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“John!”
John Constantine turned around, letting the crowd part around him. People in Japan were way bloody nicer than those back home, that was for sure. They didn’t shove or curse at him for getting in their way, they just flowed around him like he was a stone in a stream.
He couldn’t see who had called for him, and he was fairly certain that ‘John’ wasn’t a popular name in Kyoto, so he stepped back off the path to see what new evil was probably about to find him. Instead, out of the crowd emerged a beautiful and familiar face.
“Yumi!” He grinned, reaching out to tug the woman into a hug. “How’ve you been, love?”
He remembered Yumi well. He first met the miko on a trip to find the homeland of a samebito he had rescued from a cult. Having a shark person that could cry gemstones was remarkably good for business, but one of the cultists had had a change of heart due to all the mournful tears being shed and reached out to John for help. John set the samebito up in a secluded pond, gave him a week’s worth of meat, and made his way to Japan for answers. He found Yumi at her shrine, a lonely miko who was more than willing to tell him what she knew, and she was able to direct him to the samebito’s likely origin sea. She was beautiful, he put on his most charming mask, and they ended up spending a few heat-filled nights together. Yumi wanted him to stay longer, but he’d only left the samebito a week’s worth of food and he had to leave her behind. She begged him to return, and he promised he would, but life had always had a way of getting away from him, and his promise soon faded to the back of his mind.
Regardless, Yumi clearly remembered him, and hopefully she would be willing to help him again.
“You’ve returned!” She gleefully laughed into his embrace, but there was something strained in the sound.
“Yumi? What is it?” He asked, holding her out to see her face.
Lines of tension framed her jaw. “You have chosen a perfect moment to visit. Someone is casting a curse at my shrine, and I could use your aid.”
John’s eyes narrowed. “Well that’s a handy coincidence. I’ve been cursed, and I’m following the trail right now. Two quid says it ends at your shrine.”
Yumi’s eyes flashed briefly, and she nodded. “I’ll tell you everything I’ve found.”
They went out to eat and discuss what’s been happening over the last few days at Yumi’s shrine. John told her how his health had been deteriorating rapidly over the course of the past week, searing pain piercing straight through his heart without warning each evening, lingering for exactly two hours before passing as abruptly as it came.
“The curse must be cast during the hour of the Ox,” Yumi explained. “Between one and three in the morning. I woke six nights ago to find a straw doll nailed to the sacred tree. Each morning I wake and go to the tree to find it the same. I have tried to catch them to break the curse, but I haven’t seen them.”
John pursed his lips, wishing he had a cigarette.
“We’ll stake out the tree tonight,” he decided, “catch them in the act.”
Yumi nodded, delicately picking at her food.
“I will meet you there,” she said. “I have evening duties to attend to, but I will see you at the hour of the Ox.” She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. “But I have time before I must go…”
John grinned.
***
He stood before the tree at one in the morning and watched the way the paper streamers attached to the rope circling the trunk fluttered in the breeze.
A rustle came from the opposite side of the tree, but before John could take a single step, sharp pain tore through his chest. He gasped, dropping to a knee and fighting to stay conscious. His heart pounded hard in his chest, and he felt like it was burning itself out.
“Oh, John,” he heard, and he lifted his head to watch Yumi round the sacred tree.
She stood tall on geta, a white robe covering her instead of her usual ceremonial clothes, her face painted white, an iron ring around her head with three legs emerging from the top and a burning candle protruding from each one. She wore a mirror around her neck and held a comb in one hand and a hammer in the other. John didn’t know what to call her appearance, but it was clear that she had been the one cursing him all along.
John groaned, the pain in his chest getting worse with every breath.
“Yumi,” he begged, clutching at his heart as if he could stop a heart attack with his bare hands. “Stop.”
“You left me, John,” she told him. “You promised you would be back, you promised me, and then you never showed your face again. I couldn’t find you, not even to tell you that you had left me with children.”
John could feel the way the blood drained from his face. “Kids?” He asked, gaping up at her as she drew closer.
She nodded. “Three little girls. I tried so hard to find you, but no one I knew even recognized your name. I had to go into seclusion and hide from everyone I knew. I delivered with a midwife sworn to secrecy and left them on the steps of a hospital.”
Her smile stretched unnaturally, sharp teeth bared behind painted lips. John watched as her form started to twist, a transformation taking over her and twisting her into something John had never seen before.
John’s mind reeled, another lover he had failed, children he had never known, more lives he’d ruined through thoughtless actions. “Yumi, I’m sorry. Stop this, please.”
Yumi just laughed as she drew close enough to touch. “You deserve this,” she said with a kind smile and a malevolent glee in her eyes, gently stroking his cheek as he gasped for breath and his sight grew dim.
John’s last thought was that he knew she was right.