The second dark ages box.., p.40
The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set, page 40
part #1 of The Second Dark Ages Series
“Oh my god,” Mark whispered as the four of them walked through the city of Nagoya. All the buildings had electricity and cars whisked overhead. “This is nothing like New York.” His head kept swiveling, trying to take in all the sights. “How does everyone have so much here?”
“We kept them safe,” Yuko answered. “Bethany Anne made a secret agreement and placed enough armaments to protect the island in case of a war. She wanted a place that Michael could come and be safe when he made it back.”
Mark snorted.
Jacqueline watched a version of a motorcycle whiz past her. “They make almost no sound,” she noted before asking Yuko, “Bethany Anne trusted the Japanese government?”
Yuko smiled. “Hardly.”
“Why then,” Jacqueline watched another motorcycle speed past, the lights underneath the fairing coloring the street. “Did she give them guns?”
“She didn’t, exactly. She gave Yuko and me guns and plans. From there, we took on the responsibility to make sure those weapons were used according to the agreements we had worked out.”
“They didn’t try to just take them?”
“Oh, certainly.” Yuko nodded and pointed for them to go across the street. “After Akio discussed it with them, they stopped.”
“Stopped trying or breathing?” Mark asked.
“Yes.” Yuko replied.
Mark was surprised to see passing vehicles come to a stop and wait for them. “The laws here are strong enough to make sure everyone stops?”
“Of course,” Yuko said, but a small smile played on her face, “but that isn’t the only answer.”
There was a long pause before Eve spoke. “What she means is that we have multiple companies here in Japan. Interestingly enough, the most secretive is a programming group which is responsible for all upper EI capabilities, including the role-specific EIs that run all the cars, including those that can be taken over by manual control.”
“Wait!” Mark came back, excited to see the cars start up again once they stepped onto the sidewalk. “You mean you wrote the code that runs these cars?”
Eve nodded. “You are very perceptive.”
“Why you?” Jacqueline asked.
“Because she’s the best programmer in Japan,” Mark answered. “Probably the world, right?”
“Probably,” Eve agreed. “I only qualify that because there is a very small chance that the EI in the Colorado base is better, but that chance is less than one in four thousand.”
“Daaamnnnn,” Mark whispered.
“I would never have guessed,” Jacqueline said, “that I was walking around with a couple of businesspeople.”
“More like business moguls, but that might be bragging.” Yuko replied, and stopped. “Okay,” she nodded down a street, “fifteen blocks south is the park. It is next to the port where we need to meet the police. It is about two hours before the meeting is supposed to occur. Use your implants to communicate, but remember there are supposed to be Wechselbalg here.” Yuko turned to Jacqueline. “Are you able to deal with an Alpha’s command?”
“Fuck,” Jacqueline spat out, “I have no Alpha but Michael. They can bring it.”
Mark poked her in the ribs. “What about me, baby?”
She turned and jabbed him with her elbow, then smiled. “I don’t know, ask me next time and we’ll see who ends up on top, okay?”
“Okay.” Mark’s eyes went a touch vacant. “Either way, I win.”
Yuko snapped her fingers twice. “A little focus would be good here.”
Jacqueline blushed. “Sorry, I’m still reacting like a wolf in heat.”
“No,” Yuko shook her head, “like a woman ready to pounce on her man. Just make sure you guys don’t lose it out there so that Michael has to try and resurrect you.”
“Can he do that?” Mark asked.
“No.” Yuko said, and Mark’s face lost its humor.
“Well, baby,” Mark held his hand out for Jacqueline to take, “let’s go to the park, shall we?”
Police Office, Nagoya Japan
“Inspector Hirano?”
Inspector Jijo Hirano turned to the young lady and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
At the moment, he happened to be at the front desk of the station instead of his own office or out on a bust that needed his oversight, and he was surprised someone knew who he was.
Especially with his back turned. She couldn’t have seen his name badge. “Reporter?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m here to discuss something with you,” she replied. “May we go to your office?”
Hirano stepped up to the counter that separated the police from the civilians and placed his hands and elbows on the five-foot-tall surface. This meant he was looking down slightly at the woman standing three feet in front of him. “Well, it all depends on what we need to talk about. I apologize, but I don’t have the time to just chat about anything—”
She interrupted him. “The Bitch Protocol.”
The blood left the inspector’s face. “I see.”
At that moment, the regular officer of the desk came back. “Thank you, sir!” he said.
