A hand reached up to touch Remo's face. Remo recoiled.
"Red One, remember me with your ageless soul, not with your mortal mind .... Separated we have been drawn together again. Apart, we will rejoin. Two, we shall fuse into one ...."
"Get away from me! I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Freya."
"I am she and she is me. We are one. Soon you will be one with Shiva, who is my consort .... "
"I'm not Shiva."
"You do not remember the last time, in Arabia? We danced the Tandava but were thwarted. You slew my last host. "
Remo frowned. His memories of that time were vague. He had put most of them out of his mind ....
"I will not make the mistake I made then," Kali went on. "We inhabit temples of mere meat and bone. It is time to step out of them. To step free into our true bodies .... " Her yellow-nailed hands began to wave and gesture provocatively before his hurt eyes. "When you possess four arms as do I, our lovemaking will be exquisite .... "
Her hands touched his chest and crept up to his throat. They felt cold. Alien. Inhuman.
In that moment Remo let out a bellow of fear and confusion.
And somewhere in that scream of pure pain, he heard the Master of Sinanju call out his name.
CHIUN, REIGNING MASTER of Sinanju, floated in warm water, his face a tight web of wrinkles.
About him the waters roiled.
The flat-headed body of Gilbert Houghton was the center of a boiling of tiny, voracious needle-toothed fish. They nipped and ripped at his dead flesh. In death his arms flopped with such abandon as to seem alive.
Nearby, in the pool that was fast turning pink and then scarlet with blood, the scheming Copt, Anwar Anwar-Sadat was likewise being denuded of all flesh.
Attacked from all sides, his separated head bobbed and rolled, the face turning ceilingward and back again in mad denial of its fate.
And as the feeding frenzy grew to a boil, the Master of Sinanju lifted his long-nailed fingers to spear and flay any and all of the meat-eating fish who dared approach.
But as many nails as he possessed, there were still more fish. And in the room of doom existed only walls and no floor.
Opening his bitter mouth, he called out his pupil's name.
REMO MOVED into reverse before the yellow talons found his throat.
A screech trailed after him as he went down the narrow corridor, a human blur, but he blocked it out.
Coming to the niche, he saw a vertical slice of bubbling red water and saw the Master of Sinanju floating, surrounded by arrowing bone white fish like tiny attack dogs snapping at anything they could.
Without slowing, Remo hit the niche with raised fists. Brick shattered and tumbled.
Remo dived through the rubble and into the water as the reverberant thunder of collapsing stone and mortar filled the building. Only then did he remember the Master of Sinanju's warning of a keystone. By then it was too late.
"Hang on, Little Father!"
Striking the water cleanly, Remo came up with two fistfuls of squirming fish. He squeezed. The fish extruded their innards from both ends. Dropping them, he grabbed two more.
Immediately, living fish attacked the helpless dead.
Chiun switched tactics and followed suit.
Together they squeezed, impaled, kicked and stunned any fish that dared approach with bared needle teeth.
Hungry as they were, the fish got the message. The survivors concentrated on the bodies of Canadian Minister of Fisheries Gilbert Houghton and UN Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat, which fast became floating lengths of raw, red bone that continued to be pecked at even as the voracious fish nipped and stripped them of cartilage.
"Piranha," said Remo.
"I would not eat a fish that eats me," Chiun said dismissively.
Then, still treading water, they looked at the niche. It was a tumble of broken stones. Settling dust made a film on the agitated water.
"Freya..." Remo whispered. "Don't tell me I've killed you ...."
IT TOOK TWO HOURS but they carefully heaved stone and brick until they uncovered the brick chamber in which Freya, daughter of Remo, had reached out to work the will of Kali, goddess of death.
A motionless fall of golden hair spilled out from under a tumble of rock.
Remo froze.
Beside him Chiun said, "Kali's final trap, my son. Even in victory, she has handed you bitter defeat."
Remo reached down and heaved up a stone. It went tumbling away. He threw off another. The air was choked with disturbed mortar dust.
When he exposed the body of his daughter, he gently turned it over. Placing one ear to her heart, he listened, his eyes squeezed almost shut. The tears starting. The pain only beginning.
Yet he heard a beat.
Parting her mouth, he wiped off the ghastly yellow lipstick and blew in an urgent breath. The chest inflated, then fell. Remo blew another breath. He got the same result.
"You can't die on me," Remo said, his voice twisting and churning. "You can't. I won't let you."
"The spirit of Kali has abandoned her," Chiun intoned. "Accept that blessing and mourn."
"Like hell," Remo snarled. "I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up. Come on, baby. Breathe. I can hear your heart beating. Breathe for Daddy. Breathe and I'll take you away from all this. Open your eyes and I'll take you to a safe place where no one will ever harm you. I swear. I swear I will."
And in his arms, his daughter gave a sharp little gasp. Dusty air was drawn into her open mouth and nostrils.
"Remo!" Chiun squeaked. "Look! She struggles. Her brave lungs crave air!"
"I see, I see," Remo said, bringing her pale face up to his.
Silently, grimly, he performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until he had breathed life back into the body of his only daughter. Her eyelids fluttered briefly, showing butterfly glimpses of the most beautiful eyes Remo had ever seen.