Suzuki stood. “This one suits you nicely, Detective.” He bowed and passed the third sword to Takuda.
The scabbard was heavier and plainer than the other two. The sword itself was a brutal caricature of a classical Japanese weapon. The blade was two-thirds the width of Takuda’s palm. The scalloped tempering pattern went from the cutting edge almost halfway to the blood groove. It was a hard tempering, almost mirror bright. The maker had carefully sacrificed flexibility for sheer cutting strength. The sword was not a work of beauty. It was a grim and merciless instrument designed for a single purpose: hacking through armor, flesh, and bone.
“It does suit you,” Mori said.
“As if it were made for him,” Suzuki answered.
Takuda grasped the hilt properly, and even though it felt right, even though it seemed to close a circuit so that even more power flowed through his hands, a wave of sadness washed over him.
The sword didn’t suit what he wanted to be, but it suited what he was becoming.
Has it come to this? Is there no other way?
“These are gifts to you,” Suzuki said. He casually rested the unsheathed laundry-pole blade on his shoulder. Takuda and Mori stepped back again. Takuda thought Suzuki might cut off his own ear.
“I’ll give you the paperwork as well. The hilts, guards, and scabbards are more modern. They’re almost worthless. The blades, though, are perfect, as you can see.”
Takuda said, “Reverend, these are gifts worthy of heads of state. These swords are unique masterpieces. We can’t accept these.”
Suzuki shrugged, a frightening action from a man with a razor-sharp blade centimeters from his unprotected throat. “The temple is bankrupt, and I’m the last priest of my sect. These are just a few of the treasures I’ll have to liquidate. Besides,” he said, “these swords seem to belong with you. I have the feeling something good will come of this. Don’t you?”
CHAPTER 24
Takuda, Mori, and Suzuki had the coffeehouse to themselves. Suzuki’s robes and Mori’s uniform couldn’t dispel the charged air around the three; the room had fallen silent as they entered. The customers had drifted out one by one, and the manager had quietly disappeared after serving their coffee. Gangsters flashing their tattoos seldom emptied rooms so efficiently.
Suzuki toyed with an udder-shaped creamer. “I’m sure you’ve seen and heard disturbing things. The gangsters, the prostitutes, the drug users, the murderers—I can only imagine. I don’t know how you do it, you and men like you who face such suffering in your daily routines. Even I have seen and heard things in the course of my work that raise the gooseflesh as I think about them, right here in the sunlight.”
Takuda thought of Ogawa. “I’ve had gooseflesh once or twice, Priest. Where are you going with this?”
Suzuki’s smile didn’t fade, but his gaze drifted to the creamer. “As policemen, you deal with suffering caused when people break the laws of Japan. In my work, I deal with suffering caused by transgressions against Universal Law. You meet sufferers while their pain and delusion still drives them to destroy the lives of others, and that is very sad. On the other hand, I meet these people when their suffering finally drives them to Buddhism. It’s a joyous day.”
Mori slurped his coffee.
“Let me read you something.” Suzuki pulled out a sheet of yellowed onionskin paper. “This is my father’s adaptation of the second scroll in our sect’s legacy. He was taking his own fully annotated version to the publisher when he left the temple that day.” As an aside to Mori: “He was drowned, of course. They found his robes caught on a canal gate, but he was gone, as was his manuscript. He is still officially listed as a missing person.”
“I’m sure you eased his pain with prayer at the cave,” Mori said.
Suzuki bowed briefly before reading from his father’s adaptation:
“As swift spring waters sweep away debris choking the rivers and streams, so let truth thunder downward from Eagle Peak Temple to sweep away lies spread by practitioners of unclean ritual.
“It has been said that Kappa are charmed monkeys. This is superstition. It has been said that they are stillborn babies cast into flowing water. This is superstition. It has been said that they are servants of the heavenly Dragon King, the harbinger of all rains and of all waters, whose daughter achieved enlightenment in her earthly form as related in the ‘Meeting in the Air’ chapter of the Lotus Sutra, but this is a lie designed to confuse the faithful. There is no connection between the Kappa and any part of our venerated Buddhist liturgy.
