by Adam Bennett
Feed? Am I actually going to feed? There is a thrill in my bones even at the possibility. In this moment I know I am lost. It is going to happen. I’ve held on as long as I can, but I can tell I can go no further, I can’t stand the pain, and death isn’t an option.
I’ll make that witch pay for what she’s done to me.
***
Night has fallen and I stalk the streets like the lean and hungry predator that I am. All remorse has fallen away from me, my brain fried and served back to me on a plate of bloodlust. There is nothing for me but flesh now—the addiction—the only cure being to feed.
There are dangers for me. The wizard kings send their clockwork soldiers out to guard the city. Animated by magic, these men of gears and iron can be heard in the distance, clanking up and down the cobbled streets.
I try to keep to the shadows, the main thoroughfares still lit by magical flames dancing in the sky. Here in the alleyways I blend in, walking among the poor and dispossessed, just another wasted soul in a desiccated body. I don’t bother myself with these meagre morsels—they will do nothing to assuage my hunger. Yet risking the main streets is suicide; the clockwork soldiers’ eyes would be grim and lifeless as they hacked me to death with halberds the moment I revealed my true form.
True form, surely it hasn’t come to that? I’m still human aren’t I? I’m not… the other, not truly… not yet. I feel the finality settle into me. It’s happened, I am cursed. There is no escaping it now.
No, but if I can change, then I can change back. This curse can be reversed, just like I can still reverse my form back to something resembling a human. Yes, but for how long?
I begin to cry, internally desolate, the bleak alley filled with the corruption of my soul and refuse of a society I no longer feel part of. Stumbling amongst the rubbish I am a black hole shadow, a void into which pity and remorse are sucked. This is not an act, and yet I bait my hook, whimpering and dragging my dead limbs, so exhausted and forlorn, my mind numb with hunger.
He doesn’t know yet, but I am aware of him. The man has been following me at a distance for a while. I have been trawling past the backstreet pubs and then off into some of the more deserted side streets until I found my mark, or they found me, as they believed. There are so many predators here in the slums, so far beneath the glittering wonders of the crystal towers where the wizard kings dwell. Here in the pit at the base of society the predators and prey stalk each other in an intricate dance, just as sophisticated and subtle as any found in the halls of the wizard kings.
He is a fine specimen of a man. Dirty on the outside, but strong and full of vigour, a worker from the docks blowing his pay down the pub, pissing it against a wall and burning out his mind in some frenzied hope of truly feeling alive. Perhaps this is opportunism on his part, but there is something in his measured step that speaks of confidence. He believes he’s found his mark as well, a victim onto which to inflict his insane passions.
Down through this dark street we weave, and I find my worry receding, my brain still not functioning fully in its want, but now coming more to life, sure of its next meal and excited into action by an internal chemical cascade. I hunch my shoulders and put on the act, falling further into my despair, but now only artificially. My bright eyes sparkle in the darkness, yet invisible under the shawl I wear, my body all sharp angles and jutting bones with only a hint of the woman I once was.
It is enough for him, he wants me. I can feel his animal lust and his desire for violence, and I feel my love for him grow. There will be an intimate moment soon, a bond only we who become so close will know. This is something I have learned with the killing, and it scares me, makes me revile the witch even more, for I never wanted to know that I could enjoy such things.
The pleasure is there though, and it thrills my veins with anticipation. It is raw magic, and somewhere, deep inside, I recognise it as my birthright and future lover. There will be a time when I master it, and not be the slave I am here, tonight, in this damn stinking alley, filled with piss and rubbish and black cobblestones, with the wooden houses arching over my head like a predator stood over its prey.
The man is running now and I duck around a corner, glance back. There is a glint of a knife in the pale light and I see him seeking me out, his breath ragged now, his excitement taking hold of him. I can sense it nearly overwhelm him as I step out in front of him.
