Werewolf Samurai: The Second Kelly Chan Novel Read online

“Yes.”

  “But Wakumi isn’t a werewolf.”

  He grinned. “Yes she is, but she can control it. She and Ichiro were cursed. Somehow, she learned to control it, but he never did.”

  “Something must have happened.”

  “Indeed. She got pregnant and stopped changing.”

  “Nature’s cure,” I said. “Can’t have the mother eating her offspring.”

  “After Cho was born, Wakumi could change at will. My father had doctors running test after test. Finally, they decided to try to create werewolves, and I was the first test subject. I didn’t know it, but they gave me a serum made with both Ichiro’s and Wakumi’s blood. That transferred the curse, but I learned to control the change just like Wakumi had.”

  “They couldn’t give Ichiro some of her blood?”

  “They tried. They used the serum, and even tried shots of Wakumi’s blood alone, but Ichiro has remained cursed beyond control.”

  “So your father had more werewolves created?”

  He nodded.

  “And there were no bad reactions to the blood?”

  “There were a few, but Wakumi and Ichiro are both O negative, which is as close to a universal donor as you can get. Now others have learned about them and what their blood can do.”

  “The ninja,” I said.

  He grinned. “That’s right.”

  “Who is the guy who calls himself Shinobi?”

  “A competitor, of course. I can’t let him get Ichiro’s blood. That’s why this is his last chance.”

  “You don’t know Shinobi’s real name?”

  “He has many names, Ms. Chan. None of them matter. He changes them like his clothing, and dons a new one when it suits him. You can’t find him by searching for his name, and I’m not cleared to give you any more than that.”

  “Fine. He’s going to kill Wakumi if I don’t deliver Ichiro.”

  “He won’t kill her. He needs her. That said, she should not have been home.”

  “But she was.”

  He shrugged, but there was tension around his eyes. “My mission parameters are limited to Ichiro.”

  “So you don’t care about Wakumi?”

  His brow furrowed for a moment, but he quickly controlled himself. “Without the cursed werewolf blood, hers is useless to them.”

  I blinked a few times. “But that’s even more reason to rescue her. She’s the key to this. They could get another werewolf.”

  “They’d have to find one.”

  “Regardless, she’s your sister.”

  Again, Nori shook his head. “My sister and I have a complicated relationship. This entire fiasco is her fault, and her stupidity cost Kiyoshi his life tonight.”

  “How is this her fault?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “To me it does. And it definitely matters to Cho.”

  “She should have taken Cho out of there long before sundown. Really, it was a mistake for her to ever marry Ichiro. He managed to charm his way into her bed, but he’s a weak-willed disgrace.”

  “But you haven’t quite given up on him,” I said with a slight grin.

  “If he had any honor, he’d have taken his own life before things spun out of control. As soon as he knew the ninja were coming, he should have committed seppuku, but odds are that Wakumi talked him out of it.”

  “Maybe you should all commit seppuku because they can use any of you to create their werewolf army.”

  Nori frowned. “They can’t get it from any of us. They need an uncontrolled werewolf like Ichiro.”

  I shook my head. “If I hadn’t seen you change, and if I hadn’t seen Ichiro, this whole thing would sound like a really lame anime movie. Werewolf samurai versus werewolf ninja? It’s too much.”

  “Try living it, Ms. Chan. My father wants us to try to keep Ichiro alive if possible because he wants more werewolves, but I’m to kill him if necessary because we can’t allow our rivals to have what we do. Truth be told, I would trade a thousand Ichiros to have Kiyoshi back.”

  “And I would trade a thousand of you to make sure Cho is all right. And we have to save Wakumi so Cho will have a mother.”

  Nori sighed. “Very well. I will have my men find where she is being held and we will retrieve her tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Wait. What? We need to go today.”

  “No. I must keep Ichiro out of their hands today. Tomorrow morning, we will rest, and in the afternoon we can go after Wakumi. Ichiro will likely be dead as I don’t believe he will defeat his wolf, but if he does win, he will be in better shape to help tomorrow.”

