Chapter 22: Meal Ticket

Shannon finished and threw the message down in disgust. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What did it say?” Masaaki asked, eying the paper like it was a snake. “Who’s it from?”

“A catering service,” Shannon said. “Something I’m so not interested in.”

He seemed to relax a little, then bent to pick up the duffels again.

By the time they returned to the car, the mastiff had re-stationed himself in Shannon’s seat, and had covered the entire inside of the car with drool and smeared the windows with nose-prints.

“I need the upper part of your gi,” Shannon said, shoving the dog to the back. “Right now, samurai.”

“Yes, daimyō.” Masaaki had it halfway off before he hesitated. He glanced at the dog, then at the windows, then at Shannon. His face full of suspicion, he said “Why?”

“So I can see to drive us home,” Shannon growled. “So I don’t slam into something on the highway or, oh, wait, here’s one, get pulled over for fogged up windows and have to explain to the officer why I have several million dollars in duffel bags in my backseat.”

“I will kill the officer for you.” He re-cinched the belt on his gi and easily sat down in the passenger’s seat.

Shannon scowled at him. “You know, for a self-professed, peace-loving Buddhist veggie-eating tree-hugger, you’re rather quick to shove a sword in someone’s face.”

“Some people need to die,” Masaaki said. “Besides. War is inevitable, in our time. The difference between the peasant and the samurai is that the samurai makes this inevitability his advantage, letting it sharpen his sword for him, while the peasant huddles in his paddy and cowers from it. Which man will survive a battle?”

“Hypothetically?” Shannon asked. At Masaaki’s wise and knowing Zen nod, she said, “The woman with the submachine gun.” She proceeded to strip off the upper layer of her karate gi, leaving just a white T-shirt underneath, and began wiping dog-slobber off of her windows, to Masaaki’s huge sigh. When she was done, she tossed it into the back and started the Mercedes for home.

Over the next few days, it readily became apparent that Shannon was not going to be able to hide the mastiff from the apartment manager for much longer. Much less, Shannon thought with a wince, the sword-toting samurai who insisted on going for a daily walk with her around the block, when Shannon was supposed to be the only tenant. In karate gi. Or kendogi. Or whatever the fuck gi he happened to be wearing from classes that afternoon.

She was still not happy with the martial-arts-inundation idea, but Masaaki simply wasn’t taking no for an answer, and, as he was currently her only food-source, Shannon was inclined to do what the big Japanese dude with the oversized machete got a bug up his ass to go do.

And, with her parents’ place compromised by the freak that had attacked Masaaki, Shannon found herself scanning the local classifieds listings for a secluded, more dog-and-samurai friendly rental. She did not want to have to explain to her apartment manager, “Oh, that’s not really my dog, that’s the dog that I stole from this vampire lord who attacked me in the middle of the night and got his ass handed to him by the vegetarian over there with the swords. Who isn’t living with me, by the way…”

After a week, Shannon still didn’t have an apartment rented. Potential renters, it seemed, saw that Shannon was nineteen, jobless, had crappy credit from losing said job, could only pay with cash—there was no way on earth that Shannon was taking a duffel-bag of money into a bank to make a deposit—and didn’t want to touch her with a ten-foot-pole.

“Why don’t you just tell them you’re rich?” Masaaki asked helpfully.

Because of a couple duffel bags and a roomful of cash that may or may not be there when she got back? Shannon sighed. Obviously, he had some misconceptions about Modern Man’s ability to make money, and was probably thinking back to the feudal system, where being rich meant you stayed rich. Shannon didn’t have the heart to tell him that she didn’t have the capabilities to replenish that huge roomful of money that they were quickly whittling away on gas and meals and martial arts paraphernalia on eBay. After all, if the stars aligned and she was really lucky, she could land another job as a CNA and make maybe a couple grand a month. In all reality, it was probably time to start investing.

Shannon had just circled another likely apartment candidate when the phone rang. Over the hour-and-a-half conversation that followed, Shannon stopped thinking about apartments, and started thinking about castles.

