Tokyo Demons Book 3: Chapter 7, Part 2

Touya’s bare feet dragged along the cold tiles, brushing raggedly against the lines that dangled from his body.

The world was a rocking mass of layered hysteria–a lifetime of screaming patients, blaring alarms, rushing stretchers, crying children. A cart came flying at him and he flung his arm out with the force of a freight train; the equipment in the future passed right through him. He wobbled on his feet.

“Sir, you have to go back to your room!”

Hands suddenly grabbed him, physical and present. His vision rocked in the haze, but he felt a meaty arm wrap around his neck as something sharp pricked his upper arm.

No.

Touya’s body snapped around of its own accord, his fingers digging into scrubs. He flung bodies to the floor, against walls, crashing into carts. He grabbed the syringe embedded in his upper arm and threw it into the haze. When his grip passed harmlessly through ghosts, he slapped his hands around him until they found something firm.

His palms landed on some sort of machine bolted into the wall. He gripped both sides.

I can still do this.

He clenched his arms and dragged, ripping the machine off its pipes with a wailing, metallic moan. Ice cubes spilled down his arms like freezing kisses along his flesh.

People were screaming, screaming. He lifted the machine over his head, his vision smearing as he turned.

He threw the ice machine into the clouds, the crash echoing through time.

I can still find it, he thought as his lurching feet picked up speed. He lumbered into the haze, tripping over the dangling vines still attached to him. He ripped out cords, felt pain burst in explosive points of his body. He flung the sagging patient robe that tried to drag him to the floor.

I’m almost free.

***

Ayase’s vision throbbed.

She pulled her mouth stingers from flesh and flew blindly in the air. Her eyes crossed as she tried to focus between layers of perception–flying back toward her body, her human legs pumping below her waist. Sachi’s arm looped through hers was the only thing that dragged her human form in the right direction.

throb

She melted her tiny bodies back into flesh, her vision snapping back to one view. She panted and ran, shaking her head to clear it.

“Loading dock!” Sachi shouted by her side. “Jo, look!”

Jo’s attention whipped to where Sachi pointed. He stumbled in the direction of the giant, closed gate, but adjusted course for the office positioned directly opposite it.

Instead of glass, the shipping office had a series of open windows on its outer wall–wide stations with desks jutting out at chest height, like a series of ticket counters. The office was clearly deserted behind the counters, emphasized by a posted sign that said 8:00 ~ 15:00 WEEKDAYS.

Jo leapt at one of the counters, his hips and legs colliding into it with a loud WHAM. His body trembling, he grunted and scrambled over the desk edge so he could crawl into the locked office.

Sachi grabbed Ayase around the waist and heaved her up so she could follow.

By the time she stumbled into the office, Jo was already at one of the computers, frantically clicking the mouse to jar the computer out of sleep. An interface that looked like a spreadsheet faded into view on the screen.

Jo moved the mouse to a search bar in the upper right corner. “Dammit,” he murmured as he awkwardly typed with two fingers. “I wish we had Shouri.”

“Hey.” Sachi suddenly tore a laminated page of something from the office wall. “Did you guys see this? It’s the key to the code announcements!”

Ayase leaned against him to quickly scan the row of color swatches on the page. “Code Silver is lockdown,” she read aloud. “Code Purple is hostage situation. Code White is…violent patient.” She abruptly met eyes with Sachi.

Touya.

Jo grunted from the computer and clicked on something. “I’ve got a list of all shipments marked to or from Doctor Kagome. Ayase, this was the date written on the pad in Fujito’s apartment, right?”

The same moment that Ayase looked up at the computer screen, a buzzing erupted in her pocket. Sachi and Jo jolted, their heads snapping to their own phones.

“Did someone just text all of us?!”

Ayase ripped her phone from her pocket and snapped it open with her thumb. A group text message blinked on the screen from sender: Hatsumi.

I left Nick before the lockdown and I’m still trying to get back. He’s in room 432. If they know he’s here, the detoxing Core ops will go straight for him.

