Girl Takes Up Her Sword (26 page)
Her bare feet hardly found solid ground under the dead leaves. A light beckoned in the distance, the same distance as every other time, but lurid now, orange. Her nostrils burned. “The meadow’s on fire” she thought. Acrid smoke obscured whatever sky was ordinarily visible through the top of the forest.
Emily tried to run… but where to, and why? Was she running from the fire, trying to escape the forest before she was burned alive? Or was she running toward the flames, seeking to join herself to them, to immolate herself and achieve transcendence? She hardly knew.
Something bit her in the side, fangs piercing front and back, as she burst from the trees. An immense serpent reared back, as if to strike again, blood smoking in its mouth. Something else came to her, much smaller, a snake slithering up her leg and coiling around her waist. It clung to her and pulled its head back to gaze into her eyes, tongue flicking in and out. When she reached out her hand, it leaned away and then lunged back at her. She waited for the sting, but it didn’t come. Instead, the snake slipped along her arm, scales slinking across her shoulders and down the other arm. By the time it reached her hand it had become rigid and steely… a sword.
A quick two-handed stroke, diagonally down sliced open the serpent’s belly, parting layers of fat and muscle. Black blood spurted from the gash and scorched the soil. She leapt back to avoid touching it. The huge head loomed over her, enraged, with a hiss and a scream, rearing to strike at her, until it saw the upraised sword. The polished blade gleamed in the firelight and flickered as she brandished it this way and that.
She stumbled back into the meadow, trying to put as much distance between her and the serpent as possible. But deeper into the meadow meant deeper into the fire. Soon she was completely surrounded. Maybe the stream would protect her from the flames. Before she knew how it happened, more serpents appeared, circling around her, cutting off any escape, driving the flames toward her. The sizzling of the meadow grass filled her ears.
She swung the sword to cut a fire break all around her, and the grass fell in widening circles around her until she noticed the wind following her sword. When she swung it to one side or the other, the wind whipped in that direction. A sharp stroke sent the flames toward one of the serpents. The aroma of singed flesh wafted over to her and an agonized scream sang on the wind. She slashed and screamed, bringing the blade full circle about her head twice, and the flames leapt up, engulfing all the serpents and any other living thing that might chance to be in the meadow.
When the smoke finally cleared and she could see again, the sun beamed down on the meadow in full bloom. Dragonflies flitted over the stream a few feet away. She staggered over and fell to her knees. The water felt clean and clear on her face, and tilting her head up to the sky, she cried out.
“Guide me, Granny. I am strong enough.”
The familiar voices chanted her name though no one was to be seen.
“Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami.
Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami….”
When she looked up again, the unmistakable voice of the sun shrilled at her.
“The true master takes life when she must, and gives life when it is good.”
Emily wept at these words, for she knew what must follow.
“The true master knows no friendship.”
“Thank you, Granny,” she cried out. “I’m ready.”
Tiny cotton-ball clouds scudded across the face of the sky, riding the breeze that caressed her face. One of them cooed at her.
“Emily, it’s time.”
She smiled sweetly and the voice grew more urgent.
“Emily,” it entreated. “Get up. We have to hurry.”
“They’re coming,” a darker voice intoned. She knew whose it was: Connie. When she opened her eyes and saw them all—Andie and Michael, Ethan and Connie, and her mother—she lurched up in bed and winced from the fire in her side where the serpent bit her.
“Where are Stone and Li Li?” she asked through the pain.
Chapter
29
One Day in Tokyo—Nineteen Years Ago
“This is typical,” Michael muttered, as he stalked the grounds of the
Meiji Jingu
, the elaborate shrine honoring Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken in central Tokyo. He’d been waiting for a half hour or so in the
naien
, or inner precinct of the park. It was as if George was trying to teach him about Japanese culture by insisting on meeting in places like this, and then coming late.
“Finally,” he barked, as soon as he spotted him. He hoped to preserve the appearance of impatience around George, as if he were really annoyed. “What’d you expect me to do here while I waited?”
“I dunno,” George replied. “Maybe admire the architecture.”
Michael snorted, trying to conceal his amusement. George had saved his life more than once, and he’d endure whatever cultural lessons he felt like giving. And the irony was not lost on him, a little man serving as the bodyguard of the much larger man. Though perhaps bodyguard didn’t quite express the full dimensions of their relationship, which was much more like a partnership.
“See the symmetry of the central building. They call that
azekura
style. It’s very ancient, very traditional, probably all done with hand tools and no nails.”
