Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The elevator doors closed. This time it was General Bey who posed the question, “Where to?”

“There is no down,” Setsura stated plainly.

“Then up it is. What floor would suit you?”

“Do as you please.”

The general’s finger pressed the button for the roof. “If you wish to get off anywhere in between, now is the time.”

“And how about yourself, Kazikli Bey?”

The man’s somber face briefly registered surprise. “So you do know who I am. But then again, I should not be surprised that you would.”

“Ah, but you could have spent eternity in the palace of the Turkish Sultan, staring up at the endless sky. Why did you return? Did you come all this way just to see me?”

“Well—”

“And having found freedom in this city, what will you do?”

“Knowing what you know about me, you should not have to ask that question. That woman would not put it so crassly, but this place is overflowing with corruption and the stench of blood. There is no reining me in here.” He grinned toothily, baring his unsightly fangs. His eyes glowed red. “The more I see of you, the more you seem to belong here. It is no wonder that Princess hides her face out of shame. Even in front of me.”

A dull thud slowly rocked the floor beneath their feet. The elevator came to a halt.

“Where I come from, it is customary for the dead to leave the room first.”

Setsura walked wordlessly out of the elevator. The wind tousled his hair. They were on the roof of the Keio Plaza Hotel, five hundred feet above the ground. Few signs of the Devil Quake could be seen here, except for these dark and shadowed remnants of the supernatural.

Setsura approached one corner of the fence that enclosed the roof area. The black-clad figure seemed to light up. As if the Man in the Moon had decided to point the spotlight at him. Shinjuku Station and the surrounding buildings shimmered like tiny toys in the gaudy brilliance. Some parts of this city never slept.

Setsura raked his hand through his tangled hair. He returned to the center of the stage where the general was settling into a fighting stance. His left hand hung by his side. His right hand was tucked into the collar of his gold and silver embroidered robe.

“It doesn’t seem like the time for sightseeing. Feeling better now?”

There was no change in his voice. Setsura didn’t answer. The silence was an additional invitation to the scene of supernatural battle spreading out beneath the moonlight.

The general raised both hands to the height of his shoulders. If an onlooker squinted, he might see a faint, glimmering line—like a fine, wet wire—from his wrists to Setsura’s fist. The general had caught Setsura’s devil wire with his bare hands.

This confrontation was not going to end as those had in the darkness a short time before. The general’s arm—that had previously batted away Setsura’s wires—didn’t budge an inch. Drops of blood dripped from his wrists and from between his fingers.

“Where’s that bloodthirsty man from the basement who yet showed some sympathy for the devil? This man’s soul cuts straight to the bone.” The two points of light from inside the general’s skull transformed from demonic red to a raging scarlet.

“Haa—!” The roaring yowl burst forth from the black cave of his mouth.

Setsura leapt to his right. Faster than the eye could follow. Had it been visible and on public display, exclamations of praise would have followed. And though invisible to the eye, the transfixing afterimage of Setsura’s elegant movements was left in the air.

Changing into one more shadow flitting through the darkness, he glided across the roof and sprang into the air. A silver line split the moonlight. Another shining ray flashed down and rebounded.

His black slicker resembled the wings of a magical raven. His countenance shamed the moon. But when Setsura again alighted on the ground, the hem of his slicker was mangled like the edge of a postcard pulled out of a paper shredder at the last moment.

A dozen yards away, General Bey said, “Nothing surprises me about you. That was your wire.” He thrust out his bloody right hand.

Setsura’s severed devil wire. Wielded by the general, Setsura’s weapon hadn’t been able to do the same. The same titanium fiber that cleaved muscle down to the bone had been severed by itself—and by somebody other than its true owner. What manner of man was this warrior?

Setsura still held the end of the devil wire in his right hand. It constrained the general’s left arm, which became at the same time a shackle around Setsura’s. Setsura had the use of his left hand, the general his right.

Given Setsura’s greater familiarity with the weapon and the general’s bloody hand—but taking into consideration his remarkable skills and talents and the compromised physical condition of the young man in black—both sides of this equation poised in a precarious balance.

“I saw your portrait in Innsbruck Castle,” Setsura breezily observed. “A mounted knight at the head of his army. Now I understand why you did not carry so much as a pocket knife on your person.”

“Live by the sword and you die when the blade breaks. Fight with a lance and you become a stuck pig without it. But make the weapon of your enemy your own and you will live a long, long time.”

The general’s voice flowed proudly through the night. Coming at the height of battle, such a grand and solemn revelation was almost enough to make this beautiful genie forget the nature of the attack.

From time immemorial, it was said that in the furthest reaches of the forests of Eastern Europe—where darkness engaged daily with light—there existed a practitioner of the black arts, an outlaw knight who had cast away his soul and held in his hands secrets that made him invincible.

