The sleeves of the gown shook. For a moment, nothing happened. And then blackness shrouded the heads of the three knights. Something reached down and grabbed hold of the unmoving men. A hand. Enormous fingers made out of reddish-brown stone grew out of the ceiling and plucked them up like matchsticks.
Several minutes later, the golden mask walked down the hallway through the damp gloom. The corridor was made of stone. The air was not particularly humid. And yet the heavy air had a viscous quality, a rotting odor. It was almost as if had one pressed against the stone wall, it would have given way like a swollen flesh, squeezing out putrid pus.
The result of the overwhelming sense of evil filling the place.
He passed through ten stone doors to reach his destination. The soaring rock walls and ceiling defied the ordinary laws of physics, the length and breadth and angles forming at will, descending staircases turning into ceilings, and from there hallways continuing through the air and plunging underground.
Now the masked lord walked along a vertically soaring floor. Light streaming in horizontally from the ceiling poured down on him from above, as if following the pull of gravity.
Here was a labyrinth to eclipse all others. What made it necessary waited for him at its end.
Long ago on the island of Crete, in the ancient Mediterranean kingdom ruled by King Minos, Queen Pasiphae kept her abominable son, the Minotaur, in the catacombs beneath the palace. She refused to cast him out and secured human sacrifices for its sustenance.
The great architect Daedalus was employed to turn the subterranean fortress into a labyrinth that would secure the Minotaur. But surely Daedalus could not have imagined such a fetid maze as this, from which not even the imprisoned air could escape.
At last, a rusty iron door came into view. It was the size and heft of any door that could accommodate a large person. The man in the mask stopped in front of the door. He was not lost in contemplation. He was hesitating.
The hand holding the black key took several seconds reaching toward the lock.
The key wasn’t necessary. Before his hand touched the handle, the door opened from the inside. The hinges creaked ominously. The interior of the room was pitch dark.
“You. Have. Come?” The muttered words shook the dank air.
“I have come,” the mask answered. “In the name of your Queen, I am releasing you. The purpose for which you were born, make a hell of the earth above.”
Two points of blue-green light glowed like fox-fire within the gloom. These were the undeniably gleeful eyes of a person born in the depths of hell.
Part Four: Monsters vs. Magicians
I
The noonday bell rang.
“Box lunch!”
“Home cooked for me.”
Here and there the excited voices rang out as the unsociable teacher of Classics II stomped out of the classroom. For some reason, running around delivering orders, Poteko Toya flashed a V-sign and sidled up to Kyoya.
“What’s up, Izayoi-kun? You don’t look happy.”
“Buzz off,” said Kyoya, averting his eyes from her dumpling-like body, looking instead out the window.
“Aren’t you the rude one.”
“Take off. You’re smothering me.”
“Huh.” Toya frowned, but changed her mind. “Hey, want my lunch?”
“Not hungry. Git.”
“Specially made.”
Toya shook her enormous hips, body-checking the guys out of the adjoining chairs, and plopped herself down with a thump.
Kyoya glanced at her. “Don’t push it.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just get out of my face.”
“I’m not in it, honey.”
Toya waggled her butt again, shoving aside the desks in front and back, and ignoring the grunts of the students gored by the corners of the desks behind and to the side of her, she took a double-stacked lunch box from under her arm—the size of a shipping crate—and set it on her lap.
“Rest your eyes on these beauties. Glazed sweet potato, sweet potato cheese roll, sweet potato stir-fried in tomato sauce, picked sweet potato in olive oil.”
“There any rice in there?” the startled Kyoya asked. “Your family owns a bar, right? You can’t manage a little rice?”
Poteko’s big sister Junko ran a “bar” for underage kids and students in Mejiro called “Junko’s Jail.” Kyoya earned a little on the side as a bouncer at the place.
