Warbound (The Grimnoir Chronicles Book 3)

It has long been my philosophy that magic comes with a price.

—Baron Okubo Tokugawa,

Chairman of the Imperial Council,

My Story, 1922

Free City of Shanghai

Toru was pleased. The armor was coming together nicely.

Tonight was merely a test to see what needed to be fixed, corrected, or adjusted. Before he wore it into battle, he would ritually cleanse himself with bathing, meditation, and prayer. Each piece would be laid out carefully and donned in the order which was most conducive to awakening his warrior spirit. Everything had its place, a mixture of ancient tradition and modern effectiveness, all in a search for unachievable martial perfection. That was the manner in which Toru had lived, so that would be the manner in which he chose to die.

Getting the helmet on without an assistant was the most difficult part. Once the shoulder guards were in place, it was difficult to get his now-cumbersome limbs and thick steel hands into the correct angle. Not to mention that if he was sloppy, and burned his Power too hard while willing his limbs to move, he could potentially rip his own head off.

The world seemed different through the mempo. There were delicate kanji engraved onto the inside of the thick, shatterproof glass. They came to life and began feeding him information. The Nishimura armor did not just make him stronger, faster, and damage resistant, its true force-multiplication abilities came from the integrated system which kept him apprised of the battlefield around him. He had not worn such a device since the academy, but one would never forget such a magical marvel. As the American knights were fond of saying, it was “like riding a bicycle.”

He needed to replace the helmet padding, because the steel ridges were cutting into his skin. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Despite cleaning it repeatedly, it still smelled like tobacco smoke. When this was over, Pang was getting a tetsubo to the face.

Toru studied the magical kanji unfolding before his eyes. Sadly, the helmet had taken more damage than he had expected, because it was sensing an impossible amount of magic in the vicinity. The Grimnoir tended to be above average Actives, but the majority of them had gone back to the other safe houses or returned to the Traveler. There were less than twenty of them remaining here, but the Nishimura kanji was sensing four times that number. Toru would have to adjust the sensitivity—

No . . .

The helmet had been carved with kanji to pick up outside sounds and amplify them to the user’s ear. They were designed to cut out once the noise reached a dangerous level in order to protect the user’s hearing, but whereas normal armor made a warrior less aware of his surroundings, the Nishimura had the opposite effect. There was a noise coming from the floor above. The briefest cry, then a sort of sliding. It was the gentle lowering of a body as the life pumped out. A trickle of plaster dust fell from the ceiling.

Toru surged his Power, bent his knees, and leapt. The suit lurched upward with surprising agility. His fist went right through the boards. The kanji bonded directly to his nerves, and he felt the steel as if it was his own skin. He caught hold of something soft, an ankle, as gravity pulled him back down. He pulled a man right through the floor.

He released the leg. The man hit the ground next to Toru, surprised and choking against the spreading cloud of mold and dust. Toru looked him over. Nipponese. Young. Strong. Dressed in greys and dark browns. Knives in his belt. A Nambu pistol with a sound suppressor had fallen on the floor next to him. The Nishimura warned that this man had been branded with three kanji.

The Shadow Guard looked up, and the shocked expression on his face said that he realized he was lying at the feet of a mighty Iron Guard. Toru could tell that the Shadow Guard was confused and had not been expecting to see one of the ultra-rare suits of Nishimura armor here, and best of all, since he automatically assumed they were on the same side, he did not try to escape. Shadow Guards were usually Fades or Travelers, so they could be slippery.

A single drop of blood fell through the hole in the ceiling, spilled from the neck of the Grimnoir the Shadow Guard had just eliminated. The drop landed on one of Toru’s horns and rolled down in a red line.

“What are Iron Guard doing here?” the Shadow Guard hissed. “This is Master Hayate’s operatio—”

Hayate?

Toru lifted one metal boot and stomped on the Shadow Guard’s chest. He’d forgotten the intensity of the strength-amplifying abilities of the suit, and the Shadow Guard nearly popped as Toru put his foot through the floorboards. Hayate was one of the best assassins in the Imperium. If he had found them, then their entire mission was in jeopardy. He jerked his foot free and moved to the corner where his weapons had been stacked. He took up the spiked steel tetsubo. The mighty war club felt like a pencil in his new steel hand.

The armor would be tested more thoroughly tonight than he’d expected.

Lance saw the sword pierce his ribs before he felt it. The ninja went to shove it in deeper, but Lance grabbed hold of the blade. It sliced through his palm, but he locked down hard. His other hand reached for the holstered revolver resting next to him.