He strikes quickly, instinctually, but I am in control, the knife slipping up through the nook of my arm like a mock stabbing in a play, the movement harmless yet visceral. We collide like lovers, embracing. For a moment we nearly kiss, but then a grimace twists his face and he snarls at me like a beast. I can feel his excitement pressing against my body. I press back and there is a moment of pure animalistic lust which sweeps over both of us.
Then I transform.
It’s my eyes which change first, the lenses proliferating and spreading across my face to form two huge clusters like domes of glistening stars. Fur sprouts, black and yellow, a furry forest that overwhelms my skin. My face becomes completely unrecognisable as human, mandibles pushing out of a distorted mouth, wet and sticky with saliva, slowly extending then contracting as they grasp for prey. Antennae burst forth, pointing like accusing fingers, growing outwards and coming to rest on the man’s head.
I feel him shudder, his face a mask of horror, but he is unable to move. My legs, now grotesque parodies of their previous shape, hold him in a vice grip with chitinous claws, a sticky secretion gluing his flesh to mine. He begins to scream as my body balloons out to many times its regular size. I stretch my chitinous shell, my wings unfolding like translucent halos, signalling the opening of the heavens, the end of life.
My proboscis lashes out like a black dart and strikes deep into his chest. He begins to convulse, knowing he is not the predator but the prey, that he has been trapped by his own desire. As I pump the blood from his body, all I can think is that this too is my fate, my reality, a slave to this moment.
I desperately want to be so much more. I want magical power, but the witch has granted my wish with this curse. All I can do is transform, and feed, and I don’t even have the will to overcome it.
Will—now there’s something that offers hope. I drain the last morsels of blood from the empty flesh sack I hold in my monstrous grasp. Perhaps there is some lesson here, something the witch is trying to teach me. I feel the life force of the man sing through my body and fill my brain with a comprehension I thought would never return to me.
In this moment of clarity I can see so much, a whole universe inside of me, refracted through the lens of the man I have consumed. With his death I become more invigorated, and yet more tainted, knowing I am sliding down a slippery slope, but that it is what I asked for.
This is the dark blessing, the curse the witch laid upon me. This is how witches are made, in the brutal crucible of mutation and death, a horrible test of strength and will. This is my battle now, and I no longer hate the witch but thank her, realising she has indeed given me what I desire most.
As I hear a steam whistle scream a few streets away I realise I am detected. There is a riotous cacophony as clockwork soldiers shuffle metal feet along cobblestones, coming to slay the witch they have been alerted to. I do not want them to hack me apart with their vicious halberds—I do not seek death. I am alive, and I am on the path.
I am a witch after all, the curse of the queen bee passed from one generation to the next. I spread my wings. They beat a humming chorus and carry me up into the sky, off away from the dangers of the crystal towers where the nemeses live, the dreaded wizard kings. I go now to find the hive, the true mind which all witches share, and claim the power I have felt is my destiny since birth, a magical charge planted deep in my bones, a fate I now embrace.
The Desires of Demons
David M. Donachie
As soon as I saw the village, I knew that there was evil lurking within.
There were mountains to the east, and mountains to th
e west. Rugged and capped with cloud, their sides were cloaked in forest. Only a few narrow terraces of farmland, and one torii arch perched high above, revealed the touch of man.
The village nestled in the gap between the mountains, a pleasant looking place—two dozen thatched houses, a scatter of fields, and a wooden palisade.
I stopped on the path to point the village out to Kurai, who trailed behind me with his pack balanced across his shoulder on the end of his staff. He'd been my apprentice for three months, and the worst he'd faced so far had been angry farmers who'd mistaken gold prospectors for ghosts. When I mentioned evil, I saw the fear in his eyes.
"What sort of evil, Master?" he asked.
I still hadn't gotten used to being called Master, but I wasn't going to tell Kurai that. Instead of answering I looked back down at the village, running my eye over the peaked rooftops and the empty fields. At my back, the mountain wind sighed through the pine trees, and their bows creaked.
