Maohden Vol. 2 (20 page)

The door had barely closed when the entirety of Studio 13 was engulfed in the fires of hell.

Mayumi looked out the window. The silver rain stabbed like needles against the charcoal gray streets. Her heart felt the same color as the city. A girl of not yet twenty, remembering everything her body had aroused thus far, such a conclusion was inevitable.

Four men had sex with her. Four men died, among them her father. She’d killed her mother, stabbed her to death with a knife. True, her mother was trying to kill her, but dead was dead. Then there were the biker gang members who’d raped her. They were all corpses by now.

Then sold to the Death Match organizers, who’d experimented on her with that junkie werewolf. She killed him, too.

Even lacking the intent, her body had nevertheless done the deed, the same as with her own two hands. However “justifiable self-defense” might stand her in good stead with the law, such rationalizations did little for her conscience.

Mayumi had no idea how to proceed from here. Those two men in the Coliseum—the most handsome she’d ever seen—fought over her, and one of them referred to her as the “seal.” It must be connected to the supernatural phenomenon arising inside her. But the deeper reasons, how everything was connected, she couldn’t comprehend.

And what did it matter anyway? Staring out at the rain-drenched city, Mayumi finally came to an understanding of what she must do. Though the joy she’d felt after killing her mother and leaving home was long gone, the desire to go far, far away burned all the stronger inside of her.

A knock came at the door. The nurse—the one with the cool, pale skin—had arrived for her noon checkup. The nurse only saw the shadows surging at her from the right of the door frame a split-second before the silver vase smashed against the side of her head.

Mayumi watched her drop without a flicker of guilt.

The nurse hadn’t hit the ground before turning into a mummy and breaking apart in a cloud of gray dust. Even then Mayumi barely registered any surprise. She’d heard of wizards and witches who fashioned furniture and household implements out of ectoplasm. Apparently the maker of this nurse shared similar talents.

Mayumi changed into the nurse’s uniform. She tucked her clothing under her arm and was about to slip out of the room when another nurse and an orderly came in, both sporting the same pale faces.

“Resistance is futile. The monitors always know where you are and what you are doing.”

Mayumi picked up a chair and swung it at her as hard as she could. The unfazed nurse took it from her and set it down. The orderly grabbed her around the shoulders and pressed a jet injector against her neck.

A cool, relaxing tide swept through her body. Mayumi slumped to her knees.

“What a troublesome patient,” said the orderly, indicating the pile of ash on the floor.

“Happens all the time,” said the nurse, and she spit onto the floor.

Whatever chemical change this aroused, the ash on the floor rose like a raised pole and in almost the same instant assumed the shape of a human being. Though the resurrected nurse looked a tad paler and cooler than before.

The three left the room. Mayumi fell into a deep sleep.

She opened her eyes to find a beautiful face peering down at her. It belonged to the man who’d saved her at the Coliseum. His name was Setsura Aki.

“So you’re awake?” he said with a friendly smile that set Mayumi’s mind at ease. At the Coliseum, the drugs having muddled her thoughts, she’d keenly felt a harsh and unforgiving air about him—that now had completely evaporated. Replaced by that of a well-bred child.

“I heard you clobbered one of the nurses. At this hospital, a good seventy percent of the staff are
them
. One is said to be as strong as seven ordinary people. You must have really struck the mark.”

“Pure luck,” answered Mayumi, as if under his spell. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“You’ll have to stay in the hospital for a little while longer. After that, the police want to take you into custody.”

“I don’t mean that. What do the two of
you
want from me?”

“We don’t really know,” Setsura said, scratching his head.

“He called me the seal. What does that mean?”

“I was hoping that
I
would know,” Setsura said, feigning complete ignorance. “But as for
me
, haven’t a clue.”

Mayumi turned toward the window. Dusk was falling. The garish glow of the neon lights from Kabuki-cho and Shinjuku Nichome lit up the darkening gloom. The next question from Setsura took her by surprise.

“You want to go there?”

