Fluffy's Futures: Cara Ch. 01

Fluffy's Futures: Cara/Tachikawa Ca

I knelt there, dressed in solid black with blue accents, blood pouring all around me, wondering why things always seemed to turn out like this.

Shoving a body off of me, I stood, pushing my silvery hair back into a pony tail. The room was quiet around me, dead quiet. I know, bad pun for one leaving behind multiple corpses. A look out the window showed it was snowing- good luck for the New Year. I heard the bells toll with my canine ears, ringing in the New Year- I'd barely made my dead line. But I'd made it, that's all that counted really.

Back to my apartment to email a report to Talon now, I mused. And get a shower, I added with a sage smile. A hot shower.

I turned to leave and saw him standing in the door way, staring at me in horror, gun clutched in his hand. And my world screamed to a halt in a heartbeat. My hand flew to my own gun, though I knew if he decided to shoot me it would be to late. Of course, it was too late anyway, now.

Something told me this job and my life were about to go south fast now and it was to late to do anything about it. Too late now for many so things.

4 Months Prior:

I'd been offered the job months before through the agency I worked for. Our public name, Fluffy's Futures, was as inane as the boss, Talon McLeod was serious. A store front that sold odd little bunny dolls and knick nacks hid the real operation. We were a mercenary group, killers for higher, assassins in the night for the highest bidder.

Former military, CIA, FBI, French Secret Service and more were on FF's pay rolls. Me, I'm a relatively straight forward case. Former cop turned bounty hunter turned mercenary. Started life as an orphan, never really close to anyone, least any humans, finished high school at 16, my Bachelor's Degree at 23 and the academy at 24. Was shot at, jaded and fed up with laws that don't work by the age of 26. Joined a group of bounty hunters by invitation of an old friend, followed him into the mercenary field out of boredom and a desire for something new. Watched him die rather horribly because of a job gone wrong. Joined FF shortly after that and have been with them ever since.

I'm a grand old 34 now, with many years ahead of me, long as I don't screw something up. I don't "feel" 34, its just a chronological number. Meele, my companion, tells me I'm still very young for a hanyu, the human equivalent of a teenager. I act that way too, most of the time. I could be serious, but for the most part, life's too short and too fun to be deadly serious all the time.

Oh, forgot to mention- the reason I'm an orphan. My mother was a Japanese dog demoness, one of the canine youkoi, my father a common human sorcerer who'd caught her in a spell. Through some not quite legal searching and investigating, I'd learned my mother was a youkoi noble forbidden from interacting intimately with the human world. I was a symbol of her breaking that law, so I was cast out to the humans so she wouldn't have to leave the youkoi clan she belonged to. Some mom, huh?

My father, well he hadn't known my mother was pregnant until I found him at the age of 25. Was remarried with kids ranging from 20 to 13 and wasn't too thrilled to see me. Turns out he'd given up magic when he married his new Christian zealot of a wife. His loss I suppose.

So I was alone, except for the occasional lover, the people I worked with and for at FF, and my life time companion, Meele. Meele's something special, though what I couldn't tell you. Something like a cross between one of the youkoi, a dragon and a shadow, though that doesn't do him justice. He pops in and out of this realm of existence, though is generally there when I need him. Or when he wants my attention. He found me as a small child and decided that he was going to watch me, help me, make me into a proper young half youkoi, hanyu to some, or something like that. He's more like a doting uncle then anything else. Okay, a blood thirsty, shape changing uncle, but he loves me which is more then I can say for anyone else from my mother's people.

He was with me the day Talon McLeod offered me the Tokyo job. Our jobs never had anything more then a case number made up of the year and the hunter's annual kill count with a city name, none of the "targets" were named in the titles. Was bad for business to call something the "Mirazoli hit" or something like that. So it was the city job and that was that. Talon's rules and ideas, not mine.

I sat in his plush, manly secret office, Meele standing behind me, trails of smoke coming off of him occasionally. Talon was one of the few humans Meele trusted with his true identity, so we got to see his natural form- a humanoid male with huge draconic wings, more like a Christian's devil then anything else. Though he wasn't a devil- completely different theology group, Meele was.

A folder sat on the oak desk before me, Talon drumming his fingers on it. His voice was cultured and refined as he spoke giving no hint of his origins or background. "This is a special job- they want someone who can get in and out without being noticed."

"Anyone can do that," I told Talon with a smirk.

Meele behind me added, "What's so special about that? You could do it. We were told you needed us specifically, Talon."