The inspector barely nodded in his direction as he directed the attractive young woman to follow him to his office.
Kimio watched them leave. “Lucky bastard,” he breathed, and then took his seat, waiting for the next hot young woman to come in so he could help her.
Yuko walked behind the inspector, making sure to watch him as she kept her senses alert. While Eve was fairly sure this inspector was clean, it could be that he was just very good at hiding his real affiliation.
The inspector opened his door and held it to allow Yuko to step in. She was wearing her black operations gear under a large and easily disposed of dress.
“Thank you.” Yuko nodded as he closed the door.
“Well,” he said as he moved to sit behind his desk, “if you are who I think you are, then it is I who needs to thank you.”
Yuko turned her head. “Meaning?”
Hirano pursed his lips and opened the top drawer of his desk. He bent over to the right side and used keys to open the bottom drawer. He pulled out the book, binder really, that was kept inside and locked the drawer again. He laid the book down on his desk and ran his hand across it reverently before unfastening its bronze clasp and opening it.
Yuko was surprised to see notepapers inside, all glued or taped. Running her eyes over the first three entries on the first page, she saw they were from over five decades before.
“This book was my father’s,” Hirano announced. “When I found it after he died, I thought he was perhaps delusional. It wasn’t until I met my first Wechselbalg that I went back to my mother’s home and searched for the book. I have kept it up to date since then.”
“Why paper?” Yuko asked.
Hirano grinned. “Because the wife of ADAM cannot find what isn’t in the systems, can she?”
Yuko laughed a second before she slapped a hand over her mouth in surprise. “Sorry!” she said in a muffled voice. “That shocked me.”
Hirano smiled. Meeting a living legend wasn’t what he had expected to occur today. She was even more beautiful than the description that his father had written in the entries in the book. “That I know that Eve exists?”
“No,” Yuko answered, removing her hand. “That you called her the wife of ADAM.” Yuko thought about it. “Although it is accurate in a way, I suppose.”
“So, Eve is absolutely real as well?” Hirano asked. “I know that I am acting as if it is true, but we didn’t have proof.”
“Oh, certainly, she is outside right now,” Yuko answered and smiled as Hirano craned his neck, obviously wishing that he could go look. “She is not on this side of the building, Inspector.”
“Oh,” he turned back to Yuko. “Sorry.”
“No offense taken,” Yuko said, but she now understood why Jacqueline could be annoyed by Mark’s attraction to technology.
This inspector was kind of cute. She would have to inform Eve that the AI had turned an inspector’s head.
He continued his explanation, “It is not that I am any less impressed with you, my lady,” he bowed slightly, “but she really is the ghost in the machine, is she not?”
Yuko considered that a moment. “Both machine and shell, I could argue,” she said before continuing, “As much fun as this is to consider,” she nodded to his book, “we have a situation going down at the port, and I am here to find out if I can trust any of the police who will be there.”
“The port isn’t my jurisdiction,” he said and pushed his book out of the way so he could see the screen in his desktop. “Let’s see who we will have working down there with you.”
Ten minutes later, Hirano stuck his head out of his office and yelled, “Hana!”
“Here!” a woman’s voice called as she came out of an office two doors down. Hirano gestured for her to join him and retreated into his office.
“Well,” Michael breathed out, annoyed with himself, “shit.”
Akio stepped over the latest severed arm, whose blood was seeping into the old limestone. It held a device in its hand.
“He got a message out?” Akio asked.
Michael looked down. “I think so,” he said, then shrugged. “At least, he thought he had by the time I cut off his arm.”
“That’s five we’ve found, and all five had communications devices.”
“So how do we find the roach before he leaves the nest?” Michael asked. “These passages seem different than the last time I was here.”
“When was that?” Akio asked.
Michael thought about it a moment. “When I was traveling to Paris with Bethany Anne,” he said. “I swung down here for a little rest and relaxation while she was safely enjoying boxes of shoes.”
Akio stared at Michael a moment. “Catacombs full of bones are restful and relaxing?”
“Well,” Michael replied, “saying it that way, certainly not. But when you know the why, it helps.”
Michael waited for Akio.
“Okay, why?” he finally asked, and Michael grinned.
“First, it wasn’t shopping for shoes. Second, because the skull of a dear friend, Robespierre, was interred here. He and I had many letters back in the 1700s related to suffrage, the rights of the royalists, and other topics. In a way, it was a very violent time, and while society was growing, the changes had been very deadly.”