“What, are you some sort of superman?”

“I own a
senbei
shop.”

A curious look rose to Mayumi’s face. “You have an interesting taste in fashion.”

“You want out of here?”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“Not a bad idea. The living is tough, but when it comes to getting by on your own, this city is easier than the outside world.”

“My mother said the same thing.
The world out there
, she liked to say,
is a bear
. People who live in this city have it the best. You may not find happiness here. But in exchange, no one’s going to give you grief for just about anything you do. That’s what I want for myself right now.”

“Sounds pretty darn close to happiness to me.”

Setsura looked out the window as well. Demon City was stained in India ink. People went everywhere and lived everywhere, to the ends of the earth. They lived in Demon City. They came to Demon City to shuck off all the constraints that once defined them as human. And if their wishes came true, wouldn’t they call that the pursuit of happiness?

In this city they harbored rage and sadness and suffering, were afflicted in body and spirit. And they
lived
.

In Demon City Shinjuku.

“You were good enough to bring me here,” Mayumi said, softly fixing her eyes on Setsura’s profile. “Do you know what my
illness
is?”

Setsura nodded.

Mayumi looked back at him silently. His eyes seemed to draw her into their endless depths. Seeing herself reflected in them, she felt a scorching sadness well up inside of her.

“I don’t want to know, but I can’t help knowing. Any man that sleeps with me dies. Or even tries. Despite any intentions of my own. They turn into slobbering ogres. You’re the one who brought me here—”

“Yeah.”

“When all this is over and done with, could you take me somewhere out there? Somewhere peaceful and quiet, where there aren’t many men around.”

Mayumi looked into his eyes. Perhaps she saw the gray city floating there in the depths of that endless black.

“I don’t care what the seal means, or what’s going to happen after this. Everything comes to an end eventually. And when it does—”

Setsura nodded. “I promise.”

“I’m counting on it. What do you think I should do after this?”

“Stay here for a while longer. There’s another man I’m looking for, and the syndicate that runs the Death Match is on the move. No matter who might be after you, this hospital is hell’s gate for them. They wouldn’t get past the lobby. You won’t find a safer refuge anywhere else.”

“That’s right. Mephisto Hospital is safer than Hades itself.” Mayumi smiled a mature and knowing smile. Children here, it was said, aged a few years faster than in the outside world. A real world more real than any other had that effect.

A city that a girl of not yet twenty called hell.

The phone next to the bed rang. Mayumi picked it up. “It’s for you,” she said, handing it to Setsura.

A familiar voice announced that he had returned. Mephisto was back.

The two men met in the examination room. Outside the room, patients came and went in a constant hubbub of activity. Every hospital in Demon City was open twenty-four seven, constantly taking emergency cases and referrals from the rest of Tokyo as well.

“You’re sure in a good mood,” Setsura wryly remarked. His always indifferent demeanor made the occasional hint of disagreeableness all the more striking.

“All thanks to you,” Mephisto said, lightly deflecting the expected criticism.

“Hyota filled me in. A helluva friend you are.”

“You’re hardly the one to talk,” he said with a piercing side glance. Jealousy suffused his gaze. Those who knew the cool-headedness of the hospital director would surely have been thrown for a loop.

“What have you been up to?” Setsura countered, looking the other way.

“Doctor-patient confidentiality prevents me from revealing such details. I have been compensated for my services.”

“So you’ll do anything for money, eh? Quack.”

“Morally inflexible people get on my nerves. In any case, I called you here in order to deliver a message.”

“About what?”

“The deal will go down tomorrow evening at ten o’clock at the altar on Yasukuni Avenue. The terms are Sasaki in exchange for—”

“Mayumi.”

“Precisely. So now you know. Whether you show up or not is up to you. If anybody gets hurt in the process, be sure to bring them here.”

“You’re a cold man.”

“And proud of it.”

Setsura sighed and sat back on the couch. “So what
do
you know about the girl?”

“In pathological terms, not a thing,” Mephisto said without hesitation. He propped his elbows on the table between them and tented his fingers. The ring on the middle finger of his left hand glittered.

