488This chapter is dedicated to JennaLouise, who lit a fire under me to finish this tale. She's an awesome beta and a gifted writer, and it would serve you well to check out her fics. :-)
AN:
To any and all newcomers to this story… hello, and I hope you enjoy!If any of my original readers are still around, and if they happen to be reading this, I just want them to know that I suck. There's no excuse for taking so long to update this fic, and I'm so sorry I left y'all hanging like that. With the kind encouragement of many, however, I finally got off my ass and updated for the first time in more years than I care to recall. The inspiration is back, at long last, and I'm going to finish this story come hell or high water.
To help with this resolution, I'm going to make y'all a promise: I will have the next chapter of this fic published before Christmas. Hopefully I'll get it out a lot sooner, but with my history of epic procrastination, I don't want to swear to any time sooner than that. :-p
I hope you enjoy, gentle readers.
It was good to be naked again.
The attic was cool even on this unusually warm afternoon, and I was resting bonelessly in the light spilling from the room's only window. With my shell propped up against the wall, I leaned the back of my head against the flaking wallpaper, soaking up the sun spilling over my sprawled legs. Light glinted off the half finished beer sweating in my hand, and a large bottle of aspirin had reduced the ache in my freshly stitched and bandaged arm to an occasional dull twinge. There was a world of decisions left to make, and the pressure of it was like a sword hanging over my head, but this respite was the best I could reasonably expect from the universe at the moment. I was determined to take full advantage.
Movement flickered at the edge of my vision, and I rolled my head lazily to the side, watching as the trees just beyond the window glass swayed with an unseen wind, their browning leaves bobbing and weaving in exuberant counterpoint time. One last dance before dying.
Feeling something dangerously close to contentment, I drained the last of my beer in one long swallow, bitter bubbles crackling against my teeth. Belching eloquently, I glared at a crumbling wooden chest lying just out of reach, which held the remains of a six pack stashed there by Casey seven months prior. Despite my most impressive glower, the last bottle refused to leap out of the chest and into my waiting hands. I sighed and staggered to my feet, my arm protesting sluggishly, and felt the world blur and tilt ever so slightly to the left. One lousy case of severe blood loss, and suddenly I was a cheap date.
Deciding against that final beer, I tossed the empty bottle into the attic gloom, wincing a little at the resulting crash and tinkle of breaking glass. I was halfway down the creaking steps leading to the first floor, keeping a cautious grip on the railing, when a tantalizing smell lept up the stairwell and smacked me across the face. I inhaled an appreciative breath. The aroma wasn't entirely familiar, but its undercurrent of hot grease promised to make my arteries clang in just the right way.
I made my way to the kitchen, avoiding the creaking floorboards with the help of memory and long practice. A breeze twined through the kitchen's partially opened window and ruffled April's hair, the short curls blazing in the afternoon light. She was bent over a sizzling pan with heat shimmering over her face, leaving brush strokes of red across her cheekbones. Still oblivious to me, she frowned lightly and poked at an unidentifiable lump of something with the blade of her spatula, which hissed and spat grease in furious rebuke.
Unable to contain my curiosity any longer, I took a couple of steps forward and peered around her arm. "What's that supposed to be?"
To her credit, only one shoulder jerked in surprise before she relaxed and threw me a lopsided grin. Gesturing dramatically with her spatula and nearly splattering me with hot grease, she said, "Fried spam and eggs. The dinner of champions!"
My treacherous stomach grumbled even as I stared down at the pan in quiet horror. "Spam isn't food for people, April," I said slowly. "It's made of whatever can be chiseled off the slaughterhouse floor."
"It's also full of protein, just like these powdered eggs." She pointed at a plate positioned next to the stove, which was piled with something that did indeed look vaguely yellow, as well as a mound of green beans and some glistening slices of canned peach. "I've spent years taking care of you guys after you've been injured, and I know you need lots of protein, fiber and sugar while you heal. Most humans would keel over inside a week with a diet like that, but it seems to work for you guys."
She fished out the square of faux food, positioned it on the plate with exaggerated care, and then held the whole thing out to me. I took the offered meal with some trepidation, the breaded spam glistening like ambrosia's ugly stepsister. "So how long, exactly, have you hated me?"
She snorted and flapped her gloved hand at me dismissively. "It was the best I could do, you big baby. Next time we'll stay at a hotel, and you can order room service."
