The Kurama Fire Festival in Kyoto is over. The torches and pyres have been returned to the shrine for another year. And yet, the village of Henba is in flames. Clouds of thick smoke rise up to the pale, twinkling stars, while down below villagers in their underwear flee from never-before-seen horrors that split the earth open. Scores of immense centipedes — mukade, to be precise — loom above the burning rooftops and come crashing down. Each centipede is the length of five cars. They slither after the villagers with rapid peach-coloured claws and sickle-sharp pincers. More cauldron-black bodies lie invisible in the shadows where the fire has yet to lay waste, lazily spreading their mandibles apart, ready to welcome the surging crowd getting closer and closer.
The human-sized Yokai could hear the thrum of their circulatory systems were it not for the blood-curdling human screams. The crackle of fire is equally deafening. Thick flames lick the sky as they sweep from house to house like crashing waves. Hot embers float in the air, singeing everything they touch. If this is indeed what the end of the world looks like, the Yokai thinks to herself, it is not very exciting. In fact, it stinks. Literally. The air smells horrible, not unlike burned hair. She lifts one hand to squeeze her nose closed as she manoeuvres what was once the siding of a house in the other hand and takes a bite. It melts in her mouth and tastes like fresh gingerbread baked to perfection. Not burned and crumbling like the other houses. Another bonus, this house was empty. Again she makes sure by sifting through the rubble a third and fourth time. So far, so good. And yet, there is something missing …
I should be bigger. Why am I not getting bigger?
The Yokai’s questioning is interrupted by a villager in no hurry to escape the carnage. She totters down the street at a turtle’s pace, arms stretched out in front of her. “So tasty, so tender. I want to eat.” Her voice is a raspy snarl, her words drip like the drool that runs from her mouth. She stops to glare at the Yokai, then starts wobbling toward her, pointing at the gingerbread in her hands. The Yokai crams what is left in her hands into her monstrous mouth and glares back until the old woman hisses at her and continues on her way. “Hmph,” says the Yokai, taking another handful of the brown rubble. I showed her.
A man calmly emerges from the neighbouring house. He too is unfazed by the giant mukade and villagers scrambling past him; he raises a cup of tea to his lips as he saunters by the Yokai. He slows down long enough to make eye contact. He appears to be staring not at her, but at the house sandwiched in her hands. The Yokai narrows her eyes at him, taking in his bulbous-shaped head and monk-like attire. His grin is crooked but kind; however, she is still not willing to share. She simply stares back until the man raises his cup to her. “Welcome!” he says, then continues down the road at his own leisurely pace to the next house. The Yokai is relieved. She takes another bite.
Now why does all this feel so familiar? She closes her eyes against the bright orange flames and smoke, tries to shut out the sounds of her own chewing against the background of humans pleading for their lives, the pounding and drumming of human feet like taiko. A silhouette forms in her mind. She can remember him now, but only a little. The man at the restaurant. That is what she is trying to remember. What was it called again? What was he called again? She cannot remember, nor can she think with all the commotion around her.
She opens her eyes again. There is a tingle creeping up her spine; someone is watching her. She looks around. The only people not running from the flames or the giant insects are the ones standing across the road. Four gorgeous red-faced, red-haired women in matching red kimono stare back at her. They are not at all bothered by the chaos unfolding around them. It seems they have been watching her for some time and have now decided to make their move.
The first woman bows. “Hello.”
“Hello,” the Yokai says. “Let me guess; you want some?”
“Can it be true?” the first woman says, ignoring the Yokai’s question. “Are you the one?”
“The one what?”
“I believe it is, sister,” says another woman. “It must be.”
The third woman nods. “Look at her, chomping away on another house. It can’t be any other.”
“Well, colour us pleased,” says the fourth. “Ah, yes … we’ve heard about you. Quite the appetite you have on you. Still hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
“Then why not have a villager or two?”
The Yokai shakes her head, furious. “Ew! No! I don’t eat people. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Oh, no, dear, it’s quite all right! We all have our own … tastes …” The other women giggle behind their red sleeves.
“Listen. This isn’t at all where I meant to end up. But then I got hungry.” The Yokai lowers her head, feeling sheepish as she speaks. “There wasn’t anyone inside, I swear.”
“We don’t mind, child,” says the first woman. “In fact, we have a surprise for you. We have a mutual friend who is very interested in meeting you. Come on, come with us. We promise we won’t bite …” Her voice trails off, as if another word should follow.
