Bound Together (14 page)

“This is definitely going to wake it up. Let's time our attacks.”

I nodded and lifted my automatic, lining the sights up on the passive specter. Misaki's hands blazed with spell-flame as she summoned killing heat and light. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together in a thin, determined line.

“Now,” Misaki hissed.

I pulled the trigger several times in rapid succession, loosing four shots in the span of half as many seconds. At a range of less than four meters it was hard to miss such a big target. The MQ rounds, provided by Star and courtesy of the internal weapons development team within AEGIS, were doped with minute traces of malformed quintessence. The rounds would induce a sort of magical short circuit into whatever target they struck, fouling up the precise control of mana and miasma necessary for a specter to cast spells and maintain its existence on the physical plane.

Unlike normal bullets, they could damage a specter's physical form and could even destroy it, though only temporarily, by interrupting the flow of mana that kept it anchored to this reality. Taking them out permanently would require the Relic.

Misaki's fire struck the target shortly after my bullets. The crystal monster roared in agony, an awful metallic shriek that sounded very much like nails on a chalkboard. My throat itched and a jagged flash of pain ran down my spine, but I ignored it.

The specter reacted to the attacks almost immediately, but it was definitely hurt. Misaki's fire clung to the creature, setting it ablaze. Her spell-flame burned
anything
, whether it could burn naturally or not. I loosed two more shots, but the shardwight was aware now and dodged them with contemptuous ease.

I whistled aloud. “That thing is
fast
.”

“See what I mean?” Misaki shouted at me as she drew her arms inward and brought up a barrier of shimmering golden light between me and the specter. The charging shardwight slammed into the barrier and attempted to claw right through it, but the magical wall of force was not so easily breached.

The specter hissed in frustration and slashed at the barrier, trying to batter its way through so that it could slice me into ribbons with those crystal talons. Misaki loosed a barrage of fiery motes at the specter, but it was still very agile and adept at avoidance. Explosions of magical flame washed over desks and computer workstations, dissipating with no real effect. Misaki's control over her spell-flame was perfect. This was a very good thing because otherwise everything on this floor, including myself, would be on fire.

I knew what she was trying to do. The shardwight's arms and talons were its primary weapons and Misaki was doing her best to literally disarm the creature, but the thing was so fucking
fast
that she couldn't land a solid hit. Unlike a mortal opponent, the shardwight would never tire, never slow down, so long as it could draw upon astral energy.

A distraction was necessary. I sighed. Misaki was going to get mad at me for this, but I didn't see too many other ways to resolve the stalemate. It wouldn't take long before the rest of the building's security guards noticed something was amiss.

I stepped beyond the barrier Misaki granted me and manifested the Relic in my left hand, keeping my automatic in my right. I had six shots left. I fired all of them in rapid succession.

Left with the choice between dodging Misaki's exploding motes or my quintessence-laced bullets, the creature did
exactly
what I'd hoped it would do. It gave up its greatest advantage, high-speed dodging, and instead raised a miasmic barrier.

A vortex of roiling black fog sprang up around the creature, absorbing Misaki's spell-flame easily enough. The miasma swirled around violently, tinted a faint orange-red from the rapidly-fading magical heat.

Unfortunately for the specter, however, my bullets had a different effect.

The miasmic vortex warped and distorted as the MQ bullets struck it and fragmented, the metallic slugs ripped apart to expose the malformed quintessence held within. The pure physical crystallization of mana had been intentionally forced to form chaotic clusters that redirected the flow of astral energy and bent it back in upon itself.

The shardwight reeled and let out an ear-piercing shriek, clearly in pain—nice to know it
could
feel pain—and released the miasmic vortex before the MQ rounds could cause the black barrier to collapse in upon itself. It had deftly escaped being killed by its own magic, but the process of dismissing the miasmic vortex left it unable to dodge for a full two seconds.

More than enough time.

