Tokyo Demons Book 3: Chapter 2, Part 1

Jo stared at the not-vampire for a single second. A loaded, horrifying second where a thousand nightmares crashed into his brain, an explosion of unparalleled terror in the silent space between two beats of his heart.

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And then he was on his feet, running, tripping over metal chairs as the woman drew her gun.

“CORE!” Jo yelled at the top of his lungs.

The world around him rolled into surprise, but he was already cutting through at twice the speed, the woman’s eyes a burning target through the rapidly closing space between them. She flashed her fangs in a crazed grin and whipped the gun at his chest.

He tackled her. The gunshot exploded in his ears as he crushed her bony body into the grass.

The bullet missed him. Jo’s brain barely acknowledged it as he struggled to rip the weapon from her hands, ramming his knees into her stomach and tearing at her skin with his nails. He elbowed her across the face, his arm caught up in his school jacket as he twisted on top of her.

She laughed. Her iron fingers tightened on the gun and swiped the barrel toward his temple, painfully scraping the edge of the hard metal across his forehead. As he threw all his weight into pinning her gun arm to the ground, her free hand jabbed out of nowhere and grabbed the skinny tail of his tie.

She yanked with inhuman strength, choking him like a leashed dog.

He couldn’t breathe. He scrabbled helplessly as she yanked his face down, the pressure on his spine straining hard enough that he feared she’d break his neck. He gaped like he was in a vacuum, his sunglasses clacking crookedly against his nose, his body jerking in panicked survival mode as she dragged his forehead down to touch hers.

“I remember you,” she hissed into his face, her smile glittering through his blurring gaze. “I never forget a neck.”

He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled as hard as he could.

The force jerked her head away from his, and she snarled in pain. Her grip loosened from his tie just enough for him to grab it himself and rip it from her fingers, pulling it loose with his other hand.

He rolled onto the grass, gasping, the blood pounding behind his eyeballs. She was on top of him in an instant; she grabbed a fistful of his own hair and dragged him up while she stood, the searing pain lifting him just high enough to let her ram her knee into his temple.

The world blinked out for a second in the burst of pain; it returned in a rattling spin that swung up and slammed against his face. His sunglasses ground up into his sinuses as he coughed in the grass, disoriented and clawing at dirt. Screams and pounding feet finally filtered through his ears, overlaid with the not-vampire’s laughter.

No.

Those were the sounds of fleeing classmates and family members. He blinked under his sunglasses, suddenly seeing Seiya’s weeping mother in her dark kimono against the inside of his eyelids.

Jo’s panic fell from him like a dropped coat, replaced instead by a cocoon of twisting, burning rage. It pushed his bile down; it pushed his adrenaline up. It sent fury to streak through his veins like fire.

He was done with this. He dug his fingers into the earth.

He was fucking done with this.

The not-vampire grabbed him by the back of the jacket and hauled him to his feet. He forgot the gun as he dug one shoe into the ground and spun around in her grip.

His fist rammed into her mouth.

He barely registered the piercing pain in his knuckles as he pivoted on the opposite foot and drove his knee into her gut. She doubled over with a gargle of pain, but her skeletal hand still caught his next fist. She staggered back and kicked out with one giant boot.

It jammed into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Jo stumbled back, gasping for air again, his fists whipping up in defense.

His refocusing gaze caught on something white–a point of fiery pain digging between two of his knuckles. He quickly pushed it out, causing a new prick of pain and a dribble of blood from where it had been lodged.

It was a fang. It plopped onto the grass, blood and gum still clinging to the root.

When the not-vampire whipped her head up again, her free hand was clapped over her jaw. She snarled like a beast.

“I need a hostage,” she hissed, spraying blood from her mouth. “But not you, skinsack. You’re gonna die.” She snapped up her gun.

As if in slow motion, Keiko suddenly appeared–leaping through the air. Her foot landed on the seat of a chair, leaving her to loom behind the not-vampire. She swung her weighted umbrella for the woman’s head.

The not-vampire twisted around and threw up an arm.

The weapon slammed into her elbow and knocked her arm back into her head, sending her stumbling several steps. She fired the gun off-balance; the bullet exploded into the sky far to Keiko’s left.

Jo stepped back into another row of metal folding chairs and grabbed the nearest one. He slammed it closed, hoisted it in both hands, and ran for the stumbling not-vampire. When she turned to him, he planted and swung.

WHAM

He knocked her to her knees. The gun fell from her hands as she caught herself on the grass. She snarled and abandoned it, instead diving to tackle Jo’s legs.

He tripped backward just out of her reach, lifted the chair over his head, and swung it down as hard as he could.

WHAM

She dropped to the ground like a stone.

Jo stood there, staring down at her unmoving form, still not entirely convinced that he’d succeeded. He panted and nudged her cheek with his shoe.

She didn’t even twitch.

His eyes flicked from the abandoned gun to Keiko, who jumped off her chair. Then his gaze moved past her to the havoc of the memorial.

