[The End of Osamu Ashikaga]: Puppetmaster

The order to expel all humans from Minavere, save for Taeko and Manami, only served to deepen the divide between those loyal to Osamu, and those in league with Johan. The next day, the vampires of the east end took to the streets with megaphones, signs, and a fire in their hearts. Thousands upon thousands of people flooded the streets of Yakutsk as they marched towards the west end.

In their eyes, Minavere had quickly become a fascist state, just as Johan and the United Pacifist Party feared it would. The mistakes of the Second Great Holy War had become refreshed and renewed in their minds. The actions of their king and queen echoed the same ultranationalist and dictatorial aggression that Lord Dracula once displayed long ago, shortly before his war led to his nation’s downfall.

After having their human neighbors, friends, and lovers ripped from their arms, the people of the east end mobilized to make their rejection of fascism and global genocide heard. But the closer they got to the west end, the more counter-protestors they encountered until the sea of people from the east came dangerously close to the sea of people from the west.

The only thing standing between them were the Yakutsk police and the Minavere National Guard. The two organizations cordoned off three street blocks with barbed trestles to keep the two sides at bay. The armed troops and barricades didn’t stop both sides from hurling insults and accusations at each other. Flags bearing peace signs and the symbol of the Sakha Republic were hoisted skyward on the east while Vampirical Monarchy flags were risen in counter-protest on the west.

News crews reported on the enormous gathering of divided people, broadcasting it all across the Sakha Republic. Combined with the exile of tens of thousands of humans from Yakutsk, it was inevitable that the rest of Russia would soon know that the vampires had taken over the city and its armed forces for themselves. The world would soon realize that there was a new, sovereign nation around, and Osamu Ashikaga was its king.

An army of cameramen and news reporters swarmed the front of the Scarlet Senate and bombarded Senators Balakin and Yana with question after question. The press wanted to know if the Scarlet Senate had any hand in authorizing the expulsion order, if they knew just how many people had been whisked away, and if Minavere would negotiate with Osamu to end the deportations.

While Balakin and Yana served as the bulwark against the press, Hannes searched in every corner and every office in the building for Johan. Every door he opened yielded a glance at an empty room with empty chairs and closed blinds. There was only one place he hadn’t thought to check; the men’s bathroom.

He opened the bathroom door and saw Johan slumped against the wall, holding his head in his hand. Several bloodied tissues lied around the tiled, turquoise floor.

“Are you okay?” Hannes asked.

“I saw him again.” Johan said. “I saw the devil and his dogs, and his barbed wire”

Hannes aimed an inquisitive gaze at Johan before extending his hand and putting a warm smile on his face. “Let’s get out of here. There are no dogs. No barbed wire. No devils. It’s just us and the world we live in. It’s all about what we make of it.”

Johan looked up at Hannes like a sullied sinner looking up at his savior. His reassuring smile and warm voice was like sunlight breaking through the dark clouds in Johan’s mind. He took his hand and left the bathroom with him, stepping back out into the locomotive halls of the senate building. The ear-piercing ringtones of dozens of office phones rang out from the opened doors of each office as every senator drowned in calls from the media, business partners, and family members.

“Balakin and Yana are doing their best with the press.” Hannes said. “Everyone’s asking questions the senators don’t know how to answer.”

Suddenly, a young, blonde girl turned the corner and perked up when she spotted Johan and Hannes. “Ah, Johan!”

“Yes?” Johan said.

“You have an urgent call waiting for you in your office! Do you want to take it?”

Hannes and Johan exchanged worried glances, the latter composing himself and taking a deep breath.

“I’ll answer it.” Johan said. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Curious to hear what the urgent call was about, Johan and Hannes rushed back to the office and shut the door behind them. Johan sat on the edge of his mahogany desk, crossed his legs, and picked up the telephone.

“This is Johan speaking.”

A woman’s voice spoke back to him from the other end. “This morning, the bodies of three-hundred people were discovered in a mining tunnel fifty-eight kilometers south of Yakutsk. A few dozen more were found drowned in the Lena river. All of them were stripped naked and forced out into the elements. One of those people lived under the alias Katya Lobov. She was one of our agents.”

