by Kin Law
As a fringe benefit, he had developed a dab hand at packing up Dio’s various belongings and leaving enraged serving staff, skills he now employed to hustle Dio away from the shadow.
Unfortunately, the Vatican had been designed for personages of divine inspiration, not old men in wheelchairs. Oiled and well kept the chair might be, and hale the old man within, they were still easily defeated by a flight of stairs. To exacerbate matters, a steam age Rome had taken many liberties with its civic arrangement; her streets and buildings had grown up and around the Vatican’s eternal majesty, until the steaming pipework and rusted iron buttresses stood heads above the misty stone of the Holy See. The closest way for Hikawa and Dio to get to safety was straight between the sweeping colonnades of Charlemagne and Constantine, and then towards the edge of the Vatican where sloped ramps led away from the round target of the Wind Rose.
“Hikawa,” Dio said, as they neared the exit of the square. Hikawa turned, saw, and ran back to retrieve the borrowed crate.
The pair rolled along the route, now emptied and made easily accessible. They made an odd duo, Hikawa in kappa clothes, wearing a strange oriental sword, and Dio clutching a satchel of chess pieces and bric-a-brac, rattling along on wooden wheels.
“Hikawa!” Dio exclaimed, just as the first gleam of light appeared overhead. Hikawa did not see it, he was navigating the slats of a walkway beneath, but he felt Dio trip the brakes on his chair, India rubber smoking as they clamped tight on the rolling wheels.
The finger of god wrote the ground before them- or so it seemed. The column was as brilliant and infernal as a biblical digit, searing its way through the rusted green walkway as if it were a block of tofu. It spanned the width of the ramp and then some. Dio peered over the edge of his chair and beheld a chasm burned a bright red, coughing clouds of black smoke over its lip.
“Hah, so we were right. Hell does exist!” Dio exclaimed in Spanish.
Hikawa turned Dio around to find another way across. He was not as familiar with the Vatican, or indeed any part of Rome as well as he liked, but the tourists’ maps were easy enough to read. There was another way out due north, the opposite direction from where smoke and fire still emanated from the bright beam of destruction.
“The atheists go to such lengths to destroy me,” Dio joked to Hikawa, who was far too busy pushing and far too polite to answer.
Overhead, the Italian dirigibles had finally taken to launching some incendiary devices towards the ominous cloud, having decided a physical assault on their spiritual home warranted retaliation.
There seemed to be no Swiss Guard craft about, though Hikawa doubted those showboats were actually capable of combat. The cloud seemed not to be affected by the smoking points of ammunition as they rocketed into the misty depths, but it lashed out anyway with bright arcs of lightning, all the while cutting away at the ground with its divine finger.
As they neared another walkway, Dio again exclaimed, and again Hikawa responded by skidding to a halt. This time, a dirigible fell before them, wedging itself tightly across the Gate of Saint Anna. There was nearly no warning, and Hikawa had to hand it to the old man- Esteban Dio’s sense of danger was as sharp as it had ever been.
“We must go round,” Hikawa said now. Dio looked about to protest, but it was plain to both of them where the burning finger was headed- in a wide circle, enclosing Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Square, and a large portion of the Holy See from the Fountain of the Sacrement to the Museums. Going round meant stairs, and narrow corridors; more importantly, it meant sacrificing some of Esteban Dio’s remaining dignity.
Hikawa bent, and sword well stowed, simply picked up Dio and slung him across a shoulder. The younger man was not built for such activity, and imagining the sight of his slight frame lifting the wide bulk of the old Templar seemed almost comical. Yet, Hikawa was in good shape, and the loss of Dio’s legs made him a lighter burden than he appeared. Hikawa took off at a brisk stride toward the Fountain of the Galera, where he knew there was another walkway.
“Damn these kappa robes….” Hikawa griped, the only one he allowed himself to make. The rough brown material kept bunching as his knees bent to take steps.
“What in the name of the Holy Mother are kappa?”
Hikawa briefly explained, about how the Abbey’s monks seemed like water imps with their perfectly round crowns. He had little enough breath to spare, but he had learned from experience not to deny Esteban Dio’s enthusiasm. The Templar had little to be enthusiastic about, save dice and beer.
