Maohden Vol. 2 (22 page)

The girl retrieved it and held it up to him with both hands, as though it wasn’t any heavier than a shaft of bamboo. Gento grasped the sword by the hilt. The wavering light of the candle stained the blade with blue foxfire.

“With a single stroke, cut off my head with this sword.”

Gento simply looked back at her.

“You cannot? You cannot do something as simple as cut off a child’s head, and yet you call upon my grandmother’s services—”

The rest of the sentence evaporated into a
whish
of air. Showing hardly any resistance, the head soared toward the dark ceiling. Holding the bloody sword in one hand, Gento Roran followed its trajectory with his eyes.

He arose and looked down at the body at his feet. Lying face down, her hands planted on the floor, the girl raised her torso. With a small smile, Gento slashed with the scimitar at the level of his eyes. The microscopic strings severed, the headless body slumped back down and didn’t move.

The doll-like girl with the ceramic skin was in fact—a doll.

“A man most befitting his horoscope,” came the girl’s voice from the door, accompanied by a flood of light.

Gento whirled around. The slight figure painted a silhouette against the shaft of light. A gentle draft wafted the golden threads like a halo around her face.

“You definitely accepted my commission. Let us cut to the chase and make our introductions.”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot reach her.” The girl raised her hand to her mouth and smiled. “Hoh. Who do you think my mistress is? She is Galeen Nuvenberg.”

“I know,” said Gento, brushing past her and through the door. Crossing the living room he said, “How soon will your grandmother be done with her present business?”

“I cannot say. This business, not to mention our patrons, are a tad out of the ordinary.”

“Oh?”

“She is presently on her way to see Doctor Mephisto.”

Gento stopped in his tracks. Then, “Could you tell me on whose behalf?” he said, resuming his pace from before.

“Alas, but no.”

He could have pressed the matter, but doubted it would have any effect. Besides, he was on the girl’s home ground.

Gento went outside. The door closed behind him. A light rain was falling. Faint tendrils of smoke rose from the surrounding chimneys. The residents here were hard at work mixing elixirs and conducting alchemy.

All this concocting of murderous curses, illegal opiates and precious metals made Magic Town a frequent destination for the criminal element. And one of them had made it here ahead of Gento. Furthermore—

“With the same goal in mind? The number of my troubles has just increased by one more.”

As Gento strode off into the darkness, his eyes burned with the dark fires of a deep and dogged determination.

Mayumi slept quietly, Mephisto’s recommended meditations and medications having done their magic.

Setsura was pondering what to do next. The parlay for Azusa would take place tomorrow night. Thinking about it coolly, the exchange was hardly an equal one.

Mayumi was the “seal” who held the fate of not only this city, but perhaps the whole world in her hand. Azusa was nothing more than a whirlwind that blew in uninvited.

But that didn’t mean he could just leave her to die at the side of the road. Gento Roran had ended her brother’s life as well. They made for a pitiful pair.

On top of that, a new enemy had stepped onto the stage. When Baldy, the yakuza capo, met his end, that toad made its appearance. Setsura didn’t lose much sleep when it came to the syndicates. There were plenty of ways to skin those cats.

The problem was that toad.

The toad glared up at them with venomous eyes as Asai met his demise. Then the toad enlarged, expanded and blew up like a balloon.

There was no telling who made the first move, but a sickly green line shot between Setsura and Mephisto. Behind them, one of the nurses screamed, covered her face with her hands and fell to the floor. In a flash, her body turned into gray-white ectoplasm and dissolved away. This was strong poison.

Without a sound, Asai and the chair he was sitting on split apart.

“
Whoa
,” Mephisto said softly.

Dodging Setsura’s attack, the mottled dark green creature jumped—with the strength of a kangaroo—through the air.

Setsura’s right hand and Mephisto’s ring flashed together. This time the toad split in two while in midair and splattered to the floor, its guts flying out in a cloud of white steam. The same fate as the nurse. This creature was made of ectoplasm too.

“My, my, my. It’s been two hundred years since I last faced such a dreadful duo.”

The men in question whirled around to face the door. Until they heard the voice, they’d had no inkling that she was there. She was barely three feet tall, was wearing a black satin dress, and was almost as thin as her cane.

The blue eyes in her wrinkled face, looking like taffy drawn out and folded over, shone with an eerie light. The long silver hair falling to her waist shook with anger and laughter. Here was an old woman of an undeterminable age.

“Galeen Nuvenberg,” Setsura Aki said.

“Setsura Aki and Doctor Mephisto. Or rather, the best P.I. and the best physician in Shinjuku. The pleasure is all mine.”

The old woman smiled, flashing her yellow teeth. Though she was standing behind the thick glass door, her words rang out clearly.

“You think doing away with that underling wraps everything up in a nice bow? Let me pick up where he left off. Setsura Aki, if you don’t want the syndicates dogging your every move, it’s time to hand over Mayumi, that girl you saved. Leave her care and treatment to me.”

“Sorry, but she’s already got a primary care physician,” Setsura calmly replied. “From all the rumors I’ve heard about you, I figured our paths would cross eventually. I didn’t think you would so perfectly fit the stereotype though. How many men have met their maker at your hands?”

The old woman laughed without making a sound. “What are you trying to say, boy? I’ve heard plenty about you too, but I hardly imagined a man so wet behind the ears.”

“What would you do with the young woman once you got your hands on her?” Mephisto asked.

“The syndicates have got their blood up. To start with, they’re out for revenge on Setsura for busting up the Death Match. But then there’s the reason why he’d do such a thing in the first place. And the cause comes back to that girl. Knowing they’d be kicking that nest of hornets, Setsura Aki and Gento Roran went in to snatch her anyway. She must be hiding some pretty dark secrets. So one of their errand boys comes to see me. But I’d been looking into this Gento Roran chap already.”

