Two to Tengu (Secret Magent Book 2) Page 4

  Not thirty seconds ticked by before Momo cut the call and turned to me. “All set up, Mister Locke. I’ll have my retainers bring the limo up.”

  I shook my head. “That’s a bad idea. You should stay clear.”

  Flames ignited in the Tengu’s eyes. “I am coming and--”

  “And that might just be what the person who assassinated your father is counting on. Do you have any siblings Momo?”

  The Tengu was taken aback. “No.”

  “Then their next target after they killed your father is to kill his heir apparent. Get yourself somewhere safe and wait for me. I will make sure the bastards pay. Do you understand?”

  Momo shot me her very best glare, but the fury dancing just behind her irises faltered. It made sense. And the quickest way for her to ensure the Oni get their way is by acting rashly here and now.

  “Do as you like then, Charles Locke. I’ll take my limo home and await your call. Sayonara,” she replied at length, and then promptly left.

  “Wow Charlie. You want I should look for a guy to make you some white knightly armor to go with that chivalry of yours?” echoed a voice from the closet.

  When it rains, it pours. I stepped to the closet and opened my other can of worms. Or perhaps I should say can of biblical serpents.

  “I like my knighting like I like my coffee, Lis. Black. And I could make better use of a ride at this point than armor,” I replied. “I’m going to need you too for things to go smoothly.”

  Lis blinked in surprise. I relished the rare reversal.

  “First, tell me what you know about Tengu,” I said.

  “Charlie, a responsible banker would warn you not to get too far into debt. Otherwise, you’re going to end up bankrupt both morally and literally.”

  “I said I’ll repay you. Find it in your heart to give me a freebie.”

  Lis scoffed at that. “Your freebie was me translating Taro’s message.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You bet, and it totally counts. You know what though?” Lis asked. “I’m feeling downright chipper after the whole ‘owe your life to me’ thing. Tengu are Supernaturals native to Japan.”

  “My, how illuminating,” I replied, strapping on a vest of Kevlar, reloading my pistol and grabbing the car keys from the night table.

  “As far as Supernaturality goes though they are very weird. Fantastical sorts almost all live on other planes of existence, or as they are referred to altogether: The Immortal Coil. Asgard, Olympus, Sheol, Heaven, Hell, they’re are all a part of it. Even the Oni live in their own little Netherworld. The Tengu, however, don’t.”

  “Don’t?” I asked, opening the hotel door and walking down the hallway with Lis in tow.

  “Nope. The whole flock of em live among Mundanes. Experts at the whole hidden in plain sight thing, even by Supernatural standards. While others retreated to their mystical homelands when the Humans got their ducks in a row technologically, the Tengu embraced modernity. Master air mages. Crafty minds. They usually look very Human anyways so it was an easy choice for them I think. That means they know every in and out of Mundane society.”

  “Thank you for the cram session.”

  “So,” she began, her eyes narrowed and filled with curiosity. “What exactly do you need me for?”

  I offered my best grin as we reached the parking lot.

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Chapter 9

  The flicker of yellow lights flashed overhead as we barreled through a tunnel. Say what you want to say about Lis, but she had exquisite taste in cars.

  I could hear the purr of the Mercedes-Benz AMG series at the dizzying speeds we were reaching on the freeway. A smooth gray interior, sharp lights, and exterior casing as black as sin all came together to make it just my kind of car.

  “This exit,” Lis informed me, and I took it without hesitation. Of course she knew the directions to the crime scene. She knew everything.

  Almost there. And if we were had any luck, the Mundane authorities will have not mucked things up too terribly bad either.

  Most mages have outright disdain for vanilla flavored ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ investigators. Even when there is a very clearly supernatural occurrence in a crime scene, the cops often go to downright hilarious lengths to explain it away. Supernatural crime scenes usually end up uninvestigatable due to this.

  Personally, I think Mundane police do a splendid job. Even without magical crutches, they can uncover things almost as well as the trained augurs and seers of Nine Towers.

