Chapter One

Chapter One

The hinges creaked, crying out a gloomy scream. A sound perfectly attuned to the scene, Setsura couldn’t help thinking. A white shadow stood beyond the open door.

“Europeans know something of propriety,” he said, getting up from the chair. “As long as the master of the house doesn’t ask you to enter, strangers can’t come barging in. It’d be nice to think that a few thousand years in China could have instilled the same.”

“Alas, no.” The white-caped figure passed easily through the doorway.

“That makes you what?” Setsura said, returning to the chair. “No coffee. Tea’s over there. Suit yourself.”

“You needn’t have gone to so much trouble,” Mephisto said indifferently.

He went over to the hotplate where a delicately engraved teacup and teapot were arranged, with settings for two. He put tea leaves into the teapot and set it on the heat. Safe to say that no one in Shinjuku had ever beheld such a sight.

“How about you?”

“No, thanks.”

“Don’t be unsociable. This is good tea.”

“Everything in this world is a sham. What did you come here for?”

“I came to fetch my patient,” said Mephisto, raising the steaming teacup to his lips. Not only the cup but the tea itself seemed abashed at the intimacy of the gesture.

“That’s okay. Princess ordered her to remain here. You know, she’s the one whose ass you spend so much time kissing. The one who likes to boast how no one dares defy her.”

“No one dictates the disposition of my patients except me.” Mephisto’s eyes fell on Takako. Whenever that gaze rested upon them, viruses and bacteria all said the same thing: We would happily perish in your presence.

“Then take her with you,” Setsura said, directing his attention to the door. “But you make the mess, you clean up after it.”

“And what will you do?”

“Do about what?”

“Princess will soon arrive. Do you plan to remain here alone together?”

“What else can I do? It’s high noon for me.”

“You are never going to win with an attitude like that.”

“I’ll just have to give it my best shot,” Setsura said in a singsong voice. He looked at Mephisto. “Listen, if you’re just gonna bust my chops, take a hike.”

“You are in a very delicate position.” Still holding the teacup, Mephisto walked over to Takako. She was sleeping, dreaming crimson dreams. “They’re all after you, including Princess. And yet she is the one watching your back. You intend to dispose of her, but that is no doubt proving very difficult. So all you can do is wait. You can’t run—what else can you do? I cannot think of a worse predicament.”

“I appreciate your splendid analysis of the situation. Now get lost,” Setsura said with an unusual degree of menace. Princess’s impending arrival was wearing on him.

Mephisto instead sat down in the chair.

“You plan on sticking around then?”

“This is something I very much would like to see.”

“You mean the two of us coming to blows? When did you turn into a middle-aged pro wrestling fan?”

“You are not the only one in the ring.”

Setsura closed his mouth. A shadow flitted across his calm countenance. “This some sort of tag-team thing? When are you jumping in?”

Mephisto didn’t answer. He turned his face toward the door. “She’s coming.”

“Whoa.”

Setsura rose out of his chair. Behind him came a hard thump. The bed shook. Takako had awakened.

“She’s coming,” Takako said. “Release me! Someone’s coming. Release me!”

Someone was definitely coming. Setsura’s ears picked up the graceful, rhythmic steps coming straight from the foyer and down the hall. Someone stained with the blood of countless emperors and tyrants. Everyone who heard it felt a shiver and a tingle down the spine, picturing her transcendent features, like finely-worked glass.

What would Takako do now that she was awake? She unleashed a strangled little scream. Or more like the howl of a dog.

Red stained the bed, the result of her violent resistance, the restraining devil wires biting into her skin. The other two were not attending to the mist of blood covering the bed. They were waiting, waiting for the person whose footsteps stopped outside the door, waiting for that third transfixing portrait to join them.

The door violently flung open and rang loudly against the jamb. Setsura didn’t hear it. Another sound shook the firmament. A hurricane-strength gale blew through the room, laying flat Setsura’s hair and spreading Mephisto’s cape out behind him like a bat out of hell.

And then ceased all at once. Like a bad practical joke. There was nobody outside the door or inside.

Setsura turned around. Princess was standing next to the bed.

With a bright ping! a thin line of light sliced through her neck. Princess smiled, showing her white teeth. “I have come as promised to drink my nightly fill. Mephisto, what are you doing here?”

“I am checking on my patient’s condition.”

“You are supposed to be in the Crystal Pavilion. Get back there.”

“Later. I haven’t completed the examination. You may wish to assist.”

“What?”

“How goes your recuperation, Kanan-san?” Mephisto asked Takako.

Had Yakou been there, he would be diving for cover. The same question had pulled the trigger on her explosive insanity several hours before.

With a spattering of blood, with the sound of severing bone, Takako sprang to her feet. She did not break the devil wires. The devil wires gouged round slices into her skin, the red rings girdling her from her throat down to her ankles. Her garments tore off and fell away in tubes of fabric that piled atop each other.

