Brad woke with a start and rolled off his belly, calling on lightning to burn the lizard’s eye sockets out.

For the first time in his life, lightning did not come. Brad stared at the lizard’s head for a confused moment, then glanced up at the sky.

FRY, he thought.

Instead, he got no more than a spark, and a pounding headache that left him contorting on himself in a groan.

“Like I said as we carved a binding into your skin as you slept,” the lizard said smugly, “you are hereby forbidden to use your powers unless I specifically grant them to you.”

She bound me?! Brad’s heart started to pound, and he crab-crawled away from the serpent, in complete disbelief.

“Stop,” she said lazily.

Brad’s body locked up around him, something tugging at his veins like a puppet.

She bound me with seiðr… Something that only happened to lower-tier, weak nobodies. It left a horrified stain in his mind, a long-dormant fear suddenly realized. “That’s not possible,” he whispered. “You don’t have the power to—”

“And stop talking,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Today, I don’t care what Pestilence says. You’re going to entertain me or I’m going to eat you…”

#

Masaaki had been flying in a blind panic towards the ocean—at least he knew Theo had been somewhere near the ocean when he disappeared—when off to the west, the sky started rolling into a black, dense, supercell thunderstorm the likes of which he hadn’t seen in seven hundred years.

Lightning crackled and rain started pelting him as clouds came from all directions as he flew stubbornly on, the wind battering him as it funneled to the area up ahead with unnatural speeds, the starry night going from clear to streaked with hail and lightning in a matter of minutes.

Theo! At this point, anything out of the ordinary drew his attention, and Masaaki flapped harder, desperate to get there before the vampire lord disappeared again. Several times, now, he had followed Theo’s pull, only to find himself standing in a puddle of blood that stank of supernatural murderers.

…or Theo’s own blood.

A Thirdlander magus was portaling his vampire friend back and forth. Of that, Masaaki was certain. Now he just needed to pin him down…

Masaaki put every ounce of speed he had into getting to whatever was happening at the ocean’s edge before he was once again too late. He’d left his swords tucked under the root system of a tree back at the creek where he’d met the jialong, since wandering on foot had been too mind-destroyingly slow to survive the Nótt Lagsmaðr intact, and his bird form had been too small to carry them.

Masaaki was still several miles off when the sudden sheeting rain of the night sky lit up like doomsday with a crush of lightning forks so strong they made the trees shake. Again and again, they came, slamming into the ocean under the funnel-shaped cloud. Over and over…

Then Masaaki saw the battle taking place in the waves ahead and he slowed. A crush of lightning—again and again, the house-sized electric bolts came, striking the same spot of the ocean repeatedly as something huge rolled under the waves—pounded at the crux of the supercell, lighting the night on fire with its intensity.

Then the jiaolong in her full, scaly, hundred-foot glory came surging out of the water, causing the waves to roll up into the trees as she lunged into the sky as the lightning continued slamming into her head.

In her mouth, a huge black bird the size of a ‘Cessna,’ as Bonnie had called the personal airplanes that had so shocked him in his early days of freedom, was fighting desperately to get out of her jaws. It briefly made an escape, only to be snatched up by the serpent’s teeth once more and yanked back under the water as enough electricity to power a continent crackled in their wake.

Masaaki found an unobtrusive cottonwood branch high overhead and sat to watch. The battle continued, two powerful over-tiers twisting and fighting in a bitter battle under the waves, neither gaining an advantage until, with a sudden concussive snap, the lightning and thunder went still and the terrifying clouds overhead lost their roiling intensity.

Moments later, a smoking jiaolong emerged from the water to drag an unconscious native man out of the sea by his long braid and drop him at a black-clad stranger’s feet. Though Masaaki wasn’t close enough to hear what was said, it was clear she wanted to eat him, and the stranger disapproved.

Then, as Masaaki watched, the stranger casually flopped the unbreathing man onto his belly and drew a ceremonial-looking silver knife. With a sudden rush of unease, Masaaki recognized the blade as an ancient athame that had gone missing from Freyja’s court a hundred years before he was sold to vampires—Freyja’s own ceremonial dagger Blóðvefr. It had been a huge spectacle of denouncements and nay-saying, one that had unsettled all the major courts across all the Realms as everyone pointed fingers and placed blame, with a delegation of völvur even belittling themselves to approach Masaaki’s father at the Shogun’s palace to ask if the Yatagarasu clan had seen it. They had said they suspected Loki, since he had disappeared immediately afterwards. His jötnar friends had stalwartly denied it, but since the völvur couldn’t find him to ask, they had to assume he had played a part.

