Tokyo Demons: Book 3, Chapter 5, Part 2

Jo huddled against the wall of the building, the brim of his baseball cap pulled down as far as it would go, and lit another cigarette. He took a drag and coughed, his lungs rejecting the smoke in protest.

Don’t start with me, he thought at them angrily, taking another drag.

He needed the nicotine to think. He needed privacy to think. And after his chain smoking had gotten him kicked out of the apartment by Aisha–and out of the lobby by the building manager–he was stuck outside in a crappy disguise. He was risking his life to smoke, so he would smoke, dammit.

“Kadoyuki is not dead.”

Jo growled around his cigarette and stared at the concrete. Zayd’s insane info-dump from that night echoed over and over in Jo’s head…and the more he thought about it, the more he hated it.

 

Jo’s hope was crushed with confusion and anger. He flung an arm out toward their apartment building.

“Why the fuck would you all do this?!” he cried. “Why would Kado do this?! Why can’t he come home to–”

“Kadoyuki wants to follow Touya,” Zayd replied evenly. “He was only able to escape with his trick, and he is afraid we will never find Touya unless he does it himself.”

“Why do we need to chase Touya at all?! If Kado got rid of Touya’s Pitch, won’t Touya just die from his detox?!”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. And now the situation is…more complicated.” Zayd frowned. “We are still developing a plan, but our top priority is finding Touya–and Kadoyuki, who is injured and not a fighter, will need assistance. We may need your help in the future…and for now, we need your cooperation in hiding this from the others.”

Jo plowed his hands through his hair. “You’re fucking killing me, Zayd! Sachi’s having a mental breakdown and Ayase’s giving the world Murder Face, and you want me to lie to them? Just because you might need me to help later?!”

“That is not the only reason. It’s difficult to hide things from you, Jo…you are very perceptive, and we are safer telling you information.” Before Jo could violently reject the flattery, Zayd scratched his head. “And, eh…it was because you followed us in that taxi. That was…my fault.”

Jo stared at him. “What?”

“Kadoyuki called Nakajima moments before Sachi called us. Nakajima explained Kadoyuki’s plans once we were in her car.” Zayd flashed a wry grin. “At that point, I had to tell her that you were following us. She was…quite angry with me.

“But Kadoyuki used you to prove to us that he has Touya’s power–he predicted the exact moment you arrived in the elevator. That was the last thing she needed to agree to Kadoyuki’s requests, I think.”

Jo ground his teeth together. “Let me guess,” he said icily. “Nakajima’s going to be the puppet master behind Kado for this.”

Zayd flicked his eyes away. “No. We must, what is the expression…? Go over her head.”

Jo stopped at that. “Huh?”

“This is why we needed to discuss such things away from my bodyguards. This involves them, and it is a very drastic, dangerous plan… Nakajima is simply arranging it.” Zayd crossed his arms.

“Kadoyuki must be dead to us,” he said quietly. “Because now he is working with Kiri.”

 

Jo bitterly sucked the last puff off his shrunken cigarette. He tossed the stub in a nearby ashcan and shook another stick from his box.

Kado, faking his own death to work with ninja. With assassins. And their happy little team-up was supposed to lead them to Touya, where they could…what? Work around Touya’s power because Kado had it now? Stalk Touya from the shadows until they put a bullet between his eyes?

If that wasn’t a match made in hell, Jo didn’t know what was.

Jo snapped his lighter at the end of his new cigarette and took a sour drag. What’s Kado’s long game with this? he wondered for the millionth time. Was he joining Kiri? Somehow Jo doubted Kado could just walk away after Touya was “taken care of.” He was starting to wonder if Kado planned to come back at all.

“Don’t I know you?” a female voice suddenly asked.

Jo froze. Keeping his head down, he rolled an eyeball to peek from under the rim of his baseball cap.

