by Kim Newman
We vampires had our own fears and prejudices, Charles. That’s why the myth of the Number and the Secret took root. Once, it was almost all we thought about, talked of when we were together. Passing among the warm, passing for warm. Maintaining the fiction that, in another of Gheria’s ignorant pronouncements, there are no such things as vampires. We lived in dread of exposure. A public accusation, even by a child or the village idiot, was enough to make an elder abandon name, rank and property and depart for a distant land.
No one made a move. But they all stared.
It wasn’t as if I’d been accused of crimes – that came later. It was more like a cry of plague in the room, a virulent infection, which spread by touch.
Gheria held his scalpel up like a silver crucifix. The head of the anatomy specimen flopped to one side. Even its dead fish eyes were fixed on me.
Eventually, someone else came into the lecture hall.
‘You’ll never believe what rot the papers are printing about England,’ said the newcomer. ‘The rosbifs are having a laugh at our expense.’
‘No,’ shrieked de Coulteray. ‘It’s all true!’
11
YOKAI TOWN, DECEMBER 15, 1899
Just before sunset, I was in the gardens. It’s no more wintery on the grounds than inside the temple. The building might as well be constructed like an igloo, from carved blocks of ice. Yuki-Onna must feel cosy here when she’s in residence.
With spring thaw a distant prospect, the novelty of feeling the cold wore off quickly. Kostaki and Dravot keep bonfires lit. Christina and I wrap ourselves like Egyptian mummies. I’ve bought fur-lined boots, a padded jacket, a scarf and a cap with earflaps. All the best people are wearing them this year, and shall continue to do so until Edison’s patent electric hat reaches the Far East market. If we had a tea dance, O-Same would have the fullest card.
The temple pool is frozen solid, trapping big-eyed, red-tailed fish. The spiderwebs are frosted. The courtyard gravel is iron-hard, and threaded with ice. White grass crackles when walked on.
A public Go table is set up under a weeping willow. An emerald lantern hangs from a low branch, casting light on the grid. Gambling is forbidden on temple grounds. Here, Go is a form of prayer. The black and white patterns that form and break and form again on the board offer spiritual lessons. If you look hard enough.
Abura Sumashi, unexpectedly a Go master, is teaching me the game. I can’t say it does much for my spirit… or my spirits. He cedes me the advantage of the first move, but his white stones always swarm around my struggling black. It’s a mistake to think the timid, sweet-natured yōkai childish or silly. Inside that swollen sponge head, his brain is enlarged too.
Kasa-obake hovered over us, opening and closing whenever a move was made, jogging the lantern. Higo Yanagi, a slender reed of woman, also sits and watches the Go games. At first, I didn’t even notice that her feet are sunk into the ground. Her ankles are knotted, like roots. Higo is an aspect of the tree, or the tree is an aspect of her. True weeping willows are dioecious and deciduous, but Higo is female and evergreen. She lives by trapping birds. She shapes nests in her branches, each containing sweet purple berries. When unwary warblers settle on these lures, she closes twiggy fists, crushing with vegetable mercilessness. Yet she simpers sweetly.
Dravot calls Higo ‘Tit-Willow’ and whistles that damn song when he passes her. I can tell he likes her looks and would be tempted to risk it if she were to construct a bigger, cosier nest – a bower, say – and invite him in. He has a rival, though. I’ve seen Popejoy, the sailor with the pushed-in eye, making time with Higo, sitting next to her and smoking his clay pipe. Though warm, my old patient has stayed with us rather than returning to the Macedonia and risking Death Larsen poking his other eye.
The game turned decisively against me. Opportunities I thought I saw were traps. The umbrella yōkai spun with delight at my downfall. Higo shook her branches, tinkling bells of approval. I am the ugly, wicked foreigner – a villain for this moral story. Abura Sumashi attempted a modest shrug, which is physically difficult. He is pleased with his victories.
‘When they call you big head, it means something different in English,’ I told him.
He offered to let me resign and call it a draw, but I wanted to play on. Sometimes, you learn more from losing than winning. At least you do in Go. The principle doesn’t apply to duelling. At the finish, the loser puts death stones on the board. I was noting stratagems Abura Sumashi favoured, clever moves he couldn’t resist. Such intelligence could be used against him.
