City of Demons, page 17
part #2 of The Unseen Series
He tried to speak, but the second he opened his mouth he felt the cilia trying to force their way inside, and they didn't taste anything like spaghetti. Silence had never been his specialty, but in this case he could manage a bit of it.
A few thumps sounded out next to his ear, as if someone were hitting the fleshy wall. "What is this thing?" he heard Karen's muffled shout through the wall of flesh. It was a great question, very pertinent to Danny's current situation, so he struggled to hear the answer. Sectu said something about plates, which didn't make sense.
Then the pain started.
The cilia latched down on his skin as the entire suction chamber drew in tight around him. No longer exploring, the cilia dug their tiny hairs into him, reached into his skin and held on.
His body lit up like a switchboard on New Year's Eve. Agony coursed through his nerves. Danny had been electrocuted once trying to break into an ATM machine with a broken screwdriver. That was like a hot stone massage and a martini compared to this.
He knew he was screaming, but the sound that came out was nothing like his voice. The scream stretched out, the sound lengthening until he could hear each, individual vibration of his vocal cords on its own. Morse code that drifted away to nothing.
Then he was falling, falling through darkness. Danny slipped from the waking world and into pure black. He fell through absolute nothing. There was no wind and no time, he simply fell and fell. Danny looked up to see the scream he'd left behind, a trail of sounds far above, and wondered if he'd ever get it back.
A massive glass pane came into view below. In it were reflections of things, familiar people and places. His silent descent didn't slow as he fell through it, shattering the glass into a thousand-million pieces, and at first he tried to shield his eyes until he caught sight of the shards. Each tiny fragment was a moment. A second of his life. Where they cut him, he heard their sounds inside his skull.
The lights and shadows and voices inside a womb. A hospital room. Hunger and crying. A cold bottle.
Danny's falling body cleared the broken shards. He left behind their sounds the way he'd left behind his scream. Then he struck another pane.
His own feet, tiny, walking on a messy floor. Food wrappers and unpaid bills and old needles.
Another pane. Another set of images. His mother locking herself in her room. Him and his younger sister Rebecca playing, waiting for her to come back. More hunger. More crying. Different men and women coming and going through the apartment door. All of them pale. None of them nice.
Another pane. Him and his sister staying out of their mother's way, feeding off her scraps. Trying not to make her mad. Trying not to get hit. Helping her off the messy floor.
Another. Their mother thin and sweaty. A man telling them they had to leave the apartment. Living in a place with lots of beds. Then their mother leaving and not coming back. They look for her. Can't find her. Rebecca crying. Him holding her.
Danny and Rebecca living on the street. He takes care of her. They find food behind restaurants. Months of living like this. Then they're noticed by a police officer.
Conversations. Meetings. Paperwork.
A string of faces. Some good, most not. People trying to touch his sister. Danny fighting them, getting hurt. Using words instead. Works better. Saying goodbye to Rebecca.
Garbage bags. Always the garbage bags, filled up with his things.
Danny aging out at eighteen. A handshake and a few hundred bucks. Trying to look up his sister. Closed adoption. No one will tell him where she is.
Homeless again. Cold.
Steals his first wallet. Finally, a bed. Motel rooms and trains. Then an apartment. Trying again to find his sister. Nothing. More faces. More trains. More cold.
Ken. Chromes. Karen. Miku. Hana. Sectu.
Danny looked down at the future, a line of glass panes stretched out into the void below. Each one was a year of his life to come. He tried to count them all but couldn't. Then one of them glowed white hot. It shook and shook until it shattered. A year of his life, gone. The price for the stone paid. Shattered glass shards flew up at him, whistling and screaming like a train coming up for him.
He couldn't cover his eyes in time. The shards struck his eyes, blotting out his sight.
***
"It is done," Sectu said.
