Chapter 23

'It's just some broken blood vessels—nothing permanent,' Ayako said, switching off her torchlight. Mai blinked furiously as her pupils readjusted to the late evening light. 'Nothing worse than accidentally poking yourself in the eye. But that doesn't excuse any of this, Lin. Honestly, what were you thinking?'

'We needed information,' Mai interjected.

'Quiet, missy. I haven't even begun things with you,' Ayako seethed.

'But I'm fine. I'm fine, and I talked to Kennel Boy.'

'Did you get a name?' Gene asked from his perch in the loft.

'Did you find any more clues?' Bou-san asked, earning him a smack from Ayako.

'That doesn't excuse any of this—'

'It does if she's succeeded in making any progress,' Lin said. 'Since we've made no headway. What did he tell you, Taniyama-san?'

'An eye for an eye. I asked him why he wanted to do this to Naru, and Kennel Boy said an eye for an eye.'

'So we're looking for someone Naru did wrong,' Bou-san said.

'But I figured out a few things more,' she said, grabbing Ayako's hand to stop any further interruptions. 'First he can only use the kimon mark to spy on us if I'm awake. He didn't know that Ayako and Bou-san had come home. I could feel you calling me to wake up, but he didn't know.'

'You could hear us, but you didn't wake up,' Ayako growled.

'I couldn't. Don't you understand that I couldn't wake up? I had to find out more. I had to see it to the end—it's the only way to save Naru.'

'I'm more concerned about you. That stupid narcissist can look after himself.'

'That's the thing. I don't think he can. I think this is something big. Something that's been in the works for a very long time.' She glanced up at her ghostly guardian and took a deep breath before looking directly at Lin. 'He knows Gene. I mean, he knew Gene. Together with Naru. I think all this started while Gene was alive.'

'So whom did you and your brother piss off?' Bou-san said, talking to empty air, not realising that Gene remained upstairs.

'That doesn't seem likely, Mai,' Gene said.

'It is what my gut is telling me. You always say to go with my gut.'

'We're going to have to comprise a list of suspects,' Lin said, going to the dining table and seating himself in front of his laptop. 'Gene, you need to brainstorm. Mai, you need to relay the information. We're looking for any deceased psychic that might have developed a grudge against Naru starting any time before Gene's death.'

...

'That's suspect number seventeen. Naru sure knows how to make enemies,' Bou-san said.

'That's the way of things in academia,' Lin said. 'Especially in the field of psychic research. Funding is hard to come by, and Naru has secured more than his fair share of it—or so many of our suspects claim.'

'So now we're citing loss of funding as motive for attempted murder and torture? This is crazy,' Ayako said, plonking a plate of sandwiches down on the dining table.

'So says the pampered princess,' Bou-san said. 'Heiress to a medical fortune.'

'Like you're any better, you stupid rock star monk.'

'She thinks I'm a rock star.'

'Funding is not just about the money, right, Lin? It is about reputation.' Mai attempted to mediate the conversation. 'If these people feel like Naru has somehow stolen or destroyed their reputations, maybe they are angry enough to ruin Naru's reputation by creating a case he can't solve and that injures his former staff.'

'That just doesn't make sense, Mai. Kennel Boy doesn't want to injure you. He wants to kill you. He wants to kill you in front of Naru and then kill Naru too.' Ayako started to turn away, but she pivoted back quickly with a new idea lighting her eyes. 'Have we considered any investigations when he exorcised one haunting spirit but left another one earthbound? Separating lovers or what not?'

'Leave a case half finished? No way,' Gene said.

'That doesn't seem like something Naru would do,' Bou-san unknowingly agreed with Gene.

'But what about the Urado case? Naru was willing to leave that one unfinished,' Ayako argued.

'But we weren't investigating Urado—we were investigating the false Oliver Davis,' Mai said. 'I'm agreeing with Gene and Bou-san on this.'

'But what if he did it unknowingly? He's messed up before,' Ayako said to the result of resounded silence. Even Lin quit taking notes of their conversation.

'However unlikely it is, we can't ignore that it might be the result of an accidentally unfinished exorcism,' Lin said. 'I'll have Madoka send me copies of every case Naru and Gene investigated.'

