The Gate of Sorrows

  “You have gathered too much sin, old man.”

  In a single stride she was beside him. Her gauntleted right hand reached for him as he gasped on his hands and knees.

  “To seal our covenant, I will end your pain.” She placed her hand on his head.

  Kotaro felt a surge of desperate strength. He could only growl like a beast as he charged. The warrior’s left hand shot out, palm up. He froze in midcharge in a pose that defied the laws of physics, though she hadn’t touched him.

  Her other hand lay on Shigenori’s head. Its huge palm and white, slender fingers cupped his head from the base of his skull to his forehead. She moved her lips in a lilting song with a gentle resonance.

  “I am Galla the Warrior, Guardian of the Third Pillar of the Tower of Inception. In the Name of the Tower, I purify you.”

  She’ll crush his skull. Or break his neck!

  Kotaro’s eyes were locked open. His tears welled up. Though he couldn’t move his fingers, the tears streamed down his cheeks.

  Galla’s lips moved again, but he couldn’t hear the words. She seemed to be saying something to Shigenori. Her hand stroked his head.

  Shigenori’s head dropped limply against his chest. He toppled forward in a fetal position.

  “No!” Kotaro screamed.

  He could use his voice. He could move.

  Galla drew herself to her full height and unfurled her wings. The sable feathers filled Kotaro’s field of vision again.

  Her wings stroked powerfully downward. A wind sprang up. As the two men watched, she wrapped her wings around herself and unfurled them in a single slashing motion as she whorled into the air. The wingtips flashed close by Kotaro’s face.

  He was blown bodily into darkness.

  Pain.

  Kotaro’s entire body ached. He was frozen to the marrow.

  He lay crumpled on his side against the parapet. The left side of his face was jammed against the concrete. He tried to stand, but felt a wave of nausea and stabbing pain in his hands when he tried to move them.

  Shigenori was crumpled next to the open hatch facedown, with his knees folded neatly under him and his arms thrown out, as though in prostration.

  Kotaro groaned and struggled again to stand. His legs refused to work. He tried bending his knees but fell flat on his back. He gave up finally and started edging toward Shigenori like a crab, on his feet and elbows. A thin dawn suffused the sky.

  Shigenori’s face was hidden. His ears and even his earlobes seemed drained of blood.

  “Detective?”

  He reached out and gripped Shigenori’s shoulder. He wanted to shake him, but he had no strength.

  “Mr. Tsuzuki? Are you alive?”

  No. He’s dead. That thing killed him.

  Shigenori sat up as abruptly as if he’d received an electric shock. Now instead of prostrating, he was sitting on his heels like a Zen monk. He blinked furiously. His eyes were utterly bloodshot, almost hemorrhaging.

  “Detective … ?”

  Shigenori spasmed again, as though struck by another jolt of electricity. His eyes finally focused on Kotaro.

  “Mishi … ma …” They stared at each other in wonder. “Are you all right?” Shigenori finally moved. He tried stiffly to help Kotaro sit up.

  “Wha—what about you, detective?”

  I will end your pain.

  She hadn’t meant to kill him after all.

  “You’re a mess, Mishima. Sure nothing’s broken?” With help from Shigenori, Kotaro managed to sit up.

  “Don’t try to move right away. Just stay there and breathe deeply.”

  Kotaro did as he was told. The right side of his chest hurt. His cheek stung; his fingers came away with blood when he touched it. He’d gotten a bad scrape.

  The two men could see each other clearly. It was dawn. Another midwinter morning had come to Shinjuku.

  “Do you think you can get up?”

  Kotaro felt himself all over cautiously. He rotated his ankles. That hurt. In fact, he hurt all over, but all he had were bruises, nothing he couldn’t put up with.

  “I guess I’m okay.”

  “Then let’s get the hell off this roof.” But Shigenori’s leg was uncooperative. “I can’t feel my leg. Damn it, I think it’s finally gone out on me.”

  “I’ll support you. Can you hang on?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You have to go down that ladder.”

  Kotaro helped, but Shigenori had to descend the ladder using his arms only. He half-climbed, half-fell onto the cardboard, where he remained motionless for many minutes.

  “Shall I call an ambulance?” Kotaro said finally.

  “No, wait. We’ve got to get out of here first.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll put my arm around your shoulder. We’ll take our time. Be careful, okay? It won’t be funny if we both fall down the stairs.”

  “At least we’re going down and not up.”

  Reaching the first floor seemed to take forever. Shigenori sat down heavily on the staircase.

  “Sorry, would you bring my bag down? While you’re taking care of that, I need to think.”

  As Kotaro climbed the stairs, he wondered what Shigenori needed time to think about. When he returned, the ex-detective was holding his head in his hands. Kotaro sat next to him on the step.

  “Are you all right?”

  Shigenori’s gaze was piercing. “Listen to me carefully. We never met.” His tone was imperative. “You were never here.”

  “What are you talking about? Have you lost your memory?”

  “I haven’t lost anything, that’s why I’m telling you. Don’t you remember what that thing said to us?”

