Samuel and Brother Kaga die?”
“They both had broken necks. Presumably from the force of the crash. They must have hit the wind-shield—there was blood everywhere.”
“How convenient.” He allowed some of his acidity to seep into his voice. “And the girl managed to get herself out of the trunk on her own? Do limousines come with an interior latch?”
Brother Heinrich looked confused. “I don’t know…”
“They don’t,” the Shirosama informed his follower. “And the two brothers most certainly didn’t die from the accident. Someone must have been following them, following the girl, when I told them to be extremely careful there were no witnesses.”
Brother Heinrich lowered his head further in an attitude of abject shame. He was only twenty-two, and he’d managed to kill at least seven people in his short life, three of them in the service of the Shirosama. It would be a pity to dispense with his services; very few followers had the blind dedication combined with experience to meet such special needs.
“So we can only assume someone helped Miss Hawthorne to leave our protection,” the Shirosama confirmed. “You went back to her house to see if she was there?”
“We did, your holiness,” Brother Jaipur said, sounding equally miserable. He was more dispensable than Brother Heinrich, and this wasn’t the first time he’d failed him. Maybe the Shirosama could make an example of him. “The house was empty, but clearly she’d just been there. There was water surrounding her bath and her bedroom was in shambles.”
“If a woman is running from what she mistakenly perceives as danger, she doesn’t stop to take a bath. Someone else must have been involved. I am afraid Dr. Hawthorne is in very grave peril. It is our solemn duty to find her and bring her under our protection,” he intoned. “If any harm comes to her then we should bear the blame.” He allowed his milky gaze to rest on the four miscreants, one by one, making it clear that the “we” was only a figure of speech.
Brother Jaipur was foolish enough to speak up. “Shouldn’t we just retrieve the Hayashi Urn and let the girl fend for herself? Do we really need her?”
The Shirosama turned to look at him, his long, silent gaze a reproach that turned Brother Jaipur’s dark complexion pale. “We must care for all those unfortunates who have not yet seen the light. We need to lead her to paradise any way we can. There are no accidents. She was placed as the caretaker of the Hayashi Urn for a reason, and we must honor that.” He wasn’t about to share why he needed to get her under his control—that knowledge was his alone. As far as his followers knew, the Shirosama’s wisdom was infallible. The plan had indeed come to him in a vision, but that vision had left out a crucial element. Where the final ascendance was to take place.
But he knew who held the answer. And he would bleed and burn it out of her if he must, once he got his hands on her.
“Then her escape would have been preordained,” Brother Jaipur said.
The Shirosama’s pale, bleached hands were hidden beneath the folds of his white robe and no one could see his clenched fists. His expression remained serene. “Brother Jaipur, it was hardly an escape when we only meant to protect her,” he chided him gently. Brother Heinrich could strangle him—he’d taught the young German that squeezing the traitorous breath from doubters was an act of generosity, helping them escape their karma and move on to the next level. And Brother Heinrich enjoyed using his hands. “We make no mistakes, but unworthy and incompetent followers can be deluded by the snares of evil and allow the forces of the unrighteous to triumph. And if that happens, we must redeem the unworthy.”
All four of the fallen monks hung their heads in shame. They wouldn’t resist their punishment; the quickest path to paradise was to be cleansed by the Shirosama’s judgment. But while Brother Jaipur was dispensable, both Brother Sammo and Brother Telef were brilliant chemists with unquestioning devotion. The death of Jaipur would merely sharpen their focus.
“We must find the poor girl,” the Shirosama murmured, using his most hypnotic voice. “Look for guidance—our way will be made clear. I will visit her mother and see if the girl has been in touch, and I will meet with the younger sister as well. She could prove helpful in persuading Dr. Hawthorne of our sincerity. In the meantime, the rest of you must find out who helped her and where she is hiding. We can’t allow anything to come in the way of the True Ascension.”
The men rose to their feet, and he could feel the palpable relief in the room as they began to back away from his presence in abject humility. He savored the moment, until his quarry had almost reached the door.
“Brother Jaipur,” he said in the most gentle of voices. “You stay.”
No one looked at the hapless Brother Jaipur as they shuffled out—he had already left them on his trip to paradise. Brother Heinrich, without a word or a sign, moved to one side, knowing he would be needed. No, the Shirosama couldn’t dispense with Heinrich. Not yet. In his own way he was just as valuable as the chemists. Who would have thought the same calling would attract German street thugs and brilliant scientists? Once the Shirosama reached ascendancy all would be made clear. Until then he would simply have to make do.
The last acolyte closed the door, leaving the room silent, with only the Shirosama and his two followers inside.
“Brother Heinrich,” he said gently.
Brother Jaipur didn’t scream, accepting his fate, going to his heavenly reward with the blissful assurance that all was well, and the excruciating pain would cleanse him.
Brother Heinrich met his master’s eyes over his brother’s corpse, looking for approval like a stray dog. The Shirosama nodded benevolently.
“Find the girl, Brother Heinrich,” he said. “Bring her to the loving safety of our community. And kill anyone with her.”
“Yes, your holiness.”
The Shirosama nudged Brother Jaipur’s body with his bare foot. “And get some of the brothers to dispose of this mess, would you? His soul is already in paradise—get rid of the garbage left behind.”
He was really quite cross, when he shouldn’t allow himself to be. Now that they’d located the urn he was getting impatient. There were only a few short days until the onset of the Lunar New Year. He needed the girl as well, to complete the ritual and perform the ascendancy.
He was getting tired of waiting.
Summer opened the door to the bedroom very slowly, as silently as she could, not wanting to attract any attention in case her rescuer was asleep. The front room was empty; in fact, there was no sign of him anywhere. The pillows on the
sofa looked untouched, so either he hadn’t slept there or he was very neat. It was dark outside, with a light rain falling, and her best guess was that it was late afternoon, and Takashi O’Brien was nowhere to be found.
She didn’t hesitate, sprinting across the living room in her bare feet and grabbing her shoes, which were set neatly by the door. His weren’t there, which meant he was gone, or so she hoped. But how far away was he, and for how long?
She opened the front door, peering out into the rain. She had no earthly idea where she should go. She could always make it out onto the street and see if she could find a cop, though L.A.’s finest were never there when you needed them. She could try to hitchhike, but that might be even worse than getting kidnapped by the Shirosama. Maybe she could just walk until she found a pay phone that had survived urban blight. Better than trying to find the main building of this rambling hotel complex. She didn’t want to risk running into Takashi O’Brien.
She hadn’t spent much time in Little Tokyo, but if it was anything like Chinatown it would be relatively safe, well-lit and well-preserved. Unfortunately, the True Realization Fellowship had their headquarters somewhere within this relatively small neighborhood, and the last thing she wanted was to run into one of them.
But she couldn’t stay here and do nothing. The more she thought about it the less likely her rescuer’s story seemed. How had he found her in the first place? How had he managed to save her without being seen by the Shirosama’s men? And why in the world would anybody want to harm her? While Lianne and Ralph Lovitz were about as powerful and wealthy as anyone in L.A. society, most people had no idea of her connection to them. She herself had nothing of value—apart from an obscure Japanese bowl that was now ostensibly out of her reach.