I could see the narrow street I was supposed to take continuing ahead, but traffic was a mess at the intersection. Bikes, motorcycles, scooters, and cars of all sizes jammed the street from sidewalk to sidewalk, and the eerie glow of neon and vehicle headlights made it hard to focus on anything, let alone see someone deliberately trying to hide or follow me.
Suddenly, a substantial commotion behind me caused everything to devolve into a snarling mess—an accident in the middle of the teeming intersection. Cars screeched to a halt while motorcyclists and bicyclists tried to avoid being crushed. Car horns, random screams, and shouts of irritation from people backed up by the chaos added to the tumult, which all emanated from a spot on the other side of the street. While everyone was focused on the source of the mess, I took advantage of the mayhem and kept moving.
The buildings and streets were the same monotonous color of gray cement, only broken up by the lively colored canopies and signs for the never-ending restaurants and shops. While the buildings were rarely above three or four stories in this district, they were so close together, they gave the impression of being far taller. The side streets were barely wide enough for a single car, or in most cases, delivery trucks, but all of them were crowded with people, making me feel far more claustrophobic than any neighborhood in Manhattan, even at lunchtime.
I made it through the seemingly endless warren without further incident and actually managed, despite the language barrier and heavy construction, to get a ticket on the next bus for Kawaguchiko Station. It was late, but buses left twice an hour twenty-four hours a day, and I discovered the trip took a little less than three hours.
To make sure I wasn’t being followed, I waited until the last possible second to board the bus. While I had no idea how he would make it to Mount Fuji, I didn’t expect to see Duma on board. In fact, I perceived nothing but mundane humans, mostly staring at me with piercing glares because I was holding everything up. Trying to appear smaller, I quickly found an open seat and flopped down heavily with a sigh. If only these people knew who I was and what I did for them, maybe then they’d be less aggravated by my strange behavior.
Even surrounded by mundanes I still felt exposed. My gear bag and all my weapons, except one of my tanto knives tucked along my belt at the back of my pants, were stowed under the bus. I would have to make do with the knowledge that other than being a tall gaijin, I more or less resembled a simple tourist headed for a hike on Mount Fuji.
I rested my head against the back of the seat and watched some crazy game show on a small TV screen mounted above me. The next few hours were uneventful, and I slept on and off until the bus pulled in to the station at the foot of Mount Fuji. I collected my bag and walked around the station, trying not to seem like a big lost foreign idiot. I did, however, take a moment to remove the Sig Sauer from my bag and place it inside my belt on my hip. I couldn’t stop myself from searching faces, watching shadows, and paying attention to any odd behavior while I waited for Duma. The role reversal of being the chasee instead of the chaser had me completely out of sorts.
Kawaguchiko Station struck me as bizarre. It reminded me of a cross between a traditional Japanese temple and a European ski chalet while the immediate area around it reminded me of a train station in any small town. Directly across the street were a small hotel, a few small shops, and restaurants. In the distance, even in the dark, the imposing silhouette of the snowcapped Mount Fuji was impossible to miss. I stood on the darkened edge of the stoop outside of the bright floodlit front entrance of the bus-and-train depot for about fifteen minutes, until another tall person approached me out of the darkness from alongside the building. Instinctively, my hand traveled to the gun inside my jacket, but a glimpse of the pale hair made me relax.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“How do you think? Did you expect me to take public transportation?” he asked.
I threw my hand into the air. “Why the hell did I have to then?”
“I needed to see if anything followed you,” he said, walking past me.
“And?” I said, quickly catching up to him.
“And we had a tail. A Kitsune, but I got rid of him,” Duma said, watching around us alertly.
“Did your taking care of it have anything to do with the mess in the street back in Tokyo?”
Duma stopped and gave me a half smile.
“Figured as much.” I shook my head, worried who might have gotten hurt in the process.
