The Iris Fan (6 page)

Two samurai, dressed in white martial arts practice jackets and trousers, strolled out onto the veranda. Their conjoined aura dissipated. They, unlike other creatures, could turn it on and off. They weren’t armed, either. They didn’t need weapons to kill.

“Somebody’s up and around,” said Tahara, in his voice that was both smooth and rough, like water flowing over jagged rocks. His deep black eyes twinkled. His left eyebrow arched higher than his right, lending his strong, regular features a rakish charm.

“It’s about time.” Kitano’s mouth moved, but the rest of his face was an immobile mesh of scars. Cuts sustained during a long-ago battle had severed his facial nerves. He was in his fifties, with gray hair and a robust physique that seemed impervious to aging.

“Where am I?” Hirata demanded.

“At the Sky Mountain Temple in Chikuzen Province,” Tahara said.

He and Kitano studied Hirata with an intense, eager interest. Hirata realized that someone was missing. “Where’s Deguchi?”

Deguchi was a Buddhist priest, the fourth member of the society. “Don’t you remember?” Kitano sounded concerned.

Now Hirata did. Deguchi had fought on his side in the battle against Kitano and Tahara. Memory served up an image of Deguchi’s dead, broken body. Hirata’s heart sank.

Tahara smiled as if relieved that Hirata’s wits were intact. Kitano’s eyes crinkled in his paralyzed face. Hirata also remembered that they’d all been injured during the battle, but the other men seemed as fit as himself. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Oh, about a year,” Tahara said.

“A year?”
Hirata was horrified. “What’s happened to my wife and children? And Sano?”

“Damned if we know,” Kitano said. “We haven’t been back to Edo in all that time.”

“We’ve been on the run,” Tahara said with a spark of anger. “After you told Sano about our society, he reported us to the shogun. There’ve been troops hunting us. We’ve had to keep a low profile, which means no contact with anyone in Edo. And it’s no easy task, lugging an unconscious man all over Japan. You should thank us for keeping you safe.”

“‘Safe’? You ruined my life!” Because of them he’d lost his family, his relationship with his master, and his honor. “What did you do to me while I was unconscious?”

“We healed you,” Kitano said. “We gave you plenty of good food and exercise. We kept you in good shape.”

They’d used their mystical powers to manipulate his body. Hirata pictured himself eating, practicing martial arts, and going through the motions of daily living like a sleepwalker. He shuddered. “What else?”

They watched him; they seemed to be waiting for something. Then Tahara spoke in a tentative voice. “General Otani? Are you there?”

General Otani was a samurai who’d fought in the Battle of Sekigahara more than a century ago. His side had lost to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who’d unified the warring factions of Japan, founded the Tokugawa regime, and become its first shogun. General Otani had died on the battlefield. Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi had stolen an ancient book of magic and learned a spell to summon his ghost. The ghost had granted them, and Hirata, supernatural powers in exchange for services. General Otani had one goal—destroying the Tokugawa regime and avenging his defeat at Sekigahara. He couldn’t do it alone; he was disembodied energy. He needed human help, and he could only be seen by and interact with the secret society members while they were in a mystical trance.

Sudden terror gripped Hirata. “Are we in a trance? Is that what this is?” He looked around for General Otani, whose powers were limitless, his wrath deadly.

“No,” Kitano said. “This is the real world.”

“Then how—?”

“General Otani?” Tahara repeated, louder.

Hirata experienced a strange, zinging sensation, like a current of extra life force speeding along his nerves. The blood in his veins and organs swelled. Heat flushed him. He felt a jolt in his brain. A part of him that he hadn’t known was still unconscious snapped alert. His lungs drew a deep, involuntary breath. His arms and legs stretched and flexed of their own accord. He couldn’t control his movements! He opened his mouth to yell, “What are you doing to me? Stop!” Instead he said, “I am here.”

His voice was deeper than normal, with a strange yet familiar accent. Tahara said to Kitano, “It worked!” They hooted with laughter and slapped each other’s backs.

“What worked?” Hirata was relieved that this time he’d said what he meant to say, yet terrified by what had just happened.

“The spell for possession,” Kitano said. “We’ve been working it on you for six months.”

“General Otani isn’t just a disembodied spirit anymore,” Tahara said. “He’s inside you!”

