Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Zhang kicked off the ground and vaulted into the air. But it was Yuen who engaged the battle first. Before Zhang’s weapon of choice—the willow leaf-like blade of his short sword—could strike, Yuen’s shuriken pierced Kikiou’s body like a flash of black lightning.

A hole opened up in the old man’s chest. The fabric covering his back puffed out.

Yuen cried out in frustration. His aim was dead on, but the shuriken passed through Kikiou’s body too easily. Because the robes covered mostly empty air.

Before Yuen could unleash a second volley, he saw Kikiou’s staff headed at him. And then an explosion in front of his eyes as his own head flew apart.

Zhang swooped down like a diving bird, the foot-long blade penetrating the base of Kikiou’s skull, burying itself to the hilt. Metal struck metal. The odd feeling of resistance traveled up the length of the sword. Zhang tried to leap away.

Kikiou’s staff jabbed toward his abdomen—the staff that had crushed Yuen’s skull. And that staff was fast.

Yakou’s left hand traced a graceful arc and stopped it in its tracks. Appearing almost weightless, Kikiou’s body followed the arc of Yakou’s arm, spinning through the air, where it was pierced by a silver ray of light. He fell to the floor, making no effort to cushion the blow.

Zhang’s short sword pierced his throat through to the back of his neck. The warlock writhed and moaned there in his death throes. The two gave him a wide berth.

“Get out of here,” Yakou ordered. “I’ll finish him off.”

A sound like a horsefly’s buzzing echoed in his ears. Realizing it was rising out of Kikiou’s body, Yakou pushed out both hands down at the old man, his fingers spreading out at right angles to the wrist. From his palms burst a ball of energy, meeting the blast erupting from Kikiou’s midsection. The radiating shockwave engulfed Zhang and bowed him backwards.

“Of course,” Yakou murmured to himself, not sparing Zhang a second glance. Kikiou’s staff pointed directly at him. “You’re a master of qi as well. A demon qi at that.”

“Exactly.” Looking like something the dog dragged in, the last vestiges of his powers wrung out of him, Kikiou slowly got to his feet. He pulled Zhang’s short sword out of his neck. “I should say the same about you. Perhaps better than even Ryuuki. And I am the one who taught him. What a waste. But exactly what I expected from the Elder’s grandson. How about it? Wouldn’t life with us be preferable to your own destruction?”

“Do you intend to make the entire world your enemy?”

“And we will win. Once Shinjuku yields to our firm rule.”

“Where does such confidence spring from?”

“The fruits of scholarship acquired during our long voyages. And the knowledge of human stupidity. All the blood flowing through their veins is but a raindrop in the oceans required to satiate Princess. God could hardly forgive the pretentiousness of believing otherwise.”

Yakou laughed silently. “I never expected to hear the name of God issuing from your lips. So you control this city—then what? Invade the outside world? This is just a head’s up, but the ward mayor is a man with his wits about him. I would be surprised if he hasn’t already informed mighty forces outside of Shinjuku about your presence here. Were Shinjuku to fall into your hands, there’s a good chance that a minute later a nuclear missile would land on your head and vaporize you into your constituent atoms. Or do you want to put the old legends to a test and see if only sunlight and a stake through the heart will do the job?”

“Let us try it and see. The truth is in the legends. You know the meaning of immortal as well as I do. An eternity too long to stand. A final chapter that will never be written. Making this world our own will not make our karma any more or less assured. But it should be an entertaining way to pass the time. So, what do you say?”

“What would you do with all the humans?”

“I hardly think it necessary to explain. Make of them our servants and our daily bread. Ration them out and they should provide for us perpetuity.”

“Better you spend eternity on your accursed pleasure cruise.”

“Hoh.” The strange humming sound coming from inside his long robes made the derisive laughter sound even louder.

