They started telling Ed more stuff after they'd decided to kill him, who this Oroku
Saki had been, how they were planning on raising him again...he had wondered, briefly,
if it would make any difference if he pointed out the fact that Oroku Saki, as a child,
must have had a childhood, must have been something other than the ultimate
warrior they knew him as...if only for a few hours. He's decided he might as well
pour a cup of spring water into the Hudson and expect it the river to clear up.
"I don't know, kid," he says to the newborn. "I don't think you're gonna get much of a
better deal than I am, in the long run..."
They had taken Serena away immediately after the birth. Ed has decided it's better if he
doesn't think about her.
He's got to take the kid to the pediatrician's tomorrow. They've decided he only needs
one guard, it'll look less suspicious that way. It'll be the first time, probably the only
time, he'll ever see any of their faces.
They'll probably kill him as soon as they gets back, if they even wait that long.
Unless he can think of a way out...
"Thanks, April, I really appreciate this..."
"Hey, I've learned more about the United States Tax Code than I ever thought I'd
know..."
"I don't know what I woulda done if you guys hadn't helped me..."
"Gotten an accountant and probably saved a lot of money," Don says wryly.
"Oh yeah," Raph says, "I coulda just walked into the H & R Block office down the road,
right?"
A knock at the door in the pantry. "Who is it?"
"Leo."
"C'mon in, we left it open..."
"We finally found 'em," Leo says. "Where's Casey?"
"You know," Casey says to his wife, "this useta be a lot easier."
He's been down ever since they got back from...wherever it was they were. They'd offered to 'take care of them' for Casey, but he'd insisted on going along, to avenge his
sister. But they hadn't found the Saki clone, and for Casey the victory'd been hollow, at best.
April gets up, walks over to the kitchen table. Maybe if she changes the subject...
"Hey," she says. "I never showed you what Raph's gonna get me for the taxes."
Hasn't he done this somewhere before? Wakes up in the middle of the night with
something poking into his throat and something over his eyes...
"What-- what the hell's going on?"
"Ed," a voice from his nightmares says. "So nice to see you again."
Casey looks at the Bloomingdale's catalog again. He told me to pick whatever, something nice...
"What do you think," he mutters to the catalog, "I can't buy her shit myself?"
"You...sold him?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean?" The leader sounds confused. "Slavery?"
"To a baby broker, for chrissake," Ed says. "What did you think, they had some magic
aging machine, make him twenty in twenty minutes? They had a big memory tape that
they'd play to him and suddenly he'd remember everything? Christ, you've been reading
too many comic books--" He leans over, rubs his hand against his balding forehead.
"Look, will you just do whatever you're going to do to me and let me get some
sleep?"
He hears something pass between them. One of them-- this seems like a new voice,
someone he hasn't heard before-- says, "We don't have to kill him." A low baritone, a
smoker's voice, rougher than the others. Ed pictures him as tall, lanky, maybe blonde.
Maybe glasses.
"That's what we said last time," the angry one snarls, "and look where it got
us."
"I hate to admit it, but he's got a point."
The smoker says, "I'm the one begging for mercy?"
The gentler voice says, "Look, who knows that they cloned him? Him and us. If the Foot
finds out, that poor kid...I mean, I know he's supposed...he's just a baby..."
The angry one again: "So you wanna protect our worst enemy?"
"Not our worst enemy," the smoker says carefully. "Our worst enemy's clone. If Saki
had an identical twin, would you hunt him down and kill him?"
"I'd think about it," the voice growls in reply.
"Look, if you wanna kill a baby, you can do it on your own."
"I'm with Mike," the smoker says.
"So it's settled." The leader. "No one knows where he is but Ed, here, and Ed's not
saying, so unless his face gives him away, he's safe. And we're safe. As long as Ed keeps
his mouth shut..."
"We can take care of that," the angry one says.
He can almost hear the gesture in the darkness; a nod. He'd bet his life on it.
What little his life is worth at this point...
"You know I do have some pride..."
"Look, Casey, what's the big deal if I buy her something? April worked her ass off on
those taxes, no way I coulda done 'em without her..."
"You know, I work hard to get us stuff..."
"And I just call my friggin' broker and the money just piles up, huh, Casey?"
"Sure as hell seems to..."
