“A cousin would have to be dead and long in the grave not to have.” He paused, then added, “Though come to think of it, Minisino’s managed to swell his ranks with a great many spirits of the long dead, as well as the living that make up his own clan.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “He’s got himself an army, so you know this is going to be a mess. A lot of innocents are going to die.”

“You know where my sympathies lie. A lot of innocents are already dead.”

“I know, but—”

“I’m surprised you don’t feel the same.”

“I suppose I have a problem with laying the sins of the fathers on their children.”

“The aganesha who have been killing cerva aren’t exactly innocents,” Ayabe said.

“No, of course not. It’s just . . .”

“What exactly do you expect of me?” Ayabe asked.

Jack knew he had to play this exactly right. He was only going to get the one chance to make his argument.

“I don’t expect anything,” he said. “But I’m hoping for a favour.”

“You want me to stop them.”

There was the hint of amusement in Ayabe’s voice, but it didn’t show in his eyes.

Jack shook his head. “I’d like you to convince them that we can work this out another way.”

“And what would that be?”

“The guilty will have to pay for what they’ve done.”

Ayabe fell silent. He finished his cigarette, his gaze on the distance of the lake’s far shore. Jack didn’t push for an answer. He simply followed the cerva’s lead and finished his own smoke.

“And you can make this happen?” Ayabe asked finally.

Crap, Jack thought. He should have known it would come down to this.

“I can’t promise that it will,” he finally said, “but you’ve got my word that I’ll do whatever it takes to see this through.”

“Even if it means your life?”

Jack hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“These aganesha mean that much to you?” Ayabe asked.

Jack shrugged. “Truth us, I couldn’t give a damn about most of them. But I know war isn’t the way to work this out.”

“Sometimes the board needs to be cleared.”

“Except this isn’t a game,” Jack said.

“Which means you might lose.”

Jack shook his head. “It’s not about me. In the long run, everybody’s going to lose. I don’t want to see that. And I’m hoping that even you, living here in the back of nowhere, might feel the same way.”

Ayabe fell silent and the minutes ticked by.

“Do you really have a brother?” he finally asked.