Look! Hosuke shouted. The baby that had been curled straightened up and was glaring directly at the two Divers.
What’s going on?
Hosuke’s mental form experienced a powerful and inexpressible sense of displacement. It felt as though the man’s consciousness had solidified. He had experienced the feeling before, back when he had been working on Captain Jones and the Converter malfunctioned. It had been exactly the same.
Their minds were falling out of alignment. The subject would be experiencing inordinate levels of cognitive pain, as though two pebbles had suddenly materialized inside him. If the man was unable to resynchronize he would lose his mind and probably never recover. Hosuke and Kagawa were in similar danger.
The baby began to grow, buckling out of shape. The two Divers watched as it mutated into adult form, clumps of hair sprouting over its body. Teeth pushed out from the mouth, puncturing its lips. It began to flay at its chest as claws grew from its fingertips, lacerating through the flesh. The wounds dripped purple blood.
The baby completed its transformation into a half-human monster.
Hosuke grabbed the still immobilized Kagawa as the beast reared its blood-drenched head in agony. Something had gone wrong outside. He desperately searched for the exit. Any damage they suffered here would take an equal physical toll. Kagawa blurred red as he screamed. The demon charged at the two Divers, a torrent of blue flame.
Six
Renobo: Forbidden Flesh
1
The Japanese-style room was 12.5 tatami mats square, as was the ceiling, which was further sectioned into 25 squares like a checkered Go board.
Each square was half of a tatami mat and contained a single painting. The paintings were of the same couple in sexual union, a different position for each square. Each was unique and explicit in the depiction of the sex. In the center was a square containing an image of the Hindu god Heruka pleasuring the Goddess Varahi. It was the same as on the scroll in the tearoom, separate from this main house.
A man and a woman laid on a futon spread across the center of the room. There was a single, dim lamp set on the tatami next to the pillow. There were no bulbs on the ceiling. The light was too dark for reading, but perfect for the appreciation of human flesh.
The man was old. He was cross-legged in the center of the futon, completely naked. He sat with a heavy composure, his skin was taut and displayed none of the sagging that came with old age. The man was not young, but he exuded an air of strength. Faint strands of white hair reached around the sides of his impressively bald head. His skin was dark and healthy. His eyes flashed with an almost reptilian intensity. In one hand, he held a white vessel.
The vessel looked like an oversized rice bowl and was filled to the brim with a blackish-red liquid. The old man brought it to his mouth, slurping the liquid with noisy relish. When he pulled the vessel away, his lips were utterly red. He lapped the liquid from his lips with a red tongue. Dots of red stuck in the spaces between his white teeth.
He glanced to his lap, where a woman’s head bobbed up and down between his legs. She had his cock in her mouth and was busily attending to it with her tongue. She was stark naked. The old man’s gaze traced a line from her curved hips to her well-formed buttocks, pointed up in the air. Her skin was almost inhumanly pale; white, but not any normal shade of the color. It was the white of a cave-dwelling invertebrate, a creature that thrived in darkness and had never seen the light of day.
Her long straight hair parted halfway down her back, draping over the futon in dark curtains. The obsidian black of the hair only emphasized the intense whiteness of her skin. The color was incredibly evocative under the dim light.
“Renobo,” the old man said to her.
She looked gently up. The old man’s erect penis slid into view from between her glistening, red lips. It pointed to the ceiling like that of a man still in his 20’s. As Renobo looked up, her lips lingered over the tip. Her eyes were shockingly narrow. They carried a nearly demonic, otherworldly luster.
“Yes, Master Kurogosho.” Her lips brushed softly over his erection. She had wrapped her fine, white fingers around the base. Her other hand slid gently up and down its length.
“You should try some too.” The old man held out the bowl.
“Yoichi Munakata’s kapala?”
“Indeed.”
