Kiai! & Mistress of Death

  Another burly man stepped up. "How are you for something slow, like arm-wrestling?" he demanded.

  For answer, the pusher sat at a table and set up his arm. The other sat opposite him, grasped his hand, and applied pressure. "If I were in my normal state, you could take me easily," the pusher said, his orange eyes flashing as his glance flicked across his audience. "And if you were a demon, I wouldn't try against you. But at the moment—"

  He heaved—and the muscular challenger groaned. The veins stood out in his forehead as though about to burst. Then he gave way. That didn't look like a fake to Ilunga; the muscles were bulging.

  "I can draw on resources you can't," the pusher explained. "Kill-Thirteen is the first true athletic drug. With it you can put on more muscle faster than any other way, and the muscle you have is twice as effective. I'm lazy; I don't exercise, so I don't have big muscles, but Kill-Thirteen makes me more of a man than any of you."

  The men were convinced, but not Ilunga. Two shills were possible. That would still leave three customers, a paying ratio for an expensive addictive drug. She would have to test the pusher herself. Her way. If he were a faker, he deserved it.

  She strode forward. "I'll try you now," she said.

  He stood facing her squarely, legs braced apart, a perfect setup for a frontal kick. She lifted her hands as though to strike, then without warning let fly with her deadly kick to the crotch.

  He was faster than she. He spun aside, caught her foot in his hands, and dumped her ingloriously on the floor. The other men laughed.

  The humiliation was nothing; she had little pride, only determination. Now she was a believer. She had never seen a man move so quickly, so surely. The pusher could not have done it on his own; the Kill-13 had to have changed him. Just as he claimed.

  "Even if you had scored, you could not have hurt me," the pusher said. He handed her a knife. "Cut me. Hurt me."

  Ilunga accepted the knife and poked the point into his proffered forearm. He did not flinch, even when the blood flowed. "I feel no pain," he explained.

  She was not fooled. She could tell by the subtle reactions of his body that he did feel pain. But evidently it was muted, so that he could control his reaction to it. She realized that such diminution of sensation would have its liabilities; how would a demon experience tactile pleasure? How would he perform in a sensitive task, such as picking a lock? Still, this certainly demonstrated the anesthetic properties of the drug.

  "Now," said the pusher a third time. He went to the drug vaporizer and relit the candle.

  No one needed a second invitation. They lined up, and each took a controlled sniff of the gas. Ilunga, still cautious, waited until last.

  She took her sniff, a shallow one. The effect seemed instantaneous. Sensation shot up her nostrils and spread explosively to her brain. She had a tiny pocket mirror, one of the few feminine tools she carried for parktime preparations. She brought it out now and looked at her own eyes.

  They were yellowing already, the color deepening into orange. The bright lights of the room made this quite plain. And she felt terrific.

  She took a knife and nicked her own skin. There was pain, but it was slight. More drug, and she knew that the anesthesia would be good enough for any normal occasion.

  The men were already playing with the weapons, throwing knives into the target and tossing swords. Ilunga took her knife and casually flipped it at a knot-hole in the rafter. It struck and stayed, exactly where she had aimed.

  Yes, Kill-13 was real. She had never had such a sensation of power.

  But it would surely cost. No addictive drug was cheap. "How much?" she asked.

  "Twenty dollars a sniff," the pusher said.

  They were drugged, but not stupid. In fact, Kill-13 seemed to heighten intelligence as well. There was no sense of drowsiness, but rather a complete control, physical and mental. "How long does a sniff last?" one man asked.

  "Variable. About four hours for the high if you relax; less if you're active. Residual effects up to three days, depending on individual chemistry. In time you develop a tolerance, but a deeper sniff takes care of that."

  That was what she had suspected. This was a high-priced habit. To maintain it a person would have to have two or three sniffs each week, at twenty dollars a throw. Once a person was fully addicted, the price would rise. One always had to figure the eventual cost, and in this case it would be as much as a hundred dollars a dose, or worse. There was no way she could afford it except to go into hijacking or fulltime prostitution, and not even Kill-13 was worth that.