Jo cursed under his breath. “Most of Byakko is on floor six,” he hissed. “That’s probably where Mitsuko is. She was cced on this.”

“But if her hands are full–”

“Guys!” Kiyoshi called from down the hall. “Where are you?!”

Sachi shouted a reply. Kiyoshi’s form flashed across the series of open counter windows before screeching to a halt at the last one, his body twisting toward the office in surprise. He gripped the jutting desk.

“Did you find anything?!” he yelled as he wiped blood from his mouth. “This place is getting insane!”

Jo rapidly clicked the mouse again. “Kagome got a shipment on that date, no sender listed. It was supposed to go to him on the fifth floor, but there was missing paperwork so it got flagged…” He angrily typed a few keys. “Fucking shit, where did they put it?!”

The intercom blared another alarm. “Code purple,” the voice intoned, overlapping in Ayase’s mind with the translation hostages. “Floors one through four.”

Adam finally ran up beside Kiyoshi, panting and adjusting the staff under his arm. It had broken in half, one side dangling from the other through a comb of ragged wooden edges.

“Dangerous,” he warned in Japanese. “Hurry.” He flung the broken staff aside, instead gesturing to something out of Ayase’s vision. Kiyoshi ducked away from the counter window and dragged along an abandoned I.V. stand. He shoved it at Adam, who flipped the wheeled platform end of the metal pole up off the floor.

A loud BANG erupted behind Kiyoshi. He turned as a door to the outside, directly beside the loading dock, burst open.

Kiyoshi cursed as four men with guns rushed inside.

“Duck!” he roared.

Sachi dropped and dragged Ayase with him, cutting off her vision through the counter windows. She recoiled, her body tensing, her blood cells swarming through her veins in a vibrating rush to break apart.

throb

She heard a rush of bodies and the squeak of Adam’s I.V. poll, but no actual struggle. “Don’t try anything stupid,” an unknown man growled. “We’re not after you or your foreigner, doc.”

Huh?

“Just tell us where you saw any sick-looking guys with weapons.” Another voice, also unfamiliar, blurted in surprise. “The fuck? Look at this guy’s arms!”

Ayase went cold.

Kiyoshi had lost his lab coat.

With a sudden SQUEAK–WHAM echoing in her ears, Ayase leapt to her feet, her only arm scrambling to grab a nearby desk. She saw two men shove Adam and his pole out of view as the other two crammed Kiyoshi against the counter. Kiyoshi snarled and tore one man off him, his grip ripping the man’s collar open to reveal elaborate tattoos.

Yakuza?!

The other man cracked the side of his pistol against Kiyoshi’s jaw. He grabbed Kiyoshi by the hair and slammed his head into the jutting desk, jamming the end of the gun into Kiyoshi’s temple.

“This fucker’s with Core,” someone snapped from elsewhere. “Kill him.”

The world stopped. Ayase throbbed.

And a single vision flashed in her brain:

A tattooed man bowing through a jail cell.

“W-we’re with Hatsumi!” Ayase screamed.

The man with the gun froze. Keeping Kiyoshi’s cheek crammed against the wood, he raised his eyes to Ayase.

“What?”

“I-I know you listen to her! We’re helping her fight Core!” Ayase gestured wildly at Kiyoshi. “He escaped from Core, just like Nick Marshall!”

The man gritted his teeth.

Sachi grappled for his phone and jumped to his feet. “Look!” he offered, holding the face of the phone toward the man. “She just texted all of us! That’s the kanji for her name, right?!”

After an agonizing second, the mobster lifted his gun from Kiyoshi’s head. “Then stay the fuck out of our way,” he snarled before running out of Ayase’s view.

She ran to Kiyoshi while Sachi stuck his head out the other window. The other men ran to follow the retreating mobster, leaving a relieved Adam to sag against his righted I.V. stand.

“Adam!” Sachi shouted. “Are you okay?!”

Kiyoshi huffed out a ragged breath, his arm tightening under Ayase’s grip. He gripped his bleeding chin and turned wide eyes down at her.

“Th-thank you,” he wheezed.

Proceed to Chapter 7, Part 2, page 4–>