'This isn't it,' Mai whispered. 'Kennel Boy knows Naru and Gene. We need to look at suspects closer to home.'

Gene paced away from the table. 'There are no suspects close to home, Mai.'

'What about our list? Seventeen angry psychic researchers.'

'I'll have Yasuhara look into them. If anyone is dead, we'll follow up,' Lin said. 'For now, we start concentrating on Matsuzaki-san's suggestion.'

The doorbell echoed in the foyer, and everyone exchanged nervous glances.

'It could be Masako,' Ayako said, clearly not believing her own words. 'I'll answer the door. Mai, you should eat.' She pulled the plate of sandwiches toward Mai before marching to the front door.

Concentrating on her breathing, Mai stared at Ayako's odd little sandwiches—crustless triangles of white bread filled with cucumbers and olives and pate and other oddities. Finger sandwiches, she called them—a name that didn't sit well with her since the dream at the Edinburgh street festival, but since none showed any signs of including fingers, toes or other human bits, Mai figured they'd be okay.

'You can't be here.' Ayako's harsh whisper echoed through the flat. 'You need to go away.'

'Stand aside.'

'You know I can't do that.'

Heart thundering, Mai drew her knees to her chest and angled her face away from the foyer. Of course she had known that it was only a matter of time before Naru figured out her new address and came looking of them. Gene, Lin and Bou-san joined Ayako to blockade the front door. She'd told Kennel Boy she had faith that her friends could keep Naru away, and she had to keep that faith.

She plucked a prawn and mayonnaise sandwich from the plate. It seemed a natural thing to do—a good way to steady her nerves and block out the heated voices from the next room. She shoved the entire triangle into her mouth and chewed mechanically.

Her teeth crunched through exoskeletons, juices squelched from squirming bodies, spindly legs flailed, wings thrashed against the roof of her mouth, her cheeks, her tongue.

Gagging, choking, Mai spewed white bread and half-chewed insects onto the table. She retched again and again as she scraped her juddering fingers across her tongue. Psychotic laughter rattled through her brain—growing more and more manic as she continued to spit out twitching bugs.

Arms clamped her from behind, and she writhed with fear. Her great, heaving sobs only sucked twiggy legs and broken wings into the back of her throat and caused her to cough.

Naru was calling her name—yelling it—but his voice drowned beneath Kennel Boy's hysterics and Mai's own panicked whimpering.

A large glass appeared in front of her, and she clutched it and greedily slurped at it—only to taste the foulest juices of rotting fish. 'Are you watching, Oliver? Are you watching?' Kennel Boy shrieked her in mind.

Vomit surged up her throat, bitter bile overtaking the juices and the bugs and washing everything down her chin, into her lap, spreading over the table. There wasn't as much liquid inside her as her body would have preferred, and she continued to dry heave. Drawing air deep into her lungs like a deluge of acid, Mai screamed over all the voices—the ones from within and out of her mind: 'Get out! Get him out! Naru, get out!'

Something hot slammed against her chest. Ayako's face loomed over her. Bou-san gripped her hard as she thrashed. Both the monk and the miko were chanting—their words snapping and sizzling and electrifying every hair on Mai's body. The sound of raw energy—like an approaching tidal wave—swamped her mind, deadened Kennel Boy's laughter, and flattened her with absolute exhaustion.

The very will to exist flushed from her body.

'Sweet and light and at peace with the world. To invoke this we need the three herbal lemons: grass, balm and myrtle.' Her mom leaned across the teashop counter and tapped Mai playfully on the nose. 'Are you paying attention, Boo?'

'Yes, Mom.'

'What next?' she asked, surveying the vast collection of apothecary jars, each one filled with different leaves, flowers, and fruits. 'What do you need? How about hope? Now where did I put my hope?'

Mai knelt on her stool and stretched her little body to the far reaches of the counter, cupping her hands around a jar of finely chopped dried apples.

'How right you are!' her mom said, measuring a scoop of the fruit and carefully folding it into her bowl of lemon herbs. 'Sweetness, light, peace and hope—'

Mai grabbed the jar of elderberries in one hand and the jar of slivered cinnamon in the other.

