Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 1

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  But the electric eyes and ears and noses did not detect him. Not because there was nothing “wrong.” But because there was nothing “right” to compare him to.

  The cameras didn’t “see” him. The thermal scanners didn’t “feel” his body heat. The microphones didn’t “hear” footsteps, a beating heart, blood pumping through arteries and veins. His was an existence without color or smell or shape or sound. He wasn’t there. And the result was that the security center wasn’t notified and the mechanical defense perimeters weren’t activated.

  Only the human beings noticed him. With hardly a glance at the receptionist, knowing where he was going, he headed to the elevators with a calmly self-assured stride.

  “Wait just a minute,” the receptionist called out cheerfully.

  He didn’t stop. As soon as he moved from the lobby into the hospital proper, he stepped into a web of sensors. But other than not stopping for the receptionist, there wasn’t a thing wrong with the visitor. He wasn’t carrying weapons or even a cell phone.

  So the young lady hesitated making the call that would enforce her request. Then with her tongue, she flicked a small switch in one of her molars and instructed the security guards to detain the man. There were ten people waiting in the lobby. Two quickly got up and approached him.

  “We’re sorry, but you need to check in at the front desk.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when he collapsed to the floor. The remaining guard was about to spring into action. The receptionist reached for the panic button. In that instant, a sweet melody drifted through the lobby.

  Doctor Mephisto was the first one to regain consciousness. He’d been the first one to lose consciousness, and all things in their order. He took note of Setsura lying next to him, but didn’t get up. He lay there and cast his eyes around the room.

  Five seconds later, Setsura opened his eyes. Exactly the same amount of time that had passed after Mephisto had fainted. There did seem to be some sort of simpático vibe between them.

  But their reactions were quite different. Like a straight-A student who’d made a careless mistake, Mephisto carefully examined his neck and announced, “You’re fine. Neither you nor I appear to have been bitten. I’ll do a more thorough examination later, but a security check first.”

  “So it seems,” said Setsura, quickly patting himself down. His eyes narrowed. “Nine minutes past two. A bit over eight minutes since you collapsed. That music knocks you out quick, but the effects don’t last long once you can’t hear it anymore.”

  “There’s something I’m not getting.”

  “Eight minutes, four seconds. Seven minutes fifty-nine seconds for me.”

  “You lasted five seconds longer,” Mephisto murmured. “What did you do?”

  His eyes fell on the floor before him. The location where the vampire Hisako had advanced towards them. A horrifying scene.

  Supposing it had a head, the gowned torso lay “face down” on the floor, in a sea of blood a good yard in diameter and at least a quarter-inch deep. All four quarts of blood that had once been inside Hisako were now outside her.

  The head sat at Setsura’s feet, quietly staring into space. “Exactly according to tradition,” he quipped.

  The relaxed, melancholic look etched on her face was the same as it had been the night before, and at the nightclub in Kabuki-cho.

  “Release those filaments of yours. They’re dangerous. When did you string them up?”

  “When I figured she’d be coming back,” Setsura said indifferently. He waved his left hand. The devil wires that had saved their lives—spared them the fate of becoming part of her vampire brood—vanished invisibly into his fist.

  A single step was all it had taken to sever Hisako’s head from her body.

  “Now we know that their eyesight isn’t any better than ours.”

  “Good to know. But we should stake the body afterwards just to make sure.”

  From time immemorial, vampires had been dispatched with a stake through the heart. Then decapitation after that. They’d be doing it in reverse order, but the end was what mattered, not the means.

  Mephisto shook his head as he peered down at the floor. “For now it seems that my fate is having to listen to you preen instead. Here’s another piece of evidence.”

  “Fingers.” Setsura squatted down to get a better look.

  The long, gray digits lay scattered several inches away from the pool of gore. Three fingers. Two had already decayed past recognition. The remaining finger retained its delicate, sculpture-like form. The gray nail and the creases in the knuckles were still distinct. Focus the eyes hard enough and even the tiny spikes of hair were visible.

  Quite definitely fingers.

  “When a vampire loses a part of his body, it reverts to its natural age. This according to tradition also.”

  Mephisto nodded stiffly. Though listening attentively, he seemed to be there in body but not in spirit.

  “The guy in the hallway must have intended her to take our blood. Except that she lost her head instead. And when he instinctively reached out to see what was going on, he added his fingers to the body count.”

  Setsura related the alarming facts with an almost bored air. There was no way to align his reaction with the facts before their faces. If tonight’s visitor was a demon, then the same applied to this beautiful manhunter.

  “If we suppose that he took off after losing the fingers, we could probably conclude that her sire would have a hard time reviving himself if he lost his head as well. He may even feel pain. Any data from Toyama about vampires parting with a hand or foot?”

  Mephisto didn’t answer, and Setsura turned to look at him. A tense shadow passed across the empty look on Mephisto’s face. He stared at the closed door. What froze Setsura where he stood was the taut sense of disquiet rising from his white-clothed frame.

  A something was swirling about the briny, blood-drenched room.

  “Hey, take it easy.”