“Leave Shinjuku? Or die here? It’s up to you.” Yakou raised his right hand, the palm facing Kikiou. He drew in the energy of heaven and earth and using his body as a conduit, projected that qi at his enemy. An onlooker would have heard and seen nothing, as if the blue light filling the room came from the depths of space.

Power violently burst forth from the opposing corners of the room. The energy they projected at each other hardly disturbed the quiet. Yet bolstered by their unwavering wills, each competed to deliver destruction and death upon the other.

Kikiou thrust his staff at Yakou. Yakou’s hand aimed at Kikiou’s face.

The wooden door was clearly visible behind the old man. As was the room behind the young man. The unimaginable energy they were unleashing turned their bodies semi-transparent.

Some period of time between mere seconds and an infinity passed. Like a tug of war, the balance of energy began shifting toward one side.

Against Yakou.

Like an ascetic Zen monk tempering his spirit by standing beneath a winter waterfall, the young vampire clan head tightly shut his eyes in a trance.

In a similar state, Kikiou’s mouth bent into a smile.

And disappeared.

Yakou slowly brought his left hand from his side alongside his right. The flows of energy again balanced themselves out. This state of equilibrium might have gone on forever. But that wasn’t to be the case. Yakou’s chest slowly swelled. When it reached its maximum limit—

“Yaaah—!”

The cry—half of it breathing out the great stream of air—half of it a guttural scream—poured from his lips. At the same time, a similar cry issued forth from Kikiou’s mouth.

The madly raging torrents cascaded at Kikiou. At Yakou. There was no telling which would find its mark. Perhaps both would simultaneously transform into some strange compound of iron and air.

Yakou’s body was thrown backwards into the darkness. With no evidence of smoke or fire, Kikiou was similarly sent flying.

A second later, a beautiful sound echoed around the room. It hit the walls, struck the ceiling. A thin, belt-shaped piece of metal rattled onto the floor. A jointed, spine-shaped bar of iron.

Of the four men in the room, only one was not a vampire. This was the body that had sustained Kikiou for four thousand years. Using advanced technology unknown even in the modern world, the old alchemist had achieved the powers of the night dwellers.

The sad reverberations faded away. Yakou staggered into view from the opposite end of the room. Holding his left hand to his chest, he looked around. He picked up Kikiou’s robe, miraculously unmarred, and flung it over his shoulder.

He looked down at the fallen Zhang and said in a low voice, “Your wish came true. I shall follow after you soon enough.”

The body of the vampire—suffused with an unfathomable “spirit”—had turned to gray dust, leaving only the clothing behind.

“But wait a while longer. I still must uncover the wellspring of this counterfeit world.”

The man—his face a whiter shade of pale—spoke the words like an incantation and exited the room with unsteady steps.

The next day, not long after midnight. In a few more hours, the morning television shows would begin. But for now the world belonged to the night.

The machinery room in the third basement level of the Keio Plaza Hotel. The gloom filling the large space was saturated with the smell of blood, so much so that a few breaths would dye the viscera the same color.

Setsura was in the middle of it all.

The figure leaning against the lockers would put the most sought-after of male models to shame. Here where everything else faded to black, anybody capable of seeing him there would be entranced, while feeling too naturally inhibited to get anywhere near him.

But beneath that beautiful appearance, Setsura was engaged in a grotesque struggle with himself. The air itself seemed to turn to blood. He was consumed with the revolting desire to drink it into his lungs. The extent of this hunger was unimaginable.

So why seclude himself within such dangerous quarters? Perhaps in this battle of self-denial, he was using the cruelty of this environment to repress the devil within. The best shrink in Demon City would have a hard time figuring out what was going through this young man’s head.

He was the picture of the stereotypical young German philosophy student standing in the shadow of a linden tree, troubled by the anxieties of youth, his alabaster features suffused with dusk.

A dull sound resounded. Only Setsura’s ears recorded it. The elevator came to a halt. The door opened. A flurry of footsteps approached.

More than ten. The night hunters had returned.

