The Gate of Sorrows (66 page)

I’m afraid.

“Still, I wouldn’t care. They could catch me and I wouldn’t be sorry. But my father and mother would suffer. I can’t do that to them.”

That was why he’d sought refuge in Galla’s scythe. He had offered up his craving to punish evil and root out those who would torment the weak, and turned his back on the world of existence.

“I wore that mask for my parents, the mask of the good kid.” There was a smile in his voice now. “And I thank you for worrying about me, Ko-chan, but I’m not coming back. I can’t.”

Kotaro had lost his voice. He was too stunned to even nod.

“I think my father knows it wasn’t an accident. My mom too. They took pity on me and suffered for me, and they both fear me. That’s why my father’s looking for me. My mother knows enough not to.”

When Kotaro had parted with Kenji’s father outside the coffee shop, Soji had said, “I think Kenji may already be dead.”

“Goodbye, Ko-chan. I’m not going to die.” As he faded away, Kenji called one last time. “I’ll be with Galla for eternity. I won’t exist, but I’ll be real—forever.”

Kotaro’s legs turned to jelly. He sank to his knees. He covered his face with his hands.

All he could think of, all he could hear, were the words of a man facing extinction.

You’ve got huge fangs …

If what he’d just seen was the real Kenji, what did his own Shadow look like at this moment? Kotaro was engulfed in pure terror and immutable despair.

In Galla’s sanctum, silence reigned.

“I’m thinking about washing my hands of this whole thing.”

It was late August. The summer sun was still fierce, but there was a soft breeze. The bench under the trees at the edge of the quad was cool and pleasant.

Shigenori sat next to Kotaro, watching with a critical gaze as students walked past.

“Young ladies come to school dressed like that? What’s with that chemise, or whatever you call it?” He sounded faintly lecherous. Kotaro hadn’t encountered this side of him before.

“That’s not a chemise, it’s a camisole. And there are no classes now. They’re here for club meetings. They can dress any way they want.”

“You’re taking classes.”

“Just makeup lectures. Anyway, I’m finished.”

For a week after his last encounter with Kenji, Kotaro had been sunk in a depression. His emotions had swung like a pendulum. He’d had trouble sleeping and his body felt like lead. He told his family it was just the summer heat.

He’d called Shigenori because the ex-detective was the only person who could understand what he was going through. Shigenori had agreed to meet right away. He hadn’t even asked what it was about.

“Let’s talk face-to-face,” he’d said. “How about on campus. Will you be going there?”

Kotaro had been surprised to find him so up for a meeting, but here they were.

“Makeup lectures. Sounds like what they used to call staying after class, in my day. Will you have to repeat a year?”

“No, I dodged that bullet.”

“Excellent. Don’t forget that mom and dad are paying your tuition. Education is just about the most expensive thing around these days.”

I didn’t come here for a sermon.

Shigenori turned to see Kotaro making a sulky face.

“When people say they’re thinking about washing their hands of something, they’re not looking for advice, kid. All they want is someone to tell them they’re right.” He chuckled and looked out at the quad again. “You mean cutting things off with Galla, I guess. I’m all for that. I’ve been telling you to do it this whole time. So you finally saw the light. You sure took your time about it.”

Kotaro was still sulking. “The timing wasn’t right.”

“What happened?”

“I said, the timing—”

“Out with it, kid.”

He told Shigenori about Kenji. Soji’s words were burned into his brain, and he played them back verbatim.

“What a tragedy,” Shigenori said softly. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to the girls anymore. “Then again, it’s not unusual for a killer to look like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Come on, that’s not fair to Kenji.”

“Not talking about Kenji. I’m talking about you.” Shigenori was suddenly the interrogator again. “You didn’t pull the trigger yourself. But make no mistake—you used Galla as a weapon to take the lives of two people.”

Don’t you get it? That’s why I want to stop.

“The string of murders that brought us together is finished. They’ve all been solved. Tomakomai and Akita, solved for the record. Nakasono and Tashiro will be fugitives forever, as far as the police are concerned, but the excitement’s died down. And the suicide of one of Mama Masami’s customers is finally getting some attention, according to the news.

“The only loose end is your next move. That’s what worries me. If you’ve decided to wash your hands of Galla, great. Come back to the world of ordinary people—today, if you can. And forget what happened.”

