by N. P. Martin
Although I have to say, I was more than a little surprised when Carlito revealed his true nature. I knew the bastard had been good at keeping secrets, but not that good. My Infernal Itch had never once reacted to him, which meant he had kept his inner monster buried so deep my sixth sense couldn’t even detect it. And what goblin-like thing was he? A fucking chichiricu or something he had said. Some obscure Cuban lycanthrope from legend. I had never heard of one until Carlito transformed into it. Not that it did him much good. As powerful as he was, he was also outmanned. I felt sorry for him toward the end, especially when Haedemus shit all over his face. I tell you, that fucking Hellicorn has no morals, but then I suppose he’s in good company.
“Ctrl+Alt+Success, Drakester,” Artemis said, interrupting my reverie as he sat back in his seat and used a finger on each hand to point at the large computer screen. “Check it out. That shit was buried deep like someone didn’t want it found.” He smiled smugly as he snorted. “They never factored in me, though.”
Leaning forward, I stared at the screen, looking at what appeared to be a record of registration from Social Services for Charlotte Hood, only her name wasn’t Charlotte Hood, it was Charlotte Webb. “You’re sure this is her?” I asked.
“Positive,” Artemis said. “I checked the birth records first, but there were none.”
“No birth certificate?”
“That’s what I said.”
I frowned as I stared at the screen, wondering why Charlotte’s birth was never registered like most other newborns. And if that was the case, why didn’t her biological parents want her officially registered? “So how did you happen upon this DSS record?”
“Well, you said Charlotte was adopted when she was just a few months old,” Artemis said. “Which means she would’ve been placed into the care of the state first. A little digging and—” He gestured toward the screen. “Bob’s your uncle.”
“So there’s still no record of who the biological parents were?”
“Not that I can find,” he said. “It does say on the form that she was handed over by Fairview PD. Your buddies at the precinct must’ve stumbled across her somehow.”
“No shit,” I said, rubbing the coarse beard on my chin as I wondered about what must’ve happened. Cops came across kids all the time who were suffering from abuse or neglect. I’d come across my fair share over the years. If someone at the precinct had found Charlotte during an investigation, then there had to be a record of it in the central database. I just had to look and see what came up.
“Anything else I can do for you?” Artemis asked.
“No,” I said, standing up. “I got what I needed. I can take it from here. Thanks Artemis.”
“You’re welcome, Drakester. Tell Scarlet I said hi.”
“Will do, and good luck with the cure for Pan Demic’s mom. I hope she pulls through.”
“She will,” Artemis said, taking another blast of coke. “And so will a lot of other people soon enough.” He grinned, his nose dusted with white powder. “Just changing the world, Drakester, one step at a time.”
Yeah, I thought on my way out. More like one snort at a time.
Back in the car, I was just about to start the engine when a call came through from dispatch, giving a report of a dead body that was hanging in the center of Little Tokyo. As soon as I heard the report, I froze for a second as I stared out the window. Something about the incident gave me a bad feeling, and I knew it had something to do with Hannah, or rather Xaglath. Was this the “old business” she had mentioned to the Hellbastards?
Only one way to find out, I thought as I started the engine, swung the car around, and sped off toward Little Tokyo.
13
A while later, I stood in Serenity Square smack in the middle of Little Tokyo. Surrounding the square were neon-edged pagodas that stood alongside more modern buildings, many of which were businesses that catered to the tourists who came through Little Tokyo in their droves, just one stop on their whistle-stop tour of the whole city. Many of these tourists stood around now holding up their cameras and phones as uniformed officers kept them back behind the lines of the crime scene that had not long been cordoned off.
The rain had just started to fall when I got there, the morning light—as dull as it was—still hurting my over-tired eyes. Smells from the food stands peppered around the outside of the square filled the air, along with the smell of cigarettes and, also—strangely—cherry blossom, even though the cherry blossom trees dotted around were bare at this time of year, nothing more than skeletal sculptures on which crows and other smaller birds sat looking on at the spectacle unfolding before them.
In the center of the square was a massive statue of a samurai, made of bronze and correct in every detail when it came to depicting the elaborate armor of the samurai, his helmet and his long sword. The samurai statue was meant as a tribute to Ishida Yagami, a long distant ancestor of the Yagami crime family, who also headed up the Yakuza clan in this city. It was they who had the statue erected many years ago, though I doubted they thought it would ever be so blatantly debased as it was now.
For impaled on the end of the statue’s long Katana was a body, the sword piercing the chest of the dead person; the body slid to the middle of the sword. The body itself appeared to belong to a man, though it was difficult to tell since every inch of skin had been removed, apart from the face that is. Looking at the impaled corpse was like looking at a slab of hung beef that glistened red and raw in the morning rain. I didn’t recognize the face of the dead man, but I knew instinctively that he had to be Yakuza. Whoever had killed him had impaled him here to send a message to the Yakuza, a message they had no doubt received loud and clear by now.
