"Our Serpents are swift, and very determined," Honjowara-sama says, making a rare use of the slang term for the Guard. "Do not be concerned about the violence directed against us. These criminals do not know the danger they face. They will soon be brought to justice!"

The union leaders do not seem to doubt it.

The meeting soon ends. Honjowara-sama moves to another room like a western-style sitting room with sofas and armchairs around a large marble hearth. The GSG detail at the door pa.s.s through a number of persons in twos and threes, minor union officials and union members and members of their families, all here to spend a few minutes with the Chairman of Nagato Combine. Honjowara-sama speaks casually and shows several of the children great favor, inquiring about their schools and relations with their parents.

Each guest receives a small gift. A union photog and persons from the Nagato Office of Corporate Affairs take digipics and trideo to commemorate the occasion. A Security Service officer with cybercams for eyes watches from nearby.

Then comes the main event.

They ride an elevator to the hotel's main floor. They take a pa.s.sage guarded by every form of security personnel to the very edge of the satin-draped stage facing the hotel's Grand Ballroom. Then comes the duty that cannot be avoided.

Machiko is commanded by Honjowara-sama to stop and wait at the edge of the stage, to remain with the entire body detail as Honjowara-sama walks alone toward Durkin-san and the podium at the front-center of the stage.

Each pa.s.sing moment is a nightmare of expectation. From the moment that Honjowara-sama first steps onto the stage, pandemonium erupts. The entire a.s.semblage of people crowded among the rows and rows of tables filling the ballroom comes to its feet, applauding, exclaiming, filling the hall with the uproar of their voices. A barrage of machine-gun fire could erupt and Machiko would not hear it until too late.

GSG stand in a line before the stage, and also wait behind the lush hangings crossing the rear of the stage, but none accompany Honjowara-sama to where he is most exposed.

Machiko breathes deeply. She battles to settle her spirit, but knows this battle will not be won till Honjowara-sama retires from the stage. She is little a.s.sured by the thought that the gathering reacts with immense favor to the Chairman's appearance.

It is no surprise that the people filling the ballroom react as they do. It is no coincidence that the Transport Mechanics and Load Handlers' Free Trade Union chooses the Chrysanthemum Palace for its annual meeting, or that the Chairman honors the gathering by appearing on the dais. The Chairman's own personal funds a.s.sisted Durkin-san's hard-fought climb to the presidency. Kobun of the Honjowara-gumi stood guard at union meetings and defended local election committees when ruthless criminal elements allied with the Maf sought to maintain the oppressive iron grip of their control over the union membership.

These people have elected a president of their own choosing, but they know well who is primarily responsible for the influence and power they now possess.

"Hon-go! Hon-go! Hon-go!" they chant. What they mean is "the main word." He who speaks the words of truth, words that matter.

And now Honjowara-sama arrives at the center of the stage. He lifts one hand high, index finger extended and roars into the mikes on the podium, "Number one! "

The a.s.sembly goes wild. Shouting, screaming. Pounding fists on tables and feet against floor till the ballroom resounds with thunder.

"Number one! Number one! "

The outcry goes on for five minutes or more. When some measure of order finally seems about to descend, Honjowara-sama says into the mikes, "We have only now begun."

Another thunderous outburst arises.

But when Honjowara-sama thrusts both his hands palm-out to the a.s.sembly, the uproar quickly settles into quiet.

"Under the leadership of your president!" Honjowara-sama says in a powerful voice, "you have taken many steps toward securing a prosperous future for yourselves and for your families! Know that the bond between Nagato Combine and your leadership remains strong! That your president works tirelessly to guarantee you the benefits you profoundly deserve!"

The tumultuous ovation that arises now drowns out Honjowara-sama's voice. It becomes deafening as Honjowara-sama draws Durkin-san to his side, both men thrusting fisted hands toward the soaring ceiling of the ballroom, index fingers erect.

"NUMBER ONE!" the pair bellow into the mikes.

"Spellcasting!" shouts into Machiko's ears.

It is her worst nightmare come true.

She does not look into the astral to determine what is happening. To gaze into the astral is to open oneself to attack from the astral. Rather, Machiko accepts the word of those of the Guard who are responsible for watching the astral, and she blurts, into her commlink, "Green wave green wave green wave. . . ! "

She propels herself across the stage. The details waiting in the wings of the stage are already in motion. Those nearest her are barely a step behind her.

As she moves toward Honjowara-sama at center-stage, a trio of naga, Ujitaro's Awakened serpents, sluice across the stage in front of her feet.

And then she sees it, far above the ballroom floor, out over the center of the floor, something forming, coalescing out of the empty air, an enormous globe of brimstone red, now flaring with sparks and tendrils of the fire and expanding by the moment as if to incinerate the entire ballroom.

Honjowara-sama hesitates, lifting his gaze to the globe. As the tumultuous acclamation of the crowd begins filling with cries of horror, Honjowara-sama's expression grows adamant with defiance.