Johan pinched the bridge of his nose and looked out of the window. “Listen…”

“Before she died, she had just sent us her weekly report. She told us of a revolution taking place in Yakutsk, that the vampires were suddenly cheering in the streets and waving monarchy flags. She told us the Yakutsk Lord put a new king and queen in power. Osamu Ashikaga and Hima Chinagaregawa, the man who promised to destroy the world, and a woman claiming to be the heiress of Dracula himself.

“She had been watching you, too. You met face-to-face with Osamu and Hima, yet you reported nothing to us. I don’t know what’s going through your head, but the President takes your silence as betrayal.”

Johan sat at the little round table off in the corner of the room, pouring himself a glass of Scotch whiskey as the conversation went on.

“Wait!” Johan shouted. “I couldn’t let you know right away. If Osamu or Hima were targeted right after meeting with me, it would’ve been like admitting to everyone that their suspicions are true. It would’ve turned the entire population against us. Right now, the people are divided. This is what you old Soviets are good at, isn’t it? Agitation?”

“We don’t have time for agitation and propaganda campaigns. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but Japan is being flattened by monsters and the world’s leaders are trying to figure out what to do about the armada of demons racing towards our shores. If Osamu Ashikaga is working together with Dracula’s heiress, then he needs to be stopped immediately. Millions of people are dying because of him, Johan.”

“If we’re careless, it would mean the end of my race. We’d be completely wiped out in the event Yakutsk is assaulted.”

“You have quite the nerve to complain about the end of your race while you harbor the man that is slaughtering my own. Russia will take matters into its own hands. If stopping Osamu and Hima means eliminating the vampire race, then so be it. It’s a negligible price to pay to save humanity.”

“As it stands, we vampires are the only ones capable of stopping him. He wiped out the allied forces at Fukuoka, the exorcists, and even the Shinto gods. Russia’s might alone won’t be enough, not without my help.”

“The pieces are already in motion. Two days ago, the world’s leaders gathered for a summit in Copenhagen to discuss what to do about the approaching horde. They all came to an agreement. Every nuclear power is transporting submarines and ICBM’s along the southern coasts of Asia and the eastern coasts of Africa.

“They’re going to fire everything they have at those monsters. If that fails, then the human race is truly done for. But while that’s in motion, Russia will take every measure possible and spare every resource to ensure that Osamu is stopped. Nothing you say will deter us.”

The woman hung up the phone. Johan sat in stunned silence, slowly putting the phone down on his desk. Despite his best efforts, he found himself facing the very grim reality that his people would meet a violent end in a battle between Russia and Minavere.

He needed to act, and his upcoming meeting with Osamu would be the perfect opportunity to do so. It was clear that the situation in a Minavere was unsalvageable. Conflict and death were simply unavoidable. Minavere would either tear itself apart in a civil war or be crushed by the world’s armies.

“Moscow, I presume?” Hannes asked.

“The genocide has them panicked.” Johan said with a heavy sigh. “They’re going to move on their own, regardless of what I say.”

“I guess they see no further use in you.”

“What are you trying to say?” Johan shouted.

Hannes stood up, putting on a nervous and innocent smile. “Please, I’m not saying that you’re useless, just trying to understand what Moscow is thinking. Relax, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“How can anyone relax with everything that’s going on? Osamu and Hima are undoing all that we worked for. Now Moscow may come and hang us all.”

Hannes marched over to Johan’s desk and extended the bottle of whiskey towards him. Johan was taken aback at first, then scoffed at the gesture.

“You know damn well I don’t drink anymore.” Johan said.

Hannes retracted the bottle, sticking it into his overcoat pocket instead. “Very well, but maybe you’ll appreciate it once we step outside. Why don’t we head out the back and enjoy some fresh air? We won’t figure anything out in this stuffy little office. Besides, I don’t quite feel safe here knowing your windows are street-facing.”

“The national guard the SSK are surrounding the area. It’s not like we can go far.”

“We don’t need to go far. We simply need to go out.”

The fate of Minavere weighed heavily on Taeko’s mind just as much as it weighed upon Johan’s. Unable to sleep, she dragged her feet down to the bar on the first floor of the hotel, hoping some quiet and spirits would help her calm down. Though she was expecting to be alone, it seemed Carmilla and Nastasia had the same idea.

