Dark Adaptation – Dead Men Working.
DISCLAIMER: Yami no Matseui and its' affiliated characters, concepts and locations belong to Yoko Matsushita and I am earning nothing but the sole satisfaction of telling this story to you fine people.
A/N: Warning; incredible gore, disturbing imagery and the like in this chapter. You have been warned. Proceed with caution!
~ X ~
"The lantern bearer lights the way
For those who no more seize the day
Blind eyes peer out from every head
That crowds the carriage of the dead..."
~ Unknown
~ X ~
The Librarian
Tsuzuki
I tucked the device away and worked slowly back towards the stairwell, all too aware of how many bodies remained in the receptionist area. Thankfully, the bearded man appeared to be the only one whom had gotten it in his head to move about. The others all remained where they had fallen. I swept the room once more and having assured myself beyond doubt that nobody was lurking on the ground floor, I headed up the stairs and entered the first floor. The security booth was built into one of the walls on the left hand side and I peeked through the window to see Watari increasingly occupied with the terminal. I waved at him through the glass and indicated with my hands that I was going to take one last look around the area. He nodded and mouthed 'Be careful' back at me, before returning his attention to the glowing screen in front of him.
The first floor had a large computer area to my immediate front and isles of bookshelves for as far as the eye could see to the left. I stepped over a splayed body and the pile of books he must have been carrying, apologizing internally as I did. He didn't lunge up and sink his teeth into my ankle, so I made my way into the study area unhindered, crouching down from time to time in order to check beneath the benches. I wondered to myself whether Watari had thought to bring any medical supplies. It would be just our luck to find a survivor, badly injured and not have so much as a BandAid to offer. I could only hope he had more foresight than I'd had-
THUMP!
A sound of something heavy falling to the floor, somewhere close by. I raised myself up from the crouch I had only just assumed, turning to face the far wall from whence the muffled noise had come. I was suddenly reminded of every cheesy late night horror movie I had ever seen; a seemingly empty building, a strange noise, some half-witted idiot blindly barreling through a door and finding nothing, only to get his head lobbed off… I shuddered, deciding then and there that I was never going to stay behind at the Ministry so late ever again. Bad things happened to those who hung about to let bad things happen to them.
Shunting my nerves aside, I started towards one of the two doors on the far wall, shoes clacking loudly against the wooden floor. A slide in sign said that this was 'Storage' and when I paused to check the map Watari had given me, I saw that it was actually composed of a number of winding corridors and affixed rooms. Deciding not to waste any more time, I set my hand on the door lever and pushed it down, a little surprised to find that it was unlocked. I slung the rifle behind my shoulder, neglecting its' use in favor of my own mana specific abilities and pushed the door open fast and hard with my foot, stepping through and swinging about to appraise the corridor beyond.
There were a number of boxes placed randomly about the hallway, overflowing with books. A gray locker stood against the right hand wall, locked as far as I could tell. It was dimly lit by modern light fixtures, one of which was flickering on and off, clearly in need of replacement. The illumination was more than enough however to make out the thick trails of blood on the walls, adorned slapdash and without purpose. It was as though someone had picked up a can of red paint and simply splashed it around the room for effects sake. I swept the hallway with my eyes, taking in the stately elegance of even this, the storage area and realized that I was alone. Whoever or whatever had made that noise, was not there.
I cleared my throat. Called out, "Anyone there?"
Silence.
"… No answer. Never a good sign. Unless of course I'm dealing with a deaf and or incredibly rude individual. Can't rule anything out." I knocked the safety in place on the rifle and started for the first door down the corridor. Light beamed out into the hallway and I could see the edge of a coffee station through the opened doorway. I peeked inside, seeing no one. A coffee cup sat on the bench top, steam still curling from the surface of the dark liquid. Someone had been in here recently, perhaps unaware of what had occurred downstairs. I hoped this meant that there was a survivor. Judging however, from the amount of runny, red stuff in the hallway I gathered my chances were slim. And growing slimmer by the second the more that I dawdled about. I moved on, reaching out to open the second door I came across, turning the knob slowly, listening for any sound or movement on the other side. I could hear nothing over the sound of my own harried breathing, amplified by the halls echoing acoustics.
The door opened into a brightly lit storage place, filled with tall, gray sliding shelves in which books were placed for special purposes, I supposed. I quickly checked both directions. Nothing moved between the shelves. The entire room was gray and dark, even with the lights burning so brightly in the high ceiling.
I wrinkled my nose, frowning. There was a vague odor in the air, a faint scent of something unpleasant – something familiar. I stood in the doorway another moment, trying to place the smell.
Some years ago, I had been assigned to investigate a series of murders taking place in the city of Nobeoka, in Kyushu. With my then partner Koboyashi, I traced the murders back to a Chemical factory, upon the discovery that a number of the victims sported alarming degenerative burns; caused by Sulfuric acid. As we had been moving about the factory in the dead of night, the paranormal killer who had been perpetrating the crimes confronted me. In the ensuing fight, I was knocked off of one of the landings only to alight upon a series of closed over tanks situated directly below the awning, causing them to burst open. Inside two of them, were the pulpy, putrefying remains of three, until then, undiscovered victims, left to decompose with the aided effects of the acid. They had been there so long that they were barely recognizable as having once been human. And my nose had been about an inch from the sludgy residue.
Much to the amusement of Kobayashi, I'd vomited my evening's sweet intake all over the carcasses, unable to hold back in time to afford them any sense of dignity. I managed to crawl two feet away, before I was violently ill again.
I still remembered the acid-decayed scent of mildewed rot, like thickly soured cream or milk; the same smell that lingered in the doorway then, like an echo that would not dissipate.
I stepped into the room proper and searched through the shelves, finding that the smell grew fainter the further I moved from the door. Satisfied that there was nothing to be found in the storage space, I returned to the corridor, breathing through my mouth as the stink came back to haunt me. I couldn't imagine where it might have been coming from. I moved a little further down the hall, looking from side to side as I made my way towards the next door and came to a stop as the flickering over head light picked up something beside the steel locker I had just passed.
For a split second, my mind couldn't accept what I was seeing. I forced myself to crouch and take a good hard look.
A silver teaspoon, adorned by brown drops of still warm coffee-
The rest was in shadow and with morbid reluctance, I withdrew the torch from my belt and flicked it on, aiming the beam down in order to illuminate what until then, I had left to hopeless introspection.
- and a disembodied human hand still clutching it, hacked off brutally at the center of the forearm.
I drew a sharp intake of breath, finding my eyes flick betrayingly down towards the ragged tendrils of veins trailing across the wooden floor like tentacles from a jellyfish. The flesh looked suspiciously, gnawed open, sporting a number of bloodied teeth marks, particularly about the bloodied serration.
It seemed grimly ironic, that only minutes ago I had been wondering whether or not we had the supplies with which to treat an injured survivor. Assuming that this individual was still alive, he or she was severely wounded. God only knows how I would even begin to treat a severed arm, limited experience that I had in basic triage.
CRASH!
I turned my attention away from the dismembered limb as the doorway down the far end of the corridor came crashing open. An ashen-faced young man came stumbling through, careening off of the walls as he drew closer, holding his right hand up high beneath his opposing armpit. I could see from where I was standing that the front of his checkered shirt was soaked through with blood.
