by J. P. Rice
Armed with just enough light and nerve to walk around the castle, we started down the dusty hallway. A pungent smell of burning plastic...wait, I sniffed again. It was burning flesh. I’d been burnt pretty bad in this business and smelled the charred bodies of others. This was a gagging odor that led me to believe that this smell wasn’t just from a little burn.
“Hold up a sec,” Glenda said as she swung her backpack around. She pulled out a gun first and tucked it into the front right pocket of the old jacket. Then, she produced a bottle of Old Crow. She cracked the seal, twisted off the cap and took two big gulps of the liquor. She extended the bottle to Felix, who made an ugly face, shook his head and waved his hand to reinforce his point.
My pulse heightened as Glenda stuffed the bottle back into her backpack. We walked down the hallway and turned left. An enormous room opened up, and as we entered with our torches, I realized it was a library.
The smell of burning flesh was replaced by the musty old books lined on the dilapidated wooden shelves. I tried not to get too enamored with the books and keep my focus on Shuten dōji. The three torches provided enough light to see our path and immediate surroundings, but also left enough darkness for Shuten dōji to hide in the shadows, waiting to strike.
We walked through the library and down another hallway and turned right. The hallway continued, and I realized it was surrounding the library. As we re-entered the library, I couldn’t help but get confused.
The castle was an optical illusion from the outside. It appeared much bigger from the outside. All it really consisted of was a front foyer and a hallway that ran around the entirety of the library. The lone room in the whole castle. The library was immense with labyrinths of bookshelves weaving around the room. No second floor or basement could be found.
Confused, and perhaps foolishly, we went to the center of the library. Several tables and chairs were haphazardly scattered around. Golden goblets full of dents and wooden barrels with metal spouts sticking out of them covered the floor. It appeared to be Shuten dōji’s party area.
Fukutama had told me that he liked to drink, and I stared at plenty of proof. Considering he was holed up here alone, he could probably give Glenda a run for her money in a drinking contest. The yeasty odor lingering in the center area provided some relief from the other fetid smells.
“Oh shit, what’s that?” Glenda pointed at the table in front of us. She moved closer, picked up a green bud of a plant and smelled it. “Sweet, sweet cheeba. Fresh too.” She grabbed a jade object from the table and held it up. “He’s even got a nice pipe for us to smoke out of. What a host.”
“Wait a second.” I didn’t mind anyone partying, but this seemed like poking a bear in the eyes. “Do you think it’s smart to be smoking a demon’s stash?”
“It will calm my nerves,” Glenda explained. “Plus it might attract that demon so we can have it out and get home. I thought that was the plan. I’m not trying to wait around here for him to attack us. Let’s go on the offensive.”
I said, “I agree. But let’s not be reckless. What the hell is that?”
“You talking about that orange glow?” Felix said as he pointed.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “We should check it out. Carefully.”
I tried to figure out a straight path to get to the orange glow, but the aisle of bookshelves was blocked off. The shelves were taller than us, and when I got down on my hands and knees, I found they were nailed to the floor with railroad spikes.
We turned around and entered another opening. We twisted through the maze of books and the glow became brighter. Unfortunately, the smell of charred flesh grew stronger.
We turned right, and then took a quick left. A burning fire about two feet high sat in a small clearing of shelves. The fire had an empty spit over it. My eyes drifted to the right and landed on a stack of charred human bones and a skull. As I moved in closer, I saw a small pile of clothing off to the side.
Chapter 22
A red robe and a pair of sandals that had been crafted into snowshoes were lying next to the fire. He’d gotten Okumura. I closed my eyes and felt responsible for his death. It showed how quickly the demon could strike.
I’d heard that Shuten dōji drank the blood of his victims, but this was indisputable proof that he was a cannibal.
I shivered at the thought. “We need to take his bones back to the lodge, so he can have a proper burial. Fuck. Why don’t we get back into the open area? I feel like we can get cornered easily in these aisles.”
