Restless Soul - Alex Archer [89]
Annja reached the end of the aisle, which was near the front of the shop. Holding her breath, she looked around the shelf. Still nothing. A glance at the front windows showed that the grime she’d thought was on the outside was actually on the inside, as if it had been smeared with something to make it difficult to see much…or at least to see any of the pretty details. The door had three dead-bolt locks on it and a wire that ran up one side. There was a motion sensor and a security camera that looked pretty high-tech in comparison to the building and its furnishings.
Maybe the entirety of the store was a front. Maybe the place was always closed to the run-of-the-mill customer. Annja retraced her steps, heading to the back of the shop. He’d probably doubled back to the other room. Or else he—
It was the faintest of sounds, and had she not been paying especially close attention, she wouldn’t have noticed. Wood squeaked, like weight was shifting on it. Her head snapped up just as a figure jumped off the top shelf. She leaped away as his blade whistled in the musty air and sliced off a hank of her hair.
He followed her, kicking as he went, landing a solid blow to her arm as she ducked beneath his sword, then kicking out with his other foot as she spun away between terra-cotta warrior statues. She couldn’t identify the style of martial arts he employed. It looked like karate, but it had elements of qwan ki do, which consisted mostly of jumping and scissor techniques with the hands and feet. The manner in which he used his sword also hinted at qwan ki do, which she’d studied briefly in New York a summer ago.
He came at her as she darted out from between the statues and dropped beneath his next kick. He held the sword in his right hand and performed a praying-mantis move, then followed it with rapid lightning thrusts with the heel of his left hand. The quick moves were intended to overwhelm her and smacked of karate or kenpo.
He shifted from one foot to the next, always kicking or punching or slashing and keeping her off balance. He knocked over a shelf of melon-size monkey carvings, and Annja cringed. She’d not been fighting back, only defending, on three counts. She wanted to study his technique and look for an opening; she didn’t want to damage anything in the shop—the objects might be irreplaceable—and she didn’t want to kill him.
She wouldn’t kill him; she was adamant about that.
He shifted into an animal fighting style, leopard kung fu. Annja knew an old Chinese man who taught it in Central Park on Wednesday mornings. Like the other methods her attacker employed, leopard kung fu emphasized speed and angular attacks. He wasn’t trying to rely on strength, which his frame hinted he had plenty of, but rather on his quickness and trying to outsmart her.
“Why block when you can kick?” the old Chinese man had posed to Annja and his other students. “Why defend when you can attack?”
Her opponent focused on elbow jabs now, catching her on the shoulder as she brought her sword up, then focusing on a series of low kicks that though she avoided them drove her back into a counter covered with brass bells of various sizes. Many of them tipped, filling the air with a brief musical cacophony that managed to distract Kim.
Annja raised herself and rolled over the top of the counter, deftly avoiding a teetering brass urn and the next series of off-tempo sword swings that shattered the glass top and set the remaining bells clanking.
She made a move to slip around the corner, but instead vaulted it, planting her left hand on the intact edge of the countertop and bringing the sword up with her right. Her opponent was mixing martial-arts styles, so she did, too, landing a knee to his chin and at the same time hooking her leg around his sword arm, avoiding his blade and setting him