Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Mai Kitano walked away from Tokyo Bay, drifted for a short while, then ducked into a quiet alley. She dug out her phone and noted that Hibiki had called. What now? Her heart wanted to return the call, to make sure both he and Chika were safe, but her head told her that they should both be kept out of this, well away, and that contacting them would do no good. She couldn’t help them at the moment.

There was nothing from Drake, and she failed to quell a pang of worry. It would only take her a second to log on to a network and scan the news channels, but even that small luxury was forbidden. In her heart the road was clear. The way forward went in only one direction.

She was theirs. She belonged to the Clan. Her parents were being kept under lock and key. These factors could not be avoided and needed to be addressed directly before she would allow herself to dream of a future.

Mai hit the return call icon next to Gyuki’s phone number.

“Yes?” the flat voice instantly answered.

“It is done. I have completed your work.”

“Of course you have. We already know. Where have you been for the last twenty four minutes?”

Mai shuddered at the expectant tone. This man truly believed he owned her. “Getting lost. Making sure I was not seen nor followed.”

“You have let your standards slip so far, Mai Kitano? These issues are not a concern if the job is prepared for and executed in the approved manner.”

“Time was not on my side.”

There was a long pause, then Gyuki said, “We gave you no time constraint.”

“Hayami was there. Alone. Sometimes a job is best done on the first pass to ensure your face does not become familiar to the area. And you have my parents.”

“Ah. You do not trust us.”

Mai resisted an urge to reply in the manner of Alicia Myles to that one. Swearing, mocking and taunting would not help her case. Instead, she remained silent.

“Well, we are true to our word. As men of the Clan have always been. As tradition has taught us. Meet me here,” he reeled off an address, “In half an hour.”

Mai met Gyuki for the second time that day in his first-floor hotel room. Behind closed and locked doors and draped windows, Gyuki was a different man. Stripped to the waist, he bowed without taking his eyes off her.

“Come inside. We will leave soon.”

Mai skirted him warily, eyeing every movement of his rippling body. “How about right now?”

“You are scared of me.” Gyuki nodded. “I understand. But don’t be. You are still useful to us.”

“Scared of you?” Mai repeated. “Why would I be? I could take you, Gyuki.”

The master assassin gauged her movement. “Have you grown so much?”

“You’re a fossil, Gyuki. A product of Japan’s past. You should have long since disappeared with the Samurai, the Shoguns and the fucking dynasties. And with the Ninja clans. They should also be long gone.”

Gyuki faced her, deliberately making his muscles dance independently of themselves. “Fight me for your body,” he whispered malevolently. “As we used to do.”

Mai stood very still. This was one of the memories she had kept buried all these years. And despite her words, she wasn’t sure she could take Gyuki. She would not be bated into trying before she located her parents.

“Maybe later,” she said with cold detachment. “When do we leave?”

Gyuki shrugged. “The clan village is two hours away. If we leave now we can be there before lights out.”

They exited the hotel, found Gyuki’s car, a mundane white Honda and joined the slow-moving traffic. Once away from the bright lights and bustling attractions of central Tokyo, the roads grew quieter and Gyuki made better time. His driving was unremarkable and he did nothing to make himself stand out, just one of many homecoming minions. Mai studied his visage in the repeated wash of oncoming headlights and found it to be unkind, merciless and devoid of emotion. The world could only become a better place when this man breathed his last.

High rises gave way to office buildings, then to rows of houses and, eventually, to patches of undeveloped grassland. After two hours Mai looked thoroughly lost, and Gyuki didn’t even mention blindfolding her. It was one of his failings, this arrogance, this all-encompassing clan belief that he, and they, were superior beings. It may eventually prove his undoing.

At last, Gyuki pulled the car off the road at a turn marked by two overhanging wizened old trees and an abandoned church, and drove about three more miles. The tree-lined road was pitted, overgrown with roadside shrubbery, and extremely unappealing. Designed to keep the curious away, no doubt. Gyuki circumvented several nasty potholes, bounded across a few more, and then pulled into a blind road to the left. He powered up the double-rutted dirt track, then slowed as the trees grew sparse and a flat space opened out.

