Wicked And Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 4 (2 page)

One of the men at a secondary monitor spoke, and Ren glanced up. “Storm is coming,” he translated for me. “Flowing up from the southeast.”

“Storm?” I followed his gaze to the weather radar screen. Sure enough, a green mass was heading into the lower right-hand corner of the map, its jagged edges swirling like an incipient hurricane. “That doesn’t look good.”

Ren dismissed my concern with a short wave. “Too far off to matter.” He tapped the table screen again. “If the artifact is in the center, it will narrow the impact area. It may be near enough the surface for our equipment to identify its precise location.”

“Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t stop staring at the weather map. “Weren’t we supposed to have clear weather through tomorrow?”

“The sea changes. We change with it.” Ren shifted his phone to his ear again and delivered a series of crisp commands as I watched the green mass at the bottom of the screen swirl farther up. Then movement below me on the table monitor caught my eye, and I focused on the men kicking alongside the monument, circling to its face.

From the front, the pillars actually did appear to be columns instead of thick slices of bread popping out of a toaster. I saw the overlay of the Devil and the High Priestess in my mind’s eye, and the centered sun as well. The sun, an element of particular importance to the Chrysanthemum Throne, given the Japanese emperor’s direct line of descendants from a supposed sun goddess once upon a time.

With that kind of lineage, I could see why the old guy put some weight in the arcane as a source of protection, but what was it Ren had said about “forces” at work?

“Hey,” I said, turning to him. “What forces?”

He shot me a confused stare.

“Forces,” I repeated. “You said the emperor needed special protection against ‘forces.’ You mean magical forces?”

Ren hesitated. “Does it change your direction here?”

“Of course not. But—”

“Then we should focus. The sonar unit is being prepared.”

“I…” I frowned back at the table, where my spread of cards lay in a smooth arc next to the screen. My gut beginning to tighten, I pulled three additional cards in rapid succession, laying them off to the side.

“What are you doing?” Ren snapped.

“My job.” I flipped the cards over. Moon, Five of Wands, Hanged Man. I blew out a breath. I was not a fan of the Hanged Man. It generally counseled a wait-and-see attitude, and that waiting part always tripped me up. The Hanged Man could also mean to take a different approach to a problem, or that I was about to be hung upside down by my foot. None of those readings particularly resonated with me, but fortunately it was the third card in this spread, offering the last little bit of advice. Eventually its meaning would become obvious, I knew, right after the Moon and Five of Wands became clear. Recognizing I was pushing my luck, I drew a fourth card and flipped it upright.

Eight of Swords, the symbol of being caught in a trap of your own making. Brilliant, but not helpful.

I reconsidered the first two cards. The Moon seemed to be reinforcing what we already knew. It depicted a large moon with light or petals or droplets raining down from it, and two pillars beneath, plus a crab crawling out of the water and two dogs baying at the sky. A lot going on, but I zeroed in on the two pillars. We were definitely on the right track.

A stream of staticky words drew my attention back to the table-top screen. “Sonar activated,” Ren translated. On the monitor, the men seemed to swim in slow motion, sidling up to the pillars and lifting the sonar machine. They settled it onto the rock surface.

Thunder cracked above us, loud enough to make Ren jump.

He cursed a word that sound suspiciously close to a Japanese WTF, and jerked his head toward the weather screen. The scientist watching the radar stood gape mouthed. I could see why. The storm had rushed up to us in a matter of moments, and the yacht bobbed, indicating the onset of sudden waves. Waves large enough to trouble a yacht this big seemed like a very bad thing.

In the water below, one of the men looked up, but the others seemed unperturbed. Maybe they hadn’t heard that mighty crack, or maybe they were used to working in less than ideal weather. Either that or they knew they were on a schedule.

They lifted the sonar unit another three inches and flipped the switch again.

The boat’s lights crackled. Several of the guards’ phones buzzed, including Ren’s, but his glare wasn’t trained to the weather screens anymore. He snapped a terse question and pointed.

Startled, the technician on the far side of the room squawked at another monitor, where what appeared to be fireflies circled the yacht—still at a far distance, but closing fast. “These waters are off-limits,” Ren growled, in English for my benefit.

