Tre Lloyd Adventures Ch. 07

Keio spoke up. "Continue your story about how you became the Blue Dragon... Sister." I caught the look of anger on Akiro's face as Keio said that and had to stifle a groan. I knew Keio's bond with his twin was stronger than Akiro's, but I didn't know if it would cause a rift between my two staunchest supporters.

Kimiko smiled hearing her twin's words. "Freyja began to call on me whenever she had a mage that she needed dealt with quietly. I would watch the mage for a while, same as I have been watching Tre, and then I would 'arrange' to happen across them somewhere. We would go somewhere private and I would do whatever my orders were. Sometimes I was told to just eliminate the mage and I would kill him. Other times I would be told to just make them disappear, death unnecessary. In those cases I would make a deal with the nearest Fae court and sell them to some horny Fae or Elvish court Lady for a sex slave."

She sighed deeply. "I hate what I have done. But I don't regret what it has given me. The trust Freyja has for me now has allowed me to become strong enough to break her hold on me and it has given me my son back, an ally against Freyja. And now we are back with our family." She looked at Akiro, then at me. "Even if most of our family does not acknowledge us anymore."

Akiro returned her look flatly. "My kid sister died of a vampire attack. You might look and talk and sound like she did nearly twenty years ago, but that is the very point. She looked like that twenty years ago! You are not her." He broke off as Keio leaned up and spoke quietly and hurriedly to him in Japanese. Akiro listened to him but from the set of his jaw I could tell that Keio was not going to make much headway. After a few minutes Akiro gave a short jerk of his head and Keio fell silent.

Kimiko sighed. "I didn't have a choice in what happened to me, Akiro. You can hold it against me if you want. But that will not change the fact that I am not responsible for what I was made into. Yes I became the Blue Dragon willingly. But as for being a vampire, I was not willing to lose my humanity. Focus your anger on the one that deserves it. Focus it on Freyja because it is wasted on me... brother." Her anger became clear as her words had grown steadily louder until the last word was almost snarled.

Akiro began to speak but stopped, his dark eyes flashing with anger. He turned and walked into the triclinium and grabbed a cup and drained it at a gulp. He refilled it and drank more slowly before setting it down, walking back out. Neither Keio's nor Kimiko's eyes left their brother during this unusual show of anger from their normally calm sibling.

I glanced at Robert once again and saw that his eyes were also following his uncle. He turned back to me and nodded slowly. I looked at Kimiko again "You do realize that by now Freyja has probably heard that you two are here. What are you going to do now? You can't go back to her mansion."

She nodded, turning to look at me. "I know. I am prepared to deal with that. I have a few apartments scattered around that she doesn't know about. They all have one room that is set up to be lightproof, so I can spend the day there. I have a talisman that I made that will render me 'invisible' to Freyja, both her magic and the link that she has with me." She brushed her hair back from her face and once again tucked it behind her ear. "As soon as I stepped inside of your wards I put up my mental shields to hide me fully. I can hide from her."

Heidi spoke up. "But you said that she can destroy your shields and reassert control over you. What's going to stop her from doing that as soon as you leave the wards?"

I looked from Heidi to Kimiko, answering as the realization hit. "If you are hidden by that charm and she can't find you, then she cannot take control of you again."

Kimiko nodded, smiling. "Yes, Tre. At least that is the idea."

I looked at Robert. "You are going to be staying with your mother?" At his silent nod I continued. "Then you will have to be ready. When her favorite assassin and pupil disappear, she will not be happy."

Robert smiled a humorless smile. "I am prepared, Tre. I am also not alone in my hatred of Freyja and her kind for what they made me. Others of the dhampir are unhappy at having been turned into vampire freaks and taken away from our parents. Those of us who are not happy have banded together in secret. I told them that I was leaving tonight and they all made their excuses to go out. There are about another ten or fifteen, depending on how many got out, of us scattered throughout Memphis."

"Ten or fifteen? All discontent with Freyja's plan for you." I laughed quietly. Apparently Robert didn't see the humor because he merely scowled.

"Yes, ten or fifteen of us that are not happy with being turned into vampires. Every one of them lost their mother unlike I did. Every one of them has been alone in this world since they were born. We got together out of our mutual hatred for Freyja. We will fight her when we can, but we don't have the strength right now."

Robert paused as Kimiko looked at him, then looked back at me and continued. "From an early age I was taught magic. As were all of those with me. We were also taught to fight. Each of us had weapons chosen for us and we were trained through hypnosis to use them. What once took years can now be done in weeks or months." He held up his sword. "I was trained as a samurai. Freyja gathered all of the ancient texts on the samurai and their way of fighting and had them hypnotized into me. I was taught 'The Book of Five Rings', 'Hagakure' and 'Bushido Shoshinshu' among many others to teach me both the physical aspects of the samurai and the mental aspects."

He smiled as he saw the surprise on Akiro and Keio's faces. "Yes, uncles. I was taught much the same as you were by grandfather. Mother showed me her copies of grandfather's books."

