Kiai! & Mistress of Death

  I still did not know who the black karate mistress was, she who had maimed me. Only Amalita's heroic efforts had saved me, in more ways than one, and now I felt a somber guilt over that situation. I had a private (no pun!) score to settle with the black woman.

  No use going to the pseudo-kung-fu temple; that had closed down while I was in the hospital. It would remanifest under another name, with different front personnel, when the heat was off. The real urge behind the demons lay in the source of the Kill-13 drug, not in the doped acolytes.

  That source would not yield to direct assault; neither police nor government agencies had made a dent in it. Arrested demons knew little, and refused to talk, and their withdrawal pangs often killed them in prison. This had led to cries of police brutality, and the police had become reluctant to make further arrests. So the matter rested; no one was going to do anything about it, while the muggings and killings went on and the Kill-13 cult grew.

  No one would act but me. And I wanted to get to my new contact before it, too, dissipated. The name Amalita had whispered, in the throes of our slow, tortuous, sensuous embrace. Kobi Chija, a true kung-fu master from the orient, just setting up a school in a neighboring city. I did not know him, and had not heard of him professionally, but of course I was not conversant with kung-fu as I was with judo. There are so many variations and schools, and so many masters that never came to America. America is not the land of martial art; its citizens lack the patience to become really proficient.

  Well, I would judge the man when I met him; the true professional cannot be mistaken, whatever his discipline. I certainly hoped he could help me run down Kill-13.

  The address was in Chinatown. I took a bus to get there, fearing that the demons would be watching my car. I bought a newspaper, but was unable to read in the swaying vehicle. I don't usually suffer from motion sickness, but I was still a bit weak from my hospitalization, and the combination of bus fumes, jolting, and eyestrain was too much. So I concentrated on exercising my hands, using a pair of polished steel balls. These are employed by many martial artists; held in one hand and squeezed against each other, they strengthen the muscles of fingers, hand and arm.

  The dojo was several blocks from the bus station. I ambled along, still feeling twinges from my surgery, still idly working the balls, newspaper tucked under my arm. There were throngs of people, by no means all Chinese. Tourists and others flocked to Chinatown to shop.

  Indeed, it was an interesting place. Posters bore Chinese symbols advertising Chinese food and Chinese cinemas. People were standing in line to eat at what I presumed to be the better or cheaper establishments. The movies had English subtitles, I knew, for many Chinese had become largely Americanized no matter how they tried to cling to the old ways. Bilingual posters urged people not to be taken in by Communist China. There were many souvenir stores, and from the look of it some had excellent Chinese goods. And food markets with whole smoked ducks, chickens and geese hanging in the windows. Crows watched the fish being cut and gutted; for a moment I wished I were a crow.

  I was glad I hadn't tried to drive in. There was absolutely no parking place, every possible space was full. People were walking, shopping, or just standing around talking at a great rate, and I couldn't understand a word. I passed a Buddhist temple, with its statue of Buddha in the middle of the street. And a Chinese museum, evidently a tourist trap, with a fake dragon inside. Even the telephone booths looked Chinese, with Chinese roofs.

  My resistance to the blandishments of the merchants expired as I passed a pastry shop. I stopped and tried ineffectively to bargain down what I knew to be a steep tourist price, but the aroma was horribly good, and I was hungry, and the wily proprietor knew he had me hooked. Never tackle a professional at his own game! I bought a fancy pastry whose name I did not know, and ate it while I glanced over a newsstand full of Chinese magazines and books, and listened to Chinese music. There was even a Chinese liquor store with several kinds of mai-tai, whatever that was. Fierce, I was sure.

  I heard something. It sounded uncomfortably familiar. I stopped to listen.

  The sound came again. Yes, it was the eerie attack cry of the demons!

  I gulped down the rest of my pastry, dismayed. Demons, here? Had they followed me after all?

  No, they would hardly have warned me by making that sound from such a distance. They were up to some other mischief, and suddenly I had a notion what that might be.

