Wings of Fire Part 48

He turned and strode off, leaving her by the grave feeling very much alone. Not until she heard the deep-throated roar of his Harley starting up and then taking off, did she walk slowly from the grave herself.

FOUR.

There was music on the roof.

Stick heard it when he shut off his Harley, a jaunty version of "Tamberwine's Jig" on tin whistle and electric guitar that came drifting down from the museum's roof-top garden. Locking up his bike and pocketing its spell-box, he went up the six flights of stairs to find Amanda Woodsdatter and Jenny Jingle in the garden amusing Lubin with their music. The ferret danced on her hind legs, keeping perfect time to the 6/8 rhythm of the jig.

The girls brought the tune to an end when they saw Stick.

"You don't look so good," Manda said.

"It's not been a good day," Stick agreed.

Silver-eyed and mauve-haired, Manda leaned against the bal.u.s.trade in a polka-dotted mini-dress that matched the canary yellow of her Les Paul. She played lead guitar for the Horn Dance, but spent a good deal of her spare time hanging around the museum acting the part of Stick's surrogate daughter, much to Stick's amus.e.m.e.nt. Leaning her guitar against its small portable amp, she picked up a thermos to pour Stick a mug of tea.

"Did you find out where the fire was?" she asked.

Stick nodded. "Someone torched the Diggers' place in Tintown."

"Are you serious? Was anybody hurt?"

"A guy named Nicky who ran the place."

"I've met him," Jenny said.

She pushed Lubin away from her knee which the ferret kept nudging in an attempt to get her to continue the music.

Unlike Manda who was a halfling, the whistle player was a full-blooded elf who worked part-time at Farrel Din's place down in Soho. She wore her hair in a half-dozen silver braids from which hung tiny bells that jingled whenever she moved her head and a pair of shades with pink plastic frames. Her T-shirt was one that Stick had given to Manda advertising a long-gone rock band called the Divinyls.

Stick took his tea from Manda with a nod of thanks. Slouching down in old wicker rocker, he put his feet up on Manda's guitar case and sighed.

"Well, Nicky's dead now," he said heavily.

"Dead?"

"I just got back from burying him."

The girls exchanged horrified looks.

"G.o.d," Manda said. "What a horrible way to go."

Stick shook his head. "He didn't get caught in the fire. He was on the pearl and took a drop from one of the windows."

"That doesn't sound right," Jenny said. "I know he used to be a junkie but he dropped the pearl a long time ago. There's no way he'd go back."

"That's what Berlin said, too. She's taking it pretty hard. But we found some s.h.i.t on him--weird s.h.i.t. Some new kind of pearl, looks like."

He filled in the rest of the details with a few terse sentences. When he was done, they all sat around without speaking for a long while. Lubin gave up on Jenny and came to collapse on the arm of Stick's chair. He ruffled the thick fur at the nape of the ferret's neck and looked out across the roof-top garden to Fare-you-well Park and beyond.

"Well," he said finally. "Time's wasting. I've got to head over to Dragontown to check up on that marker."

"I know someone who might be able to help you with that," Jenny said.

"Who's that?"

"My teacher--Koga Sensei."

Something flickered in Stick's eyes.

"Shoki," he said quietly. "I hadn't thought of him."

Jenny looked puzzled. "Who or what's Shoki?" she asked, but Stick was already turning away.

"Not this time," he told Lubin as the ferret rose to follow him. "Manda?"

Manda called Lubin back. Stick nodded to them from the door.

"Don't hold supper for me," he said.

Then he was gone. Jenny and Manda looked at each other.

"Sometimes," Jenny said after a few subdued moments, "he really spooks me."

"He just gets a little intense, that's all," Manda said.

Jenny nodded. "Poor Nicky. I wonder how it happened. He was the last guy I'd expect to get hooked again."

The grey skies above them seemed drearier than ever. The air held a sudden chill. Manda shivered.

"Let's go inside," she said.

Together they packed up their things and brought them down to the living quarters on the Museum's fifth floor.

Koga Sensei lived behind his dojo which was on the second floor of a building that also housed a Trader's shop. The store was run by an old j.a.panese couple and took up most of the main floor. Stick glanced at the goods for sale in the window--everything from j.a.panese noodles and gaudily-wrapped imported candies to elvin herb-pouches--then went up the stairs.

He recognized the girl who answered the door as another of Farrel Din's waitresses. She wore an oversized red T-shirt with the word "Tokyo" emblazoned on the front and her black Mohawk sprang up to attention in a swath of spikes, adding six inches or so to her diminutive stature. Stick gave her a quick slight bow.

