The Gatekeeper's Son (41 page)

A distant memory nagged at me. I’d been here before, I was sure of that, but long ago, in a different lifetime. I worked myself up onto my knees and stared around me. Yes, I’d come here with Dad and Okaasan one spring, long ago. There was no lodge, no roads or tour buses, but this had to be Zion Canyon in Utah.

Across the river, two men sat on a boulder, both dressed in black suits, a style from another age, with long black hair that hung past their shoulders. I don’t know if they’d noticed me, but they looked as if they were waiting for something, so I started across the river, hopping on rocks and logs.

“Hello,” one of the men said as I approached. They weren’t armed but didn’t seem concerned about my weapons.

“Hi.”

“Going for a hike?” the other man said. His tone was pleasant enough. Behind them, a narrow dirt trail curved up the hill toward the towering cliffs above.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” the first one said.

“You must really want to see him,” the other man said in the same voice as the first.

The first one gave me a once-over. He looked skeptical. “Think he’ll make it?”

The other one shrugged. “Don’t know. How’s the arm?”

I glanced down. My arm looked normal. “It’s good.”

“All right. Ready to go?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s not far and the view is pleasant,” the first man said as we turned to go.

So we started up the trail, one man in the lead and the other behind me. They were silent, marching up the trail at a steady pace. The path was steep but nothing compared with Arbutus Street, and it felt good to work my muscles. I moved easily as my strength and energy returned.

As we climbed away from the canyon floor, it became hotter, the soil drier, each step raising dust that covered my shoes. The bushes that had looked so green from the canyon floor were parched and brown up close—only the newest growth on the branch tips was green. Every so often, one of us kicked a stone over the edge and it bounced down the slope, tumbling toward a stream far below. The man in front would look back occasionally, perhaps to see if I was lagging behind. I wasn’t.

We climbed until we came to a wide plateau of solid rock, the surface smooth and flat like a balcony, the view unbelievable. A small stream flowed across the rock and spread out before disappearing over the edge. I moved closer and then jerked back. We were hundreds of feet above the canyon floor.

The men sat on the rock, cross-legged, facing the towering red-gray cliffs on the other side of the canyon. One of them pointed upstream.

“Bartholomew’s up there.”

After a few minutes’ hike beside the shallow stream, I came to a series of huge red boulders, some bigger than a truck, that forced the stream to weave around them and pool in places. A man in a Hawaiian shirt sat beside one of the rocks, his bare feet dangling in the clear water, canvas boat shoes beside him. He looked like an aging surfer, with a tangle of curly brown hair under a yellow baseball hat. He looked more like Jimmy Buffet than the old man I’d seen in the restaurant bathroom, but I knew it was Bartholomew.

“So, you chose to come through death’s door,” he said, concentrating on the ripples his feet made in the water. “There are easier ways.”

I squatted near him. His hat said “
Relax
” on the front. “You’re not what I expected,” I said.

He laughed. “I get that a lot.” He looked over at me. “Hey, do you board?”

“I’ve done some surfing, and I’ve got a skateboard.”

“There you go.” He nodded at me. “Skateboarders are bad, right? Graffiti-painting vandals, a menace on the streets. Surfers are worse—lazy bums, probably on drugs—at least until you get to know one.” He paused while he readjusted his hat to block the sun. “Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that being Japanese would get you locked up in America. Now Americans think Japanese stuff is better than their own.” He looked back at the water. “Evil’s just a word, like
tasty
or
beautiful
.”

I considered that. “Surfers don’t have snakes’ tongues.”

“It happens to be a lizard tongue.” He sounded hurt.

I sat down, leaned back on my elbows and basked in the sun, enjoying its warmth and the sound of the water trickling over a small waterfall upstream. “Where are we?”

“In another dimension of your world.” He wriggled his feet in the water. “Over on your side, the Mormons named this place Zion. Ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

So I was in the place Shoko had called evil. The place you couldn’t go with a pure heart.

He turned and faced me, sitting cross-legged, and inspected me with eyes that didn’t stop at my skin. Then he nodded his approval. “I heard about Walter,” he said. “But you surprised me.” He chuckled. “And now you have almost a billion dollars.”

“I took back what was mine, … Grandpa’s.”

“You wanna have a Ferrari?”

I hesitated. “Yeah, I’d like one someday.”

“Why wait? You can buy ten right now.”

“It’s not my money.”

His eyebrows rose. “Edward lost it, you found it. Without you, he’d be broke.”

I didn’t say anything.

Bartholomew stretched his arms over his head. “Ever wonder why they
really
wanted a Gatekeeper to marry your father?”

Something froze inside me. I sat up.

“They say you have to balance the good and evil, right? Yin and Yang, all of that crap.” He crinkled his nose and gazed skyward. “So, when you take the son of Edward—apparently tainted by my
evil
influence—and you combine that with a Gatekeeper’s blood, what do you get?”

“You get me.”

He clapped. “That’s right, and look at what you’ve become.”

I looked away. “I don’t know what I am.”

“Don’t you get it? The gods made you. They wanted this. You don’t really think that Shoko girl crossed over by accident, do you?” He waved his hand. “They sent a cute girl to watch you, and if you crossed the line and became a threat, she was supposed to kill you. Isn’t that right?”

Anger simmered deep inside me. “She said the Elders were afraid I’d give you that map.”

He looked interested by that. “And will you?”