  I broke into a run, heading for the sound. Soon I saw the source: a group of demons were closing in on two people. The region was quickly becoming cleared; though there were hundreds in the area, no one wanted to get involved. Old Chinese men, muttering in their native language; young Chinese girls with long black hair, speaking English; a few walking skeletons from an opium den; all pretending not to notice, while beating an expeditious retreat down the narrow, crooked streets.

  This was partly mass cowardice, but mostly good sense. Demons could maim and kill, and seemed to have some immunity from the law. Why risk everything for a stranger?

  My lip curled with contempt. I understood the attitude, but I also knew that those who tolerated such things would find no help when they themselves were abused. Each man had better be his brother's keeper, if he fears anarchy.

  Meanwhile, seven, no, eight armed demons were attacking what I now saw to be an old man and a young woman. The man had a hand fan, the kind that used to be popular on hot days before air conditioning became rampant. The girl had only a handbag.

  I was still two blocks away; I knew I would not arrive in time to fend off those demons, and was not certain I could do anything against such a number, anyway. Even in top condition, which I was not, and with a weapon, which I had not. I was already panting, and my nunchaku was at home.

  A weapon: perhaps I was not that badly off. I began folding my newspaper as I ran.

  As the distance narrowed between us, I could only watch, knowing I was too late. Demons needed no more than seconds to kill. That could be another origin of the name of the drug: kill in thirteen seconds?

  I saw the attackers make a circle about the two, cutting off escape, and the victims didn't even seem to be trying to run, knowing it was hopeless. The first demon came at the old man with a small knife. It looked like an aikuchi tanto, a Japanese blade that was ordinarily concealed within a wooden tube. It was dangerous, however. An ancient switchblade.

  The old man made what seemed to be a futile gesture: he slapped the demon's face with the fan. But the demon fell back, his hands going to his head, and I saw even from my running distance the blood welling from an ugly cut across his cheeks and nose. Cut? No, his nose and cheekbones were smashed, his lips pulped against the stumps of his teeth. How had that happened? A second demon lunged. The old man folded his fan with a flick of the wrist and drove it into the chest of this attacker. And, amazingly, the demon crumpled to the pavement.

  Meanwhile the girl was busy too. A demon came at her with a knife. She made a half-turn and raised her handbag, intercepting the blade with it. The demon tried to punch her in the face, but she kicked him twice in succession in the stomach, and continued with an upward knee blow to the same area. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled downward to add force to the blow. That demon was finished.

  Those were quite some kicks, not only in their effect on the demon, but in their effect on me. They were straight and swift and hard, beautifully executed. More than that, she had a beautifully structured leg. She was wearing a long Chinese dress, slitted to midthigh so that her legs could move freely despite the tightness of its fit. The knee-blow was especially provocative. That sudden, spectacular exposure was out of place in a street brawl, but my mind should have been on more important matters. I was still obsessed by my marginal masculine ability, so that many innocent things took on a sexual context. Any accidental display of female anatomy...

  But I think that leg would have impressed me anytime.

  Three demons had been downed, and now the girl had the kni
fe she had captured with her handbag. She used it to slash the next demon across the cheek, a deep gash, not enough to put him out of commission although his teeth were visible in the hole made by the dangling flap of cheek. The pain would have been enough to disable a normal man, but these were not normal.

  Then another attacker struck her forearm with a blackjack and disarmed her. At the same time a demon stabbed at the old man from behind with a huge butcher knife. The man jumped aside alertly, but he was hemmed in by demons he had just overcome, and the knife cut deeply into his forearm. His fan fell; the man was now helpless, perhaps bleeding to death. Not that the demons would give him time for that.

  But this action had given me the chance to catch up. In the last block I folded and refolded my newspaper, forming it into a lengthwise rod, then bending that over. The result was a short, solid club about a foot long. Few people realize how deadly a folded newspaper can be. I held it by the loose ends and swung the folded end at the arm that held the butcher knife. I connected to the side of the forearm, breaking it.

