Tokyo Demons: Book 3, Chapter 4, Part 2

Jo got as far as the hospital before Mitsuko left him. She kissed him, looked down at Takeshi’s sheet-covered body on the stretcher, and flipped open her phone.

“I’ll text you,” she said before wheeling the stretcher through the sliding doors. Jo watched her through the glass; she pressed her phone to her ear with a free hand and ignored the check-in station. A nurse jumped up as Mitsuko wheeled the stretcher around a corner and disappeared.

Jo tried to ignore the uneasiness in his gut as he climbed back into the van. He’d offered to go with her, but she’d told him–with finality–that she needed to be alone. That it was better for her to face the gangs without anything that would distract them.

Jo was quickly shuffled to the safe house, which was already too crowded. Zayd and Aisha took Ayase; Kiyoshi stayed on the phone with his sister. Shouri and Adam spread futons and blankets into less than a bed for everyone. Jo found a corner and tried to sleep on two stacked blankets on the floor.

He couldn’t.

The night stretched into dawn, then dragged into late morning. Half of the group around him tried to sleep; the other half talked on endless, hushed phone calls. Jo tossed on his not-bed. He kept one hand under his pillow, its sweaty grip tight over his mobile phone.

Mitsuko still didn’t text him. Jo ground his face into fabric.

“Jo?”

Jo blearily looked up. Adam crouched down on the floor beside him and held out a small can.

“Coffee,” the man said in Japanese, a word very close to English. “Yes?”

Jo grunted. I should probably give up on sleep, he agreed silently as he accepted the can. He popped the tab and drained the whole thing in one go.

…And started to actually listen to the conversations around him. The one-sided phone calls were over, and even Kiyoshi had abandoned his makeshift futon. He yawned in the kitchen, accepting Aisha’s offer of tea in clumsy English.

“I already gave you everything we found on Core’s operations, okay? And it wasn’t much.” Shouri slumped back on the couch and threw up her hands. “I’ve been looking into Touya. And he’s obviously been out of the Core loop for a while.”

Zayd sighed and rubbed his face. “Yes,” he agreed. “When Touya left Core, he became a separate problem.”

“Nakajima’s been the one synthesizing all our information on Core. And although I’m sure she’s keeping a fuck-ton of information from us, I don’t think what she said last night was a lie.” Shouri irritably crossed her arms. “If she has no idea who else could lead us to the source of Pitch…then with Zero dead, we’re up shit creek.”

Jo slowly rested his empty coffee can on the floor. He rubbed his dried-out eyes and lurched to his feet.

“Fuck Nakajima,” he muttered.

Shouri and Zayd turned to him. When he said nothing more, Shouri raised an eyebrow.

“That’s your only contribution?” she asked.

“Good morning,” Zayd said.

Jo rummaged through his things on the floor until he found a loose cigarette and his lighter. He lit the stick and took a long drag, desperate for another stimulant.

“Yes,” he answered darkly as he straightened again. “That’s my only contribution, since that idea is so damn foreign around here. Fuck her.” He blew out smoke. “We can stop listening to her and try to end this on our own.”

Zayd frowned. “Jo, she has the most information. We must work with her.”

“No, we don’t. We’re just helping her chase her own agenda, and who knows where that’s gonna leave us? You heard what Ayase said last night.” Jo pointed angrily to the door of her sleeping room. “I mean, she was delirious, so we should ask her again, but still. She said Nakajima was trying to cut a deal with Zero. To get Touya and the Pitch.”

“That could’ve just as easily been an interrogation tactic, Jo.”

“What the hell is wrong with everyone around here?” Jo yanked the cigarette from his mouth. “She keeps fucking us over, and you still want to give her the benefit of the doubt! What if she doesn’t even want to dismantle Core–what if she wants to be the next person to run it?”

The apartment went silent. Even Kiyoshi and Aisha turned from the kitchen.

After a long moment, Zayd looked away. “No,” he said quietly. “That is not her goal.”

“We don’t know what the hell her goal is, Zayd!”