“Kappa are the damned apprentice priests who traveled to Xi’an to study Buddhism, who fell under the influence of Chinese pagans, who forsook the light of Buddhism and attempted to learn secrets of eternal life, and who, for their blasphemies, must live eternally as Kappa, trapped between the worlds of men, the worlds of beasts, and the worlds of Hell . . .”
Mori cleared his throat. Suzuki looked up from the paper. “Ah . . . I can skip a few pages . . . ah. Here we go:
“There is much disagreement as to the shape-shifting abilities of Kappa. It was long believed that they could only appear as beautiful women, young boys, or apprentice priests. In human form, they speak a corrupted form of an ancient tongue made comprehensible to men through magic, but they seem unable to read or write. Much has been said of what Kappa do with their victims. The yamawaro, or mountain Kappa, is so adept at hiding its victims that they are often never found. The claw marks—” Suzuki’s voice trailed off. He folded the paper. “There’s really nothing else here we didn’t know.”
They sat silently. Finally, Takuda said, “Is that it?”
Mori said, “You have one more treasure in your rucksack, don’t you?”
Suzuki frowned at Mori and drew a small cedar box from his rucksack. He lifted the top to reveal a stained silken bag. A familiar fishy stench cut through the aroma of the cedar box itself.
“This is the newest treasure at my temple, and probably the last.” He reached into the bag with disposable chopsticks and drew out a desiccated talon.
“A boy visiting the Naga River valley once managed to cut a finger from the Kappa, and he donated it to the temple.” He turned the grisly relic under the light. “He actually slipped it to my father when no one was looking. A biologist from the city said that it was a human finger, despite the length and slenderness of the bones. She said the discoloration of the skin and the extreme thickening and vertical ridges of the nail indicated that it was from an elderly subject with thickening of the cuticle due to bacterial or fungal infection.”
“That’s not a human finger,” Mori said. Suzuki nodded in agreement. They looked at Takuda.
“What do you want me to say? You’re telling me a mythological creature is doing the killing?”
Mori said, “Yes, that’s it.”
“So next we’re going to chase shape-shifting foxes and enchanted raccoon-dogs?”
Suzuki looked exasperated. “Detective, it explains why it went on for so long and why they kept it all secret. It also explains how the Kappa’s caretakers messed it up. They got too old, and a newcomer tried to grab a local girl.”
Takuda looked between them. They were dead serious. “Right then, Priest, gather your things. We’re going to point that dried-up old finger at a man named Gotoh.”
“Gotoh?” Suzuki looked confused. “You already knew, then.”
“That Gotoh was in the cult? Yes, Officer Mori’s work made clear Gotoh was helping to cover up the disappearances.”
Suzuki slipped the finger back into the bag. “Detective, I don’t know how showing this finger to a retired village clerk would help. I just showed it to you to point out that the creature can be hurt.”
“Let’s not get too in love with this idea of a creature,” Takuda said. “If the cultists believe in it, it might be useful. Maybe the Gotohs can tell us what
to do about it.”
“We know what to do about it,” Suzuki said.
“No, we don’t,” Mori said. “That finger lived for a week after it was cut off. If you put it in water right now, it would be full and fleshy again in an instant, and it would claw your eyes out, if it could find them. We don’t know how to kill something like that.”
Suzuki stood. “Now I understand! The boy who cut off the Kappa’s finger was not from the valley. He was from the city. His name was . . .”
“Mori,” the officer said. He stood and bowed as if introducing himself for the first time. “I was looking for my sister Yoshiko. I finally found her bicycle abandoned at the spur line station, the old line that led into the valley through a tunnel under Eagle Peak. I think her bones ended up in that cave, probably a couple of layers down.”
Takuda and Mori regarded each other silently. Mori was expressionless.
