“Go without me,” she whines.
“No. I can’t let anyone see me,” the griffin replies in perfect but accented (mostly because of the shape of its ears) dog sounds. “Hold on with your teeth.”
Shahrazad tries, but the eagle feathers tickle her nose and make her sneeze. The lion hindquarters are not sufficiently long for her to straddle.
If only I had hands! she thinks in desperation. As once before in her life, she feels the anger, fear, and frustration within her flow into a part of her she had nearly forgotten existed until this moment.
When Shahrazad looks down at herself, she sees that while her head and torso are still those of a coyote, her arms and legs have shifted to something closer to those of a human. Her feet remain like coyote feet, though somewhat longer, and her front paws have become hairy, but fully usable hands.
Gleefully, she spins before the griffin, displaying her new form.
“Come, Changer’s Daughter,” the other screeches. “We must fly before they go too far, before light comes and I must hide or fly very high indeed.”
Shahrazad climbs onto the griffin’s back, straddling as she had seen the werewolf do. She is even smaller, hardly larger than a toddling human child, and the griffin makes a satisfied noise as she launches into the air.
“Sharp eyes below, little one,” she screeches. “We shall have them yet.”
Shahrazad grins a coyote grin and, lifting her muzzle to the thin sliver of the moon, howls.
“Those of us on the inside,” Anson had reminded them just moments before, “must do four things. We must get Katsuhiro. We must get Teresa. We must get Taiwo. Finally, if we can, we must get Katsuhiro’s sword. Your job on the outside is to give us time to do these things.”
Their plan for entry had been cast with the simplicity born of desperation. When Anson had returned hours earlier from his nightly trip to Regis’s compound, he had brought news of the Japanese’s defense of Teresa and what it meant for his situation.
Since Katsuhiro was presumably no longer able to roam at liberty, and since Teresa with him in his room, that very night seems the best time to act.
Thus, in the post-midnight hours, when the guards on the midnight-to-seven shift should be growing bored and tired, Anson would cross into the compound in monkey form. He would bring another gun, ammunition, and a knife for Teresa. It had been decided, given what Katsuhiro reported of her state of mind, not to trust her with a gun.
Meanwhile, Eddie, Dakar, and Oya would be waiting below. There was no way that even such a talented duo as Anson and Katsuhiro could expect to simply walk out of the compound. Therefore, the strike team outside was prepared to create distractions and, if necessary, to break into the compound to get them out.
Neat. Tidy. Full of room for improvisation.
It is amazing how quickly this simple plan goes to hell.
Teresa starts the problems. She recognizes Anson when he swings in through the open window, only raises an eyebrow at his nudity and hands him, without being asked, a pair of Katsuhiro’s undershorts.
“A good thing he wears boxers,” she says. “When Mr. Oba warned me that we were breaking out tonight and that there would be help from the outside, I thought he might mean you.”
Anson, stepping into the shorts, bows acknowledgment. “I am sorry about Adam’s death. Had I known what had happened to you both, I would have tried to rescue you sooner.”
Teresa shrugs. “What is is. There is no changing it. Now, tie me to that chair, good and tight. I will say I was overwhelmed. Since we have refocused the security camera—not that I think Regis has time for watching tonight—there will be no one to gainsay me.”
She sits in the indicated chair and the two men exchange helpless glances.
“Teresa,” Anson says sternly, “you are leaving with us. There is nothing further you can do here. If you stay, you may be killed.”
“I am already dead,” she says, frighteningly matter-of-fact, “and so do not fear death. I will not leave until I am certain that Regis’s heart no longer beats and the good air is no longer fouled in his lungs. I cannot say ‘until he is dead’ for as I have told Mr. Oba, Regis is already as dead as I am.”
“Others have already sworn to kill him,” Anson says soothingly. “There is no need for you to be further sullied. Come!”
Her reply is to lean back against the chair and close her eyes. Katsuhiro tears a strip from his bed linen.
“A gag is a good first step,” he says, “then her hands.”