  “The only reason they have her is to get Ichiro by tonight.”

  “Exactly, so they aren’t likely to put up much of a fight tomorrow.”

  “They’ll kill her.”

  “They need her.”

  “I’m not willing to take that chance. Cho can’t lose her mother. She just can’t.”

  Nori stared into my eyes and I saw he was at war with himself on this as well. He wanted to save Wakumi even though it put his other mission in danger. Shinobi’s leverage worked on Nori as well as on me. “Fine. You win. We will go today, but you must make me a promise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I will not have Ichiro out of my sight today, which means we will have to take him with us.”

  “You could put him in a bunker somewhere.”

  “I will not risk them finding him. That means he must come with us, which strikes me as dangerous and foolish. Which brings us to you. If at any point it looks as though the ninja will capture him, you must promise to kill Ichiro if I’m not in a position to do so.”

  “You couldn’t tell me why before, but if you want me to kill him for you, I need to know why.”

  “Because Shinobi found him. We can’t let them build a werewolf army, so we’re out of time. Ichiro either controls his inner wolf or he dies.”

  “Fine, I promise. If it comes to that. But you need to know that I’m going to kill the ninja instead.”

  “They are many. We are few.”

  “Oh, come on. Unless your other men fight like Goro here,” I said gesturing to the body, “it shouldn’t be much of a challenge. There weren’t that many of them.”

  Nori looked at me like I was an idiot. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. They have an entire army.”

  “Yes, but you have me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ichiro stumbled into the living room holding his borrowed pants up so they didn’t fall off. Four samurai entered the room behind him. Ichiro spotted me sitting with Nori.

  “You!”

  I waved to him. “Good morning, Ichiro.”

  He saw the body lying on the floor.

  “She killed one of your men?” Ichiro asked.

  “No great loss. It was Goro.”

  Ichiro pointed at me. “You let them take me.”

  I shook my head. “You ran away, dumbass. in any case, we’re all here now. One big happy family. A girl and her werewolves.”

  “She knows?”

  Nori nodded. “She knows most of it. The parts she doesn’t know don’t apply as she doesn’t live in Japan.”

  “Somehow I doubt the government would look kindly on Japan exporting werewolves to the US,” I said.

  “The government funded research into lycanthropy, so they already know about it,” Nori said.

  Somehow that didn’t surprise me. The government had programs for psychic spies, mind control, and every other damn thing. Why not werewolves?

  “Project Moonbeam,” I said.

  One of the samurai shook his head. “Moonbeam is your government’s plan to run a false flag alien invasion or perhaps to fake the second coming of Jesus.”

  “And here I thought I made it up. What’s your name?”

  “Pat.”

  “How about Operation Full Moon?”

  “Too on the nose,” he said. “Projects and operations should never be identifiable by the covert name
for them. The lycanthrope program was Operation Rumble Seat. They shut it down in 1967. Most of the research was into Navajo skinwalkers, but in ’65 they recruited a witch who knew the ritual to curse men with lycanthropy. They set up an army base in Okinawa where they handled all the research and testing. Let’s just say it did not go well.”

  “I wasn’t looking for a history lesson, Pat.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “I don’t care what you guys do once we rescue Wakumi.”

  “What happened to Wakumi?” Ichiro asked. “Is Cho all right?”

  “Cho is safe,” I said. “I saw to that. Wakumi is being held by Mr. Shinobi, but I don’t know where he has her.”

  Nori pointed at one of his men. “Masaru, make a few calls. Find out which buildings Shinobi’s employer owns in Colorado.”

  “Yes, sir,” Masaru said. He walked toward the hall, stopped for a moment to look down, and shook his head. He stepped over Goro’s body and continued walking to one of the bedrooms.

  “I don’t know your other men,” I said.

  “You’ve met Shintaro. He doesn’t speak much English, but that puts him ahead of Akio here, who speaks none.”

