"The Initiation of Furious Buddha"
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dochermes"Initiation of Furious Buddha"
9/1/2018
I.
The second hour at the feast was about all that Sheng could handle. He was growing increasingly uncomfortable. His problem was that he looked Chinese, probably hailing from the North considering his cheekbones and eagle-beaked nose. He only spoke barely passable Cantonese and he was here with his Uncle Pao, who was so thoroughly Chinese that he couldn't be taken for anything else. So everyone spoke to him with puns and references that he had no clue about.
But in fact, Sheng Mo-Yuan had come from the adjacent realm of Chujir. Tel Shai lore claimed that Chujirans were the distant ancestors of what had become the Han people, though this had no evidence to support it. When they had met by chance, the old man Pao had immediately claimed Sheng as his nephew, partly because of the coincidence of their family names but mostly because both were lonely men with no true family, and both of them had accepted this.
Seated at the huge round table, Sheng found himself shoveling down great quantities of food as everyone reached past him or handed him samples to try. This won his hosts over. The saying was that Chujirans would eat anything they could pin down and he was a typical Chujiran in that regard. Even though he had told everyone he had unfortunately been brought up in the very white wilderness of Nebraska, his gusto at eating everything from chicken feet to clotted duck blood soup brought him credit. He would have eaten dog if it had been offered; back in Chujir, he had done so a few times.
Nearly all of the people at that table were Chinese men middle-aged or older. The one exception to his left was a young woman with amazing glossy black hair hanging straight past her shoulder blades. Not only was she asking Sheng about his career as a private detective, she sat attentively listening to his responses. This was an endearing trait and he was becoming fond of her.
The final scraps were being scraped together. The excited and rather loud conversations slowed as digestion began to bog everyone down. It seemed clear that the gathering was drawing to a close. One by one and then in pairs, the men thanked their host and left the house.
In a cluster at the other side of the table were four octogenarians including Uncle Pao. They wiped their mouths with linen napkins and rose together, perhaps a bit stiffly. The master of the house, Yen Li, was a stout old man with both black hair and beard streaked with white strands. He was impeccably dressed in a lightweight tropical suit and tie. "Young Sheng, will you join your Uncle to the hospitality of my den?"
Standing up himself, seeing the nod of approval from Uncle Pao, Sheng replied, "It would be my honor." To be honest, he would rather have spent some time with that friendly girl. His romances had been spaced way too far apart to suit him. But all his instincts told him something big was underfoot, maybe a major case for his Fist For Hire Agency.
The four old men led Sheng and Pao to a room at the rear of the mansion. High-ceilinged, wood-paneled, its walls were filled with bookshelves broken by a few traditional scrolls or small bronze figurines. Comfortable overstuffed leather armchairs were arranged in a circle around a table holding a humidor, bottles of wine and gleamingly clean glasses.
As the elders settled gratefully into the comfort of those chairs, Yen Li gestured for Sheng to join them. Two of the old men selected cigars and puffed away for a few seconds before settling down. Yen Li unbuttoned his brocade vest with relief before speaking.
"I have known Sheng Pao-Wang only a few years," Yen began. "Yet I have learned he is a man of honor who harms no one and who is always ready to help those in need. A better friend can hardly be found."
"Stop, stop, I blush," Uncle Pao laughed.
"And he had told me many colorful tales of you, Sheng Mo-Yuan. Sometimes known to the whites as Argent. You are said to be a knight of Tel Shai, that ancient order whose origins are lost in time. Not only are you a Master of Kumundu, you are said to have the remarkable ability to make your body hard as rock, to increase your speed and strength beyond limits of what even Chi can enhance. But you can only enact one of these properties at a time. Have I been misled?"
Sitting upright at the edge of the plush chair, Sheng shrugged. "No, sir. All that is true. I have been given a gift for which I am most grateful."
"That is good to hear, since you may walk on a perilous road soon. My other friends here tonight have enjoyed long lives and survived hard times. We do not choose to go to the police with our problems. It is better to handle our troubles ourselves and let the outsiders remain unaware."
A few murmurs of agreement sounded from the three old men in the circle. The eldest there, with long silver hair and sunken cheeks spoke, "We represent the Chinese-American Benevolent Society of Lower Manhattan, young man. To be blunt, we are a Tong much like those founded nearly two hundred years ago in this country. Where the authorities will not help us, we help each other."
Sheng kept his face grave and hoped he would not say the wrong thing now.
Yen Li continued, "I must speak names better left unmentioned, names stained with many crimes and much wickedness. Wu Lung. The Manchurian. The Spinner of Webs. They have been quiet in recent years, perhaps occupied elsewhere or perhaps finally gone from this life. A new would-be threat has surfaced. We would wish to keep him from putting down roots in our community."
Uncle Pao spoke up for the first time. "My nephew is discreet. He will not volunteer information to the authorities. Secrets remain behind his teeth."
"So we had hoped," Yen Li admitted. "Young Sheng, you are said to be familiar with the many schools of assassins who trouble this unhappy world. One of the worst of these has been reported here, in our Chinatown. Have you ever heard," and even behind the closed door of his own den, he lowered his voice and leaned forward, "... have you ever heard of the Furious Buddha?"
II.
In the taxi heading back to Canal Street, Uncle Pao satisfied himself that the driver was of Italian descent, the name 'Sal Viscoglio' being a big factor.
>"He is unlikely to understand real language,"< Pao said in Cantonese. >"Has your KDF team encountered this so-called Furious Buddha' school before?"<
>"Twice that I know of,"< answered Sheng. >"Our captain Jeremy killed a Walking Weapon many years ago and Megan Salenger defeated a second Furious Buddha fighter by trickery more recently. They both reported the opponent was highly skilled and very dangerous... easily equal to an Amrath or a Zoku-Ya. They don't recommend tangling with one hand to hand."<
The old man scoffed and waved a dismissing hand. >"Feh. These Walking Weapons were not facing YOU."<
>"On my best day, I was no match for Jeremy Bane on his worst day,"< Sheng laughed. >"If he had his hands full fighting a Furious Buddha, I'm really going to have a hard time. Do you know the history of Furious Buddha?"<
>"I neither know nor am interested..."< the old man began but was cut off.
