Having come so quickly, the threesome of caseworkers paused before the imposing front doors of the dreaded Castle of Candles to prepare themselves for what awaited them inside. It was in part the sense of approaching doom that made the building so foreboding, and one half expected lightning and thunder to strike and throw it into a mass of monumental chiaroscuro. "Well, this is it," Terazuma said, conveying said sense of doom rather well; "The minute we step through this door our vacation is over."
"What vacation?" said Wakaba. "The chief gave us the day off is all, and it's almost over."
"Tomorrow doesn't start until seven a.m. as far as I'm concerned."
"Well, there's no sense crying over it now. Aren't you going to knock?"
The look Terazuma gave her said, Are you kidding, and then they both turned to Tsuzuki, who had hung back and was somewhat fidgety. "Don't look at me like that," he said. "I can't bring myself to do it."
"Survival instinct," Terazuma said with a nod.
Wakaba sighed. "You two are pathetic, and you call yourselves men. Fine, I'll do it," she said, forgetting in a precisely feminine way that just a moment before she had been reluctant to knock herself. Swallowing, she was poised to grasp the massive knocker. . . .
But before she could, the great doors slowly rumbled open little more than a shoulder's width. Out of the darkness on the other side, the cheery — although rather grotesque — face of Watson appeared.
His mouth opened in a macabre, toothy grin. "Oh, it is good to see you all could make it!" he rattled. "Hakushaku-sama, and I by association, will be so pleased by this, Tsuzuki-san."
Tsuzuki blushed, and Terazuma cleared his throat, but Wakaba quickly interjected before he could give the butler trouble about downplaying the gravity of giving up a night off: "We had better go inside, don't you think, Watson? Tatsumi said it was an emergency."
"Of course, of course," he said. "Follow me, please."
He led them through the dark rooms of the castle to a great foyer large enough to be a ballroom, through the high-mounted windows of which the moonlight of the eclipse poured dim and rosy. Doorways opened off into other rooms presently concealed from them, and two grand, curving, cherry staircases bracketed the lustrous floor, which in turn was of different colors of granites patterned into a kind of directional mandala in the center of the room. The room was elegant and sparsely furnished, and tall candelabras stood about it providing mood lighting that gave an old and mysterious aura. Watson told them to wait there while he notified the Earl of their arrival, and he promptly disappeared through one of the doorways.
"This place gives me the creeps," Terazuma said in a guarded tone after they had been left alone, and automatically reached for a cigarette.
"How do you think I feel?" said Tsuzuki even more quietly. He looked rather forlorn, and not all from the occasional gurgle of his intestines. "You're not the target of Hakushaku's questionable attentions every other second."
Terazuma snickered, and Wakaba shot him a warning look.
Presently ominous music began to emanate from all around, and the threesome's attention was drawn to the grand staircase as a flash of lightning from the clear night sky lit up the room and caused the shadow of a man to appear on the landing. Thunder followed close behind, accenting the drone of an organ. After a weighty pause during which time he surveyed the group, the figure made his way down the stairs. It would have been quite a dramatic entrance, too, if more of him could actually be seen than a half mask and plain white gloves suspended in the air.
Then, at last, the Earl of the Castle of Candles stood before them in all his invisible majesty.
A wide childlike grin on his face, Watson faded out the dramatic music on his boombox.
"Ah . . . I love that effect, Watson. It never gets old," said the Earl with a humor that clashed completely with the dark atmosphere.
"That's what you pay me for, sir," rattled Watson importantly.
"Yes, it is. Keep up the good work, then."
"Thank you, sir."
"But I wonder if the lightning might be just a tad overkill."
"It is rather old hat, isn't it, sir? But it has such a nice rumble." He pushed the thunder-and-lightning button in the wall again, and the reverberation could be felt through the granite floor. "M-m . . . that it does," agreed the Earl as though relishing a fine wine.
When he turned to the Shinigami it was as though noticing them for the first time.
"Ah, so good to see all of you could make it at this hour," he said, presumably with arms outstretched in welcome, "on such a night which anyone with any taste should like to spend moon-watching!" (Terazuma cleared his throat.) "They say such a thing only comes around every once in a blue moon, but I suppose in this case red would be more appropriate. And lo, despite it all the Shokan Division comes through for me in my time of need once again. I knew I could count on Tatsumi-san to make good on his promise. He may be a scrooge but he always delivers."
