"The Experience Which Comes Last"
May. 16th, 2022 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Experience Which Comes Last"
(2/26/1975, as "The Captive of Golgora")
2/14/1985
I.
Jeremy Bane felt ill at ease. It was a decent neighborhood out on Long Island, with a low crime index, and at seven o'clock at night should have been safe enough. But a lifetime of violence had left Bane permanently suspicious, with wary instincts that never entirely relaxed. His grey eyes were restless, checking rooftops and doorways even as he spoke. Cars went by, but he could tell by the way they moved that the drivers were concerned with their own lives. "Dr Palen, maybe one of my team should wait in your house with you for a day or two. Or maybe we should keep you at our headquarters building in Manhattan."
Dr Samuel Palen was watching this thin young man who dressed all in black, and who carried an air of brooding tension with him. He was nervous near Bane. Palen was sixty, well-fed and soft. A respected scholar with several published books on the occult, he was not used to be next to someone with so much nervous energy. "Thank you, Mr Bane," he said as he started up the short walkway to his house. "But I'm sure that won't necessary. I'll lock the doors and windows."
"Your work carries a certain amount of risk," the Dire Wolf insisted. "You are almost done translating that Nekrosan text of their holy books. This could give us valuable information. They are a secretive and murderous Race, and I think they may want to stop you from finishing," Bane was trying hard to be persuasive without being intimidating, but this was something he wasn't good at. Even in the dusk, his grey eyes flashed like cold steel.
Palen dismissed this with a wave of a hand. "No. Seriously, no. The Nekrosim are a mythical species. Even if something like them did exist ONCE, that was thousands of years ago. I am in no danger. Believe me, I wouldn't take any chances." He chuckled unconvincingly. "I'm no two-fisted hero like the famous Dire Wolf."
"I suppose. I still am not happy about this. You have my number, doctor."
Dr Palen nodded and turned to step up to his front door, keys in hand. "I should be done with the translation in a few weeks," he said. "I'll see you then. Goodnight, Mr Bane."
The Dire Wolf watched the scholar enter his house and heard the click of the door locking. All his instincts were tugging at him to go in the house and stand guard, but Palen had refused protection. Bane scowled in the gloom. Almost invisible in his long black topcoat, he began to circle the block, eyes moving quickly , looking for anything out of place.
In his study, Palen had set a huge mug of coffee on his desk, shoving aside some of the litter of notes to make room. The study was cluttered with books and papers on every available surface. Adjusting the reading light, Palen dug around in the center drawer of his desk for his glasses. Then he brought a key from his pocket and unlocked a side drawer, tugging out a thick manila folder.
Somewhere in that room, a burning pair of deep-set eyes watched him hungrily.
Palen carefully spread out a series of 8x11 photostats, clicked his pen and set to work. The museum had not wanted him to keep the original Nekrosan manuscipt, so he worked from these stats. Lost in concentration, he was entirely unprepared for a rasping whisper which came from directly behind him, a hoarse hollow voice that sounded like it belonged in a grave.
"Good evening, Dr Palen. Your work going well?"
With an undignified squack of fright, Palen jumped up and knocked his chair over backwards. He whirled around and his heart almost stopped.
The intruder was a thin, bony man just under six feet tall. He wore a dark brown jumpsuit that fitted loosely, its legs tucked into high polished boots. A narrow sash over one shoulder ended in a small spiked lead ball, and there was a 1911 broomhhandle Mauser in a flap holster on his belt. But Palen noticed none of that. He was staring in shock at the man's face. The intruder looked like a living skull. There was no hair on the head, only two small holes for ears. Heavy overhanging brow ledges, a tiny snub of a nose, a wide toothy mouth that grinned maliciously... all combined to make him an unnerving sight.
"Who ARE you?" Palen managed to squeak.
"My name is Golgora! A Nekrosan of Perjena," the skull-faced man said. "You have studied my Race, doctor. Are you... happy to see one of us in the flesh?"
Palen backed away but was caught up by the bookcase behind him. There was nowhere to go. "What do you want?"
"Don't be coy, my little Human. You know of my kind. You know what we are like. Surely you must be... ah, thrilled to know that a Nekrosan has come back to the world." He was moving closer slowly, hideous face grinning. "Ah, that must be the text you were working on."
As Palen's eyes darted to the notes on his desk, Golgora lunged forward and drove a hard tight fist to the side of the man's face. Pain exploded in the old man's head, lights flashing in his eyes as he dropped to the floor. In the back of his mind, Palen realized that maybe he should have listened to Bane after all.
"I will take that text," grated the Nekrosan, "as I will take you. You will join me in the quest to solve the Great Mystery. Death itself!"
Palen had managed to get up on one knee, reaching for a bookshelf to steady himself. He had never been punched full force by a skilled fighter before; it hurt worse than he could have imagined. "You're crazy! Absolutely crazy!"
Bony fingers clamped down over Palen's mouth and the muzzle of that Mauser jabbed hard at his cheek. "Ignorant words! For one of my Race, I am quite sane. You will come with me. You will face the greatest experience of your empty life... for it is the experience which always comes last!" Golgora drew back the pistol and brought its butt down with brutal force. The last thing the terrified Palen saw was that leering skull face.
In the darkness outside, Jeremy Bane had returned to stand in front of the house. Although he had not found anything in the neighborhood to justify his anxiety, he had long ago learned to trust his instincts. Now he stared at the modest, one story white frame house with shingle roof. There was no garage, nothing in the yard other than patches of stubborn snow. The neighboring house had a single flickering blue light in an upstairs window, where TV held someone entranced. Bane frowned and was about to walk back to his car at the end of the block when he heard a door slam softly at the rear of Palen's house.
At that sound, the Dire Wolf blurred into motion, sprinting through the yard and around the house quicker than any athlete. In the street behind Palen's home stood a dark Lincoln, motor idling and headlights off. There were three men in sight. One wore a dark commando outfit and some sort of stupid skull mask, certainly the ringleader by the way he was standing. A bigger, beefy thug was shoving a limp unconscious form into the back seat of the Lincoln and the third man was standing on guard, a revolver in his hand. It was this man who swung around at the light sound of Bane's racing footsteps. He was alert and ready, with gun already drawn, but even so he was taken by surprise at just how fast the Dire Wolf moved.
