Six Times Deadly: A Lawson Vampire Story Collection (The Lawson Vampire Series) (7 page)

Lucky me.

She'd vanished for years.
 
I sometimes wondered about her, usually when I was into my fifth Bombay Sapphire and tonic, just starting to get a nice buzz cranking.

But then a few months back in Belfast, she'd made a return appearance.
 
And the simple note she'd left told me that she now considered me fair game.
 

That was right before she blew up the building I'd been in.

Fun gal.

With all the drama of dealing with the Kensei, I'd almost managed to put Belfast behind me.
 
I smirked and walked away from the approaching train.
 
So much for that.

After the call from Niles, I called the JR Tohoku Shinkansen and managed to get a reservation aboard the Hayate train.
 
It took a little over an hour and a half to reach Sendai, but the ride was brisk.

At Sendai Station, I caught the train out to the airport that sat much closer to the coast and rented a car that looked about the same size as the box my last pair of Kenneth Coles had come in.
 
But it did the job.

My cell phone buzzed as I was driving back into the city and I fished it out.
 
Niles.
 
"Whatcha got for me?"

"She's downtown.
 
The Koyo Grand Hotel."

"Niles, we don't even have her real name.
 
How the hell did you guys manage to locate her?"

"The squirrels ran a list of new foreigners that had arrived within the last week, took a glance through the databases and managed to winnow the list down to a few potentials.
 
We cross-referenced it with some of our human counterpart agencies and came up with a hit."
 
He sighed.
 
"Honestly, Lawson, if I tell you how we did it, then it ruins the magic."

I stepped on the gas pedal a little more.
 
"You sure this is solid?"

"Rock."

"Why Sendai?
 
Any ideas?"

"There's a fairly large community of our people living there.
 
One of the apartment buildings downtown is one of ours.
 
Most of the folks living there are with us."
 
He paused.
 
"Maybe one of them is a target?"

"You think?"

"With her, anything's possible, right?"

"Most likely."

"She's dangerous, Lawson.
 
You know that better than anyone.
 
Put her down fast and get back here."

"Okay.
 
I need a piece.
 
You got a depot around here?"

Niles paused and I heard him tapping some keys.
 
"There's a drop box in Kasugamachi, near Tohoku University.
 
Can you find it?"

"Yeah."

"1782"

"Thanks."
 
I hung up and tried to coax some additional power out of the shoebox.
 
I found my way to Kasugamachi and hidden among the other storefronts on one of the side streets, I saw the chalk mark on one of the walls - a character unlike any other nearby.
 
I slid the car into a tiny space and wandered over.
 
Up a set of stairs leading to a decrepit second story apartment, I knocked on the door and waited.

The old woman who answered looked older than the city I was in.
 
She eyed me up and down.
 
And said nothing.

I took a breath, but I didn't speak in Japanese.
 
"
Porag jul dachol
."

She nodded once, understanding the ancient vampire language of Taluk, and then shut the door in my face.
 
When it opened again, she handed me a pouch with a small combination lock on it.
 
I ratcheted the number dials until I'd set the code Niles had given me.
 
Inside, I saw the Heckler & Koch USP Compact and three magazines.
 
I nodded and then walked back to the car.

Now I was armed.

From Kasugamachi, it was under a half a mile to the Koyo Grand.
 
Good.
 
The sooner I could find the Silencer and put her away, the better.
 
Niles still had a job waiting for me back in Boston.

I slid the tiny car down Higashi Nibancho-Dori and then turned left onto Hirose Dori and passed the hotel, a brown brick number complete with a small statue of what looked like three angels out front.

The Silencer was certainly going to need all the divine assistance she could get today.

I parked the car near the JR Sendai Station and sat there for a moment, checking the USP.
 
I dropped the mag, racked the slide and ejected the round before quickly field stripping and reassembling it.

Some might think it unnecessary, but I never try to rely on how well others have supposedly kept their weapons.
 
Doing the field check took some time, but I was walking into a situation where anything was possible.
 
The fewer variables I had at play, the better.
 

I checked the tension on the magazines as well, making sure there was enough pressure so they fed the bullets like they were supposed to.

When everything checked out, I reloaded them, slapped one home into the USP and racked the slide then set the safety.
 
All I had to do was draw, thumb the safety down and I was ready to shoot.

Time to go.

At 2:43 in the afternoon, the streets in Sendai weren't mobbed with the after work crowd, but there were school kids everywhere.
 
I passed by the entrance to the JR Sendai Station and nearly got swept away in the flood of uniformed kids streaming out of it.

But the USP would stay tucked behind my right hip and the jacket I wore covered it well.

Ahead of me on Hirose Dori, I saw more tourists.
 
The hotel was located near the shopping district.
 
I wondered if the Silencer was in town to assassinate someone working nearby?
 
Or maybe it was a tourist.

Either way, it didn't matter.
 
She was here and after declaring open season on me, that made her a viable target.

The trees swayed in the breeze and I looked up.
 
The city was full of green spaces and I appreciated the close proximity of so much nature.
 
I could smell it on the air, despite the cars streaming past.
 
Japan might have had a problem with pollution, but you could scarcely tell it here.

I started to cross the street, but a line of traffic shot past me, keeping me on the sidewalk.

And that's when I spotted the face that I'd burned into my memory all those years back.
 
She still wore her hair cropped close, although there was something vaguely stylish about it.
 
