Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 6, Part 1

Jo and Kiyoshi argued. For hours. They argued with the rest of the team, then they argued with each other. Emi got a deer-in-headlights look when Zayd relayed the information; she took Kiyoshi into a room so they could speak in private. Ayase heard his voice echo through the church when he boomed on the angry notes.

She tried to ignore it. She wanted to help Sachi handle Kadoyuki. But he was…typically strange when they told him about Touya. His immediate reaction was fear, but then his weird, intense determination followed. He gripped her arm.

“I’ll go,” he mumbled. “I have to go.”

The shift disturbed her, as it always did. He went from curled in a ball to begging to be put in the line of danger. She exchanged glances with Sachi.

“Are you sure you’re up this, Kadoyuki?”

Kadoyuki hesitated. She noticed Sachi’s eyes lingering on the way Kadoyuki clutched her arm.

Kadoyuki released her.

“I-I’ll listen to his thoughts,” Kadoyuki murmured quickly. “I promise. And I’ll…I’ll help everyone.” His voice weakened. “But Oda-san has to understand something.”

“Understand what?”

Kadoyuki hesitated again. His hands started to shake.

“We can’t…push Touya. Especially if he only asked for me and we’re sending someone else. He’s not…” He took a fractured breath, his eyes turning glassy. “He’s d-dangerous. Especially if we don’t do what he says.”

The fear behind his voice chilled Ayase. She flashed back, again, to that day in the hospital bathroom.

“Has he…hurt you before?” she ventured.

Kadoyuki squeezed his eyes shut, his hands curling into fists. Ayase didn’t expect an answer.

“It’s okay,” Sachi finished for her. “You don’t have to–”

“Yes,” he said thinly. “Just like everyone else I ever trusted.”

Ayase stopped. Kadoyuki opened his reddened eyes.

“I’ve been filled with other people’s misery my entire life. And now it’s worse, if powers are getting trapped inside me. I can’t keep them out. And now it’s spreading to…” He clutched the arm with Wipe’s bite wound. “To the only people who never hurt me.”

Before Ayase could say anything, Kadoyuki’s wet eyes tilted up. He stared at Sachi through his eyelashes.

“I’m sorry,” he said shakily. “I’m sorry I…changed your memory.”

Sachi blinked. His hands flew up.

“Y-you didn’t mean to,” Sachi stuttered. “You proved that. Don’t apologize, Kado!”

Kadoyuki’s sunken mouth trembled. His eyes hardened as he looked away.

“Everyone here is kind to me. You didn’t trust me when I used Wipe’s power, but you didn’t hurt me. You didn’t tie me down or stuff my mouth or cut into me.” His fingers dug into his arm. “My life is different now. My future is different.”

Ayase’s stomach twisted at the darkness in his voice. What the hell had he gone through before coming to the church?

And what still lingered? He dodged questions about his family, but he still took calls from his parents at all hours. He wouldn’t say what happened that day in the hospital, but he still…wanted to see Touya. Just hours after learning that he knew nothing about his own power.

There was something sharp beneath the surface of Kadoyuki’s instability. Ayase had seen that in him since Motoi. The more danger he went up against, the more he hardened in the face of it.

Of course he was going to meet up with Touya. It wouldn’t be like him if he didn’t.

Kadoyuki’s jaw tightened. He swung his head to Sachi.

“I think I can save us,” he said evenly. “So I’m going to try.”

Sachi stared into Kadoyuki’s hard eyes. He coughed as a blush flooded his face.

“W-we’ll send you with help,” Sachi promised. “You won’t be alone, Kado.”

Kadoyuki didn’t answer. He just crossed himself.

 

The adults let him make the decision. And they let Jo and Kiyoshi hash it out, too, for better or worse. For the first time yet, the church was willing to let Ayase and the others handle this on their own.

By the time 6 pm rolled around, Jo had convinced Kiyoshi that he could probably handle Touya better. Kiyoshi’s concession was being backup in the other room with Ayase.

