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      "I want that candle." The woman said. "Give it to me now, and I may let you leave here alive!"
      "C'mon and get it." Miyuki took another step back away from her. Lit from below by the neon glow of Grant Avenue, the woman's white cheongsam and pale skin were a flash of changing colors such that she resembled one of the lurid phantasms that lurked at the edges of painted icons, waiting to knock the unwary from the eightfold path. Her jian snaked out, a probing strike that Miyuki easily knocked away, but real enough.
      "You don't think we would let you walk out of here." The woman's eyes flashed briefly to the left, probably, Miyuki guessed, at one of the men undoubtedly moving to surround her. "Give it to me now, and we can avoid any unnecessary violence."
      "There's no such thing as unnecessary violence!" Miyuki launched herself at the woman, scissoring her blades at her opponent's neck. The jian's blade was up again in a flash, a single vertical parry catching both of Miyuki's wakizashi where they crossed.
      The riposte came as a flurry of slashes, fast and deadly accurate. Miyuki had to use both blades to fend off the assault, and even so her opponent managed to tear an eight inch cut down the baggy leg of her hakama. The woman in white was clearly a master of her weapon, striking fluidly and effortlessly. For all the woman's skill, though, her style was very orthodox. She was using the jian's longer reach to her advantage, to keep Miyuki back. The worst way to win a fight, Miyuki thought, was to do what the enemy wanted.
      A bullet whipped out of the darkness, punching a hole in a nearby aluminum ventilator. The gunmen were getting restless.
      "Back off!" the woman in white called into the darkness, "She's mine!"
      She had only glanced away for a moment, but a moment's distraction was all Miyuki needed. Forcing the jian to one side she launched herself shoulder first into the woman's chest. She countered with a short jab of her knee, which caught Miyuki in the abdomen, badly winding her, but not enough to stop her from launching a vicious head butt. The hardwood demon mask found its mark, and they came down together, rolling on the gravel roofing surface.
      Miyuki threw a punch with the hilt of her one of her swords as they separated, taking a grazing kick from a stiletto heel in return. As she came back to her feet she saw that her opponent hadn't been slowed much by the assault, although she noted with some satisfaction that a trickle of blood from the corner of the woman's mouth had stained the front of her cheongsam. Miyuki took a step back, and felt the hard edge of the roof underfoot. Behind her was open air, and the street, three stories below.
      Wiping the blood away from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, the woman in white grinned her predatory grin.
      "There's nowhere left for you to run, little devil. Now give me that candle!"
      "Little?! I'mna smack you like a low hanging piñata!"
      The gunmen were closing in now, in disobedience to their orders. Miyuki could hear their footsteps pounding across the gravel, in her peripheral vision their silhouettes grew distinct among the rooftop shadows. Miyuki slid sideways, keeping the woman in white in their line of fire, and then launched herself at her opponent again, sword points forward. The jian snaked out to intercept her strike again, seeming to curve around like a metal whip until the hilts of all three weapons locked together. Miyuki pushed off with her back foot, letting her momentum carry her into forward flip, coming down on the other woman's shoulders, trapping the slender throat with her thighs.
      They crashed down to the gravel roof surface again, with Miyuki on top, punching downward with the hilt end of her swords again. The woman in white, finding her sword too long and awkward at such close quarters, dropped it and struck back with short palm strikes, hitting incredibly hard despite her disadvantageous position. A shot rang out practically next to them, the bullet clipping off a lock of Miyuki's hair. She rolled to her feet and took a step back toward the edge of the roof.
      The gunmen were standing in a semicircle around her, all about 20 feet away, staying just outside of the range where she might get at them before they could get a shot off. Dark suits and Berettas, she noticed. The Triads loved Berettas. The woman in white was back up again too, but this time she just snarled in Miyuki's general direction. Sirens wailed in the distance; someone had finally called the police.
      "If you'll excuse me, me 'n your candle have more important things to do." Miyuki threw a small ceramic sphere, about the size of a ping pong ball at the roof immediately in front of her. It detonated with a flash and a billowing cloud of thick smoke that enveloped her completely in seconds. The cloud dispersed almost as quickly as it came, scenting the night air with a distinct combination of gunpowder and incense. In a matter of seconds, surrounded on three sides and with no cover, the grinning oni had vanished without a trace. From somewhere in the darkness, more distant now, and vaguely muffled, her voice called out.
      "Catch ya next time."

      Clarissa lay back in the tub, letting herself sink until the water lapped over her chest, and then her head, hovering in that perfect place where the warm water could touch her entire body at once, working the day's tension out of her muscles. It was amazing to her how tiring a day sitting in an office could be; hiking through the Andes or trekking across the Gobi desert or any of her expeditions in the field were tiring, but they always left her feeling exultant, energized from the exercise. Spending her day doing light admin work, however, had left her spiritually drained. She stayed underwater as long as she could hold her breath, until among the eerie muffled sloshing she almost thought she could hear someone calling her name. She sat up in a great splash of displaced water, and swept her dripping bangs out of her eyes.
      "Psst! Clarissa!"
      She nearly jumped out of the water at the sight that greeted her. A grimy, bedraggled creature crouched at the edge of her tub, having appeared as silently as it had suddenly. Its horned demon face was stuck in an exaggerated pop-eyed grin that seemed to be leering at Clarissa's pale, naked body, until a gloved hand slid it off, revealing a very grimy Miyuki underneath.
      "Hey calm down, it's only me."
      "Christ, Miyuki don't sneak up on me like that." Clarissa relaxed the arm she had reflexively folded across her chest to try to conceal her nudity. She slapped the surface of the water with her other hand, sending a small, petulant splash toward her friend. "What are you doing here? Actually, how did you even get in here in the first place?"
      "Well the door was practically wide open. And by door I mean window. And by open I mean that mosquito mesh insert didn't stop me, because I'm not a mosquito. And your bathroom door actually was open."
      "The window? But we're on the sixth floor."
      "Your building, like most pseudo-Victorian buildings, has a façade like a staircase." Miyuki sat on the edge of the tub, slipped off one of her gloves and ran a finger through the water. "Anyway, I'm here cause I was in Chinatown, wore out my welcome, and caught the next bus that happened by. Now that happened to be a 30 Stockton heading north, so I got off at Columbus and Union, and I thought 'where can I go in North Beach and chill for a few hours?' Lots of places, actually, but bars and cafes usually won't serve you if you're dressed as a big scary ninja. So here I am."
      "They also don't tend to serve you if you look like you've been hiding in a factory smokestack. Were you riding on the bus or under it?"
      "Pshaw. Under it, of course." Miyuki seemed disdainful of the idea of doing otherwise. "I left my fast pass in my other pants, which are safe at an undisclosed location, nowhere near here. You know, for such a tiny-ass apartment you have a bath tub like a swimming pool."
