Raiju: A Kaiju Hunter Novel (The Kaiju Hunter) (19 page)

The duty nurse had turned up the TV in one corner of the ward. KTV was reporting on the earthquakes that were spiking steadily in the downtown area. Authorities believed it was Qilin on the move again and the National Guard had been brought in to help with evacuation procedures for Brooklyn and parts of the lower Bronx.

I couldn’t help but wonder where my dad was, if he was okay. I hoped he would evacuate like everyone else. “Is it tracking you now?” I said.

She closed her eyes. “Yes, I think so.”

“
Isn’t there any way to…break the link? Or block the connection?”

She shook her head, her tangled hair shushing around her pale face. “This is like a disease I’ll have for the rest of my life, Kevin. I can control it, a little…put it in remission…but it won’t go away, ever.”

I stood up and paced around the ward. The nurse was busy with another patient and wasn’t paying any attention to us. “Are you strong enough to walk?”

“
I’m all right,” she said, my brave Aimi.

I grabbed her clothes from a bag under the bed and tossed them down beside her. “Get dressed. We’re getting out of here.”

“
Where are we going?”

“
West, I think.” I glanced up again at the TV. The shocks were steadily extending east, directly toward us, at about a mile or two an hour, despite the military effort. I knew they wouldn’t be able to hold Qilin for long. He was a water god; he could move through cracks, holes, sewer grates, anything, really. By my estimation, we had less than an hour before Qilin found us. We could use that time to ride west. If we were fast enough, and if the bike I had “borrowed” was good enough, we might be able to outrun Qilin. With any luck, we might even be able to landlock him. He was just sludge, after all, slime. If we could draw him away from any significant body of water long enough, we might be able to dry him out.

I told Aimi my idea while I watched the TV. It sounded crazy, even to me, but when I turned to gauge her reaction, she was fully dressed in her flouncy black mourning dress and was slowly pulling on her boots. She sat on the edge of the bed, the laces untied, and dangled her legs off the side. “I don’t think it will work,” she said somberly. “Maybe we should just tell the military.”

“
Tell them what? That we have a couple of gods scoping each other out? That we can control them? Do you think they’d believe any of that?”

Aimi bit her lip. “What if we can’t stay ahead of it? Or what if we can, but we lead it through a town or city?” She glanced up at me with her tired eyes full of shining black tears. “I don’t want anymore people to die, Kevin. I can’t stand it!”

I went to her, knelt down and started tying her shoelaces for her. “We’ll avoid the cities, stick to the deserted places, empty roads, ghost towns, forests. It’ll be rough, but we can do it. We can lead it where there’s no water.” I sounded so brave, so together, and my plan sounded reasonable. Didn’t it?

So why did I feel like I had snakes freestyle jive dancing in my stomach?

She just sat there like she didn’t believe me. I half expected her to cry, but she was right. She didn’t even have that anymore.

I took her other boot in my lap and laced it. “Don’t worry. Once we’re on the road, I’ll figure out something.”

“
You’re amazing. Like a white knight.”

“
Kevin the white knight,” I said, and harrumphed. “I think you should know something. I used to be fat, and play
World of Warcraft
constantly, and I picked my nose, and I even had a bug collection when I was nine. What do you think about that?”

She laughed.

I looked up. I didn’t feel much like laughing, though I did smile, for her sake.

“
What if it catches up with us?” she said, suddenly growing serious.

“
I don’t know, I’ll think of something. One thing at a time.”

She bowed her head. “I don’t want you to die, Kevin,” she said. “I couldn’t stand that.”

I stood, pulling her up with me, holding her by the shoulders. She felt so light, almost birdlike. Breakable in my arms. “I’m tougher than I look,” I said, hoping I believed my own bullshit. “A lot tougher.”

“
Yeah,” she said, and hugged me. “I know.”

