Kiai! & Mistress of Death

  She tried, but the receiver dangled from her hand. Damn! She was fading fast. I hugged her in the crook of my left elbow and grabbed the receiver with my right hand. It was awkward as hell, as I dared not remove my left hand from her breast, now slimed with coagulating blood. Way too late I realized that I should have made some kind of bandage, with my shirt if necessary, and wadded that over her wound; it would have contained the blood better.

  Anyway, I had the phone. Now all I had to do was dial. I stood there, breast in one hand, mouthpiece in the other. Chiyako couldn't help me any more; she had finally passed out. Her sticky blood continued to squeeze through my fingers; every motion I made let some more out. The dial tone roared in my ear. What could I do? I thought of putting her down for a moment. But I couldn't chance it; the very act of removing my hand would rip the cuts open again and make the bleeding worse.

  I scuffed off one shoe and tried to reach the dial with one toe. I almost dumped us both on the floor. With her dead weight, I could not keep the balance onefooted. Maybe at some other time it would have been simple, but at the moment I was overwrought. She was bleeding to death while I struggled to dial.

  Then the obvious came to me. I set down the receiver, off the hook, and dialed with my finger. I sure as hell didn't have to listen while I dialed.

  The ambulance made it in time. There weren't even any tasteless wisecracks. They stitched her up right there, gave her a transfusion, and took her in to the hospital for further treatment.

  She survived. I knew her breast would not be as pretty as it had been, but that is not a place that ordinarily shows. In any event, it could not change my attitude toward her, which bordered already on love.

  Love. Why not admit it?

  But I remembered: once I had found Amalita attractive, and the consequence of that mistake had been gruesome. Before that, I had even thought of marrying another girl, and she had become the mistress of my top judo student. My judgment of women had always been suspect.

  How could I be sure about Chiyako?

  CHAPTER 8

  ILUNGA

  Kobi Chija returned with valuable information. "I have ascertained the identity of your black karate mistress," he said.

  I was selfishly glad that Chiyako was still in the hospital. She could hardly be expected to understand my involvement with yet another woman.

  "Tell me where she is," I said grimly. "I will deal with her."

  He shook his head. "You are thinking like a warrior, not a monk."

  A none-too-subtle reminder of my Shaolin experience. Why did he choose to call that to mind in this connection? "That woman nearly unmanned me," I said. "And she is tied in with Kill-Thirteen."

  "True. Yet there may be redeeming qualities."

  "Forgive my skepticism, but that sounds like a contradiction in terms," I said sourly.

  "Permit me to describe her in my own way," he murmured.

  I knew he wanted to go to the hospital to be with his daughter, yet he was insisting on taking time in dealing with this black karate matter. He had something special on his mind, and I was bound to respect it. "Of course."

  Ilunga, at age twelve, was just budding into what would soon be classic beauty. Black haired, black eyed, and black skinned, she walked the street with pride. Already her swaying walk gave her an unconscious sensuality. She was the brightest student in her class, and last semester her science project on melanin and skin disease had won a prize. In the past few months the boys had started showing interest in her too.

  She cut through the park, as she often did despite her mother's stern admonitions. What harm was there in trees and bushes, even at night?

  "Well now!" It was a man, blocking the path. Huge and pale under the lamp, a red face and nose, brown stubble on cheek and chin, bloodshot eyes, and dirty fingernails.

  Ilunga knew he was no friend. She turned to run, but suddenly there was another white man behind her. "Going somewhere, little Sambo?" he demanded. His breath reeked of cheap wine, and his clothes were grimy.

  "I—I—" Anxiously she looked about, seeking some escape. But now two more men appeared, as old and dirty as the first ones. They must have set an ambush for her, or for anyone else who happened to pass by. "I don't have only fifty cents—"

  "You got more'n that!" the first man said, and laughed. "You got two dollars worth, I bet!"

  "Where you been the last twenty years?" one of the others said to him. "You can't get it for less'n ten dollars now!"

