Burn All Alike

by Nene Adams

  “Why didn’t I know about the Obon festival before now?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I asked you to go with me last year, but you said you had a date.” Veronica glanced at her in fond amusement.

  Mackenzie recalled she’d been going out with Mary Dean at the time. “Clearly, I’m an idiot.” She leaned up on tiptoe to kiss Veronica’s cheek. “Do you want to dance?”

  Veronica shook her head. “Not right now. Later, we’ll float little lanterns down the stream to help guide the souls returning to the Other Side. It’s such a beautiful moment.” She sounded slightly wistful. “But first, we’d better find the abbot.”

  Inside the temple, Abbot Imamura knelt in front of the altar, quietly chanting. He appeared to sense the moment Mackenzie and Veronica entered the temple, rising to welcome them. “Are you ready?” he asked, his upper-class British accent incongruous in the setting.

  “Yes, sir.” Veronica lowered her voice. “The skeletal remains we spoke about are wrapped in a tarpaulin in the back of my truck.”

  “Yes, the young woman’s fiancé.” Imamura nodded. “Where is your truck parked? I’ll send someone to collect the bones.”

  Mackenzie went over to the altar while Imamura and Veronica talked. In front of the Buddha statue, candlelight flickered over bowls of rice, vegetables, watermelons, lotus flowers and tea. Dishes of peaches perfumed the air, a sweet counterpoint to the smoky incense. She also noticed a stack of thin wooden slats as long as her forearm. The one on top had a row of Japanese characters painted on its face. Memorial tablets. On her earlier visit, Imamura had discovered Osame’s tablet was broken and said he’d make a new one.

  “Mac, we’re ready,” Veronica called.

  “Coming.” Mackenzie left the altar.

  Imamura led them to a room at the rear of the temple. Here, the drums and other sounds of the festival were muted. He moved around lighting candles and sliding the veranda doors shut. “The young woman’s relatives live in California. I’ve been in touch with them and their attorney, who made arrangements. Her body was exhumed from Potter’s Field and cremated yesterday. This morning, we received the ashes.”

  “And Jun?” Veronica asked.

  “We’re having difficulty tracing his family,” Imamura admitted, gazing at the flower arrangement on the table. He carefully tweaked a few freesias and a white Gerbera daisy to make the design more balanced. “However, if we cannot locate Jun’s relations, his bones will still be cremated and rest next to hers in our nokotsudo on the grounds—a place where funerary urns are stored according to the family’s wishes. I’ll see to it myself.”

  Listening to the discussion, Mackenzie felt ill at ease, as if she’d forgotten something important. “You told me you’d call her to the temple,” she said to Imamura.

  “And I will.” Candle flames reflected in his eyeglasses. He gestured at a large, flat, wooden box on the table next to the flowers. “In here, I have what is needed.”

  Mackenzie gasped when Imamura opened the box. Inside lay a folded cotton kimono, pale pink with a cherry blossom pattern woven into the fabric. She’d seen the kimono before, had watched the flowers turn to sparks and fly away to set the roadhouse on fire. “That belongs to Osame, doesn’t it?”

  Imamura broke off a conversation he had begun with Veronica to reply to Mackenzie. “Yes. As I told you, I contacted the family.”

  Veronica gave Mackenzie a puzzled look. “What’s going on, Mac?”

  Rather than answer the question, Mackenzie continued to Imamura, “When I came here the first time, you showed me Osame’s broken memorial tablet. Your father had made it, you said, and making a new one would be difficult because you didn’t know her full name. So how did you get hold of Osame’s family when you didn’t know who they were?”

  After a moment of blankness, Imamura made a soft chuckle. “Your government keeps records of the detainees in enemy alien internment camps, Ms. Cross.”

  His reply struck her as false, but she had no opportunity to voice her doubts. A young Asian monk slid open the paper paneled door and entered carrying a tray. After setting bowls of rice and water on the table, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “My intent is to persuade the spirit to release the anger and jealousy which keep her attached to this world. She is envious of the living and destroys by fire that which she can no longer have. I pray she will free herself of this evil karma. I pray she becomes an enlightened spirit and enters the Pure Land.” Imamura unwrapped the rosary from his wrist, held it between his hands, closed his eyes and began to chant in Japanese.

