"The World Is Our Arena"
May. 16th, 2022 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The World Is Our Arena"
1/8/2021
I.
Jeremy Bane actually felt the cold of the winter night for the first time in forty years. Closing his car door, he drew out a pair of thin leather gloves from his topcoat pocket and pulled them on. He didn't think he even owned a hat or scarf. On the Tagra tea regimen, his body had been enhanced enough that it adjusted to temperature extremes, just as it healing unnaturally fast from injuries. The Dire Wolf had become used to recovering from wounds or cracked bones or severe burns within a day or so. He didn't have to worry about infections or shock or even most poisons.
All that was gone now.
Standing in the secondary parking lot down the hill from Metro General, he absently rubbed the small of his back where a steady if not unbearable pain started after standing for a few minutes. The bruise on his chest he had received in that fight with Ulamak a week earlier still was sore. This was what normal people had to put up with, he thought. The aches and pains everyone talked about.
Bane made himself stand up straight and squared his shoulders. So what. He wouldn't let himself get discouraged. He was still the Dire Wolf, still faster than any normal Human. Rolling into the entrance was a long black sedan with windows tinted beyond the legal limit. He watched it pull into an empty space facing him. After a few minutes, both the front doors opened and two tall men in dark suits and white dress shirts got out. He recognized one, Agent Wilfred Granville.
With his Kumundu training, Bane knew from their stances and gaits that both men were armed, each with a pistol at the belt and a smaller LCP holstered to one ankle. But they were not intent on attacking him. Their body language said otherwise. And when Granville spoke, Bane caught the subvocal tremors of someone stressed but not angry.
"Good to see you again, Jeremy," the INTERCEPT operative began. "I didn't know there were going to be wind chill effects like this or I would have arranged the meeting in a diner."
"Hello, Wilfred. And you, we haven't met?"
"Agent Keith Gilmore. Glad to meet the famous Dire Wolf in person," said the other man.
"I officially retired six years ago," Bane said. "Yet I keep getting pulled back in for one last job, and it's always supposed to be something so dangerous no one else can handle it. What is the pitch this time?"
"An assassin. We're transporting a Chinese-American geneticist who has lived in North Korea the past decade, not that he wanted to. He was basically kidnapped and enslaved. Once he escaped from his handlers, as the cost of taking a bullet in the arm, we managed to get him back to the States. But someone has been sighted on his trail."
"Let me guess. A world class assassin. Not Dandelion, I hope?"
Granville made a disgusted noise. "Dandelion? No, she hasn't been heard from in years. No, this is a bare hands killer. You remember the Open Fist of Furious Buddha? The latest Master of that school has left a few broken bodies in Hawaii while trying to find Ling. Those were our men."
"Hmm. I don't know if I'm really needed," the Dire Wolf responded. "No matter how good they are, 're Furious Buddhas aren't bulletproof."
Off to one side, Gilmore added, "Our agents had their guns in their hands, standing out in the open and this killer still closed in on them and tore them apart. Our chief says a threat like this is more than normal human beings can handle..."
Not knowing he was going to react this way, Bane blew up. "I am so sick of this! You guys or the Mandate or Department 21 Black, you're all the same. You all lie so much. I can't believe a word you say. The hostages turn out to be your undercover men, the double agent is really just getting too old and you want him out of the way, the valuable secret papers turn out to be bribe money for some politician. I don't care any more. Goodbye, I'm leaving."
"Jeremy," came the quiet voice. "This isn't like you. You've always been in control."
"Well, maybe it's time I wasn't in control. I'm sixty-four. I've been fighting the Midnight War and criminals and spies since I was a teenager. Forget it. Find someone else."
Reaching out, Granville took Bane by one arm, which was a liberty few would dare. In the light from a lamppost overhead, the Dire Wolf's grey eyes flashed but he did not tug his arm away. After a second, Bane said, "As far as I know, Wilfred, you've been straight with me every time. You're one of the few. That's the only reason I even come out here tonight."
