Portals of Infinity: Kaiju Page 16

  She sighed suddenly, "I must ask, do you like me, William?"

  I stopped and turned to face her, "Honestly? Not at first. At first you were just a hot, but annoying, woman who was trying to play dominance games."

  She frowned a little then, but didn't look away.

  "But now? Yeah, I like you, Suzona. Since you told me about your past last week, since you've stopped playing dominance games with me, or Evean, yes. I like you. Maybe some day we can even be friends."

  I turned back towards the direction we had been walking and she leaned into me a little as we started to browse the shops again.

  "I'd like that, I don't have many friends," she admitted.

  "Yeah," I agreed, "I'd like that too. I'm learning just how hard it really is to have friends when you're a champion."

  "Especially when all of the mortal ones will eventually die off," Suzona sighed.

  I sighed heavily and nodded, thinking about Goth again.

  We walked in silence for a while after that, both obviously thinking somber thoughts, when we came to a rather odd-looking shop.

  "What's this?" Suzona asked looking over the small front window, which had several old looking books in it.

  "I'm not sure, let's go in."

  "Sure, why not?"

  Opening the door, there was a stairway that went down to the basement just inside the door.

  When we got to the bottom of it, all you could see were old wooden shelves that ran from the floor to the ceiling, all of which were full of books.

  "Can I help you?" An old man asked, from behind a small counter nearby on our left.

  "What kind of books do you sell?" I asked.

  "All kinds," he replied. "What are you looking for?"

  "Monsters," Suzona replied. "Monsters that come from the ocean and attack people on the land."

  He looked at her a moment. "Fiction or folklore?"

  "There is a difference?" she asked.

  "Yes, the later are stories passed down through the ages, often by word of mouth. The former are stories created by an author to please an audience."

  "Folklore then," I said.

  "Follow me, please," He said and came around from behind the counter and led us down one of the aisles, past several breaks, until we were near the back of the store.

  "These ten shelves here," he said, and then turned and headed back towards the front of the store.

  Suzona and I looked the shelves, they were each about six feet long and packed with books, no two of which appeared to be the same. We looked at each other and shrugged.

  "I'll start at the top," I said.

  "I'll start at the bottom then," she nodded.

  After about an hour of looking through books, I realized I had barely moved down the first shelf. It was already near sunset when we came in here, I was sure we'd probably be getting kicked out soon. There had to be a quicker way to go through the books, and then I had an idea.

  I did the 'eyes and ears' think for Fel, then holding each book up against the shelf, I grabbed all of the pages, bent them back, then using my thumb carefully, I let the book's pages riffle slowly by before my eyes.

  It took about a minute, and I went on to the next book.

  "What are you doing?" Suzona asked me when I started in on the fifth book using that method.

  "Eyes and ears. I figure Fel can process this stuff a lot faster than I can."

  "Huh," was all she said, and a couple minutes later we were both fanning through the books.

  I was halfway through the second shelf when I got a feeling from Fel. I looked at the book, and tossed it on the floor by Suzona.

  "That's a hit," I told her, "Now to see if I can find another one."

  I got a second hit before I got to the end of that shelf, and one more on the third shelf. By the time the man at the counter had come back, to tell us he was closing, we had a pile of nine books.

  Picking them up, we followed him back to the front of the store.

  "How much?" I asked as laid them out on his counter.

  "One hundred and twenty-eight marks," he said.

  I nodded, even though I had no idea what a mark was, and taking off the necklace I wore under my shirt, I removed two gold rings.

  "Willing to trade?" I asked him.

  He looked at the rings, then back at me. "Gold is about five hundred marks an ounce, how much do each of those weight?"

  "One quarter of an ounce, each," I told him.

  He nodded and picked one up and examined it, then dropped it on the counter and listened to the noise it made.

  "I will give you the books, and one hundred marks, in twenty mark notes.

  "One-forty," I responded, out of habit mostly.

  "One-twenty."

  "Sold!" I said and shook hands with him.

  Half an hour later we were back at the room with a sack full of books, and I passed the six twenty mark notes over to Evean.

  "What's that?" She asked.

  "Clues to our next stop," I quickly explained to her what we'd done.

  "Smart. Okay, let's get to looking at them."

  "Where is everyone else?" Suzona asked. Evean was the only one who had been in the room when we got back.

  "Out getting dinner and some local clothing. Gregory found a pawnshop and got some cash. I elected to stay behind because you had the key, plus I was kind of hoping you two would come back with a lead." Evean said, sitting down on the bed and starting to quickly flick through one of the books.

  I grabbed one and Suzona grabbed another and we started to slowly page through them.

  "Found something!" Evean called out immediately.

  "Pictures?" I asked.

  "Nope, just a tale of a gojira attacking a city." She flicked through the pages, "This isn't footnoted and they don't say where the tale comes from. But it's a start."

  I nodded and continued on until I found another mention in the book I was reading. Again, it was the story, but this was in a section of stories from the Anwei region of Saiwen.

  "What's the name of the country we're in?" I asked.

