Disclaimer: I don't own Petshop of Horrors (either the Tokyo or original series) or any of the characters therein.
The Night Parade
"He's up to something shady, I know it!" Woo-Fei paced back and forth across his office. "The problem is, how to catch him at it?"
Chin waited patiently for his employer to come to a conclusion. Personally, he didn't mind Count D all that much. Certainly the man had some strange habits, and dressed in a rather androgynous fashion, but he had never failed to be polite to Woo-Fei and Chin. Despite that, Woo-Fei was convinced that the mysterious pet-shop owner was up to something nefarious, and determined to find out what it was.
"I've got it!" he exclaimed, whirling around with a triumphant look on his face. "We'll do a stakeout."
"A stakeout, sir?"
"Yes. If he's up to something, he's probably doing most of it after-hours when no one else is here. So all we have to do is stick around some night and we're bound to see him doing something he shouldn't." Woo-Fei had that glint in his eye that he got whenever he had an adversary on the ropes.
"When would you propose conducting this stakeout, sir?"
Woo-Fei thought for a few minutes, then snapped his fingers as an idea came to him. "I heard him telling a customer that he wouldn't be available to show her any new pets this Sunday evening because of some 'event' he has to attend. I bet he's planning to meet with some of his no-good cronies that night, and that would be the perfect time to catch him in the act! Make whatever preparations you need to, Chin. Sunday night is the night we finally find out what Count D's up to!"
Chin suppressed the urge to sigh. He and Woo-Fei had been sitting here for three hours, and absolutely nothing interesting had happened.
Shortly after the building closed, Woo-Fei had used his master key to let himself and Chin into a Chinese restaurant that was across the hall from D's pet shop. The restaurant featured a large front window that allowed the customers to look out at the people passing by...and which offered a perfect view of the pet shop's door. This was where Woo-Fei had proposed to hold their "stakeout," and had even declared that both of them would wear aprons and chef hats so as to look like employees doing after-hours work in case they were spotted. Under ordinary circumstances, Woo-Fei wouldn't have been caught dead wearing an apron (especially one with the words "Kiss the Cook!" emblazoned on the front in Mandarin), but his mania for catching D in some illegal act had apparently overidden such concerns.
Three hours later, the door to D's pet shop remained resolutely closed, and D's "partners in crime" had completely failed to appear. Chin was hungry, and his chef's hat was too tight. Just as he was about to suggest that perhaps Count D really had gone to an "event" somewhere and wasn't even around, a lone figure walked up to the door of the pet shop and knocked firmly.
"Ah hah!" Woo-Fei exclaimed triumphantly. "I happen to know for a fact that the main doors to the building are locked right now, and that man's not in a night janitor's uniform. He's clearly broken into the building to meet with Count D! Chin, you brought the camera, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, I did."
"Well, quick, take a picture as soon as Count D opens the door. Then we'll have evidence!"
"Yes, sir." As ordered, Chin snapped a picture as Count D opened the door, cordially greeted his mysterious visitor, and ushered the man inside. "Should we confront him now, sir?"
"Not yet. Let's wait and see if any more of his cronies show up."
This seemed to have been a sound decision, for only a few minutes had passed when a pair of teenage girls who looked like twins appeared. They, too, were let into the pet shop. A few minutes later, an old man who limped along with a cane went in.
"Count D's cronies seem like a very...eclectic...group, sir."
Woo-Fei grunted. "I don't care how eclectic they are. They're congregating in my building after hours, planning God-knows-what with that good-for-nothing Count, and I'm not going to tolerate it!" He stood up from his chair, pushed open the restaurant door, and strode across the hall to the pet shop. Chin caught up with him just as he was rapping commandingly on the door.
"Welcome, wel-" D's enthusiastic greeting cut off abruptly as he saw who his visitors were. "Taizuu! This is most improper!"
Chin had read the phrase "So-and-So swelled with anger" in books, and had always thought it was hyperbole. Now he discovered that it wasn't, because Woo-Fei was doing it. "Improper? What's improper is for you to be holding illicit night-time gatherings in my building!"
"Taizuu, you don't understand. You simply cannot be here."
"Count D, I was under the impression that I owned this building. I can be here at any time I want. Now, stand aside." Woo-Fei tried to push past Count D, but found his adversary surprisingly immovable.
"Taizuu." D's voice wasn't light-hearted and bubbly like it normally was. Instead, he sounded grave and solemn. "The event that's going on tonight is...shall we say, very exclusive. If you were to intrude, it would put your life-and Chin-san's-in great danger."
