Ghost laughed. “Impossible!” But the thought of the Empire going up in flames piqued his interest enough to keep him listening.
The man shook his head. “Nothing is impossible.”
He held out his hand. In his palm was a small black flower.
Rain came down in driving sheets, cold and gray. Cormac wiped the drops from his face and splashed through another puddle. He could hear them running after him.
“Keep running, Hinin Boy!” they mocked. “Go tell your mammy!”
They erupted into laughter, but Cormac wasn’t really worried about being caught. He’d escaped from them before—he’d do it again. He rounded the corner into Spiller Terrace. Like the rest of the town, the street seemed long ago to have given up caring what it looked like. Grass grew from clogged roof gutters, paint peeled from doors, and weeds poked up between the cracks in the pavement. A dripping Empire banner sagged from a flagpole, corkscrewing its crossed swords out of shape. When President Goda made one of his rare TV appearances, it was always preceded by images of the jewels in the Empire’s crown: Tokyo, Paris, London. They never showed places like this—the neglected villages and towns whose factories and workers fueled the Empire’s economy.
Spiller Terrace was where Cormac usually lost them. But this time it was different. At the end of the street, three more boys were waiting.
“We forgot!” the one called Frog shouted. “You don’t have a mammy!”
“Or a daddy!” added one of the other boys.
Their taunts were becoming a bit annoying. It was the same thing every day—teasing him because he was from the Hinin House. The ironic thing was that some of his persecutors were also Hinin. Or used to be, before they became Kittens.
Cormac slowed to a trot, his tormentors’ laughter churning his stomach. The boys at both ends of the road started walking toward him. Their sleeves were rolled up to their elbows, the single samurai sword tattooed on their inner wrists clearly displaying who they were: Kyatapira Youth. Also known as Kittens, these boys would have a second sword tattooed across the first in an X when they graduated as fully trained Kats.
But not Cormac. Even if it was a way to escape the misery of the Hinin House, he’d never betray his father by becoming Kyatapira.
“No escape this time, Hinin Boy!” shouted Frog.
Cormac knew he could outrun any one of them, but he wasn’t a fighter, and there was no way he could take on six boys. He could try knocking on a door for help, but nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of Kyatapira, or even their Kittens. And then he spotted the alley between two houses. It was worth a shot.
As soon as he began to run, the mob took off too. Cormac swerved around a dustbin and realized his mistake. The alley was a dead end. Even worse, instead of a low wall he could jump over and escape through someone’s back garden, it ended in the wall of a two-story house.
Behind him, six silhouettes filled the entrance to the alley, cutting off what little light came from Spiller Terrace. Towering buildings surrounded him, blocking out the gloomy sky. Frog’s words echoed in his ears, “No escape this time, Hinin Boy!”
Cormac knew he shouldn’t do it, but what other option did he have?
He ran straight for the wall at the end of the alley, picking up speed as he went. Behind him, the laughter stopped and he heard someone gasp. A twenty-foot wall blocked his path. The same flanked him on both sides. There was nowhere to go, but still he ran, now sprinting, the red bricks fast approaching.
When he reached the wall, he leaped, right foot first, onto the vertical surface, then kept running up the house. Looking up at the distant chimney stacked against the gray sky, Cormac sprinted ten, fifteen, twenty feet up the wall.
Suddenly the soot-caked cowls of the chimney pots loomed over the rooftop, and he launched himself upward, fingers splayed, aiming for the capping stone on the chimney. His two feet left the wall just as his hands made contact with the stone. His fingers fumbled to find a hold on the wet surface and then gravity took over, slamming his body into the wall and willing him downward. His arms jerked into a painful stretch, and his entire body dangled from the protruding capping stone.
He swung a leg up onto the greasy tiles and reached over to grab one of the chimney’s cowls. It lurched unsteadily, but held firm, allowing him to pull himself up onto the slanting roof.
He looked down into the alley, where six drenched upturned faces wore looks of absolute shock.
