Changer's Daughter Page 12

  They let Katsuhiro Oba rot in his cell for an entire day before they bring him out into the light again.

  Sitting on the damp dirt floor does nothing good for his suit, nor has the enforced waiting done anything good for his temper. His captors’ infantile belief that forbidding him food will break him makes him furious. Like most athanor, Katsuhiro possesses a high metabolism, but he is no shapeshifter, dependent on regular meals. Only reminding himself that getting out of his cellmate is the least part of escaping keeps Katsuhiro from breaking down the door.

  With the arrogance of a trained samurai, he has no doubt that he could overwhelm the guards. He fantasizes plans of escape until, if the opportunity presents itself, he will be ready to take advantage of it. Then he slips into meditations of forgetfulness.

  Thus the hours pass. His cellmate awakens occasionally. During one of these periods of wakefulness, Katsuhiro washes his wounds, binding the worst—a terrible slash across the forehead—with cloth torn from his own dress shirt.

  He tells himself that he does so from boredom or that the man is a source of information. In reality, he does it from pity—and to retain some feeling that he is in control.

  When he hears the bolt on the cell door shoot back, Katsuhiro gets to his feet. His pride will not let him play the role of defeated and frightened prisoner, even though it might be to his advantage.

  Three men wait for him without, all armed with handguns of impressive size, all wearing khaki trousers bloused into boots and clean white shirts. The outfit has something of the uniform about its cut, but is not overtly so.

  One grunts a command and Katsuhiro steps forward without a backward glance at his cellmate, though he hears the other man whimper. No wonder. Katsuhiro has seen the bruises on the man’s sides, bruises that correspond quite neatly with the rounded toes of the guards’ boots.

  Nodding to the men as if they are his escort rather than guards, Katsuhiro walks briskly down the corridor in the direction from which he had come the day before. The guards are so startled that they actually let him go about ten paces before two hasten after him, leaving the third to relock the cell.

  Fools, Katsuhiro thinks. I could have been away in that time.

  In his heart of hearts, he is not certain that this is true, but it comforts him to think so, and in playing the role he becomes it. By the time he has been taken to an office on the second story of the prison building, he is as coolly confident as if he were about to conduct a class at his dojo.

  Apparently following orders, his guards say nothing to him as they move through the corridors, but when they bring him into the office, the chief of the three reports to the man seated behind a solid American-style executive’s desk.

  “No problem with him, Chief,” he says. “He came as quiet as a lamb. Maybe these Japanese are crazy. He acts like this is a normal way to treat a visiting businessman.”

  The man behind the desk replies, “Perhaps he is. They say his kind commit suicide at the smallest slight. If that isn’t madness, what is? Leave us now. Set two armed guards at my door. Send someone down to question his cellmate. I want to know everything they talked about.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  As they are speaking Yoruban, the Africans have every reason to believe that Katsuhiro will understand nothing of their conversation; nor does Katsuhiro give them any reason to believe otherwise.

  The truth is that he learned to speak Yoruban many years ago when first his rivalry with Ogun, now Dakar Agadez, blossomed. He had learned that nothing drove Ogun into an uncontrollable rage faster than being taunted in his natal tongue by his adversary. It amused Susano to speculate on Ogun’s ancestry, sexual habits, and hygienic practices in fluent Yoruban, complete with colloquial slang phrases and insults, then watch the results. The fact that Dakar had only learned to speak Japanese poorly and so couldn’t respond in kind only made the exercise sweeter.

  Now, Katsuhiro schools his expression to polite neutrality, a faint smile, such as an embarrassed sariman might wear, on his lips, and waits to be addressed in a language he can claim to understand.

  After the guards depart, his host studies him without rising from his chair, as if reviewing a cadet or a naughty child. Katsuhiro returns the gaze with the same embarrassed smile, all the while fuming beneath his unthreatening exterior. At last, the man speaks in good English, marked, however, with the vaguely British intonations of the native Nigerian.

  “So, you are Katsuhiro Oba.”