I huffed out a laugh and sat at one of the only clear spaces on the dining room table, which was covered in a Frankensteinian mishmash of cable and computer parts. The keyboard and sensor pad of her laptop, its screen missing and casing badly cracked, was connected by a mess of wires to a boxy, old-style monitor. The monitor itself was connected to a power strip and extension cord, which snaked along the floor and into the next room. The monitor screen was on and flickering, and to my surprise, I recognized the wallpaper that usually decorated April's desktop. She'd somehow managed to cobble together a working computer in the span of a few hours, which was yet another reminder that, when it came to brains, she was in a whole other plane of existence from me.
"I thought those weren't compatible with each other," I said, pointing at the monitor and laptop.
She sat down carefully in front of her contraption and ran her fingers fondly over the ravaged casing. "Nah," she said, "that was actually the easy part. The keyboard's ribbon cable was torn, which was what gave me fits for a while. Thanks to Donnie, though, I've gotten very good at jury-rigging with scavenged parts. It was just a miracle the motherboard wasn't damaged."
The mention of Don's name chased away the last vestiges of my buzz, as well as any appetite I might have had. I knew April would be hurt if I didn't at least try the food, though, so I speared a lump of meat and look a cautious bite. My taste buds stood up and cheered approval, and I caught a glimpse of April's smug expression as I stared incredulously at my empty fork. Hunger slunk back to join the party, and I ignored her pointedly as I began to tuck in with earnest.
A silence fell over the house, broken only by the scrape of fork tines against porcelain. I was content to dwell in the hush for a while, wrapping the tenuous peace around me like a cloak and thinking about nothing very much.
Too bad April seemed to have a different idea.
"We could live here, you know. The three of us," she said suddenly. Her voice sounded muffled, and I looked up to see her glove clamped lightly between her teeth, her gaze locked somewhere in the middle distance. "It's quiet and isolated, and no one knows where we are. It's the perfect opportunity."
There was a wistful tone to her voice that made my gut clench. I set my fork down with exaggerated care, the remains of my dinner having lost all appeal. "You want us to abandon our homes, my family's gravesite, and just… stay here?"
"It'll be hard on all of us, especially you. But we don't need graves to remember them, and you know as well as I do that they'd want us to be safe." She rested a hand on my arm, her gaze understanding, sympathetic, and everything I didn't want to see. "Forget Karai and Stockman and everyone else. We could start a new life here, and find a little peace for ourselves."
The sound of my chair sliding back was a harsh baritone chord in the quiet of the room. My hands clenched of their own accord, shoulders tensing as the weight of too many choices once again settled like a mantle around my neck.
"My family's murderer still breathes, and you want me to hide in the ass-end of nowhere and play house?"
"I loved them, too, Raph. If their killer was to walk through that door right now, you wouldn't be the only who'd do something unpleasant." Pain and anger creased the skin between her eyebrows, and it took obvious effort for her to dismiss it, bleeding out the emotions one long sigh. "But there are things that are more important than revenge," she continued softly. "Keeping us safe and together is all that matters now. And… I know that nothing can stop the two of you from hurting, but maybe it wouldn't be quite so sharp, so constant, if you were away from the lair for a while. There are too many memories in that place."
I regretted eating now. The food was a rock in my stomach, and the lingering taste of the peach on my tongue had become a cloying, poisonous sweetness. An abrupt headache bloomed in my skull, throbbing from the pressure of emotions I couldn't begin to verbalize. In that moment, I missed my brothers with an ache that went all the way to my bones. If any of them had been here instead of me, they would've been able to express the feeling that suddenly had me tied up in knots, explaining to April why her sensible, compassionate idea was wrong in every way.
But all that was left was me, and the only words I had were destined to warp into twisted, ugly things. Which left me with only one option.
I turned on my heel and left.
It was difficult to find a suitable place to sulk on a bright and breezy afternoon, but anything was possible with enough determination. After fighting my way into a pair of sweat pants and an old jacket I'd found in a closet, I spent a while stomping through the woods behind the house, my bare feet kicking through decaying leaves. The earth beneath felt damp and cool on my toes, acting as a pleasant counterpoint to the light spotting through the trees and heating my skin beneath the jacket's hood. The only sound came from the little birds that flitted above me, their cheery cries almost alien to someone who'd spent his whole life with the dull roar of a city in his ears.