The Yokai shrugs. “What the hell. Sure. Watching a bunch of mukade crawl around isn’t my idea of fun, anyway.”
Two of the women cross the road and take her by the hands. Up into the eastern hills they all retreat together into the dark, cold sanctuary of the ancient forest, farther and farther away from the violent unrest of Henba. As they ascend the mountain path the Yokai gulps at the sweet mountain air, grateful to be away from the choking smog and the stench of sulphur.
“By the way,” says the fourth woman, “the word you’re looking for is ‘massacre,’ dear. A group of mukade is called a massacre.”
The climb is long and steep. The women head up a dark path with only moonlight to guide their way. The Yokai is grateful that two of them are holding her hands, because there is no way she would be able to see on her own. It is a mystery that they themselves can see where they are going.
The trees clear, exposing the grounds of an old, modest house. Its front door slides open and shuts behind the group. The inside is lit with lanterns and filled with the scent of burning incense. The corridors are a labyrinth of balsam wood and tatami floors, and there is a display of ancient samurai armour in every corner and swords above the rice-paper doors, which have gorgeous silk screens with landscapes sewn into them.
“Wow,” the Yokai says. “What is this, a museum?”
The women laugh. “You could call it that!” the first replies with a kimono sleeve over her mouth. “It’s been around long enough.”
“Not much of a museum, though,” says the second, the one holding the Yokai’s right hand. “Look! Everything’s covered in dust. Neglected. Like he finally got sick of pining over all these lost relics of his old life and if he ignores them long enough, they’ll get so dusty they’ll disappear from sight.”
“Hey, now, don’t talk like that. At the time, he was only human!” the third woman spits the word out, as if it leaves a wretched taste in her mouth.
The fourth one pretends to pout. “Dear me. Are you really going to slight the one allowing us a chance to dine on such a rare, exotic dish in his home tonight?”
“Hmm.” If the Yokai had a hand free, she would stroke her chin in thought. She is not quite sure about whom they are talking, but they are so friendly she does not want to say anything that will offend them or spoil their good mood. “Well, whoever he is, he doesn’t sound like such a bad guy.”
Her comment makes the women laugh even louder and harder. “Once upon a time,” the third one begins to sing, “there was an evil, sadistic rounin who dedicated his life to warring, wine, and women, rather than die with honour and keep his teacher’s legacy alive. Rumour has it he was even the one responsible for his teacher’s death. Can you imagine that! Anyway, eventually his awful, wanton ways caught up with him. He was tried and executed, but, story of all our lives, it didn’t take. What a way to go. Oh, relax, dear. He has come to terms with his new existence — for the most part.”
The second woman cuts in. “Protecting a human? Partnering up with it to sleep with other humans? You call that coming to terms?”
“Can you blame him, dear? We all need to satiate our demonic needs somehow.”
“Well, I suppose you are right.”
“And don’t forget,” says the third woman, “he’s allowing us this private party here tonight. He may be a fledgling asshole of a yokai, but when you think about it, he’s really come a long way in the last one hundred and fifty–odd years.” The others nod.
“That’s right,” says the first. “It was that long ago. Why, he must have been younger than you when he turned, dear! Times were different — samurai were considered men at fifteen back then.” The others nod again in agreement. The Yokai does not know how to feel about that statement.
“It sounds like you have yet to run into him. Would you —” the fourth woman’s eyebrows dance “— like to?”
“Not really. No.”
The first woman snickers. “Well, we suppose only time will tell. Here we are!”
A long flight of steps has taken them up to another hallway, into a large room with a small butsudan altar in the corner. The walls are lined with hundreds of candles. Underneath a large red lantern in the ceiling sits a low, long table that stretches the length of the room. The Yokai’s eyes light up. Every inch of the table is covered with food: plates and platters longer than her arms laden with pink and orange sashimi, bright yellow flowers, sushi arranged to look like planets, and mint-green blossoms of wasabi. Cornucopia of autumnal fruit — short, fat persimmons and giant Fuji apples — are surrounded by enormous bowls of ice creams and puddings, and tiny plates of herbs and spices are scattered in between. In the centre of it all sits one large, silver covered dish.
“Well, ladies? Let’s dig in!”
“Itadakimasu!” the women cry and take their seats together, on the other side. The Yokai sits alone on her side. She does not mind. More elbow room for her, she thinks to herself. What she does not notice is how the women watch, unmoving, as she piles up her plate and devours everything she takes. Every time she brings a roll of sushi or a sliver of sashimi to her lips with her black lacquered chopsticks, they make little gasping sounds as if every morsel may cause the Yokai to explode.
