Moonlight Virgin

by Kat Cotton

  “Taaaasty!”

  “Oh, my neighbor is practicing his vocals. For one of those reality talent shows. I don’t think he’s going to make it past the audition.”

  That sounded like the worst excuse ever, but the mayor would accept it. Or pretend to, at least.

  “So, Mayor, the town has become the number one tourist destination for the lowest element of the paranormal class, and you want the streets cleaned up?”

  He beamed at me. “That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. We can put you on salary, or maybe a lump sum payment. Name your price.”

  I beamed back. “A vampire trying to wipe out another gang can cause huge issues. You might think we’re unlawful, but there are repercussions for something like that.”

  The mayor squirmed around to face me. “There will be major repercussions if this gang violence keeps up. You know that as well as I do. You want to stay in the shadows. You wouldn’t have tried to have the Demon Child destroyed if you didn’t. You’ve shown your hand. You want this gang destroyed as much as I do. It’s unusual but not unprecedented for vampires to fight each other.”

  I patted his cheek. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple, Nic. It should be a walk in the park for you.”

  I pursed my lips. “Let me think about it for a minute. Umm, no. I don’t think I have a spare spot in my schedule this month. I told you, I’m a busy man. What about that Harry McConchie guy? Sure, he couldn’t take me down, but the Northside Gang are no me. He should be able to manage.”

  The mayor tried to look all pleading eyes, but then his phone beeped.

  “Got to go,” he said. “This city won’t run itself, but we’ll talk about this again.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Or we could not and say we did.”

  Finally, he left, and I got to eat my little cake. Then it was back to training Vlad. The kid pretty much needed full-time attention.

  Chapter 2 Clem: Meeting with Yamaguchi

  “It’s a zombie apocalypse, right? These people aren’t human.”

  I trailed Kisho though Shinjuku train station as about a million people flooded around us, all of them dead-eyed and shuffling at a snail’s pace. Tokyo wasn’t the fast-paced city I’d been expecting. Hell, I’d just got off a ten-hour flight, and I had more life in me than any of them.

  “It’s peak hour,” Kisho said without turning back to me. “That’s normal.”

  I rushed to keep up with him. I didn’t want to lose him in this crowd. I had no freakin’ idea which train to catch or where we were headed. Kisho seemed to have it all under control, though. Following Kisho was a bit of a bummer, since he walked so fast and this concourse smelled very strongly of cake. The old Kisho would’ve stopped for cake. Now, he’d become all cold and harsh. He was all eyes on the prize and no dillydallying. I really missed the old Kisho. I missed him in a thousand different ways.

  We headed up to a platform while announcements were blurted out in Japanese.

  “Get in line,” Kisho said.

  I hadn’t even noticed there was a line. Did people really do that? They didn’t just all rush onto the train? Weird. When the train arrived, I intended positioning myself so that Kisho would have to look at me. Only, once we got on the train, it was so packed that I barely had enough space to expand my rib cage when I breathed. People pressed against me, and I really hoped that was an umbrella poking into my butt.

  An old man sitting near me stared and made sucking noises with his teeth. I wanted to shuffle away from him, but there was nowhere to shuffle to, so I just stared back until he looked away. Sure, holding on to the train strap made my top ride up and show my belly skin, but that was no reason for the pervy old creep to act like that.

  He looked back again.

  “Stop objectifying me, grandpa,” I snapped. He probably didn’t understand English, but my tone of voice left no room for misunderstanding.

  We stopped at a station. In the crush of people getting off the train, I inched down closer to Kisho. Really close. When the next wave of people got on the train, I had to move even closer, my body pressing against his. He stayed stock-still, body tense and not responding. I could’ve been a total stranger.

  That kiss we’d shared so recently now meant nothing to him.

  Nic had warned me. He’d told me that in defeating the Vampire King, I’d lose Kisho, and while I’d known that in my head, my inner feels refused to accept it. It seemed like someone had whipped a warm blanket off of me on a winter’s night, and I’d become frozen and exposed.