They waved at Taeko and she waved back, walking over to the bar to sit with them. The dim, wall-mounted sconces shined against the oak liquor shelves and mahogany bar, bouncing a warm, brown glow back into their faces. A playlist of Frank Sinatra songs played over the speakers at a quiet volume, creating just the relaxing ambience Taeko needed to think.

“Welcome back to Yakutsk, Taeko.” Nastasia said. “Now we have all the Yakutsk lords back in one place. I hope there are no hard feelings about what happened.”

“You guys didn’t know what Osamu was planning either.” Taeko said, putting her arms on the bar and laying her head down on them. “It’s not like I can’t see why you’d support it. Let’s just agree to disagree. We all still want Minavere to thrive, anyway.”

“Hard to believe you’ve only been gone a few days.” Carmilla said, putting down her glass of red wine. “So much has happened already. So much has yet to happen still. I hear Osamu’s called for another meeting with Johan?”

“Yeah, we’ll be heading to the Scarlet Senate building tomorrow.” Taeko said as Nastasia poured her a glass of wine. “Osamu might have grand plans for the world but his execution is getting more and more reckless. He was lucky to get out of Fukuoka alive, and now he’s going to put himself right into the heart of the east end while tensions are soaring. I don’t understand why he would cause such an upset and then go into the lion’s den while everyone’s up in arms.”

“Well…” Nastasia said, pointing at the television hanging overhead. “It seems to me he’s deliberately set things up that way.”

The television showed live footage of the Minavere National Guard putting up barricades on major streets to block off the advance of protestors. At first, Taeko thought nothing of it. It was standard procedure for maintaining peace at protests. As the broadcast cut to aerial footage of the Scarlet Senate building, however, Taeko realized what Nastasia meant.

All of the barricades, trestles, and checkpoints were set up in a way to completely isolate the Scarlet Senate building from the chaos. To ensure the safety of the senators, the Yakutsk Police and Minavere National Guard worked together to form a perimeter not just around the building itself, but around an entire four block radius. Meanwhile, the SSK had set up positions on rooftops around the perimeter to keep an eye on both the protestors and the senators.

“Osamu had already decided he was going to issue the expulsion order before he met with Johan the first time.” Nastasia said. “I’m sure he knew what would happen as a result. Now he’s using the chaos as the perfect excuse to flood the east end with troops and lock the senators in. Whatever he’s going to do, he’s already set things up so he could be protected and isolated.”

“Then that just leaves the question…” Taeko said. “What’s Osamu really planning to do now?”

Meanwhile, Osamu met with Hima and Annabel on the rooftop of the hotel. He leaned against the railings as the ice-cold breeze combed through his wavy, voluminous hair. The city lights and the aurora borealis above sparkled brilliantly in the darkness, like a jeweled mask hiding the ugliness beneath. The distant shouts and chants of protestors and counter-protestors mixed into a muddled, dissonant ambiance.

Hima leaned her back against the railing, looking towards the eldritch eclipse looming over the frozen lands of Siberia. “Looks like we made the right call expelling the humans. That Katya Lobov girl was an FSB spy. The SSK are still going through her belongings, but from what little we’ve recovered already, we know she was in contact with Moscow. Chances are that Russia already knows everything about us.”

“It really doesn’t seem like time is on our side…” Annabel said. “The world is going to rush to kill us all.”

“That’s why finding out who Johan really is is so important.” Osamu said. “Let’s arrange for the SSK to escort us to the senate building in separate cars. We’ll only draw attention to ourselves if we take the black SUV’s.”

“What about the roundups?” Annabel asked.

“Continue them.” Osamu said. “It’s good that we killed that Katya Lobov girl, but I doubt she was the only spy here. We’ll exile anyone who hasn’t already fled the city. The more chaos in the streets, the more of an excuse I have to flood the place with troops.”

“I just really hope you guys know what you’re doing.” Annabel said with a worried sigh. “One wrong move…”

“We know.” Hima said. “But the same goes for Johan and the rest of the world right now. One wrong move and they might just end up losing everything. They’re going to be putting their best foot forward to destroy us. Let us do the same for them.”

