The pursuit of information, like any other business, was all about whom one knew. Money could only get one so far. But a valued service, or the threat of a secret gained from it, could unlock doors that no amount of palm-greasing could.

There were just enough higher-ups in the NPSC who were familiar with the Mibu name, and that of the Kokakurou, to point him to the appropriate persons to answer his questions, and remove any barriers that stood in his way.

"The official story is that an underground gas line exploded," a woman named Nagai told Oriya over the phone, as he sat comfortably in his Tokyo hotel room. "However, we have witnesses in law enforcement who recall seeing what looked like a small nuclear explosion over that part of the city. Unfortunately, at this time we can confirm neither as the cause of the accident."

"But if some sort of nuclear device were responsible, the implications would be dire. There would be questions regarding terrorism and long-term environmental impacts that the government would not be able to simply sweep under the rug, as they've been doing so far." Which was why, no matter what he was told, Oriya could not believe the event had been the result of nuclear weapons.

At least, not any of this world.

By her long pause, it seemed Nagai's thinking was along similar lines. "You see the nature of my predicament, Mr. Mibu. I hate to admit it, but we are at a bit of a loss."

"Is there any word on what happened to a woman named Sakuraiji Ukyou? A Dr. Sakuraiji Ukyou?" It took a great effort for Oriya to sound objective and emotionally uninvolved as he said: "It appears the epicenter of the blast was directly in front of her house, and I was told her remains were never recovered. Do investigators have any reason to believe she was home at the time of the incident? Or, that she was involved in the explosion in any way?"

Based on what he had heard so far, Oriya expected an automatic denial. He was surprised when his question was greeted with an awkward silence on the other end of the line.

"We don't have any information on Dr. Sakuraiji's whereabouts at the time or since," Nagai said slowly and quietly when she spoke again. "As to the question of her connection . . .

"Let me be frank, Mr. Mibu. I know you've been cleared by my superiors, and I've been instructed to answer your questions fully, but I have deep reservations about doing so. There is so much about this case that we still don't know. I feel it would be irresponsible of me to share speculation with a civilian, even one of your standing. Do you understand that much of what I can tell you is hearsay, and therefore inadmissible in a court of law? Furthermore, I would feel it incumbent upon me to take legal action against you if any of our discussion were leaked to the press, and I believe neither you nor my superiors want that kind of publicity."

Oriya assured her, for what felt like the dozenth time that afternoon, that he had no intention of repeating anything he heard.

Despite her reservations, however, Nagai was under orders. And if Oriya were honest with himself, he had to admit he was deeply rattled though only mildly surprised when she told him: "We have reason to believe that a Dr. Muraki was somehow involved."

Oriya's heart raced just at her mention of that name, like a dog salivating at a bell. But he managed to keep an even tone of voice: "Involved how? Reports are he died in a fire five years ago. If you mean he was somehow responsible from beyond the grave. . . ."

Nagai laughed at that.

Though it was the laugh of someone who felt they might be going mad. "No, Muraki's definitely not deceased, Mr. Mibu. Or, at least, he wasn't before the night in question. Would it surprise you to learn he was seen in no fewer than two places, in two different cities, at the exact same time on the night of the explosion?"

It could have been a spirit, was the excuse that leaped to Oriya's mind, or some supernatural creature playing a mean trick; but how would that have sounded to an officer of the law? "Are you certain? How is that even possible?"

"Please, don't ask," Nagai chuckled bitterly. "I can't explain it to myself, and I'm not sure I'd even want to know the truth. Suffice it to say, we are certain now that at least one of the sightings was false. A lookalike was employed, we suspect by Dr. Muraki himself, to make us believe we had him in custody and retract our all-points bulletin from the ports. We thought he would try to flee Japan to avoid questioning, but as it turned out, he was actually already on the outside, trying to get back in."

"Let me guess," Oriya said. "After the night in question, you learned he'd left a trail of bodies in other countries for you to follow."

That earned him a frosty: "You have some involvement with these people that I should know about? Come to think of it, I seem to remember the name of your establishment coming up in my own investigation."

Not for the first time did Oriya feel like he was being judged to be of the same moral iniquity as Muraki, simply by association with him. Surely being the owner of an infamous high-class brothel didn't help matters. The assumption tended to be that any man or woman willingly involved in that trade must have compromised their morals to some degree, and Oriya would not have been able to say that the assumption was entirely false.

But he assured Nagai that he was not involved in Muraki's suspicious-death spree. The only contacts of Muraki's that he knew by name or face were those who were also his clients, and most of them occupied high places in public office or business. Muraki had always been meticulous about separating his colleagues from his friends—and his colleagues from one another—for just this reason. "I merely know that man well enough to guess how he might act. I was tipped off about one of the victims a few months ago. She was an old friend of the family. The report included nothing to suggest foul play, I didn't even know at that point that Muraki might still be alive—"

"You just knew he was somehow involved. Because, as I understand it, you two go way back?"

