Authors: Jason Hightman
T
HE BULLET TRAIN WAS
in violent motion. Simon tried desperately to open the doors of the train for Aldric, who was clinging to the side, his hair blowing wildly, his face contorted from the wind speed, his trench coat flying off into the night.
But the train was far too well made. The doors weren’t budging.
Stupid Japanese perfection!
thought Simon.
Couldn’t they at least screw up when they made the doors?
Simon could see the other Samurai outside the train, behind Aldric. But the electronic lock on Aldric’s door wouldn’t break, despite Simon’s kicking it furiously.
Persistence paid off. Finally, with Key helping, Simon somehow got the doors open, but Key was
nearly sucked out of the train in the draft. Aldric pushed Key back in as he tumbled into the car with a thud, turning immediately to help Taro inside. The other Samurai were already angrily clawing into the car on their own, some of them breaking open other doors. They had clung to the train with small suction-cup devices, which now shriveled away like little black balloons and were pocketed.
Ingenious
, thought Simon.
Sachiko pulled Key away from Simon. “
I
will watch you now,” she said to her son, and turned to Taro,
“Get him.”
Taro turned to leave the car and look for the Dragon, and the Samurai rushed forward with him. Aldric gave Simon a look of severe annoyance, but this was no time for arguing. The two followed the Samurai up ahead, moving through the unlocked doors.
The train seemed empty, evidently it was the last one of the night.
Simon passed into a new car, its sleek, white padded benches offering plenty of places to hide. The Samurai in their black armor and helmets moved in cautiously. Akira first, Mamoru last, same as in the hospital raid.
Down the narrow aisle they went, and as they entered the next car, they came upon a little boy
dressed in a school uniform, apparently very late in getting home and looking absolutely terrified.
“Is it in here…?” Taro asked very quietly, in Japanese.
The terrified boy nodded.
“Where?” he asked, but the boy could not answer, he was shaking from fear.
Taro tried to see where the boy’s eyes were indicating.
Suddenly, the speakers began barking again with an official, automated voice.
“What’s it say?” asked Simon. He and Aldric could only see glimpses of the boy between the armored backs of the Samurai.
Taro didn’t answer, between trying to keep his eyes on the boy and turning very slowly at the same time, to see where in the car the Dragon was hiding.
The speakers were barking again.
“It says,” Mamoru translated. “New train. Automated.”
Simon stared. “There’s no one else on here? No one’s running this?”
Mamoru listened to the speakers. “This is a test run, for engineering trial, not open to the public.”
“Why?” Simon asked.
“It says they’re testing new and higher speeds,” he answered.
“Higher speeds? Faster than
this
?” said Simon.
“If it’s not open to the public,” said Kisho, “then what is
he
doing here?”
As he said it, Taro’s eyes searched the train and came to rest again…on the schoolboy.
The boy suddenly began crying, he said he was lost, he was coming back from his uncle’s, he was late. Mamoru was translating all of this as best he could.
Wanting a better look, Simon climbed on one of the benches—and saw the child’s voice coming from none other than the Japanese Dragon.
“Look out!” screamed Simon, but the Creature knew the game was up. They all watched as the little boy opened up a mouthful of silver-gold teeth. Taro raised his sword, and the cornered boy broke apart like colored mist, to reveal the angry Dragon. It opened its jaws and let loose its fire.
Taro howled and stumbled back, turning away from the fire, and the flames broke over him and spread to the roof of the train, a dazzling silver-gold blaze brighter than any Simon had ever seen.
Aldric fell back, and the Samurai went with him. The fire scattered off Taro’s armor and splashed the train in quivering flames of silver and gold, like metal that had learned to dance. The silvery fire grew forward, while the golden flames licked backward, and the Dragon escaped ahead through the burning train.
Protected by the blaze, the Serpent screeched back at them in Japanese and Serpentine, cursing them for making him spend his fire. And then it was gone, darting through the veil of burning liquid silver and the rising smoke in the car.
Some of the Samurai used their pistols—Kisho and Toyo were expert shots—but the Dragon had vanished, and the fire forced the men back.
Simon and the others raced back through the train as the fire quickly spread. They barreled into the last car, and Taro smashed the doors closed, but the fire would only be stayed for a moment. Simon saw Sachiko eyeing him with a look that said,
that fire is your fault, isn’t it?
Her distrust was palpable.
Simon felt awful.
The train lurched forward even faster, and everyone was thrown around to the ground, against the walls of the car, or into the thick glass of the windows.
The fire burst the windows at the door to the next car and began stabbing into theirs. Simon looked outside, searching for escape. A city was shooting past, glazing his vision in a kaleidoscope of lights.