Kotaro didn’t answer.
Detective, don’t you know that pushing me to do what I’m saying I want to do is liable to make me change my mind?

Perhaps Shigenori knew that, or perhaps he didn’t, but he said suddenly, “What do
you
think?”

“Think about what?”

“Galla. Who do you think she is? Or what?”

“I don’t want to talk about it now.”

Shigenori looked at him closely. “Because she can hear you? Don’t let that stop you. You shouldn’t care what she thinks.”

“And why is that?”

“Because she’s not human. She doesn’t think or feel the way we do.”

“How can you say that?” Kotaro said with irritation. “Okay, she doesn’t exist, but I don’t see how you can say she doesn’t feel anything.”

“Why not?”

“Did you forget, detective? The reason she wants to get to the Nameless Land, or whatever they call it, is to find her son and bring him back from exile for whatever it was he did. She was powering up her scythe so she could take out the Sentinel.”

“So what? Okay, she’s a mother who loves her son. How does that make her just like us? She’s a fundamentally different creature.”

“Why does that make it wrong to think she’s like us?”

Shigenori seemed about to disagree, but something stopped him. The corners of his mouth turned down in a thicket of wrinkles before he said evenly, “Why does she appear to us as half human, half bird?”

“That’s a different question. Frankly I never gave it a moment’s thought, but wouldn’t that be because she doesn’t want to scare us? Her true form is a horrible gargoyle. She actually told me we got our concept of gargoyles from the guardians of the Tower.”

“Then why doesn’t she just appear to us as a person?”

“Is it really important?”

“I think it’s her way of warning us.” Shigenori looked at him intently again. “It means, ‘I’m dangerous. Don’t trust me, and don’t take me lightly.’ That’s the message she wants to send.”

Kotaro remembered something suddenly, something Galla had said.

You will regret this.

She’d said it to him several times. A warning, to be sure.

“But she’s a guardian of the Tower of Inception. According to U-ri—Yuriko Morisaki—Galla is a noble being.” To Kotaro’s mind, that meant she was close to the right and the just.

“Yes, she guards the birthplace of the souls of words,” Shigenori said. “I’ve had some time to think about that, and the more I do, the more it bothers me.” He peered steadily at Kotaro. “Mishima, what
are
words?”

Kotaro didn’t know how to answer that one. It was like one of those Zen riddles.

“Words and language—they’re not quite the same thing,” Shigenori continued. “Language is culture. Words are not the way they’re written, either. Writing systems are tools for keeping a record of words. Words can’t be seen. They don’t have form. They’re real but they don’t exist. Stories are the same. Words are woven into stories. Words and stories—you can’t separate them. Now what do you call things like that?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. “Concepts. Galla is a guardian of concepts. She’s a concept herself. Real, but doesn’t exist. Let me tell you something I learned when I was a cop: getting too deeply wrapped up in real but nonexistent concepts is a recipe for trouble.”

“You mean stuff like religious cults and fundamentalism?”

Shigenori noticed his discomfort and chuckled ruefully. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to make things difficult.” He scratched his close-cropped head. His hair was peppered with gray.

“The point is, Galla’s form is a warning. I’m just saying we should’ve thought about that a little more carefully.”

“But gargoyles are supposed to ward off evil. They have the power to keep evil at bay. That’s why people put them in sacred places, like churches—to make sure only just and proper deeds take place in the sacred space.”

“That’s true. But do you know why the symbol of protection against evil is a monster? Because you need a monster to repel a monster. Evil against evil, venom against venom.”

You’ve got huge fangs …

“You know, the gargoyles on Romanesque and Gothic buildings were also supposed to be symbols of the decadence and decline and corruption of humanity.”

That’s not Galla’s fault.

“We were bewitched by a demon. A demon’s black magic is pretty dramatic. Now it’s time to wake up. The timing you were waiting for is here and now.” He grasped Kotaro by the shoulder and gave it a shake.

“Give up the power of that left eye and get back to normal life. You’ve gotten too close to Galla. Fighting for justice against evil—you got too involved. Your intentions were good. Maybe Galla chose you because you’re young, and exactly because your intentions are good. She has something that attracts you, doesn’t she? But she’s a demon. Humans and demons shouldn’t get too close to each other.