"The mark is a hanyu."

"Oh, that changes things," I said, startled for the first time in front of Talon. "So no glamour, but need to be able to take magic counter attacks."

"That's why I want you on this," Talon said with a nod. He was one of those odd non-descript people. About six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes, one of thousands of men in New York alone who looked like that. And just as forgettable as those unknown masses. "You're the only yukoi, okay, hanyu I have on staff. This is a 22 million job, 2 for us, 20 for you."

"Sounds fair enough," I said unfazed outwardly. Inside I was dancing around like a little kid. 20 mil to off some idiot hanyu?!? I could do that easily! 20 million dollars tax free is nothing to laugh at. Even with expenses taken out of it, still a lot left over. There would be enough for me to buy that lake I'd been eyeing. Yes, the entire lake and all the land around it for three miles in each direction. I like my privacy. "So where and who's the mark?"

"A Danny Tamagushi," Talon told me, pushing the folder closer to me. I picked it up and skim read it as he talked on. "Part of the Japanese Yokuza. They can't seem to get rid of him and he's next in line to be boss of the Kanto prefecture. Considering how long those things live, I don't blame the underlings for wanting to off him now before he's boss. Even the current boss agreed to this- it was his people that contacted me."

"Charming," I quipped. "Looks like I'm going to Japan for a few months, huh?"

"I want you to blend in with the local populace, look and act Japanese," he told me. "I've had Japanese documents made up for you."

He tossed me a leather carrying case that held a Japanese passport, credit cards, bank cards, driver's licenses, and other such things. I read the name in the pass port. "Cara Sarashimi, cute. Sounds like Irish sushi."

Meele chuckled. "You could not look truly Japanese without glamour and the mark would see through it."

"That's why you're only half Japanese. Easier to pass off that way- and you can pass for it easily."

He was right, sort of. Dark brown hair most of the time, crystal blue eyes, small wiry frame, small bust to match and standing at all of 5'5", passing for Japanese would only require a bit of make up and a switch in accents. I guess my mother probably looked Japanese though Meele wouldn't confirm it. He didn't like to talk about her for some reason.

I spoke fluent Japanese, thanks to one of my foster families as a kid. I'd been with them for three years before the state decided that I needed to be in a special school (read containment facility with a school inside) because of my heritage. They had meant my father being a sorcerer- magic wasn't kindly looked upon. My being a hanyu was something the state didn't know. I disappeared from the system the first chance I got, getting a new identity and working in a gun shop while going to school. I'd kept up with the Japanese, taking classes on the language and the country whenever I could. Japanese cultures was my minor in collage, my major being criminal justice. Lot of good that did me now, I mused before getting back to the topic at hand.

"So I go in, get a normal Japanese job, rent an apartment, that type of thing, scout around, do the hit and come back?"

"That's the gist of it," Talon said with a nod. "Do you require further information?"

"Is there a time limit?"

"Before the first of the New Year, and since its just now the beginning of September, I believe you have plenty of time."

"Thanks, Talon. I'll shoot you an email after the job's done." I stood, bowed and left, Meele at my heels, shifting to look like a normal human in a business suit, more ordinary then my black pants dripping in chains, studded necklace and magical bracelets, midriff baring black t-shirt and wild blue hair. I looked like almost every other young adult who wanted to be different. Sometimes its easier to hide in plain sight. I know Meele and I looked like father and daughter, since I could pass for 17 with ease and he looked about 40 or so. It was a lie- he was far older then that, by a few thousand years.

The bracelets were really an altered form of bracer that I wore around the clock to keep my appearance human. They stored the jakai, the demonic or yukoi energies I emitted as a hanyu. Because of this, other yukoi or hanyu couldn't tell what I was unless I wanted them to know. Saved me trouble, being able to hide and store my jakai energies. I could tap those energies later on, either turning full yukoi or for magical spell work. Most of the time they masqueraded as bracelets, but they were really bracers that covered my arms from elbow to wrist, lacing on the bottoms, harder then steel on top. The only "gift" I'd ever received from my mother's people, though I knew it was more to prevent me from exposing the presence of yukoi and hanyu beings in the world then for my own good health. Joys of being born to a female of a society that had once been great and wide spread and was now clustered and dying out more and more with each generation. Such was my lot though and I thought I dealt rather well it, all things considered. Just ate a bit more then a normal woman my size to make up for my body using energy to make jakai.