During the late sixteenth century, Gyorgy Thurzo, Count Palatine of Hungary, recorded in A History of My Sister, Elizabeth that she had been led into a life of depravity by a blond, blue-eyed knight, who ruled over her more thoroughly than the Devil ever did Faust. Wrote the Count:

He had slender hands that in any other knight might invite derision. But face him once and he would without difficulty rob his opponent of his weapon and in the same moment use it against him with an identical skill. And by the same token, that man’s wife—however praised as a rock of fidelity—would, upon being taken to the marital bed, sing like a bird and bay like a wolf and expire in ecstasy under the ministrations of those golden hands.

That was the very least of it:

The diabolical nature of the training required to acquire these skills cannot be satisfactorily put into words. As evidence of his soulless state, after engaging in a degree of ferocity that left a mountain and river stained with blood, he trekked for ninety-nine days across the untamed countryside, slaying every man he met.

“Haa—!”

The gold and silver shadow vaulted off the earth. So did the black-clad young man. Moonlight scattered all around them—seemed to freeze solid—and then rained down shards of shattered ice. The two silhouettes switched positions, sticking their landings like two diamonds still locked in kimberlite.

They didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“You are a beautiful beast,” said the general, in a voice that sounded like a growl rumbling out of the ground.

Each repelled the mutual midair attack of devil wires. The general sensed invaders attacking from all sides—the devil wires Setsura had cast with his free hand.

They floated suspended in the air, and then fragmented and fell to the ground. Reacting only to the blast of wind and shudder in the concrete when the general landed, these simple flecks of metallic thread transformed into whirling scythes.

The general’s face, neck, chest, hands and feet were slashed with dozens of thin, black lines—that grew fatter and fatter. Setsura’s fingers didn’t move. The wires responded to his will alone, dutifully sawing into the general’s skin, eating into his flesh, tightening down to the bone.

Setsura remained frozen in place, down on one knee. Ryuuki’s malevolent qi smoldered in his gut and pounded him with agonizing chills and waves of nausea. He’d come this far on the strength of his intestinal fortitude alone. The powers of concentration required to face down an enemy of unprecedented strength pressed him to the limits of his endurance.

In that condition, the ability to predict the general’s jump and landing point and then execute such a degree of martial artistry of those titanium strands was truly remarkable.

“That was fine work,” the general said in a rasping voice. “For all my strength, I would die if I lost my head. But you are already fighting with a handicap. The time has not come for us to say goodbye.”

Setsura heard a hard sound. The sound of steel eating into bone—the threads cutting through bone. The general’s lips trembled. But it wasn’t pain. It was glee. An expression of evil Setsura had never seen before.

The general raised his right hand and traced the black bloody line crossing his neck. Beneath the smeared blood, the wound left by the wire disappeared.

“I possess this ability too. That is why we who drink blood are called immortal. Though had this wound been inflicted by you in prime fighting form, you would have likely cut my head clean off. If you wish to make my beheading permanent, you must first make the body forget how to regenerate itself.”

The general placed his right hand over his heart. The fingers sank into the skin, burrowing into his chest. Pain distorted his ferocious expression. Blood stained the silvery fabric.

With a guttural howl, he wrenched out his fingers. A thin line like a string of bloody beads stretched from his thumb and forefinger to his chest. Setsura’s devil wire. It had penetrated to the bone. He calmly gouged it out.

“Nice piece of craftsmanship. Keen edge. If sleep ever comes for me, I would wish for a blade like this to finish the job. But before that—”

A sharp ringing sound sang through the air. Setsura sidestepped the strand of devil wire aimed at his feet and soared into the air. His left hand glittered. A faint line of blood bisected the general’s face from the crown of his head to the tip of his jaw. But he only smiled.

It seemed that the dawn would never come. Five hundred feet above the ground, the demon combat spilled across the roof of the skyscraper. Setsura ran along the top of the chain-link fence toward the elevators. Beneath his feet the fence tore apart, vertical fissures yawning open like reptilian mouths.

The general sensed Setsura’s uncertain steps through the wire connecting them. He pulled on that wire.

Setsura staggered and dropped his guard. He did not have an immortal body.

The general was about to send the killing strand at him when, for some reason, he looked up at the night sky. The moon was out. By the time he’d realized that Setsura had released his end of the wire, he heard it humming through the air at his neck.

A shudder of crimson fear. He was sure he was dead.

Managing a physical feat that would have been difficult with all his facilities intact demanded an unimaginable degree of self-control and force of will. Setsura Aki’s devil wire followed the arc calculated to intersect precisely with the general’s neck.

But then it tumbled out of its orbit.

In the moment before impact, a white ghost flew into its path. Setsura sprang away as well. The hilt of a dagger protruded from the left side of his chest, as if the white moon had planted it there. Just beneath the moon floated a woman, her other hand pressed against the side of her face.

Setsura fell from the soaring heights and plummeted to the earth, his black slicker flapping in the rushing air like a bird that had lost its wings. Princess watched until the darkness swallowed him up. She hovered silently in the sky. The wispy, ephemeral gossamer on her back fluttered in the wind.

“Close call,” she said to the general on the roof. She made no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

“What the hell are you talking about? I only lost my footing.” The general didn’t try to get up. “More importantly, what happened to him?”

