Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 2 (17 page)

“I have nothing but admiration for such fighting spirits. But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. No need for such extraordinary measures in order to take a bath, is there? I will not force you to do anything, and shall communicate whatever plans or schemes I have on my mind to you forthrightly.”

“And what would those be?”

“How about you enjoy that bath first? That glow you see around the skylight is moonlight. It will stay like that twenty-four seven. The perfect environment for a person like you, wouldn't you say? To be sure, you will be limited to this office area, and I cannot do much about the ambience or interior decor.”

Ryuuki looked up at Mephisto. The fierce glare in his eye cast invisible sparks into the air. “I shall take you up on your offer.”

“Then you are as wise a general as you are brave. Well, then—”

Mephisto reached inside his cape with both hands. He presented his right hand. Inside his fist were several straight, gleaming objects. He opened his hand. They flew into the air and assembled themselves into the skeleton of a golden bat. It alighted on Ryuuki's shoulder and brought its face close to the nape of his neck.

Ping!
came a pleasant, chime-like sound. Mephisto said, “A bat that bites a vampire. What do you think of that?”

Ryuuki got unsteadily to his feet. Mephisto gestured toward the other end of the room with his alabaster arms. “The bathroom is there. Take all the time you need.”

The man tried to cut away the gloom. He tore it in half and in half again. Another half and another, over and over, mindlessly, to the point of madness. The darkness blanketing Demon City was total and complete. And so another half, and another—all that he needed right now.

He reached out with his arms and legs, stretching out on the dark floor. He was content as long as he had the space he needed. He was wearing a suit. Expensive, tailor-made. The price came to three months of his regular salary.

He hadn't suddenly become a spendthrift. It'd come with a package of mid-year
obon
gifts. The sender surely could not have imagined it ever being worn in a place like this, below the edge of darkness.

He opened his eyes. Realizing where he was, he began crawling across the ground like a centipede or lizard. When he got to the patio, his wife was waiting there in a kimono.

“Are you awake?”

The moonlight illuminated his wife's face, making it look even whiter and more beautiful and famished than usual. He brushed away the dirt and cobwebs and followed her into the kitchen.

Two of his children were seated at the table. The older daughter was in her second year in high school. The younger was in her first. Their parents thought them both very accomplished girls, capable of making it into Japan's Ivy Leagues.

Not that it mattered now. They served other purposes. They lived for their parents. Literally.

“Well,” he said, turning his burning eyes on them. “It is time to eat.”

The girls tensed up, each clapping a hand to her neck. “No, it hurts.” Compared to their mother and father, their faces were far more ashen.

Tears glistened in his older daughter's eyes. “Yeah, it really hurts. I don't want to anymore.”

“What are you mouthing off about?” Her mother pushed back her chair and stood up. Perhaps she was hungrier than he. Perhaps her temper was shorter.

The older daughter bolted from the table toward the living room. Her mother grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and yanked her backwards. The girl let out a scream. Her sister buried her face in her hands.

The mother sank her fangs into her daughter's neck. She shrieked. It must really hurt. There was no telling how many more times they could keep this up. After that, he wasn't sure how long they could preserve such delicious prey as his remaining son and daughter.

Frankly, he'd be fine with getting it over and done with and turning them in one fell swoop. His wife was the one who objected. He'd gotten tired of listening to her going on about wanting to taste their children's blood.

Mustering the minimally necessary amount of fatherly affection, he gently laid his hand on his son's shoulder. The child stiffened and tightly closed his eyes.

Tominori Nagai, Shinjuku's deputy mayor, settled down for breakfast.

Setsura woke with an aching throat. It wasn't a piercing pain. More like the dull ache that came with a minor strep infection. He didn't have a fever. Wondering if this was just his imagination, he brought his hand up to his neck and placed it over his artery.

A slight chill seeped into his fingertips. It was spreading, radiating from the two protuberances—he couldn't tell whether they were cold or not—the two bite marks. The surrounding flesh was swollen and tender.

He pulled his fingers away and got up. He was in the back office of Aki Detective Agency.

The morning light slowly crept across the old “
senbei
” futon—a comforter that had lost most of its stuffing and thus had come to resemble a
senbei
cracker—spread over the tatami mats. Most appropriate bedding for this young
senbei
shop owner.

Stepping into the shop, he saw that his part-timer had arrived. She still didn't know what exactly had gone on several days before—the battle between Ryuuki and Setsura in the back of the shop. She was only an eyewitness to the results. She'd accompanied him to the hospital and then came to work the next day as if nothing was amiss.

She was, after all, a citizen of Demon City.

“Good morning!” The cheer directed at him was rather forced.

“What's up?” Setsura asked, rubbing his neck.

“You're looking a bit gray. You were pretty green around the gills yesterday. But compared to today, you were the epitome of health.”

“Bad night.”

“Even for a bad night—” She didn't finish the thought, but gazed at him, her moist eyes tinged with peril. She swallowed hard and said, “Boss—maybe you should use a little rouge—”

“Give me a break. I'm not into that.”

“It'd put some color in your cheeks. Might even look a little sexy. Then again, touch up your lips and cheeks and, well, I don't think I could stand it.”

“Pull yourself together.” Setsura gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

The muscles beneath his hand twitched and she let loose a small, surprised shriek. A second later, her eyes returned to normal. “No. Sorry. I don't know why I did that.”

She looked stricken. Setsura smiled nonchalantly. “That's okay. How's the merchandise? Running short on anything?”

“Not at all. There's plenty on hand. We've got plenty to tide us over in any case. I made sure to put anything in short supply on backorder.”

“You're a life-saver.”

