Setsura was dead.
Having drunk the elixir prepared by the imposter, he was now entombed within a hundred miles of stone, with no prospect that the light of day would ever fall on his face again.
The imposter climbing the stone steps vanished into the distance. The faint illumination extinguished, an ancient silence filled this underground cavern. Time itself seemed to freeze.
So there was no telling how long it was before a new sound emerged. A thin sound. A faint sound. Fading away and arising again, twining together clear and wet.
The sound of water.
Ears that could make out a single footstep in a throng of people would have heard that sound coming from Setsura’s coffin. Eyes that could see in the dark would have seen the thread-like lines spilling from the seams of the sarcophagus.
The unmistakable flow of water.
The black stain grew on the floor below. A groan from within and some indistinguishable form, blacker than the surrounding gloom, slowly but steadily rose up.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Demon Princess appeared like a star in a night sky.
The air was dank and damp. There was enough light to make out her surroundings. She looked around. She was on a sizable concrete passageway about thirty feet wide. The walls arced over her head to the left. On the right, the passageway dropped off abruptly to form a drainage culvert ten feet deep and a hundred feet wide.
The walkway and the sloping walls on the far side, the black ribbon of water snaking through the bottom of the culvert, the stinging scent assailing her nostrils—the nature of the place where she found herself was obvious.
These were the haunted remains of Shinjuku’s sewer system. Construction had begun three years before the Devil Quake. It was tragically destroyed the very same day it was completed.
Shinjuku had since converted to a new underground water treatment facility. The wrecked portions six hundred feet below the surface were inhabited by creatures and criminals who couldn’t stroll about on the surface, who were making it into a second, subterranean Demon City.
Those creatures had definitely been there. And were there now.
Less than ten feet away from her, above the passageway, at the bottom of the culvert, on the piles of rubble, on the rotted, solidified waste that had nowhere else to go—heaps of human bodies lay everywhere.
Even without taking in the prefab houses and tents pitched in the bottom of the culvert, this was clearly a living space. But for the time being, the dark shadows daubing the darkness weren’t those inhabitants.
The clothes made some of these men: suits of the latest fashion worn by men in high places, cheaper outfits worn by salesman, caps marked by the logos of taxi services; housewives bearing shopping bags, security guards, cops, street youths, gangbangers, shop owners, yakuza, the comatose, two-headed freaks, and tourists.
Every member of this menagerie had fangs jutting from their lips, hunger etched on their faces, and eyes crazed with lust.
The white smoke stopped curling up from the Demon Princess. Dropping down six hundred feet from the broken-down access tunnel to the water treatment facility in Yocho, she stripped away her rose garment, leaving her stark naked.
Casting a disparaging glance around her, she grumbled, “To think I would bed down with such vulgar companions? I think not. You find yourselves another place to sleep.”
Her graceful limbs faded into a rapid blur as she spun like a top, kicking up the mud in the tunnel. Every vampire she touched suffered the fate of a dandelion run over by a lawn mower. Heads and hands and feet separated from torsos, some still attached as they whirled around and erupted into the air.
Vampires slept deeply, and death came so instantly that some never raised a sound of complaint. But here and there cries erupted from the ground around her, the result of the demon qi radiating from Princess’s body.
“W-What are you doing?”
“Spare us!”
“No way!”
The screams of children mingled with those of men and women and they were all sucked into the air. Others ran around trying to escape, blood and body parts raining down on their heads. In their fear-filled eyes reflected the kaleidoscopic faces of Princess as she turned and turned.
Every one of her faces was smiling. Not a flicker of anger. Shining with bliss. The love of the massacre. The victims were all her minions, and thus her happiness. This was the dazzling smile of the woman who once forced retainers who criticized their ancient emperors to cling to a red-hot iron bar, and slit open the bellies of pregnant women.
The spinning top of death suddenly ceased. Her pealing laughter rang out. “Hoh! Is anybody there? Any living soul answer me!”
“H-Here—here—”
Several reed-thin voices identified themselves from different directions. No matter what awful fate they might meet, that Princess was their sire was as firm a rule as the physical laws of the universe.
“W-Why—did this happen—to me—?” moaned a young salaryman, his right leg twisted off at the knee.
“Hoh. You are my servants, the bodies you offer up to me are mine to do with as I please. I’ll tell you why; because even asleep you were a bother and a nuisance.”
“T-That’s all—the only reason—to—”
“Of what other use could you possibly be? I didn’t choose you to start with. Useless vermin replicating without meaning. Eradicating you is the only pleasure you will ever bring me.”
“What an—awful—terrifying—person—” said a man. A moment later, similar castigating voices flowed forth.
How would the Demon Princess react to such criticism—she shut her eyes, she writhed. No, this was not chagrin and remorse arising from self-reflection. Her body flushed pink. Her fingers sank into her throat and breasts. Her face shone with ecstasy.
She was elated. She shook with joy. Stealing away life, swimming in blood, and then basking in the deprecations of the suffering propelled her to the heights of rapture.
Her eyes opened. She said in a throaty voice, “Get out of here.”
Knowing they didn’t have the will to disobey, and willing to mete out greater retribution if they did not, without waiting for an answer she descended into the center of the culvert, lay down on her side and promptly fell asleep.
Bearing eyes filled with loathing, the creatures of the night, dumbfounded by such overweening arrogance, did as they were told and scattered deeper into the tunnels wearing wretched expressions on their faces.
A figure in blue blocked the path of one high-placed executive type. After a brief suspicious look, hunger and lust displaced any doubts.
He licked his lips. “What are you doing here, young lady?”
“I came here to observe your sire.” Takako Kanan smiled. “She has done great and terrible things, and has been doing them for so much longer than I. I must unleash all that I am in order to exceed her.”
“Come here,” said the man, approaching her. He lay a hand on Takako’s shoulder, a hand that looked perfectly normal but felt foul and debased, and pulled her toward him.
“Let’s have a little fun together, what do you say?”
A blue arm pushed the man’s face and his foul breath away. “Alas, you are not a funny man and I am not amused.”
In the next breath, her palm smashed into his face. Her other hand plunged through his chest like a spike and through his quivering heart.
She cocked her head to the side in genuine puzzlement. “So what would be the best way to deliver another knockout punch and send her down for the count? Something that would strike a little fear into the heart of our fair Princess?”
Apparently Takako was a fan of boxing.