  Akio bowed when his name was spoken. He was the shortest of the bunch.

  “You know Pat and Masaru, of course.”

  “And I am Takeshi,” a fifth man said as he entered the house through the garage. He bowed and smiled. “I am the brains of this outfit.”

  “You’re the comedian of the outfit,” Nori said.

  “That too.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. I focused on Nori as he was in charge. “Get your men ready so we can rescue Wakumi.”

  Takeshi frowned and nodded. “I’m sorry, sir, did she say we’re going to rescue Wakumi?”

  “That’s why Masaru is looking into the company’s real estate holdings.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow, sir?”

  “You didn’t sign up to be a kamikaze werewolf?” I asked.

  “I didn’t sign up,” he said.

  “Our company is owned by two men. My father and Takeshi’s father. We are equals, but as I am better in battle, he defers to me here. And in business, I defer to him.”

  Takeshi didn’t back down. “This is a bad move on both fronts, Nori. We need Ichiro to control his beast or he needs to commit seppuku. Your sister will either live or not.”

  “While on the business front, I agree. We may lose a man or two--”

  “Or all of us.”

  “Fine. Or all of us. I admit that is a remote possibility.”

  “You do too much for your sister, Nori. She blinds you.”

  “Seated on the sofa here is a Sekutar warrior.” He gestured to me. “That gives us an advantage.”

  “There are hundreds of ninja. I don’t care what kind of warrior she is. We are too few to mount this mission.”

  “It isn’t like we have to kill all of them,” Nori said. “We fight our way in, grab Wakumi, and fight our way out.”

  “Just like that. At least have the sense to assign one of us to watch Ichiro.”

  “He’s coming with us.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Was that ever in doubt?”

  “He needs to be left behind.”

  Nori shook his head. “Ichiro is staying by me until he either controls his wolf or he’s dead. Either way, it’s twenty-four hours. Mr. Shinobi will expect us to leave Ichiro here with a guard, and if Ms. Chan can find us, so can Mr. Shinobi.”

  “Mr. Shinobi gave me your number,” I said.

  “In which case, he already knows where we are. Therefore, he has the leverage he needs to get us to act. He knows that as much as my sister annoys me, she is family. I can’t turn my back on her no matter how much I want to.”

  “I understand that,” Takeshi said. “Just let one of us take Ichiro far away from here. If we start driving now, he will be out of the equation entirely.”

  “Shinobi wants us to do that. Try to take Ichiro somewhere and ninja will attack the car, kill the driver, and they win. Leave Ichiro here with a guard and they swarm the house with ninja. They will take Ichiro and it’s all over. Therefore, if we attack, we take Ichiro with us. If something goes wrong, and I admit that’s likely, we simply kill Ichiro and while we may all die, we will still win.”

  Takeshi frowned. “I want to argue with your logic, but when you put it that way, I’m surprised Shinobi hasn’t already attacked us here.”

  “He’s trying one last tactic with Kelly here. If she can get Ichiro, he risks none of his men. If she sides with us, he sees it as a suicide pact as he doesn’t believe we can’t defeat his army.”

  “We could simply kill Ichiro now,” Takeshi said.

  “We are honor bound to try and keep him safe until tomorrow, and Shinobi knows it.”

  “Taking him into battle isn’t keeping him safe.”

  “Shinobi overestimates his army’s skills, and he underestimates the Sekutar warrior. She killed Goro without any difficulty and he was in wolf form.”

  Takeshi raised an eyebrow. “A child could have killed Goro.”

  “Now, now.”

  “All right, perhaps not, but I’m not impressed just because a warrior can defeat our weakest member.”

  “I’d be happy to kill you as a demonstration of my skill,” I said.

  He laughed. “You would die trying.”

  I winked at him. “Shall we find out?”

