Zero. Part 8

Audrey picked up a gun, aimed it and shot her father through the left eye. But instead of falling, he spoke to her.

I can give you the world. His lips, as blue as the ocean, do not move at all.

In fact, they have been sewn shut. A whistling sound accompanies his words.

He wears a three-piece suit that looks curiously like a suit of armor. It shines where moonlight strikes it. He wears metal gauntlets with spikes at the knuckles. In his right hand is a sword of some black substance that appears to smolder, as if it is very hot. In his left hand is a spear with an ivory handle and a blade cut from a translucent jewel.

Here is the earth and the sky. There is no more black hole gaping at her.

Instead, a patch with an unblinking eye painted on it covers the ruined orb.

I have given them to you, Aydee. He stretches forth both arms and, in so doing, presents his weapons. Clouds billow and stream behind him, so close that the vapor appears to ruffle his hair.

"What have you given me?" she says. "What have you ever given me?" Incomparison to his echoing shout, her voice sounds small. She is strangling on the anger she feels.

I have been blinded by my enemies. He moves with inhuman fury. They have tried to kill me and, instead, have wounded me.

"It was I who shot you, Father," she cries. "I hated you for what you failed to do for me. You were never there when I needed you. You never thought of me. It was always of Michael. You sent him off to j.a.pan. He was special to you. Always special. You lavished such attention on him, even when you were away from us. You created his schooling in j.a.pan, you monitored his progress every step of the way. Why? Why? Why? Now you're dead and I cannot ask you. I can't even be angry with you without feeling so guilty I want to die myself."

But I am not yet dead, Aydee. Is it that he does not hear her? Or that he does not care?

Appalled, Audrey claps her palms to her ears. "Stop it!" But it does no good.

His words penetrate her flesh and detonate in flashes of painful electrical energy. He raises the black sword and it is engulfed in fire. He raises the spear and rain flies off it.

I have much to tell you yet.

So that she jumps with each word he projects into her.

I have much to give you yet.

So that she feels like a fish on a line, jerking and twisting against a pain inside her that she can never be rid of.

Audrey is screaming.

His voice thundering. Aydee, listen to me! Aydee, Aaaaaaaydeeeeeee!

Heart pounding, Audrey shot up in bed. Put her hands over her heart as if the gesture could stop the painful pounding. She could feel the blood rushing in and out of her heart, the thump-thump of its beat.

She was bathed in sweat.

The darkness surrounded her like a shroud. Reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Got out the postcard from her father. It had arrived days before. She had read it, then had put it away, not being able to bear thinking about it in tight of her father's death. But now she seemed compelled to hold it again, to read it, as if it were a talisman against the terrible portents of her nightmare.

Dear Aydee, Here I am in Hawaii, for the first time in ages I am truly alone. There is only the golden air to talk with. It's not how I envisioned it. Life has a funny way of doing that to hopes and dreams.

I still don't know whether I have done the right thing. It's the end, Aydee, that is all I know for certain. The end of whatever life has been for this family up until now. Is that good? Or bad? I don't know. I wonder if I ever will.

When this reaches you, like a message in a bottle from a far-off place, throw it away. I know that you won't want to. You won't understand that for some time, but please do as I ask.

It's time to go. There's work to be done, even here in paradise. It seems quite fitting, somehow, for it to end here in paradise.

Tell Michael, when you see him, to think of me when he next has his green tea.

Tell him to use my porcelain cup. He always treasured it. I'm thinking of the place where you and he almost died. Even in summer, alas, there is not a single heron there.

Love, Dad Audrey read the postcard over and over until it was in-grained in her mind.

She did not understand it, but it was the last vestige of her father. He was right; she did not want to destroy it. She took it, went slowly into the bathroom, Folding it carefully, she put it in the back of her medicinecabinet, behind a box of Q-tips. Then, quickly, almost con-vulsively, she took it out again and, before she had time to think about it, she ripped it into tiny squares and flushed them down the toilet.

Reading the postcard had somehow increased the panic the nightmare had engendered in her. Just as she had not been able to destroy the card when she first got it, she had not been able to share its contents with Michael. Now she knew that she must. She had already told Michael she had gotten a postcard from Philip. She resolved to tell him in the morning what Philip had written.

Audrey padded back into the bedroom, relieved at least that she had made that decision, and the light went out. She reached over, turned the lamp switch.

Nothing happened. Oh G.o.d, she thought. What a time for the bulb to blow. Drew her knees up to her breast and hugged herself, rock-ing a little. The blackness seemed overwhelming. It was so palpable it seemed to beat against her eyelids in the same tactile way her father's words had affected her. More than anything else, she wanted light. She wanted to get up, to make her way down the hall to the closet where the spare light bulbs were stacked. But the effort was too much. Just thinking of moving through the darkness seemed to paralyze her.

