Blood Ninja Read Online Free PDF Page A

into Taro’s mother’s robe. “When you are safe, write a note for your son. Tell him where you are. The bird will reach me.”
    “Thank you,” whispered Taro’s mother. The ninja grunted, irritably, as if he were conscious of making a mistake, and annoyed with himself for being unable to resist it.
    Then she gave Taro one look—one single look in which all her love was encompassed. Taro almost cast his eyes down, embarrassed—for she looked at him as if he were a scroll containing the words that would save her soul.
    She turned away. The ninja looked at Taro, and sighed again when he saw Taro’s eyes cut to the screen behind which lay his father’s body. “He’s dead,” said the man. “You will do him no honor by joining him.”
    “But …,” mumbled Taro. “I shouldn’t just let him lie there. I should help his soul by—”
    The ninja raised a peremptory hand. “Help his soul by taking vengeance on his killers,” he said. “Not by dying with him.”
    Numbly, Taro nodded. He looked one last time at the screen, then gripped the bow in his hand.
    The ninja looked at it. “Do you know how to use that thing?”
    Taro nodded.
    “Good. There are others coming. We will need to fight.”
    Taro looked at the dead man behind his mother’s seeming corpse, then at his savior. They were dressed identically, in loose black robes and with black scarves covering their faces, leaving only the eyes visible. “You are with them,” he said, wonderingly. “And yet you save me.”
    “Yes,” said the man, simply.
    “Did you kill my father?”
    “No. Enough questions.” He pulled out a short-sword. Less elegant than a samurai’s katana , it nevertheless had a brutal, businesslike air. Then, without warning, he slashed at Taro with the sharp edge. It was a trap! Taro dodged backward, felt the blade slashing his kimono, had time only to think I can’t die now—
    —and the black-clad man stepped back, holding a piece of Taro’s robe. “We don’t have much time,” he said as he stepped over to the doorway and pinned the scrap of robe with his sword to the wooden jamb. The fabric was positioned so as to be visible from the outside. “They’ll soon wonder why we haven’t come out. Get over here and draw your bow. Get ready to fire.” He beckoned Taro, positioning him on the side of the door opposite the scrap of robe. “They’ll think you’re waiting to ambush them on the other side.” And with that, he crouched, putting his finger to his lips.
    Sure enough, a moment later another ninja whirled into the room, the blade of his sword making a silvery circle in the air as he brought it down where he thought Taro was standing. The sword met only thin air, and the man let out a grunt as the sword struck the side of the door, where the scrap of silk fluttered in the breeze.
    Taro didn’t hesitate. He let go of his arrow, and it crossed thenarrow space at the speed of thought, burying itself in the man’s neck. The ninja dropped to the ground.
    “Good,” said the crouching ninja. “A true warrior’s instinct.”
    Taro looked down at the dead man, and suddenly a terrible sickness rose in his throat. He doubled over and was sick. He had never killed a man before—and he had done it so easily! He had barely paused. He was a monster!
    “Ah. A warrior’s instinct but not a warrior’s stomach. Come, there are still more and we must hurry.” Quickly, the man crossed the open doorway—shimmying to the side as a silver star sang through the air at body level—and took back his sword from where it had bit into the wood.
    He grabbed Taro’s arm and pulled him to the back of the room. “We’ll break out through the shoji,” he said.
    The ninja kicked a hole in the thin wooden wall and stepped through, pulling Taro behind him. Outside was black as ink, the only sound the beating of the waves on the rocks below. Then the light of a torch flared nearby, and a voice called out. “Hello? Is everything all