What the boy did not know was the psychological reason this important aspect of training was now delayed. The physical could be taught at an early age, but only an older mind could be fully prepared to understand why the work of assassination had to be done. But it was a different kind of psychological conditioning Nuihc was after.
Jeremiah's first victim was a bum off the streets of Chicago. A gibbering indigent whom no one would miss. When Nuihc dragged the terrified man before Jeremiah, the Asian did everything but wrap him in a presentation gift bow.
Jeremiah didn't want to do it. In training he had shattered wood and stone with his hands and feet. But a living target was something altogether different.
The vagrant's hands were tied together and hung on a big rusted hook suspended from the ceiling. He wept in fear. Jerenuah Purcell wept, too.
"You weak infant," Nuihc spit as the boy shook and the old drunk blubbered. "You will do this thing or I swear I will tear your limbs from your worthless carcass."
Nuihc had taunted and threatened until Jeremiah could take it no more. Squeezing back the tears, he launched a pulverizing foot into the hanging man.
It wasn't a death blow. Jeremiah had gone for the hurt, not the kill. In his mind he still hoped that there would be some way to spare the pathetic bum's life.
The bone was more brittle than he had expected. The man's hip shattered like a dropped teacup. And then he howled.
An awful, nightmarish cry of animal pain the likes of which Jeremiah Purcell had never before heard.
"You did not kill it," Nuihc complained, unmindful of the feral cries of the pathetic man.
The vagrant twisted in agony, one leg hanging loose.
"Finish the task," Nuihc ordered.
Jeremiah didn't know what to do. He was shaking so badly by now that when he tried to deliver a killing blow of mercy into the chest, he only succeeded in shattering the man's sternum. There was another cry of pain. The bum's head slumped over his frail chest. Blood mixed with water streamed from his mouth. But he continued to breathe.
Jeremiah couldn't take the moaning. Still shaking, he pressed his hands to his ears trying to blot out the sound.
With a spark of fury, Nuihc grabbed the boy by the shoulders. He sent a hard palm across Jeremiah's face.
"Finish the task, dog!" he snapped.
There would be no argument. There never was with his teacher. This time when Jeremiah tried, the mercy was not for the old man but for himself. Steadying himself, he sent his palm into the old man's chest.
All he wanted to do was stop the bum's whimpering and protect himself from Nuihc's wrath. He had intended to send the already shattered bones into the man's vital organs. But his will was greater than he knew.
His hand went straight through the chest. He felt the warmth of the man's insides. Held the struggling heart in the palm of his hand. Felt the muscle contract once.
Then it stopped.
The man grew still in death.
Jeremiah was horrified. His blood-soaked hand made a horrid sucking sound as he pulled it free. When he looked to his teacher, he saw for the first time a new look on Nuihc's face. There was a glint of savage satisfaction in the Korean's hazel eyes. And Jeremiah understood. Only in delivering death could he hope to satisfy this man who meant so much to him.
The next death was easier. The next easier still. Each death caused another little piece of Jeremiah's soul to die. But that didn't matter. Murder was the only way he seemed able to touch his Master's cold heart.
The boy who was slowly growing into a man thought that he could feel the bond growing between himself and his teacher. He was wrong.
Jeremiah had called Nuihc "father" once. It was a slip of the tongue, spoken in haste. When he realized what he'd said, Jeremiah was relieved. It was a word that he had longed to speak to this man who had given so much to him. After he spoke it, he looked up at Nuihc with hope.
Nuihc had slapped him across the face. It was the last time Jeremiah ever spoke the word to him. But in his heart Nuihc was the only real father he had ever known.
For a little while Jeremiah was sent to a boarding school in Europe. Out of sight of his teacher for too long, the beast of his mind got loose. There was an incident with a member of the faculty. She didn't die, but his secret was out. Jeremiah the freak, Jeremiah the monster was locked in a room with special doctors. Nuihc rescued him yet again.
After that Nuihc kept the boy on a short leash. They traveled the world. When Jeremiah was thirteen, Nuihc had found steady work in New York. The Korean was playing a balancing act between two rival organized crime figures, getting payment from both sides while working for only one. By this point in his life-five years after his first chance meeting with his Master-Jeremiah Purcell's soul was nearly dead. Over time as the years peeled away, Jeremiah grew colder, more distant. The boy became an automaton. He trained in New York for almost a year. He killed Mafia men and government agents. It didn't matter. He didn't care. The only thing that mattered to him was the approval of the man who would not allow Jeremiah to call him father.
It was while they were staying in New York that something strange happened. At the time Jeremiah didn't quite know what it was. Only that it was frightening.
Nuihc had gone to Washington on business. When he came back, there was fear in his eyes.
It was a subtle thing. But Jeremiah was trained to watch for small things. He could see the fear just below the surface. In Nuihc's facial muscles, at his mouth. It was the same as the fear Jeremiah lived with daily.
In the five years that Jeremiah had known him, Nuihc was always in control. But when he returned from Washington, that control seemed on the verge of shattering.
For hours Nuihc paced the living room of the apartment they were sharing. He didn't say a word to the boy. Jeremiah stayed in a corner, quietly performing his exercises. All at once something in the Master snapped.
"He is here!" Nuihc snarled, suddenly enraged. A rage made all the more terrifying because it was sparked by his own fear. "Here! Now! He will not die! That decrepit old fool has emerged from his cave to vex me yet again!"
The Korean seemed about to lose control. Someone had scared him in Washington. For the teenaged killer it was a frightening thing to even contemplate anything that could scare the teacher he worshiped.
"Who is here, Master?" Jeremiah asked. "What's wrong?"
Nuihc's words hadn't been directed at Jeremiah. He wheeled at the timid voice.
The Korean was an animal. Terrified and cornered, ready to lash out at anything. For an instant it seemed he would take out his impotent frustration on the alarmed young boy.
But by supreme effort, Nuihc managed not to kill the instrument he had trained. He vented his anger on their apartment, smashing feet through floorboards and launching sofas through walls. When he was done, he turned to the boy.
"We are leaving," Nuihc announced. They fled America.
Nuihc brought Jeremiah to a safe place. A castle on the Caribbean island of St. Martin.
There was a legend of a Dutch trader who had built the castle centuries before. When the natives saw the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who had come to live among them, they assumed the spirit of the long-dead merchant had returned to reclaim his home. They called Jeremiah the Dutchman.
It was at this island hideaway that Jeremiah Purcell completed his training.
Nuihc went away from time to time. Sometimes his business kept him away from the island for months. One time when he left he never came back.