Matsuoka turned when he heard the gurgling noise. Shadow Guard Hayate had reappeared right next to Pang. The hilt of a dagger was protruding from the intersection of Pang’s jaw and throat. Blood gushed out of the obviously fatal wound. Pang was surprised and couldn’t even make a noise, but the traitor did have some fight in him after all. He surged his Brute magic and took a wild swing at Hayate, who simply Traveled out of the way, appeared on the other side of the Brute, raised one foot, kicked Pang in the ass, and sent him over the side. He fell over the railing with a splash, where he thrashed for a moment before sinking into the dark water.
“Save your gold.” Hayate went to the chest and carefully closed the lid. He walked back to Matsuoka and leaned against the rail. “We are fighting Grimnoir tonight, so expect casualties. You may divide this gold between the families of your men who perish.”
Matsuoka bowed. “That is very kind of you, Shadow Guard.”
Hayate looked at him with heavy-lidded grey eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. “That is because I am a very kind man.”
They kept a few boats stashed in the flooded first floor. Crumbling holes where the windows had been made for great hidden docks. Sullivan had been impressed by the Shanghai Grimnoir’s creativity.
Zhao was driving their little boat. He was the only one in view, standing in back, steering the small outboard motor. Lady Origami, Barns, and Sullivan were under the lifted tarp which served as a sort of tent-cabin. If they were accosted, Lady Origami was closest to the flap, because hopefully if anybody saw that there was a Nipponese passenger, the rest of them would be left alone.
Their little boat practically disappeared into the shadows of the massive freighters. It would take them a day to make it back to where the Traveler was hidden at this rate. It wasn’t going to be a fun trip, all crammed up beneath a tarp, especially since Barns had pulled his fedora down over his eyes and gone right to sleep. He hadn’t started yet, but Sullivan knew it was only a matter of time before Barns started talking in his sleep. Bunking together in the officers’ quarters had taught him that, but the sleep talking would be extra annoying on a tiny boat stuck under a tarp.
“It will be good to get back to the ship,” Lady Origami said. “I prefer to be in the air.”
“Not me. I’m all about being on the ground.”
“You are a Heavy.” She smiled. “Of course you like ground. I am a Torch. I am of fire and live in the sky, but now we are on water. However can we cope?” She gave him a wink, and when he returned it, she laughed.
Was she flirting with him again? He really wasn’t used to that. What a strange—
There was a thump. Zhao had just stamped on the boards to get their attention. “Quiet.”
Lady Origami put her ear next to the tarp. Sullivan did the same. There was a noise growing on the river. Engines. Big engines.
“Patrol boats,” Zhao hissed. “Many patrol boats.”
The Grimnoir had posted guards. They were not sufficient.
Hayate appeared behind the sentry. He was a local man. Young. Strong. Fit. With the build of a farmer or a worker. He had a Mauser rifle, slung over one shoulder, that he would never have the opportunity to use. Hayate struck so quickly that no reaction was possible. One hand over the mouth, other hand driving the blade into the spinal column and twisting until it was severed from the base of the brain. Near-instantaneous death. Hayate had lost track of how many times he had performed such a maneuver.
The Shadow Guard silently lowered the corpse to the floor. He had timed his attack for the exact moment when the sentry was passing through the deepest night. He scanned across the rooftops, noting a few brief flashes of movement as his men took down other sentries. Hayate scowled. He would reprimand the men for such sloppiness. Even though he could see in the dark with his grey eyes, the fact that he’d witnessed their sloppy takedowns meant that the act of seeing them at all had been briefly possible. Such a failure was unacceptable. He would personally reprimand them for such carelessness on such a vital assignment. And a Shadow Guard’s reprimand was usually extremely painful.
Waterboarding built character.
Hayate drew his short sword and waited. It was the preferred weapon of the Shadow Guard, small enough for close quarters, but sharp enough to remove a limb. It was not a fighting weapon. It was a killing weapon. Fighting was for the Iron Guard. Victory belonged to the Shadows.
The final rooftop sentry was visible for a moment, silhouetted against the city lights. He walked around a corner and simply did not reappear. There had been no sound. No sign of struggle. That pleased Hayate. That was how it should be done.
With the guards eliminated, now the real test began. They would take their time and search for inscribed spells of warning. The Grimnoir excelled at such things. Then the Shadow Guard would enter the apartment and begin killing. It would be a race to see how many lives they could end before the alarm was raised.
Hayate froze. The sound of a motor began far below, and a small boat appeared from beneath one of the rusting overhangs, leaving a white wake through the muck floating on top of the water. The timing was unfortunate, as that meant someone had just slipped his grasp.
Major Matsuoka would have to pick them up with his patrol boats. The small boat did not matter, as long as it wasn’t Toru. The life of Tokugawa Toru belonged to one of his thousand brothers. Tokugawa Hayate intended to take that life tonight.
Lance Talon had been having a hard time going to sleep. He’d taken his boots off, but was still dressed, lying on a shitty mat in a shitty apartment building, wired from too much coffee and too much dwelling on the insurmountable task before them to even begin feeling tired. Maybe it was the excitement of being in a foreign city again. After all, he had been an accomplished world traveler in his youth. Maybe it was the idea of striking such a wild blow against the Imperium, which had murdered his family. Maybe it was because deep back in the recesses of his mind, he knew that this time they’d bitten off more than they could chew, and they probably wouldn’t make it out of crashing this particular party. Whatever it was, Lance couldn’t sleep.
Neither could Diamond, apparently. The Mover was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the big room, reading a skinny paperback book. Since they were in the middle of the building and the windows had been covered, it was safe to have a little light, and Diamond had opened the shutters on an oil lamp just a crack.
“Hey, Diamond.”
The Mover looked up and pushed his glasses back on his nose. “Am I keeping you up? I can kill the light.”
“Naw… Can’t sleep. What’re you reading?”
Diamond chuckled and held it up. “Believe it or not, it’s one of your adventure books.”
Lance immediately recognized the cover. It was a hunter about to get run down by an elephant stampede, and even though that had never actually happened to him, and the scene wasn’t even in the book at all, that exciting cover sure had helped sell a lot of copies when it had first come out. “No shit? How about that?”
“I found it on the Traveler.”
Somebody must have brought it along as a joke. That often happened when Lance ended up working with unfamiliar Grimnoir. At some point, usually over dinner, with a big crowd, somebody would make a big deal about getting his autograph, and everybody would have a good laugh. It wasn’t like any of the knights ever actually read it. “What do you think of it?”