The Gatekeeper's Son (39 page)

He stared at me, and in his eyes I saw disbelief quickly turning to panic.

I shoved my energy at him. “Answer the question!”

He blinked twice and his body jerked. “I don’t know.” His voice was flat, almost mechanical. “A different group hit here before we went to the café.”

“Where do you
think
they’d take her?”

“Probably to the warehouse by Crissy Field, on the Presidio grounds.”

“Why there?” It was an old concrete building, once part of the military base. Grandpa had bought it years ago. It wasn’t more than a mile and a half from here. I’d jogged to Crissy Field tons of times—the road was practically behind our fence.

“That’s where we’re staging out of.”

I pushed the back door open with my foot. “That’s enough. Now, you have a nice nap for a few minutes, and when you wake up you won’t remember me being here. Do you understand?”

He stared straight ahead. “Yes.”

“But you’ll feel guilty. You can’t live with all this on your conscience.” I pointed down the hill. “When you wake up, go to that police officer and tell her everything. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

I swung out of the SUV and looked at the cloud of gray smoke that hung over the neighborhood like fog. Then I ran north.

CHAPTER

38

As I ran up the curving road through the Presidio, I tried to push all thoughts of Shoko from my mind. I couldn’t believe she would be so heartless, so cold. And there had been something else different about her, something physical…

I jogged down the hill behind the old military barracks, a three-story Spanish-style building dwarfed by the elevated highway to the Golden Gate Bridge above it. Its windows were dark, but the parking lot glowed under amber streetlights. I stumbled down the grassy slope and went to my knees on the damp grass beside a palm tree.

I blinked the sweat from my eyes. Crissy Field was empty, the grass uncut, the dew sparkling as the breeze off the bay swept over it. Beyond the field lay a narrow beach, a bright strip of sand against black water. The Golden Gate Bridge stood to my left, its lights blurred by a haze of fog.

As I concentrated my energy, I began to pick up messages. I jogged toward the warehouses, and the energy grew stronger with each step, a deluge of emotions and energy, all of it negative, all of it speaking my name. As if I’d summoned it, dark energy swept across the field, bending the grass like ripples on a pond. It surged and circled around me, spinning, menacing. This time it didn’t overcome me—I felt energized.

The closest warehouse—not Grandpa’s—was a featureless white concrete structure with two loading doors at the end. I considered my options. I could walk up the road beside the building, but if anyone looked, I’d stick out like a bug in a bathtub.

I looked up at the roof. There was a downspout, the old-fashioned sturdy, steel kind. I tucked the bokuto into my belt and checked my wakizashi and started climbing. I ran the length of the building’s flat roof and then went to my knees and peered over the edge.

Dim lights over the loading door of Grandpa’s warehouse illuminated a shiny black SUV. Two men, each toting a small submachine gun, stood beside it. One of them was smoking. Both looked bored. Both had their backs to me.

“Sergeant Jackson’s taking this personally,” one said.

The other man nodded.

“You think he’ll kill her?”

“Who cares?”

Anger surged inside me, too much for me to contain, and blasted from me like steam. A moment later I was on the ground, the bokuto already in motion. Both men crumpled to the ground, blood flowing from their ears and smashed faces.

When I touched the door frame of the old warehouse, the wood spoke to me. It had stood proud for six hundred years before men cut it and brought its pieces here. I closed my eyes and focused my energy. After a moment, I sent my mind into the warehouse, just like I’d done when I scouted the park outside Walter’s penthouse.

A huge floor space lay in front of me, a cool blue that stretched the length of the warehouse. Besides several huge wooden crates stacked to one side, the only other objects here were three SUVs at the far end, their engines bright red and white, hot from their race to get here. Several warm-colored shapes milled around them.

Okaasan was here … and someone else.

A moment later, I was back in my body. I glanced around. The two men still lay unconscious. I crouched and opened the door.

At the far end, near the SUVs, Okaasan lay on the concrete, her blouse red with blotches of blood. Her pant leg was soaked in it. Jackson had a laptop open on the hood of the SUV. Its screen glared at me, critical and unforgiving. He spoke—I didn’t hear what he said—and a man hauled something out from the backseat of an SUV, something heavy that hit the concrete with a dull thump. Jackson strode over to the shape and kicked it. The bundle reacted with a moan.

“You’re friend didn’t deposit the money,” Jackson yelled. Then he turned the lump over with his foot and I gasped.

It was Mack.

Jackson noticed me first. I must have looked small and insignificant walking across the floor with a wooden stick in my hand, but he cocked his weapon and pointed at me.

