In darkness there is death.
It was the first thing they had taught him and he never forgot it. He could move unobserved in daylight, too; in other ways. But the night was his special friend.
Now the high piercing sound of the alarm cut through all other nocturnal sounds: the dree dree dree of the cicadas, the thunderous crashing of the surf against the grey sand and the black rocks sixty feet below, the wild cry of a disturbed crow far off over the massed treetops.
Abruptly, colour gilded the leaves of the ancient spreading sycamore as lights went on inside the house, but he was already away from the car, deep within the concealing shadows of the carefully sculptured hedge. There was little need of this protection now for he was dressed all in matt black: low boots, cotton trousers, long-sleeved shirt, lacquered reed waistcoat, gloves and a hooded mask that covered all his face save a strip across his eyes that had been smeared with lampblack mixed with a fine charcoal powder to eliminate the possibility of reflection; but his arduous training had been too well ingrained for him to take any target for granted. This precluded the possibility of an error in judgement that could lead to a lapse in security.
The porch light came on, insects fluttering around it. The noise of the car's alarm was too loud for him to be able to hear the door opening but he counted off the seconds in his mind and got it dead on...
Barry Braughm stepped into the lemon light of the open doorway. He was in jeans and a white T-shirt. His open fly attested to the haste in which he had dressed. He carried a flashlight in his right hand.
From this vantage point on the slight elevation of the doorstep he played the narrow beam around the area of the car. Reflected light from the chrome lanced out into the night and, squinting, he swung the beam away. At this moment he was in no mood to go and fool around with his car - or anything else for that matter.
Not more than half an hour ago he had had a screaming row with Andy, ending up, quite naturally, with him speeding off into the night. Back to the city, Barry supposed. Well, it damn well served him right, cutting off his nose to spite his face. But that was Andy, through and through.
Honest to God, Barry thought angrily, I don't know why I put up with him. And then he shook his head. Yes, you do, he told himself. Well.
He went down the short flight of flagstone steps, careful to give the first one a miss. It was cracked; just one of the things around here Andy had promised to fix this week.
He padded across the wet grass of the lawn to where the car stood, dark and hulking. The wind whistled through the young maple to his left and, farther on, he could just make out the low barrier of the thick hedge. What the hell am I doing with a Mercedes? he asked himself rhetorically. If it had not been for Andy - but Andy loved the creature comforts, wouldn't go anywhere unless it was via first class. That, of course, includes me, Barry thought grumpily. He looked off down the road for a moment as if he might catch a glimpse of Andy's night-black Audi swinging its headlights around the long curve to flood his front lawn. Barry turned abruptly away. Not tonight, he thought. He never recovers this quickly.
He threw the beam of the flash across the top of the hedge as he moved, along the gravel drive to send a quick dazzle of liquid light off the car's bonnet. It grew in intensity as he came up beside the Mercedes.
Goddamned heat, he thought. Always setting off the alarm. And I do not want to sleep alone tonight. Should have thought of that before you called Andy a sh!t.
He paused for a last look around, then bent and freed the latch, lifting the bonnet. He gazed into the interior, playing the beam over the engine parts, lingering for just a moment on the battery.
Satisfied, he slammed the bonnet and went around the car checking the doors, one by one. The seams of glass and chrome were illuminated as he sought to find any sign of a forced entry. Finding none, he came back to the left side and, bending again, inserted a small metal key into a fixture in the car's side. He turned the key with a quick jerk and silence descended once again. The sound of the cicadas returned and the hiss of the surf gave renewed evidence of its tireless attack upon the slowly eroding shore.
Barry had already turned away on his way back to the house when he thought he heard a brief clatter against the rocks near the edge of the low cliff fronting his property. It sounded to him like the soft noise of running bare feet. He spun around, lifting the flash to scan the area. He saw nothing.
Curious, he went across the lawn and into the high grass which he had never bothered to mow because it was so close to the cliff, emerging seconds later on the slightly elevated portion of land studded with grey slate rocks. He peered along the ridge to both left and right. Directly below him he saw the palely iridescent curl of the tops of the breakers as they rolled noisily in. It's high tide, he thought.
``````````*
The pain in his chest came totally without warning. He was thrown backwards just as if a hand had come out and pushed him and he stumbled along the dew-slick rocks. His arms flew out to the sides to give him balance and the flash spun end over end like a miniature falling star in the night. He heard quite clearly the sharp pang as it bounced off the rocks below and arced into the churning sea like some suicidal firefly. His mouth worked spasmodically. He tried to scream but all he could manage was a kind of gasp, insignificant and irrelevant, and he thought he knew what it must be like for a fish on a line.
His arms and legs felt as if they were full of lead and the air seemed to have run out of oxygen just as if he were lost on an alien planet without the protection of a spacesuit. He was incapable of coordinating movement, balanced precariously on the faceted rocks, on the verge of the long drop to the white and black sea. Dimly, he thought he might be having a heart attack and, desperately now, he tried to remember what to do, how to help himself. He died trying to recall...
With the absence of all movement, a shadow detached itself from the wall of the hedge, coming swiftly and silently across to the rocks. Even the cicadas, the night birds, were left undisturbed by the passage.
The shadow knelt over the corpse and black fingers worked at something dark and metallic, embedded in the chest just under and to the right of the heart. With a last wrench, the thing was free.
He checked the carotid first, then the eyes, peering intently at the whites for what seemed a long time, then the pads of the fingers.
Softly, to himself, the shadow recited the Hannya Shingyo.
He stood up. The corpse seemed as light as air in his arms. With barely any discernible motion or effort, he launched the corpse out into the night, over the edge, far enough out so that it fell squarely into deep water. Immediately the strong current took it.
Within seconds the shadow had disappeared, having become one with the darkness and having left no trace of its ever having existed.
excerpt from the novel The Ninja written by Eric Van Lustbader