Masaaki watched the stranger pull aside the unconscious man’s long braid and slice the knife into the skin at the base of his skull. The wound started to bleed immediately, and the ornate silver started to burn a blue-white as the blood soaked into the metal like water into dry wood. Then, casually ripping away the last shreds of clothing covering the man’s back, the man had cut a deft, complex rune in blood on the man’s spine as he slept, had then offered the dagger to the jiaolong and pointed to where she was supposed to finish the rite.

That’s seiðr, Masaaki thought, immediately going cold. The two vampires that had imprisoned him had dabbled in the Thirdlander blood bindings, but they’d never been very good at it. Their runes had been clumsy and ill-drawn, their spells had fizzled more often than not, and when they did work, they had not lasted long.

Whoever drew the arcs of blood across the man’s back, however, was a master. When the jiaolong finished the final mark, the lines coalesced immediately, flashing gold and sinking into the skin, making the jiaolong’s throat glow with the same gold before it faded with the marks on the unconscious man’s back.

A compulsion spell, probably a blood-binding.

Immediately, the thought of going to war with a blood magus left Masaaki’s intestines to shrivel and the resulting dread was so strong it was almost enough to override the Nótt Lagsmaðr.

This is not a good place for you to be, Yatagarasu, Masaaki told himself, on a massive wave of panic. Völvur, Loki, seiðr, jiaolong, someone who dealt in lightning… Whatever was happening on the ground below, it wasn’t anything he wanted to tangle himself in.

…unless it had to do with Theo.

Whoever was teleporting Theo around was a blood magus. Masaaki had smelled it at the back of the café.

Masaaki swallowed hard, remembering the empty lot behind the diner where he’d found Theo’s blood…only to have the trail disappear without a trace again, out on the highway.

Swallowing hard, Masaaki watched the man return his dagger to its sheath and etch a rune into the air between them. After giving the jiaolong a brief command that Masaaki couldn’t quite make out, he stepped into the portal and disappeared, Theo nowhere in sight.

Masaaki could smell him nearby, though. Theo had fought on this beach, he was sure of it.

Theo, damn you, Masaaki thought, gripping the branch with his feet in an attempt just to stay sane. Whatever his vampire lord had embroiled himself in was way above a humble yatagarasu’s station. Any sane one would simply look the other way and mind his own business. This was an over-tier problem, and the Egyptian-looking man could have been Loki.

The last thing Masaaki wanted to do was tangle with Loki.

But…Theo.

Theo. The Nótt Lagsmaðr tightened within him once more, flooding him with a rush of need that almost overrode his good sense and made him go ask the jiaolong about Theo right then. He managed to hold onto the branch and count to ten until the Nightlander magic flowed back into check.

Think, Masaaki thought, watching the jiaolong and the unconscious man. She knew where Theo was—she’d all but admitted as much at the creek.

But he had no swords. He had no magus tricks, no queen to enthrall his enemies. He just had his hikari and the ability to heal faster than normal when presented with sunlight.

It wasn’t yet dawn. Overhead, the sky had mostly cleared, the brief thunderstorm completely dissipating with the vanquishing of the lithe native man on the ground, allowing once more for clear skies…

And, after seeing the size of those thunderbolts, thunderbolts that would have exploded him from the inside, Masaaki knew he didn’t stand a chance against a jiaolong.

But…Theo.

The last time they had talked, she had known about Bonnie, and, by extension, she had probably known about Theo and where the magus had taken him.

But Masaaki was not upper-tier. He was a mere yatagarasu, one without even ensorcelled swords to wield against his enemy below. If he showed himself to her, he was going to die. He had no question in his mind. She was faster, more deadly, bigger, stronger, incapable of death by mortal means, and a magus.

But she’s lazy, Masaaki thought, watching her casually pick up the man’s braid and drag him across the sand by his hair. She dropped her foe beside the fire and, as naked and half-formed as she had been along the riverbank, she sank into one of the couches that had been positioned around the fire and yanked a beer from the cooler there. Then she sipped it, watching.

That’s a jiaolong, Masaaki thought again, on a little wave of terror. Jiaolong ate things like him as snacks. If I show myself, she’s going to kill me.

But she would also know where to find Theo. That information spurred the Nótt Lagsmaðr to rise within him, and suddenly it was all he could do not to rush down and beg her to tell him of Theo’s whereabouts. Good sense warred with the Nightlander magic, the battle so intense he could barely breathe.

He would die if he showed himself. He knew that like he knew how to breathe.

But he had to know where Theo was. The Nótt Lagsmaðr was a throbbing desperation in his chest, now, and he had no sense of Theo now, almost as if he had fallen into a black hole on the planet…

…like the inside of a jiaolong’s stomach.

Oblivious to his presence, the jiaolong finished the beer and found another, tossing the first one casually into the sand beside her chair.

She’s lazy and she’s slovenly, Masaaki thought. Two things that were anathema to a true samurai warrior.

