Warren Murphy - The Ultimate Death

"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 stabbing 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."