“I must say, that was rather impressive. Two young practitioners catching one of Lady Sana’s inugamis? My, oh my, my mouth is itching to spread news of your mighty endeavors!” Yokocho said.
We walked through the narrow maze-like pathways of Sana’s Cafe, following the bakeneko. He looked back at me, a wide grin plastered on that feline face of his. “I simply must reassess you, my dear sir! Rumors had you pegged as a fledgling sorcerer! Who knew that you were hiding such mighty tricks underneath that cast of yours?”
I usually wanted to wink out of existence when people complimented me. But when Yokocho did it, I became wary. I think it’s because I hadn’t quite made up my mind Yokocho. He wasn’t quite an ally, but he wasn’t an enemy either, or I wouldn’t have had to make the verbal contract with him before entering Sana’s cafe. It’s not that he’d done anything to bother me. Quite the opposite in fact, he had helped me. He’d been open to making deals with me, without overtly trying to take advantage of my inexperience.
No, he’d been fair with me.
Which also meant he probably dealt fairly with other preternaturals, as long as they named the right price. He was a merchant. And that was the problem, I think. Petty things like morals or emotions didn’t move him. The bakeneko reminded me of Wall Street finance bros, suited-up accountants, and snake-oil salesmen. Plain and simple, he was moved by profit. So when he complimented me like this, I knew it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart. He either wanted something from me or was pleased that he gained something new to sell.
I had been behind Mina when I cast the eldritch spell. I wasn’t sure how much she saw. Yokocho, on the other hand… he arrived later, but knowing him, he could well have been in hiding and observing us. Damn it, Hwari couldn’t pick up on his presence. That meant there were ways that things could get through her detection. Mina and Yokocho both had some sort of veil workings that evaded Hwari’s radar. If Yokocho had indeed seen the whole thing, I was sure that it would only be a matter of time before he started selling that information to the right people.
Except that’s what I agreed to.
Contracts and Consequences. Shit.
“Can you tell us about Lady Sana?” I asked, trying to change the topic.
Yokocho deftly leapt over a puddle. The whole area was a constant gray, reminding me of the weather you see in TV shows about Victorian-era England. “Ah, she’s the lord of the inugamis in this area. Do you know what they are?”
“I read about them,” I said. “They’re dog spirits hailing from Japan. Some people even set they’re minor gods.”
“A lot of Japanese Practitioners use them as familiars,” Mina chimed in. She’d been rather quiet. “I think only two families have an ongoing contract with them, though.”
“Right you two are!” Yokocho said. He looked over his shoulder at me. “You simply must give me a tour of your library sometime. The fact that you’ve learned so much—”
“Could we stay on topic, please?” I said, right as Wol gripped my shoulder with his claw. Wol really didn’t like Yokocho.
“Ah, yes. You two know the stories behind them?”
I dug around in my memory. “Uh, some really dark stuff. Beheading a starving dog and burying them at busy intersections. Naturally, people will keep stepping on its grave, or walk over it with food, and the grudge is supposed to help the dog cross over.”
“Bury it alive with the head sticking out, starve it, then lure it with food so that it stretches it’s neck out. Mikos would behead it when its hunger was at its peak,” Mina chimed in. “And you have an angry dog spirit under your command.”
Yokocho smiled. “Ah, yes. Of course, you are familiar with the ritual, Ms. Baek. Or perhaps, you, Jain Hallow?”
I gave Mina a questioning look.
Mina sighed. “You didn’t read about it?”
“Not whatever he’s talking about,” I said.
It was Wol who spoke, his voice tickling my ear. “There was a similar ritual that ancient Korean shamans practiced. But instead of dogs, they used kids,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Holy shit,” I swore, my stomach feeling hollow all of a sudden. “What? Why? What the fuck? That’s… that’s so fucked up. What the fuck, Wol?”
“Why are you blaming him? It was literally the Shins who did it,” Mina said.
My stomach dropped further. “What? Why? Why kids? They couldn’t just… I don’t know. Why is it always stray dogs and children?”
“Because they’re helpless, my dear Jain! Even your kindness is astounding!” Yokocho said, beaming. “Did you know that in the Korean peninsula, children weren’t given names until they reached their fourth naming day?”
“That was a long time ago,” Mina said.