To his relief, there came a strangled sort of laughter from his shoulder- Esteban Dio found the idea hilarious.
“In my country, there are similar stories,” Dio replied. “Though my order was given the charge of stamping them out, more often than not the cleaning men are the ones who get dirty. I remember-” But before Dio could recall a raunchy tale of the pagan oppressed, Hikawa’s voice wheezed into the gap.
“Do you think of yourself in this manner? Swordsmen in my country honor ourselves by serving our lords. Cleaning is for peasants.”
“The executioner’s sword holds no honor, merely blood.”
Hikawa had no reply for that. Besides, the way was long, though not so long as the Emperor’s backbreaking stair.
In the medium distance, the bright pillar from the cloud above was busy cutting a smoking line between the Gardens and the buildings of the Vatican. It cut quietly, leaving behind a smooth, smoldering line between the imposing wall of steam-age Rome and the picturesque, historic roofs at the Southern border, before heading to cut them off from the exit. Hikawa estimated he had a few minutes.
“I believe in bushido,” said Hikawa. “I believe in the god of the sword. What righteous Christian would denounce his own God, Dio-sama?”
Hikawa could not perceive the look of intense pain in Dio’s eyes, peering forlornly over the young man’s shoulder, but he could feel the elderly Templar’s tendons tensed as if gripping an invisible broadsword, toes dug into the dry sands of some heathen country. The sudden painful vision swept over the young man, so much he almost did not react to Esteban Dio’s voice sounding an alarm, or the shadow of figures on the ground ahead.
“Your faith is about to be tested,” Dio was saying.
There was a dry yellow stoop just near, where Hikawa was able to set Dio comfortably. The pair did not speak more; it was hard enough going through an intermediary language neither man had mastered, and they were both ascending toward the frame of mind common to men of battle. Hikawa was tempted to leave Dio his short tanto, but that proved unnecessary. The enemy seemed uninterested in the defenseless old man. Odd, Hikawa thought, so they are not after the old Templar… he was secretly glad he did not have to divest the blades from each other. The wazikashi and tanto were two halves of the same weapon, after all.
If the assailants were surprised at some Benedictine monk wielding a batto, or sword drawing, stance with Japanese swords, they could not show it. Now Hikawa could assess his situation, he was able to see both figures were hooded and cloaked, their faces in shadow. Neither appeared armed, and since they did not move, it was hard to judge from the weight of pace what devices were about their person.
Two had appeared from ahead as Hikawa and Dio approached; now a third appeared from the building behind.
Hikawa drew his wazikashi, the longer of the two, and fell into a stance where the figure behind was clearly reflected in the shining length of deathly mirror.
“I warn you,” Hikawa said, in English, “My blade is faster than your bullets. If you do not believe me, you will taste it yourself.”
They came unhurriedly, closing the distance in a languid formation that seemed to indicate they weren’t about to use firearms. To the left and right, there were high old walls. High above, the steady thrum of the cutting beam kept up a background of catastrophic destruction. It seemed fitting; Hikawa had read about such thematic climaxes in old samurai tales, like the beach duel between Miyamoto Musashi and ri
val Sasaki Kojiro. Only, there seemed insufficient drama between himself and his assailants; anonymous beneath their hoods, what ancient malice or undying vendetta would forever be moot.
Hikawa wouldn’t have asked, anyway, even if the trio didn’t leap towards him at that moment. The lunge was a strategy to fell any lone gunman, even the quickest of the American west. Only, Hikawa was a man of the east. As their sleeves flashed past harmlessly, Hikawa had a moment’s reflection: weren’t westerns popular at the Italian picture houses? He hoped, laconically, there would be a chance to see some more of them later, maybe try the famed pizza of Naples also.
To Hikawa’s surprise, his first blow struck sparks off his enemy, and an angry hiss of escaping steam.
“Nan no mane da?!” Hikawa exclaimed. He spun, and cut a blow to fell trees.
Again, sparks and fabric were his only reward. Impossible!
Hikawa’s strokes could decapitate men easily through lacquered armor. Either these hooded men were shorn in truly impenetrable stuff, or…
Esteban Dio could see the whole fight from his vantage point on the stoop. Silly boy, he might have said, those are Clankers. They are impervious to the bite of swords- aim for the joints! Only, Dio was so very tired. He had barely enough breath to speak, and the battle was moving quite a ways from him. Good, Dio thought, Hikawa is trying to draw them from me. There is a proficient warrior.
