The Drowning God (18 page)

 

CHAPTER 35

T
akuda's heart slammed against his ribs as he waded through the drainpipe. His mouth had been dry ever since he lowered himself into the spillway, and his hands had trembled on the hilt of his sword. The adrenaline had gotten stronger with each step. With waterproof LED flashlights strapped to his forehead, his shoulders, and his thighs, Takuda lit the hexagonal drainpipe as bright as day. The skittering light didn't stop the sweat from his palms.

No one can train for this.
He watched the water ahead for ripples. He listened in the close, echoing space for any sound not caused by his own motion.
Nothing can prepare a man for this.

Takuda had run courses to help men and women make better choices when their brains were flooded with adrenaline. The initial session was just like this concrete drainpipe: a search for a dangerous suspect down a narrow corridor. The trainees were jittery, panicked, and confused. In their first sessions, they made terrible mistakes, mistakes that could end careers and kill innocent citizens. By the time Takuda was done with them, they could function in the narrow cone of silence where time slows down to the split-­second decision that must be correct. They told him later that the training had saved lives.

Memories of those sessions flashed before him as he scanned the drainpipe, his sword held above his right shoulder.
My training sessions didn't have monsters. They didn't have grates in the ceiling or runoff pipes in the walls. I should have built in places for monsters to hide.

Takuda's own adrenaline usually peaked the night before a raid or an arrest, leaving him relaxed and ready when the action came. This time, even though he had all night and a few hours in the morning to prepare, his heart beat faster and faster in his chest. He hadn't known this much adrenaline was possible. He hadn't known he could be so terrified. His fingers twitched on the sword hilt.

He stepped out of the narrow drainpipe into the main underground spillway. It was a smooth-­walled, tubular structure almost ten meters in diameter. The floor had been filled to give a flat surface, and the walls rose above him like an underground cathedral. Echoes of his slogging through the shin-­deep water were lost in the sounds of water rushing through the cavernous pipe. His lights barely reached the ceiling, but they turned his shadow into a chorus line of insubstantial, spindly-­legged puppets curving up the wall behind him. Debris and sandbars had built up on the spillway floor since the peak of the spring melt had passed. He saw movement from the closest island of debris, a man-­tall mound of trash and driftwood, and he turned toward it, sword floating by his ear in a tight little circle, ready for a strike at the slightest motion from the . . .

A score of tiny red eyes glared at him from the island.

Lord Buddha protect us. It spawned.
He broke into a run, lifting his feet high out of the water. He reached the debris at full speed, ready to slash any little creatures he found there, to deal with each and every one just as Gotoh had told him he should deal with the Kappa. On the last step, his spiked boots skidded on the slime-­covered bottom of the pipe. He pulled up his elbows to protect his face as he flew headfirst into the debris. He landed in a net of filth and broken branches, his sword arm pinned uselessly against a bicycle wheel.

Bicycles.
He tore himself free, walking backward out of the collected garbage and whipping the muck off his arms and his sword. With each of his backward steps, his flashlights winked in the reflectors of the rusted bicycles and scooters entangled in the branches. He cursed in the darkness, and then he crouched in the water and washed the silty muck away.
Bicycles!
He knelt in the water.
If I don't calm down, I'm going to die down here, just like the poor citizens riding those bicycles when the cult caught them
.

He whispered a verse of sutra until his breathing steadied and his heart slowed. He had time. His lights would last all day if necessary. Mori and Suzuki wouldn't catch up to him for half an hour if they got through. He had time. He chanted and opened his heart and his mind. He let the fear drain away from him.

On the third repetition of the verse, he caught a whiff of rotting fish.

He stood up slowly. He was alone, despite the stench. He was sure of it. If he was correct, the Kappa's lair was upstream on his right, among the old holding tanks. The LEDs projected phantoms on the curving walls as he moved toward Holding Tank One.