Plunging across the yard faster than a real wolf, Bane seized the man's gunhand and yanked it down toward the ground. In the same motion, he smacked the edge of his other fist down at the base of the thug's neck with a crack as sharp as a branch snapping. Even as that goon dropped, Bane spun on one foot, whirling to whip out his leg in a spinning reverse roundhouse. It caught the bigger man perfectly, right on the side of the jaw, and he fell to his hands and knees. Still in the same series of moves he had planned in the second he saw these three, Bane swung to face the guy in the skull mask.
For a bare instant, he hesitated as he recognized his opponent. "Gol-" he got out before the spiked lead ball caught him high up on the side of his head. That dazed him. Golgora whirled his strange weapon overhead, lashing out again and again. Even partly stunned, Bane blocked one strike but the spiked ball bounced around and smacked hard at the back of his head. The leather strap with the ball at the end was a unique Nekrosan weapon, combining elements of a whip and a mace. Bane fell, not quite unconscious but unable to resist as Golgora lashed out savagely at him, until his men coaxed him into leaving with their prisoner.
II.
Certainly, it was not the first time Jeremy Bane had forced himself up to full consciousness after a beating, but experience in the process was of little help. He groaned despite himself, got up into a seated position on the freezing sidewalk and waited until the urge to vomit passed. Golgora again! Damn the luck. The Dire Wolf sat up and began breathing deeply. His Tel Shai training taught him the value of taking in oxygen properly. He started the cycle of a deep breath in, hold it, slower breath out and suddenly his head cleared. The pain was no treat. He tried to push himself up off the pavement and gasped, unable to put any weight on his left wrist.
Slowly getting to his feet, Bane closed his eyes and did a mental check of his body. Under his clothes he wore the flexible Trom metal armor but the problem was that his head was exposed and had taken some damage. Bane felt unsteady on his feet. The throbbing pain he could handle but the dizziness was a problem. He swayed and balanced himself only by windmilling his arms. He couldn't trust his footing. Bane looked up at a street light and found his vision wasn't blurred. And the bones in his left wrist were broken.
Golgora, I owe you another one, he thought coldly.
Reluctantly, Bane admitted he was in no shape to continue as if nothing had happened, especially with Dr Palen's safety at risk. With his right hand, he opened his belt buckle and removed the small communications Link, thumbing the button and paging headquarters as he started walking unsteadily back through the yard.
A second later, a chipper voice with a slight Asian accent came through. "Hello? Hi! Shiro here."
"Shiro?!" said Bane. "What are you doing answering the phone at headquarters?"
"Ah, Jeremy! Good evening," came the cheerful voice of the deadliest fighter Bane knew. "Your team was called elsewhere. Something about Androval. I agreed to remain here in case you called. I hope you don't mind. I am not a KDF member but I am a knight of Tel Shai, after all."
Bane smiled grimly. "I don't mind, Shiro. I can't think of a better man to have in this situation. Listen. I am in Queens. A man named Palen has been kidnapped by a dangerous Nekrosan terrorist named Golgora and I am sure his life is in peril. Golgora is a martial artist in his own right, very sick mind with that Nekrosan fixation on death worship. He has some Human hired guns with him."
"Ha! The Tiger shall hunt tonight. Let me at him!"
Now Bane felt better. Shiro never changed, he had more enthusiasm than prudence. "I want you to follow him. Here's how. Take one of our Links from my locker. Set it to frequency 12G. I planted a tracer in Palen's coat without him knowing it. The Link will beep louder as you get closer. Got it?"
"By all means. What about you, Jeremy?"
The Dire Wolf opened the trunk to his Mustang. "I've taken some damage. With the Tagra diet, I should heal fast but I still need to rig a temporary splint on my wrist. Then I will start tracking the signal as well." Opening a big metal case full of first aid supplies, Bane took out some wooden splints and tape. "This is going to be a little uncomfortable," he muttered to himself.
"Very good, Jeremy. I am on my way. Shiro out," came the voice before Bane clicked the Link back into its holster on his belt and gingerly set to work, using his free hand and his teeth to set the bones and wrap his wrist.
III.
In the reception room of the KDF headquarters on 38th Street, Shiro Mitsuru put the phone down and grinned. He had not been expecting any excitement tonight but now it looked like he would not be sitting here wasting time after all. Shiro was just under six feet tall, wiry and lean with the muscles that came not from weight training but from motion. He was not a member of the KDF, being unwilling to abide by their rules and procedures, but he was a friend and a frequent ally in their campaigns of the Midnight War. Mostly he worked as partner to Andrew Steel but when the grey man had no assignment for him, Shiro always liked to drop in on the KDF looking for action.
Leaving the reception room, the Tiger Fury sprinted up the stairs two steps at a time and rushed into the conference room on the second floor. Here in one corner was one of the lockers where Bane kept his field suits and here was one of the Links. Shiro had been shown how to use KDF equipment, although he didn't carry any of it himself. After a minute of fumbling, he got the device set to track a 12g signal and a red light began flashing, with a barely audible beep.
For a second, he thought about taking some weapons. He knew that this building had an arsenal of specialized tools of fighting, everything from the anesthetic dart guns to swords and grenades and longbows. Bah. As usual, he placed his trust in his own body with its lifetime of discipline and training. Shiro wore soft slippers, baggy black trousers, a white T-shirt and an open leather vest with four pockets. On the inside flaps of the vest were fastened six star-shaped throwing shuriken, useful when he had to have a little range.
Pocketing the Link, he hurried to the front door, setting the elaborate security devices to activate behind him. It was cold outside, but he was hardened to endure worse. Shiro leaped off the stoop and ran to where his maroon Fiero was parked near the end of the block. The hunt was on! This was what he lived for. He started up the little car and pulled away without using his turn signals. In truth, with all his skills in everything from ninjutsu to Hapkido to Western boxing, Shiro was not a good driver. He made a right at the corner and headed along Lexington Avenue, turned again and went the other way. The signal got louder as he went uptown. North it was then. With a grin of anticipation, the Tiger Fury gunned the motor and sped north with a trail of yellow lights turning red behind him.
