"The Sad Fate of Yokel Ono"
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dochermes"The Sad Fate of Yokel Ono"
6/28-6/30/2001
I.
From the outside, nothing indicated the weathered old cinder block building was a bar. There were no signs at all, and the windows had been painted black. You had to know about this place beforehand. It was by no means the only such underground establishment in this part of downtown Manila.
Late in a miserable afternoon where the temperature and humidity were both high, Jeremy Bane made his way down narrow streets toward this nameless bar. Even the alleys were crowded with giggling half-naked children playing tag, sullen-faced women hanging up damp laundry that would take forever to dry, vendors trying to sell obscure snacks or cheap watches and jewelry. Ripped open plastic garbage bags were piled five high, after everything that could be of any use had been scavenged. Many people were just standing about in small clusters, not seeming to be doing much of anything in particular. Bane had grown up a street orphan in the poorer neighborhoods of Manhattan, and none of this was new to him.
Bane opened the unmarked door and met a big man taking up most of a vestibule. The wide acne-scarred face reacted with instant hostility and the man straightened up with his fists tightening. But then he hesitated.
He found himself facing an American in his late thirties, six feet tall and lean, dressed all in black. Under heavy dark brows, a pair of cold clear grey eyes stabbed out at him. Something in the stranger's quiet confidence was unsettling. Without a word, the guard pulled open the inner door and moved aside to let Bane enter.
Cigarette and marijuana smoke made the barroom as hazy as a foggy night. None of the scattered tables or chairs matched each other. In an instant, Bane's Kumundu training made him assess the situation... He spotted the doors, the exit, possible places where an assailant might be concealed. He took in the poses and body language of the men and women who were playing cards, arguing in low voices or drinking. Mostly, drinking. None seemed an immediate threat, although he could tell that some of them were armed.
One of the doors in the far wall opened and a barefoot woman in a flimsy sundress popped out to speak with the bent old -mustached bartender for a second before vanishing again. Bane knew that places like this had backrooms for gambling and prostitution, but they were not his targets today. He had Midnight War business on his mind.
Bane stepped up to the bar, put down a twenty and ordered a shot of Tequila, which he gulped down. He repeated the action and seemed satisfied. The bartender of course had no way of knowing about Bane's enhanced healing ability. Twenty years on the Tagra tea found only at Tel Shai had elevated Bane's recuperative factor so far that minor wounds or injuries disappeared within minutes. He could not be poisoned. Bane could safely drink pure alcohol and not feel any effects as his system easily processed it. But downing two shots like that made the bartender feel more at ease.
He placed another twenty down on top of the first one, drank another shot of Tequila and leaned forward confidentially. "You must know by now I'm here for information."
That produced a toothless grin from the old man. "It's the usual game. But, sir, I have to say you are not a policeman. Not a spy. Not an underworld killer, either, and we have enough of them here already. I cannot say exactly what you are."
"I have a sort of nickname, the Dire Wolf."
"Oh. Oh, I see...." The bartender had unconsciously stepped back a pace but he regained his nerve. "Of course. I have heard stories. Eyes the color of steel. Black clothing for hunting in the night. You are here to face the unholy creatures, then?"
"I'd like to talk with a man named Mikage. He's Japanese. He has a war name too, the Bronze Ronin. Can you give me one word to point me in the right direction?"
"No," said the bartender. "But I'll give you a friendly tip. Stay away from Bronze Ronin. He's not a kind or a gentle man, my friend."
The Dire Wolf decided against putting down more money. "Well, I've been all over Downtown today asking about him. By now, the whispers should have reached him...."
"Or at least the whispers have reached ME," said a husky female voice.
At that point, the barkeep decided that all the glasses needed vigorous wiping and he occupied himself with the chore. Bane knew a woman had approached him from behind. Even with all the heated conversations and arguments in that bar, no normal Human could set foot close to him without his being aware of it. The Dire Wolf seemed casual, but his weight was perfectly balanced to move in any direction and both arms and both legs were poised to block or attack.
To any observer though, Bane merely turned around to face a woman standing just behind him. She was apparently not a Filipina. The oval face was very pale, accented by delicate red lips and rich glossy hair that was so black it had a blue sheen. Her eyes were deep green, shaded by heavy natural lashes. A black dress, classic in its simplicity, fit snugly without being too obvious.
Most people would guess her age to be in her early twenties, with that clear skin and taut figure. But Bane glanced at her throat, the backs of her hands and the whites of her eyes and judged she was a well-tended forty years old. A small brown canvas handbag hung lightly enough from one shoulder that he decided there was no gun in there.
"You were speaking of Mitsuo Mikage, of the Winter Snow school?" she asked.
"Yeah, I was," Bane said, neither his neutral tone nor his impassive expression giving away any of his thoughts.
"And you are the notorious Dire Wolf, I believe?"
"My actual name is Jeremy Bane."
"And you hate this Mikage?"
"No emotion involved," Bane replied. "It's not personal. He knows something I'm trying to get some information about."
"Wild stories say you are faster than any mortal Man. They say you have been seen clapping shut the mouth of a cobra without being bitten. That you can catch thrown knives by the blade. That you can overtake a deer running for its life."
Bane scoffed. "Come on. People exaggerate."
She studied him for a minute, showing she was one of the few who could meet the glare of those grey eyes without being uncomfortable. "Come with me into the business back room," she said, and added to the bartender, "Send us a couple of whisky-and-sodas."
II.
In a plain windowless room only ten feet to a side, furnished with a card table and four folding metal chairs, she sipped her drink. "You and Mikage going at it, eh? That would be a fight I could sell tickets to. You're both dangerous men."
Taking a swallow of his drink and reflecting that good Scotch was wasted on him, Bane said nothing.
She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "Do you know who I am?"
"I think so," he answered. "I've never seen you before, but you could hardly be anyone else but the girl people in the badlands call "Ruffian.'"
Her green eyes narrowed a little and she smiled.
"Yes. And would you like to know what drove a decent society girl into the shadows of the Midnight War? Are you curious how an innocent, trusting child became an infamous international criminal?"
"I love a good origin story," Bane replied straight-faced.
"Well, I'll tell you in two words. Bronze Ronin. I was so young, so foolish. He promised me excitement, travel, luxury. And the adrenalin thrill of being a jewel thief, of smuggling across national borders. It seems like a daydream of adventure come true."
"But?"
"You have to expect double crosses in the badlands," she said. "Mikage abandoned me to a lieutenant of Wu Lung. I was a sort of bribe so that he would be let go. For years, I was a plaything. I was used in vile ways. I was made to commit atrocities. But inevitably I saw my moment and took it. My torturer lay dead at my feet and I took over the small band of assassins he had gathered around himself. Ruffian's ruffians, ha hah."
Bane took a final mouthful of his mixed drink. "Go on."
"I, too, want revenge," she breathed. "We can be useful to each other. I will send a note to Mikage asking him to come to a certain place in the Avenido Bustillo. He will come. There you will meet him and settle whatever grudge you two share."
"Sounds like we share mutual goals."
"No one will ever know what happens," she murmured. "Manila's waterfront on the harbor is huge. It hides many secrets. For prudence, I will send a man with you to guide you to the meeting place. Then, come back to me here tomorrow night. I will explain much to you."
She clapped her hands and a young Filipino worker came in, still holding a mop. She spoke to him in the Tagalog language for a minute. After he bowed and left, she arose "I am going now. In a few minutes your guide will come. Good luck, Dire Wolf. You are said to serve justice beyond manmade law. I hope that's true."
She glided out and left a thoughtful Bane sitting there with an empty drink glass. He'd heard of Ruffian. Her name was well known in the badlands where international crime bordered the Midnight War. didn't say. It was well established that she was a top jewel thief and grifter. Some said she was an outright pirate operating against cargo ships. Others said she had been the secret wife of a dozen crimelords from Yakuza barons to Corsican bandit chiefs American to corporate CEOs. And more than a few of these had died suddenly after the weddings. There was also talk that Ruffian was a freelance spy moving from the Mandate to SMERSH to the White Web.
