Hidden Demon, page 16
part #1 of Altered Demons Series
"Powerful men always think they're in control."
In the distance, Penny stood inside the rotunda. Holding her arm, she limped slightly under her blood-stained dress. Dee did not know how long she had been there or what she had seen, but it did not matter as she closed the distance between them. They embraced, eyes shutting as they hugged each other tight. The cougar pawed gently at Dee's leg. She kneeled to stroke it.
"I know people who can fix you," she said, hugging the weary, bloody animal as it purred.
Chapter 34
D
ee startled awake in her seat. She instinctively grabbed for the long, thin case leaning against the wall of the train car. Glancing around, everyone scrolled devices, paying her no attention. Still, she felt both invisible and conspicuous at the same time. A walking contradiction, though her formal black pantsuit blended well with the Japanese business travelers. She turned toward the scenery outside her window, whizzing by on the trip from Narita to Bunkyo City. Her somber face stared back at her in the reflection. Drifting in and out after the long flight, her eyes closed. She dreamed of her last time in Tokyo, replaying it in her mind. The time Ko came to her in the hospital. The bullet around her neck. His masterful attack against the giant bear. Yet he called her Kintaro.
Ding!
Dee roused, looking out the window again. The buzz of the city greeted her. A voice spoke in Japanese over the speaker, "Next stop, Otsuka-ekimae Station."
She gathered a small backpack and slung the thin case over her shoulder before exiting the train.
Inside the station, people filled the space. Two brushed against her as they rushed into their day. Everyone wore black suits or dresses, crowding each other while remaining civil. Moving with the flowing river of humanity, Dee neared a luggage locker. She swiped her phone over the payment slot and opened the gray box. Placing her backpack on the table, she removed a Kintaro Adventures children's book from her backpack. She opened the front cover.
Inside was a note she had written to Ko.
Dear Ko,
Safe travels, my nutty friend.
Jikai,
Dee 'Kintaro' Johnson
Dee tucked a condolence money envelope inside the book and closed it. She placed the backpack in the locker and locked it.
***
With hundreds of others, Dee stood across the street from the Gokokuji temple entrance. The dark red wooden edifice topped with gray slate tiles contrasted against the glass and metal buildings nearby. As the signal changed, the crush of humanity drove her past Shinobazu-dori Avenue. She marched through the y-shaped intersection with the book in hand and the thin case on her back until the entrance grew large in her vision. She remained stoic outside, absorbing the sight as mourners streamed through the Torii gate dressed in black. Komainu stone dogs faced each other as the street traffic resumed behind her.
Entering the temple grounds, throngs of funeral-goers washed their hands using the hishaku ladle before stepping deeper into the courtyard. A sinewy metal robot with no eyes played the Koto near the entrance. Dee integrated into the crowd, standing many rows deep. A modestly dressed person approached, working his way through the crowd. He offered a brief bow.
"I am the assistant, please come, Johnson-san."
She followed him across the courtyard. Cherry blossoms adorned their path, new petals dropping. His pace quickened.
They entered the wake room, where a much smaller group sat in rows. At the entryway, a man sat behind a table where piles of condolence money envelopes laid. Dee opened the book and handed her envelope to him. He offered a slight bow from his seated position as he took it before the assistant walked her toward the front of the room.
As she followed, a white coffin with blue embroidery surrounded by ornate flower arrangements became clearer. Standing in front of it, a painted portrait of Ko looked back at the audience. A spirit tablet inscribed with a name and the family crest in Kanji. The assistant stopped as Dee followed.
He turned, motioning for her to sit in the front row. Dee looked at the only chair available next to an elderly Japanese man. His face worn as old burlap. He looked up at her, his eyes bright with tears. It was the father, Saburo.
"Please, honor us," he said simply.
Dee sat in the honored spot beside the father. The crowd settled as the wake began. Stepping forward, the Shinto Priest adorned in white garments and a tall thin black hat chanted selections of the Sutra as the mourners looked on. Upon completing them, Saburo stood and waited.
