Neon Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5) (3 page)

Whatever, I'd deal with it when I could. For now, I had to focus on wherever the hell we were going. This was the first real lead since I'd arrived, and I wasn't going to let it slip away. I clambered back onto the bench and Dancer spoke as if it had never happened.

"How could he have done that to you, Spark? To all of us? He betrayed us. I thought he was a good guy in his own way and he turns out to be the worst of all the Hidden I've ever encountered."

"I wish I had the answers, trust me. More than anything I wanted for it to not be true, for there to be another explanation. But he did it, he helped have my parents killed then he set me up when he thought I might be a problem. He dealt with a vampire to get them out of the picture, locked up a bloody faery fifty years ago just in case he needed to use her to eradicate me in the future. All those years and he knew he was just waiting until I was a threat in his eyes. Ugh, makes me sick."

"Me too. I loved him, you know."

"So did I. And the worst thing of all, he loved us, too."

"How could he?" asked Dancer angrily, voice growing too loud.

"Ssh, they'll hear. It sounds different outside, listen," I whispered.

We listened and it did sound different. Traffic was remote, the road was bumpy, and we could hear muffled voices the other side of the divide. We were arriving at whatever our destination was.

As the van slowed then stopped, and we heard the cab doors open then bang shut, we glanced at each other and nodded.

Time to kick some ass.

A Depressing Beginning

I nodded to Dancer. He gulped, pulled at his collar, then nodded back. This really wasn't his thing. He preferred working with the dead as they were less likely to try to remove your head or make holes in you so your insides fell out.

As the door began to open, I kicked it hard with the heel of my winklepicker and Dancer shouldered it as it bounced back, a second satisfying scream of surprise after the sound of steel hitting flesh coming from outside telling us we'd hit someone—twice, and with extreme unfriendliness. Wasting no time, Dancer jumped down, a little uncertainty in his actions, which he paid for. Caught unawares, I saw a fist from the left smash into his cheek and he spun out of view with an "Oomf." A smack like that would definitely leave a nasty bruise.

Catapulting out, I kicked the guy on the floor in the side of the head and he slammed back onto the ground, unconscious. Dancer had a hand to his face as the other goon swung at him. He ducked and the fist sailed past, and before the goon could turn to see what was happening behind him, Dancer did the sensible thing and kicked him in the knackers.

As the squat, way-too-muscular dude doubled over in pain, choking with tears streaming down his shocked face, Dancer kneed him in the face and a loud crunch told us his nose was broken—the blood and screaming was also a giveaway. With a flourish I didn't know he had in him, Dancer sneered then jabbed out hard and extremely fast at the already ruined nose and the man's head shot back, sending him crashing to the ground on top of his accomplice.

It was all over in less than five seconds.

"You okay?" I asked as he rubbed at his cheek.

"S'pose, but it'll ruin my looks."

"Don't worry, you were ugly to start with." What? Look, it's best to be honest about these things. If he'd just try a different hairstyle at least, it might help a little.

Dancer scowled at me—it's the only look he's good at—then turned to see where we actually were. "Oh boy."

I lifted my gaze from the goons who were still out cold, and understood why he was rather stunned.

The only way to describe it is to imagine that you were in a warehouse, and that the warehouse was made of crumbly bricks with metal pillars and roof trusses and that somebody had been given an infinite amount of money and told, "Right, make it as ugly and spooky and freaky as hell, then add some more of all that in, just in case. Oh, and don't forget the zombies. Or the stink, there's got to be a proper stink. Amaze me."

The massive hanger was a mess of rusted steel, brown stains dripping down to the floor, pooling around the feet of the festering undead. Flies swarmed angrily, making it hard to see too far as the black clouds grew increasingly manic and loud at the disturbance. Holes in the roof offered the only glimpse of a brighter world, everything else was death and decay.

Row after row of zombies were chained from poles running across a suspended ceiling, shackled to the floor so they could only move a few feet in any one direction. They moaned and strained at their bonds as the scent of fresh blood and the sight of us took hold. I thought back to how we treated our own undead in Wales, and there was no comparison—they lived in a bloody converted spa resort.

