Chapter 33: Emperor of Wrath: Chapter 33

I stand at the crumbling, dark entrance to the bunker system, my jaw grim and set, staring into the black maw.

I wasn’t entirely sure on the manic drive up here. But the black van parked behind a clump of scraggly bushes nearby tells me I was right.

This is where he took her.

Officially, these old World War Two bunkers, once occupied by the soldiers of Imperial Japan as they prepared for invasion by the allies, are closed to the public and sealed off as a safety hazard. One, who the fuck knows how the structural integrity of the hideaways has held up.

Two, what appears at first to be a single tunnel leading down through the brick archway is actually a maze of random pathways, caved-in barracks, and deliberate dead ends. If that wasn’t confusing enough, there’s been more than one occasion where would-be explorers walked into old booby-traps or happened upon deteriorating old explosives and got themselves splattered all over a wall.

For bonus points, the air down there is literally poison. Decades of old chemicals and ordinances releasing toxic fuck-knows-what means that unless you get a little air flow going, there’s a good chance you’ll pass out and never wake up again.

For all these reasons, the local Kyoto government has sealed the place up and posted about a hundred warning signs in four different languages to deter explorers and thrill-seekers. They’ve even walled the front entrance off about a dozen times. But some idiot inevitably tears it open again, ignoring every warning sign and going in anyway.

…I mean, Mal and I did exactly that a handful of times when we were younger.

I glance to the side again, at the barely concealed van parked at the only other place around here aside from Sakamoto Castle that the road leads to.

This is very obviously a trap. Valon wanted me to follow him here, looking for Annika.

I glare into the black murk of the tunnel entrance.

Trap or not, that motherfucker has my wife. The woman I love. He could be standing in front of me with an entire army, and I’d still be going in.

He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to die today.

I step into the darkness.

Years ago, a man named Rafe taught me something I’ve never forgotten: when you’re hunting vermin, you can stand on the roof shooting away, hoping you hit them. Or you can lay bait and trap them.

There’s only one true way to exterminate something that’s taken what’s yours. And tonight, as I walk into the blackness with death on my shoulder and fury pulsing through my veins…

Tonight, I’m one of Rafe’s fucking snakes.

The darkness swallows me whole as I slip down the side of the main tunnel entrance. A first, the moonlight illuminates graffiti and street art painted and sprayed on the walls. As the light fades, so does the art.

Even the local teenagers know not to go any further.

Up ahead in the gloom, you can just see that the main tunnel curves a little to the right, around a bend. I know that from the dozens of times I explored this place when I was first in Kyoto, looking for danger and excitement.

I also know that right up ahead, just before the bend, there’s a side passage that veers out away from the main tunnel and then doubles back into it once it makes the bend—probably a tunnel that was once camouflaged so that soldiers could more easily defend this place in the event of an attack.

Just as I get to the inky black opening to the side tunnel I freeze, my ears pricking.

Breathing.

Someone—just up ahead, right around the bend in the main tunnel—is breathing. Heavily.

They’re waiting for me, but they’re scared.

I smile coldly to myself.

They fucking should be.

Silently, I draw my sword out of its scabbard as I slip into the side tunnel and move quietly down it. At the end, I slowly peer around the corner and then tense.

My lips curl dangerously.

Sure enough, a little ways off, back toward the opening, I can make out the silhouette of a man crouched down with a gun in his hands. He’s trembling, and when he reaches up to scratch his chin nervously, I get a quick glint of moonlight off his glasses.

Tengan.

I cross to him silently and quickly, surging right up behind the little fuck before my blade stabs forward in the darkness. Tengan screams, jolting and spasming as my sword stabs clean through him from behind.

“I should have done this before, when you spoke to my wife the way you did.”

“Kenzo!” he bleats, sucking in air through both his mouth and the wet hole in his chest, which is making a wheezing, desperate sound. “Kenzo, please⁠—”

He sobs, screaming in agony as I twist my blade a little.

“I’m not interested in your pleas for mercy,” I snarl. “Where are they.”

“Please—” he gurgles. “Kenzo⁠—”

The only thing keeping him from falling to the ground is my grip on the sword shoved right through him as he shudders and screams in agony.

“Not only is this blade against your spinal cord, Tengan,” I hiss. “But it’s punctured your lungs.”