  "Of course," the pusher continued after a pause, "one of the residual effects is the muscle-building property. One sniff every two or three days will allow you to put on impressive amounts. And that muscle is real; it will serve you anytime, not just during a fit. If you've used steroids, you'll discover that this beats them hollow."

  That was what would hook more athletes than anything else. The need to build muscle. "I'm on the muscle drugs," the man who had lost the armwrestling admitted. "I need ups and downs, too; can't sleep on my own. What about—"

  "No ups, no downs with Kill-Thirteen!" the pusher said. "This drug gives you control. Will yourself to sleep, and you're out; wake up full of pep. No constipation, no lung cancer, no liver damage."

  Impressive attributes, if true, yet what he didn't mention was significant. Such as eye damage and brain disfunction. "How long does it show up in the body?" she asked.

  "It doesn't," he said. "By the time its physical effects show, the trace amount of Kill-Thirteen absorbed has been used up. There may be some in the brain and muscles, but no known test will register so small an amount. There is no legal proof of its presence."

  That was too good to be true. If it had a continuing effect, it had to be present in the tissues of the body. And some test would show it. But it might be an expensive test, not feasible for mass use in athletic contests.

  Of course the orange eyes were a dead giveaway.

  "Well, the sample was nice," Ilunga said. She walked out. She expected a last minute pitch, perhaps a reduction in price, but the pusher let her go as if he didn't care. Odd.

  She felt good. She did shadow-karate as she walked, knowing that her movements were precise and powerful. The drug certainly gave a lift, and its effects were real and forceful. That pusher really had performed well, after his sniff; his strength and speed and accuracy had been no illusion. She meant to enjoy her fit while it lasted; she would never get another.

  Despite the orange eyes, Kill-13 was bound to be used in athletics. Tennis players would wear dark glasses, and football players could hide most of it behind their face guards. For well-supervised contests, such as the Olympic games, it would be more difficult. But if the muscle could be developed during the fit and retained after it, demons could compete during their sober stages. They might not be as good as they were during the fit, but they would still be better than the non-users.

  Too bad it cost so much. She simply couldn't afford to become addicted.

  But as her fit wore off, she became depressed. She walked the park, and found a mark, and kicked him, but her timing was off, and she knew she had not finished him. He would hurt a long time, but he would probably recover his virility. Too bad. Well, this was to be expected. The trouble with drugs, any drugs, was that they drew on the reserves of the body, and when the drug wore off, the body felt unusual fatigue, until it had a chance to recuperate. A drug as strong as Kill-13 naturally had a powerful hangover. The sensible thing to do was to sleep it off. She lay down, but even sleep was difficult. "Damn liar!" she muttered, remembering the pusher's assurances on that score. She felt increasingly ill.

  She got the shakes. She vomited. She had diarrhea. Her head ached. Her whole body felt painful, as if she had a bad fever, though she didn't. Her urine turned greenish.

  She took a slug of tomato juice spiked with vodka. It didn't help. She tried a barbiturate, a Blue Devil. She felt woozy, but still couldn't sleep.
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  Suddenly she sat bolt upright. "Good God—I've assembled the suicide combo!" she muttered. "Alcohol and barbiturate!" She went to the sink and poked one finger down her throat. She gagged unpleasantly, but there was not enough left in her stomach to make a good heave. So she gulped a glass of water and tried again. It came up blood red.

  She stared at the puke, dizzy.

  "Oh, the tomato juice..." she muttered, after the shock of alarm faded.

  But the symptoms continued, complicated by the other drugs she had taken. She had not thrown it all up. Her hands shook; she sweated and felt weak. The room spun about her even when she sat still.

  Finally she had to admit it: "I'm hooked."

  She was addicted to Kill-13—after a single sniff. No wonder the damned pusher had let her go.

