Habu placed a take-out bag on the kitchen counter. She peeled her hungry eyes away from it. If she showed too much interest, he would withhold food altogether.
He sat on a high stool, flamboyantly whipped out his golden Zippo lighter, plated in gold and encrusted with seven colored gems that signified the colors of the mahō essence pools, and lit a cigarette. Blowing out a cloud of blue smoke, he frowned and said, “Tell me.” He looked tired, wrung out.
“Wong-san had an interesting night,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “He broke into the Metropolitan Police Headquarters to steal his stuff. And he had a cat with him, a yokai of some sort.”
“A tiger?”
“No! Why would you think I meant tiger? It looked like a big white tomcat. But it was clearly intelligent, because it turned two floors of the police building upside down before Wong got out of there. The cat was the distraction.”
Habu listened with a frown, lips twisting back and forth as he sucked his teeth.
She continued, “So he got out of there and holed up in a love hotel in Kabuki-chō. He’s got some powerful wards around that room. I can’t get in, even with the Mirror.”
“Is he still there?”
“Unless he’s gone back to Jianghu, yes. He hasn’t come out.” Yuka’s stomach roared.
Habu looked like he was feeling moderately less hostile, possibly from fatigue, so she sidled up and draped herself against him. She said, “Why are you so interested in this guy, anyway? He’s just some Council toady. What does he have to do with the Scroll?” She had never told Habu about her previous relationship with Kenji, nor would she. Never, ever. Those feelings and memories were like a tiny shard of light that she kept buried deep within her, a sliver of happiness. She had been as shocked to see Kenji that night as she’d ever been in her life. Those memories of him were the one thing the Black Lotus Clan and Habu could not take away from her. At least she had loved once, for real. What a naïve idiot she’d been back then, thinking there was such a thing as Happily Ever After. Human existence was a morass of misery, and if you were lucky, you might get a truly happy moment once or twice in your entire life.
She’d had hers.
Habu snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close. Then his eyes fixed on hers like a cobra’s, and she looked away. His voice was an ice-cold razor. “Why are you asking?”
“No reason, geez. I mean, if we have to go kill this guy, I’d like a little background. Can’t a girl be curious?”
“Only about certain things.”
“Which things?”
“I’ll let you know,” he growled. “Is my little piggy hungry?”
She didn’t dare show him the thrill of anticipation that leaped through her. “Only for you, baby. But I have to get some sleep and meditate if you want me to be any good when we go after him.”
He reached into the sack and pulled out a can of cat food. “Accept this gift I am about to give you.”
She knelt before him and raised her cupped palms. “Please do me this favor, Habu-sama.” Most times, when she knelt in the prescribed position, he would give her food.
He placed the can in her palms, and it took all her willpower to stop herself from squeezing it into a lump of sticky aluminum for sheer ecstasy. Her stomach roared again, but she bowed deeper. “Thank you, Habu-sama.”
Then he spurned her with his foot. “You disgust me, little piggy. Go to your room.”
She gathered herself and slunk off with her prize, her mouth watering so badly she was afraid she’d leave a trail of saliva behind her.
In the bedroom, with sheets rumpled on the Western-style bed and the rosy glow of dawn spreading across the ceiling, she wondered, as she had every day for six years, if today would be the day she gathered the courage to kill herself.
It was the only way she would ever escape.
For a long time, she stared at the sunlight spreading through the room and let her mind wander again into fantasies of all the ways she could do it, but never did.
Then, stomach roaring, she ripped the pop-top off the can and dug into the cold, chicken-scented goo with her fingers.
AN IRON-HARD PALM SLAPPED an explosion of stars into her eyes.
With a gasp, she lurched out of a deep, dreamless sleep, tumbled to the floor, and lay there trying to catch her breath, half of her face on fire with pain. The taste of cat food, chicken flavor, caked the inside of her mouth.
Habu towered over her. “Get up. We’re moving.” He gave her a half-strength kick to the buttocks for good measure.
