by Toby Neal
If it wasn’t leaving Sophie that had so enervated him, it had to be the use of his abilities. He’d pushed that envelope further than ever this time, and must be what had so depleted him.
But that was contrary to the Master’s teachings. “When you are in touch with the flow of energy among all things, when you have entered the slipstream of time and matter, you are one with it. The movement of molecules and energy from one place to another is simply a matter of will, not of effort,” the Master had said.
Sometimes that was the case.
Other times, like now, Connor’s body felt battered by the effort it had expended. His lungs still burned from exposure to sulfur dioxide. And his energy level was so low that even holding his eyelids open was too much work.
The multi-legged journey back to the compound was finally complete as the Yām’s private helicopter lowered gently to land on one of the topmost, flat-roofed buildings of the temple. Connor tightened his travel-stained white gi and allowed Nine to open his door. He got out of the cockpit and stood for a moment on the sun-warmed stone roof as the chopper’s blades cycled down into silence.
He shut his eyes and inhaled the smell of diesel from the transport as it quickly dissipated into the humid air, replaced by the smell of the jungle: mossy damp fecundity with a twist of fermented fruit and tropical flowers.
“You are not looking well.” The Master’s velvety voice carried all the way from where he stood in the doorway, across the expanse. His leader’s rich purple energy field vibrated even with his eyes closed, and Connor sighed with relief: he wasn’t alone in these mysteries any longer.
He bowed toward the man silhouetted in the door leading down into the temple. “Master. It is good to see you.”
Nine dropped to his knees and put his forehead to the stones in a deep obeisance. “Master,” he echoed.
The Master inclined his head in response. “Good to see both of you, as well. Nine, go prepare Number One’s chamber for a bath and a visit from the Healer.”
“Yes, Master.” Nine bounded to his feet and ran off, showing no signs of weariness from their journey.
“You wonder why you are so tired.” The Master approached.
“I do.” Connor moved to meet him. “But I did things I didn’t know were possible to rescue Sophie and Jake. Perhaps it was too much for my current level of ability.”
“Come, walk with me in the garden before you go to your chamber.”
Connor followed the Master into the cool building. No matter how humidly hot it was outside, or rainy and wet in the monsoon season, the interior of the temple stayed cool and dry. Polished bronze reflectors aimed glowing spots of sunshine here and there to light the dim halls as they moved through the ancient building. Through the slit windows, Connor glimpsed the recruits drilling in the various courtyards—some in rows, performing memorized sequences, others in pairs sparring with various weapons. He was reminded of his rigorous two years as a trainee and the hard muscle and bone he’d developed as a result. “I came back as soon as Sophie and Jake were admitted to the hospital. No authorities were alerted.”
“Good,” the Master said. “And it is good that I returned, as well. As soon as I arrived, a group of men loyal to Pi approached me, asking that you be replaced by him as Number One.” He paused by one of the deep, narrow windows. “I told them that a challenge to you was a challenge to me.”
He moved aside so Connor could see what lay outside.
A row of five heads on spikes decorated the rampart below. They were turned so that they looked down into the courtyard, and the drilling men would face them. Even from behind, Connor recognized Pi’s square, blocky head and thick neck.
His stomach lurched. “You didn’t need to do that, Master.”
The Master narrowed his eyes. “No? You should have killed Pi in combat when I asked you to, and these four men who supported him would not now be dead.” He resumed walking. “In any case, Pim Wat needed to wet her blade after her difficult time away. Doing so brought color to her cheeks.”
Pim Wat, Sophie’s assassin mother and the Master’s longtime lover, had been traded by Sophie to the CIA in return for the bodies of the men who’d died on the mission to get Sophie’s child back. Pim Wat had gone into a catatonic state for the two years she’d been held captive, until the Master broke her out and took her to his island retreat to recover. And recover she apparently had; Connor shivered at the thought of the woman’s blood-soaked blade.
That Sophie, with her brave but gentle spirit, had been born of such a psychopath continued to astound.
And what had he gotten himself into when he so impulsively agreed to train under the Master? The man was a law unto himself.
Connor mentally retraced the steps that had led him to this moment in time as the Master’s anointed Number One.
Interpol, the FBI, and the CIA had all wanted to capture Connor to get information about his secret role as an online vigilante known as the Ghost. He’d wanted an escape from the tangled web of deceit, lies, and alternate identities he’d woven, and ultimately, been trapped by. He’d been grieving that Sophie had chosen Jake over him. And in the end, he’d wanted to see if he, too, could harness space, time, and the hearts of followers, the way the Master did. All of that had led to cutting ties with the past and a one hundred percent commitment to the Master and, by extension, the Yām Khûmkạn organization.
The Yām had begun hundreds of years ago as the guardians of the Thai royal family; over the centuries it had evolved into a powerful network of trained ninjas, assassins, and spies whose purpose it was to protect and defend not only the royal family, but the Thai government and the country’s interests, as determined by the Yām leadership—most notably, the Master.
Connor was in too deep to get away, ever—and the world was closed to him now that he was a wanted man. He was where he was.
