Chapter 11

6:45 p.m. EST

Terry managed to score the last parking space outside the Golden Dream center, and was grateful to do so. He was surprised by the center’s size. In fact, he had shopped at the Best Buy electronics store in the same complex a dozen times without the slightest awareness that anything like a Golden Dream was located in the back.

He was greeted at the door by a wispy guy in a gold-fringed karate outfit. The name Mr. Ling was embroidered on the uniform. Ling looked fit enough, but his hands were soft, and he greeted the attendees with a New Age earnestness that made Terry want to throw up in his own mouth, just a little.

Three rows of folding chairs had been set up around the edge of a forty-by-fifty-foot patchwork of blue and red squares. The room was packed. Olympia and Hannibal were seated in the front row, watching a dozen students perform flowing, acrobatic, aikido-style breakfalls as part of their warm-up routine.

Hannibal waved at him as he entered, and patted the seat next to him, again surprising Terry at his ability to express himself . . . at certain times.

“Hey, champ,” he said. Then added: “O.”

“’Erry,” Hani said, smiling broadly, rocking and staring out at the mat. Olympia inclined her head, but seemed to be hypnotized by all the leaping about.

“Take positions!” another man in a uniform barked.

The students lined up in neat rows of seated meditation positions. Seiza, it was called.

“Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?”

“No, they’re just getting ready.” Was she blushing? Just a little?

“Ukemi breakfalls and so forth? That’s pretty standard stuff.”

She seemed to avoid his question. “What do you think of the school?”

He scanned the collection of varied weapons on the wall. They included the usual Chinese and Japanese replicas, but also included Filipino, Indonesian, and Turkish implements, all accompanied by images of various masters posing and fighting in flowing postures. All so artistically arrayed that the impression was aesthetic rather than strictly martial. “Eclectic,” he said. “Japanese katana, Filipino kali fighting sticks, Chinese triple irons . . .”

“Is that bad?”

He shrugged. “Well, usually that means wide but not deep. Kinda like me. We’ll see.”

Terry hadn’t noticed, but the New Age type in the gold-edged uniform had been hovering close behind him, and now strode toward the front of the school.

“Welcome,” the uniformed, smooth-shaven man said to the crowd. “My name is Marshall Ling, head instructor here at Golden Dream. As one of our guests so perceptively commented, we are an eclectic school, drawing from many martial-arts traditions under the leadership of the honorable Madame Gupta. Before we begin, have you any questions?”

A lady with long braided hair and a tie-dyed purple sheath dress raised her hand.

“Yes?” Ling asked.

“I came to see Madame Gupta, but I have to admit that this”—she gestured at the walls—“violence seems contrary to her gospel of peace.”

Ling smiled warmly. “I grasp the implied question—”

“Life respects not weakness. Only strength can protect gentleness.” The voice seemed to float from all four walls at the same time.

And then . . . an Easter Island statue walked into the room.

At least, that was Terry’s peripheral impression. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something bizarre: a giant head atop a human body, somehow gliding across the mat.

He turned to look. For a moment his vision blurred, and the illusion persisted. But he blinked, and that impression melted away. The newcomer was merely a slender brown woman entering from the back room. True, she wore a golden robe more ornate than the typical karate uniform, but that was the extent of the oddness.

He shook his head. The visual hallucination had been freakin’ weird. He turned to speak to Olympia, was distracted a moment by Hani’s grin . . .

And experienced the same peripheral hallucination again. A gigantic block of carved . . . stone, perhaps. An expression humorless, inhuman, disconnected. No feet or legs or even body. Just . . . that head.

But only in his peripheral vision. When he turned again, it was just the slender brown woman. Smiling. Warm.

Wow. He was having a senior moment, about thirty years too soon. Bizarre.

The crowd stirred. All eyes were upon her. Her hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head, but he thought that flowing free, she would prove a woman of extraordinary beauty. How old was she? Her sixties? No, couldn’t be. Fifties? At least. But her face was unlined. Her skin was smooth and unblemished. Her body was that of a dancer in her prime. Unbelievable.

Oddly, it seemed to Terry that she moved almost as if she didn’t live entirely within her body, as if she were outside it, manipulating herself with strings, a marionette of flesh and blood. Bizarre: he had expected someone who moved like a panther. Just to test, he turned his head sideways and looked at her through his peripheral vision. This time, nothing. Strange.

“Master,” Ling said, and bowed. She returned it, her answering gesture smooth but not quite as deep.

“The world,” she said, her voice light and strong, “is on the cusp of change. Only the Awakened will make this passage without fear. Without anxiety. Mastering the body opens the door to the heart and mind. Only the ignorant believe these aspects can be tamed separately.” The voice was hard to place, melodic but lacking enough inflection to identify a country of origin.

