The Drowning God

by James Kendley

  The doctor frowned. “Hear anything? Like ringing?”

  “No, like voices.”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I heard voices, Doctor. They told me to ask what you make of all this.”

  “Hmmph. I think someone is using an unknown neurotoxin in gel form. It immobilizes the victim, mostly locally, but if enough poison got into the bloodstream, the victim could suffocate.”

  “That’s how my son died?”

  “Both your son and your brother drowned. They died quickly in the water. I’m sure of that. The abdominal wounds were postmortem.”

  Takuda closed his eyes. His old nightmares of the boys squirming as the Kappa’s beak ripped into them were nightmares, nothing more.

  “To that degree, the police report was accurate,” Fujimoto said. “The parallel cuts on their legs, however, were not made by the rocks. They were made by some bladed device designed to deliver the neurotoxin.”

  Mori eased into the room and sat down by the doctor. “Let’s let him rest now, Doctor. There will be more time for this talk later.” He took the doctor by the elbow. “Come into the other room.”

  The doctor reached for his bag, but Suzuki already had it. He grasped the doctor’s other arm, and Suzuki and Mori hauled the doctor to his feet.

  “Where—­where are you taking me?”

  “I just want to have a little talk with you about the treatment of neurotoxin poisoning. You’ll supply me with what I need to make sure this never happens to any of us again. I believe that Reverend Suzuki wants to talk to you about karma and social responsibility.”

  Suzuki grinned so widely that his gums showed all around. It was not a pleasant sight.

  As they walked the doctor out, Takuda called to Suzuki. “When I was lying there dying, cut up and poisoned, you were there with me.”

  “Oh? What was I doing?”

  “Smoking too much, spending too much money. Wearing skimpy clothes. Telling me how Buddhism was a scam.”

  Suzuki blinked at him. “I remember thinking, day before yesterday, in the afternoon . . .”

  “Your voice in my head saved my life. You reminded me that if all we have is this life, we had best not squander it.”

  Suzuki looked at him with a furrowed brow.

  “I’m the weapon, the blunt instrument,” Takuda said. “I never wanted it, but there it is. Now, here’s your job: You’re the light in the darkness. When we get into a jam, you’re the one who’ll cheer us on and keep us active, keep us useful. You’re an awful swordsman, and I’m assuming you’re worse than useless as a tactician, so you must become an inspirational leader. Keep our spirits up, Priest.”

  Suzuki released the doctor’s elbow to point a bony finger at Officer Mori. “I told you that was my job. Didn’t I tell you?”

  The officer made a disgusted face as he yanked the doctor into the kitchen. Suzuki grinned at Takuda and slid the door shut. Takuda drifted off to sleep.

  He dreamt of drowning, and he woke several times clutching at the blankets as if clawing his way to the surface. He soaked his bedding with sweat. The poison came out through his pores, and the fish stench permeated the room.

  On the third day, Suzuki burned the bedding, and Takuda scrubbed himself with sand, salt, and citron. That got rid of the worst of the smell.

  His appetite had returned, so Suzuki made a stew with meatballs, chicken, Chinese cabbage, and fat buckwheat noodles. Takuda ate until his belly hurt, but he still couldn’t keep up with Suzuki. Suzuki was a bottomless pit.

  Playing with the noodles at the bottom of the bowl, he said to Mori, “You didn’t tell me the tunnel would be flooded.”

  Mori paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “I didn’t know.”

  “You’re sure of that? You’re a pretty sharp fellow. How would you not know something like that?”

  Mori looked at Suzuki for support. Suzuki glanced up from his bowl as if just joining the conversation.

  “I never . . .” Mori said. “I didn’t . . .”

  Takuda rose to his feet. Mori quickly laid down his chopsticks and stood to face him. Mori seemed to realize that what he said at this moment would be very, very important to their continued cooperation.

  Maybe to his continued life, Takuda thought. He hadn’t realized till this moment that he was ready to take Mori to pieces if he gave the wrong answer.

