Kojiro walked over to the large display cabinet. He slid one of the glass panels open at the top and made room amongst the other exhibits to put the swords back in. Ordinarily these panels would have been locked twenty-four hours a day. Kojiro hadn’t locked them in a long time. He knew that if anyone made it this far it was only a matter of smashing the glass doors to get to the weapons. Getting through the armoury door – that was the hard work. The door was made of galvanised steel and had been overseen by Eiji personally. It had been painted white on the outside, which made it look more or less like a regular household door. It was anything but. The armoury was a fortress and nobody was getting in there without a key. And Kojiro was the only one who had a key.
Kojiro returned the swords to the main cabinet. He took them out of the wheelbarrow one at a time, placing them down with great care. His father’s ghost stood at his side, watching and scrutinising his every move. Kojiro tried to ignore it.
He looked down at the weapons. There was a dull pain in his heart as he remembered his friends.
As he stood there, Kojiro noticed something. Behind one of the tall display cabinets on the outer edges of the room there was the faint outline of a narrow door.
He tilted his head. Had it always been there?
He walked over to the display cabinet. The cabinet contained four helmets from Ancient Roman times and fortunately it had four wheels on its base, which made it easy for Kojiro to push to the side.
Now he was standing in front of the narrow doorway. A small golden handle protruded from the door.
“What’s this?” he said.
Kojiro turned the handle and slowly pulled the door open.
Inside was a wardrobe – no bigger than a phone booth. Several zipped covers hung down from a metal rail and if Kojiro’s instincts were right the bags contained some of his father’s best suits. He’d seen his father with suit bags like these many times before whenever he’d been travelling to conferences. Eiji had been a sharp dresser and he’d always taken an abundance of suits with him on tour. The black covers were custom made and as Kojiro leaned in, he saw the initials ‘EK’ printed on the nearest case.
He smiled in appreciation.
Kojiro opened up the first case and looked inside. He saw a black suit, buried underneath a wrinkled plastic cover. He zipped it back up and opened up the next two bags. Each one contained another expensive-looking suit inside. Kojiro had to smile – he suspected his father had hidden them down here from his mother. Despite the old man’s ferocity, he’d been a little bit scared of his wife just like every other husband in the world. Were these his most expensive suits? And where better to hide them? Alison Kojiro had had no interest in the armoury whatsoever. ‘The boy’s room’ – that’s what she’d called it.
How right she’d been.
Kojiro reached for the last case hanging off the rail. He opened it up quickly and gasped out loud. It was by far the most dazzling of his father’s suits – not the usual greys, silvers or blacks that were Eiji’s regular taste in clothes. This was beautiful. It was a blue suit and its colour reminded Kojiro of pictures he’d seen of a lightning flash current between two electrodes. Electric blue. He wondered why his father had bought such an extravagant item. It looked like a wool and silk combo, not unusual, but that colour, that blue – it was extraordinary.
“Good Lord,” Kojiro said.
He was about to take a closer look when he heard a crashing noise. It had come from inside the house. From upstairs.
Kojiro shot a look towards the armoury door. He put the suit bag back in the wardrobe and slammed the door over. Then he hurried back up the ramp and pulled the steel door closed as quietly as he could. He locked it and threw the key into the side pocket of his black jeans.
He crept down the hallway on the hardwood surface. It was pitch black. At the foot of the stairs, he listened.
There was someone up there. Even from afar, he thought he could hear them breathing. It was a loud, back and forth panting – it was dog-like and yet human. It sounded like it was coming from the front of the house.
Was this an invitation?
Kojiro’s hand rushed to the hilt of his sword. He squeezed tight. If it was an invitation he had no choice but to accept.
“Damn it,” he said, looking upstairs into the darkness. He had a terrible feeling that even after everything that had already happened, this day was about to get much worse.
Chapter 5
Kojiro charged upstairs with wild abandon. The element of surprise wasn’t an option – whoever was up there was waiting for him – and so a wild berserker charge seemed like the second best plan.
His feet pounded against the hard steps. It sounded like a freight train crashing through the house. He stopped at the top of the stairs. Where to now? It was a big house and the upper hallway stretched in two directions. But that dog-like panting – it had come from the front. There were several bedrooms down that way and the bastard was waiting for him. Somewhere.
He heard another noise. It sounded far off and muffled but it was definitely coming from inside the house. Somebody was laughing. It was an unnerving hyena-like cackle – something out of a cheap horror film where the actor was trying too hard to sound evil.
It was yet another invitation. Whoever was in the house was letting Kojiro know exactly where he could find them. He looked straight ahead. The noise was coming from the largest of the guest bedrooms, located directly at the end of the hallway.
The door was lying open.
Kojiro walked down the hall. As he got closer, the laughter subsided and then it faded out. All that was left in its place was an eerie, heavy breathing. It sounded like the muted purr of a giant cat.
A stream of cold air was seeping out of the doorway. Kojiro entered the dark bedroom with his sword drawn.
Everything looked normal at first. Although the room was dark, the bedroom appeared to be in pristine condition although it would probably be dusty as hell upon closer inspection. The bed was neatly made and the white walls were clean. The classical Japanese artwork hung in symmetrical perfection and the wardrobe doors and drawers were all firmly shut.