Most of the attendees had fled, but at least a dozen men and women were terrorizing whoever remained. They dragged screaming students and teachers, or fought teenagers who looked like Byakko members; Jo heard one or two more gunshots echo in the air.

There was a loud whistle and a flood of dark-clad bodies from around the corner of the school, but Jo didn’t wait to see if they were friends or foes. He just re-gripped his folding chair and ran.

“Wait!” Keiko yelled after him. “I have to cover you, Oda!”

Jo didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. His resolve had consumed him, the adrenaline had flooded his brain. He was tired of running away from danger. He was tired of letting these psychopaths drag his world into constant tragedy as they devoured the gangs.

He thought of Mitsuko on the floor of the parking lot, of Miki’s fist crashing into his cheek. Of those oversized photographs that he’d avoided because he was in hiding. They didn’t even have the freedom to grieve anymore. Core had taken everything, and now they were trying to take more.

Not without a goddamned fight.

He saw ahead, in one of the front rows–a hulking man trying to wrestle Ruka’s slingshot from her grip. Jo ran up and slammed his chair into the man’s back, knocking him to the ground.

As Ruka kicked the man in the temple, someone tried to grab Jo from behind; Jo elbowed backward into a soft gut. He ducked and twisted, then rammed his chair into his new attacker’s side.

He heard higher-pitched cries from the stage, and his vision went red. Jo thrust his chair upward, ramming it under his attacker’s chin and sending the man crumpling to the ground. Jo dropped his chair and leapt over the unconscious man.

Some Core operative was trying to drag an unconscious teenager away. He looked up half a moment before Jo slammed into him. Jo grappled with the man, forcing him to ignore his hostage and stumble back until they hit one of the display tables.

The man was too strong for his frame, but he was injured. Pitch can’t help you with that, Jo thought darkly as he kicked the man in the shins. The man punched Jo in the face, but not hard enough for Jo to stop. Jo clenched his teeth and slammed the man back into one of the memorial photos.

The glass of the frame cracked under the back of the man’s skull; the entire thing tipped forward and toppled onto him. When the man cried out and scrambled to push the picture off, Jo lifted the edge and slammed down, hitting the back of the man’s head again with the heavy frame. The man collapsed.

“Get back!”

Jo jerked his head around. Nearby, a man dragged a woman backward, a knife held to her throat. He faced a dark-clad mob advancing on him…

In riot gear.

Jo froze. That flood of bodies from around the school building had been riot police. How the hell had they arrived so fast?!

One of the cops, in a line of officers bearing clear shields, shouted at the man with the knife. “Release the hostage!” he ordered. “Or we’ll shoot!”

The Core operative snarled and stepped back with his hostage. “I’ll kill her!”

Jo suddenly noticed the other fights around him; Byakko members were being supplemented by the police, who beat and dragged Core ops to the ground for handcuffing. They swarmed over the field, subduing fights and chasing any Core members who tried to run away.

There had to be at least fifty police officers. Jo realized, in a strange daze, that the man with the knife was probably the last Core guy standing.

“We’re counting to three!” the police shouted. “This is your last chance to surrender!”

The Core operative had gone wild-eyed; he clenched his teeth. “Stupid Prick!” he hissed, loud enough for Jo to hear. “She wasn’t supposed to…!”

“One!” the cop shouted.

The Core op tightened his hold on his hostage. “Going with you is a death sentence!” he yelled over her frightened cries.

“Two!”

“Go to hell, you goddamn–”

BLAM

The man’s head whipped back on his neck. His knife arm dropped and he fell to the ground, the hostage screaming as she stumbled back. Jo saw a bloody hole in the man’s forehead, right between the eyes.

A slight woman in riot gear re-holstered her gun from the crowd of cops.

“We’re done here,” Nakajima snapped. “Round up the aggressors and bring them to the station for questioning.”

Police started hauling Core operatives to their feet. Memorial attendees cried and huddled in relieved masses. Jo could hear the faint, growing chorus of impending ambulance sirens.

The tension drained out of him, dragging the anesthetic effect of the adrenaline with it. Pain throbbed over his entire body as his vision swam. He spat blood and gripped the nearest standing memorial table, his knees shaking beneath him.

It was over. Whatever Core had been planning, it looked like it had failed miserably.

What was it the not-vampire had said? They wanted hostages? Ambushing a high school memorial service with a dozen or two operatives seemed like an unusually desperate move for Core. Jo hadn’t heard many guns, so maybe they really were running low on weapons.

“Do you need medical assistance?”

Jo looked up.

Nakajima stood nearby, two police officers dragging Jo’s unconscious opponent from under the fallen frame. They asked her something; she gestured to the growing line of police cars along the side of the field.

“Put him with the others,” she ordered. “I’ll start getting statements from the witnesses.”

The cops nodded and carried the limp man between them. When they were out of earshot, she narrowed her eyes at Jo.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said thinly. “Not after your run-in with Touya Kamishita.”

Jo took a long breath and tried to force his muscles to unclench. He wiped blood from his chin.

“I…got off easy on that one,” he murmured.