"It was hundreds of years ago, supposedly the 14th Century," Sheng said, lapsing into English without realizing it. "A Tel Shai student from Tibet learned a lot of Kumundu as it was taught back then, but he betrayed the Order. He murdered two of his fellow students and escaped back to the real world. The lust for wealth dominated him. He founded a new House of assassins, using his knowledge of Kumundu."
>"Stick to real language,"< Uncle Pao interrupted.
>"Certainly. The founder of the House claimed to have received his wisdom in a mystic vision he received of the Lord Buddha in an enraged state. No one really believes that. He didn't want to admit he was a Tel Shai renegade working with stolen knowledge."<
Pao rapped sharply with his knuckles at the plastic divider between them and the front seat. "Driver! I say, driver! This is the address, you should stop here."
"Sure thing, grandpa," came the response as the cab swerved over against the curb. "Meter reads $8.25."
"All I have is a ten," said Sheng, handing it over before exiting out the rear door.
"'At's fine," the driver grumbled. "Have a nice night."
Sheng and Uncle Pao stood in front of the five story Hartwicke Building and looked up at the sole lit window on the third floor. Written in script across its glass was ARGENT INVESTIGATIONS in an arc, then below that in Chinese ideograms 'Chuan Lo Tsing,' which could be translated as 'Hardworking Fist' or 'Fist For Hire.'
"Only eleven-fifteen, Uncle," Sheng said, "But we might as well open the office. No point in waiting until midnight."
"I was not about to take the subway to my sad little apartment for five minutes before I would have to return," the old man muttered. He followed Sheng through the unlocked front door into the tiny foyer with its rows of tenant mailboxes and a single light bulb high overhead. Pao went up the stairs first, climbing them easily at a moderate pace with one hand lightly touching the rail.
At the second floor landing, Uncle Pao paused for a second and Sheng discreetly bent over the rail to stare down at the floor below. In fact, although he always followed his uncle when ascending stairs in case of a fall, he was impressed with how steady the old man was on his feet. Pao finished the final flight and emerged onto the third floor. To their right was the door with its frosted glass panel repeating the same information about their detective agency.
Sheng froze, as alert as if he had heard a rattlesnake give its warning. What was wrong? What was he sensing? Automatically, he swung around in front of his partner and gently pushed him back. Before the old man could protest in his usual strident tones, Sheng raised a forefinger to his lips. "Shhh."
Seeing how serious Sheng was, for one Uncle Pao did not argue but simply tip-toed over to a bench against the far wall where he would be out of sight. He watched as Sheng unbuttoned his suit jacket and loosened his tie, reliable indicators that violence of some sort was expected. Stepping up close to his office door, Sheng slowed his breathing and after thirty seconds, his hearing became greatly enhanced. This was a Tel Shai technique he had not particularly good at. Still, it was enough to tell him that a single person was in his office, more than ten feet back from the door. A young male in good health. That was all he could infer.
As he placed his hand on the door knob, Sheng channeled the transcendental gralic force into his body, reinforcing it on a cellular level. His bones became dense as granite, his skin as impervious as steel while still remaining flexible. He swung the door open and said quietly, "You wanted to see me?"
Standing with lowered arms was a young man still in his early twenties, a bit under six feet tall and built like a runner. He was wearing the simplest clothes, sneakers and jeans and a plain white T-shirt. With his thick coarse black hair and tawny skin tones, he seemed to be Korean but a second glance at his features indicated he was more likely Eurasian... possibly of Spanish descent. There was no noticeable eyelid fold and the eyes themselves were more a hazel color than brown.
But everything about the man triggered warnings to Sheng.
From the way he stood with his weight evenly balanced, his foreward foot at a sharp angle to his rear foot, the deep slow breathing, the way one hand was open and rigid while the other was tightened into a fist, this man had the signals that Sheng had been trained to watch for in a possible opponent.
"Good evening," the man said in a neutral-accented tone. "Please excuse my taking the liberty of entering your office when you were not here."
"I suspect that will be the least of our disagreements," replied Sheng. He himself remained in a loose casual stance, ready to attack or defend from any angle. "You know my name."
"Ah. Yes. I am Mark Olivera. I can see your Kumundu has already told you that I am a martial artist, too. I represent the House of Furious Buddha."
III.
Sheng took a step forward, turning his right side an inch toward the intruder, who did not visibly react. "What a coincidence. I was just thinking of your school."
"Hah. Old Yen Li warned you that we were here in this city. Please, let us relax as much as we can. Men such as we can never lower our defenses fully, but think about it. My skills are worth gold. I am not going to kill anyone for free."
Backing out of the doorway without taking his eyes off Olivera, Sheng said, "Fair enough. Out in the hall, then. I don't want my furniture getting smashed if I can help it."
As both men moved out into the open space between the staircase and the wall where a travel agency had its office, Uncle Pao got to his feet.
"Please wait in our office, uncle," said Sheng. "Close the door and wait for me to call you." He had watched the Furious Buddha fighter's stride, analyzing the man's movements. With slight dismay, Sheng judged that his own martial skills were only on a par with Olivera's, maybe slightly less effective. He would have to rely heavily on his ability to make his body invulnerable or faster or stronger than normal. And of course, he was wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under his clothes. But would these advantages be enough?
