“Depends.”
“When Taka comes in, take a break. Go to the toilet, whatever. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“And if you get the chance to walk away from this place, these people, do it. Got any relatives far from here?”
“My brother lives in Fukuoka prefecture, but—”
“Take the money I just gave you and book a ticket to Fukuoka on the shinkansen tomorrow. Kyushu is a long way from here. The people you’re afraid of are going to have their hands too full to look for little ol’ you.”
Maybe it was a bad idea telling her all this. She might go running to find this Habu and tell him everything Django had just said. But he didn’t think so. Her aura was a normal human one, flickering with nervousness but no duplicity.
Maybe some mayhem was what he needed. On the other hand, the better plan would be to hunt and kill whatever yokai were around, but quietly, with zero civilian casualties, if possible. On the other other hand, employing any kind of powerful yokai and allowing them to remain in the mortal world threatened the fabric of reality itself, so...
Kana disappeared into the lights and throng. He hoped she would be okay. Seemed like a good kid.
He left his beer on the table and circulated around the club’s periphery, noting various patrons and catching the eye of a couple of beautiful humans. He wandered through a pair of sliding glass doors out onto the night-swathed balcony for some fresh air. Unlike the club’s interior, the balcony lighting was tastefully subdued. A railing of stainless-steel pipe and tempered glass encircled it.
He thrived in the shadows. The charm of the club’s air was working on him. He was starting to love this place. Too bad he was about to destroy the “management.”
Where was Kana with his drink? Maybe she’d taken his advice.
As this was the top floor, the eighth, of this particular building, its veranda offered a beautiful view of the glittering Ginza streets. The lights of the city wiped the sky into a smear of luminous veil, obscuring all but the brightest handful of stars.
On any other night but this one, he would have already acquired a target lock on his evening’s dalliance, given the sheer number of beautiful women in the place.
A man walked by and scoffed, “Isn’t it a little hot for a coat like that? You hiding a gun under there?” The nubile, shrink-wrapped coed on his arm laughed and they went back inside.
Perhaps Django wasn’t as unnoticeable as he imagined, but he didn’t want to spend any of his Third Eye essence on a Shadow Veil. So he leaned back against the railing and nonchalantly observed the crowd through the glass door, searching in particular for the aura-flare of any supernatural creature. Then he sent his Third Eye into the building, through the club, into its back rooms, looking for Yuka, looking for anything amiss.
He was so distracted by his Third Eye clairvoyance that he didn’t see the bartender coming straight toward him until it was too late.
Chapter Thirteen
DJANGO HAD ONLY HALF a second to recall the awareness of his roaming Third Eye. The bartender was a tall, spare man, maybe six feet five, dressed in a white shirt, black vest, bow tie, and trousers. His face was narrow, his beady eyes a coruscating amber, and his aura blazing with yellow fire and indigo flecks.
The glass doors slid shut behind him, and the gauzy haze of some kind of magical seal rippled across them. The glass went black.
There was nobody else on the balcony, only Django and the bartender. But the bartender’s outline wavered like a mirage, looming closer, a long arm coming up to grab him.
Django grabbed the incoming hand and twisted it into a spinning joint lock that used the bartender’s momentum to send him slinging past and crashing through a half-inch-thick pane of tempered glass. Scrabbling at sharp pebbles of glass, the bartender slipped over the edge with a surprised yelp.
“Oops!” Django said, then spun to the rail to look down. He expected to see the bartender’s flailing limbs amid a shower of glass shards plummeting toward the street eight stories down. But there was only falling glass. No bartender.
Then his instincts screamed at him.
He spun back, grabbing for his hilt in time to see the bartender leap out of the shadows under the edge of the roof. The edge of Django’s blade, sweeping out from the draw, met the bartender’s leap in mid-air, slashing deep across his belly. Django dodged just out of the way, and the bartender barreled into the stainless-steel railing, wrapping himself double around it.