While Hima and Osamu planned their next move, Hannes and Johan took a stroll through the snaking back alleys of the west district. The sounds of sirens blared up and down the streets outside, accompanied by distant shouts, chants, and screams. While the city drowned in a political hellscape, Hannes seemed to remain as calm as ever, so much so that Johan began to wonder if he truly understood how grave the situation was.

“I think we’ve had enough fresh air.” Johan said, Hannes walking ahead of him. “We need to get back and figure out what we’re going to do.”

Hannes stopped and turned to face Johan, his hands behind his back. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. You soldiers never know how to stop and smell the coffee. It’s quit depressing, actually.”

“My soldiering days are far behind me.” Johan scoffed.

“Is that so?” Hannes asked. “The people admire you and your military background. You shouldn’t go dismissing that part of yourself. You owe everything you have to your past as a soldier.”

“Don’t say that, Hannes.”

“There really is nothing like a good war story.” Hannes continued. “War is a thing very few people truly understand. That makes it easy to turn a war into a fairy tale. With the right lie, you can transform the horror of war into something so sterile you could recite it to a child. If I recall, you told the public you were a veteran of the Second Great Holy War and fought against Japan’s Exorcist Program. Most of your unit was killed in the conflict and you returned home embittered and disillusioned by Dracula’s limitless ambition.”

“That’s true, yes.” Johan responded. “I drank to cope with it all. I was messed up bad and I was about to die. I had no choice but to turn my life around and clean up my act.”

“And henceforth, you began your career as a politician to help your people mend the wounds of the past.” Hannes said, leaning against the back wall of the restaurant behind him. “It’s a truly inspiring story, but in the end, that’s all it is, isn’t it?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Johan questioned with slight anger in his tone. “I gave the Old Kingdom everything I had. I fought for Dracula, I buried my friends for him, and when I saw what a madman he became, I backed away. What I suffered wasn’t a fairy tale.”

Hannes took out the bottle of whiskey he had stashed in his overcoat pocket earlier. He set it on top of the trash bin next to him, turning the label so that it looked Johan right in the face. “No, that part isn’t the lie. Rather, the lie is about when you started drinking and when you stopped. After the Old Kingdom fell, millions of vampires scattered across the world to seek refuge and avoid persecution at the hands of humans. Some obvious places to go were Russia, Hungary, and Romania.

“I had a feeling something was amiss, ‘Johan’. Funnily enough, I discovered you were very well-acquainted with the Dragavei family. They had fled the Old Kingdom far before it fell and returned to their native homeland in Romania. Nowadays, they’ve changed their name to the Kozlovs, and I just so happen to know a boy named Anton Kozlov. He likes to play in the park with his friends after school. He really loves caramel candies, so much so that he’ll do almost anything I ask for one.”

Hannes noticed the sweet staining Johan’s collar. Johan suddenly went pale as he loosened his tie and swept his hair back.

“They took me in after the kingdom fell.” Johan said. “I had known them for centuries and they were kind enough to look after me until I got back on my feet.”

Hannes smiled as he continued. “Cezar Dragavei did much more than just take you in. He recruited you. Lăncile de Onix. Sound familiar? You co-founded the group along with Cezar in 1899. It started out as a brotherhood of two dozen men, all of them veterans from the Old Kingdom. By 1915, it grew into quite a significant group of twenty-five hundred vampires, all of them devoted to the Dragavei family’s nationalist cause. Cezar was the commander and financier. You were his captain.”

“Please…that’s enough.” Johan said, his breaths growing shallow.

“The Armenian Genocide prompted thousands of Armenians to flee to Romania. Some of them were being sheltered in a camp in Vlașca, the same region as the Dragavei estate. You tried to help them. You tried to erase your hatred of humanity. Perhaps you were having second thoughts about the restorationist movement.

“But little did you know that your beloved Anna would be coming along to help. I can’t imagine the agony of being so infatuated with someone, but rejected at every turn. I saw the photographs of her. Anna was as beautiful as you were passionate. I’m sure it started off as an innocent advance, didn’t it? And when she pulled away from you, you tried desperately to make her understand, but she refused to hear any of it. The rejection, the despair, it must’ve been maddening …”

“Stop it!” Johan screamed, his pupils dilated and his face coated in a slick sheen of sweat.

