Raiju: A Kaiju Hunter Novel (The Kaiju Hunter)

by Koehler, K. H.

  We didn’t have much time. I picked up the walkie and told him to go. He nodded again and reached up to slide his earphones and mike into place. I turned back to the van and saw that Rex had boosted Michelle to the roof. She knelt there, trying to get a steady, in-frame shot of Snowman. Rex grabbed a pair of headphones and stuck one to his ear. He nodded to me to indicate the audio was working.

  Down the street came the shuddering of a giant body moving underground. I could feel the vibration all up and down my spine, making me tremble with a dull and horrible dread.

  Snowman took a deep, shuddering breath and closed his eyes. His fingers played over the guitar strings, a high, strong note. Then he began to sing. For Aimi.

  11

  The ground trembled, signifying Qilin’s approach, but there was nothing to see, no monster topping the buildings crowding around us. It was going to be a subterranean attack. Qilin was a coward.

  I turned to stare at the Astrovision. A two-hundred-foot-tall Snowman filled the screen, his eyes closed and his lips moving, but the sound of his voice was drowned out by all the manhole covers in the street exploding at once and flying off into the distance. Seconds later, the snapping black flytrap heads began emerging, undulating snakelike along the ground. Snowman stopped singing and just stood there, watching them writhe across the asphalt toward him. One of the flytraps snapped inches away from the toes of his boots. He swallowed and took a step back.

  I thought he would run—I mean, that would have been the sensible thing to do—but it turned out he was almost as crazy as I was. Ignoring the slithering mutations writhing and hissing around his feet, he closed his eyes and began to sing, first faintly, then louder, stronger, as he started to find his groove. Mind you, his was the gravelly voice of a singer used to belting out metal lyrics. No real grace required. But as his voice rang out over Times Square, he put enormous emotion into it, molding the words as if he were singing them for the first time.

  Do you remember the red sun we shared

  With your crying face we bid forever a goodbye

  I watched you dance in those waves of yesterday

  I wrote your name in the sand and outlined it in shells

  All broken

  And then the waves took it all away

  But the red sun remained and we shared that last goodbye

  Forever

  I close my eyes and remember a beach of broken shells

  Do you remember the red sun we shared

  When my heart broke that first time

  Forever

  Snowman stopped strumming the guitar and looked up at all the flytraps that were hovering and hissing overhead like a many-headed hydra, watching the Astrovision. There were tears in his eyes and a quiver of absolute fear in his playing hand as it jangled over the strings of the guitar. The hydra heads were slowly braiding themselves together, their black Jell-O-like bodies merging into a giant armored black serpent that swayed uncertainly in the street, its hooded, beadlike eyes fastened to the screen as if it was being hypnotized by a Kamir snakecharmer.

  I thought about what Aimi had said about Qilin, the snow-white water serpent, and I wondered briefly what he had looked like before Dr. Mura had tainted him. I wondered if it was anything like this.

  Snowman swallowed at the awesome sight of the Kami pulsing before him, bigger than ever before, so big it eclipsed the lights. His breath hitched and he stumbled back a step. “Aimi?” he said, his voice booming out over Times Square as well as the rest of the world. “Aimi…are you there?”

  Qilin let out a long rattling hiss like a hydraulic machine turning over and began writhing in the intersection, its powerful musculature knocking over cars and buses as it twisted and writhed in the street. For one heartbeat I thought Snowman had done it, that the music had been enough to restore some part of Aimi’s will, that she was fighting to reclaim control of her Kami. Then the serpent tilted back its scaly head and began to scream to the heavens like it was in mortal anguish.

  I knew what was going to happen seconds before it did. I darted out into the street and tackled Snowman like a semi-pro QB, the two of us smashing into the door of the storefront just under the eaves of the Astrovision. A second later the serpent drove its head like a massive battering ram straight into the Astrovision above us. The roar of the explosion was deafening. I pressed Snowman back, pulling up my leather jacket to try and cloak us both. I watched in the glass of the storefront as a waterfall of razor-sharp LED glass smashed down into the street, shards pinging off the sidewalk and unzipping the back of my jacket as they bounced off.

