The Devouring God (15 page)

 

CHAPTER 28

Tuesday Morning

“I
beg your pardon for the interruption of the electrical current,” Counselor Endo said as he clicked on Yoshida's desk lamp. “I have a medical condition that makes fluorescent lighting very disagreeable. It's usually fine in larger, newer buildings, but this . . .” He reached up and flicked the hanging fixture with a thick, blunt forefinger. “Two concentric fluorescent rings with three illumination settings and an incandescent button for mood lighting, a twenty-­year-­old model for home use. It's a Zenkoku product, of course, made to last.” He smiled. “The buzzing of such little units really grates on my nerves.”

“You don't have nerves.”

“This one would send me all to pieces.”

“A flickering fluorescent fixture wouldn't show you in your best light, would it?”

Endo regarded Takuda. “My vanity is a failing, but it is not at issue here.”

“Vanity isn't part of your makeup. It's part of your disguise, the eyes on the cobra's hood. I'm talking about persistence of vision. Illusion. Deception.”

Endo was frozen still as a photograph. For five full heartbeats, he didn't move at all. Then he said, “You, Detective, lack vision. You are laboring under illusion and deception, and you have no one to blame but yourself. You have deluded yourself.”

“In what way?”

“You have deluded yourself that your friends and your family are safe.”

Takuda wanted to leap across the room and strangle Endo, to squeeze the poison out of him, but the man was so poisonous that Takuda simply didn't know where to start. In his gut, he knew it would be like strangling a water balloon; a tight grip on the counselor here would just make him bulge more over there. Endo was more than elusive. He was somehow formless.

But the form he's chosen could not be more deadly.

“Are you threatening my friends and family?”

“No,” Endo said, pretending to look around the squalid little office. “You are.”

“Just how am I doing that?”

“Well, you're a payday away from homelessness. I could take care of that, permanently. You know I could.”

“Rubbish. You wouldn't do it.”

Endo spread his hands. “I've never offered directly because I knew you wouldn't accept.”

“You would have moved us around to clean up your messes anyway.”

Endo smiled as if to say he had already done exactly that. Takuda felt the heat rising to his face.

“So what kind of danger are we talking about?”

“Ah. Back to your friends and your wife. I didn't say they were in danger. I said you had deluded yourself that they were safe. It's an important if subtle distinction. Danger and safety. These conditions are not polar opposites or mutually exclusive. Continued existence is contingent, and a single mind's survival in the dark void of eternity, as brief and bright as each hideous spark may seem, is never a zero-­sum proposition. Our friend Ogawa at this point would make a sophomoric reference to Schrödinger's cat, neither alive nor dead, in an indeterminate state. He still sees this existence, or human life anyway, as binary, and any deviation from that scheme as an aberration demanding referents in particle physics. Otherwise, it's all yes or no, black or white, danger or safety, life or death.” He flicked the light fixture again, a little harder; Takuda heard the plastic crack. “There are, as it turns out, indeterminate states that are neither life nor death.”

“Possession must be one of those. What possessed you? Were you ever human?”

Endo grimaced. “As much as you seem to enjoy verbal sparring, you're really not equipped. Not only do you lack the wit, you lack self-­knowledge. And at this moment, you're running out of time. I'm trying to tell you something.”

“So spit it out.”

The counselor fixed him with a stare. “No matter how often I tell you, you don't believe that there are rules I must observe here. The fact that you are ignorant of these rules will not protect you, but that doesn't change the fact that I must protect myself and my interests. There are situations that would deteriorate in unexpected and potentially disastrous ways if I tried to control them directly. I know this from experience.”

“So I have to ask the right questions. Perhaps I do lack the wits. I can't guess at what you're trying to tell me.”

Endo nodded sadly. “If young Mori were here, it would go more smoothly, I'm sure. I wonder what Mori would do?”

Takuda folded his arms. “He would probably ask you to tell him about the Kurodama.”

“Ah. The artifact—­I'm sorry, but I really can't refer to it by terms already in use for fruit or candy or lumps of anthracite—­is a sort of hideous spark all its own, an entity with its own karmic weight and destiny. You might even call it a soul, if you believed in that sort of nonsense.”

“It's not a mind anymore, and if it has its own karmic weight, that weight carried it straight to the hottest hells. I killed it.”

“Bully! Bully for you!”

“I don't know what this
buri
means.”

“I apologize. Old jokes, old habits. Congratulations, Detective. And how did you destroy this mind?”

“I broke it with my staff.”

