by J. P. Rice
Now the tables had turned.
Shuten dōji looked up toward the ceiling and shot fire from his eyes. As I watched the flames grow, I also noticed something flying across the room. By the time I’d refocused, Shuten dōji’s magic long arms were racing at Felix and me. Before I could react, the huge hand grabbed the side of my face.
I wasn’t sure of Shuten dōji’s plan until he rammed my skull into Felix’s, rattling my brain and knocking me to the floor. As I tried to regain my bearings, I noticed Felix was out cold. An evil laugh filled my ears, and as I looked up, the beast was closing in on me. The tables had turned yet again.
This would be easy pickins for the bleeding demon.
A rattling, clanking sound echoed around the room and I wondered if the Morrigan had arrived to claim her soul. My soul.
Shuten dōji leaned down and hovered over me. He extended his fingers, making his hand flat, and I stared at the long claws. He pulled back his arm and prepared to pierce my heart with his claws. I went to close my eyes when something appeared behind the beast. I couldn’t believe it.
Standing behind the legendary demon was a strange, yet welcome sight. Somehow, Okumura’s bones had reassembled into a working skeleton. Man was I glad I’d showed respect to those bones. The blackened bones danced from foot to foot and both hands sprang forward.
The beast let out a scream that could be heard back in Pittsburgh, his attack hand dropped harmlessly to his side, and he fell to his knees only inches from my chest, barely avoiding crushing me. I rolled away to get away from the beast.
Okumura’s skull released a grunt like you would hear from a tennis player, but in his throat, and he drove his open hand into the Shuten dōji’s ribs. The demon squealed and arched his body away from the impact, almost folding himself in two. Okumura’s bones danced around with his fists extended as he yelled at the demon in Japanese.
He wanted retribution. I could hardly blame the man.
Okumura’s skeleton approached Shuten dōji from behind. The big demon was having trouble getting to his feet, scrambling around on the ground. Okumura boxed his ears, and I watched Shuten dōji’s molten eyes go crossed. The demon fell on his face causing a solid thud when his skull made contact with the stone floor.
With Felix and Glenda still out, I couldn’t wait any longer to shake the cobwebs loose. I couldn’t depend on the bones of a dead man to win this battle. Instead of racing into the action like a fool, I prepared an attack.
I drew a purple fireball into my right hand. As I prepared to fire, I noticed Shuten dōji wasn’t moving. Okumura danced around the body, shouting what I assumed to be insults at the demon. Was the demon dead?
Okumura moved close to Shuten dōji’s head and lifted his foot back. His leg swung back down like a soccer player and his bony foot headed for the demon’s skull. At the very last moment, Shuten dōji’s hand raced from his side to his face. He grabbed the foot, and jumped to his feet.
Shuten dōji maintained his hold on the foot, which sent Okumura’s skeleton upside down, hanging in mid-air. Shuten dōji walked calmly over to the tables as Okumura screamed and shouted, wildly waving his arms and legs. The demon reached back and swung the bones of Okumura down on one of the tables.
The bones exploded into smaller fragments and dust and the skull rolled unevenly until it came to a sudden stop. Shuten dōji took the foot and threw it into a fire off to the side. I heard something rustling around and hoped it was Felix. My eyes darted in his direction, but he was still laid out on the ground.
Shuten dōji shot flames from his eyes at me and I jumped to the side to avoid the fire. Due to the altitude, I was short of breath and energy. We were playing on Shuten dōji’s home turf and I wondered why he wasn’t even breathing heavy. He had been brawling four people continuously while I got to take an extended break.
I backed away as the demon closed in on me, unsure of what magic could kill this beast. Before I could launch a plan, a moving fog of smoke appeared behind Shuten dōji. A furry blur streaked out of the haze. My favorite werefox raked her hands down Shuten dōji’s back, from his shoulders to his hips.
He screamed in agony again and turned around, trying to locate Glenda. There was my opening. I fired my purple orb at the left side of Shuten dōji’s back. The baseball sized object connected with his ribcage. The dense ball of fire shattered his bones and burrowed straight into his chest cavity.
