Tokyo Demons Book 3: Chapter 5, Part 1

Ayase pulsed in the darkness. She was melting, spreading, overheated and thick. She couldn’t tell if she was dreaming. It didn’t matter.

She had to heal.

The heavy darkness was a fog, wrapping her in a cocoon. She tingled at her liquid edges, vibrated against the crushing weight of the black. That pressure sparked a fiery core inside her, forcing her to push again the darkness, push, push, melt and spread and push.

She had to heal.

Sachi flitted across her mind, his voice echoing from somewhere. She pushed against the dark, the furnace at her core blazing.

Push. Heal.

Live.

***

“…Kado’s dead.”

Sachi’s fuzzy voice echoed in the silence of the room. Jo stared at the mobile phone.

“Wh…”

“I-I left him there,” Sachi whispered. “I didn’t…know what to…do…”

For a long moment, nobody said anything. Jo opened his mouth, but something was lodged in his throat.

Finally, finally, Zayd pulled the phone from Shouri’s fingers. “Sachi,” he said quietly. “Where did you leave Kadoyuki?”

Sachi choked. “I…I’m sorry. I just wanted to get…help.”

“Kadoyuki is in a penthouse? Touya’s penthouse?”

Sachi gurgled.

Zayd’s voice softened. “I am glad that you left and called us,” he said. “That was the proper thing to do, Sachi.”

A semblance of clarity hit Jo the same moment that Sachi broke down. “I’m so sorry!” the boy begged, his voice cracking into a higher pitch. “I-I tried to do CPR! But he wasn’t breathing and his mouth was cold–”

“You tried your best,” Zayd murmured gently, throwing a severe glance at Jo. Zayd snapped his fingers at a pad and pen on a nearby table; Jo stumbled to grab them, his legs rubbery beneath him.

“Kado’s in the bathroom. I-I found him on the floor.” Sachi coughed out a half-sob. “The briefcase was empty and there were broken Pitch vials everywhere. There was some glass around the toilet, but I don’t know why he… He had marks around his neck? And some cuts on his fingers…”

Zayd snapped at Jo again, gesturing to the pad. Jo scribbled down whatever Sachi said.

Broken Pitch vials, Jo thought, his stomach shrinking as the eerie image floated to the top of his mind. Cuts on his fingers. Like Kado had broken open the Pitch vials with his bare hands…

Jo stopped.

The bathroom.

Shouri sucked in a breath before Jo could say anything. “He might’ve flushed Touya’s Pitch,” she breathed.

“Do not worry,” Zayd assured Sachi. “We will come with the police to see what happened. Please give us your address and tell us what the penthouse looks like.”

“Should I… Should I go back and try CPR again? Maybe he’s not–”

“DO NOT go back to the penthouse,” Zayd ordered, his voice sharper this time. “Stay in the convenience store you are in. We will send a doctor and the police to Kadoyuki.” Zayd gestured at Adam.

“But…!” Sachi wheezed.

Adam grabbed his staff from the wall and ran to the door to put on his shoes. Zayd tossed his car keys at Shouri, and the woman barely caught them.

“Adam and Shouri are coming. Please give us your address, Sachi.”

As Sachi shakily relayed the address, Jo scribbled it on the notepad. He ripped the page out, handed it to Shouri, and wrote it again from memory while Adam threw open the door.

Nakajima stood on the other side of the doorway.

Before anyone could speak, Nakajima held up a hand. “I heard through the door,” she said flatly. “Go to the convenience store and pick him up. No police.”

Shouri bristled. “You’re not–”

“No police,” Nakajima repeated. “Touya Kamishita might be nearby and we can’t alert him.” She unholstered a gun from behind her jacket and placed it in Shouri’s hands. “Here. Keep it hidden.”

Sachi rasped something on the phone. Nakajima pushed into the apartment while Shouri and Adam ran past her, disappearing down the hallway.

“Ishida,” Nakajima ordered into the speakerphone. “Stay on the line. Don’t put down the phone or leave the store for any reason.”