  "No, only fifty cents" Ilunga said, confused.

  The nearest one grabbed her arm. "Have a drink, girlie." He put a bottle to her mouth and tilted it so that the burning alcohol splashed down her chin.

  She was catching on. Terrified, she bit his hand.

  He cried out in pain and fury. "All right, nigger—you asked for it!" He struck her backhanded, so hard she heard a ringing in her ears.

  She tried to run, but he caught her and threw her to the ground. He put his fingers inside her shirt, ripping it open. Her modestly filled bra was exposed. She tried to turn over and scramble away, but one of the other men grabbed her hands and held her arms outstretched above her head, while a third caught at her legs and forced them apart. Hands hauled at her panties, pulling them down and off. Other hands fumbled over her breasts and pinched her buttocks.

  Ilunga screamed. "Shut up, nigger," the fourth man warned, digging his nails into her flesh.

  But she continued screaming, thinking they were going to kill her. Swearing, the last man clenched his fist and struck her once in the center of the face.

  The pain was so awful she could never afterward remember all of it. She knew her nose had been flattened, and she choked on the blood that coursed through her nasal passages. Now she was sure she was going to die!

  One man was on top of her, crushing her so that she could breathe only in pained gasps. Her legs were uncomfortably wide apart, and something big and hard was jamming up between them. She hardly felt this new pain, because her nose was so much worse, but she still tried ineffectively to squirm away. It was no use; she felt something rip, and knew that she had suffered some awful new injury. It felt as though someone were thrusting a thick stick inside her, hammering it in like a tent peg. Once, twice, three times—and then, mercifully, it relaxed.

  The man got off, letting her breathe. But immediately a second one lay on her, and again her gut was wrenched by a driving intrusion.

  The third man turned her over and got down on her back. But at that point she passed out. The last thing she remembered was the salty taste of blood in her mouth, mixing with the dirt. She woke in pain, naked and cold on the ground. Her face and hair were matted with blood, and there was sand embedded in it. There was some blood on her thighs, too, and she hurt all over.

  She seemed to have a number of bruises on her torso that she didn't remember getting, and evidently she had also been bitten in odd places.

  Her first reaction was one of surprise. They had not killed her. She got up, found the rags that remained of her dress, and staggered home. She was walking like a drunk, and almost fell several times. Her mother was out for the night, and she didn't dare bother a neighbor for help. She cleaned herself up as well as she could and put on a clean dress, but her broken nose would not stop bleeding or hurting. Sick and alarmed, she went to the nearby police station for help.

  It was a mistake. "Kid, you better get to a doctor," the desk sergeant said. "Been fighting again? You brats ought to stay off the streets."

  Now she had had time to work out what had happened. She had tried to hide it from herself, but realized that was pointless. "No. I was raped." She knew that carried the death penalty, if they caught the man. She could identify these ones.

  "Hey, Joe," he called to another policeman. "Hear that? She was raped!"

  Good; they were going to act on it. She had heard that they didn't, sometimes. Not when the victim was black.

  The other man came out. He was huge and white, a cleanshaven version o
f one of the rapists. She repressed her jolt of fear, knowing that it was unreasonable. A physical resemblance meant nothing.

  "Got to make a report," he said. "Here, let's mop up that nose." He ripped a handful of paper towels, wet them, and dabbed at the blood. "What'd it feel like, girl?"

  "I—I don't know," she stammered, confused.

  "How many times?"

  "There were four men."

  "Feel sort of good, once he got it in there?"

  "They ask for it, way they dress," the sergeant put in.

  "No, I was just going through the park," she said.

  "Maybe you better show us where they did it."

  "I told you. In the park."

  "On you. Makes a difference, you know. If it's regular or pederasty. Or something else. Let's have a look."

  "Maybe you'd better reenact the crime," the sergeant said. "Get it down straight. For the record."

  Her eyes moved from one to the other. Abruptly she realized that these, too, were white men, and that they were baiting her. They got some warped vicarious thrill from making her repeat the details. And they wanted to look.