“Let’s go. We need to get into Aokigahara and make our jump.” Duma headed off toward the far corner of the dimly lit parking lot next to the station. “It’s only twelve miles from here, and the Sea of Trees is a Nexus point in the Ways. Once we jump from there it’ll be nearly impossible to tell where we’ve gone,” Duma said.
Given that it was late, most of the bus passengers had already left for hotels or gotten rides, leaving the station largely deserted until the next bus or train arrived. Without hesitation—and much to my surprise—Duma quickly smashed a window on a small older-model sedan, opened the door, and hotwired it. I didn’t have time to be angry with him for stealing the car—we were in a hurry. Duma cursed the small four-cylinder vehicle under his breath continually as we drove through a largely residential neighborhood until we got to Highway 707. Merging onto the highway, Duma began screaming at the small car’s lack of power in a bizarre language that sounded like a cross between German and some African clicking-dialect with a heavy lisp. After a few miles and a lot of cursing at the car, we got back onto some side roads and passed a country club of some kind and drove until the road dead-ended.
We abandoned the car on the side of the road, well away from the park entrances and trails, and hoofed it straight into the surrounding forest, and then geared up inside the tree line. The forest was incredibly dense with thick stands of cypress, fir, oak, and maple trees, made even more forbidding by a nearly impenetrable secondary growth. It was nearly impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. Duma was securing the last of his knives while I put my guns into their holsters on my hip and vest. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more ammunition, nor did I have a larger primary weapon—a fact I was mumbling to myself when Duma, regrettably, overheard me.
“What did you say?” he said, his voice rising in tone.
“Nothing, I just wish you would have grabbed the other gear bag in my closet and not the one with my rappelling equipment, that’s all,” I said, trying to sound grateful.
“Dude,” Duma said, pulling the glove off his right hand and shoving it at me. “You see this? These are the remnants of the burns I got days ago from the stupid metal buckles on that fucking duffle bag you keep your crap in. I wasn’t about to open the damn things to see what was inside. I grabbed two of them and got out.”
“Sorry. I know, thanks,” I said. “I’m just feeling a bit out of sorts having to rely on someone else like this.”
“And let’s not forget I had to pull your ass out of fucking Poveglia, D. Poh-fucking-veglia. That’s a damn Unseelie stronghold, in case you forgot. So suck it up, and let’s get going,” he said, putting his glove back on and then chucking me in the shoulder harder than he needed. “Oh, and by the way, that Kitsune I shoved into traffic earlier? He was a scout for a Boryokuda called Hyakki Yako,” Duma said, heading deeper into the forest.
“A barracuda named Hacky-Yacky?”
He stopped and glowered at me, which I could easily see on his pale face, even in the darkness. “There’s obviously a bounty on your head, and I guess these guys are trying to claim it. Their name means ‘Demon Nightmarchers,’ and their leader is an Oni named Dai-rin.”
Great, now a Hackysack group run by a vicious Japanese ogre was chasing me. Crap. “Oh goody. Well, I guess I’d be insulted if they just sent the Boy Scouts,” I replied.
“Stick close to me as we enter. This place is loaded with Yurei,” Duma said.
The Yurei, or ghosts, were visible almost immediately upon entering the woods—these were the “suicide woods” after all, where countless Japanese people went to kill themselves. The forest is dense and spooky enough, but all the spirits that dwelled here raised the freaky bar to a whole new level of disturbing. Fortunately, most of the apparitions were little more than wisps of human forms, defeated in life and now timid in death. They were reluctant to come out from their hiding spots. Others were curious, but they all kept their distance as we passed.
We didn’t cover ground as fast as I expected, because even Duma had a hard time navigating in this place. As a nexus for the Ways, he explained it was like Grand Central Terminal at rush hour all the time. Even I could see hints of the massive amounts of energy from the Ways in the area. It was like peering through the heat coming off a fire. We had to stop while he got his bearings quite a few times. It was during one of these stops that I noticed we were being followed by something a little more corporeal than a ghost.