The cab ride over was uncomfortably quiet. Ayase went over checklists in her head while Kiyoshi, almost unrecognizable in sunglasses and one of Daniel’s suits, stared out the window.

Ayase’s check for cameras in their room was pretty weak. She couldn’t replicate Nakajima’s flashlight trick, so she just poked around as best she could. Kiyoshi clipped his sunglasses onto his shirt pocket.

“Man.” He grimaced. “This place is tacky.”

Ayase glanced back at him. He seemed particularly disturbed by the heart-themed wallpaper.

“I guess,” Ayase replied as she checked the edge of the TV cabinet. “I didn’t really notice in the dark.”

There was a long pause behind her. Ayase opened a drawer.

“Uh…are you talking about last time?” he clarified slowly. “With the detective?”

“Yeah. She warned me about perverts planting cameras. We should probably turn off the lights when I’m done.”

She heard him let out a breath. She turned; he had a weird, almost embarrassed look on his face. There was a slight flush under his skin.

“Sure,” he murmured. “But I didn’t think people actually did that.”

“I know. It’s creepy.” She shut the drawer. “Don’t talk about really private stuff in case we miss a recorder, Aki.”

He seemed to get what she meant with the fake name. He nodded and made a show of checking the other side of the room.

They didn’t find anything. Ayase snapped off the lights, plunging the room in darkness. She finally pulled off her wig and rested it on the bedside table.

Kiyoshi started to pace. She sat down on the bed and pulled out her tape recorder.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Kiyoshi grunted a reply. “I’m just worried,” he muttered.

“I know.”

“I should be the one out there. Dealing with…y’know.”

Ayase squinted at the recorder in the dark. “This is a better plan. If something goes wrong, you can help them.”

“Nngh.”

Ayase heard a faint snapping noise from somewhere. She closed her eyes and switched between her planted bugs. The sound was from Jo, who snapped his fingers near his collar as pushed through the back door of the church.

“Time to go,” he mumbled to her insect body. “Cab’s here.”

Got it, she thought, trying to make her internal voice clear. Under one of her other bugs, Kadoyuki relayed her confirmation to Jo.

“They’re leaving,” Ayase said in her human voice. “What time is it?”

“6:45.”

She stayed with Jo and Kadoyuki until the church was safely behind them. She double-checked her bugs around the hotel. There was no sign of an ambush…and Touya was still in his room, according to the bug she’d carefully wedged under his doorway. He sat in silence and stared at the door, his mouth a thin line.

She didn’t like that look. And she didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t moved in twenty minutes.

She shivered. She almost missed his creepy smile.

The bed suddenly jostled under her human body; Ayase’s eyes popped open. Kiyoshi sighed beside her and ran his hands through his hair.

His sudden proximity in the dark made her stiffen. She could hear him breathing…she smelled the edge of musk and soap from one of those gel deodorants.

Despite her mind’s shrieking protest, she flashed back to her last sex dream and the powerful reaction it had ripped from her body. The memory of Kiyoshi’s confession in her mouth and his fingers…

GODDAMMIT, NO!

Heat rushed through her. Kiyoshi’s breathing was suddenly too loud, her skin too sensitive under the flush of blood. He shed his jacket and loosened his tie, releasing a soft grunt that cut straight through her heart.

She tried to scrub the asinine betrayal from her head by flicking back to Touya, to Jo and Kadoyuki’s cab. When that didn’t work, she tried to revisit the memory of Sachi’s wet mouth against hers, and the soft strands of his hair sliding through her fingers.

That made her feel worse, somehow. Her heart thundered as she scooted away from Kiyoshi.

He swung his head up at her, alert.

Ayase furiously shook her head, signaling that everything was fine. He rested his hand between them and leaned on it; his weight shifted on the bed, tilting her closer to him. For a heart-stopping second, he pushed his lips in her ear and let out a warm, rumbling whisper.

“Do I have time to go to the bathroom?”