Holding Tank One, originally a cooling tank, was used for storage of caustic agents that could not safely be released in any form. Ogawa's office, a cubbyhole off the main wastewater management control room, was the closest point to Holding Tank One. The blueprint showed a ser­vice hatch in the floor; Ogawa would have been able to get down into the tank area through the hatch.

This was what Chief Nakamura meant when he said Ogawa's brain had been damaged by fumes in restricted areas. The bay beneath Holding Tank One was the Kappa's new lair. This was where the Kappa had seduced and possessed Ogawa, where Ogawa had become its murderous priest.

The drain that would take Takuda to Holding Tank One was a black oval in the high, curved wall. The bore was smooth rather than hexagonal, and it rose at a forty-­five degree angle into absolute darkness. Cool air flowing down through the pipe carried the stench of rotting fish and another stench, the same as in the cavern underneath the old shrine, but stronger,
fresher
. There was something dead up there. Takuda was going into the Kappa's active lair.

He shook out his shoulders and forced his fingers to grip his sword more loosely.
If I'm going to die in here, it's got to kill me. I'm not going to kill myself with stupid mistakes.
His heartbeat had dropped to a steady, manageable thud, and his hands hardly trembled at all. He was still terrified, but he was ready to go. He started up the incline into a foul headwind.

As he passed into the pipe, the sound of rushing water dropped away behind, and all he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the scrape of his spiked boots on concrete. The spiked boots were made for fly-­fishing on a sand or gravel streambed. He stopped, then backed down the incline. At the bottom, he pulled off the boots and dug his toes into the cold, silted sand. He walked much more quietly when he started back up the pipe. With his feet bare and his sword drawn, he hardly thought of his pulse rate at all.

The air became denser, fouler, and hotter as Takuda neared the top of the pipe. The drainpipe ended in a concrete basin below the holding tank itself. He stepped up onto the gentler incline. The stench was incredible. Takuda turned in a circle, sword at the ready. The circular floor sloped downward to the drainpipe he had just left. Unseen sluices at the perimeter of the tank, apparently meant to keep the floor clean, supplied the stinking rivulet that ran down the drainpipe.

The whole floor is wet, but they need more water to clean this up,
Takuda thought.
They need fire hoses.

Four massive steel columns held up the holding tank, which loomed in the darkness above. The smooth, curved walls of the tank narrowed to a giant funnel poised to spill caustic poison into the concrete basin where he stood. The spout was shut with a wheeled valve painted bright red. The valve wheel itself was geared to a pulley chain that ran up through the steel-­grate gantry circling the tank and upward into deeper shadow. A forest of I-­beams supported the gantry. The I-­beams were so rusted and blistered that at first, Takuda didn't notice the lumpier, rounder shapes on the floor among them.

He stepped forward, his circle of shaking light a few steps ahead of him. The shapes on the floor were pitiful human remains, all in Zenkoku coveralls. They were ripped halfway from their clothes, exposed to the bone, bloated, blown, and half-­consumed. Around the corpses were scores of dead rats. The rats had been broken, twisted, sometimes torn in half. The Kappa had killed its victims, eaten its fill, and left the rest to rot. When rats had come to investigate, the Kappa had killed them for pleasure.

So Ogawa really procured sacrifices from among the Zenkoku workers. He must have had a lot of inside help to cover that up. I wonder if it was as easy to cover up for missing corporate employees as it was to make whole families disappear.

Takuda hefted his sword as he turned, scanning the rest of the room. He was not alone. He heard a shoe scraping the serrated bar grate far above, but closer, down below, he saw a shifting shadow among the gantry supports.

Anyone lurking above could wait. He moved slowly toward the shadow, sliding his feet silently over the inclined concrete. The darkened shadow among the pillars stopped moving. Takuda raised his sword, ready to cut the Kappa in two. It would appear as a woman, of course, or maybe a little boy, maybe even as his son, but he wouldn't be fooled.

The shadow gurgled deep in its throat.

His lights would blind the creature long enough for him to get the first blow. Once he started, nothing could stop him. Takuda stepped sideways, swinging his lights around to shine full in the creature's face—­

It was Ogawa, blinking in the glare. His eyes were wide as saucers. “Detective! What are you doing here?”

