Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 1

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  Besides, this was the 2nd block bus stop in Kabuki-cho. The bus would be by soon. No place was truly safe after hours, so the ward government ran old retrofitted surface-street buses until morning in order to accommodate the drunks and graveyard shift workers. Passes were cheap and for sale everywhere.

  Three yards away, and the man showed no signs of stopping. Hisako flipped the lever to the right. The safety released with a soft click. A round was already chambered. One more twist and this loaded gun would go off.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  She felt the numb tenseness seeping into her left hand at about the same time the man came to a halt. He stopped beneath the glow of a streetlight. Seeing his face, Hisako felt her apprehension begin to dissolve. His noble, graceful countenance was enough to prompt her to let go of that dangerous lever.

  Despite the heat of the night, he was wearing a dark cloak with the collar turned up. It looked Chinese. At any rate, though, this was a fine-looking man.

  “You here for the bus as well?” Hisako asked, the tension disappearing from her voice.

  “I am not,” the young man replied, in hesitant Japanese.

  So he must be Chinese. Anybody from anywhere could be found in this town.

  “Then what are you doing here?” she probed, her voice tightening again.

  “There is something I want. Here.”

  Despite the radiant smile on his face, Hisako again pressed her finger against the trigger. “Well, sorry, but you can take a hike. I’ve got nothing for you.”

  “No.” The young man slowly shook his head. “Everyone has what I want. You are overflowing with it inside.”

  “Well, aren’t you a bad boy. Seriously, I’m into hot guys as much as the next girl. But if you don’t take it elsewhere and quick, I’m gonna have to shoot you.”

  “Shoot?”

  “Yeah. Like, bang, bang. You see this?” Hisako held up the bag and pointed with her right hand at the gun.

  The young man shrugged, and continued to advance.

  “I said, freeze!”

  Only three feet between them now. The bag shook and spat fire. A black dot, blacker than the cloak he was wearing, appeared in the center of the man’s chest. A dull, rending sound came from inside his body. He reached out his hand. The smile on his face didn’t fade. Just a little fun between lovers, said the look in his eyes.

  “Stop!” Hisako cried.

  Her finger repeatedly squeezed the trigger.

  The shots came one after the other.

  The young man was standing right in front of her. She couldn’t miss. His sturdy frame bent slightly backwards with the impact of each bullet, and shook from the explosions that followed. But that was all.

  He took hold of Hisako’s shoulders. His fingers dug into skin. Hisako screamed, more in terror than in pain. She’d begun to grasp that he wouldn’t be any more forgiving because of her gender. He would tear a child limb from limb if it suited him.

  Before she could scream again, he pulled her against his chest. She saw that his lips, black in the light of the streetlamp, were so red they almost glowed.

  “We have just completed a long sea voyage. We are hungry. You look delicious.”

  Stop—Hisako whimpered, but couldn’t articulate the desire.

  The young man bared his teeth. Seeing those ivory spikes, Hisako knew what his true nature was.

  Chapter Three

  Mephisto called Setsura early the next morning. “Get over here,” he said bluntly. “There’s something I have to show you.”

  “The only thing I want to see right now is a good shipment of medium-grain rice,” Setsura shot back with equal brusqueness.

  “You’re a funny man.”

  “Much appreciated.”

  “But get your butt over here.”

  “Wages at that hospital of yours causing employee relations problems? Count me out as a strikebreaker.”

  “Your occupational skills are of no use to me.” Word by word, the unwavering tone of Mephisto’s voice ate away at the will of his listener. Such was to be expected of the Demon Physician. “I’m more interested in your moonlighting expertise.”

  “I have a policy of not accepting jobs from you. Not after what happened the last time.”

  “That was—” Mephisto didn’t finish the sentence. The story was too painful to start dredging up the details. “I thought you were over that.”

  “I’m carrying it with me to the grave. Now, if you wouldn’t mind—”

  Setsura waited to hear the long sigh on the other end of the line, before unceremoniously hanging up.

