Arrow to the Soul (2 page)

It seemed the earth stilled as the black-eyed man walked into the clearing. Arrow never glanced at him. He’d told her never to look him in the eye, and she’d vowed as he’d stripped her from the presence of her dying
sohei
that when next she did gaze at him directly, she would strike him dead soon after.

There were two others with him, and Arrow blinked slowly, trying to clear dirt and debris from her vision. She turned her sight inward and felt the world around her sharpen and expand, like a bubble out of a wand filled with soapy water.

Clarity could only be achieved when the mind was centered and blank but for the target. The words ricocheted through her mind.

“Come to me, Mama, from the very blue sky,” Ninka said in a fading, hoarse whisper.

The others remained quiet. They’d each defied the task, but the men need not know that. Arrow would die before admitting any of them had spoken. In that second, Arrow felt Bullet’s frustration, Blade’s anger, Bone’s hatred, and the black-eyed man’s keen interest. She knew each emotion. Held them in her heart and become one with them as she’d trained.

The black-eyed man stood over Bullet. “She’s tiny, Minton, but she’s survived.” Silence, and then he asked her, “Tell me, dove, did you stay silent?”

Please, Bullet, stay quiet.

He knew they’d spoken. The whir of the cameras attached at odd intervals in the trees around them had given him a clear picture of everything they’d done through the dark hours. His excitement disgusted Arrow. Her limbs quaked, and she tried to move without drawing notice, but it was impossible to do anything more than twitch. He’d been the one to stake her, making sure she was drawn tight, secured to the hard ground. How she hated the black-eyed man.

Her size was prohibitive and it made her angry. As soon as she gave voice to the thought, it burned in her belly and she warmed. She’d been taught not to feed off anger or rage as both emotions set sway the pendulum of calm. Better to center herself and find peace before acting so her goal could be carried out and success ensured.

Her mind struggled with what her goal right now was. A part of her realized she was simply too young to have evolved far enough in that lesson. The other part knew she had no choice. Many things she’d learned, but some remained for her to discover. She needed to find her calm center. Rage blackened her vision, and she tried to focus on the bright pinks and pale oranges in Ninka’s blue, blue sky.

Several long moments of silence followed the black-eyed man’s question, and Arrow pictured in her mind what was happening. She smelled Minton. His spicy cologne, tinged with the sour smell of perverted lust, made Arrow’s nose twitch. She breathed through her mouth and tasted the sourness of the one they called Julio.

Arrow wondered if Julio was broken. Darkness always swirled around him and his eyes never stopped moving, like he was hearing a million people and couldn’t figure out whom to listen to first. She learned early on to sift through the sounds that weren’t necessary and find the ones that were. Sounds helped form a picture because your eyes couldn’t always be trusted not to betray you.

Especially if you had eyes like Arrow.

“Minton, have Julio take care of little Ninka, would you?” the black-eyed man’s voice was sibilant and evil.

It called to something inside Arrow and she wondered if her soul was free-falling.

“She’s such a waste,” the other man spat. “Julio, you heard him.”

The black-eyed man murmured, “Get up, Bullet. There’s work to be done.”

And then Arrow knew what was coming. This began as a task for them all, yet ultimately was for Bullet alone.

Push the panic deep, Bullet. Like I taught you.

Her
sohei
master told her thoughts could be heard if you projected loudly and wisely. Hone your thoughts, sharpen them like the tip of your
ya
, he’d told her, and there will be nothing that can keep them from reaching into another’s mind. Arrow did as he’d instructed her at the tender age of a year and a half. She didn’t know if it would work now.

“Stand up, child. You’ll be needed soon,” the black-eyed man said in a louder voice now.

A wail rent the air and it was Ninka. It was
pain
. Arrow did not turn her head, afraid she’d see the fragile child splintering in front of her. The sounds of boots and hands meeting flesh made Arrow’s body tighten as if she was fending off the blows.

Another cry, this one agonizing, and Arrow pictured Ninka flailing in Julio’s grip. He shook her hard by her shoulders, then harder, and her head bobbled on her tiny body, back and forth. Her normally beautiful, wheat-colored, silk-spun hair, was now dirty and matted to her head, nothing but the ends swinging as Julio continued to shake her.