The process complete, the tentacle mouth spit Danny out like a troublesome cherry pit. Its hundred, cold eyes closed as it burrowed back into the ground, until only ripples were left in the sand. Karen rushed to Danny and helped him sit up, checking his eyes.
Danny shivered and shook but made no eye contact, wrestling with the things he’d seen inside. Under a thin layer of the creature's saliva, his face looked hollow, maybe even slightly older.
"Are you alright?" Karen asked.
"I…" He struggled to find the words. That was a first, Karen thought. She held three fingers up in front of his face.
"What am I holding up?"
Danny stared at her hand, his eyes slipping in and out of focus. "Eight legs," he said with a slight smile.
Karen looked over at Miku. "He's fine."
"That did not smell good," Danny added. Eventually, with a little help, he got to his feet.
"The girl is like a lightning rod to the Yokai," Sectu said, "a magnet across worlds. Only a piece of Tamamo is in her, but given time she will surface in full. This cannot be avoided. Yori's plan will be to quicken the process."
"How?"
"From what you tell me, he is already summoning Yokai using the Resurgence ritual. By performing the ritual in the final hours of Setsubun, it would be possible to summon greater Yokai."
"What the hell is cinnamon bun?" Danny asked, wiping his hands on Miku's sleeve.
"Setsubun," Karen corrected him. "The last day of Winter. People believe the spirit world comes closer to the physical world on that day. They have festivals to ward off demons."
"Like Halloween," Miku said, pulling her sleeve away.
"It is not the spirit world that grows close," Sectu said, "it is that of the Yokai. Humans tend to have good reason to fear what they fear. Whether they remember or understand why is a different matter."
The sand once again parted. Danny stepped back, afraid of what else might come from beneath, but he was relieved to see the jagged form of the stone emerge. It rose on a platform of sand, presented to Karen. At Sectu's urging she took the shard from its platform.
"I give you Sessho-seki- the Killing Stone."
Karen turned it over, admiring how the light caught in the half-meter of black crystal. Suddenly it stirred in her hand, shifting shape. It grew longer by double, then shortened to less than half its original size. Atoms reorganized. Crystals folded. "What is it doing?" Karen asked, struggling to hold on.
"Seeking a form. Sessho-seki is a cunning instrument, full of many surprises. Over time it will learn you. Over time you will come to love it, and to fear it."
Over their heads, the cloud of quicksand pillared down to them, like a hand reaching down to pluck them from the other world.
"One more thing," Karen said. "What was in that key?"
Sectu laughed. "Singh did not tell you?"
"He said they were hard to come by. I assumed it was the egg of an Unseen."
He nods. "In a way. Be glad he didn't tell you. If you knew, you might not have destroyed it."
The sand took them in. With deep breaths they were lifted back into the crushing darkness that rumbled and slipped.
-13-
Parked a safe distance from the factory, yet close enough to keep an eye on it, a rusty brown car sat in the night.
Behind the wheel, Officer Vicario, officially of the Santa Fausta Police Department, yawned into the dial tone of his phone. It had been a long three days of surveillance. Between drinking countless bottles of soda, filling them back up with something slightly more yellow, and banging out sick to a boss who already didn’t like him, Vicario had had enough. After six rings, the line finally picked up.
"Yeah. Still nothing," he said, picking through the food wrappers on the passenger seat. His stomach was growling, and surely something had to be left behind.
"Did you check inside the building?"
"Of course I checked. I went in after the first hour. Nothing but sand."
A pause. "Did you say sand?"
"I told you this the other day. Yeah, sand. Like the stuff at the beach that gets in your crack. I don't know why it’s there."
"Some things aren't what they appear to be."
"Well in this case it’s just a factory with a bunch of sand in it." Jackpot. He found a mini-doughnut hiding at the back of the box. He stuffed it in his mouth and sat back up.
The man on the other end sniffed. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you how Mister Yori feels about the package disappearing."