It wasn't that Sheng lacked confidence. He had been taught by Chael at Tel Shai to be as objective as possible when sizing up an opponent. Cockiness had killed more fighters than ill-preparation. As Olivera sat down on the bench where Uncle Pao had been a moment earlier, he deliberately crossed his legs with his right ankle over his left knee and his head resting back on his folded hands. It was a posture designed to show he was not about to attack, and Sheng took it as such.
"I'm ready to listen," he said, stepping back to lean against the bannister of the staircase.
"My House is in the assassin trade, that's true. You know our reputation. But the sad truth is that Furious Buddha is near extinction. Centuries ago, we could field an army of Walking Weapons and we had our Masters teaching new students in several countries at once. I am the only Wai-Y'ien left, and my Master the only teacher. An encounter with the Blind Archers that goes wrong or something so mundane as cancer or pneumonia could finish the Furious Buddha school."
Sheng could not hide his dislike of this man and his school. "Well, nothing lasts forever, not even professional killers."
"Proud words from a man whose business is called 'Fist For Hire.' We are different only in that you do not set out to eliminate your targets from the start. Still, I understand you have taken life many times in your career."
Was it strangely warm in the hallway? Stuffy, even? Sheng hesitated before telling this killer how different the two of them were. He straightened up and without warning, his knees buckled. Something was wrong. His thoughts were clouded, everything seemed far away. On his hands and knees, panting in short rapid breaths, Sheng Mo-Yuan tried to get up but couldn't.
"You know about the Life In Death, don't you?" came Olivera's voice from a great distance. "We Wai-Y'ien are placed in a coma by an Alchemical poison. After three days we are revived. Some of us don't make it. Those who return to life have lost most of their memories and are blank pieces of paper where the Furious Buddha teaching can be written."
The world was turning not black but grey. Sheng realized what had happened. Why wasn't his enhanced healing from the Tagra diet protecting him? He slumped face down on the bare wooden floor without realizing it.
Mark Olivera rose smoothly and came over to stand in front of the unconscious Chujiran. "Ah, the poison is quite odorless and has no scent, Argent. And for the past four minutes, you have been breathing it."
IV.
The mental fog took eternity to clear. It was an agonizingly slow process before Sheng could remember who he was and what had happened. He was lying on his back on something soft, lying with his hands clasped over his chest. Where? This wasn't his bed. More by instinct than by conscious thought, the Chujiran detective made himself take a deeper breath, then forced the next breath to be deeper yet. Teacher Chael had always emphasized that proper breath control was the foundation of strength both physical and spiritual.
Now, he remembered confronting Olivera in the hall outside of his office. The taunting words of the assassin came back to him. It was said that Furious Buddha recruits suffered the Life In Death for three days and nights before resurrection, yet Sheng felt he had only been unconscious a short time. That would be the healing properties of the Tagra regimen he had been on for years.
For a second, a bad case of jitters rushed over him like icy wind. It had been so close, he would have awakened in three days with most of his memories gone. His teammates in the KDF, his deep friendship with Uncle Pao, everything from his boyhood in Chujir to his adventures with his own Agency... all swept away and replaced by a dedication to the House of Furious Buddha.
What a vile scheme! Sheng felt capable of drawing on his Argent power. He concentrated and channeled the transcendental gralic force into his body. This time he focused on strength. In less than a second, his muscles and tendons increased their capabilities many times. At his peak, Sheng had once flung a motorcycle out of his way and torn a car door off with a single effort. He sat up and looked around.
Damn. He was lying in a mahogany coffin, its lid propped open. The room around him was heavily curtained so no doors or windows showed, and light came from a dozen tall candles in steel holders on stands. Oddly enough, this was the second time he had recovered from being drugged to find himself in a coffin. But there was no time to think of that now.
Sitting up, he swung one leg up over the edge of the coffin and scrambled down to the marble floor. When he was in the enhanced strength mode, a certain euphoria made him feel invincible. He had to watch out for that false confidence. Sheng was still wearing his dark brown business suit with the yellow shirt and tan necktie but of course his dart gun had been taken. Patting his clothes quickly, he determined that his more obvious gadgets had also been removed, but several tiny gimmicks remained in slits and hidden pockets which a casual search would not suspect.
There was no telling when Olivera or his Master would show up, so Sheng peeked behind a few of the drapes, found a plain wooden door and established it was locked. With his extra strength, he could have easily snapped that lock and tried an escape. But no. That would only prolong the case, he thought. Better to finish this quickly. Another drape had a shallow ledge at waist height where a window had been plastered over, so he sat down and made sure he was concealed while he waited.
With every minute, he felt closer to his normal health. The Tagra tea diet was a major reason why being accepted at Tel Shai was so prized. Not only did the tea accelerate healing and promote resistance to injuries, it definitely prologed life spans so that Tel Shai knights were active and energetic decades after normal retirement ages. Lately, Sheng had been wondering if Tagra also caused mental resilience; he and other knights went through incredibly violent and horrific experiences without any trauma or even nightmares.
Twenty minutes went by. Sheng was seriously considering how crass it would be to urinate behind one of the curtains. Considering he had been drugged and hauled here without his knowledge, he felt such vandalism would be justified. But then the slap of angry footsteps outside the room alerted him. Sheng stood up and heard the door crash open. He peeked out.
Mark Olivera stomped over the coffin and froze in mid-step, wheeling about just as Sheng emerged from behind the curtain and said, "Disappointed?"
"Surprised, yes," snapped the assassin. "But then Tel Shai knights are notoriously difficult to harm. I told my Master we should have given you a much larger dose of the Life in Death."
Setting into a basic forward leaning stance, right fist back by his chest and open left hand extended, Sheng said, "Let me guess what you're thinking. You're not wild about having a new Walking Weapon who might surpass you. Now you can claim that I got loose and
attacked you, you were forced to kill me in self-defense. That sound about right?"
