Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The sound of feet treading on sand mingled with the wash of the waves. Galeen Nuvenberg brought the wheelchair to a halt. The deep ruts being pressed into the damp sand stopped as well.

The old woman slowly gestured with her left hand. The broad expanse of blue water dissolved into the blue sky. On the far shore sat a resplendent manor house, bathed in white sunlight.

“What a nice place. In the end, European dreams fell short of such Oriental splendors. Wouldn’t you say, General Bey?”

“So you noticed me.” The voice could only have come from behind her, but it was definitely that of General Bey.

“They surely gobbled you to pieces, but apparently couldn’t stomach the entire meal. Or your flesh was not to their taste.”

“Where is the other one?” the steely voice asked.

“General Ryuuki guided me to the passageway and then disappeared. He is presently contemplating a life or a death in Demon City. I would have preferred his company, but this state of crisis can’t be helped. If he lives, I am sure we will meet again.”

“A man discontent with his outcast state? A weakling. It seems these Orientals have no use for eulogies.”

“I might imagine that these Orientals are rather more sensitive to such things, more than we Europeans who call ourselves civilized and surround ourselves with walls of stone.”

“Either way suits me. I have a quest to complete. That woman. I suppose if I offer up the head of the Czech Republic’s greatest wizardess, I might take receipt of her that much easier. It is time to awaken to our destinies, witch.”

“Well, then. Who in heaven or hell will determine them? Who will bring forth misfortune upon the other? Come, General.”

The old woman closed her eyes. Within the vistas of wind and light seemingly fashioned to meet the most refined tastes, her wrinkled lips had already begun chanting the incantations of death.

The wheelchair abruptly listed to the side. The wheels hadn’t sunk into the sand. The ground for two or three yards around her caved in. Cold water rushed into the hole. On the verge of crashing into her, the surge shot up into the air with a roar.

In the spray of water falling into the lake and onto the shore was General Kazikli Bey. He pressed his right hand against his left shoulder. The arm was missing. His right hand staunched the gushing blood.

“Nice move, coming from within the water,” said Galeen Nuvenberg. “But you underestimated me.” She held in her left hand a long, thick thing. “Although I too may have been a tad overconfident. To come away with only this—”

She tossed the thing onto the ground. General Bey’s left arm. The old lady rose into the air. She reached into her hair. A bright line flashed between the great wizardess and the powerful vampire, sparkling through the sunlight as it chased down the giant of a man.

General Bey grunted and fell to his knees.

A grotesque new tableau interrupted the scenic beauty of the mountains and the lake—a silver thread sewn through the general’s throat and eyes—a strand of the old woman’s fluttering hair.

As he struggled to stand, two more strands penetrated his knees. The general slumped forward like a tree under the woodman’s axe.

“Good. Just stay right there while I administer my special potion. Go!”

A buzzing sound burst forth from her vest and made a beeline for General Bey’s throat. It looked like a black metal beetle. As soon as it alit on his skin, its head spun with ferocious intensity, throwing off bits of flesh and blood as it drilled into his body.

The general tore at it, but he already lacked a left hand and his sewn-together right hand wouldn’t move. The bug’s objective was his esophagus. It bored in easily and dropped down, exploding just before reaching the stomach.

General Bey silently straightened. All his superhuman powers couldn’t deflect the suffering that arousing his body from his immobile state inflicted upon his senses. His face and limbs turned purple. This time he toppled clean over.

The earth shook from the impact.

“That potion attacks the cells down to their nuclei. You won’t be up and running around anytime soon. But just to make sure—”

Nuvenberg manipulated the joystick with her right hand. The wheelchair hovered a foot above the ground and tilted forward. The rocket launcher attached to the side of the wheelchair locked on the corpse lying in the sand.

Trailing fire, the pencil-sized missile punched a hole in the general’s body and burst into flames, burning at thirty-thousand degrees. The lifeless frame glowed white-hot. The skies and earth turned the color of a false dusk.

The glow quickly dimmed. Light and shadow returned to the earth. Where General Bey had been, only a gray husk remained.

The wheelchair touched down. Nuvenberg leaned over and picked up a stone and tossed it at the gray mass. It hit the shoulder area and made a small hole. The mass disintegrated into powder and scattered on the sand.

“It is certainly not becoming for a witch to resort to U.S. military technology. Forgive me for having to make do with what was on hand. I cannot take the liberties I desire with the elements of this world either. Convey my best wishes to the next world, general.”

Having exhausted the focused powers she needed to keep herself aloft, the wheels once again dug into the sand as she set off toward the manor house.

Nuvenberg came to the foot of the staircase leading up to the front foyer and stopped. She stared carefully at the manor house and then at the lake. “My senses draw me there,” she said, her eyes picking out a spot on the blue water.

The same place where Princess and Setsura had gone beneath the waves.

“Here alone the water is a phantasm. Though for me it would become quite real. Then I must part the waters. My, my. All this work is tuckering out this old woman.”

Grumbling to herself, she took from her vest a fat wooden tube two inches wide and half a foot long. The surface sported a bright oiled gleam. Shapes like pursed lips were carved on three sides. At the top were three holes the diameter of a pinky finger.