“Officer,” Takuda said. “You knew about me all along. You knew before you met me.”
“Yes, I knew. Now it’s time to finish my work in the Naga River valley. Our work.”
“So,” Suzuki said, “we three are chosen, brought together by forces beyond . . .”
“You’re not done in the valley, either, but we can’t just drive you there,” Mori said to Takuda. “They’ll be waiting for you. That’s what the superintendent was trying to tell you.”
“So how will I get in?”
Mori looked pained. “It’s not simple. I can get in just by giving the priest a ride home. I can explain that, even if they’ve set up a checkpoint at the top of the straightaway, and then I’ll just go down into the valley instead of crossing the dam. You, on the other hand, wouldn’t get that far.”
“So how will I get in?”
“We can put you in the trunk,” Suzuki said. “It would be a little crowded—” His words trailed off into silence under Takuda’s stare.
Takuda looked down. He hadn’t meant to glare at Suzuki. “Excuse me, Priest. I’m not going anywhere in the trunk of a car. I’d fight my way in before I would let myself be smuggled into the valley of my birth.” He smiled. “I hope you understand.”
“There’s another way in,” Mori said.
They turned to him.
“It’s an abandoned railroad tunnel.”
Takuda nodded. “The old spur line. I’ve seen the mouth on the mountain side of the west branch canal. You’ll already be in the valley, so I’ll just call when I get out of the tunnel. It’s perfect.”
“Yes, perfect,” Mori said. He looked thoughtful.
Suzuki leaned forward. “What’s wrong with perfect?”
Mori grimaced at him. “Just take the sword with you, anyway,” he told Takuda. “It was dark and cold when I was a boy, and somehow I think it will be even darker and colder now.”
CHAPTER 25
An old woman got on the train so slowly that she appeared bit by bit: first, the spotted hand gripping the railing, then gray hair in a neat bun, then her pale, wrinkled face, then the smock that protected her kimono, and then clear plastic spats over white silk socks and high wooden sandals. She had shaken the worst of the rain off her umbrella by the time Detective Takuda realized he should have helped her up the steps. She shuffled toward him and bowed slightly before she put her package on the seat between them. He thought of saying something about the weather, but she had seen rain before.
She was no bigger than she had to be, very neat and self-possessed. He was huge and clumsy beside her. He watched her in profile as she wiped her hands and her glasses with a small, embroidered handkerchief. She caught him looking, and he bowed briefly. She glanced at his golf bag on the overhead rack and eyed him critically. She returned her attention to her handkerchief.
It was going to be a long ride.
It took at least two hours to get to the Naga River valley from anywhere else. The national expressway ran along the coast, far north of the valley, and prefectural highways narrowed and their number decreased as they wound south toward Eagle Peak. Finally, only one two-lane road hugging the face of the mountain crossed over into the valley itself, and even that way was closed to Takuda. He had taken the train, the slowest way possible to reach the village, and now he had to go in through the back door. He sincerely hated the idea.
The back door was a railway tunnel that had been dug into the mountain during the tenure of an ambitious and optimistic governor. The governor had convinced the national railway service to operate a spur line from the nearest east–west line through the tunnel and to the valley. There was no financial incentive to build the tunnel. It was purely an effort to bring the Naga River valley into the twentieth century. Now the east–west local line still wound through the mountains on its eccentric schedule, but the narrow-gauge line into the valley itself had been abandoned before Takuda entered grade school. The tunnel was still there, along with its decrepit transfer station, but the nearest serviced stop on the local line was twenty-five minutes farther along the base of Mount Tensai, just northwest of Eagle Peak.
Takuda disembarked from the local train and exited the station, but he had only the roughest idea of how to find the tunnel. Walking along the tracks of the east–west line was out of the question. The old woman, who had gotten off the train just behind him, sat on a bench. Takuda glanced at the schedule board. The station was almost as remote as the old spur line itself; the next train wasn’t for another two hours. If someone were picking her up, she would wait outside the station, not on the platform. What was she waiting for?