The balcony door on the far side of the room was lying wide open. That wasn’t normal. That’s where the cold winter air was coming from. Someone had forced the door open from the outside and Kojiro wondered how anybody had been able to climb up to the first floor balcony from the ground. Had they climbed up like Spiderman, using the protruding window ledges? However they did it, it was an impressive feat.
But that wasn’t an immediate concern.
Kojiro stepped further inside the bedroom. He saw the intruder sitting in the far corner, tucked in between the bed and the balcony door. It was a young man and he sat with his back tight up against the wall and his arms wrapped around his knees. He looked cold. He looked like a frightened child who’d been hiding from his parents for hours in the bedroom.
Two flaming red eyes glared at Kojiro. The frightened child was quickly transformed into a demon that had crawled up from underneath the floor.
“HA-HA-HA-HA!”
The intruder pointed at Kojiro as he cackled. He was young – about fifteen or sixteen at most. That weak and scratchy voice belonged to someone who wasn’t far past the exit gates of puberty – to someone who, in the world beyond London, should have been in school or college.
Kojiro flicked on the light switch but the room stayed dark. He tried the switch again and still nothing happened. Finally he glanced up towards the ceiling and saw that the lampshade had been removed and the bulb socket was empty.
“HA-HA-HA!”
Kojiro pointed the xiphos at the boy.
“Who are you?” he said. “What are you doing in my house?”
“HA!”
“I said, who are you?”
The boy shrunk back violently. It was like he’d seen something terrible materialise over Kojiro’s shoulder. He was tight up against the wall. His face was grim. The manic inten
sity in his red eyes went up several notches.
“We are The People Who Hear Music,” he said.
He stuck his neck out and Kojiro got a better look at his face. The intruder wasn’t a pleasant sight – he looked like a cross between a human and an insect. He was stick thin with gaunt pale features sinking back into his taut, greasy flesh. He was dressed in a tight black denim jacket, blue jeans and white trainers. Kojiro noticed the boy’s nervous habit of constantly touching his blond spiky hair, tapping it with two fingers every thirty seconds to check it was still there.
The boy jerked his head forwards.
“HA-HA!”
Kojiro saw the canine teeth. They were long and brightly golden coloured. With the young man’s glowing red eyes and razor sharp teeth, for a moment at least, it was possible to believe that something otherworldly had broken into Kojiro’s house. Kojiro even had to remind himself that there were no such things as vampires.
“We are The People Who Hear Music,” the boy said.
“You already said that.”
The intruder leapt to his feet. He held both hands out to ward off Kojiro’s slow advance.
“He wants to see you,” the boy said.
“Who?” Kojiro asked.
“WHO? HOO-HOO”
The young man doubled over, delighted at his own joke.
Kojiro took another step closer.
The young man straightened up. As Kojiro advanced, he took several steps back towards the balcony door, holding his hands out in a mocking don’t-hurt-me pose.
“Come outside and see,” he said.
The intruder backed off through the open door. He was still facing Kojiro as he retreated onto the balcony. When the boy went as far back as he could go, Kojiro saw him turn around and lock both hands over the cast iron railings, which were damp with melted snow. Then he pushed one foot onto the railings and jumped over the edge, leaping down onto the driveway.
Kojiro heard the thud of the boy landing on the driveway. This was followed by the sound of light footsteps running away from the house towards the street.
Kojiro walked through the balcony doors. He shuddered when he saw what was waiting for him out there.
There was a large group of people standing on the snow-drenched street. They were all looking up at him – about twenty people in total. As Kojiro stepped further onto the balcony, he saw them edging closer to the house as if they wanted a better look at him.
The Vampire People.
The intruder’s grotesque, pale skin hadn’t been an exception. Nor were the rest of his accessories – the teeth and hair. Every single pair of eyes looking up at Kojiro was a bright and devilish red. Some of the gang were smiling, which allowed him a glimpse of their golden canines.
It was their uniform. This was their professional look – false teeth and contact lenses. It was something designed to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. Kojiro’s first thought was that they looked like the entourage of an alternative rock band. They were mostly in their mid-teens to early twenties. Most of them wore tattered leather or grungy denim jackets. Strangely enough, there were only two types of hairstyle in their ranks – long, flowing locks, or short and spiked.
They had weapons too. These were fairly primitive items – metal poles, wooden sticks and spiked clubs. It looked like their weapons supply had been scavenged from other gangs that they’d encountered in the past across London.
A tall, ethereal figure with long, dark curly hair stepped out of the crowd. He walked into the snow-covered driveway ahead of the others. His lean frame was draped in black leather – a tight-fitting jacket and trouser combo that stretched from top to bottom. A concho belt hung around his waist with old coins slotted and strung together on the belt.
He reminded Kojiro of someone. A singer or an actor perhaps. But it was a name that he couldn’t pin down at that moment.
The man looked up towards the balcony and signalled to Kojiro.
“Come down my friend,” he said in a soft dreamlike voice. “I assure you there’s nothing to worry about.”