Arrow did not turn to watch but she saw it all.

“You’re such a stupid child! Why can’t you learn to be quiet?” Julio demanded in broken English. His voice called to the blackness inside her. She hated him.

Ninka wasn’t making a sound anymore.

Julio reared back and kicked the little girl. The blow was loud in Arrow’s ears, echoing back across the shadow land of her soul over and over. Arrow’s hands clenched, and she wanted to watch the red bleed from her palms, needed to find the calm. She wished for her
yumi
and
ya
, grasped coarse nylon rope instead. Ninka coughed after he kicked her. Arrow pictured bright red on her pale lips.

“Help me, Gretchen,” Ninka cried out reaching for the one she clung to in the night.

Julio kicked her again and she squealed in pain. Butterflies made that sound when caught in a spider’s web. If you were quiet enough you could hear it.

“No,” Bullet whispered.

Yes, Bullet. Do it.
Arrow honed the thought, breathed on the hot coals of her rage, and sent it flying toward Bullet.

Over and over Julio kicked until the sounds of his boot meeting the small girl’s body were more than Arrow could bear. Ninka was all that was right and pure. And he was hurting her so badly.

“Do it, child,” the black-eyed man taunted.

Do it, Bullet.

“Stop,” Bullet whispered.

Arrow fanned the flames higher and shot the thought over and over toward Bullet.
Help her. We are tied!

Arrow turned her head then, let her eyes help in her quest to force Bullet to action. Indecision would get them all killed today unless she acted. It may already be too late for Ninka.

But her thoughts halted as she watched Julio lean down and grasp Ninka’s head. He faced away from Arrow but she thought he looked at Minton, who simply nodded. His breaths were choppy, excited, and Arrow compressed her lips, forcing herself not to speak.

Ninka, Ninka, Ninka
…death was calling, sighing all around them in a rumble of thunder.

He squeezed her little head. He squeezed until Arrow felt the pressure herself. Julio began to twist Ninka’s head, it seemed in slow motion. Then a cymbal’s clang announced the end of death’s symphony, and Julio fell to the ground.

But so did Ninka, still and unmoving. Now there was silence.

And there stood Bullet, the barrel of a gun smoking in the early morning chill, her eyes deadened and a smile on her lips.

The black-eyed man murmured something to Bullet, and she handed him the gun. Arrow blinked back the moisture in her eyes, wondering where it came from, knowing her tears would do Ninka no good.

“Good, child. Now do as I’ve said and get back to camp,” he said to Bullet, and then he and Minton were gone.

Bullet untied them all, taking care not to hurt them, but the damage was done. There was nothing Bullet could do to any of them that the black-eyed man hadn’t just handled.

“My hands are cold, Arrow,” Bullet whispered as she worked on the knots.

“Look at me, Bullet.”

The other girl refused.

“Look at me, Bullet.” Arrow infused enough command into her voice that Bullet looked at her.

“You did what we are all called to do at one time or another. You made a good choice. Do not fear, this was not the end of Ninka,” Arrow assured her.

Bullet said nothing, but it took her a long time to get them free. All of them banded together to pull Julio’s heavy dead body to the edge of the clearing, and then they walked back to the tiny Russian child’s body.

“She’s dead. Why wouldn’t she shut up?” Bone asked as she sat down beside Ninka’s still form.

“She was breaking,” Arrow answered. And it was the truth.

“We can’t break,” Bullet said as she wiped wetness from her cheek.

“She was a stupid girl and we are already broken,” Bone replied in a tired voice.

Blade bent over Ninka’s head, lifted it, and placed it in her lap, stroking the flaxen locks that reminded Arrow of a yellow butterfly’s wings. Would she too be caught in the spider’s web?

“We can bend. Like the steel that is used to make my long blades, we can bend,” Blade whispered.

“We have to hide her so nothing can hurt her anymore,” Arrow said as she sat down too, and began to stroke Ninka’s dirty hair.

“Then we’ll have to say a death prayer, but the God of my fathers doesn’t listen to my prayers anymore, so someone else will have to,” Bone replied.

Arrow wondered if the one called God even knew she existed. She thought not. All she’d ever known was hell. And now He allowed Ninka to be taken brutally and without mercy. What kind of God did that?