"There IS one more thing," the INTERCEPT agent said. "And that's why I thought you would want to be in on this. The new Furious Fist assassin is someone you have history with. You haven't forgotten Ethan Petrov?"
II.
Back in his Mustang heading out of the city, Bane fumed and gripped the steering wheel so hard his fingers hurt. He started deliberately taking deeper and slower breaths. Ethan! Of all people to have been trained by Furious Buddha. Like that school of assassins wasn't already deadly enough.
In part of his racing mind, the Dire Wolf recognized some of his anger came from self-reproach. He had allowed himself to check up on Ethan's activities at longer intervals and eventually had lost track of the man. The mental blocks that Cindy had telepathically put in the man's mind should have lasted a lifetime. Ethan should have been locked into a non-violent state where he could not have been shoved someone aside. That precaution had never failed before.
But then, this was the Open Fist of Furious Buddha. Their methods were nearly as ancient and effective as those of the Order of Tel Shai.
Ahead was Exit 7, leading toward New Dover. Traffic was sparse this close to dawn, and Bane had as always been automatically watching for any cars shadowing him ahead or behind. At the last second, he swung over up onto the ramp and hit a red light at the intersection of Crosby Road. No vehicles were in sight at he sat there.
Ethan Petrov, he thought with the rage building up again that he had to repress. In all the years the different KDF teams had operated, Ethan had been the only member to be expelled. The sharp observant minds of the Teachers of Tel Shai included several telepaths and they had cautioned that Ethan was not completely suitable. And in fact, the man had lasted less than a year before he committed enough offenses that he had to be dropped. Only a short time later, Ethan had begun hiring out as a professional executioner. Bane had reluctantly activated a protocol in the man's consciousness placed by Cindy Brunner and shut down some parts of the mind. It was supposed to leave him non-violent and last forever.
Cruising along the outskirts of the sleeping town of New Dover, Bane could not suppress a snort. Forever? In life, there was no use in counting on words like never or forever. Somehow, one of the surviving Masters of Furious Buddha had located Ethan and offered him the invaluable training that made them known as the Walking Weapons.
Ahead was a side road he had been told to find, John Nelson Lane, and he wheeled over onto it. No one was following him, he was certain. The Dire Wolf slowed as he rolled along between flanking yards holding expensive and immaculately maintained houses. He had to force self-reproach from his thoughts but he was stricken by the thought he had not made a project to track down the three known Masters of Furious Buddha and neutralize them. There had been slack periods when he had the time, the resources and the ability to do so but, looking back, Bane realized he had been too reactive and not proactive enough.
But enough of that. Stick to the here and now.
There was the two-story house with tan siding and the attached carport. 551 John Nelson Lane. The dark shape of an SUV could be made out in the shadows of that carport, but there was no movement at all and the windows of the house were dark with a single light over the front door. In that split-second of passing by, Bane had not spotted any watchers on guard.
After the next house was a stretch of untended woods and he pulled his car over under some dead leafless trees. Before he got out, Bane took several minutes to focus. He was going into this mission with too much loose emotion. Between his history with Ethan and the loss of his healing factor, he was way too distracted. Feeling he was ready, the Dire Wolf got out, closed his door silently and took off at a sprint through the woods.
Despite the darkness and the patches of snow, he made no sound and seemed as sure of his path as if it was daylight. An unsuspecting civilian standing only a few feet away might not have even been aware of his presence. In a minute, he approached the rear of the yard adjoining the house where that Chinese scientist was supposed to be hiding. Even now, he was skeptical of the whole situation. Spies couldn't be trusted to tell you what day of the week it was.
Even before he reached the ankle-high hedge that separated the two yards, Bane knew someone was waiting for him. He reached behind his left hip and drew his long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 revolver without breaking stride. It was only when a tall bone-thin figure swung around from behind two trees that Bane slowed and came to a halt fifty feet away.
