Assassin's Touch (30 page)

“It’s a
yamabushi
,” Hirata said, recognizing the old man as a priest of the small, exclusive Shugendo sect that practiced an arcane blend of Buddhist and Shinto religion laced with Chinese sorcery. He and the detectives paused to watch the priest.

“Doesn’t his sect have temples in the Yoshino Mountains? I wonder what he’s doing so far from there,” said Detective Arai.

“He must be on a pilgrimage,” Detective Inoue said. The
yamabushi
were known for making long, arduous trips to ancient holy sites, where they performed strange rituals that involved sitting under ice-cold waterfalls in an attempt to achieve divine enlightenment. Rumors said that they were spies for secret anti-Tokugawa conspirators, or goblins in human disguise.

“Is it true that
yamabushi
have mystical powers?” Arai said as the priest limped nearer. “Can they really cast out demons, talk with animals, and put out fires by sheer mental concentration?”

Hirata laughed. “That’s probably just an old legend.” The
yamabushi
was a just a cripple like himself, he thought glumly.

Five samurai ambled out from a teahouse opposite the cemetery. They wore the crests of different
daimyo
clans, and Hirata recognized them as the kind of young, dissolute men who sneaked away from their duties to rove in gangs about town and look for trouble. He’d arrested many such as them for brawling in the streets during his days as a police officer. Now the gang spied the
yamabushi.
They wove through the passing crowds and eddied around him.

“Hey, old man,” said one of the samurai.

Another blocked the priest’s path. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The
yamabushi
stopped, his expression unperturbed. “Let me pass,” he said in a gruff, strangely resonant voice.

“Don’t you tell us what to do,” the first samurai said.

He and his gang began shoving and mocking the priest. They yanked off his shoulder harness. His wooden chest fell on the ground. The samurai picked it up and heaved it into the cemetery. The
yamabushi
stood passive, leaning on his staff.

“Go away,” he said calmly. “Leave me alone.”

His apparent lack of fear enraged the gang. They brandished their swords. Hirata decided that their fun had gone far enough. Once he would have rescued the priest and sent the hoodlums on their way himself, but now he said to the detectives, “Break it up.”

Arai and Inoue jumped off their horses, but before they reached the gang, a hoodlum swung his sword at the priest. Hirata winced, anticipating the sound of steel cutting flesh and bone, the gush of blood. But the hoodlum’s sword hit the wooden staff, which the priest raised in such a swift motion that Hirata didn’t even see it. The hoodlum yelped in surprise. The blow to his sword knocked him reeling backward. He fell, obstructing the way of Detectives Inoue and Arai, who were rushing to the priest’s aid. Hirata gaped.

“Kill him!” the other hoodlums shouted.

Furious, they assaulted the
yamabushi
with their swords. His staff parried their every strike with a precision that Hirata had seldom seen even among the best samurai fighters. A typhoon of flailing bodies and lashing weapons surrounded the priest as the hoodlums tried to fell him. He revolved in the middle, his arm and staff a blur of motion, his stern features alert yet placid. His opponents seemed to fling themselves against his staff. One dropped unconscious from a blow to the head. Another hurtled into the cemetery, where he crashed against a gravestone and lay moaning. The three others decided that they’d taken on more than they could handle. They ran off in terror, bruised and bloody.

Hirata, Inoue, and Arai stared in astonishment. Murmurs of awe sounded from spectators who’d gathered to watch the fight. The
yamabushi
hobbled into the cemetery to retrieve his belongings. Hirata clambered off his mount.

“Take those injured samurai to the nearest neighborhood gate. Order the sentry to call the police and have them arrested,” he told his detectives. Then he hurried up to the priest. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” the priest said as he donned the harness and hoisted the chest onto his back. He wasn’t even winded from the fight. He seemed more annoyed by Hirata’s intrusion than by the attack on him.

“How did you manage to defeat five able-bodied samurai?” Hirata said.

“I didn’t defeat them.” The priest flashed Hirata a glance that appeared to take his measure, commit him to memory, then dismiss him. “They defeated themselves.”

Hirata didn’t understand this cryptic answer, but he realized he’d just witnessed proof that this
yamabushi
did have the mystical powers that he’d laughed off only moments ago. He also realized with a start that the priest must be the man he’d come to see. “Are you Ozuno?”

