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

by Ben Stevens

  I had paper, brush and ink, now that our large, straw-covered (for the purposes of waterproofing) bag had been placed in this room. I would usually have passed the time by writing up an adventure or two concerning my master and me.

  But this time I found myself instinctively rebelling against the very idea. After all, it was just one more story to make my master seem fantastic, and I and pretty much anyone else concerned like utter dunces. Maybe I’d just been writing what was basically the same story over-and-over again, I considered, lying there on the futon and staring behind me at the closed, wood and paper shutters across the window.

  And then there came that soft, already-familiar knock on the sliding door of this room.

  In entered Omitsu, again carrying a tray.

  ‘Good morning,’ she greeted. ‘Your master requested that you be allowed to rest, when he left earlier.’

  ‘I have been awake for some time now,’ I replied curtly, as the tray bearing white rice, miso soup and a delicious-looking piece of fish was handed to me.

  Omitsu knelt down beside my futon, her strangely large eyes again staring into mine, so that I at once felt my throat growing tight.

  ‘What you said… yesterday,’ I forced myself to say. ‘I suppose you read about… about what happened to my young wife and infant daughter, in one of the stories I have written concerning my master’s adventures… The one I entitled The Demon King…’

  As captivated as I was by this delicate geisha (now clad in a kimono of dark green trimmed with gold), still I did not want her to think that I hadn’t realized just how she’d discovered about this tragic part of my past.

  ‘It helps you, to be always traveling,’ returned Omitsu, the soft words which fell like snow in a lonely forest more a statement than a question. ‘You can escape the past better that way…’

  Had anyone else said such a thing, I believe I would have been stirred to anger. Yet now, almost with a sense of disbelief, I realized that I was slowly nodding.

  ‘Maybe there is that, maybe…’

  My voice fell away, as Omitsu again gently put her hand on my cheek. I had an urge just to take her in my arms, to lie down with her on the futon –

  And then (again with the sense that this was merely some sort of dream), I was doing just that. In a moment Omitsu could have broken free, could have loudly admonished me for my actions and thrown the hot miso soup in my face – for she wasn’t that sort of geisha…

  Yet she did nothing of the sort. She did not resist; indeed she encouraged me to loosen her kimono, all the while murmuring my name… There was a scent to her that awakened something deep inside of me, some fire… A faintly metallic smell at once captivating and also somehow –

  Thrilling.

  The tray with the food upon it lay entirely forgotten beside the futon, the door of this dim, isolated room on the top floor closed…

  …I passed into a strange, dreamlike existence. Perhaps I now even inhabited the geisha’s shadowy world known as Karyukai – the ‘flower and willow’ world.

  Certainly I cared for nothing except Omitsu’s caresses, coupled with this sudden longing to be free of my master…

  …And then sometime later (how much later?) my master was back in the room, and Omitsu was gone.

  ‘A bad business,’ muttered my master, shaking his head. ‘I have visited several of the places where people – young women, usually – have been discovered dead in the morning, all of the corpses allegedly with this bite mark upon their necks, the blood completely drained from their bodies…’

  ‘Really?’ I muttered, lying facing towards the wall. But my master continued as though oblivious to my barely-disguised disinterest –

  ‘Interesting to note, Kukai, that the rooms in which these victims have been found dead are all sited on the first floor, or else – if on the second or even third – are easily accessible from the street or alleyway outside, the intruder being able to climb up on walls, low sloping roofs and suchlike.

  ‘So, we can cast aside any notion of some supernatural, levitating killer, at least.’

  At this, I turned to face my master.

  ‘You didn’t believe in such a thing in the first place, master – surely,’ I said tightly.

  My master stared back at me, his gaze curious.

  ‘I never discount anything, Kukai, until it can be entirely disproved. But still… something attacked these people, once darkness had descended, taking their blood without them making a murmur and then fleeing without anyone seeing a thing… Until that merchant happened to blunder in, that is…’

  I felt my interest being pricked, despite my strange mood.

