Gunfire erupted as the Tengu cawed battle cries and everyone dove for cover. I threw myself at the barkeep and practically tackled him into the cramped kitchen.
Not good. Not a moment after we hit the ground the barkeep was swinging his club at me as fast and hard as he could. Thankfully, I was a past master of whack a mole. Cutlery flew and bits of stainless steel soared with every missed mash of his club. When I saw my chance for a counterattack, I took it.
Drawing my wand, a blade of hard arcana manifested from its tip as my will coursed through it. I swung the blade in a deft arc, catching the Oni’s arm and nearly cutting it in half. Not that the barkeep seemed to mind. He drove his fist into my gut as I tried to pull my blade free, and then heaved his club into an overhead swing.
The huge cudgel struck the floor a millimeter away from my skull and with a groan, the whole floor collapsed into the bar basement. I recovered first, coughing my lungs out from all the wretched dust flung up and around. I avoided the barkeep’s oncoming swing and drove my wand-sword into his chest.
The Oni groaned in pain and hit the floor like a ton of bricks. I breathed a sigh of relief. Charles one. Oni zero.
Unfortunately, my victory was woefully premature.
Did you know that Oni come in many shapes and sizes? The weaker ones can pass for Human, like the barkeep had, but some of the older Ogres can grow to downright epic proportions. Kind of like the one that was asleep in the basement I’d crashed into.
From beneath what I assumed was a carpet rose an immense figure. He towered over me, and he wasn’t even standing up yet. Wearing full on samurai armor, he looked somewhat annoyed about being woken up, and his face was a twisted visage of horns and bad dental hygiene.
Remember to brush your teeth after every meal.
“Fight?” he shouted cheerfully, turning to me with a gleeful grin. “It a big fight all right. You bet. Me gonna kill you in name of the Kunshu!”
From his side, he drew an immense sword and rose to his full, monstrous height.
Chapter 6
“Wait,” I called out.
“Huh? Why?” the huge Oni asked.
My mind raced for a response. I needed to buy time, because if I didn’t find some way to force an advantage, I was going to end up a stain on the sole of the Demon Ogre’s shoe.
“We should take this outside, that’s what they always do when a fight’s about to start in a bar, otherwise you’re going to destroy the whole place.”
I cursed underneath my breath. Terrible idea. My chances of the Oni giving the slightest damn about the bar being reduced to kindling was about the same as my chances of getting Lis to forget about my sou--
“You right. Good thinking,” the Oni replied, nodding solemnly. “If I cause more damage there gonna be trouble.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise, but I didn’t dare question him. Is this what it was like to catch a lucky break for once?
The immense Ogre literally stepped out of the collapsed basement, barely managed to squeeze through the double door leading out into the back alley and then promptly adopted a fighting stance. He reached up to the second floor windows of the nearby apartments.
Size was always a disadvantage in my experience. Especially in the (relatively speaking) cramped quarters of the alley. I didn’t have to fight harder. I had to fight smarter. And I had to buy time for Momo’s minions to clean up.
Dropping into a low sprint, I threw myself towards the two story Ogre. The Oni drew his katana high up overhead and brought it down into a cut that could part concrete.
The miss was narrow as I leaped between his legs at the last moment. The second I regained my feet, I drew my pistol and pelted him with good old fashioned modern firepower.
The medium caliber of my bullets were a mild annoyance at best. With an angry roar, the huge Oni raised an arm to his face and drew back his sword for an immense reaping slice.
I began to see a pattern as I ducked underneath the clumsy slice. Oni were big on strength, but didn’t seem to put much stock in things like precision, accuracy, or disciplined warfare.
Before he could recover from the clumsy swing, I aimed for the Oni’s ankle and cut it with my wand-sword. A grunt of surprise marked the loss of the Ogre’s hamstring, bringing him to a knee and cementing the loss of his leg’s use. With a cry of outrage, the Oni stuffed his free hand into his mouth. Pulling out a cocktail of fire and fumes, he thrust it at me as fast as he could, incinerating my left sleeve completely.