“You spoke to skulls?” Akio asked, trying to piece together Michael’s story.
“No such thing,” he replied. “I merely came here to be grounded and explore honor and incorruptibility. Maximilien was a pleasant person to converse with on those subjects. The discussions about virtue and terror were particularly intense. It was during that time I was, perhaps, influenced to refine the Strictures.”
To this, Akio just nodded. The harshness of the Strictures now made more sense.
“Eve?” Akio said and then listened a moment. “Yes, I understand. Do we have anything that might track traffic from Paris?” He waited a moment more before adding, “Okay, let’s see what we can do.”
“Nothing?” Michael asked.
“She says the cloud cover will cause a problem. However, she will review the next six hours of video when she gets back from the operation to see if there are any vehicles that could have come from this area.”
“She’ll backtrack, then?” Michael asked, and Akio nodded. “Well,” he pointed down a path, “let’s see if we can find anything else.”
“Find anything or anyone?” Akio asked, looking at the dead Forsaken on the ground.
“Yes,” Michael replied.
Near the Port, Nagoya, Japan
The two buildings each stood five stories tall, like two decorative columns flanking the street that passed between them. It continued to the port’s gate five blocks distant. The park across the street from the buildings was pleasant. Occasionally ocean smells would assault those enjoying themselves, but not often. The Nagoya Port wasn’t close to the sea itself, but rather was located on Ise Bay. The bay opened onto the Philippine Sea and didn’t have the same surface area for the winds to pick up scent.
“You realize,” Mark was busy kissing Jacqueline’s neck, “that just twelve hours ago, we were in Europe kicking ass.”
Jacqueline moaned. “Don’t you mean watching ass being kicked?” she asked. “Stop that, I’m not paying attention like I should!” Mark stopped the kissing. “You idiot!” She jerked an elbow into his stomach. “Don’t listen to me!”
Mark chuckled and thought to himself, Mark 1, Jacqueline 0.
Jacqueline asked, “Is that a pistol I feel, baby, or are you happy to see me?” A second later she added, “sorry, too big, never mind.”
Mark 1, Jacqueline 1.
Four hover cars glided out of the evening sky, keeping their speed down to appropriate levels, and settled a foot above the road a quarter mile from the two warehouses. The four sets of headlights Banri had noticed in front of them that were landing some distance away on the road should be Choki’s group.
The port did not allow anyone to overfly their airspace, on pain of missiles tearing up the offender’s ass.
“It is a shame,” Banri commented, “that this meeting is being held under temporary partnership.”
Banri’s right-hand woman Eriko said nothing, but his third, Osamu, spoke up. “It would be nice to send a few rounds in their direction.”
Eriko glanced over at Osamu. He did not make eye contact with her, but his lip turned up in the annoying way that said, “Scored one with the boss!”
Their car slowed down and parked next to the building, two parked closer to the other building, and the last slid behind them. They never placed the boss in the same car twice in a row. For this trip he was in the first car, but for the next trip? It hadn’t been decided yet.
The four cars they had seen coming up the road parked beside the building as they had expected. One of them, a van, pulled up in front.
Banri frowned, and Eriko whispered, “Good choice, we shall do the same next time.”
Banri’s frown softened. “Hai.”
Osamu’s black eyes glinted in frustration. Eriko showed no smile, but inside she was mentally using a foreign hand gesture to tell him to go fuck himself.
She would take out her frustration on him the next time they sparred.
When the teams got out, Banri was perplexed at the eight that got out of Choki’s van.
Eriko turned to look around and whispered in his direction, “The gaijin are the wolves our contact said would come and help with Akuryō.”
Banri grunted his understanding. “Do you have support in place?” She nodded. “Good. There is no ‘help’ to kill Akuryō. We will do as we have been paid to, and then we leave to let the others suffer Akuryō’s wrath.”
Eriko agreed.
Banri buttoned his suit coat and walked towards Choki, who was coming towards him with his second and a gaijin. They would meet in the middle of the street. This was a weekend, and at this time of the day there was little traffic at this location.
The two men met and bowed as courtesy demanded. “What do we see here?” Choki asked, and Banri turned sideways to look at his second. Eriko said, “A gaijin couple necking in the park, and five police watching us.”
Choki’s second nodded and the gaijin agreed.
