Takahashi withdrew the katana from its sheath and took the cloth from his father’s gnarled hand. The clicking projector made the only noise in the room. The men leaned forward to watch; Michael was reminded of crocodiles lurking on riverbanks, alert for prey.
Takahashi placed the point of the sword against his stomach. He drew a deep breath, ready for the thrust.
Along the top of the screen appeared a deep crimson line, startling in its intensity against the black-and-white world. The red line widened, covering about a quarter of the screen before it began to drip like thick blood down the screen.
The five men muttered in amazement at Redmond’s technique, how he’d been able to superimpose such a brilliant color onto the dull sepia tone.
“Mikey!” Redmond said, his voice a confused growl.
On the image, Takahashi stared down at the curved sword, oblivious to the thick red streams oozing across the screen and obliterating everything.
Feeling a growing horror, Michael tapped the projector lens. A shadow of his fingers should have fallen across the stained-blanket screen, but it didn’t. Droplets popped out of the movie reel itself, like juice from a pomegranate seed. Michael touched the film feeding into the projector. His fingers came away wet and sticky.
The five men in the audience began to grumble. The crimson blot prevented them from seeing what the samurai was doing. Redmond swallowed several times; his freckled skin looked a sick gray in the red light.
The curtain of blood spilled to the bottom of the screen and covered the entire picture.
A roaring wind numbed Michael’s ears, making him giddy. His vision went fuzzy, and then an empty coldness swept over him. The wind stopped abruptly, and a surreal fuzziness filled the screening room.
“Mikey!” Redmond’s voice cracked like a pubescent teenager’s.
The projector had stopped, though the screen still glowed like a window onto a scarlet landscape. Michael stood beside the motionless reel of film, but he could not move. Neither did the men seated in the wooden folding chairs. It was as if time had stopped, as if the apparatus projecting their lives had frozen on a single frame.
Except for Redmond, who stormed back and forth. “What the hell is going on here?” He seemed to know the answer, but could think of nothing else to say, no other way to pretend having command of the situation.
Will Vengeance suffice? It wasn’t a voice. It wasn’t even words. Michael heard Japanese, but the other men in the room seemed to understand as well.
Redmond made a strange sound between a gulp and a scream. “What do you mean? I did everything I promised!” He paused, as if spinning through his memories of everything Michael had told him. “I kept my honor!” Michael could not react, or move, or say anything to help him.
You are a man fundamentally without honor. Writing promises on paper to ensure that you will keep them, profiting by the suffering of others. These five will receive enough blood for their tastes, and my own. Such men deserve to die as common criminals.
The men sat frozen in their seats, but Michael watched as their heads slumped, one by one. He thought he heard a squelching sound and then a haunting series of screams echoing in the air. Michael felt like a helpless bystander, watching and wondering if he himself might be next.
Redmond, you shall have an opportunity to regain your honor.
The crimson covering the screen thinned and began to drip away, revealing a new image of a freckled man dressed in gaudy Japanese robes. He sat cross-legged and holding a samurai sword against his bared abdomen.
“You can’t do this!” In the room, Redmond swatted at his robe as if trying to knock away the touch of a phantom sword. The image of Redmond on the screen sat contemplating the blade about to pierce his stomach. “We had a contract!”
I made no contract with you.
“Yes! You signed it, and I fulfilled my part, just like I promised. I didn’t cheat you. Look, I’m sorry your father died, but I had nothing to do with that. I can’t help it he spilled your ashes on the dock. Please!”
Michael tried to call out to Redmond, but his vocal cords had snapped like so many spiderwebs.
You have me confused with my son, fool. He is content with the bargain he made and with the price it cost him. I am the one who demands vengeance.
On the screen, another robed figure stepped behind the image of Redmond, holding a second sword. Takahashi’s old mother, taking up her position to be Redmond’s kaishaku.
I am the one suffered most. My sons both gone, my husband. I am left with nothing, and I demand retribution.
“You can’t be a ghost. You’re not even dead!”
On the screen, the old woman smiled and raised the sword. Why must a body be dead for the spirit to roam free?
She nodded to the image of Redmond in the film. He looked into space as if in a trance, then drove the sword into his belly.
The film broke, and the projector bulb burst at the same time. Michael snapped off the machine, and as silence returned he heard a brief remnant of a scream disappearing into time. It sounded like Redmond’s voice.
He fumbled for the main light switches. Redmond sprawled on the floor clutching his stomach. The other five men slumped in their folding wooden chairs, arms dangling at their sides.
Michael touched Redmond. The director’s skin was cold and rigid. He checked the businessmen, and they were dead as well. He could find no blood anywhere. The sticky redness had vanished even from the film and the projector.
The shock crept up on him, paralyzing him. Why had the old woman’s ghost spared him? He himself had arranged for her son’s death. But Michael had not deviated from the old woman’s conception of honor, as Redmond had. That did not mean Michael was an honorable man. He still had to deal with his own shame.
Shame. The traditions of Michael Kendai’s culture had taught him how to cope with shame. Was the old woman’s ghost expecting him to follow the traditional course? Redmond had the excuse of ignorance; Michael did not. Would she come after him if he did not kill himself to atone for his crime? But he was too much of a coward.
He rewound the film before he removed the reel. He vowed that no one else would ever watch Scarlet Sword. He would destroy it. He knew where Redmond kept prints of his other films, and he mounted the ballerina reel onto the projector. The police would be very confused.
Michael would be long gone before anyone discovered the bodies and turned their eyes toward a convenient Japanese scapegoat. Michael could cover his tracks. He was good at that.
New York looked better and better.
Fighting down the feelings of fear and shame within him, Michael left the screening room. He tried to keep from running as he fled into the street.
The End
About Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than 100 novels, 50 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 23 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, the Scribe Award, and New York Times Notable Book.
Anderson has co-authored eleven books in the DUNE saga with Brian Herbert. After writing ten DUNE-universe novels with Herbert, the coauthors created their own series, HELLHOLE. Anderson’s popular epic SF series, THE SAGA OF SEVEN SUNS, is his most ambitious work, and he recently finished a sweeping fantasy trilogy, TERRA INCOGNITA, about sailing ships, sea monsters, and the crusades. As an innovative companion project to TERRA INCOGNITA, Anderson co-wrote (with wife Rebecca Moesta) the lyrics for two professional rock CDs based on the novels. Performed by the supergroup Roswell Six for ProgRock Records, the two CDs feature performances by rock legends from Kansas, Dream Theater, Asia, Saga, Rocket Scientists, Shadow Gallery, and others.
His novel Enemies & Allies chronicles the first meeting of Batman and Superman in the 1950s; Anderson also wrote The Last Days of Krypton. He has written numerous STAR WARS projects, including the Jedi Academy t
rilogy, the Young Jedi Knights series (with Moesta), and Tales of the Jedi comics from Dark Horse. Fans might also know him from his X-FILES novels or Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son.
His website is wordfire.com.
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