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He remembered the day. They were in an old, abandoned meat-packing plant in
Illinois. When that first breath came to him-the first real breath in his
entire life-Jeremiah had promptly vomited onto the floor.
"What's that smell, Master?" he asked, gagging on the rancid air he now
breathed which had, until a moment before, seemed blessedly clean.
He would never know that his senses had been opened and he was smelling the
stench of the cow blood and viscera that had soaked into the slaughterhouse
floor for a hundred years.
The instant Jeremiah asked the question he felt the sting of Nuihc's hand
across his face. It was pain that rattled his teeth and made his eyes water.
The slap raised a red welt that would not heal for three weeks. Nuihc's face
was a furious sneer.
"When I instruct, you listen," the Master said. Jeremiah listened.
He listened through those early years and into his preteens. All the while
learning to control his body, to do things he had never imagined were
possible. But whatever he did never seemed to be enough for his Master.
"You are a pitiful excuse for a pupil," Nuihc said one day after his
eleven-year-old pupil had attempted a task eight times but only performed
flawlessly seven of those eight times. "You are so obtuse you have no idea the
great gift I am giving you. I should find another to train."
"Please, no, Master. I'll do better."
"You will," Nuihc had insisted. "Or I will kill you."
Jeremiah had no doubt that his teacher was telling the truth. The young man
struggled to improve. The first years were difficult. But Jeremiah learned.
Never, of course to the level of Nuihc's expectations. That didn't surprise
Jeremiah. Thanks to Nuihc's constant intimidation, Jeremiah now fully
understood how truly worthless he was. All the abuse, all the scorn that Nuihc
heaped daily on his pupil's young shoulders was deserved. Jeremiah was no good
as a man or as a pupil. He showed disrespect every time he didn't perform
flawlessly.
This was the thing that injured Jeremiah most of all. More than anything, he
wanted to show his teacher how much he meant to him. He thought that if he
could do one thing right, match even a single move, he might demonstrate to
Nuihc what was in his heart. The great love he felt for the man who had saved
him from a life as a freak.
The training of his body was a welcome diversion from the growing powers of
his mind. The beast that lurked in his brain was a monster that was impossible
to tame. But it could be distracted if he concentrated on something else.
Jeremiah trained hard. Sometimes Nuihc would go away on business. At those
times Jeremiah could have relaxed his regimen just a little. Fearing that the
beast might get loose, the young man trained even more. He hoped that his
diligence would not go by unnoticed.
Always when Nuihc returned he failed to notice the improvements his pupil had
made on his own. Jeremiah realized it was his own fault for not trying harder.
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Quietly he would vow to work harder the next time.
When he was twelve years old Jeremiah killed a man.
Nuihc told his pupil that this was an honor. Masters of Sinanju of the recent
age had begun to put this aspect of training off until their students were
more fully developed. Nuihc's own Master and teacher-who, Jeremiah learned,
was Nuihc's uncle-had not allowed his protege to know the thrill of the kill
until he was well into his twenties.
What the boy did not know was the psychological reason this important aspect
of training was now delayed. The physical could be taught at an early age, but
only an older mind could be fully prepared to understand why the work of
assassination had to be done. But it was a different kind of psychological
conditioning Nuihc was after.
Jeremiah's first victim was a bum off the streets of Chicago. A gibbering
indigent whom no one would miss. When Nuihc dragged the terrified man before
Jeremiah, the Asian did everything but wrap him in a presentation gift bow.
Jeremiah didn't want to do it. In training he had shattered wood and stone
with his hands and feet. But a living target was something altogether
different.
The vagrant's hands were tied together and hung on a big rusted hook suspended
from the ceiling. He wept in fear. Jerenuah Purcell wept, too.
"You weak infant," Nuihc spit as the boy shook and the old drunk blubbered.
"You will do this thing or I swear I will tear your limbs from your worthless
carcass."
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