Takuda did not lower his sword. “Me? What are you doing here? How did you get out of jail?”

“I was given a chance. If I can clean this up, clean up this room, there was never a crime! None of it ever happened!” He brandished a fistful of household garbage bags. “You can't stop this. It comes from very high up. Very high! You can't ruin this for me.”

Takuda lowered his sword and grabbed Ogawa by the collar. “Where's your monster? I'm here to kill it.”

“Kill him? You? Kill him? Heh heee!” Ogawa's heavy, loose-­lipped grin widened. “You're lucky he's not here! He's hunting!”

Takuda released him and sheathed his sword. “Ogawa, you're a fool. They may let you clean up the mess for them, but if you think they're going to let you go, you really are brain-­damaged.”

Ogawa stared past Takuda's shoulder. He dropped the garbage bags as he slipped backward into shadow.

Takuda grasped his sword hilt as he turned. He felt the Kappa before he heard it, and then it was too late. It was on his back before he could face it, hissing with pleasure as it wrapped slimy fingers around his throat.

 

CHAPTER 36

T
akuda couldn't even unsheathe his sword. He reeled, breathless, as the Kappa strangled him from behind, cutting the oxygen to his brain so that he saw bright blue-­and-­orange dots in the darkness. The Kappa's beak snapped at his ear as their joined shadow danced and twisted among the I-­beams. The LED lantern from Takuda's forehead fell to the concrete.

Takuda was suddenly too weak to stand, and his vision was narrowing to a dark tunnel. The Kappa was pumping poison into his neck. He dropped the sheathed sword and fell to one knee on the inclined concrete. He stretched his head back to peel the Kappa's fingers from his throat, and he spotted Ogawa shinning his way up a rusted I-­beam.

“Ogawa, help me,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Help yourself, Detective,” Ogawa shouted down. “He hates the metal, he does. Grind him off against a girder there, then climb up here with me.” He climbed another meter. “Of course, that leaves him down there and us up here. We'll cling to these girders, and that's as long as our lives will be, heh-­heh!”

“
Angah khu, tan hrag!
”
I'll eat you next, coward.

Ogawa clambered upward into darkness.

Takuda gathered the strength left in his trembling legs. He pushed upright and ran backward, hoping he would hit a girder before he tripped over a corpse.

“
Shuu hun. Ha-­raa, ha-­raa—­
”
Enough
, the Kappa whispered as Takuda picked up speed.
Sleep, sleep
—­

They hit an I-­beam so hard that Takuda felt the squared edge right through the Kappa's rubbery flesh. It squealed and released him. Takuda stumbled forward as the Kappa hit the concrete. He scooped up his sword by the hilt and whipped off the scabbard in one motion, almost losing the sword in the process. To stop his headlong fall, he hit another I-­beam with his outstretched arm and spun around the beam to face the Kappa, slashing wildly as he spun just in case it had followed him.

The Kappa was nowhere in sight.

It's not weakened. It's not weakened at all
. There was enough water on the floor for the Kappa to regain its strength. It could do this all day. Takuda couldn't.

Takuda's lights swayed with him as he stood panting, trying to regain breath that would not come. Shadows sawed against each other in the bright, white light. Each girder left a greenish trail as Takuda swayed, and each shadow left a purplish trail. The poison had hit his brain, and he didn't have long. He gripped the hilt with both hands, but his fingertips were so numb he could barely feel the sharkskin wrapping.

“Detective,” Ogawa hissed from the shadows above, “are you alive?”

Takuda didn't answer. He strained all his senses searching for the Kappa among the I-­beams. He felt drunk. His breath was slow and shallow, and he couldn't quite fill his lungs. He hoped he died of heart failure before he suffocated.

All I need is seven cuts. Seven. Lord Buddha, allow me seven cuts to cleanse this valley.

“Detective, there's someone up here on the gantry.”

