City of Demons, page 16
part #2 of The Unseen Series
Now, a second possibility had shown itself. That they’d been taken from her. Taken by Sectu, in exchange for something she needed. Anger rose in Karen’s throat at the thought of her grandmother being taken advantage of that way. "Are you too much of a coward to show me your face?" Karen asked.
The eyes in the pillar of quicksand grew taller, towering over them. "Do not insult me in my home," his voice boomed. The sand beneath Karen spread up her feet like a swarm of ants until it covered her legs, the weight holding her in place. "Everything here, I control. I will blast the flesh from your bones. I will open your mouth and fill your lungs with all the sand of this world."
"I doubt it. In fact, this whole act is for show. The truth is you need what we have, as much as we need what you have."
The pillar shifted toward Karen, the black eyes meeting hers. She didn't flinch as the sand contemplated her words, eyes scanning her face from an inch away.
After a moment the pillar shrunk down to less than five feet tall. The sand fell away, first from Karen's legs and feet, then from the pillar, revealing Sectu's true form.
His round body came no higher than Karen's stomach. In place of skin he had a hard, purple-brown shell with articulated limbs. His face resembled the underside of a horseshoe crab, rows of pincers surrounding his mouth in a click-clacking beard. "Gross," Danny said under his breath.
Sectu wagged a claw at her. "You're clever, Karen Kimura, but don't forget whose world you stand in. In my home you will show me respect."
"I can agree with that."
His mouth-pincers tapped in rhythm, like fingers impatiently drumming a desk. "Very well- what do you require from me?"
Karen called Miku over to join her. The girl hesitated, frightened by the insectoid man, but Danny gave her an encouraging shove. "This girl," Karen said, "she needs your help."
The shelled man nodded. "You wish to make her less ugly."
Danny chuckled. Karen shot him a look. "C'mon," he said, "that's funny."
"You are even uglier," Sectu said to Danny, and Danny stopped laughing.
"Hey, lobster face, do you have mirrors down here? You look like the dumpster at a bad sushi joint."
"Cut it out, Danny," Karen warned him. She turned back to Sectu. "Don’t worry, he has that effect on everyone."
Sectu frowned and smoothed his claws over his shell, as if he was straightening his tie. "Tell me the problem with the girl."
Karen urged Miku to tell him herself. The girl was shy at first, but eventually she spoke. "As far back as I can remember," she said, "something has lived in me. A spirit that wants to come out. She’s very strong. Very angry."
"Ahh, the Yokai," Sectu noted with interest. "Who is it? Who does this spirit belong to?"
Karen was about to say they didn’t know who it was when Miku said, "I…I hear her name sometimes." The admission took Karen by surprise.
"What name is it you hear?"
The girl hesitated. "Tamamo."
"You didn't tell me this," Karen said.
Sectu nodded gravely. "Tamamo no Mae, one of the three great Yokai. The many-tailed demon is not to be taken lightly."
"Tamamo," Karen scoffed. "The courtesan who poisoned the emperor, who turned out to be a shape-shifting fox. Come on now. Even knowing the things I know, some stories are just stories."
"There's a great deal of truth to be found in myths and folklore. In the retelling much is distorted, but at the core are often facts too difficult to understand."
Karen shook her head, still not believing.
"Hey, lady," Danny said, tallying off a list on his fingers. "In case you've lost count- ancient spider people? Real. Burny-faced demon ninjas? Real. Homeless, blood-diseased vampires? Painfully real. So why is a fox with a bunch of tails so hard to accept?"
Karen was silent. "Perhaps the problem lies in admitting the girl could be a creature of evil," Sectu offered. "That this little one could bring so much death to your world. Possibly even its end."
"So that's why Yori wants her so badly," Danny said.
Sectu perked up. "Hayato Yori is involved?"
"He's the reason for all of it," Karen said. "He plans to lead the Yokai to victory by whatever means necessary. And apparently, those means are Miku and…" She paused. "…And Tamamo."
