Elektra

by Yvonne Navarro

  The ambulance screams through the night, but she can’t hear the sirens, can’t even hear the paramedics even though one is leaning directly over her and telling her something. Then her hearing abruptly comes back, but it’s choppy, and while she can hear him, the sound cuts in and out, like an old record skipping on a turntable. His voice is filled with urgency and he calls out something to the other one in the back—“Clear!”—then light hammers through her body, filling her up with heat. The hollow heaviness inside her chest heaves and stutters, then returns to that same choking emptiness. The light fills her again, more heat on top of the heat in the center of her body, more wasted effort to make that silent, still muscle in her chest wake up. The light comes a final, useless time—

  Elektra sees her mother on the bed, lying there motionless and serene, while a white-coated man, the coroner called by the police, bends over her and scribbles on his clipboard. The blood surrounding her is… different this time, not so red, duller and drained of color. Her father stands at the window and stares outward as though he is searching for someone or something; his face is drawn and helpless, eyes ringed with purplish shadows. Elektra hears a sound behind her and she turns back toward the bed, just in time to see the coroner jerk his arms outward. The movement sends a white sheet billowing outward and it settles over her mother’s form, and then another one floats downward, and another, and another, like gently falling snow. The child-sized version of herself walks over and takes the necklace, reaching beneath the layers of white, and then she turns and screams as a demon shrieks at her from the window, screams and screams and screams—

  Elektra sat up, gasping and sweating.

  A nightmare, that’s all, just old, bad memories all mixed up and boiling in her mind. The ones that never seemed to go away, no matter how hard she worked to keep them buried.

  Where was she?

  She was in bed, but not hers. The sheets—no blankets—were all startling white with no frills, very much like a hospital’s. Elektra realized her hands were clenched into fists around the top sheet and she forced her fingers to let go so she could scrub at her face. When she did, her fingers came away slick with perspiration and slightly oily, evidence that she’d been lying here for a while. Her hair was tangled and lank, her bedclothes—more plain white, a long sleep shirt that she was already finding way too warm—were wet and stuck to her skin.

  She peered around but there wasn’t much to see. The one-window room was just as plain as the sheets— the window had a light-block shade and there was nothing on the walls above the two other pieces of furniture, a small table and a straight-backed chair. It took her a few seconds to focus, but Elektra could finally make out her own clothes, folded neatly, lying next to both of her sais. She could see from her position on the bed that the broken one had been expertly repaired.

  Typhoid Mary—yes, now she remembered. Elektra looked down at her hands, then turned them over and flexed the fingers. There was no dirt under the finger- nails or bruises on her knuckles. The rest of her body was the same, no cuts, bumps, or scrapes, so she must have been here—wherever here was—for some time while she healed. The memory of Stone tossing her through the air as though she weighed no more than a beach ball was still vivid, and that should have left her black and blue for a couple of weeks, but when she ran her fingers experimentally over her lower back… nothing. She thought she remembered Stick, but that couldn’t be right; that recollection was probably nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the typhoid fever that had rampaged through her body. She was lucky to have survived—most people would’ve been worm food by now.

  Moving carefully, Elektra brought her legs to the side of the bed and tested them, making sure she was strong enough to carry her own weight before trying to stand. She could, but she was going to have to go at it slowly—her muscles were weak from disuse and the sickness, her balance shaky. When she felt confident enough to try, she made her way carefully across the small room to the door on the other side. When she twisted the knob and pushed it open, it only took a glance to know exactly where she was.

  Elektra stared outside for a few moments, taking it all in. Finally she closed the door and worked her way over to the small table and her pile of clean clothes. She would make her body recover, make her muscles and stamina return, even if she had to do it by sheer force of will. She’d rested enough.

  It was time to get dressed and return, once more, to the living.

