The door didn’t want to give when he pushed it, it felt like there was a weight against it, but one hard shove and he was through it. And for his effort, he was greeted with an almost overwhelming stench of adrenaline tainted blood and fear drenched sweat. He heard liquid squelch beneath his boots, and a glance behind the door as it closed proved that he may have been too late.

The body was of a stocky man in his thirties, with his throat ripped out and his left hand missing; blood had stained his mock Hawaiian print shirt and faded jeans black. His eyes were shut, and even in death there was an aspect of tension around him, like he knew he was going to die long before it ever happened. There was a chunky gold bracelet in a puddle of blood, and Logan assumed it slipped off his arm once his wrist was torn away.

The Ressiks were no longer anywhere to be seen in this dark storeroom, but their scent was still fresh, as was this kill - they couldn’t have gotten far. And if they’d left out the front, he’d have smelled the blood; they’d have tracked it behind them like mud. So there had to be another way out of here.

He’d barely started his cautious walk through the darkened room when he felt a cool breeze, smelled car exhaust, and discovered how the Ressiks had gotten away.

Behind the boxes and racks of CDs and other accessories, he found a service door leading into the alley, well hidden and armored. But judging by the broken door jamb on the floor, it had still been kicked in, and hung slightly ajar. He heard a scraping noise, but it was just a piece of paper in the alley beyond, propelled by the wind.

As he looked out the door, he could smell the rank odor of Leyoshi’s blood on them, making a neon scent trail for him to follow into the gaudy night. And they hadn’t gotten very far.

The alley was really a loading zone that ran behind nearly all the buildings on this side of Electric Town, a place where the expensive baubles that overstuffed the racks could be smuggled out in secret, as if there was something inherently shameful in it. Although more coated in grit than the sidewalks on the “visible” side, as Logan stalked down the alley, he was peripherally aware that it was one of the cleaner back alleys he’d ever had the privilege to hunt someone down in.

There was a single turn, a hard elbow bend that led onto a neighboring thoroughfare, and he was sure he’d find the Ressiks there; their scent got stronger, competing with the meaty smell of Human blood. Were they aware they were being followed? Were they preparing an ambush for him?  He hoped so.

He paused just before the bend, listening hard, trying to hear beyond the street noises, the bass throb of the record shop, and the kids on the opposite side of the street.  He could smell them strongly, but heard absolutely nothing, save for the hint of breathing; oh yeah, they were waiting for him.

Logan decided to walk blithely around the corner, a dumb asshole who didn’t realize he was heading straight into a death trap.  He was ready when a pair of meaty, scaled hands grabbed him around the neck and yanked him around towards the wall … and Logan instantly popped his claws and drove a fist straight into the gut of the suit-clad lizard who had him.  It wouldn’t kill him, but boy it would still hurt like a mother.

It must have, as he got the desired result.  It made an “oof” of pain and released him, and Logan saw a silver-suited blur lunging towards him from the opposite side. He simply spun into a kick and nailed the asshole in the side of his big, snaky head.  But before he could turn back and decapitate the bastard he'd gutted, another snake boy at the end of the alley pulled a silvered Sig Sauer semi-auto out from beneath his Armani jacket, and said, in flawless Japanese, “Freeze, kung-fu motherfucker.”

Logan almost felt like pointing out he wasn’t sure he knew kung-fu, per se, but managed to suppress the urge. Instead, he just grinned humorlessly at him. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

They were all big Ressiks - none were under six six - but the guy with the gun was the biggest of all at almost an easy seven feet. He was a dark green-looking snake man with huge eyes the color of piss. “Macho little smartass, are we?” He then noticed the claws coming out of his hand, and his slit pupils briefly widened. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?”

The gutted guy straightened up, and Logan didn’t even glance at him, just kept him in the corner of his eye. “A mutant killing machine,” he said, and with a single quick slash, decapitated the Ressik next to him.

The Ressik with the gun fired, and the bullet hit him in the leg, slicing through his thigh and bouncing off his adamantium-lined femur. It stung, but the Ressik seemed mildly surprised he was still upright. “You’ve got some balls, meat-bag. Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with?”

The other Ressik, who has seen the shooting and decapitation up close, began sidling towards the end of the alley, keeping out of slashing distance. “Where’s the sword, Snake?” Logan asked, feeling the burning sensation in his thigh as the bullet wound closed.  It was a shame the Ressik couldn’t see it.