"I am pleased to see you again," he said to her in fluent j.a.panese. "Would it be possible for me to speak with Shoki-san at this time?"

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "But I don't, uh... speak j.a.panese."

"Who is it, Laura?" a male voice asked from inside.

"It's Stick," she called back over her shoulder.

She stepped aside as the owner of that voice came to the door. Koga Sensei was compact and muscular, taller than Laura but still a head or so shorter than Stick, casually dressed in loose white cotton trousers and a collarless shirt. He ran a hand through his short dark hair.

"Stick," he said softly.

Stick gave him a brief bow which Koga returned.

"Shoki-san," he said.

"That's not a name I usually go by."

Stick shrugged. "It's the name I know you by."

"Yes. Well." Koga glanced at Laura, then sighed and stepped aside. "Will you come in?"

Stick took off his boots and, leaving them by the door, walked past the Sensei. In the center of the room, he knelt, back straight, weight on his ankles, hands on his knees.

"What's going on?" Laura whispered to Koga. "I thought you two were friends."

"We know each other," Koga replied.

"You've seemed pretty friendly other times I've seen you meet."

Koga nodded. "But this appears to be a formal visit, Laura."

"I don't get it. And why's he calling you Shoki?"

The only other time that Laura had heard her lover referred to by that name had been in quite unpleasant circ.u.mstances. Shoki was the Demon Queller. She'd been a demon at the time.

"We go back a long way," Koga replied. "But there are... differences between us from those times that have never been resolved." He stopped her next question with a raised hand. "Serve tea, Laura."

"So now I'm your geisha girl? s.h.i.t, when you revert to the old ways, you really revert, don't you?"

Koga smiled. One of those, not-now-let's-fight-about-it-later smiles.

All right, she smiled back. Later.

"I'll let you get away with it this time," she said aloud.

She kept her voice low so that only Koga could hear her. Giving him a poke in the stomach with a stiff finger, she put her palms together in a prayer position and hurried off to the kitchen with a geisha's quick mincing steps. Koga rolled his eyes, then walked over to where Stick was sitting. By the time he sat down across from his guest, his features were composed again.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," he said. "I'd given up ever having you visit me in my home."

Stick gave a small shrug. "Had some business that couldn't keep."

Koga nodded. They waited in silence then for the tea to be served. Laura pulled out a low table and set it between the two men, serving them their tea in small handleless cups of bone china. Not until they were finished their first cup and they each had a second in front of them, did they get to Stick's business.

Sitting off to one side, Laura watched them, struck by how much alike they seemed at this moment. She listened attentively as Stick explained the Diggers' problem, then muttered under her breath something about "slaves and geishas" as she fetched some ink, parchment and a brush so that he could quickly sketch the dragon symbol from the marker that had been left behind on Nicky's body.

"Why is it that one need only mention drugs and dragons and immediately it is a.s.sumed that the problem originates in New Asia?" Koga said when Stick was done.

"Maybe it's got something to do with your yakuza and tongs," Stick replied.

"There are other dragons--"

"I'm only interested in this one," Stick said, breaking in.

Koga nodded. "All right. I think it belongs to the Cho tong--Billy Hu's people. At least it used to. I've seen this motif on some of the dishware in their gaming rooms."

"Didn't think you gambled," Stick said.

"I don't. But I like watching sometimes."

"Okay. Thanks."

Stick started to rise, but Koga reached across the table to touch his arm. "You never forget, do you? What will it take for you to forget?"

"Can you bring Onisu back?"

Koga shook his head. "I had no choice."

"You think I don't know that? Why the h.e.l.l do you think we're still on talking terms?"

"I just thought... if enough time went by...."

"Don't kid yourself, Shoki--there just aren't that many years." He gave Koga a brief nod, then rose from the table. Standing, he towered over both Laura and the Sensei. His gaze went to Laura. "Thanks for the tea--you served it real well for a gajin."

Before Laura could reply, he was outside, the door closing on him. She could hear him on the landing, putting on his boots, but she waited until she heard him go down the stairs before she spoke.

"What was all that about?"

Koga shook his head. "Like I said before--an old disagreement."

"But who's this Onisu he was talking about? Why's he so p.i.s.sed off, Koga?"

"Onisu was Stick's wife, Laura--a long time ago."

"And she's... is she dead?"

Koga nodded. "Shoki killed her."

"But you're...." Laura couldn't finish.

"I know," Koga said. "Believe me, Laura. I know."

Laura began to feel that this was a secret she'd wish she had never learned about.

"Was she a... a demon? Like I was?"