The beeping steadily increased as he went through the Bronx, leaving the city itself. This was a longer drive than he had expected. He was in Westchester County now. Shiro pulled in to fill his gas tank, then took to the chase again. Soon, the signal began decreasing and he made an illegal U-turn and went back a half mile. He ended up turning onto a long gravel road that opened between two stone posts and the name WILKINSON ARMS on a brass plate. By now, the beeping and flashing red light were getting on his nerves, so he put the Link away and trusted his judgement that he was at the end of the hunt. Up ahead on top of a hill, he saw a big dark house and he pulled over, turning off his engine and thought for a second. He wondered when Bane was going to turn up. But certainly, he had no intention of waiting for him. Getting out of his car, Shiro let his eyes adjust to the darkness and began creeping onto the property.
Few knew his history, but in fact Shiro was the only child of a Japanese man and a Chinese woman who had stolen a fortune from the White Web cult and had been forced to flee for their lives. Both had been masters of their respective country's martial arts. Shiro had been born on the run. He had grown up without a home, moving from country to country and being taught an assortment of fighting arts from childhood on. His parents had educated him themselves, but also had spent millions on his training in every fighting style available. With their deaths when he was fifteen, he had continued learning from masters all over the world until finally he was accepted at Tel Shai and taught Kumundu by Teacher Chael himself. Shiro was at the upper levels of human ability, still never satisfied, constantly experimenting and refining and discarding what he found unhelpful.
Two years earlier, Shiro had agreed to work with the famous Andrew Steel, teaming up in exchange for documentation and respectability. This had in turn led to meeting with the members of the KDF, including their captain, Jeremy Bane. For the first time, he had encountered a fighter fully his equal and perhaps, even his better. By a hair. He still disputed the oputcome of their match a few months earlier. But there was no time to dwell on that now. Silent as a shadow cast by a cloud, Shiro glided over the frozen ground, placing his feet down flat and pressing evenly to make no noise. He froze near an elm and faded into its shadow as the sound of a car came up the long gravel road. He watched it pass and leaped out to trail it, moving from one form of cover to next with a smoothness that made it look easy.
The building atop the hill looked like an old hotel that had long fallen into disrepair. Windows had panes missing, a gutter hung loosely almost to the ground. As the Tiger Fury watched from concealment, the sedan came to a halt and two men got out. They were moving stiffly and carefully. To Shiro's experienced eye, they had clearly been injured and he thought gleefully it must have been Bane who had battered them. Golgora emerged from the front passenger seat, a nightmarish sight in the glare of the car headlights. Shiro grinned unseen. He had beaten them here. They had had to drive up from Long Island, while he had only a shorter distance to come. The beeper in Palen's clothes had worked well. As Shiro watched, the two thugs hauled the unresisting doctor from the car and marched him into the building while Golgora reached inside the car to turn it off.
More men were coming out of the building, wearing some sort of uniforms. They took custody of Dr Palen, and one of them went over to confer with their skull-faced leader. Shiro made out that none of them wore sidearms. Good. It was necessary to kill an enemy who had a gun, and he would rather disable without killing if he could. The Tiger Fury stole in closer, getting nearly within arm's reach. His stealth level was so high that the guards seemed to be turning away as he moved, when actually he was judging their moves and creeping in during the seconds their line of sight pointed elsewhere.
As the soldiers went inside, Shiro circled the building noiselessly, passing near one sentry as if the man was deliberately turning away as he moved. On the back side of the old hotel, the Tiger Fury found a basement window which had no glass in it and he slid through it in one fluid movement to land silently within. He made his way through the darkness, to where an open door at the top of three steps showed a dim light. A cigarette flared up. To Shiro's enhanced senses, it smelled like a brush fire. He heard the hiss as a man exhaled the fumes, and saw the silhouette of the soldier in the doorway. Shiro had the ferocious tiger grin as he stood at the base of the steps, watching the man step through to toss his cigarette butt to the floor. In the second that the soldier's attention was on the flicked butt, Shiro leaped up the steps and seized the man, one hand pinning him against the wall and the other cracking with surgical precision at a spot just below the temple. The guard sagged senseless, and the Tiger Fury picked him up and lowered him
to the bottom of the steps. Through the open doorway, he saw two more guards standing facing to the left. Their stance indicated they were listening to something. With a single step, he was upon them and smacking their heads together with a dull thump. Shiro caught them, one in each arm, and let them slump to the floor. Grabbing each man by the collar, he dragged them quickly to the cellar door and flung them through.
A lifetime of experience allowed Shiro to judge how long each soldier would remain unconscious. The variable might be that the man would be out longer, perhaps sustaining permanent damage. Being knocked out was not harmless. He knew there was a chance that anyone he struck unconscious might die or suffer lasting effects. But then his teachers had instructed him to simply kill any enemy he wanted to get out of the way, so Shiro felt he was being reasonably humane.
The Tiger Fury stepped soundlessly across the main hall, once elegant but now fallen into disrepair. The electricity was not in service, and the only light came from large oil lanterns sitting on end tables. Shiro moved up to the wide double doors from which he heard the sound of human voices. He felt very much alive, tingling with vitality and ready for action. THe spirit of the Tiger was near the surface at that moment. The double doors were slightly open. Shiro slid alongside and peered through to see a nightmarish scene he could not have imagined.
III.
This had once been a ballroom. It was strange to think that this space had been filled with music and dancing, people falling in love and people having their hearts broken. Now all the furniture was gone, it was a wide expanse of polished wood. Four large torches flared head-high in metal stands. Lined up in rows were forty men in brown uniforms, with polished black boots and peaked caps. On white armbands was a symbol, a red mace held in an upraised hand. Shiro recognized that as the emblem of the realm of Bruenig. Parading along the array as if inspecting his troops was the grotesque figure of Golgora, his skull face grisly in the flickering torchlight.
But it was the monstrous thing in the center of the ballroom that made Shiro hold his breath. For a second, he thought it was real, a huge human skull ten feet across. He realized with annoyance that it was a mere construct, a device made of ivory-like ceramic. The proportions and detail were perfect. The giant skull sat upon a raised dais that had five steps leading up its front. As Golgora paused in front of it, he could have walked into its gaping jaws. In that dim unsteady light, standing before a gigantic skull, the Nekrosan was an unholy sight. Shiro curled his hands into fists and began breathing slowly and deeply. He felt he was in the presence of a terrible evil that must not be suffered to live. Whatever happened to him this night, he must see that Golgora died.
The skull-faced man raised one arm imperiously. "Bring me Meisen!" Two of the soldiers dragged a third who was resisting. His face was badly bruised and he did not raise his head.
