After a shared look of alarmed mystification with Yoshida, Makoto leapt to her feet and moved towards the solar door, the house servant practically jumping out of her path. She saw Yoshida standing as well, but slower in his more advanced age. Sure that he was following, Makoto strode out into the hall and down the gleaming hardwood to the corner. She turned it, finding exactly what her servant had described.
Dojima, in his dull blue security uniform, was already grimly frowning in Makoto's direction. In his hands, he had the upper arms of a wiry woman with chin-length black hair. The woman's lower arms did indeed appear to be tied behind her back, which stretched the seams of her rather tightly fit tunic. And she wore trousers! A rare sight for a woman in Tock-Yo, outside Makoto herself and Sae, anyway. A case in point was Ann, who stood uneasily nearby in her modest, red town-dress.
The restrained woman's brown eyes locked on Makoto as she rounded the hall corner. Her expression was a mixture of annoyance and satisfaction. Makoto's felt a sense of recognition, but couldn't quite place the woman's face.
Meanwhile, the woman half-shouted in her direction: "Hey, Ms. Niijima! Your man here kidnapped me!" and she struggled against Dojima's captive hands.
Dojima easily restrained her, and his grim expression became one of exasperation as Makoto neared the group and the center of the atrium.
"Lady Niijima, this is the woman who's been outside the house gate," said Dojima. "Her name is Ohya Ichiko. She's the-"
"The gossip columnist!" blurted Makoto.
This was the woman who wrote that 'For the Love of the Hunt' article for this morning's Tock-Yo Shimbun newspaper! And she was the woman who yelled at Makoto as she drove Johanna past the gate on her way to hire Ren as a vampire hunter. She'd ordered Dojima to detain this woman should she remain a nuisance, and to then turn her over to the city guard for being a nuisance.
"Did she attempt to get through the gate tonight?" said Makoto, looking past Ohya's irritated glare.
"I was just-!" started Ohya, but Dojima shook her slightly and told her to shut up.
"She was at my house," said Ann, her expression somewhat anxious. "She was talking with my mom on the porch when we got there. I didn't know who this woman was, but Dojima did and he arrested her."
"You can do that, Mr. Dojima?" said Makoto.
"Mr. Okumura has his officers deputized," said Dojima.
Well, that was a political connection between Okumura Security and the city that Makoto had been unaware of, but it had nothing to do with her, nor with this situation.
But this gossip reporter, at the Sakamoto house! How would Ohya know-?
Makoto turned her gaze on the restrained woman and she felt anger simmer up in her mind. "You've been staking out my home! Stalking my guests!"
"Nooooo!" said Ohya, her voice wavering in pitch. She seemed to be trying to think of some cover story. "I was just- I-... Well- yes, I was. But it's because I need to talk to you, Ms.- er- Lady Niijima!"
The audacity! As if Makoto would respond to this egregious behavior by actually giving this rag writer an interview! She was already sick of this strange woman, and she'd barely spent thirty seconds in her presence.
"Talk to me about what?!" said Makoto. "After that article this morning?! What do you possibly think I would want to talk to you about?!"
"About the other vampires infiltrating the city!
That surprised Makoto slightly. So, Ohya wasn't after the gossip about her or about her "relationship" with the "Vampire Hunter J". She had to be up to something else, then!
"I know as much as you do, Ms. Ohya," said Makoto. "A disguised vampire came to my party, and a member of my staff killed it."
Ren hadn't actually been under her employment at that exact moment, but it was accurate enough.
"That's all I know of the matter at this time," finished Makoto.
"No, not that" said Ms. Ohya, shaking her head. "I mean the other vampires! The ones taking all the girls!"
Makoto became confused. "Taking the girls? We already dealt with the vampire hiding in Shujin Academy."
Ohya shook her head yet again. "No, not those girls. I mean all the other ones."
There was a short silence. An icy chill ran through Makoto's body. "All the other ones."
"Yes," said Ohya. "Over two dozen missing in the last three months."
"Two dozen! The paper's haven't mentioned any-"
"The papers don't care!" growled Ohya, "They don't care about some commoner daughters going missing. It isn't news! Shujin Academy was news. Important girls disappeared there. But they weren't the first, and they aren't the last! Another girl from the south-side vanished just this week!"
This week! Makoto was shocked, but she also felt a cautionary skepticism growing in her. That many girls disappearing and the papers weren't talking about it? The parents of the supposedly missing girls weren't making a fuss? Makoto found that hard to believe.
"And yet you know, Ms. Ohya?" said Makoto, "Don't you work for a paper? Why not share your information with the whole city? Why come to me?"
"I don't decide what to print, Lady Niijima! My asshole editors toss my stuff out. They don't care about my investigation! If my article doesn't have a direct relationship to you; I'm just wasting my time writing it. They just throw it away."
"With me?"
"Yes, you! The city's current darling! The one who made it seem like the city council knows what it's doing, and that it solved the vampire problem. I'm telling you, the council doesn't want any more vampires- unless it's already dead, like the one at your party- so someone is advising the editors at Tock-Yo Shimbun what to print! And what to not! And what to not is the fact that the twenty-two other missing girls are from poor families and no one gives a shit!"
Silence fell in the atrium. Ann looked somewhat frightened. Dojima looked increasingly grim, but it didn't seem to be in regards to Ohya's trespassing anymore. And Makoto found herself dreadfully disturbed. She could believe it. She didn't want to, but Makoto could believe it.
"So you've been trying to talk to me because you think I can do something?" said Makoto.
Ohya was breathing heavily from the ferocity of her rant. "I hoped you would."
