Jalee and the two monkey women sat around the table, kneeling. The table was covered with full dishes.

  “We waited for the two of you,” Koharu said. “But it only just arrived. Should be fresh.”

  I approached, eyes wide with excitement at the array of food. Sushi, a cooked fish with the head on a small stick—which kind of grossed me out—katsu over a bowl of rice, various pickled vegetables, and bowls of noodles.

  “How was it?” Milrae asked, stirring and pushing herself up from Kinara’s lap. “Did you…?”

  “He did it,” Ahlaksiz said. “He’s not ready to use the Iridant, as we’ll need help to reach that point, but he’s making progress.”

  “And how was the rest of it?” Jalee asked with a wink.

  Koharu giggled, then put a hand over her mouth.

  “You saw us?” I asked, realizing that giggle couldn’t mean anything else.

  “She was going for a walk and… might have caught a view of you from behind, balls going back and forth as you—”

  “Enough,” Mizuki interrupted, frowning. “We’re not horny teenagers.”

  “There’s always one, isn’t there?” Ahlaksiz said, approaching the table and kneeling next to Koharu. Eyeing the other, she added, “A prude, I mean. Don’t worry, I’m sure Koharu enjoyed the show. For our part, we are glad to entertain.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think of that comment, but when Koharu looked at me with more hunger than I felt toward the food in front of me, I had to think that, yes, giving her a show was not something I would regret anytime soon. That was dangerous thinking though, I remembered, with a glance over at Milrae. To my surprise, she didn’t look annoyed or jealous, but intrigued. Scooting over to join us, along with Kinara, Milrae eyed Koharu with a similar hunger. Was this legit, or part of some game she was about to play?

  “Go on, tell us again what you saw,” Milrae said. “This time in more detail.”

  Koharu’s eyes flickered over to me, then away, and she stared at the table. It took me a second to realize she was specifically eyeing some ball-shaped items. Maybe Takoyaki, but I wasn’t sure. Whatever they were, she picked them up, looking mischievous, then pinched them from the top and started swinging them to slam against her hand.

  “Like this, and…” She paused, then held up a chopstick, but instead replaced it with a much larger, thicker rice stick—rice formed into a shape like a popsicle, or for our purposes, a cock. She positioned it with the balls, and nodded. “The view was like this here, so that I could see it sliding in from above, and…” She started moving it, using her other hand as the opening while holding the arrangement, and I stared in utter bewilderment. They had asked for details, not the fucking puppet show!

  “Maybe he can recreate it for us, while we…” Milrae reached over, took a similar ball from the table, and popped it into her mouth. Whatever she said next was too muffled for me to understand.

  “Ladies,” Ahlaksiz scolded, taking chopsticks and starting with a piece of sushi. “As much fun as it is to make Ferris blush, he needs to eat. Do you mind?”

  Koharu continued to hold the balls, and took the rice stick to her mouth. Her eyes flickered to me for a second and I felt a pulsing in my groin—until she took a bite off of the end of that rice stick.

  “How… how long did you watch?” I asked, taking a spot at the table between Ahlaksiz and Kinara.

  “Long enough,” Mizuki said, now chuckling and eyeing her fellow guard.

  “Urusai!” Koharu hissed.

  Mizuki wasn’t about to shut up, though, because she turned back to me and said, “Since they’re giving such details accounts of your fun, it’s only fair that you should know I caught Koharu as she finished pleasing herself during said show.”

  We all turned to Koharu, who looked mortified for a second, then shrugged and bit into her rice stick again.

  “So? It was fucking hot. What, human women don’t touch themselves? You all don’t?”

  “We do, and they do,” Ahlaksiz said.

  “It’s just… kind of weird to watch someone and not speak up,” I noted, not wanting to offend her but also unsure how comfortable I was.

  “Maybe next time they’ll invite you to join,” Milrae said, and this time her distaste for the situation shone through. Eyes narrowed, she took the fish head and popped it in her mouth, glaring at Koharu.

  “I… I didn’t say anything about wanting that,” the guard protested.

