“Ripe for the slaughter,” I finished for him.
“Don’t want to think about it.” He pulled off his brown T-shirt, revealing a much skinner chest than I remembered. “Here.”
I took it, slipping it on. “Cheers.” It smelled of sweat and aftershave—a sharp citrusy tone.
“If the Butcher Hound catches you, Akira, it’s game over.” His face went red, contorting with anger. “This is fucked. I’m completely neutered here. An ex-SCU agent. What good is it now? If you’re a wolf or whatever, you can keep your power, but not me. I don’t get to keep any of the anti-magic.”
Anti-magic was a magical energy that was manufactured. Powerful as fuck, but not the true essence of magic, and all very science-based. It was how any sort of magical uprising was kept at bay by the combination of werewolves and SCU. Anti-magic was hardcore and even worked on the mazoku.
“It’s really, really shit,” Paul carried on. “I can’t protect her. I’m useless.”
“That’s not your fault, though, bruv. And what about your fighting skills? Don’t sell yourself short.”
He popped the top button of his jeans, shoulders slumping in mini defeat. “I don’t even know why we have a king here. It doesn’t make any sense. Pointless and in an invisible castle. We only ever see him on TV when the Paradise Games are on, or if we get sent tickets—which isn’t a request as it’s mandatory to go and watch the horror show unless you want to explain to the king why you’re telling him no. And that’s just to scare the crap out of us, build up our hopes. I’d hate to be picked. I know I’d die a second death. Everyone knows they’ll likely die, but it doesn’t stop them from hoping.” He pulled down the zipper of the jeans. “But at least if you get a ticket you get to see some sunshine. The Paradise Arena is in the heavenly place, so getting a ticket still gives you the sun. Maybe it’d be worth the horror just to feel the sun on my face again. I mean, we see it on TV, and that’s all part of the torture—to mess with our heads.”
I wanted to listen to him, didn’t wanna be rude, ‘cos the geezer was helping me out. But the more he talked, the more freaked I was getting, limbs desperate to get moving.
“You should see the ads running up to the games all week. Shows you what you’re missing. The houses with their pools, the beaches, the sunshine—everything is a paradise. It’s all twisted. So twisted. King Daichi talks about the worthy ascending to joy—the closest thing to an address.” Paul yanked down the jeans, stepping out of them and handing them over. “Here.”
“Cheers.” I put them on, giving him the dressing gown. “I really appreciate it, bruv.”
“No problem. Take the street I met you on. Go west from facing the tavern and turn left. You’ll see some signs. Don’t go right.”
“Why?”
“Nasty street. People will try and rob you.”
“Wankers.”
“They are. Anyway, the signs you’ll see will point you to the closest underground rail station. There will be a map there you can use to navigate the streets with all the key stops. You won’t get a train before twelve, but if you follow the stations marked on the map to Willow Street, you’ll be fine.”
“Like the free maps you get on the SkyTube?”
“Exactly like those.”
“Awesome.”
“It’s called Tunnelrail, by the way.”
I nodded. “How do I buy tickets?”
“Check the right pocket.” He pointed at the jeans.
I fished out a paper ticket—light blue with red print. “A day pass?”
“That’s right. I’m not going to use it today, so you may as well take it. Especially with what you’re doing. At least you’ll be able to get around the city later.”
I noticed the anxiety in his eyes. Yeah, this was fucking dangerous for me to go out during a hunt by this hound. But there was zero choice. I wasn’t waiting until it was safe. End of. Safe never got anything done.
“That’s cool. Thanks. How do I get one of these if I end up needing another?”
“There’re ticket machines at the stations. You’ll see a panel shaped like a hand. Touch it, and it registers you wanting one. They’re restricted to one a day.”
Being fake dead, would that work for me? This dreaming death was all a trick, but did it cover ticket machines in the dead city?
“Does this city have a name?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve heard some call it Daichi City, but most don’t really call it anything. Maybe Dead City.”