“What?” she asks them. “It’s not dynamite.”
The first woman purses her lips. “No. We suppose not.”
When the Yokai takes a break from chewing with a cup of green tea, the women exchange glances between themselves and the large, covered dish. The first woman cocks her head. “You are full?”
“Mm-mmm,” says the Yokai.
“Good! We have a rare delicacy tonight. We caught it fresh, up in the mountains!” The other women clap. “We were going to eat it ourselves, but … we thought to share with you. To officially welcome you to the fold. We have seen you so many times now, we thought it would be nice to get to know each other … to become friends?”
“Okay. Sure! Nothing wrong with that.”
“In that case, please.” The first woman reaches forth and removes the lid. “Dig in!”
The Yokai looks down, expecting a delicacy. A scream chokes her. Arranged in a ring of green leaves with a carrot flower on its belly is the biggest baby the Yokai has ever seen. It is fast asleep but wheezing, twitching, as if sick. The harsh transition of light makes it squeeze its eyes, then blink and stir.
The second woman sighs. “Uh-oh, now look what you’ve done. You’ve woke it up.”
The first shakes her head. Long wisps of her red hair litter the table. “No, no! This is good! Now it will thrash and scream in her mouth. A much better dining experience.”
“All that chasing after it will be worth it, then. Ooh, tell us how it tastes! Go on, tell us!” The fourth woman’s dress sleeves wriggle as if her arms are boneless. The others follow suit.
Suppressing the icy shudder that runs down her spine, the Yokai clears her throat. “There’s clearly been some kind of miscommunication here. Once again, I find myself having to explain that I don’t eat people. Especially not babies.”
“Oh, come now, you silly thing. You eat everything! What are you waiting for? Don’t you want to be big and strong again? And besides, this isn’t ‘people’! He’s barely a century old.”
“I don’t eat people,” the Yokai snaps.
“Now, now, sister, you must explain it to her,” the third woman raises her sleeves toward the Yokai. “It’s not like it’s a human child! That’s bona fide Konaki Jiji. Aged, but well-preserved. It must be the fresh water up around the lake. Nice and healthy.” The women all nod.
The fourth woman reaches across the table and pokes the baby’s inner thigh. “This one’s good and plump, too! That’s a rarity these days. Go on, better start before it goes back to sleep. Oh! We should ask, do you know how use chopsticks on this one?” They all laugh at an inside joke the Yokai does not understand. “Ah, just teasing! You wear such a … unique disguise. I just had to throw that in there. Now, start with the toes and work your way up. It takes a while for the endorphins to run through the whole body, but you should begin to taste it by the time you reach the thighs.”
“Oh, that’s just an old wives’ tale! Don’t you listen to her, dear. You dive straight into the organs, hear me?” The third woman flicks the carrot flower away with her too-long sleeve. “This is just empty calories. There you go. You have to drive your chopsticks into the belly button and —”
The Yokai grips her chopsticks hard enough to hurt. “I am NOT eating a baby.”
“Uh-oh …” The women mock her. “Poor widdle yokai can’t eat even a widdle Konaki Jiji toenail … boo hoo! Akki-san will be so disappointed to hear the new demon is just like her disguise — sad and pathetic as a human. Too bad!”
“Right up his alley, then.” The first woman crosses her arms. They flop around each other like raw dough. “That scumbag. Laying with human trash like they’re better than us. Who the hell does he think he is?”
The second woman shudders. “Ew, please. Would you sleep with him? I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot shinai!”
“Well, neither would I. But it’s the principle of the thing.”
“Oh stop, you two,” says the third woman. “We can stand here all century arguing; we’d never figure out what that awful Akki’s deal is.”
“Agreed,” the fourth woman sniffs.
“Can I go now?” asks the Yokai.
“Silence.” The first woman points a sleeve at the Yokai’s nose. “I say we save him the trouble of wasting time meeting you.”
“Yes. I must admit, I did wonder what you might taste like. What do you say, ladies? Anyone mind if I call dibs on her toes?”
“Fine by me. I call dibs on her hair. It’s so … so fluffy … like fairy floss.”
“I hear the best meat is in the rump!”
