by Thomas Green
Aiko and Yoshiro, the wounded girl and the assassin, were waking up on the couches. Bandages still wrapped them both. Kenji was just pulling on the second rollerblade.
I formed a globe of aether in my palm, made it spin and aimed my hand at Yoshiro and Aiko. I looked at Kenji, my eyes cold. “Surrender or I’ll kill them.”
They all froze, color withdrawing from their faces.
Vivian entered the room, her heels clicking on the floor. “My, my, it looks like you actually did some work. As they glanced at her, their eyes widened in terror. They clearly knew who Vivian was.
Shattering of glass sounded from around the corner. I ignored it. A few seconds later, the engine of starting car shouted into the night and then a black Lexus passed behind the window, driving away.
I smirked. This confirmed one of my theories.
“Vivian, would you be so kind and make him take off the rollerblades.” I glanced at Aiko. “And make her give me the sword she’s hiding behind the couch.”
Vivian raised her chin. “Motivate me.”
“The faster we get through this, the more time we get before Lucielle arrives.”
That worked as intended. Vivian waved her hand, the eyes of the three thieves became misty and they started doing as told. Once they did, I sheathed Aiko’s sword at my waist and put on Kenji’s rollerblades. They were two sizes too small, so my toes hurt after I forced my feet in.
“Make him teach me how to do the invisible, flying run and her how to do the teleportation spell.”
Vivian frowned. “You are overworking me.”
Oh, how I wished she would spare me this bullshit. Before we slept together, she at least pretended to be professional. Ah, well, this was the new game with me being the toy. “So, you’ll want me to slack once we’re done here?”
“No.” She flicked her wrist and Aiko started talking.
Her voice was emotionless, almost mechanical as the spell forced her to say things she never would. The sword must have been passed through her bloodline for centuries. The techniques connected to the artifact were her family’s sacred secrets. To reveal them to an outsider was unforgivable and I would bet she would rather die than to do so. But Vivian’s magic allowed no such option, so Aiko talked. “The sword is named Kusanagi and is the artifact that enables the teleportation. The spell itself is a swap of the locations of the wielder and an object of a similar mass. The maximum range is sixty-two point four feet and the sword runs out of power if used consecutively for five times.” And then she explained to me how to perform the short-range teleportation.
I waved my hand at Vivian and Aiko stopped talking. Tears swelled in her eyes and flowed down her face in silent weeping. Yes, this wasn’t nice of me. But I had the Devil to satisfy and Evelyn to save. I had neither the time nor the energy for ethical solutions. And yes, I haven’t lived up to Katherine’s cross that pressed against my chest and that didn’t make me happy.
Next, I made Kenji explain to me how to use the rollerblades, which contained an aether processing engine, could be used to fly and cloak oneself. I have seen him use both techniques at multiple instances, so I learned both spells within fifteen minutes.
I checked the time. 4:42. The devil was bound to arrive at 6, so that gave me some spare time.
“Knock them out.”
“Finally.” Vivian grinned and Kenji, Aiko and Yoshiro collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
“Will Lucielle land on her tower?” I asked.
“As always.”
“We’ll need to bring them there and at least two dozen object that weight roughly two hundred pounds, like sacks of potatoes or something. Got someone to prepare that?”
“Would that free your time for me?”
“Yes.”
She drew her phone, typed some message into it and tapped the screen. After she pocketed the device, she stepped to me.
I welcomed her, wrapping her arms around me while kicking Yoshiro from the duvet-covered couch. Heat filled my body, a sign of her pushing her aether into me. I didn’t push it out. After the night I’d had, there was no way I could get my tool up by myself. But since her magic could manipulate blood, she sent it to the correct places with ease.
Through the window, I glimpsed orange light. I withdrew from the kiss and glowered at Vivian. “Is that my car burning?”
“I told you’d pay.” She grinned. “And this ensures I will never have to sit into that stinking trashcan again.”