The ninja shoved. The blade slipped through his bloody palm. Now Lance felt it like a fire filling his lungs. He yanked the big revolver from the holster, thumbed back the hammer, and jammed it up into the ninja’s armpit. Lance levered it in toward the vitals. The Traveler realized what was happening, but too late, as most Travelers weren’t near as quick as Faye had been.

Lance blew the ninja’s heart out his side.

There was movement everywhere. Diamond’s oil lamp fell on the floor and ignited. Black cloth boots with the weird Imperium toe cuts were landing around him. Lance grimaced as he pulled the sword out and it scraped against his ribs. There was blood everywhere. Blood from his chest. Blood from his hand. Blood from the other knights who were being hacked to pieces in their sleep. A black shape loomed over him, but Lance fanned back the hammer with his injured hand while holding down the trigger and gave the ninja three rounds to the chest.

Before that one was even done falling, Lance had sat up and discovered that Diamond was in a wrestling match with a ninja, so he shot that assassin in the back of the head. There was one more headed his way. Lance aimed and the masked face and fired his last shot. That ninja went grey the instant he pulled the trigger, and the bullet passed harmlessly through the Fade.

“Shit.” Lance dropped the empty Colt and went for his other one.

There was a glint of steel. The Fade drew a throwing knife and hurled it, end over end, directly at Lance. It struck him in the arm in a splash of red, and he lost his grip on the other revolver. “Aaaahhh!”

The ninja quickly drew another knife and flung it.

This knife froze inches from Lance’s eyes and hung there. Then it flipped around and shot back at the ninja like it had been launched from out of a cannon. The Fade couldn’t react in time and the knife hit him right in the forehead. The ninja went limp and hit the floor.

Lance wanted to tell the Mover thanks, but he found that he was panting too hard.

Diamond stood up. Wobbling. He took a halting step, and then collapsed on his face with a moan. He’d been stabbed repeatedly, and there were bright red spots blooming across the back of his white shirt.

There were screams and gunshots coming from all around the apartment building. Shadow Guard were slaughtering everyone, and as the flames spread and Diamond’s blood spilled out of his body, it was just like being back at his home in Mar Pacifica all those years ago, on the night the Imperium had murdered his wife and children.

Not again, you sons a bitches. Not again. Such a powerful hatred filled him that he couldn’t even feel his wounds.

They’d be coming for the others. Lance activated his ring to send a warning. He was hurt bad. The stab wound in his chest was deep. He couldn’t hardly breathe. The laceration on his strong arm was making it hard for his bicep to contract, and his other hand had been cut to the bone. He’d gotten a single healing spell carved on him before leaving on this mission, and that would keep him going and slow the blood loss, so if he found a place to hide, he could probably survive.

He looked at the spreading flames and the dead and dying knights. Fuck that. These Imperium bastards were going down. Lance threw his gun belt over one shoulder and began reloading his empty Colt.

Then Lance Talon went hunting.

Judging from the engine noises, there were boats all around them. While staying at the hideout over the last few days, Sullivan had seen the Imperium patrol boats from a distance. They were sleek, grey things, heavily armed, and so fast when they were moving that they left a giant plume of water in the air behind them as they skipped across the waves. Their little boat was dead meat if the Jap patrol boats were looking for them.

Sullivan kicked Barns. “What? Huh?” Their pilot automatically reached into his leather jacket for one of the Saive GP32 machine pistols he kept there. Those things had a cyclic rate like a buzzsaw, and Sullivan had a bad feeling they’d be needing them in a moment.

“We’ve got company.”

Lady Origami was sneaking a peek out a hole in the tarp. She gasped as the hole suddenly filled with light.

They were being spotlighted. The patrol boat’s engines roared as they closed.

Sullivan’s ring began to burn.

The Nishimura armor was many things. Stealthy was not one of them.

Toru did not bother to hide his approach. That would have been impossible. The armor clanged and rattled as he made his way up the stairs. Normally, he was six feet tall and two hundred and forty pounds of muscle. In the suit, he was seven feet tall and over six hundred pounds of muscle, steel, and righteous fury. The tetsubo he was wielding was a five-foot-long, eighty-pound bar of heat-treated steel and spikes. There was simply no way the Shadow Guard could not hear him coming.

Luckily, like the first Shadow Guard he’d eliminated, they were not yet aware that he was not on their side. They were looking for the traitor Toru Tokugawa. Apparently their intelligence had neglected to tell them Toru might look like a walking samurai tank.

Two of the assassins intercepted him on the stairs. A Fade and a Traveler. “Master Hayate did not speak of any Nishimura-equipped—”

Toru swung the club. The armor may have appeared lumbering and slow, but it was not. The club whipped through the air so fast that it was a blur. The impact pulverized both of them. The Traveler died instantly, rupturing into a fine red mist. The Fade barely caught the edge and went over the side of the stairs, screaming. He might have been able go grey and survive the landing, but since one of his legs had been torn off and was lying there, twitching, at Toru’s feet, he would not be of further concern.