"Jovann Meisin," intoned Golgora with the tone of a hanging judge. "You were not at your post when you were supposed to be. You have failed your country and you have failed me. Now you will atone for your sin. It is my sacred privilege to introduce you to the greatest of mysteries, the supreme experience which always comes last." He pointed behind him with a bony hand. "Place him in the jaws of the altar."
"sir! I must protest," interrupted one of the soldiers who was restraining the prisoner. "Meisin is derelict in his duties but this does not carry the death penalty under our code. It is not the way of Bruenig."
"It is now!" roared Golgora in sudden fury. "I am in command here. By personal directive of Karl Eldritch himself, as you well know. Whatever I order, you will obey. Deliver this man to the final peace."
Shiro listened with a sudden cold shiver. So. Karl Eldritch was still alive! How had he survived? What did he have to do with the adjacent realm of Bruenig? This was a deeper game than he had expected. Face to the cracked open door, he watched as the two soldiers lowered the struggling man to lie before the altar, his head within the jaws. They pinned him down, but they looked sickened at what they were doing. With a low chuckle, Golgora stepped down on a panel.
And the gigantic skull snapped its jaws shut! Meisen's body convulsed wildly, then was still. The soldiers who had been holding him down turned away in revulsion. At the rear of the ballroom, Shiro stepped noiselessly through the door, his face grim. He watched as the huge device opened its jaws again and the headless corpse was taken away.
"We are not finished," laughed Golgora. "There is the Human who thought he would publish the secrets of my Race for all to know. Dr Palen. Bring him forward!" Palen was screaming in terror, trying to desperately to get free, but he was not strong enough to break the grip of the young soldiers holding him. The Nekrosan laughed, low and mercilessly, and reached out to force Palen to his knees before the bloody teeth of the giant skull. "Do not ruin this moment by struggling," he said.
Everyone looked up in sudden alarm at a whiplash roar that echoed in the long room. It sounded exactly like a tiger. Shiro Mitsuru had raced between the rows of soldiers before they could react and launched himself in a high flying tackle that brought the two soldiers and Dr Palen tumbling off the dais and away from that deadly skull device. The Tiger Fury leaped to his feet, agile as a dancer, and found the outraged Golgora within reach. He blasted a looping roundhouse punch that started near the floor and caught Golgora perfectly on the jaw. The skull-faced man spun completely around and rolled across the floor before catching up against the wall. Even if I die now, Shiro thought, that punch will make it worth it.
The soldiers were just beginning to react. As they moved toward him, Shiro surprised them by diving into their midst. He became a blur of feet and fists tearing out in all directions. The enemy were in each other's way, they could not decide what to do for a few seconds and in that instant, Shiro struck out at will. A skull cracked beneath his backfist; he whirled and drove a side kick into a man's chest so hard that his ribs broke, then in the same movement he smacked the edge of his hand under another soldier's jaw right into the windpipe. It might seem that a lone fighter would be instantly overwhelmed by the mob but Shiro was moving too quickly for the men to get their bearings. To the soldiers of Bruenig, it seemed as if a huge wild animal had suddenly plunged into their midst and was tearing them apart.
This could not last. Within ten or fifteen seconds, the men caught on and began swinging at the fast-moving figure in the middle of their group. Shiro broke free and leaped up to the dais to get the higher ground. The soldiers came at him. He drove them back with explosive punches and kicks that broke bone and cracked heads as they hit. The Tiger Fury was not pulling his blows as he usually did. Within a few seconds, dead or crippled men were piled in a circle where he stood.
Golgora had gotten unsteadily to his feet, one hand holding his bruised face. "Kill him! Kill him now!"
Increasingly, Shiro found himself blocking blows and slapping aside attempts to seize him, rather than striking out. The vague idea that maybe, just maybe, tackling a mob of forty men was taking on too much flickered in the back of his mind. A big Bruenigan caught him from behind. Shiro bent to one side and smashed his elbow up into the man's nose with killing force. As the body fell, it almost took the Tiger Fury with it but he kept his footing and whirled to drive back more attackers. Then, strangely, the men started to fall down on their own. One slapped at the back of his neck, another reached for his leg and they yelped in sudden stinging pain. Now only a few were left. Two came at Shiro, and he met them with a left cross and a right backfist in close sequence. Just like that, it was over. The room was littered with motionless forms.
Shiro's body glistened with sweat and his chest heaved, but his breathing quickly came back to normal. He spotted a familiar figure in the doorway and grinned with sudden relief.
Jeremy Bane held the anesthetic dart gun in his right hand, awkwardly ejecting the empty clip and inserting a fresh one with only the barest help from his broken left, which was held by an improvised splint. "Sorry to interrupt you, buddy," he said. "I was enjoying watching you fight. Better than any movie."
"Bah," Shiro scoffed with a weary smile. "Anyone can pull a trigger. Boxing is better exercise."
Forgotten for a second in the sudden end of the battle, Golgora whipped the strap-mace from over one shoulder and whirled it around his head. Catching the movement from the corner of his eye, Shiro dropped into a crouch and the deadly weapon whistled through the air where his head had been. "Watch it!" he had yelled as he saw Golgora fling the device straight at Bane. The Dire Wolf had holstered his dart gun and made no move to dodge. His free hand blurred up and he slapped the spike mace aside the way a man would shoo away a fly. The heavy lead ball cracked hard against the wall.
A door slammed. Golgora was gone.
"What the hell?" said Bane as he trotted up to join Shiro. "Where did that door come from?"
"For that matter, where is it now? I don't see where it... oh, wait." He tried to dig his fingers into a barely visible crack. "Ah, he's a tricky one."
"Let it go for now," Bane said, touching his broken wrist carefully. "I'm sure he has a car right outside. By the time we could get after him, he'll be out of sight. It's enough that we broke up his operation."
"I suppose. I'm glad you got here when you did, Jeremy. Have you ever seen anything like that monster skull machine?"
"Never. Leave it to Golgora, the guy is twisted." Bane walked over to where the shocked Dr Palen sat huddled against a wall. "Listen, next time I say you need protection, you listen! Okay?"
Shiro was wiping the sweat from his face and neck with a cloth he had found on the altar. "Jeremy. These men..."
"I see the uniforms are Bruenig. What are soldiers from Bruenig doing here?"
"Golgora was in command of them. And I have further bad news. Karl Eldritch is still alive."
