Disharmony

This close to him Sam suddenly felt the past deaths he’d been responsible for. Their ghosts wailed and moaned, and her legs jellied as the stored-up emotions of people he’d crushed and killed seeped through his pores and into her own. He grabbed her arms as she almost collapsed, and she was swamped by his hatred for her; it scalded her skin at every point of contact between them.

He threw his head back and howled.

Whimpering, incoherent with terror, Samantha tried, but failed, to close her eyes as he bent down to her head height to make her face him. His teeth were bared in a broken-lipped snarl and she saw in his black eyes that he was beyond human reach, beyond compassion. Her legs gave out completely and she bowed her head, waiting for his sword to fall.

But, as though from somewhere far away, deep inside, she heard a voice trying to tell her something. You’ve done it before, it whispered. In the street in Pantelimon – you reached him then.

Samantha White, you’ve done it before.

Although she wanted nothing more than to just allow her mind to go blank – to do what it wanted to do: overload its circuitry and shut down – she forced herself instead to search for the yellow light inside her.

But this close to Scarface, it felt impossible. The only energy streaming through her right now was wound-red and burned-black.

She tried to shut him out, she managed to close her eyes, but she could taste blood, and the charred stench of his rage filled her nostrils.

She needed an image, a place, a time to help her channel the light.

And suddenly, it came to her.

The burning stench Scarface emitted transformed in her mind to wood smoke, to the campfire crackling in preparation for Esmeralda’s evening meal. She found herself sitting cross-legged in the long grass, her lime-green skirt fanned out around her, the purple twilight warm upon her skin. She smiled, because behind the fence, within an arm’s-reach, Tamas whispered patiently to a broken horse, his brown face just visible, nuzzling its muzzle, swapping scents.

Tears streaming, Samantha gathered his whispers, his tender promises to the horse, and sent them out as quiet energy through her skin and into Scarface.

She felt it immediately.

Scarface hissed. As though a bucket of water had been thrown over white-hot coals, the fire of his rage evaporated. His eyes, locked with hers, became panicked, confused. He swung his head around wildly, as though for the first time properly taking in his surroundings.

What have I done? she thought, as she felt fear flood through him, replacing the hatred. She sensed him slowly losing his grip on reality.

He let go of her arm and swivelled completely, swaying on his feet, gazing back at the wardrobe from which he’d come. The wardrobe Zac and Luke stood pressed against, holding back the rest of the hell-people.

And, with a deafening, demented shriek, Scarface suddenly bolted towards the wardrobe, sword raised.

‘No!’ Samantha screamed, as Scarface struck.

JULY 2, 7.36 P.M.

Luke did not hear Samantha scream.

In fact, he heard nothing at all. The world became completely silent and everything slowed to a syrupy crawl as he watched the tattooed arm swinging its sword down towards Zac. Only these two players were in pinpoint-focus on the board as the rest of the room faded to sepia. His brain computed the microseconds it would take him to pull Zac from the path of the sword, even as it continued its lethal trajectory directly into his friend’s chest.

Zac crumpled to the floor and Luke knew that there was nothing he could do. He jumped anyway, leaping up onto the madman standing over Zac, roping his arms around his neck, heaving with everything he had to pull him down.

The swordsman teetered, Luke wrenched desperately, and they fell.

Luke felt the sword piercing his heart, just as Samantha’s agonised face appeared above him. Her hand grasped his. A dark, wrenching pain ripped through him and he gasped. An aching anguish (could this be sorrow?) filled him at the thought that he was about to die and he’d never get to know her. But in that moment he was also inexpressibly grateful. Grateful that even though this would be the last time he would experience it, somehow his sister had again helped him to feel.

And finally he got it – finally he understood what everyone meant when they kept asking him, What do you think it would feel like if someone did that to you? He finally knew how someone else felt, and he was glad that the other person was Zac, his first real friend.

As his life pumped from the wound in his chest, Luke managed to drag himself a few centimetres closer to Zac.

He reached a hand out to touch his dying friend’s shoe, smiled up at Samantha, and then closed his eyes.

Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, Australia

July 2, 7.37 p.m.

From the age of seven, Kirra Kiyota had been able to out-fight any grown woman.

And at that age, no male under the age of sixteen could beat her in hand-to-hand combat.

She’d begun her martial arts training while still in nappies, chosen and schooled by Heaven’s Thief himself. She’d been told, even then, that when he’d had his dream about her destiny, her family had had no choice but to hand her over to the Yakuza.

She had no memory of her parents and wanted none. Heaven’s Thief had been her father, the Chairman her benevolent uncle.

When, at twelve, she’d knocked senseless their best adult male fighter, the Chairman had offered her the right to take the defeated man’s life. Still shamefully soft, she’d declined, so the Chairman had bought her a Lamborghini as a prize for her win, and forced her to sleep for a mid-winter’s month on the stones in the courtyard for refusing the kill.

All of this knowledge flashed through Kirra’s mind when she was high-kicked onto her arse by a woman. She could have sat there for another twenty-four hours trying to figure out how that could be possible, but her body was already kicking, blocking and striking, even as she hit the ground and bounced back to her feet.

Her opponent kept up, then ramped it up, and Kirra suddenly wanted to laugh, to rejoice in what she realised was going to be a rare – and maybe never again experienced – battle.

‘Who trained you?’ she managed through gritted teeth.

‘Kimi,’ said the woman, escaping Kirra’s hold and striking her to the kidneys. ‘She who is without equal.’

‘Liar!’ hissed Kirra, ignoring the pain. ‘Kimi Kana has been buried for a thousand years.’ And I am her equal.

She twisted out of a hold and into a back-arch, smacking into her enemy’s jaw with each foot as she flipped back up onto her feet.

As they battled, she tried to ascertain the whereabouts of the rest of her crew. She knew that Dagger’s Breath would appropriate the targets, but she could not see Golden Tiger or Tanabe Yukio.

Suddenly she sensed that something was very wrong. From the corner of her eye, she saw her number one – her beloved – Dagger’s Breath – staggering in through the doorway of this cursed room past her towards the wardrobe. Dagger’s Breath would not stagger, would not stumble, she thought, still blocking blows instinctively, unless he was mortally wounded, or maybe bewitched.

Then Dagger’s Breath raised his sword.

Her opponent froze at the precise moment Kirra did.

They both spun on the spot and screamed, ‘No!’

Too close! The thought flashed through Kirra’s mind. You are too close to the target, Dagger’s Breath! We have