The sorcerers all exchanged glances. Searching his memories, a vague flicker of recognition clouded the old man’s eyes.
“General Ryuuki,” he said under his breath. There were echoes of fear in those two words. After two thousand years, the name still could not be spoken without respect and fear. “It is said that in your death throes, shot through with the spears and arrows of the Hun, you dismissed your subordinates and strode off towards the furthest reaches of the northern desert. That you continue to live should surprise no one. After all, our job as well is performing the impossible.”
He paused and looked straight at Ryuuki. “But even if you are that legendary hero, stand in our way and we will destroy you. Does the man named Ryuuki wish to make a stand here?”
“I do not desire to fight. I wish only to repay the debt of honor I owe this girl and this household. If you depart now, we need never meet again.”
“What a joke,” the sorcerer wearing the body armor said in a gravelly voice. “We’ll write a sad end to that story of yours, General. And leave a few marks of our own on that body tonight.”
The motors in his knees whirled as he took another step forward.
“Stop!” shouted the old man with the white beard.
“Kill him!” rejoined the person behind him.
Not waiting for the dispute between these two to resolve itself, the motorized sorcerer took off at a sprint.
Light leapt from the doll girl’s right hand. Rosebuds, glowing a vivacious ruby red in the dark. The mechanical silhouette stopped in midair, chest and stomach studded with roses, like a strange, postmodern work of art.
It was hard enough to believe those strong and slender stems could pierce the hardened ceramic plates. All the more so that the sorcerer, covered with almost a quarter-ton of armor could be brought to a halt, completely in defiance of gravity itself. But what the normal bystander might see, these scoundrels saw through in a flash.
The rosebuds were bound together by golden threads invisible to the naked eye. Suspended by one end in the air, they held up the flowers and the martial magician. A moment later, the miracle wrought by that combination of strength and precarious balance gave rise to another.
The rose stems ran along the threads among the buds. A magnificent bed of roses sprang up between these uninvited guests and the girl, turning the armored man in the air into a sacrifice upon an arboreal altar.
Here and there on the stems, the bright red buds opened. The secret behind such brilliant colors was the life blood being sucked out of the airborne man.
“Splendid,” the old man said. “What I should have expected from the creation of Galeen Nuvenberg. I am impressed that an inorganic object could master such magic.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” the doll girl said with a nod.
“However—”
Like the physical manifestation of an exclamation point, rose buds tumbled to the earth, scattering across the ground like red snow.
“Now the farce comes to an end.”
Still suspended in the air, the armored man shook his arms. All of the remaining flowers rained down. The stems and runners shriveled and died.
He floated to the ground and rolled his shoulders. “Sorry kid, but oil courses through my blood. Works well at keeping all my moving parts moving. Not good for watering the plants, though. Well, I guess it’s my turn then. Take a look.”
He reached out and seized Ryuuki and the doll girl by the necks. They were ten feet away. Ryuuki remained fixed in place. But the flexible, rubber-like titanium armor arm had already lifted the doll girl more than thirty feet into the air.
“I could send you to the stratosphere if I wanted,” the armored wizard said with a small gloating smile. “Now and then, you read about a body falling from a height of three miles or so in the Shinjuku tabloids. That’s my work. Oh, a squawking crow. A bad omen of your impending demise. Let’s see how well you stand up.”
He’d barely spoken the last word when he froze. A current of energy raced through his body from his hand around the man’s neck.
“Damn—you—”
The gurgle became a scream as his wrist twisted like a pretzel. The one-armed man looked up.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” came a cheerful answer from high in the sky, beyond the reach of normal human vision.
“I’ll leave what is up there to you. Leave what is down here to me.”
“I appreciate it.”
Ryuuki released his hold on the sorcerer’s hand. Without waiting for the unconscious man to slump to the ground, a bald man shot a wave of energy from both hands at Ryuuki. Not bothering to dodge the blow, Ryuuki turned his arm toward the sorcerers.
The direct blast of demon qi bowed back the old man on the right. The second and then the third were forced to retreat. Four others chanted incantations.
Fire erupted from Ryuuki’s mouth and stomach and climbed into the air. Inside the flames, the fearless face smiled. His arm reached out to them. They stood there unable to move as every cell in their bodies died.
The fifth was preparing his own magical specialty: “Dark knife and fork.”
A white-hot stab of pain shot through Ryuuki’s skull. Red lines crisscrossed his chest from the base of his neck on both sides to his hips. The invisible pair of knives ripped him open. Blood gushed out as Ryuuki clapped his arm across his severed torso. His closed his eyes. The blood faded, then disappeared.
“Get back!” the old man shouted. “I should have known, General Ryuuki. You are not a man to make an enemy of. We’ll meet another day.”
An invisible current struck him in the head.
Two minutes later came the flapping of wings. The big raven returned carrying the doll girl in his claws. The ground below was utterly still.
“What a freaking mess,” groaned the raven, scanning the dead bodies strewn across the ground.
Nothing—no one—was left in one piece. Withered, twisted and desiccated, bodies had come apart as they hit the ground. Among them, the bottom half of somebody slanting out of the ground, no doubt dealt a death blow while burrowing into the earth.
“As magnanimous as a man such as General Ryuuki may be toward every kind of enemy, he becomes a demon of unparalleled proportions when confronting the killers of women and children. Our mistress said as much, and it appears to be true.”
Hearing footsteps proceeding to the house, the doll girl turned around and asked, “You are coming back?”
“I have nowhere else to turn. Besides, I should not be allowed to seek blood as I please.”
Without waiting for her to answer, the sturdy naked man passed through the front door and into the foyer.
“What a guy,” said the raven, flapping its wings. “Our mistress and even Setsura say he’s the one fellow they wouldn’t mind having over for dinner. Hey, even I got a thing for him.”
“That man is our enemy,” rang out a voice like a bell, cold and hard. “And he must be destroyed. Better that he never came to our city in the first place.”
✦ ✦ ✦
They gathered in one of the narrow back alleyways in Yocho, men clothed in black. Even their pale faces were shrouded by the darkness.
“Tonight, this whole area,” said the rugged man who appeared to be the leader. “Spare no one. They’ve got nothing to do with us. They are insects devouring this world.”
The shadows around him nodded.
“Before dawn—at four o’clock—return to the vehicles. Go.”
The shadows melted into the night.