No, Silent Oak was not difficult at all. Not for her.
She was Li Ling.
She could do anything.
Several hours before dawn was due to break, she felt the breeze rustle past her. She smiled-and only her lips moved; even her forehead did not crease-because she knew it was not the breeze. It was another perfect and beautiful form of nature. It was Togo.
Ling had not seen him, but she had felt his presence. He would not be seen unless he wanted to be seen. Togo lived in the shadows. He moved as if carried by air. So she waited, knowingly, confidently, to see how he would reveal himself. And then the shadows moved and he appeared before her, as if created from a sliver of smoke.
She looked into his eyes. There was no need for words. They did not communicate with words. They communicated with their souls. Sometimes with their bodies. Always with love. But rarely with words.
They had been trained together. Neither ever knew their parents or where they had come from or why they had been picked for such an honor. They were taught that the past did not matter. Nor did the future. All that mattered was the present and their training and their obedience. When she was a child, she thought of Togo as her brother, but when she turned fourteen, she looked at him as if seeing him for the first time and realized he was as beautiful as she was and as well trained. Their minds had been as one for many years, and then one day she no longer thought of him as a brother and their bodies joined together as well. She loved Togo fully and completely; he was the only person in the world to whom she was truly attached. Sometimes the mere thought of him caused an onrush of desire that could make her dizzy. At night they would lie together naked, entwined, and he would whisper how great their power was, how magnificent their strength was now that it was combined. He would tell her that the two of them made one whole being. That they were equal halves forming something perfect.
She knew that what he said was, in part, true.
But she knew one other thing, too: They were not equals. She had no equal.
She knew well that she would never love anyone the way she loved Togo.
And she knew even better that one day she would destroy that love when she revealed her superiority. The time would come when she would kill her other half to prove that she was indeed a whole all by herself.
Ling saw Togo's eyes move now, just a shift-no one else would have even noticed-and then he was gone again. For a moment she thought she had only imagined his presence, that he hadn't ever appeared, but she could sniff his fragrance lingering in the wind, and she knew that he had not been an apparition. He had been real.
The smile was gone from her face now and she was all but invisible again in the shadows. Time was once more standing as still as her rigid body.
And then she knew she had to move.
The door to the house was opening, just as they had been told it would. It was hours before the break of dawn and the only brightness on the street came from the stars above. When the man stepped out of the house, a crack of light escaped from inside. She saw his features for a moment, the pale skin, the glint of rust in his brown hair. She saw the fear in his eyes and the weakness he wore like a mask.
He had an overnight bag strapped over his right shoulder and as he stepped toward the street, he looked left and then right, as if this cursory search would somehow guarantee his safety. It was safe to smile again, silently, so she did, knowing that he would see nothing and that his safety was far from guaranteed.
He crossed over onto her side of the street, was only a few feet away from her. He stopped, as if sensing something. But still he saw nothing. She willed herself to be invisible and her will was strong because he looked right at her, shrugged as if taking himself to task for imagining things, took one more step forward…
And that was when his world melted.
Pain did that to people, she knew. Although she couldn't imagine the kind of pain he was experiencing so rapidly and unexpectedly.
Togo came up behind him, unheard and unseen, and his right leg kicked out in an exquisite variation of The Hissing Cat. His heel connected just above the man's right heel and Ling knew bone and tendons were immediately shattered. The man had enough strength left to scream and he began to, but that's when she moved, one elegant, long finger jabbing down into his carotid artery. It was a graceful movement, and she allowed herself to feel pleasure from its perfect execution. She took satisfaction, too, in his immediate silence. The scream that was going to force its way through his lips was strangled in his throat, unable to escape. His eyes bulged, and for a moment she felt like giggling because he looked like a frog about to explode. Ling whirled and her foot snaked out, a foot as sculptured and lovely and smooth as her perfectly shaped hands. And just as deadly. It was a wondrous quick jab the foot made, clipping the man's back. If she had kicked harder, he would be paralyzed. Instead, he was just filled with white-hot flashes of extraordinary pain. She could render men helpless with her beauty, she knew. But she much preferred doing it with pain. She gloried in his agony.
It didn't take long for Togo to pull the van alongside the man's prone body. She was able to lift him effortlessly into the back. Togo questioned her with his eyes: Is he still alive? The wordless question hurt her. And made her angry. Of course he is still alive, her eyes answered back. I do not make mistakes.
They'd been told to take him alive.
There were questions he needed to answer.
So she would make sure he lived until he answered them.
Then there were no more instructions. Then she could do whatever she wanted.
Then she could smile and giggle and laugh and let her body experience all the pleasure she allowed it to have.
Once the questions were answered, the fun could begin.
If there was one thing Li Ling loved more than her lifelong companion, Togo, it was when she could stop standing still and start having fun.
7
Justin was surprised to hear his father's voice on the other end of the telephone. He looked at his watch, but his eyes weren't focused yet. He rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger. It didn't help. The room looked as if it were swaddled in gauze. When he spoke, it sounded as if his vocal cords had rusted.
"Are you hungover?" Jonathan Westwood asked.
"No," Justin said. His sight was coming back. He could make out the numbers on the telephone. He glanced at his watch, and a faint groan escaped through his lips. He hadn't even slept half an hour. "I was working all night."
He could feel his father's hesitation. To ask about his job might somehow signal that he approved of it, which Jonathan Westwood most certainly did not. But because their relationship had relatively recently been repaired-after having been strained, even nonexistent for quite a few years-to avoid any comment at all might be perceived as too hostile. In the end Jonathan went for civility. "I hope things are all right. With your work, I mean."