Assassin's Touch (37 page)

“Keep going, Honorable Chamberlain,” whispered the Ghost. “You’re almost here.”

The wall under Sano’s groping hand ended: He’d reached a corner. Sano edged around it. Several paces farther, he encountered a doorway, beyond which yawned a room. The corridor led him past more rooms, around more corners. Sano pictured himself wandering through a maze while Kobori stood at the center, ready to pounce. His heightened perception verged on the supernatural. The smell of the Ghost’s spoor was so strong he could taste it. He sensed weight shifting somewhere on the floor: Kobori was on the same level of the house with him.

The floor creaked once, then twice more.

Sano hadn’t made those sounds. He stood paralyzed, listening to the Ghost’s footfalls steal up on him, trying to sense from which direction.

“Here I come,” whispered Kobori.

Sano turned toward the voice. He held his sword raised in both hands. As he waited, he felt at once invisible and exposed, terrified of the confrontation yet ravenous for it.

Footsteps approached from all directions, as if the Ghost had multiplied himself into an army. Had Kobori created this illusion, or had Sano’s own mind? Sano had never felt so alone, confused, or vulnerable. His high rank and his legions of subordinates couldn’t protect him. That he had power over virtually every citizen in Japan didn’t matter here. The Ghost had reduced him to the masterless samurai, struggling to survive by his own devices, that he’d once been. His wife, his son, and his accomplishments seemed as remote from him as if he’d dreamed them. All Sano had now, as then, were his swords.

Even though he knew that his enemy intended him to feel this way in order to break his confidence, Sano’s sense of vulnerability and isolation intensified against his will. The Ghost’s footsteps quickened and closed in on him. In blind haste Sano stumbled through a door. Abruptly the footsteps ceased. Sano felt a warm current of air behind him.

It was the Ghost’s body heat. .

Panic jolted Sano. Before he could react, he felt a tap on his back, below his right shoulder. Fierce pain sped down his arm. His muscles stiffened in a spasm. His fingers let go his sword, which dropped to the floor. As he doubled over, his teeth clenched in agony, he was seized from behind. Hands groped over his body. He struck out with his uninjured left hand, but it swished through empty air. His right arm dangled useless and aching. He felt a yank at his waist, then heard rapid, retreating footfalls.

Kobori had come and gone.

Alone in the darkness, Sano fell to his knees, shaken and panting from the sudden, violent attack. The pain in his arm ebbed into heavy numbness, as if the blood circulation had been cut off. Sano moved his fingers, but he couldn’t feel them. Kobori had struck some vital point that had disabled his arm. He felt around on the floor, desperately trying to find his sword before Kobori attacked again. But his hand swept vacant floor. He felt for his short sword at his waist, but it too was gone. Kobori had taken both his weapons. He heard Kobori’s laughter, which crackled like flames.

“Let’s see how well you can fight me without your swords,” Kobori whispered.

“My father was an executioner,” Yugao said.

She eased the knife’s pressure against Reiko’s throat. Reiko cautiously let out her breath and relaxed her muscles.

“He would come home and talk about how many people he’d killed and what they’d done to get in trouble,” Yugao went on. “He told us how they acted when they were brought to the execution ground. He talked about how it felt to cut their heads off.”

Reiko focused her gaze on Yugao’s face, in the hope of keeping Yugao’s attention on hers instead of on her hands.

“After the war, there were many samurai from the Yanagisawa army who were executed. They were
his
comrades.” Fury on her lover’s account kindled in Yugao’s eyes. “My father killed lots of them. He bragged about it because they’d been important men and he was a
hinin
, but they were dead and he was alive. Every time he killed one, he cut a notch on the wall.”

Reiko remembered seeing the notches in the hovel. She inched her right hand to her side, toward the knife behind her.

“I couldn’t let him keep killing them,” Yugao said. “That night I couldn’t stand to listen to him bragging anymore. So I stabbed him. It was the most I could do for my beloved.”

Finally Reiko understood why Yugao had kept her motive secret—to avoid mentioning Kobori and exposing his crimes. But Reiko also sensed that past and present grievances had combined to push Yugao over the edge. Yugao had long been nursing a bitter hatred toward her father for violating and then rejecting her. She might have endured it forever, or stabbed him at any other time, but his offenses against Kobori’s comrades had finally tipped her unstable mind into killing her father.

