Blood Ninja (19 page)

“No,” said the ninja. “Look at her eyes. She’s in a trance. She’s seeing something.”

And that was when the woman’s eyes snapped open, only they were white, like eggs, and her pupils had rolled up into her head.

She turned that ghastly blank stare on Taro with horror written on her face as clearly as the messages she had scrawled in the sand. Tears were running down her cheeks. She stumbled to her feet, keeping her eyes on Taro.

“Keep me from that boy,” she muttered. “He brings death to all around him.”

Taro felt an overwhelming urge to run from her and keep running, as Shusaku murmured soothing words to the woman. Then, just as suddenly as her eyes had opened, they closed again. A moment later she looked at Shusaku, puzzled, and blinking as if she had opened a door from her bedroom onto the bright light of day.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

The abbess—who clearly remembered nothing of her vision, whatever it had been—declared herself tired beyond endurance, and Shusaku led her toward her own room. Yukiko glared at Taro, then swept out of the room behind them.

Heiko gave him an apologetic look. “She loves the abbess very much,” she said. “It pains her to see her frightened.”

“I understand,” said Taro. His heart felt heavy in his chest, ponderous and slow. He had caused his father’s death, and now it seemed he would be responsible for more devastation. He could not rid himself of the image of the abbess, staring at him with those boiled, empty eyes.

He sank onto one of the cushions.

“The things she sees … they don’t always come about,” said Heiko. “Sometimes the choices people make can change them.”

Taro grunted. Perhaps. But perhaps too he was just a poison—the price of his life the pain of others.

Hiro put an awkward hand on his shoulder.

“You could go, you know,” said Taro, not looking at his friend. He was looking out at the garden, and he concentrated on the blossoms that clung to the trees, the moon that shed light on the flowers. “You heard what she said. I’m a monster. A demon. You’ll suffer if you stay with me. You may even die.”

“Where would I go?” said Hiro.

“I don’t know. Anywhere. I have to go with Shusaku, otherwise I won’t find my mother. But you …”

“Could leave and start a new life,” continued Hiro.

“Well, yes.”

Hiro sat down beside him. “I have already started a new life,” he said. “When you saved it.”

Taro nodded, feeling bleak. Nothing he could say would convince his friend to leave him, and that both warmed and chilled him. He was glad to have such a constant ally, yet he couldn’t bear the thought of Hiro being hurt on his account. He also found, to his surprise, that the idea of Shusaku being hurt was abhorrent to him. The man had saved his life.

When he looked at Heiko, he saw that there was a tear in her eye.

“I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to Shusaku,” she said. “He saved my life.”

Taro nodded, startled to hear his thoughts echoed in her words. “Mine, too. But don’t worry about him,” he forced himself to say. “He can look after himself. He fights with the grace of an
apsara
and the determination of a demon. I’ve never seen him show weakness of any kind.”

“Yes,” said Heiko thoughtfully. “That’s what worries me.”

Taro nodded. He really didn’t want anyone to have to suffer because of him. Then he had an idea. “It’s still
obon
, isn’t it?” He looked at Heiko. “Do you have colored paper left? Candles?”

“You would send a message?” she asked.

“Yes. My father. He was killed when Shusaku rescued me.”

She nodded. “I’ll get the things.”

A short time later Taro stood with Hiro and Heiko on the
bridge where they had first seen the girls. Taro held in his hands the oblong
shoryo-nagashi
. Leaning over the bridge, he lowered it into the water. The message inside was simple—though Heiko, being Heiko, had drafted it twice before seeming satisfied with the strokes of her brush.

I’m sorry
, it said.
I miss you
.
Please protect my friends
.

Taro began to murmur the words of the prayer that would take his communication to the Amida Buddha, and from him to his father’s soul, wherever it was. He hoped it had gone to the Pure Land of the Amida Buddha, not to the realm of the beasts, or of the hungry ghosts.

Taro was barely aware of Hiro and Heiko melting away behind him, leaving him alone with his grief as they retired into the house.

He stayed there a long time, listening to the murmuring of the stream, looking at the shadows of the trees and the strange, drained colors of the flowers in the moonlight. So still did he stand that the heron they had seen earlier returned, and stood, neck bent, in the stream, gazing down into its clear water.

Finally he took a deep breath and turned for the house. That was when he heard a low babble that added itself to the noise of the stream. This, though, was not water. It was the sound of two people talking in quiet whispers.

He followed the voices to the left-most of the shoji screens. It gave onto a room smaller than the one in which the fortunes had been told, and Taro could see little of what lay inside through the transparent wall of the decorated paper, other than the shadows of two people who stood close together, conferring seriously.

Shusaku and the abbess.

Taro crept as close as he could to the screen, concentrating on keeping his footsteps as soft and silent as possible.

The abbess was speaking. “… now that Tokugawa has showed his hand with an attempt, there is—”

Shusaku gasped loudly, cutting her off, and Taro pulled back, convinced he’d been detected, so he missed the next thing the
ninja said. But it was obvious Shusaku had been shocked by the abbess’s words.

He put his ear again to the screen. “… long were you with those ninjas?” he heard the abbess say.

“No more than a month,” said Shusaku.

“Ah. Then it occurred after you left.”

Shusaku whistled. “Tokugawa tried to have Oda
killed
? What about their alliance, which they want so much for people to believe in?”

Taro stifled a gasp. Lord Tokugawa was the daimyo of the western prefecture, and the greatest ally of Lord Oda, who controlled the eastern lands, among them the sea village where Taro had grown up. Both lords were among the daimyo chosen by the previous shogun to watch over his young son, keeping him in power, and so they possessed a shared purpose. They fought alongside each other to protect the shogun, shared the respect of smaller lords whose land abutted their own, were even married to two sisters.