I eventually settled for the water-rotted dock that jutted over a small river, which twisted itself in knots about half an acre away from the farmhouse. Its lazy eddies served mainly as a haven for bullfrogs and the occasional copperhead; the waterweeds having long since crowded out whatever fish might have once lived there. That'd never stopped Mikey from trying his hand at fishing, though. His expression at the sight of the furious frog dangling from his line remained one of my fonder memories.
I sighed hard and cursed under my breath, fishing out a cigarette and lighting up with hands that had begun to tremble. This moment, right here, was one of the problems with April's little proposal. Every familiar place served as a stage for memories I could summon at will, and even at new locales I could feel them at my back, whispering in my ear. They were etched in my skin now, burrowed into my bones, and I would sprout wings and fly before I found a place where their ghosts didn't trail behind me.
Smoke fled from the ember at my fingertips, and I tilted back my head to catch the breeze, enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin. To myself, at least, I could admit it would be easier here. The farmhouse had always been a place of healing, and it was tempting to shrug off the weight and tell the world to go fuck itself. The dead would still haunt me, but they'd be easier to ignore in a place with sunlight and grass, and air that didn't scrape the lungs raw.
The problem was, I had a stubborn streak that was just about legendary, and a lifetime of hard living had ensured that I held on to the things I had with both hands and a couple of toes. I didn't know how to let go of anything, be it family, ideals or a grudge, and I wasn't sure I wanted to even if I could figure out the trick. The farmhouse was a refuge, but it wasn't home, and I was pretty sure it never would be. I'd give up the lair if I had to, but first I had to at least try to take back what was ours.
I'd promised Leo, after all.
My thoughts continued in this same circular, largely useless pattern long enough for the sun to dip below the trees. The air cooled rapidly as the day started to settle and dim, and a sizeable number of cigarette butts had collected in my pocket before I became aware of the sound of April's approach. Her leg brace wasn't much good for terrain rougher than a sidewalk, but there was something about the determined shuffle and slide of her steps that told me that she'd keep it up all day if she had to.
I considered getting up and helping her, but settled instead for lighting yet another cigarette. She'd made it most of the way here on her own already, and trying to coddle her now would just piss us both off.
The rustle of damp leaves became the dull clank and scrape of metal against wood. Her presence suddenly loomed at my back, her breath hissing through her teeth as she tried not to pant from exertion. With my gaze still locked on the water, I transferred the cigarette to my left hand and wordlessly offered her my good arm. She took it immediately, her fingers digging into the muscle of my forearm as she slowly, awkwardly lowered herself to sit beside me.
"I woke Leo and fed him," she said, her voice a little breathy. "He's in the living room now, listening to some old jazz cassettes."
I doubted he was doing much listening, but I nodded my thanks anyway. She seemed content with that, and the quiet drifted down to keep me company again. The toes of April's sneakers were just touching the surface of the water, and when she kicked out lightly with her good foot, it sent ripples that radiated out to touch the far shore. In the distance, a dog barked.
For a moment, I imagined what it'd be like to have a thousand more evenings like this. To live in a place where I could see the stars at night, and to sleep in a room where I could wake up to the sound of birds. To live life a little more slowly, in the company of people who cared for me against all common sense.
I flexed my hand absently, watching as the tendons bulged beneath my skin, which was crisscrossed with a latticework of tiny gray-green scars. Those marks were part of a lifelong lesson I'd be stupid to ignore. The world had a way of knocking me on my ass at unguarded moments, and the only way to survive was to not let it take me by surprise. Lasting peace was a dream, as real and enduring as a soap bubble.
"You're right," I said suddenly, startling us both. "About all of it. The lair's stuffed to the ceiling with ghosts. It fucks with my head, and it's gotta be doing the same thing to Leo. It would be better if we stayed here."
She crossed her arms over her stomach, as if warding off a sudden chill. "But?"
"I can't. I won't. The place is a crumbling memory pit, but it's mine, and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone from the Oroku clan take it from me." I watched out of the corner of my eye as she grimaced, worry carving lines around her mouth. "You were right about something else, too. There're things more important than revenge."
I took a drag from my cigarette and coughed, my throat beginning to feel raw from too much smoke. "If Stockman's the killer, then you know as well as I do that he'll never stand trial. Conventional justice won't work with him. All that's left is me."
I really did believe that. Master Splinter hadn't been a vengeful person, but he'd taught us about justice, and I knew that sometimes it could only be found at the tip of a blade or at the end of my fist. It was a truth that had entwined itself through my soul, and I had no desire to try a different path this late in the game. Especially not now.
