Modern Rituals (20 page)

A timer ticked on his watch. Ten seconds…five…two…zero: safety. Super-814N’s six-minute emergence window ended, starting an eleven-minute recharge cycle. He set the timer for six hundred and sixty seconds and hurried toward the multipurpose room. He estimated Part Two’s trajectory had placed him twenty feet from the north side of the entrance.
 

Trevor stayed low and rushed out the multipurpose room’s front door, turning left—a semi-truck smashed into his chin, leveling him. Blinding stars coalesced into his peripheral vision.

“I don’t trust you,” a man’s voice said.

A tenebrous shape loomed over Trevor. He scrambled to his feet.
 

“You are stronger than you look,” the voice said. “People tend to stay down when I hit them.”

Trevor’s head wobbled then snapped forward—he pressed a forearm to his eyes, the removed it, blinking. As the stars retreated, Tomas materialized in front of him.

“Whoa, you got the wrong idea,” Trevor said, finding his footing.

“Do I?” Tomas said. “You knew what was going to happen on that roof. You slunk away and watched that girl attack us from a safe distance. I saw no surprise in your eyes.” He stepped forward. “Don’t lie to me.”

Who am I kidding? Not this guy, obviously—he’s a hitman, for Christ’s sake.

Trevor feinted left and threw a weak punch to Tomas’ side. Tomas sidestepped, as expected, and Trevor thrust his knee into Tomas’ gut, throwing him back.

“I mistook you,” Tomas said holding his stomach. He grinned, an unsettling sparkle alive in his eyes.

Tomas came toward Trevor, staying outside arm’s reach, then crouched and launched into Trevor’s midsection. He caught Trevor’s left leg and ripped it upward, throwing him to the ground, then mounted him. A torrent of fists and elbows smashed into Trevor’s face, and he guarded with his forearms, but not before he felt the sharp, moist pain of a cut eyebrow. Tomas let free a guttural roar and stretched upward, fully extending his fists above him, and then brought them down on Trevor’s head.
 

Trevor thrust his hips, using the momentum from Tomas’ attack to propel them into a roll. Trevor straddled Tomas and dug his thumbs into Tomas’ eyes. Tomas clawed at Trevor’s hands, screaming, then jabbed Trevor’s throat with a flattened hand.

A burst of unrelenting pressure in Trevor’s Adam’s apple forced him to gag. He scrambled from Tomas while Tomas rolled on the ground and held his eyes, attempting to stand amidst painful yelps. Trevor bolted, fleeing past Part Seven’s estimated fall position—no time to investigate. He needed to scout out a location where he held an advantage over Tomas. The classroom and administration buildings were too confined; the garden had too many variables; the courtyard not enough. The basketball and tennis courts, however, skirted the edge of the school grounds—a well-lit, open area with a means of escape into the forest. He picked up his pace toward them.

Tomas collected himself and ambled to his feet. His vision returned in time to gauge Trevor’s direction. Saliva dribbled from his lips. He licked them—a tinge of metal danced on his tongue, and its presence excited him. His hands shook and he steadied them into fists. Malvado’s hunt began.

Trevor reached the basketball courts and prepared for Part Two’s arrival. High, chain-link fences surrounded three full-size courts with four entrances, one at every side of the rectangular facility. An unassuming maintenance box sat beside the south entrance. Trevor kicked it, popping off the lid, and dug his hand into the container, fumbling for a round knob and pressing it. This unlocked a thumb-sized repository into which he reached and retrieved a long wire, so thin it was imperceptible to the human eye. He handled the cable as a fisherman might hold a fresh-caught piranha and went to work.

Trevor stationed himself center of the basketball courts as Tomas rounded the corner. Their eyes met, Tomas’ blind with rage. Trevor shivered at his overwhelming presence. Tomas entered the arena.

“Stop!” Trevor said. “I’m warning you!”

Tomas slowed.

“Your next step will be your last,” Trevor said.

Tomas laughed. “You talk big for someone who—how do you say, ‘crashed this party?’” Tomas said. He stayed put.

I don’t want to kill this guy if I can avoid it.
Trevor thought.
It’s too risky, and that shit will weigh on me. But if it’s him or me…

“Listen,” Trevor said. “I know you think I’m lying about who I am. I don’t know how to convince you otherwise, but let’s pretend you’re right for a minute.”
 

