Dim Sum Asylum(87)
“Roku?” It was good to hear her voice, and even better when she cursed at me. Despite the polish she’d slathered on herself, Jie was a guttersnipe at heart. “Get us out of here.”
“She’s not that important to you,” he murmured, sparing the shed a glance. “Nor the other one inside. Your grandfather’s whore.” I bristled, and his grin curled up, stretching for his ears. “Don’t pretend she is. You’ve distanced yourself from the Takahashi and his family for years now. It took everything I had to get your attention, and now that I have it, you won’t even engage. You’re right. I am dying, but I am going to finish the job I started years ago… wiping the Takahashi registry clean… starting with its heir.”
He lashed out, elongating his arms in a wild swing, snapping his shoulders forward to propel his body at me. His sleeves hid the blades he now held in his skeletal hands, his bony knuckles white from the effort of keeping his weapons gripped tightly. I ducked, letting the old fae pass over me, but he twisted, slicing at my face. The tip of a blade caught on my skin, tearing a slender line along my jaw. My blood was hot compared to the cold drizzle hitting my face, and I whispered an enchantment I’d learned from my mother when I could barely reach our dining room table.
Trent’s gun lay heavy in my hand, and I couldn’t risk losing my grip on it to wipe away the trickle coursing down my face. The cut stung, a tickling sear beginning to creep along the length of the slice. There was something on the old man’s blades, something deadly he’d hoped would make it easier to kill me.
He was going to be sadly disappointed.
“Someone taught you to counter poisons!” He cackled, clapping his hands and striking his blades’ hilts together. “Has the Takahashi been schooling you in private? Has this show of defiance you’ve made all this time been just that? A show? Is he hiding you in plain sight, sprog? Protecting you from your relatives as you gather power—”
I hauled off and punched him. Switched Trent’s gun into my other hand, made a fist, and plowed it into his enormous hooked nose, happy to hear it crunch beneath the force of my knuckles striking his skull. He staggered back, spitting blood onto the grass, and I followed through with a strike across his jaw, using the gun hilt in my off hand to weigh down the hit.
He recovered quickly enough, bringing his knives up and charging, murder lighting up the green in his eyes. The old assassin was ravenous in his hunger, his emotions running high, splotching his cheeks with a flush of red. He was aroused by the death he’d been promising himself, and while I had no intention of falling to his greed, he kept pushing me back with a furious dance of blades.
I countered as best I could, hampered by Trent’s gun, and for a brief insane moment I considered tossing it away before reason took back over. The need to hurt him was fierce. He’d killed innocent people for no reason other than to feed an ego already destined for Hell. The temper I’d been given by my Scottish mother surged, nearly overwhelming me, and I fought it back as furiously as I did to keep the old fae from stabbing me.
Punching at his arms, I tried to get him to drop his weapons, but he deflected my blows with an easy shift of his torso, taking himself out of reach. Panting, he struggled to find an opening, but when I landed a solid blow to his chest, he began coughing, black sputum speckling his lips when he shuffled back to get out of my reach.
“I shouldn’t have let this go for so long. I should have killed you when you lay in your crib,” he ground out, spitting another thick, gelatinous blob at my feet. “I counted on your mother to keep you from becoming one of them. Instead she let herself get killed, and you turned into their pawn.”
“Don’t even talk about my mother,” I growled, bringing Trent’s gun back up. “Last chance. Get down—”
“Kill him, Roku.” My grandfather’s cold voice cut through the clearing, and the assassin stiffened, his wings alert and spread, mantling with emotion. “Warning him will do no good. Nothing will stop this one except for death.” Carefully walking the last few steps down, Takahashi nodded at the red-starred fae. “You think you can destroy my family? My legacy? I should kill you myself.”
“Sofu.” I put as much warning into my voice as I could. He was less of a surprise than the assassin. Some part of me knew he’d show. Even when he’d half ordered me into the compound, I knew he’d be lurking in the shadows. It was what he did, curl up in the darkness like a snake waiting to strike at the first warm thing it felt. “Leave this to me. I’m taking him in.”
“Do you know who this is? This is the Kodama’s tou—their knife, their blade—although I suppose now, you are their toushi, nothing more than a letter opener.” Takahashi’s lip curled up, disdain turning his face ugly and mean. “This… man… has been killing our family for centuries, picking us off whenever we cross his path. And in turn, we would slaughter every Kodama we came across.”
“In turn? It was your family who began this. I am merely ending it.” The old fae gave Takahashi a mocking bow, seemingly undisturbed by the gun I held on him. “The Takahashi are vermin, roaches to be crushed beneath our feet. I’ve served five Kodama clan heads in my life, all determined to extinguish the Takahashi. I see no reason to change my vow simply because this one is now too weak to follow through.”