Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 8, Part 1

Jo scrambled to his feet. He ran after the trail of exhaust and insects, his sneakers pounding on the concrete as he jumped off the curb outside the parking garage. A car honked loudly when he landed on the street; it swerved around him as he rammed his body against the side of the nearest taxi. He clawed the door open.

“Th-that car!” he yelled at the driver as he climbed into the back. “Follow that car!”

The driver frowned. “I’m waiting for–”

“For me! I called you for the pick-up!” He gestured wildly as Touya’s vehicle shrank up ahead. “Just drive, dammit!”

The driver squinted through the windshield. He sucked his teeth.

“The police car? You’re out of your mind, kid.”

Jo cursed as Touya vanished around a corner. Storm clouds grumbled overhead; a few spots of rain slapped the taxi windshield. Jo scrambled out of the car again, ignoring the driver calling after him.

“Shit,” Jo hissed as he ran back to the garage, his hand digging into his pocket as tiny raindrops splattered on his scalp and cheeks. They cut off abruptly as he ducked under the concrete ceiling. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit!”

He found his phone and jammed Zayd’s speed dial. He saw Ayase where he’d left her, curled in a ball, screeching in frustration with her hands slapped over her ears. When he neared, he noticed that the skin of her back was overstretched and paper-thin; veins throbbed under the pink, straining flesh.

His stomach churned at the sight. He swallowed bile and dropped to his knees beside her as Zayd’s voice clicked on.

“Jo–”

“Touya kidnapped Sachi and Kado!” Jo yelled into the phone. “He’s dressed like a cop and took off in Ochi’s car. Ayase got bugs on it–do you have a tape recorder?!”

Zayd whispered a prayer on the other end of the line. “I will get one now,” he breathed. “And Detective Ochi?”

“I think Touya murdered him! He had blood on his clothes!”

Jo pushed the speaker button and slammed the phone on the floor in front of Ayase’s knees. He gathered her clothes from nearby and gingerly tried to drape her shirt over her bare back. She didn’t even flinch when the fabric touched the weakened skin.

“Ayase!” he shouted through her covered ears. “Directions!”

She shook her head frantically. “Th-the rain!” she hissed. “I can’t see, I can’t…!”

Jo looked up to the street beyond the garage. The spits of rain had intensified, growing into a rumbling downpour.

***

She was slipping. The water pelted her in heavy droplets, weighting her wings and forcing her down to the car’s smooth surfaces of metal and paint. Her legs slid into the beading raindrops that streaked down the car, dragging her with them to fly off the vehicle.

She was scattering in all directions, blinded by the rain as she spun with heavy wings. She slapped against other windshields, zapped out of existence under other tires. She tucked an insect behind Touya’s license plate and another under the internal lip of the bumper, waterlogged but locked in place. She wrapped her legs around the base of the whipping radio antennae. She tried to crawl more bugs under the car, but the burning metal singed half her feet off, sending her flying back to die in traffic.

Her positioning was bad, leaving her with half-views of the surrounding buildings–even with her wide insect gaze. The rain was a curtain, blurring the vision of her compound eyes.

She heard muted voices in her human ears, but she ignored it. She had to. She was down to four insects, clinging for dear life to the back of that police car.

Touya hummed something in the interior. She locked her survivors in place and shifted her consciousness inside the car. Touya’s voice was muffled through the fabric of Kadoyuki’s jeans, so she only caught the edges of words.

“…rain…easier…timing, Kado-kun.”

Hearing Kadoyuki’s name in Touya’s voice rekindled her rage. She swiftly crawled up Kadoyuki’s leg, burrowing through the darkness of his clothes; she felt his muscles tense under her.

I’m sorry, she thought as she frantically crawled up. She ran past his knee, up his thigh. He tensed again as she neared his pelvis; she tried to shift to the side under the denim, aiming for his hip. The skin under her legs suddenly changed texture–a thin layer of underwear fabric over the flesh.

The muscles under her recoiled as he wracked out a half-sob.

Guilt and misery twisted her into knots. I’m sorry, she thought again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!

She scrambled away from his groin. She ran up until she felt skin again, saw the seam of his jeans end up ahead. She eagerly crawled out of his pants to burrow up under his hoodie.