“Like hardly. Rice will ruin your figure, don’t you know. Hey, dig in. What do we got here? Ah, mackerel head, bigger the eyes, all the juicier. Sole of calves’ feet simmered in sperm whale bone broth. African vervet monkey testicles. That’ll get the blood flowing in the right direction, if you know what I mean. How about you and me, tonight.”
“I, uh, got places to go and things to do. I’ll leave you to enjoy such epicurean delights by yourself.”
“Oh please, spare me such effusive praise.”
Something in the pair of lunchboxes caught Kyoya’s eye. Pointing at the frightful cuisine he said, “What’s that sparkling powder? Smells like some sort of drug.”
“Vitamins,” she said, pushing out her chest.
“More like bigamins,” Kyoya said to himself. He got to his feet. “Live long and prosper.”
At that moment, somebody called out from a desk next to the window, “Hey, there’s some weirdo in the courtyard.”
A sea of uniforms surged across the room. Toya was slow to join them. Lunchboxes in one hand, grabbing the kids in front of her by the backs of their collars and flinging them out of the way with the other, she plowed her way through. This wasn’t a woman anybody wished to mess with once she got underway.
A slender youngster was standing in the center of the schoolyard. His dusky features had a melancholy aura and suggested a Middle Eastern background. His white shirt, rolled up sleeves and narrow-cut jeans balanced the intellectual mien with a touch of the wild side.
Everybody’s first assumption was that he was an exchange student. Everybody except one.
Kyoya raced out of the classroom and down to the courtyard. A PE class had just ended. They surrounded the kid at a distance and eyed him suspiciously. It wasn’t that unusual to see students from other schools there. So why was everyone crowding to the window? What were they looking at?
The PE instructor walked up to the kid as Kyoya ran onto the field, still in his slippers. The instructor said something to the kid. The kid turned away. The instructor clapped a hand hard on his shoulder.
The kid only turned his head and looked at the instructor behind him. Nothing else transpired.
The instructor’s body turned blue. A wordless scream echoed across the courtyard. The instructor’s face and chest glittered with a dull mineral luster. Beneath a bright blue sky, the young PE instructor turned into a stone statue, as if in ironic recognition of some hitherto unknown achievement.
By that time, Kyoya stood in front of the kid, Asura in his right hand. “You here to see me?” he asked in a voice brimming with a tension his classmates had never heard before.
“You understand me?” the kid said, suggesting a smattering command of Japanese.
“He wasn’t a threat to you. Put him back the way he was.”
“It is too late for that. Can you reanimate the dead?”
“No. I know of only one man who can do that.”
“My name is Ishmael. And you are Kyoya Izayoi.”
“Yeah.”
“I have something to say to you. After school, come to the Koma Theater in Shinjuku.”
“Why not settle things here and now?”
“It is all the same to me. Though there is no telling how many more people I might look at. Koma is in the ruins. Nobody will interfere.”
“Fine,” Kyoya readily agreed, cognizant of the threat implicit in Ishmael’s words.
“Well, then.” Ishmael nodded. “But having come all this way, I would like to see the differences between you and the teacher for
myself.”
He raised his head. Kyoya stood stock still, school uniforms reflected in his black eyes. Ishmael as well remained frozen in place.
“What?” Kyoya asked in an expressionless voice.
Only his lips moved. The rest of his face could have been a Noh mask. This was the result of terrific mental concentration, that preceded the unleashing of his nenpo.
“If I’d taken a full hit of your power, I would have turned out like the teacher here. But to do that, it seems I’d have to turn around. Fine with me. Shall we give it our best shots?”
For a moment, the kid’s face twisted into a ghoulish form. A slight smile flashed for a split second. And then the calm countenance once again presented itself.
“I seem to have underestimated you,” he said graciously. “I did not think this world had another Semulia in it. But next time, I will have the sun on my side. There will be no turning your back on me then.”
“Sure.”