Both men thought a moment. “If we are not attacked, or if Akuryō should make an appearance, we separate in peace per the agreement,” Choki said as he looked around.
Banri nodded. “Agreed.”
“Is there anything special about the couple in the park?” Eriko asked. The gaijin next to Choki turned towards the park and sniffed. “I can’t smell anything, and they have been here a little while according to a flyby we did thirty minutes ago. So, if they are kaibutsu, then they must be Wechselbalg, not vampire.”
Banri thought it funny that his own team had done two flybys rather than just the one. Three hours ago the couple wasn’t there, and forty-five minutes ago they were. Either way, the couple could be a plant by Akuryō’s group, or just two people wishing to have some time to themselves.
Poor choice to stay and neck, but that wasn’t his problem. While Japanese law looked down on stray bullet kills—a stricture left over from before the war—when Wechselbalg were involved, almost all gunfire deaths, provided they weren’t intentional, were viewed much more generously.
There were no vampires on Japanese soil who didn’t answer to Akuryō. If a vampire showed up and was willing to work with the Yakuza, it wouldn’t be too long before that vampire disappeared and stories of Akuryō would be whispered once more.
Banri was starting to think that perhaps Akuryō was a fiction created by the police to explain clandestine murder and provide a scapegoat.
He hadn’t quite finished his thoughts when the shooting started.
Chapter Twenty-Two
France
The aircar slipped out of the ravine and headed across the country to the north. There were two people inside: the driver, and the passenger in the back seat. It was quiet in the vehicle for a few minutes.
William Renaud played with his small video device. “Be careful, Gerard,” he said crisply. “We don’t want to get too far outside the beam, or we lose… Damn.” He played with the device. “Turn us back around. How far away are we now?”
“We are just over two hundred kilometers, sir.”
“That’s good. Move us back a bit and see if there is a location where we can rest and hide.”
It took Gerard another five minutes to locate the ruins of an old city where he could safely tuck their vehicle into a broken up parking garage on the second-to-top floor. It was high enough to receive the signal well, and hidden from view above.
Anyone who had heard about the Queen’s Bitch knew he used superior airships. There were many stories of those who sought to kill him so they could take his technology. Obviously, since he was alive, it meant those others were not.
William had no illusions that the people he had hired in Japan were going to survive. That was merely the price of business. He offered a deal, they accepted. It was how business had been done for centuries.
“We kept them safe,” Yuko answered. “Bethany Anne made a secret agreement and placed enough armaments to protect the island in case of a war. She wanted a place that Michael could come and be safe when he made it back.”
Mark snorted.
Jacqueline watched a version of a motorcycle whiz past her. “They make almost no sound,” she noted before asking Yuko, “Bethany Anne trusted the Japanese government?”
Yuko smiled. “Hardly.”
“Why then,” Jacqueline watched another motorcycle speed past, the lights underneath the fairing coloring the street. “Did she give them guns?”
“She didn’t, exactly. She gave Yuko and me guns and plans. From there, we took on the responsibility to make sure those weapons were used according to the agreements we had worked out.”
“They didn’t try to just take them?”
“Oh, certainly.” Yuko nodded and pointed for them to go across the street. “After Akio discussed it with them, they stopped.”
“Stopped trying or breathing?” Mark asked.
“Yes.” Yuko replied.
Mark was surprised to see passing vehicles come to a stop and wait for them. “The laws here are strong enough to make sure everyone stops?”
“Of course,” Yuko said, but a small smile played on her face, “but that isn’t the only answer.”
There was a long pause before Eve spoke. “What she means is that we have multiple companies here in Japan. Interestingly enough, the most secretive is a programming group which is responsible for all upper EI capabilities, including the role-specific EIs that run all the cars, including those that can be taken over by manual control.”
“Wait!” Mark came back, excited to see the cars start up again once they stepped onto the sidewalk. “You mean you wrote the code that runs these cars?”
Eve nodded. “You are very perceptive.”
“Why you?” Jacqueline asked.
“Because she’s the best programmer in Japan,” Mark answered. “Probably the world, right?”
“Probably,” Eve agreed. “I only qualify that because there is a very small chance that the EI in the Colorado base is better, but that chance is less than one in four thousand.”
“Daaamnnnn,” Mark whispered.
“I would never have guessed,” Jacqueline said, “that I was walking around with a couple of businesspeople.”
