The Drowning God (14 page)

 

CHAPTER 27

T
akuda spun and spun in airless cold, tumbling blind as water filled his nose and his ears. The creature turned them both as it clawed its way through canvas and rubber. Takuda's hands reached for the monster even as he fought for balance in the darkness. He caught a slick, bony elbow, but it jerked away from him. His hands slid off its scale-­slimed ribs as the creature dug at his midsection, and the claws raked at his chest through his fishing outfit.

Takuda curled into a ball to keep the creature away from his throat and his liver. And in a ball he sank, with the creature swirling around him, trying to wriggle under his guard.

Even as he realized he might drown in that unlit tunnel, memories of chasing his brother and his son through murky water came rushing back sharp and clear:
We've been here before, the Kappa and I. But I was just a boy then. The beast has a surprise coming.

Takuda's rounded back touched down on gravel. He rested there lightly, buoyed by the air in his lungs and in his rubberized waders and by the squirming of the monster. Every time the beast reached in, he parried, deflecting the claws with his shins and forearms. He let go with his mind and allowed his arms and legs to take care of themselves. He was fighting blind, but the creature had two arms, two legs, and a biting mouth, just like any other fighter.

The creature paused, just for an instant.

It renewed its attack from the left, then tried to dodge in on Takuda's right. Frustrated at every turn, it tore at him in a full-­on frontal assault. Takuda could hear its rattling hiss through the water itself.

Not used to fighting grown men, are you? It makes you angry when it's not an easy kill. Make a mistake, and I'll tie your rubbery bones in a knot.

His lungs screamed for air, but he could wait. Water was trickling through his nose to the back of his throat. The urge to cough was almost overwhelming. He let it overwhelm him, then wash over him, then recede. He could wait.

The creature's fury seemed to spend itself. Again, it paused, just for an instant, and again, it attacked from the left.

Now.

Takuda's left hand closed on the creature's throat, and his right hand caught its flailing left arm. He rolled it onto its back, with its head against the steel track. The creature screamed in the water.

Now all I have to do is live long enough to kill you.

Its feet raked at Takuda's belly, and its free arm flailed. Takuda pulled its captive arm across its body, twisting the creature facedown, away from him.

Takuda needed air. His head throbbed. Blue-­and-­orange spots swam inward from the edges of his vision, disappearing in the center, into a hole, a tunnel, a dark tunnel within a dark tunnel within a dark tunnel—­

Beast first, then air.

Takuda worked his left foot into the gravel until his fishing boot wedged beneath the rail. Then he planted his right foot on the back of the creature's head, digging the steel spikes into its slimy flesh. It shrieked in the water.

Takuda exploded to the surface. He coughed and gagged, blowing outward with empty lungs. That was the hardest part—­not taking that first gasp of air until his throat was clear.

When he finally inhaled, it was a sweet breath, even tainted with mold and decay and the stench of rotten fish. He gasped and retched, wiping water from his eyes. It was good to be alive.

He stood gasping until his head cleared and his breathing slowed. That gave him precious seconds to think, standing in the dark, his weapon in a tackle tube somewhere in the waist-­deep water, a mythical water beast pinned beneath his boot—­

Now what?

The creature squirmed, gaining a foothold in the gravel. Takuda shoved his boot into its neck, grinding its face against the rail. Even standing out of the water, Takuda heard it screaming. It sounded almost like a human sob.
Almost.

It screams because steel—­burns it? Weakens it? What a strange thing.
The shackles Suzuki had given him
—­of course. Iron shackles.

He needed iron or steel to bind this creature, but his handcuffs were in the tackle tube. They might as well be on the moon. Handcuffs would have made it simpler, but he could wrestle it . . .

. . .
out of the water.
He would hold it out of the water. It would grow weaker with every step.

It was a sorry plan, but it was the only plan he had. The beast had been run through with good steel, slammed against the wall with enough force to pulp a human, and had its head pinned between a steel rail and steel spikes until its screams had died down to a plaintive mewling. It was waiting to slash him to ribbons if he let down his guard.

There was nothing else to be done. He couldn't pin it to the rail forever, and it certainly wasn't going to drown.

