Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

He had to find out what had happened while he’d been gone, and attend to any urgent business. He also expected Lord Matsudaira to summon him to report on the progress of his investigation. His workload had increased a hundredfold since it began. The murder case had rejuvenated him, but his energy was flagging.

As he and Reiko and Masahiro entered the mansion together, Sano looked around and upward. The stars in the black sky sparkled, as bright as the fireflies, above the rooftops. Night hid from his view the palace up the hill. All was serene, but Sano imagined he heard the echo of war drums. The smell of gunpowder mingled with the floral scents.

“At least there hasn’t been another murder,” he said.

As night deepened, the moon swelled, white and round and luminescent, over Edo. Night-watchmen stood guard outside warehouses, while soldiers on horseback patrolled the rapidly emptying streets. Inside the windows of the houses, lamps winked out as if extinguished by a vast breath that swept through town. Sentries barred the gates to each neighborhood; the howling of stray dogs echoed in the gathering silence. The city slumbered. Darkness spread across hills and rice fields outside town.

But the Asakusa Temple district up the river blazed with light. Colored lanterns hung from the eaves of the temple buildings, shrines, and roofs of stalls in the marketplace. Hordes gathered to celebrate Sanja Matsuri, the festival that honored the founding of the temple a thousand years ago. People streamed into the main hall to pray for a good harvest, while outside, men performed ancient sacred dances. Village elders from the district paraded through boisterous, drunken throngs that jammed the precinct. Men pushed carts that transported huge drums and gongs, which they beat to produce a thunderous, clanging din. Priests led portable miniature shrines, each decorated with tingling brass bells, gilded ornaments, purple silk cords, and crowned with a gold phoenix. Each shrine rode atop stout wooden crossbeams borne on the shoulders of some hundred youths clad in loincloths and headbands. The bearers chanted in loud, hoarse voices as they labored under their heavy burdens. Sweat glistened on their naked flesh. Cheering crowds engulfed and followed the shrines. Beggars roved, their wooden bowls in hand, beseeching rich folk moved to generosity by the festive atmosphere.

One beggar among the legions made no effort to collect alms. His bowl was empty, his voice silent. Costumed in a tattered kimono and a wicker hat that hid his face, he ignored the merrymakers. His feet, clad in frayed straw sandals, trod a straight path through the crowd, following a group of samurai who walked ten paces ahead of him.

The group stopped at a wine vendor’s stall. The beggar halted a short distance away. His intent gaze focused on the samurai at the center of the group, a stout man with a fleshy face already red from liquor. He wore lavish silk robes and ornate swords. The others were simply dressed; his attendants. He and his men bought cups of wine, toasted one another, drank, and roared with laughter. Rage ignited inside the beggar while he watched them. The samurai, a high-ranked bakufu official, was one of the enemy that had trampled his honor in the dirt. His spirit roiled with the hot, bloodthirsty lust for revenge that had inspired his one-man crusade.

The drums throbbed and the gongs rang in louder, escalating tempo. Two shrines converged upon each other. Shouts erupted from the bearers, who quickened their steps and the cadence of their chants. The shrines rocked and tilted perilously above the cheering spectators. They charged in ritualistic duel. The official and his attendants moved closer to watch. The beggar followed, unobserved by them, just one insignificant man among thousands. Vengeance would be his tonight-if only he could get close enough to touch his foe.

As he walked, he dropped his begging bowl. He inhaled and exhaled deep, slow, rhythmic breaths. His mind calmed, like the smooth, unruffled surface of a lake. Thoughts and emotions fell away from him. His internal forces aligned, and he slipped into a trance that he’d learned to achieve through endless meditation and years of practice. His vision simultaneously broadened and narrowed. He saw the entire, vast, glittery panorama of Asakusa Temple district, with his enemy’s moving figure at its center. His senses grew so acute that he heard his enemy’s pulse above the chants, the tinkling bells on the shrines, and the general pandemonium.

The official and his attendants slowed down, their progress hindered by shoving, close-packed humanity. But the beggar slipped through it like water flowing between rocks. People glanced in his direction, then made way for him, as if repelled by some threatening aura that he emanated. He curved his spine, rounded his shoulders, and hollowed his chest in a ritual posture that drew energy from the deepest, most primitive part of him. His limbs felt relaxed and fluid, but alertness tingled through them. The energy thrummed in his blood. The moon and stars seemed to slow their journey across the heavens; the world seemed his to command. He sighted on his enemy and closed the distance between them while the energy inside him radiated outward. His intentions manipulated reality. People moved as if they were puppets under his control, shoving against the man he pursued. They separated him from his attendants and bore him along on their tide. He looked backward at his men, who tried in vain to catch up with him, but the crowd deterred them. The beggar easily followed.

The shrines loomed above their heads, beneath the heaving, writhing, shouting bearers. Now the beggar walked four paces directly behind his enemy. Power rose, like steam inside a volcano, up his spine. He was its vessel, his mind its master. His image of his enemy’s back expanded to fill his vision; his surroundings faded. His gaze penetrated the garments that his enemy wore. He saw bare skin and the underlying musculature, skeleton, organs, and blood vessels. Nerve pathways formed a glowing, silvery network that united and animated the whole. They intersected at nodes throughout the body. His eye targeted a node between two vertebrae on his enemy’s backbone. He hurried his steps until a mere arm’s length divided him from his prey. He inhaled a breath so large that his ribs almost cracked. Spiritual and physical power thundered in him, building to a lethal strength.

Time halted.

His prey and everyone except himself froze motionless.

External sounds faded into abrupt, preternatural silence.

He exhaled at the same moment that he unleashed his control over his body. His arm shot out with such speed that it blurred, propelling his fist, which unclenched an instant before reaching its target.

The tip of his index finger touched the node on his enemy’s spine with a pressure as light as if from a feather wafted against it by a breeze. The energy exploded from him. The force of its release lifted his feet momentarily off the ground. His vision shattered into bright fragments of light. His body shuddered violently. He swooned as rapture akin to a sexual climax possessed him.

Life reanimated the world. The shrines resumed their dueling; the bearers chanted; the gongs rang, the drums pounded, and the bells tinkled; the crowds applauded and surged. The beggar gasped, spent from his exertion. He saw his foe turn toward him.

The official’s expression was one of wary puzzlement: He’d sensed if not actually felt the touch against his back and the presence of danger. It had caused him no pain; he hadn’t even flinched. The beggar let the crowd come between them and carry him away. From a distance he watched the official spot his attendants and push through the melee with them. He looked as ruddy, vigorous, and high-spirited as ever. But the beggar imagined the energy from his strike racing along the man’s nerve pathways and piercing a vein in his brain. He envisioned the blood beginning to leak, the life-force slowly draining. Triumph elated him.