"You're not going to shoot me," said a silky-smooth voice that had never quite lost its childhood Georgian accent. "I know you better than that. Killing an unarmed man who isn't physically attacking you. You're too soft for this trade, Jeremy."
A year older than Bane, Ethan Petrov was the same height and general build but thinner, almost fragile looking. He dropped a down-filled parka to the ground and stood unmoving. In the faint light from a single bulb over the front door of the house, little of his saturnine face could be seen.
Bane slowly holstered his gun. It was true, he wasn't capable to cold-blooding execution, no matter how much easier it would make everything. "I had hoped the mental blocks would keep you harmless the rest of your life."
"Hah! They would have. But Master Park found me by chance or by fate. He abducted me and started the Furious Buddha training. You know what it entails, I take it?"
From where he stood, Bane decided Ethan was in fact unarmed. "They put you in a coma for three days, actually bury you in the ground and then dig you up and revive you with their Alchemy serum. Most of your memory is gone after that. Then it's nothing but exercise and sparring and practice until you're one of the Walking Weapons."
"Come this way," said Ethan, stepping over more to the center of the yard. "My memories came back to me for some reason. It doesn't matter why, I was glad to go along with the initiation. Adding the Furious Buddha techniques with the Kumundu training I already had, I became an apex martial artist. As you will see."
"Oh, godammit!" Bane snapped. "I am sick of all the fighting. I've had enough. Look, Ethan, we were teammates once. I kept speaking up for you when even the Teachers warned you were unstable. Walk away now. Vanish. Or I will put a few slugs through your face and go home to a warm bed with nice clean sheets."
"WHAT?! Is that someone else talking? Is that really Jeremy Bane?" Ethan sounded more hurt than angry. "The Dire Wolf I knew would never be afraid to accept a challenge. Come on, old friend! For men like you and me, the world is our arena."
A full minute crawled by before Bane shrugged out of his topcoat and dropped it behind him. He was wearing his trademark uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket so only the pale oval of his face was clearly visible in the night. "I guess this is the only way."
III.
Even in the light had been better, a civilian Human witness to that duel would have seen only a baffling blur of movement where the crisp sounds of impact seemed to come from no blow being struck. Both Bane and Ethan began with short straight punches and kicks. These were economical in energy used. After thirty seconds, combination attacks were tried, more complicated strikes from different angles, more attempts to seize an arm or leg for leverage.
At ninety seconds at a pace that no normal athlete could have maintained, Ethan saw an opening and whipped a backfist that caught Bane squarely on the cheekbone. The Dire Wolf reeled to one side and fell. Ethan had drawn back, fists raised for an expected counter-attack but none came.
It only took an instant for Bane to leap back up to his feet but the fact he had been dropped at all was a surprise. "What is wrong with you?" demanded Ethan, still breathing easily enough to talk."
Lunging forward, Bane threw a left side kick that was a feint. Before it could make contact, while Ethan was slamming his hand down to deflect it, Bane redirected the kick upward and cracked it to his opponent's nose with a whiplash noise. Now it was Ethan who staggered backward a few steps. The Dire Wolf closed in to launch a series of drumming body blows with both fists, intending to sidestep before he could be seized. But that backfist to the face had hurt him more than he had expected. He stayed too close too long and paid for it by taking an open-hand chop to the base of the neck.
This time, when he dropped to hands and knees, Bane had trouble recovering. He was so used to even the most brutal blows being nothing but vague thumps he hardly felt. The pain had become something new.
"Oh my God!" whispered his enemy. "You've lost your healing factor." In the second before Bane could rise, Ethan blasted a front snap kick that caught Bane under the chin and swung his head back so far his neck almost broke. The Dire Wolf landed full on his back, gasping for breath.
Lowering his hands to his hips, Ethan Petrov laughed out loud. "Hurts, doesn't it? Good. Now you know what it's like."
