Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 3 Omnibus Edition Page 7

  “Drink it and see.”

  “For me?”

  “Not for me, but thee.”

  Reaching out, Setsura stopped as Mephisto held out his hand.

  “Hey—”

  “You don’t have to right now,” Mephisto softly said. “But it may become necessary at some point. As long as you keep living in this city.”

  Setsura shook loose the spell and took the vial. “Three times a day?” he blandly asked. “Before or after a meal?”

  “You’ll understand when the time comes.”

  At some point, Mephisto’s visage had become shrouded in a white veil. The fog creeping in.

  “The mist cometh,” Setsura Aki murmured.

  “I would now like to hear your side of the story,” Doctor Mephisto said quietly. He again covered his mouth with the silk handkerchief.

  Part Three: Blood Red Hunter

  Chapter One

  The real estate broker said, “Not the kind of night where you want to go out on the town.”

  He was a regular at En, the top cabaret in Kabuki-cho. “That’s for sure,” the impresario agreed. He glanced around the club filled with light and music. The band and a melancholy singer singing the blues. The customers. The chatter and playful shrieks of teasing girls playing hard to get.

  And yet no amount of that bawdy vigor would dissipate the looming darkness. Even the sound of opening beer bottles was hollow.

  He knew why. The mood inside the cabaret wasn’t ruled by the darkness, but by the night itself. Something from which no human could flee. This was the world bestowed upon the creatures of the night—by foolish gods who otherwise praised benevolence and fair play. Humans knew that wasn’t the world they inhabited, so they went to sleep, perchance to dream, and dismissed it all from their minds.

  “The place feels down tonight,” the real estate broker said, massaging the back of his neck. “Mood’s flat as a pancake. Like everybody’s sitting around waiting for something to happen, you think?”

  “Hard to say.”

  The impresario looked away. Gazing upon his customers, he felt himself taking on their same expressions, and that worried him. When he turned around again, the real estate broker was gone. He greeted his other regulars and returned to his office.

  At the door to the hallway, he found one of the busboys staggering back and forth. He looked about ready to fall over. He was obviously high and trying to walk it off. If he was, he was so fired.

  The impresario approached him. “What’s up with you?”

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  “You doing drugs?”

  “No.”

  Like the kid would tell the truth if he was. He looked in the kid’s eyes. They didn’t look right. The pupils were dilated. It brought back memories of being in the boxing ring. The look right before the right hook delivered the knockout. But the vile light turned it into an overwhelming emotion. Hunger.

  “You’re fired. Grab your shit and get out of here.”

  “Sure,” the busboy said agreeably. He left the hallway swaying like seaweed in a tidal pool.

  As he watched the kid leave, the impresario heard the sound of somebody crying. Off in the shadows, where the light barely dented the darkness, a girl was kneeling on the ground, her hand pressed against the left side of her neck. She had on a gaudy metallic lamé dress. She was one of his girls.

  “What happened?”

  “He bit me.”

  The impresario was left speechless. But not because he didn’t understand what she was saying. This was Shinjuku after all. There were monsters there that sank their fangs into human necks as a matter of course. And there were just as many defenses to be employed against such behavior. The ward regularly held monster eradication campaigns and the impresario used a civilian exterminator just to make sure.

  An hour before opening, specialists with cylinders of toxic compressed gas strapped to their backs made a sweep of the premises and thoroughly eliminated anything that didn’t belong. The gas could selectively target monsters at the gene-specific level with no harmful side effects on humans.

  “You were bitten? Come with me.”

  She looked like she wanted to follow after the kid, but accompanied him down the hallway. The fabric of her dress—absorbing the temperature of her body—was cold to the touch. He cursed her silently. She’d gotten herself bitten by some thing. If she took a turn for the worse, she’d have to stop working. He should take her to the local quack just as a precaution, but the hush money would cost him for sure.

  The girl stopped and knelt down again and wept like a silly fool. “It hurts. It’s like getting stung by bees. He’s so awful, that guy—”

  “That guy? You were bitten by a human?”

  “Yes.”

  The impresario quickly figured it out. That junkie busboy had tripped out on some bad shit and thought he was a lion or tiger or something.

  “I’ll get you to a hospital right away. Just wait here for a moment.”

  He headed for the employee lounge and yanked open the door. There was nobody in the room. Only the steel lockers lined up on the bare concrete floor. The weak yellow light felt strangely cold.

  “Where the hell did he go?”

  Hearing a hollow, metallic sound, he spun around. In the lockers? What was the little bastard up to? “Hey, you in there?” he called out. For some reason, he didn’t feel like opening any more doors himself.

  “Um—”

  An answer. He could hardly believe his ears. “What are you doing?” he asked, raising his voice. “Cramming yourself in there?”

  “Cramming myself in here? No place else is as comfortable as this. It’s like going home. I’m going to spend all my time in here after this.”

  His voice sounded like he was chewing on a mouthful of cotton.

  “Well, good for you. Now get the hell out here. We need to talk.”

  “About that girl?”

  “Of course, you stupid son of a bitch!” the impresario shouted. “You don’t go shooting up in my place. I’m calling the cops. Move your ass out of there.”

