The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters (10 page)

There were two beds attached to the rig, a man lay in one of them. The other was empty; it would be Hosuke’s. In just one hour he would execute a dive into the other man’s consciousness. The man looked young, probably in his mid-to-late 20’s. No inquiries had been made to help determine his identity, and he had nothing on his person that had helped.

What did this man’s accomplices want with Kukai’s body? If it was money, they would have already issued their demands, but more than 20 days had passed and they had heard nothing. It did not make sense, just what had happened that night at Kukai’s tomb? Hosuke recalled something Enjaku had said after they had finished negotiating the contract the previous night.

“Strange things have been known to happen there
,”
he had uttered the words out of the blue. “There’s a mysterious
ki
in the air, an energy of sorts. In modern terms I guess it’s a little like a magnetic field. It has always been strongest around the Grand Master himself. I have seen flashes of light and heard unintelligible mutterings. I have seen the air congeal and slither toward dark corners. Once, the air took on a wraith-like form, a ghostly figure. It is difficult to put into words.”

“Hmm.”

“I remember a few years ago, when I was still Yuina, there was a time when I discovered a monk at the chamber’s entrance. He was flat on the ground.”

“Dead?”

“Unconscious. When he came around it was as though someone had wiped his memories. From that day forward, he began losing his grip on reality.”

“Do you think something happened inside the chamber?”

“I cannot say,” Enjaku paused for a moment, “It’s not too difficult to get into the chamber if you have knowledge of the temple’s workings. We never discovered if he had breached the threshold of the chamber. The door was closed. He may have collapsed trying to enter the room, or he may have just happened to be in the vicinity when he passed out. The third possibility, of course, is that he had gained entrance to the chamber but was somehow knocked unconscious as he left, after closing the door behind him.”

“Hmm.”

“He was blessed with an incredibly sharp mind. His name was Geshin, a genius in many ways.”

Hosuke felt the name tug at something in his memory. Was there a link between the current case and Geshin’s? The two men had both been discovered lying unconscious outside the mausoleum, but that was where the similarities ended. Geshin had lost his mind; the other man was still out. It could be either a similarity or a divergence. The only certainty was that Hosuke was about to dive into the mind of the latter.

Hosuke hovered on the border of the man’s subconscious. His ‘presence’ was nothing more than a metaphor, having lost all semblance of physical mass, it was Hosuke’s consciousness that peered into the interior of the man’s mind from its perimeter. He saw only silence and darkness.

He was at a loss, unable to find anything into which he could dive. Within the darkness there was a shape that contained a deeper darkness. It was a hole, a void in the shape of a person, a presence broadcast only by the emptiness within it. Like a hollow, only the outline was visible. There should have been faint elements of light pulsing across the surface, wisps of thought that would bubble up to the outer consciousness, but there was nothing. Something was very wrong. Even the mind of a newborn baby exhibited activity, but it just was not there.

A Diver cannot work without a sea to dive into. The fact remained, however, that an A-grade Diver had already breached the black, maybe transparent, abyss that he perceived before him. Hosuke began to construct a psyche suit from elements of his own mind, placing his consciousness inside it. Then he jumped upward and began to slowly ascend. There was no resistance as he crossed into the interior of the man’s mind. This first area would be the surface consciousness, usually the most chaotic area of the human mind, but he encountered only darkness.

Where the hell do I go?
There was no way to get a feel for which way led ‘down’ toward the subconscious. He needed to locate something of the man’s self, part of a trauma would do, in order to determine direction. He moved tentatively forward. There was almost a total lack of mental pressure. He was at Level-1 depth, but he had not experienced even a tenth of the expected increase in pressure.

Hosuke caught sight of a small, turquoise, fog-like sphere. Its form was slightly elliptical, oscillating as it drifted. Hosuke moved closer and tried touching it. No response, it was not related to emotion. Hosuke decided that it was probably a fragment of surface consciousness, a visual memory. Hosuke ‘ate’ a section of it.

He saw desks, windows, and part of a room the man had seen somewhere. The contents of the room were warped, tangled, and fused together in a surreal way that reminded him of a Dali painting. This was basic stuff, the type of mental construct he typically used when building his psyche suit, nothing that could threaten a Diver.

