“The sun sets soon,” said Endou, glancing at his watch.
“That concern you?”
“Ah—” He hesitated. “The driver didn’t get around to saying it, but I know where he’s coming from. One way or another, nighttime around here is just plain scary. When you see that fat red ball of the setting sun, you can’t help but feel a chill down the spine. Hey, laugh if you want, but what’s going on right now is a first for me.”
“Just you?”
The commando cop grimaced in response to Setsura’s question. The rugged man shook his head. “Back at Division, I brought up the subject in a roundabout way. I’d say it pretty much applies to everybody.”
He looked at Setsura. At some point, the handsome prisoner had taken a bite out of the senbei. An innocent man—the realization struck Endou like a blow to the back of the head. This young man belonged to a completely different species. He was a magician possessed by a fierce and supernatural spirit.
Endou broke out in a cold sweat.
“I’ve tasted better,” Setsura said in a carefree tone of voice.
It was enough to break the spell holding Endou. The crunching of senbei reached his ears. “Not to your liking?”
“They’re using low-grade rice, probably cast-off material diverted into the black market. The baking temperature wasn’t carefully controlled either.”
“Yeah, businessmen don’t take pride in their work anymore.”
“I wouldn’t blame the businessmen. Selling is their job. This is a manufacturing problem.”
There was something vast and indeterminable in the young man’s remarks that made the commando cop hang on his every word. The jail clerk was equally entranced.
Perhaps wishing to wash the bad taste out of his mouth, Setsura downed the tea in a single gulp. “Hey, can I ask you something,” he said to the jail clerk.
“What?” Enthralled, the clerk blinked. The sternness in his voice was entirely forced.
“Any unusual changes in the disposition of my case?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing from the Chief?”
“There was a call from Division a short time ago. A team from special investigations was coming to take custody. And that will be that. Par for the course.”
“How long ago?”
The clerk checked his watch. “Say, thirty minutes.”
Setsura turned to face the door. The two men looked back at him. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
“What?” asked Endou.
As if in answer to the question, a light above the secured entranceway to the cell block lit up. A buzzer sounded.
“Speak of the devil. We have visitors. I’ll give you your coat when we hand you over.”
“Stop.”
“What?”
Endou and the jail clerk eyed the senbei shop owner suspiciously. The clerk stepped forward to unlock the cell. He scowled, his body came to a halt, spun like a top, and was flung down to the end of the corridor.
The door to the cell block slid open to the right. Led by another officer, four shadows slipped inside the cell block like a pool of ink oozing around a jam. One of them, pushed by their escort, whipped out a billy club and slammed it against the back of his head. The cop collapsed quietly to the floor.
Endou pointed his right hand down the corridor. The laser gun attached to his arm hummed on its turret, aiming at the chest of the first assailant.
The shadowy hand of the assailant spit fire. Endou sprawled forward. The action seemed at once natural and somehow awkward. But the bullets zipped over his head and thudded into the wall.
A red beam shot up from the floor intersecting both the man’s chest and the wall behind him. As his back belched fire and blue smoke, the man lowered the muzzle toward Endou. Endou threw himself to the side. Sparks erupted from the concrete floor where he’d just been.
He braced himself against the ricochets pounding into his helmet and shoulder pads and steadied himself to return fire.
A strange scene unfolded before his eyes.
The narrow corridor forced the assailants into a single file. The arms and legs of the first two dropped off like sliced radishes. Blood gushed from their gaping mouths. Endou caught the flashes of light off their grossly elongated canines.
Undeterred by the ghastly fate of their companions, the two behind them advanced, pressing their hands against their torsos in order to stanch the gushing black blood. Their faces pale, their lips alone red—the faces of demons.
They sprang forward a good ten feet. As the first one swooped down on him, Endou grabbed him by the lapels, planted his heel against his chest and sent him tumbling backwards. The man tucked in his head and rolled, lashing out with his foot at the back of Endou’s head.
The loud thud that followed was not a crushing contact with his head. As soon as Endou had crossed his arms in a defensive measure, a blast sent the man flying.
The jail clerk who’d been thrown to the end of the corridor had returned with a shotgun.
The assailant flipped over Endou’s head and pancaked onto the floor. Endou went into a protective crouch. He had no naïve expectations, even though each shell contained nine explosive pellets. The fuses lit upon impact. The explosive force was equal to a hand grenade.
The jail clerk shouted. The man was getting up, hands pressed against his chest, his body disintegrating on the spot.
“Don’t even think it, buddy,” Endou said, assuming a fighting stance.
Then he realized that the man wasn’t looking at him. Setsura was standing next to him. The door of the isolation cell was open. The lock was severed as if by a hot knife through a stick of butter. The last assailant was splayed out on the ground next to it. His head sat several inches away from his stretched-out arms, like a football player who’d leapt forward to make a catch and missed. The mouth opened and closed silently, mimicking a stranded fish.
“So you expected nobody to be armed in here? Ah, some people never learn.”