“No, Junya!” Okaasan yelled in Japanese. “Get away from here!” The man beside her rewarded her with a kick in the stomach.

Seven men stepped forward to face me, weapons up and ready. Their anger was palpable and I was an easy target. But I felt as if I was watching everything in slow motion, every detail vivid, every motion accounted for.

“Don’t shoot him! We need the money!” Anthony rushed toward Jackson and grabbed for his gun. Jackson responded with a swing of his rifle butt and smashed Anthony in the jaw. He crumpled like a stack of wooden blocks.

“Get him!” Jackson yelled.

Three guys spread out. I slowed down, sucked in a deep breath, and let my anger rise.

The shortest of the three leaped forward and I sent him sprawling onto the concrete. The other two moved forward, but now they really were moving in slow motion.

I exploded into action. Limbs flailed and bones snapped. As the last man fell to the concrete, I turned to Jackson. The remaining men moved to flank me, their weapons up. Anger seethed out of me—I couldn’t stop it—and I thought of Shoko, remembered her saying this energy wasn’t from the gods, but I didn’t care.

I took another breath and started forward, my body expanding with rage I could no longer control.

Jackson squinted at me. “What the hell?” He swung his submachine gun up and leveled it at me.

My neck tingled in warning, and a long moment later a muzzle flash expanded in front of the gun, widening into a plume of fire. Okaasan screamed, or at least it looked like a scream. Her mouth dropped opened, but the sound that came out was deep and low, like a slowed-down recording. I let go of the bokuto. Part of my mind registered how long it took to fall, but the rest of me was focused on those bullets.

I squeezed my eyes shut and threw all my energy outward. Somewhere far in the distance I thought I heard someone laugh. Then silence.

When I opened my eyes, they were all motionless. I stepped to the side and watched the line of the bullets drift past at walking speed. I drew my wakizashi and walked toward Okassan. She was a mess. Her face was bruised, swollen and bloody, but that was nothing compared with how her thigh looked. The bullet wound lay open, a bloody gash caked in dry blood. By the look of her blood-soaked pants, she’d lost a lot.

I turned toward Jackson. There was humor in his eyes. He liked what he did, I could tell. He liked the money, too. He had an offshore bank account, and his mind whispered the account number and password into mine.

I smashed my elbow into his throat. He tipped backward and crashed onto the concrete then I knelt beside Okaasan and slipped the hilt of the wakizashi into her right hand. I noticed she wore a smile that hadn’t been there before.

“You know what’s going on, don’t you?”

I was tiring fast. Using my energy to keep them all frozen in place was like sprinting while holding up a barbell.

My energy slipped as my rage lessened. Men started to stir, and my neck screamed out a warning. From outside, I sensed boots on asphalt, SWAT teams in black armor, police cars easing to a stop.

Suddenly everyone was moving. Okaasan rose to her knees and in a single motion buried the blade deep into the man who’d kicked her. I dived and pushed Okaasan to the floor as gunfire erupted, so many shots I couldn’t keep track. I lay on top of her, my rage dissolving into terror.

Then it was over. Police in black tactical clothing stood over us, their guns pointed at me.

CHAPTER

39

Bubba had spilled his guts to the police, so as far as they were concerned, it was a clear case of kidnapping. The sword, found near the body of one of the men, they took as evidence that these were the men responsible for the carnage that had occurred that night in the alley.

I rode with Okaasan in an ambulance. Mack, still unconscious, went in another. Most of the other men were dead. I hadn’t seen what happened to Anthony or Jackson, but I hoped they were dead, too.

“Thank God this is over,” Okaasan said later that night from her hospital bed. We were alone, the nurses having finally left and Lin having gone back to Grandpa’s bedside.

“You know it’s not.”

She stared at me a long time. Then she squeezed my hand. “Junya, that energy you used …” She suddenly looked scared. “Don’t ever use it again! If you accept this power, Bartholomew will have you, stronger than he ever had Edward.”

“But I feel it inside me. And it saved you, so how can it be bad?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather die than watch you carry this inside you.”

“All you ever talk about is death!” I yelled, suddenly angry. “It doesn’t solve everything!”

She looked stunned. “Go to the Elders, Junya. They will help you—”

“The Elders already made up their mind.” I told her what Shoko had done.

She emitted a low cry, like the sound of an injured animal.

I stood up. “So you tell me who the evil ones are, because I don’t know anymore.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I’m going to return the gold and burn the map. Then I’m going to find Bartholomew.”

“No, Junya,” she whispered, reaching for my hand. “You’ll die!”

I walked away without looking back.

Grandpa’s driver was waiting outside the hospital. I got into the car. “Take me to the Mojave Desert.”