Django tried to wet his mouth, now as dry as an empty cicada husk. His voice came out as a croak. “Yuka Nishihara. We were lovers for a while, after I was Branded. Until she was taken by the Black Lotus Clan. I’ve been looking for her ever since.”
The pressure of their collective attention felt like a giant shoe crushing him to the floor like he was a bug.
“We found her for you. Now you find her for us.”
He loves her.
“Can we trust you to do what is necessary? She has been with the Black Lotus Clan for a long time. The yakuza know how to warp the minds of their slaves.”
“Her loyalties might lead her to refuse the Brand.”
He stared down at the photograph, which had been taken with a long-distance lens outside a hostess bar he didn’t recognize. She was dressed in a silver lamé micro-skirt and a sequined, black halter top cut to her navel. Even through the thick makeup, despite the sleeves of tattoos on her arms, he recognized her instantly. She resembled her mother more than ever now. A sliver of ice stabbed his heart.
The Japanese woman spoke with a kindly voice. “Bring her to us. Save her from the Black Lotus Clan. That is no kind of life for any woman.”
What if she refuses? What will you do, boy?
He spoke the words as rote, unable to consider the reality of their meaning as warm numbness spread through his body. “Mahō users must submit to a Brand or be marked for execution.” Or, in the words of another ancient text, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Chapter Five
AFTER HE FINISHED READING the dossier on the train ride back to his apartment, it dissolved into embers and ash in his lap, drawing a few strange looks from alarmed fellow passengers, but they quickly went back to their oblivious little worlds. The dossier’s information was burned into his memory, using his Celestial and Third Eye pools as conduits.
The hostess bar in the photograph was a high-end place in Ginza called Hair of the Dog, and with his smart phone, he mapped straight to it. It stood next door to a strip club called Hair of the Kitty, so no doubt the two establishments were operated as siblings, catering to whatever levels of attention and skin their male clients were after.
Ginza, about five kilometers south-southwest of Taito City, was known for its upscale shopping, ritzy boutiques, sushi restaurants, and neon-drenched nightlife, not unlike Kabuki-chō but with less sex trade. Nevertheless, host and hostess bars were part of that nightlife.
Foreign visitors often mistook hostesses for prostitutes, but they were more like the modern evolution of geisha. Their job was to sit and drink and talk with their customers—sometimes for hours—entertain them, make them feel good about themselves, and most importantly soak them for expensive drinks. The hostesses, at least theoretically, got paid for their time. The seedy side of those establishments was that some of them scammed unwary customers with exorbitant mystery fees, sometimes to the tune of thousands of dollars. One did not venture into hostess bars to drink on a budget.
Now that darkness had fallen, Django walked the side streets, away from the crowds and traffic of Chuo Avenue, Ginza’s main thoroughfare, seeking the address of Hair of the Dog. The fact that Yuka had been sequestered here helped explain why he had been unable to find her. It was far enough away from his usual haunts, and Tokyo being such an enormous city, that the chances of him finding her, if her yakuza masters didn’t want her to be found, were practically zero.
From the photograph, he recognized the entrance, nondescript against the flash of its tawdrier next-door neighbor. Like in the photograph, scantily clad girls, as stunningly lovely as an explosion of sakura petals and glitter, stood outside each entrance, looking for potential patrons to coax inside. Similar girls worked the street corners in the area with postcards promoting both clubs. Yuka was not among these. He also recognized a couple of thugs standing in the shadows of both entrances, hard-knuckled, hard-skulled enforcers.
Parts of Ginza, he knew, were the territory of the Black Lotus Clan. They were not the largest of Tokyo’s fourteen organized crime syndicates, but they were the most vicious—and the most ambitious. Many yakuza gangs nowadays had the tacit sufferance of the government, and as long as they kept things on the down-low and didn’t stir the pot, didn’t make anyone look bad, didn’t hurt anyone important, they were allowed to operate their gambling, prostitution, and smuggling operations. But a handful of the more brutal, audacious gangs had been tagged as public enemies. The Black Lotus Clan was one of those. In addition to the normal rackets, they also smuggled guns, antiquities, and narcotics. They were also the most secretive. No one outside the organization knew the identity of their leaders and lieutenants. Any of their low-level thugs who found themselves in the hands of police were notoriously tight-lipped, willing to die rather than give up their bosses.
