The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters (23 page)

“Huh,” Fuminari huffed, grimacing slightly. “So what’s the relationship between Miwa Ishibashi and Akio Ishibashi?” he asked.

“Ah, you’ve come across him.”

“Sure, Toyama Shutaro’s secretary.”

“You sound well informed.”

“Something tells me you guys are digging into Panshigaru too, huh?”

“Bingo! That’s it exactly. So you already know about them.”

“Some stuff, sure,” Fuminari muttered before falling quiet. They drove in silence for a while until Biku eventually opened his mouth to speak.

“We’d like to know what you were doing escaping her residence. Would you feel receptive to a little exchange of information? We can tell you what we know, and in exchange you let us in on what you’ve discovered.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, although it puts me at a disadvantage.”

“How so?”

“Look I’m in your car being taken God knows where. I wouldn’t call it a particularly conducive environment for having talks on equal footing.”

“If this worries you, we’d be happy to stop the car and let you out.”

“We’re not quite there yet, I’m happy to go along with what you say. But let’s have you go first, since it’s your suggestion. And don’t worry, I know I won’t be getting the full story. Just tell me what you can. Then I’ll tell you what I know.” Fuminari had just finished his sentence when he heard snoring, coming from the passenger seat. Hosuke Kumon had fallen asleep. The man was snoring heavily, without any apparent reservation. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Fuminari muttered.

“I’ve known him about a month now, this is pretty much how he rolls.”

“You said his name was Hosuke Kumon?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a Psyche Diver.”

“Huh!”

“You’ve heard of them, perhaps?”

“Yeah. They dive into other peoples’ heads, search for stuff; huh, so this guy’s actually one of them.”

“Yes, and an unlicensed one at that,” Biku said, his voice gave the impression he was enjoying himself.

3

Three men stood before the entrance of Biku’s apartment, Biku, Hosuke Kumon, and Senkichi Fuminari.

During the ride over, Biku and Fuminari had finished their first round of exchanging information.

Apart from the details regarding the theft of Kukai from Mt. Koya, Biku had provided Fuminari with an almost perfectly accurate rendering of what he knew. He had simply referred to the stolen property as being a ‘cultural artifact of national standing’. Fuminari, for his part, had given Biku the facts as he knew them, keeping almost nothing back. The only matter he concealed was that of his stealing money from the Kokushigun.

There was a level of overlap in the information they shared, but each side had been able to harvest new data. It was from Biku that Fuminari learned that Miwa Ishibashi had written about Panshigaru in her book entitled ‘The Hidden Sangha of India,’ and that it was in her residence that he had been held prisoner. He had been surprised to hear that Mt. Koya was involved in all of this, but the greatest discovery was when he learnt that Hanko, the half-human monster that had eaten his fingers, was an abomination created by Enoh’s own hand; that Enoh was a beast master, or
jushi
.

Biku learnt of a shadowy figure, known as Kurogosho, existing within the curtain of Panshigaru, and of the organization’s staging of grotesque, nighttime rituals deep in the mountains--of the mass groups of men and woman partaking in eerie, quasi-religious orgies...and of the carnage involved. Fuminari told him of how they would crucify an upturned and naked woman, how they would sever her head, drain her blood, and feast on her heart.

It was, to an extent, familiar territory for Biku. At Mt. Koya he had been a practitioner of the secretive Tachikawa School, a practice that had led to his expulsion from the mountain. He had decided he could probably gather some information on the ritual Fuminari described from materials he had at hand. He guessed the ritual was esoteric, probably with strong connections to religion indigenous to India. He could assign Shimizu the task of gathering data; if there was information out there, he would get something within three days.

Those were the gist of Biku’s thoughts as he reached for the door to his apartment. He made it a habit each time he returned to check if the door was properly locked. The handle gave under his hold. There was absolutely no resistance. The lock had been destroyed. He pushed the door and it swung open. The lights were already on.

“Master Biku.” A man looked up, perched on a sofa towards the back of the room. The man was young, his face looked worn, but he was dressed in a neatly-pressed suit. He had loosened the tie around his neck.

