Warrior Spirit

by Alex Archer

  Around them, the trees had gone still. The crickets no longer chirped. Even the roar of the waterfall seemed subdued. Annja searched the darkness for any sign of an enemy. As she did so, she gradually eased herself out of her sleeping bag. At least if they were attacked, she’d be able to defend herself.

  Another yowl sounded, followed by a long, drawn-out moan that wafted through the glen. Annja had never heard any animal that sounded like this before. And she’d been close enough to many that she felt reasonably certain of what lived in the woods.

  Then she remembered what Taka had told them at the temple in Osaka. Hadn’t he told them about the legend of the kappa swamp vampire that supposedly guarded the mountain monastery?

  “Ken.”

  “It’s just a legend, Annja.” Ken shook his head. “Taka was probably just having a little bit of fun at our expense.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s not here right now to ask, and this thing is out there somewhere. And I, for one, am not feeling too good about things right now.” She closed her eyes and saw the sword, but when she reached for it, she couldn’t wrap her hands around the hilt.

  What was going on?

  She opened her eyes. “I can’t get my sword.”

  Ken frowned. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not good.” With a free hand, Ken rummaged in his backpack and then tossed Annja a hunting knife in its sheath. “Here.”

  She caught it and unsheathed the blade that shone in the fading moonlight.

  Another yowl sounded.

  “That was a lot closer.”

  Ken had adjusted himself to aim properly. “I think it came from over there.” He pointed at a grove of trees on the farthest edge of the glen.

  “Don’t shoot unless you have a target.”

  Ken glanced at Annja. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Forget it. Just stay alert.”

  It grew colder then, as a stiff wind blew from deep out in the forest. Along with it, a mist seeped into the outskirts of the glen.

  “It’s getting foggy in here,” Annja said.

  “Temperature change,” Ken said. “Totally natural.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Ken nodded, but his face looked grim. And Annja didn’t think he looked particularly convinced of his own statements.

  The hunting knife felt firm in her hand. She was puzzled, though. Why couldn’t she draw the sword out? She needed it certainly. So what had she done wrong that she couldn’t bring it out at her command?

  She wondered if her experience in the waterfall had done something to her. Had it somehow made her unable to get the sword? What would she do now that she couldn’t get to it anymore?

  She frowned. That couldn’t be it. What would make her unable to use the sword if she’d just meditated? It just didn’t make any sense.

  Her stomach sank.

  What if making love to Ken had been the wrong thing to do? What if it had signaled some sort of lapse of moral judgment on her part? If the sword truly had once belonged to Joan of Arc, then was God mad at her for sleeping with Ken?

  Well, she thought, it certainly felt like the right thing to do. And it had been a lot of fun to boot.

  No, there had to be another reason. Annja had never aspired to be Joan of Arc anyway. That was something she’d always maintained in the wake of discovering she could use the sword. She didn’t put herself on a higher level than anyone else. And she really had no idea how the sword figured into her life.

  It was more of an ongoing experiment than anything else.

  It’s probably something obvious, she thought. Something I’m overlooking.

  Another yowl broke the silence, followed by two more.

  “Problem,” Ken said.

  “What?”

  “There seems to be more than one of them.”

  Annja swallowed. “Are you sure?”

  “The first one—” Ken pointed “—came from over there. But the next two sounded at the far end of the pond. And they weren’t echoes, either. There are definitely more than one of whatever is out there.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I’m thrilled, too.”

  Annja considered the hunting knife. “I don’t think this is going to be much use against multiple attackers.”

  “There’s something else.”

  Annja frowned. “You’re just full of good news tonight.”

  Ken pointed at the ground. “The mist is getting thicker.”

  Annja looked and saw he was right. The mist that had seeped in a few minutes previously was expanding to envelop the entire breadth of the glen. Annja’s lower torso was already covered.

  “This still natural?” she asked.

  Ken shrugged. “I haven’t been out here enough at night to know if this is natural or not. I was saying that earlier to try to calm you down.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “It didn’t work on me, either,” Ken said. “But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “I can if something worse happens to us now,” Annja said. The mist was billowing in, like a thick smoke hugging the ground but drifting higher. Already many of the tree trunks close by were impossible to see.

  “Mist like this cannot be natural,” Annja said.

  She looked inside of herself again to see if she could get the sword. But as she reached her hands for it, it seemed as if an invisible force field was inhibiting her from getting close enough to wrap her hands around the hilt.

  “Damn.”

  “Still no sword?”

  “No.”

  “I won’t have much of a shot with this gun,” Ken said. “My line of sight sucks right now. Trying to pinpoint a fast-moving target will be crazy.”

  Two more yowls sounded. They were much closer now.

  “The mist plays tricks with the sounds,” Annja said. “Right?”

  Ken shook his head. “They’re in the glen with us now.”

  Annja gripped the knife harder.

  Ken tapped her on the shoulder and held a finger to his lips. There’d be no talking now. No sense letting whatever was in the glen know exactly where they were. If they were going to be attacked, they’d at least have to work for it.