In ancient Mycenaean, he adds, “We could leave her, but I prefer not to do so. Since she will not cooperate, she can be our hostage. At least some of the guards will hesitate before shooting Regis’s woman.”
Anson nods agreement and begins belting Katsuhiro’s boxers around his own much smaller waist.
“These don’t have pockets,” he says in English, “but I’ll use my fanny pack to carry ammunition.”
“Good,” Katsuhiro replies. “I’ll need to leave most of my luggage. Regis’s minions have taken my money and identification, but the latter can be replaced.” To Teresa he adds, “Open your mouth, you stubborn woman.”
She does so, placid but fierce, and he stuffs in a gag and ties it firmly into place. Anson twists her hands behind her and holds them while Katsuhiro binds her wrists. Only when the samurai hobbles her ankles, then wrenches her to her feet, does Teresa realize that they are not leaving her behind.
Immediately, she begins to struggle. Anson, who is far stronger than his skinny body would seem to indicate, holds her easily with one arm.
“Keep struggling, my friend,” he tells her cheerfully. “It will make our charade seem all the better.
She cannot curse him as the low growls in her throat seem to indicate she would wish, but her eyes are hot with hate.
Katsuhiro appropriates the knife meant for Teresa, checks his gun for readiness, and grins at Anson.
“I am so looking forward to a fight,” he says.
“Then let me brief you,” Anson says. “Our reinforcements are prepared to cause a distraction when needed. Moreover, the door nearest to the garage will be open and covered. Our job is to get out after finishing our scavenger hunt.”
Katsuhiro’s grin does not fade. “We have Teresa. Taiwo is being held in his own quarters one floor below this one. The staircase at the right end of the corridor outside will take us almost to his door.”
In Mycenaean, Anson says, “I had planned to shift again and go down to his room so we would have someone with him, but Teresa’s behavior makes that impossible.”
“We will adapt,” Katsuhiro answers in the same language. “By the way, I saved you some candy. It’s disgustingly sweet, but should help you keep your strength up.”
Anson takes the offered candy with the hand that is not gripping Teresa.
“Cloying,” he says, switching to English, “but not disgusting. And a great help. Are you ready to go?”
“Ready.” Katsuhiro says. “You first with Teresa. I’ll slip out behind and take out the guard on the right. From there...”
“We improvise, eh?”
“Hai!”
Anson takes a deep breath, then opens the door. Even before it swings fully open, he is jabbering nonsense in rapid-fire English.
“Mary had a little lamb, her fleece was black as night...”
He’s in the corridor now, kicking out almost as if performing a dance step. His bare foot hits the guard on the left of the door solidly in a khaki-trousered knee.
“And everywhere that Mary goes, tha’ lamb, she take a fright!”
Anson grins, making certain the two guards closest to him (there are four in all, one on either side of the door, two leaning against the wall across the corridor) see that he holds a gun in addition to Teresa. Behind him, he hears an “ooff” and thud as Katsuhiro takes out the guard to the right of the door.
Dragging the struggling Teresa with him, Anson takes a giant step into the newly opened space.
“Hey diddle diddle, that cat has a fiddle, the cow jumps over the moon.”
Katsuhiro is a blur of motion, launching across the woman and knocking the guard out with a blow to the side of his neck.
One of the two remaining guards is struggling onto his feet, swearing at the pain in his knee. The other decides to shoot. His shot, aimed professionally for Katsuhiro’s torso, is upset when Katsuhiro leaps for him, but even so, it plows a furrow in the other’s right side.
“Plague song!” Anson announces, then sings, “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ha-choo! Ha-choo! We all fall down!”
Despite Teresa’s resistance, he’s gotten to the top of the stair now. Footsteps are tramping up, rapid and controlled, soldiers responding to a situation, not civilians.
Holding Teresa in front of him like a shield, Anson whispers in her ear. “Don’t give me trouble, eh? Then maybe they no shoot you, too.”