  ‘And now, master,’ I said, ‘with it being autumn, so soon becoming dark in the evening, and so foggy…’

  ‘This killer will strike again, Kukai, and again, until – until they are stopped,’ commented my master. ‘But there seems to be no pattern as to where they will strike, only the certainty that those people occupying rooms by themselves, with windows easily accessible from the street, are most at risk. As such, a number of such rooms are now lying empty, people instead choosing to share with others as a way of obtaining some measure of security.

  ‘Really, beyond further promulgating this somewhat obvious advice to those people who live and work in this town’s pleasure quarter, I – for the moment – have no other idea how to proceed with this investigation,’ declared my master, somewhat ruefully.

  ‘But,’ he continued, ‘I have now to go and talk with Iwasaki – to basically repeat what I have just told you… But, in any case, how is your ankle, Kukai?’

  ‘It is healing, master,’ I mumbled, again turning so that I faced the wall. ‘I just find myself so tired…’

  ‘It is evening anyway,’ declared my master, as I heard him stand. ‘You rest now; I will return in a while…’

  I did not care if he never returned. I was conscious only of that fierce desire to lie with Omitsu again; and smell that strange scent about her, the one that somehow caused my very senses to reel…

  I was bewitched, I realized vaguely – bewitched by this beautiful young geisha – and I did not care in the slightest.

  4

  The days and nights all melted together, Omitsu and my master never in this dimly-lit room at the same time. Vaguely I sensed that my ankle was getting better (even though – to his obvious confusion – I refused to let my master massage or otherwise treat it) and this almost alarmed me.

  Alarmed me because soon I would be able to walk again, and already my master was talking as though this was one of those occasional cases he would be unable to solve. As such, we would be obliged to leave this large teahouse which had (as I now knew) Iwasaki, Omitsu and four other geisha working – and living – within it.

  My master said something concerning this teahouse, and those other teahouses in this neighborhood, still doing only limited business. But most evenings I heard noise coming from one of the rooms downstairs – laughter, singing and so forth – and so I assumed that the six geisha here had at least some customers to entertain.

  But, really, I cared nothing for any of this. I only waited for Omitsu to come bearing that tray (always this happened while my master was out) – and then to put it to one side, entirely forgotten as we made love…

  But it was as I was shaving one day that I felt a sudden thrill of something almost like terror. For my hand had slipped, and I had cut myself. I wiped the slight wound with my fingers – and then caught the faintly metallic tang of my own blood…

  In a flash, I realized that it was this I had smelt (if only faintly) about Omitsu. I had smelt blood on her skin. My senses reeled, and for a moment I almost passed out.

  I’d been… who knew how many days in this dimly-lit room, my master conducting his investigations during the day, leaving early in the morning (commonly before I was even awake, for I had become very sluggish) and returning late in the evening, when I was already beginning to drift off to sleep…

 
; I found my blood-stained fingers now creeping up slowly to my neck, feeling either side of it, as though searching for…

  This was absurd! Yet I felt… fear, there in my very guts. Yet still also that consuming desire for the geisha who visited me in this gloomy room, the shutter always drawn across the window…

  ‘Kukai…’

  I started – Omitsu was stood just behind me; I had not even heard her knock and then enter, so deep had I been in my thoughts. Her large, doleful eyes fastened on my cheek, which was bleeding…

  ‘You have cut yourself,’ she observed, her voice now like an autumn wind blowing through a pile of crisp, dead leaves.

  ‘It is nothing,’ I replied, torn between the entirely conflicting desires to again lie in her arms – and to flee this room, and thus also this strange geisha who smelt faintly of blood…

  ‘You are leaving tomorrow.’

  The words came as a statement.

  ‘What – what do you mean?’ I stammered in reply.

  ‘Your master told my mistress; that is, Iwasaki-san. He can find no answer to – well, you know to what. So he, and thus you, are leaving first thing tomorrow morning.’