Mai saw a dirt-topped parking area where several other cars as nondescript as Gyuki’s sat waiting for the next assassin. Or maybe just for the next grocery run. Who knew what womb-to-tomb assassins got up to these days?

Gyuki parked and got out, signaling that Mai should follow. The Japanese woman was happy to do so, taking in every twist and turn of the emerging village as she went. The Clan had extended since she had left. What had been a long shed billeting a dozen mixed men and women, girls and boys, was now two. A fighting arena sat between the two; square and marked by hanging red banners adorned with the golden symbol signifying the name of the Clan.

Tsugarai. It was only a family name, but it should have meant devil.

Mai familiarized herself with the place. Beyond the two sheds were dotted half a dozen small dwellings, no doubt the homes of the clan chiefs, and one small temple. Further over near the tree line stood one final building, a long low structure with barred windows and doors. This was also new. The village had never needed a jail before.

Gyuki pointed Mai to the temple. She tried to shake off the sense of unreality which had clung to her since she had stepped out of the car. Not only was she stepping back in time to a place she feared and hated, but where was everyone? The village was deserted, as quiet as Hayami’s boat now that the man was dead.

“Quiet day, Gyuki?”

The man ignored her, his attention captured by the temple before them. It was by far the fanciest building in the village, tastefully adorned with golden flags and with two lion-head statues that stood to either side of the entrance.

“Shoes off at the door. Bow when you enter,” Gyuki reminded her. It was like taking a terrible trip down the haunted highways of her past. By most standards the clan temple was simple, little more than a large and gently curving roof traditional in Japanese architecture with thin, movable, non-load-bearing walls. The oversized eaves gave the interior a classic dimness, contributing heavily to the temple’s foreboding presence. The interior consisted of only one room, commonly called a moya, though the movable walls could partition small areas off.

Mai was aware that most temples were sacred places and business would never be conducted there, but the Clan held mostly to their own rules and broke them when it pleased. As she crossed the threshold, she paused for a minute to let her eyes adjust. Figures slowly materialized out of the gloom beyond.

The clan master, Bishamon, looked as old today as he had over twenty years ago, not a day younger than three hundred. Mai wondered if his stick-thin right hand could still whip out with a quick cuff as fast as it used to.

“Hisashiburi, Hanshi.” Mai saw no reason to antagonize the elder too soon, allowing him the high honorific which roughly translated as ‘Grand Master’.

“Your family misses you, Mai.”

She bowed her head, aware that Bishamon’s statement had nothing to do with the feelings of her parents. “I have returned,” she murmured at the earthen floor. “To do your bidding.”

The clan master unfolded his body from where he sat, cross-legged, upon a raised dais. He wore only a loin cloth and a white robe open down the middle. As he crept toward her, Mai was reminded of a spider slinking across its web on thin, spindly legs.

“You returned to save your worthless sister and her koshinuke boyfriend. You have far to go before we will allow your true rebirth.”

“Of course.”

“But for now it is good.” Bishamon waved dismissively at her. “Gyuki tells us Hayami is dead. Go see your parents now, Mai, and see what you fight for.”

Mai spun immediately, anxious to get away from the evil old man and his private lair. The place stank of deep buried things; bad earth, sweat and old blood. Not a whisker stirred in there, not a whisper went unheard. The deep shadows concealed more than dark corners, she was sure.

Outside, the pitch black night was not as sinister. Clouds scudded across a quarter moon. She paused to get her bearings and Gyuki’s voice whispered close to her ear. “Looking for something?”

“No,” Mai said quickly. “Waiting for you.”

“We have eighteen warriors,” Gyuki told her with a smirk. “Two master assassins and the Grand Master. If you held any notions about freeing your parents — and yourself — Mai, I hope you are no longer courting them.”

