The Assassin's Touch

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Yugao laughed. “I can tell you’re not too sure of what you’re saying. Why should I believe it?”

  “It’s true,” Reiko said, trying to sound confident. “You’d do better to cut loose from Kobori. It’s him that my husband is really after, not you. It’s not too late to save yourself, if we go now.” She rose carefully, sliding her back up the corner, watching Yugao.

  “Sit down!” Yugao jabbed the knife at Reiko, who hastily dropped to her knees again. “I’ll never leave him! And I won’t listen to you any longer!”

  Reiko ventured a different tactic: “Suppose that Kobori does win. He’ll be a fugitive forever. Lord Matsudaira will never stop chasing him. What kind of life do you think you’ll have with Kobori?”

  “At least we’ll be together,” Yugao said. “I love him. Nothing else matters.”

  “Here’s something that should,” Reiko said. “Kobori has murdered at least five Tokugawa officials. But maybe you didn’t know that.”

  “Of course I did. I know all about him. I even saw him do it once. But maybe you didn’t know that,” Yugao mocked. “And I don’t care what everybody else thinks of what he’s done. I think he’s wonderful.” Her face was radiant with adoration for Kobori. “He’s the biggest hero who ever lived!”

  Reiko thought how Yugao’s past had shaped her character. Her beloved father had forced her to commit incest with him. After he’d rejected her, she’d transferred her devotion to another tyrant, Kobori.

  “His hands have the blood of innocent victims all over them,” Reiko said. “How can you bear for him to touch you?”

  “That’s part of the thrill of making love with him.” Yugao licked her lips and ran her hand down her bosom. The memory of Kobori’s caresses engorged her with lascivious pleasure. “Besides, those men weren’t innocent. They were his enemies. They deserved to die.”

  Vicarious revenge was another pleasure that she derived from her lover, Reiko saw. Because Yugao must have wanted to strike back at the parents and sister who’d hurt her, how she must have reveled in knowing of Kobori’s exploits. “He’s not a hero,” Reiko said. “You’re harboring a criminal.”

  “I’ve done more than that for him,” Yugao said proudly. An ominous tingle crept along Reiko’s nerves. “What are you talking about?”

  “When I lived in the Ryogoku Hirokoji entertainment district, Lord Matsudaira’s soldiers would come there to drink and pick up women. It was easy to lure them into the alleys. They had no idea that I meant them any harm.”

  “It was you who killed those soldiers.” Reiko recalled the Rat’s tale of the three murders and the bloody corpses found in the alleys behind teahouses. Her suspicions had proven true.

  Yugao preened, like a street magician who has just pulled a live bird out of her sleeve. “I stuck my knife into them. They never saw it coming.”

  Reiko’s horror increased as she understood why Yugao didn’t care whether Reiko knew about her crimes against Lord Matsudaira. Yugao didn’t intend for Reiko to live long enough to report them to him.

  “I’ve helped him destroy his enemies before,” Yugao went on. “And tonight I’ll destroy the one who led the army to us.”

  With an abrupt, jerky motion, she turned the knife sideways against Reiko’s throat.

  Here I am, Chamberlain Sano.”

  Kobori’s whisper seemed to issue from nowhere and everywhere. Sano realized he had the ability to project his voice, like the great martial artists of legend who’d dispersed armies by instilling fear in them and addling their wits. The Ghost exuded a spiritual force more vast, more dreadful, than Sano had ever felt before.

  Sano drew his sword. Turning in a circle, he strained his eyes after the Ghost.

  “Over here,” Kobori whispered.

  Sano pivoted. He slashed at a shape that loomed in the darkness where he’d heard Kobori. His blade hacked a bush.

  “Sorry, you missed.”

  Again Sano struck. His blade cleaved empty shadow. Kobori laughed, a sound like hot, molten metal sizzling

  through water. “Can’t you see me? I can see you. I’m right behind you.”

  His voice hissed warm breath into Sano’s ear. Sano let out a yell, spun, and slashed. But Kobori wasn’t there. Either he’d approached and fled with superhuman speed, or his presence had been an illusion he’d conjured. His laughter drifted up from the terrace closest to the mansion.