(2/26/1975 - Revised 3/4/2013)
(2/26/1975, as "The Captive of Golgora")
2/14/1985
I.
Jeremy Bane felt ill at ease. It was a decent neighborhood out on Long Island, with a low crime index, and at seven o'clock at night should have been safe enough. But a lifetime of violence had left Bane permanently suspicious, with wary instincts that never entirely relaxed. His grey eyes were restless, checking rooftops and doorways even as he spoke. Cars went by, but he could tell by the way they moved that the drivers were concerned with their own lives. "Dr Palen, maybe one of my team should wait in your house with you for a day or two. Or maybe we should keep you at our headquarters building in Manhattan."
Dr Samuel Palen was watching this thin young man who dressed all in black, and who carried an air of brooding tension with him. He was nervous near Bane. Palen was sixty, well-fed and soft. A respected scholar with several published books on the occult, he was not used to be next to someone with so much nervous energy. "Thank you, Mr Bane," he said as he started up the short walkway to his house. "But I'm sure that won't necessary. I'll lock the doors and windows."
"Your work carries a certain amount of risk," the Dire Wolf insisted. "You are almost done translating that Nekrosan text of their holy books. This could give us valuable information. They are a secretive and murderous Race, and I think they may want to stop you from finishing," Bane was trying hard to be persuasive without being intimidating, but this was something he wasn't good at. Even in the dusk, his grey eyes flashed like cold steel.
Palen dismissed this with a wave of a hand. "No. Seriously, no. The Nekrosim are a mythical species. Even if something like them did exist ONCE, that was thousands of years ago. I am in no danger. Believe me, I wouldn't take any chances." He chuckled unconvincingly. "I'm no two-fisted hero like the famous Dire Wolf."
"I suppose. I still am not happy about this. You have my number, doctor."
Dr Palen nodded and turned to step up to his front door, keys in hand. "I should be done with the translation in a few weeks," he said. "I'll see you then. Goodnight, Mr Bane."
The Dire Wolf watched the scholar enter his house and heard the click of the door locking. All his instincts were tugging at him to go in the house and stand guard, but Palen had refused protection. Bane scowled in the gloom. Almost invisible in his long black topcoat, he began to circle the block, eyes moving quickly , looking for anything out of place.
In his study, Palen had set a huge mug of coffee on his desk, shoving aside some of the litter of notes to make room. The study was cluttered with books and papers on every available surface. Adjusting the reading light, Palen dug around in the center drawer of his desk for his glasses. Then he brought a key from his pocket and unlocked a side drawer, tugging out a thick manila folder.
Somewhere in that room, a burning pair of deep-set eyes watched him hungrily.
Palen carefully spread out a series of 8x11 photostats, clicked his pen and set to work. The museum had not wanted him to keep the original Nekrosan manuscipt, so he worked from these stats. Lost in concentration, he was entirely unprepared for a rasping whisper which came from directly behind him, a hoarse hollow voice that sounded like it belonged in a grave.
"Good evening, Dr Palen. Your work going well?"
With an undignified squack of fright, Palen jumped up and knocked his chair over backwards. He whirled around and his heart almost stopped.
The intruder was a thin, bony man just under six feet tall. He wore a dark brown jumpsuit that fitted loosely, its legs tucked into high polished boots. A narrow sash over one shoulder ended in a small spiked lead ball, and there was a 1911 broomhhandle Mauser in a flap holster on his belt. But Palen noticed none of that. He was staring in shock at the man's face. The intruder looked like a living skull. There was no hair on the head, only two small holes for ears. Heavy overhanging brow ledges, a tiny snub of a nose, a wide toothy mouth that grinned maliciously... all combined to make him an unnerving sight.
"Who ARE you?" Palen managed to squeak.
"My name is Golgora! A Nekrosan of Perjena," the skull-faced man said. "You have studied my Race, doctor. Are you... happy to see one of us in the flesh?"
Palen backed away but was caught up by the bookcase behind him. There was nowhere to go. "What do you want?"
"Don't be coy, my little Human. You know of my kind. You know what we are like. Surely you must be... ah, thrilled to know that a Nekrosan has come back to the world." He was moving closer slowly, hideous face grinning. "Ah, that must be the text you were working on."
As Palen's eyes darted to the notes on his desk, Golgora lunged forward and drove a hard tight fist to the side of the man's face. Pain exploded in the old man's head, lights flashing in his eyes as he dropped to the floor. In the back of his mind, Palen realized that maybe he should have listened to Bane after all.
"I will take that text," grated the Nekrosan, "as I will take you. You will join me in the quest to solve the Great Mystery. Death itself!"
Palen had managed to get up on one knee, reaching for a bookshelf to steady himself. He had never been punched full force by a skilled fighter before; it hurt worse than he could have imagined. "You're crazy! Absolutely crazy!"
Bony fingers clamped down over Palen's mouth and the muzzle of that Mauser jabbed hard at his cheek. "Ignorant words! For one of my Race, I am quite sane. You will come with me. You will face the greatest experience of your empty life... for it is the experience which always comes last!" Golgora drew back the pistol and brought its butt down with brutal force. The last thing the terrified Palen saw was that leering skull face.
In the darkness outside, Jeremy Bane had returned to stand in front of the house. Although he had not found anything in the neighborhood to justify his anxiety, he had long ago learned to trust his instincts. Now he stared at the modest, one story white frame house with shingle roof. There was no garage, nothing in the yard other than patches of stubborn snow. The neighboring house had a single flickering blue light in an upstairs window, where TV held someone entranced. Bane frowned and was about to walk back to his car at the end of the block when he heard a door slam softly at the rear of Palen's house.
At that sound, the Dire Wolf blurred into motion, sprinting through the yard and around the house quicker than any athlete. In the street behind Palen's home stood a dark Lincoln, motor idling and headlights off. There were three men in sight. One wore a dark commando outfit and some sort of stupid skull mask, certainly the ringleader by the way he was standing. A bigger, beefy thug was shoving a limp unconscious form into the back seat of the Lincoln and the third man was standing on guard, a revolver in his hand. It was this man who swung around at the light sound of Bane's racing footsteps. He was alert and ready, with gun already drawn, but even so he was taken by surprise at just how fast the Dire Wolf moved.