“Let's see how you do out of the water, little fish.”

He plunged his torso under the surface and grabbed the creature above its slimed, bulbous elbow joints. It was a grip that would have splintered a man's bones and split the skin, but the fish-­flesh squirmed under Takuda's fingers.
Too strong. It's too strong.
Then he pulled its elbows together and tightened his grip as if to squeeze the Kappa out of its own skin, and the beast shrieked in the murk.

He took his boot from the back of its neck and hoisted it up out of the water and above his head in one motion. It howled and squirmed, flailing its long, web-­toed feet.

Takuda struggled forward in the darkness. His fingers were numb and tingling. His grip strength seemed to be failing, and he didn't know why.
No matter.
It would be enough. He was strong enough.

He was completely turned around. After a few labored steps, he felt as if he was going back the way he came. On impulse, he turned and headed in the opposite direction.

He bumped into his tackle tube, and he carefully stepped through the strap hanging beneath the water's surface. It bumped against his thigh at every step. It was the most reassuring thing he had ever felt.

The creature seemed weaker and slower, just a little. It hissed and growled like an angry cat
:
“
Heh ho khu! Heh khiru khu hariri!
”

Takuda couldn't understand the words, but he somehow knew what it was saying. He saw flashes of his past as if the creature was putting ideas in his head.

It knew who he was, and it had killed his family.

It bubbled as if in pleasure. It knew that he understood.

“
Heh khudo tan khuhuhu—­
”

It had eaten his brother's liver.

Takuda twisted its elbows one underneath the other until he heard the rubbery bones grinding in their sockets. At that moment, the beast pitched sideways in an effort to escape. It was as weak as a baby, but it had taken him by surprise, and he had almost dropped it.

He felt his way onward. If the Kappa got into the water, it would regain its strength and kill him. He dug the iron spikes of his boots into the gravel as best he could on each step.

The curved wall ahead grew brighter. The light made an irregular halo around the lumpy, misshapen head of the creature he held in front of him.

“Wait till I get you up on the dirt,” he told the beast. “I'll take you in one hand and my sword in the other, and I'll cut a piece off you every twenty paces, all the way up to the temple, and then I'll drop your ugly head in the parking lot. After the priest is done reading sutras over it, he'll open it up and use it as an ashtray.”

It breathed heavily. Its voice was a dry rattle in its throat. “
Heh khu khozann kho tan—­
”

It planned to eat Suzuki's liver, too.

“The priest is a drinking man. You'll need more than your little turtle beak to eat a liver like his.”

The Kappa laughed, a sound like cracking bamboo. It chilled Takuda, so he held his tongue until the tunnel mouth was a huge arc of green before them, a sunlit world, a world of freedom from the hideous monster in his grasp. It was unfamiliar territory, not the spur line station. He had chosen the right direction, and he was heading for the Naga River valley.

In the sunlight slanting inward through the rusted gate, Takuda took another look at his captive.

It was gray and shriveled. Out of the water for so long, it had drained like a squeezed sponge, and the skin hung on its thin frame. Its misshapen head flopped on its shoulders. He turned it to face him. It snapped weakly. It opened one eye, a clouded, yellowed little orb that had once been a human eye. Takuda could read nothing from it but hatred.
What else could be left in a creature like this?

He would kill it quickly, of course. He felt no mercy for the Kappa itself, but enjoying its death would make him just as evil.

At the mouth, the water was only up to his knees. Takuda used the Kappa to push open the unlocked gate. As he shoved the creature against the rusted steel, its groans were lost in the squealing of the hinges. Water spilled from the corroded frame above, and most of it went down Takuda's collar. He swore and stepped into the sunshine.

The flooded rail bed turned south, running parallel to a canal. Here, in sight of the trees and bamboo and flooded rice fields, Takuda could hardly believe the nightmare of the Kappa.

Except that he held it in his own two hands.

Takuda walked forward until the water was only up to his ankles. He held the Kappa aloft with one hand as he retrieved and uncapped the tackle tube. His eyes seemed dim, almost unable to focus. His forearms were covered in blood, human blood. His own blood. He was very weak, but he could still wield a sword.

