Scene 1. The Needle
The needle pierced flesh.
Hisss.
The thread followed. Not suture thread. The suture thread in Doctor Jang's bag had already run out. Thread torn from the bag's lining. Thick and rough. As it passed through flesh, a strained, dry sound rang through the drain's darkness.
Lee Kang's left hand lay open on Doctor Jang's knee.
The wound on his palm gaped. Where the Ookami's fingers had dug in. The flesh had inverted, the inside exposed. A match flame lit that inside. Red and yellow tangled together. Doctor Jang's needle bit the edges of the split meat. Drew both sides together. The thread cinched the flesh tight.
Lee Kang's hand did not move.
Did not flinch. Did not tremble. He was looking down at the needle going in. As though watching something that was not his own hand. As though watching meat on a table being sewn.
The match died.
Doctor Jang struck a new one. Skritch. The acrid smell of sulfur stung the nose. A small flame split the darkness again. Doctor Jang's hand came into view. The hand holding the needle. Trembling. Doctor Jang's hand was trembling.
Lee Kang's hand did not tremble.
The needle tied its third knot. The thread pulled the flesh, and the edges of the wound drew toward each other. Blood ran along the thread and fell onto Doctor Jang's knee.
Doctor Jang moved to the forearm.
Where the Ookami's teeth had torn flesh away. Where meat had gone missing. A hole. The needle went into the hole. Stitched alternately through the inside and outside of the meat. With each passage of the needle, the muscle of the forearm contracted faintly. Reflex. Not Lee Kang's will.
The iron taste lingered in Lee Kang's mouth.
Since earlier. Since coming down into the sewer. Water to rinse with lay at his feet, but it was rancid water. He did not rinse. The iron taste was wedged between the roof of his mouth and his molars. Each time his tongue grazed it, the taste bloomed again. Metallic. The remains of what had been hot.
Lee Kang's throat moved once.
He swallowed.
Swallowed saliva. With the saliva, the iron taste went down his throat.
"What are the materials."
Lee Kang said.
The needle was stitching through his forearm. Doctor Jang's hand did not stop. Lee Kang's voice did not stop either. They overlapped.
"The yellow medicine. What do you need to make it."
Doctor Jang's needle paused one stitch.
Paused, then moved again.
Did not answer.
The match died.
Darkness came down. On the water of the drain, two amber points floated. Lee Kang's eyes. Burning toward Doctor Jang through the dark.
"I'm asking."
Lee Kang said.
In the dark.
Scene 2. The Dog
Doctor Jang did not strike another match.
The stitching continued in the dark. His fingertips groped along Lee Kang's forearm, searching for the wound's edge. By feel. The needle went in. Lee Kang received the sensation, did not process it, discarded it.
Then a sound came down.
From above.
Footsteps. Not one pair. Several. Boots striking the dirt of the ground above the sewer—the vibration traveled down through the ceiling of the drain. Blunt. Steady.
Doctor Jang's needle stopped.
Lee Kang's breath stopped.
There was a grated iron mesh in the ceiling. A manhole. About fifteen paces from the hole Lee Kang and Doctor Jang had descended through. Through the grate, the outside was visible. Light fell through the grating in stripes. Whether torchlight or searchlight, he could not tell.
The boots stopped above the grate.
Lee Kang's eyes turned to the grate.
Sounds came down. The sound of sniffing. The sound of claws scraping the iron. Skritch. Skritch.
A military dog.
The dog's muzzle pushed through a gap in the grate. The nose came into view. A wet nose. The nostrils flared, drawing in the drain's air. The dog's saliva dripped through the grating. One drop fell onto the drain's black water and drew a circular ripple.
Lee Kang's body started to move toward the ceiling.
It tried to go up. Reflex. The impulse to tear the grate away, leap up, snap the dog's neck and shred the uniforms ignited in his leg muscles. His calves drew taut. His soles pressed against the drain's floor.
Yeonhwa's weight pressed against his lap.
Lee Kang's legs stopped.
Stopped.
He stopped breathing. Clenched his teeth. The iron taste between his teeth stabbed his tongue. The air inside his mouth was sealed. The air inside his lungs was caged. His heart struck once, large, and stopped. Not stopped—slowed. One beat. Two beats. Three beats apart, one beat.
The drain's water was still. Because Lee Kang's body did not move. The amber eyes reflected on the water did not waver.
The dog sniffed.
It pushed its nose deeper through the grate. Searching for a smell. The smell of blood. Lee Kang's blood. The Ookami's blood. Yeonhwa's blood. The sewer's rancid water was eating that smell. The smell of rancid water was covering the smell of blood.
The dog barked once.
Short. Scraped the grate with its claws once more.
A Japanese shout rang out above.
The clink of a chain dragging the dog back. Jangle. Jangle. The boots began to move again. Crossed over the grate. Receded. The footsteps grew smaller. The sound of the dog's claws grew smaller.
Gone.
Air burst from Lee Kang's lungs.
He exhaled. Long. The breath leaving his mouth mingled with the drain's cold air and bloomed white. White steam scattered slowly through the darkness.