Kimiko smiled at our son. "Yes, and he devoured each word, each picture and wanted more. Soon he surpassed even the kendo sensei brought in to teach him to use a sword. It was then that I went back to Japan and got the sword that father had made for his first grandson."

Akiro looked shocked. "That was you? We always wondered how someone got in and knew exactly where that sword was. Father never made another sword after that one." He looked at Robert. "You had better understand the gift you have and you better take care of it."

Robert shook off his uncle's patronizing tone and continued. "As I was saying, I was taught the ways of the samurai, and also how to fight with magic. Mother taught me how to combine the two using the powers locked away in the blade I carry. Freyja was curious about it, but unless the blade is bared and in the hands of a Tanaka, its magic is dormant, so she allowed me to have it."

His dark eyes grew hard as he spoke. "Like mother, my friends and I were used as... shock troops I guess you would call us. Vampires who did not fear the daylight. We were used against vampires who intruded too strongly on Freyja's domain. We would find where they stayed and enter their hiding places mostly at night, but also during the day, whichever Freyja ordered, and kill them.

"We also got the 'privilege'," His voice dripped with scorn, "of escorting Freyja or her lackeys to other cities as bodyguards. We didn't have to sleep in the daytime, so we were the perfect protectors. We were paid well and we lived well. Then mother finally got to talk to me and that all changed. We were unhappy and we were going to do things differently. We began plotting to do just what we have done. And that is break away from Freyja and make up for what we have done."

I chuckled as I heard Bobby grumbling behind me about going back to eat and I gestured. "Will you join us in the triclinium? Chilo has prepared dinner for us. I am sure there will be enough for the two of you."

Kimiko nodded and smiled "Thank you for the offer. I will join you, but I will not eat. Robert may be hungry though." Robert didn't answer, just nodded and stood beside his mother waiting.

We all turned and made our way through the atrium into the triclinium and I took my spot laying on my side on the couch nearest the back wall opposite where Kimiko and Robert pulled up chairs. I made myself a plate and looked at Kimiko. "You say you have a charm to hide you, but what about Robert? Surely by now Freyja has enough material links to find and/or hit him with some bit of nastiness. How is he protected?"

"I took care of that myself, Tre." Robert said. "I used a... reverse sending to destroy any material links to me or any of my Sun Chasers." At my curious look he smiled and explained. "That is what one of the other dhampir called us one day. The name stuck so now that is how we refer to ourselves. It made sense seeing as the dhampir that serve Freyja willingly call themselves 'The Eclipses'. But I gathered skin and blood from all of my friends and myself and performed the ritual, with mother's help and that of some of the other Sun Chasers. All of the material links Freyja had gathered to us are destroyed."

"How do you know?" Tomas asked. "She could have spread them out anywhere and protected them with God knows what wards and spells."

"She did." Robert smiled. "But I guided the ritual on its way and helped it get past the wards. There were four separate caches and all four were destroyed in a large burst of acid and then a blast of flame. Another ritual search done after found no traces of any more."

"Not to mention Robert has the power of three mages in his body." Kimiko said, taking the cup she had earlier and pouring it with some more wine. "His strength was what gave me the power to do what I did the night I was taken. He had then the combined powers of you and me, Tre. And then Freyja added to that with her blood, making him even stronger. And he has grown even stronger over the years and even more skilled under both hers and my tutelage. He can hide himself from pretty much anyone."

Robert smiled and pulled a small amulet from under his shirt, showing it for a moment before tucking it back away. "This protects me from most magical scrying attempts. So far the only ones that have succeeded have been the ones that had," he paused, chuckling. "You guessed it, a material focus."

I chuckled. "Ok, so you're protected as well." I grinned and looked around the room. "That focus looked an awful lot like what the majority of us wear in some form or another."

Robert nodded. "That is no surprise. Mother taught me how to make it from her time studying under the Shinto teachers, which I believe, since you studied under them some yourself from what mother told me, would make sense."

I smiled and nodded. "Yes. I did learn that particular talisman of protection from the Shinto teachers. Ours have a slight difference though." He tilted his head, a curious look on his face and I continued. "Yours, from the look of it, is designed to deflect the scrying attempt. Ours are designed to return it right back at the scryer. That means basically that whoever is scrying only finds themselves with their attempts."

Kimiko laughed. "So that is why so many of Freyja's best mages couldn't find you. It's why I could never find you magically. They always just said the spell failed. It cost several of them their heads." She smiled and brought one foot up into the chair with her. "I think what spared more of them was that Freyja tried to find you herself and failed. I know she was in a very bad mood one night after trying some ritual or another and rumors went around about it having something to do with trying to find you and failing."

I chuckled. "Yes, I did feel a strong push against my wards one night at home. I just added a little power to them and was able to beat back the spell after a little while. I wondered who it was that was giving my wards such a pounding. It took me two days to get them strengthened against more probes."

From there the conversation turned to trivial matters until Robert said something quietly to his mother. She nodded and said "Tell him, Robert."

Robert nodded and looked over at me. "Freyja knows that all of you are here. I heard some of the Eclipses talking about it. Freyja is planning to send them sometime soon to attack this place."

