Kenzo looked at the clock on the wall. “At least Mr. Kanbayashi should be coming by to check on things. I say that when he gets here, we head outside and reassess the situation.”
The hunters spent the time until then searching the house, but they found no sign of their vanished companions. The devil, too, remained hidden. They waited on tenterhooks for the owner of the inn to return.
Finally, someone spoke up. “Where’s the old man, anyway?”
“Yeah, why ain’t he here yet?”
A murmur arose. Long after the appointed hour, as the second evening began to fall, the owner of the villa was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe there was a miscommunication,” said Kenzo. “Or a seriously unfortunate accident. Not a lot of ways to get word up the mountain. Guess we’ll be spending another night here.” At that idea, the other hunters looked unmistakably disturbed.
Then a peal of laughter rang out. “Ga ha ha ha! Stumped, huh? Just as I predicted. I had it all figured out from the start!” Power stood triumphant. She had her assistant, her audience, and her detective gear, but something had been lacking. Now she knew what it was—the deduction to reveal to her adoring fans.
Kenzo approached her, a tinge of desperation in his voice. “You really got something?”
“Of course!”
“Then tell us! I know it’s pathetic, but I’m begging for help. You see how things are going here. You Public Safety reps are on to something, aren’t you?”
Power, more pleased than ever, nodded magnanimously. “So you’re hanging on the great Detective Power’s every word. Very smart. Well, since you asked so nicely, I can’t say no.”
“Watch out, guys!” Denji yelled. “She’s a bare-ass liar! Don’t trust anything she says!”
“The nerve! I’m a veritable angel sent to fight devils! Ignore the ravings of my assistant.”
“How many times do I have to say I’m not your assistant?”
Power ignored the foul look Denji shot her. She strode to the stage as the hunters watched with bated breath. The view from the stage assured her that every eye in the room was indeed on her.
At last Power had what she most longed for—attention. She tugged the brim of her top hat and cleared her throat. “Now to the matter of this missing persons case. ’Tis indeed a mystery even I struggled to solve.” She paced the stage theatrically. The tap, tap, tap of her footsteps filled the otherwise silent room.
“A riddle. An enigma. Yes, this house is thick with the heady scent of mystery! But there’s a turn to every trick, a sleight to every hand. Observation, my friends. Observation is the door to the truth.” She turned her magnifying glass on her audience. “The culprit is among us tonight!”
These words drew gasps and sent a murmur of fear through the room. As the audience chattered, Power reached into her pocket and took out a knotted rope she had brought from home for this exact moment.
“I’ve undone the knot of … of … hold on …” The knot wouldn’t come undone. She pulled harder, but, unlike in Detective Magician, this only seemed to tighten it.
As Power flailed, Kenzo, still pale, spoke. “The culprit’s among us? You mean … the devil is here right now?”
“What?” Power looked up from the rope and blinked. “Er … yes, that’s what I mean. That’s it, all right!”
Another wave of astonishment rippled through the group.
“No way! No wonder we couldn’t find the devil!”
“I bet it’s the guy who locked us in to begin with!”
“A devil that can assume human form? Has it been here all along? Or did it join us after we got here?”
Kenzo took a step toward the stage. “Yeah, that’d answer a lot of the questions. But who is it, then? Who’s the devil?”
“I …” Power coughed. “I can’t tell you yet.”
“Why not?” someone shouted. “That’s the one thing we need to know!” The hunters pressed close to the stage, but Kenzo held up a hand to stop them.
“Hold on,” he said. “It’s easy to make accusations, but if we’re wrong, we could wind up killing an innocent person. Of course she doesn’t want to say anything rash. She’s waiting until she has absolute proof.”
“Er, yes! That’s exactly what I’m doing!”
“Screw that! Who is it?” One of the hunters pulled an absurdly long knife from his jacket and waved it around.
“Take it easy. If we lose our heads, we play right into the devil’s hands. But if you wanna have a go at someone, I’ll be happy to take you on.” Kenzo’s tone was conciliatory, but his hand was on the scabbard of his katana.