  “No way, man.” From inside the locker, the kid’s voice quavered with laughter. The sound was both creepy and comedic. “I was the time of her life. Say, Boss, how about you too?”

  “What?” The impresario felt every vein in his body suddenly constrict.

  “Join in the fun and everybody will get where I’m coming from then. Just what a great place this little old locker of mine is. I’ll send ’em to cloud nine just like her. Come on down and get yours too, Boss.”

  The kid stopped talking. The handle on the locker door slowly turned. The impresario backed away. Somebody caught hold of his shoulders. He twisted his head around and saw that it was a girl’s pale hand. His feet turned to stone.

  “No running away, Boss,” the bitten girl said in a low voice that was even more ghastly than that of the kid in the locker.

  The real estate broker left the cabaret and wandered over to the love hotel district. He was still a little woozy. He’d downed seven whisky and waters. He was plenty drunk without being completely wasted. All revved up with no place to go.

  The street was crowded with bouncers, shills and drunks, voyeurs and window shoppers, tourists and women of the night. They shared the sidewalks with the beat cop on patrol and the mobile police officer perched on a motor sidecar. If someone screamed or an alarm rang, they’d be there in seconds, a few minutes at the latest.

  The broker had friends who regularly arranged for private security firms to supply a dozen men—each packing serious heat—to shadow them within a radius of a couple of yards, and post armored SUVs around the block on the lookout for anything suspicious coming or going.

  He carried a high-compression air gun—loaded with fuming acid—in a hip holster, and a dagger strapped to his right ankle. All par for the course in Shinjuku’s “safe area.”

  But the longer he walked, the harder his heart beat and the faster his blood
flowed. The adrenaline amped things up all the more. When he reached his destination and saw the “Closed” sign hanging there and the steel shutters shut, all his high anxieties turned fatefully foreboding.

  He was the only one on the street. Without the joint’s amazing blend of quantity and quality and price, nobody would visit this place on this street at night. But knowing that was cold comfort now. He’d have to go back the way he came.

  He thought about the white-clad doctor he’d invited here a few days before. If they could hook up together again—

  Rather than retracing his steps, he could get back to the main street faster by continuing in the same direction and catching one of the local tourist buses. The broker set off at a brisk clip. He crossed the street and turned the corner and came out among the ruins of the old high street.

  The wide avenue ran down the middle of a collection of boarded-up stores and stands and turned to the left. Something prickled the nose of the real estate broker. A cloud like a white sandstorm flowed down the street. Curiously, there wasn’t any wind. The broker coughed.

  Several people were sitting in a circle in the middle of the road. A plume of electric light spread out from the middle of the circle, accompanied by the vibrant vibrato of a female enka singer’s voice and the smell of cheap sake.

  The broker knew this was a gathering spot for drifters and itinerant workers. They were an amiable bunch, and he’d chatted with them on occasion while returning home after closing time.

  With a sigh of relief at the sight of them, he drew closer. Nobody in the circle moved. A half dozen feet away he called out, “Hey, just passing through.”

  For the first time, he noticed people lying in the middle of the circle. From their clothing, he guessed they were vagrants. The ones surrounding them had on polo shirts and blouses and linen jackets.

  The broker froze in his tracks. Nobody inside the circle was moving at all. Not drinking, not eating, not talking. They sat there still as stones.

  The broker came to his senses and backed away slowly. After five steps he turned and started walking. The hairs pricked up on the back of his neck, as if touched by an ice-cold brush. His senses were suddenly awake and aware, the vibe coming at him from both sides.

  The broker whirled around. Pale blue faces stared back at him. A businessman with a combover. A middle-aged housewife. A kid with a punch perm. A shopkeeper type. The kind of people he wouldn’t expect to be sitting around in a place like this in the middle of the night.

  The real estate broker’s eyes were drawn to their mouths. They were dripping with black. A thought flitted across his mind. He looked past them to the vagrants lying on the ground. His eyes went wide with shock.

  “W-what’s going on? You kill them?”

  “Naw.” The kid with the punch perm slowly shook his head. “We’re just palling around. Somebody already ripped their throats out.”

  “You’re not those Toyama sons-a-bitches, are you?”

  “Give me a break!” said the office lady with the fake costume jewels in her hair. “We live in Yotsuya. You want to come with?” She laughed gaily.

  Frivolous faces, dignified faces, young and lively faces—seeing the white fangs protruding from their lips, the broker reflexively backed away. Do nothing and he’d be next. He steeled his resolve and reached around his back and pulled out the air gun.

  The vamps didn’t budge an inch.

  “Stay right there! No bullets in this little peacekeeper but it’ll sure rearrange every other part of you. You want to see how immortal you really are?”

  Making these threats, he confirmed that the safety was off. The magazine held twenty rounds. He could give them each two and have a few to spare.

  A white-haired older man stepped forward. A mist-like substance erupted from his face. A denser white smoke arose as the upper half of his face melted. He reached up and stuck his fingers in the mush and yanked them out. The smoldering clump of flesh plopped onto the ground at the broker’s feet.

