by Susan Spann
A breath of air flowed over the back of Hiro’s neck.
Instinctively, he ducked—and a stronger rush of air passed through his topknot as the blow intended for his head passed harmlessly above it.
Chapter 43
Behind him, the attacker gave a grunt of surprise.
Hiro spun around, still crouched. He struck at the assailant’s shadowed form, but his fist punched air.
His attacker had already backed away.
Hiro pulled a shuriken from his sleeve. He wrapped his fingers around the weapon’s star-like points as he pursued the assailant back down the darkened passage.
He rounded the curve. Darkness engulfed him, but he sensed his assailant just ahead. He lunged forward. His free hand grasped a robe.
A trailing sleeve brushed over his hand. The robe tugged at his fingers as the shadowed figure tried to break away.
Hiro gripped the shuriken hard but did not strike. Instead, he gripped the robe more tightly. The attacker dragged him toward the exit, moving slowly but with determination through the narrow tunnel. Hiro followed.
As they emerged once more into the forest, Hiro kicked his right foot forward, hooked his assailant’s ankle, and pushed hard with the hand that clutched the robe.
His attacker tripped and fell.
Hiro did not release his grip. Instead, he fell to a kneeling position atop of his assailant, using his weight to pin the stranger down.
Beneath him, the attacker squirmed.
Hiro drew back the hand that held the shuriken, prepared to strike. “If you want to live, stop fighting.”
“Hiro!”
He jolted at his name—and because a female voice had spoken it.
Beneath him, the figure stopped struggling.
Hiro knelt atop a woman wearing pale pants beneath a long gray robe. Her gray hood concealed her hair and face, with only a slit where her eyes showed through.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “How do you know my name?”
She turned her head—as best she could, given the man kneeling on her back—and tried to look him in the eyes.
Hers looked familiar.
Suddenly, Hiro placed her voice—and wondered if he should believe in ghosts. “Emiri?”
“You remember me?” She seemed surprised.
He raised the fist that held the shuriken. “If you know me, why did you attack me?”
“I thought you went into the cave to hurt Zentaro.”
“He isn’t here.”
“I noticed.”
“And you’re supposed to be dead.”
“If you don’t mind,” Emiri said, “could we possibly have this conversation elsewhere? Preferably without your knee in my back?”
“This seems plenty comfortable to me.”
She glared at him. “It won’t be—for either of us—if Zentaro returns.”
“You attacked me to protect him, but you don’t want him to see you?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “If he sees me in the daylight, he will realize I’m not truly a kitsune.”
Hiro lowered the shuriken. “You’re the kitsune?”
“Let me up, and I’ll explain—in a safer place.”
Hiro rose to his feet and offered the kunoichi his empty hand. She ignored it, stood up, and brushed the dirty snow from her clothes. When she finished, she led him back along the rocky cliff until they reached the place where tree roots created a natural ladder up the face. Emiri pulled off her hood and let it hang down her back. Then, grasping a pair of roots, she began to climb.
She moved up the wall with the speed of frequent practice.
As he watched her, Hiro considered the possibility that she planned to ambush him and drop him to his death. However, given her status as a fellow member of the Iga ryu, and the presence of her name on the list of agents he had come to warn, he found it highly unlikely that she meant him harm. He returned the shuriken to the pocket in his sleeve and started up the cliff—but watched her closely as he went.
About ten meters up the rocky face, Emiri stopped climbing. When he reached the place, Hiro discovered that she stood on a narrow, mostly level ledge that snaked around the side of the cliff. Although invisible from the ground, it was wide enough for a person with decent balance to walk along. As he looked back toward the forest floor, he realized a fall would give him definitive—if undesirable—personal knowledge about whether the dead could truly become ghosts.
Emiri beckoned for him to follow and set off along the ledge. His first step dislodged a handful of tiny pebbles that rolled out from beneath his feet and cascaded down the cliff in a clattering fall.
Emiri looked back over her shoulder, apparently more annoyed than concerned.
He laid his hand on the cliff to his right, this time for balance, and continued along the ledge.
About ten meters ahead of them, an enormous, nose-shaped stone formation overhung the ledge. A handful of ferns grew out beneath it like the living mustache of a mountain troll. Just as Hiro wondered how Emiri planned to bypass the giant stone, she bent down and disappeared. When he reached the spot, he discovered her sitting in a narrow cave beneath the rocky outcrop. The space looked large enough for two people to sit in side by side, but only barely.
Emiri beckoned for him to join her.
If the stone broke away from the cliff it would destroy the cave and crush them both. Hiro considered that unlikely, at least in the next few minutes.
He ducked and crawled beneath the stone.
Despite his normal preference for letting others begin a conversation, he had to know: “How did you find this place?”
She smiled. “I like to climb.”
He did not return the smile. “Why did you abandon your assignment without sending word to Hanzo?”
“I believe that does not concern you.”
“Considering that I came to this village to find you, on Hanzo’s authority, I beg to disagree.”
Emiri searched Hiro’s face as if to judge his veracity. Eventually, she said, “I left the village after an incident at the teahouse, on the night of the typhoon.”