“I don’t play with Kittens,” he shouted down through the rain. “Come back when you’re Kats!”
As he turned to set off across the rooftop, something caught his eye. At the alley’s entrance, behind the six boys, stood a lone figure. He wore long yellow robes and a shiny black cap. A priest?
Even more unusual was that this Shintō priest had only one eye. A black eye-patch covered the other. But it was obvious where his good eye was looking: at Cormac.
What does he want?
Cormac didn’t wait to find out. He ran across the rooftops, swinging around chimneys and skipping over loose ridge tiles, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the alley, but also aware that the longer he spent up here, the greater his chances were of being seen by someone else.
He spotted a flat roof below and skittered down the inclining tiles, leaping as he reached the edge. Like a cat, he landed on the flat roof on feet and hands, immediately rolling forward to break his fall. Crouching on the lip of the felt roof, he surveyed his surroundings: overgrown back garden, house windows boarded up. Safe enough. He jumped down to the ground.
“Hello, Cormac.”
He spun around. The priest with the eye patch stood under a white umbrella. The sharp cheekbones, the long face, the robe—they were all bone-dry, as if he hadn’t been standing out in the rain moments ago.
He knows my name! Cormac took a step back. “But I saw you … How did you do that?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” His single eye sparkled.
He speaks English? Cormac remembered he hadn’t bowed. “Sorry.” He bowed low, feeling his crucifix move beneath his shirt. He wore it because it was all he had left of his mother. He wasn’t one of those “Christians” who practiced the old religion in secret. But that wouldn’t matter if he was caught wearing it.
The man smiled. “You don’t have to bow to me.”
“But you’re”—his eyes drifted to the priest’s headgear—“a shinshoku.”
The man laughed. “This?” He pulled off the hat, but instead of revealing a priest’s shaved head, long black and gray hair tumbled out from underneath. “My name is Makoto.”
Cormac’s fear intensified. Even if this guy wasn’t a priest, he was still Empire, and that meant trouble. Cormac glanced behind him, looking for an escape route.
The man held up his index finger. “Hold on. Let me show you.”
He closed his one eye, his brow wrinkling in concentration. Then he opened his eye and said, “Look behind you.”
Cormac turned around. At the bottom of the overgrown garden stood a man wearing an eye patch and a yellow priest’s robe—a mirror image.
“Impressed?”
Cormac looked back to the man with the umbrella. “But how can you be in two places at the same time?”
“I can’t. That’s just a projection. Though I can see through my projection’s eyes.”
Cormac glanced behind again. The “projection” was gone. “So that wasn’t really you, back in the alley?”
“No. I’ve been here the whole time.”
Cormac swallowed. “But you saw what I … what happened?”
“You mean, did I see you defy gravity by running up a wall onto the roof of a house?”
Uh-oh. Cormac nodded.
“And did I see those ‘Kittens’ mocking you for being an orphan, calling you Hinin Boy?”
Cormac nodded again.
“Those Kittens epitomize everything that is wrong with the Samurai Empire. The bushidō ideals of the rea
l samurai—loyalty, honor, wisdom—have long since been forgotten in President Goda’s quest for power. You’ve seen the news. As we speak, Empire forces gather at the borders of America, one of the last free nations on earth.”
“And what’s this got to do with me?”
“You can help us stop them. You can help us protect what’s left of the world’s freedom—and perhaps fight back.” The man held out his palm—a small black flower rested in its center.
“What is this?” asked Cormac, watching the rain gather inside the dark petals.
“This is what you can become.”
Cormac blinked the rain from his eyelashes. “A flower?”
“A Black Lotus,” said the man, handing him an envelope. “Part of the resistance. And in here is everything you will need to join us: ID papers, passport, and a one-way ticket to Japan.”
“Resistance? Japan?” It seemed all he could do was ask questions.
“Inside are instructions that tell you everything you need to know. Memorize them—then destroy them.”
Cormac looked at the envelope, now speckled with rain. Not knowing what else to do, he put it inside his jacket. When he looked up, the man was gone.