Really? I shoved her aside with a gut-clenching feeling of loss and then caught her for another kiss. I could hold my car’s funeral later. We fell onto the couch and got back to where we’d left off.
An hour later, we stood at the top of Lucielle’s tower. The building beneath us, the US headquarters of Lucielle Legal in Wall Street, stood dark. Harsh wind blew over the roof that featured low railing, a helicopter landing pad and a small, steel hut that contained the elevator.
I stood by the railing, watching New York City that still lay asleep. Vivian stood by my side and next to her were Kenji, Aiko, and Yoshiro. They were bound with anti-magical shackles. The stolen statuette sat on the floor by my other side, together with my backpack.
Vivian’s people, who were really Lucielle’s people but didn’t dare not obey the vampire, were already finished with spreading about fifty boxes across the roof. Each contained spare office supplies like pens and notepads and weighed about two hundred pounds each.
Everything was set. I drew my phone and called Sora.
He picked up in an instant but said nothing.
That worked for me. “I’ve got your friends. Meet me atop the roof of Lucielle Legal. I’ll send you the instructions of how to get here. You have fifteen minutes to arrive. Every fifteen minutes after that, I will kill one of your friends.” I hung up and sent him the prepared message of how to get here.
I expected him to have followed us, so he had no reason not to make it in time. Sora Yamato, a nice name, except that back in the Yakuza safe, Sasaki called him Izanagi. Since I did my homework on the old Japanese pantheon, I knew Izanagi was their highest god, meaning Sora was the leader of this whole murder and theft operation.
The marks of his aether on the plane weren’t from him investigating inside, but from him killing Miyamoto Musashi. He was the final culprit I needed to capture.
I walked by the railing, weaving between two boxes and stood at the other end of the roof where my captives were in a straight line in front of me. This also granted me a good view of the elevator.
Vivian walked to the helipad that was at my right-hand side.
Rotors sounded through the air and a cloud of mist descended from above. The mist engine was the core technology of all Secret Societies’ aircraft.
The mist cleared when the vehicle approached the tower, revealing a black and white helicopter, which landed on the helipad.
At the same time, the elevator dinged, and Sora walked out, his katana sheathed at his waist and the samurai hat concealing the upper half of his face. He glanced at the helicopter, at me, and then at his unconscious friends.
While he spun in place, unsure what to do, the helicopter’s rotors slowed in their spinning as the pilot turned the engine off. The door opened.
Lucielle stepped out.
The Devil wore an impeccable business suit made of a jacket, shirt, long narrow skirt, and pumps. Cross-shaped earrings dangled near her emerald eyes and her snow-white hair flew around in the wind. Everything on her was pale white aside from her black lips and nails.
Next to her exited a man wearing a traditional samurai outfit with a pair of swords by his belt. Miyamoto Musashi looked almost exactly the same as the corpse on the private jet.
I smirked as this sealed all my theories. The way this whole murder and theft played out was that Musashi was using a body double for mundane tasks. Both politicians and actors did the same, that was a possibility I considered from the moment I saw the corpse on the jet. That matched the lack of aether o
ther than Sora’s at the murder scene and that the jet wasn’t destroyed during the fight.
I mean, there was no way anyone could kill me mid-flight without me destroying the plane, which would always be the first thing I would do. And I was nowhere near as strong as members of the Hand of God.
Sora knew that too. He killed the body double to steal the statuette, which was an artifact capable of giving temporary boosts in power. Sasaki showed me that, after all. Sora’s apparent plan was to use the power boost from the statuette to kill the real Musashi right before the summit of the Hand of God to instantly claim his seat on the council. If he succeeded, it would be as if Neo took control of the Matrix.
That way, he would be able to destroy the Yakuza from a position of power and find his lover. This was also the reason why Kenji brought the statuette to the raid of the Yakuza headquarters. They didn’t know if Musashi himself would be present to defend the new headquarters and Sora could have needed the power up.
Lucielle’s emerald gaze bore into me. “What is this?” Her sharp voice pierced the air like a bullet.
