After the after-hours quiet of the office building, the outside sounds and smells of the street were jarring. The whoosh of cars, the stink of petrol, the thump of a boom box—everything seemed magnified. It had stopped raining. But there was still moisture in the air and the streetlights looked as if they had haloes round them.
Mia’s mobile phone pinged. Nick watched as she read the message. The expression on her face did not change, but he felt suddenly apprehensive.
‘Is everything all right? Who was that?’
‘Only Lisa. She’s just confirming she’ll take my shift tomorrow so I can go to the fight.’ Mia carefully closed the lid and slipped the mobile back into her bag. She said, ‘Drop me off at my place. And then I want you to go home and sleep.’
‘Aren’t you coming with me?’
‘No. You need rest and you need to get your focus back. You’re determined to do this fight, so—do it right. Push everything else out of your mind.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will I see you tomorrow morning? Before I leave for the weigh-in?’
‘I hope so.’
Her eyes were huge in her small face. She had pulled her hair into a clumsy top-knot and it made her cheekbones stand out sharply. She had lost weight, he realised.
She suddenly smiled. ‘No retreat, no surrender.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Mia struck a match and brought it to the wick. Cupping the candle with her hand, she placed it on the dressing table, where the flickering flame reflected glassily in the mirror. She stepped back, her eyes automatically searching the shadows for Sweetpea before she remembered.
The room was stuffy and she opened the window wide and leant out, elbows propped on the sill. She stared across the dark rooftops into the distance as though she might see his flat from here—the lovely moss-green room with its books, its soft rugs and paintings—and she wondered what he was doing right now, the man she would be meeting tonight.
Turning away from the window, she stopped in front of the dressing table once more. As she brought her hand up to undo her hairclip, she paused. In that gesture, she suddenly saw Molly: the head slanted, the long neck, the pale, tapering fingers. But then she removed the clip and her hair curled round her face and she was Mia. No one here to rely on, except herself.
She knelt in front of the trunk and took out the small engraved tin box hiding underneath her clothes. Sitting down cross-legged, she placed the box with needles and moxa on her lap.
For a moment she closed her eyes. Into her mind came thoughts of broken webs of light, of darkness and death, and of time running out. She thought back to the text message she had received on her phone an hour ago.
MEET ME AT THE RETREAT. IF YOU BEAT ME, NICK IS SAFE.
She opened her eyes and lifted the lid off the box. No more time to waste.
• • •
The track leading to the Retreat seemed narrower tonight and less even. She felt sharp pebbles bite into the soles of her feet.
The cry of a night bird brought her up sharply. The startled echo seemed to spin out into the woods and set her nerves on edge. Above her head, through a tracery of black branches, an army of restless clouds raced across the sky. A cratered moon glowed with preternatural brightness.
She pressed on. Not far to go now. Round the next bend in the track was the gate with its stiff catch and then the clearing with the house.
The gate was open.
The gate was never open.
Fear. It covered her mind, a sticky spider’s web. It slowed her pace, dried her mouth. A gust of wind shook the trees and the rustle of leaves sounded like women sighing. You die in here. You die out there.
She should go back. Back to the house in London. She would lock the doors and close the windows. She would make herself hot tea and turn on the lights and all the shadows would leave.
I love you, Mia. You’re my life. Nick smiling at her, his hands so gentle. Nick, who would be sleeping right now, his heavy shoulders at rest. He would be gathering his strength, his lungs inhaling and exhaling cleanly; the energy inside his veins an insistent pulse.
She pushed the gate even wider and shivered at the cold touch of the wrought iron against her palm. As she continued walking, the wind suddenly increased in strength and an acrid smell filled the air. She couldn’t place it. It mingled uneasily with the scent of jasmine and the smell of rotting leaves. It made her feel even more anxious. The smell was unfamiliar, intrusive.
The last bend in the track was in front of her. On the other side was the Retreat. She turned the corner and stopped, feeling sick.
