Mary: Curtain Call

WARNING: THIS IS THE FINAL ENTRY IN LEPORIDAE REX. NEW READERS, BEGIN HERE.






Dazed and in shock, much of what happened next was translated and related back to me in the following days.

After I rubbed my eyes and my vision returned, I looked around and saw every single Smiler in the room slumped over dead, eyes open. Emperor Komei stood in front of Hollis and the Red Lady, a pair of samurai holding their arms behind their backs, their supernatural powers now gone. His voice flat and low, he said, "With only one arm and one leg, I was wondering how Sato-san would spend his remaining years. With the two of you alive, I have my answer." The Emperor couldn't resist giving a small, malicious smile. "For you who have been so quick to deal out death to my people, I make this terrible promise: you shall live to die of old age." He nodded down to Sato, who writhed in pain from his shattered kneecap, but still managed to grin sadistically up at Hollis, who was led away, his face aghast.

Then the Emperor leaned down and placed a hand under Fukimitsu's head, the young samurai pale and coughing up blood from the stab wound inflicted by the Red Lady's dagger. At the time I was hardly unaffected by his plight, but now just thinking about his last words as they were translated to me still makes me cry as I type it:

"My Emperor... my lone regret in this life is that this samurai was cursed with such a poor master. A samurai gains honor through hardship and struggle. He proves his mettle by serving a lord who chooses unwisely- who treats him shabbily and orders him to perform dishonorable acts. Would that I have been blessed to be a vassal to another lord, but instead Fate has cheated me of the chance to reveal the full depths of my character... by forcing me to serve the finest man I have ever known."

Fukimitsu reached up then with a bloody hand to touch his master's face even as his eyes went dark and his body became slack in the Emperor's hands. With all the supreme efforts of will I had seen displayed in our struggle, never had I witnessed the resolve it took for the Emperor of Japan not to weep over the death of his descendant, Fukimitsu.

From the stage then, we could hear a groan as Yoshida woke up, apparently having been stunned into unconsciousness by the Magician's disappearance. I'm sure there are some of you reading this who hunger for vengeance against him for what he did, for his betrayal of his country and his friends, but at the time all I felt was pity. What the Magician offered was everything he could have ever wanted, and I had seen enough death and destruction already. I said, "Please, Emperor, spare his life. I know he has done wrong, but..." Unfortunately, as Yoshida and I realized at the same moment, there was no one left alive to translate for us, and the Emperor would hardly believe Yoshida.

Yoshida shook his head sadly as he looked down at me, the massive, muscle-bound Ota lumbering toward him inexorably. "I am sorry, Stroud. You know that, don't you?" He looked up as Ota towered over him, muttering despondently, "What a waste. What a waste." I turned away then, shielding my eyes. I heard a bone snap, Yoshida gave a sharp yelp and then his body hit the floor, dead.

Ota turned and picked up the chest of bingo charms on the stage, upending the box and pouring out the goo that they had been transformed into, all of them destroyed. We would find out later that the whales- every single one of them on Earth- were dead, their bloated corpses washing up on Japanese shores for months.

There were so many questions still unanswered. How had the Magician gotten the whales to serve him? Had he somehow created them all as a species? What part did the Red Lady's rabbit's foot play in the spell (despite months spent as the Emperor's "guest" in his dungeons, she never spoke a single word)? Who was the Magician really? Was he Geoffrey Gagworth, the first magician to perform the "rabbit out of a hat" trick, or was that just an identity he adopted? Was he even human at all?

We do not know and we will probably never know. This isn't some story where every little loose end is tied into a pretty knot. It's real life, and frankly we may be better off not knowing.

From the edge of the stage I heard a groan, and I dashed over to find Taras, still barely alive, his gray hair hanging down in his face and blood flowing freely from his nose, mouth and ears. Despite being in obvious pain, he smiled at me as I leaned down next to him. "I'm dying." He sounded like he just won the lottery. "And this time I shall stay dead, thank God." A puzzled look crossed his face. "How did you know?"

"That you would do it? The more I read your post, the more I suspected you'd betray the Magician if you thought it would actually work. Using the stage magic- the slight of hand Yoshida taught me- it was easy enough to get the hypo into your pocket, knowing that everyone would be busy watching my other hand carve into your face." I pulled his handkerchief from his coat and attempted to dry the blood, but it just kept coming.

He coughed, spattering my shirt-front with specks of red. "He has no blood... will the Calicivirus kill him? Will it infect whatever new world they were transported to? And the Howlands..."

I shrugged and shook my head, not wanting to think too much about it. "I didn't know what it would do, exactly. I think Doctor Yoshida, Kisho's father, had partially formulated it just for this purpose, so that it would affect him. Regardless, when Josh and I were about to destroy it down in Texas we had second thoughts. All that work he'd put in perfecting the formula... and in the end I guess it came down to the fact that the Doctor was fighting against the Magician and so were we, so we kept it around, buying one extra day from Pierce with a bogus story about not being able to get to FedEx in time. You have any idea how hard it is to find a book written in Japanese to shred in a Texas bookstore? Once the Emperor joined us we told him we still had the formula, and he agreed to manufacture it, though on the off-chance the Magician was still reading the archive we decided to keep it secret."

He chuckled, grimacing in pain and holding his stomach. After a moment, he mumbled, "I hear something."

Nodding and humoring him, I replied, "All right, Taras. It's all right now."

The old man shook his head peevishly. "I know what dying's like, woman. I've done it a hundred times. I said I hear something. From the stage."

Rising, I looked toward the dais, now hearing it as well. It sounded like someone sniffling. I wandered over slowly, peered around the floor and finally found the Magician's cape at the rear of the stage. Underneath it was a trembling lump, and I knelt down next to it and pulled the cape back, revealing a small, blond-haired boy, his face smudged, tear-stained and terrified. His blue eyes focused on me, and he spoke in what sounded like Russian.

From behind me Taras croaked, "It's the orphan. From the alley. The one the Magician made disappear."

Suddenly the boy started babbling, the words coming out in a rush. Taras translated, "He wants to know where he is. He says he has been in darkness for so very long. He asks, 'was it a dream? A nightmare? Am I dreaming now?' He asks where is his little sister. He asks again where he is."

The boy and I stared at each other for a long, long moment, and then I reached out and pulled him to me, hugging him and stroking his blond hair. He began to sob, crying into my chest with great heaving breaths. I began to cry as well, my tears falling onto the top of his head as I held him tight. "Tell him..." I tried to find the words, tried to think of a way to explain what had happened so that he could possibly understand. "Tell him..." I started again, not knowing that Taras was already dead, his face affixed with a beatific smile.

I squeezed the little boy even tighter as he clung to me with all the strength in his young body. "Tell him he's home.

"He's home."



FINAL ENTRY

Mary: Leporidae Rex

It was like watching someone throw tinsel on the Mona Lisa. It was like serving Dom Perignon with Ritz crackers and squeeze cheese. The incredibly simple, elegant, profound rock garden and sacred shrine had been "decorated" with black velvet curtains adorned with tacky, tin foil moons and stars. A jade statue of the Buddha in the center of the room had been sprayed with rainbow glitter. From the rafters on the roof of the shrine, someone had hung colored streamers, including an incongruous banner that proclaimed, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" in big, red, block letters.

Smilers arranged themselves like ushers along the walls, and metal folding chairs had been put up in front of a raised dais that would be used as the stage. The curtains on either side of the dais provided an off-stage area that presumably led to other, hidden, adjoining rooms.

The samurai were directed to sit in the chairs, with the Emperor and his top men: Fukimitsu, Ota and Sato seated in places of honor up front on the left side of the center aisle. There were more chairs than there were samurai left alive, so some of the Smilers filled in the gaps to guarantee a full house.

On the right side of the aisle sat the Magician's lieutenants: Hollis, the veiled woman dressed in gray and the man I had assumed to be Taras. Hollis craned his neck to look at Yoshida and I when we entered, waving us over genially to the front of the shrine to two empty seats behind him. He was giddy.

"We saved these two for you, my dear. Oh, you will not believe this show, I guarantee it. Welcome, welcome." He rose as we approached, guiding us into our chairs. His touch on my hand as he helped me sit made my stomach churn, but I was determined to keep my composure, at least for the moment.

"And who are your friends, Mr. Hollis?" I asked, gesturing discreetly at the lady and Taras.