Meanwhile, Hikawa’s sword was slipping through the wall with barely a yellow spurt of brick dust, yet dulling against whatever armor the hooded men wore. Hikawa was no idiot; he would not waste a good edge. The back of the sword was dull, but dense and heavy. Sidestepping a takedown, he struck with it against one of the hoods and felt something crumple triumphantly beneath. The shisa guard shook beneath his hands, but his victim fell writhing to the ground.
As the man fell, the ground began to shake. Later, Hikawa would reflect on how the towering grime of Rome seemed to fall away unnoticeably, gradually. The gentle movement paled in importance when compared to imminent death. Still, there would have been no denying the historic piece of ground they stood on was slowly rising into the air.
The other two were not so easy. Not only were they well armored, they learned. They also seemed to work better as a pair. Hikawa could no longer dodge their coordinated kicks and punches. Metal crunched splinters of bone; the swordsman felt one eye go dark, the socket crumpling under some titanic, mechanical pressure.
He lashed out blindly, in trained sweeps, to gain some ground, only to find his left quarter blocked- they had pinned him against the wall.
With a grunt, Hikawa pushed off against it, knocking one of his attackers to the ground in a clatter.
Run, fool, run! Dio would have shouted, if it could have helped. Honor was not worth life!
Young samurai are not symbolized by falling cherry for naught. A bloom flowers but once on the tree, briefly, its petals falling in a glorious snowfall before exhausting itself in its own glory. Hikawa believed this fleetingly, as a child might believe in the tooth fairy when his first canine begins to wiggle. What he believed, and relied on, was the sword passed down by his father, and his father’s fathers, not just the ornate weapon at hand but the idea of the sword. The perfect cut- yes, there was the way: straight up and down, with no snags, the blade that would slice through anything. It would have little trouble cleaving through the unworldly stuff of the hooded man’s face.
If there was a time when the perfect cut was needed, it was now. The second hooded man would be up soon. The first was only awaiting his advantage. Hikawa’s sword seemed to quiver and beckon, its hamon waving expectantly, bloodthirsty, in his already failing good eye.
Slowly, Hikawa edged his right foot forward, placing his hands on his sword. His right hand would form the fulcrum, his left, driving force. He almost couldn’t do it- he was dizzy from repeated blows, and something felt broken along his side. Four ribs, maybe. Yet, his legs were steady. His legs were all-important, yes, providing both the forward drive and the balance to recover. He would step- yes, now, right there, perfectly spaced!
Fatigued muscles grated like airship plating, yet Hikawa felt a rush of power. This, this was the perfect cut- the metal slipping through, unnoticed, a serpent through tall grass, bisecting his enemy.
With a resounding snap, the sword burst into a thousand shards against his opponent’s helmet, even as the first monumental gleam of modern metal emerged from above to rival the Vatican’s beauty.
7: Nessie Drake, Gothic Pirate Princess
“Le Maere, she’s called. Means ‘nightmare,’ in the French. A bit grim, yes, but the Countess Nessie Drake is honorable, by all accounts.”
Albion Clemens pondered over this last bit of information as if sipping a fine vintage from a dusty cellar uncovered in some ancient, rediscovered castle: suspiciously, skeptically, but overall quite pleasurably. The Mediterranean breeze felt far too good for this type of activity, but Clemens believed firmly in the little things. They deserved enjoyment and attention independent of unpleasantness close at hand.
As if a reflection of his thoughts, a fine bone china teacup sat in Clemens’ digits, filled with a very fragrant Orange Pekoe from a British tanker out of Sri Lanka. From a second teacup, the air pirate captain provided his charge with a fair draught of the amber liquid. It was a shame the informant could not enjoy it properly. Albion was careful not to spill the tea over the rim and into the man’s eyes.
“I say,” the fellow remarked through a moustache surely magnificent in its native habitat: namely, flapping through the wind at the helm of his own ship. For a chap bound by the ankles and hung from the Huckleberry’s second lateral mast, he sure drank in a dignified way. “Isn’t this quite enough dangling for one day?”