Machiko bruises past Durkin-san and drives herself bodily into Honjowara-sama's flank. Others strike her, thrust against her. For a moment, Honjowara-sama seems like the immovable boulder half immersed in a churning sea; then they are moving around him like an inexorable wave, forcing him toward the side of the stage, lifting him right from the floor and forming a bullet-shaped barricade that batters past anyone in their path.

The crackling, flaming globe seems only to grow larger. A shrill wind arises. Lightning tears at the stage, the podium. Peals of horror and fear peak into screams of agony.

A deafening discharge erupts, like detonating artillery.

Machiko feels the blast vibrating through the floor. She feels the shock wave shoving at her shoulders. She feels its heat and smells its acrid smoke and hears the shrieks of its victims. But she can do nothing about that. Duty keeps her driving ahead, carrying Honjowara-sama along, through the wings of the stage, down corridors and stairways, finally to the sub-levels of the hotel, the expansive parking complex. Here waits a convoy: GSG and SDF troopers, weapons ready; armored sedans and security vans and armored limousines, engines running. Once Honjowara-sama has been installed in a swift and highly maneuverable Toyota Elite, Machiko orders an abrupt halt so that she may access the situation.

She will not rush the Chairman into the streets and into a potential ambush. The magical attack could be pure subterfuge.

Even the priority channel on her commlink is overwhelmed with traffic. Many long moments pa.s.s before she can contact the hotel command center. A first report suggests that the hotel's Grand Ballroom is burning, that the main level of the hotel is filling with smoke. Another indicates that the fury of the magic attack has incited a panic, that security personnel at the hotel exits are being overwhelmed, in one case trampled, by hundreds of terrified fleeing people.

"Find the mage!" Machiko shouts into her commlink. "The mage! Find the mage!"

Like hunting a minnow in a flood.

She orders the convoy to roll.

30.

Honjowara-sama is brought safely to the Brooklyn headquarters of the Yoshida-kai. From there, Machiko arranges for him to be conveyed by limo and helicopter to his estate in the eastern reaches of Suffolk County. The attack at the Chrysanthemum Palace Hotel must be considered an attack against the Chairman, and Machiko will take no chances. She a.s.signs both Ryokai and Gongoro to Honjowara-sama body detail and to take command of the GSG at the estate.

Then, she commandeers a car and returns to the Chrysanthemum Palace Hotel.

The streets leading to the complex are clogged with emergency vehicles and blocked by Winter Systems police. Machiko abandons the car and jogs the final blocks to the hotel and casino complex. The scene she encounters there is apocalyptic.

The fire is already extinguished. Damage to the Grand Ballroom is merely superficial. The main level of the hotel is hazy with smoke, but the true damage may only be measured in terms of persons killed or injured.

They lie everywhere, the dead, the wounded moaning for help, crying for loved ones, screaming with the anguish of broken bones and shattered joints, along every corridor connecting with the Grand Ballroom, across the main lobby, heaped atop one another about the two main entrances. Medics and paramedics move frantically from one victim to the next, all but overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the fallen.

Machiko comes upon a man recording all with a portacam. So great is her frustration, so intense her horror over what has happened, that she seizes the camera, smashes it on the floor, and then, sword drawn, sends the man running for the nearest exit.

In a lounge on the mezzanine, she finds Ujitaro lying slumped on a sofa, surrounded by his coiling naga, and watched over by a small crowd of GSG. "We found him unconscious after the attack," informs the senior one of the group, one of the Guard's few other woman members. "He says he is merely exhausted. I thought to move him away from the smoke and confusion. I also summoned the thaumaturgic medical unit. They will be arriving shortly."

Mages are no less likely than physical adepts to suffer irreparable harm at the hands of doctors, and so the Kissena Park Medical Center, a subsidiary of People's Health Centers of New York, which is itself a subsidiary of Nagato Corp, maintains a special team specifically for the treatment of persons who are magically active.

Likely, the same personnel who first attended Sukayo will attend Ujitaro-attend him with the utmost care.

Machiko crouches beside the mage. He appears disheveled and battered, as if recently subjected to a beating. A purplish welt dives from the right side of his forehead into the wild disarray of his hair. A smear that could be dried blood stains his chin. His voice is like a raspy grunt. "What do you want?"

Quietly, Machiko says, "When we spoke of the mage who sent the old man with the bomb to Honjowara-sama's headquarters, you said you would know this mage by his work." Ujitaro nods. "It was the same one today."

"You did not detect his presence before he attacked?" Ujitaro's look turns acid. "Initiates mask their auras."

"Why did you not attack?"

"I battled his magic. Or you would all be cinders!" Compa.s.sion yearns to make some statement, Machiko's heart feels moved to sympathy, but duty must take precedence now. There is only duty and death. They must all be prepared to hurl themselves selflessly at an irrational death.

Machiko rides an elevator to the security command center. She finds the deputy director for hotel security in the middle of a ferocious tirade, a tirade that abruptly halts as the man's eyes meet her own.

The man invites her into his private office and there bows deeply. So very deeply he appears shamed. "As soon as this current emergency is past, I will submit my resignation to the hotel director."

"What? Please explain."