“Go on,” Tomas said.

“If I am the enemy, instead of trying to tear me apart, why don’t you try and get information out of me?”

“I have a funny way of asking questions. It involves ripping people’s arms off until they tell me everything they know.”

This guy…

“You really think torture is the best means of gathering information?”

Tomas wiped his mouth and spat.

“All right, all right. I can see this is getting us nowhere,” Trevor said and considered his next words. “You’re right—I’m not who I say I am. My name is Gregory Bleaker and I’m…” Trevor pocketed his hands, stared down and kicked an imaginary rock on the ground. “…a ghost hunter.”

Tomas stared at Trevor. As the words registered, Tomas’ eyes floated to a point over Trevor’s shoulder, then snapped back. He burst out laughing.

“You fight well for a ghost hunter,” Tomas said. The laughter did wonders for his complexion—he now seemed only slightly pissed.

“Yeah, well…I took some ninjutsu classes. Kind of a big MMA fan.”

“Is that right? Tell me then, what ghost are you hunting?”

“There’s a local legend about a girl who haunts this school during summer when the students are out. I trekked here from America—thought I could get on a reality TV show or something if I discovered anything. I was about ten miles from the place and found myself here—which I think is the school. Strange luck, really.”

Tomas folded his arms.

“Where exactly are we?” Tomas said.

“Um…Greater Tokyo, near the Kantō region?”
 

Tomas ground his teeth, veins popping from his temples.
 

“Do you know a way out?”
 

“Sure,” Trevor said. “There’s a road at the school’s entrance. Just follow it until you hit town.”
 

Tomas’ visage darkened. Trevor shuddered.

“You expect me to believe you? Even if I did, you are dead. I avoided finishing the girl when I saw your behavior. Fair’s fair,” Tomas said. “You are my next kill.”

“You really don’t want to—” Trevor said, waving his arms.

Tomas had demolished the ten yards between them when his face flushed white. He touched his neck—a warm crimson wax coated his fingers. His lips flared, curling into a sinister smile, eyes locked on Trevor as his head fell from his shoulders.

“Told you not to move, you dumb, vengeful bastard,” Trevor said.

Trevor carefully walked to the fence, making sure to stay on the north side of the painted court line. He counted the fence’s wired cross-hatches, twelve up and fifteen over. He wrapped his gloved fingers around the end of the slice-wire and unhooked it. He repeated the same exercise on the south fence, then returned the wire to the aluminum box from whence it had originated.
 

He mused at his clever scheme. Amida, a fickle bitch of a god, would accept only accidental deaths or murders at the hands of Arikura. Trevor, a new addition to the ritual, had to avoid raising suspicion.
 

“I never thought I’d use slice-wire for…well, slicing someone’s head off,” Trevor said recognizing the humor but choosing not to laugh.

Sweat dripped on his brow. He plunked to the ground and monitored his breath until his muscles loosened. More scientist than soldier, he usually dealt with ritual casualties via a video feed, not in person—especially not by his hands. He pined for Purgatory 8’s comfort.

What am I doing here?

His sense of duty clashed with his conscience. Duty won.
 

Trevor stood, grabbed Tomas’ ankles and dragged him to a drain at the foot of the fence. He positioned Tomas’s lopped neck on it—blood oozed in dwindling palpitations from gaping veins and spilled into the drain.

Two down and one more, potentially. That’s the minimum requirement.

Trevor located the closest hidden camera and held up two fingers. The camera’s tiny red light blinked twice. Purgatory 8. Always with him.
 

Time to go back to work.

3

James led. And led. And led. Where to, he knew not. He needed time. Time to think. To plan. To act. He continued, and the rest followed, wandering through the starless woods.

James had been lost once when he was a young boy. His mother had taken him shopping for clothes at J.C. Penney—a run-of-the-mill department store at the mall. He must have been six—maybe seven. She’d stopped to look at a pair of shoes. He’d lost interest and sought the nearest distraction: a t-shirt bearing a Tyrannosaurus rex. He desperately wanted it. She turned her back—he escaped.