“More like business moguls, but that might be bragging.” Yuko replied, and stopped. “Okay,” she nodded down a street, “fifteen blocks south is the park. It is next to the port where we need to meet the police. It is about two hours before the meeting is supposed to occur. Use your implants to communicate, but remember there are supposed to be Wechselbalg here.” Yuko turned to Jacqueline. “Are you able to deal with an Alpha’s command?”
“Fuck,” Jacqueline spat out, “I have no Alpha but Michael. They can bring it.”
Mark poked her in the ribs. “What about me, baby?”
She turned and jabbed him with her elbow, then smiled. “I don’t know, ask me next time and we’ll see who ends up on top, okay?”
“Okay.” Mark’s eyes went a touch vacant. “Either way, I win.”
Yuko snapped her fingers twice. “A little focus would be good here.”
Jacqueline blushed. “Sorry, I’m still reacting like a wolf in heat.”
“No,” Yuko shook her head, “like a woman ready to pounce on her man. Just make sure you guys don’t lose it out there so that Michael has to try and resurrect you.”
“Can he do that?” Mark asked.
“No.” Yuko said, and Mark’s face lost its humor.
“Well, baby,” Mark held his hand out for Jacqueline to take, “let’s go to the park, shall we?”
Police Office, Nagoya Japan
“Inspector Hirano?”
Inspector Jijo Hirano turned to the young lady and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
At the moment, he happened to be at the front desk of the station instead of his own office or out on a bust that needed his oversight, and he was surprised someone knew who he was.
Especially with his back turned. She couldn’t have seen his name badge. “Reporter?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m here to discuss something with you,” she replied. “May we go to your office?”
Hirano stepped up to the counter that separated the police from the civilians and placed his hands and elbows on the five-foot-tall surface. This meant he was looking down slightly at the woman standing three feet in front of him. “Well, it all depends on what we need to talk about. I apologize, but I don’t have the time to just chat about anything—”
She interrupted him. “The Bitch Protocol.”
The blood left the inspector’s face. “I see.”
At that moment, the regular officer of the desk came back. “Thank you, sir!” he said.
The inspector barely nodded in his direction as he directed the attractive young woman to follow him to his office.
Kimio watched them leave. “Lucky bastard,” he breathed, and then took his seat, waiting for the next hot young woman to come in so he could help her.
Yuko walked behind the inspector, making sure to watch him as she kept her senses alert. While Eve was fairly sure this inspector was clean, it could be that he was just very good at hiding his real affiliation.
The inspector opened his door and held it to allow Yuko to step in. She was wearing her black operations gear under a large and easily disposed of dress.
“Thank you.” Yuko nodded as he closed the door.
“Well,” he said as he moved to sit behind his desk, “if you are who I think you are, then it is I who needs to thank you.”
Yuko turned her head. “Meaning?”
Hirano pursed his lips and opened the top drawer of his desk. He bent over to the right side and used keys to open the bottom drawer. He pulled out the book, binder really, that was kept inside and locked the drawer again. He laid the book down on his desk and ran his hand across it reverently before unfastening its bronze clasp and opening it.
Yuko was surprised to see notepapers inside, all glued or taped. Running her eyes over the first three entries on the first page, she saw they were from over five decades before.
“This book was my father’s,” Hirano announced. “When I found it after he died, I thought he was perhaps delusional. It wasn’t until I met my first Wechselbalg that I went back to my mother’s home and searched for the book. I have kept it up to date since then.”
“Why paper?” Yuko asked.
Hirano grinned. “Because the wife of ADAM cannot find what isn’t in the systems, can she?”
Yuko laughed a second before she slapped a hand over her mouth in surprise. “Sorry!” she said in a muffled voice. “That shocked me.”
Hirano smiled. Meeting a living legend wasn’t what he had expected to occur today. She was even more beautiful than the description that his father had written in the entries in the book. “That I know that Eve exists?”
“No,” Yuko answered, removing her hand. “That you called her the wife of ADAM.” Yuko thought about it. “Although it is accurate in a way, I suppose.”
“So, Eve is absolutely real as well?” Hirano asked. “I know that I am acting as if it is true, but we didn’t have proof.”
“Oh, certainly, she is outside right now,” Yuko answered and smiled as Hirano craned his neck, obviously wishing that he could go look. “She is not on this side of the building, Inspector.”
“Oh,” he turned back to Yuko. “Sorry.”
