the butterfly knife out of its sheath. With a quick and practiced

motion, he flipped it open and lunged at her.

With a motion that seemed almost languid, yet incredibly fast,

she caught his hand by the wrist and squeezed. There was a sharp,

crackling sound and he screamed as every bone in his wrist was

crushed. He blacked out from the pain.

When he came to, he was lying on his back, naked, and she was

standing over him, dressed in long black satin robes. Her eyes

seemed unfocused and she was chanting something in a guttural

language he couldn’t understand. He tried to get up, but discovered

that he couldn’t move. There didn’t seem to be anything holding

him down, no restraints of any sort, but no matter how hard he

tried, he couldn’t move a muscle. He began to whimper.

“Please… please, let me go, please, I won’t say anything, I won’t

tell anybody, please…”

She looked down at him and he saw that she was holding a long,

curved dagger in her hand. He lost control of his bodily functions.

Slowly the dagger came down toward him. His throat-rending

scream echoed through the sanctuary.

Akiro had given up on getting a full night’s sleep. The call came,

as he had known it would, shortly after one a. m. He knew, even

before he picked up the phone, that there had been another killing.

Keiko had been lying asleep, beside him. He had tried to sleep,

needing the rest desperately, but sleep simply would not come. He

had been lying awake for hours, staring at the phone on the bedside

table, waiting for it to ring. He snatched it up at once.

“Katayama.”

“There’s been another one, Inspector. Two of them, this time.

One male, one female. A unit’s already been dispatched to pick you

up.”

Akiro sighed wearily. “All right. Thank you. I’ll be right down.”

He hung up the phone.

Keiko was awake.

“Again?” she said softly.