"What does that mean?" Gama looked slightly affronted.
"Ishe's called the Rhino for reason." Yaki shook her head and then jerked it in the direction of the rented house. "Anyway, let’s go. Try not to let on to Guro that I've blabbed everything to you."
"Who's Guro?" Gama quickly fell into step besides her.
Chapter 25
Yaki resisted the temptation to tell Gama all about the mountain and the Dragon sworn and instead prodded him to tell her about his family. He told her how his tribe, The Four winged people, had come to the Golden hills after their Buffalo her had been decimated by a series of unfortunate events that included a war with the Wolf Riders, a crystal touched tribe of the far south that occasionally marauded through the western plains.
Gama was telling her how the Wolf Riders literally merged with the huge wolves they used as mounts and how they tore the Buffalo herd apart as they navigated the network of Alleyways to the little villa when they heard a pile of garbage hiss.
A small crumpled piece of paper arced out of the pile and tumbled to a stop at Yaki's feet. A rustle and the piled collapsed to half its size. Cautiously Yaki bent and picked up the wadded paper and unfolded. Stained like a discarded wrapper, it rough drawing of the villa's gate, a small bird with huge eyes hopped along the stone wall staring directly out of the paper. The bird's chest bore the symbol of the city's priest hood. Yaki stomach dropped as Gama peered over her shoulder. She'd warded the house but not the wall.
"Problem?" Gama asked.
"Maybe." Yaki crept down the last ally before the turn toward the villa's own. The sure enough, a sparrow perched near the gate, acting birdlike, hopping about. Yet after several minutes of observation, it didn't leave. "I suppose you can't summon that weasel by whistling, can you?" Yaki whispered.
"No, I could borrow him again but we'd have to go see my sister first." Gama said.
Yaki's hand went to her sword, pondering options. The bird was probably a sin sniffer, animal's blessed by the ancestors to spot corruption and evil spirits. Killing it would have a priest showing up with a team of Yozi hunters. Or with a proper crystal, someone could be controlling the bird directly and recording all who walked this alleyway. Yaki wished she had Blinky with them.
Either way, their hideout was comprised. "This way," she whispered, not moving immediately, as she scanned the neighbors for any sign of habitation. The little villa was flanked on either side with similar plots, small houses squatting in the middle of lush gardens. Bird song float out through a wooden gate crafted and lacquered often enough it shined in the sunlight. Which in this context meant that this would hurt.
"What-" Gama began but his voice was lost to the wind as Yaki burst forward and slammed the toe of her boot into the wall. She thrust herself up and fingers caught on the lattice work that decorated the top of the wall. Muscles pulled, remembering Murray's holler over the hum of the engine room, Don't you fall prissy miss! I'll paddle your entire backside if you break anything with those boney buttocks! Yaki pulled her chin up to the stone work, set her boots against it, adjusted her grip and pushed herself up far enough to hook her heel on the top of the wall. It was a thin thing, barely three inches wide.
"Hoi! What you doing there girl?" A woman scowled up from her laundry on the other side of the wall behind a larger apartment building. Yaki was about three gates down from her rented villa and the watching bird.
Yaki offer the woman a mischievous smile before Gama hit the wall hard enough that it nearly bucked her off. Gama scrambled to pull himself up behind her, read faced from the effort, despite the fact he hadn't needed to jump to reach the top of the way.
Upon seeing Gama, the woman rolled her eye back to the heavens, muttering rude about children. Yaki dismissed her from her mind as Gama struggled for balance behind her. While the wall along the narrow street was stone, the fences that separated the lots were thin planks of wood. A house cat might dance upon them but not Yaki nor Gama. She plotted her route. "Keep right on my heels." Yaki commanded.
She charged along the wall, as she reached the corner of the neighbor's plot she jumped down into the garden. Instantly a wind slammed into her exposed hands and face with the force of a slap. "Passing through!" Yaki shout and ran, guarding her face with her arms. The guardian Kami hit her again with invisible palms, Yaki stumbled, but refused to stop as the lush garden began to writhe as if all the wood within it had been replaced by snakes. A peach tree rained fruit down on top of her as she darted beneath it. Gama let out a scream somewhere behind her as a voluminous buzzing swelled in her ears. Her heart scrabbled up into her ears clinkaclinkaclinkaclinka but she had no time for it now or its pain. She rounded the back of the house and spotted her destination, a cherry tree in the back corner of the lot, extending branches into her own.
