Alek backed up.

"That's right, a.s.shole. What's the matter, you not an iron man?"

Alek glanced up at the stairs where the boy's lackeys now had Robyn in a submission hold. Then he looked at the punk and that d.a.m.ned iron knife. "Let her go, you," Alek told the boy.

"The name's Charlie Wing," the boy spat back venomously. "Didn't you know I'd get you back? Split your banpaia guts wide open with this motherf.u.c.ker." With a twinkle in his eye, he tried to follow through with his promise.

Alek leapt backward, missing the blade of the knife by inches, and grabbed Charlie's arm at the elbow, breaking it with a simple twist.

Charlie gasped with pain. Alek slammed him around into a wall, making him dropped the knife. Alek stepped back. Charlie spun around, his one arm hanging uselessly at his side, and eyed him through his haze of pain of hate. Then, spitting out a battle cry, he executed a hook kick intended to swipe Alek's legs out from under him.

Alek saw it coming as if in slow motion and caught Charlie's leg in mid-swing and threw him over onto the stairs.

Charlie slammed onto the stairs on his back, grunting on impact.

Again, he looked angry, his eyes burning with war, but he wasn't out for the count. Not just yet. "f.u.c.king banpaia," he whispered through a bloodied mouth and reached under his coat for his infamous shurikens.

"Don't," said Alek.

Charlie drew one out anyway.

Alek kicked him in the side of the head. It was a controlled kick, not meant to kill, and it did its job effectively enough, turning Charlie's lights out without actually killing the youth. Watching, Alek saw the shurikens drop harmlessly out of Charlie's limp hand and scatter across the carpet. There they glittered like big fallen quarters.

"Dhampir, a.s.shole," Alek amended. There was a truncated yelp of surprise, and then Nanchaku joined his leader at the foot of the steps, the two of them mingling in a large, rowdy lump of bruised flesh and crumpled clothing. Alek looked up.

Robyn had one arm free and a great pair of shining bra.s.s knuckles on her hand. But Ponytail was in the process of pinning her arms against her back and this time she wasn't able to swing at him.

Alek started up the stairs.

Someone grabbed his ankle. Charlie Wing. Tenacious f.u.c.ker. Alek kicked back, mashing the child's nose against his face with the heel of his boot. Charlie finally lay still.

"Stay where you are."

Alek looked up the stairs and saw Ponytail had his ornate shirasaya at Robyn's throat.

Alek stopped and tilted his head. "What's your name, little boy?" he asked.

Ponytail looked confused for a moment. Then he said, "It's Rich. And that fine gentleman the b.i.t.c.h did is Xav."

"Charlie, Rich, and Xav," Alek said in a low rumble. "I'll have to remember you three." He took another step up the stairs, his eyes never leaving Rich's strained, frightened face. The boy looked as undecided as a puppy that's lost its master and its direction.

"Stop right here. I'm warning you..."

Alek was almost within reaching distance of Robyn when Rich raised the blade of the shir so it rested against the underside of Robyn's chin.

Robyn stared ahead defiantly.

"Stop!" Rich commanded.

Alek took another step, his eyes now permanently fixed on Rich's lemur-large eyes.

"You're killing her!" Rich said. His hand trembled and made the shir knick Robyn's throat. A trickle of blood began to flow there.

Alek stopped. "You're going to kill her? Would Ashikawa appreciate that? Rich?"

"You ain't getting me, you f.u.c.king monster!"

f.u.c.king monster. f.u.c.king monster...

Alek felt the rage build. "All my f.u.c.king life I've had to deal with your kind. You were the reason I was afraid to go to school."

Rich laughed nervously. "f.u.c.k you."

Alek narrowed his eyes. "Give me the girl."

Rich began to shake all over.

Alek took a deep breath and stuck the rage down the mental hole he had dug for everything unpleasant in his life. If he did not get Robyn away from the boy very soon, Rich was going to kill her by accident with that shirasaya. He lowered his voice, making it, not menacing, but persuasive. Seductive. "Let. Her. Go. Rich."

Something flitted across the boy's face, a decision...and then he did just that. He let Robyn go, dropped his weapon, and took off up the stairs like the proverbial bat out of h.e.l.l, his feet thumping like a tattoo on the carpeted steps.

The moment he was gone, Robyn flagged against Alek as if all her strength were gone.

"Oh my G.o.d, I'm so happy to see you!" She threw her arms around his neck, her face in his throat, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s mashed against his chest so he was all-too-aware of her entire body pressed shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip to his own with nothing to separate them but their clothes. His held her back--sort of. His own body responded accordingly, of course. There was no helping that. He was in need of yet more blood.

