Bamboo Bloodbath and Ninja's Revenge Page 4

  I was barehanded, but so was he. I saw that he needed no metal tiger's claws; his own nails were long and sharp. His feet were bare, the toenails, like the fingernails, shaped into deadly claws.

  Quickly I removed my shoes and socks to stand barefooted. "Can't you kick heavier with your shoes on?" Drummond asked. He knew, as I did, that it was no sense of fairness or appearance that prompted me. The real fight was just about to begin. What had passed before had been no more than the preliminaries.

  I laughed, but my eyes never left the Hyena, who stood immobile, sizing me up. He knew, as I did, that an extraordinary encounter was about to take place. "No, I am much faster without that weight hindering my feet. Feel the callus."

  Drummond felt the horny shield of tissue on the ball of my foot and along the edge, harder than any shoe leather. I wore shoes for public appearances but my feet were private killers. I stepped forward, watching him with my left eye, no longer trying to use my right. It was hard to see him clearly, because now there was only the light of the fire. But I had fought in the dark before.

  That animal snout of his opened, and he emitted a startlingly loud, weird, cackling laugh. And I froze in place—for that laugh was echoed outside.

  He came to meet me, his little legs seeming to offer insufficient support, but his mighty arms giving an entirely different impression. Awkward on his feet he might be, but he was a thoroughly trained fighter. I could see it in his manner, the way he carried his upper torso.

  The Hyena's hands reached out. I was not eager to grapple with him until I had weakened him somewhat. He was an extremely powerful man, especially in the arms, and he was fresh, while I had just fought several other people. I'm no weakling myself, but I fight with my brain and training as much as with my physical strength. At weightlifting the Hyena would clobber me; at mortal combat he would have to have other assets.

  The animal-headed man had other ideas. He jumped at me, trying to grab me with his long claws so as to finish me rapidly. I think he was expecting me to try to batter him with karate and kung fu blows, as I had done with his henchmen.

  Instead I surprised him, grabbing both of his arms from underneath, meeting his rush and dropping to the floor while both my feet went to his midsection. I pulled with my arms and pushed with my feet—an unorthodox variation of the tomoe-nage stomach throw. This put my stronger legs into play against his weaker abdomen, a tactical advantage. And it sent him flying.

  He should have rammed head-on against the wall, ending the fight. But he surprised me with catlike agility as he twisted in the air. Even so, he crashed into a cabinet full of Sevres china, sending it to the floor on top of him with a tremendous noise of breaking dishes.

  I leaped at him, hoping to catch him with a front kick, maegeri, straight at his face before he recovered. There is no polite do-not-hit-a-man-when-he's-down convention in real combat; you go all out to win, or you lose. If you make an advantage for yourself by throwing your opponent on the floor, you are stupid not to follow it up.

  But again the Hyena reacted swiftly. Rolling to his knees, he batted my feet aside. His claws ripped the side of my ankle. I was lucky he had not cut the tendons, as that would have finished me. This man was every bit as dangerous, as I had anticipated. He reached out with those enormously long arms and tried to strike me down as he jumped to his feet. I barely managed to step aside or block his many swipes. I could not afford either to be slashed or grabbed, for that was his style, not mine, and no one was going to beat him his way.

  We circled each other in furious fight, while I trusted that Drummond was keeping an eye on any undead minions. I did not want the industrialist messing in this fight—the Hyena would kill him with a single strike. It was not just a matter of blocking a slash or kick; I had many years of training that Drummond lacked, so that my blocks were as fast as reflex, yet well chosen. The Hyena would have killed me several times over already, had I not been a thoroughly experienced martial artist. And I would have killed him, had he been less than he was. In moments, we had come to a mutual appreciation of each other's abilities.

  I managed to land a good blow to his upper triceps muscle at the top of his right arm. It was a middle-knuckle strike, nakayubi ipponken, with the second knuckle of the middle finger out. His arm went down, as it was momentarily paralyzed. I had scored indirectly on a nerve center under the muscle, crushing it against the bone of his arm.

