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Chapter 19 - Demon Hunt


Joel stands under the spider statue. A group of three girls off to the side pretend not to look. They seem unsure it's really him. "Makiko..." Cynthia grabs my arm. "No, right? Not-"

But before she finishes, he waves at us. "Hi, Joel," I say, and he holds and kisses me like I'm his girlfriend. Our lips stay together, soft, fun, and good, but brief, because Cynthia marvels nearby and so do those other girls. Afterward, I keep one of my hands on Joel's arm. "Cynthia, Joel. Joel, this is Cynthia."

Cynthia slowly holds out her hand. I'm a little worried she'll accuse him of mistreating girls, but she smiles like Joel is the latest version of a phone. "Nice to meet you, Joooel." She gives me a sly look.

Joel does not lap up Cynthia's curves like she's a bowl of milk. He shakes her hand and introduces himself while gazing back and forth at me like I'm the universe. To be lapped up by Joel. I'm almost ashamed how thrilled it makes me. I burst with sunshine and pleasure. I'm so simple-minded.

"So what do you guys mean by a demon hunt?" he says. "Finding new places to hang out or something?"

"No," Cynthia says. "Hasn't Makiko told you? She's seen a demon twice. A real demon."

Joel smiles. One of his bushy eyebrows lifts a smidgen, like he's waiting for the punchline. "An actual demon?" When I nod, his eyes dart back and forth between Cynthia and me, waiting for one of us to laugh. He's got on his black jeans and some black sneakers though, as well as his denim jacket and a thin gray sweater. He'll blend into the shadows well. "Okay, do we have weapons?" he says. "In your fan fiction, I have guns and knives and a magical net."

Cynthia pokes me. "He read your fan fiction?"

"That's how I found her." Six months ago, I bawled my eyes out under the spider statue because I was lonely and could not be me. Now, if Cynthia left us, I'd be tempted to pull Joel into a dark nook. Gimme, gimme, gimme. "Where do we start?" Joel says.

My mind isn't on demon hunting. Thank goodness, Cynthia answers. "There's a park near here." She jabs my shoulder like she can read my mind and knows I'm distracted. "That's as good a place to start as any. Makiko saw the demon there. In a Porsche!"

Joel's face gets tense and serious. "Why would we want to find a real demon? Won't it be dangerous?"

"Joel's got a point." I can't tell them the demon might be in my head sometimes, because it is equally possible, even likely, that I'm suffering from something I can't face, like a psychotic break. "It is dangerous."

Neither of them speak. Joel exaggerates a thinking face, tapping the side of his head with his finger, because he doesn't realize we really believe in it. "I walk around here all the time," Cynthia says. "I doubt we'll see anything, but let's try."

The park is beyond the movie theater. To get there, we go down an escalator and head across the concrete plateau that crosses over a street. A few stores here are open during the day, but it's a dark, barren desert now. I don't feel the demon's presence or notice it in my head. I tell it to stay away from us and hope it listens. I tell it to leave the runaways alone and hope it listens.

While we walk, Joel's quiet and thoughtful.

"Are you alright?" Cynthia says. "You're not scared, are you Joel?"

"Very scared." Joel shakes himself like a cold front rattled his bones. I catch him taking me in with his beautiful brown eyes. I'm not dressed to kill. Just blue jeans and a gray jacket. But he makes me feel like I am.

"Stop checking each other out," Cynthia says. "You guys make me sick." She pretends to stick her finger down her throat, then laughs.

"Are we really walking around Roppongi tonight looking for a demon?" Joel says.

"Hunting for one with you is what's surreal," Cynthia says, "Mr. Demon Slayer."

Joel frowns. "Does that embarrass you?" I say. "Being called a demon slayer?"

"I... no... I'm getting used to it. But if you're calling me that, can I call you my girlfriend?"

Cynthia reels back her head and covers her eyes with one of her arms. "I'm stuck with this? Lovebirds!"

I stop dead in my tracks. "Really? Oh? You want that?" He picks me up and spins me around. When he puts me down, I rush at Cynthia, and she kisses my cheeks. When she lets go of me, I turn on Joel like a gunfighter. "But Joel, are you serious? I'm not... I don't want some fling."

