The citizens of the city hadn’t decided whether night or day was more suited to the owner of the senbei shop in West Shinjuku.
A splash of sunlight or a sea of moonlight—both made for a fine fit.
But there was no argument when it came to Doctor Mephisto. For this person, it was all night. The dead of night.
His pure white cape—that all but dissolved in sunlight—breathed in the moonlight and flung it back in dazzling blue shards that sparkled and metamorphosed and drifted on the night breeze.
Even his shadow on the asphalt was beautiful.
He stopped in his tracks and looked up at the windows of a building. A spot of loathing glowed on the dark and vacant outlines of the tenth floor. The gaze of a fallen woman who loved only him. The woman who had known beauty flew from the roof.
At the very least, revenging all that loathing and love on the street in front of him.
It happened in the Wakamatsu District.
Here on a street corner in the Wakamatsu District, visitors from far away were greeted by the sounds of the season. The festival orchestra played and the people bustled about.
While Shinjuku had its own share of citywide festivals and anniversaries, the residents in their individual districts chose the nights for their own unique functions and events.
One was Wakamatsu’s “Midnight Festival.” And that was where Doctor Mephisto was headed. But what was the fearsome Mephisto after?
From behind him came the sound of an engine. A two-ton truck passed by him just skirting the speed limit. The bed was covered with a tarp. What drew Mephisto’s eyes to it was a small voice in the sky above some distance away. A bird’s call, it sounded like.
Two blocks on, the truck’s rear blinker signaled a left turn. The white-clad doctor mused to himself, “A truck chased by a big raven. What manner of poet must they be bearing?”
Three minutes later, the truck slipped into a parking garage adjacent to an abandoned apartment complex. It stopped, and a black man wearing a windbreaker jumped down from the bed. He nodded to the driver coming out of the cab and scanned their immediate environment.
“Place looks secure, Lieutenant,” he said.
With a faint mechanical sound, a silver pod appeared from beneath the tarp. It slanted downward and steadied itself eighteen inches or so above the ground. This was the “handheld armored personnel carrier.”
The hideout for these three members of Special Forces Operational Detachment F was located within shouting distance of the ward government buildings and Mephisto Hospital.
Matthews said from inside the pod, “Get the casket out of the back.” Despite the gravity of his injuries, he spoke in normal tones. “Take it to the back corner on the right. I don’t think it’ll be necessary, but things could get dicey. Better have incendiaries handy.”
“Yes, sir,” said Meighan, at the back of the truck.
Kazikli Bey’s casket emerged from beneath the tarp. Guided by the blaze from the rockets, it was secured in a dim corner of the structure.
“Good,” said the pod. “Now comes the waiting.”
“But is the head honcho of these vampires going to show up?” asked Cardinal, sweeping their surroundings with a cell phone-sized 3D radar. “It’s going to take a while for news of our little heist to get out.”
“You two apparently were in on the briefing, but this guy’s a bigger bigshot than you can imagine. Not one of the run-of-the-mill vampires. A huge source of power. They will definitely come to save him. Vampires are very sensitive about anything bad happening to one of their kind.”
“If they even know what’s happening to one of their kind.”
“Shall we clue them in?”
“Eh?”
A beam of blue light erupted from the front of the pod. The stream of plasma from the particle beam weapon—that could perforate high-tensile steel—melted the ground and walls and wrapped the casket in a bright glare of light, turning night into day.
The darkness inexplicably deepened. The hot air shimmered like a mirage. And inside the mirage, the casket hovered like a phantom. Meighan looked on dubiously. It wasn’t that he expected the particle beam weapon to fail—destroying the casket here and now wasn’t what Matthews was after.
“Are you awake in there, General?” the pod asked in Romanian.
To Meighan, who’d been in covert ops in Bucharest, the lieutenant’s command of the language was halting but comprehensible.
The casket answered. Meighan felt a shock run through him. The voice seemed to erupt out of the ground in a low, long rumble. But it was definitely from the casket.
“I am awake. Ever since that damnable sun set.”
“Do you want to get out of there?”
“I have given thought to what would happen in that case. Hoh—so your men do not share the same loyalties as Setsura Aki? A man who can speak the language of my country.”
“That is true. Our interests are national in orientation.”
“Hoh, national interests,” the voice from the casket responded scornfully.
A floating pod and a casket conversing with each other in a dark parking garage—exactly the kind of scene expected from Demon City.
“And why are you here?” the casket asked.
“I would like you to summon your master. I have a proposition to discuss.”
“My master?” The casket’s voice lowered half an octave.
“Yes. Very much a discussion worth your while. As a representative of my nation’s interests, I can promise you that it will prove in the interests of General Kazikli Bey as well.”
“My master?” came the question again.
“Yes. Whoever brought you out of the earth. The reason you have now made your presence known.”
“You ask after my master, but can you open this casket? I would like to see you remove Setsura Aki’s wires first.”