Ishmael strolled away. Kyoya didn’t relax until he had passed through the front gate. He was soaked with cold sweat. It was like his nen flowed out with his perspiration.
Ishmael hadn’t intended to kill him just now. He’d showed up here more for the fun of it, which was why he’d faced him head on.
Kyoya, though, was dead serious. Had they turned around and faced each other—even feigned doing so—he would have swung Asura at his head. Ishmael’s powers would have left him no other option. He had imparted all of his mental energy into the sword.
This time, the enemy had walked off, showing him only a faint smile. The next time, in the arena of his choosing, the gloves would be off. And Kyoya couldn’t be sure he would win.
He sensed the golden mask at work here. And he was making a war of it.
As Kyoya endeavored to focus his thoughts, his mood suddenly changed. With a skeptical glance at the students getting up their courage to approach him, he ran back to the school building. His hand was shaking when he pressed the speed dial button on his cell phone.
He reached someone on the third call. “Kawadacho Philanthropic Hospital.”
“Get me Rama in the surgical department. Make it quick!”
“And who are you, sir?”
“Kyoya Izayoi.”
“Kyoya-san?” the receptionist said in a friendly voice. Just about anybody living in Shinjuku was familiar with his name. “What are you calling about this time?”
“This time?” Kyoya felt a cold stab of fear down his back.
“We got a call from you a few minutes ago. Rama-san just left to meet you.”
II
The call from “Kyoya” came shortly before noon. He said he was in the neighborhood and wanted to see her. He didn’t say why, only that it was a pressing matter. Sayaka set aside her suspicions. After all, being reluctant to come to the hospital was very much like him.
He hadn’t been a particularly happy camper either when he’d visited with Mephisto. And hearing him say he wanted to see her thrilled her more than it awakened any doubts.
The place was a nearby coffee shop.
There were ten or so people in the place when she got there, along with the lingering odor of tobacco smoke and Sheridan Fanu singing “The Hunter of Martin River.” But no Kyoya.
As she stood there, a man with a short mustache — who must’ve been the proprietor—approached her and said that her date would be back in five minutes and asked her to wait here. He showed her to a window seat.
Sayaka furrowed her brows. All the seats were occupied. In front of her were a young couple, a woman in a colorful and ornate scarf and long dress, two salaryman types in suits.
“It’s full.”
The proprietor turned around. “What? Oh, here’s an open seat in the middle.”
Sayaka looked back. The woman was raising a coffee cup to her lips. “There’s somebody there too.”
“Eh?” the proprietor burst out. “Um, are you sure? You’re not nearsighted, are you? Follow me. Right here.”
He walked ahead of her and indicated the place. Sayaka felt a surge of fear. A woman was sitting right there. And yet the man saw only an empty space.
“This should do, no?” he said stiffly, and walked off.
Sayaka stood there. She couldn’t leave. The woman raised her hand. Sayaka pressed the thumb of her right hand against the ball of her middle finger, releasing the safety on her laser ring.
The woman beckoned to her. Against all her natural instincts, as if pulled by an invisible string, Sayaka walked over and sat down across from her.
“Who are you?” said Sayaka.
“You don’t know?” the woman asked softly.
For the first time, Sayaka realized that the scarf was covering the woman’s mouth. Then how did she drink the coffee? And another thing caught her attention. In the valley between the swell of her breasts, peeking out from the plunging neckline of her dress was a dark red oval like a birthmark.
She saw her reflection in the woman’s black eyes. Fighting the sensation of being sucked into them, Sayaka was sure she had seen them somewhere else.
“I have been with you always. Only you haven’t realized it. I have been so lonely. My beloved husband awakened first to the possibility, but you continue on unawares. No, you forcibly suppress it. You don’t wish to set me free. What tremendous power. Ordinarily, that most detestable of human qualities, that they have been endowed with from the start, could easily be strengthened in other ways. I’m surprised the world has ingénues like you left in it.”
“W-what are you talking about?”
