The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters

by Baku Yumemakura

  “I’ll let you handle this,” Biku said. He was looking forward to the spectacle.

  Hosuke sat scratching his head. Before long, the gigantic black beast was upon them. It snorted heavily through its nose. Its large frame shuffled through the darkness. The firelight cast the dark outline of its body in a faint resolve. Hosuke gathered himself up, holding the remaining skewers from the fire together with the remains of the uncooked rabbit. He moved with fluidity that made it look like he was being carried forward by an unseen breeze. Instead of heading toward the bear, he was circling around to a point a few meters away from it. A deep growl issued from the bear’s throat. The growl could have been a mark of hesitation. At the very least, it was not obvious provocation. Hosuke crouched low and lay flat on his stomach, now just a few meters away from the bear. He used his elbows to prop his torso up so that he faced the bear. If the bear attacked now he would be utterly helpless.

  In a confrontation between animals relative eye height takes on great importance. Looking down from a higher point is an open sign of aggression. Hosuke had positioned himself far lower than his opponent. He took the meat he had been carrying and carefully put it between himself and the bear. The bear growled deeply in response. It stepped from side to side, but the movement was clearly one of caution. It approached slowly. Hosuke had begun to mutter something in a low voice, but Biku was unable to make out the words from where he sat. The bear was right before him now and began to feast on the meat. Biku watched as Hosuke reached out and touched the bear’s right leg with his hand. The bear growled as its leg twitched. Hosuke withdrew his hand. When the bear finished eating, it turned and left as though nothing had happened. Hosuke drew his bulky frame up and stood there scratching at his head. Biku had witnessed something remarkable.

  “Can you talk to bears?” Biku asked when Hosuke came back.

  “Nope.” Hosuke folded his legs, settling into the same space as before. “That was Japanese.”

  “What did you say to it?”

  “I was singing a lullaby.”

  “And the bear understood it?”

  “How should I know?” Hosuke muttered appearing bored. If it was an act, his performance was flawless. Hosuke glanced around the fire. The rabbit was all gone. “Guess I used it all.” He made an infantile face.

  “Would you like me to prepare something?”

  “Nah.” Hosuke rummaged through one of his pockets and pulled out a skewer of rabbit meat. “I kept one to the side.” He smiled for the first time. It was a dangerously endearing smile. Biku still could not gauge whether the man was being serious or just playing with him. “That bear,” Hosuke started, mouth stuffed with the meat, “had a bullet wound in its leg. A year old, thereabouts.”

  Biku looked up when Hosuke had finished eating. “It appears that we have guests,” he said.

  “So it seems,” Hosuke murmured back.

  5

  They saw the torchlight first, three bright points approaching them through spaces between the trees.

  Finally, three men appeared. Biku knew them from earlier, the trio of Iba, Yajima, and Hiroshi. They turned off their torches. Their faces seemed to float in the dim firelight. Iba stood in the center while Hiroshi flanked his right and Yajima his left. Another figure appeared soon after them, huge and cloaked in darkness. It was the shadowy figure of a ridiculously large man. He did not seem to need a flashlight; his eyes were perhaps adjusted to the dark. The man carried a woman in his hands. They were both dressed in black. The woman wore a hood-like cloth over her head, like the dress of women in the Islamic Middle East, designed to conceal her face from strangers. Her eyes were visible through a single, crescent-shaped opening. The man came to a stop behind the other three. He lowered the woman down with gentleness at odds with his enormity. The woman nestled herself to his side. They hardly made a sound. She looked directly at Biku and Hosuke. The color of the campfire flickered an invitation in her black eyes.

  “I had a feeling it would be you,” Biku said, still seated.

  “We meet again,” Iba replied, quietly intimidating. Yajima and Hiroshi smiled threateningly at his sides, eyes watering with excitement.

  “I thought I could smell something good. Look who it’s led us to.” Hiroshi chuckled.

  “I assume the other gentleman is Hosuke Kumon?” Iba asked.

  Hosuke nodded.

