Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 2 (11 page)

“Well, in this city, there are no shortage of Chinese up to their elbows in weird mojo. There's one in my lockup at least every night. But you wouldn't catch them sauntering out of Arakimachi's no-go area. Anybody other than you and I might let it slide. Sorry, but I've got to investigate all suspicious behavior. No need to make a federal case out of it. I'll escort you back to your house. Once I confirm your bona fides, you're free to go.”

“In that case, I would not object.” Kikiou's smile grew broader. “Let us be on our way. Incidentally, that friend of yours, how is he doing?”

“I've been so busy, I haven't been back to the hospital to see him. But knowing him, he'd already be up and about, hard as that may be to believe.”

“Good news in any case.”

“So, where do you live?” said the commando cop, urging him on. “Lead the way.”

“By all means,” said Kikiou, turning around, his back to the commando cop.

The cop scrambled to catch up, closing his right hand around the handle of the electric nightstick hanging from his waist. Outside of Shinjuku, this kind of attitude could cause problems. But otherwise, the police pretty much had a free hand short of outright violence. When it came to a simple I.D. check, a cop could never be too careful.

Still, as he brought the nightstick down against the base of the old man's neck, he checked his swing a bit. The five-thousand volt charge alone, traveling from head to toe, would lay any normal human being out flat.

Instead, a tremendous force slammed into his solar plexus. The commando cop knew that this was no ordinary old man. He reeled back a good ten feet. Feeling his ribs, three or four of them were broken. Fortunately, his internal organs seemed intact.

“
Shit
,” the commando cop hissed through clenched teeth. “Never doubt your instincts. That grandpa's got some crazy-ass moves on him.”

“A public servant striking a citizen from behind—just what I should expect in Demon City. It surely was worth coming all the way here.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“Hope always follows despair. A fine way to dispose of Setsura Aki occurs to me. To that end, your assistance will be necessary.”

“Fuck off,” the commando cop retorted, his right hand blurring through the air faster than any old man could dodge out of the way. The nightstick slammed into the nape of his neck with enough force to drive it into the flesh.

“
Wha—?
” he gaped. The stinging response ringing through the nightstick was that of a bat striking solid metal.

Kikiou's staff whirled like a small tornado. Bobbing and weaving, parrying blows to his groin and chin, the commando cop grabbed his elbow with his left hand and raised his numb right arm. The laser gun swiveled with a soft
click-click-click
, drawing aim on the grandpa's face.

“Freeze.”

But the staff was again slashing at him. Blue light enveloped his right hand. The commando cop observed with no small satisfaction as the blade of light leapt out and pierced the man's forehead.

The old man grinned. Jutting his unmarred brows forward as if to afford him a better look, he said, “Any more tricks up your sleeve? Well, then. I'll make your dreams come true. Come along to our world.”

He jabbed the tip of his staff slightly forward. Nothing else out of the ordinary was seen or heard in the steel-gray dusk. The commando cop's chin slumped to his chest. Like a poet overcome by melancholy he stood there, unmoving, in the fading twilight.

Doctor Mephisto was in his office when the receptionist informed him that Setsura had arrived.

The mountain of books perched atop his large desk alone prompted visitors to give it a wide berth. A quick glance at the bindings and front material of these books—so well-preserved that they appeared to be recent editions—often induced audible exclamations of surprise.

A monograph on
Vampire Behaviors
by an anonymous thirteenth-century Spanish monk. From the same period,
Practical Sorcery
by a Vatican scholar and priest who was burned at the stake along with his entire library as soon as its existence came to light.

Vampire Observations
by Berlitz Hosten, a compilation of studies about the demon world purportedly dating back to the Middle Ages. The only surviving remnants of the book were said to be permanently sealed within the special collections archives at the British Museum and the Sorbonne in Paris.

The exhaustive account of one “Mr. Gérard,” a Paris florist who for twenty years drank the blood of the residents living in his neighborhood. Simply titled
Autobiography
, it constituted the only known personal diary of a vampire.

It was anybody's guess what Mephisto was trying to glean from these accursed manuscripts. As he was perusing the last page of the last volume, the holograph of a woman's face appeared in the air before him. His receptionist, announcing Setsura's arrival.

“What does he want?” Mephisto asked, in an uncharacteristically tired voice.

“He says he's here for an examination.”

“Though I was scheduled for this afternoon.” The woman's face took on a heroic kind of beauty. It had changed to Setsura. Mephisto's eyes briefly glowed of their own accord. But the light soon disappeared.

“Who worked you over this time?” he asked softly.

“Kikiou,” Setsura answered in a subdued voice.

“No wonder, then. He's a four-thousand-year-old alchemist and warlock, after all. Did you finish him off?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“This doesn't bode well for the reputation of Shinjuku's number one manhunter.”

“He wasn't the guy I was looking for.”

“Go to the hospital director's examination room. I'll see you there in two minutes.”

“Got it.”

The handsome image raised its hand in a half-salute and vanished. Mephisto let out a long sigh. That sigh and his gloomy visage weren't what anybody else around the hospital ever saw. Was it a message intended for Setsura? Or himself?

He was getting up from his desk when the receptionist appeared again.

“What?”

“A Mrs. Kanan says she must see you. Her daughter is a patient here.”

“Yes, let her know I got the message and that I'll be personally visiting her daughter's room later.”

“Got it. No, I mean – understood, sir.”

The chagrined realization that she'd answered the same as Setsura showed on the face of the usually frosty receptionist as her image faded away.

Mephisto manipulated the ring on his left hand. A holographic scene of the receptionist and a middle-aged lady sitting across from her projected into the air.

The older lady's countenance was a bit pinched behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Her original beauty could still be discerned. Her plain navy blue suit hung on her loosely, but the line of her full breasts and hips betrayed the wearer's matronly intentions. Walk down the street in a slightly more fashionable wardrobe and she'd have no problem attracting cougar bait.

