✧ ✧ ✧
Despite all the eyelash fluttering, Kazue opted to leave Tsuyu behind rather than take her to a shady bar. Along with regular drunks and other potential creepers, the Boiling Note was located in a hotbed of supernatural activities, being near one of the big rifts in Tokyo where spirits and monsters could easily pass into the human world.
The place itself was actually fairly easy to find. It sat out on one of the main streets, sandwiched in between two much larger and more popular buildings. At least he didn’t need to go through any winding back alleyways, where he would inevitably get lost or have a complication with another yokai.
After a few more moments of staring at the old building, Kazue opened the front door.
The soft sound of jazz floated through the smoky air of the bar. Grime stuck to the floor like a shadow, and a thin film clung to the pictures on the wall. The photos were taken in better days, with local celebrities from almost 150 years ago. Dim red lights illuminated the current patrons, both mortal and yokai alike. Glamours were either faded or too easy to see through, and the humans were either too drunk or apathetic to care.
Kazue honestly couldn’t blame them. The Boiling Note wasn’t the kind of bar you went to looking to have a good time. It was the kind of place you wound up after losing either your job or your wife, to drink until you woke up in Osaka missing your wallet.
He quickly scanned the bar and sat right down in front of the bartender, setting his “umbrella” to the side. He may be here on business, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun. Besides, maybe the only way to get information out of the bartender was to get his trust by ordering drinks. A man could only hope.
“What can I get for you, Detective?”
That gave Kazue a start. He was pretty sure that he had never been in this particular joint before, but he never knew with places like this. When Shiori had left him, he had been in and out of whatever cheap bar would serve him for almost a year. That entire period of his life was spent blacked out, so it was possible he could have frequented this place before.
The man across the counter seemed to already know him, so Kazue shrugged. No harm in asking at this point. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
The bartender only smiled. “No. Of course not. But I know you. I know everyone.”
Kazue took the time to actually look at the man behind the counter. He came across as supremely nondescript. His face looked middle-aged, maybe just a bit on the youthful side, but his eyes had an ancient quality that seemed to pierce straight into his soul. The detective’s eyes wandered back to the old photographs on the wall with more attention. The bartender was in almost every single one of them, including the ones from a century ago.
“Your wife is a Yuki-onna, is she not?” The man was casual, as if he hadn’t just asked Kazue about a thing very few people knew of. Not to mention he’d just dropped any façade of this being a regular human establishment.
That settled it for the detective. “What are you?”
The man only laughed. “I doubt that you would have ever met something quite like me, and if you have, you probably wouldn’t associate them with myself. Now, a good bartender is always willing to lend an ear.”
The tiny voice of his common sense spoke up in the back of his mind, wondering why a complete stranger would care so much or why he should spill all of this to him, but the soft music and warm air of the bar drowned it out.
For the first time in a long time, Kazue relaxed. Actually relaxed, not just stayed in bed because he didn’t want to face reality. “Shiori and I first met in the Okuchichibu Mountains. I had been asked to find and exorcise a ghost that had been getting hikers lost and attacking them. A snowstorm had come in, and I wound up off the trail and lost. That’s when I met her. She was by far the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She led me back to the trail, made me promise to never tell anybody, and I didn’t see her again for another six months. Of course, I recognized her, but I didn’t say anything. We started to get to know each other, and pretty soon, we were in love and married before the year was out. But then I had to be an idiot and tell. I broke the promise…and made her leave because of it.”
Now he just felt exhausted. Part of him wanted to cry, but he reminded himself that he came from a long line of samurai who had been able to remain stoic in the worst of situations. That and he was in a public place, and that would just be embarrassing. Despite this, he had to blink the tears out of his eyes before they fell.
The man across the bar was now wiping out dusty shot glasses. “Of course, what you want, what you truly want, is something only you can repair, but I would be more than happy to assist in your investigation. I am more than willing to answer any question you might have. Kobayashi-san was a regular and I would quite like to see him return. Of course, I believe your ability would be far more useful than most answers I can give.”
Kazue could only nod. He supposed that the bartender really did know everyone. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the other world parallel to his own.
The air was so thick with magic it practically buzzed, each unique energy mixing and spinning like some kind of whiskey cocktail. The bartender’s magic spread from behind the counter and encompassed all the others in a presence that seemed to comfort and relax. Flickering in and out of all of them were the last traces of Touma’s memories from about four days before: the last day anyone had seen him before his disappearance. The magic was wispy and would probably be gone when the sun rose in the morning.
The detective took a deep breath and pulled on the energy like pulling a loose thread from an old shirt. Unraveling from the ambient magic of the bar and the thick presence behind the counter, the memories were flickering in and out of existence. He would have to be careful if he didn’t want them to disappear altogether. Images slowly started to filter in and out of focus, fuzzed and blurred with age and alcohol.