A half-dozen exploding motes caught it on the left shoulder and detonated, blasting crystalline shards across the development floor. The arm shattered and huge chunks of it fell to the ground, leaking plumes of miasma from the broken edges.

The shardwight's terrible voice rose up in pain and rage, falling back into a defensive stance. I dropped my empty pistol and took the Relic in a two-handed grip, leading with my right hand as I stepped into a vertical uppercut cleave that took the creature's left arm off just above the uppermost elbow.

As the blade sliced up I swung around and retracted it as quickly as I could, only becoming slightly over-balanced as I collapsed into a guard position. I was starting to get the hang of using this thing. Not enough to ever want to go head-to-head with another swordsman, but enough to take pieces off specters at least.

“Karin, now!” Misaki shouted. The spell-flame shrouding her hands vanished as if it had never been and she began to trace an intricate runic pattern in the air with two fingers on each hand. Her tail curled up toward her back and her ears flattened in anger as she completed the spell of restriction.

Before the shardwight could even strain against the invisible bonds holding it, I whipped the sword around, spun a half-circle and slashed across the specter's center of mass with all of my strength. The burning edge of the Relic sheared through the shardwight's crystalline form as if it were made of soft cheese.

With a horrific shriek, the shardwight died. Its crystal body began to fade and become pale and opaque before collapsing into a pile of fine ash. The bisected core, however, remained suspended in mid-air, held fast by Misaki's restriction spell.

I smiled. This specter was intelligent enough to possess a security guard and pose as that guard for several days while it worked to complete its task. Powerful and intelligent specters meant a large core. The two halves of the pallid sphere would have been the size of a grapefruit when whole.

“How much do you think?” I wondered.

Misaki stared at the specter's core. “Half a kilogram, perhaps more.”

“Well then, let's get it,” I said. I willed the Relic away and went about cleaning up the scene while Misaki fell into an invocation of her own. The spell used to refine the dead core of a specter was a difficult casting and it took time to complete. This was the point where I usually went around and removed as much evidence of our passing as I could.

I'd fired a whole magazine, so I went looking for the spent brass. Since all twelve shots had been fired in roughly the same location, it wasn't too hard for me to clean up after myself. Misaki's spell-flame didn't leave traces behind, so there wasn't much worry on that front.

I pocketed the spent brass and pulled a cigarette out of my pocket and lit it. Misaki gave me a disapproving look.

“I'm not going to leave the butt here,” I said, a touch defensively.

“Very well. I've completed the conversion process.” Misaki let out a sigh of relief as she released the invocation. The glittering silver-white dust remained suspended by her restriction spell, but I had no trouble at all collecting every scrap of the valuable substance and storing it inside a self-sealing containment cylinder.

“The core had remnants of the flow of the shardwight's miasma,” Misaki noted as we walked back toward the same office we used to gain entry. “While I was converting the core fragments into quintessence, I studied the flow lines.”

I glanced at her blankly as I fiddled with the can, trying to get the thing to lock and seal properly. “What does that mean?”

“It means I know what the specter was doing.”

“And?”

“It was communicating, just as Star predicted. The invocation was a type of magical sending that allowed it to transmit large amounts of data through the summoning link.”

I frowned. That made sense and was what Star thought was going on in the first place, that this was a case of industrial espionage. A tendril of smoke from my cigarette stung my eyes faintly as I twisted the lid of the cylinder, feeling it click as the seal lock finally decided to engage.

“Could you tell where it was sending to?”

Misaki nodded, her expression grim. “Japan. Kyoto.”

“Wait... you don't think this specter was summoned by the Tsukimura clan, do you?”

“If not them directly, than one of their servant houses. The magecraft used to summon this specter feels familiar,” Misaki said. “Star told us she will keep the case open if we managed to find a lead on the summoner. This is definitely enough of a lead to keep investigating.”

“Yeah,” I muttered around my smoke. I dropped the empty mag from my automatic and replaced it with a fresh one, chambering a round and putting the weapon on safe. I stuffed it and the empty magazine back in the shoulder holster under my jacket.