“My friend, I’m not the one who has to go back to that crew,” Clemens replied, kicking at a plank near the man’s face.
The effect was to make it seem as if Clemens had knocked in the man’s Adam’s apple, shaking him dangerously above a sheer drop over the frothing cliffs passing placidly by below. Even across a span of twenty yards in open air, the gasp of the man’s crew was perfectly audible.
“Well all right, lay it on thickly then.”
“Gentlemen are such a pleasure to work with. Say hello to your sainted mother for me,” Clemens answered, punching the man’s solar plexus.
As Clemens watched the tiny smuggler’s junk drift slowly away over some stunted relation of the Alps, he wondered why all his encounters with fellow pirates either ended in black eyes or lipstick stains. Often, it was both. Surely the sky was free for everyone; why couldn’t they ever find a cause sufficient to motivate pirates into standing each other’s company? Perhaps freedom was just such a beast, as violently reactive to society as gas to fire.
“Couldn’t you have simply asked the Captain?” Vanessa Hargreaves’ stern judgment drifted over the raw-scrubbed decks of the Berry. Her voice was particularly grating. Kitty Desperado’s tip had gone cold, they had lost the trail of Captain Sam, and now Albion was being forced to resort to these alternative methods.
Clemens spared a look, as he always did when the intriguing Inspector came to call.
She had commandeered a tight-fitting, matte ebony duster with two rows of buttons down the front. It went down to her knees, where burnished boot clasps matched her copper-framed visor against the wind.
Her hair had been braided into a long rope down her back; the overall effect was refreshing, as if this was how she ought to look, magnifying glass in hand, kicking down the doors of criminality. Clemens noted the convenient slits in the coat for easy gun access, and the formfitting pockets undoubtedly filled with ammunition. Hargreaves pirated up well.
“Captain is forgiving. Roberto is more of a bookkeeper,” sidetracked Albion.
“If I hadn’t left a few marks, the more enterprising members of the crew might have thought him easy pickings. I’d rather have the Sirocco’s fleet keep their small fry in check, less chaos in the skie
s.”
“Right,” Hargreaves said in the wonderfully cleansing way she had, tossing Clemens’ words overboard. “Did you get anything useful?”
“Actually, yes,” Clemens answered, glad to be on the unshakeable foundations of common interest. Like oases in the shark-filled waters of verbal intercourse, he thought. “Word is, our dear Captain Sam is hiding out with an old friend. Nessie Drake’s Chiropteran-class is somewhere over Romania, and it looks like the old pervert is aboard. You know, I’ve heard her whole crew is beautiful young women?”
“Your Samuel Clemens makes fast friends,” Hargreaves remarked.
“We must. When the skies are filled with predators, its best to be among others of kind,’ Clemens replied philosophically.
“He also can’t ever resist a damsel in distress. Nessie Drake used to run with the Lovelorn’s Captain, over the Dead Sea. Now there’s some bad blood in the clouds. If he’s gone to her, it might be to negotiate with her old mates. He was the only one the two of them ever listened to.”
“And when they don’t listen? I want the Steamboat Man alive to tell me about the laboratory in Oxford. Elric Blair’s received a wire from his sources: Someone’s stolen the Vatican, Saint Peter’s Basillica, carved it right out of the ground like a potato. Whoever’s done this seems to be taking the piss out of the whole of Europe.”
“I hear Nessie’s got some big honkin’ cannons,” quipped Clemens.
Seeing Hargreaves’ derisive snort, he got serious. “Look, Inspector, I’d like to find my Captain Sam as much as you do, but I’ve been looking for him for over a year. He’s as slippery as a jellied eel. We have to take this very carefully.”
Hargreaves peeked through the corner of her visor, seeing the stoic eyes on Albion’s face suddenly darken. Her ability to read him was generally blocked by his alien, Asiatic features, combined with a disciplined constitution. Yard training was useless against those flat brown eyes and dead-steady lips, particularly when the goggles came down and obscured half his face. Nevertheless, in the split second of honesty, Albion Clemens had shown a guarded tenderness, a loosening of the chiseled jaw. The Manchu Marauder’s sudden vulnerability surprised her.