For a moment, his heart surged with hope. Perhaps…

Perhaps if she was as lazy and slovenly in her fighting, it wouldn’t take an over-tier to win a duel with her. Then he remembered the size of the lightning bolts that had crashed into her body as she struggled with the huge black bird, and he immediately deflated. He was a mere yatagarasu. Not strong enough to stand against the likes of them…

There are always two roads, my sons, his father’s gentle reminder came again, as Masaaki and his brother sat in seiza in front of his father’s swords after a practice together. Often, the second road is much harder to see than the first, but ultimately less stupid. Don’t take the stupid path. The yatagarasu are weak, but not stupid.

Masaaki’s father was dead, eaten by a terrifying Third Lander many centuries ago while protecting the shogun. It had been a desperate battle, and all that had been left of his father that night had been the scent of the Third Realm and a handful of black feathers.

…and his father’s sword. Still wet with the Third Lander’s blood.

The shogun, however, had managed to use his sacrifice to escape, so Masaaki’s father had fulfilled the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Bushidō.

Don’t choose your fate until you can see both paths. Know which road you walk before you take your first step.

The man on the beach groaned and sat up, rubbing the back of his head. He stiffened suddenly when the jiaolong said something that didn’t quite carry to Masaaki’s branch. She said something else, smiling languidly, and the man got up with an unnaturally rigid spine and walked over to the old couch across the fire from her and sat down, his body taut as a bowstring. At another comment from her—one that sounded like a command—the man reached out and took a beer from the cooler near the fire and popped the cap and started to drink.

They blood-bound him with seiðr, Masaaki thought, the scene confirming his first suspicions. An over-tier. Blood-bound. It was unheard of, and it brought the uneasiness back again in a rush. It would’ve taken another over-tier like Loki using Freyja’s athame Blóðvefr to create such a binding.

Wait until you see the second road, his father’s instruction came again.

Masaaki took a deep breath, forcing his mind to calm despite the Nótt Lagsmaðr. If Theo was not down there…

He froze when he noticed the well-beaten trail leading from the fire, back through the woods towards a thick cluster of trees.

Waiting until the river serpent was distracted with the man on the couch, Masaaki jumped from his branch to follow the path.

The trail ended in a house, one that had been tucked so tightly in the forest, completely surrounded by cottonwoods and alders, that it was not visible from the beach. On edge, now, fighting the excited rush of the Nótt Lagsmaðr that he might be about to find Theo, Masaaki carefully opened the front door.

He smelled the nest of vampires before his eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond. Instantly, his heart clenched and he ducked away from the open door, into the shrubbery beyond the porch. He ducked low, and for several minutes, all he could hear was the hammering of his own heart. Then, slowly, he managed to calm down enough to listen.

He heard nothing from within.

For long moments, Masaaki hunched in the forest, waiting.

He heard nothing from beyond the open door, but that meant little when it came to vampires. They were predators, and they moved like cats when they hunted.

Thinking of being once again captured by vampires, Masaaki had to fight an instinctive welling of fear.

You are samurai, he told himself. Act like it. You give up now, you deserve the cross-shaped cut. Father did not raise a coward.

Still, it was hard to force himself to approach that open door a second time, knowing what lay on the other side. With great force of will, Masaaki gingerly left the forest and once again pushed open the door a crack, pausing to listen. Inside, he heard someone whimpering.

Knowing he would only have seconds to press an advantage, Masaaki flared his hikari as bright as it would go and lunged into the room.

Two women were bound and locked in a padlocked cage in one corner of the room, huddling in fear from his blast of inner light. Masaaki’s arm lowered in shock when he recognized the sanzuwu from the vampire queen’s front yard. “You…” Instantly, he felt both vindication and regret.

“The keys are on the kitchen counter!” the sanzuwu cried. “Get them before they come back, you fool!”

Masaaki glanced over his shoulder. “Who is they?” he asked, but he went to the counter and snatched up the keys.

“The vampires. Get me out of here. Help me find Stars Flying Lightly.”

Masaaki was halfway to her cage when her words stopped him. Then Masaaki saw it—the desperation he himself shared. “You’re enthralled by another lord?” Immediately, every hair on his body stood on end and he felt cornered, hunted…

Theo went to fight a vampire lord without telling me, he thought, horrified. And he lost.

“Get the door open,” the sanzuwu snapped, kicking the door and rattling the cage loudly. “I have to find him. It’s been hours.”

Masaaki hesitated, looking them over. Both women had the sweaty, shaking look of thralls having gone too long without their lord—the same sweaty, shaky look that Masaaki knew marked his own face.

Steeling himself, he said, “If I open that door, can you flee to safety, or will you seek out more of his venom?”