I tapped Duma on the shoulder, and he ignored me, frustrated about not easily finding his way. I drew my swords, backed up in front of him to block his view, then pointed in the direction of our pursuer. It barely registered on Duma’s face. He was in another world, or so I thought.
Duma’s right hand blurred into motion, a slight breeze brushed past my face, then I heard a soft impact and a gurgle from behind me. Duma was fiercely focused, his white eyes bright in the dim light of the dense dank forest. The edges of his mouth barely ticked up into a smile, and he tipped his head in three directions: Behind me, to his right, and behind him to his left. I crouched low, watching behind Duma for signs of movement.
Seeing nothing, I shook my head. He lifted his face faintly upward, indicating they were coming from above.
I placed my back to the tree nearest me and renewed my watch. Something caught my attention again off to my right. Almost simultaneously, Duma took off frighteningly fast, though what made his action truly scary was the total lack of sound he made as he went. It was easy to see why human witnesses imagined Peri could fly.
From overhead, through a break in the canopy, I could see several large, thin, almost gangly birds circling and initially reached for the Glock on my hip. Then I hesitated because I was only seeing shadows and glimpses of them, and I was worried the noise would draw additional attention to us.
While I watched the shadows above, something approached quickly from my right. Whatever it was wasn’t particularly stealthy in its run, but it didn’t sound particularly large either. The dense forest kept it hidden from me until the last second, when a creature about the size of a big dog jumped at me from the darkness. The creature barely hit my shoulder as I ducked to my left and rolled into a defensive position. It landed a few yards up the path in a crouch, chittering wildly like a squirrel.
The bizarre creature had the head of a monkey and a heavy doglike body with stout legs. What really caught my attention was that its tail was a snake that ended with a large fanged head.
I stayed in my defensive posture on one knee, one sword up across my body and the other at the ready down by my side. The creature bowed like a dog at play and began screeching and growling at me while the snake bobbed over the top of it. I feinted right, and the creature lunged after my juke. I attacked immediately, but the snake tail remained stretched out behind it. When I reached to stab the beast, the tail struck. It forced me to jerk awkwardly back in front of the creature to avoid being bitten, but not before I slashed at the snake with my left sword, severing its head.
I ended up on my back while the beast bounded off a short distance, chittering wildly again as its now-headless tail flailed wildly, spraying a dark liquid I guessed to be blood everywhere. I got back to my feet and squared off against it. Again, the thing dropped its head and held its ground. I sprang at it, stomping the ground in front of me, trying to get it to react. But it remained at the edge of my reach, snapping and swatting back as I jabbed. Its paws were massive, far too large for a creature this size, and they resembled a large cat’s foot, complete with wickedly curved claws.
Tired of useless sparring, I finally dropped the swords to my sides and took a step forward, anticipating the creature would attack like a cat or a dog and leap at me.
It sprang at me, easily covering the few yards between us. I dodged to my right, turning slightly into it, slapped it farther to the side with my left hand, and stabbed it hard with my right. I hit it mid-body and tore a gaping wound through its chest and abdomen before I wrenched the sword free. The bizarre creature hit the ground with a wet thump, one leg still twitching. I walked over to its prone form and neatly severed its head, causing the creature to go completely still at once. As it died, its body dissolved into a wispy black cloud that dissipated around me.
Before I could recompose myself, one of the gangly birds—stork-like in appearance—landed on the ground in front of me with a peal of thunder as it touched down. That was an eerie coincidence. In the accompanying flash of lightning, it transformed into a human form, cloaked in a long reddish robe. Its nose remained abnormally large and beak-like, but it didn’t even acknowledge I was there at first. It had a samurai’s katana on its narrow, belted waist. This thing had to be a Tengu, which also happen to be expert swordsmen. I quickly glanced around trying to locate Duma but couldn’t.
Rather than wait to see what it was about to do, I advanced, thrusting with one hand while keeping the other ready to parry if necessary. The Tengu managed, albeit barely, to sidestep my advance, drew its sword, and attempted to bring the blade down on my head in a downward blow, but I met the swing with my off-hand sword and deflected the blade. I easily outweighed the creature by a third, so I had that in my favor. From its attack, I knew it was fast, but I didn’t know how fast.
