“She was covered in blood. I never would have believed blood could look so lovely. I could well imagine people becoming serial killers in devotion to her, simply in order to experience that sensation again.”
After the carnage was completed, she and the other woman left on foot toward Shokuan Avenue.
As they approached the ruins of Kio Shrine, shadows descended out of the darkness and surrounded Princess and Takako. Wearing body armor and laser goggles and levitation belts, their appearance brought to mind astronauts or industrial robots.
Bright beams illuminated the two from all directions, the light becoming a part of her own natural luster. The two continued on in the glare of the searchlights as if nothing had happened. Not even a blink.
Hovering two feet off the ground, the soldiers surrounding her didn’t move. The Demon Princess raised her right hand toward the large man directly in front of her.
“Wait,” said a thin but youthful voice above their heads.
Her fingers together, Princess jabbed her hand out in front of her. Not so much in a pique of anger or emotion, but rather a spur-of-the-moment action.
Armor that could withstand a 140 mm rocket crumpled like cardboard. Princess kept on going, clenching her right hand as she walked along, piercing the Adam’s apple of the operator inside, and pushing it out the back of the armored suit.
The electrical energy wrapped her hand like a glowing violet glove, then enveloped the dead soldier. She yanked back her hand. The armored suit collapsed on the ground, twitching in its death throes, twinkling here and there like a child’s sparkler.
“Wait. I’m Takeshi Jinnai, group leader of Joint Operational Forces under the Ministry of Defense Central Command.” He introduced himself without attempting to hide the awe in his voice. “General Bey thought we would find you here. The general wishes an audience with you.”
The Princess finally came to a halt and looked up. “Where are you?”
“Come along and you will understand.”
“I am not in a mood to waste time. Tell him this—an eternal punishment of fire and brimstone awaits the traitor.”
“How about serving up that punishment here first?”
The Demon Princess glanced at the three remaining armored soldiers. “It is all the same to me. Your move.”
The heads of the armored units sang out. The built-in laser cannons linked up and aimed at Princess’s head and chest. Three beams lit up her gossamer figure in a brilliant red light.
The black night and the pure white and the ruby red—inside the dazzling fusion, two more incandescent points blazed into being. A million times redder than the reddest flame.
The eyes of the Demon Princess.
Inside their armor, the sudden shock penetrated the depths of the soldiers’ brains. For a second, they froze. In that second, Princess flew at them, a mad demon dance through the moonlight. The slash of her slender hand divided the armored suit on her left from the head down to the waist and threw him at the soldier directly in front of her.
He didn’t have time to react as his colleague flew through the air at him. At the moment of impact, the suit disintegrated like a dry reed and the electromagnetic energy from its high-power battery pack engulfed both, killing them instantly.
The soldier on the right suddenly shot upwards, trying to flee from this accursed hand while continuing to fire. As Princess’s face absorbed the light, she brandished that hand. The luminescing energy reversed course precisely, penetrated the lens of the cannon, and shot off into distant space.
The armored suit reached an altitude of fifteen hundred feet before the helmet burned out, severing the cannon’s energy feed. It would be another hour before the levitation unit would exhaust its reserves. The summer night sky was all his until then.
“So the general wasn’t lying after all,” said the voice from the heavens. “Lieutenant Matthews said the same. But I could not imagine such a disparity in power. We only want a moment of your time. We have no desire to fight you any further. But if we could shift your attention in a different direction—”
Princess narrowed her eyes to slits. “A different direction?”
“The girl with you. According to General Bey, she is very important to you. And yet she has not been turned completely. Light off a tactical nuke here, and while you might be spared, she most certainly would not.”
Princess didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.
“We are currently hovering at an altitude of five hundred meters. It’d take a warhead a second and a half. You might escape the first blast, but the second and the third? I don’t think so. I’ll only say this—you appear to possess no compassion for the lives of others, but do not imagine yourself alone in that. We would happily incinerate this town in order to get to you.”
The Demon Princess looked back at Takako. The rage in her eyes at that moment made ordinary hatred look like love in comparison. And just as quickly cooled. Perhaps the face of a certain young man had passed through her thoughts.
“Fine,” agreed the four-thousand-year-old woman. Her voice could have turned the summer air to frost. “I shall go wherever you wish. But let me make myself clear. Take me to a place I do not wish to go, with purposes in mind not agreeable to me, and you will regret it. Or rather, you will not live long enough to regret it.”
A moment of silence followed. “Then we’ll make sure we don’t do that. Just to ensure that you don’t change your mind.”
Jinnai spoke in calmer tones, though the expression on his face remained a mystery. In any case, his name might well be recorded in the history books as the second person to twist Princess’s will to his own.
The patient was wracked by disquiet. The pain in his gut grew worse, but he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the only doctor he could trust since the night before. Though he ended up being examined in the ER, the doctors were thoroughly unsympathetic.
“This is receiving for the psychic phenomena ward. A large-scale case of spiritual possession broke out at the remains of the Chuo General Hospital in the Hyakunin district. We’ve got our hands full. You’ll just have to wait until the hospital director and deputy director return.”
