Elektra (11 page)

And these children… they were so much more mature than adults in the matters of pain. They bore it silently and without complaint, never crying or whining, saving every bit of their energy so they could fight for life for another day, another hour, another five minutes. And every single one of them gave to someone else—they shared the tiny bits of food they had, they shared what comfort they could, they shared
themselves.

Just as Typhoid would share of herself.

They were drawn to her. She was the beautiful Asian woman among the mass of dark-skinned adults and children, quietly drifting among them like a golden-tinted ghost. They were the walking nearly dead— naked skeletal bodies with bloated bellies, huge, hairless skulls with tiny, glittering teeth and sunken eyes. Her sparkling, sympathetic gaze invited them to come forward and touch her. They begged for food, and she gave out pieces of candy crawling with her death; they wanted to touch the silk fabric of her blouse and slacks, so she invited one after another to crawl onto her lap and be hugged; they wanted comfort, so she pressed her black lips against the dried-out skin of their scalps, giving dozens of them little kisses of disease. In death she would give them freedom, finally, from their suffering. Yes, this was a good place, a very special place, but…

Kirigi was calling to her.

Typhoid felt his need the instant it sang through her blood. He wanted her for something, something important, and his silent call was like fuel to her addiction. Like her beloved pain, Kirigi was a
sensation
in her veins, the cry of a drug only she used and which she could not deny.

With a final goodbye kiss to the people who watched her, blown on the dark wind of an isolated forest, Typhoid Mary drifted out of the village she’d ensured would never survive and headed back to Japan.

PULAU KOMODO

There were people who lived on this primitive tropical island, but those who did built their crude wooden homes on stilts and pulled what little livestock they had inside at night. They farmed the rocky soil but not very successfully, and they catered to the tourists who came with the diving and biking companies, welcoming the foreign money to help support themselves in their poor economy. They left the tourists to make their way, safely or not, with the guides, but the native islanders watched their own children constantly and even the adults stayed in pairs and traveled armed with heavy walking sticks and machetes, although speed was always the best defense.

If you couldn’t outrun the dragons, you couldn’t survive.

Tattoo grinned and followed behind the guide he’d hired to lead him into the denser jungle on Pulau Komodo. The brown-skinned man, whose name was Budi, knew the trails well, and Tattoo had to stay on his toes to keep up. Budi was a local guy, older and balding, with black eyes and skin as sun-wrinkled as an old belt; he’d looked at Tattoo critically and decided he was good to go physically. Pressing a crumpled American twenty-dollar bill into Budi’s hand—enough money to support his impoverished family for at least a month— had ensured the guy would take Tattoo to see what he wanted.

It was hot and humid here, and Budi had told him in broken English that November, only a month ago, had actually been the hottest month of the year. There were plenty of dragons around, but they were slow and sluggish because of the humidity, with less of a tendency to be aggressive; this obviously made it a good time to visit and study them. Tattoo was very interested in these prehistoric animals, and while the guide could think he was a tree-hugger environmentalist or a misguided animal lover, Tattoo had his own reasons for wanting to get close to them. It all had to do with that long, blank patch of skin on the outside length of his left leg.

Picking his way up a steep, rocky slope in front of Tattoo, the guide came to the crest of it and stopped, then gestured back at his tourist.
“Ora,”
Budi said, pointing.
“Buaja darat.” Ora
was the local word for Komodo dragon, and Tattoo had heard the term often since his arrival. The other phrase meant “land crocodile,” something Budi was using only, he thought, to impress this man who he thought was nothing but an ignorant tourist. The dragons were really lizards that could grow huge, up to ten feet long and three hundred pounds, with bacteria-drenched mouths that gave infectious bites to their prey. They were fast runners and surprise attackers, cannibalistic to their own young, and the island’s visitors and guides did well to stay out of their way. It had taken a bit of doing to find this guide, who was willing to get Tattoo closer to the lizards than anyone else, but
not
in the context of the more sluggish, people-accustomed ones that hung around the rangers’ shacks. No, Tattoo needed to see them in the wild, in
action
—he wanted to see them at rest, and he wanted to see them attack and feed. As magnificent as the animal might be, he needed to make sure it was worthy and…
capable
of being added to his body.

