Girl Takes Up Her Sword (28 page)

Two by two by two, strung out along the route, eight strides between each pair, Emily overtook the trailing pair with the
wakizashi
held out at her side. A single stroke across the back of the thigh brought one down, and a vertical stroke through the shoulder disabled the other. Without waiting to settle with them, she flew past to the next pair.

A quick slash brought another down, but the second man must have heard, and turned to face her. He tried to raise his gun before she closed the distance—she drove a foot through his knee, crumpling it as she slid on her back between his legs, dragging the blade across the tendons on the inside of his leg.

His scream alerted the last two, who turned to look back, guns ready as they scanned the underbrush. Before she could close the distance, one man lurched forward and fell on his face. When the other man turned, Ethan smashed the butt end of a gun into his face.

“Thanks, big guy,” Emily said. “I got this. Keep moving.”

It didn’t take long to dispose of whatever weapons they had, and to ascertain that no one was dead.

“Who are you?” one of them asked as she bound up his leg.

“That’s just great,” she growled. “You attack my home and you don’t even know who I am. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“We’re just…” he began, before the glare from her eyes stopped him.

“Don’t even bother. You want to know who I am? I’m David Walker’s niece.” She let that news wash over him. Once the shock wore off, she gave him the rest of the bad news. “You think you’re here on Meacham’s orders, but I can assure you Meacham’s already dead. My uncle killed him.”

“No way,” he said, his voice trembling. “Meacham would never… I can’t believe…”

“Well, believe this,” she said, as she tightened the tourniquet on his thigh with a sharp tug. “You came here to kill my children, and I’ve spared you. Would Walker or Meacham do that?”

She glowered at him as she said this, and he shuddered.

“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Your buddies aren’t dead. Take care of them and try to be worthy of my trust.”

Without waiting for a reply, she was off again at a dead run, one hand clamped on her hip, circling around to the far side of the house and down to the cabins. The light from the chopper swept the trees in front of her, and she headed straight for it, meaning to draw Walker’s attention to the unfinished bunker. Off to her right, at the top of the hill, she saw two teams entering the main house.

“It’s too soon,” she thought. “They need more time.”

Down by the cabins, she noticed several men lying in wait in a copse where she knew Theo and Jerry would emerge any minute. It wasn’t time yet to come out into the open, not until David showed himself. A path through the woods might bring her unseen to within a few yards of the men waiting in ambush, though she’d have to move more quickly than silence would allow.

“Hey, fellas,” she called out a moment later, as casually as she could manage. “You looking for something in the bushes there?”

“Doaks, it’s her,” one man whispered. “What should we do?”

“Holy crap, don’t just stand there. Get her.”

Leaves rustled, a branch snapped, and she was gone, her path obscured by the underbrush in the dark. No longer in a hurry, she could afford to be silent again.

“Get after her, dammit.” someone shouted, just as Theo cleared the tree line behind the cabins.

The momentary confusion created by Emily’s sudden appearance gave enough time for him to find a secure position. A short burst from an automatic weapon shattered the quiet and sent Walker’s men diving for cover. In another second, it would be too hot for Emily to accomplish anything here, but at least Theo was prepared for them. She ran further into the woods to avoid getting caught in the firefight, the sounds of which might draw more of Walker’s men down the hill and away from her mother and the children. If Connie was still alive, she might be able to thin them out before they reached Theo’s position.

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Chapter
31

The Wrong Sword

“We don’t have ‘em yet,” a voice crackled through his earpiece. “Doaks thinks he has her pinned down by the cabins.”

“It looks like he’s the one pinned down,” Walker replied. “That fire’s too hot. She’s not there.”

“What’s your preference?” the voice asked.

“Send in the chopper. A little light on the situation should clear that right up. And find the damn sniper.”

Walker surveyed the scene from the back patio of the main house. An empty house, no sign of Cardano’s security people, and his family was gone. Someone had almost half his forces tied up, but he was sure it was a diversion. More worrisome was the fact that most of the other half was no longer responding on the radio.

“I am officially impressed, girl,” he muttered.

A deep breath cleared his mind and brought the problem into focus. He knew she was near, could practically feel her, though an unsettling thought gnawed at his confidence. If he could feel her, he knew she could feel him. Creeping into the darkness inside him, like a sunrise, uncontrollable, blinding, the same light he encountered at their first meeting pressed at the edges of his thoughts. It threatened him, an expression of her power, not his. But it also seemed to promise liberation.

He touched the hilt of his sword… her sword… the sword he’d sought for so many years, and felt better about that light. When he first took it from her, when he first wrapped his fingers around it, he knew. He felt its energy ripple through his nerves and muscles, as if he could conquer the world as long as he held it. That feeling faded over the next few days, but the memory of it still sustained him.

