The Incense Game (41 page)

“No,” Hirata said. “I’m ending this now.” He drew his sword despite the fact that he was outnumbered by these men whose individual skills exceeded his own.

Alarm, then aggression, flared in their eyes. They must defend themselves, even if they didn’t want to fight Hirata, because someone was bound to be killed, which would ruin their plans. But they didn’t reach for their swords. Their outstretched hands seemed stuck together as if by magnets on their fingertips. Their jaws clenched with their effort to break free.

Sword raised, Hirata lunged at them. The veins of light crackled. He stalled in midair. The ghostly warrior glowed bright, brighter, orange-hot, then white, leaching energy out of Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. Blinded, Hirata had the sensation he’d experienced during his trance, of being sucked up toward the sky, then falling, accelerating, and cartwheeling. He thought,
The ghost prevented a battle because it needs us all alive.

Consciousness briefly fled him, then returned. Hirata found himself lying on cold ground by the altar, in the gray dawn. Tahara, Kitano, Deguchi, and the ghost were gone. All that remained was Hirata’s conviction that he must make a clean breast to Sano, shut down the secret society, and consign the ghost to the netherworld from which it came.

If only he knew how.

ALSO BY LAURA JOH ROWLAND

The R
ō
nin’s Mistress

The Cloud Pavilion

The Fire Kimono

The Snow Empress

Red Chrysanthemum

The Assassin’s Touch

The Perfumed Sleeve

The Dragon King’s Palace

The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria

Black Lotus

The Samurai’s Wife

The Concubine’s Tattoo

The Way of the Traitor

Bundori

Shinj
ū

About the Author

LAURA JOH ROWLAND, the granddaughter of Chinese and Korean immigrants, was educated at the University of Michigan and now lives in New York with her husband. She is the author of fifteen previous novels in her acclaimed series of thrillers set in feudal Japan; two of them have been named among the Best Mysteries of the Year by
Publishers Weekly
, while a third was declared one of the five best historical mystery novels by
The Wall Street Journal
.

Visit Laura on Facebook and at
www.laurajohrowland.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE INCENSE GAME.
Copyright © 2012 by Laura Joh Rowland. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by Olga Grlic

Cover photograph © Niko Guido

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Rowland, Laura Joh.

The incense game : a novel of feudal Japan / Laura Joh Rowland.—1st ed.

              p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-65853-3 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01528-0 (e-book)

1.  Murder—Investigation—Fiction.   2.  Sano, Ichiro (Fictitious character)—Fiction.   3.  Police—Japan—Fiction.   4.  Police spouses—Fiction.   5.  Earthquakes—Fiction.   6.  Tokyo (Japan)—Fiction.   7.  Japan—History—Genroku period, 1688–1704—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3568.O934I53 2012

813'.54—dc23

2012024300

eISBN 9781250015280

First Edition: September 2012