Renobo’s lips swelled perversely into a faint smile as the old man nodded. She sat up, exposing her generous, firm breasts. Her skin was pale to the point of being transparent, as though it were possible to see the blood underneath. Her nipples were swollen and thick, like the tip of a little finger, red as though they were coated with blood. She looked unbearably carnal. The light from the stand cast deep shadows across her cleavage, undeniably impressive. Her attractiveness was worlds apart from the effortless allure of models, transcending mere sexual energy. The woman was the veritable embodiment of eroticism; every pore in her body exuded sex.
The room was pregnant with a heavy scent of incense. It was a powerful aphrodisiac, enough to drive a desire in anyone to orgasm repeatedly until completely drained.
Renobo cupped the white bowl in her hands, the white of the bowl matching the white of her flesh. Instead of being round, the bowl was a slightly elongated ellipse. It was cold and slightly moist. It felt like it was not there at all. The black-red liquid it held was thick and soupy. Renobo put her lips to the edge and closed her eyes as she sipped its contents.
“It’s so cold.” She ran her eyes over the vessel.
“And the taste?”
“Exquisite.”
“It took some effort to keep the blood from congealing.”
“From this afternoon?”
“Indeed, I had them reserve the blood Enoh extracted.”
“It’s amazing to think this is that man’s skull,” Renobo mused.
“I had them hurry the preparation. I thought it would make a good accompaniment to our lovemaking tonight.”
“It’s still coated with grease.”
“Grease and regret. Integral to the taste,” said the old man. Renobo let her syrupy gaze crawl over the vessel in her hands. Her eyes glistened with mounting fever.
The vessel had been fashioned from the skull of Yoichi Munakata, the man that had died under Enoh’s hand earlier that afternoon. It was filled with his blood. In ancient India, worshipers of the god Heruka called bowls fashioned in this manner kapala. They were sacred tools used in the ceremony of Samvara.
Renobo placed the kapala on the tatami at the head of the futon. She reached between the old man’s legs, keeping her eyes focused on his. “We have Kukai now. At some point we are going to have to hold discussions with the Fuki, no doubt,” he said.
“Naturally.”
“And Kyofu Shirai of the Shinmeikai, we need to bring him under our control.”
“Indeed,” Renobo nodded again.
“I will release tonight,” the old man said.
“It will be my honor to receive,” Renobo answered, her eyes lit up as she placed her lips over the tip of his erection. She took it deeper into her mouth and began to rock her head.
The old man straightened his knees, groaning quietly. Renobo slid her legs back, snake-like, covering him with her own naked flesh, all the while maintaining the up and down motion of her head. She massaged her breasts into his thighs as she rubbed her upper body back and forth. The events of the afternoon had left her visibly excited. She straddled one of his knees with her hot, wide-open groin and began to gyrate her hips. A sound like fine silk came from deep inside her throat, the old man still in her mouth.
There was a special meaning to the phrase the old man had used: ‘I will release tonight.’ He had not simply told her that he would ejaculate; it was a declaration that he would not be following the bedroom arts as proscribed by the Sendo Sect. The Sendo Sect uses a method where the man abstains from ejaculation in order to absorb energy from the woman’s body into his own. By not releasing, the man is able to store his own energy
, allowing for a form of rejuvenation. In the Tachikawa School, the same technique is referred to as the Kansei Method. The old man had told Renobo that he was ready to indulge himself, meaning that he was not going to employ the techniques of the Kansei Method.
Renobo was in exactly the same frame of mind. She turned her body around, keeping her mouth as a fulcrum, and spread her knees so that she sat over the old man’s face. He extended his tongue to the flesh before him. Renobo clenched her white buttocks and started to move her hips. The motion further incited the old man’s lust. The girl moaned, the sound still muffled by the appendage in her mouth.
