by Anne Stuart
“She’s not staying with me,” Reno warned. “I put up with her for your sake, but if you’re not around I’d probably strangle her.”
“She’s harder to kill than you might think,” he said.
Reno just looked at him. “Holy motherfucker,” he said. “You’re in love with the gaijin.”
“In love?” Taka echoed, managing a derisive laugh. “You’re crazy.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? And if you’ve fallen in love with her, then you’re the crazy one. Love’s a waste of time. Love’s like a knife—it’ll cut your balls off and stab you in the back.”
“And what, little cousin, would you know about love?” he countered softly.
“I keep as far away from it as I can, which I thought you’d be smart enough to do as well. Grandfather found a woman willing to marry you, and sooner or later you could become the good salaryman he always wanted. He could almost forget your parentage, and while he wouldn’t leave the company to someone of impure blood, he’d at least leave you a shitload of money and his fancy houses. And Mitsuko has a very nice ass, if you ask me.”
“She has a very nice ass,” Taka agreed. “But I don’t want it. Or the houses, or the company.”
“Don’t tell me you want the American?”
“No,” Taka said, not even considering whether it was a lie or not. “Sooner or later she’d drive me crazy.”
“Probably sooner,” Reno said. “So where are you going to stash her while we go into the mountains? I don’t think there’s time to put her on a plane back home, which is where she needs to be.”
“We?”
“Don’t you remember American television? The line is ‘What’s this we, white man?’ I’m going with you. Where do we stash the girl?”
“You’re not coming with me,” Taka said flatly. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t leave her with you. You must know someone who can babysit her. Someone who doesn’t understand English, so she won’t drive him crazy. Someone who won’t get distracted and let her out of his sight.”
“Crazy Jumbo might do it. Former sumo wrestler, not too bright. He’d just sit on her if she got too yappy.”
“I don’t—”
A loud screeching of guitars interrupted him, and Reno dived into his leather jacket for his cell phone. “What?” he snarled. His expression changed, his voice lowered, and he moved off to a less crowded piece of the sidewalk. By the time Taka caught up with him Reno had already finished the conversation and was looking rattled. It took a lot to get Reno rattled.
“That was Grandfather. They’ve got Su-chan.”
Taka didn’t even notice Reno’s use of the affectionate term. “Who does?” His voice was deadly.
“Who do you think?” Reno said. “They want the urn, or they’re going to liberate her to her next karmic level, according to the note Grandfather got. You’re supposed to bring them the urn.”
Taka’s blood had frozen in his veins, like the cold winter wind swirling through the crowded city. “Where?”
“You’re kidding, right? You can’t give it to them. They’ll kill her anyway, and if you give them the relic they’ll be able to start their holy war. You can’t do it.”
Taka dropped his package of clothes, caught Reno’s leather jacket in one hand and slammed him against the wall. “Where?”
“Tonight, at the ruins of the temple. Either your girlfriend told them, or they’ve bugged my apartment. It doesn’t matter which—they know where the ancient site is, and they want you there. You’re just playing into their hands, Taka-san. They’ll kill her and they’ll kill you. I don’t care how skilled you are, one man against so many is doomed.”
“Two men, Reno. You’re coming with me.”
Reno detached Taka’s hand from his jacket, brushing it lazily. “I thought you’d see it my way sooner or later. Let’s go.”
She felt sick. At least this time she was in the back seat of a car and not in the trunk, for all the good it did her. She still had a bag over her head, but at some point they’d changed her clothes, and she was wearing something loose and light. And cold. Her hands were tied behind her back and something was across her mouth so she couldn’t scream. She was curled up in a corner of some kind of vehicle, and the ride was very bumpy, as if they were going over a road of logs and tree stumps. There was a familiar, unpleasant smell in the car, and it took her only a moment to recognize it. The True Realization Fellowship favored a particularly sickly sweet incense, and the scent clung to the followers’ clothing. She moved her head down to her shoulder and sniffed the fabric of whatever they’d put her in. The same nasty stuff.
Who else would have gone to all the trouble to grab her? She couldn’t figure out why—supposedly the only reason they’d kept her alive was because she could lead them to the ancient shrine. Yet they already seemed to know where it was—she only hoped she hadn’t babbled something during some forgotten, drug-induced questioning. They had nothing to gain by kidnapping her, unless they thought she still had the urn.
But if they’d managed to track her down to Reno’s apartment, then their information was up-to-the-minute, and they’d know she didn’t have the urn; Taka did.
“I believe she’s awake, your holiness.”
Shit. She shouldn’t have moved. She was much better off huddled in the corner being ignored. The bag was pulled from her head, and she blinked at the unexpected brightness of the day. And then focused on her nemesis, sitting in meditative stillness on the seat opposite her, his white hair flowing, his bleached white skin the color of death, his eyes milky.
He turned in her direction. He was almost blind, she realized, wondering if that would do her even a spit of good.
“Remove the covering from her mouth, Brother Heinrich, so that I may hear her thoughts,” he said in that singsong voice.
