Blood Ninja (8 page)

But there were some advantages to being a ninja.

“I’m a vampire now,” said Taro. “I’m strong.”

Shusaku pulled a short-sword from his cloak. He smiled at Taro. Then, with no warning at all, he lashed out at Hiro’s neck. Taro didn’t think. He snapped forward, hand flying out, closing the distance between himself and his friend in a fraction of a heartbeat. His fingers closed on the ninja’s wrist, stopping the blade just as it neared the skin—

No. It was no longer a blade.

Shusaku waved the thin sapling branch that he was holding next to Hiro’s throat. Hiro looked down at it with wide eyes. “Turn around,” Shusaku said to Taro, who was still gripping the older man’s wrist. “Look behind you.”

Taro turned. The sword was now in the ninja’s other hand, and it was so close to the back of his own neck that he could feel it touching the small hairs there.

“You’re fast,” said Shusaku. “You probably were before, but vampires have quicker reflexes, and greater strength, than ordinary humans. Yet you have a lot to learn. Imagine if it were one of
your father’s killers attacking your friend. You would have saved him from a green branch, not even fit for the fire, and your spine severed for your trouble. You will come to the sacred mountain that is home to my clan. And then we will see about your mother, and your father’s avenging.”

Taro sighed, and sat back, releasing Shusaku’s hand.

“Your home. How far is it?”

Shusaku spread his hands. “If we weren’t hunted, and had supplies, spare clothes? A day or two. As it is we will need to stop. There is a woman I know—she is part of our network, and she is wiser than anyone else I know.” His eyes crinkled with what seemed like humor. “She has two rather pretty girls in her charge. She lives on the way to the sacred mountain. We’ll go to her, rest for a while in a place where the sun can’t reach us. She can give us clothes, too—string for your bow.”

“When we get to your home,” said Taro, “the sacred mountain, what will happen?”

“I hope your skills will be sufficient that you may one day become a full ninja. You’re a vampire already—that’s part of it. But being a ninja isn’t just about being bitten. It’s about clan, discipline, and loyalty.”

Strange
, thought Taro.
He speaks of ninjas as if they were samurai
.

Shusaku grimaced. “There is a small problem,” he went on. “Usually a young acolyte is turned and made a full ninja at the same time, in the same ceremony. That you are already vampire will cause a certain amount of … resentment.”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Hiro.

Taro thought about what Shusaku had said. The ninja spoke as if the choice of where they went was left to him alone—as if he and Taro could decide together where to go and what to do. But surely his employer—whoever had sent him to rescue Taro—had to have a say?

He leaned forward. “You said that you were ordered to save me. Yet you had no instructions at all as to what to do with me once I was saved?”

“None.”

Taro looked at the man’s eyes, and they did not waver—cold, implacable. Taro had no idea whether he was lying or not.

“You also tell me you don’t know who employs you. I don’t believe you.”

The ninja spread his hands. “My orders are sent anonymously. It’s safer that way. As for believing me … that is your own decision to make. But I
did
save your life.”

Hiro edged forward. “And what about me? The ninjas we fought know me now. If I go back, I might be killed.”

Shusaku nodded to him. “You fought with great skill and bravery. You will come too, should you desire it. And if you are good enough, you too will become a ninja.”

Hiro looked a little pale. “A ninja … yes. But a vampire … I’m not sure.” He glanced down as if ashamed. Then he looked at Taro again. “But I’ll come with you both if you want me.”

“Of course,” said Taro and Shusaku simultaneously.

“The things you will teach me,” said Taro to Shusaku. “They will make me strong? Skilled? Enough to avenge my father?”

“Certainly.”

Taro thought about this. His father was dead—the pain of it blossomed inside him constantly, like a flower that is always opening. And he had been forced to leave his mother behind. Half of him wanted to run, now, while it was light—and return to Shirahama. Another part of him wanted above all to begin a new life somewhere far away, with Hiro—to forget that any of this nightmare had happened.

But he felt too a burning desire to strike at those who had hurt him and his own—something he knew he could do better if he were a ninja. And he felt a desire to return, one day, to his mother, when he knew where she was.

And when he had burned the shame from him by honor, by vengeance, and could stand proud in front of her—a demon, but a demon who had acquitted his father’s murder.

Yes. It would hurt, it would burn, but what was left of him in the end would be good and pure—like the fire that destroys the wet
stickiness of seaweed, leaving behind only hard salt, more valuable but hidden until then by soft flesh.

He leaned back, sighing. He would go with Shusaku and learn what he could—and then, when he was strong, he would bring the fight to his enemies.

“These girls you mentioned …,” said Hiro to Shusaku. “The ones who live with the wise woman. They’re really pretty?”

“As cherry blossoms.”

Taro still felt anger pressing on his chest like a stone, but he couldn’t help smiling at his friend, who now put an arm around Taro’s shoulders. “I promise you,” he said, “as soon as we can, I will help you to find your mother. And I’ll help you wreak vengeance, too.”

Taro smiled. “Thank you, Hiro.”

“But first,” said Hiro, “we’ll meet these pretty girls.”

Taro laughed, play-punching Hiro’s arm.

“Now, now, boys,” said Shusaku, “go to sleep. Tiredness kills almost as easily as I do.”

Taro was starving.

Hours had passed, and the cicadas were singing. He thought that the sun must have gone down by now. He looked at Hiro, sitting against the far wall of the hut, gathering his few possessions, and saw a vein beating in the boy’s meaty neck. Shusaku was still snoring in the corner.

He licked his lips, his tongue raking over his sharp teeth.

Just one bite
.

He dug his nails into his palms, sickened.
Is this what it is to be a
kyuuketsuki? he thought.
Will I turn on my friends?

