In the toilet, he locked the door, sat on the stool, and took a deep breath. He settled himself into a trance, reaching out with his Third Eye.
His perspective moved through the door back out into the bar, hovering at head height.
Yuka might be somewhere in the bar. Unless this was her night off.
Behind the bar and the tall, handsome bartender, Django’s floating eye found a narrow door that led to a storage room. In there, shelves were stacked to the ceiling with a fortune in high-end liquor. In the back lay another door, through which a cramped stairway led upstairs to a narrow hallway. In that hallway, one door read OFFICE. Another door said DRESSING ROOM.
Through that door, he sent his disembodied awareness. In there, five beautiful women were in various stages of undress, applying makeup or chatting with their coworkers. He felt like a Peeping Tom for a second—until he saw her.
Chapter Six
SHE WORE A LONG-SLEEVE dress of gold lamé with an open back, slit up to the hip. Peeking past the edges of the dress were full sleeve tattoos. Unlike in the West, where tattooing was currently chic and trendy, in Japan tattoos still indicated connections with organized crime. They had been a marker for the yakuza for centuries. Many onsen, hot spring spas, did not allow customers with tattoos for this reason. The Black Lotus Clan had marked her. Hell, for all he knew, some yakuza lieutenant had claimed her for himself.
She was as beautiful as ever, as vibrant as ever, but her eyes held a world-weariness that was perhaps to be expected, given her occupation and history.
He didn’t know how long he hung there and stared as she applied her lipstick and eye shadow. Back in the toilet, his heart ached. He yearned to touch her, run his fingers through her thick, raven hair, nuzzle the softness of her neck.
“Goddammit,” he breathed, still in the toilet.
With his Third Eye, there was no mistaking her Awakened aura. It thrummed with the blue of Water, shades of the Third Eye’s indigo, and even the Celestial pool’s violet. She had a powerful aura for a Level One. Perhaps she’d been cultivating her mahō abilities at the behest of the Black Lotus Clan long before she’d actually Awakened. Doing that resulted in the kind of low-level magical abilities that evaded the radar of the Council or Hunter-Seekers, like the difference between a street magician and a real one.
His awareness just hovered there and stared at her. All those hours, days, weeks he’d spent searching for her, wondering what had happened to her, wondering if she was okay.
She paused and scanned the room behind her in the mirror. The other girls did not react. She stood and faced him, as if searching, then she met his gaze, narrowing her eyes.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered.
His Third Eye exploded with blinding light and he was back in the toilet.
As a newly Awakened Level One, she should not have had the power to banish his clairvoyance so easily.
He splashed water on his face, toweled off, and looked in the mirror to collect himself. He needed to get her alone, talk to her about her Awakening, and convince her that accepting the Brand was the right thing to do. He couldn’t bear to consider the alternative.
Back out in the bar, he found his escort waiting for him on the plush couch, holding a frosted glass of beer in hand. She handed it to him and said, “Buy me a drink, sir?”
God, she was beautiful. One in ten thousand. But he said, “You’re gorgeous, but what I’m in the mood for is a woman with more edge. Anybody with tattoos?” He pretended to sip the beer—it might be laced. He’d heard stories of hostess bar patrons being roofied, waking up to find their bank accounts sucked dry or their credit cards maxed out.
A micro-expression of annoyance flashed across her face, but she smiled and said, “We do have a girl you might like. I’ll go see if she’s available.” She uncoiled herself from the sofa and departed in a swirl of red silk and pearls.
Inside his stomach, a butterfly the size of a truck tire flopped and struggled to burst free. His throat was full.
A lonesome, sentimental enka song played quietly over the sound system, a song of lost loves, shattered dreams, and regrets, as most enka songs were.
He set down his beer and retreated to stand in the corner of the alcove so that she would not see him until she was a couple of meters away. He dared not sit or relax.
And there she was.
Rounding the corner, her carefully constructed mask of hospitality shattered in an expression of shock.
He choked down something he would not admit was a sob, clenching his teeth to contain the emotion.
Her mask reconstituted itself quickly. “Welcome, sir. I see Hikari has already got you a drink.”
He nodded.
“Please, sit,” she said. The way she sank to the sofa was pure liquid grace, but he could see the tension underneath, the tightness in her jaw and neck. And what was more, she pulsated with power. A normal human would have experienced it as a powerful allure, or been so intimidated by it he couldn’t wait to get away.
He sank to the edge of the sofa beside her.
Her eyes glimmered with the internal struggle. He recovered his Third Eye, opened it, and examined her aura. It was a lightning storm of coruscating colors.
“Please don’t look at me with that,” she said softly. Then louder, “I’m Kimiko. Buy me a drink, sir?”
“Of course, whatever you like.” He couldn’t peel his gaze away from her, holding himself as a pillar of stone, wishing he had more Earth-based abilities to steady himself as he felt the ground falling out from under him. Did she know why he was here? What did she know of the wider mahō world?