“What happened, Shimizu?” Biku asked.

Hosuke came in after him followed straightaway by Fuminari’s massive frame; he had to duck his head to enter the room. The young man stood up and turned to look at Fuminari. The man was Tetsuo Shimizu, Hosuke already knew him from the first time Biku had brought him to the apartment after trekking back from the mountains. He performed various tasks on Biku’s behalf. Hosuke knew there were other men and women that made a habit of coming and going from the place. One of the women visitors, Yuko, the girl he had slept with, had been abducted by Iba and his gang; now she was being held somewhere against her will. Shimizu’s gaze hung on Fuminari, but not because of the sheer size of the man. He seemed to be wondering whether he could mention something in front of this man he had not seen before.

“Don’t worry about Fuminari, he’s fine. Speak your mind,” Biku said.

Shimizu opened his mouth slightly, nodding, “Iba was taken.”

“What?” Biku’s voice betrayed a faint tension.

“I called at 10:00 in the evening, but there was no answer. Takaoka and Tsurumi were supposed to be guarding Iba, but no-one picked up regardless of how much I called. I got here at 10:30. The lock had been smashed and Iba was nowhere to be seen.”

“And Takaoka, Tsurumi?”

“They were down, I found them in the room we held Iba. Takaoka was dead by the time I arrived.” Shimizu’s face went pale, a faint tremor ran over his lips. He looked terror-stricken. “Takaoka was lying downwards, but
his head was pointed at the ceiling
.” He emphasized each word.

“What the?” the low rumbling voice was Fuminari’s.

“Tsurumi was still alive when I got here.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Yes. He told me that around 9:30 he’d heard a strange sound at the door and went to check it out. The door had flown open and a man the size of the door frame burst in. He attacked without warning, hitting his chest and head. I had to confirm that he was talking about a man, at first he seemed convinced the intruder had been some kind of animal.”

“A monster.” Fuminari shivered. He wrapped his black-gloved left hand over the glove of his right. His face clouded over as though he were suffering immense physical pain. The source appeared to originate inside his left glove.

“Hanko was
here
,” Biku muttered.

It was only lunchtime the previous day when Biku and Hosuke had left the apartment for Odawara to visit Gensai Sakuma. They had not returned until now, instead using the address Gensai had acquired to visit the headquarters of the L.L.S. where they had asked for an audience with Miwa Ishibashi. They had been been kept waiting in a room at the Roppongi headquarters until they were eventually told that she was out of the building with no means of contact; then they were kicked out. By then it was already late. They decided that, since they were out, they would look up the man that had edited her book, a Mr. Togawa, and pay him a visit.

Togawa turned out to be the caretaker for a middle-class apartment block in the city. He was somewhere close to his sixties. He had been employed at a publisher when Miwa Ishibashi paid them an unscheduled visit twenty years ago. She was in her late thirties, arriving with a thick bundle of manuscript in hand. It was the first time they had met. He had only met her himself because his co-workers had been busy and he had a spare moment. “Take a look at the manuscript,” she had said. “If you like it, I would like you to publish it. I will return in a week for your response. If you don’t want to publish, I’ll take it back.” She had told him she would try and sell it to another publisher.

The manuscript was titled, ‘The Hidden Sangha of India.’ She had brought the text already knowing that they printed a relatively high volume of religious materials. She had not been overly polite, neither had she been particularly arrogant, simply taking her leave directly after finishing what she had come to say.

“She was confident in the book,” Togawa told Biku and Hosuke. “That girl, man she was sexy as hell.” He had read the manuscript the day before Miwa was due back. It consisted of a detailed analysis of various religions and cults indigenous to India. The first half covered ground that had been studied before, but the later sections described things he had never come across before. He found that even the earlier sections had been written with fresh perspective, full of insights that even accomplished scholars would struggle to attain. Her work was incredible. When Miwa had returned the next day, he told her they wanted to publish. He had only one question, which he asked her about.

“You say in your work that your research was primary, based on years of walking around and visiting these places. Did you actually do that?”

“I was there for almost a decade,” she had replied.