But what stood out were her non-Japanese features.
 
Her cheekbones were different from the Japanese swirling around her.
 
Asian she might be, but she wasn't Japanese.

And she was headed directly for me.

My heart hammered in my chest.
 
I stopped and tried to look casual as I presented my left side to her, checking my cell phone while my right hand strayed to the USP.
 
I moved slightly to allow the foot traffic to pass by me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I kept track of her.
 
She was two hundred feet away.

And then time seemed to slow down.

She never actually stopped moving, and the change was so minute that someone less experienced would have missed it.

But I wasn't the same rookie operative she'd met from all those years back.

And even as she adjusted to change her direction and cross the street, I moved as well, drawing the USP and bringing it up.

I felt everything moving then.

People screamed.

I assumed it was due to the sight of me drawing the pistol.
 
Guns are rare in Japan unless they're toys.

But now something started to register in my awareness.

The entire ground was shaking.

The Silencer stopped, too.

Stopped?

Any other time she wouldn't have frozen like that.
 
I drew the gun in line with her chest, thumbed the safety down and squeezed the trigger-

-but the ground beneath me lurched and the roar I heard then drowned out the missed shot.
 
The bullet splanged harmlessly against a road sign.

I bent my knees, trying to compensate for the sudden shifting of the landscape.
 
Across the street, building facades crumbled and toppled to the ground, throwing up huge clouds of dust.

The word earthquake finally rushed through my consciousness.
 
I'd never been in one before.

And the effect was almost like being in combat again for the first time.
 
I felt my vision trying to tunnel, but I flushed more oxygen into my system and forced myself to remain calm.
 
I brought the USP down and holstered it.

People were running everywhere, no one too certain of which direction to go.
 
The rumbling beneath my feet felt incredibly ferocious.
 
The roar as buildings swayed echoed in my ears.
 
Cars crashed up onto the sidewalks as the ground split apart.
 
I heard an explosion as another car slammed into the side of a fuel truck and sent up a massive fireball.

It was total and complete chaos.

I looked around me, trying to figure out where I should go.
 
I knew to head for a doorway, but was it safer to remain outside?

As I whipped my head around, I saw the Silencer running away from me, back down Hirose Dori.

I had to follow her.

She dashed around a couple of office workers screaming as they ran out from a collapsing building.
 
I had to jump over a signpost that came rattling down onto the ground inches away from my head.

I felt like world was tilting on its axis and I had nothing to hold on to.
 
As the Silencer retreated away from me, I tried my best to chase her down.
 
But each step thudded into uncertain ground and I couldn't move much faster than I was.

People were already being trampled by others as they rushed for safety.
 
I had to push my way through a crowd.
 
I caught the small of blood on the air and knew that death wouldn't be far behind.

The Silencer dashed down the street and I chased after her, dodging chunks of falling concrete that smashed into the ground inches away.
 
I brought my hands up to shield myself from the fragments that slashed the air.
 
Clouds of smoke and debris blew across the sidewalk, choking the air with the bite of dirt and dust.
 
I coughed and spat a wad of gunk from my mouth.

The ground continued to lurch as the screams and chaos mounted.
 
Ahead of me, Hirose Dori merged with Higashi Nibancho-Dori and that's where it happened.

I saw the minivan an instant before it careened off the street and slammed into the side of a building, crumpling the front of the car like an old aluminum can.
 
The Silencer had to leap away, tumbled, rolled, and then came back up on her feet, panting hard.

I had the moment.

The USP was back in my hand and I brought the sights up, going instinctively with the picture in front of me.

Thumbed the safety down.

Started to squeeze the trigger-

And then heard the cry.

Froze.

Let the pressure off the trigger.

The Silencer heard it, too.
 
She paused, looked at me- knowing I could kill her at any moment - and then amid all the cacophony of destruction, she called out to me.
 
And somehow, her voice pierced the roar of nature's wrath.

"There's a kid in the car, Lawson."

I knew there had to be.
 
I could hear the crying - now more of a scream than a wail - and knew there was a child trapped inside the minivan.

A few months back, I wouldn't have hesitated.
 
I would have killed the Silencer and been done with it.
 
But ever since Talya and I had taken down the Kensei, I'd been a little more sensitive about kids.
 
And the thought of even one of them in trouble during the earthquake made me pause.

The Silencer hadn't moved, aware that I still had the gun fixed on her.
 
Something occurred to me then - why the hell wasn't she armed?
 
She didn't strike me as the type to wander around without a weapon.
 
But here she was - totally exposed.

And I could end it all now.

But the crying turned into screeching and despite the world falling apart around me, it was all I could hear.

That, and the Silencer's voice.

"You remember Thailand, Lawson?"

Did I.

She could have killed me back then.
 
And it would have taken her as much effort as it took to breathe.
 
But she'd spared my life.
 
In the interests of keeping it a worthwhile chase, yes, but she'd spared me nonetheless.

The question was: did I owe her the same courtesy?

The child in the car started wailing for her mother now.
 
More pieces of the nearby buildings were breaking away and crashing into the street.
 
I almost felt like I was surrounded by some sort of cocoon - intent only on killing the Silencer - and yet that veil was being pierced by the reality of the situation happening all around me.

And the child that might die at any second.

I lowered the USP.

And looked at the Silencer.
 
"You help me with the kid and we'll call it even.
 
For Thailand."