  Do not pursue me.

  “It was a warning. No, a covenant. That’s what she called it.”

  “Are you going to abide by it?”

  “We don’t have a choice, at least for now.” Kotaro thought he saw tears welling up in Shigenori’s bloodshot eyes. “I screwed up. I should’ve thrown you out instead of letting you stay.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “But it’s too late now. Are you listening? Pay attention!” He grabbed Kotaro’s wrist. His grip was like iron. “Tell no one what happened here last night. I won’t. You won’t.”

  “But what about Kenji?”

  “Leave it to the cops. Stay out of it.” He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself as well as Kotaro.

  “Have you lost your nerve, detective?”

  Shigenori gave a short, desperate laugh. “After something like that? You’re damn right I have!”

  “I don’t want to give up.”

  “I don’t care. This time you do what I tell you. It’s the only way. Nobody’s going to believe you. I don’t care who you tell or how you tell it—no one will believe you. If you tell someone, it’ll just make things worse.”

  They tried to stare each other down. In the end Kotaro lost, and not because of a difference in age or maturity. It was a difference in resolve.

  “Leave my bag by the main entrance. Once I’m out of here I’ll call an ambulance. Go ahead and go. Just disappear.”

  Kotaro was intimidated by this fierce urgency, but he thought of a way to push back. “Do you have your phone?”

  Shigenori dug around in his down jacket. “I’ve got it.” He held up the phone and Kotaro grabbed it. Shigenori started in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  “Address swap.” He pulled out his own phone. “Let’s keep in touch. Don’t think this is the last time I’m going to see you.”

  “You’re pretty uppity. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kotaro exchanged addresses via infrared link and pocketed his phone. He held on to Shigenori’s and peered at him.

&nb
sp; “What?” Shigenori said. “Got something else to say?”

  “Are you all right, detective?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I can’t walk.”

  “I meant in the head.” The warrior woman named Galla had said it on the roof.

  You have gathered too much sin, old man. I will end your pain.

  She had put her hand on his head.

  I will purify you.

  He looked the same. She must’ve done something to his mind. Or his heart, Kotaro thought. But his memory didn’t seem to have been tampered with.

  What did she do to you, detective?

  “Give me my phone and get out of here, now.” Shigenori was getting irritated. Kotaro took a step back and thrust out his other hand.

  “Give me the key.”

  “Huh?”

  “The key to this building. You’ve got it, right?”

  Shigenori rolled his eyes in disgust. “What do you need that for?”

  “I’ll hold on to it for you.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Give me my phone.”

  “Trade you for the key.” Kotaro held the phone out of reach. “Please.”

  Shigenori snorted angrily. He searched in his pocket and withdrew the shiny new key.

  “You don’t have any use for this, you know.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  They made the trade. Kotaro stood up, put a thumb under the strap of his backpack and headed for the door. Shigenori called after him almost despondently.

  “Leave it alone. You heard what she said.”

  Kotaro didn’t answer. His right ankle throbbed as he walked.

  “There’s nothing we can do about what we saw.” Shigenori’s voice was hoarse. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

  Kotaro pushed the door open with his shoulder. Morning sunshine poured into the first floor of the tea caddy building.

  “Don’t hang around too long, detective,” Kotaro called over his shoulder.

  He put distance between himself and the building, walking as fast as he could with his sore ankle, still clutching the key to the back door. The sensation of it in his hand was the only tangible proof of the events he had witnessed.

  2

  All day, Kotaro tried his best to think of nothing.

  He discovered that was easy. Not remembering anything, though, was the hard part. Even with his eyes open, if his attention shifted away from his immediate reality, he could see the events of the night before as vividly as if they were being projected onto the back of his eyelids. The voice of the woman warrior with the raven wings kept echoing with a strange resonance deep in his ears and throughout his entire body.

  Each time the resonance came back to him, his confidence grew. It really had happened. He hadn’t been hallucinating. The warrior was real. And Kenji was trapped in the blade of her great scythe. No matter how stupid it sounded or how hard it was to believe, what he’d experienced at the tea caddy building had been real. He couldn’t deny it to himself. He wasn’t crazy.

  There were no more doubts. Kotaro shut himself up in his room and started furiously searching the web for clues. He missed classes and put Kumar off with excuses. He was on the hunt.

  Searching for “Galla” as a personal or place name returned too many hits. “Winged human” was a staple of fantasy fiction and, sure enough, it produced too much information as well.

  What about “circle”? An ordinary word, but the way Galla had used it, it sounded like it had some special meaning. So did “region.”

  He decided to attack the problem from a different angle and search for information on sympathetic resonance. Was it possible for an organism to physically affect other creatures with sound and cause them to share emotions? If so, would it be possible to investigate what made that possible?

  Kotaro waded through an ocean of information but found nothing to explain his experience. He visited libraries and bookstores and came up empty.

  During his search, he sent Shigenori a message asking about his health and where they could meet, if he wanted to meet. There was no reply. Kotaro hadn’t been expecting one right away in any case.