We each grabbed some of Okumura’s remains and clothes. My hands felt alien as I sunk my fingers into the eyeholes of the warm skull. This man had been alive an hour ago. And where the fuck was this cannibalistic beast hiding?
Frantic thoughts darted in and out of my head as I led the group back to the tables in the middle of the library. Glenda blessed herself several times, pulled out the Old Crow and guzzled about five big gulps. Felix took a few hits off his vape pen as I tried to formulate a plan. I had no vice to feed.
I took out all the MREs and set them on one of the tables. “Glenda, why don’t you empty one of those bottles, so we can fill it with water from the spring outside?”
She looked up at me as she packed some of the owner’s weed into the jade bowl. “I got one that’s almost finished. Give me a minute.” She proceeded to draw her knife and cut a sliver of wood off the table. She lit the little matchstick off her torch which was dangling off the edge of the table. She hit the pipe and offered it to Felix.
“I’m good with my vaping. You enjoy.”
Glenda finished smoking Shuten dōji’s pot and we went and filled a liquor bottle with water from the spring right outside the castle. Staring back at the enormous looking castle from outside, I couldn’t understand why it was so small inside. There were several towers that could have tickled the moon, yet they were inaccessible from the inside.
I made sure to rinse out the bottle extensively so there weren’t any remnants of booze that would cause me to lose my magical skills.
Then we sat and waited. Glenda got wasted, Felix vaped away and I fought the urge to grab the bottle from Glenda and chug it. We joked around for a bit and it felt like Jaws. Secluded from any assistance, we were waiting for a beast to show up, unsure of his real power, and equally unsure if we would come out on top. Was it time to start comparing scars and singing songs?
I lived most of my wizard days with this uncomfortable, nervous excitement. It was a natural reaction to life or death situations and it hadn’t relented with experience. You just couldn’t let it consume you or it would become paralyzing.
Felix started drinking a few hours later. Soon, Glenda and he were belligerently screaming over each other. I kept away from the party and stayed busy by laying out Okumura’s bones on a long rectangular table. It tugged on my taut heartstrings the entire time, but I didn’t want to keep his remains in a pile. It didn’t seem right.
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed but the party had gone noticeably silent. I turned back to my friends and saw Glenda sleeping with her head down on the hard table. Felix had leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table next to Glenda’s head.
“She parties like a fucking rock star, huh?” I said, continuing to assemble Okumura’s bones.
“Harder than a rock star. I can’t keep up with her,” Felix’s voice resonated in the open room.
I stopped with the bones and turned around. “I guess that’s what she spends all her money on. Have you seen her house or car?”
“Yeah.” Felix paused for a few moments, seemingly contemplating something. “I want to tell you something, but she’ll kill me if she finds out I told you. I don’t know why, but she’s embarrassed about it.”
I had a feeling I’d already heard this story a few nights ago. Maybe it was a different tale. “Fuckin’ spill it.”
He rambled drunkenly, “Maybe it’s because it doesn’t make her out to be the hard ass she is most of the time.”
I was already intrigued. I didn’t need any more teasers. “Just tell me what it is.”
Felix took his feet off the table and leaned close to Glenda, making sure she was still asleep. Seemingly satisfied, he said, “Have you ever seen the battered women’s shelter down on Liberty Ave near the Strip District?”
“Yeah.” I’d seen it a few times. “It’s called ‘Every woman has a home’ or something like that, right?”
He looked at Glenda again before going on, “I can’t remember the exact name either, but she basically keeps that place running. She puts all of her money into the place, organizes the volunteers and does almost all of the planning. Her father used to smack her mom around, so she has a soft spot for the women.”
“That’s not embarrassing. That’s noble.” Why would anyone be embarrassed about that?
“I don’t think she wants anyone to know she has a soft heart. The women gave her the name Glenda Gold because they said she has a heart of gold. It doesn’t quite jibe with the badass supernatural bounty hunter.” He pursed his lips and tapped his chin with his vape pen. “I think her real last name is Amario or Amayo or something like that.”