Shrubs and vegetables grabbed at her heels as she sprinted towards the tree. Muscle memories of chains guided her body as she swung herself up into its branches. Turning she found Gama booking it toward her, glasses askew, arms waving at that swarm of angry insects. "Gama!" Yaki offered her hands as the branch began to move behind her. She countered by putting one boot on the top of the fence.
His panicked eyes met hers. He leapt. Yaki's hands closed around his and she heaved. Her boots lost contact with the wood, body twisting with a half remembered dance, they found the ground first but gravity wanted more and slammed the rest of her down onto the ground. The breath went out of her with an involuntary oof!
"AAhh! Help!" Gama cried forcing to ponder things other than the stars in her vision. She turned her head to see Gama. He had landed in a tall shrubbery that Yaki herself had over shot. Woody stems were wrapped around his wrists and neck as he struggled in their grip.
"He's with me! My guest." Yaki said.
The animated wood instantly sprang back from their coils to a much straighter collection of stick and twigs. Gama tumbled out of it onto the clover that made up the lawn. Gama pushed himself up to his hands and knees. "Was that," He panted, "Really necessary?
Yaki stooped to rescue his glasses from a spiteful root that was attempting to drag them further into the garden's foliage. "It worked."
Gama stood and accepted his glasses. His face was splotched with the swelling mounds of insect stings. He winced as he adjusted his glasses then offered her a blue handkerchief, "You're bleeding."
She dabbed her lips and her fingers came away with blood much darker than her dress. Probing further, she found not only her lips bloody but fluid leaked from her nose as well. The kami next door had got her good.
"Who's your friend?" Guro's gruff voice asked from the back of the house.
"Ah Guro!" Yaki found her smile hurt. "Meet Gama, our new friend. Do you happen to have that first aid crystal handy?"
Guro half shrugged as her stared coolly at Gama. "I suppose."
"Stop that this instant!" Yaki snapped, flecks of blood arcing from her lips. "If this is going to work I need more manpower than one drunken oaf who thinks he's important. Gama will be the first of many. You don't get a say in who I pick and I'll not have you rearing up like a territorial dog at everyone I do business with." The anger ramped up the heat in her heart.
The swordsman’s bleary eyed expression soured under Yaki's verbal lashing. Mouth drawing into a puckered scowl. "Very well." He said as if the words particularly heavy. He drew to the side with a slight wobble and gestured at the open screen door behind him. "Welcome Mr. Gama. May my Lord take kindly to you."
"Good, now I hope you've restocked the pantry because I'm starving after that little dash." Even with her nose full of blood, she caught the whiff of alcohol as she stepped past Guro. That would have to be another conversation with the man. She entered the house and went immediately to her rigged up wardrobe in the second room. In it, she snatched her Golden Torii pendent from its hook and popped it in her mouth. The cool taste of the metal spread over her tongue and down her throat. Blasted habit, she chided herself. Still, she'd take whatever comfort she
could get and allowed herself to indulge it. Rifling through her dwindling supply of unsoiled and undamaged clothes, Yaki pulled out a simple linen kimono, the Death Panther's mark emblazoned across the back as if it were the character of a house.
Guro had done the shopping at least, Yaki spat out her pendent and grabbed a netted bag full of apples. They emitted a pleasant crunch when bitten into.
"Who are you?" Came Gama's voice wafted through the thin walls that divided the house.
"I'm her husband." Guro growls like a dog about to fight.
Yaki sighed at the two apples remaining in the bag and opened the door back into the room. "Don't give him that Guro. Gama's saved my life last night, you were probably drunk and passed out." Gama and Guro had positioned themselves on the opposite sides of the room. No sign of Guro's talking crystal.
Guro muttered something that Yaki didn't want to hear, turning away. "I can't help you if I have no idea where you are."
