Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Not just the four bodyguards, but Prime Minister Kongodai as well was gripped by a state of high anxiety.

Disappearing into the fog while being manipulated by Princess was one thing. But when the skies cleared, Princess was nowhere to be seen. All around them were verdant hills and forests.

Coming to his senses, he cried out, “Where the hell are we?”

None of his bodyguards had a clue either. Before being engulfed in the mists, it’d been a dark summer night, the darkest hours before dawn. Now the bright sunlight pouring down stung their eyes. The sheer improbability of their surroundings sent cold chills down their backs.

Squad leader Sejika said, “In any case, let’s make our way back to civilization. Hey, Kume, climb up that hill and take a look around.”

Kume darted up the rise. He pointed and called back, “Houses not far off!”

“Sounds like a stroke of good luck.” Without waiting for Kume to rejoin them, Sejika ordered them forward. He loaded a magazine of five 20 mm missiles into his gun. The weapon weighed about three pounds and gave him a ton of confidence.

Sejika flashed a cool look at the prime minister. However curiously the man had been behaving these last few days, there wasn’t any question about the past few hours, not after he called that beautiful woman his “patron.” She clearly had him under a spell. Once they escaped from this strange world, the next stop was the funny farm and the men in the white lab coats.

That was when he heard the prime minister’s name being called out.

“Fire off a shot.”

Mogami pointed the muzzle of his gun skyward and looked at Sejika for confirmation. The flash of fire and loud report followed Sejika’s nod.

That young man’s voice. Just thinking about it gave him pause. He was as handsome as she was beautiful. She was definitely the enemy. He couldn’t imagine he was an ally. He was part of the trap they’d been lured into. Though the stoically repressed feelings aroused by the young man’s countenance were a species apart from what he felt towards her, this battle-hardened bodyguard couldn’t deny the similarities.

He had to wonder if he was alone in this. Making no effort to hide the sordid thoughts flitting through his mind, he stole a look at the faces of the others.

“You okay, Sejika-san?” Yoshimura asked behind him. “That guy—he’s one of the bad guys, you think?”

“Probably. But do the bad guys make such a commotion when they’re looking for somebody? And identify the prime minister by name?”

Yoshimura looked around with a pained expression. “Where the hell is this, anyway? And who is that guy? Shit, everything’s gone nuts.”

“Keep it to yourself in front of the PM!” Sejika hissed under his breath. He nodded his head at the prime minister, who had turned towards the sound of his name. Though the man still looked out to sea, Sejika sensed determination in his profile.

Kume caught up with them to repeat that beyond the forest was a village.

“All right. Let’s go. No matter what, make sure nothing happens to the prime minister.”

They pushed through the green foliage, the prime minister in the middle, Kume in front, Yoshimura and Mogami to the right and left. Sejika brought up the rear.

After ten paces or so, they started to relax. Sunlight and a gentle wind caressed the trees and meadow. The light itself had a scent about it, perhaps coming from the forest Kume had seen. White flowers covered the sides of the hills like snow.

“We should meet up with him soon. Regardless of how the conversation goes, stay on your guard and be prepared to take whatever steps are necessary.”

Despite the warning tone in his voice, Sejika couldn’t help feeling more and more at ease. After climbing some hills and detouring around several more, they found their route blocked by a grassy rise.

“Past this is the forest,” Kume said with an easy smile.

It didn’t take much time getting to the top. Prime Minister Kongodai reached the summit. Slowed by the soft ground underfoot, Sejika followed several yards behind. Coming to where the rest stood staring down at the slope opposite, he said, “What’s up?”

He pushed past Mogami and looked himself. “What the hell?” At the foot of the smooth slope before them, the hilly terrain went on and on.

“What’s going on here?” Prime Minister Kongodai asked blankly.

“The forest was definitely there!” said Kume, paling a bit under the fierce gaze of his colleagues.

“Yeah, right,” snapped Mogami. “You can’t tell the fucking difference between east and west.”

Sejika gestured for him to shut it. “I don’t think so. This is that woman’s doing.”

“Unbelievable,” said Kume. “You mean she can change the geography at will?” Considering that Kume was the least likely to question what he’d seen with his own two eyes, this was good confirmation of the strangeness of the situation.

“Not long ago, we were in Tokyo and it was night. It’s more like the earth moved beneath our feet,” countered Sejika.

He shifted his attention to what the rest of them were staring at. Stone pillars and towers and battlements. They loomed darkly against the green, covered with moss, weather-beaten and falling down, like a sullen stain on the canvas of the clean bright day.

