Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 1
Page 8
Chinese research groups were presently in the process of resuming the excavations. However, Takako’s research had taken her in a quite different, even radical, direction.
She said fervently, “I want to uncover the truth about Daji.”
Setsura recognized the name. Until the discovery of the Hsia, the Shang had been the oldest known Chinese dynasty. Shang had toppled Hsia, in the earliest example of a dynasty founding itself through armed revolution. After six hundred years and twenty-eight successions of power, it crumbled during the reign of Emperor Zhou.
A woman of uncommon evil had led Emperor Zhou to lay waste to six centuries of accumulated wisdom. When he’d conquered the state of Yousu, the daughter of one of the noble families was offered to him as tribute. Her name was Daji.
Practically overnight, in order to win and keep her favor, Zhou turned from an enlightened monarch into a depraved ruler. His tall towers and mighty warehouses bulged with gold and silk and rice and barley and fruit stolen from his subjects. All manner of rare plants and exotic animals were confiscated from their rightful owners and put on display.
In the gardens of gigantic palaces constructed in Henan Province at great expense and the cost of countless lives, lakes were filled with wine and cuts of fine meat were hung from the trees. His guests—men and women alike—stripped naked and danced through the wooded glens while indulging in every immoral perversion and desire.
It’d be no exaggeration to say that the expression, “To live a life of debauchery” originated with Emperor Zhou.
When the wine turned sour and the meat rotted and everyone had exhausted themselves in violent bouts of sexual competition, bawdy melodies such as “The Northern Town Dance” and “The Seduction Song” would come flitting through the evening air.
As the aroused emperor listened in an ecstatic trance, his poisonously beautiful concubine would whisper in his ear, filling his head with even more temptations.
“I want to tell a child’s sex before it is born,” she’d muse.
And he would respond, “How would you tell a thing like that?”
And Daji would say, “Cut her open.”
Separated far from the hearts of the people, only the winds of hate and resentment blew down the streets of the capital. Lord Jiu and Lord E, the two advisors of his Executive Council who dared take him to task, were brutally murdered. Those who opposed him were forced to walk across a roaring fire on an oil-coated bronze cylinder.
The screams of the victims as they burned to death echoed alongside any mention of this “trial by fire” unto the end of time.
According to one legend, Daji was a nine-tailed fox whose soul was the sum total of all the misery and darkness created in the bowels of Hell itself. After the Shang was overthrown by Emperor Wu of the Chou Dynasty, she fled to India. There she gained notoriety as the voluptuous Madame Hua Yang who seduced Crown Prince Banzu.
But her true nature came to light and she fled to Japan. She possessed the body of Tamamo no Mae, the concubine of Emperor Toba, and haunted the Imperial Family until the Court Shaman, Yasunari Abe, exorcised her.
The last days of the fox spirit came in the fall of the year 1137. For two days and two nights, she faced off against fifteen thousand soldiers in a desolate field on the outskirts of Nasu in Shimotsuke Province. Defeated at last, she transformed into a smoldering chunk of noxious lava.
This “death stone” remains there to this day, where the annual Nasu Fire Festival serves to warn of its terrible powers.
Not only the Shang, Takako pointed out, but three ancient Chinese dynasties faced a day of judgment because of this evil consort.
The Hsia Dynasty ended when Emperor Jie was overthrown by Emperor Tang, establishing the Shang Dynasty. The Shang Dynasty ended with the downfall of Emperor Zhou. In the annals of tyrannical rulers, Emperor Jie ranked alongside Emperor Zhou.
Emperor Jie was given a beguiling woman called Moxi from the land of Youshi as tribute. At the end of the Chou Dynasty, Emperor You was served by a sorceress of unknown origins who went by the name of Baosi.
These three courtesans—sorceresses might be the better term—were likely all the same person. Several years before the existence of the Hsia Dynasty came to light, portraits of these sorceresses from the Shang and Chou dynasties were unearthed at archeological digs.
They were painted by artists serving in the Imperial Court. The women were identified by name as Daji and Baosi. They looked like identical twins. And despite the faded, scarred canvases, their dazzling beauty and awful wickedness was plain to behold.
Takako naturally jumped at a chance to get access to the Hsia excavations. She had to explore this intersection of history, legend and folklore further. Her uncle was a key player in the Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange Society. That gave her a lot of pull.
Fifteen hundred feet down, the cold ruins of a Hsia Dynasty palace were unearthed. The complex covered more than a hundred and sixty acres. Responding to her inquiries, an official showed her a bronze mirror. The name “Moxi” was clearly inscribed next to a woman’s portrait. Hers was the spitting image of the other women, separated by centuries.
Setsura asked, “So you believe that these three sorceresses are the same as that woman we saw in Kabuki-cho?”
Takako shook her head. “I’m probably mistaken in this regard. I can’t believe that the sorceress who toyed with the fates of three dynasties fifteen hundred years ago would show up in present-day Shinjuku. I came here to find examples of spiritual possession and the supernatural. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a direct connection to the sorceresses. Short of other undeniable facts, I wouldn’t have visited you either. Except there were two portraits etched on the mirror discovered at the Hsia Dynasty dig. Moxi and a younger girl, a maidservant apparently. The same girl I saw on a crowded street in Kabuki-cho.”
