Chapter Two

Chapter Two

One particular group of tall buildings in Shinjuku had taken on a strange and abominable existence. This still-standing grove of skyscrapers was most famously identified by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex.

Right now was the O-magatoki, that bewitched time of the day that lasted from four o’clock to five-thirty in the afternoon. The shadows of the skyscrapers reached all the further and fell on the earth.

As a case in point, behind the Shinjuku NS building was the three and a half acre site of the former Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, soaring forty-eight stories into the sky. Its shadow fell across Chuo Park to the west and reached halfway across the Yonchome block in West Shinjuku.

The sun setting in the west threw shadows across buildings further to the west—impossible anywhere but here.

The air was thick with sprites and miasmas playing practical jokes on Mother Nature, altogether befitting to the Shinjuku dusk. If they could do that, what else might they have up their sleeves?

This was the time of day when pedestrians quickened their pace. Here and there came the sound of shutters closing and doors locking. The old and established shops run by grumpy and stubborn old men were no exception.

Panicked shouts rent the air, probably sightseers who hadn’t bothered to read the fine print in the Shinjuku Tourist Association’s indemnity clause. Now they had no choice at this point but to fork over a chunk of money and seek refuge in the closest shop or home—with only five minutes or so to conclude negotiations.

Any longer and they’d stand a good chance of being robbed blind or else suffer a worse fate.

The hems of his black slicker fluttering in the wind, Setsura Aki got home exactly three minutes after every other house in the neighborhood had battened down the hatches. The marquee on which the name of the establishment was written in the old cursive kanji style—Aki Senbei—shook as he brought down the shutters with a bang.

In a corner of Yonchome in West Shinjuku, Mina Chiaki, the secretary for the Aki Detective Agency, said with a smile, “Nick of time. Though I suppose you would have been fine even if you didn’t race home in time. There’s always a room for you at the Hilton, double bed.”

“Hard to believe such a pretty face can say such things,” Setsura said, lightly rubbing his hands together.

Around twenty, as capable as she was shapely (which was to say, very), she’d hit him with her stinging rejoinders a mere two hours after he hired her. The patter hadn’t abated since.

“How many do you think will buy it today?”

Avoiding the pointed look directed at him, Setsura brought his face up to the peephole and opened the iris. Somewhere in the house, the HVAC system kicked on.

“Well, looks like two are going down outside the White Tiger Sushi Emporium. Seems the owner’s going to take pity on them, but only because he’s a greedy SOB. If they’re lucky, he’ll settle for what’s in their wallets.”

Checking to make sure the bald man had dragged the two sightseers inside the shop, Setsura snapped the fisheye lens closed.

The temperature inside the house was maintained at sixty-five degrees. But outside, in the shadow of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex, the temperature could be expected to plunge to zero and colder.

From four o’clock in the afternoon to five-thirty, the long shadows of the buildings fell on Setsura’s house and the rest of the neighborhood. In the span of five minutes, the temperature sank to ten below.

When the morning broke, the same thing happened in the blocks opposite. This was no explicable weather pattern, but (it was theorized) a chemical change wrought in the air by a species of ghostly miasma that lingered there in the city center.

In any case, during those hours of the day where the shadows fell, the man-eating dogs and carnivorous rats kept their distance as well. The mortality rate had been kept to zero for the past several years. Those who did freeze to death were already suffering from some unknown debilitating condition unrelated to the temperature of the air.

Get caught for five minutes in the shadows and a man could be revived; ten minutes and it’d take a good six months of rehabilitation; twenty minutes and the mental and physical scars from frostbite were permanent; thirty minutes and the odds of recovery were slim to none.

This strange phenomenon, confined to this part of Shinjuku, was known as the “Government Freezer.”

“How did work go?” Mina asked in a singsong voice.

Mina had the kind of finely-formed features that would make any man or woman take a second and a third look, easily mistaken for those belonging to the top fashion models. And yet in terms of simple aesthetics, it did not best those of her employer.

“It went,” Setsura said with a nod. “I just came from the hospital. A nasty yakuza injected this girl with an aphrodisiac. It’s going to take some serious treatment to overcome. A bunch of chelation treatments and she should be able to resume a normal life.”

“You mean you took her to see Doctor Mephisto?”

“The same.”

A flicker of concern showed on Mina’s Noh mask of a face. Only Setsura and their close friends could grasp the ominous nature of such a reaction. The smile on her employer’s face suggested he was amused by this reaction. He turned to a glass case on his left and opened the top.

“No eating the merchandise,” she said, her hand reaching to his mouth.

He bit into the hard-baked, five-inch wafer with a dry, crunching sound.

“No problem. I’ll pay up. That’d be, uh—”

The price tag on the case said “Eighty yen each.” The calligraphy used on the tag had a magical quality that drew the attention of customers who cared little for the art.