“We have to get off,” declared Aldric.
“We can’t get off,” said Taro. “It’s going three hundred miles an hour!”
“Then we have to get clear of the fire,” said Aldric, trying to batter down the exit doors. “Your plan didn’t
cover this; we have to improvise.”
Taro wiped sweat from his brow. “We left the plan a long time ago.”
The fire was now eating up the car ahead, and Simon could feel its terrific heat leaking through the doors.
With a crash, Aldric splintered the glass of the side exit doors. The wind whipped furiously into the car.
“Faster than three hundred,” Key said quietly.
Aldric looked at Sachiko. “Can you do anything with the armor?” he asked her. Alaythia could touch the runic symbols on their armor and give flight to its owner, but Sachiko shook her head; clearly it was a talent she didn’t have.
Aldric looked desperate.
“We can hold out against the fire,” said Mamoru. “The armor will repel it.”
“That won’t work for Key,” Simon said angrily to the heavyset man. Key looked back in fear.
“I meant we’d enclose him in a circle, protect him with
our
armor,” Mamoru retorted. “The alarms are sounding, someone will try to stop the train.”
Aldric looked at him doubtfully. Not much of a solution. The fire was already burning the car up ahead quite brutally; their armor might last a minute, two, not more than five, tops.
“Tell the optimist he can stay with the car,” Aldric
said to Simon. “I’m getting off.”
Simon nodded, trying not to show his panic. “How?”
Aldric shattered more windows with his sword, and the force of the wind socked the car harder.
He yanked Mamoru’s crossbow out of his hands and fired into the floor of the train. The arrow had a long cable attached to it.
“Get your own! That one’s mine!” Mamoru said.
“You don’t want the job,” said Aldric.
He’s going to…
what?
Simon thought.
This is suicide.
Taro fired his arrow into the floor as well, and nodded to Aldric. Now they would be securely fastened to the bullet train as they moved outside.
The two approached the doors.
Tokyo sped past them with heart-battering acceleration.
“What are you doing?” cried Akira, baffled.
“Uncoupling the cars!” shouted Aldric.
Sachiko stared. “What?”
“I’m going to crawl outside and uncouple this car from the train!”
“Won’t work,” cried Akira. “I know train. You’ll never uncouple them!”
“We have to try,” said Taro.
Aldric was gripping hard to the cable on his crossbow. But the power of the wind was nearly unbearable.
Now the gold-tinted fire in the car up ahead held a new surprise: the Japanese Dragon was
outside
the train, returning out of the flames. He appeared at the broken window—attacking!
Aldric was hit first, a claw to the face.
He lost his footing.
He flew back into the train car, thwacking against the Samurai, several of whom were thrown down at once. For a second, they were distracted from Taro, perched at the window.
Rocked by the wind, Simon saw Taro furiously battling the Dragon on the side of the train. But Taro had only one arm free; he had to keep a grip on the cable that held him to the car. It was impossible, yet Simon saw Taro slam his armored fist onto the Dragon’s crown of spikes, and
fling the beast over the side of the bullet train.
At four hundred miles an hour, even a Dragon goes splat.
It does not die, however. No deathspell, no death. And its own fire will not harm a Dragon. In a situation like this, death will not occur.
Something else happens.
And what Simon witnessed, staring from the bullet train, he would never forget.
The Dragon was raked off the train, slipping from the side with a whoosh of air. It collided spectacularly
with a giant neon advertisement and sprayed the night with sparks.
After the sparks came the fire. The Dragon was blown apart, gold and silver flames cascading out in a jaw-dropping glory of an explosion. Pieces of Dragon rained down, disappearing as the bullet train furiously, relentlessly blurred its way onward.
Aldric and the Samurai recovered, rushing to get to Taro at the open window.
They were too late. Taro had let go.
He flew back into the night. Gone.
The thought crossed Simon’s mind—
he sacrificed himself, so we wouldn’t die trying to save him
—but as he looked out the window, he realized Taro had fallen into a waterway near the train.
“Go!” screamed Sachiko.
Simon stared.
“We’ll hit too hard!”
“I will soften the fall,” she cried.
“You can do that?”
“I think so.”
“What?”
“Never had to help so many before!”
The Samurai were launching like paratroopers, so Simon took it on faith, and leapt into the night. Aldric shouted to him, amazed at his trust, and then jumped out after him.
Simon could see his father for a moment, then
Sachiko jumping with Key’s hand locked in hers. Falling through the air, Simon saw for a split second that the fire had grown all the way to the front of the train. The whole bullet train was now a silver-gold worm of light, gliding dazzlingly out of the city of Tokyo.