  It came straight at him and Setsura held up his hands to ward it off. His skin prickled and his hair stood on end. He instinctively concentrated on keeping the ink-black thing boiling up from his guts in check.

  It was fear. Anger. Doctor Mephisto’s anger tasted like fear to Setsura Aki.

  Mephisto said, in a voice that sounded like the dead come back to life, “I waited. I waited in order to ascertain the source of the patient’s illness. It came as far as that door. And then left with the patient dead and it losing a couple of fingers. It left because of your power. What did I do? Nothing. I fainted on the floor. Any possibility of treatment slipped through these hands. I was saved by your filaments, which killed the patient.”

  He turned to Setsura, and there was that look in his eyes.

  “Enough already,” said Setsura, waving his hands. Whatever simpático feeling the two of them had shared, the hospital director was turning into another creature entirely.

  Mephisto said, “I do not want you leaving here. No one can know that Doctor Mephisto was so completely powerless in the face of a patient’s death. That means that I can’t let you out of this hospital—out of this room.”

  “So no good deed goes unpunished. That puts a person such as I in something of a bind.” Setsura spoke softly. “I would ask you not to level such strange accusations at me.”

  An entirely different atmosphere now enveloped the room. It emanated from Setsura. As with Mephisto, this vibe that was Setsura but not Setsura was suffused with an extraordinary sense of being that could not be taken lightly.

  No resident of Demon City honestly wished to witness it with their bare eyes. But what they all secretly pined for down in the darkest depths of the soul had sprung into reality.

  It’d been a long time since Mephisto had smiled so broadly. “But right now, I need you like I have never needed you before,” he said in dark tones. “In order to eliminate the source of the infection, it must first be located. I believe that this incident will rock the foundation
s of Shinjuku. Sooner or later, the mayor would have hired you to track it down. But no need for that now. My commission will suffice. Find them. Those remaining three. And leave the rest to me.”

  The intention of Mephisto’s commission was more to salve his wounded pride and restore his disgraced honor to its shining former self than it was to serve the peace and security of Shinjuku. Anybody being told by him to “leave the rest to me” could sleep well at night.

  There was no way to interpret Setsura’s reaction. The expression on his face was as impassive as Doctor Mephisto’s ever was. Setsura said, the look in his eyes not gaining a single degree of warmth, “I will think it over. I dislike associating with excitable clients. Right now that includes you. Call me once you have calmed down. Then I shall do as I see fit.”

  “I couldn’t ask for anything more,” agreed Mephisto. “Well, I need to figure out why, from the time it entered until the time it left, our defenses did nothing. And you?”

  “I am going home to get some sleep. Tomorrow is another working day.” Setsura’s gaze lingered for a sad moment on Hisako’s body lying on the floor as he turned toward the door. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Once you understand how it got in, give me a ring, okay?”

  His curt way of saying, Sorry, but I’m not sticking around to keep you company.

  Shooting the departing figure a look, Mephisto said to himself, “That’s why I don’t care for the normal him.” He wasn’t kidding. “Well, then.” With Setsura gone, he returned his attention to the decaying remains at his feet. An analysis might reveal the owner’s age or cellular structure. This was the kind of thing he only trusted himself to get right.

  “A vampire, eh? And one of Eastern extraction at that. Perhaps living out a long-held dream.”

  His eyes gleamed with an unnatural light. Many a page in the hidden histories of the world were devoted to those with eyes like his. Those who, enchanted by the mysteries blossoming in those forbidden zones, bartered away body and soul and stepped into the unknown.

  Such as Paracelsus or Doctor Faust or Josef Mengele.

  But none of their eyes shone as brightly as his. Mephisto’s eyes didn’t only brim with the light of knowledge tearing apart the curtains of ignorance. But also with a darkness as deep as hell itself.

  The breeze whipped at his duster as Setsura exited the hospital lobby. Leaving the hospital grounds, he stopped. For some reason, the comely young man stood rooted to the spot. It was almost as if, among all the people walking past him on the sidewalk, an even more remarkable countenance than his own had made its presence known.

  The city was alive before his eyes. Taxi cabs picked up men and women of questionable character and sped off. Flickering “Vacancy” signs illuminated the entrances of the capsule hotels. Kids up to no good flocked around the all-night fast food joints and convenience stores.

  Out in front of the bars and peep shows and strip clubs, the barkers and bouncers bartered with the passersby, offering for sale every imaginable flavor of the weird and the perverse.

  An ugly shadow flitted across his feet. Above his head floated a big, carpet-like creature. It dove down, grabbed a rat-sized animal and soared back into the air.

  A bunch of gangbangers straddling supercharged minibikes just as suddenly found their vision totally obstructed. With yells and the squealing of brakes, bikes rolled. The tanks ruptured and burst into flames.

  With uncannily good timing, another figure darted in, this one a freelance doctor or lawyer, who’d probably released the flying carpet bait from his bulging pockets.

  A star pattern of laser light burst from the windows of a building facing Yasukuni Avenue. A scream followed. Strands of the brilliant blue light flashed through the buildings and disappeared. Perhaps a burglar trying to knock off a loan shark operation had encountered a carnivorous creature trained as a watchdog.

