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“I haven’t given up hope of your sister,” the Shirosama said. “The best and the brightest will survive the upcoming conflagration, and she should be one of them. She’ll turn to the light by then, if she hasn’t already.”
“If you mean by ‘turn to the light’ that she’ll think you’re anything but a bloated, psychotic charlatan I can tell you it will be a cold day in hell when that happens.”
“Heinrich.” The Shirosama’s soft lisp stopped his henchmen in time. “It’s no wonder the poor girl is confused. We’ve helped many of the lost and deluded to find their way out of this karmic snare. We’ll help her, too.”
“And just how do you help people out of their karmic snare, your holiness?” Summer asked in a sarcastic voice.
The Shirosama turned his paper-white face toward her and smiled benevolently. “By helping them into their next life, child. How else?”
24
The town of Tonazumi was like a step back into another century. By the time Taka managed to find his way through the twisting, narrow roads it was almost nightfall, and time was running out.
The tiny village at the base of White Crane Mountain shouldn’t have been accustomed to tourists, but the townspeople greeted the arrival of two strangers from the city, including one as bizarre as Reno, with polite disinterest. Until the Shirosama was mentioned.
“It’s the night of the Lunar New Year,” the old man at the noodle shop said. “Much goings-on up there. You don’t want to interfere.”
“He has a friend of mine with him. I need to get a message to her.”
“Not until the celebration is over. There are guards on all the main roads up the mountain—the planned ritual is sacred, and they don’t want outsiders watching.”
“Then what is a television satellite truck doing here in town?” he responded.
The old man shook his head. “We don’t ask questions. The followers of the new religion will do us no harm, and they will bring business to our little village. In return, we must let them do what they wish.”
Taka glanced over at the satellite truck. All emotion had left him hours ago—there was no place for it in his life—and his reactions were cool and calculated. The truck was private, belonging to the Fellowship, and if they were bothering with satellites they were clearly planning some kind of live feed. Was it going to be closed circuit to their legions of followers, or had they made arrangements with the Tokyo networks? Worse, were they planning on jamming the airwaves? The Shirosama had followers with the technology to pull this off. Taka had no idea exactly what the Fellowship was planning, but it was sure to signal the beginning of a bloody conflict that would leave the world forever changed. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.
He glanced up toward the dark, forbidding mountain. It was a dormant volcano, though in recent years there’d been occasional rumblings. Just the kind of place a melodramatic hack like the Shirosama would want to serve as a backdrop for his ravings.
The question remained, what did he have planned for tonight? He certainly wouldn’t hurt Summer in front of a camera—he was far too shrewd a showman. He might have her drugged and compliant, seemingly a willing participant to whatever ritual he had lined up. There was always the possibility he’d brainwashed her in record time. Taka didn’t think so; Summer was far too argumentative to be easily swayed, particularly by someone she already distrusted. If he knew anything about his unwilling companion of the last few days—and he knew her well—then the Shirosama would be regretting ever thinking she’d be a useful bargaining chip. Summer Hawthorne was simply more trouble than she was worth. At least as far as anyone with any sense would realize.
Unfortunately, Taka’s common sense seemed to have deserted him in the last few days.
“If there are guards on all the main roads keeping unwanted visitors away, then there must be back roads, not so well guarded,” he suggested to the wizened old man.
“There are.”
Taka waited. Reno was stalking around in the background, fuming. His cousin had never been good when it came to patience. The old man was going to reveal the information at his own pace, and a Yakuza punk from Tokyo wasn’t going to get it any faster.
“There’s a road heading up past the waterfalls. It won’t take you to the shrine—you’ll have to get out and hike—but it’ll get you most of the way there.”
Taka didn’t ask how he knew about the hidden shrine—the old man seemed to know everything. “When did the Shirosama arrive here? Was he alone?”
The man shrugged. “I try not to pay attention. He’s not looking for followers like me—he wants them young and smart or old and rich. Someone said they saw his limousine heading into the mountains late this morning, but that’s all I know.”
Taka bowed low, not making the mistake of insulting the man by offering him money. If the night ended with any kind of success, he’d see that some kind of reward made it into the old man’s gnarled hands. Tonazumi was a poor town, and the Shirosama wasn’t going to be around long enough to make a difference.
“We’ll be climbing partway,” he told Reno when he caught up with him. “The main roads are guarded.”
“Why don’t we just shoot our way through?”
“Because they might kill Summer,” Taka said patiently.
His cousin wisely said nothing.
There was an odd glow halfway up the mountain, hidden by the evergreens. Television lights, for the Shirosama’s big production.
Fortunately, the Shirosama was missing a major prop. The Hayashi Urn was safely tucked in Taka’s leather backpack. Even if the cult leader still had the remains of the original Shirosama, if he didn’t have the proper receptacle, then what was the point?