"Yōkai," I said at last. "The spirits of the dead are strong in this place."
Kurai twitched, nearly dropping his staff, and had to scramble to catch it before our belongings spilt out on the path. To cover up his lapse he pulled the letter that had brought us here out of the pack and made a show of unfolding it.
"But the letter, Master. It must have been written by someone living."
Surely it must.
The letter had found us in Kagoya City, where the two of us had been staying after the incident with the gold miners. It had been slipped under the door of our chamber while we slept, wrapped in a black ribbon. No one seemed to know how it arrived. No one had seen a messenger or accepted it at the door. I even went as far as summoning the snaggle-toothed obāsan who ran the place to demand an explanation, but she insisted that the doors had been closed, and the windows shuttered, all night.
The content of the letter was just as mysterious. It was addressed to me by my given name, Nagano no Hidesuke, rather than Sadamasa, the name I had taken as a Shoki demon queller, which was already strange. It begged me to travel to a village named Shiroyama Mura (which I had to look up in an atlas), and rescue a pure soul beset by demons. It gave no names, offered no explanations or reward, and bore no signature.
A wise man might well have ignored the letter and moved on, but I am more curious than wise. I could not pass up so many mysteries, and it is not in my nature to allow demons to go about their evil unmolested, so I gathered Kurai and my belongings and set off for the mountain province where Shiroyama Mura was located. Now, after a week on the autumn roads, we had arrived.
"We will not solve this mystery from the top of this hill," I told Kurai, "let us go down."
Night was falling by the time we reached the village gates. The fields had been empty when we passed them, and the walls were empty too. Silkworm trays lay in untidy heaps, their inhabitants flown; most of the houses were dark. The village might have seemed abandoned, were it not for the brightly lit inn that lay opposite the entrance gate.
Red lanterns were strung on poles around the front of a two storey building. The sliding doors had been drawn back, and warm light flooded the vacant street, along with the sound of music and the chatter of conversation. Steam wafted towards us on the breeze, carrying the scents of hot rice, sweet potatoes, and chāshū pork. It made my mouth water, but my instincts were on edge. A crowded sake house in a deserted village? "Be careful," I whispered to Kurai before we went in.
We left our shoes on the porch and entered the common room. A pinewood fire crackled in a central hearth between two rows of low tables and tatami mats. At the back, a bearded ogre of a man was cleaning sake cups with a square of cloth. His bald head was as smooth as a ball of mochi, and he watched us both as we took our places at a table near the door.
I casually studied the other patrons in the bar while Kurai ordered a travellers' meal: warm sake and hot soba noodles topped with pork. As well as the bald innkeeper, and the pretty young serving girl who might well be his daughter, there were a surprising number of other customers. At the back of the room three uncomfortably thin men in blue yukata and polished black gita were playing cards. All three had long noses. To their left an old peasant woman with white hair sipped watered sake, while opposite her an equally old woman with a big head on little shoulders sat hunched up and silent as if trying to avoid attention.
On the other side of the fire, three men shared a table groaning with food. One had his back to me, so all I could make out was a head haloed by firelight, but the other two caught my eye. One was a zato, a low ranking blind man, the other was a farmer, covered in mud stains and gnawing on a bone. The hand that held the bone had only three fingers.
There were still more of them, young and old, men and women, even one who watched me back — a pale-skinned woman with long black hair who loitered at a half-open door — but I paid no attention. I'd already seen enough to know that we were in terrible danger. Most of the patrons, maybe all of them, were yōkai or oni—ghosts and demons! They had taken human form, but they had to know that, as a demon queller, I would see through their disguises—which meant that they had no intention of letting us go! Our only chance was to act as if we had noticed nothing, and flee.
Shaken, I turned back to Kurai. He had been joined at the table by a fat white cat, with yellow eyes and a single crooked fang, which was purring as he stroked it. I tried to formulate a warning that would alert him to the danger without also alerting the demons; but at that moment the serving girl returned, placing sake cups and bowls of steaming soba on the table before us.
