Death Cultivator 2 by eden Hudson (books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📗

After I did, one of the geishas with a Metal affinity put a sort of wire mesh around my closed hands and cinched it tight, locking them together.

“This is so I don’t summon the scythe?” I guessed.

“The Shogun wants every precaution taken,” Biggerstaff said.

I nodded, thinking, And you don’t want your shoulder sliced in half again.

We headed out into the hall, and the geishas encircled us. Old-timey music played from can speakers up near the ceiling.

The geishas led us through a maze of winding hallways. It looked like we were inside of a castle; everything was squat and stony, but updated with modern light bulbs in the sconces instead of torches. The catfish’s wingtips clicked and my work boots scuffed on the flagstone, but the geishas’ movements were completely silent. None of them said a word.

Being escorted around in what were essentially handcuffs made me feel like a serial killer on the way to the electric chair. Although, I guess, I was technically a mass murderer since I’d done all my killing in one shot.

“Is this a murder trial?” I asked Biggerstaff.

“This is your chance to have everything, Mr. Hake.” He shrugged. “Or lose everything. That’s up to you. Tell the Shogun exactly what he wants to hear, and you could come out of this set for life.”

The geishas stopped at a set of double doors inlaid with silver and jade. Two of the women stepped forward and swung them open for us.

Inside was a huge rotunda, the walls covered in dark wood, paneled with gold, and hung with silk tapestries of eight-legged dragons fighting weird alien monsters. On the dais up front, two dudes sat at wooden desks messing with their HUDs. Behind them, the center of attention of the whole room, an enormous white tiger guy in a tailored suit sat on a carved throne. More geishas stood on either side of him, staring out at the rotunda with expressionless faces.

Below the dais, seating cushions were spread out in arcs. Only three were occupied.

As I passed, Kest raised her fingers without taking her hand off her thigh, sending me a little wave that looked out of place with the grim set of her mouth. Smudges of shadow pooled underneath her lacy eyes like she hadn’t slept in a while. She had a new, thicker prosthetic arm made of reddish metal and flashing with tiny lights.

From beside her, Rali shot me a worried look, then tried to cover that up with something he probably thought would be reassuring. Sometime in the past week, somebody had given him a new shirt. One without bloodstains and scythe-holes in it.

Warcry sat next to the twins with his arms locked over his chest and a scowl on his face. He didn’t look my way at all. Two legs were folded underneath him instead of just one, so Kest must’ve brought him that prosthetic she’d promised.

A feeling like none of this could possibly be real swept over me, and suddenly I felt like I was watching all of it happen from somewhere out past the day suns.

Had anybody showed up for my dad’s hearing? I had been in school the day of, and I didn’t know whether Gramps had gone. Had walking into the courtroom felt this surreal to Dad, like he was watching it unfold from outside with no control over what happened?

The geishas led Biggerstaff and me to the center of the room at the bottom step of the dais, then filtered off to the side and posted up along the curved walls.

The white tiger on the throne eyed me like he’d been expecting more. I remembered where I’d seen him before—the Wilderness Territorial. He was the Dragons’ Shogun.

“Buddy Biggerstaff,” one of the desk dudes read off his HUD. “Eight-Legged Dragon 6, Antimatter cultivator, Celestial affinity, recruiter of the Death cultivator, Grady Hake, Eight-Legged Dragon currently unranked.”

Biggerstaff bowed ninety degrees and shot me a glare that said I’d better do the same if I knew what was good for me. I bowed, too, my knotted side protesting as I did.

“Stand,” the tiger growled, shifting on his throne. “Biggerstaff, one of your recruits slaughtered mass numbers of probationary Dragons and staff on your watch, which should be punished with downranking. However, because of your swift and decisive coup over the Contrails’ most powerful Van Diemann members and the resulting scramble by many of our local rivals to negotiate treaties largely in our favor, I promote you to rank 5.”

Biggerstaff bowed again. “Thank you, Almighty Shogun Genkei.”

“Death cultivator.” Shogun Genkei’s golden cat-eyes locked on me. “Any good reason you murdered over a hundred Dragons?”

Hearing a ballpark figure was like getting sucker punched. A smug feeling radiated off Hungry Ghost’s prison.

I glared down at the woodgrain in the dais. “No.”

“You don’t act like the typical power-mad Death cultivator.”

“I’m not right now.”

“Because if there was a good reason for it,” he rumbled, “and you weren’t just murdering for the hell of it like a mindless feral, then I wouldn’t have to put you down like one.”

Biggerstaff cleared his throat. “If I may, Almighty Shogun. The members the Death cultivator killed were plotting treachery. There was a smaller skirmish in the locker rooms several days before, with the Jianjiao agent I informed you of. Mr. Hake killed him, then when he learned of the involvement of the larger group, he took immediate steps to protect the organization.”

My hands twisted in their mesh cage as Yoki’s jackal face flashed through my brain, along with the Rata twins, and even that shark lady. They’d just been trying to get a decent spot in this gang, doing what Biggerstaff and the Dragons told them to.

“Those guys weren’t traitors,” I snapped. “They actually cared about this crap.”

The Shogun roared, and overwhelming pressure slammed me facedown on the floor. My nose broke, gushing blood. The eight-legged dragon tattoo on my arm flared hotter as the script repaired the damage.

“I thought you were acting too sane for a Death cultivator,” the tiger