  Katsuhiro gives a brief bow, hardly more than a movement of his head. It signals acknowledgment of himself, rather than respect to the other. He doubts the Nigerian has studied enough Japanese etiquette to be aware of the slight, and it makes him feel better.

  “You may call me Chief General Doctor Regis,” the man says. Katsuhiro doesn’t respond, not even to sneer at this typically African accumulation of titles. He is studying this Chief General Doctor Regis, trying to decide what it is about the man that makes his skin crawl.

  Regis is not a tall man, nor particularly threatening physically. His skin is not as dark as that of many of his countrymen, indicating an admixture of white blood—perhaps as much as half. His close-cropped hair is kinky, shaded that peculiar ocher-red often found in mulattoes. Skin and hair color are the only indications of his white parent. Otherwise, his nose is flat, his lips broad, and his eyes brown. These latter are bloodshot, though whether naturally or from exhaustion Katsuhiro cannot be certain.

  When Regis rolls his desk chair back slightly, perhaps a nervous gesture, perhaps to return Katsuhiro’s gaze with the minimum of effort, Katsuhiro sees that he is clad western style in shirt, tie, and tailored trousers. Instead of a suit jacket, he wears a white lab coat.

  “You are very calm, Mr. Oba,” Regis says. “Do you realize that you are in great danger to your life?”

  Katsuhiro lets his nervous sariman smile broaden a touch but says nothing more. Regis seems nonplussed but not really angry. He touches a buzzer beneath his desk and in a moment a woman’s voice speaks over the intercom.

  “Yes, Chief General Doctor, sir!”

  “Ice water. And a sandwich. Ham and cheese.” Regis speaks slowly, as if dispensing great wisdom.

  “Immediately, sir!”

  Regis says nothing more and within thirty seconds (Katsuhiro counts them to distract himself from the involuntary salivation that even the mention of food had triggered) a pretty young Nigerian woman bustles into the office carrying a tray.

  She wears a bright red dress with a short skirt that shows off good legs. Her hair has been straightened and arrayed in an elaborate coiffure that spills curls down from the top of her head. When she sets the tray on Regis’s desk, his hand slides possessively along the curve of her bottom.

  Watching without appearing to do so, Katsuhiro sees the woman’s lips stiffen, but she does not protest. Clearly this attention is not welcome, nor is it unexpected, but she does not care to protest.

  “That will be all, Teresa,” Regis says, squeezing her bottom so hard that she cannot conceal a flinch of pain. “For now.”

  Teresa exits and Regis studies the tray. His office is but poorly air-conditioned and the ice water in the pitcher sweats droplets of water that bead down the sides.

  Katsuhiro’s mouth, despite the salivation triggered by the sight and scent of the food, feels as dry as cotton. He could easily knock this man unconscious and then satisfy his hunger and thirst. Yet he stands there, bland and obedient.

  In a few minutes, as Katsuhiro had expected, Regis begins his meal, savoring each bite, smacking his lips after each long swallow of water, setting the sandwich aside from time to time as if he is finished, then starting to eat again. It is an elegant, terrible torture. Katsuhiro appreciates the man’s skill even as he hates him more and more with every passing moment.

  When at last the sandwich is eaten and the pitcher emptied, Regis returns his attention to Katsuhiro.

  “You’re a strange one, Mr. Oba,” he says conversati
onally. “Most people would have protested when they were kidnapped. You accepted it quite quietly. Are you involved in something to which you would rather not draw attention?”

  Katsuhiro shakes his head.

  “You say not,” Regis continues. “Still, it’s a captivating thought. I have had my men search your clothing and your luggage. Perhaps a more thorough search is in order... one that delves into the body cavities.”

  He draws the last the words out syllable by syllable, smiling all the while.

  “That would please some of the guards quite a bit. They would enjoy the... probing.”

  Katsuhiro says nothing. He no longer trusts his temper. Chief General Doctor Regis is one of the more annoying mortals he has met in his long life. He would like to separate him into component pieces—and he need not have his sword to do so.

  So lost is he in this pleasant fantasy that he misses part of what Regis says next:

  “... is true. I am interested in speaking with you about business, perhaps the very business that brought you here in the first place.”

