It had been three years since she had first arrived here at Toshiro’s. She remembered that morning as though it was yesterday. The old man had been waiting outside when she and Sensei had arrived. She had clung to Sensei in the limousine, scared of the wizened little man waiting outside the car.

Sensei had spoken to her gently, but firmly. “You are going to stay here with Toshiro for the next few years, Shizu, and he is going to teach you many things. When you are finished, when you have learned all you need to know, then I will return for you. Your destiny awaits you, but destiny is a harsh mistress and you must be strong if you are going to bend her to your will. Can you do that, Shizu?”

She remembered staring into his eyes, seeing the challenge there, and knowing deep down in her heart that if she did not get out of the car and do as she was asked, then the second chance at life that she had been granted when this man walked into the warehouse in Kyoto would be finished. He would abandon her as quickly as he had taken her in.

With a trembling hand, she had opened the car door and presented herself to Toshiro.

“Again! Begin!”

Focusing her concentration, Shizu started the sequence of movements that began the kata, letting her thoughts drift as she felt the proper movements more than thought about them. Katas had been developed to allow a martial artist to practice against an imaginary opponent—or, in this case, opponents—and as Shizu moved through the sequence she concentrated so strongly that she could picture them before her. She could see their strikes, feel the passage of their limbs, as they punched and kicked and spun, trying to defeat her. Shizu was a good pupil, probably one of the best Toshiro had ever trained, though he’d never tell her that, and she moved from defense to attack and back again with almost effortless ease.

Toshiro had been a harsh taskmaster over the years, but a fair one as well. He had taught her so much—art and language, history and culture, math and science. She took to it with an aptitude and a hunger that had surprised both of them, and in a very short time she had surpassed even his brightest students.

It was in the second year of her residence that the physical training began. Strength conditioning to prepare her body. Meditation to train her mind. Martial arts to prepare her for what was to come in the years ahead. Karate. Tae kwon do. Brazilian jujitsu. Thai boxing. Wing Chun kung fu. Ninjitsu. A mishmash of styles and disciplines, all designed for one end—to prepare her for the destiny that Sensei said awaited her.

She had learned much, it was true, but even she knew there was more to come. Toshiro was not done with her yet. This was just another of his seemingly endless tests, but Shizu welcomed it as she had all the others.

Besides, this day was different.

Sensei was there.

She did not know how she knew; she just did. She had not seen him, had not heard Toshiro speak of his presence, but she could feel him, out there, somewhere, watching.

And so she strove to perform the kata without error.

Seeing the near perfection of her movements, Toshiro decided to show his unseen guest just how good his pupil actually was. With a nod at the doorway in the back of the room, the martial-arts master summoned those he had handpicked for the occasion.

Five darkly clad warriors rushed into the room, armed with a variety of weapons, from a bo staff to a katana.Without hesitation they rushed across the room and attacked Shizu, who was still moving through the sequence of her kata.

The young prodigy felt them coming, could sense them in her mind’s eye, and she waited for them to reach her.

Then, once they had, she fell on them like a lightning storm.

It didn’t matter that they were armed and she was not. It didn’t matter that they were warriors who had been studying for decades, well versed in their particular disciplines, while she had been studying for only three years. It didn’t matter that she had been enduring a grueling training session for forty-eight hours without a break while they were well rested, well fed and eager to show Toshiro what they could do.

None of that mattered.

What mattered was the heart of the warrior, and Shizu had that in spades.

She made it look easy.

One by one, her opponents were disarmed, beaten, battered and tossed aside like leaves before a gale-force wind. Even as they lay there groaning, trying to figure out what had just hit them with such ferocity, Shizu continued with her previous exercise, flowing into the next step in the kata as smoothly as if she had never been interrupted.

Behind her, out of sight, the old teacher smiled in grim satisfaction.

When she had finished all two hundred steps of the form with perfect execution and flawless precision, she turned to her teacher and bowed low, just as she’d been taught on the very first day.

But then Shizu did a surprising thing.

As Toshiro watched, his pupil turned to face the wall behind which their guest stood, observing the session. With just as much respect as she had shown her teacher, Shizu bowed to their unseen guest.

The move brought a bark of laughter from Toshiro, something his students heard so seldom that it caused Shizu to spin around and stare at him in surprise.

TOSHIRO SAT AT THE FEET of his guest and served him tea prepared the old way, the only way that mattered. As any true warrior would, the man accepted the proffered cup and then offered it back again to Toshiro, indicating that the elder should be the one to drink first. Back and forth it went until honor had been satisfied and his guest took a long drink from the tiny cup.

With the ceremony out of the way, the two men could get down to business.

“You saw?” Toshiro asked.

The other man nodded. He’d been watching from behind a hidden slot in one of the studio’s shoji screens, the same one Shizu had so impertinently bowed toward, and was privately thrilled with how far his protégé had come. “She has learned well, yes?”

“She is a good student. Still thinks too much, but we’ll drive that out of her yet.”

Toshiro’s guest frowned. “You think she needs to remain here longer?”

The shorter man beamed. “Oh, yes. Another year, maybe two. She is not yet ready.”

“But I thought you just said she was a good student. That she wasready.”

The grizzled old warrior shook his head. “Not ready. Still has not learned the path of the lotus flower, the way of the crane, the—”

His guest held up his hands. “Okay. Enough. I will not argue. You are the master here, not I.” Still seated, he bowed low to show his respect and to apologize for his doubt.

The older man slapped him on the knee, an affectionate move that one might not have expected for a man of his reputation, but the two of them had known each other for a long time, a long time indeed.

“You shouldn’t worry. I will forge for you a weapon with such precision that not even Death will know she is coming.”

The other man smiled. “I know you will, Toshiro, I know you will.”

16

Now

Feeling very flustered by what she had experienced in the hypnotherapist’s office, Annja wandered the streets for a bit, keeping her mind purposely blank. She didn’t want to think about the drawings on the pad in her hands, didn’t want to think about the possible implications, how it all might be interpreted. Not yet, at least. She just wanted to calm her racing heart and get her pulse back under control.