  “You didn’t have to. You fucking masturbated while watching these two go at it. Admit that you want Ferris. I’ve seen the way you look at him, and now this?”

  Koharu turned her gaze on me, this time not bothering to hide her assessing gaze. “I saw how he moved back there, I saw… a lot. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. But…” she shook her head, putting down the rice stick and going for one of the balls. As she took a bite, she said with a full mouth, “I know you all are together, and what role we play here. We came to protect the eye, see that it’s not abused… nothing more.”

  “Don’t forget it.” Milrae ignored the looks of surprise from the other monster ladies, going for her tea.

  Kinara picked up a piece of sushi, tried it, and moaned aloud as she chewed. “This is amazing! Holy shit.” She took another. “Have you all tried this? I mean… wow!”

  “Way to change the subject,” Jalee said with a laugh, eyeing me, then the two monkey guards—who were glaring at each other—before trying a piece of sushi as well. She nodded as she chewed. “For raw food, not bad. But…” The next piece, she fried slightly with her electricity, so it was like seared tuna. “Mmm, better.”

  “You need to learn your place,” Mizuki spat out as if the conversation about all that had never moved on. A blur of fast-paced Japanese followed, then Mizuki stood and went for the door.

  “Stop,” Ahlaksiz growled, and in a flash was up and in the monkey woman’s way, hand on the door. “Nobody’s going anywhere.”

  “Move,” Mizuki replied.

  Ahlaksiz shook her head, pointing to the window. “They’re out there. We saw them searching.”

  “They?”

  “A group, maybe government or private mercs, trying to find us. We can’t let that happen, and if you go out now, it might give away our position.”

  “That, and you can’t abandon your post,” Koharu said, glaring at Mizuki. “Our princess gave us an order. You’d leave because I’m curious about the lovemaking of a human?”

  In the tense moment that followed, a little pitter-patter sounded, drawing our attention away from it all and to Basty, who walked out from where he’d been likely napping in the cushions nearby. Everyone watched him, and he froze, wide eyes on me. When he blinked, I felt a tingle of energy, and held up my hands for everyone’s attention.

  “He’s trying to tell me something. Everyone… please.” Closing my eyes and hoping they’d stop with their bickering, I mentally let Basty know I was ready for whatever it was he needed to tell me.

  The vision hit, and it was like I was on the rooftop of the ryokan. From up here the hills and trees were even more beautiful, as was the city behind me—or small town, maybe? But what caught my attention, what he was clearly meaning for me to see, was the line of mercs walking dangerously close to our position.

  “Right outside,” I murmured, hoping the others in the room could hear me. “Be ready, in case…”

  I watched for another thirty seconds or so, as they moved, searching. At any moment they could stumble upon us, and judging by their proximity and how they moved, they could sense something was up here.

  Everyone was staring at me when I left the vision, and Basty hurriedly ran over, charging up my arm and transforming to scarf mode. He evidently wanted to be with me and ready if the time came.

  “Eat,” I said, “but not enough that you’d cramp up in a fight.”

  Mizuki seemed to find that humorous, or maybe she was chuckling at the way they’d all been about to tear each other’s heads off, but now sat in complete silence, waiting. As Ahlaksiz had said, I needed my energy, so I dug in.

  Oh my God, Kinara hadn’t been exaggerating. If there was better sushi in the world, I’d certainly never had it. The cooked fish was delicious as well, and the other little dishes perfected the meal. As we ate, we started speaking in semi-hushed voices again, starting with Jalee telling me what the guards had been telling her before we’d returned from our onsen excursion.

  “They go up to Hokkaido once a year to meet with their counterparts there,” Jalee said. “It sounds beautiful, especially in the winter. Take me, someday?”

  “Um, yes please,” I said, then eyed the guards. “What sort of counterparts do you meet with?”

  “The natives of that land still tell the tales of many of our kind up north,” Mizuki replied. “If you visit, be sure to mention us and make it known that we are friends. They’ll make the introductions.”

