The headquarters of World Pacific International was a glistening tower in Akihaibara, fifty stories of mirrored glass that sent the sunlight cascading back from its walls like a gigantic prism. It was a perfect example, Hokuto thought, of how something created by human hands could be both functional and attractive.
Eiji Sakamoto led the trio inside the building. Subaru followed closely behind; as always he wanted to get right to work on the case. That was his attitude whether the client was rich and powerful, or poor and innocent. Hokuto's brother was like that; he saw all people as the same. Poverty did not make a person worthless, but neither did wealth place them beyond redemption.
Seishiro trailed along behind the Sumeragis. He had changed from his white lab coat into a dark raincoat, and had replaced his usual narrow glasses with black-lensed sunglasses. People often gave him second looks because of his blind eye, so when he wasn't working in his clinic he covered it up. Hokuto sometimes wondered what Seishiro thought about the people who were disturbed by his injury; did he resent them, laugh at their folly, or what?
"Not only," the bureaucrat was saying, "are we one of the leaders in electronics technology in Japan, but through our subsidiary, World Pacific West, we have established a considerable market share in America as well."
He's scared, Hokuto realized, and he's babbling because he doesn't know what else to do. Sakamoto was an ordinary salaryman; he dealt with figures, business deals. He probably had a family whom he went home to each night. Murder was no part of his life, magic even further outside that. Simply being the errand boy was more than he wanted to have to do with this.
The building's lobby was a gleaming thing, all polished marble and brass fittings. Sakamoto took his three guests directly to a bank of elevators and up to the thirty-second floor. Here, the building ceased to please Hokuto aesthetically; functionality swallowed everything else, and left only the drab, gray workplace of drab, gray men. There was some color, though, color provided by uniformed police officers, lab technicians, the medical experts, and the detectives. Around the fringes of these people clustered salarymen, secretaries, and other members of the staff of World Pacific International, drawn to the scene of the tragedy like moths to a flame.
Sakamoto led the Sumeragi's and Seishiro not to his superior's office, but towards the thickest knot of outsiders, towards the crime scene. The reason soon became obvious: a white-haired man who stood talking to the senior detective. He was of only average height, with a slight build similar to Subaru's, but there was a definite air of command about him, a presence of inner force that Sakamoto lacked. Undeniably, this was Masahiro Kigai, president of World Pacific International.
Subaru blinked in surprise as he saw the two men. Hokuto looked at her brother curiously, wondering what had startled him.
"Pardon me, Kigai-sama, but I have brought Subaru Sumeragi to see you," Sakamoto said.
Executive and policeman turned their heads simultaneously, looking over the newcomers.
"Ah! Subaru-kun, it's good to see you again."
The detective was a tall man, though not as tall as Seishiro, with a lean face and an unruly shock of hair. He wore a tan trenchcoat over a slightly wrinkled brown suit. There was, however, a spark of curiosity and eagerness in his eyes that marked him as more than just another public servant doing his duty.
"Yamakawa-san!" Subaru greeted him. Now, Hokuto knew who this was; he had been the detective investigating a series of suspicious "accidents" at the MCC Corporation. Yamakawa had almost been killed during that investigation; only Subaru's arrival had enabled paramedics to be called in time to save his life. Subaru had liked the detective; he was a creative thinker and moreover, He believed in magic. That could be very useful, Hokuto knew. It would be so much easier for Subaru to do his job if the authorities didn't consider his work as interfering with their investigations.
"You and Sumeragi-san are acquainted, Detective?" Kigai asked.
"Yes, we met on another case. Did you call him in?"
"I thought it best, given the nature of the matter."
Introductions were swiftly performed. Unlike his subordinate, the white-haired company president seemed neither surprised nor put off by the appearance of Subaru and his "entourage."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Sumeragi-san, and I can only hope that you can shed some light on these tragic events," Kigai told the young onmyouji.
"I'll do my best, Kigai-san." Subaru's eyes flicked towards the detective. "That is, if I would not be creating trouble?"
"Not at all," Yamakawa answered. "Frankly, Subaru-kun, I'd appreciate your assistance. This is more in your line than mine." He grinned wryly. "Besides, even if I objected, I suspect Kigai-san would press the right buttons with my boss to make sure I let you work."
"Forthright," Seishiro noted dryly.
"But correct," Kigai noted. "The victim was my niece."
Then Hokuto understood. Yamakawa and Kigai had already dealt with the questions of jurisdiction, of ego, before the president had sent for Subaru. What was left were two men whose complete focus was to solve this case, catch whomever was responsible for whatever had happened. It was a surprise, meeting two people who could easily overlook issues of authority to seek a common goal.
"The lab people will be done," Yamakawa noted. "Come on, I'll let you take a look, and then you can do what you need to do."
The little group went to a corner office. Hokuto noted that Sakamoto had drifted away, no doubt returning to his own duties.
To sanity.
Subaru looked in surprise at the name on the office door.
"This is Sakamoto-san's office!"
"Mirei was his aide."
Yamakawa pushed open the door.
Inside was carnage.
Subaru, in his work, had encountered many horrible things. Hatred, fear, and despair drove people to perform shocking acts. This was horrible too, but in a different way. This was crude, animalistic brutality, a young life torn apart. A heavy desk had been hurled across the room, its corner striking the plate glass floor-to-ceiling window and sending long, jagged cracks spreading out from the point of impact. Shelves had been broken, a state-of-the-art PC literally crushed underfoot.
