death for long tended to gradually grow in their capacity to Wreak. His mind was like a surface of mirrored steel, revealing nothing. It was a little eerie, not to be able to sense intent before speech.
There were two men behind the Master, in dark suits. They were Shadowspawn, but corporeals, young and fit and very alert; he could sense the knives beneath their jackets. The driver was a human, a renfield carefully not observing what passed.
“Adrian Br?z?,” the old man said. “Traitor, why have you come to my territory and killed my people? Why do you think you can do so and live?”
“Master Hajime, I have come to your territory only because-”
I must speak as he expects. In his terms, it is true.
“-because what is mine has been stolen from me. This is not a matter of Council and Brotherhood. I renounced the war long ago, and would have stayed in my own house if left alone. My sister Adrienne came to my territory and took a woman of my household to California. And now somewhere in the vicinity of this city; I can feel it through our link.”
And nobody of your generation among Shadowspawn likes Adrienne-that I know of, he thought.
Hajime shrugged his shoulders; the cloth of the kimono’s layers rustled.
“What is one human?” His voice went taut with venom. “The earth swarms with them. Adrienne has the leave of my granddaughter Michiko to come and go here, and to use the properties we left to the Br?z?s.”
“I resigned from the war, Master. I did not become less than a man. The woman was mine, on my ground.”
He thought he saw a slight flicker of respect in the blank gold eyes. When Hajime spoke, the voice was still cold: “And you killed blood of my blood. The peace agreement specified that no Br?z? would enter the city without permission. You have no such leave. You came, you killed.”
“Only to defend my life,” Adrian said calmly.
“That is not what my granddaughter says. She says that she sent her cousins to observe you, when you intruded without leave.”
“That is not how I perceived it,” Adrian said carefully.
Do not, do not, do not accuse his well-loved granddaughter of lying! “I merely defended myself. My birth-body is still lying badly wounded by warded silver-blades.”
Silence stretched. “A man will strive to protect his own, even if it is only his own dog,” the Master said at last, grudgingly. “I will therefore forgive the intrusion. Provided that you leave immediately, and give up this mercenary Harvey Ledbetter, the ape who dared to kill his betters. You did badly to bring him into contention between us. He is of the Brotherhood, and under sentence of slow death.”
Adrian swallowed. “In honor I cannot yield either the woman, or the man who assisted me-”
“What do you know of honor?” Hajime spat. “I am the twenty-fifth head of my clan. We Wrought with the Power long before the Order sent its missionaries to Japan. Before Meiji, before the West. Great lords went in fear of us, paid us tribute, sought our aid in their wars.”
Little Wreakings. The sort of thing Harvey can manage, Adrian thought behind his shields. Until the Order of the Black Dawn went looking for its equivalents in every country of earth, to teach them how to reconstitute the genome.
The old man went on bitterly: “What are the Br?z?s but the heirs of a secret cult? Yes, you stumbled across valuable knowledge. That did not prevent us from taking this territory from your line twenty years ago, and its Council seat. And now you stand here asking the favor of the man who killed your parents-”
“Only their birth-bodies, Master. They live yet, undying, as you do.”
And I would like nothing better than giving them the final death! “-against your own sister! Go. Count yourself lucky I do not demand blood for blood.”
“I must have the woman, and I will not yield the man. Give me this, Master, I beg. Then I will leave and cause no more trouble for you and yours.”
Hajime looked at him expressionlessly. Events trembled on a precipice of might-be.
Remember that you hate Adrienne and her corruption of all tradition. That you fear she plots Br?z? revenge for the West Coast coup. Know that I have no such ambitions. That you dislike her influence on your favorite granddaughter.
He could feel the balances shifting towards him, like the weight of his own body on the parallel bars. Then he whirled, grappling with the push of the Power. For a moment he was blinded, the keening, whining snarl of Mhabrogast echoing in the ears of his mind. The moment toppled from his fingers, slipping away from potential to certainty.
“You say must to me! Ebisu! Kokuzoku! ” Hajime spat.
The hand darted to the hilt of the katana and the blade came free in a hurtful dazzle. Adrian threw himself backward, and his body flowed as the clothes fell free. When it landed it was on all fours. Hajime’s eyes went wide, and his followers froze for an instant with their knives half-drawn. The form that faced them was twice the weight of a lion, a spotted tawny bulk whose fangs curved nine inches from its upper jaw. They gaped in a killing scream as the lower mandible dropped out of the path of the stabbing canines.
Bless reconstitutive DNA technology, he thought, in some corner of his mind that was still human-or hominid.
The rest of it blazed with the fury of the great killer, with the wealth of scent and sight that poured in through senses keener than even his own breed possessed. A racking scream rose into a deep full-throated roar, and the stump tail on the powerful hindquarters quivered. He leapt-and twisted in midair to avoid the long slash of the sword. That brought him down between the two corporeals. A plate-broad paw sent one spinning to crash into a tree five yards away, clutching at his rent stomach and shrieking in pain. The other threw himself flat and slashed. The scent of Shadowspawn blood filled the air, stronger and ranker than human, driving him to frenzy.
Adrian dodged with more than human-more than Shadowspawn-speed. The silver edge of the knife struck hairs from the ruff around the smilodon’s neck. They sparkled into nonexistence as they separated from the energy-web of the night-walking body; he could feel the cold shock up and down his spine and into his skull. His strike cracked the arm behind the weapon, but he leapt again a fractional second ahead of Hajime’s blade.
The old man was fearless; he was even smiling grimly as he took stance, straddle-legged and katana up in the classic position.
“I will not assume the tiger,” he said. “Only the kami know how you took the spirit of that beast into you. Come!”
Actually I took in its DNA after the Brotherhood used my money to finance a reconstruction, the distant part of his mind that thought in language gibed.
The sabertooth crouched and snarled again, coming forward with one huge paw placed at a time. Faster, faster, a bunching of hindquarters, the leap with forepaws outstretched and jaws open to a hundred and twenty degrees for the killing stabHe twisted just in time, writhing in midair as the whistle of cloven air warned him. Even so the impact was stunning-the raptor stooped at fifty miles an hour, an eagle whose body was the size of a collie. The tiger-sized claws slammed agonizingly into his ribs instead of puncturing spine and skull. The five-foot bird’s great curved beak raked down his side, probing for the soft belly, and wings twice man-height long hammered at his muzzle.
The smilodon rolled, squalling and striking. The eagle leapt free… and flowed. The black tiger wasn’t as large as the sabertooth, but it was a blur in the night. Paws rammed back and forth as the predators reared and shrieked and struck. Adrian jinked desperately as he felt the sword approach again.
There was no possibility of fighting both these enemies at once; the Power flashed the knowledge into his inner selfhood, as he felt their minds striving to lock his paths dark. Only one choice did not end in his final death. Mind and body followed it with desperate precisionBack. Back. Then up. He flowed again, and wings caught at the air.
Harv! he called, with agonized strength. Get my body moving!
Adrienne Br?z? pulled the borrowed coat around herself and bowed deeply, keeping the smile off her face.
“Konbanwa, T?kairin-sama,” she said politely. “Good evening, Lord T?kairin.”
“Good evening, Miss Br?z?. My thanks to you,” T?kairin Hajime said gruffly, switching the conversation into English. “I will not say that you saved my life. You tried to do so, though, and may well have saved the lives of my