Anyway, nobody knew all her secrets for sure, but everybody agreed that crossing her path was asking for disaster.
Jeremy Bane somberly remembered Rook. She had been dead for more than ten years now, ever since finding the Scroll of Ultimate Knowledge. Rook had been a wild adventuress, too, but not a violent one. She had relied on cleverness and quick thinking. Sometimes Rook had been a great help, more often she had ended up running away with the loot while Bane had been tricked. Ruffian seemed like a harder, more toughened version of Rook and Bane hadn't believed anything the woman had just said.
Then the door opened and a miserable, ragged wretch stuck his untidy head in. "Mr Bane? Hi. I'm Yokel Ono."
III.
Considering his long career dealing with the supernatural, Bane would have thought very little could surprise him. But he was stunned now. A short man, not more than five feet four, wrapped in baggy pants and a dilapidated plaid flannel shirt flung himself into the chair where Ruffian had been sitting. He was clearly an ethnic Japanese, with a marked epicanthic eyelid fold and a full head of hair that was the only healthy part of his scrawny body.
But what left Bane wide-eyed was that the man spoke with a strong, definitive Tennessee accent. The Dire Wolf managed to repeat, "Yokel.. Ono...?"
"Bless your pointy little head," the man laughed. "Got you flustered, huh? See, my blood parents died in a bus crash. They was from Hokkaido. I was just a shaver, couldn't even walk, and I was adopted by their friends, Mr and Mrs Mick Cafferty. I grew up within sight of the Smokies. God's Country."
Bane raised an eyebrow. "So I take it that's not your legal name?"
"Hayll no. Damn. I sign myself on documents as William Lee Cafferty. When I started moving around Asia as an adult, I got tangled with the Ono clan, some of the You-Know-Who with the tattoos and nine fingers. They tagged me Yokel thinking it was funny and the name stuck."
Bane had known a number of people who had been born ethnically Asian but had been raised in a Western society. That didn't exclude many second or third generation people who sounded completely New Jersey or Liverpool. He was a little disappointed in himself for being taken aback at meeting Yokel Ono.
"I guess someone everyone calls the Dire Wolf can't say anything about nicknames, " he said. "So, Ruffian sent you here to me?"
"She did indeed. When Miss Ruffian says jump, I ask how high. We should be a-fixin' to go now, Mr Bane."
"Might as well call me Jeremy," the Dire Wolf said, pushing back his chair. He followed Yokel Ono out of the bar by a side door which opened into the grimy, dimly lit streets, and through twisting alleys. The reek of garbage and rotten food and unwashed bodies was potent. As it go dark, the crowds seemed to thicken rather than thin out. The white American and the short Japanese received plenty of curious stares but no one asked for money or offered them anything illegal. Bane actually felt safer here than he had in many bad parts of towns around the world.
Yokel Ono certainly seemed to know his way through the maze of narrow streets. At one point, they passed down a row of food stalls with offerings on hot griddles or in pans of boiling oil. Bane grabbed a double handful of fried pig intestines and devoured them happily. One price for his extra speed and hair-trigger reflexes was a metabolism that left him always ravenous. Yokel Ono expressed disapproval and said he was still looking for Meat And Three, especially drop biscuits in gravy.
They reached the Pasig River which divided Manila into the north and south sections. At last he opened a door next to a closed grocery store and stepped into darkness. Bane followed him into a squalid room which was as dark as the alleys outside. Ono struck a friction match with his thumbnail and lit a candle which sat in a tin dish on a rough table. They pulled out stools from under the table and sat. Ono produced out an unopened fifth of Jack Daniels and chuckled as he broke the seal.
Bane had instantly inspected the rather large but ramshackle room. There was a door in the far wall, which he kept a wary eye on. Open shelves held only dust. The single window was barred heavily enough to have kept bears out. A trap door in the middle of the floor was bolted shut. Bane could hear the slow lapping of water under them. Like many houses, this shack was built on stilts out over the river.
"Mr Dire Wolf," said Ono after he'd taken an enthusiastic tug from the bottle, "It seems to me that we're not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree."
"That could use some elaboration," Bane commented.
"Well, here's the two of us, takin' a job from a devious little witch who's going to claim the prize all to herself. I don't know what she's payin' you, old son, but I ain't getting much more than chump change."
"Here it comes," said Bane. "I didn't expect your story to match Ruffian's."
Despite the fact they were alone in a nearly bare room, Ono looked around and lowered his voice. "I know a couple of occult dealers in the old U S of A who will drop a suitcase of thousand dollar bills to get that hatchet. That dern thing sucks life force from its victims and keeps its owner young for centuries, so the story goes. Why let Ruffian stick that in her bank account? We can split fifty-fifty and retire like music stars!"
Bane's voice was normally low and restrained, but now it is assumed a hard undertone. "What do you know about Matsuo Mikage, anyway? How do you even know about Harak the Damned?"
"Bless your soul," said Ono, seeming bewildered that the Jack Daniels was almost gone. "Mikage is a top level street-karate man. Shotokan, I reckon. He thumps Chinese fighters like they're sleepwalking. But you, man... you're the Dire Wolf! You can take him easy. Then we claim the magic hatchet afore we dumps his carcass through that trapdoor. He'll float down the river and trouble us no more."
"Hold everything," Bane interrupted. "I am not an assassin, I'm not for hire. I am a knight of Tel Shai, if that means anything to you."
"What!?" blurted the Japanese messenger. "Ruffian says as you was craving to crack Mikage's head like a pumpkin."
The Dire Wolf held back a sigh. "You realize I can't take your story as reliable any more than I can believe Ruffian. This is the badlands. You compare everybody's lies to figure out what's going on."
"But we HAVE to finish him off," argued Ono, "You don't want a bone breaker like him sneaking up behind you when you're thinking you're safe."
"You're still not providing any real information. I think I like Ruffian's version better, where Mikage corrupted her and turned her into a cat burglar."
"I like to pee my pants hearing you say that, Jeremy Bane. I thought you'd have horse sense. Ruffian was NEVER innocent. I'd bet she was stealin' other kids' toys in the kindergarten." Ono tapped the table with his index finger. "I wasn't s'posed to spill the beans to you, y'understand. I was ordered to grab the hatchet while you and Mikage were kickin' each other in the nose! But I'm purely sick of Ruffian and everything about her. She talks to me like I'm an old yeller dawg."
"And now I'm going to find Mikage," Bane said in a tone that made it not a question. "But without you."
"No! We got to bring him here so he can take a lonesome dive into the river. That's our deal."
The Dire Wolf stood up easily, moving back a step from the table. He raised a cautioning forefinger. "I never made a deal with you, Ono. I'll take Mikage alive if possible. He can clear up a lot of cold cases as a plea deal. There's warrants for him in a dozen countries."
"Like Hell! You ain't gonna treat me thataway!" Yokel Ono swept his left arm to send the empty bottle flying away, and at the same time he whipped a long thin stiletto-style knife toward Bane's throat. If he had expected Bane to be distracted by knocking the bottle away, he was instantly disillusioned. The Dire Wolf took one step to the side so that the knife point missed him by six inches. There was a sharp cracking noise and Yokel Ono sagged back down into his chair as Bane lowered his arm from a backfist.
The Dire Wolf felt irritated at himself for not having pulled that blow more. Just dazing this guy would have been enough. He found Ono's pulse was strong and steady. Thumbing open an eyelid showed normal reaction to light. Then the Japanese from Tennessee began to snore and Bane snorted in annoyance. That restrained punch had been enough to send Ono into a slumber from the booze. He gave every sign of being deeply asleep for some time.
What a waste of time so far, Bane thought. He might have gotten better results if he had just brushed Ruffian away and continued spreading word he was looking for Bronze Ronin. The possibility of waiting here until Ono revived didn't occur to him. Impatience was the Dire Wolf's biggest flaw. He was too restless, too filled with nervous energy that had to be burned off. Before leaving, Bane decided to blow the candle out for safety, then pulled open the door and stalked out into a dark sullen night.
IV.
