Girl Spins a Blade Read online

  The other end of the alley opened onto a courtyard with three blank, whitewashed walls. A door next to a curtained window on the last wall led into the main building. A dozen or so young men lounged about carelessly, some gambling, one cooking over an open fire, two others engaged in some form of horse play, all of them unaware of the new pair of eyes sizing them up. They seemed older and harder than the teenagers who made up the Manangé gang. These were men, stout and sturdy, not callow adolescents. But none of them looked to Emily like a leader.

  “I’m here for Sonam,” Emily announced in a loud voice from the alleyway, and then took two steps forward.

  A few of the men turned to look. None seemed impressed. One walked over and eyed her rudely, sneering in her face.

  “We may have a job for you,” he said with a suggestive leer.

  “Where is Sonam?” she shouted.

  “Tenzing,” one of them called into the window. “You have a visitor.”

  The sounds of a scuffle echoed from behind the curtains. A moment later a small man, coarse and scruffy, stepped into the doorway.

  “Look who Deepak sends for his boy,” he said to his men. “Is he afraid to come himself?”

  “Deepak didn’t send me. I’m here for Sonam. Where is he?”

  “Who’s the Newar?” he asked.

  Emily turned to see Yesh step out of the alley. “Great. One more person to worry about,” she thought. Her angry stare was intended to tell him to go back while he still could, that he shouldn’t have followed. He shrugged.

  The man in the doorway signaled to his men. The one with the leer grabbed Emily from behind. Two others grabbed Yesh, one yanking him to his knees by the hair. He protested to no avail. Another voice spoke from inside, not Nepali or Hindi. She recognized it as Chinese.

  “This is not your lucky day, sister,” Tenzing said.

  “I’m here for the boy,” she replied defiantly.

  “He will be the last thing you see. Lobsang, bring the boy.”

  A large man emerged, struggling to hold a squirming child.

  “Michi-didi,” Sonam cried and tried to run to her.

  The man holding him squeezed a wrist until he cried out, then pushed the boy to the ground.

  “Lobsang, give him the knife,” Tenzing ordered, and gestured to what Emily recognized as a khukuri, or Gurkha knife, on a nearby table. At almost eighteen inches long, the heavy, curved blade probably weighed a few pounds. The inner edge was sharpened, while the outer was thick and blunt.

  “Hit them in the neck,” Lobsang said, placing the knife in Sonam’s hand and pointing at Emily and Yesh. “Kill them or we’ll kill you. You want to live, don’t you?”

  He guided Sonam over to Emily. The man holding her twisted one arm behind her back and pushed her shoulder down, forcing her to crouch close to the ground—roughly the height a small boy would prefer for a decapitation. She saw tears in Sonam’s eyes when she looked up. He wailed out something incoherent.

  “Don’t worry,” she said to him in a quiet voice. “I’m here for you. Stay close to Yesh.”

  Her voice seemed to have soothing qualities, because he stopped crying as he looked at her, and then nodded his head. The knife clattered on the ground.

  “Fine,” Tenzing barked. “Kill all three of them.”

  Lobsang slapped the boy aside and picked up the knife. Sonam lay on the ground rubbing his face, too terrified even to cry, while the man holding her from behind pulled Emily up.

  “I’m here for Sonam,” Emily announced in a loud voice one more time. “But I am also here for you, Tenzing Sherpa.” She paused to let that remark sink in, and then continued. “And for you, Lobsang, and you, too Ming-ma.” Turning her head to look at the men on the other side of the courtyard, she went on: “And for you, Dorje, and Pemba, and Rinzen and Sangye. Gyaltsen, Jangbu, Dawa and Tschering, I’m here for all of you, too.”

  The effect was unnerving. She could see they were all wondering how she knew their names. The man behind her, Ming-ma, tightened his grip on the arm he held twisted up between her shoulder blades. It’s a common misconception that this hold gives secure control.

  Emily took a deep breath while the men digested her words. She saw how the entire scene would play out as she exhaled. Ming-ma would push her head forward, and she’d lean just a little further, pulling him off-balance. A tiny pivot of her right foot would create just enough space for her to slip a high side-kick under Ming-ma’s chin, crushing his windpipe. He’d want to release her wrist to clutch at his throat, but she wouldn’t allow it, grabbing under his wrist and twisting him around. He’d crash into Lobsang before he could bring the khukuri around. Releasing Ming-ma, she’d pivot again, bringing her left foot around in a roundhouse kick to the back of Lobsang’s elbow, snapping it as she controlled the hand holding the knife.

  Dorje would let go of Yesh’s hair to lunge at her. With an easy twist she’d wrench the khukuri from Lobsang’s now limp hand and strike Dorje across the face with the blunt side, stunning him. A quick crossover step and side-kick to the center of his chest would send him crashing into the wall.

  With each breath, the contents of their hearts opened to her, and the sequence of moves and responses expanded until she saw it all. One last breath brought it all to clarity. Once she was done with Lobsang, with the khukuri in her hand, she’d slash through the gang like a spinning saw blade, hacking tendons, slicing throats. Soon enough, they’d want to flee, but it would be too late for the Sherpas, and for the Chinese security agents concealed inside the building.

  Tenzing seemed frozen, staring at her this entire time, the time of a few breaths, not more than five or six seconds.

  “This is who I am… again,” she thought. “Is this the lesson Rinpoche thinks I have for Sonam? But what else can I do? Surely not let the Sherpas harm him… or Yesh. At least he’ll see how ugly the spirit of violence is. And he’ll finally know who I really am.” Her entire body convulsed at this thought, as if she might throw up. “This is how he will remember me.”

  The design, now fully formed in her heart, shimmered for an instant in a salty tear trembling on the rim of one eye, a sorrowful reminder of her worst fears, both for what it said about her, and for what it would mean as a legacy for Sonam. A sharp word from behind the window curtain broke the spell for Tenzing.

  “If Deepak didn’t send you, then who are you?” he asked. “Tell me your name before he cuts your head off.”

  Slowly, deliberately, Emily surveyed the scene. She turned to look at Sonam and Yesh, both of whom were strangely calm at this otherwise terrible moment.

  “My name is Tenno Michiko,” she said. “My friends call me Em.” Then turning back to Tenzing, she continued, “but you may know me as Kali.” She smiled as she said this name.

  When all was done, the only living things left in the courtyard looked at each other. Sonam cringed to meet her eyes and threw himself into Yesh’s arms, and perhaps this was for the best. Surprisingly, Yesh was still able to look at her with affection, not horror. A glimmer in the corner of his eye caught her attention, and his broad smile brought the warmth of human feeling back to her heart. Then she saw it peeking out of one side of his mouth, one of his canine teeth was broken, and she recognized him for who he really is.

  Emily whispered a little prayer under her breath: “Thank you, Granny, for sending the god of obstacles to me.”

  The next morning, she boarded a flight that would return her, after several changes along her complex route, to Annapolis and the Naval Academy, and soon-to-be Ensign Hankinson.

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  Girl Fights Back

  Girl Punches Out

  Girl Takes Up Her Sword

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