Plunging across the yard faster than a real wolf, Bane seized the man's gunhand and yanked it down toward the ground. In the same motion, he smacked the edge of his other fist down at the base of the thug's neck with a crack as sharp as a branch snapping. Even as that goon dropped, Bane spun on one foot, whirling to whip out his leg in a spinning reverse roundhouse. It caught the bigger man perfectly, right on the side of the jaw, and he fell to his hands and knees. Still in the same series of moves he had planned in the second he saw these three, Bane swung to face the guy in the skull mask.
For a bare instant, he hesitated as he recognized his opponent. "Gol-" he got out before the spiked lead ball caught him high up on the side of his head. That dazed him. Golgora whirled his strange weapon overhead, lashing out again and again. Even partly stunned, Bane blocked one strike but the spiked ball bounced around and smacked hard at the back of his head. The leather strap with the ball at the end was a unique Nekrosan weapon, combining elements of a whip and a mace. Bane fell, not quite unconscious but unable to resist as Golgora lashed out savagely at him, until his men coaxed him into leaving with their prisoner.
II.
Certainly, it was not the first time Jeremy Bane had forced himself up to full consciousness after a beating, but experience in the process was of little help. He groaned despite himself, got up into a seated position on the freezing sidewalk and waited until the urge to vomit passed. Golgora again! Damn the luck. The Dire Wolf sat up and began breathing deeply. His Tel Shai training taught him the value of taking in oxygen properly. He started the cycle of a deep breath in, hold it, slower breath out and suddenly his head cleared. The pain was no treat. He tried to push himself up off the pavement and gasped, unable to put any weight on his left wrist.
Slowly getting to his feet, Bane closed his eyes and did a mental check of his body. Under his clothes he wore the flexible Trom metal armor but the problem was that his head was exposed and had taken some damage. Bane felt unsteady on his feet. The throbbing pain he could handle but the dizziness was a problem. He swayed and balanced himself only by windmilling his arms. He couldn't trust his footing. Bane looked up at a street light and found his vision wasn't blurred. And the bones in his left wrist were broken.
Golgora, I owe you another one, he thought coldly.
Reluctantly, Bane admitted he was in no shape to continue as if nothing had happened, especially with Dr Palen's safety at risk. With his right hand, he opened his belt buckle and removed the small communications Link, thumbing the button and paging headquarters as he started walking unsteadily back through the yard.
A second later, a chipper voice with a slight Asian accent came through. "Hello? Hi! Shiro here."
"Shiro?!" said Bane. "What are you doing answering the phone at headquarters?"
"Ah, Jeremy! Good evening," came the cheerful voice of the deadliest fighter Bane knew. "Your team was called elsewhere. Something about Androval. I agreed to remain here in case you called. I hope you don't mind. I am not a KDF member but I am a knight of Tel Shai, after all."
Bane smiled grimly. "I don't mind, Shiro. I can't think of a better man to have in this situation. Listen. I am in Queens. A man named Palen has been kidnapped by a dangerous Nekrosan terrorist named Golgora and I am sure his life is in peril. Golgora is a martial artist in his own right, very sick mind with that Nekrosan fixation on death worship. He has some Human hired guns with him."
"Ha! The Tiger shall hunt tonight. Let me at him!"
Now Bane felt better. Shiro never changed, he had more enthusiasm than prudence. "I want you to follow him. Here's how. Take one of our Links from my locker. Set it to frequency 12G. I planted a tracer in Palen's coat without him knowing it. The Link will beep louder as you get closer. Got it?"
"By all means. What about you, Jeremy?"
The Dire Wolf opened the trunk to his Mustang. "I've taken some damage. With the Tagra diet, I should heal fast but I still need to rig a temporary splint on my wrist. Then I will start tracking the signal as well." Opening a big metal case full of first aid supplies, Bane took out some wooden splints and tape. "This is going to be a little uncomfortable," he muttered to himself.
"Very good, Jeremy. I am on my way. Shiro out," came the voice before Bane clicked the Link back into its holster on his belt and gingerly set to work, using his free hand and his teeth to set the bones and wrap his wrist.
III.
In the reception room of the KDF headquarters on 38th Street, Shiro Mitsuru put the phone down and grinned. He had not been expecting any excitement tonight but now it looked like he would not be sitting here wasting time after all. Shiro was just under six feet tall, wiry and lean with the muscles that came not from weight training but from motion. He was not a member of the KDF, being unwilling to abide by their rules and procedures, but he was a friend and a frequent ally in their campaigns of the Midnight War. Mostly he worked as partner to Andrew Steel but when the grey man had no assignment for him, Shiro always liked to drop in on the KDF looking for action.
Leaving the reception room, the Tiger Fury sprinted up the stairs two steps at a time and rushed into the conference room on the second floor. Here in one corner was one of the lockers where Bane kept his field suits and here was one of the Links. Shiro had been shown how to use KDF equipment, although he didn't carry any of it himself. After a minute of fumbling, he got the device set to track a 12g signal and a red light began flashing, with a barely audible beep.
For a second, he thought about taking some weapons. He knew that this building had an arsenal of specialized tools of fighting, everything from the anesthetic dart guns to swords and grenades and longbows. Bah. As usual, he placed his trust in his own body with its lifetime of discipline and training. Shiro wore soft slippers, baggy black trousers, a white T-shirt and an open leather vest with four pockets. On the inside flaps of the vest were fastened six star-shaped throwing shuriken, useful when he had to have a little range.
Pocketing the Link, he hurried to the front door, setting the elaborate security devices to activate behind him. It was cold outside, but he was hardened to endure worse. Shiro leaped off the stoop and ran to where his maroon Fiero was parked near the end of the block. The hunt was on! This was what he lived for. He started up the little car and pulled away without using his turn signals. In truth, with all his skills in everything from ninjutsu to Hapkido to Western boxing, Shiro was not a good driver. He made a right at the corner and headed along Lexington Avenue, turned again and went the other way. The signal got louder as he went uptown. North it was then. With a grin of anticipation, the Tiger Fury gunned the motor and sped north with a trail of yellow lights turning red behind him.