“Maybe I’m just being pessimistic, but still—your word body, as you call it, all the accumulated words you carry around with you, it’s a monster with fangs. Isn’t it?”

Kotaro stared at his feet. Here in the shade of the trees, the two of them cast no shadows.

What if he were to walk out into the sunshine and found that his shadow was different? What if he saw fangs and horns? Or a misshapen third arm? Or a tail with spikes on each vertebra?

“I know. It’s starting to scare me.”

It was frightening to contemplate becoming a monster. Not knowing what kind of monster was frightening too.

“But Mika’s still in danger. I think I might need my Eye to help her. I can’t decide what to do.”

Shigenori looked puzzled. “Mika. She’s your sister’s classmate. Did something happen?”

Kotaro told him about the enormous spider. Shigenori shivered with fear. “I’ve always been afraid of spiders.”

“Well, luckily nothing’s happened, but I’m worried about the future.”

“I can’t blame you. But think about it, Mishima. Will your Eye really help you solve the problem? All it did was show you things that were revolting, things that upset you. Maybe that left eye is hindering you instead of helping you.”

He was right. Kotaro couldn’t tell Mika what he’d seen. Naturally he couldn’t tell Kazumi. She’d never believe him. He was just spinning his wheels. He wasn’t sure he could get Mika to even tell him if there was a problem.

“Wouldn’t it be better for you to be an ordinary person and a big brother to her, someone from the neighborhood she can consult whenever she needs to?”

Kotaro couldn’t argue with that. Shigenori was right.

“Okay.”

A group of students walked past. The girls were in their summer finery, the boys in studiedly casual jeans and T-shirts. All of them were thumbing their smartphones and laughing happily. Shigenori watched them pass. “You told me university life was boring.”

Did I actually tell him that?

“You said everyone around you were idiots, like those guys.”

“Hmm? I never said anything that negative.” Even Kotaro thought his words sounded like sour grapes.

“You told me they were all leading trivial, pointless lives,” Shigenori said. “In a word, idiots. But it’s not like that, actually. If everyone here were an idiot, society wouldn’t function. If you pull the camera back on society, it looks superficial and dysfunctional. Nothing positive about it. If you get your information from TV news, or a place like Kumar, society must look like a wholesale market for poisonous seeds and fruit. But that’s an illusion, and an unfortunate one.

“You’re not obliged to shoulder society’s problems personally. Take a good look at this campus. Right now this is part of your life. It’s not bad at all. A university is a great place. For an old, untutored man like me, just being here makes me feel smarter.”

Kotaro wondered if Shigenori had wanted to meet here just to deliver this message. School was indeed part of his life. Shigenori was asking him to take a dispassionate look at it.

“Give the Eye back to Galla. You don’t have to explain why. No excuses, no negotiation. Just tell her you’re through. That’s enough. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”

Kotaro nodded. This time he felt completely sincere. He was ready to give up his power on the spot, now. The decision had been made. He could relax.

They parted ways. Shigenori went home and Kotaro left the campus and headed for the train station. As he waited on the platform, he saw a mother and her young daughter holding hands. They were wearing matching shorts and tank tops. They both looked so happy that Kotaro suddenly had a vision of Mana’s face.

One thing left to do.

He wanted to do something positive with the Eye—for once.

The crumbling apartment near Shinjuku Station yielded no secrets. Kotaro had expected to find little, but in fact he found nothing at all in the building and the surrounding neighborhood. There were too many people living there, and too much coming and going. It was like a word stew; he couldn’t draw out anything specific connected with Mana.

In a way, he felt relieved. He saw no evidence of monsters like Kosuke Nakasono or Keiko Tashiro. It was clear that Mana and her mother had never been in danger from anyone here.

He called the Nagasaki mansion from the street in front of the apartment and learned that Mana was about to return from nursery school. It was quarter to four. He explored the neighborhood quickly, found a shop selling fancy cakes, and bought pudding topped with whipped cream.

His timing was perfect. As he rounded the corner and neared the front gate, he saw Hatsuko coming from the opposite direction, holding Mana by the hand. The girl was wearing a sunflower-yellow short-sleeved one-piece, and a straw hat with a ribbon of the same color.