So, I had found the owner of the missing arm. And what's more, he appeared to be wholly conscious if not frightened out of his wits. The reason of which shortly thereafter presented itself.
A broad shouldered man in blue janitor's coverall's came lumbering out the door after him, eyes glowing the same hateful red hue as the bearded man's in the reading area. And just like the bodies downstairs, the Janitor's skin was dried and weathered, almost gray in color beneath the glowing iridescent lights. His clothes were spattered with still wet blood, some of which foamed on the corners of his lips. Flaps of skin hung from his sunken cheeks, lustrous eyes dancing with a hint of intelligent malice as it reached for the terrified young man with bent and buckled bloodstained fingers.
"HELP ME!" The boy screamed, bouncing off of the left hand wall and rebounding with such force he just about spun in a complete circle. I slid the rifle under my arm and back into my hands, gesturing wildly to the right with my head.
"Move, move, move!" I urged, raising the gun and taking aim in the same instance I heard a soft, hungry moan behind me. The bad smell somehow seemed to intensify and I realized with cold, cutting dread that I had neglected to check whether or not the steel locker had in fact been locked as I had passed it.
BANG!
The hoary door came flying back so hard and fast it bounced in its' hinges and the withered female corpse dropped directly onto my back, dried peeling fingers grasping at me as she lunged for my throat. I gathered she must have hidden in the locker when the hallucinations began but was not so lucky as to escape the withering effect that had befallen the others. I could feel her skin through the back of my shirt, somehow slimier than the male corpse I had previously encountered. I swallowed down a meaty gag and drove the butt of the Carbon rifle into the woman's abdomen, driving her back just enough to give me some space to maneuver. Her fingers still held me resiliently and I swiveled about, bringing my leg up into a defensive roundhouse kick. The side of my foot collided with the undead woman's face, shaving off half of her forehead in the process. She stumbled, veering sideways and around me but not stopping. Instead of renewing her onslaught against me, she changed direction and went towards the young man, now only feet away from us. I tried to stop her by grabbing a hold of her short, dark hair and pulling. With a ripping sound, the woman's scalp separated itself from her skull and I lost my balance, stumbling backwards and falling onto my ass, the dried head of hair tangled around my fingers, wispy skin still attached to the roots.
The woman screamed something in that unfamiliar language the bearded man had used as she fell on the boy, who bawled as her fingers dug into either side of his face, her mouth going directly for his eye. At the same moment, the blood spattered Janitor caught up to them and clasped the back of the boys head in both hands, screaming something accusatory at the woman as he attempted to yank the youth away.
"Let go of him!" I screamed, struggling to get back to my feet, tossing the wizened scalp aside in order to bring the carbon rifle up. Without hesitating, I fired a shot into the back of the woman's neck, leaving a dark black hole in her flesh. She wailed, her grip on the young man seeming to tighten rather than relax. I raced towards them, bringing a mana-cloaked fist up in order to strike the woman but didn't anticipate the calculated movements with which she and the bloodied janitor reacted. They spun, using the boy as a shield in order to force me to relinquish my attack and when I had nullified the mana force, spun him about like a club. The boys limp legs collided with the side of my face and I was thrown backwards from the combined force of their attack, the base of my skull slamming against the wall hard enough to momentarily blacken my vision.
Through the spots that throbbed in my vision, I could make out the anguished eyes of the boy as the once Janitor buried his fingers into the sockets, bursting the orbs and extinguishing that expression forever. I cried out in pity, forcing myself back to my feet and diving towards them, fighting back the sharp pangs of pain from my skull that made me retch. I was less than a foot away, when the scalped woman grasped the boys face, her fingers digging down deep through the flesh beneath his jawbones. There was a creaking sound, like a rusty door resting back in its' hinges and then with a mighty wrench, the undead woman pulled the entire frontal portion of his skull free.
I froze, moaning with anguish at the sight of the boys' brains sliding down from the rear portion of his cranium, held in place by the cerebral cords attached to the spine. Blood and cranial fluid cascaded down over his still trembling body and the scalped woman stumbled away with her prize, moaning with delirious phlegmy anticipation as she dipped her face into the front portion of the boys skull, like a child chewing the inside of a coconut for the white flesh.
The Janitor hissed at her but made no further move to reclaim this apparently negligible treat and instead occupied himself with what remained, diving his hand into the awning cavity and scraping it about in order to collect up the brain matter, which he brought to his eager lips. Before he bit in however, his gleaming eyes made contact with me and from his mouth came the unmistakable sound of familial Japanese.
"Fancy a taste, Shinigami?"
I had seen enough. I raised the rifle, aiming deliberately at the raw blood speckled, layer of the woman's head and fired. Dark holes opened up in the back of her knobby skull, sending tiny rivers of fluid and meaty tissue through her lower jaw. The flesh she had been in the midst of devouring came spurting out of her mouth in a bloody, throaty exhalation and she crumpled, the boys frozen fear stricken face sliding free of the skull and landing wetly on the carpet as it dropped from her hand. I tried not to look at it as I spun about, ejecting a blight force of mana unto the Janitor, shaving away the entire upper portion of his face and sending his own brains splattering against the wall beside him. He fell with a heavy sigh, collapsing on top of the boys' body in a spreading red lake.
I didn't want to make any bets on him staying down. Keeping my eyes facing forward, I backpedaled up the corridor, reaching out without looking and wrenching open the doorway back into the central library area. I felt an almost embarrassing surge of relief shoot through me as the door immediately clicked open and I dove through, slamming it shut and then pushing my back against it as I paused for a moment to gather my wits.
What a nightmare this was turning out to be! Something just wasn't right… these weren't the lazy, slow, mindless attentions of zombies. They were guided somehow, seeming to possess a kind of intelligence entirely atypical of their make. The way that the Janitor had actually mocked me… and that he knew I was a Shinigami. Not to mention the speed and the power with which they had decimated that boy!
I felt a gag welling up from my stomach and swallowed, forcing it back. I couldn't reconcile myself for not acting fast enough to save that poor man. However, if what Chikawa said was right, the mana blight would have no doubt seen him irreversibly affected somehow or another. Regardless… it was such an appalling way to die.
My heart hammered in my chest as I double-timed across the room, thinking all the while of Watari. What if these things had attacked him? God I would lose my mind if I were forced to bear witness to such a sight! I raced over to the security booth, slapping both hands against the glass and pressing my nose and face in between them. For a moment, I couldn't see Watari and I panicked, thinking that he might have been wandering about the library, ignorant to the danger, when his head suddenly reappeared above the computer terminals, a red wire clutched between his teeth. He caught sight of me staring in at him and with a soundless scream, toppled backwards out of sight again, apparently mistaking my wide-eyed maniacal expression of panic as something else entirely. When he had recovered, he made his way over to push open the terminal doorway that was down an offshoot. I stepped inside and slumped against him, pressing my face down into his shoulder and ejecting a small sob.
"What happened?" He asked, shutting the door and bringing me up into the terminal area so that I could take a seat. "Jesus, you look like death warmed over. No pun intended. Here, have some water."
He poured me a cup from the nearby water dispensary and pushed it into my trembling hands. It took me a while to speak; the images of the poor boys death were still running through my mind.
