64
....Conclusion
There was no evidence of any physical or internal trauma that made Gale fall into a coma. The doctor at Kaiser said that if he didn't know any better, he would say that the coma was self-induced.
That's how the hotel security and the police found her when they busted the door down at the Sheraton. It was a great way to make an impression at our ten-year class reunion. She lay on the floor unconscious while Sherwyn sat on the edge of the bed, looking as if the whole thing was a great inconvenience to him. HPD read him his rights and cuffed him. Before they took him away, Sherwyn looked at me and smirked, "I finally got my dance at the social."Our old classmates crowded around the door and watched as I charged Sherwyn and managed to land an overhand right on the back of his ear before HPD grabbed me and pushed me away. I identified myself as Gale's husband. They were sympathetic, of course, and told me that my priority was to see to my wife's needs. After that, the law would take care of Sherwyn. Unfortunately, gale never came out of that coma, and the law let Sherwyn off the hook because no physical evidence that he'd assaulted her or did anything else existed. All he wanted was the dance he felt cheated out of during high school. As far as the authorities could tell, perhaps Gale did agree to dance with him, but nothing else happened. Ten years after all of that, I'm having my tires changed at Sears, and who just happens to be the guy that's putting the new tires on the rim but Sherwyn Watanabe? I didn't need to work myself up to it because it happened just as naturally as breathing. I grabbed a large tire iron from the trunk of my car and purposefully made a bee-line to my old high school classmate, and swung wide and swift. He saw me at the very last second and managed to move away so that he wouldn't bear the full weight of the blow. However, there was torque enough to gouge out a chunk of flesh out of his cheek. I didn't get to do more damage because Sherwyn took off running to the back office, where he hid in the employee bathroom until the authorities showed up or I went away, whichever came first.
I was hauled in for assault, and the surprise of it all was that Sherwyn didn't press charges. It only meant that he was going to wait for his moment to strike, not that he'd changed his ways. I was let off with a stern warning because I had no prior criminal record, but I didn't walk away completely, Scott free. I had hours of community service I needed to perform. I didn't know that Sherwyn had already been taking his revenge for something so petty all this time.
"How do you mean, Mr. Gushiken?" Boy asked.
"He'd been coming to see Gale at the hospital whenever I wasn't around," I shared. "He'd been telling the staff that he was Gale's brother and that he and I didn't get along, so he asked them not to say anything. The doctor and the nurses said that his presence had no ill effect on Gale, so they didn't see a problem with it. I'm at my wit's end, and short of murdering Sherwyn, I don't know what else to do?"
"You're right," Boy thought for a second. "There's something insidious afoot, but it's so subtle that you really can't place your finger on it."
"My thoughts are the same," Ivan agreed.
"Myself as well," Rita nodded her head. "You can feel it."
"I think I know what this is," Tiny began. "Mister Gushiken, what is your wife's appearance like? Even though she's in a coma, is she pale, sunken cheeks, dark circles around her eyes?" Tiny asked.
"No," I replied. "She's beautiful."
"Thank you, Mr. Gushiken," Boy got up from behind his desk and shook my hand. "I'll get back to you in exactly two days."
~
Sherwyn Watanabe made his appearance at four in the morning at Gale Gushiken's bedside. He moved his chair close and leaned forward, whispering something to himself. He moved his shoulders up to his ears three times in rapid succession. The fourth time was slow and purposeful. Gale's mouth fell open, and from within it came a white mist that floated into Sherwyn's waiting maw. It was only for a few seconds, and Sherwyn got up to leave. "So that's how you've been doing it," Alan Higashi mused.
"It's like a scene from that 1985 movie, Cat's Eye, where the cat sucks the breath out of Drew Barrymore," Piker Teruya hissed. "This is so cool and yet, so bad for you, Sherwyn!"