They continued down through the various levels, along a passageway past the dining hall, down another flight of stairs, and then emerged out into the garden where Connor had challenged Pi to mount the tiger’s eye column.
Tea had been set out for them under the trees. Connor followed the Master across the smooth, soft green grass, past the lotus pond and the banks of flowers, toward the beautiful tea service that awaited them.
The Master seated himself and indicated Connor’s chair. “Tell me about the rescue.”
Connor told him, leaving nothing out, as he poured fragrant green tea into delicate, handle-less porcelain cups. The Master picked up an almond cookie and bit into it with enjoyment as Connor concluded his tale. “I was not able to speed up time to facilitate my own rescue. I ran out of oxygen and ended up passing out from the gas. Nine got me out, then succumbed as well, and had to be rescued by the Security Solutions operative that was assisting us.”
“Not your finest hour,” the Master murmured, his purple-black gaze thoughtful as he helped himself to a sesame crisp. “None of that should have happened.”
“I agree. I don’t understand how I became so weak, how I lost control of my body.”
“Your emotions were engaged in the work. You used your own strength, not the universal constant of energy, to perform the time alterations.”
Connor shut his eyes, downcast. “I thought I understood the principles. But in the pressure and fear of the moment, I failed.”
“You learned your own limits, you mean.” The Master picked up the cookie plate. “Have one.”
Connor took the cookie; his appetite was gone since he’d glimpsed those severed heads, but he knew better than to refuse. He took a bite.
“Now, drink your tea.”
Connor set the cookie aside and picked up the cup and sipped.
“How does it taste?”
“I’m sorry, Master. I’m tired. It tastes—like tea.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” The Master lifted his cup to his lips. “Close your eyes and inhale. Allow the scent receptors in your nose to really take it in. Taste it after
that.”
Connor shut his eyes. He breathed in the smell. Jasmine, and something smoky. As he concentrated, images rolled into his mind: the terraced hillside where the tea had grown in orderly rows and quilt-like patches. Farm folk carefully tended the plants. Drying sheds where the leaves hung or lay, being preserved, filled his inner eye.
A whole world was contained in his cup.
Connor sipped; his eyes still closed.
The taste was like another expression of the smell, a lingering of exotic flowers and smoke on his tongue, the growth of a thousand days in the sun and hundreds of steps of processing, culminating now in a priceless transfer of energy that flowed into his body. “Ahh,” he breathed.
“Indeed.” The Master set down his cup. “Whenever you are struggling, stop. Open your mind and let a fuller experience come in through your senses. Nothing extra is ever needed for bliss but a moment of perfect awareness.”
Connor’s phone, in the pocket of his gi, chose that moment to ring.
They both ignored the sound until it stopped, and finished the tea and cookies in companionable silence.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sophie
Four days after rescue
Sophie lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. The blackout drapes were drawn on another ridiculously beautiful Hilo day. The red beacon of the clock radio beside the bed informed her that it was noon.
Dr. Wilson had exhorted her to count good things in the morning; it wasn’t morning here, but it was, somewhere else in the world.
One good thing Sophie could think of was that her father had been called back to Washington for some international crisis, and she had their suite at the Hilton to herself.
The second good thing was that Marcella had returned to Oahu; the FBI had only been able to spare her for two days.
The third good thing was that Raveaux was also on Oahu, and was giving Bix a full report. That meant she wouldn’t have to.
She was alone, at last, and she could wallow in the oily darkness of depression and grief for as long as it took for Jake to die once he was taken off life support.
And then, she could stay in bed until she had to take charge of Momi again, which wasn’t for another ten days.
The emptiness of time stretched before her like a desert with no water in sight.
Sophie glanced at the clock again. Eleven minutes past twelve.
They were unplugging Jake at one p.m., in forty-nine minutes. Janice Dunn had refused to listen to her pleas, or those of his sister Patty, to allow her to be there for her kun dii’s last moments.
The cruelty took her breath away; and yet, now that she was a mother, she understood it. Anyone who might cause her daughter harm aroused the deepest antipathy that she was capable of feeling. Janice blamed Sophie for Jake’s situation, and though Sophie wasn’t responsible for the eruption going on all over the east shore of the Big Island at this moment, she was the reason Jake had put himself in harm’s way, even to the point of sacrificing himself.
“How do I get through this?” She’d asked Dr. Wilson.
“You’ll get through it one second at a time, one minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time,” the psychologist had said.
From where she lay, Sophie could see the black case on the vanity in the bathroom where her medications were stored. She had already taken her daily antidepressant, but she had more powerful things for when she had what she and Dr. Wilson now called “an episode.” There were sleeping pills and an anxiety reliever.
She could get up and go take the pills she had. Fall asleep, and dream the hours of his death away.
But that was cowardly. Jake deserved more from her—that she endure, with him, what must be endured, even if they were not together in physical space.
Sophie turned on her side and faced the clock, and watched the red numbers slowly merge from one to the next.
She breathed, and she waited. She would go on, because she had to. Because she was a mother, and her daughter needed her.
Sophie shut her eyes, remembered going to an outdoor concert at Ala Moana Beach Park with Armita and Momi, right before the two had left for Alika’s custody month on Kaua`i. Sophie had sat on the folding chair with Momi on her lap. Armita sat on her right, next to the “aisle” made by the rows of chairs set under one of the park’s spreading banyans.
