Chapter 4: And the Darkness Follows Her

A distant land.

A room, heavy with the smoke of incense, straw mats upon its floor.

A dojo, home to a group of martial artists whose name was known to only a select few: the Lai family: masters of the gentle art of assassination.

For 2000 years their members had lived in the dark places of the world, silent, deadly serpents feared only by those of the underworld, for those of the surface world never knew they existed until it was too late. Their peerless weapons, matchless skills, and fiendish poisons had laid low every man, woman, and child they had ever turned them against.

All save one, that is.

The Council of Five had gathered in this sacred place to discuss that grave dishonour, at least, in theory. In practice, three of the Consuls had sat kneeling on their uncomfortable floor cushions for the better part of ten minutes now, studying their hands, too shocked and ashamed to admit out loud that, for the first time in 100 years, one of their own, their best, in fact, had fallen in the field. As for the venerable Elder, he was in a deep state of meditation when they all arrived, and had yet to emerge from it. He sat, cross-legged, on a low throne at the head of the room, flanked by hissing incense burners, the smoke from which snaked about him.

The First Consul had had enough. "Shaoli is dead," said Lo-Pan, second eldest of the Five.

"One of our finest students," said Xu-Long, Second Consul and third eldest. "The first in seven generations to master the Black Vein Immunity Technique(1). Never again shall we see another like her."

"An outrage!" said Jintaou Hu, Third Consul. "To be left dead in a cold and desolate alley, slain by the hand of a coward in dishonourable combat!"

"Um, 'dishonourable'?" said Wu-Shu, Fourth Consul. "Aren't we assassins?"

"It's the principle of the thing!" blustered Hu. "We must avenge her death! The ho — pride — of the Lai family is at stake."

"You are correct, honourable Consul."

Heads turned at that voice, smooth and oily, like an exotic poison poured glistening upon a blade.

Ma Sun, the youngest and newest addition to the Council, looked up from his notes. "Shaoli must be avenged," he continued. "And what steps have you taken to that effect?"

Hu sputtered. "Well…"

"Actually," Sun continued, suddenly curious, "what have any of you done about this, I wonder?"

The Consuls tried to bore holes through him with their stares. Their cataract-clouded glares bounced harmlessly off his focused, steely eyes.

Sun, it may be gathered, was not very popular amongst the Council. He was young. He had brains. He had skill. He had hair. Jet black, too, without a touch of grey or white (or dye) anywhere in the long, thick mane of it he paraded about everywhere. Well, actually, he kept it back in a thin, lacquered ponytail, but it was the principle of the thing. And he didn't have wrinkles, he didn't have arthritis, and he didn't have any respect for tradition. Well, all right, he did follow the traditional initiation ceremony into the Council to the letter (assassinating an existing member using a poisoned weapon), but there was still some question over whether a brick of C-4 dipped in neurotoxin really jived with the whole spirit of the thing or not. With his skills, his brains, and his hair, he very quickly amassed more influence and authority in the family business than all save the Elder himself. What's more, every other Councilmember had a tiny, niggling suspicion in the back of his head that, when it came right down to it, Sun was the only one among them who really knew what was going on in the Byzantine network of alliances, double-crosses, and blood-oaths that was their world (and what to do about it).

It vexed them.

"What can we do, Sun?" asked Lo-Pan. "The killer left no traces; our agents searched that warehouse from top to bottom."

"A serpent may cover its tracks, but it leaves them all the same," he said, sagely. "Elder," he continued, with a bow to the ancient one, "I have found the one who slew Shaoli."

"How?" Hu demanded.

"A contact of mine informed me of the killer's identity," he said. "She was an agent of an European organization known as the Soldats."

"Them? Ha!" scoffed Hu. "Young upstarts. They are mewling babes compared to us."

"They crushed the leadership of the Hong Ye Pan just two weeks ago," noted Wu-Shu. "And Shaoli, so it seems."

"And we shall crush them! Our blades have ruled China from the shadows for two thousand years; it will take more than some upstart band half our age to unseat us!"