Snake-boy canted his head to the side, and moved the Sig Sauer up a bit, seemingly focused on his crotch. “Who sent you?” He asked.

It was amazing how they were both ignoring each other, refusing to answer the questions.  But in its way, that told him all he needed to know. “The Yakuza hires demons now?”

He snorted derisively, which was a strange noise coming from a being that had no nose, just slits in the center of his face. “The Yakuza are pussies.”

A car pulled up on the street just behind him, a sleek black vehicle with dark tinted windows, and since Snakey didn’t seem at all concerned, Logan figured that was his ride. He was planning to lunge at him the moment he turned towards the car, but the window lowered with an automatic hum, and he saw the tip of what looked like a spear poke out of the opening.

Only when he heard a pneumatic “whoosh” did he realize that it was a spear gun.

It was too late for him to move out of the way, or even slash it in mid-air; it punched straight through his stomach and hit him with enough force that he was thrown back against the back of the alley, the tip bursting through his back and burying itself in the wall.

Oh fuck, did it hurt.

“No one ever expects a spear gun,” Snaky said, gloating.  He still hadn’t bothered to put away his more traditional gun. “Also, hurts like fuck, doesn’t it, mutie?”

Logan grabbed the body of the spear, preparing to yank it out of him and the wall, but fuck yeah, it hurt. He could feel blood trickling down into his crotch, down his leg, and it burned around the spear, as if his body was trying to heal around it. “Who are you?” He growled, just hoping to identify the new players on the field.

Snake Boy edged closer, sighting the barrel of his weapon right between his eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

It was then that there was a metallic thud - something heavy had just hit the car - and as soon as Snake boy spared a glance back, something exploded through his head, splattering his brackish black blood on Logan.

It was a knife of some sort, that gleamed golden in the dim light; copper.  A copper knife.

Snake made a gurgling noise, the gun dropping from his limp hand, and he reached up to pull the knife out of his own softball-sized eyeball, but that was all he could do;  he collapsed to the pavement in a heap, stone dead.

Then Logan could see the remaining Ressiks were engaged in battle with a figure in black, who had already yanked the driver half-way through the side window and left him hanging there, blood pouring out on the street.  They were armed with another copper knife, judging from the occasional flashes of gold.

Logan grabbed the spear, braced himself, and then, with a painful yell, yanked the spear out of himself and the wall.  It hurt so much, his legs went rubbery, and black dots briefly exploded before his eyes, but he ignored it as best he could.  His gut burned like it was on fire, and that special pain helped him stay conscious and angry.

He tossed the bloody spear aside, and picked up the Sig Sauer as gunshots rang out, aimed towards his would-be savior. The flashes of light revealed the location of the shooter across the street (did they have sniper coverage? Or was it just the guy who snuck out of the alley, deciding distance was better than anything else?), and he took aim and let off a few shots of his own.  He must have hit him, as the firing stopped.

Logan let the mysterious figure in black take out the rest of the Ressiks, so he could wrap an arm around his still healing gut and take a moment to try and breathe through the pain. Wasn’t that supposed to work? So far, it seemed like total shit.

As soon as the last Ressik was dead, Logan straightened up.  He then aimed the gun at the back of the woman’s head. “Now, who the fuck sent you?”

The figure turned around, and he saw for the first time it was a woman. A woman bleeding from what well may have been a bullet wound on the side of her head.  But judging from her flashing yellow eyes, bulging forehead, and mouth full of tiny, jagged fangs, she could give a shit about bullets. “I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said, licking her own blood off her teeth.

Oh great. He hated vampires.

8

She knew that as soon as word of the sword got out, there’d be several groups after it, but she'd never anticipated there’d be mutants too.

And what kind of mutant was he, anyways? The spear gun should have killed him, not to mention the whole pulling it out thing, but he'd never even lost his footing. The bleeding had slowed too; in fact, as she watched through a rip in his white (now mostly red) t-shirt, the skin knit together, and the gash sealed up perfectly, as if it had never been there at all.  Holy fuck.

And his blood; it smelled … strange. Human blood, without a doubt, but so clean … free of viruses and bacteria, the everyday crap most people didn’t even realize they had. She couldn’t even smell what he’d last eaten in his blood (well, if you were alive long enough, you got some idea who was going heavy on the fatty foods, who was hitting the booze hard, just by the byproducts in their blood), his blood was … pure. Purer even than a newborn baby's, although with a curious metallic undertone. How the hell was that even possible?

