The Leader slumped back in his chair, tired from all his efforts. "My soul rejoices," he said, nodding. "If a carcass should surface, prepare it in the prescribed manner of my ancestors."
"Yes, Leader."
He listened as she left the room. He heard the locks of the heavy metal door clanging back into place as she closed it behind her.
The girl was happy once more. He could tell by the light tread of her heavy shoes. She had become concerned momentarily, but that concern had vanished along with the gweilo. She had reverted back to her innate self-confidence.
The Leader was pleased, as well. His Creed had survived its greatest challenge. He could now fulfill his destiny. The Final Death would now be achieved without interference.
The sounds from the production floor continued to squawk from the small speaker. The Leader was half listening to them when he heard another sound.
A new sound. Different from the rest. It was a sort of wrenching whine, like that of complicated machinery being forced to run backward by a force stronger still. It was succeeded by a rumbling hiss.
The Leader did not hear the three consecutive pops as the blades at the base of the tureen were snapped loose. Nor did he hear the grinding protest as they were wedged back into the mechanism to stop the motion of the floor.
The wrenching sound he did hear was that of the stainless-steel tureen into which the walnuts had been poured. Two hand prints had appeared on its smooth outer surface and were gliding downward, as if the steel were rubber. Tenfinger furrows marred the shiny texture. Halfway down the hand marks separated, tearing a gouge from the top of the tureen to its base as easily as if it were paper.
The screech of metal was unearthly.
The rumbling hiss that had accompanied the sound of the tureen's destruction was that of the walnuts spilling out across the production room floor.
After the noises had died down and the last lonely nut had rolled to a stop, the Leader remained puzzled.
He could not see Remo stepping through the opening, his eyes dead, black pools of menace. He did not see Remo flicking one of the walnuts upward to the catwalk, knocking Elvira McGlone unconscious. He knew only that the feeling of cold dread from before had returned.
A hollow voice boomed out, crystal-clear over the static of the speaker, louder than the loudest machinery.
And the hollow voice intoned: "I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju. Who is this dog meat that dares challenge me?"
Feeling his thin blood turning to ice, the Leader of the gyonshi trembled uncontrollably.
Remo Williams mounted the stairs in a single leap. Elvira McGlone was sprawled across the catwalk. He'd take care of her later.
Remo slid past her and moved swiftly along the walkway.
Someone stood at the far end. In the shadows. Mary Melissa Mercy. His final obstacle.
"You just don't know when to quit, do you, duck-eater?" Mary Melissa taunted, her naked green eyes blazing.
"Big talk, coming from a cannibal," Remo returned.
He continued moving toward her.
"We only drink blood. And you have no idea what you're dealing with," she warned. She found that she did not have to force confidence into her voice. "We possess powers no meat-eater can understand."
Remo remained silent.
"Your old friend understands now," she said, hoping to elicit a reaction. None came. "I am one with the Leader. The others you have defeated were nothing. Mere agents of our Creed. The old Korean knew that." She took a step toward him, still in shadow. "If the Master of Sinanju can be defeated, why not his pupil?"
Remo continued to move silently toward her across the raised platform.
Any hesitation Mary Melissa Mercy had felt before was gone. Her adrenaline flow continued in its wild rise. Her heart rate was more than double what it would have been had not the gyonshi infection empowered her purified blood.
"My Leader tells me that your Sinanju is a powerful force," she said. "But I've learned to master the secrets of something far more potent." She spread her hands like a game show hostess. "Behold!"
A dark mist seeped up and around the body of Mary Melissa Mercy. In an instant, she was enveloped in a sepia pall.
Remo, whose eyes ordinarily could break down fog or smoke into its component molecules, and see beyond as if it were only a light haze, could make out no shape within the inky blackness.
This was it. The infamous gyonshi mist Chiun had warned him about. Well, Remo had his trump card. He would not invite Mary Melissa Mercy in. He just hoped she was a stickler for tradition.
