“It’s coming from that room…”  Kantarou tore round the corner, certain that whatever lingered in the house had found another human to possess, and meant to kill.  He felt it.  Such viciousness and cruelty.  So filled with hatred at nothing and everything all at once.  He bounded up the stairs, ignoring the ache in his knee and the growing discomfort in his chest.  He heard Haruka tell him to wait, but there was no time.  Haruka would follow anyway, he was sure, and that thought gave him the strength to run the last few steps towards the accursed room. 

  The door was shut.  The last echoes of the scream had died away to be replaced by a tense quietness.  Kantarou could hear no sound coming from within the room.  He took a deep breath and gently pushed the door aside to be confronted with the burning red eyes of the maid possessed by…something.  Her face twisted grotesquely in rage, but she did not move, just stared at him.  Kantarou took a cautious step forward onto the tatami. 

  “Who are you,” he asked gently.  The air in the room was becoming thick as though filled with a mixture of dust and the humidity of a summer’s day.  The door slammed closed behind him and Kantarou swirled around in surprise.  He tried not to panic, even though he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.  

  Kantarou turned back to the woman, grasping tightly at the beads hidden within his long sleeves.  She was still staring at him. 

  “I can help you,” he said, taking another small step forward.  “I can…”  He stopped dead, clasping his hand to his mouth in horror.  The room was different.  There was furniture now.  He was sure it hadn’t been there a moment ago.  But it was covered with dark spatters.  They covered the walls and the doors, no longer painted black but a pattern of dripping red on aged white.

  “You can see it.”  The possessed maid’s voice was quiet with controlled anger.  She sneered cruelly.  Kantarou held his hands to his chest.  Her every word cut through him like an icy chill.  “This is what they did to me.”

  “You are…the demon they exorcised?” he asked sadly.  There was just so much blood, and so much vindictiveness.  It must have hurt so much.  Kantarou’s eyes burned with tears.  But she shook her head and laughed humourlessly.

  “Not really,” she said.  Kantarou looked away, unable to bear the look in her eyes any longer.  Unable to bear the way she looked at him; hungry, vengeful, merciless.  He had felt this before, when he had been in this room before.  On the very tatami she now stood.  But now it was soaked red and Kantarou understood.

  “They…killed you.”  Kantarou grasped his beads more tightly within his sleeves and took another small step forward.  “You are…”  There was a hammering at the door.  Haruka was shouting.  The possessed maid growled angrily.  Kantarou grimaced.  Haruka was only making it worse.

  “Stop it Haruka!” He shouted, “You’ll make her even angrier.”  He lowered his voice and spoke quickly, trying to deflect the woman’s attention from Haruka.  “Please, I understand why you are so angry, but it does no good for you to be here,” he pleaded.  The woman’s eyes shifted between the door and Kantarou.  She smiled maliciously and stepped forward, reaching out her arms towards Kantarou.

  “You understand nothing.  I will have what I want.”  Kantarou recoiled at the hiss in her voice, that vague, undefined hatred finding form now in her eyes.  The room was returning to black, and the pain in his chest becoming more acute with every passing moment.  He would have to do something soon or he would be helpless.

  “Please,” he pleaded again, “Revenge is meaningless...”

  “Revenge?”  She laughed coldly.  “That’s not all I want.”  There it was again.  That hungry look, as though she meant to devour him, and then she was right in front of Kantarou, grasping at his throat.  He put his hands together and mouthed a chant as best he could between gasps.  Between the lack of air and the pain in his chest, the spell was barely strong enough to throw the maid back, but still she screamed in frustration and rage.  She made another attempt at his throat but Kantarou was ready this time and quickly intoned another chant.  The woman fell to her knees and cowered on the tatami, covering her ears with her hands, her piercing screams ending abruptly.

  “I will have what I want,” she repeated, voice quiet and strained but certain.  Then her eyes closed and the maid’s body sank lifelessly to the tatami.  Kantarou panted heavily, breathless and exhausted.  The demon may have left the maid’s body but it lingered in the room.  He could feel it everywhere.  With every breath he took it burned his lungs.  It blocked his ears.  His skin stung at its touch.  He tried to take a step back, but the presence surrounded him, making every movement feel like wading through nails.