Cynthia pinches my arm. "Yes, you do. Yes. You. Do."

"Of course I'm serious. I love you." Joel opens his arms.

For some reason, what he says is suddenly good enough, and I jump into his arms. Over his shoulder, I recognize a white man with a cowboy hat and a slim physique. He stuck with us all the way from the spider statue, though he stays a long way behind us. I touch Joel's ear with my lips. "I love you too, Joel."

As we get further across the concrete plateau, the man does not veer away. I don't look directly back. None of us turns completely around, but Cynthia and Joel narrow their eyes. They slide their pupils his way. I can tell that all of us noticed him. "I wonder if he'll follow us if we leave the park?" Cynthia says.

Joel stifles a yawn. "Any chance he's the demon?"

"None, maybe." I reach out for Joel's hand. What we're doing hits me, so I reach for Cynthia's hand too. At once, the black demon cloud - my memory of it - menaces me like jets streaking across the sky. The demon did not have eyes but it saw, and that consciousness, that gaze, came at me from all directions, like noise in a dark forest. "Maybe this isn't a good idea," I say. "I don't want it to hurt any of us."

Joel and Cynthia squeeze my hands. "Let's do something else," he says.

"No, we have to do this." Cynthia tugs us down the ramp to the tiny park. "It killed some of my friends' friends."

After Cynthia says that, Joel pulls out his phone. I don't know if he believes her though. "I have to let some friends know what I'm doing. We might be able to meet them later."

The slides made of plastic tubes are on our left and the earthen works stairs are on the right. The exit and street where the Porsche parked last time is empty.

"The guy following us is wearing a cowboy hat," Joel says, finishing with his phone. "He gives off a U.S. military vibe, don't you think?"

Cynthia looks back and doesn't try to hide it. "Yeah, he's got beautiful green cowboy boots too. I don't see him right now." Hand in hand, we go up the skinny road away from the park. We aim for busier streets. "He's gotta be over thirty, but maybe he's hoping for a double date." Cynthia pretends to shoot herself in the head. "Let's loop over to Roppongi Crossing and cruise through the backstreets. The demon goes there sometimes too, I think."

***

Before long, we're just off the main strip, close to Roppongi Crossing, cutting through a wide, deserted alley. Up ahead, stairs go down between some old buildings. The menacing feeling hits hard, gets stronger, and feels like eyes on me. Luckily, it grows quiet again and not real, like I spooked myself.

Joel and Cynthia don't notice. A moment passes, and only their love and companionship surrounds me. "Do you guys feel happy?" I say.

"Hell yeah," Joel says. "I'm very happy."

Cynthia's on a mission, but she's happy for me, so she frowns - warmly.

"Hey, Makiko Lombardi." Someone behind us calls out. The guy with the cowboy hat and green boots runs at us, his boots clattering on the stone pavement like an oncoming truck.

He's already too close.

Cynthia's right. The cowboy's in his thirties. I don't know how he knows my name, but I don't think he should talk to me. "I don't know you," I say.

Joel lets go of my hand and moves in front of me.

The cowboy pulls a rolled up magazine out of his jacket. Before it unfurls, I know it's the one with the Yuri Kameyama interview. "But I know you," he says, flashing the photograph of the coffee shop in Jiyugaoka. I'm in it with my father and Yuri.

Joel steps forward. "You don't know her. That's just an article."

The stranger is short but muscular with broad shoulders. He grins at Joel and rolls up the magazine. Suddenly, he swings at Joel's face.

I don't scream, but Cynthia pulls on me with one hand, so I make a noise. She makes a fist with her other hand. I make fists too, but Joel - I don't know what he does. He ducks, gets the stranger in some kind of hold, and knocks him to the ground.

Very surprised, I gasp again. Cynthia and I back up a little, closer to the stairs. Joel presses the stranger's face into the pavement. "Be smart," he says and lets up on the man, a little bit at a time. As soon as the man has wiggle room, he goes for Joel's neck.

He's unconscious immediately. I don't know what Joel even did.

"Wow," Cynthia says. "Can you show me how to do that?"

Joel smiles tensely. "It takes years of training."