Not when every hour drew me closer to the murderers. Not when I wanted so badly to see them bleed.
"Okay. I had to ask, but… okay." She straightened and looked at me fully, her mouth curved into a half-smile that seemed solely for my benefit. "So what do we do now?"
"We do nothing," I snapped, sudden unease acting as a striker for my anger. It'd been too close last time, too damn close, and if Karai had been as much of a monster as I'd first thought, the last remnants of my family would be rotting in the ground right now. Death had passed over them by a hair's breadth, and I would burn this world to ash before I let it get so close again. "You'll stay here and watch over Leo, and I'll go back to New York and fix everything."
Feeling too agitated to sit any longer, I tossed my cigarette into the river and stood. The planking creaked dully beneath my feet as I crossed my arms over my plastron, my fingers gripping my covered biceps hard enough to hurt. Once this was all over, Leo had to come with me, because there wasn't any place for us freaks to belong except with each other. Our nature meant we'd never be safe, no matter how carefully we hid ourselves, but it was a fact of life I'd come to accept. April was human, though, and she had a million and one chances to create a better future for herself. It hurt like hell to admit it, but the only thing holding her back was us.
Feeling equal parts resolute and bleak, I glared at a drowned tree at the water's edge and gritted out words I didn't want to say.
"Leo's gotta stick with me once this is all over, but you don't, which is why you're going to stay here. You'll never get a better chance to find that peace you talked about. You're sure as hell not going to find it with us."
"That's not going to happen," she said, rejecting the notion outright. "We're family, and I-"
"Even with my screwed up DNA, you still have more in common with a lemur than you do with me," I interrupted bitterly. "You don't have any obligation to us, April. You never did. We're not family."
There was a whisper-soft gasp, and the pained sound of it unwillingly drew my eyes back to her face. Her hands were loose in her lap as she stared up at me, and she couldn't have looked more hurt if I'd stabbed her in the heart.
Silence opened up between us like a wound, and I regretted the last fifteen seconds with every bit of me. My resolution fragmented, held together only by lingering stubbornness and the fast-dying belief that I was doing the right thing. I had to protect a least one person, keep at least one of them safe, otherwise what good was I?
I uncrossed my arms with a low breath, my bandaged arm aching and heavy as it hung at my side. Feeling about a thousand years old, I forced myself to turn away.
I made it less than a step before a gloved hand snaked into my own. I froze like I'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen, entirely incapable of taking another step. She might as well have nailed my feet to the planking.
"You don't mean that," April said.
Her voice was calm and measured, but buried beneath it all was a new emotion; a trembling chord of uncertainty that had never been there before. I felt like the worst person in the world.
And maybe I was. If I was a little stronger, just a little more resolute, I'd lie and walk away. I'd hurt her forever, but once Leo and I were gone, she'd finally be safe from us. It was nothing more than the prodding of amorphous instinct, but I still had a sick, creeping suspicion that this was my last chance to save her from the gravity well our world had become.
Entirely without my bidding, my hand tightened around hers, and I knew then that I couldn't do it. I was going to let her drop into the dark with the rest of us, all because I couldn't bear for her to think we didn't love her.
"Christ..." I sighed, utterly defeated. "No, I don't. I didn't mean a goddamn word of that."
I turned and crouched down beside her, the dock creaking as my weight settled on the balls of my feet. There was relief in her expression, but her eyes remained suspiciously bright, and I gave her hand a clumsy squeeze before releasing it. I let her collect herself, watching as she swiped at her eyes with her glove, before I blew out a low breath and ran a hand over the broad expanse of my face. A nap would be just the ticket, but the day was ending fast, and it was too late now. I had promises to keep, after all, and miles to go before I could sleep.
I blamed Leo for that last bit. If it wasn't for him and his literary obsession, Robert Frost wouldn't be invading my brain.
"Maybe you haven't been keeping track," I said, "but in the ten years you've known us, things haven't exactly been sunshine and daises. You've been kidnapped, terrorized, drugged, poisoned, stabbed, beaten, and set on fucking fire!" I tapped at a thin strip of scarred flesh that peeked out between her glove and sleeve, frowning a little when she reflexively smoothed down the cloth to hide it. "That last one damn near killed you. I know you have all the survival instinct of a suicidal lemming, but even you've gotta see that it's better to stay as far away from us as possible. You can't be that much of a masochist."
