The Oni, page 28
The Akuragawa kami were gathering in support.
Cooper hurled her flashlight away. It crashed against a stanchion to vanish in darkness as the bulb shattered. The woman raised the sword overhead in a two-handed grip. Her rubber shoes thudded heavily alongside the tracks without a single false step. A scream she’d never screamed outside of her self-defense class tore from her lips.
“Hai-yah!”
Sergeant Brunner’s heels thudded on the grimy concrete platform as she again hurried from the token booth to join the detective in charge. Communications liaison was a task she’d normally assign to one of the officers in her command, but they were needed to cordon off the subway entrances.
“A train was stopped north of Eighty-Sixth Street, Lieutenant,” she retorted. “Passengers being discharged now. As soon as they’re all above ground, a squad car will bring the motorman down here.”
Foster took a deep breath. “He understands the risk?”
Brunner nodded. “And volunteered.”
“Good for him. When he gets here, I’ll take a couple of officers and move in to distract the oni. As soon as we draw him off, you get that driver aboard and … what the fuck?”
Lieutenant Foster leapt from the platform, landing heavily in the center of the tracks. His bad leg almost folded beneath him but, though he wobbled, he did not fall. Still holding his revolver, he squinted down the murky tunnel.
“What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”
“Who’s cowboying down there?”
Brunner eased herself down and stood beside Foster for a clearer view. “No one from my unit, that’s for sure. Out of uniform. From the stride, I’d guess she’s female.”
Foster moved to the Express tracks, nearer the center of the tunnel, stepping gingerly over the humming third rail. The woman neared the stalled train. Light from the car windows illuminated her features.
Foster’s jaw sagged. “That’s Mrs. Cooper!”
“Who?” asked Brunner.
Foster did not reply. What did that crazy bitch think she was doing? He started forward.
Sergeant Brunner moved to follow the lieutenant. Foster waved her back.
“Call in your unit, Sergeant. If the back-up shows now, fine, show them in. If not, we move in without them. Weapons ready, but no shooting until I say so. Someone might hit the woman.”
The oni expected no attack and was too startled to dodge. Cooper’s first blow cut him to the bone. Thick, oily fluid seeped down the scarlet calf of his left leg.
Cooper retreated, not waiting for the counterblow. She was pleased to note that her earlier impression, that Kura’s attack had diminished the creature, had not been an illusion. With this wound, her foe became dramatically smaller. The horned forehead was now level with the subway car roof.
Which still meant that the oni towered over her.
Cooper rushed forward, thrusting again. The creature leapt out of the blade’s path. His crimson bulk slammed into a car, almost derailing it. It rocked unsteadily, shaking the attached cars as well. Screams of panic rose anew.
The uptown end of the tunnel suddenly echoed with footsteps. Cooper dared not turn to look. If her eyes left the demon for a single second, he could shrink to hide in the sooty gravel of the roadbed. While she watched, however, that strategy could leave the oni momentarily more vulnerable. The proof of this was that he made no such attempt.
The showdown had to come here and now. This was her best, likely her only, opportunity. The oni was still befuddled by pain and the fact that his opponent was a round-eyed woman. Cooper stalked the brick-red giant as it backed slowly southward.
More footfalls, a herd of them, came from behind Cooper. The woman hoped no fool would grab or otherwise distract her. Not only would the oni escape, but she and the sword, both frustrated, might cut down the misguided rescuer.
Over the thundering heels, and the oni’s agonized roars, came a familiar voice.
“Mrs. Cooper! Francine! Move aside!”
She neither turned nor slowed as she replied. “Lieutenant Foster? You got my message?”
“Yes! Now move! You’re in our line of fire!”
“Bullets won’t harm an oni. Lieutenant. Didn’t you learn that last night?” Shouting made Cooper’s throat raw. Her eyes began to water. She rubbed the lids, one at a time, with a bloodied hand.
The demon’s too-bright ebon eyes looked past Cooper to the blue-clad warriors, obviously members of the same clan he’d fought the night before. Then his gaze returned, fascinated, to the iron sword held by his nemesis.
“You’re interfering with police business, Mrs. Cooper!” Foster shouted. “I order you to leave the scene!”
“No, Lieutenant. This is giri … duty!”
A word! An isolated word, out of all the gibberish that passed for speech in this time and place! He stopped to study the woman warrior more carefully.