He shook his head in mock-disgrace. "My stars, where are my manners? Miss Mary Stroud, this is the Red Lady of Babil. Forgive the Lady, Miss Stroud, if she does not indulge in pleasantries. Like my master, she uses words sparingly." His tone grew sour as he added, "And this is Taras."

Taras brushed his long, wavy, silver hair from his face and turned to look at me with gray, doleful eyes. "Dobry vechar. Good evening."

Hollis began, "The show should begin in-"

Just then I stood and leaped up and over the row of chairs, landing on Taras and knocking him sideways onto the wooden plank floor. With my right hand I clawed Taras' face as hard as I could, carving four long, bloody slashes into his left cheek from his eye to the bottom of his jaw.

He didn't cry out, and he didn't fight- he merely slowly took hold of my wrists and lifted me up to my feet, his expression puzzled. With heavily accented English he asked, "And what have I done to deserve such special treatment, miss?"

As he held me with an iron grip that was still somehow gentle I leaned close to him, my face only an inch from his and hissed, "Because of all of them, I think you know better." Then I spit right in his face, tore my hands out of his grasp and retook my seat with head held high.

The samurai all tried to suppress satisfied grins as they watched me sit, with Fukimitsu even daring to give me a low, surreptitious "thumbs up". Even Hollis chuckled, clearly loving the exchange.

Meanwhile, Taras simply pulled a stained handkerchief from the pocket of his gray long coat and dabbed at the blood and spittle, sitting back down without another word.

Just then, a Smiler dressed as the captain of a cruise ship strode out onto the stage. Hollis rose, explaining to those nearby, "The Magician sends for his Master of Ceremonies. Excuse me." He moved to take the stage, but Taras stood up as well.

"I prefer to emcee." He spared a look back at me, his expression bitter and defiant.

Hollis was indignant. "I always emcee. Sit down, you old Ukrainian goat!"

Taras sneered, "I managed to kill one of them. You did not. The honor is mine by right."

"Tate? You're counting Ricky god damned Tate as one of them? He hardly can be said to count." The two men stared at each other for a long moment, glaring at each other balefully until finally Hollis begrudgingly sat down cursing under his breath. Taras nodded to himself, then paused to glower over Hollis' shoulder at me, and for a moment I thought he might spit on me in return, but in the end he just turned and took the stage, striding backstage accompanied by the Smiler Captain.

We only had to wait for a couple of minutes (during which time Yoshida leaned over to me- soaked in a cold sweat from the exchange with Taras- and muttered, "You are insane") before Taras appeared from the wings and marched to the center of the stage. He cleared his throat and all was silent, with the Smilers on the aisles reaching up and turning the lanterns down to a low flame.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight you will see the greatest magic show of all time. The Great Gagasti will perform two magic tricks for your amusement, and the skill with which he weaves his spells will dazzle and amaze you.

"And now without further ado, I give you, the Magician!"

Just then, not so coincidentally, the castle shook with an enormous, booming thunderclap from the storm overhead, and the Magician/the Great Gagasti/Jeff Werth strode onto the stage, his dark eyes beaming. He wore the top hat and cape that Josh and I had until recently possessed, and he gave a deep bow to the audience which was responded to with synchronized clapping from the Smilers, enthusiastic applause from Hollis and seething resentment from everyone else.

The woman dressed in black robes and a burqa walked onstage next, and after a moment reached up and tore off the robes, revealing a second outfit underneath of a sequined bodysuit, fishnet stockings and high, stiletto heels. As my hands went to my face in shock, Taras continued, "And introducing the Magician's special assistant for the evening, the lovely Miss Cynthia!"

It was Mrs. Howland, her expression somehow dignified despite the gaudy, degrading costume. She struck a theatrical, sexy pose while keeping her head high, her lip curling with disdain. Unable to contain myself I cried out, "Mrs. Howland! What happened to you? Can you hear me?"

Her sharp eyes darted out to the crowd, and her face brightened for just a moment when she recognized me before her jaw tightened. She spoke with a severity and sobriety that was completely at odds with the spectacle she was a part of. "Mary! Stay back. I have no control whatsoever over my body, only my head. He moves me about like a marionette while I can merely observe."

My eyes welled up as I searched for words, but she cut me short. "No tears! We face this with dignity and composure. If the world is to end- if we are to die- then we will do so nobly. We will show him that despite all his little tricks and illusions, there is not nearly enough dark sorcery in the world to break our indomitable will."

Nodding slowly, my teeth clenched to stop myself from crying, I sat back down. To my left I could see Fukimitsu translating everything for Emperor Komei, who nodded sternly in approval.

Taras continued, "For his first trick, the Magician will saw a man in half." I thought of Josh and my heart raced, imagining all the horrible things they might do to him, when Mrs. Howland stepped off stage and wheeled out a four foot long box, about the size of a coffin for a child. Then from inside his cape, with a flourish the Magician pulled out a simple carpenter's saw and brought it down slowly on the box, tapping it. Then he slid the saw off stage right, and Mrs. Howland propped up the box so that we were seeing it from the top, where we could look directly into it as she opened the lid, revealing a man with both of his arms and legs freshly amputated and with iron, claw-like spikes driven into his eye-sockets.

It was Crayton.

I gasped as his mouth began to move, his lips quivering in anguish. "I- I humbly beg forgiveness of my master... I sent a slave to kill the old woman without his permission. I thought I knew better- I thought we should kill our enemies, oh, God he promised no pain. Oh, God..." He trailed off for a moment, and all was deathly silent in the shrine, with even Hollis holding his breath, riveted and I believe just a little horrified.

"I will listen to my master from now on... he knows best- please, please, please kill me. Please, someone kill me! Please! Please!" His agonized wails grew louder until the Magician slowly closed the lid of the box and gestured for Mrs. Howland to wheel it back offstage. Once again the Smilers performed their odd, synchronized applause, while Hollis could manage only a single, concerned clap.

Taras, also appearing just a touch taken aback from the display, gathered himself and said, "And now for the moment you've all been waiting for. The Magician will perform his second and final act of magic in this world: the rabbit out of a hat trick!"

Mrs. Howland exited stage right only to reappear a moment later pushing a large, flat wooden board about the size of a door, and standing upright strapped to it with leather cords, his chest bare, was Josh. He stared straight ahead with the same resolute expression as Cynthia, purposely avoiding my gaze lest he lose his composure. As we had from the beginning, we took our cues from Cynthia, knowing that even if our deaths were inevitable and out of our control, how we died was not.

She trotted offstage again, returning pushing an empty table on wheels and carrying the chest of bingo charms from Hollis Crossroads. With a twirl of his hand, the Magician removed his top hat and placed it upon the table. He reached into the hat, opened up the hidden bottom and removed the globe key chain and the rolled up newspaper and carelessly tossed them to the floor at the rear of the stage. Next, he bent down, rummaged through the box of bingo charms and selected one, dropping it into the hat. Then he walked to the edge of the dais to Hollis, who rose from his chair and pulled from his inside jacket pocket another, brand-new, still shrink-wrapped globe key chain and a fresh sheet of newspaper, one I thought I could recognize as the Kyoto Shimbun News, the local paper.

With practiced moves, the Magician rolled up the front page, then took it and the new globe key chain and placed them in the bottom of the hat, closing it up again. Then he stepped once again to the edge of the stage, his eyes focused on the Red Lady of Babil. She sat still for a long moment, then finally rose and pulled from her dress a small, brass-bound wooden box, holding it out to the Magician. The Red Lady's eyes burned over her veil like twin suns, her hatred for him palpable.

Even Yoshida, not normally the most astute observer of human interaction, noticed it. He leaned over and whispered to me, "She despises him so! I thought she was one of his people?"

"She does hate him... but only a woman who has loved in the past could hate with that depth of passion. I can only imagine how she must have felt about him... once." I glanced over to see Yoshida blinking confusedly behind his thick glasses and shook my head, knowing that he could never understand.

The Magician slowly opened the tiny box, and pulled from within a pure white rabbit's foot, with no chain or clasp on the end. As Yoshida leaned in again to ask another question, Hollis turned around in his seat and whispered to us. "The left hind foot of a rabbit captured in a cemetery on a rainy Friday the 13th, the foot cut off while the rabbit still lived." He added vindictively, "You see, this is the sort of information the emcee should be providing. I have a favorite quote during this part from R.E. Shay: 'Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit'." He chuckled. "Love that line. God in heaven, but that Ukrainian is doing piss poor work, if you'll pardon my French."