“Now we separate truth from fiction,” Nuvenberg intoned, and cast the wooden tube onto the water.

The black shadow disappeared in the middle of the expanding ripples. And soon vigorously bobbed up. Only the small holes at the top floated a few fractions of an inch above the surface of the water. From the holes gushed a rainbow of colors.

Not like a rainbow after a storm. A mountain lake brightly lit in sunny autumnal tints. If a crowd of tourists had been there, more than its sheer incongruity with the environment, they would be shocked by its beauty and elegance as it arched through the heavens.

Such a pretty and brilliant rainbow could not possibly exist in the real world. Another magnificent rainbow curved through the sky, ejected by the tube floating in the water.

Where did this light came from? Undeniably from the water, the pretend water through which Setsura and Princess had walked. As proof, a depression appeared in the brimming surface of the lake, about fifteen feet wide and three hundred feet long.

Only the water inside the transparent walls emptied out. The depression sank down a dozen feet and more. The bottom of the lake was already visible on the descending slope that reached out a hundred feet from the beach.

Where did the water go? Into the tube. The ordinary wooden tube sucked in the great volume of imitation water through the wooden lips carved on the sides and sprayed it into the sky in the form of a rainbow.

Within a span of ten minutes, there was a path in the damp sand in front of her. The walls to the right and left of her were made of water. Three hundred feet further on, Galeen Nuvenberg could see the large marble structure.

“Hold on, Setsura Aki. Your crippled and doddering old sidekick is on her way.”

She had gotten to the bottom of the lake when a big voice boomed out, “I will be going too.”

She glanced back over her shoulder in surprise, and saw General Bey standing a dozen or so yards behind her. Thanks to some sort of miracle, even his clothing was the same. The bellow of a carnivorous beast split the sky, and this evil incarnation of the immortal phoenix kicked against the wet sand and charged down the spit.

“Bastard,” said Nuvenberg. Without any apparent nervousness she spun the wheelchair around. The pencil missile split the air and engulfed the rocky slope in flames.

From within the ball of fire, the general swooped down on the witch from above. In the real world, Nuvenberg could have added a magical right hook to her left jab. But the walls of water checked her swing, magical or otherwise. Pulling another rabbit out of the hat at this juncture would require another uneasy moment of hesitation.

Plenty of time for General Bey to sink his fangs into her emaciated neck.

A shower of blue-white sparks sent Bey flying headfirst into the wall of water. He plunged in comically down to his waist. Like a trained seal jumping through a ring, he plopped back onto the path, a fish sticking out of his mouth.

He spit it out. And smiled and said, “What’s wrong, Nuvenberg?” She sat there staring up at the sky, her hand clapped to her neck. “However great the witch, once touched by my fangs she is assured the same fate as the lowest commoner. Ha! You will make a fine servant. I will proceed to the mausoleum first. You follow behind.”

With a shout of laughter, the medieval monster vaulted over Nuvenberg’s head and ran toward the building in the middle of the lake.

The pilot held out the headset. “Mayor, you’ve got a call on the hotline from outside the city.”

Kajiwara took it. “This is Kajiwara.”

He nodded. His expression didn’t change, but the tension showed in his voice. At this juncture, only the existence of the city itself justified using the hotline.

A gray shadow passed across his features. The call was from an informant he had at the Pentagon. Kajiwara’s eyes widened in surprise. He leaned back and stared at the sea of stars above his head.

In geostationary orbit twenty-two-thousand miles above the earth, electronic devils were getting ready to spit down a volcano of fire and brimstone on Demon City.

“Turn the helicopter around. No, no. Keep on going to outside the ward. The National Defense Agency. The fate of Shinjuku really hangs in the balance this time!”

“But we’re almost to Takada no Baba!” Kajiwara had ordered them to proceed there only minutes before.

“Belay that order. Change of plans. Keep going!”

The startled pilot—a new replacement—programmed the new destination into the GPS. He manipulated the joystick. The aircraft turned to the southeast.

“Mayor,” broke in the security officer sitting next to the window. “What’s that?”

In the halo of the floodlights, human figures on the road below sprang into his field of vision. A woman holding a suitcase was surrounded by a gang of men and women. The state of affairs needed no explanation.

“Are you going to help?” asked the reporter sitting opposite him.

“No—” Kajiwara saw the mike and camera turned in his direction. Clucking to himself, he said, “Let’s rescue her.”

“Yes, sir.”

The pilot nosed the helicopter down. The woman looked up and raised her arms like she was calling for help, except the way she was waving the oversized suitcase was strange to say the least. The rest bared their fangs and stared back at them.

The guardsman next to the pilot announced over the bullhorn, “The rest of you get back, or we’ll open fire!” But they only crept closer. “We’ve got no choice. Fire!”

“They’re too close,” the gunner called back. “We might hit the woman.”

“Nothing we can do. As soon as we land, push them back and rescue her!”

Listening to the back and forth, Kajiwara caught a streak of light out of the corner of his eyes and groaned to himself. “Oh, shit.”

As the helicopter descended to the ground, a ball of fire engulfed the tail rotor.