Chapter 1:

Evil Woman

The flight was delayed nearly two hours, yet when it landed in the early evening, the rain was still lashing the ridged asphalt the stretched austerely and intersected to form the main runways of Narita. The terminal itself was a different affair, bearing neon lettering that declared its name in both Kanji and English in a pale green that I presumed was intended to be neutrally welcoming. I didn't feel welcomed. I felt agitated. The flight had been atrocious. It was not merely the inherent discomforts of air-travel; I had resigned myself to those before I had stepped onto the fourteen hour flight at JFK. Unlike most games of chance, airline seating doesn't flirt with the possibility of favorable outcomes. Like Russian roulette, the very best you could hope for what a neutral outcome, and the worst, well…

He wasn't talkative, or impertinent or rude in the slightest, as many perfectly agreeable people are want to be when forced into the close quarters required of flight. During the entire trip, I couldn't recall him speaking a single word aside to me, even when I indicated my need to leave my seat during the time we were airborne. It was the smell. It shocked me at first, as I had at first been thankful. He had seemed so well put together, in his neat suit, his attaché case held in his narrow lap. Yet the moment I sat down, I was immediately and uncomfortably aware of it. I fought at first, of course, but was forced to acknowledge the offending party was my travel companion. Every shift and sway during the flight led to a new wave of malodorous, putrescent stink to fill my nostrils. And matters of hygiene cannot be breached amongst strangers. I was stuck.

Shit.

By the time the wheels touched tarmac at Narita, the impact was enough to send a bolt of pain through my throbbing skull. I was at my limit. I had convinced myself not to claw at the rivets of the window, to stand and perform my post-flight ritual without pause or delay, and get the hell away. I had stood up to reclaim my luggage from the overhead compartment when I felt pressure – that subtle pressure at the base of my neck that accompanied the subconscious awareness I was being watched. I glanced down.

He was staring up at me intently. His face was drawn, pale, and gaunt. His eyes were sunken, as if by illness or a chronic lack of sleep. And in his eyes reflected such damning condemnation and accusation that I blinked, and nearly turned aside. I settled for raising a single brow in unspoken question, and those the embers in his eyes continued to blaze at me a moment more, they turned aside to regard the window without a single syllable passing his gravely pursed lips. Outside, the rain continued to abuse the asphalt, which in turn rebuffed it, the force of the deluge leaving a fine spray of mist that hovered about the ground like an ethereal shroud.

What the fuck was that?

The envelope that married the flight deck to the terminal floor was warm – it was still early in the summer, but I couldn't tell through the sullen gray blanket that blotted the sky if the sun had set or not. The world was in limbo, that specific time of day when it cannot decide if it is still dusk, or to move on to twilight, and the terminal seemed almost gray-scaled, despite the unnaturally pallor cast by the fluorescents. The wounded duffle bag – a scarred veteran of many previous drifts – was laden with everything I'd need. It was heavy. After a few steps down the exit arm, and the brass buckles on the strap were sinking into my curled palm like dulled teeth.

I stepped out onto the concourse, where a number of families were exchanging greetings and the healthy population of tourists was looking about in their self satisfied way. I had neither family nor self-satisfaction here. I turned to go when the pressure returned to the base of my skull and my eyes went aside. She was standing near one of the moving walkways, the small of her back pressed against one of the pylons that marked the edge of the matted black rubber handrails that glided past her, curling underneath silently to complete the circuit. She was young – perhaps a year my junior. Her dark hair had been collected up onto the top of her head in a fashionable bob that kept it free of the curve of her chin, save for a lone tress that was left deliberately hanging over her brow – a fashion statement, I guessed. She was dressed wholly unremarkably – a skirt that stopped just above her knees and a plain white blouse. Once again, it was the eyes.

