Daughter of the Sword: A Novel of the Fated Blades

by Steve Bein

  He was angry, dangerously so; his quivering voice suggested his body was shaking too. Shoji reached a wrinkled hand across the table and touched Mariko’s fingers. “Offer him the sword,” she whispered.

  “You can have the sword,” Mariko said, meaning it. “Just don’t hurt her.”

  “Oh, quite the opposite,” said Fuchida. “She’s feeling as fine as can be right now.”

  At first Mariko thought Fuchida was insinuating rape. The fantasy of the victim thanking her perp for her earthshaking orgasms fueled the plots of a million manga; Mariko saw the books on the trains every day, clutched in the sweating hands of vicarious rapists. But Mariko realized there was nothing lascivious in his tone. Sinister, yes, but not sexual. All at once she made the connection. “You got her high?”

  “Hole in one,” Fuchida said. “In her less lucid moments she rambles on and on about how disappointed you’d be. I gather you’ve gone to great lengths to keep her sober.”

  Shut up, Mariko wanted to say, but she couldn’t muster the will. She felt as if her heart were plunging down a cold, dark well.

  “And your poor mother. What will she think?”

  That cold, sinking feeling redoubled. In her ramblings Saori must have spoken of home. Now their mother was a target too. Fuchida had already proved his willingness to send killers into the home of an isolated victim. Mariko’s mother might have been younger than Yamada, but she was far less able to defend herself. Did Fuchida have people outside her house already? The very thought of it left Mariko paralyzed.

  Shoji touched her fingers again. “The sword,” she whispered. “Soothe his need for it.”

  “I’ll give you the sword,” Mariko said, struggling to speak. “I swear.”

  “You’ll do more than that,” Fuchida said. “For starters, you’ll call off your dogs. If I catch even a glimpse of a police officer, I cut your sister’s throat.”

  “Okay.”

  “Next, you’ll implicate someone else in Yamada’s murder. I don’t care who, just not me.”

  “I can’t. I have three officers that place you at the scene at the time of the murder.”

  “You’ll do it or your mother’s dead. Your sister says you’re good at your job, Miko-chan. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

  “Okay.”

  “Last, you deliver the Inazuma to me by midnight, or you get your sister back in tiny little pieces.”

  Shoji touched Mariko’s hand once more. “Tell him you have two Inazumas to offer.”

  “I don’t,” Mariko breathed, covering the receiver.

  “Trust me,” whispered Shoji.

  Mariko took a deep breath. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me get my mother to safety. In exchange, you get two Inazuma blades, not one.”

  Silence.

  Mariko’s heart froze solid. Did he think she was lying to him? If he felt Mariko betrayed him, Saori would pay a terrible price.

  “Fuchida-san?”

  No answer.

  “Fuchida-san?

  73

  Two, Fuchida mused. The old man had always spoken of another, a third, but he’d never given so much as a whisper regarding its whereabouts. How did Oshiro know where it was?

  “Fuchida-san?” Her voice was tiny and pleading over the phone.

  “You’re lying,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Oshiro said after a sigh. “Its name is Tiger on the Mountain.”

  So she did know of the sword. The old man must have told her about it before he died. That bastard. Fuchida had trained under him for years, and in all that time he’d never given Fuchida more than the name.

  The American was already en route. Fuchida was counting down the hours until their meeting. Even if he had Glorious Victory in his own two hands, at this point he could not claim even to himself to have owned two Inazumas; he was no more than a delivery boy, taking the blade from Yamada and passing it on to the American. But a third sword—now, that changed things. Fuchida could be the first in history to have held three Inazumas at once, and even after relinquishing Glorious Victory he could still be the first in history to own two Inazuma blades.

  And yet letting the mother go was a risk. With her gone, his only asset would be the sister, and she was only valuable while she was still alive. Sooner or later he’d have to kill her. Not only had she seen his face, but she’d seen his strip club, and since he’d taken her she’d overheard things he couldn’t allow her to repeat. The names of the dancers, of their dealer—people the police could track down and then use to hunt down Fuchida. No, the sister could not live long enough to talk. And without the sister, what leverage did he have?