When she finally ended the conversation with the bank representative, she felt giddy. “Uh…” she said, swallowing. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

Masaaki, who had taken to translating the world history book into Japanese while she was on the phone, hesitated and looked up at her, pen in hand. The book was already filled with hundreds of unintelligible characters that he had informed her were ‘kanji.’ “Believe what?” he asked. “Your parents were wealthy? I knew that. They bought me. Do you know how much it would cost to buy a yatagarasu?” He made another notation in the history book.

Shannon swallowed, then looked again at the figure she’d written on the napkin. Four hundred and thirty-three million dollars. With more incoming, all the time. Oil money. A fifty-percent share in eighteen different wells, all neatly managed by a company in Dallas.

“I don’t really feel so good,” she muttered, having to sit down. No wonder her parents had always been so…casual…about throwing money around. They had hired a chauffer just to drive Shannon to school and back, rather than doing it themselves. And now that she thought about it, that limo must’ve been worth a lot, with its specially tinted windows and bullet-proofed interior. It was still parked in the garage out back, even though it hadn’t been used since she’d left when she was sixteen. And the Mercedes… A CL65 AMG… She’d never even heard of that before.

On a hunch, Shannon went to her laptop, flipped it open, and did a search. Immediately, she felt sick. The car that she’d been using to drive the mastiff to and from his twice-daily romps in the wilderness, covering the leather interior with hair and mud as he clamored over the front seats to get to and from the backseat, had a MSRP of over two hundred thousand dollars. Starting. This one was fully loaded.

The room of cash was beginning to make more sense. And it was hers, officially. The transfers had gone through, the taxes taken out, the titles passed on, and the trust funds emptied into her name. Four hundred and thirty-three million dollars was what was left.

“Whoa,” Shannon said. She was sitting on the bed in her studio apartment, staring down at that number in awe. “That’s…a lot…”

But Masaaki wasn’t paying attention. “I’ve found ‘musket’ and ‘rifle’ and ‘gun’ and ‘pistol’ and ‘revolver,’ but nowhere can I find ‘boomstick’ or ‘thunderstick.’” He looked up at her, frowning. “Is that a local dialect?”

Shannon reddened. “You could probably say that.”

Masaaki sighed, shutting the history book. “I’ve had enough for now. You wanted to take me to Eklutna.”

“I think I need to hire a bodyguard,” Shannon said.

Masaaki gave her a sharp look. “Are you unsatisfied with my performance, daimyō?”

Shannon winced. “Uh, no, I was just thinking maybe someone with guns…” That, and he was getting visibly weaker each day she fed on him, and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. The less she fed, the more hungry she became, and the sooner she had to feed again. Even now, the hunger was a painful twist in her chest. Her limbs felt weaker, and her senses had dulled noticeably, until the yatagarasu’s golden threadwork of power winding through his body was all that she could see.

“I will enroll in gun classes,” Masaaki said. “Until then, take me to Eklutna. You look hungry.”

Shannon grimaced and looked away. “Masaaki,” she started uncomfortably, “You’re not going to be able to do this by yourself, are you?”

Immediately, Masaaki twisted to glare at her. “I’m fine.”

“You stumbled last night, in your kata. You had to go get water in the middle of class. I’m killing you, aren’t I?”

His body tensed. “I will not allow you to feed on others until you can control yourself, daimyō,” he said. Which meant, yes, she was killing him.

“We need to find somebody else,” Shannon said softly. She started thinking of boys who had sat beside her in different classes, ones who had shown an interest. Topping her list was Josh, the cute guy who worked mornings at the Sleepy Dog Coffee Company. “I could ask Josh…”

The samurai’s hand came down in a strike on his palm so vehemently that Shannon jumped. “I will do this,” Masaaki snapped. “Come. To Eklutna. I want a hike.” He tossed her the keys. Then he turned and yanked the door open, striding into the sunshine beyond.

I’m killing him, Shannon thought, seeing the lifelessness to his skin in the sunlight, the dulling of the golden glow of his body. She considered trying to put it off another day, to give him time to recover.

“Now, daimyō,” he called from the stairs. “You won’t be attending class tonight like that.”

She considered telling him to shove off, that she was skipping class for the night, and he could just shove it. Then she took a good look at the pulsing yellow lines within him and felt her limbs go weak with need. Shamefully, Shannon’s hunger won out, and she followed her meal ticket outside.