Tsuzuki had been looking elsewhere, so he had quite a start when the Earl was suddenly at his side, his voice low when he added, "Doesn't he, Tsuzuki?"
"Eh . . . I don't think I know what you mean by that. . . ." Tsuzuki said carefully, trying to squirm away without seeming too rude.
The gloved hand firmly grasping his chin in such a tender manner stopped him, however. "Tsuzuki, Tsuzuki," said the Earl in a tone that was at once patronizing and smooth, "baby: what have I done that would make you treat me in such a cold manner? It's been so long since we last met. Could it really have been such a sour note we ended on?"
"Well, let's see. At the last New Year's party you bought me an ice cream, knowing you could use my weakness for sweets to your own advantage and receive my attention, however short. But," Tsuzuki added before the Earl could attempt to defend his innocent-enough actions, "before handing over the ice cream you made sure it was nice and warm so it would drip onto my pants when we sat down on the bench you cleverly positioned yourself next to, thereby allowing yourself an opportunity to feel me up under the guise of trying to assist me in cleaning up the mess." He nodded, confident in his detective skills.
The Earl was shocked.
"Why, Tsuzuki," he said, "I'm shocked that you would accuse me of such a deviant and — and hackneyed plot! You must have misunderstood: I only wanted to do something nice for you. The mishap was mere coincidence."
"And then there was that other time—"
"All right, all right," the Earl said, raising his hand. "You made your point. But I assure you if my intent was to feel you up I would not go about it in such a roundabout way."
"But that's the problem!"
"Nonsense. If only you understood how perfectly natural it is for me to be curious about every part of your body—"
"I don't want to hear it!" Tsuzuki covered his ears.
Terazuma laughed, and this time Wakaba only sighed in sympathy. "I hate to interrupt, Hakushaku-sama," she said, "but you called us here for an emergency?"
"Did I? Oh, that's right," said the Earl, and the three groaned slightly in exasperation, having seen his coming. "I'm afraid it's still rather embarrassing and might be difficult to explain, but regretfully the situation has gotten out of my hands."
"That's why we're here," said Terazuma, suddenly professional.
"And I'm grateful for it, believe me. Please, follow me," the Earl said with a beckoning gesture, "and I'll explain everything to the best of my abilities."
—
"It all started two days ago when a demon came into my possession. He struck me as a peculiar fellow, not your run-of-the-mill evil spirit, but a fascinating find just the same. I was holding him in my dungeon — which as I'm sure you all know is incredibly secure given the sensitive nature of my work in the Castle of Candles, protected by layers upon layers of spiritual barriers — I was to hold him there for Lord Enma until he could deal with him accordingly. Even though it was just a minor demon, I took all precautions, but somewhere I must have overlooked something for he broke out of his holdings and I was unable to recapture him."
"And you brought us in the catch it," said Terazuma with a nod. "Piece of cake."
Tsuzuki wasn't so convinced. "Not to be disagreeable or anything," he said, "but this isn't really in our job description. Wouldn't an exorcist have been better?"
"Nonsense," the Earl said. "I'm familiar with your record, Tsuzuki. You've defeated your fair share of demons and devils in your career."
"I was feeling considerably better when I did it, too," Tsuzuki grumbled.
"Why, what's wrong, Tsuzuki?" It should have been obvious by the way he was standing, slightly bent over, hands on his waist, face a little paler than normal, but the Earl in his thickness probably passed it off as his usual anxiety.
Then again, perhaps he took it to mean the situation needed more pushing. Suddenly his mask looked more solemn, and his invisible shoulders seemed to slump. "Oh, but I feel simply awful that I was not competent enough to handle the situation myself. You see, I was unable to reach the demon again when he opened up a portal of some sort in the basement and let undead masses through. There are places to which Lord Enma sends dangerous souls that are accessible through the Castle of Candles, but they are all tightly sealed; I have no direct control over them. I don't know how a minor demon with no understanding of the Castle would know how to release them, but that does not change the fact that he has, and he's used its energy to grow in power. The basement was corrupted in a matter of minutes. I was forced to seal off levels B-one through -five and -seven to stop the corruption from spreading."
