Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1)

by Travis Heermann

Django sheathed his sword and followed suit.

  She said, “We don’t know the words to say, but we are very sorry for everything that happened to you. All the injustices, all the suffering, all the ways you died, all the families you left behind. We are sorry you were forgotten. We are sorry for all your descendants who had to live with your loss, and we offer condolences to them. We hope you can find peace now, release your anger, and go on to the next life.”

  Django said, “That was great. Please, let’s go now.”

  She stood and headed toward the forest. He followed her. From behind, he noticed that her backpack was missing.

  Near the summit of the mountain, a stony knob among ancient trees, she pulled the large scroll case from behind a boulder.

  “Open it,” he said, his heart thumping a bitter rhythm. She twisted and pulled the seal from one end, revealing the ancient scroll within. The power of its kami lay like a dragon, awake but quiescent.

  “Okay,” he said.

  She replaced the seal.

  Below, he heard raised voices, shouted orders, radio static, and in the distance, more sirens converging.

  He said. “We never got to finish our conversation. You have to come with me.”

  Her eyes were hard and sharp. “Why?”

  “If you don’t, we’re both dead. Me for failing to bring you in. And you, well. Everybody is going to want to kill you now.”

  “What if that’s what I want?”

  “I saw the things they did to you. I get it. But—”

  “You think you can be my knight in shining armor?” The bitterness in her voice cut him deep.

  “Well, it seems like you’re the one who just saved me, so thank you for that. Why did you come back?”

  She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Her lips moved as if words were caught behind them.

  He said, “If we take the Scroll back to the Council and you agree to be Branded, we might both live through this.”

  “I’ll never be anyone’s slave! Ever again! You hear me?” Her vehemence drove him back half a step.

  “You can learn how to use your powers, and the Council will protect you like they did me. They have a huge library full of ancient scrolls and histories. We can stay in the complex until this blows over. The Black Lotus Clan is up to something very, very bad. Something is coming. Do you know anything about this?”

  She shook her head. “They never told me anything. I was just Habu’s pet.” But something in her face told him this wasn’t entirely true. “What makes you think your Council won’t kill me for working with the Black Lotus Clan? The things I’ve done...”

  “Here’s the truth. I don’t know. They might vaporize us both the moment we set foot in the audience chamber. But I have to try. There’s a gang war on, and your former bosses started it.” He emphasized former. “The Council is going to need all hands on deck to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.”

  “The Black Lotus Clan is bringing yokai across from Jianghu. Oni, kappa...”

  “We can talk about that later, but first we have to get off this mountain. Please, come with me.”

  If she refused, could he kill her now that she had saved his life?

  YUKA WATCHED KENJI’S hands. If they even twitched toward his sword hilt, or toward her, she had enough Third Eye essence left to Blink out of here with the Scroll and never look back. He had nothing left to follow her. She would take her chances. With the key to Habu’s penthouse, she could gather her things, open the safe where he kept a significant stash of money and magical lore, and disappear for a while. She estimated a few hours before the Black Lotus Clan put a bounty on her head.

  Could she survive being hunted? How long? Would Kenji come after her? Not if the Council had killed him for disloyalty.

  His voice was even, almost comforting. “You’re never going to have a ‘normal’ life, but it can be a good one.”

  After what she had sacrificed, that was truer than ever. Could he not see what she had lost? The emptiness inside her felt like an amputated limb. Yet it was not entirely unfamiliar. Being strung out on narcotics was a close analogy. Her eyes burned. “I don’t even know what that means!”

  “Having a place to stay. Enough food. Maybe make a difference for someone else. Learn how to use this incredible gift we’ve been given.”

  She turned away from his pipe dreams, hugging her arms. Weariness made all her bruises ache.

  He made it sound almost good, like something she would want. But how many times had she been told that the minions of the Council were nothing but slaves of a different sort? The very thought of any kind of brand placed upon her like she was property made her guts twist into a fist and her eyes fill with tears of rage.

  She met his gaze. “No one will ever make me a slave again. I will die first. Can you feel their chains around you, or are you oblivious?”