Takuda moved forward slowly, one foot before the other. His bare feet slid on the slimed concrete, past the dead rats and defiled corpses. He was ready to cut in any direction. He was as good as dead, but he still had strength enough to wield the massive sword.
That's why this blade is so heavy and tempered so hard
. He finally understood. It was made to be wielded by a man so near death he could only swing it in the right direction such that the sword itself would cut down the enemy by its own mass.

“Detective, someone is coming down!” Ogawa hissed. “Coming down the stairs! Just let them come. While he's killing them, I'll slide down and get help! I can save you!”

He tried to smile at Ogawa's lies, but his lips were oddly frozen. He heard feet clattering on steel.
If they're human, I can deal with them.
He walked toward the stairs, sword at the ready.

As if in slow motion, one of the corpses exploded to Takuda's left. Blood-­slimed ribs and strips of purplish flesh twisted in the air in front of Takuda as the Kappa burst from its hiding place inside a human torso. Takuda swung the sword, but his loins twisted slowly, so slowly, and his arms lagged behind his body like streamers in the wind. The Kappa ducked under the blade, its eyes locked on his. As the ribs and gobbets of flesh started to hit the ground at Takuda's feet, the Kappa stood erect and drew back its long, bony paw. Takuda tried to bring the sword back, but it was too heavy. Its mass continued to twist him sideways, exposing his chest to the Kappa. The Kappa shrieked in triumph as it drove its claws in under his sternum.

That's it, then.
The thought was simple and clear. His life was over. The sword dropped to the concrete. His hands dropped to his sides.

“
Heh ho zhe hyah khu kho.
”
I won't eat you quickly.
It looked him in the eyes. “
Kho to heh ha-­raa.
”
You will sleep with me.

Takuda swayed, looking down at the claws digging into his chest. A vision flashed before him: He was lying on the concrete, eyes wide open, awake but paralyzed. The Kappa sat beside him, chewing the flesh from his hip bone.

He looked at the Kappa. It nodded, grinning. “
Zhaaaa—­
”

It was still grinning as he grabbed the fingers protruding from his chest. It tried to pull away, but he held its hand against his body and clapped the handcuff on its bony wrist.

“
Iyaaaahhhh!
” The Kappa shrieked, dragging Takuda on his belly through the rats and corpses, banging him against the I-­beams as it tried to escape the burning steel cuff. The lights were stripped from Takuda's biceps and thighs, lying behind him like a short trail of fallen stars. He still held the cuff with both hands. The Kappa turned on him, giving Takuda just enough slack to snap the other cuff on his own wrist. He laid his cheek on the filthy concrete. He had done his best.

The Kappa was enraged. It lifted Takuda by the cuffed hand. Now that he was so weak, the Kappa seemed fearsomely strong. It put its long, skinny foot against his bleeding chest and pulled. The cuff would not budge. The Kappa grasped the chain between the cuffs, placed both feet on Takuda's chest, and
pulled
. Takuda tensed with the strength left in him as his shoulder began to dislocate. The Kappa snarled with pleasure as it prepared to rip his arm off.

Instead, there was a bright flash, and the Kappa's own arm fell. The paw gripped the chain for an instant, and then the severed arm rolled into the Kappa's lap, leaving the one-­armed Kappa cuffed to Takuda.

Takuda and the Kappa stared at the stump as the blackish blood gushed. Then they both noticed the point of a dripping blade, a thin and streamlined blade arcing up into the darkness. Suzuki stood at the other end, his bony face barely lit by Takuda's fallen torches.

From behind the Kappa shone a sudden, blinding light. A figure moved inside it. The Kappa, confused, half turned toward the light, and then its head jerked oddly, sliding forward on its shoulders before it also fell. Twin spouts of black blood arced from the stump of the Kappa's neck into the blinding light, then thinned and wavered as the dying heart slowed. Mori, lit bright as day with the lantern hung round his neck, flicked the blood from his blade and sheathed it. As the blood ceased, the Kappa's torso fell backward. Mori stepped backward as if to keep it from soiling his boots.