“Quit joking around! I’m in pain here! I’ve already been examined by every doctor who pretends to know something! That’s why I came here! Even talking hurts! Hurry up and do something about it!”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else we can do. Like I told you, we’re shorthanded right now. Relax. Your life isn’t in danger. Nor will it be for the next day or two. But the people affected by this business in Hyakunin have their bodies and souls on the line. Hold on until tomorrow and I’m sure the director will be back by then. Do the best you can until then.”
“Where is the director?” the man shouted in exasperation. He moaned. “I had two needle-like objects extracted from my abdomen. But painkillers or hypnotism don’t have any effect on the pain and nobody knows why. The army hospital said it must be a spiritual or psychological malady and recommended I come here. You can’t just throw suffering patients out on the street. Wait until the press finds out!”
“The press outside Shinjuku,” the doctor said with unfeigned sympathy.
The philosophy at Mephisto Hospital stressed the patient above all other concerns. However, that meant patients with real, treatable sicknesses.
“I can understand if it hasn’t sunk in yet—but this city and Japan aren’t the same thing. The Japanese press and the Shinjuku press aren’t the same thing. The latter are much more cooperative when it comes to institutions such as this one.”
“That a threat?” the man blustered in a low voice. His ability to cow the toughest soldier hadn’t flagged in the least.
The doctor shrugged it off. “Mr. McRae, this hospital—” At that moment, the cell phone clipped to his sleeve vibrated and a green light flashed. He smiled. “Just a second. I believe we may have an answer for you. The wings of the night have borne Doctor Mephisto back to us.”
Several minutes later, Mr. McRae was lying on a bed in an examination room, about to be treated by the Hospital Director himself.
“I’ve looked at your charts,” said the most handsome doctor in the world.
His head was bowed, so unfortunately McRae couldn’t see him clearly. The hellish pains radiating through his abdomen magically disappeared whenever Doctor Mephisto looked him in the eyes.
Nevertheless, McRae felt as if a strange coolness, like an autumn frost, had wrapped its arms around him.
“According to your charts, on the other days the previous hospital removed several blonde nylon hairs such as those used in the manufacture of dolls.”
“Yeah. The other doc said that too. But I haven’t the slightest idea when or how something like that happened. I would have noticed it. I wouldn’t even be able to walk!”
“The cause aside, that the symptoms have not disappeared after being treated suggests not physical pain but a grudge, a curse, regrets. Is there anyone with reason to bear malice toward you?”
The calm, even voice made him shiver despite himself. “No. Absolutely nothing like that,” said McRae, shaking his craggy face back and forth. His vehement denials caused him so much pain that he had to bury his face in the sheets and clutch the edge of the mattress.
“The pain will soon go away. In any case, I have to wonder who treated you previously. He did a splendid job.”
“A hospital with connections to state security. I may not look it, but I am Japanese.”
“So you work for the Foreign Office. We shall admit you to the hospital presently.”
“No can do. And with that in mind, I’ve already overstayed my welcome. Whatever treatment I receive here today, it’ll have to be on an outpatient basis.”
“How about that—a patient with a lack of patience,” said Mephisto, displaying a sense of humor very much unlike him. He touched McRae’s stomach with his fingers. McRae drew in his breath sharply. “Does it hurt?”
“No. But your fingers are very cold.”
“I beg your forgiveness.” Mephisto withdrew his hand.
McRae’s blue eyes opened wide. “It doesn’t hurt at all! It’s like a dream!”
“Post-surgical care will not be required. If pressed to arrive at a diagnosis, I would say that you incurred the ill will of another.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. The Demon Physician is as good as his reputation. I’ve seen him perform a miracle with my own eyes. I’m really thankful.”
He shook Mephisto’s hand over and over, then got dressed and left. The door closed behind him and the examination room fell silent.
“A foreign member of Japan’s civil service,” Mephisto said to himself. “Stabbed by the golden hair of a doll. Whatever could he be in a hurry about?” He hit the intercom switch. “This is the director. What is the condition of the men who recently arrived here?”
“As you diagnosed,” answered the dean of internal medicine in a brisk, businesslike manner. He was a man whose opinion Mephisto could trust. “It appears to be severe blood loss.” He lowered his voice. “The customary examination revealed no unusual internal damage. However, the marks on their necks suggest a vampire attack.”
“The Toyama vampires are no more,” Mephisto said coldly. So the news about the atomic blast had reached his ears.
“These were recent wounds. Do you know of any other sources?” the dean asked softly. “We haven’t seen the victim of a vampire attack in this hospital for years. There are rumors about that creatures afraid of the sunlight are multiplying. A friend of mine at the police hospital says that a few days ago, a Kawadacho Rejuvenation Committee gangbanger was admitted, his body riddled with .357 Magnum and .45 rounds. And yet continued to live.”
“When the night comes, those are the kinds of rumors the wind carries with it. This is Demon City, after all.”
“That’s for sure.”
“I’ll leave them to your care.”
“Understood.”