Makoto gave Ohya a long look. It could be a ploy. Maybe some way to get some inside information on the Niijima household. But that would be a rather elaborate ruse. Makoto was interested enough to get more details.
"Mr. Dojima," said Makoto. "Untie her. Ms. Ohya, I want to hear everything you know; everything you suspect. Immediately. Would you care for some tea? We can go have a seat in the solar."
Ohya brightened, then winced as Dojima began working at whatever was binding her hands behind her back. "Sure, but- got anything stronger than tea?"
"Perhaps a brandy in the study?" said Yoshida's voice from behind Makoto. He must have been back there for most of Makoto's conversation.
"That sounds more my thing," said Ohya.
And so, Makoto found herself in the study, looking over an untidy pile of papers Ohya had procured from her own brassier. Meanwhile, the woman herself was starting her fourth brandy-on-the-rocks. Ann sat next to Makoto, also attempting to make sense of Ohya's bizarre scrawlings. Yoshida continued to observe and serve refreshments, and Dojima had taken his leave and headed home, assured Makoto herself had Ohya well in hand.
Despite the wrinkles and the rather atrocious penmanship, Ohya's notes did seem to have a sort of frantic legitimacy behind them; Names of the missing, relatives, addresses, circumstances of disappearance. Ohya even went as far to check for more mundane circumstances of vanishings than vampires: she'd checked nunneries, churches, morgues, and the even homes of rumored sweethearts. But all to no avail. According to Ohya's investigations, assuming they were factual, these twenty-two women (two she excluded due to being from Shujin Academy) had simply vanished from the face of the earth.
"And the city guard has done nothing?" said Makoto, a bit of disbelief in her voice.
"Those morons couldn't find the city wall if it wasn't standing upright," said Ohya, her speech beginning to slur slightly. But her eyes still tracked with an intensity of intellect. "I spoke to a few officers. They listen briefly, then shrug it all off as domestic trouble and run-aways."
Makoto was appalled, but wasn't exactly surprised. The city guard kept the peace from drunks and thieves-in-the-act. If the problem wasn't immediate and obvious, the guard wasn't equipped to handle it- or interested, for that matter, until properly bribed. Or so Yoshida said, anyway.
Finishing her second read-through of Ohya's efforts, Makoto had spotted a few patterns. The girls were all in the mid-to-late teens; which seemed to indicate a relationship between the disappearances and the victim's sexual maturity. Fifteen was the youngest, and nineteen the oldest. Makoto's mind linked that to Ren's observation that virgin women smelled different- better even, he said. Perhaps an undeveloped child smelled different still, and that made them less attractive to- whatever vile vampiric purpose these sexually mature young women may be vanishing for.
Though the culprits could be more mundane, Makoto realized. Everyday humans were perhaps more likely to be behind this sort of thing. Makoto knew that young women could find themselves… appropriated for brothel work. Not all of that was entirely voluntarily employment. Perhaps that was the fate of some, or all of Ohya's missing girls. But there was certainly no way to use the notes to prove or disprove vampiric activity.
Second: the victims always ventured somewhere alone- a job, a relative's home, a school, or a church. And they did so on a routine basis. Though, there were three anomalies. Three of the missing girls seem to have been going to the same place before they each disappeared.
"Ms. Ohya," said Makoto, "three of these women vanished on their way to-"
"The home of Mr. Madarame Ichiryusai," said Ohya, sneering at the name. "So you noticed the pattern, too. I'm impressed."
Makoto didn't feel flattered. It was entirely obvious. Anyone with half-a-brain could have read Ohya's notes and noticed that similarity.
"The name sounds familiar…" said Makoto, more to herself than anyone, but Yoshida, standing nearby, cleared his throat.
"He was here the night of the gala, Lady Niijima," said Yoshida. "You met him, and his companion. A tall, thin young man named… ah, yes, Mr. Kitagawa. Kitagawa Yusuke."
Makoto's mind furnished her with a brief flash of memory of Madarame: a narrow-faced older man, trimmed beard, with long white hair tied into a sort of pony-tail. Her mental image of the younger companion was fuzzier. A pale face and a sharp chin was all she could remember. Black hair with a sort of bluish hint?
"The boy of his is some sort of artist," said Ohya, swirling the ice of her current drink. "And he is the patron, from what I understand. He finds the girls. Pays them to be models. And the boy paints something. The girl arrives the first day and leaves. Two days later, there is a second visit, and each girl, their parents tell me, came home from that visit with stories of being a professional model, promises of visiting other cities to be painted, or some shit. The parents don't buy it, mostly. But a day after that, the girl goes to the final session and- poof. Gone. Never comes home."
"The parents don't investigate?" said Ann.
"Oh, they do," said Ohya, "But both Madarame and his boy toy say the girl left at the normal time. They have no idea why she didn't get home."
"And the parents believe it?" asked Makoto, aghast.
"Some did. Some didn't. One family: the Tanaka's, tried to create a fuss. But the father was arrested for trying to break down Madarame's front door. And there wasn't anyone to make a fuss after that."
"And then what?"
"Then Madarame moved out of that town house," said Ohya, looking into her glass. "This was about a month ago. And I finally tracked him down. He's got a fancier place now, down on the nice side of Tock-Yo Bay. A real mansion, like this place." Ohya took a drink, then looked at Makoto intently. "And a young girl showed up for a modeling session yesterday, which means session two is tomorrow. So, in three days- if the pattern holds..."
"She goes missing," said Makoto, feeling an anxious urgency in her belly.
"Poof," said Ohya, raising her glass in a sort of salute and then she leaned her head back and tilted her glass.
Makoto watched her drink the brandy, reddish brown in the candlelight, slowly draining in one, long gulp.