The small, crab-like man grew serious. "This is extremely important information. You must tell me everything."
Karen gave him the rundown, starting with Yori taking Miku and her mother in, to the bonsho rituals, to the birthday party, to the attack on the dojo, ending with their escape from Yori Tower. "He'll hunt her to the corners of the Earth to get what he wants," Karen said. "We need to get this spirit out of her so he can leave her the hell alone."
"Hell is what he'll bring if he gets his way," Sectu said. "The Yokai have never been known for their peaceful nature, and his relationship with them is a strange one to be sure."
"How so?"
"You might understand his place in this better if you knew his true name- Yorimitsu."
Karen’s eyebrow raised. "The ancient warrior?"
Sectu nodded. "Yori’s ancestor killed Shuten-doji, one of the most evil Yokai who has ever lived. Yori believes this to be one of the worst mistakes in all of history, a mistake he wishes to correct. If he does so, the world above will become the world below."
According to the legends Karen had been taught, Minamoto no Yorimitsu was one of the most famous Japanese heroes, a member of the Minamoto clan. That he had any connection to the Yori she knew was a slap in the face to Yorimitsu’s legacy. "Then help us stop him," Karen said, "before he brings the roof down on your head."
Sectu scoffed. "I am quite safe here."
"For now. But if Yori succeeds, how long will it take before the first Yokai shows up at your door? Maybe you manage to keep it out, but then the second shows up. And the third. So the question is, how many demons does it take to overpower the great Sectupodithrae?"
The short, hard-shelled man contemplated everything she had said while stroking his pincer beard. His three visitors exchanged looks. Their mission, and at least one of their lives, depended on his decision.
After a long time, he turned to them and simply said, "Very well. You will need the Killing Stone."
***
Karen's white sneakers ran along the old, wooden path, across the dry riverbed and along the mountainside. She caught up to her mother and tugged on her white pant-leg.
"There you are." Her mother smiled down at her. Karen always liked the way her mother looked when she wore her hair up. "Where did you get off to?"
"I was chasing a Baku but it got away."
"Those slippery, little devils."
"They're not devils, mom, they’re nice. They eat bad dreams."
"Good. I'd hate to see you chasing the bad ones."
They walked up the angled path, soft breeze blowing through their hair. The sky there was the bluest Karen had ever seen, with puffy, white clouds like rabbit tails dancing on the wind. Grown-ups were always talking about how the grass was greener on the other side. If that was true, Karen thought, this must be the other side.
Her mother breathed the mountain air deeply. "I'm happy I finally get to show you where your ancestors come from."
"Some of them," Karen's father said, coming up from behind them. He sniffed, his allergies acting up, and looked down on Karen with dark, puffy eyes.
"We'll go to Germany next year," her mother said.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant, Bradley. Let's let her enjoy this."
They rounded the bend to the sight of hundreds of small statues praying in the low grass. They all faced the same direction, and on their stone heads they wore knitted head wraps of either red or white yarn. Karen stopped to look at a particularly pretty one close to the wooden path.
Karen's mother stopped next to her. "These are Jizo statues. They were put here by women who lost their babies." Her mother squeezed her arm tight.
"Come on, Simone," her father called out, already halfway to the next bend. "I want to get to the hot springs before they close."
"Coming, dear," Karen’s mother said, rolling her eyes.
After more climbing they reached what they’d come to see. The large stone was set back behind a wooden fence, heavy rope draped all the way around it. Half a dozen signs warned visitors in Japanese, big, bold letters that in as many ways as possible all said the same thing.
This rock kills anyone who touches it.
"They say it leaks poison gas," Karen said to her mother.
"Is that right?"
"Yes. It’s haunted by the spirit of the fox."
"I should have known that. Why didn't I know that?"
Her father frowned at her mother. "This is your mother's doing," he said. He'd always looked down on Grandmother's stories about the old country. Luckily for Karen, it didn't keep her grandmother from telling them.