"I'm g-glad you're o-kuh-ku-kay…" I chattered, dribbling water all down my chin as I tried to take a sip. Watari looked at me in grave concern, using his handkerchief to wipe away the fluid that was threatening to run down my neck.
"Were there more hostiles? Are you hurt?" He took a closer look at my expression and seemed to then click to what must have happened. "Did you find a survivor?"
Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes as I nodded, my bottom lip beginning to tremble so badly I found myself quite unable to speak. Watari understood however.
"You found a survivor and you were unable to save them." He scuttled towards me in a crouching position and reached out to take my free hand between both his own. He gripped it tightly, running his palm up and down my arm. "Tell me what happened. When you're ready."
A took a moment to compose myself and then it all came exploding out of me. I told him everything, leaving no stone unturned, feeling myself grow steadily calmer as though I were leaching the poison of that wretched encounter from my flesh. Watari listened intently, occasionally clearing his throat or shifting uncomfortably but ever constant in his unwavering attention.
When I had finished speaking, he sat for a moment in complete silence, eyes to the side as though thinking. Finally, with a parting squeeze to my hand, he climbed to his feet and opened up the telecom device, relaying to Chikawa the information I had just given him. He asked the boy to run that information through the Ministries database and see if the paranormal description matched anything. That done, he placed the telecom back within his belt and then, with a deep sigh, reached down to slide both arms beneath my armpits, forcefully lifting me back onto my feet.
"Tsuzuki, look at me." He ordered, once I was standing. I looked into his eyes so awash by a pungent sense of shame that I could barely bring myself to do it. "You did everything you could. And it's awful, I know but the job's not done yet. We gotta keep going." He gripped my biceps tightly, reassuringly. "Remember how I said on the telecom that only one individual had died violently up here? She was torn from limb to limb, Tsuzuki. I found bits of her from one side of the computer area to the other. I didn't find the head at all. God knows what happened to it. I can't pretend like we won't encounter worse but we need to be prepared for it. So, take a deep breath," We both inhaled together and then let it out, dramatically relaxing all the muscles in our bodies as we did. "Pull yourself together and let's push on."
I bowed my head, acknowledging his words and feeling cold, calm professionalism reassert control. I had seen worse in my time. Not much worse mind but I'd managed to push through each and every time regardless. I would just have to find that same resolve to do so again and hopefully help somebody else before the same fate befell them as that poor boy.
"Yeah." I said, smiling painfully as Watari released my arms and returned to the console, picking up the red wire he had previously abandoned in order to tend to me. "It's all right, I'm okay now." I slung the rifle's strap back up over my arm and headed for the door, loathe to find that my knees still felt rather weak. "Guess I'll go finish the sweep."
Watari looked over at me from beside the terminal hatch, now clutching a blue wire with exposed silver cords protruding from the end. I can't say I'm sure that it was the safest thing for him to be doing but then again, I know jack about machinery.
"I think you should wait until I'm done here. I'm just gonna try this one last trick; see if I can't boot it up. Don't think I'll have much luck though," He said, casting an ornery look at the snow filled screens hanging from the booth's ceiling. "These things are all fucked from just before our apparent 'demon' turned up. Can't get nothing besides that. But I figure I should try everything before admitting defeat."
I shook my head as I turned the knob and pushed the door back into the library open. "It's okay, I think I'll be fine now. Besides, in the time it takes for you to get done, our possible assailant is getting further and further away. I'll just stay in this area, so you can come find me when you're done, eh?"
Watari looked over at me uncertainly, seeming to be on the verge of saying something else. But then the moment was gone and he waved his hand dismissively, as he ducked his head beneath the uncovered interior of the terminal's access panel and set to work twisting exposed wires with a small pair of electrician's pliers.
"Suit yourself, mate. Just be careful. Call on the intercom if ya need me, okay? Just press the upper black button on the left hand side and it'll automatically tune into my station."
I gave a mock salute before slipping out of the security booth and back into the library proper. I panned my eyes about the surrounding area and remembered that I hadn't actually got around to examining the bookshelves to the right hand side of the stairwell. This area was huge to say the least, the far wall some two hundred meters or so from where I was currently standing.
I checked over the rifle, replacing spent cartridges before I tentatively approached the first alley between the isles, stepping once more over the corpse that had been carrying the books. My nerves were still shot from what had happened in the storage area and I was poised quite literally on the edge of anticipation, certain that at any moment this body, like the others' would spring to life and gnaw through my sock.
Fortunately for me, this particular cadaver hadn't contracted the flagrant 'wander lust' that others of his kin had so recently succumbed to and was kind enough to remain face down as I bypassed him.
I'd had just allowed myself to feel a moment of quiet relief, when my frayed nerves were literally shattered as the closest bookshelf came toppling over in my direction. Thick science volumes on Quantum Physics and Chemistry came raining down towards me and I imagined they could so some serious damage if they came into contact with my head. Adrenalin pumping, I kicked off from the floor and managed to dive out of the way, going through the fundamentals of a shoulder roll even as I came crashing down onto the carpet, slamming my elbow into the bookcase to my right as I rolled back onto my feet, body aching from my dodgy landing. I hopped onto one knee, just like I'd seen in the military movies and readied my rifle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone darting away from the other side of the aisle in which I was standing and gave chase, my heart slamming against the wall of my chest as I sprinted around the towering shelves.
On the far side of a shambolic bookshelf stacked high with romance novels, I stumbled upon a thin hooded figure, standing on a line of seats in a second concealed computer area, looking out the windows. He was clearly distracted and didn't glance around at my noisy intervention.
"Freeze!" I ordered, though I sadly lacked some authority on account of my fumbling my grip on the gun.
The hooded figure was swaying uncertainly from side to side and still refused to turn about and adhere to my presence. "You… why are… you here…?"
"I am a Shinigami of the Summons Section of the Judgment Bureau." I said, trying to station my weight so as to better examine the figure with which I had been confronted. He was slender, standing around five foot five and dressed in a black and yellow wind sheater with the hood pulled low over his forehead. Something was moving across the visible portion of his face and I realized with a start that it was in fact the shadows themselves, cast from the overhang of the hood. They squirmed and wended across his features, concealing what might have otherwise been open to inspection. "And I'm guessing from that little face application, that you're not a regular patron either."
The boy seemed to groggily absorb this and then, with a resentful huff, tilted his head to the side, in order to take me in. "My powers seem to have little effect on you… it's not enough… not yet…"
"What?!" I snapped.
"You'll see…" He droned in an irritatingly self-assured tone of voice. "The time is almost upon us. You'll all bear witness to the coming of the new age…"
"Why did you kill all these people?!" I demanded, moving in closer, wondering whether Watari would finish up in the security booth soon.
The boy held up both hands as though offering something not plainly visible to the naked eye. "To better understand the limitations of my abilities… of course." He curled one of his hands into a distinctive cup shape and held it to the side of his hood, where I suppose his ear might have been. "Listen… the darkness within you is trying to communicate… It's… calling out…"
"I… I don't…" A sharp ringing noise suddenly burst through my skull and escalated to the degree that I was forced to clasp my temples with each hand. "Ugh… what… what's happening…?" I felt my temperature rise so dramatically that the scent of burning flesh actually assailed my nostrils. "My skin…" Unable to tolerate the pain, I dropped to one knee, shaking my head from side to side like a dog with water in its' ears. "… It's… burning!!"
