These were but minor manifestations of the abnormal vibe gripping the city. Neither humans nor animals paid attention to its true dreadfulness. Their attention was directed to the heavy death toll caused by the most recent Devil Quake, and to the rampaging criminals taking advantage of the chaos.
Reading the ancient manuscript, Doctor Mephisto raised his head and turned toward the door. He’d left the door open, and now the frame contained the silhouette of the lord of the castle, King Nebuchadnezzar II.
“All this studying is bad for you.”
Mephisto nodded in the direction of the voice. “In fact, these books and documents are most fascinating. The day was gone before I knew it.”
The number of books filling this space—as large as the lobby of a luxury hotel—would have to be counted in the millions. Not only tomes written in dead languages, but rows of worn and tattered items woven from papyrus as well.
“What are you perusing?” The mask scanned the title of the manuscript and exclaimed softly.
“Your book,” Doctor Mephisto answered coolly.
“Where did you find it? I wrote it so long ago I had forgotten about it myself.”
“I was wandering about the stacks when it all but jumped out at me, as if begging me to read it.”
“Really.”
“I do understand at last,” Mephisto said, looking at the masked lord with bright eyes. Deep within the endless black eyes was a glimmer of gold.
“What?”
“Your purpose for this city.”
“Oh?” The mask answered shortly.
“You said you didn’t build this palace to console your mountain-bred wife, and that is the case. But of course. The reason you chose Shinjuku. The battlefield Rama-san wandered through in her memories makes sense in this light. Love is strong indeed, but this is madness.”
“Have you never loved another person, Doctor?” the mask asked in a hoarse voice.
“Well.”
“I have loved but once. The result is what stands before you now. And yet I have no objections.”
“A submission to fate is not always for the best.” Mephisto spoke in an unusually gentle voice, the voice he normally used when examining a patient. “And how fares your wife?” he asked, changing the subject.
The amount of time the spirit body of Semiramis tarried in the world—distinct and apart from Sayaka’s physical being—was slowly but inexorably growing, as was her ability to choose the time and the place. The product of the strange medicines and machines this palace produced.
It spoke as well to the trials of Sayaka’s spirit and soul in the face of total annihilation.
Knowing that, what was Mephisto up to? He was up to nothing. The Demon Physician did not interfere with the mask’s actions, but only stood by and watched. When the mask was not present, he chatted with Sayaka or strolled the grounds of the palace and listened to the songs of the birds fluttering about.
Now and then, a beautiful woman other than Sayaka appeared alongside him, an android dispatched by the mask, or another woman.
“What do you intend to do, Doctor?” the mask asked.
“Do?”
“Knowing the purpose of this palace and my intentions, as a doctor residing in Shinjuku, you must be considering countering actions and strategies.”
“That all depends on her.”
“Depends on her how?”
“It was Semiramis who invited me here, and undoubtedly her desire that you leave me to my own devices. I am doing nothing more here than waiting.”
“And who told you such things?”
“Who?”
“These past several days, the gremlins have made reports of you and Semiramis engaging in intimate conversations.”
“Oh, something a little bird told me. Our conversations have consisted of ordinary chit-chat.”
“And that settles that, you suppose? What else?” The mask gently took Mephisto’s hand in his own. “So beautiful, enough even to dazzle the eyes of a man. Any woman would be all the more bewitched. I have heard that half the visitors to your hospital are lovesick over you. And of those admitted, the greater number refuse to leave after they’ve been cured. Because of your sinful presence.”
He gazed down at Mephisto’s hand. The Demon Physician’s eyes narrowed. In a flash, the slender pale hand. In a flash, the hand turned ashen gray.
“What do you think of my power of thought? A psychic power taught me by a wizard from Cappadocia while immersing myself in those same pure waters as my wife. It seems the times have left you behind, Doctor. Your heart will soon be the same as your hand, Doctor Faustus.”
“I guess it cannot be helped.” As he spoke, the dead color vanished from Mephisto’s hand.
The mask jumped backward, chanting something under his breath, and forming a curious shape with his hands. Wind roared, blasting Mephisto up into the air. Contact with the wall—any hard surface—would turn his internal organs to jelly.
The wind suddenly ceased. Mephisto landed silently on the floor. The mask looked at him amazed. No, the wind was still blowing. And yet it disturbed Mephisto not at all. He seemed to be absorbing the air into his body.
Mephisto unfurled his cape. The inside of the cape was black as well. Stars glittered in the depths of its folds. The universe resided inside his cape.
Supported by the two beautiful white hands, the hems of the rectangle of fabric fluttered around the dark void in which twinkled the light of ten billion stars. The mask’s magical wind was drawn into its infinite depths.
Just as abruptly, the universe closed in on itself as Mephisto drew the cape across his chest. At the last moment, a hand jutted out, grasping a silver ring of light.
“In appreciation for that cool breeze, I will put on my own show for you. Behold Doctor Mephisto’s wirework.”
He raised his hand, and was clearly going to swing it down over the mask. But didn’t complete the motion. Another hand, whiter than his own, gently reached out to stop his.
“Semiramis.”
She smiled at the sound of her husband’s voice. “Oh, stop it. You’re both important to me. Getting into a fight here does more harm than any good.”
“The lady of the house.”
Doctor Mephisto reverentially bowed his head and took the hand holding his wrist and brought it to his lips.
“Whenever I look at it, this always strikes me as a lovely room,” Semiramis said, gazing about with moist eyes. “The odor of ancient books, of mildew and silverfish. Coming here takes me back to the old country.” She turned her attention to the mask, standing there as if at attention. “I have something to say to the good doctor. Doctor Faustus. We should like the room to ourselves.”
“Fine,” the mask said, though his ready assent was laden with ominous tones.
After he left, the woman stood directly in front of Mephisto and looked into his beautiful and mysterious face with seductive eyes.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Your husband seems upset.”
“Oh, he’s always like that, concerned about me. We’ve lost a good many retainers because of it.”
“There was something you wished to ask me?”
“Don’t be so distant. You haven’t thanked me for pointing out that book to you.”
“But of course.”
“Why do you think I did so?”
“I wouldn’t presume to say,” Mephisto answered brusquely. Aside from her being another man’s wife, it was as if her very essence aroused in him a deep and abiding feeling of aversion toward her.
“I have been waiting to meet you for such a long time.”
“My, my.”
She softly stroked his cheek. “Loathsome man. Disguised as an old wizard, you sealed me inside the body of that young girl. How many times have I resolved to return the favor? And now I have at last set eyes upon you.”
Her fingers drew an arc across his skin, the force sufficient to raise five streaks of red. Mephisto’s blood. The streams trickled down to the line of his jaw. Oozing sensuality, she brought her mouth up to the dripping blood.
When she pulled away, her lips were redder than the scarlet skin. “I’ll kill you some day. Or right away. In the most awful and feared way this world has to offer. You dreadful man.”
Her dainty chin jerked up, seized by Mephisto’s hand. “Can you? Can the Queen of Death kill the Demon Physician?”
Mephisto’s gaze and voice engulfed the beautiful woman like smoldering amber. She shut her enraptured eyes. Her lips trembled. She took a breath. Mephisto’s mouth covered hers.
She moaned. A moment later, Mephisto was alone again in the old library, his arms forming an incomplete circle, as if wrapped around an invisible person.
“You invited me here to kill me, Semiramis?” he whispered to the empty air. “I accepted knowing you would try. Ha, so we could love each other in all our mutual hatreds. Alas, we were never the kind who would lie awake at night enjoying a little night music.”
Mephisto’s voice drifted away into the distance.