Elektra fought to pull herself upright, then gagged as she leaned over the side of the low wooden pallet on which she had been placed. She hauled more air into her bruised lungs, and they hitched in protest, wanting to refuse it but not able to do so on their own. Another inhalation, another wretched, futile attempt at vomiting.
Finally, finally, Elektra was pulling in air in a semi-steady motion, although the effort cost her so much that all she could do was sit there with her head hanging so low that her long hair brushed the floor beneath the table on which she lay.
But the man at her side only smiled faintly as he stared into space and spoke to her in a soft, butter-smooth voice. “Only a warrior can come back from death,” he said.
Later she would learn that the blind man’s name was Stick, and he would be one of her teachers.
She would also discover that he’d forgotten to men tion that even for a warrior, the second life is never quite like the first.
HIDDEN TRAINING CAMP
Before she’d died and come back, Elektra Natchios had trained with a number of sensei, and she had learned their crafts well. At the camp where she ended up after her stomach wound had finally closed and healed (mostly) and her body had regained its strength, she learned even more about the art of fighting. Additions to her fighting repertoire included the bo—long staff—eskrima sticks and the nunchaku, the whip and the kukri, along with the weapons and skills of dozens of other disciplines. Like the other students, Elektra pulled her hair back in a headband, dressed in white, and trained with others like herself—but not nearly as skilled—daily. She lived with them, ate with them, fought with them.
But she was never quite one of them, never a part of the subjective family existence and camaraderie that the others seemed to share simply by virtue of being there with each other. They were brothers and sisters because of proximity, the children of the emotionless sensei who ruled the camp and taught their arts with stern and unyielding methods. In their students the masters accepted no mistakes, no weaknesses, no slackers, and Elektra did not disappoint them. But they also condemned the American woman’s need to shine, her hunger for competition and undying drive to be the best—they wanted her to be a soldier in their army, one small cog in the larger machine of their battle against darkness. But like the television commercials for the military, the ones she vaguely remembered from her previous life as the daughter of Nicholas Natchios, Elektra didn’t want to be one part of an army.
She wanted to be the army.
There was so much anger inside her, for so many reasons—her mother, her father, Matt Murdock, the life that had been carved out of her existence and lost forever. She could feel her rage warring with the desire to do good. One second she would be practicing an arnis form with another student, each move perfectly in sync, both of them ostensibly learning the timing and the rhythm, the perfection of it. But then something inside her would take over and suddenly the student would be on the ground at her feet, or maybe his head would be caught in a figure-four combination made up of her left arm and right Kali stick. It was like someone else hearing her victim’s choking sounds, feeling his heels drum uselessly against her shins as his air disappeared before his mind could formulate a way of escape.
A snap of realization, some small spark in her brain, would save her classmate at the last second. Many refused to pair with her, turning away to control their own fury as they reminded her tersely that they were in this camp to learn, not get hurt. Again and again the sensei reminded her that self-control was a part of that learning, a necessary part, and that she could never teach if she could not learn. Teach? She didn’t care about teaching, and she was learning just fine. She had remarkable skills, moving with consummate skill and grace, incredible speed and strength. She was learning to be faster than her classmates, more brutal than her enemies, and better than her sensei.
And then her learning abruptly came to an end.
“I’ll partner with you.”
Elektra turned and studied the man who had spoken. He was taller than her, fit and muscular. His arms were toned and tight beneath the three-quarter length sleeves of his gi, the hair on his head shaven down to almost nothing. If she recalled correctly, his name was Patrick and he was having the same difficulty she was in finding sparring and training partners. He was an ex-Marine; rumor had it that he, too, had been brought back to life and he struggled with the same control issues—or lack of—that Elektra herself was said to have.
She grinned and stepped over to stand beside Patrick in line. Maybe she’d finally found a partner who was actually worthy of her efforts, someone who could take what she had to dish out in the pursuit of her own knowledge. The current lesson was in savate— French kickboxing—and they followed the routine the teacher dictated, weaponless sparring to hone tech niques already learned, then choreographed practice to teach one another proper blocking and parrying. Expect the unexpected, they always said, and Patrick’s hard punches and kicks only made Elektra grin and return them kind for kind. Then, with the toe of her shoe pointed in perfect savate fashion, she got bored with the repetitious frontal practice kick and aimed higher than the kicking shield Patrick was holding in front of his body. Her frontal kick caught him square in the hollow of his throat and he dropped, clawing at his neck as the useless leather shield dropped away.
The other students crowded around as the teacher ran to the fallen man. Staring down at him, Elektra felt no emotion other than triumph—and certainly no regret. As far as she was concerned, the fault was his. Had they not been told to expect the unexpected? Would a real opponent have been nice enough to aim his kick exactly where Patrick wanted it? He’d gotten what he deserved. Beyond that, despite what others had repeatedly said about her, she wasn’t particularly angry…at least not at the moment.
After a long, tense moment, Patrick found his air and managed to stand. He glared at her, then turned his back and stalked away—she’d lost yet another training partner.
