Had they run away? No. The rope used to restrain Denji was gone too. Did that mean he was still tied up? More disappearances. And now a team of sixteen devil hunters was reduced to two.
Behind Kenzo, Power broke the silence with gales of laughter.
“Have you lost your—” Kenzo stared at Power cackling triumphantly in utter disbelief. “No! It was you all along!” Thinking back, it was clear that this woman had been leading them astray from the very start. Kenzo’s mistake had been assuming that the devil would try to avoid notice, rather than impersonate the loudest, most attention-hogging member of the group.
She’s the devil! And she played me for a fool!
Power ignored Kenzo as he backed away in horror. Instead, she vaulted onto the stage and pulled the knotted rope out of her pocket again. “I’ve undone the knot of this mystery!”
“Say what?” Kenzo was completely lost.
Power tugged on the ends of the rope, which remained as tightly knotted as ever. Grunting with effort, she pulled until veins bulged on her forehead. At last the rope simply tore in two. She held the frayed pieces aloft with pride. “As I was saying … Knot of mystery! Undone!”
Kenzo stared at the stage, incredulous.
Power continued her performance. “There’s a devil in this house who makes people disappear. First one! Then two! Then three! Until there’s only you and me! And I know I’m not the culprit. By process of elimination …” Power looked positively thrilled with herself as she raised her hand, palm up. A spurt of blood from her wrist formed itself into a scythe. “You’re the devil!”
“What?” Kenzo exclaimed. The crimson scythe came sweeping down from the stage. In the nick of time, he raised his katana to block it, but the force of Power’s blow knocked the sword out of his hands.
“You damn devil!” Power shouted. “You die now!”
“You’re the devil!” Kenzo shouted back.
“I’m not the devil! I’m a detective! A great detective!” Power raised the scythe, grinning like the Grim Reaper.
Kenzo had no idea what was going on. All he knew was that he had to get out of there. He turned and ran. With a rush of wind, the scythe grazed his calf. Kenzo gasped. The wound was agonizing, but if he stopped, she would be on him. He gritted his teeth and plunged into the hallway as if fleeing from pain itself.
What next?
The front door was locked. He was trapped in the inn. Could he make a run for the mazelike corridor on the other side of the rec room? No, that only led to another locked door. Hide in the guest rooms or staff wing? Without his weapon, he’d be a sitting duck. No matter which way he ran, sooner or later he’d be trapped.
An idea struck him. “That’s it!” he whispered.
Kenzo staggered into the little room between the entryway and the rec room, the room the hunters had been warned not to enter. Had that only been a few days ago? Inside, it was dark, cluttered with pipes and wires, with the hum of the generator blocking all other sound. If he could lie low for just a few minutes, Power might pass by, and then he could double back to the rec room and grab his sword.
His hope proved short-lived.
“There you are!” Power cried, kicking the door open with brute force. She slid into the room. Her shadow, crowned with the long arc of the scythe, rose behind her.
“How’d you find me?”
“The smell of blood, of course! Foolish devil! Did you really think you could evade the great Detective Power!”
Kenzo glanced at his wounded calf. “Hey! I’m not a devil! What are you?”
“I’ve told you over and over! Public Safety’s one and only genius detective, Power!”
“What kind of detective kills people with a bloody scythe?”
Slowly and deliberately, Power stalked toward Kenzo. He scuttled back until he hit the generator. His back to it, he pleaded. “Wait! Listen! Mr. Kanbayashi told us not to mess with this machine …”
“Die, devil!”
“Why won’t you listen to me?” Kenzo curled himself into a ball. The scythe blade missed him by inches and sliced into the generator directly behind him. As Power stared in surprise, the generator threw out sparks, then exploded with a FWOOOSH. A flood of murky liquid sprayed from the tear.
“What the hell?” Kenzo shouted.
“Yikes!” Power added.
The spray hit them full force, driving them out of the power room. By the time the flood subsided, they’d washed up back in the rec room. The lights were flickering erratically, presumably from the damage to the generator. Kenzo and Power jumped to their feet—and discovered they’d been dyed red.
