His face became still as he scrolled from page to page. Once Mia tried to say something, but he waved her into silence.
He leant back into his chair, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Replacing the glasses, he looked at Mia: ‘What is it you want to know?’
‘Is it what I think it is?’
‘What do you think it is?’
‘Death touch. This is a book on Dim-Mak.’
‘Dim-Mak is not just about death, Mia. It is about healing, as well. Life and death. Yin and yang.’
‘Light and Dust.’
Chilli nodded. ‘It is about restoring chi as much as it is about draining it.’
‘I thought Dim-Mak was lost.’
‘It depends on what you mean by lost. The twelve Dim-Mak katas were always taught orally and it is true that things get lost in oral translation. The techniques also go back a very long time: the man who devised them was a doctor who lived towards the end of the southern Sung dynasty.’
‘A doctor?’
‘Yes, his name was Zhang Sangfeng.’ Chilli grimaced. ‘Admittedly, his methods were brutal. He experimented on live subjects—prisoners of war, criminals, animals—but it was the only way he could do his research. He discovered that if you strike certain points along the meridians, you could disrupt the flow of chi inside the body.’
‘And cause death?’
‘Again, it depends. There are many strikes. Sometimes a strike will cause excruciating pain, but the victim will stay alive. Other points are proper death-point strikes and will shut down the body completely. Zhang went through a large number of live subjects to try and work out exactly where and in what combinations these points should be manipulated.’
Mia pointed at the computer. ‘The Book of Light and Dust: is that a translation? Was that written by Zhang?’
‘Some of it, maybe.’ Chilli squinted at the screen. ‘But there is modern stuff in here as well—things that seem Western, in fact.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s almost as though it is a combination of two disciplines. But, yes, many of the strikes described in here—Jade Pillow, Yin Dream and so on—are traditional Dim-Mak. The writer calls them blacklight, but they are death touch.’
‘And what are these? What are these abbreviations? DIR, SU, FRC. What do they mean?’
‘They refer to direction, location and force. A Dim-Mak strike is very complex and involves the direction of the strike, the force used, which point is targeted and even at what time it is struck. The bladder meridian, for example, only becomes active between three P.M. and five P.M., so a strike involving this meridian would have to take place during this window of time.’
‘So the traditional techniques are still out there—being used.’
Chilli shrugged. ‘You can buy books detailing Dim-Mak techniques on Amazon. But in Ancient China, as you well know, warring families kept their martial-arts techniques secret. Zhang wove the death point strikes into formalised kata movements that masked their true purpose. The movements themselves were written down, but not what they meant. It was left to teachers to impart the real knowledge orally to trusted students or family members. As you can imagine, because such a limited number of people knew how to use them, many of the most potent techniques did, in fact, get lost over time.’
Mia flashed back on a memory. Ash standing behind Art, holding his arm, and Art’s head drooping in pain. ‘I once saw someone press a point on a man’s arm—right here—and the attacker became completely incapacitated.’
Chilli shook his head. ‘That’s not Dim-Mak. There are vulnerable places on the anatomy—the vagus nerve, the carotid artery and so on—that, if pressured, can produce incapacitation or unconsciousness in a victim. But that’s not Dim-Mak. Dim-Mak works directly on acupoints, causing the organs to crash.’
‘Like stopping someone’s heart?’
‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’
She was starting to feel sick. ‘But you said it was about healing as well.’
‘Absolutely. Dim-Mak is, at heart, medicinal. It was created by a doctor, remember. You cannot learn only one part of the system. Heart meridians, for example, are used primarily for healing. If you want to practise Dim-Mak, you have to know the healing as well as the destructive parts, otherwise you will fail. Dim-Mak is about balance: yin and yang. A Dim-Mak master would know how to use acupoints to cause death but he would also know how to use them to promote well-being. He would be a Qigong practitioner and a herbologist. And, most important, he would know antidote techniques.’
‘Antidote?’
‘He would know how to reverse a strike. You know how it is sometimes necessary to massage someone who has passed out in the dojo?’
Mia nodded. She had seen it happen more than once. Some fighter, usually a judo or jiu-jitsu practitioner, would become unconscious but if you massaged his back and made him sit up straight, it usually did the trick and helped him revive.
‘Well, Dim-Mak is a little like that. A reversal of the knockout.’ Chilli gestured at the screen. ‘Have you noticed how when the writer describes a blacklight technique he usually matches it with whitelight? That’s the reversal strike.’
He turned to look her full in the face. His eyes were outsize behind his glasses. ‘And now, why don’t you tell me what this is all about? What’s wrong, Mia?’
‘I think…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I think Ash has used Dim-Mak on Nick. I think he wants Nick to die.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Nick caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror as he looked past JC’s shoulder. It was glistening with Vaseline. JC finished taping his hands and the fight officials initialled the tapes and left the room.
Before shrugging into his gloves, Nick shadowboxed for a few seconds. His kicks were smooth, his punches fluid. He moved on air. In the ring it would be so different. In the ring, Burton would play havoc with his rhythm, smashing his fists through his guard, slamming his legs into his ribs. A battle of attrition. Ten rounds of pain and great exhaustion and the winner the one who could dig the deepest.