We returned our attention to the stage, where the Magician placed the rabbit's foot carefully into the top hat, then withdrew his old rabbit-skinning knife from his cape. My breath caught as he held it up to the light in front of Josh, it's edge glinting menacingly, and then without hesitation he brought it down to Josh's chest and began to cut him, a trickle of blood working it's way down his stomach.

I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a scream, but after a moment it became apparent that the Magician wasn't killing him, only making shallow, surface cuts. Josh's face was contorted in a fierce grimace, but he never cried out; never gave the Magician the satisfaction.

When he had finished, the Magician cupped his left hand under Josh's chest and gathered some of the blood, then took it and poured it into the hat, pausing afterward to remove a blindingly white handkerchief from his coat pocket and dab the excess blood off of Josh's wound. Once it was clean I could see that the incision was directly over his heart in the shape of the symbol for infinity.

After the Magician had replaced the knife within his cape, Taras gestured into the audience, his face at its most morose as he intoned, "And now, the Magician asks for a native volunteer from the audience. Without a volunteer, his trick can not be performed. Everlasting life will be yours. You will- should you obey the Magician- feel no pain ever again. Armies of slaves will be at your beck and call, and you shall become the new Emperor of Japan." He scanned the crowd, saw no one move a muscle and his expression brightened with just the tiniest hint of hope. "I call again for a volunteer."

Without moving my head, I peered sidelong at Emperor Komei and his retainers, Fukimitsu, Ota and Sato, wondering which, if any, of the three would rise. As I stared, I caught the Emperor stealing the briefest of looks at Fukimitsu and knew in that moment that he was his most likely suspect. Curious to know who he thought would crack, I turned back to my right to ask Yoshida's opinion.

He was standing.

"Oh, God, Kisho. Don't... please don't." He said nothing. He merely stood with his head bowed, his expression a mask of shame. "For God's sake, haven't you seen how this ends? Take a look around!"

He spoke in a choked whisper, "You do not understand. I need more time. All the things I can accomplish... and the women, I can't-" He swallowed to hold back tears. "I have always been the weak, the bullied... it's everything I need-" A deep breath, and still he couldn't bring himself to look at me. "I am sorry. I truly am." He turned and shuffled slowly up the dais, looking less like a volunteer than a death row prisoner walking to the gas chamber. Yoshida spared a glance at Josh strapped to the board, but Josh spoke not a word- only gazed upon him with a combination of betrayal and pity that I'm sure was far worse than anything he could have said. His head sinking lower into his chest, Yoshida slunk to a position near the Magician while the Emperor and his men glared at him with helpless rage.

After Yoshida was in position, Taras stepped to the edge of the stage and began to wearily recite a speech he clearly had heard far too many times, saying:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Magician will now perform the greatest trick you will ever be graced to see. He will bring this entire world through... to a new land. This world will surround that one, and over the next one hundred plus years he will infect it, conquer it and absorb it until the trick can be performed again ad infinitum. When we wake tomorrow morning, it will once again be July 21st, 1831, and the only difference in the world will be a new kingdom to overthrow-" he paused to gesture back to Yoshida, adding, "And a new Emperor of what was once Japan."

Realization dawned on Mrs. Howland's face. "He will draw us through to a new... dimension? The entire world, like a rabbit out of a hat, with him as the true king. The rabbit king. Leporidae Rex." She shook her head in mounting dread and awe, while at the same time her body continued to pose histrionically.

Taras paused to nod, muttering under his breath, "Same sh*t, different day- or close enough."

Holding up a hand for silence, the Magician stepped over directly behind the hat on the table as Cynthia positioned herself on his left. Josh stood strapped to the board behind him, and on his right Yoshida trembled, rubbed his hands together nervously and stared down at the stage. Taras was farther to the Magician's right toward the front of the stage.

All was quiet as the Magician closed his eyes in concentration, and suddenly from very far away we could hear the beginnings of a hum. The whales had entirely surrounded the island of Japan, and they sang their song over and over, louder and louder. Now the hum amped up to where we could feel it vibrating, and the curtains over the stage began to jiggle very slightly.

A high-pitched whine kicked in then, as it had back on the Dial Up when the whales attacked, and my teeth felt like they were rattling in their sockets. I remembered back to that incident, recollecting that Josh was unaffected by the whales and their song. Because he has the Magician's blood in his veins. That's why they left him alone. Mystery solved, too little, too late, I thought to myself bitterly as the whine elevated in intensity, with even some of the stoic samurai holding their heads and clenching their jaws.

The Magician held his hands over the top hat, and from within the hat came a faint, yellow glow that lighted his face from underneath. As the hum and whine from the whales grew to a deafening, knee-buckling intensity, the glow from the hat became brighter and brighter, until it was like a spotlight shining upward. His tiny smile widened into a demonic grin, and he ever so slowly began reaching into the hat with his right hand, his fingers twitching in anticipation.

I rose then, desperately attempting to keep my composure against the whalesong. Taking a deep breath, I called out, "You are not the only one here who has a trick to play, Magician!" The Great Gagasti spared only one, quick, annoyed glance up at me before immediately returning his attention to the hat. Hollis turned in his chair and hissed at me to sit down and shut up, but I remained standing.

"You read our archive over Mrs. Howland's shoulder. You know back when Agent Pierce forced us to destroy the Rabbit/Human Calicivirus, and we said we did?" Now it was my turn to smile.

"We lied."

Just then, Taras lunged at the Magician, reached into his long coat and pulled from it a thick, metal, hypodermic needle. With one, swift motion he reared back and stabbed it into the Magician's neck, pressing the plunger all the way down and injecting a viscous green liquid into him.

The Magician screamed in agony, the sound of his voice so loud that the very rafters of the castle shook and shuddered. He screamed and clawed at his neck, pausing only to lash out with the back of his hand at Taras, sending him flying to the edge of the stage where he smashed into the wall and shattered one of the room's thick, wooden support beams. He crumpled to a heap on the ground holding his belly, blood seeping from his nose and mouth.

Suddenly everything seemed to happen at once. Cynthia stared down at her body and held her hand in front of her face, realizing that she could once more finally control her limbs. Hollis and the Red Lady of Babil rose from their seats in shock and began to head for the Magician while the closest samurai, Fukimitsu and Sato jumped out of their chairs and leapt between the two of them and the stage.

In the next moment, Mrs. Howland clawed at the Magician's cape and pulled out his rabbit-skinning knife, immediately turning then and hacking at the restraints keeping Josh held fast. "Joshua!" she yelled trying to be heard over the hellish song of the whales and the anguished, enraged screams of the Magician. "He will infect us all with the virus! The entire world!" He nodded to her just as she finished cutting him out, and they reached out to grab the Magician together.

Meanwhile, as Hollis sprinted forward to assist his master, one-armed Sato snarled and attempted a kick up at his face. Hollis caught his foot with one hand and brought his other elbow down on Sato's knee, shattering his leg with a sickening crack. On his right, the Red Lady also stepped toward the stage, only to find her way blocked by Fukimitsu. He jabbed at her with a fast punch to the face, the blow spattering her veil with blood from the inside where her lip split, but in the next instant she pulled a small, sharp, black knife from her dress and drove it into Fukimitsu's stomach, the brave samurai staggering back and falling to the floor with a grunt.

Despite this, however, the Emperor's men had bought Cynthia and Josh the time they needed. The two stood on either side of the Magician, gave each other one last look and together lifted the hat off of the table and down onto the Magician's head as he bellowed in wrath and pain. In a moment, the yellow glow from the hat seemed to spread, the three of them bathed in it up on stage while Yoshida cowered off to the side.

I reached out to Josh and cried, "Josh, stop! It's... I think it's going to take you away with him! Let go!"

He turned to look back in my direction, but blinded by the light from the hat he couldn't see me. "Can't! We've got to take him away... anywhere but here, or the infection will spread." He and Cynthia redoubled their efforts, forcing the hat down on the Magician's head. Now the light surrounding the three was blinding, and even Hollis and the Red Lady put hands up to shield their eyes.

"Josh! Wait, Josh!" I called his name over and over again, tears streaming down my face. "Don't leave me! Please!"