  Another three yowls filled the air. To Annja it seemed as if they were only twenty feet away.

  Her heart hammered in her chest. But she didn’t really feel afraid. She frowned. Now, that was weird.

  In every instance of combat before this night, she’d had some sense of danger in some way. She used to think it was natural to get butterflies like that, but in recent years she’d learned to rely on it more as instinct than mere anxiety.

  She found it accurate, almost to a fault.

  But now her warning system seemed to be faulty, as well. She couldn’t draw the sword out and she couldn’t rely on her instincts to protect her.

  Everything was falling apart. And nothing made sense.

  The mist drifted higher, up to their necks. Ken and Annja ducked beneath the opaqueness. Even being close to each other, they had trouble seeing anything.

  Ken used his fingers to describe how he wanted Annja positioned. They would squat back-to-back in the event of an attack. At least that way they could know one definite thing in the mist of uncertainty.

  Annja shifted around quietly, getting into position. Feeling the strength of Ken’s back against hers made her feel a little bit better, but only a little.

  Another yowl sounded.

  Ten feet now, Annja thought. And the timbre had changed, as well. Like they’re hunting for us in the mist.

  And still, she wasn’t afraid.

  Are we safe here in the mist? she wondered. If we don’t do anything to give away our position, is there a chance that whatever is out there won’t be able to get a fix on our location and thereby attack?

  It seemed too good to be true. And Annja didn’t much feel like relying on mist for protection.

  The
hunting knife felt a little slippery in her grasp, and she realized she was sweating a lot in response to the stress of the situation.

  She heard a low growl that couldn’t have been any farther than six feet away.

  They’re so close!

  Annja wanted to shout and run into the mist, driving them off and just slashing and attacking, but Ken’s back kept her where she was. She wouldn’t leave him to be alone in this mess. She would stay with him and they would fight to the end.

  The mist now enveloped everything around them. Annja could see nothing but white-gray, illuminated by the vague moonlight above. As far as she could tell, the mist simply went on forever.

  She heard something to her right.

  And then something else.

  They’re right there, she thought. Right there. They must hear us breathing. Any moment now they’ll attack.

  She closed her eyes and looked again for the sword, but nothing happened.

  Why? She frowned. So much for going out swinging.

  Behind her, she heard a sudden knock and then heard Ken moan. His back went slack.

  “Ken?”

  Something knocked her under her ear and the mist vanished as blackness dragged Annja under.

  31

  Nezuma rolled over on his side, perched on the cliff overlooking the glen. The ghillie suit he wore enabled him to blend in perfectly with the surrounding forest. The night-vision scope he had spent the previous hour looking through rested in his hand.

  Next to him, wearing another ghillie suit but squatting against the trunk of a tree and armed with a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle, sat Shuko. She held a parabolic microphone and attached to a set of earplugs in. When she saw Nezuma roll over and look at her, she took out the plugs.

  “That was interesting,” he said.

  “What happened after the fog came in?”

  “A lot of confusion,” said Shuko. “They had no idea what was going on. They seemed disoriented and completely unaware. You heard the animal howling, as did I, but just before the mist dissipated, I heard two sounds that could only have been people getting knocked out.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Absolutely.” Shuko pulled back the hood of the ghillie suit so she could lay down the parabolic microphone. “This thing is state-of-the-art technology. And I’m pretty good at identifying sounds like that.”

  Nezuma pondered this for a moment. “Once the fog rolled in, I couldn’t see anything. The way it came, though, seemed rather bizarre. I thought it was a natural occurrence, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “You think they had a fog machine?”

  “I don’t know. What I do know is Kennichi and Creed are now missing from the glen where they were a few moments ago. Their gear is also missing. The whole thing seems rather strange to me.”

  “Looks like a snatch job,” Shuko said.

  Nezuma smiled. “That,” he said, “is exactly what it looks like to me, too.”

  “You think someone beat us to the punch?”

  Nezuma undid his hood and let it back so fresh air could circulate on his skin. “Possibly. But I don’t know who.”

  “Your Yakuza friends,” Shuko said.

  Nezuma spit. “They’re not friends, Shuko—you know that. As far as I’m concerned, they’re idiots. And they certainly don’t have the ability to pull off something like this in such an isolated area. It would require far too much planning and technical skill to bring it off successfully. Plus, they would need an intimate knowledge of this area.”

  “They don’t have that knowledge.”

  “No,” Nezuma said. “They don’t.”

  “Which leaves us with what—two possibilities?” Shuko said.

  Nezuma nodded. “A party we might know about or a party we have no idea about.”

  “I doubt we’ll figure it out here.”

  “True. What did you hear before the mist came down?”

  “The woman said something about the waterfall.”

  Nezuma sat up. “What did she say?”

  “Something about it looking honeycombed. That she saw something while she was inside it.”

  “Interesting.” Nezuma glanced at the waterfall. It fell from a soaring height, probably close to two hundred feet. It was a pure wall of water falling over rocks that had probably been there for hundreds of thousands of years.

  “What are you thinking?” Shuko asked.

