Girl Takes Up Her Sword (15 page)
The mood passed. The
yakuza
were his only family now. The
oyabun
had wanted him to take over operations in Kyoto, a great honor, but he declined. When he was sent to oversee the
oyabun
’s business interests in Seoul, it must have seemed like a demotion to his rivals. But to him it was a relief. The idea of running a bunch of pimps and pornographers in Kyoto—the very people who destroyed his mother’s life—offended him. In his eyes, the Korean loansharks and legbreakers were honorable by comparison, even dignified.
Shinjo was well pleased to be of service to this peculiar girl, Tenno Michiko. He turned the name over in his mind, musing on the oddness of it. How did she come to have it? And what puzzle of events brought her to him today? It was all too strange, and yet he felt with certainty that she was a shining monument on the path of his destiny.
Chapter
19
In a Plastic Playhouse
“What do you mean, she’s taken care of it?” Rhee Sung asked his cousin.
“You tell me,” she replied. “She’s your friend.”
He shook his head and looked out the kitchen window while she rinsed rice in the sink. He could see little Ji-Yeong leading Emily around the backyard by two fingers. Her ultimate destination was clear from where he stood: the playhouse under the maple tree. The late afternoon sun gave the scene a light orange glow. Two six year olds might sit in the little house comfortably. How Emily was going to fit, perhaps only Ji-Yeong could imagine.
He’d seen her magic before, in Kamchatka, when she came for the children and, if only accidentally, for him. He’d trembled at the sight of her wrath, afraid for his life, and watched children cling to her as if she were a half-imaginary playmate. He found her unfathomable.
“Protector, maybe, but friend…?” The notion of applying such a word to her made no sense to him.
“She says our debt has been paid. Is it possible?”
Rhee Sung shrugged his shoulders. It seemed like a dream, if only it could be true. He couldn’t quite muster the emotional energy to believe it.
“So we’re free of the Dragons? And the other danger she warned us about, you know, the people who killed the old man, did she mention that?” he asked her.
“That’s the oddest part. Those NIS agents following her around like trained dogs, she doesn’t trust them. No, she asked the Dragons, of all people, to protect us. She says their boss, a
yakuza
named Shinjo, made her a promise. Is she for real?”
“I don’t know what to say. She rescued me from that camp, brought me here. If she trusts this Shinjo, then so do I.”
Kyung-Hae stood by his side and looked out the window. The girl was wedged into the playhouse from which her daughter’s shrieks could be heard even through the glass.
“Is it safe to leave Ji-Yeong with her?”
Rhee Sung couldn’t help smiling at a mother’s perfectly natural concern.
“Whatever else may be mysterious about her, this much I’m sure of, children are safe with her.”
She was mollified by his confidence.
“And what about these two?” she asked, tilting her head toward the living room where Ethan and Danny sat uncomfortably. “What are we supposed to do with them?”
“They’re her retainers. Let’s feed them, thank them, and send them on their way.”
“I think I’ll be glad when she’s gone.”
~~~~~~~
“Anybody home in there?” Connie sang out, as she tapped on the roof of the playhouse. The light from the setting sun gradually faded into a dull glow. Only the topmost leaves of the maple tree were still lit up.
“Hoot, hoot. Just us barn owls,” Emily replied merrily, with Ji-yeong shrieking in the background. “You’re here, finally,” she said, slowly extricating herself from the little plastic prison.
Ji-Yeong shrieked even louder when Connie scooped her up and held her high. Then she squirmed and squealed, and reached out for Emily. It took another moment before she was in a position to take her.
“She knows what she wants, that’s clear enough,” Connie said, as she handed the girl over.
“What did your friend Kim want to talk about? He was being so secretive.”
“It’s about Berea and his team, a nasty incident after we left. They’re all dead. The hotel security man called him, before calling the police. Things are going to get hot, and there may be some sticky questions.”
“Is this gonna be a problem for us?” Emily asked.
“You were in the room.”
“Well,
I
didn’t kill them.”
“That’s what I told Kim, and I think he believes it. But now he wants to put together a bigger security team. He
says
it’s only for our protection.”
“How were they killed?”
