Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Setsura knew he had reached the realm of the Demon Princess.

However the entrance might change, the accessway remained fairly fixed. Passing through the familiar surface, walking through the stands of trees, thirty minutes later he came to the shores of the lake.

Against the dark green backdrop, the soaring and majestic manor house was only a few hundred yards off. He would be better off assuming that Princess had already returned and had Takako in her grasp.

When Tonbeau engaged the Akashic Records and he was drawn out of there, Takako had been in the back of the Crystal Pavilion. But as a rule, the sire always knew where the servants were and what they were up to.

He was struck by the realization that there was one way to retrieve Takako safely. Setsura was equally confident that Princess would have paid no heed to his return. Such was the indifference of the lord of this world, an existence immune to rot and decay.

“That is my only way in.”

He returned temporarily to the forest, emerging again at the back of the manor house. Since arriving in this world, a strange vibe had wrapped its tendrils around him. Nothing was alive. The fluttering leaves on the sun-drenched trees, the summer breeze skittering across the lake—it all felt like—nothing.

There was light and there was wind. Light and wind literally painted on a canvas.

Setsura was beginning to see through the mirage to the reality of this place. This was a new development.

“Where the hell are they?”

Setsura approached the manor house. There were several dozen servants inside. All it’d take was getting nabbed by one.

The manor house was still as death, not only devoid of servants, but of any signs of life at all. Come to think about it, he hadn’t heard any birds in the forest either. Something strange had happened when he’d been thrown into the connecting link. Whether for good or ill at this juncture all depended on luck and fate.

“What to do, what to do?”

In the midst of the dappled sunlight playing across the leaves and the trees, Setsura closed his eyes and folded his arms.

“You could always do nothing.”

The voice—definitely that of Princess—descended on him from out of the empty air.

“Where are you?” asked the unflustered Setsura.

“Anywhere you like. You’ve done well coming this far. That girl is so important to you?”

“Her mother asked me to find her. I will bring her back.”

“What if I slit her throat as we speak? No, no, you know I could never do anything like that.”

“No, you couldn’t.” Hard to say at this point whether that complacent smile was for real or was an act.

“What an awful man. The lengths you go to, to toy with me. Come to the manor house.”

“Where in the manor house?”

“The front door will suffice. Wait there.”

“I’d prefer to see proof of life first.”

A moment passed. “Fine. Here.”

Something like a red mist fell out of the sky without a sound and spread out at Setsura’s feet.

“The proof is in the pudding. Or the blood. Hers. There will be but a drop left before I drain her dry. A smidgen. You’d better hurry, Setsura. The rule of blood awaits.”

The haunting echoes of the voice reverberated around him and rose up toward the heavens and was drawn into the blue sky. Setsura looked down at the blood staining the green grass and earth red.

“She ain’t kidding.” A note of tension crept into his languid voice. “Well, I’m sure that put all our minds at ease. I’d better go.”

As he set off, he didn’t appear any different from before.

When he arrived at the foyer of the manor house, the door opened on its own accord and welcomed the young man in. Without scanning the great hallway inside, his eyes alit on the woman standing in the center like a blossoming white flower.

“Where is Takako-san?”

“Relax.”

“Not hardly likely,” Setsura sulked.

Hardly surprising, Princess smiled all the more broadly. “So what were you thinking on your way here?”

Setsura grew more sullen. “This and that.”

“About that girl?”

“I suppose.”

“Oh, stop lying. You weren’t thinking about anything. Your face will freeze like that.”

“Can we get down to business here?” Setsura said with unusual force. “I’m here to get Takako. Where is she?”

“You think I’ll tell you?”

“I have my ways, if that’s what it takes.”

Not the kind of thing he was ever wont to say, but he was clearly at the end of his rope.

“Isn’t it all so much water off a duck’s back to you?” Princess countered with an equally strange severity.

“What is?”

“Everything.” Princess fastened her eyes on the young man in black. “Your burden, perhaps, your ball and chain. Everything that binds you to this world. Money, power, fame, women—you couldn’t give a damn about all of that.”

“You’re not my shrink or my guidance counselor. I’m a businessman. Every day I have to balance the books and keep my eye on the markets.”