The sensei teaching the savate class turned to look at her. She could see the anger in his eyes and in the way the skin around his lips was so tight it had turned nearly white on his olive-colored face. He gestured at her, then dropped into a fighting stance, making the rest of the class members back nervously away from the pair.
Elektra only grinned.
The only protection they had were the padded boxing gloves, but that would have to be enough. She blocked and returned each of his punches, dancing nimbly out of reach as he aimed fouettés and chassés. This was fun, a game played with a partner who at least had the skill to challenge her, a little innocent recreation—
Then her sensei came in with a split-second chassé latéral kick that caught her across the back and knocked her to her knees.
Pain razored through her back and her belly, following the line of the internal scarring left by the sai—her own—that Bullseye had pushed all the way through her body. Her head fell forward and she gasped when she saw a spot of stunningly bright blood soak through the previously unmarred white of her gi—obviously her flesh still had a bit of healing to do. The pain faded almost instantly but her insides still throbbed, bringing back the horrendous memory of her final moments in that rooftop battle. The sting of the playing card edge that Bullseye had whipped across her throat had shocked her, but that had been nothing, nothing, compared to the all-consuming anguish as he’d impaled Elektra using her own steel. Announced with all the enthusiasm of a circus hawker and undercut with Matt’s faint cry of “Noooooooo!” Elektra would never forget the last words that Bullseye had said to her—
“And now, for my next trick!”
—right before he’d thrust her sai into her stomach, then twisted it so it came out her back. How confident he’d been as he threw her off the edge of the roof level on which they’d fought, then left her to die and gone off in search of other dark pursuits with which to entertain himself. If there was one thing Elektra had to be grateful for, it was that Bullseye’s voice had not
been the final one she would hear. She’d dragged herself up and forward until she and Matt had found each other, and it was in his loving arms that the light of her life had winked out.
Or so she’d thought.
Before she had been killed that night, Elektra had told Matt she would find him. No doubt he’d thought that promise fulfilled when she’d dragged her dying body over to him, but as far as she was concerned, that was a pledge that had yet to be fully consummated. And Matt Murdock—Daredevil—probably knew it, too—he was a smart man and she had great faith in his ability to read between the lines of Braille punched into the ankh she’d later left for him.
Today, however, Elektra needed to find someone else, someone deep inside her soul with the heart of a lion and who would not tolerate being beaten again, no matter what the lesson to be learned, no matter who was teaching it. She would not be bested again, placed in danger again, humiliated again, even by her own martial arts instructors. She would not die. She would not.
Besides, this was fun.
She lifted her head and stared up at the sensei who’d kicked her, and she could feel her own eyes light up with the thrill of the hunt and the rage… and oh, there was so much of that. Could he see that in her? A part of her brain knew that the instructor standing in front of her was not the cause of her pain, at least not the mental part, and that in reality he would never intentionally hurt her. He was probably only trying to teach her a lesson, push upon her a bit of wisdom about self-control. But another part of her brain wanted no part of selfcontrol. It desired only to fight, to retaliate and cause more pain than she had received and then to make it last that much longer. And that part was the stronger half, the overwhelming majority, and it always won.
While she had been on her knees, someone had tossed the sensei a bo, one of the master league ones made of hardened bamboo and covered with carvings. He held it at the ready, comfortable with its use and secure in his knowledge of the weapon’s forms, especially when his opponent was down and clearly injured.
Even so, it didn’t help him.
Elektra came up underneath it and when he swung at her and twirled it end over end, she was already inside his circle of defense and spinning outward, seeing everything from his point of view. That made it easy to anticipate his next attack, and she disarmed him in seconds, striking back at him viciously, embarrassing him in front of the other students as they saw him defeated with his own weapon at the same time as he took a vicious double blow to his ribs and one leg. Now it was her instructor gasping on his knees before her, and there was a tickle—just that—at the back of her brain that hinted maybe she shouldn’t have gone this far. But there was nothing to be done for it now, and so she let the bo slip from her fingers, turned her back, and walked away. That would teach him to be more careful about his lessons to her in the future.
She could feel the unfriendly gazes of her fellow students as she crossed the courtyard and headed to where Stick waited in the doorway of his modest cabin. Perhaps she should have been bothered by their displeasure, but she wasn’t—she simply didn’t care. There was no camaraderie for her here, no feeling of family or belonging. She had left her classmates behind almost immediately in the training, and when a student is superior to her teacher, it’s very difficult to find friendship among her so-called peers. Since leaving Matt Murdock behind and losing her father, Elektra wasn’t sure she could feel affection again, for anyone. Still, if she could find anything left in her being that resembled affection, it would be for Stick, the enigmatic blind man she thought of as her rescuer from death.
Funny how someone not particularly tall or broadly built could radiate so much power, so much constrained grace and… ability. His age was a mystery to her, his calm face at odds with his snow white hair and the resilient way he trained and carried the trim body beneath the black gi. He stood straight and still, his slender right hand wrapped around a black staff. If eyes were, indeed, the windows to the soul, then the man must surely be soulless, because Elektra could see nothing in Stick’s pale blue orbs but the reflection of herself. She saw that now, reading, somehow, the consequences of all that she had done in the last few minutes in a split-second of sightless eye contact, in the way his left hand gestured at her to join him.