Hannes took four, slow, plodding paces towards the panicking Johan, pulling out a photocopied image of Anna Dragavei from his coat pocket. The sepia-tinted photo showed a beautiful, blonde girl with her hair tied into a neat bun, emerald necklaces adoring her neck, and a beautiful, frilly dress that reached down to her ankles. At seventeen years of age, she had all the beauty of Aphrodite and the allure of a sea of diamonds.

Hannes dropped the photo onto Johan’s lap, drawing tears from his eyes.

“No one ever came forward for what happened.” Hannes said, his smile replaced by a deathly ominous glare. “And as a result, forty-three Armenians were shot in a blind act of revenge. But hey…as long as it wasn’t you, right? Because you were a soldier, you had a mission, and you had a service to render your people. Is that right? I wonder what vicious lies you told yourself to bury this. Did you think the Armenian refugees probably would’ve done it to her anyway? Did you tell yourself it was them all along, lying to yourself until you fully believed it? Did you really think such a heavy sin could ever be wiped away?”

Hannes grabbed the bottle of whiskey off of the garbage can. “It’s no wonder you tried so hard to find Anna’s phantom at the bottom of every bottle. Becoming the politician you are gave you a new lease on life. It gave you a purpose to strive for. You were a soldier, after all. Deep down, you have a natural drive to fight for something, and when the fighting stops, that’s when it all goes to hell.

“It’s time to remember who you truly are. The name Johan Sommers…is too beautiful a name to ever be carried by someone as horrid as you. And yet, you borrowed it anyway. You ran off with its legacy and claimed it as your own. After all these years, it seems you truly believed your own lies. Today…I’m going to ask for that name back.”

In an instant, Hannes’s messianic aura twisted and contorted into the miasma of the Grim Reaper himself. Instead of radiating light and warmth, he exuded a cold so frigid it burned like fire, and a darkness so deep that even the sun could never hope to penetrate it. Anything alive would surely die in Hannes’s shadow, and anything dead would be brought back to life and made to die again.

His words cut the soul into pieces like a saber, but his tone remained as calm and soft as ever. He had no need to yell, no need to put on an act to make himself seem bigger. Hannes was omnipresent, lurking in the corners of every mind and in the shadows of all who lurked on the earth. Johan realized in that very moment that his right-hand man, his partner in his political endeavors, knew everything about him from the start.

Hannes’s once gentle gaze became a dark abyss that gripped Johan and refused to let him go. It became his coffin, a crucible for his shriveled soul. Hannes extended his hand out, giving the bottle of whiskey to the man he used to call ‘Father’ and ‘Johan’. His right hand reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a pistol loaded with a single bullet.

“How about now, ‘Johan’?” Hannes asked. “Care for a drink?”

Lost in a dark labyrinth of back alleys with Hannes, Johan found his past vices, violence and alcohol, were now his only friends. No one saw Johan for the rest of the day. No one heard from him and he didn’t answer any of his calls or text messages.

The next day, insults and chants between protestors and counter-protestors escalated into rocks, glass bottles, and bricks. Senator Yana watched from her office window as police cars raced down the street with their sirens blaring, rushing toward the rising pillar of black smoke a few blocks in the distance. Senator Balakin watched the news in his office, pouring himself a glass of vodka as footage of protestors beating each other with clubs and throwing rocks at the police covered the television screen.

Taeko thought long and hard about the situation engulfing Minavere as four SSK agents escorted her out of their gray sedan and up the steps of the Scarlet Senate. She figured that Osamu must’ve known that his actions would cause a dangerous chain reaction that would alert Russia and the rest of the world to what he was doing. Manami thought he had bitten off more than he could chew, but Taeko knew Osamu for the devil he had become. This was deliberate, but for what purpose, she didn’t know.

Instead of being led to Johan’s office, the SSK led her the outdoors dining area, where all the tables were left unseated, save for one. Yana sat cross-legged with a steaming cup of tea in beside her, staring up at the emerald waves swirling in the benighted sky. Hima, Osamu, and Annabel were there as well, standing on opposite of Yana. To Taeko’s surprise, Johan was nowhere to be seen.