Tattoo moved up beside Budi and stared down the slope. Sunning itself on a large, flat rock not twenty feet below them was an impressively sized lizard. It was difficult to estimate, but Tattoo would guess the creature was close to two hundred fifty pounds, easily twice the weight of the light-framed Budi. This was exactly what he was looking for; now Tattoo needed only to watch the creature feed.

He could hear the high whine of the insects in the trees behind him, but they were too far away from the shore to hear the waves. Everything was lush and green and, except for their own breathing and the bugs, nearly church quiet. The noxious smell of the fat lizard drifted up to them on the wind, and Tattoo saw it flick its long, yellow tongue out a couple of times as it tasted the air. It did it again, then cocked its big head and swung it in their direction, searching for their smell. After all, in the world of the
Ora,
humans were just one more type of meat.

Pleased, Tattoo turned to look at Budi, but the man had already raised his defenses to the ready; he had backed a few feet away and his dark face had gone suspicious and…
hungry.
It was a look with which Tattoo was familiar many times over, and it scared him not in the least. In Budi’s right hand was a dirty-looking knife about four inches long that he must have pulled from a belt sheath hidden inside the waist of his loose linen pants. It was Tattoo’s American money that had prompted this decision, of course—Budi knew there was more in Tattoo’s pockets, and greed was always the greatest source of false courage in a foreign country.

“Uang,”
Budi demanded roughly.

Tattoo knew what the word meant—money—but he still played stupid, only frowning and shaking his hand. “I don’t understand,” he said with as much wide-eyed innocense as he could manage.

Budi wasn’t fooled. He gestured impatiently at Tattoo’s pockets.
“Uang!”
he said again, louder, and this time he made a cutting gesture with the blade. Only a fool wouldn’t understand, and few tourists were
that
dumb. “Give to me!”

“ ‘Give to me,’ ” Tattoo mimicked with a sneer. He raised one eyebrow but made no move to comply. “The least you could do is use the English word for what you think you’re going to steal.” Budi stared at him in amazement and Tattoo continued. “It’s
money,
remember?
Money.
I’d tell you to practice getting the accent on the correct syllable, but you’re not going to need it anymore, so why bother?”

Budi scowled at him, and Tattoo guessed the man had understood very little of what he’d been told. A shame, because he wasn’t going to live much longer and a man had a right to comprehend his last conversation. “Give to me,” Budi repeated, and this time he punctuated his sentence with a jab of the knife in Tattoo’s direction. There was too much distance between them for Tattoo to be intimidated, but this routine had probably worked for Budi before. Tattoo could easily picture it: trusting tourists, the greedy tour guide—Budi would threaten them with the knife, then take their money and leave them to find their own way back to the ranger’s station. They might make it, they might not—Komodo dragons weren’t the least bit afraid of humans and it wasn’t hard to imagine one running down a full-grown man. One bite and a couple of hours of patience on the lizard’s part would do it; the guy would quickly become too sick and weak to run. Often several other lizards would join in and tear the prey apart, fighting for their share of a free meal.

Speaking of Komodo dragons, the one on the rocks below had shifted its position, moving a cautious half dozen feet in their direction. It must be hungry. Excellent.

Budi found a little bravado and took a couple of steps toward Tattoo, waving his knife menacingly in the air between them. Even so, the only thing Tattoo was worried about was that the thing looked so filthy. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had a tetanus shot.

“Sekarang!”

Tattoo’s Indonesian was pretty rudimentary, but he recognized the word for
now.
He shrugged and began calmly unbuttoning his shirt. Budi watched with a puzzled expression but he didn’t say anything; maybe he thought Tattoo had a money belt across his chest—the American tourists were known to hide things on their bodies. But what Tattoo had across his skin was a whole lot more problematic than a tourist money holder.

