Blade Dancing in the Dark

Two thoughts popped into Kira’s head at the Lieutenant’s appearance, both coming half a moment too slow; her arm had already shot out faster than a bad idea, fingers stretched so suddenly the tendons voiced popping complaints.

One – when last Kira had seen the woman she’d been lying on the ground at angles incompatible with healthy rest. Both her and the Don. That the latter had been well enough to pay her a visit should have been evidence enough for the former’s continued wellbeing – and the ease with which any of his subordinates could find her again.

Two – she’d positioned herself between Kira and the door, cutting off the easiest route for escape.

A little dash of Haven’t seen your punk friend around yet, have you? to season. Three chopped pounds of the weapon hung heavy at her hip, tapping off the outside of her thigh within easy reach. Kira’s new partnership with Arata followed in a premade stock cube. Into the mind pot they went, timer set to boil. Soon she would taste realization.

As one flanged end of the weapon battered Kira’s hand aside, she decided its flavor was not to her liking. The window and a two-story fall called her name.

This appearance was not a courtesy call.

“Now, now. None of that,” the Lieutenant chided. She spun the weapon between dexterous fingers, twirling it like a baton, half-light catching the engraved sigildry on its haft, and the scars that adorned her hands with organic script. “Supposedly you and I are on the same side, or so the boss says.”

Against the apparatus at her belt, she pressed the weapon into place with a click. With the opposite motion of pulling a chainsaw’s ripcord, she thrust it forward to produce the telltale clank of a bullet feeding a chamber. A bolt being racked. Crumbles of iridescent dust fell out the weapon’s open end, trailing a cloud as she rested it against one muscular shoulder.

“Were you aware Arata is just outside going about his day? Judging from the direction you came, you might have passed him right by unmolested. Weird!”

Over Kira she held a full two heads’ worth of height, the same amount she had over the store associate peering from between two mannequins garbed in the season’s most delicate fashion, eyes pupiled golf balls, and nervously clicking nails into a white plastic thigh, mouth trembling.

With a nod and a swallow, she stepped out of cover. “Can I help y –”

The Lieutenant barely shifted. Movement blurred from behind her bulk, and the associate’s voice slammed exponentially higher as she was grabbed before being lifted from solid ground, carried away screaming atop bulky shoulders.

A door slammed. Following softly – the short click of a lock.

“As I was saying,” she continued – the manifestation now sat upon the counter, watching from a distance with empty eyes – as if the act of locking a woman in a supply closet was an everyday style of chore, “Arata. Is. Out. Side. There’s an agreement you’re meant to uphold, correct?”

Kira blinked dumbly: the image of deforming muscle, tank top, and unruly golden mane to produce new, independent flesh had short-circuited something in her brain. It resembled the Lieutenant from silhouette to wild blonde hair. The manifestation even wore the same clothing. “L…long con. I’m playing the long con. Just need a bit more time to figure out the crystal, and then I’ll take him.” She fished in her pocket for the Don’s broken talon, waving it. “See? I’m in on the plan still.”

Scowling, the Lieutenant blew out a long exhale, reeking of carcinogens. “Your job was to bring him the moment you two met.”

“I tried, but…”

“But what?” Those fingers were twitching on the weapon now. Kira tried to keep her mind off what unholy gong the weapon might sound like bouncing off her cheek. Closeness of threat was making lies difficult to form. Half-truths, even, were starting to lose her ground, and at this distance the Lieutenant would see right through them.

The truth, then.

“Arata’s been different since he got hold of the crystal. Whatever’s out there feels like an entirely different person than the one who heisted your artifact with me.”

“Half an artifact,” the Lieutenant corrected. “You brought us half an artifact and some change. And Arata’s always been an uppity little shit, especially when on the job.”

“Not like this. He’s aggressive, sure, and will relentlessly hit on you, but this one frightens me with how different he is, and I can’t pin down why except for the crystal influencing him. He won’t let me take it. Not even for one second will he let it out of his sight.” Kira stepped forward, the tone of desperation in her voice catching her off guard. Amber rattled against glass in her hands. “And if you want the rest of your artifact, then go find the van, because that box appearing shattered it into a million pieces and turned it into a pincushion.” Anger welled up inside her, and she had to keep a measured distance from the Lieutenant to avoid brushing against the woman.

Her neck throbbed with the venom in her words. Pins inside her vertebrae tangoed with one another, boots stomping down the nerves. Maybe that weapon would massage the pain right out, blow by blow by blow.

She was close enough to see clearly the flecks of brown in the Lieutenant’s emerald eyes, and to see them soften for the smallest moment before new emotions took hold.

“What do you mean ‘appeared?’”

“Well, the Falcons probably didn’t break their own goods intentionally, and the box was partway sitting in the van’s floor. If it were heavy enough for that then there was no way we could have carried it, but Arata brought the box out by himself.”

For the first time, the larger woman lowered her weapon, but she didn’t let go of it. Instead, she began to tap the flanged end against the side of her ankle. Another lock sounded from further off, and Kira noticed the manifestation had slid closed the doors to the store.

“You’re describing magic in relation to blackstone, something tested to be impossible. I’d call you a liar if I hadn’t seen the sigildry myself. Those weren’t decorative words that knocked us out down there.” She walked over to a table with laden with winter tops, took a seat upon a pile of sweaters.

Amber rattled as Kira practically leapt forward. “Did you see anything?”

The Lieutenant shrugged her shoulders. “Only the floor. Did you?”

“An old man on a stage.” His face appeared in her mind’s eye, and she shook her head to clear it away. “No one I recognized. Arata said he saw nothing, but I have a short supply of belief for him at the moment.”

