Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 6, Part 2

They’d blown it. Badly. And considering the Church had trusted them to handle Touya, Ayase was shaken about the possible fallout.

But she didn’t have time to dwell on it–Aisha needed help with Kadoyuki. He was screaming by the time they got back; Ayase was nervous about even stretching him on the sick bed.

“Can you give him something for the pain?” Sachi exclaimed.

Emi nodded as she set up an I.V. She tried to claw one of Kadoyuki’s arms free, but both were wrapped tightly around his body. He rolled away from her.

“No!” he sobbed. “D-don’t touch me!”

Emi took a breath. “Kadoyuki-kun?” she said quickly. “It’s just me. And Aisha-san.”

Kadoyuki opened his squeezed eyes. He glanced over his shoulder at her.

He weakly held out an arm.

As she pricked him for an angiocatheter, Sachi took a step back. He slid an arm around Ayase.

“He’s…better with girls,” he murmured as he guided her toward the bed. “Maybe you should, um…”

Aisha sucked on her teeth as she straightened Kadoyuki’s body. “Everyone,” she warned. “No looking.” Her eyes dragged to the blood on Kadoyuki’s sock.

“Dear God, deliver us.” Daniel crossed himself and looked away. Sachi covered his mouth.

Aisha carefully rolled up Kadoyuki’s pant leg.

His shin was bloated, purple, and smeared with blood. Ayase could see the jagged end of a bone pressing from under the scraped skin.

Sachi dry-heaved. Ayase tried to be relieved that the bone hadn’t torn through.

“It’s a crush injury,” Emi murmured as she pushed another syringe into Kadoyuki’s I.V. “Setting it won’t be enough.”

Aisha and Zayd exchanged a few words in Arabic. “Hospital,” Aisha said in Japanese. “Now.”

“W-we can’t just leave the church!”

“He needs X-Rays,” Zayd translated. “Perhaps surgery.” He thought a moment. “Daniel, what is the hospital with Ban Kobayashi?”

Daniel nodded. “Right, T. Hospital–we can send him there. We already have staff contacts and police there to watch over the Byakko victims.” When Ayase threw him a look, Daniel added, “It was one of Takeshi-kun’s conditions.”

“But…Kado’s been on a bunch of Core missions! And Touya could’ve told Core who he is–”

“Sachi,” Zayd said sharply. “He must go. It’s too dangerous for him to stay here.”

Ayase hesitated. As she weighed all the terrible options in her head, she watched Aisha cut away the pant leg from Kadoyuki’s injury.

“I-I’ll go,” Ayase murmured at last. “I can protect him.”

Kadoyuki opened his bleary eyes. He stared at her, his mouth trembling.

Slowly, carefully, Ayase reached toward him. She slid two fingers against his.

He gripped her hand and squeezed.

Sachi lit up. “I’ll go, too,” he offered.

“Actually, we’re going to send a few of you. Nick needs more Pitch, but it’s too dangerous to go directly from here to his girlfriend’s apartment.” Daniel flipped open his phone. “Take an ambulance to the hospital, make sure Kadoyuki-kun and Ayase-kun are safe, then take a cab to Nick’s place. Only call cabs from your encrypted church phone.”

Kadoyuki choked down another sob. “We’re taking Pitch?” he whined. “Are you sending us with the briefcase?”

“Of course not–that’s far too dangerous. We’re only sending a few vials.” Daniel glanced up at Zayd. “Would you mind?”

Zayd turned and left the room. Kadoyuki watched him go, a strange look on his face.

Emi peeled latex gloves off her hands. “I’ll go with the children. Call the ambulance, Daniel-san.” She gestured to Sachi. “Fetch a change of clothes for Kadoyuki-kun. I want you and Jo-kun, and, um…” She frowned. “Kiyoshi? Touya barely hurt him, which is a miracle.”

“With the sunglasses, I don’t think he’ll be recognized. It might help to have someone a bit more…physical with you?” Daniel smiled awkwardly as he held the phone to his ear.

Sachi nodded and ran out of the room. Ayase looked back down at the boy who clutched her sweaty hand.

