Blood Oaths

by Stein Willard

  Lulu glanced at them with a small smile on her lips. That small, cocky gesture coming from her wife was so sexy that Choko had to remind herself that they had guests. Later, she promised herself.

  She placed a tray with tea before the Americans. They thanked her and bowing slightly, Choko moved over to help Lulu. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Manu serve Logan. Just like Lulu did with her. For all their lethalness, assassins seemed quite sweet.

  “Lulu, do you think we can talk about the plan while we eat?”

  Lulu looked up. “Yes, that will work. With two other sets of eyes and ears, we’re sure to pick up on any loopholes.”

  +++

  Lulu’s wife pleasantly surprised Manu. She was not at all what she had expected from a Yakuza princess. Choko was petite. Even Lulu, who was not very tall by American standards, towered over her wife. She had expected the woman to be snooty and arrogant, instead, she was struck by her geniality. There was an almost childlike aura about the woman, but in her line of work, Manu had learned quickly that first impressions were rarely spot on. Choko was not a pushover for sure. She lived openly as a lesbian in a conservative society, got married to a woman—a dangerous one for that matter—and still kept her marriage afloat. That was the characteristic of a very strong woman. Dynamite came in small packages, after all. She had wanted to assuage the woman’s fear when she had introduced herself earlier and the petite woman grasped the meaning of the gesture quickly. Her concern for Lulu was commendable and then there was that moment when she gushed over Lulu’s cooking. It was shockingly refreshing to see the stoic woman look so embarrassed. Manu almost smiled as she remembered the moment. “Wow, this is delicious.”

  Manu turned to look at her lover. Logan was a big eater and she loved experimenting with food. It was thanks to great genes and her hectic lifestyle that she managed to work it all off. If Logan said it was delicious then it must be spectacular. She must have been so lost in thought that she had not realized when Logan had been served. She nodded her thanks when Choko put a plate in front of her. She tasted a forkful and chewed slowly. The flavours that burst onto her tongue were amazing. She looked at Lulu, who gazed at them while calmly sipping on a cup of tea.

  “This is quite good. I never would’ve taken you for a culinary expert.”

  “It’s simply a hobby,” Lulu mumbled.

  “One that I like a lot,” Choko gushed again and this time, Lulu blushed furiously. Manu gave the dark assassin a teasing smile and returned to her food. She saw Logan’s plate was almost cleared and the blue eyes already checking out her serving. With a soft smile, she pushed the plate between them both, letting Logan know that she was willing to share.

  Lulu picked up on the gesture. “There is more if you would like some.”

  Logan shook her head. “What about the two of you?” Her eyes swung between the two women.

  Lulu shrugged. “I have made enough. I knew Choko would also like to have some.”

  Logan smiled. “In that case I would love to have seconds.” Lulu quickly served Logan and Choko before she fixed herself and her wife some more tea. By that time, Manu had finished her food and sat back sipping her tea. Lulu caught her eye.

  “The plan is quite simple. We go in with guns blazing.”

  Manu had to quickly swallow the mouthful of tea to prevent herself from spraying her dinner companions. She slowly put the tea cup down. “That’s it?” The other two women were looking at them quietly.

  “Yes. The mansion is otherwise impenetrable.”

  Manu felt a slow headache began to pulse to life behind her eyes. She was no stranger to impetuousness. She had tried it often enough, but not when the life of her fiancée hung in the balance. She took a deep breath, keeping her anger in check. Maybe she misunderstood Lulu.

  “I would be very upset if I had just flown halfway across the world to get my fiancée and myself killed. Are you sure that is all there is to the plan?”

  Lulu smiled thinly. “You asked me to steal a sense of humour, remember?”

  Manu shook her head slowly as she reached for her tea cup. Who would have thought that Chen could actually crack a joke? “Well, now we only need to work on your timing,” she said drily, causing Logan to giggle.

  “You did tell her to lighten up, honey. I, personally, think there’s nothing wrong with her timing.”