She gestured to the line of kneeling students awaiting her signal. And then . . . the students attacked. They charged in waves, with more determination, variety, and vigor than Terry expected, with no apparent compromise in consideration of her age or gender. Gupta’s hands blurred like the blades of a fan as she performed perfect wrist locks and aikido-style deflections and redirections, slamming them to the mat again and again. They bounced up like rubber balls and ran back at her as if she were feeding them energy.

And as she did, amazingly, she continued to speak. Her whirling footwork had no apparent effect on her breathing patterns. He could detect no gasping or straining for breath as she blocked, ducked, or deflected. “In most instances it is not necessary to cause harm, even when one defends. But if harm is necessary, remember the words Lord Krishna spake to Arjuna: ‘We must do our duty. If necessary, this may extend to the taking of life, and if so, it must be done with regret, but clarity.’”

This was followed by another series of student attacks. This time, she punctuated with mimed, whip-quick, and perfectly positioned kicks, chops, and elbows. Awesome focus. She actually seemed to be touching them, but Terry detected no pain reactions at all. Terry felt a grin stretch his cheeks. Madame Gupta’s movement was Shaolin-level at the very least. This was extraordinary.

The little woman continued in that fashion, performing astonishing feats of martial precision and acrobatics. Either she was extraordinarily conditioned . . . or something else. Something he had never witnessed, or considered. His heartbeat sped, and he felt a general flush, something that balanced on the edge of sexual excitation. He shifted in his seat, glad that he was wearing loose pants.

“Do not be deceived by the external form of the motion. It is the emotional intent to which I respond.” She was speaking without paying any apparent attention to her attackers. Responding instantly, like a mass responding to the pull of gravity, no more “technique” than what water uses to flow through a hole in a bucket.

A masterful display. And what was more, every now and then she interjected little flourishes with her shoulders or hips, like a teenaged female gymnast flirting with the judges and audience.

When Terry finally glanced back up at the clock, almost an hour had passed. He was baffled: time had just melted away. For someone to pull him into that sort of deep flow so effortlessly was stunning. He glanced at Olympia: she was engaged, but little Hani was hypnotized, so fascinated Terry was afraid he might forget to breathe.

Madame Gupta’s demonstration flowed on, until the students were drenched with sweat. But even as the windows became clouded with steam, the woman herself barely glowed. Now she wielded a wooden sword against two similarly armed men. With little apparent effort but no sign of choreography she disarmed both with wrist-twists and staccato sword-jabs to solar plexus or side of knee, following with spiraling throws that sent them corkscrewing through the air to woof into the mats. The students grinned as they rolled and bounced happily to their feet, smiling like children returning from a dessert buffet.

Olympia leaned over and whispered, “Is she good?”

His response was rapid and certain. “I might know of three people who can do what she just did.” And none of them would look that fine doing it. He kept that last part to himself. There was no denying the truth: he was responding to this woman physically, and had no idea how to interpret that. Wasn’t she too old? Or too spiritual? Or something? Was it blasphemous to wonder what she looked like under that gi? “Good doesn’t begin to cover it.”

His eyes had never left the enchantress on the mat.

“There are times when one must stand against many,” she said. “Even then, it is possible to preserve life. Please . . . silence while I gather the proper energies.” She stood with palms pressed together, eyes closed, back arched a bit. Then finally she opened them again.

A whisper that carried like a shout: “Begin.”

All five students attacked simultaneously. She flowed among them like smoke. While blur-fast and focused intensely, their punches and kicks and grabs missed her without the slightest apparent effort on her part at blocking or evasion. She left them sprawled variously on the mat, streaming sweat and huffing for breath, while she remained miraculously unfazed.

Something changed inside Terry, as if he’d passed some internal threshold of acceptance. Or gullibility. It was just too much. He was watching some impossibly well-choreographed demonstration. It simply had to be fake. Oh, please. This is bullshit, he could hear the voice in his head whisper.

“Wow,” Olympia said.

“Maybe,” he whispered, both heartened by and annoyed with his own cynicism. “It’s easy to get your own students to lay down for you.”

He’d have sworn his words couldn’t be heard three paces away, but although Madame Gupta was across the room, she stopped dead. Turned slowly, as if her head were mounted on a pivot, her face divided by a broad, almost reptilian grin. For just a moment, there was something carnivorous and primal about her . . . then that visage changed, and she was once again the friendly, charismatic, disorienting mixture of maternal and what . . . seductive? She gazed around the room, as if looking to see who had said that, even though he had spoken in low tones.

She locked gazes with Terry, and he didn’t blink. He noticed something slightly odd, as if the lights in the room were reflecting from her body and face, radiating a low-level luminescence. “Doubters will always be among us. You, sir. Have we met?”

“Ah . . . no?” Damn it, where had that question mark come from? And that cracked voice! It was an adolescent voice, a caught with his hand in the cookie jar voice, an I’ll get my first pube any day now voice. He was totally off balance emotionally.

In the instant he had lost himself in his internal monologue, she had crossed the mat, and stood beside him. “You have trained extensively.” She glanced at his hands, his shoulders, his seated posture. “Tae kwon do, kali, kenpo, I believe. The Hawaiian variant.”

