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Part 11
Page 2
Kougaiji had lost her after the first few rooms.
He'd only realized how off-track he'd gotten when he'd heard the gunfire,
and knew it was too far off for him to possibly get there in time.
Now he kept to dark hallways, close to the walls.
Heard the voices after the roar had stopped, the laughing Cantonese, speculating
about rats bleeding to death in corners somewhere. He knew better than
to put any stock in that. He'd only heard Sanzo's gun discharge twice,
and no reincarnate of Genjo Sanzo was going to die after just two bullets.
Though, she wasn't really Genjo Sanzo. She wasn't
really anyone right now, not even Xiao Shujuan. She was a wavering mass
of a thousand years of snapped, disjointed aural threads dashing across
the network like a fly, snagging and tearing as she went.
The king couldn't feel much more off her than that,
though, not in this place. Not with all this chaos seething in the bottom
levels and the cool, dark intelligence he kept sensing up above him. Whatever
the hell that could be. Black like a pockmark on the aural network, a bruise
on the field.
Shujuan was going up to meet that.
But if she did, then she was going to die. Whatever
it was up there was going to kill her. The last break. The final shatter.
She'd die.
And for all his power, Kougaiji couldn't get to
her. Not without knowing just where she was, how to get there. They'd built
up this warehouse and fixed its innards like offices, an enormous maze
of rooms and halls and rooms and doors and infinite shouting voices, and
nothing ever seemed to end.
He saw now that it was larger than he'd assumed
from the outside. It was feeling more and more like this main building
actually led into some of the adjacent warehouses, so guessing the schematics
was virtually impossible, even before taking the internal reconstruction
into account. If he could reach a loading bay, he could probably estimate
where the stairs were, or the elevators. A place like this would have freight
and service elevators but not custodial. Stairs would be compartmented
off, probably at opposite ends of the main structure. Reaching those would
be a safe bet. But there were also the ceilings, the bare rafters of crawlspaces
between the floors, probably gaps in the stories for easy transit. Goods.
People. It was like a hive. An ants' nest. All networking, interweaving
tunnels and rooms.
Kougaiji came upon another doorway. Shadow-stepped
as he peered around the corner, slowly, no hasty movements. He had, after
all, not been discovered yet. Staying that way might be a good idea, at
least until he tracked her down.
This hallway was clear. Kougaiji started down along
it, hand still at the wall. There was a hum down along this way, the whir
of machinery, probably some sort of home base process going on. The whir
meant voices. It meant people. So many people, even for this time of the
night. At least half of them would have weapons.
Five bullets. She'd gone into this place, this maze,
this fucking death trap with five bullets, intent to solve something
that way. Even Sanzo wouldn't be that stu--
But there again. She wasn't Genjo Sanzo.
Kougaiji had no idea what she was now.
He kept moving. Slipped between a set of rooms and
down a long snake of a hallway. He slowed at the gate of a garage, edging
closer to the shadows to keep his cloaking up, because he was hearing voices
even closer now.
Kougaiji could bet anything that the access to the
stairwell was past this garage. If he could just get over there, past that
gate, those guards...
A cluster, a group of people. Too far removed to
care about distant bangs and roars in the hallways.
There was a youkai with them, Kougaiji found. Saying
something about an angel.
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