Black Pearl Dreaming

by K. Bird Lincoln

  “No Council chucking word from me,” I answered in Japanese. Was that a curl of disappointment in the usual, wide smile?

  “Have to keep trying,” he said, returning earbuds ten times more expensive than my cell phone to his ears. Apparently First Peoples Kind didn’t face the same kind of socio-economic disadvantages as the humans did. Kwaskwi hadn’t even blinked at the last-minute trans-pacific fare.

  Prosaic, much? My mind was doing the usual, going off on tangents so I didn’t have to think about weightier-but-more-difficult things. Like Dad. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell in even breaths.

  Better because I’d left him alone and my nearness agitated him? No, it had to have been the fragment I’d consumed. Like releasing a pressure valve. Either way, no way in hell was I going to let Ken wake up Dad by climbing over to his window seat coming back from the toilet. I gripped the backs of the seats and more or less hoisted myself over Dad’s folded legs.

  Ken had already completed the flight magazine’s crossword puzzle. Crumbs from the snack biscotti covered his seat. Worst of all, my cheapo earbuds were tucked away in the seat back pocket completely out of reach unless I jostled Dad. For a good five minutes or so I fumed. Where was Ken? I imagined him chatting up one of the cute Japanese stewardesses and closed my eyes, until the crazies settled back into the box where I usually kept a lid on pathetic thoughts.

  The seat was warm, and the vibration of the plane made me so, so tired.

  Next instant, completely without fade-in or other helpful transition, I woke with a start to a pounding headache.

  “Koi,” said Ken, ensconced in the aisle seat. “We’re about to land.”

  “What?”

  “You slept four hours. We’re landing in Narita. Can you wake up your father?”

  That was definitely crusted drool on my cheek. Sleeping while sitting up was the worst. “No,” I said. Then gave a weird little laugh at the taken-aback expression on Ken’s face. “I mean, I don’t want to touch him. Can you?”

  Ken started to say something, and then visibly back-tracked. “Thunderbird’s fragment?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s dreaming something I’ve never seen before.” I glanced at Kwaskwi, watching avidly over Ken’s shoulder. He pointed at the corner of one eye and then at me. Ah, crusted drool wasn’t my only post-nap surprise. Eye-cheese was also on the menu.

  “Akihito,” said Ken, gently shaking Dad’s shoulder. With a jerk, Dad’s eyes flipped open and every muscle in his body flexed, tendons standing out in stark relief in his wiry neck and forearms. His mouth opened in a silent scream. Ken hadn’t even touched bare skin, and Dad looked like someone was force-feeding him nightmares. I reached for his sleeve, but Dad knocked my hand away.

  “We have to calm him down,” I said.

  Ken rapidly whispered in Herai dialect.

  “Good luck getting through customs and immigration,” said Kwaskwi.

  “Dad, what’s wrong?”

  “I can’t do this,” said Dad through gritted teeth. He was lucid. This wasn’t the dementia. All the breath whooshed out of him, visibly deflating into a heap of bones covered in a Delta red blanket.

  “We’ll be off the plane soon,” said Ken in English.

  “It’s not the plane,” said Dad. “We’re too close. I thought I could handle it, but I was fooling myself. Resisting made me weaker, not stronger.”

  “Close to what?”

  “I didn’t want this for you, Koi,” said Dad. The vague unease I’d felt as we gotten closer and closer to Japan joined my overall ill feeling. The plane touched down with a jerk. All around us passengers rustled, stretched, and began rooting around for belongings.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll get you off the plane and then you’ll be okay.” Even as I spoke the words, it was clear they were meaningless sounds. Everything wasn’t okay. We were very far from okay. And far from home. I’d thought letting Ken take us back to Japan to meet the Council was our only hope for Dad to fight this dementia and for me to figure out how to control this dream eating business. But a small part of me worried it was only going to make things worse.

  “Do it, Kitsune. It’s the only way I’ll survive Tokyo,” said Dad to Ken.

  “Are you sure?” Ken asked.

  “Do it!” The people in front of us paused in their sleepy conversation.

  “What are you doing?”

  Ken ignored my agitated whisper. He pulled out a slim syringe filled with a deep green liquid from a zipped, black toiletry bag.