She gasped, looked up. Had she heard something? Or was it an insidious remnant from her nightmare? The darkness and her father. They seemed to Audrey to be one and the same. To be forged out of nightmare, born in a world so alien to her sensibilities that she had difficulty comprehending their physical shape, let alone their inner nature.

The night is a time for listening.

Isn't that what her father had said to her when she was a child? She remembered him coming into her room in response to her calling out. He would sit on the edge of her bed and she could feel his warmth seeping into her, making her sleepy. It made her think of Christmastime, when the fireplace was alight with sparking fir logs exuding their aromatic oils. When the house was warm and cozy and filled with presents.

"The night is a time for listening, Aydee," her father would whisper. "For listening and for dreaming of possums and hedgehogs out for a stroll, frogs and salamanders swimming in a lily pond, robins and thrushes basking on a branch. Listen for them, Aydee. Listen."

But years later, when she was older, the dark held other secrets of a dreadful nature. The devil would come by night. Vampires would seek the vulnerable necks of their victims. Psychotic murderers would creep over the window sashes to maim, rape and, ultimately, slaughter their . . .

"Ohhh!" Audrey gave a little shudder. What was she trying to do, scare herself to death? The aura of her nightmare continued to pervade the night air. Thick as woodsmoke, it swirled around her, a damp and clammy web that she felt helpless to dissipate.

The darkness. It was her nemesis. She had to overcome it. With a concerted effort, she got out of bed and went to the door. Opened it and went down the hall to the closet for a spare bulb. There, she told herself. That wasn't so bad was it?

With her hand on the k.n.o.b, she froze. Oh G.o.d! Her head turned, questing. Yes, there it was again! A noise.

Her heart beating wildly in her breast, she went to the top of the staircase.

Listened. Jesus! Someone was downstairs! Her fingers gripped the banister until all the blood was squeezed out of them.

Audrey gritted her teeth. She had to calm herself. Don't be such a baby, Aydee, she told herself, unconsciously using her father's language. The house was locked tight. It must be Michael prowling around. She had seen how upset he had been after their talk. That must be it, she decided. He couldn't sleep, either.

Relieved not to be alone, she went down the staircase. Heard the noise again.

She was at the foot of the stairs and could tell that the noise was coming from her father's study. Now she knew that it must be Michael. She smiled, went across the dining room and opened the door to the study. The night is atime for listening. "Michael-"

Breath cut short in her throat. A guttural sound, saliva drying. The inside of her mouth like cotton, swelling inward to strangle her.

Heard a sound in the darkness. An odd, ethereal whistling, tuneful, hard-soft, almost plangent. The chord of death. And in the same instant, her nightgown was slit open from right shoulder to left hip. It slithered around her ankles.

Like a ripe peach, she was utterly exposed, and supremely vul-nerable.

Audrey uttered a little cry and cringed. She backed up, but something was impeding her egress from the study. It was so like her nightmare of a few minutes before that she felt all strength leave her. She moved in ungainly slow motion, as awkward as a racing mare imprisoned within a human-proportioned room.

She whirled around to see what was impeding her and slammed her elbow on the thick edge of the mahogany door against which she was pressed.

Something had hold of her. There was strength, a power of untold proportions, in the grip. Michael could grip her in just this fashion, she thought wildly.

His, too, was a power beyond that of the normal. Felt a body pressed against hers and, unthinking, shot out with the heels of her hands. Audrey was not a weak woman. Years in the family pre-sided over by her father had obliged her to take up physical activity. She had worked out three times a week for most of her life. She had even spent the past several years lifting weights.

Therefore, when she attacked, she was swift and powerful.

Freed, she turned, slipped to the carpet as she tripped over a small table.

Cried out as the breath was knocked from her. Tried to rise, felt the darkness overwhelming her.

Terrified, she turned her head, saw the shadow moving, so close its heat suffused her. She searched for eyes, mouth, any feature, as if giving the figure some semblance of humanity would in some way allay her panic.

But there was nothing. Darkness within darkness. Body against body, the two struggled. So close they might have been mistaken for one form in terrible conflict.

Audrey could feel soft breath on her cheek. She felt as if she were entangled within barbed wire. Some primitive intuition guided her, and she stuck as close to the other figure as she could. She suspected that remaining in close quarters was her only chance of survival.