  The city was alive. No matter how hideous, Shinjuku would do its level best to make the wishes of its residents come true. But now a cold wind was blowing, and only Setsura could read its tints and hues.

  Two women whose dress made their disreputable occupation obvious eyed Setsura, and then passed by without the slightest sign of interest.

  The exquisite manhunter stood there, a statue of ice. That’s what a wind like this would do. In time, it would circle Shinjuku and paint all of God’s creatures, great and small, the same color. The color of blood and darkness.

  That was the premonition he felt. He couldn’t say how much time they had left. Brushing the sweltering hot air aside, Setsura walked toward Yasukuni Avenue.

  He had to get down to business and didn’t have a moment to lose. He was starting to believe that even in midsummer, the nights in this city somehow lasted longer than the days.

  Part Three: Red Fang

  Chapter One

  The darkness was nowhere and everywhere. If he extended his grasp, reached down deeper and deeper, it grew so thick he imagined closing his fist and tearing pieces of it away.

  The darkness came in many varieties. Those who lived in it developed by necessity the ability to discern among them. Its voices, scents, thoughts. And more than anything else, its passions.

  This was the same darkness that had surrounded the Tower of London and cloaked the condemned trudging to the gallows steeped in grudges and profound regrets. Their jailers wisely kept their distance. They’d learned by experience what it meant to be so possessed.

  The darkness watched over the dance of life—the summer festivals, the campfires, the choruses of friends and lovers—and breathed life into the souls of its new visitors.

  The passions, joys, angers, sorrows and fears of humans, plants and animals alike—the darkness absorbed them, digested them, seasoned them over time, and thus determined the essence of its own nature.

  For eons the darkness had continually consumed blood and wickedness and all their unquenchable thirsts, growing as constricted in its senses and emotions as it was vast and unlimited.

  Somewhere in the darkness a voice asked, “Is that you, Ryuuki?”

  The dusty, archaic Chinese would demand a skilled linguist to calculate which ancient era it came from.

  “Yes.” The shadow that had visited Mephisto Hospital.

  The owners of both voices sank down in the eternal black.

  “You failed?”

  “I failed.” In that same tone of voice.

  “How about that.” This hoarse voice echoed surprise. “You and Silent Night encountered a substantial obstacle?”

  “Including the loss of my fingers.”

  “And what trick accomplished that?”

  “I do not know. The woman I summoned lost her head. I instinctively reached out and the same thing happened to my fingers. Thinking about it now, I believe that something like a mist blade was strung through the air.”

  “This sounds like the kind of wizardry wielded by Yang Dan during the Wei Dynasty. Though, in that case, it should have been visible to your eyes.”

  “Kikiou-sama, it was—” The hesitation in the young voice stirred the darkness.

  “What?”

  “I believe the wielder of that weapon was the same man in black we saw when we arrived.”

  “Well—” A long silence followed, that would have left any person in a profound state of unease. “Him? I could believe it if it was him. After two thousand years, visiting this city most suited to our needs, we make the first person we encounter into an enemy and a most formidable enemy at that. Is this also part of the cycle of rebirth?”

  The younger voice remained silent this time. He was either unable to ascertain the intent of the older man’s questions, or understanding them, did not know how to respond.

  “But we will win,” the older one continued. “Hasn’t it always been so? We have come this far by knowing more about our enemies than they know about us. Our knowledge is informed by our superior intelligence. More than any place we have been before, this is a city we can wear like a second ski
n. We will stir and boil the blood and evil just as Emperor Jin did in his human cauldrons. It might have been a mistake to allow you to sate your hunger so soon after we arrived. But knowing the strength of this new enemy will prove useful. The sooner we dispose of those two, the better.”

  “Understood.” A firm statement, unburdened by resentment or hatred. An affirmative answer, even.

  “Oh, yes.”

  The older man spoke a bit overdramatically. “Even that man Shuuran took as her lover that first night was struck down.”

  The astonishment rippled through the darkness. “That means that in a single night, both of our thralls were—”

  “That’s exactly what it means. Shuuran, though, did not lose any digits in the process. That is because, not being a slave to the old ways, she made him her own right from the start.”

  “I understand what you are saying, but—” There was a stubborn resolve in the younger man’s voice. “It is a long-established custom of our kind that we repeatedly visit our thralls.”

  “Visit them a hundred times and the results will be the same.” Resolve filled the old man’s voice. “How many times have you died and reincarnated? Do not lightly set aside the suffering and fires of hell that make us long for extinction. It would be one thing if we were still living during the Hsia or Shang Dynasties. But to those familiar with our ways, a second visit is only an opportunity to lay a trap.”

  The loathing in the old man’s voice was as sharp and penetrating as a needle. To die and reincarnate. What strange words they were when taken at face value.

  If this repeated visiting of the victim had the power of inviolable law, then those strictly adhering to it should rise to supremacy. In which case, no matter what creature of the night, none would succumb, even when caught unawares.

  Assuming the old man was right, that meant that the young man had died and been reborn any number of times; that meant there were no special measures a vampire could take to avoid death if the proper blow was delivered. And it meant that once reincarnated, the mortal body did not put on immortality.