by Jenn Stark
Ma-Singh interrupted my thoughts with his harsh voice, speaking to the elders once more. His brows lifted in surprise at their answer.
“He says they do not remain fully hidden. The emperor has known of their existence since well before the construction of the Meiji Jingu shrine. Their community did not seek to hide from its responsibilities, merely from its neighbors.”
“And the emperor has let them live here, unmolested?”
Another exchange, and the eldest man allowed himself his first weary smile. Something approaching a twinkle flashed in his eyes. Beside me, Ma-Singh grunted.
“Elder Hajime says the location for the Meiji Jingu shrine is popularly believed to have been chosen because of an iris garden that grows deep in the forest.” Ma-Singh pointed to the elder. “Hajime is the one who led the future emperor to that site when the man was still a little boy, and told him that he was the one who planted the irises. When the emperor visited the site much later, as an old man, he recognized Hajime. At that moment, the emperor declared the site for the shrine to be established in the location, and for the community’s names to be struck from the records, but accorded the highest honors. Those honors have remained in place since. When the shrine was bombed in World War II, it was this community that first began clearing the rubble. They do not live as they do to evade their responsibility, but their path has been straight nevertheless. Until now.”
“Until now.” I grimaced. “So their community is an open secret. Anyone from low-level government on up could know they’re here.”
“They could,” Ma-Singh allowed. “But they have never been troubled before. Also, there were several children at the shrine that day, smaller and less active than the boys who went missing, more likely targets. They were left unharmed.”
Which brought me back to why here, and why now, and why these boys. I fixed the elder with a hard stare. “Was there anything unique about the boys, other than that they were boisterous? Were they special in any way as compared to the others?”
Elder Hajime listened closely to Ma-Singh, then frowned. He turned and consulted with his fellows, the two of them nodding quickly at his words, then responding in a flurry of Japanese. Ma-Singh’s translation pace picked up to keep up with their answer.
“They were always laughing, happy boys…inseparable…smart and funny. The best of their class. Kind and—”
“Back up there. Best of their class? You mean in school?”
Ma-Singh nodded. “They were considered top performers.”
I thought about the pair of Revenants in Barcelona. Also the pride of their community, children who’d excelled at their studies. Which again presupposed a crime of deliberation, not grabbing the easiest and first victim.
All of it led to only one conclusion, but the thought of it made me sick to my stomach. Genetic manipulation had been a practice among farmers and breeders for thousands of years, and I knew the practices of the arcane black market and technoceutical industries. Connected children had long been considered targets for their more depraved practices and products, but Revenants…
“Were these children high-level Connected?” I asked Ma-Singh, unsurprised when he translated the question to see two of the old men shaking their heads.
The third, however, Hajime, fixed me with a long stare. He spoke without dropping his gaze, and Ma-Singh supplied his response.
“He asks why you would ask such a thing.”
“Because these kids were singled out. And all of you—everyone here—has the same genetic disposition toward long life. So they were taken for reasons other than that. It had to be something else, something more.”
Elder Hajime frowned and stared at me a long time. At length, he sighed and spoke again.
Ma-Singh blinked at him, then swiveled his gaze to me. “They were not high-level Connected, not in the sense you mean. But they were good, he says. Pure of heart. In every generation among Revenants, there are those who are the symbols of the future, who make life in such seclusion worthwhile. These boys…they were those symbols. But he says no one knew of that. He had told no one for he was the elder, and it was his knowledge alone to bear.”
I frowned, not missing the gazes of the other two men. They were not angry in the slightest, or put out, but they were clearly surprised. This information was news to them. “And he told no one about this.”
“There was no purpose in sharing the information. It is transferred at the end of life from one elder to the next.”
“And, so, what happens if the elder gets hit by a bus?”
Ma-Singh blinked in surprise, but I waved him on. “It’s important. I need to know that. Because someone found out. Someone knew. Unless these children glowed in the dark, there’s no other way for Gamon to single them out.”