  Manu grinned at Lulu. “You have no idea how relieved I am that this plan was just a joke.”

  “Well…” Lulu pursued her lips. “Part of it was a joke.”

  Manu’s eye narrowed as she studied the Asian woman. “This is not another joke, is it?”

  “No.”

  +++

  “So, what do you think?” Logan sat up in bed waiting for Manu to finish her nightly rituals and get into bed. Halfway through the discussion between Lulu and Manu, both she and Choko had begun to doze, Choko from obvious exhaustion and her from jetlag. Their partners had gently encouraged them to go to bed, but as soon as Logan had slipped into bed, she had missed Manu. She rolled around waiting for her fiancée to come to bed. Manu had entered the room ten minutes ago and Logan had waited patiently for the brunette to get into bed.

  “About the plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll work. It has to.”

  Manu crawled into her arms and Logan moaned at the familiar warmth that came over her when she held her lover. It seemed to deepen every time.

  “I’m sure it will.” She kissed Manu’s cheek. “Choko doesn’t look too ill, does she?”

  “She looks good.”

  There was a short silence. “I like her.”

  Manu shifted her body slightly to find a more comfortable position. “She’s nice.”

  Logan gently caressed Manu’s back. “I want you to succeed for her, too.”

  “She’s the reason we are here in the first place. Lulu told me that Choko didn’t want her to take the Clan on all by herself. She made Lulu promise to call me to help them.”

  Logan smiled. That was the sweetest thing she had ever heard. To think that a woman’s love for her partner would drive her to do the near impossible and bring two arch enemies to work together. Logan hoped Lulu realized just how lucky she was to have a woman like Choko love her.

  “That’s so romantic.”

  Manu lifted her head and searched Logan’s eyes with hers. “It is love, sweetheart. Pure and simple.”

  Logan smiled at Manu and brushed her knuckles over the soft cheek. “I will never forget it.”

  “Forget what?” Manu laid her head back on Logan’s chest.

  “That you, too, are doing this out of love for me.”

  “I will never forget that you came with me to take care of me.”

  Logan brushed her lips over Manu’s dark hair. “Then we are even. Sleep now, baby. You have a very busy day today.”

  As Manu’s breathing evened out, Logan lay there in the strange room and said a quiet prayer that her lover would come back to her safely. With a soft kiss to Manu’s cheek, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  +++

  The house was quiet as two shapes stealthily moved around. The backdoor to the kitchen clicked open as they slipped out silently dissolving into the night.

  +++

  Diasuke Tanaka turned in his sleep and automatically reached for the warm body next to him. He mumbled in pleasure when his hand touched a naked breast. Before opening his eyes, he allowed the activities of the previous night to rush through his mind. He felt his manhood stir as he recalled the vigorous workout his young lover had given him.

  His hand clamped on the small breast. It was still very early. Enough time for him to have a bit of fun and still catch a few hours of sleep before his meeting. The girl moaned in her sleep. Daisuke pushed her onto her back and climbed on her. Just as he was about to enter her, a loud explosion rocked the mansion. His eyes shot open as he dove from the bed. The girl’s screams amplified his anxiety as he searched his mind for where he had put his
gun.

  The door to the suite flew open and four men burst in. One walked over to the bed where he unceremoniously pulled the girl off the bed and led her out the door. Daisuke grabbed the gown one of the men held out to him.

  “What was that?”

  “We are under attack, Taro-sama.”

  “Attack?!” The Yakuza chief shook his head in disbelief. “By whom?”

  The men looked slightly sheepish. “We are not sure. We thought to ensure your safety first before we joined the men outside.”

  He wanted to scream at them, but noted that they were in fact only doing their job. They were his personal bodyguards and their first priority would always be him.

  “Leave one man with me while I get dressed and go out there and kill whoever is doing this. Call in for reinforcements if you have to.”

  “Yes, Taro-sama.”