  We reached the police blockade at a quarter to two in the morning. To my surprise, the police officer took one look inside, saw who was in it, and waved us right by.

  Momodara had deep connections indeed.

  I parked by the sidewalk and, with Lis beside me, walked past the gathered officers without any trouble as we approached the crime scene.

  Body? Check. Outlines, blood spatter, and police tape? Double check. I went over the ‘do not cross’ line and tried my best to channel the spirit of Sherlock Holmes.

  “I have to say Charlie. I’m pretty impressed,” said Lis. “I’d be hard pressed to think of a better way to completely squander my talents.”

  “Deal with it,” I replied.

  Lis had a whole list of magical powers outside of the ability to ruin my good time at the drop of a hat. She had a masterful grasp on scholarly subjects ranging from astronomy to zoology, could will herself to be nearly unnoticeable by Mundanes and Supernaturals alike, and she also had the ability to metamorphose into whatever shape she so desired.

  That’s why she was upset.

  In order to move past the cops without hassle and present a tempting target should there be any lingering assassins, I asked the she-devil ever so politely to take on the shape of Momodara.

  Lisistrathiel, looking exactly like a certain short cutesy Tengu girl, tapped her foot impatiently with arms crossed over her B-cup chest. I took stock of the surrounding crime scene. Exits. Entrances. Spent casings. Strange ritual marks. Anything I could find.

  Nothing came up.

  The only thing I took note of were the eyes of a few gathered officers firmly glued onto ‘Momodara’. The moment Lis noticed, she shot them a glare that could petrify small animals and set them all off pretending they had pressing business elsewhere. We were left all alone. Finally.

  “Careful Lis,” I began. “At this rate you might get a phone number or two from those strapping young lads.”

  Lisistrathiel turned back to me and gave me a withering smile. “Charles Montgomery Locke,” the Devil intoned.

  I’ve never seen Lis genuinely upset, and I don’t think I particularly want to try my luck after the closet thing. I cleared my throat and carried on, taking a closer look at the corpse.

  Momodara’s father looked pale and solemn in death. Average height but very skinny, his eyes were closed shut and his arms splayed apart. It was his long nose and feathery hair betrayed his Supernatural origins. He seems to have died from a single stab to the back that pierced clear through him. Sudden death.

  No magic, and a single back stab that looked like it had been made by a Japanese sword, just like the katanas favored by the Oni. It fit perfectly. The Ogres had every reason to want a big shot like him dead. The Tengu sided with the Mundanes and likely served as front line opposition to their incursion into the mortal world. Still, I just couldn’t shake the stench of wrongness from it.

  In my profession you don’t last long unless you have finely honed instincts and the wisdom to follow them once in a while.

  “Lis,” I called out.

  “Yes, Mister Locke?” she replied, perfectly imitating Momo’s voice.

  “Tell me if I’m getting any of the following wrong: The Oni are a race of big brutish Ogres that love misty mountains and chaos. What they have in strength and sheer brutal violence they completely lack in intelligence and subtlety, correct?”

  “Totally incapable of subtlety,” Lis repl
ied. “If they weren’t so naturally good at fire and death magic, not to mention their prodigious strength, they’d have been wiped out thousands of years ago.”

  “And the bigger they get, the more powerful they are as a general rule?”

  “Not always, but pretty much most of the time. Are you trying to tell me you’re onto something here Charlie?”

  “Depends on the answer to the following question: How does an immense, brutish, clumsy, and stupid Oni sneak up on a Grand Tengu?

  Lis didn’t even hesitate. “He doesn’t.”

  “Then that means something else is happening here, and I haven’t the slightest damn idea what it actually is,” I said.

  Lis tapped her chin thoughtfully. “You might be over thinking this. There was that person with the sword back at the bar, wasn’t there? They could be the one behind the assassination.”

  “Are you saying the Oni hired extra help? The swordsman was Human-sized. What sort of Mortal mercenary specializes in assassinating Supernaturals? Moreover, why would the Oni waste time trying to misdirect suspicion here when they could have left a chopped up and grizzle message instead?”

