Bound Together (18 page)

“There's a group of people waiting for the elevator. Wait. They're getting on the elevator. Okay, it's clear. Go.”

I pushed the door open just enough to slide through and emerged into the 2F elevator lobby. Misaki was right behind me and we both took cover in the corner away from the door, just in case someone saw it pop open a few dozen centimeters. When no one came to investigate, we relaxed for a moment.

Misaki led me out of the elevator lobby and into the second-floor offices. They were arranged in rows of five, with corridors running between each row of offices. All of the doors were labeled with a three-digit number, the first digit indicating the floor we were currently on. Most of them were locked, the offices behind them dark. Misaki stopped near a corner office and tapped me lightly on the shoulder.

“In there.”

I materialized the Relic in my hand, feeling the sword's weight and peculiar warmth in my hand once again. I felt a little more comfortable with some kind of weapon in hand, even one I was pretty bad at using.

Misaki threw the door open and we both rushed inside. The moment it shut behind us, she canceled the invisibility charm.

The man behind the desk stiffened as he realized his office was no longer empty. He looked up at us and his eyes narrowed. For someone who just had two intruders appear out of thin air in his office, one of whom carried a meter-plus-long warblade, he seemed uncharacteristically calm and collected.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to reach me.”

His tone was genial and polite, but his eyes were cold and hard as ice. I made the mistake of looking into them. He appeared to be an ordinary corporate officer, but some fragment of the soul-deadening evil he channeled was embodied in his creepy, unblinking stare. I avoided looking into them.

“You knew we were coming?”

“Of course,” the summoner replied. “I knew an intruder was inside the building the moment that spirit bitch cast a spell. The mana was disturbed in a way that was... intimately familiar to me.”

“As if I would believe the poisoned words of a Morita summoner,” Misaki hissed, her tail lashing in agitation.

“I was not speaking to you, dog,” the Morita snapped. Then he turned to look at me, an apologetic expression on his bland face. “I apologize for the interruption, but this is most insulting. It seems that you haven't yet trained your pet to behave properly when in the presence of its betters.”

“Misaki isn't my pet,” I growled. I raised the sword and pointed it at his head, the tip less than a few scant centimeters away from his nose. Morita seemed completely unruffled by this.

“You named this dog?” Morita marveled, his expression clearly broadcasting his disgust and condescension. I was starting to get
really
pissed. Fortunately, that worked out in my favor
completely
, since we were here to kill him. This wasn't a case where I had to restrain myself, but his confidence and arrogance in the face of certain death did concern me more than a little. The word “trap” started to spell itself out in my mind.

“I am not a dog, you sanctimonious piece of shit.” Misaki's ears laid flat and back, her eyes narrowed dangerously. I'd never actually seen her this angry, but for whatever reason she still hesitated to try and rip him apart. Maybe she was getting the same sort of uneasy feeling I was.

The Morita summoner ignored her completely. “I am no fool. I know you've come here to kill me. The fact that you haven't yet tried means you understand that all is... how should I put this? That all is...
not as it seems
.”

Not good. Not fucking good. “What the
hell
are you talking about?”

“Not too smart, are you? Allow me to elucidate, then. You have something that belongs to my superiors... and they want it back. Unfortunately, as we both know, relinquishing the Relic to its rightful owners will require the forfeiture of your life.”

I leaned toward him, the tip of the Relic less than a centimeter from his face. My own anger and desire to kill this disgusting little fuck woke the power of the weapon, causing the razor edge of the blade to start glowing with intense heat and power. Still the Morita summoner did not react. He knew just as well as I did that I wasn't going to do anything to him, at least until he finished speaking.

“That leaves us at something of an impasse,” Morita continued. He lifted a half-finished tumbler of whiskey from his desk and took a small sip, letting out a contented sigh. “Would you like a drink, Miss Ashley?”

I knew he was trying to throw me off balance. I didn't bother to respond with words, but I did pull the sword back, keeping it out in a loose guard stance. If necessary I could snap up into a slash that would probably hurt him badly, if not kill him outright.