The footsteps stopped. An unnatural silence followed. They must have detected the scent of blood and were reconnoitering the situation.

“Who’s there?” came a familiar voice through the door. Shinjuku Chief of Police Kumagaki. “You don’t need to answer. From the smell of things, everybody else is dead. I only know of three people in Shinjuku who could do something like that. Galeen Nuvenberg?” The voice softened. “Doctor Mephisto?”

Doctor Mephisto?—

Mephisto—?

Mephisto—?

The name echoed around the basement level of the building.

“Or rather—”

The next moment, the creatures of the night silently scattered. With a blast of air, the steel doors blew outwards. With the crash reverberating through the ground beneath his feet, the Chief gazed at the severed hinges and finished the sentence.

“—Setsura Aki?”

In a gloom as thick as India ink, a new hole in the darkness opened its maw. They saw the silhouette in black waiting there as if upon holy ground. The floor beneath his feet was covered with fresh blood and the bodies of their headless companions.

“How’s it going?” asked the unearthly beauty in a hoarse voice. In the realms of such aesthetic perfection, any voice would seem appropriate.

“Ah, it’s going fine,” said the Chief with a backwards glance. “I never imagined that such a world could exist. Now you’re one of us, Aki-kun, part of this wonderful world where joy and sorrow and fear and loathing know no limits.”

“Your job was protecting this world from that one.”

Setsura gazed placidly at the Chief and the four vampires behind him. Three sharp-eyed detectives and one civilian. They wiped their mouths as their eyes met Setsura’s, concealing their fangs and the clinging drops of blood.

“I suspected that things might come to this, so I inducted a few of my colleagues into the club and brought them along for the ride. Get him!”

The moment the Chief issued the order, his chest burst open. Reports of large-caliber Magnums shook the air. Knowing the name and abilities of Setsura Aki, the Chief had his subordinates draw their weapons but keep them out of sight. But for some reason they were firing at him.

At close range, full metal jacket rounds would travel straight through a man’s torso. It wouldn’t kill a vampire like the Chief, but it sure gave him a start. Setsura pirouetted out of the way. The bullets struck the lockers behind him.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

The Chief whirled around and seized the cops by the shoulders. Blue smoke still curled up from the guns clenched in their hands. He grabbed one of the revolvers. An arm came away with it. The Chief stared at it flabbergasted.

All expression vanished from the faces of the detectives. Their heads separated from their necks and thumped heavily onto the floor, followed by a fountain of blood that coated the Chief’s face. Kumagaki licked up the blood of his one-time subordinates and fellow creatures in ecstasy. The greedy look on his face continued even when his throat tightened intolerably.

Setsura asked quietly, “There’s something I’d like to know—in your capacity as a police chief.”

Other than the Chief, all had met the same fate as the detectives. Within the dizzying miasma of blood, the pained expression on his face was colored by an elation that was difficult to disguise. This bloody highway to hell was for him a scarlet Shangri-La.

Setsura observed his condition dispassionately. “How many of the city’s movers and shakers did you make your prey? I’d like to know their names and positions. And their nesting places.”

A scraping sound spilled unevenly from the Chief’s trembling lips. It wasn’t anguish. He was laughing. “You—you think I’m—I’m gonna talk? Go ahead and—and kill me. But first—how about giving me—a nibble—”

The next moment, his back bent over like a shrimp’s. He bared the whites of his eyes. Sending the other vampires quickly to their graves could be called a kind of “compassion.” But this was the torture that awaited the Chief. The black universe of Setsura’s heart was beyond the understanding of mere mortals.

“You won’t answer me, Chief?” he repeated.

“Fine—fine—I’ll tell you—”

But before he could answer, the Chief’s chest swelled. His vest burst open. Along with what was inside it. As Kumagaki writhed in his death throes, a woman’s hand pushed out of his sternum, his heart clenched in her lithesome fingers.