The room was a powder keg, the air crackling with tension. The man with the knife glared at Kenzo for a long moment, then turned away with a grunt. “I’m going to my room. Anyone wants a piece of me, come and get it. But don’t be surprised if I’m the one who walks out alive.”
The hunters drifted to their rooms, jumpy and suspicious now, leveling murderous gazes at each other as they went. Finally, only Denji and Power were left in the rec room. As soon as they were alone, Denji exploded.
“I’ve had enough of your bull! You were just saying whatever came into your head! And quoting that stupid cartoon!”
“I certainly was not!” Power refuted. “I think I might be an even better detective than I am a devil hunter. Perhaps I should give up hunting and pursue my true calling! Ga ha ha!”
“Naw, we’re Public Safety. Till death do we part.”
“A man with no dreams, that’s what you are. And here I was about to offer to hire you full-time as my assistant.”
“If you pay me in bread and jam, I might think about it.” Denji stared up at the ceiling and groaned. “Where the hell’s that devil, anyway?”
Come the next day, their numbers were halved again.
Only four people showed up in the rec room that morning. Three of them were Denji, Power, and Kenzo.
The fourth devil hunter entered the room with his knife drawn and his face pale. “Who was it? Who did it? Who’s the damn devil?”
Kenzo tensed for a fight. The man’s eyes were rimmed with red. Rage and fear were robbing him of his grip on reality. He was ready to snap. Moments like this, Kenzo reminded himself, were when it was most important for a hunter to keep a cool head.
The young woman from Public Safety burst out laughing. “Ga ha ha ha ha! Look at your crazy face! Ga ha ha!”
Kenzo gaped. Why would she pour oil on the fire?
“What the hell are you laughing at?” the other hunter howled.
“All right, everyone. Calm down. I’m not the devil, I can tell you that much.” Kenzo figured his best bet was to draw the focus to himself as he talked down the man with the knife.
“Oh yeah? Then answer a question!” The disturbed hunter was on edge. “Something only the real you would know!”
“Try me.”
“This isn’t the first job you and I have worked together. We teamed up once before. Which devil did we fight?”
“The Sea Cucumber Devil. We’d evacuated the civilians and were setting up a dragnet when some freak came plummeting out of the sky and stole the kill from us.”
“Huh. That’s right.” The man turned his knife on Denji and Power. “The devil has to be one of you. Test yourselves. Now!”
Denji and Power looked at each other. “Screw that,” said Denji. “Too much work.”
“Do it!” The man shoved the blade closer.
Denji gave him a not particularly threatened look and sighed. “Power, what’s your favorite thing?”
“Meowy! My least favorite things are vegetables and humans. What’s your favorite thing?”
“Ms. Makima.”
They pointed at each other.
“That’s Power, all right.”
“That’s Denji!”
The man with the knife backed away, scowling. “If none of us is the devil, what the hell’s going on?”
The population of the house had dropped to only four, yet the devil still hadn’t shown itself. It seemed increasingly likely that no one was coming to get them, and there seemed to be no way out of the villa. The bars on the windows were sturdier than they looked. The front and back doors refused to budge. Kenzo felt a dull, mounting panic. This was like slow, deliberate torture.
“I’ll check on the food,” he said, desperate to feel useful. “We need to ration our supplies.”
When he got to the kitchen, the blood drained from his face. “No! It’s all gone!” The pantry, which had contained several more days’ worth of food, was empty.
Behind him, the fourth hunter swore. “What do we do now?” His voice choked as if he were holding back tears.
Power punched at the air. “This is the devil’s doing! It’ll pay for this!”
Denji looked at her closely. “Hey, Power. Are those breadcrumbs on your shirt?”
“They are not,” she replied, primly brushing the crumbs away.
“You ate all the food, didn’t you?”
“How dare you accuse me of such a thing! I haven’t eaten so much as a slice of bread since the day I was born!”
“I know that’s not true!” Denji rolled his eyes.