Kate looked around to make sure no one was watching, then slipped into the trees surrounding the zoo. She opened her backpack and took out her good sneakers and the neatly folded jeans and sweater. One of the hardest things about being homeless was keeping clean clothes. But they were essential to blend in with the crowd. She removed her grubby clothes, the ones that always drew the attention of security guards, and dressed in the clean gear.
Next she took out a piece of broken mirror, a hairbrush, and a bottle of water. Positioning the mirror on her bag so that she could see herself, she brushed the knots from her blond hair. Then she poured water into her cupped hand and splashed it onto her face. Using both hands, she scrubbed her face and neck before checking the mirror again.
Good enough.
And if security wasn’t convinced, that would change once they heard her speak. Kate didn’t have the accent of a girl living on the streets. Instead she spoke in the refined tones of a middle-class, educated girl. Which is what she was. Her accent was her secret weapon, allowing her to go places other homeless people couldn’t.
As she began to repack her belongings, she frowned at a piece of paper at the bottom of her bag and pulled it out.
MISSING
KATE DOUGLAS
LAST SEEN
ELMSFORD CHILDREN’S HOME, ELMSFORD, NEW YORK …
Kate stuffed it back to the bottom, eyes stinging, annoyed she’d kept it so long. She’d been frightened when the flyers had started appearing around the Bronx. No way was she going back into the system. She’d spent a whole week taking the flyers down. But she’d kept one—she wasn’t sure why. She looked at herself in the mirror. The girl in the mirror looked different from the one in the photo—older, smarter, tougher.
Lonelier.
Memories of shooting hoops with her dad, and cuddling up in front of the TV with her mom and Jamie were like pieces of glass in the soles of her feet. Every time she moved, she was reminded of them.
People had said her mom and dad were crazy to volunteer as aid workers in war-torn Norway, but Kate had been proud of her humanitarian parents. Until they were captured and imprisoned by Empire forces for being revolutionaries. Then she was angry with them. Angry with them for having abandoned her and her little brother to America’s social services.
Jamie had been placed with a foster family who turned out to be really nice, so that was one weight off Kate’s mind. But she’d ended up in Elmsford Children’s Home, where rule number sixteen was “No animals.” She could live with the other fifteen rules, but animals were her life. She’d climbed out the window on her first night, and had been on the run ever since.
Living on the streets was no picnic, but at least it meant Kate could be herself. She gathered up the rest of her stuff and stepped out of the trees. Again she checked that nobody had seen her before continuing down the footpath.
She passed two billboards: BE PREPARED—LEARN JAPANESE IN THREE WEEKS and 20 PERCENT OFF ALL PREFABRICATED FALLOUT SHELTERS. At a newsstand, she glimpsed the headline on the New York Times: “Empire Troops Gather in Guatemala.” Everyone was obsessed with this impending war. She wondered what it would be like to be occupied by the Empire. She’d heard they didn’t tolerate homeless people, that they were forced into workhouses. There was a word for them, but she couldn’t remember it.
She finally reached the perimeter fence. No matter how many times she saw the red-and-black sign, it never failed to make her smile.
WARNING!
DANGEROUS ANIMALS LIVE BEHIND THIS FENCE. IF YOU CLIMB IT, THEY COULD EAT YOU, AND THAT MIGHT MAKE THEM SICK.
THANK YOU. THE BRONX ZOO.
She followed the chain-link fence around a corner to where it was hidden from the street by trees. With the skill that came from practice, she scaled the fence. At the top, she threw her leg over a small section that didn’t have barbed wire and climbed down to the other side.
“I thought you’d never get here.”
She turned around. “Hey, Gol. What’s the matter?”
“We have to do something about that bully, Eddie.”
“But he’s tiny,” said Kate. “And you’re enormous.”
“He’s been calling me names.”
“What names?”
“Big Ears.”
Kate suppressed a smile. “But you have big ears.”
“And he’s been calling me Long Nose.”