Michael nodded and grunted, trying to look impressed.
“But you see how the outer buildings are asymmetrical, like a variation on the triangular pagoda-style cross-section. This is
nagare
style. You see it all over the countryside and in pretty much all ceremonial buildings.”
“Thanks for the lesson, George. But what about that other business of ours—did the daughter have anything for us?”
George turned quiet.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Michael asked, after an uncomfortable silence.
“What’s there to tell? We both know the whole project is preposterous.”
“So she did give you something. Come on, out with it.” When George said nothing, Michael became impatient. “Look. She won’t talk to me. For whatever reason, you’re the only one she trusts. That gives us a huge advantage over the Chinese and the Russians.”
“Are you still wondering why she trusts me?”
“Well, whatever Dr. Kagami is up to, there’s gonna be trouble, and not just for him,” Michael said. “The whole thing’s some crazy pipe dream, and I’m not convinced he even believes in half of it. But he’s got a lot of dangerous people interested.”
“The Chinese reps seem particularly unsavory. They’re ready to make a move if the folks at Mori don’t give them what they want.”
“What do they expect to get? Kagami says he doesn’t have anything yet.”
“Maybe they just want to disrupt his lab so we can’t get whatever he’s working on,” George said.
“Kagami’s a cagey old bird. He’d never let on, even if he had a breakthrough. He hasn’t, has he?”
George glowered at him.
“Sorry,” Michael muttered. “You see, don’t you, this is why Meacham’s pissed at us. We’re right in the middle of the action, and we’ve got nothing to give him.”
“I don’t care about Meacham,” George replied. “He’s as crazy as Kagami, maybe worse because if he got his hands on a weapon like that, he’d use it.”
“I’m pretty confident he’s not happy with me, you know, over that business with Tang. And I know he’s pissed at you and Danko over losing him his island. Did Danko really go down there to train the Mong Tai?”
George snorted out a laugh and a chuckle.
“For all I know, he’s still there living the rebel life,” he said.
“It’s all well and good to joke about it now. But Meacham will exact some sort of reckoning if we let Kagami’s work fall into unfriendly hands. All hell’s gonna break loose soon, you know it and I know it, and then the daughter’ll be in a pretty tight spot. If they can’t get what they want from Kagami, the Russians or the Chinese are likely to grab her instead.”
“I’m not gonna let that happen,” George growled. “And you’re gonna help me.”
Michael nodded, uncertain if he had the power to resist this… command.
~~~~~~~
“He is respectful, as
hakujin
go,” Dr. Kagami said. “The tall one, his friend, is an oaf.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Yuki said. “But I don’t need your help finding someone.”
“Your mother would not have imagined she could choose someone without consulting her father.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure she would have consulted her mother. But why are you suddenly so interested in my social life?”
“No reason,” he muttered. “I only meant to say that someone like Kane-san would be acceptable, if you were going to choose one of them.
“Aren’t you worried about the break-in last night? I mean, isn’t that more important than playing matchmaker?”
“Don’t worry, Yuki-chan,” he said, trying to placate her. “There’s nothing to find in the files. I removed the most sensitive elements last week. Now it’s all up here,” he said, tapping his temple.
“Why don’t I find this reassuring?”
“I know how to protect what’s mine,” he said. “The culmination of my life’s work, it’s right here.”
Yukie took one look at the vial in his hand and shrieked at him.
“No, Dad, no.”
“Don’t worry, princess. It’s safe. This is the only sample. But now I know how to reproduce it whenever we need to.”
“Stop calling me that.” When he tried to correct himself, she cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. You know Mom hated it, and you’re still doing it. And now, you built your virus even though you knew how much she’d have hated it, how much I hate it.”
“Let me explain. There’s something you don’t know.”
“What, Dad? That my great-grandfather was a Minamoto? You know what Mom thought about his delusions.”
“Yes, you’re right. He was a bitter, broken man, as was his father before him. But he wasn’t wrong about his own ancestry. Your mother’s family is descended from the
Ogimachi Genji
, the last of the Minamoto clans. They were great samurai under the Tokugawa shoguns for almost three hundred years, and then their fortunes collapsed in the Meiji restoration and they were scattered. Your great-grandfather was the last one to remember it.”
Yuki could hardly believe her ears. Was her father really saying her mother had been wrong all these years?
“Is that why you married Mom?”
“No, my dear one,” he replied grimly. “I loved your mother very much. Hers was a beautiful, noble spirit. That’s why I married her, and why I love you, too.”
