by Various
He glanced up, and saw a camera bulb in the ceiling. Somebody was watching the show.
“Can you call up some kind of floorplan of this place?” he said into his wrist.
“Already have. The stairs…”
“No, I wanna know what floor the central security control is on.”
If he was being watched, it had to be from there.
“Gimme a few seconds.”
“PAN.”
It was a deep voice, devoid of affect or discernible accent, definitely electronically-masked. It was coming from the intercom speakers.
“YOU DEALT WITH INUNDACION PRETTY NICELY. THE OTHER WAR GODS AREN’T GOING TO LIKE THAT. IT SEEMS YOU’VE GOT SOME KIND OF OUTSIDE HELP. THAT’S NOT TECHNICALLY CHEATING, BUT IT’S KIND OF ANNOYING. TAKE IT OFF AND DROP IT IN THE WASTEBASKET, OR I’LL THROW ANOTHER ONE OUT THE WINDOW. MAYBE SOMEONE CONSIDERABLY YOUNGER THIS TIME.””
He looked up at the security camera and began to undo the Birdcall bracelet.
“He can’t hear us,” said the Thrasher. “Those cameras aren’t equipped with microphones, but he can see you talking to your wrist. There’s a panel underneath the catch. Slide it open. There’s a micro-transmitter inside. You can pop it into your ear. But be slick about it.””
Pan pulled the bracelet off and walked over to the wastebasket behind the security desk. It was difficult to work open the panel with his gloves, but he did, and the little transmitter stuck to the tip of his index finger as he made a show of dropping the bracelet into the garbage.
“THAT’S BETTER. THERE’S ONE ELEVATOR CAR STILL OPERATING. GET ON IT.”
Just then there was a ding, and the single intact set of elevator doors opened on the east side of the lobby.
Pan walked toward it. He adjusted his mask, and surreptitiously eased the earpiece into his left ear, under the cowl.
“Good, Pan. Real good,” said the Thrasher in his ear.
“GO ON. I PROMISE IT’S NOT GOING TO BLOW UP OR ANYTHING,” said the voice.
“No sign of explosives,” the Thrasher confirmed.
He looked dubiously at the car, then went inside.
The doors closed behind him.
The car climbed the shaft.
“OH, PAN. I’M SO HAPPY YOU CAME. ALMOST AS HAPPY AS WHEN I SAW YOU ON THE NEWS. WHEN BOMBERO TOLD ME ABOUT YOU, I DIDN’T DARE BELIEVE. I HAD TO KNOW FOR SURE. HAD TO SEE FOR MYSELF. I DVR’D THE FOOTAGE OF YOU AND TANTRUM. I WATCHED IT OVER AND OVER. I CRIED WHEN I KNEW IT WAS YOU. I WAS SO HAPPY. I KNEW YOU’D COME FOR YOUR OLD FRIEND SLIGHTLY. PAN TO THE RESCUE.”
“Who is he? Do you have any idea?” the Thrasher asked.
Pan didn’t answer. Just watched the floor indicator increase. He had no idea who this person could be, but they knew he was Jim Cutlass, and they knew Nico Tinkham. Some lunatic obsessed with the old show, or some friend of Barry Mezner’s? Could it possibly be the one Pan had been born to find? The one behind Barry?
“Main security hub is on the thirtieth floor,” the Thrasher announced. “It’s too centrally located in the building for me to get a look at it.”
Pan glanced up. The elevator was approaching ten.
“THIS IS GONNA BE AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE,” said the voice.
The elevator stopped at ten.
The doors opened to darkness.
“Watch it!” the Thrasher warned.
An instant later a yard of curved steel came out of the dark into the car, propelled by six-and-a-half feet of something decked in blazing red and black armor. They unleashed a savage kiai shriek that made Pan leap to the ceiling and brace himself there.
The razor- keen katana point sank into the wood paneling of the car.
A samurai filled the space beneath him, in baroque o-yori armor, the sleeves and helmet fashioned into overlapping, sharp, black, steel scales that gave the impression of feathers. The metal-encased head tilted upward, and he saw his own reflection in the gleaming black lenses of the crow-beaked mask.
Karasu.
