Year of the Demon

“Tell me,” Shichio said, “has there been any word from that Okuma boy?”

Hashiba laughed. “Him again? We can bring some of our own boys up here some night if you like.”

Shichio’s hand slipped down to the inside of Hashiba’s upper thigh. “Come on. Tell me.”

Hashiba sighed. “He married. I can only assume it was to forge an alliance with that Inoue clan. That’s good. I can use one to apply leverage against the other.”

“I don’t care who some bumpkin boy shares his bed with. I want to know about my present.”

“Ah. That.” Hashiba folded a pillow under his head and settled back in. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any monk’s heads for you. Don’t we have enough monks around here? Go march on Mount Hiei. Collecting a few heads up there will help keep the rest of the monasteries in line.”

Shichio made a pouting face. “I don’t want a head, I want his head.”

“Well, you can’t have it.”

Shichio slipped the mask off his head. “You’re certain of that?”

“What is it with that mask of yours?” Hashiba pushed Shichio’s hand away, got to his feet, and strode forward to look down at his capital city. His shadow bisected a broad rectangle of moonlight on the floor. “You’re too fond of that thing,” he said. “You pet it like a house cat.”

Shichio was surprised to discover it was true. His thumb was running over the tips of the mask’s teeth, over and over, wholly independently of his will. It was an unconscious habit, but now that Hashiba had drawn his attention to it, Shichio recognized that caressing the mask and speaking of violence were two faces of one coin. Visions of swords, of stabbing and being stabbed, of penetrating and being penetrated. The mask inspired these things in him. That was why he wore it during their liaisons, and why all this talk of beheading had aroused similar feelings. Shichio felt himself begin to stiffen.

“It’s the craftsmanship,” he said, still stroking the mask. “Come back here. Look at how expressive it is. In gold, this kind of detail is pedestrian, but in iron? Never. It’s as rare as anything. It’s the most rugged sort of beauty, don’t you think?”

Just like you, Shichio thought to himself, but Hashiba’s musings went in a different direction. “I think I should have buried it right beside the assassin you took it from.”

Shichio remembered that night all too well. It was the first time he’d killed a man. It was the night he made himself valuable to Hashiba, the night his fortunes started changing for the better. Rightly or wrongly, Shichio attributed his success to the mask. He often wondered what would be different if he’d purchased it instead of killed for it. Might its touch bring thoughts of money to his mind instead? Perhaps the obsession with swords was innate to its iron, or perhaps the mask just gave focus to Shichio’s hatred of the samurai caste. It was impossible to know for certain.

“You should throw away that demon of yours,” Hashiba said. “And throw away thoughts of this northern monk as well. He’s no threat to anyone.”

“So you have heard from the Okuma boy. And not just a wedding announcement.”

Hashiba sighed, dropped back among the silken pillows, and surrendered. “Yes.”

Shichio only had to think about it for a second. “You received a letter, didn’t you? You brought it here? Tonight?”

Hashiba’s only answer was to glance in the direction of the door. Shichio walked saucily to the entryway and found a large, carefully folded page among Hashiba’s other things. Smiling, Shichio sauntered back, sitting next to Hashiba again and opening the letter.

As he began to read, Hashiba took hold of Shichio’s hand and guided it back down to his crotch. Shichio skipped over the standard salutations and looked for mention of the monk. “I respectfully recommend against beheading our abbot of Katto-ji,” he read. “He is an old man who does harm to no one, but more than this, he has taken the tonsure. I fear I may bring bad karma upon you by fulfilling your order to execute one such as him, and it is every samurai’s sworn duty not to harm his lord.”

Shichio felt his heart race, but he kept reading. “Given the choice between obeying and harming the emperor’s chosen regent on the one hand and disobeying to protect his interests on the other, I must choose disobedience. Can you believe the impudence of this boy?”

Hashiba laughed. “I thought him rather clever.”

“He disobeys a direct order from his regent!”

“He’s the only samurai in the land who vows to protect me even in my future lives. Think of it! A bodyguard for my next reincarnation. Shichio, can you not just laugh this off and let it pass?”

“I tell you, that monk is a threat to you and your house. Kill him.”

“The boy has done as much already. Read the next paragraph.”

Shichio glanced down at the Okuma brat’s scribblings. What he read there made him angry enough to stand up and start pacing. “A garrison? That’s all? Just a garrison outside the monastery?”

“It is more than enough. That old man won’t leave until he floats out on the smoke rising from his pyre.”

Shichio crumpled the letter and flung it at the floor. “He can still talk. He can still teach. He wouldn’t be the first monk to turn his order against you.”

“That again?” Hashiba dropped his head heavily back on his pillow. “How many times have I told you? The Ikko sect is no more. Oda and I wiped them out years ago. The only ones to escape the sword did it by swearing their eternal loyalty to me.”

“This one is in the north. You never got any loyalty oaths from the north.”

“That’s because they’re all dead. Tokugawa saw to that. He was as scared of them as you are.”

Shichio sat heavily and laid his head on Hashiba’s belly. His hand wandered back down to Hashiba’s cock. “I want his head.”

“You can’t have it and you’d best get used to it. That old man is worth a lot more to me alive. Killing him would only cost me a future allegiance with this Okuma, and the rest of the Izu daimyo will be harder to get without him.”

Shichio’s hand quickened its pace. Hashiba’s pulse did too. “Are you sure?”

“Oh no, you don’t.”

“Absolutely certain? No doubt in your mind?”

“Shichio, I’m not killing that old monk for you and that’s that.”

His heart beating in Shichio’s ear told a different story. Shichio resituated himself between Hashiba’s knees. The demon mask had two long, sharp fangs that framed either side of his mouth. If he angled his head just so, he could trace the pointed tip of a fang along Hashiba’s skin. Done roughly, it could puncture. Done in just the right spot with just the right pressure, it was heavenly.

“Maybe we don’t have to kill him,” said Shichio, swaying the mask back and forth. “Maybe we can just go and pay him a visit.”

Hashiba took in a long quivering breath.

“It’s a long way. Lots of time at sea. Hours a day with nothing to do.”

Hashiba clenched two silk pillows in his fists.

“Do any of your wives care for sailing? No, they don’t, do they?”

Hashiba’s fists tightened.

“Maybe I’ll just go by myself. You don’t want to come, do you?”

“Yes.”

“You do? You want to come?”

“Yes, yes, yesss.”

“All right, then. You can come.”

12

The Okuma compound had received a messenger from Toyotomi Hideyoshi once before. Almost a year had