  Shigenori had seemed to have a steel backbone even before Kotaro learned he was an ex-cop. But when confronted by Galla, he’d given up without a fight and agreed to her terms. It made sense; there was an overwhelming difference in strength, and refusing to cooperate might’ve gotten them both killed.

  Of course they’d both been scared. Frightened out of their wits. What had Shigenori said? Who wouldn’t have lost his nerve after seeing something like that?

  Yet even allowing for their fears, Kotaro was disturbed by how diminished Shigenori had been even after Galla departed. Do not pursue me. Okay, sure. We made a promise, so you better not go after her either, Mishima. Was that really how a hardboiled detective would behave after experiencing something that astonishing?

  Kotaro was beginning to suspect that Galla had “purified” Shigenori of his nerve and backbone. She had stolen his mettle and broken his spirit.

  Galla said Shigenori had gathered too many sins. That was a baroque way of putting it, but it meant his life had been devoted to fighting crime. Could Galla extract that sort of information with her scan, with its strange resonance? Judging from her attitude toward Shigenori before and after the scan, that seemed the only conclusion.

  If so, she must’ve figured out Kotaro too. Just a run-of-the-mill student with no fighting ability whatsoever. He couldn’t even pick up the crowbar and use it as a weapon. Shigenori had tried to protect him.

  He’s just a kid. Please don’t hurt him.

  Galla had known Shigenori was the one in command, the one who might pose more of a problem. That was why she’d forced him to promise not to go after her. It would be enough to take care of them both; Kotaro, the weak child, wasn’t worth her attention. Do not pursue me. Okay, we won’t. Simple.

  If she thought that, she was wrong. “I’m coming after you,” Kotaro said aloud. Working on his PC in the middle of the night, pedaling his bike to the station against the winter wind, spending a few minutes in the kitchen to eat with the family—the thought drummed in his head every waking moment. Sometimes he said it out loud; maybe she could hear him.

  “I’m coming after you. I’m going to find out what happened to Kenji, and what you’re trying to do. I’ll never give up.”

  I will know when you speak. I will read the flow of your words and seek you out, no matter where you are.

  Pretty cool. Then do it. Find me. We’ve got business to transact, Galla. No way—no way—am I going to blow all this off just because you say so.

  If what Kotaro was feeling was anger, it was reckless anger. He knew it wasn’t courage. It was righteous anger, a thirst for justice.

  He had to avoid getting anyone else involved. He couldn’t speak a word of what he was doing. It had to remain his secret and his alone. No matter how hotheaded he became, he kept his head concerning this one point. At least here, Shigenori’s judgment was correct. Who would believe it if he told them?

  Two more days passed with little to show. That evening his phone buzzed. It was Kaname Ashiya.

  “Kotaro, where have you been?”

  He was in his room, still working at his PC. Her voice brought him back to the real world; he realized suddenly how tired he was.

  “I sent you like a million messages. Didn’t you see them?”

  He’d been checking his mail every day in case Shigenori had responded, but he hadn’t been reading his other messages. He knew his inbox was practically overflowing.

  “Kaname, I’m sorry.”

  “Well thanks a lot. You practically disappeared. I feel completely abandoned.”

  That was a little over-the-top. He’d only been out a few days. Still, her words made him happy. He felt like a part of hi
s heart he hadn’t used for too long was working again.

  “You’ve got mail from Seigo too, I’m pretty sure. And the police want to talk to you about Kenji.”

  “Did they start looking for him?”

  Kaname paused slightly before answering. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “What do they want to talk to me for?”

  “Kenji told you something, didn’t he? They even asked me to let them know when you come to work.”

  So that was it. They hadn’t even tried to contact him at home. They were just waiting for him to show up at the office.

  “What do the cops think about his vanishing like that?”

  “I’m not sure. I think they think he got mixed up in some kind of trouble. You better ask Seigo. Kotaro, you’re not going to quit or anything like that, are you?”

  “I’ll be in tomorrow morning early.”

  It was pointless to hope the police would be able to do anything. But it wouldn’t be right to ignore them either.

  “Seigo’s mad at you. He wants to know why you picked a time like this to take a vacation. You need to contact him and apologize.”

  “Okay, sure. Sorry for the hassle.” He ended the call and sighed.

  So Kenji had gotten mixed up in some kind of trouble? Well, they were right about that. Kenji had gotten involved in some frighteningly bizarre trouble, the kind the police couldn’t even touch.

  I am not of this region.

  How could they track down a being from another world?

  Kotaro arrived at Kumar the next morning at eight. Seigo was already at his desk.

  “Over here, Mishima.”

  Kotaro was braced for a reprimand but got a briefing instead. Kumar had submitted a missing person’s report to the police division responsible for Seigo’s neighborhood. The Metro Police didn’t think it very likely that a crime had been committed, and they weren’t devoting much attention to the case. Kenji’s smashed phone bothered them a bit, but that was all.

  “It’s almost too bad he’s not a woman. Things would be a lot different.” Seigo couldn’t conceal his dissatisfaction. “Narita told them Kenji was investigating something. That’s why they want to talk to you.”