“You know Star's probably going to send us to Japan,” I pointed out.

Misaki glanced at me, her eyes wide. “That prospect upsets you?”

“No, not really. I mean, I haven't been there in a while. I didn't want to go back on business, though. Would have rather gone to visit, enjoy the sights, pretend to be a tourist for a while. Visit my mother.”

“I'm sure we can make time for that,” she insisted. I wasn't entirely convinced, nor was I entirely sure I was ready to face Mama while Misaki was with me.

“Maybe. Let's get out of here. We'll talk about this later.”

transitions

I was right, of course.

We'd been on the plane for twelve hours and already I was starting to go a little stir-crazy. Okay, maybe a
lot
stir-crazy. Never been a fan of air travel, especially not when traveling overseas. Being stuck in a tiny and inescapable metal box hurtling through the sky for almost a day was not my idea of fun.

Fortunately for the both of us, Star and AEGIS came through in a big way. Not only did she get us first-class tickets on a nice airliner—which meant I actually had room to stretch my legs a bit—but she'd managed to legitimately get Misaki put into the systems.

Well. Maybe “legitimate” was too strong a word—the papers were bullshit, of course, but they were
real
documents. Her new birth certificate stated she'd been born in 2021 in the States, making her twenty-two and an American citizen, which was reasonably believable based on her appearance. Obviously telling the truth—that she was a six-hundred-year-old artificial spirit created by ancient Japanese mystics—would not work.

Misaki sat next to me, clearly enjoying both the comfortable chair and the endless stream of refreshments that came part and parcel with being in first-class. Especially the booze. She was working on her third Mimosa of the morning. I'd been dawdling over a cup of coffee with a little Irish crème thrown in for fun.

“I'm glad one of us is enjoying this trip,” I grumbled.

She gave me her patented curious look, her head tilting to one side. It really never stopped being incredibly adorable. “You don't like it? But the food is really good and the drinks are even better.”

“I don't like being stuck in a small space with no way out, I don't like having no proper bed I can lay down in and I definitely don't like not being able to smoke.” I sighed and dug around in my carry-on, pulling out a bag of the sour candy I favored. I'd been hitting the candy pretty hard since I couldn't smoke on the plane. My dentist wasn't going to be pleased with me.

“It will only be five more hours before we land,” Misaki pointed out.

“I know.” I sighed and sipped at my spiked coffee some more. The alcohol spread warmth throughout my midsection, but I was still in a pretty crappy mood. Misaki had her ears and tail hidden beneath the invisibility charm. I really hated the fact that she had to hide them.

Yeah, I know, it was for operational security, don't attract attention, blah, blah. But on the other hand, it didn't sit well with me that she had to hide who she really was. I'd finally come to admit that I'd been attracted to her since the moment we met. All of her, not just the parts that were most convenient for me, either.

I ate several pieces of sour candy in a row, feeling more upset by the minute. I was so out of sorts that I felt like crying. I wanted to hold Misaki, to hug her, kiss her, nestle up against her and feel her fluffy tail wrap around my waist. The desire to maintain some degree of public decorum meant that sort of thing wouldn't be happening. We weren't the only passengers on this flight.

“Aren't you anxious to visit your mother?”

I glanced over at Misaki and nodded. “Yeah, I am. I haven't seen her in a while. It'll be nice to spend time at the Takeda house again. Maybe we'll even have time to relax a bit before the job.”

Misaki gave me a dubious look.

“Mm, probably not,” I conceded. “But it'll still be nice to visit Mama. I'm sure she'll enjoy meeting you, too.” Though I really wish you didn't have to hide your true appearance from her, I added silently. I was growing more distraught thinking about it, so I decided to stop thinking about it. It didn't work so well.

Misaki seemed pleased at the prospect. “I'm looking forward to it!”