“Tell him it’s a trunk, not a nose,” said Kate, glaring across at the chimpanzee enclosure where Eddie, the “bully,” watched from the top of a pole. She wagged her finger at him, and he immediately buried his head in his armpit.
She patted Goliath, the large African elephant, on the head. “If he says anything else to you, let me know.”
Goliath nuzzled her with his trunk. “Thank you, Kate.”
“I’d better go,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be in here.”
The elephant nodded his large wrinkled head.
She dashed across the elephant enclosure, glanced around to check that the coast was clear, and then climbed over the fence to the path on the other side.
It was early, so the zoo was quiet, but already visitors were starting to arrive. First stop was the penguin pond, and luckily there were no people gathered around it. As soon as Percy, the eldest male, saw her, he dived off the rocks and swam across the pool. Kate leaned over the fence and waited for him to emerge. He torpedoed out of the water and shook himself dry on the concrete bank.
“Hi, Percy,” said Kate.
“Hi, Kate!” he brayed in his funny honking voice. Kate always thought he sounded more like a donkey than a penguin.
She scanned the floor of the pool. “Much down there today?”
“Some loose change,” said the penguin, diving back into the water.
Kate watched him scrabble about on the tiled floor of the pool, where coins had been thrown by visitors. People were funny. They obeyed the “Do not feed the animals” sign but couldn’t resist throwing money into pools of water to make a wish. Still, she wasn’t complaining. Percy’s head broke the water with two quarters in his mouth. He stretched upward, offering them to Kate. She looked around before plucking the coins from his bill. He immediately dived in again to fetch more.
As she waited for Percy to return, she looked across at Zula, the lioness, who was standing up on her hind legs against the bars of her compound. Something was wrong. Zula only ever got excited at feeding time.
Percy slid from the pond and Kate took more coins. “Thanks, Percy,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He nodded and dived back in.
Kate made her way over to Zula. “What do you need?”
The lioness dropped down onto all fours and snarled. “That’s a nice waaaay to greet your frieeeend.”
�
��Sorry,” said Kate, “but you normally only move if you want something.”
“Chaaaarming,” replied the lioness. “And I was just about to give yoooou something.”
“What?”
Zula licked her paw and looked away.
Kate crouched down to the cat’s eye level. “I’m sorry.”
Zula peered out at her, the sun glinting in her amber eyes. “Apology aaaaccepted.”
Kate smiled. “So what were you going to give me?”
“Informaaaation.”
She frowned. “What sort of information?”
“Somebody has been following yoooou.”
Kate glanced around. “What did you say?”
“A maaaan with a patch over his eye has been following yoooou.”
“Are you kidding?”
Zula was about to reply when the wailing sound of a siren filled the air. Kate stood up and looked around. A group of tourists raced by, toward the exit. At the far side of the pond, more visitors ran with strollers and screaming toddlers toward the gate.
“What’s going oooon?”
“I don’t know,” replied Kate. “I’d better go and find out.”
She joined the stream of people rushing toward the exit. At the gift shop, a crowd gathered around a large TV screen mounted on the wall. Kate pushed closer to get a better look.
The words EMERGENCY ALERT flashed on the screen. Text scrolled across the bottom on a red ribbon.
A CIVIL EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED FOR MAINLAND UNITED STATES, EFFECTIVE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. TODAY AT 08:00, FORCES OF THE SAMURAI EMPIRE INVADED MEXICO. PRESIDENT GODA HAS THREATENED TO ADVANCE THE INVASION ONTO AMERICAN SOIL UNLESS THIS MESSAGE IS PLAYED.
A collective gasp rippled around the crowd before the instantly recognizable face of President Goda appeared on screen. He wore a white suit, and his long black hair was tied into the traditional Empire topknot. His broad shoulders and strong, handsome jawline gave him the look of a Marvel superhero. Behind him, mounted on the wall, two ornate swords crossed each other in the shape of an X—one engraved with a butterfly, the other with the eye of a snake.
The Black Lotus Page 2
