Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (10 page)

Why her—
he felt a painful twinge in his chest. He gently pushed Yuko away. “Thanks. If I ever make it back here, I'll be sure to—”

He didn't finish the sentence.

With a dull
whoosh
, what looked like a plastic bag fell onto Asura's hilt. It'd been flung across the room. Kyoya reached for Asura, propped up next to him, taking in the situation before him.

Except there should be no one else in the place, let alone sitting at the table opposite them. Their eyes all focused on that dimly-lit corner of the room. A shadow floated there at the table.

Asura's sheath fell to the floor. This time, Kyoya assumed a true fighting stance. He didn't sense magic in the air, so he didn't think this the doings of the Sorcerer. Except that anything or anybody that could steal into this bar without him noticing could be no ordinary customer.

The shadow slowly turned towards them. The pale face of a young man, his long forelocks hanging down around his face. The dim lighting made his cheeks appear drawn and narrow. He looked around twenty. A black cape covered him down to his ankles. His turtleneck and slacks were black as well. Together with his somehow refined countenance this created the image of an elegant mage.

“Who are you? When did you come in here?” The bartender's voice trembled, clearly suspecting him to be a demon.

“I am Doctor Mephisto,” the shadow answered readily. “I was passing by. The door was open. So I came in. Excuse me for intruding, but I happened to overhear the entirety of your conversation.”

Aside from Kyoya, the five gasped. They were more startled than when Kyoya removed the tattooed letter. The name seemed to strike a bell.

Kyoya asked, not taking his eyes off the man, “Barkeep, who is this highfalutin' Dracula? Looks Japanese, but that's no Japanese name.”

“Word is, the same man who took on a bad-ass gang of cyborgs in Kabuki-cho. They called themselves the
Freaks
, as I recall. He wiped them out single-handedly. Can't vouch for him myself, but in a dangerous world, his is a name that carries a lot of weight.”

There was a touch of awe in the bartender's voice.

“Huh. A big man at his age. Well, if he pipes down and doesn't get in my way, then I've got no problem with him taking up space. We've got ourselves a bit of a situation here.”

He was about to toss back the bag when Mephisto stopped him. “You had better hold onto that. A token of our new friendship.”

“You've got weird tastes. A box of Yoneya
yokan
jellies would be more my thing.”

“That is a shape-shifting mask, made from specially-engineered macromolecule polymers. Put it on and look at the person you wish to become, and in five seconds it will adapt its shape to match. I can't speak to the matter with great precision, but even with switching ownership of the letter, your foes should have no trouble telling the difference between boys and girls.”

Kyoya looked back at Mephisto, and then at his watch. It was five before three. “What are you giving me this thing for? Don't count on getting it back.”

The silhouette laughed silently. “My, aren't you the gallant one when the suffering of a lady is concerned. I do not know what your purposes are, though it seems you wish to infiltrate a den of vipers. I doubt that will happen if you reveal your true nature here. They would still go after her. You'd best don the mask. It will take care of the rest.”

Kyoya hadn't the slightest idea how trustworthy this chap was, but had to come to a decision. “I'll take you up on that.”

He turned and drew the mask over his head and looked at Yuko. Aside from eyeholes, there wasn't a mouth or nose. But it affixed itself to his face like a living thing. In a flash, it assumed Yuko's colors and contours.

“Even the hair is the same!” Susumu blurted out. In less than thirty seconds, Yuko's face at least had a twin.

“Till we meet again,” came a quiet farewell from the door.

They all turned. A gust of September wind swirled in as the door opened and closed. The black-clad young man vanished into the night.

“That was an odd one,” Kyoya said to himself. “Wouldn't mind running into him again.”

In his ear, he heard the sound of hooves. Yuko hugged her arms across her chest. More than the outside breeze, the chilling demonic miasma filled the bar.

“Sounds like they're on their way. We'll wait here. You'd better lay low for now.”

The face was that of a pretty girl, but the utterly incongruous voice was that of a young warrior looking to throw down with a very bad lot.

The metronomic
clop clop clop
of the hooves and creak of the wagon wheels came to a stop in front of the bar. Four pairs of eyes focused on the door. Yuko and Susumu had retreated deeper inside.

What sort of creature would present itself? The door didn't open, but in
it
came. From Kyoya's upper arm directly to his brain:
Open the door and come out. You have been chosen as the tribute to be offered up in the rite. Resistance is useless
.

Not a voice, but pure thought. And not the thoughts of anything in this world. No sooner had they stolen into his head but Kyoya felt their repressing presence eating away at his will.

No matter how firm his spirit and mighty his resolve, a human being could do nothing in the face of the dictates of the Demon Realm but obey—like a marionette dangling from the devil's string—that was how simultaneously terrifying and numbing these thoughts were.

Even as he checked their progress within the walls of his own intention, Kyoya could not help but be amazed. Perhaps the letter executed a kind of mind-control circuitry. A clever trick. Human beings could be induced to flip out and go on mad killing sprees or commit suicide upon receipt of such a “letter.” Who was to say such things hadn't happened in the past?

The beckoning call intensified. If he was tardy, they might get suspicious. Kyoya tucked Asura back into its sheath and held it against his chest and set off with a pigeon-toed gait. He'd left his day pack in the back. All he had in his pocket was his wallet. He had to travel light. Yuko's jacket was on the tight side, leaving not much room for anything else.

“Wait a second,” said Susumu. Kyoya turned around and he continued, “You going? At least tell us your name.”

“Oh, please,” he said in a woman's voice. “I'm Yuko.”