“It looks like Berea’s neck was snapped. At least one of his contractors was sliced up, maybe with a sword.” She said this last bit very meaningfully.
“You didn’t tell him about…”
“Of course not. Your little pig-sticker is nobody’s business,” she said in a much quieter tone. “Look, I know you didn’t do that—it’s not your style. But you can see how this could complicate things for us. We’ll have to tread lightly now, and maybe move our departure up a bit.”
“How are we gonna do that? You have something in mind?”
“I called Michael. He’s arranging a military flight for you and Danny from Osan Air Force Base tonight. Ethan and I will meet you in time for the connection in Osaka tomorrow. Can you handle things there until we arrive?”
Emily nodded.
“Is it really that serious?”
“I don’t know, but we’re taking no chances. Remember what I said about not entirely trusting Kim? He’s got his own agenda, and you saw how interested he was in what happened to the Parks’ cloning project. After he saw the Kamchatka video…”
“So we’re just running away?”
“You and Danny are. One last thing, if you didn’t kill Berea, we have to ask ourselves who did.”
They stared at each other for a long moment as a single name seemed almost to float in the space between them.
“No,” Emily said. “He wouldn’t.”
“Oh, yes he would. This is just like him.”
“But why? What’s he hope to achieve?”
“I don’t know. Has he told you anything about his plans?”
“Well, yes, sort of. He says he wants to free our family, by which he means him and me, from the people who’ve been ‘haunting’ us. But I don’t think he could have meant anything this violent. He just wants to get them to back off.”
“Crap. It’s worse than I thought. If he did this, he’s trying to force our hand, and he’s sure to anticipate our next move. He may be waiting for you in Osaka. Are you ready for that.”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“You should be. Whatever you do, don’t go anywhere with him. In fact, do
not
leave the airport at all. We’ll get there about six hours after you. Just wait there in plain sight, and then we’ll board the next flight together. Please, just do what I say this once.”
Emily nodded.
“Osan is about an hour from here. The flight leaves in three, and I’ve arranged a car for you. Kim’s inside now talking to the Lees. He doesn’t know anything about this plan. We need to find a way to ditch him before you guys can get away.”
“Fine, let’s go see him.”
Emily tried to put Ji-Yeong down, but she was having none of it. Her arms clung tightly to Emily’s neck.
“Okay, little one, have it your way,” she said with a broad, happy smile. “Let’s go find Mommy.”
~~~~~~~
A narrow hallway led from the back door to the front of the house, with an archway on one side for the living room. Connie lingered for a moment in the yard, fidgeting with the zipper on her jacket. With a few spinning strides along the hallway, Emily twirled her little charge up and down—when she turned to go through the archway, Ji-Yeong wriggled out of her grasp. Emily bent over to let her down safely. No lights were on, making the room oddly quiet and dusky. A tension in the air felt not quite right. By the time her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see that everything there was absolutely wrong. Ethan, Danny, Rhee Sung and his cousin were kneeling in various parts of the room, hands bent behind their heads. Kim and three of his men held a gun to each head.
Ji-Yeong ran to her uncle, who wrapped her up in his arms. Her mother began sobbing.
“I hope you’ll come quietly, Tenno-san, so nobody has to get hurt,” Kim said.
“Come quietly? Are you arresting me?”
“Let’s just say the NIS has a few questions for you.”
“Don’t trust him, Emily,” Ethan shouted. “They’re going to kill us no matter what you do.”
One of Kim’s men struck him hard behind the ear to silence him, and he slumped to the floor. Just then, Connie turned the corner.
“What the hell… Jay, what’s going…?”
Before she could finish her question, and with no visible sign of emotion, Kim shot her twice in the chest. The force of the impact knocked her back into the hallway, where she collapsed in a heap against the wall. Emily turned to go check on her friend.
“Stop right there! No one else has to get hurt if you just cooperate.”
Emily felt a different sort of energy rise inside of her, something entirely new. Was it revenge? Or bloodlust? She couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, it felt volcanic in its enormity. Chanting voices from her dreams echoed in her ears: “Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami.” What were they trying to tell her? Go along with him? Resist? She couldn’t quite tell.
