Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

“No!” Reiko screamed.

Tama uttered a terrible, gurgling wail. Blood spewed in a hot red fountain, drenching Reiko. She exclaimed in horrified disbelief. Yugao flung Tama at her. Tama crumpled onto the veranda floor, where she twitched, moaned, and died in front of Reiko. Her blood pooled around them. Reiko heard Hirata and her guards shouting and running up the stairs.

“Stop!” Yugao ordered them. She seized Reiko by the arm and held the blade against her neck. “One more move, and she’s dead, too!”

Reiko felt cold steel against her skin. She saw the men standing immobile and helpless on the stairs. Breathless, on the brink of fainting from shock, and dripping blood, she had barely enough self-possession to twist her body and hide the knife from Yugao.

Yugao marched Reiko past Tama’s corpse and through the door. She spoke in a tone of vindictive satisfaction: “Now you’ll pay for all the trouble you’ve caused me.”

I think we’ve passed the house,” Detective Marume said as he and Fukida and Sano toiled up the forested slope through the night. “I feel as if we’re halfway to the sky.”

Sano stumbled over a rock and caught himself. “We must have strayed off course.” He heard furtive rustling sounds from their army far off to his right. “Let’s go that way.”

They cut a zigzagging path across the hillside, groping past branches that snagged their armor. Soon the trees thinned. Pale moonlight filled a cleared space. Sano and his men halted at its edge, the boundary of the mansion’s grounds. Gardens descended in three terraces toward the house; ponds shimmered in the moonlight amid ornamental trees, flowerbeds, shrubs, and small, decorative buildings. Insects chirped and shrilled. Mist hovered in a thin, whitish vapor above the tall grass. Below the gardens spread the roof of the top level of the mansion. Sano heard stealthy movement in the gardens’ dense, verdant darkness and glimpsed flashes of light-the moon reflecting off the helmets and swords of his army.

Beckoning his men, Sano started down the top terrace. Shadows under the trees gave them cover. Cold dew on the grass drenched his sandals and socks. He spied the hunched, indistinct figures of his troops advancing to the next terrace. The night was peaceful except for the wind, the insects’ songs, the wolves’ howls, the whisper of grass and foliage, and crackles of twigs and dry leaves underfoot. But as Sano, Marume, and Fukida skirted a raised pavilion covered with a roof on posts, a hoarse scream shattered the quiet.

They instinctively crouched beside the pavilion. “What was that?” Marume whispered.

A second scream vibrated with a horrendous agony that rattled Sano’s nerves. Another cry, and another, followed in rapid succession. Chaos broke out down on the grounds. Men charged in all directions, no longer cautious, exposed to view. Countless more screams alarmed Sano. He and Fukida and Marume skidded down the slope to the lower terrace, where scuffles erupted under the foliage and the cries continued. Near a pond, a man lay inert and moaning. Sano crouched beside him and peered at the face below the helmet.

It was Captain Nakai. His eyes and mouth were open, round with terror. His complexion looked ghastly white.

“What happened?” Sano said.

“He sneaked up on me and grabbed me,” Nakai said between gasps. “I think he broke my back.”

Horror flooded Sano as he turned to Marume and Fukida, who crouched near him. “We’ve flushed out Kobori. He’s stalking and attacking our troops.” Sano heard new cries that were quickly silenced as though cut in the middle, and he knew that unlike Nakai, several of his other men hadn’t survived their encounters with the Ghost.

Nakai wagged his head feebly, but the rest of him lay still. “I can’t move my body!” he cried. “I’m paralyzed!”

Sano felt a heartbreaking pity for Nakai, the warrior who’d slain forty-eight men during his last battle, felled just moments into this one. Sano forgave Nakai his rudeness and over-ambition. Nakai had already served him better than most samurai ever served their masters. Nakai had led him to the Ghost and sacrificed himself to their cause.

Around them, soldiers yelled, “He’s over there!” “Get him!” They raced back and forth. Swords clanged. Bodies collided. The screams resounded with awful, increasing frequency. Sano realized that although he had the Ghost within striking distance at last, his mission was in serious trouble. He tore himself away from Nakai, stood, and shouted, “Stop running wild! Get back into your teams!”

He knew what Kobori was doing: scattering the men, then luring them singly into the shadows and picking them off. “Surround the place!” Sano yelled. “Trap Kobori!”

The room was bare, the furniture and tatami mats stored away until summer. Dust filmed the plank floor. In the empty alcove hung a spider web adorned with dead insects. Reiko knelt in a corner, trembling and sickened from Tama’s death. Tama’s blood, now cold and sticky, had seeped through her clothes and stained her skin. With every breath she inhaled its raw, metallic odor; she fought the urge to vomit. Bitter self-recrimination tortured her.

Yugao stood over Reiko, holding the knife extended, its sharp point almost touching Reiko’s lips. The knife, her hands, and her robes were blood-smeared, her eyes crazed. The light from the lantern flickered across her features, animating them as if with constant nervous tics.

Fear gathered inside Reiko like a pool of acid corroding her spirit. Yugao had already killed four times and wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. Completely at Yugao’s mercy, Reiko took no comfort from the knife that Hirata had given her. She sensed murderous thoughts moving in Yugao’s mind, saw the hint of an evil smile curve her mouth, felt how fast were her reflexes. If Reiko reached behind her and pulled her own weapon out from under her sash, Yugao would attack her before she could defend herself.

“You don’t have to do this,” Reiko said. “We can just walk out of here.” Her survival depended on manipulating Yugao. “You’ll be safe.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense,” Yugao retorted. “You’ll turn me over to your father. And he’ll have me executed.”

It didn’t seem the time for Reiko to point out that Yugao had previously demanded that Magistrate Ueda execute her. Yugao had changed her mind and didn’t appear willing to change it back again. “That won’t happen. I’ve told my father that I think you’re innocent; you didn’t murder your family. He believed it. If you hadn’t run away, you’d have been acquitted,” Reiko lied.

Yugao sneered. “You never told him any such thing. You thought I was guilty from the start.”

“No, I didn’t. I’ve been trying to help you all along.” The knife was so close to Reiko’s face that she could smell the iron; her skin tingled as she imagined the slash, the pain, her blood spilling. “Let me help you now.”

“Oh, I’m sure that when your father hears that I killed Tama, he’ll set me free!”

“I’ll tell him that you didn’t mean to kill her; it was an accident,” Reiko improvised. “The only things you’ve done wrong are escaping from jail and associating with a criminal. Just come with me back to Edo.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Yugao asked in disdain. “There’s nothing there for me.”

“My father will pardon you. You can start a new life. You won’t be an outcast anymore.” Reiko cautiously held out her hand. “Just give me the knife.”

Sudden rage flared in Yugao’s eyes. “Do you want the knife that badly? Well, I’ll give it to you!”

She slashed at Reiko’s hand. Reiko cried out as the blade cut her palm. Blood oozed from the deep gash.