“Yes, Habu-sama,” she said. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Has...did something happen?”
“Yeah, the target is on the move. While you were snoring like a grandmother, he took off. He’s in Shizuoka. You have five minutes.”
“Yes, Habu-sama.” She could get ready in five minutes, but if she said five minutes, Habu would give her two.
Dressing in yoga tights and a black Lycra tank top, she raked a comb through her hair as fast as she could and met her own gaze in the bathroom mirror.
Was today the day she might finally be able to do it?
Yes.
Today would be the end.
She bound her hair into an upright ponytail and said, “Today is the day.”
She couldn’t bear for Kenji to see what she had truly become. She couldn’t bear to watch him die, because there was no question Habu would kill him.
As she had seen in their first encounter, Kenji was a Level Three. But Habu was a Level Five, with depths of power never fully revealed. Habu had spent years traveling in Japan, China, Korea, and south to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand searching for ancient artifacts and secrets of magic. And he had found things. The depths of his power both terrified and fascinated her. He was a god among mortals, and she worshiped him and hated him in equal measure.
To cover her tattoos from the casual observer, she put on a white jacket that she might have looked cute in, in another life.
Just in time.
She was already heading toward the bedroom door when it burst open, and Habu stood there glowering. She breezed by him. “You want me to look pretty, don’t you?”
He gave a noncommittal grunt and followed her. On the way to the door, she tucked the Mirror of Destiny into a backpack. “We don’t want to lose him, do we?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
BACK IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, Django collapsed onto the bed, feeling as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. It was possible that, subjectively, he hadn’t. It seemed the need for sleep and food differed in Jianghu. Having to eat and sleep less often simplified life. When he and Cat had returned to the mortal world, only a couple of hours had passed.
He had heard nothing of Cat since releasing him to wreak havoc in the police building, but Cat could certainly take care of himself. A little solitude to rest and recuperate was what Django needed. Then tomorrow he would go after the Yamabushi Scroll.
Before he allowed himself to sleep, however, he spent a couple of hours creating wards on ofuda, sealing each one with blood from a cut on his thumb, and placing them around his hotel room. They wouldn’t keep out a mortal gunman, but he couldn’t be scried now or attacked by supernatural creatures. By the time he finished with this, his eyelids felt like lead, his eyes full of sand.
Nevertheless, turning off his mind, jammed as it was with all the things he didn’t know, proved difficult. He needed to consult the Council’s Library on Xuan Yuan, the Sword of Divinity. He needed to apply himself to studying more abilities in his newly Awakened pools. He needed to research the notebook on Black Lotus haunts and start casing locations and targets. And speaking of notebooks, he needed to brush up on his kanji, pore through his mother’s notebooks, and learn how to cross the Veil into Jianghu.
But his brain was so aflame that he hardly knew where to start, and all of it had to wait until he had the Yamabushi Scroll. And Yuka.
He awoke to the buzzing of his phone, unaware that he’d fallen asleep on the bed am
id notebooks and weapons.
Picking up the phone, he saw it was 8:00 a.m. The screen read, “XING.”
He rubbed his eyes and considered whether to answer. The possibility that she might have useful information decided him.
“Hey,” he said, still groggy.
“Where the fuck have you been? What the fuck have you been doing?” Her voice was like a blade rasping across bone. “Your picture is all over the news! Wanted for murder? Escaped suspect? Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, Django!”
He braced his elbows on his knees. “It’s been weird, yeah. Things went a little sideways. Suffice to say, everybody I killed was a Bad Guy. It’s a full-on gang war now, and I got caught in the middle.”
“The Council is pissed! You still haven’t brought in your dangerous little chickie. And you’ve brought the attention of the entire police force straight onto you. Damé da yo!” Forbidden. A no-good, very bad idea.
“I’m still trying to find her.”