Two years ago Pan’s investigations into the disappearance of female Japanese foreign exchange students down in the Little Edo District had led him to the UCLF campus. And to Japanese Language and Culture professor Timothy Handley, a self-confessed Japanophile and 7th dan kendo enthusiast who, it turned out, had constructed an extensive dungeon beneath his home up on Maolchalann Drive. There, he had maintained a stable of seven young, imprisoned Japanese girls, all in the name of protecting them from the corruptive influences of decadent Western culture. He forced the girls to wear geisha outfits, stained their teeth with ink, and kept them heavily powdered. He only selected girls who fit his criteria; they had to be beautiful, they had to be young, and they had to demonstrate some traditional Japanese talent. One was an ikebana floral arranger. One a talented shodō artist. A third a renowned biwa player. He raped a different one every night for three weeks.
When Pan had faced him, Handley had called himself Karasu and claimed to be a tengu demon, punishing these women for their supposed sins, which consisted of anything he chauvinistically disapproved of. He had worn traditional hakama pants and a gi and a weird, long-beaked black crow mask much like the one he was now facing. Neither the police nor Pan had been able to figure out just how Handley had been able to snatch the girls from their rooms without leaving any evidence.
The answer was that Handley was a chimeric; a teleporter, to be precise. He could move past doors with a thought, and combined with his expert swordsmanship, that had made Karasu a deadly opponent. They had battled through the Professor’s sizable house, and Karasu had nearly thrashed him to death with a bamboo practice shinai. Luckily, one of Handley’s captive girls had broken a potted bonsai over his skull, distracting him long enough for Pan to drive his head into the ceiling beam and render him unconscious.
Handley was supposed to be doing a long stretch up in Fulcrum Prison.
If this was the same man, he had traded up his costume considerably, except for that creepy mask. The mask was steel. The armor some kind of modernized lamellar armor, designed to his specifications. There was no way Handley had the ingenuity to make something like this himself. That sword was no bamboo shinai either.
Pan didn’t wait for Karasu to free it from the wall of the car, but dropped down on him.
In a puff of white mist, and with that same strange pop he remembered from their first fight, Karasu was gone.
As soon as Pan’s feet touched the floor of the car, there was a second pop from directly above.
They had switched places. Now Karasu dropped from the ceiling, sword raised, giving a horrible battle cry.
Pan leapt into the dark as the sword struck the place he’d been standing.
“Teleporter, huh?” Thrasher said in his ear.
Pan shushed him as Karasu charged out of the elevator.
Pan swept at his legs, and successfully tripped him up, but before he hit the floor, he was gone in a plume of mist.
Pan crouched in the dark, listening for the pop that would indicate Karasu’s reappearance, but suddenly the lights came on with a bright flash that made him hold the back of his hand up to shade his eyes.
The room wasn’t really that bright, but the sudden flood of light had stunned him momentarily. It was some kind of Japanese-themed restaurant. One of those places with a sushi bar to the side and a few big open teppan griddles surrounded by bamboo seats where a grim-faced chef in a tall hat would flip a knife around and catapult pieces of shrimp into your mouth, if you held still.
He frowned. The ceilings were quite low. He wouldn’t be doing much flying in here.
A big logo on a paper screen next to the hostess’ station confirmed the place as ‘Dōtanuki – Fine Teppanyaki and Sushi Dining Since 1984.’
There were mounted suits of Japanese armor set up all around the place, and swords displayed on the walls, broken up by occasional looming Patrick Nagel-esque portraits of sultry looking, pale skinned geisha
s in bright pastel kimonos. The decor had probably appealed to that bullshit corporate samurai aesthetic American yuppies had eaten up in the cocaine-fueled decade of this establishment’s inception.
Another LF kitsch trap. He wondered if Handley had ever frequented this place, feeding his delusions as well as his appetite for sashimi.
“Who is this guy?” asked the Thrasher. “He’s no War God.””
No, he wasn’t. That was a good point. What was he doing here?
“Karasu,” Pan whispered to the Thrasher, then, “I’m surprised to see you again, Professor,” he said into the empty dining room. “You get out early on good behavior or something?”
Karasu came charging out of the restroom hallway to the left, yelling the whole time.