  “Part of the Lotus Sutra, I think,” Veronica explained, drawing Mackenzie over to a corner so they could speak without disturbing the ritual. “Now tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t know for sure.” Mackenzie huffed with irritation. “I’m just bothered. His story doesn’t sit right with me. Look, the Department of Justice has case files and records on Japanese-American detainees and you can search online, but without a surname, how’d he track down Osame’s family? How’d he get the kimono?”

  Veronica nodded and glanced thoughtfully at the abbot. “Didn’t you tell me he heard Osame’s story from his father?”

  “Yes, but he told me he didn’t know her family’s name.”

  “Maybe he forgot what he knew and remembered later.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re a cop, Ronnie. Shouldn’t you be more cynical and suspicious?”

  Veronica started to reply, but stopped. “I smell something burning.”

  Mackenzie sniffed, hoping to detect incense or melting wax. No such luck. A definite woody bitterness lingered. Hadn’t Imamura said he’d be calling Osame to the temple? A gaping hole yawned in the pit of her stomach. “I think the ghost is coming,” she whispered.

  “I think Osame’s already here.” Veronica paled.

  “Oh, crap.” Mackenzie found herself unable to move as the kimono unfolded itself from the box and began to rise, lifting higher above the table until it hung suspended in midair and slowly filled out as though worn by an invisible young woman.

  Delicate white hands emerged from the ends of the long, wide sleeves. A slender neck appeared at the collar, pale skin racing up to form the head. Tendrils of black hair sprouted and whipped around a once pretty face distorted by rage and hate. Osame. Those same features were burned into her apartment door, Mackenzie thought. The chill left her, driven off by blast furnace heat suddenly rippling the air between her and the ghost.

  “Abbot Imamura,” she cried, “wake up!”

  He didn’t respond, apparently caught in a meditative trance of droned prayers.

  Mackenzie’s chest contracted around a small, hard ball of terror. Oh, God, no. I don’t want to burn. I won’t! Obeying the flight instinct, she snagged Veronica’s wrist and took a step nearer the door. She stopped when a furious shriek sawed through the air.

  Osame vanished, the cherry blossom kimono flew up to the wooden rafters as if jerked by strings and the ceiling burst into flames.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mackenzie tightened her grip on Veronica, using the other woman as an anchor to keep herself present and relatively sane. “Fuck me sideways,” she breathed, staring up at the blazing kimono, now a stark black outline against the flames.

  Fire spilled outward from the epicenter, billowing in red-orange and bright yellow waves across the ceiling in long breakers rolling over a turbulent, burning sea. The fire didn’t crackle, it roared. The sound ended her momentary fascination.

  Veronica shook off Mackenzie and moved to grab Abbot Imamura, towing the man along to the door. His eyes were wide and frightened behind his glasses.

  Mackenzie refrained from asking him how he felt about redeeming Osame now.

  Veronica didn’t waste time sliding open the door. She simply barreled through the paper panels, taking Imamura with her. Mackenzie followed a step behind, pausing briefly to glance over her shoulder at the fire dripping on the table, setting t
he surface alight.

  Blistering heat plucked at her shirt and sucked the moisture from her skin. Her hair shivered, rising from her shoulders on a blast of hot wind reeking of corruption.

  She gagged, turned her face away and raced with Veronica and Imamura down the corridor to the main altar and out onto the veranda. The fire nipped at their heels, crawling quickly over the beams behind them as if alive, a hungry predator on the hunt.

  Mackenzie hustled down the stairs, her sneakers skidding a little when she landed on the ground. She noticed monks herding panicked festivalgoers toward the path and kept going, reaching an abandoned games booth before she stopped to gape.

  Flames erupted from the temple roof. In the midst of the blaze stood Osame—heartbreakingly young, heart-stoppingly angry. The fire raged out of control, spurred by the ghost’s endless fury. Despite the destruction, to Mackenzie the atmosphere seemed charged with electricity, a hushed edginess signaling all hell was about to break loose. The feeling stretched her frazzled nerves to the snapping point.

