The Devouring God (20 page)

The younger Suzuki's lips were pale, almost blue. They twitched upward in a tight little grimace that was almost a smile. He whispered, “Hello, Father.”

 

CHAPTER 38

Thursday Afternoon

“H
eretics. Blasphemers. Liars.” The abbot spat out the words like angry little nuggets as he looked at Mori, Takuda, and Ogawa in turn. His eyes lit on Suzuki. “Traitor,” he hissed.

Suzuki stood very still, but Takuda saw something pulsing beneath the surface of the man himself. It was not vision as such. Takuda now saw as if with some primordial organ that predated the evolution of the eye, that or some sense wholly unrelated to his physical body. The pulsing he saw was a consuming fire raging inside Suzuki. It was the hunger. Suzuki's hunger was a force in itself, like molten lava straining against the crust that held it in place.

The force straining for release from the abbot was of a different sort altogether. It was a hideous spark of fear and resentment and misery that burned deep in the man's heart. The abbot growled as Ogawa loosened his bonds. Takuda wanted to reach out and squeeze the spark out of the old man, just as he had wanted to shake the anger and the bitterness out of Mori over the last few days. There had been no hideous spark in Mori, though, no palpable substance to squeeze out of him. With the abbot, Takuda could feel it waiting to be squeezed, waiting to be snuffed out. Just looking at the old man made Takuda's palms itch.

Ogawa finally finished removing the old man's manacles and belt. Without warning, the old man slapped his son across the face. It was a stinging, resounding slap, and even the counselor seemed abashed in the silence that followed.

Ogawa giggled.

Suzuki hadn't flinched. He stood just as before.

“I hate you,” the abbot said. “You are a disgrace, the greatest disappointment of my life.”

“That's surprising,” Suzuki said. His sunken cheek hadn't even gone pink from the slap. If anything, it seemed more pallid than before. “You've had so many disappointments that I can't imagine myself being the greatest. The failure of the temple, for example, and the extinction of our sect in its home valley. Surely those were harder blows.”

“Those were your doing.”

“Perhaps, but in the end, I believe your master drove us to ruin,” Suzuki said, indicating the counselor with a courteous gesture. “And if all that was not enough, I would imagine that the disappearance of my mother was a greater disappointment than my existence could have been.”

“Your mother! The horrible devil of a woman!” The abbot turned away from his son. “If she's alive, imagine what a shark-­skinned old hag she must be! She looked so young for so long, never changing a hair, but I'll bet all her sly, mischievous ways finally caught up to her. No, she was a liar and a thief, but you were a complete waste of my time. Fooling around just to make us all late, slacking off for the sake of slacking off, betraying for the sake of betrayal. You were a disgrace, an embarrassment.”

Suzuki bowed without irony. “And yet you are the greatest traitor of all.”

The abbot turned. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. My mother didn't run off just to see the big city. She loved the order, and she loved her boys. But she sensed the evil in you, and she knew you would feed her to the river.” Suzuki's eyes flashed with the dull fire very near the surface now. “You call me a traitor, but you are the greatest traitor I've ever even heard of. You only failed to deliver your wife to the Kappa of the Naga River because she was too quick for you, but you delivered your sect and your sons directly to enemies of the
Lotus Sutra
. The only way in which you failed to betray your family was in abandoning your youngest son. I kept the order alive long enough to kill the Kappa.”

The abbot looked up at his son. His rage had cooled to something sweet and venomous. Takuda wanted to squeeze it out like toothpaste.

“You know,” the abbot said, “our order is still going, safe and sound and secret. We still fight the fight you abandoned in your misspent youth.” He smiled. “Your brothers are all with me. Your brothers are worthy. You, I left behind. You aren't good enough.” The abbot turned away again, leaving the silent priest looking down at him.

Counselor Endo cleared his throat delicately.

“Well, this family reunion isn't as heartwarming as one could have hoped, but I think it might still serve its purpose. You see, the artifact must be returned to its proper place. The workings of a great mechanism depend on this single cog. It provides the livelihoods of many citizens in this great nation. Of course, no single man may stand in the way of that process.”

He stepped to the center of the loading dock. Takuda, Mori, and Suzuki stepped back toward the edges of the concrete, leaving Endo beside the abbot with Ogawa skulking at his shoulder.

“So here is our situation,” the counselor said, folding his hands in preparation for a formal summation. “The three of you are apparently immune to the effects of the artifact, as expected. We already knew that madmen had some protection—­who knew madness such as yours would grant complete immunity?” His laughter then was more for punctuation than pleasure, which made it all the more insulting to Takuda. “Anyway,” Endo continued, “this really is a ludicrous situation. You seem to want the artifact for yourselves. The abbot knows that it cannot remain with you, no matter how he and I disagree on its final disposition. Therefore, I propose a solution. If the artifact is returned to its place in the Zenkoku General Sales office, Abbot Suzuki will take his son and whomsoever his son shall choose as permanent residents at the head temple.”

