Kirra wanted the rest of her crew to see Golden Tiger, one of the most feared fighters in their Yakuza family, humiliated this way. He and the rest of the crew had failed her.
She turned her head towards the spectacular view of Sydney spread out three hundred and sixty degrees around the room. But she did not see the glamorous jewellery box that was Sydney at night from thirty-five floors in the sky. She saw only the image of the gypsy witch and her gesture of contempt at the airport. If anyone else had dared disrespect Kirra that way, she would not have rested until she found them and personally cut out their heart.
Kirra sent her thoughts out into the night, hunting her. Where are you, little witch?
Despite the expert massage – Golden Tiger had trained under Takashi Shadow, studying many forms of healing as well as killing – her muscles were taut. She hated the cold, and had the room-heating pumping. She was definitely not happy that they’d missed the female in Romania – twice. She’d been looking forward to summer in Europe once they’d completed their mission. But then losing her at the airport had been inexcusable. She knew that she had lost face with the Chairman. She could not afford to fail again.
The girl had help. Kirra knew that now, but she also knew that she was facing something more than their usual enemies like the law, rival Yakuza, other gangsters. No, this gypsy seemed to be protected by spirits of some kind. Kirra did not know what had happened at the airport, but she had never seen a crowd whipped into a frenzy like that. Their eyes had been blank – as though they’d been possessed.
At least they’d been able to outrun the police who had come after them. Did the gypsy have them on her side too?
Kirra hoped that the Chairman had obtained a fortune for this contract. There was definitely something supernatural going on here. And now there was another mark. A boy. Same age, same instructions: bring them both in alive. She’d issued multiple photographs of their new target to her crew. They’d all studied them thoroughly.
Her ringtone sounded. She gathered the thick towel about her slender body, pushed Golden Tiger away and sat up.
Her number one soldier, Dagger’s Breath, held the phone out towards her, his eyes hooded with hate. Since he’d let the gypsy girl go when he was shoulder-shot in Romania, the beautiful scar through his lip had glowed vivid white, as it did only when he was enraged. She knew that the scar would not return to normal until he had the girl in his hands again.
‘Thank you,’ she said, reaching for the phone. She held it to her ear for a moment and then disconnected, tossing it onto the bed.
‘Saddle up,’ she said to her team, who watched her soundlessly. ‘We know where they are.’
Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, Australia
If they were caught this time, they couldn’t just pretend to be curious.
Luke had his tools in under the handle of the only door Georgia had told them to stay away from. If she walked out of her room right now, there’d be nothing they could say but see ya, thanks for the memories.
Georgia’s home was much older than any Luke had been in before and he wasn’t used to this type of lock. Like most internal doors, it had no keyhole, but this one also had a lever-lock mechanism. And while he would have been inside the locked door of a regular bedroom in sixty seconds – even if he only had a matchstick, bobby pin, credit card or paperclip – he’d been working on this one for a good three minutes.
One step away, Zac shifted from foot to foot. Luke ignored him and breathed out. He allowed his thoughts to slide one more time into the lock, and yep – there it was – he popped the lever. He looked up over his shoulder at Zac. Grinned. It’s now or never, his smile said.
He opened the door.
Other than some furniture, the semi-lit room was empty. Luke walked in, squatted beside the big four-poster bed to peer underneath – just to make sure – and then checked out the rest of the room. Waste of time, really. Nothing to see in here. He turned around and shrugged.
‘Pretty boring,’ he said.
‘Someone left the lamp on,’ said Zac, pointing with his chin to the desk.
‘People with houses like this don’t worry about electricity.’
‘Yeah, well, I still think I heard someone in here,’ said Zac. ‘And I still have a really bad feeling. I just think now’s the time to get out of this house.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Luke.
He walked up to the window and cracked the blind a fraction. The lamp-lit street beyond the tropical garden was slick with rain. Out there waited the real world, the wealthy and the wannabes of Elizabeth Bay. And around the corner was Kings Cross, where the dark and damaged of Sydney did business.
Suddenly, he wondered what he’d been doing in this house for so long. It was time to move. Something big was definitely going on, and playing PSII was not going to help him learn what that was.
Zac froze on his way to the door and Luke heard it a split-second later. He dropped and rolled, but even though Zac had been further away, he was still first under the bed.
They both locked eyes on the source of the sound. The wardrobe? They waited. Nothing.
Luke had half made up his mind to crawl out from under the bed when one of the cupboard doors squeaked open. He scuttled backwards silently, grateful that the desk lamp wasn’t powerful enough to banish the shadows hiding them.
The door opened further. Who hides in their own cupboard? he wondered. This oughta be interesting.
Although he was completely focused on the wardrobe, he barely noticed the barefoot kid in the striped T-shirt who stepped out of it.
Because there was someone else in there behind him. He could sense her. And he was already halfway out from under the bed when she spoke.
‘Luke?’ she said, stepping out of the wardrobe.
‘Samantha?’ he said.
He stood up, ready to meet his sister.
Luke wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he met his twin sister. He hadn’t really had time to think a lot about it. Two days ago, he didn’t even know that this girl – with her arms locked around his neck in a death grip – existed.
But now that she was here, he realised that somehow, somewhere, he’d always known.
And everything felt wrong. Not wrong, exactly – more like right. Everything felt right. But not right, exactly. More like something he had never felt before. As Samantha clung to him, sobbing, Luke felt his heart pulsing in synch with hers, he felt each beat becoming more noticeable, more painful, more loud. He hugged her back. This stranger. The only family he’d ever known.
A sob rose in his throat. That hadn’t happened since he was four and foster mummy two had drunkenly pushed him into a kerosene heater and his pyjamas bottoms had melted into his thighs. The memory flared a moment of panic and he dropped his arms and pulled away.
When they broke connection, the drumming in his chest stopped mid-beat; his heart instantly became cold and quiet again. The tears in his throat evaporated and his brain clicked in, razor-sharp, as the rest of his body became comfortably numb.
What the hell was that? he wondered.
Samantha teetered there without him, her eyes bereft.
‘What happened to you?’ she said, tears streaming.
How do I answer that? he thought. He didn’t try.
For the first time, Luke noticed that Zac wasn’t behind him, crawling out from under the bed. He was standing at the open doorway of the wardrobe. Luke wasn’t surprised. It was difficult to be shocked by anything Zac did any more. Besides, there was also the fact that his twin sister had just stepped out of a cupboard. He’d never done surprise very well, anyway.