She smelled no fear on him either; curiouser and curiouser.  Hadn’t he just been skewered by Ressiks? “Don’t even consider it, Vampira,” he growled, with a distinctive flat accent.  American or possibly Canadian?  She couldn’t tell. “If you don’t make trouble for me, I won’t dust you.”

He must have seen on her face that she was eyeing him like a bottle of fine wine. But how good must his blood have tasted?  Miraculously free of all the impurities of modern day living - or, indeed, living in general.  She was dying to find out (no pun intended). “Is that a thank you?”  She reverted to her normal face, and said it in English, just to test a theory.

He raised an eyebrow at her. He was a very odd-looking man, mostly due to his dark hair and his close cropped but seemingly wild beard, which made him look like a werewolf in the early phases of transformation. The blood that caused his shirt to discolor and cling to him like paint did seemingly reveal an almost inhuman physique, which could have gone to some degree of explaining why he had no fear of Ressiks - perhaps he was one of those super-strong mutants.  Did that explain the blood?  How? “Thanks for what?”

It was her turn to quirk an eyebrow at him. “For saving your life.”

“You didn’t.”

She retrieved one of her copper knives from the body of the nearest Ressik, but wasn’t foolish enough to completely take her eyes off of him. She saw those knives in his hands, and there was a Ressik not far from him that had been neatly separated from its head. Those knives were pretty damn sharp. “Says the guy who was nailed to the wall.”

He snorted derisively, and tossed the handgun aside. He knew it would do no good against her, and this continued to prove her assumption he was far too blasé about the supernatural. But there was no fucking way he was a Watcher. “I got myself unstuck, honey. And maybe if you'd kept one alive, we coulda asked them what Leyoshi told ‘em before they killed him.”

She feared that’s why Fujimori’s group was on the move. What else did they do but kill? “You don’t know that much about Ressiks, do you? They’re relatively immune to torture, and they don’t talk.”

“Uh huh. Which gang are you working for? Vamps got your own?”

“Hardly - I work for no one. What about you, demon hunter?”

“I’m not a demon hunter, and I don’t work for anyone either. Well, not technically.”

So that narrowed it down to mercenary, assassin, or psychopath - assuming he was telling the truth, but strangely, she believed he was. And all those options tracked; he was too cool and emotionally-controlled to be anything but a professional. Which still made her wonder who had hired him. (She had to stop thinking about his blood … but it smelled so good … ) “Working for the Americans?”

He shook his head in disgust. “Goddamn it, I’m Canadian, okay?” Like it was shameful to be considered American?  Well, okay, perhaps.

She had to blame his sweet-smelling blood, because she found him vaguely fascinating. She’d met a few mutants in her time, and they were still scared of things like Ressiks, and her - and for good reason.  But this Human wasn’t showing any fear at all, or the slightest wavering of confidence. And who the hell would hire a conspicuous gaijin?  Well, conspicuous or not, his power set seemed to be useful. She heard the loud roaring of a highly tuned engine far away, but getting closer. Damn it, someone must have seen her - it was sometimes difficult to track someone from the rooftops around here; they were either too low, too high, or too exposed.  Tokyo was not built for expert skulking.

(Damn, his blood smelled good.)

“Well, Canadian, wanna get outta here, before the rest of Fujimori’s crew get here?”

His eyes were hazel-green, and almost too sharp for a Human’s. “Why should I care? Bring ‘em on.”

Mister Macho. “There’s Berserker enforcers on his crew, gaijin.  I really don’t think you want to hang around for that.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “So?  Berserkers are easy to kill.”

She stared at him in disbelief.  Was this Human for real?  “Say what?  Do you even know what a Berserker is?”

His eyes narrowed, as if she had just insulted him.  His head cocked in such a way that he might have heard the same car she did, but it was too far away for a Human to pick up the high pitched whine of its distinctive turbine engine. “Seven foot of ugly, black as oil, big hands, two tons of ugly, mostly teeth, smell like burning tires and sound like rusty chainsaws.”

“That’s a very good description.” Then she realized, “You can smell them?” Humans usually couldn’t smell them.

Those bright eyes of his narrowed further, until they were little more than slits. “I smell a lot of things. Undead included.”

His power set was getting more and more interesting. There was no way he was Yakuza, as they’d never bring a gaijin in, not even one as unique as him; besides, a Yakuza would never have that hair, or show up for battle alone, or in jeans and a t-shirt.  He must be working for a new player - but who? If he was a merc, there was no way a guy who could get speared and live would be cheap. Did the mutants have their own organization? She’d long heard rumors such a thing might be out there, but she’d never seen the proof.

