Linnear 03 - White Ninja (78 page)

will be Nangi-san who will ultimately decide your fate.'

The Scoundrel groaned, hung his head.

Tomi led her Mend into the interrogation room. Nangi snapped off the cassette recorder. He turned to look at Seji Kikoko. I've just finished playing the tape,' he said.

Nangi turned away. He pushed the cassette recorder aside, drew to him a lacquer tray on which sat a pot, three porcelain cups and a whisk. Nangi took up the whisk. 'I've prepared green tea. I thought you might be thirsty. Being inside a prison for any reason is a nasty experience.' His hands moved deftly, turning the water and tea leaves to a pale green froth, turning each cup as he did so.

He pushed one cup towards the Scoundrel. 'Come, Kikoko-san,' Nangi said pleasantly. 'Sit. Drink. Relax. We have much to discuss, you and I.'

Shisei was given the note by the concierge in the midtown hotel where Senjin had told her he was taking a room.

SISTER, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I AM WATTING FOR YOU. I NEED YOU.

Shisei read this, as well as the address on Greene Street that ended the note, in the public ladies' room in the hotel lobby. She crumpled the note, flushed it down the toilet.

Then, for three days, Shisei had lived in the hotel room her twin brother had reserved. Three days lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, or sitting on the edge of it, the rumpled sheets in her lap, listening to the muffled voices, the varied psyches living their lives on either side of her.

Every so often, when she thought of it, she ordered room service: hamburgers, french fries, Cokes. She invariably vomited twenty minutes after she had gorged herself on these alien and unpalatable meals. The dazed aftermath of her retching was her only solace, because it was

then that she felt pain, and knew that she was still alive.

Instead of the way she felt most of the time, lying in bed, shivering, the covers pulled up to her chin, or sitting on the edge, the sheets pulled protectively with her whitened fists into her lap. Listening.

Doors slamming, voices raised, the quiet, steady tread of the Jamaican maid who twice daily moved through the hallway outside, always passing by Senjin's room where Shisei lay or sat or knelt, her forehead against the cool porcelain bowl, do not disturb on the doorknob warning the Jamaican away.

Shisei listened to the voices of arguments," of banal conversations, of children whining or laughing; to inane television shows, soap operas during the day, quiz shows at night; and later, in the darkness, the pantings and meanings, the rhythmic music of human couplings, just beyond the walls, the boundaries of her prison, her limbo, where she waited, impatient, full of anxiety, for the battle inside her to be decided one way or another.

SISTER, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I AM WATTING FOR YOU. I NEED YOU.

Giri. Duty and independence had gone to war inside Shisei's head. Senjin needed her. She had never before failed to respond when he called for her. But this time was different. When she saw him face to face, he would know without her saying a word about Cotton Branding. Senjin would not allow that relationship to continue. He would seek to terminate it, as he had terminated her relationship with the law student, Jeiji, in the most violent manner.

Shisei rose, went to the bathroom. There were two mirrors there, one a floor-length dressing mirror on the back of the door, the other a make-up mirror over the double sink. By opening the door just so, she could manoeuvre the mirrors opposite one another. In this way, she stared at herself, at the great spider tattooed upon her back.

Senjin's spider: his nightmare and his salvation. It was said that the Demon Woman of Japanese myth had such a spider upon her back. The Demon Woman who was the embodiment of Senjin's only fear. By so marking his twin, Senjin had at once harnessed the threat of the Demon Woman and had bound his sister to him.

It was said, Senjin had told her during one of their mergings, that the Demon Woman was once a fisherman's wife. The fisherman and his father were prosperous. They owned a large boat and, thus, had a crew. It was the wife's duty to rise daily at two in the morning to make the rounds of the crew's houses to make certain they were ready for the boat's departure at three.

Once in a while, in summer with the moonlight dancing on the water, it was briefly pleasant to feel the cool brush of the night, to imagine herself a mermaid cast upon these rocks.

But mostly she was frightened of the dark walk along the seashore with nothing breathing, nothing stirring but the wind in the stunted, twisted pines. In whiter, she shivered with the icy cold. And, often, rain lashed at her, soaking her before she had gone a dozen paces.

It was also her duty to gather the other fishermen's wives at the dock when the boat returned, to help with the unloading, sorting and transporting of the catch to market. In those days, this was most often done on their backs. When a crewman fell ill or departed, it was her duty, as well, to find a new man to fill his job.

In bad weather, she was sometimes late making her rounds. The rain made the path she took extremely treacherous. There was a half-mile stretch of bare rock. The lichen that spread upon it like fuzz on a baby's scalp grew slippery in rain, snow or ice and, in her anxiety to complete her wake-up calls, the fisherman's wife would often fall, scraping herself in the process.

She would lie upon the rocks for some time, dazed

and in pain. Then the realization that she would be late would flood through her, and she would begin to weep as she gathered herself up, stumbling on into the night.

When she was late, she was sure to be reprimanded by her husband or her father-in-law. They depended on her, they yelled. Was she a simpleton or merely lazy? Why couldn't she complete the simplest tasks?

But she never complained, never thought about an alternative. Giri. Her life was defined by duty. Without giri she was nothing. She might have been a wild animal rutting in the brush. She must, she thought, be grateful for giri. In her adherence to duty lay her humanity.

On one particular night, her husband roused her, angry that she had overslept. It was stormy. Rain lashed the shutters of the house, setting them trembling. The fisherman's wife begged her husband not to take the boat out in such dangerous weather. Now you are a fisherman as well? he shouted. We need the money the catch will bring! How will we live otherwise? Will you support us? Lazy woman! You just want to stay in your warm bed while we do all the work! Do as you are told!

The wife stumbled out into the storm, half-running to the first of the crewmen's houses, because she was already late. She was half-way through her rounds, shivering and wet, when she saw a figure on the rocks.

Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she thought about turning back. But giri forestalled her. What would her husband and her father-in-law say if she returned home without having awakened all of the crew?

But she could not bring herself to approach the figure, so she took the longer path that led away from the shoreh'ne. The figure followed her into the woods. The wife, feeling the presence of the figure, picked up her pace. Then, frightened, she began to run. She stumbled over a root, fell into the mud.

She turned, tried to rise. But the figure was already

looming over her. It was huge and, as a hand pulled back a cowl, she could see a bearded face, fierce, monstrous, malefic.

The man fell upon her, and his weight almost crushed the wife. She tried to cry out, but the man hit her with the flat of his hand, then with his fist. Then he ripped her clothes and, like the beast he was, took her there in the blood-spattered mud.

Wind rattled the trees, rain stung her face. It was as if she were in the middle of a wolf-pack. There was a panting all around her, a snuffling, the rank stink of a body too long on the road. And something inside her, battering her over and over, ceaseless as the tide. She slipped into unconsciousness.

A long time later, the wife crawled painfully out of the woods. She lifted her head on an unsteady neck, saw the suck and roll of the sea.

On the rocks that were so familiar to her, she collapsed. Lightning illuminated her battered face, her bruised, naked body. Her mouth was open, and she gasped rapidly like a landed fish. Blood flowed out of her from many places, on to the rocks. It seeped into the lichen before the rain had a chance to wash it away.

Hours later, the fisherman and his father were lashing their boat down against the rising gale. They were alone, having told what crew had straggled down that the weather was too foul to go out.

They were almost finished when they saw approaching them a figure who appeared dressed all in white. But as it came closer, they saw to their astonishment that it was a nude woman. Her skin was the colour of snow, and she was completely hairless, even between her legs. Her black hair fluttered wildly behind her as if it were composed of serpents. Her face was wide-eyed, demonic. As she confronted them, she turned, and they saw upon her back a gigantic spider.

As they watched, dumbfounded, the creature stirred to life, crawling down the buttocks and thighs of the demonic woman. It was gigantic. When it reached the dock, it leapt upon them as if it had wings, devouring them whole.

Sated, the insect returned to the woman, climbing again upon her back. Then she turned and, with the strength of ten men, let loose the fishing boat from its moorings, pushing it out from the dock.

Soon, the storm took the boat against the black, saw-toothed rocks ringing the shoreline. The boat foundered, went under. Was that the wind that howled so chillingly through the salt-stunted pines? As the waves closed over the fishing boat, the Demon Woman, eyes glowing like coals, turned insubstantial.

In the morning, with the rising sun, all that remained was a pale mist that clung to the lichen-covered rocks, and refused to be dissipated even by the heat of the day.

Shisei, lying in bed, staring at the voices beyond the walls in the dark, listening to strangers inhabit Senjin's room, listening to her heartbeat, thum-thum, thum-thum, propel life onwards, felt as insubstantial as mist.

Here, in limbo, in purgatory, she had ceased to exist. What existed were the voices in the dark, the strangers moving, speaking, loving, hating, laughing, crying beyond the walls of her dark room, luminous ghosts whom she passively observed, who, in the inertia of her inner struggle, did her living for her.

SISTER, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I AM WAITING FOR YOU. I NEED YOU.

Giri.

And the Demon Woman's spider etched into her flesh. Senjin's flesh. Wasn't that right? Isn't that what he had taught her when he had murdered Jeiji, her

lover, in the Tau-tau ritual that invoked the membrane kokoro? The ritual that increased their own power exponentially?

'I have done this for you, Shisei. I love you. I need you. We will be together, always.'

But, in murdering Jeiji, hadn't Senjin murdered her future?

Gin.

The Demon Woman.

Shisei stood up, the sheets sliding down around her ankles. The voices beyond the walls had ceased.

The spider moved.

When Senjin returned to the room with the trompe-l'oeil windows, Justine was gone. The couch lay in the middle of the room, mocking him. Speaker wires that he had ripped from the wall lay like copper-tongued serpents on the black and persimmon Persian carpets.

Senjin held the side of his head, feeling the heat of his own blood, the accelerated beat of his heart. He went to the couch, lay down on it. He could smell Justine's scent, even feel the last vestiges of her warmth. He allowed these things to seep into him, to nourish him as he had allowed Mariko's susurrus to nourish him. But they were not enough. Perhaps, had she been here, Justine's susurrus would have sustained him for his final confrontation with Nicholas Linnear. Perhaps.

Now he would have to call upon the membrane kokoro. He would have to begin the meditation without at the same time being able to perform the ritual action that would reinforce his repetitive chanting.

Senjin focused his mind on kokoro, and began. In a moment, his heartbeat slowed. He regulated the flow of his endorphins, cutting his mind free from the pain. Some time later, the blood ceased to seep from his wound. A scab began to form.

The healing procedure under way, he began the gathering of power, the channelling of the vibrational energy he drew from kokoro, the centre of things.

The gathering was not yet complete when his eyes flew open.

Shisei!

She was here! She had come!

Conny Tanaka crouched, saw pieces of himself reflected again and again in a hundred thousand mirrored shards. And dark patches in between. 'I see his blood,' Conny said. 'So this is what happens when the seven of diamonds turns into the ace of spades.'

Nicholas, his back against the entranceway wall, said, 'It wasn't enough.' He hurt all over, but the psychic struggle had been far worse than the physical one. 'Is Justine all right?'

Conny nodded. 'I got her out of the room. She's safe.'

'But he got more from her than I thought he would,' Nicholas said bitterly. 'I gave him too much time with her. It was a terrible risk, but he had to be exposed to the chanting on the tape I gave you to play. I needed the time, and he took it.'