There was something unnatural in the way everything had melded together. It was not the type of distortion he was used to seeing. Hosuke suspected that the objects had come together from a sudden increase in mental pressure, some kind of shock event. Hosuke stretched the mist until it thinned, then he wrapped it around the exterior of his psyche suit for temporary protection if he were to stumble into an unfriendly element of the man’s self.

He ventured forward.

There was a subtle but definite rise in pressure as the density of mental flotsam continued to increase. Hosuke spent time inspecting each item. It was strange, nothing he came across bore any connection to the man’s emotion or self. The floating elements were all neutral and harmless.

Hosuke stumbled over something invisible, a hole in the air, only visible from a particular direction. He saw something wriggling inside it, black, creepy, and sinister. It reminded Hosuke of the demon inside of Professor Rozimoff, but even the demon had contained vestiges of humanity. Whatever he was looking at now was utterly inhuman.

As Hosuke moved to touch it, the thing suddenly pounced on him. It felt like he had put his hand in a hole only to have a viper strike out. It plunged its teeth into Hosuke’s psyche suit and began to coil around. Hosuke thought he could hear an abrasive whistling from the gaps between its teeth. He could almost smell the thing’s odious breath. Hosuke ripped it off of his suit, but it persisted, coming back biting each time. The thing was clearly mad with hunger like the physical embodiment of insanity, a hungry demon from a hell scroll. Hosuke removed a fragment of the blue surface consciousness from his psyche suit and covered the creature with it.
That should hold it for a while.

He collected his thoughts.

The void he was in appeared to be the result of some kind of trauma, but for some reason the trauma was nowhere to be seen, and it had taken the majority of the man’s consciousness with it. He saw something red inside the hole, something flabby, like a half-decomposed jellyfish. Hosuke pulled it out. It was definitely alive. Faint tremors rippled over its surface as though it was trying to wriggle free from his grip.

Bingo.
It was connected to the man’s emotion, maybe his self. Hosuke removed a portion and ate it.

It was a scream. It was horrific, grounding through his insides, causing him to gag as a retching wave of nausea surged over him. The scream did not translate into a sound; Hosuke was hit with the full naked force of the emotion behind it. It was the same scream that had woken Jichiei from his sleep over 20 days earlier.

What the hell could make someone scream like this?
There was no doubt that this was the man’s last scream, issued moments before he had lost consciousness.

Hiyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

The mental assault lasted only a few milliseconds. Hosuke experienced confusion, terror, lust; meaningless fragments of thought, images and sound in quick succession before they all blended together again:

...death (no!)

terror (hateful)

help! (hopeless)

what (what)

this (this)

terror, beast, teeth, light!--screamscreamscream!

why (death)

me (death)

woman (genitals)

thrust (death)

money (death)

nothingness...

All of that contained in one minuscule part of a scream, like all of the graffiti scribbled on the walls of public toilets in a big city, concentrated and released in an instant of horror. The man’s whole consciousness must have sparked red in that moment. Hosuke had stumbled across a single fragment of a greater whole. Like glue, the scream would have held together the various fragments of the man’s consciousness before it had been ripped apart; this was one of those parts.

What happened outside the burial chamber that night? Where was the man’s mind?
He had been attacked, that much was obvious now.
But by what?
Hosuke had no idea, and even if the man had been attacked, Hosuke found it difficult to understand how it would have resulted in the loss of his mind. The mind always persisted, even when the subject was unconscious, even when they suffered amnesia. Could whatever attacked this man have somehow launched a direct attack on his consciousness?

The scream, still in the form of a flabby red jellyfish, squirmed into a ball as though in pain. Something black crawled out from inside like a grub bearing its head after eating through the host’s guts. It was the same as Hosuke had seen before, writhing, living excrement. It wriggled and glistened like a leech. Hosuke was sure it would have his hairs standing on end if he had been physically present. The creature had eaten its way through the jellyfish from the inside. There was no way it was part of the man’s consciousness. There was not a scrap of anything human about it. It belonged in hell.

It attached itself to the surface of Hosuke’s psyche suit and began to worm its way upward. The sensation was like a caterpillar or a spider crawling over naked flesh. Hosuke grabbed it. It swelled in his hands with the consistency of a mollusk. He ate it.