It was Hatsumi. Like the several other times Jo had met her, Nick’s girlfriend had changed her appearance–she was back in her glasses with her hair pinned up, primped and elegant in a woman’s business suit. With her make-up and high heels, she looked ready for an office meeting…which contrasted with the wheeled cart full of groceries and clothes she pushed with her.

Jo let out the breath he’d been holding, releasing a swirl of smoke. “Yeah,” he replied, raising the rim of his hat brim slightly. “Sorry, I…know I should be inside.”

“Nic fit, hm?” She wheeled her cart to stand against the side of the building. “Mind if I join you?”

“Uh…sure.” Jo held out his cigarette box, but she shook her head and pulled a metal cigarette holder from a pocket in her suit. She eyed his box as she lit her own stick.

“Oh, right–you’re the boy who smokes old lady cigarettes.” She smiled around the stick in her mouth. “Oda-kun. Sorry, there are so many of you…”

Jo politely shook his head. “It’s fine. How’s, uh, Nick?”

Hatsumi shrugged. “I haven’t been to the hospital in days, but I hear he’s doing better, even if he’s still comatose. Daniel-kun and Emi-san are watching him.” She took a long drag. “I’ve been…busy.”

She didn’t elaborate. Jo’s eyes trailed down to the cart of supplies…and he realized, in surprise, that it wasn’t a cart at all.

It was a wheelchair.

“Are we moving?” he asked.

“Mm.” She released a stream of smoke from her mouth and nostrils. “Should be safe to,” she explained, her voice quieting to a whisper. “Zero’s been dead for three days and Core’s as quiet as a mouse. They’re either licking their wounds and reorganizing their leadership…or no leader stepped up and they’re in real trouble.”

“What?”

“Well, the Church and the gangs and the police have been hitting them hard lately. Zero’s successor may already be dead or in jail.” She took another drag. “If that’s true, Zero’s drug stockpiles might be abandoned for now, but it’s too risky to let them float around out there–we have to wipe them out. Pitch is stable at room temperature for years. We don’t want that stuff getting unearthed, even by accident, way down the line.”

Jo sighed. “Right.”

“We’re getting pretty good detox results in prison, by the way. Even without Pitch to wean them.” Hatsumi’s high heels clacked on the pavement as she shifted. “Seventy-percent survival rate when the addict is compliant.”

Ice crept up Jo’s spine. He lowered the cigarette from his mouth, the stick dangling from his weak fingers.

“Then…Touya might survive,” he breathed. “Even if Kado flushed his Pitch.”

Hatsumi squinted under her glasses. “Hard to say. I’m not the kid’s doctor.” She leaned over Jo to grind out her cigarette in the ashcan. “I like Shouri-kun’s hypothesis–that Touya was using her, Wipe, and Honda-kun as test subjects for us to detox. Malum, psychic, teenager…it makes sense. But we had the hardest time with Wipe, and he was the only long-term user of the three of them. Touya’s probably been on Pitch longer than anyone except Zero himself.” She waved a hand. “So Touya’s survival is a giant unknown, as far as I’m concerned.”

Jo stared at her, his stomach shriveling. He took a few twitchy puffs on his shrinking cigarette.

Hatsumi gripped the handles of her wheelchair, then paused. “Actually, before we go in…” She reached into one of the many stuffed bags resting on the seat. “Zayd-kun tells me you’re the leader of the kids now–”

“I seriously hope not!” Jo snapped, too loud.

For whatever reason, she flashed a half-smile. “Oh. Sorry. Just something about you having the most information or something? I have some sensitive intel, I don’t want to just throw it into a group of mourning teenagers…”

Fucking Zayd! Jo angrily ripped a new cigarette from his pack. “Whatever,” he snarled. “Just tell me. Add it to the pile.” He slid the stick between his teeth and snapped the wheel on his lighter. To his extreme annoyance, the flame wouldn’t ignite. He snapped the wheel over and over in rapid succession, his hands shaking.