  Who would have believed it: a drug so strong that one sniff addicted the user. And she had fallen for it; she had walked into the trap. She had thought a small sniff would protect her, but she had been a fool. Why hadn't she investigated more carefully, first? Twenty dollars a sniff.

  She fought it for two days. Heavy cold sweat alternated with uncontrollable shivering. She had hot and cold flashes, as though entering menopause. Her sense of balance was shot. Her heart palpitated, and there were severe pains in various places of her gut. Her hearing became excruciatingly acute; any sound was painful, and the ticking of the clock got so unbearably loud she finally smashed the thing. Then her own heartbeat got just as bad. Everything smelled of vomit, even her perfume, even food and water.

  Even vomit itself.

  Then the more serious symptoms began. She had convulsions of increasing severity, in the throes of which she bit her tongue and bruised herself. She was afraid to take a bath, lest she cramp up and drown. She became incontinent, unable to get to the bathroom in time for natural functions. Her posterior itched intolerably; only by scratching so violently that it bled could she stop the damned irritation. And she suffered nightmare visions, many of them disgustingly sexual in nature. She reenacted that awful rape of her childhood, and the irony was that now she enjoyed it. Until she realized. She could hardly tell dream from reality.

  She fought it for two more days. The withdrawal symptoms abated, but the craving increased. Life without Kill-13 was impossibly bleak. The physical dependency could be conquered; perhaps her body had actually revolted against the alcohol-barbiturate dose. But the emotional dependency—how could she resist, when her will to resist had been sapped?

  At last she returned to the kung-fu pusher. "What do I have to do?" she asked sullenly. "I have no money."

  He had her, and they both knew it. There would be hard bargaining. It galled her awfully to find herself yet again at the mercy of a man, but she could not delude herself about the situation.

  "What can you do?" he asked.

  "I can push," she said reluctantly. Her muscles were tightening, presaging another convulsion, but she was able to suppress it. To her, pushers were little better than pimps.

  "I don't need competition," he said frankly. "You're younger and better trained than I; you'd have me out of business, and, without Kill-Thirteen, I'd have to shoot myself. No one else gets at my source."

  Valid point. Like Ilunga, he had few delusions. He was in his fashion an honest man, and she respected that. Which didn't change the fact that she hated every other quality about him, and it didn't alleviate her need for Kill-13. "I can lure men."

  "And flatten their balls? Fine lot of converts those would be! And it's all pointless; demons don't need sex anyway."

  Demons. So that was what the addicts called themselves. Maybe because of their demonic eyes. She had heard the term before, but it hadn't registered.

  And Kill-13 stifled their sex drive. Very nice. By using it, and tempting men to do the same, she could accomplish her purpose without having to go through the increasing bore of searching them out alone in the parks and streets. She might even be able to get some policemen, who might be trapped as she'd been: not realizing it was addictive with one sniff. In fact, it didn't have to be voluntary; maybe she could take a hot cupful right into a police station and let it into the air. Beautiful!

  No, there were holes in that. Kill-13 hadn't stifled her own sex drive, it had aggravated it. Maybe the effect on women was different. And the police station caper probably wouldn't work, because the vapor would be too diffuse when it filled the room. No use burning a hundred valuable kernels of the drug for such a dubious experiment.

  She didn't say all this to the pusher. He was right about her: she was younger and better trained, and a hell of a lot smarter. She would work on her own devices in her own time, not giving them away to the man who had trapped her. Now she had to make a separate deal with him.

  "I can organize them," she said. "Teach them to fight. So that when the big crackdown comes, you have a decent defense."

  "There's no crackdown. The cops are afraid to touch Kill-Thirteen!"

  "Wait till the cops themselves start using it," she said. That much should not give away her notions. "Then there'll be trouble. They'll start raiding you to get a free supply."

  "The supply will dry up the moment they do that, and they know it."

  "Then you'll be out of business, won't you?"

  "I'll move to some other area," he said uncomfortably.