I nodded toward the statuette lying next to me. “I’ve brought you the artifact you sent me for.” With my hand, I motioned to Sora and his wounded friends. “And the thieves.”
Sora drew his sword and took a combat stance. But he didn’t move from his spot.
“Why is he waving around a sword then?” Lucielle glowered at me. “You were supposed to bring him captured.”
“Another thing first.” I drew my phone. “The Yakuza has been making a mess in your lands.” I sent her the email I had prepared, one with all the pictures of the Yakuza and the link to the ftp server where I uploaded their entire backlog.
Lucielle took out her phone and started tapping on the screen, black-nailed fingers lightning fast.
Musashi visibly paled as he stood next to her.
“What is this?” Lucielle snapped, glowering at Musashi.
He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know… I haven’t been very active in my organization in the past fifty years or so, I admit. I’ll need to look into this.”
“Look into this?” Lucielle turned toward Vivian. “Is this true?”
“Probably.” Vivian shrugged. “I’ve been busy preparing the Summit.”
“It’s all true.” Sora shouted. He apparently understood what this was about and latched onto the chance like a starved leech on a gaping wound. “The sex trafficking, drug dealing, and everything else you see there is exactly what Yakuza does in our home and will do in yours.”
Lucielle arched an eyebrow. “Who exactly are you that you think you can talk to me without kneeling?”
“I’m Sora Izanagi, the man who will succeed Musashi’s place at the Hand of God.”
“You, at the Hand of God?” Lucielle laughed. Her voice thundered through the air, making the entire tower shake. “Not a chance.” She glanced at me. “Lucas, shut him up.”
Well, I have done more than I should have already by giving Sora a chance to present his case before Lucielle. But now that the Devil has made her decision, I could do nothing but obey.
Funny, how fate turned out. When I was young, I loved the Matrix and imagined how, one day, I would become like Neo. Yet somewhere along the way, I lost the path.
Instead, I’ve become Agent Smith.
I drew Amaterasu’s sword, Kusanagi, and formed a globe of aether in my left palm. Within a split second, I compressed the energy, made it spin, stretched my hand toward Aiko, Kenji, and Yoshiro, and released the blast.
This put Sora before an impossible decision. From what I have seen, his power was the ability to see a few seconds into the future. That was how he seamlessly went through every encounter with me without ever raising my suspicions, how he avoided the impossible-to-dodge projectiles in the Yakuza safe and how he overpowered every opponent with ease.
Through this ability, he also knew he couldn’t help his friends when I came for them with Vivian. That incident alone brought me to this thought – Vivian couldn’t be seen through a camera or detection magic. But he, correctly, ran away before she even entered the house.
Coupled with this foresight, he was unbelievably fast. Yet his speed had a cost of endurance and strength, as I witnessed when he panted after helping me carry the steel door back in the Yakuza vault. To focus on speed, sacrificing everything else, made sense given his chosen skill combination allowed him to avoid any attack.
Well, almost any attack. The blast I sent was lethal. Now, Sora could ignore the attack, letting his friends die and then he would most likely defeat me.
But I didn’t think he would do that. The three bound demigods were his friends, the companions with whom he planned this entire operation, his closest allies. If he let them die, he would spend the rest of his days haunted by their demise because he could have stopped it.
And he chose to. In blinding speed, Sora dashed to get in front of the blast, shielding his friends using his own body. The raw magical energy ravaged his body, shattering his defenses, tearing his clothes. And as he shielded his friends, he also shielded the box lying behind him.
I gripped Kusanagi, with both hands, stretched out my aether and swapped my position with the box. I stepped to Sora’s back and swung down, putting all my weight behind the slash.
He spun and blocked, supporting his blade with his other hand. A smirk crept onto my face. At this point, he could’ve chosen to stab me to exchange strikes. Judging by him opting to block, that exchange would’ve ended with his death. My blade clashed on his and the impact sent him to his knee, knocking his arms down, making my blade reach his collarbone.