"That's correct."

There was a long exhale on the other end, as Nagai debated with herself whether to believe him. She must have concluded that she had no choice, as she went on, "As for the other sighting, it can neither be confirmed nor denied. I will say that there were detectives outside Sakuraiji's house that night who claimed to see a man matching Muraki's description entering the front gate. I'm sure I don't need to tell you his appearance is rather unique."

"He's not likely to be mistaken for anyone else," Oriya agreed.

"True. But unfortunately, I can't corroborate their statements. Only one of the detectives made it through that night alive, and the last I heard from his department is he's undergoing psychiatric evaluation for post-traumatic stress. I doubt they'll let him speak to you about this, no matter whom you blackmail.

"So I'm sorry, Mr. Mibu. I wish I could give you something solid to go on where Dr. Sakuraiji is concerned, but I've given you all the information I have."

Consciousness filtered in slowly. Bright light forcing his eyes open, forming white toruses in his blurry vision.

It wasn't the first morning Tsuzuki had woken feeling heavy and sated. And used. The last few nights had been surreal, almost dreamlike. And though the well-aged Scotch Muraki had shared with him had been only partly to blame, Tsuzuki knew his limits and was certain he hadn't overindulged. If he had, he would have woken with a headache to testify to it.

And the sex would not have remained so fresh in his mind. Fresher than he would have liked in the clarity of morning, when there was nothing to distract him from his regret and self-disgust, and no dark corners to hide his guilt in. No matter how he told himself not to feel anything, he couldn't help it. The more he denied needing Muraki's touch, the more willfully his body betrayed him. Once he'd opened that door, even if he had done so out of spite, he could not seem to close it again. Under Muraki's touch, under his mouth—

—moving up the inside of his thigh, lips pressing so lightly against the sensitive swath above his knee that it sent a shiver shooting up his body. He managed to bite down on his gasp—but couldn't quite catch the lift of his hips, which only encouraged Muraki to pull him closer. His backside rested against Muraki's thighs, his own legs resting at immodest angles. . . .

Move, damn it, he tried to tell himself. Fight this! But his head felt heavy as an anchor against the wrinkled sheets, his hands unresponsive beside it as he watched Muraki over the length of his own naked body. Snow-white hands that had no business being as warm or as familiar as they were caressed and explored him, made his nerves sing, and Tsuzuki was forced to admit to himself the uncomfortable truth: that it wasn't that he couldn't move, but that he didn't want to. . . .

His hands curled into weak fists in the sheets as he willed himself to wipe the memory of the night before from his mind, or bury it so deep he might fool himself into thinking he had forgotten it. But these attempts at self-castigation were becoming ever more ridiculous as one night's indulgence bled into the next. Never mind that Muraki was a consummate giver of pleasure. As much as Tsuzuki loathed himself for succumbing, he couldn't pretend he wasn't affected, or that he didn't want to see each decadent torture Muraki devised for him to its end. It was only after he reached the end . . .

He was missing time. There was no other way to explain it. It was more than just exerting himself to exhaustion. There had to be something else going on, making Tsuzuki feel as though there were days he couldn't account for, and moments that refused to adhere to any sort of chronological order. He'd see flashes of Muraki in his memory—over drinks or over Tsuzuki, or standing in a doorway—see his lips move and form words, and hear his muffled voice, as though he were speaking through water, yet not be able to recall what on earth they had talked about.

He's drugging me again. Because I'm getting close to figuring this all out. That has to be it.

Either that, or Tsuzuki had been here so long he was genuinely starting to lose his will to fight. And neither one of those possibilities was better than the other. He had to get out, before he stopped minding altogether that he was being kept here like a pet in a cage.

He spent the mornings alone, as ever. Made his way to the dining room, where breakfast was waiting, still hot. Tsuzuki's stomach growled at the aroma of it, pleading to be filled, but the thought of eating something that might be laced had a tendency to quell one's hunger. What good would eating do a creature like him anyway? Each day here was the same as the next, repeating the same motions over and over and over. . . .

And lately, examining every room in his prison all over again for any structural weakness or hidden passageway he might have missed the first or dozenth time around. The library for moving bookcases, the fireplaces and their mantles for secret doors. The windows remained as opaque and unbreakable as ever. More and more Tsuzuki was convinced Muraki entered the apartment by some sort of teleportation, tuned by some combination of spells that only he was able to penetrate. If that were the case, maybe Tsuzuki should have been concentrating more on getting Muraki drunk, or trying to seduce the secret out of him. He already knew violence or the threat of death wouldn't work.