      "You said that the last time you were here too. Building owner must really like tubs, I guess." Clarissa stretched a shapely, pale leg out of the water and prodded Miyuki with her big toe. "Wanna join me? God knows you could use it."
      "Hells yeah I could use it. Before riding under that bus I was in a pretty scuzzy secret passage." Miyuki pulled her top over her head, wincing slightly as she did. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she was beginning to notice the aftereffects of her fight with the woman in white. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror was a pleasant peach color from her neck to just below her breasts, and dark and oily everywhere else, like a severe case of farmer's tan. "I'm probably going to muddy up your water."
      "Just turn on the whirlpool, it cycles the water through a filter, or maybe just wastes it, I dunno. It's all engineering for people who really like bath tubs, but it's the only way to get clean, otherwise you're sitting in your own dirt. Now hurry up and get your clothes off, then tell me everything from the beginning. I wanna hear about this secret passage of yours."

      Soaped, shampooed and rinsed, Miyuki felt more nearly human again, and she had to admit there might be something to the advanced bathtub technology as the multiple jets went to work, churning the water into a mass of swirling bubbles. She leaned forward while Clarissa rubbed the knot out of her shoulders, and told a selectively edited accounting of the evening's events.
      "…and then she called me short, so I beat the everliving smug right out of her. Or I was well on my way, when I heard the cops coming, probably 'cause of all the shots that had been fired. So I laid down some smoke and made a break for it in the confusion, and since everyone was feeling so shooty tonight I figured I'd better ride where they wouldn't have a clear line at me, so I got underneath a bus and rode it up here."
      "Wow, sounds like they're using the old Shanghai tunnels," Clarissa, like any good archeologist, deeply loved secrets hidden underground. "They've got to be 150 years old; it's amazing they haven't been built over or caved in."
      "You'd be surprised what people will keep up if they have a reason to." Miyuki glanced back over her shoulder as Clarissa's hands moved down to the small of her back. "I wish I knew how they got ahead of me, though."
      "Maybe they just ran across the street? But what's the deal with this candle that everyone wants it so bad?"
      "Wish I knew. Hopefully I'll find out later tonight, like I said, I'm not done yet."
      "Sounds like you'd be nuts to go back there tonight. Wait, you know where the candle is?" Clarissa leaned forward, pressing her chest against Miyuki's shoulder blades. "I thought you said you were lying when you told her you had it."
      "I was. Now the Triads will stop looking or at least look in the wrong place, while I go home and have a stolen candle party. And since you're wondering, it's either under the seat or in the trunk of Chow's car."
      "That's… a really stupid hiding place. Why would it there?"
      "Well, I'm not absolutely certain it's there, but they didn't find it in his place of business and he hadn't been home. And he replaced it with a cut down road flare, which means there's a good chance he hid it among his other flares. And where do people keep their flares?"
      "Okay, seems reasonable enough, so where's his car?"
      "Police impounded it. I gave Jeff a call, and once he finds out where it's at I'm headed down there."
      "What, tonight?"
      "While the trail's hot. Also, since it wasn't anywhere near the crime scene it could be released as soon as tomorrow, if someone wants to claim it."
      "You want to break into a police lot based on an educated guess?" Clarissa hugged Miyuki around her midriff, inadvertently touching the sore spot on her ribcage. "Sweetie, sometimes I just don't know…"
      "They'll never know I was there." Miyuki winced slightly, and glanced at the dark heap of clothing, weapons, and devil mask lying on the white tile floor. "Hey, do you have a washing machine? Elliot Chow seemed like the kind of high strung son of a bitch who'd keep the inside of his car super clean. A bunch of big black road grime spots won't help the cause of them never knowing I was there."
      "Yeah, I'll get 'em for you." Clarissa stepped out of the tub, dripped briefly on the bathmat, and stooped to pick up Miyuki's clothes. Naked, with her wet hair slicked back, she reminded Miyuki of the white granite Valkyries that held up the roofs of art deco skyscrapers. Miyuki lay back and studied the ceiling, until Clarissa came back in, holding a cocktail glass daintily by the stem.
      "Here, you need to try this," she said, setting it down on the rim of the tub; she knelt on the bathmat and looked across the top of the glass at Miyuki expectantly.
      "I don't have to try anything. I just told you I'm about to get out there again, the last thing I need to do is get plastered first."
      "Yes you do, because you're naked and I have your clothes. Give it a go, it's only a shot's worth of booze, anyway."
      "Yeah, well you're naked and I've got your tub." Miyuki gave the glass a sidelong glance. The steam from the tub had already started to condense on the sides, obscuring the curl of lemon peel bobbing around the conical bowl. She picked it up and gave it a sip; it was cold, shockingly so, and the warm burn of the alcohol only made itself known in her chest and throat a moment after she had swallowed.
      "Damn… that's pretty good. And lemony, very lemony. What is it?"
      "Just something I've been working on," Clarissa motioned Miyuki to the back of the tub, then stepped in, settling into the warm water with her back to her friend. "Buddha's Hand citron, triple sec, lemon bitters, the tiniest bit of vermouth, and lime juice. Chilled, but served straight up. Now it's your turn to go to work on my back and I'll tell you about what I found out this afternoon."
      "Have I ever told you that I'm a trained and licensed reiki masseuse?" Miyuki cracked her knuckles and began kneading Clarissa's shoulders. "Cause if I did that was a lie. What did you find out this afternoon?"
      "Well, I went looking for other mentions of the Oracle Sword, and started with a pair of sources with only brief encounters, the kind of thing I could get through in an afternoon. The first one was Joao Cabral."
      "Ooh, was he Brazilian?"
      "What? No, Portuguese. He was a Jesuit born in Portugal right at the end of the sixteenth century. He joined the order at 16, and set sail for India at 24. He joined up with fellow Jesuit Estevao Cacella, and together they were the first Europeans to visit Bhutan and Nepal, and probably a lot of other places besides. And this was back in the 1600s, so you pretty much had to dedicate your entire life to traveling that far, because it took about as long as people were likely to live. So our two brothers are wandering the Himalayas, when Fr. Estevao encounters an itinerant fellow of some kind with a sword."
      "I expect that described a lot of people, until they all became itinerant fellows with some kind of gun."
      "We live in a benighted time. At any rate, the man proved to be genteel to a degree, spoke with him at length, and finally had him draw the sword. Fr. Joao doesn't say exactly what happens, and it seems likely he arrived after the exchange was over, but Estevao had a mind altering experience, 'cause from then on he became obsessed with finding a place called Xembala."
