by Jet Lupin
Shige shook his head. “By the time I was old enough to pick up the trade, we were well steeped in the furniture market, and I wasn’t very receptive to the idea. Being locked up in a workshop for days on end breathing in sawdust?” Shige shook his head. “I liked people more then—being around them, talking to them—probably too much. People responding well to me didn’t help.”
Reconciling the current Shige with the old wasn’t difficult. He had a certain charm when he wasn’t being surly and above all else, he was attractive. No matter the era, attractive people had their admirers, their station in life rarely factored in.
Shige went on. “When it became clear that selling only to our neighbors would leave us hungry, my father set his sights on other towns, other markets. I leapt at the chance to get out and see more people. It was like he thought up that job just for me.”
Shige started walking again and Phil kept in step. Shige’s body heat was so low, and this place was creepy, but having him close gave Phil peace of mind.
“Why didn’t your family move to another town? A bigger town?”
“My father was stubborn. He was born here, and his father as well. He was set on dying here. They did move, eventually. After my brother and sister married, had their children, my parents moved to be closer to them. My father passed away some time after that.”
“You were already gone by then.”
“Yes.” Old regret and sorrow bled out of Shige for a moment before he mentally tied it off with a tourniquet. “I’d already met Sebastian and Rosamund, my maker.”
Phil squeezed his arm, at a loss. He wasn’t sure if Shige wanted him to react to his words or the emotions he was putting out, but it wasn’t in Phil to do nothing when there was pain there. Shige patted his hand, a dash of gratitude coming over their connection.
“Why are we here?” Not that he was complaining about Shige sharing more of himself. This place seemed to hold a lot of mixed memories for him.
“Others followed my family’s example and left for more prosperous places. This place isn’t good for fishing, farming. We traded more and more with other towns even when I lived here. Staying made no sense. Soon, no one lived here at all. When I returned in the thirties, it was still abandoned, so I bought the land.”
They stopped in front of a house that was in a better state than the others. Phil sucked in a breath. Through an open window, the ceiling was painted in red and orange. Wood cracked in the hearth inside. Someone was living way out here.
“We were so close to my home, I wanted to show it to you. And I have someone I should speak with before we leave Japan. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. For me to come all this way and say nothing would be rude. Let me go in first.” Shige slid open the ancient wooden door and stepped inside. Shige spoke quickly in hushed Japanese. After a pause, the voice of whoever was inside the house boomed through the closed door, but Phil couldn’t understand a word.
With Chiyo, Kaoru, and the other yokai, he pulled the intent from their minds. For the yokai, it had to be pretty strong, but the benefit was that he understood what they really meant even if they didn’t let those exact words leave their mouths, as was often the case with Kaoru. With this… entity, it was as if its mind wasn’t there at all. What was going on?!
The door rattled open, and Shige stuck his head back out.
“You can come in now.”
Phil heard Shige’s invitation, but he didn’t want to move. It was a void of thought. There should be something there. Anything. Not even a blip. If there was another sensitive there, concealing themselves, he wouldn’t mind meeting them, but he doubted it. This unknown presence terrified him. He didn’t want to move in there.
When Chiyo blocked him, she was still there. Activity, the psychic equivalent of a hum filtered through the link, the sense that there was someone alive. Even with shifters, when Phil wasn’t concentrating to sense them, gave off a similar feeling. This was not that.
The cold made the decision for him when another gust of wind snaked its way into his jacket. He fortified his shield and stepped up into the house. The smell of burning wood and something gamey filled the air.
The fire in the sunken hearth lit up the single room, light splashing high on the walls and ceiling with shadows running down. The house’s occupants sat in a corner where the shadows gathered, the firelight giving their large eyes an eerie golden glow.
Those eyes tracked Phil as he made his way over to Shige, to sit by the fire and warm up. The sudden chill Phil couldn’t shake off had nothing to do with the temperature outside. He focused his gaze on the flames. Should he make eye contact? He really didn’t want to. Whatever—whoever this was, they would have more trouble passing for human than the girl with the water filled divot on her crown that sometime brought his breakfast back at Ten no Mon. Those golden eyes sat far above Shige’s head, but the entity sat leaning against the wall, massive tree trunk like legs folded in front of it.
In a voice dark like bog mire, and muffled, it spoke in what sounded like Japanese, though rife with so many unfamiliar words. Shige replied in English, no doubt for Phil’s sake, confirming what Phil assumed. This being was a sensitive.
“I know it’s been too long, but I’ve brought a gift. I haven’t completely forgotten my manners.” Shige brought up the bag. Huge, silver bangles clinked together as a massive red hand reached out towards the fire. Slowly, the rest of the figure followed.
The creature sitting on the other side of the fire had a red face with a hooked bird beak jutting out where a nose should have been. Large black wings and feathers protruded from its back, but the rest of it looked like a giant human, aside from the skin color.
The creature spoke again, and again Phil failed to tap into its mind, but he was able to piggyback on Shige’s understanding. There was a delay as Shige had to absorb the words, translate them for himself and then change his response to English, but it was better than being left in the dark. It wasn’t the same as reading Shige’s thoughts. He was just... skimming.
