By the Sword

    Finally three of them returned below, leaving the fourth as guard. He immediately set a chair by the door and lit up a cigarette. Shiro watched from his hiding place, waiting for his chance. From the way he was drawing and holding the smoke, Shiro suspected it was ca

    Good. It would slow his response time, dull his senses, give him a false sense of well-being.

    After a while the sentry's head drooped—just what Shiro had been waiting for. He padded up behind him, wrapped an arm around his head and dragged his tanto across his throat—just as he had done with the Kicker carrying the katana back at the temple.

    Leaving the gushing, twitching body in the chair, Shiro walked to the center of the roof and sat. He pulled the vial of ekisu from his pocket and removed the stopper. He raised it toward his mouth but stopped midway.

    He was afraid… afraid of what it would do to him… afraid of seeing the Hidden Face before he was ready.

    And yet, what had he to live for? His brother acolytes and the elder monks were dead, his sensei butchered, the sacred Kuroikaze scrolls turned to ash.

    The Order of the Kakureta Kao was, in almost every sense, extinct. Only he survived to exact vengeance. He could go below and slay many of them, but they would overcome him and the Kickers would go on.

    But not if their leader died.

    He knew Hank Thompson lived below. A Black Wind starting here would kill everyone in the building, and in the buildings for many blocks around. Shiro's head had been injured, but his body remained strong. He would take a long time dying, and the longer he held on, the greater and stronger his Kuroikaze. It might spread for a mile or more.

    He realized then that no one in the world would ever forget tonight. The Trade Towers' death toll would pale before Shiro's Black Wind. And all would know it began here, with the Kickers. They would be shu

    An eye for an eye, brothers for brothers.

    His fear faded. He titled the vial to his lips and downed the ekizu in one bitter gulp. Then he lay back and waited.

    It took effect more quickly than he'd expected. In a matter of seconds he felt his skin begin to tingle as the extract coursed through his capillaries. Then the tingling faded, replaced by no sensation at all. He no longer felt the roof beneath him. He could have been floating a few inches above it—naked, because he could not feel the clothes against his skin, nor the saliva against his tongue. Did he still have saliva?

    The carbon monoxide tang of the air faded along with the sight of the stars and the incessant Manhattan rumble.

    He spread his arms—or at least tried to. Did he even have arms? Or a body?

    Shiro began to tumble through an endless, featureless void with no up or down or left or right. Panicked by the perfect disorientation, he screamed. Or tried to. He had become pure consciousness in a starless cosmos without light or matter, a black, seething chaos without form or substance.

    And then something ahead, faintly luminous, coming his way… or was it stationary and he approaching it? Without asking how he could see without eyes, his crumbling mind grasped at it, clung to it as the only reference point in this endless void.

    As he neared, it started to take form… slowly he began to make out its shape… and when finally its features became clear… he did not understand what he was seeing… and as his consciousness tried to comprehend the incomprehensible…

    … it shattered.

    Jack led Glaeken up to the roof across the street from the Lodge. He felt stained by the carnage they'd left behind, and wanted to shower. He knew the residue lay beneath his skin and had no illusions that he could wash it off, but a cleansing ritual couldn't hurt.

    He felt bad about Yoshio's brother—didn't even know his name. His death had been so u

    They arrived in time to see four Kickers wandering around their rooftop.

    "Wonder what they're looking for?" Jack said. When Veilleur, standing stiffly beside him, didn't answer, he nudged him. "You with us?"

    "He's near."

    "Who?"

    "The Adversary. I thought I sensed him at the Kakureta Kao building, but with all the chaos around us I couldn't be sure. But here, now, in the quiet, I can feel him."

    "Where?"

    "Down there somewhere, no more than a block away, I'd say."

    As Jack sca

    "If you can sense him, can't he sense you?"

    Veilleur shook his head. "I think he has a vague sense of where I am. I'm sure he knows I'm in New York City, but nothing more specific than that. I'm not who or what I used to be, you know. To him, for the most part, I'm simply another mortal."

    "Why would he have been on Staten Island?"

    "To sup on the slaughter. He feeds on death and fear and human carnage."

    "And misery. Yeah, I know."

    He remembered his last meeting with Rasalom, back in January, when he was feeding on Jack's misery and despair.

    "He certainly feasted tonight, but I wonder…"

    "What?"

    "Might he have been there because of Dawn as well?"

    Jack thought on that, but it didn't gel.

    "He's already holding most of the marbles. What good can Dawn and her baby do for him?"

    "I can't imagine. Perhaps I'm wrong."

    "You wrong often?"

    Veilleur shrugged. "It happens."

    Jack watched the Kickers on the roof mill around some, then three of them left. The remaining one seemed to be playing guard, but without much gusto. Jack trained his attention on Hank Thompson's window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dawn as he had before.

    Movement on the roof drew his attention there in time to see a dark figure slip from the shadows and slit the throat of the Kicker on guard.

    "Did you catch that?"

    Veilleur nodded. "One of the Kakureta Kao, I'd guess. I didn't think there were any left."

    The figure seated himself in the center of the roof, drank something, and lay back.

    "What's he up to?"

    "Kuroikaze!" Veilleur grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. "He's sacrificing himself to create a Black Wind! This explains the Adversary's presence. He must have known this was coming."

    "Well, if it kills everything, even bacteria, won't it kill him too?"

    "Kill him? He'll suck it in. Depending on how far it spreads, he'll feed as he's never fed before. The fear, the misery, the hopelessness a Kuroikaze engenders will bloat him, but the aftermath…" He shook his head. "Remember the panic in the city after nine-eleven? This will be much worse. The Kuroikaze will be called a terrorist attack—and believe me, more than three thousand will die tonight—and since no one will know what caused it, no one will know how to defend against it. Homeland Security will look useless. Imagine the terror. Imagine the Adversary's joy." He turned to Jack. "You've got to stop that shoten."

    "Me? How? I don't exactly have a sniper rifle handy, and that's one hell of a pistol shot from here."

    "Then you'll have to go over there."

    "Swell."

    "I'd go myself, but I'm no longer up to it."

    "Okay, let's just say I get there. How do I stop it?"

    Veilleur looked at him. "There's only one way to stop a Kuroikaze: kill the shoten—the focus."

    Jack nodded toward the rooftop. "Him?"

    "Him."