Fingers of multicolored lightning burst from his eyes as the creature’s raw power blasted through him. A clap of thunder slammed him flat onto the concrete. The creature held too much essence! It was like drinking from a fire hose. He was going to explode with the inrush, and he couldn’t stop it. He choked, gasped, convulsed as an enormous bolus of Celestial energy flooded into him. His Celestial pool, always hungry for such rare energy, opened to receive it. Suddenly his brain was on ultraviolet fire.
Crying out, he flung himself away from the dissipating ash of the onryō, but it was too late. The power was already in him. Lightning flashed down from the sky, striking a tree and arcing into him. He screamed and smelled burned flesh. Agony burst through every nerve ending as the power both seared and healed him simultaneously. Falling onto his side, he lay gasping. But as the pain subsided, he realized something. His Celestial pool crackled with enough mahō essence to Awaken and level up. To Awaken his third pool, he had to meditate long enough to harness, process, and incorporate the massive bolus of magical energy. And if he didn’t do it soon, this energy would have nowhere to go, running rampant without focus or constraint. If left unprocessed and uncontrolled long enough, it would burn out his Celestial pool, crippling his mahō abilities forever.
His scalp felt like his hair had been wetted and plugged into an electrical socket. Static electricity snapped between his lips, his eyelids.
“Well, that was most impressive,” the cat said.
Chapter Two
LEVERING HIMSELF TO all fours, Django breathed deeply and slowly to calm his racing heart and harness the rampant mahō coursing through him. Heartbeats passed as he stilled the storm within. A minute. He needed to find a secluded place to meditate for an hour or so. Once he accomplished that, his Celestial pool would bloom like a lotus flower, and all his pools would expand with greater capacity. His Third Eye had been the first, the Fire of his Hara the second, and now, the pool that formed the magical conduit between him and the rest of the cosmos. What new secrets would this bring? What new spells and abilities would be open to him?
“I was certain you were a goner,” the cat said, licking its nether region.
Django cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes. His voice was raw. “You’re a cat.” The closeness to death had implanted an ache in his belly that would take time to subside, even after he finished his Awakening.
“Nothing gets past you.”
“Why do you talk?”
“Perhaps because I have things to say. Such as, I know misplaced confidence when I see it.”
With a scoff, Django rose onto his knees.
“So are you going to finish assimilating that witch’s essence or are you going to let it cripple you?”
Django stared at the cat. “What the hell do you know about it? You’re a cat.”
“So astute you are.” The cat settled onto its haunches. “That onryō almost chewed your face off.”
A baby was still crying, its wails weakening.
The cat said, “So, are you going to get that or...”
Django hove to his feet, head swimming, vision blurry. His skull and scalp tingled and buzzed. His unsteady feet carried him to the burlap sack a dozen or so yards away. Hurriedly, he sliced open the cord and extracted the squirming contents.
At his touch, the little girl, wearing a onesie that made her look like a small Totoro—a famous anime character—launched into fresh shrieks of terror.
He froze, unsure of what to do. He’d never held a baby before. He knew they were fragile, but not in what ways. The little girl’s arms and legs flailed against him. But he cradled her as best he could and slipped her into his duster against his chest. Her skin was cold, her hair a bedraggled mess, and she coughed moisture out of her tiny lungs.
“Uh, it’s okay, kiddo. You’re safe now,” he said in Japanese. “We’ll get you back to your mommy as soon as we can. And for the love of all the gods and buddhas, please stop crying.”
Because he had little skill with either Water or Air mahō, he couldn’t charm or soothe her with magical means, so he tugged his coat tighter around her and ran for the nearest shelter, the dimly lit entrance to the nearby apartment block.
“You don’t look too surprised to see a talking cat,” the cat said, curling around his feet out of the rain.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not prepared to kill you if you get sideways of me.”
“How ungrateful to someone who just saved your life!”
“Right, because cat behavior always makes logical sense.”
“Hmm, point taken.”
“What kind of cat are you?”
The cat looked at its body. “Well, a white one, I suppose.”
“We both know that normal cats don’t talk.”
“How do you know? Have you ever tried?”
Django scoffed and pulled his mobile phone out of its waterproof pocket. “You’re talking nonsense. Wait, you’re speaking English!”
“Read my lips. I’m not speaking at all.”
Django had been too shaken by the onryō, his awareness too caught up in the unbridled mahō still pulsing through him, to register little details, like how in the hell a cat could speak at all. The cat’s mouth was indeed not moving.
“So you’re a telepathic, supernatural cat,” Django said.
He speed-dialed Sergeant Tokumaru’s number.
The baby quieted.
On the second ring, the police sergeant answered. “Talk to me, Django-san.” He had a deep, melodious voice, and Django happened to know the cop enjoyed the occasional karaoke binge. And like nearly everyone on the planet, he did not know Django’s real name.
“I’ve got the kid,” Django said.
Tokumaru’s breath exploded with relief. “Is she okay? Should I send an ambulance?”