Until now?

“And you’re claiming you’ve killed one?” She continued, discreetly glancing around, in case he had friends who were late coming to the party.  Mutants didn’t bother her - they were still Human, she wasn’t exactly, so she won every time - but she didn’t like surprises.  His showing up was bad enough.

“Berserker? Yeah, they’re easy to kill ‘cause they’re cocky. They slice up as easy as anything else.”

Definitely a psychopath, but at least he made it work for him. What could he want with the sword?  If he could heal from anything … maybe he wanted it for the same reason she did?  Wouldn’t that be an awful coincidence? “What’s say we call a truce and get out of here before reinforcements arrive?”

He eyed her skeptically, obviously thinking the same thing she was: was it worth it to discover what the opposition knows? And when would she try and kill him? But - unless he tried something, and made her kill him - if he was half as good as he seemed to think he was, he’d be useful against Fujimori’s group.

He clearly thought it was a trap, but by the same token, he figured he could take her. “Yeah, sure, why the hell not?”

This one was going to be interesting. She only hoped she didn’t have to kill him before he could be of some use.

9

The vampire chick seemed to think they’d be better off taking to the roofs, and considering he was soaked in blood, he supposed he could see her point.

But while he had to scale the building with his claws, she just got a running start and did a straight vertical leap up to the roof off one of the lower buildings, maybe forty feet straight up.  He forgot vamps could do that; they must have had legs like pistons.

She was a big show-off, though, constantly disappearing into shadows, outpacing him across the roofs, leaping impossible gaps with the greatest of ease. But of course she was an exhibitionist: she wore a black leather catsuit that gleamed like oil, and wore “bracelets” that were really throwing knives. The belt around her waist carried the more serious knives.

She was a pretty hot babe, though (when not in vamp face).  Shame she was dead.

He moved gradually after her, like he didn’t care, and really he didn’t; he could trace her by scent alone if he had to. But the bottom line of it was his gut was still hurting, so he was not inclined to be speedy. The external healing was done, but the internal was still happening - the spear had done quite a bit of damage, hit maybe two or three organs. Now that was a damn good shot, or a damn thick spear, depending on how you looked at it.

When he did catch up with her, she was standing on the precipice of a building overlooking the seedier, darker side of the Ginza, where giant, animate neon ads slowly gave way to smaller, cheaper ones in store windows, advertising beer and cameras. This was closer to the real “soaplands” (brothels), the Yakuza dominated areas where tourists were rarely brave or foolish enough to venture. From here, the people sticking to the coagulating shadows below scurried like rats, afraid to be seen in any blade of light that might stab through from the brighter side of town.

“So who are you anyways?” He asked, wondering who the hell Fujimori was. Obviously the Ressiks worked for him (?), but he wasn’t sure (A) what they were if not Yakuza, and (B) if she was really after the sword - she packed a lot of hate in that name; it was possible it was more like a vendetta on her part, not so much a sword hunt.

She stood looking down for a moment, a cold breeze filled with ocean salt ruffling her long black hair like a flimsy veil. He thought she was ignoring him, and he was about to repeat himself more coarsely, when she finally said, “Around here, I’m known as Hime Chishio.”

“Lady Blood.” An appropriate name for a female vamp. “Cool-ass nickname. What’s your real name?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, and graced him with a sly smile. Although her face was as pale as the moon, her dark eyes were luminous pools of ink, and her lips were blood red. Two things struck him instantly: she'd probably been turned by a vampire taken with her beauty, and she wasn’t Japanese. Asian, yes, but he guessed from the shape of her face and the tilt of her eyes that she was more likely of Chinese extraction. Also, a third thing: she hadn’t earned her name simply because she was a blood sucker; she'd taken those Ressiks out pretty easily.  He could still take her with a single swipe, but if he slipped up, she wouldn’t go without a decent fight.  It only bothered him a little that he'd found that another attractive thing about her. “Some call me Yasha.”

He knew that was wrong, but it took him a moment to place it. “That’s not your real name either. That’s the name of a Japanese mythological demon.”

“An angry female demon, yes,” she agreed, nodding approvingly. “I thought it was appropriate.”

“But you ain’t even Japanese.”

She laughed, a high, clear sound that almost made her sound Human. “You’re something else, mutant. What do they call you?”

“Logan.”

She gave him that blade-sharp sly smile again, her eyes glittering like stars in the sky above them. “I thought you also had nicknames, related to your powers.”