Bullet kneeled beside Ninka’s body, moved in close, and grabbed her hands, flattening them between her own and bowing her head. Blade stroked Bullet’s hair, too. Occasionally Arrow’s hand would touch Blade’s and the warmth there startled Arrow. Against the backdrop of Ninka’s cold flaxen locks, it was a blast from a fire. The hate was deep in Blade. As deep as it was in any of them.

Arrow needed to control that. Hate caused ripples over the water and that could not be allowed. Her chest felt as if a band snapped around it, pulling tighter and tighter with each breath.

A sigh of warning skated down her spine. They should hide Ninka and get back to the camp before the black-eyed man came for them, took away their rations, or tasked them once again.

“Hi wa kiyurédomo tô-shin wa hiyédzu,”
Arrow whispered again and again. It was the only prayer she could offer up.
Though the flame be put out, the wick remains.

What the black-eyed man had sown here would revisit him a thousand-fold.

They were all there, but Ninka was gone from them. Five became four. Arrow glanced at the children around her, recognizing like and kindred hearts. Her eyes threatened to leak again, and she stopped them. Bullet leaned over the girl’s head, which still rested so peacefully on Blade’s lap, placed a kiss on her brow, and whispered, “I’ll kill them, Ninka. I’ll kill them all.”

There was no doubt Arrow would be right beside her.

“Watashi wa, Ninka sorera o korosu. Watashi wa sorera subete o korosu,
” she echoed Bullet’s words, felt them do something all the meditation in the world had never done—center her.

As the sun rose and burned off the lingering fog, the promise was made in her soul. She would grow strong so she could pierce the snake’s heart.

She would live for death.

Chapter One

The sounds of the busy outdoor café permeated Adam’s thoughts. A car backfired, people chatted, and the clank of silverware against plates was loud as he waited for her arrival. The smooth purr of a street bike hovered over the background noise. And then she was there.

The woman parked the sleek Suzuki Hayabusa 1340 and took off her helmet. Long, ebony hair, pin straight and so shiny, so soft looking his hands itched to grab hold of it, fell down her back, skimming the top of her luscious ass. His body hardened.
Fuck
.

She lifted a leg over the bike, and Adam’s hand tightened on the mug he lifted to his lips. She moved like water. Fluid, easy, and flowing—every movement a testimony to her training and something else Adam could not name. It was indefinable, but it spoke of a decided lack of worry, indeed an overabundance of confidence. Even as he recognized the seductive curve of her hips, the gorgeous, clean lines of her body wrapped in tight black leather, his mind struggled to reason with his body. Everything she was should be abhorrent to him.

But it wasn’t.

Her smell still taunted him, a phantom in his nose and over his tongue. He’d been in Vancouver once as the plum blossom trees were blooming. Their sweet, honeyed fragrance called to the wildness in Adam back then. Her scent had done the same four weeks ago.

He’d stood beside a woman who’d faced down over twenty-five armed men and dared them to save her sister. She threatened him, hell she’d threatened them
all
, and then she’d walked away, disappearing into the fog. He’d been marked that day by her golden eyes and hardened soul. Adam hadn’t been the same since.

It had been four weeks since they’d rescued Bullet from a water pit in Peru. They’d been the longest four weeks of Adam’s life, all because of the woman he now watched making her way toward a family of five.

It would be four when she walked away. If anyone nay-sayed her, the family would be wiped off the face of the earth altogether.

Adam couldn’t let that happen. Bullet begged him to go after Arrow. What she hadn’t known was he’d been planning on doing just that anyway.

He set his mug down carefully. The heavy afternoon heat of Mexico City didn’t faze him, yet nobody gave the woman a passing glance. Odd, considering she was decked out in full leathers and the temperature soared well over a hundred degrees today. But she seemed to fit into the tableau, the control she wielded somehow morphing the setting to her whim.

Heat be damned, she was a cold, calculated killer. The very air she stirred filled with her intent to eliminate life. And Adam hated death. At least unnecessary death. Sometimes the Great Spirit called on his people to do things for the continued good of the human race. Adam answered the summons on many occasions. But Arrow took any life she was paid for and simply kept moving.