  Regis focuses his bloodshot gaze on Katsuhiro, hoping doubtless for some expression of surprise. Katsuhiro chooses to disappoint him. He smiles blandly and imagines the mulatto’s right arm resting on the desk in front of him, even as it is now, but no longer attached at the shoulder.

  “I know your business,” Regis says, “and I think it is a very good plan, indeed, with one small exception. I would prefer that my friends and I be your Nigerian contacts rather than the group you intended to work with. That is simple enough, isn’t it? You will still do your business, still make your money, but you will work with me.”

  “When the sky falls and the oceans all freeze,” Katsuhiro says conversationally, “when the sun goes dark and the moon returns to the arms of her mother. That is when I will work with you.”

  Regis leans back in his chair and begins to laugh. It is an unpleasant laugh, merciless and humorless, yet somehow artificial. It sounds as if Regis has taken a tutorial on such laughter with the villains of every movie serial and television series ever written.

  “So you can speak! I was beginning to wonder if we had taken the wrong man.” He grows suddenly serious. “You speak big words, Mr. Oba, but I think I can convince you to think otherwise.”

  Katsuhiro, now that his tongue is loosed, cannot make it grow still again:

  “If you think that torturing me as you did that poor wretch in my cell will change my mind, you are quite wrong. You cannot change my mind in that fashion.”

  “It might be interesting to try,” Regis says. His tone is clinical.

  Despite the heat of his own anger Katsuhiro feels his blood chill. Regis means what he says. Torture interests him.

  “Perhaps I will try it,” Regis muses, “just for experiment’s sake. However, I would prefer you unmarked. Wounds you could show would be wounds you could turn to evidence against me. Still, I promise you most sincerely, I have the means of changing your mind. Don’t force me to use it.”

  Katsuhiro clamps his lips shut on the insult, that rises to them. Regis presses his intercom button.

  “Teresa, send in the guards. My interview with Mr. Oba has ended.” He returns his attention to Katsuhiro. “I mean what I say, Mr. Oba. Most sincerely.”

  The guards knock crisply, then enter.

  “Take Mr. Oba back to his cell. He is to have clean water but no food.”

  The guards salute and take Katsuhiro in custody. They are marching him out the door when Chief General Doctor Regis’s voice comes after them:

  “And Mr. Oba, I suggest that you talk with that ‘poor wretch’ who shares your cell. Once you hear his story you might feel far less sympathetic toward him.”

  The laugh again, then, “Yes. Far less.”

  7

  Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Shahrazad is pleased with herself. She’s ranged farther from the ranch house than ever before, and there’s a fascinating canine scent on the wind. The jackalopes are nervous, too, and as far as she is concerned that’s a bonus.

  The young coyote trots a bit faster, eager to find the source of this smell—this despite the fact that her hackles stand on end whenever she gets a good strong whiff. For now, curiosity is outweighing prudence and instinct. She wants to know what are these creatures who smell like coyotes, yet not quite like coyotes, but not like dogs either. She trusts in her young strength and in her father to keep her safe.

  She heads up a grassy rise toward a copse of trees that offers far more shelter than the surrounding grasslands. Deer are there, deer and elk, as well as rabbits, squirrels, and hosts of smaller rodents. A jay scolds her from a nearby evergreen.

  Eyeing it as if to say: “You talk big, but if I had wings, you wouldn’t talk like that to me!” Shahrazad takes a fresh scent.

  There, in among the trees. Several of them. Male and female and young.

  Intensely social, as her father had learned to his dismay, Shahrazad wags her tail at the thought of playmates, contradicting the argument raised by her hackles.

  Nose low to the ground, Shahrazad is heading into the trees when Hip, the male jackalope, interposes himself between her and her goal. Shahrazad growls, her hackles raised deliberately now, not from instinct, and shows her fangs.

  Hip interposes his antlers and Hop, coming around Shahrazad’s right side, prods the young coyote gently but firmly, clearly meaning to turn her back.

  Shahrazad growls. What do they think they are doing? Isn’t this her new domain? Isn’t she the Changer’s daughter, with the privileges that her father’s power has won for her?