“Very well. As I was saying, we are at an impasse. I'm sure that you don't actually wish to die, and none of the usual inducements would be effective in convincing you to commit suicide. After all, you can't take it with you when you go, yes?” Morita chuckled at his own dark humor.

“So what?” I demanded.

“I am terribly sorry. This was not my idea, but orders from my superiors. I hope you understand. We realize we are asking for a lot—in fact, the most you could ever possibly give. Considering the gravity of the situation, we felt that a certain degree of leverage was necessary to ensure that you would comply with our request to return the stolen property to the Tsukimura.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. No. No, no, no. They didn't. They
did not fucking do
what I think they did. They didn't. No.

Morita's bland expression was replaced by a sinister narrowing of the eyes and a supercilious smirk as he watched my reaction—the reaction I was absolutely positive he expected. I stared at him, impotent fury raging behind my eyes. My grip on the Relic tightened to the point where my knuckles whitened.

“If we would have had the luxury of time, I'm sure we would have secured your beloved younger sister So-yi—or is it brother? I can never remember with such corrupt sexual degenerates—”

“Don't you fucking say her name,” I snarled, cutting him off and damn near leaping forward to cut him apart. I couldn't, though. Mama's life depended on me not being a hotheaded idiot. “You don't
deserve
to say her name!”

“How needlessly melodramatic.” Morita finished his whiskey and set the empty glass down. “Now, listen closely or your mother will soon join her husband and firstborn son in death.”

Inwardly I was seething, fury barely contained by dread. The Relic was reacting to my intense anger and hatred of this pustule of an excuse for a human being; I'd never seen the edge of the blade glow so intensely white and pure.

“The Tsukimura has sent a representative to the Takeda family home. You will meet with him and arrange the terms of your relinquishment of the Relic. In exchange, we will not kill Yoshiko Ashley. Furthermore, House Tsukimura and all servant houses will pledge to leave So-yi Ashley alone.”

I glanced at Misaki. Her tail stood straight out, stiff as a board, the fur standing up on end to the point where it looked twice its normal size. She looked as if she were just barely containing murderous rage.

“Looks like I don't have a choice,” I murmured.

“Quite true,” Morita noted, his tone mocking. “Now, if there is nothing else, I'll thank you to get out of my office.”

I released the Relic's physical form and tried very hard to keep my thoughts from revealing themselves outwardly. Worry for Mama and So-yi had my mind inflamed, but even as upset as I was, I was fundamentally a person who operated on logic.

A person who just noticed a glaring inconsistency.

“Actually, there is something else,” I said to Morita in a conversational tone, trying as hard as I could to keep my anger tamped down.

“You have been given your instructions. My hospitality is reaching its limit, Miss Ashley. If you do not wish to be responsible for the deaths of the remaining members of your family, I strongly suggest you make haste and meet with the Tsukimura representative.”

“Oh, this won't take long at all.” My stricken expression fell away and was replaced with something else, something far colder. “If we are to negotiate with a member of the Tsukimura family rather than you, Mr. Morita, it stands to reason that you are—Misaki, what's a good way to put this?”

“Expendable,” Misaki growled.

Morita's bland, superior expression fell from his face. Terror widened his eyes as he realized that Tsukimura had hung him out to dry, knowing full well that the negotiations did absolutely nothing to ensure he made it out of this confrontation alive.

“Expendable, yes. You know what that means, don't you? How does it feel to be the Tsukimura's disposable errand boy, Mr. Morita?”

“No! This cannot be!” Morita shrieked. “I have served Tsukimura faithfully for twenty years! I will not be discarded in such—”

“We don't have time for this.” I snapped, cutting him off. I placed a hand on Misaki's shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “Misaki.”

Misaki's vicious scowl slowly transformed, her ears laying flat as her lips curved into a stone-cold slasher smile. The fur on her tail relaxed and the appendage began to swish to and fro in eager anticipation of a task that she relished more than a little.

Flames engulfed her hands. The Morita summoner scrambled to his feet and started tracing a runic sigil in the air, desperately trying to bring up some sort of magical defense, but it was hopeless. His protective invocation was far too slow to activate, but Misaki's spell-flame was quicker than thought.