His tongue parted the woman’s warm, moistened lips and flicked across the surface of her clitoris. Renobo’s groaning went up a pitch. She stood up when she could no longer bear it, pulling away before coming to sit astride him once again. They were now face to face. She took hold of his shaft, still impossibly hard for an old man, and pushed the tip against her soaked vagina. She closed her narrow eyes and began to moan as she teased it around. She finally brought it to the center and sank her hips into him. Now it was the old man’s turn to groan. He thrust his hips up to meet her.
Renobo’s motion picked up speed. Her breasts swung under his hands as he massaged them. Her nipples danced against his palms. She moved quicker still, violently grinding her pelvis into his. Her sharp, red tongue slithered around inside her half-open mouth like a snake attempting to divine pleasure from the air itself. Her breath reeked of blood.
“Yes, yes! It won’t be long before we finally achieve immortality and the arts of the Kido. Where Toten failed, I will succeed.”
“Please, please!” Renobo gave a sudden cry, her voice a sharp object as she arched backward. The old man thrust upward in response, ejaculating repeatedly.
After a while a deep voice called from the corridor outside the sliding doors; someone had been biding his time until things were quiet. “Master Kurogosho,” the voice was monotone, expressionless.
“What is it?” the old man replied, still caressing Renobo’s chest.
“We received a call from Iba regarding today’s outcome.”
“Who took the call, Toyama?”
“Yes.”
“Bring him here.”
“Now, sir?”
“Immediately. It’s fine,” the old man answered. He gathered himself up from the futon.
2
Toyama bustled into the corridor wearing the same suit as earlier in the day.
Four men in black suits lined the walls, their ranks perfectly equidistant; the same four men that had surrounded Yoichi Munakata that afternoon. They were the old man’s personal bodyguards. They never spoke, and they never left his side.
No matter how often he saw them, Toyama had never been able to feel at ease. It was the smell, a stench of death that clung to them. They were more than mere assassins. There was something far more chilling about them. They would all have had experience killing, and not just killing one or two people. The old man would not employ anyone as his bodyguard unless they were already fully accustomed with death.
When a person is put in a situation where they need to kill for the first time, they are subjected to immense levels of stress. In many cases, the stress leads to a moment of indecision that causes a delay in reaction time. Sometimes, because of that a would-be killer ends up being the victim of their target. There was no chance that Master Kurogosho would employ such people as his bodyguards. His bodyguards would kill whenever necessary and with ruthless efficiency. They were the kind that could force a knife into someone’s throat without blinking an eye, and Toyama had no guarantee that their knives would not, one day, be turned toward him.
Toyama was unable to quiet his nerves. He had been ordered by the old man to report as soon as Iba called in with news. He knew that delaying a report out of respect for the old man during his periods of intercourse could, conversely, anger him. That had certainly been the pattern so far. This time he had made sure to notify him of the communication, even though he knew the old man was with Renobo. Still, there was nothing he could do to hide his tension. He let the guards search him, then kneeled on the floor and called into the room.
“I am here, Master.” His voice was shaky.
“Enter.” The old man’s voice came in reply.
“As you request.” Toyama slid the shoji aside and entered the room. The old man stood on the futon, buck naked, while Renobo was dabbing at his crotch with a wet towel. She, too, was completely undressed. The air in the dimly lit room was impregnated with an intoxicating scent: a mixture of sex and the suffocating odor of blood.
“We have just heard from Iba.” Toyama sat in formal seiza, his legs folded under his knees on the tatami mat.
“What did he say?” the old man inquired, making no attempt to conceal himself. Toyama caught sight of the blood-filled kapala by the bedside and hurriedly looked away.
“He reported that everything has gone according to plan.”
“Meaning Tamura’s been dealt with?”
“Yes.” Toyama bowed. Renobo got up and started to cover the old man with his disregarded robe. The old man gestured for her to stop and sat, crossing his legs.
“Not yet, we’ve only just started.” His cock was already half erect, despite having just ejaculated. Renobo gave him a smile. She knelt down and buried her head between his legs.
“He’s also captured a woman it seems,” Toyama continued, unsure of where to look.