"We believe we have captured the intruder, presumably a magician, on security cams. It appears that he gained access to the hotel via a sublevel door that should have been secured. The door has been physically checked and found to be unlocked, though our systems continue to show the door as secure. We can discover no physical or operating malfunction in the security systems themselves. It therefore appears likely that the mainframe responsible for supervising hotel security systems has been successfully penetrated."

Machiko shakes her head as if to clear it. But the attempt does not help. What the deputy is telling her is just one more incredible event in a series of such events.

"Show me this magician," she says tersely.

The deputy turns to the telecom on his desk and makes swift use of the keyboard. One of the images that appears on the telecom's screen shows the hotel's Grand Ballroom. At the middle of a crowd of cheering people, many waving arms over their heads, one man holds out not merely his arms but also some form of intricately crafted black wand above his head.

"Have you any images of his face?"

The deputy bows, embarra.s.sed.

"Please enhance the wand."

The image zooms in till the wand fills the screen. The images carved into its length appear to be grotesque, misshapen faces, the faces of demons perhaps, or the tormented in one of the many Buddhist h.e.l.ls. Machiko uses the telecom to contact Nagato Corp Operations Center and thereby connects with Colonel Satomi, deputy chief of security operations, apparently riding in a car.

She transmits the images provided by hotel security, and says, "I am curious about this mage's wand, if it is such a wand. I would like a thaumaturgic evaluation."

"I was just on-line with the director of thaumaturgic investigations." A moment pa.s.ses, then the screen divides into two windows. Machiko recognizes the woman who appears in the second window as Oki-san. She is a norm and very aged, her hair white and spa.r.s.e, her face thin and frail. Her voice, though, is full and resonant, almost sultry. "It appears that this wand is intended as a mage's device," she says. "However, it is impossible to determine from a superficial visual examination the exact form of magic practiced. I would theorize that it is not a form likely to be beneficial to people."

And, with that, the second window winks out.

Machiko struggles to restrain a sudden surge of anger. Why must all magicians be so difficult to deal with?

They are not even tokenly polite!

She thanks Satomi-san for his a.s.sistance and breaks the link. The deputy for hotel security proceeds to display other images of the mage, the trail he followed in entering the hotel. In each new frame that appears, the mage's face is hidden from view, either by the brim of his hat or because he has turned his face away from the cam. "It would appear that this individual knows the locations of your cams," Machiko says.

The deputy agrees.

The trail ends, or rather begins in the sublevel parking complex. A wide-angled cam panning across a broad area filled with parked cars briefly displays a white van, the mage emerging from it. The van is plainly marked with the five-pointed star of Fuchi Industrial Electronics.

"Have you checked the vehicle registration?"

"Yes. We have a direct line to the state department of licensing. It is a Fuchi van."

"Could it be stolen?"

"It has not been reported stolen to any police."

Machiko breathes deeply, but not even her most determined effort can suppress the fears that s.n.a.t.c.h ravenously at her spirit. If Fuchi is indeed behind this campaign of terrorist violence, if Gordon Ito truly desires the destruction of Nagato Combine, if . . .

But surely this is absurd! Not even Gordon Ito would be so bold as to send an agent, a mage, in a Fuchi van!

What is happening?

Even as Machiko struggles with the confusion of her own thoughts, the telecom beeps with an incoming call. The deputy answers. And bows. "Chairman-sama."

Machiko looks to the screen and sees the harshly determined features of Honjowara-sama gazing back at her.

"Machiko," he says. "I am at Yoshida-kai headquarters.

Come now."

"Yes, Chairman-Mwa," Machiko replies.

At once.

31.

The scene on the plaza before the hotel's main lobby is no less horrific for seeming somewhat more orderly than earlier in the evening. The dazzling strobes on emergency vehicles flicker and flare. Emergency workers arrange the trampled corpses of victims in neat lines along walkways and fountains. Trauma teams rush the living toward the waiting lines of ambulances, medics treat others under the open sky. Priests give blessings. Winter Systems police confer with Security Service officers. Media snoops infest the plaza like insects. Several rush toward Machiko's flanks.

"Who's responsible for the attack... ?"

"How many dead... ?"

"Where's the Chairman ... ?"

"Kill anybody... ?"

Certain snoops habitually offer insult in the form of questions in hopes of provoking a reaction. They fail. GSG do not address the media, do not acknowledge snoops as extant. The requirements of duty are normally far too critical for members of the Guard to allow anyone to interfere with them in any way. Thus, there are occasional incidents wherein members of the Guard are compelled to use force, such as to get a particularly intrusive scooper out of the way.

Tonight, these representatives of news and entertainment corps keep out of Machiko's path. They remain at a "polite" distance. Machiko breaks into a trot and leaves them behind.

Roads made impa.s.sable by cordons of Winter Systems police and emergency vehicles are now further burdened by media vans and commissary wagons and cars and motorcycles of onlookers. Machiko does not bother looking for the car sent to meet her. She lengthens her stride. It is not far to the headquarters of the Yoshida-kai, a mere few blocks. She soon covers the distance.