The blazing line of constricting fire slashed through the air and wrapped itself loosely around Morita's body. This time, however, the smell of burning fabric and melting flesh filled the air as Misaki willed the elemental bindings to burn hot and true. Morita screamed in incomprehensible agony as the astral flames dug into his flesh, instantly converting skin and fat and muscle into sickly-sweet smoke.

“The only reason I'm going to kill you quickly,” Misaki explained, her tone sweet and mocking, “is that we're in a hurry. You're really lucky, you know.”

The flaming coil vanished, leaving diagonal blackened lines of horrific burns visible in their place. Misaki brought her blazing hands up and loosed a searing jet of flame from both palms directly at Morita's head. His screams were cut short by the killing blast, the intense magical heat melting his flesh and vaporizing his hair. The fluid in his eyes boiled, causing them to rupture with a sickening pop.

Morita's roasted corpse fell to the floor with a thud.

the red

Misaki's chosen method of killing the Morita summoner turned out to be useful in more ways than one. In her anger she hadn't been thinking clearly enough to modulate her fire precisely, transforming Morita's office into a flaming inferno. We made good use of the conflagration—and the fire alarm it triggered—to escape.

In the ensuing confusion as the building staff evacuated and the fire brigade showed up to extinguish the blaze, it was easy enough for us to slip out of the building. We managed to get back to the rental car without being noticed.

I drove as fast as I dared, reminding myself repeatedly not to exceed the speed limit by too much. It wasn't a race for the clock, but I dreaded what might be happening to Mama while we were stuck driving back to Osaka. My stomach was clenching in upon itself, partly from dread and partly because we hadn't eaten anything since leaving the Takeda house.

“Here.” Misaki held a piece of sour strawberry candy out to me. I took it and popped it in my mouth. It wasn't real food, but it was something.

“Can I have something more substantial? I'm starving.”

“There's a few sweet rice bread rolls and milk coffees. I'll get some for you.” Misaki unbuckled her seat belt and reached behind the passenger seat to retrieve the snack food. She unwrapped the little roll and handed it to me. I took a bite and swallowed. It tasted pretty good but I was absolutely not in the right mood to enjoy food. Right now it was just fuel that I desperately needed.

“Let me have a cigarette,” Misaki muttered. I glanced at her and shrugged, pulling a smoke out of my pocket and handing it to her. I'd never seen her so stressed out. I guess she needed something to calm her, but I wasn't really sure what an immortal spirit could actually get out of nicotine.

Her fingertip emitted a tiny flame and she lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply. The act seemed to calm her, even if the chemical itself probably didn't do anything to her inhuman physiology.

“Are you okay?”

Misaki closed her eyes and puffed at the smoke. “No. I'm not okay.”

“I'm not okay either.”

“They've been using us,” she growled, flicking ashes out the window. “This whole case with the industrial espionage, it was
bait
. Bait in a trap. And we fell for it. Fell for it like a fish chomping on the hook.”

I wasn't really in the mood for recriminations. “You don't need to remind me.”

“I'm sorry.”

“We don't have time to waste placing blame.” I turned my eyes back to the road, trying to resist the temptation to start weaving through traffic at high speeds. “We have to get to Mama before those... those monsters hurt her.”

“We're almost there, Karin.” Misaki's expression softened and she gazed on me with a mixture of sympathy and guilt. Fuck.
She
felt guilty.
She
was upset at herself for falling into the trap. I strongly suspected she was also blaming herself for the fact that the Tsukimura representative was holding Mama hostage.

“We'll save her, love.” Misaki placed her free hand on my thigh and squeezed it reassuringly.

“Yeah... I know. I know.”

I was speeding a little now, but not enough to attract police attention. Traffic was light this time of day, a little after rush hour. Everyone had pretty much already gone home. The air was starting to grow much colder as darkness began to fall.

It took another fifteen minutes before we arrived at the Takeda home. The house was well-lit and looked positively normal from the outside. Of course, the sort of people we were up against weren't stupid. They may have had significant influence in this country, but they couldn't do anything too overt without straining those valuable relationships.

