Namaste Read Online Free Page B

could pierce the Asian man’s skin in several places, near several vital nerve clusters, and cause him pain that would telegraph up his limbs into the base of his skull, where it would feel like his head were being squeezed, popped like a pimple from his shoulders. Amit had learned that in pressure point training.  
    He could use his fingers to dig into the man’s eyes without piercing his brain. He hadn’t learned that through experience, but it had been discussed.  
    Everything in his training had been focused on honing the body, on combat, defense, and the many systems and ways to exploit them. The shadow monks were a fringe order, taught to never, ever end a life unless strictly necessary. Anything done to one sentient being was done to them all, so it was said, and every wrong committed on another harmed the perpetrator’s karma. But if that were the case, why had they spent most hours of every day training themselves to be deadly? Finger exercises, intended to turn them into lightning-fast deadly weapons. Stretching, always aimed at practical uses in evasion and defense. Tuning of their autonomic, involuntary systems in order to feign death, to do things a body shouldn’t be able to do. The monks had learned to re-route blood away from a wound, effectively eliminating the need for a tourniquet in all but the worst cases. They’d learned to strike a dime-sized spot on an opponent’s neck using their toes. And speaking of toes? Amit could conduct a knife fight from either foot, and defeat an average man using his hands. Thanks to intuitive conditioning and practice reading the most minute of gestures, shadow monks could appear to dodge bullets by making sure they were never truly in the line of fire when the trigger was pulled. They had practiced disarming with their hands tied, fighting multiple men with guns firing live ammunition.  
    But why, if they were never supposed to use those skills?  
    To teach bodily discipline and control, the elders insisted.  
    Nonsense. Exercises built control, not sparring with bullets. It was like arguing that assault weapons were required for hunting rabbit.  
    Amit looked up at the man hanging from the rafters and reminded himself that the universe had orchestrated this. He wasn’t deviating from his order. He wasn’t deviating from morality. He wasn’t deviating from Sri. He was not violating the will of the cosmos, or his soul, his karma, or his dharma. He was embracing all of those things. He had not entered this with horrors on his mind. He was pushed. Causality had led him inexorably here, and he, in a very real sense, was doing what he’d been born to do.  
    Amit stood back up. The upside-down man rolled his eyes toward him. The look was barely malevolent. It seemed dizzy.  
    “I do not wish to cut you again,” Amit said. “But if I must, I will, and if I do, my feet will be dyed red for weeks afterward. This will encourage me to be thorough, to end things quickly, if only to make my stained feet worth it. So please, spare us both and tell me: Who gave you the order?”  
    “Fuck. You.” Big breath between the words.  
    Amit sighed, then walked forward. “I will need to remove all of the skin from this arm,” he said, feet wetting with blood. “Please hold still.” He extended his arm, positioning the X-Acto blade near the existing wound — and why not; his starting place was there already. He touched the tip to the bleeding incision, poking around, preparing to start the peeling.  
    He made one small poke, just under the skin.  
    “OKAY! OKAY!” The man blurted. Amit looked up. It was as if he’d just realized that Amit was going to hurt him. Stupid man. That was how they had begun the discussion. Why had the idiot not realized he meant business earlier? He’d still have two functional arms and would still be able to put tobacco in his cheek without it dribbling onto his shirt collar.  
    “Yes?”  
    “The Right Hand. Okay? That’s what