“Only a few centuries,” Yokocho countered.
“I…” I shook my head. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to this?”
“Nothing, I suppose,” Yokocho said, a little disappointed. “But I bring it up to say that there were those who felt as you do—many of them, the victims. Dogs, children, women, the elderly; all victims of practitioners who sacrificed them in the name of power and research. In fact, many of the practitioners back then were the progenitors of the families that make up what is Society!”
I looked at Mina.
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She refused to return my gaze. “As I said, that was a long time ago.”
“The poor victims left their homelands and settled down in the New World. I was among them,” Yokocho said, milking the drama for all it was worth. “Lady Sana is what you would call a guardian of those fine members of the preternatural.”
“Is she a practitioner?” I asked.
“Nay,” Yokocho said. “She is not.”
I thought about it for a second. “A question. You said she’s like a guardian of those old victims. It kind of sounds like those victims would be those who don’t really fit the definition of the Table’s factions, or strong preternaturals who could hold their own.”
“Right you are!”
“And they accept Lady Sana as their leader?”
“Hit the nail on its head with your hammer, Jain Hallow!”
“Then how come she’s not a member of the Table?” I asked. “I feel like if there’s someone who’s that influential, then she should be a member of the Table. I mean, that’s how things like politics naturally work. Billionaire Oligarchs are nice and all, but there are always a few people who represent the masses. Honest or not, the masses are represented in one way or another. And the fact that the Table bothers to hold things like the Town Hall shows that they care about the preternaturals in New York.”
“A very astute observation, and sharp question,” Yokocho said, nodding along to my theory. “You are partially correct. She was once associated with the table. But that was a long time ago.”
“She was? What happened?”
“Why don’t we ask her ourselves?” He said and did a grand bow towards the door. “This is Lady Sana’s residence.”
We stepped out of the urban maze and into a parking lot. Vagrants loitered all around the lot. Just like before, some of them smoked, while more gambled. In the center of the parking lot was a small building with a double-sided folding sign printed with the words ‘Sana’s Cafe’. There were outdoor dining spots set up: parasols, chairs, tables. Most of them were taken by the preternaturals in question. A few of them stared at us as we walked in.
We walked through the crowd. Yokocho never lost his smile, but even he kept his gaze up, staring at nothing, but somehow seemingly keeping track of everything at once. Wol retreated into my backpack, sticking his head out to look at my back. I could feel Hwari’s presence in my shadow below.
There were more cat-calls as Mina walked by.
“Just ignore them,” I said to Mina. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
“I know,” She said, her voice quiet.
It was the wrong move.
If you’re a girl in New York, you’ve probably experienced how rude and straight-up men can be. I mean, they’re cat-calling girls who’re young enough to be their daughters. Some people think it’s not that bad. Well, most of those guys are men. I’m a man, too, but even I think it’s messed up. Don’t believe me? Go look at some videos online of what happens in New York City. Some creators purposefully dress up as women to expose what it’s like to live as a woman in a place like New York.
Actually, forget New York. I think it’s anywhere.
That’s not to say all men are horrible. There are decent people out there. Just that, horrible men tend to leave a strong impression.
That’s all to say, walking into a crowd of preternaturals who were catcalling Mina without any sort of preparation was a bad move.
I think someone touched Mina inappropriately.
She went ballistic.
One moment, we were walking through the crowd, and the next, people were screaming. I’ve been in a few playground scraps, and over the last few days, a few near-death situations. But this sort of explosive encounter wasn’t something I was equipped to deal with, and frankly, wasn’t experienced to even keep track of. The first thing I heard was Seoul’s anger-filled roar that literally made my heart skip a beat. Mina had her staff out, weaving circles in the air with it and began blasting spouts of water at people.
I think you understood it as a cute little water gun that kids use at pools.
No, this was like the cannon that the government uses to put down protestors.
That times ten.
Mina drew a circle, and I felt the connection between her and Seoul tense, like a rubber band being stretched tight. She took that force and fed it into the circle, and a freaking beam of water cannoned out of the circle with enough force to knock a half a dozen of the preternaturals off their feet and force them to the ground. Mina screamed as she did it, yelling something in Korean, and fired off three more shots. Each time she did, she threw a burning paper charm in the air, which turned to ashes immediately.