An alien presence bloomed in Hirata’s mind, like a carnivorous flower that preyed on his mental faculties. General Otani spoke in his thoughts:
You and I share your body.

This was the terrible purpose for which General Otani had ultimately wanted Hirata—to give the ghost a human form. Hirata cried, “No! I don’t want you! Get out of me!”

“The spell is permanent,” Kitano said.

Tahara shrugged and smiled. “Sorry.”

Their attitude compounded the rage Hirata felt toward them for luring him into treason. “Why does Otani have to possess
me
? Why not one of you?”

“He thought you would be the easiest to take over,” Tahara said.

Hirata clawed at his chest, yelling, “Get out!” His nails raked bloody tracks on his skin.

You can’t get rid of me
, General Otani said inside his head. His arm muscles stiffened, jerking his hands away from his body.

Hirata lunged toward the veranda railing. “Leave, or I’ll jump!”

A fear that wasn’t entirely his own stabbed his gut. Hirata realized that General Otani shared his mortality as well as his body. He tried to climb over the railing, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. He staggered toward the wall of the building and beat his head against it. Otani’s voice in his head howled at the pain. Hirata’s back arched, and he fell to the veranda. His arms and legs curled to his chest. He struggled with all his might, but he was as immobilized as if wrapped in chains.

“No use fighting,” Kitano said.

“He’s got you good,” Tahara said.

“You should listen to your friends,” General Otani said aloud. His voice was breathless as it emerged from Hirata; the struggle had tired him. “Stand up, or must I force you?”

The chains loosened. Hirata stood, conceding defeat, but he’d learned that the ghost had physical limitations now that it was in him. He would play along until he figured out how to expel it and be his normal self again.

It won’t work.

Hirata’s breath caught. General Otani said,
I can hear your thoughts. You can’t hide anything from me.
Hirata’s lips moved as General Otani spoke aloud: “We are going back to Edo.”

“Good, I’m ready for some action,” Tahara said.

“It’s too quiet here,” Kitano said.

“You two are not coming with us,” General Otani said through Hirata.

The other men looked surprised. “Why not?” Kitano asked.

“I have no further use for you.”

They apparently hadn’t realized that after they gave Otani a human body, he would be independent. “We’ve served you for years.” Tahara’s voice rose with indignation. “You can’t just ditch us.”

“Watch me.”

Propelled by the ghost, Hirata moved toward the door to the bedchamber. Tahara and Kitano stepped in front of it. “We gave up everything to help you destroy the Tokugawa regime,” Kitano said. “We’re fugitives because of you. We’re not letting you walk away.”

“I’ve rewarded you handsomely for your service. You have mystical powers that you could not otherwise have attained.” Hirata tried to bite his tongue to stop Otani from speaking, but he couldn’t. “Our collaboration is over.”

“If it’s over, then we’ll send you back where you came from,” Tahara retorted.

He and Kitano began chanting words in archaic Chinese that Hirata couldn’t understand. Inside him, General Otani’s spirit recoiled with fear from the spell that would permanently banish him to the netherworld of the dead. Hirata’s mouth opened. From his depths came a shout so loud that he thought his head would explode. Tahara and Kitano choked and staggered, mouths agape, while the force that Otani had summoned from Hirata blasted down their throats. They jerked and twisted like hanged men suspended from gallows, then fell to the floor. Flames burst from their mouths and eyes. They writhed, screamed in agony, then lay still. In the sudden quiet, the waterfall murmured.

Hirata fell to his knees, crying, “Tahara-
san
! Kitano-
san
!”

Their eyes were burned black as coals; their mouths leaked wisps of smoke. Hirata remembered how much he’d hated them, how he’d wanted desperately to kill them. He’d thought that if they were gone, he could reunite with his family, reconcile with Sano, and regain his honor. Now he desperately wished for the power to bring them back to life. They were the only people in the world who could have saved him, and the Tokugawa regime, from General Otani.

It is time to go.

Hirata’s muscles jerked him upright. He and the ghost inside him walked out of the temple, down a mountain path, toward the road to Edo.

7

Month 1, Hoei Year 6

(Edo, February 1709)

“HAS ANYONE STARTED
a search for the attacker?” Sano asked Captain Hosono.