“Two master assassins?” Mai was surprised. “I thought you were the only one.”

Gyuki hissed. “Then you are an idiot. The Tsugarai never stagnate.”

Mai fell in behind him, wondering who else might have made the grade to master assassin. She could barely remember any of her old classmates. Truth was, she had tried to forget about all of them and held serious doubts that any had actually survived. Questions regarding the prison-like building struck her again.

Gyuki led her around one of the big sheds. Nestling close to its treeward side, small, squat and built in perpetual shadow, was a single story structure which could be labeled as little more than a hut. Gyuki waved her toward the door.

“Go. I will wait here. You have thirty minutes.”

Mai stared at the door. Legs which never failed her in battle suddenly started to shake. My parents? The couple who had sold her in order to put food on the table. Sold her, albeit unknowingly, into a violent form of slavery that she was still trying to escape. For a minute her feet refused to move, and she almost turned around, but the sight of Gyuki’s amused face galvanized her body and will.

Before she knew it, she was knocking on the door, heart pounding. The first thing she heard was shuffling, then a man’s voice—my father’s voice—and the sound of the door being dragged open.

Words failed her. Emotion slackened her face. The old couple staring out at her wore expressions of utter amazement. The woman acted first.

She fell to her knees. “Mai?”

Her father fell onto her, sobbing, and it was all she could do to hold him up. Behind her, the callous voice of Gyuki cut through the night.

“Twenty minutes.”

Mai carried her father inside.

Five more minutes passed before anyone could speak.

“When they said they could find you, we didn’t believe them,” her mother somehow strung a sentence together. “But they… they have taken good care of us.”

Mai supported her father as he tried to lower himself into a chair. “Wait. They’ve taken good care … you mean you’re here voluntarily?”

Her mother, Chie, spoke quickly, her accent so thick Mai could barely follow. “They found us many months ago. Your father… he was not doing so well. They took us in. They knew your sister, Chika, she… she—”

Disowned you, Mai thought, but said nothing. She could see the agony they had been through. It was etched on every single line and curve of their faces, it limited their every movement. It had all but destroyed them.

The Clan had given them hope. Again. For the second time. And the Clan would dash that hope on a whim and gladly hand her parents the poisoned swords upon which to throw themselves.

Mai bit back her thoughts and feelings. “It is good to see you again,” she said simply, and reveled in the pure happiness that flowed across her parents’ features. For now, it was enough.

Mai walked out into the night, making sure her parents knew she would return soon. In what capacity, she didn’t know, but she intended to be back within days rather than weeks.

Gyuki stood unmoved, quietly laughing at her. “A wonderful reunion.”

Mai walked right up to him until their breath mingled. “What’s next?”

“Next? You will show your true worth to the Tsugarai Clan. Today was but a test. Tomorrow—” Gyuki actually began to laugh.

Mai gaped at him. Never before had she heard the master assassin laugh, and never again did she want to. It was a truly demented sound, like a mental patient finally freed after being forced to watch Coronation Street or Days of our Lives for twenty five years straight.

“Tomorrow,” Gyuki got a hold of himself. “You revisit the Coscon.”

Mai staggered. “I what?”

“You remember it well, I am sure. The Tokyo Coscon where your name became legend. The great Mai Kitano will return once more. Tomorrow we need a job completing.” Gyuki chuckled. “It so happens that our target will be there. How very fitting.”

Mai struggled to articulate.

“And more. Your target is a prominent member of the Yakuza. A leader. You must make a spectacle of him, teach them a lesson. They have dishonored the Tsugarai.”

Mai turned away from his manic laughter. The last Coscon had all but killed her, left her a wreck, and made her name. She had almost destroyed a branch of the local Yakuza, turning herself into a lasting target, and now they wanted her to do it all again.

Within the halls of law enforcement, her name was legend because of the Coscon. Her rise through the ranks had been meteoric. A sudden idea formed in her mind as she stared into the face of Gyuki’s insanity.

Maybe, just maybe, she could pull this one off too.