She grunted.

When she said nothing more, Jo finally paid attention to the swirling unease in his gut. He was dizzy from the fight, but his mind still tried to put the puzzle pieces together.

“Were you…waiting with the riot police?” he asked at last. “On the side of the school? In hiding?”

Her mouth became a thin line. “I brought units as a precaution,” she confirmed. “In case Core tried anything.”

“If they were a precaution, why were you hiding? You only had a few cops at the service! Core probably wouldn’t have tried anything if they’d seen so many…” As the words left his lips, realization dawned on Jo. His eyes widened.

You wanted them to attack.

Nakajima’s eyebrow twitched at the look on his face. “The presence of riot police is more likely to cause unrest,” she said evenly. “It would have drawn more attention to this event to attract Core in the first place.”

Jo didn’t buy it. He remembered Kiyoshi’s relayed message: that the cops had discouraged private wakes. That they wanted one single event they could keep “safer.”

Even though they were perfectly willing to wait on the sidelines, practically using the attendees as bait. And for what? Jo’s eyes trailed to the dozen Core operatives being ushered into police cars.

A defensive anger flared up in him. “This was a sting,” he accused.

Nakajima snorted an unamused laugh. “Is that your theory?”

“You…you wanted to arrest more Core ops. You were hoping they’d attack here.” Jo clenched his hands into fists. “Did you get someone to tip them off about this service, too?”

“Watch your mouth.”

“What’s the point of arresting them now?” Jo shot back, ignoring the warning lights that burned in her eyes. “I thought the men in prison have a connection to Pitch, so locking them up isn’t doing shit without the conspiracy evidence. And our case is falling apart without Touya–”

“You and the Church are not privy to my progress on the case,” she interjected coldly. “And that intel from Touya Kamishita was ultimately not worth the price. I have my own plan for these men once I bring them to prison. And now that I intercepted them here–while fulfilling my duty of protecting the peace–I can move forward.”

Jo opened his mouth, but the hard line of Nakajima’s brow made him hesitate. He wouldn’t get her to admit that the service had been a set-up, even if it were true.

“And that intel from Touya Kamishita was ultimately not worth the price.”

For a moment, Jo’s defensive walls faltered. His strength drained away as understanding flickered in his chest.

“I’m…sorry,” he murmured before he even realized it. “About Detective Ochi.”

Nakajima stared at him, something unreadable in her dark eyes. She tugged at one of her bunched-up sleeves, and when she spoke, the words were flat.

“I don’t need your sympathy.”

She walked away. Jo stared at her back for a few seconds, his frustration warring with his exhaustion, until he finally released the last part of him that cared. He dropped his head and wiped at the sweat under his sunglasses.

“Oda?”

Jo turned. Keiko walked up, supporting a limping Ruka by her side. The kogal had lost her heels and was hopping barefoot in the grass, her wig gone from her bleached, messy perm.

Keiko frowned. “Was that the old bag Takeshi made a deal with?” she asked.

Jo sighed. “A long time ago,” he confirmed. “But now… Nngh.” He rubbed at his sinuses. “I’m losing track of who’s really helping who.”

Ruka hopped on her one good leg, wrapping her arm tighter around Keiko’s shoulder. “We’re going to T. Hospital. Can you just…go see your foreign doctor? Whoever usually patches you up after this shit?” Her voice lowered. “We just need a little time alone to, uh…”

She trailed off, confusing Jo. He furrowed his brow at her.

“You don’t want me going to the hospital?”

“Mitsuko-senpai’s still there,” Keiko said sheepishly. “And it’s gonna be hard for us to face her after this fight.”

Ruka irritably brushed a hand. “Before you ask,” she snapped at Jo, “it’s because you had to cover for me. And you jumped right into the fire and got your ass beat all to hell.” She twisted up her face. “Senpai sent us to watch over you.”

Jo paused. Accomplishment swelled briefly in his chest, but then he thought of how close he’d come to getting shot, and the pleasant sensation faded. He cleared his throat.

“We helped each other,” he offered. “And she’ll like that, right?”

Ruka shrugged. Keiko smiled.

“You should get to the ambulances before they all leave.” Jo squatted, wincing at the screaming protest of his beaten body, and gripped the edge of the fallen picture. “I won’t be long.”

The two girls limped off, leaving Jo in relative quiet. He tried to alleviate the weird guilt in his chest as he painfully righted the heavy memorial photo he’d smashed.

It was Seiya’s. Jo stopped, the breath suddenly gone from his lungs, as he stared into those grainy, oversized eyes.

The spider-web crack in the glass sent tendrils across Seiya’s face. It was a stark cut of violence against his wide, crooked grin.

And it was…strangely appropriate. Jo tilted the framed photo back against its easel.

Seiya would’ve liked me using his head to smash up some Core thug.

Jo let out a puff of breath, and it almost felt like a laugh. His lips twitched into a smile as he unconsciously touched the glass.

Seiya’s picture, as ever, smiled back.

To be continued in Chapter 2, Part 2.

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