  "Saiwen," Evean said. "I looked through the phone book earlier."

  "What region are we in?"

  "Why, you find something?"

  "Yeah, this book says the story is from the Anwei region."

  "Well, all we need it is a map now."

  "Assuming that the Anwei region isn't huge."

  "Well, let's see what else we can learn," Evean said, and we went back to the books.

  By the time everyone had come back, we had also found a couple of crude handmade drawings, which apparently came from the original storyteller, as well as their name, Chie Hayasho.

  "What do you think?" I asked Evean as we looked at the drawings. Loomis was looking over her shoulder.

  "They look off," Loomis said.

  "Yeah, I have to agree with Loomis," Evean said nodding.

  "So, either a bad artist, or?"

  "Or someone else described it to them." She said putting the book down. "Well, it's late. In the morning we can find a map and make travel arrangements."

  I looked at the clock, it was pretty late. That was when I realized I was starving. The others hadn't brought back any food. I looked over at my pack, which had some rations in it, but decided to save those.

  "I'm gonna go get some food, anyone want to come with?"

  "I'm starving," Suzona said and got up.

  "Yeah, I'll go," Evean said standing up.

  Surprisingly Loomis got up as well, "I could stand to go for a walk," He said and smiled at Evean.

  Before we left, Suzona shifted out of her champion form and changed her top, blending in with the rest of us. I was a little surprised, like most champions, Suzona stayed in her champion form whenever she could get away with it.

  "What's that for?" Loomis asked.

  "Eh, just don't want to be stared at," Suzona replied.

  "I just hope we can find an open place this late," I said and we all went dow
nstairs and left the hotel looking for a place to eat.

  We found a place that was open late, and had a good dinner, then headed back towards the hotel.

  When we got there however, things had definitely gone bad in a big way. The building was encircled by what had to be police vehicles, with blue and red lights flashing. There were armed men and women in body armor moving around the building, and just about then the windows on one of the rooms on what looked like the eighteenth floor blew out and the sounds of automatic gunfire filled the air.

  We all stepped back, around the corner, and looked at each other.

  "That was our room, wasn't it?" Loomis said, looking a little nervous.

  "Seems like," I said, then leaning forward I peered around the corner, watching the building.

  "Who could possibly be after us?" Loomis asked.

  "Doesn't matter who, it just matters that they are," Evean said.

  "Looks like we lost our gear, I just wonder if we lost Gregory, Joseph, and Teshes," Suzona said.

  "I wonder if they have descriptions on all of us?" I asked.

  "I bet they have a description on Suzona," Evean said. "She's stands out a lot in this crowd."

  Suzona nodded slowly "Then I'm glad I decided to go incognito this evening."

  "You and me both," I replied.

  I watched as all of the emergency doors for the hotel popped open, and people started to stream out. I guess the explosion had either tripped the fire alarms, or a lot of folks just decided that the hotel was no longer a safe place to stay.

  As I was watching, I noticed Teshes suddenly come out among the crowd. She was following the mass of people as they all streamed away from the building, her head was moving side to side, as she looked around, passing by several of the officers in body armor who apparently didn't notice her.

  "Teshes got out," I said and moved out from behind the building to stand in view of those coming out of the hotel.

  She saw me almost immediately and changed direction towards me, so I stepped back around the corner and waited.

  "What happened?" Evean asked as soon as Teshes came around the corner.

  "I was coming out of the bathroom when the door just blew in, and several men came into the room wearing that armor stuff. One grabbed me and dragged me out, as the others engaged Joseph and Gregory.

  "From what I could see before I has pulled out of there, Joseph killed the first one, Gregory got the second one, and then I was dragged down the hallway by two of them, who kept asking me if I was alright, if I was okay, if they had hurt me."

  Teshes shrugged, "When the explosion went off, I killed them both, and ran down the stairs and got lost in the crowd."

  "Do you know if Gregory or Joseph got away?"

  Teshes shook her head, "I have no idea. There were a lot of those people in the armor though. Who are they?"

  "Police of some kind," Evean said. She looked back at Suzona, "Who was that guy you popped?"

  She shrugged, "Just some small time criminal, apparently he was casing me out to make me one of his whores."

  "Somebody must have followed us here from that last world," Loomis said.

  "Why the hell would they do that?" I asked frowning.

  He scowled at me, "Do you have a better idea?"

  I shook my head, "No, but let's not jump to conclusions."

  "Let's go, we don't want to tarry here," Evean said. "When they find the two officers that Teshes killed, they'll realize someone got away and start searching. We need to be far away from here."

  We all agreed with that and started walking.

  "So, now what?" I asked.

  "We find a map, find out where the Anwei region is, and see if we can track down this Chie Hayasho character," Evean said. "If nothing else, if we find where they lived, we can get an idea of where to look for the next portal."

  "What about the others?" Teshes asked.

  "What about them?" Evean said looking at her.

  "If they're still alive, they'll catch up," I told Teshes and gave her a hug. "If not, well it will be weeks before they are back again."

