Read Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) for Free Online Page B

reabsorb it when it reflects back toward your body, carrying information with it. Your shadow brings back light, sound, and smell. Like a radar. Naturally, things that are farther away will return less certain information. Perhaps that shadow you wear about you acts as a sensory organ, acquiring light, vibrations, even scent particles.”
    “I have no interest in your nonsense. I can see and hear, and that’s all I need,”
came the clipped, typed response.
    The man in the lab coat shrugged theatrically.
    “You’ve always been like this, Celty. I just want to know what the difference is between the world I feel and the world you feel… It’s not an issue of your eyesight. It’s an issue of your values. Not your human values…”
    He paused for a breath, then continued callously, “…But the values of
a fairy manifested into physical form in this city—a dullahan
.”
    Celty Sturluson was not a human being.
    Celty was a type of fairy known as a dullahan that appeared to those close to death, signaling their impending demise. The dullahan carries its own severed head under its arm and rides on a two-wheeled carriage called a Coiste Bodhar, pulled by a headless horse. When it arrives at the home of the soon to be dead, anyone careless enough to open the door gets a basin of blood thrown upon them. Like the banshee, tales of this eerie messenger echoed throughout Europe for centuries.
    This would not normally be known in Japan, but recognition of the dullahan exploded thanks to the influence of fantasy novels and video games. As harbingers of misfortune, dullahans were well suited to playing villains, and their image as ghastly knights of the dead made them popular among fans of games and adventure stories.
    But Celty had come to Japan from Ireland, the ancestral home of the dullahans, unrelated to any of that development.
    The details of Celty’s birth, why a basin of blood was necessary, and why humans needed to be told of their deaths were all things lost to the murky, unremembered past. And in order to get them back…Celty was now on this island nation halfway around the world.
    About twenty years ago, Celty awakened in the mountains and realized that many memories were missing.
    These included details such as the reason for Celty’s actions and any memory of the past beyond a certain point—all that Celty could remember was being a dullahan, the name Celty Sturluson, and how to use those powers. When the nearby headless horse came over for a pat on the back, Celty finally noticed that the horse wasn’t the only one without a head.
    The first shock was,
I’m not actually thinking with my head?!
Next, Celty was surprised to realize that the head, wherever it was, was giving off some kind of vaguely detectable aura.
    After further reflection, a conclusion formed. Celty’s consciousness was shared between body and head, and it was inside the head that those missing memories existed. Thus, Celty came to an immediate decision. The head that contained all the secrets, the reasons for existence, must be regained. For now, that
was
Celty’s reason for existing. Perhaps the head had strayed from the body of its own will—but that would not be known until Celty found it, either way.
    The only option was to sense the faint traces of that aura in search of the head—which led Celty to a boat that crossed the seas. It soon became clear that the boat was headed for Japan, which was exactly the right destination. Celty had successfully stowed away—the problem was the headless horse and two-wheeled carriage.
    These two things—possessed dead horse and carriage—were like familiars to a dullahan and could be erased if so desired. But where would they go after that? The knowledge was probably contained in Celty’s missing head. Given that drawback, it was difficult to go through with the act, even if Celty
did
know how to do it. The dullahan gave it some thought and proceeded to a scrapyard near the port.
    That’s