But then Hiro looked up and smiled at him, his cheek covered by a makeshift bandage, his face stained with blood from defending his friend, and Taro felt a rush of love for the big wrestler who had not hesitated to take on multiple attackers when the time had come; and the redness that had come upon the world when he saw the throbbing of that vein was lifted, as mist at sunrise.

Taro realized that if
he
was hungry, Hiro must be hungry too. The seaweed he had gathered, dried, and eaten the previous night would not be enough to sustain him for long. He stood and opened the door a crack—full dark.

“Going hunting,” he said. He stalked through the trees, notching an arrow into his bow. The gut bowstring was wet and had probably lost some of its elasticity, but he hoped it would suffice for a close-range shot. Keeping his footsteps silent, concealing his shadow by moving from tree to tree, he had only gone a short distance before he saw a squirrel sitting on a branch. He lined up the shot and fired. The arrow flew true, if not with its usual power. It struck the squirrel behind its shoulder and knocked it from the branch. But it didn’t pierce far enough, and Taro had to break its neck as it lay there on the ground.

Taro carried the squirrel back to the hut and, skewering it on a thin green branch, roasted it over the fire. Then he handed it to Hiro. “Thank you for helping me,” he said.

“I swore to serve you always,” said Hiro. “Any anyway, I enjoyed the fight.” He laughed, but his hand went up unconsciously to worry at the fabric covering his wound.

When he had taken a few bites, he handed the roasted squirrel to Taro, who took it gratefully. He bit into the tender flesh of the leg, chewed, and swallowed.

And immediately gagged.

The meat seemed to have turned in his mouth into something sharp and raw, tearing at his palate and tongue as if barbed. He coughed and spluttered, spitting out the piece of food, clutching his throat.

Choking
, he thought.
Dying
.

Yet he couldn’t feel the meat in his throat. He was sure he’d spat it out …

And that was when Shusaku clapped him on the back, roaring with laughter. “You think you can eat ordinary food?” the ninja asked. “You’re part spirit now. You can feed only on blood, for that is where the spirit lies.”

Taro took a deep breath, controlling his convulsions. “
Human
blood?” he said.

“Not necessarily. We can survive on animal blood. But human is better.”

“You said you don’t kill,” said Taro.

“And I did not lie. Tonight, if we are to keep our strength, we must find someone to ambush. But we will take only as much as we need to survive—no more.”

Taro saw Hiro shiver and cast down his eyes, and once again he was filled with fear that his oldest friend might reject him, now that he had become a monster.

He looked at the ninja, who was still chuckling about Taro’s misfortune with the squirrel. “You could have warned me,” he said.

“Yes, I could,” said the ninja. “But think how much better you have learned the lesson this way. You won’t eat flesh again.”

Taro scowled. “I’m going outside for a moment.”

Hiro began to stand, and Taro added, “On my own.” Hiro sat again, looking hurt, and Taro hated himself for it. But Hiro had not been inside Taro’s head just then, had not felt the thirst for blood. Hiro would doubtless feel differently if he knew how hard it was for Taro to resist the throbbing of those prominent blue veins.

“I just … need a little time, that’s all.”

“We should be going,” said Shusaku. “We need to use every hour of darkness we can.”

“I’ll be fast,” said Taro. He walked down the beach to the water, sat on the hard sand just before the surf and hugged his knees.

In the distance he could see an island, silver against the blue water as if it really were a drip from the sword that, it was said, had created the islands of Japan.

Now, Taro supposed, the island he could see was probably crawling with pirates, who since the fall of the emperor preyed increasingly on coastal vessels, fishing boats, and the merchant ships of the Portuguese, and had grown rich from the weakness of the shogun.

Yes, it shone from here, that island, in the moonlight—seemingly made of a rarer element than base water or rock. But up close you would see the ash of cooking fires, the rough, functional weapons of the pirates; you would see the stolen goods and the hostages and the dead.

Taro’s dream of leaving the village had shone once too, his idea of taking up weapons and serving a samurai lord and one day marrying that lord’s daughter. This, though, was the reality of adventure—a dead father, a lost mother, a newfound physical strength that also made him look at the veins throbbing in his friend’s neck, and want to drink the blood inside.

The island swam, disappeared, as if sinking
into the sea, as Taro’s eyes welled with tears. He clutched his knees, feeling as though he would melt and run down the sand into the waves. His chest heaved, his breath rattled and gasped. The tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He had never cried like this, and felt as though the moisture would be all wrung out of him, leaving him a dried husk on the beach, twisted driftwood.

Father
, he thought.
Mother
.

He missed them the same, and in that moment he didn’t know which was worse—to never again see the one who was dead and beyond the torments of this world, or to never again see the one who lived and who languished somewhere in fear and hiding.

Surrounding this thought, wrapping it as leaves wrap a flower bud, was a sneaky fear that spoke its terrible question to Taro over and over.
Even if your mother lives, would she wish to see you now? You’re a demon. A
kyuuketsuki.
She is a simple woman, an ama; she will spurn you. Perhaps even now your father wanders the land of hungry ghosts, his soul made restless by his son’s affront to the Buddha
.

And only barely acknowledged, crouching at the back of his mind like a weevil in rice, the worst thought of all.
What if it’s all my fault that Father is dead and Mother is gone? If it weren’t for me, the ninjas would not have come
.

He held his head, and he cried for them, and he did not melt into the sea but sat, aching, in the glowing moonlight—for in the end our bodies know only how to carry on surviving.

That is our strength, and our tragedy.

Sighing, Taro wiped the tears from his cheeks. It was time to go back to Hiro, and Shusaku. It was time to get moving. Perhaps that was all he needed—to move, to
do
things. He stood up and began to walk back up the beach.