The women laugh. They are amused and giddy at the prospect of her warm succulent flesh melting on their long forked tongues, now wagging in the air and dripping saliva down their clothes. The Yokai staggers back from the table. The women crawl over the long table on all fours like stalking animals toward the dish — toward her. Their lips pull back to expose rows of shark-like teeth, grinding and gnashing.
The baby is live and kicking now. “Help me,” it croaks.
“I … I don’t know what to do …” The Yokai’s breath quickens with panic. She needs a weapon. She needs multiple weapons. But the only thing on the table are the empty plates and dishes, used chopsticks, and leftover spices.
The Yokai hopes the baby’s eyes are still closed.
She grabs a dish of bright orange togarashi spice and blows it right in the women’s faces. A blast of hot, spraying sand, the spices burn their way into their eyes and up their nostrils. They clutch their faces, writhing in such pain that their red wigs fall, exposing perfectly bald, egg-shaped heads. The Yokai sprints atop the table, kicking at whoever gets in her way, scoops the baby into her arms, and runs out the door.
“After her!” comes the women’s collective shrieks. “She’s got our dinner!”
As careful as anyone could hold a baby under the circumstances, the Yokai runs down hallway after hallway, a labyrinth of intricately designed walls, in sheer panic. There are no signs of any doors or windows, nothing that can serve as an escape. The sound of claws on tatami flooring is not far behind her. If only she knew her own power, if only she knew how big imagination can stretch the house, and if only she knew her way through its maze-like halls, she could have found her way to the other side, to find Akki lying in a vast bedroom with his most recent guest. Not that he would have any inclination to help anyone at the moment.
“Aaaah,” the young woman beside him sighs. “That was just what I needed.” She stretches under the silk ivory sheets like a cat. “This new job is so stressful. I can’t believe it! Who knew that kids had so much energy? And you have to smile all day and get them to speak, and they don’t understand a word of what you’re saying so they just keep talking and …” Interrupted by the flicker of flame, she turns to the man next to her. “Ugh, you smoke? That’s so unhealthy! Can you open a window or something? I don’t want to get sick. I just started this job, you see, and it would look really bad if I’m ill my first week. Anyway, the other day all the girls took me to this restaurant, and the food was so good! But you had to use all these forks and knives, and it was so confusing! I don’t know how foreigners do it. If I were to live in a foreign country, I don’t think I could survive. I was lucky though, when I visited Australia, I didn’t go to any fancy restaurants. Oh, there was this one time, when we went to this teacher’s house for a barbecue, and we had all this meat but we had to eat it with our hands, it was so funny! And then we — hey … what happened to your skin? So bright! You’ve changed!”
Akki grumbles and pulls the sheets over his head. He just wants to sleep. No chance of that happenin’. He rips the sheets away and gets up.
“It’s okay! Change is good! I wish I could change my body like that, whenever I wanted. I would change myself all the time! My hair, my breasts, my legs, my eyes — what a fortune I’d save if I could just snap! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It would be like having superpowers!”
Akki slams the door on her words with a great swing of his arm. Downstairs he slips his feet into his giant pair of waraji and steps outside. It is nighttime. As it should be. He really needs to get over this new-found paranoia. “Ah —” he flinches as pain jets through his lower back. As he mentally curses Zaniel, something in the air makes him pause. He sniffs. Smoke. Smoke and immortal blood. Yes! Wading through the darkness with pristine night vision he heads around to the back of the house. Wisps of cigarette smoke float up from the giant koi pond in Akki’s backyard. Who else could it be?
“Shit, girl, don’t you ever put that thing down?!” he jokes in place of an excited greeting. Hino has a cigarette in her mouth and is engrossed in typing a text message on a keychain-laden keitai with both thumbs. “Huh. You actually get a signal on that thing up here?” Hino rolls her eyes. “Who are you textin’, anyway?” She does not answer. “Forget you, then. Where is that scrawny son of a bitch?”
Hino takes a long time to answer. “Why? This one was not what you were looking for, either?”
“Are you kiddin’ me? I threw my back out on this one.” He rubs his hip dramatically and pouts when Hino still does not look up. “That’s the second one to disappoint me this week. Two out of three. Come on, let’s get out of here. I need a massage.”
Akki’s eyes catch a slight bulge in the front pocket of Hino’s blazer. He pulls out the cigarette box without so much as a brush against her breast, lights one up with the lighter inside, which, to his chagrin, lights up with pink sparkles and plays a very loud electronic rendition of “Butterfly.” “Ai, yai, yai,” the lighter squeals over and over again.