The memories were golden and happy, and not just from Touma’s inebriated state. Sitting across from him was an extremely pretty woman. Kazue briefly recalled seeing her face on some kind of billboard, releasing some kind of album, but he could not for the life of him remember her name. This mystery woman was smiling and openly flirting with Touma. Warning bells immediately went off in his mind. A pretty, famous singer had come to a little hole-in-the-wall and decided to flirt with Touma Kobayashi, of all people.
Somewhere behind him, the front doors burst open, yanking him out of the memories that weren’t his own.
Two men filed in, one human and the other an Oni, both with suits and a nasty look in their eye. The seven-foot-tall Oni ducked his massive shoulders as he stepped through the door frame. His glamour was so flimsy that it definitely couldn’t pass the legal test. Not that Kazue was going to go and arrest a guy that was over a foot taller than him without backup. The other was human, probably no older than twenty-five. He had that cocky air that only youths possess, and lots of magic pushed inside the bar with him.
They sat on the two barstools to his right, setting off alarm bells in his head. They weren’t looking at him though. Instead, they focused on glaring at the bartender.
Kazue glanced to the fabric bundle at his side. If things got too dicey, he was more than prepared to make a dramatic exit. Not that he thought it would actually come to that. These guys probably weren’t supposed to be in here, legally or not. The Oni may have been huge, and the kid may have had magic, but even the strongest stuff he could summon would be nothing but a sparkly parlor trick in comparison to whatever the bartender could do with a snap of his fingers. He could only hope that the two wouldn’t start anything because that would only mean more paperwork in the morning and he was already planning to be hungover when he woke up.
The kid leaned forward in his seat. “We’re looking for a woman.”
The bartender just chuckled and kept wiping the dirty shot glasses. “Aren’t we all?”
The kid bared his teeth, even though he held an arm out to hold
the Oni back. “Cut the shit, old man. You know who we’re talking about. The Hone-onna that set up shop nearby. The one that’s been picking off our men.”
That piqued Kazue’s curiosity. A Hone-onna, also known as a Bone Woman, was somewhere in the neighborhood. Of course his mind jumped to her as a suspect, but from what he remembered off the top of his head, they didn’t leave their particular haunts. Unless this one was particularly strong, she should only appear in her lover’s home.
A loud bang filled the room as the Oni slammed his hand on the counter so hard he cracked the wood. Now the rest of the patrons were almost completely silent and looking hard in their direction. Kazue let out a sigh. If this continued, people would definitely notice that the unnaturally tall guy wasn’t human, which could potentially result in an incident. And since he was technically an agent of the government, he was required to step in if it looked like it would turn into a problem.
He flashed his badge at the two. To most other people, the initials MSA meant absolutely nothing, but almost everyone connected to the supernatural world recognized them on sight.
“I’m going to have to ask you two boys to leave. You’re disturbing the peace.” Looking specifically at the Oni this time, he lowered his voice and said, “Your glamour doesn’t conform to the legal specifications. Go home and fix it now, and I’ll let you off with a warning.”
The Oni growled, but the young man clicked his tongue before grabbing his friend’s arm. “Come on, Motonao, we’re going.”
Chatter resumed the second the door was fully closed behind them.
Kazue leaned back in his chair. “Mr. Kobayashi left with a woman the night of his disappearance. Would you happen to know where they went?”
The bartender smiled again. “But of course.”
✧ ✧ ✧
Maybe at one point the neighborhood had been lively, but tonight it just seemed dead. This street wasn’t exactly a great part of town, so he at least expected some homeless people, if not a couple of teenage delinquents, but the area seemed to be completely devoid of life. There was nothing around spiritwise, either. On any other night, on any other case, it might have given him the slightest amount of relief, but tonight it just set him on edge. He was not welcome here.
Kazue took a deep breath and focused. Touma’s path laid out almost perfectly in front of him, the line glowing and flickering like a dying candle. He could see the effect of alcohol in the way the trail swayed around and sometimes vanished completely before reappearing a few feet later. Every so often, it would turn a corner, winding through the dark neighborhood like a maze.
Eventually the trail stopped at a house. It was plain and undecorated, same style as all the others lining the street. The only thing that set it apart was the sign in the front that was definitely nailed in before the first snow started. Kazue, as quickly as possible, took his hand out of his pocket and brushed off the front side of the sign, just enough to see the “For Sale” and the number for the poor realtor that was charged with selling the joint. He took the number down, just in case it might be important for him in the future.
A single set of footprints led up to the front door.
The yellow line cut off right in front of the door. It didn’t fade out or flicker away, it just stopped. Like it hit a wall. Now that he was close he could already tell that the feeling of death had settled in, and it had been there for a while, mixing in with the remnants of old charms and wards.
Kazue reinforced his mental barriers and tightened his hand on his “umbrella.” Hopefully, the building was just as dead on the inside as it was on the outside, but he wasn’t willing to be reckless. He checked the door, and it opened with no resistance, further fueling his worry.
If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought that he stepped into a meat locker. Somehow, the temperature had dropped a few more degrees from the freezing cold outside, like someone had seen the snowfall and decided to turn on the air conditioning. The only light came from the open door, and the house echoed with stillness. The living room and kitchen were completely devoid of any furniture, and he wasn’t expecting much from the rest of the house. Judging by the thin layer of dust, nobody had been here for quite a while.
