Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 1

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

“—and by the name of the Demon City Doctor. Mephisto, you shall not move this girl to the general admittance wing of the hospital. Here is where you shall lie in wait for the enemy.”

  “That is fine with me.”

  “However, move the remaining patients. There is no telling what will happen next. No priority can exceed that of their extermination.”

  “Understood,” Mephisto said with a deep bow.

  “As you know, I do not share all the same traits as me. Things shall henceforth be taken care of with all due alacrity.”

  This much was undeniably true: Shinjuku’s No. 1 P.I. and Shinjuku’s Demon Physician had never before so desired the obliteration of a foe.

  One summer night, two men and two women arrived on a river that did not exist. What roles would they play upon the stage of this city? What manner of grotesque battle would unfold within its precincts?

  Exactly the kind of battle that should occur here. In Demon City Shinjuku.

  Part Two: Bloodsucking Belle

  Chapter One

  No job in Shinjuku was drearier than that of the nightshift worker, especially if that worker was a beat cop manning one of the police boxes scattered throughout the city.

  After the Devil Quake, Shinjuku law enforcement had been completely reorganized. Nevertheless, many police boxes continued to operate as they always had. Even on nights when the demons were rampaging about, the three uniformed officers manning each koban could be observed killing time under the glow of the flickering red lights.

  The commando units that patrolled the DMZ were equipped with body armor and powerful weaponry normally reserved for Special Forces units. But the police boxes were limited to the “safe areas.” That was small consolation to the officers working there at night. “Safety” was a relative term in Shinjuku.

  Apparitions and monsters of all stripes took those red lights as signs of human life, and an invitation to give it their best shot. A cop couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief until the watercolor rays of dawn tinged the sky and the day workers streamed past the police box.

  That night, Officer “Kaneda” couldn’t settle down. His partners Oosugi and Wakamatsu were on patrol and wouldn’t be back for another two hours.

  He secured the bulletproof doors, engaged the high-tension electric fences, and turned on the monitors that scanned the streets and sidewalks around the police box. Then he sat down at the desk. But the waves of loneliness and unease gnawed at his heart and mind like an incessant car alarm.

  He checked and rechecked the magazine of his gun. He inspected the incendiary and nerve gas rounds stored in the weapons locker and the 40 mm launcher. Still, he couldn’t settle down.

  He slapped his cheeks, bellowed out enka ballads, finally realized it was all for naught, and got down to analyzing the cause of his apprehensions. By now it was around midnight.

  His insides were fine. He hadn’t eaten anything that disagreed with him. Rather, he’d felt a bit upset earlier that evening and skipped dinner. He was A-OK now.

  Rewinding the day, he couldn’t come up with anything that would account for his present mood. He’d been off-duty the night before and had a bit too much to drink, but he’d completely escaped any effects of a hangover.

  After thinking it over for five minutes, he finally hit on the likely cause. The day before yesterday he’d received word from the family home in Nagano. His mother’s cirrhosis had worsened, and the inevitability of her condition could no longer be avoided.

  He didn’t think about his mother in endearing terms. Her impending death didn’t arouse in him any strong feelings. What tied him in knots was what would happen after that.

  The wife of his older brother had been pressed unwillingly into their mother’s care, so they had first dibs on the house and the land it sat on. He couldn’t begrudge them that right, but if the house and property turned out to be the only inheritance, well, that was another matter.

  Kaneda had claims of his own to make, and it was equally unlikely that his two older sisters and two younger brothers wouldn’t chime in. In any case, a simple gab-fest was unlikely to overcome the ball and chain of family ties.

  In the end, it was every man for himself. Kaneda was keenly aware of this fact. If anybody started staking claims on the inheritance at his mother’s deathbed, he’d have a thing or two to say about that. Simple problem, simple solution. They weren’t exactly talking rocket science.