Peering through my fingers I could just barely make out a sad smile on his face. The hum and vibration was out of control now, and I could hear an enormous crash somewhere behind me as entire sections of the castle collapsed. "Mary! If you can hear me..." I could just barely make out his form now, the entire stage ablaze with the light from the top hat. Somehow, despite the chaos around us, I heard his voice come through calm and clear. "Mary, they'll never understand. Never. The greatest magic I have ever seen is that of all the millions of women who were born and walked the Earth... of all of them... there has never been a woman loved as much as I love y-"

The light died then; the sound of the whales and the Magician's screams ended abruptly, and at center stage the Magician, Mrs. Howland and Josh had disappeared.

Tenno Heika Komei: The Battle Of Hitoshirezu-jo, Part II

At noon, the enemy arrived. Sunshine still ruled the day, though darker clouds had edged ever closer, the afternoon comfortably cool. It stood to reason that the weather would be perfect for battle, as the bingo charms granted the Magician (as I understood it) some degree of prognostication.

The enemy forces crested the forested hill directly in front of the castle, a small valley standing between their grassy hill and my forces outside Hitoshirezu-jo. While a right-thinking tactician would at this juncture politely mention that my small army would have the greater advantage utilizing the castle's walls as a defensive position, the very point of our defense was to keep the Magician out of the structure entirely. I would use the castle as a fallback position only, for late last year I had received a letter that read thusly:

To the great and powerful Emperor Komei of Japan,

Forgive the brevity of this note, but I have not much time. I am preparing to write a letter to my descendant, and I have not much doubt that once I do so my old master will sense my betrayal and take vengeance upon me from afar.

This I know, and mark me well: should the Magician set a single foot inside Hitoshirezu-jo, you will be powerless to stop him from performing his trick, thus bringing the world as you know it to an end. You must keep him outside of the castle walls at all costs.

He does have one hurdle, however, and that is that he must somehow place a portion of his blood inside the castle for him to be able to enter. Be aware as well that his body no longer contains blood of its own, so he cannot merely open a vein on your doorstep. He might have an old vial, or use other means to smuggle it inside, such as (and this is my own devious mind at work) painting blood onto Hollis' centipedes and having them run up the walls and into the windows. Or perhaps he will tempt one of your men into hiding a vial on his person. Search all of your people. There will always be a traitor, as I well know to my ultimate shame.

Best of luck to you. End it, once and for all, I beg you.

Your fellow sovereign,

Leopold George Christian Frederick, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, King of the Belgians

With this missive in mind, I had the walls of the castle covered in grease so that none of the foul insects could scurry up its sides, and though I was disgusted by the ordering of the mistrustful act, I had had all of my troops' clothing and armor inspected for blood, discovering none.

My foe and his men gathered over the next hour, his grinning, elderly, yet superhumanly strong forces arranging themselves in a line on the ridge. We would do battle on the small plain in front of the castle, and as both he and I knew that there was no element of surprise to be had, we assembled and positioned our fighters at our leisure.

His lieutenants were the last to appear, and from King Leopold's earlier writings I recognized a good many of the personages. First to appear was the American, Hollis, a man I despised almost as much as the Magician himself, as he had bestowed the secret of nuclear fire to our enemies and brought Nippon to its knees. He was dressed in a white, three-piece suit and casually held a Confederate cavalry saber at his side.

Next could be seen a tall man, black as coal, dressed in only a loincloth and lion's mane headdress. He carried a pair of spears and a shield, and roaming about his feet were four mangy, giggling, snarling hyenas. The man gazed upon my assembled army with an arrogant sneer. From my readings, I concluded that this was Nhlakanipho Mabuza.

Following him was an old woman of middle-eastern descent. She was wrapped in gray cloth, her face thinly veiled, though even from my far position, through my telescope I could see that once she had been a specimen of incomparable beauty. She peered over her nose at the battlefield with what seemed an odd combination of boredom and disdain. I guessed that this might be who Leopold referred to as the Red Lady of Babil, but I could not be certain.

The last of the Magician's Lieutanants limped up the hill, peering up at the castle with gray, melancholy eyes as a rangy, tired-looking wolf slumped up next to him and gazed disinterestedly at the army assembled in front of it. In the man's hand was a Russian shashka (a hilt-less saber) held so loosely and carelessly that it actually dragged at the ground at his feet. His gray hair was long and ragged and the Soviet longcoat he wore identified him to me as Taras the Mutineer.

Finally the Magician himself appeared, strolling up the hill in a full tuxedo, his dark eyes staring up at the castle, the hint of a smile dancing at the edge of his lips. By his side was a woman dressed all in a funereal, black, burqa-like garment. I wondered if perhaps this was the Red Lady instead, but could afford no time to dwell upon the matter further.

From his far vantage point, the Magician picked my person out from the crowd, and gave a theatrical bow in my direction which I did not see fit to return. Then, with a gesture, he commanded his troops to advance.

At my side, sadistic Sato snarled uncontrollably, almost mad with the exertion of restraining himself on the brink of battle. Further toward the line I could see my archers, with Hara serenely stringing his bow and testing its pull as calmly as if it were another day on the practice range.

At the front and center of the line stood Ota, his block-like form stoically poised for battle. Fukimitsu sat atop his horse with the other cavalry on our right flank, his usual whimsical smile replaced with a more proper look of determination and focus.

In the rear stood the reserves and the gaijin, with him gripping the Magician's knife, his knuckles white around the handle, hovering over the opened chest of bingo charms and her holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in another. As I watched they turned and simply stared at one another for a long moment. Before I turned away, in their eyes I saw a reflection of the purest romantic love, and I was reminded that while the outlanders did not belong in our world, they were not all to blame for what had gone wrong in the universe. In that split second, I almost regretted not fulfilling their request and marrying them, even on our most-sacred site.

I pushed these thoughts from my mind, as regret has no place in a leader's mind on a battlefield. The "Smilers" as Howland and Stroud referred to them advanced down the hill to our position, with the African Nhlakanipho Mabuza loping down with them. Hollis sauntered down at a leisurely pace behind, while the Magician, Taras and the two ladies remained in the rear.

Calling out to Hara, I said, "Target the lieutenants. It will take many arrows to bring them down, so aim true for once, Hara-san!" He bowed back to me as my men chuckled politely at my small jest. From my position I could see Hara take a deep breath and close his eyes, then he pulled a long, barbed arrow from the ground and fitted it to the string. With perfect form, he raised his bow high and pulled back the arrow just as Nhlakanipho Mabuza reared back and heaved one of his spears with savage force, the shaft whooshing through the air with a sound I could hear even in the rear, and before Hara could loose even a single bolt, the spear punched straight through the center of his head, dropping him to the ground with an awkward thud, killing him instantly.

My army gasped, and the gaijin Howland summed up our collective thoughts with a stunned English curse that even I recognized: "Motherf*cker!"

I had been harshly reminded of that old tenet of war: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And then the battle was joined as the front row of Smilers waded into my troops with their Hawaiian shirts and straw hats, a few of them even randomly clicking away with their cameras as my infantry hacked into them, their katanas flashing in the sun.

My front line held, Ota's gigantic frame providing a constant reference point throughout the engagement. With my telescope I could see one of my soldiers beheading a young, blond-haired cruise director in one place, while refocusing on another area would reveal one of my samurai's arms being torn off by a grinning elderly woman and being beaten to death with it. All along the front was chaos, and in another moment I could see my men staggering back almost as one as they writhed about in what appeared to be an odd dance. Deducing what was happening, I shouted and pointed at Howland, who nodded, stabbing down with the knife into the chest of charms.

With a bright flash, The centipedes which now covered my infantry dropped off, killed instantly, as were Nhlakanipho Mabuza's blood-gorged hyenas and Taras' wolf, who laid down and died almost gratefully. In addition, all of the Magician's Lieutenants staggered back holding their heads, reeling and confused.

My men cheered, redoubling their efforts as I flagged Fukimitsu to commence his cavalry charge. He and his men put the spurs to their steeds with a yell, and the thunder of hoof beats bore down on the enemy, smashing into their flank ferociously and carving a deep hole into their ranks.

We took every advantage of the moment until eventually the Lieutenants recovered, Nhlakanipho Mabuza and Hollis once again attacking my front lines and conjuring more centipedes and hyenas.

And so that is how the day was spent, with the Magician's forces pushing us back to the castle gates until Howland destroyed another charm, when the first few ranks of Smilers and every animal in sight would fall over dead, and the more powerful henchmen of the Magician would be left stunned and staggering, and then we would rally until they recovered and back again. By late afternoon the dark clouds were almost upon us, and while we had slaughtered thousands of them, the Magician still had all of his most powerful servants while I possessed only a few hundred samurai.