He already knew the answer, but it was confirmed when the sanzuwu’s rich brown eyes darkened with fury.

Very carefully, knowing he was being a hypocrite and not caring, Masaaki said, “Do you know where Theo is?”

“The one Buðlungr blood-bound?” she asked, desperation in her voice. “Buðlungr took him to go find your queen and didn’t come back. Please let me out of this cage.”

“I have to kill him,” Masaaki said. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” the sanzuwu screamed, lunging against the bars in horror. “Don’t you dare!”

“You’ll thank me later,” Masaaki said, dropping the keys back to the counter. He went searching the house for some sort of vault, some weapon he could use against a jiaolong. Behind him, the woman started to scream and pound at the metal that held her. Masaaki went quickly, ignoring the dungeon under the house, knowing that not only he wouldn’t be able to stomach seeing the slaves inside it, but that vampires didn’t store weapons to kill vampires in the slave quarters…

He found the main bedroom of the house unlike what he would have expected, filled with antique native trinkets. No swords, no enchanted axes or daggers, only stone implements and objects made of wood, bone, leather…

None of which would have any effect whatsoever on a jiaolong.

Masaaki was riffling through the dresser drawers, sure he’d missed something and that there had to be something more dangerous than a wooden spear in the room, when he realized that someone sat on the bed, sharing the space with him, whittling a stick. Masaaki froze.

His first impulse was to run. Instead, with an exertion of sheer will, Masaaki forced himself to step towards the vampire and flare his hikari as bright as it would go.

The elderly native man paused in whittling the stick and looked up at him in the sudden flood of daylight, a small, knowing smile on his face.

…A face that distinctly did not belong to a vampire. It was too aged, too full of life and verve. Masaaki hesitated, suddenly uncertain.

The man blew wood shavings from the stick, then looked at Masaaki and said, “Took you long enough.”

“Excuse me?” Masaaki said. “Do I know—”

“Here,” the man said, handing the stick to Masaaki. It looked, to all indications, like a crude flute.

“That’s for you,” the man said, his weathered native face wrinkling in a grin. “The second road.”

Wait until you see the second road, my son, his father’s voice came back to him again. Looking down at the instrument in his hand, Masaaki suddenly got chills all over. He remembered playing the flute for his father, to greet the rising sun the day he died. It had been a tradition of the Yatagarasu clan—the day one of their own perished, they would all get up before dawn and make music to honor him as his spirit rose with the sun. “Second…road?”

“That is what you wanted, isn’t it?” the old man asked, looking amused.

“What is it?” Masaaki asked, eying the thing in his hand like a snake.

The old native elder gave him a grin. “Why, it’s a flute. You blow in it. See?” He demonstrated, making an eerily beautiful, soul-touching song before handing it back to Masaaki.

Masaaki wondered if the old man had been kidnapped and didn’t realize he was feeding a vampire den because his mortal brain was addled with old age.

As if to answer his question, the old man picked something from his nose, squinted at it, then flicked it aside.

“Thank you for the flute,” Masaaki said, bowing despite the urge to toss it to the ground and look for something deadly. “Do you know where I might find a weapon? I have a duel coming up that I’m afraid I might lose.” The last was a confession that weighed against his soul.

“So sure that’s your path, are you?” the old man asked, smiling at him. There didn’t seem to be any judgement or scorn there, only compassion. Compassion and…respect?

“I think the jiaolong may have eaten Theo,” Masaaki said. “If she has, I won’t be able to leave until one of us is dead.”

The old man nodded.

“So…do you have a sword in this house?” Masaaki asked. “I prefer a katana, but I can use any sword.”

“Stars Flying Lightly doesn’t believe in white man’s weapons,” the old man said, his smile stretching wider. “You get a flute.”

“Don’t tell me that an ancient vampire lord doesn’t own a sword,” Masaaki insisted.

The elder considered. “There is a sword in the trophy room. From a Spaniard that Stars Flying Lightly killed in the early years of the white conquest.”

And then, as if he had been made of thin air, the man before him vanished.

Masaaki stumbled backwards, cursing. He hesitated in the bedroom, looking for sign of the old man again, then hastily closed the door and dropped the flute to go looking for the sword.

He was three steps towards the kitchen when he paused, hesitating. He remembered the way the cherry blossoms had flowed around him as he played for his father, tears in his eyes, knowing it was his father’s light that would greet him that morning. The second road. Turning back, Masaaki’s eyes found the flute where he’d dropped it. In the living room, the sanzuwu was still screaming and thrashing against the cage, but his mind was crystal clear.

Take the second road…

Masaaki went back to the crude wooden instrument and carefully plucked it from the carpet. Then, keeping it in a fist, he went to examine the sword.