The beeping steadily increased as he went through the Bronx, leaving the city itself. This was a longer drive than he had expected. He was in Westchester County now. Shiro pulled in to fill his gas tank, then took to the chase again. Soon, the signal began decreasing and he made an illegal U-turn and went back a half mile. He ended up turning onto a long gravel road that opened between two stone posts and the name WILKINSON ARMS on a brass plate. By now, the beeping and flashing red light were getting on his nerves, so he put the Link away and trusted his judgement that he was at the end of the hunt. Up ahead on top of a hill, he saw a big dark house and he pulled over, turning off his engine and thought for a second. He wondered when Bane was going to turn up. But certainly, he had no intention of waiting for him. Getting out of his car, Shiro let his eyes adjust to the darkness and began creeping onto the property.
Few knew his history, but in fact Shiro was the only child of a Japanese man and a Chinese woman who had stolen a fortune from the White Web cult and had been forced to flee for their lives. Both had been masters of their respective country's martial arts. Shiro had been born on the run. He had grown up without a home, moving from country to country and being taught an assortment of fighting arts from childhood on. His parents had educated him themselves, but also had spent millions on his training in every fighting style available. With their deaths when he was fifteen, he had continued learning from masters all over the world until finally he was accepted at Tel Shai and taught Kumundu by Teacher Chael himself. Shiro was at the upper levels of human ability, still never satisfied, constantly experimenting and refining and discarding what he found unhelpful.
Two years earlier, Shiro had agreed to work with the famous Andrew Steel, teaming up in exchange for documentation and respectability. This had in turn led to meeting with the members of the KDF, including their captain, Jeremy Bane. For the first time, he had encountered a fighter fully his equal and perhaps, even his better. By a hair. He still disputed the oputcome of their match a few months earlier. But there was no time to dwell on that now. Silent as a shadow cast by a cloud, Shiro glided over the frozen ground, placing his feet down flat and pressing evenly to make no noise. He froze near an elm and faded into its shadow as the sound of a car came up the long gravel road. He watched it pass and leaped out to trail it, moving from one form of cover to next with a smoothness that made it look easy.
The building atop the hill looked like an old hotel that had long fallen into disrepair. Windows had panes missing, a gutter hung loosely almost to the ground. As the Tiger Fury watched from concealment, the sedan came to a halt and two men got out. They were moving stiffly and carefully. To Shiro's experienced eye, they had clearly been injured and he thought gleefully it must have been Bane who had battered them. Golgora emerged from the front passenger seat, a nightmarish sight in the glare of the car headlights. Shiro grinned unseen. He had beaten them here. They had had to drive up from Long Island, while he had only a shorter distance to come. The beeper in Palen's clothes had worked well. As Shiro watched, the two thugs hauled the unresisting doctor from the car and marched him into the building while Golgora reached inside the car to turn it off.
More men were coming out of the building, wearing some sort of uniforms. They took custody of Dr Palen, and one of them went over to confer with their skull-faced leader. Shiro made out that none of them wore sidearms. Good. It was necessary to kill an enemy who had a gun, and he would rather disable without killing if he could. The Tiger Fury stole in closer, getting nearly within arm's reach. His stealth level was so high that the guards seemed to be turning away as he moved, when actually he was judging their moves and creeping in during the seconds their line of sight pointed elsewhere.
As the soldiers went inside, Shiro circled the building noiselessly, passing near one sentry as if the man was deliberately turning away as he moved. On the back side of the old hotel, the Tiger Fury found a basement window which had no glass in it and he slid through it in one fluid movement to land silently within. He made his way through the darkness, to where an open door at the top of three steps showed a dim light. A cigarette flared up. To Shiro's enhanced senses, it smelled like a brush fire. He heard the hiss as a man exhaled the fumes, and saw the silhouette of the soldier in the doorway. Shiro had the ferocious tiger grin as he stood at the base of the steps, watching the man step through to toss his cigarette butt to the floor. In the second that the soldier's attention was on the flicked butt, Shiro leaped up the steps and seized the man, one hand pinning him against the wall and the other cracking with surgical precision at a spot just below the temple. The guard sagged senseless, and the Tiger Fury picked him up and lowered him
to the bottom of the steps. Through the open doorway, he saw two more guards standing facing to the left. Their stance indicated they were listening to something. With a single step, he was upon them and smacking their heads together with a dull thump. Shiro caught them, one in each arm, and let them slump to the floor. Grabbing each man by the collar, he dragged them quickly to the cellar door and flung them through.
A lifetime of experience allowed Shiro to judge how long each soldier would remain unconscious. The variable might be that the man would be out longer, perhaps sustaining permanent damage. Being knocked out was not harmless. He knew there was a chance that anyone he struck unconscious might die or suffer lasting effects. But then his teachers had instructed him to simply kill any enemy he wanted to get out of the way, so Shiro felt he was being reasonably humane.
The Tiger Fury stepped soundlessly across the main hall, once elegant but now fallen into disrepair. The electricity was not in service, and the only light came from large oil lanterns sitting on end tables. Shiro moved up to the wide double doors from which he heard the sound of human voices. He felt very much alive, tingling with vitality and ready for action. THe spirit of the Tiger was near the surface at that moment. The double doors were slightly open. Shiro slid alongside and peered through to see a nightmarish scene he could not have imagined.
III.
This had once been a ballroom. It was strange to think that this space had been filled with music and dancing, people falling in love and people having their hearts broken. Now all the furniture was gone, it was a wide expanse of polished wood. Four large torches flared head-high in metal stands. Lined up in rows were forty men in brown uniforms, with polished black boots and peaked caps. On white armbands was a symbol, a red mace held in an upraised hand. Shiro recognized that as the emblem of the realm of Bruenig. Parading along the array as if inspecting his troops was the grotesque figure of Golgora, his skull face grisly in the flickering torchlight.
But it was the monstrous thing in the center of the ballroom that made Shiro hold his breath. For a second, he thought it was real, a huge human skull ten feet across. He realized with annoyance that it was a mere construct, a device made of ivory-like ceramic. The proportions and detail were perfect. The giant skull sat upon a raised dais that had five steps leading up its front. As Golgora paused in front of it, he could have walked into its gaping jaws. In that dim unsteady light, standing before a gigantic skull, the Nekrosan was an unholy sight. Shiro curled his hands into fists and began breathing slowly and deeply. He felt he was in the presence of a terrible evil that must not be suffered to live. Whatever happened to him this night, he must see that Golgora died.
The skull-faced man raised one arm imperiously. "Bring me Meisen!" Two of the soldiers dragged a third who was resisting. His face was badly bruised and he did not raise his head.
