The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters (27 page)

“Man,” Hosuke let out a cracked sigh from his position next to Fuminari, “this is unbearable.”

They were the same words Fuminari had muttered two years ago. Except, Hosuke uttered them with something like a sense of playfulness. Fuminari turned to look at him, Hosuke noticed and met his gaze. The man’s face was flushed, his eyes flashing wildly. He had the look of a boy that had chanced on some other kids playing a game he had yet to discover.
I want to play too.
It was the exact same look; Fuminari wondered for a moment if the man might just stroll over and join in. There was something about Hosuke that made Fuminari suspect it was firmly within the realm of possibility. Fuminari caught himself wondering what kind of expression Biku would be wearing, but Biku was too far behind him to be able to make out his features.

“They’ll have someone on watch,” Fuminari said, aware of the coarseness of his voice.

“Hanko,” Biku said in a low voice.

A strange sensation caused Fuminari to shiver the moment Biku said the name. It felt as though the man-beast was suddenly there behind him; the emotion was unknowable...not fear, not joy. It was almost as though Hanko had lurched over him and rammed his cock up Fuminari’s asshole. Fuminari saw the image of Hanko fucking him from behind, even as the beast devoured him from the head down. The image was utterly repellent. Yet it was not without a strange feeling of comfort. Fuminari bit his lips together, banishing the image from his mind. He got the feeling he had just caught a glimpse of a desire hidden so deep it was beyond any form of conscious awareness.
Fuck!
A silent howl tore through him, tearing his insides to pieces.
Show yourself, Hanko!
Fuminari screamed internally.
I’ve come back to take you on, one last time.
He saw Ryoko taking his limp cock into her mouth, running her tongue over and over the surface. Her face was immediately substituted by that of Kumiko, her buttocks dancing as she reveled in his fucking her from behind.
Hanko, you motherfucker.
Fuminari felt flames of hatred erupt through him, like a beast eating away at his flesh. Hanko was out there, hiding in the darkness together with Enoh, the beast master that had created him.

The chanting that had lapped at his frame, like the ebb and flow of a tide, shifted gears, moving up a pitch. The copulating men and women inside the mandala began to move with an even more fervent intensity. They looked like a swarm of flesh-colored invertebrates squirming over the clearing. The crimson of the flames licked at their flesh like a gory tongue.

It was just like the mandala worshipping Heruka. If the man called Kurogosho led Panshigaru, it was possible he would be sitting in Heruka’s place at the middle of the mandala. Fuminari heard Biku’s voice just as he had the thought.

“Over there!”

The object of his attention was immediately clear. Two women had emerged from behind the dark group of people, dressed in black robes. Between them was a naked girl, whimpering. The dark hairs between her legs were cast in shadow by the light of the flames.

“Yuko!” Hosuke exclaimed.

Fuminari sensed Biku nod behind them, confirming it. The girl’s teenage face was contorted with terror, her once alluring features swollen and ugly. The look was born of her abject horror. She was terrifying to behold, enough to frighten off any potential lover. Some liquid glistened as it traced down the inside of her thighs. She had wet herself.

Biku had already told Fuminari about Yuko. He had told him that she had been visiting his apartment when Panshigaru abducted her. This was the first time he had actually seen her. Her legs buckled as she screamed, half-collapsing to the ground. The two women locked their arms under her from either side and continued to drag her towards the cross. It would be clear enough to Yuko what they were planning to do to her, even if they hadn’t told her already. She was thrust out before the cross, about to collapse to her knees when they jerked her upwards and forced her to stand. They pushed so that her back was leaning into the cross.

Fuminari recognized one of the women. “Renobo,” he muttered the name without even realizing, the sound not registering in his ears. There she was, the woman that had derided him as useless, laughing and spreading her dripping cunt for him to see. He felt his gigantic frame twitching.

Renobo’s white arms emerged from the cloth as she brought her right hand down, positioning it between Yuko’s legs. She crouched forward and began to caress one of Yuko’s nipples with her mouth. She grabbed Yuko’s other breast in her left hand and squeezed, scooping it upwards as she did. The other woman had circled around to the back of the cross; she reached out so that her arms were underneath Yuko’s and used them to pin her against the cross. Yuko’s frantic struggling began to slow as her screams died down to a low, constant moan. Renobo pulled her mouth away from Yuko’s breasts and raised her head so that her lips covered Yuko’s quietened mouth. Renobo’s right hand continued to writhe between Yuko’s legs. It was impossible to see the kiss from Fuminari’s position. He could only make out the back of Renobo’s head together with part of Yuko’s.