"What about B-six?" Wakaba asked.
"My dear, obviously B-six cannot be corrupted. It's a simple matter of physics."
"Let me get this straight," Terazuma said. "You want us to go down there and take care of your zombie problem, seal up the portal, which I'm assuming will set everything straight again, and catch this demon of yours."
"Yes, capture him and return him to me. He should be compliant after his source of power is taken away."
"But that could take days! And how do you propose we do all this?"
"It's rather straightforward, isn't it? I'm sure you'll figure it out easily enough." It was apparent by the way the three were looking at him, however, especially Tsuzuki whose lip was about to start quivering, that the Earl did not quite have them. And then when Wakaba tentatively asked why he didn't just go to Lord Enma, since it was his demon in the first place, there was only one tactic to employ, and he happened to be very good at it. "Must I beg you to help me?" he said. "Must I humble myself even more before you understand what a predicament I'm in? Truly I tell you, I never wanted the Shokan Division's help but I have no other choice. Lord Enma will have my hide if he finds out about this, and that's to say nothing about what it could mean for Meifu if this demon's free rein is allowed to continue. Oh, I am so embarrassed!"
"So, you didn't make up the whole thing just as some excuse to get me here?" Tsuzuki asked sceptically. "Like that time with the mask . . . ?"
He started as the Earl leaned close to him again, though this time out of another kind of desperation. "I assure you," the Earl said, "I would not make something so dire up. It is a shame that we could not have been brought together under lighter circumstances, but . . ."
Tsuzuki let out a deep sigh. "Lead the way, Hakushaku."
"That's the spirit," the Earl said, and brought them to a wing of the library before the doors of a gigantic cabinet, which when opened revealed a walk-in closet lined with all sorts of weaponry imaginable. From swords and bows and pikes, to power tools and heavy artillery, it had everything one could possibly need and then some to face an army of undead, meticulously arranged in chronological order. "You might want to arm yourselves," he said. "Of course, your shikigami and magic should be sufficient . . ."
"I'm not taking any chances," Terazuma said, cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he reluctantly passed over more familiar pistols for a shotgun. It was a Franchi SPAS-12, a man's best friend when taking out zombies, which he had grown quite proficient at playing House of the Dead 3 on lunch breaks. Wakaba took down a couple of MAC-10's, loaded up, and stuck them in the waistband of her sailor skirt along with a couple extra magazines with a natural flair that made her partner stare. "So, you like schoolgirls with automatic weapons, huh?" she asked him playfully. "When they're not being all melodramatic?"
"Yeah. Damn, I just wish I'd brought my sunglasses."
The Earl pulled down a hideaway rack of them, and Terazuma was like a kid in a candy store, albeit an unnecessarily serious one. Disappointed, Wakaba frowned and proceeded to remove an antique-looking halberd from the wall as well.
"It's a maze down there, so use this GPS to find your way around," the Earl continued, handing Tsuzuki said device. "It has a tracking feature as well that will alert you when you get close to the demon. You should find him on the fifth floor of the basement where the records are kept. When last I saw him, he was trying to get into the file room, but it should be quite a while yet before he can manage to break through the firewall."
"This really is urgent, then," Wakaba said.
The Earl nodded. "You should also know the demon's name if you are to apprehend him successfully. Knowing it gives you power over him that otherwise would be lacking, so make sure you remember it. His name . . . is Fluffy."
"Fluffy?" the three exclaimed together.
"Tell me that's an anagram," said Terazuma.
"Don't let his name fool you," the Earl said. "He can be a real rascal. Oh," he pointed: "and there's no smoking in the basement."
"Tch." Terazuma's eye twitched.
"Watson will take you downstairs when you're ready," said the Earl. He gestured sweepingly toward the grand black marble fireplace, the inside of which — plenty large enough for a group such as theirs — now appeared to be an elevator. Standing at the controls was Watson with a giant grin on his face as he waved. (It seemed he never let anything damper his mood, even the undead roaming the basement.) "I wish you all the best of luck. My castle — and my livelihood, I fear — depend on your success. Are there any last questions?"
The three turned as Tsuzuki stiffly raised his hand. "Yeah. Where's the toilet?"
—
TBC