15

We waited until the duty nurse was called out of Recovery on an emergency, then made a break for it. Downstairs, I brought the bike around while Aimi waited at the curb outside the hospital, dressed in my shades and jacket. I’d told her that I didn’t want the overworked EMT teams coming and going to recognize her. But the truth was, I was more afraid that the doctor who had worked on Aimi might have reported her arrival to her father. If Mura showed up, I wouldn’t know what to do.

The moment I braked in front of the curb Aimi jumped on the back of the bike.

“
Ready?” I said.

“
I guess so,” she said nervously, glancing over her shoulder like she expected Qilin to tear up through the street at any moment to catch us.

I let up on the brake and started to cruise out into the street. “Is it coming?” I said, feeling a dull electric shock of panic starting somewhere in my brain and zigzagging raggedly down my spine.
Please,
God, great Kami, whatever,
I prayed,
don’t let it come…just help me out here a little…

“
I don’t think so,” she said worriedly, “I just...”

“
I know.” I bit my lip. “Hang on.” I swerved around traffic, which was already virtually gridlocked with buses and cars mass-migrating out of the city, all of them blaring their horns in a collective cacophony that was difficult to even talk above without screaming. I took a side street, heading west toward the Brooklyn Bridge. From there I figured we’d pick up Canal Street toward the Holland Tunnel.

But a quarter mile from the bridge my worst fears were realized as a long black limousine pulled out into the intersection ahead us, scattering traffic like a bully busting through a school hall full of geeks. I hit the brake, nearly rear-ending the Greyhound bus directly ahead of us.

“
Kevin…!”

“
I know,” I said, feeling Aimi’s arms tighten around my waist. “I see it.”

The limousine spun to a stop. There was no question in my mind. I recognized the driver behind the bulletproof glass—or, rather, the
type
: it was one of those Dagger-eyed MIBs that might just as well be an assembly-line robot. Japanese, with suit and shades. The back door opened and Dr. Mura ducked out, dressed in a wrinkled raincoat, his scowling attention fixed on us.

I heard Aimi suck in her breath.

Considering what he had created, what he was capable of, I wasn’t about to hang around and find out what he wanted with me—or with Aimi. “Hang on,” I said, spinning the bike around in the road. But almost immediately I saw a second black limo pull out of the lineup behind us. Dr. Mura and his MIBs had really thought this out. With cars on all sides, there was no place to run. We were completely surrounded.

16

They were fast.

Before Aimi and I had a chance to slide off the bike, three of Dr. Mura’s men started closing in around us. One put his hand under his suit coat. Before I could even react, a cab driver who had been laying on his horn the whole time ducked out of his cab and started shouting at the men in the black suits. More MIBs were circling like vultures going in for the kill, and I had a sudden, very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The man with his hand in his suit extended his arm. There was a large caliber gun in his hand, like in a spy movie, a Luger or Browning. I put myself between the MIB and Aimi, but Aimi wasn’t the target.

It all happened fast, too fast. The gun coughed three times, shooting out both tires on my bike. Then the cab driver went down, his head blown apart like a melon. I heard the rapport echoing off the street and surrounding buildings, but it took me a second to realize what had happened, that they had actually
killed
a man in front of me.

“
Kevin…” Aimi cried, her fingers biting into my shoulder. “Kevin!” But I couldn’t look away from the old man lying dead at my feet, his blood mingling with the dirty water and trash in the gutter. The reality of it really hadn’t hit me until that moment—that these funny zombie-men in dark suits and glasses had guns. That they would actually kill me and take Aimi…

I guess a part of me figured it was a game, a movie where the hero always gets out alive. But one look at the dead man at my feet told me otherwise.

The MIBs were on the move, shifting around us like shadows. The street took on a fuzzy, dreamlike glow, like I was moving in a nightmare. One of the MIBs came up behind us and snatched Aimi away from me. I turned to fight, but one of the other MIBs grabbed me and twisted my right arm behind my back. Another leaned into me and I felt his knuckles go all the way into my ribs. I heard an audible
crunch
and the breath blew out from between my gritted teeth. It wasn’t like with Snowman or with Troy; these guys were professionals. It felt like my body was filled with cement. I went down hard on the gritty asphalt, vaguely aware of Aimi’s screams as she was hauled back toward Dr. Mura’s limo.