“What is this?” the creature said. Phil got the sense it wasn’t talking about the gift.
“The last time I saw you, you told me that if I ever found something to change my mind about being part of the world, you wanted to see it.” Shige said in English. He got close enough to give Phil’s arm a squeeze. “It’s him. He’s my reason.”
Phil’s face flushed hot as confusion took hold. How could that be true? When they met, Shige was already out in the world. But he did go out more now than he had when the Pampa crisis had passed. He’d become more active at work. It felt like a lot to attribute to Phil’s influence.
The creature looked Phil over, and seemed to agree with Phil’s assessment, turning its attention to Shige’s gift. It turned the bag upside-down, sending toys and snacks spilling onto the floor. Items from businesses Shige owned. They were just trinkets, but they held its attention as it swept long fingers through its prizes. The creature took up a box speckled in green and pink. It used long talon like nails to pry the wrapper off. As it worked, it said “He doesn’t look like much.”
Shige flushed this time.
“What should he look like?” Shige switched back to Japanese, though it didn’t shield Phil from the conversation.
“He’s a human. He won’t be around long. Unless… his skin. Don’t tell me you decided to lie with yokai now?”
He’s a human… His skin…
He was really getting tired of people talking down about the way he looked. He wasn’t the most handsome guy, but even if he was, these insults would still come. Phil knew the country was homogenous, but get with the times. People that looked like Phil had existed for as long as everyone else, generally speaking. It wasn’t his fault they’d been kept in the dark. Turn on the internet, read a paper. Maybe this guy couldn’t, but Nikko and Kaoru had no excuse.
He’d never been more grateful for the lessons Chiyo had taught him to safeguard himself than right now.
“He�
��s not Japanese,” Shige said, his face returning a more natural color. “He looks right for himself.”
“But you are Japanese. You were lucky enough to be raised up from just human filth, yet you lower yourself to their level again. Have you forgotten where you came from, living in that stolen land?” The creature snorted. “I don’t approve.”
Shige bowed slightly, the show of deference adding more oddness to the whole scene. “With all due respect, I didn’t come for your approval, only to fulfill a promise.”
If there was any offense taken, the creature said nothing about it. It got the box open and dumped the candle onto the floor.
“I’m leaving again, for a long time. I’m not sure when I can return, but I wanted to thank you for your service, Dai Otengu Jurai.”
Jurai waved its hand at Shige, dismissing him. “The next time you come, bring me more tribute. Something better. I will be here.”
They turned to leave, but Phil paused to bow himself. If Shige had done it, no matter how much of a dick Jurai was, it was probably the right thing to do. This whole time, he’d stood by and listened to the terrible things he said without showing any emotion, but he couldn’t help himself. The buildup from the last few weeks came out in a rush. He’d make sure Jurai remembered this human.
“I may be just a human, but I care for Shige as much as he cares for me. That’s worth more than where I come from or what I look like. It’s about who I am.” He pushed the thoughts as he spoke them to be certain he was understood.
Jurai stopped sifting through the candy on the floor and stared at Phil. Its face blank, eyes burning like coals behind a mask, detached and distant.
Phil bowed once more and hustled after Shige, shutting the door behind him.
Shige stuck his hands in his pockets as they started back down the path.
“How much of that did you understand?”
Phil raised a brow at Shige broaching the uncomfortable subject first for a change.
“A lot of it. I was starting to wonder if you brought me here just to have me be insulted and ignored.”
“I apologize for that. He’s careless with his words. He sees no one as his equal, but that’s no excuse for the things he’s said.”
Phil believed him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t sore about the whole thing. He wished he’d revealed what he was and really taken Jurai off guard, but that probably would have ended in his death. He didn’t seem to like humans. How would he feel about one having the same powers as him, albeit lamer?
“What is Jurai, other than sensitive, apparently?”
Shige glanced back at the house behind them. “I always suspected he could read my thoughts, but I never had confirmation until now. I’ve only met a handful of beings who could read minds, and they were all human. Maybe there are other beings with this power, but they don’t care to reveal themselves.
“He’s a tengu,” Shige said. “Not all of the yokai I helped get along with others. Some are more solitary. Jurai and a few others live out this way. They get safety and quiet solitude, and I get someone to keep people from taking interest in this land.”
With that much power, Phil could imagine how he managed that.
“The older a yokai gets, the stronger it gets. And at his age, he’s closer to being a god. He may be an asshole, but it’s always better to have a god with you than against you, I think.”
“I’m sorry, again, for what he said. I’m not excusing him, but he’s old. Probably the oldest creature I’ve ever met. There’s little to be done to change that.”
Phil shrugged. If he had a dollar for every time someone said that to excuse a misbehaving relative...
Shige bumped his shoulder. “I heard what you said back there.”
“Yeah, well, I followed your lead.”
Shige chuckled. “You probably surprised him. I don’t think he’s ever met a sensitive human before. He definitely wasn’t expecting you to understand, let alone,s ay anything to him.”