"Casey, you know what I would give sometimes to have your life? You got the
wife, you got the kids, you got the grandmother-- Carlos has maybe two memories of his
mother and one of them's of her..." He shakes his head to dislodge the memory; "and it's
my fault, Casey. I would give you every friggin' cent if it could bring his mother
back. Not even for me, for him...oh, screw it...I gotta go back in, Leo's got a paper he's
gotta get finished..." He turns back toward the door.
Casey says softly, "I remember when I lost Gabe..."
Raph turns his head again and his eyes meet Casey's. "How can you be jealous of
me when you got more than I'll ever have?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing." Casey sighs. "We better get back in so your
brother can get back to his Ph.D..."
"Bachelor's."
"The Ph.D comes later, right?"
"That's what I keep tellin' him..."
"You can buy her the damn coat," Casey says.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah.
Don's finishing off last night's pizza when someone knocks at the door. "Yeah?"
"It's me." Anna's voice. Damn, he hasn't seen her in months. She hasn't been around
much, busy at college, but it had hurt Leo when she didn't come over the holiday
break...he gets up, opens the door. "How ya doin'?"
She looks bad, she's gained all kinds of weight, and there's something about her...almost
familiar...
"Don..."
"Come on in, you wanna get off your feet?" What the hell is it?
She shakes her head.
And it hits him. Shit.
"How far apart?"
"Fifteen minutes now, it's been slow, I think it's gonna be slow..."
"I can't take care of you, we gotta call--"
"Don. No. You can't."
"Anna," he says firmly, "I'm not risking your health or--"
"If they find out I've had a baby?"
She has a point. "But how...I mean, you can't just drag a baby around..."
She looks sheepish. "I...I wasn't..."
Oh, damn it all to hell. Don thinks, counts back, July...had to have been...the key
slides into the mental lock, all the words and looks and things he should have seen
rushing back into his mind...
"So," he says drily. "Should I call the lucky father, or do you want to?"
Raphael leans in closer to his son, his hands at the boy's temples. "There's a couple
of things I gotta ask you, okay?"
Carlos nods. Though he was a little disturbed that his afternoon coloring session had
been interrupted, he's adjusted to the situation quite well.
"The first thing is that nobody can know that Anna had a baby, okay? Except you and me
and your uncles and aunts. Unless you know that somebody knows, tell it to anyone,
okay?"
He nods again. Raph pulls his head closer, kisses his forehead, pulls him back and meets
his eyes.
"And the second thing is that I'm gonna need your help. A baby's a lot of work, and I'm
gonna need somebody I can count on to help me take care of her. Do you think you can
do that?"
"Yes," he says without hesitating.
Raphael puts his arms around him, pulls him into a bear hug. "Thank you..."
"Did the phone ring when we were in there?" Anna asks Don.
"Yeah. Mike. He thinks it's a girl."
"How--"
"How should I know how he knows this shit? How do I end up being the
family midwife? Why can't anybody in this family sleep with someone their own
age?"
Raphael starts laughing in spite of himself. "The Great Mysteries of life, huh, Don?"
"Oh, bite me."
"Remember when you had all the clever comebacks and I said the dumb stuff?"
"So what's changed?"
She's right, it's a long labor. Don talks her into a shower, Raph goes back up to get Carlos' coloring book and Mono, and after that Anna spends a lot of time pacing around
the apartment, talking to them about anything but the subject at hand...kindergarten's a big one, they talk about kindergarten a lot...
Byron comes in in triumph at four, waving a newly finished portrait of April, and stops
dead when he sees Anna walking around in his bathrobe.
"What..."
"I'm in labor," she says.
"Labor? Like having a baby labor?"
She nods gravely.
"How..." Byron stops, considers, starts again. "How did this happen?"
"Raph couldn't keep it in his shell, that's how," Don snaps.
Carlos asks, "What?"
"Nothing, honey," Anna says, as quickly as she can.
Byron opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. "And we found out about this..."
"Couple hours ago," Don says. "When I came back to get lunch."
"Ah," Byron says. "So you want me to run out and get diapers?"
"That'd be good," Anna says. "And formula...all that stuff..."
"Baby clothes," Don says.
"And toys," Carlos adds. "She'll need toys..."
Raph gets up, walks over to the counter, tosses him some keys. "Safe's not locked...take
whatcha think you'll need, okay?"
"Ooh," Byron says, "I could use some new cufflinks..."
Raph smiles. "Go for it..."
"Aw, it's no fun when you let me."
"I know."
Byron comes in, toting two bags full of baby stuff. "Delivery service...did I get here
in time?"
"Barely," Don says from the bathroom, washing his hands. "They're in the bedroom playin' the name game."
