Chapter 45
Iset the charges on the ninety-second floor, and the quiet is starting to grate at me.
It’s the wrong kind of silence. Not calm. Not empty.
Waiting.
“Grim?” I murmur, tightening the final clamp against the building’s core.
Nothing.
I pause, fingers stilling. “How many are coming?”
Static answers me, thin and broken, a hiss in my ear that crawls instead of speaks.
“…Grim?”
Nothing.
I straighten slowly and take in the space around me.
The ninety-second floor opens into a massive interior atrium, all glass and air and polished stone.
It rises two stories high, the ninety-third floor exposed above it like a balcony in a luxury mall.
A wide walkway wraps around all four sides of the upper level, railings gleaming under soft lights.
Thick columns anchor the corners, structural and immovable.
Tall white banners hang from the ceiling, drifting lazily in the conditioned air, heavy enough to matter if someone decided to use them.
Tables and chairs sit abandoned across the floor, expensive and fragile and very much in the way.
I zip my bag and leave it on the ground near the column. Explosives sealed. Tools stowed. If Grim doesn’t come back online, this turns into a very old-fashioned problem.
I try him once more. “Grim. Talk to me.”
Silence.
Then—
Ding.
An elevator opens on the floor above.
I look up.
She steps into view and stops at the railing, white against stone and shadow.
Tomoe.
White kimono. Immaculate. White chrysanthemums embroidered so delicately along the fabric they almost disappear unless you know to look for them. A katana rests across her back, wrapped, untouched. She doesn’t scan the atrium. Doesn’t acknowledge the charge humming behind me.
She looks only at me.
Recognition settles in my gut like a weight.
Leader of the Onryō.
I tilt my head slightly and offer a thin smile.
“I’m honored the Onryō came all this way for me.”
Her gaze doesn’t waver.
“We will see,” Tomoe says calmly, her voice carrying without effort, “if you are honorable enough for the Onryō.”
A presence shifts on my level.
One woman steps forward from between the columns. All white. A fitted jumpsuit instead of a kimono, practical and unadorned. Bare feet. Katana already in her hands, blade angled down. She says nothing.
We circle.
The air tightens. Every sound sharpens. I can feel Tomoe watching, measuring every breath, every shift of weight.
The woman moves first.
Fast.
She doesn’t slash. She reaches. Hands going for my shoulders, my balance, my throat. Control before death.
I spin with her momentum, shrugging out of my jacket as her grip closes on leather instead of me. My hand snaps to her wrist in the same breath.
Steel flashes.
I wrench the katana free, step inside her reach, and drive the blade straight through her chest.
Her breath leaves her in a sharp, startled sound as the tip punches out between her shoulders. For half a second, discipline cracks.
Then she collapses at my feet, blood blooming vivid against white.
I don’t look away.
Above me, Tomoe studies the scene.
Then, just barely, her mouth curves.
“You, Saint James,” she says, “are honorable to battle the Onryō.”
She inclines her head in a slight bow.
Elevators begin to ding.
One.
Two.
Many.
Doors slide open along both levels of the atrium. Soft footsteps follow. Controlled. Measured. The whisper of fabric, the quiet draw of steel. They arrive without haste, without chaos, flowing into position like something practiced a thousand times.
I glance down at the woman at my feet, then back up.
“I thought that was the fight.”
Tomoe’s faint smile grows, just a fraction.
“Silly assassin.”
They finish assembling.
Forty-nine white-clad figures. Blades gleaming. Formation perfect.
I stand alone in the center of the atrium, katana in hand, my bag abandoned behind me, a body cooling at my feet.
“Well,” I say, watching them settle, feeling the space close in. “Looks like all forty-nine of you came.”
I draw a slow breath, flick the blood from the blade, and settle into a two-handed grip.
“All right,” I murmur. “Let’s get started.”
They move as one.
And the ninety-second floor becomes a killing ground.
My… killing ground.
They surround me.
Not sloppy. Not frantic. A perfect ring of white and steel, blades catching the light as they angle inward. I turn slowly, deliberately, taking them in one by one. Faces calm. Focused. Reflected back at me in the polished curve of the katana I stole from their dead sister.
Then they move.
From everywhere.
Katanas stab and slash in controlled arcs, steel whispering past my throat, my ribs, my spine.
I stay light on my feet, cutting as I dodge, dodging as I cut, never letting myself be still long enough to be pinned.
An arm comes off at the elbow. A wrist follows.