“Then what will you do next?” Setsura asked.

Mephisto glanced at him, somewhat taken aback. The Demon Physician knew that
this
Setsura was no longer Setsura.

“Do you wish to settle things with
me
right now?”

“In which case,” Mephisto added, “I would have no choice but to back him up.”

The old woman froze for a second, before the smile returned to her face. “Let’s call it a day, shall we? A woman of my long years is hardly able to take on the two of you at the drop of a hat. I’ll settle for something else instead.”

She took a step backwards. And was swallowed up in the darkness.

Setsura touched his forehead. It was damp with sweat from the tension of the exchange.

“That’s a first,” Mephisto said, referring to Setsura’s sweaty brow, and touching his own with apparent alarm.

Setsura turned on his heel and headed for the elevators. Mephisto followed without asking where he was going.

It took them less than two minutes to reach Mayumi’s room. Everything was in its proper place—except for the patient. The sheets were still warm. She must have been there until only a few minutes before. A draft blew through the open window.

She hadn’t faded through the walls or dissolved into a mist. Mayumi had escaped the hospital from the window. On the seventh floor. The two of them had to believe that Mayumi was the “something else” the old woman, Galeen Nuvenberg, had “settled for.”

“Hmm,” mused Mephisto. “This leaves me all the more interested in that exchange planned for tomorrow.”

As per his usual, he hit that particular rhetorical nail right on the head.

Morning came soon enough, as did the inevitable night. During that time, Setsura’s investigations led him nowhere fast.

Galeen Nuvenberg, not to mention her employer, Tosuke Kokonori of the Shinjuku Restoration Society, were nowhere to be found. Their homes and offices were shuttered, with not a hint of life within. Proof of how fearsome an opponent Setsura could be.

Given enough time, he could ferret them out. But with only sixteen hours to work with, he was fighting a rising tide. He’d tracked down several of Kokonori’s underlings, but threats and intimidation notwithstanding, they didn’t know a thing either.

Nuvenberg’s incredible
qi
shielded her from even supernatural manhunting measures.

Yasukuni Avenue was as still as death. Nobody passed this way at night. The rain stopped. The moon came out. Though it too hardly seemed the same, the moonlight swirling around in a smoky specter. As if it was riding on the wind itself.

Which was entirely possible in Demon City.

As were the three mismatched figures standing next to the altar in front of the entrance to Hanazono Shrine, not far from the station.

The first was a naked woman, around five-foot seven. The second was a ten-foot-tall giant with an unnaturally small head. The third was a young man wearing an Inverness topcoat.

The woman’s right hand was secured to one of the columns. She wasn’t moving at all, secured there as if by some invisible power. Another naked woman lay at her feet. Her vacant eyes and incoherent mumblings identified her at a glance as a crazy person.

Fresh steel bound the woman’s wrists to the columns. Add to that the altar, the crazy woman—this all had the stench of some abominable black magic.

Not to mention the remaining two, Siegfried sporting Yamada’s head, and Gento Roran.

“He coming?” Siegfried asked. All the more surprising was his clear articulation. He had on a pair of jeans, but was naked from the waist up.

“Don’t know,” Gento said. “Perhaps tormenting this woman some more will make the time pass faster?”

The words had hardly left his mouth when Azusa writhed in wordless agony, the pain inflicted by the devil wires binding her. She groaned and arched her back, bending so far back as to expose the undersides of her arms, her breasts shaking.

The means invisible to the vacant eye, a crease dented the skin around her left nipple.

“Is Setsura going to show?” Gento said, not looking at her. “Yes?” Blood erupted around the nipple. “Or no?”

The nipple tore away and dropped to her feet. Crimson streaks lined her skin. Gento picked it up and pressed it against her mouth.

“This is yours. Good for nothing but a man’s pacifier. Suck on it yourself.”

Azusa clamped her mouth shut. But soon threw her head back, gasping for air. With a cruel and pitiless determination, Gento shoved in the severed nipple. His white fingers closed over her lips as she tried to spit it out. A trickle of red saliva dribbled from the corners of her mouth.

This was Gento Roran. The same somehow sorrowful young man who had seized Azusa and laid her on the mound and told her to speak with the earth. Growing up for him meant becoming a merciless demon.

Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.

“Stop it,” came an unexpected voice from above him. Yamada’s head peered down, colored by unbridled disgust.

“Why should I?”

“Rather than tormenting the girl, consider why Setsura might not have arrived at this time. In five minutes, it will be eleven o’clock. And five or six minutes until
it
shows up. If Setsura doesn’t come,
we
will be in its sights.”

“Relax. Two servings should be enough.”

“You intend to leave her here?” asked the giant.

Gento glanced up at him with a puzzled expression.

“The woman is still good for something. Take her with you.”

“Hoh. So now you’re the one giving the orders?”

The two stared at each other. Ghastly currents flowed between them, ready to draw fresh blood at the slightest touch.

Gento whirled around. “He showed. I’m not the only naive one out tonight.”

Out of the darkness at the back of Yasukuni Avenue, reaching towards Kabuki-cho, the man casually strode through haunted moonlight, the black slicker as cool as a dream.

“How nice of you to show up,” Gento said, stepping away from Azusa.

Restrained by his accursed wires, the nipple remained in her mouth. Blood stained the underside of her left breast.

His field of vision taking in the entirety of the scene, the expressionless Setsura said, “Let the girl go.”

He
was speaking as
him
.

“Out of the question. I can’t walk away empty-handed.”

“Mayumi-san took flight. From the seventh floor, no less.”

“How about that.”

“Do you think
I
am lying?”