  “Haruka...” Kantarou called quietly, pain stealing more of his breath with every passing second.  Not for help.  Never for help.  He just wanted the tengu beside him now, so that he’d feel strong.  So that he’d have the courage to force his way past the malevolent presence tearing at his body.  But he was tired and dizzy and he legs soon gave out leaving him sprawled on the floor not far from the motionless form of the maid.  The presence wrapped itself tightly around him now, seemingly trying to replace his life with its death.  Kantarou took one last gasp of air before he lost to its intensity, and found himself drowned in a world of red and black.

***

  The door exploded inwards in a flash of lightening. 

  “Kantarou!” Haruka called wildly, hastily stepping over the remnants of the door frame.  He held his staff in front of him, poised to attack.

“Kantarou!” he called again, peering through the thin haze of smoke.  He soon spotted his master lying on his side on the floor.  He was surrounded by a strange crimson aura.  Haruka growled irritably.  He had no mind to calm aggravated souls like Kantarou did, and he had no words to dispel it.  He gripped his staff and aimed it carefully so that the lightening skimmed barely inches from Kantarou’s form, but ripped through the demonic aura.  It made no sound as it dissipated in the face of the lightning’s touch.  Sensing the presence recede back into the walls, Haruka threw down his staff and ran over to where Kantarou lay.  He pulled him up into his arms and shook him.

“Stupid Master!  Open your eyes!” he demanded.  Kantarou lay still.  Haruka put a hand on his pale face.  It was cold to the touch.  “Oi!” he tried, patting Kantarou lightly on the cheek.  Haruka frowned and leaned down, putting his ear to Kantarou’s chest.  He was barely breathing, but his pulse was strong; the blood pumping furiously through his veins in an attempt to dispel the cold touch of the demon.  Haruka leaned back and scooped his master up into his arms.  He really was getting very tired of always carrying his master around, but he had the uncomfortable notion that the room was watching him.  He certainly didn’t want to stay there any longer than he had to.

“Why didn’t you wait for me,” he murmured to the unmoving Kantarou in his arms.  Picking up his staff with some difficulty, he backed steadily out of the room.  Sudou stood in the ruined doorway looking in shock at Haruka.

“Get the maid, you idiot!” Haruka said.  Horrified, Sudou pointed towards the room.

“You want me to go in there?”  He shook his head.  “It’s dangerous!”

“The demon has gone,” Haruka lied.  “It’s fine.”  Sudou cast the tengu a disbelieving look, but went over to the maid anyway.  She was beginning to stir as he knelt down beside her. 

“Saori, let me help you.”  Sudou took her hands and gently pulled her to her feet.  Haruka watched in interest as he led the unsteady woman hurriedly out of the room. 

“Let’s go downstairs,” Sudou said.  “Away from here.”  He looked back towards the room with a frown, then made his way down the stairs towards the front room, the maid hanging dazedly onto his arm.  Haruka followed cautiously, wary of both the stairs and Sudou.

In the hearth room, where he and Kantarou had sat just minutes before drinking tea, Haruka laid his unconscious master down.  The maid sat against the back wall, eyes fixed on nothing with a look of terror set on her face.  Sudou joined Haruka in sitting beside Kantarou. 

“Is he alright?” Sudou asked, putting a hand against the novelist’s cheek.  “He’s very pale.”  Haruka shifted irritably.

“He’s always pale,” he said, pulling Kantarou up onto his lap and away from Sudou’s touch.  Haruka shook him again.

“Wake up, Kantarou.”  There was a moment of silence before Kantarou groaned softly and brought his hands up to rest protectively at his chest.

“Haruka?”  Kantarou opened his eyes and looked up at the tengu.  He smiled in relief and giggled.  “I thought that demon was going to kill me!”  Haruka snorted.

“It would have done.”  He helped Kantarou sit up.  “I told you to wait,” he said.

“Sorry,” Kantarou replied a little breathlessly.  “There was no time.” 

“No time for what?” Haruka asked in an almost accusatory tone.  Kantarou shook his head. 

“I’ll explain later,” he said, shakily pushing himself up off the floor.  “Right now we need to get to Daiki.”  Sudou looked up in surprise.

“Daiki...”  His eyes were wild with fear.

“What is it, Sudou-san?” Kantarou asked.  Haruka stood beside his master protectively, glaring mistrustfully at the other man.