The vampire eradication squad returned to the Shinjuku Police station soon after the sun set. Perhaps weighed down by the anguish of slaying their own citizens, they seemed far more exhausted than when they left, their wan faces revealing their cruel misery.
Several of them had passed through the lobby and came to a stop. Peaches dangled from the ceiling in front of their wide-open eyes. In a flash, their attention was drawn to the bloodshot eyes of their comrades filled with loathing, and all the more so to the fangs gracing their mouths.
They were already out. They had already come here.
“Stakes!” somebody cried.
The stunned cops swung their right hands in a growling fury. The peaches rained down on the floor. A vampire cop stepped on one. Blue smoke rose from his feet. He reared back. A police officer charged, cradling a stake.
A spatter of blood, and they fell together to the floor. Another one of his coworkers feasted on his neck.
“Hit ’em with the peaches!”
“Form a barricade!”
Dodging the swaying peach boughs, the figures in their now misshapen uniforms scattered inside the police station. Gunfire broke out. Pieces of uniforms shredded and flew apart. A black dot opened on a forehead and the back of a head blew out. White bone peeked out among the nerves and flesh and muscle.
The cop bared his white teeth and laughed. Another rushed forward and stuffed a peach into the wound. Flames burst forth. He swayed and staggered. His former colleague buried a stake in his chest.
The smell of blood filled the lobby. “Don’t shoot!” came a command over a loudspeaker somewhere. “This is the assistant chief. The invaders have been repulsed. Place peaches at the entrances and exits and windows. Search the building and make sure everybody passes a peach test. They’ve no doubt hidden themselves well.”
Listening to the vigorous voice, the cops all exchanged glances. The vampires had penetrated even the police. The state of affairs was hardly any different at the ward government building. And at Mephisto Hospital.
✦ ✦ ✦
The old woman approached the front desk. “How can I help you?” the nurse receptionist asked.
She bowed her head politely. “My grandson was admitted to this hospital. He is having an operation.”
“What room number?” asked the nurse, scanning the lobby.
The old woman cocked her head to the side, but for another reason entirely. This nurse was different from the regular receptionist, the visitor thought. The icy air about her rose up. Her skin was unnaturally pale.
“And who are you, young lady?”
“I am the assistant head nurse to the director.”
“Well, then. I’ll be on my way.”
“Wait!”
The old woman stopped. The order had an imperative edge, as if daring her to disobey and risk the repercussions.
“What?” the old woman quavered.
“There is the smell of blood about you,” the nurse said in a dusky voice.
“Me? That is—”
“Coming from around those red lips.”
The nurse pointed. And like pressing a button, the old woman transformed. Not hiding her fangs, she leapt at the nurse, who, in turn, smashed a peach against her forehead.
The slight form sprang backwards through the air. Pressing her hand against the stain, she ran for the automatic doors.
Having observed all this, another nurse called out, “What are you doing?” and ran to the door. Through the first set of doors, she came to a sudden halt.
A packed crowd of people waited outside the lobby. The demonic air about them froze her in her tracks. A moment later, it turned into a battlefield.
The old woman swayed and tottered. Upon reaching them, they fell upon her neck. Screams erupted. The fangs of these ordinary citizens slashed into her writhing body, quickly shredding it until there was nothing left.
Pairs of red dots gleamed in the faces of the human shadows staring back at the nurse, as if the front courtyard was covered by a swarm of fireflies.
“Stand back,” came the command from behind her.
Faced with no realistic option but to comply, she switched places with what turned out to be the nurse from before. She thrust out her arms, her hands cupped together, as the black wave of inhumanity rose up and threatened to engulf her.
She opened her hands, revealing a golf ball-sized globe of light. The bright flare splashed across the courtyard. The sunlight was sucked into the wall of people, overflowed like a river pouring over its banks, and filled all the spaces between the heavens and the earth.
This was either the same globe Kikiou had thrown at Mephisto in the hospital director’s office a short time before, or a similar device Mephisto had already fashioned himself.
This brilliance, suffused with life and something apart from artificial light, aroused a scream of pain from these creatures of the night. They fled like a quickly retreating tide.
“Those people—those people just now,” the nurse mumbled in a daze.
The assistant head nurse to the director placed a hand on her shoulder. They gazed together at the front courtyard, still as bright as day.
“Let’s lock down the entrances—no, as long as that light burns, they won’t be coming back. There are still people outside the gates who need saving.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Then she added in a quiet voice, “So it seems they have finally arrived here.”