The hallway was about as wide as the door and bent around in a gentle curve. The wall on the right was made of wood. On the left, beneath the finely-engraved handrail, tracing the outer circumference of the pathway, was an elliptical opening.
A nasty odor assaulted his nostrils. A pungent, rotten smell. The dark earth was dotted with red-black lumps. Like animal droppings. Setsura’s eyes were drawn to a pair of black bars crossed fifteen feet above the ground, each about eight inches wide and made of iron.
Behind him, Princess asked, “Do you understand what this is?”
“Dear Emperor, lay two iron shafts across the caldron in the shape of a cross. Your servants shall walk across the branding iron and scald their feet and tumble into the hell fire. Emperor Zhou’s idea of fun, I take it.”
“Exactly. You’ve never seen one with your own two eyes.”
“Of course not.”
Emperor Zhou of the Shang had taken the advice of the demoness Daji, forcing victims to walk across the red-hot iron and cling to it as lions and tigers waited in the writhing hell below for their dinner to fall to them.
Setsura stopped.
“Oh? Why do you hesitate?” chimed Princess’s voice, full of mirth. “I brought you all this way so I could have someone to share old memories with. Look—” She spoke as grandly as she always did. “Let us cut to the chase. In the four thousand years since the demise of Shang, unknown numbers have sampled the pleasures Emperor Zhou first tasted here in this subterranean chamber. I do not know for what purpose you exist on the earth, but insight into what tickles the heart of a king can’t hurt.”
“Good grief.” The physical weariness in this reply was likely not an act. Though any vestiges of a haggard expression just as quickly vanished.
The oval hall was sixty feet across at its longest, thirty feet at its most narrow. At the far end of the iron shaft forming the major diameter, a human figure appeared.
“Relax. It’s not real. All visions of what was done back during the Shang Dynasty. Even so, you can taste the boiling blood well enough to enjoy all its dark joys.”
The Demon Princess sounded very far away. Setsura gazed at the spectacle, as if her voice had stolen away a piece of his soul.
The phantom was a voluptuous young woman. More than her vivacious naked body, what drew the attention was the look of fear staining her features. More than the raw scars on her thighs and her breasts—over which her hands were placed—this look spoke to the fate she had been delivered to, and the reality she was yet to face.
“A farmer’s wife. The executioner told her that she could return to her family if she crossed the bar successfully.”
The naked girl set off with unusually sure steps. The hope of returning to her family surely steadied her balance and disciplined her fear. She arrived at the intersection of the two shafts in under five minutes, an impressive feat.
Setsura’s eyes strayed from the girl to the remaining half of the shaft. Only inches from her toes, the red glow of the iron was obvious. By the result of some unseen technology, the scorching heat arose only from the remaining thirty feet of the shaft.
The girl froze in place. She looked back the way she came, but soon abandoned that option. Perhaps hidden soldiers brandishing spears.
She had two options—the shorter iron shaft intersecting at right angles. But looking to the right and left, she trembled with a newly aroused sense of despair.
Two shadows crouched at the ends of the shaft. Human on the right. A four-legged beast on the left.
The girl first gave the human figure a closer look. But lost hope again. Wrapped in a long blue robe was the mannequin of a young man. Glancing left, her feet froze. The beast resembled a large dog. But only the head. The body had the color and spots of a leopard. Two horns projected from above its snout like those of a bull.
“A dog with the spots of a leopard and the horns of a bull—that is a jiao dragon, as described in a collection of ancient geographical surveys known as the Shan Hai Jing.”
The creature roared, as if answering Setsura’s musings on its name and etymology. A ferocious, intimidating sound.
Which way to run? Which of these four dreadful fates to choose? The girl stood at the crossroads and pondered her options. Finally, she resolutely turned to the right, toward the young male mannequin. With each step, the place her feet had just left burned red hot. There was no retreat.
