By the Sword

  The Order of the Kakureta Kao was, in almost every sense, extinct. Only he survived to exact vengeance. He could go below and slay many of them, but they would overcome him and the Kickers would go on.

  But not if their leader died.

  He knew Hank Thompson lived below. A Black Wind starting here would kill everyone in the building, and in the buildings for many blocks around. Shiro’s head had been injured, but his body remained strong. He would take a long time dying, and the longer he held on, the greater and stronger his Kuroikaze. It might spread for a mile or more.

  He realized then that no one in the world would ever forget tonight. The Trade Towers’ death toll would pale before Shiro’s Black Wind. And all would know it began here, with the Kickers. They would be shunned and reviled and hounded across the land.

  An eye for an eye, brothers for brothers.

  His fear faded. He titled the vial to his lips and downed the ekizu in one bitter gulp. Then he lay back and waited.

  It took effect more quickly than he’d expected. In a matter of seconds he felt his skin begin to tingle as the extract coursed through his capillaries. Then the tingling faded, replaced by no sensation at all. He no longer felt the roof beneath him. He could have been floating a few inches above it—naked, because he could not feel the clothes against his skin, nor the saliva against his tongue. Did he still have saliva?

  The carbon monoxide tang of the air faded along with the sight of the stars and the incessant Manhattan rumble.

  He spread his arms—or at least tried to. Did he even have arms? Or a body?

  Shiro began to tumble through an endless, featureless void with no up or down or left or right. Panicked by the perfect disorientation, he screamed. Or tried to. He had become pure consciousness in a starless cosmos without light or matter, a black, seething chaos without form or substance.

  And then something ahead, faintly luminous, coming his way…or was it stationary and he approaching it? Without asking how he could see without eyes, his crumbling mind grasped at it, clung to it as the only reference point in this endless void.

  As he neared, it started to take form…slowly he began to make out its shape…and when finally its features became clear…he did not understand what he was seeing…and as his consciousness tried to comprehend the incomprehensible…

  …it shattered.

  12

  Jack led Glaeken up to the roof across the street from the Lodge. He felt stained by the carnage they’d left behind, and wanted to shower. He knew the residue lay beneath his skin and had no illusions that he could wash it off, but a cleansing ritual couldn’t hurt.

  He felt bad about Yoshio’s brother—didn’t even know his name. His death had been so unnecessary. And then again, maybe not. In retrospect it almost seemed as if he were playing a role in a tragedy that could end only one way.

  They arrived in time to see four Kickers wandering around their rooftop.

  “Wonder what they’re looking for?” Jack said. When Veilleur, standing stiffly beside him, didn’t answer, he nudged him. “You with us?”

  “He’s near.”

  “Who?”

  “The Adversary. I thought I sensed him at the Kakureta Kao building, but with all the chaos around us I couldn’t be sure. But here, now, in the quiet, I can feel him.”

  “Where?”

  “Down there somewhere, no more than a block away, I’d say.”

  As Jack scanned the street below, not sure what he was looking for, a question formed.

  “If you can sense him, can’t he sense you?”

  Veilleur shook his head. “I think he has a vague sense of where I am. I’m sure he knows I’m in New York City, but nothing more specific than that. I’m not who or what I used to be, you know. To him, for the most part, I’m simply another mortal.”

  “Why would he have been on Staten Island?”

  “To sup on the slaughter. He feeds on death and fear and human carnage.”

  “And misery. Yeah, I know.”

  He remembered his last meeting with Rasalom, back in January, when he was feeding on Jack’s misery and despair.

  “He certainly feasted tonight, but I wonder…”

  “What?”

  “Might he have been there because of Dawn as well?”

  Jack thought on that, but it didn’t gel.

  “He’s already holding most of the marbles. What good can Dawn and her baby do for him?”

  “I can’t imagine. Perhaps I’m wrong.”

  “You wrong often?”

  Veilleur shrugged. “It happens.”

  Jack watched the Kickers on the roof mill around some, then three of them left. The remaining one seemed to be playing guard, but without much gusto. Jack trained his attention on Hank Thompson’s window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dawn as he had before.

  Movement on the roof drew his attention there in time to see a dark figure slip from the shadows and slit the throat of the Kicker on guard.

  “Did you catch that?”

  Veilleur nodded. “One of the Kakureta Kao, I’d guess. I didn’t think there were any left.”

  The figure seated himself in the center of the roof, drank something, and lay back.

  “What’s he up to?”

  “Kuroikaze!” Veilleur grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. “He’s sacrificing himself to create a Black Wind! This explains the Adversary’s presence. He must have known this was coming.”

  “Well, if it kills everything, even bacteria, won’t it kill him too?”

  “Kill him? He’ll suck it in. Depending on how far it spreads, he’ll feed as he’s never fed before. The fear, the misery, the hopelessness a Kuroikaze engenders will bloat him, but the aftermath…” He shook his head. “Remember the panic in the city after nine-eleven? This will be much worse. The Kuroikaze will be called a terrorist attack—and believe me, more than three thousand will die tonight—and since no one will know what caused it, no one will know how to defend against it. Homeland Security will look useless. Imagine the terror. Imagine the Adversary’s joy.” He turned to Jack. “You’ve got to stop that shoten.”