The second he heard Setsura’s voice, the remaining man’s determination wavered. As he bolted for the door, his back split open like an overripe tomato. Dark blood sprayed out. He pushed through the door and took off.
“What the hell is going on?” asked the jail clerk with wide eyes, cradling the shotgun. “Assassins?”
Endou checked over the man’s head and torso, and then pulled an ID from his suit coat pocket. “He’s a special investigations detective from Division.”
“What—what is it?”
“A vampire?” asked Endou, looking up at Setsura.
Setsura didn’t answer the question. He said, “Just say exactly what you saw,” and walked toward the open door.
“Hey, wait—” both men called out at the same time.
The comely figure stopped and looked back at them.
“You gotta get back in the cell,” said the jail clerk, leveling the shotgun.
“How’d you kill them?” the command cop asked. “You must have been packing some kind of heat.”
“Sorry, but I can’t stick around,” Setsura said to the jail clerk. To Endou, “When we parted ways in the lobby, I left my weapon in your pocket for safekeeping. When you came with the tea and senbei, I retrieved it.”
Endou reflexively reached into his pocket, but stopped himself. This was why Setsura had asked when he got off patrol. Knowing that it was before sunset must have been a relief. That was when the vampires came out.
“What if I’d gotten involved in a case and was delayed? I’m just a cop in the mobile police, after all. Trouble is my business.” A startled look of self-realization rose to Endou’s face. It gradually dissolved into a more enigmatic look. “Yeah, I see—you—you didn’t have any doubts—you’re a helluva confident man. Because you knew loverboy would be chomping at the bit the whole time.”
He was referring to his partner, the driver.
“What are you two talking about? Get back in the cell or I’ll shoot!”
“Knock
if off,” Endou said in a tired voice.
“What are you saying?”
“Don’t you get it? You’re pointing a gun at the man who saved your hide.”
But he ignored the commando cop, as if he’d just started talking gibberish, and tightened his finger on the trigger. Setsura was already headed out the door.
“Freeze!” Endou aimed his Magnum right between his eyes.
The jail clerk’s body did a one-eighty. Endou watched, amazed, as the man ran full tilt into the wall. This time none too gently. He dropped like a rock, the breath clean knocked out of him.
After watching Setsura disappear through the door, Endou said with a rush of emotion, “Dumb bastard doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
He wasn’t referring to Setsura.
Chapter Three
Darkness covered the city.
The darkness in Demon City Shinjuku wasn’t the same as in the outside world. The residents of Shinjuku knew that as well as they knew their own names, and they’d noticed in the past few days that it’d taken on additional meaning and depth.
It was tinged with crimson.
The two figures walking along Shinjuku Avenue in the Yotsuya third block neighborhood suddenly stopped. In the pale blue light, they could easily be discerned as a fierce and gallant man, and a woman of spellbinding beauty.
They were both wearing Chinese dress. The man was missing his right arm below the elbow. In this city, even that was not enough to draw undue attention. The ancient koto he was carrying, though, was rare enough to be an exception to the rule.
“What are we going to do?” the girl asked in an anxious voice.
The man watched the people flowing past him with a disinterested expression. He said in a stone-like voice, “I shall be going on alone.”
“What are you saying?” The girl’s face colored with a degree of anguish resembling death. “You are so awfully tired, Sir Ryuuki.”
“I’ve been tired for two thousand years now.” The warrior smiled wanly. “You should return, Shuuran. I will disappear.”
“W-Where to?”
“I don’t know. But in this city, there must be places that would grant me asylum. I suppose I could live out my life slumming among the vagrants.”
“Live out your life—you are talking like a person whose life can end.” Resignation tainted the words of her ravishing beauty. “Sir Kikiou doesn’t understand. Even in this city, there is no place we may call home.”
As if in proof of her words, the currents of humanity flowed silently around them. Those who had a home to return to and those who did not right now had only the road before them. A man never stopped walking until he rested in the grave.
Though as Shuuran said, the two of them did not belong here. Their faces, let alone their bodies, bore no scars or evidence of how they had broken through the impregnable walls of Mephisto Hospital.
“I understand.”
Joy shone in Shuuran’s eyes. “Then stay here and fight Setsura Aki to the bitter end, as Princess ordered. If you do, then I will do likewise. Ask me anything and I shall be at your service.”
“That is not possible now.” Ryuuki stared off into the distance, as if listening to the darkness itself. “Princess will not forgive another blunder. I do not fear being punished. Nor am I frightened by whatever Setsura Aki has to offer. At some point we must fight until the last man standing. All I want is the time before that occurs. Except that I do not know when that will be.”
“Then fight with me by your side.” She wrapped her white fingers around his right sleeve. The strength flowing from her fingers soothed the infinite extremes of Ryuuki’s melancholy countenance.
“No.” He shook his head. “Losing you would leave Princess at loose ends. I can be replaced. You cannot.”
“There is no one for me but you. Besides—” She couldn’t finish the thought.
“It is all right. As far as Princess is concerned, I am only one man. But Princess has undoubtedly changed since returning from Mephisto Hospital.”
“That’s why—!”