“That’s an impressive memory you’ve got. Don’t get me wrong. I mean it as a compliment.”
Takako laughed. “Reserve your compliments for those Hsia Dynasty artists. The French realists had nothing on them. But I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Setsura nodded solemnly.
The urgency was there in his voice, and for the first time Takako felt a sense of familiarity with this shudderingly handsome black-clad young man.
“And what were those other undeniable facts?” he asked.
“I started following her. Part of me knew it was a waste of time. She was wearing a cheongsam cut all the way up her thigh. She was heading towards Kabuki-cho’s Golden Gai district. I should have cut my losses there. But curiosity got the better of me, and I walked into the ruins. My intention was to turn around and go back if it looked like I’d be going too far in. We’d come from the street that runs by the ward council offices. She took the first left and I followed her at a safe distance—”
They’d been maybe six feet apart, in the middle of a dark alleyway, when the girl stopped and turned around. The girl looked at her, and Takako felt her blood freeze in her veins. She tried to run.
Crimson flashed in the girl’s eyes. As soon as she saw the red glow, Takako felt as if her brain had suddenly instructed her body not to move a muscle. The girl raised her hand, gesturing for Takako to come here. Her legs moved of their own accord.
“I was completely helpless. She hadn’t said a thing, but my legs obeyed her anyway. I was sure my number was up. She really is her, I thought.”
“Weren’t you frightened?”
“It was more that I was totally spaced out to an uncomfortable degree. My body kept going forward like I was sleepwalking, like my own will was out of my control. It had to be because of those eyes. When I was right in front of her, she stood on her tiptoes and nuzzled my throat. That’s when I knew she was a vampire.”
“And then what happened?” Setsura asked, eyeing the blue scarf around her neck.
“Nothing. I don’t know why, but as soon as her lips touched my throat, she screamed and jumped back fro
m me.” Takako paused. “Sorry, it’s a little too warm for this.”
She unwound the scarf. There wasn’t a mark on her unblemished skin.
“Do you know why?”
“Not in the slightest,” Takako said, waving her hand. “I took off like a shot. When she jumped back from me, all the feelings returned to my limbs. I ran and didn’t look back. Come to think about it, I did hear heavy breathing behind me. Like someone was having a coughing fit.”
“Coughing?” Setsura furrowed his brows.
“Hey, you look really cute when you do that.”
“Well, ah, thanks. Not to be nosy, but did you have gyoza or Chinese for dinner the night before?”
“No. I had borscht at Nakamura’s at the station. Fourteen hundred yen.”
“They’ve raised their prices,” Setsura quipped. But he stopped asking about the cause.
At the same time that this Chinese girl was having fits, he couldn’t have known that patrol officer Hyuuga Kaneda had been rendered unconscious in the ruins near Nakai Station, a garlic-soaked handkerchief plastered across his nose and mouth.
“So, what do you think?” Takako asked.
Setsura picked up a thick senbei cracker and took a bite. It made a sharp, crisp sound. Either the loud crunching or the taste made him frown. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll look into it.”
“Good.”
“But I have conditions.”
“What?” said Takako, unconsciously raising her hand to her chest, as if she expected him to make demands of an untoward nature. But the rapturous echoes in her voice were stronger than the words of protest forming in her mouth. Such was the magic of Setsura’s presence.
“While I’m conducting my investigation, you have to return to the outside world. Don’t ask the reasons. And I won’t ask what you’d do with a girl like that if you did find her.”
“I intend to ask her about her lineage,” Takako immediately answered. “If she’s who I think she is, then this is really serious. She’s not some schoolgirl. She’s a big-time sorceress who brought down three dynasties. Even Shinjuku has good reason to be afraid. I wouldn’t count on the cops or the shamans to get the job done. It’s up to you.”
Setsura smiled thinly. “Because she’s such a dangerous opponent. I can handle her. But not if you’re in the line of fire as well. I don’t admit this very often, but this time around, I’m not sure how things are going to turn out.”
Hearing the ominous undertones in his quick and to-the-point reply, Takako swallowed hard. She said, after a long pause, “It seems you’re already onto something. I get it. The word is that Shinjuku’s No. 1 P.I. has a well-earned reputation. I promise.”
“So you went to the police first?”
“Yeah. But they said all the vampires were living in Toyama, so no problem. Is that true?”
“Not counting her, it probably is. As for my fee—”
Setsura picked up his glass. Downing the contents, he let the barley tea seep into his insides as he tried to recall his rate schedule.
That was when the telephone rang.
Chapter Three
The call was from Mephisto. He’d received a message from the Elder of the Toyama vampires. The Elder had woken up long enough to meet with them.
“In the middle of the day?” Setsura practically yelped into the receiver. Ever since those four had arrived, it’d been one weird thing after the other.
He saw Takako off and left the house around ten in the morning. Fortunately, his part-time shop girl arrived as he was pulling on his shoes.