  The two jackalopes don’t seem impressed by her growl, nor does the jay who shouts raucous insults at her.

  Shahrazad growls again, snapping at Hip, not really intending to bite him, just to remind him that she is larger and far more dangerous than he.

  Her reward is a solid jab from his antler prongs. Though lacking the weight of a true antelope, the jackalope has strong hind legs and lots of practice in warding back importunate predators. Hip’s aim is sure, and Shahrazad yelps in surprise.

  However, she is no longer the little pup who piddled at every frightening thing. She is a mighty hunter, one who has killed scores of rabbits. Nothing that so resembles her natural prey is going to push her around—not even if it has points on its head!

  Shahrazad backs a few steps, as if retreating. When the jackalopes drop from their haunches to all fours, she leaps.

  The motion combines the hop she has perfected for mousing—a sudden jerk up into the air from all four paws at once—combined with a surge forward. Shahrazad clears the recumbent jackalopes so narrowly that Hop’s antlers brush the long fur on her belly. The jackalopes wail for her to stop, an eerie noise, but Shahrazad is past them and running for the trees.

  She expects to hear them thumping after her, but they do not. Only the jay flies behind her, scolding her vigorously.

  For a moment, Shahrazad feels her aloneness, almost feels betrayed by the lepus kin. Then she brightens, her tail coming up and eyes searching the shadows under the trees for the source of the interesting scent. They must be near now. The scent that had been stale is fresh now. Shahrazad smells one, two, more: male and female both. The scent is odd, canine but mixed with something else.

  Shahrazad is trying to place the other element when a massive canine steps from the shadows to confront her. There is no word in Shahrazad’s vocabulary for “wolf” and yet something within her hindbrain’s catalog mates scent with image. Instinct tells the young coyote that before her is a creature that, for all its apparent likeness to her, may be kin but is not kind.

  Shahrazad crouches, trying to seem small, already beginning to back toward the open field. Then she stops backing. Too late she realizes that the wolves are all around her: grown wolves with pelts of dark grey, black, and dirty white. They outweigh her by a body and a half, would outwei
gh even her father, who is large for a coyote.

  Frightened and afraid to surrender—because she does not believe that these creatures would accept her surrender but would take advantage of bared belly and exposed throat –Shahrazad crouches low and growls warning that she will not die easily.

  For all her bravado, she has but one hope: that her father is somewhere near and will help her.

  Although she cannot tear her gaze from the big alpha male stalking closer and closer, one ear flicks from side to side, waiting for the sound of her father’s voice or of his footsteps, hoping in some strange corner of her mind that he will have the sense to take the shape of something larger than a coyote.

  Rescue comes in an unexpected form, even as it had on the day of the Eyes. There is a drumming of hooves on the turf and Pearl and Sun, the senior unicorns of Frank’s herd, come bursting into the grove where Shahrazad crouches in the midst of the circle of wolves. The jackalopes run with them, darting between the wolves until they stand flanking Shahrazad.

  The wolves back away from the unicorns; most vanish into the forest. A few remain, including the big male who had been about to punish the young coyote for her temerity.

  Growling far more ferociously than Shahrazad could do on her best day, he faces Sun. Sun lowers his golden horn and paws the turf, impressing Shahrazad with his terrible fury. Perhaps she has underrated these herbivores.

  She has the sense that there is more than mere posturing going on here, but she has not yet learned any but the most basic (and usually most painful) forms of communication with the other residents of the OTQ.

  After more growls and more pawing of the turf, punctuated by shrill imprecations from the jay, the wolves draw back. Her rescuers herd her from the forest as if she were little more than a mouse, but Shahrazad doesn’t dare voice her indignation beneath the watchful arc of the two unicorns’ sharp horns.

  Instead, once she is safely out in the open, she lopes as fast as she can back to the ranch. She finds her father, human form, helping Frank do something inexplicable with fresh-cut wood and tools. Trotting up to him, bristling with excitement and resentment, she squats next to him and lets loose a stream of rich, reeking yellow piss.