Reluctantly, Ma-Singh turned back to the elder, who now stared at him intently. I could tell the general reworked the question, but the point definitely got across. Three pairs of eyes fixed on me with flat curiosity.
Ma-Singh shifted uncomfortably, waiting.
At last the old man spoke, Ma-Singh’s voice rumbling in its thready wake. “There is an oral history, handed down from elder to elder, preserved and protected by each community. It is spoken aloud once per year, by me, to a scribe, who writes the information in the scrolls, then gives me the scrolls. They have not been touched, I can assure you.”
“Got it. And this scribe?”
The elder’s unworried tone didn’t waver. “He writes under the influence of a drug and cannot remember what he has heard.” Ordinarily, this type of explanation would have sent off warning bells, but in this case, I believed the old man. I’d seen my share of powerful drugs. Memory zappers were easy to come by, and probably had been for millennia. Which left only one option. Gamon.
“The last time you did this year in review, was when—start of the year? Summer solstice? There has to be a set date for all of you, I’m thinking.”
The elder inclined his head. “Solstice,” Ma-Singh translated. “When the clock strikes midnight in each community, the scroll is prepared.”
“Got it.” I nodded. Not so difficult for Gamon to be on hand for that, hovering and listening in. I gave Elder Hajime an apologetic smile. “Next year…” Then I shook my head. By next year, Gamon would be dead. Or I would be. And if I was, the Revenants would have more trouble to worry about than someone eavesdropping on their scroll ceremony.
I turned my mind back to the problem at hand. “How old were the children?”
“Young, manifesting as children of ten or twelve years. Two boys, in this case. Good friends all. They were fascinated by the world around them, especially the beauty of the gardens at the shrine. When they went missing, at first the community thought they had gone exploring. They had not heard yet of the attacks, so they were not watching the children closely. But when they didn’t return…”
I nodded. We talked a little longer, but eventually there was nothing left to say. I excused myself and turned away from the old men and their expanding circle of grief. Ma-Singh had asked after the boys’ parents too. They were in the vast forest over these walls, searching endlessly for their sons. That image was not one I would forget anytime soon.
Grimacing, I pulled out my deck of cards and traced the crushed-rock path a bit more deeply into the lushly planted courtyard. I passed multiple pools surrounded by tall grasses and ornamental trees. Work had been done here recently, new flowers planted at the water’s edge, an almost discordant flash of color, some sort of ornamental lily. Various tools had been arranged neatly to the side, evidence that the maintenance of this place was likely a never-ending process for the elders and their community. I sat on a low bench, watching the water as I pulled three cards.
I didn’t look at the cards right away, however. I had a bad feeling about the reading and this place. Not because of the men—they were genuine, their grief unfeigned. But there was still a darkness here, the same darkness I recognized from the nightclub in Barcelona.
The darkness I’d attributed to Gamon.
The cards suddenly felt heavy in my hand, and I glanced down, immediately seeing one of my least favorite cards, the Five of Swords. A card that could mean many things in a search, but its metaphorical explanation was that of an empty or hollow win. Quickly returning it to the deck, I glanced to the second card, then the third.
Dread thickened my throat, making it difficult to breathe. The Three of Swords was becoming a fast friend in these terrible days—its meaning one of grief, and also a cut to the heart. Then finally there was the Seven of Pentacles. That card showed a young man resting on his shovel, surveying the fruits of his labor. It meant a job well done, but also a caution not to rest on one’s laurels, instead directing the reader to take up his or her work and start anew.
But that wasn’t what it meant here.
“Ma-Singh?” I shouted. Or, I wanted to shout. The words were stuck in my throat, however, along with the breath that wouldn’t come as my gaze lifted and fixed upon the newest flowers planted in this sacred space. I couldn’t ask Ma-Singh to do this for me, I couldn’t ask the elders to do it. And yet, I feared what I would find.