Within moments, the ball tore through his heart and raced through the front of his ribcage, shattering more bones on the way out. The purple fireball coated with black blood, bone and muscle tissue flew across the open room before Shuten dōji even dropped to the ground.
The beast fell unsteadily to his knees and then crashed onto his side, finally settling face down on the stone floor. He twitched for another half minute before going completely still. Holy shit. We’d done it.
“Glenda, are you all right?” I screamed as I raced over to her though the increasing smoke in the castle.
She was confused and struggled to get up, but made it to her feet as I approached. “I will be. Is that motherfucker dead or should we tear him up some more?”
“He’s dead,” I said, wrapping my arms around her naked body for a victory hug. “Unless he doesn’t need a heart or lungs, we got that motherfucker.”
“I need to get into some clothes.” Glenda tried to cover her enormous boobs unsuccessfully, and scurried off to her hiking bag.
I ran over to Felix and shook his shoulder. The mage didn’t budge. No. He couldn’t be dead. Right?
My hand grabbed his wrist and I put my thumb over the blue veins near his palm. I couldn’t tell if there was a pulse because my entire body was beating with my erratic heart. My hand shot up to the side of his neck.
“Why are you poking and prodding me?” Felix asked, blinking his eyes open.
I jumped back in surprise. “Holy shit. You’re alive. Sweet. Get up. We gotta get out of here. The smoke’s getting too thick.” I ran to the tables in the center of the room and found my backpack with the Blood Goblet in it. It was covered in fragments of Okumura’s bones. Dusting off the bag with the back of my right hand, I grabbed the shoulder strap with my left hand.
“You thought I was dead?” asked Felix, rhetorically. He laughed and got back to his feet.
I motioned with my right arm for Glenda to follow us out. She confirmed with a nod, hooked her arm through her hiking bag and we moved toward the entrance.
I said, “Yeah, silly me. When a body is completely still and doesn’t appear to be breathing, I naturally assume the worst.” I jumped over a few loose books that were still in flames and entered the hallway to the foyer. The smoke was heavier in the enclosed hallway and I frantically fanned away the thick clouds.
The portcullis was still raised just enough for us to crawl under. I gagged as I passed through because the opening was pulling the smoke in and forcing it into my lungs. Rolling over continuously on my side, I finally escaped the toxic smoke. Coughing and gagging, I got up to my knees and turned back to the castle.
Plumes of smoke billowed out of every opening in the castle. I didn’t expect the blaze would take down the stone castle, but it didn’t matter anymore. All we needed to do was go back down the mountain side now. Oh, shit. We still needed to fill the Goblet.
Felix pumped his fist in the air, then pounded it against his chest. “Well. We fucking did it. Wait till I tell Fukutama about this. He has no choice but to respect me now.”
I knew that was nagging on him, and for his sake, I wasn’t going to tell Fukutama that Felix had been passed out when we’d actually killed the demon. I’d let him have this one. I didn’t need personal accolades anymore.
I said, “Why don’t we let this fire blaze out and then we can go back in and fill the goblet?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Felix pulled out his vape pen and took a hit.
Glenda pulled out a bottle of Old Crow and took a healthy drink. She reached back into her bag and p
roduced a hardpack of Newports. She dug her hand into her back pocket and came out with a red lighter. She fired up a cigarette, and spoke with smoke pouring out of her mouth, “I’m good with that.”
We went to the spring and used our hands as cups to chug some water. Damn, it tasted refreshing after a battle inside a ring of fire. I splashed some of the cold water on my face and rubbed my eyes.
The three of us went back in three hours later, when most of the smoke had cleared out. The interior lay in ruins. The musty smoke still lingering represented the destruction of all the words and all the possible knowledge in those books that had burned. I wasn’t a fan of destroying literature, even if it covered the subject of black magic.