There were so many magical connections moving within the building that Toru could not discern ally from enemy. The building shook as some powerful Active utilized destructive magic. At first he thought that the blasted ashtray smell had somehow grown stronger, but it was smoke. The apartment was on fire.

The next floor was a chaotic dance of knight and Shadow Guard. Most of the Grimnoir had left, and it appeared that the majority of those who had been staying there had been quickly overwhelmed. Sullivan and Koenig had left to ready their respective parts in the mission. Talon was the senior knight here, but Toru did not see him.

The few survivors seemed to be fighting with the ferocity of demons. He surveyed the room and found Mottl the Icebox, Simmons the Torch, Genesse the Mouth, Willis the Reader, and two of the local Shanghai Grimnoir of unknown name and ability futilely trying to fight off the quicker and numerically superior Shadow Guard. The Mouth was shouting commands in the lull between gunfire, trying to confuse or turn the attackers against each other. Fire and ice streaked across the floor to sweep away the Imperium warriors. The Reader was firing an American automatic rifle. One of the Shanghai Grimnoir appeared to be extremely skilled in a martial art the locals called wing chun, and had engaged two of the Shadow Guard in hand-to-hand combat.

The knights were using the sparse furniture for cover, moving and shooting, sending out bursts of magic, and trying to watch every impossible angle a Shadow Guard could choose to attack from. They had stacked the bodies deep, which was a testament to their courage, but it would not be enough.

He did not quite fit through the doorway, so he lowered one shoulder plate and smashed his way through onto the main floor. Toru walked into the melee. Now the Shadow Guard were aware that he was not their ally. Subsonic pistol bullets and thrown knives bounced harmlessly off of his armor.

Iron Guards were trained to think clearly as they fought, to ascertain an opponent’s abilities and then understand how they would best counter. A Traveler used his Power to get out of Toru’s way, but Toru anticipated where he would move. Most Travelers were not capable of going very far, so it was a simple process to guess where they would consider a safe place to go. The Traveler landed to the side just in time to catch a backhand that nearly tore his jaw off.

Toru clubbed one of the Shadow Guard who was distracted fighting the martial artist. The impact launched him through the wall in a spray of red. The Grimnoir used that distraction to disable another Shadow Guard with a swift blow to the throat. Another Fade went grey to avoid the arc of the tetsubo, reformed, and ran for his life. Toru kicked the disabled Shadow Guard into the fleeing one, knocking them both down, and then Willis finished them off with several rapid shots.

Momentarily surprised, the remaining Shadow Guard retreated, Traveling away or Fading through the floors and side walls. Toru picked up a dropped sword and hurled it through the boards where a Fade had just gone. He was rewarded with a scream of agony.

Toru turned toward the injured Grimnoir and let his voice radiate through the magical kanji. He could see that every one of them had been injured, some worse than others. “Flee, Grimnoir.”

“We’ve got men unaccounted for!” Genesse shouted back at him. In their brief conversation while training aboard the Traveler, the Reader had struck Toru as an argumentative, proud man. Those were useful qualities in a barbarian society, but they were hindrances now. “We can’t leave them—”

“You can and you will! Sullivan’s mission comes first. You must survive in order to complete the mission. These are Shadow Guard. The men you cannot see here are already dead. Get to the water. I will hold them.”

They knew he was right. Nobody wanted to debate with the walking tank, so the Grimnoir took up their guns and limped for the stairs.

Toru waited. He knew what was coming next.

His brother, Hayate, appeared first, landing smoothly amidst the spreading fire. His Shadow Guard came next, appearing through the walls or dropping through the ceiling, surrounding Toru with lifted blades that had never been intended for this sort of work.

“Toru . . .” The First Shadow Guard did not bother to bow. “I was not expecting such armament. This is an intriguing development.”

“Our father has seen fit to bless my endeavors by placing this armor in my path.” Toru’s voice passed through the magical kanji of the mempo. It could be magnified to terrible levels, but for now, he kept it as if they were having a polite conversation.

“I was frankly shocked to see you trying to save the lives of these Grimnoir. Sending them away is interesting . . . yet ultimately pointless, since my men will pick them off one by one as they attempt to escape . . . After them!” Hayate barked the command at the Shadow Guard surrounding Toru. “Kill them all!”

The other Shadow Guard disappeared, leaving Toru and his brother alone.

Lance let his mental control of the rat slip. He didn’t speak Japanese, but he’d still understood the Shadow Guard leader’s meaning clear enough. The ninjas were going after the remaining Grimnoir. Knowing he didn’t have much time or much blood left, Lance forced himself onward. One bare foot in front of the other. He had to keep one hand pressed against the wall so as not to fall over. It left a bright red trail along the peeling wallpaper behind him.

