by Gary Jonas
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
One-Way Ticket to Midnight
About the Author
WEREWOLF SAMURAI
The Second Kelly Chan Novel
by Gary Jonas
This book is dedicated to YOU!
Thank you for reading.
CHAPTER ONE
“It’s the full moon and people are going crazy,” Jennifer Hansen said on the phone. “I just got a call from a regular who says she fears for her life.”
I stood in my bedroom wrapped in a towel. Jennifer’s call came in right as I stepped out of the shower. “I’m going to put you on speaker,” I said and did so. I set the phone on the bed so I could dry off. “Okay. Fill me in.”
“A woman named Wakumi Himura called begging for a ride to the shelter. She says her husband is going to kill her, and he disabled their car.”
“Has she called the cops?” I asked. I dressed as we talked.
“She says they won’t do anything.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “She’s called them on multiple occasions, but she always refuses to press charges.”
“It’s like you’re psychic,” Jennifer said. “Look, I hate to impose, but I’ve met her husband and he scares me.”
Jennifer worked at a place called Safe House, a shelter for battered women and their children. They have a central location in Glendale near Colorado Boulevard and every now and then they refer women to me for self-defense training. And on rare occasions, Jennifer calls me to help women escape from potentially violent situations. She recognized predators when she saw them. She was one of my first students, so if she said Mr. Himura was dangerous, I believed her.
“What’s the situation?” I asked.
“Wakumi has spent several nights with us each month this year. She called yesterday to make sure it was okay for her and her daughter to stay with us this month too. Her daughter, Cho, is a sweetheart. Eight years old and full of energy. Well, Wakumi called a few minutes ago and begged for a ride. She was quiet and scared. I asked if she was safe. She said no, her husband was going to kill her and Cho.”
“She needs to get out of there and wait at a neighbor’s house. She can call for a cab or Uber.”
“She won’t do that.”
“That’s stupid.”
“No argument. Can you go over there?”
“Give me the address,” I said.
She told me.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes. What’s the husband’s name?”
“Ichiro Himura,” she said. “And Kelly?”
“Yes?”
“Wakumi let it slip that he might be Yakuza.”
Yakuza was the Japanese mafia. Technically, the Yakuza was twenty-one crime groups in Japan, and depending on which group Himura belonged to, it could be significant or not. I noted it, but didn’t care because it wouldn’t change what I needed to do.
“I’ll bring Wakumi and Cho to you,” I said.
“Thanks, Kelly.”
“No thanks are necessary. It’s what I do.”
And if I got lucky, Ichiro would be there and would say or do something that would give me cause to cut off his head.
Predator, meet apex predator.
I grabbed my sword and headed out to rescue a mother and her daughter.
***
Domestics suck. They suck even worse on Mondays, and when you toss a full moon into the mix, it’s not a good recipe.
Women are drawn to alpha males. The problem is that too many women don’t realize that while some men are confident, some are just assholes. And too many of those men can turn on the charm. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” some asshole says after punching his lover in the face. “It won’t happen again. I’ll change.” Bullshit. If a man ever hits a woman, rest assured he’ll do it again.
Cops hate domestics because the women refuse to press charges and are as likely to fight them as the men the police are ostensibly there to stop. If the women don’t press charges, there’s no paper trail, and when things escalate, and they pretty much always do, the woman ends up in the hospital or the morgue. I don’t feel physical pain, but it hurts me to see these women who’ve let their self-esteem get stomped into the ground so much that they feel they deserve what abusive men do to them.
So I hate domestics as much as the cops do. In my case, I don’t care if the woman wants to press charges. I’m happy to show up, beat the hell out of some asshole and extricate the poor woman from her bad situation. Sadly, these women who serve as punching bags for these pricks always plead with me not to hurt the bastards. If it were up to me, I’d just kill them all. Get them out of the gene pool.
These thoughts and others floated to the surface as I drove across town to help a woman who wouldn’t appreciate it and would probably go right back to the bad situation the first chance she got. She’d already shown a pattern. Every month she spent time at the shelter. Every month. And she had a daughter. How long would it be before the husband started pounding on little Cho, too?
So yes, I knew what to expect. Wakumi would be locked in a bathroom with her daughter, and her husband would be banging on the door demanding she come out and take what she had coming. If all went well, I’d go in, smack the shit out of Ichiro and take Wakumi and Cho out to my truck so I could drive them to safety. They’d go back in a few days and the cycle would repeat until it escalated and ended up with Wakumi lying in a cold, silver drawer wearing nothing but a toe tag.
And people say I don’t have a sunny disposition.
When I pulled up to the house, everything looked normal except the Honda Accord with two flat tires parked in the driveway. Night was falling and the full moon was on the rise, but it was still light enough that I hadn’t used my headlights. I parked at the curb and slid out of the truck.