“A woman?” the old man asked, clearly entertained by Toyama’s discomfort.
“A woman that’s been visiting Biku’s place.”
“Ahh.”
“He has put her forward as a candidate for the ceremony, once we’ve finished questioning her.”
“The ceremony is all well and good, but we don’t want the police on us.”
“She has no fixed residence. She appears to be a drifter, wandering from place to place. There are no witnesses, so we shouldn’t expect any complications once we have disposed of the body.”
“I see,” the old man muttered. Renobo looked up. The old man’s shaft was impressively vertical. She straddled him, bringing her buttocks slowly down until the old man penetrated her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began pitching with her tight, white buttocks.
“Can we assume now that Kumon Hosuke is free to assist us?” the old man asked.
“Pardon me, Master?”
“I believe he was being retained by Mt. Koya to dive into Tamura. Now that Tamura is dead, Kumon Hosuke should be a free agent again.”
Toyama looked puzzled.
“The problem is the extent to which he has gained knowledge of us. Instruct Iba to make contact with Kumon. We are fortunate in that it doesn’t they have made the link between Iba and us.”
“It appears not.”
“If that is the case, Iba should get Kumon to sign a contract with us. He is permitted to use force if the Diver doesn’t comply.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Now there’s the matter of the other one, Fuminari.”
“We--”
“Enoh will take care of him. It should be relatively simple if he is accompanied by one of my bodyguards...perhaps a few others,” the old man suggested.
Renobo’s buttocks rocked faster and faster. She was directly in front of Toyama.
“Hey,” the old man called out to him.
“Yes, sir?”
“We’re done,” he said. Toyama looked at the old man, confused. “I’m telling you that our talk is over.” Finally understanding, Toyama bowed his head down to the tatami.
3
A room in an apartment block.
There was a phone on the office desk next to the window. A man sat watching it, arms crossed. The man was one of Master Kurogosho’s four bodyguards. His name was Yoji Tsushima. He had been sitting in the same position, staring at the phone, for the past hour. His eyes were dark.
The phone rang. Tsushima let it ring three times
before he picked up the receiver.
“No,” Tsushima said in a deep voice before hanging up. Someone had dialed the wrong number.
Tsushima re-crossed his arms, expression unchanged. The ashtray on one side of the table was completely clean. Tsushima hated smoking. The office belonged to the reporter Yoichi Munakata. Munakata had been due to receive a call at sometime between 13:00 and 14:00 from a man called Fuminari Senkichi. The two of them had set up a weekly exchange of information by phone. They had forced that much out of Munakata. He had told them that this man, Fuminari, had called him out of the blue a few months ago. The two had never met. When he picked up the call, the man had introduced himself as Fuminari:
“I have a job for you,” he said. “I’ll pay a million yen upfront, another two when it’s done.”
“What kind of job?” Munakata asked.
“I want you to investigate a particular organization.”
“What kind of organization?”
“I’m not sure. My hunch is that it’s some sort of religious cult.”
“Okay. Can you give me the name and the address of their HQ?”
“Finding that out is going to be your job.” The man was asking him to pluck clouds from the sky. “Somewhere, here in Japan, there is a religious group that fits the description I am about to give you. I want you to find out its name and what it is they’re trying to do.”
The description that Fuminari had given him was completely absurd. He had explained that, as part of some rite, they had hosted a mass orgy in the mountains, where a woman had been strung upside down to a cross and decapitated; they had drained her blood and cut out her heart. Then they poured the blood over the orgiastic bodies before actually eating the woman’s heart. It all sounded too far-fetched. The description was straight out of a medieval rite; Sabbat, or the Black Mass.
“That’s your specialty, right?” Fuminari said. It was true that Munakata possessed extensive knowledge of Japan’s newer cult religions. At one point he had been reporting exclusively on the subject. He had even been commissioned by a major newspaper to perform in situ research at a number of the groups.
The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters Page 12