Hiro remembered Akako’s story. “You saw Noboru’s father die.”
“No. That happened later, after I had gone. I walked in on Hanako. . .playing Noboru’s flute.”
It took Hiro a moment to understand what she meant, but the revelation came as no real surprise. “I wondered if their relationship went beyond the quality of her food.”
Emiri nodded. “A few minutes later, she cornered me in the kitchen and threatened to ruin my reputation if I told anyone what I had seen. I went upstairs, collected my things, and fled into the storm.”
“You ran away because she threatened your reputation?”
“I ran because I threatened her,” Emiri said. “She could not risk me telling Noboru’s parents about the affair. Sooner or later, she would have found an excuse to fire me, whether or not she ruined my reputation. I decided to leave on my own terms, and to leave no trail.”
“Why would she care if you exposed her? She could have charged Noboru’s parents for the value of her services.”
“Maybe it works that way in Kyoto. In a village this small? On a travel road? Exposure would have cost Hanako more than what they could afford to pay. More importantly, it would have ruined her status as a high-class entertainer. Travelers don’t pay a premium for used-up prostitutes.”
“You did leave a trail,” Hiro pointed out. “You left your cloak on the travel road.”
“To disguise my direction. I doubled back and waited out the storm on the mountain. I didn’t anticipate the landslide, or that they would be foolish enough to think a yūrei killed me. But I did not abandon my post.” She smiled. “I changed myself into a kitsune.”
Chapter 44
Hiro did not return her smile this time either.
“After the landslide blocked the travel road, I found a position as a maid in another teahouse on the detour route,” Emiri said. “During the d
ay, I normally watch the road from there. But I also needed to keep an eye on this part of the road, and since not even I can be in two places at once, I persuaded Zentaro to act as my accomplice.”
“By convincing him you were a fox.”
“It wasn’t difficult. His dedication to Inari, and his love for the foxes of the mountain, made him easy to persuade.”
“Surely he knew you from the village.”
“He rarely came into the village while I lived there, and I never met him face to face. The old courtesan who owned the teahouse did not let us spend any time outside, for fear it would ruin our ‘delicate complexions.’” Emiri imitated an elderly woman’s disapproving tone. “She barely let us out to use the latrine during daylight hours. Even then we had to wear full makeup and kimono. Zentaro would never have recognized my face.”
“The inside of a teahouse seems an ineffective place to watch a road,” Hiro observed.
“Quite the opposite,” Emiri countered. “Everyone of consequence stopped for a meal. At least, they did until the landslide changed the route. This original road is dead—and the village with it, though not everyone has accepted that reality.”
“Speaking of death,” Hiro said, “did you kill Ishiko and Masako?”
“Why would I do that?”
“To avenge Riko’s death?” Hiro almost wished she had. At least it would have explained the killings.
“That wasn’t me.” She shook her head. “But I do disguise myself as a yūrei when I pass the village at night to meet Zentaro.”
“You pass through the village dressed that way?” Hiro knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for Father Mateo’s ghost.
“Through the forest near the village,” she corrected, “and I try to avoid being seen at all, but since they believe Riko became a yūrei, the disguise discourages anyone from attempting to follow me.”
“So you are Zentaro’s ‘messenger from Inari’?”
“I am, although I did not plan to be. Not initially, anyway. The night I fled the teahouse, he discovered me hiding in the woods. The typhoon was blowing too hard to risk a trip down the mountain when I left the teahouse, so I waited out the worst of the rain at the burial yard—inside the mausoleum. Zentaro found me there, and mistook me for a kitsune. Don’t ask me why. I am not sure he’s entirely sane.”
“I am entirely sure he’s not.”
She tipped her head in acknowledgment. “In any event, I played along. Since then, I spend a couple of nights each week in his cave. I arrive after dark and leave before dawn, and he tells me what goes on in the village. He thinks I deliver his words to the kami.” She laughed. “Hanzo is not precisely a god, but men should fear him more than they do Inari.”
“And Zentaro never questions where you go or who you are?” Hiro asked the question even though his own observations of the yamabushi provided an adequate answer.
“He truly seems to believe I become a fox in the daylight hours. And seems honored to be performing a valuable service for Inari Okami.”
“Not to mention, smitten with the messenger.”
She smiled. “An unexpected benefit.”
“It isn’t dark right now,” Hiro pointed out.
“And I wouldn’t have approached his cave, except that I thought I needed to protect him.”
Fair enough. “Did you tell him to keep the villagers away from the forest after dark?”
“Yes, but it did no harm. They feared the yūrei anyway.”
“Could Zentaro have taken your instructions a step too far?” Hiro asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You never fully answered my question about Ishiko and Masako. Did you kill them. . .or do you know who did?”
Her expression grew serious. “I did not kill them. As to the second part of your question, I do not know. Zentaro seems completely dedicated to his yamabushi practice. I don’t believe he would kill, but when I returned to the cave last night he was not there.”
“What time did he return?”
“I cannot say. I fell asleep, and when I woke, he was beside me. It didn’t occur to me to ask where he had been.”
“And the night Ishiko died?” Hiro asked.