The girl looked no older than eighteen. She wore a tailored blue suit and a white silk blouse. Her eyes were wide open and staring in terror...no, not terror, more like astonishment.
Her body had been torn apart, as if claws driven by giant strength had ripped into her over and over again. Blood was everywhere.
Perhaps the worst thing was the smell. The distinctive scent of blood and death was missing. The only odor any of them could detect was a soft, smoky aroma, almost like incense.
Hokuto's eyes swept the scene, and her gorge rose. Biting her lip to keep from gagging, she spun and fled the room.
"Hokuto-chan!" Subaru called, and started to go after her, but was stopped by a light touch on his arm from Seishiro. He looked up into the face of the man he loved, who shook his head slightly.
"She wouldn't thank you," the older man said. "You'll do her no good now."
Subaru didn't quite understand, but he trusted Seishiro. The two people he loved most had a kind of connection between them, a relationship that operated on a different level than their relationships with Subaru. Sometimes, they understood each other better than Subaru understood either one of them.
Seishiro smiled gently, then told Subaru in a low voice the others could not hear, "Hokuto-chan would not want to appear weak in front of you."
"She always protects me," Subaru said, now comprehending, and his turned his attention back to the crime scene.
Detective Yamakawa was frowning, his hands in his coat pockets. "What bothers me -- and I'm sure the medical examiner will agree -- is the wounds. I can imagine a killer with the enormous strength this took, but those injuries weren't made by a knife or sword, or any other weapon I know of."
Seishiro nodded.
"It looks like the kind of pattern formed by an animal's claws," the veterinarian contributed, "but the size is wrong. Each claw had to about four inches long to make wounds like these."
Yamakawa sighed.
"And the witnesses said nothing at all came out. They heard screams, the crashing of the struggle, but when they opened the door, there was nothing. The only way in or out is the door, except for a ventilator than not even a contortionist could fit through."
Subaru nodded numbly. Seishiro laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"That leaves it up to you, Subaru-kun."
"Seishiro-san..."
He turned to Yamakawa and Kigai.
"There are some things I can try," he told them.
The smell of sandalwood-tinged smoke filled his nostrils.
-X X X-
Hokuto bent over the gleaming porcelain sink in the ladies' restroom and splashed water on her face. Steadily, her stomach began to settle as she regained her usual equilibrium.
"Come on," she told her reflection. "You're no good to Subaru this way." She wondered how someone as gentle as her brother could deal with sights like that. Of course, most of Subaru's work involved a less graphic kind of horror. Maybe that was the key; as a professional onmyouji Subaru could deal with gruesome sights but as a sensitive boy he had more trouble with the tragedies -- the personal reasons -- that lay behind the incidents he faced. Hokuto, more practical, could face the psychological aspects without the empathetic sorrow that Subaru felt.
She took a deep breath. That was better; she could go out and face the world now. Hokuto had to be strong, because a murder like this one probably had a story behind it, and Subaru might need her support.
Of course, he now had Seishiro, too, for that.
Plus, Subaru's heart was stronger than she sometimes gave it credit for being.
Did that bother her? Did the idea that her little brother might not need Hokuto to watch over him somehow diminish her?
The elder Sumeragi twin shook her head angrily and stalked out of the bathroom. These were thoughts born of envy and possessiveness, and not the kind of thing she liked to see in herself.
Not watching where she was going, Hokuto nearly ran down a young man coming down the hall with a stack of documents in his arms. He jumped back just in time to avoid a collision, but the sudden movement made the top few papers slide off the stack. He leaned back to catch them, taking the weight of his load onto one arm while reaching out with the other, but lost it completely, causing the whole pile to come cascading down around him and Hokuto.
"Oh!" Hokuto gasped, realizing that she had been a large part of the cause of this accident. "I'm sorry! Here, let me help you." She began scooping up papers at random, squaring them off, and depositing the stack in the young man's arms. As she did, their eyes met.
Wow! she thought.
The man was a Westerner, around eighteen, with silky, gossamer-light blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. His face was exquisite, as if sculpted from alabaster, with eyes the same honey-gold shade as amber framed by long, delicate lashes. He wore shirtsleeves and the pants from a gray suit; the shirt was light enough so Hokuto could tell that his torso was lean but well-muscled, like a swimmer's or a track-and-field athlete's.
Realizing she was staring, she said somewhat flippantly, "I think I've died and gone to shojo manga." This guy was gorgeous!
The young man chuckled.
"I'm glad you approve," he said. "I don't think I know you, miss," he added, his Japanese only slightly accented. "Are you a model with some kind of advertising campaign the company is doing?"
Hokuto blinked, then remembered her March Hare costume, which didn't exactly blend in to corporate culture.
"Oh, no, I'm Hokuto Sumeragi. My brother is Subaru Sumeragi, the onmyouji that was called in by Kigai-san, the president."
The young man mulled this over.
"Onmyouji? That's something like a medium or exorcist, isn't it?"
Hokuto nodded.
"More or less. It's a kind of magician, from a Japanese tradition."
"Interesting," the gaijin remarked. "What did Kigai-san want with your brother?"
"You hadn't heard about the murder?"
"Miss Sumeragi, I've spent the entire morning in the file room, wrestling with these documents. If someone bombed the building I wouldn't have noticed. What happened?"
Hokuto frowned.
"Kigai-san's niece was killed."
The young bishonen's mouth grew slack, and the papers tumbled from nerveless fingers onto the floor again.
"Mirei..."