Linnear 03 - White Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader Page B

chin and throat.
    Nicholas struck as he had been taught kenjutsu, as he would have done a sword strike: with all his muscle, mind, and spirit. He thought not of Koten's flesh but rather of what lay beyond it.
    The kite struck through flesh and cartilage. The sumo was dead before sensation could reach the brain and register.
    Afterwards, exhausted in spirit, sick at heart at what the violence in his life had engendered, Nicholas had taken the dai-katana and thrown it into a lake not far from where he now lived. It had vanished immediately, taking with it the last vestiges of a life he was determined to leave behind.
    Now Nicholas ripped apart the black cotton of his gi, feeling with his fingertips the raised horizontal scars on his chest, proof of the wounds he had received from Koten. For without that assurance surely he would have thought this memory nothing more than a dream.
    Abruptly, he heard a sound in the room, and his head
    snapped up just as if he were expecting an attack from an enemy.
    He saw Justine, walking barefoot across the tatami mats towards him. He said nothing as she crouched beside him. Her eyes searched his dark face, but she did not touch him.
    'If you are in such pain,' she said softly, 'the least you can do is let me help you.'.
    He was silent for a time. 'There's nothing you can do,' he said finally.
    'You mean there's nothing you'll let me do.'
    His head was down, his face in the shadows he created.
    'You're being foolish, Nicholas.'
    'Since you're so sure of yourself, so be it then.'
    Justine sat back on her heels, contemplating him. 'You helped me when I was in pain. Why won't you let me... ?'
    'It's not the same.'
    'Isn't it?' She shrugged. 'Well, maybe not.' She touched him now, her fingertips on his forearm for just an instant. 'You know, Nick, for a long time after... the death, I had no interest in sex. Well, that must have been fairly obvious.'
    'Neither of us were prepared to go on that way then,' he said.
    She waited for a moment, to let him know that he must allow her to finish. He knew from experience how difficult it was for her to speak her mind, or her heart, in personal matters. She said, 'My abhorrence of sex -well, not sex so much as the ultimate fruit of sex; that it had brought us such pain instead of joy - lasted longer than it should have, longer than was normal.'
    She caught the look in his eye, and said, 'Yes, Nick, I knew what I was doing, what I was doing to the two of us. But, you see, I couldn't stop. In retrospect, I think it might have been a perverse kind of penance, a feeling
    that crept over me, a malaise. I was certain that, after what happened, you would no longer find me attractive. No - ' She put her hand over his mouth. 'There's no need for you to tell me otherwise.' She smiled. 'It's all right. Really it is. Whatever I did, I did to myself. You were not a cause; you were only affected. I'm sorry about that.' She settled nearer to him. 'I wish... in a way, I wish we could go back in time, so I could deal with my own pain more effectively, and not allow it to spill over. I - '
    'You had every reason to feel as much pain as you did,' Nicholas said.
    She looked at him oddly. 'What about your pain, Nick? She was your baby, too.' She said it quietly, and had not meant to inject an accusatory note into her voice.
    'I don't want to talk about it. Whatever I feel about her is private.'
    Justine was taken aback. 'From me? I'm your wife, Nick!' She was dimly aware that her voice was rising, but she could not seem to stop herself. 'We made our daughter together. She was ours.'
    'It does no good to belabour the obvious.'
    Justine's anger abruptly burst through. 'Oh, stop it! It's so unreal, the way you are able to suppress everything. Love, hate, resentment, anger. What did you really think about me when you saw me wallowing in my self-pity day after day? Surely, from time to time, you must have been angry, hurt at my closing you out. And, speaking of that time, I don't even