  Then again, he asked himself, what leverage did he need? Get Yamada’s sword. Kill the sister. Disappear. That was all he needed to do. Or forget the other Inazumas. Just vanish.

  No. These were the greatest swords ever forged. One did not simply forget them. And he still had to give Glorious Victory to the American. An Inazuma in his hand and two more within reach! Not even Yamada had ever been able to say that.

  Some high, piercing voice keened in his mind. One was enough. His beautiful Singer. She outshone them all. The other two should be forgotten. Just disappear. Kill the girl and disappear.

  No. Too risky. There was the American to deal with, and that meant acquiring Yamada’s sword at the very least. And if he was to risk himself for one sword, why not two? Give up the mother. Get the Tiger on the Mountain. Then deal with the American and win your fortune.

  You have fortune enough, the keening voice said. You have me.

  Yes. You have her. But how much more could you have? Three Inazumas within reach. Only one man in history could say he had laid his own hands on three of them, and that was Master Inazuma himself. I must, Fuchida thought. I owe it to myself. I owe it to the swords.

  The keening voice cried out: Not to me, you don’t.

  I owe it to my father. To my family name. To every Fuchida who spent his life following a Kamaguchi’s orders.

  Let your family burn, the keening voice cried.

  I was going to secure my place in history. I still can. I only need the swords.

  Forget your place in history. Your place is with me.

  Fuchida balled his fists; the phone’s plastic creaked in his hand. No, he thought. My destiny is mine to control. You must let me have this.

  I will take care of you, cried the voice. Leave your destiny to me.

  And there, right then and there, that high, singing voice crossed the line. “Your mother lives,” Fuchida said into the phone. “You will deliver the swords to me by midnight.”

  A pause. Then, “Midnight tomorrow,” said the Oshiro woman. “I need time to get them.”

  “Have them by tomorrow at noon. I will call you with the location. If I see a cop between now and then, your sister dies slow.”

  Fuchida hung up the phone, and Mariko released a sigh she’d been holding back for what felt like an hour. Her face was tingling and her breath came short. She wanted to cry but suppressed the urge: she feared she might collapse completely if she indulged herself in even a moment of weakness. Instead of crying, she nestled her tired, burning eyes into her palms and rested her elbows on the tabletop. “I can’t deal with this,” she said.

  “Of course you can,” said Shoji. “Whatever destiny saddles us with, that is what we must bear, but you’re a strong one. You’re doing fine, dear.”

  “Fine?” Mariko didn’t bother looking up. “I talked a madman into promising not to kill my mother. His word’s worth a lot, I’m sure. And my sister? If anything, I got her in deeper shit than ever. The only victory I can see here is that she’s not dead yet—but in exchange for that, I promised two swords when I only have one. How is this ‘doing fine’?”

  Shoji said something, probably something encouraging, but Mariko wasn’t listening. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but she’d leaned back against the seat of her booth so her hands would be free to work. By the time she got the phone to her ear, one of
her team at the precinct had already picked up. “Sergeant?”

  Mariko didn’t bother asking who it was. “Get two units to my mother’s house right now. Take her and one suitcase and get them to Tokyo Station. Don’t let her talk you into bringing more than one bag, or else she’ll try and take the whole apartment with her.”

  “Sergeant, we can bring her to a safe house. Has Fuchida threatened her?”

  “No safe house. Something doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on it.…” She trailed off, then chided herself: You’re too tired. You haven’t got the strength to see this through. “I don’t know what it is,” she said, “but something’s not right. Fuchida shouldn’t have known about the stakeout. He knows too much about what we’re doing. Just drop her off at Tokyo Station, and don’t let anyone talk to her about where she’s going.”

  The next call was to her mom. It was equally terse: Pack one bag, go to Aunt Yumiko’s. Please don’t ask questions, Mom; just do it. Then she clapped her phone shut and rested her eyes back in her palms. The muscles above her eyeballs ached. Her throat felt like sandpaper, and her teeth felt filmy. She wanted a hot shower and a double dose of sleeping pills. Followed by a week in Hawai‘i. Then maybe—maybe—she’d feel up to taking on the tasks ahead.

