The Ennin Mysteries: Collected Series 1 – 5 (25 Stories) MEGAPACK

by Ben Stevens

  The ronin nodded and limped out of the room, the twin scabbards on his belt empty, his ridiculous ‘bamboo-swords’ lying there on the floor. My master returned to sit down near me, taking a thoughtful sip of sake.

  ‘So,’ he said then, ‘whoever offered that idiot money for my head – our heads – will certainly seek a better class of assassin next time.’

  My master sighed, now surveying the broken sliding door to this room and the bloodstains on the tatami.

  ‘I fear this damage will not be cheap, Kukai, when we settle our bill here shortly…’

  ‘I know we have the top room, master,’ I interjected, ‘but so much… noise was made here, that I’m surprised no one from the inn came up to investigate.’

  ‘After I informed the maid – earlier today, while you were busy taking a nap – of how I was aware she’d told that ronin of our intended location this evening, I also took the opportunity of telling her, as well as her employer the cook, that under no account was anyone to come up to this room after our meal and the accompanying sake had been delivered.’

  ‘This maid could have got you – us – killed, master, through her treachery,’ I observed tightly.

  My master shrugged.

  ‘She is young, and also spectacularly unintelligent,’ he remarked mildly. ‘Such people, like animals and small children, can hardly be blamed for their actions. But what has just taken place is a reminder that I must always be on my guard.

  ‘For any attempt on my life need only be successful once – just once…’

  ‘Our lives, master,’ I reminded.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Kukai – our lives,’ nodded my master absently, as together we rose to our feet. ‘But at least this incident gives you material for another one of your tales, does it not…?’

  The Geisha and the Vampire

  The wealthy merchant liked to visit the young, female servant after dark. When all members of his large household – family and also staff – were in bed. The servant had been coerced into becoming his mistress several months previously, and had thus been given a room of her own. This lay at the end of a long corridor, somewhat removed from the rest of the merchant’s sprawling residence.

  The merchant liked to tell himself that this affair was taking place in total secrecy, with no one other than himself and the servant girl aware of it. But really he didn’t much care; if anyone else knew – or even suspected – then they’d certainly keep their mouth shut. That was, if they knew what was good for them…

  The merchant opened the sliding door without knocking. He knew the girl would be waiting for him, lying naked upon the futon, as per his desire. Only now that it was autumn, and thus getting chilly in the evenings, she was allowed to cover herself with a sheet as she awaited his arrival.

  In he stole, almost chuckling to himself as he again closed the door behind him, not really looking yet in the direction of the futon that lay by the window at the opposite end of the room. This girl was good to him; she knew what pleased him – he’d ensured that she’d quickly learnt all about that, of course. When he grew tired of her, he’d give her a bit of money and send her packing with an excellent reference – he always did this, at least, so that she’d quickly find another position…

  Yes, the futon lay almost directly below the sliding window-shutter of wood and paper, which when open in the summer could thus let in delightfully cool breezes at night. But it should be closed now, in autumn, except it was not. And the face staring back at the merchant’s, on the other side of the open window and shining white in the moonlight, was not that of the servant girl. The hair was arranged in the classical style of the geisha – of whom there were many in the town’s ‘pleasure quarter’ which lay nearby, frequently visited by the merchant himself – and something dark crimson showed on the chin of that otherwise whitened, glowing face.

  It was blood. Blood from the figure lying so still upon the futon below that window. The merchant had heard the rumors, the servants and such in other residences purportedly found dead in the morning, their bodies entirely drained of blood and those two small holes on one side of their necks… But he’d put such stories down to mere hysteria, the bodies in any case quickly being buried or cremated (this custom of burning bodies becoming ever-more popular within Japan), the victims soon being forgotten…

  In a moment, the face of the geisha with the gleaming white face and the blood-soaked chin was gone. But the merchant knew what he had seen, just as he knew that the naked servant girl he’d been so earnestly intending to make love to was now lying dead upon the futon…

  And with this, the merchant began to scream…

  1

  ‘It is fortunate indeed that you should happen to be in this neighborhood, Ennin-sensei, so that I can hopefully hire your services to investigate this strange affair.’

  So declared the geisha named Iwasaki, the so-called ‘older sister’ and owner of the large ‘Spring-sea’ teahouse which (my master had already informed me, upon our journey here from the inn where we were staying) was the oldest and most respected geisha business in this area.

  Certainly there was no shortage of such businesses, here in this town’s large ‘pleasure quarter’. Even during our short walk here – with my master having to support my slow, limping progress, due to the injury I’d recently received to my left ankle – we’d seen any number of geisha and also maiko (those young ‘geisha in training’, as it were) bustling past on raised geta, their kimono beautifully colored. They carried those three-stringed instruments named shamisen and also small drums in cases, spare clothing, barrels of alcohol and all those other items necessary for their work.

  Now, my master inclined his head at Iwasaki’s words.

  ‘I am at your service,’ he said gravely.

  ‘You have heard that the merchant who allegedly saw this… Well…’

  Iwasaki gave a discreet cough, before continuing –

  ‘In any case, he is now effectively insane – so that one may very well be tempted to question the actual truth concerning what it is he claimed to have seen that evening.’

