Tokyo Demons Book 3: Chapter 4, Part 1
A thought rippled through Ayase. Her mind fragmented by pain, her consciousness dulled by hundreds of sleeping brains, the idea was like a spark racing toward a powder keg. Realization exploded in her, spraying out a burst of adrenaline.
“Move the package to the west bedroom for retreat, now!”
She’d assumed the gas room was a panic room. Nothing had disproved that. And in the darkness, through her blurry compound eyes…
She shot a contingent of herself off of Jo and flooded back into the gas room. She swarmed over the three unconscious guards still sprawled across the floor.
The ones wearing gas masks.
She didn’t need a voice this time–Nakajima seemed to immediately realize what she’d missed. She ripped the gas mask off the first man’s head, then moved to the second man and did the same. In the glow of Mitsuko’s flashlight, Ayase could see that this guard was older and skinnier than the others, with a sickly pallor.
A crazed sneer, almost a smile, twisted Nakajima’s face.
“That’s him!” Mitsuko exclaimed as Nakajima unstrapped handcuffs from her belt. She cuffed the man’s hands in front of him, waved something under his nose, then dragged him to his feet as he started to splutter.
“Wake up,” she snapped. “You slippery snake.”
The man choked on his own breath, but Nakajima didn’t wait for him to reply. She hauled him down the hallway, Adam and Mitsuko in hot pursuit.
“Wait…!”
Ayase buzzed up behind Nakajima, but the woman batted her away. Nakajima dragged Zero out the back door, clicked the mute button on her headset, and slammed the door in Adam and Mitsuko’s face.
The doorknob rattled from outside; when Adam gripped it, it wouldn’t turn. As he and Mitsuko struggled with the jammed doorway, Ayase zipped two bugs under the door to see Nakajima march Zero across the porch.
“Let’s make a deal,” Nakajima hissed in Zero’s ear, barely audible until Ayase flew closer. “Masakazu Ito.”
Dread rose up in Ayase. Zero nearly tripped on Takeshi’s abandoned body on the porch; Nakajima kicked Takeshi’s limp arm out of the way. Ayase bobbed in the darkness behind them, straining her antennae to listen, as Zero turned rapidly blinking eyes to Nakajima.
“You,” he rasped, recognition in his voice.
“Even if you escape withdrawal, the Pitch itself will kill you. And I don’t care if you die in prison or in your own personal gutter.” She forced him into the surrounding garden, making him stumble. “I want the Pitch. And your infuriating son.”
Zero coughed out a scowl. “Torturing me won’t work.”
“Are you deaf, old man? I said we can make a deal.”
Ayase panicked. This didn’t sound right. What the hell did Nakajima mean?
She’s going to throw us under the bus again!
Ayase snapped her mind back to Jo. He was talking on his communicator and finally running around the corner of the house, jostling under the legs of her clinging insects.
She sent a dozen of them to fly up the back of his neck.
He jumped, his body shivering under her. “Fuck,” he breathed. “Ayase’s warning us! Where’s Nakajima taking him?!”
fwip
One of Kiyoshi’s arrows buried itself in the garden at Nakajima’s feet. Nakajima tightened her grip on Zero, turned toward the hidden sniper mount, and unstrapped one of her nightsticks with her free hand. She flipped the stick up to brace against her forearm.
“Try that again,” she said icily.
fwipCRACK
Her arm and nightstick moved in a blur, knocking the next warning arrow off its trajectory. When she braced her feet and growled, Ayase flew one insect over to sting her neck.
“…!”
In the half-second Nakajima crushed Ayase in her fingers, Miki materialized in the darkness. He grabbed Zero by the back of the jacket and ripped him from Nakajima’s distracted grip.
Nakajima pulled her gun; Miki threw an arm around Zero’s neck from behind. One of Mitsuko’s switchblades snapped open in his hand.
“Back off,” Miki hissed, pressing the knife against Zero’s throat. “You clearly want him alive.”
Nakajima paused, her pistol in one hand and her nightstick in the other. Slowly, she returned the pistol to its holster.
She unmuted her headset. “Stand down,” she said. “That includes you, Honda.”
“We’re not gonna let you fuck us over again,” Miki spat.
“I was taking him into custody.”
“Bullshit!”
“He’s handcuffed, you pathetic little thug. What did you think I was doing with him?”
“You wanted to do this raid off-duty,” Miki said through his teeth. “You didn’t come here to arrest him–you wanted to do something off the books. So what is it? Use him as a hostage? Exchange him for something you want more?” Miki snarled. “Is the court case you’re building a pile of bullshit, too?”
Even through her fuzzy vision, Ayase could see Nakajima’s jaw twitch. The woman pulled the communicator from her ear and dropped it to the grass; she crushed it into the dirt with her shoe, her eyes never leaving Miki.
“I’m the law,” she said, the words venomous in her mouth. “I can build cases or break them, whether I’m wearing my uniform or not. Or did you forget what sway I have? You should be rotting in juvenile detention for the things I have on you…and after I bought your leader two years of borrowed time just for watching a briefcase.”
Miki’s hand started to shake. He jerked Zero back a few steps, his grip tightening on the switchblade.
“Y-you can’t have him,” Miki rasped. “You’ll just put him back on the street when you get what you want.”
“Put down the knife.”
“Fuck you!” Miki shouted, choking on his own rage. “He killed my people, not yours! If you let him go, he’ll kill them again!”
“Put down the knife,” Nakajima ordered, her voice cutting through the air like a scythe.
Zero’s back door smashed to the ground behind them; Adam and Mitsuko burst out onto the porch. “Miki!” Mitsuko cried as she leapt into the garden.
Jo was even closer. “Miki!” he called as he tensed to pounce.
“If you hurt that man,” Nakajima warned, her lip curling over her teeth, “I’ll personally lock you up in prison–and throw away the key.”
Miki’s jaw clenched as he pulled Zero back. His single eye blazed, a tiny flare in the darkness through Ayase’s compound vision.
He slit Zero’s throat, spraying blood up toward the sky.
To be continued in Book 3: Chapter 4, Part 2.
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