  “Perfect. I suspected this one would beat us to it. Well, we may have missed you during our first introductions, but we’re all here now. I couldn’t bear the thought of you leaving with this guy first, had me in a cold sweat. Looks like searching through the night paid off after all.” He seemed to know that Biku had been looking for Hosuke.

  “Let me guess, you followed the two hikers,” Biku said.

  Iba said nothing, his silence confirmation enough. They had probably tracked the two hikers down and ambushed them. Iba had suspected Biku the whole time, which is why they had given up so easily before; their plan had been to wait for him to leave, pick up the other two, and question them; the two hikers would tell them Biku was looking for the same man. Biku found it hard to imagine that they had just let them go. He imagined the appalling scene, the two men tormenting the woman again.

  “What did you do with them?”

  Hiroshi and Yajima grinned sadistically.

  “You killed them.” They were silent.

  “Anyway,” Iba said, addressing Hosuke, “have the two of you come to an agreement?”

  “An agreement?”

  “It would seem not.” Iba grinned. The man and woman behind him seemed to be hanging back, observing. The huge man’s aura was abnormal somehow. Even standing still his cells generated so much energy that it felt like he might explode any minute. It was hard to imagine anyone being able to withstand the full extent of his power.

  “It seems that the fact I found him first isn’t going to count for anything.” Biku sighed.

  “This is fun.” Hosuke Kumon nodded as though he had finally worked it out. “You’re all here to ask me to dive, right?”

  “Right,” Iba said.

  “Well, if it’s work we’re talking about, it’ll come down to the cash.” Hosuke was suddenly full of bravado. “It depends on how much you offer, I’ll go with the highest bidder. It’s pretty clear the job’s not going to be on the level. Not if you’ve come looking for me.”

  “I’ll double what they offer,” Biku said.

  “Same here, we’ll double whatever he says,” Iba replied without hesitation.

  “Hah! Excellent,” Hosuke said. He turned to Biku, then Iba and the two behind him. He smiled, showing white teeth behind his thick lips. “We’re not going to settle this with money, then.”

  Biku and Iba gave him a puzzled look.

  “A fight it is,” Hosuke said quietly. “Whoever wins gets the job. It’s going to come to that anyway, right?”

  Biku winced. Hosuke was full of surprises, but his logic was sound. He had never expected the matter to be settled through civil discussion. Biku had tested Hosuke, and now Hosuke was testing him. Decided.

  “Well, shall we?” Biku got to his feet. Hiroshi and Yajima scattered off to the side, leaving Iba standing alone. Knives glinted in their hands. “You could all come at once?” Biku said, testing to see if the two behind Iba would react. They were still. “Holding back for the main event I see.”

  “Quite the clown,” Iba said.

  “Time for revenge.”

  “We won’t go as easy on you this time.” At the same time, Hiroshi and Yajima crouched low. Hiroshi’s cheeks trembled with nerves.

  “Time for the prelude.” Biku launched himself forward, moving with an easy, birdlike rhythm. He streamed forward, liquid smooth. Hiroshi stood before him, while Yajima circled to the rear. Yajima flung himself at Biku from behind, screeching like a bird. Biku’s frame blurred to the side and Yajima charged right through him collapsing in a stumbling heap at Hiroshi’s feet. He stopped moving. Biku had tapped the base o
f his hand against the back of Yajima’s skull, holding back most of his strength. He held Yajima’s knife in his hand. Biku had been blindingly fast.

  Hiroshi’s eyes were bloodshot. “Y...you..you!” He choked on the words. He pitched wildly forward, targeting Biku. Biku exhaled, smooth and sharp. He sidestepped before kicking up, connecting with Hiroshi’s arm holding the blade. There was a sound like the snapping of a dead branch. Hiroshi stopped, bolt upright, staring at his arm with disbelief; it bent at a grotesque angle between the wrist and elbow, bone jutting out. The knife he had planned to plunge into Biku’s chest was now being held directly under his nose. He crumpled to the floor and began to scream.

  “Mah...my fucking arm!” He thrashed in the grass wailing in agony. His face had turned purple and swollen as though he had been poisoned.