With infinite effort, Bane rolled over and got on his hands and knees. He was having resistance moving his neck and could not look up. The ringing in his ears made it difficult to hear what Ethan said.
"Well. Maybe I will let you live and we can resume this some other time," Ethan announced. "Beating you now wouldn't prove anything. I do have my chore to attend to. After I kill that geneticist in the house and his INTERCEPT guards, I might come back to hurt you a little more. Like this!" With terrifying speed, Ethan plunged forward, seized Bane's right arm and yanked it straight, then broke it at the elbow with his free palm.
For the first time, Bane cried out at an injury. He caught himself with his left hand, then rolled over onto his side with his right arm bent at an unnatural angle. He was breathing in short rapid gasps. "Wait. Don't go after Ling, Ethan."
"Why not? I've already been paid half. Furious Buddha has its reputation to uphold, you know. Come to think of it, I should take you prisoner. You still have many enemies in the Midnight War, Dire Wolf. Some would pay well to see you die."
There was no choice any more. Bane managed to get over onto his back and sit up a little using mostly his stomach muscles. He had reached behind him with his left hand. As Ethan stood grinning, Bane raised his Smith & Wesson and fired three times in a horizontal grouping at chest level.
As he had expected, Ethan's reflexes were at peak Human and he had stepped to one side as soon as he saw the muzzle pointed at him... but this placed him right in the path of the second of the three slugs. The impact drove directly into the left side of his chest. Ethan grunted and fell over backwards without trying to catch himself.
Tears were running down his face but Bane did not know this and would not have cared. Moving more carefully, trying to keep his broken arm still, he slid over on the frozen grass until he could see Ethan's head. His former teammate's eyes were open and blank but the Dire Wolf shot once more to be absolutely certain. At that range, the bullet made a good half of Ethan's face vanish in a spray of blood that was black in the winter night.
Then, panting with effort, Bane tried to sit up without success. He was going into shock, which he had forgotten all about. He could hear yelling from the house and the INTERCEPT bodyguards were running toward the scene. They were asking questions, examining Ethan, gently helping Bane to his feet.
"Hold still," one of them said. "We're calling an ambulance now. You'll be all right."
"That's the end of Ethan Petrov," added another. "Ling will make it into relocation and a new identity. You've done good work, Mr Bane."
"It's still dirty work," the Dire Wolf replied miserably.
5/19/2021
1/8/2021
I.
Jeremy Bane actually felt the cold of the winter night for the first time in forty years. Closing his car door, he drew out a pair of thin leather gloves from his topcoat pocket and pulled them on. He didn't think he even owned a hat or scarf. On the Tagra tea regimen, his body had been enhanced enough that it adjusted to temperature extremes, just as it healing unnaturally fast from injuries. The Dire Wolf had become used to recovering from wounds or cracked bones or severe burns within a day or so. He didn't have to worry about infections or shock or even most poisons.
All that was gone now.
Standing in the secondary parking lot down the hill from Metro General, he absently rubbed the small of his back where a steady if not unbearable pain started after standing for a few minutes. The bruise on his chest he had received in that fight with Ulamak a week earlier still was sore. This was what normal people had to put up with, he thought. The aches and pains everyone talked about.
Bane made himself stand up straight and squared his shoulders. So what. He wouldn't let himself get discouraged. He was still the Dire Wolf, still faster than any normal Human. Rolling into the entrance was a long black sedan with windows tinted beyond the legal limit. He watched it pull into an empty space facing him. After a few minutes, both the front doors opened and two tall men in dark suits and white dress shirts got out. He recognized one, Agent Wilfred Granville.
With his Kumundu training, Bane knew from their stances and gaits that both men were armed, each with a pistol at the belt and a smaller LCP holstered to one ankle. But they were not intent on attacking him. Their body language said otherwise. And when Granville spoke, Bane caught the subvocal tremors of someone stressed but not angry.