  When he moved away as though every atom of my being repelled him, he might as well have stuck a knife in my chest and cut out my heart. He couldn’t be like this forever, surely. No one could hold on to a grudge that long.

  A few stops later, we got off the train.

  I followed him through the station. Again, I could smell cake.

  “Cake?” I said.

  “We have to meet the client.”

  “We have time.”

  “Punctuality is very important here.”

  He still didn’t look at me. I’d have cake after this meeting. I’d have all the cake I wanted. Maybe, if this client was a nice guy, he’d even offer me cake at the meeting.

  When we got outside the station, there were no skyscrapers and no neon lights. Even though it’d only been about ten stops, this was a whole other world, all tranquil and calm, with soft sunlight shining down.

  The quiet streets we walked down were a labyrinth. If not for Kisho, I’d have had no chance of finding this client.

  “What’s this place called?” I asked Kisho.

  “Nippori.”

  Okay, that meant nothing to me, but I’d file it away in the back of my brain in case I needed to know. If nothing else, this place had delicious smells. My stomach rumbled.

  Finally, we got to a house, and Kisho stopped.

  “Is this the place?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  This place didn’t exactly look like the house of someone capable of paying my fees. Was this old geezer going to stiff us? I didn’t exactly run a charity, and my fees weren’t cheap. On the other hand, he’d sent us first-class tickets to get here, which had been pretty damn sweet. That whole flight, I’d been cradled in the lap of luxury. The hotel he’d put us up in was fancy, too. We had a suite with two bedrooms and a connecting living area with a little kitchenette, slap-bang in the middle of Shinjuku. On the 32nd floor, too, so we had a view over the city.

  “On a clear day, you can see Mount Fuji,” they’d told us at check-in.

  That cozy bed tempted me, but we’d only had time to drop off our bags and have a shower before heading off to this meeting.

  While Kisho rang the doorbell, I investigated. The house wasn’t even painted. It was just oiled boards. But, then, had I seen a painted house anywhere? Most of the buildings I’d seen were concrete boxes. This looked like a strong breeze would knock it down.

  Before I could snoop any more, the door slid open with a loud rattle.

  A tiny, hunched-over lady in a kimono invited us into the house. Good thing, too, or Kisho wouldn’t have been able to enter.

  I started to follow her, but Kisho nudged me.

  “Shoes,” he hissed.

  Oh, yeah, that whole shoe thing. I unzipped my boots and put them on a rack. My tights had a whooping great hole in the toe, but, luckily, the woman had laid out slippers for us. Nice warm slippers, which were especially handy since there was no carpet or anything, just old boards on the floor.

  The old lady seemed to glide along those boards, not lifting up her feet. I tried to do the same but ended up just doing a jerky slide.

  She took us into a room and indicated for us to sit down, then left, sliding the door shut behind her.

  These people had to be poor as fuck, since that room had pretty much no furniture. Just a low table in the middle and a shelf with some kind of flower arrangement on it. The straw mat floor didn’t make it look too lush, eithe
r. The place smelled like a barn.

  There were some cushions to sit on. Hell, if I’d known we’d be sitting on the floor like this, I’d have worn a longer skirt. I tried crossing my legs, but that meant I’d be flashing all my business at the old geezer when he came in. Then I tried kneeling like Kisho did, but that hurt like hell, stretching every muscle in my legs to capacity. Finally, I got settled with my legs to one side, but that meant I had to put one hand on the floor to stabilize myself, and that made me feel incredibly vulnerable.

  The old lady came back in with two cups. They looked like something a kid had made in pottery class, all lopsided and weird. She set them on the table in front of us.

  “Please wait,” she said before gliding back out.

  I took a sip of the drink and almost spat it back out. “It tastes like bong water,” I hissed to Kisho.

  He shook his head, then wrapped both hands around the cup before lifting it to his mouth.

  These people were definitely poor if that was the best drink they could offer us. Would it be rude to not drink it? Because there was no way I could stomach any more.