He took silver and copper coins from a black leather coin purse and tossed them into the register behind the display case.

The fifteen foot by fifteen foot shop interior housed two rows of glass cases, each sectioned into thirds, and four glass jars on the shelves behind them. Including the cash register and checkout counter, there wasn’t much room left to maneuver.

Considering the “work” he’d just been up to, it was almost unimaginable that he’d come home to a little place like this. And yet this was one of Shinjuku’s venerable old shops.

It wasn’t listed in the visitor’s brochures distributed by the ward government or in handbooks published outside the ward, such as the Shinjuku Tourist Guide and Shinjuku Register of Historical Places. Nevertheless, they had a solid base of customers who appreciated the taste of homemade senbei.

The shop had been established on the fourteenth of September, the day after the Devil Quake. This was its fifteenth year. That made it the oldest shop in Demon City. But including the time it’d been in business before the Devil Quake, the total came to a century and a half.

“Any new jobs?” Setsura asked, crunching on the senbei as he stepped up from the shop to a small, six-tatami mat room.

“None presently,” said Mina. She raised the small, Japanese-style teapot and filled a cup with a pale green stream.

She’d just brewed it in the kitchen nook off to the left. There was, to be sure, the standard electric teapot. But the young proprietor would only drink fresh-brewed tea made the old-fashioned way, and the cool young secretary didn’t complain. It was all about harmony in the workplace.

Mina, on the other hand, had between her lips a long straw, the other end of which was immersed in a glistening tall glass of orange juice. Hard to say which drink was more appropriate for the month of June in a place like this.

“No jobs, but a few bits of interesting information.”

“Oh?” His voice welled up as languidly as the steam rising from the teacup.

“Something’s afoot in the upper ranks of Kurusu Real Estate. Seems the Munakata Brothers are on the move.”

“The Scorpion and the Adder, eh? If something’s afoot, the most likely target would be me.”

“Nothing’s been confirmed.”

“Well, if they’re the ones I’m up against, I won’t have to worry about RPGs and lasers and the like. Or the shop getting burned to the ground.”

“And you shouldn’t have to worry about me either, right?”

“Sorry, but starting tomorrow would be a good time to take a holiday.”

“No way. We’re hardly breaking even this month as is.”

“If you got kidnapped, there’d be no telling when the cavalry would arrive.”

Mina stared at her orange juice. “I’ll camp out here, then. Permission to break out the heavy artillery?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Setsura sipped at his tea. Here in this peaceful little living room, the talk was all about mobsters and militias. “Anybody else?”

“I can’t say for sure, but the Shiragi Syndicate and Sanbo Group are mobilizing. The Shiragis seem to be using their own underlings. The Sanbo Group has the word out to the freelancers. That much I have confirmed.”

“Oh, good grief.”

He reached into a nearby bowl of Shinagawa maki and popped two or three into his mouth. The movement of his hand was as refined as the senbei.

The three gangs Mina had mentioned were generally considered the best of the two or three hundred headquartered in Shinjuku, hence his exasperated tone of voice.

“After this, I’m going to have to start checking to see if the grandma at the newsstand is really her.”

“Artificial skin really is getting that difficult to tell from the real thing,” Mina coolly and precisely pointed out. “Besides, in this city, just because a person is old doesn’t mean there’s anything normal about them. Watch your step.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Setsura said, staring up at the ceiling.

Mina glanced toward the genkan. The allure of such a well-proportioned face could not be exaggerated, the kind that made women mull over the possibilities, and any man but a saint seriously consider becoming a switch-hitter.

“A car?” Setsura asked.

Mina nodded. Though how she knew that wasn’t immediately obvious. The sound outside was no louder than wind fluttering through the leaves of a tree.

“Arriving at this time of day, they gotta be chemically enhanced or cyborgs.”

“Six of one, half dozen of the other, if you’re who they’re after. I don’t see any simple solutions in store.”

“You’re telling me.”

Setsura drained his teacup and grimaced. Too hot. But that countenance of his didn’t lose any of its cool.

The four men were on edge. As seasoned pros, they had full confidence in their own abilities, and an inkling of what their foe had to offer as well. Though they hadn’t tangled with him before, they’d all heard the rumors. Even in this city, those rumors stretched credibility. And yet while pouring scorn upon them, these men couldn’t shake that sense of unease, the cold chill that ran down their backs whenever somebody mentioned his name.

Still, dealing with him should be a piece of cake.

Their weapons this evening told the tale. They carried recoil-less .44 auto Magnums. They had Uzi submachine guns loaded with 2.5 mm exploding rounds or 12 gauge Winchester auto shotguns slung at the hips of their Arctic combat suits. Two of them had hand grenades and incendiaries pinned to their flak jackets. The weapons were all lubricated with synthetic oil good to minus sixty degrees Celsius.