  He wished somebody would visit him. Some half-woman, half-demon from the DMZ would be fine. A mugging victim would be fine. Come knocking on the door of his forlorn police box and he’d be ready with a steaming cup of tea or coffee. They’d talk the night away.

  Come on down! Kaneda wished in his heart. He was going to go freaking nuts otherwise.

  His wishes went unfulfilled. Only the time passed. He figured he could last an hour. And then after that, somehow hold out for another forty minutes. If his two partners would just return by then—

  One o’clock in the morning. Not a sign of human life on the pavement in front of the police box.

  One-thirty. The officer could believe that the red light shining onto the street was somehow alive. Come to think of it, the border where the light met the night seemed to be wavering. The soft undulations turned into a head, and the darker parts, like upside-down crescent moons, were eyes.

  “Holy—” The officer blurted out, jumping to his feet.

  Sitting there doing nothing, his mind was shaking free of its moorings. He was turning into the kind of thing more appropriate to this town.

  Just then the monitors on the wall squawked an alarm. On the No. 3 monitor, a woman in a gray dress was hurrying down the dark street on the right. The street led away from the Nakai station on the Seibu Shinjuku line.

  The police box was located only fifty yards from the station.

  The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. She was wearing a fair amount of makeup. Kaneda’s first thought was that she worked in the “entertainment” business. Every few steps she glanced over her shoulder. She was running away from something.

  Kaneda darted to the weapons locker. He pressed his palm against the handprint reader and yanked open the doors.

  He got out a 12-gauge shotgun and selected a chemical incendiary load from the stack of 10-round rotary drum magazines. A hit by one of these babies triggered a chemical reaction with the creature’s body fat, quickly reaching three thousand degrees and incinerating the target from within. In the case of body armor, the mist from the exploding shell would invade any breathing apparatus and deliver the same fate.

  As a general rule, normal shotgun shells were used on normal human beings. During the night, though, incendiary loads were permitted. Because no normal criminal ventured out of doors in Shinjuku at night.

  Kaneda released the safety. Holding the shotgun tightly against his waist, he ventured outside the police box.

  The oppressive heat beat against his face. The woman was no more than two yards away. Even seeing him, she didn’t pick up the pace. She must be pretty calm under fire.

  “Freeze!” Kaneda shouted, looking at the woman and then past her. He was doing everything according to the book. In this city, victims weren’t always the ones who needed “saving.” Cops were fair game too.

  The woman obeyed, shooting a look behind her. Nothing was there. Her shoulders fell. Clearly from relief.

  “Can I see some I.D.?” Kaneda asked politely. But he didn’t relax so much as a pinky.

  “Um, here you go—”

  The woman turned up the right lapel of her dress. She’d stuck her I.D. there. When she lifted her collar it tumbled to the ground like a leaf. Not taking his eyes off her, Kaneda picked it up and quickly examined it.

  Name: Asako Makikawa

  Age: 25

  Occupation: Shinjuku Traffic Center, 2nd District

  Address: Shinjuku Ward, Nakaochiai 4-8-303

  It looked like the real thing. The special holographic seal that only cops could dist
inguish was intact. Nothing was out of order.

  “Okay. What’s the story here?” he asked, not lowering the shotgun.

  “I was at this place over by the Nakai station and it was closing time and I was on my way back, and somebody started following me. I asked who it was, but nobody answered. I started getting creeped out—”

  The woman collected herself. Her breathless state and her pale face attested to her truthfulness. Kaneda raised the muzzle of the gun to the vertical.

  “Well, he won’t be coming after you after this. Would you like to step inside for some tea?”

  The woman shook her head. “My house is pretty close. But I’d appreciate it if you could give me an escort?”

  And leave my post unguarded—the thought crossed Officer Kaneda’s mind. He quickly dismissed it. “Sure. No problem.”

  He handed back the I.D., and set out in the lead. After about three minutes, they entered the ruined remains of a residential neighborhood. The usable concrete blocks and building materials had been carted away. All that was left—reaching out beyond the street lights—were the gaping, jagged remains of the foundations.