  I gasped. “How did you even get that past security? Don’t even think about injecting that into—”

  Ken plunged the syringe into the juncture of Dad’s neck and shoulder.

  “God damn it!”

  Dad opened his eyes and cupped my cheek, thumb gently smoothing back a stray lock of hair. Dad was touching me. Voluntarily. I reeled from shock, or altitude drop or whatever. I almost missed his whisper in Japanese. “Listen to Kawano-sama, not Tojo. But don’t let them trick you. Don’t touch the Black Pearl.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Black Pearl? Dad. What are you talking about?”

  Dad’s eyelids fluttered shut. The urgency dissipated. He relaxed. At peace. No wonder this touch hadn’t given me a fragment, Ken’s syringe knocked him out.

  Great. My life was turning into a thriller movie complete with a cryptic warning.

  “What was in that syringe?”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “Did your plan include getting him off the plane in this state?” There was no way I could lug Dad off a plane even with the guys’ help.

  “Yes.”

  What? That was all the explanation I got? Guess Mr. Kitsune was cranky ‘cause I questioned his syringe decision.

  Passengers filed past us, towing roller-suitcases. Kwaskwi exchanged some kind of intense, guy-challenge look with Ken, but exited out the far aisle with only a wink my direction. Once the back of the plane had cleared, a stewardess made her way toward us.

  “Ready to deplane?”

  Ken shook out his arms, cracking knuckles in his left hand. “I’m ready.”

  The stewardess backed up a few paces, reaching for an overhead bin just in front of the bathroom marked with a red cross. She pulled down a folded dolly and pushed it back to our row. Ken scooped up Dad and wrestled him to a sitting position on the dolly.

  “You are not bungee cording my father to that dolly.”

  “She going to make trouble?” asked the stewardess in Japanese at the same time as Ken said in English, “Trust me.”

  My Dad. People needed to start listening to me.

  I reached for the stewardess as she wrapped the bungee around Dad’s chest. She flinched just as my fingers circled her uniformed wrist, and my pinkie brushed bare skin. “Hey, what do you think you are—”

  Heat shimmered down my body from crown to toes, then back up my legs to my belly. A cramp bent me double. Gray static clouded my vision. I gasped for breath. Chest heaving, I straightened up with a feeling like I’d just spent the past few hours on a boat battered by waves, landlubber wobbles and all.

  The static slowly cleared to the very edges of my eyes, leaving behind the old-hay smell of tatami mats and dim light of a room with closed windows. I knelt in seiza, robe folded neatly under my knees, in a room with gorgeously-painted door panels. A tiger with vivid green eyes, a pair of emerald-feathered pheasants, and a dragon, long and sinuous like a snake coiled in black-scaled rings, stared down from the walls.

  Heavy layers of robe weighed down my shoulders. Sweat gathered on my upper lip. I used a bit of power to make the sheen seem to disappear. But that bit of power drew the attention of the Council Lord. Frowning down at me from his seat of honor on the platform, I could almost read his thoughts. Halfbreeds used power for such lowly purposes. A dark storm cloud of disapproval practically hovered over his head. I would be still, and not flaunt my power here. I didn’t want the Lord to make trouble. I needed
to appear docile.

  Something stung my cheek. My stomach clenched, static spreading thickly again, and the weird sensation of falling backwards while standing still. The room, the robes, and the dragon’s black coils all dissolved into tattered wisps of illusion and streamed away like smoke from a blown-out match. Ken’s face, eyebrows knit together into a furry caterpillar of worry, filled my field of vision. Over his shoulder the stewardess rubbed her arm. “What was that?”

  “A dream,” I said, voice gravelly as if I’d been silent for a month. “Your dream.” Just my luck the stewardess was Kind. I’d learned to handle regular dreams in the past week, a surreal experience no longer having to fear casual touch, but Kind dream fragments were super-charged.

  “You’re Baku, too,” she said in an irritated tone.

  Ken told her in Japanese that I was untrained, a neophyte, and half human as well. I was still reeling from the tatami room and the fearsome lord in her dream. Since when were fragments so vivid and first person? It felt so much like a memory. I mean, Kind dreams were always strong, but this was like Technicolor, Dolby surround sound. The vivid dreams I’d gotten from other Kind before were memory dreams. This was just like a memory dream. But how could samurai and painted castle walls be her memory?