Brother Heinrich ripped the duct tape from her mouth, and she almost screamed. She remembered him—he was one of the men in the alleyway, the one who had gotten away. He had flat, cold eyes of a bright, Germanic blue, thin lips and no hair whatsoever. And he scared the piss out of her.
“Do you want me to untie her as well, your holiness?” he asked, his German accent thick.
“I think not, my son. I doubt we need to worry, even if she becomes violent, but leaving her bound will aid her in the stillness she seeks.”
“I’m not seeking stillness and I only become violent when people kidnap me,” she said in a husky voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Brother Heinrich backhanded her across the face, and her head whipped back under the assault. “You will address his holiness with respect.”
“Fuck you. And him.”
Crack. His fist hit the other side of her face, and through the blinding pain she thought vaguely that at least the bruising would be symmetrical. But then, the Japanese preferred things asymmetrical, and the first and last man she was ever fool enough to love was half-Japanese. He wouldn’t like a symmetrical corpse.
“Don’t be too hard on the girl, Brother Heinrich,” the Shirosama said in his spooky voice. “She has been brainwashed by the man who abducted her, stole her from our care.”
“Stole me from your car, you mean. Why was I dumped in the trunk of your limo if you were so worried about my well-being?”
He nodded benevolently toward her. “My followers were perhaps a bit rash. They merely wanted to get you out of harm’s way. They knew the man was watching you, and they were trying to save your life.”
“Save my life?” she countered. “You’re the one who’s been trying to kill me.”
“Oh, no, child. We weren’t the ones who held you under the water at your house that night. If you think on it, I expect you’ll remember other times where you nearly died at O’Brien’s hands. Times when you thought he’d saved you. You needn’t be ashamed by your foolishness—he’s a dangerous, evil man, more than a match for an innocent girl like yourself.”
“Hardly a girl,” she snapped, ev
en though a cold knot had formed in the pit of her stomach. Taka had told her he wasn’t going to kill her, and she hadn’t thought any more about it. Had those been his hands holding her under the water in her tub until she passed out?
“You’re remembering, aren’t you?” the blind man said. “I thought you might. Life is never as simple as it appears to be, and those you think are your enemies can often be your best friends. And those you trust with your life can betray you.”
She wouldn’t, couldn’t, think about that. The Shirosama was trying to manipulate her—persuasion was a cult leader’s stock in trade, and she wasn’t going to let him affect her. “What do you want from me?”
“I just want to give you safe haven.”
“I’ll bet. Where are we headed?”
“You are a very wise young woman, Summer. Even your mother admits that much. You would be a great asset to our movement.”
“Where are you taking me?”
The Shirosama sighed. “I think you know. I have people everywhere—the moment you discover something, my people find it out as well. We’re heading to White Crane Mountain, you should have realized that much. You’re not as bright as your little sister, of course. We were hoping she would be open to my teachings, but you know how difficult youth can be. They never listen to the voice of wisdom.”
“I guess I’m younger than I thought. You’re the voice of bullshit.”
She was rewarded with another blow from Heinrich’s meaty hands. There, that would keep her face unbalanced.
“Stop hitting her, Brother Heinrich,” the Shirosama said in his soft little voice. He was beginning to remind her of a Japanese albino Truman Capote, she thought, suppressing the sudden urge to giggle. She must be getting hysterical, and this time Taka was not around to snap her out of it.
“I haven’t given up hope of your sister,” the Shirosama said. “The best and the brightest will survive the upcoming conflagration, and she should be one of them. She’ll turn to the light by then, if she hasn’t already.”
“If you mean by ‘turn to the light’ that she’ll think you’re anything but a bloated, psychotic charlatan I can tell you it will be a cold day in hell when that happens.”
“Heinrich.” The Shirosama’s soft lisp stopped his henchmen in time. “It’s no wonder the poor girl is confused. We’ve helped many of the lost and deluded to find their way out of this karmic snare. We’ll help her, too.”
“And just how do you help people out of their karmic snare, your holiness?” Summer asked in a sarcastic voice.
The Shirosama turned his paper-white face toward her and smiled benevolently. “By helping them into their next life, child. How else?”
24
The town of Tonazumi was like a step back into another century. By the time Taka managed to find his way through the twisting, narrow roads it was almost nightfall, and time was running out.
The tiny village at the base of White Crane Mountain shouldn’t have been accustomed to tourists, but the townspeople greeted the arrival of two strangers from the city, including one as bizarre as Reno, with polite disinterest. Until the Shirosama was mentioned.
“It’s the night of the Lunar New Year,” the old man at the noodle shop said. “Much goings-on up there. You don’t want to interfere.”
“He has a friend of mine with him. I need to get a message to her.”
“Not until the celebration is over. There are guards on all the main roads up the mountain—the planned ritual is sacred, and they don’t want outsiders watching.”
“Then what is a television satellite truck doing here in town?” he responded.
The old man shook his head. “We don’t ask questions. The followers of the new religion will do us no harm, and they will bring business to our little village. In return, we must let them do what they wish.”