“No offense taken,” Yuko said, but she now understood why Jacqueline could be annoyed by Mark’s attraction to technology.
This inspector was kind of cute. She would have to inform Eve that the AI had turned an inspector’s head.
He continued his explanation, “It is not that I am any less impressed with you, my lady,” he bowed slightly, “but she really is the ghost in the machine, is she not?”
Yuko considered that a moment. “Both machine and shell, I could argue,” she said before continuing, “As much fun as this is to consider,” she nodded to his book, “we have a situation going down at the port, and I am here to find out if I can trust any of the police who will be there.”
“The port isn’t my jurisdiction,” he said and pushed his book out of the way so he could see the screen in his desktop. “Let’s see who we will have working down there with you.”
Ten minutes later, Hirano stuck his head out of his office and yelled, “Hana!”
“Here!” a woman’s voice called as she came out of an office two doors down. Hirano gestured for her to join him and retreated into his office.
“Well,” Michael breathed out, annoyed with himself, “shit.”
Akio stepped over the latest severed arm, whose blood was seeping into the old limestone. It held a device in its hand.
“He got a message out?” Akio asked.
Michael looked down. “I think so,” he said, then shrugged. “At least, he thought he had by the time I cut off his arm.”
“That’s five we’ve found, and all five had communications devices.”
“So how do we find the roach before he leaves the nest?” Michael asked. “These passages seem different than the last time I was here.”
“When was that?” Akio asked.
Michael thought about it a moment. “When I was traveling to Paris with Bethany Anne,” he said. “I swung down here for a little rest and relaxation while she was safely enjoying boxes of shoes.”
Akio stared at Michael a moment. “Catacombs full of bones are restful and relaxing?”
“Well,” Michael replied, “saying it that way, certainly not. But when you know the why, it helps.”
Michael waited for Akio.
“Okay, why?” he finally asked, and Michael grinned.
“First, it wasn’t shopping for shoes. Second, because the skull of a dear friend, Robespierre, was interred here. He and I had many letters back in the 1700s related to suffrage, the rights of the royalists, and other topics. In a way, it was a very violent time, and while society was growing, the changes had been very deadly.”
“You spoke to skulls?” Akio asked, trying to piece together Michael’s story.
“No such thing,” he replied. “I merely came here to be grounded and explore honor and incorruptibility. Maximilien was a pleasant person to converse with on those subjects. The discussions about virtue and terror were particularly intense. It was during that time I was, perhaps, influenced to refine the Strictures.”
To this, Akio just nodded. The harshness of the Strictures now made more sense.
“Eve?” Akio said and then listened a moment. “Yes, I understand. Do we have anything that might track traffic from Paris?” He waited a moment more before adding, “Okay, let’s see what we can do.”
“Nothing?” Michael asked.
“She says the cloud cover will cause a problem. However, she will review the next six hours of video when she gets back from the operation to see if there are any vehicles that could have come from this area.”
“She’ll backtrack, then?” Michael asked, and Akio nodded. “Well,” he pointed down a path, “let’s see if we can find anything else.”
“Find anything or anyone?” Akio asked, looking at the dead Forsaken on the ground.
“Yes,” Michael replied.
Near the Port, Nagoya, Japan
The two buildings each stood five stories tall, like two decorative columns flanking the street that passed between them. It continued to the port’s gate five blocks distant. The park across the street from the buildings was pleasant. Occasionally ocean smells would assault those enjoying themselves, but not often. The Nagoya Port wasn’t close to the sea itself, but rather was located on Ise Bay. The bay opened onto the Philippine Sea and didn’t have the same surface area for the winds to pick up scent.
“You realize,” Mark was busy kissing Jacqueline’s neck, “that just twelve hours ago, we were in Europe kicking ass.”
Jacqueline moaned. “Don’t you mean watching ass being kicked?” she asked. “Stop that, I’m not paying attention like I should!” Mark stopped the kissing. “You idiot!” She jerked an elbow into his stomach. “Don’t listen to me!”
Mark chuckled and thought to himself, Mark 1, Jacqueline 0.
Jacqueline asked, “Is that a pistol I feel, baby, or are you happy to see me?” A second later she added, “sorry, too big, never mind.”
Mark 1, Jacqueline 1.
Four hover cars glided out of the evening sky, keeping their speed down to appropriate levels, and settled a foot above the road a quarter mile from the two warehouses. The four sets of headlights Banri had noticed in front of them that were landing some distance away on the road should be Choki’s group.