I parked the car and we got out, choosing not to manifest the Relic just yet. I doubted this would end in fighting, not with the sort of leverage they possessed. The front door was unlocked, which wasn't unusual for this time of day, but I knew it was so that I'd be able to get inside.

The house looked exactly the same as it did earlier that morning. I walked through the hallway to the largest room in the house, the parlor connected to the open kitchen. Misaki's vulpine ears swiveled and twitched, trying to catch any suspicious noises.

In the dining room the kitchen table had been upended and shoved against the far wall. A single chair sat in the middle of the room. My mother was tied to the chair, her body held fast by several wraps of duct tape. She wasn't gagged.

“Karin!”

I could barely stop myself from bursting into tears. Bruises were visible on her arms and face. She had one obvious black eye and blood trickled from her nose. Her lip was split. I could tell she hadn't given up easily. I wasn't surprised at all; my mother was a fighter through and through.

“Welcome home, Karin Ashley,” a rich, sonorous masculine voice intoned from the kitchen proper. A man walked out and stood next to the chair my mother was tied to. He was about my age, perhaps a bit younger. Shorter than me, but more powerfully built, with a compact, well-muscled frame. I noticed his lip was bleeding just a little and that he seemed to favor one leg over the other. Mama must've
really
put up a good fight.

“Tsukimura,” Misaki snarled. “Saitou Tsukimura, fifth living son of the patriarch Isao.”

Tsukimura blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting to be recognized. His smug expression melted into one of disgust and annoyance.

“It seems our spies weren't exaggerating,” Saitou muttered, his thoughtful tone at odds with the acidic glare he directed at Misaki. “It is unfortunate that you've taught the spirit so many bad habits, but it matters little. She adapts to new circumstances very quickly, as I'm sure you've discovered.”

“Karin, what the hell is going—”

Saitou turned and cuffed Mama across the face, cutting her off. “I did not give you permission to speak.”

My eyes narrowed to slits. “You must really want to die.”

“I have no lasting attachment to the physical world, but I will not die, not tonight and not by your hands.” Saitou started to walk around the chair my mother was tied to, slowly and deliberately. I was perceptive enough to realize he was trying to intimidate me, but wouldn't likely strike my mother again.

“You want the Relic.”

“Of course. It belongs to us. It was passed to the first head of the Tsukimura clan nearly two centuries ago. Out of the eighty-one wielders of the blade since it was forged over six hundred years ago, twenty of those have been sons of Tsukimura. That our family's greatest treasure has fallen into the hands of a mongrel woman... well, that is something of an embarrassment.”

“I'll show you what this mongrel woman can do.” I materialized the Relic in my right hand and dropped into a guard stance. Saitou stared at me, confused, and threw his head back and laughed.

“Your skill is less than nothing next to mine, yet you would challenge me? Interesting! I would like nothing more than to take you up on the offer, but Lord Isao gave me specific instructions. We can't risk the delusional spirit committing suicide, now can we?”

Misaki stiffened beside me. I could tell she wasn't expecting him to bring something like that up. I didn't even know it was possible that she could kill herself in order to destroy the Relic, but now all the oddities of the Tsukimura plan were starting to make sense. The disparate pieces finally clicked into place.

“I get it now. You can't simply kill me and take the Relic without risking Misaki killing herself and destroying it permanently. That's why you need me to voluntarily hand it over.”

“Correct.” Saitou paced across the floor, standing between me and my mother. “Lord Isao will imprison the Relic's imbued spirit in such a way that she will not be able to turn her powers on herself. You will then sacrifice your own life to sever the astral bond between yourself and the Relic. Under my father's control, the spirit will have no choice but to bind the Relic to a son of Tsukimura.”

“And in exchange, you will let my family live,” I finished for him.

Saitou shook his head. “It's not
quite
that simple, Miss Ashley. Like my father, I am a man who thinks ahead. To ensure that your bloodlust will not overcome your good sense, we have placed an insurance policy on dear Yoshiko here.”

My stomach felt as if it vanished from my body and was replaced with a boulder made of ice. Misaki's eyes widened in horror. I wasn't exactly sure but I think she must've figured out what Tsukimura was getting at.