"Okay, you date Makiko and teach me to fight like that." Cynthia punches her palm. "I've got years."

Joel gets off the ground. "I have a bad feeling about this. Let's go."

That's when we see the group of Japanese men at the top of the stairs. They have the shiny suits and spiky haircuts of Yakuza. "That foreigner is with us," one says. "He's our honored guest."

There's only black night and reflected moonlight between us and them, and Joel steps into it. "Run," he says to us.

Joel knows how to fight, but one person can't stop all of them, can he? We can't just leave him.

"Makiko, wait," one of the Yakuza says. He's got dull orange hair. "Remember me?"

I recognize the voice, then the square face. The new hair color throws me at first, but it's the Yakuza from outside my house. His lips curl slightly, just like before. It might not be disdain. Maybe it's insecurity. Maybe that's how he smiles.

Hoping he doesn't mean any harm, I smile back, slightly. "Yes, I remember you."

He comes forward, hands up, jokingly. The other Yakuza file down the stairs, away from us. If they were going to fight, the battle seems canceled. One departing Yakuza even shakes his head at the orange-haired guy, like he's hopeless and maybe amusing.

Joel holds his body in a loose but coiled way. He looks all around, behind us, into shadows. "You know each other?" he says. "You trust him, Makiko?"

The Yakuza's eyes sparkle. "Makiko and I are old friends." He nods at the man Joel knocked out. "People are looking for you, Makiko. They sent him to grab you. You have to be very careful right now, okay? He's not our honored guest, but... it's complicated."

"Grab me?" He must mean Cynthia. She's the one trying to interfere with their business selling girls. "Why me?" I say.

"Tell us more," Cynthia says.

The Yakuza wiggles his head just a bit. "I didn't tell you this much. Just listen. You need to hide, Makiko, at least for a few days."

"Hide?"

"Yes, hide." He turns to the stairs.

After the Porsche in Roppongi, I've wanted to ask him about the car in front of my house. "You saw the demon too, didn't you?"

He pulls out an amulet, a different color than mine but the same type, a yakuyoke to ward off evil. He waves it around. "Yeah, I saw it, and I don't plan to see it again."

It takes me a moment to get over how scared he looks. I point at the cowboy guy on the ground. "Is he connected to the demon?"

"No."

Joel stares at me and the Yakuza. This talk about demons must be ridiculous to him. Even if we believe it, how can Joel?

"The demon likes you," the Yakuza says. "It killed our men to protect you. That's what I think, and that's what our leadership thinks too."

The guy on the ground stirs. Without another word, we race away, back the way we came. Joel stays a few steps behind us. When we reach the main street and race through the crowd, I wonder what the Yakuza is doing, but he's not behind us.

Joel stares at me as we run.

***

On the way to his car, Joel asks us about the demons and the Yakuza. We explain it, but I don't know how to do a good job. "Do you believe us?" I say.

He pulls me into him and kisses my cheek. "Of course, I'm a demon slayer, remember?"

I wish I could laugh, but the news that a stranger wants to kidnap me and a demon likes me isn't exactly relaxing. I don't feel comfortable with myself at all, and I don't return Joel's kiss with any warmth. As we walk, I'm stiff and clunky under his arm, like a bride of Frankenstein.

"Are they confusing us?" Cynthia says. "I'm the one who wants to destroy them. And is that cowboy a Yakuza? I don't get it."

I don't either. And if I think about it, I might get angry. Instead, I turn on Joel. My voice bites. "How do you know how to fight like that?" I say.

"My father worried about kidnappers, so I had to train." Joel drops his arm off my shoulder. "Somehow, I'm going to find out about that cowboy. Can you stay home tomorrow night, like your Yakuza friend said? And be careful at school, or even stay home?"

The day after tomorrow, I'm meeting Margot for Brian Keating's private tour of my father's photography exhibition. My father will be there. I'm not going to skip that, because the museum will be safe, even safer than the school, which has guards. "Okay," I say.

Joel breathes a sigh of relief but doesn't smile. He takes aim at Cynthia. "You should lay low too, don't you think? Both of you. Just in case."


Anything surprise you in this chapter?

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