Calamity Rising (Deathwalker Book 1) Read online

  Now that we've cleared that up, I'll give you a quick rundown of my past.

  I got most of my power, spiritually speaking, from my mother. She was a Shinto Priestess of considerable strength who ran the Meiji Shrine right here in Neo-Tokyo. At the edge of Yoyogi Park, to be specific.

  I grew up learning how to feed my, at the time, 'pure' spiritual power. She also taught me how to contain and communicate with Calamities of all kinds once she realized I saw them. She only sensed them unless they wanted her to see them, or if she used a Calamity Mirror, though she only had a fragment of one.

  That's how powerful Calamities are.

  And I'm powerful enough to see them no matter what.

  It's not really something to brag about.

  Believe me.

  No one wants to see what I do on a regular basis.

  Growing up, she never gave me the lowdown on my dad—who he was or what happened to him. My mother never even told me his name. After she died, I gave myself a new one: Nox. It suits who I am now.

  At that moment, my dark brown hair was in desperate need of a cut. It dangled in my eyes and hung down my back in a mass, but I'd been too lazy to get it done. My skin tone was a shade or two darker than most Japanese people, a nice golden tan. My eyes were the weirdest thing about me—the pupils were an inky black and the irises a dark purple.

  That color gave away my power.

  The fact that I can see beyond the veil. That I got my power in a way most humans, even the ones with a shit ton of magic at their disposal, consider unnatural.

  That's why people who know what it means usually stay the fuck away.

  Unfortunately, ghosts don't understand that.

  Especially the Longneck Woman in Apartment 13.

  Her mouth opened. Her jaw dropped so low it would dislocate a normal human skull. A scratchy groan emitted from her gaping maw. At her sides, the fingers cracked and shot toward me—snatched at my neck.

  "Doesn't look good. You know how touchy her kind are. I warned you."

  I stepped back, thudded into the wall, and the nails scraped across my skin just shy of slicing my flesh and staining my shirt a deep red.

  Good.

  I liked that shirt and my neck just how they were.

  This wasn't any normal haunting.

  A Longneck Woman is in another category—it's a vengeful ghost. And it is created in only one way: suicide by hanging. That's the reason the ghost's neck is unnaturally stretched. In every case I've run across, a Longneck Woman lost something very precious. A kid.

  Even worse, unless you find the missing—usually dead—kid, the Longneck Woman won't rest.

  Ever.

  The night had to get worse.

  And the landlady didn't say a damn thing about a suicide in this apartment.

  "Find. . .her. . . Find. . .her. . ." the Longneck Woman moaned and lunged at me again.

  I ducked, rolled under her dangling ghostly toes, and slashed at her back. The iron sword cut through her and left a dark gash on her dirty gown, but a new splotch of rust blossomed on the surface of the sword.

  She whimpered and swung back and forth, then spun around to face me.

  Her hands shot toward my neck a second time, and I sliced at them, scrambling back, toward the sliding glass door and the balcony beyond.

  The only good thing about a Longneck Woman is they're tied to the spot of their death. Unlike some Calamities, they can't wander wherever they want.

  Score for me.

  Well, partially.

  If I wanted to get paid, I had to seal her.

  Her nails flew into the air, dug into the ceiling, and dissolved into the mass of shadows that surrounded her.

  During the day, she'd be little more than a wisp of stale air and the heavy sensation of loss—sadness—the echo of emotions she felt during the moment she died. Ghosts and certain Calamities gain more power when the sun goes down. So why the hell did I wait until after midnight to get my ass over here?

  Well, a ghost is easiest to seal when they're at their strongest.

  Annoying but true.

  And I can't just throw a seal at her face and be done with it. That's not how sealing a ghost works.

  The seal must stick to whatever held her to this place. Usually it's an object of some kind—the chair the victim balanced on, the clothes she wore when she died, the length of rope that stretched her neck. And with those shadows crowding the ceiling, I couldn't see any of that.