Cautiously, he pressed against the railing. He noticed it too had been hacksawed into a subtle trap. No doubt there were other traps about.
The mist spread slowly and insidiously along the length of the catwalk, until it was only a breath away from Remo.
There was something odd. The clank of foot falls on the metal catwalk. Should that have been there?
A long-nailed hand slashed out from within the dense black mist.
Remo shrank back. Just in time. The hand whizzed past his face and disappeared back inside the fog.
If a vampire can actually become mist, Remo wondered, will it still make audible footfalls? He decided to test his theory.
The hand slashed out again. Remo wrapped his fingers around the delicate wrist and tugged. Mary Melissa Mercy reappeared more easily than she had vanished. Although much less daintily. She did a half-flip through the air and landed roughly on her backside in the center of the walkway.
The black mist continued to billow and hiss behind Remo. A break in the cloud showed the stuff pouring from a metal grate at the base of the wall. "Thought so," he said, nodding to himself.
Confidently, his face a gigantic cruel smile, he advanced on Mary Melissa Mercy.
She had crawled back to her feet, and was in a sort of half-crouch as Remo approached. She brandished her gyonshi finger before her like a stiletto.
"Stay back!" she warned, slashing the air between them.
"Try garlic," Remo taunted. "Or am I thinking of werewolves?"
He grabbed her wrist firmly in his hand, being careful to keep the gyonshi fingernail at a safe distance, then bent Mary Melissa Mercy onto his hip. As he carried her down the stairs to the production floor she made repeated attempts to bite his arm and to claw him with her free hand, but he ignored those futile gestures.
After a short search Remo found an open electrical panel. He lifted Mary Melissa to it, careful to keep her right hand pinned to her side. She thrashed and screeched, but Remo's grip was firmer than iron.
With his other hand, he unscrewed the glass fuses.
Slowly, Remo bent her face into the exposed contacts. He growled, "Kiss this," gave her a hard push and retreated.
A violent hiss of blue sparks resulted.
The light show lasted only for a moment. Mary Melissa, limbs quivering, sprang away from the panel and fell heavily to the floor.
Remo watched with interest as Mary Melissa Mercy struggled to her knees. When she lifted her dazed face to his own, he nearly let out a whoop of triumph.
Her fiery red hair smoked at the ends. But that was not all that rose from Mary Melissa Mercy. The orange fog was pouring out of her mouth and nose.
"No!" she screamed thinly, clawing at the evasive vapor. "Noooo!"
Like some possessed ex-smoker, she scrambled after the cloud as it rose, frantically trying to draw it back inside her lungs.
"You know what they say about secondhand smoke," Remo warned. "It's a killer."
But Mary Melissa paid his taunt no heed. She was on her tiptoes moments after the smoke had vanished, still gulping at the air frantically. Nothing happened. She dropped back to the balls of her feet and her eyes careened wildly around the room, as if desperate for a fix.
She looked down at her hand. And seemed to hit upon an idea.
Mary Melissa Mercy began stab
bing at her own throat, attempting to reinfect herself with her gyonshi fingernail. She succeeded only in opening her carotid artery. Blood spurted out with each of her still rapid heartbeats, pooling on the cold concrete floor. Dazed, Mary Melissa Mercy fell back to her knees. She looked up imploringly at Remo, who regarded her with cold, unsympathetic eyes.
"The Leader..." she gasped. "The Leader . . . can save me."
Remo shook his head. "Not where he's going," he said solemnly.
The machines had ceased their merciless thrumming.
The Leader did not notice. His mind was locked on one thing and one thing alone: the Final Death. The contagion that would erase the stomach-desecrators and restore purity to the once clean face of the impure earth.
He did not hear Mary Melissa Mercy cry out as Remo delivered a killing blow. He did not see him move along the catwalk.
Only when the thick metal door to the security room burst inward with a crash did he know the gweilo had found him.
His face jerked toward the distraction, his blind eyes like nystagmic pinballs.
