Back in Japan at Last

Midoriko had to go. She had to get away from them before they moved her somewhere else. Midoriko couldn’t wait for anyone else to help her–she had to help herself by any means necessary.

They say when you’re kidnapped, your chances of survival plummet if you’re brought to a second location. Considering how she had arrived here, Midoriko maintained a cognitive dissonance that she at least had a chance of escaping from this place. But a second or third or fourth location? To what end would this man, who could drag her anywhere in the world that he wanted, keep her captive?

She layered on the luxury clothes she’d received from Westbrook, putting on as many as she could. They were things she could always sell in a pinch, and her utilitarian purse was too small to stuff them into.

Midoriko heard the sound of doors opening and closing in the hallway. When the coast was clear, she darted down the stairs.

She’d learned on that first day that she couldn’t just rush out the front door–whether through magic or human physical prowess, Westbrook was fast. No, this time Midoriko was thinking rationally. To escape, she had to create a diversion.

Midoriko hurried into the kitchen and lit the gas stove. She constantly looked over her shoulder as she moved. With the stove lit to its highest flame, Midoriko threw a kitchen towel into it, ensuring that the flame wasn’t completely smothered by the towel. She wanted it to catch on fire, not snuff it out and fill the house with gas–though that option wasn’t terrible either.

She heard the sound of doors opening and closing upstairs once more. Her heart beat hard in her chest. Come on, come on! She urged the towel to catch fire.

As it started to smoke and burn, Midoriko flung open the kitchen door and fled into the garden.

Did the house have smoke detectors? She hadn’t even thought to check that beforehand. Midoriko was at least sure it didn’t have sprinklers with the structure being as old as it was.

Don’t look back. Just keep running.

The ground was still damp and slick from the on-and-off rain ubiquitous to the British Isles. As Midoriko sprinted full-speed across the lawn, she slid. She was moving too fast to maintain her footing and fell onto the cold, wet ground.

Shit! Every slip and misstep just slowed her down even more. Panting, Midoriko looked back toward the house–the coast was still clear.

Steadying her breath and her trembling legs, Midoriko pulled herself to her feet. But before she could start running again, a bag was forced over her head.

***

Westbrook calmly packed up his ledgers. If it were Interpol sniffing around, he couldn’t leave any sort of paper trail behind. But if it’s someone else…

He looked around his study at the collection. The woman, having been properly trained in a museum, had been organizing everything so neatly as she worked through the project he’d assigned.

“I’ve stolen from dictators and the worst criminals you can imagine.”

He had so many enemies.

Westbrook clicked his tongue and shook his head, continuing his packing and document disposal. He rubbed his eyes–they were starting to become irritated. Westbrook stopped what he was doing.

Why is it so hazy in here?

Right on cue, Xiǎomíng burst into the room.

“Master! Problem! The kitchen! It’s on fire!” he panted.

As the two of them rushed down the stairs to deal with that, they were met with a different kind of surprise.

Half a dozen bratva, and Suwa Midoriko with a burlap sack over her head, were crowded at the base of the stairs near the front door.

Xiǎomíng glanced nervously between Westbrook and the direction of the kitchen. He tried to move down the stairs, but Westbrook held out his hand to stop him. The boy covered the lower half of his face with his shirt, eyes watering.

“Brodny!” A stout, older man called out in English as he stepped forward. “Or should I call you Westbrook?”

Westbrook looked between the man and Midoriko, putting two and two together. There were two fires he had to put out, but which one was more dangerous?

“Boris! I’m surprised you recognize me with those decrepit eyes of yours,” Westbrook said, speaking Russian.

“I don’t! I’m shocked!” Boris responded in Russian. He laughed like it was a reunion between old friends. “I’m always surprised by these glamour tricks. But I can tell it’s you by the way you speak to me, you slick bastard.”

How much did they know? He had to tread extremely carefully. Boris was a normal guy, but Westbrook recognized that all the muscle he’d brought with him were sorcerers.

“While I’m impressed with your detective work, I’ll have to ask you to please give me a moment to deal with a personal emergency–”

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about your woman?” Boris interrupted, pushing Midoriko forward by the nape of her neck. He ripped the bag off her head.

Midoriko stared up at Westbrook with a mixture of anger and shame. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes pleading but fierce. How pitifully cute.

Westbrook couldn’t help but let out an amused sigh. The fire, her clothes streaked with mud, and now a bratva thug holding her purse while she was bound at the wrists. He could easily guess the order of events.

“To think that the sneaky thief, Zapad Brodny, was actually just the simple alias of a fancy Englishman named Royce Westbrook,” Boris continued, shaking his head. “Sitting pretty with an Asian bride in the countryside this whole time.”

“Oh? My bride? So you came all the way here to congratulate me?” he replied with sarcasm, feigning a smile. For now, he had to stay composed. Brodny was compromised, and now Westbrook, but they only knew this much. Good. He still had the upper hand.