  Nevertheless, he arrived at the hospital twenty minutes later. A nurse was waiting for him in the lobby. She gave him the room number: B401. The first room on the fourth basement level.

  “Huh,” said Setsura. The special containment ward for hardcore cases. “What’s the patient in for?”

  “Doctor Mephisto said it was for your eyes only.”

  “Bastard. No, sorry.”

  He nodded, and wended his way through the lobby—already packed with patients—to the elevators. He descended nonstop to the fourth underground level. When the elevator doors opened, he was welcomed by a sterile white hallway lit in cold, artificial light.

  Hidden from view, every advanced model of sensor, ultrasound paralyzer guns, and lasers made escape impossible.

  Some of the patients confined in the underground levels of Mephisto Hospital could take apart an M1 Abrams tank with their bare hands. The walls and floor were reinforced enough to withstand a direct hit from a small nuclear bomb.

  Setsura greeted the nurses and guards manning the station in front of the elevators. He stood in front of the door to room B401. The door opened from the inside. It was three times thicker than an ordinary hospital room door. If necessary, it could be electrically charged or emit debilitating gas.

  The room itself was quite ordinary. A bed and a spare amount of furniture. Perfectly quiet. On the bed was a young woman in a hospital gown. Setsura leaned back against the door. All he could tell about her was that she was very thin.

  Standing at the head of the bed, Mephisto greeted Setsura with a small smile. Any patient Doctor Mephisto was treating himself must be handled with all due caution.

  “What’s up?” Setsura asked, looking again at the woman’s emaciated back.

  “A police patrol picked her up this morning. Since then she’s progressed to a point where nothing seems to be getting through at all. It’s not an act.”

  “Post-traumatic shock, you mean?”

  “Not just that.”

  “You called me first thing in the morning just to string me along?”

  Mephisto ignored the retort. “Watch this.”

  He motioned with his right hand. Light from the ceiling fell vertically onto her head. Despite being on the fourth basement level, it was a shaft of natural sunlight. The woman got up and frailly moved to the left and then sat down on the bed, outside the halo of light.

  Setsura asked, “Who is she?”

  “Hisako Tokoyoda, according to the I.D. in her handbag. Twenty-seven. She’s a singer. We met last night.”

  “You’re branching out.”

  Mephisto cleared his throat. “I accepted an invitation. The next morning, she turns up like this. Though something just as strange happened before that.”

  “Really.”

  Mephisto went on to describe what had taken place at the nightclub. Setsura listened without interruption, and then told him about Fifth Street turning into a river, and the ship that sailed past on it.

  “Ah. And this girl. Her body must somehow be tuned to their psychic frequency, like a sympathetic vibration. Where do you think they came from?”

  “Beyond Shinjuku,” was Setsura’s immediate response.

  Mephisto smiled thinly. “And that would be—there?”

  Setsura’s reply came in the form of a pained look in his eyes. Mephisto no
dded. He approached the bed and put his hands on the woman’s shoulders, turning her to face Setsura.

  Hisako Tokoyoda’s face looked like she’d been worked over by a headshrinker, skin stretched tightly around a bleached skull. Blank eyes stared out from sunken sockets. Setsura saw what Mephisto wanted him to see. A pair of fangs protruded from between her waxy lips. On her neck was an ominous pair of scars, like a brand left behind by a hot iron.

  “A vampire,” said Mephisto, calmly delivering his prognosis.

  “A vampire.” Setsura blandly repeated.

  Neither alarm nor surprise showed on the face of this young owner of a long-established Shinjuku business concern. In this city, such words were hardly unexpected. After all, this was Demon City.

  “Have our friends in the Toyama housing project broken their pact?”

  Mephisto didn’t respond with a yes or no. He stood in front of the woman and thrust his right hand toward her drooping, skeletal head. Her listless black eyes reflected the color of gold. A cross.