The trophy room held many more objects of power than Masaaki would have expected for a vampire. He saw many sets of dead men’s clothes, armor, weapons, hair… Whoever this lord is, he has a grudge against the world, he thought.

The Spanish sword was, at best, lackluster. The materials were sub-par, the craftsmanship uninspired, the blade dull and lifeless—obviously not ensorcelled.

Meaning it would be as effective on a jiaolong as hitting her with a shovel.

There was, however, a good set of enchanted robes upon the far wall. Clearly, they had once belonged to a magus, as they were embroidered with Japanese dragon motifs that rippled even as he looked at them.

I’m going to die in this fight, Masaaki thought, looking at the robes. He felt the whittled stick biting into his hand. That’s why he gave me the flute. It’s for my own funeral.

Because he was the last of the Yatagarsu, and he had no one else to play for him.

Knowing that, understanding dawned on him. He was being offered an honorable death. After all the suffering, all the torment and humiliation, all the shame and disgrace, he was being given a path to show he was samurai to the end. Knowing that he was going to die, Masaaki was able to accept it. Knowing it was to be the garments he died in, Masaaki carefully took the robes from the wall and took his time in wrapping them around himself, making sure to get the knots correct and centered.

Then he took the Spanish sword from the wall and got into seiza, setting it on the floor in front of him. May this be the instrument that salvages my tattered honor, he thought, bowing low. Then, picking it up, he hefted it.

It was duller than he’d like, with less heft than he was used to, but anything was better than having no weapon in his hand when facing an enemy. He almost left the flute on the desk that had held the sword, wanting his hand to be free, but again hesitated. Feeling the rough prickles of wood as an almost comforting presence against his palm, he closed his fist back around it and went looking for Theo.

When he returned to the beach, the jiaolong had once again transformed into a massive serpent, looming over the man on the couch.

“I wonder how long you will take to digest,” the jiaolong sneered. “Most immortals take an hour or two, but I suspect you might take four or five.”

“We both know you can’t eat me,” the man said, though his nerves were starting to show. “I’m much too important to the ecosystem of the planet to—”

The jiaolong’s jaws snatched the man off the couch. Then, as Masaaki watched, feeling sick, the jiaolong tilted back her head and, gulping twice, swallowed him whole, like a dog swallowing a rodent.

She was still forcing the lump down her throat, deeper into her belly, when Masaaki must have moved in the oceanside grasses, because she spun her big, scaly head to look at him.

“You!” she snapped, immediate fury livening her slitted yellow eyes.

Masaaki’s fingers tightened on the sword, preparing for his final moments. “I am here to find Theo. Do you know where he is?”

“The lord that kept escaping Buðlungr?” The jiaolong’s toothy jaws opened in a jagged smile. “I ate him.”

Masaaki felt his heart stammer on the sudden wave of Nótt Lagsmaðr fear. He knew, right then, that he would have to kill her just to ensure Theo wasn’t alive inside her gullet. He dropped the flute in the sand and took the sword in both palms, preparing to face his end like a warrior.

Like his father.

Seeing him with another sword, the jiaolong hesitated, looking unsure.

“You could spit him out,” Masaaki said, with more confidence than he felt. “It doesn’t have to come to blows.”

Then, in a move that took him totally by surprise, the jiaolong’s enormous body twisted backwards, retreating to the sea.

She’s lazy, he reminded himself, analyzing the wariness in her scaly blue face. She eats helpless things. She doesn’t want to fight something she knows can hurt her.

Then the jiaolong’s yellow eyes found the Spanish sword and she frowned. “Wait. Didn’t you have a katana before?”

Masaaki lifted his head in challenge. “Spit him out, or I will make you spit him out.”

But she wasn’t listening, her words coming with excitement, now. “You can’t fly with a sword. You had to leave them behind again.” He saw the thoughts turning over in her mind as she looked over the dull and lifeless weapon. Slowly, her eyes came back to his face. “That’s the one the vampire had in his trophy room, isn’t it?” She looked him over, a slow understanding crossing her eyes. “That sword is not enchanted.”

Masaaki stood tall as the gigantic serpent loomed over him, facing his death as a samurai.

He wasn’t however, going to make it easy on her. When she lunged, he danced away and sliced at her throat, a blow that would have left a mortal wound with his katana. With the Spanish weapon, however, the weak steel blade rang metallically across her scales, not even cutting into the flesh.

“Quick, aren’t you, little bird?” the jiaolong laughed, sounding delighted. She twisted her big head around, whirling to lunge at him again.