“Maybe… Maybe Kado isn’t really–”

“I need you to describe everyone coming and going in that convenience store until we get there. Use excruciating detail–their clothes, birthmarks, any conversations you overhear.” She plucked the phone from Zayd’s hand and switched it from speaker to headset. She walked across the room and shoved the phone at a surprised Kiyoshi.

“You,” she ordered. “Write everything down and keep him on the line. I’m going to the penthouse myself.”

Familiar foreboding rose up in Jo, a dark chaser to the adrenaline and fear. When Nakajima approached him for the address, he automatically slapped the notepad against his chest, hiding his handwriting from her.

“N-no,” he said.

Nakajima’s face darkened. “Give that to me,” she snapped.

Jo shook his head. “No,” he insisted, the defiance sparking through him like fire. “You said no cops. So no cops.”

“We don’t have time for this–”

“Fuck you!” he hissed, recoiling back from her. “There’s no way in hell, no fucking way in hell, we’re sending you to that penthouse if Kado’s dying on the floor.”

Nakajima’s jaw twitched. She glared at Jo, silent, her eyes dark pools of bottomless ice.

“Dead on the floor,” she corrected.

Zayd bodily pushed Jo back–sending a wave of unnatural calm through Jo’s veins–before Jo could claw out Nakajima’s eyes.

“I will also go to the penthouse,” Zayd said evenly. “With Aisha.”

Nakajima swung her head to him.

“I will go with you,” Zayd repeated. “And Aisha. Kadoyuki will need a doctor.”

For a long moment, Nakajima stared at him, something barely perceptible flitting across her face. She looked over at Kiyoshi, trying to talk to Sachi on the phone; to Ayase’s closed bedroom door; back to Jo.

Then she jerked her head.

“Only you two,” she ordered Zayd. “And now. My unmarked squad car is outside.”

Zayd called across the room in Arabic, and Aisha collected her medical bag. Nakajima abruptly left the apartment.

Zayd turned back to Jo and requested the notebook. Jo stared at that open palm, panicked misery rising up in him–twisted by Zayd’s calming power into a murky, confusing depression that clung to his heart like a fog. Jo’s eyes burned.

“Please,” Jo begged, the word leaving his mouth before he could stop it. “Not this time.”

Zayd’s cooling influence spread in Jo, which only made Jo feel worse. “I know,” Zayd murmured.

“Stop doing that! And…you don’t. You don’t know.” Jo clung to the notebook with shaking fingers. “You don’t know what Nakajima might…”

He couldn’t explain it–it wasn’t his information to explain. And even if he’d wanted to, he didn’t know how to voice the tangle of thoughts in his head.

A memory of burying nightmarish pictures where Nakajima couldn’t reach them. Of Ayase sobbing, screaming that she wouldn’t let Kado sacrifice himself anymore to the powers that wanted to crush Touya.

They’d been planning to let Kado decide how to deal with those pictures. How to handle Nakajima, if Kado was willing to work with her to take down Touya. Jo’s stomach churned.

Is Kado really dead…?

The foreign calm in him vanished, like a rug pulled from under his feet. Jo gasped despite himself, reeling in his new terror, suddenly not sure if this was better than Zayd’s invasive power.

But Zayd, instead, closed his hands over Jo’s.

“Follow us,” Zayd said, his voice rumbling in the air between them. “I will not tell Detective Nakajima.”

Jo looked up. “Huh…?”

“There is a GPS in every Church phone. Follow mine, in a taxi five minutes behind us.” Zayd let out a breath. “Be careful, but I understand that you do not trust the detective…perhaps you do not even trust me.”

Jo didn’t know what to say. He tried to pull back, but Zayd only clasped his hands tighter.

“Watch us with your own two eyes, Jo.”

Jo swallowed. Zayd finally released him, pulling the notebook from Jo’s weak fingers when he did so. He gestured to Aisha.

Jo watched them leave, his knees shaking. Kiyoshi’s quiet, one-sided phone conversation echoed in the suddenly silent apartment.

“Yeah… Yeah, I hear you. They’re coming.” Kiyoshi nodded to no one, pushing the phone closer to his face. “It’s…gonna be okay, Sachi.”

Jo ran out the door.

Proceed to Chapter 5, Part 1, page 3–>