There was one corner of his prison he hadn't examined quite as thoroughly, though it was with good reason. The operating room where Muraki had strapped him down and sliced him open was on that end, and, seeing as Tsuzuki had found no other need for it, he had avoided that room and its end of the hallway like the two were a snake in his path. It was only with great reluctance that he resolved to make an intensive study of it as well.

After just half an hour of doing so, however, the only result was that Tsuzuki now felt he had an even keener grasp of the depths of Muraki's depravity. There may not have been any actual skeletons in the cabinet, but the varieties of restraints Tsuzuki did have to push through to examine the back of it for hidden doors would have made the Count envious.

So. No exit there either. To Chijou or Narnia or otherwise.

Heaving a deep breath as he leaned against the outer wall of the room, Tsuzuki felt what hope he had managed to muster up that morning fade. All that time spent in that vile room, for nothing. He shut his eyes as the memory of that day resurfaced, bringing with the pain and humiliation a fresh wave of nausea.

Or was it the knowledge of how far he had fallen since that day? It couldn't have been as long ago as it felt. He had vowed then that he would never give himself willingly to Muraki. Christ, how short "never" had turned out to be. . . .

Feeling the dizziness pass, Tsuzuki opened his eyes—

And did an actual double-take. That can't be right. . . .

Yet there, in the wall across from him, staring at him through the wallpaper and the plaster beneath, was the faint but unmistakable outline of a doorway. Finding it hard to believe his own eyes, Tsuzuki ran his hand over the perturbation. It was slight. The patching had been executed professionally. Even the wallpaper seemed to have been carefully aged in an attempt to match the original. If not for the angle of the sunlight coming in through the room behind him, illuminating the differences, he might never have known it was there at all.

God damn it! That doorway had been there all along, and he had never noticed it!

Tsuzuki slammed his fist into the plaster, ignoring the pain as his knuckles bit into wood. He managed to crack the plaster enough that he could pry some of the bloodied pieces away.

And saw beneath a wooden jamb. And inside it, a door.

Tsuzuki laughed. Of all the surprises he'd been subjected to these last few months, finally one of them was good. He only prayed the door led to somewhere other than this apartment. He couldn't afford to get his hopes up too much, just in case the only thing he found behind it was another useless room.

But one thing at a time. First he had to uncover this door. And though he could punch at it until he broke every bone in his hand several times over, the work would go a lot faster if he could find a pry bar.

"I'm glad you were able to meet with me, Mr. Mibu." The young man named Miyake managed to keep the unflappably optimistic smile on his face even as he said, "We're really beginning to worry about Dr. Sakuraiji. It isn't typical of her to take such a long vacation, let alone without any word about where she might be headed or how to reach her. The only person around here who she told anything about it to was Dr. Akiyama, and after she committed suicide—"

Oriya held up a hand. "Excuse me, Dr. Miyake—"

"Er, it's not 'Doctor' yet, I'm afraid. I'm still in the process of submitting my thesis. Another reason I wish I knew how to reach Dr. Sakuraiji. Her feedback has been invaluable to me."

None of which mattered to Oriya one whit. "Mr. Miyake, then," he said, forcing himself to be patient. "You'll have to forgive me. I'm not familiar with Dr. Akiyama at all." Though this talk of suicide was troubling, and probably not the most appropriate line of discussion for the cafe full of university students and housewives with young children where they had agreed to meet. "But this is the first I've heard of Ukyou taking an extended vacation."

Miyake's brows went up behind his glasses, his mouth making a little "o" of surprise. "You said you were an old colleague of Sensei's? From Kyoto?"

"That's right. I never pursued medicine the way she did, though. We went our separate ways professionally long ago, but we have stayed close in spirit."

"Sensei usually goes to Kyoto on vacation—er, when she does go on vacation. She can stay in the labs twenty-four-seven when she's making serious headway on her project. We used to worry the lack of sleep was going to put her in the hospital one of these days, but she seems to thrive on it. Uh," Miyake must have realized he was wandering off on tangents, and corrected his course: "when you said over the phone you two had been friends since university, I kind of assumed you were the one she was going up to visit."

The kid was clever, Oriya had to hand him that. The kind of quick mind for solving puzzles that the Ukyou he knew would be eager to recruit. Without the mercurial temperament prone to melancholy to go along with it, like that of their old mutual friend.

"I haven't heard from her in months," Oriya hated to confirm. "I wish I could say that she had come to see me—"

"But then you wouldn't be here asking after her, if that were the case," Miyake nodded solemnly to himself.

The implications of this line of discussion were growing too dark for Oriya's comfort. And outside, the clouds from the last rainstorm were giving way to blue sky. He folded his arms against an unseasonable chill. "Tell me about this other colleague of yours. This Dr. Akiyama, was it? You say Ukyou told her where she was going?"

