CHAPTER
18
The Whispered Name
A frantic call had come earlier in the evening from Mr. Pak, who, along with his wife, had run a grocery in the Armpit for twelve years.
“I have to go,” Hilo said to Wen after he hung up the phone.
He was frustrated because she refused to move out of her cramped apartment in Paw-Paw and live with him in the Horn’s residence on the Kaul estate unless they were married. “I have to ask Lan properly, and then we’ll plan the wedding, and it’ll take months,” he’d argued. “Things are getting worse between the clans. I visit here too often; it’s not safe for you.”
Wen’s apartment building was only a street over from Coinwash, which had seen a recent surge in violent crime. Even within No Peak territory, Hilo was not willing to take any chances with Wen’s safety. He would not put it past the Mountain to circumvent aisho and engineer some unfortunate accident if they knew they could further provoke him. “If you won’t be reasonable, I’ll have to post Fingers to watch over you, which means Fingers that I won’t have elsewhere. The house is secure. Bigger, too. You could fix it up, you’re good at that. You’d like it.”
Wen folded her arms and gazed at him with immovability. “I’m not going to give your family any additional reasons to look down on me. We’ll live together when we’re married, and not before. In the meantime, I have a gun, and I know how to use it. I won’t be a burden. I can take care of myself.”
“A gun.” Hilo gave an ugly laugh. “Is that supposed to reassure me? My
enemies are Green Bones. You’re a stone-eye.”
“Thank you for the reminder,” she said coolly.
On the street outside, Kehn honked the horn of the Duchesse and Hilo growled. “We’ll talk about this later.”
When he arrived at the grocer’s with the Maiks, he found Mr. Pak sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands and Mrs. Pak crying as she swept up broken glass inside. Two young men with jade studs in their eyebrows had smashed the windows, broken the neon sign over the door, and knocked over several shelves of merchandise as punishment for the couple’s failure to pay tribute to the Mountain clan. Hilo scowled as he surveyed the wreckage, his mood worsening. Nothing was stolen, but incidents like these were costing No Peak dearly, not just in money to take care of the damages, but in goodwill from the Lantern Men in the district.
“I can’t pay tribute to two clans,” Mr. Pak moaned.
“We’ll take care of it,” said Hilo. “It won’t happen again.”
Later, there was some question as to whether the Paks had been turned by the Mountain and were in on the plot. When Mr. Pak learned of what happened, he cut off his own ear to proclaim his innocence and threw himself on the mercy of Kaul Lan. The couple’s home and store were searched and they were cleared of suspicion, but two months later, the Paks shut down their store and moved out of the Armpit for good.
On that night, however, Hilo had his Fingers ask questions until he learned that the two men who’d vandalized the grocery were Yen Io and Chon Daal, and they could be found at an all-night arcade on a busy commercial strip of the Armpit. For smaller transgressions, Hilo would have sent one of his Fists and a couple of Fingers, but he was sick and tired of Lan’s restraint and the bullshit situation in the Armpit. People needed to know No Peak was strong here and would not be trifled with. Vibrant, noisy, colorful, and seedy, the Armpit was one of Janloon’s most valuable districts.
By day it attracted tourists and shoppers; after dark, both stockbrokers and dockworkers mingled in its streets, entertaining themselves with the myriad of restaurants, gambling dens, bars, strip clubs, and theaters. No Peak could not afford to lose ground here. Hilo decided it was necessary that he handle this offense personally. The Pillar had ordered him not to take lives, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make a public statement.
They parked in a pay lot down the street from the Super Joy arcade. Kehn
was suffering from a sinus headache and was blowing his nose into a soggy handkerchief. The elder Maik brother had had his cheekbone fractured in his teens and ever since then had a difficult time on days when the pollution and humidity in Janloon were high.
“Stay in the car,” Hilo told him. “Tar and I won’t be long.”
Kehn agreed readily, turning on the radio and lighting a smoke as Hilo and Tar got out and walked down the sidewalk toward the Super Joy. Kehn being left behind in the car was what saved the Horn’s life. As Hilo and Tar crossed the street, two men raced up on motorcycles. As they roared past the Duchesse, Kehn understood in an instant what was happening. He shouted out in warning and laid hard on the Duchesse’s horn. It was not the blare of noise, however, but the surge of Kehn’s visceral alarm that reached Hilo first, a fraction of a second before he Perceived the murderous intent of the assassins as they opened fire with handguns.
One bullet tore the shoulder of Hilo’s jacket and another whined past his ear as he fell to a crouch and threw up a wall of Deflection that veered the shots to either side around him. They punched into car doors and the walls of nearby buildings. Screams erupted as people ran from the scene, pushing and shoving each other to get away. The salvo of gunfire was just an opening, meant to stun. Both the attackers leapt, Light, from the backs of their motorcycles, as Yen Io and Chon Daal appeared from the parked car where they had been lying in ambush.