  “It’s usually pretty dry over there,” Suzuki said around a mouthful of noodles. “It only floods over that bank in the spring melt. No surprise that it was deep after a dam release.”

  Takuda bowed in acknowledgment. “Thank you, Reverend Suzuki.” He turned to Mori. “I had to ask, Officer. You’re full of surprises these days.”

  Mori sat formally. “I understand why you might doubt me. In the beginning, I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I didn’t tell you that I fought a mythical water sprite to avenge my sister. Would you have believed me?”

  “Not until I saw it, but that begs the question, doesn’t it? Was sending me to face the Kappa in that tunnel part of the plan?”

  “Not my plan,” Mori said. “I started following you around when I found out about your brother Shunsuke and your son Kenji. I knew you would eventually lead me to the monster that killed my sister Yoshiko. But I’ve followed you for more than simple revenge. We are devoted to a common cause.” He bowed properly.

  Takuda bowed in return. He sat and resumed the meal. He noticed Mori’s fingers shaking slightly as he picked up his chopsticks.

  Suzuki gave Takuda the thumbs-­up and wiped broth and bits of noodle from his jowls.

  A few minutes later, Mori said, “It just means the danger is greater than we imagined. Someone outside the valley is watching us. Watching you, at least. And someone inside the valley is in communication with the Kappa. How else would it have known to wait for you in the tunnel?”

  They finished their meal in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.

  After another nap, Takuda examined his gear. The fishing equipment had been discarded. The clothing was ruined, stinking. It should have gone into the fire with the bedding. The sword had gotten wet. Takuda could clean a sword even if he could barely stand.

  Under the sharkskin wrapping, the sword hilt was laminated bamboo with brass pins through the tang. He pushed the pins out and removed the hilt and guard, wiping each piece with his handkerchief. As Suzuki had said, the fittings were modern, but they weren’t worthless. They fit the blade perfectly.

  As he wiped down the tang, Takuda noticed tiny characters etched into the metal. He held it in the sunlight—­

  Chapter two of the Lotus Sutra. The whole second chapter was etched into the metal. He had chanted that chapter as a boy, and it came back to him in a rush. The chanting rang in his head as he reassembled the sword.

  Mori and Suzuki were in the garden, drilling with bamboo practice swords. They stood at attention when he called to them. They looked like warriors.

  Mori might make a swordsman of that gawky crane.

  “I’m going down to Oku Village,” he told them.

  Mori said, “Not today. I’ll drive you tomorrow if you leave the sword. Until your wounds heal, you won’t be able to use it correctly anyway.”

  Takuda slept eleven hours that night. He woke from a dream of a monster slashing at him with poisoned claws, but he was alone. He fell back asleep immediately. His sleep was deep and dreamless, and it lasted till noon.

  As they drove beside the river after lunch, Takuda looked for a greenish, misshapen head to break the surface of the water, but he saw nothing.

  Mori let him off at a narrow lane running alongside the canal, just north of town. Takuda followed the lane to a bridge that took him to the foot of the mountain, a stone’s throw from the bend in the canal behind the old woman’s house. From there, it was a five-­minute walk t
o the cemetery.

  There, under the cedar canopy, he recited the full sutra at his parents’ tomb for the first time since his mother’s death.

  Then he stood and headed for the police station. He had business with Ogawa.

  CHAPTER 30

  Takuda entered the village police station by the back door. It was that simple.

  He walked into the main room just as Sergeant Kuma turned away. Takuda walked behind Kuma for a few steps, then ducked into the hallway to the interview room and the holding cell. The chief was berating Patrolman Inoue in the hall. They did not notice him, so Takuda quietly opened the door to the old armory.

  He let the door close behind him with a soft click. The old mascot suit leered at him from the wall. The large, glassy eyes and the puckered beak seemed too familiar. Takuda ripped the fabric off the wing to reveal a claw. The Kappa’s claw, missing one finger.

  Takuda moved like a ghost through the interview room. Through the glass in the interview room door, he saw the chief storm out of the hallway. Patrolman Inoue saw Takuda and almost stopped. He averted his eyes and followed the chief.