The priest barely nodded. “And you are?”

“I’m the shogun’s
sōsakan-sama
,” Hirata said, and gave his name. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Ozuno didn’t look surprised, or interested. He appeared to be like others of his kind—solitary and standoffish. “If you’re just going to hang about and gape at me, I’ll be on my way.”

“I’m investigating a crime,” Hirata said. “Your name came up as someone who might be able to help. Do you know Kobori Banzan?”

Emotion stirred behind Ozuno’s steady gaze. “Not anymore.”

“But you once did?”

“He was my pupil,” Ozuno said.

“You trained him in the art of
dim-mak
?”

Ozuno sneered in disdain. “I taught him sword-fighting.
Dim-mak
is just a myth.”

“That’s what I once believed. But five men were recently murdered by the touch of death.” Six, if Sano was the next victim, Hirata thought. “I’ve seen proof. Your secret is out.”

The disdain melted from the priest’s face, which took on the expression of a samurai wounded in battle and keeping a calm manner by act of sheer will. “You think Kobori is the killer?”

“I know he is.”

Ozuno sank to his knees beside a gravestone. For the first time he appeared as frail as most old men. Yet although clearly shaken, he seemed unsurprised, as if a prediction had come true.

“I have to catch Kobori,” Hirata said. “Do you know where he is?”

“I haven’t seen him in eleven years.”

“You’ve had no contact at all since then?” Hirata was disappointed, but he thought that finding Ozuno was a lucky break, even if not for the murder investigation.

“None,” Ozuno said. “I disowned Kobori.”

The bond between teacher and pupil was almost sacred, and Hirata knew that disownment was an extreme act of censure by the teacher and a terrible disgrace to the pupil. “Why?”

Ozuno rose and gazed into the distance. “There are many misconceptions about
dim-mak.
One is that it’s a single technique. But it belongs to a wide spectrum of mystic martial arts that include fighting with weapons and casting spells.” His shock at the news that his former pupil was a wanted criminal had broken his reticence. Hirata understood that Ozuno was telling him things that few mortals ever heard. “Another misconception is that
dim-mak
is an evil magic, invented for use by assassins. But that was not the intention of the ancients who developed it. They meant for the touch of death to be used honorably, in self-defense and in battle.”

“They must have known it could be used to kill for dishonorable purposes,” Hirata said.

“Indeed. That’s why their heirs have guarded the knowledge so closely. We comprise a secret society whose aim is to preserve it and pass it on to the next generation. We take a vow of silence that forbids us to use it except in cases of extreme emergency or reveal it to anyone except our carefully chosen disciples.”

“How do you choose them?” Hirata said, intrigued.

“We scout the young samurai among the Tokugawa vassals, the
daimyos’
retinues, and the
rōnin.
They must have sound characters as well as natural fighting ability.”

“But sometimes mistakes are made?” Hirata deduced.

Ozuno nodded regretfully. “I found Kobori in a martial arts school in Mino Province. He was the son of a respectable but impoverished clan. He had superior skill in the martial arts, and a determination that is rare. Our training is extremely rigorous, but Kobori took to it as though he’d been reincarnated from an ancient master.”

“What went wrong?”

“I wasn’t the only person who noticed his fighting skills. They came to the attention of Chamberlain Yanagisawa, who also scouted the samurai class for good warriors. While Kobori was training under me, he was offered a post in Yanagisawa’s squadron of elite troops. Soon afterward came the incident that led to the break between us.”

Painful remembrance crossed Ozuno’s features. “It’s well known that those elite troops were assassins who kept Yanagisawa in power. You have heard of his rivals who were conveniently attacked and killed by highway bandits?”

“That was always the official story,” Hirata said, “but everyone knows those deaths were murders ordered by Yanagisawa. His elite troops were too clever to be caught and never left any evidence that would incriminate them, or him.”

“Kobori was clever, too, and expert at the art of stealth. One day I heard that an enemy of Yanagisawa’s had dropped dead, for no apparent reason. He was presumed to have died from a sudden fit. But I had other suspicions.