Her eyes were dark enough – not strange in itself – but for the second time in the space of a few minutes I found myself fixated by a look of total contempt and distaste. I blinked again, but I had long since reached the end of the rope, and try as I might to tie a knot and hold on, I could feel my composure going. It was lucky then I caught the angle of her gaze and in a moment of clarity understood she was looking beyond me. In a moment of human susceptibility, I performed the usual tick and flicked my head around to join in her staring, and found myself watching the shoulders of the putrid man I had been seated beside. If he noticed her ire fixed upon him, he gave no sign nor turned to look, and instead slipped away down the concourse without a glance over his shoulder. It struck me as familiar, and after a moment of thought, I placed it. It was the way a jackal slinks from a kill when the lioness comes to feed.

I turned to give the girl a proper examination, but she was gone – bled away into the mass of the human current moving along the walkway she had previously perched upon. My moment of pensive curiosity gone and the agitation returned like a hammer blow. My temples thudded dully, and a hand reflexively closed two fingers against the bridge of my nose with a sigh. I'd had enough of people staring at me – people staring near or around me, as well. Momentarily thankful of my complete lack of belongings outside of my bag, I stepped onto the walkway, praying to an absent God that there would be a taxi rink somewhere at the end of it.

Tokyo proper – the city centre – is almost fifty miles southwest of Narita. It wasn't going to be cheap, but I didn't care much. I checked the billfold I carried. A neat stack of pale yen notes lay where I had transferred them after visiting the currency exchange. Just over four-hundred and thirty thousand yen, most a stale brown indicating denominations of ten-thousand each greeted me. Enough to keep me going for a while, at least. I slipped the fold away and retrieved my mp3 player from the front pocket of my duffle bag and inserted one bud into my ear. I was waiting for my collection to load when the cab driver spoke. He spoke English with only a trace of accent – I'm guessing most of the ones sent to pick up tourists at Narita do.

"You came to Tokyo to visit Kabukicho?" he asked, and in the rearview mirror, I saw his dark brows arch.

"I have a place there", I answered. Japanese.

"Your accent is terrible." He didn't seem surprised.

"I get that a lot."

There was a pregnant pause for a long moment, the glow of the various streetlamps scattering orange light in rhythmic passing about the interior of the cab. He broke it after a time.

"Kabukicho has a terrible reputation."

"Then I'll fit in."
I could see in the mirror now that the corner of his lips twisted upwards into an amused, knowing smile. He shook his head and spoke simply.

"You'll be in good company, then."

We were silent then. I pressed my thumb against the shuffle button, heard the familiar pop as my ear buds engaged, and then Yoko Kanno, Rain. I closed my eyes.

I paid the driver, and tipped him.

"I'm guessing you want me to forget you", he said easily – habitually. As he leaned across the console housing the gearstick, the obscene crimson lighting of the brothel behind me cast deep shadows under his eyes. Unlike the man from the plane, his looked natural. He looked dog tired, old, and worn-through. I don't think Kabukicho agreed with him.

"If it helps you."

"Don't be cocky in this part of town, American."

"Alright. Thanks."
I watched the cab pull away from the curb. It was well after sunset and the rain was still beating itself fitfully against the pavement, slicking it with a sheen that glistened unattractively beneath the buzz of the red-light district's namesake ornaments. I slung my bag over my right shoulder, feeling the comfortable weight settle across my spine. I was tired enough to feel my grip slipping, but the weight of the bag seemed to anchor me back into the ground at my feet.

The tenet housing I had rented was a block or so down, but I hadn't had the taxi drop me off right in front of it. Paranoia, I guess. I eyed the red-rimmed doorway before me speculatively for a moment before I turned and began moving down the street. It was surprisingly dark, with the sky brooding as it was, but there were still plenty of people milling about. There was a surprising number of tourists – I guess the allure of the seedier parts of town has its draw – and a number of strong-arms lounging. Not Yakuza – they had enough clout not to loiter out in the street when they owned most of the buildings on it – but some local thugs. They seemed content to be ignored.