Just after five o'clock in the evening, Nhlakanipho Mabuza- drenched in samurai blood and howling for more- was running rampant through my lines. It was then that I finally released my reserves, led by Sato, who at this stage was virtually foaming at the mouth.

Sato charged straight for the African, waving his katana and shouting various profanities. Both the Smilers and the other samurai parted as the two madmen clashed, Sato's katana deflected by Mabuza's shield, a quick side-step saving Sato from impalement on Mabuza's spear in return. Round and round the two circled, all the while furiously attacking and barely bothering to defend.

Eventually, Sato stepped in too close, and Nhlakanipho Mabuza's spear stabbed him through the left shoulder, the point jutting out of his armor on the other side. The Magician's servant smiled with bone-white teeth at the hit before realizing that Sato had offered up the sacrifice of his bad arm so that he could get a clear shot with his good one. Before Mabuza could react, Sato's katana arced sideways underneath his shield, disemboweling him.

Nhlakanipho Mabuza stared down at the intestines and gore spilling out of his belly and cursed, looking peevish. Without hesitation, he yanked the spear from Sato's shoulder with one hand while with the other he lifted up his intestines and threw them over his shoulder like a scarf, getting them out from underfoot. With his internal organs draped over his back like a cape, Mabuza renewed his attack to Sato's great surprise, beating him down to the ground with the butt of his spear. Another hit, and Sato's katana went flying, but as he raised his spear for the killing blow, Fukimitsu roared past on his horse, his sword flashed in the final rays of the day's sun, and Nhlakanipho Mabuza's head fell to the gore-soaked ground, a shocked expression permanently etched on the dead man's face.

A great cheer went up from my men, but only a moment later Hollis stepped from the pack, his pristine, white suit now almost totally soaked in red, and chopped low, hacking off Fukimitsu's horse's forelegs as it galloped. His steed tumbling and screaming, Fukimitsu went flying, hurtling high over the field and down in a clattering heap, dazed and momentarily helpless while Hollis grinned a yellow smile and sauntered over to his prone form twirling his saber in anticipation for the killing blow.

While it is up to a leader of men to treat every one of his men with a certain equanimity, some simply have more value than others. Fukimitsu was my interpreter and my chief Lieutenant, and his loss would have been a heavy burden on my command. Can I claim in all truth that I would have personally leapt to his rescue if he were not my descendant? Perhaps not, but therein lies another rule of leadership: rank hath its privileges.

Drawing my blade, I charged down through the fray, pushing aside friend and foe alike until I bore down on Hollis, calling his name to try and turn him away from Fukimitsu. Finally I was almost upon him, but Hollis stood directly over him, placed his foot on my great-great-great-great grandson's neck, held his sword pointed directly downward at his face and turned his head to smile at me cunningly out of the corner of his eye.

I knew that if I took one more step Hollis would kill him, so I halted in my tracks and considered what I could possibly say to make him stop. I could think of nothing that would not impugn either my or Fukimitsu's honor, so I said nothing and merely stared.

After a long moment, Hollis bowed to me in his Southern American style and said in heavily accented Japanese, "I had the pleasure of entertaining your man Tanaka for a year or so, your majesty. While I taught him English, I did the best I could to learn his language in turn for just such an occasion. Ironically, however, after all my struggles to learn your three alphabets and dizzying patterns of speech, with all due respect, here you turn out to be not much of a conversationalist." He laughed then with good humor, or as good as a soul so utterly twisted could manage.

Slowly circling him to try and draw his attention toward me and away from Fukimitsu, I said, "Tell me, there are so many countries and culture that were brought to this world, so why are there so few of the traitors who serve the Magician here today? Should there not be fifty or a hundred of you or more?"

I kept my eyes on his, but still his sword point hung only inches from Fukimitsu's head. Hollis nodded, more than happy to carry on a conversation amidst a full-on war. "Some regret their decision and do not come when called. My master does not punish those who do not participate, only those who turn on him. Also by this point, many have died- some by accident, some by murder and the rest by their own hand." He shrugged. "Immortality isn't for everyone."

He grinned then, his sword whipping up and away from Fukimitsu's face. "Care for a sword-fight, your majesty? That's all I wanted when I cut your boy's horse out from under him in the first place." He raised his saber in salute and I granted him a nod in response before we charged, our blades smashing into each other in a shower of sparks. Again and again we attacked, and I could not help but smile. For all of these years the tremendous physical gifts that Nippon had bestowed upon me had gone all but unused, but now finally I could reveal the speed, strength and agility that made me the Magician's equal, at least of the flesh.

I was concentrating so completely on Hollis that I was surprised when a stray Smiler lunged at me from the side, her wrinkled and liver-spotted hands reaching out for my neck, and I was even more taken aback when her advance was stopped by Hollis himself, who brought his saber down on her skull, splitting her head in two and dropping her to the ground. He muttered, "Pardon, ma'am. Private party," before saluting me once more and rejoining the combat.

I do not know how long we fought there on the field- for the most part unmolested by the surrounding troops- but finally I was able to convince him in the false sincerity of a downward feint and thus take his left arm off with a rapid upward slash. His face betrayed not a hint of pain, but he shook his head at the wound and gave a soft curse. "I tell you, sir, on our last campaign I duelled the King of the Belgians, and he did not land a single blow."

My head held high, I said, "The Emperor of Japan is superior in swordplay to the King of the Belgians. This surprises you?" He shook his head, chuckling, but before he could speak I continued, "And Leopold, he was one of the King's men?"

"A minister."

"And he betrayed his King? Joined the Magician, gained immortality and was himself made King after the Magician brought his world to invade Nippon?"

Hollis paused to kick his severed arm out from underfoot. "Yes, your majesty. A decision he came to regret, apparently."

"But you do not."

He shook his head. "Why am I the way I am? Is that your question, sir?" For the first time I felt I was nearing the heart of the man. "An abusive father? A neglectful mother? Broken home? Crippling poverty? A true love lost to another man? All of it? All and more?" Hollis sighed. "Does it matter now? If anyone can accept a monster for what he is, surely it is you and your people. The only reason that matters is that I do it because I can. Looking beyond that has rapidly diminishing returns, I assure you."

My blade sang out then, slashing across his midsection, but the tip of my katana only just caught his belly, dealing a mere flesh wound. In another moment Hollis was retreating, darting back up the hill toward the Magician, weaving his way through the army of Smilers who now were free to turn their attentions on me. I spit on the ground after the retreating American, then made my way back to my position behind the lines, beheading whatever Smilers I happened to run across on my path.

Once I had returned to my vantage point nearer the castle, I trained my telescope on the opposite hill to find that a small unit of samurai had fought their way up the left flank all the way to the Magician, Taras and the two veiled women. They reached Taras first, and he raised his sword and parried without enthusiasm, blocking blow after blow until finally stepping forward, reaching out a hand and pushing his attacker down the hill as a child would in a game of king of the mountain.

Another of my men stepped closer to the beautiful, veiled woman in gray standing on the right hand of the Magician, and though she had no weapon he raised his katana to cut her down. Just before he could bring the blade down upon her, she raised her hand, and suddenly his face was covered with snakes, their fangs sunk deep in his cheeks and eyes. As he writhed on the ground before her in anguish, though I could not see her expression behind her veil, her eyes danced with cruel glee.

Over the screams of the dead and dying I could hear the rumble of thunder now as the dark clouds massed closer. Dusk was approaching, and with every lost moment of daylight we lost our advantage. The Smilers showed no sign of fatigue, while my men (with the exception of Ota) were almost completely exhausted. We had killed at least seven of them to every one of us, but still they kept coming, pouring over the hill in a seemingly endless stream.

Noticing that there was a limited range on the damage that the bingo charms could do when they were destroyed, Howland had moved up closer to the front, smashing the knife down and dropping hundreds of the enemy with a single blow, but as night fell only a few charms remained. The woman, Stroud, fired her bow when necessary to kill a stray foe that happened to straggle toward them, and I was forced to concede that her past months' training had been effective, and her courage in the face of the enemy was impressive.

Finally, the last light of day was swallowed up by the dark clouds, and we were fighting virtually blind. Taking heavy losses, I reluctantly gave the order to retreat to the castle walls, and here is where our woes truly began.

