by C. A. Storm
After a brief debate with myself, I decided to take a more indirect route; mostly because it would let me spend a little more time with Tan-kun, but partially because it was that time of year again.
Fucking Christmas-time.
The Japanese adopted Christmas whole-heartedly, but in our typical way, we’d made it bigger, brighter, and flashier!
Oh, there were tasteful displays, because we are nothing else if not extremists, one way or the other, and even my Grinchy-heart would admit that seeing the sakura trees, bare of their blossoms, but wrapped in pale pink lights, reflecting off the midnight black Meguro river at night, were beautiful. While Roppongi district tended toward decorating sakura trees along the boulevard around the Tokyo Tower with silvery-blue lights—my personal favorite, naturally.
Unfortunately, the displays didn’t stop at the sakura trees. Oh no, there were Christmas lights strung everywhere, covering apartment buildings, and frigging Santa Claus in all his variations was everywhere. If I saw one more Santa hat, I may flip my switch, and with it only being the fifth of December? My switch was going to be flipped so many times, I’d be surprised if Tokyo wasn’t buried under the blizzard of the millennium.
Twenty more days of this crap! Susanō save me!
The route I took helped me avoid much of the blatant revelry, the Christmas shoppers, the businessmen out drinking and avoiding their wives, the wives out at host clubs seeking out some comfort from handsome, nonthreatening men, the kids hanging out at arcades or stores. Ugh. People.
Yeah, I know. I live in one of the most densely populated megapolises in the world, and I’m more than a little antisocial.
Family.
Let me tell you, the four years I spent in San Francisco, pretending to be a normal, human exchange student? Bliss. Utter, complete bliss, and I don’t even consider myself a yankī like my mom and some of her “friends.” Luckily, growing up with a mother obsessed with American culture meant by the time I hit the States, I didn’t have to struggle with English. It’s amazing what growing up watching American movies and television shows will do!
Alas, that’s where I really learned to hate Christmas, and I brought all that Grinchy-ness back to Japan with me when I had to return to Tokyo so I could take my “proper” place. That’s when I found out my biological father had gotten married to the Wicked Queen (aka WQ), the Shiro Clan nearly ready to stage a revolt, and got sucked back into the family drama that was my life.
There were days I really, really hated my life.
All-too-soon, I found myself pulling up to the concierge for the shiny chrome monstrosity where Amaya-sama kept her penthouse, right on the edge of the fashion district in Ginza. Which, of course, meant that the entire street was fully decked out for Christmas.
Pulling off my helmet, I ignored the gaping, wide-eyed stare from the young man dressed in a black-on-black uniform. Human. With a roll of my eyes, I slid off my bike and tucked the helmet into its safety net.
With a sigh drawn from the depths of my dark, cold soul, I bounced Tan-kun's keys in my hand while I eyed the valet suspiciously.
"Treat him gently, or I'll know," I glared at the young man, who was eyeing my motorcycle with open avarice.
Oh no, that wouldn't do, at all.
"On second thought, leave him right there. I shouldn't be long," I said instead, tucking the keys into the pocket of my motorcycle jacket. I may have enjoyed his look of disappointment more than I should have, but I am a monster. What did you expect?
Knowing it wouldn't do to keep Her Imperial Majesty of Shadows waiting, I stiffened my spine and headed in.
Thankfully, the elevator to the penthouse was a private one. I gave a brief nod of acknowledgement to the man guarding the elevator, and after he scanned me with one of those electronic wands, he waved me through.
It was all for show. Most Yōkai don't need weapons, since we are weapons, but it was all part of the little game we had to play when dealing with human society. It wasn't the human security guard you had to worry about anyway, it was the elevator itself.
Steeling myself, I stepped into the mirrored confines of the elevator and pressed the penthouse button.