She rolled her eyes heavenward, as if asking for patience. "And you call me stupid."
I snorted and was about to continue my logical, reasoned debate as to why she should run screaming for the hills, when she stopped me by tapping my plastron with a knuckle. The distinctive 'thunk' was slightly muffled by my jacket, and she took advantage of my surprised pause to say, "No. You've said your peace, and now I'm going to say mine. I'm not your doormat, and I will have an equal say in this conversation."
There was steel in her tone, and it quite thoroughly shut me up. Raising an eye ridge, I made a sweeping gesture with one hand, offering her the proverbial floor.
"I love you, Raph," she said quietly, in matter-of-fact way that made the breath freeze in my chest. "And I love Leo, too. Those aren't just pretty words to say when I'm happy or when things are easy. I mean them all the time. Even when you yell at me, or when I'm scared, or when the world is crumbling down around my ears."
April paused and stuffed her hands into her pockets, turning away from me to stare out over the river. A waterbug darted from behind her dangling feet and skittered soundlessly over the top of the water, its tiny legs barely dimpling the surface.
"'I love you' means that I don't want safety unless you're both safe, too. It means I don't want peace unless we all have a chance to share in it. It means you're stuck with me, you poor bastard, whether it's here or in New York, or smack-dab in the middle of hell." She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, that wedge of blue diamond-bright with challenge. "Don't think for a moment that I don't mean it."
She was family, all right; stubborn, brave, endlessly loyal, and just a little bit dim when it came to self-preservation. We didn't deserve her.
Ignoring the sudden splintering in my throat, I unfolded out of my crouch and offered her my hands. I helped her lever herself to her feet, and by unspoken agreement we both started walking back to the house. Birds called out their farewells as we stepped into the woods, leaving the dock behind, and I didn't mind in the least when April threaded her good arm through mine.
"God," I said, when I could trust myself to speak again, "you are such a sap."
"Guilty as charged," was the wry reply. A moment of silence passed between us, comfortable this time, before she continued, "Let me ask again. What are we going to do?"
"Nothing's changed much about the first part. I still want you to stay here and take care of Leo, while I figure out whether or not Karai is lying to me." I shrugged expansively and plucked a leaf from an oak tree as I passed. It separated easily from its branch, the dried leaf powdering in my hand like a butterfly's wing. "Once everything's settled, though, we'll leave here and go back to New York. What happens after that is anyone's guess."
"But we'll do it together, right? The three of us."
Once again, treacherous, unreliable instinct perched on my shoulder and breathed catastrophe in my ear. I tightened my grip on her arm and mentally told it just where it could stuff its warning. It didn't seem to do much good.
"Yeah," I said, ignoring the churning in my gut. "Together."
It was almost dark by the time I was ready to leave, the sun sinking below the horizon and leaving a fading trail of red that set the dying trees on fire. I was standing at the entryway with the hem of my sweater gathered awkwardly beneath my chin, performing a last minute check of my belt pouches. Everything seemed to be in order, and I ran a thumb over the shard of Don's shell for good luck before closing the pocket and letting the hem fall back into place.
In blatant defiance, the hood of my purloined jacket was refusing to lie in the proper position to hide my face. I was fighting a losing battle with it when the sound of April's limping steps made me pause, a lip of cloth dangling rakishly over one eye. She smiled at my wardrobe malfunction, seemingly unmoved by the glower I sent her way, and offered me a crumbled slip of paper filled with her cramped, exacting script.
"These are the names and locations of every company that has opened, reopened or bought out property on the New Jersey waterfront in the last six months. If Karai is telling the truth, then Stockman's business should be on this list."
I took the slip of paper with some surprise, scanning down the list of names and addresses. Wireless wasn't available at the farmhouse, which meant that April had to have done her research with a dial-up connection. The strain of it must have nearly killed her.
"Thanks, April," I said, stuffing the paper into the pocket of my sweatpants. "This'll make things a lot easier."
"I hope so." She paused, and then reached up compulsively to straighten my hood. "Call me as soon as you can, okay, and let me know what you've decided. And for once in your life, don't be reckless! Remember that you have people to come back to."
"Like you'd let me forget." I said wryly. Her hands were still hovering around my face like nervous birds, and I captured them in my hands and gently pushed them away. "I can't promise much, but I'll try not to do anything too stupid."
I glanced passed her anxious face and into the den, where Leo sat in the rocking chair, the old wood creaking slightly as he swayed. Something rolled in my chest, barbed and full to bursting with a thousand things never said, and I felt my mouth twist into a frown of its own accord.