  They would not help her. No man would. No white man.

  She left the station. They did not stop her. She heard their laughter as the door closed. If she had stayed there much longer, they would have had her reenacting the crime, all right. Young black girl—why not? They were all whores.

  Her mother had hardly more sympathy than the police—but for different reasons. "I tol' you not to cut through that park at night! Bad men there! Bad men! Black as well as white—they're all the same."

  "But it never happened before." If only her nose would stop hurting.

  "Child, you weren't of age before. But some men go after little children, too, and not just girl-children. They're all pricks, when they get the chance."

  "Daddy wasn't bad."

  "Your pa's the worst of all. How do you think I got knocked up with you? Why you think we're living here alone?"

  "My brothers—"

  "Half-brothers. That man left his seed in half the whores of the neighborhood, till you have I-don't-know-how-many brothers. And the same time getting to my kid sister, so your cousin Danny is your brother too."

  "Don't talk about Danny!" Ilunga screamed. The boy was her closest male kin, and she liked him.

  But in this manner a harsh lesson was learned. In the following days and weeks, while the physical wounds healed, the emotional ones deepened. Danny got beaten up, defending her reputation against white boys, and even the blacks were cynical. Her nose could never mend entirely. They had no money for plastic surgery. The beauty that was to have been would never be.

  Men were evil. All men. Except her little brother down the street. The white ones were the worst. And most particularly the haunters of the night park. And policemen.

  No one would do anything about it, because all the doers were men.

  Gradually she worked it out, and came to a decision. She would do something about it.

  But she knew she could not do anything by herself, without thorough preparation. She was too young, too small, too weak, compared to a man. A woman was vulnerable in every way, except one.

  If she made a mistake, she would get raped and beaten again. Perhaps killed. So she moved very carefully. She enrolled in a karate class. Here, already, there were complications; she had no money for the lessons, and no hope of getting it. She had to pay in the only coin she had, and this was akin to the very thing she loathed.

  Yet it was ironically fitting that she was using man's sexuality as the first step in abolishing it. The rape had taught her that she was physically desirable, even when not trying to be. With very little effort on her part, she was able to become much more desirable. The instructor was unprincipled, and he tended to be brutal with her, but this only confirmed her prior knowledge. All men were evil. So she submitted to his sadism without protest, no matter what he demanded. It was an education in perversion. But she also learned karate.

  He was not a top-flight instructor, but she supplemented the lessons by avid reading on the subject. She even profited from his ugly lovemaking, learning at first hand what blows and grips were most painful. She would have good use for those, and meanwhile she was inuring herself to such pain.

  After three years she was through with him. She was fifteen now, and well filled out, and she knew more karate than he did. She came to him one night, as she had a hundred times before, and kissed him, then stepped back and put her entire effort into a kick that burst both his testicles apart.

  He had been properly paid, at last. She was no longer anyone's concubine.

  After that, her career began. She would walk through the park at night, tempting men, and when one came to rape her, she de-sexed him. Permanently.

  She wanted to go after policemen, too, but held back because she realized that this would more likely stir up hornets prematurely. If she left the police alone, they would leave her alone, and that was what she wanted. It was tactical folly to tackle all enemies at once; some had to wait their turn.

  It seemed to work. She considered any week wasted that she did not de-sex at least one enemy, and sometimes she got two. Her record was three. Not a word about it appeared in any newspaper that she was aware of. The police did not even seem to be looking for her. Which confirmed her judgment yet again: evil men did not even look out for their own.

  Meanwhile, co-eds started to walk safely in the park at night. But as years went by, the flavor palled. She still went after any man she could catch alone, but this was no longer enough. There were fewer, now, and she had to go farther afield, to other cities. Even so, she could go a month at a time without catching any. Word was out among the sex perverts; it was taboo to touch lone women, especially black women.

  She tried drugs, but none quite satisfied her need. She didn't want to be doped, she wanted revenge. Revenge on all men. Except, of course, her brother Danny.