“Thanks for this,” I replied, pocketing the ticket again. “And try not to beat yourself up about stuff, yeah?”
He didn’t reply.
“Okay. Time to get this show on the road.”
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, then put his hands up. I must’ve had a demon look about me. “I know, I know. I’m just checking. You’re feeling okay?”
“Bit lightheaded, but nothing I can’t deal with. Skin’s a bit sore, but I don’t care. Finding G is what I care about right now.”
He nodded, tying the dressing gown closed.
I strapped on my katanas. My small blades that were usually fixed to my ankles were long gone. Probably with my non-dead body that Mama Rita and the mazoku thought was dead. Apparently, my ‘corpse’ had been burned back at that locked pagoda under Mount Tate…inside Mount Tate… Oh, who the fuck knew!
My katanas buzzed on my back, a soft tingle of power that was kind of reassuring.
Leaving this room in the conventional way wasn’t in the cards. I didn’t know Janet well enough to foresee what her reaction would be. She seemed like she wouldn’t take any shit, though, and would strap me down to something to keep me inside the tavern.
Out the window it was, then. I went to check it out. Drainpipe outside leading down to the side street. Cool. A classic. The tavern only had two floors—this one and the one below. Easy as long as I didn’t slip. I was still a bit foggy in the skull.
Fuck it. I’d be fine. The sugary coffee was starting to work its sweet caffeinated magic on me.
I had this. Even if I didn’t, I’d scoop it up and make it my bitch.
“Well.” I turned to Paul. “This is goodbye. Don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again.”
“I’m worried you’re right.”
So, so right, bruv. “Take care, yeah? Be good to Becky. She seems like a real sweet person.”
“She is.”
“Tell Janet I’m sorry I nicked her socks and slippers, and that I might have stretched her knickers out too much.”
He smiled. “I’ll pass it on. Don’t catch the eye of the Crimson Army. Keep your head down if you see them. They’d mess you up for looking at them wrong.”
“Noted, bruv.”
I opened the window, which was just about big enough for me to squeeze through, and stepped up onto the windowsill.
Man, it was mega quiet, and the alleyway below me was mega creepy. Just ‘cos I heard nothing but the wind, it didn’t mean the Butcher Hound wasn’t stalking around. Always best to scope out the surroundings before taking action. So I went up, grabbing the drainpipe for support. Paul closed the window behind me as I pulled myself up onto the roof.
A bit of a wobble, but I had a grip on my legs and feet enough to not tumble backward and crack my head and die an actual death, and then maybe a second death to compensate the lack of a real one.
I shut my mind down, taking in the view. Or lack of one.
I crouched low, not making myself a target. Still only the wind making noise, no panting or woofs or growls or whatever this hound did.
Because of the taller strip club next door spoiling the fun, I wouldn’t be able to traverse the rooftops all the way down the street the tavern was on. Damn hodgepodge buildings.
I could go halfway, though.
I moved as lightly as I could, keeping low, eyes scanning below for any movement. This didn’t mean I was safe up here. Knowing my luck, and the rules of general bullshit, the hound would
have some mad jumping skills or even wings.
I reached the point I had to stop at, leaning against the red-painted wall, having another listen, looking both ways. Don’t cross the road without looking ‘cos you never knew what hound might come and bite your behind.
Five minutes went by.
Still no change.
I should call my babies back, get them to check the area. But that would mean losing the connection to G.
He wasn’t moving. Still sat in that place he was in. I’d be a dick to not call them back.
Okay, a few more minutes, check the streets, then send them back.
A few minutes was a long time. G could move on, and I’d have to track him down again. How far would he actually move, though?
Far enough if he wanted to. The geezer was the beta wolf.
Gah!
Facts were facts. Cold and annoying but there to keep your feet on the ground. At least for me. No floating away on my own rules, sitting on some whimsy.
I called Bob and Rose back. They whipped through the city, springing back to me like an elastic band had just gone snap.