Pan turned to face him, but anticipating his imminent teleportation, dropped flat on the floor at the last possible instant. Sure enough, there was a pair of pops, and Karasu disappeared and reappeared an instant later behind him. Had he been standing, the crow-beaked swordsman would have passed his steel through Pan’s spine. As it was, he ran over him, dealing a heavy, steel-booted stomp to his thigh.
Pan grabbed Karasu’s ankles as he passed and flipped him, but again, before Karasu could smash through the paper screen, he dissipated into mist. It was unnerving, how he could do that.
“Does your parole officer know about that shiny new suit of armor?”
From somewhere deeper in the restaurant, a furious torrent of Japanese in a deep, guttural tone erupted.
“English, Professor. I don’t speak Japanese,” called Pan, easing himself along a wall.
“Of course you don’t!” replied the voice, deeper than he remembered Handley speaking. Something in the suit that electronically modulated his speech, dropped it a couple of octaves, made him sound like Toshiro Mifune. “Anyone looking at you can see you have no mastery of anything pure or disciplined!”
“I never forced myself on a woman, either.”
“What woman would let you near her, you skinny boy?”
That irked him. “I’m not a boy, Professor.”
“Stop calling me that! Professor Timothy Handley is gone. You killed him that night. You took away his tenure. His home. His life. You tried to take away his mind. The police did not believe him when he told them about the little imp in green. And the Americanized whores would say nothing of you. Now, Handley is dead. Now there is only Karasu!””
“Seems you made at least one friend on the inside, though. Who bought you the snazzy armor?”
“The same blessed benefactor who has granted me vengeance at long last.” A pop to his left, and there he was, black steel plates quivering as he let out another spine-shivering scream and tried to chop Pan in half at the belly.
Pan jumped to the wall and came down with a katana that had been mounted there. He tried to swing the sword at Karasu’s head, but he was out of his element. The samurai slipped the lunge and nearly eviscerated him. Pan dodged quickly away.
Karasu pressed the attack. Pan brought the display sword up to block, only to have Karasau’s weapon snap his in half. The samurai erupted in wild laughter. Karasu wasn’t swinging some made-in-China toy around; his blade was the real thing.
Pan tried to wrap his arms around Karasu’s head, clinch him up, stop him from swinging, but the samurai shrugged and, using his momentum, slid Pan down one arm and threw a gauntleted palm into his chest, which sent him flipping end-over-end and smashing through the restaurant sign.
He hit the ground bleeding from a half-dozen slashes; the black steel feathers on his opponent’s armor had torn into his arms and shoulder.
Pan shoved the broken pieces of the wood frame and sheets of paper screen aside, and Karasu popped into being directly over him. Th samurai dropped with enough momentum to put the sword edge clean through his skull, maybe score the floor beneath, but Pan rolled out of the way and half flew onto one of the teppans.
With a pop, Karasu stood beside him and lunged.
Pan ducked beneath the thrust and swung his legs around, knocking Karasu on his back, causing the teppan to collapse inward with a crash. He tried to follow with a punch to smash the lenses of Karasu’s mask, but threw his fist into a cloud of mist and was kicked in the small of the back as the teleporter shifted in space again.
Pan landed on his side and got up fast.
Karasu flitted about the room to each of the teppans with four rapid pops, then appeared behind him. Pan spun to face him, ducking behind a grab, and struck the crow mask with all he was worth. He managed to get in three good blows before Karasu caught his arm and flipped him over his shoulder onto one of the griddles—which, of course, he had turned on during his rapid teleporting. It wasn’t quite up to full heat, but it was an industrial appliance, and they warmed up fast.
Pan yelped and rolled off, singed in the spots where Karasu’s sharp armor had torn his suit. He was nearly decapitated, but managed, by grabbing one of the samurai’s armored ankles, to spin around on his back and kick him off his feet.
Karasu tumbled with surprising agility and regained his footing, then lashed out three times with his sword at three different angles, popping in and out of view and reappearing in a new position each time. Pan dodged the first two strikes, and managed to draw his knife fast enough to get the blade between his torso and Karasu’s edge.
