He Who Dares: Book Three Page 15

  “We’ll see about that, Gray.” This time Kevin Baker actually punched him, but not hard, probably out of fear of damaging his new hand. He turned to look at the other two men. ”Why don’t you two come and wake Mr. Gray up. He still looks a little sleepy,” Baker let out a nasty laugh.”

  The two beefy looking men sneered and walked over, clenching their fists as they did. Mike tried to stand, but his wobbly legs wouldn’t hold him up. The two men started beating him then and it wasn’t long before they knocked him out of the chair. Once on the floor, they started to put the boot in, laughing as they did. Both were a pair of savages and took delight in inflicting pain on helpless people much like their boss. Mike managed to roll with many of the kicks, and thanks to his more flexible skeletal structure didn’t end up with any broken bones. It was still painful, and he’d have a lovely collection of bruises by the time they’d finished, but that had an odd reverse effect.

  Instead of debilitating him further, the pain induced a flood of endorphins and anger. He rolled over face down and curled up into a ball to protect as much of his body as possible. It only helped a little as the boots kept hitting his upper body and his back. Mike gritted his teeth, hissing between his teeth in pain as a boot tip hit a particularly tender spot. He watched through slitted eyes and gauged the position of the two men as they walked around to find a new place to kick. Overconfidence was the downfall of many a man and so it was with these two. Drawing his legs all the way up he rolled onto his side as if to protect his crotch. Mike waited for the right moment to lash out with his booted foot.

  “Oh shit!” Thug number one screamed as Mike’s foot caught him on the outside of his knee. The sound of popping cartilage was loud enough to be heard across the room, and moaning in pain, thug number two hopped away to crash onto a bench along the wall of the Sala di Arms. “Shit! The mother fucker broke my leg!” the thug moaned.

  “Stop whining and keep your eye on the little man he might just come around and cause more trouble. If he wakes up, shoot him,” Baker snarled and stalked over to deliver a vicious kick to Mike’s back. “So, still feeling feisty are we? Good. I hope you’re nice and angry now, Gray.”

  Mike rolled away from the kick face down and smiling. He was angry, very angry, and he could feel it blossoming in his mind, but unlike before, there was no accompanying pain. Now he knew he was free of the chemically induced prohibition against fighting. Pushing himself up he lashed out at Kevin Baker his face pulled into a snarl of anger.

  “That’s it, Gray. Get mad,” Baker laughed as he jumped back, “let’s see you get really angry.” Baker motioned to the second thug while Mike climbed painfully to his feet. He stood there swaying on shaky legs watching the second thug walk over and pick up two swords while Kevin Baker shed his overcoat and jacket. He walked back, handed one to Kevin and threw the other on the floor by Mike’s legs.

  “Let’s see just how good you are with a sword now, you pathetic colonial reject.” Kevin spat and he swung the three-foot long rapier through the air.

  By contrast Mike picked up a much-used Katana, the edge full of nicks and chips. One touch of his thumb told him that this sword wouldn’t cut hot butter, much less deliver any sort of a killing stroke. Not that it mattered. Kevin Baker had made one critical mistake. He should have killed him while he’d had the chance, but ego driven as he was, he couldn’t get past the fact that someone had beaten him and chopped off both his arms. He wanted revenge, wanted to humiliate his opponent before he killed him. In Kevin Baker’s world, there was no such thing as a fair fight. No matter who his opponent was or who he’d been paid to kill, he wanted every advantage he could get before the fight started. If that meant stunning his opponent, and having two men beat and kick the snot out of him to tilt the scales in his favor, so be it.