'My baby is wise. Wise to choose wisdom and strength. Sweetness, light, peace, hope, wisdom, strength….' She blended each ingredient with tender confidence. 'But we've forgotten something. Something to bring it all together.'

Wide-eyed with confusion, Mai hunted through her options—strawberries, rose hips, hibiscus blossoms, peppermint leaves, orange peels, cornflower petals, chamomile, vanilla seeds, lavender and rose and heather flowers. Was it a tealeaf or oil or tiny balls of hand-rolled jasmine?

Her mom smiled and pulled out a bag of dried orange-coloured flakes. 'How about carrot? To promote healthy eyesight?' she laughed, her voice tinkling like a teacup gently knocking against a saucer.

She measured one teaspoon of the herbal-fruit blend into a tiny teapot and filled it with hot water. 'Now we wait five minutes,' she said, and she flipped over a sandglass.

Leaning against the counter and contentedly watching fine blue sand slip from one glass bulb into the other—her mother had never looked so beautiful, so alive. The corners of her mouth curling upward, her face flushed with good health, her eyes calm and clear.

'Our time is almost up,' she said, wisps of melancholy clinging to her words.

'I'm not ready,' Mai said. She reached out, desperately wanting to cling to her mother's capable hands, but they danced away—already taking up the tea ceremony ballet. Saucers and cups and spoons placed perfectly for pleasure and aesthetics and practicality.

It wasn't what Mai wanted—the formality, the distance, the platitudes reserved for customers. She'd been so strong for so long. She'd done everything she could to be a good girl. All she wanted was to hold her mother's hand. To have her mother hold hers. To feel warmth and love clasp her tightly.

She deserved it.

'Drink your tea, Boo.'

The teacup clattered as Mai wrapped her shaking fingers around the bone china. She gripped the cup until her knuckles turned white with the effort.

Her mother lunged over the counter. 'Drink it!'

The teacup shattered in Mai's hands. Scalding liquid slipped through her fingers, leaving her clutching a wreckage of broken china and over-steeped herbs.

'I think she's waking up!' John's twanging Kansai accent echoed in the vast darkness of Mai's mind. 'Mai-chan, can you open your eyes?'

A cool hand brushed against her face, and Mai found that she could indeed do as he asked. Blinking furiously, Mai stared up at the concerned faces of her friends: John, Gene, Ayako, Bou-san and even Lin and Masako.

A damp facecloth swiped at her face. 'Are you feeling all right?' Ayako asked as she dabbed away vomit and sweat. 'Can you tell us what happened?'

She pressed her shaking hands into the couch beneath her. 'I dreamed I was having tea with my mom,' Mai said, her voice raspy.

'Before that. When Naru was here,' Lin clarified.

Mai struggled to sit up. 'Naru is gone?'

'If I'd known I'd never have told him the address,' John admitted, and Masako hid behind her sleeve. 'I don't mean it is your fault, Hara-san! You were in the middle of explaining things to me. I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry.'

'It was only a matter of time,' Lin said. 'And we appreciate your help convincing him to leave.'

'You did?' Mai smiled weakly at her Aussie hero.

John flushed and rubbed at the back of his neck. 'It was nothing.'

'Mai, you still haven't explained,' Ayako prompted. 'What happened? One minute we're dealing with Naru and the next you're having a fit.'

'A fit?' Hadn't they seen the insects in the sandwich? Mai desperately searched out Gene's gaze, hoping at least he understood—but he just stared back at her blankly. 'There were bugs. Bugs in the sandwich.'

Ayako dabbed a little too hard at Mai's chin. 'If you don't like prawns—'

'I'm telling you! I put the prawn sandwich in my mouth and then they turned into bugs—live bugs.' She gagged at the memory.

'Strong, multi-sensory hallucinations are classic in cases of demonic possession,' John interrupted.

'Demonic?' Mai whispered.

Gene's jaw flinched.

'You think it's demonic too, Gene?'