There wasn’t much he could do with his Power. There weren’t many useful animals around here, and most things were running from the spreading fire. He kept on scanning, using his Power to pick out living creatures from the surroundings. There were rodents in the walls, fish in the water below, birds in the sky, and he kept grabbing hold of one, taking a quick look through its eyes to keep track of the bad guys, his fellow knights, and any other hazards.

It was hard work switching between so many different brains, but it was all he could do. Lance reached the stairs, already knowing that there was a ninja waiting in ambush because a mouse had smelled him and sensed the vibrations. Lance pressed the muzzle of the Colt into the wood and let the ninja have it right through the wall.

The door was harder to shove open because of the dying ninja blocking it, but Lance squeezed through. The Imperium man was squirting blood out of his neck, but still trying to raise his sword, so Lance shot him again.

Keeping his mind in multiple places made it hard to be graceful even when he wasn’t bleeding to death. He nearly slipped and fell on the stairs. The blood from his chest had run down his jeans and into his socks, and now things were getting slippery. Smoke was coming out of everything and curling its way up the stairwell. He coughed and stained his beard with blood. The Healing spell Sullivan had carved on him felt like it was on fire. Without it, he knew he’d already be dead. Lance hoped it would be enough to get him out of this.

There was a terrible roar as a big chunk of the flaming building’s interior collapsed above.

He took a gull past the bank of windows below. They were blacked out, but enough were broken that he caught glimpses of black-clad men preparing to jump the escaping knights. Lance gathered up all of his mind back into his own body so he could concentrate. He’d need it.

Second floor. The bad guys were looking the other way, waiting for his friends. It was going to be hard to aim. One arm didn’t want to flex and the other was slippery with blood. Lance lifted the Colt and went to work anyway. He managed to drop a couple of them with bullets before a Traveler reacted and appeared behind him. Lance had been waiting for that, so he let himself drop as soon as he felt the change in the air.

The sword swept by overhead and embedded itself in the door jamb. Lance was at a funny angle, so the .45 only hit the Shadow Guard in the thigh. There was a mighty big artery there, though, and that Shadow Guard let out a terrible holler and dropped. He raised the Colt, but the Shadow Guard smacked it away. Lance crawled up him, grabbed one of the ninja’s knives off of his belt and stabbed him in the chest, once, twice, three times, and on the fourth wild swing, the ninja gathered up enough magic to Travel away.

Lance fell on his face. That ninja landed in a bloody heap fifteen feet away, spitting blood.

There was a Grimnoir knight nearby on the floor. A Chinaman. Chen had been his name. Nice fella. Lance had taken a liking to him. He’d found that Chen had a good sense of humor and was always going on about how funny his kids were. But now Chen was dead because some Imperium asshole had nearly sawed his head off, so Lance lurched over and took the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from Chen’s hands.

The smoke parted. A ninja was coming his way. Lance pulled the trigger and filled the hall with buckshot. Fade! He managed to go grey just in time and came out of it unfazed. Lance pulled the second trigger. The Fade barely made it again. Lance broke open the shotgun and the shells auto-ejected as he knelt down to pick up some of the buckshot shells scattered around Chen’s body.

Lifting his sword, the ninja charged. He opened his mouth and let out a battle cry. Most Fades never got to Heinrich’s level of control. The ninja would need to be solid well before he could hit Lance with that sword.

It was a race.

Lance got the shells into the chambers and snapped it shut. The stubby double-barrel came up as the Fade swung.

Lance won the race.

The ninja got splattered across the hall. He hit the ground with a gaping hole in his ribs.

The Imperium bastard was still moving, so Lance tried to give him the other barrel. Lance grunted as he tried to manipulate the shotgun, but it wouldn’t go. He looked down. His right hand wasn’t responding because it was lying on the ground, along with most of the rest of his arm, and then the unbelievable pain hit. “Aw shit.”

He hadn’t won after all. It had been a tie.

Lance went to his knees. His right arm had been removed just above the elbow. Blood was pumping out. He’d better do something about that. There were still Imperium in need of killing.

With unnerving calm, he pulled off Chen’s belt, looped it around the stump, and pulled it tight. Lance screamed. Now that hurt. He bit down on the leather with his teeth to keep tension on it until he could get his pocket knife out to poke a new belt hole.

It was a strange feeling, pulling his own severed hand off of the shotgun, but he did it anyway. There was movement in the smoke as a ninja ducked across the hall. He fired the last round of buckshot through the wall but couldn’t tell if he’d gotten anything.