Then Simon smacked into black water and wondered whether Sachiko’s magic had done them any good at all. The water felt very, very much like cement.
But he was alive; he knew her spell had worked.
A moment later, Simon poked his head out of the cold Tokyo Bay waters.
He watched the bullet train speed on without them, a fiery missile in the night, until it derailed, colliding with a
second bullet train headed the opposite way
in a tremendous explosion.
Simon gasped, treading water. The Samurai were burbling up around him in the night, and Sachiko’s powers must’ve aided them, or their armor surely would’ve pulled them down.
Aldric was helping Key onto the bank, and looked at Sachiko. “Your son, he needs to be ready for this kind of thing. You can’t keep evil away from him, don’t you understand that? You don’t protect him by keeping him out of the fight—you do it by preparing him
for
the fight.”
Sachiko climbed onto the bank as gracefully as can be imagined. “I do not know you so well,” she told Aldric. “But I am going to guess you are not the best one in the world for giving parenting advice.”
Simon got onto land beside Key, who was paying no attention to the argument, instead staring off at the destruction of the trains far ahead.
Black, twisted metal wreckage flickered with distant light.
Tokyo had a disaster on its hands.
S
OMEWHERE OUT IN THE
burning Tokyo night, the ragged pieces of the Japanese Serpent had fallen onto a quiet street. Silver flames crawled over the building high above the Serpent’s torn-apart body, and golden flames harassed the lower floors.
The Dragon’s metallic scales and armored hide lay broken apart in hideous chunks, strewn across the concrete, burning, and lifeless.
The Dragon of Japan was destroyed.
Momentarily.
It felt nothing for a time. No thought. No emotion. Like the deepest of slumbers. And then its mind—still in one piece—began to work again. For a moment, the Creature enjoyed the emptiness, the lack of feeling, that it was experiencing. Feeling nothing was, after
all, the Dragon’s favorite feeling of all.
This idea was the center of his philosophy. Keep emotions bundled so tight they cannot breathe. No anger unbalanced him; no delight awaited disappointment. He felt only the calm and the quiet of sensory deprivation, and no words came into his mind except one.
Equilibrium.
Several men who lived in apartments near the blaze came out to see what had happened, and they watched in utter confusion as the fleshy armored chunks on the ground slowly grew long worm-like golden tendrils. The thin, slithery things grew from every part of the Dragon’s wriggling hide, and they moved across the pavement, dragging the separate parts of the Dragon with them. Then the tendrils grew together, wrapping themselves tightly, and began pulling the beast back into one finished body.
It was not a quick process. Some of the men ran away, and some felt ill. This was an old magic at work, a force within all Dragons, bred into them since time began. When the Dragon finally rose, he was not quite fully put-together. There were gaps in his body, and his arms and legs were connected only loosely by golden wires. Equilibrium was out of the question.
Like a Serpentine scarecrow, the Dragon limped away from the fire.
The first emotion that came to him was desire—a desire to get away.
The second emotion was rage.
Simon and Aldric could do nothing to stop the silver-gold fire erupting on the outskirts of Tokyo. Firefighters were hurrying in. As helicopters soared overhead and the wailing of sirens filled the air, Simon felt the Samurai staring at him, blaming him for forcing the confrontation on the bullet train, and he wanted to die. He felt the burning in his stomach returning, his adrenaline surge now fading, and the twisted excitement of battle wearing off.
They don’t trust me. And they probably shouldn’t,
he was thinking.
Sachiko hates me for almost getting her son killed. He’s not ready for any of this. Dad just keeps trying to defend me, and it’s pathetic. I wish he’d just stop.
“He did the best he could,” Aldric was saying to Taro. “He’s just a boy.”
“Then he shouldn’t be interfering in battle,” retorted Taro, and he began walking away, headed for the area where the Dragon had fallen.
“That’s your mistake,” Sachiko offered Aldric. “I never wanted my boy to face this.
I
remember what happened the first time you came here. I made a vow. Never.”
“You could show some gratitude,” Aldric retorted.
“Or is that not a Japanese trait? You’d all be burned to a crisp right now if it weren’t for us.”
This remark did not go over well. Taro turned to look at him. “He filled me full of holes,” he said, motioning to Simon, “and you served no good purpose except flailing around like a badly managed kite.”
“A kite?” Aldric snorted.
“Yes,” said Mamoru. “What is the English word for reckless angry fool with two left feet?”
“There is no word for that.”
“Well. We’ll call that an
Aldric
.”
Mamoru and the others kept walking, and Aldric looked ready to attack them with his sword. “It’s not funny,” he mumbled, looking at Simon. “It’s not one whit funny.”
