Chiun easily sidestepped the blow and fired his elbow in a backward thrust, crushing the windpipe and sending a font of blood squirting from the stricken creature's mouth.
Its eyes wide open in surprise, the gyonshi fell. The gray fog swirled around the body and accepted it. It congealed, squeezing like a vaporous fist, and slowly vanished from sight.
Chiun wheeled. Two more of the shapes were emerging from the mist behind him. They were as pale as the first, their cheeks sunken, their teeth clearly visible through the thin, almost transparent facial skin. Both raised their hands in the air, assuming a menacing posture.
Chiun took this as an invitation and sent both fists rocketing into the sternums of the two creatures. They howled in pain as twin rivers of blood erupted from their chests. They, too, retreated in the ever-thickening fog like skulking dogs.
"We are shape-changers as well, Master of Sinanju," the first gyonshi voice whispered in his ear. "Do you not fear us?"
"A Master of Sinanju fears nothing, Chinese vermin," Chiun replied haughtily.
"No . . . ?" the voice faded in the distance. The remaining misty shapes vanished amid the swirl of gray fog, leaving the Master of Sinanju standing alone.
The fog continued to move in circular patterns around him. It was as if his world were no bigger than the nearest visible point, only five feet all around him.
A sound fluttered somewhere in the swirling vapor.
Chiun's hunting ears were alert to it immediately. It was a graceful glide. More akin to a ballet movement then a footfall.
Something about it was familiar. Almost . . .
A lone figure stepped from out of the fog. He wore a black business suit and tie. His face was flat and smooth. His features were not unlike those of Chiun as a young man. And although his stomach bled profusely, the vision that stood before Chiun did not seem to mind.
Chiun's eyes widened in disbelief. "Nuihc!" he hissed.
The younger man smiled. "You are looking well, Uncle."
And now the Master of Sinanju knew he stood face-to-face with his greatest pain-alone.
The first thing Remo noticed, on driving up the wide strip of asphalt that serviced Poulette Farms Poultry corporated, was the unnatural quiet.
The second thing he noticed were the bodies.
The bodies were even quieter.
The building was surrounded on all four sides by an eight-foot-high hurricane fence. The fence ran parallel to the road and veered off along the property line.
Someone had snipped the chain link from its fastenings and rolled it up into two gigantic tubular coils at two corners of the fence. Suspended along the long, bare metal support bars were Poulette Farms employees, hanging by their feet like elongated pale-pink pigs in a Chinese butcher shop window.
And in the center of them all was Henry Poulette himself, surrounded by his omnipresent gaggle of secretaries. His gentle tufts of yellow hair blew softly in the mild mountain breeze.
The difference between the Henry Cackleberry Poulette of the moment and the Henry Cackleberry Poulette of Poulette Farms' award-winning commercials was that in the commercials, Poulette's internal organs were tastefully tucked away in their proper body cavities under his well-tailored suit. Not buried in a mound of bloody dirt directly below his inverted head. Remo knew from past encounters what the mounds concealed.
Remo saw that all of Poulette's employees had suffered the same fate. Throats slit. Blood drained. Organs extracted and buried. It was some sort of combination of the Leader's vampire Creed and the ultimate vegetarian revenge.
Remo drove past the still, upended bodies toward the glistening patch of glass in the hills above.
It was time for the final showdown between Sinanju and the gyonshi.
"Behold your handiwork, Uncle," Nuihc proclaimed. He spread his hands wide. The raw wound in his stomach continued to pour blood into the cloud below him. Chiun saw that Nuihc's feet were invisible in the half-foot-thick blanket of fog. He maintained a pensive silence.
"Not the best stroke available to you," Nuihc continued, indicating his own stomach. "But one that effectively took me by surprise. Still, it is rather unlike you, Uncle. You are usually more tidy than this."
Chiun's face had become impassive. He stared silently beyond Nuihc, his expression carved from alabaster. He was remembering a time from many years ago. Nuihc had wrested control of the village of Sinanju from Chiun, usurping the title of Reigning Master. Remo, wounded, virtually helpless, had entered into mortal combat on Chiun's behalf. For the Master of Sinanju was forbidden to harm a fellow villager.
Remo had had no chance. He had stood on the threshold of death. And although it went against all tradition, Chiun had inserted himself into the fight, plunging his left index nail into his first pupil's abdomen so quickly that no one saw this and Remo received credit for the victory.
"You ignore me?" Nuihc asked. "After all of these years, not even a greeting?"
"You are not real," Chiun said tightly.
Nuihc laughed. A low, heartfelt rumble that started in his bleeding belly and burst out from his pocked moon of a face. "Is this the excuse for your rudeness?" he asked. "Let me assure you then, Uncle, that I am as real as you are at this very moment. I am as real as this place of your devising, and the demons you now must face."
Chiun became slightly more interested. "You know of this place?"
Nuihc nodded. "As do you, Uncle. Here you are neither alive nor dead. Here is the 'undiscovered country' that the Englishman Shakespeare spoke of. This is the Ultimate Death. Here, your worst fears are realized." Nuihc bowed. "And I am honored to be one of your worst fears, O great Master Chiun." The arrogance of Nuihc had finally asserted itself. His face became angry. The personality change was jarring. "You murdered me!"
"You would have murdered my son," Chiun countered harshly, "cur of an ingrate!"
"Your 'son'!" he scoffed. "A white! Not even of the village!"
"He is more of our village than you, wicked son of my good brother!" Chiun spat.
"And is this why you killed me? For if he is truly the reason, you sullied your line for naught. He is doomed to share your fate, gyonshi thrall."
Chiun drew himself up haughtily, saying, "Remo will survive. He is the dead white tiger of legend. The Shiva avatar. I have seen this with my own eyes." But Nuihc had struck a nerve. There was concern in Chiun's voice. The evil Chinese bloodsuckers had decimated the House of Sinanju in times past.
Nuihc's expression became sly. "If the Master of Sinanju can be beaten by the gyonshi, so too can his heir," he said flatly. "As your father was bested, you were as well."
"Do not mention my father, betrayer of Sinanju!" Chiun flared. "My ears bleed, that your false tongue invokes his noble spirit."
Nuihc smiled thinly. "You accuse me of betrayal. So be it. But my treachery, as you call it, at least was known to all. Yours is far more insidious. You broke one of the most sacred tenets of the House of Sinanju to banish me here, uncle." He placed his hands on his hips. "I accuse you of treachery, Master Chiun. Your father accepted his responsibility for slaying the village elder, while you have not." Nuihc took one step back into the mist. Chiun saw that the wound in his stomach had miraculously healed. "I demand atonement for my murder!"
Chiun shook his aged head. "I will not be dictated to by a dog of your color," he hurled back. "You, who had every advantage and squandered it. You, who would take the wisdom of your ancestors and twist it to your nefarious ends. You, who scoff at every tradition you should hold most dear." But even as he spoke the words, doubts began to gather in Chiun's mind.
Nuihc's grin broadened. "I am most sorry, uncle. It is, as the French say, a fait accompli." He waved his hand, and the black mist seemed to appear at Chiun's feet-only this time it was not a mist but a yawning maw of a hole. And as Chiun slipped down into this funnel of inky blackness, all he could hear echoing off the endless slick walls was Nuihc's fading, taunting laughter.