Taka glanced over at the satellite truck. All emotion had left him hours ago—there was no place for it in his life—and his reactions were cool and calculated. The truck was private, belonging to the Fellowship, and if they were bothering with satellites they were clearly planning some kind of live feed. Was it going to be closed circuit to their legions of followers, or had they made arrangements with the Tokyo networks? Worse, were they planning on jamming the airwaves? The Shirosama had followers with the technology to pull this off. Taka had no idea exactly what the Fellowship was planning, but it was sure to signal the beginning of a bloody conflict that would leave the world forever changed. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.
He glanced up toward the dark, forbidding mountain. It was a dormant volcano, though in recent years there’d been occasional rumblings. Just the kind of place a melodramatic hack like the Shirosama would want to serve as a backdrop for his ravings.
The question remained, what did he have planned for tonight? He certainly wouldn’t hurt Summer in front of a camera—he was far too shrewd a showman. He might have her drugged and compliant, seemingly a willing participant to whatever ritual he had lined up. There was always the possibility he’d brainwashed her in record time. Taka didn’t think so; Summer was far too argumentative to be easily swayed, particularly by someone she already distrusted. If he knew anything about his unwilling companion of the last few days—and he knew her well—then the Shirosama would be regretting ever thinking she’d be a useful bargaining chip. Summer Hawthorne was simply more trouble than she was worth. At least as far as anyone with any sense would realize.
Unfortunately, Taka’s common sense seemed to have deserted him in the last few days.
“If there are guards on all the main roads keeping unwanted visitors away, then there must be back roads, not so well guarded,” he suggested to the wizened old man.
“There are.”
Taka waited. Reno was stalking around in the background, fuming. His cousin had never been good when it came to patience. The old man was going to reveal the information at his own pace, and a Yakuza punk from Tokyo wasn’t going to get it any faster.
“There’s a road heading up past the waterfalls. It won’t take you to the shrine—you’ll have to get out and hike—but it’ll get you most of the way there.”
Taka didn’t ask how he knew about the hidden shrine—the old man seemed to know everything. “When did the Shirosama arrive here? Was he alone?”
The man shrugged. “I try not to pay attention. He’s not looking for followers like me—he wants them young and smart or old and rich. Someone said they saw his limousine heading into the mountains late this morning, but that’s all I know.”
Taka bowed low, not making the mistake of insulting the man by offering him money. If the night ended with any kind of success, he’d see that some kind of reward made it into the old man’s gnarled hands. Tonazumi was a poor town, and the Shirosama wasn’t going to be around long enough to make a difference.
“We’ll be climbing partway,” he told Reno when he caught up with him. “The main roads are guarded.”
“Why don’t we just shoot our way through?”
“Because they might kill Summer,” Taka said patiently.
His cousin wisely said nothing.
There was an odd glow halfway up the mountain, hidden by the evergreens. Television lights, for the Shirosama’s big production.
Fortunately, the Shirosama was missing a major prop. The Hayashi Urn was safely tucked in Taka’s leather backpack. Even if the cult leader still had the remains of the original Shirosama, if he didn’t have the proper receptacle, then what was the point?
Unless he had a fake urn. The sacred remains were probably a fake, as well. Taka had grave doubts about the condition of bone and ash after almost four hundred years. But if Summer could manage to produce three creditable copies of the urn, then the Shirosama could do just as well faking a pile of ash and some chunks of whitened bone.
In which case, why was he holding Summer hostage for the real urn? Why the hell did it matter? The plans were in motion, the eve of the first full moon of the year was u
pon them, and the appearance of the real urn tomorrow or the next day would be too late. Tonight was the signal for everything to begin; their intel had been faultless at least that far. The weapons, wherever they were, would be distributed, and in the next few days the subways and train stations would be flooded with toxins, and no color of alert or high level warnings were going to make any difference. There had already been too many false alarms.
For the first time in his life Taka felt absolutely helpless to stop the disaster. Things were in motion, and if the Shirosama had his crazed way, Armageddon would follow.
No, Taka was going to stop it, even if it seemed an impossibility. He was going to put a bullet right between the Shirosama’s fat, ruined eyes, and he was going to get Summer the hell out of there to a safe place, where no one could ever put murderous hands on her again.
Including himself.
They ditched the car halfway up the mountain, grabbed their backpacks and began circling around toward the glow of artificial light.
The night was cold, with the sharp promise of snow in the air. For now the ground was dry and bare. If it started snowing, things were going to go from difficult to almost impossible.
Even from a distance, Taka could see the outlines of the ancient torii gate, leading to the temple grounds, and the wide, flat field nearby. A perfect landing strip.
The landing field was an integral part of the Shirosama’s crazed doomsday play. Sooner or later a plane was going to show up. In the banked lights of the airstrip Taka could see crate after crate piled high, and he knew with absolute certainty that he’d found the weapons after all. What better place to distribute them than the sacred mountain shrine itself? The Shirosama would send those weapons out into the world with his faithful followers, and it was up to Taka to stop them.
The backpack had more than the well-padded urn inside. There were explosives, firearms—enough firepower to wipe out half the mountain—and Reno was carrying the same. They needed to find cover, wait until the plane landed and take it out. Stop the carnage before it began, with their own rough justice.