Setting one foot in the door told me we’d come to a cheap novelty shop run by a charlatan making easy money playing at being a European gypsy. Darkness swallowed most of the room, which had been divided by purple curtains printed with glow in the dark moons. It smelled vaguely of incense, and smoke hung in the air. Eerie music played in the background.
For all that, a regular cash register waited for regular money, along with a display of dragon figurines, fake crystal balls, decks of tarot cards, and books covering a wide variety of preternatural subjects. Posters were hung up for sale behind the counter, most of them depicting naked women dressed up like fantasy creatures, and if I had to guess, they were the only thing that ever sold. “You can’t believe this is legit.”
“Nah. But I’m not here for a seance, I’m here to find out if this person knows anything about the yokai realm. I mean, you already knew about yokai, so maybe a lot of people do.”
I had to admit, he had come up with something semi-plausible, and he’d done it without pulling an all-nighter.
“I know you’re worried,” he added, removing his sunglasses to squint at the sunlight filtering through the dirty window. “But try to keep your head.”
“You, too, Hideki,” I grumbled.
He paused to meet my gaze, and then some of his flippant veneer faded. He opened his mouth to say something.
“Welcome,” a sultry voice greeted, and a wire thin woman in her early fifties emerged from behind the curtains. Twice as cliché as her shop, she wore her long hair in wavy tresses, and gold hoops dangled from her ears. Her black dress covered her shoes, but it was cut low enough to reveal plenty of tip-earning cleavage. Judging by her wrinkles, she’d seen some shit, but she batted smoky painted eyes at us like she was just our age. “Welcome to the house of Madame Budu,” she said, in an awful, fake, Eastern European accent. “My, how lucky for me to be visited by two attractive, young men.”
Automatically, I slipped my hand into the pocket where I kept my keys and wallet. Running this business made her a con artist.
“You.” She focused on Handa with an expression of sight fascination. “I can tell you have many questions about love. One reading, and Madame Budu will reveal all the answers.”
“Ah, that sounds too good to be true.” He laughed. “I’ll bet I could keep you in business trying to find all the answers about love.”
I studied the scuffs on the linoleum floor. Handa’s love for me had led him into this horrible situation, and that made me feel like I was too late to save him, and everything I could have done to help him should have been done years ago.
“Unfortunately, today we’re here for something a little less pleasant.” He flashed his badge. “Detective Handa Hideki, Criminal Investigation Bureau.”
Madame Budu turned appropriately grave, tucking her hands into her sleeves and lowering her head. “Ah, yes. Once more, the police come to Madame Budu for help in an investigation.”
No cop in their right mind would come by for her insight, and I could see why Handa didn’t believe I would have come here on my own. One look at the decal on her window, and I would have driven away.
“You read my mind.” Handa smiled. “I hope it’s on the house.”
With a delighted giggle, she batted her spider leg lashes at him.
I rolled my eyes.
Handa said, “We’d like to take a look in your crystal ball, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Her smile stayed bright, but I recognized a flicker of confusion in her eyes. “Of course, of course.” Tucking the curtain aside for us, she swept her hand toward the back of the room. “I see you two are wise beyond your years.”
“Oh, yeah, that sounds like us,” I grumbled, and then I went ahead of my partner, past the curtain. It was a plain room, lit only by the faint glow emanating from a glass ball at the center of a large, round table.
Handa sauntered past me in carefully measured steps and took a seat. “I can tell you’re a pro, so I’ll spare you the long-winded explanation.”
Madame Budu had gone around to sit at the far side of the table, but she paused to give him a perplexed look. “That’s kind of you, Keiji-san, but it wouldn’t do to treat your work carelessly.”
He simply smiled at her, and I sat down beside him, resigned that I had to waste a little time here.
“You’re so right.” Handa leaned earnestly toward her. “So, what can you tell us about the killer?”
Her brow furrowed. “Perhaps, if I might read your palm, Keiji-san…”
“It’s not my hand you need to look at.” He touched his wounded throat. “It’s my neck.”
I watched her reaction closely. A person with no knowledge of vampires wouldn’t think anything of the bite mark, but someone truly attuned to the supernatural world should catch on right away.
Eyes widening, the color drained from her face. “If-if you came here to make fun of me, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“Oh, come on, do we seem like bullies to you? I came for your help.” He suddenly stretched his hands out to her. “You can read them if that’ll help.”
Madame Budu stayed perfectly still. Her voice wavered, “I’d rather not see your lifeline.”
The little, polite things he’d said had spooked her, so she must know something.
“Enough games,” I decided. “Can you help him or not?”
She sat rigidly in her seat now, nostrils flared, glazed eyes fixed on Handa, and when she spoke again, her accent had vanished. “Please don’t kill me.”
Handa didn’t move a muscle, but his tone stayed friendly. “No one came to kill you, Oba-san. Do you know what I am?”
Stiffly, she nodded. “Kyuuketsuki,” she whispered.