We located the body of Shuten dōji, still face down in the exact spot where he had fallen. I went and found the dagger on one of the tables in the open area. We worked together to position his arm on his back. I dragged the edge of the blade over his elbow and Felix pushed the Goblet under the wound. Glenda squeezed around the wound and we filled the Blood Goblet with his black blood.
The heat from the fire had warped the special, form-fitting cap Fukutama had made for the Goblet. We wrapped it in plastic wrap about a hundred times. I hadn’t thought about it, but we would probably need Glenda’s smuggling skills to get it back home on a flight.
They hadn’t asked about the Blood Goblet on the way over, but it being filled presented another problem. Glenda had smuggled her pistol over in her cleavage. I still couldn’t understand how she hadn’t set off the metal detectors. The Goblet was bigger and more awkward than a gun, but it could still get lost in Glenda’s massive breasts.
With the full Goblet in tow, we exited Shuten dōji’s castle and headed down the hill for the guide lodge. If worst came to worst, we could always stop in the lodge we’d stayed in on the way up the mountain. The hard part of the journey seemed to be over.
Chapter 24
Two days later, we sat inside the ruined castle, starving. Vanishing Slope apparently worked both ways. Up and down. We’d even tried more than seven times, assuming that was the trick, so nothing seemed to make sense. We would come to the bottom of the hill that leveled out. As we walked forward, we were somehow transported back up to Shuten dōji’s castle at the top of the mountain.
We had no food since the MREs had been destroyed in the fire. Glenda was almost out of booze and cigarettes. She prayed constantly. Felix didn’t have any more wax for his vape pen and was already getting moody. However, we faced a much bigger problem.
After the second failed attempt to descend the mountain, I’d packed Shuten dōji’s body in ice. Felix and Glenda had wondered why at the time. I’d done it in hope that we wouldn’t have to face this decision.
“Before we starve to death, we do have a food source here,” I hinted.
“You talking about eating a demon. No thanks.” Felix shook his head with wide eyes.
Glenda stopped praying and opened her eyes. She tossed her head back and forth, indecisive. “What if we just drank some of his blood? I could mix it into some of my Crow and barely taste it. Shit, it’s worked for vampires for hundreds of years.”
It wasn’t exactly the blood of Christ. I wondered if it would be considered sacrilegious for Glenda to drink the blood of a demon. Unfortunately for me, I’d have to drink the blood straight. “This might sound weird, but if we butcher it and cook the meat correctly...”
Felix interrupted me, “I’m gonna stop you right...”
A lion’s roar echoed around the open library room. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Looking over my right shoulder, I saw a mountain cougar only five feet away. You had to be kidding me.
I spun around, trying to figure out what magic to use. Without being prepared, calling on any spell or type of magic would be difficult. The cougar’s shoulder and leg muscles rippled as it slowly put one paw in front of the other. The predator opened its mouth wide, showing off its fangs and destructive power.
Peeking over my left shoulder, I saw that Glenda was backing away. What the fuck. I tried to produce a fireball in my right hand. It was my most trusted magical act. Wasn’t working. Terrifying nervousness didn’t help the magic flow either. Where the fuck were my friends? Felix?
The cougar took four more steps and lowered its legs to get into a crouched position. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion. The predator prepared to leap at me and I couldn’t move. It was too quick, and running was the worst thing you could do.
Fuck it. I stood my ground. I’d battled some gnarly beasts in my day. Going barehanded against a cougar seemed par for the course.
I planned to sidestep the cougar when it leaped at me, grab it by its head and break its neck all in one neat move. The cougar leaned back, and I got my hands into position. No fear. No fear. No fear.
A string of gunshots rang out in the library, causing me to scream like a girl. My heart almost jumped out of my chest and my muscles tightened as the bullets raced past me and peppered the side of the cougar. Blood spurted from the bullet holes, running down the side of the animal’s ribcage. The beast stared at me with its bright yellow eyes growing duller by the second. It slumped to the ground. The cougar thrashed around in one last act of desperation to avoid the inevitable.
