All’s Fair in Old Japan

By Katie Hanna

“Sorcha, wait!” Mr. Devereaux calls. The pompous old duck is always telling me to wait. “Feudal Japan isn’t safe for foreigners. Europeans could be killed on sight.”

“Did anyone warn my brother of that?” I yell over my shoulder.

I plunge through the dripping trees to the road beyond. Thick mud clings to my boots, as if trying to hold me back. But if I can make it to the nearest village, surely someone will know what happened to Jem. Someone will tell me where to find my missing brother.

Shrouded in white mist, the road feels suffocating, not open and free like our trails in the Australian outback. Ghostly shapes crowd my vision. I grip my shotgun tighter.

Suddenly, the air explodes with pounding hoofbeats and rough shouts in a language I don’t recognize.

A dark form bursts from the fog. Instinctively, I aim and fire. The shotgun belches smoke.

As I dive for the trees, I hear Miss O’Reilly shouting, “I told you it would be samurai, Cuthbert!” That woman never misses an opportunity to needle her partner.

“Blitzkrieg!” her ever-present parrot chimes in.

“Point taken!” Cuthbert Devereaux must have the patience of a saint to put up with those two.

While they waste their breath bantering, another dark figure lunges toward me. A faceless monster, his head is hidden by a bulky helmet. But his sword is terrifyingly real.

I fire again. The bullet plinks off his metal armor. I pivot, nearly losing my footing on the wet leaves. His blade whistles behind me.

“Don’t shoot!” Miss O’Reilly bellows. “Run!”

She doesn’t have to tell me. I’m already sprinting, my feet pelting the mud. Thorny branches scrape my arms.

My attacker’s footsteps pound the earth. He’s heavier than me, weighed down by his armor, but he’s coming—coming—coming—

A sharp command in that strange language startles me. My gaze strays toward the voice, away from my running feet.

Mistake.

Something knotty catches my boot, pitching me forward. I sail through the air until the ground slams into me. The world turns white with pain, then black as night.

My eyelids flutter open.

A throbbing headache greets me. I groan, pushing upright against the rough stone floor.

“You’re alive,” a dry voice observes. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

Squinting, I see Miss O’Reilly crouched before an iron grate in the stone wall, industriously poking it.

I rub my aching forehead. “This is… a prison cell?”

“Very perceptive, Sorcha.” She jabs the lock with an oversized hairpin. “Yes, a prison cell in a Japanese daimyo’s castle.”

“Blitzkrieg!” her parrot adds helpfully.

It dawns on me a member of our party is missing. “Where’s Mr. Devereaux?”

Miss O’Reilly’s lips tighten. I recall her closeness with the old fellow, though I’ll never understand how they managed to bond without murdering each other. “Male and female prisoners are held separately.”

“Those warriors wanted to kill us,” I point out. “Why are we in prison?”

“I heard one of the samurai give orders to take us alive.” She twists her pin in the lock. “Probably to torture us for information.”

Dread builds in my stomach, worsening the nausea from my head injury. There’s no way Jem survived this fearsome place.

“This is all your fault,” I say through gritted teeth. “If you hadn’t brought your time machine to Australia, my brother wouldn’t have gotten lost.”

“If your merry little gang hadn’t ambushed us, we never would have set foot in your blighted outlaw camp in the first place,” Miss O’Reilly counters. “Besides, I seem to recall your brother entered the time machine of his own free will… while it was guarded by your men.”

“You could have warned us!”

“I tried!” she hisses. “What did you expect me to do? Burst my bonds like Samson and rush to Jem’s rescue?”

With an effort, I suppress my temper and focus on our predicament. “Are there samurai nearby?”

“One at the end of the hall.” She fiddles with the hairpin. “We’ll need to distract him.”

The parrot chirps. An idea flits into my brain. Pursing my lips, I whistle. He cocks his head, then lands on my arm.

“Don’t be naughty, Cuthbert,” Miss O’Reilly says absently, her attention fixed on the lock. I spare a silent prayer that I’ll never be besotted enough with a man to name a bird after him.

The door unlatches. I scramble to my feet, fighting waves of dizziness, as Miss O’Reilly pushes it open.

Rusty hinges groan, shattering the silence.

Ominous footsteps sound in the corridor.

Miss O’Reilly bursts through the door, waving me to follow. Cursing under my breath, I stumble into the hallway. The samurai looms into view like a warship in full sail. He charges us, sword in hand.

It’s now or never. I fling out my arm, launching Cuthbert into the air.

The parrot dives for the samurai, screeching, “BLITZKRIEG!”

Thrown off guard, the man ducks. Miss O’Reilly barrels into him, knocking the warrior to the ground.

They tumble on the floor in a blur of tangled limbs. When they come to a halt, Miss O’Reilly sprawls underneath, the blade against her neck.

Panic closes my throat. My dizziness returns, my vision going fuzzy. I stagger forward, ready to throw my weakened body into the fray, but another figure drops from the ceiling.

He wears no armor and is clad instead in loose black trousers and a black mask. Catlike, he pounces on the samurai. A flash of silver, a spurt of blood, and the man slumps to the floor.

“Samurai and ninjas,” Miss O’Reilly grumbles, heaving herself upright. “Perfect.”

The masked figure whirls on me and seizes me in his wiry arms. I shriek. He squeezes tighter, burying his face in my shoulder.

Wait, why is he hugging me?

He raises his head and rips off his mask. I stare into a familiar face—pale skin, blue eyes, and unruly black hair.

“Sorcha,” he says hoarsely.

My voice breaks. “Jem?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Hanna is a writer in her spare time and a dreamer all the time. She has a Master’s degree in history from the University of Memphis, and puts it to work writing historical fiction and historical fantasy. Katie likes strong women in her adventure stories and Oreos in her ice cream. You can find her work in Havok’s Casting Call and Animal Kingdom anthologies, as well as The Depths We’ll Go To and The Heights We’ll Fly To.

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