"Mm." Miyake nodded. "At least, that's what Dr. Akiyama told us. She told us Dr. Sakuraiji had been called away suddenly on a top secret assignment and that she was leaving the project in Akiyama's charge until her return." He scrunched his brows. "Now that I say it out loud, I realize how suspicious that sounds. But, believe it or not, it wouldn't be the first time that happened. The nature of Sensei's work means she's often called in to meet with government officials or big medical firms. I can't go into details beyond that, proprietary information and whatnot—though, if you two are such close friends, you probably know a bit about the sorts of things she was working on."

Oriya couldn't help a small, lopsided smile. He wondered if Miyake had ever seen the everblooming cherry trees the company he worked for had developed. Granted, the line of designer plants had been a short one, and the clientele extremely selective; it may have been before Miyake's time and above his pay grade; but Oriya did not doubt, given the glowing tones in which he spoke of his "Sensei," that Miyake would be awed if he could see the beauty Ukyou's earlier work had wrought.

"The weird thing about this time," Miyake went on, as if suddenly remembering, "is that we'd finally made the breakthrough Sensei had been hoping for. So it surprised me that she would leave so soon after, rather than staying to document the progress and run new trials.

"And then, one day, about a month after she left, all our research just vanished. Literally overnight. Some men in uniform came and removed it all from the building, and all of us arrived for work the next morning to an office empty of just about everything but the potted plants. I joke, but it was eerie. Even the mice and rabbits had been taken. I'm guessing they were agents sent from the government, though Dr. Akiyama said something about shinigami when she called me about it."

Oriya had found his attention starting to wane, as more and more his own worries and theories fought for supremacy in his thoughts.

But when Miyake said "shinigami," he started back to the present. "Shinigami doesn't sound like something a doctor of medicine would put much stock in. Do you think she was speaking figuratively?"

"That's what I thought, too!" Miyake's eyes went wide behind his glasses. "I asked her about it, but she sure seemed adamant that actual shinigami had stolen our research. Now, I know rational people like you and me don't believe in things like that," the young man said in a conspiratorial whisper, "and, honestly, I didn't think Dr. Akiyama did either. But something made a believer out of her that night. Something spooked her. Enough to make her jump in front of a train the next day? I don't know. I can't know what was going through her head. All I know is, she sounded rattled, and desperate. People do things they wouldn't otherwise when they're desperate, and not thinking straight. . . ."

Miyake went to take a sip of his coffee, and as he did so, some missing piece of the puzzle must have finally dropped into place. "You don't think these so-called shinigami had anything to do with Dr. Sakuraiji's disappearance, do you? Or maybe Dr. Akiyama was responsible in some way, and all that stuff about Sensei going on vacation was just to cover her own butt? What if she knew the authorities were on to her, and she killed herself out of guilt before they could arrest her and discredit her research!"

"I doubt it's anything as dramatic as that," Oriya was quick to reassure him, though his own theories were not so far off. Doubtless this Dr. Akiyama was connected in some way to whatever had happened to Ukyou, and the shinigami that had inspired such panic in her were real. Though Miyake did not need to know just how real they were. "Knowing Ukyou as I do, if she went away in such a hurry, it was because she didn't want to be contacted."

Yet, whatever he might tell Miyake to ease his nerves, Oriya couldn't force himself to believe his own line. If Ukyou hadn't made any attempt to contact her employees in all the time she had been missing, it was most likely because she couldn't. And all he could do was pray that the reason she couldn't was not that she was dead. If she were dead, I would feel it.

At least, that was what he told himself. One had to have hope, if he were to keep searching.

The phone in his jacket pocket started to vibrate. Oriya retrieved it, and upon seeing the number, told Miyake by way of apology, "I need to take this."

"Sure," Miyake said as he jumped up from his seat, and offered his hand to Oriya. "And good luck. I really hope you find her."

It wasn't easy, or quiet, but Tsuzuki managed to break open the door hidden and sealed behind the plaster. Muraki wouldn't be pleased when he found the mess left behind—which included the ugly hole where the brass wall sconce had been, before Tsuzuki ripped it out as his tool of choice for demolition—but with any luck he would be far from here before the doctor came home.

That sconce he now held at the ready as a weapon. It made Tsuzuki uneasy that no one came running at the noise he made. Which surprised him almost as much as the narrow, spiraling servants' staircase that the door revealed. Aged varnish filled his senses. A creak of the stair beneath Tsuzuki's foot made him pause in mid-step. And listen. If there was someone here with him, someone close enough to hear the creak, it wouldn't be long before he heard their footsteps coming to investigate, or saw their face appear at the bottom of the stairs.

