Honorless

by Alex Steele

  “I copied all the runes on the door down and attempted to translate them. I’m hoping you’ll see something I’ve missed, since you knew my mother as well.”

  Leaving the door to the room propped open, I pulled all my notes out of my father’s desk and spread them over the surface.

  Hiroji flipped through everything carefully, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “These are strange, almost inconsistent, which is not the way I’d normally describe your mother’s work.”

  I leaned a hip against the desk. “I thought the same thing. There must be something we’re missing.”

  He tapped a finger against one rune. “This is the first rune, and it’s very intricate. More intricate than the others, as well as more complete.”

  I picked up the sheet of paper and compared the rune he’d pointed out to the others. “Interesting. I hadn’t considered that.”

  Hiroji’s phone dinged with a message, and less than a second later, a low chime echoed through the Manor.

  “Ah, that should be my associate delivering the gift I got for you before our meeting,” Hiroji said without looking up from his phone. “I wasn’t sure if you might need more convincing.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What? To trust you?”

  “Yes.” Hiroji jerked his head toward the door. “We shouldn’t leave her waiting or she’ll let herself in. She’s very impatient.”

  We followed him downstairs in confusion. Before we reached the bottom of the stairs, someone banged on the door.

  “Like I said, impatient,” Hiroji muttered as he strode across the entryway. He jerked the door open and stepped aside.

  My brain stuttered offline as I took in the woman in front of me. Strappy stilettos clicked against the marble floor as she stepped over the threshold. It took longer than was entirely respectful to force my eyes up her long legs. A dragon tattoo wrapped around her left thigh and trailed up toward her hip, where a skin-tight, metallic dress covered the remainder. Two short swords stuck out of the plush fur coat draped over her shoulders. Gold embroidery, stretched to its limits, adorned the low-cut bodice of the dress.

  She put one manicured hand on her hip and tapped her viciously pointed nails against the curve of her waist. “You’re drooling a little, sweetheart.”

  My hand went to my mouth...just in case. No actual drool luckily.

  An elbow landed in my ribs and I winced from the blow. I glared at my attacker, but Swift’s answering glare quelled any complaints I might have voiced. She lifted a single eyebrow, which perfectly expressed her complete disdain.

  Hiroji rubbed his temples with an extended sigh. “This is my associate, Akita. Akita, this is Alexis Swift, Blackwell’s partner.”

  Akita nodded in greeting, her sleek black hair swinging around her face.

  Hiroji waved her farther inside. “Akita retrieved someone I believe the two of you have been searching for.”

  A young man around Bootstrap’s age shuffled into the room, eyes darting around like he expected the boogeyman to jump out at any moment. Floppy black hair hung in his face.

  He pushed it aside and gave us a tremulous smile. “Uh, hi.”

  “Who is this?” Swift asked.

  I still felt incapable of speech. All my effort was currently focused on looking at the kid instead of the woman standing next to him.

  “This is your thief, Ethan Dohlan. I’d been looking for him for a while. Certain unsavory organizations look for vulnerable children with his potential, then find ways to exploit them. I get them out. Akita was one of the first, and now she helps me as well.”

  Akita gave me a little wave and a wink. I awkwardly nodded back. My throat was suddenly very dry for some reason.

  I crossed my arms in an attempt to give my hands something to do. “That explains why you showed up on surveillance videos in the same area as Kevin Jacobs.”

  Hiroji’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t realize you had connected me to the case, but yes, that would be why. I didn’t go there personally, but people that work for me would have.”

  Swift cocked her head to the side. “Are you doing something similar with the Mage’s Guild and Alberto Bianchi?”

  Akita groaned. “Don’t even get him started on that pervy old vampire. I’m gonna stake Bianchi, and soon. That’s all that needs to be said about it.”

  Hiroji grinned at her, then looked back at me. “I thought about bringing you Bianchi’s head today instead, but…” he waved his hand at the room. “It wouldn’t really fit with your other decorations.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened to comical proportions and he took a step back. “Dude, I thought you said you were the good guys.”

  “There will be no decapitations without due process,” Swift declared, planting both hands on her hips.

  Akita stuck out her bottom lip. “You look like you’d be a lot more fun than you are.”

  Hiroji looked to the ceiling and took a deep breath, as if searching for patience, then turned to Ethan. “Give them the backpack.”

  A guilty expression stole across Ethan’s face and he pulled a bag off his shoulder. “All the rest of the stuff got sold, but this was my most recent haul. Mr. Saito said I had to give it back. As an apology or whatever.”

  He thrust the bag toward us.

  Swift took it from him and unzipped the bag, sifting through the contents. “You keep any other souvenirs from previous burglaries?”

  “Nah, they always catalogued what I grabbed. No way I was gonna risk trying to hold something back, ya know?” He shoved both hands in his pockets and shifted onto his toes, bouncing once. “Not to be shady, or whatever, but do y’all have a bathroom?”

  Akita rolled her eyes. “I’ll take you. I swear you pee more than a puppy.” She grabbed him by the arm and stalked off in the direction of the toilet.

  I narrowed my eyes as I watched them walk away. “How does she know where the bathroom is?”

