Free A Devil in the Details by K. A. Stewart Page A

her.
    Although she could barely keep her feet, Mira slid out of bed before I was fully awake, and my girls disappeared down the hallway. I struggled out of my short nap, intent on at least trying to help Mira with breakfast this morning.
    Pulling on a pair of loose sweats, I grabbed a ratty T-shirt and shambled my way out through the kitchen. Mira’s eyes were ringed with dark circles, but she threatened me with a spatula when I tried to go near the stove. “Out. I have this.”
    I debated for several long moments before relenting. If she said she was all right, then she must be all right. I kissed her gently, and then Anna, before I headed out to the backyard. The cold dew on my bare feet served to wake me up quite nicely. Of course, it was a thousand times better than the subzero midwestern winter we’d just passed, so I wasn’t about to complain.
    The sun was barely up high enough to shine over our neighbor’s privacy fence, casting my long shadow across the yard. I kept my face to the light but closed my eyes as I set about going through my morning katas. It allowed me to feel the warmth as it seeped into my stiff muscles, feel the life flowing into my limbs without the distraction of sight.
    I could do every kata I knew without thought, simply moving through the forms for the exercise, but that wasn’t my preference. Each gesture, each step had a purpose and a function. The graceful wave of my hand here could snap bone at speed. This step to the left would block a low kick and bring me inside an opponent’s guard. Each movement was at once beautiful and potentially lethal. Something like that should be contemplated. Before a person does something he should always have a full awareness of his capabilities and where his actions might lead.
    I follow the bushido , the Japanese code of honor and conduct dating back to the thirteenth century and possibly before. The samurai believed in loyalty, frugality, mastery of oneself and one’s art, and most important, honor. You might wonder how in the world one comes to call himself a modern samurai.
    Well, I wasn’t always the fine upstanding member of society you see today. I had a temper, as a child. Oh, who am I kidding? I still do. But at fifteen, it was fueled by all the usual teenage angst, the slings and arrows of a misspent youth. I traveled with a pack of like-minded degenerates and malcontents, and we left destruction and violence in our wake. I wasted more nights than I like to think about, blitzed on whatever drug we could easily get our hands on, gleefully causing mayhem in the name of whatever entitlement we felt we had. I was headed down that long road that so many travel and very few escape.
    The best thing that ever happened to me was getting arrested for chucking cinder blocks through business windows. Sure, you might say I was a juvenile, and therefore pretty much untouchable, but you didn’t grow up in my little Missouri town. They still believed in straps behind the woodshed back then.
    There was no getting out of it. The cops caught me red-handed while my supposed friends bailed out over the back fence. I remember standing there in the flashing blue lights, fists clenched, ready to take on the world simply because it existed. These days, a kid like that would get shot, but I grew up in a different time. It probably saved my life.
    The second-best thing to happen was coming before Judge Carter, a staunch advocate of alternative punishments. It was his idea to stick me in a court-mandated martial arts class, saying it would teach me discipline and control. (His opponents insisted it would teach me only a more efficient way to cause havoc, and he retired under pressure shortly thereafter. I still send him a Christmas card every year.)
    I hated him, at the time. I hated the class. I hated the sensei, and all the other clean-cut, bright-eyed students. I sulked my way through, feeling they were lucky I even showed up. Any effort on my part was just