There was shooting ahead. The surviving Grimnoir had engaged the Imperium. He grabbed the nearest available weapon—the short sword that had cut his arm off—and used it like a crutch to get to his feet. Lance staggered toward the sound of gunfire, the tip of the sword dragging along the dirty ground behind him. Lance knew he was a goner, no denying that, but he was going to take as many Imperium assholes with him as possible.

The next room was a red haze. He hacked a Shadow Guard in the back, cutting him clear to the spine, and then he shouted for more. The other bastards saw him coming and ran. Lance went after them.

And then he got shot. He knew that feeling well.

Lance lost the little sword. He hadn’t even seen that sneaky Shadow Guard who had appeared behind him and shot him in the back. Lance turned around and started limping toward the ninja, who then shot Lance again. It was a funny-looking little pistol with a big sound muffler on the end. Lance barely even heard that one, but he sure felt the impact. The ninja got him with one more round before Lance got ahold of his wrist and pushed the gun aside. Lance tugged him in and headbutted the ninja in the face. It took them both down. That’s what they get for using those pussy little 8mm rounds instead of a real gun. Lance wrestled the weird little Nambu up, stuck it under the ninja’s chin, forced his finger into the trigger guard, and put a bullet hole through the assassin’s brain.

He got back up and fired the pistol at the fleeing Shadow Guard. “I’m Lance Talon, you sons a bitches!” He wasn’t nearly as good a shot with his left hand, but he still hit at least one of them. “You’d better run!”

And then he was down.

His ears were ringing. He couldn’t hardly see. The bastards had shot him in the back again. He started getting up, but they shot him again, and again. He slowly sank to the ground. Lance grimaced and tried to force himself back up, but his legs wouldn’t respond. He tried to lift the gun, but a split-toe shoe appeared in his vision and kicked the Nambu away.

Had he bought the others some time? Had they got away? If so, then it was all worth it.

The remaining Shadow Guard gathered around him in a circle, seemingly in awe at the berserker fury of the American. They were warriors. They could appreciate a good death.

He was nearly dead, but Lance wasn’t done yet.

There were always stories about Beasties so incredibly powerful that they weren’t limited to just controlling animals, ones who could actually take over humans. As far as he knew, those were just stories, but he did think it was possible, just that it required more magic than he’d ever been able to use at once without fear of killing himself in the process. Lance had never been able to pull it off, and even poking around with it had told him that for him to draw that much Power at once would mean certain death.

He reached for his Power. There was absolutely nothing left to lose.

His vision faded. The world was a flat, grey, quickly shrinking circle. The Imperium ninjas were half-a-dozen glowing blobs of life, with minds far greater than any animal. He picked one in particular. The son of a bitch who had finally brought him down was carrying a big Type 70 light machine gun, so at least Lance had been killed by a real gun.

The Imperium men drew closer. A ninja lifted his sword to take Lance’s head.

He gathered up all his Power, all his life, and then reached for more. He concentrated on the man with machine gun and treated him just like he’d treat a rat or a dog or horse. This mind was complicated in comparison, but it didn’t matter, Lance just forced his way in and slammed that spirit right out of the way.

Now he was seeing through different eyes. Human eyes. There was his executioner, and there was his body. Lance was wearing socks. He’d died with his boots off, and that struck him as so damn funny he started laughing.

The Shadow Guard with the sword paused, confused, and looked to his laughing compatriot.

“Burn in hell, you Imperium fucks,” Lance said in English, with his own voice, through the mouth of the mind-controlled ninja, which surely came as a surprise, and then he opened fire. He worked the machinegun back and forth across the five of them, shredding the ninjas with heavy bullets. He massacred them all.

The real ninja was fighting, struggling, panicking, futilely trying to reclaim his body.

“You want it back?” Lance asked as he dropped the empty, smoking machine gun to the floor. He then forced the ninja to reach down and draw his sword. How was it the Imperium did it with their fancy ritual suicides? Right across the stomach to spill the guts? Bet that hurt. The sword arm trembled as the ninja struggled for control, but Lance wasn’t done yet. The sword pierced the ninja’s belly and Lance forced the ninja to push hard. It was so sharp there was hardly any resistance at all. Lance felt it. Felt it just like it had been his own body, and he relished in the fact that it hurt worse than he’d even imagined. The blade popped out the other side, and the ninja’s entrails tumbled out.

“It’s all yours.”

The Shadow Guard collapsed in a heap.

Lance let go of the hijacked mind and let his consciousness snap back.

His own body felt cold and empty in comparison. His magic was gone. Burned out forever in one final push.

Deep in the burning building, surrounded by a pile of dead Shadow Guard, Lance Talon closed his eyes and drifted off, dreaming about his family that he hadn’t seen in a very long time.