She was watching from just beyond the tree line on the right, he could sense that much. He stepped off the patio and walked down the lawn to draw her out. Connie might shoot him—she’d want to—but Emily will have said not to, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. The only question was whether Connie would go along.

“I know you’re here,” he shouted. “You might as well come out.”

The sound of gunfire drifted into the distance, the chopper veered off for another pass and the moon slipped out from behind the clouds. In the eerie quiet, he didn’t notice her right away, not until the blast shook the ground around him. He cried out to his men not to shoot at her, but his voice was lost in the oppressive silence. Then the roar of the explosion came, and the air pulsed in the shockwave before going thin and quiet.

“So you’re here to kill children,” she snarled across the few feet between them.

“I’m here to protect our family.”

“You blew the bunker, where you expected my family to be.”

“But they weren’t there, were they?”

“And just how is Michael a threat to our family?” she asked. “He’s not Meacham or Burzynski. He kept us safe all these years.”

“You’re mistaken there,” Walker replied. “Of course he kept you safe. He had you in his household. But he was there at the beginning, and here he is at the end. If you think he isn’t going to further his own career through all of this, you’re a fool.”

~~~~~~~

Walker drew the sword and held it out between them. Running his finger along the wavy pattern in the blade, he gazed at it like a lost lamb. When he slashed the air in front of him in a sharp X pattern, his face was all expectation and the sword whistled in its own breeze. Emily drew the
wakizashi
over her shoulder and held it in one hand above her head.

“You’ve got a new short sword,” he said. “I wonder if it will fare any better than the previous one.”

Emily said nothing. Walker surged forward, slashing down at her face with the big blade of the
katana
. She could move the smaller blade quickly enough to deflect his stroke, but it wasn’t heavy enough, and she wasn’t strong enough to hold him off. Her wrist began to buckle and the blade tilted down toward her shoulder. She barely managed to drive her knee into his thigh, the one she’d cut a week earlier, forcing him to twist away in pain and let his blade slide off hers wide of the mark. She clutched her side and hoped he didn’t notice.

“That was resourceful, my dear,” he said as he took an unsteady step. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

He lunged at her a second time, faster than she expected him to be. She parried the thrust, but couldn’t avoid his leg sweep. As she fell backwards, he brought the blade around in a full circle, narrowly missing her throat. A scissor kick from her position flat on her back caught him on the side of his face before he could swing the blade around again. He stumbled to the side as she rolled out of reach.

It took a moment for each of them to right themselves, his thigh clearly troubling him, her hand holding her side. A little shriek escaped her as she struggled to her feet. With sword raised, he turned to face her, watching patiently as she lifted up the
wakizashi
in a feeble defense.

As Emily awaited what was likely to be his final attack, she closed her eyes to breathe and imagine the serenity death might bring. What Kim refused her in Seoul, Walker would not begrudge. The sword—her sword—would crash through her any second now, the sleek steel edge, burning as it scoured her soul, adding her to the community of spirits it already contained. She longed for dissolution.

Only a single, tiny voice cried out to her, as if from an immense distance, reminding her of the little ones depending on her. “Do I even have the strength?” she asked herself. “Please, let me go.” Another voice shrilled at her, bright as the sun inside, its refrain so familiar: “The true master takes life when she must and gives life when it is good.”

“What do you want from me, Granny?” she cried out to the sky.

No answer came. The guns had gone silent, and the chopper must have veered off again as part of a wider sweep of the woods. In the strange quiet, she felt the curious gaze of so many, friends and enemies alike, surrounding the two of them. Whoever they were, the scene unfolding on the lawn seemed to have frozen them. Had Connie and Theo engineered some sort of stalemate with what remained of Walker’s forces, guns leveled but unable to fire? Whatever delicate balance had been reached, surely it would not last long, certainly no longer than the time it would take the chopper to return.

“You’re oozing a bit,” Walker said, in mock solicitude, his voice cutting through her oddly halcyon mood.

Emily heaved herself forward, sword held only to block his stroke so she could sneak a low kick past his defenses. He kicked her foot to the side and tried to force the sword down onto her shoulder. But she’d managed to hook his foot in the crook of her ankle as he tried to step back. When she pulled him forward, he lost his balance and fell to the side, allowing her to slide her blade along his. She was able to hold the bigger blade off until the last instant, when she ducked under it and slashed at his chest. The blade sliced through his vest and tore at his flesh. Blood spurted from the wound, probably not deep enough to incapacitate him, but his yelp showed how much it stung.

“You’re going to regret that, my dear,” he snarled, clutching at the gash in his side.

A quick step forward put her on the defensive, the
katana
slashing diagonally down across her chest. She managed to twist out of the way, but not without the tip of the blade raking down the length of her arm, narrowly missing her wrist. She had to drop the
wakizashi