And then, Masaaki found himself in the fight of his life. He pushed his hikari into the sword, disorienting her as he spun it between them. Like any lazy fool, her instinct was to attack the sword, which allowed him a few extra split seconds to keep the jaws away from his body when she lunged. He danced out of the way at the last second, spinning again and again, making ineffective cuts at her throat, her eyes, her gut, her tongue… All of which would have found their mark had it been with his sacred daishō. Now, though, the sword simply bounced and clanged, as useless as if he were hitting her with a rod of bamboo.

Still, he didn’t plan to make it easy for her. If he was going to die, he was going to die well, and when he joined his father in the sky, he was going to hold his head up high, knowing he had fought a battle that couldn’t be won, but that he had done it with honor, and made his ancestors proud.

The dance went on much longer than he expected it to. Minutes became almost an hour as the jiaolong screamed and tore at the beach with her jaws, again and again failing to sink her teeth into him as he twisted away, using the useless sword like a lure, a flare to attract a moth. The first light of daybreak began to brighten the horizon before he had begun to tire, but the jiaolong was panting and snarling and rabid on the beach, her coils flailing wildly, her rage completely unpredictable.

“Hold still!” she screamed, lunging at him again, wild and unthinking, now. “You demented sky-vermin!”

It was the broken couch that finally gave her the opening she needed. As he was sliding backwards from one of her lunges, Masaaki stumbled on the unexpected uneven surface, and even as he was trying to roll away, the river serpent bit his sword and ripped it out of his hands. As he watched, she crushed the blade in her teeth, shattering the steel into a dozen pieces. As they tinkled from her jaws and fell to the sand, the hikari faded from them, leaving the early dawn dark once more.

Before Masaaki could get back to his feet, the jiaolong pinned him with one of her massive coils.

“There!” she screamed, victory in her crazed yellow eyes as she coiled around him. Her slitted pupils had widened to enraged ovals. “I will tear you in half—”

Masaaki could have given up, then. It would have been an easy thing to surrender to his fate, to allow the snake to kill him without fighting any further, and any of his clansmen who had been watching the battle from the afterworld would have agreed he had fought well.

Then he remembered his father, broken and bleeding, picking up a bit of dirt and throwing it in the Third Lander’s face to get its attention off the fleeing Shogun.

Masaaki dug his hand into the sand and, as she lunged in to finish the fight, whispered a quick prayer to his clan, filled the grains with hikari, and hurled it into the jiaolong’s eyes.

The particles flared with the light of the sun as they swept across the jiaolong’s face, and, to his surprise, instead of eating him, she started to scream.

“Unspeakable vermin!” she shrieked, her coils tightening and then unwrapping as she thrashed, Masaaki forgotten.

Stunned, Masaaki crawled from her coils and backed away, watching the water dragon thrash in confusion. He had intended to disorient, but it was having a much stronger effect than he had planned.

He didn’t have time to think on it, however, as the jiaolong’s coils flailed on the beach like a dying snake. She caught him with her tail and threw him back up the beach, towards the grassy edge. He hit the sand hard, his one leg twisting under him and breaking from the impact. He was just starting to pick himself up, with the intent to crawl back towards the path and hide in the house, a final part of him still desperate to live despite the Bushidō code, when he saw the crude flute almost touching his shoulder, half-buried in the sand where he’d dropped it.

To the east, the first rays of the sun were starting to light up the sky.

Immediately, all desire to flee abandoned him and he was able to see his own death with a warrior’s logic. The result would be the same, regardless, as the foe was too strong, his weapons too weak. Eventually she would find him, and she would rip him apart.

Watching the jiaolong scrape the still-glowing sand from her eyes, he knew it was time to salvage what little honor he had.

Masaaki snatched up the flute and dropped into a formal seiza facing the rising sun, ignoring the grinding agony of the bone in his leg as he carefully arranged his death-robes around him. The flute wasn’t a traditional bamboo shakuhachi and looked pathetic in his hand, barely finished, crude, as misshapen as his honor, but it would have to do. Hesitating, watching his foe blink and force the glowing sand out of her eyes, Masaaki put the flute on the ground in front of him between himself and the sun and bowed to it, staying low as he whispered a prayer of thanks to his ancestors.

“I know I have not been samurai for many years,” he confessed to the sand beneath his lips. “I know I do not deserve this. My pride was cold and dead. My honor was in tatters. I had given up. I had no daimyō, no family, no friends to call my own. Thank you for giving me those things once more, and for…” his voice caught as he choked on the pain of his confession, then continued in a whisper, “…for letting me experience what it is like to have courage after a lifetime of fear. Thank you for allowing me this good death to repair that which the vampires took from me.”

Then, as the jiaolong was digging the last of the sand out of her eyes, Masaaki lifted his head from the ground, calmly retrieved the crude wooden flute, and began to play.

