Kinslayer

need or lust. Just because he wanted to know what it felt like. To take what could never be given back.

The Oyabun of the Scorpion Children wasn’t the most frightening man on the island to look at—truth be told, he appeared entirely unremarkable. Graying hair swept back from sharp brows. Dark eyes, tanned skin. Softly spoken, unfailingly polite. Even his enemies called him “the Gentleman.” His real name had passed the way of the panda bears of Shima’s bamboo forests, the tigers that prowled her in yesterday’s dark. Gone. Very nearly forgotten.

Calloused hands around a small cup, he took a sip of red sake. The bottles came from Danro, the Phoenix capital; quality that was hard to find in Kigen these nights. He savored the sting, the warmth spreading on his tongue. He thought of the woman waiting at home, soft hands and warm thighs. His son would be long in bed by the time he stepped inside from the smog-filled streets. But she would wait up, even past dawn. She knew by now not to disappoint him.

Where are they …

His office was a modest affair; old maple desks, reams of paperwork, a windup ceiling fan clunking away in the creeping autumn chill. Sluggish lotusflies buzzed around a small bonsai tree, suffering silently in the lotus stink. A visitor could be forgiven for mistaking the room as the office of a legitimate businessman; a man who made his living selling furniture or carpets or spring motors.

The Gentleman’s accountant, Jimen, sat at the other desk. Head clean-shaven, thin and quick, dark, knowing eyes. The little man was arranging coins into stacks, pausing after the construction of each tower to shift a bead across the antique abacus on the desk beside him. His sleeveless uwagi revealed full-sleeve tattoos on both arms. Two scorpions dueled in the negative space on his right shoulder, claws intertwined, stingers raised.

“Books look good.” Jimen flapped a bamboo fan in his face, despite the cool. “Profit is up seventeen percent this quarter.”

“Remind me to send a note of thanks to our would-be Daimyo,” the Gentleman murmured. “On the good stationery.”

He raised the sake bottle with an inquiring eyebrow.

“Never seen the black market this busy.” Jimen nodded, held out his cup. “The Guild will lift the embargo soon. If this Tiger pup secures the Daimyo’s chair, he might even start the trains running to let people attend his bloody wedding. So we’d best make the most of it while it lasts.” Jimen scowled. “And the White Crane are still a problem.”

“Not for long,” the Gentleman said. “Downside is ours now. Docktown is next.”

“Scorpion Children.” Jimen raised his glass. “The last crew standing.”

“Banzai.” The Gentleman nodded, taking another small sip.

As he swallowed the sake, the Gentleman heard floorboards creaking outside his office, soon followed by a soft knock on the door. Heavy breathing. The smell of cheap liquor and sweat. The clink of a tetsubo’s studs against iron rings. Hida and Seimi.

“Come,” he said.

His lieutenants entered the room, eyes downcast. He looked up, ready to rebuke them for their tardiness, stopping short when he saw the looks on their faces. The Gentleman took note of the faltering steps. The hands clasped before them.

The empty hands clasped before them.

“An interesting morning, brothers?”

* * *

A single iron kouka in Kigen city could buy you a woman for the night. Not some gutter-trash from Downside, mind. A quality courtesan—the kind of lady who could recite the poetry of Fushicho Hamada, debate matters theological or political, and round out the evening with a finale to make a cloudwalker blush. It could buy you a night in a good inn with a warm meal, a cool bath and a bed with a remarkably low quotient of lice per square foot. It could buy you a bag of decent smoke, a bottle of top-shelf rice wine (local of course, not Danroan) or the promise of discretion from an innkeeper about the nocturnal habits of his guests.

Yoshi was staring at over a hundred of them.

Scattered across the mattress in their bedroom, illuminated by a splinter of sunlight piercing the grubby window. Jurou was crouched beside them with a grin as wide as the Eastborne Sea, dry pipe hanging from the edge of his mouth.

“Izanagi’s balls, how much you figure is here?”

“There’s enough. That’s all we need to know for now, Princess.”

Yoshi’s hat was sitting on the mattress beside the kouka piles, and Jurou fingered the four-inch gouge through the brim.

“I’m wondering if it’s ‘enough’ for you to splash out on a new shappo.”

“That’s my lucky hat. I’d sell you before I sold it.”

Jurou made a face, muttered something unintelligible.

The boys hunkered down by the light of the risen sun, listening to the hymns of the waking streets outside. The sweat from their dash across town was still drying on their skin, smiles still tripping in their eyes. It had been so much easier than he expected. So much cleaner. For all their weight, those yakuza had melted like wax. Like godsdamned snow. All thanks to a tiny iron lump in the palm of one little hand—

“Yoshi?” Hana’s sleep-drunk voice from outside the bedroom. “You back?”

“Shit!” he hissed, lunging for a pillow as his sister knocked gently and opened the door. He threw himself and his thin, feather-stuffed shield over their haul, a strangled “oof!” slipping through his lips as Jurou sat on top of him, the pair drawing more attention to the coins than if they’d lit them on fire.

Daken followed Hana into the room, regarding Yoshi with a glittering stare.

… smooth, boy …

“What the hells?” Hana breathed, sleep-crusted eye growing wide. “Where did you—?”

Yoshi rolled to his feet, pulled her inside. Glancing across the living space at his sister’s bedroom door, he pushed his own shut, quick and quiet. Hana was fully awake now, her frown building up a slow head of steam.

“Where did all this money come from, Yoshi?”

“A friendly kami gave it to me,” he whispered. “Maybe if you sing louder, it’ll flit back with second helpings.”

She fixed him in that paint-flaying, one-eyed glare. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he hissed, glancing at the closed door. “Volume down. Unless you want your lump of mattress- meat to overhear?”

The pair fell into a silent staring contest, which Yoshi eventually broke from. Hana felt around her eyepatch, touched her forehead, running fingertips across pale, grubby skin. She snatched up the tiny looking glass on Yoshi’s dilapidated dresser and made a show of squinting at her reflection, still pawing at her brow.

Jurou frowned up at her. “What the hells you doing, girl?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She glared at Yoshi again. “I just figured someone had tattooed ‘idiot’ on my forehead while I was sleeping. You take the ’thrower out for the night and just happen to find a Daimyo’s fortune in iron? What are you in, Yoshi?”

“I was all set to ask you the same yesterday before I remembered whose business I’m supposed to mind.”

“Me?” Hana flipped hair from her eye. “Chamber pots are about the size of my affairs.”

“Must be some scary brown in that palace, if you have to go around shooting at it.” Yoshi folded his arms. “Or did you think I wouldn’t spy the ’thrower was one shot light? And who the hells is that lump of beef in your room? Your whole life, I’ve never seen you bring anyone back home for a roll, and that cripple has been here two days straight.”

“Don’t talk about him that way.”

“You don’t tell me how to talk, little sister. I’m the man in this pit.”

“Keep running that mouth, you’re gonna wake up a lady, brother-mine.”

Yoshi grinned, despite himself. “All sweet. You keep your secrets. But this coin is mine. I’ll air my skeletons when you decide you’ve got some. Until then, no questions asked. I’m taking care of us. All of us. Blood is blood. That’s about the measure of the knowing you need.”