  “What are you?”

  Ken gave me a pointed look. “We don’t usually ask that, but she’s like me.”

  I bit my tongue against the urge to point out she’d asked me first. A Kitsune. I should have guessed from that small bit of illusion she’d used in the dream fragment. Ken rubbed his hands together and smoothed them down Dad’s shoulders and arms, ending with a little flounce. Suddenly, it wasn’t Dad strapped to the dolly anymore, but two large oxygen tanks.

  The stewardess smirked at my dumbfounded expression. I have a feeling we’re not about to become besties.

  We fell in line behind the dolly-pushing stewardess, filing past the smiling pilot and up through a chilly, overly air-conditioned walkway. A teeming mass of humanity swirled around us as soon as we exited. I shivered. So. Many. People.

  The narrow corridor curving around the outside of the departure lobby barely contained all of us with our rolling luggage. Someone stepped on the back of my shoe. A lady, somehow magically unrumpled and hair picture-perfect, knocked my rollerbag over with her own Gucci monstrosity. I hurried to keep close to Ken as everyone else in the corridor tried to reach immigration first in the passenger melee. Down another two escalators, through another narrow hallway, and then I was cut off by a posse of blonde kids. By the time I caught up with Ken, the stewardess was waiting with the dolly and a pursed expression in front of a bank of elevators.

  “Ato de,” said the stewardess. How much later did she mean she’d see us? The surging migration of other passengers broke around us, ignoring us three completely.

  “Wait,” I said. “What are you doing with…the oxygen tanks?”

  Ken shook his head.

  All of sudden, I realized the last passengers had crammed themselves onto a long down-escalator. We were alone. The skin on my neck and shoulders felt oddly tight and warm, as if the other passengers had pushed all the air conditioning in front of them. The elevator door just behind the stewardess dinged. Startled, we all turned. The doors slid open.

  Three young, wiry guys with the same angular chin and muscled swimmer physique as Ken stepped out of the elevator. They were dressed all in black, including leather gloves, except for one wearing a red, button-down shirt. Ignoring the stewardess’ startled protest, the tallest one grabbed the Dad-dolly and the other two planted themselves like a living wall in front of me and Ken. I lunged around Red Shirt, but he casually blocked me with a swift kick.

  Ow. I grabbed my leg.

  Ken tore off a guttural string of curses dripping with rolled r’s like a yakuza boss in one of Dad’s TVJapan movies but the living wall stood implacable. The elevator dinged again. The tall guy yanked the dolly with him into the elevator.

  Dad! They were taking Dad, and I was standing here, useless and frozen. Ken dropped his roller bag to grapple with the third guy, while the stewardess scuttled backwards like a scared crab. Red Shirt held me off with one outstretched arm. If I could touch bare skin, draw his power along with a fragment like I had the ice hag Dzunukwa back in Portland, then maybe I could—

  Red Shirt dodged my questing fingers. His buddy, caught in some kind of complicated headlock by Ken yelled in warning. “Baku ni ki wo tsukete. Sawarareru yo!”

  “Hai,” muttered Red Shirt. He backed up a couple steps, elbows cocked in front.

  That’s right. Don’t let the dangerous Baku touch your skin.

  They were Kind. They knew I was Baku. As I stood there gaping, a small, dark blue shape came hurtling past my left shoulder and crashed into the back wall of the elevator.

  The doors slid shut on the dolly and the startled face of the tall attacker.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ken swung his guy by the arm, crashing him headfirst into Red Shirt. They both hit the floor and I jumped over them to punch the elevator call button. Two times. Three times. Frantically I punched the buttons so hard I swear the plastic cover cracked. Nothing.

  Two minutes in this damn country and I’d already lost Dad. I turned and slumped against the wall with suddenly floppy knees. I closed my eyes against welling heat. When I opened them, Ken faced off against the only attacker still standing, Red Shirt.

  “You won’t hurt us,” said Ken in Japanese. Red Shirt had gotten a stranglehold on the stewardess. “You’re an extraction team.”