"Sinanju. . ." he whispered vacantly. His shoulders collapsed.
"We have unfinished business," he heard the voice of the gweilo say.
"I, too, had a mission," he rasped. "You have prevented me from fulfilling this sacred duty."
"That's the biz, sweetheart," the gweilo called Remo said.
The Leader's white eyes flew open in sudden remembrance. His lips formed a gleeful leer. "We have the soul of your master!" he cried victoriously. "He writhes in the Ultimate Death, and so is lost to you forever!"
"Forever is a whisper in the Void to Sinanju," returned Remo.
The Leader's shoulder's sagged, like a slowly bending wire hanger. The gweilo had seemed indifferent to his boast. "You do not understand!" he spat.
"Wrong," Remo said coldly. "I understand perfectly. I can't undo the past. But I can avoid the mistakes of the past. And you represent a big one."
The Leader's voice became the hiss of an angry serpent. "My Creed is as old as time! We are older than your pathetic House!"
Remo shrugged. "We've all got to go sometime."
He advanced on the Leader.
And in the eternal blackness in which he dwelt, the Leader saw something he had not witnessed in generations.
Color.
And the color was the hue of blood.
Somehow, it was inside both of his eyes.
Then it was gone.
And so was he.
Chapter 26
Chiun walked alone in the hills east of Sinanju. The evergreen trees pointed toward the heavens, some so high that they seemed to yearn for the clouds gathered above. Shafts of bright amber sunlight raked the sky like hollow swords. The air was cold and clean.
He walked the brown earth, between sharp inclines covered in rich green.
There was someone waiting for him up ahead, where the path diverged. Chiun knew he would be waiting here. Just as he had been waiting for him for nearly five decades.
The tall man wore a white shirt with a tight waist and loose sleeves, a pair of baggy black pants that tightened at the ankles, white leggings, and black sandals. His hair was short and black, his features were proud. His eyes were the shape of almonds and the color of steel.
The man smiled warmly at Chiun's approach.
"Hello, Father," Chiun said.
"My son," said the tall, handsome man. He looked Chiun up and down, nodding his approval. "You have grown," he said. He had not aged a day since Chiun had last seen him.
"It has been many years, Father."
"Yes. Yes, I suppose it has." There was a hint of sadness in his strong voice.
An awkward silence hung between the two-together as men for the first time.
"Why are you here, Chiun the Younger?" his father asked at last.
"I am young no longer, Father," Chiun explained. "I ceased to be young both in name and in spirit on the day you went into the hills. Little did I know then that my burdens were just beginning."
"And your pupil?"
"Alas, the son of my brother turned his back on our village," he said sadly. "I was forced to deal with him severely."
"Our disgrace is the same," Chiun the Elder said, nodding. "Mine public, yours private." He smiled. "To me you will always be 'young Chiun,' my son."
Young Chiun's wispy beard trembled. "You know of my crime, father?"
"Not a crime. A necessity. The boy was a renegade who had to be brought to task. No one but you could have fulfilled this duty. Your son in Sinanju was saved. The line will continue." He paused. "How is he, by the way?"
"Remo?" Chiun asked. "I know not, Father."
His father's eyes grew moist. "My grandson in Sinanju," he said wistfully.
"Remo is a fine boy, Father," Chiun agreed. "Pigheaded at times, but he respects our history. His history."
"Just as we have respected that same history?" Chiun the Elder laughed. "We are the same, you and I," he said, staring absently at a cleft in the wall of rock beyond.
Chiun knew where his father's thoughts were drifting. "You did only what you had to do, Father," he told the man who was now, inexplicably, younger than himself.
"As did you, Son. Why do you torment yourself?"
"My ancestors were shamed by my deed," Chiun said, his head bowed.
Chiun the Elder spread generous arms. "I am not ashamed. Am I not your most cherished ancestor?"
"You do not understand," Chiun said, his wrinkled face still downcast.