Slowly, Hatsumi reached into her pocket and pulled out her own lighter. She clicked it and offered Jo the tiny, wavering flame.

He swallowed. “Thank you,” he murmured as he leaned in to light his stick.

When he pulled back, she held up a manila envelope. “Someone hit an incognito Core office today. As far as I know, it wasn’t anyone associated with us, but there’s a chance it was straggling members of the gang or something.” She rested the envelope in his hands; Jo noticed it had ask the teenagers scrawled on the corner. “Would you know anything about this?”

Jo furrowed his brow. As he opened the flap, she cleared her throat.

“Just a warning–it’s graphic.”

Grimacing, Jo repositioned the cigarette between his lips before carefully opening the envelope.

He found a handful of large photographs inside. The first few were wide shots of a dim, empty office he’d never seen before. The office was neat, save for a slightly skewed chair, a few drawers and cabinets cracked open…

Until he saw the close-up shots of the blood.

Jo’s eyes widened as he flipped through the photos. Like the slow reveal of a horror movie, they exposed small smudges of blood on the wall, bigger smears on drawer handles and filing cabinets, and a pool staining the dark carpet behind the desk. Jo almost dropped the pictures when he saw the corpse–a salaryman, his bloody head bent at an unnatural angle, crammed into the cubby hole under his desk like crumpled garbage.

“Son of a bitch,” Jo wheezed. “Are these crime scene photos?!”

Hatsumi shook her head. “Cops hadn’t gotten there yet. But this was a few hours ago, so maybe someone’s called it in by now.”

He snapped his head up at her. “Did you take these?”

“No. It’s not important who took them.” She tapped the photo of the dead man. “Does this look like gang handiwork to you?”

“Hell no!” Jo blurted. “Byakko and the Riot Girls are out of this fight, and whoever did this tried to stay neat–the gangs trash everything they touch. This almost looks like…” As the words died on his lips, Jo’s blood went cold.

Like professionals.

Like Kiri.

“Looks like what?”

Jo swallowed bile and pulled the cigarette from his mouth. He didn’t dare say it. Hatsumi didn’t know about Kiri, right? It was only him, Zayd, maybe Aisha, Daniel…and Kado.

Kado, who was working with Kiri. Like Nakajima worked with Kiri.

Kado, king of the liars.

“Oda-kun?”

Jo shook his head to clear it, stuffing the photos back into the envelope. He almost burned himself on the cigarette between his fingers; he cursed and tossed it in the ashcan.

“Just that…they were looking for something,” he said quickly. “Based on the blood smeared on the drawers. You said this is a Core office?”

“Yeah, although we don’t know what it’s used for. It was part of the secret list you got during the jewelry store mission, which is why I thought it was someone working with us.”

Jo didn’t want to have this conversation anymore–especially outside. “Give me time to think about it,” he mumbled.

“Okay. And see if you can find a delicate way to ask the other kids–including Shouri-kun and Adam-kun.”

“Why?”

She blinked in surprise. “Well…because the group of you are a valuable resource? You’ve been in the front line of most of the missions, and several of you are escaped hostages. Ayase-kun has literally bugged a bunch of hot spots.” She raised an eyebrow. “All the phone calls and secret alliances in the world are no match for hands-on experience. You kids might have insight that we’re missing, and that’s something we really need right now.”

Jo twitched. She said it like a compliment.

“Speaking of which–getting you out of this cramped safe house might help you all function better. It’s hard to heal when you’re being bounced around.” She gripped the wheelchair handles again. “Would you mind opening the door for me?”

Jo slipped past her and pushed open the door to the apartment building. After she wheeled through, he followed her into the lobby.

He automatically shivered when he stepped into the elevator. Trying to ignore the bad memories, he punched the number for their floor.

“Where are we moving to?” he asked, his eyes trailing down to the wheelchair.

Hatsumi flashed a small smile. “Don’t worry–you’ll like it.”

Proceed to Chapter 5, Part 2, page 3–>