  This ‘older sister’ struck me as being a woman of strong character, with a somewhat pragmatic nature disinclined to believe in the type of shocking story my master and I had recently heard.

  Otherwise, it was difficult to tell too much about her – even her age. She was not wearing the full geisha ‘make up’, and yet her face was still whitened slightly, and her teeth fashionably blackened.

  She was sat kneeling, facing us across a low table in a small tatami room. There was a pot of green tea, from which she refilled my master’s and my cups.

  ‘The other geisha teahouses in this area are already suffering, business-wise, because of this unfortunate incident,’ declared my master levelly.

  The unspoken question was obvious, and Iwasaki answered it readily enough –

  ‘Mine is certainly the most well-established teahouse in this area; but, yes, we too are seeing fewer customers. That is why, if you were agreeable, I would like to engage you to investigate this story concerning what the merchant (now judged to be insane, don’t forget) claims he saw – and disprove it.

  ‘To find out the truth concerning what actually happened to that poor servant girl – and those other victims before.’

  ‘Then you don’t believe that they were attacked by a geisha who becomes a vampire at night, and who thus visits the living as they sleep to suck out the blood from their very bodies?’ inquired my master, his expression in that somewhat dimly-lit room earnest.

  Iwasaki merely gave my master a look, and I found myself emitting a slight cough, out of sheer embarrassment at my master’s words.

  ‘Whoever is responsible for these disgusting murders needs to be uncovered and caught,’ continued the senior geisha, after a few moments’ awkward silence. ‘Unfortunately, it is true that enough people believe the ravings of a lunatic for it to affect business at the house I run, as well as those other teahouses in
which geisha operate. And I feel it is my duty to somehow try and put a stop to this whole, unfortunate turn of events – in this instance, by employing the well-known Ennin-sensei.’

  These words might well have been taken for a compliment; but the way in which they had been spoken was far less flattering. As though my master’s foolish mutterings about blood-sucking demons, vampires or whatever you may wish to call such creatures of mere myth and superstition had caused Iwasaki to suddenly have second thoughts about employing him.

  ‘There is a room here, in which you and your servant might stay while you investigate this matter, if you so desire,’ said Iwasaki then, almost as an afterthought.

  This was fortunate – for my master and I currently had little money. Indeed, this was often the case, given my master’s excessive generosity and general distain for material possessions. He could have become an extremely wealthy man by now, given his fame and support from such influential people as the Empress of Japan herself; but as soon as any money came into my master’s possession he seemed determined to spend or just give it away as quickly as possible – and often he refused even to accept any payment for a case in the first place, especially if the person who’d employed him was clearly not wealthy themselves…

  Anyway, so it was that he’d already been obliged to sell the small horse I’d recently been travelling on (due to the injury received to my ankle) to the owner of the inn where we were currently staying. This money would have allowed us to remain there, with food, for some two weeks – long enough, declared my master, for my ankle to get well enough so that I could again walk on it unaided.

  But now this offer of payment to investigate this chilling case (regardless of this nonsense concerning vampires, still someone had killed that servant girl and the other victims, after all); and, furthermore, the chance to stay in this large, and rather splendid tea-house free of charge.

  ‘I accept the case,’ said my master. ‘You will have noticed, of course, that my servant Kukai is currently having some difficulties walking. As such, I would like to leave him here, in the room in which you are so kindly letting us stay, while I return to the inn we were at previously to get our few possessions.

  ‘And then… and then I shall begin my investigation…’

  2

  A short while later I found myself lying in a room with an adjoining bathroom on the fourth floor of the teahouse – that is, the top floor of the large building which seemed to have any number of rooms and corridors. As I’d been helped up the steep wooden stairs to this room by my master, both of us following the woman named Iwasaki, we’d passed by a number of these tatami rooms, which lay empty and somewhat gloomy in the fading late-afternoon light.

  I tried to imagine these rooms lit up by oil lamps, male customers drinking, eating and laughing as the geisha of this teahouse played, sang and danced for them, but it was no use. That strange, murky sense of depression which had been plaguing me for some weeks only intensified, so that I found myself dreading being left alone in whatever room we were heading towards…

  ‘One of the other geisha here will be up shortly, to bring you some refreshment,’ Iwasaki informed me, as my master helped me sit on one of the two futon which had already been lain out. (Obviously, the owner of this teahouse had expected we would agree to her suggestion that we stay here.)

  Then my master followed Iwasaki out of the room, and I was left alone. There was a lamp, which I lit, but otherwise I had nothing to do except sit upon my futon and try to stop my thoughts from becoming too morose.

  I wasn’t certain what exactly the matter was with me; I’d told myself that my spirits would improve as soon as I could walk properly again, and yet…

  And yet I’d been feeling this way even before that silly and moreover fully avoidable accident, when I’d badly sprained my ankle after slipping in a muddy patch that lay along a path…

  There was just… a sense that time was slipping away; that I was perpetually following my master from one bizarre and often dangerous situation to the next, and that sooner-or-later we would be overtaken by the specter of death which always followed us so closely.