  The two holes in his plan for revenge were big enough to drive a tank through. One, he thought Mike was still under the restriction of not being able to fight when he got angry, and two, that it wasn’t the man holding the sword that was the true weapon. Having a more flexible bone structure than a normal human, they’d done a lot less damage to him than they thought, but it was still painful. Mike took several shaky steps back and forth while he tried to clear his mind. As his last Sensei had said, when you fight to the death, nothing else matters. Your sole concentration wasn’t on style or technique but being in the moment and killing your opponent before he killed you. Mike forced the pain to the back of his mind and concentrated on his opponent blinking his blurred eyes to try and regain his focus. He would have preferred to fight bare foot so he could feel the grain in the wooden floor, but it didn’t matter. You fought with the tools at hand. He fingered the worn grip of the Katana and the flex of the blade as he swung it through the air. It was a poor tool, but then again, any tool was only as good as the person using it. He sensed Baker stepping towards him while his back was turned, and tried to move out of the way, but his legs failed him. He did manage to twist his body away and took the stab on his left arm instead of his sword arm. The stabbing attack wasn’t meant to kill him more to debilitate him further. Mike clenched his teeth and hissed through the pain.

  “Come on, Gray. Let’s see how good you are with a sword now!” Baker taunted.

  “You have always been a worthless pile of crap, Baker,” Mike growled as he parried the next lunge.

  Sidling sideways, Mike fended off several more attacks, gaining precious time for his body to shake off the effects of the stun bolts and the beating. Gradually he regained some of his smoothness, but he still wasn’t able to fend off all of Baker’s attacks. Baker was grinning as he caused his opponent to bleed a little more as he found ways through Mike’s defenses. Mike let him have his little victories, trading them for time. Even so, Baker found it harder and harder to penetrate Mike’s guard.

  “That’s better Gray. At least you are making an effort to give me a fight.” Overconfidence was the downfall of many a man, and so it was with Kevin Baker. He hadn’t yet realized that his attacks and strikes weren’t inflicting as much damage as he thought, and he missed his target more times than he touched him.

  Mike pushed the remainder of his pains into the background of his mind, and concentrated on the basics of defense as his body started to regain its normal function. It is said that deception in battle is the key to making your enemy believe one thing while actually doing something else. By appearing to be on the defensive Mike drew Baker in and gave him a false sense of confidence. Baker swept his sword sideways in the hope of catching Mike with a cutting stroke, but that too missed. Mike continued to sidle to the left staying just out of reach and forcing Baker to work harder to catch him. The time he let him step in close for a thrust, he easily deflected the tip, causing Baker to overreach. If his Katana had been as sharp as it should have been, he could have delivered a cutting blow to Baker’s body instead he just bruised him.

  Now it was Baker’s turn to get angry. “Come on Gray! Fight me, damn you!” Slowly, it dawned on Kevin Baker that what he’d been told about Mike Gray’s inability to fight when he was angry was wrong.

  Sweat beaded his brow. This couldn’t be happening again. In desperation, he tried to back Mike into a corner, but that just wasn’t happening, and gradually he found himself more and more on the defense. In answer he renewed his attacks now wanting to end this as quickly as possible. No matter what he thought, or said, Mike Gray was a better swordsman than he’d ever be, and even with a blunted Katana, he could still inflict a lot of damage. For Mike, he felt himself slip into the place they call the “zone” where nothing else mattered except the moment. He now knew what Kevin Baker was going to do before he did it. His body language, his stance, the way he placed his feet, and the way he held the sword, all gave him clues as to his next move. However, it had gone beyond that now without the restriction on his fighting that held him back before and forced him to end it before he was incapacitated by pain.

  He now had the time to let his mind expand beyond his
immediate surroundings. He even knew that Jenks wasn’t still knocked out from the stun bolt and was just waiting for the right moment to move. Jenks sat in the chair, slumped back, his right arm dangling at the side. The first thug was still nursing his shattered knee, concentrating on wrapping a bandage around it, and trying to cope with the pain. It amused Mike at how easy it was to parry Kevin Baker’s lunges and cuts now, as if he was sparing with some beginner. A slight tap of his blade sent Kevin’s off to the side or meeting and parrying a wild swipe sent Kevin stumbling away. Then it happened, the junction of many points in time all coming together in that one perfect moment. He “saw” Jenks slip the knife out of the sleeve of his dangling arm, the second thug with his head thrown back as he swallowed some pills, Kevin Baker’s lunge forward in a desperate thrust. As before, Mike turned away and around it, bringing his Katana up, and over. In that split second, Kevin Baker saw it as well and let out a sob. The blunt edge of the Katana connected with his forearm in a bone-shattering blow and a moment later the sword clattered to the floor.

