Chapter One

Chapter One

The plump lady arrived at the military hospital attached to the Defense Agency around noon. She had on a finely embroidered reddish-brown hooded blouse and a skirt and was carrying a staff that looked like a gnarled old branch.

The receiving nurse gave the medieval witch getup a long look. And then cooed at the sight of the delightfully cute golden-haired girl holding her left hand.

“Um, what can I do for you?”

Her voice grew gentle as well. Nevertheless, the old fat foreigner rapped on the counter with her cane and said in a gravelly voice, “Mayor Kajiwara. I assume you know him. The man in charge of Demon City Shinjuku. He flew off to the Defense Agency this morning and hasn’t returned. I was told to come here to see him.”

She said all this in a loud, put-out voice, attracting the attention of everybody in the lobby.

“So where is Mayor Kajiwara’s room? C’mon, Missy, or don’t you know?”

The receptionist stared blankly back at her. A blue spark of light reflected in her eyes. By the time it registered in her mind that the fat old lady had caused it, her thoughts had already bent to her will.

“Where, where, where?”

The security guards rushed over, astounded by the sight of the grandmotherly woman pounding on the counter. A few had sonic paralyzers at the ready.

“Lady, what are you doing?”

“Come with us.”

They seized her by the shoulders. Her staff moved in a blur. Only with an old woman’s strength, so it was no surprise that the security guards grabbed their wrists.

The one that hadn’t reached for his tranquilizer gun. “Stubborn old bitch.”

Just then, an ear-splitting sound echoed around the room. The fat lady struck her staff against the floor and said in an angry, shrill voice, “Shut up! And get back to work!”

The security guards gaped, but backing down wasn’t in their job description and they redoubled their efforts. Except that these men, supposedly in a towering rage, instead exchanged confused looks and slunk back to where they’d come from, having forgotten that the old woman was even there in the first place.

“My God, a bunch of weekend warriors think they can take an ordinary citizen for a fool, do they? These lapdogs should content themselves babysitting the muckety-mucks and helping themselves to crumbs from the table. Well, then—”

She stared unabashedly around her. Any of the patients who stared back quickly averted their eyes. The fat lady laughed heartily.

At the sound of the knock, the attending nurse thumbed the remote that operated the monitors. The twenty-one-inch screen displayed the scene just outside the door.

“What in the world?” The surprise in the exclamation was nevertheless gentle. She took her hand from the small semi-automatic on her hip and opened the door. “How may I help you?” she bent over and asked the golden-haired girl.

“Do you have one soul or two?” the girl asked.

“Huh?”

“Do you have one name or two? I understand. Sweet dreams.”

The nurse reached for her handgun. A delicate white hand restrained it, and with a small finger poked her between the eyes. The agent posing as a nurse collapsed. The doll girl supported her easily with her small body and entered the room.

Kajiwara was lying on the bed. The egg sat on the side table. The doll girl deposited the faux nurse on the sofa and approached the bed. Inside the white room, her purple satin dress, flaxen hair and deep blue eyes might arouse in a person’s mind memories of distant, foreign lands.

From the pocket of her dress she took a piece of dried root. Her body rose up, coming to a halt over his chest. His breathing was very even, as if he was floating too. She trailed the root across his mouth.

And then drove it into his left eye so deeply the point must have penetrated the eye socket and stabbed into his brain.

But no blood flowed. His body didn’t spasm with pain.

Kajiwara reached his arms and stretched and yawned. He opened his right eye. He recognized the doll girl and said, as if waking up invigorated from a pleasant night’s sleep, “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” the doll girl said courteously, though compared to her conversations with Setsura, her tone of voice was understandably a tad more formal.

The mayor closed his eye and searched his memories. With a nonplussed look he glanced at the doll girl and then turned his head, noticing the nurse.

“So I screwed up, it seems. What’s the time and date?”

The girl told him and the mayor relaxed a bit. “Good. I couldn’t afford to sleep the next two days away. Having seen the egg’s dream, the director must have reconsidered.”

“No,” the girl answered.

He peered dubiously at the small face. Following her gaze, disappointment clouded the mayor’s countenance. “The egg is here. If he accepted the meaning of the dream, he would want to destroy it. So the answer must be no.”

But his gloomy expression did not last long. He was responsible for the world’s most obstreperous child, forever in her terrible twos. He vaulted out of bed with a vigor that nearly sent the doll girl flying. “This will not do. Not in Shinjuku. Time to go home. I’d appreciate your company. So, what’s up with that fat old witch called Tonbeau?”

“She’s downstairs, fending off the security guards. I took advantage of the diversion to sneak up here.” The doll girl alighted nimbly on the ground. She frowned a bit, undoubtedly thinking them an entirely uncivilized lot.