I passed one of the sparse dining alcoves that clung to the side of one of the larger establishments – an apartment complex of which the storefront was the foot. The smell was intoxicating, which was a feat as the alley beside it was choked with stagnant runoff. I hadn't eaten in a day. I'd grab something once I had myself settled. I cross the sliver of pavement that announced the opening of the alley and was about to pass on when I heard a gurgled cough that sloshed its way down the drainage gully towards me. I turned. A figure in a dark suit was lying across the gully.

I sighed.

"Hey?"

No response.

"Too much sake, eh?"

Nothing. Maybe it was a tourist. Maybe it was a thief, but the Yakuza took a pretty dim view on petty crime in Kabukicho – they didn't want the detectives to have a valid, legal reason to be dogging their turf.

"Hey, chief." English this time. A twitch, but nothing coherent. This guy was in bad shape for sure. I drew closer, slinging my bag down, ensuring it stayed clear of the sullied run-off from the surrounding drains. It looked like all the adjacent buildings used this gully as a sewer. I was a few paces away when two things simultaneously grew obvious. It was my odiferous flight mate, and he was quite clearly dead.

I should have thought through it. Tokyo has a population in excess of thirteen million, and Kabukicho was well beyond fifty miles away from Narika. No coincidence. My subconscious howled this to me, but I was tired, and wasn't thinking straight. I shouldn't make excuses.

I was being stupid.

I was surprised when the dead man tried to throttle me.

I had rolled him over in order to check his pulse, but the spongy, yielding consistency of his shoulder as I turned him implied he had been lying in the dirty water for some time. I hadn't the time to recognize the impossible extent of decomposition he had undergone in the short time since I had seen him last before his hand shot out and hooked around my shoulder, curling into a claw that dug fingernails into the flesh of my back and kept me pinned, face to face with the abomination. His face was covered in dark, murky patched of necrosis, and was wholly eaten away in places, exposing the sinewy strands of facial muscle that worked horribly beneath as he grinned up at me. His mouth was enormous – it stretched cleanly from his ear to ear, like a frog's, and his face had flattened and sunk back into itself, completing the toad-like illusion. On eye bulged sightlessly from its socket, while the other was simply gone – a black, blood-flecked hole where it should have been. Small tendrils of inky black danced and twisted within the socket, and as he opened his mouth with a malignant hiss, more ropes of putrid matter writhed across the swollen, purple flesh of his tongue.

My initial shocked horror was overwhelmed with disgust and revulsion of the state of decay the dead man was in, and with it came a wave of instinctive anger that propelled me into leaning back, drawing his torso up with mine as I pulled back a fist. The blow I threw into his chin snapped his head around, but his grip on my shoulder didn't ease. He lifted his other hand to my throat and suddenly I found my windpipe constricted in a vice of iron. The rim of my vision began to haze over, and I was dimly away as my body was pushed upwards, the tips of my running shoes scraping against the paving stones of the alley as I was suspended in the curled fist of the corpse. My sight was going, but I could still hear the things gurgled, excited breathing as it choked the life from me.

The swath of my sight had grayed out and I was moments from going under. The kicks I had intended to batter this thing's shins were merely twitches, when I felt a shuddering impact run up the length of the dead man's arm, and the bloated fingers about my neck slackened. A bolt of pain surged through my throat and down my spine as I drew a breath, and swung a fist blindly that miraculously found the soft point of the corpses' chin, denting the decayed flesh inwards with a wet pop. Something crunched and the thing staggered away, and I dropped onto my knees, hacking violently as I sucked in a breath. I wrapped a soothing hand about my burning neck. Reflexive tears searing the corner of my eyes, I attempted to force myself up to be ready for the thing, but my legs weren't cooperating, and the murky pall of unconsciousness across my sight was replaced by a thudding red one of acute pain. It took me several seconds to recover focus.