  Curiously enough, perhaps because they reached the same height, taken all together, they looked perfectly level.

  The two of them stopped in the middle of an intersection. “A lot of strange creatures nest down here,” said Kaneda. “Take a left here and you can detour around them.”

  Asako Makikawa nodded. “But straight as the bird flies saves twenty minutes. Don’t worry. They’re a slow-footed, clumsy lot. If we hurry, we’ll be through before they even notice.”

  Kaneda didn’t disagree, and forged ahead at a brisk pace. For some strange reason, the street lights were all working. Still, darkness pressed in from every side, pregnant with echoes and noises. A throaty growl—fangs or claws gnashing together—pawing at the earth—

  “You’re not frightened?” Asako Makikawa asked behind him.

  He was really getting used to the sound of her voice.

  “Well, to tell the truth, it is a bit unsettling. At the end of the day, a cop is just another working stiff. What scares everybody else scares us too. I’ve been working at that koban for three and a half years now, and I’m still not used to it.”

  “Now that you mention it, I’ve had my eye on you since before I moved here.” Together with the sound of her voice, he heard her opening her handbag. “I thought, ‘The cop that hangs out at that police box is so young and handsome.’ Nice apartment too. Your landlady told me your name, Kaneda-san.”

  “Um, that’s just a nickname,” the officer said sheepishly. “The guys call me ‘Mr. Gold Field’ because I don’t like spending my money. My name’s actually Hyuuga.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Asako said, blotting her forehead with her handkerchief. She added jokingly, “Not even on girls? That’d be a shame.”

  “I didn’t say that.” The officer lowered his voice. “I’m just happy to be able to talk to a woman like you. I’ve been in the mood tonight, you know? I never dreamed we’d be together this way in a place like this—”

  He stopped and turned around. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on his pallid face. Instead, from his unusually red lips appeared the fresh, white lines. Jagged, like the fangs of a beast.

  “Y-You’re a—!” Words failed her.

  Asako stood rooted to the spot.

  The officer spread his hands wide. The shotgun in his right hand fell to his feet with a clatter. “Hey, hey. Let’s pair up, just the two of us. We’ll do it every night, here among the ruins.”

  The fire in Kaneda’s eyes reflected in Asako’s own. The moment she stared into the flames, her own will turned to cinders. She took a wavering step forward.

  A glistening rivulet of drool trickled down from the corner of the cop’s mouth. When that trustworthy sign of legal authority—his uniform—revealed that it housed a demon, the trap had been sprung and it was already too late. The arms of his stout frame closed around her like a pair of manacles—

  The cop’s body spasmed—

  Abandoning his long-sought prey, the uniformed figure staggered backwards three steps, pivoting to the right.

  The silhouette of his body had grown another appendage. Long and thin and sticking through his neck. A steel rod an inch in diameter, a yard in length and drawing a straight line from end to end.

  The cop turned to where the attack had come from. Where the glow from the street lights faded into the darkness stood the shadow of a man like a blue ghost.

  “U-uu—v-vaasstaa—” The cop gurgled and gasped. The iron rod had torn through his larynx and mostly closed off his windpipe. You bastard, he intended to say.

  Or perhaps it was an attempt at garbled laughter. Either way, his eyes shone like red coals as the guttural sound burbled from between his blood-coated teeth and trembling lips. More than its horrid appearance was the expression of undiluted malice and hatred. He reached out his arms like a zombie.

  “C’mere. C’mere. C’mere.”

  Whether or not he had looked into those feral, bloodstained cat eyes—into the corrupt nature of the vampire that stole away human will—the deep blue shadow that seemed to have arisen from the ocean depths wavered like a strand of seaweed.

  Abruptly the shadow spoke. “I chanced upon this young woman enjoying a midnight stroll and ended up at a police box. There I ran into this strange creature wearing a police officer’s uniform. Where are you from? And what is your sire’s name?”