Although it was getting late by this time, the streets were still busy. There were no children or old people any more, though, just drunk men and young women posing in doorways and on corners. Bane was not drowsy at all. He was nocturnal by nature and got along fine on five hours sleep in each twenty-four. He kept prowling around, hoping against odds to run into some clue. Hunting for another hour, the Dire Wolf unclipped his Link from its holder on his belt. Two-forty in the morning, temperature seventy-four and humidity sixty-eight per cent. Not for the first time, he cursed his impatience. The smart move would have been to rouse Yokel Ono and question him.
Was there a chance that shady little messenger was still where he had been left? It was worth checking. Bane was passing still another dark alleyway when a presence slipped out, pale face showing above the black dress. It was Ruffian.
"Wait a minute, Dire Wolf," she said, as casually as if asking for directions. "May I speak to you just a moment?"
"Sure, why not?" Bane replied. "Do you have a completely different story to hand me?"
"Ah, don't be like that," she purred, patting his arm. "Forget it. I'll make it up to you, if you'll just come with me. I've got some news."
Bane compliantly followed her into the narrow, rancid alley and through an arched doorway and into a small courtyard of cobblestones, lit by smoky lamps. Then Ruffian turned and Bane's danger sense kicked into high gear.
Ruffian's pale face had tautened into a fierce mask. Her mouth compressed into a slit. The green eyes were bright with rage as she glared at the Dire Wolf.
"Well, if you're that angry, we must be making progress."
"Stand where you are!" she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.
"I'm ready for some explanations," Bane replied blandly.
Ruffian raised a hand with its long-nailed fingers bent into a claw. "I get it all now.
It was you who warned Mikage, wasn't it? So he stowed Harak's hatchet somewhere and never showed up at the Avenido Bustillo. It was just by pure luck that my Escrimas got him at all. But he'll spill everything before he dies. And as for you—"
"Here comes some bad news," Bane said.
"When I finish with you, you will not come within a hundred miles of me!" Ruffian raised a thin metal rod two feet long from where she had been holding it down by her side. "This cattle prod is illegal to use on people. It discharges thousands of volts but it's the extra amps that will make your muscles tighten until they rip loose from your bones."
Remarkably, Bane had not visibly reacted. He did not move from his casual stance and his voice was calm. "You still don't realize what you're dealing with, Ruffian. I can take that away and break it over your head before you know what happened."
"oh, I know all about you," Ruffian spat. "So I brought some of my Escrimas to soften you up a litle first." She snapped her fingers once and into the courtyard from the shadows stalked seven men. They all looked typically Filipino, most were under five feet ten but two were big bruisers. They swung long staffs or two short batons. One held a pair of nunchakus in his hands. Bane was not a master of Escrima, but he had studied so many martial arts in his long career that he was familiar with most of them. Also known as Kali or Arnis de Mano, Escrima was practical and effective.
As the men moved to encircle him, Bane said, "I'm really trying not to kill on these missions. The Feds complain I leave too many dead bodies everywhere I go. But sometimes I'm not given much choice."
One of the attackers badly blundered. He launched into a flashy routine with the nunchakus, whirling them around his body in complex patterns. Despite themselves, the other six men watched those lightning-quick movements and, given that opening, Bane threw himself full-body at the nearest man, slamming him into the next one so hard they both went down. Bane hopped up and stamped down brutally with a boot into each man's chest. The others were just beginning to react. Bane was leaping into the center of the circle, away from the two gasping men on the cobblestones. He wheeled on his right heel and exploded a stiff leg into the stomach of a Escrima, doubling that man up and making him vomit prodigiously.
A man with a six foot long Bo staff twirled it in a figure eight, preparing to slide it forward like a pool cue. Bane blurred in close, turning his back to the man and cracking his left elbow into the center of the man's face. Blood spurted from a crushed nose. Suddenly Bane was holding the staff. He smacked it to the back of the bleeding man's head with a noise like a whip cracking.
The nunchaku wielder had processed what had happened in the past few seconds. He swung the batons on their chain left and right. Bane stuck out the staff, got the nunchaku tangled up and flung both weapons far away to land with a clatter. Ignoring the disarmed man for the moment, the Dire Wolf faded back before the attack of the two remaining men who each were swinging a pair of short batons. Again, he used one man against the other. Moving to one side, he drove a simple side kick into the nearer man's ribs so that he reeled up against his partner. In the second that they were in each others' way, Bane moved in and blasted short hooking punches that dropped them both.
Only the man who had lost his nunchakus was left on his feet. He screamed like a littlr girl, spun and ran frantically away. Bane snatched up a baton and flung it to crack murderously to the fleeing man's skull. The Dire Wolf turned slowly around to satisfy himself that no one of the attackers would be a threat in the next few minutes. From start to finish, less than fifty seconds had passed.
He wasn't even breathing hard. Bane tugged down the sleeves of his sport jacket and looked around for Ruffian. She was pressed back against the wall, with a horrified expresion on her face. The cattle prod had fallen from her grasp.
"You know, I tried to warn you," Bane said.
"Holy Mary Mother of God," she muttered, "What ARE you? Those men were all killers. There were seven of them, and they couldn't even slow you down. Why are you looking at me that way? Wait, what... are you going to do with me?"
The Dire Wolf carefully picked up the cattle prod by the handle, snapped the battery pack off and threw the separate pieces in different directions. The ease with which he broke the solid metal unnerved Ruffian more.
"Don't hit me," she begged, "My God, you'd take my head clean off. I'll tell you everything. Remember in the bar back room, I sent the note to Mikage and waited for that crazy Yokel Ono to report to me. My orders were to stow you in a safe place after you'd taken care of Mikage, and then come back to me with the hatchet of Jordyn. After a long while, the fool stumbled in with a purple bruise on his jaw, and said you'd turned down the job. Ono claimed you already knew about Harak's talisman somehow and that your offer was that you and he would grab the hatchet and get away from the Philippines."
Bane wryly thought that these cases would go smoother if he simply injected everyone involved with Veratilin truth serum.
"...Then he said you tried to get him to double-cross me, but he wouldn't do it," Ruffian continued, "so you knocked him out and left. Yokel Ono is awful at lying. I had two of my Escrimas give him some aches and pains to make him rethink everything. The only time I even halfway believed him when he said that you had killed Mikage yourself and left town. I sent some of my men out looking for you, but they caught Mikage instead. It was just luck. He was buying street food and they managed to smack him in the head hard enough to kill a horse. Mikage is as tough as his reputation says.
"My Escrimas dragged him to my house but of course he wasn't carrying any hatchet on him. Simple beatings didn't convince him to tell what he'd done with it. We got out the torture tool box to scare him and he admitted that he was on his way to the Avenido Bustillo in answer to my note, but that was when my Escrimas captured him. And then one of my men came rushing in to say that he'd just seen you prowling the streets. I thought you were a wild card and I wanted to get you out of the game. I'm so so sorry. I'll never give you trouble again. What are you going to do with me?"
"Our paths won't cross too often," Bane said, still suspiciously watching every alley mouth or open window.
Ruffian visibly shuddered. Her voice sounded like a frightened child's. "I was never afraid of any man before. When you fought my men, I couldn't even see what you were doing, I just heard noises and saw my Escrimas drop. It was a nightmare." When Bane made no comment, she pleaded, "Please, what are you going to do with me? Please let me go!"
"Right now, I'm going to let you take me to Mikage. Then we'll see. I'm sure you've got another crew of your murderers waiting there, but that doesn't matter."
Walking on in uneasy silence, they stopped finally in front of a two-story house in decent repair. The outer walls were white plastered. Several of the windows showed yellow light through curtains. The front door was strangely unlocked and she gave no signal as she opened it slightly but Bane was sure they were being watched from upstairs. He placed his hand on the back of Ruffian's neck to be sure she wouldn't try to make a run for it, but he underestimated how terrified she was of him. She tensed up like a rabbit seeing a hawk circling low.
"My best fighters are in there," she whispered. "They're from all over. A strangler of the Night Gorillas, Black Mantis stylists, two knife men of the White Web, even an actual Brumal from Androval. Everything but a Blind Archer. Nobody has a chance against all of them at once."