The moment came crashing down, sending a little flood of water to her eyes. She blinked it away as she pulled back on the bed.

“Y-yeah,” she breathed. “But do it now.”

He nodded and got up, shifting her back on the mattress. She sat in silence until she heard him close the door of the attached bathroom.

Ayase let out a long breath and rubbed her face with her hands. Focus, she ordered herself angrily. Just do this, Ayase.

She gripped the recorder in her sweaty hand.

***

Trigger warning for assault in the following sections.

Touya wasn’t happy.

Even more disturbing: he was already not happy when he opened the door. Jo recoiled against the cold gaze that narrowed down at him.

“Well, well,” Touya said lowly. “I only ordered one boy.”

The way he said “ordered” made Jo’s skin crawl. By his side, Kado was silent as death.

Jo cleared his throat. “Consider it a gift,” he said. “To…repay you.”

Touya paused at that.

Jo squirmed. Back at the church, Kado had been adamant about how to handle Touya. “Don’t stand up to him,” he’d instructed. “Do what he says and he won’t hurt you.”

So I should kiss his ass, Jo translated. That definitely sounded easier than trying to outsmart Touya. And Jo was okay with playing a little meek, considering he’d thrown Touya’s offer back in his face since they’d last met.

Touya stared at him. That heady pull of the Malum pheromones had no cologne masking it this time. Even without that the sweet-smelling chaser, he felt those waves rippling off of Touya and seeping into his skin. His chest tightened.

Maybe Touya felt it, too, because the hard line of his mouth softened. He sighed and stepped back into the room.

“Come in.”

Jo let out a breath. He shuffled in ahead of Kado.

Touya had that metal detector wand again. He checked Kado quickly, and Jo noticed that Touya barely touched the boy. Touya scowled as Kado trembled beneath the wand.

“You act like I’m going to eat you,” he said thinly. “Don’t insult me, Kado-kun.”

Kado clenched his teeth. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Senpai.”

Touya let out a breath and gestured for Kado to put his arms down. Kado obeyed.

Touya stared at Kado for a long moment. Kado’s eyes glittered.

Listen to him, Jo pleaded. Get inside Touya’s head.

“I haven’t seen you since Fukuhashi,” Touya said at last. “You’ve lost weight.”

“Y-yeah.”

“You didn’t have much to spare. That Polish priest isn’t feeding you?”

“I’ve…been sick.”

Touya’s mouth slanted. “Right. Poor little Kado-kun, with the nervous stomach.”

Kado didn’t reply. The silence stretched between them for several long seconds. Kado twitched.

“Hn.” Touya turned to Jo and lifted the wand. There was a hint of his familiar smile curving his lips now.

“Your turn, Jo Oda.”

Jo obediently lifted his arms. As Touya drew the wand along Jo’s body, he followed with his gloved fingers, sprawling his hands along Jo’s arms and legs. Jo shuddered at the touch that Kado had been spared.

Lucky me, Jo thought miserably as Touya slid his fingers along Jo’s belt loops.

“I’m sure Kado-kun told you that I used to advise him,” Touya hummed. “I was paired up with him through Fukuhashi when he was still in junior high.”

“He…mentioned that.”

“I didn’t seem to be much help, though. He’s always been jumpy around me, even when I don’t say a word.”

Jo didn’t answer that one.

Touya squatted to run the wand up Jo’s legs. “And he’s still nervous now,” he drawled. “When he’s not the unwelcome guest in this room.”

Jo wished Touya would finish. He didn’t like the guy…crouched there. As if to answer the question, Touya looked up from Jo’s hips.

He smiled darkly. “You said you came as a gift.”

Jo’s blood ran cold. Touya slowly stood, his eyes locked with Jo.

Kado’s voice broke the spell. “Wh-why did you call us, senpai?”

Touya frowned. He turned and walked to the bed, mercifully returning space between his body and Jo’s.