She sighed. “I was not here.”
“I need you to find out where he was,” Hiro said, “and if he killed the women to enforce Inari’s ban on people walking in the forest after dark.”
Emiri gestured to the ledge. “You need to leave, before the evening mist comes down the mountain. The descent is treacherous when the rocks get slippery, especially if you don’t know it well.”
“You are not coming?” Hiro asked.
She shook her head. “Kitsune only take on human form at night. I’ll stay here until then.”
“The slippery descent doesn’t bother you?”
“I have plenty of practice.”
As Hiro crawled out of the cave Emiri added, “You mentioned that you came on Hanzo’s orders?”
He turned to face her. “Hanzo believes that Oda Nobunaga has acquired a list of Iga agents and their current posts, and wants every agent on the list to return to Iga as soon as possible, for reassignment.”
“Let me guess. My name is on the list.”
“I would not be here otherwise.”
“I will leave tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll talk with Zentaro and learn the truth. If he killed the women, I will let you know. . .on one condition. I do not want him harmed. He would only have killed them if he believed Inari wanted it to happen.”
Hiro nodded as if in assent. He saw no reason to argue until—and unless—the truth required it.
“He will not be happy when I go.” Emiri’s voice suggested she would miss Zentaro too. In a lighter tone, she continued, “Do you have a message I should take to Hanzo?”
Hiro thought carefully before he spoke.
To send no message would raise suspicion, but sending one created other problems. Although he told the truth about Oda, the list, and Hanzo’s recall of the affected spies, the mission to warn Emiri and the others was not Hiro’s to fulfill. Hiro had undertaken the mission on his own authority, after the spy originally charged with the task had died. As far as Hattori Hanzo knew, Hiro and Father Mateo were hiding out at the Portuguese colony in Yokoseura, many miles to the south.
Hiro decided he could hide the truth no longer.
“Tell my cousin that his agent on Koyasan was murdered, but not by Oda’s spies, and that I will finish warning the agents on the list before the first spring thaw.”
He considered adding that he and the priest would travel to Yokoseura as soon as they completed their mission in Edo, but decided not to make a promise he already knew he did not intend to keep.
Chapter 45
“I will tell him,” Emiri said. “Will your travels take you as far as Edo?”
“Possibly.” Hiro had no intention of revealing more details than necessary.
“If you do reach Edo, look for an ally among the watchmen near the southernmost checkpoint as you enter the city.”
“Among the daimyō’s guards?”
“Among the fire watch,” Emiri said. “The ones who spend the nights on the towers. When you find them, ask for Daisuke.”
Hiro recognized the name, and not only because it appeared on his memorized list.
Many years before, a teenaged Daisuke had locked an even younger Hiro in a storehouse with a corpse—a mean-spirited trick that terrified Hiro to his core, but ultimately dispelled his belief in ghosts.
“You remember him,” Emiri said.
“Clearly, you do not,” Hiro replied, “or you would know that he is not my ally.”
“You still hold a grudge for a childish prank—”
“I was a child,” Hiro corrected. “Daisuke was not.”
“Some people do change, you know. I would consider it a favor. . .” She hesitated. “If you can, warn Daisuke as well.”
“I will not overlook him, if the opportunity presents itself.”
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br /> She searched his face, but he knew it revealed nothing.
At last, she nodded. “I will find out what Zentaro knows about the recent deaths. If I discover anything useful, I will also find a way to let you know.”
He did not bother to ask how she would reach him. A kunoichi could always find a way.
“Where have you been?” Father Mateo looked up from his Bible as Hiro entered the guest room. “I was starting to worry.”
Hiro slid the shoji closed and bent down as Gato twined around his ankles. “About my safety, or that I would solve the mystery without you?”
He stroked the cat and smiled at the priest.
Father Mateo closed his Bible. “Both. Where have you been?” Hiro crossed the room and knelt across from the Jesuit. “I found our missing kunoichi—and your ghost.”
Father Mateo’s eyes grew wide as Hiro told him about Emiri, though the priest’s final reaction to the story was not what Hiro anticipated.
The Jesuit frowned. “And all this time, she has been sharing Zentaro’s cave? That seems inappropriate.”
“Not for a kunoichi. Or a kitsune, for that matter.”
“Surely Zentaro does not believe the woman is a fox. Not truly.”
“He believes he can talk to trees,” Hiro said.
“If he steals objects from the village he might have taken the silver too, and murdered the women because they caught him doing it.”
“That occurred to me as well. Emiri has promised to speak with him this evening.”
“Won’t he lie if he is guilty?” Father Mateo asked.
Gato crawled into Hiro’s lap, circled, and lay down. “I do not think so. The legends say kitsune steal, and kill, without remorse. Zentaro has no reason to believe that she would disapprove.”
The Jesuit lowered his voice. “Did she know anything about Kane and Mume?”
“I did not mention them to her. I plan to investigate that myself, tonight.”
“You mean we will investigate tonight.”
“I meant what I said,” Hiro clarified. “You will stay here, in case the thief returns. And this time, open the closet as soon as the shoji rattles.”
