“I am refusing.”
“It would seem that way, wouldn’t it? Will you let me suck your cock, anyway? I really want to, you know.”
“Bullshit,” Chant said, and quickly looked away.
“It’s the truth,” Soussan murmured as she reached out with her good hand and pulled him onto the bed.
Chant did not resist as Soussan unzipped his fly and took out his stiff penis. “It’s true that I could kill you by biting off your prick,” she continued in a whisper as she stroked the member, kissed and licked its tip. “You’d hemmorhage to death, but I’d be dead the moment you felt my teeth sink into you. I didn’t come here to die, so if that’s what you’re thinking, don’t worry about it. Just enjoy, and come when you want. I’d like you to go around the world on me.”
In fact, danger was not what Chant had been thinking about at all. What he was thinking about, what most concerned him, as he watched Soussan’s head moving rhythmically up and down on his penis, was the possibility that he had already lost in his duel with Bai. It might take the old Japanese ninja some time and trouble to destroy his body, but his granddaughter was already swallowing his soul.
In the pale light of dawn, Soussan’s eyes glowed with passion, wonder, and—perhaps—doubt.
Was it doubt? Chant wondered as he sat in a chair beside the bed, sipping tea. Or was it triumph?
“Would you like something to eat?” Chant asked quietly.
Soussan shook her head, then abruptly rose and quickly dressed. Once, she glanced at him, and whatever had been in her eyes before was gone, replaced by something Chant could not read. She went to the door, opened it, then turned back to him. “Sleep well today, Chant,” she said in a low voice. She avoided looking at him. “Tonight you fight Ko.”
“Where?”
“Up in the high country.”
“Where in the high country?”
“My grandfather says that you and Ko will find each other.”
FOURTEEN
Chant, dressed in a loose-fitting black sweater, baggy black pants, black seaman’s cap and black sneakers, parked his car at the side of the road a mile from the lumber camp, then slipped into the woods. He climbed a tree at the top of a knoll, scanned the night forest below him. He doubted that Bai had gone to so much trouble simply to ambush him, but he was certainly going to try to set up his own ambush, if possible.
He waited almost two hours, but failed to detect any noise or movement that would betray the presence of Ko searching for him. Just before midnight, he climbed down from the tree and walked the rest of the way to the lumber camp. He walked into the clearing at the center of the camp, waited beside a flagpole in the middle.
Five minutes later the big man appeared in the moonlight at the edge of the clearing, fifty yards to Chant’s left. Like Chant, Ko was dressed in baggy black clothes, and his face was smeared with soot.
As Ko slowly walked toward him, Chant unhurriedly drew his .45 from his waistband, raised it, and aimed at the massive chest.
An arrow sang its song of death in the air, barely an inch from Chant’s head, and thudded into the flagpole.
Chant lowered the automatic and turned as Bai and Soussan emerged from the forest. Both seemed oblivious to the cold, despite the fact that they wore nothing more than long, flowing, ceremonial robes. Both carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. Soussan’s bow was held at her side, her splinted finger braced against the grip. Bai’s weapon was held ready, and a second arrow had already been strung.
“Good evening, Sensei,” Chant said easily.
“Remove the bullets, John,” Bai said. “Throw them and the gun in opposite directions.”
Chant did as he was instructed.
“Now your knife.”
Chant shrugged the throwing knife into his palm, stuck the blade into the pole next to the arrow from Bai’s bow. “All right now, Sensei?”
“Who knows?” the old man replied in his wispy, singsong voice. “The ninja has innumerable weapons at his disposal, and he knows innumerable ways to conceal them. I will say only that this match will end with an arrow through your head if you attempt to use any weapon other than your body. Be warned.”
Although the temperature was well below freezing, Ko proceeded to remove his sneakers and socks. Chant kept his on; there were razor blades implanted around the edges of the soles.