  Then she encountered Kill-13. She tried it as a matter of scientific curiosity, not expecting much. She joined one of the first kill-parties in the state. She was the only woman there, and she did not like that. The others were all bums of the type she liked to meet in the park. Four of them, a bad number for an introduction to a drug, which was normally a highly private matter. Maybe Kill-13 addicts were social creatures; she was not. But she had long since learned to control her reactions.

  They joked with her about the party they would have, once the drug took effect. They thought she was one of them, a whore of the streets. They thought the drug would give them phenomenal erective powers. Well, she would cure that, if any of them got too smart.

  Nevertheless, she expected to have to pay for her dose in advance, with the usual coin, and was ready. Sex was nothing to her, merely a useful tool. She knew how to make a man react, and would do so with whatever man she had to accommodate, but she would deal with him later in the usual way.

  But there was none of that. The Kill-13 pusher was a renegade kung-fu "expert," a self-styled sifu. Obviously he knew little about his martial art, and had probably washed out of training. Ilunga knew she could take him, anytime. She had no rating in karate, because she had never sought any, but if she had wanted that sort of recognition, she could have had at least a black belt. Kung-fu had no ratings, but this man was still a novice and a faker. First he took some of the drug himself. He put a tiny capsule, hardly larger than a grain of rice, into a metal cup, closed it with a tight lid, and heated it with a burning candle. "It takes a couple minutes to vaporize," he explained. "Meanwhile you can try the equipment."

  They were in his so-called kwoon, a kung-fu dojo or practice hall. Actually it was hardly more than a shed. A long punching bag or practice dummy hung from a rafter, and there were a number of rusty weapons and a large bulls-eye target. Dutifully the four men handled the weapons and put shoulders to the heavy bag.

  "Now," the pusher said with a certain tremor of anticipation.

  "No dangero
us, painful needle. No diluted oral dose. It is impossible to cut Kill-13; it's either all there or it isn't there at all. It's right here in the smoke." He uncapped a little spout on the cup and put his nose down.

  A jet of vapor shot out. He inhaled it, capping the cup again almost immediately. "Never take more than one sniff," he warned. "This stuff is powerful; an OD will blind you for several hours."

  Ilunga almost snorted her derision. What a cheap device to prevent sniffers from taking too big a free sample. But since she was testing, not using, she would keep her own sniff small. At least she understood, now, why the drug was taken in "parties": a certain minimum amount had to be vaporized, and it would be wasted on a single person.

  The effect was amazingly rapid. The pusher's manner changed; he had been a bit shaky, but now he gained confidence. The timbre of his voice lowered. He moved more powerfully. He seemed to have better coordination than he had had a moment before. But most remarkable, his eyeballs turned bright orange.

  "Now," he repeated. He took up a knife and flung it at the target across the room. The blade whistled under the noses of the startled watchers and struck the bulls-eye. He threw three more in rapid succession, and all scored in the center. He picked up a Samurai sword, tossed it in the air, caught it and hurled it also into the bullseye. He charged the bag and struck it with his fist and foot. It ripped off its cord and fell solidly to the floor.

  "Kill-Thirteen!" he announced grandly. "The martial-art drug! I am invincible! Try me!"

  There were skeptics in the audience, Ilunga prominent among them. A couple of the men were in martial arts training; she could tell one of those readily by his manner. One stepped forward challengingly. The pusher dodged around him so rapidly that he hardly had time to move. Then the pusher caught him from behind, picked him up, lifted him high overhead, and threw him into the group.

  They all sprawled, catching the man. Impressive, yes, for the victim outweighed the pusher by a good fifty pounds. But Ilunga knew that the man could have carefully rehearsed his weapons demonstration, developing a splinter-skill of marksmanship. Move the target, and he might not be able to hit it anymore. And the bag's cord could have been designed to snap on impact. And the martial-artist victim could be a shill, there to put up a bold front and take a quick fall.