The faintest hint of a smile touched the man's thin lips. "Yes. If you became one of the House, your KDF friends would hunt us down. Who needs the Dire Wolf of all people on your trail? Or the Blind Archer or that savage Gelydra woman?"
Watching as his enemy shifted weight and turned slightly sideways, Sheng Mo-Yuan asked, "How much do you remember of your real life?"
"What?"
"Do you have a family wondering whatever happened to you? A wife or girlfriend, workplace friends? Do you ever feel bad that you'll always be an unsolved mysterious disappearance to them?"
"Listen, that was someone else! My life is the House of Furious Buddha and nothing else."
Sheng made a tsk-tsk click. "You don't even know how much you've lost, you poor soul."
Without any feints, Olivera vaulted forward and launched a flurry of left-right punches from every conceivable angle. Sheng blocked nearly all of them. The few that got through his defenses glanced off his ribs or chest, not near his head. Because of the Trom armor under his clothes, he felt the blocks as only light taps but to Olivera they were brutally punishing. Still on strength mode, Sheng began putting more force into his blocks. To Olivera, each blow he launched what met by what felt like receiving a punch in return.
Hopping to one side, the Furious Buddha swept Sheng's left foot out from under him and leaped up to blast an elbow strike to the back of the head as his foe was off-balance. That hurt. The Chujiran adventurer dropped to one knee, rolled ten feet away and hopped back up again. He was barely in time to swerve and let a vicious high side kick scrape along his jaw without doing any harm.
There was the opening! Sheng smashed an open palm strike to the center of the assassin's chest with three times the impact a heavyweight boxer could deliver. The air rushed out of Olivera's lungs, he reeled back and his defenses lowered for a split-second. Sheng smacked a crescent kick that connected to the base of Olivera's neck and dropped the man as if he had been shot.
On hands and knees, unable to catch his breath, the Furious Buddha killer realized from the sharp pain that his sternum had a hairline fracture. He glared up at the impassive face of his opponent. "Finish it!"
"I try not to kill if there's any alternative," Sheng gasped. He himself was breathing heavily, those forty-five seconds of intense action had hurtled at a pace that would have killed most martial artists. "I thought I needed you to take me to your Master, but that's not necessary now."
Mark Olivera tried to rise but only lost his support and slumped face down on the marble floor. "No... not my Master."
"Sure. I know who he is." Unclipping his Link from the back of his belt, Sheng patched into the phone system. "Hello, Uncle? Just letting you know I'm okay. This case is almost wrapped up. You what? You've been sleeping on the office couch all this time? Well I like that. Weren't you worried sick about me being abducted by a cult of world classic assassins? Yes. Yes, I am a 'big boy' now, I guess you're right. I'll be back when everything's done. Go back to sleep, Uncle."
V.
Dawn was beginning to cast a grey half-light over Queens, traffic was picking up with delivery trucks and early risers as Sheng pulled Olivera's van up into the driveway of the impressive house where he had eaten dinner the night before. A single window on the ground floor was lit. Sheng got out from behind the wheel but before he could do anything further, the front door of the house opened.
Yen Li was wearing the same suit he had on the night before. If he was surprised to see his guest returning at this ungodly hour before sunrise, it did not show on his masklike face. Nor did he speak as he approached.
It was up to Sheng to break the silence. "Your disciple isn't in this van," he announced calmly. "I've got him concealed in a KDF safe house. And I jabbed him with two of our anesthetic darts, so he won't be waking up for at least a couple more hours."
"I must ask you to speak sense, young Argent."
"Ah-ah, stay where you are." Sheng held up the needle-nosed handcrafted gun which fired the anesthetic darts. "I had enough trouble fighting the student. Tangling with his sifu isn't high on my list of chores for today."
Yen Li remained passive, open hands down by his sides. "How strange. Tell me what it is you think you know, my boy. Perhaps I can explain where you have gone wrong."
"Well, let's see. You invited Uncle Pao to dinner here last night and you made a point of urging him to bring me. That was to make sure neither of us were at my office. My friend Megan Salenger installed Trom security alarms at the door, but she did not secure the little window in my bathroom. It's really small, but someone as thin and flexible as your student could squeeze through. He's also capable of sliding down a cord from the roof."
"What an imagination you have, son."
"And it was all so he could plant the gas emitter in the hall. I haven't had time to go back and examine it, but I bet it was triggered by a radio signal he sent from a gimmick in his pocket. That part worked. I was put into your damned Death In Life and taken to your little funeral room."
An unmistakable tension suddenly crackled in the gap between the two men. Yen Li deliberately took a single step forward, raising his open hands to chest level. "If you are deluded enough to think I am one of these Furious Buddha people, you must know that your trick pistol will not stop me."
"Only one way to find out." Sheng emptied the full magazine of fifteen darts on automatic. Yen Li spun around and dropped low with amazing agility for a man of his age and stoutness, but he still caught two darts that jabbed through his clothing. In less than a second, he was too dazed to think clearly and immediately after that he sagged to the gravel driveway as if his legs had melted.
Quickly as if he had rehearsed this routine a thousand times, Sheng rushed over and picked up the massive limp man to throw him into the back of the van. They were far enough back from the street that the single car passing by might not have seen anything untoward. Hopping into the driver's seat, Sheng backed onto the street, heading toward Manhattan. He had already called the FBI's Department 21 Black. Two of their cars would be waiting to take custody of the prisoners. Despite what he had told Yen Li, the snoring figure of Mark Olivera was tied down in the rear of the van next to where his Master had joined him.
Sheng felt tired. He recognized this as a good sign, since it meant his body was shifting down from the adrenalin surges of a dangerous situation. Later today, after some sleep, he would be able to brag about this night's accomplishments to his teammates. The House of Furious Buddha, busted at last. The only aspect of the case that annoyed him was remembering how Uncle Pao had calmly gone to sleep rather than fretting about him.