The blade shone bright in the morning sun, and the Kappa's eyes followed it as Takuda raised it for the strike . . .

. . . and then the Kappa's yellow eyes met his. It gurgled like a happy child.

He felt the blow before it came. Just barely. He moved his head back, and the sharpened claws whizzed past his chin and slammed into his shoulder.

The water,
Takuda thought.
Just a trickle as we passed through the gate, but it was enough.

The Kappa laughed aloud. That sound was almost worse than the pain.

Takuda dropped to his knees as the second claw zipped over his head.

The Kappa wriggled free of his weakened grasp as its feet dipped into the shallow water. It twisted its claws into Takuda's shoulder, and the sudden, shocking pain made Takuda release his sword.

Now they were together on the flooded rail bed, and the Kappa had regained its strength. Its skin tightened up before Takuda's eyes as if it were soaking up water through its webbed feet.

The Kappa made something like a smile. “
Ho kho dokho ya. Heh ho khu kho zhita.
”

It would start by eating Takuda's tongue. It reached for his throat.

 

CHAPTER 28

T
he Kappa's voice rattled with joy as it wrapped its slimy fingers around Takuda's neck. A thin, black trickle of sticky spittle dangled from the corner of its beak.

Takuda collapsed backward onto his back in the shallow water between the railroad tracks. Even as his vision began to blur, Takuda realized how stupid, how blinded by hatred and bloodlust the creature had become. It had poisoned him, and he would soon be immobilized, but the creature wanted to prove its strength. It wanted to watch him die up close. Takuda had no fear, not any longer, and only a little pain. He looked quickly for the weapon he was sure would appear.

And poking through the zippered opening of the pocket on his right arm, just below his shoulder, a bright steel cylinder shone in the morning sunlight: the pen he had accidentally stolen from the distracted salesman at the sporting goods store.

Now it was just a matter of delivering that pen to the Kappa's brain stem.

He rolled on the gravel and worked his left hand between himself and the Kappa, up to the protruding pen. His hands were curiously numb. As the Kappa turned its head to see what he was doing, Takuda pulled the pen free and backhanded it into the Kappa's face.

The Kappa howled and stumbled through the shallow water, pulling feebly at the bit of steel.

Takuda scrambled over the rail for the sword, but he moved in slow motion. He took it up in his left hand, but his fingers were so numb that he almost dropped it. He crawled painfully to the embankment.

When he looked back, the Kappa crouched in the shallows, yanking at the pen. It finally got a grip, and it shrieked as it pulled. The pen came free in a gout of black fluid.

The Kappa looked at Takuda and hissed in rage.

Takuda held the blade aloft. “Come on, this is for you.” They stared at each other as Takuda struggled to his feet.

The creature dropped to all fours and scrambled away from him, toward the canal.

“Wait for me. I'll take you to a magical land.”

The Kappa slipped over the embankment and out of sight.

Takuda's legs gave way. He was suddenly—­saddened? What a horrible thing, that a creature like that could exist. What a horrible world that could produce that kind of torture. An endless cycle of pain and fear and doubt, all culminating in death.

It would be better to simply die and get it all over with. He should have let Yumi bleed to death when she had stabbed herself in the throat. Perhaps he would just sit in the water and bleed to death himself.

What did he have to live for? Day after day, waking up, working, all of it was just a torturous, monotonous ordeal. There was nothing more. Life was work, and he was exhausted by it. Perhaps if he opened a vein, he would finally find peace.

He rolled up his sleeve, clearing the shredded fabric away for a cut.

Vertical, vertical, not horizontal. Up the road, not 'cross the street. You want the vein, not the meat.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was insistently surprised by all this. He hadn't thought this way since the days following the death of his son, Kenji, but now he couldn't imagine why he should think anything else. He had never believed in anything, not really. Death was just the end. Darkness. In the end, there was nothing but death.

He had to rest the blade on his shoulder to get the point on a good vein in his wrist. As the heavy steel dug into the base of his palm, ready to slice along the vein up to the elbow, the flat, cold blade rested against his cheek for just a moment. Just an instant. It felt good. For no reason in particular, he thought of Yumi's hand on his forehead when he was feverish. Yet he was not feverish.