There was no way a store-bought blade was going to punch through this armor, and it was likely the blade would snap if he attempted to block Karasu’s steel again. It looked to be some kind of high tech alloy. Maybe even dahhnathrium. He found himself wondering again how a loser like Handley had gotten a hold of this suit.
The ceiling was too low for him to fly effectively; he had to rely on his own speed and reflexes. It was frustrating, because he couldn’t even engage Karasu in hand-to-hand. He barely walked away from their first meeting, and that was when the guy had been in a kimono and Halloween mask with a big stick. Karasu had reach and speed and skill, and now he had a suit of armor that Pan’s strongest punches barely dented. He had taken apart a truck with his hands and pulled down a stilt house, yet still couldn’t get through this armor.
Pan shook all that off, kept his mind in the fight. Ducked, flipped, feinted and spun, and every other second there was a sword whisking millimeters from his body and puffs of mist all around, heavy enough to obscure the furniture.
Fleeing was not an option. He tried putting the teppans between him and Karasu, only to have the man teleport on the other side in the blink of an eye. He was unstoppable, relentless, and he kept shouting that unnerving battle scream.
As Pan grew winded, an idea formed, and he led Karasu in a running fight weaving between the teppans, trying to goad him with halfhearted jabs of his knife that the would-be samurai laughed off, even when they landed. In reality though, he ducked beneath the large griddles and used his knife to slash the propane hoses.
“Good, kid,” said the Thrasher. “Good. Watch it!”
He was fighting back a self-congratulatory grin when he dodged the wrong way. Karasu rammed the sword through the left portion of Pan’s torso, just above his belt line. He felt its point pop through the skin on his back.
He was so surprised he flew away and smashed through another paper screen, landing on a private room table, one of those low affairs bordered by traditional cushions so the diners could sit on the floor.
Pan clapped a hand to his side and gasped, looking between his knees at the streak of blood he’d left down the length of the table.
“Jesus,” said Thrasher. “You all right, kid?”
He coughed and tried to sit up.
There was a pop in front of him. Karasu stepped out of a bloom of white mist like some kind of towering nightmare. “And so it comes to an end, boy. I will send your soul to meifumado.”
He wasn’t sure where or what meifumado was, but he didn’t want to find out.
Karasu shifted his stance and raised the bloodied
sword above his head. “Prepare yourself!”
Karasu dropped the blade down to cleave him.
Pan rolled for the edge of the table, and then one large mailed hand clamped down on his throat and pinched.
He gasped, eyes bulging behind his mask.
“I knew you would not die with honor,” Karasu said, straddling him now, the tip of his crow beak mask inches from Pan’s nose. ““Very well. Then there will be pain.”
The world shifted and changed, and his stomach gave a lurch as though he had just crested the top of a rollercoaster and plunged. He realized he had teleported. Or rather, Karasu had teleported with him. He was back in the main dining area, and the mist of the teleportation was rolling away. But no, it wasn’t entirely that.
There was an angry hissing in his ears. The mist wasn’t dissipating…because it wasn’t mist. It was cooking smoke. He was flat on his back on one of the superheated teppans and Karasu was holding him down by the throat, choking the life out of him and ‘pan’-frying him at the same time.
He couldn’t breathe.
The heat was agony on his back and shoulders. He thrashed and gasped, tried to arch his body away from the hot surface; it was no use. He slapped both hands against the mailed fist pinning him to the griddle.
Above him, the nightmare in black steel laughed. He was too big. Too strong. Too insane. In his free hand, he raised the sword.
“Die in pain, little demon! I will smell your seared flesh before I take your head!”
Then his face mask unfolded mechanically, exposing that albino pale, craggy face, those Nordic blue eyes and that brushy white moustache, so incongruous with Pan’s idea of a samurai warrior. He looked like an angry Irish bartender beneath.
As soon as the face mask opened, Karasu inhaled deeply and gagged.
In that instant, he reared back, and fumbled to close his mask. He let go of Pan.
Pan gasped. His starved lungs gulped for air; of course, the room was thick with propane gas from the severed hoses expelling their tanks.
He choked, eyes burning, yet he sprang away from the tortuous heat, digging in his glove for Inundación’s lighter.