  "Where there'll be another pusher, who doesn't want competition." She paused. "The time will come when muscle is needed, to prevent any police raids, and keep your territory secure. Suppose the cops hold you in jail, incommunicado, until you talk? No drug, no fit, for two, three, five days."

  "Suddenly you are making sense!" he admitted. "All right, organize. You'll get one sniff a day, on the house, so long as we're free to operate. The day we get closed down—the day I'm arrested—it stops. Even if the pigs made me talk, they wouldn't give any to you."

  "You won't get closed down!" she said, aware of victory. "But I'll need some for recruits."

  "Free to your recruits, one sniff a day, as long as they stay in line. That's the best I can do."

  In the circumstance, it was generous enough. "I say who's a recruit and who isn't," she said. "We'll have to have good, tight discipline."

  "You say. But you have to have them on call. If I tell you to raid some place in six hours, you raid."

  "A sniff before the raid," she said. "To get them up for it. There may be killing."

  "Naturally. A bonus—for a raid."

  They had worked it out. The pusher gave her a sniff, and the monkey was off her back at last.

  She went out recruiting. It wasn't hard, because the properties of Kill-13 spoke for themselves. But she knew there was no way off. She would have to perform well for the demons; she had no choice. If the drug was busted, she was dead.

  She hadn't expected to have to raid actual martial arts establishments, and didn't like it, because that played havoc with her richest recruitment lode. She needed trained men, not bums, and unfortunately had to settle for the latter. But when the word came, she did it. The first was the dojo of some high-ranked judo fink who had been making a noise against the demons, stirring up concern among the straight citizens. One Jason Striker.

  This was to be an object lesson, and a major test of her new demon troops. She had to see that they did well, even if she had to step in and finish the job herself.

  "I see," I said. Now it was clear why the demons had raided my dojo. They could not tolerate any focus of resistance, especially within the martial arts. Ilunga, conversant with the martial arts, had known of me, known that no mild measure would be effective. So she had done her job, and done it well.

  I felt my groin. It still hurt, some.

  "She is not evil," Kobi said. "She serves a purpose."

  "Some purpose!"

  "There are now few molestations in the park. And the demons do not bother women. They have little sexual drive; their parts degenerate. So she is accomplishing her mission, in her way."

  I considered. "You are aski
ng me to let her go?"

  "Only to reflect. To understand. To be sure your action is proper from all viewpoints."

  He sounded so much like the old head monk of the Shaolin monastery that I was moved to sorrow. If only I had thought things through, then, and taken care of those sensors...

  "I will reflect," I agreed. "I will not attack her. I will try to talk to her, to understand."

  He nodded, and gave me her address. "And accept a gift from me," he added, bringing out a bundle of cloth. "I suspect you will find it useful on occasion."

  It was a battered old army armored vest, not even oriental. Mildew coated it. Non-plused, I accepted.

  CHAPTER 9

  ENCOUNTER

  It was a ghetto neighborhood with very few white faces.

  The streets were littered with garbage, showing the "benign" neglect of the Caucasian city fathers; collections were evidently irregular and rare. There were whole rows of abandoned buildings, and sometimes complete city blocks stood empty. Many of the boarded houses had been broken into, and stripped of everything sellable; they were glassless husks. Some had been gutted by fire. Slogans were painted on the walls: Viva Che, Long Live the Panthers, Kill Whitey. There were some abandoned cars on the streets, stripped of everything including tires.

  There was life here, though. Garishly painted prostitutes paraded outside bright bars; they had tight dresses, high leather boots, miniskirts, and wigs of all colors. One gave me the eye as I drove by; I lacked the nerve to meet her bold gaze. A group of children watched one child twirling a nunchaku. That disgusted me; such weapons were hardly toys, as my own experience documented.

  Several people carried carved African walking sticks, useful for self-defense. Others walked huge dogs. Evidences of a violent neighborhood, exactly the kind Kobi Chija had described. It gave me a feeling of deja vu, of having been here before.