Free The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters by Baku Yumemakura

the girl.” An appalling grin formed to the sides of Iba’s mouth.
    Ishida howled, but the scream came to a sudden stop. The giant, still grasping Ishida’s head, had twisted his neck. There was a horrific snap as Ishida’s head spun backward. His body faced forward, but Ishida’s tearful face stared at the giant’s chest.
    4
    The wind had shifted by nightfall.
    A faint scent of pine merged with the smell of rocks and snow. Biku finished his coffee and replaced the pan. The rabbit roasting in the flames infused the air with a succulent smell. He took a skewer of meat and carried it to his mouth. It was cooked perfectly. He had used little seasoning, only some salt.
    Although it was the beginning of July, the valley’s Rhododendron were still flowering here and there. It was still early summer. Above two thousand meters the desolate, bloody smell of flora and fauna becomes diluted, even in the mountains. All that remains is transparency, an absence of the sense of life desperately feeding off itself. The summer snow was a much better fit for the mountains than blood and mucus.
    The firelight flickered over Biku’s pale cheeks. The whiteness of his skin resembled waxwork. The outline of his face was elegantly slender. Under the right circumstances he could easily impersonate a woman, and no other woman would compare. Gay men would either drool over his looks or burn with jealousy. To call him beautiful would be an understatement, Biku’s handsomeness was otherworldly, there was something darkly bewitching about him as the orange firelight reflected in his glistening, dark pupils.
    He watched the flames and waited, confident that Hosuke Kumon would find him. He had set up camp where he found the rabbit snared in a trap. He was eating the rabbit. I wonder how he’ll react. Biku felt a strange anticipation. Whenever you’re ready. Biku was fully prepared.
    He sat in the center of a Sacrosanct Barrier, a circular area with a ten-meter radius. Biku had evoked it himself, leaving strands of his hair at the four cardinal points around him, north, south, east and west, each exactly ten meters away from the center. The hairs functioned as anchor points surrounding Biku in something like a spider web of psychic energy. Biku would be alerted the moment someone crossed it.
    He sat, biding his time as the wind whistled through the darkness above the canopy of silver fir. Then, as he reached for another skewer of rabbit, Biku noticed something--a figure standing in the darkness to his right. He felt a sudden chill of fear, but it dissipated almost as soon as it arrived. He had perceived a sudden assault of tremendous lethal energy. It seemed to originate from the shadowy figure, but he immediately recognized it as his own. Whatever this shadow was, it had deflected Biku’s energy back. He had literally jumped at his own shadow. This tiger had caught him off guard.
    The dark figure just stood there. It had not been there when Biku had arrived. The figure had somehow managed to penetrate this far into the psychic web without touching it. Why couldn’t I sense him? The answer was clear. Ahh... Biku nodded to himself. The black figure was to his northeast. The northeast led to the kimon , the gate of the devil. It was the Sacrosanct Barrier’s only flaw. Coming from the northeast there would be a corridor wide enough for a man with his arms spread to cross. The shadowy figure had come directly through the devil’s gate. In order to seal the corridor, Biku needed to place another anchor point, another lock of hair directly at the north-easternmost point of the barrier, in the direction of the devil’s gate, but he had neglected to do so. It was no coincidence that the temple of Enryakuji had been built to the northeast of Kyoto on Mt. Hiei. It was there to protect the Imperial Dynasties from the kimon .
    Even accepting that the barrier Biku had evoked was flawed, it would still take more than mere luck to navigate this far through