“I wanted an update,” Touya said as he slid his wand into a tote bag. “Clearly you broke into the accountant’s office, although no one at Core is the wiser. They have no idea why their two clinics were attacked at the same time.” He rested the bag beside a chair. “What did you manage to steal there?”

“Some paperwork and supplies,” Jo answered. “We’re still sorting through it.”

“I hope Nick Marshall is making good use of that.”

Jo paused. “We were just hoping to cripple Pitch production,” he offered. “I don’t know if Nick’s doing anything with it.”

Touya raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

Jo felt a warning behind the words. “Nick isn’t in the church,” he said defensively. “And he doesn’t tell us everything that’s going on.”

“He needs to keep your hacker alive.”

This was it. This was the test. With Zayd’s words ringing in his ears, Jo clenched his fists.

“Not anymore,” Jo lied. “She’s dead.”

Touya stopped. Jo stared at him. The silence in the room grew thick as molasses.

Darkness slowly contorted Touya’s face. The edge of his mouth curled up to reveal gritted teeth.

“She’s dead?” he repeated icily. “From withdrawal?”

Jo nodded.

Touya closed his eyes and tilted his head. Jo could see the tight creases around Touya’s eyes as the guy barely contained some severe emotion.

“Then what…is Nick Marshall…good for?”

Jo mentally filed away Touya’s reaction. They’d struck a nerve. Touya had wanted Shouri to live.

Does he know she’s Malum?

“What else?” Touya asked sharply. “Is Detective Nakajima building that conspiracy case?”

“She needs more time. “ When Touya narrowed his eyes, Jo threw up his hands. “She’s trying. We all are.”

Touya let out a breath and dropped his eyes to the bed. “Your next target should be the SUN building,” he murmured. “In Ikebukuro. You’ll see it on the list. But don’t bother breaking into the building–you only need the parking garage.” He absently rubbed his chin. “There’s a small, private garage within the larger garage. It has a number of unmarked cars in it. You’ll find their trunks loaded with incriminating materials that will help Nakajima’s case.”

Jo waited for Touya to elaborate, but Touya didn’t offer more details. “They’re storing evidence in cars?” Jo clarified.

“Mm. My father has strange ideas about hiding in plain sight.”

Jo glanced back at Kado. Kado shakily nodded.

“Okay,” Jo said. “We’ll do that. Do you need anything else from us?”

Touya snorted. “Need,” he said with thinly veiled disdain. “You make me sound like I’m dependent on your precious contributions. Don’t overvalue yourselves here.”

Touya was getting pissed. They needed to get out.

“Th-thank you,” Jo said carefully as he stepped back toward the door. “We’ll do what we can to–”

“Wait.”

Jo stopped.

The anger slowly melted from Touya’s face. He took a quick breath, then leveled cool eyes on Jo.

“You asked me what I need,” he said. “You didn’t ask me what I want.”

It took Jo a second to find his voice. “Uh…”

The edge of Touya’s mouth curled upward. “Come here, Jo-kun.”

One million alarm bells rang in Jo’s head. Touya looked him up and down with a predator’s precision.

Shit. Shit!

Jo had known coming to this meeting would be pushing his luck, but fuck. Touya was pretty much ignoring Kado. Was Touya really still that interested in Jo?

Jo clenched and unclenched his hands. Stay back, he thought at Kado as he walked closer to Touya. When he stopped a few steps away, Touya closed the gap between them.

Two gloved fingers slid under Jo’s chin. He delicately tilted Jo’s face up.

“Are you afraid of me?” Touya whispered, probably so Kado couldn’t hear.

Jo resisted the urge to jerk back from the touch. “A-a little,” he offered.

Touya smiled. His usual silk was back, draping over the anger of moments before.

“Good,” he murmured.

Jo swallowed. Kado had been right about playing meek.

“You disappointed me, Jo-kun. I offered you my hand, and you chose to huddle in some dirty church.”

“They…needed me?” Jo tried.

“Their needs are being met by very powerful people. I don’t see how you fit in there.”