Yet he found it easy to imagine the hidden progress of Renobo’s tongue. The embrace was all the more tantalizing for his being deprived of seeing it. Their heads pivoted with Yuko’s lips as the fulcrum. After a while, Renobo withdrew from the kiss. Yuko appeared to have closed her eyes. Renobo continued to massage Yuko’s breasts as she let her lips slide across Yuko’s neck and down to her shoulders. She continued to follow Yuko’s body downwards, tracing over the girl’s pale abdomen until coming to a stop above her groin. Renobo was now on her knees with both hands pivoted upwards, still massaging Yuko’s breasts. The sleeves of her black robe had slipped down to her shoulders, revealing pale arms. Even from a distance, the stark whiteness was shocking. They undulated in a slithering motion like a pair of ashen snakes. Renobo’s head bobbed in a tight circular motion. Yuko had begun to move her hips, back and forth in line with the movement. It was clear that her body was beginning to respond. Her lips hung half open as she pulled her jaw inwards, breathing heavily. The sound emerging now belonged to an emotion completely alien to her earlier screams. But it failed to reach Fuminari’s ears.

“No, this won’t do at all,” Hosuke spoke slowly, again off to Fuminari’s side. Fuminari turned to stare at him. His face was serious, more so than his casual tone had suggested. “I spent a whole night with that girl, you know.” When he spoke the words were just as much for himself as much as they were for Fuminari and Biku. “Fuck it. I can’t just abandon her like this.” He scratched noisily at his scalp.

“What are you going to do?” Biku asked.

“I’m gonna help her,” Hosuke answered flatly.

“Help her?”

“Yup, that’s right.”

“How?”

“I’ll strike a deal.” Hosuke drew his heavy frame up.

“A deal?”

“I’ll ask them to spare her life,” he answered flatly. The tone of his voice made it sound like he was going to ask his neighbors to return a stray cat.

“You’re serious.”

Biku got up without a sound, his beautiful features hardening. Biku knew from the evening they had met in Tateyama that Hosuke could approach a bear without any weapons to defend himself and still manage to send it on its way, and after nothing more than a ‘discussion,’ no less. He remembered how Hosuke had told him he had sung a lullaby to the bear. Biku was in no doubt that Hosuke commanded a mysterious, nebulous power. But that situation was in a different league to the one they faced now.

“Biku, don’t try to stop me.”

“I can’t stand back and let you destroy the progress we’ve made.”

“I thought I’d told you already, you don’t employ me anymore.”

“This may end up as a continuation of what we started in Odawara, yet at this stage I feel I must be clear.” Biku pushed his right hand under his leather belt, then pulled it out again in the same calm motion. Something flashed in Hosuke’s eyes when he glanced at Biku’s hand.

“I see.” His eyes narrowed. The gun in Biku’s hand gave off a sharp, glossy reflection; it was a Detonics .45 MK-V, the lightest 45mm automatic available.

Fourteen

The Demon’s Howl

1

“That gun looks like it’d make a fun sound.”

Hosuke’s tone was completely relaxed, not that of a man with a gun pointed at him. “Go ahead and try it, Biku. That bunch will be on you in an instant, of course.”

“If it becomes necessary I will, without hesitation.”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re really planning to just go and ask them to spare Yuko?” Like Hosuke, Biku’s voice was perfectly calm. Yet it was clear enough that he would pull the trigger without hesitation if he felt he had to.

“Always too serious, Biku.”

“I guess you’re not going to tell me you were joking, then.”

“Not this time.”

“Do you think they’ll just hand Yuko over if you ask politely?”

“Most surely not.”

Biku said nothing in response.

“I’ll offer them something in exchange.”

“In exchange for her?”

“We know they want me to dive for them. Besides, the job sounds like it could be pretty interesting.”

“So you’re going to offer to do the job and ask for Yuko’s life in return.”

“Pretty much.”

“Could go either way, I guess.”

“I reckon so.”

“Listen, I have no argument with you earning a living, but really--does this look like the place to launch a business discussion?”

“What might have worked somewhere else will break down here, huh.”

“Indeed.”

“Okay Biku, hear me out.” Hosuke drove his thick fingers into his hair and began to scratch them up and down. “I want to stop the ritual.”

“Stop it?”

“If I stop the ritual in its tracks Yuko will live--at least for tonight.”

“True enough. But how would you put a stop to the ritual?”

“That’s the question. I’m sure it would fall apart quickly enough if you ran into the clearing shooting off that gun of yours.”

“Can’t say I’m a fan of that approach.”

“
That
time I was joking.”

“Mr. Kumon, you’ll make me angry.”

“You’re the one pointing a gun. I’m not sure you’ve got the right to be angry,” Hosuke said.