With the new power churning through his Celestial pool, new abilities were poised to coalesce, whispering into his mind by unguessable spirits from beyond, but first, he had to cultivate the power with meditation. Only then would it Awaken. But even though his Celestial pool was not yet Awakened, Django realized he could sense the child’s physical state. Incipient bruises all over her body, but no broken bones.
“Wet, cold, and bruised, but I don’t think she’s hurt.” She was on the verge of hypothermia, however, so he hugged her close to share warmth. She wriggled closer against him, which made him uncomfortable and soaked his T-shirt. He hadn’t the slightest clue what to do with children. “Meet me at Ōkubo Park. You get to be the hero.”
There would have been no chance of the police saving this child except that Sergeant Tokumaru of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police knew to call Django when any sort of weirdness came through the 1-1-0 switchboard. A frantic mother in Shinjuku had called to report that her baby had been taken from her arms while they slept. She awoke just in time to see a bedraggled woman, leaving a trail of sodden footprints across the tatami mats, slip onto the apartment balcony with a squirming burlap sack and then jump thirty stories to the street below.
“Thank you,” Tokumaru said. “I’m heading for a squad car now. You have done a great deed.”
“You don’t know the half of it. What’s the mother’s name, the family name?”
“Why do you ask?”
“The...thing I took the kid away from said some interesting things.”
“Explain.” Tokumaru’s voice suggested surprise that Django had taken the time for a chat with a monster before killing it.
“This is firmly in my territory, sorry. The name?”
“Chika Uemura. The address is Park House Shinjuku Tower. You know it?”
It was about a kilometer from where he stood, seriously luxury digs.
“Husband?” Django asked.
“Single mother. No mention of a father.”
With that kind of rent, he’d been expecting to hear the father was an executive at Sony or some other multinational corporation. But a single mom? Was she independently wealthy?
�
�And the baby’s name?”
“Miwa.”
A nice name. Its kanji translated roughly to beautiful peace, or maybe the sum of all beauty. His kanji skills still needed work. “Thanks. I’ll wait for you.”
They disconnected, by which time Django’s heart had returned to normal rhythm and the strength was returning to his limbs. His pools still jangled with discordance, like a jumble of cathedral bells that were painfully out of tune. The mind-blasting terror the onryō had evoked in him was not something he would soon forget. Tonight had almost been the end. Severing a creature’s connection to the cosmos was one of the most dangerous abilities any warlock possessed. It would be much handier if it were useful in combat, but it took too much time and concentration. It was said that a Level Seven could kill instantly with this ability.
The distance between what he could do and what a Level Seven could do was the difference between a flashlight and the sun. Whenever a pool Awakened, knowledge of how to use it streamed in from the greater cosmos, bringing with it new abilities that could serve as the foundation for further study. Using mahō was much like cooking or martial arts; a little of this, a little of that, an accretion of innate skills, and an epiphany here and there. People had their favorite recipes and techniques. Like cooking, some recipes could be successfully prepared with a little guesswork and prior experience. The same with martial arts. Once the concepts were grasped deep in one’s bones and muscles, one could get creative—that’s why it was an art. Some of those recipes, a.k.a. spells, were collected in The Annals and other books of lore in the Council’s occult library.
The baby let out a fresh bleat. He bounced her gently. “Hush, Miwa-chan, you’re gonna be okay.”
She grinned spit bubbles at him.
He bowed to the cat. “Thank you for helping me. I owe you my life.”
“You do indeed.” The cat sat and licked its rain-bedraggled paw.
“So where did you come from? Why are you here? Are you an escapee from Jianghu or some other realm?” If the cat were from Jianghu, the Realm of Rivers and Lakes, it might become Django’s job to destroy it. The Council frowned upon supernatural creatures in the mortal world, and by “frowned upon,” that meant “terminated with extreme prejudice.” The havoc yokai could wreak could not easily be overestimated, the onryō being a perfect example.
The cat continued its grooming. “I’ve been looking for someone like you.”
“Why?”
“You ask many questions.”
“Comes with the territory.” Like wondering how the onryō had known him. Could she have been a mahō user in life, even a Hunter-Seeker like him? Someone he knew? If so, the level of jealousy and vengefulness required to return as an onryō would not have existed in someone he would easily forget.
“Have you any tuna back at your place?” the cat said.
“Not that’s safe for anyone to eat.” Django had a couple of raw tuna steaks in the refrigerator, but the last time he looked, they’d grown hair.
“I know a twenty-four-hour Lawson near here. How about a tuna sandwich?”
“You know what a convenience store is?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“And supernatural cats eat tuna sandwiches?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“You’re a strange animal.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
FLASHING RED LIGHTS, but no siren, announced the arrival of Sergeant Tokumaru in a squad car along with a younger officer. They got out of the black-and-white, tugging up the collars of their rain slickers. Django had used the wait to begin the process of harnessing the uncontrolled mahō chewing at his Celestial pool like a storm against a dike, but he needed more time.
Django hurried from his shelter when he saw them coming. By this time, the child had fallen asleep against him, clutching his T-shirt in her pudgy little hands. An ambulance pulled up behind the police car, lights flashing silently, considerate of the late hour.
Tokumaru was a man in his thirties, a dedicated officer a few years older than Django. “You’ve done a good thing, Django-san.”