As the forensic team, led by Gordon Mackey, did their work, I walked across the square to where Jim Routman stood with his hands dug deep into his coat pockets as the rain started to come down heavier. When he saw me, he frowned. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone making it clear that this was his crime scene.
“I heard the call over the radio,” I said, coming to stand beside him as I gazed at the bronze samurai. “Has the body been ID’d yet?”
Routman stared at me for a long moment like he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to talk to me or not. “Yeah,” he said after a bit. “It has.”
“He’s Yakuza?”
Routman nodded. “Yeah.”
I shook my head slightly upon hearing his conformation. “What are you thinking, Jim?” I asked as a uniform shouted and tried to keep the press away behind us.
“I’m thinking it’s probably some gang war. This is a statement of intent.”
“Intent?” I glanced at him. “To do what?”
“What do you think?”
“You expecting more bodies?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
I nodded, saying nothing.
“Someone wanted to make a bold statement, and they fucking made it alright.” Routman hunched his shoulders against the cold rain. “The Yakuza will be out for blood after this.”
“I’m afraid they already are,” I said almost to myself.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you know something about this, Ethan? Is that why you’re here?”
I shook my head. “I told you, I was just nearby. I had to see if it was of interest to my unit.”
“Your unit.” He snorted with some derision. “It’s just you and that Jap, Walker. That’s hardly a unit.”
“Don’t talk about my partner like that, Jim.”
“Why? She’s a Jap, isn’t she?”
There was a slight smile on his face as I stared at him. “Where’s your bum buddy, Stokes? Oh yeah, he’s fucking dead.”
Routman’s face dropped as his lips pressed together in anger. “You know something, Ethan? You can be a real cunt at times.”
“Takes one to know one, Jim.”
“Do me a favor and get the fuck out of here,” he said. “This is my crime scen
e, not yours.”
“I’m going, don’t worry.”
“Hey,” he shouted after me as I walked away. “Tell your Jap partner to come and see me. I figure she might know something about this shit, being a Jap and all.”
I stopped dead next to the bronze statue, the Yakuza guy’s corpse hanging to my right and just above me. My hands balled into fists as I thought about turning around and beating the shit out of Routman for his disrespect, but I doubted beating up another cop would go over well with the press watching on, or the brass back at the precinct. I’d just be giving Captain Edwards the excuse he was looking for to get me thrown off the force. No, I would play the long game with Routman. He had it coming, but just not today.
As I was walking away, my phone rang in my pocket. Taking it out, I saw it was Hannah calling, and I answered it as I ducked under the police tape and pushed my way through the crowd of rubberneckers. “Hannah,” I said. “Where the hell are you?”
“In my apartment,” she replied, sounding like herself again, albeit a depressed version.
“You know where I am?” I stopped next to an empty bench and turned around to view the dead Yakuza guy again. “I’m in Serenity Square looking at a dead Yakuza impaled on the sword of a bronze samurai warrior. You know anything about that, Hannah?” When she said nothing, I pressed her further. “Hannah? Answer me.”
“I’m sorry, Ethan,” she said. “I couldn’t control her. She just took over, and I couldn’t control her.”
Shit, I thought. “You mean Xaglath? She killed this Yakuza guy?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck’s sake.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Yeah, you couldn’t control her. You already said.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“What?”
“We both know you have a beef with the Yakuza, that you’re one of them. You wanted revenge. Is this the start of it?”
Again she went silent for a long moment, and I started walking back to my car. When I reached the Dodge, she finally said, “Can you come over so we can discuss this?”
“Sure, why not. Where are you at?”
When she gave me an address that was just a few streets away, I got in the car and drove there, ending up in a street that seemed to function as some scaled-down Sex District, with rows of neon signed seedy porn shops and small clubs that offered live sex shows. Hannah’s apartment was situated above one of the porn shops.
When she opened the door, I was shocked to see the state of her face. She had one large gash that went from her left eye socket across her nose to her right cheek, and another cut across her forehead. Both cuts were clean like they were done with a sharp blade.
“Jesus, Hannah,” I said as I walked into the apartment, which was even smaller and more rundown than my apartment in Bricktown. The smell of damp permeated the stale air, the paint peeling off the mostly bare walls in many places. Dirty blinds covered the living room window, which didn’t stop the light from the neon sign hanging outside spilling into the gloom, alternating between red and blue hues.
“I know,” Hannah said as she closed the door behind me. “The place is a shit hole. I intend to get a better place soon.”
“I was talking more about your face,” I said as I stared at her. “Did the Yakuza guy do that?”
“Turns out he was handy with a knife.” She touched her untreated wounds with her fingers as if they didn’t hurt. “The cuts will heal soon enough.”
“I fucking hope so. You can’t go into work looking like that.”
“Maybe I should get some Band-Aids?” she joked as she sat down on a worn fabric couch that looked like it belonged in the alley out back.