  Diasuke was scared. Never before had anyone been bold enough to attack his home like this. Whoever was staging this assault was either stupid or very dangerous or even both. He slipped into his clothes while the guard kept an eye on the door.

  +++

  Manu listened to the chaos their little impromptu visit had caused. She checked the magazine of her Glock. It was time to change tactics. The earlier explosion had been the result of six hand grenades aimed at the main entrance and the garages. If Tanaka and Purcell were in there, they wanted them to remain there. She scanned the area where she had last seen Lulu and smiled coldly as she saw a dark shadow move along the wall with deadly purpose. They had less than twenty-four hours to wrap this up. Lulu had a doctor’s appointment she could not afford to miss. She shifted her body getting ready to sprint to the mansion, using the shadows for cover, but she quickly discarded the idea. Three black SUVs sped through the main gate and came to a screeching halt before the entrance to the house. Men poured out of the vehicles and like ghosts, spread out into the darkness. Tanaka’s assassins had arrived. Manu gave a longing look at the smouldering house. She wanted so desperately to get to Purcell and have done with it. But it seemed she was going to have to take care of the outside problem first while Lulu cleaned the house from the inside.

  +++

  Bradley Purcell’s hands were shaking as he held the pistol trained on the door. The first explosion had caused him to fall out of bed in shock and terror. That was not a way for a man who had a bounty on his head, to awaken. Since then it had been impossible for him to stop shaking. It worsened when the house was suddenly thrown into total darkness. As if from afar, he heard running feet as Tanaka’s men patrolled the hallways. By the sheer number of footsteps rushing past his bedroom door, Bradley knew that Tanaka must have called in reinforcements. Realizing that, he took a deep breath willing himself to relax.

  Tanaka was renowned for his small army of well-trained ninja assassins. That meant he was totally inaccessible. No one would get through to him while he was under the protection of the Tanaka clan. He felt himself relax a little more at that thought. On rubbery legs, he made his way to where he had thrown his robe over a chair earlier before bed. Shrugging into it, his movements stilled for a moment. There was only one person who could get to him, no matter how many men surrounded him. But that person was not here. He picked up his gun and made for the door. He needed to get to Tanaka.

  +++

  Lulu’s body had shifted into assassin mode the moment she had rolled out of bed two hours earlier. She had studied Choko’s sleeping face, trying to commit the image to her memory. If something were to go wrong tonight, she would have a wonderful image to take with her.

  The Tanaka mansion was quiet and asleep when they had shaken it up with grenades. At the sound of confusion and fear, her rigid assassin’s mask had slipped, making way for something more dangerous—bloodlust. Before she had met Choko, Lulu had enjoyed killing. She had thrived on the power surge she felt when her victims knew why she was within striking distance of them. The realization in their eyes when they knew she would not leave until their blood was spilled and their breath smothered, was near orgasmic for her. But Choko’s dark eyes, gentle touch, and warm, selfless love, had pushed that monster so far back inside her, that Lulu had wondered if it even existed in the first place.

  She knew now for sure that it had. The predator creeping down Diasuke Tanaka’s dark hallways was chillingly familiar to her.

  Running footsteps came in her direction. Lulu flattened her slender body against the wall. What idiots! The first thing she did when she entered the mansion was to disable the main power switch. Still these idiots, knowing that the enemy was in the house by now, ran through the hallways like cattle. She let them pass for now, knowing that if the men were to die this day, Manu or herself would oblige them before the sun was up.

  Tracing a path through the darkness from the plans she had memorized for two days, Lulu slithered down the quiet hallway. She came to an abrupt stop when she heard soft sobbing. She touched the doorknob, but quickly retracted her hand. She knew who this room belonged to. Lulu’s fight was not with the Tanaka women. She felt the hair on her nape rise and turned. Three dark shadows came down the hallway, as silent as death and just as lethal.