They were people. Sure, they were dead, but many were totally conscious of their situation, just, you know, couldn't resist trying to eat your brains. Ours had a special chemical cocktail to stop them rotting, these had no such luxury. Bits of bodies were strewn all over the place in various stages of decomposition, or were being feasted upon by maggots, and even the whole ones looked as bad as those we'd just escaped from.

How could the Japanese Hidden Council allow this to stand? Did they know? Surely not. This was clearly outside the realms of official Council business and to do with Kimiko. The devious devil had set some of her captive zombies on me to get rid of the nuisance. Well, I wasn't about to go out like that.

"What are we gonna do with this lot?" asked Dancer.

"That's a good question. As far as I can see there isn't much we can do. If we let them go then it will be chaos. We have to tell the Council so they can come get them and treat them with respect."

"What the hell have you got me into here, Spark? If I ever am your boss then I'm gonna dock your wages for all this crap."

"Shut up, Dancer. Let me think." So far I'd "interviewed" three people I thought would lead to Kimiko, and all three had committed suicide before I could get answers. I was now out of any kind of leads as this was a foreign country and I had few contacts. Make that none now. All I'd had were names and a few faces from my past—I knew nobody else that I didn't mind involving in this mess.

The best thing was to question the goons and if that didn't work out then speak to the Council. They'd know where I could locate her, or at least where she was most likely to be, I just didn't want to deal with them as they made the UK Heads look soft and accommodating, and we know how that has gone for me lately. Last thing I wanted was to be locked up in a foreign prison; I had business to attend to. And besides, I prefer to work at my own pace and without interference, and you can bet as soon as I got the Council involved my life wouldn't be my own.

They'd probably want reports and for me to go by the book—I didn't even have a book. They were sticklers for the rules and the Law and I knew I was pushing it already and that soon enough they'd hear I was in Tokyo and want an explanation. But this with the zombies, it forced my hand. Something had to be done, so Council it was, just to give the undead some peace.

First, crack some heads and get answers from the goons.

"Let's talk to these two first. What's she playing at? These two aren't even vamps, just regular goons."

Dancer bent to one and lifted a paw of a hand. "Not just goons, Yakuza goons. Look." The guy had his pinkie finger missing and it brought back memories of what I'd done to Dancer when he'd tried it on with me. I smiled and was about to speak when he said, "Don't even go there, Spark. I'm not in the mood."

"Okay, fine. Yep, you're Head material all right. You've got the bossy bit sorted already." Dancer said nothing. I stepped over to the unconscious men and bent to study them.

They were definitely gangsters, meaning Kimiko had either got involved with them or she was running the show. Knowing her, I knew perfectly well what was most likely—she's formidable and everyone in the Hidden human world knows of her.

She'd traveled the world wreaking havoc and generally doing whatever she pleased, ignoring the Councils and going her own way. She was as scornful of the Vampire Council as the Hidden, forging her own path, trusting nobody. An Alone, utterly ruthless, and terrifyingly beautiful. Not to mention a vampire that could glamor you in a heartbeat or merely seduce you because of her beauty, enthrall and add you to her ever-expanding tribe of sycophants spread across the globe.

She was a one woman powerhouse who did what she wanted and to hell with the consequences. A rogue that took orders from no-one, was admired for her ferocity and single-mindedness, and feared and loathed for the same reasons.

I cared nothing for any of it. She owed me and she would pay with her life.

Interrogating the Goons

"Aaaaaaiiiiieeeee."

Screams of terror are pretty much universal. There was a look of horror on the goons' faces as they slowly came around, and the shrieks were understandable no matter the language barrier. There may have been an accent but the fear was the same—it practically dripped off them like the sweat that ran from under their arms.

Stripped to their boxer shorts, chained so the zombies were snapping mere inches from their faces, the smooth skin of the muscular goons was slick with fear—so much for the reputation of the Tokyo gangsters. They begged in a language we didn't understand but it made no difference, their pleas for freedom were understood easily enough.