Biku lowered the barrel in response. “Really though, how do you propose to stop it? Even if we can, it’ll be for nothing if we leave tonight empty handed.”

“We start a fire.”

“A fire?”

“Sure. We set the woods on fire, smoke them out and use the commotion to rescue Yuko.”

“You think it’ll work?”

“My work doesn’t come with a guarantee.”

Biku was silent.

“You can leave me to stop the ritual, I’ll need your help after that in case I fail to get Yuko out.”

“And what about the job I’m here to do?”

“You’re free to get on with it as you like. You want to kidnap someone, bring them back--if anything, I’ll be making your job easier.” Hosuke gestured to the clearing with his chin.

The ritual had progressed since the last time they looked. The couples strewn across the mandala were copulating as before; the problem was with Yuko. She had been standing against the upturned cross as Renobo lavished her naked form with her lips, now she was on the floor. The only constant was the continual attention of Renobo’s fingers and mouth. Renobo was on her knees with her face buried between Yuko’s pale legs, while Yuko herself was on her back, legs wide open. The intoxicating stink of the incense seemed to have grown in intensity; the aphrodisiac chanting, too, had grown in volume. Together the two threatened to bring heretofore simmering desires into a full boil, desires buried deep enough inside the human psyche so as to have remained previously untapped. There was no way to know how long these people had been fucking for, but it was clear that they needed unimaginable reserves of energy. Their stamina would have broken long ago without the twin influences of the incense and the chanting. The frenzy would leave them gaunt, perhaps four or five kilograms lighter. The woman that had been sucking off a man was now being impaled from below, arching her head backwards as her hips gyrated in wild abandon.

“Well, that sounds fucking awesome,” Fuminari, who had been silent until now, cut into Biku and Hosuke’s conversation. His eyes were red, punctuated by a huge number of bloodshot capillaries. “Count me in. I especially like the part where we get to go about this our way.”

Fuminari had intended as much all along. He had come together with the others, but he did not need to depend on them for brute force. He knew the two men possessed formidable strength, yet he did not believe they would use it to forward his plans. He, for one, had no intention of using his own strength to assist them in their goals. This did not preclude a temporary collaboration, but he knew such a thing would only occur when their interests happened to meet. He would abandon them in a flash, if necessary. And he assumed it would be the same for them. The Kokushigun had enjoyed using words like
comrade
, even
friend
, but he had first-hand experience of just how frail those bonds had been. Even when it came to Hosuke, Fuminari did not assume for a moment that his claim that he wanted to save Yuko should be taken at face value. In Fuminari’s world, a man’s wars were waged individually; there was no betrayal if you never considered your partners as comrades, or friends, in the first place.
Lies
.
Betrayal
. The vocabulary of naive schoolgirls in their games of love. Fuminari had no time for schoolgirls, not even on a temporary basis.

“So, what do you think?” Hosuke said to Biku.

“I guess we’re decided. Sure,” he replied, nodding once.

2

“The only issue left is how to start the fire. What do you suggest? I don’t think it would be right of us to start a full mountain fire,” Biku said, ducking under the cover of the grass as he brought his head in close to Fuminari’s.

“I’d like to avoid being barbecued if possible,” Fuminari added, his voice deep as he dipped his gigantic frame into the cramped space.

“Your choice, medium or rare. Actually, we can make a big enough fire and keep it from spreading over the mountain. It’s difficult for fires to spread this time of year,” Hosuke said.

“What kind of resistance do we expect?” Biku asked.

“Nothing major,” Fuminari answered. “They’ll have sentries, but it’s not as if they’re military or anything. It’s likely security’s been beefed up since two years ago, but they don’t have that many people. We would have spotted them if they did, or been found out already.” Fuminari paused, giving the other two a serious look. “We only need to worry about Enoh and Hanko. Some of the others will have crossbows, possibly guns, but they shouldn’t be an issue in the mountains at night.”

Fuminari felt the slight tremble of a powerful excitement racing through him each time he thought of Hanko. They ran through a basic plan; there was little time now. Yuko had already been strung upside down to the cross, west of the clearing. There was pathos in the shadow where her pale thighs met. Following Hosuke’s instructions, the men gathered piles of dead branches and dried leaves from nearby and distributed them over a discrete number of locations.

“Here we go then,” Hosuke murmured under his breath. He flicked on the lighter and held the flame to balls of tissue paper arranged under the piles of dead foliage. The flames caught and licked upwards, reaching the dry wood which emitted a crackling sound before spitting out tendrils of flame; the fire spread. The fires soon came to the notice of the people gathered in the clearing, creating a low buzz of confusion. The chanting stopped.

“Forest fire!”

