The characteristic sound of Toshiie’s motorbike told him it was almost time. With his teeth, he pulled one last length of tape and plastered across the edge of the computer tablet, sealing it against the glass of the window looking out into what little backyard he had. He took a step back to admire his handiwork, with at least two layers of black masking tape across every inch of glass, except for the small square where the tablet was taped up against it instead.

The front door rattled with knocking, and Darren went over to slide it open, making cure the frame didn’t catch on any of the tape he’d liberally applied over all the translucent squares in it and the adjoining wall. Toshiie, poncho dripping, slightly bowed as he waddled in with a plastic bag filled with boxes that Darren could smell was food. He took the opportunity to perk outside, across the street. There were at least two others in identical rain gear, standing in the fog, rifles slung across their shoulders. He shut the door.

Toshiie seemed to be standing still, staring at all the tape Darren had applied. Darren hooked the plastic bag from his hand and set it on the table, seating himself on one of the cushions. “I wasn’t expecting food.” He laid out the two boxes.

“So you are the real deal, then?” Toshiie asked, leaning to examine the tablet. Whatever distance or skepticism he might have had driving into the village was seemingly gone.

“Of course I’m the real deal. We take this stuff quite seriously, you know.” He unlatched one of the boxes’ lids. Grilled rice balls, with some manner of fish and vegetables scattered within them.

“But not seriously enough to send help five months ago?” Toshiie tossed his poncho outside and sat down opposite him.

“I don’t claim to know about what politics we had with your Daimyo. But the important thing is that I’m here now, right?” He took a bite of a rice ball. Definitely salted fish, and some pickly vegetable.

“What is your plan exactly?”

“I figure out what it is.” Darren nodded towards the tablet, which was displaying a scrambled video feed. “Follow it back to the source. Eliminate it. Simple as.”

“You seem…familiar with this.”

“Not my first time killing an entity like this.”

“My mistake. I mean overqualified.”

Darren looked up.

“Your eyes,” Toshiie said. “You have seen a lot. Maybe too much to be sent out on an errand like this.”

“And maybe that’s none of your business,” he snapped.

They sat and ate silently until both boxes were empty. Darren could feel the older man’s eyes on him, as if expectant of…something. Answers, probably. He found it best to change the subject.

“How consistent is the timing?”

“We gave up trying to time it,” Toshiie said. “Difficult when you cannot watch it, even with those…” He gestured towards the pair of orange-lensed goggles clipped to the collar of Darren’s dress shirt. “Are you sure they work?”

“Don’t see why it shouldn’t. At the very least it will save you for a couple of seconds. We can try. Well, I can try.”

“When the bell sounds, we will know it has started. We have a big, thick screen for the scouts. Brave young-uns.”

“Do they know what happens if they look directly at it?”

The older man sighed, and shook his head. “How do you explain something like that?”

“Not even to Taiko’s son?”

“You want to try?”

Darren pursed his lips for a moment and took a swig from a water bottle. “Are you sparing them or sparing yourself?”

Toshiie’s relaxed look hardened into a scowl. “I don’t expect you to know anything about that.”

“I’ve had my fair share of informing the family. Dead really isn’t the worst thing I’ve had to report.”

“What does that mean?”

Darren didn’t reply. He just got to his feet and went back over to the tablet on the wall. “The longer you keep it from them, the longer they’ll have to come up with their own ideas about what it is. Don’t you think they deserve the truth?”

“He’s not dead.”

“Yet,” Darren corrected quickly. “You better have brought the other thing.” He tapped at a few more buttons, double-checking his settings, and turned around to see Toshiie had placed a bundle of cloth on the table. He leaned over and lifted the veil off of it.

A pistol. Semi-automatic, scratched worn on the slide. Several bands of red string were wrapped around the grip, looping under the trigger guard. The gun and the cloth were both damp, either from the rain, or from-

Fragrance. Darren sniffled, realising his nose was still a little blocked from the cold air. “This is blessed?”

“As well as we know how. The elders were not very happy when I told them what you asked for.”