"Only one way to find out," Bane snorted. He pushed her aside, swung the door open and ran full tilt into the building.
VI.
Even his instant scan only gave him had a split-second glimpse of a huge, mostly empty room with a dozen men scattered around. On a low couch was a figure wrapped in ropes with a dozen knots. Next to that couch was an kerosene heater with a variety of long bladed instruments glowing white hot in its flame. Straightening up from that torture heater was the puny form of Yokel Ono.
"Hell and Damnation!" he squealed. "It's the Dire Wolf his own self!" and with that he dove over the couch to hide.
Working to Bane' advantage was that this was a group of men who had not been trained to work as a team. Instead of rushing him all at once, they followed the natural tendency to hang back slightly, seeing who wanted to attack first. Bane hurtled into the room as if he intended to run right over them and out the back door. A virtual storm of fists and feet exploded in a confusing flurry. A huge black man naked to the waist, with arms and hands over-muscled to twice normal size, immediately had his jaw shattered to bits by a boot sliding across it. As the Night Gorilla of Danarak reeled back, he bumped into and fell on a short Asian man. Bane bent forward, ducking below a whistling tar-hardened rope length and driving a straight forward punch to that attacker's chest that cracked his sternum.
Even experienced killers from a half dozen cults could not follow the Dire Wolf. He leaped from one to the next, evading weapons by fractions of an inch and blasting out punches and kicks that broke bones wherever they connected. Ruffian had dared to stick her head in the open doorway. All she saw was what looked like a huddle of writhing bodies from which one body after another went flying. She caught a glimpse of Bane pulling a fighter's arm out straight and bending it the wrong way until it snapped at an unnatural angle. Two Black Mantis kung fu men had their heads smashed together. A tall thin blond man in a formal business suit thrust an old-fashioned ice pick with a fencer's lunge. Bane caught that arm by wrist and elbow and bent it back so the point slid to the hilt in the Stormgren's chest.
For one instant, the Dire Wolf separated himself from the six remaining killers. His jacket was slit open in various places and one sleeve had come off. Covered in bright blood, that narrow face was lit with feral glee. A huge Russian wrestler, well over six feet six and easily three hundred and fifty pounds, thundered forward with hands clutching. Bane caught one arm, swung around and redirected the giant's momentum into a throw that flung the man crashing to knock the couch over and spill the prisoner onto the floor. The kerosene heater was knocked onto its side and the torture instruments rolled out onto the floor.
Only two fighters were left on their feet. One was a petite Asian woman in shorts and a red T-shirt. She was one of the Joyous Rain sect, a Vietnamese gang working in Los Angeles. In each hand, she held a short throwing knife with a ring handle. The woman hefted the one in her right hand and threw it end over end at her intended victim. It looked as if Bane had simply batted it like a softball but in fact he had caught it by the blade and hurled it back straight into the Joyous Rain assassin's throat.
The sole remaining fighter was a lanky man wrapped in tight black clothing, including a hood and face scarf that covered all but a pair of lambent yellow eyes. This was a Brumal from Androval, a cult dating back to the Darthan Age. Later groups such as Ninja or Furious Buddha had learned many of their tactics from them.
He poked a gloved finger accusingly. "You! You are Tel Shai?"
Blood running down his face from a torn scalp, Bane only nodded as he moved forward.
The Brumal laughed, "Give my regards to Master Chael!" He had maneuvered himself to have a clear path to the open door only a few feet away and he dove through it into the blackness beyond. Off to the side, Ruffian gasped but dared make no move.
Only the Dire Wolf was on his feet. Bane's jacket and pants were torn and sliced into strips, revealing the grey gleam of the flexible Trom armor beneath. This had kept bladed weapons from penetrating and had dissipated much but not all of the blunt impacts. Bane had an eye swollen shut, a face sticky with blood and fists covered with scrapes that left little skin intact. For once, he was sweaty and his chest was heaving.
Lying on the floor, hidden in coils of rope, Mitsuo Mikage sang out, "Look at YOU, Jeremy! Almost bit off more than you could chew, eh?"
"Oh, shut up," the Dire Wolf snapped. He limped over to make sure the kerosene heater had gone out when it was knocked over. The white hot torture blades weren't about to start any fires. Then he slowly moved around the room to inspect the dozen unmoving forms.
"Looks like four of them are still alive," he said. "Ruffian, close the door. We don't want curious neighbors peeking in at this."
The Bronze Ronin cleared his throat and said, "If you feel up to it, you could untie me."
"I suppose." Bane picked up a wide-bladed butterfly knife one of the Black Mantis had dropped. He sat down heavily and began cutting through the ropes because the knots were a mess. As the minutes crawled by and he got one rope after another severed, both Ruffian and the Bronze Ronin stared at the changes going on with him.
As they watched, his swollen eye began to open and the black stain around it faded. His torn scalp stopped bleeding. All the gouges and bruises faded quickly. His pulped right ear unfolded like time-lapse exposure of a flower opening. He became visibly more steady and assured.
"That Tel Shai healing is great stuff," Mikage said conversationally. "I've tried to find a substitute for the sacred plant which will not be named. Not much luck yet."
"It still hurts like hell. Almost done," the Dire Wolf replied in his normal tones. "As long as we have a minute, I wanted to ask what you did with that hatchet everyone wants?"
Sitting up, wriggling to get his circulation moving again, the Bronze Ronin gave a short barking laugh. "That's the funny part! It's so ironic. Harak broke into my hotel room and claimed the hatchet. There was no mistaking him, the shaved head and thick mustache. I only saw him for a second, he jumped out the same window he had busted. And I sure wasn't going to chase that maniac when he would be swinging that damn axe.
"Janos Harak has definitely been dead for ten years. My friend Tang Ming finished him. He did have a son who looked a bit like him, but then the son would be hitting retirement age by now. I'll have to track him down, whoever he is." Bane freed Mikage and they both got to their feet.
"Heh, I'm stiffer than you are," the Bronze Ronin chuckled. "Next time we run into each other, Jeremy, I want to spend some time analyzing that fight. Was that a Furious Buddha man you caught with the shuto to the neck?"
"I don't think so. I have my hands full with those guys." He turned to face the stupefied Ruffian. "We're about done for the night, lady. You should get a doctor for some of your players and an undertaker for the rest."
"You're... you're not going to do anything to me?"
"I'M not," Bane said. "I don't want to deal with the Manila police as a foreigner who snuffed a dozen men tonight. And if I did get cleared by some miracle, I don't want to have to come back in six months for your trial."
Some of Ruffian's composure had returned. "Thank you. Thank you both. I promise the authorities will never learn about all of this. I promise!"
"Well, we may meet again and it's good to have a shady dealer here who owes us big time," Mikage said. "Jeremy and I aren't exactly friends, if we're not fighting a common enemy, we're punching each other."
"Wait a minute. I think we forgot someone." He walked over to slide the overturned couch aside. Behind it was the enormous bulk of the Russian Sambo wrestler, who was visibly breathing but unconscious. Bane rolled him over. Underneath, arms and legs outstretched, was the body of Yokel Ono. It only took a second to determine the puny man was quite dead.
"It was the angle that brute landed on him. It broke his neck." Bane stood up. "Poor little jerk. I know he was a crook like the rest of them but I found him kind of funny."
Ruffian made a dismissive sound. "What, because of that stupid accent he put on? He was from Hokkaido. He never set foot in Tennessee. The guy just loved American TV and movies."
Bane gave her a sour look. "You ruin everything."
10/27/2024
6/28-6/30/2001
I.
From the outside, nothing indicated the weathered old cinder block building was a bar. There were no signs at all, and the windows had been painted black. You had to know about this place beforehand. It was by no means the only such underground establishment in this part of downtown Manila.
Late in a miserable afternoon where the temperature and humidity were both high, Jeremy Bane made his way down narrow streets toward this nameless bar. Even the alleys were crowded with giggling half-naked children playing tag, sullen-faced women hanging up damp laundry that would take forever to dry, vendors trying to sell obscure snacks or cheap watches and jewelry. Ripped open plastic garbage bags were piled five high, after everything that could be of any use had been scavenged. Many people were just standing about in small clusters, not seeming to be doing much of anything in particular. Bane had grown up a street orphan in the poorer neighborhoods of Manhattan, and none of this was new to him.