  I certainly looked forward to that, and tried the soup while dreaming of visiting Sapporo and seeing their large snow and ice sculptures.

  “Tell us about your world,” Koharu said. “What did you do before all of this?”

  “Me?” I frowned, shaking my head. “It was boring. Basically, hanging out with these two guys who live across the hall from my place, eating chips and drinking whiskey, writing visual novels. Well, not boring to me, but to some people. Then again, compared to my life now, pretty much anything would be boring.”

  “This is so interesting?” Mizuki cast a judging eye around the room.

  “What’s the farthest you’ve traveled?”

  “Sapporo.”

  I guffawed. “Seriously. I mean, you’ve never left Japan?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Oh my God. Then you have no idea what I’m talking about. I mean, this is all exciting because I’ve never been here, but outside of Japan is a whole world. Literally. There are so many people to meet, things to see. Did you know there’s a building in Dubai almost three times taller than the Tokyo tower? You can visit great wonders in India, ride trains and airplanes all over, or find yourself in a sports bar in downtown L.A. watching baseball or MMA with a bunch of people as they cheer and shout at the screen. It’s insane to think that living in the mountains and bathing all the time is all you know.”

  Everyone was staring at me, and I sat back, realizing I had gotten a bit too into my little speech. Koharu, not surprisingly I guess, looked totally intrigued. Mizuki, however, had her face scrunched up in a frown.

  “I enjoy my life. I don’t need all of that.” She set down her chopsticks, placed her hands on her lap, and closed her eyes.

  Out of the two of them, she was quickly becoming my least favorite. I shrugged and said, “Sorry. I didn’t even know I felt so passionately about it.”

  While my mouth was apologizing, my mind was racing with other places in the world I dreamed of seeing. Someday I wanted to view the Northern Lights, watch the waves crash off the cliffs near a castle in Scotland, see if there pirate tours in the Bahamas. Was that a thing? Oh, New Orleans! That was definitely on the list, though more for the awesome architecture and food than a reason I might have once had—if I wanted boobs, there were plenty around me.

  The thought of guys going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras to see boobs made me laugh, which caused Mizuki to open her eyes again to glare.

  I grinned, then returned my attention to my food.

  “Where is the most exciting place you’ve been yet?” Koharu asked.

  “Lately, or before I met these ladies?”

  “Before,” Ahlaksiz asked, apparently curious, too.

  I had to give that one some thought. Since I’d met them, getting to go to Turkey, Tunisia, and now Japan were all big ones. Before that, though… I had to reach way back.

  “Maybe it’s not as special as all that, but when we visited Mt. Rainier a long time ago—by my standards, anyway—there were these ice caves we went into. I think they’re called the Paradise Ice Caves, and when you’re in there it’s one of the most beautiful sights. The way the ice ripples, frozen like waves that curve overhead, or the glistening blue. It’s terrifying, thinking it could all come crashing down on you at any minute. But so worth visiting at some point in your life.”

  The others looked intrigued, and even Mizuki’s frown lessened.

  “That… I would like to see,” she said. “You should have started with that one.”

  I grinned. “Oh, because it’s not so different from what you might find in Sapporo?”

  “Hokkaido, yes. Not Sapporo. The Otaki ice cave is truly a wonder.”

  “Another reason we’ll have to visit up north then.” I noticed that her tea was low, so I took the pot and filled her cup. The smile I received in return actually looked heartfelt and welcoming. Maybe she wasn’t so bad if one could figure a way in.

  More thumping sounded, and I realized it was in my head. I held up a hand again, suddenly pulled outside to see the figures. But they weren’t next to us anymore. They had moved on, searching the area past us.

  I returned and gave everyone a thumbs-up, as corny as that was. “We’re in the clear.”

  “You know what that means?” Ahlaksiz gestured to the table. “If you want more, eat up, because we have a ghost to find.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. As much as I loved the food, I’d suddenly lost my appetite. “Let’s go.”

  “Be careful!” Kinara said, throwing her arms around me. She kissed me passionately, then Milrae did the same.