  At some point, Mephisto had palmed a small crucifix. But she didn’t recoil in the slightest, living proof that repudiated the legend. Mephisto briefly pressed the crucifix against her forehead. Not a mark was left on the woman’s parchment-like skin.

  Setsura observed casually, “Display a cross and she doesn’t recoil in fear. Touch the skin and it doesn’t burn. The vampire that bit this woman was certainly not of Western origins. Some of the Toyama residents are made-in-Japan vampires. It’s possible that one of them got tired of the artificial stuff and took a little stroll. I should poke around and see what turns up.”

  Mephisto returned his right hand to the inside of his cape and slowly turned to Setsura. Then, with the same hand he swept up the cape, like a gunfighter flicking back the slicker from his holster. A thin, long glitter of light like a crescent moon. Setsura didn’t have time to retreat before Mephisto plunged the elegant blade into his heart.

  The handsome senbei shop owner grimaced.

  Mephisto’s arm and the knife did not slacken in their speed, slashing arcs like a swinging pendulum through his body. The moving outlines of the hand and blade disappeared into a blur.

  “Damn. Did it again,” Mephisto said in a steely voice, replacing his right hand inside his cape. “That happens down here on the fourth level sometimes. I attribute it to the qi of the patients. Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “I think my heart stopped when you started poking me.” Setsura touched the place where the psychic knife had stabbed him. He held up his left palm for Mephisto to see.

  Seeing the faint gleam of blood drops on the skin, the Demon Physician sighed heavily.

  “Yeah, like deep down you haven’t always wanted to do that. Well, no harm, no foul, so I won’t hold it against you. Still, this is one freaking spooky hospital you’ve got.”

  “I’m grateful to you for grasping that fact. And I’m grateful you didn’t garrote me with those filaments of yours. Just to be careful, I should examine your chest later.”

  “I’ll take a rain check. Bake senbei too long and the difference between the ideal and the real gets a bit too obvious. So what did you have on your mind?”

  “Do you think the scars on this young woman’s neck are a result of the hypothetical you suggested?”

  “Not really,” Setsura readily admitted, withdrawing his previous remarks. “Considering the tight leash they keep on everybody over there, I can’t see them breaking the pact come hell or high water. I’m leaning more towards the gang of four I saw the other day.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” Mephisto wondered aloud.

  This vampire business had occurred at the same time the phantom river brought those two men and two women to Demon City. And when the nightclub singer had spewed out water. The connection was obvious.

  “The woman on the boat was a babe.”

  Mephisto was dismissive. “Meaning the particular shape and arrangement of nose, eyes and mouth that together you call beauty? Who wants to see the you in you that isn’t you?”

  “I’ll leave this girl to you and check up on those four. That makes you the client. When it comes to the fee, I’ll make all due allowances.”

  Setsura coolly turned around. Behind him, Mephisto said, “The least effort yields the greatest reward.”

  Setsura glanced over his shoulder. “Meaning?”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to detain you any longer.”

  “Give it a break.”

  “This girl still hasn’t completely turned into a vampire. The one thing vampires everywhere have in common is that it is never over till the fat lady sings. They will keep on coming until the prey is added to the brood.”

  “You waiting?” Setsura turned his gaze to the woman sitting on the sheets. He said to Mephisto, “You okay with deliberately drawing the cause of this sickness in here?”

  “In cases when a course of treatment cannot be settled upon, exceptions can be made. We’ll move her to the general admittance wing of the hospital.”

  “My, my. What a fine man your doctor is.” Setsura shrugged. A grave expression rose on his face. “Assuming those four are at the heart of the matter, this would be the first time we’ve ever faced down Chinese vampires. I wonder whether comparisons with the Toyama clans are even useful. Can’t a clue or two more be gained from her?”

  Their eyes met. The woman sat there silently.