  The old man smiled back at him, a raw red hole ripped in the flesh of his face. “Hey, it’ll be fine by tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.”

  The gun spat out two more rounds. With smoke puffing from the middle of his chest, the kid with the punch perm grabbed the broker around the throat. Just as his fingers began to tighten—

  A terrifying roar made everybody turn around. Next to the body of a young woman stood the big burly figure of a man. His tunic was woven with threads of silver and gold that shimmered in the moonlight.

  He roared again like a wild beast. He leapt into the air and landed in the middle of the ring of vampires. Blood immediately spurted from the necks of the housewife and the businessman. The bones of their spines crunched and their heads flopped back like the hood of a jacket.

  Two rosy red beams gleamed in the night. The devil’s eyes. The undead were suddenly gripped by rigor mortis. “W-wait a second,” yelped the kid with the punch perm, as the hand tightened around his scrawny neck. W-we—”

  “That woman is mine. You stole her. In my country, a man could leave behind a golden chalice and be assured no thief would walk away with it. Because I would not allow it. And that rule holds no matter what country I find myself in.”

  General Bey’s hand tightened like he was wringing out a wet rag. The kid’s eyes popped out and his head slumped to his chest. With a single swipe of his other hand, he tore off his head.

  The general cast his eyes down at the petrified minions, and then at the high street to his left. “I like this place. I shall grant it the honor of being destroyed by Kazikli Bey the old-fashioned way.”

  The brilliance of his shining red eyes deepened all the more. Above his head, a bird’s silhouette skimmed across the face of the moon.

  Chapter Two

  After summing up the situation to date, Setsura leaned against the pillow. Galeen Nuvenberg’s secret curatives were doing their job.

  “So one has left the stage,” Mephisto said, without obvious emotion. “But there are still three plus one, and that one seems a formidable foe.”

  “That is for certain.” Setsura closed his eyes. The ague in his gut reminded him that Ryuuki’s demon qi was still hanging around. “He can read my next move before I make it. Not to mention that he’s a true immortal. How do you propose handling him?”

  Mephisto answered without hesitation. “Reason would dictate that the first blow must settle the contest. Strike down the part that cannot resurrect itself—the head.”

  “There’s no guarantee that he won’t grow a new one. As long as he’s still walking around, there’s no way we can settle things with the other three.”

  “If all you are going to do is bitch about our predicament, then go back to your shop and bake senbei and don’t come out at night.”

  “Once we’ve wrapped up this business, I’ll take that advice,” Setsura said in a languid manner completely out of character with that of a brash, young Adonis. He could have an emotional breakdown and still look ravishing.

  “This occurred to me before,” Mephisto said in a way that made Setsura look at him. “But why continue taking on missing persons cases? The moonlighting is hardly a necessary aspect of your business.”

  “If a mind reader turns up among your patients, introduce her to me. I’d like to know myself.”

  “How about a straight answer?”

  “You serious?”

  “I am always serious.”

  Setsura smiled. Even someone familiar with the depth and breadth of their friendship would find this an unlikely exchange. And all joking aside, Setsura smiling at Mephisto was so rare an event it deserved being put on an endangered species list.

  He laced his fingers across his chest and said, as if reciting verse, “I hear a person’s voice.”

  Mephisto just returned the look.

  “I can’t say what kind of voice. Call it a sad voice. Find me, it says. Get me out of here. And then a client shows up.”

  “The heig
ht of sentimentality.”

  “Wouldn’t argue with you on that point.”

  “And if you plug your ears?”

  “Let’s say that I tried it one night. Stuck in earplugs and put my hands over my ears, went to bed that way and kept them there all night.”

  “And did you hear their voices?”

  “Ah—”

  “What did they say?”

  “That’s privileged information.”

  “They came here looking for something. I do not imagine salvation was high on the list.”

  “Then who comes knocking on my door? Is it them, or fate?”

  The expression on Mephisto’s face took on an unusual hue. “You are one peculiar man.”

  “I’m a citizen of Demon City Shinjuku,” Setsura softly replied. He lapsed into silence. The faint mist swept about his face and body like waves. “How about we get going?” he said.

  Mephisto’s eyes glittered. “Where to?”

  “You forget about my job?”

  “We have not turned up any clues about their safe house. Walking around in your condition will only accelerate your return to my hospital.”

  “You don’t know anything?”

  “Unfortunately no.”

  “What the hell did I hand over Ryuuki and Shuuran to you for anyway? How about you just stop admitting the bat-shit crazy ones after this, okay?”

  Not waiting for Mephisto’s reply, Setsura turned toward the windows opposite. Mephisto held his tongue. Perhaps he was feeling a bit sheepish that those two vampires went on the lam on his watch. Or rather, that what he’d told Setsura was a lie. By the time he’d secluded himself in the Resurrection Room, Ryuuki and Shuuran were already mingling with the crowds on the Shinjuku streets. It wasn’t likely that he was ignorant of this fact.

  And then there was Yakou.

  He’d headed off to Chuo Park without a face-to-face with Mephisto. He wouldn’t march off to war—at the risk of body and soul—and leave the director in the dark. Was Setsura saying he didn’t have a clue?