  It felt like a hundred years since Elektra had been at the camp, but the humiliation of having Stick kick her out so long ago was as fresh today as if it had happened yesterday. It didn’t help that many of the instructors were still there, and every single one who saw her, of course, recognized her instantly. At least the students had all rotated out, the ones she’d trained with and bested gone on to whatever assignments the Chaste had seen fit to give them.

  But her former embarrassment wasn’t important now, and as she stood next to her mentor and watched Abby train in the same classes that she herself had trained in years ago, Elektra couldn’t help feeling a mixture of pride and jealousy. The young girl was a natural, as much or more so than Elektra herself had been, slipping and ducking and parrying in the sparring class as though she had been in this class for years and should be teaching it rather than learning in it. Therein was the difference—Abby had, perhaps, a touch of Elektra’s arrogance, but none of her anger. Elektra had never possessed the patience to mentor anyone else, but someday Abby would make an excellent instructor.

  As Elektra watched, Abby finished with her sparring lesson and moved immediately to join a group of students practicing with Rokshaku-bos—bo staffs. Abby was the youngest in the group, and clearly the most talented; she moved effortlessly, anticipating every blow, feint, and parry. Elektra well remembered wearing the same uniform, a light-colored gi made of a gauzy fabric that was so lightweight it felt like you were wearing nothing at all. With Abby’s hair dyed the same color as Elektra’s, the teenager lacked only the headband that Elektra had used to keep her thick hair out of her face; she had no doubt that if Abby had known about that, the girl would have included that in her emulation of Elektra as well.

  The class was an enjoyable thing to watch, and when Stick stepped into the middle of the students and brought them to a halt, it brought Elektra a faint, almost aching feeling of wanting to join in. “Don’t look for your opponent,” he told the students. “Know where he is. I’m blind and I can see more than any of you. Because I don’t look.”

  He stepped out of the circle and the practicing began again. Elektra couldn’t help admiring Abby above everyone else in the class—she could see the girl’s level of combat and competence rise immediately. She stepped up behind Stick and spoke, not expecting to startle him. She didn’t.

  “You tell her, she gets it right away,” Elektra said.

  Stick nodded. “She can listen.” He paused, then added, “It was the one gift you lacked.”

  Elektra didn’t answer. What was there to say? He didn’t need her to tell him he was right—he already knew that. They both did. They kept watching, and Elektra again had that feeling of enviousness about the teenager’s incredible abilities. After another moment, he said, “She’s everything they say.”

  Elektra sucked in her breath as her mind ticked away at the facts, sliding them into place like one of those old-fashioned car puzzles, the tiny ones with plastic squares that kept the kids occupied in the back seat. The answer had been there the entire time, but realizing it still left her more than a little stunned. “This whole war with the Hand,” she said softly, “it’s all about her, isn’t it?”

  Stick didn’t say anything for a moment, but finally he answered. “They call her ‘the treasure.’ She was a prodigy from four or five. Her father had those martial arts schools, and word got around fast.” Stick shifted his weight and tilted his head slightly, and Elektra knew he was still monitoring the class even as he was talking to her. “The Hand wanted her for thems
elves. They tried to steal her, but her father took her and fled.”

  “So when Mark refused,” Elektra put in, “they decided to make sure no one else would get her.”

  Stick nodded and they stood together in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Elektra asked the biggest question that had been plaguing her. That it came out from between her grinding teeth was unavoidable. “You hired me, didn’t you? The contract with McCabe—you set all this up.” Stick turned toward her, a look of surprise on his face, but Elektra was not deceived—she knew him too well, knew the expression he would use if he were feigning something. “The Hand has killers of its own, and who else would care? Except you.”

  A reluctant smile played across the older man’s mouth as he relaxed. “Some people need to figure the way out for themselves. Your mind is more agile than it once was.”

  She wanted to be angry, but she was too tired for that. Not just from her bout with typhoid fever, but from all of it—the running, the killing, the deception. The… loss. “You knew I wouldn’t kill them,” she said in a low voice, “a girl and her father.”