Endo flicked the lamp's pull-­string. “How resourceful and . . . um, virile of you, breaking it into . . . two pieces? Yes, two? All with your long, hard staff, right on the sidewalk outside the cafeteria. Yes, you were observed.” He flicked the string again, now visibly annoyed. “This artifact, a literal comma that somehow slipped into the daylight world from the litany of everlasting midnight, brings with it some of that outer darkness. I can tell you that with no ill consequences. You know already that it spurred what some might call unnatural appetites, causing famous but unproven acts of cannibalism. You've read the supposedly fictional story of the priest of the Koyama family temple who cleaned a beloved boy's bones with his own tongue, thereby becoming a demon. I know that young Mori has opinions on the alleged consumption of the American airman's liver, and that he finds it significant that the charges of cannibalism were dismissed.”

“You've been spying on us.”

Endo didn't bother to reply. “There have been more recent dinners in that general locale, dinners that some would call unusual, special events held even right in the squalid cafeteria where you retrieved the artifact. For sensitive ­people, and I use the term
sensitive
in the best possible way here, the artifact has an attractive force. Mr. Thomas Fletcher is one of those ­people, even though his mental state seems to have precluded active participation in any acts of veneration. Your Reverend Suzuki may also be among those who are unduly influenced by this visitor from the outer darkness. Mind to mind, do you see? One mind affected by another in an attraction that breeds an insatiable hunger. Such an attractive force!” He smiled. “Like the electron's lust for the proton, it's really all about love, isn't it?”

Takuda hunched forward over the desk. “How can it be such an attractive force if it's broken?”

“Broken? There you are, thinking in binary states again. On, off. Black, white. Alive, dead. Broken . . . whole.”

“You're saying it's not dead.”

“Not by a long shot. Let's recap, shall we? The artifact is a mind with attractive powers, a hideous spark in and of itself, and it seeks self-­actualization and self-­expression, which our postmodern world seems to prize above all else. Ignore these needs of the artifact at your peril.”

“And you're saying it might be calling out to the priest.”

“He has been terribly hungry lately, hasn't he? Your grocery bill is getting worse and worse.”

Takuda didn't bother to smile. “I'm supposed to run to the Kurodama and lead you right to it.”

“Sunshine Heights, apartment 201. You left it there because no matter how obtuse you pretend to be about rules regarding matters such as this, you know neither I nor those in my employ can cross that threshold.”

“So why are you here? You don't care about the danger.”

“I do. You see, not only do I want the artifact back where it belongs, I want you back where you belong, conducting monster hunts until I need you for something big. I also need your friends. You would be useless to me pining for your wife in prison because you murdered the priest.”

“You think the priest would hurt my wife. It's pretty ridiculous. Don't you need seven to kill the eighth? Critical mass, wouldn't you call it?”

Endo clicked off the desk lamp. “Even that incandescent unit makes a slight noise. Now it's very quiet, isn't it? You can hear a little traffic from the highway, even a little bustling commerce from the market across the main street. Do you hear the voices?” He cupped a hand to his ear. “I believe I hear a greengrocer calling out the prices of his eggplant. And something else, very high-­pitched . . . do you hear it? A sort of wailing?”

Takuda strained his senses despite himself. He did hear the highway, closer traffic on the main street, voices filtering in from the market, and high above it all, sirens. Lots of sirens, far off.

“Sounds like they're up in the city,” Endo said. “Maybe right in your neighborhood.”

Takuda cursed. “You didn't come to warn me.” He vaulted toward the door. “You came to distract me and slow me down.”

As fast as he was, Endo was faster. Endo stood with his hand on the knob. “Remember,” he said to Takuda. “It isn't dead, not dead at all.” He opened the door for Takuda. “There's a taxi at the corner, waiting to take you to your house. Don't worry. I've already paid for it. Take care, and I hope you find everyone well at your apartment. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but breaking it probably just made it angry. It will be wanting revenge.”

 

CHAPTER 29

Tuesday Morning

T
akuda took the stairs at Sunshine Heights three at a time. He had burst through a gantlet of officers in the parking lot, and now two uniformed officers barred his way at the door. They flew before him like leaves in a gust.

The apartment was a shambles. Every drawer had been opened, every cabinet ransacked. Dusty white footprints trailed across the straw mats in every room.

He shouted for Yumi. In the second bedroom, Suzuki and Mori's room, the wall had seemingly exploded inward. Shards of cheap, cardboard-­backed sheetrock littered the floor.
Maybe she escaped.
Takuda dropped to his hands and knees to peer through the hole between two vertical beams.