Tattoo’s shirt was a loose-fitting garment with three-quarter length sleeves, the kind common among plantation owners in Cuba—light, breezy, but with plenty of gauzy material for protection from the hot sun. The last couple of buttons were tucked into his jeans so Tattoo left these alone and simply shrugged the upper part of the fabric down, letting it slide off his shoulders and drape around his waist as he pulled his arms free.

Budi blinked and stared at Tattoo’s chest, then he recovered and grinned.
“Mungil,”
he said and pointed, then frowned as he tried to figure out the appropriate wording. “Cute, yes. But you give…
money
to me
sekarang.”

Tattoo nodded, then folded his arms across his chest as if he were hugging himself and closed his eyes so he could concentrate, just for a moment. With his hands comfortably beneath his own arms, he felt first the bulge, then the soft skins of the two creatures he wanted as they pulled free of his flesh and nestled into his palms. Even though they wouldn’t bite him, the tips of their tiny teeth felt like needles scraping against his fingers. His oversensitive hearing picked up a small sound and he opened his eyes to a slit; out of the corner of one of them, Tattoo saw that the Komodo dragon had worked its way a little farther up the slope; now it was only about ten feet away. For an animal that was said to be able to run as fast as a dog, less than three yards’ distance wasn’t much at all. Budi gave it a nervous glance, but circumstances now dictated that he must keep an eye on the white man he was robbing.

“I am waiting no more,” Budi announced. He shot another quick glance at the lizard.
“Sekarang
I cut you.”

Tattoo nodded, as if he were in total acceptance of his fate at Budi’s hands. Then he unfolded his arms and spread the fingers of both his hands as wide as he could.

The two vampire bats rocketed upward, making Budi jerk in surprise. But the best was yet to come: the bats went only about fifteen feet toward the sky before they reversed direction and spiraled back down… then went straight for Budi’s eyes.

The guide screamed and flailed at the air with his knife, but it was a useless defense—the bats were much too small, fast, and vicious. He swiped at the air, then hit himself in the head as he tried to get one off him; blood streamed down his face as it bit into the tender skin just above his eyelid.
“Jahat! Jahat!”

Tattoo grinned as he recognized the word for devil amid a stream of other indecipherable words, then he backed up a couple of feet when Budi twisted, then tripped over a small boulder and fell. Pebbles bounced in all directions, skittering down and pelting the attentive Komodo dragon. The sharp-edged rocks along the crest of the slope cut Budi in a dozen places as he cried out—
“Bantu!”
—now trying to get Tattoo to help him. But Tattoo had no intention of doing any such thing; in fact, he was just waiting for the inevitable.

And so was the dragon.

His two bats twisted back up, then dove again; this time one of them hit pay dirt, and the intensity of Budi’s screams changed, turning raw as one of the creatures’ teeth dug deep into the meat of his right eye. Blood, abundant and shockingly bright in this green universe, spit from between the fingers of the hand that Budi slapped over his eye; with his other he swiped awkwardly at the bat that was still fluttering around his face, reaching out reflexively to try and grab it; abruptly his cries of pain turned into a bellow of dismay as he tumbled down the other side of the rock-strewn slope. Budi bounced and rolled, knocking painfully against too many rocks to count. When he finally came to a stop, his scalp was crimson with blood and bruised, split skin, that one eye had been gouged out, and who knew how many broken bones he had.

For a long moment, Budi was silent. And when he finally opened his remaining eye, his groan of agony turned to a death scream as he saw the Komodo dragon’s mouth yawn wide and its teeth closed over his head.

Tattoo stood on the upper slope and watched silently as his bats returned to roost and worked their way carefully into the skin just below his shoulder blades, one on each side. Yes, with the proper ceremony and given the painstaking process of infusing the ink onto his skin, the Komodo dragon would be a wonderful and proud addition to his arsenal of shadow animals. For now, however, he must leave the voracious creature to its meal, trusting in the eyes of the hawk that yanked its way free of his upper arm to show him the way out of the jungle.

Kirigi was calling him.