The samurai is never as ferocious and unbeatable as when he is on the all-out attack, and conversely, is always at his weakest when forced to withdraw. Contrary to the belief of gaijin and their preposterous portrayals of Japanese warriors in their stories, the samurai has no maneuver that you could reasonably label a "parry". If two katanas strike one another, it simply means that they were both attacking the same place, not that one was employing a defense. Because of this fighting style, retreating can be next to impossible. Our only two saving graces were that the enemy's footsoldiers used no weapons, and every time they were on the brink of completely overwhelming us on our stumbling run back to the castle, Howland would destroy another charm, buying us much needed time.

Yet, by the time my men had made it back to the castle doors, less than thirty remained, with most heavily wounded. Sato's left arm had been rendered entirely ineffective by the spear-wound at the hands of Nhlakanipho Mabuza and would certainly have to be amputated. Fukimitsu had a savage gash over his left eye from the fall from his horse during Hollis' attack, the wound stubbornly leaking blood down his face through the crude stitches. Ota was seemingly one, giant, open wound, bleeding from a thousand cuts and scratches, but never once did he say a single word of complaint, or a word of any kind. He simply continued to fight, performing precisely as I expected he would on the day he was born for.

Even young Kisho Yoshida, blinking behind his thick glasses, had been wounded. He limped around on a smashed foot, hurt as he was delivering arrows to the archers and bandages and painkillers to the medics. Early in the fight his archery skills had been deemed just as deadly to us as the enemy, so he had been demoted to packhorse, hauling supplies where needed. Despite his clear lack of aptitude at fighting, he had carried out his new tasks admirably enough.

As for his uncles, the brothers Yoshida, I would only discover later that the two had been slain most brutally by Hollis when they charged him in the field, howling for vengeance for their murdered brother.

The last ones to the door were Howland and Stroud, with her firing one arrow after the next at the advancing horde, and him smashing the knife down into the box, felling wave after wave until finally he tossed the chest aside, all the charms destroyed. The two of them turned around and moved to step inside only to find Ota blocking their path into the castle.

Speaking softly, I said, "I swore long ago that no gaijin would ever set foot in this sacred place. Tell them... tell them I wish it were otherwise."

Fukimitsu stared at me pleadingly. "My lord, your majesty... grandfather... they have fought with us! They have bled with us... if not for them... I ask you, please reconsider. Do not leave them outside the castle to their doom." We could now see a few shambling forms lurching ever closer, coming up behind the gaijin, the two of them speaking to me imploringly from outside the threshold.

Young Kisho bowed to me as well. "Your majesty, no one has fought for you harder then they, though they were unaware of whom they were assisting. I beg you, do not let them die like this... abandoned and betrayed. Though they are gaijin, they are... they have shown me that-" I cut him off with a gesture, and he bowed again, falling to his knees.

Gritting my teeth, I turned to Fukimitsu. "This is not a pleasant decision. Understand... every instinct I possess screams at me not to let them inside this place. Every molecule of my royal person, blessed by the spirit of Nippon, tells me that their presence must not defile Hitoshirezu-jo." Now the leering grins of the Smilers could be seen hovering forward into the ring of torchlight, their arms reaching out for the back of the gaijin's necks. Howland and Stroud stopped talking- seeing as no one was listening- and simply stared at me, their eyes conveying a mixture of exhaustion and betrayal.

Torn, knowing from reading this archive just how completely they had suffered in their quest to destroy my sworn enemy, I finally let out a curse and broke my lifetime oath. "Search them, quickly! Make absolutely certain they have no vials of blood on them. Hurry!" My men let out a quick cheer, relieved by my decision, and two of my samurai leapt forward and pawed at the gaijin even as the grinning, one-armed figure of Hollis stepped through the ranks of the Smilers, sword in hand. While my men frantically worked their way down the Americans' bodies, Hollis stepped within a few yards and lifted his saber, preparing to cut sideways through both of them with a single blow. As he reared back to deliver the killing strike, my men had worked their way down to their socks, hurriedly turning around to me to proclaim them clean.

"Ota-san!" I yelled. "Now!" Ota reached forward with a speed that belied his enormous frame, grabbed both Howland and Stroud by their shirt fronts and yanked them inside just as Hollis' saber whistled behind them, cutting only air.

I suddenly felt nauseous and fought the urge to vomit, feeling as though a barrel of black, foul oil had been poured into a basin of the holiest water, my very soul crying out at the presence of the gaijin in our most sacred place.

Now we all huddled in the torchlight of the castle's entryway, Ota standing in the doorway waiting for a charge that did not come. The enemy massed just feet away outside the castle, but they made no move to enter. After a few moments, Hollis stepped aside, and the Magician strolled up in front of the door, just feet from Ota. Even after the day's fighting, his tuxedo was pristine, and he had not a scratch on him.

"Ota-san, be sure to stay on this side of the doorway. He cannot enter." Ota backed up two paces, leaving the entryway open. For a long time, all was quiet, save for the panting of my exhausted soldiers and the muted groans of the wounded. The enemy army was massed on the other side of the archway, but they made neither movement nor sound.

After a few long moments, the Magician- standing mere inches from the threshold- raised his hands and pulled back his cuffs, showing us that there was nothing up his sleeves. Then he ever so slowly began to raise his right foot and step forward, closer and closer, until he brought his polished, black leather shoe down on the cobblestone floor inside the castle. When his foot hit the ground, the very earth shook, and behind him was the deafening crack of a thunderclap.

"Oh, sh*t," Fukimitsu gasped as the Smilers poured around the Magician, flooding inside the entryway and throwing themselves upon us in wave after wave of wrinkled, supernaturally strong flesh, their sheer mass pressing us down and pinning us in the confined quarters.

In an instant, with a single footstep, the Magician had won the Battle of Hitoshirezu-jo. Disarmed and defeated, we could do naught but await our fates and the grand trick that would end our world.

Josh: Tourist Trap

He's here.

For the first time since we began this archive, the actual date is the same as the one on the time stamp at the top of this post. It is Wednesday, February 25th, 2009.

At 6:31 P.M. ("That's 18:31 in military time." Thank you, Yoshida) last night a Carnival cruise ship docked as scheduled in Kyoto harbor for a sightseeing tour. Then at midnight, another enormous cruise ship docked, surprising the harbor master as it was completely unscheduled. Finally, just before dawn this morning, a third cruise liner docked, with other boats having to make a mad scramble to accommodate it. The event was unheard of, unprecedented and upsetting to everyone on the dock but the brothers Yoshida, who were the only ones who knew exactly what was happening.

The call went out. Cars were dispatched for Mary, Yoshida and I, and at Hitoshirezu-jo, they began the final preparations for battle.

Precisely at dawn, the gangplanks on all three ships went down, and the massive cruise lines disgorged their contents as thousands of gray and blue-haired, overweight, Hawaiian shirt-wearing tourists grinning ear-to-ear streamed down into the streets of Kyoto, marching into the rising sun.

The brothers Yoshida had positioned spies down at the port to report the enemy's movements, and they said that whenever a native would approach a tourist and ask them if they needed assistance or wanted to make a purchase, the tourist would merely lift up their camera, flash a few shots of something at random and keep walking. This would satisfy the questioner that the elderly tourist was where they were supposed to be, and on the off-chance that it didn't, one or another of the tourist group-leaders would step over to the native, whisper a few kind words in their ear and invite them to join the processional.

After their little chat, the native seemed quite happy to do just that.

They walked slowly but surely to the castle. It will take them hours, but they don't seem to mind.

Mary and I packed quickly, and soon our car had arrived to take us away to Hitoshirezu-jo. Before we left I pulled her close and kissed her, taking one final, wistful look at our apartment. In the past couple of months it had become home. While the waiting for battle had been stressful at points, it had also been, without question, the most wonderful time of my entire life.

I peered around nostalgically while Mary fretted about whether it was clean enough to leave.

"Mary, in all probability the world's about to end. Is it that important that you didn't scrub the grout in the shower?"

She ignored me, going about her last minute-tidying and finally noticed a small box on the table by the front door. Mary picked it up, stared at it quizzically and ran a finger over the black felt on top. She opened it. She looked at me.

"It's a ring."

I nodded.

She came and put her arms around me, gently, her eyes filling with tears. We stood there holding each other close while the doorbell rang again and again and the smiling armies of the enemy advanced upon us, neither of us wanting to let go.

Finally we wiped our tears, gathered the last of our things, gave an awkward little bow to our apartment and headed down to the car.