“They always make the same choice,” Princess said behind him. There was none more beautiful, and none more evil. “Save one. A brave man. He was eaten by the jiao.” She laughed. “That was the correct decision.”
Her meaning soon became clear.
As the girl approached the mannequin, he slowly raised his arms. She froze for a second, but there being no other option left open to her, she quickened her pace, hitting the mannequin head on even as his arms reached out to her.
The arms wrapped around her waist with the zeal of a lover. The girl pressed her palms against the sturdy chest but he hugged her all the tighter. She must have realized the gravity of her mistake when the mannequin placed one hand on the back of her head and turned her face around, and pressed its hard mechanical mouth against hers.
Against her lips, moist even in the throes of terror.
She struggled and squirmed, but the mannequin’s steel-like arms stole away her freedom. Her legs found no purchase. Something bittersweet and fragrant plied open her teeth. The mannequin’s tongue.
She gagged, and cried out as another unmistakable sensation radiated from between her legs. Without looking down, she knew that a rent had opened in the mannequin’s robe. He had penetrated her.
Even choking to death, her throat eerily quivered, and she swallowed him deeper.
The mannequin was endowed with a wooden cock more generously shaped and finely made than that of the best man alive. And functioned as must the dildo of the gods. He buried its throbbing length inside her. Gasps of pleasure escaped her lips. No man had or could ever have fucked her so, such were the pleasures produced by this perverse union.
The girl abandoned all sense and comity, ramming her hips against his, taking him deeper and deeper. His wood thrust and pulsed and made her come and come in ecstasy. Her back bent like a bow. Her body spasmed. She screamed, something female but no longer human.
The mannequin opened his arms and released her. Her sensuous body—sparkling even—tumbled down into the pit.
Setsura felt the impact up through the soles of his feet.
“Such a happy girl. But that well must run dry. She is still alive. Thanks to that mannequin’s tongue, for it possessed yet another special property.”
The woman’s body writhed where she had fallen hard onto the ground. She was lying on her back. Her breasts swayed. Her thighs glistened. She could not walk, perhaps because her legs were broken.
The roars of animals all around her, their species unknown but clearly carnivorous. Moaning in pain, the girl had returned to her senses sufficiently to take note of her surroundings.
The gasping girl lay almost directly in the center of the pit. Mythological beasts like the one Setsura encountered in the foyer paced around her. One placed its forefoot lightly on her chest. Seemingly on the verge of sinking its tusks into her fear and sweat-stained body—on the verge of death—it instead licked her with its long, rough tongue.
Another joined it and licked her head. Another, her arms and sides. Another, her nether regions.
“Look at that! Her limbs broken, her internal organs ruptured, and yet she is satisfied. Such is human nature. Who can dare find fault with Emperor Zhou? The substance inside her body emits a smell that arouses them. Oh dear, licking her isn’t enough. They’re tearing off her breasts. Oh my, now they’re biting off her neck. They’re flipping her over. Oh well, it’s all good. They so love mounting dead women.”
The Demon Princess laughed hysterically. Then her words froze like ice. Setsura turned his back to her.
But was it S
etsura? Princess heard a hoarse sound in her ears—the sound of her own voice. “Who the hell are you?”
The answer came just as quickly. The shadow in the black slicker glanced over his shoulder at her and said softly, “Setsura Aki.”
And that was who it was.
A transfixing countenance that crystallized the darkness of the night and the radiance of the moon, that shushed the howling of the wind. The beautiful body that supported it on its strong shoulders. The mesmerizing and yet dignified gaze. Nothing had changed at all.
Except what was inside it.
In a pleasant, comely tone, Setsura Aki asked, “Shall we have at it again, Princess?” Like a demon. Like Rakshasa, the Hindu devil. “As I am now, the cut may prove fatal this time around.”
There was no answer. Princess looked down at her feet. Her lips trembled. Anger and loathing permeated her dusky voice. “I was moved—” The product of fear perhaps. “I have lived in fear of people for four thousand years. I won’t forgive it. I shall never forgive it. Not from you, and not in myself.”