As she stood, he stood as well, ostensibly to appear polite, but he wasn’t about to be caught at a disadvantage, by her or anyone else. This encounter could still go south in a thousand different ways. A bottomless sadness welled up in him, his chest aching, his vision blurring. He hadn’t seen the slightest hint she was happy to see him.
But she went to the bar, ordered a cocktail, and soon returned, appearing to have collected herself. Charm and beauty emanated from her like rare perfume. His vision misted over.
Back in the alcove, she gestured for him to sit. “So, tell me about yourself. What brings you here tonight?”
Someone was likely listening, keeping an eye on them, so it would be best to play the charade until he could get her alone somehow.
“Looking for someone I used to know,” he said. “Someone very special to me.”
She didn’t move, but her eyes glimmered. “So you’re carrying a torch for someone?”
He nodded.
“So you’re a stalker then,” she said with a playful smile.
“In more ways than one.”
“What do you want with her?”
“What makes you think it’s a her?”
“It’s always a her.”
His whole body vibrated in its yearning to touch her, but she could well be a Black Lotus moll. She had cared about him once, but banking on that now might cost him his life.
“Doing what I do makes it even lonelier,” he said.
“And what’s that?” She took a sip of her fruity cocktail, never taking her eyes off him.
“You might call me a kind of finder.”
“Like an investigator?”
He shook his head.
“A bounty hunter then?” An edge crept back into her voice.
He shook his head again.
“A cop?”
He met her gaze and shook his head again.
She leaned forward, squeezing her petal-soft cleavage together with her upper arms, giving him an enigmatic smile. “Oh, don’t make me keep guessing!”
“Aren’t you intrigued now?” he asked.
“A girl loves a good mystery.”
He sat and looked at her, wishing he could solidify his foundation of Earth mahō to steady himself. But even as a Level One she would sense him using magic. He wanted to keep this magic-free. This place might have unseen magical
defenses.
All this time. All that effort. And now, here she was. His guts were a storm of relief, excitement, attraction, and wariness.
It was too much.
“I can’t do this,” he whispered. “I need to talk to you. Yuka. Please.”
She sidled up close to him, but miles of distance remained. “Why?”
“Life and death.” The scent of her filled his nose and all but unmanned him. He clutched his kneecaps to keep from seizing her in a fierce embrace.
“I get off at four a.m.,” she whispered. “Meet me in the alley.”
“Now.”
“Would you like to book a private room?” she said louder.
He raised eyebrows at that. Most hostess bars did not have private rooms. Prostitution was illegal, but the sheer number of ingenious, hair-splitting loopholes—like soaplands and massage parlors with “special service”—made it accessible. Had the Black Lotus forced her into full-on prostitution?
“Yes, I would,” he said.
“I need your credit card.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Then it’s a fifty thousand yen cash deposit.”
That amounted to about five hundred U.S. dollars. No doubt any “deposit” would be eaten up by “fees.” “I don’t have that kind of money.” He still had a fat envelope full of the Council’s cash back in his apartment, but it couldn’t help him here.
She looked away, her face a Nō mask.
The bartender was standing where he could see them, an older man with hooded eyes, toweling out highball glasses. He didn’t appear to be paying attention, but he very much was.
She said, “Then we’ll just have to content ourselves with hanging out here.”
He stood and spoke so the bartender could hear. “Thank you, Kimiko. You’ve been lovely. But I have to go.”
Abruptly she touched his hand and it set him on fire. “Must you?” Her eyes were full of entreaty, but he couldn’t tell if it was real.
He couldn’t look into them or he would lose himself. “Thanks, but some other time.”
He pulled away, gathered his coat around him, and hurried outside. His heart thudded like a taiko drum against his breastbone. The brighter lights of Hair of the Kitty spattered the night around him as he tried to catch his breath.
Strip clubs were not a habit for him, as he seldom had trouble getting laid if he wanted to, but sometimes all he wanted was to look and to lose the world in displays of nubile nudity. This was such a moment. Sequestering himself at a dark table away from the stage, he started pounding saké until the dancers resembled Yuka more and more. “Fuck four a.m.,” he muttered. And fuck caution. This was pain he didn’t know how to deal with.
Dancers periodically tried to join him, but he wasn’t interested in company or private encounters. “Just bring me the bottle,” he told them. Someone brought him a 1.8-liter ishobin, a magnum-size bottle. They tried to pour his drinks for him, but he brusquely sent them away.
His guts were a cold cavern populated by blind, squirming things that had never seen the light of the sun.
If she refused the Brand, his next task would be to kill her.
How could he do that?
If he refused to carry out the Council’s edict, if he let her live, a Hunter-Seeker would soon come for him. He would become an outlaw. If he drank enough, though, he would cease to care.
“So are you going to pay attention or not?” a woman’s voice said in his ear.
He had been staring into his jar of cold saké for seven or eight years as the music thumped and thudded, but there was a woman sitting beside him now. “Go away.”
She touched his cheek, turned his head.
Through the drunken blur, he couldn’t be sure. They all looked like Yuka now. “You’re a persistent one,” he slurred.
She shook him by the chin. “Kenji! Wake the fuck up! We don’t have much time.”