The doors slid shut silently, the elevator rising gracefully, smoothly, as only really, really expensive machines respond. The headquarters for Kuro International had been constructed to serve as not only the base of operations for Kuro Amaya's business interests, but also served as her "home away from home." The entire building was one of the most ultramodern, high-tech condominiums in the entire world, with all the bells and whistles that the obscenely wealthy kept to themselves.
Again, though, it wasn't the technology you had to worry about.
As the elevator rose, passing the fourth floor, the first shiver of magic whispered over my flesh. Invisible to human eyes, palpable only to those rare humans with a sense for the unnatural, the wards built into the very walls of the building skittered like spiders over my senses, testing me, identifying me as other than human.
On the ninth floor, the second set of wards flared to life, turning the mirrors black, until only my reflection remained, surrounding me from all sides. If I had not been invited, if I posed any threat, I would have been attacked by my own mirror-doubles. Thankfully, however, they didn't base threat-level on hate or fear or anything like that, otherwise I'd have been in a real predicament!
To humans, none of this would have mattered. They would have been scanned, their progress tracked by security from inconspicuous cameras hidden throughout the building. This particular elevator only had one destination, however, and that was directly to the penthouse.
By the time the elevator stopped on the forty-fourth floor, and yes, believe me, I know just how unlucky that number really is, I had managed to brace myself and resist the urge to make silly faces at my ghostly reflections. Wow, I really was maturing quite nicely, if I did say so myself! Acting like a proper grown-up, even!
The blackness drained from the mirrors, leaving me facing only my own real reflection, and I sighed upon seeing that I was in my Yōkai form. Apparently, one of the wards had shifted me into my natural body, and I hadn't even noticed, since I was trying hard to ignore my mirror twins.
My hair had darkened to the pitch black of night, with glistening blue highlights, black ice covering the river. My eyes had brightened, the dark, nondescript brown fading into a brilliant, icy blue that managed to stand out starkly against my pale, ivory flesh. And my lips were blue. Bright, vivid blue.
I looked like someone who had frozen to death. You know? Like those pictures they show you of people who had died while climbing the Himalayan Mountains? Or Jack Nicholson in that movie?
Yep, this was my real self. A frozen corpse. Well, I was alive, but looked like a dead person. Not the best look for a young Japanese woman, believe me.
Right, time to face WQ. In her own territory. At her command.
Well, if you don't enter the tiger's den, you won't catch its cub!
Shō ga nai!
Chapter 2
Yuki | Ginza District, Tokyo, Japan | 2017年12月5日
Stepping foot into Kuro Amaya's lair was like stepping into a pool of black ink. Everything was black or some variation thereof, with only a few spots of gold here or there. With the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into the night sky of Tokyo, it was a strange sensation, one that was difficult to describe.
Now, before you think that black-on-black design is tacky, in this instance, it's not. Not at all. Someone had been paid an awful lot of money to design the interiors here, so every shade of black complimented and bled into one another. Thick, woven carpets covered polished ebony floors, with matte black walls allowing individual works of very pricey artwork to appear to float in midair.
It was ultramodern in décor, with leather, black marble, and ebony throughout. It was overwhelming, but only because your eyes strained to pierce a darkness that didn't exist. Faintly, one could hear the gentle strains of some classical European
composer I couldn’t identify. Beethoven? The answer was always Beethoven, wasn’t it?
Or Mozart?
Yeah, I couldn’t tell you the difference between the two, or identify their music, if my life depended on it. Let’s hope that it didn’t.
I had no more stepped out of the elevator than I came face-to-chest with two massive men. Both easily seven feet tall, which put them about two feet taller than I was, and just about as broad. They were both dressed in expensive black suits, with black silk shirts, and both glared down at me with hellfire crimson eyes from inhuman faces.
“Yu-chan?” Gozu, Mr. Ox-Head…and yes, that’s literally what his head was like, horns and snout and all. “What are you doing here?”
“Go-kun,” his life-partner and partner-in-crime, Mezu, sighed as he rubbed a thick hand through his mane. Turning his snout toward Gozu, Mr. Horse-Face said in an exasperated tone, “Kōgō Heika summoned her.”