“Should I not have?” He’d just been talking so much shit! Kaoru had whittled Phil down to his breaking point, but, he admitted he could have handled it better. He didn’t know what he would have done if Jurai had gotten up from the floor. Pissed his pants most likely.
Shige leaned in close, looping his arm in Phil’s to leech warmth from him. “Jurai will get over it. Or he won’t. I don’t care.”
As they made their way down the mountain in the back of Gekko’s van, Phil swore he saw a large,3 winged shadow pass over the road. But it had to be his imagination.
Chapter 11
SHIGE
Another hotel, another carefully crafted alias, all painstakingly set in place… All dashed to pieces with a single phone call. Some things superseded his need for privacy. Not many things, but finding out who killed Toshinori easily made the list.
This task would require a certain finesse that, unfortunately, Shige lacked. There was no vampire court of law, no officers to uphold their unwritten rules. Constantly evolving social circles with changing rules, members, and hierarchies made their society, and he’d been away too long to know how to navigate them in a way that would yield answers, but he knew someone who moved through them smoothly.
“Never in all my days did I dare dream that you would reach out to me. Did seeing me after all these years make you long for old times?” Bas’ chuckles were like needles skewering Shige’s brain, but he gritted through it.
“I’m surprised you’ve got my number,” Bas went on. “Did Abby give it to you? Is this her phone?”
“No, it’s mine.”
“Uh-huh.” There was the sound of muffled scraping for a few seconds. Likely the sound of Bas saving his phone number. Shige made a mental note to have it changed when he returned home.
“Tell me then, brother, to what do I owe this call? We haven’t been apart very long but you must control yourself. Think of your human.”
Shige’s gaze drifted to the slumbering Phil beside him. After a day of travel, they had the suite to themselves for the evening. The others were outside standing guard or feeding on whatever sustained them. The quiet wouldn’t last long. And this rare reprieve was being wasted talking to this dickhead, but it had to be done.
“I have some more questions for you,” Shige cut across him. He’d had about enough of Bas’ inane chatter.
“Of course you do. Fire away.”
Shige rolled his eyes, but held his tongue. “I’d rather do it face-to-face. Meet me at my hotel. It’s the Millennium Mitsui Garden.”
“I know the address. Look for me in the lobby.”
A little more than thirty minutes later, Bas reclined in a chair drawing furtive glances from the other guests. They had to be used to foreigners by now, but not such an apparently wealthy, handsome, mysterious one. Goosebumps rose on Shige’s skin as he closed the distance between them. His sibling felt him in the same way, but Bas didn’t bother looking up from his newspaper when Shige arrived.
“No, please. Don’t get up.” The attention thrown their way doubled as Shige sat in the chair closest to him. Bas picked up a glass of brown liquor and sipped it, looking carefully disinterested. He always loved being the center of attention. He hadn’t changed in the centuries they’d known each other; he wasn’t going to do so now.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He stretched his legs out in of front him. “Getting here that quickly wasn’t exactly easy, but I did it for you. Now, tell me what burning questions have you calling me out at such an hour.”
Good. Bas was the last person Shige wanted to force small talk with.
“How long have you lived in my country?”
“Long enough to consider it more my country than yours.” He grinned, lip lifting enough to expose a hint of fang. “That’s an odd question. Where is this going?”
Since he’d found Toshinori’s body, Shige had weighed the benefits of coming out about his child’s death versus keeping it a secret. He wasn’t yet ready to bring it to a public sta
ge, but to get the help he needed, he would have to give something up. Any threat to Shige was a threat to Bas, after all.
“Someone’s killed Toshinori.” Shige paused, waiting for some sign or shock or the lack thereof. Something passed over Bas’ face, but Shige wasn’t ready to rule on it just yet. “They left a gaping hole in his chest. I think it was one of ours since he doesn’t like shifters enough to bring them into his inner sanctum, though… maybe he did. There’s much I didn’t know about him. At any rate, my working theory is that another vampire did him in. I wondered if you had any idea of where to start. If anyone had an issue with him. Anything at all.”
As Shige revealed more details, Bas looked more uneasy. He took a bracing draw from his liquor, sitting up straighter in his chair. “He was a miserable sod, but I didn’t wish him dead. You know that?”
“I assumed, but it’s good to hear it.”
“That said,” Bas reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and handed Shige a crisp cream colored envelope. “Fate is in your favor tonight. I’m holding a gathering at my place tomorrow. I had invited a few people, but you know how these things tend to run wild. It might be good for you to show your face. Show that you aren’t in hiding. We can turn it into a memorial of sorts as well, get a read of the room.
“Toshinori was about as popular as you are. He kept to himself, like you, and the others don’t like those who hold themselves apart. I hate to say this, but have you considered that his death has little to do with him directly and is more about your connection?”
“Of course I have.” Shige had considered every angle. Some were more likely than others, but that didn’t mean he should just throw the others away. The thought that Toshinori died because of him gave Shige more regret for the man’s end, but not much. “Have you heard of any hostility towards him?”
Bas shrugged. “No more than the usual casual levels of dislike that’s always prevalent. Though, when news of Pampa reached us, there was a little more unrest than is normal; however nothing that should have led to this.”