“Monster!” Misaki cried. “I will tear you to pieces! I will burn your body into ash and scatter the fragments across the nearest garbage dump!”

Saitou glared at her. “You will do nothing of the sort. Quit your insufferable barking, dog. Your betters are speaking.”

“Tell me what you've done.” I released the Relic's material form. Saitou wore his own sword strapped to his hip. I had no reason to doubt he was being honest with his assessment of his own skill. If he was trained I had absolutely no chance at all.

“Very well. I have implanted a miasma seed within your mother's body. If you do not do as we ask, it will bloom and a pestilence specter will possess her body. If you yield to our demands, my father will release the summoning and the seed will dissipate.”

I was trapped. Even if I could kill him here—and with Misaki's help it wasn't totally hopeless, after all—I couldn't stop my mother's death without confronting the Tsukimura patriarch directly.

“What do I need to do?”

Saitou reached into a pocket and drew out a small black pebble, etched with angular runes that appeared similar to the gestures Misaki performed when casting spells. This he held out to me.

“This is a wardstone that will allow you safe passage into the Tsukimura ancestral shrine. Allow the spirit to absorb it and she will be able to lead you to the meeting place. Any others who try to enter without protection will find the consequences... unpleasant.”

I took the stone and held it in my hand. It felt strange, corrupt, profoundly
wrong
and I realized that it had been saturated with miasma.

Saitou gazed at me with dead eyes. “Go to the shrine tomorrow. Bring only yourself and the Relic. If you uphold your end of the bargain, your family will be safe. This I swear on my honor as Tsukimura.”

“Your honor isn't worth shit,” I snarled.

“A mongrel's words are worth even less.” Saitou's expression darkened. “Regardless, you have no choice but to trust us, unless you wish to watch all that you hold dear in this world to die horribly. If you fail us, your mother
will
become possessed by the specter and it will likely kill many people in this neighborhood before it is put down. We
will
hunt down your deviant, insane brother and kill him.”

My head was spinning and I felt intensely sick. It was only the heat of my rage that kept me standing, kept me from doubling over and vomiting all over the hardwood floor. I looked over at Misaki. Her eyes were wide, horrified and filled with sympathy and sadness. She wasn't even afraid that she would once again end up as a slave to evil people who cared only for power and influence. In her eyes I could only see bright pain and the knowledge that she would lose the person she loved.

To relinquish the Relic I would have to kill myself. If I refused to spare Misaki endless years of servitude to the Tsukimura clan, they would murder my family. My mind began to work furiously, trying desperately to figure out what the fuck I could possibly do to get out of this, to take a third option.

“We have planned this very carefully, Miss Ashley,” Saitou said, apparently realizing I was trying to think of a way out. “You have no choice but to acquiesce to our demands. You will either cooperate or you will watch your world die.”

Misaki seemed to wither beside me. My ears caught her quiet sobs. She wasn't even trying to hide her emotions from the Tsukimura bastard. Seeing her like this was just too much. I couldn't look at her for long. It was all too fucking much. I couldn't... I felt my eyes stinging from the tears that flowed unchecked. I felt as if hope itself died tonight.

Then I noticed my mother, still conscious in spite of Saitou's vicious backhand, was staring at something behind us, wide-eyed and astonished.

A gunshot rang out, deafening in the Takeda house parlor. Saitou's eyes widened in shock as he stumbled. A large bloody hole suddenly appeared on his forehead. There was another gunshot, and another. The bullets struck his throat, opening up his carotid artery and spilling blood freely, and his jaw, blasting a huge chunk of his face away.

Misaki and I whirled around simultaneously. A figure stepped out of the shadows in the hallway, a large-bore automatic pistol gripped in her hand. It didn't take us long to recognize the shooter.

“Star,” I gasped. To say I was surprised was a gigantic fucking understatement. “What the hell are
you
doing here?”

“My job, of course.” Star reached into the pocket of her jeans and drew out a folding knife, flicking the blade open. With this she freed my mother from her duct tape restraints and helped her stand.

“How much of that did you overhear?” Misaki demanded.