  Good man.

  Takuda waited until the hallway was clear. Then he slipped out of the interview room. The holding cell door opened without a key from the outside; there was no knob on the inside. As he stepped in, Takuda blocked the locking mechanism with Counselor Endo’s business card.

  The room no longer stank of rotting fish. It stank of sour sweat, old laundry, and nightmarish sleep. Ogawa stood in the center of the cell, listening to nothing.

  Takuda called Ogawa’s name, and Ogawa turned. He was a changed man. His face was gray, and his skin sagged. He was obviously ill. For a second, his face dropped back into its heavy, loose-­lipped grin, the idiot’s mask he wore on their first meeting. “I thought the chief ran you off.”

  “He did. I came back to see you.”

  Then the grin faltered. Ogawa was tired. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Why? I can’t tell you anything. They’re just keeping me because they can’t find my wife.” His face twisted with rage. “That fat little vixen has gotten away, and you helped her. You helped her, didn’t you?”

  Takuda said, “What makes you think so?”

  “My lawyer told me so,” Ogawa hissed. “He said you misplaced her paperwork and helped her disappear. I will make you pay for that, and then my lawyer will help me find her.” Ogawa grinned. “He has promised.”

  “I’m not here to talk about your wife,” Takuda said. “I’m here because I met an old friend of yours.”

  Ogawa put his hands in his armpits and hugged himself. “I don’t have any friends.”

  “You have one. It was waiting for me in the tunnel.”

  “What tunnel?”

  “The old railway tunnel from the spur line.”

  Ogawa blinked. “Railway tunnel? Who are you talking about?”

  “Your friend from the canals. The Drowning God.”

  Ogawa shook his head as he walked away from the door. “He—­railway tunnel? That’s ridiculous. How did you meet him? Did he start talking to you in your sleep? In your head? Through the water pipes? Through the walls? How did you meet him?”

  “I met him years ago.” Takuda drew his clawed fingers down his own face, just as Ogawa had done in the examination room during their first meeting.

  Ogawa winced at the action as if he were being clawed himself.

  “It was waiting for me as if it knew I was coming. Did you tell it anything?”

  “Me? He’s not talking to me—­Did he make sounds at you? Can you repeat the sounds?”

  “No, I’m not a linguist like you. I heard the words in my head.”

  Ogawa’s shoulders fell.

  “Ogawa, the noises it made had nothing to do with Japanese. What does it speak?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “The more I know, the closer I am to killing it.”

  Ogawa snorted.

  “Does it speak some sort of mixture of aboriginal speech and ancient Japanese?”

  “Aboriginal speech? You know nothing about the old words. You say he found you in the tunnel? I can just see you there in the dark, all your senses straining, waiting for the god to take you, realizing that everything anyone ever told you about the world was a half-­truth at best, really just a pack of lies.”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad. I had a flashlight.”

  Ogawa almost smiled. The laughing boy from their first interview was definitely gone. “He has your scent.”

  “I can kill it. I can destroy it. I know I can.”

  Ogawa shook his head. “You should get out of the valley. Head for the bay or head for the mountains, either way, but get out of here. Don’t walk too close to the water, especially the canals, but don’t think that will keep you safe. Keep away from strangers.”

  “Girls with beaks and lumpy heads?”

  “Girls? Yes. And boys. And monks.”

  “When the little girl Hanako first spoke to the police, she said she saw a boy behind you. A strange boy with a crooked mouth and a misshapen head.”

  “That would be him, yes.”

  “By the end of the day, it had dropped out of the reports. The chief remembered it, for a moment, the next day.”

  “That’s what happens. ­People forget. They look the other way. There’s a sort of fog that follows him, and it envelops everything it touches. If you stay around here long enough, you inhale the fog too often. It makes you forget he’s even here. Unless, of course, you know him. No fog can cover that. You, for example. You’ll never forget. You should just go.”