Not in the next game. Or the one after that. But…
A true master shouldn’t be so ostentatious in his mastery. Perhaps a lesson my teacher needed to learn.
Christina swept through the gardens. She wore a hooded floor-length cloak of pristine white mi-go fur – a gift from one of her six or seven suitors. This is diplomacy she understands. She plays yōkai admirers against each other to extort maximum tribute from each, with no intention of settling laurels on any one swain. The war for her favour already has casualties. The kappa Lord Kawataro’s head-plate is cracked and the heron samurai Aosagibi has his arm in a sling. Being bound with the Mantis’s obi or settling in one of Higo’s false nests are less certain paths to doom than courting Princess Casamassima.
‘Just the person I was looking for,’ she announced.
‘I am about to secure a famous victory,’ I said.
‘No you’re not,’ she said, glancing at the board. You don’t have to know the rules to see which colour is winning.
‘True,’ I admitted. ‘I am nearly vanquished.’
‘Knock over your king or give up your forfeit, Gené. I need you.’
‘I pledged your hand to the umbrella goblin,’ I said. ‘He is prepared to marry beneath him.’
Christina smiled viciously.
I gave in and put my death stones on the board. Abura Sumashi began sorting the stones into leather bags.
‘Have you seen my parasol?’ she asked Kasa-obake, in English. I didn’t think an umbrella could look guilty, but he did – and darted around Higo to hide in her dangling fronds.
The Princess humphed.
‘What do you need me for?’ I asked her.
‘Lieutenant Majin has come down from the tower. He is in that park with the little bridge over the winding stream.’
I knew the place. A typical Japanese public garden, as painted on fans displayed in the homes of British couples who’ve seen The Mikado more than twice. The new-built wall cruelly cut across the park, ruining the harmonious design. A loop of stream sluiced through grilles set in stone dams to prevent underwater egress. A Black Ocean wave cautioned eel-boned yōkai (or our own Mr Whelpdale) against trying to squeeze between the bars. Lovers separated by the wall could float messages on paper boats, I supposed. Stunted, bare trees pined for fellows on the other side. Neglected or abandoned, the park was overrun by hardy weeds and creepy-crawlies. Tough winter-flowering flora and venomous fauna. Poisonous species. Anything else would be exsanguinated.
On my visit, I had noticed a curious, unique feature: an iron door in the wall. With no handle or keyhole on this side, set so smoothly into brickwork it couldn’t be prised open with fingers or tools. Another way in to Yōkai Town, but not out.
‘I wish to speak with the Lieutenant,’ the Princess told me.
I didn’t doubt her.
That first night ashore, Christina treated Majin like a junior subaltern – irritated by this bland nonentity, looking past him for a superior officer. Surely she deserved more than a bureaucrat in uniform! Where was the Emperor? Lords and ladies of the court should have turned out. Reporters and photographers. A police cordon to keep back admiring crowds and a full military escort to convey her to the finest hotel in Tokyo. The Lieutenant and his crew of cart-haulers were less than her due. She was even piqued Higurashi beetled off when she wasn’t looking.
Only after being told by Kostaki and me – and having it pointed out that e
veryone in Yōkai Town was terrified of the man – did she accept what we realised at once: Majin is in charge. He is the horseshoe-jawed face of the Black Ocean Society, the quiet voice of the Emperor. Despite his modest official rank, he is Baron Higurashi’s superior. So far as the yōkai are concerned, Majin outranks God.
I’ve asked what the Lieutenant’s real name might be. Everyone has a different answer. Yasunori Kamo, Jubei Kato, Master Baison, Wizard Washizaki. The onmyoji is treated with respect born of fear. I am told the seiman sigils on his gloves command demons. Some yōkai think themselves demons.
Princess Casamassima was now of a mind to dazzle Majin properly. She was not content to collect furs, compile lists and sit in an icehouse. She had demands to make and propositions to put forward. She wanted to get on with her conquest of Asia. The next recruit to her campaign must be Majin.
If I didn’t go with her, she’d go by herself.