"Wait'll ya see all the cool stuff I got..."
"You did remember the formula?"
"Of course," Byron replies indigantly.
"Diapers?"
"Ye...eh...I'll be right back."
Carlos asks, "What about Lupe?"
"That's pretty, but I'd like her to have a Japanese name..."
"What's 'wolf' in Japanese...ookami, isn't it?" Raph asks her. "Would that be okay?"
She nods. "Ookami. I like that. Fierce."
"Whatcha think, Carlos? Same name, different language?"
Carlos nods.
"I shouldn't have started holding her," she says softly. "I'm not going to want to let her
go."
He squeezes her. "Oh, Anna, I'm so sorry..."
"It's all right," she says, like if she says it often enough she'll start believing it. "I'll be all
right."
Don sticks his head in the door. "You guys okay?"
"Halfway named," Anna tells him. "Ookami something."
"That's pretty," he says, walks in, straddles the chair.
"What about April?" Raph asks.
Don frowns. "What about her?"
"As a name, genius."
"Ookami April Hamoto," Anna says, ignoring them both. "Whatcha think, Carlos?"
"It's pretty," Carlos says.
"Since you've decided to take on the stud duties for this family--"
"You know, you're startin' to get on my nerves--"
"Done," she says, and turns her attention to the baby. "Sound good to you?"
Ookami doesn't say anything. The phone rings; Raph picks it up from the nightstand,
hands it to Don. "Hello?"
"Hey," Leo says. "Have you seen Raph? He disappeared hours ago..."
"Well," Casey says, leaning back on the fire escape. "Congrats. Took ya long
enough, but you're finally back at the top of Ms. O'Neill's shitlist."
"There's a surprise," Raph says sarcastically.
"Last time I saw her, she was muttering something about how the statutory rape laws should be changed..."
"And I thought the worst part was gonna be facing Leo."
"He's been okay?"
"Yeah," Raph says. "I mean, he wasn't exactly popping the champagne corks or anything,
but he took it pretty well."
"You two haven't spent much time with a little bitty one," he says.
Raph shakes his head.
"It's too bad...I mean, I know why she did it, but..."
"I know. It's gonna be hard on her. On both of 'em."
"On you, too," Casey says.
Raph shrugs his shoulders. "Yeah, but it's my fault. You know what Mike said..."
Casey shakes his head.
Raph smiles. "'I'm not gonna lie to you. I love you, but if that was my 18-year-
old daughter, I'd have your balls bronzed and hangin' on my wall by now.' And he's
right...'s prob'ly where they belong."
"Well, that was more or less what April said..."
"She gonna come down?"
"Yeah. She wanted to finish some stuff up at the apartment."
Byron asks her, "You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah. I think so. It's not like she isn't in good hands..." she nods at Carlos, currently
playing Power Rangers with the girls. "He even promised me he'd make sure she always
has plenty of toys."
"Toys are a big thing with Carlos."
She smiles. "Yeah."
"So what're you gonna do now?"
"Go back to school like nothing happened."
He sighs. "Don fixed it so..."
"He told me. I can always say I had a miscarriage if anyone figures it out...I gotta thank
him for that, remind me..."
Byron puts his arm around her, and she rests her head on his shoulder. "I wish..."
"Yeah. Me too."
Leo gets up and crosses over to the sink, rinses out the coffee cup. He stands there
for a moment, his arms resting on the sink.
Don and Mike exchange glances; Don nods, gets up, walks over to him.
"Leo, you okay?"
"He was mine, Don."
"What?"
"Isamu. Karai's son. He was...he is mine. My son..."
Don puts his arm around Leo's shoulders.
"I should have known...dammit, Don..."
"Are you sure?"
Leo nods. He's just staring ahead. "I knew the timing was right, but...I mean, I never
thought, never dreamed we could..."
"But even then...how can you be sure he's not..."
"Feel her back." He turns to Don. "Why the hell did I ever trust her?"
"'Cause you were in love with her."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," he says calmly, "that you were willing to believe certain things for the sake of
staying with her."
"It means I was an idiot," Leo says.
"Well..."
"So Isamu's back is like this, too?" Maureen asks.
"Like what?" Don asks.
"Like a shell," she says. "C'mere, feel it."
"Whaddya mean, like a shell?"
"Some of the rib bones are fused together," Leo says, "it was the exact same thing with Isamu...how the hell stupid was I?"
"Leo," Mike says as gently as possible, "you loved her..."