  “Me? How? I don’t exactly have a sniper rifle handy, and that’s one hell of a pistol shot from here.”

  “Then you’ll have to go over there.”

  “Swell.”

  “I’d go myself, but I’m no longer up to it.”

  “Okay, let’s just say I get there. How do I stop it?”

  Veilleur looked at him. “There’s only one way to stop a Kuroikaze: kill the shoten—the focus.”

  Jack nodded toward the rooftop. “Him?”

  “Him.”

  Jack didn’t feature entering that place and fighting his way to the roof for nothing.

  “We don’t even know if there’s even going to be a Black Wind.”

  The words had no sooner passed his lips when something changed in the air above the Lodge.

  A shadow had formed. No, shadow wasn’t right. More like a cloud…a black cloud the size of a stretch limo, lying low and flat atop the roof. The blackest cloud Jack had ever seen, a black like no cloud should be, twisting and contorting as if boiling from within as it expanded. It had doubled in length since he’d spotted it and continued to grow as he watched.

  Jack felt his saliva dry as every neuron in the self-preservation centers of his brain screamed at him to run.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “I’ve never seen one,” Veilleur said, “only heard about them. But I can’t imagine it being anything else.”

  The space around the Lodge darkened as the cloud seemed to be sucking the light from the air. Jack didn’t know if it was real or imagined, but he thought he could see faintly glowing wisps of light streaming toward the ever-enlarging cloud.

  The cloud now overhung the entire Lodge, rising as it continued to expand.

  “The Kickers inside are beginning to feel the wind and its effects by now, losing strength, losing hope, losing the will to live. And s
oon they will simply stop living.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “It’s a holdover from the First Age—Otherness inspired. You can read about it in the Compendium of Srem. But right now that cloud is going to keep expanding, and the winds will expand with it, until the shoten himself dies.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Depends on the vitality of the shoten. With a strong young man such as we just saw…long enough for the winds to reach Sutton Square and beyond.”

  The words jolted Jack. “You’re a bastard, you know that.”

  “Only stating a fact.”

  Jack looked again at the cloud, feeling every instinct begging him not to go there.

  “I’d better get moving then.”

  “Yes. And quickly. Keep moving as fast as you can. It’s called The-Wind-That-Bends-Not-the-Trees. Legend says it blows through the human soul. It’s felt only by humans, but it sucks the life from everything. First it robs your resolve, steals any hope of success, stifles your will to go on, to live. Be prepared for that and fight it.”

  As Jack turned to go, wondering how he was going to pull this off, Veilleur thrust the katana at him.

  “Take this.”

  Jack patted the Glock at the small of his back. “I’m okay.”

  Veilleur pushed it on him. “You may need it.”

  Jack couldn’t see a downside so he grabbed it and ran.

  13

  “Did the lights just fade?” Darryl said.

  Hank looked up, annoyed. Couldn’t Darryl ever keep quiet?

  “Looks the same to me.”

  He felt like crap. So crappy he couldn’t muster the will to do much of anything. Not even sleep, though he was dead on his feet.

  Somehow he and Darryl had wound up back in the basement. Neither had spoken much, just sat and stared at the wall or the floor or the backs of their eyelids. He was staring at the floor now and thinking.

  Sometime during the next day, probably less, someone was going to discover that bloodbath on Staten Island, and thirty-some of his guys, most of them with Kicker tattoos, would be found among the bodies. The police and the media would want answers and they’d be all over him. He needed a story that would—

  The light dimmed.

  He looked up at Darryl, who said, “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that.”

  Hank nodded. “Probably some sort of brownout going—”

  A chill ran across his nape. He tried to shake it off but it turned to a prickling that moved across his shoulders and down his spine. The sudden breeze spread it all across his body.

  Breeze?

  Hank looked around. He hadn’t heard the door open. It wasn’t. It was closed tight. So where—?

  The breeze picked up as the light dimmed further.

  “Hank? What’s happening, Hank?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s this wind coming from?” He could hear terror edging into Darryl’s voice. “We’re in a basement, Hank. How do you get wind in a basement with no windows and the door closed?”

  The light kept dimming. The overhead bulbs were burning but something seemed to be eating the light out of the air. And the wind—the wind seemed to be coming out of the walls. It swirled around him, making him feel as if he was at the center of a miniature tornado.

  He glanced over at Darryl and saw him stagger to his feet. He held an arm across his face to shield his eyes from the blasts of air.

  And not clean air. It had a damp feel and carried a musty odor, as if it were blowing from the floor of a black abyss that had been sealed since the dawn of man.

  “I’m getting out of here.”

  Exactly what Hank was thinking. As he struggled to get up he spotted a pile of leftover Dawn flyers on a nearby table. The flyers should have been flying—swirling all around the room—but they simply sat there undisturbed.

  What the—?

  The light had faded to the point where he could barely make out Darryl. He watched him struggle toward the door against the wind and noticed his clothes weren’t blowing. They hung on him without a ripple.