Bane opened the unmarked door and met a big man taking up most of a vestibule. The wide acne-scarred face reacted with instant hostility and the man straightened up with his fists tightening. But then he hesitated.
He found himself facing an American in his late thirties, six feet tall and lean, dressed all in black. Under heavy dark brows, a pair of cold clear grey eyes stabbed out at him. Something in the stranger's quiet confidence was unsettling. Without a word, the guard pulled open the inner door and moved aside to let Bane enter.
Cigarette and marijuana smoke made the barroom as hazy as a foggy night. None of the scattered tables or chairs matched each other. In an instant, Bane's Kumundu training made him assess the situation... He spotted the doors, the exit, possible places where an assailant might be concealed. He took in the poses and body language of the men and women who were playing cards, arguing in low voices or drinking. Mostly, drinking. None seemed an immediate threat, although he could tell that some of them were armed.
One of the doors in the far wall opened and a barefoot woman in a flimsy sundress popped out to speak with the bent old -mustached bartender for a second before vanishing again. Bane knew that places like this had backrooms for gambling and prostitution, but they were not his targets today. He had Midnight War business on his mind.
Bane stepped up to the bar, put down a twenty and ordered a shot of Tequila, which he gulped down. He repeated the action and seemed satisfied. The bartender of course had no way of knowing about Bane's enhanced healing ability. Twenty years on the Tagra tea found only at Tel Shai had elevated Bane's recuperative factor so far that minor wounds or injuries disappeared within minutes. He could not be poisoned. Bane could safely drink pure alcohol and not feel any effects as his system easily processed it. But downing two shots like that made the bartender feel more at ease.
He placed another twenty down on top of the first one, drank another shot of Tequila and leaned forward confidentially. "You must know by now I'm here for information."
That produced a toothless grin from the old man. "It's the usual game. But, sir, I have to say you are not a policeman. Not a spy. Not an underworld killer, either, and we have enough of them here already. I cannot say exactly what you are."
"I have a sort of nickname, the Dire Wolf."
"Oh. Oh, I see...." The bartender had unconsciously stepped back a pace but he regained his nerve. "Of course. I have heard stories. Eyes the color of steel. Black clothing for hunting in the night. You are here to face the unholy creatures, then?"
"I'd like to talk with a man named Mikage. He's Japanese. He has a war name too, the Bronze Ronin. Can you give me one word to point me in the right direction?"
"No," said the bartender. "But I'll give you a friendly tip. Stay away from Bronze Ronin. He's not a kind or a gentle man, my friend."
The Dire Wolf decided against putting down more money. "Well, I've been all over Downtown today asking about him. By now, the whispers should have reached him...."
"Or at least the whispers have reached ME," said a husky female voice.
At that point, the barkeep decided that all the glasses needed vigorous wiping and he occupied himself with the chore. Bane knew a woman had approached him from behind. Even with all the heated conversations and arguments in that bar, no normal Human could set foot close to him without his being aware of it. The Dire Wolf seemed casual, but his weight was perfectly balanced to move in any direction and both arms and both legs were poised to block or attack.
To any observer though, Bane merely turned around to face a woman standing just behind him. She was apparently not a Filipina. The oval face was very pale, accented by delicate red lips and rich glossy hair that was so black it had a blue sheen. Her eyes were deep green, shaded by heavy natural lashes. A black dress, classic in its simplicity, fit snugly without being too obvious.
Most people would guess her age to be in her early twenties, with that clear skin and taut figure. But Bane glanced at her throat, the backs of her hands and the whites of her eyes and judged she was a well-tended forty years old. A small brown canvas handbag hung lightly enough from one shoulder that he decided there was no gun in there.
"You were speaking of Mitsuo Mikage, of the Winter Snow school?" she asked.
"Yeah, I was," Bane said, neither his neutral tone nor his impassive expression giving away any of his thoughts.
"And you are the notorious Dire Wolf, I believe?"
"My actual name is Jeremy Bane."
"And you hate this Mikage?"
"No emotion involved," Bane replied. "It's not personal. He knows something I'm trying to get some information about."
"Wild stories say you are faster than any mortal Man. They say you have been seen clapping shut the mouth of a cobra without being bitten. That you can catch thrown knives by the blade. That you can overtake a deer running for its life."
Bane scoffed. "Come on. People exaggerate."
She studied him for a minute, showing she was one of the few who could meet the glare of those grey eyes without being uncomfortable. "Come with me into the business back room," she said, and added to the bartender, "Send us a couple of whisky-and-sodas."
II.
In a plain windowless room only ten feet to a side, furnished with a card table and four folding metal chairs, she sipped her drink. "You and Mikage going at it, eh? That would be a fight I could sell tickets to. You're both dangerous men."
Taking a swallow of his drink and reflecting that good Scotch was wasted on him, Bane said nothing.
She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "Do you know who I am?"
"I think so," he answered. "I've never seen you before, but you could hardly be anyone else but the girl people in the badlands call "Ruffian.'"
Her green eyes narrowed a little and she smiled.
"Yes. And would you like to know what drove a decent society girl into the shadows of the Midnight War? Are you curious how an innocent, trusting child became an infamous international criminal?"
"I love a good origin story," Bane replied straight-faced.
"Well, I'll tell you in two words. Bronze Ronin. I was so young, so foolish. He promised me excitement, travel, luxury. And the adrenalin thrill of being a jewel thief, of smuggling across national borders. It seems like a daydream of adventure come true."
"But?"
"You have to expect double crosses in the badlands," she said. "Mikage abandoned me to a lieutenant of Wu Lung. I was a sort of bribe so that he would be let go. For years, I was a plaything. I was used in vile ways. I was made to commit atrocities. But inevitably I saw my moment and took it. My torturer lay dead at my feet and I took over the small band of assassins he had gathered around himself. Ruffian's ruffians, ha hah."
Bane took a final mouthful of his mixed drink. "Go on."
"I, too, want revenge," she breathed. "We can be useful to each other. I will send a note to Mikage asking him to come to a certain place in the Avenido Bustillo. He will come. There you will meet him and settle whatever grudge you two share."
"Sounds like we share mutual goals."
"No one will ever know what happens," she murmured. "Manila's waterfront on the harbor is huge. It hides many secrets. For prudence, I will send a man with you to guide you to the meeting place. Then, come back to me here tomorrow night. I will explain much to you."
She clapped her hands and a young Filipino worker came in, still holding a mop. She spoke to him in the Tagalog language for a minute. After he bowed and left, she arose "I am going now. In a few minutes your guide will come. Good luck, Dire Wolf. You are said to serve justice beyond manmade law. I hope that's true."
She glided out and left a thoughtful Bane sitting there with an empty drink glass. He'd heard of Ruffian. Her name was well known in the badlands where international crime bordered the Midnight War. didn't say. It was well established that she was a top jewel thief and grifter. Some said she was an outright pirate operating against cargo ships. Others said she had been the secret wife of a dozen crimelords from Yakuza barons to Corsican bandit chiefs American to corporate CEOs. And more than a few of these had died suddenly after the weddings. There was also talk that Ruffian was a freelance spy moving from the Mandate to SMERSH to the White Web.
Anyway, nobody knew all her secrets for sure, but everybody agreed that crossing her path was asking for disaster.
Jeremy Bane somberly remembered Rook. She had been dead for more than ten years now, ever since finding the Scroll of Ultimate Knowledge. Rook had been a wild adventuress, too, but not a violent one. She had relied on cleverness and quick thinking. Sometimes Rook had been a great help, more often she had ended up running away with the loot while Bane had been tricked. Ruffian seemed like a harder, more toughened version of Rook and Bane hadn't believed anything the woman had just said.
Then the door opened and a miserable, ragged wretch stuck his untidy head in. "Mr Bane? Hi. I'm Yokel Ono."
III.