Ouch.

“They had an open invitation, and I was just…freaked out about everything. You were right, senpai–I got in too deep.”

Touya hummed his response and gripped Jo’s collar. When he tugged it to lift Jo’s face higher, he froze.

His dark eyes zoomed in beneath the collar.

Realization slammed into Jo the same second he heard a buzz. Touya snapped his wrist in a blur. When he pulled his hand back, Ayase’s bug flapped desperately against the wing pinched beneath his fingers.

“What’s this?” Touya murmured.

Shit! Jo thought.

***

Dammit!

Ayase stopped trying to fly that insect, leaving it to lie limp from Touya’s hold. Touya prodded it with another finger, but his grip on her wing was still iron.

“What is it?” Kiyoshi whispered. “Are they okay?!”

Ayase shook her head in frustration. “Touya found the bug,” she hissed. “Hang on!”

Kiyoshi’s weight shifted off the bed, but she barely felt it.

She sent the bug on Kadoyuki crawling behind his shoulders. His body jostled under her, but he was just stepping back toward the wall. She quickly buzzed her bug off to hide in a dark heart on the wallpaper.

She shifted back to Touya. She was splayed out on his gloved hand now, still pinned in his grip. He raised an eyebrow at Jo.

For one glorious second, Touya released her bug. Ayase tried to zip away.

He crushed her between his hands.

***

Jo’s heart raced as he tried to remember Ayase’s other bugs in the room. One on Kado? Another one from earlier, planted before they got there? But he couldn’t concentrate when Touya smeared the crushed bug on a handkerchief.

“We’ve had something of a bug problem lately,” Touya commented. “Our operatives have come back with wild stories about swarms of insects. Some think they’re wasps or hornets, others claim they’re massive mosquitos…” He opened the handkerchief with the squashed bug right in front of Jo’s face. “How would you describe this beauty?”

Jo’s mouth went dry. “Was that thing crawling on me?” he asked shakily. “We’ve been attacked by the bugs, too. We thought they were coming from you.”

“You’ve been attacked?” Touya smiled darkly. “Then you wouldn’t mind showing me the welts.”

“Not me personally. Just our team.”

Touya’s mouth slanted, but he didn’t reply. He rested the handkerchief on the bedside table.

And then grabbed Jo around the throat.

Jo let out a strangled cry as Touya swung him into the wall. Jo’s head cracked against the drywall; his vision blinked out for a second.

Jo heard Kado’s fuzzy shout from somewhere, but the world was suddenly slow. In the blurred haze before his eyes, Jo watched Touya’s lips move.

“I’m running out of time,” Touya murmured. He leaned in close enough to breathe on Jo’s face. “Which means I’m running out of patience. And you’re failing me now when you had the nerve to turn me down.”

The unnatural strength of Touya’s grip terrified Jo. He coughed and clutched Touya’s forearm with shaking fingers.

“D-did you only want me because I’m Malum?” Jo wheezed. “I know what you are, senpai!”

Touya froze. His grip loosened on Jo’s throat.

“Excuse me?”

Jo gasped for air. “Good…people should stick together,” he gurgled. “Even if we’re not fully human.”

Touya let out a hard breath through his nose. He glared daggers over his hand.

“Hmph.”

Touya released him, freeing Jo’s windpipe. Jo sagged against the wall and coughed as the world spun.

“Then someone told you,” Touya drawled, something flat behind the lilt. “A new Malum friend, perhaps?”

Jo shook his head. “Th-the priest figured it out,” he lied. “And he used that to figure you out.” He swallowed bile. “B-but you’re still the only other Malum I’ve ever met.”

Touya paused again. Jo took advantage to steal a glance at Kado.

Kado was pale and trembling, his body braced for an attack. But he stood his ground. He almost looked…frozen.

Stay there! Jo thought as loud as he could. Let me handle this!

Touya’s gloved fingers snaked across Jo’s cheek, but this time, Jo pulled back. He crammed his back against the wall and stared up at Touya.