The ring. It was all he could think of now. Nothing mattered but the ring.
Dennis, his second corner man, helped him with his gloves and robe and then the three of them started to walk down the concrete corridor towards the steel doors leading to the arena. Nick could hear his fight song starting up, the sound muted.
The doors opened. The roar of the crowd and the aural blast of the music swept over him like a wave. For one moment his eyes were blinded by the massive spotlights cutting like axes through the dusk.
He continued walking, looking straight ahead, but in his peripheral vision he could see faces. People were standing up, their heads craning to watch his progress. Their teeth gleamed phosphorescent white, their eyes were black smudges. Mia would be out there, somewhere. And Ash. These thoughts drifted through his mind but they did not touch him. He was only aware of the beat of his heart.
JC held the ropes for him and he clambered through. The canvas-covered planking felt hard and unyielding underneath his bare feet.
It was time.
• • •
The chimes of the grandfather clock in Chilli’s entrance hall made Mia stare at her watch stupidly.
‘Nick’s fight. I’m going to miss it.’ She felt curiously light-headed.
‘Wait.’ Chilli reached out his hand. He looked shell-shocked. ‘These other fighters… and Okie… you said they died days after their fight?’
‘Yes. Ash must have given them the strike before they went into their fights—during that final sparring session.’
‘No.’ Chilli was emphatic. ‘Dim-Mak strikes are known to have a delayed effect, but the victim wouldn’t be able to simply continue calmly with his life. That’s the stuff of manga comics.’
‘Are you sure?’
For a long moment, he did not answer.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked again.
When he spoke, his voice was wooden. ‘There is a story that Zhang did attempt
to devise a series of strikes that would be the assassin’s perfect tool. The idea was that the victim would die unexpectedly many days later, when the perpetrator was long gone. But Zhang never succeeded. He is reputed to have admitted that his understanding of chi was not great enough, that it would be for someone else to discover—someone who had managed to take his research to the next level.’
Mia swallowed hard. ‘But surely Nick would have felt the strike.’
‘Not one strike. A series of strikes. Dim-Mak always requires both setup and activation strikes.’
‘OK, a series of strikes, then. Nick would have felt them, right? I mean, wouldn’t they have caused him severe pain?’
Chilli shook his head. ‘A Dim-Mak master uses chi augmentation: he adds his own chi to the strike. Excessive kinetic force is not required. In fact, only light contact is needed. Nick might not even have registered the strikes particularly. He definitely would have felt something, but if they were grappling, for example, the strikes would have been masked by the rough and tumble of the training. But I am convinced he would have collapsed—if not immediately afterwards, at least within hours.’
‘Unless Ash managed to do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Devise a delayed death touch.’
They stared at each other.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She spoke quickly. ‘There are antidotes. Whitelight. As you said. We only need to find out which meridian Ash attacked to reverse the strike.’
Chilli didn’t answer.
‘Can’t we? Chilli?’
‘You can only reverse some strikes, Mia. If the hara is involved—and for a delayed strike it would be—then it is not possible to reverse the process. No whitelight.’ He gestured at the screen. ‘When you read the book, you’ll notice that every now and then he mentions a strike that does not allow for a whitelight reversal. Besides, even if we could do a reversal, we wouldn’t know which particular strike he used among the many in this book. It’s futile.’
‘How can you say that to me?’ Her voice was rising.
‘Mia—’
‘You’re saying Nick is already dead!’ She was shouting at him. She wanted to shake him. Smash his glasses from his face. He looked so calm; so unconcerned in the face of calamity.
Chilli tried to put his arms round her but she shook herself loose.
‘I have to go to Nick. I have to take him to the hospital and warn the doctors.’
‘Nick will check out healthy. What are you going to tell the doctors? That he is suffering from a fatal chi drain?’
She stopped, shocked. ‘You’re saying they won’t believe me.’
‘Doctors in this country don’t work with chi, Mia. And even in China you would find it difficult to find someone who understands Dim-Mak this profoundly.’
‘You’re saying it’s too late. You’re saying Nick is already dying.’
He didn’t answer. She couldn’t bear the pity in his eyes.
‘Where are you going?’ He watched as she picked up her keys.
‘To the fight. I promised Nick I’d be there. I can still catch the end.’
‘Are you going to tell him? Mia, are you going to tell Nick?’
She turned to the door, feeling very tired. ‘It wouldn’t be any use now, would it?’
• • •
Burton was a malicious fighter. Nick usually felt no anger towards his opponents but, when Burton dragged his glove across Nick’s eye for the second time, he could feel the rage catching fire inside him. But the fight was going his way, which was probably why Burton was resorting to underhanded tactics. Nick tucked his chin into his shoulder. Only two more rounds…
But then it happened. Burton lurched forward and slammed his head into Nick’s face—whether deliberately was difficult to say. Nick blinked and shook his head. On Burton’s jaw was a smudged crimson moon. With a feeling of surprise Nick realised he was looking at his own blood.
He was cut.
Fuck.
