Cherry Blossom Girls 8

by Harmon Cooper

  But what could I do? It was better for me to focus on the mission at hand, uncovering more about Damon Lord, than to think about transgendered dwarfs or try to manage a career that would always be tainted by what I had done here.

  Still, the thought was there: maybe I needed to write another book.

  Maybe I needed to write a book about what we were doing internationally.

  Yes.

  I thought about this idea as I changed out of my clothing into a robe. For now, it was Gideon in a robe, sitting in his hotel room, Grace on the bed, her hands behind her head.

  I could feel she was monitoring my thoughts; she always was, so maybe it was her who had spawned the idea to write about what we were doing now.

  Maybe...

  Was she the mastermind behind all this?

  I didn’t dare think it, but I couldn’t help but let that thought push to the surface, and as I had before, I waited for Grace’s answer.

  None came.

  I made my way over to her, to see that she was sleeping, her mouth open, utter exhaustion on her face.

  She looked beautiful, but rather than stand over her like a creepy motherfucker, I moved to a plush chair, going back to the idea that I’d just been contemplating.

  A creative nonfiction gamer sci-fi book about our adventures abroad? How interesting would this be? How cliché would it be to come at them with a follow-up? I wondered if in the future, my works would fall into the same lane as Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan books, stories larger than life, too surreal to be true.

  What would someone in 2090 think?

  Gideon…

  The melodic sound had my ears twitching. I wandered out into the hallway to find Chloe standing there, also in a robe.

  “Ready for your massage?” she asked me.

  “My massage?”

  “Didn’t you hear them talking about this downstairs?”

  “To be honest, I was sort of in my head at the time.”

  “Aren’t you always in your head?”

  She took my hand, leading me down the wooden staircase to a lower level, where we found several rooms and a receptionist waiting for us.

  “Ready for your massage?” the female receptionist asked, smiling.

  I hadn’t seen a lot of Nepalis up close, but the ones I had seen looked different from the people of India, as Michelle had mentioned earlier. Due to their proximity to China, they had more of a mixed look to them, the brown tints of the subcontinent with the higher cheekbones, sure, but also the wider faces of the Himalayan region and Central Asia.

  They were definitely unique, as were the two people waiting on Chloe and me.

  “We’re getting a blind massage?” I asked.

  “Would you rather a seeing massage?” one of the massage therapists asked with a chuckle. Both were male, and both stood there gazing off into the distance, not quite making eye contact with Chloe and me.

  “Yes,” the receptionist said. “A blind massage. Is this okay for you, sir?”

  “It’s more than okay,” I told her. “Sorry if I, um, made that awkward in any way.”

  “It is quite all right,” she said as she led Chloe and me to a dimly lit room, where we found two tables waiting for us.

  “Are we supposed to undress fully?” I asked the receptionist before she could step out.

  She laughed, her hand coming over her mouth. “No, sir, please remain in your undergarments.”

  I looked to Chloe, to see that she was also giggling at me.

  “What? These are important questions.”

  “If you are expecting a happy ending, you probably will have to wait until later,” she said.

  “Is that so?”

  “We’ll see what happens.”

  Chloe took off her robe and lay down on the massage table, her bra still on. She unhooked it and kept the bra on her chest as she pressed against the table, allowing me to bring a towel over her back.

  “Who’s going to put a towel on for me?” I asked as I also lay down, arranging the towel myself.

  “Wow, you are really learning to take care of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Please, I’ve been taking care of myself for twenty-five years.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, believe what you want, it’s true.”

  “You walked out of the womb taking care of yourself, huh?”

  I chuckled. “Something like that. Had my first job at a different Yale gift shop when I was three months old. Anything to support the thriving Yale economy.”

  “You’re so ridiculous,” Chloe said as the two male massage therapists entered the room. My head was facing down, stuck in a hole that looked out onto the underside of the table, which made it even stranger when a pair of hands landed on my back.

  The hands started up, softly kneading my skin, digging into my muscles. And while I was aware of the sensation at the start, within ten minutes, I was in a spell caused by the release of endorphins, or whatever the hell getting a massage released in a person’s brain, on my way to la-la bliss.

  There were a few pieces to our recent puzzle that I hadn’t quite figured out yet.

  First, the Angel and Arianna angle.

  I knew that we shouldn’t have let her go with him, and the shaman had confirmed it. But the question still remained: where had Angel taken her, and what was he plotting to do?

  Arianna had hinted that Angel was lying to me, but I had never figured out what he was lying about aside from the fact he’d come after them, which wasn’t really that important of a detail anyway.

  I really couldn’t get a read on him.

  And if he had wanted to double-cross us, he would have done it then, or at least he would have tried. Hell, maybe the two of them together could have done it, and then Angel could have turned on her. There were a lot of factors and possibilities, but I still found it hard to believe that we were in an enemy of my enemy situation.

  In the end, Angel would come after us as well.

  And what about Mother? What about Remy, and all his goddamn clones? They had to be gunning for us, especially after what Michelle did to Mother’s unborn child by stabbing her in the stomach. This made me think of Natalie Johansson, that dirty Hollywood hating-ass bitch who continually tried to kill us with her minions.

