Chapter 15

The morning after his meeting with Katzumi from Japanese special forces and Mr. Armstrong from Aegis Defense Services, he called Armstrong and asked him to have wireless cameras and mics installed in the strategic places of the properties of his father, and two sisters, and his compound by the following day if possible. Armstrong said it could be done and would be completed by six p.m. the following day. Kai simply had this gnawing feeling that something wasn’t quite right, and he wanted to make sure his own was monitored. Next, he called his father and told him to get some armed bodyguards to patrol the family’s residences ASAP. He asked Armstrong, “Can these devices be monitored by a central monitoring site?

“Of course! They will report any suspicious activity immediately to a project supervisor who will coordinate the appropriate response, if any, as needed.”

“Fine, that’s what I wanted to hear.”

Miyuki said that she was feeling under the weather. And strangely, her hair was starting to come out in an abnormal amount when she brushed it. She also started experiencing a lot of joint pain she never had before. Kai chalked it up to the hormonal changes pregnant women go through in the first trimester. He will call Dr. Masato anyway. Kai was thinking, This is not turning out to be a good start to the week!

Next, all this thinking of the family made him want to talk to his mother. When he called, she said, “Hi, Son, I will ovulate tomorrow.”

Kai replied, “Pack your things, Mom. You’re coming to me and you’re never going back to Father. I’m keeping you and claiming you as my own. My father knows and has agreed.”

“May I come tomorrow? I’ve waited for this for 200 hundred years. Please?”

“Can you be completely packed by tomorrow? I really don’t want you going back and forth. Once you’re here, you’re not to return to his house.”

“Whatever I can’t pack, I’ll leave or have it sent. I have several servants who will do that for me.”

“Okay, that’s fine with me. Do you need me to pick you up or will a driver bring you?”

“If he agreed to let me go, he’ll provide a driver for me to come to you. After all, you are the Supreme Commander and Elder.”

“You’ve got a point.”

“He has a new slave he’s been spending a lot of his time and energy on, so he’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

“Alright. Call me if you have a problem and need me to pick you up.”

“I love you, Master.”

“And I love you too, Aiya. See you tomorrow.”

The next evening at 11:20, Miki’s water broke, and she went into labor and delivered her twin girls at Tokyo University Hospital after five hours of labor. The babies were 5 pounds, 6 ounces and 5 pounds and 8 ounces respectively. Surprisingly, Miki had a rather quick and easy delivery considering her age and this being her first delivery. She was in labor for four and a half hours with Aimi, the firstborn, and Aoi, the second twin, came twenty-two minutes later. Miki was placed in a separate VIP suite with the twins in bassinets in the room with her. Kai had surgeries all week. After Miki’s delivery, he slept in his office to be ready for his first surgery at six that morning. He told the girls he would be gone from home most of the day and early evening. Kai opted to stay at the hospital to monitor Miki and for his early morning surgery.

The assassins struck in the early morning hours before dawn. There was a concerted simultaneous ninja-like stealth attack on Kai’s family’s residences. Megumi, her daughter and neko mate were all killed in their beds. Kioko’s coven house was raided, and everyone was silently murdered in their sleep.

Keiko awoke at 5 am because of period cramps. She got up, went to the kitchen to get something to drink and a snack and by chance saw something suspicious on one of the camera monitors and slipped outside to investigate. It was still dark out. She saw two females with auto-pistols with suppressors drawn looking for a way to get onto the compound that wasn’t monitored by cameras. When they split up, Keiko struck. Using hypersonic speed, she silently leapt upon the first assassin, biting the woman’s throat, and ripped it out with her fangs without any noise or detection. She remembered which way the other woman went and being tiny, she climbed a large bush up onto the stone wall at the back of the compound and walked on top of it waiting for the shrubbery below to open a little to give her a clear line of attack on the second assassin. When she had her chance, she leapt from the wall and with her razor-sharp teeth and fangs, bit off the gun hand of the assailant and slashed the woman’s throat and internal carotid [juggler] artery with her claws With blood dripping from her fangs, mouth and claws, Keiko stood over the woman as she lay out on the ground having involuntary convulsions as she bled out.

It was 5: 27am when Keiko returned to the house completely covered in blood and called Kai. Kai immediately called his father and was told that his bodyguards had killed two assassins and captured one alive, but seriously injured. Kenji also lost two men. Kai in turn called Armstrong who flooded all the residences with special ops teams at each location.

