The Price of Power

Midoriko rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up by her elbows. “So, what about you? I bet you treat sex like a weapon.”

“If I said yes, would that make you feel jealous?” he asked with a smirk.

“Hmm…Not really. Why would I be jealous of anyone from your past?” she lied. It did make her feel a little inadequate to imagine how many gorgeous women he must have bedded during his life as a criminal.

“Hmph. Is that so?” He raised an eyebrow incredulously. “Well, since you asked… I’ve been with plenty of women, but I’ve never allowed myself to get close to any of them. You’re the first.”

Midoriko felt a little embarrassed by how much that little statement made her heart throb. She tried to play it off. “W-well…I guess that makes sense…”

“It’s also been a while since I was last with someone like this,” he said, sheepishly. Ryouma held up his cursed hand. “The worse this got, the harder it was to explain away. Hard to keep it covered, even harder to convince people it was a tattoo.”

Midoriko laughed as she suddenly remembered something her mother used to always say to her. Whenever she’d ask about her father, her mother would just shake her head and say, “Stay away from flashy men…Especially the ones with tattoos.”

“What’s so funny?” Ryouma pouted.

“Nothing. I just remembered something my mom always used to say,” she said, smiling. “What were your parents like?”

“They loved each other so, so much. And they loved me even more.”

“That sounds nice…” She nuzzled her face into his chest and listened to his heartbeat.

“Midoriko, do you remember the movie we saw together?” he asked softly.

“Hm? I do…” Why was he bringing that up randomly? Did he want to talk about it? “You know, I looked it up afterward because I was curious as to how that movie got such a cult following.”

“What did you find out?”

“Well, I realized that the director’s name—Nishie Hiromasa—had popped up in my research on curses in the past. Did you know there are urban legends about his death online? People claim that his entire family was killed by a curse,” she explained.

Ryouma grew quiet, and his heart started to beat faster. When Midoriko tried to lift her head to look at his face, he pressed her back into his chest.

“Ryouma…?”

“Midoriko…” His voice sounded choked, just barely above a whisper. “Nishie Hiromasa was my father.”

What…? Her eyes widened in surprise.

“That was his stage name,” Ryouma explained. He swallowed hard, then continued. “His real name was Enishi Masahiro. The movie we saw was the last one he made before he died. My mother was the lead actress…”

A curse that killed his parents, his own curse, and a cursed grimoire that taught him magic. She could read between the lines. The urban legends had a grain of truth to them—Enishi Ryouma was living proof of that.

“Will you…tell me about it?”

***

The Enishi family flitted about the dark green metal boxes along the Seine River, browsing each Bouquinistes wares. As collectors of antiques and oddities, Ryouma’s parents were looking for something unique to add to their collection—he was just along for the ride. While they browsed vintage erotica at one stall, the bashful teenage Ryouma quietly slipped away to another.

Many of the stalls were overflowing with books and prints on display, but they were organized. The one Ryouma found himself at was completely stuffed with books to the point where he wondered how the seller even managed to close the metal box at the end of the day.

There were all kinds of books—novels, encyclopedias, anthologies, religious texts—in many different languages. Everything seemed to range from extremely old and delicate to slightly old and worn. Among them, a tattered, leather-bound tome wrapped in a newer leather strap caught Ryouma’s eye.

“Young man, that one is not for sale,” barked a deep, gravelly voice as Ryouma reached for the book.

He pulled his hand away and whipped his head around for the source of the voice. A previously unseen old European man smoking a pipe sat on a stool in front of the booth. How had he not noticed him before?

“How come?” Ryouma asked, looking back and forth between the old man and the book.

“It’s cursed, lad,” the man scoffed. Puffs of smoke escaped the corners of his mouth as he spoke. “Can’t go selling a cursed grimoire to some poor, unsuspecting sap.”

“Then why the hell is it even here?” he muttered bitterly under his breath. As he moved on to browsing the other books, Ryouma realized the man had been speaking fluent Japanese with him. “Hey–! You speak Japanese?!”

“I speak every language, lad.”

“No way! How?!”

The old man said nothing—he just tapped the allegedly cursed book.

“Tch! You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” grumbled Ryouma. He gestured between the old man and the book. “First, you say it’s cursed, now you say it taught you how to speak every language? Do you think I’m some gullible little kid?”

“I do,” said the old man, bluntly.

Ryouma’s eye twitched. This old man was doing this because he didn’t want to sell him the book—probably thought a kid like him didn’t have money. He’d call his bluff.

“Look, old man, I’ll have you know that I don’t believe in curses!” Ryouma puffed himself up in an attempt to look more mature. “In fact, I’ll pay double the asking price for that book.”

The old man wore an unreadable expression as he puffed on his tobacco pipe. After a moment, he asked, “Are you a sorcerer, lad?”