  “Wow Charlie. That was some solid reasoning for once.”

  “Stroke my ego later. This means that we’re either dealing with a mysterious third party, or an Oni outlier. A clever Ogre.”

  “Sounds about right,” Lis said, nodding slowly. “This bears some more thinking. We should get back to it as soon as we can.”

  “Why not strike the iron while it’s hot?”

  “Can’t,” Lis replied, her milky white Tengu shoulders shrugging.

  I frowned. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because Charlie, the party’s just started.”

  No sooner did she say the words than out of the shadows leaped a figure, katana raised high over head and a piercing cry in his throat. His sword came down on Lis’ head so fast I could hardly register the attack.

  The moment before it connected, Lis blurred a hair’s breadth to the left of it, narrowly avoiding the killing blow and then promptly vanishing from sight. The assailant twitched his head in shock as ‘Momodara’ disappeared before locking his gaze onto me. White knuckles clenched his pitch black sword tight as he charged.

  The assassin. I really hate it when I’m right.

  Chapter 10

  A common tactic among unsavory gangs and midnight operatives alike is to dye their weapons dark colors. It’s not done so much for the sake of creativity or for intimidation factor though. It’s done because black things tend to be very hard to keep track of in the dead of night.

  I had just enough time to draw my wand and will my blade of hard arcana to life before the nearly invisible edge of the assassin’s blade struck. Completely off guard, I back pedaled and parried left and right, desperately trying to break off the offensive.

  No such luck. The assassin fought like a man possessed, every cut punctuated by a shout or scream. With my back striking a concrete wall, I had just enough breathing room to realize I’d been cornered, and just enough sense to counter attack like my life depended on it.

  Probably because my life did depend on it.

  My battle cry caught the figure off guard and my wand-sword caught the flesh of his forearm before he could defend. Shaken from the ferocity of my attack, the assassin did not stir from his stance, just out of reach of my own blade.

  I made a mental not to thank Lis for those lessons in fencing.

  Blade pointed squarely at his chest, I gripped the handle and prepared to impale him at a moment’s notice should he decide to get reckless again.

  “Filth,” the figure spoke, a teen’s voice. “Servant of monsters. Nothing could have saved your master, lying broken on the cold concrete.”

  His voice was stained with malice and contempt. A deep seething hatred.

  When the clouds parted from the moon, I caught my first glimpse of just whose ass I was going to shred to ribbons.

  He was shorter than me by about almost a foot. His hair reached past his shoulders and was totally unkempt. He was wearing a a baggy black clothing and his eyes were big and empty. He looked far too young to be a killer.

  “Is that supposed to make me upset or something? Are you even old enough to drink?” I asked.

  “Rust on my blade. That’s all you’ll be,” he whispered before charging at me once more.

  I had him now. Bracing my wrist, I drove my point forward with deadly accuracy only to strike empty air. With lightning speed, the assassin had evaded my stab, pushed my sword to the side, and leveled a deadly swing right at my throat.

  Heat swam to my throat as I felt a line of blood seep from the narrow miss. Too fast. If I didn’t think of something quick, I’d be overwhelmed in short order.

  I stopped the next blow that came at me, fast and low, and threw out a kick that forced him to give up space. Another lightning fast exchange and I landed a glance blow on his chest.

  He didn’t seem to mind in the least. If anything the blow brought a mad smile onto his lips, his eyes widening as he threw himself into another all out attack.

  This time I was ready. Out came my pistol, and three shots rang out, hitting absolutely nothing. Have you ever tried aiming a gun in the middle of the night, trying to hit a small, nimble, and black clad man? At this point, though, I was beginning to run out of options.

  Under cover of a long shadow, born from a towering building to my left, the assassin leaped out to strike, catching my wand sword on his cross hilt and swiftly disarming me.

  My stark white wand, now inert without me feeding magic into it, fell like a twig to the side, maddeningly out of reach.