The sleek Imperium patrol boat roared toward the small Chinese craft. A teenage boy stood at the rear of the boat, his hands raised in a position of surrender. Surely blinded by the brilliant spotlights, he knew better than to try anything. The first boat had already pulled alongside. The men were preparing to board and search it.

Major Matsuoka spoke into the bullhorn. “You are under arrest. Do not resist or you will be shot.” The boy kept his head down, afraid. Matsuoka could not confirm this boat had come from beneath the target building, but it was possible. The boy would be taken in for torture and questioning. Just because he was young did not mean he was not a member of the terrorist resistance, and if he was merely an innocent bystander, then it didn’t really matter anyway, because he was only Chinese, and none of those could ever truly be innocent.

His pilot moved them alongside. The Chinese boat was trapped between the two much larger patrol boats. There was a third boat on over watch. There were several bolt-action rifles, submachine guns, and even a mounted machine gun on each patrol boat, all pointed down at the target. Resistance would be stupid, but experience told Matsuoka that just because something was stupid did not mean criminals would not try it anyway, especially the desperate ones. Matsuoka drew his pistol. “Be careful,” he ordered the men who were preparing to climb down.

Water droplets began to rise from the river. It was like rain . . . In reverse . . .

Suddenly, everything was wrong.

It happened too quickly to react. It was so confusing, so unnatural, that it took the major a few seconds to realize just what it was which had changed. Gravity. It was as if up and down had somehow changed direction. And in those seconds, he discovered that he was flying through the air.

The men who kept their wits opened fire, but gravity’s sudden change had caused the ships to lurch so violently that aiming was impossible. Someone below . . . above . . . snarled a curse as they were struck by a stray bullet.

And then it all came crashing back down.

Matsuoka hit the steel railing hard enough to break a rib. The whole patrol boat shuddered as it landed with a whump, displacing water in every direction. Many of the men went splashing into the water, and a few unlucky ones hit the metal boats. His Nambu went sliding over the side. The spotlights careened wildly in differing directions.

There was a scream. He looked over to see that one of his men had burst into flames. He was thrashing around, batting at his clothing, but that only seemed to make it worse, and then the man dove overboard. The major turned the other way to shout an order at the radio operator, but he had turned white, no, blue, and seemed to be trying to peel his hands off of his frosted metal equipment.

The tarp on the tiny boat was ripped aside and a young Caucasian man lifted a machine pistol and ripped off an entire magazine in one burst. The men twitched and jerked as they were struck. Then that entire patrol boat was engulfed in flames.

Wincing at the horrible pain in his side, Matsuoka got up. Since they’d all been lifted and splashed back down a bit off to the side, the patrol boat that was supposed to be covering them did not have a shot at the smaller boat. He waved his hands over head, trying desperately to get their attention. That little boat needed to be strafed now.

There was a thud next to him. Matsuoka looked over, and up and up, at the very large man who had just landed next to him. A stubby British revolver was stuck under Matsuoka’s nose, and a giant hand grabbed him by the uniform coat and lifted him off his feet.

“You speak English?”

Matsuoka didn’t answer. The covering boat gunned its engine. It was coming over to get a better view of what was happening.

“Hang on,” said the giant, and then he smashed Matsuoka in the face with the revolver.

He hit the deck, head swimming. The giant went over to the prow, took hold of the mounted machine gun’s spade grips and swiveled it in the direction of the approaching patrol boat. The machine gun roared. A line of orange tracers was worked back and forth across the approaching craft. They tried to return fire, but the giant was methodical, quickly walking his bullets directly into the muzzle flashes until they were out, and then back. He continued. On and on. Ripping the other boat apart, making sure that it was no longer a threat. He finally stopped when the other patrol boat’s fuel tank ignited and it coasted to a stop.

Matsuoka shook his aching head, spotted a discarded Arisaka rifle, and crawled toward it, but the giant came over and stepped on his hand. “Not so fast.” He lifted the revolver and fired a single round. The pilot, who appeared to be frozen to the deck, flopped over with a hole in his head. The giant reached down, picked up one end of a rope and tossed it to the smaller boat. “Barns, grab this. We’re taking this boat.”

“You will never get away with this,” Matsuoka spat.

“Oh, I am.” The giant casually pointed the revolver at Matsuoka. “And you do speak English, then. So first you’re gonna tell me what’s going down.”

They did not look like brothers. That was to be expected, since the Chairman had known the affections of so many different concubines over his many decades. Rumor had it that some of the thousand brothers were not even from Japanese mothers, but Toru had never actually met one. Hayate was as small and thin as Toru was tall and broad. He was also twenty years Toru’s senior, and had spent every single day of that training, teaching, fighting, or otherwise serving the Imperium. He was First Shadow Guard, singled out as the pinnacle of his secretive order.