But seconds went by, minutes, and no one came. It was hard to believe—he didn't think Muraki would be so careless as to leave him without some sort of guard—but it was possible that Tsuzuki was in this house all by himself.

Still, knowing that he might meet resistance at any moment, he resumed his descent with the utmost caution, easing his weight gently onto each stair. Holding the sconce at the level of his eyes, just in case of trouble.

The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee edged out the varnish the closer Tsuzuki got to the landing. Beyond the butler's pantry the staircase ended in, he could see an European cottage-style kitchen, dark as twilight despite the light of noon streaming into the floor above. Surely there would be a door at the back of it, or else close by. Escape could be only steps away.

But before Tsuzuki could take one step outside the pantry, a silver arc, flashing across his vision, made him leap back.

The next moment, stinging pain lashed across his midsection. He hissed, felt the warm trickle of blood beneath his shirt. It couldn't have been too deep, but it was shocking enough. And the old man in the suit who had dealt it would not allow Tsuzuki to dwell on his wounds any further. He jabbed at Tsuzuki with a kitchen knife nearly as long as his forearm, and it was all Tsuzuki could do to dodge its point. What he wouldn't have given to have some fuda at hand right about now.

"Wait-wait-wait!" he tried to reason with the man, but he wouldn't hear. He slashed again, and Tsuzuki managed to hook the blade in the crook of the sconce, and deflect it. "This is a big misunderstanding, I'm not a burglar! I was being held prisoner upstairs, I only just escaped. Please, you have to believe me. Help me get out of here!"

"I know exactly who you are, Mr. Shinigami," the old man said. And with that last word, what hope Tsuzuki had had that he might find an easy way out of this vanished.

Yet the man was polite to a fault as he said, "And I regret that I cannot allow you to leave. My master's wish is that you remain here until he determines otherwise, and I shall do everything in my power to ensure his will is carried out!"

The last the man growled out as he lunged at Tsuzuki again. The knife's edge sliced into Tsuzuki's arm as he raised it to defend himself, stumbling back into pantry doors that gave just enough beneath his weight to throw him off balance. He raised the sconce in his other hand, only to have it kicked out of his grip. Tsuzuki dove for an exit, before he could be impaled by that wicked knife, but felt the man right behind him, and turned just in time to parry a salvo of blows.

Jesus, who is this guy? If Tsuzuki had to guess, he would put the man somewhere in his late-sixties, but he moved like he was half that age. There was something familiar about his fighting style, too, a fluid combination of elements of different hand-to-hand and bladed weapon techniques. Is this where Muraki gets it from? His butler?

Whichever the case, Tsuzuki's only concern in that moment was staying in one piece long enough to escape. He wanted to turn and run for all he was worth, but he had no idea which way to go. And the old man was dishing out more than enough to keep Tsuzuki occupied, just trying to dodge that blade. He wasn't about to grant Tsuzuki a single moment in which to orient himself.

This was one time Tsuzuki could not afford to be incapacitated. He may not have been facing down monsters or demons, but he knew that if he allowed himself to be captured now, in the middle of an attempted escape, he might never get out. If he were in Muraki's position, Tsuzuki wouldn't even trust himself to have free reign of his apartment prison again. And eight years was long enough to spend chained to a bed for any lifetime, even his.

"Is that what those robots over at the National Police told you?" said Councillor Oda, whose lawyer Oriya had been trying to learn the true fate of ever since his phone conversation with Ms. Nagai.

"Why? What story did you hear?"

"Muraki was there that night, alright," the Councillor grumbled. "Got picked up coming in on a flight to Narita. Usually he can come to an understanding with law enforcement to drop whatever investigation they bring him in on, and that's why I sent my attorney. To make sure a quick end was put to the whole thing. But that night Muraki wasn't playing the game the way he was supposed to. He starts talking like he's going to confess to something, then, all of a sudden, he slams my attorney's head into the interrogation room table with enough force to cave his face in. Next thing I hear, officers are claiming some huge, winged devil-man is wreaking havoc inside the station."

"A devil-man? That doesn't sound like Muraki." But it did sound like something he would be involved in, if Oriya knew Muraki half as well as he thought he did. Mentally, he cursed his old friend. How many people did he have to rope into his schemes, who, though they may not have been innocent, never asked to play a part?

"Well, the man's a devil, for sure," Oda spat. "But there's something fishy about the whole thing. A few hours later, the Commissioner retracts the statement, saying it was a case of mistaken identity, coupled with some sort of mass hallucination. Some guy hopped up on psychoactive drugs who merely looked identical to Muraki in every way." That got a derisive laugh out the Diet member. "Of course, if you know Muraki as well as I do, you know there's no way in hell they could have arrested the wrong guy."