The apartment next door was an abattoir. Blood had spattered every surface he could see. The feet of the emergency workers were covered with white, pull-­on booties, but these were already smeared crimson and brown.

“Yumi!”

A face appeared in the hole—­Kimura.

“Hey, look here. Special consultant or not, you can't just wander around in there. This is police business!”

“This is my apartment. I live here. I'm looking for a woman.”

Kimura's face fell. “You live here? I mean, there? That apartment, 201? And you're looking for a woman. Ah. Wait right there,” he said, fumbling for his telephone.

Takuda stood. The trip to the apartment next door was dreamlike, slow motion, like running underwater. His mind was racing even as he stood up.
She got away from Suzuki into the gambler's apartment—­could Suzuki have squeezed in after her?
The two officers he had brushed off were on him again by the time he got to the doorway of the bedroom; he brushed them off again, destroying more wall and one of the sliding doors in the process.
She can't be dead. She's smarter and quicker than Suzuki.
Takuda ran to the door, but his body didn't seem to respond quickly enough. He could even feel the pulling of his wounded hamstring and the multiple new cuts from the girls in the cafeteria, all the cuts seeming to pull him backward as if scar tissue were somehow heavier than unmarked flesh.

More officers crowded the entrance pit. They had come up the stairs from the parking lot, and they all wanted to talk sense to him. He simply vaulted over them this time. Their hands followed him as if supporting him, and he shook off their grasping fingers as he lit on the concrete landing. He ran into the open door of apartment 203, and the stench of blood and emptied bowels hit him in the face.
So much blood. This thing is so hungry. It's even hungrier than Suzuki.

He strode through a crowd of protesting officers toward the back bedroom, where Kimura stood with his back to the door. Next to Kimura lay a pile of butchered meat. It had been a woman.

Yumi.

Cut edges of flesh had begun to darken. It was an incomplete job; the corpse was flayed, but the exposed bones were not removed, not set up in a shrine to cradle the Kurodama.
He must have been interrupted
, Takuda thought.
It must take longer doing it on your own, passing it back and forth to yourself to make up for the other six. . .

His knees touched the straw matting. Then his hands. He had floated down like a feather. There was no place to fall that was not covered in clots and shreds of Yumi, so he closed his eyes and stayed on his hands and knees, breathing slowly and evenly so he didn't pass out in the spattered remains.

The large, still voice said,
Take your time
.
It will all still be here when you compose yourself.

“He says he lives here, right next door,” Kimura hissed into his phone. “I need you to call your friend Ota. Get him down here so we can keep this contained . . .”

Takuda raised his eyes. In the corner was a blue plastic sheet covering a body.
They cover Suzuki, but they don't bother to cover Yumi. I'll kill them all for that.
He thought to rise and whip the plastic off Suzuki to cover Yumi, but he saw small, almost dainty feet in men's black socks sticking out from under the sheet.

Suzuki has feet like paddleboats.

“That's not the priest,” he said. “The priest is still loose. You have to catch him. You have to stop him.”

Kimura jumped. He turned just as a rough dozen strong hands grabbed Takuda by his arms, his legs, his collar, and his midriff. They were going to carry him out.

“Wait, wait,” Kimura said. “You thought this was your priest?”

“I thought the priest . . . yes, I thought it was him. Tell them to release me. I can identify these ­people.”

The officers argued with Kimura, telling him what Takuda had done to them, until Kimura finally waved them off in an imperious and very insulting manner. They bowed stiffly and correctly as Takuda rose from the soiled matting, wiping blood from his palms with a discarded booty.

Kimura pulled the plastic aside. The gambler stared at the ceiling. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

“That's the resident of this apartment,” Takuda said. “I don't know his name, but I know he's been here several years.”

Kimura grimaced. “You don't know your next-­door neighbor's name?”

“My wife and the priest talked to him. The priest gave him money. I had to work. I didn't have the time to socialize.”

“You missed your chance.” Kimura let the sheet fall. “His name was Inaba. He killed himself as the first officers crashed the door. And this one . . . are you ready? There's no face. You'll have to find some identifying mark. If we have to roll her over, you'll have to wait, or we can do it from dental records.”

Through the horror, over his heart hammering in his chest, Takuda had one clear, precise thought:
If that's not Suzuki, this might not be Yumi.

He walked cautiously toward the head of the flayed corpse. All but concealed in half-­gelled gore and chips of bloodied bone, the matted hair was gray, much grayer than Yumi's. The mottled flesh was not her flesh; the hands were not her hands.

