Eternal Samurai (2 page)

Their deaths took less than an hour yet to Arisada it seemed mere moments, the time it takes for a butterfly’s wings to flap once. He made no effort to staunch the tears flowing down his face. At last, he stood panting and shuddering, drenched in the life force of his brothers. Their torsos lay like broken dolls, some bowed over their knees, some sprawled in contorted poses. Heads had toppled, rolled or bounced, often a far distance from the body. Arisada had neither the strength nor the time to place the severed parts near each other.

ON the other side of the wall, the magnificent buildings of Mii-dera, the Temple of Three Wells, burned. Pillars of roiling black smoke obscured the star-lit sky and the silhouette of Mount Hiei. The leaping flames threw an unholy light up to the indifferent sky. Timbers fell with great cracks and sent spark-filled plumes into the air. The acrid reek of burning buildings and cooking flesh suffocated him.

A capricious wind cleared the choking smoke for a moment. With dulled, shock-filled eyes, Arisada stared at the now-defiled
ikinewa,
the pond garden. He was unable to recall the peace of its tranquil landscaping. Black grime from smoke and soot coated the foliage. The sick buzz of flies already gathering on the dead filled his ears. The stench of shit merged with the choking miasma of burning wood. The thick, red rivulets ran into the pond clouding the water with crimson, defiling the emerald lily pads and white lotus blossoms. Golden fish thrashed on the surface in confusion, mouths and gills gasping for life.

He prepared for death amid the thunderous cheers of victory reverberating through the air. The emperor’s troops were pillaging the vast temple.

Summoning the last dregs of his strength, Arisada disrobed, and placed his armor and battle-torn clothing, drenched in gore from the enemy as well as of his fellow monks, in a careful pile. The shattered halves of his sword rested beside his
naginata.
He folded his legs beneath him and bound them with his
obi.
Naked except for the
fundoshi
girding his loins, he bowed, pressing his forehead to the ground. Flames cast an ethereal luminescence over his sweat-drenched body.

“
Namu Amida Butsu
.” Arisada venerated the Buddha Amida for his mercy then called aloud the name of each dead Sōhei surrounding him. Their deaths had freed them from all dishonor. But if found alive, Arisada would not be killed as an honorable combatant. Instead, his head would be paraded in disgrace around the city on top of a pike, the centuries-old Saito name forever erased from all records.

He wept not for his impending death, but for the burning of his beloved Mii-dera and the annihilation of his fellow monks. And he wept for his one and only love, Koji Nowaki.

“May I be granted another life, and the chance to revenge myself upon you, my betrayer, my beloved, my
koibito
,” he prayed in a voice abraded by smoke and grief. He drove his
tanto
into his belly, pulling left hip to right, then upward between the lower ribs. Arisada’s face contorted at the excruciating pain, yet he made no cry.

Curled against his blood-drenched thighs, he welcomed the darkness eroding his senses. Smoke filled his nostrils, making him cough. The violent movement sent fire lancing through his body and forced gouts of blood and ropes of intestine out through the wound. He stemmed the urgency of his bowels to void. Prayed for the sweet release of death before he lost control of his bodily functions and shamed himself.

Still, death came slowly, taking its sweet time, savoring every moment of the young monk’s anguish. Arisada was unable to slow the spasmodic jerking of his chest. He panted like a trapped rabbit yet not enough air reached his lungs. His limbs, covered with a clammy sweat, turned cold, as his organs shut down with shock.

Arisada’s nails cut into his palms as he fought the urge to pull the short-bladed knife from his bowels. But the agony radiating from his eviscerated belly paled compared to the anguish in his heart. The image of the face of his lover—his beautiful jade eyes, the sweet bow of his lips—eluded him. Koji Nowaki had deserted him even in memory.

Darkness washed over Arisada but he did not know if it was from true nightfall or his own closeness to death. He heard the splintering of the garden door followed by an odd grunt of triumph. At last, his suffering would end. He waited, strangely curious about how death would feel. Curious also about the warrior who would take his head. Then it no longer mattered as peace embraced him. Soon he would cross over into the Void to begin a new life. To begin his revenge.

An apparition loomed between him and the nightmare of the burning monastery. The warrior, dressed in the brown uniform of the enemy, carried no weapons. The man knelt beside him. He pulled Arisada upright onto his haunches.