The Retreat was lit brightly by that toxic moon and it gaped, an empty burnt-out shell. The bamboo roof was completely gone and only a few beams thrust up into the sky. The windows stared, blind. She could see right through the charred frames to the swaying trees on the other side.
She had to force herself to place one leg in front of the other. Her chest felt tight. She walked across the clearing, her hands to her face as though they might shield her eyes from the devastation.
The stone steps were black where the fire had left its mark. Something glinted on the ground: the wind chime that used to hang at the entrance, the individual chimes now twisted and melted together, their voices stilled.
Slowly she stepped through the wreck of the door. Her eyes saw the destruction inside, but her brain refused to understand how beauty and elegance could be erased so thoroughly. Some things were too terrible to grasp.
It was almost all gone. The wall-hangings, the wood panelling, the exquisite vases and polished hanbo staffs. At her feet was a half-burnt book, its pages charred and curling.
The various rooms were filled with ash. She hurried past the room of crickets, her gaze averted, not wanting to examine what she would find inside. The dojo was a black hole. The mirrors on the walls had buckled in the heat and her reflection seemed elongated and warped, as though she were looking into a mirror in a fun house.
Tears were running down her face. Her heart felt broken at the terrible loss: at the knowledge that the imprint of the women who had dwelled here had been burnt into oblivion and their true names erased.
A small sound came from behind her—like settling dust. She spun round, her eyes searching the layered darkness. But there was no one.
No one.
And that’s when it struck her. He was not going to come. He was not going to give her the chance to win from him Nick’s life.
‘No!’ She screamed but her voice had no power. ‘Where are you? Show yourself!’
But she was alone. There was only the wind in the trees and a maimed moon slipping from the sky.
HEART
‘The starting point for developing kiai is to find kokoro, or heart… “indomitable spirit” and it simply means to refuse to accept defeat.’
—Forrest E. Morgan, Maj. USAF, Living the Martial Way
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The photograph of Molly and Juan on her bedside table was taken long before their death. The picture had rested, forgotten, in a shoebox along with a brace of other snapshots taken over the years. It was only several months after her parents’ accident that Mia had discovered the picture. It had stood on her bedside table ever since.
Sometimes she would look at her mother’s face and wonder about her last moments. What had gone through her mother’s head as she had struggled against the current, her father’s unconscious body a deadweight in her arms? Molly must have been so afraid. But what would have been the greater fear: her fear of drowning, or the fear that she might let go of her burden in order to swim unencumbered for the shore and safety?
Last night, as she had headed for the Retreat, Mia knew she had made the same choice as her mother. But whereas Molly had been given a fighting chance—pitting her own strength against the current—she, Mia, had not been given the opportunity of meeting the challenge head-on. By not meeting her, Ash had denied her that. And she still
was no closer to finding the answer to how he was planning to take Nick’s life.
Mia turned away from the photograph and reached for her leather jacket. The fight was in a few short hours. She had done all she could for Nick; she could now only watch from a distance.
Poor Nick. She had pounded on his door at the crack of dawn this morning and had dragged him, sleepy and baffled, back to her studio. An hour later he had left her house with the Keeper’s mark on his chest. Mixed into the alchemical blood marriage of skin and ink was her own chi. In the face of unknown danger it seemed feeble protection, but what else was there for her to do?
If only Nick would agree not to fight. She had tried to argue with him one last time, but he had already entered that mental zone where fighters go in the final hours before they enter the ring, and his mind was closed to her.
Just as she was about to leave the room, the phone started ringing.
‘Mia? Flash.’ Without giving her time to respond, he continued, ‘I found the book. It’s massive big.’
Her fingers tightened round the receiver. ‘What does it say?’
‘Well, that’s where it gets hairy. I found the site and, apart from the book itself, there’s also some other stuff on the site, which looks like a bunch of scientific gobbledygook. But the actual Book of Light and Dust, I can’t get into. It’s password-protected.’