It got worse, because more of them started coming out of the alleyways behind us.
“Practitioner! Stop her!” Wol screeched in my ear.
But the whole thing was chaos. Preternaturals of various shapes and sizes began rounding on us. Seoul had grabbed the leg of a preternatural who had to be at least eight or nine feet tall, something with claws on his head, and began shaking him like a ragdoll, using the body as a makeshift flail to knock over other preternaturals like bowling pins. I felt a few of the preternaturals shed their humanoid shapes, turning more bestial, less physical, and more ethereal. A lot of them used magic too, beginning to channel power.
“To the left, Jain!” Wol screeched in my ear.
I saw a woman in a white dress and a sunhat, the lower half of her face covered by a mask. She stepped closer, and the world took on a darker color. She brought a pair of scissors to the mask, snipped off the bottom half, showing me a mouth that put the Joker to shame.
“Am I pretty?” she spoke into my head.
“Don’t answer!” Wol screamed. “Ignore her!”
‘Caller, behind you!’
I turned and saw something horrible. A round blob with eight human legs, multiple eyes filled with the faces of children, arms bent and conformed together in something that looked like mandibles. It was something straight out of a creature-feature horror film, a spider-inspired human centipede.
“Taegwi!” Wol screamed over the rising yells, “The ghosts of children!”
Mina was a transmutator. Not only that, she was an enchantor, someone who could manipulate emotions. Seeing her in action now, it was obvious that she could use evocation to a certain level, too.
But me? My main talent is conjuration. But I’m also a decent abjurer. Lastly, I’m a thaumaturgist. That’s what Wol said.
I’ve been thinking of ways that I could fight.
I brought out two wardstones from my bookbag with practiced ease, ready for an occasion such as this. I quickly set it on the ground and drew a small circle around it using chalk.
“Hwari!” I called. “Wol, I need your help!”
Hwari drifted out of the ground and sped like a shark that sensed blood, drawing a perfect circle around all of us.
Thaumaturgy—a word from Greek for ‘miracle-working’. Using small, meaningful actions in a ritualistic manner to cause big effects. It was all about forming and manipulating connections.
Abjuration is the art of protection and negation. Creating rules and laws.
The Taegwi leaped towards me.
I drew on the wardstone that I’d created using my abjurational talent, feeding the chalk circle with its energy. Wol leaped down onto the ground, and I felt his own practice intertwine with mine. Just like we’d discussed before, he became the string that connected Hwari and me—forming a connection between my chalk circle and the gigantic shadow circle she’d drawn.
Then I drew on my thaumaturgical energy, and I chained the two.
The entire circle lit up in black-purple lightning.
Anyone that wasn’t Wol, Hwari, Mina, Yokocho, or Seoul got flung back about twenty feet. It wasn’t as powerful as Mina’s evocation; most of them had simply been pushed out instead of being knocked to their feet. But what I lacked in power, I made up for it with absolute law.
Every single preternatural was no longer allowed in my circle.
And by every single preternatural, I mean the entire crowd of them that had been surging against us. The Taegwi got the worst of it. It had been midair and flew upwards. Its trajectory drew a neat arc that I’d seen in physics textbooks while studying medieval trebuchets, landing behind Sana’s Cafe with a sickening crunch.
The Runes for ‘Passage’ and ‘Prevent’ floated everywhere around us. Transparent, yet colored faintly, they crackled with faint eldritch energy.
“I think,” I said, panting for breath. “That’s enough.”
Wol had powered most of the work, but he’d been focused more on the connection. I had given a lot of myself in this work, and somehow, it affected the charm that Yokocho gave me. The painkiller effects faded, and my arm and leg started to hurt again. Nothing is free in this world. There’s always a give and take. It seemed that the charm used to get rid of pain —which had nothing to do with this working— was free game. If I didn’t have enough to give, the world would take what it could.
“Yes,” said a voice that cut through the silence like a katana through flesh. “That’s enough of that.”
The crowd parted, and a girl came walking through.
“Hello, Jain Shin Hallow. I believe you came here to meet me?” she said. “My name is Sana Ravok.”
“Howdy,” I said, trying to get enough air in my lungs.
She smiled, showing canine fangs. “Now, drop the circle before I kill you, Shaman.”