  But he countered with his other hand: a numbing fore-fist roundhouse strike, seiken mawashi-uchi, to the side of my head. It missed my ear narrowly; half an inch to the back and I would have been dead. Even so, the force of the blow stunned me.

  I fell forward to my knees, on the hearth, my consciousness fading. I had a vision of flames, real flames, for I was staring into the fire. The blood from my prior wound had filled my right eye again and spattered some to my left. That was why I had not dodged the blow; the Hyena had taken advantage of my liability to penetrate my blind side. Now I could barely see his knee coming at my face, to ruin it.

  Here was where my trained reflexes saved me. My mind was foggy, but my body knew what to do. I somersaulted backward. Even so, his knee grazed my nose, and more blood flowed. I stood up groggily. Had this been a formal encounter, the referee would have stopped the match, disqualifying me because of the threat to my health. There was a threat, all right. But it was to my life, not my health.

  I felt the Hyena's arms around me, pinning mine to my sides. Now he had me where he wanted me. His fetor was so overpowering I might have puked, had I not been in worse distress from the pressure. Those arms were crushing me, crushing the air and life out of my body. He was trying to swing me from my feet, so as to break my back more easily.

  Two things helped me to stave that off. First, I was taller than he; it was hard for him to lift me without changing his grip, and he did not dare do that. A bear hug cannot be intermittent! Second, my training: tai sabaki. I automatically lowered my center of gravity, tensing my stomach, putting all of my strength into my lower belly. My legs became like iron. It is not true that no man can be lifted against his will, as some supposed experts claim. But the process can be greatly complicated by the proper defensive measures. He could not lift me. While he strained in vain, my head cleared and my strength returned.

  Suddenly I felt his awful jaws close in the juncture of my neck and torso. I had thought his animal mask nonfunctional, but I'd been wrong. The Hyena could bite. He started worrying me as though I were a tough hunk of meat, a carcass. He was a hunting beast tearing apart his victim, not caring how it might struggle so long as he got his mouthful. The pain was terrible; soon those teeth would find my jugular vein. I felt fresh warm blood flowing down my chest, and felt his tongue rasping into the wound. I hunched my neck and contracted my muscles. My neck was twice as strong as that of the normal man, and that was all that enabled me to hold out against this new onslaught. It could not help me long.

  I hooked my right leg against the back of his leg in a kosoto-gake, a small outside hook. I reaped his leg from under him, much as I might do with a student, and brought him down. Nothing wrong with the standard techniques; that's why we teach them. With his teeth and arms committed, he could not maneuver to retain his balance.

  I fell on top of him, knocking his wind out. His teeth ripped away from my throat. I had suffered serious injury, but now my blood-lust was aroused. My judo was almost forgotten. My fingers grabbed at each side of his thick neck, and my thumbs went in deep, converging on his windpipe, almost meeting. I could also feel the blood pulsing in his carotid arteries, as I squeezed them shut too. In a moment the flow of blood to his brain would stop, and he would lose consciousness. Not slowly, as is the case with asphyxiation, but instantly.

  "AAHHHH!" The scream of sheer agony rang in my ears. But I had his air cut off; how could—?

  No wonder! It was my scream. My head was on fire! The Hyena had grabbed a burning stick from the nearby fireplace, heedless of the pain to himself as he wrenched i
t through the protective mesh and rammed it at my face. Luckily for me he had missed my eyes; his own concentration had been suffering because of my choke-hold. But the brand had hit the top of my head, setting my hair on fire.

  I let go and jumped away, trying to smother my blazing hair.

  Theoretically, human hair is self-damping and will not really burn. You could never prove that theory by my experience.

  Again the Hyena laughed, as well he might. I was badly burned, bitten, half blind, and he still held that flaming torch in his hands. The damned thing should have gone out when removed from the fire, but it blazed with ornery determination. No doubt Drummond had specially treated wood, to ensure a good fire. Damn him!

  He stalked me, waving his light in front of him as an animal trainer does his whip, and I had little defense against it. Then he lunged.