People started calling out while Hosuke, Biku and Fuminari lay concealed in the undergrowth, away from the flames. The fires snapped at the darkness underneath the canopy of trees, flooding the surroundings with light.

“They’re here,” Fuminari hissed, his voice a mere scratching in his throat.

Four men had come out of the bush, not far from where they had been hiding until moments ago. One had a crossbow in his hands. The crossbow, Fuminari knew, was a particularly dangerous weapon. They lacked the range of rifles, but the arrows were more deadly than a narrow-gauge shotgun, and they had the overarching benefit of being completely silent. Enoh and Hanko were not among the four men. It was the perfect chance.

“Now!”

Fuminari and Biku moved in perfect stealth, keeping low as they swung around behind the advancing men. Fuminari and Biku sent their knives flying in almost perfect synchronicity. The sharp flashes of metal extended outwards in pinched lines of silver before landing squarely in the respective necks of the man with the crossbow and the man to his side. The two men made half-sounds, then stiffened and tumbled forwards. The two remaining men froze, momentarily unaware of what had happened. Then, they saw the knife hilts jutting horrifically from the necks of their compatriots. The realization took them close to a second. Fuminari and Biku were on them before they could even issue a sound. Biku brought one hand over his man’s mouth as he impaled the man’s back with his blade, positioned to pierce the heart. The man’s body convulsed a couple of times in his hands, then went limp. Fuminari had been even faster, simply ramming the knife-edge of his hand into his target’s neck; the man crumpled without a sound. Fuminari tossed the man’s body onto his shoulder and they tracked back to where Hosuke was waiting. The two men had been astoundingly fast.

“I’ll go first,” Fuminari whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Uh huh,” Hosuke said, looking into the flames as though fascinated. The fire was now burning above a man’s height.

“Here, take this.”

Biku placed something in Hosuke’s hand. It was the gun he had leveled at Hosuke not moments ago.

“I won’t be needing anything like that,” Hosuke said, his face utterly serious.

“It might come in handy later, please--think of it as a gift.”

Fuminari already had his back to them. “See you around!” He broke into a sprint, his huge bulk making no sound.

Biku pressed the gun firmly into Hosuke’s hand, got to his feet and followed behind Fuminari. The two men melted into the darkness, gone in seconds. Hosuke gazed at the gun Biku had forced into his palm, regarding it as though it were something alien.

3

The ritual had come to a premature end.

The chanting had faded to nothing. The women in black robes stood to either side of the cross, both staring at the flames. The flames had begun to spread towards them, staying roughly the same height. When the fire reached the perimeter of the clearing it would find nothing else to consume and stop there, probably die out. The speed at which it was advancing meant that it had not spread to the trees themselves. The bark of the trees were charred black and smoldering, but that was all. It was just as Hosuke had anticipated.

Strangely, while the ritual itself had been interrupted, the debauchery inside the mandala continued regardless. It was not that they had failed to noticed the fire. They knew it was there, it was just insignificant against their lust. If the sight of the fire had done anything, it had actually notched up the intensity of the crowd.

The earlier impression of them being component parts of a single invertebrate creature was gone. Now they were nothing more than a crowd of sex-crazed demons. What they were engaged in was beyond sex, beyond mere fornication. They were slovenly and ghoulish. The original one-on-one system had begun to collapse. Two men had latched onto a single woman. Another of the men had come up behind the buttocks of another to fuck him from behind; the man in front of him moaned with a woman’s voice, he reached behind to grab the other man’s neck and pull him in closer, trying to kiss the other. But the man’s lips were too far away. Two other men watched on, becoming increasingly excited as their red tongues darted around into the air. Regardless of how nefarious a particular cult might be, there were always rules. Here, the rules were falling apart.

A single man sat towards the center of the mandala, oblivious to the chaos around him, an old man. He stared out at the flames from the centre of the mandala, his eyes seeming to glow with a strange light. His partner from the ritual had crossed into another square and was busy licking the shaft of another man’s penis.

Hosuke watched the old man over flames that had begun to die out. Among the crowd, the old man was the only one to remain undisturbed. Hosuke was struck with a curious feeling that he and the old man were alone, facing off with only the flames between them. Something told him that the old man was aware of his presence.
This old man’s something else
, he thought
.
There was something unfathomable about him, in a way that was different again to Gensai Sakuma back in Odawara. There was a light, intangible quality to Gensai’s depth. But he detected something like a silent black void inside the old man, an abyss devoid of even the smallest of ripples. The two were similar in that it was impossible to read what they were thinking.

That they had managed to interrupt the ritual and abduct one of their members meant that they had essentially succeeded. Now it was time to save Yuko. And Hosuke had another purpose in what he was doing.