More than enough firepower to eliminate most targets. And to literally clean up afterwards, the last man in the detail held a long, thin nozzle. The other end connected to a canister on his waist. The burning mixture of high pressure oxygen and nitromethane gas could shoot out six hundred feet at six thousand degrees, reducing anything in its path to cinders.

Were-humans using shape-shifting drugs that turned them into bears or tigers couldn’t withstand such a blast.

The eyes in the middle of their faces, covered by a mask and goggles, didn’t brim with the tenacity of the hunter, nor even that of a killer, but rather with an eerie mechanical vibe.

But they hadn’t made it a dozen feet from the car when they began having second thoughts. The Arctic combat suits, including a thermal layer that would generate heat from any kind of pressure or movement, were guaranteed to hold up in the shade of the “Government Freezer.” But that didn’t extend to whatever was inside them.

While all these measures kept the epidermis warm, the cold seeped into the marrow of their bones. Unluckily for them, none of them had actually experienced this environment before. And the bad luck didn’t end there. A dozen feet in front of the shop, a shadow floated down from the sky like a bird of death and alit on the ground.

Confronted by both the unexpected appearance and beauty of the target they were after, these seasoned pros momentarily forgot why they were there and failed to pull the trigger.

Lowering his arms as if to bat down the flare of his slicker, Setsura Aki turned to face the assassins. He said, as if greeting colleagues at a business convention, “You’re from the Shiragi Syndicate, I take it?”

Their white breath clouded the air. Behind the goggles, their eyes wavered.

“My secretary filled me in on the details, though it’s not exactly news to me. Tonomura’s got guts, I’ll give him that. I didn’t think he was this reckless, though.”

Tonomura, the man who’d ordered the hit. His men stood there as if sincerely interested in everything Setsura had to say before opening fire.

“That’d make you the best of his black ops squad, meaning you take your orders directly from him. So I’ll ask you—did somebody recently pay Tonomura a visit?”

Setsura turned his eyes to the second man on his left, holding the Winchester shotgun. “How about you?”

Like he was answering the plea of his prey on the verge of death, the man said in a gravelly voice, “I—don’t know—really—”

“Next! And you?”

The man on the far left sported a ghastly white face. “This morning—a guy arrived—the secretary told me—that’s all—I know—”

Setsura nodded, apparently taking them at their word. “What sort of person was this guy?”

Like a teacher quizzing his students. Or more like the students quizzing their teachers. And seemingly equally unaware of how the tables had turned, the murderers’ mouths again moved.

“Twenty or so—pale—thin—a mole next to his mouth—”

Setsura’s reaction was a flicker in the depths of those endless dark eyes. “Fifteen years,” he murmured. His voice sounded no less far away. “This game of hide and go seek has gone on way too long. There’s hardly enough time to tie up all the loose ends. We’re really going to have to shutter the business for a while.”

He cast a glance at the men. They stood there like statues. “Disposing of you like this would hardly tax my wiles. I’ll give you a fair shot. I’m going to take the customary ten paces down this street. Ten paces. After that, feel free to fire away. Or not. Whether I turn around. Or not. You’ll be able to move soon enough.”

With that, he turned his back to them and started walking. At the same time, the binding cords immobilizing them dissolved away. Mutual glances of disbelief gave way to white-hot anger coursing through their limbs to their trigger fingers.

Setsura hadn’t gone five steps.

But their fingers didn’t move. That something in the cold had seeped down to the bone and muscle. They’d spent too much time in the shade.

They all closed their eyes. Not out of fear. They entered a state of autohypnosis, the mind separated from the body. No longer under the conscious control of the shooter, the finger pressed the trigger by sheer force.

Despite a caliber of 2.5 mm, the high explosive and fuses meant the lead projectiles would penetrate the body before exploding, leaving a hole behind the size of a cat’s paw. The muscles, bones and organs shattered, the body bent back, a fusillade of buckshot came next.

The inertia recoil auto shotgun spat out a stream of double-ought buckshot, nine pellets per shell, shredding the flesh like a torn rag. Any vestiges of humanity still left were soon devoured by the six thousand degrees of fire.

And they all missed.

The lines of fire split the air, scorched the asphalt, and lit up the empty sky. The target wasn’t even twenty feet away. Looking down at their hands, as if trying to ascertain the cause of the ineffectual assault, the black angel of death in front of them turned around.

With that same comely countenance. But the face of another.

“No. I said ten paces. You may execute your own penalties.”

He raised his right hand. The five fingers spread out. Like a maestro conducting a string ensemble of death, the guns of his assailants again spat fire.

At each other.

Torsos cut in two by the exploding rounds, heads blown apart by the shotgun, and turned into flaming scarecrows—these were the assassins. The blood and flesh and smoke and flame danced along the cruel streets while Setsura Aki stared up at the sky, like a fresh-faced college student contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

The “Government Freezer” knew as well that this young man was an exception to its rules. He alone couldn’t be frozen.