April saw the change in my expression, and a quick glance over her shoulder was enough for her to deduce the reason. Bless her perceptive heart, she swallowed back whatever else she had planned to say and simply bent down, brushing a kiss over my cheek. Her lips were soft against my pebbled skin as she whispered, "Good hunting."
She turned without another word and left the room, leaving behind a breath of her perfume and the memory of her words in my ear. Suddenly I was alone with my brother, the overhead light gleaming wetly over his new scars, and for the life of me, I had no idea what to say.
The floorboards squeaked sullenly as I moved to stand in front of him, and I sighed deeply as he continued to stare intently at nothing, doing his best Whistler's Mother impression. If Splinter had been the soul of my family and Mikey its heart, then Leo had been the will, the driving force that pulled us to our feet and urged us onward. It was too bad that, even now, I couldn't tell him how lost I was without him at my side, irritating the hell out of me.
Out of the corner of my eye, the last of the brightness bled from the world, leaving behind delicate layers of deep purple and midnight blue. This was the perfect time to leave, and every moment I wasted trying to find words was another moment I might not be able to spare. Silently cursing my failure, I gripped the back of his head and touched my forehead against his. If nothing else, I could leave him with a promise. Leo knows I always keep my word.
"See you soon, bro," I said.
My breath mingled with his for a final, crystalline moment, and then I pushed away. The door slammed shut behind me when I left, locking away the light and warmth, and I shivered against the encroaching night chill as I made my way to the barn. The car started without fuss, and I backed out into the driveway, my only company the sound of insects and the crunch of gravel beneath my tires. I forced myself not to look back as I pointed the hood towards New York City and left my family behind.
Six hours of exquisite boredom later, I parked in a narrow alley next to a New Jersey police station, the shadowed stretch of concrete just out of sight of their cameras. Feeling exhausted already, I levered my stiff, aching body out of the car, smiling a little as the noise of the city hit me like a slap. For better or for worse, this place was home, and despite the smell of smog creeping stealthily up my nasal passages, it was good to be back.
Working quickly, I fished out the cleaning supplies I'd stashed in the back and began scrubbing down the car, doing my best to ignore the headache worming its way into my skull. The police had April's fingerprints and DNA on record, but I'd had some experience cleaning up a crime scene before, and I was cautiously optimistic that they wouldn't find anything. The cops had bigger things to worry about than a single stolen car, after all; especially one that had been abandoned on their doorstep less than twenty-four hours later.
I spent the rest of the night with the smell of salt-cured planking and dead fish in my nostrils, skulking around warehouses and dodging night guards as I worked my way systematically down April's list. Most of the companies seemed boringly legitimate, with the occasional mob front or illegal pharmaceutical ring thrown in for spice.
The sky was beginning to lighten between the buildings, and I was feeling a little loopy from exhaustion by the time I hit pay dirt. In an otherwise deserted stretch of shipping yard, a company by the name of Ecio's Stockpile and Trade had set up shop in a building whose paint was still pristine in the light of the street lamps, which were staked at every corner of the property. The name was ambiguous enough to spark suspicion, and the high fence was threaded with electrical lines and decorated with coils of razor wire.
It all seemed a bit extreme for a lowly trading company, but what really made my alarm bells ring were the guards. Instead of the usual fat man with a flashlight and taser, these guys were far more numerous, and they patrolled the grounds with predatory intent. Muscles rippled underneath their blue uniforms, which all were padded at the chest with what could only be bulletproof vests, and their hands were weighted down by weapons that looked suspiciously like military-issue M16s. I was spying from the rooftop of a nearby building, so I couldn't see their faces, but something about the way they moved told me their expressions would be implacable and sympathetic as stone.
If these guys weren't mercenaries, then I was a goat. One of Stockman's chief failings had always been this lack of subtlety, and these walking tanks had his signature all over them.
I crouched down until I was completely swallowed by shadow again, and I leaned my shell against the concrete wall. The roofing tar was cool and slightly damp beneath my toes, and my shoulders tightened as a rogue breeze wrapped a chill tentacle around my neck. The cloudy sky above me was transformed into a flat, baleful red by the city lights, and I felt an unexpected pang of longing for the farm.