Hilo rose, talon knife in a fighting grip. Jade energy surged alongside adrenaline. The two men flew straight at him, moon blades cutting down in vicious arcs. Hilo slid aside and slammed his crossed wrists into one man’s upraised arm, cleaving into it with his talon knife. Redirecting the momentum of his opponent’s moon blade, he pivoted out of the way and sent the man stumbling forward as he jerked the talon knife across the elbow, severing tendons.
The second man’s moon blade slashed across Hilo’s midsection. He barely had time to focus his Steel; as he curved his torso away from the cut, the length of white metal flexed from the enormous tension, opening a bloody gash across Hilo’s stomach with grisly slowness as the attacker’s Strength met and strained against his defenses. Hilo’s eyes met the assassin’s. He recognized him: Gam Oben. Second Fist to Gont Asch.
Only narrowly did Hilo escape disembowelment. With a snarl of effort, he
leapt backward, Light, onto the top of a parked car. Gam released a powerful wave of Deflection, and Hilo’s feet were knocked out from under him as he landed; he slammed chest first onto the roof. His chin smacked metal and his vision wavered. He heard Maik Tar howling in pain and rage.
The Duchesse Priza, with Kehn at the wheel, barreled onto the street like a rhino. It clipped one of the motorcycles, sending it spinning, then plowed into Chon Daal. Gam barely leapt out of the way as the boy flipped over the silver grille and bounced off the hood of the car. Chon’s Steeled body shattered the windshield, then flew through the air onto the sidewalk as Kehn slammed on the brakes. The elder Maik burst from the driver’s side, bellowing.
Hilo rolled, hit the ground and was up again. He lunged at Gam, but before he could reach him, the other Mountain fighter, the one whose elbow he’d rended with the knife, careened into Hilo with a determined roar and dragged him down. As they both crashed to the asphalt, Hilo struggled, managing to wrap his arms around the man’s torso. The Green Bone’s aura spiked wild as he twisted in Hilo’s grip, and Hilo took all of it, all the jade power he could gather, and with a sharp thrust of his palm, Channeled into his opponent’s heart. The assassin’s Steel buckled like balsa wood and his heart spasmed and burst.
The blowback of energy from the Green Bone’s death rocked Hilo hard.
With explosive force, the man’s life lit out of the confines of his body. The resulting jade-amplified rush was worse than a physical battering against Hilo’s skull. He reeled; for a second he could barely breathe, and his mouth filled with a bitterly sharp metallic taste. Only because he knew what was happening was he able to keep his wits intact. He tore himself off the body before he could become addled. Talon knife still firmly clutched, he clambered to his feet and looked for the next man to kill. Instead, he saw that Yen Io lay dead on the road by the Maiks’ hands. Gam, and Chon, who’d somehow survived being thrown from the hood of the Duchesse, had fled.
Less than two minutes had passed from the start of the attack.
Tar was leaning against the twisted grille of the car, bent over with a hand to his side. He’d taken bullets from the diverted gunshots meant for Hilo. His shirt was soaked with blood. Kehn pulled his younger brother into the back seat of the car. Hilo could see him pressing on the wound with both hands, Channeling his own energy into Tar, but he was no doctor, and could only slow the bleeding, not stop it.
Icy fury rose and spread like a white mist across Hilo’s vision. It steadied his body and his voice as he pointed into the throng of frightened bystanders that pressed like packed fish into doorways and behind cars. “You,” he said, picking out a newsstand owner. “You. And you.” He pointed at two others, a woman clutching her handbag to her chest, and the doorman of a club.
“Come here!” They turned pale and looked as if they wanted to run, but did not dare disobey the command in Hilo’s voice. The doorman took several steps forward nervously, and the other two had no choice but to follow. Hilo looked at each of them in turn, making sure they knew who he was, knew that he had seen and remembered them, that he was speaking directly to them.
“Spread the word up and down this street, and tell everyone you speak with to tell others.” Hilo raised his voice so all nearby would hear. “Anyone who gives me the whereabouts of the two men who fled here tonight is a friend of No Peak and a friend of mine. Anyone who helps them or hides them is an enemy of mine and my clan.” He pointed to one of the dead men in the street, then the other. “This is what happens to my enemies.”
He set to work quickly. They needed to get Tar to a hospital right away, but a Green Bone was entitled to the jade of slain foes and never left it behind for thieves. From the body of one man, he pulled three jade rings, a bracelet, and a circular pendant. From the other, he collected a belt, two eyebrow studs, and a jade-backed watch. He had to hack at flesh inelegantly to get the rings and studs. He gathered up the jade-hilted weapons that had fallen: two moon blades and a talon knife. Hilo ran back to the Duchesse. He threw open the door and tossed the talon knives and moon blades onto the floor of the passenger side seat. “Keys,” he demanded.
Kehn fumbled in his pocket and passed them over. Hilo wiped the bloody fingerprints off the metal teeth with the sleeve of his shirt and started the engine. In the back, Tar gave a low moan. The car lurched forward, sending broken windshield glass across the dash; Hilo spun the wheel around and slammed on the gas.