“Consider this a courtesy call, buddy. The Council has officially put me on her trail. There I was, two hours into a karaoke binge with some people I met clubbing, and the summons hit me like a gong. I had to make a graceful exit after almost peeing myself. So consider yourself on notice. I’m not about to risk my neck for your love life. If you get in my way—”
Django’s ears roared with blood. “Give me twenty-four hours.”
“You have seriously screwed the pooch on this one—”
“Hold on a minute. A lot has happened since I saw you last.” But could he tell her any of it? Could he trust her at all? “As a courtesy to you, even if you find her, she’s probably going to be with a warlock named Habu. He is one scary-dangerous son of a bitch, probably a Level Four.”
“Oh.” That seemed to cool Xing’s afterburner just a slice. Then she said, “I’ll bet he doesn’t follow her into the toilet.”
Django’s anger grew. “Look, Xing. Just one day is all I’m asking.”
“And how are you going to take a Level Four without help? We should go after them together.”
He couldn’t trust her not to hurt Yuka “accidentally,” especially if the situation grew dire, as it certainly would with a Level Four involved. He found himself reluctant to tell her that he’d recently leveled up not once, but twice. In any other situation, he would have been happy to have Xing’s help, because her boots were made for asses that required kicking. “Let’s just say, I’ve got a little more going on nowadays. If you hurt her—”
Her voice went syrupy sweet. “Are you threatening me?”
“Weren’t you just threatening me?”
A tense moment of silence passed. Then Xing said, “Write her off. You’ll never save her. And the Council will never forgive you for trying.”
He hung up. Xing might be right about that.
AS DJANGO WALKED OUT of the love hotel, the bright light of day hurt his eyes at first, but there was no more time to waste. It was going to be a hot, humid day. First, he had to find the Scroll. Then he had to find Yuka. All before Xing or some other Hunter-Seeker did.
Cat’s voice came from atop a coffee and tea vending machine outside the hotel. “I see your mission was successful.”
“More than,” Django said. “Let’s head for the train station, and I’ll tell you about it.”
“So we’re off to the shrine then.” Cat jumped down from the vending machine and fell in beside him.
“The Council has put a bullseye on Yuka. We’re out of time.”
A sack full of convenience store food later, including several tuna sandwiches, they headed for Shinjuku Station to board a local train, which would take them on a short leg to Shinagawa Station, where they would switch to a bullet train for Shizuoka. All told, the trip would take less than two hours.
Django had to admire the way Cat ducked turnstiles and slunk unseen past teller kiosks. He could travel anywhere that way, causing no more disturbance than a curious blip in someone’s day.
As they sat together on the local train, lightly populated on a Sunday morning, Cat said, “You really must find a more glamorous method of travel.”
“I agree completely. Order me up a pegasus from Jianghu, would you?”
“You know that’s an imaginary creature, don’t you?”
“Thought you might have seen one in your extensive travels.”
Cat sniffed and curled up into a snow-white mound.
Django let his eyes close for a few minutes.
The approach of a conductor roused him. Django offered him his ticket, which he punched.
“Cats are not allowed on the train, sir,” the conductor said.
“He doesn’t belong to me.”
“You didn’t bring him on the train?”
“No, he just sat down here. I’m as surprised as you are.”
The conductor said, “I see.” Then he reached for Cat—and received a spine-tingling hiss and a paw poised to shred anything that got close. Cat’s ears flattened, tail thrashing.
“I’m sure he’ll wander off at the next stop,” Django said.
The conductor drew back. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“As long I don’t make any sudden moves, I should be all right.”
The conductor bowed apologetically and hustled away to punch the next passenger’s ticket.
On the bullet train, he allowed the persistent specter of exhaustion to overtake him and slid into an hour’s nap, wherein he dreamed of being the target of Habu’s Fire attacks. The dream didn’t end well.