  I was in the thick of it now. A face was above me, and I whipped the newspaper up to strike him under the chin. He went down. Anybody would have, clubbed like that; even a brain that feels no pain can't maintain consciousness in the face of concussion.

  I whirled and bashed another demon on the shoulder, I must have broken his shoulder bone, but I had to hit him twice more before he fell. The demon tried to seize my leg, and I kicked viciously backward, stomping him with my heel till he let go.

  But this gave the demon armed with the butcher cleaver a chance to approach me. He swung. I dodged and managed to hit him on the side of the head by releasing one end of the folded newspaper like a whip. It was not enough. I lunged with the end, using the paper like a rapier, but it was battered now, and bent, and lacked rigidity. He sliced down, cutting the newspaper in half. Well, it had been a good weapon while it lasted.

  Then I felt strong arms grab me from behind. I was momentarily helpless, and the demon with the cleaver was swinging again. I tried to move, but the arms about me were like iron. I never ceased to be amazed at demon strength.

  Luckily the girl came to my rescue, using her umbrella to hook one foot of the demon from behind and pull him down. I hadn't seen that umbrella before; she must have had it behind her when she handled the other demon. The demon's swing fell short of me, as he tumbled down. He turned on the ground and aimed at her legs. She jumped back, releasing the umbrella. That gave me time to reach up and grab his hanging flap of cheek—this one holding me was the demon she had cut before—and I pulled it down to the jawbone. That completed the ruin of his face, which had not been pretty to start with. If the pain didn't faze him, the destruction of his body did. He released me and felt for his face with both hands.

  I whirled and punched him hard twice on the jaw, but did not have the balance to put him away. I grabbed the two steel balls from my pocket and put one in each palm. They weighted my fists, an unfair advantage I would not have taken in friendly sparring. Then I hit him in the nose, my hand wrapped about the ball, and it was as if a stone had struck him. The pounding of my buttressed fists completed the demolition of his head, and finally he went down forever.

  Even in the throes of struggle, this amazing determination bothered me. These demons had to be literally destroyed before they gave up. They could suffer horrendous wounds, yet keep fighting. There simply was no reasonable limit; the only not-dangerous demon was a dead one.

  Now I turned to the cleaver-wielding man, the one the girl had distracted in time to save my life. He had her cornered against the wall, and evidently was immune to her kicks. She had hold of his wrist, but one of her arms had been injured by the blackjack blow, and she could not match his strength. The cleaver was bearing down.

  They were too far away; I could not get there in time. I threw one of my balls, hard. It grazed his head. The aim of the second was better; the cleaver dropped at the feet of the girl, and he followed it down, as well he might.

  I started to go after him, to recover my ball, but saw that it was embedded in his skull. I would have to pry it out of his head, with bits of brain clinging to it, and I really didn't want my ball that much. I was not hardened to killing, or even to violence; how much better it would have been to have avoided this entire battle. But then two people would have been killed by the demons.

  I turned to the old man, who was holding his torn arm together as though it were a mere scratch. "Kobi Chija, I presume," I said.

  He made a little bow. "It is an honor to meet you, Jason Striker," he murmured. He could not shake hands; already the blood was welling through the fingers holding his wound together. To release that hold was to bleed, copiously.

  So he recognized me! But of course my face had been widely televised at the time of the Martial Open last year.

  "This is my daughter, Chiyako," he said. She bowed solemnly, a demure and quite pretty Chinese girl.

  Kobi Chija was tall and slender, almost bony, with a wispy gray beard, mustaches and fairly long gray hair. He had a mole under one nostril, and was missing a front tooth. It was typical of such men that they lacked the vanity to have false teeth made. He seemed to be over sixty years old, with skin stretched taut like yellowed parchment across his cheekbones, though he had a certain ageless quality.

