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Foam running from his jaws, Harrison ran from the
courtroom. Helpless and unable to move, Henri watched him go.
Something worse than Harrison was now loose in the
city.
He closed his eyes and ran a weary hand over his
face.
A little girl in the crowd giggled, and the
chauffeur shuddered all over.
Frowning, the minister closed his eyes. Tonight was
a little different from the norm. True, life was far from normal. It
always was.
One: Tonight he met a werewolf that was afraid of a
couple of little girls. Two: He was allowed to see a horrible unclean
spirit . . . that was also afraid of the little girls.
Third strike, you’re out?
Far from being stupid, Watkins edged away from the
twins.
Roger Chong knelt at the feet of Lady Riko San. The
tiny woman was scowling at the blood as she wrapped a life-skin over
the stump of Chong’s wrist. Blood lined the seamed hands. She
trembled, but only a little. Plagues that wiped out most of Asia and
the world took nearly all of her family. It had taken days, but she
managed to bury the corpses.
The wrap shrank around the stub. For a brief moment
the splintered end of the bone showed, then swelled as healing-‘bots
swarmed the wound.
The tight calm on Chong’s dark face eased, and he
closed his eyes with a sigh.
“You can faint, now,” the woman said, her
fingers stroking the loose curls on Chong’s head. “It might make
it easier to tell me what happened.
He gave the floor a faint smile.
“Gracious Lady Aunt, where to begin?”
She touched a nerve in his shoulder, and the man
slumped. Riko San eased his body to the floor. Awake, the man was big.
Unconscious the man weighed a great deal more. Scrubbing floor for the
UN’s Pentagon and long hours in training built muscle under her pale
ivory skin. She held his head in her lap.
“My poor boy,” she said, bending down to kiss
the cold brow. “I will count to ten, and you will detail what
occurred through the night.”
Chong’s lips moved in a low whisper. Riko San
nodded at the men with their heads pressed to the floor. One scurried
to her with a recorder in hand. She took it, laying it on Chong’s
chest.
As the hours past, she remained outwardly calm,
holding his head, but tears ran down the withered face.
As he slid into a deeper rest, she turned off the
recorder.
“Is it true?” Wonder on her face she stared at
her agents. "A werewolf?”
One of the men raised his head an inch from the
floor. “Jade Princess--“
“Be still. The question was rhetorical. Roger
wouldn’t lie to me to save his life.” Scowling, she reached out to
the recorder and was shocked to discover her hand trembled.
“Carl Ivanovitch, the man who destroyed our allies
among the Jivaristas, alive, and a beast of children’s nightmares.”
She smiled. “And married to the mother of Benny Wya Grey, a woman of
vast and terrible powers. Gentlemen, what great luck. Yet, it comes too
late.”
The three agents trembled at the stark whisper and
pressed their heads harder against the floor.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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