"Elizabeth?" Candi asked cautiously.
Elizabeth continued to stare. She was looking at Candi in the same way as her strip club's patrons. Candi shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I don't think they'd sell it if it was bad for you," she said, picking up her soda can. She tipped it to sip, exposing her long neck.
When Candi looked over again, she thought there was a bit of drool at the corner of Elizabeth's mouth. She wasn't quite sure, distracted as she was by the low, inhuman growl that suddenly rumbled up from deep in the pit of Elizabeth's stomach.
Candi frowned. "Rude much?" she complained. She lifted her soda can. Elizabeth slapped it from her hand. It splattered against the break-room wall. "Hey-" Candi began. It was the last word she would ever speak.
Before Candi knew what was happening, Elizabeth had leaped up on the table. Without a word, she lunged.
As Candi screamed, Elizabeth buried sharp fangs deep into her soft neck. The scream became a wet gurgle.
Candi tried to struggle. Elizabeth swatted her to the floor with a single paw swipe. She threw herself on the young woman, pinning her to the floor.
By now more screams filled the break room. Others had followed Elizabeth. Animal roars filled the room as bodies fell. A woman managed to run screaming into the hall for help. Elizabeth didn't care. For the first time in a long time, she didn't have a care in the world.
She tore a mouthful of stringy flesh from Candi's throat. The young woman had long since stopped fighting. Her legs twitched feebly as death overtook her.
Lifting her head once, Elizabeth sniffed the breakroom air. She was more aware of everything than ever before. Nostrils twitched experimentally as she absorbed all the new scents floating around her.
Around the room, those like her were gnawing at bodies. One of the males raised his head. Instinct told him he was being watched. Elizabeth smiled at him, face slick with blood.
"I've been wondering for a year how to shut her up."
Jaws wide, she stuffed her face back into Candi's throat, tearing off a huge chunk of flesh.
And in the corner of the room, the Lubec Springs watercooler burped quiet approval.
Chapter 4
With the eye of memory he watched the heavens begin to burn. The fire started there, to the left. In the ink-black sky a white star flashed yellow. Another followed, then, quickly, another and another.
The blaze raced through the sky, connecting the dots of the flaring night stars.
The ring formed as star after star ignited. When it was complete it began to descend, trailing fiery streams.
On the ground he watched with upturned face. The bleak landscape around him glowed with eerily flickering light.
As fast as it appeared, it was on him. Enveloping him.
The fire touched skin, but it did not burn. And then the fire became the skin, as well as bone and heart and brain. Then it was thought. A coursing consciousness that flowed through his veins and into his soul. And he was one with the fire and the fire was him.
And then came the knowledge. It came to him in a flash, but it was too much to understand, even for him. As the fire flared bright, he strained to grasp fully the truth.
But he wasn't ready. Not yet.
The fire flashed and burned away. And he was left with the memory and a hint of what would be. Chiun, former Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju-until recently main guardian and benefactor of the small fishing village that bore the same name as his discipline, and custodian of the five-thousand-year tradition that was the glory of Sinanju-was alone once more.
The hotel room was sliced by deep shadow. The morning light that rose over Little Rock slipped through the open blinds. Though dust danced in eddies of air around the room, not a single speck alighted on the solitary figure.
Feeling the memory of the warmth of fire on his skin, the elderly Asian puckered his lips in mild irritation.
In the gloom of the unlit room, Chiun gave the appearance of a frustrated mummy.
If not for the fact that he breathed, it would have been easy enough to mistake the old Korean for a mummified corpse. His dry skin was like wrinkled parchment. Twin tufts of yellowing-white hair sprouted above shell-like ears. A thread of beard found root at his sharp chin. Hands like knots of bone rested atop folded knees. He didn't move.
The old Korean wore a simple robe of black. He sat on a woven tatami mat, his rigid spine at a perfect ninety-degree angle to the floor. Before him a bowl of incense glowed dull orange. Arranged around it were five fat white candles.
He had sat this way through day and night in a vain attempt to force answers. Dawn had broken beyond the dirty blinds, and still he sat.
It was a foolish thing to do, he knew. The universe unfolded on its own time, not man's. Yet he had been granted a gift, and he wanted so much to understand it.
It had happened months ago back in his native Korea, in the wasteland far outside the desolate village of Sinanju.
The ring of fire had come to Chiun from the heavens. Though shocking, it wasn't unprecedented.
The same event had transpired one time before in the history of Sinanju, the original martial art. The first time had been to the greatest Sinanju master of all, the Great Wang himself. The fire had bestowed the essence of Sinanju on Wang, but-as legend had it-understanding of what Wang had been given had taken a lifetime to fully grasp.
Chiun was more than one hundred years of age. He had turned over his awesome responsibilities to a suitable heir.
Remo was now officially Reigning Master of Sinanju. But these were unprecedented times.
Since Chiun was still actively plying the trade of assassin, he had assumed the seldom-used honorary title of Reigning Master of Sinanju Emeritus. As such, he retained in all but the most formal circumstances the title of Master of Sinanju.
"Won't that get confusing?" Remo had asked months earlier. "Two Reigning Masters of Sinanju at one time?"
"You will actually be Master of Sinanju," Chiun had explained. "I will merely hold the title of Master of Sinanju. Or do you wish to deny a dying old man the respect he has earned? Especially given all he has had to endure training a certain title-grubbing white lump who shall remain nameless."
"You don't look like you're dying."
"Says nameless you."
"I don't know, Chiun. I thought the passing of title was part of the job. Can we do this?"
"Ah, I see the truth. You wish to keep the title all to yourself. I understand. I have heard on the television broadcasts, Remo, how some very small men need big titles to prove to themselves that they are worthy." Thus spoke Chiun, wise former Master of Sinanju.
"Stop watching Oprah," suggested Remo, peeved current Master of Sinanju.
"We can call me something else. Something easy for inadequate you to remember. How about 'Old Nuisance Who Has Given Me Everything, But Who I Continue To Not Appreciate And Treat Like Something The Cat Buries In The Sandbox'?"
"Nah. For one thing it'd spill off the mailbox."
"Then I will simplify it for you. Henceforth I shall be known as 'Hey You.'"
"Okay, I give. You're Master of Sinanju. That's fine. You happy? Now get off my case."
"Good."
"Good."
"Good."
"Chiun?"
"Master Chiun to you."
"What am I going to be called?"
"Whatever it is you want to be called," Chiun had said. "Numskull works for me."
The retention of title had been necessary for the old man who had been chosen to break with tradition. This should have been Chiun's time of retirement and ritual isolation.
Fate had chosen a different, new course for the last Master of the pure Korean bloodline. Chiun understood some, but the rest was still a mystery to be discovered.