Woo-Fei's voice was icy. "Are you threatening me, Count?"
"No!" For the first time, Woo-Fei was uncertain. The expression on D's face was genuinely worried. Is it possible that he's gotten in over his head with his superiors in this...human-trafficking business, or whatever it is? Could he have kept this meeting a secret because he knew the people inside would kill me if I showed up? "I'm only trying to protect you, Taizuu."
"What's going on, D? You say you want to protect me. Well, I'm not budging until I know what this is all about. If anyone gets hurt as a result, it's on your head."
D sighed. "Taizuu..."
"Tell. Me."
"Have you ever heard of the Hyakki Yako?"
"The what?"
"Er, I believe I know what he's talking about," Chin said, stepping forward. "In Japanese folklore, the Hyakki Yako is a procession of demons and other supernatural creatures. It usually takes place at night, and it's said that any human who stumbles across it will die unless they're carrying Buddhist sutras for protection. I believe the Tokyo Art Museum is currently exhibiting some works that portray the subject."
"What does an old Japanese folktale have to do with any of this?" Woo-Fei demanded.
"Taizuu, the event that I'm hosting tonight is the Hyakki Yako. And as Chin-san pointed out, it is deadly for humans to encounter the procession."
"You really expect me to believe that you're hosting some kind of parade of ghosts and demons? Come on, Count, you can come up with a better cover story than that! If humans are killed for intruding on this Hyakki Yako, then why aren't you in danger?" Woo-Fei asked.
Count D only stared at him with the enigmatic smile that Woo-Fei hated so much.
"Sir, if I may suggest something?" Count D and Woo-Fei both turned to look at Chin. "If carrying Buddhist sutras can protect a human who comes across the Hyakki Yako, then why don't we simply procure some sutras from the small shrine on the second floor? That way, Count D can host this event, while Mr. Rau and I attend to make sure that no illegal or damaging activities are carried out in his building."
"An excellent idea, Chin! Surely the Count can't object to that."
D sighed. "I most certainly can object, but I sense that in this case it would be fruitless. Go collect your sutras, and come back here when you have them." Having said this, he quietly but firmly closed the door in Woo-Fei's face.
"That man has some nerve, ordering us around as though he owns the building," Woo-Fei grumbled as he and Chin placed pieces of paper with the sutras written on them in the pockets of their suit jackets.
"Perhaps it is his forceful personality that has allowed him to do so well in business," Chin speculated. "Haven't you yourself often said that one must be assertive in business dealings?"
"Hmph. If I find him doing anything illegal with this 'Hyakki Yako', I'll kick him out of the building no matter how forceful his personality is."
Upon arriving back at the pet shop, Woo-Fei and Chin were ushered in by a smiling Count D. "This is a night of dreams and wonders," the Count told them. "I hope both of you enjoy it."
The front room of D's store was packed with people. As suggested by the individuals they had earlier seen entering the shop, it was a widely varied group. There were elderly people in old-fashioned formal clothing, younger adults in business suits and cocktail dresses, teenagers in T-shirts and baggy jeans, and children in school uniforms. While most were Asian, some also appeared distinctly foreign. They were mingling freely, apparently oblivious to differences in age, nationality, and social class.
"Hmm, who are you? I don't think I've seen you here before," purred an elegantly-dressed woman who had suddenly appeared at Woo-Fei's side. Her long, curly hair was a shade of bright orange that had to be dyed. She was wearing a floor-length gown in a shade of fire-engine red that shouldn't have looked good with her hair, but did.
Woo-Fei stood up a little straighter and adjusted the sleeves of his shirt so that the woman could see his diamond cufflinks. "My name is Woo-Fei Rau. May I say that I am charmed to meet you?"
The woman fluttered her eyelashes. "You certainly may say so."
"And may I ask what your name is?"
"I'm called Suzaku."
"Ah, your name is as charming as you are." Deciding that he might as well get something out of this (aside from the possibility of evicting the Count from Neo Chinatown), Woo-Fei gently took Suzaku's hand, intending to lift it to his lips for a light kiss.
Then he dropped her hand, jumped backwards into Chin, and yelled loud enough to wake the dead.
"Sir? What's wrong?" Chin reached under his jacket for the gun he always kept in a shoulder holster.
"Her hand is hot! Look!" Woo-Fei held out his own hand, and Chin gasped as he saw that it was bright red.
