Warren Murphy - The Arms of Kali

"Go away."

"It really wasn't my idea," Holly said. "It's something that came over me."

"Just get out of here, all right?"

"Look, I've heard of postcoital tristesse, but isn't this a bit much?"

Remo stumbled to his feet and staggered back from the young woman, who still lay on the ground amid the dirt of the alley. He barely had the strength to move. The smell of her was as a drug in his nostrils; his limbs felt leaden.

"You can try to leave," Holly said. Her voice broke into brittle sharp laughter. "You can try, but you will follow me all the same. Kali wants you. She will bring you to Her. You'll see. You will come to Kali."

Her voice grew small in the distance as he stumbled away. But even when Remo could no longer hear her, the scent of her still followed him like an invisible, teasing demon, and he knew that the girl was right. He would follow her, and somehow he knew the path would lead to death.

He had been wrong in trying to solve things alone. He needed help.

He needed Chiun.

Chapter Eleven

It was dark in the hotel room. The only illumination came from the stars that shone brightly in the clear Rocky Mountain night.

Remo lay on a mat on the floor in the middle of the room, his hands folded across his stomach as Chiun had placed them. The old Korean sat in a lotus position on the floor near Remo's head.

"And now you will speak," Chiun said.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Little Father. I thought I could shake it, but I can't."

"Speak of it," Chiun said gently.

"I think it was a girl," Remo said.

"Just a girl?" Chiun said.

"No one special," Remo said. "Belonged to some crazy cult. I followed her when we took that just Folks flight into North Carolina and two of her friends tried to kill me."

"Did you kill them?"

"The friends. But not her," Remo said. He shivered from the memory, but then his body grew calm as Chiun, sensing Remo's pain even in the darkness, reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.

"I couldn't kill her. I wanted to. But she wanted to die. She wanted me to kill her. And she was chanting, they were all chanting, and it made me crazy and I had to get out of there. That's when I went to the mountains to think."

Chiun was silent.

"Anyway, I saw her again tonight and I thought I could kill her this time. She had something to do with the deaths on the planes, and I thought I could do my job and kill her. But I couldn't. It was her smell."

"What kind of smell?" Chiun said.

"It was a smell ... but not really a smell," Remo said into the darkness of the room. "More like a feeling."

"A feeling of what?"

Remo tried to find the words but could not. He just shook his head. "I don't know, Little Father. Something big. Frightening. More frightening than death. A terrible thing . . . God, I am going crazy." He rubbed his hands together nervously, but Chiun took them in his own hands and replaced them over Remo's solar plexus.

"You said they chanted," Chiun prompted. "What kind of chanting?" he asked softly.

"What? Oh. Crazy stuff. I don't know. 'Long live death. Long live pain. She loves it.' I tell you, they love death, even their own. And it was that way tonight too. She told me I would have to follow her, and I knew, Chiun, I knew that even if I had killed her, she would have been saying, 'Kill me, kill me, kill me, because it is right.' I couldn't kill her; I let her go."

"Why must you follow her?" Chiun asked.

"Because I'm supposed to be somebody's lover. Somebody wants me."

"Who is this person who wants you?" Chiun asked.

"A name. A funny name. I think it's a woman's name," Remo said. "The name was . . ." He paused, trying to remember.

"Kali?" Chiun asked. His voice was hardly more than a breath in the blackened room.

"That's it. Kali. How did you know?"

Remo heard Chiun sigh, and then the old Korean's voice was brisk again.

"Remo, I must arrange to meet Emperor Smith at once."

"What for?" Remo asked. "What's he got to do with it?"

"He must help me prepare for my journey," Chiun said.

Remo looked at him, puzzled. Even in the darkness of the room, his eyes were able to gather enough light to see clearly. The look on Chiun's face was one of pained resignation.

"I must go to Sinanju," Chiun said.

"What for? Why now?"

"To save your life," Chiun said. "If it is not already too late."

Chapter Twelve

Harold W. Smith walked briskly into the Denver motel room.

"What is it? What was so important that you couldn't tell me over the telephone?"

"Don't look at me," Remo said. He was leafing through a magazine and did not bother to look up from its pages.

Chiun sat in a corner of the room on a straw mat. As Smith turned to him, the old man raised his head slowly. His face looked older than Smith had ever seen it before.

"Leave us, Remo," Chiun said softly.

Remo slapped the magazine down into his lap. "Come on, Chiun. Isn't this a little much? Even for you?"

"I said, leave us," the old man snapped. His face reddening, Remo threw the magazine onto the floor and strode out the door, slamming it behind him.

"Is something wrong?" Smith asked Chiun.

"Not yet," the old man said impassively.

"Oh," Smith said. Chiun did not speak, and Smith felt uncomfortable in the silence. "Er, is there something I can do for you, Chiun?" He looked at his watch.

"My needs are small, Emperor," Chiun said, and Smith thought he recognized the opening of a new salary negotiation. Every time Chiun said that he needed nothing, it turned out that only more gold would save him from an eternity of disgrace in the eyes of his ancestors.

Smith felt an unaccustomed small surge of anger. The pressure was mounting on CURE from the White House to end the airline killings. International Mid-America Airlines had just about gone belly-up, and who knew how many airlines would follow. The news media were putting people in an afraid-to-travel panic. Civilization, which in the long run meant the free flow of goods and ideas, was in danger. And Chiun was going to try to beat him out of more money.

"You remember, Master, you said the matter with Remo would be straightened out." He watched Chiun's face, but it revealed nothing. "Yet I come here, and instead of working, he is reading a magazine. Remember your promise? For four extra gold bars, if you remember. It was our last conversation, Chiun. Do you remember?"

He had tried to keep the irritation out of his voice, but he had not been too successful.

"It was not fair," Chiun whispered softly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It was not fair," Chiun repeated.

"It most certainly was," Smith snapped, making no attempt now to conceal his annoyance. "You agreed that for a nine-weight payment to Sinanju, you would get Remo to work again. If he has refused-"

"It was not you who were unfair," Chiun said. "Not you, O gracious Emperor. It was I." He lowered his eyes in shame.

"I see. You mean Remo refuses to work, even with the additional tribute."

"He does not refuse to work. He has been unable to work."

"Why?" Smith asked. "Is he ill?"

"He is afraid."

Smith felt himself flushing with anger. Afraid. Smith, too, had been afraid many times during his life. Many times he had faced death. He had never been blessed with Remo's natural skills or his training, but all the same, when the crunch came, Harold Smith had overcome his fear and gone on about his work. Fear was no excuse. In the rocky New Hampshire soil where Smith had grown up, there was an old saying that he had somehow absorbed into his rock-hard soul: "Do it afraid if you have to, but just do it."

"He'll just have to get over being afraid," Smith told Chiun tersely.

"I have said it incorrectly, Emperor. It is not the fear that will stop Remo. He will find the source of the airplane killings, because he will not be able to stop himself. And he will fight whoever is at that source."