  The thug guarding Jenks lost what is called situational awareness and became more interested in the sword fight than keeping his eye on Jenks. Kevin either didn’t know or wasn’t aware that Jenks was a Marine and therefore hadn’t told the thug. The man moved in front of Jenks and yelled a warning to Kevin Baker as Mike whipped his sword around. At that moment Jenks stabbed upward driving the point of his knife into thug number two’s crotch and jerked it sideways.

  The poor man screamed, not only from the initial stab into a very sensitive region of a man’s body, but because Jenks had also severed the femoral artery, evident by the amount of blood leaking from between the thug's fingers clutching his crotch. After breaking Baker’s wrist, Mike grabbed the blade of the Katana in front of the hilt and threw it like a spear at the second thug. He caught him in the throat just as he brought his head down hearing his friends scream of pain and starting to reach into his jacket for a weapon. Even as blunt as it was the Katana punched through the man’s throat and exited out the back of his neck. The thug grabbed it as he fell to the floor his heels drumming on the floorboards as he choked to death on his own blood. Standing, Jenks leaned down to look in the eyes of the first thug kneeling on the floor in a spreading pool of his own blood and grinned.

  “Bet that hurts like a bitch don’t it, my old son.” The man's face scrunched up as if he was about to cry, before he slumped onto his side and died. Jenks leaned down and carefully wiped the blade clean on the thug’s jacket before returning it to the hidden scabbard in his sleeve.

  “Thought you were a goner there for a moment, Skipper.” Jenks wiped the fear and sweat off his brow, and for all his bravado, he was scared, not so much for himself, but for his friend and captain.

  “Yeah, I was a little worried myself for a while.” Mike shook himself and let out a long, slow breath, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. They shook hands as friends are wont to do, and Mike could feel the tremble in Jenks grip. His own hand wasn’t that steady either. He was sore, bruised and had minor cuts on his arms and legs but nothing life threatening. He cleaned up as best he could with a damp towel and doctored the cuts with some quick-heal and new skin spray he found in the dead thugs’ first aid kit.

  “Want me to off this worthless loud mouth prick, Skipper?” Jenks offered. Mike looked at him a moment in thought. In a way, it might save a lot of trouble and heartache for some other person unlucky enough to cross Kevin Baker’s path, but Mike didn’t feel right about just offing him so he shook his head.

  “No, much as I would like to, I’ll give him one last chance at life.” As he spoke, he reached down, grabbing Baker by the hair and dragged him into a kneeling position. Baker’s wrist hung down at an odd angle, and the skin around the impact point had started to swell and turn red and blue. Baker’s face was screwed up in pain, and to get his attention Mike slapped him across the face.

  “You are listening to me, Baker?”

  Kevin Baker looked up at him, tears of shame and humiliation streaming down his face, and nodded.

  “Good, because I’m only going to say this once,” He slapped him across the face one more time to make sure he had Baker’s attention, “Against my better judgment, and that of my friend here, I’m going to let you live.”

  “Tha…thank you,” Kevin blubbered.

  “But, if I see you again, or hear you have taken up your old ways, I will hunt you down and kill you where you stand. Am I clear?”

  “Yes…yes, sir.”

  “Good, because I don’t care who you think can protect you from me, or my friends, they won’t be enough,” he turned to Jenks, “call 999 and tell them there’s been an accident here. I’ll let Mr. Baker explain to the police as best he can.” Jenks grinned and tapped in the number of his porta-comp. “Oh, if you are thinking to implicate me in all this, think again. I’m not really here.”

