Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 2 (14 page)

Yakou smiled. From the surrounding darkness somebody said, “Thank you.”

“Much appreciated,” somebody else agreed. They were both heartfelt voices, dry and refined.

“Please forgive them for listening in. However, Aki-san, this is not something you need worry about. We shall answer the handsome doctor's call of our free will.”

Setsura spun on his heels. “I'm sorry, but I have to get going. There's something I must attend to.”

“Don't take it personally.”

“I'll give you a ring later.” To the two behind him he said:

Without regard for their own lives

they swore to expel the Hun

So five thousand in silver and sable

died in the barbarian dust

Their pitiful bones littering the banks

of an unknown river

While living on in their lovers' dreams

Setsura Aki recited the poem by Chen Tao with a melancholy air. “Everybody longs for death. This is a city where a human life is held cheap. Well, there's a mad scientist in Kabuki-cho who's always in the market for corpses.”

Several minutes later, on the street leading to Meiji Dori where he'd tangled with Kikiou once before, he saw a patrol car parked on the road in front of him. The patrol car sported enough armor plating to resist a direct hit from an RPG, and was coated with military-grade optically-reflective paint. Looking head on, the cowling of the air conditioning apparatus was easily discernable. The utilitarian style was favored by the mobile police commandos.

From the outside, the one-way glass appeared powder blue. The driver's side power window rolled down. White teeth flashed below a thick moustache. The smile of a hungry grizzly bear. His arm poked out of the window about the height of Setsura's thigh. His hand banged on the door panel.

“Hey, long time no see. Wanna ride?” Kusama's face looked more sunburned than usual.

Setsura grinned. “You on the job?”

“I was on my way to West Shinjuku anyway. I discovered this real interesting place smack dab in the middle of Kabuki-cho. The kind of place that literally takes a man at face value. You'd fit right in. I'll give you a lift—as long as you pick up the tab.”

“So now you're picking up fares? My, how Shinjuku's men in blue have fallen.” Setsura knitted his brows. “Sure, I'll take you up on that. There's something I wanted to run by you anyway.”

“Fire away.”

The back door opened. It was pockmarked with bullet holes, though thanks to the 20 mm armor plating none had penetrated more than a few fractions of an inch. “Everybody's a daredevil these days,” Setsura grumbled to himself. He got in and closed the door.

The car took off. Kusama left the driving to his partner. He twisted his big frame around and continued the conversation. “You look beat.”

“My part-time job's taking over my life.”

“Yeah, that sucks. You can't keep at this P.I. work forever. You gotta admit that running a
senbei
shop's a waste of your talents. How 'bout shooting for Shinjuku's number one gigolo or yakuza? Though you'd have to let me arrest you. No shit, get the credit for slapping the cuffs on Setsura Aki and a promotion would definitely be in the cards.”

Kusama grinned. The glittering barrel of the laser gun attached to his right wrist jutted out from his sleeve and swiveled around to focus on Setsura's chest.

“And on top of that, no player in this town would mourn the loss of the competition. Hell, nobody's going to feel sorry for you, not in this town. I'd make captain on the strength of public opinion alone.” With a hum, the barrel of the gun returned to its original position. “So, what did you want to ask me?”

Setsura leaned forward. “You're on good terms with the Chief. Have you noticed anything odd about him lately?”

“Anything odd?” He raked his fingers through his beard and pushed out his lower lip. “Now that you mention it—I saw him this morning and he looked on top of the world. Could have fooled me. Weren't there rumors going around he'd caught the clap?”

“Frankly, that's a diagnosis I'd be happy to hear.” Setsura leaned back against the seat.

The patrol car wove through a line of traffic and jackrabbited off. Sporting a good-natured smile, Kusama jabbered on about this and that. About the time they were making a nonstop beeline down Yasukuni Avenue, he furrowed his brows and said, “Man, you really look like you've been taken to the cleaners. What do you want to drink?”

“Whatever's fine.”

“It's a curious joint. You don't need me there to be there.”

“Hey, now's not the time to suddenly become a cop who always plays by the rules.”

“Coffee, tea, cocoa, iron oolong, pu'er, and jasmine teas. Even Antarctic mineral water.”

“How about Alinamin?”

“Naw. They don't carry energy drinks. But I've got a nutrition supplement just for us commando cops.”

“I'll take one of those.”

“Got'cha.”

Kusama reached into his pocket with his ridiculously large hand and pulled out a cute-looking ampule and presented it to him. Setsura popped the cap off the long neck of the ampule and downed the contents in one gulp.

“How's it taste?”

“Well, it's definitely got a taste.”

Kusama threw out his chest and laughed. “And they say a guy as handsome as you can't possibly have a sense of humor. Same with gigolos and mobsters. You should become a cop. It'd be my pleasure to run you through the gauntlet.”

“We're here,” his partner announced.

Kusama stopped smiling. Straight ahead of them were the ruins of the Shinjuku Koma Theater. There was a parking lot in the plaza right off the lobby doors that opened onto Chuo Avenue. Here and there on a lot—that could accommodate a hundred cars—were little mountains of debris left over from the buildings that once stood there. There was a profit to be made from all the devastation.