The sound that came from the instrument wasn’t one that came from a breath of wind on a crude stick. It was one that made the grass at his back flatten with an ethereal song, one that tugged at the ocean waves and brought them crashing towards him, one that brought forth the rays of the sun and dropped them to the ground in front of him. It was the breath of Life itself, Masaaki’s final sublime moments of unfettered honor, unbound as he faced Death without fear, the courage of a samurai. It called his pride back to him, revitalizing him, repairing the damage in his leg with the caresses of the sun.

I’m sorry I stumbled, father, Masaaki thought, watching the sun rise in a wash of glorious color on the horizon. Please forgive me. Please bring me honor in death.

He continued to play even as the jiaolong righted herself, refocusing her attention on the sound of his flute. It was a death-song, the one he had used to say goodbye to his father that day in the Shogun’s courtyard. Even as he did so, he remembered the moment he had knelt in a similar way, facing the rising of the sun.

I wish there were cherry blossoms, he thought, watching the jiaolong open her mouth and lunge in rage. I miss them so much. The light of the sun blurred in his vision, shimmering with the burning in his eyes. He squeezed them shut as he waited for the jiaolong to strike.

But the light of the sun continued getting stronger after he closed his eyes, the light growing wider, longer, filling his vision even behind his closed lids, until it cancelled any hints of darkness and the light was all he could see.

Stop acting like a romantic imbecile and kill the serpent, son.

Frowning, Masaaki’s eyes snapped open.

The jiaolong’s white-maned head had hesitated only a few feet from his body, her big yellow eyes focused on something sitting on the ground in front of him.

Masaaki blinked at the traditional sword stand, crafted of precious wood that had been carved from polished Japanese elm, lacquered black and embossed with intricate golden yatagarasu that spun around the stand’s wooden shafts and along the bowed centerpiece, which held a radiant bar of light that took Masaaki a moment to comprehend.

A sword, he realized. A katana.

It shone like the sun itself, a million times stronger than any candle, its shimmering gold saya embossed with flitting copper images of Three-Legged Crows, dancing between the clouds. He stared at it, realizing he had to be hallucinating.

Then the jiaolong snarled a curse and slammed her tail into the ornate wooden stand, crushing it and sending the glowing sword flying.

It was the splinters of elm and sand hitting him in the face that made Masaaki realize he wasn’t hallucinating, and that the weapon now sailing through the air was very real. It hit the ground with a palpable thunk and stayed there, embedded in the sand, hilt up. Masaaki lunged to his feet, and for a moment, he and the jiaolong met gazes. She was further away, but faster. Masaaki was closer to the sword, which even then was burning like the sun tucked amidst the grasses where it had fallen. Narrowing her eyes, the jiaolong sprang for him.

Masaaki charged ahead of her, grabbing the sword from its saya and spinning to slice at her even as her teeth were brushing his back. Hiayaa! he screamed, cutting back and up.

The jiaolong screamed and reared, slamming her tail into him as she pulled her head out of reach. Part of her jaw was hanging free, a rush of purple blood drizzling down, soaking the sand.

Masaaki rushed in, sweeping the sword across her scaly chest, then, as she screamed, ran up her back and brought the sword down on her skull, embedding itself right between the eyes.

The jiaolong went stiff, then its body started to thrash. Masaaki didn’t have a chance to yank the sword from where it was trapped in the skull as the jiaolong’s huge head spun away, rolling and thrashing in death throes that pulverized everything for a hundred feet.

Her body had come to a rest half-in the water by the time the sword’s light had finally faded, replaced by the light of dawn. Masaaki approached warily, keeping his distance as he walked around the jiaolong’s huge head, getting a good look at the wound.

A crude wooden flute was trapped in the bloody gash, looking like a splinter between its titanic scaly brows. Gingerly, Masaaki moved forward and pulled it free.

The moment his hands came into contact with the flute, it once more returned to the shape of a sword of light, shining with the radiance of the sun. Seeing that, Masaaki’s eyes went wide and he quickly lowered it to the ground and bowed low, keeping his eyes averted.

It’s a weapon of the gods, he thought, his heart pounding in panic. No simple enchantment could explain the morphing of the object, the superb radiance that put even his hikari to shame.

“I am but a humble yatagarasu,” Masaaki whispered to the sand under his forehead. “I am undeserving of such a gift. I was a slave. Please—there has been some mistake.”

He was still bowing to the weapon—which had returned to flute form again—when he heard a muffled sound coming from the dead serpent to his right. Frowning, Masaaki lifted his head from the sand just enough to turn.

A small bulge the size of a human fist was moving in the dead jiaolong’s side, displacing the scales before retreating. Then it returned again, moving the huge serpent’s scaly side a fraction of an inch before falling back once more.

Theo!

Suddenly all thoughts of undeservedness fled his mind and Masaaki grabbed the flute, yanked the sword from its sheathe, and split the serpent’s belly open wide.