Anyone knowledgeable about the history of public housing in Shinjuku would be familiar with the scale of the buildings in the Toyama housing block and the area they covered. Not only its spaciousness, but the sheer amount of greenery. No matter how blue the skies above, the darkness of the densely wooded areas could easily be mistaken for dusk.
But this was not a neighborhood where couples went for a midday stroll, or children played in the park, or where lines of drying laundry fluttered in the wind. Listen carefully and the growl of distant car engines and the songs of birds grew audible.
A silent place. Tranquility ruled the day. The only humans with a reason to be there were the heavily-armed security guards.
Setsura got out of the taxi. Mephisto and a guard were waiting for him. The man with the moustache wearing a beige uniform was armed with a Winchester self-loading shotgun and a Colt 10 mm Delta Elite with an eight-round magazine. Tear gas and bromide tranquilizer shells were strapped to his belt.
He was one of the guards who watched over this enormous concrete castle during daylight hours. Behind him were high-voltage barricades and armored vehicles bearing the insignia of the security firm.
Setsura quipped, “It all seems way over the top, no matter how many times I see it.”
“Hardly anybody’s up and about during the day. Just taking the necessary precautions.”
With the guard taking point, they passed through the barricade. The gate was operated by another guard inside the perimeter. The quiet descended as they entered the grounds. Setsura hunched his shoulders. Even the temperature dropped.
The guard said, not looking at him, “That’s what happens when you pack a couple hundred of ’em together in one place. Been working here for two years, three days on, two off. Still haven’t gotten used to it. Any longer and you start getting scared of the sunlight. It’s the vibe they put off.”
“What the—!”
Several yards ahead, a black shadow crossed in front of them at a blazing speed. It had barely registered to Setsura and Mephisto’s eyes as a squat, humanoid figure when a cloud of dust enveloped it. A few tenths of a second later, the roar of a large caliber gun shook the air. The smell of gunpowder stung their nostrils.
The smoke cleared away. With a whoosh bright orange flames laced with streaks of soot engulfed the miserable remains. The heat beat against their faces. At its maximum setting, the flame thrower reached six thousand degrees.
“A ghoul,” said the guard behind them. “Lately they’ve been moving around a lot more during the day. With the vamps all dead to the world when the sun’s out, it’s a happy hunting ground for the critters. They’re like cockroaches. No matter how many you step on, they keep coming back.”
“The circle of life,” Mephisto countered. “They’re just doing what living creatures like them do.”
Mephisto’s nonchalance rubbed the guard the wrong way. “Beg to differ, Doctor. Nothing about them qualifies as alive in my book. Who cares what gave birth to them? They crawl out from under the ruins and sewers at night and feed on rats and bugs. At some point, they started going after corpses and sleeping humans. Count your lucky stars they’re not chowing down on normal adults yet. Just babies and the odd senior citizen. They don’t touch anything that can fight back. But just when you think they’re a bunch of weaklings, you find ’em tossing quarter-ton granite gravestones around like baseballs. They’re scaredy-cats, that’s what they are. Sneaking around, eating roadkill, screwing and dying—that’s all they’re good for. What do you think would happen if you took one to your hospital? They’d be having the patients for dessert.”
“Oh, I’d kill them before that happened,” Mephisto answered serenely.
Setsura raised his brows. The two guards paled a bit—as if imagining that Mephisto’s unpredictable sense of judgment might turn on them some day.
“But if they came seeking treatment,” the white-clad Doctor of Death continued, “I would welcome them. If the parent of a victimized child tried to exact revenge there, they would have to die too.”
“Why’s that?” the other guard felt compelled to ask.
“Because that ghoul would be my patient. According to the laws of this city, a cowardly, miserable creature born here has the right to exist here—even if all they do is eat babies. No matter who the patient might be, at my hospital, they will get the care they came for.”
“And once it was cured?”
“You’d save them just to see them killed?”
“That is the law of this city.”
The guard pondered that statement.
“When the powers-that-be tried to evict the residents of this housing block, the citizens of the ward signed onto their protection. Because no matter what the form of life, they all have the right to live in this city according to the rules they live by. The only exception comes when their lifestyle threatens your existence.”
Nobody had anything to add to that. They arrived at the steel doors that led into the offices of the building manager. The two-story building covered almost a hundred square yards of ground, but the giant high-rises surrounding it made it look like a dollhouse in comparison.
The guard said, “The Elder is waiting.”
Setsura glanced at the front of the building. “The shutters aren’t closed, the black drapes aren’t drawn. I take it he slept well. That old fart looks to be in as good a mood as ever.”
“He must have dreamed good dreams,” said Mephisto. He pressed the intercom button next to the door.
“Welcome,” rumbled a deeply furrowed voice that brought to mind the image of an old philosopher bundled up on a winter night, quietly pursuing his theories of everything. “The door is open. Come in.”
Mephisto went first, and Setsura followed. The light-filled living room was a good twenty feet long by twenty feet wide. Two people got up from the modern-looking sofa in the center. The smaller of the two approached them.
An old man in a double-breasted white suit. The sunlight slanting through the windows made the top of his magnificently bald head gleam. The Toyama Elder smiled the way any other old man would smile. Setsura said he was a thousand years old. And Mephisto said he slept half the year away.