An annoyed Majin might slice her open with a sword swipe or lay her out with a slap from his demon-summoning hand. I had an inkling we survived only on his sufferance.
He might signal the mortars.
That he hasn’t rained fire and silver on us all is a puzzle Kostaki, Dravot and I have chewed over. Yōkai Town is technically in violation of imperial edict. There must be a reason Black Ocean permits us to exist. I hope it isn’t that sufficient silver shrapnel shells haven’t yet arrived from Sheffield. Maybe a meeting with Majin would offer some clue. So I went with Christina.
The Princess pooh-poohed my suggestion we dragoon Kostaki and Dravot into the mission. This was to be a feminine expedition. She wouldn’t share her expected triumph. Except with me as interpreter, and I didn’t count. If she ever sits down, stops scheming and looks at her life, I’ve a feeling Christina might be unhappy with how it has turned out. She’s so alone, even surrounded by moonstruck johnnies offering flowers, jewels and furs.
As we walked to the park, I saw yōkai hurrying in the same direction. O-Same flew above us. Her fire eyes zoomed through the air, ahead of her transparent heat-haze body. Her famous furisode trailed like a gorgeous flag. A doddery, cat-eared crone was assisted along the path by a wrestler whose rolls of blubber were circled with spiral snake tattoos.
It was as if the circus were in town. Or a concert planned. Christina glittered, irritated by the gathering crowd of gooseberries.
‘I should have known,’she said. ‘The poor lieutenant will be overwhelmed by petitioners. What a nuisance. Really, time should be set aside for important concerns.’
‘Yes, Princess,’ I said.
Electricity sparked around her. ‘Do not be facetious, Mademoiselle Geneviève.’
‘It’s Doctor Geneviève,’ I said.
‘I don’t believe in titles. As I think I’ve mentioned.’
‘Yes—’
‘If you say “Princess” again, I shall tell Kostaki you love a man in uniform… especially when the buttons are torn off.’
‘Touché.’
I reconsidered feeling sorry for the Princess. At the end of the world, when the red sun sets for the last time, the only living things on the face of the earth will be giant cockroaches and Christina Light.
We came to the park.
Ryomen leant on his stick by the entrance, exhausted by the effort of dragging himself here. The serene, shaven-pated monk wears a loose, low-necked robe to accommodate the angry, bearded face thrust out of his doughy chest. I don’t know whether he is one man in two minds or two men in one body. Both his foreheads bear tattoos of the sign of in and yo – the symbol of balance the Chinese call yin and yang, a black and a white comma fit perfectly into a circle of harmony.
‘What’s this place called?’ I asked him.
‘Jisatsu No Niwa,’ he replied, talking out of his chest.
I shivered. Nothing to do with the cold. Away from the temple, the chill didn’t bite as badly. I wished I’d not come along on this jaunt.
‘What did he say?’ Christina asked.
‘The name of the park, it’s—’
‘Oh, hush now. There’s Majin. Lieutenant, Lieu-ten-ant!’
She waved at him. I tugged her shoulder but she ignored me. She hopped up and down, trying to draw attention.
Majin posed on the ornamental bridge, cloak folded back like wings. A scabbarded ancient sword and a holstered modern automatic pistol hung from his Sam Browne belt. His tunic collar pressed into the skin of his throat. That made him look priestly, but not holy. Again, I noticed the theatrical figure he cut. His uniform is so sharp! The planes of his face are so perfect. Does he use powder and paint? The domino-mask shadow of his cap peak set off his shining eyes.
No one dared approach the bridge. Majin stood in the centre of an Anno Dracula 1899 unmarked circle. Everyone knew where the line was. Nevertheless, yōkai filed into the little park.
Five bakeneko from Yokomori Street arrived on bicycles, and cleared yōkai from a prime lawn they marked as their territory by hissing and baring fangs at anyone who dared trespass. They stretched as if basking in the sun. They lit cigarettes and said funny things to men who pretended not to hear them.
I noticed Francesca Brysse in the crowd, folded kasa hat angled to hide her face. What was the sly chit up to?
I nudged Christina, who shot Brysse a deadly look. Whelpdale was here too, along with some of his Go chums.
‘Our invitation must have got lost in the post,’ I said.
