Blood Summoned by N P Martin

Author:N P Martin [Martin, N P]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark World Press
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

13

A while later, I stood in Serenity Square smack in the middle of Little Tokyo. Surrounding the square were neon-edged pagodas that stood alongside more modern buildings, many of which were businesses that catered to the tourists who came through Little Tokyo in their droves, just one stop on their whistle-stop tour of the whole city. Many of these tourists stood around now holding up their cameras and phones as uniformed officers kept them back behind the lines of the crime scene that had not long been cordoned off.

The rain had just started to fall when I got there, the morning light—as dull as it was—still hurting my over-tired eyes. Smells from the food stands peppered around the outside of the square filled the air, along with the smell of cigarettes and, also—strangely—cherry blossom, even though the cherry blossom trees dotted around were bare at this time of year, nothing more than skeletal sculptures on which crows and other smaller birds sat looking on at the spectacle unfolding before them.

In the center of the square was a massive statue of a samurai, made of bronze and correct in every detail when it came to depicting the elaborate armor of the samurai, his helmet and his long sword. The samurai statue was meant as a tribute to Ishida Yagami, a long distant ancestor of the Yagami crime family, who also headed up the Yakuza clan in this city. It was they who had the statue erected many years ago, though I doubted they thought it would ever be so blatantly debased as it was now.

For impaled on the end of the statue’s long Katana was a body, the sword piercing the chest of the dead person; the body slid to the middle of the sword. The body itself appeared to belong to a man, though it was difficult to tell since every inch of skin had been removed, apart from the face that is. Looking at the impaled corpse was like looking at a slab of hung beef that glistened red and raw in the morning rain. I didn’t recognize the face of the dead man, but I knew instinctively that he had to be Yakuza. Whoever had killed him had impaled him here to send a message to the Yakuza, a message they had no doubt received loud and clear by now.

As the forensic team, led by Gordon Mackey, did their work, I walked across the square to where Jim Routman stood with his hands dug deep into his coat pockets as the rain started to come down heavier. When he saw me, he frowned. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone making it clear that this was his crime scene.

“I heard the call over the radio,” I said, coming to stand beside him as I gazed at the bronze samurai. “Has the body been ID’d yet?”

Routman stared at me for a long moment like he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to talk to me or not. “Yeah,” he said after a bit.

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