  My very mind was failing me. Now, I seemed to recall my master having said something like this, as I’d lain there half-asleep. No longer was I even certain where wakefulness ended, and dreams began…

  ‘So if your ankle can stand it, Kukai, please come with me,’ said Omitsu then. ‘We have prepared some small celebration for you and your master in a room downstairs – our way of showing our gratitude for your master’s help.’

  ‘But he has failed you,’ I mumbled, staring deeply into Omitsu’s eyes. ‘He does not know who –’

  ‘He tried,’ murmured Omitsu. ‘But please, come.’

  I could now walk almost without a limp, although my ankle still hurt slightly. So walking downstairs unaided, to this room where it seemed all the geisha of this teahouse were waiting, would not present me with any difficulty.

  ‘My master is in this room also?’ I asked as I began to follow Omitsu, the cut on my cheek having stopped bleeding.

  ‘He is currently out, but no doubt he will return soon,’ declared the geisha who was now facing away from me, the nape of her neck again showing so provocatively.

  ‘We can begin without him, anyway,’ she said then, as we left the dimly-lit room and walked towards the even darker staircase, the plaintive sound of a shamisen being plucked coming from the floor below.

  And all of a sudden (why?) I was terrified – more scared than I believe I have ever been before in my life.

  And yet there was no choice except for to follow Omitsu.

  The tatami room was large, and only semi-illuminated by the several oil lamps flickering in its corners. There was the usual low table bearing food and drink, beside it a number of cushions, obviously intended for my master, me and the geisha to sit upon.

  As for the geisha… they all seemed to be present in this room. Even the ‘older sister’, Iwaki. Omitsu ushered me inside and then closed the large sliding door.

  ‘Come,’ said Iwasaki, motioning at one of the cushions near the centre of the low table. ‘Please, sit.’

  I obeyed, but almost hesitantly, for there was a tone to Iwasaki’s voice I did not care for in the slightest. It was like… ice, I thought strangely.

  The eyes of the other geisha all followed me, as I walked across the room and sat down. Then they moved so gracefully over to me, that it was almost as though they were floating – that there were in fact no feet at all beneath the bottoms of those splendid kimono, which were obviously worn only when there were paying guests in this opulent teahouse.

  These geisha surrounded me, filling a plate with food and pouring me a large cup of sake. This I sipped, at once feeling more relaxed. But then I noticed that Iwasaki was keeping herself somewhat removed from this little group – an indication of her superior rank, perhaps.

  ‘You have enjoyed… Omitsu?’ giggled one of the geisha, again with her face whitened and her teeth blackened. I stared at her, her face seeming to suddenly balloon slightly, there in the dimly-lit room.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I rasped, for some reason finding it slightly difficult to move my tongue.

  ‘You have had her… or has she had you?’ said another geisha, giving a cackle of laughter which this time made my blood run cold. I made to stand up, but my limbs were useless – as powerless as a newborn babe’s.

  ‘What is… what is this…?’ I just about managed to stammer. Four of the geisha crowded around me – Omitsu included – quickly got hold of my arms and legs. As powerless as my limbs were, they were now also restrained. The fifth geisha scuttled behind me, placing her hands either side of my head, as though to hold it in position.

  I tried desperately to move, but it was hopeless. Through a dazed fog, I realized that it was only these geisha who were keeping me in an upright position in the first place.

  And Iwasaki, her cold eyes gleaming at me in the gloom that seemed only to be intensifying, reached inside her kimono with one hand and produced what I took to be a key.

  Yes – it certainly was a key, for she stuck this in one of the cupboards sited along one wall and gave it a turn. A door opened, and Iwasaki reached inside with both hands and produced…

  A metal flask, almost waist-height, as wide as a human torso and covered with designs of snakes. That is, these snakes were wrought from the metal itself; there were many of them, all intertwined. They had been colored, once, but such colors had long since all but faded away; something which lent this unusually large flask a certain impression of age.

  …Iwasaki pulled this flask towards me, her eyes still shining.

