Kumashiro struck the monk across the mouth. He yelped in pain. “I’m loyal to the Black Lotus,” he protested, drooling blood. “I would never tell an outsider anything!”

Rising, Kumashiro contemplated the monk who’d already withstood two days of torture. It was time for stronger coercion. “Bring him to the medical chamber,” Kumashiro ordered the priests.

They dragged Pious Truth out of the cell, following Kumashiro down a tunnel just high and wide enough for men to walk upright and two abreast. The walls and ceilings were reinforced with planks; between these, tree roots veined the soil. Hanging lamps lit the way, casting weird shadows.

“What are you going to do to me?” Pious Truth said anxiously.

No one answered. The pulse of the hand-operated bellows that pumped in air from concealed vents was a continuous, rhythmic clatter. Rancid odors tainted the air. Pious Truth mewled. Kumashiro led the group into one of a series of connected rooms in a branch tunnel. At the center of the room stood a table. A vast hearth, with a huge basin set on a charcoal brazier below a stone chimney, occupied a corner. Muted voices, clatters, and the burble of liquid issued from an adjoining room, out of which sidled Dr. Miwa. When he saw Kumashiro, wariness tensed his pocked face, but his. squinty eyes brightened at the sight of Pious Truth.

“Is this a patient for me?” he said.

“He’s a runaway.” Kumashiro beheld the doctor with undisguised revulsion. “I want you to make him cooperate.”

Bowing, Dr. Miwa displayed his uneven teeth in an ingratiating smile. “Certainly.”

The priests heaved Pious Truth onto the table. He struggled, yelling, “Let me go! Help!”

No one aboveground would hear him, Kumashiro knew. The priests tied the monk down, then left. Dr. Miwa fetched a cup of liquid and held it to Pious Truth’s mouth.

“No!” Pious Truth shrieked. “I don’t want it!”

Kumashiro forced Pious Truth’s jaws apart. Dr. Miwa poured. Although the monk gurgled and spat, most of the liquid went down.

“I’ve given him an extract of fan xie yie leaves, ba dou seeds, and morning glory,” Dr. Miwa said. “It will purge excessive spiritual heat and evil influences from him.”

“Spare me the medical gibberish,” Kumashiro said, annoyed by Miwa’s pretense that what they were doing constituted a genuine cure. “He’s not a patient. Nor are you a healer.”

Anger flushed the doctor’s muddy complexion, but he remained silent, too much a coward to contradict a superior.

“You were a failure as a physician, and if you think High Priest Anraku respects your credentials, think again.“ Kumashiro found pleasure in wounding Miwa’s vanity. “He only tolerates you because you’re useful to him.”

The same applied to everyone in the sect, including Kumashiro. They were all here to serve Anraku’s purposes, but Kumashiro didn’t mind because if not for Anraku, he would be dead, destroyed by the life he’d led.

A son of a high retainer of the Matsudaira branch of the Tokugawa clan, Kumashiro had grown up on the Matsudaira estate in Echigo Province. As a boy he’d excelled at the martial arts, but his teachers had criticized his spiritual disharmony, which blocked his progress along the Way of the Warrior. Kumashiro himself perceived something wrong inside him-an emptiness; a sense that real life lay beyond a locked magic door. This angered and frustrated him. He grew more and more aggressive during practice sword matches. Other boys on the estate avoided him because he picked fights and beat them; his own mother was terrified of his temper. Violence eased the gnawing emptiness in Kumashiro, but didn’t open the door. However, Lord Matsudaira was impressed with his fighting skill and, when Kumashiro was thirteen, took him to Edo as a guard at the clan’s city estate.

In Edo, Kumashiro received a new pair of swords. The law permitted samurai to test blades on peasants without being punished, so Kumashiro wandered the crowded streets of Nihonbashi, seeking a suitable target, until a beggar accidentally bumped him.

“Humble apologies, master,” the beggar said, bowing.

Kumashiro drew his new long sword and slashed the beggar’s arm. The man cried out in pained surprise, and Kumashiro stared at his victim’s wound, transfixed by a rush of sensation. Drawing blood had opened the magic door a crack. Noises seemed louder, colors more vivid, the sun’s heat newly intense. The smell of humanity quivered Kumashiro’s nostrils. It was as if he’d finally gotten a taste of real life.

The frightened beggar turned to run, but Kumashiro lunged, cutting bloody gashes in the man’s legs and back. Every cut opened the door a little wider. Heady new vitality filled Kumashiro as onlookers scrambled for cover. The beggar fell on hands and knees.

“Please, master,” he cried, “have mercy!”

Kumashiro raised his sword high over the neck of his victim, then brought it slashing down. The blade severed the beggar’s head. Warm, red blood sprayed Kumashiro. His veins, his muscles, his very bones tingled with intoxicating energy. He felt the dead man’s spirit fill his empty space, and a thunderous rapture as his internal forces balanced in harmony. Killing had brought him to life, to the Way of the Warrior.

And that moment had brought him here, to this underground room, where a young monk lay tied to a table. Kumashiro watched as Pious Truth moaned, convulsing against the ropes.

“Ah, the medicine is taking effect,” Dr. Miwa said.

Sweat and urine poured from Pious Truth and puddled on the table. Retching, he vomited. The stench of diarrhea arose.

“Soon the purge shall be complete,” said Dr. Miwa.

Excitement crept into his voice; he was trembling as if with sexual arousal. His breath hissed faster.

“It’s a fine doctor who enjoys the suffering of his patient,” Kumashiro said. Yet although Miwa’s perversion disgusted him, Kumashiro knew very well the exhilarating combination of violence and sex.

The ecstasy of his first kill had faded quickly; as the magic door closed, Kumashiro vowed to repeat the experience. He and a gang of fellow Tokugawa retainers roved Edo, brawling with peasants and rival samurai. In his twenties, with three more kills behind him, Kumashiro got a reprimand from the magistrate. Still, his need persisted.

One night his gang visited an illegal brothel. Kumashiro disliked females-such weak, inferior creatures-but he had nothing better to do, so he went along. A prostitute took him to her room. As she stroked him, Kumashiro found her repulsive.

“What is this?” she said, squeezing his limp organ. “A dead snake?” Meanness edged her playful remark: She’d noticed his feelings toward her. “Perhaps your sword is blunt, too.”

At this insult, Kumashiro struck the whore’s face a tremendous blow. She screamed. The door in Kumashiro swung ajar; arousal and heightened sensation thrilled him. He beat the girl, and she fought him, but he mounted and entered her. His hands throttled her neck as he thrust.

At the instant of climax, he choked the life out of her, crying out in rapture as he absorbed her spirit.

With the memory clear in his mind, Kumashiro turned his attention to Pious Truth. “Are you ready to admit you betrayed the Black Lotus, or do you want to suffer more?”

The monk was deathly pale, groaning in pain, too weak to struggle, but he gasped out, “I told Lady Reiko nothing.”

“The evil force is much stronger in him than in his sister,” Dr. Miwa said. Mild torture had persuaded Yasue to confess that Pious Truth had engineered their escape attempt. “We must employ more drastic treatment.”

Dr. Miwa summoned his assistants, two young nuns. They untied Pious Truth and placed him in the basin of water on the hearth. While the nuns lit the brazier, Miwa’s hungry gaze lingered on them. Kumashiro wished he could throw all the females out of the temple. Experience had taught him that they were a source of misfortune.