Chant did not intend to waste time disposing of Ko; in fact, he was more concerned with the two Zen archers who were standing perfectly still, watching him carefully. Not only did he have to kill Ko, Chant thought, but he had to deliver the decisive blow while the man’s body was interposed between him and the archers; if he could reach the forest without being skewered, Bai and his granddaughter would not escape him. With the ninja master dead, Yabu and Kiyama would not pose any problems.
Chant easily avoided a side kick thrown by the giant, and in that instant could have used the razors in his sneakers to slit the femoral artery on the inside of Ko’s thigh. However, Bai and Soussan each had a clear shot at him, and he contented himself with delivering a short, hard counterpunch to Ko’s midsection. He wheeled away, then maneuvered for the position he wanted. He was about to throw a spinning high kick at Ko’s throat when an arrow cracked into the frozen ground at his feet. Chant and Ko stepped away from each other.
“John,” Bai said dryly, “please remove your sneakers. Such footwear does not suit the classical grandeur of this occasion.”
“My feet will get cold, Sensei.”
The arms of the old Japanese blurred in the moonlight, and a moment later an arrow had pierced the rubber sole of one sneaker, pinning it to the ground.
“I think I’ll take off my sneakers,” Chant said, pulling his foot free of the pinioned sneaker. He bent over to take off the other sneaker, then straightened up and darted to one side just in time to avoid a high kick that, had it landed, would have snapped his neck.
Ko was very good, Chant thought—incredibly fast for such a huge man However, Chant suspected that his opponent was too young to have done much more than endlessly practice classic kata for most of his life, and would be unfamiliar with some of the more exotic forms of freestyle fighting. Ko would expect his opponents to react in a certain prescribed manner, in a series of recognizable kata. Chant did not intend to be so obliging.
First, Chant thought, he would get Ko’s attention.
“Here, Dumbo!” Chant cried as he planted his legs wide apart and threw his arms up.
Startled, the other man stood still for close to five seconds, staring in disbelief at Chant’s exposed midsection. Then Ko leaped forward to close the distance between them. He stopped, leaned to the side, cocked his right leg, then screamed in triumph and fired a mighty side kick.
Shifting the focus of his mind as well as his vision, Chant watched the huge foot coming through the air toward his solar plexus as if in slow motion. He drew in his kai from his extremities, from the earth beneath his feet, and felt it swelling inside him, shimmering with energy as it compacted into a ball that filled his torso at the same instant that Ko’s foot landed on his stomach.
Chant absorbed the force of the blow, sent the shock through his kai down into the earth. Then he slowly lowered his arms, sucked in a deep breath—and smiled at Ko.
“Try again, Dumbo,” Chant said, repeating his previous motions and exposing his midsection.
Stunned, Ko stood still. Awe and a growing fear were the shadows that passed across his face and eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Chant continued as he again lowered his arms, stood with his hands on his hips. “Cat got your tongue? You certainly did enough talking when you visited the Hmong compound.”
Bai barked a warning in Japanese, but it came too late.
Ko’s highly conditioned reflexes enabled him to turn his head slightly, saving his right eye; the left eye exploded as Chant’s stiff middle finger pierced the socket. Blood and gore rolled down the man’s left cheek.
Ko screamed in sh
ock and pain, but he did not make the mistake of turning away. Still squared away, he was able to block Chant’s roundhouse kick that would have crushed his spine. Then he began to slowly back away, flailing his arms in a windmill motion that was purely defensive.
Chant, now in no hurry, had a variety of killing strikes at his disposal. He was about to roll under Ko’s flailing arms and tear off his testicles when an arrow suddenly struck the ground beneath his feet.
“Enough!” Bai cried.
Ko, back straight, immediately backed away a few steps until he was out of Chant’s range, then slumped forward and cupped his bloody, empty left eye socket with his hands. He did not make a sound.
Chant carefully gauged the distances between himself, Ko, and the forest edge, trying to calculate if he could make it to the trees, snapping the big man’s neck on the way.