  I could hardly breathe, but I didn’t lower my jacket until I realized how close I was to Snowman, that we were more or less in each other’s arms. I lurched back, crunching glass underfoot. That was way closer than I wanted to get to His Esteemed Gothicness.

  What a mess. Glass was scattered everywhere; it was a miracle that we hadn’t been ripped in half. Ozone was thickly choking the air, the smoke of the Astrovision only adding to the darkness already blotting out the afternoon sun. Everything looked like midnight…in a pit of Dante’s infamous Hell.

  I sighed tiredly and shrugged off some glass shards.

  Snowman looked dazed, a gash above his eyebrow leaking blood into his eye. He touched it, winced, then slid down the locked doors of the storefront until he was slumped on the stoop, staring at his feet.

  The walkie on my belt squawked. I picked it up as I tried to peer through the haze.

  “What the hell happened?” came Michelle’s near-hysterical voice.

  “It didn’t work,” I said. My voice sounded hollow and weary, old beyond measure.

  “No duh.”

  “I want you and Rex to get out of there now.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Michelle. I’m not fucking kidding.”

  Snowman was glancing around at the debris, his shaking hands fumbling in his pockets for a smoke. He shook his head, his eyes slowly widening at the breathy, hellish noises that Qilin was making out there in the smoke. “Jesus…it’s going to kill us. I mean, we’re really going to die here today.” He looked up at me unexpectedly. “I don’t expect we could…you know…“ He crossed his first and second fingers.

  “No,” I said immediately.

  He lit the smoke and leaned back against the door. “Wow. Anger management issues and a raging homophobe.”

  “Shut up.” I took the smoke from him and dragged on it like it might be my last. Under the circumstances, it probably was.

  In the glass of the storefront I spied my eyes. They looked paler than ever, liked fired steel. Old. I shrugged and the jacket fell off of me in a half dozen pieces, just so many strips of black leather singed and battered.

  Clenching the cigarette between my teeth, I extended my hand and concentrated on summoning the cold Kami fire. I was so overwrought, it was no trouble at all. It erupted right on cue, like it was waiting for me. And within the tall column of blue flames, I grasped the hilt of the sword.

  “Cool,” said Snowman.

  Somehow it didn’t feel that way. This sword was our last line of defense, and the only way we would ever survive this—the only way the city would survive this. I narrowed my eyes at the sound of Qilin screaming in the smoke and hell that pressed in on all sides of us. Soon it would return to finish the job—destroy us, then destroy the rest of the city as Aimi lost all control over it. The reasonable part of my mind told me to grab the bike and ride. But that wasn’t a solution, only a temporary fix; if I ran, Qilin would just continue to pursue me, wrecking everything in its path and killing thousands as it grew bigger and bigger. It might get so big it blanketed the entire face of the planet in a sea of burning black slime.

  Kevin the White Knight, I thought. The clove burned up in my hand. I grasped the sword with two hands and stepped out into the street to meet my enemy head on. Through the swirls of sulfuric smoke I caught glimpses of the modern advertisement surrounding me—the lights and colors, the promise of con
tinued humanity and growing technology—and took my ancient burning sword, the ofuda that could call a god, and raised it high over my head. I glanced over at Snowman, sitting there huddled in the doorway, surrounded by glass and destruction, waiting expectedly for some miracle to save us all.

  I had no miracles. The best I could come up with was me.

  I took a deep breath and said, my voice groggy and sad with resignation, “Hey, man, enjoy the show.” Already I could feel the power coming to me. Think of the best you’ve ever felt in your life—the first track and field you’d ever won, the first time you landed the leading part in the school play, your first kiss—now take that times a thousand. I felt like I could do anything, that I was indestructible. It was a very seductive feeling. I closed my eyes and let the sword guide me up and down as I carved the sacred kanji into the air before me. I thought, Raiju…come…come now! and drove the sword resoundingly into the ground at my feet.

  I stepped back and waited.

