Page 148 of Emperor of Wrath

He holds a tiny little glass bottle up in front of me.

“Antidote for what I just gave you. You’ve got about an hour before things start to get”…he smiles icily…“most unpleasant.”

“You motherfucker.” I strain against the ropes binding my wrists behind the back of the chair. “When he gets here?—”

“He will do exactly as I tell him to do,” Valon spits.

My eyes bulge as he pulls a handgun out of his jacket, wincing. The loud metallic click of it cocking echoes in the dank stone room.

“If he doesn’t, he gets to watch you die.”

33

KENZO

I stand at the crumbling, dark entrance to the bunker system, my jaw grim and set, staring into the black maw.

I wasn’t entirely sure on the manic drive up here. But the black van parked behind a clump of scraggly bushes nearby tells me I was right.

This is where he took her.

Officially, these old World War Two bunkers, once occupied by the soldiers of Imperial Japan as they prepared for invasion by the allies, are closed to the public and sealed off as a safety hazard. One, who the fuck knows how the structural integrity of the hideaways has held up.

Two, what appears at first to be a single tunnel leading down through the brick archway is actually a maze of random pathways, caved-in barracks, and deliberate dead ends. If that wasn’t confusing enough, there’s been more than one occasion where would-be explorers walked into old booby-traps or happened upon deteriorating old explosives and got themselves splattered all over a wall.

For bonus points, the air down there is literally poison. Decades of old chemicals and ordinances releasing toxic fuck-knows-what means that unless you get a little air flow going, there’s a good chance you’ll pass out and never wake up again.

For all these reasons, the local Kyoto government has sealed the place up and posted about a hundred warning signs in four different languages to deter explorers and thrill-seekers. They’ve even walled the front entrance off about a dozen times. But some idiot inevitably tears it open again, ignoring every warning sign and going in anyway.

…I mean, Mal and I did exactly that a handful of times when we were younger.

I glance to the side again, at the barely concealed van parked at the only other place around here aside from Sakamoto Castle that the road leads to.

This is very obviously a trap. Valon wanted me to follow him here, looking for Annika.

I glare into the black murk of the tunnel entrance.

Trap or not, that motherfucker has my wife. The woman I love. He could be standing in front of me with an entire army, and I’d still be going in.

He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to die today.

I step into the darkness.

Years ago, a man named Rafe taught me something I’ve never forgotten: when you’re hunting vermin, you can stand on the roof shooting away, hoping you hit them. Or you can lay bait and trap them.

There’s only one true way to exterminate something that’s taken what’s yours. And tonight, as I walk into the blackness with death on my shoulder and fury pulsing through my veins…

Tonight, I’m one of Rafe’s fucking snakes.

The darkness swallows me whole as I slip down the side of the main tunnel entrance. A first, the moonlight illuminates graffiti and street art painted and sprayed on the walls. As the light fades, so does the art.

Even the local teenagers know not to go any further.

Up ahead in the gloom, you can just see that the main tunnel curves a little to the right, around a bend. I know that from the dozens of times I explored this place when I was first in Kyoto, looking for danger and excitement.

I also know that right up ahead, just before the bend, there’s a side passage that veers out away from the main tunnel and then doubles back into it once it makes the bend—probably a tunnel that was once camouflaged so that soldiers could more easily defend this place in the event of an attack.

Just as I get to the inky black opening to the side tunnel I freeze, my ears pricking.

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