Any eager cub who strayed too close to this cat though, could expect to get cuffed for the trouble.

“Yes, it has been a difficult day for the both of us,” Mephisto said to no one in particular, striding like a white shadow to the door.

“Sir Kikiou—”

The woman's voice rolled like pearls through the turquoise-lit room. A room in the manor house of the Demon Princess. It was surrounded by the water and a green so dark it was almost black.

Elsewhere in the manor house, the wafting smell of blood seemed to account for all the gradations between light and shade. But opening the door to Kikiou's room, here alone Shuuran was met by a draft of inorganic air, cool and mechanical.

Her eyes, brimming with fear and anger, flitted from the old man and the bed he was lying on to that of a uniformed figure sprawled in the middle of the floor.

“What's that?”

“A police officer. And what's more, an acquaintance of Setsura Aki.”

“Oh?” she said softly. She peered down at the bearded man's face, green in the turquoise light.

Observing the violet gleam in her eyes, Kikiou said gravely, “I understand how you feel. He has already become an old enemy to Ryuuki and an obstacle to us. However tempting it might be to tear his acquaintances limb from limb, there is something else I wish you to do.”

“What?” Shuuran knit her brows together.

“How is Princess faring?”

“She has retired to her bedroom. The pain in her face does not abate.”

“So my potions are not efficacious?” A chord of disappointment colored Kikiou's voice. “I should have expected as much from the Toyama Elder. By which I mean no praise, though this cloud might yet possess a silver lining. As a consequence, Princess has resolved in her heart to curse this city and its inhabitants. She is now agreeable to my original plans of total subjugation. Were you to turn all of its citizens into your companions, the world would look the other way. They'd tear down the bridges, throw up the barricades, and leave everything in our hands. Soon communication with the outside world would cease. Better to see no evil and hear no evil and pretend to live together in peace.”

Kikiou paused to let the implications settle in. “However, while there are limits to the lives of those watching over us, you and I and our servants will live forever. The watchers will come and go. Their loathing and vigilance will slacken. All the while we will be proceeding step-by-step toward the realization of our ambitions, whether it takes a hundred years or two. But the time will come when a new bridge shows up in a place never expected, and our brothers and sisters, with their fair skin and white fangs, will cross over to the outside world. There's no need to explain what will happen after that. Given the population of Demon City at our disposal, domination that wouldn't come easily to the four of us alone shall be like taking candy from a baby.”

“I suppose.”

“You
suppose
?”

Shuuran ignored the flash of anger in Kikiou's power-drunk eyes. “An unrealized ambition is no different from a fleeting dream. How many years have we lived? How many dreams have we dreamed? Princess does not fuss over Sir Kikiou's desires, and it is she whose lead I follow. However—”

“However?”

“Your ambitions aside, I will cooperate in any way I can in order to see the extinction of Setsura Aki. He is Ryuuki's foe, first and foremost.”

“Exactly. Setsura Aki holds in his hands the fate of the man
you
desire. We have stumbled across an area of mutual interest.”

“And what would you have me do?”

“Drink the blood of this police officer. Make him your servant. And then—” Kikiou motioned for her to approach and then whispered something in her ear.

“I can't do that—”

“Yes, putting her prized retainer in such a precarious position may anger Princess. She really does value you highly in that respect.”

“That's not it.”

“No?”

“No. As far as Princess's anger is concerned, I will take whatever she wishes to give. But I will do nothing to incur Ryuuki's wrath.”

“And what would cause him to hate you so?”

“Because he is a soldier.”

Kikiou mulled this over in silence. She was resolute on the subject. Not only him, but even the Demon Princess lying groaning in her dusky casket would be powerless to dissuade her on this point.

Shuuran proudly continued. “Alive or dead, the soldier's skill decides the contest. If he had a son, he would still condemn his own flesh and blood to death for breaking that rule of combat. The laws of war mean nothing to me, but abusing them would irreparably tarnish his honor.”

“Even if it meant the destruction of
that
man?”

This time it was Shuuran who fell silent. The fierce look vanished from her young face, replaced by one of uncertainty and distress.

“If you asked him, I believe Ryuuki would say that he is setting forth to meet Setsura in his final battle. His last chance to atone for his past mistakes.”

“Then he will win.”

“Ordinarily, I would agree with you. However, his opponent quite easily took his arm and lived to tell the tale. This one time, today's wishes will not make tomorrow's dreams come true.”

Shuuran had nothing to say in response.

“Besides, supposing that he lives and does not deliver a fatal blow, it's not beyond the realm of possibilities that he would give up the ghost of his own accord.”

A sudden bout of vertigo overwhelmed Shuuran. She slumped back against the old man. He supported her weight briefly, and then seized her with an iron grip and roughly forced her down onto the bed.

“Stop—what are you—”

He pinned her struggling arms and pressed her down with the weight of his body. “If words do not prove persuasive, then I shall resort to other means. Past or present, when it comes to bringing a woman to heel, simply taking command of her body will do the trick.”

“Let go of me. Let me go!” she screamed, and there could be little doubt that she was quite aware of what would follow.

A single swipe of her slender hand sent Kikiou's body flying through the air. Except in the split second before he hit the ground a dozen feet away, a kind of motorized sound sang out from around his midsection.

Startled, Shuuran turned around. In her eyes reflected the image of the old man springing back along the same arc on which he'd sailed away from her, like a movie run in reverse. He reached out and pinned her again. This time, employing supernatural forces, hardly moving a finger. Shuuran writhed in agony.

“I'll never lose any contest of strength with you. Will you try and use those eyes of yours? You should know what does and doesn't work on me. Let me school you once again.”