“I’m a bit of a critic. I used to write reviews for the local paper even, but it’s pretty good…” Diamond grinned. “Maybe a little far-fetched, though.”
“Far-fetched?” Sure, he embellished his life a bit, what writer didn’t? But for the most part, that was how it had really happened. He’d always had the wanderlust. Ironically enough, the only thing that had ever got him to settle down was meeting the right woman, and it just so happened she’d turned out to be a member of a magical secret society. “Says a guy who’s about to fight the whole Imperium in order to defend the world from a magic-eating outer-space monster.”
“Oh, not the adventure parts, or the cattle drive, or the auto racing, or the bare-knuckle boxing, or the logging, or the panning for gold in Alaska, or the big-game hunting on the savannah. Those I can buy. It’s the chapter where you went looking for sunken treasure wrecks around the South Pacific that tests my suspension of disbelief.”
“Nope. All true.” Lance smiled, thinking back, good times. He’d learned how to use an atmospheric diving suit and had walked on the bottom of the sea. He’d even used his Power to play with the sharks. “Every last word of it, completely truthful.”
“The ladies really don’t wear any clothes there?”
“Hardly a bit. Just little skirts made out of grass.”
Diamond went back to the book. “Well, how about that? And all these years I’ve been working for the society in boring old America, I’ve been missing out.”
Lance rolled over on the hard mat which served as his bed. “You Pittsburgh boys lost a man back at the North Pole, didn’t you?”
“Our Healer. Heck of a thing…” Diamond sighed. “You know how it goes.”
“Sure do…” Lance muttered. “Damn sure do.”
A piece of paper floated up from the ground and landed in the book. Page marked, the book closed itself, and then drifted to the ground. Diamond took off his glasses and rubbed his face. “You know what? You’ve inspired me, Lance. When this job is done, I’m moving to someplace warm and filled with beautiful, young dancing girls who don’t wear hardly any clothes.”
“Fiji was pretty nice.”
“Fiji? Naw… I’m moving to Las Vegas. They made gambling legal there a couple years back. Just imagine how much money a telekinetic can make playing suckers at the roulette tables. I’ll build a casino and social club with the winnings.” Diamond waved one hand through the air as if he was taking in the majesty of it all. “I’ll call it ‘Diamond Steve’s.’”
“License to print money,” Lance agreed.
“Beats being a book reviewer.”
Lance laughed. “Hell, it beats being whatever it is I am now.”
And then a ninja appeared in front of Lance and stabbed him in the chest with a sword.
Chapter 16
It has long been my philosophy that magic comes with a price.
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.