What the normal world did not know was that the Black Lotus Clan was rife with witches, warlocks, and mahō-fueled warriors, none of whom were Branded. They protected their own from the death edicts of the Council. Several Hunter-Seekers had been lost trying to go after newly Awakened who were under the Black Lotus’s protection. Hunter-Seekers were forbidden from engaging the Black Lotus without the Council’s express approval for fear of starting an all-out war.
That much Django knew. Perhaps the Council had tried to hold the detente for too long, allowing their enemy to muster greater forces.
What grated on him the most was that the Black Lotus Clan was the same organization that killed his family.
This he had learned from his mentor, Toshirō, a man of many secrets. There were days when Toshirō disappeared into a shōchū bottle. In a drunken stupor, Toshirō had implied that he knew who had killed Django’s family. It took another hour of cajoling for Toshirō to open his mouth on that subject again.
“The Black Lotus Clan killed your family,” Toshirō had said. “Does that help you, boy? Does knowing make you feel better? If you try to go after them, you’ll be dead or worse, and that’s if the Council doesn’t kill you for breaking the truce.”
A Black Lotus thug had cut off Kuan-Yin’s head.
And in the years since Django discovered this, nothing had changed. Vengeance had been denied him.
What he wanted to do right now was wade into Hair of the Dog and kill every single yakuza goon and lieutenant he found. But that would be a death sentence for him, not to mention sparking a war between the Council and the yakuza, which might spread wide enough to get the police involved, and that would threaten exposing mahō users to the public. He was not powerful enough to face down an organization so widespread by himself.
Which raised the question: why had the Council chosen him for this mission? They knew what had happened to his family. He wasn’t exactly known for his diplomacy. There were other Hunter-Seekers in the Tokyo area. Why couldn’t they have given him a nice Awakened teenager from the suburbs?
Using his powers would likely ignite the attention of other mahō users in the area. Nevertheless, he needed to take a deeper look. He took a deep breath and prepared to send his Third Eye into the club.
“Don’t even think about it,” a woman’s voice said in his ear in English.
Django spun, whipping out his wakizashi, his short sword. But the speaker was not there. The sound had been a simple Voice projection.
It came again. “Are we a little on edge tonight, Django?”
He waved his wakizashi with a flourish. “I’ll show you my edge, Xing.”
“Promises, promises.”
A woman stepped out from behind a meticulously manicured shrubbery. She was dressed as if for a night of clubbing, with high heels, painted-on low-rise jeans, and a rippling midriff bare from pelvic bones to breasts. Her hair was a wild topknot of cherry red, crowning a round face, broad cheekbones, and a small mouth. She was Chinese by ethnicity but spoke English meticulously, even though traces of non-native accent crept in now and then.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, wary at the presence of a sec
ond Hunter-Seeker. Had the Council sent her to make sure he finished the job?
“Well, aren’t you Dark-and-Broody-san.”
“I don’t have time for your shit, Xing.”
“So angry all the time,” she said, clucking her tongue. “If you must know, I’m looking for work. I hear the Hairy Kitty is hiring.”
“Hiring what, bouncers?”
Her toned arms were bare, looking like she’d put on a couple of pounds of meat in the month or so since he’d last seen her. “You working out?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for noticing.”
He scoffed, “And you were trying to warn me against getting made before I even get close? You’re swimming in mahō.” Even without opening his Third Eye, he could feel her magic on his skin like static electricity.