Eating it allowed Hosuke to absorb it; by doing so he was exposing it to a section of his own mind and combining the two. The sensation was like being forced to drink steaming vomit. He felt a faint twinge of pain. As Hosuke ate the creature, in return it took a bite out of his mind. It was only a scratch, the kind you might get walking through tall grass. Hosuke closed the tiny part of his suit he had opened in order to eat the creature. The taste still lingered on his tongue. It was sickening.

...
destroy...destroy...destroy...

The thing was gelatinous, driven by the sole desire to consume. There was something terrifyingly inhuman about it. Hosuke sensed that it was part of a greater whole, like a drop of sweat or fluid from something that was clearly not human. The creature had been impregnated with the thing’s ego.

Hosuke readied himself to dive into the void left by the trauma. It would be easy enough, as the trauma itself no longer remained. Once inside he would find a way into the man’s self, if it still existed. He gathered a few more elements of surface consciousness and appended them to his psyche suit. If there was any trouble he could use them both as a weapon and a shield.

The gap appeared spherical at first glance, but it was in fact a cross-section of the various layers of consciousness, a four-dimensional tree diagram with branches that delved into the multifarious levels of the mind. Hosuke knew that the roots of such trees often penetrated as deep as the self.

He dived into the void.

The scene that greeted him was utterly appalling.

Five

Kurogosho’s Messenger

1

Sunlight filtered through a netting of foliage then streamed through the basement window, casting latticed shadows on the tatami.

Every now and then a light breeze would disturb the leaves and cause the mottled pattern of light to shimmer. The tearoom was 4.5 tatami mats large. There was the sound of water quietly coming to a boil. Steam rose from an iron pot suspended over the brazier toward the center of the room. The room’s alcove contained a bamboo vase which held a single Alaskan bellflower, its tiny purple petals angled downward, ready to open. The dignified flower on the cusp of full bloom brought an elegant tension to the room. The space had been fashioned in the Soan style, using textures that were exclusively natural and wooden.

The room was lavishly expensive, from the thatched Gamamushiro ceiling to the rounded pillars, although such details would not be obvious to a layman. Everything had been made from the highest-grade material. The sole ornaments were the flowers in the alcove and the Chinese scroll on the wall behind them. The scroll stood out like a sore thumb among the otherwise austere design of the room. It was not rendered in a style befitting a tearoom; painted in lavish colors the scroll depicted a pair of male and female deities copulating in a standing position. The scroll had been penned as a tribute to the god Heruka.

Heruka looms imposingly in dark ultramarine blue to the center. A black and green female deity is sitting in his lap, head arched backward as the god penetrates her. Her legs are wrapped tightly around his waist. Heruka is fiercely bearing his teeth, with a priceless gem in his left hand and a cobalt pestle in his right. His innumerable arms fan out on each side holding particular ritualistic tools, human bodies skewered through the anus, and the severed head of Brahma. The god’s clothing is made from human heads of all races, and there are ten skulls affixed to his brow. Trails of blood form webs in his three open eyes as the crimson flames of a lotus flower burn in the background. The scroll was from a denomination of Esoteric Buddhism, in a style that was almost hateful in its rendition of eroticism.

Four people sat assembled in this strange tearoom. There was a single female, and two of the remaining three were elderly men; one was decked out in formal Japanese dress preparing tea according to the traditional method. He appeared to be in his mid-70’s, completely bald apart from a few wispy gray hairs that extended toward the back of his head from behind his ears.

He seemed completely at ease despite the formality of his dress. The man was not particularly bulky yet he emanated a sense of weight that made him appear larger than he was. The force that resonated from his frame was both strange and oppressive. His bearing was of great dignity, but somehow he communicated an underlying sense of raw, untethered energy. His handling of the bamboo whisk may have appeared careless to some, but his easy movements reflected an absolute mastery of the form. He placed the finished cup in front of a man wearing an immaculate suit.

“Well, Toyama?” His voice resonated. Toyama took the bowl, appearing to be nervous. He was in his early 50’s. Carefully following the ritual’s protocols, Toyama drank from the bowl and replaced it before him.

“The bowl is
Kuro-oribe
,” Toyama said in a voice that betrayed tension.

“Hmm,” the old man narrowed his eyes, “you know about ceramics?”