Someone was watching me.
I did a slow turn to check the surrounding houses. Nosy neighbors often keep tabs on one another, and while they might call the police if they spot a burglar, they don’t want to get involved in domestic disputes, so Ichiro could probably drag Wakumi out on the front lawn and punch her repeatedly without anyone stepping in or calling for help. I didn’t detect any neighbors observing me, but there was definitely someone there. Someone good enough to stay out of sight.
Interesting. I made a note and moved up to the house.
I rang the doorbell.
Waited.
Rang the doorbell a second time.
I heard something crash inside the house.
That was close enough to probable cause for me. I stepped back and kicked the door hard beside the knob. The jamb splintered and I shot into the house.
Darkness descended, but no lights were on. A credenza stood against the wall on the left. Stacks of mail and papers covered the top. Coats hung on a rack to the right. A
mat spread out on the floor held a selection of shoes. I knew from their names that they were Japanese, but even with shoes at the door, I couldn’t be sure they followed the tradition of not wearing shoes in the house. I elected to ignore decorum and kept my boots on as I moved down the hall.
The living room stood open with a sectional positioned around a large television. A low-floor elm wood tea table sat in the center of the floor with a tea set and three cups laid out. Two of the cups still held warm tea. A soft lamp cast dim light from the corner. The wall art was tasteful and consisted mostly of framed kanji, hiragana, and katakana. A few paintings of pagodas adorned one wall.
I cocked my head, listening. I thought I heard movement in the basement, but I wasn’t sure.
A hallway to the right led to the bedrooms, but they were all dark. The kitchen stood in darkness as well, but a door to the basement hung ajar and light spilled onto the floor. Now I could definitely hear movement downstairs, but my instincts told me to check the bedrooms first.
Always trust your instincts.
I swept the bedrooms, starting with a quick glance into the first two, one of which was an office, then checked the master suite. Empty, but nicely decorated. Family pictures hung on the walls. A small suitcase sat on the king size bed. The office was neat and held a large desk with a laptop computer and a printer. Bookshelves lined the walls and looked like old hardcover law books. Was Ichiro a lawyer?
The other bedroom held a twin bed, unmade, though it featured a Pokemon bedspread. Toys littered one side of the room, but the area from the door to the bed and closet were clear to keep a walking path available. The closet door was closed. I eased it open.
A little girl huddled on the floor beneath hanging colorful dresses, tears in her eyes, but silent as death.
I knelt before her. “Are you Cho?” I whispered.
She nodded.
“I’m with the Safe House.”
Her eyes lit up and filled with relief, but the relief gave way to fear in a heartbeat. She still didn’t speak.
“Will you come with me?” I asked.
She reached out her hands and I scooped her up. She wrapped her arms around my neck. I eased her over so I could hold her with my left hand, keeping my right free should Ichiro show up. Her tears wet my shoulder as I carried her out of the house and to my truck. Again, I felt like someone was watching, and as before I didn’t spot anyone.
I opened the passenger door and set Cho on the seat.
“Is your mother inside?” I asked.
“Daddy has her in the basement,” she said.
I turned to go, but Cho grabbed my arm.
“Don’t go in there,” she said shaking her head. “Daddy won’t be safe until morning.”
“I need to get your mother out of there, Cho.”
Cho fought back tears. She shook her head. “Don’t go.”
“You’ll be safe here,” I said. “I’m going to close the door and set the alarm. If anyone tries to get into the truck, my keychain will vibrate, and I’ll know to come back to you.”
She didn’t look convinced, but I closed the door and set the silent alarm anyway. I started toward the house and realized no one was watching now.
Screams sounded inside the house. I broke into a run and burst inside. Something clanged and crashed in the basement. Someone down there spoke in Japanese, but as I don’t speak the language, I don’t know what was said. Male voice. Ichiro?
I bolted down the stairs into the basement and took in the scene in a heartbeat.
A bleeding woman sat unconscious against a mangled steel cage on the right. There was a prescription bottle and a hypodermic needle on the floor beside her. There was also some kind of medical unit inside the cage, but I didn’t have time to look at it. A masked man clad in black clothes and a samurai helmet struggled with another man, who appeared to be wearing a full-headed wolf mask, though it lacked an elongated snout. The wolf-masked man growled and slashed at the man in black.
“Am I interrupting your play date?” I asked, drawing my sword.
“Get the woman out of here,” the man in black shouted. His mask covered the lower half of his face like a plastic bandanna, and he kept his head down so I couldn’t see his eyes or forehead.
The wolf guy launched himself at the man, and they crashed against the cement wall.
“Hurry!” the man said.
I wanted to fight, but I had a scared little girl in my truck, and her mother could have been dying, so I slid my sword back into its scabbard and moved to the fallen woman.