“I just like poking you with a stick,” she said. “You’re much too young to be such a curmudgeon.” She looked him up and down. “Besides, I haven’t seen you in the mahō training hall in months. I’ll bet your pools are all soft and flabby.” She moved to poke him, but he reflexively diverted her hand with a deft block. “Testy, testy! You know, the Librarian told me one day when I was studying...” She cleared her throat pointedly. “...You could be a serious badass if you ever cultivated your abilities.”
“The Librarian talks about me?” The very concept of the Librarian being chatty seemed like an oxymoron.
“That’s what you got out of what I just said?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been busy,” he said, but they both knew it was a lie.
“So what’s the game?” Xing asked.
“New fish.”
“Ah, I heard a rumor of an Awakening. Is he in the Hairy Kitty?”
“It’s Hair of the Kitty, thank you very much. You make it sound so dirty.”
She gave him a smirk and waggled her eyebrows.
“Anyway,” he said, “it’s a she. She works at one or both of the clubs. I was just casing the place before I go in.”
“Want backup?”
“No, I’ve got it handled.”
Her dark, gold-flecked eyes scrutinized him for a long moment. “Are you sure? Those clubs are Black Lotus hangouts.”
“I know.”
“So is she a dancer, a hostess, what?”
“I don’t know.” His teeth were clenched. The prospect of having Xing anywhere close on this job made him tense in ways he couldn’t explain.
He wanted his reunion with Yuka to be...what?
No clue.
At the point of a sword?
A nude table dance?
What would he find? A twenty-six-year-old woman who’d abandoned her humanity, as her mother had?
Would she come with him willingly? Would the gangsters allow him to escort out their new, fully Awakened witch, much less allow her to be fixed with a Brand?
Had the target been anyone in the world but Yuka, he would have welcomed Xing’s presence, but not now, and he didn’t have time to tease out the whys and wherefores.
“Something’s wrong with you,” she said. “You’re not yourself. What’s got you all twisted up?”
If he told her, there was no way she would leave this alone. “Rough week. I killed an onryō a few days ago. Haven’t slept much since.” Which wasn’t a lie. Since facing the onryō, his dreams had been endless, vengeance-fueled bloodbaths against enemies he couldn’t see.
Xing said, “Is it just me, or are yokai coming out of the woodwork lately? A month ago, I caught a bunch of kappa in the subway line, near the sewers. They were wearing human clothes, pin-striped suits and fedoras, in fact. Looked like stubby little 1920s gangsters. Except with, you know, all the entrail-sucking vampirism. They had an underground room off the Roppongi subway line, full of dead homeless people they’d fed on. I found them by the smell.”
“Who’s your friend?” said a voice.
Django jumped. “Jesus Christ!”
The white cat was sitting atop a parked delivery van.
Xing tensed and spun. “Did that cat just talk?”
“Sort of,” Django said. “He saved my life against the onryō, so I let him stick around.”
Xing had a baton in her hand now, a solid aluminum eskrima stick about the thickness of a finger, twenty-four inches long. Django had no idea where she’d hidden it in her skin-tight attire. She was a master of eskrima, the Filipino martial art also known as kali. But his Third Eye was already open. Her aura was shimmering, and the air around her smelled of tension and deception. With his Third Eye, he could see the magically concealed holsters and knife sheaths strapped to each thigh.
The first time he’d seen her in action against a street gang, he’d been impressed by her speed and brutality. Fortunately, she’d been merciful that night. She’d used the sticks instead of knives. When he gave her a look of surprised appreciation, she had said to him, “What, you think just because I'm Chinese I'm supposed to know kung-fu? Racist much?" She had snorted at his backpedaling. “Actually that stereotype is true, because Chinese students all have compulsory military training in University. Except I was raised in the Philippines, not China.”
Now, she eyed the cat with wary scrutiny.
The cat said, “You can relax, my dear. I’m not your enemy.”
“But you’re a yokai,” she said. “Normal cats don’t talk.”
“I resent the stereotype,” the cat said, tail flicking with annoyance. “I am what I am.”
“What are you doing here?” Django said.