"Want to get some lunch before we head back to the hotel," I asked, my stomach rumbling. We'd flown in the day before from our current home in the middle of no-where, Florida. New York was always the same, busy and bustling, never really changing much. I disliked the city but could handle it. Most of my mother's realm couldn't handle being around so much steel and so many humans. I didn't like it but it wouldn't drive me mad or hamper my magic. Meele had taught me most of the magic I know, the rest I'd found on my own.

"How about Italian?" Meele asked, crossing a street with me.

"Bonitos?"

"Yum," Meele said with a sigh. "That man, oh he can cook. Never before have I tasted such fair. Not in the court of the light nor in the court of the dark. Divinity in food form."

"I'll take that for a yes," I said with a laugh.

"Yes," Meele said, glaring at a taxi driver who almost ran us over. The driver paled, something rare for a New Yorker.

"Lets go then," I said, leading the way.

It was a few days later, after some heavy research, that I sat on a plane flying from LAX into Tokyo's Narita Air port. The mark was living in a city called Tachikawa, a few hours from the capital by car or an hour and a half by train. We, Meele and I, planned to set up a base camp in a near by city, get me a job in Tachikawa itself at a place where the mark went frequently, learn his habits and decide a further course of action from there. Meele had decided to join me in this mission, though why he wouldn't say. He does things like that sometimes.

I hate trans Pacific flights- they take for bloody ever! Even with my lap top I was bored senseless. Meele had declined to accompany me on the plane, claiming he couldn't take so long in a flying tube. The wretch didn't need such things for transport, he could fly. Oh well, things I do for my job.

After an 11 hour flight filled with turbulence and screaming babies, I landed at Narita in the early afternoon, Japanese time. The day was clear and beautiful with only a light smog overlay. I'd later learn that Japan is always covered in smog except for the two days following a typhoon (hurricane)'s passing. Then it was clear and beautiful for a short time before going back to its smoggy norm.

A quick train ride from Narita to Tachikawa, taxi to a local hotel where I had reservations. Meele popped in to greet me for a little bit before popping out again to "visit an old friend."

I caught an early dinner and went to bed early. I was tired and already feeling a bit jet lagged. I slept like a rock and rose at 7am feeling very refreshed.

I slipped into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with random English on it, heeled boots, and a pair of sunglasses, then followed it by a quick breakfast of an energy bar and coke. My hair, back to its normal dark brown, went up in a pony tail to keep it out of my way. Touches of make up at my eyes and to pale my skin slightly and I was ready to go.

It was a bright pretty day, already warming up. I was grateful for the sunglasses very quickly. The closely packed Japanese buildings will reflect sunlight rather viciously to one accustomed to working nights.

First stop- apartment hunting. I spoke in fluent Japanese, my accent that of someone from a southern provincial area of Japan. I soon found a quaint apartment above a Chinese restaurant named Bamiyan's. It was small, only a single bedroom, living room and kitchen, single bathroom that had an oddly large tub. Oh well, it worked. I picked up the keys and headed up town to take a look at what I'd signed for. It was clean, neat and a bit musty. I flung open all the windows, welcoming in a light breeze.

After gathering my things from the hotel, I checked out, paid my bill and caught a taxi back to my apartment. Meele popped in me as I was setting up a circle of summoning to move my things from the Florida house to here. Or rather things for the bedroom, kitchen and living room. Everything was a space saving design, from the bed with built in dresser beneath it to the kitchen table that had storage for pots and pans beneath it.

Meele helped me finish the circle and cast the four separate spells. We managed to get everything set up and unpacked by the end of the evening and headed to the restaurant below me. The smells inside were wonderfully enticing and the food was even better. Even Meele was rather pleased, smiling from his Japanese man's face.

My cover was that of a woman and her uncle who'd moved here from the provinces to find her a city husband and a better life then rice farming. I allowed my eyes to grow wide at the city and its luxuries as we walked around after dinner through the main shopping district of Tachikawa. It was truly something different, their cities. Reminded me a bit of New York, a bit of Los Angeles and of something far older. Looking at the layout of their roads it was easy to see they'd been laid out for carriages and rickshaws, not cars in mind. Could also be why many of the American's I'd talked to about Japan said they hated driving here.

Meele and I turned back to our apartment, bags of food and sundries in hand a few hours later. I wanted to get an early start on the morrow to go pick up my motorcycle from the company I'd used to ship it here from Florida. I loved my trucks but for sheer maneuverability and subtly a motorcycle is the way to go. So a quick dinner and early to bed, snuggling happily into my newly set up waterbed, drifting off into a peaceful sleep.