Part 2

The job started normal enough. The rooster was where things stopped making sense.

Several hours earlier, the sun was sinking over Tateyama as I drove along the coast. I arrived early enough to finish a cigarette near a shrine facing the water, wondering why occultists loved abandoned military installations.

A few minutes later I left the coast behind and headed toward the bunker. It dated back to the war, built as part of the defenses around Tokyo Bay. Trees and vines had mostly swallowed the path leading to it. A metal gate blocked the arched concrete entrance. The public was supposed to stay out. Age, unstable tunnels and the possibility of getting lost made it so only idiots ventured inside. The bureau employed plenty of those.

My orders were simple. Recover Solomon's Band, confirm what the group intended to summon, and prevent both from leaving the site freely.

The folder had included photographs of the suspects, satellite images of the hill and blue prints dating back to 1935. It also contained three pages of warnings about the artifact that was mostly ignored. Cursed objects all seemed to have the same precautions.

The cult called themselves the Children of the New Dawn. On paper it seemed fairly routine. One charismatic lunatic, several wealthy idiots and enough lonely people to do the dirty work. This one had grown out of an online occult image board before graduating into grave robbing, animal sacrifice and eventually breaking into a government storage facility.

I checked the pistol beneath my jacket and stepped out into the night. The sea was out of sight by then, but the breeze made the September air feel closer to winter.

I found the first target about twenty meters inside. He was smoking beside a portable lamp with an automatic rifle hanging from one shoulder and his phone in the other hand. He was too busy scrolling through TikTok clips of half-dressed girls bouncing up and down to hear me approach. I left him beside the wall.

As I went deeper, it became more and more clear that the bunker was not abandoned. Extension cords ran along the floor and portable lamps had been attached to old pipes. Folding tables covered with old books, candles and animal remains were enough proof of who had moved in.

One room had a six-pointed star painted on the wall above some sleeping bags. Hebrew letters had been written around the edges. I went back to the table and looked over the books and assorted papers. I found fragments from several different magical traditions stitched together into one ritual diagram, mostly matching what was painted. Somebody had clearly copied from several sources without understanding the details.

I continued and when I reached an intersection I heard something squawk. A chicken was sitting inside a plastic pet carrier, pecking at the bottom of the cage.

I took one step toward it and the overhead light flickered on so I ducked back to the corner. Someone approached but didn't stay long. From somewhere deeper in the bunker, I heard applause. I drew my pistol, forgot about the chicken and followed the slow, rhythmic clapping.

They had converted the old ammunition chamber into something resembling a shrine, with candles covering most of the floor. Around twenty people stood in a circle wearing robes and painted with what I sincerely hoped was animal blood.

I stayed behind the partially opened blast door as a man took to the center of the circle. I recognized him from the dossier.

Mikami Shun. Forty seven year old former lecturer in comparative religion. Fired officially due to misuse involving school funds. Unofficially, there had also been allegations involving underage girls in Shinjuku.

On the makeshift altar in front of him sat Solomon's Band. It looked significantly more unimpressive in person than the pictures made it seem.

Mikami raised his hands. “We stand at the threshold. We have been taught that mankind is weak because the old powers abandoned us.” He threw the hood over his head. “Tonight we prove that gods, demons and spirits are nothing more than forces waiting to be mastered.”

That was around the moment I slipped the safety off my pistol. Beside the altar sat the chicken. A young man lifted it while another approached with a kitchen knife. The Bureau's oldest translation of the Band's associated text contained one line that had room for interpretation.

“Offer the blood of a living being, and call beyond the veil.”

What exactly counted as a “being” was anyone's guess. Could be human, animal or demon. Hell, maybe even angelic. There were plenty of old texts about gods hating each other and celebrating in their sorrow. These cultists, however, settled on anything alive.

Mikami had doubled down on that and went with the cheapest interpretation available. He wanted to shackle something that gave him power but wasn't prepared to pay much for it.

The chicken struggled in the man's hands. Mikami placed one hand above Solomon's Band and finished the incantation. “By blood freely taken, let that which hears us answer.”

I briefly considered shooting him before the knife came down but thought better of it. Interrupting an active summoning was usually worse than letting an idiot finish it. Magic, despite what media suggested, did not just disappear when the person responsible got shot. Half completed rituals allowed more nefarious entities to find creative ways for them to complete themselves.