  ‘It is not so heavy, this thing,’ she said. ‘So we were able to carry it around with us, when we were… searching…

  ‘Only when it was full, it thus became much… heavier… Though two of us could then still carry it…’

  ‘What are you saying?’ I said thickly, my very tongue feeling as though it was all but paralyzed.

  ‘Poor Kukai…’ continued Iwasaki, her eyes almost now seeming to shine yellow. ‘Dragged around Japan by your itinerant master from one misadventure to the next, always hoping that through this you might somehow escape the torment of your past which still plagues you…

  ‘But tonight, Kukai, your torment ends… In fact, it ends now…’

  And with this, the ‘older sister’ of these accursed geisha pulled at the ‘head’ of one of the wrought-metal snakes – and it detached from the flask! A pipe extended out… Iwasaki raised this head attached to the pipe up to one side of my neck… I noticed that the mouth of this snake now had two sharp ‘teeth’ exposed…

  ‘All we do is to place these teeth into a certain vein on your neck,’ said Iwasaki softly, ‘and wait for the flask to… fill…’

  ‘Omitsu!’ I heard myself cry out, as though this geisha – my lover of recent days – who was helping to restrain me, might suddenly change her mind and come to my assistance.

  Instead, she whispered into my ear –

  ‘I was silly, Kukai. I made a mistake. I pulled the snake’s teeth out of that girl’s neck too quickly, the last time. So a little blood splashed out, onto the lower part of my face. And I had only just climbed out of the window, standing there on a low roof, when the merchant entered and saw me!’

  At this, Omitsu laughed – a sound which chilled my blood.

  ‘Poor Kukai,’ she then continued. ‘Goodbye, my love – I did enjoy our… time together…’

  ‘We expect your master back shortly,’ declared Iwasaki contemptuously, those two sharp teeth now just an inch away from the right-hand side of my neck. ‘He has been blundering around, searching for clues concerning this mysterious killer – when all the time, it lay right here in this teahouse! Soon he will realize that he has finally met his match – in me.’

  ‘But… why…?’ I croaked, my sight steadily growing dimmer. I was passing into unconscious,
I realized.

  That sake… Perhaps the other victims had been similarly drugged…

  ‘Oh Kukai,’ whispered Omitsu in my ear, so that even now – even now – I desired her. ‘Don’t concern yourself with such trivial details, please. This is one case you won’t have to chase to its tedious conclusion, after all…’

  ‘Your fool of a master will soon return, unsuspecting, and we will deal with him then,’ said Iwasaki, and I closed my eyes and shuddered as those teeth began pressing against my skin…

  There was at once a violent crashing sound, the sliding doors of this room being broken inwards. My eyes again flew open, at the same moment as the geisha fell away from me, shrieking with outrage at this intrusion.

  It was my master, either side of him stood two samurai, their right hands gripping the hilt of their swords.

  ‘There,’ said my master, pointing at the vessel with the snakes upon it, those eyes above his high cheekbones burning. ‘There is your vampire, which collects the blood these geisha believe they require – which they believe keeps them looking young…’

  With the geisha no longer holding my drugged, weakened body, I had slumped onto one side. And with these horrific words of my master’s sounding in my ears, I finally slipped into unconsciousness…

  5

  ‘There was once a Korean Princess called Uimin, as famous for her beauty as she was notorious for her vanity and cruelty. But as time passed, this beauty of hers began to fade; something which caused Uimin to become even crueler.

  ‘Desperately she searched for ways to halt the ravages of advancing age; she spent fortunes on supposed ‘treatments’, even as the people in her country faced a fierce famine, which caused many of them to die from starvation.

  ‘But all seemed useless – until one day, in a customary fit of rage, she slapped a palace maid across the face. So hard was the blow that the maid’s nose began to bleed, covering Princess Uimin’s hand with blood. And as Uimin stared at this hand, it seemed to her that the skin was now less wrinkled; and even after she had washed this blood off, the complexion somewhat fairer…’