A red glow reflected off Setsura’s eyes—the fires of hell burning in hers. Even as they stood there on the narrow way, she wished to rampage through the whole wide world above them and reduce it to ashes.
Those eyes suddenly wavered. A small smile rose to her lips. Ah, but what a smile it was, as bewitching as it was cruel.
She whispered, “I had originally intended to meet with you in another room. But my wounded honor demands recompense. This is more appropriate for that—the trial by fire that turned the Emperor himself into a bawdy beast. Behold—”
Princess pointed at the end of the hallway, where another iron door was set into the wall. It didn’t appear to be open. Except that a human figure suddenly appeared standing there.
“Of course,” Setsura Aki said.
It was Yakou.
“He is my servant,” Princess said gaily. “He shared my bed, clasps me to his chest, and swears undying fealty. Yet he hunted me down as your colleague. I so want to see the blood flow, each of you stealing the other’s life to preserve his own.”
She turned her ruby red eyes upon him.
“Her wish is my command,” Yakou said. His mien and voice were only slightly different from what Setsura remembered, lending to this statement an all the more uncanny feeling.
“Are you game, Setsura Aki?”
“Fine with me.” He replied without hesitation.
This Setsura felt no sentimentality toward a friend. Yakou was an enemy under the command of the Demon Princess. That was all. Expecting from him a great show of angst, Princess’s eyes flickered with malice.
“Setsura.”
“Understood.”
The two of them vaulted over the railing with the grace of world-champion gymnasts. The mannequin and jiao were gone—no doubt Princess’s doing—and the two confronted each other above the cold and black iron shafts.
Setsura Aki and Yakou.
Doctor Mephisto had become a vampire. And now even Yakou bared his fangs. Would the time ever come when Setsura was not left to fight this fight alone?
“Bring it on.” Yakou struck a fighting pose.
Setsura knew nothing of the demon qi that had sent Kikiou flying apart.
With a state of nothingness—that exceeded even the strongest blood lust—as their mediator, the genie and the vampire launched into a duel to the death.
Chapter Three
The sound came from General Bey’s casket at sunset. Now more familiar with the behavior of vampires, the doll girl and the big raven were not startled in the least.
The doll girl said to the raven, a cool exuberance creeping into her voice, “Looks like he’s up, Grandma.”
The raven’s red tongue flicked from its pointed beak. “Wait a little while longer,” said Galeen Nuvenberg. “I am expecting somebody any minute. I assume the casket is sealed?”
“Yes, by Aki-san’s threads.”
“In that case, not even Kazikli Bey should easily free himself. Come the night, he would have trusted in his immortal body and once again crossed swords with Setsura. Settling the score, though, won’t prove easy. However, should he break the seal, you two are to flee at once.”
“But then we wouldn’t be able to save Kanan-san. I promised Aki-san.”
“I wouldn’t have come all this way for a man who asked others to sacrifice their lives for his cause. Don’t give him any more reasons to mourn than he already has.”
“And neither do I wish to give him any more reasons to mourn.”
“If that is how you really feel, then I surely made a mistake while making you.”
The doll girl had no answer.
“That man is Demon City’s manhunter. That is not an occupation that can be accomplished without understanding what moves every mind in this world. Do you think the kind of man who sees the self as a mere article of commerce could ever attract followers? That man even knows the heart of a doll.”
“But—”
“So, wait. I contacted the mayor not five minutes ago. In another twenty minutes—Well, I’ll be!”
“What is going on?”
“I knew the cockroaches would be coming out of the woodwork, but not this soon. And in number.”
“Grandma, do you mean vampires?”
“I was afraid it might come down to this. Just in case the rest of the SDF came looking for the advance party, I secluded myself here in the ruins of the Park Hyatt Hotel. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ve encountered some unintended consequences.”
“You should depart with all due haste,” said the doll girl. She looked to her side. The casket was beginning to wobble back and forth.