10/2/2021
9/1/2018
I.
The second hour at the feast was about all that Sheng could handle. He was growing increasingly uncomfortable. His problem was that he looked Chinese, probably hailing from the North considering his cheekbones and eagle-beaked nose. He only spoke barely passable Cantonese and he was here with his Uncle Pao, who was so thoroughly Chinese that he couldn't be taken for anything else. So everyone spoke to him with puns and references that he had no clue about.
But in fact, Sheng Mo-Yuan had come from the adjacent realm of Chujir. Tel Shai lore claimed that Chujirans were the distant ancestors of what had become the Han people, though this had no evidence to support it. When they had met by chance, the old man Pao had immediately claimed Sheng as his nephew, partly because of the coincidence of their family names but mostly because both were lonely men with no true family, and both of them had accepted this.
Seated at the huge round table, Sheng found himself shoveling down great quantities of food as everyone reached past him or handed him samples to try. This won his hosts over. The saying was that Chujirans would eat anything they could pin down and he was a typical Chujiran in that regard. Even though he had told everyone he had unfortunately been brought up in the very white wilderness of Nebraska, his gusto at eating everything from chicken feet to clotted duck blood soup brought him credit. He would have eaten dog if it had been offered; back in Chujir, he had done so a few times.
Nearly all of the people at that table were Chinese men middle-aged or older. The one exception to his left was a young woman with amazing glossy black hair hanging straight past her shoulder blades. Not only was she asking Sheng about his career as a private detective, she sat attentively listening to his responses. This was an endearing trait and he was becoming fond of her.
The final scraps were being scraped together. The excited and rather loud conversations slowed as digestion began to bog everyone down. It seemed clear that the gathering was drawing to a close. One by one and then in pairs, the men thanked their host and left the house.
In a cluster at the other side of the table were four octogenarians including Uncle Pao. They wiped their mouths with linen napkins and rose together, perhaps a bit stiffly. The master of the house, Yen Li, was a stout old man with both black hair and beard streaked with white strands. He was impeccably dressed in a lightweight tropical suit and tie. "Young Sheng, will you join your Uncle to the hospitality of my den?"
Standing up himself, seeing the nod of approval from Uncle Pao, Sheng replied, "It would be my honor." To be honest, he would rather have spent some time with that friendly girl. His romances had been spaced way too far apart to suit him. But all his instincts told him something big was underfoot, maybe a major case for his Fist For Hire Agency.
The four old men led Sheng and Pao to a room at the rear of the mansion. High-ceilinged, wood-paneled, its walls were filled with bookshelves broken by a few traditional scrolls or small bronze figurines. Comfortable overstuffed leather armchairs were arranged in a circle around a table holding a humidor, bottles of wine and gleamingly clean glasses.
As the elders settled gratefully into the comfort of those chairs, Yen Li gestured for Sheng to join them. Two of the old men selected cigars and puffed away for a few seconds before settling down. Yen Li unbuttoned his brocade vest with relief before speaking.
"I have known Sheng Pao-Wang only a few years," Yen began. "Yet I have learned he is a man of honor who harms no one and who is always ready to help those in need. A better friend can hardly be found."
"Stop, stop, I blush," Uncle Pao laughed.
"And he had told me many colorful tales of you, Sheng Mo-Yuan. Sometimes known to the whites as Argent. You are said to be a knight of Tel Shai, that ancient order whose origins are lost in time. Not only are you a Master of Kumundu, you are said to have the remarkable ability to make your body hard as rock, to increase your speed and strength beyond limits of what even Chi can enhance. But you can only enact one of these properties at a time. Have I been misled?"
Sitting upright at the edge of the plush chair, Sheng shrugged. "No, sir. All that is true. I have been given a gift for which I am most grateful."
"That is good to hear, since you may walk on a perilous road soon. My other friends here tonight have enjoyed long lives and survived hard times. We do not choose to go to the police with our problems. It is better to handle our troubles ourselves and let the outsiders remain unaware."
A few murmurs of agreement sounded from the three old men in the circle. The eldest there, with long silver hair and sunken cheeks spoke, "We represent the Chinese-American Benevolent Society of Lower Manhattan, young man. To be blunt, we are a Tong much like those founded nearly two hundred years ago in this country. Where the authorities will not help us, we help each other."
Sheng kept his face grave and hoped he would not say the wrong thing now.
Yen Li continued, "I must speak names better left unmentioned, names stained with many crimes and much wickedness. Wu Lung. The Manchurian. The Spinner of Webs. They have been quiet in recent years, perhaps occupied elsewhere or perhaps finally gone from this life. A new would-be threat has surfaced. We would wish to keep him from putting down roots in our community."
Uncle Pao spoke up for the first time. "My nephew is discreet. He will not volunteer information to the authorities. Secrets remain behind his teeth."
"So we had hoped," Yen Li admitted. "Young Sheng, you are said to be familiar with the many schools of assassins who trouble this unhappy world. One of the worst of these has been reported here, in our Chinatown. Have you ever heard," and even behind the closed door of his own den, he lowered his voice and leaned forward, "... have you ever heard of the Furious Buddha?"
II.
In the taxi heading back to Canal Street, Uncle Pao satisfied himself that the driver was of Italian descent, the name 'Sal Viscoglio' being a big factor.
>"He is unlikely to understand real language,"< Pao said in Cantonese. >"Has your KDF team encountered this so-called Furious Buddha' school before?"<
>"Twice that I know of,"< answered Sheng. >"Our captain Jeremy killed a Walking Weapon many years ago and Megan Salenger defeated a second Furious Buddha fighter by trickery more recently. They both reported the opponent was highly skilled and very dangerous... easily equal to an Amrath or a Zoku-Ya. They don't recommend tangling with one hand to hand."<
The old man scoffed and waved a dismissing hand. >"Feh. These Walking Weapons were not facing YOU."<
>"On my best day, I was no match for Jeremy Bane on his worst day,"< Sheng laughed. >"If he had his hands full fighting a Furious Buddha, I'm really going to have a hard time. Do you know the history of Furious Buddha?"<
>"I neither know nor am interested..."< the old man began but was cut off.