“Why did you kill you mother and sister?” Reiko asked.

A contemptuous smile twisted Yugao’s lips. “While I was stabbing him, they just huddled in the corner and cried.” Her manner turned argumentative. “They could have stopped me. If they’d cared about him, they would have. The miserable cowards deserved to die.”

Perhaps Yugao had wanted them to stop her, Reiko speculated. Perhaps she’d still loved her father despite everything. If so, then she’d punished them for their failure to save him from her as well as for past injustices toward her. Now there remained only one more issue to resolve.

“Why did you confess?” Reiko asked.

“I did it for
him
,” Yugao said. “And I wanted him to know. I didn’t expect to ever see him again, but he would hear what I’d done. He would understand why. He would know I’d died for him and be grateful.”

The magnitude of her delusion astounded Reiko. “Then why did you run away from jail instead?” Reiko had her arm bent behind her, fingers on the hilt of the knife.

“The fire was an omen. It said I was meant to reunite with him instead of die for him.” Yugao frowned in sudden suspicion at Reiko. “What are you doing?”

“Just scratching my back,” Reiko lied.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

As Reiko obeyed, she gave up hope of striking at Yugao before Yugao could strike her. She thought up a new tactic. “You killed for Kobori. You were ready to sacrifice your life for him. What did he ever do for you?”

Yugao looked at Reiko as if she was stupid to ask. “He loves me.”

“Did he say so?”

“He doesn’t have to. I know.”

“How do you know?”

“He makes love to me,” Yugao said.

“You mean he takes his pleasure from you,” Reiko said. “That doesn’t mean he cares anything for you except physically.”

“He came to me after the war. It didn’t matter to him that I was a
hinin
.” For the first time Yugao sounded eager to prove that she meant as much to Kobori as he did to her. “He wanted to be with me.”

Reiko thought of the beating taken by Yanagisawa’s faction during the war, and she spoke on a hunch: “Was he injured?”

“Yes. What of it?”

“So he was hurt and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. And I bet that as soon as he was well, he left. Didn’t he?”

The distress on Yugao’s face told Reiko she’d guessed right. “He had to go. He had important things to do.”

“More important than you,” Reiko said. “Tell me, when you escaped from jail, was he glad to see you?”

Yugao snapped, “He has problems on his mind.”

“And you became one of them,” Reiko deduced. “He knew you could be his downfall. And he was right. You brought the law to him. He’ll dump you as soon as he can.”

“I don’t care,” Yugao said, but her eyes glistened with tears and misery; her voice shook as her bravado deserted her. “He’s all I have.”

At last Reiko saw through Yugao, to the spirit inside her hard shell. Loss and deprivation had charted the path of Yugao’s life. Yugao had lost her innocence, as well as her mother’s love, because of her father’s depravity. She’d lost her home, her affluent life as a merchant’s daughter, and her place in society. She’d lost her father’s affection to her sister. After she’d murdered her family, she’d lost her kin and her freedom. Now she clung desperately to the one thing she hadn’t yet lost.

“I won’t let you take me away from him!” she cried.

Even as Reiko pitied her, Yugao blinked away her tears. The familiar shield of hostility hardened her gaze. “I’m sick of listening to you.” Her voice was raw but tough. Her eyes blazed with hatred that had worsened because Reiko had forced her to expose herself. “It’s time to shut you up for good.”

Disarmed, blind, and helpless, Sano realized that if things continued like this, he didn’t have a chance. He must gain control over the situation. The first thing was to get himself out of the Ghost’s trap. Sano crawled along the floor until he found a wall made of wooden panels. He groped across and up it until his hand met a groove. He inserted his fingers and pulled. The panel slid.

“What are you doing?” Kobori’s tone said that he knew Sano was changing the rules of the game and he didn’t like it.

Behind the panel was another, made of paper framed by mullions. Light glowed in streaks through it, just bright enough that when Sano glanced around he could see that he was alone in an unfurnished room. He slid open the panel. On the other side were rough planks, fastened over a doorway. The moonlight shone through the cracks between them: The house had been boarded up to keep thieves out. Sano pried at the planks with his left hand; his right hand and whole arm were still numb and useless. When the planks didn’t yield, he thumped on them.