The keening ringing in my ears was unexpectedly punctured by the sound of a gunshot and the hooded boy lowered his arms, looking emotionlessly over towards the shelves from where Watari was emerging. A computer screen to the left of the boy was emitting great choking clouds of smoke from a hole that had appeared in the center of the screen. Watari's face had gone an interesting shade of puce but he didn't allow himself time to be embarrassed over his misdirected aim and shifted the Beretta's barrel over so that it was now firmly in the vicinity of the boys midsection.
"You might want to keep it down, runt. We are in a library you know." He moved quickly to my side and toed me with his foot. "Hey… you okay?"
I gave my head one final persuasive shake in order to clear it and then vaulted to my feet, steeling myself and reclaiming the carbon rifle, which I had dropped in my haste to rectify the state of my skull. The boys sinisterly shadowed features swiveled back and forth between us.
"…not one but two whelps." He said, bemusedly. I saw the barest hint of a smile form beneath the lower most curl of the shadows amassing upon his face. "Now I see… it is no coincidence that you are both here. Your souls… they are communicating with my own…"
"Communicating?!" I snapped, feeling my temper flare as heatedly as my skin had only moments earlier. "What do you mean? Start making some sense, Goddammit!"
The boy silently extended his hand towards Watari who staggered, the flesh of his arm sizzling. He seemed to fight off whatever this effect was however and repositioned his weapon, much to my great admiration.
"You should be awakening soon…" The boy said softly, quite unperturbed that his efforts had not succeeded.
Watari smiled pleasantly, eyes twinkling. "I'm as awake as I'll ever need to be, mate. And that's awake enough to drag your bony ass back to the Ministry for judgment."
The boy smiled that strange, vague smile again. "That will be the end result of our meeting today, my friend." His neck swiveled so that his veiled face was directed towards me once more. "The seal is broken… the more you employ that darkness, the more you shall become like me…"
My frustration, until that moment had been boiling beneath the surface but now seemed to explode out of me. "I don't understand you! Employ the darkness… this is gobbledygook to me!"
"Don't listen to him, Tsuzuki." Watari said, his lip curling with intense dislike as he stared upon the boys delicately balanced figure. "He's just messing with us… trying to stall for time."
The boy rolled his shoulders carelessly. "Why should I be needing to stall for time? Believe what you wish; it makes no never mind to me. You are all fated to meet the same end."
I took another step forward. "Who ARE you?"
Once more I was graced by the strange, incomprehensible smile and the boys voice dropped a nuance, so that it became a deep rasp, the signature call of a dangerous snake.
"I am the enemy of the Waking World."
I saw Watari roll his eyes from the corner of my vision. "Oh, of course, don't know why I didn't pick up on that right away. Tell me; is that hyphenated?"
"You mock me… but I believe you understand who I am more than you pretend. After all, you and I are not so far removed from one another…"
Watari clenched the gun tighter, the muscles of his temples stretching tightly over a vein that had began to angrily throb beneath the thin wall of flesh. "Shut your goddamn mouth."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…" The boy chuckled, leaping down from the wall of seats and turning to make his way out of the enclosed space, humming a tune to himself as he went. He appeared entirely cavalier concerning our presence, as though we were no more deserving of attention than casual passersby on a suburban street. I was not unaccustomed to being sneered at by those I came into conflict with but to be treated with this outright indifference was something I was certainly not adapted to. It occurs to me now that this insult was no doubt enforced as a means of incensing us, increasing the likelihood that we would react hastily. Well, it had certainly strummed the right cords in me, I must confess. I felt that insolent air of apathy cut into me and enflame my mind, as if the impertinent boy had questioned the virtue of my very mother.
"Hey! Where the Hell do you think you're going?!" I exclaimed, holstering the gun in favor of making after him. "We're not through with you yet!"
The boys' movement gradually slowed as he was about to disappear behind a neighboring shelf and he curled his slender fingers about it, leaning back to appraise me in a most unnerving manner.
"Oh, but do not fret, my boy. I have a wonderful gift for you." He whisked out of sight and I moved to go after him but noticed Watari seemed distracted, his eyes and guns lowered towards the floor.
"Watari… what's wrong…? Come on, we have to detain the suspect!"
Watari sighed, as though the entire weight of the world was upon his shoulders and then forced his face up, bearing a falsely cheery smile that didn't seem to quite convey any true warmth behind it. "Yeah, right… let's get a move -" He paused, tilting his head to the side and holding up a hand to keep me from speaking, though he needn't have bothered. I too could hear what it was that had caught his attention. Someone else's voice was coming from down the isle into which the hooded boy had vanished. It was a soft, almost inaudible utterance that I couldn't quite discern from my current position and it was with deliberate ease that Watari and I moved around the dividing shelf to see where it was coming from.
A long line of bookshelves terminated into a dead end against the far wall, dark from lack of illumination. A tall figure moved erratically in the shadow, human in shape though I could distinguish no visible arms in the gloom. It seemed to be facing the shelf beside it and in the silence that followed, I was finally able to make out just what it was saying, though I can't pretend it made much sense to me.
"Mm-hmm. Oh! Oh… yes… I see…"
The source to which this figure was speaking must have said something attention grabbing because the next thing I knew, the cryptic mass had spun to face us with a high pitched, somehow indignant shriek of the kind most women enforce if you were to accidentally walk in upon them changing. It was approaching us, one arm raised and waving what appeared to be a book. Upon closer inspection I could see that the corners of the book were capped by sharp metallic edges, glinting sinisterly in the dim light.
"Why you…!" A weedy voice screamed from the shadows clutching the book. "Little beasts! Are you making a mess in the library? This is unforgivable! You dirty, wretched children!"
As the figure moved into the light, his features were thrown into alarming clarity. A tall balding man, with protuberant bloodshot eyes that made him appear rather manic. His glasses hung crookedly off of one ear, blue striped shirt and pinstriped pants soaked through with blood. If you were to ignore the expression on his face, he looked to me like a very typical, uptight librarian, as evidenced by his nametag, splattered with a few splotches of blood but otherwise legible. What immediately drew the eye however was that 'Sakamoto Hiro' was bound from head to ankle in white plastic binding, the type usually employed to fasten large parcels together. His right arm was pinned down the line of his body by use of thick staples, holding his hand useless and immobile. Peculiarly, he was not bound to anything; the plastic binding simply slowed his movement.
"Watari…?" I murmured in an oddly high-pitched voice that didn't sound at all like myself.
He seemed quite taken aback and didn't respond for a moment or two, simply staring at Sakamoto Hiro as he made his languid approach, swinging the book as though shooing away a particularly irksome fly.
"I think…" Watari drawled with a delayed swallow. "That um… this was the uh… librarian."
I didn't resist the temptation to roll my eyes. "I figured that much out. What do you suggest we do? I mean, is he dead or has he just been driven mad by the visions?"
"I can't say I know for certain…" Watari said, examining the approaching horror with a mildly inquisitive air. He raised one of the Beretta's and turned it from side to side as though only just noticing that he was in fact in possession of it. "Guess I'll just blow him away."
Scandalized that he would take such a casual air whence concerning the life of a mortal, I reached over and pushed the barrel of the Berretta downward, shooting Watari a clearly censorious look.