"You couldn't help me last night. And I don't need a drunken lout. When I need you, I'll let you know." Yaki bit off half an apple, the loud crunch bounding around the room. Gama looked like he was shriveling in the tension of the room.
"You disappeared! Put on a pretty dress and walked off! What am I supposed to tell the Lord?"
"Tell him I'm working on getting him his little thing and then we are done. What's the point of telling you, are you going to try to barge into a fancy party and save me?"
His back stiffened. "If you needed it. What happened?"
"Nothing, everything."
"That’s very clear." He said.
"I know. The important bit is I know how to get at the Quicksilver. And the next step is all about convincing a person to help me. That’s going to require some working together. I had an opportunity last night to go someplace you couldn't. And for what it’s worth, I over stepped and required bailing out. Which Gama did, for a price."
Gama's head snapped up.
Guro side eyed the youth. "How much did you promise him?"
"My sword." Yaki lied, giving Gama a mollifying wink. "He has a duel he needs to win next month."
Guro's face soured further and rubbed at a new scar on his hand. "Alright."
"Now, we have another problem." Yaki said and described the bird sitting on the done wall by the entranced.
"A bird? A bird is spying on us?" Guro reached for his sword as if he was about to charge over there and split the little avian in twain.
"No, the Kami of this hearth will prevent other spirits from listening in to anything we say inside the house. But its protection only extends as far as that gate."
Gama chimed in, "A watcher bird means the Priests suspect a impure spirit is in the area. If they knew precisely what they were looking for they would have pounded on that gate already."
"We have to move?" Guro asked.
"Once I leave through that gate we cannot come back. We'll have to kill the bird so they don't us it to track me." Yaki thought of Simon the rat. "We might have to live with the enshadowed."
"There is another way." Gama said as the corner of his tugged upward. "Although it might be a bit awkward.
Chapter 26
Yaki inspected her makeup in a small mirror as she sat on a low bar to inspect the damage to her makeup. Three bowls of delicately cooked pork and noodles taken their toll on her lips as expected. She touched that up with a bit of lip stick. More importantly, the dark cats eye wings were unmarred by the oily broth. Behind her Ryouta, Mitsuo and Yoshiaki had sauntered into the restaurant. Show time.
They headed toward the back, sliding into a wide booth that could accommodate three times their number. Ryouta sprawled his arms across the back and gazed out into the restaurant. Mitsuo slouched, sitting as far away from Ryouta as he could while Weasel sat close, taking out a pad of paper and licking his lips eagerly. A pitcher of beer was brought to the table and four glasses. Ryouta made a show of filling each, one for him and each of his friends and finally placing one opposite himself.
That seemed to be a signal. A flutter of looks and eye contact drifted through the crowd. One man split off and scurried toward the table. Head bowed he hurried into the seat opposite Ryouta. Shame seemed to etched in the young man's movements as he hurriedly shoved a thick envelope across the table.
Ryouta's lips moved, "See, that wasn't so hard was it?"
The man shuddered. Perhaps speaking something.
Yoshiaki grabbed the envelope, spread a black cloth on to the table and dumped the contents of the envelope onto it. Glittering gems caught the light among the gold coins. Hard currency, untraceable by the Noguchi banking systems, same as the bag of precious stones Guro cuddled at night. The man seemed to shrink as Yoshiaki counted through it.
How brazen, Yaki had to admire the utter balls or simple faith that Ryouta put in his family so the trio do business like this in the open. Any watchman could wander in here and catch them red handed. Usury was hardly outlawed in Golden Hills but the Steward demanded his slice of flesh and the purpose of the loans were always dutifully recorded.
With a nod of accent from Yoshiaki the man bolted away. Another took his place. Ink stained hands fluttered as he conversed with Ryouta, a scribe, low ranked and low paid judging by the way his satchel had the dullness of unoiled leather and frayed quality of his livery. This received a paltry portion of what the last one had handed over.
Mitsuo pretended not to be interested in the business of his cousins but his eyes would always watch the money change hands with a hungry stare. Oh Mitsuo, Yaki thought to herself, Are you clinging to some moral standard or do you have some other racket? Mother had always said there were two types of bottom nobles, ambitious and flops. Apparently Ryouta isn't content to simply live on his allowance.