She was straddling the waist of the dead man, her left hand coiled into a tight ball that flailed violently against its chest, attempting to shake its grip. No coincidence; Narika was fifty miles away and Tokyo too large. But I was prone to be charitable, so she was free to follow me where she wanted. My mind was still sluggish and the thought ponderously navigating it swirled feverishly as the two grappled. The dead man had wormed a hand up under her chin, pressing the heel of his palm there to force her head back in an attempt to throw her off. His other was occupied about her right wrist, in the hand of which she clenched a revolver – something with a snap-open breech, vintage. In my rattled state, I recall admiring it for its authenticity moments before the creature twisted her hand violently and sent it skittering away.

Her hand, freed from its violent occupant, lashed down to seek a grip on the neck of the rotten antagonist, but before this was possible, his own hand began curling sharp, grimy fingernails against her face in a bid to gouge out her eyes. With a snarl, she slapped the putrid face of the man hard, breaking his grip, before twisting away and disengaging. Slowly, her opponent labored to his feet, his half-degraded arms hanging limp at his sides in a manner that made his squaring off against her that much more sinister.

Click.

I was pleased with myself – I had recovered enough that my hand didn't shake at all as I leveled the discarded revolver at the centre of this shambling mass of decay. I thumbed back the hammer, and took a moment to appreciate the stunned look on her face. With the state he was in, the best he could manage was a blank look.

It would do.

"Looks like you lost this one", I informed.

I pulled the trigger and suddenly there was a thunderstorm in the alley with us.

It was fortunate I had no small experience with pistols – the recoil was enormous and the sheer volume that accompanied the round leaving the chamber was deafening. The round entered just underneath his Adam's apple, snapping his head about smartly, with the rest of his body followed in a bundle of flapping limbs and spasms. His body tumbled back into the culvert from which I tried to pull him, and in a surreal moment I had to fight the dramatic urge to lift the gun to my lips and blow across the barrel. It was a beautiful gun, after. A gun like that required some flair.

"Gun!', the girl shrieked at me. Were it not for the note of hysterical urgency in her demand, I might have withheld it as a bartering chip, but with her wide-eyed and strained there was little resisting. I lofted the heavy iron piece towards her just as the thing pulled itself up onto all-fours, his spine arched backwards like a gymnast.

What the fuck?

His grinning head was attached by only a few tendons that pulsed and discharged dark, poisonous ichor as it lunged at me.

"Fuck off", I heard myself snarl, my teeth gritted in a mixture of rage and terror – this thing couldn't die. I wasn't about to let something like that deter me. I hooked my hands underneath the pits of his arms and lifted the ragged monstrosity off of its feet. I wasn't certain what I could do then, but in my adrenaline fueled state I was considering pounding the thing against the ground until it was liquefied, when the revolver released another thunderous bark and the dead man's chest erupted outwards over me, spattering me with foul fluid. I dropped the thrashing thing in shock, and the girl calmly stepped over and shot it twice more in the head, point blank.

It stopped moving.

Finally.

I gradually grew aware of a searing pain throbbing in my right shoulder, and I glanced aside to find a perfectly cylindrical hole in my jacket, through which a slim rivulet of crimson was running. I examined it with lips pursed in disbelief, before I reached back to feel against the back of my shoulder blade.

There was an exit wound, alright. It felt a mile wide to me.

I found myself on my knees, though I was more surprised than injured – the round had passed cleanly through me. She was staring down at me with a look of expectant curiosity, the revolver naturally tucked away in the leather holster at her hip.

"You shot me", I managed, careful to keep my voice level and patient.

"Sorry about that."

There was a heartbeat of pause as I allowed my eyes to examine the still form of whatever the dead man was. I returned my attention to my yet-animated companion.

"Do I get an explanation?"

A weightier pause followed, before: "…Sorry about that."

"I didn't think so."

She turned and began moving down the alley toward the opening at the far end that expanded into the adjacent street and the unscrupulous district of Kabukicho.

I was fine to watch her go. With a grimy hand I felt for my mp3 player where it was surprisingly still clipped to my belt, and unwound the ear buds. I slipped them on and hit shuffle.

Electric Light Orchestra. Evil Woman.

Nice.