"It was hundreds of years ago, supposedly the 14th Century," Sheng said, lapsing into English without realizing it. "A Tel Shai student from Tibet learned a lot of Kumundu as it was taught back then, but he betrayed the Order. He murdered two of his fellow students and escaped back to the real world. The lust for wealth dominated him. He founded a new House of assassins, using his knowledge of Kumundu."
>"Stick to real language,"< Uncle Pao interrupted.
>"Certainly. The founder of the House claimed to have received his wisdom in a mystic vision he received of the Lord Buddha in an enraged state. No one really believes that. He didn't want to admit he was a Tel Shai renegade working with stolen knowledge."<
Pao rapped sharply with his knuckles at the plastic divider between them and the front seat. "Driver! I say, driver! This is the address, you should stop here."
"Sure thing, grandpa," came the response as the cab swerved over against the curb. "Meter reads $8.25."
"All I have is a ten," said Sheng, handing it over before exiting out the rear door.
"'At's fine," the driver grumbled. "Have a nice night."
Sheng and Uncle Pao stood in front of the five story Hartwicke Building and looked up at the sole lit window on the third floor. Written in script across its glass was ARGENT INVESTIGATIONS in an arc, then below that in Chinese ideograms 'Chuan Lo Tsing,' which could be translated as 'Hardworking Fist' or 'Fist For Hire.'
"Only eleven-fifteen, Uncle," Sheng said, "But we might as well open the office. No point in waiting until midnight."
"I was not about to take the subway to my sad little apartment for five minutes before I would have to return," the old man muttered. He followed Sheng through the unlocked front door into the tiny foyer with its rows of tenant mailboxes and a single light bulb high overhead. Pao went up the stairs first, climbing them easily at a moderate pace with one hand lightly touching the rail.
At the second floor landing, Uncle Pao paused for a second and Sheng discreetly bent over the rail to stare down at the floor below. In fact, although he always followed his uncle when ascending stairs in case of a fall, he was impressed with how steady the old man was on his feet. Pao finished the final flight and emerged onto the third floor. To their right was the door with its frosted glass panel repeating the same information about their detective agency.
Sheng froze, as alert as if he had heard a rattlesnake give its warning. What was wrong? What was he sensing? Automatically, he swung around in front of his partner and gently pushed him back. Before the old man could protest in his usual strident tones, Sheng raised a forefinger to his lips. "Shhh."
Seeing how serious Sheng was, for one Uncle Pao did not argue but simply tip-toed over to a bench against the far wall where he would be out of sight. He watched as Sheng unbuttoned his suit jacket and loosened his tie, reliable indicators that violence of some sort was expected. Stepping up close to his office door, Sheng slowed his breathing and after thirty seconds, his hearing became greatly enhanced. This was a Tel Shai technique he had not particularly good at. Still, it was enough to tell him that a single person was in his office, more than ten feet back from the door. A young male in good health. That was all he could infer.
As he placed his hand on the door knob, Sheng channeled the transcendental gralic force into his body, reinforcing it on a cellular level. His bones became dense as granite, his skin as impervious as steel while still remaining flexible. He swung the door open and said quietly, "You wanted to see me?"
Standing with lowered arms was a young man still in his early twenties, a bit under six feet tall and built like a runner. He was wearing the simplest clothes, sneakers and jeans and a plain white T-shirt. With his thick coarse black hair and tawny skin tones, he seemed to be Korean but a second glance at his features indicated he was more likely Eurasian... possibly of Spanish descent. There was no noticeable eyelid fold and the eyes themselves were more a hazel color than brown.
But everything about the man triggered warnings to Sheng.
From the way he stood with his weight evenly balanced, his foreward foot at a sharp angle to his rear foot, the deep slow breathing, the way one hand was open and rigid while the other was tightened into a fist, this man had the signals that Sheng had been trained to watch for in a possible opponent.
"Good evening," the man said in a neutral-accented tone. "Please excuse my taking the liberty of entering your office when you were not here."
"I suspect that will be the least of our disagreements," replied Sheng. He himself remained in a loose casual stance, ready to attack or defend from any angle. "You know my name."
"Ah. Yes. I am Mark Olivera. I can see your Kumundu has already told you that I am a martial artist, too. I represent the House of Furious Buddha."
III.
Sheng took a step forward, turning his right side an inch toward the intruder, who did not visibly react. "What a coincidence. I was just thinking of your school."
"Hah. Old Yen Li warned you that we were here in this city. Please, let us relax as much as we can. Men such as we can never lower our defenses fully, but think about it. My skills are worth gold. I am not going to kill anyone for free."
Backing out of the doorway without taking his eyes off Olivera, Sheng said, "Fair enough. Out in the hall, then. I don't want my furniture getting smashed if I can help it."
As both men moved out into the open space between the staircase and the wall where a travel agency had its office, Uncle Pao got to his feet.
"Please wait in our office, uncle," said Sheng. "Close the door and wait for me to call you." He had watched the Furious Buddha fighter's stride, analyzing the man's movements. With slight dismay, Sheng judged that his own martial skills were only on a par with Olivera's, maybe slightly less effective. He would have to rely heavily on his ability to make his body invulnerable or faster or stronger than normal. And of course, he was wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under his clothes. But would these advantages be enough?