Damn.
She stopped before him and bowed her head slightly in respect, even though he couldn’t see the movement—he would know if she didn’t, she was sure of it. “Sensei,” she said. Suddenly she felt it all—the loneliness of being ostracized by her classmates, the anger in her own heart, even the shame felt by her instructor of being bested by a student. If only she would learn to think with her head instead of her heart, to weigh her choices before acting. Next time, she vowed silently, she would do just that. Next time, she—
“So what do you think?” Stick asked, breaking into her thoughts.
She inhaled. Perhaps, if she answered candidly, there would be no need for a next time. “I’ve got nothing more to learn here,” she replied. “When do I get to do it for real?”
He didn’t answer, just kept staring at her. Elektra couldn’t help shifting uncomfortably. If this was how it felt to have him study her when he couldn’t see, she didn’t dare imagine what it might be like if he could.
Finally, he spoke. “Do you know the way, Elektra?”
She blinked in confusion, not sure how to answer or what response Stick was looking for—sometimes her teachers delved more into the philosophical than she was able to handle. Perhaps this was one of those times?
“Kimagure,” Stick continued when she stayed silent. “That is the way. The ability to control time, the future… even life and death.”
Okay, this was even more out of her realm. “I don’t understand,” she admitted.
He nodded sagely, still gazing straight ahead. “No, you don’t. And that is the problem.”
Elektra frowned. “I know I’m the best student here.”
Stick’s expression turned regretful. “Not the best— the most powerful. You understand violence and pain, but you do not know the way.”
Elektra stared at him as a chill rippled across the back of her neck and crawled down her arms. Something here wasn’t good. “Teach me, then.”
As they always did, Stick’s crystalline blue eyes stared straight ahead, making him impossible to read. “That is my point,” he said. He sounded like a teacher explaining something for the tenth time to a student who just didn’t get it. “I can’t teach you.” He paused. “I want you to go,” he finally said.
She grinned with relief and stood up a little straighter. “On a mission? I agree, Sensei. Who do you want me to… uh, what do you do you want me to do?”
He waited to answer until Elektra started to become uncomfortable a second time. “Not a mission,” he said softly. “Just… leave. Get out.” He gave a curt nod that seemed more to support his own position than anything else. With his back ramrod straight and his light-colored eyes still focused on nothing she could see, Stick might as well have been made of ice. His next words confirmed his sudden coldness toward her.
She suddenly felt suffocated as she tried to fathom what he was saying. This couldn’t be true, it couldn’t. This camp—it was the only place she had now, the only place she belonged…or at least the closest she could come. To lose that on top of losing her father and Matt…it was devastating. What good was it to come back to life if the smallest of the things you gained by doing so was then taken away from you?
Her hands twisted together hard, bruising her fingers, then she scrubbed at her face like someone trying to wake up from a bad dream. Finally, she looked at him again. Her mouth worked, but shock made it difficult for her to speak. “But, Sensei…I have no place to go. Is…is this a test?” Her voice was small, uncertain.
“No, it’s not a test.” Stick’s voice was harsher than she had ever heard it. “Now go!”
So with her soul swelled with rage, Elektra turned her back on her sensei and stalked out of the compo
und, determined to leave it behind forever.
3
A SECLUDED MOUNTAIN SKI LODGE
IN SWITZERLAND
IN SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE, THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A picture-perfect evening.
But as he swirled the fragrant, dark amber liquid in his glass, DeMarco could think of only the one thing in his life that made perfection impossible:
Fear.
The exquisite, snow-covered mountains that overlooked this multimillion-dollar vacation home were like implacable witnesses to the terror that was boiling inside him. DeMarco had the best of everything— this house, with its twenty-four rooms filled with the most tasteful of everything—a Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes, a Hummer, and three other SUVs in the garage, a closet full of designer clothes so handsome that most movie stars would drool over them. Even the scotch in his crystal glass was sixty-year-old Macallan, the rarest and most expensive in the world, a treat for the richest of the rich, something in which even he rarely indulged.
Of course, if he was going to die tonight, he might as well drink the stuff, the whole damned bottle. It wasn’t as if he was going to get another opportunity.
DeMarco stared at the fire burning cheerfully in the stone fireplace, then let his gaze wander around the room. Did they have scotch in the afterlife? Was there an afterlife? He’d had a good run on this earth, so he didn’t have much to complain about there. Perhaps he should have taken pains to take it with him, like the ancient Egyptians. Even before he’d come into money, back when he was a very young man, his piercing blue eyes and slender good looks had made him a legendary playboy with the ladies, and they certainly hadn’t hurt him when he’d proposed to his first wife. She had been a millionairess who met an unfortunate end in a skiing “accident” only two years after their wedding on the slopes of a mountain much like this one (which actually had belonged to his second wife, Beverly, whom he laughingly referred to in conversation as one of my former wives).
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