  Normally, I asked for half my payment up front, but if these people were so poor that they couldn’t even buy a decent tea bag, then maybe I should ask for the whole thing. And get it in real dollars. I had no idea how much this Japanese money was worth.

  Kisho didn’t say a word; he just sat sipping his tea. We waited and waited. The hand I was propping myself up on went numb, so I changed sides. The straw mat imprinted its pattern on my hand. I bet my legs weren’t faring much better.

  So much for Kisho saying people valued punctuality here. We’d been on time and ended up waiting forever. I would most definitely have had time for cake.

  Finally, the sliding door opened.

  An old man shuffled in. His bald head shone like it’d been polished. Maybe that was what had kept him so long, all that polishing and waxing. He was wearing Japanese clothes but had a yellow-and-black-checked sports coat on over the kimono thing. It looked kind of dapper, in a weird way.

  He knelt down and greeted us.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Yamaguchi,” I said.

  Kisho said something in Japanese.

  Yamaguchi replied in Japanese.

  I picked up the cup and twirled it in my hands. At least it was warm. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” I said.

  Kisho glared at me. Was there something wrong with that? He kept jibber-jabbering on with the old man, not even bothering to tell me what they were talking about. For all I knew, they could be trying to screw me out of my money. Well, Kisho wouldn’t, but the old man could be, and Kisho wouldn’t even protest. He’d be all polite and sweet. Maybe this had been a stupid idea. Had the old man even paid for our hotel? We might find ourselves with a massive bill to pay.

  Yamaguchi had spoken English on the phone. Very broken English, but good enough to be understood. Why was he talking in Japanese now? It was like he didn’t want me to understand. He’d not even answered my greeting; he’d only acknowledged Kisho.

  The tea in my cup had gone cold. Actually, the whole room was cold. Not being able to afford to heat the place was another point against them in my book. I shivered and wished I’d brought a thicker jacket with me. Maybe I’d never be warm again.

  I wished Kisho would hurry this meeting up. I wanted to get back to the hotel and out of the cold.

  “Ask him if he has enough money to pay my bill. We’re not taking the job unless he has the ready cash.”

  Kisho flashed me an angry look. That was the most I’d gotten out of him in days. Anger beat the hell out of coldness. As they continued on with their talk, I studied the little cup and formulated a plan in my mind. If I kept pushing Kisho, eventually he’d get so angry, he’d explode. Exploding would melt all the ice he had around his heart. We’d argue, then the air would be totally cleared. That was how people worked.

  That was a near-genius-level plan. No wonder I was the top demon fighter in the world, with plans like that. I’d make a list of things that got Kisho especially riled up. Maybe I could even ask Nic for suggestions.

  “Clem?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you following this conversation at all?”

  “Well, since I can’t understand a word you’re saying, no.”

  I glared at Yamaguchi, and he looked at me, but not at my eyes. I moved my legs so he couldn’t look up my skirt. The polite thing would’ve been for him to avert his eyes rather than stare right at the crotch of my panties. As I repositioned myself, so did he, so he could get a better view. Creeper. To be honest, there wasn’t much about Yamaguchi that endeared him to me.

  “I’ll give you a recap. Mr. Yamaguchi has had an object very valuable to him stolen. He wants us to recover it.”

  “Stolen by a kitsune?”

  He’d mentioned the kitsune thing when he first called me. I wasn’t exactly sure how we’d go about finding a kitsune in a city where I could barely use the train system, but I had no lack of faith in my skills. It’d work out.

  “Yes,” Kisho replied.

  “Wow, it took a long time to find that out.”

  I got an old envelope out of my bag and tried writing a quote on it. That proved difficult when I only had the use of one hand, so I moved to sit cross-legged but turned sideways so the geezer couldn’t see up my skirt. The guy had promised to pay top dollar, so I added a few extra figures onto the quote. Either the guy would pay it, or he’d gasp and tell us to leave. Then I could have a couple of days bumming around sightseeing before heading home. Make that a couple of days to rile up Kisho.