"Have you no decency? This is the compromised soul of a mortal we're talking about here! We can't just bust a cap in his crown!" I took a moment to consider my words. "But then again, this is you we're talking about. I do suppose there's an equally good chance you would hit his leg instead."
Watari tried to look dignified, though I estimated from his expression that he might have just entertained the passing fancy of turning the gun on me instead.
"Well, we don't have much time to dally. Our main suspect is getting away!"
CRASH!
I whirled back to face our newest assailant, saw books and chunks of wood fly into the air and rain down over our heads. The Librarian had just smashed the steel capped book through one of the support shelves to my right, cleaving the wood in half as effectively as an axe. He continued towards us, swinging the bizarre weapon with aplomb, his red veined eyes glaring with deranged glee.
Watari targeted the book and fired three times, not a one of the bullets finding its' mark. The librarian was simply swinging it too quickly. Forgoing my initial reluctance, I readied the pistol and aimed for the contorted mans' leg, firing one succinct shot, puncturing the skin directly through his knee –
- and he didn't even slow down.
"Move!" I spluttered, realizing in the second before the librarians arm swung forwards that he was now right on top of us. I leapt backwards, spinning in three hundred and sixty degrees so that I could untangle the leather shoulder holster that kept the rifle sanctioned to my body. Watari however didn't respond so quickly and took almost the entire brunt of the books steel corner against the side of his face. His cheek opened up in a wide semi-circle, blood spitting from the glaring wound as he ducked to avoid the return swing, slamming his foot into the librarian's solar plexus, causing him to stumble backwards at least two steps.
"Insolent brats!" The creature once known as Hiro roared, as Watari reverse bunny hopped, absently clutching at the wound on his face. "I'll teach you! I'll teach you better you… rotten pests!"
I shot a pellet of restrained mana at the Librarian, catching him in the shoulder. He bucked briefly beneath the blow and then suddenly charged at me, drawing the blood stained book back–
- and as I dove out of the way, the Librarian swept past me in a running crouch, bringing the book up as if throwing a ball underarm. The steel corner gouged the carpet, ripping through it as though it were no more solid than water.
As soon as the deranged creature was past, he stopped running, turning almost casually back to watch me stumble to my feet and fire again.
My secondary burst of restrained mana ploughed into the Librarian's stomach. Again, he reeled back and responded by turning back almost instantaneously and screaming with unrestrained fever. He had finally dispensed with the name calling and had apparently concluded that we were no longer fit to be bludgeoned by a book. He cast the volume aside and I watched with eyes that must have widened cartoonishly, as the Librarian's unbound arm suddenly stretched outwards, forming into a cluster of thick, dragging claws, the palm itself becoming as solid and round as destruction ball. I exchanged a sidelong glance with Watari, who seemed quite ready to soil himself.
"O…kay…" I said at last, eying off that malformed hand with great apprehension. "Things just got a little more difficult…"
Watari raised one of the Beretta's, holding his free hand palm out. "Sir! This is our final warning! Stop now, or I shoot!"
The Librarian leered and went running towards him. I stepped sideways, giving myself room to maneuver, preparing to fire off an unrestrained mana blight –
- and heard a rattling moan behind me, a fresh wave of rancid coppery scent assaulting my
senses. I spun, the realization hitting me even before I saw it.
The decrepit zombie was only a few feet away, reaching for me, bits of its' guts hanging like dried jerky from the thick puncture holes in its' belly. It was the woman I had seen from the receptionist area, the one that had been impaled upon the points of the chandelier. Somehow, she had made the jump across and back onto the 1st floor. Her eyes glowed malevolently and that strange, lilting language came hurtling from between her lips, finally awakening my recognition.
It was a demonic language!
These people were not true zombies, not as you might understand them. In the absence of their souls, the bodies had been inhabited by lower level demons, thus explaining the aggressive behavior and the glowing unnatural light of their eyes. I had just long enough to congratulate myself on being so clever before the impaled woman came shrieking towards me. I ducked out of the way, feeling her dried fingers graze across my face, as I jabbed my foot backwards, knocking her sideways onto the floor. It was unfortunate but there was nothing to be done in this particular situation. The bodies were already vacated of their rightful owners and to allow these lower level Underdwellers to assume form was a violation of the natural order. The most effective means through which to disable the bodies, thus making them useless as potential hosts, was to destroy the brains. This prevented the cerebral cortex from sending messages to the rest of the body. It may have been a stereotype of every zombie horror movie on the market but Hollywood got it right some of the time.
I pressed my two fingers together and focused on an elimination blight, releasing the contained friction as the woman came lunging back at me, her arms flailing at her sides like the wayward limbs of a scarecrow. The purple tinged mana disintegrated the puckered nose of the creature, fluid and soft matter spraying the floor beneath her. With an exhalation of foul smelling air, the once-woman slumped backwards into the expelled gore that had once been inside of her own skull.
I felt a flush of regret but had no time to indulge in it. Watari had so far managed to dodge most of the Librarian's attacks and he had fired off a few shots here and there to no apparent effect. The raging man sported several ragged holes; one through his upper arm, another through his thigh and a third had torn away part of his left ear. Not a one of them bled however and he continued to rush at the scientist as though he felt no pain. It started to run at Watari again, dropping its' terrible, inhuman hand down as it went for him – just as the blonds Beretta clicked on empty.
Watari cursed and sprinted away, but the charging monstrosity veered with him –
- and its' sweeping claw glanced against his side, tumbling him to the ground.
"Watari!"
I raced towards the delirious creature, hurling handfuls of fully charged blights into its' back as it bent down over the fallen Shinigami. Watari was scrambling backwards, his shirt shredded, his eyes wide with terror.
"Run!" I screamed at him but he was beyond comprehension, fumbling to remove the second Beretta from the holster of his hip and sending ammunition rolling across the floor in his efforts. I picked up the Carbon rifle, long since abandoned and started firing into the distorted Librarian's back. Tiny black holes appeared through the distorted man's striped shirt and I watched with some revulsion as shiny, gore encrusted tentacles ripped free from his shoulders and whipped around his upper body as though outraged, coiling and uncoiling with incredible speed. He reached out with his normal hand and covered Watari's entire face, trying to lift the struggling Shinigami off of his feet. Watari however had finally managed to loose his additional gun and he swung it about, firing an uncalculated shot into the man's cheek, disintegrating half of his face. The skin beneath the once tanned flesh throbbed and writhed, the tips of smaller tentacles emerging to trail down along his arm and up towards Watari's face, who moaned in revulsion when he felt their touch. I spent the clip in the rifle and groaned in disgust as it clicked aggravatingly at me. Frustrated and terrified, I did a tremendously stupid thing; a thing, which never works in the movies but nonetheless, offers the audience a brief moment of comedic enlightenment.
I hurled the gun at the monstrosity.
The thick metal body of the rifle smacked the Librarian in the back of his head. And despite the fact that thirty or so bullets fired directly into his face and back had not made a difference, this above all else seemed to truly irritate him. He dropped Watari, who gasped desperately for air as he stumbled backwards into the shelf behind him and turned slowly towards me. One of his eyes had been completely obliterated, the brown of his iris dripping down the skinned portion of his face like melted chocolate. With the eye that remained, he glanced down at the rifle and then back at me.