"I don't doubt he's pissed, but he has to understand I've done everything I can. They went in but they didn't come out, what do you want me to say? It's been three days, they gotta be dead by now."
As the man on the other end continued to blab on about how angry Yori was, Vicario glanced back to the factory. To his surprise, the front door of the building opened. He watched as Karen walked out, followed by Miku and Danny, in the same clothes as he’d seen them in three days earlier. They looked a little worn out, like they’d been through the ringer once or twice, but they acted as if no time had passed at all.
"Well, piss in my soup," Vicario said. "Tell Yori I have good news."
***
Karen tested the stone shard in her right hand, then her left. As she swung it in a simple front parry, the stone grew thinner, more sword-like, and a crude handle formed under her grip. The weight even changed, becoming lighter somehow. The shift threw off her swing- she wasn’t accustomed to her weapon having a mind of its own- but it was interesting to think what it might be capable of, given practice.
Then there was the other thing. The connection she felt with it. The moment she’d touched the killing stone, Karen had felt its power not just in her hands but in her mind. It wasn’t a voice, exactly, but she felt it communicating with her none-the-less.
"Can I see it?" Miku asked.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Sectu had mentioned the stone coming from the body of Tamamo, which wasn’t far from the stories she knew. If that was the case, it didn’t seem like a very good idea to put the stone right back into the hands of Tamamo’s vessel.
"Well keep it away from me," Danny said. "I don't want anything to do with it."
"That's probably for the best. To tell you the truth, I don't think it likes you."
Danny stopped walking. "How do you know that?"
She thought of the connection. The voiceless dialogue taking place between she and the stone. "It's…hard to explain," she said.
"Then don't." Danny started the walk back up the industrial road, keeping his distance. "Can’t catch a break," he grumbled. "Even the damn rocks want to kill me."
Karen walked as well. Miku caught up and tugged on her sleeve. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"We need to find shelter and come up with a plan. Setsubun is February third, which doesn't give us much time. Judging by the moon we lost a few days down there." She looked at Danny, remembering he’d lost a lot more down below.
"A plan to do what exactly?" he asked. "Fish sticks wasn't exactly clear on the details."
Karen tucked the halved stone into her waistband. "Long story short, I think we have to summon Tamamo ourselves. Draw her out before she takes over completely."
"Great. And then what?"
Karen patted the Killing Stone. She and Miku exchanged a look of concern.
"The only way to do that is with the bonsho," Miku said reluctantly. "But it’s under the floor of the ritual room, the place of my birthday party."
"Hold on," Danny said. "So you're saying we have to break back into Yori Tower-"
"Without being seen," Karen added.
"-just so we can perform the exact same ritual they were already planning to do?"
"Yes," Karen said. "But you're forgetting one thing."
"Which is?"
"We have no idea how to perform it."
Danny laughed. "I know you don't watch a lot of movies, but that line is usually followed by something good. A game-changer that'll make it possible."
"Really?" Karen thought for a moment. "Okay, how's this: you're forgetting one thing…"
"Which is?"
"They have an army of demons on their side." She squinted dramatically at Miku, and the girl giggled.
"You're definitely still not getting it."
"One more try," she said.
He leaned against a pile of concrete slabs stacked higher than his head. "One more, then I'm cutting you off."
"You're forgetting one thing." Karen paused, a smile on her lips. "They're not the only monsters in town."
Danny nodded. "Wow. Not bad. See, that was much-"
Karen suddenly drew the stone from her belt and threw it at Danny's head. The shard cut through the air and struck the concrete slab three inches from where he rested, embedding into the concrete like a knife into butter. A split-second later, a blackened shuriken intended for Danny hit the Killing Stone's surface and fell to the ground. A tendril of black smoke rose up from the throwing star's hot metal.
Footsteps made themselves heard all around. Onibi filled the street, a legion of twenty charred fighters carrying curved blades.
"-Better," Danny finished.