“What the fuck?” Akki exclaims. “How do you turn this off?”
“You do not. It plays the whole thing.”
“The hell it does.” He winds up his arm and lobs the singing lighter through his bedroom window. Flames lick the air. “I hate that song.”
“Hey!” Hino yells indignantly. “That lighter’s as old as your human years! Where am I supposed to find another?!”
“So? Come on. She can go on about her superpowers and bum-fuck gaikoku on her own time. I ain’t no shrink.”
“I suppose. There is something you should know, Akki. I think your human has …” She trails off with a fed-up sigh. She is still thinking about her lighter. “Honestly, Akki, was that necessary?”
“What?” He shrugs, not understanding. “She runs around after little ankle-biters all day. She can run fast enough to get out of a burnin’ building. It’s not like it’ll actually kill her.”
Hino watches him strut on ahead through the dark woods, oblivious to the roaring flames and the sounds of crumbling infrastructure behind them. There are not many things in either of these worlds that Hino would say she likes, but she really liked that lighter. She is no longer sure she wants to be conversational anymore; sadly, her options are limited. “I think that human of yours has an infatuation with someone.”
Akki stops dead in his tracks. “A what?! With who? Since when? And who?!” He sinks to his knees, ready to transform on the spot. “Doesn’t matter. Bring ’em on. I’ve been dyin’ to fight for a long time.”
“An infatuation, Akki. A crush. He likes someone. You know what I mean, do you not?”
He thinks for a beat, then bursts out laughing. “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” Akki gasps, holding his sides.
Hino passes him now, heading deeper into the darkness. Her deep voice floats through the air. “I do not know. He ran out of Jibun Jishin the other night trying to chase someone down. Mistook it for a human at first. Have you not seen it? The yokai often posing as a human?”
“Uh, no,” Akki retorts. The glow of his cigarette falls to the ground and disappears. “How would anyone notice somethin’ like that?”
Only someone as thick as you would miss something like that, you obtuse fool, Hino thinks to herself. “Well, the rest of us have noticed it hanging around. Zaniel does not understand, of course. He can think whatever makes him comfortable, I suppose. I cannot blame him; it is quite lonely to think you are the only one who can do what you do.” She vaguely remembered what that felt like, centuries ago, when she first stumbled on the shores of Ryukyu in her new form. It was so much easier to get away with murder back then. Before forensics. Good times.
“So, what makes you so sure it ain’t human? I mean, Zaniel ain’t the sharpest egg in the box but maybe he just wandered into some chick’s dream of bein’ a superhero or somethin’. Ever think of that? Not that chicks dream about that kind of thing … do they?”
Hino resists the urge to claw his jugular. Not that it would do him any harm. It would just make her feel better. “Have you ever heard of a human bending this world to its thoughts and wishes, even if it means cancelling out yours, Akki? Ring any bells?”
“Uh … what?”
“Oh hell, Akki. Your house. She’s the one who ate your house, for cripes’ sakes! Did you suddenly decide to make it all disappear and leave you out in the woods, alone? Isn’t that why you flew into a fiery rage and scorched half this forest down? This … thing … has the same power of manipulation that you do. Maybe even more!” She steadies herself with a deep calming breath. “She changed things here, on your territory, where everything is supposed to bend to your will. When is the last time you ran into a human who could do that?”
The shapes of gnarled trees return to their eyes as the sky swells red with the impending approach of dawn. They follow the path as it climbs uphill and comes to a high cliff overlooking the ancient town where their fellow yokai reside. It is difficult to determine whether the town is waking up for the day or winding down after a long night. It is too quiet, too still.
“Where would he be?” Akki says in a quiet, dangerous voice. “Right now, where could I find him?”
“In the human realm, naturally. It must be five, five thirty in the morning by now. You got lucky you ran into an eager woman sleeping on a train.”
“Oh, yeah. But … I thought he worked nights. People don’t dig graves during the day.”
Hino throws up her hands. “You fool. Zaniel does not work in a graveyard. You’re thinking of ‘graveyard shifts,’ and that was when he worked at Family Mart. Akki, I know it’s been years, but we have talked about this.”
“Argh, it’s too hard to remember all this bullshit human lingo! I’ve got to find him. Make him explain what the hell is goin’ on. I’m goin’ down there; you comin’?”
“No. I have to show up at my school.”
Akki’s anger dissipates into scathing laughter again. “What for?! Hasn’t your school figured you out yet? You never do homework, you never study … Don’t you just nod off at the back of the room? Can’t they put two and two together? Fuck, even I can do that!”