‘Can you crack it?’
‘I don’t know.’ She heard him sigh. ‘It’s a fifteen-character-long password.’
She glanced at her watch: seven P.M. Nick’s fight was at nine. On the bike it would take her about forty minutes—an hour if traffic was bad—to get to the Tavern. She could still make it easily, even if she stopped by the office first.
She reached for the keys. ‘I’m coming over. I’ll see you soon.’
• • •
Waiting was always the worst part. Nick moved restlessly on the bench.
He was alone in the changing room except for his reflection in the mirror that covered the wall opposite. The fluorescent lights made his skin look sallow and his new tattoo stood out like a black bruise on his chest. Two eyes: in one, a circle with three lines.
JC had been incensed when Nick arrived at the weigh-in earlier with the blood still bubbling from underneath his skin.
‘You got the tat this morning? Are you crazy? You’re not supposed to bleed before the fight, you idiot. What the hell were you and Mia thinking of?’ JC’s face was alarmingly red and he only calmed down once Nick stepped on to the scales. For once Nick had managed to nail his weight. In the past, much to JC’s despair, he had often been forced to reach for a skipping rope to get rid of those two or three excess pounds that would follow him into fight days like a curse. No such problems today; in fact, he had weighed in slightly under.
Once again, he touched the black mark that sat on top of his heart. It would now be with him for as long as he was alive.
‘I thought this was bad luck and against the rules,’ he had said to Mia. ‘Now that we’re together, aren’t you now banned from being my Keeper?’
‘Maybe rules were meant to be broken.’ Her face was pale but determined.
Nick sighed. He had agreed to the tattoo simply because it had seemed like the easier request. He certainly wasn’t going to cancel the fight as Mia wanted, so if giving him some ink helped her make peace with his decision, then he was happy to play along.
He wondered how she was coping. He would have called her but JC was a stickler: his fighters were never allowed phones in the changing room before a fight. Weeping wives and wide-eyed kiddies were banned as well. Nothing that could interfere with the focus of the fighter was permitted and no one except corners was allowed.
Nick moved his shoulders. He still had a strange little ache under one shoulder-blade, which he had picked up during his final sparring session with Ash. It wasn’t painful, but it was niggling. Nothing to be worried about, though, and he certainly wasn’t going to mention it to JC.
Above the door was a big round clock with a bland white face and thick black arms. A thinner arm ticked down crimson seconds. Two more hours to go.
• • •
Flash’s eyes were bloodshot and his hair lank. ‘You and Nick owe me ten piña coladas.’ He gestured at the computer. ‘That’s as far as I got.’
The screen showed an illustration: a book with its title written on the cover in flowing script.
Mia stared at the screen, her eyes burning. Somehow the image on the screen in front of her seemed less real than the phantom book of her dreams. But the title was unmistakable: The Book of Light and Dust.
Underneath the title was a large yin and yang symbol brilliantly coloured in saffron yellow and black, but as she watched, it slowly dissolved and in its place—like a ghostly hologram—appeared a face with empty eye sockets and a knowing smile. It had a rope round its neck.
‘Creepy, huh?’ Flash wrinkled his nose.
The desiccated face was dissolving, replaced by the floating yin and yang teardrops.
‘I know what that is.’
Flash lifted a surprised eyebrow. ‘What? The skeleton?’
‘It’s not a skeleton. It’s a mummy.’
‘Whatever.’ Flash shrugged. ‘It’s dead anyway.’
‘Can I try?’ Mia leant over and placed her fingers on the keyboard. On the screen the mummy was coming into focus again.
At the bottom of the page was a small box: Enter password. Hesitantly she typed:
rosalia
She stopped and searched her brain for the sleeping girl’s last name. Lombario? Lombaro?
lombardo
The screen flipped over.
‘Wow. You go, girl.’ Flash nodded, impressed. ‘That’s it. We’re in.’