“Military speedboats, sir.” Another tech spoke from his headsets. “They’re hailing us to lift anchor and return to shore. They say they were notified by a guest in distress.”

“Open the frequency to the stateroom. I need status.” Another wave struck the yacht, and the ship rolled beneath us. I grabbed the table, swiping up my cards.

“What is this?” Ren snarled, and though he hadn’t asked me, I supplied the answer anyway.

“Forget the storm, we should be preparing for a fight…probably with those guys on the speedboats,” I said, shoving my cards in my bag before slinging it around my neck and over my shoulders. “The Five of Wands isn’t the worst card to pull if you’re on dry land, but it takes on a whole new level of crazy on a boat. No one wants to get into a fight on a boat.”

My opinion was cut off by a sudden high-pitched scream as the channel was opened up to the stateroom. It wasn’t a female scream, though, but a male’s. Along with the sound of steel cracking on steel in the background.

My eyes went wide. “Okay, maybe people
do
want to get into a fight on a boat.”

Ren slammed his hand hard against the table and shouted something in Japanese, and half the men pounded out of the room. Then he grabbed his phone and snapped into it, clearly ordering the men in the water to keep going as he stabbed at the image on the screen. The water roiled around the divers, and they were having a hard time staying planted with the unit.

“Ren, they aren’t going to be able to stay down there.” I stared at the weather screen. The storm reached toward us with hungry tentacles.

Ren barked something else, and the men pushed the sonar unit forward once more, plumbing the depths of the stone. The entire screen snapped with a sudden bright light, then went to static.

“General Asaki!”

The well-dressed scientist was now at the traffic screen, staring at his monitor as his hands flew over the keys. “The waves—the speedboats are deflecting. They won’t be able to reach us.”

“Impossible. The storm is not that strong.”

“It seems… it seems there is something coming beneath their boats. Through the water. A para-electrical displacement of a mass equal to the storm.” He twirled the knobs on the unit, but the display started skittering out of control before devolving into static as well. He turned and stared at Ren. “It will hit us squarely if we remain.”

“Get the men out of the water,” Ren ordered, then followed up his words with another burst of Japanese.

A second scream sounded over the intercom from the stateroom, and Ren taught me a few new Japanese curse words. “What is going
on
?” He unholstered his gun and handed it to me, then pulled another for himself, all the while hurling orders at the scientists, apparently directing them to stay out of the fight. They appeared distinctly happy to comply.

Then he raced out the door, the guards on his heels. I followed quickly behind, bolting up the stairs as I tore through all the possible meanings of the cards I’d pulled. The Five of Wands was easy—it was a fight, plain and simple, and there was definitely something of that sort going on in the stateroom. The Moon was multilayered, as the moon always was, but it presaged disruption, storms, murkiness, and…I slowed. And the occult.

The tight knot in my stomach tied a few more macramé loops. Those “dark forces” that were causing the emperor to pay attention to his dreams—they could easily be the dark practitioners of the Connected community, men and women dedicated to the pursuit of psychic augmentation at any cost. Had they found us out, somehow? Did they want the Yonaguni artifact for their own?

“Ren!” I shouted. I picked up speed again, but Ren was already out the stairwell and down the long corridor, heading into the stateroom. A few seconds later, I burst through the door as well, and nearly got speared for my troubles.

“You!” the woman shouted, or at least that was what I thought she said as she drew back her sword and reset her position. Dressed in a simple shift and no longer saddled by the heavy Japanese kimono, the geisha remained serene, her face beautifully painted, her hair expertly coiffed as she carefully prepared to thrust at me again.

She appeared to be a stickler for tradition. Fortunately, I wasn’t.

I ducked and rushed her before she could strike, hitting her low and sending her sprawling with the unexpected hit. Then I clocked her with the butt of my gun and wrestled the sword free from her limp hand.

Whirling around, I took in the situation. The women had beaten the dignitaries and politicians down and were engaged in fighting the guards, apparently with a specific goal of keeping them off the wide deck. The guards, not wanting to shoot any guests of the Chrysanthemum Throne without direct orders, I suspected, were allowing themselves to be herded for the moment. Who
were
these women?