  "Why so long?" She asked, giving me a questioning look.

  "It takes time to pass through each of the spheres on your way back home. Then when you get there, you have to wait the usual three days."

  "Oh! I didn't know that!" she said and blushed a little.

  We spread out into a loose group; Evean led, with Loomis not too far behind. Suzona and Teshes hung together, and I followed about a hundred feet behind, bringing up the rear, alone.

  Being alone was probably best for me right now, as I was still dealing with Goth's death and it was nice not having to talk to the others while trying to pretend that everything was fine.

  We spent the next several hours walking across the city, there were still people out, the city being fairly large it never really completely shut down it seems, but if we had grouped up we would have stood out.

  We came across a park about the time the sun was starting to come up, so we found a few benches and sat down to consider our options.

  "First we need a map." Evean started. "Then we need transportation. If they're looking for us, mass transit is probably not the best way to go."

  "Assuming they know what we look like," I said.

  "Better we assume that they do, than assume that they don't."

  "How much gold do we have?" I asked looking around.

  "I've got five ounces," Evean said, "You?"

  "Three and a half."

  "Loomis?" She asked.

  "One."

  We all stared at him.

  "What? I've never done this before!" He grumbled.

  "I have only two and a half," Teshes said, "I'm poor, sorry."

  "Eight," Suzona said.

  "I'm impressed," Evean said.

  "And two more of platinum," Suzona added with a smile.

  "How much of their paper money do you still have?" I asked Evean.

  "Just the hundred left from what you gave me. Gregory had been holding the rest."

  "Well, might as well take a break here, and when the shops start opening in a couple of hours we can get started."

  "Sounds good. Suzona and Loomis, you two can keep the first watch while the rest of us grab a quick nap."

  § §

  I sat up almost immediately; I was back in the bar with Fel.

  "Is something wrong, Fel?" I asked.

  "Everything is fine back here," He told me, "Joseph and Gregory did not survive the attack however."

  "I suspected as much," I sighed.

  "They both realized that Teshes had a shot at escaping, so they drew as much attention as they could."

  "What happened?"

  Fel shrugged, "I'm not sure. Gregory overheard one of their radio conversations during the firefight. He overheard them saying to look out for the 'big wolf' that the terrorists might have with them."

  That stunned me, "What? The 'big wolf'?"

  "Joseph."

  "But, how would they know? Joseph never took his champion form here, or even in the last world."

  "Exactly," Fel said. "So what does that tell you?"

  "Well, I don't think anyone could have followed us here from the tower world," I started out.

  "Which leaves the people on your team."

  I thought about that a bit, "Teshes got out, do you think she might have called it in?"

  Fel shook his head, "The only time she wasn't with either Joseph or Gregory, was when she was in the bathroom, and there wasn't a phone in there. She didn't have the opportunity to call it in."

  "That leaves Evean, Suzona, Loomis, and me," I said looking at Fel. "Do they all know about this?"

  Fel shook his head, "No one else knows."

  I thought about that for a few minutes.

  "It's not the kind of thing Suzona would do, plus she hasn't had the opportunity.

  "Evean? I'd hate to think it was her, but she's probably the sneakiest and most manipulative of all of
us.

  "Loomis?" I shrugged, "I don't know anything about him, though he does strike me as rather naive. Would he even know how to set us up? He's a local, like Teshes, he has no experience with technology."

  "Quzelatin has been very stingy with information on Loomis as well," Fel said. "But that hardly means anything, neither Roden nor Isengruer volunteer anything on Evean or Suzona unless asked."

  "And if we ask, they'll know that we know. Assuming that it is in fact one of them."

  "Exactly."

  "But that still leaves the question of why?" I sighed. "Roden and Quzel-whats-his-name have lost more people than we have, so they wouldn't want to mess up the mission, would they?"

  "You're assuming that's their goal," Fel said.

  "What other goal could there be?" I asked.

  "Who is the most likely candidate to be causing problems?"

  That made me pause, "I don't think I follow."

  "You are. You have a history for over the top behavior, William, some would see you as willing to embark on a crazy or self-centered plan. Especially if you thought it would give your wife or me more power."

  "But Suzona was with me the one time I was off from the group."

  "Ah, but Joseph and Suzona don't get along. You never see them together, so obviously she would happily cover for you, if it got rid of Joseph. They might even argue that she was jealous of any attentions you were showing Teshes."

  "But Gregory and her have a far stronger relationship than she has with me." I protested.

  "Arguments made in the heat of the moment are rarely logical, William. I'm just warning you to be on your guard. Somebody cut the team down for a reason. They'll probably try again."

  I shook my head and sighed, "I don't need this on top of everything else. Do you have any good news at least?"

  "The Anwei region is the next one to the north of where you are. It only has one major city, and ten large towns."

  "Where did you find that out?" I asked.

  "One of the books you flipped through had a map in it," Fel said and showed it to me.

  "Not too much different than Japan, surprisingly," I said.

  "The line you're currently following doesn't diverge much from sphere to sphere. So far you've been on what's best described as a main fractal line."