If I could tell my tailor how I kept ruining my suits, he might offer me a discount out of sympathy.
With my sleeve gone and my arm stinging from the fiery blow, I leaned into the Oni’s strike, completely slipped beneath his guard and brought my wand-sword up in a skyward swing.
A line of red, a roar of pain, and the gigantic Oni fell onto his back hard enough to shake the ground. I was already poised with a dress shoe on his chest and my wand-sword at his throat by the time he even knew what hit him.
“Wow,” the Ogre managed. “You pretty good.”
“If you answer my questions I might just let you go. Why the hell are you bastards invading the mundane world?”
“Dunno. The Kunshu says we go fight. We fight. Uh, Kunshu means the big boss, little foreigner.”
I brought my sword a little closer to his throat to emphasize that I disliked a cryptic and dishonest answer.“Be more specific. Why are you invading Mundanity?” I demanded
“I dunno!” he cried. “Humans weak? Maybe we make Japan part of Netherworld? Home away from home?”
When I saw him in the basement, I was sure that the immense Oni was someone important. He was wearing proper armor. He was flipping huge. How can someone so big and important looking be so damn clueless? I scowled. The night was turning out to be a complete loss.
“Where is this Kunshu of yours then?” I demanded.
I should have been keeping a closer eye on my surroundings. In a blur of motion, I found myself locking blades with a Human-sized figure. A grotesque mask awfully similar to the big Oni’s face obscured the swordsman’s visage.
Maybe it was because I’d put all my strength and wits and cleverness into downing an Ogre twice my size, but the swordsman batted me away with enormous strength and furiously attacked.
An onslaught of cuts and stabs rained down on me, hard and fast. Finally, one of them slipped past my guard.
A searing pain engulfed my thigh, and before I knew what hit me, a hard kick to my chest knocked me clean off my feet.
This one was different. The barkeep and the huge Ogre were children swinging around sticks compared to this swordsman. Was he the boss the other one was talking about? Impossible. Too small to be an Oni, and yet I’ve never met a Human with such a honed physique.
There was an air of practiced grace as he swiftly reversed the grip on his ornate katana and stabbed it towards my chest.
A heart piercing killing blow.
Where there should have been the sound of flesh tearing and cold pain, there was a dull ‘tink’ sound. The swordsman flinched in anticipation. A split second later a torrent of water exploded from my breast pocket.
Oh. I’d forgotten completely about the Tide Jewel. I owed Taro an apology.
Caught completely off guard, the masked assailant was flung back by the force of the torrent, drenched and disoriented. Like it had been waiting for just such an occasion, a familiar limo sidled up next to me in the nick of time, screeching to a halt. The door swung wide open to reveal the queen Tengu herself.
“Mister Locke,” Momodara cried. “We’re disengaging. Get in.”
The sole surviving crow Tengu, looking about as beat up as I felt, helped me into the car. As soon as the door shut, we burned rubber all the way back to the highway.
Chapter 7
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to go and rent the fancy luxury room at the very top of the hotel. The elevators weren’t working and after taking turns beating and getting be
aten up by mythological fiends, I didn’t really feel like adding cardio to my workout.
I’d nearly passed out by the time I got to the top, and the second I managed to open the door, I threw myself onto the king sized bed.
“It’s never a mission involving a daring yet harmless theft on a high speed locomotive is it?” I mumbled, face down in the covers.
A familiar voice piped up, eager to pour salt on the wound. “Don’t worry Charlie. You’ll catch a break some day. Statistically.”
“Lisistrathiel,” I groaned, feeling a sudden weight on my back. “Are you sitting on my spine?”
“I should be eating your spine, considering how big you owe me,” she retorted, before chipping in, “That was a compliment by the by. I was implicitly implying you weren’t a spineless coward.”
“I didn’t ask you to save me.”
Without missing a beat she retorted, “Psalms, chapter thirty five, verses twelve and thirteen. They repay me evil for good, to the bereavement of my soul.”
