Setsura released the wire attached to the overhead lighting rail. Above his head came the harsh click of fangs snapping together.
He plunged down towards that bottomless ravine, the wind whipping at the tails of his slicker. A hot wind bathed the top of his head, the breath of the giant serpent coming hard after him.
The serpent made its den at the bottom of the fissure.
A fall to his doom seemed inevitable—until his hair slanted away to the left. The serpent’s head plunged past the point he’d been a split-second before.
And sprang back.
Traced across the snout were two red lines, the tightropes Setsura had used to cross the fissure. Peering down on him from above, those two angry eyes glowed with a fierce and terrible light.
Landing on the ground, Setsura staggered and sank to his knees. Even if he wasn’t looking into the eyes of the serpent, the demonic miasmas filling its gaze attacked his body like a paralyzing gas. He rose to his feet and whirled around, Gento’s casket to his back.
The ghastly light engulfed him, the serpent having descended rapidly to the ground. Setsura managed to retain hold of his conscious mind. The pain penetrating his body just barely preserved the freedom of his nervous system.
Measuring the movement of the air and the presence of the demonic serpent—add to that his own intuition—and Setsura leapt sideways.
A second later, the serpent’s huge head collided with the casket. It drew back, Byori’s head attached to its throat. The waxy skull of the tenacious wizard sworn to protect the casket set to devouring the flesh that had repelled even Setsura’s devil wires.
The serpent sprang away. Deep within the fissure, the blackness undulated, the lashing of its torso and tail as Byori Roran chewed into the shuddering organs. It had already bored a foot-wide hole in the head. Dark red blood spilled out, bathing the head and raising clouds of white smoke.
The serpent’s acidic blood could dissolve almost anything. The skull’s few remaining strands of hair sloughed off, followed by the waxy skin. But it couldn’t melt away that implacable will.
Spitting out a chunk of snake meat, the skull hurtled itself at the serpent’s head. An unearthly shriek shook the studio walls as the skull chomped into the serpent’s left eyeball.
The rest of the serpent’s outrageously long body bounded up from the fissure, now exposing the entirety of its length. With a hissing roar, the creature lashed out with its tail, the blow sending its precious mound of treasure flying.
Thrown like a toy car, the taxi cab struck the stage at the back of the studio, smashed through the white veneer paneling and hit the floor with tremendous force. Gasoline spread out like a stain from the ruptured tank.
The serpent coiled the tail around its and Byori’s head and squeezed as if wringing out a wet rag. The cracking sound of breaking bone echoed around the studio. The tail let go. A flattened, smashed, ugly thing tumbled to the floor.
Smeared with the poisonous blood, the floor coughed up white smoke. Fanned by the serpent’s tail, the clouds swirled around the studio. Small bugs and insects hiding in the nooks and crannies above dropped down from the ceiling, painting garish splatters of color on the ground.
Half-crazed by the pain, the serpent flicked out its tongue. Sailing like a lasso over the ravine, it wrapped around its guardians and yanked them back. Spinning like tops, they sailed into its maw, where the fangs bit down. The limbs and heads hanging from its jaws snapped off and rained to the floor.
Swallowing five men in a gulp, the serpent goosenecked its head back and forth, flashing its broken gaze in all directions, searching for Setsura.
Threads of red seeped from where the devil wire bit into its scales. Ropes of blood poured from the torn left eye, painting the skin of the snake. Clearly as toxic to itself as to others, again raising wisps of steam.
However otherworldly from the start, it had become a monster that the foulest of demons would shrink from serving.
As soon as the battle between the serpent and Byori’s head began, Setsura took to his heels. The serpent shook with rage. But no matter where the angry light from its glowing eyes fell, Setsura was nowhere to be found.
Poisons befouled the air, casting psychedelic shadows across the light. Spitting out venom, flicking out its tongue, the serpent finally gave up the search. It dragged its wounded body to the fissure and slithered in head first.
Silence fell.
At least twenty minutes later, a creaking sound arose from one corner of the studio, the lid of the casket opening. A black-clad arm thrust it open from within. Setsura sat up in the casket.
“Nice nap, that,” he said, as if waking from an afternoon siesta.
With the serpent and Byori going at it tooth and fang, by the time it came looking for him the genie had crept into Gento Roran’s sleeping quarters and dozed off. And now he emerged from the casket as if it might even belong to him.
Scooping out the earth inside, Setsura noticed the fine lettering on the inside of the lid. Here were secret incantations known to only the Roran clan, a fusion of occult philosophies and cabalistic teachings rendered in Latin. This was the sanctum sanctorum where Gento grew up and was tutored in the mysteries while drawing power from the earth.
It wasn’t that unusual a technique, though even Setsura couldn’t begin to grasp the basic principles involved. “So,” he said under his breath, “The casket well handled his growing up and his education. Should its capabilities extend to his further development, the thing must be destroyed.”
He took a step back and raised his right hand. The blow from his devil wires awaited. With Byori’s head gone, there was nothing to defend against them.
His fingers danced instead toward the far right. He felt no response. The small figure standing in front of the door easily deflected Setsura’s devil wires.
“What did you come all the way here for?” Setsura asked, hardly taken aback by his presence.
Hyota answered in similarly matter-of-fact tones. “Gento-sama cannot sleep well in his new surroundings.”
“Well, he’d better get used to them then.”
“I would not disagree. However—”
“You’re going to give it your best shot.”
“This once it appears unavoidable.”
“And how is Gento doing these days?”
“I brought Mephisto to see him.”
“He wasn’t much good with the mystery of the seal.”
“He has a different task this time around.”
“Namely?”
“Setsura-sama—” Hyota said with great seriousness. “Gento-sama wishes to make this a mutual effort. Won’t you reconsider his offer?”
“It’s pointless. Whatever spirit of cooperation might exist while the birds are still in the bush will disappear when they are in the hand.”
“You are doubtless correct. But Gento is now your equal. Eventually—” Hyota left off the rest of the sentence, his voice heavy with emotion.
“He will exceed me? My plate keeps getting piled higher and higher with unanswered questions. After I destroy the casket.”
“I have observed the two of you since you were children. I do not think even a true sibling would harbor the feelings I do. Whenever I look at you, I curse the fate that has befallen me. Nothing about that has changed even now.”
“You are Gento’s servant, meaning that when we engage, you must be defeated. Gento has taken note of the seal. I suppose that as well can be accounted to this casket’s education.”
“It can.”