When I thought about it, I realized that she and I were pretty similar. I’d given a hefty amount of cash to my cancer support group and other local charities. The job of magical guardian of Pittsburgh had prevented me from attending cancer group meetings regularly. I had to get back to that.
I understood Glenda’s line of thinking, although I had been contemplating using some of my money to get a nice house away from the city.
“We need to keep each other awake, so don’t go nodding off,” I warned Felix.
Instead of confirming my statement, I heard a sharp snoring. Felix had fallen asleep sitting up with his head down on the table, just like Glenda. Just like I used to do in my heavy drinking days.
And then there was one, huh?
I stood up and bounced around to keep myself awake. Looking at my two passed out friends, I saw my life from a few years ago. It was a time when nothing mattered except for getting fucked up. I had no responsibilities.
Two and a half years later, I was sitting in a demon’s castle in Japan. Every citizen of Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas counted on me to keep them safe from the supernatural. I was a father, and stone cold sober now. My, my, how the times had changed.
But I still felt incomplete. My life was missing something. I didn’t want Dante to grow up without a mother. That didn’t mean I would jump into a relationship with a woman and force the issue. I needed to find the right woman who would accept Dante for who he was.
That wouldn’t be very easy. The little demon was likely to scare many women away. I had no problem with that. I wanted the correct woman and I was willing to wait despite that hole inside.
My mind drifted to what I was going to say to Jonathan when I got back to Pittsburgh. He would probably ask me to turn over Glenda to him. Not happening. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but I would never sell out my friends.
I’d been in cahoots with the person who’d shot up a bunch of Jonathan’s associates and his house. Adding that incident to the Reg situation meant I needed to lie to my six-hundred-year-old vampire friend. I had a plan for Reg too. Unless it was too late.
My legs ached, and I sat down on the stone floor that was sticky in certain places from Shuten dōji’s spilled beverages. At least, I hoped it was from the drinks. I leaned back against a book shelf and yawned.
Glenda stirred and picked her head up off the table. She wiped some drool from the side of her mouth, looked around lazily and crawled under the table. She curled up on her side without a blanket or pillow.
Felix continued snoring with his head down on the table. Hearing him snore made my eyelids heavy. Keeping them open was now a chore.
THE GROWL OF A THOUSAND angry predators woke me up and my sleepy eyes darted around the room. As I scrambled to my feet, a bright figure emerged from the bookshelves.
My first impression was that he looked like the devil himself. The demon had bright red skin covered with an open, sleeveless vest and a loose pair of powder blue pants. He was wearing an apron made of tiger skin and drinking from a golden goblet. He threw the goblet aside and focused his molten orange eyes on me.
Shuten dōji had long black hair darkened by grease, two jagged fangs hanging out of his crusty purple lips and two spiked horns on top of his head. I had to look up at him, which meant he was about six-foot-ten, and appeared to be made of pure muscle. His biceps were as big as my head. He wore gold rings, jade eyebrow and nose rings and smoke came out of his nose each time he exhaled. He had bracelets of chains around his ankles and wrists.
I waited since I was on his turf. He could have set booby traps around me while I was sleeping. I clapped my hands and yelled to my friends, “Hey, wakeup assholes.”
They didn’t budge. Shuten dōji roared again like a banshee army. I turned, hoping it would wake up my friends. No luck. The demon stalked toward me, his eyes glowing.
As I thought about what magic to use against this beast, he started blinking rapidly. A second later, flames sprang from his eyes, racing toward me with the intensity of a flamethrower. I dipped my right shoulder and dove to the side.
The flames slammed into the bookshelf behind me. The old, dried out papers lit instantly, providing more illumination for the brawl in the gloomy castle. That surely had to break Glenda and Felix’s slumber. I peeked over as I got back to my feet and saw that they were still fast asleep. Un—fucking—believable.