"How many times must I tell you impertinent little monsters? DON'T THROW THINGS IN THE LIBRARY!!"
He kicked the rifle, so hard and fast that I hadn't the time to avoid it. It slammed hard into my left pectoral, causing me to emit an involuntarily grunt as I staggered backwards, tripping over the bookcase that had previously attempted to squash me. The Librarian was coming for me again, the claws of his deformed arm dragging upon the ground, the tentacles erupting from his shoulders writhing through the air like eels wending through the water. I rolled backwards off of the shelf, grabbing books as my hands fell upon them and pegging them at the approaching horror. Pieces of tooth fell from his mouth and bounced off of the carpet in a splatter of red and white. The Librarian didn't seem to notice as he started to run towards me at incredible speed –
"STOP THROWING THOSE! I HAD THEM ALL STACKED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER!" He bellowed, bloodied spittle spraying outward from his lips as he came crashing through the shelf.
Watari was firing, shouting, throwing books to try and turn his attention away from me but he was already fixated, pounding towards me with single minded intent and drawing his claw back –
- wait for it…
I dove to the side at the last possible second and the monster went flying past, its' claw mulching through the wood of the shelf before which I had just been standing. My hand slid out of my pocket, pulling out yet another fuda slip and inscribing a line of spell scripture onto it. Having satisfactorily imbued the parchment, I flung it towards the Librarian as he slowly turned to face me again, gratified to see the slip attach itself firmly to the wall of his shirt. "Spirit Web!"
With an oddly high pitched squeal, the bound librarian was flung sideways as though violently thrown by an invisible force and was affixed to the left hand book shelf by rapidly constructed white, metaphysical threads.
Not giving myself time to appraise my handiwork, I ran over to Watari, who quickly climbed to his feet and threw his arms around me.
"Oh God that hurt so much. I thought that thing was gonna have your head as well as mine, mate." He drew back from me, eyes downcast as though ashamed. "Geez, I'm sorry… I really couldn't do much, could I?" He offered me an embarrassed smile and I truly loved him for it.
"You did great." I assured him, looking back over my shoulder just to make sure that the Spirit Web was satisfactorily holding. "Shit, when he had you by the face… I thought that was it right there. Thought he'd pop your skull like a zit."
"Hell, ain't nothing." The blond scientist insisted, leaning back against one of the shelves in order to catch his breath. I took a moment to catalogue his injuries; a healing cut on his cheek, blood seeping down his thigh, the top several layers of skin sliced neatly away by the Librarian's brutal swipe. There were also bloodied half moon indentations on either side of his face, where the creatures' fingernails had penetrated his flesh but these were already closing over. I gestured to the wound in Watari's side. It continued to bleed quite freely.
"Can you walk with that?"
Watari bit his lip, fishing a hand into his side pack and removing a small sachet of antiseptic hand towels, which he used to gingerly wash the edges of the wound. Deep cuts took a little longer to close over and it was best to clean them beforehand, to avoid infections and the like.
"The pain's bearable. The knowledge of what'll happen if we don't catch up with the perp isn't." He looked me over briefly. "You hurt?"
I shook my head. "Came pretty close but no. Just a few bumps and bruises here and there. Shall we get moving?"
"Hell yeah." Watari hollowly intoned, walking over to retrieve the guns. He handed the carbon rifle back to me, smirking as I clumsily reloaded the magazine. "And not that it wasn't effective and all but… for future reference, I wouldn't recommend hurling your gun at a baddie in a childish fit. You might wish you'd kept it instead."
I smiled as I slung the leather strap back over my shoulder. "Sorry… I'm just not sure I'll ever be comfortable with these things. I'm a Shinigami. I work with magic. It's what I do."
"Indeed." Watari said, beaming at my handiwork approvingly as we brushed past the temporarily bound Librarian. "That was a nice call, Tsuzuki. What made you think of using a spirit web?"
I shrugged in what I thought to be a modest fashion. "This guy reminded me of a similar case I'd had years ago… if ya can't beat 'em-"
"- bind 'em." Watari said with an ironic smile. This I'm sure doesn't make much sense to you at this stage but I'm sure Watari will be happy to fill you in when it is his chance to talk. As it is, we bypassed our now contrite captive and the blond took it upon himself to distribute a condescending pat upon the Librarian's contorted hand through the mana constructed web. "Now, you just be a nice friendly batshit librarian and hang about here 'til we get back, eh?"
The bound librarian gave a persuasive struggle in response to Watari's touch, his furious screams echoing throughout the vacated library, which seemed suddenly crypt like to me. "Filthy wretches! Causing such a din in the library! This won't go unpunished! Ooh yes… you'll be sure to pay…"
"Yes, yes…" Watari mused, clearly having taken not a word of it in. We examined the shelf to which Sakamoto Hiro had been addressing before his incensed attack and found there was actually a narrow alcove between both it and the wall. Part of the carpet had been pulled away, revealing a gaping hole in the floorboards, and a dark tunnel that seemed to lead down through a supportive beam of the ground floor and even further besides. There was a rather dank musty smell filtering up from the hole itself and the darkness below was completely impenetrable.
"Looks like he's gone down into the basement area." Watari suggested as he knelt down to inspect the hole. "There's a cool draft… it may lead elsewhere…"
I fancied the thought of dropping down into the hole as much as I would have fancied the prospect of chewing on rat droppings. I looked about, actively ignoring the continuing shrieks of the bound librarian and noticed a small book that had fallen off of the shelf. Picking it up, I turned back to the jagged hole and dropped the book into it, ("Destruction of property! Why, you little vandals!") listening intently for anything that it might have struck on the way down. I heard a not so distant thud, indicating that it had in fact successfully reached the bottom. This was good enough for me. "Well? Let's get going."
"Hold on a tic." Watari said, reaching out to grab my arm lest I plunge into the hole a little overzealously. "Shouldn't we wait for backup?"
I worried at my bottom lip, knowing that this was the most responsible course of action but more concerned that this delay would have given the suspect time to escape. "That hooded figure could get away in the time it takes for them to get here. We don't have that luxury, Watari."
Watari mused on this for a moment and begrudgingly nodded. "Mmm… yeah, you got a point." He climbed to his feet, swung his arms to and fro as though preparing to jump off of a diving board. "Well then… look out below!" And with this, he plunged feet first into the hole, much to my great amusement.
"Man, he didn't even look first…" I took a deep breath and followed behind him. It was rather a tight squeeze and my shoulders scraped the insides of the beam once or twice but all and all, the distance was such that even a normal human being might have possibly made it. The tunnel widened suddenly around me as I broke through into the area below and I tensed my muscles, in anticipation as the carpeted floor rushed up to met me. I landed nimbly in a crouching position, having only managed to avoid hitting Watari, who in contrast was forced to drag himself up off of his butt. I glanced around the downstairs area as I waited for him to dust the seat of his pants off.
That was when I first saw the boy.
He was sitting crouched beside a dusty wall heater beside the stairwell, leading into the basement, indolently examining his fingers. His dark black hair was chin length and disheveled, his eye line diverted so I was unable to scrutinize his facial features. He was wearing shorts and a green shirt, his bare arms and legs prickling with visible gooseflesh. I frowned as my eyes fell upon him.
"Huh…?"