Kadoyuki whispered to himself, his eyes closed. Ayase leaned closer to hear.

“It’s not too late,” he breathed, over and over. “Please, God…it’s not too late.”

***

“Jesus Christ!” Nick snarled. “You fucked us, Kiyoshi!”

Kiyoshi ran his hands over his face. In the dim light of Nick’s girlfriend’s kitchen, Jo could see the sheen of sweat on his skin.

“I’m sorry!” Kiyoshi blurted. “I-I just saw Touya go ballistic, and I–”

“You lost your temper, that’s what happened! When Touya put you down the first time, you should’ve stayed down!” Nick angrily removed his baseball cap. “I know you’re leaking testosterone out of your ears from the Pitch, but you’ve gotta learn to control that shit! He’s our only informant!”

Jo shriveled at the volume of Nick’s voice. He leaned against the crappy kitchen counter and glanced at Kiyoshi again.

Damn, he was only bruised. Aisha and Emi had checked him earlier, to confirm that he wasn’t concussed or bleeding internally–but Jo had half-expected the guy to faint later.

Nope. If anything, Kiyoshi wore the healthy flush of someone after a workout, despite the sick look on his face.

“But I do have something…the body Core put me in.”

For better or worse, maybe that could be an asset. Jo felt a little guilty for thinking it.

Jo sighed. “Touya let us out of there,” he murmured at last. “If he wanted to end our alliance, he would’ve killed us. We could rat him out to Core, after all.”

Nick grumbled something incoherent and scratched his buzzed hair. “Let’s fucking hope so.”

“And…and Kiyoshi might have saved Kadoyuki-kun’s life.”

“You’re biased,” Nick snapped at Emi. “Sister dear.”

Emi bristled a little at that. “We can’t start sacrificing teenagers to that man,” she argued. “Touya was brutal with Kadoyuki-kun. He’s never shown that sort of violence before.”

Jo frowned. “But Kado attacked Touya first. To…defend me.”

“You needed defending, Jo-kun! If Touya is going to try to coerce you…into–”

“You can stop right there,” Jo interrupted. “I was handling it.”

It was a lie, but Jo didn’t want to go this route. Ever. Touya’s tongue wasn’t worse than the guns in Jo’s face. And the adults’ attempts to separate the two bothered Jo to his core.

Nick threw up his hands. “Great! So everyone’s so desperate to be the fucking hero that we tackled a double agent who was high on Pitch! You’re lucky he didn’t go more apeshit on you.” He pointed to a door down the short hallway; giant padlocks hung from several hand-made latches. “Remember Wipe on Pitch? He tried to rip Kado apart with his teeth! Every time he gets a hit he starts gnawing on everything in that room like a goddamn animal. Shit.” He slid his cap back onto his head. “Kado’s got a bad track record of instigating Pitch junkies. They must smell something on him.”

Sachi swallowed. “You…you said something, when we first got Wipe. That maybe…Kado’s taken Pitch before. You don’t still believe that, do you?”

“Not really. I mean, if that kid can absorb powers, who knows what else bleeds into him. But he’s been holed up in that church with you and the briefcase, and he’s never made a move for it, so I’m not worried.” Nick paused. “It’s still hidden, right?”

“Of course it is,” Emi said sharply. “I don’t even know where the briefcase is. Detective Nakajima left one person in charge of it with instructions to hide it from the rest of us.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “I can get behind that. We’ve been too chatty with our secrets lately.”

Jo could guess who hid the briefcase: the adults called Zayd “the safest man in Tokyo.” And Jo was happy to stay the hell out of it. He already knew too much deadly information.

Jo heard the creak of wood from the stairwell outside–the one that led down to the strip club. He tensed, and Nick seemed to notice; he held a finger to his lips.

Slow footsteps stopped outside the locked door. The person knocked twice, paused, then knocked once.

Nick squeezed past Jo. “That’s the signal,” he explained as he looked through the peephole. “It’s just Hatsumi.”

Nick took a step back and undid the several deadbolts on the door. He swung the door open halfway and hid behind it.

A woman in glasses, wearing one of Nick’s baseball caps, slid into the kitchen. Nick closed and locked the door behind her.

