Chapter One

Chapter One

Among these citizens of Shinjuku—now turned into vampires—one must have been an arms merchant in his previous life. The RPG hit the tail rotor.

“I’m losing control!” the pilot shouted, though sounding to Kajiwara like he was very far away. “We’ve got to land!”

A good thing, then, that they were already descending. The aircraft spun a full three-sixty and dropped thirty feet vertically to the roadway. Just as the landing gear made contact, retrorockets on the undercarriage cushioned the impact. Nonetheless, the crew felt the shock from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads.

“Guns won’t do much good! Use your knives. Aim for the heart!”

Giving no indication whether he comprehended Kajiwara’s instructions, one of the guards staggered to the door and threw it open. The night wind carried on it the scent of blood.

“Rescue the woman and call Totsuka Station for backup!”

“Roger that!”

Five men carrying assault rifles and shotguns spread out on the pavement and rushed the wall of people twenty to thirty feet away from them.

There were in an intersection in front of a train station. Behind the crowd were the towering outlines of the big box department store in Takada no Baba. The moon was bright overhead.

The vanguard punched through the line. Dodging the growling creatures that came at them, knocking the others out of the way with the butts of their rifles, the five made it to the ring of vampires surrounding the pretty woman.

The vampires turned as one.

An ordinary looking bunch. During the day, they would have mixed in undetected with the city’s pedestrian traffic. Glad-handing salesmen with their attaché cases, housewives carrying grocery bags, high school students wearing their starched uniforms, skinheads in leather jackets—now they bared their fangs and charged.

“Fire!” the squad leader called out.

The reports of the rifles and shotguns drowned out his voice. The volley of gunfire knocked a woman on her backside. More retreated. Two took the full force of the blast of lead and flew backwards through the air. The five spilled through the gap and ran up to the woman, who had retreated to the cover of the building.

The soldiers looked at her in disbelief.

It wasn’t the gaudy combination of the pink flowery ribbons and the kaleidoscopic shawl and the puffy red skirt. Or the century-old European revivalist style. But the plump, ill-tempered woman inside those clothes glaring back at them.

“What are you looking at?” the thick lips demanded.

“We’re here to rescue you,” said the squad leader, coming to his senses. “This way.”

He took her hand and started toward the station. But only her hand moved.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Inside the station. Hurry.”

“What a bother. I don’t feel like it.”

The squad leader gaped at her. The fat brown-haired and blue-eyed foreigner didn’t realize the gravity of the situation.

“Lieutenant!” called out one of his men. He was trying to pick up the woman’s suitcase. “I can’t lift the damn thing!”

“Idiot,” he clucked to himself. He grabbed the handle and lifted with all his might. It felt like a ton of lead. He couldn’t budge it at all. Who the hell was this woman?

A shotgun roared nearby. They were surrounded two and three deep. Behind them was the wall of the building and the steel shutters. The human animals pressed forward with their glistening fangs.

The ones shot point-blank got to their feet as if nothing had happened. The half-missing faces flashed clownish smiles. Their remaining eyes shone with a fiery light. Their numbers seemed to be growing by the moment.

The squad leader reached for something on his ballistic vest. No matter how bad-ass the monster, three thousand degrees would turn it to charcoal. But he was out of options and that was just something he’d have to live with.

“Get back!” he yelled, and pulled the incendiary grenade from the clasp.

A plump hand closed over his wrist. “Hold on. No need to get all worked up like that.”

Without waiting for his reply, she lifted up the suitcase as if it was filled with air. A shadow sprang at them. The suitcase collided with the side of his face, a roundhouse to the chin, and threw the shadow backwards.

The vampires ceased advancing. The suitcase was a bigger deterrent than assault rifles and shotguns. She marched forward, holding up a hand to wave off the rest of the guardsmen. “You’d better stay back. It’s dangerous.”

Only the guardsmen faltered. The eyes of this gang of urban vampires cast off blood-red glows as they once again pressed forward.

“You are a stubborn lot.” The fat lady bent over to unlock the lid of the suitcase. It had a combination lock. “Heh, heh. Take a look at this.”

The fearless expression she’d showed the vampires faded from her face. She looked at the squad leader, frowned to herself and said, “What the hell was the combination again?”

“They’re surrounded. They can’t get out!” Kajiwara stared out the window of the helicopter and shouted, “Let’s do something!” He reached into his pocket and said to the remaining guards, “Open the door. I’m going.”

“You can’t, Mr. Mayor. It’s too dangerous! Not with those bastards out there. Backup should be arriving from Totsuka Station any moment!”

“We can’t wait that long. Hey, cameraman, can you still operate that thing?”

“No problem!” the cameraman promised. He’d whacked his head during the emergency landing and was still a little woozy. “You going out there yourself? Damn, no way I’m missing that shot!”

“Well, keep the camera on me. Open it up!”

The perilous intel from the Pentagon vanished from Kajiwara’s mind. When it came to the pursuit of public honors, he would always work the situation so as to magnify his excellence as a public servant.

The door slid open. The fanged faces formed a solid wall before him.

“Get away!”