I shook my head as I sat down next to her, staring around the room for a moment. There were a few pictures on the walls of Hannah with an older woman who I assumed was her mother. Also on the wall was a set of Japanese swords next to a picture of Hannah in her police uniform, looking fresh out of the academy. Apart from that, there didn’t appear to be much else in the place. Not even a TV. “You don’t have a TV.”
“Hannah sold her TV to pay for drugs one time. She sold most of her stuff, actually.”
“But not the swords.”
“No, she kept all of her weapons. The rest are in the bedroom, locked up in a closet.”
“At least she had her priorities right.”
Hannah laughed slightly as she sat in the same clothes she wore to The Brokedown Palace, which were still covered in blood. “How’s Scarlet?”
“In recovery at Cal’s place,” I said. “She’s lucky to be alive.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
I turned to look at her as I took out a cigarette and handed her one, which she took. “So what happened?” I asked. “Did Xaglath take over and then decide to get started on this revenge plan you’ve been thinking about?”
She nodded as I lit her cigarette for her, followed by my own. “That’s about the height of it, yeah. That guy in the square, he’s one of Kazuo’s Kumi-in, or soldiers. He was one of the men who stopped Susan, Hannah’s mother, at the airport that day and brought her back to Kazuo.”
“So you’re starting at the bottom and working your way up, is that it?”
She nodded. “I’m not going to lie to you, Ethan. Whether my demon side was in control or not, I was still going to do this. Kazuo has to pay for what he did to Hannah and her mother, for what he did to me. I may not have been physically present at the time, but it still feels like I was, and I can’t ignore that.”
“So you’re going to keep going until you get to Kazuo?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“If I have to.”
“What about your former demon self? Is Xaglath going to help?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, if I need her again.”
“And what happens if she decides to stick around after, permanently I mean? What happens to Hannah then?”
“That won’t happen.”
“You don’t know that. I saw you at The Brokedown Palace. You were—”
“Pure evil?”
“You said it.”
She took another drag on her cigarette before stubbing it out in a metal ashtray that sat on a scuffed coffee table in front of us. “I can control it,” she said.
“I’d like to believe that,” I said. “But I know what’s it like to lose yourself to darkness. It gets harder every time to find your way back until eventually, you don’t find your way back at all.”
“You did.”
“Did I?”
She took my hand and smiled, her beauty marred by the open wounds on her face. “I know darkness, Ethan, and you’re not it.”
“So what am I then?”
Sitting closer, she said, “You’re just a man in a lot of pain. A man who lost the people he loved the most.”
I looked away as I stared at the pictures on the wall, at Hannah’s mother, a dark-haired beauty in her own right, standing next to a young Hannah, who had the same haunted look in her eyes even then; the same look she had now. “You might be right,” I said. “And that’s why I understand this need for revenge that you have.”
“Because you have the same need?”
“Yes.”
“Are you any closer to finding out who killed Angela and Callie?”
“Scarlet said she would help me track down the wolf who killed them. I think maybe he was a dog soldier.”
“Dog soldier?”
“A werewolf mercenary. The murders would be too random if the wolf was acting alone. For the most part, werewolves don’t just break into strangers’ houses and kill them. They’re careful about who they hunt, and aren’t so open about doing so.”
“Do you think whoever killed them was hired by someone else? Any idea who?”
“I could give you a long list,” I said, stubbing my cigarette out in the ashtray. “I’ve made a lot of enemies
in my time.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said, smiling.
“What’s that’s supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, just that you have a way about you.”
“A way?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, squeezing my leg, and I smiled at her, a smile that was tinged with sadness by the damage done to her face. I knew she would heal, but it still hurt to see her that way.
“Here’s what I know,” I said. “If he doesn’t already, Kazuo will find out it was you who killed his man and left him out there for everyone to see. Before long, you’ll be his top priority, and you’ll have Yakuza coming at you from everywhere.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“That you need to forget about going after the underlings and making statements, and just go after Kazuo himself.”
“Go straight for the throat, you mean.”
“Exactly. But even then—” I paused as I shook my head.
“What?”
“Even if you kill Kazuo, you’ll still end up with the rest of the Yakuza clans coming after you. There’ll be no end to it.”
“So I’ll just take them all out.”
“I’m not kidding here. If you stop now, maybe Kazuo doesn’t find out it was you who killed his man. Maybe you can still walk away from this.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Sooner or later, Kazuo is going to come knocking. As far as he’s concerned, I’m still part of his Yakuza family, and I’m still his daughter despite everything.”
Jesus, I thought. Why is everything always so fucking complicated?
“So you don’t have a choice, do you?”
Resting her head against my shoulder, she said, “I don’t expect you to get involved. I’ll do things on my own.”
“I know you will,” I said as I put my arm around her. “And that’s what I’m worried about.”
Hannah and I both agreed that she should stay in her apartment, at least until her face had fully healed, which given her demonic/celestial abilities, shouldn’t take long. I thought it best that she lay low for a while anyway until the heat had died down a little.