The other cop watched him with narrowed eyes, the distrust plain on his features, then averted his gaze.
Django opened his duster a crack to reveal the sleeping baby, an adorable enigma in slack-jawed slumber.
Two paramedics jumped out of the ambulance, and Django gingerly handed her over. The touch of the rain woke her into another crying fit, but he was relieved to be rid of her before she really got going.
Tokumaru eyed Django. “You don’t look so good.”
“Neither do you,” Django said. “Thanks for the tip. We did good.” Then he turned and walked away, feeling the cops’ eyes on him as he went.
“Watch yourself, Django-san!” Tokumaru called after him.
Django kept walking. The cat fell in beside him.
“You still here?” Django said.
“You owe me a tuna sandwich.”
“Fine.” He was hungry himself. The tougher the fight, the more it left him ravenous afterward, and this one had been one of the toughest ever.
The cat said, “Besides, if I fail to make you pay up now, you probably won’t survive much longer.”
Django’s hand slipped into his jacket and grasped his hilt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have great talent, but your discipline is gone. I suspect you once had it, but you have fallen into debauchery and forgotten.”
“Oh, shut up. You sound like somebody’s nagging grandmother.”
“Grandmothers are wise. You should pay attention. Because very naughty things are coming, and you will need all your strength to face them.”
“Explain. What’s coming? What are you talking about?”
“I wish I could. If you cultivated your intuition, perhaps you would feel it as well.”
“I’m done being lectured by a cat.” Django sped up his pace. The onryō’s raging essence was making him irritable. He badly needed to meditate. The pressure was growing. Soon it would become too much to control. But he couldn’t just sit down to meditate on the street in the middle of Shinjuku.
With a shrug, the cat said, “For someone who doesn’t have nine lives, you’re surprisingly blasé about your lifespan.”
“Nine lives, eh? What crap.”
The cat was right, however, about the twenty-four-hour Lawson, a tiny little storefront on an innocuous corner, easy to miss. The cat walked right into the convenience store as if he owned the place, as tomcats were wont to do.
“Irasshaimase!” called the clerk in the ubiquitous customer greeting. “Oh, it’s Mr. Bakeneko!” The clerk was a college-aged girl in pigtails and unusual for a Japanese girl in that she was somewhat plump.
The cat jumped up on the counter and shook himself vigorously, spraying water in all directions, which gave him an even more bedraggled appearance, then submitted to a brisk rubbing from the clerk.
“You know this loser?” Django asked her.
“Oh, yes! He’s the most audacious cat I’ve ever seen. He acts like he thinks he’s human. That’s why I call him ‘bakeneko-san.’”
Mr. Ghost Cat.
The cat leaned into her petting.
Django would have to check The Annals on whether it was bad luck to call out a bakeneko. Like mortal cats, bakeneko could love you up one moment and shred you the next, both physically and spiritually.
Meanwhile, he grabbed two tuna sandwiches, three steamed pork buns, and three cans of coffee. There would be no sleep until he’d completed Awakening his Celestial pool, no matter how exhausted the fight had left him. Best just to embrace it. The night was still young.
The cat licked his lips at the sight of the tuna sandwiches.
From the clerk he ordered two hard-boiled eggs, a fish cake roll, and two fried tofu pieces from the bath of savory oden broth. She ladled it all into a take-out bowl for him. All of it went into a plastic bag.
Outside, the rain had stopped, so th
ey hurried the twenty minutes back to his apartment in the Takatanobaba neighborhood of Shinjuku City. The increasing pressure inside, gnawing at his pools, hastened his step to a jog.
Tokyo was one contiguous metropolitan area comprising numerous smaller “cities,” of which Shinjuku was a western one, where the city’s government bureaucracy lived. It was also home to some of the country’s wealthiest corporations and tallest skyscrapers, not to mention their teeming hordes of salarymen—and the women determined enough to buck the age-old Good Ol’ Boy System—along with all the shopping, restaurants, and izakaya—small, smoky, neighborhood taverns—placed to cater to them.
Unlike most of Shinjuku, Takatanobaba was among the cheapest places to live in a city famous for astronomical housing costs. It was an area of narrow streets between blockish, concrete buildings in gray and beige. One of the reasons Takatanobaba was so cheap was because it was home to thousands of college students from Waseda University and Gakushuin University. It was a Friday night, so the college crowd would still be in full swing.
Climbing the stairs to his fourth-floor, Pocky-box room, he heard the rhythmic thump of the Happy Cock Club half a block away. Come six a.m., the music would stop, the students would stagger home, and there would be silence for a couple of hours until the daytime took hold.
Django’s hands were trembling and so unsteady that he dropped his key twice as he tried to unlock his door. Sweating profusely and finally achieving this simple task, he shoved open the metal door, which was painted in rusted aquamarine. The cat followed him inside. The apartment was cramped even by Tokyo standards, with a kitchenette featuring a one-burner hotplate and a refrigerator of suitable size to fit a couple of ice cubes. His table was of similar stature. It wobbled precariously as the cat leaped atop it.
“Bring on the victuals, my good man,” the cat said.
Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1) Page 2