Bai’s bow was drawn, the arrow strung in it aimed at the center of Chant’s chest. Chant remained still.
At a command from Bai, Ko turned and walked unsteadily to his master’s side. Then the old man and the half-blind giant disappeared into the night, leaving Soussan standing alone at the edge of the moonlit clearing.
Soussan stood perfectly still for a long time, her gossamer robe billowing in a cold breeze, then finally walked over to him. The woman’s eyes glowed with sexual arousal.
“I will attend to you,” Soussan said in a husky voice, bowing very low before him.
“I think your big friend needs more attending than I do, sweetie.”
“I’m not for Ko,” Soussan said, straightening up, then reaching out and caressing his cheek. “I’m for you.”
“If I’d tried to go after Ko and your grandfather while there was still time, would you have killed me?”
“Yes,” Soussan said simply.
“Your grandfather plays with a stacked deck.”
“Of course. But so do you—you brought a gun and a knife.”
“I had no way of knowing what Ko would have on him,” Chant said, bending to put on his socks and sneakers. “Besides, this isn’t my game. I’m not standing in your way; you’re standing in mine. All I want is Baldauf. Your grandfather wanted to see me fight Dumbo; he saw it, but he wouldn’t let me win.”
“You’re not meant to win; only to do battle and demonstrate.” Soussan paused, frowned. When she spoke again, her voice had grown distant. “Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you win me.”
“I’m not interested in winning you.”
“Now it’s you who’s lying, Chant.”
“Listen, sweetie I’m trying to figure out how to escape from you, not win you.”
“We’ve only known each other a very short time, and we met under rather bizarre circumstances, but—”
Chant laughed. “I don’t know what makes you say that, sweetie. Bizarre? I meet women like this all the time.”
But he’d never fallen so hard or so fast, Chant thought. Something was very wrong.
Soussan didn’t smile. “I know I would make you a perfect wife, Chant, and you would make a perfect husband for me. It’s begun to occur to me that such an arrangement may be what my grandfather is really after. The two of us together, in the end, may be what he wants most of all.”
Chant clucked his tongue, raised his eyebrows. “That clever old matchmaker.”
“You don’t take anything I say seriously, do you?”
“I take the fact that you’re part of a team that came here to kill me very seriously.”
“This business is strange, even for my grandfather. What else could he have in mind?”
“I wouldn’t presume to guess what Master Bai ever has in mind, sweetie—except that he’s amusing himself at my expense.” Chant paused, stared hard at the woman. “Understand this, Soussan: At the moment, your grandfather has the power to kill me almost at will—”
“You have the power to kill me at will.”
“At the moment, it would serve no purpose. Master Bai chooses to play with me at great risk. If he makes one mistake, gives me one opening, I’ll kill all of you.”
“I’ll tell him you said that.”
“You don’t have to; he understands it. I want to make sure you understand it.”
Soussan shivered, wrapped her arms around her body. “I’m cold, Chant. Please take me back to your room.”
“You’ll get the same examination.”
“I certainly hope so,” Soussan replied, and winked at him with her brown eye.
“God, your stomach must be sore,” Soussan murmured softly as she gently ran her fingers over the sharply articulated muscles of Chant’s belly.
“Mmm. It’s a bit tender.”
“You’d never know from the way you’ve been humping me. Ready to go again?”
“No.” Chant lied.
“What? Only three ejaculations in two hours? I appreciate the fact that you had a bit of a workout before taking me to bed, but I’d hate to think that you were losing your lust for me.”
If anything, Chant thought, it was getting stronger. “It’s age, sweetie,” he said dryly.
“Please don’t call me that, Chant,” Soussan said seriously.
“I’ve got close to twenty years on you.”