The boy, much shorter and skinnier than the figure upstairs, cocked his head as he examined me in return. He seemed vaguely familiar to me somehow, though I couldn't quite place him.
"… Excuse me, little boy?" I made my way towards him, trying not to make myself appear too threatening in case he was traumatized by what had occurred in the rooms above. "Do you work here…? You shouldn't be down here right now… there's been something of an incident. You need to go."
The boy giggled a little, as though he thought me touched in the head before turning about and disappearing through the wall behind him. I'll admit, that one stumped me.
"What the - ?!" I blinked, rubbed my eyes and then examined the wall again, wondering if what I had just seen was real or whether I'd just experienced another of those vivid hallucinations. The Soul Shelter should have been preventing those from occurring. "That… that boy… it… couldn't have been - !"
"Hey Tsuzuki… who ya talking to?" Watari asked, having finally managed to remedy the constitution of his trousers. I looked over at him.
"You… you didn't see…" I glanced back towards the wall and decided that I must have banged my head when I'd stumbled backwards over the bookshelf. My brain was no doubt a little rattled. I shrugged, bemused but blatantly refusing to stipulate on it. "… guess I imagined it."
Watari cocked his head to the side, looking all too much like 003 in doing so. "Imagined what?"
"Don't worry…" I said, shaking my head and gesturing for us to proceed forwards. "Let's push on."
We made our way out of the corner alcove and entered what appeared to be the basement corridor. A number of doors ran up either side of the hall, the area dimly lit by modernized wall ensconces that had none of the charm of their old fashioned compatriots upstairs. I understood that most of the rare volumes were stored in this area and public access was greatly restricted. Despite the circumstances I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about dropping through the floor from above with such a blatant show of decorum. I won't pretend it was an entirely reasonable thought but it still somehow felt as though Watari and I were trespassing upon grounds in which we were not only unwelcome guests but ill-mannered invaders.
"There's quite a few doors down here…" Watari mused, clucking his tongue thoughtfully as his eyes roved up and down the hall. "Should we split up?"
I bit my lip disapprovingly but couldn't fathom any other means through which we might find the suspect before they escaped. "I don't much like the idea but I don't think we got a choice."
Watari winked assuredly at me as he replaced the spent capsules within the gun's chamber. "Don't you worry, I'll keep my wits about me." He chose to ignore my less than reassured look and pointed up the hallway. "I'll take the right hand side, you take the left. Sound agreeable?"
"Yeah, seems fair." I gently tapped Watari in the arm, making sure he made eye contact with me so that my concern for his welfare was not missed. "Be careful."
I turned towards the left hand wall and with the carbon rifle raised to a defensive stance, entered the first door on my side, Watari mirroring my movements almost exactly to the first door on the right. According to the mounted sign inside of the doorway, it seemed that I had entered into the rare books room for historic volumes. I'd moved no more than ten or so feet when I came across another two corpses slumped between the isles. Both were gaunt, just like those upstairs, fingers curled up over their chests as though warding back whatever had been threatening them. With a sad, reposed sigh, I checked the room from top to bottom before heading back towards the door, stopping when I caught what sounded distinctively like whispery sigh from behind me. I felt my heartbeat accelerate, causing my face and armpits to prickle as blood flowed out of them. I slowly turned, nerve endings tickling with anticipation and saw from the corner of my eye, the fingers of the nearest corpse clench slowly inwards towards the palm.
One of the drained people was still alive!
"Uhh… urgh…" Came the breathless moan again. I hastily scanned the body with my Sixth Sense penetration and picked up a distinctively human aura, which meant that this was not a possessed host such as those we had encountered upstairs. I hastened to her side and knelt down, feeling a sickening weight drop into my stomach at the sight of her blinded eyes rolling about in the insubstantial recesses of their sockets.
"Oh god… you're still alive." I whispered, trying to speak soothingly, less I cause her additional duress. Though, in her condition, what could possibly anguish her furthermore? I gently clasped her hand, exerting little pressure against the dried flesh and bone, fearing I might inadvertently shatter her fingers without meaning too. "Sweetheart, you gotta hang in there. I'll call for the paramedics."
The woman's lips barely moved, her physical strength naturally diminished but still she managed to speak in a voice so thick and croaky, she sounded much to me like a long sustained smoker.
"That boy… he was always so quiet… why would he do this… to us…?"
"Please, save your strength." I urged, forcing back tears I could feel threatening to fall. Calm though I tried to remain, assurances though I could give her, it was clear to one as experienced in the affairs of death such as myself that the condition of this deteriorated woman could not be remedied. And yet despite my experience in such matters, my heart still felt as though it might break for the inquiries it was essential to make of her, in these, her final few precious seconds of life. "That boy…?"
The woman was wheezing, the skin of her fingers flaking, as they rubbed against my own, her lips cracked but not bleeding. There was no blood beneath her flesh and yet somehow, she was not yet absent from the form. "He said… that he liked being here… he was always smiling… seemed so happy… who would have thought…?" She coughed miserably, a dust like substance billowing about my face as it was forcefully expelled from her lungs in the action. "Please… stop… him… before anyone else…" Her voice trailed off into a dried, almost artificial sounding rattle, as though someone were running a drumstick down an iron washboard. Her eyes acquired the familiar glassy sheen of the vacant and what tiny strength remained in her fingers disappeared entirely.
"No! Please, hold on!" I begged, knowing even as I did that it was pointless but somehow, always, still hoping to prove otherwise. "I'll get you some help, you just gotta hang in there!"
Silence was my only reply and my sixth sense perception registered the departing of her spirit.
"Ma'am! MA'AM!" There was a splintering sound and I looked down in her horror to see the poor woman's hand suddenly shatter between my own, the last trace of life leaving her. I jumped back to my feet, anxiously slapping my palm against the knee of my trousers until the last of the dried flesh had fallen away. My face felt strained from the overwrought expression I was sure it conveyed. "We were too late…" I stifled a sob, holding a hand over my face for a moment until I managed to get control. "That bastard…" I hissed, my hand shaking from side to side in a mixture of pity for the horrendous fate of these innocent people and fury for the unknown demon that had subjected them it. "I'll make sure he pays for this!"
I took one last look about the room but found nothing worthy of attention and so I took my leave with a heart burdened by an all too familiar sadness. I cautiously entered the second door on the left hand wall and immediately caught sight of someone ducking behind one of the towering bookshelves as soon as my head had poked around the corner. I leveled the rifle and edged my careful way about the shelf, bringing it out and aiming fast when I saw someone standing down the isle between shelves. It turned out to be an elderly man, who was in the midst of filing some of the volumes away. He gasped in surprise and raised his hands in response to my pointing of the automatic weapon in his immediate direction. I took this to be smart thinking on his part.
"Oh dear Lord!" He cried, face visibly reddening and the veins in his neck extending to a dangerous degree. "What do you want? There's no money down here!"
I sighed in relief, immediately lowering my weapon. This was not the same figure we had seen upstairs, nor was he some kind of minion serving in its' stead. Clearly, this was one of the library attendants and he sounded refreshingly lucid. "Mister, I do apologize. I'm with the Special Investigations unit."
The elderly gentleman hesitantly lowered his hands, surveying me with a skeptical rising of his brow. "The SIT…? Forgive me for saying so but this is the last place I would have expected to find an agent of the Metropolitan police… is something the matter?"