  And then Darryl stopped fighting and dropped into a chair.

  Hank could barely hear him above the roar of this ghost wind, but it sounded like he said, “What’s the use?”

  Hank realized that was just how he felt. No use trying—anything. All was lost, all was hopeless, and it would all be over soon.

  Hank sat down to wait.

  14

  “Stop here, Georges.”

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  Dawn opened her eyes and totally panicked as memories of the night cascaded around her.

  Abducted by Kickers—Jerry’s brother—ninjas—eyeless, limbless, masked Japanese monks—

  But she was in the back of a car now, with two silhouetted figures in the front seat. It slowed to a stop on a dark city street. She recognized one of the voices.

  Mr. Osala?

  She tried to sit up but her body wouldn’t respond. Neither would her voice when she tried to speak. She could blink and move her eyes, but that was it. Whatever those monks had drugged her with was still working. How long before it wore off? What if it never wore off or left her permanently mute and totally paralyzed?

  Panic surged again. She wanted to scream but couldn’t even whimper.

  Above her she saw the moon roof sliding open. To her shock, the figure in the passenger seat, the one who sounded like Mr. Osala, rose and slid through onto the roof. She saw him stand and spread his feet as he positioned himself in front of the opening. He faced ahead and raised his arms like she’d seen some born-again Christians do when they prayed.

  But he didn’t seem to be praying.

  Dawn angled her gaze down and through the windshield and would have totally gasped if she could have. An ugly black cloud was spreading over the rooftops down the street. Whatever Mr. Osala was up to, it seemed to involve that cloud.

  15

  As soon as Jack hit the street, his skin began to prickle and tingle as if the air were full of static electricity. But it was full of wind instead—wind that seemed to come from all directions. He looked up and saw that the cloud was bigger than before, blocking the stars.

  Stifling a tsunami of nausea, he ran across the street and pulled his Glock as he dashed up the Lodge front steps, prepared to shoot his way through anyone who tried to stop him. The wind was even worse inside. The two Kickers who’d been watching the front area on his last trip were still there, but one lay slumped in a corner while the other sprawled in a chair. They looked up as he came through. The one in the chair started to raise a hand as if to stop him, but let it fall limp at his side. His eyes looked frightened, hopeless, lost.

  Jack started for the stairs at a run, but the cold, musty gale roaring from the stairwell slowed him. He had to holster his pistol and stick the katana through his belt, then put his head down and pull and claw his way up the steps.

  By the time he reached the second floor, he was tired. The wind seemed to be blowing through him as well as at him. As he forced his way toward the third floor, the blast increased its ferocity, but its roar changed to a heartbreaking moan of despair that brought tears to his eyes.

  By the third floor he was so tired he didn’t know if he could make it. In fact he doubted very much that he would make it. And so what if he didn’t? Wasn’t going to matter in the long run anyway.

  Veilleur’s words echoed through the wind.

  …it sucks the life from everything. First it robs your resolve, steals any hope of success, stifles your will to go on, to live…

  Was that what was happening here?

  He pulled out his Spyderco, flipped open the blade, and jabbed the point through his jeans and an inch into his thigh. He grunted with the pain, and then his breath whistled through his clenched teeth as he twisted the blade.

  Focusing on the pain, he started up the final flights to the roof. But even the pain couldn’t fully distract hi
m from the alien emotions swirling around him.

  Existence is empty, futile. Why go on? Why prolong it?

  He punched the wound in his thigh and gasped with the shock of pain.

  Yes, pain…pain is real, the only real thing, and it’s all around. Why suffer when you don’t have to?

  No…one step after another…after another…he forced himself to keep moving until he reached the roof door. He leaned hard against it, expecting resistance, but it fell open and he landed on his hands and knees.

  Of course. It’s felt only by humans…

  That was confirmed by the rooftop garden around him—not a single leaf so much as fluttered. But they were brown and drooping.

  He tried to regain his feet but found it impossible. The wind was colder and stronger than ever here, and he was too tired. Exhausted was more like it. Out of strength, out of will…

  Through a fog of ever-growing darkness he made out the so-called shoten lying on his back maybe thirty feet away. His jaw hung open and a slim, twisting, undulating wisp of blackness spun like a miniature tornado from his mouth to the roiling cloud high above.

  Thirty feet…might as well have been a mile. He’d never make it. Why even try?

  …enough for the winds to reach Sutton Square…

  Jack dragged himself forward, trying to ignore the dark emotions tugging on him, weighing him down…barren desolation…eternal, abysmal longing…infinite hopelessness…

  The pain in his leg no longer distracted him, but simply added to the misery seeping through him.

  Twenty-five feet…twenty…fifteen…

  What was he going to do when he reached the shoten?

  His Glock. All the misery swirling around him had driven it from his mind. He pulled it out, sighted on the shoten’s head, and pulled the trigger.

  He felt rather than heard the hammer hit home, but no report followed. Dead cartridge? Bad primer? He ejected it, took aim, and the same thing happened. Something wrong with the Glock? Hard to believe. The damn things were so reliable.