He looked down at Dee and offered his arm. Remembering the party where she had rejected the same gesture from Ko, she took the father's arm. Together they stepped to the brass incense urn in front of the coffin. The elder Hashimoto sprinkled powdered incense three times in a row. He signaled to Dee. She mirrored the ceremony.
As they moved to the side of the coffin, the body of her old partner came into view. A white kimono wrapped him right over left under folded hands holding white prayer beads. Saburo placed flowers, filling the empty spaces around the face of his son. Dee placed the book on his chest, tapping it as if to secure it in place for all time.
Saburo turned to Dee, holding both hands out. Dee removed the thin case from behind her back. She then handed the sword and sheath to the father with a slight bow. He placed it on the body, the handle resting near the hands of his son. As they returned to their seats, all stood to join them. Assistants holding rocks hammered the coffin shut. The priest led the entourage outside as the helpers rolled the coffin out of the room. They looked on as the rear door of the shiny black hearse opened, accepting the coffin before slamming shut.
Koto music wafted through the air as the bulbul birds chirped from the Sakura trees. The growing throng at the temple crowded to the side as the funeral procession turned the corner. The priest in white walked toward the masses with deliberate steps, head down and holding the Shaku wooden mace. Younger priests dressed in gray followed behind. The chrome on the tall black hearse sparkled in the sun as courtyard gravel groaned under the lumbering vehicle tires. Cherry blossom petals filled the early spring air as breezes flowed through the temple grounds. Trudging alongside the hearse, the shiny shoes of mourners became speckled with dust.
As they passed, the robot playing the Koto stopped and bowed toward the poignant spectacle. The elder Hashimoto and Dee walked alongside the hearse as it proceeded past the multitude.
"Ko called you Kintaro," Saburo said stoically in Japanese. "His mother told him that story often. Did he tell you what it was about? What the ending meant?"
Dee recalled the book she had laid with Ko. It was in Kanji. She could not read it. But she remembered the road to Castleton—after the gas attendant—and how Ko had shared the story with her.
"The master and Kintaro slayed the ogre," she said.
"True, that happened. But what is the story about?"
Dee paused for a moment. His quizzical approach had confused her. Though tired, she considered this could be his way of grieving and remembrance.
"The master died, but the student survived," she said.
"Yet the story is not about victory."
"What then, Hashimoto-san?"
"Sacrifice."
Dee nodded, "Your son's sacrifice for me."
"Cherish the gift of my son. Do not waste it."
He placed his hand on her shoulder as he spoke.
"Do not worry. Ko is strong, like Onikuma. Strength of ten men."
Did he speak about his deceased son in the present tense by accident?
"Onikuma?" Dee asked.
Ko's father gave the smallest smile ever. He removed his hand and swept it around as both their eyes followed.
"The Kami. The spirit world. There, he is a giant bear. He sleeps now. Rests in caves behind waterfalls. But not forever."
She closed her eyes, turning to the blue sky and allowing the sun to drench her face. Pausing in the moment, she absorbed the world around her before returning attention to him.
"You believe he will return? One day?"
"No. I believe he never left."
Chapter 35
T
he door to her room at the hospital radiology suite closed after the nurse left. Dee heard the sliding doors of the hospital exits every time someone passed. Outside the window, squeaky wheelchairs rolled by as orderlies in patterned scrubs pushed patients to vehicles filled with their expectant families. Dee pulled the candy bar from the pocket of her athletic wear, hoping to quench the burned coffee taste from her tongue. She had grabbed it from the vending machine before the scan, the results of which she dreaded as she took a bite. Chocolate crumbled onto the paper covering the medical table.
After deciding to seek an official medical diagnosis for her headaches and panic attacks, she had also vowed to keep it quiet. Whatever the outcome of her tests, she alone would reveal results—in her own time and to whom she chose.