  I tried to bat the brand aside with the edge of my hand, using the knife-defense, so that I could follow up by catching his arm and forcing him to drop the weapon. But once again he was too fast; his reflexes were as sophisticated as mine. He drew back the torch and thrust the bright tip of it against my arm, sliding it up so that I was burned in a streak from the inside elbow to the hand. Yet another painful wound.

  "Jason!"

  I looked about wildly with my clear eye. Thera was there; I recognized her more by her voice than her figure.

  "I got it, Jason," she called. "Here."

  Something sailed through the air. The Hyena grabbed for it, but couldn't catch it because he already held the hot stick. My nunchakus!

  Suddenly the complexion of the fight changed. Now I was armed. Now I had power!

  The Hyena approached me. He must not have been familiar with my weapon, for he did not change his style. He held his burning brand threateningly before him, ready to jab at my face again, and to punish any effort of mine to block it.

  I delivered a flail-like blow with my nunchaku that hit his extended forearm solidly. A lesser arm would have snapped like a dry stick. His did not; but even that tree-like limb must have smarted terribly, for the smash of the nunchaku is deadly. The brand fell to the floor and he cried out, in real pain this time. I surprised him again, thrusting the end of one stick to his midsection. I heard his grunt of anguish as he expelled all the air from his lungs. I had him at my mercy now.

  Then I made a mistake. It was the most elementary blunder, of the type I had warned my students about repeatedly. It was the error of overconfidence.

  I wanted him to be afraid, as he had made me afraid. I wanted him to know I was going to batter him into a shuddering pulp, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

  I could have finished him quickly, flinging one stick of the nunchaku out to sweep behind his neck, and catching it so that the cord throttled him. Or I could simply have struck repeatedly at his head until it cracked open like a rotten melon. One way or another I could have finished him in seconds.

  Instead I indulged myself in a display of expertise, my nunchaku moving in glittering arcs and figure-eights above me like a bird in flight. The zigzags were so swift that the eye could hardly follow them, especially in this poor light. Yes, disarmed, bruised, and overmatched, he saw his doom in the making!

  With an animal cry—no laugh this time!—the Hyena pounded across the floor, away from me. I moved to head him off, and Thera stood her ground in the hall, blocking his escape. But he did not go that way. He ran to the end of the room and crashed through the huge curtained picture window there. He broke into the night amid a shower of glass and tatters of curtain. I had thought that window was truly unbreakable, and that he was trapped; another miscalculation. I had once again underestimated his animal strength.

  In a moment he was gone, silently. I tried to pursue him, but the glass edges were jagged and I just couldn't see him in the dark. It would be suicidal to follow him outside. The Hyena was a creature of the night. He could turn on me and rend me in a moment, even armed as I was. I had to have the light to operate.

  And I had not forgotten that animal sound somewhere out there. The awful echo of his laughter. Was I afraid? Yes, I was not ashamed to admit I was. Fear is often healthy; it prevents a man from throwing his life away foolishly.

  "You did it!" Drummond gasped. "Striker, you beat him! You took the Hyena and saved my life!"

  "I didn't take him," I said. "Your daughter provided me with a new option, and he wouldn't gamble. That's all." That was not all, but I lacked the gumption to admit the truth: that I had foolishly thrown away certain victory.

  "But he didn't kill me! It's over! He never strikes the same target twice. I won't have to fear him any more."

  "Nice for you," I said. Now I felt the renewed pains of the gashes on my head and foot, the bite on my neck, the burn on my arm and my scorched hair. What a fighter that Hyena was! He had done me more damage in a shorter time than anyone I could remember. Drummond's account might be settled, but the Hyena-Striker account was just beginning. I knew his type; if I didn't run him down and put him out of commission, he would surely come after me and kill me.

  At his convenience.

  Chapter 3

  Thera

  By day, in familiar territory, I could probably take the Hyena. But by night, in his own locale, he could probably take me. He was tough, right through the core. I didn't fear anonymous assassination from that quarter; he would meet me squarely. But if I were the slightest bit off—sick or injured or sleepy or distracted—I would die. Unless I caught up to him at my convenience.

  "I knew you could do it!" Thera said. "Oh, Jason, I'm so glad!"