"Precisely, venerable Consul," said Sun, who was half his age. "My contact says the agent has retreated to a certain location in France. I propose to the Council that we send a team of our finest warriors there to eliminate her."

"Whom did you have in mind?" asked Lo-Pan.

"Wen-Lin and Wen-Rin."

"Them?" said Hu. "Mere girls. They won't stand a chance!"

"Wen-Lin and Wen-Rin were raised and trained together," said Sun. "Their speed and teamwork are legendary."

"Fast but weak," scoffed Hu. "We need someone strong, someone who can crush this assassin in one hand!"

Sun sighed theatrically. "And you would suggest?"

"My son, Lai-Chi! Strong as a mountain!"

"And just as thick," mumbled Sun.

"You dare…!"

"Sun has a point, Hu," said Lo-Pan.

"What!"

"Strength of arm is meaningless without strength of mind," he said. "And Lai-Chi, while strong as an ox, also fights like one."

"He has never failed this clan yet! Why, just last month he slew Mu-Shen, our sworn enemy, whom all you thought to be invincible in combat!"

"Yes, but he did it by planting an axe in his head," said Wu-Shu.

"And it worked!"

"But there was no artistry to it," said Lo-Pan, "no pride in the Lai family arts; just brutalism."

"Send Lai-Chi," fumed Hu, "and I swear to you he will defeat this assassin single-handedly!"

"You…swear?" asked Sun, archly.

"On my life!" said Hu.

Sun nodded. "We shall hold you to that vow."

"Three blades are better than two," said Wu-Shu. "Send them all."

"Agreed," said Lo-Pan. "What say you, Elder?"

The Elder meditated on the matter for some time, floating on a cloud of incense.

"Elder?" repeated Lo-Pan.

The ancient one's meditative focus was suspiciously absolute.

"Elder!" Lo-Pan shook him gently.

The Elder snorted awake. "Whuh? Hey? Wha?"

"The plan, venerable one? To avenge Shaoli?"

He blinked. His eyes were bloodshot, the pupils dilated to pinpoints. "Guh?"

"Ma Sun has found the assassin; he proposes we pursue her; what say you, oh venerable one?"

The Elder sucked in a cloud of incense through his nostrils. "Woah," he said, wobbling slightly. "The colours…"

"Elder!"

"Wha? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, kill her, kill her good."

"Ma Sun!" said Lo-Pan. "It is the will of the Elder that you send Wen-Lin, Wen-Rin, and Lai-Chi to France to break this treacherous blade, and avenge the death of Shaoli!"

"I heed your words, Elder, and yield to the will of the Council. I shall see it done at once."

He bowed low, head touching the floor out of respect, and departed. As he slid the rice-paper door closed, he could see and hear The Elder urging the Counsellors to gather around the incense burners and "try some of this $#$#." The door securely closed, he pulled a cellular phone from his robe, checked the messages, and dialled a long number.

"You called?" he said.

"We are in position," said a soft voice over the phone, "and have confirmed the target."

"Good. How is Lai-Chi?"

"Troublesome. He wishes to attack at once."

"Let him; you two proceed as planned."

He hung up, and headed out for some quality time in the dojo's garden.

(Footnotes)

1. Poison, while an effective assassination tool, has the distressing tendency to send its users into a nasty, mouth-foaming, eye-bleeding, heart-exploding death-spasm with but a single accidental prick. Antidotes work up until a point, but the deadliest of toxins operate far faster than any antigen. Some high-level practitioners can boost their resistance to poison by taking small, survivable doses of the stuff regularly. Some go further still, and ingest near-fatal amounts of poison almost daily, relying on their mental focus and supreme physical conditioning to protect them. Few, if any, survive such trials, but those that do become effectively immune to all known toxic substances. These true masters have so much poison in their veins that that their very blood becomes a lethal substance, and, rumour has it, turns the colour of death itself.

The process just described is not the Black Vein Immunity Technique.

The BVIT is the forbidden art of makeup tips used to cover up all those unsightly death-black bloodlines criss-crossing your skin so you can have an inhuman level of poison resistance and still look dead sexy while killing people with the stuff.