"Don't be, silly," Buffy said. "Mark Kaspar showed up a couple of months ago. The rest of the acolytes seem to gravitate more toward him lately, but my allegiance is still to Yogi Mom."
Remo nodded to himself. It sounded like there was some kind of power play going on in paradise. He'd have to check out this Mark Kaspar once he was finished with Esther Clear-Seer.
They rounded the last of the concrete buildings near the main gate of the complex, and Remo was startled to see a perfectly ordinary-looking ranch house jutting out from the cluster of converted warehouses.
It looked like the giant urban cinder-block nightmare that was the rest of the Ragnarok complex was in the act of gobbling up a defenseless western cabin, but upon closer examination Remo realized that the cabin had been constructed after most of the other buildings.
"'Behold the dwelling of God with men, and he will dwell with them,'" Buffy piped up. "That's in chapter twenty-one of Revelations. And this is it." She motioned to the small, rustic ranch home.
"I think the Almighty probably had something other than a six-room, split-entry ranch with attached
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garage in mind when he wrote that," Remo pointed out.
Buffy led them up to the porch and rapped carefully on the heavy oak door. It swung open at her touch.
"Prophetess?" Buffy called as she stepped through the doorway. Remo and Chiun followed.
There was no one in the house proper, but Remo detected the odor of freshly overturned earth and felt the rush of cool air that preceded the smell. Somewhere in the back of the house a tunnel had recently been dug.
There was movement from a rear room, and a beautiful raven-haired woman stepped out into the living room, looking like a cross between Liz Taylor and Imelda Marcos.
The earth smell was strong on her, so she had come up through the tunnel, Remo reasoned. But there was another, stranger odor. Remo sniffed the air. Beneath a thick layer of expensive bath soaps and perfumes, the woman smelled of rotten eggs.
"Your friends are here, Prophetess," Buffy announced respectfully.
Esther Clear-Seer smiled coolly.
"Ah, Mr. Williams. Mr. Chiun. Welcome to your unavoidable destiny."
"You seem surprised, Mr. Williams," Esther Clear-Seer said calmly. She dismissed Buffy Brand with a nod, and the girl backed out dutifully from the house.
Remo and Chiun exchanged narrow glances.
"An assassin doesn't make many friends," Esther speculated. "Would you feel better if I called you Remo?"
"Whatever you call me, it won't be for long," Remo replied flatly, but his eyes, usually as cold and unwavering as a midnight sea, could not mask a spark of confusion.
"Spoken like a true professional," Esther murmured. She turned her attention to Chiun. "But you, Korean, are the truest professional. Master Chiun.
Elder of the House of Sinanju. I feel as if I've come face-to-face with history personified."
Chiun's wrinkled visage was impassive. He deigned not to look at Esther, but stared at the wall beyond.
Esther went on thoughtfully. "You truly are an assassin's assassin, aren't you, Master Chiun? How old were you when you killed your first man?" She passed a hand before her face, as if the movement would erase the words she had just uttered. "You were thirteen," she said. "A boy by any standards, but an infant
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according to your House. He was a Japanese soldier, scrounging for food in your village. He stole. You stumbled upon him. And you slaughtered him like a mongrel dog. Strange how his deathly face appeared in your dreams all those years afterward."
"Chiun?" Remo asked, bewildered. "This true?"
The Master of Sinanju made fists like thorns, his eyes frosty and still.
"It's encouraging that you two hooked up," Esther said to Remo. ' 'You an orphan, Remo. Master Chiun, a maker of orphans. You were meant for each other."
"That's it, lady, you're dogmeat." Remo made a move toward her.
A pipe-stem arm lashed out before Remo like a crossing gate. "Halt, Remo," Chiun commanded.
"Huh?"
Esther laughed. "I'd heed him if I were you, Remo."
"You're not me, sister," he growled. But he didn't move.
"No, that's true," Esther said, drawing close. "But there have been times when you wished you weren't, either."
Remo whirled on the Master of Sinanju. He seemed to have some idea of what was going on. "Chiun, what the hell is this?"
"Examine her hands," Chiun commanded.
Remo did. A powder, the color and consistency of mustard flour, coated Esther Clear-Seer's slender fingers.
"She's as hygenic as one of those goats," Remo said. "So what?"
Chiun held up a restraining hand. He tilted his nose
into the air and sniffed once, all the while watching Esther Clear-Seer through steady, thm-lidded eyes.
"That scent, Remo..."
"I smell it," Remo snapped. "It stinks like an egg-salad-sandwich factory."
"It is sulphur," Chiun explained.
"It is rank," Remo retorted.
"The old man knows," Esther said, pleased at his deduction. "By the way, is it permissible to be seated in the presence of the Master of Sinanju?'' Not waiting for a response, she gathered up the trail of her robes and dropped to a crushed velvet sofa.
Remo had had enough. He meant to flash over to the sofa. He intended to crack every one of Esther's vertebrae one at a time. He planned to crush her skull to powder, do a little jig on the woman's body and then run tear-ass back to Folcroft where Smith and his damn computers would be able to figure out what the hell was going on here.
All this Remo fully intended to do. But when he tried to move, a bony hand on his chest stopped him dead in his tracks and as unmovable as a redwood.
"Quit it, Little Father," Remo said. He tried to move his legs, but they had taken root in the highly polished hardwood floor. His arms, too, hung uselessly at his sides. Only then did Remo realize Chiun's free hand had drifted around to his lower spine. By manipulating the proper pressure points simultaneously, the Master of Sinanju had effectively paralyzed his pupil.