She almost sounded hurt, but I wasn’t falling for more trickery.
“You don’t have a soul Lis.”
“Sure I do, Charlie,” she shot back gleefully. “Yours.”
Cold sweat stained my brow as the words registered. I rose up from the bed and sat on the edge, exhausted.
Lis stared at me with her molten yellow eyes. Jagged black eyebrows were raised in anticipation for my response. She was wearing her favorite pajamas: Baggy grey bottoms and a white tank top sporting a cute little cherub in the middle blowing a trumpet. Halo and all.
“Enough dancing around the bush. What do you want from me?” I demanded.
She had me by the short hairs and she knew it. For the first time in a long time, that muffled creeping dread had returned. My heartbeat was erratic, my palms were covered in sweat.
“Good question,” she said, grabbing the remote and sensuously dragging a finger down it’s length. “Your soul is pretty enticing as is, but some extra seasoning is never a bad thing. Maybe I should ask you a dangerous favor? Or, better yet--”
Loud knocking interrupted the she-devil. Our eyes turned to the door.
“Mister Locke? Mister Locke,” cried out a familiar raspy voice.
Momodara. I turned to Lis and mouthed the word ‘Goddammit’.
The aide I was getting from Momo’s Tengu would be invaluable in the fight against the Oni but that alliance was paper thin. If Momodara were to see me with a tall glass of lava like Lis, that might be all it takes to have the fickle Tengu discard me. And then my job gets all the harder.
“Lis. Closet,” I whispered.
Lisistrathiel’s eyebrows furrowed. Her grin strained to keep. In my experience, this was her reaction whenever something she didn’t much like was happening.
I had no choice.
I grabbed her by the hand, led her over to the closet, and closed the door on her as I called out “On my way,” in as unexcited a voice as I could manage.
This was going to be a juggling act. Concentration was key.
Straightening my tie and removing my one sleeved overcoat, I opened the door to see a red cheeked Momodara.
The prim young Tengu woman was dressed in a short skirt and a blue buttoned up blouse with a cute black bow at chest height. She looked all dressed up with knee length socks and a very noticeable dab of lipstick on her lips.
“Momodara. What are you--”
“Mister Locke, has anyone ever told you you talk too much? When a girl shows up at a boy’s doorstep, the proper thing to do is invite them in without question.”
I sighed, and ushered her in, She flopped onto the bed and patted the empty space next to her seat.
“Your hand got burned. And your thigh cut. Take off your shirt,” she said sprightly, “and your pants.”
I raised my eyebrows high. “Momo, I can’t help but get the feeling that you’re trying to drop hints for me here. This might seem a bit blunt but, did you perchance come here with the intent of ravishing me?”
“Yes,” she replied, dead pan. “You were quite inspiring when you fought the Oni. You are also suave and in control, even when I had you all tied up. Confidence, Charles. Very attractive in Humans. Take your pants off.”
Rare was a woman quite that forward. Rarer still were that they were the short and cutesy type.
“Where is your first aid kit?” she asked, getting up. “In the closet, maybe?”
“I’ll get it,” I replied swiftly and jumped to the task.
“What a gentleman,” Momo said, the red in her cheeks intensifying.
I made it to the closet and opened it up.
“Here you go Charlie,” Lis hissed, shredding a long roll of medical gauze with her fingernails. “Be sure to save a couple of bandages for my broken heart when you’re done playing with your new toy. You know, while I’m imprisoned here pining away.”
“Thank you very much,” I muttered, taking a roll of bandages and returning to Momo.
The Tengu girl patched me up decently enough. It was when she proceeded to plant kisses on my arm that I started to get nervous.
“Mister Locke,” Momo murmured. “I hope you won’t mind if I uphold my end of the deal with you right here and right now.”
“I thought I told you--”
“I want it,” she cut me off. “Please.”