“A sor– Wha?!” Was the old man actually just crazy? Whatever, he’d play along. “Yeah! That’s right, I’m a sorcerer!”

“Your reaction tells me that is false,” the old man retorted without skipping a beat. “The price of that book is extremely steep. You can’t afford it.”

“Hey! What gives?! I have money! Just sell me the book!” Ryouma whined, stomping his foot. Whenever he was told he couldn’t have something, it only made him want it more.

“Oh my! Look at all these old books!” exclaimed Mrs. Enishi. His parents had made their purchase at the other shop and wandered to where their son was.

“Is my son giving you a hard time?” Mr. Enishi asked in English, clapping his hand on Ryouma’s back.

“Not at all, sir!” the old man answered in Japanese, jumping up from his stool. He began eagerly trying to sell books to Ryouma’s parents as they fawned over his impressive language skills.

When the man wasn’t looking, Ryouma quietly slipped the old grimoire into his tote bag and moved on to another stall.

***

“What’s that book?” asked Ryouma’s mother as he set the stolen grimoire on a desk at their old-fashioned, Parisian hotel room.

“I bought it from that antique bookseller from earlier,” he lied. It wasn’t his first time stealing—he’d been quietly stealing from his classmates since elementary school. He could do it without remorse and lie effortlessly.

At first, he would borrow something and gaslight the owner about having returned it to them after they’d inevitably ask for it back. Then it evolved into snatching things out of their bags and desks. He’d gotten so good at his sleight of hand that he could steal something while talking to someone without them even realizing it.

He was wealthy. There was no reason for him to steal, but something compelled him to do so. The fact that he hadn’t been caught yet kept feeding the habit.

“Well, don’t stay up too late. We have an early flight tomorrow,” his mother said, yawning. She retired to the adjoining room of their suite, leaving the young Ryouma alone with his spoils.

He sat down to examine it. The leather was rough and patchy on the book’s cover, and the spine was cracked and fragile from repeated use. Ryouma took great care in unbuckling the leather belt holding the book closed.

His heart pumped in his chest as he opened the delicate book—a combination of the thrill he got from successfully stealing as well as the fear of damaging something so old. The pages were made of textured paper, yellowed with age, blemished by stains and scorched edges. He carefully turned each page to examine its contents.

“What…is all of this…?”

It was full of page after page of diagrams, sigils, and drawings. It reminded him of the illuminated manuscripts he saw in a museum. All of it was completely hand-drawn and written in a language he didn’t recognize. Strangely, as Ryouma looked at more and more of it, he began to understand everything.

He landed on a page with a large magic circle drawn on it. Rust-colored streaks stained the paper at the center of the magic circle. The notes written on the page simply said: Offering required for exchange of power.

“Power…?” Ryouma pondered outloud. As he went to turn the page to examine the book further, a sharp edge of the paper nicked his finger. “Ouch.”

He unconsciously brought the finger to his mouth to suck on the papercut, then stopped himself. Ryouma looked at the small drop of blood collecting at the cut, then at the magic circle.

It was clear that the stains on the page were from drops of blood, but what was meant by ‘exchange’? Would offering his blood initiate some kind of magical pact that gave him power? He smirked as he dragged his bleeding finger across the magic circle, leaving a fresh, red streak on the page.

And then… Nothing happened. There was no crash of lightning, no flickering of lights, no surge of mysterious power through his veins.

“This is so stupid…” he mumbled, flipping the book closed. Ryouma laughed at his own stupidity—he was entering high school soon, there was no reason to get excited over juvenile bullshit like a book of spells.

He let out a big yawn before crawling into bed. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought about the book once more. That old man was full of shit. That book is probably a hoax he made to trick people. Probably has a bunch of ‘em…

***

Ryouma woke up to the muffled sounds of an alarm ringing in the adjoining room of the hotel suite where his parents slept. The sun hadn’t even risen yet. He cursed the early return flight his parents booked under his breath.

I’ll just wait until Mom forces me to get up, thought Ryouma as he pulled the blankets over his head. But as he lay there trying to catch ten more minutes of shut-eye, he realized the alarm was still going.

Clicking his tongue, he dragged himself out of bed and to the suite’s adjoining room where his parents slept. He knocked first, then entered when he got no response.

“How can you two just stand to listen to this?” he grumbled, turning the alarm clock off himself.

There was no response or reaction from either of his parents. He furrowed his brows as he looked at them. They couldn’t have slept through that. There’s no way they’re still sleeping…

With the sound of the alarm clock off, the room became eerily silent. Ryouma could hear his own increasing heart rate. The hair on the back of his neck stood up on end.

He reached a trembling hand out as he called to his parents. “Mom…? Dad…?”

In each other’s arms, his mother and father appeared to sleep peacefully, but they were already ice cold.