The pod fell silent. Not even the particle beam could sever them.
“You cannot? You cannot do even that, and yet you demand an audience with my master? Hoh! What a worthless era this is, that put such worthless human capital into circulation. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The pod was stymied for an answer to such derision. The sound from inside the casket suddenly changed.
“What’s that? Are you being summoned?”
A hollow thump, and then the sound of fingernails scratching wood. Bey wasn’t alone in there. Matthews didn’t know who it was, except that the sound went on and on—
Scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch—
The only change, the three outside the casket realized, was when the scratcher lost a nail. But like a dead man buried alive and coming to life in the grave, the assault on the inside of the casket continued.
Scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch—
Who wanted out so badly? Who beckoned so relentlessly? Entranced by this entirely different kind of demonic compulsion, these soldiers of shock and awe found themselves unconsciously looking around the dark parking garage for its source.
“Lieutenant!” barked out Cardinal.
“What?”
“Somebody—no, something—is approaching from the west.”
Cardinal stared at the compact radar scanner strapped to his wrist. Along with the standard timers, GPS and map displays, it contained a laser communicator, air pressure indicator, and weapons rangefinder.
“Definitely,” responded the pod, which must’ve been similarly equipped. The Cardinal and Meighan turned toward the entrance to the parking garage.
“Distance: eighty. Coming straight at us. I don’t detect any body armor. That’s a shitload of confidence. The master?”
The only response from the casket was: Scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scrit
ch scritch scritch scritch—
“Meighan, Cardinal. Take cover. Get ready to take independent action. But don’t shoot until I give the word.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two silhouettes split to the right and left and melted into the darkness.
“Fifty—four-five—coming in fast.”
The caw of a crow came from the high night sky.
As if in personal defiance of these terrors of the night, as this visitor from parts unknown set down on the quadrangle in front of it, the front of the pod glowed with a blue light.
Chapter Two
Setsura was lying on a bed. The bed of the Demon Princess. He slept. And if sleep could preserve these striking features, then he should sleep forever. An indigo glow surrounded his countenance. An onlooker might even believe that his body itself was the source of the light.
This was not a true sleep. He had been entranced by Princess’s eyes and so was compelled to slumber.
Would the “normal” Setsura have surrendered so shamelessly? Ryuuki’s demon qi was still dammed up in his gut. He had not completely recovered from the wound in his chest left by Princess’s dagger. No one could hold him at fault.
Not to mention that he’d just exhausted himself fighting his once friend and ally, Yakou.
Even if coerced, sleep may have been the preferable option at this juncture.
A small noise sounded in this eternally silent space. Once—twice—a polite knock.
Setsura didn’t move.
The knocking ceased. A minute passed.
“Aki-san?”
A woman’s voice. Had Setsura even an ounce of consciousness left in him, he would have recognized it as that of Takako.
“Aki-san—Setsura-san—”
It was Takako’s voice.
At that moment, Takako was in a casket with General Bey, and General Bey’s casket was in the corner of the parking garage of an abandoned apartment building in Wakamatsu. She couldn’t be here too. And yet her voice called out to him, achingly, endearingly.
“Help me, Aki-san—Save me—”
Her thin voice flowed around the door like water and to Setsura’s ears. A heartbreaking plea. Setsura’s eyes fluttered. He wasn’t lost in a dream. The fast sleep of his body had been stirred.
Takako’s voice broke through Princess’s magical powers. Setsura opened his eyes. The genie sat up on the bed.
“Princess performed as promised?”
He looked around the room and fell back on the bed. “She said she was going to find something that would convince me to take up permanent residence here—but this?”
Though under a hypnotic spell, he recalled what the Demon Princess had said.
The slender voice again called his name. He turned toward the door. “Takako-san? It can’t be.”
The realization that the thing Princess had gone looking for was Takako surprised even him.
“But it is.”
Surprise in her voice also. And joy. Setsura shook his head and craned his neck. But it was still Takako’s voice.
In the blue room, decorated with priceless antiques, Setsura Aki quietly came to his feet. He asked, “Where have you been up till now?”
“I don’t know. I was taken from a room guarded by Yakou’s men. When I came to, that woman brought me here—”
“And why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. She left me here and departed. She released me from the web of wires you cast and told me to meet you here. The door is locked and I cannot open it. But I’m so happy that I can finally—”
The voice on the other side of the door dissolved in tears.
No matter how he looked at it, the whole thing was weird. He’d seen General Bey take her into his casket. The general said that Takako had fallen from the sky and her life had been spared. He had spirited her away to the library. It was hard to believe she could have experienced so much and remembered so little.
But Setsura couldn’t categorically rule out what his ears were telling him. That Princess had gone looking for her concurred with Setsura’s primary assumption, and he presumed that no one else but Princess could undo a hypnotic state she had cast.