  "Yep. It's up there. And if you don't get it soon, she's gonna slice you into ribbons. That'll be fun. I hope you have to spend eternity as ribbony Yuki. I like that."

  I pressed my back into the glass, and it crinkled under my weight. Slivers of ice cracked and sprinkled across my coat and hair.

  "Not going to happen," I grunted.

  Then the Longneck Woman's mouth unhinged. Her teeth looked like silver spikes. If they closed around me, it'd give me a death curse. Not one I really wanted to deal with. While I can dip into the Spirit World and Yomi-no-kuni—if I need to—it's not a place I want to end up against my will.

  Not again.

  The protection beads around my neck couldn't even fight that. And that last time it happened, I almost didn't make it back.

  "Or you could get rid of her in another way—take her where she belongs. Take her to Yomi-no-kuni. Bring her peace."

  A shiver shot up my spine. I hadn't been back there since I'd died, and I didn't plan to return any time soon. "Like a vengeful ghost deserves that."

  A thin layer of iron lined the bottom of my boots. Rusty sword or not, never say I go into a haunting unprepared.

  I kicked.

  The flat of my foot snapped at the Longneck Woman's jaw. The phantom bone cracked under the weight of my boot. The flesh tore, and the jaw dangled.

  Time to move.

  I jumped up and swept my sword across the stretched bits of flesh, slicing them.

  The Longneck Woman's jaw hit the floor and dissipated into shadow. It'd reattach in a minute or so, which meant I had to act fast.

  I scanned the ceiling for any sign of what held her there. A heavy weight clung to my chest. The unimaginable loss filled my lungs. It clamped on my heart, squeezed until I couldn't breathe.

  I'm not an empath, but a ghost emits the feelings they had before they died along with the miasma. The two go hand in hand.

  It wasn't my loss. Not my emotions, but no wonder the people who stayed here didn't last longer than a week. It's a fucking wonder they didn't all end up swinging from the ceiling.

  Ceiling!

  Right!

  I looked up.

  Squinted into the darkness.

  A hole gaped in the center of the ceiling. A light should be there, but it wasn't.

  The Longneck Woman screeched. Her nails scratched at me and grasped my trench coat. Tried to cut the flesh beneath.

  Remember that death curse? Well, a cut from a ghost is what causes it, and it isn't pretty.

  You don't drop dead right away. Oh no. It's more like weeks of agonizing pain while your soul is slowly pulled from your body. Your flesh dies first, turning black and rotting while you wither away inside. Not to mention the fact that the curse can spread to others. It's like a plague.

  It was the plague. Fleas had nothing to do with it.

  The nails sliced through the fabric, and I could either keep fighting her with iron or seal her for good.

  I couldn't do both. I only had two hands.

  "Maybe instead of ribbons you can hang yourself here too. But Longneck Yuki doesn't have the same ring to it."

  I plunged my left hand, the one with the seal, into the hole. Crumbling bits of wood and plaster came away on my gloves.

  The smooth white face of the Longneck Woman reformed. The jaw reattached, and her neck twisted around me, curling from my feet to my waist. It squeezed, and I coughed.

  My heart throbbed, and I sliced at her with my free hand and groped blindly with the other.

&
nbsp; The sword cracked.

  The tip crumbled to red dust.

  "Told you," Lux said, and laughed.

  "Find. . .her. . . Find. . .her. . .there!"

  My glove closed on something soft.

  Squishy.

  I yanked it free.

  Blinked.

  Hoped it wasn't a rotting body part.

  Don't ask—it happened before.

  A small stuffed dog sat clenched in my hand.

  3

  THE LONGNECK WOMAN let out a mournful cry and lunged at me one last time as I slapped the seal in place.

  The paper stuck to the stuffed dog—the power of the seal held it there—and the ghost's neck loosened, twisted into a black wisp of smoke as the seal sucked it inside like water going down a drain, albeit about fifty times faster.

  Ice crackled on the walls, and the miasma dissipated, though the smell of mildew still reigned supreme. The ghost might've kept people from sticking around, but this place wasn't a prize in the first place.