  “Ogawa, why do you want me to leave? What makes you care what happens to me?”

  Ogawa shook his head. “Your bumbling could make him angry. When your bloated corpse washes up in the overflow pond, he’ll come for me.”

  The overflow pond. It was too simple. Ogawa was setting another trap.

  “How did it know I was coming through the railway tunnel?”

  “Why ask me?” Ogawa flopped down on his bunk.

  Takuda pulled the only chair over to the bedside. He might have only a few minutes. “Ogawa, we’ve met a few times now, and I don’t believe you’re insane. I don’t believe you’re a child molester. So, why Hanako Kawaguchi? Why try to snatch a local girl in broad daylight? Deep down, did you want to get caught? Did you want to be in jail, safe from your new master?”

  Ogawa snorted. “Are you still angling for a confession, Detective?”

  “If I handed the village chief a letter-­perfect confession, in triplicate, stamped with your personal seal, he would tear it up because it came from my hand. My boss down in the city would forget to file it because I’ve somehow ceased to exist. I’m hidden in that fog you’re talking about. I’m no longer a threat to your freedom, Ogawa. But if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll become a threat to your life.”

  Ogawa pretended to think about it, rolling his eyes at the ceiling and poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

  “Who pointed her out to you, Ogawa? Someone with the old cult? Someone with a grudge against the Kawaguchi girl’s father?”

  Ogawa’s brow furrowed. “You really don’t get it, do you? The cult lost control years ago. The old priest might have been the last special target. No one controls him anymore, and no one controls his hunting.”

  “Your creature wanted you to snatch the girl. You didn’t choose her.”

  “She walked past every morning,” Ogawa said, “and he just couldn’t stand it, but he knew he couldn’t catch her on land. He knew she would run. He didn’t know she would bite, but who could guess?”

  “You went along even though you knew what would happen if a little girl disappeared?”

  “No one can oppose him and live. The truth is, I thought he knew what he was doing. I
thought he would take care of me.” Ogawa crossed his arms to pillow his head and whispered toward the ceiling: “I still thought he loved me.”

  Takuda looked at his own feet, avoiding Ogawa’s eyes. If he looked directly at the prisoner, he might lose his own self-­control. “And now?”

  “Now I know that he has nothing but hatred and contempt for us, for all living things. If he had power enough, he would murder life itself. If he had appetite enough, he would consume the universe in his black mouth of destruction. If his claws had poison enough, he . . .”

  “Okay, okay. What is this thing, Ogawa?”

  “He is hunger incarnate, wild bloodlust with no cheer, no innocence, nothing but malice for . . .”

  “No, no, no. What is it? Is it really a Kappa? Is it the last of its kind or something?”

  “Oh. That. Perhaps he will tell you his story one day, and then you will understand, if you survive the narrative. To answer your question, though, I believe he is unique. He is not the last of his kind. He is the only Kappa who ever existed.”

  Takuda blinked, and Ogawa smiled.

  “You remember Ogawa, the bright boy? The one from your skinny little folder? When he was in school, he wrote a paper about Richard Feynman’s one-­electron universe. To Feynman, of course, it was just a footnote, a passing mention in his Nobel lecture, but it was intriguing to the young Ogawa.”

  “Why was it so intriguing?”

  “Because it was so simple that no one could disprove it. We could observe only one electron at a time, and it always had the same mass and the same charge. Maybe there was only one electron holding the entire universe together, always there to make an ionic bond or to quantum-­leap valences or to zip through the temple electrode in an American electric chair.”

  “The Kappa is the electron.”

  “There is only one, and there has ever been only one.”

  “Then why are there so many stories about him from so many places?”

  “He got around in his youth. We know that he traveled all over Japan before we were even a single nation. He made quite an impression, didn’t he? The funny thing is that even within the most ridiculous embellishments lie grains of truth. Legend has it that he is a master herbalist who taught the Japanese how to use medicines and set bones. Of course, if you are of no use to him, he’s more likely to suck the marrow from your bones than set them, but that’s the chance you take.”