“You are not thinking rationally,” Zayd warned. “She has hurt people you love, so you see her as your enemy.”

Frustration exploded in Jo’s gut, driving him to crush the cigarette between his fingers. “She’s hurt all of us! For fuck’s sake, why won’t–”

“She is not after Touya and Pitch to take over Core. Core is a threat to everything she is loyal to, so she must destroy them.”

Jo snorted. “That asshole doesn’t care about anyone but herself! Exactly what do you think she’s loyal to–her partner, who’s already dead? The law, which she bends whenever she feels like it?”

Zayd narrowed his eyes at Jo, but said nothing. After a long pause, and a strange creep of some feeling rising in his chest, Jo realized that Zayd was trying to hint at something. The fact that the man didn’t say it out loud solidified Jo’s guess.

Kiri.

Wonderful. The great unknown again. The shadowy ninja who had once hired Nakajima and still scared her shitless, who had provided the safe house Jo stood in at that very moment. The damn ninja were probably watching them there, which meant he and Zayd couldn’t discuss it, even in private.

Jo angrily tried to smoke his crushed cigarette.

bzzt

Jo froze. His eyes flew down to his mobile phone, unconsciously left beside his pillow.

The kanji for Mitsuko’s name lit up in green light.

Jo dropped to his knees and flipped open the phone. He ignored Zayd’s question, instead grinding out his cigarette in his portable ashtray as his eyes flew over the screen.

I have to make the call, it said simply. The gangs are out.

Jo swallowed. A stew of relief and anxiety sloshed around in his stomach, laced with a selfish sense of abandonment.

Okay, he typed back, not sure what else to say.

When Mitsuko didn’t reply, he looked up at the waiting room. “Byakko and the Riot Girls are backing out of the Core fight,” he said quietly. “So…count them out of your plans from now on.”

Shouri let out a breath. “Pretty much expected that,” she murmured. “Is that Mitsuko?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell her thank you. And we’re sorry. When this is over, we’ll try to make it up to them.”

The sentiment was such an obvious, pathetic formality that Jo didn’t want to forward it. He deliberated for a second, then tapped at the keys with his thumbs.

Thanks for saving our lives more times than we can count.

A pause. The phone lit up another short line of text.

Come back to me when this is all over.

Jo rubbed his mouth. His chest squeezed slightly as the acids in his stomach churned.

The phone buzzed again. I love you, it said.

…

Jo stared at that kanji. Before he could overthink it, before he could tear himself apart over the buts and the waits and the don’t knows, his thumbs slid over those keys.

I love you, too, he typed back.

“We don’t need them anymore.”

Jo went rigid. He snapped his head up just as somebody’s mug smashed on the kitchen floor.

Nakajima stood in the apartment, quietly closing the door behind her.

Even Zayd jumped from his chair, his surprise jolting through Jo from head to toe. Jo hadn’t even heard the lock turn, let alone her footsteps. And since when did she have a key?!

The invasion was like salt in the wound, and Jo’s shock twisted into rage. He shoved his phone into his pocket.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” he snarled. “This is supposed to be a safe house!”

“If you’re implying that you don’t feel safe with me,” Nakajima said thinly, “then I’d advise you to grow a spine. This investigation can’t suffer any more cowards.”

Jo’s fist, still clenched over the phone in his pocket, trembled in rage. He wanted nothing more than to ram his foot into that cold, condescending face.

“Wh-what happened to Miki-san?” Kiyoshi asked from the kitchen, trying and failing to sound firm. “You’re not really putting him in prison, are you?”

“Forget him,” Nakajima snapped. “Forget that entire legion of unwashed street thugs. We’re past the point where sheer volume of bodies will get us what we need.” She let a breath out through her nose. “We need to find the Pitch. The only one who will have access is the new leader of Core–so we can’t make our next move until we learn Zero’s successor.”

Shouri scowled. “You’d have a better guess than us,” she said flatly. “All I know is the successor isn’t Touya, or he would’ve killed Daddy a long time ago to get to the drugs.”