"Good to see you again, Jeremy," the INTERCEPT operative began. "I didn't know there were going to be wind chill effects like this or I would have arranged the meeting in a diner."
"Hello, Wilfred. And you, we haven't met?"
"Agent Keith Gilmore. Glad to meet the famous Dire Wolf in person," said the other man.
"I officially retired six years ago," Bane said. "Yet I keep getting pulled back in for one last job, and it's always supposed to be something so dangerous no one else can handle it. What is the pitch this time?"
"An assassin. We're transporting a Chinese-American geneticist who has lived in North Korea the past decade, not that he wanted to. He was basically kidnapped and enslaved. Once he escaped from his handlers, as the cost of taking a bullet in the arm, we managed to get him back to the States. But someone has been sighted on his trail."
"Let me guess. A world class assassin. Not Dandelion, I hope?"
Granville made a disgusted noise. "Dandelion? No, she hasn't been heard from in years. No, this is a bare hands killer. You remember the Open Fist of Furious Buddha? The latest Master of that school has left a few broken bodies in Hawaii while trying to find Ling. Those were our men."
"Hmm. I don't know if I'm really needed," the Dire Wolf responded. "No matter how good they are, 're Furious Buddhas aren't bulletproof."
Off to one side, Gilmore added, "Our agents had their guns in their hands, standing out in the open and this killer still closed in on them and tore them apart. Our chief says a threat like this is more than normal human beings can handle..."
Not knowing he was going to react this way, Bane blew up. "I am so sick of this! You guys or the Mandate or Department 21 Black, you're all the same. You all lie so much. I can't believe a word you say. The hostages turn out to be your undercover men, the double agent is really just getting too old and you want him out of the way, the valuable secret papers turn out to be bribe money for some politician. I don't care any more. Goodbye, I'm leaving."
"Jeremy," came the quiet voice. "This isn't like you. You've always been in control."
"Well, maybe it's time I wasn't in control. I'm sixty-four. I've been fighting the Midnight War and criminals and spies since I was a teenager. Forget it. Find someone else."
Reaching out, Granville took Bane by one arm, which was a liberty few would dare. In the light from a lamppost overhead, the Dire Wolf's grey eyes flashed but he did not tug his arm away. After a second, Bane said, "As far as I know, Wilfred, you've been straight with me every time. You're one of the few. That's the only reason I even come out here tonight."
"There IS one more thing," the INTERCEPT agent said. "And that's why I thought you would want to be in on this. The new Furious Fist assassin is someone you have history with. You haven't forgotten Ethan Petrov?"
Back in his Mustang heading out of the city, Bane fumed and gripped the steering wheel so hard his fingers hurt. He started deliberately taking deeper and slower breaths. Ethan! Of all people to have been trained by Furious Buddha. Like that school of assassins wasn't already deadly enough.
In part of his racing mind, the Dire Wolf recognized some of his anger came from self-reproach. He had allowed himself to check up on Ethan's activities at longer intervals and eventually had lost track of the man. The mental blocks that Cindy had telepathically put in the man's mind should have lasted a lifetime. Ethan should have been locked into a non-violent state where he could not have been shoved someone aside. That precaution had never failed before.
But then, this was the Open Fist of Furious Buddha. Their methods were nearly as ancient and effective as those of the Order of Tel Shai.
Ahead was Exit 7, leading toward New Dover. Traffic was sparse this close to dawn, and Bane had as always been automatically watching for any cars shadowing him ahead or behind. At the last second, he swung over up onto the ramp and hit a red light at the intersection of Crosby Road. No vehicles were in sight at he sat there.
Ethan Petrov, he thought with the rage building up again that he had to repress. In all the years the different KDF teams had operated, Ethan had been the only member to be expelled. The sharp observant minds of the Teachers of Tel Shai included several telepaths and they had cautioned that Ethan was not completely suitable. And in fact, the man had lasted less than a year before he committed enough offenses that he had to be dropped. Only a short time later, Ethan had begun hiring out as a professional executioner. Bane had reluctantly activated a protocol in the man's consciousness placed by Cindy Brunner and shut down some parts of the mind. It was supposed to leave him non-violent and last forever.
