A Kappa in New York

“I want all the police to leave!”

The kappa curled a webbed, clawed hand around the throat of the hostage, the police staring up at him as he leered back at them from the third floor window of the bank. “If you keep screwing with me, the hostages will die!”

Detective Wallman stared up at the demon in the window, a deep and heavy sigh rumbling from his throat. He still remembered a decade ago when all he had to deal with were tweakers and rapists and murderers. Those were bad enough. Now he was staring at a Japanese turtle man in jeans and a wife beater as he held twenty people hostage with magic water. The damn thing had a wall of water around each hostage. One wrong move and the innocent people inside would drown standing up.

“I’ll drown them all like rats!” the kappa shouted again. “If you don’t believe I’ll do it, go ask the guard who drowned at his desk!”

“Oh god, we’re gonna…” a woman started crying before the water moved up around her mouth, leaving her unable to speak, breathing shallowly through her nose.

“Shut your mouth, moron!” the kappa snapped. This was all going so wrong. It was supposed to be a simple job. Grab some hostages, get what he had been sent for from the vault, leave quickly. Unfortunately someone had slipped out, bringing the police, and now he was screwed. Even if he got into the vault, how was he getting out?

“Seriously…” Harry Vickers said, the air seeming to grow colder as he walked over. He was 32 going on 50, muscled and dressed like a construction worker, flannel and scuffed jeans worn loosely on his body, but crackled with an air of authority. As he walked towards Wallman, the other officers moved away. They knew their part in this operation was over. The exorcist was here.

“I’m giving you ten minutes before I begin drowning them!” the kappa screeched, the water sloshing around in the little bowl set in his skull.

Wallman looked away from the monster in the window to see Harry’s trusty hammer materialize from nothing in his right hand, ornate like some fantasy weapon designed by an overzealous god. Wallman had worked with a few exorcists over the years, most using swords or knives or other weapons found in fantasy tropes. But the hammer was one of the many reasons Wallman liked Harry. He never forgot his roots.

“Ten minutes? All I need is three,” Harry said, a slight smirk on his lips. His legs bent, and like a burly rocket he propelled himself at the third floor window where the kappa stared at him, eyes wide with fright. Harry let out a bellow as he landed. “You know what, buddy? I’m pretty pissed right now!”

The next three minutes were a blur of slams and screams and interspersed pleading for mercy from the kappa as Harry taunted him. When the demon was finally slammed onto the pavement in front of Wallman, Harry grunted in satisfaction, cracking his knuckles as the hammer disappeared into the ether.

“Bastard. Interrupted my lunch. Do you know how often I get a burger so perfectly cooked?” Harry growled at the kappa.

“The hostages appreciate your tragic sacrifice, Harry,” Wallman said, glancing up at the traumatized people being led to waiting ambulances. Great, more fodder for the shrinks, he thought.

“Shut the hell up, Wallman. Burgers are a sacred American product,” Harry said, sticking a meaty finger into Wallman’s face.

“Speaking of sacred, could you exorcise the freak turtle? I wanna arrest him,” Wallman said, gesturing to the now cuffed kappa.

“Oh, sure. Come here, you slimy bastard. Gotta break your contract.” Harry pulled a small red jewel out of his jeans pocket, flipping and catching it a few times before putting his knees on the kappa’s chest.

“Get off me you…” the kappa rasped as Harry clutched his face with his meaty hand. He roughly pressed the red jewel into the kappa’s forehead.

“Shut the hell up, demon, and get in here,” Harry said. Red arcs of energy crackled from the jewel, driving themselves over the kappa as it writhed and moaned. It began to peel, turning ephemeral as it revealed a pain wracked Japanese man underneath the turtle body. The fading image of the kappa was slowly peeled away like paint from an old board, flowing into the jewel as the energy pulled it in until what remained was only the gasping, shuddering Japanese man. Harry stood up and cracked his neck, tossing the jewel to Wallman.

“God damn. It never gets easier to watch an exorcist tear a demon out of a man,” Wallman sighed, feeling the heat of the jewel in his hand.

“There! One demon successfully trapped in a containment stone, ready for interrogation along with his human host,” Harry said, clapping his burly hand onto Wallman’s shoulder. Wallman gave him a look which screamed the most sarcastic thank you he could muster.

“Ask me whatever you want. I’m dead either way,” the man who had previously hosted the kappa said through labored breaths.

Harry knelt down again, pulling the man up into a kneeling position himself. He looked the guy over for a few moments. Skinny, dirty, sweaty, scared. Normal for people forcibly ripped away from a contracted demon, but even considering the circumstances this guy was on edge.

“Say, what is a Japanese demon doing in New York anyways?” Harry asked, smiling a bit like he and the hostage taker were old buddies.

“Folks in the bank said he was looking for something specific in one of the vaults,” Wallman said, eyeing the guy suspiciously. Something didn’t feel right.

“Gift for the girlfriend?” Harry asked, winking and nudging the man with his elbow. The Japanese man was clearly not amused.

“Lean in closer and I’ll whisper it to you,” the man said, a dirty smile creeping over his lips.

“Please don’t make this weird. Well, weirder, I suppose,” Harry said after shrugging, willing to hear the strange bastard out. It’s not like he was surprised by much anymore. Harry’s ear was right next to the man’s lips when he said his final word.

“Boom.”

It was only the superhuman reflexes which came with being an exorcist which allowed Harry to dodge backwards quick enough as the Japanese man’s head exploded. It was quick and violent and brutal, and Harry took a moment while laying on his back, pavement hot against his skin, to lament the bits of criminal head which were now covering his clothes.

“God damn it! The bastards put a mini bomb in his damn head!” Harry bellowed, slamming his fist against the pavement.

“Of course they did,” Wallman sighed, kicking the corpse lightly with his foot, lamenting the extra mountain of paperwork which was now destined for his desk. A demon criminal hostage situation following a robbery attempt with a head bomb for failure? It smelled like big time criminals. “Good luck getting his demon to talk now…” Wallman lamented.

“If you don’t need me, I’m gonna go get myself another burger,” Harry sighed, standing up and wiping the bits of head off of his shirt with a grimace. He hated knowing this wasn’t even one of the top twenty grossest moments of his life since D Day.

“Yeah, go on,” Wallman said, waving him off. Harry waved back, walking away from the scene. He knew the drill. Exorcists were needed when demons were around. When it came time for procedure and paperwork, the regular cops preferred people like Harry to beat feet. They didn’t need him around to constantly remind them they lived in a world of monsters.

“Japan,” Harry said quietly as he marched down the sidewalk, his flannel shirt fluttering slightly in the wind, his body in New York but his mind years ago and thousands of miles away, thinking of the last time he saw a kappa. “Been a lot of places since D Day. None of them stuck in my head like Japan did.”

He looked up into the sky, the sun beating down, remembering another hot day in a different city eight years earlier. Tokyo had still been a mess, recovering from the demon attacks which had ravaged the world, and Harry had taken the opportunity to help with the exorcism efforts as part of a personal world tour he went on. He had expected hell, a place filled with monsters he could barely imagine. He did indeed find those.

He also found Reo Kurosawa.