“Or maybe she doesn’t mean much to you? Our brother here says you kidnapped her!” Boris patted one of his sorcerers, Ivan Somethingorother, on the back. He let out a hearty laugh, followed by some coughs. It was getting really smoky in there.

“She actually is quite special. As I’m sure you’ve realized, given that you’ve zip-tied her hands…” Westbrook’s fingers twitched as he began sneakily melting the soles of the shoes being worn by the now wheezing and hacking men. All he’d need was an opening.

“That’s…right! I know…what she is!” Boris wheezed. He pushed Midoriko into a bow as he violently coughed. “I’m gonna…cough…kill you…cough cough…and take everything!”

BOOM–!

The shock of the gas explosion knocked everyone except Westbrook and Xiǎomíng to their feet. As the kitchen exploded into a raging inferno, smoke and heat filled the house. The Russians shouted curses as they tried to pull themselves together.

Westbrook gave a nod to Xiǎomíng, who then covered his ears.

“Lie down!” Westbrook commanded in Russian.

Midoriko, disoriented from the explosion, watched as all of the men simultaneously collapsed onto the floor, unable to get up. They were like bugs stuck in a glue trap.

Westbrook pulled her to her feet. She felt something like a puff of air as the zip-ties binding her were cut, freeing her wrists. Midoriko had no idea what was going on–they had all been speaking Russian the whole time–but she knew the situation was dire. She had known she was in trouble from the moment those men captured her outside.

“Не дайте нейтрализатору ускользнуть!”

There was that word again. Neytralizat-something. What did it mean?

She felt Westbrook pull her towards the stairs. “Wait! My bag!”

Midoriko tried to pull herself away from him to pick up her purse, which now lay on the floor near the tangle of men, but Westbrook strengthened his grip on her arm.

“There’s no time!” he shouted, dragging her up the stairs with him.

The Russians were now breaking free from the spell, barking words at each other that seemed to force the target to move.

Westbrook passed Midoriko off to Xiǎomíng, who ushered her up the stairs.

“Why are we going up?!” she shouted.

“Just trust us!” Xiǎomíng urged as he pulled talismans out of his pockets, sticking them to the walls and stairs to form an emergency barrier.

Midoriko looked behind her to see the Russians trying to advance. Their shoes seemed to stick to the floor and fall apart as they moved. Westbrook moved up the stairs backwards, producing gusts of wind to blow the men back in waves.

One of the Russians conjured ice on the stairs, which quickly melted from the heat of the fire. At the top of the stairs, Midoriko stared in awe at this discovery. So it’s not just Westbrook–they can use magic too?

Having moved past the point of Xiǎomíng’s talismans, Westbrook changed his tactic from defense to a full-on retreat. He pushed Midoriko down the hall into the study.

After slamming the door, Westbrook grabbed two duffel bags and threw them at the feet of Midoriko and Xiǎomíng. “You two grab as much as you can! I’ll fortify the barrier!”

Midoriko followed Xiǎomíng’s lead as he started emptying shelves into the bag. Midoriko tried to quickly discern what items had curses, but the haze in the room made it impossible. She could only blindly grab things they hadn’t already sorted.

Westbrook hurried around the room with ink and a brush, drawing sigils on the walls, floors, bookshelves–any surface along the outer edges.

Outside of the room, they could hear banging on the doors and walls of the second floor alongside muffled shouts in Russian.

“Отступление! Отступление!”

Westbrook gathered up the folders and cases of documents he’d been packing up before everything went to shit. “Are you two ready?”

“Yes! Let’s go!” Xiǎomíng urged, struggling to zip up his bag of treasures.

Westbrook went to the closed door and knocked twice. Midoriko watched as he opened it to reveal a completely different room in a completely different house. Rays of sunlight stretched out across tatami mats. It was like something out of a movie.

Xiǎomíng hurried through the door first, throwing down the bag and collapsing onto the floor, coughing.

“Hurry!” Westbrook called, snapping Midoriko out of her trance.

“Ah! Right!” Midoriko slung the duffel bag, now heavy and full, over her shoulder. She started to move, but out of the corner of her eye, a familiar glow caught her attention.

The kīla! The whole damn reason she was in this mess!

Midoriko snatched the kīla off the desk. She clutched it to her chest as she ran through the open door.

As soon as she entered the room, the warmth of the sun and the grassy, fragrant smell of the tatami hit her. Midoriko felt all the strength leave her body as she collapsed next to Xiǎomíng, coughing and panting.

Westbrook threw his files into the room and slammed the now traditional-style sliding door shut behind him. Leaning his back against the door, he slid down to the floor.

“Welcome…back to Japan…Miss Suwa,” he panted, loosening his tie.