  Getting her hands on Glorious Victory Unsought promised to be damned near impossible by itself. At the moment it was under her own team’s surveillance, surveillance she could no longer call off now that Fuchida had introduced a fresh murder to the mix. The Inazuma blade was now the only bait TMPD had for the perpetrator of a public and gruesome homicide; no way in hell was Ko giving that up. Any requisition she filed to call off the surveillance would have to cross Ko’s desk, and then he’d start asking questions, and Mariko didn’t trust him. This went beyond his general misogyny; she was too exhausted to figure out what it was, but some niggling thing made her suspect his motives.

  And even if she could lift her surveillance, there was still the matter of the Tiger on the Mountain. Yamada had spoken of that sword once before, but that seemed a hundred years ago, and in any case he never gave even a clue as to where the Tiger might be.

  “How the hell am I going to get those swords?”

  The words came so quietly that Mariko was hardly aware she’d spoken them aloud. She was certain Shoji-san couldn’t have heard them, but then she remembered: Shoji had the ears of the blind. “It seems to me,” Shoji said, “that you should ask for them.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m sure that’ll—”

  Mariko cut herself off. This woman had been right about too much to dismiss anything she had to say. So instead of completing her first thought, Mariko asked, “How did you know offering the swords would calm him down?”

  Shoji shrugged. “It’s in his nature. The forces of destiny are roaring now. One must only attune one’s ear to hear them.”

  “Uh-huh.” A sip of tepid tea did little to slake the dryness coating Mariko’s throat. “I was planning to talk to Yamada-sensei about that. I never wanted to take his case, you know. I wanted to follow a lead on a cocaine deal. I wanted to drop everything and go look for my missing sister. Now I find out my coke dealer is Yamada’s student, and also the sword killer, and now he’s my own sister’s kidnapper. It’s too much to be coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “And you—you talk like you know how all of it is going to play out. How? No, you know what? I don’t even want to know how. Just tell me where this goes.”

  “I see forces coming together that haven’t converged in many years. I see the tiger prowling on his mountain, and the singing woman returning to the mountain. There is a castle on the summit, and typhoon winds blow on the horizon. The typhoon is strong enough to destroy the castle and strong enough to kill the singing woman. Whether the tiger can protect against the wind, I do not know. So much depends now on which way the typhoon will blow.”

  Mariko looked at her, glad that the woman’s blind eyes couldn’t see the face Mariko was giving her. “I’m way too tired to make sense of any of that. I’m smart enough to see the Tiger on the Mountain has something to do with it, and Beautiful Singer too. I just don’t see how I’m going to get my hands on the swords. Lieutenant Ko will have my ass if I confiscate Glorious Victory Unsought from the scene of a stakeout. And Yamada-sensei always told me the Tiger was in a safe place. He said no one could get to it. How am I supposed to bring it into the equation?”

  “As I said,” Shoji chirped, “we’ll go and ask the owner if we can borrow it. But we can’t do that until the morning, and you need sleep, I think. My apartment isn’t far. It isn’t much, but we can roll out a futon for you if you like.”

  Nearby. A strange place, so she’d sleep lightly. To Mariko it sounded like heaven.

  74

  Mariko was rinsing shampoo from her short, spiky hair when she struck upon a plan to steal Glorious Victory Unsought. That niggling feeling last night had taken shape. How had Fuchida known there was surveillance on Yamada’s house? And how had he known Mariko was the lead on Yamada’s case? Mariko wasn’t the hardest cop in the world to track down, what with being both the only female detective in the city and the only female sergeant in the TMPD, but Fuchida had more on her than that. He’d known he couldn’t strike Yamada at home, and he’d known to find Yamada at the concert hall. So either someone on Mariko’s team was talking to Fuchida, or else Fuchida was monitoring Yamada’s house with surveillance of his own—and if the latter was the case, Fuchida had known exactly where to lurk so that Mariko’s team wouldn’t spot him. That too suggested that someone in the force was talking.