“It’s probably a good thing. I’m not sure I’d be able to handle you if you were any younger. Incidentally, that was some examination you conducted. You’ve got a hard prick, all right, but it isn’t made of cast iron. If I’d had a razor-spring up my young puss, you’d be a very unhappy man right now.”
Chant’s laughter was hollow and strained. In fact, he thought, he would be very dead—especially if the razor-spring had been poisoned. His lust for this woman, inexplicable in its intensity, could kill him yet.
Soussan could be much more than just an apprentice, he thought; she could be Bai’s finest, subtlest, most carefully honed weapon. And he could seem to find no defense.
“I’m flattered,” Soussan said as she feathered her fingertips up and down Chant’s stiff penis, then stroked his testicles. “There’s never been any question about your desire for me, but I’m actually beginning to think that you may trust me as well.”
“No!” Chant said sharply, gripping her wrist and pulling her hand away from his genitals. “Making love to you before I’d probed you for hidden weapons was an incredibly stupid act. I don’t trust you, and I consider myself very fortunate to still be alive. I don’t want you to count on my ever being so stupid again. If you do, you’re likely to make a mistake that will force me to kill you out of hand. I don’t want to kill you unless I have to—but know that I will.”
“You’ve already made that quite clear,” Soussan said, a trace of hurt in her voice. “Still, I prefer to take what you did as a compliment.”
“Don’t. It was exactly what I said it was: a stupid mistake.”
Soussan sighed, lay back in the bed, and rested her head on Chant’s chest. “I’ve never seen anyone absorb a kick like you did, Chant,” she said softly as she passed her palm over his stomach. “And I’ve seen many men—masters—fight. Ko kicked you hard enough to knock over a tree, and I think he barely managed to back you up a step or two.”
“That’s because I’m not a tree.”
“Indeed.” She touched his penis, and Chant did not remove her hand. “This part of you reminds me of a tree, though.”
“Mmm.”
“You have funny-colored eyes.”
“Do I?”
“Nobody’s ever made love to me like you do, Chant. Can you believe that?”
“No.”
“But it’s the truth. And I’ve never even come close to enjoying sex with anyone like I enjoy it with you.”
“Lie.”
“Truth.”
“I haven’t forgotten why your grandfather sent you here, Soussan.”
“All I know is that he did send me,” Soussan replied distantly. “I’m no longer sure why. I told you what he told me.”
“I
know what you told me; I don’t know what Master Bai told you.”
“Grandfather is a very devious man, Chant.”
“That’s for sure.”
Soussan propped herself up on one elbow, stared hard down into Chant’s face. “I’m even more afraid of you now than I was before.”
“Bullshit.”
“No.”
Chant smiled thinly. “If you really are afraid, then you’ve learned an invaluable lesson; nobody gets laid for free.”
“How did you absorb the force of Ko’s kick?”
“Ask your grandfather.”
“Does he know?”
“He may. I’m not sure. It’s a special skill that I didn’t learn from him.”
“Who taught it to you?”
“I’ve had, and have, many teachers—before and after Master Bai.”
“God, would I like to learn how to focus and redirect energy like that.”
“The lesson is that you and a teacher will find each other when you are ready to absorb the particular lesson that master has to give you. You’ll never be able to find the other masters who’ve taught me; they will not be available to you, no matter how hard you search.”
“Why not?”
“You’re an apprentice of Black Flame.”
“They’d know?”
“Of course.”
“Will you teach me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“For the reason I just gave you.”
“Why does it make such a difference?”
“That’s a question to which only you can supply the answer.”
“See. Grandfather was right again. I do believe you are teaching me.”
“I’m teaching you nothing. I’m questioning your questions.”
“You said that Black Flame burns away the soul, makes you a zombie.”
“A spiritual zombie, yes.”
“Then the Black Flame has not yet completely consumed my heart. I could not have lost my soul and still feel all the things I feel for you. If it’s true that I’m the ultimate prize that Grandfather holds out to you, you still have a chance to win—for both of us.”
Chant Page 14