Kai cancelled his operation for that day, passed his next two off to other surgeons and postponed the last two. It was 7:47 am when he received the status report from Armstrong. Kai was informed that his two sisters, Megumi and Kioko, were both dead along with everyone in both residences with them including Megumi’s nine-month-old daughter. When the nurse made her 6am rounds in the hospital, Miki and both twins had somehow also been assassinated. Every corpse had been turned into burnt cinders. The shell casings collected at Megumi’s residence, the only site where casings were found, were 9mm cartridges. All the corpses’ identical condition proved that Kahn ultraviolet ammunition was used. This was confirmed when the weapons that were recovered from Keiko’s two kills were Sig Sauer P226R’s with MDDX suppressors.

Tiny little tomboy Keiko had saved Kai’s entire coven, and her sisters from certain annihilation. She was promptly named Kai’s under Elder and took Miki’s position in the coven.

Armstrong’s people hurriedly got into action. From the collected handguns, it was very clear that the assassins were paramilitary mercenaries that used the preferred weapons that many special forces, including Navy Seals used. The four dead and one live assassins were Chinese. So, it appeared that whoever was behind this assassination plot had hired a Chinese PMC [Private Military Corporation] to plan and execute the assassination plot. They used western weapon technology to disguise the fact that Chinese were behind the operation. They didn’t plan on losing any of their team members, especially to a tiny androgynous, eighty-five pound fourteen-year-old girl.

While Armstrong’s people worked feverishly to find out more details, they now concentrated on healing the one lone live prisoner they had enough to use some “creative” interrogation techniques to extract what information they needed.

Kai wanted vengeance: old style, Shogun vengeance. The kind of vengeance where a man’s enemies’ heads were nailed to his house. He and his family. Their bodies impaled on stakes and displayed for the world to see.

Selene was due to deliver just about any minute. So, he called a Vampire colleague in New York because at the moment, he couldn’t trust the coven heads in Japan. He asked him if he had an OB-GYN in any of the New York Covens. His friend replied, “Yes, We have Dr. Damien Kowalski at New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell. Why?”

“I need his number.”

Kai called and filled him in on what had transpired that morning and that he wanted an OB-GYN to stay at his compound for a week or so and deliver Selene’s twins. He didn’t want to happen to her, and her twins as had happened to Miki and hers.

He called the doctor and Dr. Kowalski said that he could be on a flight in three days, that was the best he could do. He told Kai that he would text him his flight information when he had it. Kai assured him that a limo with armed guards would meet his flight.

He gave Armstrong an ultimatum. Either find the culprits or no matter where in the world he tried to hide, He would find him and shred his corpse into pieces. Kai told him that he was partially to blame for this fiasco. Every single one of his “elite” bodyguards were killed, down to the last man. Shaming him, he tersely growled, “It took an androgynous fourteen-year-old, eighty-five-pound, unarmed girl to save her family and loved ones.”

Armstrong contacted his friend, Jacob Feldman, with the United States National Security Administration [NSA]. They had a close personal working relationship and had worked on several operations in the past concerning Chinese operatives and PMC’s. He explained the situation in Tokyo. At the moment, the police, and Japanese special forces were all involved in investigating the case trying to ascertain the culprits. The problem was, they were causing more trouble than they were worth. They simply did not have the intelligence savvy or assets to do an adequate job. Second, the police just weren’t equipped to handle this type of armed enemy in a guerrilla warfare type scenario.

Feldman said he’d investigate it and see if anything had blipped on their radar screens and get back with him.

Now, despite wanting to kill someone at that very moment, Kai had to settle back and wait. Let Armstrong and his intelligence gurus do their thing. He now pondered what he needed to do next. Right now, in his possession and control was newly claimed slave Oki Watanabe, the daughter of Hirohito Watanabe, a board member along with Midori [nee Ichika] Ishikawa, daughter of another board member. He also had the two underage daughters of Haruki Takahashi because of their father’s pedophilic child abuse. What will he do if he needs to kill any one of their fathers and families? How will these girls look at him, the person who may potentially be the killer of their families? THAT realization made him stop and think. Unless they were involved in the murders in any way, why would he kill innocent women and children? Wouldn’t that make him as heinous a killer as those who killed his family and children? Or would they seek some sort of revenge at an unknown time in the future?

Kai called Armstrong again and asked him what the status was regarding bugging the residences of those board members in Tokyo. Namely, Matsumoto, Ishikawa, Watanabe, and Takahashi. He was told that they had all been bugged and were being monitored, but so far, there has been nothing to connect any of them to the assassination plot. Armstrong added that they are watching these men’s banking transactions also. Usually, if you follow the money, you find who you’re looking for. Kai told him that when all the other coven Elder’s residences had been bugged, for him to monitor their banking activity also.

After speaking to Armstrong, Kai decided to delay talking to the girls about the possibility that he might have to kill their fathers. Going through a mental checklist, Kai put Selene on total bedrest until Dr. Kowalski arrived. He called Dr. Masato about Miyuki’s sudden hair loss and excessive joint pain. Kobe said that it may be due to her pregnancy, but to keep an eye on it. If it gets any worse or doesn’t lessen, then bring her in.