She pushed off the bed, crouched between my legs and pressed a kiss to my cut thigh. I flinched.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I feel like it needs to be emphasized. Momodara the Tengu had a great rear end. Lithe, supple, splendid, her ass was difficult to ignore even for someone as used to pretty girls as I am. It wasn’t even the size of it that made it so noticeable. She was a tiny woman after all, but nevertheless, her butt and thighs were hefty. Thick.
“Condoms,” I managed.
“Mm,” she replied.
I returned to the closet trying to think up a plan that didn’t end with a certain she-devil watching me do the horizontal monster mash. As sexy as Momo was, the thought of Lis watching the whole affair made it feel wrong. I opened the closet door just in time to be offered a hot pink condom.
…Pierced on the tip of devilish tail.
“Here you go,” Lisistrathiel said, wagging the impaled condom in my direction. “Should be easy for an independently wealthy guy like you to pay alimony right? It’s not a big deal if you give in to Lust, a cardinal sin, while your dear Lis is stuck in the closet and forced to hear every weird noise you make. Not to even mention having to clean up the bed afterwards, all covered in feathers and smelling like bubblegum, right?”
Lis was either reveling in the chance to heckle me without mercy, or was genuinely the most upset I’d ever seen her. Maybe even both.
“The remote too,” I replied nonchalantly.
Tengu were bird-like Supernaturals. Perhaps they were as easy to distract as birds too.
I returned to the bed. “Some TV to get us in the mood then, Momo.”
Not that she looked like she needed any help ‘getting in the right mood’. I flicked open the TV as Momo’s arms entwined around my neck.
It had been left on a news channel, and the second the Tengu looked up, she froze. They were discussing a recent murder of some top brass at a company.
With a shaky hand, Momo pointed to the picture of the unassuming victim and whispered, “That’s… That’s my father. He’s been killed?”
Chapter 8
“The body of the owner and eccentric CEO of Ten-Ko corporation has been discovered in an alley off of Sujikawa street,” the news subtitles read. “Nodara Nisemo was pronounced dead at the scene of what police are calling a gruesome crime. Ten-Ko corporation had this to say.”
The screen flashed and the video feed of an overweight man with a graying no nonsense haircut came onto the screen.
“As the late Mr. Nodara’s vice president, I speak on behalf everyone when I say the industry has lost one of its’ great luminaries,” the subtitle
s translated. “It is with a heavy heart that I must accept this news, and hope the perpetrators be brought to the swift justice of the law.”
A sad smile. A wave, and a round of applause was the last of it. The news moved on to report other things, but Momo was stuck in place. She stared with empty eyes at the flat screen TV, her hand shaking.
“Momodara--”
“Lie,” she mumbled. “It’s a lie. He’s not dead.”
She pulled out an offensively cute phone out of her purse and punched in a number, holding it to her ear as tears rolled down her cheeks. I watched her heart break in half when she got her father’s answering machine.
“How?” she asked, laying her back flat upon the bed. “How could this happen?”
I let her bury her head into my chest as my mind grasped at the possibilities. Her father was surely a Tengu as well. That meant he must have had decades, if not centuries of experience in blending in with Mundane society.
On top of his experience, he surely had a respectable bit of magic at his beck and call. All the Supernaturals did, even if they hid among the Mundane people of the world. That meant there was just one possible explanation for this. Momo voiced it before I had a chance to.
“It’s a retaliation,” she murmured.
Tears of sadness had been replaced with tears of rage.
“The Oni work fast. But we need to work faster,” I said. “Momo, I need you to get me to the crime scene. Do you have any connections with the police?”
The Tengu woman gave me a lopsided smirk, tears still clinging to her eyelashes. “Good grief Mister Locke. You really are a man of the world. Yes. My family has been on excellent terms with most of the high ranking members of the police and investigations bureau.”
“Can you get me to the crime scene?”
Momo didn’t respond. She flipped open her terribly cute cell phone and punched in a number. It picked up on the first ring.
“Moshi mosh,” she greeted. The conversation was short and in terse Japanese.
Two to Tengu (Secret Magent Book 2) Page 3