  Stick only gave her an enigmatic glance. “Did I?”

  Her eyes widened and she scowled. “It was a test, Stick. It was all a test, wasn’t it? From the day you threw me out of here.”

  That same knowing smile slipped across Stick’s face. “I knew what you would do. I just wanted to make you do it. The decency of your soul has always embarrassed you.” She let an unladylike snort evidence her skepticism, but Stick only gave her a mocking laugh in return. “There are some lessons that can’t be taught, Elektra. They must be lived to be understood. When you came to me, you were boiling over with anger. Whatever grace you once had was squeezed out of you by violence and tragedy. This is not the way. It is not our way.

  She pressed her lips together. “You always talk in riddles, Stick.”

  His unseeing eyes gazed at the students going through their lessons. “Yes, I’ve heard that before. It keeps my students from getting lazy.”

  Elektra folded her arms and turned to face him. He didn’t bother to do the same, preferring to remain in place and monitor Abby’s class. Despite her exhaustion and the smile that wanted to materialize at Stick’s rare self-humor, she couldn’t help feeling a tiny flare of the old anger. She hadn’t seen his body, but she knew McCabe had died because of his efforts at protecting her, Abby, and Mark—died because of Stick’s perpetual game playing. And he had almost not been the only one. “What if the Hand had killed me? And her?”

  Stick didn’t even move a muscle. “It was a chance I was willing to take. Anyway, I had faith in your abilities.”

  Elektra stared at him, trying to find her way through her own conflicting feelings. Praise was something she seldom got, and certainly not from the mentor she’d adored but who had rejected her years ago. Most of the time she’d rather fight, but… “It’s not my war, Stick,” she said aloud. “You had no right to drag me into this.”

  Now he did move, swiveling only his head in her direction. “I drag in who I want,” he said flatly. “Who I need.”

  She ground her teeth. “And now you’re dragging in Abby.”

  Now Stick shrugged. “As long as Kirigi’s alive, she’s only safe here anyway. She’s got no choice.”

  “And no freedom,” Elektra muttered. But really, what was there left to say? He was right, so she finally just turned and walked away. There were no more arguments about it—as so often happened with life, it was what it was. This situation with Kirigi had to be resolved or Abby, and Mark, would never be safe. Was it better to be safe and restricted, or doomed and free? She already knew the answer.

  She wandered the camp, going through the old haunts and training areas, places that she hadn’t thought about in years. A glance in one direction showed her a bandaged-up Mark headed her way on what was no doubt a physical therapy outing; he was balancing on a crutch and limping, concentrating on the ground and where he was walking as he moved forward with a teeth-gritting determination. He raised his head and caught her eye, then smiled and started toward her, but Elektra intentionally turned her back and went the other way. She needed to be alone so she could think about things, about Abby and Mark, about herself… and all their places in this crazy, mixed-up world. There was all the deception, too, that had gone around and twisted up her life, getting her involved in things she was never meant to take on. With all that on her mind, Elektra sure didn’t need Mark Miller around, mixing up her thoughts even more.

  Kirigi waited impatiently next to Tattoo, unable to stop himself from shifting from foot to foot. The tattoo-covered man was standing silently next to him, head thrown back and eyes only half open; his mouth was slightly slack as he concentrated, working to keep in sync with the hawk’s rapid-fire movements and human brain–enhanced perceptions. Finally the creature returned to its master, circling the sky to pinpoint Tattoo, then plummeting straight down and slamming into his arm. Tattoo came back to himself with a jerk, then grimaced and rubbed his arm; where the bird had reintegrated itself, the flesh was a fiery red, like a second-degree burn. That coloration would be gone in two more minutes, as would the sting of the bird’s home-coming. Of all the creatures inked on Tattoo’s body, this one liked to come back with a bang, diving to “Daddy” as though it were attacking prey.

  “What do you know?” Kirigi demanded.