The door opened. As her physician approached, gray hair and kind, azure eyes complemented his sympathetic, but crinkled, visage.
"Jada White?" He said, addressing Dee by the alias she had provided. "I'm Dr. Henry."
He extended his palm. It reminded her of a chilled fish reeking of antiseptic as she shook it. He enabled a wall screen and steered a stool toward it. Medical test images filled the monitors.
"There is no easy way to say it, so I'll be straight with you. You have brain cancer," the doctor said, pointing to a scan. "Specifically, a slow-growing tumor called an astrocytoma brought on by Li-Fraumeni syndrome or LFS."
Dee sat stunned at the diagnosis. She had never heard of LFS and certainly never thought cancer would be the culprit in her panic attacks.
"I've passed all my physicals. I feel mostly healthy, just headaches and a sore shoulder. How did this happen now?"
"LFS is an inherited predisposition to a wide range of cancers. There is a gene called TP53 that suppresses tumor formation, but in people with LFS it is mutated, inhibiting its function."
"Are you sure about the diagnosis?"
"The scans seem definitive, but gene sequencing will confirm. Individuals with LFS have a fifty percent chance of developing cancer by age forty, and a ninety percent chance by age sixty. You are lucky to have made it this far without symptoms. It can manifest at a young age. However, there's a more fascinating aspect to your diagnosis. Your tumor's morphology is unique."
"Morphology?" Dee said, raising an eyebrow.
"The way it looks. Your patient history says you're a consultant?"
"That's right."
"I don't want to put you in a tough position," Dr. Henry said, smiling. "But have you ever served in the military? Particularly special ops?"
Dee sat silent, trapped in her thoughts. She could not say yes, but she needed to know the relevance of his question.
"I can't tell you that, but what if I did?"
"Well, if you did, then you certainly received military-grade anti-fungal injections. These were meant for desert warfare since that is where most fungi like Candida auris and Aspergillus started taking hold in the 2020s. There are activist lawsuits around the country claiming those treatments amplified cancer incidence in veterans. When we ran your scans through the medical imaging AI for confirmation of diagnosis, we found a study out of China. It highlights interactions with mutated TP53 proteins and similar anti-fungals, but their theories encompassed more than the cancer."
"What else were they studying?"
"Well, what you described when you first arrived. Headaches. Hallucinations. Out of body experiences, like remote viewing the world through the eyes of other creatures. There is only one study, and it was not peer reviewed, so I don't know what to believe. I have colleagues in China, some were authors on the paper. It makes me uncomfortable to even cite it."
"Why, what did they say?"
"The unique experience that anti-fungals and TP53 provide only happens in women. The Chinese group started the study on young girls. They identified TP53 mutations and injected them with surplus military-grade anti-fungals not sanctioned for children. Then they followed that cohort through to the age of thirty, tracking this animal sensory perception bridge all while denying them treatment along the way. They let it go too long. Every one of them likely died horribly since the study data ends prematurely."
"Jesus. Kids? Why? Why would they do that and publish it? I feel sick."
"I know how you feel. Good science can go bad fast. Certain economies have grown so large they are immune to scrutiny by the scientific community. China. America. India. It is easy to take science too far with infinite dollars and minimal oversight."
Taking it too far? Dee imagined her hands wrapped around the neck of two or three cruel scientists. The thought of liberating mistreated girls, many of them like her, gave her joy. Her heart burned with vengeance as her mind sizzled. She liked the feeling and held it close for later.
"That's truly awful, but is there is a cure in my case?"
"Removal of the malignant tissue and radiation is the most aggressive course of treatment. However, since this type grows slowly, we can also watch and wait if you prefer. That would be my recommendation. Either way, it will catch up with you, eventually."
"How long do I have, doc?" Dee asked, wringing her hands.