The anger had sifted out of the guy, although a shadow of something else loomed. Touya shrugged.

“Too bad,” he murmured. “I’m only interested in innocent Malum. The minute you know what you are…” He smiled sadly. “…is the minute you cease being useful to me.”

What?

“Although,” Touya went on, sliding a hand up Jo’s arm. “There’s a certain…appeal to being the only one you’ve felt before. That primal attraction must be so foreign to you.” He tilted his head. “It’s in our DNA, Jo. A signal so we’ll know how to propagate our species.”

Jo’s heart thundered in his chest. Touya’s other hand gripped Jo’s chin–not in the same bruising grip as earlier, but with a gentleness that chilled Jo to his core. Jo’s wide eyes wandered down the arm that gripped his face.

Up close, even in the dimly lit room, Jo could see a sliver of Touya’s skin between his sleeve and his glove. The pale peach winked out as he shifted his hand.

And Jo saw black veins. Pitch veins.

On the underside of Touya’s wrist.

It wasn’t like Kiyoshi or Shouri. It wasn’t even like Nick, or any Core operative Jo had seen with rolled-up sleeves. Their veins all ranged from bicep to mid forearm.

As the hand shifted again, sliding a finger down Jo’s jaw, Jo watched those dark, ugly veins visibly pump blood to Touya’s hands.

Touya hummed. “Never mind,” he said, his voice thick with promise. “There’s one way you’re still useful to me.”

Jo couldn’t move. Fear rooted him to the floor.

Touya leaned in and ran a tongue up Jo’s face.

The blood rushing through Jo’s ears deafened him to the world. He dumbly opened his mouth in a protest…but was too shocked to form words.

Touya kissed his open mouth. Jo gasped as Touya’s tongue wormed its way in.

Jo’s fear turned to panic; he grabbed at Touya’s arm and tried to wrench his head away. But Touya’s other hand gripped the back of his hair and crammed his mouth back.

NO NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONONO–

Jo heard a cry right before Touya jostled violently. The hands on him loosened. Jo tore his head free and threw his arms up, blocking his head as he slid to the floor.

He sprawled there, panicked, spitting the foreign saliva back down his chin. His heart battered against his ribcage as he peeked up.

It was Kado. He’d jumped onto Touya’s back, clawing at him like a crazed animal.

Touya grabbed Kado’s collar and threw him effortlessly to the floor. He hissed something Jo couldn’t hear before lifting his leg and stomping downward.

Kado screamed.

The flood of terror pushed Jo’s body, driving him to his feet when he couldn’t think. But when Touya whipped his head to him, Jo’s body sagged on quaking knees.

Touya’s eyes flared as he reached down. He lifted the sobbing Kado into the air; the boy’s right leg dangled unnaturally.

“You hurt me, Kado-kun,” Touya hissed. “I’m sorry I have to do this.”

WHAM

Touya’s head snapped to the door. Jo’s eyes followed.

WHAM

The cheap door shuddered violently, as if hit with a battering ram. Chips of plaster fluttered from the top of the wooden doorframe.

WHAM-KA-CRACK

The door burst in from the doorframe, tearing the hinges and locks from the wood. Kiyoshi stumbled in shoulder-first as the door crashed to the floor.

He swung his head up, panting, and blinked sweat from his eyes. Jo could see the thick ropes of muscle snaking down his neck to disappear in Daniel’s dress shirt.

Touya’s eyes narrowed. His gripping arm dipped; Kado’s good leg found a trembling purchase on the floor.

“Kiyoshi-kun,” Touya said flatly. “Don’t you look all grown up.”

Kiyoshi growled. He pushed up his sleeves, revealing the throbbing black veins that laced the inside of his clenched arms. Darkness flared behind his features and the low rumble of his voice.

“Put him down,” Kiyoshi snarled. “Before I make you, senpai.”

To be continued in Chapter 6, Part 2.

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