"She happens to know a lot about these things."
"That doesn't mean she has to share it all. Karen has more important things to do with her time."
Her mother's dark eyebrows rose on her face. "More important than spending time with her grandmother?"
"You've warned her about filling Karen's head with this crap."
"There's a difference between telling scary stories at bedtime and sharing her culture."
Her father scoffed. "The opera is culture. This is ungodly."
As they began their hundredth fight that week, Karen saw her chance. She had to know for herself if the Killing Stone was real. It was the only reason she’d asked her parents to come all the way out to Nasu on their vacation to Japan.
With a quick glance, to make sure no one was looking, she hopped the fence.
As Karen snuck up on the stone, she thought of her grandmother back home, the woman too sick with flu to make the trip. Karen regretted that her own death would make her grandmother sad, but she knew proving her right, showing people the existence of the spirit world, would fill the woman with more happiness than Karen ever could in her life. That was why when she'd learned of Sessho-seki, a real, live artifact left from the old days, she became obsessed with seeing it for herself.
And not just see it, touch it. She was so close to the stone, she swore she could smell the poison gas seeping from the cracks. Startled gasps came from a few of the tourists who had noticed her.
"Karen!" Her mother leaned over the wooden fence, her eyes wide. "What are you doing?"
Karen looked at the Killing Stone, then back to her mother.
"Don't touch it," she warned.
"Why not?" Her father said. "Go ahead, touch it."
"Bradley!"
The tourists shouted and prayed. A man ran to find someone in charge.
"Touch the stone," he encouraged her. "It's only a story."
"The Killing Stone is real," Karen argued.
"Then what are you waiting for?"
Karen looked from her father to her mother. At least her mother would cry when the stone turned out to be real, though she hated that the woman had to watch her die.
Still, it had to be done. She stepped up to the ugly rock, heart pounding. The growing crowd gasped and screamed as she extended her small hand toward it. Keep watching, she thought. See the truth.
Without trembling, her hand touched the stone. She was ready to die. To show people what she knew inside.
The stone felt cold on her palm, nothing more. She looked back at the silent crowd. One of the tourists laughed, a sound that cut her up inside. Mocking her. After a moment a few more joined in the laughter.
Karen's mother looked at her with sad eyes, and Karen didn't know whether she, too, was disappointed the stone was fake, or just sorry to see her daughter cry in front of so many strangers.
And her father. Her father just smiled.
***
"Sessho-seki," Miku whispered. She knew the legend well, the stories of the stone that killed any who touched it.
"More folklore? Is that all you have to offer?" Karen asked. "I've seen the Killing Stone. It's a tourist trap, nothing more."
Sectu made a strange clicking sound she assumed was a laugh. "Do you really think the Killing Stone would be left on the side of a mountain? It is too powerful an object to be treated this way. Many years ago the real stone was broken apart, the pieces scattered to the wind."
"If that's true," Danny said, "how is it supposed to help us?"
The ground rumbled under their feet. The quicksand churned until a solid object rose from the depths. Sand fell off its surface to show the smooth, black shard laid before them. Half a meter long, and with flakes of crystalline growth, it shimmered under the alien sun. "Luckily for you," Sectu said, "I search the wind." Miku took a step back. "I present to you the last remaining piece of the Killing Stone, born from the dead body of Tamamo no Mae herself."
Karen couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Does it really-?"
"Anyone can touch it," Sectu said. "That is a myth, started by the Yokai to dissuade anyone seeking it. The truth of the stone is much more complicated. It holds great power, power to kill. And kill it wants to."
Karen reached for the shard. Before she could touch it, it lowered back into the sand.
"There is the matter of price," Sectu reminded her.
Karen thought of her grandmother, the woman's mind a maze of half-remembered dreams. She’d warned Karen that he would take something important from her. "Don't forget this benefits you, too," she said. "I think that should reflect in the price."