  The voice was calm, cool and collected, unlike the shadow from which it spoke.

  The cop stiffened. The voice struck a chord of fear in him. But only for an instant. This child of the devil bent over and picked up the shotgun, leveled it at the shadow standing in the twilight and pulled the trigger.

  Despite being a vampire—or rather because he was a vampire—his aim was true despite the heavy recoil.

  The blue shadow wavered mightily. A second passed. And then it was engulfed in an incandescent glow. The three-thousand degree fire roasted the bones and reduced every cell to ash. For anything that was ever alive, existence became non-existence.

  In a flash, the white-hot blaze wavered, and then exploded into a thousand shards of light and disappeared. Like an exquisite fireworks display. Nothing was left behind. The iron rod still stuck through his throat, the cop scanned the perimeter.

  From behind, a hand slammed a white cloth against his nose and mouth. The cop clawed at the hand holding the cloth, but to no avail. It only took a second. The bloodstained eyes rolled back in their sockets. The muscles went limp. The cop collapsed to the ground in a dead faint.

  A pungent odor wafted into the hot, humid night air.

  “I’m not too keen on the smell either,” the shadow admitted in a youthful voice. “But it’s the only way to capture chaps like you alive.”

  The white cloth was returned to the pocket of his blue serge business suit. From its depths arose the strong smell of garlic.

  Chapter Two

  Setsura and Mephisto watched her closely, but nothing about Hisako Tokoyoda changed. It was two o’clock in the morning in the special containment ward on the fourth basement level of Mephisto Hospital.

  The hospital was a 24/7 operation, as busy in the middle of the night as during the day. The lobby and waiting room were crowded with nightshift specialists dealing with emergency cases. The special containment ward, though, bathed in a soft blue light, was dead quiet.

  On the bed, Hisako didn’t move a muscle.

  She hadn’t budged an inch since she’d shuffled out of the way of the shaft of hot sunlight. Or to be more precise, when Setsura had visited Mephisto’s office shortly before sunset, he’d informed him that she hadn’t moved from the spot.

  Setsura stared up at the ceiling. “This is really serious.”

  “Many victims bitten by vampires act like that right before the moment of death. The symptoms often get confused with ordinary illnesses.”

  Mephisto turned
his attention to a black lacquer box sitting on his desk, a gaze that would leave even a box entranced. He asked, “How is it going? Has Shinjuku’s No. 1 manhunter turned up any evidence of a handsome man wearing a black cloak?”

  “Unfortunately, no clues my first day out. No other witnesses who saw the ship or those four. I inspected Fifth Street. As expected, not a drop of water is left.”

  “Shinjuku has swallowed them up,” said Mephisto. “They are no doubt a perfect fit.”

  His slender white finger snaked across the lid of the box. A human finger? It had nails and joints and wrinkles. But the nails were clear as water. This was a finger so beautiful it must have been made by the gods themselves. If these fingers wounded another person, the blood would flow from the unclotting lacerations and that person would die. And while dying that person would believe himself divinely cursed.

  Did the good doctor’s hands even have fingerprints? Put this question to the test—look for evidence of that skin-deep physical testament to a person’s unique existence—and the mark left behind would yield nothing more than a shape of the world’s loveliest fingertip.

  “Being able to escape the prying eyes of Setsura Aki makes them first among equals in this city.”

  “So how’s it going on your end?” Setsura asked in a carefree voice, as if indifferent to whatever storms might be brewing in Mephisto’s mind. There were echoes of a young man sauntering across an autumn field in that voice. Except that once it changed, only Mephisto truly comprehended how much it could change.

  “Police and informants throughout Shinjuku have been notified to be on the lookout for a suspicious gang of four, haven’t they? Let’s wait for good news to filter in.”

  “The one thing the two of us can deservedly boast of, is how much we are of one mind when it comes to such matters.”

  “In other words, bupkis.” Setsura sniffed. “We’ll have to hope something turns up tonight.”

  “That’s why we’re here.”