“Hi,” I whispered, fussing their heads. “I need you to look for a scary hound. And bad guys.”
A lick of my hand from each of them and they went off to do their thing, me connected to every move. Every sensation that was available tickled my senses. Which was mainly the smells and sounds of the nearby stinky river, people hiding in houses, and the sight of the empty street.
Empty had my nerves twanging.
There…
Oh, shit. Bob and Rose froze, hackles rising a few streets over, growling at the huge creature before them. It was blurry, but I could see it was red and, well, big.
From what I could tell, it was heading in this direction.
I couldn’t stay here. I’d drop into the alley, move to a different street, and try and circle around it. If I needed to take a detour, then fine. Paul had said there were signs, so that was fine. I’d track down a station, grab a map and go from there. Boom. No hound. It wasn’t really doing much but slowly stalking the street it was on, looking for its next victim.
Time to go.
Carefully, I went back down the drainpipe I’d climbed up on, keeping my metaphysical lock on the hound as I went. Still in the same place. Good, good. Fucker could stay right there. Some of us had business to take care of and didn’t need any more ball aches.
Where were the tenshi in this? I mean, the afterlife. This was it? This is what they had waiting for us on the other side?
Something wasn’t right. Call it intuition, call it an extra sense, but there was a mega bad taste left in my mouth about all this. Loads of pieces and no puzzle board to lay them out on.
Feet on the ground, I hurried down the alleyway.
The Butcher Hound was suddenly moving fast. Bob and Rose followed it, the big thing really gathering some serious speed.
Coming right this way. No time to run back and go up the drainpipe.
Oh, shit!
I broke into a faster run, bursting into the next street, making a left, scanning the houses and shops. All locked up. I couldn’t put these people at risk by breaking in. I just couldn’t. Whatever sort of arsehole I could be, I wasn’t gonna lower myself to that level of selfish.
Fuck!
I heard its growl first, then spun to greet it as it appeared on the street, Bob and Rose circling it a few times before returning to me.
Red fur the color of the cursed chaos moon back on Earth, shiny and glossy, even looking a bit like fire as it slowly paced back and forth. It was the size of four Great Danes, eyes a bright yellow, a metal ring through its snout.
It chuffed, stopped pacing like a tiger, and lowered its head, sniffing me out.
Good to see luck being on my side as always.
Cue eye roll.
I drew my katanas, swallowing hard. The Butcher Hound pawed at the concrete, prepping like a bull ready to charge.
“Just call me the fucking matador,” I muttered.
No way was I going down without a fight, even if I was about to piss myself.
Those were some big old teeth in that head. Enough to crack my head open in one bite.
It stared at me, and I stared at it, waiting for a move to be made.
The wind stirred, sending a chilly ripple across my skin.
You first, wanker. You first…
Chapter Five
Gabriel
“You can’t go outside. You’ll die if you do.”
“Yes, you’ve already said that.” The man had warned me several times about the dangers of the Butcher Hound, how we can die again, and generally how awful Mayor and Mayoress Butcher were.
I ignored my coffee, planning my next move as I sat at the table in the café by the now boarded up window.
“Well, I think you young people need to get it into your heads how important all of this is. Tenshi, help me.” He muttered the last part, thinking I wouldn’t be able to hear him.
I had no intention of staying here after the hunt was over. Sharing my afterlife with this guy was right at the bottom of my list. This was a brief interlude, a time to study the small map I’d found on the ground—much like a SkyTube map—and get a lay of the land.
“Hello?”
I turned to face the man—an English guy called Gerald looking to be in his fifties or so, wearing a blue beanie hat and a red apron. This was his café, a small greasy spoon with paintings of London on the walls. I think he’d painted them himself.
“Don’t waste that coffee,” he said. “It doesn’t grow on trees. Anyway, you’ll be safe here. Safest place.” He muttered something else to himself, wiping the counter with a cloth. I wasn’t really listening to put his words together.