“Has it begun to move?” asked the big raven. “This Bey chap must be getting flustered as well. He can’t leave his own house. Just what I would expect from Setsura Aki. Those devil wires alone are beyond my ken. But no need to worry. I may be confined to this wheelchair, but this old Czech witch still has her wits about her.”
“I will trust in your abilities then. But, Grandma, you still—”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Oh, they’re coming. Twenty of them. At this rate, it won’t be long before Shinjuku changes into something completely unrecognizable. Pale faces and bared fangs everywhere you look.”
“Grandma—”
A strong rumbling in the earth spun the doll girl around. Alighting lightly on her feet, her blue eyes focused on the madly shaking casket.
It bounced a yard above the ground and crashed down. And again. Like a fisherman with a half-ton marlin on the end of the line.
More heavy impacts. A barrage of blows on the lid of the casket from the inside. Bound with the devil wire, the lid didn’t budge in the slightest.
The sound stopped. The casket lay there, black and still in the falling darkness.
“Setsura Aki? Are you there?” The muffled voice rumbled from inside the casket.
“Sure am,” said the raven, mimicking Setsura exactly.
“Open this casket. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise—what?”
The raven’s laid-back, pitch-perfect impersonation even prompted a surprised look from the doll girl.
A woman’s scream soared toward the sky.
“Kanan-san?”
“Exactly.”
General Bey’s baritone laughter mingled with the soprano of a high-pitched scream, like nails drawn across an endless blackboard.
“Open it immediately. Undo those wires. If you do not, this girl will suffer the torments of hell.”
The doll girl turned to the raven and was about to say something, but thought better of it. Their enemy was no common thug, but a demon lord that had felled even Setsura Aki. It was becoming obvious that it was in their best interests to maintain the facade that Setsura was still here.
The raven continued with the negotiations. “Release Kanan-san. Or this casket will burn.”
The general laughed at Setsura’s—the raven’s—threat.
“If you could have done that, it would already be open. You sealed it because you cannot. This casket was made by a wizard of unparalleled skills. Come the end of the world, and I shall live on as long as I remain inside it. He guaranteed as much in blood. I cannot leave. But you cannot enter. We shall enjoy the girl’s sweet terror together.”
A second scream that could split stone and pierce the eardrums of human and fowl alike. The raven was at a loss for words.
“Open it,” commanded General Bey, as if sensing their anguish.
The raven covered its face with its wing. And before taking it away said, “I can’t.”
“What?”
“If I let you out, you will spawn ten more like her in a single night. That cannot be allowed. I’m sorry, Kanan-san. I’ll never forget you. I will store General Bey’s casket at the bottom of the river forever.”
“Wait—”
The raven checked its rage. “So, General, if you are going to kill Kanan-san, best you get it over with quickly. By no means—”
The raven let the sentence trail off and gave the doll girl a wink.
“By no means—what?” The lord of darkness spoke as if he were fully in the position to lord himself over them. “Do not make her one of us, you mean?”
The raven’s silence continued.
“You are a skilled negotiator. Fine, then. I shall do as you desire. I will send your lover to meet her maker without making her one of us. Knowing that, go ahead and bury me in the earth or sink me in the river.”
The raven continued to say nothing, but gave the doll girl another knowing look. It had confirmed that Takako Kanan was not a vampire. And the general had guaranteed that she would not be changed into a vampire. Two birds, one stone. The performance of a lifetime.
“Let me think it over.” A pause. “Agreed. That is very shrewd of you. I suppose it will not kill me to spend the night at home. I shall wait one night. Then we may come to our separate conclusions. No matter what you say, this woman must be important to you.”
The voice ceased. As did Takako’s screams. A moment later, shadows darker than the night blanketed the strange duo. A fierce gale beat down. As the two of them stared in blank surprise, a dark green machine set down in the courtyard.
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 3 Omnibus Edition Page 18