“Wait—”

Faster than Setsura could stop her, Takako flew at the Demon Princess—at this supreme dictator, this queen of all vampires. A moment before Takako’s hand closed around her throat, her body spun like a top. Setsura had reached out and pulled her back with his invisible threads.

“Well, that was unfortunate,” he said.

Takako’s defiance seemed in actual anticipation of Princess’s arrival, the initiation of her announced nightly taking of blood. Setsura’s manner suggested he had seen this coming.

Princess didn’t move. Since she’d mounted the stage, who in four thousand years had beheld such an expression on her face? She was stunned. She was taken aback. The woman once known as “Daji” gasped.

“She defied me. My servant—me—Mephisto, what did you do?”

“I treated her.”

“Obviously,” Setsura said, impressed.

The room fell into silence. Something else filled that space, like a tidal wave from a distant shore.

“Very good.” The roar accompanying the raging waves was unusually soft. “Very good, Takako. Mephisto. You have made a fool of me. And it will cost you dearly.”

Setsura looked at the white doctor with an expression that said: Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“Takako,” said the Demon Princess, softly and sweetly. Those legendary emperors had surely heard that same voice. “Kill Setsura.”

Takako squirmed in Setsura arms, her arms reaching for his neck. Princess’s command of her will had not been entirely extinguished.

“Kanan-san,” called out Doctor Mephisto. “Demonstrate for me how far you have progressed.”

The arms reaching toward Setsura fell back to her sides. Confused, Takako looked down at her own limbs. She grabbed at her hair with a wordless cry.

Mephisto said he could point to no example of a vampire returning to human form. Proof of that impossibility was those who had gone mad in the attempt.

“Stand back,” Mephisto said to Setsura.

Takako slumped to the floor.

“Kill,” Princess ordered.

As if she had pushed a button, an abrupt change came over Takako. She placed her hands on her temples and pushed up, as if to lift her head clean off her shoulders. A sliding sound followed.

“Huh?” said Setsura.

Takako’s head didn’t come off. Rather, her head rose, as if she was standing up. And yet she was still squatting in the same position. She had pulled another “Takako” out of the first.

There was such a thing as the physical separation of the body and the soul. Such a thing as a doppelganger. In one case, the soul temporarily fled the body. In the other, a separate you existed independently.

What had grown out of Takako’s body seemed a combination of the two. Her now standing form faintly glimmered like a lightning bug. Every strand of her hair was distinct, while the bed and the window were visible through her.

“Hoh. What else should I have expected from Doctor Mephisto? What an interesting course of treatment you have adopted.” Princess furrowed her beautiful brows with deep intrigue. “This is no mere alter ego. How much power does she possess? You, come here.”

Before the command left her mouth, the shining woman turned to her, then turned away with a disinterested expression. Now she faced Setsura. Pure desire spilled from her eyes, gleaming like knives. Light sparked off her tongue as she licked her lips.

“Hey, Mephisto,” Setsura called out, a bit unnerved. “Is this Kanan-san too?”

“So it seems. The essence of her self. The Kanan-san you know is on the bed.”

“What kind of treatment did you give her?”

“The very best.”

“Really?”

Glimmering blue arms around Setsura’s neck. They felt like cotton, a kind of ectoplasm. Even so, they seemed infused with spirit. Lust and naked desire distilled in the fangs jutting from her lips.

Devil wires wrapped around her wrists. She quickly slipped out of them. Darker ribbons of light played across her shining skin and disappeared. She’d brought her face to the right side of his neck when it twisted with pain.

An arm grew out of her left breast, the pale hand shaped into a spear, vivid and alive. Princess’s arm pierced the semi-transparent body and raised up slowly. Her limbs spasmed and shook madly. She could feel pain in this state, else Princess could touch parts of her that no one else could.

“What do you think you’re doing to this man?” asked the Demon Princess calmly. “I do not care if you kill him. But lay your lips on him? I will obliterate you on the spot, you fucking mannequin!”

With a flick of her slender hand, Princess threw her against the wall fifteen feet behind her. Without the slightest sound of an actual impact.

“Take a good look, Setsura,” she said, holding her hand up to his languid face. Between her fingers something throbbed with light. “Her heart. I will crush the life out of it. Remember well the fate of all those who defy me.”

She curled her fingers into a fist. The girl on the floor pressed her hands against her chest. Rays of light poured out from Princess’s clenched hand, the same light that had painted luminescent watercolors across the woman’s body.

Princess opened her hand. Something that looked like a heart fell to the floor and rolled over to where she lay. Setsura watched as she picked it up with glowing fingers and thrust it into her chest.

She stood up as if nothing had happened and smiled at Setsura.

“Stay right there!” Princess cried out.

In a whirlwind of light, the woman rushed out the door.