It wasn’t until she was up by his clavicle, his heart churning blood under her feet, that Touya spoke again. Ayase picked up the sound clearer on her twitching antennae.

“Sachi-kun,” Touya said, the word poison in his mouth. “I’m going to tell you something important, so I need you to pay attention.”

Ayase felt her human teeth clenching in the distance. Near Kadoyuki’s pounding heart, Sachi mumbled an affirmative.

Touya grunted. “I don’t…usually take on extra people, but I’m willing to make an exception for you. Even if I can’t find a use for you, Kado-kun clearly wants you to live–and I’ve been hard on Kado-kun recently. This was a difficult mission for him and he deserves something for getting through it in one piece.”

Ayase’s blood went cold. Kadoyuki started breathing faster, his chest rising and falling under her legs.

“As long as you behave, I won’t hurt you. I won’t have reason to. But if you try to fight me, I won’t have the time or the energy to punish you. I’ll have to end your life.” His voice darkened. “This is your one and only warning. Do you understand?”

Kadoyuki puffed out a breath over her, Latin trailing at the end of his voice. She heard Sachi shift beside them.

“I understand,” Sachi said quietly.

“Good. Now comfort poor Kado-kun; I can hear his panic attack from up here.”

Fury rushed through Ayase’s veins like a drug. Far away somewhere, her human fingers dug into concrete.

***

Jo carefully rolled Mitsuko onto her back on the pavement. She was out cold, her breathing heavy under the huge, blackening bruise forming across her cheekbone. Blood trailed from the corner of her mouth.

He cursed and pulled her into his lap. He brushed the blood from her lips with the edge of his sleeve.

“Mitsuko,” he whispered, quiet enough to stay out of Ayase’s ears. “Can you hear me?”

She didn’t move. He listened closer to her breathing and heard a wet rasp at the end.

When Touya had kicked her in the stomach, his shoe had blurred through the air; it probably had the power of a freight train. Jo was scared she was bleeding internally.

A surprised gasp caught Jo’s attention. He looked up to see a man and an elderly woman standing at the top of the stairwell, the door to the hospital swinging shut behind them. The woman’s hand flew to her mouth.

Jo regretfully laid Mitsuko back on the ground. “Get a doctor!” he shouted at the couple. “We got attacked by a predator and she’s really hurt!”

The man’s eyes flew to the barely covered Ayase, but Jo didn’t wait for him to ask. He ran back to Ayase and waved the man off.

“She’s my sister and she’s having a meltdown. Leave her to me. Get the doctor!”

The older woman ran back into the hospital. The man hesitated a moment before following her.

Jo knew he didn’t have much time. He clawed Ayase’s hands from her ears, though she snarled at him like a wild animal and kept her eyes shut. He ignored her and tugged her arms straight so he could pull her shirt over her head.

“We have to get you out of here,” he whispered. “People are coming. Get your skirt on!”

She shook her head in a panic. “Sachi,” she murmured feverishly. “Sachi…!”

Her voice cut into Jo’s heart. He still physically shoved her hips and knees and feet so he could slide the skirt over her and tug it up to her waist. He tried not to look at the shadow of dark hair between her legs.

Zayd finally spoke from the phone at their feet. “Bring her somewhere private, Jo. She needs full concentration.”

“I know, dammit!” Jo tried to think through the tangles in his head, unraveling with adrenaline-fueled fervor. He threw one last glance at Mitsuko.

She needs a doctor. I can’t help her.

Jo swallowed his guilt before squatting in front of Ayase and turning his back to her.

He tugged Ayase’s arms over his shoulders, folding them around his neck. “Ayase,” he ordered. “Climb up on me.”

She didn’t respond for a moment, but then her arms suddenly tightened around his neck. She slid against his back and tucked her knees around his waist.

Jo gripped her thighs, took a breath, and hefted her up, his legs trembling beneath him as he stood. He cursed his body for being shit.

Flashes of his weakness in Motoi danced across his mind, but he was stronger now. He could handle this.

She’s always carrying us.

Jo ran across the garage as Ayase clung to his back.

Proceed to Chapter 8, page 3–>