Her figure was swallowed up by the darkness. When the sense of her presence had vanished as well, Setsura’s thoughts returned to the nature of his predicament.
A fierce growling came nearer. The white tiger, Ko. Setsura could hear the loathing in its voice, the pain. Things were not looking up.
Princess had told the cat to kill him if he tried to escape. She hadn’t told it not to if he didn’t. In this condition, move a pinky and the animal was unlikely to resist the urge to sink its teeth into his flesh.
But in fact he didn’t move a pinky. Stuck here between a bunch of rocks and hard places, safe was as safe does. But he still resolutely set about freeing himself.
Even when unable to move without conscious intent, there were parts of the human body that, under the control of the autonomic nervous system, moved naturally of their own accord, such as the heart.
Setsura focused his mind, not toward his heart but his arteries. Within another second, something delicate began to float along inside the blood vessels.
Where had they stolen in, these sub-micron devil wires? Forgetting their steel-fracturing powers, they crept along the capillaries in sync with the beat of the heart.
Where to? To a place where they could be wielded at will. While observing them closely, Setsura sought out another place.
His whole body entombed within the devil wires, there was one “release point” that would, in an instant, undo all the rest.
Princess’s method of confinement was a variety of the rope binding methods of ancient China. When bound with a single strand, no matter how tightly confined, when severed at the exact right location the rest would easily unravel. However, according to this technique, that would only sever the rope in that area. The sections restrained by that same rope would not budge.
So even if the torso became free, the neck or hands would not.
The ancient executioners put it to practical use when dealing with the condemned. A prisoner was placed a dozen yards in front of a pack of ravenous dogs and given a dagger with which he could release himself. It should be possible to sever the single length of rope anywhere, but no. The only hope was to find the release point.
This wouldn’t have been something Setsura might have learned from the Elder or Yakou. The extent of the young man’s library was anybody’s guess. Perhaps the subject was covered in a book he once read, or on a television program he’d seen. Or the intuition that had allowed him to survive the daily carnage of Demon City.
But even Setsura couldn’t have foreseen one additional variable. As the devil wires drifted through his bloodstream, the eyes of the dragon watching him lit up. From the way he’d attacked Setsura with his raging waters, this legendary creature was a being who could control it.
It lurked in those mysterious rivers and lakes, and emptied into the world of the four elements, and so it ruled over the movements of the outpouring waters down to a single drop.
The movements of waters, the movement of blood.
Though the sub-micron thin threads might result in no adverse effects, the all-so-subtle disturbances left in their wakes were beyond his control. The dragon read its presence in a complete stranger and sensed danger in the wind.
Whether or not he knew what the dragon knew, a speck of light glistened on the tip of Setsura’s tongue.
From there, the devil wires traveled to his right ankle. The point furthest from his hands was the release point Setsura had detected.
It was not his bloodstream that sent forth the threads, but his tongue and his will. Pressing tongue against teeth, scraping teeth against tongue, he controlled the sub-micron wire with the small motions born from those interactions. Though not with the dexterity of his hands, he guided them easily to that point on his ankles.
Then a second, unexpected development.
The white tiger lumbered forward. Seeing the twitching muzzle enter his field of view, with a start Setsura realized why.
The wires released a spot of blood when they broke free of his capillaries, hardly enough to see with the naked eye, but as the dragon could detect the flow, the tiger sensed the smell.
Shit, Setsura wanted to exclaim, but kept his lip buttoned. Any movement of his tongue would be communicated down the wires. These two animals would grasp Setsura’s intentions in a flash and deliver a proper scolding.
The space between his lips and his feet was a river of death as wide as the River Styx. The wires swiftly reached out. Ko jerked its head lower, lured by the smell of the blood clinging to the wires.
The devil wires touched the release point.
The white tiger roared. Ko’s mind had made the connection. Blue-white fire kindled at the back of its gaping mouth. The devil wires would work their magic at the same time Ko breathed forth the flames. Perhaps a tenth of a second would make the difference.
In that instant, Setsura felt himself behind the eight ball. And that meant death. He hit the release point and rolled to the side just as Ko spat fire at the upper half of his body.
The incandescent inferno shot upwards, lighting up the darkness. The dragon had struck from below, ramming its long jaw into the big tiger’s neck. White steam billowed up where the jaw and neck met, the dragon pouring its magical waters into its torn throat.
For fire-breathing creatures, fire itself was the stuff of life.
Not pausing to figure out why Princess’s servants would mutually self-destruct in such a fashion, Setsura sprinted for the nearby cover of a big rock. Hot water and steam pelted his face. The firmament rumbled like an erupting geyser.
A white plume blanketed the two creatures, locked together in a deadly embrace, their writhing limbs barely distinguishable.
The dragon released its hold. The tiger resorted to its one remaining weapon and clawed at the dragon with its hind legs, attempting to gut it. Golden flecks scattered like flowers.
“That was close,” Setsura said under his breath. He crouched down and started to move, sending his devil wires out, checking out the passageway in front of him.