  His daughter was something else again. She too was tall and slender, almost as tall as her father. But she was in the peak of youth, with luxurious black hair piled up high, ivory skin, rosy cheeks, black eyes and a perfectly proportioned figure. The fight had messed up her appearance so that her elaborate coiffure was coming apart, her cheong, or ankle-length Chinese dress, was torn, and one arm was bruised. But her beauty transcended details. I had already admired her leg; the rest of her measured up.

  "Please enter my humble abode," Kobi said, making a small half-bow. Then he stepped over a body toward his house. I walked beside him, while his daughter followed about five paces back, in the Chinese way.

  We entered his dojo. As with many such establishments, home and school were one. He had rented a large old house and converted the big front room into his kung-fu hall, with a tatami or exercise mat covering the floor. There were folding chairs along the walls, silk banners above them, and a display of assorted weapons. At one end was a high wooden chair, almost like a throne, from which he would normally conduct his classes.

  We continued on through the hanging curtains that set off the living quarters, passed a couple of smaller rooms he evidently used as offices, and entered a large kitchen-cum-dining room with adjacent bathroom.

  We exchanged pleasantries as though this were a social visit and there had been no savage battle in the street. The girl took care of her father's wound, cleaning it out and binding it competently, and he never flinched or interrupted his speech despite the pain. I knew that "face" was vitally important to Chinese; proper appearances, had to be kept up no matter what. So I ignored the proceedings as well as I could, knowing that any reference to their evident poverty—Kobi had no maid or other help, and probably had refrained from calling a doctor because of the cost—would be gauche.

  I acquainted him with my campaign against Kill-13, omitting only certain details about the hospital fracas. Kobi nodded wisely. "These demons are powerful adversaries. So determined, so swift I am ashamed for my art, that I went out with my daughter so carelessly and was so readily wounded."

  "They're swift, all right," I agreed. "They are immune to pain, and they don't much care whether they live or die. One demon is more than a match for one normal man; you faced eight, and they were armed." I did not add the obvious: he was old, they young.

  "But I too was armed," he said. He brought out his fan, holding it in his good hand. Meanwhile Chiyako was pouring some strong-smelling antiseptic in the wound; I saw the skin redden as the stuff burned through.

  "The fan?" I asked, not wishing to appear incredulous.

  "The tessen." He passed it over to me for examinati
on. The thing had iron ribs covered by special decorated paper. The edges were razor sharp, and when folded together the thing was like a knife. No wonder those two demons had collapsed so suddenly!

  "Your weapons, too, are admirable," Kobi said.

  I shrugged, remembering the newspaper and steel balls. "One must use what is available, especially against the demons." Now the girl took out a needle and thread and began stitching the wound closed. I did not want to be too obvious in averting my eyes, so I had to look, casually. I'm hardly squeamish, but I had just had a rough fight, and I began to feel faint at this surgery. Kobi had taken no anesthetic, and Chiyako had no special equipment. How could they stand it, both of them?

  "Yet these people have many admirable qualities," Kobi said after a moment.

  "The demons?" I demanded.

  "Certainly. A martial artist must train rigorously for many years to achieve the speed, power and control that these demons exhibit from the outset. Their selfless devotion to their cause, their fearlessness in the face of battle."

  "Maybe so," I said, amazed at his generosity. I had not seen it that way, but now recognized it as an attitude in him that impressed me. Small men—and I don't mean physically—are not generous. "Yet you seem to be in trouble with them."

  He nodded agreement. "I intended only to set up an honest kung-fu dojo, but they oppose this." Chiyako was binding his arm in gauze. Some man—and some girl!

  "No mystery about that," I said. "The demons call themselves members of the Kung-fu Temple, mockery as that is. A legitimate kung-fu establishment, with a genuine sifu, that would show them up for the fakes they are."

  "Perhaps," he agreed. "I did not at first concern myself with them. But first they threatened, then intruded, as you have observed. They would not let me go in peace, and so, necessarily, I opposed them. It was not my choice."