"Well, of course it is," said Count D smoothly. A moment ago, he had been on the other side of the room, and neither Chin nor Woo-Fei had any idea how he had gotten to them so fast. "What did you expect from a phoenix? Now, let's run that hand under some cold water."
Woo-Fei's outburst had drawn the attention of some of the other guests, but they quickly turned back to chattering among themselves as D guided Woo-Fei over to a sink in the corner. Once he was satisifed that Woo-Fei hadn't suffered any serious burns, he made his way to the center of the room and raised his hands to get the attention of the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen and others!" he called. "It is my honor to announce that the Hyakki Yako is about to commence!"
The assembled guests applauded and cheered. D swept to the back of the room and opened the doors into the hidden part of the shop. With a courtly bow, he said, "Please follow me," and disappeared through the doorway.
The crowd flowed towards the doors, with Woo-Fei and Chin following along. Woo-Fei wrinkled his nose in disgust. "He's going to bring all his guests into some smelly old storage closet? They won't even all fit...in...there..." His words trailed off as he stepped through the door and saw what was happening to the guests.
Each person, as he or she stepped over the threshold, was changing. Suzaku was a phoenix, with brilliant red-and-gold feathers that shone like a lantern. The twin girls that Woo-Fei and Chin had seen entering the shop during their stakeout were a pair of fox cubs with two tails each.
"What the hell is that?" Woo-Fei pointed to a tall lamp that was inexplicably hopping down the long corridor that constituted the "back room" of D's store under its own power.
"I believe it's a tsukumogami, sir. An object that, after having been in existence for one hundred years, is granted sentience and animation."
"Sentience? How can it be sentient? It's a lamp!" Woo-Fei squinted at it more closely. "Wait a minute, that's my lamp! It's an antique that my grandfather gave me when I came to Japan!"
"Good evening, Mr. Rau, sir," the lamp intoned respectfully as it passed by. Woo-Fei stared.
"Sir," Chin said, "where are we, exactly? I don't recall the back passageways of the building being quite so extensive."
"I don't know," Woo-Fei answered in bewilderment.
"Look! Sir, look!" As they proceeded down the seemingly endless hallway, doors on both sides were opening, and more beings were joining the parade. A beautiful woman stepped out of one door, and Woo-Fei smiled at her, only to draw back in horror as she turned away to reveal that she was hollow from the back. Chin, meanwhile, narrowly avoided being stepped on by a gigantic, three-headed dragon. The crowd of supernatural creatures was huge now, and the sounds of laughter and conversation echoed off the walls. Count D was leading the way, and he had just come to a towering set of double doors that he flung open to reveal a pathway lined with paper lanterns.
"What the hell..." As they stepped onto the path, it became clear that they were outdoors. The path wound through a dense forest, and enormous pines rose on either side. "Is there even a place like this anywhere in Tokyo? Much less in Shinjuku."
Some of the participants were singing, while others had brought out flutes and drums that they now began to play. Chin found himself being twirled around by a beautiful young woman with jet-black hair and a white kimono. When she let go of his hands and disappeared back into the crowd, he discovered that his fingers were stiff with cold and that there were snowflakes on the lapels of his jacket. He shivered and blew on his hands to warm them up.
"Finally, we're getting to the end of this silly outing," Woo-Fei mumbled. Looking ahead of them, Chin saw what he was talking about. The front end of the Hyakki Yako seemed to be reaching the end of the path: a huge clearing ringed with the same paper lanterns that lined the path itself. Similar lanterns were hung from tree branches, and from wires that stretched from one tree to another, so that the clearing was flooded with light. Chin had long since lost track of Count D; he tried to find him now, but was unsuccessful.
Once the whole group was packed into the clearing, silence fell. The conversation, the laughter, and the music all stopped. Everyone had turned towards the edges of the clearing, staring intently at the lanterns. Following their collective gaze, Woo-Fei was astonished to see the flames within the lanterns rising out of their vessels and hovering in midair. Turning towards the path they had come from, he saw more lantern-flames floating into the clearing, as if the lanterns along the path had been vacated as well. The flames hovered motionlessly above the crowd for a moment, then began to swirl and dance through the air. They soared high above the treetops, and plummeted to within a few inches of the onlookers' heads. For a while, their motion was utterly random, and the beauty of the sight evoked delighted gasps from the assembled beings.
Then the flames began to arrange themselves into a more orderly pattern. As more and more joined in, the vague shape they were forming became more detailed. "It looks like a face," Chin commented.