Felt an opening and used her knee, drawing it up suddenly between her a.s.sailant's legs. She heard the grunt, felt the force of the exhalation so close to her. But the normal gagging reaction never came, and she once again felt the welling up of panic. Now she had the distinct sense that she was fighting something supernatural. Her courage withered.

In some manner unfathomable to her, the figure knew of her change in att.i.tude and took advantage of it. She was rolled over on her back before she had a chance to protect herself. Her mind, half numbed by fear, was several beats slow in reacting. That was all the opening her a.s.sailant needed.

Audrey tried to use her knee again, but it was already too late. A sharp blow to the inside of her knee sent fire up her thigh into her hip joint. A nerve nexus point. Audrey knew enough from Michael to understand that her right leg was now useless.

She used her arms, hands and fingers. Tried to gauge an eye, the underside of the jaw, the base of the neck. Thwarted at every turn. Felt a rush, and she thought, Oh G.o.d, I'm going to die.

Michael came fully awake within the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. It was not what he had heard but rather what he had felt. Something had reached down into the delta layers and had given his mind the command to awaken.

He was up and across the pitch-black room in an instant. Took up his katana, his j.a.panese Iongsword, and, naked, went out into the upstairs hall. Instinct took him past Audrey's room. The door was ajar; he did not need to look to know that she was not there.

Crept down the staircase on the outside edges of his soles The wind would havemade more noise. He held the katana sideways with both hands, elbows slightly bent. He advanced as he had been taught, with his left side forward. His fists, as they curled over the haft of the sword, were in such a position that they could be used as a shield if the sudden need arose.

Without sangaku you are nothing, Tsuyo had said. Disci-pline. Concentration.

Wisdom. These three const.i.tute sangaku. Wiithout the three elements you can attain nothing. You may learn to slash, to maim, to kill. But you will be nothing. Your spirit will wither. Your power will diminish, and surely there will come a time when you will be cut down. This will occur not by the sword of a more skilled opponent, but by the force of his enlightened spirit.

Without the wisdom of truthfulness, survival is impossible. This is the tenet of the Way. Discipline. Concentration. Wisdom. These were what Michael summoned when he a.s.sumed the wheel, the opening tai stance that would allow him to rotate his sword in any direction he chose. As dictated by the Shin-kage school, the wheel was basically a defensive posture. At the bottom of the stairs, he could see that the door to the study was open. There were tiny sounds . . . Audrey was here!

Part of him wanted to rush into the study. Discipline. Con-centration. Wisdom.

He could hear Tsuyo's raspy, inhuman voice emanating between lips that barely moved. To enter battle and prevail, you must do one thing only, Tsuyo's me-chanical voice whispered again through Michael's conscious-ness. In your mind, in your spirit, you must relinquish life and death. They must cease to be of concern to you. Only then wilI you be a swordsman.

Michael took it step by step. Through the dining room, to the verge of the study. Through the partly open door, he could feel the night breeze brushing his face. It was far darker in there than it had been in either the hall or the dining room, He listened. The tiny noises began to coalesce into a rec-ognizable pattern: the grunts and strainings of hand-to-hand combat.

Michael recalled the prowler who had prompted his father to have the security lights installed and was about to put aside his sword, figuring to use his body, He took one step, so that he was straddling the sill. And something stopped him. He could feel the aura of the in-truder, and he knew-knew-that whoever was inside with Audrey also wielded a katana.

Shrugging aside his shock, he moved with absolute silence into the study.

Nevertheless, he was overheard.

Eagles shrieked in his ear as a lamp just in front of him was sheared in two.

Audrey! his mind shouted. Where are you? Are you safe? Or ... Felt the appalling proximity of the keen blade, and he lunged forward and out with his sword. Immediately, he regretted it as the other blade struck the top of his, forcing the tip through the carpeted floor.

Michael cursed himself. His anxiety over Audrey's presence had caused him to lose concentration. An inauspicious attack will fail and, having failed, will both alert your opponent and bolster his determination.

In the instant it took for Michael to free his blade, he felt the presence of the other's katana, a predator's shadow amid a forest of shadows. Without looking, he knew where it was and, now that it was in motion, what its target was.

Tucked his head down into the pit of his stomach as he rolled into a ball. The hardest thing was letting go of his sword. But his life hung in the balance, for he had divined the intent of his opponent: to sever his head from his body.

Slammed into the shadow figure, felt its weight coming down, curling over him.

An instant's claustrophobia as he felt a hand searching to cover his nose and mouth as the other's body folded down around him. Put pressure on the small of his back as well, trying to maneuver him into a position where a low-force kick could snap a vertebra or rupture his spleen.

Michael used his elbows to keep his momentum going, in order to roll past the vulnerable spot.

