Michaela really had to tell Matt about the smell she'd picked up in the last gallery they visited, but the case distracted him, and he had all he could following her. Then again, his words from earlier echoed through her head, sending a pleasant thrill down her spine. He would follow her swaying posterior through a construction site if she led him through it. If he thought he was working when she got this damn hotel room door unlocked, he was absolutely cracked.

The moment she stepped into their hotel room; she knew something was wrong. Matt followed her, his arms full of printouts and touristy knickknacks from the museum, his head full of information about the case. He could handle himself if given a few moments, and generally bad guys went for her first anyhow.

That was the case this time. An arm snaked out from around a corner, wrapping around her mouth and pulling her back into a body that smelled faintly of sweat and cologne. It went against the grain, but she knew information was easier to get if you let the bad guys monologue. She let herself be pulled along, let the thug press a knife up against her windpipe.

If he managed to cut her, deliberately or accidentally, she would make him regret it. Fixing that kind of damage without a scar took a lot of tedious work, and by nature she wasn't cut out to do tedious work. Adrenaline coursing through her system, each second ticking by like an eternity, she contented herself with thoughts of mayhem and retribution. As she did, her wings manifested to either side of her captor's head. That was never a good sign if she wanted to avoid violence.

"Don't move, or your whore pays for it."

The voice was harsh, accented, but not with the guttural softness of the local accent. She recognized it from the last stop on their trip. She wondered if Matt had picked up on it in his distracted state. When he looked up from the paper he’d reviewed, she realized he'd picked up on the ambush before she did. He had a hard glint in his eyes, and she realized with a smile that it was prompted by the word 'whore', not someone manhandling her.

While he straightened up to his full height, setting the papers down carefully on the table in the entryway of the hotel room as he did so, she took a moment to scan the rest of the room. There were four men that she could see, all of them in heavy, well-made trench coats that made her long for the one she'd packed away before they left on the trip. They also had ski masks on to protect their identity, but that would only work if they got out of the room under their own power. She didn't intend to let that happen. A quick flex of her wings told her there were two other souls behind her, shriveled little things that hid behind a man who would take a woman hostage.

Matt's head brushed the ceiling. He looked down at the gangster who had spoken and rumbled out a reply. "Tell me what you want."

"You will stop investigating this acquisition. You will have nothing further to do with the investigation you left behind in Japan. You will reroute your trip through India, where my employers have spared no expense in finding alternate accommodations for you and your woman."

"Why exactly am I going to do all that?"

The spokesthug turned in Michaela's direction. "Show him the price of disobedience."

The knife slid along her throat, cutting through the outer layer of skin as it did. Warm blood welled from the shallow cut, but the thug holding her wasn't done. One of the pair behind her grabbed her arm, pulling it out and splaying her fingers. Her captor slid his knife in between her ring finger and the pinkie, then paused for dramatic effect.

"Oh, screw this."

Michaela slipped her hand out of the oversized glove, stamped one spike heel straight through her captor's Italian leather loafer, and slammed the back of her head into his mouth. He staggered backward, stunned but by no means out of the fight. His partner in mutilation stood staring stupidly at the glove he clutched with both hands. Her palm rocketed into the side of his jaw, and he went down, unconscious before his spinning body hit the floor.

Dimly, out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that Matt had gone for the spokesthug, but that wasn't her fight right now. She had to make sure the three reaching inside their coats didn't manage to get their guns free, and the fact that her former captor managed to hold onto his knife with a punctured foot and broken teeth didn't make her sanguine about him, either.

Still, she had more surprises in store.

First, she leapt at the second cowardly thug who had hid behind her. He was halfway through drawing a gun, but that was halfway too slow. She wanted him down, not dead, so her shin impacted the side of his head. If she'd used her heel, as she was usually wont to do, she would have put a four-inch bloody spike through his skull, and that meant paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.

An inhumanly high scream sliced through the room, and Michaela spared a moment to look at Matt. She winced as she realized he was more upset about her being cut than she was. He’d used the spokesthug as an impromptu shield between himself and the other three, but that was incidental. She watched the other three thugs wince as another scream split the air; Matt took the thug's other elbow in one huge paw and, with a careless flex of his hand, popped the elbow backwards.

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One set of thugs would never get hotel-room close to a seven-foot-tall man again, that much was certain.

The guy with the knife chose that moment to spring at her. Still a little freaked by Matt's casual demolition of another human being, she comforted herself with the thought that it was a career risk for thugs. The knife slipped by her as she slid to one side, but somehow it managed to tangle in one of her wings. She shrieked in pain and mantled her wings, pulling the knife out of the thug's hands and twisting it into an art deco paperweight in the process.