She did not stop.
Could she understand him? Might she be persuaded to share an overlordship with him?
He made the offer.
The woman must have understood, if only from his tone. A thin smile curled her lips. Still she advanced.
He’d seen such determination before:
In his traitorous bodyguard, Ashika.
In the peasant who’d died under torture, after first biting through his own tongue so that he could not speak.
In the eyes of a frail and aged priest.
In the expressionless face of a preadolescent pillow boy whom he’d thought he’d thoroughly cowed.
Then the woman did something that sent a shudder of pure fear through his body.
She invoked his name.
“Uto! You’ve lived too long!”
The snarling tone of the unexpected words startled Cooper as she spoke them. She did not talk in this manner. Yet doing so felt appropriate.
The oni stopped. A triad of thick fingers grasped the wooden plank that shielded the third rail and tore it free. A flying bolt ricocheted off a stanchion to strike the exposed rail, raising blue sparks. The oni waved the makeshift club triumphantly. His favorite weapon could easily keep the woman more than a sword’s length from him.
Cooper’s heart sank as she realized this. She was sure to lose a contest of stamina, kami or no. She knew her limitations.
The plank smashed the flat of her blade. Her two-handed grip retained the sword, barely. Her fingers tingled with numbness.
Cooper retreated, moving to her left. If she lured the oni into a confined space, such as one of the recesses along the tunnel wall, he wouldn’t have room enough to swing the plank. Close-quarter fighting had another risk, though. If the oni actually got his hands on Cooper, she was good as dead. She would not mind, if she could take him with her.
Her sidestep left a clear path between the oni and the police. Foster ordered the squad to fire.
Bullets glanced off rock-hard skin. One ricochet gouged Cooper’s right cheek. She ducked between two subway cars, realizing the gunplay would be directed away from the train. There she muttered blistering opinions of New York’s Finest.
The demon forgot her. His ebon eyes glowed preternaturally. Spittle foamed over crusty red lips. Titanic limbs trembled with bloodlust. He spread his arms wide, threatening, and advanced on his latest foes.
It was an opening Cooper could not afford to ignore. She plunged for safety, keeping low to avoid the hail of bullets.
“Cease fire!” Foster ordered.
Most of their guns needed reloading, anyway.
The force of Cooper’s charge drove the sword point into the oni’s stomach and out his back, unfortunately missing the spine. A roar of agony tore at her eardrums, but Cooper clung to the hilt, pushing upward until the guard prevented further movement. The oni’s club whistled through the fetid air, but Cooper was too near the creature for a clean strike. The wood splintered across her shoulders, not unlike a hearty slap.
The oni gnashed his fangs. His free hand wrapped around Cooper’s throat, throttling her as he tried to shake her off. She tightened her own grip, hands already white with strain, fingerbones crackling. She fought to ignore her body’s growing need for air, and the increasing dread of a sudden snap that would mean a broken neck. Photons streaked through her eyes, blurring vision.
The blade twisted sideways, opening a wide gash in the belly. The demon howled and released the woman’s neck to clutch at his wound.
Intestines like huge black snakes spilled steaming from the cut. The stench from the creature’s bowels overwhelmed the half-suffocated Cooper. She staggered back, gasping for fresher air. The hilt slipped from her fingers, but the blade remained buried in the oni’s gut. It wanted to stay there.
Cooper stumbled northward, nursing her sore neck, gulping to relieve her burning lungs. She’d gone almost the length of the stalled train when her legs rebelled. She toppled.
By then, Lieutenant Foster had run forward. He caught her with an arm about her waist. The right side of her coat was wet and sticky. His cease-fire order hadn’t come fast enough. He half-carried the woman to a spot behind the officers stretched in a thin line for the width of the tunnel.
Cooper recovered her wits. She dug in her heels and turned her head to look, with widening eyes, at her nemesis.
The oni stood less than a man’s height now, and was still slowly diminishing. He wavered on the crossties, tossing the shattered plank aside. Black, gelatinous blood spilled down his crotch and legs to pool thickly about three-toed feet. The creature’s hands grasped the hilt of the iron sword and tugged.
Cooper gasped in horror. The blade began to slide free.