I was bigger, heavier, and stronger. But I messed up the blade alignment, so instead of severing him in two, my blade hit him with the flat side. I let go of the sword and rammed into him.
He released the grip of his sword and reached for his daggers. Too late. My shoulder hit his torso, my hands grabbed his legs, I lifted him up, and slammed him on the ground, pressing my chest against his.
He shouted with pain and stabbed the daggers into my sides. The blades barely penetrated my defenses, piercing only a fraction of an inch under my skin. I clenched my legs by the sides of his torso, postured up, and punched down.
Sora raised his arms to block. My fist broke his arm and slammed his head into the roof. I withdrew my right and swung with my left. This one hit the face, breaking his nose and jaw. The next punch of my right made his body go limp.
Sora was not the chosen one.
I rose, stretching my neck while I removed the daggers stabbed into my sides. Blood sprinkled out and pain shot through me. I looked at Lucielle. “With this, my delivery is complete.”
The corners of her black lips curled up. “That’s better. Bring me the statuette.”
Tiredness washed over me as I walked. Yeah, I haven’t slept in a while. But I wasn’t done yet.
I picked up the monkey statuette and brought it to Lucielle.
She looked down and her lips’ corners dropped. “What’s this garbage?”
Musashi put on an awkward smile. “It’s a priceless artifact, a true relic of—”
“It’s ugly.” Lucielle snapped and glared at Musashi. “After all the talk about how amazing and precious the statuette is, you give me this?”
He gulped, apparently searching for words.
Lucielle waved her hand. “Pulvero.” [Crumble.]
The statuette turned to dust and the wind blew the dust away.
“This is my opinion of its value. And since you’ve come up with no explanation for the sex trafficking, I’ll clean this up myself.” Lucielle turned to Vivian. “Zero restrictions. Clear the Yakuza filth from my lands.”
Vivian’s skin paled to corpse gray, fangs slid out of her gums and eye started shining like two sapphire suns. She grinned and exploded into a mist of blood that flew away.
Lucielle’s eyes turned back toward me. “And you should have known better than to bring me this shit
ty monkey.”
“I did.” With a smile, I walked to my backpack and withdrew the fox statuette I stole from Gonnosuke. “I’ve brought this as a small gift to ease your disappointment.” Originally, I took it as an excuse gift in case Lucielle ended up being angry at me, but this worked.
A glint shone in her eyes as I brought the statuette to her. She lifted it in her hands and examined it from each angle.
“That’s a valueless trinket,” Musashi uttered.
“Shut up.” Lucielle rolled her eyes. “I’ll let you survive this day because I cannot be bothered with the consequences of killing you. But I expect you to stop leaving your organization to body doubles, clean up your own porch and never, ever bring trouble to my lands. The next time you piss me off, you will face Hell’s wrath.” She stepped forward, heading toward the elevator.
Pale as a corpse, Musashi followed. He may have been a member of the Hand of God, but he was not the Devil’s equal.
Carrying the fox statuette under her arm, Lucielle glanced at me. “Clean up the rest.”
I nodded and watched them leave. They had a summit to prepare for.
And I had Evelyn to save. Vivian being gone to work was a problem. Not a large one though since she would have disappeared the moment the sun came up half an hour from now.
I took out my phone, allowed myself three long, steadying breaths, and called Agent Miller.
He picked up after four beeps. “Frederick Miller.”
“I’ve got something for you, Agent.”
“Already?” He took a swift pause. “Anyway, I’m all ears. What do you have?”
“The perpetrators of the murder that happened on the Japanese private jet four days ago.” It took all my strength to keep my voice controlled and steady. “They’re four powerful aether-wielders, so this’d be best handled by your organization.”
“There’s no way I can get another strike team formed.”
“No need to. They are knocked out and tied up. You only need to escort them to Tul Sar Naar. Meet me at the Lucielle Legal headquarters in Wall Street, back lobby.”
“All right. I’ll be there in thirty.”