“I asked Kobori if he’d given the man the touch of death. He didn’t deny that he’d used our secret art to commit cold-blooded murder. In fact, he was proud of it.” Ozuno’s expression darkened with disapproval. “He said he’d put his knowledge to good, practical use. I told him that his duty was to learn the techniques and someday teach them to a disciple. But he said that was pointless. The truth was, he’d been seduced by the excitement of killing and the prestige that working for Yanagisawa brought him. I told him that he couldn’t go on studying with me and serve Yanagisawa at the same time.”

“And he chose Yanagisawa?”

Ozuno nodded. “He said he had no more use for our society, or for me. That day I disowned him and cast him out of our society.”

“And that’s the last you saw of him?” Hirata asked.

“No. I saw him one more time,” Ozuno said. “Our society has a procedure for handling rogues. In order to prevent one from misusing our secret knowledge, or giving it away, we eliminate him.”

“You mean kill him?”

“A dead man can’t commit evil or tell secrets,” Ozuno explained. “When Kobori broke his vow, he marked himself for death. I sent out word to everyone in our society. We were all responsible for getting rid of Kobori, but the primary responsibility was mine because he had been my pupil.”

“Then how come he’s still alive?”

Ozuno looked chagrined. “I taught him too well. When I went after him, we fought. He wounded me and escaped.” With a glance at his lame leg, Ozuno said, “Other members of our society have never managed to get close enough to kill him.” His chagrin deepened to mortification. “Now I am responsible for these new murders that he’s committed. He is a sin that will haunt me through a thousand lifetimes.”

“Maybe you can make up for it in this lifetime.” Hirata began to see a solution to his own problems, which now dovetailed with his hunt for the assassin. “Can you tell me how to go about capturing Kobori when we find him?”

“Your best strategy is to bring as many armed troops with you as you can,” Ozuno said. “Then be prepared for many of them to die while he’s resisting arrest.”

This obvious solution didn’t satisfy Hirata. “What about fighting him in a duel?”

“Everyone has a sensitive spot. I was never able to find Kobori’s, but it’s your only hope of defeating him in one-to-one combat. I suggest you don’t try.”

“Would you teach me some of your secret techniques to use against him?”

Ozuno beheld him with grave offense. “I cannot. My vow forbids me.”

“More lives will be lost unless you give me the ammunition to protect myself and my troops.” Hirata felt a passionate need to learn the secrets that enabled a lame, frail man to defeat five able-bodied samurai.

“All right,” Ozuno said reluctantly. “I’ll show you some vulnerable places to strike Kobori if you get close enough.”

He took hold of Hirata’s hand and touched two points on his wrist bone. “Apply hard pressure here to draw breath from his lungs and weaken him.” He pushed up Hirata’s sleeve and lightly squeezed his upper arm in an indentation between two muscles. “Grab him here, and you’ll block his energy flow. That will take him down. Then you can deliver the killing blow.”

Ozuno touched Hirata on the right side of his throat, just under the chin. “A hard jab here will stop the flow of blood.” Placing his finger on one spot, then another, on Hirata’s chest, he said, “Strike him here and stop his heart.” Then he opened Hirata’s robes and pointed out a hollow in his stomach muscles near the navel. “A big kick to the core of his spirit will kill him instantaneously.”

Fascinated, Hirata paid close attention. But he remembered the outlaw attack on the way to Edo Morgue, and the countless sword battles he’d fought. Hand-to-hand combat techniques wouldn’t help in similar situations.

“Can you teach me some sword-fighting moves, like the ones you used against those men who ganged up on you?” he asked.

“Oh, of course. In a few moments I’ll pass on to you the skills that take years to master,” Ozuno said, reverting to his former surly attitude. His keen gaze impaled Hirata. “I suspect that your eagerness to learn my secrets arises from some purpose that goes beyond your search for Kobori.”

“You’re right,” Hirata said, sheepish because Ozuno had seen through him so easily. He dropped to his knees among the graves and bowed. “Ozuno-
san
, I would very much like to study martial arts with you. Will you please accept me as a pupil?”

Ozuno made a derisive sound. “We don’t accept just anybody who happens to ask. I’ve already told you about our system for choosing pupils.”

Unwilling to take no for an answer, Hirata argued, “Your system broke down when you picked Kobori. I’m a better choice.”