Darren picked it up, and ejected the magazine into his other hand. He saw the dull grey of the tips of the rounds, and slotted it back in. “You should thank them again for me. It’ll do.”

“It can’t be that simple, can it?”

“It’s not. The rest of the details are up in the mountain. This is the backup.” He was in the process of pushing the gun into the back of his band when he heard it.

The sound of the temple’s bell thrummed through the walls of his temporary lodging. It was an unmistakable low thing, settling in the depths of his chest and dissipating, only for another ring to come through. It was like the sound cut through the rain, which he suddenly could no longer hear. Darren immediately slid the special goggles over his face, blinking to accustom himself with the tiny floating flakes in the liquid between the double-layered lenses, and went over to the door, slowly sliding it open.

The bell rang again. With no door in the way, it was even deeper than before, and the thick fog seemed to displace as the sound passed through it. This time though, the tail end of the noise was punctuated by the bark of distant gunshots, one round at a time, echoing from different spots in the town. He was, however, more focused on the trees and the slopes beyond, between the edge of the temple’s roof in the distance and another home below it.

Something flowing white was dipping between the trees, like a cloth in the wind. The rain was gone, but the vapour remained, clinging close to the ground like a blanket.

“Sirovsky!” Toshiie called, or more accurately hissed, as if afraid of being heard.

He held out a hand to his back as he watched the flowing thing vanish behind a building, having descended towards the edge of the town.

“No, look! We got one!”

Darren turned around. The first thing he saw was that the cabinets and the fridge were both open, warm yellow light spewing out of the other. Then he noticed the door to the bedroom was also ajar, and through it, his briefcase laid spread out on the floor. The microwave, their food boxes, his water bottle…he glanced at his watch. 11:56. He shut the front door and pointed at the kitchen area and waved at Toshiie to proceed, while he ducked into the other room, shutting the toilet cover, the medicine cabinet, and then the various drawers of the wardrobe outside, ending with its big doors. He knelt down and flipped his briefcase shut, making sure the magnetic locks snapped into place properly, and then poked his head back into the outer room, closing the door between them behind him.

11:57.

Toshiie had shut every single cabinet and appliance and was now pressing the lids of the plastic boxes back into place, having already screwed the lids of the water bottles back on. Darren stepped up to the tablet on the wall, peering at the distorted white shape in the middle of the feed. “What the hell are you?”

“Done!” Toshiie declared, triumphantly tossing the empty box onto the table.

11:58.

Darren’s gaze went from the clock in the corner of the screen to the figure, which hadn’t moved. “We’re missing something. Two minutes!”

Toshiie got up and headed back into the other room, while Darren spun around to look. Everything seemed closed, and the other man had closed the door in between. He poked his head behind the fridge, under the table, even tied the plastic bag closed even though he was certain it didn’t count.

The white thing remained on screen, dancing in place in the backyard.

11:59.

“Nothing! I got nothing!” came Toshiie’s desperate cry from the other room.

Darren cursed under his breath. He shoved the table aside and lifted the cushions in the middle of the room, but only found bare wood underneath. There had to be a hinge somewhere, somehow…and then he spotted it: taped to the wall, visible only on the edge of the tablet. His limbs felt like they windmilled aimlessly as he threw himself towards the device and dug his nails into the thick tape, tearing it off the window with all his might and folding the screens closed together, shutting his eyes to avoid direct line of sight out into the backyard.

To Darren, it felt like he held that posture, on his knees under the kitchen window for about five minutes, before his watch vibrated and he dared to open his eyes.

12:00. Slowly, he rose to his feet, his head coming to line up with the square of the window without tape.

It was gone. A blubbering sigh escaped his lips, and he leaned over the sink, drool dripping from his lips. He spat and turned on the faucet to wash his face. “All clear!” he called once he was done.

Toshiie emerged from the other room, pale as a sheet. “You found it?”

Darren held up the tablet. “I’m gonna use a rigid one from now on, I think.”

“What…what now?”

He opened the tablet again, and hit a button to tell it to begin working on the video file. He put it in the pocket of his blazer, and shuffled over to the front door. “Now we see where it goes.”