“I’m certain no one knows the successor. That’s the entire point.” Nakajima’s eyes dragged to Zayd. “Zero’s bodyguards in his own home didn’t know where he slept. That sort of man would never name a formal heir to the Pitch–it would just be a liability, something an assassin could plan around. And in order to completely protect himself…” She grunted. “…Zero would need to hide that information from everyone, including the successor himself.”

Zayd furrowed his eyebrows. “You are saying…that the person who will inherit Core now does not know he will inherit Core?”

“Exactly.” Nakajima sneered. “I assume Zero’s death will trigger some sort of notification to the next leader. Who that is, and what that means for Core’s future, is impossible to predict. That’s exactly why I needed to keep Zero alive. To abort the chain-reaction that’s surely starting now–and which could completely undermine our investigation of the last four years.”

Shouri opened her mouth, then closed it. A low growl started up in her throat.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell us that?” she snapped. “You were leading the mission into Zero’s estate! And you practically provoked that poor kid into murdering Zero!”

“I did no such thing. I was trying to run that mission alone.”

“Oh, spare us your condescending bullshit! This screw-up is on you just as much as it’s on him–”

“Don’t you dare compare me to any of you,” Nakajima interrupted, her voice darker than Jo had ever heard it.

bzzt bzzt

The eerie buzz of somebody’s phone ringing floated through the room. Jo looked down at his pocket.

But the vibration hadn’t come from his mobile. After another set of buzzes, Nakajima retrieved her own Church phone from the back of her belt.

“Is that Daniel?” Zayd asked. “He said he would call.”

Nakajima stared at the ID screen for a few seconds, then flipped the phone open. She held it to her ear and didn’t say a word.

“…”

Jo couldn’t hear the other side of the call, but it was clear someone spoke to her. Because very, very subtly…her eyes widened.

As Jo’s stomach tightened in uneasiness, a different chime started up in Ayase’s closed room–her Church mobile. Aisha ran for the door. “Asleep,” she explained as she disappeared inside to grab it.

When she emerged a second later with the jingling phone, Nakajima was already gone. Jo turned to the apartment door just as it closed behind her.

“Hey!” Jo protested as Zayd said something in Arabic. Aisha answered Ayase’s phone by pushing the speaker button.

“A…Ayase…” whispered a trembling voice on the receiver.

It was the last voice on earth Jo had expected to hear.

Jo stared at the phone in shock, not fully trusting his sleep-deprived brain. But when the stupefied room didn’t reply, Adam leaned closer to the mobile and furrowed his brow.

“Is…Sachi?” he asked carefully.

“A-Adam-san? Is that you?”

Shouri practically fell off the couch. “Oh my God!” she blurted as she struggled to her feet to grab the phone. “Sachi! Where are you? How are you calling us?!”

“Are you okay?!” Kiyoshi cried.

“I’m…out. Of the penthouse.”

Sachi sounded like he was in shock. Jo ran closer to the tiny speaker, his heart thundering in his chest.

“What penthouse, Sachi?” Jo asked firmly. “Does Touya know you’re calling us?”

Sachi took a shaky breath. “No,” he replied softly. “I don’t…know where Touya is. He disappeared this morning.”

Zayd whispered a prayer. “Then you are free…?”

“He has these, um, automatic locks on all the doors,” Sachi explained, his voice thin and eroded through the line. “I think in case he d-died from the Pitch detox, so we wouldn’t stay locked in his place to starve. He was just…gone today, so the doors opened.” He audibly swallowed. “I’m at a convenience store. I-I have the address…”

Jo’s chest tightened. “Sachi,” he said, foreboding growing inside him. “Is Kado with you?”

The phone went silent.

Oh, no.

“Oh, God,” Shouri breathed.

Sachi gurgled on saliva, then mumbled something completely inaudible. He sucked in new air.

“No,” he said weakly. “Kado… He’s…”

To be continued in Book 3: Chapter 5, Part 1.

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