He was damned if he was going to listen, though. The hallway was too narrow for both of them to attack at once, so the best he could plan for was to be ready to jump in at any moment.
Now they just had to wait for their opponent to arrive. Aki realized his breathing had grown short. He put a hand on his chest and took a few deep, deliberate breaths to center himself. Even Himeno had stopped chattering.
Twilight faded into dark, accompanied by an announcement over the complex’s PA system—“A suspicious character has been sighted in the neighborhood. Please be sure to lock your doors.” A melancholy day-end melody followed. Then there was only the slow march of time. Aki felt like his nerves were being shaved away bit by bit.
No fiend so far. For a second, he was filled with doubt. Maybe they’d guessed wrong. Himeno, however, showed no sign of concern. The slanting sunlight outside dyed the sky orange. It was the witching hour, a liminal moment between day and night as the world slipped into darkness.
Ding dong.
The friendly notes of the doorbell broke the clinging gloom. Aki’s hand tensed on his sword. He traded a short glance with Himeno.
The enemy had come.
Aki was about to stand when Himeno held up a hand to stop him. She approached the door as quietly as possible, looked through the peephole, then made a circle with her fingers—Okay.
Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong. The clanging peal of the bell turned insistent.
“What’s the plan?” Aki hissed. He suddenly realized that over the past night and day, they hadn’t talked about what they were going to do or how they were going to do it. Maybe Himeno had deliberately kept him in the dark. After all, she didn’t want him in the fight.
Now all he wanted to know was how Himeno planned to strike. Whoever the human host had been, the fiend carried a crossbow and knew how to use it. Its M.O. seemed to be to attack the moment the door was opened. Blocking that first strike would be key to the entire battle.
Then, as Aki’s jaw dropped in disbelief, Himeno casually opened the door.
The fiend was exactly as the witnesses had described. Its eyes were hidden in a black hood, but it seemed to be gazing at the ground. Twisted fangs sprouted at wild angles from its mouth. Judging from what he could see of its body, Aki guessed the host had been in middle age. And there was the infamous crossbow, clutched in the creature’s right hand. It was loaded with a small, black, very sharp arrow, and it was pointed right at Himeno.
“What the hell are you doing?” Aki shouted. Himeno didn’t even try to dodge. She knew the fiend’s reported attack pattern as well as he did, yet she stood still, as if offering herself up.
Aki sprang to his feet, ready to run to her, when the fiend choked out a soft grunt. Its right arm twisted back, dragged by an unseen force. The arrow lodged in the ceiling, never coming anywhere near Himeno. She continued to stand calmly, now grasping the air with her right hand.
“Wha … ?” Aki stopped short, astonished. With a flourish, Himeno thrust out her arm. Her fist stopped well short of the fiend, yet there was an audible thump.
With a cry, the fiend bent double and gagged with pain. It was flung backward, striking the door, then pitched forward again.
Aki gasped down at the fiend lying on the ground. “Was that … a devil’s power?”
“Bingo.” Himeno glanced back at him with a smirk and gave him a thumbs-up with the hand that had just demolished the fiend. “I have a contract with the Ghost Devil. I traded my right eye for its right hand. Completely invisible, way powerful. You could say it’s a handy thing to have around.”
“You could have told me.”
“Oh, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t,” he snapped. He knew it wasn’t advisable for hunters to go around telling everyone which devils they had contracts with, but surely you ought to inform someone when you were going into battle together. Yet more proof that she still didn’t see him as her partner.
Himeno didn’t appear to feel so much as a twinge of guilt about it. She turned back to the collapsed fiend. “Oh, well. The problem’s taken care of. And now we’re square for me getting sloppy drunk on you. How about it? Feel like giving me the respect a senior deserves yet?”
A pause. “I’m thinking about it.”
Himeno chuckled and nodded. Then she reached out with her invisible hand to grab the fiend by the throat.
Aki’s brow furrowed. Something was off. Some tiny detail. What was it? The fiend was still splayed motionless on the floor. Aki dropped into a fighting stance but saw nothing to attack. Himeno’s ghost arm was about to make short work of the fiend.
No. Wait …
“Get down!” Aki grabbed Himeno’s collar and yanked her to the ground. An arrow sliced through the air, grazing her hair before burying itself in the back of the door.
“Wha … ?” Himeno sat up and blinked. “Did that arrow come from the fiend?
“Yeah.”
“No shit? But it never had time to reload.”
“I know.”
The crossbow had gone off, firing its only arrow, when Himeno’s ghost had twisted its arm. That round was buried in the ceiling. Not only had the fiend not had a chance to reload, it had never even moved. Yet a black arrow had remained nocked in the crossbow. That was the errant detail Aki had unconsciously picked up on.
With a groan, the fiend pulled itself up. The hood fell back, revealing thinning hair and a forehead carved with deep lines. But the fiend’s eyes were its most distinctive feature. They were flat black, like the painted-on eyes of a doll.
A dark miasma drifted like a mist from the creature’s eyes and mouth, as if its hatred were physically condensing. The mist curled down its arms, where it solidified into two black crossbows, one in each hand. Each weapon held five rounds.
“Hah! Now I get it.” Himeno jumped to her feet. She put a hand on Aki’s shoulder, then backed away. “Guess I should’ve been a little more careful …”
“Here it comes!”
Himeno and Aki threw open the door to the dining room and dove through as arrows buried themselves in the wall. The crossbow hadn’t belonged to the fiend’s human host after all. The weapons were part of the fiend itself. Since they were supernatural, it was probably too much to hope that they’d run out of ammunition.