'No, I do not,' he answered, his tone unyielding, but his expression pensive. 'This is too personal. The need for vengeance that Kennel Boy feels, that singular focus on Naru—that is something born of humanity.' He paced away for the group to stand akimbo and scowl at his private thoughts.

'Gene disagrees,' Mai said.

'As do I,' Lin nodded. 'But all the same, I feel we are better off having Father Brown here with us.'

'We need to get you cleaned up,' Ayako whispered, forcing the crowd to move back before helping Mai to her feet.

'Yes,' Masako said from behind her sleeve. 'The smell of her is quite foul.'

Ayako threw the medium a dirty look as she led Mai toward the bathroom. 'What you need is a nice long soak.'

'In holy water,' Masako sniped.

Gene looked up with great interest. 'Finally the doll-faced dummy makes a decent suggestion,' he said, but Mai shut him down quickly.

'I'm not okay with that. No offense, John.'

'None taken,' John replied with a polite smile. 'I wouldn't recommend it under the circumstances, either.'

'Well, I would,' Gene said. 'Clearly this miko lacks the ability to seal your kimon mark. What does she honestly think that a couple omamori draped around your neck can do?'

'That's unfair, Gene. They've kept me safe in my dreams. Kept Kennel Boy from touching me at all—'

'Except that he managed to poke your eye out.'

'That's ridiculous. I still have both my eyes—and that situation was entirely my fault. I let the charms run out.' Gene scoffed and a spark of rage lit off from deep inside her. 'At least Ayako and I are being productive. At least we're trying. You're just sitting around moaning. He's not a viable suspect. Nor him. Nor him. Nor him,' she mimicked Gene's voice. 'How are you helping? How are you working to keep me safe? Oh but that's not part of your grand plan—your raison d'être.'

'You know nothing about my reason for existence.'

'Isn't that the truth?' she snorted. John tried to interrupt, but Mai needed to say her piece. 'I'm trying to save your brother's life. Isn't that why you're here too? Or maybe you just want me to play Tokyo tour guide for you.'

Gene clenched his fist and a light bulb shattered somewhere in the kitchen.

'That's enough,' Lin said, though to whom she wasn't sure. 'We need to stop being emotional about this—we need to focus on what's important here. We need to focus on the research.'

'Lin couldn't be more correct,' Gene seethed, marching toward the foyer. He pivoted around at the last moment. 'Try not to kill yourself before I get back,' he said, and then he walked through the door.

Stunned, Mai clung to Ayako's arm. 'He left. He said he wouldn't, but he left,' she whispered.

'Good riddance,' Masako sighed. 'The room feels lighter already. I couldn't make heads or tails of him—he's not like any entity I've ever come across.'

'He's my guardian,' Mai said helplessly.

'I don't think he is,' Masako said.

'You clearly don't know anything,' Mai snapped.

'Enough! I've had enough of this. Everyone has something they need to be doing,' Ayako said, guiding Mai toward the bathroom. She jabbed one manicured fingernail toward Masako when the medium started to protest, and that small gesture seemed to be the catalyst for great action. Everyone scattered to different areas in the flat.

'Ayako,' Mai whispered as the miko closed the bathroom door behind them.

'I don't want to hear any complaints,' she said. 'I want you cleaned up and ready to think. But first, how about a salt scrub? It'll exfoliate you and make you feel nice and fresh.'

'And purified,' Mai added. She'd been raised in the Shinto religion, and so there was no point ignoring Ayako's inference. Salt was paramount to Shinto purification and protection.

'That too,' she said, cranking open the tub's hot water faucet. Ayako harrumphed and pulled Bou-san's Buddha locket from her pocket. It now dangled from a piece of white yarn. 'Why don't you put this locket around your neck, hand me your charms, and then climb into the tub.'

'I can take a bath by myself.'

'What you can, or can't, do is beside the point.'

...

21 reams of paper. 10,500 pages of printed research. As a singular mass, it well outweighed Mai. It took Madoka five hours to sort out and email Naru and Gene's 131 case histories. Meanwhile, Lin ate through 16 ink cartridges and burned out two portable inkjet printers as he made hard copies of everything.