The elusive girlfriend. She’s been helping Nick with the chemistry stuff, Jo reminded himself. Since she was a friend of the church, and Nick had gone to her with Ayase’s first bug from Blue Light, she went way back into this mess. But Jo half-expected Nick to turn off the lights, since he was so adamant about none of the kids seeing her.

Like we’ll touch her with our curse. Envy welled in Jo’s stomach. He wished he could keep the girl in his life out of this.

Hatsumi was a little heavy, although it was hard to tell in her baggy clothes. She loaded several plastic bags–filled with bento–onto the kitchen table. She murmured something to Nick and tilted her face into the light.

She was pretty, but her face was caked with cover-up. Jo could still make out the edges of bruises and cuts from under the cream.

“Nice to meet you,” Sachi said, bowing from his side of the kitchen. When Kiyoshi and Emi did the same, Jo followed suit.

The woman let out a breath. “Young,” she whispered. “Cripes, you’re so…young.” She pulled a lighter from her pocket and patted around, assumedly for a cigarette.

Jo fetched his own box and offered it to her. She thanked him and slid one of the sticks free.

“Did you get these from your mom?” she asked him. “I’ve only ever seen middle-aged women smoke these.”

Jo shrugged. “I don’t have a mom.”

“Nngh.” She lit the cigarette and took a long drag. “Sorry.”

“Don’t feel too bad for ’em,” Nick muttered. “They got in a fight with our informant.”

“Touya, right?” The woman took another drag, “The homeless kid Zero adopted into drug-addled slavery? Touya was probably half your age when you barely got away, Nick.”

For a blissful moment, Nick had no reply to that. The room fell into silence.

Emi cleared her throat. “Actually…we did get confirmation that Touya is on Pitch. It was always a theory, and it would explain why he’s tremendously strong.”

Kiyoshi rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve played contact sports,” he mumbled. “Sometimes against bigger guys. But Touya’s…I mean, it was like fighting a robot. He shouldn’t be that strong when he’s that skinny.”

“That was like the vampire lady in Motoi,” Jo added. “I doubt she was more than 50 kilos, but she crushed me.”

Nick angrily shook his head and dug through the plastic bags on the table. “I’m sick of sitting around here and speculating,” he muttered. “I’ve got more Pitch, and Sachi’s here, so we’re gonna try and get some answers out of Wipe. He’s been in a better mood lately.”

Sachi blinked. He straightened from his place against the wall.

Nick fetched a box from under the sink and balanced a bento on top of it. Jo followed everyone into the hallway as Nick unlocked the several padlocks.

“I drugged his food a few hours ago,” he explained. “He should be asleep. The rest of you stay out here in case he tries anything funny.”

“Like hypnotizing you?”

“That’s hard for him to do when we know how it works, but he gets violent. On a dime.” Nick threw a look at Hatsumi. “They probably think I’m beating the shit out of you, if you go out with those bruises.”

She absently touched her caked face. “The fact that nobody says anything is telling.”

“Whatever. I knew those assholes downstairs wouldn’t get involved, even if they heard a grown man screaming up here.” Nick opened the door a sliver and peeked inside. He waved Sachi in.

Jo had never seen Wipe before, but the sleeping man on the bed looked harmless enough. His overgrown hair flopped over an angular jaw and some stubbly facial hair. Jo saw an attached bathroom and a pile of clean linens on a nearby desk.

Nick flipped the sleeping man onto his back. He checked his pulse, took his blood pressure, and recorded everything in a small notebook. Then he tied a blindfold over Wipe’s eyes and handcuffed him to the bedframe. Jo noticed a padding layer of cotton balls glued to the inside of the cuffs.

“You seem to be…treating him okay here,” Emi said quietly.

Nick snorted. “He gets the only bathroom in the apartment! For the privilege of holding a POW, I get to shit in a strip club every morning.”

Sachi looked back at Hatsumi. “Thanks for…letting us keep him here.”

She shrugged and smoked her cigarette.

“All right.” Nick gestured for everyone to be quiet, then pushed one of the man’s sleeves up. Sachi gripped the man’s bare skin.