As if fleeing through the night, he ducked through a narrow opening and suddenly found himself in a large room. He was drenched from his previous encounters. The big creatures were two or three hundred yards behind him, but their earth-shaking howls went on unceasingly.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Setsura said, glancing around.
He was in one of the big water treatment culverts. From further away and deeper in was a murky glimmer, the route the Demon Princess must have taken to the surface.
“Hold on,” Setsura blurted out loud. On the verge of sprinting off in that direction, he came to a halt. “If I just leave them be, who says they won’t come after me again?”
He looked at the hole spouting steam like a smokestack, followed by the reverberations of a noticeably louder pair of overlapping screams. The hole spouted blue-white flame.
“Holy cow.”
Setsura ducked down and jumped back a good dozen feet. The blazing band seemed to chase after him, then quickly retreated, shrank down to a few wispy curls and was sucked back into the blackness.
The sounds extinguished with the flames. The two beasts must have fought each other to their mutual deaths.
The cloud that now passed across the comely face was one of confusion. Setsura tilted his head to the side and asked himself, “Why did that dragon turn traitor on my account?”
Somebody must have commanded the life-saving actions of the dragon, though the senbei shop owner could not imagine who.
The conversation commenced as soon as the young scion strode into the room, carrying an oriental air about him. And strangely enough, nothing he said seemed the slightest bit odd.
“Doctor Mephisto,” Yakou called out in a stern voice, stopping ten feet away from him. “No, that is your old name.”
The doctor in white didn’t react. His expressionless face was no less beautiful. No matter what the situation or predicament, this doctor was always clothed in beauty.
�
��This dim light, those red eyes, aren’t the tips of fangs jutting from the corners of your mouth? You should be called by the same name I go by.”
“A vampire.” Next to him, Tomoko stood there petrified.
“So you must have undone Princess’s spell. And I can imagine why you came here.”
“No.” Yakou shook his head. “I am not certain myself, whether you are an enemy or an ally.”
He looked at Mephisto as if asking to be rescued from his dilemma.
Part Fifteen: Dreams of the Demoness
Chapter One
“There is no need to worry about me,” said the white doctor. His voice was such that everything he said seemed wrapped in that wan, calm darkness. “I am no one’s enemy, just as I am nobody’s ally. React to me no differently than you remember.”
Yakou didn’t answer, the consequence of his lingering confusion. In this case, all those who became creatures of the night bent a knee to Princess and recognized her dominion. He found it hard to accept that this doctor alone should prove the exception.
“Rashness will yield us nothing right now. Please sit.”
Yakou felt no alternative except to sit down in the chair indicated.
“On my way here, a murderous and hostile vibe passed by me. That was Kikiou, I take it?”
“Yes. This is Tomoko Kanan, Takako’s mother.” Mephisto went on to briefly describe what had just happened.
“So that box was definitely it.”
Tomoko answered with a small nod. However she might be the incarnation of the calm and dispassionate scholar, for a middle-aged woman from outside Shinjuku to retain such composure inside it, let alone witnessing the antics of what might better be called demonic beasts in the office of the director of Mephisto Hospital, required a heart and soul of a particular sort.
In any case, Yakou’s expression shifted from understanding to contemplation. “But what would happen when casting that world down the other end of the nexus connecting this world to itself—that is a question for physicists and mathematicians.”
“There is nothing in history that suggests a solution?”
Tomoko drew her brows and said in a small voice, “There is an account of something similar from the Qin Dynasty, but I do not remember the details.”
“Where do you think the box is?”
“Well—”
“You couldn’t construct a parallel route?”
“Not the kind of task normally in the purview of a medical doctor.”
“Didn’t you learn everything about that world when you were there?”
Mephisto’s expression shifted, a fleeting smile, a shadow no one saw. Yakou’s question struck a raw nerve.
A visage of demonic beauty turned quietly to Yakou. “You sin against knowledge itself,” he said. “I amassed much knowledge in that world. But it is not nearly enough. There is much more, equal to the heavens and the earth, that awaits me. I should be on my way.”
“No matter what the world?”
“No matter what the world.”
“As I am now, I must destroy it.” Yakou unconsciously raised his hands to his lips. “Will you stop me?”
“There is knowledge in that world,” Mephisto said shortly.
That was all he needed to say. Yakou focused his thoughts on a single point—whether he could defeat this doctor. He felt the doctor’s eyes on him. Were these the eyes of a man who hungered after blood and feared the sun? What in the world had those eyes seen?
The intercom buzzed. Those eyes of darkness faded into the distance. “What?” Mephisto said to the nurse’s face floating above the desk.
“Setsura Aki is here to see you.”
“Show him in.”
“He is already on his way.”
“I figured as much.”
Yakou caught in Mephisto’s voice reverberations of exactly what he’d heard before, and that raised waves of discord in his heart. The only thing in existence that aroused in the doctor ordinary human emotions. Yakou restrained these whispering sentiments breaking like foam upon his consciousness, that seemed awfully akin to jealousy.
