The Miko - 02 by Eric Van Lustbader Page A

subway exit and went west, toward Shibuya. He took the all glass elevator in the Ishtbashi Building to the top floor and entered the ironclad doors of Jan Jan. From its southeasterly facing floor-to-ceiling windows he could make out the floodlit stone walls of the Russian embassy.
    The air was alive with the percussive rhythms of rock music: The Yellow Magic Orchestra and an English group called Japan. It was well after midnight and the place was jumping. Cigarette smoke blued the pale walls. The intense spot lighting striking like arrows straight down from the enormously high acoustic baffled ceiling dappled the springy wooden dance floor, turning it into a rippling tiger’s pelt.
    Around the central dance floor rose three tiers of clear Plexiglas tables and midnight blue velour-covered banquettes. Waitresses moved quickly and efficiently in amongst the crowd. There was movement, heat, sound in crushing waves. The electricity of modern life.
    Nicholas’ mind was engaged as he moved slowly through the bouncing energetic throng. His eyes roved across the sea of young painted faces, seeing the laughter, the self-engrossment; observing slick-winged hairstyles, arms entangled around waists and buttocks, whirling torsos, dervishes of the night, enraptured by a combination of the musical pulse, the boost of liquor and, perhaps, illicit drugs, and, above all, the narcotizing sense of eternal youth. The concept of mortality had no place here and, if it came, would never be recognized.
    For just an instant Nicholas wondered what it was he was searching for. Then he thought of Justine and knew that he would not find it here.
    When Akiko Ofuda saw Nicholas walk in through Jan Jan’s high Edo period portals she turned her head partly away into the shadows. Her heart was beating fast. Bewildered, she fought to understand the reason for his abrupt appearance. Did he know anything? Could he?
    But no, she thought, calming herself. It was too early. His presence must be merely a coincidence. A jest of the gods. She rose from where she had been sitting at a table along the second tier and walked slowly, lithely, circling the perimeter of the light-streaked dance floor.
    She kept him in sight all the while, watching him clandestinely but carefully. What she saw was a ruggedly angular face that had nothing of the classical beauty about it. It was far too odd and distinctive for that. The long upswept eyes hinted of his Oriental blood, as did his prominent cheekbones. But he had a good solid Anglo-Saxon chin that was as Western as his father.
    He was black haired and wide-shouldered, with the odd narrow hips of a dancer and the thickly muscled legs of the serious athlete.
    Akiko found herself longing to strip him naked to admire the sight of those overlays of long, sinewy muscle. But other than this, it was difficult to say what she thought of him on first sight. So many conflicting emotions swirled inside her, contending for ascendancy.
    How she hated him! She was struck anew by the force of it. Seeing him so abruptly, in so unforeseen a manner brought the full shock of the secret emotions she had been harboring for so long into the forefront. She trembled in rage even while her eyes drank in the emanations of his power. It was evident even from such a distance: the lift of his head, the rolling liquid stride, the minute movements of his shoulders and upper arms. These all spoke of the extreme danger leashed tightly inside this man.
    But as she herself moved, keeping pace with him, she felt an odd elation begin to suffuse her and she thought, What extraordinary karma I must possess to gain this added advantage over him from the start! Her pulse beat hard within her as her eyes drank him in, noting his strength, the intensity of his spirit. Oh, but she longed for that moment when he first saw her. Unconsciously, her fingers rose to her cheek, softly stroking the taut flesh there. She experienced an almost giddy sensation at the intensity of her