"Jovann Meisin," intoned Golgora with the tone of a hanging judge. "You were not at your post when you were supposed to be. You have failed your country and you have failed me. Now you will atone for your sin. It is my sacred privilege to introduce you to the greatest of mysteries, the supreme experience which always comes last." He pointed behind him with a bony hand. "Place him in the jaws of the altar."
"sir! I must protest," interrupted one of the soldiers who was restraining the prisoner. "Meisin is derelict in his duties but this does not carry the death penalty under our code. It is not the way of Bruenig."
"It is now!" roared Golgora in sudden fury. "I am in command here. By personal directive of Karl Eldritch himself, as you well know. Whatever I order, you will obey. Deliver this man to the final peace."
Shiro listened with a sudden cold shiver. So. Karl Eldritch was still alive! How had he survived? What did he have to do with the adjacent realm of Bruenig? This was a deeper game than he had expected. Face to the cracked open door, he watched as the two soldiers lowered the struggling man to lie before the altar, his head within the jaws. They pinned him down, but they looked sickened at what they were doing. With a low chuckle, Golgora stepped down on a panel.
And the gigantic skull snapped its jaws shut! Meisen's body convulsed wildly, then was still. The soldiers who had been holding him down turned away in revulsion. At the rear of the ballroom, Shiro stepped noiselessly through the door, his face grim. He watched as the huge device opened its jaws again and the headless corpse was taken away.
"We are not finished," laughed Golgora. "There is the Human who thought he would publish the secrets of my Race for all to know. Dr Palen. Bring him forward!" Palen was screaming in terror, trying to desperately to get free, but he was not strong enough to break the grip of the young soldiers holding him. The Nekrosan laughed, low and mercilessly, and reached out to force Palen to his knees before the bloody teeth of the giant skull. "Do not ruin this moment by struggling," he said.
Everyone looked up in sudden alarm at a whiplash roar that echoed in the long room. It sounded exactly like a tiger. Shiro Mitsuru had raced between the rows of soldiers before they could react and launched himself in a high flying tackle that brought the two soldiers and Dr Palen tumbling off the dais and away from that deadly skull device. The Tiger Fury leaped to his feet, agile as a dancer, and found the outraged Golgora within reach. He blasted a looping roundhouse punch that started near the floor and caught Golgora perfectly on the jaw. The skull-faced man spun completely around and rolled across the floor before catching up against the wall. Even if I die now, Shiro thought, that punch will make it worth it.
The soldiers were just beginning to react. As they moved toward him, Shiro surprised them by diving into their midst. He became a blur of feet and fists tearing out in all directions. The enemy were in each other's way, they could not decide what to do for a few seconds and in that instant, Shiro struck out at will. A skull cracked beneath his backfist; he whirled and drove a side kick into a man's chest so hard that his ribs broke, then in the same movement he smacked the edge of his hand under another soldier's jaw right into the windpipe. It might seem that a lone fighter would be instantly overwhelmed by the mob but Shiro was moving too quickly for the men to get their bearings. To the soldiers of Bruenig, it seemed as if a huge wild animal had suddenly plunged into their midst and was tearing them apart.
This could not last. Within ten or fifteen seconds, the men caught on and began swinging at the fast-moving figure in the middle of their group. Shiro broke free and leaped up to the dais to get the higher ground. The soldiers came at him. He drove them back with explosive punches and kicks that broke bone and cracked heads as they hit. The Tiger Fury was not pulling his blows as he usually did. Within a few seconds, dead or crippled men were piled in a circle where he stood.
Golgora had gotten unsteadily to his feet, one hand holding his bruised face. "Kill him! Kill him now!"
Increasingly, Shiro found himself blocking blows and slapping aside attempts to seize him, rather than striking out. The vague idea that maybe, just maybe, tackling a mob of forty men was taking on too much flickered in the back of his mind. A big Bruenigan caught him from behind. Shiro bent to one side and smashed his elbow up into the man's nose with killing force. As the body fell, it almost took the Tiger Fury with it but he kept his footing and whirled to drive back more attackers. Then, strangely, the men started to fall down on their own. One slapped at the back of his neck, another reached for his leg and they yelped in sudden stinging pain. Now only a few were left. Two came at Shiro, and he met them with a left cross and a right backfist in close sequence. Just like that, it was over. The room was littered with motionless forms.
Shiro's body glistened with sweat and his chest heaved, but his breathing quickly came back to normal. He spotted a familiar figure in the doorway and grinned with sudden relief.
Jeremy Bane held the anesthetic dart gun in his right hand, awkwardly ejecting the empty clip and inserting a fresh one with only the barest help from his broken left, which was held by an improvised splint. "Sorry to interrupt you, buddy," he said. "I was enjoying watching you fight. Better than any movie."
"Bah," Shiro scoffed with a weary smile. "Anyone can pull a trigger. Boxing is better exercise."
Forgotten for a second in the sudden end of the battle, Golgora whipped the strap-mace from over one shoulder and whirled it around his head. Catching the movement from the corner of his eye, Shiro dropped into a crouch and the deadly weapon whistled through the air where his head had been. "Watch it!" he had yelled as he saw Golgora fling the device straight at Bane. The Dire Wolf had holstered his dart gun and made no move to dodge. His free hand blurred up and he slapped the spike mace aside the way a man would shoo away a fly. The heavy lead ball cracked hard against the wall.
A door slammed. Golgora was gone.
"What the hell?" said Bane as he trotted up to join Shiro. "Where did that door come from?"
"For that matter, where is it now? I don't see where it... oh, wait." He tried to dig his fingers into a barely visible crack. "Ah, he's a tricky one."
"Let it go for now," Bane said, touching his broken wrist carefully. "I'm sure he has a car right outside. By the time we could get after him, he'll be out of sight. It's enough that we broke up his operation."
"I suppose. I'm glad you got here when you did, Jeremy. Have you ever seen anything like that monster skull machine?"
"Never. Leave it to Golgora, the guy is twisted." Bane walked over to where the shocked Dr Palen sat huddled against a wall. "Listen, next time I say you need protection, you listen! Okay?"
Shiro was wiping the sweat from his face and neck with a cloth he had found on the altar. "Jeremy. These men..."
"I see the uniforms are Bruenig. What are soldiers from Bruenig doing here?"
"Golgora was in command of them. And I have further bad news. Karl Eldritch is still alive."
(2/26/1975 - Revised 3/4/2013)