Considering his long career dealing with the supernatural, Bane would have thought very little could surprise him. But he was stunned now. A short man, not more than five feet four, wrapped in baggy pants and a dilapidated plaid flannel shirt flung himself into the chair where Ruffian had been sitting. He was clearly an ethnic Japanese, with a marked epicanthic eyelid fold and a full head of hair that was the only healthy part of his scrawny body.
But what left Bane wide-eyed was that the man spoke with a strong, definitive Tennessee accent. The Dire Wolf managed to repeat, "Yokel.. Ono...?"
"Bless your pointy little head," the man laughed. "Got you flustered, huh? See, my blood parents died in a bus crash. They was from Hokkaido. I was just a shaver, couldn't even walk, and I was adopted by their friends, Mr and Mrs Mick Cafferty. I grew up within sight of the Smokies. God's Country."
Bane raised an eyebrow. "So I take it that's not your legal name?"
"Hayll no. Damn. I sign myself on documents as William Lee Cafferty. When I started moving around Asia as an adult, I got tangled with the Ono clan, some of the You-Know-Who with the tattoos and nine fingers. They tagged me Yokel thinking it was funny and the name stuck."
Bane had known a number of people who had been born ethnically Asian but had been raised in a Western society. That didn't exclude many second or third generation people who sounded completely New Jersey or Liverpool. He was a little disappointed in himself for being taken aback at meeting Yokel Ono.
"I guess someone everyone calls the Dire Wolf can't say anything about nicknames, " he said. "So, Ruffian sent you here to me?"
"She did indeed. When Miss Ruffian says jump, I ask how high. We should be a-fixin' to go now, Mr Bane."
"Might as well call me Jeremy," the Dire Wolf said, pushing back his chair. He followed Yokel Ono out of the bar by a side door which opened into the grimy, dimly lit streets, and through twisting alleys. The reek of garbage and rotten food and unwashed bodies was potent. As it go dark, the crowds seemed to thicken rather than thin out. The white American and the short Japanese received plenty of curious stares but no one asked for money or offered them anything illegal. Bane actually felt safer here than he had in many bad parts of towns around the world.
Yokel Ono certainly seemed to know his way through the maze of narrow streets. At one point, they passed down a row of food stalls with offerings on hot griddles or in pans of boiling oil. Bane grabbed a double handful of fried pig intestines and devoured them happily. One price for his extra speed and hair-trigger reflexes was a metabolism that left him always ravenous. Yokel Ono expressed disapproval and said he was still looking for Meat And Three, especially drop biscuits in gravy.
They reached the Pasig River which divided Manila into the north and south sections. At last he opened a door next to a closed grocery store and stepped into darkness. Bane followed him into a squalid room which was as dark as the alleys outside. Ono struck a friction match with his thumbnail and lit a candle which sat in a tin dish on a rough table. They pulled out stools from under the table and sat. Ono produced out an unopened fifth of Jack Daniels and chuckled as he broke the seal.
Bane had instantly inspected the rather large but ramshackle room. There was a door in the far wall, which he kept a wary eye on. Open shelves held only dust. The single window was barred heavily enough to have kept bears out. A trap door in the middle of the floor was bolted shut. Bane could hear the slow lapping of water under them. Like many houses, this shack was built on stilts out over the river.
"Mr Dire Wolf," said Ono after he'd taken an enthusiastic tug from the bottle, "It seems to me that we're not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree."
"That could use some elaboration," Bane commented.
"Well, here's the two of us, takin' a job from a devious little witch who's going to claim the prize all to herself. I don't know what she's payin' you, old son, but I ain't getting much more than chump change."
"Here it comes," said Bane. "I didn't expect your story to match Ruffian's."
Despite the fact they were alone in a nearly bare room, Ono looked around and lowered his voice. "I know a couple of occult dealers in the old U S of A who will drop a suitcase of thousand dollar bills to get that hatchet. That dern thing sucks life force from its victims and keeps its owner young for centuries, so the story goes. Why let Ruffian stick that in her bank account? We can split fifty-fifty and retire like music stars!"
Bane's voice was normally low and restrained, but now it is assumed a hard undertone. "What do you know about Matsuo Mikage, anyway? How do you even know about Harak the Damned?"
"Bless your soul," said Ono, seeming bewildered that the Jack Daniels was almost gone. "Mikage is a top level street-karate man. Shotokan, I reckon. He thumps Chinese fighters like they're sleepwalking. But you, man... you're the Dire Wolf! You can take him easy. Then we claim the magic hatchet afore we dumps his carcass through that trapdoor. He'll float down the river and trouble us no more."
"Hold everything," Bane interrupted. "I am not an assassin, I'm not for hire. I am a knight of Tel Shai, if that means anything to you."
"What!?" blurted the Japanese messenger. "Ruffian says as you was craving to crack Mikage's head like a pumpkin."
The Dire Wolf held back a sigh. "You realize I can't take your story as reliable any more than I can believe Ruffian. This is the badlands. You compare everybody's lies to figure out what's going on."
"But we HAVE to finish him off," argued Ono, "You don't want a bone breaker like him sneaking up behind you when you're thinking you're safe."
"You're still not providing any real information. I think I like Ruffian's version better, where Mikage corrupted her and turned her into a cat burglar."
"I like to pee my pants hearing you say that, Jeremy Bane. I thought you'd have horse sense. Ruffian was NEVER innocent. I'd bet she was stealin' other kids' toys in the kindergarten." Ono tapped the table with his index finger. "I wasn't s'posed to spill the beans to you, y'understand. I was ordered to grab the hatchet while you and Mikage were kickin' each other in the nose! But I'm purely sick of Ruffian and everything about her. She talks to me like I'm an old yeller dawg."
"And now I'm going to find Mikage," Bane said in a tone that made it not a question. "But without you."
"No! We got to bring him here so he can take a lonesome dive into the river. That's our deal."
The Dire Wolf stood up easily, moving back a step from the table. He raised a cautioning forefinger. "I never made a deal with you, Ono. I'll take Mikage alive if possible. He can clear up a lot of cold cases as a plea deal. There's warrants for him in a dozen countries."
"Like Hell! You ain't gonna treat me thataway!" Yokel Ono swept his left arm to send the empty bottle flying away, and at the same time he whipped a long thin stiletto-style knife toward Bane's throat. If he had expected Bane to be distracted by knocking the bottle away, he was instantly disillusioned. The Dire Wolf took one step to the side so that the knife point missed him by six inches. There was a sharp cracking noise and Yokel Ono sagged back down into his chair as Bane lowered his arm from a backfist.
The Dire Wolf felt irritated at himself for not having pulled that blow more. Just dazing this guy would have been enough. He found Ono's pulse was strong and steady. Thumbing open an eyelid showed normal reaction to light. Then the Japanese from Tennessee began to snore and Bane snorted in annoyance. That restrained punch had been enough to send Ono into a slumber from the booze. He gave every sign of being deeply asleep for some time.
What a waste of time so far, Bane thought. He might have gotten better results if he had just brushed Ruffian away and continued spreading word he was looking for Bronze Ronin. The possibility of waiting here until Ono revived didn't occur to him. Impatience was the Dire Wolf's biggest flaw. He was too restless, too filled with nervous energy that had to be burned off. Before leaving, Bane decided to blow the candle out for safety, then pulled open the door and stalked out into a dark sullen night.
IV.
Although it was getting late by this time, the streets were still busy. There were no children or old people any more, though, just drunk men and young women posing in doorways and on corners. Bane was not drowsy at all. He was nocturnal by nature and got along fine on five hours sleep in each twenty-four. He kept prowling around, hoping against odds to run into some clue. Hunting for another hour, the Dire Wolf unclipped his Link from its holder on his belt. Two-forty in the morning, temperature seventy-four and humidity sixty-eight per cent. Not for the first time, he cursed his impatience. The smart move would have been to rouse Yokel Ono and question him.
Was there a chance that shady little messenger was still where he had been left? It was worth checking. Bane was passing still another dark alleyway when a presence slipped out, pale face showing above the black dress. It was Ruffian.
"Wait a minute, Dire Wolf," she said, as casually as if asking for directions. "May I speak to you just a moment?"