      "Shambala. It's not a place, well not really. It's a fictional place like El Dorado, representative of a state of mind, or a concept. But none of that's really all that special, how many westerners go to India nowadays to find spirituality? Hell, follow a suspicious cloud of smoke in the Haight and odds are you'll meet a man obsessed with finding Shambala."
      "Sweetie, Jesuits don't need to go looking for spirituality, they bring it with them to inflict on others. I can't say for sure this is Obelensky's Oracle Sword, and we won't have the details until I get Fr. Estevao's report to the Holy See from the NRLF tomorrow."
      Miyuki was familiar with the University's North Richmond Library Facility; a warehouse in an industrial area two towns away filled with all the books that, for arcane reasons no one could explain, didn't merit a spot on the shelves of the campus libraries. Books with "NRLF" next to their entries in the digital catalog had to be requested at the front desk and took up to a week to arrive. Given her particular academic style, a week had always been six and a half days too long.
      "In the spirit of scientific inquiry you're right to be skeptical. But here's the thing," Clarissa turned around as best as the tub would allow, so she could give Miyuki a conspiratorial look. "Adolf Hermann Schiller certainly believed the Jesuits were on to something. He was an ethnologist from the University of Essen who traveled to the Himalayas on behalf of the East India Company in the 1850s. As part of his early research he read Fr. Estevao's report, and became convinced that the sword was the key to something big. He was so obsessed with it he insisted on staying north of the Hindu Kush when the passes closed for the winter, and the rest of his expedition turned back."
      "So what did he find?"
      "We don't know. He sent a copy of his papers back with the rest of the expedition and that's the last they saw of him. It seems Wali Khan, the Amir of Kashgar, decided he was spying for the Qing Emperor and had him beheaded. A British agent traveling incognito brought the head back to Lahore two years later; if he hadn't we'd probably never know what happened."

      Miyuki awoke abruptly to the persistent buzzing of her phone somewhere in the darkness. She had lain down with the intention of taking a short nap and promptly fallen asleep for the next two hours, and woke up sprawled on Clarissa's bed in the most undignified way she could manage. Her bare legs collided rather painfully with a stack of books as she tried to navigate the cramped studio in the darkness, guided by the phone's glowing display. It was a cheap, prepaid model with a hacked sim card, a "business" phone meant to be hard to trace, impossible to connect with her real identity, and ultimately disposable. She pressed the send button, and the angry bee vibrations stopped
      "Hey."
      "S'up girl. We're here. What's your 20?"
      "Upstairs." Miyuki padded back into the bathroom, blinking as the light came on. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror, a bare breasted doppelganger with her hair parted on the wrong side, wearing Miyuki's black cotton panties and holding Miyuki's phone in the wrong hand. Through the door Clarissa's reflection turned away from the light, the gentle curve of her pale back showing against her black satin sheets bunched up around her hips. Not for the first time, Miyuki wished she could go back to sleep. "Sit tight, I'll be down in a few minutes."

      When she slipped out of the window five minutes later fully dressed and armed, Miyuki had become the grinning oni again, even if she kept the mask pushed back on her forehead for better visibility. A large International utility truck, painted in the blue and white livery of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, idled in a red zone below, and she dropped down silently next to it and knocked on the driver's window. It slid down to reveal the roguishly handsome face of a young Vietnamese man, his bleached Hong Kong pop idol mop of hair ruining any chance of his PG&E jumpsuit being an effective disguise.
      "Damn, I been sitting here for hella long. Whaddya fall asleep or somethin'?"
      "Damn straight I did. If it was up to me I'da gone on my own and been done hours ago." Miyuki nodded toward the back of the truck. "This my limo for tonight?"
      "Yup. Elder Brother's waitin' for you in back."
      The interior of the truck was loaded with just enough equipment that it could pass for legitimate if a casual passerby happened to peer in. Miyuki settled in between two large coils of electrical cables, opposite her cousin Jeff. He was now dressed much like the Sohei that guarded their headquarters, a deep indigo version of a traditional kuroko's costume, combined with a modern military load bearing vest. An assault rifle with a high powered scope fitted to its upper rail lay across his lap. He nodded to her in greeting as the truck lurched away from the curb.
      "Heya Snowball."
      "Hey. Y'know I could be home watching Kung Fu Theater right now with a nice frosty Corona and that stupid candle. What'd you guys need to come along for?"
      "We got a big deal comin' up. High level logistical problem solving for some rich guy. Alli's meeting with him tomorrow, and the Abbot General wants to make sure it goes through and he doesn't get scared off by a sudden rise in local violent crime. Which means we do this quick and quiet, none of your patented picking a fight with twenty guys."
      "I'll have you know those twenty guys picked a fight with me."
      Miyuki stopped without elaborating. She had been following the truck's movements as it descended Telegraph Hill, turned left onto Stockton Street, and headed back into Chinatown. They pulled over near the safehouse apartment, and after a few moments someone knocked softly on the roof of the truck. Like real PG&E vehicles, the truck had a narrow roof hatch, ostensibly to facilitate overhead line work. Jeff popped it open, and Miyuki's black duffel bag dropped softly down next to her, followed by the slight athletic form of a young woman, also dressed in the sleeveless baggy indigo costume of the ninja. Like Miyuki she didn't wear a hood, her jet black hair was tied in a long, voluminous ponytail.
      "Hi, Elder Sister. I got your bag."
      "Hey, Akiko. Where's your little dog?"
      Akiko unzipped the bag, and an angular canine head emerged, staring excitedly about, ears alert, followed by the thin brown body and wildly wagging tail. Akiko's puppy was from one of the larger breeds of working dog used by police and militaries the world over; already he was larger than some dogs would be when fully grown. Miyuki wasn't sure where Akiko had acquired him from, but the two had become inseparable. He nuzzled up against Miyuki's ribs right where she had taken the hit earlier, and she sucked in her breath involuntarily.
      "Lucky! C'mere baby." The dog bounded over to Akiko and she gathered him into her lap.
      "You named him Lucky?" Jeff asked, as the truck started moving again.
      "Yeah, when I got him his collar just said 21. Y' know, like the winning lucky number in Blackjack."
      "Ah. Okay, so now that we're all here, here's the plan. Minh parks the truck on 80 where it passes over the lot, Miyuki rappels down, finds the car, finds the candle, and comes back out the same way. I'll cover you from up top. Take Akiko with you, like you shoulda done last night."
      Akiko, at 19, had reached the stage in her training where she was supposed to observe more senior ninja undertaking operations in the field. The Abbot General had put her largely under Miyuki's tutelage in that regard, and she should probably have been at Elliot Chow's assassination, but at the last minute Miyuki had decided to go alone.
      "Fine, fine. We're gonna break into a car, Little Sister, so you swipe the stereo while I get the rims off."