He blinked twice, slowly, and tried to focus. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“That was you in the dressing room.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“They told me someone would come. I had no clue it would be you.”
“Yuka, I—”
“That’s not my name anymore.” She glanced around through the curtains of flashing lights.
“I loved you!” he blurted.
Her face softened. “That was a long time ago. A lifetime.”
Awareness surged in him, driving back the inebriation. “So you know why I’m here.”
Her arm snaked around his, squeezing. “Why are you here?”
“One of your mahō essence pools Awakened. I have to take you to the Council.”
“So they can disappear me.”
“No! That’s not the rules.”
Something sharp pressed against his inner thigh. The dark steel of a combat knife pointed at his femoral artery. That woke him up.
She said, “Then tell me the rules.” She squeezed his arm tighter.
One flick of that knife and he would bleed out in about two minutes.
“Awakened mahō users are taken to the Council and given a Brand.”
“So what does this ‘Brand’ do?”
“It creates a connection to the Council, lets you communicate back and forth. It also lets you tap into their power, learn abilities faster.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“What have you heard?”
“That it makes you a slave.”
“Untrue.”
“Then why are you here?”
“They gave me a job to do.”
“Can you refuse?”
“Of course I can,” he said, but he had never considered it until tonight. He was grateful for the purpose, the pay, and the feeling he was making a difference. Enough dangerous yokai had met their end at his hand that he knew he was saving human lives almost every day. Could he have refused to take this assignment? Or worse, had they known about his relationship with Yuka, and they were now testing his loyalty?
“So this Brand, how does it work? Let’s say I go along with it. What then?”
He pointed at his pate, where his Brand lay concealed under his hair. “They tattoo you here, tebori-style, and—”
“I can’t shave my hair off! Are you crazy? What man would want to hang out with a bald hostess?”
“You won’t have to do that anymore.”
“Oh, won’t I? How am I supposed to live?”
“You can stay with me.” He swallowed hard. “As long as you need to.”
She laughed. “So after all this time, you think you’re going to be my knight on a white horse?” She barked a harsher laugh. “You think they’ll let me quit? You don’t think they’ll find me?”
“I’ll protect you. The Council will protect you. The Brand lets you draw on their power, especially as a Level One—”
She laughed more manically this time. Her eyes hardened. “The Council couldn’t protect your parents. And they can’t protect me.” Then her cheeks blanched. “Neither could you.”
Her words struck him like a blow. Trying to draw back, he found his arm immobilized not by her, but by the coils of a python. But it was not a serpent. Its body became her upper arm.
“It’s not as simple as you think,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
The serpent’s head drew back, its hooked fangs dripping with venom, and struck him on the hand.
He wanted to protest that pythons weren’t venomous, but the sting shot through his hand, and he could only stare at her as the warm numbness rushed up his arm. His vision clouded. He felt another sting on the inside of his forearm. Then he fell into a nothingness of gauzy fluff.
Chapter Seven
WHEN DJANGO CAME TO, his vision was full of breasts.
None of them were Yuka’s, who had two small moles on her ribcage below her left breast, neither of which were present above him.
Two mostly nude dancers were asking him, “Are you all right?” A waitress knelt besi
de him.
Then a large, muscled bouncer was there, seizing him by the collar and yanking him to his feet. “Let’s go, asshole.”
His legs were overcooked noodles. His mouth felt packed with dry cotton. The bouncer drag-walked him to the entrance and threw him out into the street. His head smacked the gritty concrete, cracking his teeth together. The stars in his eyes were pretty. He rolled onto his back, staring up at a sky just starting to turn gray with the coming dawn.
A weight thumped onto his chest, driving his breath out of him.
The cat perched on his breastbone and looked down into his eyes. “You don’t look so good.”
“So people keep telling me,” Django croaked.
“You know what your problem is?”
“Please tell me, O Great Sage.”
The cat snorted with derision. “If you’re going to be a smart-ass, I’ll keep it to myself.” The cat jumped off, the lurch of movement making Django cough.
He rolled onto his side and levered himself up. The blood content in his alcohol stream, plus whatever magical venom she had hit him with, steamrolled him again.
The cat watched him in the interminable minutes he took to compose himself, getting to his feet one stage at a time. The world kept heaving under him. Finally he stood nominally upright and leaned against a vending machine that sold canned coffee, bottles of tea, and panties with photos of their former owners. He fumbled out a couple hundred-yen coins and stuffed them into the slot. A bottle of green tea would help moisten his desert-dry tongue.
Then the world lurched again, this time sending him doubled over beside the vending machine to puke his guts out. Saké was much less tasty on the way out. When the heaves diminished, he leaned against the machine, gasping, and wiped his mouth and nose with the back of his hand.
The bouncer still stood in the door, arms crossed, watching Django’s drunken escapades with disdain.
Django waved to him, took a long drink from his bottle of green tea, and stumbled off to meet the day elsewhere.
The cat followed along beside him. “I take it things didn’t go well.”
“Couldn’t have been worse.”
“You’re still alive. Seems like it could have.”
Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1) Page 6