Despite the pain, or maybe
in spite
of it, I managed to roll over in the street so I was looking up at the sullen grey sky. Dr. Mura stood over me, a grim look on his face. The sun reflected off his glasses and made him look eyeless. “You again,” he said. It wasn’t a cheery, I’m-your-biggest-fan type of greeting. “I warned you, little boy,” he said. “No more warnings.”

I could feel the love, I really could.

Dr. Mura nodded to one of his subordinates: “Shoot him. Shoot the Keeper.” His voice was cold and dead, like he was making a laundry list. I had always thought the whole shoot-the-boyfriend thing was a joke in the movies, yet a robot MIB moved into place and dutifully lifted his gun. I held stock-still and stared down the grim black barrel that seemed to mark my future—or lack thereof.

“
No!” Flailing and kicking in her MIB’s grip, Aimi suddenly grabbed his holstered gun right out of his shoulder rig. Her eyes running over with black tears, she raised it and pointed it at her own head, her finger tensing on the trigger. “Kevin has nothing to do with this, Daddy. Let him go!”

“
Aimi.” Dr. Mura turned to his daughter with genuine surprise. For the first time he looked strained and old. He actually looked and sounded almost human. “Aimi,
what
are you doing?”

But Aimi was having none of it. “Let Kevin go, Daddy. Let him go or I’ll end it here.” She breathed roughly through her unnatural tears, her eyes fixed on me. Her hand shook, yet her voice was dead calm.

“
Aimi,” said Dr. Mura, hovering uncertainly between the two of us. He raised his hands in supplication. “I’m trying to
help
you. Kevin is a Keeper…”

“
So am I, Daddy. So am I.”

“
If he lives, Qilin will have to fight him. Be reasonable.”

“
I’m not the one being unreasonable!” she screamed. She clicked off the safety on the gun to show him she meant business. I had a feeling she’d probably grown up around guns, that she knew how to use them. You don’t mess with a person who knows the intimate workings of a firearm. “Let him go or you’ll never control Qilin. Or me.
Ever.
”

Dr. Mura scrambled to face his uncertain collection of lackeys. He let out his breath in exasperation. “Let him go,” he said, motioning his men back. “Now.”

The circle of black suits around me slowly receded, but I didn’t feel any better. I was too busy down on my knees, aching and watching Aimi. She breathed in, out, in, out, but never flinched, and she never took her eyes off of me. I had a very bad feeling about that.

When the MIBs were as far back as the bottleneck would allow, Dr. Mura took a step toward his daughter and put out his hand. The bad feeling edged up a notch. I tried to shout something to Dr. Mura, to warn him back, but Aimi meant what she had said, and she gave me no time.

Aimi was determined. She closed her eyes.

Then she pulled the trigger.

17

I watched Aimi fall back onto the street in a slow-motion
ballet de action
, like something that had been choreographed. And, in a way, I guess it had. In a way, Aimi probably always knew it would come down to this.

I stood frozen in place, watching Aimi, swimming in my own dreamlike world where bad things didn’t really happen to good people. It was a place I wanted to stay in.

If there was any light or life in her eyes, I couldn’t see it, even though I could make out every other little detail about her, the bootlace that had come undone, the shining, tearless black of her unseeing eyes, the tiny jewel of blood at the left corner of her mouth. In that moment I saw everything as Aimi fell back crucified in the grit and carnage of the street.

The ground split around her almost as if a holy thing had fallen, and cracks zigzagged out in every direction. A low rumbling sang from deep within the earth, a sound that escalated into a roar that seemed to fill the concrete and steel valley between the tall buildings that surrounded up to deafening levels.