  Oh, and I added a few extra hundred just because he’d tried to look up my skirt. He’d be putting images of me in his dirty old man spank bank, so I was entitled to some compensation.

  I handed the slip of paper over.

  “American dollars?” was all the old guy said.

  I hadn’t thought of that, but, yeah, American dollars made it so much better than Australian ones. That was like a whole bunch of bonus bucks. And, hey, he’d spoken English. Dude obviously understood stuff. He just didn’t want to talk to me.

  I should’ve added another grand or so on the bill for that. Plus interpreter fees. Damn it. I’d screwed myself out of a fortune.

  The old lady came into the room. She had a teapot and offered to fill up our cups. I shook my head. I didn’t need any more of that bong water tea. Kisho had a top-up. Then she took my quote from the old man.

  “He knows we want half up front?” I asked Kisho.

  Kisho nodded.

  I hoped the old man would say he couldn’t afford us real fast, because I’d started to go numb from the waist down. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to stand again. I’d never appreciated chairs so much before.

  Kisho and the old man chatted some more. I didn’t know what Kisho was saying, but I heard my name, and then the old man smiled at me. I smiled back, in a “stop talking about me, you old bastard” way. Then my stomach grumbled. No wonder. I’d not eaten since breakfast on the flight.

  A moment later, the old lady reappeared. She handed something to the old man. An envelope. Not the envelope that I’d written on, but a long envelope. It was kind of fancy-looking. I didn’t need their fancy envelopes. I needed cash.

  The man slid it across the table to me.

  I picked it up and opened it. It was filled with cash. American dollars. My heart fluttered, and my palms started to sweat. This was it. True love. I took the wad of cash and counted it. The full deposit. Much more money than I’d been expecting.

  Did these old people just have wads of cash sitting around their house like that? No wonder a fox had just wandered in, willy-nilly, and ripped them off. Old people could be pretty damn stupid when it came to money.

  I assumed that Kisho had all the details of the case, so it was time to leave. I struggled to get up and had to press on Kisho’s shoulder.

  The old man gave me a questioning look.

 
“So, thanks. I think we have everything we need, don’t we?” I looked to Kisho.

  He shrugged.

  “We do, don’t we?” I asked.

  “I guess.”

  He said some more stuff to the old man, then apologized and got up. I wasn’t sure why he apologized. It was such a Kisho thing to do.

  When we got outside, I sighed. “Okay, let’s eat. I’m starving. Ramen would be good.”

  Kisho stared at me. “You realize you broke every rule of Japanese etiquette you possibly could?”

  What had I done? I’d just sat there, smiling. I wasn’t sure what Japanese etiquette said about looking up people’s skirts, but you’d figure that would be rude in any culture.

  I thought Kisho was being a bit touchy. But, hey, my plan to rile him up was working. That had to be a good thing.

  “Well, maybe you can explain all that to me over a huge bowl of steaming hot ramen, because my brain doesn’t function too well when I’m starving. Plus, that guy was pretty damn rude himself. Why did he keep talking to you?”

  “He’s an old man. It’s easier for him to explain in Japanese.”

  That might be so, but how hard would it have been for him to at least greet me and say a few words? I knew full well why he’d done it: because he was a sexist pig. Possibly also a racist. But, hey, he’d given me the money, so he could do all his talking through Kisho if he liked.

  “And you can brief me on the details of the case. For starters, what was the treasure that the kitsune stole?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “The old man didn’t say. It’s obviously something valuable, and he doesn’t trust us with the full details.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “I didn’t want to push him.”

  I sighed. I loved Kisho, but sometimes he could be so frustrating.

  “Don’t you think that might’ve been a big help in actually retrieving the treasure? If we had some idea what it actually was?”

  “You don’t understand the Japanese way of doing things.”

  “I sure don’t, buddy. But I do understand this business. We have to retrieve a treasure, but we don’t know what it is. We have no clue. It could be a precious gem, or it could be a motherfucking stuffed bear, for all we know.”