“Yes . . .” He turned to Olympia. “You tell her about me?”

She shook her head. “No. Never met her. Terry, I didn’t know that stuff about you.”

“What we are is revealed to those with eyes to see,” Madame Gupta said. “When opportunity presents, it is my habit to invite a skilled practitioner from the audience. Would you care to engage in a little wager?”

“A bet? What kind?”

“A hundred dollars, if you can land a kick or punch on me within two minutes.”

 Confusion threatened to turn to outright disconcertment. “You mean your head or torso?”

“Anywhere at all.”

“And what will you do?”

“Touch you, five separate times, with my hand.”

That just seemed weird. Was this some kind of hidden camera stunt? No matter how good she was—and she was amazing—that simply didn’t make sense. “A hundred bucks. Even-Steven?”

 “I don’t understand the term.” Her brown face crinkled in confusion.

He found that response comforting. Omniscient she was not. “Straight bet. I touch you, I win your money. I don’t, I pay you the same amount?”

Her little brown eyes crinkled. “I don’t want your money,” she said.

“What, then?”

“We talk, you and I. After the others are gone.” His heartbeat began to increase. Well, hell, he’d like to talk with her, too. Preferably alone.

Terry tried to find the flaw in her proposition, and crapped out. “And the trick is?”

“No trick,” the little woman said. “I find you . . . of interest.”

Terry smiled. Was she teasing him? “Land a punch or kick. Will I have to chase you around the mat?”

“No,” Madame Gupta said. “I will remain at arm’s length.”

Tingling all over, Terry peeled off his jacket. “Sounds like fun. Let’s do this.” He slipped off his loafers.

He glanced back: Hannibal was glowing, bouncing up and down in his seat like a vibrating chipmunk. Olympia stared, seemingly both shocked and thrilled. He liked that. Almost enough to distract him from wondering just how bruised he was going to be in about a hundred and twenty seconds.

Yerch.

Something about Gupta’s manner unnerved him more than he cared to admit. But before he could say anything about it, she spoke again.

“And no, you will not be injured.” A sweet little girl’s smile. A Hi, my name is Becky Thatcher, wanna swing with me, Tom? smile.

“I’m not worried,” he lied.

Gupta chuckled as if they shared a private joke.

Damn.

Feeling as if he had just stepped off a roller coaster, Terry walked out onto the mat. He stretched briefly, dynamically, long-lever leg raises to the front and side, then threw a couple of crackling kicks to get the dust out . . . and then faced Gupta, whose smile had not wavered. Ordinarily, his display of ready flexibility elicited oohs and ahhs from a first-time audience. Not this time. They were silent, expectant.

“Shall we begin?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

He glanced at Olympia and Hannibal, both leaning forward in rapt attention.

Madame Gupta stood quietly, waiting. Terry edged in, faked right, then shifted left and whipped a blur-fast round kick with his left leg, aiming at her right shoulder. No need to hurt her . . .

Gupta leaned out of the way so that the kick missed her by a half-inch. And suddenly she was behind Terry, and her cool, soft palm caressed his cheek.

“One,” she said.

Terry’s eyes narrowed. He dove at Gupta with a series of fast reverse punches, the Asian version of right and left crosses, driving off the rear leg. She moved directly backward, as if she had a third eye concealed by the tightly curled black hair at the nape of her neck. Then she crouched, and Terry stumbled over her, hitting the mat in a rolling breakfall, pivoting—and Gupta’s cool, moist palm was touching his forehead.

“Two.” Her eyes were not those of a fifty-year-old. Or forty, or even thirty. She was more like a mischievous urchin.

“Shit.” Terry dropped into a series of spinning sweeps, low to the floor. Gupta vaulted him, an actual somersault, an acrobatic clown trick, one hand pushing off on his shoulder.

And stuck the landing, perfectly. “Three.”

“What the hell . . . ?” He dove into a leaping kick. A lunging punch. A spinning attack, a blur of back knuckles, kicks, sweeps.

A smiling ghost, Gupta appeared to melt away before Terry, as if slithering in and out of his blind spots. She was right there, right in front of him, but Terry couldn’t hit her, couldn’t touch her. He stomped down on his frustration and increased his pace again and again, until she blurred into some kind of movement his mind couldn’t quite make sense of. How the hell do you cartwheel between someone’s legs . . . ?

Then she was on his back, riding him like a cowboy. He fell to his knees as Gupta’s slender brown fingers sank into the places in his shoulders where muscles met bone, freezing him for a moment with what felt like electric shock. She touched Terry’s forehead with her palm.

“Five,” she said.

Terry blinked. “What was four?”

“Is this yours?” She handed Terry his brown leather belt. Terry looked down at his sagging pants, chagrined, and retrieved it. He stood, anger swelling . . . and then bursting like a punctured balloon.

“I’ll be dipped in shit,” he said, and bowed. The audience applauded wildly. And Terry’s was loudest of all.