  The steady patter of rain filled the air just outside, and I shook the clinging emotions from me as I walked to the door. It's not as easy as it sounds. Every run in with a ghost or a Calamity, especially one like that, gets inside your head. Gnaws at you unless you take a dip in a purification pool and clear it out. But that involved heading to a Shrine, and I wasn't about to do that.

  I'd manage with a drink, like usual.

  Sealed dog clutched in my hand, I strode back into the rain to get my money for the case.

  Halfway down the stairs, Lux spoke. "Not gonna lie, I hoped it was something a bit more gruesome and not so cliché."

  "Not me."

  "That's because you're no fun. A good old piece of bone would've been better than that stuffed monstrosity. What are you going to do with it now?"

  "Get paid so they don't turn the power off." I squeezed the toy dog in my hand and marched into the night.

  It took a certain kind of person to wake a frail old woman from her sleep, and that kind of person was me. Especially when the old woman in question was a lying bag of bones, not the ghostly type, just a typical human bag of bones.

  Rule number one of my Exorcism and Detective Agency is to only take jobs from people who have a verified address. That way they can't skip out on the bill. Don't ask why I made that rule. Bad experience.

  "I think you should gut her right here. Teach her a lesson."

  "That's not a lesson; that's murder."

  "One person's murder is another person's strict discipline. Don't be so judgemental. And like you haven't killed anyone before, Yuki. Remember Mimi? Oh, and that guy on Route 66—what was he again?"

  "Hell Hound in disguise who was trying to kill me. Not a person. And you told me to kill him."

  "So I did. You can do it again now."

  My nerves bristled, and I pounded against the landlady's door seven times before I heard a shuffle of footsteps inside. She lived several blocks from the haunted apartment complex in a small house, the kind with a yard that's only about three feet wide. The wall that surrounded the house came to my waist and was new engineered brick built to resist crumbling in the event of an earthquake.

  She didn't open the door, so I knocked again.

  "Open up. I told you I'd come over after I dealt with the ghost. I want my money."

  "Money and her intestines. You have no idea the sort of fun things you can do with them. Decorations, for one. Your apartment is too drab. Don't lie. I know you were thinking the same thing."

  Another moment of hesitation.

  I raised my fist, and the door swung open. The light next to it sputtered on.

  The woman frowned at me, her face wrinkled like a pickled plum and haloed in the hall light behind her head. She wore a neat yellow robe over her night clothes, and a pair of matching slippers adorned her feet. She mumbled about how rude it was to wake her.

  I gave her a smile just shy of charming and pushed the hair from my face. Lux's suggestion didn't sound half bad. Not the gutting and using the intestines as decorations thing, but scaring this old bag didn't bother me at all. "Did you forget to tell me about the suicide in Apartment 13?"

  She scoffed and shook her head. "You woke me for that? Suicides happen all the time in this city. A Monk blessed it after the woman died."

  If she'd been able to see what I did, she'd have a different reaction, no doubt. Story of my life.

  "Well, this one came back. Your Monk did a shit job. I'm upping my payment. Five mon." That's the equivalent of five hundred dollars.

  The woman's beady eyes widened. "We agreed on three. No more. The Monk said you could handle all ghosts. If you can't, quit!"

  Considering I'd already sealed the ghost, I couldn't hold that over her head to get my rate for dealing with a Longneck Woman. Still, I had the toy dog. I brandished it in her face, made sure she got a good look at the seal, and let my gloved fingers play around the edge.

  Normal human or not, if she called me, she knew a Spirit Seal when she saw one. She was old enough to still believe in the legends of Gods and Goddesses who shaped our land. Most of today's youth went through the motions. Visited Shrines and Temples on major holidays and to get luck for tests or love, but they didn't really believe.

  Made doing my job a hundred times more difficult.

  "Good one. Do the 'oops, my finger slipped' trick and give her a death curse."

  "I can go put this back where I found it if you don't pay me the full amount. Your choice. It'll curse someone soon, then no one will want to live in that shithole."