“You definitely are a senbei shop owner.”

The look in Setsura’s eyes said this woman had a habit of remembering useless facts at inconvenient times.

“But you’re the sort of man who could toss it all away at a moment’s notice and scamper off to greener fields. Dealing in such prosaic goods hardly suits you. You should spend your days lying on the grass watching the clouds go by.”

“You’re not the person I would turn to for life planning.” Though there wasn’t that sharp an edge to the criticism, suggested she was not that far off the mark. “Whether I watch the clouds go by or bake senbei, it’s got nothing to do with you. Relieved of these burdens, then what?”

“Look at the world. Go when and where you wish without a by-your-leave to anybody.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

The unaffected answer prompted a wry smile from Princess. “You like this wretched city so much?”

“What are you asking a question like that for?” Setsura said. An understandable response.

Princess laughed airily. “No reason. Let’s go see Takako.”

Feigning an utter lack of interest in him, she proceeded toward the inner door and then down a gaudily baroque hallway.

Setsura said, “Hey, don’t you think there’s something strange about this world?”

“You noticed?”

“Yeah.”

“Kikiou worked his fingers to the bone making it, but the facade is wearing thin. If you were wondering what would happen if you threw this world down the connecting link without breaking it, well, now you know. You end up with this.”

“They all went to meet their maker, huh? What are you going to do about it.”

“Kikiou is a very busy man,” Princess said, obviously delighted. “It won’t be much longer until that man puts his greatest plans into motion. How long do you think it will take until Shinjuku becomes fit for only insects?

“You don’t know?”

“I couldn’t care less. Any city inundated by the likes of them I don’t care to catch a whiff of.”

Setsura didn’t concern himself with how Princess felt about her own victims, but this surprised him.

“That old geezer plans on extending the reach of Shinjuku’s vampires to the outside world? No matter how many fellow co-conspirators you might make for yourselves, the people out there aren’t so stupid. They’ll take steps soon enough. Count on vampire eradication becoming an international effort. And every night when they going hunting for prey that isn’t there en masse? Who’s going to play the Pied Piper? You’ve got a pretty chancy situation on your hands here. Does Kikiou know what’s really in your heart?”

“I couldn’t care less about that either.”

“So them’s the breaks, eh? And yet despite not caring, you’ve done all that to Shinjuku.”

“That’s what not giving a damn means.”

“There is that too.”

Princess threw back her head and laughed, showing her white throat.

“What’s so funny?”

“How could I not laugh? Your personality lives up to everything I expected of you. It’s good having a man like you around. Come to think of it, Demon City might be worth keeping around as well.”

“You know—” Setsura stopped and glared at her.

“What?” said Princess, turning her smiling face to him, like a big sister teasing an ornery little brother.

“If you really don’t give a damn, then how about you just up and leave? You coming here is all water under the bridge, but nobody’s going to hold it against you if you leave, so what’s stopping you?”

“I just may do that.”

The Demon Princess gave Setsura a strange look. Setsura said nothing. A frightening glow filled her eyes. “Come along. See the completely changed woman and tear your heart out.”

For the next several minutes, it was as if a demonic miasma had assumed female form, strolling down the hallway.

Setsura found himself in front of a familiar black door. Princess’s bedroom. She went in first. Takako was lying on the same luxurious bed as before.

“Let me ask you this—the real thing?

“See for yourself,” Princess scoffed.

Setsura brushed past her and approached the bed. Based on appearances, this was definitely Takako. The skin revealed by the thin blue nightgown was bluer than blue, almost electric white. He felt for her pulse. It was there, faintly. She had not become a vampire in toto.

He raised her up in his arms. She was as soft as before, and as cold as ice.

“Taking her with you? That’s not why I brought you here.”

Princess raised her right hand in a suggestive manner. A pale arm wrapped around Setsura’s neck like a snake. The sensation couldn’t help but arouse from this usually laidback man a startled response.

“Aki-san.”

Her voice and breath caressed his face. Her eyes glowed red. Her breath smelled of the fresh earth of a grave. Setsura reflexively tried to free himself. Takako’s thin arms proved as immovable as rebar.

