Kenzo loomed behind her. “Is there something going on with the floor now?”
“Yes! The smell of mystery.”
“You can smell mystery on … the carpet?” Kenzo bent down to look. “Still doesn’t make sense to me, but leave it to Public Safety to consider all the details.”
“So true,” Power grinned, arms spread wide. “Observation is the door to the truth!”
“Now you’re talking sense,” Kenzo said. The hint of admiration egged Power on.
“Mystery! I smell mystery!”
“You don’t say?”
“As a great detective, I can sense this place is positively brimming with it!”
“Go on!”
“Observation! Observation is the door to the truth!” Power annonced once again.
“I get ya!”
Spurred by Kenzo’s appreciation, Power, now very high on her horse, pointed the magnifying glass every which way as the two neared the entrance. A group of hunters was hanging out in the front hall.
“What’re you guys up to?” Kenzo called.
“We thought we’d have a look around outside,” said one of the hunters, “but we can’t get the door open.”
“Say what?” Kenzo shoved past the men, grabbed the heavy doorknob, and gave it a good rattle. “This looks like the kind of deal that locks on both sides. Guess our host accidentally locked us in when he left. Nothing to do but wait until he checks on us tomorrow, huh?”
“Huh! That’s the end of that, then.” The hunters shrugged and started to disperse when a voice called out.
“Windows? Up there? I smell mystery!” Power brandished her magnifying glass at two picture windows over the front door. Unlike Kenzo, the other hunters ignored her proclamations.
“I say, the smell of mystery positively oozes from— Hey!” Power glared after the hunters. A feral growl rose in the back of her throat.
Only Kenzo was left to admire her. “So what are you investigating next?” he asked.
“The investigation is over!” Power turned on her heel. If there was no glory to be had that night, she might as well retreat to her room.
Kenzo, however, understood her words differently. “Over? Don’t tell me you’ve already figured it out.”
Power stopped. Slowly she turned. Fixing Kenzo with a look of pure, guileless innocence, she said, “But of course! I long ago undid the knot of this mystery!”
“What? Are you serious?”
Seeing Kenzo practically dumbstruck soothed Power’s hurt feelings. She all but skipped to the guest hall. She entered her surprisingly modern room to find Denji already splayed across the bed, snoring.
“Blast it! How can the assistant sleep while the detective is working?” she demanded, bopping Denji on the head. She earned only a single lazy glance and a big yawn.
“What’s the big deal?” Denji grunted. “If a devil shows up, I’ll do my thing, but as long as we’re waiting there’s no reason for me to bust my ass. No way am I gonna waste a good bed.”
Power considered this. She crossed her arms and nodded. “There’s some truth to that. In fact, I was thinking the same thing.”
The two of them shared an unwavering loyalty to their appetites.
In the next room over, Kenzo had his ear pressed to the wall. “What’s Public Safety figured out?” he muttered. He’d done a full sweep of the building without turning up anything of note. The other devil hunters’ searches had been equally fruitless, and now they were scrambling for ideas. It made it all the more conspicuous—and all the more bemusing—that the two Public Safety reps had hightailed it to their room.
Kenzo happened to have been assigned the room next to theirs, so he decided to keep an eye, or at least an ear, on their doings. He’d heard them talking about something, but things had been quiet for the last ten minutes or so. The only sound that reached his ear through the wall was a faint duet of snores.
“They wouldn’t sleep on the job, would they?” he wondered aloud, looking at the wall with amazement. “No … there has to be some mistake.”
He looked out the decoratively barred window at the twilight sky. If there was a devil lurking somewhere, it would most likely be active at night, prowling under cover of darkness. It occurred to Kenzo that since he’d arrived at the villa, he’d felt the oppressive presence of some unseen enemy. The other hunters must have felt it too, if only subconsciously. Would their nerves hold through the night? In a battle against a devil, an instant’s inattention could be fatal.
Kenzo nodded with sudden understanding. Whatever the two hunters in the next room had learned, they’d decided to rest up for the coming battle. It was a bold strategy, but a wise one. He shouldn’t have doubted that Public Safety knew what it was doing.
Well, he wasn’t going to be left behind. He’d piggyback on Public Safety’s idea. Kenzo set the alarm on the bedside clock and, feeling proud of himself, climbed into bed.
He awoke three hours later as the hands of the clock neared nine. It was dark outside, and the pin-drop silence made every tick of the clock’s hands land with a thud. Kenzo felt lighter after his nap. Clearly he’d made the right choice. He pressed his ear to the wall. All he heard was snoring. He wondered when, exactly, the Public Safety reps were planning to leap into action. They must have something up their sleeves. Well, he wouldn’t let them get the jump on him.
“Okay, bring it on,” Kenzo said softly. “I’m prepared for anything.” He felt centered. Ready. He tried to keep his breathing low as he waited for the moment. He could wait as long as it took.
As it turned out, it took until his room was full of birdsong and the rich light of morning. Then, at last, he finally heard the door to the next room open.
“They … they just slept all night!” Kenzo’s bloodshot eyes went wide. He’d spent the entire night crouched at his door, katana at the ready. “I can’t do it. I can’t parse their moves. Nothing makes sense. Are we even following the same agenda?” Interrupted sleep had left Kenzo in a daze. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so off his game. Nonetheless, he rushed out of his room to meet the two Public Safety agents.
Power gave a big, satisfied stretch. “Mmm! ’Tis a fine morning!”
“Wow! I slept the crap outta that night! A fancy mattress puts things on a whole other level!” Denji stretched too, then stopped and put a hand to his neck. “Hey. Power, you sucked my blood again, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Power said earnestly, wiping her mouth.
Kenzo lunged at the pair, fist raised. “You two! What were you thinking? Why would you sleep through the whole night?”
“Huh?”
“You need something, Gramps?”
“N-no … Never mind.” Kenzo’s hand slowly fell to his side. He couldn’t criticize them without admitting he’d spent the night eavesdropping through the wall.
The Public Safety agents headed for the kitchen, where they were soon enmeshed in new arguments.
“Hey, there’s only five of those bean buns! You can’t take all of them!”
“Ga ha ha! The early bird gets the worm!”
The other devil hunters began to filter in, all of them obviously fatigued, rubbing their eyes and snarling at each other. To Kenzo, it was clear that the tension was getting to them.
“Geez, I ran around all night and nothing happened. Is there really a devil here?”
“Maybe it got scared and ran off with its tail between its legs when it saw all us hunters show up!”
“Screw that! If it’s gone, so’s our reward!”
As the group drifted toward the recreation room, another hunter rushed in, his face pale. “Hey! Anybody here bother to do a head count?”
Without anyone noticing, half the devil hunters had vanished.
“I went around all the guest rooms to be sure,” said the hunter, now surrounded by the remaining group, with a faint tremor in his voice. “Sixteen of us came here last night, but there are only eight now. I went up and down the halls, knocking on doors, but all the rooms are empty!”
Another hunter scoffed. “So they’re not in their rooms. They’re loafing around somewhere else, that’s all.”
“That’s what I thought, but I can’t find them anywhere,” the distressed hunter countered. When the others suggested the missing hunters might be outside, he shook his head. “The front door’s still locked. So’s the door at the other end of the hall.”
None of the windows were designed to open, and the metal bars made it impossible to climb out even if someone broke the glass. The picture windows over the front door weren’t barred, but they were too high to reach.
“Missing persons,” someone muttered. “Just like in the original report.” A silence fell over the room. With a chill, the hunters realized that a devil had crept in under their noses and cut their number in half.