“Tonbeau-sama spied out this hospital and room. When you were at Nuvenberg-sama’s house, she memorized your aura. She knows a way of tying a string, so to speak, to a personal aura.”

“Nice,” he nodded. He got his clothes from the closet and proceeded to dress. It was clearly going in one ear and out the other.

“I am really sorry,” the doll girl said in a cherubic voice.

“Huh?”

“Don’t you want to see out of your left eye?”

He covered his other eye with his hand and looked around. “What the hell? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Of course not. The root of the mandrake to open your eyes. It shouldn’t damage anything, not right away.”

“Could you pull it out, then?”

“You must do it yourself. That is the rule. Otherwise, ordinary blindness won’t be the end of it. Though you should feel no pain.”

It took the mayor ten minutes to get it out. He rolled his completely unharmed eyes, as the doll girl took the root from the surprised man’s hand and left the room ahead of him.

“Good heavens,” she said softly.

A fair number of people were lying in the hallway. They weren’t the security guards, but men in suits, special agents from the Defense Agency. Tonbeau Nuvenberg got up from a chair in the hallway. The receptionist tagged along after her.

Tonbeau glanced up at the camera. She said in a grousing manner, as if not only this hospital but pretty much the entire world was hardly worth her time and effort, “That thing there is recording a perfectly normal hallway.”

“I am impressed.” The doll girl bowed low. “You are truly my mistress’s sister. But who is that?”

“However freely we may move about here, this hospital is an institution of the Defense Agency. Until we are safely somewhere else, I would prefer to avoid tangling with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. So I decided to make use of her.”

“Is this a life-threatening situation?”

“That depends on them.”

“How unfortunate.”

“You’re telling me.”

“What are you two going on about?” complained Kajiwara. “Let’s get the hell out of here or things will get a lot worse than they already are.”

“Ah, Mr. Mayor, good to see you safe and sound.” Tonbeau smiled knowingly. “How went your conference with the Defense Agency director?”

“A total failure,” Kajiwara answered bitterly. “Which means we must consider our next steps. We need to get back to Shinjuku as quickly as possible.”

“Back to business, eh?”

“Are you looking for a down payment?”

“Everything costs something. There are business expenses. Living expenses. Hazardous duty pay.”

“So, a bonus?” Kajiwara said, clearly irritated. “How much we talking about?”

“Heh, heh, heh.” She thrust out the five caterpillar-like fingers of her right hand.

“Five grand? Fine.”

“Fifty by my count.”

“I’ll walk home.”

“Nobody’s stopping you.” Tonbeau snickered. “I can lift one finger and reveal to all those prying eyes what’s really going on in this hallway.”

“Damned black witch.” A moment later Kajiwara said, “Agreed. Now let’s get going!”

“You’ll never lose betting on the devil!” The Czech witch gleefully rubbed her hands together.

A rapping sound in the direction of the windows drew their attention. The doll girl alone smiled. The sharp beak pressed against the glass. A large pair of wings fanned the air. The dark shadow had been, from time immemorial, a harbinger of bad luck, though this one could be said to radiate a vague sense of lovableness.

“What has that birdbrain been doing up to now?” complained Tonbeau, sidling up to the window.

Thanks to the thick glass, the big raven didn’t appear perturbed in the least. The doll girl observed the opening and closing of its beak and interpreted. “JDF Special Forces have cordoned off the hospital. My word, it looks like they’ve got everything from tanks to helicopters on the move.”

Kajiwara smiled grimly, clapped his hands together and said without any great signs of distress, “I’ll ride that crow out of here. Good plan!”

“You think it can carry a fatso like you? You must be still talking in your sleep.”

“Who the hell are you calling fat? You look in a mirror lately, lady? You must have clouded your senses with one of your own spells!”

“Same goes for you, buster!” Fiery sparks lit up the witch’s eyes. Then faded. “We can settle this later. For the time being, if you want to get out of here, you will do exactly as I say.”

Kajiwara looked out the window, at the hospital’s courtyard. Under the pouring rain, the flowers in the flower beds were strangely and enticingly vibrant.

Moments later, the rain had grown an order of magnitude heavier. Kajiwara could easily imagine that a kid who left his toy train or boat out in the rain would find it smashed to bits the next morning. The courtyard was vacant. Needless to say, no tanks or helicopters either.

With a glance at the raven, he came to his decision. “Understood. It’s all in your hands.”

The raven again tapped on the window. “It looks dangerous out here.”

By strange coincidence, the witch then echoed the exact same words spoken several miles across town in a certain yakuza den. “Dangerous? Well, that sounds interesting for a change.”