“He fell. I didn’t detect any rescue lines.”

“I will believe it when I see the dead body.”

“No need. This hand stabbed him through the heart. Such a meaningless loss.”

“He was bearing great wounds. And yet was capable of casting his wire at me thusly. Do not take this wrong, Princess, but the only reason your blade found its mark was because his struggle with me had already drained him of his life force.”

“Whatever. He’s dead. The monsters down there are making a meal of him now. Kikiou will undoubtedly be delighted.”

“Where did he fall?”

“There.”

The general got to his feet and looked hard where her white finger pointed. He pressed his right hand against his neck.

“What?” Princess asked.

“He did not sever my neck but did cut my blood vessels. Here is the best evidence of that man’s skill. Who can say how long the blood will keep flowing?”

The general removed his hand. Princess focused her one eye on the spot. A black line cut halfway through his sturdy neck—otherwise a proud manifestation of his immortal, regenerative powers—from which fresh blood spurted.

“He was examining this place before he battled me. He might have planned his own death. I should offer him a prayer of my own.”

The general raised his left hand. From the tips of his fingers slipped thin, glittering strands of light. Princess watched as they scattered into the darkness from a gap in the chain-link fence.

Setsura wasn’t floating. Neither was he on solid earth. He was spread eagle, face up in empty space some yards above the ground. He looked like he’d suddenly been released from the pull of gravity, and the price of such sorcery was the weight of his own soul.

In reality, Setsura had fallen into a kind of suspended animation. With the dagger still penetrating his chest, that was the only way to keep from crashing dead into the ground.

The position, orientation, and angle of his body had all been calculated from a fall of five hundred feet, coming to rest on a single strand reaching from the hotel to the building facing it.

He’d cast that line from the roof of the hotel, from the perimeter of the chain-link fence, while raking his fingers casually through his hair and looking down at the world. Not as an escape route. Setsura had considered slamming the general against it. Princess’s intervention had necessitated repurposing it as a lifeline. He’d limited himself to one wire due to the general’s powerful eyesight. He was as powerful an opponent as Setsura had ever encountered, so he couldn’t be sure it’d go unnoticed.

If he had, Setsura would be shit out of luck now.

The single, micron-thin thread had absorbed the impact and supported his weight after the five hundred foot fall. It took all his powers of concentration to keep from dropping the rest of the way. In the process, he’d drained the last reservoirs of his strength and succumbed to this half-dead state. Move a finger, wiggle his toes, and the wire would bisect his body and send the parts flying.

He was a corpse on a string.

An entirely remarkable coincidence robbed him of his next move. A gremlin no bigger than a toad crossed the road beneath the splendid silhouette carved into the sky.

Before making it to the other side, the sole of a white shoe crushed it to jelly. The gleeful face delighting in the creature’s squirming death throes—a sacrifice of sorts to the coming slaughter—belonged to none other than Shuuran. She raised her head. The Chinese girl saw Setsura suspended there in the air.

“Princess’s telepathy told me that you were dead, but I didn’t believe it. I came here to make sure. What a frightening man you are, Setsura Aki. But I will eliminate the cause of our distress. I will obliterate Sir Ryuuki’s foe.”

Shuuran reached into her hair. Her hand extended skyward. A flash of light shot past Setsura’s head, cutting through his devil wire. He dropped to the asphalt. Shuuran extended her right hand. The arc of light curved around and flew back into her hand, as if inexorably drawn there. The silver comb gleamed in the moonlight.

“First, I’m going to rip out your throat. Then your head. And your arms and legs. You can wait in hell for us forever. But don’t count on visitors anytime soon.”

She walked toward him. Her feet abruptly came to a halt. Behind her a bird sang. A cawing crow. Shuuran looked back over her shoulder.

A small silhouette approached from the direction of the Mitsui Building. At this time, in this place, it was unbelievable that any human being would come to meet her face to face. But the demon Shuuran drew her brows and stared at the girl walking toward her. The girl was wearing a purple satin dress. She didn’t look more than seven or eight years old.

The ghostly animosity radiating from her ivory-white face told Shuuran at once that she was a creature no less magical than her, and an enemy. The girl continued walking forward. Shuuran waited.

A purple dress and a dark green Chinese dress. Eyes like the deep blue sea and eyes as black as a winter night. One on behalf of the black-clad genie and one on behalf of those mercenaries of the night.

Wagering without regret not only their lives but their souls, this was a once-in-a-lifetime meeting between an unnaturally beautiful girl and an unnaturally beautiful young woman.

“You’re here representing Setsura?” Shuuran’s voice rang across the half-dozen yards separating them.

The girl stopped walking. Her blue eyes looked up at the sky. From somewhere in the gloomy night came a man’s hoarse voice.

“She came right to his side without even the courtesy of a phone call.”

“In that case—” The girl again turned her eyes on Shuuran. “You are the one responsible for scarring his beautiful throat? That is why I despise living things of flesh and blood.”

The girl was a doll, Galeen Nuvenberg’s pretty little servant.