  I felt the familiar vibration, the terrible fecundity of life beneath my feet. My hands began to sweat around the hilt of the burning sword. And with a belching roar of fire and a wave of hellish heat that left me dizzy, Raiju reformed before me, its claws raking the ground with streaks of fire. Before it was even fully formed it tilted it head back and bellowed to the heavens. Then it planted its burning claws on the street and stared down at me with an almost human face and flaming, holy blue eyes that reminded me strangely of the woman in my dreams, the woman in the red silk kimono whose hair was on fire.

  She.

  It hit me like a gut-punch. She. Raiju was female.

  Raiju snarled, the sound like a storm in my face, and bared her teeth, each easily the size of the sword wedged in the ground between my feet. I smelled fire and blood on her breath. But the teeth didn’t frighten me, not the way the eyes could, the way they pierced through layers of my flesh, unearthing every desire, every mystery, every secret within me, peeling my soul-skin back to expose myself to the Kami’s second sight.

  I looked back at her. I felt tired and old and small and afraid. My darkest secret, I thought, there you have it, my lady: I’m afraid. I’m a sixteen-year-old kid and I’m afraid I’m going to die today. “And if you want to kill me for that,” I whispered, “get on with it already.”

  She opened her mouth—it was as large around as a cavern—and an enormous black tongue unfurled, raining saliva down. I saw flames cooking within her mouth. She grunted and the black tongue flicked over me. It was like being covered in a huge, hot wet blanket. The impact drove me to my knees, but I still managed to hang onto the sword. “Just do it!” I screamed, feeling nothing at last.

  The tongue retreated inside the fire-lined jaws instead. She snorted sulfur and seemed to smile. I think not, she said in her hissing, sensuous voice. Not yet, handsome.

  “Don’t call me that!” I screamed at her, meaning it. Aimi had called me that, and Raiju had no right to it.

  She grinned at me, enjoying my pain.

  “Do as I say.”

  She halved her burning eyes at me in challenge as she padded around me, almost soundless on her feet, seething and stinking of anger and sulfur. Why should I do that?

  A flicker of self-doubt licked at the back of my mind. I had control over Raiju, I held her leash. But it wasn’t absolute, and we both knew that. Aimi had betrayed her Kami and had lost all control over him. I could easily end up the same way. A big part of me wanted to beg and plead with her, tell her I would do anything she wanted if she just let me live. But another part of me knew that that was the wrong way to handle a god. If she cowed me, she would know I was weak. And then she would be the master.

  I was not weak.

  “Because I am the master,” I said, reassuring my grip on the sword, ready to pull it from the ground at a moment’s hesitation and send her back to hell.

  Say it.

  “I am the Keeper!” I screamed.

  Raiju laughed like she had achieved a victory and sank back into the swirls of hellish smoke to wait.

  12

  The funny thing about death is, you never see it coming until it’s staring you in the face. Until you’re forced to look it straight in its burning red eyes. You go about your life worrying about your always-late homework, you’re I’ll-never-get-the-nerve-to-ask-her-out, you’re I’m-so-gonna-fail-class-big-time, thinking it’s the end of the world. At least, that’s how I always approached things.

  Until today. Until I found myself standing in the trembling rubble that had once been New York City, the sky inky black and choked with dust and debris, the neon lights of Times Square struggling fitfully to pierce the almost impenetrable darkness, the air full of that rotten-egg stench of open gas mains that I hated so much, and realized I was going to die today.

  I watched the kaiju rise before me, through the passage of a torn-open manhole cover. It seemed to go on forever. Black against the black sky. Then it curled over—centipede-like, though it no longer resembled that—and stared at me with brilliant crimson eyes. It looked at me, and it looked through me, this thing that wanted to kill me, this thing that wanted me dead.

  Dead, because I stood between it and the rest of humanity.

  Me. Mr. Nobody.

  A big part of me wanted to rage against whatever gods had conspired to bring me to this, to end my life so callously, but I had a feeling it would do no good. I had a feeling I had always been destined to be here today, to die like this.

  “Aimi,” I said to the thing, softly, quietly, wondering if it understood me, or if my words were nothing more than unintelligible gibberish to the creature hovering before me, clomping its jaws with anger and hunger. “I know you’re in there somewhere. If you let this thing happen, you’ll never forgive yourself. Remember the kids at the club?”

