roaming outside, nearly a dozen humans, all females in various stages of corruption, stood in a loose semicircle in the center of the hall. Hollow eyes in gaunt, sallow faces watched me as I stepped into the middle of the room.
“No summoning circle,” I noted, glancing at the bare floor at my feet.
The head witch eyed me, suspicion and dislike written across her narrow face. “I see you are no stranger to bindings, oni,” she rasped. “True, there is no summoning circle, no words of power to hold you here. Perhaps that would be vital for a novice calling on his first amanjaku, but my coven is no stranger to demons, and I have been dancing with Jigoku for decades. My blood magic is surpassed only by the Master himself.”
“Ah. My mistake. Do continue.”
Pursing her lips, Mistress Sunako raised an arm and her sleeve fell back, revealing a brittle, sticklike limb covered in scars. “Do not attempt anything foolish, demon,” she warned, placing the edge of the knife against her forearm. “I am no fragile lady who swoons and faints at the mere mention of monsters. I have led Lord Genno’s blood coven for half a century. I am not one to be trifled with, and you would do well to remember that.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” I said, and raised both arms. “No trickery from me, mortals. You have my word. I will not move until you are finished.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she drew the blade across her forearm, carving a gash in her papery flesh. Blood oozed, running down her skin, though far more slowly than a normal cut, as if the witch had already used most of the blood in her body. As it started dripping, the witch lowered the dagger and caught the trickle with the blade. As more blood covered the steel, turning it red and shiny, she and the other witches began chanting in low, gravelly voices, words of dark power, fed by the energy of Jigoku.
Still chanting, Sunako lifted the blade, then flung the blood at me. It arced through the air, flared red and turned into glowing chains that wrapped themselves around my arms and chest. For a moment, they burned like molten metal, sizzling against my skin, though there was no smoke and no smell of burning flesh. Then the links seemed to melt into my body, vanishing into skin and muscle, and the chanting came to an end.
I took a deep breath, testing the strength of the witch’s spell, and smiled pleasantly. “Are we finished?” I asked. “Do I have leave to move about the castle now?”
Sunako sniffed and stepped back. “You are free to enter,” she rasped. “Though be warned, while you are within these walls, that binding will prevent you from harming any mortal, be it blood witch, servant or slave. So behave yourself while you are here, demon. We would not want to have to send you back to Jigoku.”
I chuckled and took a single step forward. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?” I asked, and grabbed the witch by the throat.
The chains flared up instantly, searing into my flesh as before, infuriatingly painful as they tried to drag me to the ground, to force me to kneel or prostrate myself at the witch’s feet.
I lifted the human off the ground, watching her eyes bulge and her mouth gasp for air as she clawed at my fingers. “What’s wrong, mortal?” I asked, as the rest of the coven gaped and stared. “I thought your binding was supposed to prevent this type of thing.”
“Release her!” one of the witches cried, raising a bloody hand. I grinned and swung my arm toward her, putting the body of the head witch between us.
“Go ahead and cast one of your spells,” I challenged. “But be sure to kill me on the first try, otherwise I’ll drag this mortal to Jigoku with me.”
“Who…are you?” the head witch choked out. Her other hand, the one not clamped around my own, moved rapidly, bloody fingers twitching as she attempted to cast another spell. I smiled.
“Well, that’s something you should have asked before you started this,” I told her. “If you had, you would have known that binding Hakaimono the Destroyer is a futile endeavor. Many before you have tried and failed. I bow to no one.”
The chains squeezing my arms, chest, legs and neck were quickly becoming intolerable. My whole body felt like it was on fire, and though that