  “She likes to be prepared for all situations,” Hiroji said with an absent shrug. “Is everything in the backpack as it should be? Our young friend still has sticky fingers.”

  “It’s all there,” Swift confirmed. Her phone rang. “It’s Lopez. I’ll be back.”

  She hurried off to the kitchen, leaving me once again alone with Hiroji.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?”

  He looked up and pursed his lips. “With which part?”

  “Any of it.”

  “Because you would have wanted to help.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” I demanded, feeling insulted all over again.

  He gave me an unimpressed look. “It would have been risky. You are impatient and brash. Can you honestly say that you wouldn’t have just rushed in and tried to kill or arrest the entirety of the yakuza? Or any other crime organization?

  I shoved a hand through my hair. “Would that really be a bad strategy?”

  “These things require patience and time, without both, you never get to the root of the problem. You stayed busy with the IMIB, and stayed out of my way. I stayed out of yours as well. It was a win, win.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “So are you.”

  He scoffed. “So we’re both assholes.”

  “And we’re both criminals now.”

  He took my measure for a moment, as if checking to see if I meant that as another insult. A slow grin spread across his face. “Welcome to the dark side, Logan.”

  My phone rang loudly and I pulled it out of my pocket. An unknown number flashed up on my screen.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Hiroji jerked his hand in acknowledgment, distracted by some message that had just arrived. I stepped into the kitchen before answering.

  “This is Blackwell.”

  “Did you do something? Did you try to rescue my Dad?” Alyssa choked out. Her breaths came out as short pants into the receiver of the phone.

  Atticus had to suspect we might go after Bootstrap, but there was no way he knew
exactly what we were planning. “No, why? What’s happened?”

  “This man showed up at our house. They had a warrant to search everything and he...he kept telling me how carefully he was going to look after my Dad, but he was lying. He’s going to hurt him, isn’t he? Why did he come here?” She cut herself off with a choked sob.

  My hand tightened on the phone. “Alyssa, where are you now?”

  She took a deep breath. “Still at home.”

  “Stay there. Wait for my next call, and don’t let anyone else in, okay?”

  “O-okay.”

  “I’ll call you back soon. I promise.”

  Fabric rustled against the phone and I heard Matilda crying in the background. “Please hurry.”

  I ended the call and headed back to the entryway. Akita and Ethan had rejoined Hiroji, but appeared to be preparing to leave.

  “Hiroji, you said you help people get out of tough situations. Does that mean you could hide someone?”

  He pinched his brows together, but nodded. “Yes, why?”

  “I’m going to need a favor.”

  Thirty-Five

  I plopped down in the high-back chair and let my head fall back against it. I had thought that once I was finally back at the Manor with a moment to myself, I’d be able to relax. Instead, my restlessness was only increasing.

  Alyssa had been nearly inconsolable when we’d arrived. I couldn’t blame her. Atticus scared me. He’d visited Chief Bradley’s daughter just to screw with me. For some strange reason, it seemed that he wanted us to break Bradley and Bootstrap out of Purgatory. Or at least wanted us to try.

  Alyssa and Matilda were being relocated. I didn’t know where to, and I didn’t want to. The less people that had that information, the better. We couldn’t take any more chances. Anyone connected to us had to be protected. Hiroji had people watching Billy and Sarah now as well, and at the first sign of a threat, they’d hide them too. I hoped it didn’t come to that.

  “Busy day?”

  I jumped and banged my knee against the bottom of the desk. “Dammit, Yui.”

  The kitsune prowled into the room with a self-satisfied smile. Holding my Oreos. “What? No hello?”

  I planted my elbows on the desk. “What do you want?”

  A stool appeared behind her. She perched on it, balancing the package of Oreos on her knees, then flicked her long ponytail over her shoulder. “You know, I’ve never once asked you for anything.”

  A headache began forming behind my eyes from the mental effort it took not to snap at her. “That’s true. You just show up and take things without permission. Are you back for good?”

  “Nope. I was just in the area, so I thought I’d pop in and say hello to my favorite helpless mage.” She pulled open the fresh package of Oreos and dug one out. “You’re out of milk, by the way. You should get some more.”

  I pressed my fingers to my temples. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

  “What are you working on?” She licked her fingers as she peered curiously at the notes strewn across the desk. They were all still laid out from when I’d shown Hiroji around earlier today.

  With a sigh, I lowered my hands and pulled my original transcription of the runes on the back of the door toward me. “Just translating something.”

  “Interesting. I never took you for the studious type.”

  I glanced up at her. Yui and I didn’t make small talk. And she never cared about what I was doing unless it involved food.

  “I seem to be missing a lot of answers lately, and no one wants to answer the questions that matter.”

  The corner of her mouth lifted in amusement. “Sounds terrible.”

  I flipped open a book. “It’s annoying.”

  She hopped off her stool and strolled over. I did my best to ignore her and focus on the first rune that Hiroji had pointed out as different, but she chewed very loudly.

  A cookie crumb bounced off the page in front of me. She brushed it away, leaving a smudge of the creme filling behind instead.