Nick dipped his hand in a bowl of water and started flecking drops at the man’s face. “Hey,” he snapped. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

Wipe moaned. Nick flecked him again and ran a vial of Pitch up the man’s cheek.

“You feel that?”

Wipe snapped to attention. He rattled the handcuffs; for whatever reason, he seemed excited to be in them. A crazed smile spread over his face.

“It’s time for Pitch?!” he exclaimed.

“Not for another hour. And you’ve gotta take the subliguals first.”

The man’s face fell. He rattled his handcuffs and started whining like a kicked puppy.

“But we’re gonna talk first, Wipe. If you play nice, we’ll get through this faster.”

Wipe lit up again. “I-I’ll play nice!” he cried. “I promise!”

Jo’s stomach churned. He wasn’t sure he wanted to watch this.

Hatsumi seemed to notice the look on his face. “We’re trying to work with the stuff you guys brought from the clinics,” she said under her breath. “We have one or two decent leads, but there’s a lot of unrelated stuff to sort through. There’s another receptor I want to look into…something that may be connected to the performance enhancer, not the additive.”

Emi brightened. “That sounds promising.”

“Maybe,” Hatsumi murmured. “Until then, we’re just weaning him and adding the antagonists you gave Kiyoshi and Shouri. But his addiction’s severe. Shouri’s down to a half-dose, right?”

“Yes,” Emi whispered. “It’s not going well, but she should survive. What’s his dosage?”

Hatsumi scowled around her cigarette. “Ninety percent. And we’ve already had to resuscitate him once.” She tapped a few ashes onto the floor. “I think these long-term addicts are a whole different monster. I wouldn’t be surprised if his neurochemical pathways have been permanently altered.”

Kiyoshi’s jaw tightened. “So…Pitch makes them crazy?”

“He’s also a psychic–and from Daniel-kun’s many rants, I know those guys start with brain mutations. Wipe already admitted that Pitch makes his power stronger.” Hatsumi looked to the floor. “Giving Pitch to psychics probably sounds like a great idea to Zero, but it makes the biochemist in me cringe. You’re really playing with fire. What’s the rest of this guy’s life gonna be like with his brain in that condition?”

Jo swallowed. “Shouri has a…superhuman brain,” he said quietly. “And they gave her Pitch.”

“Superhuman, Jo–not supernatural. If anything, her brain is in better condition than the average human or psychic.” Emi wiped her hands on her skirt. “Supernaturals are mutants, born with altered systems and unique skills, and sometimes that makes them weaker in other things. But Malum have stronger, more efficient physical systems. It may actually save her.”

Kiyoshi looked confused. Emi rubbed his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s complicated.”

Hatsumi took another drag. “You should hear Wipe talk to Nick. He’s always trying to make these insane bargains while blindfolded, and he gets surprised when Nick doesn’t believe him. Like he thinks he can hypnotize people without the psychic power.”

“He’s delusional,” Jo offered.

“Yeah. And obsessed with his ability. He thinks it can handle any problem, even when he’s cuffed to a bed in an umarked apartment.” She pulled the tiny cigarette bud from her lips and rolled it between her fingers. Her dark eyes lingered on Sachi, who nodded or shook his head when Wipe answered Nick’s questions.

“We’re working with a tiny sample size, so take my hypothesis with a grain of salt, but…I think you should keep your supernaturals far away from Pitch. Ayase and Zayd, and especially the psychics.” She sighed. “They live in an altered reality to begin with. If you add a brain-altering drug that sharpens that sixth sense, they might leave planet earth and the rest of us far behind.”

Fair enough.

Kiyoshi clenched his fists. “It won’t touch them,” he said darkly.

Jo wanted a cigarette. He slid one between his lips and offered another to Hatsumi, but she turned him down. He snapped his lighter and sent the little flame bursting to life.

But as he watched Wipe salivate, begging and yanking at those poorly padded handcuffs, Jo’s stomach shriveled. He snapped the flame away.

And slowly put the cigarette back in its box.

Proceed to Chapter 6, Part 2, page 3–>