Unless I was very much mistaken, Gamon had been here, in this quiet garden. Adding a permanent insult to an even more permanent injury.
Heart quailing, I abandoned the cards on the bench and slid to my knees in front of the profusion of lilies. I decided to attempt only one small patch. I didn’t want to disturb the area too much, but I also couldn’t—wouldn’t—defile this space with a full-scale search if I was wrong.
As I dug, a thousand questions went through my mind. How could anyone have gotten into this courtyard without being seen? Ma-Singh said everyone had left the complex to start the search, but surely they’d locked up behind themselves. Then again, picking a lock was less difficult than most people realized. And if the kidnappers had moved fast…
But why come here at all? Other than causing pain, what was there possibly to be gained?
I scooped deep into the soil, surprised at how soft it was, fresh and loose in my hands. No one had tried to conceal this burial, if that was what it was. Looking at the flowers more intently, it had to be, though. The color of the lilies was all wrong for this serene space, a discordant flash of orange and red amidst the soft whites and blues. As I pulled another clump free, then a third, I could feel a new wetness on my cheeks, but I didn’t stop to brush it away.
I suddenly knew what I would find here, hidden beneath the flowers. I didn’t know how much I would find, but it would be enough.
It was.
Five minutes into digging, I saw the first sign. A swath of cloth, some sort of wrapping, not pants or a long robe. But it was new fabric, a bright and bold red. The color of wedding clothes.
I didn’t remember shouting, but must have, as Ma-Singh’s sharp cry of alarm echoed around the walled garden. Then came the sound of rushing feet.
The Five of Swords, I thought bitterly, as the elders emerged through the tall grasses of this sacred space.
I had won, and I had lost.
Chapter Twelve
Ma-Singh and I rode in silence out of the city the following day, winding our way deep into the mountains. I stared out the window of the rental SUV without seeing any of the famed beauty of the Japanese countryside.
Instead, I could still only see the bodies. Impossibly small in death, the children had been buried in a single deep grave, one on top of the other. Their perfect forms were unmolested except in one important way. Their hearts had been removed, this time completely. Gamon had gotten what she wanted.
“We’re approaching the sensei’s home,” Ma-Singh rumbled beside me. The two guards in the front of the vehicle ignored us. I didn’t know their names, or where they had come from. I didn’t care either. Twice now, I’d been too late to save the children I’d been asked to retrieve. The two boys had died before I’d even landed in Tokyo, but the boy and girl in Barcelona—I’d been so close. I could have saved them, if I’d been faster. If I’d seen more, sooner.
That knowledge was the only reason why I agreed to accompany Ma-Singh on this journey into the mountains to see Annika Soo’s teacher, the sensei Chichiro. No new deaths had been reported among the Revenant communities. The House of Swords was fully deployed in their protection—so fully, Nigel was picking up rumbles of curiosity about the House’s increased military presence from the other Aces assigned to the Houses of Pentacles, Cups, and Wands. I’d instructed him not to answer any questions.
Those Houses had not contacted me; I didn’t know who ran them other than Pentacles, which was headed by my old frenemy and former client, Jean-Claude Mercault. And Mercault was into the technoceutical black market up to his fastidious French neck, making a fortune selling concoctions designed to augment Connected ability. He could wait until I was ready to talk to him.
Ma-Singh spoke again. “Sensei Chichiro is expecting you.”
I didn’t turn from the window. “You told her about the children?”
“The sensei does not require me to inform her of such things. She knew you would be coming, and now you are here. She will see you for one hour, she said, no longer. If you choose to return a second time, she will tell you the duration of that stay then.”
That did make me glance his way. “I don’t know if I’m in the right frame of mind for Japanese mysticism right now. This might be a bad idea.”
He held up a finger. “One hour, Madam Wilde. You may choose never to return. But you can spare this one hour to see if the sensei can help you in your quest to find and destroy the assassin of your House’s former leader and the killer of innocent children.”