  “Down here, Honorable Chamberlain,” he whispered.

  Fear burgeoned like a monstrous growth inside Sano because he knew Kobori could have killed him at any time during the past few moments. He felt an overwhelming urge to run as his army had. But he was furious at Kobori for toying with him. And he was the only one left to destroy the Ghost. Abandoning caution, gripping his sword, he scrambled down the slope.

  The bottom terrace was landscaped with pine trees that gave off a pungent scent, and a pond whose waters reflected a bridge that arched across it. Sano halted beside the pond. He raised his sword in challenge. “I dare you to come out and face me.”

  “Oh, but that would spoil the game.”

  Each word Kobori spoke seemed to originate from a different point. His voice ricocheted from trees to pond to the sky. Sano’s head swiveled and tilted in a vain attempt to track it. Cold sweat drenched his skin under his armor.

  “I’m in here,” Kobori whispered.

  Now his voice drew Sano’s attention to the house. Its veranda was empty beneath the overhanging eaves. Shutters sealed the windows. But the door was open, a rectangle of black space that beckoned Sano. From it issued Kobori’s voice: “Come in and get me if you can.”

  Sano stood motionless while contradictory impulses vied within him. Rational thought warned him against setting foot inside that house. Kobori meant to corner him, torment him, then move in for the kill. No matter how harshly Lord Matsudaira would punish him for giving up his mission, at this moment it was preferable to stepping into a fatal trap. The animal instinct for self-preservation held Sano back.

  But an honorable samurai didn’t shy away from a duel no matter how stupid or insane it might seem. If Sano did so, he would never be able to hold up his head in public, even if no one else learned about his cowardice. He thought of Reiko, of Masahiro. If he lost this duel, he would never see them again. If he refused it, his disgrace would be so terrible that he would never be able to face them.

  Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun, had said there were only two ways to come back from a battle—with the head of your enemy, or without your own.

  In addition, more than Sano’s samurai pride was at issue. This might be the best chance anyone would have at the Ghost, who would kill, escape, and kill again many more times. And if the Ghost had already given him the touch of death, Sano might as well take Kobori on. To die tonight instead of tomorrow would scarcely matter. At least he would end his life with his honor intact.

  Sano strode, filled with the recklessness of the damned, up the path to the house. He mounted the steps to the veranda, then paused at the doorway, concentrating on the darkness beyond. His sight couldn’t pierce it; his ears detected no sounds of anyone in the house. But his extra sense perceived Kobori’s presence, waiting and ready.

  The chorus of insects rose to a shrill cacophony.

  Wolves bayed.

  A chill wind rippled the pond.

  Sano stepped through the door.

  Chapter 32

  “You can’t kill me,” Reiko said even as she recoiled from the blade against her neck and saw the destructive intent in Yugao’s eyes. “You need me to protect you.” Although she realized that Yugao was mad enough to kill her anyway, Reiko tried to dissuade her: “Troops will be here any moment. Without me alive, you’re dead.”

  Yugao laughed, reckless and exhilarated. “I don’t hear them coming, do you? He’s winning. We don’t need you.”

  Reiko heard men running away from the house: The army was deserting. And what of Sano? Even if he wasn’t dead, even if Hirata told him
she was in here, could he fight his way past the Ghost and rescue her? Despair overwhelmed Reiko. She said, “You’ll need me to get out of Edo. There’s a big hunt going on for you both. If I’m with you, my husband and my father will want to save me. You can bargain with them: Your freedom in exchange for my life.”

  Yugao shook her head. “He can move like the wind. When we’re together it’s as if we’re invisible.” Her gaze darted as she tried to follow the action outside. Nervous tremors from her body jittered the knife against Reiko’s skin. “We’ll slip right through the army’s fingers. You would only slow us down.”

  Reiko saw her own death fast approaching. Her neck muscles convulsed under the knife. But at least maybe she could tie up a loose end in her investigation. “If I’m to die, then answer one question for me first. Why did you kill your family?”

  She saw admiration mixed with scorn in Yugao’s eyes. “You never give up, do you?”