  “Care to wager her neck on that, Bringer?”

  Ken bristled, then flicked a glance at me. Nervous about being called ‘Bringer’ in front of me? I had bigger fish to fry. They had Dad. Which way was the stupid elevator going? The digital numbers at the top of the doors counted down. Down was good. I could jump down stairs faster than running up them.

  “Where’s the stairs?” I said, propelling myself off the wall with a jolt of adrenaline.

  “You’re too late,” said Red Shirt in accented, deliberate English.

  “The stairs!”

  Ken shook his head. “Once they’re out of our sight, they can use illusion to look like anybody. Our best chance of tracking Herai-san is this guy.”

  The attacker lying on the floor suddenly executed one of those acrobatic kick ups like a ninja or a hip-hop dancer. He shook out his arms, cracking his knuckles.

  “No hard feelings, handmaiden,” said Red Shirt, giving the stewardess a little shake. “We can’t have you following us.”

  Mr. Hip Hop Ninja pulled a riot stick from the back of his pants. Ken crouched low, arms in a defensive karate-looking posture. I would have snorted at the cinematic surrealism of it all, but instead I smacked my forehead with an open palm.

  The escalator! Maybe I could still catch Dad.

  There was a muffled thud as Red Shirt tossed the stewardess against the wall. She gave a strangled yelp. That distracted Ken long enough for Hip Hop Ninja to nail him in the stomach with the riot stick.

  “Back off. Let us go and no one will get hurt. Or at least not more hurt,” said Red Shirt as he circled Ken, keeping him boxed in. He almost seemed rueful. Bastard.

  I made for the escalator, but Hip Hop Ninja lunged in front of me, riot stick raised in a block. “We keep here you two more minutes,” said Red Shirt behind me. His lame English felt like an insult.

  Ken kicked out his legs, but Red Shirt nimbly spun away, sneaking in a punch to Ken’s kidney on the rebound.

  “Okay, okay,” I said in English. No need to let them know how well I spoke Japanese. “Stop hitting him. What are you doing with my father?”

  “Sorry, can’t telling you in front of Council slave,” said Red Shirt. This dude was unreal. His mangled grammar made me want to gnash my teeth. The elevator dinged again.

  “If you hurt my dad, I swear, I will hunt you down and suck out your dreams until you are dry husks.”

  The elevator do
ors slid open, revealing a disheveled Kwaskwi grinning with those damn, white teeth and Dad slumped on his shoulder. Dark, wet streaks and an explosion of blue feathers coated the inside of the compartment.

  “Simmer down. No need to scare the pants off these guys by going all Baby Baku-berserker on them. Akihito is safe.”

  I lunged into the elevator, wedging a foot against the closing door. Dad seemed unharmed, if still unconscious. Ken helped the stewardess stand up. Hip Hop Ninja advanced with his riot stick.

  “Ah-ah,” said Kwaskwi, waggling a finger at him. He cupped a palm under his mouth and blew. A stream of blue feathers swirled directly into the guy’s face. He doubled over in a fit of gagging coughs.

  “Leave now,” said Ken, all growly alpha male.

  “This won’t help your case at all,” the stewardess piped up in Japanese. Showing some spunk now that the tide had turned in our favor. “Once Murase finds out you tried to kidnap the Baku…”

  But the two attackers turned tail and bounded down the escalator in great leaps as soon as she began speaking.

  “You recognized them,” said Ken. He bent over, breathing in gasps, hands resting on his knees. When he stood upright again, he handed me my abandoned roller case handle.

  The stewardess closed her mouth into a grim line. She jerked her chin at me in a “not in front of the crazy American” way while she straightened the skirt of her uniform.

  “Don’t fall all over yourself thanking me for coming to your father’s rescue,” said Kwaskwi. He thrust Dad into my chest. I staggered under the weight while Kwaskwi sketched a slow, formal bow.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Kwaskwi blinked, and closed his mouth against whatever quip he had prepared. Apparently had hadn’t expected straight up gratitude.

  “Could you at least have brought the dolly back?” said the stewardess. She blew disdainfully at some stray, blue feathers encroaching on her spotless uniform jacket.