Yaki watched half a dozen more people approach the table. Wealth flowed back and forth across it, mostly in Ryouta's direction. When no more clients came forward from the crowd, Yoshiaki scowled, double checked his pad and cast about the room. He found Yaki. His thin eyebrows nearly fled up into his oily hair. Sliding off her bar stool Yaki approached the table with a measured glide to her steps, pulling herself back from her face, letting it relax into the Lady Cat. Confidence surged through her as their stares prickled the hairs on the back of her neck. The damn heart barely ached today and with a belly full of ramen and pork, she had hours of fuel. Tonight she'd close the deal with either the Mitsuo or Ryouta.
"Well if it isn't Cinderella," Yoshiaki jeered hesitantly, eyes skirting to Mitsuo and Ryouta to see if they approved of the insult.
"Oh? Funny I don't remember waking up missing a shoe. The only thing I remember leaving on the floor were your tongues." Yaki smirked and recalled the actual way she had inexpertly bowed out of the conversation. "I also remember something about Valhallan Ice wine hitting me like a cannon shot and desperately attempting to cover that up."
That drew chuckles from all three and Yaki took that as an invitation rest herself on their table.
"We don't need any women here," Ryouta said, "No matter how determined you are to Gold dig, you had your shot at the ball."
Yaki let the Lady Cat give a grin like a that of a corpse experiencing rigor mortis. "Pun off my name again and I'll cut off more than your tongue. I've heard all those jokes. Secondly you're not who I'm here to see." Yaki twisted her torso around, placing her unbraceleted hand on the table, palm down, fingers spread. With a kick, she propelled herself into a one armed hand stand, held it a second and then fell down into the corner of the booth nearest to Mitsuo. It had been slightly further than she had calculated, and she landed with more force that she had intended, the impact jolting all three boys. She took an advantage of their momentary shocked expressions to scoot close to Mitsuo, fixing him with her best sultry look. "Well hello there handsome." She growled.
He looked like a stepped on a toad for a moment, eye bugging except his cheeks went for a color that wasn't green. Always undo expectations. Mistress Mana murmured in the back of her hea
d.
"Gotcha," Yaki pulled back with a laugh as Mitsuo coughed with embarrassment. Ryouta and Yoshiaki chuckled along with her, appeased for the moment. "Is business all done for the night?"
"For now." Ryouta shrugged, "Need to dig some rats out of their holes later." He searched Yaki's face for something, disapproval maybe. When he didn't find it, he leaned back and cracked his knuckles. Eye's distant, probably visualizing the face of some poor sap who owed him money. It took a special person to loan shark for pleasure. Eventually House Noguchi would curb him, either forcing a marriage to one of its stable of Minor Houses or in a ditch, depending on his talent and whether or not his parents gave a damn.
"You really shouldn't do that yourself." Yaki said.
"You offering your services?" Ryouta snorted.
"No just business advice. In here there is a little man up in the palace you hafta consider. Plausible deniability." Yaki felt a twinge of guilt as she spoke the words but she shrugged that off. There had been nights on the Fox Fire when you could smell nothing but blood. This was an act.
Yoshiaki waved her off, "Sticks for bones is too busy with the Lyndon to worry about us. He'll never antagonize Ryouta's Mother, not now. The more taxes he levies for the war, the more real hard currency becomes over slips of paper." He patted his purse. "Wars always shift things and you got to have leverage that not everyone can see."
"In here," he echoed her words, "You're a merchant." Mitsuo said causing everyone to look at him.
Yaki settled back with a smile. "Fresh in from the trading posts, seeking my own fortune in the big city." She paused, calculating. Would this be the time to set the thought in their heads?
Yoshiaki glared at her suspiciously. "You are a gold digger."
Yaki broadened her smile. "I would never sell myself for mere gold. Quicksilver maybe but nothing so common as gold."
"Quicksilver?" Ryouta asked, taking the bait. "Mercury? What's so special about that? Other than its nasty and poisonous."
Dragon's Cage Page 13
