The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress Page B

practiced. Her kata was the same one as always. Hadn’t Callum wanted this kind of attention? Watching him exchange cards with person after person was proof that his plan had worked. He ought to be thrilled.
    “Go home, Michiko.” Blunt. To the point. A hiss in the ear.
    He was drunk. Already. Pushing his way through the crowd, laughing loudly. Giving big hugs to some of the men.
    “Now, aren’t I good teacher? If I can teach a Jap like her, I can teach anyone. Your wives, daughters, yourself.”
    Again, she had no clue what he was talking about. Until: “Go home, Michiko.”
    He handed her the satchel of weapons. More like threw it at her.
    And that was that. Apparently he thought the best way for her to get home was to walk. Carrying all the weapons with her.
    Well, she was fine with that. She was done with the loud, claustrophobic party. Besides, she could use the alone time, and it wasn’t that late anyway. She liked walking, and she had grown so used to lugging around the weapons that they were hardly a burden.
    So she had left. Many people had tried to convince her to stay, but Callum had helped her to the front door. Had also slammed it shut behind her.
    “Go home, Michiko.” How she wanted to. She missed Japan—the countryside, the food. Understanding what the hell people were saying.
    As she started the long journey back to Callum’s, the air was damp, as it always was. The fog was thick. As it always was. London at night, Michiko had quickly learned, was nothing like London during the day. During the day, the streets were crowded, the city teemed with people, like maggots feeding on roadkill. But at night . . . at night the streets grew quiet. The fog unrolled itself over the Gothic towers, smothering the city in an eerie silence. The light from the streetlamps created halos in the white. Figures appeared and then vanished as if they’d never been at all. And you could find yourself walking right into a wall or the river if you weren’t careful.
    Shadows would appear in the distance. Shadows that could be anything, that could tease the imagination.
    Like the one looming before her now.
    Michiko wasn’t scared of illusion, but still. She felt unnerved. She rarely felt unnerved without cause. She trusted her instincts. Something was off about this giant shadow.
    She approached it carefully.
    The giant shadow turned out to be a carriage. Motionless. No driver. The horses standing still, ears twitching as if they were waiting for something.
    “Hello?” she called out. Her voice sounded loud in the empty street. One of the horses snorted at her. This wasn’t right; this was so many versions of what wasn’t right. She put down the weapons as softly as she could and pulled out the katana . Then, preparing it for use behind her back, she approached the carriage.
    “Hello?” she said, more softly. She was close enough now that she could see that one of the doors was standing open, the dark purple window drapes pulled free at one side from their hooks. She took a few more steps and her foot accidentally kicked something. She looked as the something rolled a few feet then stopped. She leaned down to examine it more closely. On the ground staring up at her was the old, whiskered face of the man from the gala. The one who’d flown the mechanical bird around the room. His eyes were expressionless. His head . . . bodiless.
    Michiko felt numb. She was staring at a head. A head. That looked to have been divorced from its body surprisingly cleanly. A very clean cut indeed. The arteries and cartilage severed as if sliced with scissors.
    Then.
    There it was.
    The sound she’d been waiting for.
    A footstep in the dark and fog.
    She tightened her grip on the katana and spun, her opposite knee on the ground and her other leg stretched out to the side. She blocked the blade coming for her jugular. She rolled to one side and was instantly up on her feet. The blade of her assailant came fast and furious, and each