We stopped to pick up Yoshida, and when he got to the car his shirt was mis-buttoned down the front, with one side sticking up higher than the other, there was a glob of peanut butter on his chin and his fly was open. In other words, he was only slightly more disheveled than normal.

"You okay, buddy?"

He nodded as he sat down across from us and began chewing his nails. "I know there are other instances of that year that I'm missing. 1831. It is like one of your Easter egg hunts: I feel as though I will be punished for not finding them all."

Mary smiled. "That's not how Easter egg hunts work."

Yoshida ignored her. "More time. It's all ending. I just wanted more time. Is that a new ring?"

She beamed, extending her hand to show him. "I know it doesn't have a diamond and it has an unusual design. And I know it's a bit larger than a normal engagement ring. Don't say anything about it being different." Mary began to scowl. "Don't say anything mean. In fact, don't say anything." Finally she added with a warning glare, "Just say 'congratulations'."

"Congratulations."

Mary smiled again. "Thank you."

I cleared my throat. "Yoshida, I'd like you to be my best man."

Both he and Mary turned to me with the same astonished expressions, saying simultaneously, "You would?"

I shrugged. "Everyone else I know is dead. Besides, I think you would give the most staggeringly awkward best man toast since the invention of human speech. I can't wait to hear it." After a moment he mumbled that he would be deeply honored, and we all settled in for the ride to the castle, with me writing this post on my Blackberry as we went.

With her head resting on my shoulder, Mary gazed down at her ring and asked innocently, "Where did you get the design?"

"Uh... well, it was Galadriel's ring from 'Lord of the Rings'. It was kind've a last minute thing..."

She pulled away, giving me a deadly look. "'Lord of the Rings'? And this writing on the inside, what does it say?"

Now I was squirming. "Yeah... probably something about Sauron. I'm not really sure. It's in Elvish."

Mary stared at me, shaking her head, her mouth open. Her face began to get red and I glanced up to see Yoshida was pointing his phone at us again ("Why?" I asked him later. "She was either going to have sex with you or murder you. Either way, I wanted a copy.") She started to say something, then took a deep breath, looked back down at the ring and finally laughed.

She gave me a sloppy kiss, talking and giggling all at the same time. "It's ridiculous and wildly inappropriate and one-of-a-kind and I have never in my life loved anything more."

Mary: Win/Win/Win

November 10th, 2008:

The Port Victoria Bingo Hall was an unremarkable, one story, beige, rectangular building with a tiny sign hanging outside the door that read "BINGO" in prim, black and white lettering. There were two doors, one in front and one in back, and in defiance of all building codes there were no windows. The sign on the front door was turned to "CLOSED". It was probably the only bingo hall in the world without a trace of neon or any color at all adorning the outside, the building squatting there in the Australian scrub doing its best not to get noticed. A lone cargo van stood in the dusty parking lot, and the hood was warm to the touch, though that could have been from the sun and not recent use.

It's a common misconception that all Private investigators know how to pick locks. People also seem to believe that we can all roll our own cigarettes, fire two guns at the same time or jump cars over gorges. Me? I know how to fill out a form allowing me to deduct gas from my taxes. I know how to hand someone a subpoena (How? Quickly). I can sit still in a car for four hours at a time and watch a house.

What I do not know how to do is pick a lock. I can, however, find something heavy, which is what I did outside the Port Victoria Bingo Hall. There were two lawn statues out front (despite the fact there was no lawn), one of coral with eels coming out of it (and yes, it absolutely gave me the creeps) and one of whales with sandstone water coming out of their tiny blow holes. There was no way I was picking up the eels, so with no small effort I tugged the whale statue out of its hole, reared back and tossed it underhand through the plate glass front door, the crash sounding, in that moment, like the loudest thing I'd ever heard.

I briefly considered picking up one of the shards for use as a weapon, but concluded that It would probably do more harm to my hand than to an enemy. In the end I decided to follow Josh's lead, go back to the rental car, open the trunk and grab the crowbar. My main plan was still to run for my life if I saw any sign of Crayton, but having something solid and metal in my hands was comforting, and while it was a false sense of security at this point I was willing to settle for any sense at all.

Hesitating for only a moment at the doorway, I carefully ducked the glass shards that still hung from the top of the door frame and stepped inside, finding myself in a large, carpeted, modern, air-conditioned room covered in neon and Christmas lights, with large, flat-screen TV's adorning every wall. Every expense that had been spared on the outside of the structure had been spent inside, which wasn't too surprising considering that Crayton was catering to the world's best bingo players and wanted them to feel absolutely comfortable and on top of their game, focusing their energies in such a way that the act of winning somehow charged up the bingo charms they clutched in their withered hands.

Hollis' speech on bingo came back to me then, about how the game is played in virtually every city and town in the entire Western world, and is accepted in these communities without a second thought just because it's about the only thing that gives the elderly something to do. Despite the thought being terribly depressing even at face value, it was even more wretched knowing that the game of bingo had been designed and propagated merely to discover those with special gifts, gather them in one place and put them to use charging up bingo charms, in some way empowering them for the Magician.

I had hoped that the charms would be left out and in plain sight, but all I saw were long tables with plush, padded chairs pushed under them in the middle of the room, a bar area to the left and a raised dais toward the rear of the room where presumably they'd set up the "blower" and call out numbers.

In the back of the main room was a closed door, and I instinctively and ridiculously tip-toed back to it despite the fact that I'd just made the loudest noise since the Big Bang in smashing through the front door.

Once to the rear door I slowly turned the knob and entered into a hallway with five dark, wooden doors, two on either side and one at the end. A thin strip of daylight crept under the back door at the end of the corridor, and I made a mental note to run through that door to the outside in case there was trouble as I was now closer to the back door than the front.

I paused there in the hall for a moment and took a deep breath, thinking: Four doors, one cache of charms. They weren't out at the tables, so they're collected in one place, if they're still here at all. And behind one of these doors could be Crayton, just waiting for me. If he isn't, is that better? That means he'd be waiting for Josh right now...

Shaking my head in an attempt to banish these unhelpful thoughts, I gripped the crowbar tighter and chose the left-hand door closest to me, turning the knob carefully and opening it onto a wholly disappointing accounting room, a bookshelf on the right-hand wall filled with ledger books. I didn't know how they would be of any use, but I did step over and grab one at random, my intention to ship it to Yoshida to give him something to pore over for a while, and with the hope that there was at least a chance that the pages were covered with some kind of contact poison.

I closed the door to the accounting room behind me, and holding the ledger in one hand and the crowbar in the other, I made my way over to the door on the right side of the hall, opening it and stepping through into an office with a large, dark green-colored safe sitting in the corner on the left and a mahogany office desk in the middle of the room.

Even though I fully expected to run into Crayton, I was not at all prepared to see a small, bikini-clad woman with tight, bouncy, brown curls atop her head kneeling down with her back to me going through the safe. I dropped the ledger in shock, my jaw open. "Keane? Helen! My God, you're-"

She turned her head then, still sitting down, and her eyes stared into mine, her face split by a wide, fiendish smile. I heard my own voice murmur, "Oh... oh, no. Oh, God. What has he done..." Keane stood then suddenly, and I jerked back, stumbling into the door on the other side of the hall. What had been Keane began to walk toward me, slowly and steadily, her wide, unblinking eyes never leaving mine.

"Helen... don't do this. Fight it, fight him! You can do it... please..." Keane never stopped, never gave any sign that she'd heard a word I said. I was frozen there in the hallway, staring into those eyes, the thought of fighting her simply not entering into my mind as an option. "Remember who you are, Helen! Don't let him win! I'm begging-"

Just then the back door opened and the hallway was flooded with sunlight. Standing in the doorway was an older man in a security guard uniform, a gun in its holster at his side. Graying hair peeked out from under his guard's cap, and he was muscular enough to be called stocky instead of fat. Keane stopped and turned to look at him, standing right next to me in the hallway.

The guard quickly sized up the situation and decided he didn't like it a bit. Scowling, he growled, "All right, now, just hold it up. What's the story here, and keep steady, if you please."

Thinking fast, I blurted, "She broke in! She's on drugs, just look at her face! Let's get her to a hospital, now!"

The guard stared at her for a long moment as she looked back at him, then he nodded. "Right. Hospital. I'm calling for a divvy van, so just hold tight. Christ, but she's gone."

