Excerpt: War and Pieces

War and Pieces
Or
The Case of the Haunted Cutlery

Chapter 1

My name is Autolycus Mills, and I am a slave. I’m not a slave of the clock, of the dollar, or even the all mighty government. No. I am a slave to the eternal taskmaster: The Grim Reaper.
I am thief by trade. Don’t worry, I’m a true professional. I steal the great gifts of the great creators. Leonardo, Michealangelo, and the other ninja turtles have all been targets of my skillful trade. Back in those days I had been one of the best in the business. Of course, I had been a heartless bastard. However, through some strange and wicked twists of fate I was forced to steal the Necronomicon ex Mortis, the Book of the Dead. From there the next logical step was a run in with the Reaper himself.
And the rest, as they say is history. Well, the last three months had been. But like I said, I am a slave, and my master apparently thought it was a good idea for me to take a short vacation to Japan.
Most people would consider a short vacation to Japan to be perhaps a week. Hell, I’m sure I know a few people who would consider a “short” vacation to Japan to be roughly five months to a year. I, unfortunately, was not going to be able to spend nearly as much time in the land of the rising sun. I now owed a debt to the immortal judge of the dead and damned. I had to go to Japan on “business.” Yep, good old business for the Reaper. Good old three hours worth of business.
Three thousand dollars, fifteen hours, and a loooooong afternoon of pleading with my probationary agent later I found myself sitting in the terminal of Tokyo City International Airport. How I longed to leave the confines of my prison. I wished only to roam the streets of Tokyo. How my heart cried to have my spirit trapped within these brick walls. My eyes begged to see the architecture. My lungs desired nothing more than to breathe in the air of a foreign land. I wept to see the sites. My ears implored me to run out into the streets just to hear the language. To hear the songs. To know what the world was like on the other side of the planet. Fine, enough poetics. What I really wanted was to get out of the damn airport. The same kinds of people running around in suits and ties (nevermind that I wore my own business suit) just like at home. I hate airports, and all around the world, they’re all the same.
Every airport seems to have the same colors, neutral grays. They all have the same carpet, trampled down mish mash. Each and every one has the same smell, that of stale cigarettes, over cooked fast food burgers, and recycled air. No matter what language you speak the voices over the intercom all sound the same, and no one you ever run into ever seems very happy to be at the airport. Only the children ever seem truly excited to do anything other than board a plane, and even then they tend to scream like banshees in the security line.
My brief stay would have most likely been much more amusing had I not been assigned my own personal customs agent. The man was shorter than me by nearly a foot, but I had the feeling he had me beat in weight class. I was just under two hundred pounds. Slender and tone from two years of nothing but cardio work and weight lifting (Jackson County Penitentiary, leading the way in the fight on obesity). This guy looked like Jackie Chan after joining the World Wrestling Federation. In some small way (forgive the pun) he reminded me of an Asian Zilla or Petrov or whoever he was. The idea gave me pause for just a moment. Whoever was in control of my life seemed to enjoy stacking the odds against me in the physicality department. How come I never get stuck with the skinny guy as my guard?
Gojira, as I have now aptly named him, was carefully watching every move I made. He had been warned about me by his superiors and was probably expecting me to dash into the crowd in some daring form of escape. He probably thought I was biding my time, awaiting the perfect opportunity to duck into the bathroom or get lost in the crowd.
In reality I was awaiting the arrival of my entire reason for being in Japan. Harvey, my little pet nick-name for the Reaper, had sent me to Japan to pick up a parcel and ensure its transport from Tokyo to Detroit. I know, I know, he’s the Grim Reaper, but apparently there are some very specific rules that dictate what he can and cannot interact with on our plane of existence. Luck me, I’m one of the things he gets to fuck with.
To most Detroit, Michigan would not appear to be the optimal destination for a parcel such as this. There isn’t really anything special about the city (other than the city itself). But it is my stomping ground. Apparently the Reaper feels that I can better protect some of the most dangerous artifacts in the known world if I keep every haunted book, singing sword, and evil underpants close at hand.
It wasn’t really a problem in the beginning. Hanging on to the Necronomicon was supposed to be a temporary thing. But in the past three months I had been slowly “acquiring” a number of other devices and items. I was going to need to come up with a much more permanent solution than a large trunk in the closet with a pad lock.
And so the time began to tick by. Gojira staring intently at me as I lackadaisically scrolled through musicians on my iPod. I stood up. Nearly got tackled by Gojira. Bought a Dr. Pepper from a nearby newsstand. The entire time with a man just under five feet tall hanging onto my coat tails. Literally.
I glanced at my watch. It was only 2:30 local Tokyo time. My flight wouldn’t leave for another hour. I sighed. I glanced at my watch again. The large hand clicked over another minute. It was now 2:31. Hooray. I was used to being patient. I was used to sitting in the dark, alone, waiting for the right moment. At those moments I had something to focus on. I had a point on which my mind could grasp. I was not used to waiting for a contact in a foreign airport terminal for three hours after a flight in the double digits.