The port did not allow anyone to overfly their airspace, on pain of missiles tearing up the offender’s ass.
“It is a shame,” Banri commented, “that this meeting is being held under temporary partnership.”
Banri’s right-hand woman Eriko said nothing, but his third, Osamu, spoke up. “It would be nice to send a few rounds in their direction.”
Eriko glanced over at Osamu. He did not make eye contact with her, but his lip turned up in the annoying way that said, “Scored one with the boss!”
Their car slowed down and parked next to the building, two parked closer to the other building, and the last slid behind them. They never placed the boss in the same car twice in a row. For this trip he was in the first car, but for the next trip? It hadn’t been decided yet.
The four cars they had seen coming up the road parked beside the building as they had expected. One of them, a van, pulled up in front.
Banri frowned, and Eriko whispered, “Good choice, we shall do the same next time.”
Banri’s frown softened. “Hai.”
Osamu’s black eyes glinted in frustration. Eriko showed no smile, but inside she was mentally using a foreign hand gesture to tell him to go fuck himself.
She would take out her frustration on him the next time they sparred.
When the teams got out, Banri was perplexed at the eight that got out of Choki’s van.
Eriko turned to look around and whispered in his direction, “The gaijin are the wolves our contact said would come and help with Akuryō.”
Banri grunted his understanding. “Do you have support in place?” She nodded. “Good. There is no ‘help’ to kill Akuryō. We will do as we have been paid to, and then we leave to let the others suffer Akuryō’s wrath.”
Eriko agreed.
Banri buttoned his suit coat and walked towards Choki, who was coming towards him with his second and a gaijin. They would meet in the middle of the street. This was a weekend, and at this time of the day there was little traffic at this location.
The two men met and bowed as courtesy demanded. “What do we see here?” Choki asked, and Banri turned sideways to look at his second. Eriko said, “A gaijin couple necking in the park, and five police watching us.”
Choki’s second nodded and the gaijin agreed.
Both men thought a moment. “If we are not attacked, or if Akuryō should make an appearance, we separate in peace per the agreement,” Choki said as he looked around.
Banri nodded. “Agreed.”
“Is there anything special about the couple in the park?” Eriko asked. The gaijin next to Choki turned towards the park and sniffed. “I can’t smell anything, and they have been here a little while according to a flyby we did thirty minutes ago. So, if they are kaibutsu, then they must be Wechselbalg, not vampire.”
Banri thought it funny that his own team had done two flybys rather than just the one. Three hours ago the couple wasn’t there, and forty-five minutes ago they were. Either way, the couple could be a plant by Akuryō’s group, or just two people wishing to have some time to themselves.
Poor choice to stay and neck, but that wasn’t his problem. While Japanese law looked down on stray bullet kills—a stricture left over from before the war—when Wechselbalg were involved, almost all gunfire deaths, provided they weren’t intentional, were viewed much more generously.
There were no vampires on Japanese soil who didn’t answer to Akuryō. If a vampire showed up and was willing to work with the Yakuza, it wouldn’t be too long before that vampire disappeared and stories of Akuryō would be whispered once more.
Banri was starting to think that perhaps Akuryō was a fiction created by the police to explain clandestine murder and provide a scapegoat.
He hadn’t quite finished his thoughts when the shooting started.
Chapter Twenty-Two
France
The aircar slipped out of the ravine and headed across the country to the north. There were two people inside: the driver, and the passenger in the back seat. It was quiet in the vehicle for a few minutes.
William Renaud played with his small video device. “Be careful, Gerard,” he said crisply. “We don’t want to get too far outside the beam, or we lose… Damn.” He played with the device. “Turn us back around. How far away are we now?”
“We are just over two hundred kilometers, sir.”
“That’s good. Move us back a bit and see if there is a location where we can rest and hide.”
It took Gerard another five minutes to locate the ruins of an old city where he could safely tuck their vehicle into a broken up parking garage on the second-to-top floor. It was high enough to receive the signal well, and hidden from view above.
Anyone who had heard about the Queen’s Bitch knew he used superior airships. There were many stories of those who sought to kill him so they could take his technology. Obviously, since he was alive, it meant those others were not.
William had no illusions that the people he had hired in Japan were going to survive. That was merely the price of business. He offered a deal, they accepted. It was how business had been done for centuries.
