Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“W-who are you?”
The Death Guardian’s voice went low. "We need your blood."
Deja's hands shook. "O-kay."
“And you will need to make another decision.”
“What is it?”
The Death Guardian turned her hooded face to me. "You should leave."
"I'm not going anywhere." I took a step forward. “Deja doesn’t need to sacrifice. No more. . .babies—”
“Tora, don’t worry. This will be different—”
“I’m not leaving Deja’s side—”
"They will need their privacy when he returns."
Privacy?
My mind went sideways for one full breath.
Is this about to get sexual or something?
I let out a long sigh. “Deja, I’ll be in the hallway.”
Deja nodded. “Okay.”
“Thank you, Tora.” The Death Guardian nodded. "Also. . .when the Dragon returns. . .please let him know that Yoichi must rest for thirty days before returning."
I trembled. "But. . .Yoichi is okay?"
"Yes, Tora."
"And Rin will be fine?"
"Yes. Goodnight, Tora."
That goodnight shut the door on my further participation.
“Follow me, Deja.” The Death Guardian turned and walked back toward the ring without waiting to see if I'd obey her.
Deja followed her.
Another Silent One came out of the shadows of the courtyard. “This way, Tora.”
Damn it. What’s Deja’s sacrifice?
I turned and headed off.
My guards moved with me.
Bamboo rustled within the distant sounds of the war.
I looked over my shoulder one more time.
The Red Silent Ones parted just enough.
Deja stepped into the ring. The moonlight made her face glow on one side.
She looked back at me once across the stones. Her eyes were wet. She wasn't crying, but she was holding those tears.
I held her look.
It’s going to be okay, Deja.
She turned to Rin on the ground.
The Silent Ones closed around her.
I turned my gaze back to the front.
My guard opened the door.
I stepped back into the building, and it was right then that I remembered why that Vicky name sounded familiar.
Wait a minute. Vicky Jamison. That’s the little girl.
I had done an interview years ago with this officer in a precinct that smelled like burnt coffee. He'd been telling me about an empty commercial building in Brooklyn where they'd found a pimp dead on the floor.
His name had been Dorian. Two shots had killed him. One in the crotch. One in the forehead.
The officer had said it like he was a little impressed.
I hadn’t really cared about the whole murder even though the police were on top of it.
The trafficking ring had been the actual story. This Dorian had been hired by some powerful men to move Black girls out of New York through the sewer system to outlets in other cities.
The officer had walked me through the maps and the names of the girls they'd found.
And one name had stayed with me long after the story ran.
Vicky Jamison. Ten years old.
So excited to get this out to the public, I had brought the story to my paper. My editor had said it wasn't important enough.
Later, I had pitched it to three more outlets before someone finally ran it. I'd taken the byline at a tenth of what the original paper would have paid, just to get the names out where someone could read them.
However, the next day. . .that outlet went bankrupt and was closed. Some powerful men had made some calls to get it shut down.
I spent months trying to discover who. . .but nothing ever came up except dead witnesses and empty buildings.
They’d covered everything up.
But, at least Deja killed the pimp helping them. Fuck. . .that was the third Betty Boop shooting.
Chapter twenty-two
Tiger Eyes
Hiro
As the plane headed back to the island, Kenji held me and I stared up at the twins’ ghosts.
Like when they were alive, they stood together in the red emergency light at the edge of the crates, side by side. Aki on the left. Yuki on the right. Seeing them stand there, whole and easy, was a hand closing around my windpipe.
Even odder, they were not in their battle gear and didn’t have their kitsune masks.
Instead, they wore the clothes from the Claws party. Identical shirts made from layers of horizontal pearl chains. They gave me peeks of their muscular chests and arms. They had on those same razor-tailored black pinstripe trousers that echoed the 1920s with black polished shoes. Matching diamond gold watches covered their wrists as diamond studs decorated each ear.
Even their hair was the same from the party. Matching waves. Glossy and sculpted tight to the head with pearl barrettes layered through a few waves.
It was cruel that their ghosts had come back to me exactly as they had been on the best night of their lives.
They looked exactly the same. . .except for the wounds.
Aki carried his at the throat, a dark bloodied hole sitting under all that glitter and pearl. Yuki carried his wound at the side of the head, above the ear, the same place I had watched him press the gun.
The party clothes said one thing. The wounds said another. Both things were true at once, and that was the brutal agony of this moment.