Tokyo Demons Book 3: Chapter 7, Part 2

Jo, on his knees, still clicked desperately on the computer, his chin level with the desk. With the disaster averted, he stumbled back to his feet.

Everyone’s okay, he reminded himself as his fingers shook. Keep working.

The shipment for Kagome. It had been assigned to floor five, yet never made it there. Jo clicked the mouse through each day, his eyes running over nonsense codes, trying to piece together the notes…

From Receiving to Holding, phone calls never answered, back to Receiving, back to Holding, until…

Long-Term Storage in the basement: Intravenous Supplies.

Jo’s chest tightened. “I-is that it?” he breathed.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

With sweaty hands, he flipped the phone open. He stumbled back from the computer and looked down at the message.

At 8:12 P.M., Touya will learn that Doctor Kagome isn’t in the hospital since he’s been missing for a week. He’ll force Kagome’s colleagues to talk, and they’ll say the shipping department has a delivery of I.V. bags in the basement for when the doctor returns.

Jo’s eyes flew to the clock on the wall.

7:42 P.M.

His trembling fingers scrolled down on the message.

The Pitch is in the basement. We don’t need Touya anymore.

Stop him.

Jo stared at the final line, his mind numbing as the intercom crackled overhead.

“Code purple,” the intercom blared again. “Floors two through four. Code white: floor six.”

***

Touya tasted blood in his mouth. He didn’t know whose it was.

He ran down another endless hallway, his bare feet slipping in unknown fluids. People screamed around him. He tripped on invisible children. While turning a corner, he rammed into a medical cart, his bare hip banging it so hard that the vibrating reverberated through his bones.

The world swam in his eyes, the layers of time surging and ebbing out of their proper order. The present flickered in and out–solid colors, louder sounds–licking him with pain before retreating again.

I can do this.

The sign for the floor was attached to the wall, hidden behind crowds of ghosts. He ripped the thick acrylic out of its screws, the sharp edges of the metal beneath it shredding through his fingertips. He held the sign just under his face, trying to focus his vision through the haze of futures.

One more floor to Kagome.

“Emi-san!”

Touya’s head swung on his leaden neck, dispelling a wave of ghosts. He squinted through time to see a familiar woman in the parallel hall beyond the nurse’s station. She ran in the opposite direction of Touya, a determined look on her face, rolling an I.V. pole alongside her.

A low growl rose up Touya’s throat.

“Emi!” came another call–the blond priest, running up behind her. An unconscious teenager with a shaved head was flopped on his back, his I.V. line attached to the pole the woman pushed. “We have to get to the higher floors!”

Touya’s vision began to lose focus, but not before he saw a teenage girl run up to flank them. The leader of that girl gang, shouting instructions ahead of her.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing else matters.

As the world fuzzed beyond his eyes, Touya swung his head forward. He lurched back toward the stairwell, the acrylic sign still clutched in his bloody hands.

***

Ayase heard Jo whisper something, but it was too quiet to make out over the shouts of the lobby. She quickly turned to him.

“What?!”

“Th-the Pitch is in the basement,” Jo breathed.

She stopped. Kiyoshi blurted something, Sachi’s head jerked up as he helped Adam in the hallway.

“You found it?!”

Jo looked up from his phone, his eyes wide.

“We… We don’t need to follow Touya anymore.”

Ayase’s vision dimmed.

throb

Jo said something about I.V. bags, but Ayase barely heard it. The blood pulsed in her ears. Her heart pulsed in her chest.

throb

The world narrowed around her, her edges vibrating against the air. Her fragments crackled inside the confines of her skin.

“…with me, Adam and Sachi go with Ayase.” Jo’s voice drifted over the pounding of her heart. His quiet, terrified, adamant eyes met hers.

“Get him, Ayase.”

throb

Cracks raced along her skin. Lines of chitin split through her muscles.

Sachi suddenly lunged forward and wrapped an arm around her waist. He brushed his lips across her fragmenting forehead.

“Do it,” he whispered, before letting her go.

Ayase exploded.

The world opened around her, suddenly visible from every angle, conquerable at any height. She surged the pieces of her body in all directions, her wings and antennae flapping in a mad frenzy.

“Code white,” buzzed the fuzzy intercom, the words echoing through every last antenna. “Floor five.”

She flew.

To be continued in Book 3: Chapter 7, Part 3.