  “I guess we’re doing this for luck or something?” Jalee shrugged and kissed me too, even giving me a little shock in the process that sent tingles up my spine. With a wink, she said, “Extra luck.”

  The two guards eyed me, both with pleasant, unreadable smiles, and I stood to follow Ahlaksiz to the door.

  “Leave Basty,” she said.

  I frowned, caressing him in scarf form. “But… why?”

  “His kind and ghosts… don’t mix well. He’d likely scare her off, whether he means to or not.”

  That was a shame, as he had become a bit of a comfort blanket. I had become Linus from Charlie Brown, I realized, and decided maybe this was more than what she’d said—this was a test, to see how I could do without the little guy. Tests suck, but I told him I’d be back soon, watching him transform and blink at me with his big eyes; then I was off.

  21

  A fucking ghost. Was Ahlaksiz kidding me? I had a small amount of hope that she might be only messing around, that we’d get to the river and she’d laugh and tell me I’d been had.

  But no, we reached the river and she stood back at a dip in the ground, gesturing for me to come forward. Clearly, she meant for me to go alone. That made it worse! My bones tingled as I flashed back through every Japanese horror film I’d ever seen. Mostly weird girls in white gowns with long, black hair covering their faces.

  Pull yourself together, I thought, each step closer to the water feeling heavier than the one before. You’ve faced monsters! What’s the difference between that and a ghost?

  No amount of mental accounting could make this easy. Standing there, I felt quite silly. I walked along the river, unsure what I’d find. At one point, the sloshing of my shoe in mud made me jump; even when I realized it had been my own step that made the noise, my heart kept thudding.

  What was wrong with kids, going to haunted houses as if they’d actually want to meet ghosts? This wasn’t something to be searched out. I tried pretending this was only one of those excursions, that if anything jumped out at me it would only be a person in disguise.

  Nope, that didn’t make it any easier.

  I turned back to Ahlaksiz, hands out like, “What now?” because what I was trying hadn’t been working. But she wasn’t there. The darkness seemed to intensify around me, and I felt a cold passing of air on my neck. Someone breathing?

  Spinning, heart pounding, I turned only to see the night air. A distant sound like a shamisen started up, barely audible, and a fleck of something appeared in the sky. It fell, white, then more. Snow? It wasn’t cold enough. I held out my hand, letting one of the flakes fall on my palm, and confirmed that it wasn’t cold, either. Ash, perhaps.

  I felt another breath, this time with a sound, almost a whisper. “Why?”

  I stepped away and spun, this time quick enough to see the steam of the breath as it faded.

  “My name is Ferris,” I whispered, then finding my courage, raised my voice to almost its normal level. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”

  “My…” The breath returned, no more than a foot from my face, and as it rose, a glimpse of eyes showed through the darkness. “…help.”

  “Yes.” I stood tall, chest out. “I need to see someone named Vaper. I’m led to believe you can help in that regard.”

  A grunt sounded, then footsteps, retreating. I looked down and saw them in the mud of the riverbank, going back toward the water. Instinctively, I lunged in an attempt to tackle the ghost. Instead, I landed with my knees in the mud, body hitting the rocks, face over the edge of the water.

  Laughter carried on the wind, and I groaned.

  “Is that how you catch a ghost?” Her voice came to me, as if in my ear. I turned, but as expected, she wasn’t visible there. A splash pulled my attention to the water, and when I pushed myself up, a face appeared in the water, as if a reflection.

  Wide eyes stared up at me with black heavy around them. Her dark hair floated out around her, and while she clearly had that ghostly look, she was undeniably beautiful. As quickly as she had appeared, she was gone. She had been watching me with what seemed like a sense of curiosity. Not hostile, interestingly.

  If I was going to have any chance of making this happen, I needed to be more strategic, to reach into my recent training. So I breathed and focused on my internal energy, on finding that core ball of light, connecting to it, and attempting to communicate with this spirit from that place within me.

  With each breath, I felt a connection, even starting to sense that she was there—no longer as a cold, terrifying figure, but as someone I could reach out to, even speak with.