Upon closer inspection I noticed the hearing aid set into place within the attendants left ear, which answered my unspoken query concerning how he could have missed the all out massacre that had occurred upstairs. I spent an indecent amount of time trying to find the better means through which to inform him as to the reality of this; his current situation. "I don't mean to alarm you but there's been something of an incident. I'll have to ask you to evacuate."
"An 'incident'?" The old man asked, looking predictably alarmed. He took a step forwards, seeming to test my boundaries and having assured himself that this was permitted, preceded to approach me at a hastened rate. "Young man, I'm not trying to be uncooperative here but I can't leave until I'm sure the rest of the staff are safe."
I had no real means of answering this honestly. The best I could do was to provide this gentleman with the details concerning the one staff member I was reasonably certain had survived the onslaught. "Kohaku-san is being tended to by the paramedics at the front of the building. I can't divulge any of the details at this moment but I really must insist that you leave immediately." I offered him what I hope was a reassuring look but I think it was rather desperately imploring if anything. "If I come across anyone else I'll make sure they are seen to safety."
The older man seemed glad to hear this and nodded to me. "Well all right then. I'd best go and see to Kohaku-san. Thankyou officer." He offered me a brief bow before rushing past me and back out into the hallway beyond. I was about to continue my inspection of the room, when I heard a very high-pitched scream from outside that abruptly terminated into a strangled, gurgling sound.
"Oh no…" I pivoted on my heel and rushed back out through the door, to find the elderly man curled on the floor like an asphyxiated spider. He had been completely drained. "Sir…?" I checked his pulse, the flesh of my forearms rippling with goose pimples at the very touch of his still warm, yet utterly dry, flaked skin. "It's no good… he's gone…" I cupped that self same hand over my mouth, attempting to suppress his emotions less I cry out loud. "In a matter of seconds… oh god… why couldn't I have done anything? What sort of power is this?!"
My thoughts were viciously serrated through as another scream erupted from the room across the hall. I jumped to my feet and rushed inside to find Watari, standing alongside another similarly disfigured corpse, clutching a hand to his chest and eyes squeezed shut, possessing an expression that suggested he was utterly frustrated with himself.
"What is it?! Why did you scream?" I asked, feeling panic ebb out of me slowly. Judging from the look on his face, I gathered he had been the one to frighten himself and was embarrassed by it.
"It's nothing…" He sighed back irritably. "I was just looking for the light switch and I stumbled into the chair this fella was sitting on and he landed on my feet." He gestured to the corpse, whose mouth was notably twisted sideways into an eternally prolonged scream. "I heard somebody else yell out there a moment ago… was that you?"
It was nice that he bothered to come and check on me now wasn't it? I shook my head, moving the corpse aside so that I could right the chair. We were in some sort of newspaper storage area, judging by the desk arrangement and the piles of paperwork and book receipts scattered about the place. A tacky seventies style lamp beamed light across the desk in a golden half circle pattern. There was an old fashioned black telephone on the wall, a coat rack and a file cabinet but other than that the room was almost entirely bare. Not that it was small either, so I found it a rather flagrant waste of space.
"No… there was a survivor" I said, answering Watari's earlier question. "… someone who for whatever reason hadn't been affected. I told him to evacuate but as soon as he left the room…" I bitterly indicated the corpse on the floor.
"Don't blame yourself, Tsuzuki." Watari said, his eyes creasing downwards sympathetically. "How could you have possibly predicted something like that?"
"It doesn't make it any easier…" I murmured, looking aside at the body of what had once been a young woman in perhaps her late twenties. Was her husband or partner outside right now, desperate to hear some news as to whether or not she was still alive? Did she have children, crying because their Mother wouldn't be coming home? The air in front of me broke apart like rain on stained glass as once again I found myself ever so close to succumbing to tears. Watari stepped over the corpse and put his arms around me. I felt my chin quiver childishly as I attempted to regain control of my emotions and failed abysmally.
"I know…" He said soothingly, slender hands running up and down my back. "But we can't get weighed down with our own feelings right now. We got a job to do…" He leaned back, giving my cheek a little cuff on the way. "Hey… I'll buy ya a beer later."
I smiled, though it felt unnatural and forced. "That's the first good news I've heard all day."
We both shrieked in hysterical unison when the phone on the newspaper room bench started to ring. We glanced back and forth between one another before I finally plucked up my courage and answered it.
"Yes?"
To my surprise, I heard the voice of our boss, Chief Konoe on the other line. "I was beginning to think we wouldn't reach you. Chikawa's been having difficulty getting through on the telecom… some sort of interference… Anyway, I'm on my way to your location right now. Backup should be along shortly. What's the update on the situation?"
I felt my spine unintentionally straighten in accordance to the respectful posture I always enforced when addressing my boss. Not that he was about to see it but there's no explaining an unconscious, reinforced action anymore than you can explain why people sink so slowly in quicksand. "Watari and I are trailing the suspect… he seems to be absorbing human energy at a phenomenal rate. The people in this library have been sucked drier than three-year-old beef jerky. The level of mana radiation is high. A number of corpses have been reanimated and one in particular has been distorted to a phenomenal degree. I heard several of the revived corpses speaking in a demonic language, so I believe that a number of low level Underdwellers are taking advantage of the vacated bodies and setting up shop, so to speak."
Chief Konoe took a moment to absorb this. "I see… it isn't so unusual for an Underdweller to devour human souls in order to enhance its' own power but this is normally done through manipulation and gradual persuasion." He paused, apparently stipulating upon this point further but coming up with no satisfactory conclusion. "Whoever this Underdweller is, we can only assume its' of considerable power. Proceed with the utmost caution, you two. But be sure to detain that suspect!"
"Roger." I said, smirking a little as Watari saluted in a blithe manner. "We'll see you soon." I hung up the phone and then turned to face Watari, meaning to fill him in on what parts of the conversation he had not overheard. "Backup should be arriving shortly. The Chief's on his way over too."
"That's some boss we've got. I keep forgetting we're lucky like that." Watari said with a fond smile. He visibly straightened up and I smiled for hearing every bone in his back crack as a result of it. He had rather bad posture Watari, so this popping procedure was something I was quite familiar with. It was really something to hear of a morning, when just about every single joint in his body would pop into place with a sound not dissimilar to an expostulating pinball machine.
"Well?" He queried, looking at me like an expectant child on a mildly interesting day trip. I nodded in concurrence.
"Let's get going… hmm?" My attention was waylaid in having noticed something clutched in one of the corpses wasted hands. "What's this…?" I pried the brittle fingers apart to see something gold winking up at me in the dim light. I picked it up. "A key…?" There was a little metal tag attached to the key that simply read 'All Access'.
Watari tilted his head sideways to read this and emitted a small putting noise from between his lips. "Guess we don't have to worry about locked doors anymore, ne?" He appropriated the key from my loosened hand and ignoring my protests, left the room with it held high. I followed him, casting one final lingering look about the newspaper dens but there wasn't anything to be found, least of all a hooded apparition.
~ EC ~
A/N: Thanks as always to Jollyolly and TurboFerret for their betta-reading! Hope you guys enjoyed this disgusting chapter! Part five along soon, please R and R in the meantime and don't forget to always check your closet!
