9. Now Comes the Power #2
The doctor stared at me like I'd grown another head. He cleared his throat and looked at Yoichi. “Should we—”
“She’s fine.” Yoichi gave him a slight nod. “Just check her vitals.”
The doctor went back to checking my pulse. His fingers shook a little.
I turned to Yoichi. "Is this all my imagination?"
"I doubt it. You're to get gifts too from the sacrifice." He held my eyes. "And you've always been an inquisitive individual with the ability to read people. Sometimes the gift is an amplification of talents already present within."
"An amplification."
"Yes."
That's a real diplomatic way to say I'm seeing inside people's lives without permission.
The doctor wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and pumped it. The pressure climbed and released. He wrote a number down on a clipboard.
Next, he listened to my chest. Once satisfied, he pressed two fingers to the underside of my jaw. "Your vitals are good. Better than when you were first carried in here. I thought you would need a blood transfusion after your sacrifice.”
I widened my eyes. “You. . .know about that?”
Yoichi spoke for the doctor, “He’s part of the Silent Ones.”
The doctor moved the blanket away and tenderly touched my stomach. "You are recovering quickly. Surely, the ritual sealed the wound. You'll have soreness for a few days, but you are healed."
Healed.
I tested the word against the dull ache between my hips and against the hollow place in my womb where a baby girl had been.
Will I ever truly be healed?
I lifted my chin and pushed all that down somewhere I could deal with later. "Thank you, Doctor."
He bowed and stepped back to make notes.
Across the room, Deja stood up from her chair. “Alright. That’s enough for now.”
The Japanese women clapped. One of them pressed both palms to her cheeks like she'd received a revelation.
Deja grinned and caught sight of me slowly sitting up. Her whole face changed. "Oh my God. She’s awake."
Deja started across the room, and the space dropped out from under me once again.
I was in a dark, luxurious bedroom with dozens of lit candles surrounding me. Rin lay naked on his back on a low bed with his muscular arms above his head, and a red silk bag pulled down over his face.
A silver chain ran along his throat.
Deja was naked and on top of him with her hands flat on his chest. “Do you feel that, baby?”
Rin groaned. “God, yes.”
“Who’s fucking you?”
“Deja, my queen. My master. My everything.” He lifted his hips to meet her rhythm.
“Damn, baby. Your dick is perfect.” Moaning, she rolled forward and his groan came up muffled through the silk. “Are you ready, baby?”
“Yes, master.”
“Beg for it.”
“Please, master. Let me see your face. Please.”
Then her hand moved, and she slipped the silk bag off his head.
Rin opened his eyes and stared up at her like she had walked out of a story he hadn't read yet. “I want to be inside of you for the rest of my life.”
She licked her lips. “That costs a lot.”
“I’ll pay any price.” He lowered his hands to grab her full breasts. “You’re mine, master. Mine in every way. No one else will serve you but me.”
“We’ll see.”
“No.” And with that Rin flipped her over.
She shrieked. “Baby?”
“We’ll see?” Rin pumped into her. “No, you’ll see, master. You will see as well as the world.”
I came back to my body and trembled so hard the cot creaked. "What the fuck?"
Yoichi got to his feet. "Did you see something else?"
"Yes."
"What?"
I whispered. "Rin and Deja were having sex."
"Oh." He blinked. “Well. . .”
Deja was still walking toward me, and only halfway across the room. Thank God because I needed a goddamn minute before she got here.
“Well that at least gives us more information.” Yoichi lowered back into his seat. “I thought you would need to touch the person or object to see a vision. Perhaps, you only need to focus on it in some way.”
I trembled. “But are these visions happening? Like okay. . .the doctor confirmed it.”
“And we can assume Reo does pray to his pin.”
“Or maybe my mind created that.”
“No. I think it happens.”
“And Rin and Deja having sex the way I saw it.”
“Let’s ask.”
“I don’t know about that. Deja keeps shit close to the chest.” I turned my head and studied him.
And made my second mistake.
I looked at Yoichi.
The basement disappeared again.
A forest rose. Sunlight spilled through tall pines in pale green columns. The smell of pine resin and damp earth filled my nostrils.
A woman stood in a clearing in robes of layered silk, deep red over white. Her black hair was pinned with an ivory comb. Her face was painted white with red along her lips.
A massive fox sat in front of the woman, yet towered over her. It must have been a good ten feet tall with coiled muscle under the orange fur. There were these gold squiggly lines over the fox’s eyes, which were gold too.
Two long bushy white tails fanned behind the creature.
The woman inched away. “Turn back. It scares me when you take that form.”
The fox growled and then stood up on its huge back legs.
The creature’s whole body rippled. Then, the fur turned to skin. The limbs lengthened and then shortened. The face stretched and reformed.
Long black hair fell down a bare back.
A man stood where the fox had been.
I shrieked, and he turned my way.
Yoichi.
I came back and gasped.
Yoichi's eyebrows rose. "What's wrong, Tora?"
"N-nothing."
He held my gaze. "What did you see?"
That wasn’t real. . .right? He. . .shifted into a man. . .
I blinked.
"Be careful, Tora." And suddenly, Yoichi’s voice had an edge that hadn't been there before. "Find a way to control your visions. I would not want you to see things that could get you killed."
My bottom lip quivered. I looked away. "How am I supposed to control it?"
"You'll learn." He paused. "Until then, perhaps. . .don't look my way too much. . .it might be dangerous."
I didn't push that conversation because I knew that I’d just seen the most dangerous secret in this room.
And I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I knew that I shouldn’t tell him I saw that vision just like I'd known the doctor's father was dead and I was on the East side of the island and even that Deja had put a silk bag over Rin’s head.
I felt this truth beating in my heart that there was some old law older than yakuza and even older than Tokyo where. . .Yoichi would have to kill anyone who witnessed his other shape.
And I just knew this the way I knew my own name.
Kitsune. That’s what Yoichi is. . .a fucking kitsune. And. . .he’s old. That vision was. . .so long ago. . .
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Or now I’m crazy.
Fear ran up the inside of my arms in a hot wave.
Deja was three steps away.
I made myself smile.
"Hey, sis." She slowed and stopped at the side of my bed. "How do you feel?”
“Good.”
“You looked like shit and no one would tell me what happened? Who attacked you? I’ve got my gun and nothing but time.”
I gave her a weak smile. “Oh yeah. About that. Why did you bring your gun?”
“Betty Boop doesn’t ever leave my side, so she had to come to Japan.”
“Well. . .no need to bring Betty out right now. I’m good.”
“What happened?”
“A lot but I can’t explain.”
“Yakuza shit?”
“Yeah.”
Deja nodded. “I’m starting to see that being here on this island and around. . .these men. . .requires a healthy dose of going with the flow."
“Yeah.”
"But you’re truly okay?"
"I'm okay." Another shiver ran through me due to what I’d seen about Yoichi. I swallowed. “Where’s Nika?”
“Shoot. Nika and her new slave left for their flight probably ten minutes before we realized everyone had to evacuate. She’s lucky as hell.”
“I’m glad Nika is safe.” I gestured to the women who were now putting the chairs and cots away. “So you were over there holding a Bad Bitch seminar?”
“One woman asked about how I had Rin on a leash and I answered. Next thing you know more and more women brought over their chairs and kept asking me shit.” She shrugged. “They think I’m some sort of guru.”
“You are though.”
“Naw.” Deja shook her head. “I just come from a long line of strong Black women who learned whatever they could about the game and passed it down.”
She studied me. Then she sat on the edge of the cot and pulled me into a hug and I let her, because I needed it. She was warm, real, and the only piece of home I had inside this basement right now.