“Oh, we are short of the lightly-browned variety. You have to cook those yourself. We could be running out by noon.”

The prized product of Aki Senbei, made by the proprietor himself.

“Seems it's been that way for a while,” said the girl, glancing away from Setsura as he inspected the display cases with tired eyes. “How about we rebuild the lot next door and design it so people can watch you making them? It'd be a hit for sure. Do that and we'd move enough product to justify adding another three employees at least.”

“Oh, you'll handle everything fine by yourself.”

“Happy to hear that.” She crossed her arms across her ample breasts. “But I think that's what we've got to do to grow sales. Simply staying put with the same signage, living off our established reputation won't generate any excitement.”

“I didn't realize you were so ambitious.”

“I'm a businesswoman,” she boasted, throwing out her chest for emphasis. “I've been attending night school, planning how to take on a management role.”

“I'm impressed.” Setsura allowed himself a small smile.

“So you'll consider my idea?” she asked with undisguised zeal.

“Sure.”

“Great. I'm committed to seeing this thing through.”

“But we'll have to put the lightly browned
senbei
on hold for today. There are things I've got to get done.”

“Your customers won't be happy. I'm the one they end up complaining to.”

“Well, that's business for you. Stiff upper lip and all.”

The girl shrugged. “It's the middle of summer, so why are you wearing that black slicker?”

“I was born wearing it.”

Having finished checking out the merchandise, Setsura nodded and left. According to the clock in the office, it was a few minutes before nine o'clock in the morning.

The street was flooded with noise and light. The sound of shoes on pavement as the salarymen hurried off to work. The sound of shop shutters being opened. The hum of the bakery's high-voltage goblin bug zapper. The rumble of gasoline engines and the drone of hybrid gas-turbines.

Here and there people greeted each other. “Morning. Nice weather, isn't it? Where're you off to, dressed up like that?”

“The Hanazono Temple flea market. I'm hoping to catch up on the latest methods for exorcising evil spirits.”

“My boy's entrance exams are coming up. I'm hoping he can attend a summer school outside Shinjuku.”

Every sound, every word dripped with sweat. Despite the morning hour, the temperature was already in the nineties. And yet Setsura felt his body cooling down. Gooseflesh stood out on his skin. The chill seeped into his bones, down to the marrow.

He felt dizzy. He had to brace his legs to keep his balance. Only a dozen minutes had elapsed since he left the shop. If he only had to put up with the occasional fits of shivering, that'd be one thing. He was still feeling Ryuuki's
qi
like a fist in his gut.

Steeling himself, the sunlight battering him as if plunging through a raging waterfall, Setsura Aki slowly made his way back to the shop. He dodged the shopgirl, who reached up as if to feel his forehead for a fever, and staggered to the back office.

As soon as he stepped inside, the dizziness vanished. Walking down the hallway, the chills and shivering ceased. But reaching the office, his hand froze on the sliding screen door.

A nasty electronic shock ran down his arm. The tatami mats in the office glowed with sunlight. He'd been bitten by one of Shuuran's dolls. The scars in his throat were like a pair of nails driven into the skin. However—

“What a bloody pain in the neck,” he grumbled to himself. As nonchalant as he was handsome, he permitted himself no air of resignation or despair.

“Boss—” came the shopgirl's voice behind him. She sounded nervous.

“What's up?”

“I forgot to ask you. Can I take tomorrow off?”

“No problem. Why?”

“I've got a—date.”

“Hmm. And tomorrow's not Sunday.” He asked, “A fellow college student?”

“No. He works for the city.”

“Ah. So he's a real salaryman.”

“Yeah, I think.”

“I understand. Sure, we'll call it a paid holiday.”

“Thanks! That really helps.” She turned her attention to a customer entering the store. “
Come in!
” she called out in her lively shopgirl voice.

Setsura went into the office. He'd left Shuuran in Mephisto's care. Being bit by her doll had left him susceptible to her manipulations. Their battle in the vacant lot made that clear. As long as he was beyond the sound of her voice and the glow of her eyes, given the state of his wound, he should be beyond her remote control.

Just to be sure, he'd told Mephisto to keep her sedated with powerful non-hallucinatory narcotics, but there was no telling whether Mephisto would take his advice without knowing why. He had to come up with a Plan B, just in case.

Setsura wore a pair of sunglasses out of the house. He took the bus to the Shinjuku Station west terminal, where he transferred to a different line. No matter what manner of mass transit, the attention of the female passengers focused on his comely face and black coat.

Somebody wearing a coat in the middle of summer in
this
city wasn't all that out of the ordinary. But the way these women were reacting to him wasn't the same. Though he was accustomed to the entranced expressions, the colors in those moist eyes deepened similarly to his shopgirl's.

The color of desire.

The mechanical voice over the loudspeaker announced: “
Next stop Magic Town. Next stop Magic Town
.”

Feeling the sighs of regret at his back, Setsura got off the bus and set off at a brisk walk, tolerating the feverish chills seeping into his bones the best he could.

Located in the first block of the Takada no Baba neighborhood, Magic Town squatted there quietly beneath the bright sunlight. At this time of day, any angels or demons living there kept out of sight.

Belfries and overhanging gables adorned the stone houses and buildings. It was reminiscent of something out of the Middle Ages. The old wooden doors and windows were shuttered tight. The water coursing down the covered ditches on either side of the smooth cobblestone streets still ran clear.

Though witches and warlocks preferred the nighttime, others were awake and watching during the day. A certain
something
was there, obstructing the evil designs of the gangbangers, cat burglars, organized crime syndicates and intelligence agencies who entered this city block in search of forbidden mysteries. Its small eyes glittered from atop the dark alleyways and the weathered brick walls.