Taggart had kept the camera trained on Nigel up to the last minute. Then as Hal started his distraction, Taggart had caught the flash of the blade sweeping upwards. He’d jerked the camera toward Jane, following the scalpel even as he called warning. Despite the suddenness of the attack, he’d caught the blade’s path on film. The braided bracelet had been on Jane’s wrist and then, as a line of blood marked the scalpel’s passage, it was not. The twisted leather cord dropped onto the white sheet and, a moment later, was snatched up by the tengu.
“She wanted the bracelet,” Taggart said.
Jane caught Taggart’s wrist and examined the bracelet closely for the first time. She’d only glanced at it when Boo had tied one to her wrist; she’d been too busy getting ready for dinner to actually study it. Taggart’s looked identical, with three strands of cording, two of which were leather and one red silk. She’d thought the bracelets crudely made because there was no symmetry to the knots and braiding. She remembered now a documentary she’d seen once where the Incas had an entire language of knotted cords. “Yumiko looked at my hand first. I thought she was disoriented, but she wasn’t. I bet these are some kind of secret tengu message. She saw it and knew that Joey had made it. She took it as proof.”
“That’s—that’s a stretch.” Taggart rolled down his shirtsleeves and buttoned his cuffs.
“Why else would she take it?” Jane tossed the linens again.
“It doesn’t make sense that she’d take it once she had a good look at it. If she hadn’t taken it, you wouldn’t be worried now.”
Taggart had a point: she wouldn’t be aware of the bracelet’s importance if Yumiko hadn’t taken it. With his sleeves buttoned, his bracelet was hidden, as were Nigel’s and Hal’s. Since she was wearing a tank top, hers had been the only one visible. She realized why the tengu female had taken the bracelet.
“Yumiko took it so Sparrow wouldn’t see it. Sparrow is an oni double agent; she probably could guess that the bracelet meant that we have Joey. She probably would have shot us all.”
“That makes sense,” Taggart agreed slowly. “I think the only reason Sparrow didn’t shoot us was because you were obviously hurt.”
Jane glanced about the empty hospital room. “We should head back home and talk to Joey. We need to know who Yumiko is. If we can trust her.”
“What the hell happened to you?” Geoffrey cried when Jane walked back into her garage an hour later. Since both Nigel and Hal were soaked from head to toe, she didn’t bother hiding her bandaged arm.
Her brothers must have finished installing Bertha on the Humvee as a canvas tarp had been draped over it. They’d raided the toy bins in the storage room for plastic dinosaurs and matchbox trucks. The reptiles dwarfed the vehicles; unfortunately it probably was the correct scale.
“Hal was Hal,” Jane temporized, getting a “hey” of indignation from Hal. “What are you doing?”
“Tactics,” Marc said without embarrassment while Duff and Guy distanced themselves from the toys. Joey was hanging on Alton’s back like a monkey.
Jane held up her phone with the downloaded capture of Yumiko Sessai’s driver’s license on it. She didn’t want any of her family seeing Yumiko attacking her. “Joey, do you know this person?”
“That’s Yumiko!” Joey cried.
“Is she related to you?” Jane asked.
Joey shook his head. “She’s a yamabushi.”
“She’s a what?” Jane asked.
“Yamabushi!” Joey cried. “They’re the seven loyal servants of Wong Jin who were given magical powers by our guardian spirit, Providence, so they could protect his daughter.”
“They’re like super ninjas that guard the Chosen bloodline,” Boo translated, and then gave a condensed version of everything she knew about them. “There were five living in the house behind the Shojis’. The two places shared backyards, so they acted like one big home. The yamabushi all used the name Sessai and pretended to be Mom and Dad and kids. One was around my age. His name was Haruka.”
Joey nodded enthusiastically; he didn’t realize the significance of the past tense. “He goes to school with Mickey and Keiko. Yumiko goes to Caltech with Riki.”
“And these?” Jane held up Alton’s wrist to show off his since hers was gone. “What are they?”
Joey leaned over Alton’s shoulder and probably would have fallen if Alton hadn’t tightened his grip. “The charms? They’re for protection.”
“What kind of protection?” Jane said.
“Against tengu!” Joey said. “It tells tengu not to hurt you because you’re under the protection of the Chosen line.”
Boo caught Jane’s hand to inspect her wrist. “What happened to yours? You didn’t throw it away, did you?”
“No. I gave it to Yumiko.” Jane wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or bad. If all of Joey’s family was dead, the yamabushi most likely saw herself as his next of kin. Jane didn’t see it that way; it seemed too much like giving him to the first stranger who thought they had a right to him. It might become a custody battle fought at night with guns.
There was a chance that Yumiko might also want Boo since she was now genetically part of the Chosen bloodline. No way in hell.
Jane didn’t want to discuss the possibilities with her brothers. They might be tempted to shoot Yumiko on sight. Jane wanted to give the female the benefit of the doubt. The enemy of Jane’s enemy was her friend—at least until they need to be coldcocked, tied up and handed back to the EIA for questioning.
Jane tucked away the phone as she turned the facts over in her mind. If Yumiko was a bodyguard, then it explained Yumiko’s actions. The female had been at Sandcastle searching for Joey. Captured, she’d been playing dead, waiting for a chance to escape. Jane showed up wearing the bracelet. To protect Joey, Yumiko would need to erase all trace of him, which meant taking the bracelet.
“Where is Yumiko?” Joey asked.
“I don’t know,” Jane said truthfully. “She disappeared before we could talk to her.”
“Intonjutsu!” Joey cried.
“What?” Jane asked.
“That’s the ninja skill of disappearing,” Nigel murmured. “The yamabushi were a sect of warrior monks that live in temples deep in the mountains. The Japanese believe that the tengu are protective, yet dangerous, mountain spirits. They are often depicted in the distinctive robes of the yamabushi monks.”
Joey was nodding along with this. “When the Chosen was brought to Earth, his servants hid him among the yamabushi. They took the name to honor the monks.”
“The oni don’t know that the yamabushi exist,” Boo added. “The tengu managed to keep the Chosen bloodline hidden on Onihida. Only after they came to Earth did the oni find out about the Chosen.”
“Are you sure?” Jane asked.
Boo gave her an annoyed look. “Kajo had a fight with Lord Tomtom about it. Tomtom didn’t believe there were yamabushi. He said that it was a myth to frighten the other lesser bloods; to keep them from trying to prey upon the tengu. He thought that any tengu that was particularly fierce encouraged people to think they’re yamabushi to boost their reputation.”
If half the oni command doubted Yumiko’s existence, then the female could have the other members of Joey’s family safely hidden someplace. Somehow they had to have a long conversation with Yumiko.
First things first: the namazu.
Her brothers had raided more than just the toy box. They’d also managed to round up a half-dozen wooden sawhorse barricades and Team Tinker’s headsets.