“Looks like a graveyard,” said Yoshimura, and the rest were seized by a sense of foreboding that that was too tidy a metaphor not to be true.

“Somebody must be watching. So let’s take their motives at face value.”

Sejika tightened his grip on his gun. His palms were still dry. That gave him confidence for his next move. With a glance at Kongodai, he planted his left elbow against his hip. His wristwatch shot a needle-thin hypodermic into the prime minister’s neck. He spasmed once, but didn’t fall down.

“From now on, follow my orders,” Sejika said in a voice that was more an admonishment than a threat.

“Understood.”

Kongodai’s answer was as expected.

When it came to his flesh and bones, the prime minister was no different than the average Joe. In order to bring him back alive, Sejika was authorized to use mind control drugs. For a period of approximately twenty-four hours or until the antidote was administered, Prime Minister Kongodai would follow his directions as obediently as a robot.

Surveying the stunned looks on the faces of his subordinates, he said, “Let’s go,” and jerked his chin at the base of the hill.

Their steps fell heavier now. The breezes bore a different odor. The heavy stones—as if to prevent the dead from rising from their graves—surrounded them.

“It stinks,” said Yoshimura, wrinkling his nose.

Mogami said with a touch of false bravado, “It’s a graveyard. Goes with the territory.”

“Never been in a cemetery that smells like this,” Yoshimura shot back. “My grandfather on my mom’s side is a Buddhist priest. It’s something I know something about. Their cemetery is clean and well kept. People in the neighborhood even have picnics there. This place smells like a graveyard that’s been dug up, and I’m talking a graveyard where they bury the bodies. We’re talking rot and worms and the lot. Very ripe. Quite the sight. When they disinter the graves, the caskets break, the corpses fall out and the like. The decomposing clothes tear and the bones and organs stick out. They move, you know. Ripples in skin. The worms crawling in and out, tens of thousands of them. They completely take the place of the organs. I saw it once. My granddad told me that when you see the little critters, the guts are like clay. Means they haven’t digested all the innards. But if you open a grave after letting ’em ferment for a few decades—”

“Okay, okay, we get the damned point,” snapped Sejika, grimacing. “It’s not killing anybody. Put up with it. Keep on your toes.”

The ability to focus the mind was a particular tool of their trade. They had to keep their eyes ahead of them while remaining aware of what was going on to the right, the left, and behind them. Fingers rested heavily on light triggers, just a gust of wind away from turning this place into a kill zone.

They sensed nothing alive moving. The sunlight lit up the moss-covered gravestones in a picturesque glow.

Without any apparent reason, Kume stopped.

Without any apparent reason, Mogami stopped.

Without any apparent reason, Yoshimura stopped.

Without any apparent reason, Sejika stopped.

Kume kept looking straight ahead. Mogami turned to the left, Yoshimura to the right, Sejika behind him. Casual movements.

And turned back. Hearing the surprised reaction of the other three, Kume glanced over his shoulder.

Sejika leapt forward. At first he thought nothing was wrong. And then noticed that the prime minister was gone. Mogami kicked the ground. Yoshimura raked at the air.

“Not here,” said Kume.

“What’s that?” Sejika shouted, ducking behind the shadow of a nearby pillar.

A bright line of light parted the undergrowth, whistled through the air, and ricocheted off the pillars. A fearsome-looking, foot-long dart. Based on the sound of the impact and vector of the shot, it wasn’t hand-thrown.

“Probably a blowgun!” Sejika shifted to a gravestone on his right and called out, “Everybody safe?”

“I’m okay,” said Kume.

“Nothing wrong,” said Mogami.

“I’m fine,” said Yoshimura.

“Cover me,” Sejika barked. “Ninety-degree sweep, thirty-five rounds. Once you’ve finished firing, get clear of the cemetery. We’ll look for the prime minister later.”

“Roger,” the other three chorused.

Then a groan. It was Mogami.

“What happened?”

“Got hit in the shoulder. A dart from above!”

“That’s crazy! What kind of a blowgun—”

Sejika looked up as something glittered and streaked straight down at him. With a grunt he flung himself to the side. The lines of light grazed the tip of his nose. The ground he’d been standing on turned into a pincushion. Hiding wouldn’t do any good. Their only option was to attack.