She leans back, so limp and heavy he wonders if she has fainted. When the first man peers around the stairwell, Anson shoots him quite neatly in the middle of the forehead.
Katsuhiro, coming up beside him, growls. “You should have let him step out first! Now the others will be more cautious.”
“Are we clear behind?”
“Those four are out of it.” The dripping red knife blade in the Japanese’s hand explains how and how permanently. Without saying more, Katsuhiro creeps on his belly until he is alongside the stairwell doorway. Listening, he holds up his fingers: two or more on the other side.
Anson nods and fires a couple of shots through the windowpane in the stairwell door. As he had hoped, the whine of the bullet ricocheting from the concrete walls flushes the men in the stairwell. When they charge out, half-panicked, half-furious, Katsuhiro coolly picks them off.
As he’s reloading, Katsuhiro motions to Anson. “Go ahead. I’ll follow and lock this door. If we’re lucky, they were watching Taiwo, and his door will be temporarily unguarded.”
Anson nods, griping playfully as he carries Teresa over the bloody corpses in the doorway. “You could have let them get a few steps farther...”
Katsuhiro barks laughter and follows. “The gunfire will have alerted the guards on the wall. You say we have people outside?”
“Three,” Anson grunts. Teresa is being very difficult, struggling, then going limp. Frustrated, he thumps her on the head, but all that does is make her angrier. “Crazy woman,” he mutters.
Leaving seven dead behind them, the athanor hurry down the stairs. The corridor outside of Taiwo’s room, as they had hoped, is temporarily empty, but shouting both outside and in the building indicates that it will not be so for long.
20
Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil.
Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.
—John Vanbrugh
Outside the walls of the compound, three listening athanor tense at the first sound of gunfire. Then Dakar Agadez lifts a high-powered rifle to his shoulder, takes aim through a nightscope and fires. There is a sound rather like a cat spitting, and one of the men on the wall falls.
For a moment, Eddie considers protesting, then his older training comes forward. There are no innocents on a battlefield, and anyone trusted enough to stand on that wall holding a weapon is willing and able to kill them.
Oya, as he must now think of Alice Chun, is frowning slightly, but in concentration, not consternation. They have been watching from across the street the dual entrances into Regis’s compound, one large enough to admit vehicles, another, smaller, meant for human traffic alone.
During a break in the gunfire, Oya slips across the street to the smaller door. Before she begins work on the lock, she stretches a trip wire across the opening. Anson knows to look out for it, but anyone not with him will not. A small trick, but time could be precious. When she unlocks the door, she moves to the vehicle door. In this case, her job is to jam it, not open it.
While Oya works, Eddie keeps up a steady exchange of shots with the guards on the compound wall. Dakar has trotted away. By firing other shots from random points along the rest of the wall, he can create the illusion that their force is much larger than it is.
In a sense, Regis’s sinister compound has helped them. The tenants in the nearest houses and shops have long since moved away. The darkened buildings, many with boarded-up doors and windows, provide ample shadows and alleys in which the athanor can hide. They have a short grace period during which no neighbors will interfere, and all the official military—police and militia alike—are posted at the edges of the city, patrolling lest Oya’s wind fall and leave them unprepared for whatever waits outside.
Yes, for now, everything is going according to plan. Eddie hopes that things are going as well for Anson and Katsuhiro.
Picking the lock to Taiwo’s room is laughably easy for the Spider, but that doesn’t make him careless when he opens the door. Teresa is slumped in a sullen heap on the floor, and Katsuhiro is watching the corridor for any trouble.
Anson kicks in the door, rolling in low to the ground and hoping that Taiwo isn’t still so trusted as to be armed. When Anson comes to his feet, his gun in his right hand, he counts his blessings to find himself whole. Taiwo is sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes round with astonishment.
“You look a lot like your brother,” Anson says conversationally.
Instantly, he realizes that he has said the wrong thing. Taiwo tenses, reaches for something to throw. Since the nearest thing to hand is a pillow, Anson isn’t terribly worried, but he mentally kicks himself for forgetting that, since Taiwo hasn’t been visiting his wife, he probably is not on the best of terms with his twin either.