Chicken blood ran across the altar and the hexagram on Solomon's Band turned red. The next moment, every candle in the room went out. An emergency lamp went on a few seconds later.

The ritual circle was empty. The cultists stared at the space where something should have been.

Then, from behind the altar, a red comb appeared, followed by a head. The rooster that climbed onto the altar was larger than the chicken they had sacrificed, but not by much. Gold and crimson feathers covered its body, with longer ones at the tail that shimmered strangely.

The rooster looked around the room. Everyone was caught in a mix of shock and confusion. Mikami continued to lead the group. “You have answered our call,” he said.

The bird ignored him.

Someone in the circle whispered, “That's it?”

Another responded, “Maybe it's a familiar.”

Mikami picked up Solomon's Band. “Spirit, by the authority of—”

The rooster crowed. It was loud enough to make everyone cover their ears and dust to fall from the ceiling. Mikami lowered the Band, not as confident as he had been.

I knew the bird. It was Gullinkambi, a Norse rooster who should have been residing in Valhalla.

As hands came away from ears, one of the cultists spoke. “That's it?”

Gullinkambi strutted across the altar, pecked once at the blood pooling beside Solomon's Band and shook its feathers.

“We spent six months preparing for this,” said an older woman near the back.

Mikami glared at her. “The ritual succeeded.”

“You killed a chicken to summon a chicken.”

“A rooster,” someone corrected.

Several of them had begun whispering and I caught pieces of it from behind the door. Someone had sold a house. Another had apparently left his wife.

Mikami raised both hands. “You lack faith because you do not understand what has appeared before us.”

The rooster crowed. The sound bounced off the walls, sending a few to their knees. The rooster crowed again. More hands clamped over ears and heads ducked.

The repeated crowing was annoying but the name Gullinkambi bothered me more. The bird was famous because it was an alarm. When Gullinkambi crowed, something important was supposed to hear it. According to the Vikings, its crow could usher in Ragnarok, the end of the world.

The fourth cry caused the emergency lights to shatter. Someone turned on a flashlight but dropped it with the next crow. The cultists began shouting over it. “You said we'd call something that could give us power!”

“We did,” Mikami shouted back.

“That's a fucking rooster.”

Mikami grabbed Solomon's Band from the altar. “Then perhaps it is a messenger! A herald! Something sent ahead of what we called.”

That quieted them because the thought was more comforting than admitting they'd sacrificed months of work and a chicken to acquire a louder chicken.

Gullinkambi crowed again, then again. The damned thing would not stop. Each call seemed to carry farther than the last, down the sealed corridors of the bunker. The temperature suddenly dropped hard enough for my breath to show. As Gullinkambi crowed, a shadow near the rear wall moved.

I didn’t see what it was but one of the cultists noticed too. “Teacher.”

Mikami was still staring at the rooster with his ears covered.

“Teacher!”

“What?”

The man pointed. A black cloth moved behind the altar, despite the lack of wind from being stuck in a fucking bunker. Gullinkambi finally stopped crowing as every feather on its body flattened. It took one step away from the wall.

A woman's hand emerged through the darkness. Mikami stumbled backward, still clutching Solomon's Band. The cultists who had been ready to turn on him moments earlier crowded together instead. A bare foot touched the concrete floor as a woman seemingly stepped out of the wall.

She was beautiful enough that a room full of terrified cultists briefly forgot to run. Her attention moved across the chamber, found Gullinkambi and stopped. “Which one of you,” she asked, “owns that fucking bird?”

* * *

“Wait.”

Hecate's voice pulled me back into Interview Room Four. She had finally taken the chair sometime during my explanation, though she sat in it like it was a throne.

“What?”

Her eyes narrowed. “They were not trying to summon me.”

I thought back over what I witnessed. “No, not in particular.”

“You said they wanted a powerful entity.” Her fingers slowly dug into the armrest.

“They got what they summoned.”

Hecate stared at me. “It was impossible to get any sleep with that fucking bird’s incessant squawking.”

“Blame the Norse for training it poorly.”

“You are telling me those insects did not even know who I was.” Hecate leaned back in the chair. The Band around her throat pulsed red.

Watanabe tapped his pen against the report. “You entered the bunker because a rooster woke you?” Hecate gave him a death stare. He stopped tapping. “Continue, Kazuma.”