For Kajiwara, this was a once in a lifetime moment on the stage. Like the lion bowing to the lion tamer’s whip, the blood-lusting voting public slunk back. High over his head, the mayor held a somewhat shriveled peach.

As he descended from the helicopter, Kajiwara felt himself hesitate. The vampires mobbed him like a movie star, but it wasn’t his autograph they were after. This was the first time he’d felt such a looming, inescapable threat.

“Fucking A,” the mayor grumbled to himself, an expletive very much unlike him, and stepped onto the ground.

With their eyes on the vampires, the cameraman and guardsman followed after him.

“You got that?” Kajiwara asked over his shoulder.

“Got it!”

“Good. Now get back on!”

“What?”

“Get on board and haul me up on my signal!”

Confirming that the two had returned to the helicopter, Kajiwara scowled at the vampires around him. He grinned, leaned forward, then reared back, his throwing arm tracing an arc through the air.

The cameraman figured it out first. An image rose to his mind from his files on Kajiwara. Many decades ago, Yoshitake Kajiwara had pitched for Shinjuku High School at the Koshien National Baseball Championships.

The summer sun slanted off the sweep of his hand. A roar rose from the crowds in the stands. Kajiwara was going to make that peach the pitch of a lifetime.

In that instant, the earth shook. Everybody there turned his attention across the crowded street. The cordon grew larger in circumference. A dark brown lump rose up from the ground. It was the trunk of a giant tree.

A spider web of cracks branched out through the sidewalk as the fat roots reached out, groaning like some bellowing beast stretching its limbs.

Kajiwara and all the vampires stared dumbfounded as black lines reached out into empty air. The bottoms of the lines were dotted with bright plump spheres.

“Aiiyee!” A very unladylike shriek split the air. The tree shook. The heavily-laden branches rained the fruit down on the heads of the demons.

Hundreds of peaches.

Fewer screams than might be expected. Such was the excruciating assault on their senses that they fell wordlessly to the ground and lay there spasming and twitching.

The only ones still running away barely had breath to shout. And most of their cries soon disappeared. The fallen peaches did not splatter, but ran down the ruts and slopes in the asphalt caused by the erupting roots, spreading out in all four directions. All it took was one to touch a fleeing heel.

Several rolled up to where Kajiwara was standing stock still. He reached down and picked one up. The vampires around him were already taking flight.

The feast the demons planned for this night had turned into a complete bust. From the direction of Waseda University came the howl of police sirens. The party was definitely over. The vampires still unscathed turned to the shadows and vanished into the night.

The patrol cars showed up a minute later to corral the vampires who remained. And they lay there, staring up at the soaring peach tree until they were escorted one by one to the paddy wagons. Nobody resisted arrest. It was more likely the cops who instinctively resisted touching them.

With a scornful glance at all the hubbub, the pudgy silhouette trudged off toward Waseda University.

“Wait there a minute!” Kajiwara called out.

“What?” she answered, turning around. It was unlikely she could turn her head without her whole body coming along.

The dents and creases in her almost round body suggested to Kajiwara that she was wearing some sort of industrial-strength corset.

“Didn’t your mother tell you not to stare?”

“Ah, no, um—I’m Kajiwara, the ward mayor.”

Her doughy face split into a broad smile. “Hoh, the head honcho himself.”

“Well, not really—”

Before he could finish, she’d seized his hands in her own. A pudgy sensation he’d never quite felt before, like shaking hands with a damp baseball mitt.

“I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Her accent struck a familiar chord. It took him a moment to figure out where he’d heard it before. “Are you from the Czech Republic?”

“I am.”

“Your Japanese is very good. Where are you headed?”

“To my sister’s place.”

Shaking his head to clear his mind of the image of an even fatter sibling, Kajiwara said, “Your dress, the peach tree—both were a big surprise. Thank you for coming to the rescue.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Hoh. It was nothing.”

Kajiwara turned away, but couldn’t suppress that sinking feeling.

She jutted her worm of a finger in his face. “Let’s just say you owe me. One day I’ll come to collect.”

The sinister glee in her voice and the wicked look in her eyes were already making Kajiwara regret his earlier words. Now was a good time to change the subject.

“Excuse me, but would you be headed for Magic Town?”

“Bingo.” She smiled again. “My sister lives there. I’ll be freeloading off of her for the time being.”

Kajiwara tried not to imagine what that was all about. He looked up at the peach tree and said, “That was an impressive display of magic. I would certainly like to share the credit, if you could tell me your name.”

The woman laughed. “That was no big deal as far as magic goes. I only planted the seeds. My name is Tonbeau.”

“Tonbeau-san?”

“Yes. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” With a grunt and a heave-ho, she turned and continued on her way.

For reasons he didn’t understand himself, Kajiwara felt compelled to call after her, “Hold on. The fact of the matter is, I was on my way to Magic Town too. I might as well accompany you to your sister’s place.”

“A champion idea!” she said, whirling about with unexpected vigor. The suitcase groaned.

“Hey, you there,” Kajiwara said to the nearest guardsman. He asked the woman, “What would be the name of your sister?”

“Galeen.”

Kajiwara stared back at her.

“You haven’t heard of her? Well, she is the plain and retiring type. Goes by Galeen Nuvenberg.”