TOKYO, JAPAN

T
HIS TIME
, R
OSHI’S CONFERENCE ROOM WAS ALREADY
full.

The
ikuren
had come at his beckoning, all those men of power scuttling from the corners of the huge city like oversized cockroaches simply because he had decreed they should. They were expensively dressed in designer suits and Italian shoes and sporting three-hundred-dollar haircuts. But like the Asian gangsters they originally were and would always remain, their lined and knowing faces betrayed lifetimes of street savvy and hard knocks. Their hooded eyes flicked left to right, mistrustful of each other, predictable only in that to another man’s face they would be polite… but they would always be calculating and
hungry.

As usual, Meizumi sat to the right of Roshi’s chair. He was Roshi’s key man and the only one who knew Roshi’s every move…or at least he liked to think so. Even so, he had notions about the truth—a man like Roshi must always have his secrets, lest he inadvertently reveal his weaknesses, too.

And here, at last, came the newest of the players in Roshi’s never-ending game.

Stone was an enormous man who looked like a black Sumo wrestler. Dressed in a long black leather vest, leather slacks, and black leather boots, his head was shaven clean except for a square patch on the back of his scalp; that part was long and pulled into a heavy, black braid. His arms were bigger than most men’s thighs, and his neck was lost in the huge knots of muscle along his shoulders. Stone was a frightening figure and he knew it. He also knew that now was not the place to be overbearing, but for all of his bulk and his attempts to step quietly, it was obvious he had no clue that every step he took made the floor and walls vibrate—he looked like a walking mountain.

Not far behind was another young black man named Kinkou, a street punk dressed completely in ragged black pants and a sleeveless T-shirt covered with Japanese writing. His slender frame was corded with muscle, and his face was unreadable; the only thing that seemed to please him was that he could balance a coin on the tip of one finger.

Tattoo followed, and to those in attendance he was a strange sight, indeed. He was dressed here, of course, but everyone in the room knew that beneath his clothing the long-haired man was completely covered in animal tattoos, the most prominent of which was a hawk whose eyes shifted and examined everyone who passed. He hid his ink beneath the black fabric and finished it off with a floor-length black coat.

Trailing behind Tattoo was Typhoid Mary, an exquisitely sensual young woman wearing a kimono, whose face was made up in the porcelain white mask of an actress in a Noh play. Black kohl outlined her eyes and lips, and when she took a seat, those closest to her intentionally shifted their chairs to put distance between themselves and her.

And finally, Kirigi. For this meeting, the tall and handsome young man had donned the traditional robes, a cream-colored set sporting dragons sewn in scarlet thread across both sides of the front. Perhaps he dressed formally as a counterbalance to the fact that he was the youngest of the ikuren and considered to be the most reactionary, a trait not especially prized. Even so, he had the easy confidence and good humor of an aristocrat, and the ego to go with it. His mouth smiled lightly above eyes that were constantly seeking and measuring everyone else in the room.

Only the empty chair at the head of the table remained:
Roshi’s.

The elder entered the board room and took his seat with quiet grace, then waited while everyone else finished with their respectful bows, settled back down, and gave him their full attention. “I believe,” he said, “that Kirigi wishes to address the council.”

With a nod of acquiescence toward Roshi, Kirigi stood, then scanned the other people in the room while that same enigmatic half-smile played across his lips. Murmurs ripped through the board members— even to those who made killing their livelihood, Kirigi was considered charismatic and intimidating, unpredictable. There was no guessing as to what he might do next.

Kirigi finally turned back to face Roshi, then bowed again. “Venerable Master,” he said in a deferential tone, “I fear that we are unworthy of you.”

Roshi said nothing, but the tiniest raising of one black eyebrow let Kirigi and the others know that neither he nor the rest of the men believed Kirigi’s pseudoapology.

Kirigi lowered his gaze so that he was not meeting Roshi’s. “Despite our delicacy and subtlety,” he continued, “we have failed to resolve the problem of the treasure.”