“You ought to listen more. Did it ever occur to you,” Aldric said angrily to the others, “that our side of the Order has been more successful at this, judging from the long list of Asian Dragons out there?”
“Did it ever occur to you that Asian Dragons might be harder to kill?” Taro said over his shoulder, and this seemed to shut Aldric up completely.
They walked after the Samurai. Simon noted that Mamoru always managed to keep their spirits up. It seemed Mamoru pushed the others along, physically and mentally, a big, heavy, bowling ball of a man; an armored Buddha, who somehow made everyone feel
lighter. His ragged, wolf-growl of a voice had pride in it, though Simon didn’t comprehend the words of the song he was singing.
“What do you want? Huh? It’s no good to cry and moan,” Mamoru was saying to the other men. “We gave the enemy a good, honorable fight, and we’ll give him a good, honorable burial…in fire. The night is not yet over.” Sachiko offered him a weak smile.
Simon had come up beside Key, who looked at him with weary eyes. “There are times Mamoru is helpful. And then times like this. He really does have a lot of skill, if you’re in the mood for it. He’s even done work as a clown before.”
“A
clown
? Did you say a clown?”
“They have to fill up the days between battles somehow. He says it frees his mind from the endless training.”
Simon looked over at Mamoru, intrigued.
“He does magic tricks,” Key added.
“Not magic,” Sachiko corrected him indignantly. “Just tricks.”
“He’s very good,” Key said, with admiration. “He picked up the skill after his wife died. Killed by a Dragon in Osaka. Mamoru learned to do tricks for some children whose parents died in the same attack.”
“Quiet,” ordered Akira from up front, and Simon and Key lowered their voices to whispers.
“What’s his deal? Does he just hate me, or is he like this to everybody?” Simon asked.
“It’s not just you. Akira doesn’t trust outsiders.”
“Great.”
“You can’t blame him. He’s always had problems with foreigners. When he was a kid, a group of Navy men got into a barfight with his father. And they killed him.”
“American Navy?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They had no reason. I guess they were drunk. His mother wanted peace, not revenge, so the other Samurai did not go after the killers, and they were never arrested. Akira found out from a witness that these Navy men had tattoos, different ones, on their arms, you know? Akira put the same tattoos on his own skin when he was twelve. Then he left our Order for a time, and he went after them himself and killed them, one by one.”
Simon looked at Akira walking ahead in the night, his tense frame full of anger.
“The killers,” said Key, “had families. Children. Akira felt so disgusted at what he’d done, he tattooed on his arms the orphans’ names.”
They were talking quietly, but the mention of these children must’ve bothered Sachiko; she moved
ahead a bit, the wide circle of Samurai still keeping Key safely in the middle.
Simon could see Akira’s sword was still drawn, almost defiantly, so anyone might see it, though they hadn’t met anyone walking on the road, just a few fast-moving cars.
“His sword has a red grip,” Simon said curiously.
“He’s very traditional,” said Key, “but he made the handle red when his father was killed. A sword is the soul of the Samurai. Akira hates the gun; he says it destroys the ‘honesty of the kill.’”
“It does,” said Taro, hearing this last bit. “But it is the best way to beat the enemy. At a distance.”
Simon looked over at him.
“Are you going to tell all of our little secrets?” Taro asked Key, letting his warning tone linger in the air. The boy gave an ashamed grin, and averted his gaze.
They were so far away from where the Dragon fell that they needed to board a city bus, and they were a dripping, miserable sight. The warriors were able to collapse their helmets for concealment, and Simon again noted the ingenuity of their designs. They looked much like police in riot gear, and the few people on the bus did stare. Before long, the driver announced the bus was being sent to evacuate survivors of the fire, and everyone had to get off, so they resumed walking. Simon was wearing down, even
with his resilient St. George blood, and Key looked exhausted.
As they neared the fire, Simon had the distinct impression they were being followed, and when he looked behind them, he saw how nervous Key was. He had a guarded look on his face.
Something’s out here. Something’s with us.
By the time they reached the street where the Dragon had been thrown, there was no trace of its remains. The fire it had caused flickered quietly.
They stood at the scene of the Dragon’s temporary demise, and things started to click in Simon’s head. “Do you see what I’m seeing?” he whispered to Key.
“I’ve never seen this many rats in one place,” said Key, looking up at the ledge of a building. At least forty rats were swarming up there, fighting for position, and many were dropping, falling dead to the street.
“It’s at least ten degrees colder on this block than it was back there,” said Simon, and Key nodded. The Dragon was here. Somewhere.