I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “I want you to make Grandpa better and leave him alone. That’s all I care about anymore.” I dropped my head into my hands. I thought of Shoko’s kiss, the feel of her body against mine. “She didn’t even … It was like she never cared about me.”

“I hope it
was
all a lie,” he said, “because if she really cared about you but came back to kill you anyway, I think that’s far worse.”

While I fumed, Bartholomew pulled on his shoes and started to tie them. “Maybe you should ask her.”

I looked at him, confused.

“She followed you, came through the desert gateway I opened up for you.” He gestured downstream with his chin. “She came to finish the assignment.”

CHAPTER

41

We walked back downstream, Bartholomew in the lead, my hand tight on the hilt of the katana. As we broke into the open, there was Shoko—sprawled on the rock face, teetering on the cliff’s edge. A chain was looped around her neck, the other end welded to a steel bar drilled into the rock. Another chain, unused, lay beside it. She was leashed like a dog with no hope of escape. On three sides, she could move only about ten feet. If she moved toward the fourth side, she’d drop over the cliff and hang herself.

She looked like hell. Her lips were cracked and swollen, and dried blood blotted her face and matted her hair. Her uniform was ripped and dirty, and one shoe was missing. A mass of cuts and bruises covered her arms and legs. She’d had the crap beaten out of her, but she straightened up as soon as she saw me.

“What have you done?” Her voice was hoarse.

Bartholomew smiled and pulled his Hawaiian shirt away from his chest, as if he were sweating a lot. “I’m willing to make a deal with you, kid.”

I turned to Bartholomew. “What kind of deal?”

Shoko struggled against the chain. “No, Junya!”

He laughed at her. “You tried to burn him alive. I don’t think he’s in the mood to hear what you have to say.”

She looked confused as she staggered to her feet. I saw disappointment in her eyes. Whether she was disappointed because she’d failed to kill me or because she thought I’d cut a deal with Bartholomew, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t sense anything from her.

“Kill her,” Bartholomew said. “Then we can discuss what to do about Edward.”

I felt his eyes bore into me. “I can heal Edward,” Bartholomew said. “Her life for his.”

Shoko jerked against the chain, fury in her eyes. “You are far stupider than I thought!”

She was in front of me now, just out of arm’s reach. She was crying, and her tears began to wash the blood from under her eyes. I could see her freckle now, the one I’d thought was cute. I faltered. There was something wrong …

Bartholomew sighed. “What are you waiting for?”

I turned to him. “What did you do?”

He snapped his fingers, and the two men who’d brought me here appeared from behind the brush.

“If you don’t kill her,” he said, “they will.”

I took a step back as they approached her. Bartholomew looked at me and shook his head slowly. “You’re sure we can’t come to an agreement?”

I shot one more look at Shoko’s face. Then I swung my katana and cut the first man’s head off. The second man leaped at me, and I sent his arm spiraling over the edge. A thrust into his stomach and a twist and his body landed next to the first. Black blood oozed across the rocks.

“That was awesome!” Bartholomew yelled. “Seriously, I loved it! You’re a killer after all.” He laughed a dry, horrible laugh. “That’s all I needed to know.”

I held up my finger and thumb, almost touching, as my fury surged. “You were
this
close to convincing me!”

“What changed your mind?”

I jerked a thumb back at Shoko. “She wasn’t the girl at the dojo! You sent a fake!”

He pushed his hat up to scratch his scalp. “So?” He looked puzzled. “That doesn’t change anything—the lies she told you, the lies your mother told you. And what about
Grandpa
?”

I looked at Shoko and then back at Bartholomew. “We’re done here.”

He snapped his fingers again and at least half a dozen men, all dressed in black, burst from the bush. I stared in horror as they began to transform, clothes rippling away, skin turning to scales, their bodies stretching and growing. They dropped to all fours, their tails as long as their bodies, all easily over two hundred pounds. They looked like Komodo dragons, with long claws and huge jaws full of inch-long serrated teeth.

I attacked the lizards, the sword alive in my grip, striking from every angle, driving them back and away from Shoko. But they were fast, heavy, and vicious, the black blood flowing from their wounds driving them into a frenzy. They alternated their attacks, claws and teeth snapping inches from my skin.

One got me, its claw cutting my lower leg to the bone. I went down and crawled away, dragging my leg. Two more came at me. I tried to run, but my leg wouldn’t cooperate. I stumbled and heard Bartholomew laugh as more lizards came swarming across the rock toward me. I staggered back, teetered, and gasped. I was right on the edge of a cliff, the canyon floor hundreds of feet below. Stones shifted underfoot and my feet went out from under me. The katana fell from my hand and disappeared into the abyss as I grasped at rocks, roots, anything that might stop me. I clutched a small bush that clung to the rock face, but it pulled loose and I fell. I heard myself scream, but it died as a bright flash exploded behind my eyes. Somewhere in the darkness, Bartholomew laughed.

Junya, get up!

I forced my eyes open. Dark forms loomed above me. The lizards peered over the edge, barely six feet away, their tongues flicking, their disease-laden saliva splashing on the rocks around me. One lunged at me. I twisted sideways and it tumbled over the edge. The others hissed but didn’t come after me.

I climbed to my knees and felt for my bokuto. Somehow, it was still in my belt, not that it was much use. I touched my throbbing head, still watching the beasts above me. My hand came back sticky with blood. The lizards liked that and stretched their massive jaws toward me.