  Well, we at least got Tokyo, which was not exactly what I was expecting. And we took one of Damon Lord’s as well, Regina, who was apparently a man all along.

  “It feels so good,” Chloe said, interrupting my rambling thoughts. “Enjoying yours?”

  “Yeah, it feels great. Thanks.”

  “It is my pleasure, sir,” the massage therapist said as he started applying more pressure to the back of my head. It was as if he were pushing out ideas and concepts, each press of his thumb sparking something new.

  I was transported again to the Mongolian steppe, Michelle racing ahead; Fiona and her water clone running in circles around me; Ingrid floating, reading a book; Chloe seated on the pillar that had lifted out of the ground, a microphone in her hand as she sang a beautiful song; Grace and Dorian, both looking the same aside from Grace’s white eyes, beckoning me forward; Stella erecting a vector shield between us; Veronique, my Veronique.

  I choked back a sob and the massage therapist let up.

  “Are you okay, sir?”

  “Sorry,” I told him. “You just released something there.”

  “I will continue, a little more softly now,” he said. “Sometimes these massages can reveal emotions that you may have been keeping secret.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Better to keep it out of mind and just let it pass. Memories are powerful things.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Just a few hours back, hell, less than that, I had literally thought Veronique was dead.

  I couldn’t hear her heartbeat, there was chaos all around me, and in that moment of calamity something came to me, a power that I still didn’t understand.

  “We need
to get cellphones,” I told Chloe as an afterthought.

  “Just enjoy the massage, Gideon. You’ve earned it.”

  “Right,” I said as the man moved down to my calves, digging his fingers in again, releasing some tension.

  I needed to relax.

  I knew that I was supposed to be enjoying this, but I was the leader of this strange little group, and I needed to wrap my mind around not only what we were supposed to do next, but what had happened today.

  It was clear that Hummingbird was after us, but how had he known we had gotten on the plane?

  He must have been running some sort of global facial recognition system, and one of our features was picked up in the airport.

  He was good, I would give the bastard that, and he would continue to be a thorn in our side until we took him out.

  As the massage therapist continued to knead my calf muscles, I started to formulate a plan on how we would do this.

  First, we would need to go back to America, clearly, which would give us time to check in with Father, meet with Clarence, and have our uniforms serviced by Vince Porter.

  I also felt that going back to America would allow me to get control over my writing again, take a bit of a breather as I talked to my agent, to Luke, to see what else I could do to spread the story.

  Maybe that should be my focus.

  It wasn’t a bad idea; the more people that knew about the Cherry Blossom Girls and what we’d been through, the more they would get on our side if the government tried to throw us under the bus, as it normally did, or if there was some type of televised attack.

  Then again, how many people actually read? It wasn’t exactly the most popular medium, even if there were tons of readers out there. We needed a bigger reach, and that meant we needed to move into larger mediums to tell our story.

  A new novel would help propel this forward.

  The last thought I had before the massage was over was about the coin that the shaman had given me. I’d kept it with me, just like he said, but was it really just a superstition? How was this going to help me do anything?

  After our massage, Chloe and I headed upstairs, dressing in the clothing they provided. It was yoga clothing, loose, made of nice organic cotton, but it worked, and we looked like a bunch of hippies afterward. Grace was awake now, and once our group gathered, we had dinner downstairs, where we were served curry.

  “It’s so spicy and good,” Michelle said, a headband tying her black and pink hair back, the young speedster eating her naan like it was pizza with curry on top.

  “You’re supposed to sort of tear off a piece of the naan and then use it to scoop up one of the potatoes, or whatever. Or you can just dip it in,” I explained to her.

  Dorian, who had been eating her naan like pizza quickly changed her eating tactics.

  “You will feed right after this,” I told Veronique, who sat at the end of the table with a cup of coffee in her hands, watching me with a hungry look on her face.

  “Thanks.”

  “And someone else needs to volunteer. I was her last meal,” I said, as the waiter came by with more food.

  “I’ll volunteer,” Ingrid said, as the waiter set a tray of dumplings in front of her.

  “What are these called?” Chloe asked.

  “We call those momos, madam,” the man said. “It’s a Tibetan dish, but I think it really comes from China.”

  “Great,” Ingrid said as she used her fork to stab one of the dumplings and stuff it in her mouth.

  More curries came, little bowls of lentils too alongside homemade yogurt and other dishes, including a big plate of fried noodles. The waiter also brought small glasses of rice wine which he told us was called “roxy,” the alcohol warming me with the first sip.

  I was stuffed in the end, my belly distended, the food heavy in my gut. I needed to walk it off, I knew it, and as I looked around the room, I figured a few of them would want to go for a little evening stroll as well.

  “Who’s up for a walk?” I asked.

  Dorian, who wore loose yoga clothes and a scarf around her neck, slowly raised her hand, the same hand which she used to place over her mouth, hiding a small burp.

  “That was cute,” I said.