“I’m no expert but yes, a little.”

“I’m clueless about it, myself.” Toyama gave the old man a confused look. “I’m sure someone told me the name when I bought it but it went straight out the other side, along with the price I paid.”

“I see.”

The old man’s eyes flashed with the hint of a smile. “Perhaps, then, you could help me with these.” The old man reached for two bowls on a stand next to him. “Well?” He lined them side-by-side before Toyama.

“I’m sorry, what would you like me to do?” Toyama appeared to be at a loss as to what the old man wanted of him. He turned to focus on the two bowls; one was
Shinoyaki
, the other maybe
Ekaratsu.

“I care nothing for their names. Tell me which you believe the more valuable,” said the old man.

“But.”

“Relax, it’s just some light entertainment. Just say whatever comes to mind.” The summer was too hot for his suit, but that was not why sweat trickled down Toyama’s forehead. The old man watched his perspiration with interest. “Perhaps I should re-frame the question,tell me how much
you
would pay for them. Give me a price and I’ll sell them to you.”

Toyama was sweating heavily.

“Well? 20 million? A million? Maybe just 2 or 300 yen.”

“I...I couldn’t,” Toyama started, “Master Kurogosho, please forgive me.” Toyama placed his hands on the tatami and kowtowed. The old man looked at the other two sitting behind Toyama, a diminutive old man and a young woman.

“Enoh, how about you? What would you be willing to pay?”

Enoh’s heavily wrinkled face contracted into a grin. He was almost half the size of Master Kurogosho and wore the black robes of Taoist priest over his slight frame. He was the only one present to be sitting casually with his legs crossed.

“Let’s see,” he said. He brushed a veiny hand through the white hair on his temples. “First, I would have someone bring me premium Chinese sake, Lao-chu would be perfect.”

“Yes?”

“Then, I would have them fill the bowls with it.”

“I see...”

“I’d pay whatever the Lao-chu cost to fill them,” he said brazenly.

“You dog.”

“That’s all they are worth.”

“Enoh, how dare you insult my handiwork by comparing it to the price of booze?” The old man laughed, replacing the bowls to the stand.

“T...these are your own, Master Kurogosho?” Toyama said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. The bowls were extraordinary, all the more so for having been forged by an amateur.

“Now, Toyama,” the old man said as he returned his gaze from the stand, “I hear that Kumon Hosuke has joined Mt. Koya. Is this true?”

“It is. We had not anticipated that they would set their sights on the same Diver as us.”

“Hmm.”

“According to the agent we have following Tamura, he turned up with someone called Biku.”

“The man that crossed Iba in the mountains. Who is he?”

“We aren’t sure yet, but he does appear to have strong ties to Mt. Koya. If we had known that earlier, we never would have let Kumon Hosuke go with him.”

“You had Hanko with you.”

“We were attacked by a bear in the middle of the proceedings. Hanko took care of the bear, but Jakouin sustained an injury.”

“Ah, that woman.”

“If she had not been injured, we were confident that Hanko would have been able to handle the situation.”

“Hanko and Jakouin,” the old man murmured and crossed his arms. He glanced at Enoh. “What do you make of this?”

“There is nothing we can do about it,” he answered.

“Would I be correct in assuming that you, as his trainer, and Jakouin are the only two able to exercise control over Hanko?”

“That’s correct.” Enoh nodded.

The old man uncrossed his arms and turned back to address Toyama, “Have they made the connection between Tamura and Iba?”

“Not yet, it seems.”

“I was appalled to hear that Tamura was still alive.”

“We confirmed his pulse had stopped. It would appear that Mt. Koya found some way to resuscitate him. It is, of course, within the realm of possibility to restart a stopped heart depending on the cause and time of death.”

“Mt. Koya.” The old man’s expression darkened slightly. “Have you managed to ascertain what happened to Tamura there?”

“Not yet. Whatever happened, it happened the moment he made physical contact with Kukai.”

“And now Kumon Hosuke is going to dive into Tamura?”

“We believe so,” said Toyama.

“How much information will they be able to extract from him?”

“If Kumon Hosuke is as good as the rumors suggest, they will probably be able to gain access to...certain facts.”

“Be more precise.”