I held it up as a cheers then gulped some of it back, hiding a wince at the extreme bitterness. Wherever he’d got the coffee beans from, he needed to rethink his source.
It was foul, yet a free drink. So I didn’t complain—verbally or in my facial expressions. I remained neutral and grateful to Gerald for inviting me in, despite his abrupt tone. He’d called me across the street when I’d been figuring out my location, warning me about the hound, insisting I take shelter.
There was another person here. They were female and had the distinct scent of vanilla about them. I didn’t enquire further.
I was dead. Murdered by Mama Rita and that banshee, stabbed to death, now here in this strange afterlife city while Akira was… I didn’t know.
I could only hope he was alive still, that he’d managed to get away while I was slaughtered. Would he have run? I didn’t think so. Not in those circumstances, not when he’d come so far and close to the answers he’d been looking for all of this life. Because he was on the verge of knowing, even when more layers of mystery were put on his head.
Something had stopped me from fighting back, an unseen force shoving me down repeatedly. Did it do the same to Aki too?
And so I’d failed him, cut down and leaving him all alone. I was supposed to be by his side, watching out for him every step of the way.
What I wouldn’t give to kiss him again, to feel his skin on mine once more.
I know I shouldn’t have felt that way. High Alpha would not have taken kindly to Aki and me having sex. I wasn’t presuming to understand the mind of my king, but I couldn’t imagine him approving of anything between his son and me.
There was a lot I didn’t understand about Hitoshi Murakami, especially after finding out certain things from Akira. What kind of father sat back and let his child endure such horrific bullying, pile shame on him the way High Alpha had done? No wonder Aki was so broken.
Even in death, without High Alpha’s rule hanging over me, guiding me, I still felt like I was betraying him by thinking this way. It wasn’t for me to question his motives, to be anything but loyal and dedicated to him as his beta. Yet I’d seen him in a new light and continued to do so.
The rose-tinted spectacles were in pieces.
Gerald repeated his warning once again, pointing a butter knife at me, then disappeared through a door leading into a kitchen.
Aki. All the things we’d been through. Him opening up to me, those moments between us where we’d kissed, held one another, and that moment on the hotel balcony when we’d given in to our desires. It’d all grown complicated, heightened, moving in a direction I had no control over, nor understood. There was more to it than us simply spending a lot of time together, and more than just loneliness. It’d been a surrender to emotions, to a plethora of sensations. A connection was there, something bubbling away under the surface of us, wanting to collide. Tenshi, I wanted to taste his lips again, even stare at his face for the next hour. I’d been living in denial about what we were. More than just friends. Akira Murakami had wrapped himself around me and wouldn’t let go. He’d triggered a longing no other guy had ever triggered before.
And now it was all over.
There wouldn’t be a chance to explore it, for both of us to pull our heads out of our butts and discuss it.
Too late.
I was dead. Maybe he was too.
The only sounds in the café were of Gerald moving around in the kitchen. Outside, there was just the wind and the rustle of leaves being blown across the road. There was a tree next to the café on the sidewalk, shedding its foliage painted with the colors of autumn.
I can’t believe this had happened. Not that I’d died. You always expect death, feel it breathing down your neck when you live the kind of life I’ve lived. Death has always been my shadow, and not something I feared. It is inevitable. But I wasn’t ready for it. This was the worst time to say ‘hey.’
Who is ever ready? Death always comes at the worst time. Tough shit. It doesn’t care about the baggage of your life, your goals, your dreams. None of it. For it isn’t life—its death.
Nevertheless, I was confused by some things.
First of all—this city and the explanations about its rulers given to me by Gerald. A king? A mayor and mayoress? Second death, a generally grim outlook, and even an underground rail network. Had we all been duped into thinking there was something more waiting for us on the other side? Not a specific thing exactly, but certainly not a city like this with an apparently mad king at the helm.
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