“You can’t escape me,” Kobori whispered.

His voice moved closer, accompanied by legions of footsteps that echoed through the house. As Sano looked around in desperation, he saw a flimsy staircase built of wooden slats and poles rising from a corner. He lunged up it.

“Where are you going?” Kobori’s voice sharpened.

Sano reached the top of the staircase, which ended at a platform near the ceiling. He pushed up on the ceiling, and a trapdoor lifted. Either Kobori had forgotten to seal this exit or had thought Sano wouldn’t find it. Sano thrust his head through the opening, into moonlight and fresh, pure wind.

“Stop!” Kobori ordered, his whisper rising to a harsh volume. “Come back!”

With an awkward, muscle-wrenching effort, Sano pulled himself onto the roof. He stood on its rough, slanted thatch surface, massaging his right arm and hand back to life. The roof spread some two hundred paces long and half as wide, with humps over its gables. Above Sano loomed the top level of the house, its balcony, and the high, forested slope. Below him lay the roof of the bottom level, the valley, and the hills that fell away toward the dim, few lights of Edo. The moon rode low on its arc through the stars, but still shone bright. It wasn’t the best battlefield in the world, but at least here he could see the Ghost coming.

“You wanted me badly enough to break into my house,” Sano called down through the trapdoor to Kobori. “If you still want me, you’ll have to come up here.”

“If you want me, you’ll have to come back inside,” Kobori retorted.

A stalemate slowed time to a virtual halt. Sano flexed his arm and hand. They tingled as the numbness faded. He realized a fundamental truth about why the Ghost killed on the sly. It wasn’t just because he was good at
dim-mak.

“What’s the matter, are you afraid to face me?” Sano called.

No samurai could stand to have his courage called into question. Kobori said, “I fear nothing, and certainly not you. It’s you who are afraid of me.” His voice issued through the trapdoor like poisonous smoke. “You hide behind your castle walls and your troops. Without them, you cower like a woman terrified of a mouse.”

“You hide in the darkness because you’re terrified to show yourself,” Sano said. “You sneak up on your victims so they can’t fight back and hurt you. You’re a coward!”

There was silence; yet Sano could almost feel the thatch under his feet grow hot, as if burning from the fire of Kobori’s anger. No samurai could tolerate such an insult. Kobori must come out and defend his courage and honor. But Sano knew better than to think the Ghost would pop up through the trapdoor for him to nab. He scanned the roof around him, eyeing the gables, expecting a sneak attack. He glanced at the roof below him. His instinct for survival told him to run while he had another chance. But his own courage and honor were at stake.

As he turned to look upward, a shadow detached from the balcony overhead and lunged down at him. He didn’t have time to dodge. Kobori landed on him. Sano’s knees crumpled under the impact. He and Kobori fell together with a crash. Kobori wasn’t a large man, but he felt heavy and hard as steel, all bone and sinew. He locked onto Sano in a crushing grip. They rolled down the roof. Sano saw Kobori’s face, teeth bared in a savage grin, eyes glinting, close to his as they rolled. He tried to dig his heels into the thatch and prevent himself from falling off the sloped surface, but he couldn’t halt his momentum. He and Kobori tumbled from the roof.

They plummeted through empty space. A roof over a balcony interrupted their fall. They bounced off it with a force that jarred Sano’s spine, then fell again, toward the roof of the mansion’s lowest level.

Grasping her knife in both hands, Yugao inhaled a huge whoop of breath. She swung the knife sideways above Reiko. Her features contorted into a fierce scowl. Terror entwined with despair inside Reiko. She cringed and flung up her arms to protect herself.

There came a loud, heavy thud on the roof over their heads. The room shook. Reiko and Yugao both jumped. Dust and bits of plaster showered down on them. Yugao hesitated, the knife still upraised in her hands, her scowl frozen on her face. More thuds, accompanied by scuffling noises, jarred the house. Yugao turned her gaze away from Reiko, up toward the ceiling, distracted by what must be a fight taking place on the roof.

Reiko thrust her hands against Yugao’s thighs and shoved.

Yugao went stumbling backward. Surprise changed her expression. She tripped on her hem, lost her balance, and fell on her side. “You sneaky little whore!”