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fiction: serial fiction
the crown: book two, chapter one
James grinned slightly as he lifted his head to take in his surroundings. There were probably a dozen men -- armed with everything from short clubs called scrima sticks to knives and even an automatic pistol or two. A few months prior, such a collection of men around him would have led him running into the arms of terror, but James was a very different person than the freelance journalist that went to an LA nightclub one fateful night.
Tonya was standing, virtually back to back with James. He could feel the leather belt hanging from her three-quarter length black leather jacket swing when it bounced off his thigh -- as unconcerned as she was about the danger these men presented, she did like to stay informed, so she was evaluating every inch of the windowless room they'd been lead into.
From behind the bruisers a young Japanese man, no more than twenty-five years old, wearing a Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt and baggy jeans, called out to them. "You gaijin seek the Hand of Glory," he said calmly. "That is a tragic mistake."
Tonya started off, surprising them by speaking Japanese flawlessly. "Harata-san, we're willing to pay whatever your daimyo wants, and we seek no conflict," she intoned, careful not to stumble on any syllables.
The young man, Harata, walked closer and replied in English, "Your diction is really impressive, Miss ... Fitzgerald, I think you said?" Pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he continued. "Regardless of your fine training in linguistics -- which looks like it's wasted on your boyfriend here, who clearly doesn't understand -- the two of you are headed back to America in lots of small boxes."
A grin spread slowly across James' face. "Please understand the truth in my words," he said, lowering himself slightly, speaking in English, "we sincerely want to do business with your organization, and we really hope we can avoid any ... unpleasantries."
One of the bruisers near the youngster started swinging a heavy metal chain. "Shame," Harata said wistfully, "because 'unpleasantries' are our only items available to outlanders."
Chuckling, the young man turned, lit his cigarette, and walked back to a crate of boxes several feet back, taking a seat.
James felt the hairs on his neck stand up when Tonya sighed, seeing the intent expressions on the men around them. "You did tell me it would end up this way," she noted.
Circling, keeping his back to her, James replied, "I'm almost never wrong about this stuff ... can I show them the elephant now?"
Tonya chuckled as one of the assailants started moving closer. "Enjoy yourself," she said through gritted teeth, and readied herself for what was to come.
With no preamble or warning, James leapt like some great beast of myth, bowling over two of the men intent on recreating scenes that would elate the likes of the Marquis de Sade, and flew across the thirty feet of space to grab Harata by the throat.
The move was so sudden and so surprising that many of Harata's burly associates stood, gape jawed, for a crucial moment. Tonya dived at the man who'd approached her, jabbing two fingers into his neck, just above his adam's apple. He went down with a wordless gurgling sound. In the three or four seconds it took for Tonya to regain the full attention of the attackers, she'd already laid three more out -- one with an intense hook kick to the solar plexus, one with a nasty nerve pinch to the neck and a final one with a foot sweep that bounced his head against the hard concrete floor like a fallen grape.
Most of the nondescript hirelings turned to attack Tonya, but by that time James had taken to the air, using Harata's helpless form as a club, swinging the young man by his torso and battering stooges with Harata's legs. Three more went down under this disturbing flailing of limbs, James laughing madly all the while. Tonya calmly feinted one of the scrima-wielding goons and came up beneath him, jamming the heel of her hand upwards and smashing his nose, hurling him back several feet into a pile of crates. Two final hoods remained, one aiming his nine-millimeter beretta nervously at the hovering James.
"Mine," Tonya said calmly. She dove forward into a tuck and roll, bowling over the gunless man just as his partner fired. James made a quick move to keep Harata out of the way of the bullet and smirked as the bullet glanced harmlessly off of his shoulder.
Tonya came up out of her tumble quickly, dispatching the final man by twisting his wrist painfully, forcing the gun to drop, and tossing her head back to smash him in the jaw, instantly delivering the hapless foe into unconsciousness.
James, still carrying Harata's prone, babbling form, lowered himself to the ground. "I'm gonna need a new shirt now," he muttered, fingering the bullet hole in his collared linen top.
"Thought you had one in the car," Tonya said absently, taking Harata from James as though the young man were a bag of rice.
"Oh, good point, thanks," James nodded. Tonya tossed Harata over one shoulder and walked towards the few surviving crates, James right behind her. Tonya laid Harata down gently, the young man's eyes as wide as Hudson Bay, his mouth opening and closing like some broken animatronic amusement.
James crossed his arms and Tonya took Harata's jaw in one hand. "Listen to me now, you pompous little bastard. We came here in good faith, and you attacked us. Since you didn't kill us, by your own rules you have dishonored your organization. If you think you were surprised that he used you as a baseball bat, imagine how surprised your mother will be when he uses her for the same. I'm sure he could find some other relatives to smash with her ..."
Harata whimpered, "Okay, okay ... what do you want?"
"The Hand of Glory," James said darkly. "It's all we're here for. We won't be as generous now that I had to show you the elephant, but we'll still make sure you're compensated for it."
"Aaah ... uh ... Boss Tiger would never give up the Hand of Glory. Been in his family for generations ..." Harata writhed against the crates, held firmly in Tonya's grip.
"That doesn't matter," Tonya said. "We will have it, and we will do so now. You know where Boss Tiger keeps it."