Sectu nodded, considering the situation. In a loud voice, as if an auctioneer at an estate sale, he announced, "For the Killing Stone, the price shall be one year."
"One year of what?"
"Of the asker's life," Sectu said. "One year taken."
"That's too high a price."
"I think that's the point," Danny said.
Karen shook her head. A year was too much for her. A year of training lost. A year of learning and bettering and strengthening herself. There had to be another way. Another price.
"I'll do it," Danny said matter-of-factly. They all turned to him, surprised. "I'll pay the price for the stone."
"I wasn't addressing you," Sectu dismissed him.
"I heard what you said. You didn't say Karen’s life, you said the asker’s life. Well, I'm the one asking," Danny said. Sectu squinted at him, knowing he was right.
Karen went to Danny. "You don't have to do that," she said quietly. He shrugged.
"The world could use one less year of me. Besides, I need to feel like I added something to the team, other than my charming wit and steely good looks."
"Come on, Danny, I can't ask you to make a sacrifice this big."
"You're not asking, I'm just doing. Is it so hard to think someone might do something for you for a change?"
Karen couldn't think of another way to pay the price. She turned to Sectu. "You're sure this is the only way to stop Yori?"
"I never said that. There is always another way. However it is the only one I can offer you, and your time to act is growing short."
She looked back at Danny. "Why don't you step aside and let me do this?" he said. Karen opened her mouth but no words come out. After a moment she nodded and moved out of his way.
"Just make sure you take it off the boring parts," Danny said to Sectu.
"That is not how time works."
Danny sighed. "My God, not even the shellfish has a sense of humor."
Sectu asked for Danny's hand. The moment Danny gave it, Sectu drew blood from the palm with a fast snip of his claw. Danny winced and pulled his hand back. "What the- you didn't say anything about it hurting." He squeezed his hand shut to staunch the bloodflow, but a line of cherry-dark blood ran out the side and dripped to the sand at his feet.
"That was not the painful part," Sectu replied.
Danny didn’t like the sound of that. The sand under his feet shifted, rose and sunk back down. Something large, something alive was moving underground. He managed a glance back at Karen and Miku, on his face a look that said, I think I screwed up, before it struck.
A blanket of gelatinous flesh emerged from the sand around Danny. In a blink it blotted him from sight, the medusoid form, like an octopus but more tongue-like, swallowing him up in the sudden formation of a suction chamber.
Karen ran to the large tentacle jutting from the sand, punching and prying at the jelly flesh as a hundred cups on the surface opened to unveil a hundred eyes, all of them looking at her.
Meanwhile, Sectu calmly walked to the side of the rippling tentacle with a makeshift device clamped between the two halves of his claw. The instrument looked like a meat thermometer with an alarm clock attached to the top.
"What is this thing?" Karen shouted at him, pulling on the massive tentacle.
"The collection plate."
With the same casual attitude an old farmer might give to feeding his cows on a Tuesday morning, Sectu jammed the sharp end of the device into the tentacle, right to the hilt. If the creature felt the stab it made no indication. Then Sectu turned the dial, its language illegible to everyone but him.
A muffled cry came from within the wall of jelly-skin: Danny's voice, muted by inches of soft muscle. Even subdued, the screams were enough to horrify Karen, to say nothing of Miku.
"Stop this," Karen ordered, "you're killing him!"
"Only a year's worth," Sectu replied. "As per the agreement."
***
The moment he was swallowed by the stinking darkness, Danny regretted his decision.
It was easy to say brave things like I'll do it when standing on solid ground- as solid as sand could be, anyway- but now that he was encased in wet, muscular jelly-flesh that reeked of dead fish, Danny wasn't feeling so heroic. Worse than the feel of the gelatinous walls encasing him was the undulating movement, a tidal push and pull, and the crawling sensations on his skin. Cilia exploring his neck, his hands, his face. It felt like cooked spaghetti getting to know him.