Looking at them almost naked was fascinating. Their ink was beautiful, real works of art. Both had full sleeves of intense color, vibrant and almost dancing off their skin with life and vitality. I was envious and awed. Their backs were homes for full-color pictures of legendary Japanese demon gods, writhing across their muscular bodies as if ready to do battle.

Head-to-toe, they were as covered in tattoos as I was, difference being mine were not only beautiful but for the channeling of magic, theirs were for another purpose entirely. Many of the markings were signs of the gangster life, showing their progress through the ranks, or lack of it, and one thing became abundantly clear to both Dancer and I as we stripped and shackled them—these weren't exactly high-level. In fact, with the missing digits and the lack of signs of magical prowess, we were probably dealing with pretty lowly types.

They'd tell us little, or nothing. We'd counted on some English, though, and were both getting rather frustrated with the inability to communicate our requests for information.

Leaving Dancer to it for a while, I stepped outside to find out where the hell we were and to make a phone call, one I hadn't intended to make. I breathed deep, filling my lungs with if not clean air, then at least air that smelled of traffic fumes rather than zombie discharge. We were in a warehouse district of some kind, but I could see the city spreading out like a cancer in all directions, hazy air full of smog. I missed Cardiff where at least you knew you could drive for ten minutes and watch a cow in a field to clear your mind and your lungs.

Through a large expanse of cracked concrete, I came to a road, more an alley than anything. Turning right, I walked to the end and stood under an incomprehensible signpost. It would have to do. I made my call, explaining in rather embarrassing detail the way the words were written, trying to pronounce them and getting a delightful laugh in return for my pathetic efforts.

With a promise to arrive as soon as possible, my contact hung up and I walked back to the warehouse with a smile.

"What you looking so happy about?" asked Dancer suspiciously as I stepped beside him.

"You'll see. Help is on the way. My translator."

"You've got a translator? Who?"

"Just wait. It's been a long time since we last saw each other, wonder how the years have treated my old friend?" I wasn't going to call and drag her into my mess, but we'd get nowhere without understanding what the freaked out goons were saying, and besides, she'd never let me hear the end of it if I didn't allow her to have some fun and the chance to get involved in a little danger. It was well past time to get answers, anyway, and by the looks of it this pair were more than ready to talk now.

With time to kill, we decided to go for a walk around the warehouse, just to see what else might be there and to look for clues.

We wandered past the lines of undead, making it to the rear of the warehouse with no flesh missing. There was a massive sliding door that was unlocked—these people really should be more security conscious when they had enough zombies to wipe out the entire country in a few hours. We pulled on an oversized handle and the door slid aside, grating on the runner noisily until it was open enough for us to squeeze through and breathe some better air.

"This country is so freaky." It wasn't what I expected at all. We were in a narrow alley facing a fenced off area backed by huge steel slabs that hid the contents from nosy passersby.

"Do you think we can take one?" asked Dancer, eyes wide, smiling in anticipation, a faraway look in his eyes.

"No, absolutely not." It was tempting as hell but we didn't have time or permission, and the last thing we needed was to cross anyone that might take offense to our thievery. Although we'd probably already crossed that line, what with the whole chaining goons next to zombies thing.

"Come on, not even one? What are they doing here? Bit odd, isn't it?"

"It's odd in the extreme but we've got other things to worry about." I stared at the sight, not sure what to make of it at all. Why were they here of all places? Such beautiful creatures shouldn't be at the back of a warehouse full of the living dead, they should be... I wasn't sure, but they should be somewhere nice and cozy, not in a yard surrounded by rusting metal locked behind a rather ridiculously high chain-link fence.

Without either of us consciously realizing what we were doing, we had opened the gate and were crouched down in the center of the dusty yard. The creatures came frolicking over to us, all uncoordinated legs and playful. Bounding about and then licking our faces and generally acting like the super cute puppies that they were. They were the most adorable things you have ever seen in your life.