  “That’s not necessary,” Nori said. He turned to Takeshi. “This isn’t an ordinary warrior. This is Kelly Chan. My father made a call to DGI. Kelly is the one who killed hundreds of vampires at the football stadium a few months ago.”

  Takeshi leaned back and eyed me with a bit more respect. “Nori is right. We have no need to fight.”

  “If you change your mind,” I said and smiled.

  “I do think you should call your father,” Takeshi said to Nori.

  “He won’t approve of this plan. He’ll tell us to stay out of it, so I’m not about to run this past him.”

  “He’s going to find out at some point.”

  “You know the old saying,” Nori said. “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”

  Takeshi sighed. “Well, if we all die, we don’t have to do either. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Masaru returned to the living room, stepping over Goro’s corpse again. “We have three possible locations.”

  “So now you expect us to split up?” Takeshi asked.

  Nori motioned for Masaru to take a seat. “What are the locations?”

  “I have addresses.” He rattled them off “The first address is in the Tech Center,” I said. “Unless Shinobi has ties with DGI, I don’t think they’d let him set up shop with a bunch of ninja in their territory.”

  “Mr. Shinobi is on the board of the Tokyo branch of Dragon Gate Industries. That is why I included the address.”

  “Figures.”

  “The second address is a big black skyscraper on Colorado Boulevard. It is centrally located, and easy to defend. The design fits with Shinobi’s personality, and he does keep his main office there when he visits.”

  “Seems obvious,” Nori said. “But it seems unlikely that he’d want to have a war at his main office. They rent there. They do not own the building.”

  “True,” Masaru said. “The final location is a hotel downtown. They do own the building, and they have the site listed with no vacancies due to a visiting contingent of businessmen.”

  “That’s probably where they sleep,” I said. “As much as I wish it were the big black building or the hotel, I’ll bet my last dollar that the Tech Center location is where they’re holding Wakumi.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because it’s the place I’d most like to avoid.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “We need eyes inside the building,” I said. Colin and Amanda had joined us at Nori’s
place, and we all sat around working on a plan to rescue Wakumi. “Amanda, can your hacker friend tap into the video cameras on site?”

  She shook her head. “He’s not available right now. He’s pulling a job for a client in Boulder.”

  “We need to know where in the building they’re holding Wakumi.”

  “Are you worried about the ninja?” Colin asked.

  “I don’t mind killing ninja,” I said. “I do mind them killing Wakumi.”

  “You’re really going to kill them?” Colin asked. “They’re just people doing their jobs.”

  “And their job will be to kill us and to kill Wakumi if we get too close. So they should have chosen a less dangerous profession.”

  He seemed surprised, but he shook it off. “If we can’t tap into their cameras, maybe we can fly in our own.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” Nori asked.

  “I have a UAV. It’s a quadcopter. A drone with a live video feed to my iPad or phone, and I’m pretty good with it.”

  “Too big and too loud,” I said. “They’d see it and smack it out of the air.”

  “How about a camera from an iPhone?” Amanda asked.

  “You want to fly a phone in? How?”

  “Not the whole phone. Just the camera. They’re small. With some simple magic I could have it send a signal to all of us.”

  “You can use magic as a power source?” Colin asked.

  Amanda nodded.

  “That’s amazing.”

  “It’s child’s play.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I like that idea. Do we have an extra phone?”

  “Goro had an iPhone,” Nori said. “You can use it.”

  “Does anyone here know how to remove a camera from an iPhone?” I asked.

  Pat grinned. “I’ll bet there are videos on YouTube about that.”

  “You’re elected,” I said.

  Nori nodded. “Hop to it, Pat.”

  “We still have a problem,” Amanda said. “The building is too close to DGI. If I go using magic there, they’ll send wizards over to stop us.”

  “They’re greedy bastards,” I said. “If you convince them it has nothing to do with them, I’ll bet they’ll sell us a permit as long as they don’t know I’m involved.”

  “They might. I’ll have to go over there in person to get it, though. They’ll want to know what we’re doing.”