“Thank you,” Susumu said, a bit confused by his appearance but meaning it from the heart. “Be sure to make it back in one piece.”

“Of course.” And he giggled daintily.

“Hope to see you again,” came the bartender's heartfelt voice.

With a final wave, Kyoya—wearing Yuko's face—opened the door and left. The magical miasmas mingled with the wind and danced down the street. Just like the stories said, a wagon pulled by black horses was waiting. It wasn't a funeral wagon but a fashionable nineteenth-century European model called a
barouche
, an open-topped coach drawn by a pair of horses.

Not that Kyoya would be familiar with that degree of detail. What he did know was that the driver perched high on the coachman's seat was casting off the ghostly wind. Though his monk's garb and hood lent him a human appearance, there was no question that this was a demon.

As Kyoya's eyes adapted to the dark, the pale hands holding the reins took on a light of their own. The reins were looped around the bridles of the rail-thin horses, a demon species that stood there not moving, not breathing.

He tottered a bit on purpose as he approached the carriage, like a reed being tugged back and forth in the breeze.

“Yuko Sano?” asked the coachman, not turning to look. His voice was low and cold, devoid of humanity.

Kyoya nodded.

Without a sound, the door of the barouche opened and a small step descended.

“Wait,” ordered the coachman, as Kyoya was about to step into the carriage. At some point he'd directed his attention down at him. “Your obedience is admirable, but what is that you have in your arms? You appear different from before.”

Kyoya had assumed that the coachman would not have set eyes on Yuko before. Still, he had considered this possibility as well. He said in a teary voice, “My father's prized wooden sword. I do not know what fate awaits me, but with this in hand, I will face it.”

With these words, he tilted his sad face at an angle visible to the coachman. The coachman's eyes glowed out of the black depths of the hood, but couldn't discern any differences in the faces, identical as two peas in a pod.

“Well, however you may pretend otherwise, human weapons mean nothing in our domain.” He cackled and reoriented his gaze forward again. He said nothing about discarding Asura. Kyoya climbed in. The barouche raced off in a gust of wind.

As good as his night vision was, darting through the mountains of rubble, Kyoya couldn't tell where they were going or how fast they were getting there. After twenty minutes, the barouche stopped before an impressively tall building. The characters on the facade spelled out Big Box, the name of a once-popular Shinjuku department store. Beneath the facade, the giant mural of a man running had crumpled down around his chest.

“Go down the stairs in the lobby to the lower level.”

“Yes, yes. You don't have to be so bossy about it.”

He stepped down from the carriage. The coachman shook the reins and galloped off.

“Idiot. What's he gonna do if I run off right now?”

The question was soon answered. The letter on his right arm again began to exert control over his mind, urging him through the entranceway—the doors long ago destroyed—and inside the building.

The expansive lobby was filled with piles of debris that had peeled off the walls and ceiling. Kyoya didn't sense any living creatures there, but he soon understood that this was one of the Sorcerer's hiding places.

The unearthly aura about the place was different. Shuttered in darkness, the lobby was filled with voices of anguish and damnation that brought to mind the curses of vengeful ghosts writhing in a sea of blood.

A normal human without a heightened sixth sense would still feel that chill running down the spine, and keel over as the blood fled the brain in fear. Kyoya could clearly hear the lamentations of the dead that suffused these dark quarters, welling out from the stairwells to the basement levels like desperate souls scrambling from a sinking ship.

The murdered girls and those who came to save them, sealed up here by the power of magic. He had come to set them free.

Ruled over by the forces of the unknown, and maintaining the pretense of being a terrified girl, Kyoya descended the stairs. At the bottom was a damp corridor. Following the letter's “instructions,” he arrived at a big room.

The strong smell of blood struck his nostrils.

In better times, the room had been a cafeteria. Along the walls opposite the entrance were counters for serving food. In the middle of the room was enshrined a black altar. Next to it, three stands holding black wax candles bathed the room in a dim, flickering glow.

Manacles and shackles hung from the wall on the right, evidence that the room also served as a torture chamber. The wall on the left showed the marks of a fresh plaster finish. The floor was stained red from blood.

Here the anguished voices rose nearly to a scream.

The letter propelled him toward the right-hand wall. The intent must be to secure him with the restraints. But an extra set of hands was necessary. He didn't know if the Sorcerer himself would make an appearance, but somebody would have to show up to get the job done. At that point, the fight would begin.

Kyoya walked over and stood with his back against the wall. In the next moment, the shackles and manacles moved of their own accord, snaking out and affixing his feet to the floor and yanking his hands over his head.

“Ouch!”

Despite the surprise attack and raising a throaty shriek, the enemy did not appear. His arms and legs were firmly pinioned and immobilized. A first-rate blunder on his part. Asura tumbled to the floor.

He jerked his limbs. The chains didn't budge. The magical forces at play were as strong as an industrial electromagnet. Kyoya bit his lip.
Shit, this is dangerous
.

A cold, dark gust of wind. The candle flames wavered. A black-robed man holding a long sword strode into the room. He was tall and lean. More than his chiseled Middle Eastern features, what caught Kyoya's attention were his crimson eyes gleaming redder and brighter than the candle flames.

Eyes devoid of pupils. This was the “Hell Eye,” the mark of those who had sold their souls to the Demon Realm and parted permanently with their humanity.

The Sorcerer Rebi Ra.

It was a toss up between
At last!
and
Bloody hell!
Within three hours of entering Shinjuku, Kyoya Izayoi had met the man he was after, though he could hardly call his present situation “lucky.”