  “We have to get out of here.” Veronica squinted as a waft of smoke blew into her eyes.

  Mackenzie didn’t respond. She turned to Imamura instead. “Are you crazy? You knew how dangerous Osame was, but you called her here anyhow.”

  “Imamura is the name I adopted when I became a monk, Ms. Cross.” Imamura’s gaze was riveted to the burning temple and the furious spirit. “I was born the son of Koga Ichiro.”

  The name meant nothing to Mackenzie at first.

  “Your father murdered Jun and Osame,” Veronica stated, managing to channel her law enforcement officer’s professional tone in spite of the dark smudges on her sweaty face and the untidy brunette hair escaping its pins.

  Koga! Mackenzie recalled the eyeless monk’s spirit watching her at Lake Minnesauga, following her through the streets of Antioch, whispering to her in the bookstore. Although Imamura wasn’t responsible for the deaths of Osame and Jun, he’d lied to her. Why?

  Veronica seemed to read her mind. “Why tell the truth now?” she asked him.

  “The time is past for secrets.”

  “Then tell us the whole story later. We should go.”

  “My father came to deeply regret the crimes he’d committed.” Imamura ignored Veronica’s tug on his sleeve. He added at Mackenzie’s snort, “A man can change, Ms. Cross, if he wholly embraces that change. My father rejected his criminal past, took up a respectable trade and sought out a family he had wronged. He married a young woman from the family—Osame’s sister, Haruko, who became my mother.” His gaze shifted to Veronica. “Stay, Deputy Birdwell. We are in no danger yet and there is much you wish to know.”

  “I’d rather not, Abbot.” A muscle jumped in Veronica’s jaw, betraying her impatience. “Please come with us. The fire department will be here soon.”

  The last stragglers had vanished, Mackenzie noted, leaving the area deserted. Dense smoke roiled in the space between the moon and the temple lit by flames. High on the peak, Osame raised her arms, a point of light against the darkness of hill and trees. Fire raced over the roof ridge, licking at the eaves, dripping in strings to flare gold on the ground.

  The wind picked up, blowing ash in her teeth. Mackenzie snarled, “Get a move on, damn it, or I’ll knock you on the head and haul you by the heels, swear to God.”

  “You don’t understand.” Imamura’s fingers fumbled the rosary in his hand. “When my father was dying, he sent me a letter containing the truth. His actions brought shame to my family. I accepted the burden of his debt and came here. For years, I’ve done the appropriate rituals to placate Osame. I’d hoped tonight would be the last.”

  As if alerted by the sound of her name in Imamura’s mouth, the ghost on the peaked roof lowered her arms. Mackenzie’s skin prickled at the sensation of being watched by something that hated her just for being alive. She felt an urge to shout at the man for lying, tell him to shut up and move, but when light burst across the sky the command went unuttered.

  Blue-white lightning crackled around Osame, surging sparks flying like fireworks in the dark. A pair of blazing comet tails shot out from either side of Osame’s body and swooped down to the garden. The ends of the flaming columns formed into two hands made of fire.

  Grasping hands headed straight for her, Veronica and Imamura.

  Mackenzie’s brain disconnected, leaving her a passenger inside her own head while the terrified primate lurking at the top of her spine took control. Pure instinct sent her crashing pell-mell down the path, shoving Imamura and Veronica ahead of her. The garden blurred. Fear squeezed her heart, her chest, her throat.

  She heard Veronica shout.

  Fire erupted around her. Carefully tended and manicured trees popped and thrashed as flames climbed the branches. An incandescent canopy stretched above, the cupped palm of some gigantic demon reaching from Hell.

  Vicious heat rolled over her.

  Mackenzie tried to scream, but the heat leaped into her lungs, throttling her from the inside. Smoke and broiling wind buffeted her on every side. Pain bloomed on her tightening skin. Deep inside, she knew the pain would get much, much worse before the end. She sent out a silent, general prayer to any and all gods to spare Veronica. Mercy for herself wasn’t a consideration. A life for a life seemed fair—no further negotiation required.