  “I don’t even know if I have enough room to burp,” Michelle said. “I ate too much. I need to… I need to run.”

  Veronique cleared her throat. “As much as I appreciate your offer, Ingrid, I need to feed. I think it would be best for you to take a little rest, Michelle.”

  “Don’t be mean to me,” Michelle started to say.

  “She’s not being mean,” Grace told the young speedster. “You’ve been up for quite a while.”

  “How did you know I didn’t sleep last night?”

  “I just know,” Grace said.

  “I’m down for a walk,” Chloe told me.

  “Anyone else?”

  “I will join you too,” said Grace.

  “Good, let’s have a walk, and then get some rest. Tomorrow, we go to Kathmandu, where we’ll hopefully be able to get the drop on Damon Lord. Everyone get as much rest as you can. Shit could get pretty real in about twelve hours.”

  Chapter Eighteen: Pretty Garden Stat Dump

  The next morning came faster than I would have liked, but I was well rested, no disturbances during the night. As soon as I stepped out of my room, I ran into Michelle, who already had a small glass of milk.

  “Don’t forget, we still have to make the offering,” she said. “Ingrid’s instructions!”

  “Right,” I told her. “Let’s do that.”

  We went outside to the hotel’s courtyard and tossed a small cup of milk onto a bush.

  “Like that, right?”

  “Sure,” I told her. “I think Mary put a little more finesse into it, but it’s the thought that counts.”

  “Uh-huh. And that’s now our good luck bush,” Michelle said, beaming at me.

  “Sure, we can call it that.”

  “Cool.”

  “Definitely cool.”

  It was a pretty bush, one of many in the courtyard, with big yellow flowers that reminded me of daffodils. Maybe they were related to daffodils, there really was no telling.

  The space was serene, and its greenness made me miss Edgerton Park in Hamden. I felt at ease as I watched a tiny squirrel move along the limbs of the tree.

  “They’re so cute, right?” Michelle asked.

  “Definitely.”

  The Nepali squirrels were small, with black stripes down their backs, different than the critters we had running around Wooster Square back in New Haven, and easily a fourth of the size. Those were some serious megachonkers back east.

  “Gideon,” Michelle said, startling me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want me to bring you some coffee or tea?”

  “Yeah, that would be nice.”

  She reappeared again in a matter of seconds with a cup of coffee. Sure, the liquid was trembling a bit, but none of it had spilled out.

  “You really are talented, you know that?” I said as she sat down next to me, kicking her legs.

  “You think so?”

  “I don’t tell that to everyone.”

  “You’ve never told it to Dorian?”

  I bit my lip for a moment. “I plead the Fifth.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Grace?”

  “I’ve definitely said something like that.”

  “So you’ve basically told everyone, right?”

  “Okay, you got me.”

  Michelle laughed. “I really wish we could stay in this city. It’s really small and, um... another word that means ‘small and cute,’ please.”

  “Quaint?”

  “Quaint. There are a lot of really cool shops, all sorts of spiritual items too, like prayer beads and little figures and prayer flags and prayer wheels…”

  “Prayer wheels?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I saw one yesterday. It’s
like this stick with a cylinder on top. There are prayers inside, and every time you spin it, the wheel sends those prayers out to the universe.”

  “How did you learn all that?”

  “A guy tried to sell me one.”

  “Nice to know,” I told her with a smile as I took another sip of my coffee.

  Eventually the others joined me, the last one to step into the courtyard being Dorian, who was always a little bit sleepy.

  “We should start getting dressed,” Veronique said, taking charge. “We have to get to this Kathmandu.”

  “It’s going to be so crazy,” Ingrid said.

  “Did you read up on it or something?” Stella asked.

  “No, I talked to one of the hotel workers. He’s from Kathmandu.”

  “And we’re going to have to remember to keep an extremely low profile. With Hummingbird out…”

  “We’re going after him, right?” Veronique asked, her eyes narrowing on me. “Like soon. I’m still pissed about the attack in India.”

  “You bet your ass we are; I already told you this.”

  Michelle snorted. “You bet your ass, Veronique!”

  “Language,” I said, suddenly feeling a change of energy at the front of my body, Veronique draining just a little bit of my life force. “And I have a plan for what we need to do about Hummingbird, but like I keep saying, it’s too far to get to Mexico at the moment, and we don’t know if he’s actually there or not. Next on our list after Damon Lord.”

  I pulled out one of the smartphones that Grace had arranged last night. The hotel workers who had brought us clothing has also brought us phones, aside from Michelle, who was still in time out for taking the selfie back in India. She took it well, but I could tell she wanted to play with her phone.

  I hadn’t really played with my phone yet, aside from checking my email and telling Luke I would reach out to him in the future.

  “So what now?” Veronique asked.

  “Stat time.”

  “Fun,” Grace said, winking at me.

  I sunk my hand into my pocket to find my phone, my fingers grazing against the coin that the shaman had given to me. I had a few other things in my pocket that were always on my person, including the vial of Father’s blood, and the USB key that had Dr. Kim’s info on it. I hadn’t used this in a while, but it sort of stayed with me.