“Akki …” Hino sighs like she is explaining herself for the hundredth time. Come to think of it, she is sure she has reached four digits by now. “We cannot all threaten humans to do our dirty work for us. It is as I said the other day: the old ways are just that. Old ways. Zaniel cannot keep escorting women here for you forever, you know. Eventually someone will corner him into a loveless marriage with children and he will not have time or energy to walk through a dozen dreams for you. Do think about it.”
Hino leaves Akki standing there, looking out over the mountains. He squats down over the earth, his eyebrows furrowed in his strenuous attempt to grasp his situation. Is it time to let Zaniel go? Why should he?
“What kind of an idiot would go and screw with somethin’ that’s always worked for him?” Akki asks himself. “Take this valley. What would it be if it gave in to change? If it tried to fit in with the rest of the country?” No one answers. “It would disappear, that’s what. Everythin’ that made it interestin’ would die along with it. Where would the old ones go then? Where would I go then?”
Although he can feel he is being watched, again no voices respond to his queries. He suppresses a deep shudder. It is something he has always wondered but dreads to think about. He clambers up to a standing position and, still facing the valley, relieves himself in the underbrush. Hino was right about one thing: it has been a few years.
Akki walks back through the woods toward his home in time to hear a gut-wrenching scream. It can’t be. Bitch should’ve been gone long ago. He prays his most recent visitor is not dreaming about being able to walk through fire, or he is in for another earful.
“Where is it?!” a high-pitched shriek echoes through the night. “What have you done with it?!”
“Talk, demon child!” screams a second voice.
It is followed by a third, sharper and more distinct than the others. “She let it go, you fools, can’t you tell?!”
“Maybe she didn’t,” a voice of reason interjects. “She can’t be that stupid. Maybe she ate it herself!”
“Then let’s get it out of her!” snarls the first voice. “Quickly, before she digests! Get her robe off!” Her next words are cut off by another high-pitched scream.
Akki finds himself intrigued. He follows the sounds of scuffling and struggle to a house he barely recognizes. It is his own home, but larger, labyrinth-like. Down one particularly wide hall, he recognizes four squid demons in the guise of bald women wrestling something in their arms. It is a human. What happened to the yokai they wanted to bring? Curious, Akki positions himself behind a large display of samurai armour he does not recall ever owning (but somehow, here it is). He cannot help but marvel at how they could entice a human all the way here, up into these mountains. They are not exactly what Akki would call hypnotists. No, he pauses. That is no human. The skin, it’s all wrong. It is a creature he has never seen before.
“Help!” the Yokai screams. Her eyes are aimed right at Akki. “Help me!” She can see him.
One of the squid demon’s tentacles shoots out like a whip and wrenches the Yokai’s head back. The demons have not noticed Akki, or they are too hungry and angry to bother making up excuses for their intent to spill blood on his tatami floor. He can say something, intervene, rescue this human-looking thing in the nick of time, and if he plays his cards right, give the creature a chance to make it up to him. But he has already sent Zaniel on his way, and the boy never takes long to return. Akki leans against the armour display with an amused grin. Let’s see how this plays out, he tells himself. Perhaps luck will be on his side and he will have two individuals to give him company tonight.
The Yokai lets out another scream, a strange sound that makes everything still — the squid monsters in confusion, Akki in anticipation. It is completely unlike any sound they have ever heard: half rage, half determination, not a hint of fear. No one is sure what is happening to her until she twists her upper body and sinks her sharp teeth into the tentacle wrapped around her right wrist. Its owner reels back in pain. Something glistens in the Yokai’s hand: two small, shiny slivers of black lacquer. She stabs the tentacle pinning down her left arm; once free, she lunges at the third demon, springing up from the floor like a crazed cat and puncturing the ink gland in its head. A thick, heady black liquid sprays all over the Yokai and leaves an outline of her figure on the wall behind her. The fourth, uninjured demon lunges at her, tackling her into the wall. Facing the demon, the Yokai jerks one arm free and brings her weapons down into the fleshiest part of its back. The fourth demon releases a strangled cry and topples over with the Yokai landing on top of it. Akki watches, rapt with fascination. The Yokai wrenches herself from its slimy clutches, poises her weapons over her head, and drives them deep into the squid demon’s eye. The squid tries to push her away. Its attempts to escape only infuriate her. She stabs it in the face, over and over and over again.