“No!” she screamed. She struggled forward. Foster reached from behind to pin her arms to her sides. She kicked at him. He smacked her ankle painfully with a sharp heel.
“None of that, Mrs. Cooper.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, pleading. “If he pulls that sword out, he’ll get away!”
Foster jerked his head toward the ceiling of the tunnel. Overhead, upper Broadway was filled with wailing sirens.
“He won’t get far.” The promise sounded hollow even as Foster made it. He was tempted to trust her judgment and let her go back. Training overcame instinct. He couldn’t risk the lives of civilians on a whim, not even on a civilian’s own whim.
Cooper tensed to break free and became abruptly aware of the searing in her right side. The pain made her sag limply into Foster’s arms. She could only watch the oni’s struggle with resigned horror. Emotion was leached from her voice.
“Too late,” she said.
The sword was easing free, though slowly, hindered by the viscous blood. The hilt bounced dully on a wooden tie. By this time the oni was too small to allow the blade to slip straight down, but he only had to step back. Gravity would finish the task.
The oni looked north along the tunnel. His eyes fixed on Cooper. His scabrous lips twisted in that infamous grin, solely for her benefit. He’d lost this skirmish, but the war was barely begun.
The callused sole of a three-toed foot rasped on the discarded wooden plank. The board cracked under his weight. The oni turned to check his footing. It would not do to slip and fall in the middle of his victory. Dignity must be preserved.
The sword swung as he turned. It scraped the tunnel floor.
And touched the exposed section of the third rail.
Sparks flew, filling the tunnel with light for a blinding instant. Ozone scorched the air. The oni’s skin shone blue-white.
And started to run like melting wax.
The tunnel plunged into total darkness. Signal lights, work lights, even the bulbs on the station platforms blinked out. Miles away, subway controllers had been informed of the planned evacuation of trapped passengers. They shut off the current at the first sign of a short. Some idiot had obviously stumbled into the third rail. Two questions hovered in the minds of the men at the master control:
How many were dead?
Who would catch hell for this?
The hour-long seconds that followed were filled only by soft sobs from the stalled train, heavy breathing from the line of police officers, and a muffled curse from the Seventy-Second Street platform, where a bag lady had evaded the evacuation team.
Sergeant Brunner clicked her service flashlight on, its beam focused where the oni had stood.
Kura’s ancestral blade lay by the third rail, scorched and twisted almost beyond recognition. Cooper didn’t know how she would explain that to Allison Zebar, much less how Zebar would explain it to her supervisors.
All that remained of the oni was a formless puddle, dark red, sticky, and malodorous. This evaporated even as Cooper and the police watched. It would never be reconstituted.
Warm, intangible breezes circled Cooper for the last time, unfelt by Foster and the other police. The kami of the sword, and of the Akuragawa family, were free to pursue other destinies—or no destiny at all, if they so desired. The obligation had been met. Even Andrew Kura, she sensed, forgave her. He, too, was now kami, a god in his own right.
Then the warmth was gone.
And Cooper knew that, although Kura might forgive her, she would never quite forgive herself.
Wetness splotched her cheek over the drying blood from the ricocheted bullet wound. Cooper glanced up. She stood beneath an open air grating. Because it was bent downwards, she knew it was the same one the oni had used to enter the subway tunnel. A brilliant moon poked a round edge through a gap in the cloud cover. More police flashlights clicked on. In the criss-crossing beams, Cooper saw a white crystal flake drift down through a gap in the grate.
She turned to Lieutenant Foster, who still supported her. “It’s snowing,” she said.
Foster looked up at the night sky. “A light flurry.” He gave her a reassuring squeeze. Cooper gasped, reminding him of the sticky feel of her coat. “Sorry. Take it easy. You’ve been shot.”
“Damn,” Cooper said. “No wonder it hurts.” She closed her eyes and rested her head against the lieutenant’s shoulder. She was asleep on her feet.
Fifteen minutes later, Francine Cooper was being treated in the same Emergency Room that Gary Cross had stumbled into half a week earlier. It was there, in the waiting room, that Foster made the telephone call that explained to him what had happened to Rogan’s back-up. Bombings by terrorists had rocked police and federal buildings in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
An ancient terror had been laid to rest, leaving room for the modern ones to continue.
Other books by Gordon Linzner available from Crossroad Press
The Troupe
Gordon Linzner, The Oni