I set my feet while the Tengu kept his sword out in front of him, pointed at my throat. It watched me with large birdlike eyes set in a narrow and very angular human face atop a very skinny neck, trying to assess weaknesses and strengths. I had longer arms, but my Kopis blades were much shorter than his katana, so neither of us had the advantage on reach. They all used Kenjutsu, the traditional Japanese sword-fighting style. I had studied the form, but I had also studied almost every other form of sword fighting, as well. I regularly bastardized all of them as necessary, making my style highly eclectic and less predictable. For a Tengu to take human form, it had to be old, which meant experienced. I quickly made the assumption that the Tengu’s responses would be predictable, but even though I was pretty sure I knew what it would do, that didn’t mean I’d be quick enough to defend it.
I decided it was time to shake things up and see what fell out. Rather than continue the circling dance we began, I stepped forward, directly at the Tengu. In the blink of an eye, it batted at my left sword and then lunged forward in an attempt to slash at the side of my chest. I purposely let the blow glance off my cuirass and followed his strike upward with my right hand, keeping my blade under his, driving it up and out, barely missing my neck and chin. The creature was nowhere near as strong as I was, so I could easily direct the blade’s momentum. This left his entire right side vulnerable. I brought my left hand through in a level swing that nearly cut the delicate human form in half at its waist.
As my blade cleared the creature’s chest, several more Tengu landed behind me, but this time only one of them transformed into human form as thunder rolled off in the distance and lightning flashed. These guys have a helluva soundtrack. I didn’t have time for this. So in true Indiana Jones fashion, I impaled one sword into the ground, pulled the Glock off my hip, and put two rounds into each of the birdlike creatures, dropping them instantly. Unfortunately, the report of the gun ripped through the dense forest and echoed as if we were in a canyon, but that was my soundtrack.
I returned my gun to the drop holster at my hip and reached down to get my sword, when a sound like a der
ailed freight train barreling through the forest to my right drew my full attention.
A massive red-skinned creature wielding a huge club extended fully over its head emerged out of the darkness of the forest. This had to be the Oni Duma mentioned with the hackysack thing. It was big, brutish, and ogre-like, though, like most Oni, oddly put together. This freak show had three eyes and a nice pair of horns protruding from its forehead and fangs so large that walruses would be jealous.
The Oni charged wildly, throwing itself off balance in its attack, which made it easy to jump out of the way. I landed off to the left of the creature as it brought the massive iron club down with a thud that I could feel through the ground a few yards away. His club, a spiked kanabo, was easily twelve feet long, and the blow was so fierce that the head of the club ended up buried several feet into the soft earth, making it difficult for the big red beast to free it. I took the opportunity to hack the truncheon just below the Oni’s hands, severing its shaft and leaving its head buried while Red Hot fell back on his ass. Like all ogres, Oni aren’t known for their mental acumen, and this one wasn’t proving any different.
“Stay down or die. Your choice, Red Hot,” I said, holding both swords loosely at my sides.
The slightest rustle came from behind me, and I shifted around, raising my left sword defensively. I kept my right sword pointed out in front of me.
It was Duma, kukri knives in hand, dripping a dark liquid from both curved blades.
Before I turned back to the ogre, the Oni shot up and tackled me like some deranged football player, screaming as it ran. The stunning blow hurt and took my breath away as he squeezed me briefly before suddenly letting go. It hurt worse when the big dumb red thing staggered and then fell, landing on me. Oddly, though, it simply stared at me with its three dull eyes as it lay there on top of me with a twisted grin on its overcrowded mouth. Then it started to drool black blood all over me, its head dropped, and the weight suddenly felt as though it had increased tenfold, smashing me. Luckily, my cuirass kept the dead weight from literally crushing me.
Chaos Unbound (The Metis Files Book 2) Page 10