Akki looks on, licking his lips, savouring every moment.
Outside, Zaniel has emerged from the woods with many names and no names at all to enter Akki’s garden. He is not alone. A young woman follows, giggling to herself. “I hope we’re almost there. This samurai … I can’t wait to see how big his sword really is.”
They have barely set foot in the garden when that demonic scream rips through the air. Both cover their ears at the sheer volume of it.
“What was that?!” the young woman inquires.
“No idea. Wait here.”
“But what about your friend? He’s supposed to be here.” She wrinkles her nose at Zaniel. He does not need to hold her hand to know she would rather be in the handsome, muscular samurai’s company than in his. “Take me to him, already!”
Zaniel does not respond. Ignoring the invisible eyes watching him, he guides the young woman to one of the stone benches and heads toward the house. On the other side of the garden he hears yokai voices in the woods, their conversation turning from amusement at the night’s mukade celebration to confusion and caution. He approaches the front door, wary of entering; the last thing he wants to do is encounter Akki and learn he has disappointed the demon yet again. However, some inexplicable force pulls him to the door, draws his hand to the knob, and urges him to enter the house.
Three squid demons in the form of bald women collide with Zaniel on the stairs as they bump along the walls, groping their way to the exit. They hold themselves in various places, crying in pain, dripping thick black ink in place of blood all over the floor. One of them hisses and pushes him aside. “Damn humans! Out of the way, freak!” it spits from the leaking, black wound where its mouth should be.
Humans?
Cautious, Zaniel enters the house, goes up the stairs, and is startled by the wide black pool snaking along the tatami floor of a long, vast hall he has never seen before. Several feet down the hall, a strange lumpy figure is heaped in the middle of the black mess. It groans softly. Akki is over there, too. He is not alone. The Yokai is there, and she has not relaxed her offensive stance. Crouching on the floor, she is brandishing a pair of chopsticks in her clenched fist, pointing them up from her chest as if to strike Akki with them.
Nothing diverts her attention — not Zaniel down the hall, not even the black ink that has splashed her from brow to waist, soaking her white kimono. Not when Akki could have helped her.
Akki still makes no move toward her. He simply stares at her with a wicked, almost lecherous grin, savouring the scent of her. Neither breaks their gaze as she takes a step back, then another and another, until she is a safe distance to turn and escape down the hall.
“Oh, well,” the giant yokai shrugs to himself. He sniffs and whirls around himself abruptly. It is difficult with all the ink-blood in the air, but he could have sworn he smelled the boy.
Zaniel, however, is able to slip back down the stairs before Akki can spot him. Something in his gut guides him through the darkness on the lower level. His hands steady him along a singular twisting, turning hallway. It leads outside to another garden area, in worse condition than the front. Zaniel has never seen this side of the house before. There must have been plants and flowers here, a long time ago, but now there are only patches of earth and several dead brambles. The ground is higher on this side, overlooking a cliff with a sharp, winding path that leads into another part of the woods. Were it winter he would be able to see the cable car station and temple past the trees, and in clearer weather, the rest of Kyoto City and the dream world farther down the mountain. But for now, there is just darkness and moonlight, and someone naked kneeling in the dirt, smothering her face with her hands.
Zaniel forgoes all notions of reuniting with the young woman waiting out front. He approaches, careful but sure. “Hey,” he whispers.
The Yokai whirls around, still sniffling, but chopsticks armed and ready. Zaniel holds up his hands in defence. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. It is you. I thought so.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. It’s me — Zaniel — from the restaurant. Don’t you recognize me?”
“I have never seen you before. Ever.”
“Yes, you have. We ran into each other the other night.”
“We met the other night?”
“Well, we’d met before, too. Don’t you remember?”
The Yokai blinks wet tears at him.
“I begged you not to eat me?”
“Why the hell would I do that? What is with everyone today?” The Yokai throws her hands up in disgust. “First, those horrible, awful women. Now you. Who are you all, anyway?”
“Whoa, hold on. I’m nothing like those women — er, well, I guess they’re not exactly women.”
“You can say that again. Look at me.” The Yokai gestures to the black ink that sprayed all over her. Zaniel blushes. She does not seem to notice, let alone mind, that she is naked. “How am I ever going to get this stuff off?”
“There’s a pond. Behind you.”