  “It’s not like that. They...oversee the use of magic. We’re more like cops, keeping the human world safe from yokai and rogue witches and warlocks.”

  “Like me.”

  “Like Habu. Yuka, we’re the Good Guys.”

  He sounded a little too earnest for a moment, as if he were trying to convince himself. It was strange hearing him say her name. She had started thinking of herself as Kimiko.

  “Having a Brand,” he continued, “has saved my life...” He counted on his fingers—American-style, starting with his index finger—another reminder of how foreign he was to her. “...Twice in the last couple of...just the last couple of days. In the mortal world, anyway.”

  “What if I don’t want to hunt yokai and rogue witches?”

  “You don’t have to. You can have your own life. The Brand just means you’re on our side. It’s a marker, a gift.”

  “Are you sure it’s not a curse, a chain around your neck?” Somehow, the smell of incense came to her. It was a lovely scent that evoked silent, moss-grown statues, burbling water, and serene forest shrines. She closed her eyes, squeezing tears down her cheeks.

  His voice grew more urgent. “Trust me, I’ve spent too many hours getting philosophical about it, but now is not the time—”

  “There won’t be another time! Either I go with you right now, or I’m just another ‘rogue witch.’ Would you come after me?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “No. But someone would.”

  He tried to take her hand, but she yanked it away. Nodding in understanding, he said, “Do you trust me?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “Me neither. Come with me, or don’t, but the police are going to be all over this mountain. We need to get out of here.”

  “How do you propose to do that? Zipline down the ropeway?”

  “Look.”

  He was pointing toward a warmly lit genkan with a tatami floor and beautifully painted scrolls on the walls about twenty feet away. The incongruity of it made her head swim until she realized she was looking through a hole in space. The edges of the hole—the portal—seemed to pucker inward, shifting in the air.

  She bit her lip, and her breath caught in her chest. Her stomach was a nest of eels. She felt like a rabbit surrounded by foxes, ready to bolt but with peril in every direction.

  Cat rubbed against her leg. “I will find you back in Tokyo. I can make my own way home.”

  “Really?” she said, kneeling to pet him. When had she last petted a kitty? As a teenager? A lifetime ago.

  Kenji said, “Don’t worry. If he wants to, he’ll find you.”

  The kitty’s fur was so soft—those bits that hadn’t been scorched off, anyway—but with sinewy muscle and iron will underneath.

  “Please, Yuka,” Kenji said. “Trust me.”

  Picking up the scroll case and hugging it to her like a shield, a talisman, she turned back to him. “I can’t.”

  Especially now that her Heart pool was gone, eaten away in the fury of Habu’s uncontrolled mahō. Its absence filled her with shame. She was now a stunted, truncated thing, her heart a shriveled persimmon.<
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  Then she walked through the portal.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  DJANGO JUMPED THROUGH the portal behind Yuka, and it whooshed out of existence.

  They landed in the arrival chamber of the complex beneath Sensō-ji in Tokyo. They slipped off their shoes. He removed his duster and his weapons and wondered if this was the last time he would see any of them. He placed the Sword of Destiny in the rack.

  Upon the tatami, two pairs of slippers awaited their feet.

  A persona descended over Yuka, that of the submissive, demure Japanese woman, a creature of grace and quiet beauty. A porcelain mask. She stepped into her slippers with perfect poise, making him feel like a stumbling ox. As he led her down the hallway toward the rice paper doors of the Council’s antechamber, she wouldn’t look at him.

  He opened the doors to a sight he was not expecting. Normally, the antechamber was empty, but now six grim figures filled the space, all facing him, including Xing.

  Xing’s face was devoid of any patience, kindness, or friendship. She was dressed for combat.