Someone screams as their sword clatters uselessly to the floor.
I keep them moving. Keep the circle unstable.
A blade whistles toward my head from behind.
I drop into a deep backbend, spine arcing impossibly as the katana sweeps through empty air inches above my face. From that position, I swing blind, trusting muscle memory.
Three women behind me open up at once, red blooming across their torsos.
I snap upright and drive my blade forward, burying it in the chest of the woman directly in front of me. She gasps. Falls.
I don’t follow her down.
I pivot, grab a silver fork off a nearby table, and turn just as another Onryō rushes me.
I ram the fork straight into her eye.
Wet resistance. Then give.
She screams, high and raw, staggering back as I yank the fork free. Her eyeball comes with it, stretching obscenely before snapping loose.
I don’t give her time to process it.
I sweep her ankles out from under her and chase her to the ground. Her head cracks against the marble hard enough to echo through the atrium.
She tries to scream again.
I drive the fork into her mouth as hard as I can, pinning her jaw open, forcing the ruined eye back into her throat.
She chokes.
Convulses.
Dies gagging on herself.
I rise and move on.
Two more rush me. One dies to a clean slice across the neck. The other to a stab under the ribs that punches out her back. I twist the blade free just as something heavy whips toward my face.
Chain.
Kusarigama.
I spin behind a pillar as the weighted end slams into stone with a violent crack. The chain wraps uselessly around the column.
I step out and slash.
Brutal. Efficient.
Her abdomen opens cleanly. Intestines spill out in a slick, steaming mess, hitting the floor with a wet slap. She slips in her own blood, feet flying out from under her, hands clawing uselessly at her stomach as she bleeds out screaming.
I don’t watch her die.
I’m already moving.
But something’s changed.
They’re not rushing anymore.
They tighten their formation. Adjust spacing. Blades angle differently. They’re herding now, not chasing.
They’re learning me.
Nope.
I kick backward, flip a table, and sprint for the stairs.
They follow immediately.
I take the first three on the steps, blade flashing in tight quarters. One tumbles backward, taking another with her. I vault over their bodies, hit the landing at the top of the stairs, and don’t slow.
I plant a foot on a table and hurl myself forward, launching in a clean arc over the banister.
White fabric flares below me.
I land hard on the upper walkway, boots skidding, knees bending to absorb the impact. I spin as soon as my feet settle, blade coming up just as the first of them pours onto the stairs behind me.
I have exactly one second to catch my breath.
I take it.
Then I smile.
Ready for more.
Three of them push me back at once.
Not wild. Not desperate. Precision cuts, staggered timing, blades moving in clean arcs meant to herd me toward the rail. Steel flashes left, right, high. I give ground by inches, parrying just enough to keep my throat attached to my body.
Fine. You want choreography.
I take the opening when it comes, drive forward instead of back, and kill the first with a brutal upward slice that splits collarbone. The second dies a heartbeat later, blade buried under her ribs. The third tries to recover.
She doesn’t get the chance.
I run.
A white banner hangs from the ceiling nearby, impossibly long, heavy fabric meant to impress investors. I jump, catch it in both hands, and don’t slow.
I hit the banister at a run and vault, swinging out into open air.
For half a second, I’m weightless.
Then I let go.
I slam into the opposite walkway feet-first, using the momentum to kick the first Onryō square in the chest. She flies backward over the rail, arms pinwheeling, and hits a table two stories below with a wet, final crack.
Her neck bends at an angle no living thing survives.
I land, turn, and snap the banner around another woman’s throat before she can react. I shove her toward the edge and lean my weight into it, wrapping fabric tight, tighter, until her hands claw uselessly at it.
I push.
She goes over.
The banner jerks violently as she dangles, feet kicking, fingers scrabbling for purchase that isn’t there. I hold until her body goes slack, then let the fabric slide free and watch her fall.
I don’t wait.
Four more rush me.
I meet them head-on.
Blade flashes. Bone breaks. One goes down screaming with her arm nearly severed. Another takes a thrust through the sternum and collapses into her. A third lands a slice across my side as she passes me.
It’s deep.
I feel it immediately. Heat. Wetness. The pull of torn muscle.
Good.
Pain sharpens everything.
I kill her with a backhand slash that takes her throat open, then finish the last with a pommel strike that drops her to her knees before I drive my sword down through her spine.
Silence crashes down around me.
Bodies litter the walkway. Blood slicks the stone. The banner sways gently above, stained now, heavier than before.