The body wears out and we are old… We sleep less and we dream less. Light is turning to dust.
‘Check this out.’ Flash was scrolling down the page and the screen in front of them was now covered with line drawings of bodies and body parts: feet, shoulders, backs, legs, a neck, the top of a head. The drawings were studded with black dots that were numbered and initialled, and these dots were connected to each other by crimson lines.
‘What’s going on here, then?’
‘They’re acupuncture points. Those red lines are meridians. See that?’ Mia pointed at a line that ran down the midline of the body from the top of the head to the genitalia. ‘That’s the Du pulse—the directing vessel—which carries the downward flow of yang energy. There, at the back, is the Ren pulse, the conception vessel, which carries the yin flow of energy up the spinal column. These initials refer to the different meridians: LU is the lung meridian, K is the kidney meridian, H the heart meridian and so forth. The numbers are specific acupoints on the meridians.’
‘And this stuff about blacklight and whitelight?’
‘I don’t know.’ She paused. ‘But there’s something weird going on here.’
An idea, as ephemeral as a cloud, as noxious as poison gas, seeped into her brain.
‘Mia?’
She looked at Flash unseeingly.
‘Mia, are you all right?’
‘Chilli.’ Her voice sounded strange to her ears. ‘I have to show this to Chilli.’
• • •
Kenny Burton, Nick’s opponent, walked past the open door of Nick’s changing room, clutching an energy bar in his fist. For a moment their eyes met. Kenny had a stubby neck and a buffed-up six-pack like a member of the cast of 300. His arms were thick and coiled. Usually, Nick had no fear of this kind of excessively muscle-bound fighter. Pumped-up muscles used oxygen and oxygen cut down on speed. A slow kickboxer was a doomed kickboxer. But he and JC had watched previous fight tapes and he knew this equation did not hold true for Burton. The guy was fast.
Kenny smiled at Nick, showing very pink gums. They had already done the staring-each-other-down routine at the weigh-in and no display of animosity was needed at this point. But, despite the smile, Kenny was using his body lang
uage to intimidate. I am strong. I’m stronger than you. I’m going to pulp you. It was all there in the swagger of the hips and the set of the shoulders. Nick nodded and smiled back, keeping his eyes cool. Yeah, right, tosser. Go and play with yourself.
As Kenny moved out of sight, Nick forced himself to relax. He placed his tongue on his hard palate and started to breathe evenly though his nose, the way Ash had taught him.
Ash. And Mia. Nick now accepted that the two of them inhabited a world that existed outside his own frame of reference. This morning Mia had told him that she had visited the Retreat the night before. She hadn’t told him exactly what had happened while she was there and he hadn’t asked. Frankly, he didn’t want to know—didn’t even want to think about it. He loved Mia more than anything, but all of this stuff was so strange. He was a grunt. Sweat, tears, blood and bruises in the real world: these were the things he understood and could wrap his head round. Besides, tonight he had more pressing dangers to deal with than the shadowy, undefined threat posed by Ash. The ring was a dangerous place. One blow could put him in a coma. The damage he sustained tonight could lead to the lobes of his brain separating and the slow onset of cotton mouth and dementia.
Bloody hell. What cheery thoughts. Way to go, Duffy. Winding yourself up before a fight—bloody stupid. He breathed in deeply once more.
But even though he could feel his heart calming itself and his pulse slowing, one question refused to leave his mind.
Why? The question he and Mia had been unable to answer. Why had Ash gone to all the trouble of getting him into the best shape of his fighting career if his only goal was to kill him?
• • •
When Chilli opened the door to his flat, Mia hardly recognised her teacher. She was used to seeing him in a white martial-arts uniform but tonight he was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts. She realised she had never seen his legs before. They were thin but muscular with deep blue veins running down the calves. When he sat down in front of his computer, he slid a pair of old-fashioned cat’s-eye glasses on to his nose.
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