The native man with the penchant for lightning spilled out, screaming.

“—give my word I’ll never look at unicorn porn again!”

As soon as he slid to a stop in the goopy sludge of the jiaolong’s innards, the man pried himself out of the mucous, gasping, threads of slime hanging from his face and chin as he panted.

Masaaki cocked his head at him. “Unicorn porn?”

The man sat up, looking around them wildly. “What happened? Is she dea—” He blinked at the big cut in the side of the beast. “Oh.” He let out a breath of relief that verged on a sob. “Oh thank Thor’s mighty cock and all of his glorious virgin-defiling exploits, I will never mock his name and piss on his porch again.” He squinted up at Masaaki through slime. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am Masaaki Yatagarasu,” Masaaki said.

“A yatagarasu?” the man demanded, as if Masaaki had told him the jiaolong had just been defeated by a frog.

“Was anyone else in there with you?” Masaaki asked, climbing through the carnage to peek inside the gut. When he couldn’t get a good view, he started making a lengthwise cut down the rest of the jiaolong’s body.

“How did a mere yatagarasu—” the man’s words cut off as he watched Masaaki effortlessly slice the serpent open the rest of the way. “Huh, that’s a nice sword.” He wrinkled his nose. “But it stinks of Ra. How did you get a sword of Ra? Did you steal it?” The man seemed clearly puzzled.

Masaaki, who wasn’t entirely sure on that himself, glanced down at it and hesitated. “I think I was…given it.”

The man on the ground snorted. “Likely story.”

Masaaki cleaned the blade of gore using a clean piece of his robe and replaced it in the saya, then tied it to his waist.

The moment he did, it took on a more substantial form, losing its glow, looking less like a slice of the sun and more like a very plain, very humble blade by a modest swordsmith, its materials mere steel and lacquered wood.

The man saw that, then glanced at Masaaki’s face, then back at the sword. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, then turned and glanced back at the dead serpent. “Where are your companions?”

“What companions?” Masaaki asked.

The over-tier stared at him. “Did you really kill a jiaolong on your own?”

Masaaki slowly started to grin. “Do you really look at unicorn porn?”

The man flushed, then cleared his throat. Then, looking at the sky, he held out his hand.

As it had done earlier that morning, roiling clouds came rushing in from all directions, and a moment later, thunder boomed and water started pelting them from above. The man held out his arms and twisted, using the downpour as a shower.

Masaaki, who didn’t need a shower, grimaced as his robes became immediately soaked through.

A few minutes later, apparently satisfied he had cleaned himself, the clouds parted and the sky was clear once more. The man muttered a word and the water evaporated from his clothes in an instant. Then he gave Masaaki a long, appraising look, looking him over as one might examine a six-foot-long slug. Then, reluctantly, he held out his hand. “Brad,” he said.

Masaaki, who was still dripping, bowed low at the waist. “The honor is mine, rain god.”

“Rain god—” the man snorted, but he gave him a curious sideways look. “You seriously don’t know who I am?”

“I was imprisoned by vampires for the last seven hundred years,” Masaaki said, as he rose from his bow. “I was not allowed to socialize, and even if I could, a yatagarasu is hardly of the same cloth as a patron of the monsoons.”

“Patron of the—” The man snorted. “No. I’m Thunderbird. The Thunderbird.”

Masaaki froze. The North American equivalent of Thor, Lei Gong, Indra, Perun, Tlaloc, or Susanoo. And he had jabbed him about the types of sexual deviances he chose to engage in. Immediately, Masaaki bowed much lower. “My apologies, great one.”

Thunderbird sniffed. Then, reluctantly, “You saw the jiaolong eat me and risked your life to save me?”

“I…” Masaaki started to tell him that he had actually been looking for someone else, then remembered the house-sized lightning bolts crashing against the serpent’s head and thought better of it. “Yes.”

The man nodded. “You are a brave man, despite your weakness.” Straightening, he intoned with an official cadence, “For the favor done to me this day, I hereby grant you free passage throughout my domain, and should you choose to settle here, your crops and your children’s crops and your children’s children’s crops shall receive proper rains from now unto the seventh generation.”

“Thunderbird, that’s hardly necessary,” Masaaki babbled, immediately feeling guilty and bowing again. “I didn’t—”

“Call me Brad,” the man said, holding out his hand. “And stop bowing. You saved my life. I find it irritating.” He looked him over. “But for saving me, peasant, I’ll grant you a second favor. Anything you ask that I can obtain, it’s yours.”

Swallowing, Masaaki straightened, choking off his objections. Already, the Nótt Lagsmaðr was a throbbing rush in the back of his mind at the idea of utilizing this favor. Hesitantly, he said, “Can you…help me find Theo?”