“Not yet. But the sentries reported that no one has left the palace since His Excellency was stabbed, and all the exits are sealed now.”

“So he’s still inside. He can’t go anywhere.” Sano knew that wouldn’t necessarily make catching the attacker easy. There were hundreds of people in the palace, any one of whom could be the culprit. The first order of business was examining the crime scene for clues that would focus the search.

Sano looked around the chamber. The shogun was deep in opium-induced sleep, his breathing harsh and labored. The physician and guards sat by the bed. Lord Ienobu and Chamberlain Yanagisawa hovered warily near Sano. Sano unhooked a lantern from its stand and moved it in a slow arc as he walked, sweeping its light across the floor. He bumped into Ienobu, turned, and came up against Yanagisawa.

“Would you mind not breathing down my neck?”

“We’re supervising your investigation,” Yanagisawa said.

“Supervise it from over there.” Sano pointed at a corner he’d already searched.

“Sano-
san
, I’d like a word outside with you,” Ienobu said. “Then I’ll leave you to your work.”

Anything to get Ienobu off his back. Sano replaced the lantern, then followed Ienobu and Yanagisawa to the corridor. Ienobu said in a vehement whisper, “I didn’t do it!”

“I don’t believe you,” Sano said.

“Keep your voice down,” Yanagisawa murmured. “You’ll wake the shogun.”

“When he was stabbed, I was with you,” Ienobu insisted.

That Sano himself was the alibi for the man he thought responsible for the attack! “You’d have sent someone else to do your dirty work. There must be an incompetent assassin with your money in his pocket. You’ll have to ask for a refund.”

“I didn’t hire an assassin!” Distraught as well as angry, Ienobu said, “Just ask Yanagisawa-
san
. He’s privy to all my affairs.”

The day the secretive, cautious Ienobu let anyone in on all his affairs would be the day whales flew. Sano turned his skeptical gaze to Yanagisawa.

A beat passed. Yanagisawa said, “Lord Ienobu is telling the truth.”

Lord Ienobu frowned because Yanagisawa hadn’t spoken up for him fast enough. Sano was all the more puzzled. Was Yanagisawa trying to encourage Sano’s suspicions? If so, why?

“Did
you
send the assassin?” Sano asked.

“No,” Yanagisawa said calmly.

“What’s going on between you two?”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Ienobu snapped. “And don’t try to pin another crime on me. It didn’t work last time. It won’t this time.”

“Both the shogun’s children were murdered and now there’s been an attempt on his life,” Sano said. “The two people who confessed to killing Yoshisato and Tsuruhime are dead. They couldn’t have stabbed the shogun. But you’re still around.”

Ienobu sputtered. “That’s ridiculous logic! Everybody else in Japan is still around, too. You might as well say they’re all guilty.”

“The two confessions implicated you, not everybody else in Japan,” Sano said. “You were my primary suspect for those murders. You’re my primary suspect this time.”

“And you think you can use your investigation to frame me and get me this time?” Scornful anger twisted Ienobu’s face. “Well, think again. You’re going to prove I’m innocent.”

“How so?” Sano said, offended that Ienobu would ask him to conduct a dishonest investigation, get Ienobu off the hook, and subvert justice.

“I don’t care. Just do it.” Ienobu jabbed Sano’s chest with his finger.

Sano pushed the finger away. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“I’m Acting Shogun. You’ll do as I say.” Ienobu’s bulging eyes gleamed with vengefulness. “Or I’ll have you and your family put to death.”

Being thrown out of the regime and made a
r
ō
nin
was trivial in comparison to the threat that Lord Ienobu had kept in reserve for a special occasion like this. Sano knew that Ienobu could kill him, his wife, and his children without asking for the shogun’s permission and worry about the consequences later, but even as fear knotted his stomach, he said, “Go ahead, kill me. That should convince the shogun that you’re afraid of my investigation because you’re responsible for the attack.”

Angrily aware that Sano had a point, Ienobu scowled. Yanagisawa said, “Lord Ienobu, why not let Sano-
san
do a proper, thorough investigation? You’ve nothing to hide.” A dubious note in his voice suggested the opposite. “Let him find the real culprit, and your innocence will be proven.”