I give the blade another twist, eliciting a fresh cry of agony from his throat as I lean closer to him.

“Make no mistake, Tengan. You will die here tonight…alone…in the dark.”

He chokes out a wrenching sob.

“However,” I growl. “You can either spend the next few hours in excruciating pain, or if you prefer, you can go quickly, with some scraps of honor.”

He sobs as I take a slow breath.

“I can make this last, Tengan,” I mutter quietly. “A very, very long time. Or you can tell me where Valon and my wife are, who’s with them, and what’s waiting for me, and I will end your suffering quickly.”

“Kenzo—”

I shove the hilt of the sword against his back, relishing the screams of agony the movement elicits.

“One level down!” he chokes, spitting blood. “Toward the back of the complex! There’s a staircase at the end of this tunnel. Follow it down, take your first right, then your first left⁠—”

“I know the place.”

He’s directing me to the old control center, where whatever captain who helmed this defensive fort at the end of the Imperial reign commanded his troops.

“Who else is there,” I snarl.

“Nobody!” Tengan wheezes. “Just Valon and your wife!”

Behind him, I shake my head.

“Why, Tengan?” I snarl. “Sota treated you so well, for so long.”

He starts to weep. “I…I had debts. I got in deep with the Koreans at the casino.”

My lip curls. “You fucking idiot.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I was desperate, and Valon got to me.” He cries out in pain when he tries to glance back at me over his shoulder. “Kenzo, Valon needed that deal with you and Sota. He paid me to help him push it with the two of you.”

“Why.”

Tengan shudders, coughing blood as he sags against my blade.

“He owes someone money, and they’re going to start killing people to get it.”

Yeah, like Valon’s own fucking brother, I think, remembering that Besor Leka was just murdered in prison over his brother’s debts.

I sneer at Tengan. “So—what, having you wait here in the dark and shoot me was his plan to get paid?”

Tengan whimpers as he shakes his head. “I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

I bark a bitter laugh, kicking away the gun he dropped a minute ago.

“Really,” I spit.

He shakes his head again. “Over there,” he chokes. “The duffel bag.”

My gaze slides past him, and sure enough, my vision has sufficiently adjusted to the dim light to spot a canvas gym bag on the ground.

“Sota already paid Valon for a test run. He brought in a shipment of electronics for Sota, like a low-pay tryout.” He nods his chin at the bag. “When you came today, Valon wanted me to tell you to take the money back to Sota, then come back here and wire Leka a sum of money. Then he’d let Annika go.”

Wait, what?

I stare at the bag.

Something smells like bullshit.

Tengan cries out, screaming and collapsing to his knees as I let go of the blade with it still through his chest. I leave him like that as I walk over to the bag and yank it open. Yep, it’s filled with cash.

“What’s the catch?” I hiss, turning to glare at him.

Tengan is half-slumped against the wall, his face drained of color.

“Catch?”

I dump the bag upside down, spilling the money onto the ground before peering inside. I almost miss it. But the thin strip of moonlight filtering down the tunnel glints off something in the bottom of it.

I peer closely, and my jaw tenses.

It’s a wire.

I grip the little strip of black fabric over it, yanking it back.

Fuck me.

The whole underside of the bag is lined with plastic explosives, with wires leading to a remote trigger.

Valon didn’t want me to deliver money to Sota.

He wanted me to deliver a fucking bomb.

I can see how it would play out: Tengan would give me Valon’s demands, and I, blinded by my need to rescue Annika, would do as he said. When I got back here to wire whatever money Valon wanted me to, he’d trigger the bomb, killing Sota back at his house.

And then I’m guessing he’d kill me, too, as soon as he’d gotten his money.

Silently, my brain turning, I stuff the money back into the bag and shoulder it. Then I turn to Tengan, slumped against the wall at death’s door.

“Please…” he chokes, blood dribbling down his chin. “Please, Kenzo, forgive⁠—”

“No.”

He wheezes wetly as I yank the sword out of him, falling forward and barely catching himself with a hand against the wall.

“But I will honor our deal.”

With one clean stroke, Tengan‘s head separates from his body. I wipe the blade dry on the cuff of his pants. Then I turn and glare into the darkness.

Like a snake who’s just caught the scent of its prey.