Kenzo frowned. “Is this …”
“Blood!” said Power, licking a finger experimentally. “Why was the generator full of blood? Explain! Oops!”
Power was knocked off balance as the blood-soaked carpet beneath her feet began to writhe and squirm. Kenzo pitched forward.
A low moan rumbled through the house.
“It can’t be …” As Kenzo tried to scramble to his feet, a large yellow droplet fell to the carpet nearby. The spatter burned his skin. He looked up, his face falling in disbelief, to see countless similar droplets dripping from the walls and ceiling.
“What’s going on?” Power demanded. She rested her crimson scythe on her shoulder and moved in for a better look.
“Be careful!” Kenzo shouted. “It’s acid!”
“Acid?” Power asked quizzically.
“It’ll burn right through you!”
“Huh?” Power looked up at the ceiling just as a rain of droplets came pelting down. She and Kenzo both hurried to dodge the deluge. “What is this?”
“So that’s how it is.” Kenzo crouched low. “The devil’s not invisible. It’s been right in front of us all along.”
“What are you talking about?” Power had turned her scythe into a gigantic umbrella. Kenzo dove under it with her.
“This house is the devil!” he said.
“You mean the whole house?” Power looked around, her brow furrowed. The floors and walls were indeed squirming as if alive, and the rain of acid was growing stronger.
Kenzo spoke quickly. “It finally makes sense. Think about the shape of the house in human terms. We came in through the head. The guest wing and staff wing are the arms. And this big space has to be the stomach.”
“This is a stomach?” Power questioned.
“That’s stomach acid. I bet the others got digested.”
Power yelped.
“The room’s soundproof, remember?” Kenzo went on. “Any time people met up here for strategy meetings or whatever, the house could digest them and the rest of us wouldn’t hear a blessed thing. It could’ve eaten all of us at once, but I guess it likes playing cat and mouse.”
“True, devils love to feed on human fear,” Power confirmed.
“That explains the weird corridor past the rec room too. Why it’s so long and twisty even though it only goes one way. It’s gotta be the intestines!”
“Hmm …”
“And that so-called generator in the power room is the most important part of all. It’s just off to one side of the crossing. If we keep the body analogy going, you just happened to stab this thing in the heart!”
“I never ‘happen’ to do things!” Power’s voice rose with confidence. “The heart! Yes, of course. The great Detective Power knew it from the very beginning. What a genius I am! I deserve a Nobel Prize!” In her mind, waves of adulation crashed over her from the far corners of the world. Long live Power! Genius detective! Too amazing to believe!
“Not likely.” Kenzo shook his head. “You didn’t mean to do that. I mean, you shouted ‘Die’ at me.”
Power insisted. “I was talking to the devil house.”
“You were attacking me!”
“I never attacked you.”
“What’s wrong with you, lady?”
Kill … Kill … Kill … Kill …
The walls and floor heaved violently as the house resounded with the sound of the devil’s hatred. The acid rain grew into a veritable maelstrom.
“Damn rain!” Power said. “My blood umbrella won’t hold much longer.” She had all the blood that had gushed from the generator to draw on, but it was hard to control blood that wasn’t hers.
“You’re a fiend, aren’t you?” said Kenzo. “I heard rumors they’ve got them in Public Safety Special Division 4.”
“Correct! I am Detective Power, Public Safety’s famed mystery-solving fiend!”
“Um … okay, sure. Anyway, let’s try to make our way to the front hall. At least we can escape the digestive system and get out from under this acid.”
They worked their way to the rec room door, only to find it shut fast by some trick of the devil. Kenzo cursed to himself. “It won’t budge.”
“Leave it to the detective!” said Power. “Situations like this call for the use of one’s head.” She kicked the door as hard as she could.
“That wasn’t your head!”
“Bah! It’s harder than I expected.” Power felt dizzy. She’d had to make the blood umbrella massive to shield herself from the acid storm, and she was starting to feel anemic. The acid ate the umbrella away faster than she could absorb the devil’s blood to replenish it.
Kenzo held his head in his hands. “Dammit! That monster’s gonna eat every last one of us!”