Cradling the gun against his hip, he opened fire. Orange flame punctuated the white sunlight. The armor-piercing bullets turned the stone pillars and gravestones into pumice. One square shot cracked a boulder in two. The rest turned it to rubble, like stepping on a piece of rock candy.

His subordinates fired at will. Counting the recoils to thirty-five, Sejika yelled, “Charge!”

They marched into the cemetery, concentrating three points of fire. Reports from three guns, and three pairs of boots. They weren’t afraid of what unknown creatures would spring out from behind the gravestones. But they were hardly without any concerns. Sejika passed the last gravestone. Beyond the cemetery was an endless meadow, with nothing that might offer any cover.

“Clear!” He hit the deck. The sound of running feet stopped. He twisted around. His eyes widened. He was the only one there. “Kume! Mogami! Yoshimura!”

No answer came.

The graveyard was as still as death. Sejika scanned the horizon with bloodshot eyes. He finally got to his feet. The prime minister and his men had disappeared. He couldn’t very well go running off by himself.

He reflexively hit the release with his left hand, dumped the empty magazine and inserted a fresh, seventy-round magazine. Four people had vanished in succession. It was enough to amp up the terror to an unbearable level, but Sejika’s fighting spirits hadn’t slackened in the least.

He took a step forward. “Hold on there a sec,” said a placid voice that was no less hair-raising. Sejika didn’t have to look at him to know who it was.

“Where are you going?” Setsura Aki asked.

Sejika turned around and stood there stunned. Behind the most handsome man in the world was a wax-like young woman, and behind her, a dense forest filled with light.

“You—that cemetery.”

“Cemetery?” Setsura echoed.

There—he was about to say, when a chill ran down his spine. He spun around again, amazed more than he was fearful or furious. The cemetery was gone. The hills rose above the meadow, the hills he and the prime minister and his men had just descended.

“I don’t believe it—there was a graveyard right there.”

“Obviously not,” Setsura said plainly. “I saw you coming from that tree over there. I saw the prime minister and your colleagues disappear, but that was in the middle of the field.”

Finally gathering his wits about him, Sejika asked, “Where did the prime minister go?”

“Seems he was dragged down into the earth. I haven’t come to any definite conclusions, but I have a few theories. It’s a pretty wild story.”

“What kind of wild story?” Sejika said, not attempting to ascertain the young man’s true nature.

“This world—” Setsura started to say. A thin veil shadowed his face.

“Mist,” Sejika said. The word hadn’t left his mouth before the swirling white—like a bottle of India ink staining a bucket of white paint—blanketed the three. A stabbing pain seized him around the waist. Sejika stiffened. The pain soon faded.

“You and I are tied together. No matter where you go, I will know.”

“W-Who are you?” Sejika asked, despite himself.

“Good question,” he quipped. Despite the airy tone, Sejika felt relief more than anger. The man said, “I don’t suppose it’d do any good telling you to stay here, but this mist is manmade. That woman’s doing. So I’d appreciate it if you’d just bide your time while I find the prime minister.”

Disregarding his own status, with a sense of confidence in that clear and assertive voice Sejika didn’t fully understand himself, he asked again, “Who are you?”

“A manhunter.”

“You could be the best, but finding people who’ve sunken into the earth?”

“Again, blame it on the woman. She’s messing with us. As things stand now, there’s no way for me to find the prime minister. But simply letting things stand is not her game. Like teasing a cat with a ball of yarn, she’s the twisted sort who would enjoy nothing more than yanking him away when he is right within my grasp.”

“Messing with us—” was all the amazed Sejika could say.

These bizarre goings-on, kidnapping a country’s prime minister, was all just a game she was playing with this young man? He was a bodyguard down to his bones, in this career for twenty years, and for the first time he knew he was way beyond his depth.

“So how should we tackle this problem? Or, what do you have in mind to do?”

“We’re going to take a walk around. Don’t worry.”

“With that girl? I don’t get it myself, but I figure you’re right about this place. Fine, but why don’t you leave her with me?”

“Well, that’s a bit of a problem,” he replied, in tones resembling a carefree smile. “Mind if I tell you the honest truth?”

“Go ahead.”

“She’d be too much for you to handle.”

For some reason, Sejika didn’t take it personally.

“Stay here. If anything funny happens, I can’t guarantee I can come running, so you’ll have to improvise.”

“Got it,” said Sejika, a portion of his iron will returning to his voice.

“Well, then.”

Sejika watched as the two shadows faded away into the haze. He couldn’t help thinking that even the man’s silhouette was handsome.