“I'm not really sure what she'll think about, um,
us
. She might disapprove or something.” Shit, just talking about it at all made me feel awkward. Things were still very new and raw for the both of us, but I thought we had it where it mattered.

“Would she not be happy for her daughter?”

“Um, well, Mama
really
wants grandchildren, and I'm the only child left capable of that sort of thing,” I replied, a bit more sourly than I'd intended. “It's not like she mistreated me or was ashamed of me for being a lesbian, but she's always sort of disapproved.”

Misaki frowned. “But your family line would not be continued if you married. Any husband of yours would sire children of his own line. In such a situation, your mother should have no reason to care.”

“It's not about perpetuating a noble bloodline, because my house isn't anywhere close to royalty.” I put the candy away and tried pulling air through an unlit cigarette. Nearby passengers gave me dirty looks, but nobody bothered to complain since I didn't actually light it. “My mother's family is Japanese. My father's is English and Korean. They lived and met in the States and had three children.”

Misaki's head tilted inquisitively. “You have two siblings?”

“Only one now,” I corrected. “I... well, let's just say that tragedy and my family are really familiar with each other.”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed heavily and placed my hand on Misaki's. It felt warm and soft and slightly tingly, a physical reminder of the astral energy seething beneath the surface. She smiled and a faint pink blush touched her cheeks.

“If it's too painful to talk about, I understand,” she murmured, her tone apologetic.

“No, it's not... really. It all happened a long time ago. I was the middle child. My older brother, William, and my father—they're both dead. They died in an auto accident when I was fourteen.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Misaki murmured, gazing at me sympathetically.

“Thank you. It happened a long time ago, but it still hurts.”

“What about your youngest sibling?”

“Well... this is a little more complicated.” I drained my now-cold Irish coffee and tried to think of a tactful way to frame the story before the words started tumbling forth. I wasn't certain I'd be able to explain it to her in a way she'd understand, but my mind was already heading down the path. Even if I wanted to stop, I couldn't have.

“When my sister was born, we all thought she was actually my
brother
,” I began, considering my words carefully. “I won't mention the name that was given to her at birth, other than yeah, it followed the same silly naming convention: my elder brother's name is English, mine is Japanese and my youngest sibling's is Korean.”

“That doesn't sound silly to me,” Misaki objected. “Your parents wished to honor their ancestors and their culture.”

I smiled. “Maybe you're right. Anyway, my little sister, So-yi, well, her status with the family has always been questionable, to say the least. Most of the extended family doesn't accept her at all and it took
years
for my mother to finally come around. I was already moved out of the house when Mama finally accepted her third child was really her second daughter, not her second son.”

“Your sister was once a man?” Misaki queried. She looked a little confused, but did not seem to be bothered by the concept of a person disagreeing with the sex they were assigned at birth.

“That's what we all thought,” I explained, “but it turned out to not be true. So-yi and I were thick as thieves from the moment she was old enough to talk. She's three years younger than me. I was the first person she confided in, the first person she told that she was actually a girl. We were both pretty young at the time. I was nine, she was six. I convinced her that we should go tell Mama, but that turned out to be a bad idea.”

Misaki frowned. “Your parents did not take this well?”

“No, not really.” I placed my hand on my forehead and sighed. “My father was furious when he found out and Will was Daddy's best boy, so he basically went right along with it. My mother was not actively hostile, but she didn't really
do
anything to stop the men of the house from treating So-yi badly.”

“I don't understand.” Misaki's brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Why would such a thing cause issue within the family? No one can know the depths of their own soul better than themselves. Why would your mother and father refuse to believe their child on such an important matter?”

I smiled and brushed her cheek lightly. “I didn't expect you to accept this quite so, um, completely. But thanks. It makes it a lot easier to talk about.”

I took a breath and ate a piece of candy. It'd been a long time since I last recounted this story to someone else and I wasn't at all surprised by how painful it still was. I felt my eyes start to sting as I thought of what the whole situation did to the family, but mostly how it affected my little sister.