What Edward Ashikawa had given him had been enough to stanch the pain for the moment, but it had done nothing if not stirred the greedy need within. Even now he could feel his eyes burning as if he had a fever and his teeth felt as hard in his mouth as chips of broken bone. He smelled the blood in her. He smelled the blood in everything. Unwinding her arms, Alek pushed her gently back and averted his gaze, lest she notice the subtle changes in him.

She looked relieved and tired and unwell. But there was also understanding in her eyes. She knew what she had done to him. h.e.l.l, she had felt the results. "I'm sorry," she said.

He forced a smile. "What happened? What are you doing here?"

"Kage happened. I wanted to get away but I couldn't. The things he did..." Something like a commingling of curiosity and fear darkened her eyes. She shook her head. "I thought Kurayami had you."

"She seemed to prefer the other one." It wasn't exactly the truth, but explanations would have to wait. Right now the most important thing was getting the h.e.l.l out of the house. He finally felt his old self again enough to meet Robyn's eyes evenly. They were so miserable, her eyes.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Kage...he has Danny."

Alek nodded. "I think we should just leave for now," he reasoned. Far off--but too far--he could just hear the men a.s.sembling. What Debra had done for him was nothing more than a parlor trick. Already it was gone. It would be mere moments and then Ashikawa's henchmen would be pouring out of every doorway of this place. He had to think fast. "I think we can barter for Danny's safety for the tapes. From what I've seen, I don't believe Ashikawa would harm the boy."

"I can't leave Danny!" Robyn insisted.

"We have to get out of here," Alek said as patiently as he could. "I can't fight everyone off right at this minute."

"Then don't. But I'm not leaving without Danny!"

Alek sighed. Of course that meant he wasn't leaving, either.

I'm sorry...I couldn't any more....

I know, he answered Debra.

"Do you know where Danny is?" Alek asked the girl. "With Kage, I'm guessing. In the catacombs."

Alek raised his eyebrows. "Catacombs?"

Robyn said, her eyes averted to the hallway where even she could hear the men approaching now, "It's down below. I know them...sort of."

"Then you had better take me there," Alek said, "And now."

Nodding, Robyn took him by the arm and led him on.

23.

Charlie Wing came around the second time someone kicked him. He was vaguely aware of the impact in his ribs, but he couldn't react until several moments later when the second gut-wrenching blow came, nearly crushing in his rib cage. Charlie groaned and curled himself around the new pain.

"Charlie."

"Humph," was all Charlie could manage at first. He felt like every bone in his body had been broken and stuffed back into a skin two sizes too small for them all. Jesus. What hit him? A f.u.c.king bus?

"Charlie!"

Again Charlie groaned through his swollen, b.l.o.o.d.y mouth and made himself turn over, lest more pain be heaped upon his already broken body. Edward Ashikawa was standing over him. He had that look he usually reserved for enemies and betrayers--as if, even being a man as Mr. Ashikawa was, he could rip the very essence of reality apart to get at whatever he wanted. His black kimono was tattered and bloodstained and gaping at the front, showing the magnificent mosaic of tats wound like serpents about his entire body. His red sash was gone, as well as the katana he usually wore, even around the house. His eyes held a peculiar bloodl.u.s.t Charlie was not accustomed to seeing outside of the banpaia.

Jesus, it was as if Mr. Ashikawa was as bad off as Kage, or that other f.u.c.king thing that had beat the s.h.i.t out of him moments ago.

The thought made the pain drain out of Charlie's' body. That pretty- faced, long-haired motherf.u.c.ker had it coming, oh yes. Give him a sword...h.e.l.l, give him a stake of iron and he was going to shove the d.a.m.ned thing up the f.u.c.ker's a.s.s the moment he found him...

"Where is the dhampir?" Ashikawa demanded to know.

"Dhampir?"

"Tall man. Big sword. Pointy teeth."

Charlie shook himself. "I don't know. I think he got Robyn."

Edward Ashikawa seethed like a tsunami. Oh Jesus G.o.d, thought Charlie, he's going to kill me! Suddenly he wished he had stayed in Osaka to be a Nothing like his old man. A Nothing was better than this.

Better a Nothing than a nothing at all. It wasn't fair! The world had conspired to throw him up against an enemy he had no defense against! He had lost honor and face in Mr. Ashikawa's eyes. And a man with no honor was a man with no-- Mr. Ashikawa's foot came down hard on Charlie's throat. For a moment Charlie thought it was a warning. He thought Mr. Ashikawa meant to beat the remaining s.h.i.t out of him and prove a lesson to him and good, and then he would drag Charlie up and dust him off as he always had in the past, and tell him to take his boys and hunt down the creature that had caused all this f.u.c.king trouble. But then Charlie heard the crackle and snap of his own neck bones breaking under the pressure of the Ryuujin's foot and Charlie understood. Underneath the sound, as vast as a volcanic explosion in Charlie's ears, was Mr. Ashikawa's voice.