“It's not her,” Takuda said. “It's not my wife.”

Kimura said, “Well, that's a relief. That would have made things much more complicated. We assumed it was Inaba's wife, although it will take some forensics work to determine without doubt. I'm sure that was a horrible shock for you—­won't you take a seat for a second?”

Takuda sat on the only blood-­free spot he could see, a squarish area that must have been shielded from blood by a low table or part of a sleeping mat.

“It's really a ridiculous coincidence, isn't it? Are you serious? You live in a place like this?”

“I'm a security guard.”

Kimura frowned deeply. “We were told you were some sort of consultant. You didn't even suspect that you lived next door to the starfish killer?”

“You think he was a serial killer?”

“The victim is female. There's a lot of exposed bone. It fits the profile. Are you really just a security guard?”

Takuda sighed. “I never said I was anything else. What about the knife?”

“We think that's why he broke into 201 . . . your apartment. There's no knife in your kitchen.”

“We only had one.”

“I think it's in an evidence bag now, even if you ever wanted to use it again. I certainly wouldn't.” He motioned for Takuda to stand. “Come on. Let's get you some fresh air. You've had a shock. This is quite gruesome even for me, and I'm a detective!”

Once Takuda was on his feet, Kimura hustled him out of the apartment. “Forensics, you know. Everyone has a job to do. We'll see if the landlord will handle the repairs to your apartment and the replacement of the flooring. Once that plaster dust gets into the straw mats, it never comes out.”

Takuda stepped past the disapproving patrolmen out onto the landing, and a wave of nausea overtook him. As he leaned over the railing, trying to keep from vomiting, the huge, still presence in his head gently mocked him:
Relief is too much for you. You know how to be alone and afraid, but simple happiness is beyond you. Actual joy would probably kill you.
And it boomed silent laughter that echoed back through his life to a time before his birth.

Takuda spoke back to it with his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his jaw clamped to keep his breakfast down:
How would you know anything of joy?

It retreated with a rushing like water, but there was mirth in its passage.

When he opened his eyes, Mori was at the bottom of the stairs.

“Come on,” Takuda said, holding the railing as he descended toward the parking lot. “They aren't in the apartment. They got away somehow.”

“Who?” Mori stood back to make way for him. “Yumi and the priest?”

“Maybe they weren't even there when the attack came.”

“Attack?”

Takuda pulled Mori into the parking lot, away from the steady stream of uniformed officers going in and out of the apartment. He hissed to Mori, “Endo delayed me at the satellite office. Someone went right through the wall from the gambler's apartment, into the priest's bedroom. Next door, the gambler's wife is hacked up to look like the jellyfish killings. As if the gambler did it with our kitchen knife and then he killed himself when they entered his apartment.”

“Why did they enter his apartment?”

“I didn't ask why they broke in. It doesn't matter why. Endo knew it was coming. He stalled me at Yoshida's office, but he was listening for the sirens. That's what brought me back.”

“The police radio brought me. They were so hot to get here that they even broadcast the address. Half the prefectural police is here, and all the city police. Chief of Detectives Ishikawa is down at the corner trying to bring some order to it, but it's chaos. I just walked right through.” Mori shook his head as if he had bees. “Where are Yumi and the priest?”

“I don't know where they are. Maybe Endo's ­people needed them to leave with the Kurodama because they can't touch it themselves. The rules.”

Mori threw his hands above his head in frustration.

“I need your brain now, Mori. I need you to think. Where would they take it? If Endo needed Yumi and the priest to carry it somewhere, where would that be?”

Mori sank to his haunches with his head in his hands. “Aaahhh, let me think, let me think.” He ran his hands through his hair. “First, I don't even know what's happened. Is it still active? The Kurodama?”

“Endo says it is. He says it's a mind, and that it's exacting revenge.”

“I told you so. I told you it was a bad idea to leave the priest alone with it. He's so weak-­minded that it probably possessed him. Or maybe it lured the gambler through the wall.”

Takuda grabbed him by the collar. “Think! Where would they take it?”

“I don't know how to figure out where they're taking it.” Mori shook himself free, still squatting. “Endo dropped hints about where it was, but not where it was supposed to be . . .” He looked up suddenly. “He dropped hints about the cafeteria, but also . . .” He stood so quickly his knees popped. “We need the priest's papers. That map. The old map and the tourist map. It's . . . Endo gave us everything we need. He gave us too much probably. I know he did. We just need to sort it out to figure out where they took it . . .”

A familiar voice came from behind them: “Where who took what?”