Taking Genmaicha With the General
Hush, hush. Something evil’s on the stair. Hush, hush. There’s a killer at the door.
I knock once. I knock twice. I knock a third time. The great green iron door slowly glides open. Standing at the threshold is the Old Man. With a nod of his head, he welcomes me into his lair.
“You’ll take tea?” he asks, pouring me a cup from a small bamboo-handled oriental pot. The tea is green and has the aroma of roasted brown rice.
“Popcorn tea–Japanese genmaicha? So difficult to get hold of these days. Especially since the war,” I add. The Old Man smiles in acquiescence.
I take another sip, put down the cup and, palming Mother-of-Pearl in my right hand, flick the switch to unleash six inches of Damascened steel. In the palm of my hand, the switchblade’s handle feels warm, firm–and comforting.
“Do you keep the faith? Have you a god you’d like to pray to?” I ask the Old Man.
“Oh, yes,” he replies. “But I sacrifice to the Elder Gods. Ancient–and insane–deities, who still haunt dark forgotten places, to gibber and bay in the wind on moonless nights like this.”
I stab once. I stab twice. I stab a third time.
I pour more tea–it would be a pity to let it go to waste–and watch as a pool of blood seeps out from beneath the Old Man’s body. The blood trickles through a gap between two floorboards. I hear it fall and drip onto something far below in the cellar. How could the Old Man’s withered little body be filled with so much blood?
Hush, hush. Something’s on the stair. Hush, hush. Something’s at the door.
Mother-of-Pearl–its blade still slick with the General’s spent gore–sits waiting in my hand as the great green iron door slowly glides open.