A nervous ripple went through the room. No one was fooled by the careful wording—this was nothing but an insult presented in diplomatic terms. But decades of leadership had taught Roshi how to be just that, and his face maintained a bland, unreadable smile.

Meizumi, however, would not take this humiliation without defending his leader and himself. His expres sion twisted in anger. “Roshi gave that task to
me,”
he said indignantly.

“Yes,” Kirigi said in an oily voice. “Exactly.”

Meizumi’s face went red. “And my men are taking care of it.” He was trying to keep his tone level, but his anger was starting to bleed through. He was struggling to hide it, knowing that not being able to disguise his feelings would be considered a weakness.

Kirigi swiveled his head and caught Meizumi in his black, bottomless gaze. “Your men are dead.” He said it as if he were relating some boring bit of weather-related information.

Meizumi’s mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. He looked at once outraged and shocked, as if he was convinced Kirigi was lying but didn’t know how to prove it.

But Roshi’s next statement confirmed the worst. “Killed by the female assassin,” he said. “The gaijin, Elektra.” The leader’s words were matter-of-fact, but there was a hint of sympathy in them for the man who had, until now, been his second-in-command.

Without changing his expression, Kirigi extended his hand to the right, and Kinkou reached beneath the table to retrieve something, which he then transferred to Kirigi’s palm. Kirigi leaned over and carefully put it directly in front of Meizumi.

Meizumi looked down at the
tanto,
a blade without a hilt that had been wrapped in several sheets of paper to provide him with a good grip. Beneath his black hair, his skin had gone impossibly white, like bone bleached by a desert sun. He swallowed and glanced at the other men, but they were avoiding his gaze; when he looked to Roshi, his mentor’s face was impassive, his eyes knowing. There were no alternatives.

Swallowing again, Meizumi pushed back his chair and stood. At the same time, a ghostlike servant pulled open a door at the end of the room, and when Meizumi looked in that direction, he finally understood that this was really happening. Not only did his beloved Roshi expect him to commit
seppuku
for failing in his duties, but he had already appointed a
kaishakunin
— assistant—and prepared the
chado.
The
kaishakunin,
who was waiting patiently with a white
kamishimo
for Meizumi draped over one arm, would take him through the proper tea ceremony and ritual and, if necessary, provide the killing blow should Meizumi not be able to do so. Through the open door, Meizumi could see the unlacquered wooden table—the
sanbo
—and the sake, pen, and
washi
placed upon it—how ironic that he would be required to carry his own
kozuka
into the room. Would he be able to write a good death poem, or would Roshi read it later and shake his head in disgust? He hoped he would make his mentor proud.

Meizumi did not look back at the others as he reverentially picked up the
tanto
and carried it to the waiting
kaishakunin.
The other man silently ushered him inside the small room and quietly closed the door behind him.

No one said anything for a long time, and no doubt each
ikuren
had plenty to think about in the silence. It was to Meizumi’s honor that he did not change his mind or begin screaming in cowardice, that he had accepted his fate in a manly and courageous manner.

Finally, Kirigi spoke. “Master Roshi, I humbly request that you allow me this task. Perhaps with a little less delicacy, my forces will not be defeated by a mere assassin.”

Roshi sat back and contemplated this, his gaze faraway and pinned to the closed door. Kirigi remained standing and kept his silence—he knew what the master was waiting for. Another few minutes and they all heard it: Meizumi’s muffled death grunt. There was no sound of falling, so the assistant had known the ritual well enough to ensure that Meizumi had tucked his
kamishimo
sleeves under his knees, taking care that Meizumi did not end his seppuku in an undignified tumble or slump to one side. It was over.

“It is yours, Kirigi,” Roshi said, pulling everyone’s attention back to himself. “Complete it, and you will have proven yourself worthy of leading this council. I will step aside.”

The other ikuren gaped at Roshi, but Kirigi and his group were pleased. They stood, bowed, and filed out without saying anything else, ignoring the stares and the scowls, their faces shining with anticipation. Only Typhoid turned before stepping out the door; she gave a dark smile to the glowering man closest to her, then blew him a kiss. His frown deepened, but a moment later it turned into a cough, heavy, wet, and deep in his chest as though he had a sudden, vicious case of the flu.