  “There is much tension between the blind man and Elektra,” Tattoo told him.

  Kirigi digested this. “The assassin is the girl’s last hope, so I want to know where she is at all times. And we must kill Elektra. Tonight.”

  Tattoo nodded, then took another deep inhalation. A moment later his head fell back and his eyes glazed, and once again the hawk ripped itself free of his flesh and soared into the sky.

  17

  ELEKTRA KNEW ABBY WAS INSIDE HER CABIN BEFORE she even stepped onto the porch.

  She kept up her measured pace, never slowing until she climbed the steps, turned the knob, and pushed inside. There was the girl, all right, standing in the middle of the floor and playing with Elektra’s sais, swiping them through the air with practiced, fluid moves that followed first the lamenco pattern, then the doce pares pattern, executing both with admirable precision even if she was using the wrong weapons for the drills. Elektra watched her for a second, then said, “Still breaking and entering, I see.”

  Abby froze in the middle of a double oradabi strike, then lowered the sais and gave Elektra a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

  Elektra shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed. “Forget it. It’s a talent in the shadow arts. Keep practicing—you’ll need it.”

  Abby came forward hesitantly, as if she were going to sit next to her, but Elektra stood before the girl had the chance. She started pacing back and forth, measuring out the length of the small cabin, then turning back.

  Finally Abby spoke. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Elektra said shortly. Her stride quickened without her realizing it.

  Abby nodded, but her expression said she didn’t believe Elektra, so she kept talking. “I didn’t want to lie. My dad didn’t either. It made me sick not to tell you, I swear.”

  Elektra frowned and kept going, back and forth, back and forth. “We all lie, okay? None of us tell the truth about ourselves.”

  “Including you,” noted Abby.

  “Especially me.”

  Abby tilted her head thoughtfully. “You mean like the whole killing people for money thing.”

  Elektra nodded without slowing. “That… sure.”

  Abby watched her for a moment more, then said, “And the counting.”

  This time Elektra did stop. “Excuse me?”

  Abby nodded. “Like when I was counting windows because I’m a little obsessive-compulsive? So are you.”

  “No, I’m…” Elektra started to say, then her voice trailed off. “I used to be. I used to count… when I was a kid. But I haven’t done it in years.”


  “You were doing it just now,” Abby insisted. “When you walk like that, what’re you doing?”

  Elektra’s frowned deepened. “I’m just… pacing. It helps me think.”

  “Yeah?” Abby smirked, then pranced across the room, doing an exaggerated version of Elektra’s walk. “One…two…three… skip. One…” The assassin flushed with embarrassment and aggravation, more at being humiliated than being called out on something that turned out to be true. Honesty she could take, but not ridicule. “You’re counting your steps,” Abby continued smugly. “To control your bad thoughts.”

  Elektra’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t mock me, Abby. I’m your superior.”

  Now the teenager laughed outright. “My what?”

  Up to now, Elektra had simply been holding the girl to warrior etiquette—not to mention courtesy and good manners—but Abby’s flippancy was fast sending her into the realm of irritation. “As a warrior,” she told her coldly, “I’m your superior. Even if I do count.”

  But Abby only gave her a careless shrug. “Maybe.”

  Elektra arched one eyebrow. “Maybe? Would you like to find out for sure?”

  This time the teenager outright snorted. “I’m going to go look for my dad,” she said sullenly. It was obvious she didn’t like being told what to do by Elektra, and definitely didn’t agree with the notion that the older woman was better at anything than her. She went to the door and Elektra turned away, ready to let the whole thing blow over. Then, without warning, Abby shot out a reverse kick.

  She had thought she would catch Elektra by surprise, show her just how knowledgeable she was and how quickly she was picking up her lessons. That would show Elektra that she didn’t know everything, that—

  Elektra swept Abby’s kick to the side without even looking behind her. Then she leaned slightly forward and swung her own leg hard into Abby’s, taking the girl neatly off her feet.