Django back-rolled away and came up on his feet, blade interposed, gathering his Earth essence for defense—just in time to have his Fortress shattered by a white-hot fist. The shockwave drove him into the concrete wall. The back of his head slammed against the wall, stars exploding in his vision.
The bartender stood taller, then taller still. Two horns sprang out from his forehead, and his face turned the bruise-blue color of a corpse. His eyes blazed yellow. Tusks sprang from his lips, long and sharp enough to gut Django like a wild boar.
It stood eight feet tall now, its spindly arms and legs stretching a foot beyond the cuffs of its shirt and trousers. Its distended belly popped three lower buttons on its vest and shirt. And worst of all, the otherworldly greed and malice in its eyes could have made a shark run blubbering home to its mother.
“Oni!” Django gasped, trying to catch his breath.
“Oh, aren’t you a tasty one,” the oni said.
The word oni translated to English as either demon or ogre, but one thing was sure—an oni was a whole heap of death and ferocity. They came in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they were minions of Hell. Sometimes they were divine beings who guarded sacred temples. Sometimes they were humans turned very bad, like the legendary bandit chieftain Hakamadare. Sometimes they were spawned from the abysses of Lord Enma-Ō’s Jigoku torture pits. Whatever their origins, they were never to be trifled with. Even Django’s eviscerating cut across its belly wouldn’t slow it down.
The oni chuckled. “What do you think you’re doing here, warlock?”
“Uh, just having a night out.”
Its thin lips stretched across its tusks. “Your kind is unwelcome here.”
“I don’t suppose you’d show me to the door.”
“I’m afraid your essence looks too tasty for that.”
The two of them circled each other. The music thudded against the closed glass doors. The gash across the oni’s belly, a wound that would have been fatal to a human, had knit closed, but the lips of slashed cloth were stained with the oni’s tarry, black ichor. Django used the moment to take a couple of deep breaths and steady himself.
“Funny, that’s what I was going to say to you,” Django said.
“So you’re looking for Yuka.”
Django took a step back and swallowed hard, gripping his hilt tighter—too tight. “Just here having a drink. Who’s Yuka?”
“Don’t be coy. I had to chew the information from tasty little Kana’s brain, almost as delicious as her luscious, young flesh.” The oni patted its bulbous belly.
Goddammit. Django felt a spasm of hope that the creature was lying to him, trying to get under his skin.
“Oh, it’s quite true,” the oni said. “You left your stink all over her.”
“Hey, I wear the best cologne.” Shit, he was terrible at this kind of comic book banter. His voice quavered at the possibility that this creature would, in fact, not just kill him in a dreadfully agonizing way but also eat his soul. Just get control, overcome the fear, find your center. He could almost hear his mother’s voice saying it to him, with his father’s right behind her. Become monkey. Find monkey’s power, where it come from. Look weak until the moment you strong. As a teenager, Django had hated his father’s broken English and stupid Chinese accent. What an asshole that teenager had been.
“What a touching story, though. The gallant swain bent on saving his lost love.” The oni laughed with derision.
Its fists began to glow again as if lit from wi
thin, first orange, then yellow, then blazing white. This monster had deep reserves of Fire mahō. Its aura blazed with it.
Then a wave of fear washed over Django, all but destroying the calm he’d mustered. Striking terror into your opponent’s heart was the negative aspect of Fire mahō. Sometimes it was a natural side effect, but it could also be a powerful form of attack.
The radiant heat from the oni’s fists warmed Django’s face, even from three yards away.
Django braced his feet.
The oni charged.
Django ducked in close and, with his left hand, used a monkey-style block on the incoming meteor, the back of his wrist redirecting the blow high. The heat seared the flesh of his forearm, but then he used the oni’s knee as a step, leaped high, reached behind the oni’s neck with his sword hilt as a hook around the back of its neck. As he dropped to the ground, his weight pulled the oni off-balance, toppling it forward to drive its forehead onto the concrete floor. He fell upon the creature’s back with both knees, flattening its body and immediately following with a two-handed stab through its lower back. Django’s blade point severed the creature’s spine, and he gave it a two-handed wrench for good measure.