  The ninjas had arrived. She knew they were not aware of her presence yet, but would soon. That meant she had to find a more spacious place to engage them. The hallway would not suffice. Just as quietly as her enemy, she made her way down the hallway. There was a small courtyard up ahead, but it had too many potential hideouts for someone to pick her off with a gun. Lulu turned to see the shapes getting closer. It would be light soon and the advantage of darkness gone. She hated to do things this way, but there was no other choice now. She lifted her gun and three soft pops sounded followed by the quiet thud of bodies dropping. It was disgraceful to take the life of a ninja that way, but she was not here to be target practice for them either.

  Stealthily, she crept forward. Tanaka was nearby; she could almost sense his panic. He must know by now she was coming for him. A cruel smile lifted the corners of Lulu’s lips. For once he would experience what it felt like to be the hunted.

  +++

  Manu stepped over the slain bodies and moved away as quickly as possible. Brandishing a sword in one hand and her trusted Glock in the other, she melted into the shadows. The sword obviously lacked the reach of a gun, but it was silent and extremely effective. The four ninjas did not know what had hit them when they happened upon her.

  Keeping the bloody blade against her pants leg, Manu slipped into the house through a room that was destroyed in the blasts. Keeping to the shadows, she made her way through the interior. She peeked into a room and ducked back just as a flare lit up the room. The bullet missed her head by a hairsbreadth, causing her to hiss as a hot trail blazed across her left temple. That was too close for comfort. She crawled into the room, listening for any movement. She had to draw the shooter out. She lay in wait like a tightly coiled snake, willing her prey to come to her. Seconds ticked by and still there was no movement.

  “Did you get him?” a voice whispered in Japanese. Manu smiled coldly. Yep, she had them now.

  “I think so. There’s no movement,” came the answer.

  “Maybe it was one of our guys.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe next time I will ask for a name first before I shoot,” the second voice replied sarcastically. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead. Go check it out.”

  “Hell no, why don’t you go?”

  “Bloody coward,” came the mumbled reply. “Come on. We need to get to the boss.”

  Manu’s eyes widened at that. She was in luck. Time to reel them in. She sat up with a groan.

  “You bloody amateurs, you shot me,” she sneered in Japanese.

  There was movement. “I told you it was one of our guys.”

  “How sure are you,” Second Voice replied.

  Rolling her eyes, Manu had to curb the urge to shoot them both. “Stop bickering like old women and go help with the boss. Damn, this hurts.” When there was no
movement, she sneered at them. “What the hell are you waiting for? I will make sure that you both get skinned alive if something happens to the boss.”

  She smiled when the men scurried past her, not even taking the time to check her out. She felt sorry for Tanaka to be guarded by these bumbling idiots. She waited until their footsteps disappeared down the hallway, before she pushed to her feet. The idiots were going to lead her right to her target. She silently followed them. She should be careful not to bump into Lulu on the way. It would be hard to explain to their respective partners why only one of them returned.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement and halted, holding her breath. According to the layout of the house she was in the Yakuza chief’s private wing. His office was near here, but she doubted he would be in there. There could only be one place he could be holed up. She kept her eyes on the shadow and saw it move right past her. More bloody ninjas. She waited until they had moved down the hallway before she continued her search.

  +++

  Purcell was panicking again. He had been wandering the hallways for close to ten minutes. Where the hell was Tanaka? A shadow came down the hallway. For a moment he considered calling out, relieved to meet with someone else. At the last minute he pressed against the wall and held his breath. They were under attack and it would be stupid to trust that everyone in the house was a friend. From what he had heard during his stay and through his clandestine meetings with other Clan bosses, Tanaka had been a bad boy lately. Not only did everyone frown on his unusual business ethics, but he had stepped on a few toes in the process. Valuable investors had been scared off from doing business with the Yakuza. The Tanaka Clan was a threat to the livelihood of the Organization and anyone would want to take Tanaka out of the equation. The shadow stopped a few feet from him and Purcell felt his blood run cold. Had he been spotted? His hold on the gun tightened.