It was a great honor to face such an opponent . . .

Yet, his father’s mission had to come first. That was all that mattered.

“Hear my words, Hayate. The man you serve is not really our father. He is an imposter. Master Dosan Saito has usurped his place. He is in league with the Enemy.”

Hayate smiled. “They had said that all of the bloodshed during the occupation had driven you insane . . . I can see now that they were correct. Spare me, Toru. I am familiar with your delusions. The report you gave to the newsman was sent to military intelligence for analysis. I read it and I was filled with an incredible sadness. To see one with so much potential fall so very far . . . You are quite mad.”

“It is the truth! Master Saito has corrupted the dreams of Dark Ocean.”

The First Shadow Guard looked over the blood dripping from the tetsubo. “You are like a mad dog. You are rabid, Toru. And you know what must be done to rabid dogs.”

“Do not do this, Hayate.”

“They must be put down . . .I volunteered for this duty, though I must admit I was not expecting you to be so well armed. I had been hoping to look in your eyes when I took your life with my sword, face to face, man to man, brother to brother . . . warrior to warrior.”

His body was squeezed between steel plates, and bending at the waist was extremely difficult, but Toru managed to will the Nishimura armor to give a respectful bow.

“I doubt that I would be successful in talking you into taking off that armor.”

“You would be correct.”

“Luckily, I am a firm believer in being prepared for the unexpected.” Hayate clapped his hands. A masked Shadow Guard with a huge tube resting over one shoulder stepped around the far corner. A blue glow radiated from the end of the tube. Toru did not recognize the weapon, but it seemed similar to one of the magical anti-tank weapons he’d seen Unit 731 experimenting with. That one had been powered by magic ripped from the flesh of Boomer subjects . . . Using such a device inside this enclosed space would be suicidal.

But they were Imperium. Suicide was all in a day’s work.

“Farewell, Toru.” Hayate Traveled away as the remaining Shadow Guard fired the device.

* * *

“The safe house is burning,” Lady Origami shouted to be heard over the engines. “I can feel it.”

“Hell,” Sullivan muttered, but there was nothing they could do about it yet. She could sense it with her magic, but the rest of them were able to see the growing orange glow against the night sky a moment later. There was nothing they could do. Barns was driving the boat hard, and they were launching over the top of each wave and crashing back down, casting a huge plume of water into the air behind them. The patrol boat was fast, but it wasn’t going to be fast enough.

They rounded a bend in the river. The safe house came into view on the other side of the docks. The whole upper half was wreathed in flames, and there were shapes moving along all of the cobbled together walkways surrounding it. Giant shadows created by other patrol boats’ spotlights showed that the shadows were cast by soldiers carrying rifles. There were at least three other patrol boats between them and the fire. Barns reached for the throttle to slow their approach.

“Hold on,” Sullivan ordered. They were running dark. The spotlights were off. “The Japs will think we’re one of them until they get close.”

Barns took a deep breath. “If you say so.”

Zhao put his hand on Barn’s shoulder and pointed through the windscreen. “Head for that freighter.”

“The rusty, listing one?”

“Yes. It has been stuck in the mud for years. If any of our friends escaped through the flooded lower floors, the path out will take them under the docks to the side of that freighter.”

The other patrol boats hadn’t turned the spotlights on them yet. Come on. Sullivan could only pray that some of the knights had made it out. As swarming with Imperium as this place was, if they didn’t get out fast, they never would. One of the patrol boats must have spotted them because a spotlight swung their way, skipping across the water. Once they were made, there wasn’t much they could do against that many riflemen along the shore. They’d have to leave the survivors and make a run for it. Damn it.

Suddenly the whole top half of the apartment building exploded in a blue flash.

“What the hell?” Barns shouted.

Debris flew in every direction. One particularly large fireball shot out the side of the buildingwith kicking legs and windmilling arms. It was a huge, armored figure, wreathed entirely in blue flames.

“Toru . . .”

The flaming, armored Iron Guard crashed through another building with a terrible racket. A split second later their apartment building made an even worse noise as the upper floors collapsed into the lower, pancaking the whole thing down in a gigantic inferno. A huge cloud of smoke and dust welled outward across the docks.

At least the other patrol boat wasn’t looking at them anymore.

“Head for that freighter,” Sullivan said. “This is our only shot.” Dozens of Imperium troops were already converging on the spot Toru had landed in. That building had caught fire as well. There wasn’t a damn thing they could do for Toru now. If he’d even lived through that explosion, and the fall hadn’t finished him off, then the fire or the Imperium troops would.

Barns killed the engine and let them drift toward the freighter.