“Good. Don’t.” The weapon thumped between the woman’s ankles. She leaned over to rest her weight on it, like a cane. “That crystal had been worked over with blackstone and sigils too. Given those words for blood written in – Arata’s blood, the trigger – I figure it was the catalyst for whatever you saw and whatever magic knocked us out.” She sighed. “All the more reason we need him brought in, and preferably in one piece. There’re too many unknowns here for us to be careless.”

Her eyes fell on the jar in Kira’s hands. “Amber part of his ritual?” When the girl’s face went pale, the blacksmith rolled her eyes. “He’s been at it drawing all day. Not exactly subtle to wielders with an eye for the craft. Only thing is, I can’t recall any ritual demanding that particular ingredient, and one so large at that. Nearly the entire crossing is within its boundaries.”

Kira nodded. “He said the node was as large as this building.”

“Sounds about right. So, what’s his plan?”

“Never told me anything, except that it would all be worth it.”

“You’re a bad liar, kid, and I was just starting to like you –”

“I honestly don’t think you’d believe me if I did tell.” Kira broke from the Lieutenant and let the jar of amber fill her vision. Gold – a color of hope. Light. Warmth of frigid winter passing into spring. She imagined herself there among the insects, trapped within that deathly chrysalis for all time to be studied, picked at, observed. Her body cracked open and exhumed with forceps; unzipped by scalpels under bright lights in a white room, a sterile god above taking her apart with his eyes in preparation for her true undoing. “But I don’t know what would become of me if I didn’t believe.”

“The Don’s made a good peace in the ward, kid. Don’t you go and mess that up for everyone.”

“Must be nice.” Arata’s words dripped from her tongue, Lieutenant rising in response out of the corner of her eye. She held the weapon as intended for use.

Shattering glass broke their attention. Stiffening, the Lieutenant snapped her head to the manifestation on its feet as well, hands pawing at its chest. A handle sprouted from the sternum, just above the heart – a handle whose blindingly white blade poked its tip out the spine.

Like a bubble, the manifestation popped out of existence. Trailers of errant magic wicked away in the air before a blur through the shattered doors ripped them apart, the master key caught before it hit the ground.

The assailant’s ponytail fluttered in the breeze made in his wake.

“Lieutenant!” shouted Arata, “High time we crossed paths again!” He held his blacksmith’s tool like a sword, leveling its blade at the Don’s right hand, body shifting into a stance showing intention to fight. Weight rested on the balls of his feet. Bent were his knees. With his master key no longer than a dagger, he was almost threatening.

Then the Lieutenant revealed hers. Burning red light erupted from the flanged end of the weapon, long as her entire arm. A cursory swing decapitated a nearby mannequin. Odor of burning plastic filled the air, masking the scent of fear behind her – and her weapon’s buzzing conflagration of magic almost obscured the flutter of footsteps and jingling amber.

With a casual backwards flick she bisected the amber jar thrown at the back of her head, the crimson blade continuing unimpeded. Gold stones showered around her.

Pain from the blinding sword forced Kira’s brain to act, to turn from its path with all her will before the blade sliced her down to the DNA.

Burning hair mixed into the air, scent of blackened pork.

Kira fell gasping. She stared for a moment at the gentle curve of flesh smoking upon the ground in its nest of scorched black strands. Expected blood did not follow, for heat had already cauterized both sides of the wound. She felt ice graze the side of her face, and a queer, perplexing notion that she was merely seeing a cheap Halloween prop. She’d poke it and feel silicon. It would taste like rubber and chew with the same texture.

Scarred hands lifted her up – hands of the Lieutenant’s manifestations – and the pain came full into view. The woman herself fidgeted as Kira screamed. Her clones, however, did not succumb to the girl’s magic. They were actually more steadfast than the one who’d made them.

Losing no time, Arata’s hand flew from his pocket. In it was a wand, cracks aglow with magic. He aimed, firing a wash of flame, not at the Don’s right hand but at the store’s ceiling, his face a mask of determination as heat cracked sensitive glass systems designed to activate even in the presence of electricity-devouring magic. Gallons of water rained down from the sprinklers to smother his flames.

And the manifestations. Doused by running water they melted into puddles, freeing the wounded Kira. Expletives both English and Japanese rumbled through the torrent.

“How did you –” the Lieutenant started, eyes still ablaze despite the oppressive downpour, her voice escaping when she glimpsed Arata unwinding wire from two sizable chunks of white ceramic. She snapped down to Kira only to see the girl was scrambling away on all fours, backpack abandoned, and too far now to reach.

Arata let fly one of the thief stones, flinging it like a weighted knife.

Spitting another curse, the Lieutenant ran her free hand up the length of her master key, sigildry suffusing with orange light. An equally orange shield burst forth from its haft to envelop the woman at the moment of the stone’s impact. Compressed force slid her back into the corner. Windows from floor to ceiling exploded outward onto the crowds below, and the orchestra of their combat swelled with tinkling glass and screams.

She waited under the shield while the rubble settled. Eyes darted for Arata, orange haze forcing her to squint. Shards of glass and dust flecks landed on the shield and burned off as ash, each sound causing her muscles to jump. He’d held a second stone. One more would send her into open air. When perhaps a minute had passed and there hadn’t been any movement in the ruined store beyond her bunker, she dropped the shield.

The Lieutenant saw it then, and let slip a rueful laugh.

“Boss is gonna kill me.”

A hole had been blown in the floor at the store’s center, scorch marks left as evidence of what the stone hadn’t managed to remove from the layers of plaster, steel, wires, and concrete separating the ground floor from the second. Light trickled upward to cast a glow upon the ceiling, the shadow puppet of a magnificently large teddy bear arm bearing striking resemblance to a human middle finger, broken by the fall of two escaped wielders.