"He's kill me, he'd kill everybody I ever met if I told ... aaargh ..."
Tonya glanced over her shoulder at James, who leaned in closely. James began to speak, his eyes taking on a silvery glow, his voice bracketed by haunting echoes.
"You will tell us exactly where the Hand of Glory is ... right now."
Clearly against his will, Harata began to respond, "In the safe ... beneath Boss Tiger's den, under the house ... but there's a million rooms in the house, hundreds of guards ..."
"Where is the den in relation to the rest of the house?" James asked, his voice still heavy with power.
"The den ... overlooks the sea, near the balcony," Harata replied dreamily, falling under the sway of James' influence. "All the way at the back of the house, over the cliff, inaccessible ..."
Tonya smirked. "Not even close. Say goodnight, Harata." She then punched Harata lightly, leaving a small mark on his face and removing him from consciousness.
Standing up, she turned to James. "How nice should I be?" he asked her, arms still crossed.
"You got used to this way faster than anybody I've ever known," Tonya commented, looking worriedly at him.
James grinned, his boyish charm returning. "I told you, I read a lot of comic books. I could come up with ways to do stuff all day. The bit I'm gonna use to get the Hand is straight out of The Authority. Besides, it's not like you haven't broken a few guys permanently, even today."
Determined not to ask what The Authority was, Tonya shook her head, as if to clear it of a bad thought. "My opinion of mortal life is not all that high after eight thousand years, but I don't get so enthusiastic about ... ugh, I dunno ..." She dropped her head in thought.
James put his hands on her shoulders, and she lifted her face to see him. "I'm not Tsang Hu, Tonya."
She nodded and let herself fall into his embrace. She let her hands slide up his back and squeezed him close to her, her face on his chest. "You smell like gunpowder," she said pouting slightly.
"I know," he said. "Let's go back to the hotel, and then I'll get the Hand of Glory, so we can get outta town tonight."
* * *
Boss Tiger was not the most powerful or most influential Yakuza boss in Japan, but he'd easily be rated amongst the top five. He'd grown up in the city of Chiba, just across the water from Tokyo, and the city had always received the benefit of his largesse.
He built his fortress, a vast complex filled with gun-wielding mobsters and scantily clad concubines, on the western shore, overlooking the water. Vast cliffs scrolled downward from his balcony, where he often chose to contemplate life and be serviced orally by whichever woman was his favorite at the time.
Luckily for him, Boss Tiger was out of town -- there was a special martial arts exhibition in Yokohama, and Boss Tiger, fat as he was, loved to watch people working. So three days before, Boss Tiger loaded up at least a hundred of his favorite and most dangerous people and left a skeleton crew to watch his palace.
Tonya sat in the rented speedboat, her binoculars trained on the cliffside. Motion sensors everywhere scrapped the idea of a climb, and she believed she could just barely make out the tips of surface-to-air missiles peeking out from the shrubbery. Yes, Boss Tiger had gone to extraordinary measures to protect himself from almost every kind of invader. However, there was no way he could have been prepared for what was coming.
Tonya heard it before anyone else, her hearing considerably more acute, aside from listening for it. There was little to see -- a black bolt speeding down from the skies smashed through the roof of Boss Tiger's home, sending a shock wave of debris and artwork flying in every direction, collapsing half of the house. A few tense seconds passed, with yelling and smoke and fires from electrical wires torn from their rightful places, and then she saw it. The cliffside exploded in a cloud of dust and stone, and it was over. Tonya watched for a while longer, observing Boss Tiger's frantic men struggle to grasp what had happened to their orderly life.
"Little help here?" Tonya heard, and turned to see a small safe hovering off the port side of the boat.
"What's that?" she asked, leaning over to look at James, hovering at sea level and holding the safe over his head.
"This was the only thing in the safe that didn't look boring," James said nonchalantly, as though he were waiting in line for a latte. "It was all paperwork and money, except this thing was covered in fancy tapestries and surrounded by candles. There's all kinds stuff inside, and I couldn't pick out the scepter."
Tonya frowned. "Can you fly it directly to the airport? Is it heavy?"
"Nah, just unwieldy than a bitch," James shrugged. "Call ahead an have the hangar door open, and I'll go."
Tonya quickly grabbed her cell phone from her waist and dialed. "Terry? Hey, this is Tonya. Yeah. Uh huh. Look, I need you to open the hangar door and get in the plane, like we're gonna take off at any second. Uh huh. Just leave the cargo elevator open. No, it'll be fine, I'm having something delivered. Uh huh. Right. Okay, see you soon."
She flipped the phone closed and nodded. "Go skyborne and wait for a few minutes, it'll be ready in a few."
"Okee dokee," James smiled. "Are you sure you don't wanna tell Terry?
Tonya shook her head with certainty. "He's worked for senators and mobsters, he's used to keeping secrets, but he's much more used to not knowing at all, which suits us fine."
"Should I come back for you?" James asked, flying a little higher.
"Nah, I gotta return the boat," she sighed. "Shame, I was looking forward to the ride back. We'll have to go boating when we take this to Sumatra." She leaned out of the boat to kiss him gently on the lips.
James smiled and winked, bolting skywards with a cry of exultation.
"He's something else ..." Tonya sighed, shifting the speedboat into gear and heading away from the Chiba coast.
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