  The jewel was my last chance. If I timed it just right, I could throw the bastard off his game and make a come back.

  Another evasion. I replied to the near miss of his black blade with another gun shot. Empty air. Before I could think of how to position the tide jewel to take a blow from the nearly invisible katana, he finally got me.

  Right down the middle. A clean slice. The first thing you feel is a numb warmth, mild wetness from the oozing blood, and then pain you try very hard to ignore. It wasn’t the first blade cut I’d taken. But I was starting to think it might be my last.

  The wound felt cold. My breath caught in my throat and my sight swam before me. Only slowly did I realized I’d fallen down. I could see my chest heaving for breath as the cold spread.

  The assassin grinned wide, his big, hollow eyes glued to me as he walked up to me slowly, reveling in his victory. When I aimed my gun at him, he chuckled.

  He was right to do so. My grip was weak now, and was shaking harder than a professional belly dancer.

  “I am the Demon Slayer, you pathetic thrall. And I am the one that’s going to kill you.”

  “Bit of advice,” I managed through clenched teeth. “Gloating is bad for your health, tough guy.”

  I turned my gun towards the tide jewel at the last minute and fired a round into it. As I felt the latent magics prepare to unleash a torrent of aquamancy, I aimed the jewel right at the Demon Slayer.

  The assassin’s eyes widened as a blast of water erupted from the jewel. Just as the water struck him though, he turned with the flow and with a sweep of his sword’s scabbard, knocked the watery jewel out of my hand. My heart fell into the pit of my stomach.

  It was all over but the eulogy. The assassin reversed the grip on his katana and pointed it right at my chest.

  In the span of a split second, three things happened in a blur of action. The assassin sucked in a breath, he leaped away from me as far as his mortal legs could carry him, and a crescent arc of dull crimson left a heavy wound on his arm.

  Where certain death stood moments ago, now stood the swordsman from before. Demonic mask and all.

  My would be killer must have sensed things were beginning to go awry for him, because with a hateful shriek he threw himself at his new opponent. Unfortunately, his own defensive leap proved to be what sealed the deal. By th
e time the assassin closed the distance, my savior had reversed the grip on his red blade and promptly buried it into the asphalt.

  I felt a dim rumbling reverberate through the ground. As though zealous and eager, dark ripples appeared in the ground. From the torn asphalt rose horned and leering skeletons. At least a dozen in total.

  Gnashing tooth on tooth, the Demon Slayer, cursed spectacularly, turned tail, and fled.

  “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” I managed to groan as the swordsman turned around. Eyes peered past the monstrous mask eerily. “Tonight’s just not my night. Finish it.”

  I felt consciousness ebb. Enveloping cold was giving way to an abyssal embrace I would never wake from. And still no final blow came.

  Funny how blood loss plays tricks with you. I could have sworn I felt a woman press her chest onto me before I blacked out completely.

  Chapter 11

  “Charles. There you are,” my mother said.

  She was wearing sunglasses and the bleeding edge of nouveau riche fashion. In her left hand she held her cell phone and a no fat latte in her right. I didn’t bother responding.

  “Where have you been? I was worried sick about you,” she added.

  For irony purposes.

  “I’m fine,” I muttered.

  “Well, you may be fine,” she began in a huff of indignation, “but my phone practically blew up with calls from the private school. You haven’t shown up in weeks. No wonder they expelled you.”

  If it weren’t for them calling your phone you wouldn’t have even noticed. Thanks for asking about why I haven’t been attending, Mom.

  I shuddered in remembrance. Vicky, my girlfriend, used me. Nearly made me a sacrificial lamb. But it was coming into contact with a infernal power that stuck the most to me. It had sickened me. Hell, I still felt sick! The weight of my sin and the stain of my would-be sacrificer’s ashes still clung to me, wouldn’t come off no matter how raw I scrubbed my skin.

  Damaged goods. Damned. I might as well end it all now and get a head start on the whole burning in Hell thing.