      "Be serious for once, willya?" Jeff continued. "Near rendez-vous point's the Chevron at 6th and Harrison, far one's a construction site at Mission and Natoma. Otherwise make for a safe house. Any questions?"
      Miyuki leaned back against the side of the truck and looked her cousin in the eye. "You really think we're headed for a fight?"
      "Not at all, but we're playing this one extra-safe. Real trouble only comes unexpectedly."

      The towing and impounding of cars is a significant enterprise in any large American city, but especially San Francisco, a city built on a peninsula with limited space, where registered motor vehicles outnumber legal parking spaces by several thousand. The main impound lot occupied a large swath of undesirable property directly underneath the Interstate 80 viaduct, surrounded by a 20 foot high fence lined with opaque plastic and topped with a coil of razor wire. Miyuki had seen it from street level plenty of times, but from above she had a much better appreciation of its size, and relative openness; other than the cars themselves, there was practically no cover.
      Minh had pulled the truck over to the right hand shoulder of I-80; along the way they had stopped to hitch up a trailer with a giant flashing arrow to warn traffic to keep to the left, and conveniently block any view of their activity. Even after midnight there was a fair amount of traffic, but this late most drivers were only concerned about getting home, and a work truck, even one belonging to a city utility that had no reason to be working on the freeway, was a minor nuisance at best. While Jeff took up his position with his rifle resting on the freeway guard rail, Miyuki looped one end of a long nylon climbing rope around a stanchion, tied it off, and dropped the rest of the coil into the darkness below.
      The rope was 50 feet long, but it still stopped six inches above the roof of a black minivan. Miyuki touched down softly, then dropped down next to the passenger door. She waited until Akiko dropped down next to her.
      "Chow's car's a Chrysler 300, white, plate's three one eight. Owl call if you find it. What's he doing here?" Miyuki nodded toward the small canine face looking up at her attentively from next to Akiko's knee.
      "He wanted to come. And he's good at finding things and no one can sneak up on him."
      "Whatever, just keep him quiet." Miyuki had to relent, two sets of puppy dog eyes was not fair. She communicated the rest through hand gestures; she would head east while Akiko moved down the long line of cars to the west.
      The murmur of traffic on the freeway up above joined with the rustle of dry leaves, blowing directionlessly around the silent cars, and the occasional steel sigh as the mammoth structure supporting the roadway overhead flexed slightly. Miyuki slowly made her way down the line, looking for the flat mock-Bentley front of the Chrysler, keeping low, just in case. Across the street the monolithic western façade of the Hall of Justice loomed high over both the lot's fence and the elevated freeway. From the other end of the lot a great horned owl hooted briefly, then again after a short pause. Miyuki made the answering call, and then silently sprinted back in the direction she had just come.
      She found Akiko crouched next to the empty front wheel well of a sedan that had apparently been on fire at some point recently; it was now a twisted black mass draped with yellow police tape, the empty headlight sockets staring forward like a giant metal skull. Parked across from them was a white Chrysler 300, its license plate ending three one eight.
      Miyuki gave Akiko a congratulatory pat on the back, and then slipped over to the Chrysler. The doors were unlocked, and the police had disabled the alarm, but as Miyuki opened the driver's door she paused. At the edge of her awareness, she could tell that something was not as it ought to be. The shadows at the edge of the mandala were pressing in. Lucky was growling at something in the shadows.
      "Little sister, get down!" Miyuki flattened herself across the front seat as a bullet cracked into the windshield, leaving a white star shaped hole, followed immediately by two more, severing the red tassel that hung from the rear view mirror. The shots were loud but indistinct, coming from one of the surrounding rooftops. They were soon joined by a staccato burst in a slightly different pitch; Jeff was returning fire from his vantage point on the freeway.
      Miyuki kept her face pressed down into the passenger seat as more bullets pinged off the car's frame like angry hailstones. She had been right, at least, that Elliot Chow had been particular about keeping the ivory colored leather of the interior clean. The car smelled of air freshener and cigarette smoke, but also, very faintly, of a scented wax candle. Miyuki clawed under the front seats as a bullet hit one of the tires and the car sank on one side with a short loud hiss. There was nothing on the driver's side, but under the passenger seat was a plastic bag full of long, heavy cylinders. She spilled them onto the floor mat; eleven road flares and a red wax candle.
      The shooter firing on the car switched to full auto, and bullets rained down freely and inaccurately, shattering the windshield and raining a confetti of automotive safety glass all over the front seat as Miyuki rolled back out the driver's door. She spotted the rooftop shooter as two more bullets shattered one of the Chrysler's headlights and sent a shard of chromed plastic from its front grill spiraling off. Under the cover of the metal support of a billboard a woman with a long braided ponytail was casually reloading her assault rifle, almost absurdly smug now that she was out of Jeff's line of fire. Miyuki reached into the folds of her hakama and pulled her own firearm free from the holster strapped to her thigh. It was a Swiss made Sig P228, a polymer framed 9mm handgun that stood virtually no chance of hitting at her current range, but maybe she could force the shooter to keep her head down. In any event she wasn't about to leave the fight without responding. She loosed two shots in the direction of the distant shooter, and another, controlled double tap into the nearest of a cluster of shadows dodging around the parked cars toward her; big, bulky shadows of armed men. As the near shadow slumped down behind a Toyota a burst of submachine gun fire sent up gouts of torn asphalt at her feet in response. Vaulting over the hood of a nearby pickup, she dove for cover.
      In the empty space next to the truck, a man lay on his back in a dark, slowly expanding puddle. He was dressed in military style body armor of a type Miyuki didn't recognize, and Akiko was crouched next to him, busily trying to free his submachine gun, which had become entangled in his web gear. Giving it up as a bad job, she sliced through the sling with her wakizashi, which she wiped clean on his sleeve before sheathing.
      "Little sister, it's time to withdraw." Miyuki ducked down next to the SUV's tire, as a new fusillade erupted, this time from the freeway above. Jeff had spotted the men in the lot and was delaying their advance. "No way we're going back up. Get a car started."
      Akiko tossed the man's weapon to Miyuki and slipped between a pair of parked vehicles. The gun was an H&K MP5, the full size model with a fixed stock and rail mounted reflex sight. It was a ubiquitous weapon in service with militaries and police around the world, and told her nothing about her ambushers. She fired a satisfyingly loud burst at one of the nearer figures, forcing it to duck back into cover. Behind her, a car engine started and the near part of the lot was suddenly bathed in the sterile blue glow of xenon headlights. As Miyuki sprinted back toward the getaway vehicle she stopped to rifle through the dead man's web gear for a few spare magazines. She had a feeling that, late as it was, the night wasn't over just yet.