Sure. Oriya had been hearing the same thing ever since he began looking into Ukyou's disappearance: No one could have mistaken Muraki's identity, even when they claimed to see him in two places at once, because there was no one else who looked quite like him.

But that still didn't mean he was alive. If his run-in with shinigami had taught Oriya anything, it was that one's life, for lack of a better term, did not end with death. If the souls of the dead could be granted physical bodies by one supernatural source, what was to say another could not do the same thing? For that matter, what was to say Enma himself—if he truly existed—had not sent Muraki back from whatever hell he had landed in after the university fire five years ago?

Still, it had to be said: "Surely you must have heard as I did, Councillor, that Muraki died in an accident—"

"Bull. Shit. Er, if you'll pardon my language. . . ." (It seemed running an historic establishment like the Kokakurou left his clientele with an impression that Oriya could not handle crude language or modern slang; but he could have reminded them that he encountered much worse in the day-to-day operations of a brothel.) "But I know for a fact Muraki didn't die in that fire."

"You have proof?" Oriya said, grateful the sudden racing of his heart wouldn't be noticeable over the cell phone.

"The good doctor set me up with a new liver just last year. Had to go all the way to America to get it, cost me a small fortune, too, but I'd say the trip was well worth the trouble. You ever been on an Alaskan cruise, Mr. Mibu?"

Oriya could not say he had had the pleasure.

"All the wild salmon and king crab you can eat. And not a waiting list in sight."

Yes, Oriya was very glad they were having this conversation by phone. Or else the Councillor, who happened to be one of his clients as well, might have guessed from his clenched jaw and nervous energy how thoroughly Oriya despised him. Keeping his tone cordial was like a game, and Oriya was determined to win it, though it pained him. "And you saw Muraki with your own eyes on this trip?"

"He performed the surgery. Bastard's face was the last thing I saw before he put me under. I told him if I died on the operating table, I would sue his ass into the ground from beyond the grave."

"And you wonder why he killed your lawyer."

Oriya hadn't meant it as a joke, but the Councillor got a hearty laugh out of that anyway, muttering some comment about the guy being a pompous asshole. "My attorney, I meant, but I guess the shoe fits either way. Still, he did a hell of a job, while he lived. He's not going to be easy to replace."

"Unlike a liver."

The comment wasn't supposed to slip out, but Oriya needn't have worried. That got just as big a laugh out of the politician as his other non-joke. "I like you, Mibu," Oda said. "You've always treated me well in the past. Why don't I return the favor? Let me give you the number Muraki gave me. You won't reach him directly. But if you want to get in contact with him, prove to yourself he's still alive, that's the best place to start. And when you see him—if you see him—tell that bastard he owes me a new lawyer."

With the dining room table standing between him and his doom for the moment, Tsuzuki finally was allowed a chance to catch his breath.

And felt a wave of dizziness and stabbing pain below his ribs as he breathed in. He put his hand to the cut to his abdomen. It was healing, sealing itself back up, but the pain was on the inside of the wound. And spreading. Like wildfire.

Tsuzuki cursed through his teeth. Poison. Had to be. Not the stuff Muraki had tortured him with, thank God, but still enough to slow him down, once it got into his bloodstream.

Not that his attacker seemed to need the advantage. He may have chased Tsuzuki throughout this labyrinth of a house, kicking and jabbing and raining blow after blow upon Tsuzuki, but he barely broke a sweat.

"I suspect you're feeling the effects of the paralytic agent," the man said, noticing Tsuzuki's trouble. "It's a unique blend I created for just this likelihood. Rapidly absorbing, fast-acting, slow to metabolize out of the system—ideal for use on a being such as yourself. You'll have to forgive the underhanded tactics, Mr. Tsuzuki, but, as you can see, we don't all have the pleasure of an eternally youthful body, and I myself have a particular dislike of failure."

"You know my name?"

"Unfortunately, I know all too much about you. For example, how you already drove two Murakis to their graves. You won't get a third, if I have anything to say about it."

Two Murakis? He must have meant the father and grandfather. So Kazutaka wasn't the only one the old man had worked for. It was no wonder then that he spoke to Tsuzuki like he knew him from long ago—like Tsuzuki wronged him long ago.

Yet, other than that, Tsuzuki knew nothing about this man, not even his name. Another disadvantage the man had him at. "I'm not going to surrender," Tsuzuki muttered through the pain. "You want to keep me here, you're going to have to kill me. And you're going to need a lot more than poison to do it."

Sakaki hummed at that. He was losing patience with this childish game of trying to pursue Tsuzuki around the dining table. It felt beneath him. Or maybe it was that Tsuzuki knew just how difficult it made him to catch that irked Sakaki so. "Or I can simply bide my time and wait for the agent to take its full effect," he told the shinigami calmly. "It's probably reaching your heart as we speak, making it race, misfire, even as it robs your extremities of control. . . ."