The boys looked at their fathers. “Indicate nothing,” said Taro to Aldric, and they continued moving along the street, acting as if they had no idea anything was wrong.
Simon moved up beside Aldric. “It’s the ledge, up there.”
“He isn’t there.”
“Dad. He is.”
Aldric and Taro exchanged looks. “He is shifting his effects,” warned Aldric.
“The Serpent places his shadow on the other side of the road,” Taro whispered to Key. And then he spun, and fired his crossbow into a parked car across the street. The window shattered. An inhuman cry was heard.
The Samurai and Aldric ran for the car. Simon trailed them. But Key was blocked by his mother.
Simon rushed past the Samurai, their crossbows held at the ready, and looked into the car. A timid old gentleman stared back at him, and the image in Simon’s eyes twisted slowly until he realized he was looking at the Ice Serpent of Zurich.
It wasn’t the Japanese Serpent at all.
Covered in frost, quivering, his fangs chattering, the old black-and-white Dragon was begging for his life. Its tail had grown back into two thin whips.
Akira pulled him from the car, but it was Aldric who placed a sword at the old Dragon’s neck. “What are you doing here?” Aldric demanded. “What’s your business with Najikko?”
“This is not what you think,” the Ice Creature said in German-accented English, flailing in Akira’s grip. “I do not work with the Japanese monster. I can be of help. I am no threat.”
“You were threat enough at sea, weren’t you, now?” said Aldric.
The old Dragon trembled, stuttering.
“Speak,” said Akira.
“Is…is…is very simple. I only watch Najikko,” the Dragon claimed. “I am working toward a history of the Serpentine way. I do no one any harm. You know this,” he said, pointing to Aldric. “You find no proof of wrongdoing in my ship, yes? Yes? Only thoughts. Words. I am old. I have nothing to my life but my words.”
“They were burned away,” Aldric said angrily. “They’ve gone down with your ship.”
The Ice Dragon looked at him sadly, choked with tears. Simon was not sure he felt sympathy for the beast, but its act was convincing, its age and weakness obvious as it stooped lower, cowering.
“Years of work, two hundred years,” the Serpent said, sobbing. “I have only a few days worth of writing left to me…”
“Enough of that,” said Aldric, pulling the Serpent to stand. “Sniveling old miserable thing, we’ll take you captive. We’ll let you finish your writings. You’ll die soon enough anyway, you bloody relic. But I’m warning you, do not lie, or your death comes
now
. What do you know of the Japanese Dragon? What are you doing here?”
“The Japanese Dragon is newly powerful. He has tremendous strength. The ancients’ fire, the Terror of the Orient,” said the Serpent. “He is going now to his greatest adversary…”
“Who?” demanded Taro.
The Serpent hissed, “Issindra.”
“What word is this?” Taro asked him, confused.
“It means tigerskin,” answered Simon behind him. “It’s their name for the Tiger Dragon.”
“India,” said Aldric. “She is somewhere in India, or was, years ago.”
“We have it in the White Book of Saint George,” Simon added.
“Where is it now?” ordered Taro, and he ran the tip of his blade into the Serpent’s chest lightly. Ice cracked there and shattered to the ground.
The Ice Dragon withered at the threat. “Still in India. The Tiger Serpent can be found in Bombay. She seeks a mating partner with the Japanese Dragon—”
“What?”
Aldric and Taro spoke in unison.
The Serpent nodded vigorously. “They seek offspring. Alliance. Empire. They will meet in India to set aside their animosity…”
Simon was disgusted.
Next to him, Sachiko had withdrawn the Dragon scroll from the inside of her jacket.
“He can’t go to India,” she said. “The Tiger Dragon
and the Japanese Dragon are from the two most dangerous bloodlines in the Serpent world.”
“Yes,” hissed the Ice Dragon, his eyes unmistakably pleased.
Taro shoved him back with his swords, “What do you mean?” he asked Sachiko.
“The scroll,” she explained, holding it up. “The Terror of the Orient was created long ago by two Dragons joined in wedlock. Their symbols are here, their power together was the most volatile in all of history—”
“Yesss,” echoed the Ice Dragon.
“In all the centuries of their existence, no two Serpents have ever done more damage. The last time these two breeds unified, the worst natural disaster in history occurred.”
“People thought it was the Krakatoa volcano explosion,” sneered the Ice Serpent, “the sky all over the world glowed for a year from the flames, but that many deaths could only be the work of Serpentine magic…”
He trailed off, as Sachiko tried to explain. “The Japanese and the Tiger, they’re from the same bloodlines as the creators of this scroll.” Then she went on excitedly in Japanese, hurriedly speaking to Taro.