"We should have told you," Maureen says softly.
"Told me--"
"Both of you," Mike says, "all of you..."
Don, realizing today is the day he realizes things he should have realized long ago, asks,
"that tumor...it wasn't a tumor, was it?"
"Y'know what an etopic pregnancy is?"
"So she can't have any more children?"
"Not the old-fashioned way...guess it was a miracle she had Angel without any
problems...'course, artificial insemination'd probably work pretty well, but...that's not
really an option when you look like me..."
"Oh, Mike..."
"I'm lucky to have what I got, April, I don't...I don't even know if we woulda wanted
another one...I mean, if we didn't know, we never woulda missed anything..."
"But you do know."
"Yeah."
Casey scoops a girl up in each arm and heads out the door. "Night, everybody."
"Night, Casey."
April stays for a second longer. "I'm sorry, Raph, I just..."
"It's all right, April. It's all right."
"Have a good night, you guys."
"'Night." Raph closes the door, and finds himself facing Leo.
They stare at each other for a second, then both turn in opposite directions.
"I better get Carlos to bed," Raph says, as much to himself as to anyone else.
"You still haven't told me why."
Raph shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know, Leo...it was safe, I guess. I mean, we
both knew...we both knew it wasn't gonna last...but...it was good, you know? She
was...sweet. Really sweet..."
"So when did it end?"
"August, I guess, maybe September. Didn't last very long, really."
"Did you guys--"
"We didn't fight or anything. It just...it ended."
Leo stares out the window for a long time, smiles a little. "You know, she looks a lot like
her mother already."
"Good thing, or she'd a ended up lookin' like one of us knuckleheads." Raph chuckles,
looks into the empty beer bottle. "You tired?"
"I'm friggin' exhausted."
"Me too. Let's get some sleep." He gets up, tosses the bottle in the refund bin, turns back
to Leo. "When are you gonna go?"
"Go?"
"After Isamu."
"I haven't said--"
"Leo. Come on."
He sighs. "I think pretty soon. Just Don and I, though. You and Mike have the kids to
look after, and the fewer of us there are, the less attention we'll get. I don't want to do
anything to put him in danger..."
Raph puts his arm around his brother. "If there's anything--"
"I know," Leonardo says. "I appreciate that." For a second the pain crosses his face, and
it's like he's aged twenty years.
"You're not gonna get any sleep tonight, are you?"
Leo smiles a little. "Probably not."
"Bet there's a movie on," Raph says, sits down on the couch.
"You don't hafta--"
Raph shrughs his shoulders, grabs the remote. "You guys did it for me often enough."
He starts clicking through the channels. "Hey, World a Dolls."
Leo grins and sits beside him. "That one's kinda pretty."
"Nah...lookit those eyes, she looks like a space alien or som'thin'..."
And a full porcelain body, the woman onscreen coos, touches the doll's slender
arm with a lacquered fingernail. And our next doll-- you won't believe this value--
take a look at our Wolf Spirit.
"Hey," Leo says.
"Now she's nice..."
"Daily special," Leo teases.
"Instant coupon."
"And free shipping..."
And she even comes with her own beautiful plush wolf!
"That's it," Leo says. "I'm buyin' it if you won't."
"What, you think I'm gonna let you buy it?"
She wakes up crying at four a.m.-- she's a baby, it's what babies do-- and he gets up,
takes her out of the cradle, changes her, sits in the rocker in the living room with her,
taking care not to disturb Leo. He hadn't gotten to sleep that long ago.
He rocks her back and forth, holding her, feeling her little chest rise and fall with every
tiny breath.
He'd never wanted kids. It hadn't been anything he had the slightest interest in; he'd
picked on Casey mercilessly when he'd been up to his ass in baby food and dirty diapers,
wondered why anyone in their right mind would want one of their own, much less two.
Damn, she's beautiful.
He closes his eyes. He should be ashamed of himself, at least. He should be worried.
He should feel almost anything but the happiness he's feeling right now, the joy, but it's
too much for him.
"I'm so lucky, Lupe," he whispers to her.
This is wrong. This is a mess and you are holding Oroku Saki's granddaughter and
there is gonna be hell to pay.
He kisses her on the forehead.
There is gonna be a reckoning and it is going to hurt like hell.
"Lupe," he whispers. "My daughter..." He closes his eyes and lets the happiness wash
over him, like waves, letting it take him away, trying to ignore the undertow.
---End Chapter Eight--
End Book Two