  But after a moment, she realized the heat wasn’t as intense. The temperature appeared to be falling. How? Why? When she glanced left and right, she saw the flames unmoving, frozen and no longer devouring everything in their path. The wildfire above her head was gone, replaced by a view of the night sky.

  “Mac…over there,” Veronica said, touching Mackenzie’s arm to get her attention.

  Mackenzie stared at Veronica, seeing the same complicated mix of deep devotion, affection and slight exasperation reflected back at her from the beloved sooty, tear-stained face. Nobody had died. Yet. Nevertheless, something jolted loose in her chest even as relief and dizziness clashed with the horrible sense that the other shoe hadn’t dropped.

  She turned her gaze toward the young Japanese man hovering near a koi pond.

  Jun appeared more real than he had at the construction site, not just a spirit of smoke but cloaked in translucent flesh. As before, he had no feet or legs, just empty space beyond his kimono’s hem. He remained by the edge of the pond, seemingly waiting.

  Another high-pitched shriek cut through the quiet. Mackenzie flinched. Osame. She felt Veronica stand beside her. A hand—human, warm, gun-callused—groped for hers.

  Osame glided onto the path, her long black hair squirming in snake locks around her shoulders. Malice twisted her lips and gleamed in her eyes.

  For several tense seconds, nobody moved. Mackenzie held Veronica’s hand in a death grip. She heard Imamura murmuring behind her. Pride lifted her chin. She waited for Osame, whose gloating couldn’t have been clearer. Fuck you, bitch, and while you’re at it, you can burn in Hell, too. Not the last words she would have chosen, but they’d do.

  Osame moved closer. Noticing Jun, she halted, her expression shifting to confusion.

  To Mackenzie’s surprise, Imamura stepped out in front of her and Veronica. He reached into his robe and removed…a lantern? A small, square, bamboo-framed lantern. A flame burned inside, giving the paper sides a golden glow.

  Mackenzie held her breath.

  Jun floated to Osame, who recoiled. Both spirits regarded each other in silence. Jun adopted a waiting position. Osame made an uncertain noise, almost a moan. Her fiery aura guttered and died. The rest of the flames in the garden simply blew out like candles on a birthday cake, leaving behind the smell of baked earth.

  Imamura walked to the pond, knelt and set the lantern on the water’s surface.

  Mackenzie watched the floating light bob over little wavelets, moving across the pond all the way to the other side. Her eyes widened. The lantern impossibly continued to drift forward as though caught in a strong current. The golden spark began to rise.
The light grew smaller and fainter, and smaller and fainter still, at last lost to the darkness and the stars.

  She shook herself out of the fascinated haze to find Osame and Jun gone. Imamura seemed to have vanished as well. Where’d he go? I just saw him. She heard two men speaking Japanese. Imamura. The other she recognized as the voice of the eyeless monk, Koga Ichiro, whose crimes had started the cycle of Osame’s revenge.

  The voices of father and son repeated the same phrase several times, the words fading further into the distance until only silence remained.

  Mackenzie didn’t cry as she let Veronica help her step over the huddled figure in monk’s robes lying on the path behind them, but she wanted to.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “The remains of Jun’s and Osame’s bodies are definitely gone without a trace. And the ME’s report says Imamura died of a heart attack.” Veronica reached into the Golden Buddha takeaway box to fish out a steamed dumpling with her chopsticks.

  “Before or after he sent Osame and her boyfriend sailing off on the Love Boat?” Mackenzie stuffed pepper shrimp into her mouth, followed by fried rice.

  Two days after almost being roasted alive, she still couldn’t shake an appetite better suited to a starved anaconda. And she’d discovered a hunger for more than food, too, as if her body needed to reaffirm life with lots of sex. She surveyed Veronica’s appearance with satisfaction, noting the swollen lips, the messy hair, the mottled flush still visible on the woman’s skin. She knew she looked just as wrecked.

  “Does it matter?” Veronica broke into Mackenzie’s vaguely lustful thoughts.

  Mackenzie snorted. “I know what I saw.”

  “Are you sure he was dead before he put the spirit boat in the pond?”

  “Ronnie, excuse me, but that guy was as dead as day old catfish and you know it.”