“I was So-yi's knight in shining armor,” I went on, my eyes slowly losing focus as I stared back into the past. “When Will would push her around for doing something he considered unmanly, I'd yell at him, stand between them, shielding her. When my father would make some cutting remark about how much of a 'sissy' So-yi was, I wouldn't hesitate to risk punishment to stick up for her. I'd let her dress up in my clothes, help her with her hair and makeup, at least until Dad found out I was doing it and threatened to send So-yi away to boarding school if she didn't stop 'shaming the family' or some shit like that.”

“Your parents should have trusted their child. The disharmony of the family was their doing, not your sister's.” Misaki scooted closer to me, leaning against me. I was sure she could tell just how much recounting the tale affected me.

“Tell me about it. Dad and Will never accepted her, never forgave her for not being the son and brother they demanded her to be. I have no idea if they ever would have, because they died before that could even happen. At the funeral, So-yi couldn't stop crying. She was inconsolable because, in her own words, 'Daddy and Will died hating me, so they'll hate me forever in the afterlife.'”

The stinging in my eyes was getting worse. My vision was starting to blur and I knew it wouldn't be long before the tears would start coming. There wouldn't be anything I could do to stop them; I'd just have to cry it out.

“After they died, Mama didn't really pay much attention to So-yi, so I ended up sort of raising her. I guess the little war over my sister's gender identity was something that reminded her far too much of her dead husband and son. Mama focused all her energy on me, so I decided it was only right that I take care of So-yi.”

The tears started coming. Misaki clung to me more tightly, her expression filled with sympathy. I took a moment to collect myself, wiping my eyes with the napkin that the flight attendant gave me with my coffee.

“Sorry. It's just... it's hard. Anyway, So-yi and I grew even closer. When I graduated high school and left home, I was really worried for her. I mean, Mama was coming to grips with the loss, but she wasn't really willing to accept So-yi. She wouldn't use feminine pronouns, would use the name my sister was given at birth.

“We stayed in touch almost obsessively during that time. I talked to So-yi almost every night on the phone. Sometimes we'd talk for hours. One day during my second year, So-yi called me in the middle of the day, while I was in class. She always called me around the same time, usually in the late evening, so this was weird and I was scared, worried something terrible happened.”

Misaki remained silent, listening patiently. I could feel her tail curling around my thigh, even if I couldn't see it. I felt a stab of anger that emerged from the past, from So-yi's pain, and snaked around through Misaki before it struck my heart. I
hated
that she had to hide, just like I hated when So-yi had to hide.

“It turned out not to be terrible. When I answered, So-yi didn't even give me time to speak. She was ecstatic, deliriously happy. I had no idea what the fuck was going on and said so, but she just kept speaking over me, telling me over and over again: 'Karin, Karin, guess what? Mama called me So-yi today!' It was like she was five years old again and it was Christmas morning. And I just about had a heart attack when I heard that.”

“Your mother learned to accept her child for who she was,” Misaki murmured. “Perhaps she realized that the love of the family is what is most important.”

“I think it was more that she finally got over Dad and Will's deaths and was able to move on with her life.” I wiped my eyes again and took a deep breath. “The next time So-yi and I talked, I really couldn't believe it. Not only did Mama accept her, but she was actively
helping
her youngest daughter.”

Misaki's eyes were wide as she gazed at me, totally enthralled by the tale of the Ashley family drama. I squeezed her hand affectionately. We suspended the conversation for a brief moment when the flight attendant returned, asking if we wanted something else to drink. I ordered a cola and Misaki requested a glass of water.

After the attendant returned with the drinks and departed, I continued the tale. “Mama really went all-out. She pushed through the courts and paperwork to get So-yi's name and gender marker legally changed on all her documents. Took her to a doctor and made sure she was able to get prescriptions for hormones and androgen blockers, paid for her to get hair removal treatments, took her shopping and bought her a whole new wardrobe.”