The oni flipped onto its back, throwing him off, but when it tried to stand, its legs wouldn’t work. It roared in frustration, but not fear. It would be on its feet again very soon.
As Django charged in with a slash, the oni’s fists became white-hot claws with two-inch talons. At the last moment, he skidded to a halt and held his distance. If one of those managed to touch his sword, it would ruin the steel. But he didn’t dare waste a second, lest he give the oni’s regenerative powers time to reconnect the severed spine. He circled to the creature’s feet and slashed through one of its legs, striking sparks from the concrete, severing it at the knee.
“Why you cheeky little splatter of monkey shit!” the oni roared.
Django kicked the severed leg across the balcony, out of reach, then raised his ichor-smeared blade and struck again. Another leg severed just above the knee and another roar of frustration.
Django smirked. “I can do this all night.” Let the bastard’s spine reconnect itself now, with only stumps to walk on.
Tarry ichor oozed from its stumps. The oni raised its hands in entreaty. “Wait! Wait.” This time there was real fear in its glowing amber eyes.
The image of this creature devouring poor Kana flashed through Django’s mind, and the flare of rage drove him forward with a powerful, horizontal slash, severing both of the oni’s forearms. Its hands fell to the ground, sizzling heat blackening the concrete.
“Son of a gaki!” the oni growled, its stumps flailing.
Django saw no reason to listen to further insults, so he severed the oni’s head with one more stroke.
The head continued to curse him, eyes blazing with life even as he kicked it away from the thrashing torso. It felt like kicking a cinder block. It rolled to a halt against the railing, a couple of feet from one of the legs. Black worms sprang like tentacles from the neck toward one of the legs.
“Ohhh, no you don’t!” Django leaped to prevent the reconnection. The worms were already drawing neck stump toward knee stump when he drove the point of his blade through a lamp-like eye and impaled the skull against the floor.
The oni’s lips mouthed Oww! Then it just looked sad, lower lip trembling.
Through the steel of his blade, he focused his will and sent a blast of his last remaining Celestial energy to crack the oni’s Crown pool wide open. He gasped at the immense rush of heat and cosmic power, along with a blast of rage and hunger that staggered him.
The lamp in the oni’s remaining eye dimmed and went out.
Its body, limbs, and head, even the ichor, dissolved into weightless soot, dissipating on the breeze so quickly not even an outline was left on the ground. All that remained were scraps of its clothing and the fresh gouges Django’s blade had made in the concrete.
The oni’s rage still burned through him, turning his vision red and his fists into hammers. He wanted to charge through the glass doors and slaughter every yakuza thug he could find, and may the gods protect any civilian who got in his way.
But he didn’t.
He knelt silently on the balcony and slowly sheathed his weapon, breathing deeply and slowly. In and out. Absorb the rage. Let it pass. It didn’t belong to him.
So he knelt, motionless, until the oni’s dying emotions filtered through him and his own returned, leaving his strength rejuvenated, his pools replenished. But he’d better not kid himself into undue cockiness. That fight could have easily gone the other way. And he was still a long way from Level Four.
He had wanted to question the creature before finishing it off, but he didn’t dare let it reconstitute itself. Oni could be as devious as they were vicious. Such a complete dissolution probably meant that this oni had not originated on the earthly plane. This one had come from Jigoku, Hell. But had someone summoned it, or had it found its way into the mortal world through other means, like wandering through the border realm of Jianghu? Was the Black Lotus Clan summoning demons now? And how was this related to the Yamabushi Scroll?
He had a lot of research to do. He should go and study The Annals right now, but research took time—time he did not have. The concrete had ruined the best part of his sword’s cutting edge, but polishing also took time. With a lead on Yuka’s location, he couldn’t afford to wait.