Regarding funerals, death was something vampires lived with every day. They didn’t believe in funerals because technically, a vampire is already dead, and considered a person of the undead. Kai had the ashes of his three sisters, Megumi’s daughter and Miki’s twins collected in cremation urns and given to him.

Aiya called her son and told him that her ovulation day had passed the day before. She begged that she would still be allowed to come to him ― especially with the events of the past 24 hours, and he told her to make sure she was completely packed and to come to him at the soonest possible date. She said she was ready and desperately wanted to come to him now. Kai called his father and told him to bring his mother to him by armed escort, which he did.

Everyone thought Aiya was like a royal goddess. She was a very beautiful, graceful, and elegant woman and she carried herself and acted like someone of aristocratic bearing and temperament. She was immediately loved and accepted. The girls were in awe to watch a woman with Aiya’s bearing kneeing and kissing her son’s feet and those of tiny little Keiko. She swore absolute loyalty and obedience to Kai and his Elder even unto death. Kai could see the pain in her eyes as she grieved for all three of her daughters and granddaughters. It is one thing to lose a child to outside forces or circumstances, the end of existence for a vampire is accepted as a part of their life cycle. This is a reality that vampires deal with daily. But to be murdered by your own kind was a very difficult thing to accept and deal with.

And as a reminder that life goes on, Mizuki went into heat. He had lost Akira and Mika to slayers and the fact that Mizuki was now getting older, and at seven years old was approaching what would be considered a cat’s middle age. Keiko assisted him in filling the matronly neko with sperm twice daily for the next three days. She informed him that she could tell, after bearing six litters for him, that she was pregnant. All but one of her litters were supplying blood for food for the coven. Kai was hoping to get another Akira from her. Aiya, Midori and Oki’s temperaments and personalities all were females that responded best by gentle, tender lovemaking. Keiko was quite a bit more adventurous, but she still would rather be handled gently than with raw passion. He desperately wanted a consort who could display that raw, animal passion he had found in Akira. Even though she was a handful. When he took stock of his harem, he realized that temperament wise, they were all women who liked being handled gently with tenderness and affection. Even six years from now when he claimed Mei and little Suki, they were both girls who needed to be guided with a gentle hand.

Midori, Oki, and Keiko all wanted to become pregnant and give Kai a daughter to console him of his loss, but he told them that Aiya was going to bear him his next human progeny. He expressed his love and admiration that his two newest consorts would step up and offer to replenish the coven.

He took Neko #21, the female from his breeder pair, and offspring from Akira, along with Miyuki to see Dr. Masato, He had #21 impregnated with the two Ushimimi ova that would supply breast milk for his harem and Selene’s new infants. Kobe examined Mizuki, took a blood sample and said that he’d send the sample to the geneticist. He didn’t have an explanation for why she had such joint pain and hair loss.

Kai also gave Kobe control and oversight of the $2.7 million to create a complete genetic laboratory to move Erik Mueller, his Swiss geneticist, from Zurich to Tokyo.

The last thing on Kai’s immediate “to do” list was to talk to Kumi about the establishment of her new coven. He told her that Kioko’s old residence was ready to move into. The bodies had been removed and the entire mansion sanitized. The advantage of moving there was that the mansion was recently renovated five years prior and was remodeled for vampire use. It already has a complete and well-furnished dungeon playroom. He would give her Mizuki’s litter when she gave birth in about two months. All he was looking for out of that litter, hopefully, was just one female. As for human male slaves, she would need to choose and hunt for them herself. On THAT thought, he called Kobe up.

When Dr. Masato answered the phone, he quipped, “Didn’t I just hang up with you about an hour ago?”

Kai chuckled and answered, “Yeah, but I have a question I need answered. Didn’t you say that that the geneticist also created a clone of Akira?”

“Yes, I have ten of her clone ova in the cryogenic freezer as we speak.”

“Is that pre or post vampire Akira?”

“It’s pre-vampire. The only DNA sample I had was the one I took at her birth. I took a blood sample from her umbilical cord. That’s the sample the geneticist used to create the clone ova of her.”

“Thanks. That’s all I need to know. Oh, one last question. Can a human bear and deliver a neko ovum?”

“No.”

“I wish I’d have remembered this before you impregnated #21. We could have included Akira’s egg in the IVF batch. Okay. Thanks. Bye”

“Goodbye, Kai.”

Kai spoke to Mizuki at dinner that evening and said, “We have a clone egg of Akira. After you deliver this litter, we’ll impregnate you with Akira’s egg. You’ll have her all over again. Weird, huh? To deliver the same child twice.”