She blew stray hair from her eyes, idling chainswords dripping into the gore pooled at her feet, staring at the commander’s corpse.
“I think I’ll put you down instead,” she said.
She wiped her cheek on her forearm, smearing it with red, staring at the door before her. Sugi wood shod with cold iron. Rivets as fat as her fist. Six inches thick. Though she might have hacked her way through with enough time, the guards beyond would certainly hear her coming. And judging from the clamor behind her, more still had heard the screams of their dying comrades and were on their way to investigate.
She looked at the doors blocking the way she must go.
She looked back down the way she’d come.
And then she looked up at the ceiling.
49
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION
Yoshi woke to the slap of ice-cold water in his face, followed by a real slap hard enough to rattle his teeth in his head. He could hear the swell of distant crowds, roaring flames and sky-ship engines. Sweat and old lotus and the stink of his own blood hung in the air. And he remembered Jurou lying dead on the alley floor, gnawed eyeless, stumps for fingers and toes, and he felt hatred burn so brightly inside him he feared he might catch fire.
Another slap to his face. Harder this time.
“Wake up, boy.” A lisping growl.
Tossing the hair from his eyes, he blinked in the gloom. He was dangling by his wrists from a hook and chain, just long enough for his toes to touch the ground. Naked save for his new hakama, now bloodied and covered in filth. The concrete was sticky, stained dark. A single globe threw a circle of light on the floor. On the periphery, he could see a dozen men and women, arms folded, watching him the way corpse-rats watch a death rattle. On each of their biceps, in the negative space between the tattoos, two scorpions were locked, claw to claw.
Yoshi’s heart stilled inside his chest.
He saw Hana opposite him, hands bound, arms held by vicious-looking men with full-body irezumi. Her hair was draped around her face, nose bleeding, good eye closed, out cold.
Yoshi looked at the one who’d slapped him. Thin and hard and cruel, a street-sharp, angular face, dark, hateful eyes. He recognized him from their first rip; the Gambler’s partner. The man held a pair of long-nosed pliers in his hands.
“Rise and shine, lazybones.”
“Fuck you,” Yoshi spat.
“Funny.” A broken yellow smile. “Your boyfriend said much the same.”
Yoshi tried to lunge, succeeded only in making himself spin on his chain. The thin man laughed, all yellow, crumbling bone and dirty breath.
“My name is Seimi.” The man pressed the pliers against Yoshi’s cheek. “My face is the last thing you’ll ever see. And for that, you have my apologies.”
“My sister had nothing to do with this. Let her go.”
“Nothing to do with it?” Seimi raised an eyebrow. “Do tell…”
The man turned to a workbench on the edge of the light. It was arrayed with every tool Yoshi could imagine: hacksaws, screwdrivers, tin snips, drills, pliers. A bottle of sake. A bowl of salt. A chi-powered blowtorch. A hammer.
Seimi dashed water into Hana’s face. He slapped her hard as she sputtered, head rising slowly, eye rolling around her bruised socket as she blinked and tried to focus.
“Hello, pretty one.” Seimi grabbed her face, fingers and thumb pressed into her cheeks, squeezing her thin lips into a pout.
“Yoshi?” His heart nearly broke at the terror in her voice. “Yoshi, what’s happening?”
“It’s all right, sis.” He tried to keep his own voice from rising upward toward hysteria. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Did you hear that, pretty one?” Seimi leaned close, stared into her good eye. “Your thieving whoreson brother said it’ll be all right. Does that still your pounding heart?”
“You bastards, you let her go! She has
Hana was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. She struggled against the men holding her, but they were twice her size, all inked muscle and gap-toothed grins. Seimi ran one hand down her throat, parted the collar of her tunic. A hungry stare caught on the golden amulet draped around her neck. A tiny stag with three crescent horns. Glaring.
“Stop.”
The voice was low-pitched. Ironclad.
Soft footsteps. Measured breath. A man stepped into the light. Short. Tanned. Simply dressed. Graying hair swept back from sharp brows. Staring at Yoshi with empty, black eyes.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.” Yoshi gasped for breath. “No, I don’t.”
He stepped closer, hovering just inches away. Yoshi could see the pores in his skin, the lines at the corners of those bottomless eyes. There was no anger—not even a hint of malice in the man’s voice.
“I am the man who paid your rent. Paid the tailor who made your clothes. The artiste who inked your skin. I paid for your smoke. Your drink. I am the man whose face you spit in, every time you spent one of those stolen coins.”
“I’m sorry.” Yoshi swallowed. “I’m sorry, but please, my sister didn’t have anything to do with this, please just—”
“What is your name?”
“… Yoshi.”
“I am the Gentleman.” The man was staring at Yoshi’s inkless arm. “You are lowborn?”
“Hai.”
“It explains much.” The Gentleman paced in a long, slow circle around Yoshi. “Do you know how we differ, Yoshi-san?”
“No…”
“I am Burakumin, just like you. A boy born with nothing, no clan, no family, no name. And like you, I was forced to do terrible things, just to survive this place.” The Gentleman shook his head. “The things I have done, Yoshi-san. The things I will do…”
The man ceased pacing, looked Yoshi in the eye.
“But I am no thief. Everything I have, I bought with sweat and blood. I had the grace to look into men’s eyes as I took everything they had. That is the difference between us. Why I stand here, and you hang there. Without your little hand-cannon.” As the Gentleman spoke, he moved his face an inch or two closer to Yoshi’s with every word. “You. Are. A. Coward.”
Yoshi said nothing, mind awhirl. Desperate. Looking for something. Anything. Some way out of this hole, this pit he’d dragged her into. Gods, not Hana, please …
“You say your sister is blameless?” The Gentleman looked at her, then back to Yoshi. “That she knew nothing of your transgressions against the Scorpion Children?”
Sweat rolled down Yoshi’s face, blood in his eyes. “Nothing.”
“And you would have me let her go?”
“She doesn’t deserve any of this.” He licked at split lips. “Do what you want to me. I deserve it for what I did. But she doesn’t deserve to see it.”
The Gentleman stared, head tilted as if listening to hidden voices.