Description
      "I want that candle." The woman said. "Give it to me now, and I may let you leave here alive!"
      "C'mon and get it." Miyuki took another step back away from her. Lit from below by the neon glow of Grant Avenue, the woman's white cheongsam and pale skin were a flash of changing colors such that she resembled one of the lurid phantasms that lurked at the edges of painted icons, waiting to knock the unwary from the eightfold path. Her jian snaked out, a probing strike that Miyuki easily knocked away, but real enough.
      "You don't think we would let you walk out of here." The woman's eyes flashed briefly to the left, probably, Miyuki guessed, at one of the men undoubtedly moving to surround her. "Give it to me now, and we can avoid any unnecessary violence."
      "There's no such thing as unnecessary violence!" Miyuki launched herself at the woman, scissoring her blades at her opponent's neck. The jian's blade was up again in a flash, a single vertical parry catching both of Miyuki's wakizashi where they crossed.
      The riposte came as a flurry of slashes, fast and deadly accurate. Miyuki had to use both blades to fend off the assault, and even so her opponent managed to tear an eight inch cut down the baggy leg of her hakama. The woman in white was clearly a master of her weapon, striking fluidly and effortlessly. For all the woman's skill, though, her style was very orthodox. She was using the jian's longer reach to her advantage, to keep Miyuki back. The worst way to win a fight, Miyuki thought, was to do what the enemy wanted.
      A bullet whipped out of the darkness, punching a hole in a nearby aluminum ventilator. The gunmen were getting restless.
      "Back off!" the woman in white called into the darkness, "She's mine!"
      She had only glanced away for a moment, but a moment's distraction was all Miyuki needed. Forcing the jian to one side she launched herself shoulder first into the woman's chest. She countered with a short jab of her knee, which caught Miyuki in the abdomen, badly winding her, but not enough to stop her from launching a vicious head butt. The hardwood demon mask found its mark, and they came down together, rolling on the gravel roofing surface.
      Miyuki threw a punch with the hilt of her one of her swords as they separated, taking a grazing kick from a stiletto heel in return. As she came back to her feet she saw that her opponent hadn't been slowed much by the assault, although she noted with some satisfaction that a trickle of blood from the corner of the woman's mouth had stained the front of her cheongsam. Miyuki took a step back, and felt the hard edge of the roof underfoot. Behind her was open air, and the street, three stories below.
      Wiping the blood away from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, the woman in white grinned her predatory grin.
      "There's nowhere left for you to run, little devil. Now give me that candle!"
      "Little?! I'mna smack you like a low hanging piñata!"
      The gunmen were closing in now, in disobedience to their orders. Miyuki could hear their footsteps pounding across the gravel, in her peripheral vision their silhouettes grew distinct among the rooftop shadows. Miyuki slid sideways, keeping the woman in white in their line of fire, and then launched herself at her opponent again, sword points forward. The jian snaked out to intercept her strike again, seeming to curve around like a metal whip until the hilts of all three weapons locked together. Miyuki pushed off with her back foot, letting her momentum carry her into forward flip, coming down on the other woman's shoulders, trapping the slender throat with her thighs.
      They crashed down to the gravel roof surface again, with Miyuki on top, punching downward with the hilt end of her swords again. The woman in white, finding her sword too long and awkward at such close quarters, dropped it and struck back with short palm strikes, hitting incredibly hard despite her disadvantageous position. A shot rang out practically next to them, the bullet clipping off a lock of Miyuki's hair. She rolled to her feet and took a step back toward the edge of the roof.
      The gunmen were standing in a semicircle around her, all about 20 feet away, staying just outside of the range where she might get at them before they could get a shot off. Dark suits and Berettas, she noticed. The Triads loved Berettas. The woman in white was back up again too, but this time she just snarled in Miyuki's general direction. Sirens wailed in the distance; someone had finally called the police.
      "If you'll excuse me, me 'n your candle have more important things to do." Miyuki threw a small ceramic sphere, about the size of a ping pong ball at the roof immediately in front of her. It detonated with a flash and a billowing cloud of thick smoke that enveloped her completely in seconds. The cloud dispersed almost as quickly as it came, scenting the night air with a distinct combination of gunpowder and incense. In a matter of seconds, surrounded on three sides and with no cover, the grinning oni had vanished without a trace. From somewhere in the darkness, more distant now, and vaguely muffled, her voice called out.
      "Catch ya next time."

      Clarissa lay back in the tub, letting herself sink until the water lapped over her chest, and then her head, hovering in that perfect place where the warm water could touch her entire body at once, working the day's tension out of her muscles. It was amazing to her how tiring a day sitting in an office could be; hiking through the Andes or trekking across the Gobi desert or any of her expeditions in the field were tiring, but they always left her feeling exultant, energized from the exercise. Spending her day doing light admin work, however, had left her spiritually drained. She stayed underwater as long as she could hold her breath, until among the eerie muffled sloshing she almost thought she could hear someone calling her name. She sat up in a great splash of displaced water, and swept her dripping bangs out of her eyes.
      "Psst! Clarissa!"
      She nearly jumped out of the water at the sight that greeted her. A grimy, bedraggled creature crouched at the edge of her tub, having appeared as silently as it had suddenly. Its horned demon face was stuck in an exaggerated pop-eyed grin that seemed to be leering at Clarissa's pale, naked body, until a gloved hand slid it off, revealing a very grimy Miyuki underneath.
      "Hey calm down, it's only me."
      "Christ, Miyuki don't sneak up on me like that." Clarissa relaxed the arm she had reflexively folded across her chest to try to conceal her nudity. She slapped the surface of the water with her other hand, sending a small, petulant splash toward her friend. "What are you doing here? Actually, how did you even get in here in the first place?"
      "Well the door was practically wide open. And by door I mean window. And by open I mean that mosquito mesh insert didn't stop me, because I'm not a mosquito. And your bathroom door actually was open."
      "The window? But we're on the sixth floor."
      "Your building, like most pseudo-Victorian buildings, has a façade like a staircase." Miyuki sat on the edge of the tub, slipped off one of her gloves and ran a finger through the water. "Anyway, I'm here cause I was in Chinatown, wore out my welcome, and caught the next bus that happened by. Now that happened to be a 30 Stockton heading north, so I got off at Columbus and Union, and I thought 'where can I go in North Beach and chill for a few hours?' Lots of places, actually, but bars and cafes usually won't serve you if you're dressed as a big scary ninja. So here I am."
      "They also don't tend to serve you if you look like you've been hiding in a factory smokestack. Were you riding on the bus or under it?"
      "Pshaw. Under it, of course." Miyuki seemed disdainful of the idea of doing otherwise. "I left my fast pass in my other pants, which are safe at an undisclosed location, nowhere near here. You know, for such a tiny-ass apartment you have a bath tub like a swimming pool."