From behind the guard came an old, raspy voice, tinged with amusement. "That won't be necessary, Will. The woman is with me." Crayton stepped around behind the guard, his bloodshot eyes glaring at me as he opened his mouth, revealing yellowed teeth and making an expression that was somewhere between a smile and a sneer. Crayton was dressed in a heavily wrinkled three-piece suit, his gray hair wild and dishevelled. "The American is the intruder."

The guard looked confused, but did turn his focus on to me, his brow furrowing. "All right then, Miss. Enough games. Come with-"

"Kill her," Crayton said casually, his eyes turning toward the guard. "Shoot her, if you don't mind."

"What? Mr. Crayton, I... I can't do that!" Will looked positively aghast.

Crayton smiled patiently, the rest of us rooted to our spots. "She has a weapon, she broke in... no court will convict you, I assure you. I will give you..." He mulled it over. "...A quarter of a million dollars. Tax free." He nodded back toward me. "Go on. Kill her."

Will turned back to me, his face conflicted and confused. There was a long, long pause until finally he licked his lips, shook his head and moaned, "I just can't do that, Mr. Crayton. Let me call the police-"

"Bad news/good news time," Crayton said as he ushered Will into the building through the door and into the hallway with Keane and I, the two of them a full twenty feet away from us. Crayton's tone was reassuring and casual. "Bad news is you're fired." Before Will could react he continued, "Good news is you won't have any of those nagging 'basic needs' to worry about any more." Crayton lifted up his arm, pulled his shirt cuff up very gently and a giant moray eel shot out from inside his sleeve and directly into Will's face, its fangs latching on immediately to the bridge of his nose.

I screamed as blood poured from Will's face, the eel flapping about obscenely, its tail slapping the hallway walls with wet smacks. Amazingly, even as Will fought to pull the writhing eel off of his face, he still managed to draw his gun and shoot Crayton right in the stomach, the gunshot echoing deafeningly off the close corridor walls.

Peering down at the bloodstain spreading slowly over his vest, Crayton frowned and muttered, "Now, that's a nuisance." Then he reached out both arms, pointed his open palms at Will, and suddenly that end of the hall was filling up with frenzied, blood-crazed eels all covering and biting the doomed guard. He gave one final scream as they piled on him in a gigantic mound, until nothing could be seen of him at all.

I covered my mouth in horror, unable to move or speak as Crayton slowly walked over to me, the eels doing their best to flop and slither out of his path. His voice now came out devoid of mirth, his tone sharp and guttural. "Take her to the safe room." Suddenly Keane's arm shot up, her hand gripping my neck with impossible strength. I fought through the pain and managed to raise up my crowbar to smash over her head, but as I looked into her eyes, for a moment, all I could think of was that bouncy, energetic girl from yesterday- the sweet and tough Aussie who'd become one of us.

One moment's hesitation was a moment too long. Keane's other hand swatted upward, knocking my hand back into the hallway wall and jarring the crowbar loose, falling to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. Then she both pulled and dragged me forward into the safe room, my fingernails clawing at her hand in a vain attempt to break her grip. The next thing I knew she pivoted and lifted me at the same time, slamming me down on the office desktop flat on my back, my head ringing with the impact.

I strained to peer over at the door, Keane still pinning me down as Crayton sauntered into the room. "I prefer to kill my enemies. A simple philosophy, but effective. Back in my soldiering days I learned hard lessons about not leaving the enemy breathing at the end of a battle. Why the Magician toys with you is beyond me. I see an enemy, I kill 'em, like with the old woman who employs you back in America. Did I wait for him to give me the order? Hell, no." The old man knelt down next to the desk and his rancid breath in my face would have made me gag if I wasn't also being strangled to death by Keane at that moment.

He glanced up at Keane's smiling face. "Do you know how I made her? All I did was tell her a little secret." Now I could feel his breathing on the side of my face, his lips brushing against my ear. "You want to know it? You want to know?" Crayton chuckled with perverted glee. "I'll tell you. Listen close. Listen, and become mine forever." His trembling tongue touched the outside of my ear, running from the bottom of the lobe all the way up as I writhed in disgust, still pinned hopelessly. "Lifetimes of servitude for you... pleasures and pain you cannot imagine. Are you ready? Here it comes. Here's the secret." He took a deep breath and leaned close into my ear.

"I'll tell you a secret, @sshole." The voice came from behind Crayton, and suddenly Josh's face was right over his shoulder. "I found the knife."

Crayton screamed, his eyes bulging wide as he crumpled to a heap on the ground next to the desk, Josh standing up behind him holding a bloody, eight-inch knife at waist-level. The next moment Keane took her hand off of my neck and lunged for Josh, and he brought the knife up reflexively, barely nicking her forearm, but she instantly fell to the carpet face-first and stayed there. Josh hastily rolled her over, only to discover that she was stone dead.

Meanwhile, Crayton bellowed in agony and rage as he writhed on the carpet, his back covered in blood. "I cannot feel pain! I cannot be hurt! I was promised! Damn you, damn you! I can't move my legs!"

Josh began pulling me towards the door, but instead I rolled over the desk to the safe, took a quick glance at the box inside, saw it was filled with bingo charms and hurdled the desk back to him. "Now we can go," I said, my voice coming out in a raspy croak through my damaged windpipe.

Stealing a meaningful glance down at the knife, then to me, Josh asked, "And him? Do we..."

Before I could begin to consider the question, Crayton let out an anguished roar, lifted himself on one arm and pointed the other arm at us. Reacting quickly, I shoved Josh out of the room just in time to avoid a stream of eels, their jaws snapping open and shut hungrily as they crashed into the door on the opposite side of the hall.

We ran from the bingo hall, Crayton's tortured wails echoing in our ears as we fled. In seconds we leapt into Josh's new pickup truck and tore out of the parking lot, tires squealing.


An hour later, on the road to Adelaide, we finally calmed down enough to talk about it.


JOSH: Getting around the Smiler he'd left at the house was no picnic, but once I found out Crayton wasn't there, I knew he'd be at the bingo hall, so I grabbed the goods and put the hammer down. There's an old top hat and cape in the trunk back in the truck bed, too.

ME: How did you know the knife could actually hurt him?

JOSH: I didn't. I just saw you there and... did what I did. I didn't think about it.

ME: (Pause) My ex-husband divorced me because I can't have children. We both wanted them. We tried everything.

JOSH: Okay.

ME: You asked about him... and what happened with my marriage.

JOSH: Okay.

ME: We did it today, Josh. We got the charms, the knife... we crippled Crayton, and I think that's permanent. Somehow the knife-

JOSH: Yep.

ME: I have never heard you say this little, ever.

JOSH: I just stabbed a guy. I know that's as commonplace as rolling cigarettes or jumping gorges in your profession, but as a Philosophy grad student it doesn't come up as often.

ME: Would it help if I put my head on your shoulder as you drive?

JOSH: That would probably make me more nervous.

ME: Oh. Nevermin-

JOSH: But I'll take my chances.


We got a hotel in Adelaide. We are going to sleep for the next hundred years.

The initials carved into the knife hilt are: G.G. I'll try and do some deducing when I eventually come to.


We did it. We really did it.

Josh: I Could Try And Think Of Something Profound To Say, Too, But We All Know I'd Just Wind Up Ripping Off One Of Gandalf's Speeches From LOTR

I parked my new truck off the road (and by "new", I mean it has over a hundred thousand miles and smells like four generations of sheep farted in the cab. Below: One of Australia's mysterious kangaroo-sheep) and hid it as best I could in the scrub off the road by the ocean. There's a police car in front of Crayton's house, but the cop watching the place doesn't seem overly alert and I think I've got a shot at sneaking around the side and getting in. The only problem is that that, again, the cop isn't overly alert, so Crayton could already have crept past him and be inside right now. Even if he isn't, he could still have Smilers set to guard the place, or booby traps by the doors or windows, or he could have the Magician's knife hooked up to explosives.

Optimism abounds.

Is this the best plan? Who the hell knows. I'm going on no sleep at all, my ankle where the eel bit me last night is killing me and all I've had to eat in forever is a ham and cheese sandwich prepared by an old person, which means that it tasted like bland with an extra spoonful of bland and bland on the side.

All I know is that I feel the same way Mary does about it. I'm sick and goddamn tired of going up against these monsters and winding up with nothing. We're either getting the knife or the bingo charms. For once we're going to stick it to them, no matter what the cost.

If this is my last post, I just hope someone listens to my last request: For God's sake, someone stop George Lucas before he f*cks up Star Wars any further. Thank you.