Impossible, Tsuzuki thought. He couldn't really know that. But it seemed at the old man's words his heart fluttered like a bird beating against the bars of its cage. Leaving him short of breath, weak in the limbs. Spots across his vision—

Don't listen to him. It's psychosomatic. Listening will only make it worse. Muraki said you can push through any poison if you really want to. That was the whole point of your training. Ignore the symptoms. You're a shinigami, for crying out loud!

Tsuzuki staggered, reaching out for the nearest chair for support. It was Sakaki's cue to move around the end of the table. Cautiously he approached, as if it were a tranquilized tiger before him, rather than a man.

But then, it never had been a man, his quarry. He could not allow himself to even think of it as a "he," after witnessing what his obsession had done to Yukitaka, what it had made him. After witnessing what that accursed blood had turned the gentle boy he had sworn to protect into. Sakaki might have said even he had been sucked into Tsuzuki's event horizon, if he could fool himself into believing he had been some purer sort of character before he threw his lot in with the Murakis.

But even had he had any regrets, he could not go back and change the past. All he could do now was his part, and hope he might convince Kazutaka once and for all that this nonsense had gone on quite long enough. But first, his master had to be made to understand just how false the trust he placed in this shinigami was.

The blood pounding in Tsuzuki's ears was deafening. He tried to shake it away, but only succeeded in feeling more unsteady on his feet. He saw the old man coming toward him, and knew if he had to rely on his reflexes to defend himself he was finished.

But the energy inside him didn't care whether he was poisoned. He let the pulse burst from his core, pushing the heavy wooden table and its chairs across the room, and shattering every piece of crystal nearby. Sakaki was lifted up like a doll and thrown back against the far wall, the knife knocked out of his grip on impact—

And that was Tsuzuki's chance. He knew he wasn't going to get another one. Despite his racing heart, despite the walls and doorways tipping at impossible angles before him, he ran toward where the front door had to be. Feeling like a pachinko ball, ricocheting off jambs as he stumbled through one room trapped in another time after another, knowing he had to reach the exit eventually. Turning a corner, he had it in his sights—

When the report of a rifle echoed through the house, and blinding pain in the back of Tsuzuki's thigh sent him falling headlong. He grasped for anything to keep him upright, but the only thing within reach was a floor lamp that went down along with him, its stained-glass shade shattering under his weight.

The jagged pieces cut into Tsuzuki as he scrabbled to push himself up off the floor. But his wounded leg wouldn't hold his weight, not even when he got himself onto his knees. He couldn't see the wound, but he could feel it as he gingerly turned himself around, and the extent of the ruined flesh. It might take a few minutes to heal from something like that.

Minutes he didn't have, as he saw Muraki's man approach, the rifle, barrel still smoking, leveled at Tsuzuki's chest, and ready to end him should Tsuzuki so much as twitch wrong.

"I know you'll just come back to life if I kill you," the man said, his words and the barrel of the gun seeming to waver in Tsuzuki's perception as the pain and poison did their work. "But I'd rather not have to do this the hard way. Killing you will just leave me a bigger mess to clean up."

In his delirium, Tsuzuki couldn't help a laugh. What did he call all this, if not hard?

I'm not going. I'm not going back. If Muraki's man wanted Tsuzuki back in that apartment, he was going to have to drag Tsuzuki's corpse there himself. Defiance curled his hand into a fist—and he found within it a shard of glass from the broken shade, long and pointy—

"Last chance, Mr. Tsuzuki—"

"Alright."

Slowly, gritting his teeth as any weight seemed to only worsen the damage to his leg, Tsuzuki managed to hoist himself to his feet. Entirely aware of the gun still pointing at his heart, but not concerned. As the man had said, he would only come back if he were shot.

"Hands where I can see them," Sakaki told him.

But Tsuzuki didn't intend to do anything of the sort. He lunged, just as the gun went off. Too late. The shot tore through his shoulder, but missed anything vital. Though the same could not be said for Tsuzuki's shard of glass.

It was always the same. Like cutting into some soft fruit, the hard part was breaking through the tension of the skin. But once that barrier was penetrated . . .

He could feel the man stiffen against his knuckles, knew the instinctual, animal fear of breathing in, as though one could stop the reality of vital damage and the pain that came with it if one simply refused to breathe. But he would not stop. A wound to the gut, no matter how deep the laceration, would not be enough to deter a man as loyal as him from his mission.

So Tsuzuki pulled out the shard and plunged it back in again. And again. And again. He couldn't be sure how many times exactly. Just repeat until he felt like his message got through, and the gun at last dropped to the floor. "I'm sorry," Tsuzuki hissed, "but I told you, I'm not going back."