"I don't know how you managed to slip through the cracks," Boy menaced forward and snatched Sherwyn by his hair with one hand. His other hand he firmly placed on Sherwyn's forehead and began tearing his hair away from his scalp. Then, even before Sherwyn could scream, Boy stuffed a handful of Hanapēpē salt in Sherwyn's mouth and punched him in the sternum. His mouth automatically opened, and his lungs tried to suck in air, but instead, he swallowed the salt. As a result, he began to burn from the inside out. "I'll never tell you who my master is!"
"I have that figured out," Boy scoffed. "It's no longer your concern."
For a second, Boy, Alan, and Piker could see by Sherwyn's facial expression that he was trying to figure out a way to warn his master that they two had been found out. His only option was to scream it out, but he never got the chance. So instead, Alan released his katana from the saya giving the gyaku kesa upward diagonal cut to the right, severing Sherwyn's head from his body. Piker gathered up the head and wrapped it in a blessed cloth, and secured it in his backpack. Boy and Alan carried the body and followed Piker down a flight of stairs where the carcass was eventually burned at a nearby incinerator.
~
"Mr. Gushiken," Boy looked across his desk at his client. "Everything is taken care of; Sherwyn Watanabe is no longer a problem."
"Really?" Mr. Gushiken seemed to be genuinely surprised. "How so?"
The office door opened at that moment, and two men of different appearance and characters walked in. They both stood off to either side of the older Hawaiians seated just off to the side of Boy. "Do you know these two men?"
"No," Mr. Gushiken replied. "I can't say I do."
"Off to my right is Alan Higashi, and over here to the left is Piker Teruya," Boy gestured at the two men with an open palm, being mindful not to point at them.
"Nice to meet the both of you," Mr. Gushiken nodded. "What do they do?"
"They work for me down at the docks, but their main occupation is that they are vampire hunters," Boy confirmed.
"I'm sorry?" Mr. Gushiken was confused, and a bit took aback. "Vampire hunters?"
"It's a long, sordid story, but Vampires don't have a long shelf life in Hawai'i, but one managed to slip past us," Boy chuckled, as did everyone else. "Sherwyn Watanabe was its familiar, he was the psychic eyes and ears for whoever the master vampire was, but we took care of that."
Piker took the backpack off his shoulders, peeled back the top, and carefully dumped the contents on Boy's desk. Out rolled the head of Sherwyn Watanabe. "OH MY GOD!!!" Mr. Gushiken recoiled in horror and began screaming uncontrollably.
"You can cut the act," Rita rose from her chair and removed a swordfish bill knife from the inside pocket of her coat, as did Tiny and Ivan. "According to our findings, there was never, ever a Carl Gushiken who attended Waipahu High School."
"Your story was really Sherwyn Watanabe's story, who was the one invited to the high school social and met and fell in love with Gale Choriki." Ivan relished his weapon. It was thirsty.
"You're the one who attacked her at the ten-year class reunion and put her in a coma," Boy's eyes turned green whenever he was murderously upset. "So you could go back and forth whenever you had to feed. You did take advantage of one thing which we ourselves overlooked; congratulations are in order, so congratulations."
"This office is a pu'uhonua, a sanctuary for all, even wayward vampires," Alan nodded toward the entirety of the space.
"You knew that, of course, because every vampire knows that Boy regulates that Twilight traffic coming through this town," Piker grasped his katana, ready to unsheath on Boy's command. "The shelf life here is zero."
"If you'll let me explain," Mr. Gushiken put his hand up. "I can tell you everything,"
"Don't concern yourself with that," Boy assured the vampire. "We'll figure it out."
Mr. Gushiken never got to negotiate any further; blades and knives flew with such brutal blinding speed that the vampire was still alive as he watched parts of his body being cut away and falling to the office floor.
~
When Gale Watanabe came out of her coma, she complained about the lengthy and vivid nightmare she had about Sherwyn literally sucking the life out of her. But, unfortunately, there was no good news for her. Sherwyn, her husband, had disappeared. She was told that the authorities believed that her husband was so grief-stricken by the fact that she may never come out of her coma that he might have taken his own life. That would explain the large endowment that he left in her name, one that would carry her through for the rest of her life.
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