More than the surprise at not having realized this until Ryuuki pointed it out, Shuuran’s reaction was more a response to the development of a situation she thought impossible. She hadn’t understood the cause.
“Are you saying things have come to the point that she could lose you and not bat an eye? What happened in Mephisto Hospital?” Her voice quieted to a low moan. “I can’t believe it. That—that doctor—Sir Ryuuki, have you abandoned so much hope? To even abandon Princess?”
“I do not know myself.”
As if pushed apart by the moonlight shining down on them, the two shadows separated. One did not move. The other silently retreated the way it had come.
An infinite distance stretched out between them. The remaining silhouette said to herself heavily, “Setsura Aki. If you died, Sir Ryuuki would return. No. Even if he never returned, I cannot pardon what was done to Princess. You will learn to fear the night. Make even the slightest mistake, and I will be there to take advantage.”
Instead of hightailing it out of Totsuka Station right after emerging from the death match in the holding cells, Setsura made his way to the captain’s office. The cops chasing him froze in fear—until the order came from the Chief himself to investigate all outgoing communications and Internet connections.
Shortly after sunset, Yakou visited Mephisto Hospital in the company of several of his subordinates. He’d originally planned on making this visit two days earlier. The Elder’s funeral accounted for the delay.
His purpose was to determine where the enemy was hiding.
In light of the showdown at the hospital the night his grandfather was attacked, they’d transported Takako to a different location. It wasn’t that he doubted their defensive capabilities, but he feared other patients coming to harm.
Of course, no matter where she was, the vampires would come after her. The victim would try to run back to her accursed master. Yakou knew how to guard against that eventuality as well.
The problem was the new location of Princess’s safe house.
But even in this case, the young leader of the Toyama clans did not lack for confidence. Which was why, when the secretary told him that the hospital director was “unavailable,” he could hardly believe his ears.
“I let him know you were here. As far as Miss Kanan is concerned, he said to leave it up to you, but that he cannot meet with you at this time.”
“Was he suddenly called away on business?”
“I do not know.”
“Please tell him that this concerns master expropriation.”
“But—”
“Did he say you were not to contact him?”
“No.”
The secretary spoke into her tiny lapel mike. The answer came at once. “I didn’t think an opportunity to perform another master expropriation would present itself so soon.” Doctor Mephisto’s voice sounded on the intercom. “That police officer is useless. And there are no other vampires available.”
“No, there is one. The man we found in the ruins next to Shinanomachi Station.”
“Except his throat had been torn out. He was breathing his last.”
“Has he died?”
“He seems to be doing well enough. But there is no mark of the vampire.”
“I suspect it would be found on the flesh missing from his neck.”
“If he is a vampire, then the wound would have healed already.”
“There is only one exception. The master intended to kill the victim.”
“Do as you see fit,” Mephisto said, in exactly the same tone of voice as before. “And how do you plan to proceed? If there is anything you need, let the hospital personnel know.”
“I’ll take you up on that. I would ask that nobody else be allowed to enter his room.”
“Understood. He is in D-wing. Nurse Sayaki, please show them the way.”
At some point, a small figure of the nurse had appeared ne
xt to them. She bowed politely.
Several minutes later, Yakou entered a room in the intensive care unit alone.
Setsura Aki. Doctor Mephisto. Four demonic beings. And Yakou. The ends each of them had in mind, and the wills they possessed to achieve them, would turn things in a new and frightening direction.
The night had only just begun.
Part Six: Battlefield Yakou
Chapter One
Setsura surveyed the scene before him. He muttered to himself, “This is the classy place these guys choose to hang out? What does that make my place?”
His voice vanished into the big hole in front of him, a symmetrical half-circle bored into a white wall. He looked down. In the direction of an uneven footpath about a yard wide was a drainage canal brimming with black water. Splotches of white light reflected off the wavering surface, fracturing the moonlight shimmering there.
According to Shinjuku’s civil engineering schematics, any such canals should have dried up long ago. It was hard to believe that the wastewater collected here from the peaceful abodes of Shinjuku had ever been discharged from the treatment plants to again quench human thirst.
The steps leading up to ground level from the walkway behind him had partly crumbled away. The walls to the left and right were rippled and folded like the bellows of an enormous accordion squeezed in the hands of some rude giant.
Looking up from where Setsura was standing, only one of the huge chemical tanks remained. The rest had fallen into the abyss. The skin of the last cylinder was scarred with rust.
This was the one place in Shinjuku where water had once flowed freely—the remains of the underground water treatment plant beneath the old Ochiai district.
It had undergone extensive renovations just before the Devil Quake struck. This prestigious public works project, utilizing the latest in cutting edge technology, had been thoroughly cannibalized by the restoration crews and now was good for little more than scrap metal.
But the water still flowed.
A splash—something that looked like a fish leapt upwards, droplets dripping off its silver scales—and plunged back into the water several yards away. Water returned to its source. Even with its human operators long gone and their dreams so many tears in the rain, life had returned to this subterranean treatment plant.
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 2 Page 15