Takuda went to relieve himself. Unattended little stations like this had filthy men’s rooms. He lit a cigarette to cover the stench.
He had just finished washing his hands when he heard the woman pass the men’s room door, and he walked out quietly behind her. She wore sturdy walking shoes that didn’t match her kimono. Of course she hadn’t been waiting for anyone. A modest country woman, she had let the rest of the passengers leave before she changed her shoes.
She walked up a narrow lane by the station, the same way Takuda was going. After passing the noodle shops and pubs that clung to the side of the station, the lane wound up and over the foothills of Mount Tensai. Takuda slowed down and let the woman get well ahead of him. He wasn’t following her, and he didn’t want to alarm her. He knew the trail to the spur line station had to be somewhere up that way.
Squat houses with stucco walls lined the street. As they approached the base of Mount Tensai, the houses dropped away on the left, and the mountain rose in their place. It was quiet here. The last of the plum blossoms were almost gone. The songbirds weren’t back yet, but hardy sparrows flitted through the bamboo. As the grade steepened, Takuda felt better and better. He let out his stride, reveling in the crisp morning air. When he spotted the trailhead Mori had told him about, he would turn around and get some noodles back down at the station. The fresh air and the midmorning walk had already made him a little hungry, and he wouldn’t mind walking up this pleasant little stretch again. Perhaps he was killing time, but who would want to go back into that valley before he had to?
He didn’t notice that the woman had turned to face him until he was just a few paces down the hill from her. Her face was grim and lined. Her kimono sleeve hung like a curtain as she pointed out a gap between two squat, decrepit houses. A garbage-strewn trail curved out of sight.
The woman stared back at him, her expression so forbidding that he stopped mute before her. Her eyes were black even at this short distance, and she pointed to his path with a stiff, bony finger. She was younger than she looked, but a hard life had made her formidable.
Still, he called out, “How did you know?”
“You were conspicuous even on the train, but here, you’re downright suspicious. Everything is wrong. You’re some kind of soldier dressed as a clerk carrying a very light golf bag in a mountain village where there’s no golf.”
He felt himself flush. His sword was in the golf bag.
“You blush like a schoolgirl. If you have business in that valley, you had best prepare yourself.”
He growled. As he turned toward the path, she told him to wait.
“Listen,” she said. She stepped closer. “You should dress as a fisherman so that it’s not a surprise if you’re dirty from the tunnel. Also, a heavy fishing tackle tube would be less conspicuous than a light, bouncing golf bag. There’s a store on the other side of the station. You can buy your fishing outfit there and store your city clothes in a locker at the station. Lose the golf bag.”
He frowned. “You know Naga River valley is rotten. Everybody knows it. So you just never cross the mountains, and everything is all right for you?”
She frowned back at him. “Don’t get so high-and-mighty. We stay alive. We don’t disappear in the middle of the night like they do in the Naga River valley. That’s what I know about the Naga River valley.” She started back up the hill. “Remember this, fisherman: don’t chase the fish into the water. Let the fish come to you.”
“Believe me, auntie, I’m not going into the water.”
She called over her shoulder, “Buy waders, too. If you’re going into the tunnel, you’re going into the water.”
An hour later, he once again approached the trailhead the old woman had shown him. His sword was slung over his shoulder, snug in the biggest tackle tube he could find at the sporting goods store near the station. He carried waders ending in spiked, split-toed fishing boots. He doubted he looked like a fisherman.
As he stepped off the road, he was struck by the decrepitude of the houses on either side of the trailhead. They weren’t simply abandoned. They were dead and rotten. Stucco had popped off the lath to reveal dark, fungal masses in the wood underneath. The window frames were bent outward, corroded aluminum still bristling with bits of filthy glass. The eaves sagged as if ready to fall into the dark, fetid undergrowth slowly overtaking the gardens.
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