A young woman followed the man onto the driveway. She was dressed in a blue punkish denim jacket with a plethora of multi-coloured pins and patches fastened to the front. She had short spiky hair, as white as the snow at her feet. The woman, who was barely five feet tall, stood beside the man and looked up at Kojiro with hatred in her flaming red eyes.
Kojiro caught a glimpse of the wolves next. They were sitting at the back of the crowd, each one being contained on a short leash. Kojiro’s eyes lingered on the creatures for a while, as if captivated by them. With their thick grey coats and amber eyes, they were both beautiful and unnerving.
The wolves stood alert, waiting for something to happen.
“Will you come down?” the tall man said.
Kojiro didn’t answer. He turned around and stepped back into the bedroom. Then he walked through the hallway, pausing at the top of the stairs.
His fingers flirted with the hilt of his sword.
Slowly, he walked downstairs and turned on the hall light. It didn’t matter now if the house looked occupied. They knew he was in there.
“What are you doing?” he said.
He opened the front door and stepped outside. The winter air hit him like a slap on the face. Kojiro walked down the steps, pulling the collar of the thick coat close to his cheeks. There were several dried bloodstains stuck to the collar.
He stepped onto the snowy driveway.
The Vampire People stood on the street. They were like a ghoulish choir that was waiting to sing for him. They watched him approach with a collective fascination in their red eyes.
The tall leader looked over his shoulder, back into the crowd. He nodded as if giving a cue to someone behind him. Two young men stepped forward, edging away from the crowd and carrying something that Kojiro hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a silver and black Panasonic ghetto blaster. It was an out-dated portable music system, something that had been popular in the 1970s and 1980s before advanced technology had shrunk portable music devices down to pocket size. The ghetto blaster was massive – a gigantic antique about the size of a small suitcase.
The two men set it down on the street.
One of the young men – a blue-haired, red-eyed waif, fidgeted with the device, switching it on and then sliding a CD into the tray at the front. He looked at the tall leader and gave him the thumbs-up.
The leader smiled and turned back to Kojiro.
“Runs on batteries,” he said. “Do you like music stranger?”
Before Kojiro could answer, a melody floated out of the ghetto blaster. It was a classical piece, not one that he recognised but it sounded like a string quartet judging by the weeping violins that danced sadly over a sombre cello. It had been a long time since he’d heard music like that. Kojiro was captivated by the bittersweet melody as it drifted over the snow.
“Everyone should look like you do right now,” the leader said. “Everyone should be reminded of the beautiful music that they tried to take away from us. This is the music that we hear in our hearts everyday.”
The man grinned and his gold canines gleamed.
“Good evening my friend,” he said. “Allow us to introduce ourselves properly. We are The People Who Hear Music.”
Kojiro nodded, but he was still hypnotised by the music and the man’s voice sounded distant.
“Such a shame for the finer things to be lost,” the leader said. He pointed a finger towards something unseen in the distance. “Civilisation is not theirs to take from us. You must remember that. The pursuit of happiness doesn’t stop at the boundaries of the two superwalls.”
The leader clicked his fingers. One of the young men pushed a few buttons on the display panel of the ghetto blaster. The classical music cut out. Seconds later, a rambling electric guitar prowled through the speakers and psychedelic rock music spilled out across the neighbourhood.
Kojiro knew the song. It was ‘Third Stone from
the Sun’ by Jimi Hendrix.
“You’re the Vampire People,” he said to the man.
“Other people call us that,” the leader said. “It’s so crude, I don’t like it. We are The People Who Hear Music. We are the people who choose to see the moon and the stars. We are the people who refuse to yield to the role of prisoner. While others in this city bemoan their fate and crumble, we live our lives. No matter what happens, we’ll always do that.”
The man stepped forward.
“My name is Jim Morrison,” he said. “Most people call me Morrison.”
Kojiro almost smiled. That’s who the man reminded him of. The leader of the Vampire People was a doppelganger of the singer of the 1960s rock band, The Doors. He was thinner than the original Jim but with those red eyes and gold teeth, Morrison looked like an uncannily demonic version of the singer.
Morrison looked at Kojiro, a half-smile forming on his lips.
“What’s your name stranger?”
Kojiro didn’t answer.
“This is our territory,” Morrison said, moving on. “That means you’re trespassing on private property. But of course you probably didn’t know that. Right stranger?”
“I grew up here,” Kojiro said. “I don’t recognise your face.”
Morrison was still smiling.
“But that was a long time ago, right?” he said. “Before the London riots. Before everything else that’s happened since. We won the right to call this place home and we did it with blood and sweat. And as the new landowners we’re obliged to take a look around and see what or who else is lingering around. We have to see if there are any leftovers, anyone who might steal the Drop Parcels from us – that kind of thing. You understand?”
Kojiro pointed towards the crowd at Morrison’s back.
“So you don’t live off blood then?” he said. “Like real vampires?”
Morrison didn’t blink. “Blood,” he said. “And other things.”
Kojiro wasn’t sure if Morrison was joking. It was hard to read anything behind those contact lenses.
The Future of London Box Set Page 73