The abbot snorted and turned on Endo. Endo silenced the abbot with a forefinger on his liver-­spotted wrist.

“If, however, the artifact is not returned immediately, the abbot's life is forfeit.”

The abbot stared at Endo.

“Yes,” Endo continued, smiling at Suzuki. “The artifact returned to the place from which you stole it, or your father dead at your feet.”

Mori stepped forward with the ruined swallow-­cutter in his left hand and his sword in his right. He had drawn so silently that Takuda hadn't even heard. Endo stepped away from the abbot, his hands raised. “Swords or guns or bombs can't stop this. It will simply happen.”

The abbot glared at Suzuki, a look of pure hatred on his face. “You have done this to me. You've killed me.”

“How can you say such a thing?” Suzuki said, his face a perfect picture of curiosity and wonder. “How can you believe me responsible for this other man's actions?” He peeled the bloody rags of his priestly sash from his hands—­fully healed but hideous, even longer than before, with tapering fingernails of bluish-­purple, like burnished claws. He grasped the abbot's robes at the throat.
He's going to squeeze it out of him now
, Takuda thought with satisfaction.

The abbot struggled, but Suzuki drew him close and grasped his head between those pale, hideous claws as if to crush it between the palms. The abbot flailed and kicked, but Suzuki was suddenly strong, horribly strong, and the light Takuda had seen earlier shone from his eyes like a searchlight into the old man's soul.

“I see the evil in you,” Suzuki said. “I cannot explain how, but I see it, and I see that it is not yours. It was somehow planted in you, and it can be removed as the sin was removed from the heart of Muhammad.”

“Blasphemer,” the abbot snarled.

The priest grinned steely gray. The gaunt, pallid creature with its glowing eyes and shining teeth was no longer Suzuki. In Takuda's eyes, it was no longer human.

Suzuki has crossed over
, Takuda thought, a wave of sadness passing over him.
He has become something inhuman, as I have.

Of those on the loading dock, only Takuda saw the change. Mori was watching Ogawa, Ogawa was looking to the counselor for instruction, and the counselor regarded Suzuki and his father with bemused tolerance. No one had noticed the sudden shift in the world.

“Priest,” Takuda said, not sure if the being before him was really Suzuki at all. “What has happened? What are you?”

Suzuki's grin widened as he stared at his father's head pinned between his palms.

He hissed: “I . . . am . . . hungry!”

He opened his mouth wider and wider, as if his jaw would unhinge. It was a shocking display of cutlery. He drew the struggling old man toward him in a yawning, sucking kiss.

 

CHAPTER 39

Thursday Afternoon

T
hey watched Suzuki seemingly suck the life out of his struggling father in an obscene and deadly kiss. Mori shuffled forward and back, a sword in each hand, as if unsure whether to advance or retreat. Takuda watched with a mixture of wonder and simple satisfaction as Suzuki drew the evil from his father's heart in a great, squirming lump. He saw it pass smoothly from the old abbot's heart to his windpipe and into his mouth, whence it passed directly between Suzuki's cold, blue lips.

Suzuki released the old man. As the abbot collapsed to a quivering heap on the concrete, Suzuki folded his hands in an attitude of prayer. He wore an expression of ecstasy, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head. The lump in his mouth, meanwhile, moved frantically against the insides of his cheeks as if in a bid for escape. Takuda saw the impressions of tiny body parts on Suzuki's sallow cheeks, as one sometimes sees the shape of an unborn child's foot move across its mother's belly. These impressions were in no way so wholesome as an unborn child: here, a splayed claw; there, a half-­furled wing; there, a tiny, snakelike head.

“Reverend Suzuki,” Endo said, stepping forward with more haste and concern than Takuda had ever seen him display, “that belongs to me. It is, in fact, very precious to me, and it could be very dangerous to you. You must listen to me. In the next few seconds, you must spit or swallow, one or the other. Do not allow my tiny friend to choose its own path. That would be ruinous for all involved. If you swallow, simply opening your throat, new worlds will become yours. You will become a prince in an invisible empire, as was your father before you. If you spit, no harm has been done. We would all start over, though there may be similar opportunities in the future. But please, please, choose quickly. Spit or swallow, it's all up to you.”

Suzuki opened his eyes. They blazed with the fires of dark worship Takuda had seen so often of late. Suzuki looked at each of them in turn, even sparing a glance for the collapsed abbot at his feet. He smiled then with great mirth and warmth, despite his terrible mirror-­bright teeth, prison bars for the tiny thing still struggling in his mouth. Then Suzuki closed his bluish lips tightly and, as Takuda had half expected, he chewed.

The thing in Suzuki's mouth shrieked, a high-­pitched, mewling wail above the bone-­deep crunching and popping. Red-­and-­black froth appeared at the corners of Suzuki's mouth as his jaw crushed and minced the living evil until it fell silent and Suzuki swallowed it down in three great gulps.