  “After all the work I’ve done on your behalf, the least you can do in return is satisfy my curiosity.” And the longer they talked, the more chance Reiko had to save herself.

  Yugao considered, then shrugged. “All right.” Reiko sensed that she wanted the satisfaction of showing how wrong Reiko had been about her reasons. “I don’t suppose it would hurt to tell you now.”

  The moonlight penetrated the interior of the house barely enough to show Sano a passage that extended into a black void. He pressed his back to a wall, his left hand groping along it, his right hand clutching his sword. As the darkness swallowed him up, his eyesight deserted him, but his other senses grew more acute. He heard each tiny creak of the floor under his weight; his feet felt the thin gaps between its boards. His fingers traced the pattern of a lattice partition. He smelled a tinge of male human sweat in the musty odor of closed, unaired space.

  Kobori had passed this way during the last few moments. He’d left his spoor.

  Sano projected his mind outward, searching for his foe as he inched along. He sensed empty rooms behind the partition and across the passage, felt die Ghost waiting for him not far away. If he could smell Kobori, then Kobori could smell him. His heart pounded so loudly that Kobori must hear it. And Kobori had probably memorized every part of the house so well he could navigate it in pitch-darkness. Sano’s muscles flinched in anticipation of a strike coming out of nowhere. It wasn’t too late to turn back. But valor overrode common sense. Sano kept moving.

  He glanced backward at the faint, blurry shape of the doorway lit from outside. It seemed a world away even though he’d walked only thirty paces. When he slid his foot forward, the floor dropped off beneath it. He probed with his toe, which touched the riser and next step of a staircase leading to the lower level of the house. He clung to a railing as he slowly, carefully descended the stairs. At the bottom he forged ahead, down another passage. Its absolute darkness was like a living tissue that breathed mildew and dust into his lungs. He had the eerie feeling that the boundary between himself and the space around him was dissolving. He had an urge to touch his body and make sure he still existed.

  “Keep going, Honorable Chamberlain,” whispered the Ghost. “You’re almost here.”

  The wall under Sano’s groping hand ended: He’d reached a corner. Sano edged around it. Several paces farther, he encountered a doorway, beyond which yawned a room. The corridor led him past more rooms, around more corners. Sano pictured himself wandering through a maze while Kobori stood at the center, ready to pounce. His heightened perception verged on the supernatural. The smell of the Ghost’s spoor was so strong he could taste it. He sensed weight shifting somewhere on the floor: Kobori was on the same level of the house with him.

  The floor creaked once, then twice more.

  Sano hadn’t made those sounds. He stood paralyzed, listening to the Ghost’s footfalls steal up on him, trying to sense from which direction.

  “Here I come,” whispered Kobori.

  Sano turned toward the voice. He held his sword raised in both hands. As he waited, he felt at once invisible and exposed, terrified of the confrontation yet ravenous for it.

  Footsteps approached from all directions, as if the Ghost had multiplied himself into an army. Had Kobori created this illusion, or had Sano’s own mind? Sano had never felt so alone, confused, or vulnerable. His high rank and his legions of subordinates couldn’t protect him. That he had power over virtually every citizen in Japan didn’t matter here. The Ghost had reduced him to the masterless samurai, struggling to survive by his own devices, that he’d once been. His wife, his son, and his accomplishments seemed as remote from him as if he’d dreamed them. All Sano had now, as then, were his swords.

  Even though he knew that his enemy intended him to feel this way in order to break his confidence, Sano’s sense of vulnerability and isolation intensified against his will. The Ghost’s footsteps quickened and closed in on him. In blind haste Sano stumbled through a door. Abruptly the footsteps ceased. Sano felt a warm current of air behind him.

  It was the Ghost’s body heat.

  Panic jolted Sano. Before he could react, he felt a tap on his back, below his right shoulder. Fierce pain sped down his arm. His muscles stiffened in a spasm. His fingers let go his sword, which dropped to the floor. As he doubled over, his teeth clenched in agony, he was seized from behind. Hands groped over his body. He struck out with his uninjured left hand, but it swished through empty air. His right arm dangled useless and aching. He felt a yank at his waist, then heard rapid, retreating footfalls.