  But Mariko couldn’t prove it was Ko. True, he’d ordered her not to investigate bōryokudan involvement in her case, and if Fuchida had an inside man in the department, that was bōryokudan involvement. That meant if Ko was Fuchida’s insider, he would have immunized himself from investigation through his own direct order—an illegal order, as Mariko had been all too happy to point out at the time. All of it was suspicious, but none of it was solid proof.

  A new realization struck, and it made Mariko laugh so hard that it echoed in the shower. It wasn’t even necessary to find out who Fuchida was talking to. Mariko had all the excuse she needed to move Glorious Victory to a new and secret location.

  For once she was happy to give Lieutenant Ko a call. She didn’t even wait to get dressed; she tarried only to place a quick call to her team, then—still wet and wearing a towel—punched in Ko’s number. “Just calling to let you know I’m moving the sword, sir.”

  “Like hell,” said Ko. “It’s tied up in a major homicide and a kidnapping.”

  At least he was finally willing to use the word major in connection to her case. That had nothing to do with Mariko’s leadership on the case, of course; it had rather more to do with the fact that bloody footage from Suntory Hall was all over every news network.

  “Sir, I have reason to suspect someone in our precinct has been talking to the perp. I don’t know who, but I’m sure you’ll agree that moving the sword to an undisclosed location will make it more secure.”

  Ko had nothing to say to that.

  “I’m sure you’ll agree too, sir, that if anyone tries to interfere with moving the sword or tries to discover its new location, we ought to question that individual on any possible connection to the perpetrator.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Oshiro.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble, sir. I’ve already ordered a member of my team to prepare warrants to search phone records and such.” She let him chew on that for a moment. Then she added, “Oh, but you ordered me not to investigate bōryokudan connections to this case, didn’t you? If it turns out the perp’s a yakuza, I’ll have violated that order. Would you like me to call my guy back? Rescind the warrants?”

  She had him trapped. If he said yes, he’d be ordering her to cancel not just yakuza-related warrants but all warrants, and only a guilty person would do that. If he said no, she’d g
et what she wanted and she’d get yakuza-related warrants too.

  But like any other worm, Ko had a talent for wriggling out of tight spots. “Oshiro, I want you off this case. Your sister’s kidnapping has compromised your judgment. I’ll have HRT take command.”

  “They’re way ahead of you, sir. HRT took command of the kidnapping case last night.” She didn’t bother to mention that she’d taken the last call from Fuchida after the HRT lieutenant relieved her of command. Come to think of it, she hadn’t even told HRT about Fuchida’s call, or about the sword ransom. At the time she’d been too exhausted to think of it, and now gut instinct told her to continue on her present course. Or was it destiny? Mariko wasn’t sure if she knew the difference anymore.

  She wrapped things up with Ko, disappointed that he’d managed to slither out of her trap but happy that he couldn’t object to her moving the Inazuma without implicating himself as Fuchida’s inside man. By ten a.m. she had Shoji sitting beside her in a requisitioned squad car and Glorious Victory in the trunk, padded in a long sleeve of blue cotton fabric and resting in a rack meant for shotguns. “Okay,” she said. “Job one, finished. Now how in the world do we get sword number two?”

  “I told you already,” said Shoji. She was wearing white today, Coco Chanel again, with a different pair of big black sunglasses. “We’ll go to the owner’s house and ask to borrow it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’ll ask politely, of course.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  Mariko stopped the squad, lights running, beside the barrier surrounding the Imperial Palace. Heavy chain ran from one concrete pylon to the next, big steel links sagging. The whole series was utilitarian yet ornamental, decorative in a capable-of-stopping-a-speeding-armored-car sort of way. Behind this perimeter stretched a few hundred meters of white gravel, fenced in on the opposite side by a green metal fence and a moat. A castle’s sloping foundation rose out of the water, ascending gracefully to a height overtopping the level of the street where Mariko had parked. On her left, traffic whizzed by; on her right was the sixteenth century.