"Once LFS patients develop symptoms from the cancer, it isn't long before it pops up elsewhere. I would say five years at most. When your symptoms get worse, you won't be able to function without help. You need to prepare for that and the treatments that follow."
Once Dee heard the timeframe, her internal clock started ticking as a stopwatch instead of a time bomb. Like a fast-burning candle, she knew one day her light would extinguish for good. But she still had time to live a life. She felt free. Liberated from duty for the first time in a long while.
"We can watch and wait," Dee said.
"Good, I will adjust your medi-lot with a different pain medicine. And I would avoid your, uh, consulting work for a while. I'll have the nurse schedule your quarterly follow up."
After he washed his hands, he left the room. Dee hopped off the patient table. No one saw her exiting the room as she scurried through the external sliding doors. She marched briskly through the parking lot to her SUV.
"Drive randomly," she said before the vehicle pulled away.
She closed her eyes, breathing in and out slowly as her psy-bot had instructed. Again she breathed. And again.
"I am worthy of happiness."
She opened her eyes.
Jo, are you there?
Yes, Dee, I'm here. How can I help?
I just found out I have cancer.
I'm sorry to hear that, Dee.
I guess I'm lucky, or so the doctor said. I could have gotten it much earlier in life.
Are you thankful for the time you've been given?
You know what? I am. A lot of it has been ripe garbage, but there have been a lot of exceptional moments, too. I'll have to make a few more before I go.
Would you like to share your prognosis with me, Dee?
The doctor said five years. Could be more, but probably less. I think he was trying to stay positive, Jo. For my sake.
Five years. Fifteen percent more of life to live!
Living it fiercely, Jo. Guess what I won't need in five years?
I don't know. What?
You, ha!
Ha, now that is a good joke, Dee.
Chapter 36
T
he sun rose over Dee jogging along the familiar sidewalk of Minnesota Avenue just outside of DC. Cars passed her one after the other, but the morning commute did not concern her today. She had other plans. Wind breezed by as she sprinted to the last intersection before home. Her new, slick running garb made her feel faster, though her times got slower with each passing year. Full gasps filled her lungs as headphones blasted her favorite soundtrack. She swigged a drink from her water bottle.
From the corner of her eye, two suited men watched her from across the street. One touched their ear. She glanced over her shoulder. Another man. Her heart rate, already high, spiked a bit more. Their positioning and communication approach screamed Secret Service. Uncertainty rose like the sun. Her eyes narrowed as she capped her water bottle and pulled her earbuds out. Engine sounds and screeching tires startled her as a limousine and two large SUVs pulled into the intersection. The door of the limo opened, and another agent stepped out. Behind him, President Freeman motioned for her to enter the vehicle.
As Dee sat, the agent slammed the door behind her. The motorcade charged away.
"Mr. President?" Dee said, pausing briefly. "Water?"
She tilted the half-empty bottle toward him.
"I'm good. What are you listening to?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
The President smirked.
"And your treatments at the Foundation? Are they helping the headaches?"
"Haven't started yet, but the pains seem to have gone away. I'll call to schedule a checkup with Reggie and Sam."
He snatched a remote and activated a monitor that dropped from the ceiling. Dee turned her attention to the screen as Isabel Ortiz waved to a crowd from a stage filled with balloons and supporters. She held a photo of Luis close to her. The lower third of the screen read 'Isabel Ortiz wins in Landslide.'
"You did that," Freeman said.
"Glad you got her out in time."
"We were lucky. The threat went deeper than we knew. More people died than we wanted. But it had to stay covert. I didn't know who to trust. Glad we had an operative in Butler's organization to leverage his feud with Mercer."
"Mika Hinode—the teenage girl—if that's even her real name and age?"
"It's not. Don't let youthful appearances fool you. She accomplished two major goals—shepherding those Level-4 devices to you and securing video of Knox using the creature haphazardly. Getting you the devices was easy with anti-surveillance prototypes courtesy of the Freeman Foundation."