      "You said that the last time you were here too. Building owner must really like tubs, I guess." Clarissa stretched a shapely, pale leg out of the water and prodded Miyuki with her big toe. "Wanna join me? God knows you could use it."
      "Hells yeah I could use it. Before riding under that bus I was in a pretty scuzzy secret passage." Miyuki pulled her top over her head, wincing slightly as she did. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she was beginning to notice the aftereffects of her fight with the woman in white. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror was a pleasant peach color from her neck to just below her breasts, and dark and oily everywhere else, like a severe case of farmer's tan. "I'm probably going to muddy up your water."
      "Just turn on the whirlpool, it cycles the water through a filter, or maybe just wastes it, I dunno. It's all engineering for people who really like bath tubs, but it's the only way to get clean, otherwise you're sitting in your own dirt. Now hurry up and get your clothes off, then tell me everything from the beginning. I wanna hear about this secret passage of yours."

      Soaped, shampooed and rinsed, Miyuki felt more nearly human again, and she had to admit there might be something to the advanced bathtub technology as the multiple jets went to work, churning the water into a mass of swirling bubbles. She leaned forward while Clarissa rubbed the knot out of her shoulders, and told a selectively edited accounting of the evening's events.
      "…and then she called me short, so I beat the everliving smug right out of her. Or I was well on my way, when I heard the cops coming, probably 'cause of all the shots that had been fired. So I laid down some smoke and made a break for it in the confusion, and since everyone was feeling so shooty tonight I figured I'd better ride where they wouldn't have a clear line at me, so I got underneath a bus and rode it up here."
      "Wow, sounds like they're using the old Shanghai tunnels," Clarissa, like any good archeologist, deeply loved secrets hidden underground. "They've got to be 150 years old; it's amazing they haven't been built over or caved in."
      "You'd be surprised what people will keep up if they have a reason to." Miyuki glanced back over her shoulder as Clarissa's hands moved down to the small of her back. "I wish I knew how they got ahead of me, though."
      "Maybe they just ran across the street? But what's the deal with this candle that everyone wants it so bad?"
      "Wish I knew. Hopefully I'll find out later tonight, like I said, I'm not done yet."
      "Sounds like you'd be nuts to go back there tonight. Wait, you know where the candle is?" Clarissa leaned forward, pressing her chest against Miyuki's shoulder blades. "I thought you said you were lying when you told her you had it."
      "I was. Now the Triads will stop looking or at least look in the wrong place, while I go home and have a stolen candle party. And since you're wondering, it's either under the seat or in the trunk of Chow's car."
      "That's… a really stupid hiding place. Why would it there?"
      "Well, I'm not absolutely certain it's there, but they didn't find it in his place of business and he hadn't been home. And he replaced it with a cut down road flare, which means there's a good chance he hid it among his other flares. And where do people keep their flares?"
      "Okay, seems reasonable enough, so where's his car?"
      "Police impounded it. I gave Jeff a call, and once he finds out where it's at I'm headed down there."
      "What, tonight?"
      "While the trail's hot. Also, since it wasn't anywhere near the crime scene it could be released as soon as tomorrow, if someone wants to claim it."
      "You want to break into a police lot based on an educated guess?" Clarissa hugged Miyuki around her midriff, inadvertently touching the sore spot on her ribcage. "Sweetie, sometimes I just don't know…"
      "They'll never know I was there." Miyuki winced slightly, and glanced at the dark heap of clothing, weapons, and devil mask lying on the white tile floor. "Hey, do you have a washing machine? Elliot Chow seemed like the kind of high strung son of a bitch who'd keep the inside of his car super clean. A bunch of big black road grime spots won't help the cause of them never knowing I was there."
      "Yeah, I'll get 'em for you." Clarissa stepped out of the tub, dripped briefly on the bathmat, and stooped to pick up Miyuki's clothes. Naked, with her wet hair slicked back, she reminded Miyuki of the white granite Valkyries that held up the roofs of art deco skyscrapers. Miyuki lay back and studied the ceiling, until Clarissa came back in, holding a cocktail glass daintily by the stem.
      "Here, you need to try this," she said, setting it down on the rim of the tub; she knelt on the bathmat and looked across the top of the glass at Miyuki expectantly.
      "I don't have to try anything. I just told you I'm about to get out there again, the last thing I need to do is get plastered first."
      "Yes you do, because you're naked and I have your clothes. Give it a go, it's only a shot's worth of booze, anyway."
      "Yeah, well you're naked and I've got your tub." Miyuki gave the glass a sidelong glance. The steam from the tub had already started to condense on the sides, obscuring the curl of lemon peel bobbing around the conical bowl. She picked it up and gave it a sip; it was cold, shockingly so, and the warm burn of the alcohol only made itself known in her chest and throat a moment after she had swallowed.
      "Damn… that's pretty good. And lemony, very lemony. What is it?"
      "Just something I've been working on," Clarissa motioned Miyuki to the back of the tub, then stepped in, settling into the warm water with her back to her friend. "Buddha's Hand citron, triple sec, lemon bitters, the tiniest bit of vermouth, and lime juice. Chilled, but served straight up. Now it's your turn to go to work on my back and I'll tell you about what I found out this afternoon."
      "Have I ever told you that I'm a trained and licensed reiki masseuse?" Miyuki cracked her knuckles and began kneading Clarissa's shoulders. "Cause if I did that was a lie. What did you find out this afternoon?"
      "Well, I went looking for other mentions of the Oracle Sword, and started with a pair of sources with only brief encounters, the kind of thing I could get through in an afternoon. The first one was Joao Cabral."
      "Ooh, was he Brazilian?"
      "What? No, Portuguese. He was a Jesuit born in Portugal right at the end of the sixteenth century. He joined the order at 16, and set sail for India at 24. He joined up with fellow Jesuit Estevao Cacella, and together they were the first Europeans to visit Bhutan and Nepal, and probably a lot of other places besides. And this was back in the 1600s, so you pretty much had to dedicate your entire life to traveling that far, because it took about as long as people were likely to live. So our two brothers are wandering the Himalayas, when Fr. Estevao encounters an itinerant fellow of some kind with a sword."
      "I expect that described a lot of people, until they all became itinerant fellows with some kind of gun."
      "We live in a benighted time. At any rate, the man proved to be genteel to a degree, spoke with him at length, and finally had him draw the sword. Fr. Joao doesn't say exactly what happens, and it seems likely he arrived after the exchange was over, but Estevao had a mind altering experience, 'cause from then on he became obsessed with finding a place called Xembala."