Crimson eyes appraised Arisada’s contorted face. “You are truly beautiful.” The samurai’s breath reeked of copper and rotting meat. “You may desire death but it is not for you. Instead, you will serve me.” Then he jerked the
tanto
free.

The movement fired fresh agony through Arisada’s body. He writhed, his torso twisting, bound legs jerking. His fingers scrabbled for the short blade, desperate to drive it back into his belly. His eyes bulged in their sockets.

Fingers, sharp as the talons of any hawk, thrust into Arisada’s gaping wound and twisted a rope of intestines. “Swear by your honor as Sōhei to serve me,” the apparition demanded in an odd, sibilant voice.

Agony fired through Arisada, banishing the sought-after oblivion. “
Zettai ni
.” Never, he bleated.

“No one refuses me,” the samurai hissed, digging deeper into Arisada’s tortured entrails. “I am Ukita Sadomori. I am
kyūketsuki
, a God of Blood. You will give me your pledge.”

Never would Arisada denounce his oath to Mii-dera. He believed he heard his own refusal in his bleated moan. But the warrior took the sound for consent.

“You will bear the mark of my crest, the mons of my family for all to see.” The voice was devoid of all human expression.

Arisada’s eyes locked onto the tip of his own blood-drenched
tanto
as it plunged toward his face. A burst of fire lanced across his left cheek. He ground his teeth so hard against crying out that he heard one crack. A tongue, warm-wet and repugnant, lapped over his lacerated flesh.

With a curiously gentle movement, hands turned Arisada’s head to one side. A sharp, driving pain lanced into his throat followed by the press of lips against the wound. He felt his blood drawn from his body by long, greedy gulps.

Sadomori feasted until the Sōhei’s pulse stuttered almost to a halt. He bit through his own lip and fastened the wound to the monk’s blanched mouth in a deep, bloody kiss.

A bitter essence trickled down Arisada’s throat. He choked then swallowed. His body burned with a strange and terrible incandescence. Then he fell insensate against the warrior.

“Now, we shall be together for all eternity.” Triumph flashed in his crimson eyes. With no effort, he lifted Arisada and cradled him in his arms as if holding his child. Ignoring the mayhem around him, the monster trod on the living and dead as he bore his conquest away from Mii-dera. For the monk was now his offspring, his first, his Primary.

For months, Arisada’s feverish mind wandered through evil places filled with unimaginable horrors. When he finally awoke, he no longer belonged to the gentle Buddha Amida. Forever denied reincarnation. Forever denied redemption. The creature’s bite had infected him with an ancient, evil virus, which mutated Arisada’s body into a monster torn from its humanity by the need for human blood.

And the oath, forced from Arisada’s lips, now bound him to the
kyūketsuki
Ukita Sadomori.

Arisada’s heart-rending scream of loss drowned beneath his howl of primal bloodlust.

.

Two

The Seattle Quarantine, 2024

T
he first pale hint of dawn kissed a sky gravid with storm clouds. For most people living in the Seattle Quarantine, T the pending light meant safety as the sun’s rays drove the predators into hiding. For Tatsu Kurosaki Cobb, daylight meant the end of another futile night of hunting. Perhaps tomorrow he’d find his quarry. Find and kill.

He never wanted this—hunting creatures that, until a few months ago, he regarded with compassion. But he’d always known the way of the sword would become his destiny. The Path of the Samurai commanded it.

Was he insane, coming to this violent city with nothing more than the swords of his ancestors? For what? To kill one monster among hundreds in the name of
fukushū
, vengeance for the slaughter of his entire family?

Uncertainty flickered in his mind for a moment then sank beneath the waves of his conviction. He knew in the depths of his
tamashii,
his soul, his actions were just. Still, he was unable to dismiss a ghost of misgiving. Was he as much of a monster as those he hunted? In his quest to find one, he had already killed many. And with every death, he feared losing his own humanity.

Then the deep fires of hatred washed away the last remnant of doubt.
Wakatta,
better hatred than heartbreak.

A
kyūketsuki
was no longer a member of the human race. And a
kyūketsuki
that attacked a human forfeited its right to live. Tatsu could kill them with no repercussion.