"It is..." Woo-Fei would have recognized that slender face, chin-length hair, and mysterious smile anywhere. Even outlined in the night sky by animated balls of fire, Count D's visage was unmistakable.
Woo-Fei felt himself becoming dizzy. Chin was apparently experiencing the same effect, because he put a hand on Woo-Fei's shoulder to steady himself. The flames moved, so that the image of Count D seemed to wink knowingly at them, and then Woo-Fei's vision went dark.
"Gah!" Woo-Fei sat bolt upright in his chair by the front window of the Chinese restaurant. "What's going on?"
Across from him, Chin was looking around himself in a confused sort of way. His hair was sticking up on one side of his head, and that side of his face was red, as if it had been pressed against the surface of the table.
"Sir! I'm so sorry! I must have fallen asleep. You have my deepest apologies, sir, I have no excuse for neglecting my duties like this!"
Woo-Fei shook his head. "No, Chin, I fell asleep too." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "And now it's morning. Whatever the Count was planning, it must be over by now. I wouldn't put it past him to slip us some kind of knockout drug to make us sleep through the whole thing...oh, if only I knew how, that would be the end of him..."
"Sir...did you have any dreams while you were asleep?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. I dreamed that we confronted the Count, and it turned out he was hosting some kind of supernatural parade called the Hyakki Yako..."
"...And we joined it, and there was this back hallway to the shop that was a lot longer than it should have been..."
"...And then we ended up on this path outside, with all these lanterns off to the sides..."
Chin and Woo-Fei looked at each other. "What are the odds," Chin asked slowly, "of us having the exact same dream at the exact same time?"
Woo-Fei locked the door to his suite behind him, and reached out to pull the cord on the antique lamp that stood just to the left of the door.
There was no cord there, and no lamp either.
Eh? Woo-Fei fumbled around in the dark for a few seconds, and then successfully located the lamp...on the right side of the door. That's odd, I could have sworn that lamp was to the left...
Woo-Fei made a beeline for the liquor cabinet across the room. Maybe it wasn't proper to be drinking at ten in the morning, but dammit, after spending the whole night in a Chinese restaurant on a failed attempt to catch D doing something illegal, he deserved a drink. And he must have banged his right hand against something while he was dreaming, as it stung a bit...
After downing a shot of whiskey, Woo-Fei shrugged off his jacket and flung it over the back of an armchair. Something inside the jacket make a crinkling noise, and Woo-Fei frowned. Rummaging in the pockets, he pulled out a folded piece of paper covered in elegant calligraphy. It was some kind of Buddhist prayer, like the one the attendants of the Neo Chinatown temple handed out to visitors.
Woo-Fei looked from the paper to the misplaced lamp and back again. He shook his head. What I am I thinking of? One strange dream and I go to pieces. No! I am Woo-Fei Rau, and I don't believe in any such nonsense! Shaking his head, he poured himself another glass of whiskey and retreated into his office.
As he pulled out his desk chair and sat down, he heard a sound from the living room that might have been an antique floor lamp sliding a couple of feet to the left.
Or it could have just been the building settling.
A/N: As Chin explained, the Hyakki Yako is a parade of various supernatural creatures in Japanese folklore. The CLAMP series xxxHolic had a storyline featuring one such parade, and there are very old paintings/woodblock engravings depicting them as well.
The phoenix is found in various mythologies (Greek, Egyptian, etc). In Chinese folklore, the phoenix is one of the four animals entrusted with guarding the cardinal compass directions, and represents the female half of the universe. The Japanese transliteration of the Chinese name (Zhu Que) is Suzaku.
The woman who's hollow when viewed from the back is a hulder/huldra, a creature from Scandinavian folklore. They appear as human women, but appear hollow from the back or have a cow's tale. They tend to fall in love with human men, and possess enormous strength.
The three-headed dragon appeared in one of the stories in the original Petshop of Horrors series.
The woman who briefly dances with Chin, leaving him with cold hands and snow on his clothing, is a yuki-onna, another spirit from Japanese folklore. She appears to those traveling through snowstorms, and uses her breath or touch to freeze them to death. (Lucky for Chin that he was carrying that sutra!) In some versions of the stories, the yuki-onna is the spirit of someone who froze to death.
Last but not least, the animated flames are hitodama, the Japanese equivalent to the will-o'-the-wisp. Depending on the story, they're either the soul of a newly dead person, or kitsunebi (fire produced by a fox-spirit to lead someone astray).
Thanks for reading, and Happy Halloween!