“He’s not a kyuuketsuki,” I growled. “He got bit last night.”
Madame Budu sobbed. “I’ve tried so hard to avoid them. Why me?”
I couldn’t help snapping my fingers at her, impatiently. “Focus. Do you know any way to reverse the change?”
Shaking all over and crying, she kept her eyes glued on Handa like she expect him to spring over the table and snap her neck. “No, no…”
“Come on, Oba-san,” he urged, gently. “I really need help. I don’t even know what to expect.”
I glanced at him, wincing. For once, he used a genuine tone, laced with desperation; go figure he’d only use the truth as a trump card.
It got her to calm down a little, and then she dabbed at her eyes with one of her trailing sleeves. “I don’t even understand how you’re alive.”
“My partner saved me.” He jerked his thumb at me.
“I’d do it again,” I assured her, gruffly. “But we’re running out of time. If you can do anything, do it now.”
“I don’t know…I can look.” She reached out to him at last, trembling as she clasped one of his hands. “You’re cold,” she murmured. “But your heart is still beating.” Her fingertips traced his palm. “I see a lot of pain.” Expression turning more sympathetic, she met his gaze again. “That was there already, wasn’t it?”
“I tend to be unlucky,” he muttered.
“To say the least.” After another moment’s hesitation, she closed her eyes. “Try to be still, and I’ll see what I can learn from your spirit.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re here to find out about the yokai realm, not for your hocus pocus nonsense.”
Madame Budu frowned. In a much stronger voice, then, she said, “I wouldn’t laugh, Sugita Kenichiro.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I thought back, trying to remember when I’d given her my name. I didn’t. “How did you–?”
“Thoughts of you consume him,” she explained, dismissively.
Was I supposed to believe she’d read his mind?
I glanced at Handa, seeing how his face had turned bright red, and he refused to look at me.
“Give me a break. You make guesses and lie for a living.” Anyone with a knack for reading people could probably see that Handa was obsessed with me.
She laughed. “And you believe you uncover the truth for a living, yet you can’t even see how the skills your mother taught you are akin to the art I practice.”
I stared at her.
“I see it all, Sugita-san. If you lose your partner in the shadows, you will call upon the esoteric. For when he changes, you’ll be there beside him: his first kill.”
Ever so subtly, Handa shot me a look from the corner of his eye.
Anyone might make that guess. We were partners, after all.
No one, though, knew about my mother’s ability to manipulate chi.
“That’s no secret.” I slammed back in my chair. “Tell us something useful.”
Deeply, she exhaled. “Dark in one, light in the other. Two sides of the same coin, together forever, unable to touch. Flame, no matter how small, always pierces shadow.”
Handa and I exchanged a longer look. His cheeks were still flushed, but his expression had turned grave. “What does that mean?”
Madame Budu stirred as if she’d just woken up, and blinked her misty eyes. Distantly, she admitted, “I’m not sure.”
“If you don’t know, it might as well not mean anything,” I snapped. Useless, just as I’d expected.
“Perhaps.” She gave a solemn nod. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She rose from her seat, gradually, to glide into the back corner of the room, where she opened a tall cabinet. Inside, I got a glimpse of dozens of little trinkets. More crystal balls, books, goblets, a bowl and pestle, what looked like a human skull. When she faced us again, she held a slim crown made of twisted metal and encrusted with a single, black stone.
“Obsidian.” She held it out to him. “A gemstone with a protective power against evil. If you wear this diadem, it may hold back the darkness I see gathering around you.”
“Really?” Handa turned it over in his hands. “I have to wear this girly looking crown for the rest of my life?”
“If only you could be so lucky,” she replied, dolefully. “No. The diadem may give you more time to search for a real solution, but, eventually, the kyuuketsuki venom will overwhelm it, just as it will overwhelm you.”
Eyes narrow slits of displeasure, Handa slipped the crown on and spent a few seconds adjusting it and plucking his bangs up over the top in an effort to hide it. Cheeks flushing again, he turned to me. “This makes me look gay, doesn’t it?”
“Are you kidding?” I snorted. “Your shirt makes you look gay.”
“Oh, fuck you.” He scowled at Madame Budu. “You really don’t have anything cooler? Like a chain I could wear around my neck? Or maybe a ring?”
She stared at him the same way everyone did, half disbelieving, half annoyed. “You’re a libra, aren’t you? The only other thing I have for you is advice: come what may, do not deny your true nature.”
“Okay.” Handa was still trying to find a way to wear the diadem under his hair. “You mean I should embrace my inner yokai?”
“Cling to the light,” she corrected.
With that, she swept away, vanishing beyond yet another curtain, into a back room. “I trust you to show yourselves out. And please, don’t come back here again.”
“I still need your advice on love,” Handa called.
“I gave it to you already.”
“Go figure, it’s a fucking riddle.” Sighing, he rose smoothly from his seat and stretched like a cat getting up from a nap.
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