Arriving at Shizuoka Station, they took a taxi about ten kilometers to the foot of Mt. Kunō. It was not a tall mountain by any stretch, a little over two hundred meters, but it held a commanding view of Suruga Bay to the south and the mist-shrouded peak of Mt. Fuji about thirty miles to the northeast. Between the foot of the mountain and the bay lay a narrow strip of flat land densely populated by greenhouses and the farmers who tended them. If there was a flat piece of land that didn’t have a house or building on it anywhere in this country, it had a field or a greenhouse on it. Surrounding the mountain on every other side was Shizuoka City, a modest city with a population of about seven hundred thousand.
From street level, a tiered switchback path paved with stones stretched up the face of the mountain toward the tomb and shrine at the summit, with a gift shop and museum along the way. The only other way up there was via a kilometer-long ropeway from the north, launching from another shrine at a lower elevation, Nihondaira Shrine, where an ancient imperial prince was said to have enjoyed the view.
Few historical figures had made more of an impact on Japanese history than Tokugawa Ieyasu. His status was akin to George Washington in America. After centuries of civil war, he alone rose victorious among all the warring clans, and his shogunate kept the peace for 260 years. With all the reverence thrown upon his name, it was difficult to guess what kind of man he might have been. To some, he was a noble hero, deified upon his death, his remains enshrined here; no doubt to others, he was a ruthless, scheming, ambitious killer.
It was a beautiful day for a walk, and as Django and Cat climbed the path, he found the serenity of the place seeping into him, despite the cloud of peril hanging overhead. The overarching trees dappled the path with late morning sunlight. The higher they climbed, the more a fresh, vibrant sea breeze caressed the mountain’s face and rustled through the leaves. Visitors were a mix of Japanese and foreign tourists who apparently felt the same as he did, enjoying the beautiful day. Cat’s presence brought a never-ending succession of delight from passersby, and he even allowed himself to be stroked occasionally.
“Like I said,” Django told him, “you’re an attention whore.”
“It is a difficult thing to be beautiful.”
It was about a twenty-minute walk up the path until they reached a terraced courtyard where the souvenir shop and a couple of vending machines resided. Beyond the courtyard lay one stairway up to the museum, which was emblazoned with a huge representation o
f the Tokugawa crest, a triple hollyhock bloom within a circle, and another long stairway that led up to a two-tiered tower gate painted in resplendent vermilion and rainbows of carved reliefs—the entrance to the shrine and tomb. Behind wood-latticed windows on either side of the gate stood golden statues of two guardian beasts, shishi, usually translated in English as either lion dogs or foo dogs. A latticed vermilion wall encircled the shrine grounds, while another stone path led to the tomb. Sacred ropes dripping with shidé, zigzag streamers of pure white paper, were stretched across entrances and wrapped around trees and boulders, signifying the dividing line between sacred and profane. Within the rope encirclements, kami dwelt.
At the sight of the gate and the closeness of his goal, Django’s heart picked up speed. No one else in the mortal world knew what had been entombed with Tokugawa’s remains. Or did they? Had someone found the Scroll decades, or even centuries, ago? Was it still there? Trying hard not to hurry, he ambled through the gate up to the shrine’s terrace.
Having lived in Japan for a decade, Django had had it with shrines and temples, but this one took his breath away. The shrine itself was a magnificent building, painted in the same festive vermilion as the gate and walls, with a grand tiled roof. Every pillar and eave was also carved in incredible detail, with more images and stories than Django could study and process, all of them beautifully painted in bright colors. What was not painted in rainbows was swathed in gold leaf. The Tokugawa crest was everywhere, on the walls, on the roof tiles.
Visitors came and went. A man in traditional hakama and kosodé, dress-like trousers and a short-sleeved robe, greeted them with bows. Django passed him with a polite bow. Cat had disappeared.
On any other day, he would have stopped to admire the shrine’s beauty and learn some history, but now he had one purpose. He continued beyond the shrine enclosure to a stone stairway leading upward past fitted-stone retaining walls to the final terrace.
Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1) Page 23
