But worst of all-the thing that would have sent children diving for cover under their beds and made otherwise sensible villagers form torch-wielding mobs to storm the local castle-were the man's eyes.
His eyes seemed twice as large as those of a normal man's. Pupils swam in seas of bloodshot whites. They never blinked. They just stared from the black depths of the man's cowl.
Remo had barely reacted to the first attack, barely got a glimpse of the demented man, before the stranger attacked again. Fingers clutching more tightly around the handle, the man jabbed hard at Remo's exposed belly.
This time Remo was prepared. When the knife was an inch away from slicing open his abdomen, he simply slapped the underside of the man's wrist.
The blade launched up and buried deep in the man's throat. The eyes bugged even wider, and the wretched creature dropped like a stone to the dusty floor.
Remo whirled on the Master of Sinanju. "What the hell was that?" he demanded.
The old Korean stood near a pile of ancient Russian knick-knacks, a bland expression on his face.
"The best old Russia has to offer. Pitiful," he tsked.
Remo sniffed the air.
"Pee-yew," he groused. "I thought the eyes were the worst, but the stink's got them beat by a country mile. It's not the building that reeks, it's him."
He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the corpse. Or, rather, where the corpse had been.
The body was no longer there.
"What the hell?" Remo asked, just as the knife jammed hard toward his back.
He jumped and spun.
The weird-eyed man was back on his feet, standing silently behind Remo, thrusting with his dagger. Remo strained his ears even as he dodged the blade.
There was not a standard heartbeat. Just a momentary fluttering. A faint gurgle of life deep in the man's chest.
Slapping the knife back again, Remo buried the dagger where the gurgle gurgled. It stopped gurgling. His clawlike hand fleeing the knife handle, the man fell to the floor once more, the dagger buried deep in his chest.
As his black robes settled, he grew very still. "All right," Remo insisted to the Master of Sinanju. "I killed that guy the first time."
"Probably," Chiun admitted glumly.
Remo opened his mouth to say more. Before the words could even come, he heard a faint squeak. His face growing shocked, he looked for the source.
On the floor, the dead man had taken hold of the knife handle once more. Metal squeaked on flesh as he slowly withdrew it from his lifeless heart. Once the blade was removed, the faint gurgle began again.
Remo wheeled on Chiun, his eyes wide. "What is this guy, freaking Freddy Krueger?"
"He is a monk," Chiun explained.
Warily, Remo glanced at the man on the floor. The man who, by all rights, should have been dead was slowly pushing himself up to a sitting position. So silent was he it was as if he existed in a soundless vacuum. This coupled with his near-nonexistent life signs accounted for why Remo hadn't heard him to begin with.
Remo appraised the cowl and the robe. The man did indeed look something like a monk.
"Monks are supposed to be nice. They aren't supposed to try to kill you."
"I did not say he was a very good monk."
"And maybe I'm a little rusty on my Baltimore Catechism, but aren't they supposed to die when you kill them?"
Chiun rolled his eyes. "Not this one," he said. "Believe me, we have tried. My father did, some Russian royals tried. I believe my grandfather might have killed him a few times. He has been poisoned, stabbed, shot and drowned. Yet he keeps coming back again."
Something about his teacher's words tickled a memory far back in Remo's brain.
The monk was standing again. He offered Remo a smile that was little more than bared teeth and bugging eyes. The dagger was up and out again, ready to slash.
"What do I do to kill him?" Remo asked, anxious for any tip, any weakness, any pointers that could help him stop this wild-eyed, unstoppable, knife-wielding Russian.
Chiun's hands were tucked deep in his kimono sleeves. "You already killed him twice," the old man said with a shrug. "You have bested Russia's champion in mortal combat. If he's still pestering you, take his knife away."
Surging forward, the monk swung the knife at Remo's throat, a mad glint in his wide eyes.
Remo wasn't sure what else to do. As the knife whizzed by, he plucked the dagger from the Russian's filthy hand.
The monk stopped dead.
Remo moved the knife left and right. The monk's unblinking eyes followed the silver blade. Remo tossed the knife into the dark recesses of the nearest junk-packed room. It landed with a distant, muted clatter.
As soon as the knife was gone, the monk faded back into the shadows beside the door. The darkness swallowed cloak and cowl until all that remained was a Cheshire cat vision, with naked eyeballs instead of smiling teeth.
Remo raised a suspicious brow. "That's it?" he asked.
Chiun nodded. "This is an unusual exception in the Time of Succession," the Master of Sinanju explained. "The monk was charged with protecting the life of the czarevitch by the boy's mother many years ago. For nearly a century, by spells and magic, he has kept them both safe for the time when he can return the child to the Russian throne."
Remo glanced skeptically at the eyeballs in the shadows. His own eyes were generally able to draw in ambient light, illuminating darkness. But light formed differently around the monk. It was difficult to make out the dark robes among the deep shadows.
"So he's just going to stand there until, what, my pupil and I come here in another forty years?"
"I think he is also paid to do the cleaning up," Chiun said, uninterested. "Not that he has touched a dust rag in eighty years. Typical Russian. And the Romanovs paid him in advance. Czar Nicholas must be spinning in his grave." He touched Remo's arm. "Come. We have dawdled long enough."
"Wait a sec." Remo was peering at the monk. The monk peered back. "What's up with his eyes?"
"He does that for the tourists," Chiun explained, clicking his tongue impatiently. "He is a hypnotist."
Remo jumped back. "Whoa," he said, slapping one hand like a blinder beside his eyes.
"We met a Russian hypnotist years ago. He anything like that?"
"This one is nothing to worry about," Chiun assured him. "That other one we met had full and terrible control of his dread powers. Whatever this one had he has squandered on dissolute living. He cannot affect the minds of those from Sinanju, for we are not weak-willed dullards." Squinting, he looked Remo up and down. "Maybe you should keep your eyes covered just in case," he suggested. He spun to go.
"Cram it," Remo suggested, lowering his hand cautiously. "There was a monk that hung out with the Russian royal family, wasn't there? I seem to remember hearing he was unkillable. Raspberry, Rasmussen, something like that?"