He slid smoothly into a fighting stance, but Michaela was in no mood to play fair. She moved, teleporting behind her attacker, and before he could figure out where she'd gone, she hit him with rapid yet painstaking precision in the back of the skull and to either side of the base of his spine for good measure. He collapsed, nerveless, and Michaela turned to face the three gunmen.

Except they weren't. Gunmen, that was. Each of them drew a short, single edged, straight bladed sword from within their trench coats. They stood in passable fighting stances, each modified slightly to suit the individual. That bespoke enough experience to be dangerous, but Michaela had one last trick that they didn't know about.

Another shriek rang through the room. She frowned over at her husband and the blubbering spokesthug. One of the thug's legs hung loose inside his pants. The other kicked feebly. Ignoring the three swordsmen for the moment, Michaela looked askance at Matt.

"Really? Was that completely necessary?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Explain."

If he was upset by her one-word demand, Matt didn't show it. He'd gone all pedantic on her, and that meant he was really, royally pissed off. Since they were fighting normal, mundane humans, he was likely to do something he'd regret later if she didn't stop him. In the middle of a fight, the only way to do that was to talk him down. She stepped between her husband and the swordsmen while she listened to his soothing baritone, so at odds with the fury she knew lurked within.

"This incredibly poor excuse for a human being had the audacity to order you disfigured. I believe he needs a pointed lesson in tautology. To wit: in a fight between practitioners of equal skill, assuming equivalent fighting styles, strength and speed win the day."

One of the swordsmen twitched towards her. They were experienced, but her progenitor, from whom she inherited her skills wholesale, was the living incarnation of Kensei. She stopped his motion with a look that sent all three thugs stumbling back a pace.

"Okay, sweetheart. I think he's learned his lesson. Now, before we have to explain to the nice police officers why you can't seem to tell the difference between a thug and a whole plucked chicken ready for roasting, could you put him down? We'll need to ask someone some questions."

She didn't hear the sound of the man being set on the bed, but she didn't hear another shriek, either. Instead, her husband spoke in a purely speculative manner, ignoring the weeping man dangling from one of his hands.

"What about your three? You can't keep one conscious?"

"Well, they've got swords, and yours was the leader."

"Point taken."

At this point the three thugs had reached their fill line of verbal abuse. The one in the center stepped forward half a pace, his sword in a high guard.

"You will not leave this room alive! We will slay you, or die trying!"

Cloth rustled behind her, and the weeping changed to a whimper of pain. "They're probably right, love. Full body tattooing."

"Yakuza? I hate Yakuza."

Now she heard Matt lay the leader of the Yakuza on the bed. His voice tinged with confusion, he asked, "Why do you hate Yakuza? I thought you'd relish the chance to practice."

"Well, if you weren't around, I might like it, but you're here, so I don't."

"You will not ignore us!" The lead Yakuza lunged at her, his sword a streak of silver as he struck. Michaela moved, teleporting beside the swordsman, grabbing at his arm, and using his own momentum to send him back into his fellows.

"Why does that matter?"

"They're too good. I don't get to show off against them."

Matt's let loose a heartfelt sigh, and tension leaked out of her as she heard him settle into a chair. He'd let go of his desire to dismember the Yakuza with his bare hands, and now he was out of her way as well. She turned to face the three remaining Yakuza with a smile on her face.

"I'm sorry, boys, but I'm not gonna cross swords with you today. Wouldn't be fair."

"You dare! We will knock out your teeth, take your hands off at the wrist and sell you to a dockside pimp!"

Just at that moment a runnel of blood from her neck wound flowed into her cleavage. She swore under her breath, and one of the Yakuza took it as an opportunity to attack. Before he was halfway there, her spear was in her hand. The smell of smoking caramel filled the room as her spear's shining blade met the cheap steel of the ninjato, and molten metal splashed across the wall.

The thug flew backward across the room. Like many people, he'd misjudged the reach of a seven-foot tall, lanky man, and if Matt wasn't in a killing mood any longer, he certainly wasn't in a mood to be gentle. As she spun, she saw the thug impact the wall and collapse to the floor, motionless. The two remaining Yakuza stared at her spear blade; eyes unwavering. She smiled sweetly at them and, cursing the loss of her favorite blouse under her breath, stepped sideways out of time.

In the endless now between seconds, she knit fats and phosphates, keratin and cartilage. When her skin had the smooth glow of a newborn, she stepped back into herself.

"Boys, I've got to ask," she licked her thumb, then swept it over the line where the cut on her throat used to be, "have you ever heard the term Kensai?"

One of the remaining swordsmen snorted his derision. "You? A sword saint? Do not presume to dirty the word with your lips, woman!" With that, both of them attacked.

In the midst of whirling blades and her striking, shining spear, she laughed; a sound of pure joy, as she did what she was made to do. "Boys, I was the patron saint of swords before the word Kensai was ever uttered. I think I qualify."