The patrol car stopped. With Kusama taking the lead, the three of them set off on foot for Kabuki-cho's red light district. A visitor could believe that the neon lights had never been extinguished since the district first sprang to life.

Scattered among the lounges and cabarets, the topless bars, peepshows and massage parlors, the opium dens and head shops were legit drug stores and fast-food joints lit up in more “healthy” electric lights.

The barkers mingled in with the crowds of pedestrians, on the prowl for fresh faces, the appearance of which would inevitably produce the equivalent of a full-blown brawl over the new meat.

Kusama plowed a path through the crowds like an ice breaker. One look at his uniform was enough to make the street hucksters and muscle-bound bouncers scamper for the sidelines.

Though regular beat cops patrolled the area at night, they did so in groups of ten, heavily armed with shotguns and compact RPGs, and with the full approval of the Shinjuku Police Department. Compared to them, the mobile commando cops were in a class by themselves, specializing in the “management” of murder, violence and mayhem.

Kusama stopped in front of an alley heading off the congested thoroughfare. “Ah, here we are,” he said, pointing at a facade bathed in a pale red glow.

“Yeah, I know that place. Eddie's Bar. Up to half a month ago. But I heard he hadn't found a buyer yet.”

“Hey, that means what we've got here is the one place Shinjuku's most famous P.I. doesn't know about.” He grinned broadly and motioned with his chin.

From the front, the bar's facade was only a dozen feet wide. The sign above the door still read “Eddie's Bar.”

“
Irasshai!
” A bewitching woman's voice rang out in the blue light. “Welcome!”

Shadows shifted and moved. Sweet perfume tickled Setsura's nose.

“I brought along Shinjuku's own dark knight, Mama. Time to pull out the stops.”

“You don't say.” A second figure in a kimono appeared from the blue haze. She bowed to Setsura. “My, my, my. Beholding him is enough to make me dizzy. The first time that's ever happened.”

She was as seductively enchanting as she was innocently cherubic. She spoke this praise from the heart. A buxom woman wearing a western-style dress sidled up to her and examined the three men.

“What do you say, Mama? This one on the house like you promised?”

“Well—okay. Seeing that you've brought along such a fine-looking gentleman. Don't be strangers, boys.”

A handsome man like Setsura frequenting the place would be the best advertising they could hope for. Setsura softly shook the white hand offered to him.

The mama-san closed her eyes and tipped her head. “Good heavens. One touch sends a thrill down my spine. Ah, and he stands there with that absent-minded look in his eyes. So, Mr. Clueless, what's your technique?”

Setsura responded with a bewildered expression and laughed.

“This way—”

The woman in the dress motioned toward the back of the establishment. To the best of Setsura's memory, it hadn't changed at all since it was known as “Eddie's.” Five patrons could squeeze in at the bar, and there were tables and booth sets to seat only three couples. Those had been left behind by the previous owner. A bartender in a white shirt and bowtie stood behind the counter like a robot.

The mama-san brought over a whiskey on the rocks.

“You drink, don't you?” she asked, sitting down on Setsura's right.

“A taste now and then.”

“Nothing wrong with a little now and then.”

Setsura lightly pressed his lips against the rim of the brimming glass.

“Say, I didn't know you were a light drinker,” said Kusama, who'd taken the woman in the dress for himself.

Setsura licked the whiskey off his lips, and took another drink. This time he opened his mouth, and after giving it a moment of thought, took a deeper draught.

“Ah, here's a man with heart,” exclaimed the mama-san as Setsura drained the glass.

“How was it?”

“Not to my taste.”

“Eh?”

“At least I wouldn't serve up chocolate corn nuts as a side.
Senbei
is the only way to really enjoy a whiskey.”

A long silence followed. Setsura cleared his throat. “Kusama-san, you said you'd found a great new bar. Sorry to say it, but this isn't it. What do you think?”

The two women looked at each other. “It's great because it's got such interesting things,” said the woman in the dress.

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like this.”

As she spoke, her appearance changed. Everything about her was the same—down to the hairstyle—except it was a much smaller porcelain figurine in a dress. A tiny pair of fangs glinted in her open mouth. The doll raised its head and sank them into Setsura's neck.

Setsura recoiled. The mama-san seized his hand. The wrist severed cleanly, turned into a doll's appendage and broke away. The pretty thing leapt through the air, landing behind the two commando cops. The eerily glowing eyes of the two toys glared at Setsura from the top of the booth backrest.

The two cops jumped to their feet, astonished as their bodies froze in place. “
W-What the hell—
” gurgled Kusama. Given the pain and invisible wires, it was amazing he could speak at all.

“How long have you been hanging out with puppets?” Setsura asked. The utter lack of tension in his voice made the question all the more menacing. “Where is the puppet master?”

“
I—don't know—what you're talking—I—really—good bar with—
” Kusama frantically wrung the words out of his throat.

A silver light sliced through the blue gloom and cut through his devil wire. Setsura made for the door. The silver light came at him again, forked in midair, and continued on at the same speed until it crashed into the floor like a pair of Dobermans coming to the end of their leashes.

Setsura flung open the door. He stopped dead in his tracks. A gloomy blue light illuminated the narrow bar and tables. The interior of Eddie's Bar.