The Lostkind (44 page)

She wouldn't.

"I wondered how you could be so cool about lying to me; about slicing up a cop and then forgetting it ever happened." He almost laughed at the thought. "And of course, the answer came to me: Why would it bother you, when it never has before?" He didn't raise his voice; he didn't threaten. He wasn't angry; he was heartsick. "I... I gave up a lot for this." He said finally. "I'm lying to all my friends. I'm lying to my boss. I'm breaking a few laws; or at least bending them a scary long way."

Yasi said nothing.

"
I lost my girlfriend." Vincent added. "I know you didn't like her; but I did. And I walked away from her for the chance to just... be in your universe for a while. If you hadn't come to me... If I had stumbled onto the Underside on my own?" He held the paper up, almost pointing it at her like an accusation. "Would you have taken
my
head too?"

She said nothing, but she kept bunching her toes. "This is nice. I like your carpet." She admitted, and reached for her boots again. As she pulled them on, Yasi finally looked at him. There was a single tear on her face. "You hate me now." It was not a question.

Vincent shook his head. "Of course not."

"But things
have
changed. You were scared to ask. You were worried I might do something to you too." She pressed. "You've always known I was a dangerous ninja, but I was your friend first. Now I'm more ninja than friend."

Vincent couldn't look at her either. "I think... The Underside needs a Ninja more than I need a friend."

Yasi felt another single tear follow the first, but her expression never changed. "Probably right." She acknowledged. "But that's not going to change any time soon. If my world lives out the week, it will still be like this. It will
always
be like this."

"I know."

"I can't walk away and go somewhere sunny Vincent. I can't just move up here and go to movies with you." Yasi said, frustrated. "I have a job. It's important that I do it right, it's important that I do it myself. Now more than ever. It's not the first time I've had to do damage."

"I know."

Yasi's voice grew hard and certain. "The First Duty of the Shinobi is to protect The Secret." She declared; and Vincent could tell it was a lesson learned by rote.

"Yasi, I'm not arguing with you."

Long silence.

Vincent picked up her sword and held it out to her. She came over to take it, never taking her eyes off his as she slung it across her shoulders again. She didn't step back, leaving them close. Vincent found he was holding his breath.

Yasi leaned in, very slowly, and brushed their lips together just the tiniest bit. It was a kiss so totally devoid of any warmth and emotion that it actually made Vincent shiver.

"I have to go." She said softly. "I understand if you don't want me to come back."

Vincent wanted to stop her, but he hesitated. He looked around the apartment for a second... and his eyes fixed on the newspaper, reporting a dead cop washing up. It wasn't an endearing quirk she had, it wasn't a sweet habit he approved of. She killed people. It was part of her job.

He started to tell her to stay... but she was already gone.

"Be safe." Vincent whispered after her. "And if this ends with a happy ending... I'll wait for you in the sun."

~oo00oo~

"Where have you been?" Keeper demanded.

"Clearing my head." Yasi said softly. "What happened… threw me for a loop. I was in the mood to have a fit, and I can't do that here."

"You went to Vincent." Keeper said. It was not a question.

"Yes." Yasi confessed.

"How'd he take it?"

Yasi sighed hard, and shut her eyes. "Keep, I screwed up. I think I may have wrecked that one completely."

"He'll forgive you." Keeper said simply.

"I don't think so. The things he's mad about are all true. And if I try to make it better, we'll start fighting again."

"Exactly. You don't come back for more arguments with people you don't like, you barely talk to people you hate… You fight with your friends. They're the only people you
can
fight with."

"I hope so." Yasi said. "But Dorcan was right. Except for Vincent, I have no idea who's on my side any more." She almost looked sad. "And now, I think that I may have screwed that up completely too."

Keeper started to say something when Archivist came in. "Hey there." Archivist said lightly. "We thought you might have been tracking down the mole."

"Six months, we haven't found any trace of a mole since Owen escaped." Yasi shrugged.

"No sign?" Archivist scorned. "Think about this for a second. You approached one hundred and fifty Throwbacks and assorted others and asked them to come and fight for us. Owen, or someone else got to them before you did, and convinced them to switch sides. This happened in between your training schedule, and you didn't know? Considering that you managed to keep them secret from the two of us…"

"We have no idea if the mole is even still around." Yasi insisted. "After the last week, what else is there for him to do here? He could be anywhere; but honestly? I think he escaped long ago. He's out there laughing at us right now."

"Whoever he is, he would have been passing on all our entrances to Vandark."

"Maybe, but I doubt it." Yasi said. "If their mole spent a lot of time communicating with the outside, I would have found him out by now."

"Everything Vandark has been doing has been from inside. If VonGunn hadn't called us, we never would have had a clue." Keeper said logically. "So who has access to the information Vandark would want?"

"Nobody." Yasi said proudly. "I did more than recruit for the last six months. Remember how me and Vincent spent all that time scouting new entrances? Did you think I did it on my own just because I liked hanging out with him?"

"Yes." Archivist said without hesitation.

Yasi flushed. "Okay, so maybe I did. But I handled it alone so that anyone in here would have very limited information about ways in and out. I saw to it that every Watcher, every team of Borrowers, every Digger putting the door in, every
Shinobi
only knows about one or two entrances, and that's not enough for an invasion. Even the Throwbacks I recruited came in the same three doors; just at different times. Whoever the spy is, he doesn't have a way to let Vandark's army in."

"Vincent." Keeper said suddenly. "Vincent knows about the entrances you found."