Despite the haze of blood everything seemed very clear: the enlarged pores on Burton’s nose; the gleam of his eyeballs. Burton kept jabbing at his damaged eyebrow. Suddenly, with sickening speed, he turned at a complete right angle and whipped a sidekick straight into Nick’s abdomen.
Nick gasped. His legs felt incredibly heavy. Desperately he tried to stay out of the reach of that punishing jab. For a moment he saw double: two Burtons throwing punches at his head. He just managed to rock back and block in time to escape a vicious spinning back-kick.
If he could only last until the bell. If only JC did not throw in the towel. If only the referee did not stop the fight. He could still do it. Never say die.
Burton was dancing on the balls of his feet. He curled his lip and grinned behind his mouth guard. Kill time.
As if in slow-motion Nick saw Burton’s right travelling towards his chin… felt his own knees flexing as he ducked, his head moving in the opposite direction of the punch, his bloodied eye still fixed on Burton’s face. As if of its own volition, his left arm curled into a scything hook…
Nick broke Burton’s cheekbone. He could feel the impact; feel it right through the glove, travelling up his arm and into his elbow, and he could see it in Burton’s eyes.
Finish him. Nick slipped his shoulder and pivoted his hip…
• • •
From the back of the Tavern he watched as Nick dropped his shoulder in a beautifully executed move, driving a left into Burton’s side with stunning ferocity. When Nick’s right fist slammed into Burton’s jaw immediately afterwards, the moment looked stylised, choreographed—as though Burton were playing along willingly, allowing his head to fly back violently, theatrically, for best effect.
With one breath, the crowd breathed out—a soft whoosh of air. Aah. Burton’s legs gave way and he sagged slowly, ever so slowly, towards the canvas. The crowd exploded.
Dragonfly threw his hands into the air and screamed in ecstasy.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Pale light filtered through the shutters. There were still deep shadows in Nick’s bedroom, but there was enough morning light for Mia to see Nick’s jacket, slumped nervelessly over the back of a chair, and his boots lying sideways on the carpet where he had dropped them hours earlier.
Her eyes travelled slowly through the room, lingering on the photographs in their old-fashioned frames; on Nick’s collection of toy locomotives, on a pair of deeply creased boxing gloves hanging from a hook on the wall. They were the first pair of boxing gloves Nick had ever worn in a proper ring-fight. He had been only thirteen years old at the time and he had won. The gloves hung by the door and she knew that Nick touched them every morning for luck: a small, private ritual.
His arm was heavy across her breasts. Carefully Mia eased herself out from underneath and sat up straight, looking down at his sleeping body. He was lying on his stomach, arms and legs sprawling. His face was turned towards her, one cheek pressed into the pillow. The wide gash above his eye, which had so shocked her when she saw him immediately after the fight, had been neatly stitched up but the lid was swollen. He had also broken his small toe in the fifth round without even realising it: the second time it had happened in his career. ‘As long as it’s not the nose,’ he had joked afterwards in the changing room. ‘The nose is sacrosanct.’
She had smiled with him, had pressed her face deeply against his chest. ‘Did you see it, Mia? Did you see when the bastard tried that hook kick and I blocked him?’ She had nodded, yes. And yes, too, to his excited recap of the knockout punch. But she was lying, of course. She had not witnessed his triumph. She had arrived too late. She had only been in time to see the huge ungainly belt—garish as a child’s toy—being strapped round his waist.
How peaceful he looked; how happy. His strong hands were propped up on the pillow—defenceless in sleep, the fingers loosely curled. The shadow of stubble darkened his jaw but his mouth was soft and relaxed and made him look so young.
But his skin… his skin
seemed just slightly waxy… and those deep shadows under his eyes…
She breathed shallowly, trying not to succumb to the weight of emotion pressing on her crumbling heart. There would be time enough for tears later.
Slowly, slowly, she started to slide out of the bed. Nick mumbled, moved his head restlessly. She froze. He sighed, and continued to breathe evenly.
Keeping her eyes on him, she stooped to pick up her clothes from the floor. She tiptoed into the living room, closing the door of the bedroom softly behind her.
The curtains in the living room were open and she noticed that it was foggy outside, the mist pressing ghost-like against the windows. Winter had well and truly arrived.
His number was still on her speed-dial. As the phone rang several times she wondered if he had already disappeared, but then there was a click and his voice came on the line.
She took a deep breath. ‘Ash? If you have the time, why don’t we finish that tattoo?’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
He pulled the front door of his apartment building shut and looked around him. It was still foggy, but the mist was thinning: it no longer obscured, so much as transformed. Sharp edges seemed fluid, colours muted. In the garden square, the late-blooming oleander tree seemed marshmallow soft and the elegant white-pillared houses lining the street looked as though they were floating. He smiled in delight.
His whole life had been a search for beauty and the thrill of immediate sensation. Age was the enemy. Age dulled the ability for direct experience, the layering years forming an insensate carapace.
He glanced at his watch. He didn’t want her to have to wait for him too long. It was a special day. This morning she would put the finishing touches to the love letter she had been writing on his body over so many weeks. Her chi, his blood and inked numbers filled with light.
He started walking swiftly, enjoying the moistness in the air.
• • •
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