The instant the last of Kirigi’s crew had left, one of the more senior board members jumped to his feet to voice his objections. “But sir, his methods will destroy us. It—”

Roshi held up a hand, instantly silencing him, then motioned for the man to retake his seat. “Perhaps Kirigi is right. Perhaps it is time for a new direction.” Having said that, he turned his back and walked out, leaving them to speculate and complain among themselves. By their expressions of frustration and disbelief, most of them obviously already thought he was blind, but his decisions were not for them to question. Most of them were too short-sighted for competent decision making anyway; that was why
he
was the leader, and not one of them.

He sent a brief, sideways glance at the trickle of blood seeping from beneath the doorway of the closed room, then slowly made his way to his garden to meditate.

Well, Elektra thought, it’s early morning and at least we’re all still alive. For a few moments last night, she’d had her doubts about making that happen. Now, sitting on the passenger side of Mark’s truck with Abby in the middle, she didn’t feel much better about their situation even though Mark was pulling the truck into an empty spot on the outbound ferry. How had she gotten herself into this predicament? What was it about Mark and Abby that had triggered the
No Way
switch inside her heart, the one that said she’d had enough of the killing—at least for now—and she was going to flipside this job and keep them
alive?
She had no idea, but there was no going back now. They’d be lucky if the Hand didn’t send the whole world after them.

As soon as they’d cut the motor to the truck and the ferry had pulled away from the dock, Elektra found a spot on the deck that was a little apart from the rest of the passengers and began punching numbers into her cell phone. It took a number of tries, but she finally got McCabe on the phone; he would—maybe—give her the information she sought.

“The Hand—ninjas, of all people.”
McCabe’s voice was tinny with distance, but Elektra could still make out the note of amazement in it.
“This is
serious,
Elektra. Who’s going to help you with that?”

“Where is he?” she demanded in a low voice. She tried placing her hand over the mouthpiece for privacy, but that didn’t work; it just muffled her words and then McCabe couldn’t hear her. Anyone could be on this ferry, and the water and the wind had a nasty way of carrying a person’s conversation to ears that shouldn’t be hearing it, and she was having a frustrating time. “Just get me a
location!”

She listened to McCabe talking, pressing the cell phone into her ear in an effort to block out the noise around her. Finally she snapped the telephone shut and glared at the grayness above the water as if she could make it go away. “Damn it,” she muttered, a little too loudly.

The back of her neck tickled a warning, and when she turned, Elektra grimaced when she saw Abby looking at her with a reproachful expression. She didn’t have to hear the
Don’t use that language!
to feel like her hand had just been invisibly smacked. How odd that a thirteen-year-old could make her feel ashamed, but maybe that was the root of it all. Abby was barely more than a child; could Elektra really murder someone so young and not hate herself every time she looked in the mirror… for the rest of her life?

Finally the ferry reached the mainland and docked, and then the three of them were in Mark’s truck and on their way to the address Elektra had pried out of her agent over the cell phone. The placed turned out to be a grungy little pool hall tucked away in what was actually a pretty nice neighborhood, a hole in the wall where the people who weren’t welcome anywhere else could gather, play pool, and drink beer a lot earlier in the day than was generally considered socially acceptable. When the three of them stepped through the door and Mark saw what they were coming into, he dropped behind Abby, effectively sandwiching the teenager between himself and Elektra. He followed Elektra’s gaze and saw her zero in on two men at a pool table across the small room. One was a youngish guy with dirty hair drawn back in a pony tail; he was wearing a blue work shirt with his name—Jack—sewn above one pocket. He sighted in the shot, but missed.

“You’re up, old man,” Jack said. He stepped to the side as an older man with white hair and black sunglasses emerged from the shadows. He trailed his hand along the edge of the table, then stopped and held up his pool cue. “Two in the corner,” he said. “Three off the rail, four in the far side.”