Sayaka could hear the blood coursing through her veins. There was no way she should understand what the woman was talking about—but nevertheless she did. This woman was telling the truth!
She reached out and took hold of Sayaka’s right hand. Not a cold, dead hand. A warm and living one.
“A good thing you were unaffected by that memory restoration machine. You lost your memories and everybody claims to have seen nothing. That was to preserve your sanity. As a result, since that time, I have been able to appear like this, albeit not yet in perfect form.”
The woman tightened the grip of her hand. Sayaka felt her bones creak.
“Stop it!”
“You cannot escape. Because I will return to you.”
“No!” she shouted, jerking her right hand.
Her hand came away so smoothly that she arrested its movement at once, and managed to stop herself just before it collided with the window glass.
Sayaka noticed that she was alone. The customers all around her stared at her with startled expressions. She blushed and looked at the window. “Ah!” she said, and smiled.
Kyoya was standing there. He waved, and walked into the coffee shop. “Sorry. There was something I had to do. All taken care of.”
“No problem.” She smiled again, as if what had just happened hadn’t. “I’m glad you asked me.”
“Yeah?” Kyoya grinned and reached for the coffee cup.
Huh? Sayaka said to herself.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“In that case, all the better. So you didn’t notice?”
“Eh?”
Kyoya raised the coffee cup to his mouth. The rim covered his nose and mouth. For a moment, she could only see his eyes.
Sayaka gulped.
“Wasn’t I drinking coffee?” Kyoya calmly asked.
Sayaka nodded. She’d mistakenly thought that woman had ordered it. She steeled her nerves and betrayed no fear.
“I first drank it at the palace,” Kyoya went on. He took another sip. “Took to it right off. I order it as a matter of course now. Oh, that’s right. My preferred beverage is Deimos beer, right?”
“Who are you?”
“Come with me and you’ll understand. Don’t worry. Women aren’t my thing.”
“You and that woman just now, are you partners?”
“Ah. Not exactly. You might rather say we hate each other�
��s guts. Thanks to her, we have been imprisoned for ages. Two thousand years, seeing and hearing hardly a thing. A man loses the will to work under those conditions. Hey, what do you say we pretend we’re on a date?”
Sayaka got to her feet. The laser ring on her right hand was fully charged.
“Take it easy.” Kyoya put down the cup and wiped his mouth. “If you don’t want to, you’re free to leave. But if I don’t do the job I came here to do, it’s back in the brig. You can’t run away. Give it up. Come with me to the castle. We’ll have fun.”
“Don’t move!” Sayaka thrust out the ring. Kyoya — his doppelganger — quickly raised his arms. The other customers followed suit. “Let’s take this outside. We don’t want to inconvenience the other people here.”
“Fine with me.”
Kyoya stood up and marched outside in front of her. Sayaka paid the bill. The proprietor stared blankly back at her.
The two set off in the direction of Kawadacho Philanthropic Hospital.
“So where are we going?”
“The police.”
“The palace guard, you mean?”
“More or less.”
His nonchalance gave Sayaka a strange feeling. Aside from that recent look he gave her, she could easily think of him as an otherwise harmless master of disguise. She soon understood just how far this was from the truth.
They hadn’t gone a dozen steps from the coffee shop when five dark shadows surrounded them holding firearms and laser guns.
“Who are you?”
One of the men smiled. “We’re agents with the Information Bureau. Chief Yamashina’s orders.”
“So you’ve been watching the whole time?”
“Twenty-four seven.”
Sayaka lowered her ring.
“Who are they?” Kyoya asked.
“We’re taking you in,” said the agent with the laser gun, in the tone of voice that normally demanded unquestioned obedience.
“Idiot. Guards or jailers? When did hassling people become your job?”
The agent answered the quip by burying the butt of the gun in his stomach. Kyoya grimaced. He scowled at the agent. “I will remember that.”
Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition Page 27