  We’d survived so much, often when the odds against our survival had seemed overwhelming… Yet no matter how brilliant my master’s wits, such luck could not hold out indefinitely…

  There came a gentle knock on the sliding door, and then it slid open. In entered another geisha, as Iwasaki had said. This geisha carried a tray with food, a flask of drink (I fervently hoped that it was sake) and a small hot towel upon it.

  ‘I am Omitsu,’ stated the white-faced woman, in a gentle voice that caused a strange feeling of warmth, deep in my belly. Immediately, for some indefinable reason, I felt my spirits lift slightly.

  Despite the burning lamp, it was still none too bright in this room. The sliding shutters of wood and paper were closed across the window that lay behind the futon. Outside lay the fog which seemed to hug this area as evening descended, the lights from the many inns, pleasure houses and so on burning vaguely, mistily through it, enticing custom into more convivial surroundings.

  The woman passed me the tray, and I was able to discern that she was certainly younger than Iwasaki. She wore a kimono of dark red, and when she spoke again I saw that her teeth had also been blackened –

  ‘I have been told that you are injured…’

  Her big, almost doleful eyes seemed to flash sympathy at me, there in that ill-lit room.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘Just a silly accident, when I was walking to this town a few days be –’

  My voice abruptly cut off, for I realized that Omitsu was not really listening, instead staring intently at my face. Then she raised her right hand, gently placing it on my left cheek. It seemed that I could scarcely breathe, as she subjected me to this strange analysis of hers.

  And yet… I did not want it to end, and that is the truth. I felt more at peace, more relaxed, than I had for a long, long time. Perhaps forever… The growing darkness in the room seemed almost to hum, so quiet and still did it otherwise lie.

  ‘You have suffered so much – before,’ said Omitsu then, in what was barely more than a whisper. ‘And you suffer – now.’

  ‘My ankle…’ I murmured, my voice no louder than Omitsu’s, but she slowly shook her head.

  ‘Pain before; pain no person should ever know,’ she intoned. ‘The complete loss of everything you held dear, so that you then desired only the complete loss of yourself…

  ‘But then – this existence starting; becoming the servant of… Ennin…’

  Abruptly the geisha straightened.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I have brought you some refreshments. I will return later.’

  I stared back at her as though dazed.

  ‘Yes, I… see,’ I mumbled foolishly. ‘I… later…’

  But already, Omitsu was gone.

  When my master returned, his overall demeanor was as subdued as ever I’d seen it. He had the appearance of a man trying to recover from some great shock, recently received.

  ‘The merchant truly has been driven out of his mind,’ remarked my master quietly, sitting down on the futon beside mine. ‘It was… awful to see a man – to see anyone – like that; shouting and ranting, his eyes bulging and his limbs tied to a wooden chair so that he shouldn’t break free and harm anyone else – or himself.

  ‘His wife (a meek, timid creature, obviously cowed by her husband back when he’d been in full possession of his faculties – and she as well as anyone else knew what had brought him to the servant girl’s room on that particular night) says that he shouts almost continually, day-and-night about ‘white faces’, ‘staring eyes’ and ‘blood’.

  ‘Certainly he was saying such things somewhat loudly when I saw him; and then exhaustion overtook him, for his head suddenly fell to one side and his eyes closed.’

  My master paused, and shook his head before continuing –

  ‘It is too late now to continue a
ny further enquiries, but I shall resume first thing tomorrow, trying to locate all the residences that have claimed an attack by this… whatever it is, and seeing if any sort of pattern can thus be established…’

  If I am to be honest, I was having trouble concentrating on what my master was saying. I wanted only to see – to talk with – that geisha named Omitsu again.

  In fact, just being in my master’s company once more caused me to feel that sensation of depression – only this time this was mixed with a strange, but still definite feeling of irritation. As though I’d rather he wasn’t even there in the first place; as though it was about time we parted – our time together having come to an end…

  What was I even thinking? My master and I, who had shared so much, so many adventures and so much danger, and yet…

  I was sick of it all! Sick of him – sick of this life! I realized all this in a flash, at the same time as I again visualized the low nape of Omitsu’s neck, purposely exposed by her kimono, as she left the room…

  The things she’d said, in that soft voice… And the effect which all of this had had – was having – on me, as just another man, quite removed from all the false, fleeting glory which writing up my master’s adventures had afforded me…

  ‘Are you… all right, Kukai?’ asked my master quietly, as I turned on my side, facing away from him.

  ‘I’m fine… master,’ I replied, trying and failing to keep all of this sudden venom I felt for him out of my voice. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I am so tired…’

  ‘Of course, Kukai,’ returned my master, confusion and – something else I’d never previously heard sounding in his voice.

  I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, Omitsu’s whitened face floating there in the darkness before me…

  3

  When I awoke in the morning, my master was already gone. I managed to limp into the bathroom adjoining this room – and then fell back upon my futon, my ankle aching fiercely. My master had shown me how to expertly massage it, so to remove much of the pain and also encourage healing. Yet now I took an almost absurd pleasure in not doing as he’d instructed. Why was it always he who knew best, I asked myself?