  And so were the other five Hunter-Seekers, two women and three men. He recognized two of them whose domain was the Ōsaka-Kobe area. The three others he did not know. But all of them crackled with fresh mahō and deadly intent. He guessed that Japan was home to a population of a few dozen mahō users of various specialties, most of whom weren’t dedicated warriors. Hunter-Seekers were the warriors, the enforcers of the Council’s will, but many others were happy to go about their lives as scholars, healers, or businesspeople, staying uninvolved with the Council’s machinations. Loners by nature, Hunter-Seekers did not gather unless summoned. If he and Yuka had not stepped through that portal, these six would have been on their tail less than a minute later.

  Instead of having his feet firmly on the tatami, he now felt like he was standing barefoot on the edge of a freshly polished katana.

  Django fixed his gaze on Xing. “So are you going to kill us before we get in the door or...”

  Xing’s eyes flicked to Yuka and the scroll case she carried.

  Yuka kept her gaze respectfully downcast, bowed, and introduced herself in the traditional way. “My name is Yuka Nishihara. Please be kind to me.”

  No one answered her. Yuka straightened.

  Flickers and pulses of Third Eye perceptions scrutinized her from Crown to Root.

  “You’re a Level Three!” said the woman from Ōsaka.

  Django said, “Nothing gets past you guys.”

  “How?” the woman said.

  Yuka said, “I killed my master and consumed his power.”

  “The one called Habu,” Xing said. “He was powerful.”

  Yuka said, “Level Five to be precise.”

  The Hunter-Seekers’ eyes bulged, and some of them flinched in surprise. None of them were Level Fives. They were Twos and Threes mostly, with one Level Four, a woman Django didn’t know.

  “Again,” Xing said, frowning, edging forward, “how?”

  Django felt an urge to warn her, as she was still only a Level Two. Fully charged, Yuka would be able to wipe the floor with her now. That was not a fight he had any desire to see. He was a little surprised to find he didn’t want to see Xing get hurt.

  “I stabbed him,” Yuka said as if she were noting the weather. “Three times.”

  Django had to admire her restraint. He was ready to explode like a toad hit with a hammer, but she was as cool as a kyūri.

  “Look, assholes,” Django said. “She’s here of her own free will. Maybe you can guess what she’s carrying. We’ve had a rough fucking day, so just get the hell out of our way.” That kind of straightforward, American-style rudeness was unheard of in these halls, but he was out of fucks to give.

  The group parted to let them pass.

  The doors to the audience chamber slid open. The Council already sat upon the dais, cloaked in shadows.

  He went forward, Yuka half a step behind him. “Just follow me,” he muttered. “Do what I do. I am your spokesman until you’re Branded.”

  Behind them, the doors closed, and the six Hunter-Seekers took positions in seiza.

  Django and Yuka knelt in seiza in the traditional spot. An acolyte rushed from the shadows and bowed before Yuka to receive the scroll case. She bowed and offered it to him, then he hurried toward the dais to place it before the Council. Django and Yuka prostrated themselves, then straightened. “We are at your service, Great Exalted Ones. As ordered, may I present Yuka Nishihara. We have found the Yamabushi Scroll.”

  The Japanese man said, “Are you certain it is the Yamabushi Scroll?”

  “Yes, Lord,” Django said. “Its kami is powerful, as you may already know. No doubt you saw what happened on Mt. Kunō.”

  “How did you find it?” said the Korean woman.

  “Its location was revealed to me in Jianghu.”

  By whom? came the thoughts of the ancient Chinese man.

  “By an ancient tanuki named Hage, the one who hid the Scroll in the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu.”

  Whispers behind shadows. The Japanese man went very still.

  “Tanuki are notorious tricksters,” said the Japanese woman.

  “I have no reason to disbelieve him. He proved a faithful friend. I will write the entire experience down for the Librarian, Masters,” Django said.

  At the last word, he detected Yuka’s tiny flinch, but her face betrayed nothing.

  All forays into Jianghu were to be cataloged and described for research purposes. But should he tell them about Cat? And Habu? And his parents? Too many shadows within shadows.

  “Kenji Wong,” said the Japanese man, “you broke your oath. You disobeyed orders. I have ordered men to commit seppuku for such an offense.”