The Yokai reaches into the pond, cupping murky water to wash the ink-blood off. Looking away, Zaniel sees a strip of white cloth on the dark ground. It is her robe, albeit with a big tear down the side. When he hands it to her, his long fingers accidentally caress hers. He does not mean to, but his eyes flutter before he can stop them.
Zaniel falls into another dream. He is back in Akki’s house, or somewhere just like it, standing in a corridor. The sound of running feet crescendos into a crash against the wall. A ghostly figure hurtles toward him, cradling a bundle of something in its arms. The figure looks left and right, not seeing him. With a panicked look it reaches out, long fingers brushing the wall. A window appears where one did not exist before. The figure lifts the bundle — a baby — to the window. Zaniel hears the Yokai’s voice as her figure takes shape.
“Go on, kid, get out of here!”
Without hesitation, the baby scrambles up to the window and flings itself over the side. A split second later the Yokai is snatched and dragged away by a teeming mass of tentacles. They, too, slowly take shape. The four demons have her. The fight continues to play out as it did before.
“Hey,” says the Yokai, now standing behind Zaniel. “That’s me.”
“Yeah.” Zaniel turns to her. He clears his throat, ignoring her confused look. This is, after all, finally his chance to talk to her. “I’m glad you’re here, you know. I owe you for what you did for me the other night. I never got the chance to thank you. No one has ever stood up for me in front of other yokai except for … well …” Now that he thinks about it, he does not really know what to call Akki. They are not friends, but he feels silly admitting he needs a protector — at least, to her. “Anyway. I’m glad I found you here. I never know when I’ll see you again.”
The Yokai looks taken aback. “Oh. You’re welcome. I guess.” She looks down, uncomfortable. “This is so weird …”
“Is it?” Now that is something Zaniel has never heard a yokai utter before. He looks down, noticing for the first time that he is still touching her, sharing her robe between them. His blush deepens. He snatches his hand away. “Sorry. I don’t usually … I mean, I didn’t mean to … I’m sorry.”
The gardens and the violet-red sky return. It is as if Zaniel has stumbled into another terrible dream. A hundred pairs of eyes stare back at him, most of them sharply shaped, glowing with the fading moon’s reflection. He is safe here, on the hill still within Akki’s domain, but the shock of their number and assortment makes beads of sweat form on his forehead.
“What happened here, boy?” A tanuki waves its paws in the air. “What did the boar god do to those squids?”
“It wasn’t him. It was …” The Yokai is nowhere to be seen. Not a single pair of eyes belong to the Yokai. Where did she go? On the other side of the crowd a dirt path lines the woods and stretches into the distance. He can see her now, at the forest edge, clinging to a tree branch and shaking it for all it is worth. Something drops to the ground, giggling. She bends to retrieve it. Even from here, Zaniel can tell she is eating it.
From the ground up, she swells and grows. With a pleased chuckle she takes another fruit from the trees and brings it to her mouth, and another, and another, growing more and more each time. This is what she has been missing, she thinks to herself. She moans with pleasure, a sound so loud it makes yokai heads turn.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, no, it’s that creature! The one that ate Akki’s house! She’s growing again!”
“What? How?!”
“The jinmenju! Look, she’s eating its fruit!”
“What do we do?!”
“Run, stupid!”
“Yes, run! Before she eats us, too!”
“No, wait!” Zaniel steels himself, then leaps down from the hill. Not the wisest choice: he bumps into a tanuki and finds himself flying over the rooftops of Arashiyama. He rouses himself from that dream and continues his pursuit. He brushes against a tenome’s arm, then dreams he has eyeballs in the palms of his hands. Again, he fights through the illusion to return to this realm, and runs toward the now-giant Yokai, who continues to devour and grow. At her size, it is impossible for Zaniel to keep up with her. She disappears over the side of the mountains, off into the glowing horizon. He squats down, hands braced against his quaking knees, struggling to catch his breath. His eyes shut on their own accord. Without intending to, he wakes up.
“Damn.”
Zaniel lies in his bed, the light of dawn seeping through the curtains that shut off his tiny, cluttered apartment from the rest of the world. He concentrates on the ceiling as his heartbeat decreases and his breathing slows. He lets the last vestiges of the dream wash past his eyes, recalling as much detail as he can. It is a calming technique, an old habit, to contemplate how those images are now just memories, and they can no longer hurt him. However, he realizes, there is little need to calm himself. It is not fear that fills his mind, but ease. Ease, and perhaps a taste of exhilaration, that after all this time, at long last, he may have found the answer to his prayers.
Now, he only has two nights left to find her.