Thirty seconds later, the beast went completely still. I waved my arms around, trying to get some feeling back in my numb body. That was close. Let the record state that I was willing to battle a mountain cougar with my bare hands. I wasn’t going to start bragging that the mountain cougar was lucky I hadn’t gotten my hands on it, but I was willing to give it a shot.
“Dinner is served,” announced Glenda, walking up to the cougar for a closer look.
We moved in and hovered over the lean animal. I asked, “Does anyone know how to butcher a mountain cougar?” I glanced at Glenda, then Felix.
They both shook their heads. “I’m willing to give it a shot,” Glenda said confidently.
I said, “I watched my uncle gut a deer once. This will hold us over for a few days, but we need to figure out how to get to the bottom of the mountain.” It should hold us over for more than a few days, but I didn’t want my mates to get complacent.
We found the straight blade dagger on a table near Okumura’s bones. I said, “First thing to do is to gut it.”
I positioned the cougar on its side and jammed the knife into its belly. Felix gagged behind me and Glenda giggled at the mage’s queasiness. I ran the knife up to the animal’s sternum and a flood of blood and some of the entrails spilled out, barely missing my hand.
Felix dry heaved. I turned around and he was down on one knee, covering his mouth and nose with his hand. How could someone kill beings without issue, yet be so squeamish at butchering an animal? “Why don’t you go outside and get some snow to pack the extra meat in?” I suggested to Felix.
He nodded and swallowed a couple of times, fighting away the urge to puke. “All right. I would help, but it looks like you two have this under control.” He tried to sound tough even as he was walking away with his tail between his legs.
I smirked. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the offer.”
Glenda and I butchered the mountain cougar as best we could, which wasn’t great. We decided to eat the loin and tenderloin first.
We started a fire outside the castle and found some loose metal rods in the portcullis that we used for kebabs. Without a grill, we had to roast our own meat by hand. Glenda ate her meat bloody as hell, I cooked mine to medium and Felix went for burnt to a crisp.
The meat was tough due to the animal being so lean and muscular. We didn’t have any salt or pepper. No A.-1. Sauce. However, after being faced with starvation, it was a delicious meal.
As we packed the rest of the meat in ice, I realized that it hadn’t yielded as much as I’d expected. But we were in a much better place than yesterday.
I went to sleep that night with a slight sense of relief. This meat would buy us a couple of days, but it hadn’t solved the main
problem. How the hell were we going to get out of here? It was winter, which meant there weren’t many people on the entire mountain, let alone a mysterious area that only a special guide could get to.
As I nodded off, I wondered what the next day could possibly bring.
*****
Barking dogs broke me out of my slumber. My weary eyelids flicked open and I sat up, wondering what the fuck was going on. Four mountain doggies were munching on pieces of the mountain cougar that we had packed on ice. I jumped up and screamed. Making some wild motions with my hands, I hoped to scare them away.
The doggies barked angrily at me, but it seemed like they’d already had their fill and retreated toward the entrance of the castle. I moved in closer to inspect the damage. A blind man could see it was bad. The doggies had barely left a scrap of meat from the entire animal, just some blood-stained ice. I couldn’t believe it. I looked at my friends. We were going to die on this mountain.
Instead of traipsing down the mountain, we formed a different plan. We were going hunting. Even though we hadn’t seen a single animal on all the trips down the hill, it was approaching life or death. At least it felt that way as my stomach writhed, sending a gentle reminder. Where were those mountain doggies now?
Felix and I kept small fireballs waiting in our palms for when we saw an animal. Glenda held her gun near her hip as she peered around the woods. We walked in what seemed like a circle for most of the day until the sun went down. We hadn’t spotted one animal. No snow doggies to be found.
I went to bed starving and cranky that night. The real possibility of dying thousands of miles from home started to set in. Unable to sleep, I grabbed a torch and walked around the rubble. I went to the area where Shuten dōji had smashed Okumura’s bones.
First, I worked on the skull. Like a puzzle, I found most of the pieces and slid them into place. Then I worked my way down, trying to reassemble the bones as best I could.