He didn’t know how long he had been asleep. During that time, it was not impossible to imagine that Princess had traveled to Shinjuku and taken the unconscious Takako from General Bey’s casket. He couldn’t help worrying about the fate of the doll girl and the raven who’d been watching over it.
It was unclear in any case why Takako alone would have been left outside his door. Though when it came to acting in an incomprehensible manner, Princess was one of a kind.
Questions and curiosity and the expectations of rescue pushed Setsura forward. He put his hand on the golden handle and turned it to the right.
The latch released with almost disappointing ease. The door opened. Takako was standing there in the hallway, surrounded by white light. She was wearing a pink gown that didn’t altogether agree with her. It must have come from a wardrobe somewhere in the manor house.
The teeth marks on her neck were clearly visible, and while her face was pale, it did not lack for a healthy color. And no fangs protruded from her lips.
“Setsura-san—” Her lips trembled. Tears welled up in her eyes. As soon as Setsura stepped into the hallway, she clung to him, her flesh hot against his chest. “I was so scared. So scared—” she said over and over, as Setsura stroked her back.
With a relaxed but searching gaze, he examined the hallway around him. The nature of Princess’s schemes remained a mystery.
“We’ll be leaving soon enough, but you need to bear up for a little while longer.” Takako had just begun to calm down, but now a shiver ran down her back. “This place is that woman’s heart, so to speak. I still haven’t figured out how to deal with it all. But done right, the damage should be equal to the effort. And there’s still Kikiou around here somewhere.”
“Then what will become of me?”
“You need to be taken someplace safe.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know either,” he said. “But no matter what, the search must go on. The dangers here are extreme.”
“She will find me no matter where we go.” Takako said with an empty voice.
So why had they been thrown together in the first place?
“By the same token, I can’t very well leave you behind. That may well be her objective.”
“Then what shall we do?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Eh?”
He gently poked her in the chin with the tip of his forefinger. Without any apparent pain, Takako crumpled in his arms. Setsura flung her body over his shoulder. Having been kissed by the Demon Princess, he had to assume that Takako could not escape her awareness. She might as well be walking around with her own klieg light shining on her.
The senbei shop owner found himself smiling ruefully. “I do have an acquaintance somewhere around here, but he’s good and pussywhipped.”
He had no idea what Yakou was up to. As long as he was under Princess’s spell, he wouldn’t hesitate to do what he had to do when the time came. There was an aura of menace in that smile.
“Well, then—” Setsura said nonchalantly, and set off down the hall in the opposite direction he’d come. He had to find a safe place to let Takako sleep it off. After that, he could destroy this world.
He felt a presence behind him. And heard a low growl. He knew what it was. This manor house was home to any number of strange beasts. According to the Shan Hai Jing and the ancient Shen Xian texts, these divine monsters were, like the crew of the Flying Dutchman, cursed to remain forever tethered to this ship’s hold, never again setting foot on their native land.
Setsura proceeded undaunted. The beast would sense in him the slightest fear or undue concern and react accordingly. Regardless of whatever it was trained to do, Setsura figured that the best strategy now was to ignore it.
At the end of the corridor, a door—on which w
as carved the scene of a great battle—blocked his way. Setsura lightly pressed on a soldier’s severed head. Light dazzled his eyes. A soft breeze brushed his cheeks and tousled his black hair.
The middle of the day?
The levels of light and shade changed, wavered, the layers upon layers mysteriously fluttering like the robes of an angel. Not exactly a metaphor. His path was blocked by sheer silk curtains blowing from the countless arches lining the corridor on either side, continuing on into the distance.
Where and how they were affixed was impossible to tell.
Depending on the strength of the wind, they trailed out like banners. Or hung wavering like drapes over a vent. Or like the hands of a playful witch, clasped across his eyes. After a few moments, Setsura said to himself, “Curtains of Wind and Light. So these are those.”
As its elegant name suggested, Emperor You of the Chou Dynasty filled a wing of his palace with artificial light and wind and thousands of silk curtains, creating a most curious setting for hide and go seek.
“Silken Splendors,” it was called. The most beautiful women in the empire were brought there and stripped naked and released within its confines. And then his retainers were let loose covered with animal skins to chase after the fleeing women and, pinning them against one surface or another, the debauchery of the Sumptuous Feast soon followed.
As Emperor You watched the spectacle in the company of his court ladies, he gave himself over to the lusts that the scene aroused.
The gossamer cloth entwined the women’s bodies, revealing all their contours—their silhouettes layered seductive outlines upon the curtains—all more stimulating than raw nakedness.
After that, the retainers turned into animals in all but species. Depictions of these forbidden bestial plays were preserved in murals now hidden away in the vaults of the National Art Museum in Beijing.
The scene spreading out before Setsura suggested nothing of its once ribald nature. Only refreshing bands of light and breeze. There was no hint of any other living thing. But he could well imagine the fear born from the inextricable union between this world and the threatening presence behind him.
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 3 Omnibus Edition Page 22