His stubby fingers traced the outline of the dinosaur’s teeth, illustrated with dashes of emerald, pinks and ivory. “Ouch!” he said in jest and laughed and wrapped his arms around the shirt, nuzzling it with his cheek. “Oops!” He fell forward. The clothing rack grabbed his arm, bit at his leg and nipped his stomach. He landed, enmeshed inside the rack, inside an unfamiliar world. Shadows surrounded him. Adult voices echoed beyond a dense barrier, muffled in his new refuge.

A thrill coerced from his chest to fingertips. An unseen stalker, he squatted like a ninja, superhuman, like the men in the comics he read with his dad. He giggled. A passing shape stopped and turned toward him. He froze. It moved elsewhere and he sucked in a gulp of air.
 

Time to find mom.

He exited the alien dwelling and returned to the boring shoes. Mom? She must be over here, he thought. No. Over there? No. His stomach twisted into something unfamiliar. His skin prickled and his lungs tightened. His mother had left him. The world exploded in size. He shrunk and shrunk until he was no taller than an ant. Monstrous strangers loomed over him, threatening to stomp on his tiny body. Words remained fixed to his mouth, latched to his teeth, unable to escape.

He lurched to the ground, drew his knees into his chest and sobbed.

A hand rested upon his shoulder.
 

He glanced at the hand’s owner.

Mom.

A joy akin to finding one’s true love, to fulfilling life’s purpose—a joy to eclipse the unknown and undress its mysteries—this was the joy of that moment. A true joy. A joy he would forever seek to repeat.

And now he questioned whether he would ever find joy again.

It was lost to the Pandora’s Box in which James found himself confined without resource against unspeakable horrors.

“You all right?” Olivia said as she caught up to James.

Waves of potential futures flashed before James—each of them terrifying.

“Hey, James?” Olivia said, nudging his shoulder.

“What? Oh, yeah, sorry. I was in a daze.”

“I hope not,” she said. “We’ve been following you this entire time. Any ideas?”

James took a deep breath and held it until the air inside his lungs beckoned for release—he sighed.

“Me neither. We can’t go back. We can’t stay out here forever,” she said.

James opted for the easiest answer: silence.

“Maybe we just camp out here until the sun comes up?” she said.

A night? Ugh, I can’t imagine staying another minute. No other options, though.

“That’s an idea, but I’m not convinced we’re safe,” James said. “Though we
know
we aren’t safe at the school. Still, we need to find Trevor and Tomas. They may be in trouble.”
 

“They can fend for themselves,” Olivia said.

“Maybe. But…‘strength in numbers.’ My grandfather always said that.”

“Well, we can’t just walk in this forest all night,” she said. “Let’s stop for a bit and regroup.”

“Yeah.”

They stepped over a decrepit, hollowed log whose edges spat swirls of dust as James’ foot disturbed it. He halted, took a seat on the dusty bench and motioned for the others to join. Time for a conference.
 

“Olivia thinks we need to talk, and I agree,” James said, smacking dirt from his khakis. “We don’t have many options here. We need to either come up with an escape plan or figure out how to defend ourselves against that thing.”

James fiddled with the statues in his hands, lazily eyeing them as he spoke. They felt warm—almost alive.
 

“Let’s start with what we know,” Olivia said, eying the statues. “The figures—one was a key, but what else are they for?”

James thought on this. The key statue, though useful in the altar room, had proven otherwise useless—aside from depressing those who looked at it. Their existence could not be mere chance, however. He decided to pursue the idea.

“Let’s go back to your original theory, Olivia,” James said. “You said they might be related—a mother-son pair. The features are incredibly refined. They both look Asian—with similar facial features to each other.”

“Considering we found them in two places of worship—the altar and Buddha—we could surmise she was honoring them somehow,” Olivia said. “That is, if she put them there, though I can’t imagine that. Keto, have you ever seen statues like this in…uh…Shintoism?”

“None that I recall,” Keto said. “It is common to honor the dead with a token or artifact that represents their life, be it a photo or otherwise. Perhaps that is what they are.”

“Maybe the girl is trying to protect the statues?” Colette said.

“Could be—seems like a stretch though. She is clearly inhuman. Why would the dead protect relics of the dead?” James said.
 

“I suppose the only way to answer that is to show them to her,” Olivia said. “She’ll react, if it’s true.”

“I’ll be sure to throw them at her face the next time I see her,” James said.