Christina hissed. The fur on her cloak bristled. I suspected that if I touched it, I’d get an electric sting.
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Trust me, we don’t want to be at this party. It’s not a tea ceremony.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The name of the park—’
She shushed me again. ‘Something is happening…’
Majin drew his sword with a dramatic, steely rasp. Lanterns flared all round Jisatsu No Niwa – hung from the trees, the bridge and the wall, floating on the stream in little barges. The bakeneko caterwauled in unison.
‘That’s a Muramasa sword,’ said lower Ryomen.
‘Once drawn, it cannot be sheathed unless it has tasted blood,’ commented upper Ryomen.
‘Much like us,’ I said.
‘If the sword’s thirst is not slaked,’ continued upper Ryomen, ‘demons will savage the disrespectful custodian of the blade.’
‘Demons, pah!’ said lower Ryomen. ‘What does the Demon Man fear from demons?’
The chest-face had a point.
As custodians of Muramasa swords go, Majin was no traditionalist. The fifteenth-century treasure was sacrilegiously electroplated silver. A vampire-killing blade. Yōkai were fearful. Even O-Same backpedalled in the air like a frightened kite.
A lowly kappa rushed onto the bridge and bowed at the Lieutenant’s feet, like a supplicant begging favour. With a casual, contemptuous flick, Majin scraped the edge of his blade on the kappa’s cheek. Blood splashed across the wooden struts of the bridge. Drops fell into the stream.
So, that was the curse of the sword assuaged.
Majin kicked the kappa’s turtle shell back with his polished boot. The yōkai scuttled back to the crowd, trailing spots of greenish blood.
Oiled hinges creaked. The iron door was pushed open from the other side. It took several men with stout poles to do the job. The door was weighted so it would shut of its own accord once the poles were taken away.
People walked through the doorway. Some with pained dignity, some whimpering and stumbling. An army officer, epaulettes torn and buttons missing. A sobbing woman, head pressed into her hands. A composed young man in black robes. A paunchy official, shaking from his natty spats to his straw-coloured hair. A gaunt, nervous merchant with circles under his eyes. A naval cadet with bruises on his face and boot prints on his uniform. A girl in a cheap, bright kimono. Others. All, so far as I could make out, warm. Soldiers prodded stragglers with bayonets.
Once the whole group was in the park, the soldiers
withdrew and the door clanged shut. The noise shook branches and rattled teeth.
My fangs were sharp.
Lieutenant Majin recited names that meant nothing to me.
Each newcomer was required to make a short statement.
‘I have failed in my duty…’
‘I stand here as substitute for the son of my daimyō, who forced himself on my sister. By my blood will his honour be restored.’
‘I let it be believed that if a plebiscite favoured my cause, I would endow a clinic in my district but the money was needed for household expenses. I made no promise I could be held to, but hid behind a smoke of assumption for political gain. Once I was held in public affection for my wit and erudition… now I am vilified by all.’
‘Curse you, monsters! Curse you for seven incarnations!’
‘I am a woman of low morals and the shame of my parents.’
‘All my class took part in the disgraceful activity, but it is my lot to be here.’
‘I throw myself on your mercy. I have a wife and five children. I am respected… a useful subject of the Emperor.’
‘I intended to restore the funds at the end of the month, but my superior in his wisdom instituted an audit.’
And so it went on.
Christina did not follow. The yōkai reacted to each statement, nodding approval at those who owned up to their sins, jeering those they found evasive, throwing accusations (‘usurer!’) at the defiant, howling in sympathy with sad stories. The bakeneko girls found everything funny.
‘On your knees,’ commanded Majin.
The wretched warm people knelt. Not visitors to Yōkai Town, for visitors go home afterwards. The Lieutenant descended from the bridge and inspected them. One or two had to be encouraged into line by a kick. A rough, scarred samurai – a self-confessed bandit and murderer – was defiant until Majin pressed the flat of his sword against the backs of his calves. He grunted as he crouched, robe falling open to show a sunken, hairy belly.
A tengu – not the fellow with the chopped off and stuck back on hand, but an older specimen with grey feathers – passed along the line of kneeling folk with a sack, handing out short, wood-sheathed knives (tanto).
