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“Nolan?”
“Uhn. ”
“Nolan, wake up. Please. ”
“Wuhh. ” At least they were starting to sound like real words now.
“Wake up,” I screamed, throwing my head backwards and knocking it against his.
“Ow. ” I felt him shake his head and he groaned, but the sound was more frustrated than pained. He’d probably just realized how far up shit creek we were without paddles. “Secret?” He craned his neck back. “Oh, Christ, they got ya. ”
“So it would seem. ”
“I didn’t think they could. ”
“Tell me everything you know,” I demanded.
“He doesn’t know anything,” Noriko announced, stepping through the door. She was followed by Jameson, and two of the vampire ghosts trailed behind them.
Of the two, only one was recognizable as once being human in any capacity. Her skin was still mostly intact, and she had both of her eyes, but they had faded to white. Her hair was patchy and only clumps of it remained, dangling in stringy bunches from her mottled scalp.
The other one was more repellant than the first I’d experienced. Huge chunks of skin were missing all over his body and both of his eyes were gone. His grinning skeletal face was staring at me with his fangs bared and ready. Ready for what, I didn’t want to know.
Noriko wore the same black catsuit as she had the last time I’d seen her. She looked like she should be breaking into a bank vault rather than tormenting captives, but if it was her look, who was I to question it?
“You look like a rejected extra from Mission: Impossible. ” Oh, that’s right, I was still me.
“You insolent little bitch,” she spat. “Don’t you know when you’re beaten?”
I thought about it for a moment. “No. ”
Nolan was riveted in terror, staring at the two ghosts. For the time being, neither of them was doing anything threatening. They seemed content to just be creepily corporeal in the background. Their presence was threat enough.
Noriko, carrying the same katana with which she’d attacked me outside of Havana, came to stand in front of me. She raised the sword so it was one hard gulp away from puncturing my neck, and gave me a look that was meant to be a challenge.
“Can I ask you something?” I whispered, careful to not engage the blade.
“What?” was her irritated response.
“Why them?”
“I don’t understand. ”
“Why Jameson? Why Nolan? Why did you go to Bramley and find them?”
“Because sooner or later, even the most foolish vampire hunter will stumble on to a great prize, Secret. They…” she indicated Jameson and Nolan, “…found the first of the council-guarded vampires for us by sheer dumb luck. ”
She’d said us. So that explained her part in this. Noriko was a daytime servant, which seemed quite obvious to me now with her holding a sword to my throat and being followed by an entourage of the undead.
“How old are you?”
She pulled back the sword a bit and contemplated the answer to the question.
“I was born in 1614 in Edo. So, I suppose, I am nearly four hundred. ” She was briefly delighted by this, as though it never occurred to her to take stock of something so menial as age.
“Who were you in Japan?” I asked. My knuckle-duster ring had slipped loose, and I had nudged it low on my fingers. When I’d punched Sig earlier that week one of the diamonds had shifted, creating a sharp, blade-like point on the surface of the ring. I was trying to cut through my ropes using that point, plus the broken wood from the back of my chair. Nolan was being no help whatsoever.
Noriko’s eyes clouded and something approaching rage crossed her face. “I was an Oiran. A respected prostitute. ” Her jaw was tight. I’d asked the wrong question. Why couldn’t she have been a sweet tea server or someone’s devoted wife? “Enough of this. It’s time for your end, McQueen. ”