Her pulse was strong, but she’d been slashed a few times. Once across the stomach, and once across the face. Four huge scratches in each place.
The men fought on behind me, twirling as if dancing, but ending those graceful movements by slamming into the cement walls.
I lifted the woman, and turned to carry her up the stairs. Before I left, I took one last look at the fighters. The man in black had his arm in the other guy’s mouth. The beast man chomped down hard and shook his head, sending droplets of blood flying in every direction, and I realized then that the guy with the flattened wolf face was not wearing a mask.
CHAPTER TWO
The claw marks were deep, and I wasn’t sure Wakumi could make it if I went back inside to help the man in black. I also wasn’t sure the man could handle that beast, and I didn’t want it loose in the neighborhood, but I had to set priorities. I carried Wakumi to my truck and put her in the backseat. Cho watched with sad eyes, but didn’t cry or say anything. She simply gazed at her mother and my impression was that she’d seen plenty of bad things in her short life.
“You all right, Cho?” I asked.
She shrugged.
That shrug spoke volumes, and made my decision easy. I climbed into my truck and raced toward the closest hospital: Porter over on Downing Street. We were close enough that it would be faster for me to drive them than to call for an ambulance, which would only serve to keep them in danger should that wolf man get out here. My job was to rescue the mother and daughter. Their father, some man in black, and a beast were not part of the job description.
Safety first.
“She’s going to be all right,” I said to Cho. As I sped down the side street, I pulled my phone and dialed nine-one-one. I gave the dispatcher the address and said a fight was in progress then hung up.
Cho looked at her mother, who bled on my backseat. Then she looked at me. “Did Daddy bite her?”
“What kind of question is that? Your father fought off the beast while I got your mother out of there.”
She looked at me like I was stupid.
“What’s that look for?” I asked and whipped around cars. Tires screeched when I cut off an SUV. The driver honked at me and I glanced in the rearview to see a soccer mom flipping me the bird. Charming.
“Daddy couldn’t fight as a man at this hour.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a werewolf,” Cho said.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.
“Say what?”
“You saw him, so you know it’s true.”
“All I know right now is we need to get your mother to the hospital.”
Cho shrugged. It was something she did quite well. Then she gazed out the window, staring at the other cars filled with people living ordinary lives. We had to stop at a red light because I couldn’t get around the car in front of us, and in the next lane, a little girl in a green station wagon looked over at Cho and waved.
Cho lifted a hand to wave back.
Two little girls waving to each other, one moving on to play with dolls in her mundane life, and one with her mother bleeding out in the backseat.
The light changed, and once traffic moved, I managed to dart around a few cars to get to our turn lane.
“We’re coming up on the hospital. I want you to stay in the car.”
“No,” Cho said. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Your mother needs medical
attention, and I can’t keep tabs on you while I get her checked in.”
“I want to stay with Mommy.”
“They won’t let you.”
“Then I want to stay with you.”
I pulled into the hospital and parked at the front entrance. “Fine, stick close to me then,” I said.
As I hopped out of the truck, a man at the valet parking shook his head and started toward us. “You can’t park there, ma’am,” he said.
But as he approached, I pulled Wakumi from the back and he must have seen the blood because he jumped in to help.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Animal attack,” I said.
He keyed his radio. “Trauma patient at main entrance. Major blood loss.”
He rushed inside, and before I could carry Wakumi to the entrance, the valet was back with a wheelchair.
“I didn’t see a gurney,” he said.
Several men ran toward us as we wheeled Wakumi into the lobby. Cho stayed right behind me, quiet.
“What happened?” a doctor asked.
“She was mauled by a dog,” I said.
He examined her wounds. “Must have been one big-ass dog,” he said.
He barked orders to the security men, and nurses, and they took Wakumi down the hall. A nurse remained with us. She was a middle-aged stocky woman with graying hair.
“They’ll take care of her,” the nurse said, her voice calm. “Can I get some information from you?”
“Before you do,” the valet said, “I need to move your truck.”
I tossed him the keys and handed him some cash. “Thanks for your help.”
“Any time, ma’am.”
The nurse asked a bunch of questions as she led us to a waiting room. I answered what I could, and Cho helped with a few. I was glad Cho didn’t mention werewolves to the nurse. Once enough paperwork was filled out, the nurse left us.
“I’ll be back with an update on Mrs. Himura’s condition,” she said. “For future reference, call an ambulance. Paramedics could have been working on her as they drove to the emergency room.”
I nodded and didn’t tell her that the larger concern was the beast coming out of the house to attack people. Then again, I’d left before the police could get there, and people were still in danger, but there’s only so much one person can do. Besides, if the neighbors were stupid enough to challenge a werewolf, that was their problem.