That the one lord should threaten the other was unthinkable. But the abbess was claiming it nevertheless.

“Who did he hire?” asked Shusaku.

The abbess murmured something. The first part of what she said was garbled and quiet, but Taro just caught the end. “… while riding in the forest. Only Oda’s peerless skill with the sword saved him.”

“Ronin?”
exclaimed Shusaku. “Has Tokugawa lost his senses?”

“I don’t believe Tokugawa does anything without thinking about it very carefully,” said the abbess. “In this case he hired samurai whose lord fought on Yoshimoto’s side in the great battle against Lord Oda. These men hate Oda more than all the demons. It was not difficult for Lord Tokugawa to provoke them into trying to kill the lord who stripped them of all their pride and privilege. Sadly, they had also lost their discipline, and they were caught and interrogated. It became obvious that Tokugawa had provoked them.”

“Gods,” said Shusaku. “And Oda? What did he do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” said Shusaku. “But …” There was silence, and for a moment Taro thought again that they must have become aware of his presence, but then Shusaku went on, and Taro realized that he had only been thinking. “Ah, of course. He waited for Tokugawa to make his move.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Tokugawa blamed his elder son,” said the abbess. “The boy had nothing to do with it of course, but—”

“He is samurai. He died for his father’s gain,” said Shusaku, completing her thought. “He took the responsibility of the assassination attempt, and so allowed Tokugawa and Oda to maintain their illusion of alliance.”

Illusion of alliance?
thought Taro. He felt as though the world he had grown up in had been whisked aside, revealed to be nothing more than a painted shoji screen, and the precepts and history he had learned showed to be nothing more than shadows cast by figures more terrible and base than he could have imagined. Could it be true that Lord Oda and Lord Tokugawa were secretly fighting over who could become shogun? If
that
was true, then it meant the life of the boy shogun was in danger. This was so blasphemous, so unthinkable to Taro, that he felt faint.

“Tokugawa himself acted as second,” he heard the abbess say. “He decapitated his son moments after the boy slit open his belly. I was present. It happened between the two lords’ castles. The boy didn’t even blink. I’d call it brave, if it wasn’t such a waste.”

“And the younger son?”

“Gone to Oda’s castle,” said the abbess. “With Tokugawa’s wife.
Guests
, Lord Oda calls them.”

“Damn them both,” said Shusaku. There was a bang, as if he had struck the wood of the panel. “So now Tokugawa has lost both his official heirs, and what has he gained? A moment of peace? Lord Oda’s false trust in a show execution, one that has lost Tokugawa his greatest asset?”

“He has avoided war. That is their game, is it not?”

Shusaku said something in reply, but now they really had moved away, and it was lost to Taro.

So Lord Tokugawa had tried to kill Lord Oda. Unbelievable, of course, yet Shusaku had seemed convinced. Taro felt instinctive anger toward Lord Tokugawa. The Kanto, where he had grown up, was loyal to Lord Oda, and he was horrified that someone should threaten the great lord’s life.

Yet the abbess had said, “that is their game.” The suggestion was that both lords were involved, both as guilty as the other.

No, Taro told himself. If there was a hidden rivalry, it was obviously the fault of Lord Tokugawa. He had commissioned a cold-blooded murder. Then, when it went wrong, he killed his own son rather than admit to the attempt! What kind of a man could be so brutal? Tokugawa was clearly a snake, and a stain on the samurai class.

“And now,” said the abbess, “I really must retire.”

Taro pulled back from the screen, his head swimming.
I should leave this place
, he thought. He remembered an ama who had cut her foot on coral. The wound had become infected, but she had not noticed until too late. The healer had said that if she had come to him right away, he may have been able to save her by cutting off the foot.

Taro felt like that foot. He had to be cut out—removed from the proximity of those who were healthy and happy and never visited in the night by ninja.

He had to go.

“We have to go,” whispered Shusaku. He stood beside Taro’s futon, a pale shape in the darkness of the room. Taro swung his feet to the floor. He saw that Hiro was standing already. Being abroad in the countryside had sharpened their reflexes, and dulled their capacity for deep sleep.

“What is it?” he asked, imitating Shusaku’s low whisper.

Shusaku held up Taro’s bow, which the abbess had taken away for restringing. “I’ve also taken some food,” he said. “Not much, but enough to sustain Hiro.” He glanced at Hiro’s muscular bulk. “Well, for a short time anyway.”

“We’re leaving without saying good-bye?”

“It is the only way to leave. The abbess is a good hostess, and a good friend. She would not let us leave quickly.”

“And you don’t think it’s safe for us to stay here?” asked Hiro.

“No,” said Shusaku. “I don’t think it’s safe for
them
.”

Taro nodded. He was glad they were leaving, and that the girls and the abbess would be safe, with luck. He hoped that now
whatever the abbess had foreseen would never come about. And yet he’d miss the girls—Heiko, anyway. Yukiko was too sharp, too angular, and too suspicious of him.

Yes, he’d miss them. But he was a vampire now, and close to being a ninja. He could not allow himself to form, such attachments, and any time he allowed them to form he would be punished by the deaths of those he loved, and his grief. Better to leave them alive.

And so he snuck through the dark house behind Shusaku, and into the garden, and it was with silent movements that he put a foot into Hiro’s outstretched hands and was hoisted up onto the wall, and thence out into the open vastness of the country.

The stars in their infinite heavens were beautiful, but cold.

Kenji Kira swept one of the bowls off the table and onto the floor, where it smashed into pieces. It was a gesture meant to intimidate, and it worked. The old woman looked up at him wide-eyed with fear. He saw again that despite her age she was beautiful, and he almost wished that he didn’t have to kill her
.