“Oh,” Gozu nodded slowly, thoughtfully. He wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, but he was loyal and obscenely strong. Both men had served my biological father’s family, the Kuro Clan, for centuries now. In their true, Yōkai forms, they were giants with the heads of animals, although they could both assume a more human form when out in public.
But the fact both Gozu and Mezu were here? And not at my father’s side, where they were supposed to be? They hated leaving the Kuro Clan stronghold, where they served as his personal bodyguards. For them to be here, in the heart of one of Tokyo’s busiest, most expensive districts? Not an auspicious omen.
“Mezu-san,” I said formally, bowing my head and addressing the smart one of the pair. “I have come as Kōgō Heika commanded.”
“The empress awaits you in her library,” Mezu said, giving me a stern, warning look. One I had little problem interpreting as tread carefully.
Great.
“Dōmo arigatō gozaimasu,” I acknowledged with full formality as the two men stepped apart to let me through.
I had to pass through the formal foyer, where I had to pause for a moment to gawk.
An all-black Christmas tree.
Black garlands.
Black ornaments.
Black velvet circle of fabric beneath it to catch needles that would not dare fall from the tree.
Yes, the needles and branches were black, and so were the wrapped presents clustered beneath the boughs.
Even the strands of lights were black lights, the little UV bulbs giving the entire tree an eerie indigo glow.
Susanō-sama save me.
I thought that if there would be one place, besides my own apartment, where I could avoid Christmas decorations, it would be in the lair of the infamous “Night Rain.”
Apparently, I was wrong.
Even black-hearted witches apparently celebrated the birth of the Christian savior.
Who knew?
Well, you do now.
Creepy as fuck.
Once more, I had to gather my scattered thoughts, regroup, and move on.
Pointedly ignoring any other Christmas decorations Amaya-sama’s decorators may have chosen to display, I continued down the hall to the library, where the door stood partially open.
Politely knocking, I waited.
And waited.
Finally, just as I was about to knock again—or turn around and get the fuck out while I still could—I heard a voice, one that spoke English. Like, England-educated English, opposed to my American-English.
“Oh, do come in, Yoshiki, and stop hovering.”
The door swung open on its own, because of course it did. Rising elegantly to her feet, the Kōgō no Kage, Witch of the Night Rain, Kuro Amaya-sama stared at me with exasperated expectation.
“Hai, Kōgō Heika,” I responded automatically before bowing my body in a full keirei, hands at my side, open to show I was holding no weapon, and eyes lowered to the ground. It was just a shade away from the full saikeirei, by a half-breath or so, but I didn’t even give my biological father that deep a bow.
Rising, I met Amaya’s coal-black eyes, finding a delicate eyebrow arched in either amusement or disgust—it was hard to tell, given the neutral expression of her face. In a word, Amaya was stunning. Tall and slender, she wore black slacks and a black sweater that would look normal on anyone else, but on her screamed sophisticated elegance. She could have stepped off a high fashion runway without missing a step. Her coal-black hair was cut short, framing a finely featured face, with a porcelain, unblemished complexion.
In many ways, she looked exactly as she presented herself to the humans—as the head of one of Japans most exclusive fashion brands, a self-made billionaire who appeared out of nowhere in 2000 and quickly rose to dominate the fashion scene in a country notorious for its love of trends.
I couldn’t even tell you what kind of Yōkai she was, because I didn’t know. I don’t know if anyone really knew, and no one was willing to risk trying to find out, because she was cloaked in such an aura of absolute, unrelenting power, even humans felt uneasy in her presence.
To the sensitive? To other Yōkai? It was like looking straight into the eyes of a predator you knew was bigger, meaner, and hungrier than you were.
I am a trained assassin.
I am the daughter of the Emperor of Shadows, a descendant of the Queens of Winter.
I am the living essence of winter’s desperate, insatiable hunger for heat.