  With that, they left the building and quickly made their way back to the Crown and Anchor, to pick up Taffy, hearing the police sirens approaching as they turned the corner. Only after he got back to the pub did he start feeling a little shaky as the adrenaline from the fight wore off, but a couple of stiff drinks helped. Some first aid and a can of “quick heal” and he was soon back on his feet. Of course, Taffy was as mad as hell at having missed all the fun, and the two of them would probably be hearing about it for weeks knowing Taffy. As promised, Taffy had arranged with his friend to take over in his absence, and between the two of them he and Jenks said a tearful goodbye to all four barmaids that included a lot of hugging and kissing before they could get out the door. Two hours later, just as dusk was falling, all three made their way to the Free Traders Guild Hall and quickly vanished inside. No matter who was looking for them, once inside the imposing structure it would have taken an army to get them back out.

  After being checked out by the Guild doctor and getting a little extra first aid, Mike slept for twelve hours straight.

  The rest of the week passed slowly as the R.S.V.P.s began trickling in, not that Mike was interested in any of them except the one from the palace. It arrived on Saturday morning, much to his relief, stating that Lords Seaforth and Ross would be attending with a companion. Nowhere did it say, Lady Anne, as he was hoping. He just hoped Albright’s message to the palace chamberlain had had the desired effect and that the Lady Anne could be persuaded to attend.

  Sunday evening came at long last, and the first guests arrived, but playing Max to the hilt, Mike seconded himself in a side room and held court with Jenks acting as his long-suffering aide.

  * * * * * *

  It was with some misgivings that Admiral Rawlings, and his aid, Rolly Vargas, exited the ground car and walked up the steps to the Guild Hall confident the ballistic armor under their uniforms would stop anything lethal from penetrating. Armed uniformed guards from a local security company stood on each side of the open doorway, and Admiral Rawlings noted in passing, as he paused to let the people in front proceed up the staircase, that the doors themselves were a lot thicker than they appeared to be. They might look like wood from the outside as they were meant to, but he would bet they wouldn’t be out of place as hull plates on a battleship except for their appearance, of course. He smiled for a moment as the image of these two doors mounted on the hull of his ship. The two people standing at the top of the staircase were just as imposing as the ornate door to the Free Traders Guild Hall. One, he knew, was the Avalon Ambassador, Andrew MacTavish. A powerfully built man in what appeared to be middle age, but then again with people from Avalon looks could be deceptive. He might be an old man of ninety for all he knew, if half the stories he heard were true. The stunningly beautiful woman standing beside him would have made a fashion model green with envy and sent her home crying to her mother. If they were aware of how intimidating they were, nothing showed on their faces. They greeted everyone warmly as if they were old friends, immediately knowing who and what they were even as they were announced. It was a perf
ormance on par with a royal function, and one look around the glittering lower floor had Admiral Rawlings rethinking the term “rich.” This place went way beyond such a simple word, yet there was nothing gaudy or pretentious about the place. The giant room was a work of art from floor to ceiling, and the lighting was meant to illuminate not glare in peoples' eyes.

  “Admiral Rawlings. So nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to come,” Ambassador MacTavish murmured softly, as if greeting an old friend. “There are one or two people I’d like you to meet very soon.” His handshake was firm, and the Admiral got the impression that the ambassador was taking care not to squeeze too hard.

  “Thank you, Ambassador, I’m glad I was invited. The word is that Max Tregallion is here.” Even if the official invitation hadn’t said so. If he thought to surprise MacTavish by knowing Max Tregallion was in residence, he was disappointed. It hadn’t taken long for the news to reach him about the incident with the Robo-cab or the name of the person riding in it.

  “True and he is one of the people I will introduce to you a little later.”

  “Yes. I’d be interested in hearing his version of what happened with the cab.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll have a story to tell.” The Admiral could tell that the ambassador’s smile was genuine, and that puzzled him. There was something else going on here besides this supposed official trade reception. They passed on down the line meeting several embassy personnel, but unlike most of these functions, it wasn’t in some sort of descending order of importance. Here, the last person in line could be the one to keep an eye on. He and Rolly walked down the inner steps and each took an offered glass of Avalon champagne.

  “What do you think, Rolly?” The admiral asked.

  “A bit intimidating if you ask me, sir.”

  “As intended.”