The first edition of the book made a print run of five-thousand copies, selling out within the year. Despite the success, no more editions were printed. Miwa Ishibashi forbade it, refusing even to offer an explanation. All she had given him was a card bearing her address. She lived in the mountains, near Hachioji. The address she had given him was of a building located inside a large forested area that she claimed to own, apparently living there with her only son.

Togawa had visited only once. He no longer remembered many of the details, but told them he could more or less work out the location of the building. He had summoned up what vague memories he had, and written them on a map. Biku and Hosuke had followed it and eventually stumbled on the property late that same night.

Lights were on inside the building, despite the late hour. The air was tense, telling them that something was in the middle of happening. They had been ready to head home but gut feeling convinced them to venture closer to find out what it was. They had been waiting for a while when the light went out and the interior fell quiet. Fuminari exploded into the air, leaping clean over one of the boundary walls just as they were readying to leave. While they were out tracking Panshigaru, Panshigaru had kept busy too, taking advantage of Biku’s absence to stage an attack on his apartment and recover Iba.

“Iba was gone. Tsurumi died within five minutes of my getting here,” Shimizu said.

“Where are the bodies?” Biku asked, his voice dry.

“At the Tsumura Hospital. We should receive the detailed death certificates sometime today.”

“I see,” Biku said. He turned his dark eyes to face Hosuke and Fuminari, still behind him. “Please, use the sofa,” he suggested. Fuminari was astonished with the calm that Biku, this guy with a young girl’s features, was displaying. The man’s features suggested he was in his teens but Shimizu, probably already in his mid-twenties, was referring to him as ‘Master’. It was obvious that Biku’s looks did not reflect his true age, but even with that knowledge, Fuminari could not help but feel something immense in Biku’s nonchalant acceptance of his colleagues’ death, and he remembered the skills the man had displayed fighting when they first met outside the boundary wall. He wasn’t Fuminari’s type, but there was something formidable about him nonetheless.

Then there was Hosuke Kumon, mysterious and nebulous like he was made from air. Back at the residence, Hosuke had voluntarily stood up and flicked on his lighter, the gesture had been almost polite. Fuminari had wondered if the man was somehow retarded. Even now, he could still hear the man snoring away in the car. But there was something innately likable about him.

On the other hand, Fuminari was finding it difficult to warm to Biku. Beauty aside, the man exhibited an eerie cool, even a coldness. He knew they would have difficulty getting along. Fuminari took a seat, causing the leather sofa to sag deeply. Outside the window, the sky was already growing bright.

“Well, whatever we’re going to do we know this place is dangerous,” Hosuke said, breaking his silence. He was on the sofa too, legs crossed. “Now those bastards know about it.” He scratched his head and rocked his upper body a little, as though testing the springs.

Fuminari, who had been watching him until now, turned to look at the others in the room. “So, no-one’s going to ask about my place?” he volunteered.

“Your place?”

“Hakone. Thought I’d told you, I rent a lodge up there. There’s a girl that’ll cook, Ryoko. And don’t worry, I won’t charge rent.”

An image of Ryoko crossed his mind, she looked uneasy.

4

Yuko was outside of the windowless room for the first time in a while.

She had been escorted out by a man in black robes. “Come,” he said as he grabbed her by the hand, “Master Kurogosho wants to see you.” He had nothing else to say. When they left the room he told her to follow him down the long corridor. There was a window towards the middle. When Yuko peered out, she saw a dark sky and the black outlines of rustling branches. That was the first time she realized it was night. Even so, she was unable to decipher anything further like what time it was. The man came to a halt and Yuko stopped with him. They were standing directly next to a closed
shoji
door. The paper glowed dimly in the light coming from the end of the corridor. There was the sound of a woman’s voice inside, moaning. Yuko knew the sound. It was the sound that leaked from a woman’s throat when she climaxed during intercourse. A faint scent permeated through the
shoji,
carrying on the air, some kind of incense. She felt the scent insinuate itself inside her, breaching the cells of her body. It was primal, somehow, as though designed to awaken the dark beasts that reside deep within the human psyche. There was a sweet sensation as it permeated the interior of her womb.