  “Various investigations are already underway. More precise data based on comparisons with the Toyama residents is coming to light.”

  “How about that.”

  “The quantity of blood loss is around 600 cc. Two-and-a-half cups. Twice the 330 cc that the typical Toyama vampire requires. This is only my opinion, but that is more than is necessary to sustain life, so simple starvation must be the cause.”

  “In that case, why not drain them dead?” Setsura wondered. “It’d save the time and bother of going out every night to visit the victim. There are vamps like that in America.”

  “The Konsheau incident in Chicago,” Mephisto answered at once. He was familiar with cases of the supernatural from around the world. Such was to be expected of the Demon Physician.

  Setsura nodded.

  Mephisto said, playing the part of the professor lecturing the student, “A Turkish immigrant going by the name of Ray Konsheau. His vampiric nature awakened out of the blue, and from February of 1962 to March of the next year he took the blood of five women. All of them were drained on the spot. Four were buried, but they were delayed in discovering a 37-year-old vagrant by the same of Suzanna Pardue, who turned into a vampire. She attacked four people on the street, until the Special Investigations Unit of the Chicago police drove a stake through her heart. The importance of Konsheau’s overnight conversion to a vampiric state was such that after being arrested by the SIU, he was confined to a secret medical facility. His buried victims were disinterred at noon and staked as well.”

  “The same with Pardue’s victims, I assume.”

  “They’d all been bitten but once. If they’d turned into vampires, that would have been their fate. But according to the SIU’s classified report, once Pardue was staked, her victims all returned to normal. The problem is, not knowing the cause, we do not know if what applied in the Konsheau case applies here. This is definitely out of the norm. The possibilities are not pleasant.”

  A look of undisguised disgust flitted across an icy countenance that would cow anyone who looked upon it. There were reasons for this reaction. The absence of this obsession with the prey—what could be called the vampire’s “aesthetic”—was unforgivably déclassé.

  Why did vampires risk exposure by visiting their victims over and over? Because having been human beings once, and then becoming attached to this dark world, they took pleasure in the watching.

  As the shadowy secretions contaminated it, the blood maintaining the pink cheeks of the victims turned from red to gray. The skin turned waxy and transparent. In rare c
ases the blood vessels appeared like coral formations beneath clear water.

  The lips lost that spark of life as night by night their incisors grew longer. Eyes became vacant holes gleaming with a devilish fire. The shadows painting their faces gradually darkened. Finally, the victim would die and be reborn in the world of the living dead.

  In lengthy cases, when the transformation occurred over a span of several months, the rarity of the species and their relative isolation might explain the happiness they took from slowly digesting all of these tiny details.

  But regardless of the age, sex and attractiveness of the victim who’d satisfied their hunger for blood, they approached each visit with the same passion that an artist had for the work of art created by his own hand. Hence the “aesthetic” of the vampire.

  Setsura was familiar with this behavior. “Is it so obvious that art should win out over hunger? I think you’re talking about the typical vampire. If we sit down with the Toyama bosses, we might be able to come up with some countermeasures.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I do not.” Setsura answered at once. A formidable aspect of this handsome young man was emerging from the cocoon, one that brooked no fools or half-measures.

  Mephisto permitted himself a small smile.

  Setsura stared up at the ceiling. He narrowed his eyes and thought back. “That night, watching the ship sail past before my eyes, I swear the hair stood up on the back of my neck. Those four definitely do not belong here.”

  He spoke in the same matter-of-fact voice that he always did. But the look on Mephisto’s face shifted, tinged with—delight. Even the girl on the bed turned her dumbfounded gaze upon him.

  “I will understand once we meet,” the transformed Setsura continued. “Human language hides more truths than it reveals. But what we call Shinjuku is still part of this world. Demon City should not open its doors to them. Having let them in, they must be destroyed. By my name—”

  A blazing countenance exceeding even that of Mephisto looked squarely into the eyes of the Demon City Doctor.