“On your feet,” the Spider orders. “We’re taking you out with us. I don’t really care how much you’re bleeding when we do.”
He does care, actually, since the idea of dragging both Teresa and Taiwo is highly unpleasant—not to mention how much it would reduce the odds of a successful escape.
Taiwo, however, is convinced, perhaps because anyone who is crazy enough to take on a fortress with nothing more than a baggy pair of underwear and a gun is a someone not to be treated lightly. He gets to his feet and takes a hesitant step in the direction of the open door.
“Through there,” Anson says. “And while you’re walking, tell me. Where did Regis put the sword he took from the Japanese?”
“In his quarters,” Taiwo says promptly. “I’ve seen it there, hanging on the wall.”
Anson nods. “Hear that?” he calls to Katsuhiro.
“Hai!” comes the reply, punctuated by several neatly spaced shots. “Stop jabbering!”
When Anson and his captive emerge into the corridor, there are two more bodies lying at the far end.
“There may be more coming up in the stairwell behind us,” Katsuhiro comments, “but they’ll be delayed by the door I just locked. I think this corridor is clean. No one has emerged from the other doors.”
Taiwo volunteers in the tight voice of someone trying very hard to sound nonchalant, “Regis’s other guests had these rooms, but since he moved them to the dungeon below, they are probably empty.”
“Then we go this way,” Katsuhiro orders. “That stairwell is marginally closer to the door Oya should have open for us. We have the two most valuable pieces in our scavenger hunt. They must be gotten out first.”
Anson nods. “But your sword?”
“Can wait. There’s a lot of talk about a samurai’s sword being his soul,” Katsuhiro says, taking point, pausing only to scavenge weapons and ammunition from the man he has just killed, “but I’ve never seen the use of a soul without a breathing body to house it.”
“A practical,” Anson says, relieving the same corpse of a roll of hard candy from its breast pocket, “but less elegant philosophy.”
Teresa walks with them now, shuffling rapidly within the limits of her hobbles. Perhaps the trail of corpses that Katsuhiro has left behind him
has left her less certain about crossing him. Perhaps the presence of immediate death has made her treasure what life is left to her. Whatever the reason, Anson senses the change and cuts her gag.
“With us now, little sister?” he asks kindly.
“Yes,” she croaks, her throat sucked dry by the gag.
“Good,” he bends and cuts her hobbles, but leaves her hands bound. Taiwo watches in some puzzlement.
“All will become clear,” Anson promises, pushing a candy between Teresa’s lips, “if you live long enough to get out of here. Now move!”
Taiwo does, trotting a few feet behind Katsuhiro as the other leads the way down the stair. Teresa comes next. Anson brings up the rear, guarding both against anyone coming up from behind and from treachery in the middle.
He knows from his scouting and Katsuhiro’s report that they have one more flight to go. Then they must cross the ground floor before making a short hop through open ground within the compound. From the sound of gunfire outside, Dakar and Eddie are doing their part, but he feels far from certain that he and Katsuhiro will get both themselves and their charges out safely.
Eddie has just shot the latest guard in the shoulder and is cursing himself for his lack of accuracy—too much paperwork and too little practice on the range has made him slow—when a bird flutters to the ground at his feet and resolves into a man.
“Eddie,” says the gravelly voice of the Changer, “Arthur sent me to find you.”
Eddie appreciates the economical way that the Changer anticipates what should be his first questions (Why are you here? How did you find me?) almost as much as he appreciates the shapeshifter’s timing. He raises his rifle, shoots a roundness that might be a head, but might be another shoulder.
“We’re waiting for Katsuhiro and Anson. They’re inside. Should be heading for that door. I don’t suppose...”
“I’m gone,” is the reply, and the Changer resolves into something with wings. Eddie sets up a wild burst of gunfire to cover its vanishing over the wall. Then, having done all he can, he reloads and continues his methodical coverage.
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