“Get back!” Another sword flashed in front of me, razor-sharp. I flinched and brandished my blade—only to remember I had no experience in swordplay as a new geisha fixed me with a steely-eyed glare and sank into warrior pose.

I had no allegiance to these women and needed no permission to shoot them. Besides, what was so important about the veranda that they didn’t want us out there?

I tossed the sword to the side. The geisha tracked the blade with a flick of her eyes, and I shot her in the shoulder, running for the open doors as she spun away from me with a pained cry. The ocean was white capped and furious, but Ren was right. The storm wasn’t
that
bad—high winds and an angry sky so far, with rain only just beginning to pelt down as I raced outside onto the deck.

Despite the rain, the sea was calm—too calm, I thought, and I headed for the railing. The men had surfaced below and were scrambling up the side of the yacht, but there was nothing following them in the water, despite what the scientist below had thought he’d seen. No kraken ready to pounce from the ocean’s depths.

Ren strode out onto the deck as well, having also worked his way past the geisha shield. He spared a glance at the injured woman crawling toward us before signaling to his guard to handle her. “Akuma!” he growled. At my confused stare, he amended. “Demons. That’s all they keep saying. They serve the demon and protect his domain.”

“But—” I stared all around. “There’re no demons here. Trust me, I’m getting to be an expert.”

An unearthly howl from the heavens blew right through us, and the last card of my reading exploded into flames in my mind’s eye, singeing my retinas and kicking me in the head. Literally.

The Hanged Man
, my brain screamed. The card that turned everything upside down.

The attack wasn’t coming from below…

It was coming from above.

I stumbled back as the clouds burst forth with a bellow of rage, huge straining tentacles plunging into the water all around the yacht and flopping onto the wide deck. The geishas screamed with exultant battle cries and renewed their attacks on the guards, who were unable to keep them contained inside the stateroom.

“No!” Ren and I turned as one, but the women were the least of our troubles. A mighty thud lifted me off my feet as a thick, crackling tentacle hit the metal banister, creating a burst of sparks. I barely ducked in time to avoid another limb’s swipe as it punched into the main doors of the stateroom. Glass shattered and guards were leveled, while the geishas jumped lithely from ledge to wall to floor again, elegantly evading the snaking tentacles. A half-dozen more thick limbs dropped around the boat and spilled onto the veranda as I scrambled to the side, my handgun so useless now I threw it to the floor.

“What is this thing!” I cried, but my words were lost as the wind began to howl and waves surged around us. More of the women raced forward, face paint leaking onto their clothes as they swayed in the storm, somehow managing not to get electrocuted or flattened by tentacles. Ren cursed and flung himself toward the sizzling banister to stop a woman from barreling overboard. I cringed back as a thick yellow limb blasted hard into the water, its impact against the ocean floor as loud as the sound barrier being broken.

Another burst of tentacles uncoiled and dropped all around the yacht, and the Eight of Swords clarifying card flashed into my mind. It depicted a woman loosely bound, surrounded by swords that were shoved into the ground. But she could escape—she could.

She simply had to take the first step.

The rain doubled in intensity as Ren wheeled back toward me, struggling against the wind. Somewhere he’d picked up a semiautomatic rifle, his eyes alight with fury and fear.

“No!” I shouted as he reached me. “It’s protecting the artifact—protecting it! We need to let it know we understand that!”

“What are you
talking
about!”

I beat on Ren’s gun arm until he lowered the rifle. “The artifact! Once we communicate that we’re not going to touch it, we’ll be okay. But I have to connect with that thing. So get the women back—get them back!”

Blinding flashes of electricity crackled anew as another tentacle slid along the metal banister, slithering toward the guards who’d finally gotten the geishas corralled again. More tentacles pounded into the ocean floor, sending the women’s screams into a fevered pitch. In moments the boat would be surrounded—or punctured. I knew I had to connect, and the Eight of Swords counseled taking a step out blindly to make that connection, but
geez
that step would suck.