But I am certainly ill. I am poisoned. I am poisoned by evil.

He stopped to examine that thought. His hand remained on the spine of the blade, ready to slice himself open.

Even if the Kappa's poison had somehow affected his thinking, it did not mean he was incorrect. Buddhism was the only religion that explained human suffering, but Buddhism was complete nonsense.
In the long run, no matter what humans want to believe about love, mercy, and justice, the savage universe is always out there, just outside the door, a swirling vacuum of chaos waiting to take our children, take our lives, break our hearts.

My little Kenji. My sweet little boy. He was a good boy. He did not deserve to die that way.

I am so tired of grieving for him
.

He grasped the blade tighter, and the cold steel brushed his cheek again, like Yumi's cool, slim fingers.

What about Yumi? What will she do?

—­Detective, if you get up and do your job, she can stop grieving
.

It was another voice in his head, and it was startling. It was—­Suzuki?
Now I know I'm insane. Suzuki is in my head.

The Suzuki in his head laughed.

—­Relieve the suffering of others by ending this water-­imp's killing spree. If you don't feel better after that, then go kill yourself.

Takuda shook his head.
That doesn't give meaning to life. It's all nonsense. Buddhism is nonsense.

—­
Of course it is.
That means all we have is this life. Thanks to that foul little creature over in that canal, you've wasted more than a third of yours in mourning. What a pitiful existence. If you end it here, how many more lives will be wasted in the same way?

Purplish blood had welled around the tip of the blade. Takuda was still unready to lift the steel out of his own flesh.

I decided to live, despite my situation. I decided against suicide, but wouldn't my suicide make it easier for everyone?

The Suzuki in his head was silent. Takuda opened his eyes. The Kappa stood stiff on the embankment. Its face didn't change, not exactly, but its form seemed to shift, as if some obscuring shadow fell over its hideous deformities. It suddenly looked like a young woman.

Takuda stood. The Kappa's hands were too long, the legs were too short, the head was misshapen, and its mouth was a horror, but it looked like a young woman nonetheless.

“
Dono zhan. He kho dono zhan.
”

It wanted to be his friend.

He was on his feet before he realized he was going to stand. The Kappa squealed as he advanced with the sword. He chased it to the edge of the embankment, and it skittered into the canal like a skipping stone. It disappeared, carried away in the swollen stream.

Takuda turned his back on the canal. Foolish to turn his back, but he was so tired—­

His shoulder was oozing blood. He needed to have it irrigated and the surrounding muscle pumped with antibiotics. He probably needed a tetanus shot. He would find if there was another doctor in the valley these days. He wouldn't have the butcher coroner treat him.

As he looked at his hands, there was too much blood. It wasn't just from his shoulder. He tried to peel back his sleeves, and they seemed to fall apart under his weakened fingers.

The Kappa had torn his forearms to pieces. He was slashed to the bone in spots.

He tried to bind the wounds with the dry trousers in the tackle tube, but his fingers felt too thick. He wasn't bleeding to death, but he needed stitching.

Blood and poison. This is bad bad bad.

He wasn't sure he was breathing deeply enough. He tried to fish his phone out of the tackle tube and finally just poured everything out onto the dirt. He could barely focus on the screen. His fingers flexed senseless against the phone, and blood oozed onto the keypad.

He used his thumb knuckle to find Mori's number. Mori's away message answered on the third ring.

“Mori, it was waiting for me, and I'm in bad shape. I'm in the valley, at the mouth of the old railway tunnel. I'll just rest here.”

He tried to hang up, but the phone fell from his fingers and into the dirt. He thought of Yumi and Kenji.

He hadn't realized it would be so easy to let go and slip away. Five minutes before, the point of the blade had been poised to slice a vein. Now, he didn't want to die, but he probably would anyway. It was—­
ironic
. He thought to close his eyes, but they didn't seem to respond, and it didn't matter. His breathing was shallow and ragged in his own ears. He fell and lay sideways on the dirt. It was warmer there.

Darkness overtook him.