I sighed and looked down at my hands, rubbing them against each other with an audible rasp of hardened calluses. This was it; time to make the decision I'd been stumbling towards from the moment Karai had left me alone in a cage, my head stuffed with stories. My memory readily called up her expression as she stepped into my strike range, my bandanna in her hand, and challenged me with that calculated moment of vulnerability. Daring me to trust.
It was one of the things I'd struggled with for the past day. I wasn't exactly dim-witted, but I'd never been very good at making decisions that required grand leaps of faith. I trusted only my family; the only people on earth that had never let me down.
And so, in the crux of the moment, I closed my eyes, gathered their ghosts close to me, and listened to the sound of their voices.
I spent the day in fitful sleep in the basement of a condemned building, and made for the cemetery an hour before dusk. It took more rooftop ducking and dodging than I was comfortable with, but I managed to make it unseen to the cemetery a few minutes after dusk. Scaling the iron fencing easily, I skulked atop a length of scaffolding that propped up a crumbling wall, casing the place and trying to locate all the cameras in my immediate vicinity. It soon became apparent that the Foot had already taken care of them, for the two wall-mounted cameras I found had been hooded with black burlap sacking. The fact that cops weren't crawling all over the place right now told me that Karai had taken care of any guards, too. For their sakes, I hoped Karai had resorted to bribery.
Only a few lamp posts dotted the walkway beside the cemetery, giving the flat stone markers and high, water-damaged headstones a somber, ominous shine. The North Wall stretched out a few dozen yards in front of me, quietly beautiful with its aging, patchwork stone, which was inset haphazardly with pale marble placards. The wall towered over the heads of the three humans standing patiently in front of it, the squares of white stone reflecting the glow of a single torch speared into the ground.
It was all depressingly dramatic, and I wasn't exactly surprised when a black-clad ninja melted out of the gloom inside a cracked mausoleum and stood in front of the scaffolding, its masked head titled up to stare at me. With deliberation, the figure pulled off its hood, revealing a dark-skinned woman with a lean, lovely face. She widened her stance and spread out her hands, revealing graceful fingers and empty palms, which was about as harmless as a member of the Foot clan could make themselves.
"Hamato Raphael," she said, in a smooth alto that I know Mikey would have loved, "Mistress Karai bids you greetings."
My hiding place obviously sucked, so I dropped down onto the grass without preamble, frowning a little when it became obvious she towered over me. Seemingly unaffected by the grim, inhuman face framed by my hood, she bowed her head in a slight gesture of regard. "Mistress Karai requests that you leave your weapons with me," she continued. "This will be a peaceful meeting, and all parties must respect that with a show of unburdened hands."
It was an effort not to knock her on her ass and run right then, my temper automatically flaring at the thought of giving up my sais. The fact that she didn't ask me to give up my belt, with its healthy collection of shurikens and garroting wire, gave it away for the symbolic gesture it was, however. We were still perfectly capable of killing each other, but Karai's sense of drama demanded that certain conditions must be met. Swallowing my pride was a nearly physical ache, but I slowly reached into the holes of my sweater pockets and drew out my weapons. Her body language tensed minutely, and I smirked a little before flipping my sais around and presenting them hilt first.
She took them from me with deliberate care, and I held onto the prongs long enough to say, "I'd better get these back."
The nameless woman nodded solemnly. "You have my word."
She bowed to me again as I reluctantly let the prongs go, before waving me towards the three figures, where the whiteness of Karai's face glowed harshly in the firelight. I made my way slowly to her with grass whispering beneath my feet, feeling terribly exposed and knowing I was being watched from all sides. Twenty years of conditioning was screaming warnings at me, and it was only the memory of my rooftop conversation with the dead that kept me from bolting.
The snap and spit of the torch seemed to be the only sound as I came to a halt, the usual clamor of the city gradually fading into unimportance. The two clan members flanking her were as unmasked and empty-handed as the one who'd taken my sais, and I noted that Karai's sword and sheath were missing, too. She nodded to me and spread her hands in an open-palmed gesture that I grudgingly copied.
"Raphael," she said without premise. "Have you come to a decision?"
I took a deep breath and looked into her serene, emotionless face. The presence of my family surged and swelled at my back, offering me the strength for what I knew I had to do.
Pressing my palms together, I bowed my head over them, my gaze never leaving hers, and said, "This one time only, Karai... I'm in."
There was a breathless pause, and then Karai bowed over her own hands, her bodyguards echoing the gesture in perfect harmony. The torchlight arced and flared, and in it, her eyes burned.