For the last three nights since he arrived, Tatsu had slipped across the bridge that crossed the river between Seattle’s two species. Any human foolish enough to venture into the quarantine courted an ugly death. Tatsu entered anyway. The first night a small pack had jumped him. He had escaped, but not before taking the heads of two predators. Now the survivors had his scent. They would tear him to pieces if they caught him. No matter.

Tatsu hunched deeper into his beat-up motorcycle jacket, ignored the freezing February rain. By the Gods, if he believed in hell, this place was it. Unlike Japan, his native land bright with prosperity and promise, Seattle offered its citizens only an eroding despair. And the ever-present threat of a cruel death.

His nostrils flared at the acrid stench that was as indigenous to Seattle as its famous old landmark. The odors of sewage, rotting garbage and the city’s ancient methane plants did not bother him except they masked the presence of the ones he hunted.

The city wasn’t always like this—grim and desolate. Even in Tatsu’s short time here, he’d seen examples of its elegance and charm that had survived the eruption of the nearby mountain and subsequent massive earthquake. Occurring only a few days apart, the twin disasters had devastated the Pacific Northwest.

Tatsu always had a strange affinity for this battered city. Perhaps because it was the birthplace of his father William Cobb. Perhaps because it was destroyed during
tatsu
, the Year of the Dragon. The year Tatsu was born.

In elementary school in Nagasaki, he had watched the grainy, too-graphic videos of that belching, fire-breathing mountain spewing dust, ash and other terrible things into the sky. The lava tearing down trees and obliterating the green land with molten sludge. And the massive earthquake ripping the ground apart, tumbling tall buildings like toy blocks. Killing thousands. He recalled his naïve, childish clapping when he saw the great Space Needle still rearing proudly above the clouds of dust and smoke.

For three years, ash had obscured the sun. Day turned into perpetual night. And Seattle became a haven for monsters.

He snorted. Fucking animals. Once, they were the stuff of myth. Or so everyone believed. Five years before Tatsu was born a pandemic swept the globe, devastating some regions, skipping others entirely. In its wake, the plague left millions dead and turned thousands into an entirely new species—one that preyed on human beings as food.

Japan had protected herself with ruthless efficiency by euthanizing people as soon as they became infected. But hundreds of
kyūketsuki
had escaped to the former United States, which for some unknown reason, had been affected the worst by the plague. Half the population had died. The economy crashed, and the country fragmented into a handful of independent city states hostile to any outsiders.

Tatsu knew all about that hostility. He’d ridden two-thousand perilous miles from his adopted home in New Mexico to reach this dark city. Too many times he thought he’d never make it. The brutal winter weather, mechanical breakdowns and the scarcity of gasoline made the trip a nightmare. Sneaking his Kawasaki Drifter past guarded border crossings under the cover of winter storms nearly ended his journey twice. But that eighteen-year-old bike with its near-bald tires and oil leaks got him here. Barely. Now, it was in dire need of a major overhaul. Nothing he could do about it; he was broke.

Tatsu shook his head, sending his choppy brown hair flying.
Baka,
idiot, pay attention or you’re dead. He picked his way around a collapsed house. His ears tuned out the scrabbling of rats and feral dogs as they fled and focused only on that unique sound signaling a much larger predator. An easy leap over a crumbling wall dropped him six feet into a narrow, debris-strewn street. There he crouched for a few seconds, all senses attuned for the merest hint of danger.

The neon sign of his destination blinked strobe-like above the bar’s entrance a few yards away. Feeling relatively at ease, he slipped his weapons into the harness on his back. Brandishing a pair of Japanese swords was not the best strategy for making friends.

The Educated Whore, less than a half-mile from the Quarantine border, was known as gossip central for everything concerning underground Seattle. Tatsu couldn’t trust dumb luck that he’d find the one creature he sought. Someone in this alcoholic dive had the right information. If he could get anyone to consider talking to a
bugaisha
, an outsider, that is.

A discordant bell clanked overhead as Tatsu pushed the door open. He heard the intermittent buzz of the fluorescent beer sign flickering above the bar. A second light, hanging by a couple of wires from the cracked ceiling, cast blotches of shadows over most of the room. Still, Tatsu’s preternatural eyesight revealed every detail.