The ukulele band they were listening to was performing on a little portable stage, backed by the half-moon of placid water where she and Raveaux liked to swim at night. In the late afternoon, a light wind ruffled the turquoise water and bent the leaves of the palms lining the sand, making them sway and dance against the blue sky and white cumulus clouds at the horizon.
Momi had mercifully fallen asleep; she was so active that events like this were usually spent chasing her around and extracting her from trouble. But this time, the concert had fallen during her nap time, and her stubborn daughter had succumbed.
Her chubby legs protruded from under her bright Hawaiian print dress as she straddled Sophie’s lap, her plump little feet limp in their sandals. Her face rested on Sophie’s chest, lips ajar as she snored, her glossy black curls damp around her face in the tropical heat.
Sophie stroked the little girl’s back, comforted by the warm, limp weight that seemed to anchor her to the chair. She’d shut her eyes, breathing in the tender baby smell Momi still had at age two-and-a-half, and had let the Hawaiian music and the beautiful setting lift her mood into something as close to joy as she ever got.
Momi needed her.
Not physically, perhaps, but emotionally. They shared a bond strong enough to endure distance and big enough to hold other people: Armita, her father Alika, her grandmother Esther, and a host of aunties, uncles, cousins on Kaua`i. Even her Uncle Connor and her Grampa Frank, too.
But only Sophie was Momi’s mother.
Having endured the wound of Pim Wat’s emotional distance as Sophie grew up, she knew for certain that no one could ever take her place in Momi’s heart.
Sophie opened her eyes and watched the next ten minutes move by until one p.m. Then, one-oh-five. One-ten. One-fifteen. One-twenty-two.
It had to be done by now. He was gone.
Sophie shut her eyes, curling tight around herself in the bed, squeezing her own arms fiercely—but her eyes were dry. She’d cried all the tears she had.
On the nightstand, her phone buzzed. She’d left it on so Patty could check in and tell her how it had gone. Her heart lurched as she saw that it was Patty, as they’d discussed.
Did she want to hear the awful details?
Of course not.
But Sophie wasn’t a coward. Today was all about proving that. She picked up the phone. “Hello, Patty.” Her voice sounded like her throat had been scrubbed with steel wool.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jake
Four days after rescue
Jake was having a wonderful dream. His grandmother, a woman with snow-white hair and a soft body that always smelled of talcum powder, was playing cards with him and two of his friends from his Special Forces days—Judah and Henry, men he hadn’t seen in years.
His grandfather, a tall, hale and hearty man whom Jake physically resembled, carried a tray loaded with a pitcher of lemonade, glasses, and chocolate cake to where they sat around his grandparents’ round, old-fashioned card table.
Lemonade and chocolate cake were two things Jake loved. He grinned at the sight of the treats. “Thanks, Grandpa.” The old man grunted, his usual response, but he patted Jake’s shoulder.
His friend Henry dealt a fresh hand. “Five card stud,” he said. “Ante up.”
Jake had imagined heaven would be spectacular. Grander than his grandparents’ modest ranch home. Heaven would be filled with streets of gold and palaces of pearl, and there’d be giant angels blowing horns on every street corner.
Instead, he sat in the front parlor of his grandparents’ house in Toledo, Ohio, a house he hadn’t seen since he was ten years
old—where he sat at a table playing cards with dead people.
“Jake, ante up,” Henry prompted.
Jake looked down at the stack of Necco candy wafers beside his cards. Perhaps money had no meaning in heaven. That made sense.
Why didn’t he have more questions? —but he didn’t. He wasn’t stressed at all about being dead.
Jake grinned at Henry, who’d died of an aneurysm during their Special Ops training days. He was happy to see Judah, who’d drowned during an underwater search-and-rescue. Kenny, the kid leaning in the doorway, looked like he had when he passed away of a peanut allergy when they were both aged twelve.
“Here, son.”
Jake reached out to accept a large, frosty glass of lemonade from Grandpa, gone within six months of Grandma. He didn’t remember Grandpa ever pouring him anything, let alone slicing him a piece of rich chocolate cake like he was doing right now. The man had never been without a Marlboro hanging from his lip, and had always been “a mean son-of-a-bitch,” according to Jake’s father.
“Thanks, Grandpa.” Jake sipped the lemonade—cold and sweetly tangy. He smacked his lips. He tossed two Neccos into the pot to ante up, and Henry dealt everyone another card.
Yep, Jake was dead.
He was sure of it. In fact, he remembered the final expenditure of the last bit of energy he had used to push Sophie up onto the ledge above him. He remembered the agony of his last breath, and even his last thought before blessed darkness engulfed him.
This wasn’t like the last time he’d died, though, drowned by a torturer in a bucket of water. He hadn’t seen anything that time, and it had rocked him. What if there was no heaven?
This time, he’d gone to heaven. And yeah, it wasn’t what he expected. But cold lemonade, a big slab of chocolate cake, Necco wafers, and some of his favorite people weren’t a bad start.