Kinslayer (The Lotus War #2)

The Gentleman hardly seemed to move at all. Nakai paused midsentence, staring like a half-wit at the tantō handle protruding from his chest, the thin line of blood running down his belly. He sucked in a shuddering breath, coughed scarlet. Clutching the hilt, he gurgled and slumped forward onto the table. Blood leaked across polished wood. The smell of urine mingled with sweat and smoke.

“You were supposed to do that, Nakai-san.” The Gentleman wiped already-spotless hands on his napkin. “Something like that would have served you well indeed.”

Nakai twitched once and was still.

“Know that I am not ashamed of any of you.” The Gentleman glanced around the room. “But I tell you truly that I have never been less proud.”

Seimi slapped his hand onto his dinner plate, fingers spread. With a single fluid motion, he sliced his little finger clean through at the top knuckle. The others around him followed suit, each removing a segment from their smallest digit. The blood upon their plates was bright, almost gaudy. Pale chunks of bloodless meat remained behind as each yakuza elevated their wounded hand, wrapped the napkin over their severed digit, curled their fingers into fists. Seimi looked down at the plate, noted his fingernail wasn’t purple anymore.

The Gentleman nodded once, lifted a saké bottle from the warming tray and poured himself a shot. He raised his cup, waited until each lieutenant had done the same. He looked each one in the eye.

“Scorpion Children!” he barked.

“Scorpion Children!” Six shouts in return.

The Gentleman and his crew threw back the liquor, returned their cups to their proper place. Several shared uneasy glances, but none seemed eager to speak. Finally, Hida growled, picked up the iron file and held it out to his oyabun.

The Gentleman smiled at him. “Hida?”

The Gentleman never smiled.

“Why?” Hida looked from his oyabun to the iron file and back again.

“A hound. A hound to set upon thieves, brother.”

“How do they know where we’re moving coin?” Seimi kept the pain of his wounded hand from his voice, gritting the yellow ruin he called teeth. “We follow no set route, yet they’ve hit us four nights running.”

“They don’t strike the stash houses.” A pock-faced lump called Bao spoke. “They hit us when we move. They ambush, like the jade adder. Like the pit spider.”

“Someone inside?” The female lieutenant, Geisu, voiced the ugly thought every man was afraid to speak. “A traitor?”

“Impossible,” came the muttered replies. “Unthinkable.”

“Then how are they doing it?” Seimi slapped his good hand onto the wood.

The room descended into brief clamor, each man offering his own theory. The Gentleman’s voice cut through the noise like a tantō through knuckle.

“We can ask them when we catch them.”

“How?” Hida still held the file in his fist, still stared at his oyabun.

“Footprints in the snow, my brother.”

The Gentleman smiled again.

“Footprints in the snow.”





27


A MOUNTAIN OF BONES





The blood on Daichi’s lips was a bubbling lather, pink as the hyacinths on the western rises. Shuddering groans running the length of him, froth bubbling from his nostrils as his pulse grew dim and the light in his eyes dimmer still.

Old Mari cut the straps of his crumpled breastplate, peeled the iron away and sliced his uwagi open, the flesh beneath already bruised, collarbone to belly. Her hands were flecked with blood, hair a bedraggled mess about her face, yelling at the Kagé onlookers with a shrill, shaking voice.

“If you’re not in here helping, get out of the bloody room!” She whirled on a younger girl. “Suki, fetch more lanterns from next door. Eiko, we need boiling water, I don’t care how, but get it fast. And somebody get me some lotus, for Amaterasu’s sake!”

Daichi drew his legs up as the pain overtook him. He coughed, bloody foam spattering the air. The wound was lung-deep, and Mari knew there was little they could do. Several men held Daichi down as she leaned in close, pressing at his ribs, feeling bone shift and pop, cursing again for more light.

“Is he going to die?”

Kaori stood nearby, wretched and trembling. Sodden fringe draped down over her scar, steel-gray eyes bloodshot with rage and grief. To see him go like this …

“He’s not going to die,” Mari said. “Not if I can help it.”

But she couldn’t. And she knew it. Daichi was halfway to the Mountain of Bones already. Blood trickled from his lips with each bubbling gasp, pooling beside his head. Every breath was a labor, thinning by the moment, his blood pressure steadily dropping with each struggling beat of his heart.

The best anyone could pray for was that he passed without pain.

“Where is that lotus?” she shrieked.

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