to protect her hand, shrieking in pain and frustration. Blood soaked through her sleeve as she stood facing him, defenseless. He paused to size up the situation.

“You certainly are George’s daughter. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m just looking out for my family,” she said. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I tried to protect you, but you fought me. And now, I don’t need you anymore. I’ve got the sword, my destiny…. It’s haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember, and it’s mine now. And I know about the boy.
He’s
my family now.”

At these words, Emily reached for the handle of the
katana
strapped to the rig on her back, the sword David stuck in her side at Burzynski’s house. Blood made it slick—she wiped the hand on her pants—a click and the clasp released the sword. Heavier, longer, she wouldn’t be able to move it as quickly as the
wakizashi
. But maybe it would be quick enough.

She caught his stroke at the base of the blade, holding on with both hands, glowering into his eyes. What did he see there, at the bottom of her eyes? Whatever it was, he shivered for an instant and pushed her back without trying to strike again, shaking his head.

“I paid a lot of money for that one, found it in a shop on Okinawa. But we both know it’s no match for this divine sword,” he said. “You never should have let it go.”

A long slow breath filled her chest, and she breathed it out, listening to the voices chanting in her head.

“Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami…”

“Thank you, Granny,” she cried out. “I’m ready.”

With sword held high, she readied herself for his attack, the expression on her face scarcely fit to be seen. Walker’s mouth twisted into a sneer.

“Omagod,” she heard Connie’s voice shriek out. “Theo, just shoot him.”

“No,” Emily shouted across the silence, without taking her eyes off Walker. “This is between us. Stay out of it.”

For whatever reason, no shots were fired, no one interfered in their struggle. Walker attacked with renewed ferocity. A diagonal stroke across her chest—she deflected it with the flat of her blade—another stroke angling toward her side, a thrust at her belly, a downward stroke onto the top of her head. She blocked and parried, barely keeping pace with the speed of his attacks.

The physical toll his assault took on her was obvious: the sword was heavy and she was bleeding profusely from her arm and her side. Each stroke she couldn’t parry meant she had to absorb the force of the impact even as she blocked it. How long could she keep this up? But something was happening to Walker, too. With each stroke she blocked, his frustration grew, as if he expected his blade to crash right through hers. And each time it didn’t he seemed to lose a little more of his self-possession.

She hadn’t crumpled under his onslaught yet. That by itself was enough to give him pause. And what must those watching think? He raised his sword for another attack, and she held hers high. The roar of the chopper as it cleared the trees at the bottom of the hill was deafening, though neither of them noticed. As it leveled off, the spotlight spilled across the scene, setting the two of them in high relief.

It may have been a trick of the light, or perhaps something more substantial. Whatever it was, when the spotlight caught Emily’s blade, it flashed in his eyes as if it had been set on fire.

“No,” Walker howled, though perhaps only she could hear it. “It’s not fair. Not now… not again.”

He charged at her recklessly, desperately, as if he’d forgotten all his training, swinging his blade wildly at her head. A single controlled vertical stroke parried his attack and brought her blade crashing down through his collarbone, tearing an enormous gash across his chest. He could only watch, stunned and helpless, mortally wounded, as she pivoted into a spin that would bring the sword around for a horizontal stroke to finish him. It was a practiced move, part of a combination that had almost become second nature to her. But this time she halted the blade before it reached his neck and stood facing him, letting him see her eyes one last time.

The sword slipped from his hands onto the grass as he fell to his knees, not yet fully cognizant of what had happened. He hovered there for a moment, wavering in a sort of unstable equilibrium, until eventually his own mass pulled him to one side and then down.

The chopper veered off as soon as he fell, taking its light away with it. In the sudden darkness, Emily couldn’t guess how the others would react to this unexpected turn of events. But in that moment, she thought only of Walker. Kneeling beside him, the moonlight bathing his face in bluish light, she traced the gaping chasm her blade had torn open in his chest, then met his eyes with a sad smile.

“I don’t understand,” he croaked out, as his life ebbed with the tide of blood flowing from his chest. “It was in my hand, and then you had it…. How…?”

“That sword could never be yours. I know you spent years searching for it, but it’s been seeking me for my entire life. I don’t think anyone else can possess it.”

He smiled blankly at Emily’s words, cryptic as they must have sounded to anyone else. With the end of his life rushing toward him, perhaps they made a sort of sense to him. He’d been defeated, and denied the very thing he took to be his destiny. The notion that her destiny somehow encompassed his seemed to bring him some comfort.

“Why didn’t you finish it… me… that last stroke? I wouldn’t have hesitated in your place.”

“I lied to you that day in the mall. I’m sorry, Uncle David. You
do
remind me of my father… and I miss him so.”

Looking down into his lifeless eyes, she couldn’t be sure he’d heard her confession before he slipped away. She brushed the hair from his face and leaned down to kiss his forehead.