Chapter Fourteen
AS HE STEPPED ONTO the Ginza street, he tensed at the sight of a huge white tomcat placidly waiting for him. Directly above, shining through the haze of city lights, the full moon shone like a polished silver coin.
Cat said, “You departed in somewhat of a hurry.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Django said, stalking past him.
“I call that spare gratitude for the cat who gave you exactly what you wanted,” Cat said, ignoring Django’s ire.
“You set me up.”
“I gave you exactly what you said you wanted. A supernatural creature to hunt and kill.”
“A fucking oni!”
“I said nothing about it being easy.”
“And you got an innocent kid killed in the process.”
“Regrettable, but hardly my fault. I would cast the blame on the oni for that. What did you find out?”
Django stalked away, heading for a taxi stand outside a nearby hotel. “The kid said Yuka is working at a brothel called Lush. Back to Kabuki-chō.”
“You should get yourself one of those snazzy two-wheeled contraptions. What are they called...? A motorcycle!”
“Not a bad idea. How much cash do you have?”
“There’s one over there. You could take that one.” Cat looked toward a beautiful Japanese model, a Ninja.
“Too on-the-nose. Plus, I’m not a thief.” Not anymore, anyway.
“Just a killer. Understood.”
“Shut up.”
Django walked up to a taxi, and the uniformed driver gestured him inside with white-gloved hands. Cat jumped in alongside Django.
“No cats, please,” the driver said.
“You allow dogs, don’t you?” Django said.
“Well, yes, but—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let him sharpen his claws on the seat.” He turned to Cat. “You hear that? Don’t sharpen your claws on the seat.”
“Understood,” Cat said.
The wide-eyed driver did a double take in the rearview mirror.
Django said, “Uh, I’m practicing to be a ventriloquist.”
The driver nodded uncertainly and kept his gaze steadfastly forward all the way to Kabuki-chō.
Django and Cat got out on the narrow street corner near Robot Restaurant. Now that he was fully recharged, he might use his mahō ping to find Yuka, but he hesitated to spend his essence again so quickly when a little detective work might do just as well.
Robot Restaurant was closed, as the hour was just after midnight, but this was
the time of night when less wholesome ventures thrived. Midnight to three a.m. were the peak times for people looking to hook up, and if they couldn’t manage it on their looks or charm, they would manage it with their wallets.
“Kana told me it was near here,” Django told Cat as they ambled among tourists and local partiers.
Cat flicked his tail and kept close. His sheer size and striking white coat brought all kinds of attention from passersby, who stopped and asked to pet him. “Go ahead,” Django said. “He’s an attention whore.”
Cat flicked him an aggrieved look and sniffed, right before he leaned with relish into the scratching and petting.
Django took the opportunity to get away from the throng and do some recon. He knew this block well—Kabuki-chō was not that big—but he had never heard of Lush before, even on the down-low. It could be new. He ambled along, circling the block, taking in everything while pretending to be oblivious.
Cat sidled up to him again. “You left me!” he said with incredulous accusation.
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself. I have work to do.”
“Well, I suppose I was...But only to a point!”
“Oh, wow!” a voice said in Japanese, but with an African accent. Probably Nigerian. “Nice costume!”
Django paused to regard the speaker, a short, blockish black man handing out hostess bar postcards at a high-traffic intersection.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” the man said. “That is one smart coat!”
Django touched his duster lapels. “This old thing?”
“Are you cosplaying an anime character or something?”
Django chuckled. “No.”
“Vampire Hunter D!”
Django rolled his eyes.
“You get that a lot, I see,” the man said. “You just need the hat. I bet you are popular with the ladies, eh?” He edged forward with a lascivious grin.
“Sometimes,” Django said, switching to English. “What’s your name?”
The man also switched to English, also with a Nigerian accent. “Call me ‘Onye.’ You are not Japanese.”
Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1) Page 12