I sat up, looking from him to Kimiko. "And you're just now telling me this? By Hecate they could be on their way here."

Robert shook his head. "No. They would not be on their way here. Not yet anyway. Freyja is bringing in some outside help for the attack. Ghouls from some Houngan in New Orleans. They will be here sometime at the end of this week. Apparently the Houngan has to make them and then transport them to Memphis. Freyja is using this week to prepare her lackeys to attack."

"How many are coming?" Akiro asked. I looked over at him and could see his mind working already.

"I don't know." Robert said. "I figure at least ten of the Eclipses, at least that many vampires, maybe fifteen or twenty, and the ghouls. I didn't get a number on the ghouls before I was spotted and they got quiet."

"Ghouls? I've never heard of those in real life. What are they?" Jonathon asked.

The wards chimed as a disembodied voice from right beside me said "They are flesh eating zombies." I smiled as Arianna appeared in the triclinium beside me.

"Hello Arianna." I said, quickly followed by the rest of the group. I gestured to Kimiko and Robert. "Arianna let me introduce..."

She cut me off with a smile. "Kimiko Tanaka, your long dead fiancée, now a vampire and her son, the dhampir Robert. Or should I say both of yours son?" She looked at me and I noticed that her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "I am rather surprised that you would have a vampire in this house considering you have been killing them for the longest time."

I rolled my eyes and sighed, looking at her. "Arianna, they were about to have to fight when they got here. But we have been talking, as you have probably noticed. And now Robert has told us about an attack that is being planned against us here."

That got her attention in a big way. "An attack against the Villa? By who? Ghouls? Is that why Jonathon was asking about them?"

I held up a hand in a 'slow down' gesture. "Yes, an attack against the Villa. It is planned by Freyja and is supposed to be done by some of her dhampir and some vampires and an unknown number of ghouls from some Houngan in New Orleans."

She frowned, her green eyes flashing with anger. "We will see about that. I bet I know who that Houngan is and when the others find out that he is there will be a world of trouble for him. TWO worlds of trouble if I know some of those other Houngans." She looked from Robert and Kimiko to me. "You all had better be careful. That man is one of the best at producing ghouls, and they are very magic resistant. It will probably come down to hand to hand if they are involved in the attack."

"We will be careful, Arianna." I said with a grin. "We have enough physical weapons here to turn the tide against ghouls. My sword, Akiro and Keio's swords, Jonathon and Dave's blades. Jon, Tomas and Bobby's guns. We are good to go. Don't worry about us."

She actually snorted when she heard me. "I believe that you are ready to fight. But I don't know if you're ready for these ghouls. They aren't the shambling zombies. They are almost as fast as vampires and even hungrier. But they don't drink blood; they tear chunks off of your body and eat them while you watch."

I nodded patiently. "And we are all ready for them Arianna. Don't worry. As I said, we will be fine."

She stood up and looked back at Kimiko and Robert for a long moment before looking back at me. "I am going to go back to New Orleans and have a talk with the Houngans. See if I can't arrange some difficulties for him while he is trying to work." She stood up and began to go intangible. I heard her voice in my mind as she vanished from sight. "We will talk about this later, Tre. Count on it." The wards chimed softly as she once again disappeared heading for New Orleans.

Kimiko smiled. "She really doesn't like vampires does she?"

I shook my head, looking from where Arianna had disappeared from over to Kimiko. "No, she doesn't. She has come from New Orleans up here too many times to patch me together after I was attacked by them to like them. She has fought them in her home town defending what was hers. She has also fought beside me scores of times against them. She has as much reason as I do to dislike and distrust vampires."

Looking back at Robert I spoke quietly. "So we have about a week to prepare for the attack. Good, that will give me plenty of time to modify the wards here and get everyone ready."

Robert nodded. "Yes, I think so. I may be wrong about the timeline by a day or two, but I do believe that is what I heard."

Dreux spoke up, his New Orleans accent clear. "That sounds about right. At least for the delivery of the ghouls. They are damn hard to produce considering you need fresh or reasonably fresh corpses to make them." At Kimiko's look he grinned sheepishly. "I live in New Orleans. I know a few of the local Houngans. They have told me the 'ingredients' needed for various things like ghouls, zombies and the like."

She smiled at him and Akiro spoke. "We have a week almost to prepare. We can do it. That will be no problem. The wards would take a day or two; the other defenses would take about the same length of time."

I noticed that he was careful not to speak of exact defenses, not quite trusting Kimiko and Robert yet. I looked at them. "You are more than welcome to stay here for a while. I can have Chilo set up one of the rooms on the inner side to be light proof."

Kimiko smiled and nodded. "Very well. I think we will. If for no other reason than to be a show of faith that our information is accurate." She looked at me, dark eyes sparkling. "We can also help with the defense of the Villa. If you want us to that is."

After that the talk turned to other matters, with most of the Sun Swords eating as they talked. My mind was working to plot the defenses of the Villa and the changes I would have to make to the magical defenses to ensure they were prepared. The physical defenses I would leave to the ones who know more about them than I do.