“Okay, Dad, but why are you so interested in ancient history? What’s it got to do with us?”
“It’s got everything to do with you and me, and your mom. It’s what inspires all my work. That lineage… your mother’s family, your family, all that’s special about it, it’s what I’m trying to capture in my research.”
Dad, no, please, don’t… Don’t cheapen us in this way.”
“You misunderstand me, Yuki-chan. The weapons research, the idea of a genetically enhanced soldier, none of that means anything compared to the human possibilities hidden in your family. The blood of the Emperors may have found it’s purest expression in the Minamotos. After all, they were the source of the great shoguns, and one of them, a soldier born in a small town called Tenno in Miyagi prefecture, performed such wonderful feats in battle that his men gave him a nickname, after his birthplace. It may have been a way of suggesting that he was a true son of heaven.”
“Even if that’s true, Dad, whatever special magic you think is in my blood, why shouldn’t I believe it’s long since been diluted beyond all efficacy? There haven’t been any great warriors in the family in how long?”
“You know it doesn’t work like that. Genetic sequences can lie dormant or masked by other phenotypes for many generations, waiting to be revealed later. That’s what I’ve finally managed to do.”
“What have you done? These aren’t sequences from actual people, are they? I’m sure you mean well, but can’t you see how dangerous synthesizing gene sequences is?” Yuki asked, growing more heated the more she thought about it. “How do you know what the consequences of mixing it into the general population might be?”
“Don’t worry,” he said, holding up the vial containing the viralized gene sequence. “These sequences are designed on a test subject I was able to observe very closely.”
“Who, Dad? It’s no one from our family, is it? I mean, it’s not from Mom… or me, right? But how could it have any relevance to that crazy dream about the
Ogimachi Genji
, unless you found other descendants.”
“I know, they sound like fantasies to you. But the old myths about people being descended from the gods makes sense as a fanciful way of describing families in which certain qualities have been brought to special intensity. It’s not about this or that family. It’s about the potential hidden in everyone, which only chances to flower in occasional individuals. It’s all here, everything I loved about your mother,” he said, eyes gleaming as he brandished the vial. “It contains the secret to limitless power, not just aggression, but real spiritual power. But it’s under control, right here.”
“No, Dad, you’re wrong. You can’t control anything about this. It could ruin everything about us, not just a few test subjects, but the whole human race. Let me destroy it right now,” she said, picking up a beaker of muriatic acid and reaching for the vial in her father’s hand. When he refused to let it go and they struggled briefly, Yuki dropped the acid and, in the confusion, broke the vial against a countertop.
“Now look what you’ve done,” he began to yell at her, until he saw the blood on her hand. “Let me see that. Come, rinse off your hand, quickly.”
“Oh, Dad, what have you done?”
“We can soak it in a dilute acid bath. Hurry.”
“Oh no,” she gasped. “This is terrible.”
“It’s not so bad,” he said. “There’s no reason the virus won’t remain dormant. Without a triggering event, an immunological…”
“Dad, I’m pregnant.”
~~~~~~~
“There’s no time, Yuki,” George said. “Your father’s dead, and you are in great danger.”
The moon provided the only light, giving the scene in her bedroom a ghostly cast. The sun wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours.
“What are you doing here? How did you…?” she began to ask, until she noticed the curtains fluttering in the window.
“We have to hurry,” he said over his shoulder, as he stuffed the contents of her closet into a large duffle bag. “Trust me. I’ll explain on the way.”
“He’s dead?”
“Mori’s security people found him in his office. Apparently, he took his own life. Don’t turn on that light.”
Yuki was silent for a long moment, before she let out one cool sob. A shudder ran across her shoulders and she closed her eyes. She knew exactly what had driven him to do it—shame over having endangered the unborn child who would be the granddaughter of Haruko Tenno, the woman he loved.
“What am I going to do now?” she asked.
“You’re gonna come with me.”
His black, dark eyes seemed to work some magic in her. She gazed into them quietly for a few seconds, before she nodded.
“Where should we go, George?”
“Hokkaido, for a few weeks. Then, when things quiet down, we’ll work our way down to Kyushu, and then Okinawa.”
“Are you sure that’s best?”
“Michael needs a few months to persuade the intelligence agencies, and we need to let all the dust settle before we can risk heading to Hawaii.”
With both hands on his face, she kissed him, and then contemplated his face.
“I have other news for you,” she said with a bittersweet smile.