“They’ll be coming out over there,” Zhao pointed at a spot in the black muck beneath the crumbling stone.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Sullivan told the others, as he walked toward the back of the patrol boat.

The Imperium copper was there, shackled to the rail with his own handcuffs. Sullivan didn’t know how to read the Japanese police rank insignia, but this one had been wearing the fanciest uniform, and that usually meant they were in charge. Sullivan pulled the rag out of his mouth, and the Jap gasped for breath. Sullivan knelt next to him. “I’m gonna make this quick. How many safe houses did you hit?”

“Go to hell, Grimnoir.”

Sullivan reached up and broke the cop’s pinky finger. “Try again.”

The Jap grimaced but did not speak or cry out.

Zhao had joined him. The kid seemed totally unmoved by the Imperium man’s plight. Many of his men had been in that safe house. If anything, Zhao would have even less mercy. “Do you want me to freeze him?”

“I got this.” Sullivan pried loose the next finger and broke it too.

“Gah.” The cop ground his teeth together.

Sullivan broke another.

“Three. We knew of three hideouts.”

Shit. Sullivan looked at Zhao. There were only four in total. This was bad.

“Who sold us out?” Zhao demanded.

Sullivan took up the next finger.

“A fat brute. Pang.”

Zhao gasped. “No. You lie.”

“It is not the first time. He has been an informant for years.”

“I’ll kill him,” Zhao snarled.

“He is already dead. Master Hayate was disgusted by his disloyalty. Fat Pang is dead, like you soon will be.”

Barns gave a sharp, attention-grabbing whistle. “Got somebody swimming.” He whistled again. “Hey! Over here. Ori, grab that life preserver.”

Sullivan breathed a sigh of relief. At least somebody had made it. The other boats were distracted by the destruction, so they might still be able to get out of here.

“I demand to be released. I am Major Matsuoka of the Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu. My men will—”

“Wait. Your name is Matsuoka?” Zhao asked slowly. Sullivan shuddered. It was like all the natural warmth had just been sucked from the air. “Major Matsuoka?”

“Yes. I am the commander of the Second Sector Garrison. You will free me or face terrible consequences.”

Sullivan could feel the sudden Power draw in the air. “You’re the one who had my mother and father tortured.” It dropped ten degrees in an instant. “You’re the one who ordered their execution.” The air got colder. “You’re the one who had their bodies . . .” colder. “hung on a bridge for the whole city to see.”

So very cold.

Matsuoka began shaking uncontrollably.

There was a sphere of terrible, piercing, life-sucking cold, and it was directed at the secret policeman. Matsuoka’s skin was turning blue. “You put up a sign. You called them traitors. Enemies of the people, it said. The sign encouraged everyone to throw rocks at the bodies. And people did, because that is what traitors deserve . . .”

Sullivan was shivering. The policeman’s skin was starting to pucker and crystalize. He thought about just pulling the Webley and putting a bullet into the man. It didn’t make tactical sense to waste Zhao’s valuable Power, simply because they might be needing every bit they could scrape up if they got spotted and had to fight their way out, but then again, sometimes you just had to get your personal business out of the way. He looked to Zhao. “Don’t let him start screaming, because I don’t want the attention.”

“Do not worry.” Zhao’s brows were knit in concentration. “He won’t.”

The policeman looked to Sullivan, eyes pleading, but only steam was coming out of his open mouth. Blood turned to slush and froze in his veins. Then the water in his eyes turned to ice and his eyeballs cracked.

“All yours, kid.” Sullivan walked away.

The air was considerably warmer at the front of the boat, but Sullivan remained chilled to the bone. He counted four heads bobbing on the water, all of them holding onto a life preserver or each other as Barns hauled them in. Sullivan took hold of the rope too and dragged them in faster. It was three men from the Traveler and one of Zhao’s men. The first one pulled into the boat was young Mike Willis. He’d been shot and had one hand pressed to his side. Blood was coming from between his fingers.

“Where’s everybody else?” Sullivan asked.

“We’re it,” the knight gasped. “Five of us made it to the bottom. Mottl got stuck in the tunnel and drowned . . . I couldn’t pull him out in time. There wasn’t anybody behind us.”

“Lance?”

He shook his head. “Just me, Genesse, Simmons, and Yip.”

“Hell . . .” Sullivan looked to the giant funeral pyre, but there was no hope to be found there. The smoke was stinging his eyes.

There was a crack at the back of the boat as Zhao kicked the superchilled handcuffs and the chain snapped in two, then a splash as the frozen policeman rolled into the river.

They’d have to regroup. Figure out how bad they’d been hit . . . But he feared the answer. Was there any coming back from this? “Barns, get us out of here.”

Art to come

Toru explosion