Counselor Endo stood still as stone. Takuda watched him for a few seconds before he realized why this stillness was so unnerving:
Counselor Endo is so surprised that he has forgotten to pretend to breathe.

“Reverend Suzuki,” Endo finally said, “I beg your pardon. I thought I knew who you were, but I do not. I do not know who you are at all. Please be so kind as to tell me your name. Your true name.”

There was an echo of command in the counselor's voice that made Takuda think to tell him Suzuki's given name, just in case Suzuki himself didn't volunteer it quickly enough. Whatever Suzuki had become, however, he was unmoved by words alone.

“I have no name,” he whispered. He drew a cotton handkerchief from his robe.
Hello Kitty.
He dabbed the bloody froth from the corners of his mouth. “I come from times before all names, even before the figures scratched on your old stone knife. However, I shall continue to be called Suzuki.” He grinned dark blood and steel. “That's Reverend Suzuki, to you.”

Endo lowered his head like a bull about to charge. “Yes, about the artifact you mention,” he said. “I would like you to return that now.”

Suzuki shook his head. “It's done a great deal of damage, but that's all over now. You may recall, or you may have heard, that our strong friend here used it to carve protection for himself in his own flesh.” Suzuki indicated the silvery scars on Takuda's forearms. “That was a very, very long time ago, another partial foiling of the stone knife's original purpose. I was curious to see if the scars would disappear with the destruction of the knife. What would you say, Counselor?”

Endo did not glance at Takuda's forearms, but Takuda knew the counselor didn't need to turn his head to see. “Some scars never heal. You're not making sense, Reverend Suzuki. You mention the destruction of the artifact, an impossible event.”

Suzuki smiled a thin and knowing smile. “My guess is that you don't see some of the amazing changes in the former detective.”

Takuda's hand raised involuntarily to the horn growing down into a fang.

Suzuki looked at Endo with dull, burning eyes. “Counselor Endo, I think you've got one foot in hell, and you can't see half of what you pretend to see of this world or any world beyond it.”

The counselor stepped forward and laid a forefinger on Suzuki's wrist. “Tell me now: What is your name, your true name, and what have you done with the artifact?”

“My name, if I ever had one, is lost across oceans of frozen time, to use your phrase. As for the Kurodama, I ate it bit by bit, from the tip of the blade to the handle, and then I sucked the evil from that shrunken lozenge like syrup from shaved ice. It was delicious. As you will be.”

Suzuki flipped his hand so quickly that even the counselor couldn't escape his grasp. Now Suzuki gripped the counselor firmly by the wrist. The counselor's whole body seemed to shiver apart and come back together more quickly than Takuda's eyes could make sense of the change. Endo tried to pull away from Suzuki, but Suzuki was far too strong. The counselor strained and shuddered until he finally pulled away from Suzuki with a snap. He stared at Suzuki's hand. Everyone on the dock stared at Suzuki's hand.

A small creature struggled between Suzuki's thumb and forefinger. It was pale and moist, eyeless, unformed. It sprouted flapping wings, then reabsorbed them when it failed to escape. It grew a mouth to bite Suzuki, and then the tiny maw collapsed upon itself. The miniature demon struggled for freedom, but Suzuki would not release it.

Mori's sword flashed. The pieces fell from Suzuki's fingers.

Suzuki looked down at it mournfully. Endo turned on Mori.

“You will pay,” he said. He widened his attention to the whole group. His eyes were black, like a shark's. “You all will pay.”

Mori stood stock-­still, his blade still at the ready. Suzuki looked at him with cool disdain. “That's not the first time you've come between me and a square meal.” Reddish fumes boiled slowly from the outer corners of Suzuki's eyes. They rose in delicate, tapering columns past his forehead. Takuda realized for the first time that he might be unable to protect Mori from the hungry priest.

There was sudden motion at their feet. Small distortions in the air, mirages like those Takuda had seen on the eaves of the buildings surrounding them, burrowed across the reality of the concrete deck. The bleeding halves of the creature Mori had cut disappeared without a trace.

“Nothing is wasted in this secret economy,” Suzuki said without a smile.

“You will wander,” the counselor said, backing toward the edge of the loading dock. Ogawa moved to Endo's side, eyeing the edge of the loading dock. “You can just say goodbye to this gorgeous Fukuoka City right now, because you will be leaving very, very soon. You will find no work here. Even your begging bowl will be empty, Reverend Suzuki. The three of you will find no sustenance. You will find no solace, no succor. Every door will be closed to you, and you will be visited by pestilence, famine, suffering, and death.”

He stepped backward off the dock, and the limousine door opened for him. He flowed backward into it, his eyes still on Suzuki. The door slammed, echoing off the opposite buildings, the echo finally losing itself in the sounds of distant traffic and nearer seagulls.

Suzuki grinned his terrifying grin. “Show-­off.”