Karen reclaimed the stone as a crowd of blackened faces licked their burnt lips. "There's always more of you. Like cockroaches. Do you know what happened to the last bunch?" she asked them. "I squished them under my boot."
The Onibi snarled back at her. "Thinn sa hota," they hissed.
Karen focused on the Killing Stone. She hadn't had time to practice with the weapon, learn it the way she needed to. It whispered in her bones, but she couldn't make out the full meaning of its alien words.
The Onibi readied their weapons. They licked their swords to heat the metal, blades sizzling in the icy air.
"Danny?"
"Yeah?" His voice cracked, like a teenager answering his mom.
"I can't fight them all at once. I need you to thin out the crowd a bit."
"Okay, how do I do that?"
"Run," she said.
"That's it?"
Karen glanced back at him. "Run fast."
"Got it."
Danny ran fast. He bolted left, heading for a scattering of construction vehicles parked in front of an unfinished building. Three Onibi followed him, quickly gaining.
"Alright," Karen said, getting into starting stance with Miku behind her. "Who's first?"
They all rushed forward, not about to attack one-at-a-time this time around.
Karen received their attack. She rolled off one strike and into another, then a third, cutting a demon down with each blow. The others paused to look at their fallen brothers; three dead in three cuts.
They looked back to Karen. She smiled before striking again.
***
Danny reached the closest construction vehicle, a large boom lift with a basket at the end of a long arm for lifting workers. He jumped from the ground to the tire tread to the ladder to escape the demons on his heels. As he took rung after rung, he didn't bother to look back. He knew they were still there, and seeing their red eyes glowing up at him wouldn't help anything.
He reached the vehicle's cabin and pulled himself up and into the seat. As he did, he came face-to-face with a demon on the other side, hissing and stabbing its curved blade at him.
"Whoa!" Danny shouted and ducked. The sword's sharp tip missed the top of his head by a finger's length. Instead it found its mark in the belly of the demon coming up behind him. The struck demon shrieked and fell backward, off the lift and down to the ground.
"Nice one," Danny laughed, but he spoke too soon. The demon in front of him growl-hissed and attacked again, pushing Danny off-balance.
Danny slipped and tumbled backward. His hand hit the lift's red power button, causing the machine to grumble to life. He barely managed to grab the door before he fell.
Clinging to the hulking vehicle, he watched the demon crawl its way through the cabin toward him, hissing all the way.
***
Karen fought her own set of demons.
Through small drives she’d managed to divide the crowd up, spreading them out so she could work on them one or two at a time. She struck down on one demon's wrist with the handle end of the stone, causing the enemy to drop its sword, then pulled back and drove the stone into its stomach. The move gave her enough room to step back and cut across its neck with the sharp side of the stone. Dark blood sprayed in the night.
Footsteps behind her. She turned and cut up into where her attacker was cutting down, blocking its blade, then swooped down and around to take out its leg before she was onto the next.
The Killing Stone changed shape, throwing off her form. She found it frustrating, but there was no denying the stone's ability to cut demon skin, not to mention its thirst for blood. As she fought, she learned an important lesson: trust the stone. Trust that it knew what it wanted, then give it what it wanted.
The demons learned their own lesson: don't underestimate Karen Kimura.
***
Danny climbed his way around to the front of the boom lift truck. High above the ground, he clung to the rusted metal for his life. One demon crawled out of the cabin to reach him while another climbed up toward him. He inched away from one only to find himself closer to the other.
With a curse on his lips and little other choice, Danny pushed himself up the vehicle’s window to reach the long arm of the lift. He pulled up the arm until he could scramble onto the top side.
"Going up again," he muttered to himself.
Danny climbed into the basket at the end of the long hydraulic arm. He found the panel for controlling the arm remotely; nine or ten switches, labeled with various functions, and a key. He turned the key and flipped half a dozen switches; jib lift, boom lift, riser lift, anything that sounded like it would put some distance between him and the demon-ninjas.
