Dark Chant In A Crimson Key

tagged along-the only way to put it-behind Sinclair, carefully moving in accordance with his hand signals.

I was ending up more voyeur than participant, and I was feeling increasingly embarrassed. It had been, I realized, the height of presumption for me to suggest that a dwarf, no matter how considerable his physical skills, could be of any assistance whatsoever in a matter like this to a consummate master of the martial arts like John Sinclair. He had permitted me to come along only to spare my feelings, and that made me angry-at myself. Indeed, I was becoming increasingly disgusted with myself for asking in the first place and for allowing Garth-also sparing my feelings- to be so insistent. My only job was a negative one, to be certain I remained quiet and unseen as Sinclair snuffed the lives out of the strange zombie-men who had invaded his home, and who would have killed the woman he loved along with the rest of us. Every once in a while I managed to make myself useful by ghoulishly picking over the corpses Sinclair left in his wake. I took one of the men's machine pistols and recovered a fine throwing knife similar to the one Veil had had taken from him. Once, inside the castle, I managed to catch a dead man's automatic rifle before it fell and clattered on the stone floor, but that was, to that point, my one and only contribution to the entire mission.

As the time approached when we would have to make the crucial decision as to which man to attempt to capture and keep alive, an idea occurred to me, a plan in which I might actually be able to play a useful role. Garth and Veil had rejoined us, and as we approached our last target I pulled Sinclair aside and hurriedly outlined my notion to him, emphasizing the specialized skills I possessed that were the basis for the plan. He listened and, somewhat to my surprise, immediately nodded his assent.

My plan required that we make a bit of a mess, and to that end Sinclair used the knife he carried to slit the jugular of the last

Black Flame soldier in our path.

The four of us stood in the shadow of an alcove between two bookcases on the library's balcony as the rising sun sent rays of light through the huge bank of undraped cathedral windows at the eastern end, near the sitting area. The light slowly moved across the floor, finally illuminating the man lying near the open end of the horseshoe-shaped sofa. Al's paralyzed legs were twisted at odd angles, but he had used his arms to push himself over on his back. He was awake. His strange, matte-black eyes were opened wide, his gaze rapidly shifting around as he watched, waiting for something to happen, some sound to emerge from the silence that enveloped him.

Garth pressed the trigger on the machine pistol he carried. The gun chattered, spewing out bullets that tore out a section of the balcony railing on our side, and ripped into the books and bookcases across the way. A moment later, Sinclair staggered out from the shadows and collapsed, his blood-soaked body falling at the edge of the balcony, both arms dangling over the edge. Good show. Now it was my turn. Garth let loose with another burst of fire. I screamed and sent my blood-covered body over a section of railing down closer to the eastern end. I executed what I thought was a rather neat little somersault, managed to land square on my back in the center of the curved section of the sofa, just like it was a safety net. I bounded straight up, did a half roll in the air, came back down on my stomach with my torso hanging over the edge of the left arm of the sofa, my blood-streaked face only inches from the startled Al's. I put on my best glazed-eye, 'dead' look for a few moments to let him savor the full range of my acting talents, then smiled at him.

'Top of the morning, my dear fellow,' I said, and immediately jammed the wooden dowel I had been palming hard into his open mouth. Then I rolled off the couch behind his head, grabbed both of his wrists, placed my feet on his shoulders, and pulled as hard as I could, extending his arms in order to prevent him from flexing his wrists and sending a poison-tipped dart into him, or me.

Sinclair rolled the rest of the way off the balcony, dropped easily to the floor, then quickly strode over to where I was bracing the hapless Al. As Garth and Veil hurried down the staircase, Sinclair pulled up Al's sleeves and extracted the darts from the spring-loaded scabbards strapped to his wrists. He then hit Al hard, with the heel of his hand, on the right side of Al's jaw, knocking the Black Flame leader unconscious. He removed the dowel from between Al's jaws, probed with his right index finger inside the man's mouth until he found what he was looking for. He yanked loose the cyanide-filled plastic tooth, casually tossed it away. Veil picked up a length of rope from the floor, and he and Sinclair bound Al's wrists tightly behind his back. From the looks of the knots they used, it was going to take Al a considerably longer time to get free than it had taken me, assuming he knew a little muzukashi jotai kara deru, and it was time he didn't have. He wasn't going anywhere, crawling or otherwise.

'It's done,' Sinclair said quietly. 'Good job, Mongo.'

'It should be interesting to hear what he has to say. He knows where all the others can be found, doesn't he?'

Sinclair nodded. 'He knows everything that's needed to erase the Black Flame Society from the face of the earth.' He paused, looked up at us, and smiled. 'But he'll wait, and I have certain preparations to make before I begin questioning him. Let's go get the others and clean up. I think we all deserve a good meal. I'll buy.'

Chapter Thirteen

The notion of taking time for what turned out to be an elaborate meal in the huge kitchen of a castle that had been virtually transformed into a fresh graveyard marker didn't seem to bother Garth, Veil, or Insolers any more than it did John Sinclair, and Jan Rawlings was too deliriously happy to have the man she loved safely back with her to let anything bother her. That left Harper and me the only ones feeling tense, not to mention a bit queasy, with the culinary arrangements. I was impatient for the drama to end, whatever the ending might be, and have it all done with.

I underwent a remarkable change of attitude after a steaming hot bath, a long session in a sauna with Harper melting, as it were, in my arms, and then another long, coed soak in a hot tub. Only then, with my nerves and muscles relaxed, did I realize just how exhausted I had been and how much we all needed rest and food. There were still close to a hundred Black Flame soldiers and their leaders left alive, and to totally exterminate a powerful secret society that had festered in humankind's midst for many centuries was going to take some doing. There were still unknown dangers ahead, and there was no hurry to get to them. Our business with Al, like Al himself, would indeed wait.

After our baths and sauna, the others dressed in luxurious silk robes that were a sort of 'one size fits all' variety-all, that is, except me. However, after Jan spent about twenty minutes with a pair of scissors and a sewing machine, I, too, had myself a silk lounging robe of deep, rich blue.

We all sat around a huge oak table in the center of the kitchen, drinking hot sake, while Jan and Sinclair busied themselves expertly preparing a Japanese-style meal of rice, stir-fried vegetables, seared beef, and sushi. Actually, it was Sinclair who did most of the preparing, with Jan close beside him, stroking his hair, touching his back, and occasionally resting her head on his shoulder. Out of 'costume,' John Sinclair turned out to have thick, close-cropped, steel-gray hair, and matching eyes. It struck me how confidently and easily Sinclair accepted the love of this woman, and as I glanced at Harper-who was looking at me in much the same manner as Jan was looking at Sinclair-I found myself fervently wishing I had the confidence to do the same.

Garth and Veil were engaged in quiet but animated conversation, and it occurred to me that now, after years, these two powerful, fiercely independent men who loved me would become friends.

Insolers sat a few feet away from them, across the table from Harper and me, looking more isolated than he really was. He had a somewhat vacant look in his eyes as he sipped at his sake, as if his mind were elsewhere.

'My father loved Japan to the point of obsession,' John Sinclair said as he laid out a fresh serving of sushi on a marble slab, poured more sake for each of us, then sat down next to Jan. 'For him, Japan was much more a state of mind than a geographical location, a country. His obsession finally cost him his life and radically changed the shape of mine.

'If he knew in his head that a ganjin could never be fully accepted by the Japanese, he never accepted it in his heart. He had worked most of his adult life to, in some ways, become more Japanese than the Japanese, in a manner of speaking. I believe he saw in me a way to finally become totally integrated into their society. He began by starting my training in the martial arts when I was five years old, sparing no expense. My