      "Shambala. It's not a place, well not really. It's a fictional place like El Dorado, representative of a state of mind, or a concept. But none of that's really all that special, how many westerners go to India nowadays to find spirituality? Hell, follow a suspicious cloud of smoke in the Haight and odds are you'll meet a man obsessed with finding Shambala."
      "Sweetie, Jesuits don't need to go looking for spirituality, they bring it with them to inflict on others. I can't say for sure this is Obelensky's Oracle Sword, and we won't have the details until I get Fr. Estevao's report to the Holy See from the NRLF tomorrow."
      Miyuki was familiar with the University's North Richmond Library Facility; a warehouse in an industrial area two towns away filled with all the books that, for arcane reasons no one could explain, didn't merit a spot on the shelves of the campus libraries. Books with "NRLF" next to their entries in the digital catalog had to be requested at the front desk and took up to a week to arrive. Given her particular academic style, a week had always been six and a half days too long.
      "In the spirit of scientific inquiry you're right to be skeptical. But here's the thing," Clarissa turned around as best as the tub would allow, so she could give Miyuki a conspiratorial look. "Adolf Hermann Schiller certainly believed the Jesuits were on to something. He was an ethnologist from the University of Essen who traveled to the Himalayas on behalf of the East India Company in the 1850s. As part of his early research he read Fr. Estevao's report, and became convinced that the sword was the key to something big. He was so obsessed with it he insisted on staying north of the Hindu Kush when the passes closed for the winter, and the rest of his expedition turned back."
      "So what did he find?"
      "We don't know. He sent a copy of his papers back with the rest of the expedition and that's the last they saw of him. It seems Wali Khan, the Amir of Kashgar, decided he was spying for the Qing Emperor and had him beheaded. A British agent traveling incognito brought the head back to Lahore two years later; if he hadn't we'd probably never know what happened."

      Miyuki awoke abruptly to the persistent buzzing of her phone somewhere in the darkness. She had lain down with the intention of taking a short nap and promptly fallen asleep for the next two hours, and woke up sprawled on Clarissa's bed in the most undignified way she could manage. Her bare legs collided rather painfully with a stack of books as she tried to navigate the cramped studio in the darkness, guided by the phone's glowing display. It was a cheap, prepaid model with a hacked sim card, a "business" phone meant to be hard to trace, impossible to connect with her real identity, and ultimately disposable. She pressed the send button, and the angry bee vibrations stopped
      "Hey."
      "S'up girl. We're here. What's your 20?"
      "Upstairs." Miyuki padded back into the bathroom, blinking as the light came on. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror, a bare breasted doppelganger with her hair parted on the wrong side, wearing Miyuki's black cotton panties and holding Miyuki's phone in the wrong hand. Through the door Clarissa's reflection turned away from the light, the gentle curve of her pale back showing against her black satin sheets bunched up around her hips. Not for the first time, Miyuki wished she could go back to sleep. "Sit tight, I'll be down in a few minutes."

      When she slipped out of the window five minutes later fully dressed and armed, Miyuki had become the grinning oni again, even if she kept the mask pushed back on her forehead for better visibility. A large International utility truck, painted in the blue and white livery of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, idled in a red zone below, and she dropped down silently next to it and knocked on the driver's window. It slid down to reveal the roguishly handsome face of a young Vietnamese man, his bleached Hong Kong pop idol mop of hair ruining any chance of his PG&E jumpsuit being an effective disguise.
      "Damn, I been sitting here for hella long. Whaddya fall asleep or somethin'?"
      "Damn straight I did. If it was up to me I'da gone on my own and been done hours ago." Miyuki nodded toward the back of the truck. "This my limo for tonight?"
      "Yup. Elder Brother's waitin' for you in back."
      The interior of the truck was loaded with just enough equipment that it could pass for legitimate if a casual passerby happened to peer in. Miyuki settled in between two large coils of electrical cables, opposite her cousin Jeff. He was now dressed much like the Sohei that guarded their headquarters, a deep indigo version of a traditional kuroko's costume, combined with a modern military load bearing vest. An assault rifle with a high powered scope fitted to its upper rail lay across his lap. He nodded to her in greeting as the truck lurched away from the curb.
      "Heya Snowball."
      "Hey. Y'know I could be home watching Kung Fu Theater right now with a nice frosty Corona and that stupid candle. What'd you guys need to come along for?"
      "We got a big deal comin' up. High level logistical problem solving for some rich guy. Alli's meeting with him tomorrow, and the Abbot General wants to make sure it goes through and he doesn't get scared off by a sudden rise in local violent crime. Which means we do this quick and quiet, none of your patented picking a fight with twenty guys."
      "I'll have you know those twenty guys picked a fight with me."
      Miyuki stopped without elaborating. She had been following the truck's movements as it descended Telegraph Hill, turned left onto Stockton Street, and headed back into Chinatown. They pulled over near the safehouse apartment, and after a few moments someone knocked softly on the roof of the truck. Like real PG&E vehicles, the truck had a narrow roof hatch, ostensibly to facilitate overhead line work. Jeff popped it open, and Miyuki's black duffel bag dropped softly down next to her, followed by the slight athletic form of a young woman, also dressed in the sleeveless baggy indigo costume of the ninja. Like Miyuki she didn't wear a hood, her jet black hair was tied in a long, voluminous ponytail.
      "Hi, Elder Sister. I got your bag."
      "Hey, Akiko. Where's your little dog?"
      Akiko unzipped the bag, and an angular canine head emerged, staring excitedly about, ears alert, followed by the thin brown body and wildly wagging tail. Akiko's puppy was from one of the larger breeds of working dog used by police and militaries the world over; already he was larger than some dogs would be when fully grown. Miyuki wasn't sure where Akiko had acquired him from, but the two had become inseparable. He nuzzled up against Miyuki's ribs right where she had taken the hit earlier, and she sucked in her breath involuntarily.
      "Lucky! C'mere baby." The dog bounded over to Akiko and she gathered him into her lap.
      "You named him Lucky?" Jeff asked, as the truck started moving again.
      "Yeah, when I got him his collar just said 21. Y' know, like the winning lucky number in Blackjack."
      "Ah. Okay, so now that we're all here, here's the plan. Minh parks the truck on 80 where it passes over the lot, Miyuki rappels down, finds the car, finds the candle, and comes back out the same way. I'll cover you from up top. Take Akiko with you, like you shoulda done last night."
      Akiko, at 19, had reached the stage in her training where she was supposed to observe more senior ninja undertaking operations in the field. The Abbot General had put her largely under Miyuki's tutelage in that regard, and she should probably have been at Elliot Chow's assassination, but at the last minute Miyuki had decided to go alone.
      "Fine, fine. We're gonna break into a car, Little Sister, so you swipe the stereo while I get the rims off."