“If Tamura has seen your face, Master Kurogosho, they will be able to drag it out of him.”

“Psyche Divers have that ability?”

“The most important factor will be the manner in which Tamura saw you, Master Kurogosho. His memory of you won’t appear as a true-to-life photographic reflection. He will have memories of any number of faces aside from yours. For these reasons, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be able to create the link between yourself and Kukai. That being said, if they were to spend months collating information and then commit it to some kind of processing system then they could possibly--”

The old man listened to Toyama with his eyes shut. “Do you know any other Divers that may be of use?” he asked.

“In Japan, very few. If we were to use licensed Divers we would no longer be able to guarantee the secrecy of the assignment. There is one by the name of Juta Busujima, but he’s in Brazil. We have made attempts to contact him but have yet to receive a response. There are other freelancers, but they are Tamura’s level of proficiency at best, mostly less so.”

“Another died after Tamura, correct?”

“Yes. Again, immediately upon making contact with Kukai.”

The old man’s expression was growing more intense as a tangible anger coursed through him. “I assume this mess with Tamura’s body will be resolved today?”

“Iba is already working on it,” Toyama said, bowing his head to the tatami. The old man made no effort to conceal the force collecting within him. He looked over to the woman. So far, she had remained completely silent.

“Renobo,” he called to her.

“Master,” she answered, bowing slightly.

There was something deeply carnal about her sharp, narrow eyes. She sat formally on her knees, straight hair reaching the floor. Her lips were freakishly red. Her pale skin stood in stark contrast to the darkness of her hair and her ruby-red lips. She looked like an invertebrate, her pale skin suggesting that she had been raised in a dark cave. Her body was flush with a beguiling energy that surged outward, creating an almost palpable aura that warped the air around her. Her allure was beyond any normally practiced form of seduction. She exuded lust as though it was something she had been born with; it was completely organic to her.

“I heard that someone was snooping around, trying to find out about Panshigaru,” the old man said.

“Yes. We’ve picked him up, a reporter by the name of Yoichi Munakata. He was employed by a man called Senkichi Fuminari.”

“Senkichi Fuminari?”

“We haven’t come across the name before. Munakata doesn’t seem to know much about him either. Their contact was limited to phone conversations. Fuminari sent him a million yen upfront, delivered via registered courier service.”

The old man raised his eyebrows slightly. “He knows too much, let’s clean up.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ve learned what we can.” The old man stood. “Enoh, it’s been too long, it’s time you treat us to a display of your skills again.”

2

The four walked out to a spacious garden surrounded by a forest of larch trees.

The odd birch tree punctuated the grounds; their positioning suggested that they were naturally occurring rather than planted. The garden was situated on a raised plateau and the air was free of humidity with a fresh, bracing wind that cut through the leaves. A white table and four chairs had been laid out in front of the central hall. Five men stood next to the arrangement, one was in jeans with the others surrounding him, blocking his escape. His captors were rugged-looking, everything about them suggested a casual familiarity with violence. They gave off an energy that was distinct from the untrained ferocity of small-time yakuza, or the purely physical intimidation of a wrestler or a heavyweight boxer. They were clearly professionals.

The old man took a seat. Enoh, Renobo and Toyama continued to stand at his side. The four bodyguards stepped back, marooning the man in jeans.

“Yoichi Munakata,” the old man said.

“I’ve told you everything I know. Please, let me go,” Munakata whimpered.

He was in his late 20’s. His hair was a mess, face covered with dark stubble. He was bruised and bloodied, watching the old man through sunken, bloodshot eyes. He looked like he was recovering from some illness. His lips were parched. He seemed to be struggling to stay upright. He had been tortured; over half of the fingernails were missing from his hands and his fingertips were red with congealed blood. The growth of his beard hinted at the length of his captivity.

“If you are even half-capable of your job, the depth of your involvement should be obvious by now,” the old man’s voice was rich and full. Wind teased through the lines of white hair above his ears. The blood drained from Munakata’s face, his skin paled from the throat upward. He knew exactly what the words meant for him. “You’ve seen my face.” The old man narrowed his eyes.

“You...you’re going to kill me.” Munakata’s voice was coarse. His legs were trembling. “Please, let me work for you. I’ll do anything,” the words issued from his mouth like droplets of blood.