By the Sword

    When the yakuza were satisfied with their weapons, the four of them walked through the gate and toward the main entrance. As they wove through the parked vehicles, they heard groans and voices. They came upon half a dozen or so dead or wounded Caucasians. These were most certainly not Kakureta Kao monks.

    One of them with a bloody head looked up and spotted them. He was carrying a crowbar. He lifted it as he rushed them.

    "Dirty motherfu—"

    Phut!

    Kenji shot him in the face. Before the man's body hit the ground, Ryo and Goro were shooting anyone not already dead, and even those who were.

    He noticed strange tattoos on the hands of some of the corpses. He'd seen that spidery figure here and there about town.

    But the figure didn't bother him a fraction as much as his lack of shock or revulsion at the cold-blooded murder of these men. The prospect of failing in his quest for this strange, elusive katana had changed him. He was now ready to eliminate, by any means necessary, every barrier or impediment to his finding it.

    He motioned the yakuza toward the main entrance and they joined up with him. As they pushed through the glass doors they saw a slim young Japanese man dash past, clutching an old-fashioned samurai bow.

    A Kakureta Kao member?

    They stepped into the hall for a better look and found themselves in the path of a charging crowd of a dozen or so Caucasians. Hideo leaped back while the three yakuza held their ground and opened fire. In five seconds it was over. All the Caucasians were down, screaming, groaning, writhing on the floor.

    Goro and Ryo reloaded while Kenji finished those still alive. Then he too reloaded.

    Hideo noticed more of the spidery tattoos. Was this some sort of rival cult at war with Kakureta Kao?

    No matter. They were all dead. At least he hoped so.

    He pointed to Ryo and Goro. "You two search that side." He gestured to Kenji. "We will take this side. Use your flashlights. Search every room. Find that katana."

    The first room he entered held an eyeless monk on a futon. Here at last was the Kakureta Kao.

    "Where is the katana?" he asked in Japanese.

    The monk smiled and shook his head.

    Kenji shot him in the leg.

    He howled wordlessly and clutched his wound, and Hideo saw no sign of a tongue in his open mouth. Kenji looked at Hideo. Hideo considered the madness of this cult and concluded he would learn nothing from this one, even if he had a tongue. He nodded.

    Kenji shot the monk in the head. As they searched the room, Hideo heard pleading cries in English from a room across the hall: "No!" and "Please, no!" Then phut sounds. Then silence.

    More of the spider cult dead.

    "Keep searching," he said.

    He and Kenji joined the others in the hallway and proceeded to the next set of rooms. As Goro and Ryo opened the door to theirs, an aging monk, holding a long tanto high, screamed and leaped at Goro. Hideo saw Ryo's pistol flash up, and Kenji's whip around, but too late: The monk buried the blade to the hilt in Goro's chest.

    Goro managed to get off a shot into his belly, and his two fellow yakuza finished the job. Goro swayed, then toppled backward like a felled oak to lie staring blindly at the ceiling.

    Ryo and Kenji rushed to him, screamed curses when they confirmed what Hideo already knew. Ryo shot the dead monk twice more in the head, then removed his suit coat and draped it over Goro's head and shoulders.

    Watching it all, as if from a great distance, Hideo wondered about his detachment. He'd never seen death before coming to America, and now he was inured to it. Or had his mind and emotions merely stepped back so as not to go mad?

    "Let's keep moving," he said.

    Hank and his posse reached the second floor and found it empty. And after he signaled to Jantz to turn off his chainsaw, it was quiet.

    "Okay," he said. "Here's what we do. Since we have only two flashlights between us, we divide into two groups and check each and every room. You see the girl or you see the sword, you give a holler and—"

    "Aiiiii!"

    The hall around them exploded with cries and movement as a half dozen blue-robed figures burst from doorways with knives and swords held high. Even more startling than their sudden onslaught were the silk masks beneath their hoods.

    Even stranger was the fact that two of the monks had only one arm, and another was hopping on one leg.

    A couple of Kickers went down immediately, but the rest recovered and fought back. The three amputees went down first, and the other able-bodied types soon followed. But they'd taken out five Kickers—three dead and two wounded.

    Hank had the two wounded placed on the stairs. One had a stab wound in his leg, and the other had had his left arm sliced open.

    "Wait here. Keep pressure on those wounds. We'll be back for you."

    He looked around at his crew, whittled abruptly from fifteen to ten. Hank was shaking inside. He wanted out of here so bad he could taste it. But he needed the girl and the katana—in that order. If it came down to a choice between the two, he'd take Dawn. He needed that baby, needed the Key to the Future more than anything else.

    "Change of plans," he said, doing his best to appear calm and in control. "No splitting up. I think we've pretty much wiped them out, but we'll play it safe and all go door to door together."

    The nods all around told him that was a popular decision.

    The first two rooms they broke into were unoccupied. One looked like a tiny dorm room, but the other was big and set up with a bloodstained table and a bunch of knives and saws that looked like surgical equipment.

    He had a feeling some ugly stuff had gone down in there.

    In the third room they found a bald old monk with no arms or legs lying on a futon. The socket of his shoulder, where his arm should have started, was freshly sutured. What was wrong with him? Gangrene? Why hadn't they taken him to a hospital?

    "What do we do with him?" one of the Kickers said, stepping up to the futon and bending over the monk. "Look. He's smiling. Like he's glad to see us."

    Another Kicker stepped over for a look. "Damn. If he ain't."

    Hank was debating whether or not to club the guy when the two Kickers cried out in surprise.

    "Shit!" one said, pulling something from his neck. "He spit something at me." He held up a red-striped toothpick. "Look at this!"

    The other pulled the same from his cheek. "Me too."

    That seemed to settle it without a word from Hank. He turned away as they pulped the monk's head.

    Hank motioned toward the door. "On to the next."

    But as he reached the door he heard two heavy thumps behind him. He turned and saw the two Kickers crumpled on the floor. He stepped over and checked them. Their wide, staring eyes told him they were dead.

    He turned to the others. "Those toothpick things must have been poison. All right, that settles it. You see one of these guys, you flatten him."

    The next door was heavier than the rest—thick oak planks that resisted their most powerful kicks. A secure room… made to safeguard valuables. Valuables like Dawn and the sword, maybe?

    Hank turned to Jantz and pointed to his chainsaw. "Fire that thing up again and go to work."

    Toru stood in the dark and listened to the futile kicks and thuds against the sturdy door that guarded the scrolls and the ekisu. Not only was it thick, but reinforced high and low by heavy crossbars. He had intended to bring the girl and the katana in here, but the barbarians had invaded this level before he had a chance.