  Django had been expecting such an admonition. “Exalted Ones, I believed I could present you with not only the Yamabushi Scroll but a powerful Awakened witch. Tonight she killed one of the Black Lotus Clan’s most powerful warlocks, a Level Five known as Habu. Minutes ago, she saved my life. She could have disappeared with the Scroll or given it to the Black Lotus and taken Habu’s place among their ranks, but she didn’t. She is here of her own free will to serve the Gotairō.”

  Or perhaps she’s running under our skirts for cover, came the Chinese man’s thoughts. She just murdered a Black Lotus Clan lieutenant, and she’s an accomplice to a massacre that’s setting off a gang war.

  Yuka remained as still as a statue.

  “Do you take responsibility for her?” asked the Korean woman.

  “I do, Masters,” Django said.

  The Korean woman continued, “You have gained much power since your last visit. You may now take an apprentice. Is that your wish?” There were shades of surprised approval in her statement.

  Yuka bowed low again. “Lords and ladies, may I speak?”

  Django stiffened. “Nishihara-san, this is not—”

  “Let her speak,” said the Japanese woman. “I wish to get a sense of this woman who somehow managed to kill a Level Five.”

  Django bowed low.

  Yuka said, “When I first met Wong-sama, I was a normal teenager. My mother lived a life of servitude to the Black Lotus Clan. I was bred to do the same. When Wong-sama and I met, he was a boy living on the streets of Tokyo. He had just been Branded and released to find his own way. I helped him, gave him food.”

  “He was...too young to begin proper training, too impetuous,” said the Korean woman.

  Too broken, Django thought bitterly. Strange that only now could he recognize that. Such a thought never before crossed his mind.

  “I would be greatly honored to receive the Council’s Brand,” Yuka said, her words carefully chosen, “but I fear I am not yet in the proper frame of mind for the study of the magical arts. As a slave to the Black Lotus Clan, I was not allowed to go to high school. I am uneducated, and that shames me. There is so much I wish to learn. After I am Branded, I wish to return to the mortal world, for a while, to finish my education. Af
ter that, may I return to study the ways of hōjutsu?”

  More obscured whispers.

  As he listened to Yuka speak, a storm rolled into his heart, a typhoon. He admired her resolve, but he had been prepared to accept her as an apprentice, maybe even looked forward to it, imagining the two of them together, finally, two against the world.

  “An interesting request,” said the Japanese woman. “Even though you lack formal education, it shows wisdom. We will discuss your request further. First, you will receive your Brand.”

  A side door slid open and a thin, sunken-faced man, devoid of hair and wearing an indigo samué, a kind of work robe and trousers often worn by monks, bowed into the audience hall. He carried a wooden box that Django knew to be full of inks and tattoo needles, the same man who had Branded Django. The tattooist’s Brand stretched from the crown to the nape of his neck, a string of kanji that Django did not recognize. The characters bore many unfamiliar strokes and were inked in all seven brilliant colors of the various essence pools.

  The tattooist came and knelt beside Yuka. Django would sit solemnly beside her and witness the Branding, just as Toshirō had done for sixteen-year-old Django. The tattooist unfurled a broad white cloth on the floor and gestured for her to kneel upon it. Then he laid out all his tools meticulously: the inks, cloths, disinfectants, and the needles lashed to bamboo sticks. But first the clippers.

  Django felt a moment of pity at the imminent loss of her full head of thick, lustrous hair, dark as a raven’s wing.

  The snap-buzz of the clipper filled the silence.

  YUKA’S MIND DEPARTED as her hair fell in chunks around her.

  But it was only hair. Far worse had been done to her. At least Habu had never disfigured her. He was too attached to her beautiful face.

  But her wounds went deep, soul-deep.

  Next to her, she could feel Kenji’s yearning. And it was not about control or possession. It was earnest and full of compassion.

  Or was it? Maybe it was just what she wanted to believe. He was a man. The thought of trusting him brought her almost to panic.

  “Still your heartbeat,” the tattoo artist said quietly. “Control. We don’t want the magic to get away from us.”