I manipulated the elements in the stale air in front of me to make a heavy pocket. Shuten dōji walked toward me again and I leaned down as he approached. With my head in a lower position, he formed his hand into a fist with his claws hanging out over the butt of his palm. He cocked back to knock me out.
As he went to unleash his punch, I flicked my fingers and released the dense pocket of air. It crushed Shuten dōji in the chest and he let out a painful exhale as the condensed air picked him up off his bare feet. The momentum launched his body backward, horizontal to the ground, and toward the side of a wooden bookshelf.
His two horns pierced the wood as it splintered and gave way. He was stuck. The horns had sunk into the shelf. I snickered at the demon, whose head was stuck to the bookshelf and body hung in the air. His legs flailed around like he was riding a bicycle, trying to make contact with the ground, but only his claw-like toenails scraped the stone floor.
It was like watching a turtle on its back. His hands grabbed the horns and tried to pry them loose. He rocked his body around, trying to bust out of the shelf. I called on a fireball and a purple glow appeared in the palm of my hand.
I turned to my friends. “Wake up, you lazy fucks,” I screamed as I moved to the side so that I could throw this fireball right through his chest.
The rocking bookshelf tilted back and forth before it came crashing down with Shuten dōji under it. I couldn’t see him under the pile of books, but I didn’t want to wait for him to get up. I gunned the small purple orb at the fallen bookshelf.
A feral yelp of pain came from the pile of books indicating that I’d hit pay dirt. The yelp modulated into a roar and Shuten dōji sprang up, sending flaming books in every direction like a water sprinkler. Glossy black blood surged from his left hip and he walked with a limp as he came after me.
From ten feet away, he drew his fist back and I assumed he was dazed and discombobulated. The demon released the punch. His arm stretched across the room and his fist cracked me in the jaw, snapping my head back. Holy fuck. He had the same Gumby arm as Kobayashi, but with a hell of a lot more power.
Ten seconds passed and I was still seeing stars. I had to shake this off soon or it was curtains. But I couldn’t. Mercifully, my blurry vision started to come back into focus and that was when my worst nightmare came true.
I felt a twinge in my calf. My body stood still, even though I wanted to turn and run, as Shuten dōji walk
ed toward me. It was as if the demons from across the world were working together with this demon to kill me. It appeared that they finally had me right where they wanted me.
Chapter 23
Gunshots screamed past my head and body from behind and headed toward Shuten dōji. Glenda. You beautiful Brazilian. How could I ever repay you?
The bullets clanged off Shuten dōji’s body and ricocheted in many directions. Not being able to move, I was sure I would be caught in the crossfire. The bullets continued to pour out of the pistol, but they weren’t having any effect on the demon.
I heard Glenda throw the gun down and she raced in front of me to confront Shuten dōji. Felix came out of nowhere and joined Glenda by her side. They screamed at me to move, but I couldn’t even respond to them because of the implant. They quickly gave up on me and focused their attention on Shuten dōji.
Glenda let out a primal growl and her body took on a red glow. She held her arms out at her sides and her clothes bulged, frayed, and then burst from her body, falling in scraps to the stone floor. I hoped she brought a change of clothes for the shift back.
Starting with her hands, burgundy fur grew over her golden skin, covering her entire body. A second later, her head metamorphosed into the head of a fox.
To my great surprise, a plump werefox stood in front of me. She’d never mentioned this in the interview. Glenda crouched down and leapt into the shadows, disappearing from sight. Shadow fox, huh?
I stood in place, trying to reclaim control of my body, but it wasn’t working. Fighting against the implant was futile.
Felix had blue lightning dancing around his palms. Shuten dōji stared at the short mage as his shoulders swayed left and right. Felix unleashed a bolt of lightning at Shuten dōji’s head. The demon ducked gracefully out of the way and the blue electricity slammed into a bookshelf, instantly charring it, but not setting it ablaze.