  Iba burst into motion. He sounded off as he flew into the air aiming a deadly roundhouse at Biku’s head. The height was phenomenal considering he was in hiking boots. Biku ducked. The kick sliced through the air above his head cutting through a few strands of hair. A pocket of tightly packed air blew in its wake. Iba landed. Now it was Biku’s turn to attack, but Iba threw himself to the ground rolling two, three times, and then leaped into the bushes.

  “Ok,” Iba’s voice sounded from behind the trees, “you’re too good for me.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “I’m bowing out now. I’m done fighting.”

  “Sure,” Biku said, keeping an eye on the undergrowth Iba had jumped through. Iba pushed the grass aside and walked out. He was limping slightly with his right leg. Biku had struck it with the side of his hand as it passed over his head.

  “If you can dodge that kick, I’ve got nothing else.” He had Yajima’s knife in his hand, the knife Biku had been holding. Biku had launched it at Iba as the man had tumbled into the bushes. “This thing came flying in too.”

  “It seems I missed.”

  “It flew right by my nose. Took a few years off.”

  The knife was in the air before he even finished the sentence. The metal-white light hurtled directly toward Biku’s face. Biku casually tipped his head; the knife flew into the darkness behind him.

  “Didn’t think it’d get you,” Iba said, his eyes a narrow line. There was something oddly playful about him despite having clearly thrown the knife with the full intent to kill. Iba crouched down, balancing on his toes. It seemed he still planned to fight.

  Then something happened. The bear, the same one that had left them earlier, returned. It found Hiroshi first. It emerged a few meters ahead of the spot where he was crouched, still nursing his broken arm. His scream sounded like something was ripping his intestines out.

  “B...bear! It’s a fucking bear!” He jumped to his feet squealing. His eyes were stretched wide, almost ready to pop out. Panic had pulled his face taut, legs and arms tangled as he struggled to find balance. Screaming and standing up cost him his life. The bear assumed his frenzy for its own, rearing up tall on its hind legs. It was spectacular, at least 150 kilograms. It swiped its front legs across Hiroshi’s head, cutting his scream dead. There was the sound of flesh and bone being crushed and a scattering of blood and chunks of brain matter. His head had deformed. The top half was gone completely. His death had been instantaneous. The bear roared again. The white, moon-shaped ring of fur around its neck was dyed red with blood. It geared up to charge at its next target, Biku.

  Biku had picked one of the skewers from the ground. He held it in his right hand and in his left, a lit branch from the campfire. He prepared himself, holding the flaming branch toward the advancing creature. The hairs around the bear’s neck bristled. Its body looked to have swollen to double its original size. It charged.

  Just as the bear was about to smash into him, Biku jumped gracefully into the air. The lit branch spun a red spiral of light in the dark. It collided with the trunk of a nearby silver fir, scattering a constellation of fiery motes. Biku somersaulted through the air landing neatly on all fours. The skewer he had in his right hand stuck out from the bear’s left eye, protruding at a sickening angle. Biku had stabbed it into the creature’s eye, using the fire to distract it.

  The bear pawed at its face, howling in a crazed rage. The noise brought Yajima back to consciousness. The bear was right there in front of him. He screamed and got up to run, but the bear responded. Yajima picked up Hiroshi’s fallen knife and hurled it in a desperate attempt to stall the charging beast. It missed by a large margin; in the distance, it struck the shoulder of the woman dressed in black. As the bear attacked, Yajima raised his arms to protect his head from its front legs. His arm thumped to the ground, ripped off at the shoulder.

  There was a roar louder than the enraged howling of the bear, a demented, bestial sound. The roar grew in intensity physically shaking the air across the darkness. The sound seemed to originate from the hulking dark giant that had been silently observing until this point. Biku watched as its body started to transform, its muscles bunched together, swelling over its frame. It jerked forward, back hunched, crooked and distorted, its head jutting out. Demonic eyes glared at the bear and Yajima. The transformation was astounding.