  He glanced at Shuko, who was already pulling off her ghillie suit. “I am considering the possibility that Creed is actually a bit smarter than I recognized early on. That perhaps she did indeed see something when she was in the waterfall.”

  “The entrance to the caves?”

  “Very possibly.” Nezuma rolled his suit up and stowed it in his backpack. “Let’s get going.”

  Shuko followed him down the side of the cliff. They’d positioned themselves there earlier after Nezuma had declared it one of the few areas from which they could comfortably observe the glen without fear of someone coming up behind them.

  The trail down was steep, with bits of shale and gravel coming loose with every step. Nezuma and Shuko adjusted their footwork accordingly, using their body weight to slow their descent so they wouldn’t accidentally fall.

  At the bottom, they paused, squatting by the trail leading up. Nezuma used hand signals to let Shuko know they should wait to see if anyone was around and reacted to their walk down from the cliff.

  But after ten minutes of nothing but natural noises, Nezuma signaled it was time to move. He drew out his own gun, a smaller Heckler & Koch UMP that he could fire comfortably with one hand.

  Shuko came behind him, cradling the heavier H&K. The bullets in her gun were much more powerful than Nezuma’s. They moved to the glen. Nezuma approached first with Shuko braced by a tall pine scanning the area in case of an ambush.

  Nezuma knelt where the camp fire had been only forty minutes before. The ground was damp and there remained only a patch of burned grass where there had been stones, logs and char from the fire.

  He frowned. What could so utterly erase the presence of people in such a brief span of time?

  Even the pine needles that Kennichi and Creed had used to make themselves more comfortable had been scattered around. In fact, he realized, someone coming through this glen would be hard-pressed to prove that there had been anyone camping there recently.

  Nezuma shook his head. There was no way on earth this could have been carried out by anyone he knew of.

  He turned and waved Shuko in. It went against his better judgment to bring his cover fire in, but he wanted her to see what they were dealing with.

  Shuko knelt and brushed her hands along the ground. Nezuma knew she was looking for sign—tracks left by Kennichi and Creed and possibly by whatever had grabbed them almost an hour before.

  “There’s nothing here,” she whispered. “We saw them, clear as day, and we saw them vanish. But there’s nothing here that would prove they even existed.”

  Nezuma nodded. That’s what he was afraid of. He nodded to the waterfall. “Let’s get in there.”

  Shuko stood and they moved to the pond. But rather than strip down, Nezuma and Shuko split up and each took a side, scanning the entire area.

  Nezuma caught water spray in his face and he brushed it away, still alert for any possible indication that the mist and what it contained was coming back. He bent low and looked behind the waterfall as much as he could. But given its position, doing so was almost impossible.

  He saw Shuko coming back. “Any luck?”

  She shook her head. “It’s too difficult getting a glimpse at it. I think we need to actually get into the water.”

  “I agree,” Nezuma said.

  Shuko hefted her G-36. “I’ll get the dry bag.”

  Nezuma turned back to the waterfall. What was it about this that had produced such an odd occurrence? And if this really was the entrance to some sort of hidden monastery, then how did they access it?
>
  Shuko returned and Nezuma slid his UMP into the bag. Shuko closed the zipper and then secured the overlap that would protect the guns from exposure to water. Shuko’s would fire anyway even when submerged, but Nezuma wasn’t sure about the performance of his UMP after being dunked. He didn’t want to take any chances.

  Shuko strapped her pack on again and hefted the dry bag, as well. From her belt, she drew out her knife and stepped into the water.

  Nezuma also drew out his black-bladed tanto knife. At twelve inches, it was a wicked-looking blade capable of penetrating a car door or slicing a free-hanging rope in half. Nezuma had used this particular weapon numerous times to great effect.

  He strode into the water, vaguely aware of how cold it was. If Annja Creed could withstand the water, then he was going to, as well. There would be no way he’d ever succumb to it when the American woman had already demonstrated her ability to withstand its temperatures.

  They approached the waterfall.

  “Shall I take point?” Shuko asked.

  Nezuma looked at her. She’d dropped saying “master.” It was another sign she was becoming complacent about their relationship. He shook his head. “No. I’ll go up first.”

  He ducked under the falls and shuddered as the cold torrent hit him like a sack of bricks. The water came up to his thighs and he slogged through it, reaching the flat stone ledge where he’d seen Creed standing and doing some imitation of meditation.

  Nezuma stood on it and looked up into the raging water. It blinded him for a moment until he adjusted his head position so the water hit only parts of his head and face, leaving his eyes alone.

  About a hundred feet above him, he could see the dark outline of something oval. And above that, more similar-shaped entrances. That must be it.

  He leaned out of the falls and saw Shuko. “It’s here.”

  She came under with him and looked where he pointed. She nodded and had to shout over the roar of the water. “But how do we reach it?”

  Nezuma shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Shuko moved toward the back of the waterfall and pressed her hands against the smooth slabs that ran from high overhead to the floor of the pond below. Nezuma watched her work with her eyes closed and smiled. She was truly a gifted woman and an apt pupil.