Mephisto hung up and leaned back in the armchair. He looked up at the ceiling. With a flash of his ring, the lights dimmed. His comely countenance floated here in the dark. There were no doubt poets in this city who, passing by him on a moonlit night, would slit their wrists on the spot and write sonnets to his beauty with their own blood.
Gazing upon the pale physician now, what would such a bard have to say? The Demon Physician rested his hands on his knees and locked his fingers together and smiled and laughed softly.
A gentle, heavenly smile that showed a pair of white fangs.
Chapter Two
Hitomi Takamori returned to her mushroom house half an hour after the Disco Trousseau Massacre.
Her heart felt like it had beat itself to a pulp. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed a lump of lead. That she’d been able to hail a taxi was amazing enough. That she’d managed to retrieve the fare from her desk and collect the change was a miracle.
She’d witnessed the slaughter in front of the club. In the face of all that blood and human carnage, her budding journalistic spirit died.
What was she doing getting involved with a woman like that? And the man who had led the girl to her abode—the girl who had gone off with that woman—what manner of man was he?
They must be one and the same.
The face of that strong, silent man rose up in her thoughts. As did the unbelievable conclusions. But he must be different. She could not have become entranced by a man who had anything to do with the likes of her.
The tragic series of events that had begun the night before were taking their toll on her spirit. She’d returned home in order to pose the question to him, and that itself was beyond perverse.
The taxi left and she stood alone in front of the door. She had to go in. Now she felt the fear. She hadn’t the time to check when she’d retrieved the fare, but had felt no human presence deeper in.
These creatures of the night were unlikely to linger about when night came. She ran after the taxi. Its taillights were just turning the corner. It couldn’t wait and it wouldn’t come back. For the first time, Hitomi was seeing the true colors of the night.
She stood there for a while. Her body trembled once. A bird sang out in the night air.
She walked quickly to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. Without stopping, she proceeded from the foyer through the kitchen and placed her hand on the door and slid it open.
Darkness filled the room the way water fills a glass. Touching it seemed to send ripples through the gloom. The light switch was by the door. She reached out, almost in a daze. She was afraid her fingers were going to close around some strange object, but they reached the switch unimpeded.
Light filled the small room.
A man was there. The same place she had left him in the morning, the same position, lying on his back.
There was only one thing—no, two things—different. First, the blanket was pulled down to his waist. Second—and now Hitomi let out a small scream—a black stake grew out of the left side of Ryuuki’s chest. Its black gleam boasted its sickening gravity as it sunk into his heart.
A steel stake.
Hitomi’s thoughts shouted at her to run. She spun around. The sliding door slammed shut in front of her face. She tried to open it but it wouldn’t budge. She looked down at the jamb and saw a streak of white dust. Earlier, not even Galeen Nuvenberg had taken note of it.
She touched it with the tip of her finger. It blew into her face, into her eyes. It stung fiercely and made her gasp. She bent over in pain.
The pain went away. The dust had retreated. Ryuuki’s body lay there.
She turned to the door. A gray stab of pain assaulted her retinas. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the ceiling. Her vision cleared. She poised herself and leapt toward the door. She was blinded before she reached it.
Hitomi attempted to escape two more times before it became clear that the dust was commanding her—to focus her attention on Ryuuki.
“W
hat do you want?” she cried, throwing her arms out in supplication. “He’s dead. What am I supposed to do about it?”
The dust danced in front of her face. Then swirled down and gathered around the stake.
“You want me to remove it?”
The dust scattered around the circumference of his body. If she removed the stake and brought him back to life, that could constitute a betrayal of the human race.
Hitomi looked down at him. A countenance that bespoke the distillation of the feral and the civilized in countless trials and tribulations remained calmly unchanged on this cruel deathbed.
And she realized how becalmed her own spirit was. This was Demon City, after all, the city where every creature, no matter how ugly and repulsive, had the right to live and let live. Didn’t the citizens of this city have an equal duty to protect the rights of the vampires as much as those of anybody else?
The conviction welled up inside her—this man is different. He was a different species from that of the cold, merciless vampire demon favored in the movies.
Even the dust stirs itself to protect him.
Her conscience clear, Hitomi grasped the stake. The black-red blood around its base was hard and dry. She knelt and yanked up with all her might. It resisted at first, and then slipped out.
She fell back on her behind, the stake in her hands. She cast it aside and approached him. She touched his pale face. There was no reaction. She touched his hands. They were cold. There was no pulse.
How was she supposed to revive him? Her state of exhaustion robbed her of her strength. She put a hand on the floor and took a ragged breath.
Tan—The sound rang in her ears. But she couldn’t make it out.
Tan—Tan—
Tan—Tan—Tan—
Her blood thrummed to the beat. The man with a tree up his ass. She’d assumed he was dead and thought no more about him. It wasn’t possible. He was alive and had followed her back here—
Hitomi ran to the window. The curtains were closed. She hesitated. And then pulled them open. The grounds in front of her house were filled with moonlight. The small figure was sitting cross-legged in the center of the lot. It could have easily been mistaken for a passing shadow. But the shadow sat on a slab of concrete beating his drum.
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