  "I wouldn't have done it without your help," I reminded her, and it was no gallantry. But that reminded me. "What kept you, Thera?"

  "They gave me a hard time at your dojo. I tried to call, but couldn't get through. That scared me, so I snuck in, grabbed the weapon, and ran."

  "You're lucky they didn't catch you!"

  "They did catch me," she said innocently.

  "Then how—?"

  "Somehow one of those karate students got the idea that there might be something between us, if he helped me. His name was Andy."

  Andy—one of my best, now, despite his loss of sight in one eye and poor vision in the other. He had been scratched across the eyes during a melee some months ago, by the same black karate mistress I had teased Thera about. Poetic, in a way; that woman had made a profound impression on my life and business. Andy had made a remarkable recovery. Before that episode he had been just an average student. Now he showed real promise.

  No point asking this teen-aged sex bomb just who had put that idea—something between them!—into Andy's head. Andy was normal, but not sexually aggressive.

  "So it took a little while," she said.

  I let it drop. I didn't want to know whether she had cheated Andy of his high expectations, or had delivered full measure. She had accomplished her mission: to fetch the nunchakus. I could hardly condemn her for that.

  "Well, let's clean up in here," I said. "We'll have to see about restoring the phone and power, and getting something decent to eat. And maybe we'd better get a doctor."

  "I notified the phone company when I couldn't get through. They said they'd have a man on it right away."

  "Where is he, then?" Drummond demanded. He was an ugly sight, with his clothing ripped and blood caked on his head and shoulders, but he seemed exhilarated. His death sentence had been reprieved, and he had fought valiantly on his own behalf. Reason enough for satisfaction.

  "We'd better check the grounds." I said.

  "There's something—out there," Thera said nervously. "I smelled it when I came in, and—"

  "The Hyena," I said.

  "No, he was inside fighting with you. This was—all I could see was two glowing eyes, and the smell was awful. I thought it was going to attack me, but it just watched. I drove the car right up to the door so I wouldn't have to get out, and then I just ran inside."

  "It must have been the real hyena," I said. "The on
e that makes those paw-prints. We heard it laughing, answering its master. He probably has trained it to stand guard, but not to attack except on direct order from him. You're lucky."

  She nodded soberly. We checked the grounds. Sure enough, the phone repairman was there, tied and gagged in his truck. The Hyena had intercepted him, but hadn't hurt him. As they had told me: the Hyena didn't bother with people worth less than ten million dollars. He must have known the phone man was only an innocent bystander doing his job, and dealt with him accordingly. Which verified what I had already learned about the Hyena's professionalism: he was no berserker, no wild sadist. He was out for money, a lot of it, and he concentrated his energies economically on the ramifications of that one problem.

  Soon we had the phone back in order. We used it to order a catered supper, an electric company repairman, the police, and a doctor. (Yes, doctors do make house calls—for millionaires.) The electric company, with typical efficiency, did not get the power restored until several hours later, so meal and medication had to be handled by candlelight. The doctor was rather put out, but Drummond tipped him two bits and shut him up.

  The police came while my several injuries were being bandaged, and the officers looked with amazement at the seven dead and injured thugs. "There'll have to be an investigation," the sergeant said.

  "No investigation, no publicity," Drummond said. He now had a bandage on his head that made him look like a turbaned sultan, and his bearing was every bit as regal. "These rascals burst into my house intent on robbery and mayhem. I resisted. Fortunately my friend Mr. Striker was here, visiting my daughter. He's a judo instructor, you know. World champion."

  I opened my mouth to protest the distortions, but Drummond gave me a warning look.

  "What about the window?" the sergeant asked. "It looks broken from the inside."

  "I shall have it replaced in the morning."

  The officer shook his head dubiously. "Just as you say, sir." I knew there would be no complications from the police. Drummond had implied they could be bought; evidently he had invested a little himself. He trusted them, now that the Hyena was out of the picture. But I had to admit, publicity about this fracas would have been awkward for me as well as for Drummond. What was the trainer of the U.S. judo team doing in a common brawl, killing several people? So I kept my mouth shut, feeling like a hypocrite.