But now his shoulders were mashed against the carpet.The weight of another human being was pressing down on him and he had no protection for his face. Hesmelled the chemical before the cold cloth made contact. Held his breath.

Still, he felt the caustic fumes penetrating his nostrils.

He wanted desperately to use his hands, but there was so much pressure on him that he knew if he moved his elbows at all, he would be open to an instantly lethal kick. Rolled up in a ball as he was, his legs were of no use to him.

His training allowed him to hold his breath longer than most people, but even he had his limits. He could see nothing but distorted shadows, smell nothing but sweat and fear, hear nothing but the rushing of his own blood through his veins. In the physical stasis they were in, he could feel nothing but the singing inside his brain, the silent scream that presaged the fall into unconsciousness, the swift slide to defeat. Struggling, Michael found himself thinking of the moment he struck out with his sword, of how that had been his mis-take. Replaying the instant over and over, trying to fathom what would have happened if he had done what Tsuyo had counseled. To meet the enemy with your mind settled in that spot where your fists grip your sword. And sinking deeper toward that twilight world where vo-lition is subjugated, where the will cannot work. Where even the Way has no power. Zero.

He did not want to be there. "Audrey!"

Screamed her name even as a blackness deeper than the surrounding night lapped at his senses. He was no longer fully in control of his body. He continued to struggle, unaware of what he was doing. His mind, locked within the effects of the chemical-saturated cloth, created a world somewhere be-tween nightmare and semiconsciousness. Crashing of the sea where there was no sea, reaching for the sky where there was no sky, clawing out from the earth where there was no earth. This was Michael's new world. One that dimmed, flickered and, at last, gave way to a sensation of falling that never ended.WINTER 1946-SPRING. 1947 PACIFIC THEATER.

TOKYO.

When he was a boy, Philip Doss had lived on a farm in rural Pennsylvania. A small town in the westernmost section of the state near Latrobe, a beautiful area of dense woods, rolling emerald hills and sylvan lakes.

The Dosses raised chickens. Their days began at four-thirty in the morning and did not end until after sunset. It was a life of grinding work and little reward. Philip's father was continually fighting higher feed prices, disease among his stock and the growing intrusion of large fanning combines. Chicken farming was the only thing the elder Doss knew, and while he just about managed to eke out a living for himself and his family, he figured it was better than the alternative- bankruptcy.

Philip hated the farm-the stink of the chickens, the smell of blood when they were slaughtered, the sheer sameness of the life. But he dearly loved the surrounding countryside. He spent the long afternoons staring out at the hills, blue-hazed by distance. He walked down to the way station to watch the Erie Lackawanna freight train rumble by, clickety-clack, riding the rails. He particularly loved that train, would dream about it at night, its headlight piercing the darkness, its long, hooting whistle echoing off the slumbering hills, the blackbirds clattering off the telephone wires in its churning wake.

It wasn't until he was far away from the farm that he understood the significance of its hold over him. The train emanated from an unknown destination. It was an absolute mystery to him, one which he needed to solve.

It brought up yearnings inside him, unknowable things that made him toss and turn in bed at night.

Philip's father was a pragmatic man. Thinking back on it, Philip realized that he must have been made so by circ.u.mstance. A brown-faced man with leathery skin and eyes the sun had washed of all color, he was continually dragging Philip back from his reveries to do his ch.o.r.es around the farm. Philip's responsibilities were to gather the eggs from the layers' nests before he left for school and to clean out the hen houses after he returned home.

"You'll never amount to anything, son," his father would say to him. "The world's got no use for dreamers. World revolves around hard work; what else keeps it spinning?"

He'd eye his son. "Man's got to know that what he wants for himself ain't important. A man's got better things to occupy himself. One day he'll have a family. He's got to provide for them. Make sure life's secure for his children." Philip's mother had died in childbirth less than two years after Philip was born. Philip's father, who had never remarried, did not speak of his wife-or any other wife, for that matter. "Family's what life's all about, son. No more an' no less. Foolish an' a waste of time to think otherwise. The sooner you learn that, the better."

Nothing anyone could have said to Philip could have terrified him as much as this-the thought of living out the rest of his life on this farm, working eighteen hours, seven days a week, doing the same rounds of ch.o.r.es month in month out; it was enough to make Philip break out in a cold sweat. He longed to hop the fast freight that came through town once a day but that streaked again and again through his dreams each night. He longed to climb those blue-hazed hills, to discover what was on the other side. He longed to meet people who were different from himself.

But when he tried to tell his father all this, the words stuck in his throat, and instead, he bowed his head and silently took his rake into the coop to complete his ch.o.r.es.