"I told Vincent to lose it all." Yasi said. "I convinced him that having such information was dangerous. He has no copies at his house, he wrote nothing on the records we Borrowed from the City Planner's Office. There's no way he committed it all to memory. We only put entrances in at a third of the places we scouted."

"Then we're still ahead of the curve." Keeper said with certainty.

There was a beat as that sank in.

Archivist grinned. "Did Vandark just gain himself an advantage over our army and have no way to use it?"

Yasi nodded, like it should have been obvious.

Archivist and Keeper traded a look. "We made her." Keeper said proudly; jerking a thumb at their daughter.

"Yeah we did." Archivist boomed with obvious pride. "Yasi, you just outsmarted him! Why aren't you smiling?"

"I don't smile." Yasi barked coldly. "Has Vandark been dissuaded at all? Ever? Every time we've tried something approaching a roadblock, he found a way around it." She was cold as a rattlesnake as she drew her sword, and checked along the blade. "Make no mistake, he'll think of something."

Yasi turned and stalked toward the door.

"Where the hell are you going?" Keeper demanded.

"Back to the surface." Yasi said over her shoulder. "Whatever's gonna happen, it'll happen there."

Archivist looked after his daughter with his jaw hanging open. "What was that all about?"

"She had a fight with Vincent." Keeper excused.

~oo00oo~

"You understand what I need you to do?"

"Yes, My Lord Vandark."

"I take no pleasure in using these tactics. But it must be done, or the plan will fail, and all we have spent so long working toward will fail."

"I understand."

"I'm sorry about before."

"When?"

"The Riverfolk attack. None of them know you're with us. They never should have struck at you."

"It's all right. It actually made my job easier."

"I remember the people who help me, my friend. Do not think that you are being used. I am not blind to the work you have done already in my name. Just a little while longer, and we will all have more than we ever thought was possible. Including the New York Lostkind. You're doing this for them. Not for me, not even for yourself. This is for the people you love."

"I know. And… I
am
grateful. I'm just nervous."

"Don't be. I'll be right there with you."

"Thank you Lord Vandark."

~oo00oo~

The fight with Yasi was a weight on his back.

Vincent hated the way things had been left with her, but at the same time, he couldn't think of anything he said or did that was wrong or unfair. Everything he had accused her of, she was guilty of. How many people had stumbled onto the secret of the Lostkind? How many people had her blade silenced?

Such thoughts chased him into the park. Checkov saw him, and he shook his head. He wasn't so much in the mood to give a chess game his attention. Checkov moved on.

His purpose to the Underside was to use his knowledge of the unseen parts of the city to their advantage. It was not unlike his regular job. If Yasi had approached someone else two years before, and Vincent had stumbled onto the Labyrinth himself by accident… would she have taken his head too?

A man sat down opposite Vincent. "You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders."

Vincent looked up. His guest was wearing a long black overcoat, had incredibly pale eyes, and a scar just under his chin. He was built like a gorilla, but his smile was warm and friendly. "Wanna talk about it?"

Vincent wanted to scream it from the rooftops, but knew he couldn't. "Do I know you?"

"Not exactly, but I'm told you've been a source of help to many a person in this city that couldn't help themselves. I think that people like that should expect a little karmic loyalty. The world is full of silent heroes, and the news doesn't mention them. About the only time you hear about a Good Samaritan on the news is when they get caught in the crossfire and killed for their trouble."

Vincent couldn't help the chuckle. "Well, that's true I guess." He held out a hand to the huge man. "Vincent McCall."

The man returned the handshake. "You may call me Vandark." He said without fanfare.

Vincent yanked his hand back like he'd been burned. He jumped to his feet and backed away quickly.

Vandark didn't seem surprised. "Sit. Down." He growled, suddenly ferocious.

Intimidated, Vincent did so. For the first time, he got a proper look at the man that had caused all the fear Below.

"So." Vandark seemed to be enjoying himself. "We finally meet. You've been an interesting wild card in this story Vincent. You're not with them, but you're not exactly a neutral either. In fact, of the three carefully arranged plans to find entrance to the New York Underside, you have managed to single-handedly block two of them." He shifted on the bench, to sit closer to Vincent. "Let me say only that I have no interest in hurting you."

Vincent just looked at him, heart hammering.

Vandark smiled despite himself. "Okay, that's a lie. I would love to throttle the life out of you. But there's something I want more; and if I can do it cleanly, that works for me."

"What the hell do you want?" Vincent demanded.

"But of course, you already know the answer to that." Vandark said smoothly. "I want all the ways into the Underside that you have discovered in your time at the City Planners office." Vandark explained. "One way or another, this ends in a few days, and I want to do this with a minimum of fuss. In the final analysis, I've already won."

"You haven't won yet." Vincent warned. "You've never even seen the Underside..."

"I don't have to." He countered, and started counting on his fingers. "Keeper, who leads the general population. Protective, and unwilling. She's been the third party in all disputes, giving her authority over most of the Lostkind. All I have to do is present her with a choice where she doesn't know what to do; and she will crumble. Then there's Archivist, the protector of all the accumulated knowledge. He thinks in abstracts, as the keeper of all accumulated knowledge of the place. As a result, he has a strong love for the libraries and the archives. You've heard Yasi spin off a textbook history of things; like the subway, or the Steam Pipes. Who do you think taught it to her? All I have to do is make him choose between his books, or his daughter. And that leaves Yasi." Vandark's eyes glimmered. "I for one can't
wait
to cross swords with her. One Warrior-Guard to another."