His heart began to beat again. Fast. Far too fast. The slow rhythm of moments ago accelerated as though it had been a lie. Inside his chest, fists were hammering a wall.
His teeth were clenched. Force was in his jaw. He released it.
Yeonhwa's head rested against his chest.
His heart was beating madly, so Yeonhwa's head must have been receiving the vibration. Lee Kang's hand swept her head once. As though willing the vibration not to transmit. So he would not wake her.
Because she's sleeping.
That was how his brain translated it.
Scene 3. The List
"Materials."
Lee Kang said again.
After the military dog had passed. After Doctor Jang had tied the last knot on the forearm. No match flame. In the dark, only Lee Kang's voice drifted.
"Tell me."
Doctor Jang's breathing came through. The inhale. The exhale. Something cracked, wedged between.
"What do you plan to do with that knowledge."
Doctor Jang said.
"Bring them."
Lee Kang answered. Without a beat's pause.
Doctor Jang's breathing stopped once.
"They aren't things you can bring."
"There's nothing I can't bring."
Lee Kang's voice was flat. Flat and solid. A voice like stone floor. The kind it seemed wouldn't crack if you walked on it.
Silence crawled across the drain's water.
Water gurgled in the dark. Somewhere, leaking water was running down a wall.
The pipe shard in Doctor Jang's fingers clicked. Between his fingers. Once. Twice. Stopped.
"Ether."
Doctor Jang said.
Lee Kang's ear caught the word.
"Not the kind for anesthesia. Purified. Diethyl ether. Only found in Imperial Army field hospitals."
Lee Kang did not answer. He listened. He inscribed it.
"Opium tincture. The concentrated kind. Locked up in the Governor-General's medical office residence."
The iron taste bloomed in Lee Kang's mouth. His tongue groped between his molars. He swallowed.
"Crude pharmaceutical base. Licorice root and white peony. Large quantities. That you can get from a Korean herbalist."
Doctor Jang's voice was dry. Not the academic dryness. The dryness of chewing sand. As though each word coming up his throat stripped a layer of skin.
"And."
Doctor Jang stopped.
Stopped.
"And what."
Lee Kang said.
Doctor Jang's breath wavered once.
"A catalyst. Something special the Empire uses. Circulated as a digestive aid in form, but in substance it's a neurological activator."
Doctor Jang's voice lowered.
"It'll be at the Governor-General's residence with the ether."
Lee Kang's eyes glittered in the dark.
Not brightened. Focused. The blurred amber sharpening to a point. The change that comes to a beast's eyes when the prey's position has been marked.
"Field hospital. Governor-General's residence. Herbalist."
Lee Kang repeated. Exactly what Doctor Jang had said. Like an incantation.
"Three places, then."
Doctor Jang did not answer.
Lee Kang received the silence as yes.
Scene 4. Lullaby
Lee Kang's hand swept Yeonhwa's hair.
In the dark. Sight was gone. His fingertips touched her forehead, followed her hair across the crown, down the back of her head. Up. Down. Slow.
Yeonhwa's forehead was cold. Colder than the sewer water. Needle marks remained on Lee Kang's palm. The rough thread that stitched them caught in Yeonhwa's hair. The end of the thread snagged between strands. His fingers carefully worked it free.
"Diethyl ether."
Lee Kang murmured.
Into Yeonhwa's ear. The ear that would be listening.
"Opium tincture. Licorice. Peony."
When the words came from his mouth, they were not the names of medicines. They were prayer. Incantation. The way an illiterate man recites scripture, learning the shape of the sound without understanding the meaning, he was reciting them.
"Catalyst."
His mouth let out the last word. Let it out, swallowed it. With saliva. With the iron taste, the names of medicine went down his throat.
A smell reached his nose.
Rancid water. The rot and waste rising from the floor of the sewer. Beneath it—very faintly—something else raised its head. At the bottom layer beneath the silt and the rot. Something like flowers. Something like lilac.
So faint he could not be sure it was there at all.
His nose moved. Toward Yeonhwa's hair. Trying to find the smell.
He found it.
Whether found or made, he could not tell. Whether his brain had made it or whether something remained in her hair. He could not distinguish.
He did not need to distinguish.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
In the dark. Where no one could see. With the Ookami's blood still wedged between his teeth. With needle marks driven into his palm. With his torn forearm stitched in rough thread.
A smile.
His mouth opened again.
"Field hospital."
Whispered.
"Governor-General."
Whispered.
"Herbalist."
Whispered.
A lullaby. The hunt list had become a lullaby. The names of the Empire's most dangerous places had become a song to put Yeonhwa to sleep.
His hand swept her hair. Up and down.
The drain's water gurgled.
Doctor Jang sat against the opposite wall. Whether his eyes were open or closed, no way to tell. The pipe shard no longer clicked. He had let it go. The shard floated on the water and was drifting slowly away.
Lee Kang did not see it.
He was sweeping Yeonhwa's hair.
He was calling out the names of medicine.