  Kobori had come and gone.

  Alone in the darkness, Sano fell to his knees, shaken and panting from the sudden, violent attack. The pain in his arm ebbed into heavy numbness, as if the blood circulation had been cut off. Sano moved his fingers, but he couldn’t feel them. Kobori had struck some vital point that had disabled his arm. He felt around on the floor, desperately trying to find his sword before Kobori attacked again. But his hand swept vacant floor. He felt for his short sword at his waist, but it too was gone. Kobori had taken both his weapons. He heard Kobori’s laughter, which crackled like flames.

  “Let’s see how well you can fight me without your swords,” Kobori whispered.

  My father was an executioner,” Yugao said. She eased the knife’s pressure against Reiko’s throat. Reiko cautiously let out her breath and relaxed her muscles.

  “He would come home and talk about how many people he’d killed and what they’d done to get in trouble,” Yugao went on. “He told us how they acted when they were brought to the execution ground. He talked about how it felt to cut their heads off.”

  Reiko focused her gaze on Yugao’s face, in the hope of keeping Yugao’s attention on hers instead of on her hands.

  “After the war, there were many samurai from the Yanagisawa army who were executed. They were his comrades.” Fury on her lover’s account kindled in Yugao’s eyes. “My father killed lots of them. He bragged about it because they’d been important men and he was a hinin, but they were dead and he was alive. Every time he killed one, he cut a notch on the wall.”

  Reiko remembered seeing the notches in the hovel. She inched her right hand to her side, toward the knife behind her.

  “I couldn’t let him keep killing them,” Yugao said. “That night I couldn’t stand to listen to him bragging anymore. So I stabbed him. It was the most I could do for my beloved.”

  Finally Reiko understood why Yugao had kept her motive secret—to avoid mentioning Kobori and exposing his crimes. But Reiko also sensed that past and present grievances had combined to push Yugao over the edge. Yugao had long been nursing a bitter hatred toward her father for violating and then rejecting her. She might have endured it forever, or stabbed him at any other time, but his offenses against Kobori’s comrades had finally tipped her unstable mind into killing her father.

  “Why did you kill your mother and sister?” Reiko asked.

  A contemptuous smile twisted Yugao’s lips. “While I was stabbing him, they just huddled in the corner
and cried.” Her manner turned argumentative. “They could have stopped me. If they’d cared about him, they would have. The miserable cowards deserved to die.”

  Perhaps Yugao had wanted them to stop her, Reiko speculated. Perhaps she’d still loved her father despite everything. If so, then she’d punished them for their failure to save him from her as well as for past injustices toward her. Now there remained only one more issue to resolve.

  “Why did you confess?” Reiko asked.

  “I did it for him,” Yugao said. “And I wanted him to know. I didn’t expect to ever see him again, but he would hear what I’d done. He would understand why. He would know I’d died for him and be grateful.”

  The magnitude of her delusion astounded Reiko. “Then why did you run away from jail instead?” Reiko had her arm bent behind her, fingers on the hilt of the knife.

  “The fire was an omen. It said I was meant to reunite with him instead of die for him.” Yugao frowned in sudden suspicion at Reiko. “What are you doing?”

  “Just scratching my back,” Reiko lied.

  “Put your hands where I can see them.”

  As Reiko obeyed, she gave up hope of striking at Yugao before Yugao could strike her. She thought up a new tactic. “You killed for Kobori. You were ready to sacrifice your life for him. What did he ever do for you?”

  Yugao looked at Reiko as if she was stupid to ask. “He loves me.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “He doesn’t have to. I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He makes love to me,” Yugao said.

  “You mean he takes his pleasure from you,” Reiko said. “That doesn’t mean he cares anything for you except physically.”

  “He came to me after the war. It didn’t matter to him that I was a hinin.” For the first time Yugao sounded eager to prove that she meant as much to Kobori as he did to her. “He wanted to be with me.”

  Reiko thought of the beating taken by Yanagisawa’s faction during the war, and she spoke on a hunch: “Was he injured?” “Yes. What of it?”