It wasn't that Sheng lacked confidence. He had been taught by Chael at Tel Shai to be as objective as possible when sizing up an opponent. Cockiness had killed more fighters than ill-preparation. As Olivera sat down on the bench where Uncle Pao had been a moment earlier, he deliberately crossed his legs with his right ankle over his left knee and his head resting back on his folded hands. It was a posture designed to show he was not about to attack, and Sheng took it as such.
"I'm ready to listen," he said, stepping back to lean against the bannister of the staircase.
"My House is in the assassin trade, that's true. You know our reputation. But the sad truth is that Furious Buddha is near extinction. Centuries ago, we could field an army of Walking Weapons and we had our Masters teaching new students in several countries at once. I am the only Wai-Y'ien left, and my Master the only teacher. An encounter with the Blind Archers that goes wrong or something so mundane as cancer or pneumonia could finish the Furious Buddha school."
Sheng could not hide his dislike of this man and his school. "Well, nothing lasts forever, not even professional killers."
"Proud words from a man whose business is called 'Fist For Hire.' We are different only in that you do not set out to eliminate your targets from the start. Still, I understand you have taken life many times in your career."
Was it strangely warm in the hallway? Stuffy, even? Sheng hesitated before telling this killer how different the two of them were. He straightened up and without warning, his knees buckled. Something was wrong. His thoughts were clouded, everything seemed far away. On his hands and knees, panting in short rapid breaths, Sheng Mo-Yuan tried to get up but couldn't.
"You know about the Life In Death, don't you?" came Olivera's voice from a great distance. "We Wai-Y'ien are placed in a coma by an Alchemical poison. After three days we are revived. Some of us don't make it. Those who return to life have lost most of their memories and are blank pieces of paper where the Furious Buddha teaching can be written."
The world was turning not black but grey. Sheng realized what had happened. Why wasn't his enhanced healing from the Tagra diet protecting him? He slumped face down on the bare wooden floor without realizing it.
Mark Olivera rose smoothly and came over to stand in front of the unconscious Chujiran. "Ah, the poison is quite odorless and has no scent, Argent. And for the past four minutes, you have been breathing it."
IV.
The mental fog took eternity to clear. It was an agonizingly slow process before Sheng could remember who he was and what had happened. He was lying on his back on something soft, lying with his hands clasped over his chest. Where? This wasn't his bed. More by instinct than by conscious thought, the Chujiran detective made himself take a deeper breath, then forced the next breath to be deeper yet. Teacher Chael had always emphasized that proper breath control was the foundation of strength both physical and spiritual.
Now, he remembered confronting Olivera in the hall outside of his office. The taunting words of the assassin came back to him. It was said that Furious Buddha recruits suffered the Life In Death for three days and nights before resurrection, yet Sheng felt he had only been unconscious a short time. That would be the healing properties of the Tagra regimen he had been on for years.
For a second, a bad case of jitters rushed over him like icy wind. It had been so close, he would have awakened in three days with most of his memories gone. His teammates in the KDF, his deep friendship with Uncle Pao, everything from his boyhood in Chujir to his adventures with his own Agency... all swept away and replaced by a dedication to the House of Furious Buddha.
What a vile scheme! Sheng felt capable of drawing on his Argent power. He concentrated and channeled the transcendental gralic force into his body. This time he focused on strength. In less than a second, his muscles and tendons increased their capabilities many times. At his peak, Sheng had once flung a motorcycle out of his way and torn a car door off with a single effort. He sat up and looked around.
Damn. He was lying in a mahogany coffin, its lid propped open. The room around him was heavily curtained so no doors or windows showed, and light came from a dozen tall candles in steel holders on stands. Oddly enough, this was the second time he had recovered from being drugged to find himself in a coffin. But there was no time to think of that now.
Sitting up, he swung one leg up over the edge of the coffin and scrambled down to the marble floor. When he was in the enhanced strength mode, a certain euphoria made him feel invincible. He had to watch out for that false confidence. Sheng was still wearing his dark brown business suit with the yellow shirt and tan necktie but of course his dart gun had been taken. Patting his clothes quickly, he determined that his more obvious gadgets had also been removed, but several tiny gimmicks remained in slits and hidden pockets which a casual search would not suspect.
There was no telling when Olivera or his Master would show up, so Sheng peeked behind a few of the drapes, found a plain wooden door and established it was locked. With his extra strength, he could have easily snapped that lock and tried an escape. But no. That would only prolong the case, he thought. Better to finish this quickly. Another drape had a shallow ledge at waist height where a window had been plastered over, so he sat down and made sure he was concealed while he waited.
With every minute, he felt closer to his normal health. The Tagra tea diet was a major reason why being accepted at Tel Shai was so prized. Not only did the tea accelerate healing and promote resistance to injuries, it definitely prologed life spans so that Tel Shai knights were active and energetic decades after normal retirement ages. Lately, Sheng had been wondering if Tagra also caused mental resilience; he and other knights went through incredibly violent and horrific experiences without any trauma or even nightmares.
Twenty minutes went by. Sheng was seriously considering how crass it would be to urinate behind one of the curtains. Considering he had been drugged and hauled here without his knowledge, he felt such vandalism would be justified. But then the slap of angry footsteps outside the room alerted him. Sheng stood up and heard the door crash open. He peeked out.
Mark Olivera stomped over the coffin and froze in mid-step, wheeling about just as Sheng emerged from behind the curtain and said, "Disappointed?"
"Surprised, yes," snapped the assassin. "But then Tel Shai knights are notoriously difficult to harm. I told my Master we should have given you a much larger dose of the Life in Death."
Setting into a basic forward leaning stance, right fist back by his chest and open left hand extended, Sheng said, "Let me guess what you're thinking. You're not wild about having a new Walking Weapon who might surpass you. Now you can claim that I got loose and
attacked you, you were forced to kill me in self-defense. That sound about right?"