“The sooner you cooperate, the sooner we can get help for Connie.”
A resolution began to crystallize itself in her chest. One breath brought it to complete clarity. Another second mapped out everything to follow. Without saying a word, she turned to Rhee Sung. He looked up into her eyes, clearly terrified of Kim and his men, though perhaps not nearly as afraid as he was of her. At first, he seemed unable to comprehend the meaning of what he saw in her face. A fire burned in her eyes, dark and smoky, ready to blaze up and consume every living thing in the room. Kim cleared his throat. In a sudden realization, Rhee Sung curled Ji-Yeong into his chest and covered her eyes. Emily turned to Kim and nodded. She moved her hands behind her back. Kim growled an instruction to one of his men, who took a step towards her holding a pair of handcuffs.
It was only a subtle movement, probably no one in the room saw it, except maybe Rhee Sung, who had a direct view. Her hand slipped under her jacket behind her back, a little click, and before anyone could react, she drew out the little sword concealed in the rig Melanie’s father made for her. The blade moved so fast, it was practically invisible in the low light of the room. Holding it dagger-style, one smooth, curving motion brought the blade slicing up along the inside of the man’s leg, scraping bone until it reached his groin. He screamed, half in surprise, pain receptors not yet fully registering what was happening to him. She forced the blade up and across his belly.
The other two men lunged forward as soon as they realized something unplanned for was happening. A red mist hung in the air, barely visible. Her first victim fell to the floor, clawing the carpet. The blade continued on its course, a looping curve through the air, as she twisted her body and slashed through the throat of the man lunging from one side. For just an instant, she stood still, her fist holding the blade horizontally out in front, as if waiting for the dead man to fall over. A quick step and turn brought the blade backhanded the way it came, this time stabbing down into the soft area at the base of the third man’s neck, slanting through the rib cage. He looked blankly at her, dimly conscious of a compression in his chest as his life force ebbed away, until she pulled the blade out through a dying spurt of black blood and swung it back around, bringing it diagonally down in an overhead stroke toward Kim.
In the tiny fraction of a second it took to pivot and face him, he was able to raise the barrel of his gun directly into Emily’s face. She paused to contemplate the situation in a moment so tense it practically shimmered in the darkening air. Her eyes met his and she smiled, sword still held high, blade pointed toward the ceiling. They seemed frozen, connected by each other’s glance and by the simplicity of their mutual understanding. Finally, Kim turned his gun toward Danny’s head, breaking the stalemate. Emily brought the blade crashing down through his collarbone, tearing an enormous gash in his chest. He fell dully to the floor groaning.
Alone in the center of the room, surrounded by dead men, the smell of blood hanging heavily in the air, she turned to look at her friends and saw on each one the same look of abject terror. Their faces like death masks, trapped in the expression of doom, as if they had just seen the Gorgon. What exactly did she see in their frozen faces? Was it only fear? Or were they also repulsed by what they had just witnessed? Had they seen something irretrievably ugly in her soul? A thought flashed across her consciousness: “Why not just kill them all and be free of their judgment? You have no friends. It would be so easy, the work of an instant.”
That such a thought could find a place in her mind shocked her. A quick, shallow breath and she dropped the sword, then rushed into the hall, expecting to weep bitter tears over her dead friend. But when she got there, she found her friend wasn’t dead at all. In fact, she wasn’t even wounded.
“Ow, goddammit! That hurt,” Connie said as she rubbed her ribs.
“A vest, you were wearing a vest,” Emily cried out. “But how did you know…”
“It was Kim, he made me put it on earlier. I had no idea why, that sonofabitch.” She tried to pull herself up, and then sat back down again. “Crap. I hope I didn’t break a rib. Jay, you demented bastard,” she called out. “What the hell are you up to?” There was no response from the other room. “What happened in there after he shot me?” she asked with growing apprehensiveness.
Emily said nothing, and the others were only just realizing that they retained the power to move. Rhee Sung ran out of the room clutching Ji-Yeong to his chest, still shielding her eyes. Kyung-Hae followed after him, weeping almost hysterically. Finally Emily told her.