  Hearing a roar to match its own, the bear reared up tall. The two giant beasts faced off. In terms of bulk they were an even match; the man looked about 150 kilograms, standing taller even than the bear. When the two bodies were about to clash, he spun behind the bear. His speed was dazzling, completely at odds with his massive frame, faster than this wild animal. The moment he was behind the bear he locked in a full nelson, threading his arms under the bear’s before bringing them back up and locking them behind its head. The man erupted in a visceral, quaking roar as he lifted the bear off the ground. His strength was incredible. Holding the bear suspended, he charged toward the trunk of a huge fir. There was a dull thud as the bear’s head connected with the tree. The man continued smashing in an insane frenzy, he had not stopped even as Biku counted into double figures. There was a thick crunch as the bear’s neck snapped; its head was a blooded pulp. It crumpled to the ground with a thump.

  “Fuck!” this time Yajima was screaming. He staggered to his feet, using his hand to try and stem the blood gushing from his torn-off shoulder. The man turned beast stalked toward him, taking its time.

  “Ss..somebody help me...it wasn’t on purpose...I didn’t mean to hit her!” the words came out as barely formed whimpers.

  “Enough, Hanko!” the woman shouted, her voice shrill.

  But the beast continued to advance. He placed a hand over Yajima’s head and wrenched it to one side. Yajima’s head snapped up. His mouth formed an empty scream as he stared at the sky. His body collapsed to the grass.

  Hanko sped to the woman’s side. Iba had already stopped the flow of blood. Hanko scooped her into his arms.

  “Unfortunately we’ll have to concede victory today,” Iba yelled.

  Hanko loped away, the woman in his arms. His speed was incredible. Iba chased after them. They disappeared into the darkness leaving Biku and Hosuke standing among the scattered bodies of the bear and the two men.

  Four

  The Nightmare Hunter

  1

  A tiny sound accompanied the twisting of a doorknob in the dark.

  The door opened a fraction and a dark shadow slipped through before closing again. The lock slid into place with a small metallic click. The shadow silently moved over thick carpet. There was a bed next to the window. The curtains were closed. Shafts of moonlight bled through the gaps of the fabric, casting a halo of pale incandescence around the bed. The blankets swelled toward the middle of the bed, someone was sleeping. It was Hosuke Kumon.

  He was already aware of the intruder, having woken the moment the person arrived at the other side of the door. The intruder was silent, but he still could sense its presence; an amateur, it seemed like the intruder did not know how to conceal the tension of its presence in the air. Maybe it felt there was no need. To Hosuke, it was as if someone had walked
into the room with a radio blaring, obvious if you knew how to read the signs.

  The intruder was a woman, and it was clear that she meant him no harm. A faintly sweet scent permeated the air. She moved slowly, stealthily toward the bed. When she peered into Hosuke’s face she suppressed a giggle. She crouched on the carpet and snuck a hand under the sheets, reaching for his groin. Hosuke was naked. Her hand traced along his bare flesh.

  “I don’t recall ordering a massage,” Hosuke said suddenly.

  The woman hurriedly withdrew her hand. “Oh...you’re awake.”

  “Woken, by you.”

  He sat up and stuffed a hand into the ruffled mess of his hair, noisily scratching at his scalp. The sound filled the room as the dim light from the curtains revealed his face. His untended beard was gone, revealing a tough-looking square chin. He had a pug nose and thick lips; playful eyes poked out from under his hair. He was not handsome, but he did not lack charm; there was something attractive about him. The pug nose was a perfect fit with his bold features. Overall, the effect was well balanced, the kind of face you wanted to see smiling. Moonlight reflected in the woman’s eyes, glistening pools of black in the darkness, as she looked at him. The eyes harbored no apprehension. She was still young, wearing jeans, probably in her late teens. Her features maintained an air of innocence. It was just twelve days earlier that she had been in this same room face buried in Biku’s crotch.

  “Your hair’s a mess,” she said, cocking her head to one side.

  “I didn’t have a chance to dry it before bed,” Hosuke replied, combing his thick fingers through his hair. The mess was too much for his fingers to fix. “I did my best, but there you go.” He stopped fiddling with his hair and crossed his legs. The sheets covered him from the waist down but his upper body was bare. His chest was thick, almost as deep as his shoulders were wide. Heavy shadows fell between his muscles.

  “You’re not going to ask why I came?”

  “Would you tell me if I did?”