“Not all of us.” From the look she gave him, he realized he'd said it a tad too defensively. “Wolverine,” he muttered, trying to hide his embarrassment.

“Really?  I was expecting Wolf or something.”

He suspected that was a dig at his hair, so he ignored it. “So who is this Fujimori, Lady Blood?”

She grimaced slightly at his use of her name, and turned away; perhaps she thought he was making fun of her. Well, just the name - a bit pretentious for a vamp, wasn’t it?  “He is the king of Oni-Gaiku.”

“Demon Town? Tokyo has one of those?”

“All big cities do; they hide in plain sight, but if you know how to look, you will find them easily enough.”

He thought of the Way Station, and how it was one of the boundaries of L.A.’s “demon town” - but then again, some people may have thought all of Hollywood was a demon town, it was just that Humans had co-opted some of it. “I know, I’ve seen some. So why are you after him?”

She was silent again, looking down at the street below, and he thought she might not answer him. A police car screamed by, its siren lingering long after it was gone, and he wondered if someone else had found Leyoshi’s body. Finally, she said, “He wished to acquire my services, thinking my status and reputation would enhance his own.  But I work for no one, and told him so.  He sent demon hunters after me.”

“Should I guess what happened to them?”

“If you wish.  I am still here.”

Logan easily got the unspoken bit of that: “And they aren’t.” “So you’re out to get him for bein’ a supreme asshole?”

She glanced back at him, a cold, brittle smile briefly flashing across her face. “Wouldn’t you?”

Okay, she had a point. Fuck, he was tired. He wanted a beer and a nap, in that order; it was probably the blood loss. Sometimes that was really tiring. “What does Fujimori want with the sword?”

“What many others want with it, Human. Whether the legends surrounding it are true or not, many people want it for the sense of power it would convey. To wield Raifu-Kisei is to have the literal power of life and death at your disposal. With it, he could easily expand his boundaries beyond Demon Town.”

He sat down on the edge of the roof, too tired to remain standing. Besides, he had a feeling he was in for a long exposition session. “He’s gonna try and make a move on the Yakuza?  How stupid is he?”

She snorted a laugh, and when she turned around, she crouched, so she would be more or less at his eye level. “He already has moved in on the Yakuza, Logan.  Demon Town has swallowed up several of their old soaplands, and territory up to Sakawa Dori.”

He tried not to show any surprise on his face, and kept in mind that vamps were hardly arbiters of truth. But what did she have to gain by lying about this?  It would be easy enough to verify or disprove. “Fujimori’s gang is that tough?”

She studied him for a long moment, her eyes as bright as a bird’s, and he knew she was taking his measure. It was impossible to guess what her verdict was. “The Yakuza is made up of humans who fight with money, guns, and blades; they are obsolete. This is a new world, and they have not shifted enough to catch up. They are losing ground here quickly, and they know it. They’re getting desperate.”

He sighed. “Don’t tell me - they’re after the sword too.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. But Fujimori gang is the one to watch. The Yakuza could hardly hurt you or me, could they?” Her eyes glittered once more, and he wondered if she was implying something. Ultimately he didn’t care, but he didn’t care for feeling like a butt of a secret joke.

“Why are you after the sword?” He asked, turning it around on her. “It isn’t just to piss off Fujimori, is it?”

Her smile deepened, and became distinctively malevolent. “Of course not. I plan to kill him with it.”

Man - vampires. Why did they all have more in common with the Weirds than Angel?  “Well, at least you have a plan.”

“You have no idea what you’ve just landed in the middle of, Logan.  I suggest you give up, and go back to Canada.” That sounded like a challenge.

He fixed her with an acrid glare. “Go fuck yourself, Elvira; that sword’s mine.”

“And why do you want it?” She replied, giving him a grin that was all teeth. She was still enjoying her private joke.

“I’m a collector,” he sneered.

She didn’t buy it for a single second. She was smarter than she looked. “And I’m a professional volleyball player. Would you like to try again?”

“Personal reasons. Leave it at that.”

“Come now, Logan - you’d never let me get away with that.”

True enough.  It wasn’t fair that she knew him that well, especially considering they'd only just met. “I want to raise the dead.  Happy now?”

“Have you ever considered zombifying?  It’s cheaper.”

Now he knew she was mocking him. “What the fuck do you want with me, sister?  I know you were eyein’ me like a t-bone down there.  So what’s your game?  What’re you after?”