I winced. “Fair enough.”
Ma-Singh smiled briefly, then nodded to the road in front of us. We’d begun to climb a fairly steep grade, switchbacking our way up the mountain. Somewhere along the way, we’d left the more modern roads too. This one was still paved, but far narrower than it should be for such a steep incline.
“What if we meet someone coming down?”
“We won’t.”
I manfully resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “The sensei tell you that as well?”
“She is a very important woman, and she dictates her own schedule. She has known you would be coming and was prepared to greet you as Madam Soo’s replacement.”
Something in the way he made this pronouncement sent up a warning flag. “They were friends?”
“They were…well acquainted. Madam Soo began studying with her before she returned to rule the House of Swords.”
“Great,” I muttered, keenly aware that I was no Madam Soo. I hadn’t studied anything longer than five minutes in more years than I could count. I kept this observation to myself, however. It was an hour, as Ma-Singh had said. It might be the longest hour of my life, but it would eventually pass.
We drove for easily another thirty minutes, long enough for me to close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere—anywhere else. But eventually the vehicle rolled to a stop, and I blinked back to awareness, straightening in the backseat. When Ma-Singh and the guards didn’t move, I glanced at him.
“You alone can set foot on the ground here,” he said. “She will know if we violate her rules.”
I lifted a brow. “So after all your complaining, this is where you’re going to leave me without protection?” I asked, needling him. “What if she kills me?”
Ma-Singh shook his head. “That is not the lesson you’re here to learn this day.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” I stared at him a moment longer, but when he didn’t crack a smile, I groaned. “Okay, she’s got an hour. If I’m not out of there by then, and you don’t come and get me out of whatever headlock she has me in, you’re totally fired.”
Still no reaction. I muttered something not very pro-Mongolian under my breath, then pushed the door open.
I stepped out onto the ground, which gave beneath my feet with a springiness I wouldn’t have expected. Then again, nothing about
this place was what I expected.
Granted, what I’d expected of the sensei’s hut was born of a mishmash of pop culture images that stretched from Kill Bill to The Karate Kid, but still. The little cottage that stood before me wasn’t shrouded in mists, and there were no skulls on spikes, so that was probably a good thing. The place was…cute, actually. A small stone building fronted by a flower-lined pathway, shaded by ornamental trees. The kind of place you’d expect a teacher to live in, versus, say, a ninja.
I realized I still hadn’t moved, however. I determinedly took a step forward. Nothing exploded or disappeared, and I checked over my shoulder to see that the SUV hadn’t dissolved into a holographic image. So far, so good.
By the time I reached the sensei’s front door, I was warring between relief and flat-out panic that I was letting my guard down. Because relief was usually a signal for the ground to drop out from beneath me.
I lifted my hand to knock on the door, and it opened noiselessly in front of me. I blinked. I wasn’t exceptionally tall, but I still hadn’t expected to have to look down so far to take in the woman before me.
Several things struck me at once—fortunately none of which was Sensei Chichiro’s fist, although it could have, as startled as I was by her appearance.
One, she was extremely compact, probably no more than five feet tall. Second, she was young. Certainly no older than her fifties, which surprised me given how long she’d apparently been training Annika. Finally, she was smiling. At least, I think she was. Her lips were curved up at the ends and her eyes seemed warm. And not in the burning hellfires kind of way.
“Come in, come in,” she said in a bright, chirpy voice. A voice that totally did not sound like it belonged to someone who could whip out a machete without notice, and that put me further on edge.
I stepped over the threshold, bracing myself for the illusion to come crashing down, but it didn’t. Her house looked like a modern Japanese apartment, all clean lines and spare furnishings, painted in neutrals with splashes of pinks and blues. I could have been walking into a therapy session, and I noticed the tea steaming on the low table in front of the couch. Had Ma-Singh texted Chichiro while I dozed during the drive up? Or did she hustle up the tea while I’d stood rooted to the spot outside the SUV?