I am a monster that kills by stealing the warmth of those I touch, stealing the breath of those I kiss, and leave them nothing but a frozen husk.
Kuro Amaya terrifies me on a visceral level.
When I felt something brush my ankle, only a lifetime of training prevented me from shrieking.
Barely.
But it gave me a perfectly good reason to break the cold gaze of Amaya-sama, so I took it!
Winding around my booted feet was a large black cat, one with two tails…and the little bastard turned around and there were two very furry, very large testicles dangling between his legs as he strutted away, tails waving lazily through the air.
Great. I just got flashed by a tomcat who scent-marked me…and sadly, it was the most action I’ve seen since college.
“I see you’ve met Kurokō,” Amaya said, her crisp voice once more demanding attention, even if her tone was pleasant. “Excellent,” she continued, waving a hand towards one of the seats. “Please, have a seat, Yoshiki, I have a proposition for you.”
She insisted on calling me by the full, proper pronunciation of my name, instead of the more common, modern reading of the two kanji, but I wasn’t going to correct her. Nope. Even if it cost the inside of my cheek some fresh gnaw-marks.
Taking the indicated seat, I placed my hands on my knees and faced her, as pleasantly blank-faced as I could manage. Of course, the damned cat jumped up into my lap and started making himself at home.
Fuck, he’s a beast.
He was a big, big kitty. His fur glistened purest black, with the faintest hint of violet highlights, though I couldn’t tell if it was from his natural coloration or from the black lightbulbs decorating the windows.
Without waiting for the cat, Kurokō, to settle, Amaya began to speak.
“It has come to my attention that you’re about to reach your twenty-fifth year, which means you’re about to awaken to your first transfiguration. Congratulations, my dear.”
Taken aback by the subject, I may have hesitated a moment too long in responding, because Amaya continued.
“Your father and I believe it is time for you to start taking on more serious missions as a member of the Kage no Katei. You have not only proven your skills, but your rather…unique…upbringing makes you particularly suitable for foreign missions, especially those in America.”
“Foreign…missions?” Okay, I couldn’t stay quiet, not when it sounded like I was about to be sent back overseas.
“Yes, of course. Your American dialect is flawless, you sound like a native and understand their culture as if you had bee
n raised there.” Amaya leveled her flat, dead eyes on me, and I had to suppress a shudder. I quickly shut back up. “Besides, we have an important task for you to undertake, under the guise of being a representative of the Yattsu no Buzoku.”
Amaya turned her gaze toward the windows, toward Tokyo Tower in the distance, and I gave a brief mental exhalation of relief, until she continued.
“You will be our representative during the inauguration of the new Gray Lord of the Leanaí in America, Lord Killian Sinclair, on the Winter’s Solstice. It is being held in Colorado, at one of their Sanctuary sites there. While you are there, you are to infiltrate the underground city hidden beneath the Sanctuary, find the Kuroikagami they have hidden there, and retrieve it.”
“The Kuroikagami?” I asked aloud, while mentally trying to place ‘Black Mirror.’ I had never heard of it before, and I wish I still hadn’t.
Amaya nodded once, briefly, as she shifted to face me once more. The earnest expression on her face put me instantly ill at ease. She reached out and placed a cold hand on mine—I’m a literal snow woman, and the coldness of her touch made even me flinch—as she said in a voice tinged with desperation, “You must not let this get out, but your father has been cursed. He’s dying, and I’m afraid the Kuroikagami is the only hope we have of saving him.”
Well, fuck.
“Of course, Kōgō Heika,” I said, because what else could I say? You just did not refuse a request from the head of your Buzoku, unless you either wanted to die or thought you could take them in a fight. I didn’t want to die, either way.
“Amaya,” she said, patting my hand in what was no doubt supposed to be a comforting, friendly gesture, “Please, you are my husband’s daughter, you must call me Amaya.”
“Hai, Amaya-sama,” I said softly, and noted she did not correct the title. Clearing my throat, I continued, “When do I leave?”