Before Charlie died he could have sworn he said, I'm sorry.

24.

Robyn took him down several more of those twisting flights of gla.s.s stairs. At the bottom she took a right bend and led him down a hallway with identical doors to either sides. At the end was a vast window that faced out over the courtyard at ground level, the morning sun slicing through the colored gla.s.s and turning the hallway and the grandfather clock standing against one wall a weird shade of crimson. At the foot of the clock Robyn stopped, reached for the face, and toyed with something.

"Edward doesn't know I know about this. I found it by accident one day." And then she did something and the whole body of the clock swung open like a door. Inside was a roughly hewn stone stairway that led down into an impregnable darkness. Robyn turned to look at him with somber eyes. "Ready?"

"I think so. How far does this go?"

Robyn led the way down the stairs, pausing only long enough to close the pa.s.sage behind them and put her ear to the door for a moment. "I'm not sure, actually. The tunnels are really just an extension of a portion of the old L Line that was condemned about twenty years ago. Kage claimed them as his own and now he uses them to move between the house and some haunts he has in the inner city. That way he can get around without being caught out by the sun." She frowned. "I'm guessing that's how he managed to trap me and Danny. I just had no idea his network was so big."

"So Kage could have taken Danny almost anywhere in the city," Alek said without much hope.

"Not anywhere. It's morning so he has to stay underground, somewhere in the tunnels. If we wait until nightfall, then he's sure to take Danny anywhere in the city."

They had reached the bottom of the stairs. Ahead loomed a warren of rooms that looked as if they had been decorated by a deranged Victorian Englishman. Alek almost would have thought they were in the wrong place, but the lair, as peculiar as it was, felt like Kage--cool, animalistic. The chambers, daisy-chained together with seemingly no pattern to their arrangement, pushed out at him, not physically but with an underlying threat of absolute menace. Robyn went ahead of him, unaffected by the Glamour of the place. Were he a vampire, Alek would not have been able to enter this place at all. He would have been paralyzed by fear. He was not paralyzed, but he still found it hard to move against the fear.

"Are you all right?" Robin asked, her voice a mere whisper as if they were exploring an ancient tomb.

Alek nodded and moved tentatively forward, following the girl's lead with mincing steps.

"Over here." She held back a heavy Medieval tapestry with unicorns on it. A hole had been chopped through the cement wall, just large enough for an adult to squeeze through.

They clambered through it.

Beyond the human-sized mouse hole an old brick-and-bedrock sub tunnel yawned ahead, black and full of mystery. Debris was scattered everywhere, rags and rotting shoes and broken bottles of booze, what Alek could only guess were the remnants of homeless people who had been unfortunate enough to wander drunkenly into a vampire's lair. His boot came down on something long and brittle. He picked it up, discovering it was a shattered femur bone. The unreasonable fear had returned and he quickly dashed the bone away. He turned his attention on the tunnel instead. There were ancient emergency lights strung along the top of the tunnel, an antique carbide lantern lying on its side, and a scattering of miners' helmets, but Alek doubted anything had the juice necessary to work. Kage would not need such mundane human things to see in the dark.

"It's dark," Robyn said. "I wish we had a flashlight or something."

"Try shaking that lantern," he said.

"I can't find it in the dark. Can you...?"

"Lanterns are made of iron."

"Oh." Robyn toyed around in the dark until she found it. But shaking it revealed it was bone dry. "Nothing," she said. She opened up the tank but all that remained was a black sludge. "All the kerosene is gone."

"Wait a moment." Alek picked around in the darkness until he found an unbroken flask of whiskey. He twisted the top off and the powerful vapors a.s.saulted his senses and made him grimace. Perfect. He told Robyn to pour some of the whiskey in. Then had her swing the lantern to slosh the whiskey around. After a minute he had her add more whiskey. The acrid smell of the kerosene was suddenly stronger. The whiskey was doing its job. He had her continue adding whiskey and shaking the fuel tank until it was two-thirds full. Then he had her wet the wick with the new substance.

"You're so clever," she said as she used her cigarette lighter to tend the whiskey-soaked wick. After a few moments more of grueling work the wick gave off a lurid black smoke, but it did in fact catch, giving them a source of light in the tunnels.

Robyn's face looked so sallow and unwell in the lantern light he could almost wish they were still stranded in the dark. He had to wonder what he looked like. "Are you sure you don't want to try and reason with Ashikawa?" Alek asked as he watched her replace the gla.s.s globe. "I'm positive he'd give Danny up if you just handed over the tapes."

"You don't know Edward." Robyn sounded strained and weary. She stood up, holding the lantern at chin level so he plainly saw her ghastly look of determination. Her open, plain-faced hatred. "He'll never let me go. Not ever. Because of what he is."