The gory wind blew down the narrow conduit. The tiger twitched its snout. Though born out of dreams, this creature was formed with a lust for blood.
Go on! Git! Setsura silently scolded it.
The white tiger turned around. The humiliation of its defeat at Setsura’s hand was fresh in its mind. The desire for revenge—the thirst for raw flesh—it struggled between its instinctual desires and the desire for revenge and reprisal.
It snarled. A glowing ball of fire grew like a bubble from its mouth. Then in a flash, it spun around and raced back to the scene of the carnage, slashing at the survivors with its mighty fangs. Planting its severed forelegs, it cut the spine of one officer with the claws of its hind legs, stuffed the head into its mouth, and plucked it off the shoulders with a shake of its head.
The sound of the crunching skull attracted Princess’s enraptured gaze.
“Well, well. My bad for making you smell blood while in the midst of snuffing out Setsura’s candle. No rush, no rush. After you’ve eaten them, keep room for one more in that stomach of yours.”
Her shrill laughter reverberated through that dark realm. This woman’s laughter wouldn’t stop as long as others continued to die. In other words, until the ending of the human world.
The darkness answered back with a differing opinion. Voices welled up around the bloodbath like the lingering resentments of embittered ghosts.
“No matter your malice, why treat us like this?”
“We are Princess’s subjects. Not a speck of uncertainty stains our devotion. However immortal our bodies may be, ripping off our heads hurts.”
Beneath Princess’s feet, around the white tiger, human forms squirmed and writhed and moaned. If not killed in the proper way, a vampire would live forever—with its spine severed, limbs lost, head crushed. A life trapped eternally in that pain was beyond the imagination of mere mortals.
The headless bodies crawled across the piles of brick and concrete as the limbless agents screamed. And so it would ever be.
A mad artist who happened to be present would certainly compose a masterpiece that would give no one who saw it another restful night’s sleep thereafter.
“Forgive us,” said a security officer, torn asunder from the crown of his head to his crotch.
“Why—why are you doing this to us?” wailed another, frantically stuffing his intestines back into his abdomen.
“We live for no one else but you.”
The Demon Princess leaned over and scooped up a handful of the black gore from the lake of blood. She answered with a glance at the man who made that statement, “You live for no one else but me?” She trickled the blood over her white throat and breasts. “Then no matter what fate awaits you, you will voice no complaint to me. That is the calling of a servant. Although I have no use for a person like that.”
“What are you saying?” someone called from far away. “Then for what purpose were we—”
“Why ask me? How should I know? Why does dust exist? What is the meaning of garbage?”
“Are you calling us dust?”
Princess looked around her, stroking her breasts and her thighs, smearing herself with their blood. The voices came from above the culvert, from above her. But such was Princess’s scorn that she lorded over her servants as if from high above. The emperors of old must have beheld her in no less a fashion.
“Listen carefully. Your filthy blood cannot begin to quench my thirst. And yet you multiply like rats and rabbits. Think. Over the past four thousand years, in all the time I have been alive, shouldn’t a situation like this have occurred over and over? Those unclean things who sing my praises as my servants covering the earth in swarms. You are hardly the first. Have you heard tell of them ruling the world, let alone shaking its foundations? Hardly. I drink my fill and the world slumbers on. Why do you think that is so?”
Princess stopped talking. An invisible ardor flowed into the gaps between the sounds of silence. It swelled and reached its breaking point and gushed forth as a single voice.
“Please save us.”
Princess answered simply, “Because I put an end to them.”
It was as if the world had descended into a different kind of darkness. Even the white tiger paused amidst its slaughter.
“Why would you—”
“Why would you—”
“Why—”
“Why—”
“Why—”
“Who could tolerate the sight of a world filled with such vermin? How do you imagine you appear in my eyes? As loving and devoted retainers, our faces nuzzled together as I take you to my bed? No. Ghouls with rancid blood trailing across their black and bloated flesh, corrupt eyes shining with unsated cravings. Ah, the sound of breath whistling across fangs. It stinks. Such filth cannot be allowed to remain in this world.”
“Weren’t you the one who did this to us?”
“You have spoken enough. That is enough to wish my soul to hell.”
“Please extinguish us.”
Their voices swirled around her. “Please extinguish you? Do you dare tell me what to do? No, you are hardly the first. You call yourselves my servants and swear allegiance to me alone, but that is not your true selves, not what resides in your heart of hearts. There is only one in this world who truly possesses eternal life. The maggots that writhe in the depths are nothing but annoyances. It appears that this time only, and only in this city has Kikiou pondered different thoughts. I couldn’t care less about that old man’s dreams. And maybe all the better to let them come true.”
Her voice grew softer. Her blood-soaked visage turned toward the passageway. There stood a man’s silhouette, like a beautiful splotch of ink.
“You heard me, Setsura?”
“I did,” he calmly replied. “It’s said that the ultimate state of every despot is a lone figure surrounded by nothing but death. It seems that is indeed true.”
“Do nothing and that is the fate of this city. Do you think you can stop it?”
“I don’t know.” Setsura shrugged. It was probably the truth. But he wasn’t the type to throw himself into a fit of desperate improvisation.
At a loss for words herself, Princess blinked. “Then what will you do?” she asked, ignoring her own non sequitur.
The white tiger growled beside her. Its brain, intoxicated by the massacre, rekindled its animosity toward Setsura. Setsura shook his head. That was the truth too.