The faintest hint of a smile touched the man's thin lips. "Yes. If you became one of the House, your KDF friends would hunt us down. Who needs the Dire Wolf of all people on your trail? Or the Blind Archer or that savage Gelydra woman?"
Watching as his enemy shifted weight and turned slightly sideways, Sheng Mo-Yuan asked, "How much do you remember of your real life?"
"What?"
"Do you have a family wondering whatever happened to you? A wife or girlfriend, workplace friends? Do you ever feel bad that you'll always be an unsolved mysterious disappearance to them?"
"Listen, that was someone else! My life is the House of Furious Buddha and nothing else."
Sheng made a tsk-tsk click. "You don't even know how much you've lost, you poor soul."
Without any feints, Olivera vaulted forward and launched a flurry of left-right punches from every conceivable angle. Sheng blocked nearly all of them. The few that got through his defenses glanced off his ribs or chest, not near his head. Because of the Trom armor under his clothes, he felt the blocks as only light taps but to Olivera they were brutally punishing. Still on strength mode, Sheng began putting more force into his blocks. To Olivera, each blow he launched what met by what felt like receiving a punch in return.
Hopping to one side, the Furious Buddha swept Sheng's left foot out from under him and leaped up to blast an elbow strike to the back of the head as his foe was off-balance. That hurt. The Chujiran adventurer dropped to one knee, rolled ten feet away and hopped back up again. He was barely in time to swerve and let a vicious high side kick scrape along his jaw without doing any harm.
There was the opening! Sheng smashed an open palm strike to the center of the assassin's chest with three times the impact a heavyweight boxer could deliver. The air rushed out of Olivera's lungs, he reeled back and his defenses lowered for a split-second. Sheng smacked a crescent kick that connected to the base of Olivera's neck and dropped the man as if he had been shot.
On hands and knees, unable to catch his breath, the Furious Buddha killer realized from the sharp pain that his sternum had a hairline fracture. He glared up at the impassive face of his opponent. "Finish it!"
"I try not to kill if there's any alternative," Sheng gasped. He himself was breathing heavily, those forty-five seconds of intense action had hurtled at a pace that would have killed most martial artists. "I thought I needed you to take me to your Master, but that's not necessary now."
Mark Olivera tried to rise but only lost his support and slumped face down on the marble floor. "No... not my Master."
"Sure. I know who he is." Unclipping his Link from the back of his belt, Sheng patched into the phone system. "Hello, Uncle? Just letting you know I'm okay. This case is almost wrapped up. You what? You've been sleeping on the office couch all this time? Well I like that. Weren't you worried sick about me being abducted by a cult of world classic assassins? Yes. Yes, I am a 'big boy' now, I guess you're right. I'll be back when everything's done. Go back to sleep, Uncle."
V.
Dawn was beginning to cast a grey half-light over Queens, traffic was picking up with delivery trucks and early risers as Sheng pulled Olivera's van up into the driveway of the impressive house where he had eaten dinner the night before. A single window on the ground floor was lit. Sheng got out from behind the wheel but before he could do anything further, the front door of the house opened.
Yen Li was wearing the same suit he had on the night before. If he was surprised to see his guest returning at this ungodly hour before sunrise, it did not show on his masklike face. Nor did he speak as he approached.
It was up to Sheng to break the silence. "Your disciple isn't in this van," he announced calmly. "I've got him concealed in a KDF safe house. And I jabbed him with two of our anesthetic darts, so he won't be waking up for at least a couple more hours."
"I must ask you to speak sense, young Argent."
"Ah-ah, stay where you are." Sheng held up the needle-nosed handcrafted gun which fired the anesthetic darts. "I had enough trouble fighting the student. Tangling with his sifu isn't high on my list of chores for today."
Yen Li remained passive, open hands down by his sides. "How strange. Tell me what it is you think you know, my boy. Perhaps I can explain where you have gone wrong."
"Well, let's see. You invited Uncle Pao to dinner here last night and you made a point of urging him to bring me. That was to make sure neither of us were at my office. My friend Megan Salenger installed Trom security alarms at the door, but she did not secure the little window in my bathroom. It's really small, but someone as thin and flexible as your student could squeeze through. He's also capable of sliding down a cord from the roof."
"What an imagination you have, son."
"And it was all so he could plant the gas emitter in the hall. I haven't had time to go back and examine it, but I bet it was triggered by a radio signal he sent from a gimmick in his pocket. That part worked. I was put into your damned Death In Life and taken to your little funeral room."
An unmistakable tension suddenly crackled in the gap between the two men. Yen Li deliberately took a single step forward, raising his open hands to chest level. "If you are deluded enough to think I am one of these Furious Buddha people, you must know that your trick pistol will not stop me."
"Only one way to find out." Sheng emptied the full magazine of fifteen darts on automatic. Yen Li spun around and dropped low with amazing agility for a man of his age and stoutness, but he still caught two darts that jabbed through his clothing. In less than a second, he was too dazed to think clearly and immediately after that he sagged to the gravel driveway as if his legs had melted.
Quickly as if he had rehearsed this routine a thousand times, Sheng rushed over and picked up the massive limp man to throw him into the back of the van. They were far enough back from the street that the single car passing by might not have seen anything untoward. Hopping into the driver's seat, Sheng backed onto the street, heading toward Manhattan. He had already called the FBI's Department 21 Black. Two of their cars would be waiting to take custody of the prisoners. Despite what he had told Yen Li, the snoring figure of Mark Olivera was tied down in the rear of the van next to where his Master had joined him.
Sheng felt tired. He recognized this as a good sign, since it meant his body was shifting down from the adrenalin surges of a dangerous situation. Later today, after some sleep, he would be able to brag about this night's accomplishments to his teammates. The House of Furious Buddha, busted at last. The only aspect of the case that annoyed him was remembering how Uncle Pao had calmly gone to sleep rather than fretting about him.
10/2/2021