The man sagged against Tsuzuki, grabbing feebly for him for support. His hands crawled toward Tsuzuki's throat, even as his blood spilled out into Tsuzuki's hands. It was like a nightmare. It was one of his nightmares: the accusing dead, reaching for him, refusing to stay buried.

Feeling panic rise in him, Tsuzuki tore himself out of the man's grip. The old man fell to his hands and knees as though in slow motion—or maybe it was just Tsuzuki's own swimming vision—but Tsuzuki didn't wait around to see if he would pick up the gun again. Though his wounded leg shot jolts of pain up his spine with every step, he staggered to the door, somehow fumbled the locks open, and all but fell out on to the step. Assailed by the drone of insects and distant traffic, and abraded by the fresh air.

Despite the natural light that had filtered into the apartment, the full strength of the summer sunlight was blinding after his incarceration. Tsuzuki had to shut his eyes, tried to shield them enough to open them again; but it was useless. The sun streamed daggers straight into his brain, to not just blind but deafen him, disorient him. Making him trip as he stepped off the doorstep and fall to the ground. Gravel bit into his knees through his trousers, and into the palms of his hands.

When Tsuzuki was able to open his eyes a little, it was the blood on those hands that greeted him, smearing on the white gravel walk. The sound of city traffic on a nearby street slowly overwhelmed the pounding of his own heart. He looked up to follow it, and saw a cottage garden filled with roses. Like he was back at Yukitaka's clinic, all over again. . . .

No, those had been pink and yellow. These were a wine-dark red, arterial red, almost black in the full sun, and the size of saucers. Like the ones that Muraki had been leaving in his room—

Muraki. So this is where you were keeping me, all this time. . . . All this time, and I was so close. . . .

Tears of frustration and relief threatened. But he had to leave. Now, before Muraki came home. Or he would never get away.

He had to find a place to hide, to nurse his wounds and clean himself up, and try to figure out what it was he had just done.

Just like he'd been doing ever since he was a child.

The phone number Oda had given him went unanswered when Oriya tried to call.

But it did lead him to a house, one which looked just like Oriya imagined one belonging to Muraki Yukitaka would, given what tales he had heard about the man from Kazutaka. A grand manor that would have fit some European countryside better than a neighborhood of Tokyo, with a stone brick facade, painted shutters around all the windows, an immaculately tended English garden.

It was just the sort of place that would appeal to Kazutaka's aesthetic. And, for that reason, Oriya kicked himself that he did not think of the place sooner. He should have remembered their conversations from their university days, how Muraki had bitched and moaned about having to pay taxes and upkeep on the place that he had inherited. Yet every time Oriya had suggested selling it, or leasing it out to tenants, his friend would become overly defensive. As though Oriya had suggested he burn it to the ground. Or piss on his grandfather's gravestone, for that matter.

Despite its well-maintained appearance, however, Oriya had no way of telling if the house was currently occupied. Or, for that matter, who might be living there. But he had to try. If it was not someone currently connected to Muraki, then perhaps he would at least find someone who might give him some clue as to where his old friend had gone.

Or confirm that he was truly dead, and that all these other supposed sightings had been nothing but pranks or misunderstandings all along.

He rang the buzzer at the gate, and crushed his cigarette out on the sidewalk beneath his shoe while he waited for an answer.

And as he waited, and studied the house over the top of the gate, Oriya noticed that the front door was open. Just enough that the shadow over the entryway hadn't allowed Oriya to see it right away. The more he studied it, the more certain he was the door had been left cracked, by about the width of a human foot.

If Oriya knew anything about Muraki, it was that his old friend would never be so careless. Oriya rushed to the stoop. Disturbed by the sight of what looked like blood on the gravel walk, he let himself in.

And found the body of a man with silver hair lying face-down on the landing, his cracked glasses beside him.

Only for a second did Oriya fear it was Kazutaka. But he recognized his friend's butler from their days in university. He hurried to Sakaki's side, feeling for a pulse and, when he found one, carefully turned the man over.

"Shit. . . ."

Blood was everywhere. Soaking Sakaki's once-white shirt until it was almost black and making it impossible for Oriya to see where it was all coming from, or from how many wounds. It pooled on the floor beneath Sakaki and led a smeared trail down the hallway. He must have crawled toward the front door before he lost consciousness—but to call for help, or to pursue his attacker? How long he had been lying there, Oriya could only guess, but surely whoever—or whatever—had done this was long gone by now.

It was at times like this that Oriya wished he had stuck with medicine. Maybe then he would have known what to do to help the man, and he might not have felt so utterly useless. Sakaki's blood left sticky prints on his phone as Oriya flipped it open, and, with trembling hand, dialed 119.