“Run, godsdammit! Just leave me and go!”
She looked at him then, the wolves closing in, and despite everything he’d done, everything he’d dragged them into, she found herself smiling.
“Blood is blood,” she said.
One of the Scorpion Children tried to grapple her, and she caught him full in the face with the hammer, splitting his brow and dropping him like a brick. But another seized her from behind, wrapped two arms around her in a crushing, breathless hug, lifting her off the ground as she screamed and kicked and thrashed. The others closed in, all crooked smiles and empty eyes.
… Hana . .!
A gray shape pounced from the shadows, dug in with dirty razors and ran up her captor’s legs. The yakuza howled and let her go, clutching at the spitting, hissing flurry of teeth and claws as Hana tumbled to the ground. He shrieked as Daken tore at his face, ripped his cheek and lips to shreds, yowling like an oni fresh from the Yomi gates. Hana crawled away from the yakuza, back toward the table. Hands seized her, tearing her hair as she screamed, a heavy weight bearing her to the ground.
… Hana . .!
She looked up and saw the bloodied yakuza seize Daken by the scruff, tearing him away in a spray of red and shaking him like a rag doll. She cried out as his hurt flowed into her, tearing muscle, popping bone. And as she watched, the man raised the cat high into the air and dashed him down onto the concrete.
Blinding pain, sending her reeling, fingernails clawing stone. Daken raised himself up, hissing, hurting, trying to crawl to safety.
… Hana …
And as Hana watched, the gangster lifted his foot, spat a curse and stomped on Daken’s head.
A scream. A scream of white pain and blackest hatred, a voice she didn’t recognize as her own roaring as his spark flickered and died in her mind. She lurched to her feet, tore at the hands holding her, eye fixed on Daken’s killer. But two other yakuza held her back, spitting, kicking as the grief tore her throat raw, Yoshi roaring with her, thrashing against his bonds.
She heard a heavy booming noise. A growling motor. Bubbling screams. Blades chopping at bags of wet mud, splashing and plopping onto the floor. The hands released her and she sank to the ground, stare fixed on the little gray smudge upon the stone. She crawled through the blood, tears running down scarlet cheeks, reaching out to run trembling fingers through that scarred and matted mess.
She remembered the mewling little handful of fur they’d pulled from the storm drain. Those big round eyes blinking up at her as she held him in her palm. The life they’d saved. The life that had saved theirs in return.
“Daken…” she whispered.
There were hands on her shoulders, pulling her up, and she turned and screamed and flailed. Arms wrapped around her, holding tight, and the voice roaring over her cries was telling her it was all right, it was all right now, hush, hush now Hana, it’s all right. The hands held her close, not hard, gentle and strong and warm. And over the rushing tide of the blood in her ears and the raw agony of loss, she finally recognized his voice.
Akihito …
She breathed his name, saw his face, grief plain in his eyes as he lowered her to the floor. He reached out with an unsteady hand, as if to smooth away the hurt where her left eye had been, fingers hovering just shy of her skin. And with tears in his eyes, he leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on her bloody brow, and simply held her. Wrapped his arms about her and squeezed tight, whole and unmoving, until the cacophony of flames and cries and engines in the distance became too loud to ignore.
Minutes passed. Or hours. She didn’t know which.
“I have to let you go,” he said.
“Don’t.” She held tighter.
“I’ll come back.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She released her grip, felt as if she were letting go of driftwood in a raging, spinning sea, sinking down, down, down into nothing. Akihito stood and cut Yoshi off the hook, sliced the tethers at his ankles. And between the pair of them, they helped Hana to her feet, led her limping from the warehouse, stepping out into a hymn of chaos and seething flame that seemed to come from underwater, muted and pulsing with faint light. The city around them trembled, burned, skies filled with smoke and the thunder of sky-ships and the rumble of a distant storm. But all of it seemed so far away; as distant and faint as the pain in her eye, the pain inside her where Daken used to be, all of it drifting up like sparks off the burning city’s skin and disappearing into the black above.
“Where are we going?” she asked with someone else’s voice.
“North,” Akihito said. “To the Iishi Mountains.”
“How will we get there?”
He squeezed her tight and the sound of his voice made her smile.
“We’re going to fly.”
53
PHOENIX FIRE