A minute later, the door of the director’s office opened solemnly and the young man in black entered.
“What’s with the box?” he asked.
Mephisto repeated the same explanation he’d given Yakou. His features clouded and Setsura raked his hand through his hair. “Takako is in there.” He gave Mephisto a hard look. “And Princess should have returned as well. What are we going to do?”
“We have yet to come to an agreement on a way forward. But we should be on our way.”
“Are you connected with it?” With Princess’s world, he meant.
“No. We have no choice but to discover the nexus for ourselves.”
“Time’s a wasting, Mephisto,” Setsura said. “Night is falling. The people of this city will be waking from their sleep. The police are mobilizing, but the odds of beating back the entire population with peaches alone are slim. We have to destroy that world, eliminate the place they return to, and put an end to them once and for all. Otherwise, the victims will only multiply. There won’t be enough Toyama housing projects in the world to handle all of them.”
“It’s quite unlike you to talk in such immoderate terms. Has your personality taken a turn for the worse? Perhaps you have been on the receiving end of a defiling kiss?”
“Yeah,” Setsura said in a clearly pissed tone of voice. “That’s all I’ve been doing of late, making kissy-face.” He followed up Mephisto’s sigh with a loud smacking sound.
Directly in his line of sight, Yakou raised the back of his hand to his mouth and grinned. A moment later, the smile froze on his face.
“So, the entire citizenry becoming creatures of the night—?” Mephisto grumbled, averting his eyes from Yakou. “Maybe that’s just what they all want. What if we left it up to them?”
“Sure, tell that to the mayor,” Setsura said. He gazed back at Mephisto. “Everybody in this city becoming the same is the last thing anybody wants, and blood will run in the streets to keep that from happening. We need to do whatever we can to stem the tide.”
“He’s right,” Yakou agreed. “Mephisto, any stopgap measures?”
“It will take time.”
“We have no other means.”
“If you want to leave that world in one piece, we need to cooperate.”
“There are other means.”
They all looked at Yakou. “I got here first, but Tonbeau-san should be along presently. If she and the doctor got together, I’m sure they could find a way.”
“Yeah, but—”
Setsura flashed Mephisto a satisfied smile, the only human being on the planet allowed such latitude. “Can you say no to that woman? Otherwise, you won’t be much use to us as a vampire.”
He said so in as blunt a tone as he could manage. Mephisto had opened his mouth to respond when the intercom buzzed and announced that Tonbeau Nuvenberg had arrived.
“What a day!” The fat witch rubbed her hands together. Takako wasn’t attached to her.
“What happened to your mad killer?” Setsura asked.
“I chanced upon a way to separate us. The doll girl has the babysitting chores. But more importantly—”
On her way from Takada no Baba, she’d been attacked three times by “citizen vampires” and barely escaped.
“So they’ve come as far as the business district. Seems the police have got their hands full already.”
Yakou folded his arms across his chest. After griping about getting her just compensation from the mayor for all her troubles, Tonbeau said, “Hey you, young vampire general there, say we take care of that woman and her merry band, what happens to the rest of ’em?”
Setsura and Tomoko exchanged glances. That was perhaps the most important question of all. Yakou’s features darkened with concern. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know?” Tonbeau exclaimed. She slapped her ample belly for added empha
sis. The rolls of fat shook like a wave-tossed sea.
“As you surely know, the dominance relationships among vampires are not set in stone. Eastern Europe traditions state that if the highest-ranked vampire, the preeminent sire who drank the first drop, is destroyed, then all his victims follow after him. But there are also cases where, as a general rule, only the direct descendants die with him.”
“Do those made complete servants, who totally become vampires themselves, return to normal?” Tomoko’s question was another everybody wanted answered.
The reply this time came without hesitation. “No. After the sire is destroyed, only those victims still in the process of becoming vampires once again assume human form.”
Everybody waited for the next shoe to drop. And it came from the representative of this city. Setsura said, “Tonbeau-san, can you forge a connection to that box from here?”
Tonbeau smiled broadly. Setsura relayed what Mephisto had told them. “Sure,” she said, folding her arms. “Using the Akashic Records, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish. However, I’m not sure our little house could withstand another go at it. Doctor, your powers will be required.”
“I refuse.”
“You what.”
“I’m sure Princess will give you a nice pat on the head,” Setsura said.
Tonbeau glared at Mephisto. “I don’t believe it,” she said.
“Bingo,” said Setsura.
“The doc got bitten too?”
“That’s the way it turned out.”
“It’s all starting to add up.”
Tonbeau gave Mephisto a once-over and nodded. “There’s no shortage of scholars, artists, and theologians itching to become vampires. Drawn like moths to the flames of that world. So what did you see?”
“I would understand if you harbored the same inclinations.”
As if taking his words as warning, Tonbeau jumped back half a dozen feet. The cow could move like a rabbit when she had to. “Heh,” Setsura mused.
The intercom rang in a different tone. Mephisto picked up the receiver. No holographic image displayed. Two seconds or so later, “Condition?” he asked.
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