“Aki-san. No, Setsura-san. What did you come here for? Did you come here to save me?”

She licked her lips as she spoke, all the more provocative a gesture coming from an otherwise rationally-minded woman.

“I came here to save you,” Setsura quietly answered, neither flustered nor afraid.

“Thank you. But there is nowhere else I wish to go. I’m so tired and cold. Warm me.”

“Well, here I am,” Setsura said. His next words were the last thing anyone would have expected. “Go right ahead.”

He held her in an embrace, as if to nuzzle her cheek.

“No!”

Princess’s cry rang out like a silver bell. Takako pulled back from Setsura, or rather, was torn from his side. Takako struggled, but Princess easily held her at bay with a single hand and stared in the face of her own victim. She had not exhibited such loathing even when the Elder scalded her face.

“No. You shall not take Setsura’s blood. That is—” She interrupted herself with a fierce look of anguish. “Setsura! Why would you allow her to—?”

“Why not?”

“You must flee from her. She must pursue you. You must not bind her hand and foot with your wires and take her out of here. No, you cannot. You must run hither and yon in your attempts to escape while she chases you, while I quench my thirst with her blood. If you do not wish her to become my servant, then kneel and plead. Or beg that I take your blood instead. But instead you bare your throat to her? What are you thinking? No matter. The fun I had in mind is all for naught now. Let us cut to the chase, Setsura.”

The Demon Princess hadn’t finished speaking before a red line bisected her face from the top of her head to her chin. She smiled. As if intimidated by the expression itself, the line disappeared.

She pressed her coral-red lips to the blue veins running down Takako’s exposed neck. Takako arched her head back. An enraptured glow suffused her countenance. An ecstatic gasp escaped her lips.

There was nothing Setsura could do, and Princess knew it as she removed her lips from Takako’s throat. Two threads of blood connected the corners of her mouth with Takako’s skin. Her crimson lips all the redder, the blood dripping from her fangs painted brilliant flowers on her white robe.

Standing there holding Takako’s enervated body in her arms, they created a living sculpture as sublime as it was savage, the Demon Princess in all her glory.

The heroes of old who marched off to pillage and slaughter would have frozen in their tracks at such a sight, struck not by the horror but sheer beauty.

Even the genie in black stood there transfixed, like an artist intoxicated by a glimpse of heaven.

“Just once more,” Princess breathed. Her eyes sparkled. “Take her blood once more and she becomes mine. When that happens, there is nothing you and your friends can do to save her. Does that sit well with you, Setsura? Can you stand there and wait for me to kiss her neck again? Or will you bow and beg? The hour of decision will be delayed no more.”

Princess’s words hummed with a song of victory. Setsura’s answer could speak of nothing but defeat. She focused her blood-red eyes upon his resplendent face, not allowing a speck of his suffering to escape her attention.

Setsura said in a casual and unaffected manner, with not even the twitch of an eyebrow, “I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“Ask you for a favor? Not a chance. And drinking Takako’s blood? That’s out, too.”

“Idiot,” Princess spat out. “What are you prattling on about? Are you aware of the position you are in?”

“Yeah. And I’ve got an offer for you.”

“One you think I would accept?”

“Sure.”

He nodded with complete confidence. The murderous intent in her eyes wavered. There was a human being on this planet that could render her speechless, if only for a moment.

“Release Takako. And in exchange—”

“You’re going to say you’ll offer me your blood instead?”

Setsura didn’t answer for a minute. Then he fixed Princess in his gaze and said, “Bingo.”

Now Princess held her tongue. And then an indescribable expression rose to her face of inhuman beauty. “What schemes do you have up your sleeve?” purred her bloody lips. “No, it doesn’t matter. The time has come when you will voluntarily cast yourself into my embrace. Any final words, Setsura?”

“Nothing springs to mind,” Setsura said.

His blunt impassive answer made up Princess’s mind. Takako crumpled to the ground like a melting waxwork. Princess moved to the bed. She licked the blood from around her mouth and said, “Come to me, Setsura.”

Her white arms reached out to his shadowed visage.