"Sure, why not?" Bane replied. "Do you have a completely different story to hand me?"
"Ah, don't be like that," she purred, patting his arm. "Forget it. I'll make it up to you, if you'll just come with me. I've got some news."
Bane compliantly followed her into the narrow, rancid alley and through an arched doorway and into a small courtyard of cobblestones, lit by smoky lamps. Then Ruffian turned and Bane's danger sense kicked into high gear.
Ruffian's pale face had tautened into a fierce mask. Her mouth compressed into a slit. The green eyes were bright with rage as she glared at the Dire Wolf.
"Well, if you're that angry, we must be making progress."
"Stand where you are!" she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.
"I'm ready for some explanations," Bane replied blandly.
Ruffian raised a hand with its long-nailed fingers bent into a claw. "I get it all now.
It was you who warned Mikage, wasn't it? So he stowed Harak's hatchet somewhere and never showed up at the Avenido Bustillo. It was just by pure luck that my Escrimas got him at all. But he'll spill everything before he dies. And as for you—"
"Here comes some bad news," Bane said.
"When I finish with you, you will not come within a hundred miles of me!" Ruffian raised a thin metal rod two feet long from where she had been holding it down by her side. "This cattle prod is illegal to use on people. It discharges thousands of volts but it's the extra amps that will make your muscles tighten until they rip loose from your bones."
Remarkably, Bane had not visibly reacted. He did not move from his casual stance and his voice was calm. "You still don't realize what you're dealing with, Ruffian. I can take that away and break it over your head before you know what happened."
"oh, I know all about you," Ruffian spat. "So I brought some of my Escrimas to soften you up a litle first." She snapped her fingers once and into the courtyard from the shadows stalked seven men. They all looked typically Filipino, most were under five feet ten but two were big bruisers. They swung long staffs or two short batons. One held a pair of nunchakus in his hands. Bane was not a master of Escrima, but he had studied so many martial arts in his long career that he was familiar with most of them. Also known as Kali or Arnis de Mano, Escrima was practical and effective.
As the men moved to encircle him, Bane said, "I'm really trying not to kill on these missions. The Feds complain I leave too many dead bodies everywhere I go. But sometimes I'm not given much choice."
One of the attackers badly blundered. He launched into a flashy routine with the nunchakus, whirling them around his body in complex patterns. Despite themselves, the other six men watched those lightning-quick movements and, given that opening, Bane threw himself full-body at the nearest man, slamming him into the next one so hard they both went down. Bane hopped up and stamped down brutally with a boot into each man's chest. The others were just beginning to react. Bane was leaping into the center of the circle, away from the two gasping men on the cobblestones. He wheeled on his right heel and exploded a stiff leg into the stomach of a Escrima, doubling that man up and making him vomit prodigiously.
A man with a six foot long Bo staff twirled it in a figure eight, preparing to slide it forward like a pool cue. Bane blurred in close, turning his back to the man and cracking his left elbow into the center of the man's face. Blood spurted from a crushed nose. Suddenly Bane was holding the staff. He smacked it to the back of the bleeding man's head with a noise like a whip cracking.
The nunchaku wielder had processed what had happened in the past few seconds. He swung the batons on their chain left and right. Bane stuck out the staff, got the nunchaku tangled up and flung both weapons far away to land with a clatter. Ignoring the disarmed man for the moment, the Dire Wolf faded back before the attack of the two remaining men who each were swinging a pair of short batons. Again, he used one man against the other. Moving to one side, he drove a simple side kick into the nearer man's ribs so that he reeled up against his partner. In the second that they were in each others' way, Bane moved in and blasted short hooking punches that dropped them both.
Only the man who had lost his nunchakus was left on his feet. He screamed like a littlr girl, spun and ran frantically away. Bane snatched up a baton and flung it to crack murderously to the fleeing man's skull. The Dire Wolf turned slowly around to satisfy himself that no one of the attackers would be a threat in the next few minutes. From start to finish, less than fifty seconds had passed.
He wasn't even breathing hard. Bane tugged down the sleeves of his sport jacket and looked around for Ruffian. She was pressed back against the wall, with a horrified expresion on her face. The cattle prod had fallen from her grasp.
"You know, I tried to warn you," Bane said.
"Holy Mary Mother of God," she muttered, "What ARE you? Those men were all killers. There were seven of them, and they couldn't even slow you down. Why are you looking at me that way? Wait, what... are you going to do with me?"
The Dire Wolf carefully picked up the cattle prod by the handle, snapped the battery pack off and threw the separate pieces in different directions. The ease with which he broke the solid metal unnerved Ruffian more.
"Don't hit me," she begged, "My God, you'd take my head clean off. I'll tell you everything. Remember in the bar back room, I sent the note to Mikage and waited for that crazy Yokel Ono to report to me. My orders were to stow you in a safe place after you'd taken care of Mikage, and then come back to me with the hatchet of Jordyn. After a long while, the fool stumbled in with a purple bruise on his jaw, and said you'd turned down the job. Ono claimed you already knew about Harak's talisman somehow and that your offer was that you and he would grab the hatchet and get away from the Philippines."
Bane wryly thought that these cases would go smoother if he simply injected everyone involved with Veratilin truth serum.
"...Then he said you tried to get him to double-cross me, but he wouldn't do it," Ruffian continued, "so you knocked him out and left. Yokel Ono is awful at lying. I had two of my Escrimas give him some aches and pains to make him rethink everything. The only time I even halfway believed him when he said that you had killed Mikage yourself and left town. I sent some of my men out looking for you, but they caught Mikage instead. It was just luck. He was buying street food and they managed to smack him in the head hard enough to kill a horse. Mikage is as tough as his reputation says.
"My Escrimas dragged him to my house but of course he wasn't carrying any hatchet on him. Simple beatings didn't convince him to tell what he'd done with it. We got out the torture tool box to scare him and he admitted that he was on his way to the Avenido Bustillo in answer to my note, but that was when my Escrimas captured him. And then one of my men came rushing in to say that he'd just seen you prowling the streets. I thought you were a wild card and I wanted to get you out of the game. I'm so so sorry. I'll never give you trouble again. What are you going to do with me?"
"Our paths won't cross too often," Bane said, still suspiciously watching every alley mouth or open window.
Ruffian visibly shuddered. Her voice sounded like a frightened child's. "I was never afraid of any man before. When you fought my men, I couldn't even see what you were doing, I just heard noises and saw my Escrimas drop. It was a nightmare." When Bane made no comment, she pleaded, "Please, what are you going to do with me? Please let me go!"
"Right now, I'm going to let you take me to Mikage. Then we'll see. I'm sure you've got another crew of your murderers waiting there, but that doesn't matter."
Walking on in uneasy silence, they stopped finally in front of a two-story house in decent repair. The outer walls were white plastered. Several of the windows showed yellow light through curtains. The front door was strangely unlocked and she gave no signal as she opened it slightly but Bane was sure they were being watched from upstairs. He placed his hand on the back of Ruffian's neck to be sure she wouldn't try to make a run for it, but he underestimated how terrified she was of him. She tensed up like a rabbit seeing a hawk circling low.
"My best fighters are in there," she whispered. "They're from all over. A strangler of the Night Gorillas, Black Mantis stylists, two knife men of the White Web, even an actual Brumal from Androval. Everything but a Blind Archer. Nobody has a chance against all of them at once."
"Only one way to find out," Bane snorted. He pushed her aside, swung the door open and ran full tilt into the building.
VI.
Even his instant scan only gave him had a split-second glimpse of a huge, mostly empty room with a dozen men scattered around. On a low couch was a figure wrapped in ropes with a dozen knots. Next to that couch was an kerosene heater with a variety of long bladed instruments glowing white hot in its flame. Straightening up from that torture heater was the puny form of Yokel Ono.
"Hell and Damnation!" he squealed. "It's the Dire Wolf his own self!" and with that he dove over the couch to hide.