  The asphalt exploded into shards that rained down dust and debris around me as Qilin’s tentacles ripped through the street. Gradually it reformed itself yet again. It looked more reptilian now, with a long face that ended in a mouth that was split almost from one eye to the other and filled with jagged yellow teeth. It tilted its head back to the smoky sky and screamed, black slime-like tears running off its face in burning rivulets. It seemed to be in a state of constant flux, changing back and forth between humanoid, plant and animal as it filled Times Square, its body a twisting canvas of ever-changing life forms, except for those eyes, those hideous red eyes that always remained the same.

  It was still screaming in pain and horror as a nest of twenty-foot-long spiraling horns—black and shining and as sharp as bone—suddenly sprouted from between its eyes. It reared over me, and I felt its freezing-cold shadow descend as it drove its killing horn at me.

  I snapped my eyes closed. I raised my hands in self-defense and cried out in the last moments before the kaiju lashed out at me. I couldn’t face my end this way, I just couldn’t, Keeper or not.

  But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

  I opened my eyes to a wash of red heat. Raiju was standing over me, staring at Qilin with pitiless human eyes, her claws clenched about the horn that would have pierced me right through the center of my body had it been allowed to descend even a foot more. Her eyes narrowed and burned an angry blue like twin butane flames. I felt a sickening wave of fear roil through me as I stared at the black horn suspended mere inches from my head.

  I was afraid, yes, afraid Raiju might not save me in the end. But I harbored a greater fear—that she would tear through any enemy to do so, with or without my approval. But in this case, I had given it to her. I gave it to her when I declared myself her master. I had given any enemy—including Aimi—over to her, as she had undoubtedly wanted me to. And by doing so, I had proven myself worthy of her.

  I thought again of the dream, of Raiju piercing Aimi through the heart with her claws. The realization made me so sad and sick I wanted to die.

  Raiju’s massive jaws dropped open, smoke drifting from between her massive teeth. It took me a moment to realize t
hat it was her smile, a sadistic sight. Raiju likes you, Master, she said. You will go far, Master. You will be mine. And gripping the horn, she used her enormous strength to flip the monster over in the street.

  With a roar Qilin crashed back into the Times Square Building—through the building—making the street shake with the impact. Chunks of glass and steel exploded outward, crashing past me like meteors striking the earth. One piece ripped the center part of the street up like old carpet so the running railways beneath were exposed like toy trains.

  I felt the earth lurch and gripped the sword for purchase to keep from falling through the hole and into the subway below. A massive shard of a billboard sign slammed into the street in front of me. I stared, sweating, disbelieving my luck. Vibrating with strangely unfelt fear, I steadied myself, then turned my attention on the two monsters grappling in the debris of the Times Square Building. They rolled over, snorting imperiously at one another, and the final battle began.

  13

  Raiju was a dirty fighter, I’d give her that. She fought the way I fought, putting everything she had into it, exploiting any weakness she could find in her opponent. No honorable combat. No need for it, because this was all about survival. And anyway, I doubted there was any honor among monsters.

  Raiju grappled with Qilin as the thing’s many-tentacled arms wrapped themselves securely around Raiju’s neck. Qilin screamed as he encountered her burning mane but made no attempt to release his foe. In response, Raiju grasped the snapping, pod-like head of one of the tentacles trying to strangle her and ripped the jaws apart until they foamed and fell open like the broken petals of a withered flower, then tore it entirely from the stalk. The rest of the tentacle went slack and dropped to the street far below.

  Qilin, larger than ever before, twice as large as Raiju, and more distinct in its form—a more upright prehistoric form, with a snapping, gator-like head and those long horns quivering from the center of his misshapen skull—sent out dozens of sludgy black tentacles that whipped wildly around Raiju’s neck in a stranglehold. Raiju thrashed and struggled in Qilin’s grip, but each time she managed to pry off a tentacle, two more appeared to take its place. There was no way she could untangle herself from Qilin’s grip.