“This isn’t what we came here for.” Osamu said with a biting tone. “Where did Johan go? What could be more important than meeting with his king?”

Yana’s face was stained with dried tears. Her eyes were stuck open with devastated awe. “Johan…was found dead just ten minutes ago. His secretary found him in the alleyway with a bottle of whiskey beside him.”

Osamu and the others almost thought Yana was pulling some sort of sick joke on them, but the shock and horror in her eyes were very real. When he realized she was serious, Osamu sat down at the table and leaned in closer to Yana.

“She said it looked like he shot himself in the mouth.” Yana cried. “But I don’t understand. There was still so much work to be done.”

“Did Johan…have any mental issues?” Osamu asked.

“He would have nightmares and hallucinations sometimes, but he said his sleep medication often helped him with that.” Yana explained. “I don’t know if he had any other problems.”

“Oh shit…” Annabel gasped. “I’ll have the SSK secure the scene so we can move his body.”

“Please do.” Hima said with a nod. “We should investigate this. Taeko, please go with Annabel and take a look at the scene. Osamu and I need to handle some business with the Scarlet Senate.”

“Very well.” Taeko replied. “Just what the hell is going on here…”

Annabel and Taeko ran back inside the senate building and raced down the halls towards the rear exits where Johan would’ve gone to access the back alleys. Osamu stood from his seat and cast his gaze down upon Yana, who couldn’t muster the spirit to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry for your sudden loss, Yana.” Osamu said. “Sorry as I am, I’m here because the SSK recently intercepted a phone call made to Johan’s office. We have evidence to believe he was in contact with FSB officers in Moscow. We need to know if he had any collaborators in the Scarlet Senate or the United Pacifist Party. To that effect, this building will be on lockdown. Is that clear?”

Too shocked to respond vocally, Yana simply nodded.”

Osamu whistled to one of his SSK agents standing guard in the background. The masked, black-clad agent zig-zagged past the other tables and space heaters to get to Osamu’s table, where he bent over and lent his hear to his king.

“Lock this place down. Arrest all the senators.” Osamu said.

“Right away, Lord Osamu.” the agent responded, standing up straight again and sprinting back inside the senate building. Just as Osamu commanded, he would give the order to his fellow agents, and the SSK would forward that order to the Minavere National Guard.

“Johan told me before that optics is the key to winning any political battle.” Osamu said. “Well, I wonder what Minavere will think once they realize the leader of the United Pacifist Party was collaborating with the FSB.”

Taeko swallowed the lump in her throat and endured a terrible shiver down her spine. Osamu had been slow and methodical with each one of his plans up until that point, but knowing it wouldn’t be long before Russia figured out what was happening Yakutsk, he launched a daring and aggressive attack on the Scarlet Senate, using the chaos he caused with the expulsion order to surround the senate with troops.

Taeko recognized how dangerous Osamu’s move was. It seemed he wanted to arrest the senate now and show the people of Minavere the proof of Johan’s deceit after the fact. With the help of the SSK, he could frame the leaders of the United Pacifist Party for selling Minavere out to Russia. Faced with life in a fascist state versus complete annihilation at the hands of Russia, Osamu knew the people of Minavere would choose to align with him for their survival, if not their loyalty.

When Taeko and Annabel went out into the back alleys, they followed the chatter of SSK radios to find the exact spot where Johan was reported dead. Armed agents stood at every path, making way for Taeko and Annabel. Two medical personnel in blue jackets and white, rubber gloves knelt before the body and checked for Johan’s pulse. They exchanged grim glances and covered lifted the body onto a stretcher, then covered it with a white sheet.

“Wait!” Taeko shouted as she and Annabel rushed towards the medics. “Let me see his face. King Osamu asked us to take a look.”

“King’s orders?” gasped one of the medics. “Very well, then.”

The medic pulled back the sheet, revealing Johan’s face. His pale skin was stained with dried blood that coagulated in and around his mouth, as well as his nostrils and ear canals.

“It really is him…” Taeko said.

“We have confirmation.” Annabel said. “Let Lord Osamu know that Johan Sommers is dead. Until we know for sure his death was a suicide, we’re treating this place as a crime scene. Strip the place of evidence and let’s have a chat with his secretary.”