The man who erased my parents stepped out of Club Prism at 11:47, and I was waiting in the alley with his own knife.

Nao Goto stepped out of Club Prism at 11:47. Same time as Thursday. Same time as the Thursday before that. Three weeks of watching and the man was a clock wound too tight to deviate.

He lit a cigarette under the awning, said something to the bouncer that made them both laugh, then turned down the alley behind the building. Shortcut to the parking garage on Yasukuni-dori. He took it every night.

So did I.

My shoes were silent on the wet concrete. I'd taped the soles two days ago, something my father taught me about fieldwork when I was fourteen. Always control the sound you make, Yara. Silence isn't the absence of noise. It's a choice.

Goto was halfway down the alley when I stepped out from behind the dumpster.

He saw me and stopped. Rain ran down his face. He blinked.

"Goto Nao," I said. "Kuroda Holdings. Cleanup division."

His cigarette glowed orange between his fingers. "You have the wrong person."

"November fourteenth. Three years ago. A home invasion in Meguro. A journalist and his wife. You handled the aftermath. Made the witnesses disappear. Arranged the police report."

His eyes changed. Not fear, not yet. Recognition.

"Who are you?"

"Their daughter."

He dropped the cigarette and moved fast. I expected the lunge. I sidestepped it, caught his wrist, used his momentum to drive him into the wall. His head bounced off brick. He staggered but didn't fall.

"You're making a mistake," he said, reaching for his belt.

"The mistake was eleven days." I closed the distance. "That's how long the police investigated before they closed the case. Eleven days for two lives."

He pulled a knife. Short blade, practical. A fixer's tool.

I'd trained for this. Two years of preparation. I blocked his arm and drove my knee into his ribs. He folded. I twisted the knife out of his grip and pressed him against the wall, his own blade at his throat.

"Tell me who ordered it."

His face was the color of the wet concrete. "You don't know what you're doing."

"I know exactly what I'm doing. I've known for a thousand days. Who ordered the hit on Klaus and Mei Brandt?"

"If I tell you, they'll kill me."

"If you don't, I will."

He swallowed against the blade. Rain ran between us.

"Kuroda. Reiko Kuroda. Your father found something he shouldn't have. Files about... experiments. Non-human subjects. She ordered the cleanup through Oshiro's office. Takagi ran the team."

Five names. I'd carried them for three years like stones in my pockets. He'd just confirmed three more.

"And you," I said. "You made it disappear."

"I made a lot of things disappear." His voice was flat. Professional, even now. "It's what I do."

A shape displaced the shadows behind us.

I felt it before I saw it. A displacement of air. A presence that made the rain seem to fall differently, bending around something large and low to the ground.

Goto's eyes went wide. Not at me. Past me.

"What the..."

He lunged sideways, grabbing a pipe from the ground, and swung it at my head. I ducked, but my foot slipped on the wet pavement. I went down. He raised the pipe for a second swing.

The shadow hit him like a freight train.

A massive shape, dark grey, low, terrifyingly fast, slammed into Goto and took him off his feet. The pipe clattered across the alley. Goto screamed once.

Then he didn't.

I pressed my back against the wall and watched a wolf far larger than any dog stand over Goto's body. Its fur was slicked dark with rain. Its eyes caught the neon light and threw it back gold.

Not a dog. Not anything domestic. A wolf, in the middle of Tokyo, in a Kabukicho alley, with blood on its muzzle.

It looked at me.

I looked at it.

Blood thudded in my ears, but my hands were steady. They'd been steady since I'd started this. Falling apart was for later, always for later, and later never came.

"I had him," I said. Not true, and we both knew it.

The wolf tilted its head. A gesture so human it made my skin prickle.

Then it turned and walked into the dark at the far end of the alley. Not running. Walking. Like it had somewhere else to be and I wasn't important enough to rush for.

I stood there for ten seconds. Rain soaked through my jacket. Goto was dead at my feet.

One name down. Four to go.

I cleaned the scene the way I'd planned. Wiped the knife handle. Checked for cameras. None. I'd confirmed that weeks ago. Walked out of the alley at a normal pace, just another person in the rain.

But at the mouth of the alley I stopped.

A presence tracked me. Not the wolf. Or maybe the wolf, from further away. I couldn't see it. Couldn't hear it over the rain and the bass bleeding from Club Prism's walls.

I felt it, though. The way you feel someone reading over your shoulder. A presence with weight to it.

I walked home through Shinjuku, taking three different trains and doubling back twice. Standard counter-surveillance. My mother's chain pressed cold against my collarbone.

In my apartment, I crossed Goto's name off the list with a red pen.

Four names remained.

And somewhere in this city, a wolf knew my face.