  “Those look pretty old-fashioned.”

  I tugged the paper out of her reach. “Yes, they are.”

  She began humming to herself as she paced around the office, poking at books on the shelves and making way more noise than was necessary. I slouched down in my chair and stared pointedly at my notes.

  These runes were connected somehow, and she was right, they were old fashioned. I needed to go back as far as I could and look at the older versions they’d developed from to understand the nuance of each—

  A pile of books hit the desk in front of me, throwing off my train of thoughts.

  Taking a deep breath before I reacted, I looked up slowly.

  She met my gaze with an innocent expression. “What?”

  “I’m doing something important.”

  “So am I. Reading is good for the mind.”

  My fingers tightened on the paper. “Go read somewhere else.”

  She sighed loudly and tucked one of the books under her arm. “Fine. I need to go find milk anyhow.” She wiggled her fingers at me, then vanished, leaving the Oreos on the edge of my desk like a peace offering.

  I stared at the cookies, but even the thought of eating one turned my stomach. I stood, too irritable now to sit still. Grabbing the stack of books, I began putting them all back. The last book was an old favorite — The Adventures of Hercules.

  It had been an old favorite after my mother had given it to me as a birthday present. I opened it, smoothing down the title page. Something pricked my finger and I jerked my hand away with a hiss. Blood bloomed on the tip of my fingertip. It had gotten on the page too.

  I moved to wipe the drop away, but it sank into the paper. A red tint spread throughout the entire page. The ink shifted, moving to form blocky new words. Piece by piece, a series of instructions formed. I recognized the runes listed. They were the same ones that my mother had written on the back of the door.

  This was the key to figuring all of this out. It may not help me open the chest, but I knew it was a start.

  Careful not to let the book close, I grabbed everything I needed and raced downstairs to her old workshop. The door was slightly ajar, making it easier for me to push open with my foot.

  The smell of magic lingered here even now. She’d spent a lot of my childhood locked in here like a mad scientist. She had been a scientist of sorts. Famous for her enchanting and rune creation. She’d been one of the best, if not the best at what she did. Her work during the war had saved many lives. And taken many.

  I set my things down and walked over to the wall to flip on the light. Bare workbenches and empty shelves greeted me. This place was nothing more than an empty shell now.

  My hands shook as I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. The instructions she left me required a bit of hands on work and a lot of floor space. I pushed two benches out of the way and grabbed a piece of chalk.

  Bit by bit, I began constructing one of the most complicated runes I’d ever used. As I placed each symbol, I finally began to understand. The magic wasn’t all that complicated. It wasn’t even groundbreaking. What was groundbreaking was that she had woven into it a code that acted like a password. She had left me something in this rune, and without the code, and a very specific construction, you could never discover it.

  Sweat dripped from my brow as I hovered over the final stroke of the rune. Doing this alone was reckless, perhaps, but I had to know. Sending up a little prayer to my ancestors for luck, I finished it and pushed my magic into the rune.

  Everything around me faded into shades of gray. A chill crept through my clothes, biting into my skin. Wisps of smoke lifted from the rune, but they didn’t drift away. They rose higher and twisted together. Slowly, a figure came into focus, then a face. One both familiar and strange. It had been so many years since I’d seen it.

  The figure didn’t move. She simply stared at me without emotion. “You decoded the rune.”

  My heart leapt up into my
throat at the sound of her voice. I had to swallow before I could reply. “Yes.”

  “You should know that I am not real. I am nothing more than a complex enchantment created in order to deliver a message that your mother thought best relayed in this manner.” Her smoky form shuddered and for a moment, her face lost its form. “Please confirm.”

  “I understand.” And I did, but she looked too real. Sounded too real. My brain could not convince the rest of me that it was not her. “What is the message?”

  The apparition folded her hands in front of her and took a deep breath. “Recorded message commencing in three, two, one…”

  A change washed over her. When she lifted her head this time, I knew it was real. A recording, yes, but it was her saying it.

  Our eyes met and she wrapped her hands together in a tight grip. “Logan, I’m so sorry.”

  Thirty-Six

  The kettle whistled, cutting through the early morning quiet. I lifted it off the stove and filled a cup so it could begin cooling.

  I’d found my favorite matcha in the back of the pantry and realized how long it had been since I’d bothered to make it at home. The powder inside was a vibrant green. I measured out two scoops with the ladle, then sifted them into the small, wooden bowl I used for this. Once I was sure all the clumps were gone, I grabbed the cup of hot water I’d poured a minute earlier.

  It felt right now, not too hot or too cool. The scent of matcha filled my nostrils as the hot water cascaded over the fine powder. I grabbed the whisk and stirred it in slow circles before reverting to a w-shaped motion to foam it up. It didn’t take long to mix completely.

  I set the whisk aside and lifted the cup to my nose, taking a long breath before my first sip. It was good. Better than I’d even remembered. I should have taken the time to make it more often.

  I glanced at the time. In about ten minutes, the Manor would be full of people again. The Awakened were scheduled to summon our group through the teleportation rune Yamashita had left in the spare room while she’d been a guest. I was as prepared as I could be.