  Was I standing in the rain threatening to release a ghost back into the world for the equivalent of an extra two hundred dollars? Yes. Yes, I was. Not my proudest moment, but I had bills to pay and a mouth to feed: mine.

  It went against everything my mother taught me, and I ignored the stab of guilt that hit me in the gut. Plus, I bluffed. No matter what Lux prompted, I wouldn't have done it. Loosing that ghost back into the world of the living would get someone innocent killed—not something I wanted to be responsible for a second time.

  She scowled and slammed the door in my face. Then, a moment later, the door swung open and the landlady handed me a pile of bills, five mon, just like I'd asked.

  The door slammed a second time, and the porch light flicked out.

  I shoved the crisp bills into my wallet and slumped back toward the station.

  "You're so pathetic! Think of all the fun you could've had if the ghost bit her face off."

  I shook my head. "Then I'd have to deal with her ghost as well. Eventually."

  "Oh, and you have a broken sword. Right. Wouldn't want to get your pretty little hands dirty by getting a real Calamity Weapon to fight them, would you?"

  "You know what I'd have to do to get a weapon like that."

  "Yes. And it's the only way to really fight. You're nothing like . . .oops. Never mind. I almost said too much."

  I pictured Lux's eyes narrowing whenever he got that secretive note in his voice. Even if I didn't know what he looked like, I'd made an approximation in my mind. Oh, I'd asked him, but the only response I got was 'too glorious for my meager brain to comprehend.'

  I doubted that.

  He was probably a Kitsune—a Fox Calamity. It suited his temperament. Though, he could've been a Karasu-Tengu—a shapeshifting Crow Calamity—just as well.

  The regular trains stopped running at midnight, but the Calamity train ran from then until dawn, and, despite the company, that was sure as hell better than walking home. Or spending half my night's income on a cab back to Shibuya.

  A few salarymen rushed past, their umbrellas slick and wet, just like my coat. The lights from a few late-night izakaya flooded the streets.

  Those were the only things the humans could see.

  I saw so much more.

  For one, a lumbering rock lion paced outside of a small Shrine tucked between a grocery store and a bakery. It sniffed the air as I moved past, black empty eyes locked on me. I d
idn't step under the faded reddish orange Torii Gate, the barrier between the Spirit World and this one.

  Still, it sensed what I was. Sensed the Calamity trapped around my neck as well.

  Lux's presence kept them at bay most of the time. If not, I'd have hungry Calamities trying to take a bite out of me every day. At least Lux was good for something.

  An unnatural mist hung heavy over the river to the south, boats filled with the tingling of bell-like voices floated on the water. A party to celebrate the phase of the moon, I guessed. Or the change in season. Or the fact that it was a Friday.

  Hard to tell.

  I swear, Calamities throw more parties than humans do.

  I passed a food stall on the side of the road. The man behind the counter looked unassuming. The scent of yakitori that came from his makeshift kitchen as tempting as I'd ever smelled, but he stood with his back to the road proper. His shoulders hunched, and his chin pressed to his chest in a gesture that was just south of normal.

  "Mmm. Smells good. Don't you want to stop and have a bite? You're famished. I can tell," Lux said.

  "You don't have a nose, so you can't smell anything."

  And I knew what I'd find if I asked for a chicken skewer.

  Way more than I felt like dealing with.

  I walked on.

  A shadow lumbered behind me. At first, I thought it was a typical Calamity and kept my head down and my guard up. It trailed behind me for several blocks, and when I turned the corner, I noticed it was a Shade—a Conjuror's bound Calamity. They appear as nothing more than a misshapen shadow since their master restrained their original power. Not a pleasant way to go, even for a Calamity.

  I slipped my hand into my trench and fingered the hilt of my badly rusted sword. Then I scanned the streets. Shades can't wander far from their masters, no more than a mile, but that didn't mean whoever it belonged to was close by.

  As I waited for the crosswalk light to change, the Shade loomed behind me. It didn't move any closer, but a black sedan pulled to a stop and the window slid down.