Working to Bane' advantage was that this was a group of men who had not been trained to work as a team. Instead of rushing him all at once, they followed the natural tendency to hang back slightly, seeing who wanted to attack first. Bane hurtled into the room as if he intended to run right over them and out the back door. A virtual storm of fists and feet exploded in a confusing flurry. A huge black man naked to the waist, with arms and hands over-muscled to twice normal size, immediately had his jaw shattered to bits by a boot sliding across it. As the Night Gorilla of Danarak reeled back, he bumped into and fell on a short Asian man. Bane bent forward, ducking below a whistling tar-hardened rope length and driving a straight forward punch to that attacker's chest that cracked his sternum.
Even experienced killers from a half dozen cults could not follow the Dire Wolf. He leaped from one to the next, evading weapons by fractions of an inch and blasting out punches and kicks that broke bones wherever they connected. Ruffian had dared to stick her head in the open doorway. All she saw was what looked like a huddle of writhing bodies from which one body after another went flying. She caught a glimpse of Bane pulling a fighter's arm out straight and bending it the wrong way until it snapped at an unnatural angle. Two Black Mantis kung fu men had their heads smashed together. A tall thin blond man in a formal business suit thrust an old-fashioned ice pick with a fencer's lunge. Bane caught that arm by wrist and elbow and bent it back so the point slid to the hilt in the Stormgren's chest.
For one instant, the Dire Wolf separated himself from the six remaining killers. His jacket was slit open in various places and one sleeve had come off. Covered in bright blood, that narrow face was lit with feral glee. A huge Russian wrestler, well over six feet six and easily three hundred and fifty pounds, thundered forward with hands clutching. Bane caught one arm, swung around and redirected the giant's momentum into a throw that flung the man crashing to knock the couch over and spill the prisoner onto the floor. The kerosene heater was knocked onto its side and the torture instruments rolled out onto the floor.
Only two fighters were left on their feet. One was a petite Asian woman in shorts and a red T-shirt. She was one of the Joyous Rain sect, a Vietnamese gang working in Los Angeles. In each hand, she held a short throwing knife with a ring handle. The woman hefted the one in her right hand and threw it end over end at her intended victim. It looked as if Bane had simply batted it like a softball but in fact he had caught it by the blade and hurled it back straight into the Joyous Rain assassin's throat.
The sole remaining fighter was a lanky man wrapped in tight black clothing, including a hood and face scarf that covered all but a pair of lambent yellow eyes. This was a Brumal from Androval, a cult dating back to the Darthan Age. Later groups such as Ninja or Furious Buddha had learned many of their tactics from them.
He poked a gloved finger accusingly. "You! You are Tel Shai?"
Blood running down his face from a torn scalp, Bane only nodded as he moved forward.
The Brumal laughed, "Give my regards to Master Chael!" He had maneuvered himself to have a clear path to the open door only a few feet away and he dove through it into the blackness beyond. Off to the side, Ruffian gasped but dared make no move.
Only the Dire Wolf was on his feet. Bane's jacket and pants were torn and sliced into strips, revealing the grey gleam of the flexible Trom armor beneath. This had kept bladed weapons from penetrating and had dissipated much but not all of the blunt impacts. Bane had an eye swollen shut, a face sticky with blood and fists covered with scrapes that left little skin intact. For once, he was sweaty and his chest was heaving.
Lying on the floor, hidden in coils of rope, Mitsuo Mikage sang out, "Look at YOU, Jeremy! Almost bit off more than you could chew, eh?"
"Oh, shut up," the Dire Wolf snapped. He limped over to make sure the kerosene heater had gone out when it was knocked over. The white hot torture blades weren't about to start any fires. Then he slowly moved around the room to inspect the dozen unmoving forms.
"Looks like four of them are still alive," he said. "Ruffian, close the door. We don't want curious neighbors peeking in at this."
The Bronze Ronin cleared his throat and said, "If you feel up to it, you could untie me."
"I suppose." Bane picked up a wide-bladed butterfly knife one of the Black Mantis had dropped. He sat down heavily and began cutting through the ropes because the knots were a mess. As the minutes crawled by and he got one rope after another severed, both Ruffian and the Bronze Ronin stared at the changes going on with him.
As they watched, his swollen eye began to open and the black stain around it faded. His torn scalp stopped bleeding. All the gouges and bruises faded quickly. His pulped right ear unfolded like time-lapse exposure of a flower opening. He became visibly more steady and assured.
"That Tel Shai healing is great stuff," Mikage said conversationally. "I've tried to find a substitute for the sacred plant which will not be named. Not much luck yet."
"It still hurts like hell. Almost done," the Dire Wolf replied in his normal tones. "As long as we have a minute, I wanted to ask what you did with that hatchet everyone wants?"
Sitting up, wriggling to get his circulation moving again, the Bronze Ronin gave a short barking laugh. "That's the funny part! It's so ironic. Harak broke into my hotel room and claimed the hatchet. There was no mistaking him, the shaved head and thick mustache. I only saw him for a second, he jumped out the same window he had busted. And I sure wasn't going to chase that maniac when he would be swinging that damn axe.
"Janos Harak has definitely been dead for ten years. My friend Tang Ming finished him. He did have a son who looked a bit like him, but then the son would be hitting retirement age by now. I'll have to track him down, whoever he is." Bane freed Mikage and they both got to their feet.
"Heh, I'm stiffer than you are," the Bronze Ronin chuckled. "Next time we run into each other, Jeremy, I want to spend some time analyzing that fight. Was that a Furious Buddha man you caught with the shuto to the neck?"
"I don't think so. I have my hands full with those guys." He turned to face the stupefied Ruffian. "We're about done for the night, lady. You should get a doctor for some of your players and an undertaker for the rest."
"You're... you're not going to do anything to me?"
"I'M not," Bane said. "I don't want to deal with the Manila police as a foreigner who snuffed a dozen men tonight. And if I did get cleared by some miracle, I don't want to have to come back in six months for your trial."
Some of Ruffian's composure had returned. "Thank you. Thank you both. I promise the authorities will never learn about all of this. I promise!"
"Well, we may meet again and it's good to have a shady dealer here who owes us big time," Mikage said. "Jeremy and I aren't exactly friends, if we're not fighting a common enemy, we're punching each other."
"Wait a minute. I think we forgot someone." He walked over to slide the overturned couch aside. Behind it was the enormous bulk of the Russian Sambo wrestler, who was visibly breathing but unconscious. Bane rolled him over. Underneath, arms and legs outstretched, was the body of Yokel Ono. It only took a second to determine the puny man was quite dead.
"It was the angle that brute landed on him. It broke his neck." Bane stood up. "Poor little jerk. I know he was a crook like the rest of them but I found him kind of funny."
Ruffian made a dismissive sound. "What, because of that stupid accent he put on? He was from Hokkaido. He never set foot in Tennessee. The guy just loved American TV and movies."
Bane gave her a sour look. "You ruin everything."
10/27/2024
no subject
Date: 2024-10-27 11:53 pm (UTC)Back to 2001 we go, just twenty-three years ago, (Wait, what..? That can't be right. More like "a few years ago".) Anyway, it's all carnage and mayhem as Jeremy Bane commits acts of atrocious violence on about twenty bad guys while in Manila. I keep thinking the guy will mellow into an armchair detective but he's sixty-seven today and still wreaking havoc whenever he can,
Ruffian was meant to be a substitute for con artist Rook in stories set after Rook's era. But Ruffian turned out to be much meaner, much more a gang leader, and frankly much less likeable than Rook was. She's also not as good at fast-talking and quick-thinking. Ruffian appears in three other stories (and gives a different backstory in each one). She ends up as you might expect when she pulls a gun on Johnny Packard (of all people).
The Bronze Ronin, Mitsuo Mikage, is actually an early character who exists mostly on yellowing pages of typewritten manuscript from many years ago. (Never you mind HOW many.) He only shows up in the modern canon once, and he's in jail at that. But he does develop a healing factor not far behind the Tel Shai level. Combined with a brutal fighting style, this allows him to give a tough time to Bane, Sheng or Tang Ming. When I've watched a few too many Yip Man movies in a row, i'll probably bat out a Bronze Ronin story,
As for Yokel Ono, I can't defend him. Like Squid Vicious and Babe Lincoln, he's a sign of my love for goofy pun names.