Drugged food? That would be typical of oni!
"Wait!" I put out a hand and took hold of Kurai's arm as he reached for his saki.
"Is there something wrong?" the girl asked.
"No, no. We are simply tired from our long journey. Now that I have sat down, I realise that I am very sleepy. Perhaps we might take our noodles and our wine in our room instead?"
For the briefest moment the girl let her composure slip, and I saw the hint of sharp fangs in her gritted teeth, but she recovered herself so quickly that I could almost think that I had imagined it.
"Of course, sir. If you'd come this way?"
I made a show of gathering my belongings, full of apologies, surreptitiously taking hold of the wakizashi hidden under my straw coat, which made me feel a little better. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat sniff the abandoned pork, then turn its nose up at it, which confirmed my suspicions.
The girl put the food back on its tray, then led us up a short flight of stairs to a simple tatami covered room where we could spend the night.
The moment that the door was closed, I pressed my palms against it, whispered a prayer to Amida Buddha, and then fastened a talisman of white paper to the inside. I didn't relax. The yōkai had failed to drug us, they would try something else.
"Master? What's happening?"
"What is happening is that we have fallen into a trap! The villagers are gone, and the Inn is full of oni." I cursed the curiosity that had brought us here.
"Oni, master?"
"Did you not see them? The card players with the long noses were surely tengu. The old woman drinking sake was Amazake Babā, who curses people with bad luck if they offer her a drink. The farmer with three fingers was a dorotabō, a muddy rice field monk, risen from the dead to vent his spite on the living. The other patrons: kowai, and gaki, and jinkininki; all kinds of hungry ghosts."
I could see that Kurai was terrified. Good, he might need that fear to survive the night.
"And the blind masseur, Master?"
"A tenome, with eyes in his hands and a heart full of vengeance. I wouldn't be surprised if the innkeeper was an oni himself!" I was strapping on my wakizashi as I spoke, preparing myself for a fight, when a sudden thought struck me. "And the cat! One tooth! Just like the old woman in Kagoya City!"
"The yōkai sent us the letter? But surely that cannot be. Ghosts might take human shapes, but they do not send letters
."
I wondered at that myself. My first instinct was to flee the cursed village—there were too many demons for two of us to fight—but what if there was something more? Was the letter writer trapped here too? Was there actually an innocent to save? It seemed impossible, and yet …
A baby's cry, shockingly loud and unexpected in that village of ghosts, pierced the night.
Kurai reacted faster than I did. "A baby, Master Sadamasa! A living baby! Surely that was no yōkai!"
"There are demons that use a baby's cry to lure men to their deaths … but I don't think that was one. Quick, we must find a way out before the oni turn on us."
"Too late!"
Kurai pointed a trembling finger at the wall, where the shadow of a woman bearing a lamp could be seen, gliding across the paper panels where no shadow should have been. The shadow reached the end of the room, and without pausing made an impossible turn onto the sliding shoji screens that covered the window.
"Kage onna!"
I threw open the screens to reveal a moonlit balcony, there was no one there. I dashed to the wooden rail and looked down, a figure was running across the darkened street below, a black haired woman with a baby-sized bundle clutched to her chest. The loitering woman from the inn!
At the same moment, someone tried to burst into the room behind me. The door rattled and groaned, but the talisman held. Whatever was on the other side roared, and scraped at the paper with razor-sharp claws.
"Kurai, quick!" I pointed at the fleeing woman, hoping he'd understand, and then gave chase.
I leapt the end of the balcony, dropping down onto a sloping roof, and then from that to the street. I could hear the slap of Kurai's feet on the wood behind me, so I knew that he was following, but my attention was on the fleeing woman. She'd ducked into a narrow lane between two houses and I was sure I'd lose her in an instant if I couldn't keep up.
But then I heard Kurai shout a warning from behind me, and I had to stop.