Six hours after the bug-sandwich incident, every surface of Mai's flat was heaped with files. They were walking on paper, sitting on paper—Bou-san was even eating taiyaki off a map.

The paste-filled, fish-shaped pastry seemed to switch, gills gasping and fins straining. Mai held a page of research close to her face, effectively blocking her line of sight. She didn't know if it was more hallucinations or just her over-active imagination, but whichever it was, it kept her on edge. Her entire body felt like a single clenched muscle.

'You should take a break and eat something, sweetheart,' Ayako said.

'No thanks.' Mai tried to lace her answer with a casual singsong tone even though she knew no one would believe it.

'I'm worried about how thin you've become,' Ayako insisted.

'Honestly, I'm not hungry.'

'Not even if you could have anything?' Ayako banged on. 'Black forest gateau?' Drenched in the blood of a Bavarian baker. 'Mishima beef?' Riddled with gangrene. 'Just plain old onigiri?' Writhing with maggots.

'No!' Mai shouted, slapping down the file she held. Shame immediately washed with heat from head to toes. 'I can't. I just can't. Please….' She gave one glance at Ayako's disappointed face before pushing the files away. 'We are wasting time with this. There's nothing here!'

'You've got to be patient,' John said.

'I'm tired of this.'

'You're just tired. And hungry,' Ayako said, but Lin's computer began to chirp and effectively stopped the miko from launching into another relentless list of foods that filled Mai with terror.

Yasuhara's voice greeted the room with his usual exuberance, but it was short lived as he announced: 'I've checked up on your list of 17 psychic researcher suspects. And while I'd estimate 80% of them would gladly break Naru's nose, 100% of them are alive.'

'What about E. Phillipe? ' Lin asked, and then he clarified for the group: 'A researcher with whom we had a run in during this past June. He doesn't fit Mai's criterion regarding Gene, but he is, if you'll excuse the terminology, totally barking.'

The sounds of shuffling paper crackled through the computer's speakers as Yasuhara dug through several files. 'Phillipe, Phillipe. Transferred from HMP Edinburgh to the psychiatric hospital in Carstairs after an appeal from Doctor and Professor Davis of Cambridgeshire, and according to court records, his big day will be next month. Charges include kidnapping, two accounts of assault with evil intent, and wilful fire-raising. I had difficulty chasing him up at Carstairs, and I have a note-to-self to try again in a few hours.'

'Don't bother,' Lin said. 'He survived acute smoke and chemical inhalation injuries, and he probably has not yet regained the ability to speak. Just so long as he's alive, that's all that we really need to know. My apologies, Yasuhara-san, I fear that personal curiosity prompted that line of inquiry—not common sense.'

Yasuhara made light of Lin's comment and simply asked for another avenue of inquiry. Lin advised that Yasuhara confer with Madoka while everyone in the flat continued to review the case histories. The 17 researchers were decided to be, to Mai's great disappointment, yet another dead-end.

The whole team felt it, and as more hours passed and frustration grew, files and maps and all forms of research were tossed aside with more and more force.

To all of their surprise, it was John who broke first. Slapping a folder on the floor, he stood up and announced: 'Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they are established. Proverbs 15:22.'

'Would you like some tea?' Mai asked timidly.

'How can tea help the blind?' he said, scrubbing his face with his hands. 'I'm sorry, Mai-chan. Thank you for the offer, but I need to take a break. Take a walk.'

Masako closed a file. 'That is an excellent idea.'

'Again my apologies, Hara-san, but I would prefer to walk alone,' John said, pulling on his jacket. Snatching up a folder, he marched out the front door.

'That was unexpected,' Bou-san said.

'Perhaps he's right,' Ayako said. 'Perhaps we all need a break. Now, Mai, it isn't New Year's yet, but we could have osechi. I know you love datemaki.'

Eggs. Ick. Mai shook her head furiously. If it wasn't another episode like the Scot's eye that Kennel Boy had eaten with such relish, Mai knew it would be something horrifically worse—like cracking open an egg to find a foetus or a scorpion or a large and hairy spider.

Mai shivered. 'Absolutely no eggs.'