of the bank, I hear the sound of hammers, the hammers and nails to hide the stains. Down the corridors of the bank, through its doors, the smell of new tatami mats, the new tatami mats to cover the stains. Out in the streets, I see policemen, their hats soaked black and their boots stained white, trampling over our neighbourhood; our neighbourhood cursed and stained by His crime; His crime that poisoned and murdered our neighbourhood. North to South, they are tearing apart the entire city. East to West, twenty thousand detectives searching for the Killer. For clues. Top to bottom. Following up every lead, following up every report. Banging on doors. Every hint, every rumour. Inside and out. Every shadow, every whisper. Upstairs and down. Interviewing and talking. Street after street. Bullying and shouting. House after house. But they do not know. For they cannot know. So I put on my cape. I put on my hat. I go out into the streets. To the houses. To bang on doors. To interview. To help. For I know. I know the face of the Killer. For I have seen His face. In my dreams.
He is here, He is here, He is here again –
He shuffles through the forest, He shuffles through the trees,
for He has brought their carcasses to this place,
here to parade their meat,
their flesh to hang from the branches,
their blood to drip from the leaves,
IN THE oCcULT CITY.
But I am here, I am here, I am also here –
For I am stalking His steps. I am on His trail,
through the forest, through the trees,
for I will bring His carcass to this place,
I will parade His meat,
hang His flesh from the branches,
drip His blood from the leaves,
IN THE oCcULT CITY
IN THE oCcULT CITY, they will burn the dead today. So I walk up Shinobazu-dōri. I come to the Gokokuji Temple. The mass funeral begins at three. These temples are their sanctuaries, their last sanctuaries from Him. For here they are safe, here I am safe. In these temples He cannot see through the smoke, in here He cannot smile His evil smile. Not like in the shrines, the shrines He likes. For the shrines of Tokyo are now evil shrines. Magnets for evil, repositories of evil. The Evil Magick now victorious, the Holy War now lost –
The Holy War which began in 1873 when the Ministry of Religion forbade the practices of all exorcists, faith-healers, fortunetellers and shamans. The War which continued with the 1880 Meiji Criminal Code and its prohibition against our talismanic prayers, and then the Revised Criminal Code of 1908 which further criminalized and imprisoned, ‘Those who spread gossip and wild rumours or false alarms which deceive people. Those who without authority tell fortunes; or who conduct exorcisms and incantations; or who otherwise mislead people by conferring on them things resembling talismans. Those who conduct spells, exorcisms, and incantations for the sick; or who impede medical care by giving amulets and holy water…’ Those like me; Shimizu Kogorō, the Occult-Detective –
But their Holy War, their Crusade against the likes of me, found its bloodiest battlefield in the shrines of Japan. For their War, their Crusade sought to control all the shrines of Japan and destroy any that would resist their Crusade, their control and their codes –
For in their Holy War, in their Crusade, there could only be one winner, only one victor; the unbroken Imperial line, descended from Amaterasu, and enshrined at Ise –
And so began the shrine mergers of 1906 to 1912, and the destruction of the People’s Shrines, the rule of just one shrine per administrative area, and the birth of Yasukuni; Yasukuni –
The centre of the Six Points of His Evil Star…
From 1905 to 1910, the spirits of 88,243 War Dead were forcibly enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo –
88,243 spirits who were thus denied a final repose with their ancestors, forbidden the memorial rites of the Buddhist dead, and robbed of their last return to their homes –
Denying, forbidding and robbing their families of the care and the company of their spirits –
Their spirits imprisoned at Yasukuni in Tokyo, hundreds and thousands of miles from their homes and their families, at Yasukuni, in the oCcULT CITY –
The oCcULT CITY which trembles with the spirits of these restless Dead, the oCcULT CITY which shook with the cries of these imprisoned Dead in 1923, and which trembles now, with so many more dead from so many more wars, and which will shake