It would probably be a good idea to stop and come back in the morning, but the idea of closing the case tonight to go to bed without worries was far more tempting. He turned on his flashlight and began to carefully creep through the abandoned house. He placed his feet carefully, so as to not let the floor creak under him, and he was especially cautious not to shine his light directly in the windows.
Even if there was nothing here, the last thing Kazue wanted was to be arrested for trespassing—again. The man in charge of paranormal incidents here was a smug little bastard, and he would never hear the end of it. That, and he really didn’t want to spend the night in a jail cell, considering he didn’t have anybody to come bail him out. Last time it had happened, he had been a teenager on a case from a pretty girl, and Misogi had to pick him up. His older brother lectured him the entire way home, but at least he hadn’t told their father. Good times.
He quietly continued through the house, carefully checking each of the rooms one by one. The aura of death had definitely settled in, seeping into all the corners of the house, but it was getting stronger the closer he was getting to the bedroom. Thick, black miasma seemed to leak from the bottom and the edges of the door. Kazue held Shinrinyoku in front of him, dropping the glamour.
His sasumata was old-school, especially in comparison to the ones regular law enforcement used. The pole extended to just over the length of his arm, though it could telescope out further, ending in a thin fork. Just before the split, several rows of nonlethal spikes jutted out. The tips of the weapon could cut someone if he wasn’t careful, but it wasn’t supposed to be a deadly weapon. It was designed to keep whatever he was fighting a good distance away from him so he could use wards and perform exorcisms.
With a grimace, he grabbed the doorknob and twisted. The aura clung like sludge, despite not really being there, but the second he got the door open all the way, it seemed to dissipate. Like it had realized it had been beaten and could no longer hide what was inside. And boy, what was inside was a piece of work.
There was a large lump in the center of the room. Taking the forked end of his weapon and twisting it into the fabric, he yanked the lump over. Recognition hit him like a hammer.
“What the hell?”
It was Touma Kobayashi, lips far too blue and skin far too pale to belong to any living being. His eyes were squeezed shut and his lips were open just a crack in a painful grimace. He was still wearing the suit he went to work in, thin and definitely not protective against the dangerous cold. Of course, it was impossible to get an approximate time of death because of the temperature, but from what he learned at the apartment, Touma probably hadn’t been dead for long. Meaning that he had probably been there for several days before death.
Kazue began to dial in the number for the police. This hadn’t been accidental, and human murder was very much out of his jurisdiction. As much as he wanted to be there and be the one to help his client, he was far too late. Detective or not, this was now the police’s problem. He was about to hit the call button when Touma made a horrible, pained groaning.
He was alive.
Kazue quickly deleted the number he had typed in and instead typed the number for emergency services. The operator was calm, calmer than he was as he explained what had happened and where he was. The operator gave him instructions to sit tight and explained that the ambulance would be there shortly to get them. Kazue thanked them before hanging up.
Once he had done that, he dialed the number for the MSA. Yes, this was attempted murder, and they would probably force him to give the case to them, but the supernatural was still involved and who- or whatever did this was probably still out there. After giving his name and identification number, he was connected to an actual agent. After explaining his case and
what he had discovered, he was assured that a squad car would be there in no time to back him up.
Touma groaned again, and Kazue shed his coat to put over the other man like some kind of blanket. He had no idea if this would actually help, but he needed him alive for at least another few minutes, maybe longer, before the actual professionals could take a look at him.
The cold was biting. The almost complete lack of sound made it even worse, as he didn’t have anything to focus on. He would love to ask the found man some questions, but Touma was barely conscious. Instead, Kazue focused on the energy around him. Aside from the feeling of death, he could sense the past energy of old protective charms. When he had entered earlier, it hadn’t bothered him. Now that he had time to think about it, however, it seemed odd. They were obviously well made considering that they still stuck around for this long. Maybe the owner was really interested in the supernatural.
Kazue pulled out his flip phone for the third time that night. He would have preferred to call her once he knew where Touma was going, but he honestly didn’t have anything better to do.
“Ah, Detective. What can I do for you?” Tsuyu’s voice was airy and completely relaxed.
“I found him.” It was hard to keep the pride out of his voice, but somehow, he managed it.
“What?”
“Your brother. I found him. He’s hurt, but an ambulance will be here soon and you’ll be able to see him.”
“Oh. I see.” She sounded surprised. Kazue figured it was because of how fast he found him, considering that they had started looking that morning.
A sharp creak echoed through the small house, then another. It was too loud for it to be the building settling. There were no sirens or lights from the ambulance, and an MSA agent would have announced themselves if they were coming in.
“I’ll call you back.” He then flipped the phone shut and tightened his grip on Shinrinyoku.
Kazue crept through the house looking for the source of the noise. Peering around a corner, he saw the kid and the Oni from the Boiling Note. They were obviously looking for something, or someone.
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