      "Be serious for once, willya?" Jeff continued. "Near rendez-vous point's the Chevron at 6th and Harrison, far one's a construction site at Mission and Natoma. Otherwise make for a safe house. Any questions?"
      Miyuki leaned back against the side of the truck and looked her cousin in the eye. "You really think we're headed for a fight?"
      "Not at all, but we're playing this one extra-safe. Real trouble only comes unexpectedly."

      The towing and impounding of cars is a significant enterprise in any large American city, but especially San Francisco, a city built on a peninsula with limited space, where registered motor vehicles outnumber legal parking spaces by several thousand. The main impound lot occupied a large swath of undesirable property directly underneath the Interstate 80 viaduct, surrounded by a 20 foot high fence lined with opaque plastic and topped with a coil of razor wire. Miyuki had seen it from street level plenty of times, but from above she had a much better appreciation of its size, and relative openness; other than the cars themselves, there was practically no cover.
      Minh had pulled the truck over to the right hand shoulder of I-80; along the way they had stopped to hitch up a trailer with a giant flashing arrow to warn traffic to keep to the left, and conveniently block any view of their activity. Even after midnight there was a fair amount of traffic, but this late most drivers were only concerned about getting home, and a work truck, even one belonging to a city utility that had no reason to be working on the freeway, was a minor nuisance at best. While Jeff took up his position with his rifle resting on the freeway guard rail, Miyuki looped one end of a long nylon climbing rope around a stanchion, tied it off, and dropped the rest of the coil into the darkness below.
      The rope was 50 feet long, but it still stopped six inches above the roof of a black minivan. Miyuki touched down softly, then dropped down next to the passenger door. She waited until Akiko dropped down next to her.
      "Chow's car's a Chrysler 300, white, plate's three one eight. Owl call if you find it. What's he doing here?" Miyuki nodded toward the small canine face looking up at her attentively from next to Akiko's knee.
      "He wanted to come. And he's good at finding things and no one can sneak up on him."
      "Whatever, just keep him quiet." Miyuki had to relent, two sets of puppy dog eyes was not fair. She communicated the rest through hand gestures; she would head east while Akiko moved down the long line of cars to the west.
      The murmur of traffic on the freeway up above joined with the rustle of dry leaves, blowing directionlessly around the silent cars, and the occasional steel sigh as the mammoth structure supporting the roadway overhead flexed slightly. Miyuki slowly made her way down the line, looking for the flat mock-Bentley front of the Chrysler, keeping low, just in case. Across the street the monolithic western façade of the Hall of Justice loomed high over both the lot's fence and the elevated freeway. From the other end of the lot a great horned owl hooted briefly, then again after a short pause. Miyuki made the answering call, and then silently sprinted back in the direction she had just come.
      She found Akiko crouched next to the empty front wheel well of a sedan that had apparently been on fire at some point recently; it was now a twisted black mass draped with yellow police tape, the empty headlight sockets staring forward like a giant metal skull. Parked across from them was a white Chrysler 300, its license plate ending three one eight.
      Miyuki gave Akiko a congratulatory pat on the back, and then slipped over to the Chrysler. The doors were unlocked, and the police had disabled the alarm, but as Miyuki opened the driver's door she paused. At the edge of her awareness, she could tell that something was not as it ought to be. The shadows at the edge of the mandala were pressing in. Lucky was growling at something in the shadows.
      "Little sister, get down!" Miyuki flattened herself across the front seat as a bullet cracked into the windshield, leaving a white star shaped hole, followed immediately by two more, severing the red tassel that hung from the rear view mirror. The shots were loud but indistinct, coming from one of the surrounding rooftops. They were soon joined by a staccato burst in a slightly different pitch; Jeff was returning fire from his vantage point on the freeway.
      Miyuki kept her face pressed down into the passenger seat as more bullets pinged off the car's frame like angry hailstones. She had been right, at least, that Elliot Chow had been particular about keeping the ivory colored leather of the interior clean. The car smelled of air freshener and cigarette smoke, but also, very faintly, of a scented wax candle. Miyuki clawed under the front seats as a bullet hit one of the tires and the car sank on one side with a short loud hiss. There was nothing on the driver's side, but under the passenger seat was a plastic bag full of long, heavy cylinders. She spilled them onto the floor mat; eleven road flares and a red wax candle.
      The shooter firing on the car switched to full auto, and bullets rained down freely and inaccurately, shattering the windshield and raining a confetti of automotive safety glass all over the front seat as Miyuki rolled back out the driver's door. She spotted the rooftop shooter as two more bullets shattered one of the Chrysler's headlights and sent a shard of chromed plastic from its front grill spiraling off. Under the cover of the metal support of a billboard a woman with a long braided ponytail was casually reloading her assault rifle, almost absurdly smug now that she was out of Jeff's line of fire. Miyuki reached into the folds of her hakama and pulled her own firearm free from the holster strapped to her thigh. It was a Swiss made Sig P228, a polymer framed 9mm handgun that stood virtually no chance of hitting at her current range, but maybe she could force the shooter to keep her head down. In any event she wasn't about to leave the fight without responding. She loosed two shots in the direction of the distant shooter, and another, controlled double tap into the nearest of a cluster of shadows dodging around the parked cars toward her; big, bulky shadows of armed men. As the near shadow slumped down behind a Toyota a burst of submachine gun fire sent up gouts of torn asphalt at her feet in response. Vaulting over the hood of a nearby pickup, she dove for cover.
      In the empty space next to the truck, a man lay on his back in a dark, slowly expanding puddle. He was dressed in military style body armor of a type Miyuki didn't recognize, and Akiko was crouched next to him, busily trying to free his submachine gun, which had become entangled in his web gear. Giving it up as a bad job, she sliced through the sling with her wakizashi, which she wiped clean on his sleeve before sheathing.
      "Little sister, it's time to withdraw." Miyuki ducked down next to the SUV's tire, as a new fusillade erupted, this time from the freeway above. Jeff had spotted the men in the lot and was delaying their advance. "No way we're going back up. Get a car started."
      Akiko tossed the man's weapon to Miyuki and slipped between a pair of parked vehicles. The gun was an H&K MP5, the full size model with a fixed stock and rail mounted reflex sight. It was a ubiquitous weapon in service with militaries and police around the world, and told her nothing about her ambushers. She fired a satisfyingly loud burst at one of the nearer figures, forcing it to duck back into cover. Behind her, a car engine started and the near part of the lot was suddenly bathed in the sterile blue glow of xenon headlights. As Miyuki sprinted back toward the getaway vehicle she stopped to rifle through the dead man's web gear for a few spare magazines. She had a feeling that, late as it was, the night wasn't over just yet.