Takuda pulled the poisoned claws farther from his chest. “Step clear of that head, Priest.” His voice sounded thick and distant, even to himself. “It's killed me, and now you have to kill it.”

“You're not dead yet,” Mori said. He knelt and tore open Takuda's coveralls. Five livid wounds stood out in a tight semicircle on Takuda's chest.

“Most of this is right over the sternum,” Mori said. “It didn't even penetrate the bone.”

“It didn't even try,” Takuda said. “It wanted me alive and paralyzed.” He flinched as Mori squirted saline into the wounds. “What are you doing there?”

“Dr. Fujimoto's orders. He said ‘irrigate, irrigate, irrigate.' ”

“It feels worse than the original wound.” He was just beginning to realize that he would live. “You might have to carry me out, but let's not carry the corpse. I want this filthy thing off me. Hey, Priest, get the cuff key out of my belt, will you? It's on the leather loop at the back—­Reverend Suzuki, stand down. Sheathe that ridiculous blade.”

Suzuki stood with his forearms knotted, fingers clenched on the hilt of his sword. He stared in horror at the Kappa's head at his feet. “What have we done?”

Takuda tried to push Mori away. “Secure the priest. It's gotten to him.”

Mori brushed his hand away. “You've got to talk him through it.” He continued to squirt stinging water into Takuda's wounds.

Suzuki's face was ashen in the bright glow of Mori's lantern. His face was lined with grief. “No, no, no. What have we done?”

“Priest, look at me. You know it can appear in different shapes, right? What do you see?”

Suzuki continued to stare at the head.

“Priest! Look at me!”

Suzuki looked up mournfully. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“What did you see? Don't look at it! Just tell me what you saw. A pretty girl? A little boy? An apprentice priest? What did you see?”

“A little b-­boy—­Shunsuke.”

Mori pushed Takuda onto his back and sat on his belly. “I'm sorry, Detective, but this just can't wait.” He placed a plastic cylinder like a large marking pen to the left of Takuda's sternum. “You may feel a slight pressure.” He held the cylinder over Takuda's heart with both hands and leaned forward to put his weight on it. When he depressed the button, white gas shot out a vent at the side, and burning cold blasted into Takuda's chest.

Takuda roared and tossed Mori off. Even in the dim light, he saw a new wound in his chest, a circular welt leaking blood and clear fluid. He swore, holding his hand to his chest.

“We murdered a little boy,” Suzuki whispered.

Takuda dragged the Kappa's headless, twitching corpse toward Suzuki before he realized he was back on his feet. He moved aside so Mori's lantern would illuminate the Kappa's head.

Mori stood, brushing off his coveralls. “I need to dress those wounds.”

Takuda bowed to him in gratitude, but he motioned him to stand back. The laundry-­pole sword trembled in Suzuki's fevered grip.

“Priest, this boy you see, there's something wrong with its mouth, isn't there? And the shape of the head is all wrong. And if you really look at the eyes, right in the eyes, you'll see that it isn't a boy at all. It's the monster that killed your father.”

Suzuki looked down at it. The creature's eyes were open, staring. The cracked and leathery beak twitched in a rhythm like speech: the Kappa speaking to Suzuki's mind.

“Oh, you filthy thing,” Suzuki said to the Kappa's head. “To make me think we killed an innocent boy! Oh!” Suzuki kicked the head, and it sailed toward Mori.

“Hey!” Mori dodged the head. “Watch it!”

The head bounced off an I-­beam and began to roll down the concrete toward the drainpipe. If it started down that slope, it would be in the shin-­deep water of the spillway before they could stop it. They would search, but it would be lost to them. Then it would lie quietly in the muck until it found another priest to bring it victims. It would feed off innocents as it slowly grew another body. Then it would hunt, unstoppable again.

Takuda lunged, but he was too weak, and the rolling head was picking up speed. The squirming, child-­sized corpse handcuffed to his arm dragged Takuda down like lead. He would never catch it.

The Kappa's head hissed with glee as it rolled toward the drainpipe.