Chiun the Elder extended one hand, raising his son's chin until their eyes locked. "Know you this, my son. I understand more than any other. You think you have performed the most despicable of deeds. But it is only so here." He placed his fingertips against Chiun's forehead. "You know in your heart that the act you were forced to perform was just and right. As do I. You will never have peace nor leave this place until you come to understand that the greatest battle a man can win is the one within himself."
Old Chiun the Younger remained silent, contemplating his father's words.
"How is it you come to be here?" the old-man-who-was-young asked finally.
"I was protecting the boy, Father. My son is very strong in body, but not yet powerful enough in mind. Had he been banished to this place he would have built a home, married an angel, and fathered strapping boys with properly shaped eyes. He still yearns for peace, and the things he cannot have. He accepts what he should not and does not accept what he should." Chiun's words were more for himself than anyone else.
"Like you, my son?"
Chiun seemed uncertain. "Perhaps."
The handsome young old man clasped his hands behind his back. "We sacrifice for our children," he said simply. "It is the most difficult duty we are called upon to perform. And the most noble. Fortunate are those who are called to the temple of fatherhood."
Chiun's hazel eyes glistened in the starlight. "I missed you, Father."
Chiun the Elder smiled. "Yes, my son. I know. Your devotion sustained me in my last days in these mountains. When I looked to the sky, I saw you. The eternity of nothingness, was filled by you." He shook his head. "For me there was no emptiness, no suffering. I survived in you. And in your promise."
Chiun looked into the eyes of the man who had taught him so much in so precious little time. "I loved you, Father," he whispered. "I have abandoned mercy, pity, remorse, but I do know love. That was your greatest gift to me. Thank you, Father. Thank you."
The handsome visage of Chiun the Elder turned to his son, and his smile lit the heavens. Then he became the heavens, his face turning into the sky and stars.
Chiun looked up at the night, which now hemmed in the mountains, and felt all eternity around him. But it was no longer cold and distant.
At last, he understood.
The Leader had opened the recesses of Chiun's mind with his gyonshi poison. It was no wonder that no one returned after glimpsing this. Their bodies were merely empty shells for the p
oison that raged in their systems, driving the victim to attack without conscience or compunction. Their minds lived on in the hell or paradise of their own imaginings.
To remain was tempting. Here, anything was possible.
Chiun heaved a sigh and turned his back on eternity. There was still much he had to do. The work on Remo's body was all but finished. It could hardly grow any more skillful. But there was much yet to be done with the potentially limitless power of his mind.
"Sinanju swine!"
Chiun spun when he heard the taunt in Korean. "Who dares call me thus?" he shouted. The darkness had become total, bathing the mountains until they were immersed in a sea of sludge.
There was something about the darkness. Something vague. Something . . . inviting.
"I dare, puny one! Prepare yourself!"
The voice was getting closer. Chiun spun in the opposite direction. "Show yourself!" he demanded. He expected to see Nuihc once more, returned to goad him into battle. Instead, the figure that seemed to step through a slice in the darkness was wrinkled, small, and dressed in a mandarin's robe. He had a fringe of steel-blue hair, like a metallic halo that had fallen, and his skin was the color of a Concord grape.
The Leader. His pearl eyes burned with a chill fire.
"We meet again, Korean," he rasped.
The blackness of the sky was forming a pool on the ground nearby. Something was drawing Chiun toward the orifice.
"Begone, vision!" he commanded. "I am leaving this place. Do not dare attempt to prevent me."
The Leader merely leered. "You will never leave this place."
Chiun met the leer with a confident smile. "I will-now that you are here to take my place."
The Leader flew at him. Chiun struck a defensive posture. They collided, twin furies unleashed.
The fight was extraordinary, impossible, titanic. The heavens cracked with the sound of mighty blows. Five thousand years of history flowed perfectly and precisely together from their limbs. They danced with death, every muscle coming into play, the neurons of their brains sparking like flashbulbs.
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