“Out for a bit of constitutional. The city is teeming with lonesome lady cats.”
“We’re six kilometers from home.”
“Your home, not mine.”
“You get around.”
“More than you think.”
Django sighed.
Xing said, “So are we going in there or what?”
“I don’t need your help,” Django said.
She shot him a long look. “Afraid I’m going to horn in on your mahō juice if it all goes south?”
Best to let her believe that assumption. “If I fail, you can take the next crack at her. I’ll just soften them up for you.”
“Awfully noble of you.”
“Well, if I fail, I’ll be dead, so there’s that.”
She stepped closer with a flirtatious smirk, and the smell of her wafted to his nose, a mélange of jaw-dropping perfume and her own luscious scent, all luminous eyes and smooth skin. “Are you sure?”
“Stop it with the Water,” he said. Xing had some serious skills with Water mahō, the element of sensuality and pleasure, among other things. In another life, without all the scars on his soul, he might have been attracted to her because she had it all going on.
She sniffed and crossed her arms. “Fine. But don’t call me if you’re about to be dead.” Pointing at the cat, she said, “And you behave yourself, little yokai. Don’t make me come and cut off your tail.”
“It would be a shame to have to claw out your pretty eyes,” the cat said brightly, saluting her with one paw.
Xing walked away down the narrow street.
When she was gone, the cat said, “You have interesting friends.”
Was Xing his friend? He honestly didn’t know. Could Hunter-Seekers be friends?
“Now, tell me,” Django said. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“The same way I found you last time.”
“Which is...?”
“None of your business. But you might need a hand. How do humans say it nowadays...I’m getting a bad vibe from that place.”
Django turned to the glittering lights. “That’s two of us.”
But he couldn’t stand out here all night dragging his feet. Time to go.
The cat called after him, “Watch your back.”
Django approached one of the nubile beauties in front of Hair of the Dog. She sparkled in a red evening dress, four-inch pumps, pearl necklace and earrings, and white silk gloves. She spoke in honorific Japanese. “
Would you like to come in, sir?”
He pretended to think hard about it. “Hmm, I don’t know...”
“We have the most beautiful girls in Ginza!” Her smile beamed like a movie star’s.
He looked her up and down. “Of that, I have no doubt, but I’m meeting someone...”
She snaked an arm around his elbow. “Just for a little while then.”
“You know, now that I think about it, I was here once before I think. There was a girl named Yuka...”
She blinked and hesitated. “I don’t know her, sorry, sir.”
“Well, maybe she works somewhere else now.”
“Come on inside, and we’ll find someone for you you’ll just love.”
“Okay.”
She led him inside. The thugs he’d spotted earlier were nowhere to be seen. It didn’t pay for a hostess bar to present any sort of shadiness. Everything had to look strictly aboveboard.
The interior was a series of alcoves full of luxurious sofas, rich, polished hardwood, and subdued lighting from clear glass globes the size of volleyballs. The bar was the height of elegance, backed by a wine cabinet and top-shelf scotch, cognac, sake, shōchū. A faint haze of cigar smoke lingered and mixed with the smell of expensive cologne, men’s and women’s. Male patrons wore mostly business suits, visiting their favorite hostesses after a fourteen-hour day at the office. The hostesses were swathed in gorgeous evening attire and tasteful, elegant jewelry, their hair immaculately coiffed.
His escort sat him down in a plush love seat. “Shall I take your coat? It’s a hot night...”
“No, I’ll keep it.”
She bowed. “Shall I bring you a drink then?”
“Asahi, please. But first, the toilet.” The Japanese language didn’t feel the need for such American-style euphemisms as “restroom.”
She bowed, then pointed to the back of the establishment before she departed.
His stroll to the toilet gave him a good look at all of the hostesses. Their ages ranged from teenager to about thirty, the age when Japanese culture viewed ideal feminine beauty as approaching its expiration date. Some of the girls could have been as young as fifteen.
Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1) Page 5