Setsura narrowed his eyes slightly. “How about in other terms?”

“It might be best to alter our diagnostic approach and consider a field of study in the mystical arts.”

“Witch doctoring is your specialty.”

“That line was getting old a long time ago.”

“So what will it get us?”

“I do not know. Except that the odds of success should prove better than the current course of treatment.”

Setsura stared at the ceiling. A long pause later he said, “Well, this complicates things. Hand her over and for all I know, Gento will get some
real
witch doctor to cut her open.”

“Probably. But if she is worth as much to him as to you, there may be less cause for concern. No matter how strange the disease, if it spreads, more harm than good will be the result.”

“And if we can crack the secret before more harm than good is done, then the rest doesn’t matter. Any guarantees that you can figure out what this seal business is about without
you
doing more harm than good?”

“The seal has nothing to do with me,” Mephisto said, a touch of temper in his voice. “In any case,
you
are the only person who can offer this patient any guarantees. Leave her in this hospital and no one else shall lay a finger on her. Take her elsewhere and I won’t stop you. That choice is up to you.”

Setsura grimaced. The remark hit home. “So, tomorrow evening.”

“Tomorrow evening. You have plenty of time to think things over.”

“You’re still not interested in uncovering your patient’s secrets?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Hey, you’d get to keep me company for the night.”

“This particular
you
interests me not at all,” Mephisto said crisply.

Setsura stared at the ceiling and sighed.

“Seeing as you’ve come all the way here,” Mephisto said, as if the previous conversation hadn’t happened, “I might as well check you out.”

He got up and examined Setsura’s right hand. Not only had the bite wound he’d received at the Coliseum not healed, but using his hand to lop off Hyota’s head had bruised the tendons and bone. It was too good of an opportunity to let pass.

The examination was over in ten minutes. Setsura got out of the MRI machine, changed back into his street clothes and returned to the exam room. Mephisto’s attention was focused on the wall screen display.

“Something turn up? Cancer?”

Mephisto didn’t move.

“Hey.” Now Mephisto turned around. Sensing a flicker of something in the otherwise placid face, Setsura said, “What’s up?”

“Nothing, or so I would like to say. But the poker face is not my forte for good reasons. Have you felt anything amiss of late?”

“Not besides the obvious.”

“Has anything unusual been happening to you lately? Besides the obvious, of course. In short, have you found yourself capable of performing some activity you hadn’t been able to before?”

Setsura shook his head. “How about you get to the point?”

“Just as well,” Mephisto muttered, tapping his index finger against his forehead. “Just as well. That would fit. But hardly surprising if so. Such a development—”

“What?”

“There are no changes in your individual organs. However, looking at the
gestalt
of your physiology, certain abnormalities are showing up.”

“There’s nothing wrong with all the parts, but the whole is changing. Could you at least give me a hint?”

“I don’t know. The mainframe is working on it as we speak. As things stand now, we may have to access the supercomputer at the Ministry of Defense. Come back in if you don’t hear from me first. The analysis should be complete by tomorrow evening.”

“Perhaps the situation is the same with Gento, too?”

Mephisto looked at Setsura with shining eyes, the light of an implacable tenacity. “Ah, him. I had expected that we would meet at some later date. It may come sooner than expected.”

Setsura returned the look. He alone could peer beneath the Demon Physician’s emotionless facade and see the regret lingering there. Whatever reason Gento had summoned Mephisto for had nothing to do with his own “growth.”

The target was coming into focus. Which generated a whole new batch of questions. What sort of shock, to turn things around, would induce him to divulge a patient’s secrets to a third party? What changes were also taking place in Setsura’s body?

The two comely countenances had both donned demeanors of deep thought when the intercom rang. Mephisto’s ring blinked. Another display screen appeared on the wall.

“They’re here for you, I believe,” he said, glancing from the image of the five men in suits standing just inside the automatic lobby doors to Setsura. He looked pleased.