Cruising along the outskirts of the sleeping town of New Dover, Bane could not suppress a snort. Forever? In life, there was no use in counting on words like never or forever. Somehow, one of the surviving Masters of Furious Buddha had located Ethan and offered him the invaluable training that made them known as the Walking Weapons.
Ahead was a side road he had been told to find, John Nelson Lane, and he wheeled over onto it. No one was following him, he was certain. The Dire Wolf slowed as he rolled along between flanking yards holding expensive and immaculately maintained houses. He had to force self-reproach from his thoughts but he was stricken by the thought he had not made a project to track down the three known Masters of Furious Buddha and neutralize them. There had been slack periods when he had the time, the resources and the ability to do so but, looking back, Bane realized he had been too reactive and not proactive enough.
But enough of that. Stick to the here and now.
There was the two-story house with tan siding and the attached carport. 551 John Nelson Lane. The dark shape of an SUV could be made out in the shadows of that carport, but there was no movement at all and the windows of the house were dark with a single light over the front door. In that split-second of passing by, Bane had not spotted any watchers on guard.
After the next house was a stretch of untended woods and he pulled his car over under some dead leafless trees. Before he got out, Bane took several minutes to focus. He was going into this mission with too much loose emotion. Between his history with Ethan and the loss of his healing factor, he was way too distracted. Feeling he was ready, the Dire Wolf got out, closed his door silently and took off at a sprint through the woods.
Despite the darkness and the patches of snow, he made no sound and seemed as sure of his path as if it was daylight. An unsuspecting civilian standing only a few feet away might not have even been aware of his presence. In a minute, he approached the rear of the yard adjoining the house where that Chinese scientist was supposed to be hiding. Even now, he was skeptical of the whole situation. Spies couldn't be trusted to tell you what day of the week it was.
Even before he reached the ankle-high hedge that separated the two yards, Bane knew someone was waiting for him. He reached behind his left hip and drew his long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 revolver without breaking stride. It was only when a tall bone-thin figure swung around from behind two trees that Bane slowed and came to a halt fifty feet away.
"You're not going to shoot me," said a silky-smooth voice that had never quite lost its childhood Georgian accent. "I know you better than that. Killing an unarmed man who isn't physically attacking you. You're too soft for this trade, Jeremy."
A year older than Bane, Ethan Petrov was the same height and general build but thinner, almost fragile looking. He dropped a down-filled parka to the ground and stood unmoving. In the faint light from a single bulb over the front door of the house, little of his saturnine face could be seen.
Bane slowly holstered his gun. It was true, he wasn't capable to cold-blooding execution, no matter how much easier it would make everything. "I had hoped the mental blocks would keep you harmless the rest of your life."
"Hah! They would have. But Master Park found me by chance or by fate. He abducted me and started the Furious Buddha training. You know what it entails, I take it?"
From where he stood, Bane decided Ethan was in fact unarmed. "They put you in a coma for three days, actually bury you in the ground and then dig you up and revive you with their Alchemy serum. Most of your memory is gone after that. Then it's nothing but exercise and sparring and practice until you're one of the Walking Weapons."
"Come this way," said Ethan, stepping over more to the center of the yard. "My memories came back to me for some reason. It doesn't matter why, I was glad to go along with the initiation. Adding the Furious Buddha techniques with the Kumundu training I already had, I became an apex martial artist. As you will see."
"Oh, godammit!" Bane snapped. "I am sick of all the fighting. I've had enough. Look, Ethan, we were teammates once. I kept speaking up for you when even the Teachers warned you were unstable. Walk away now. Vanish. Or I will put a few slugs through your face and go home to a warm bed with nice clean sheets."
"WHAT?! Is that someone else talking? Is that really Jeremy Bane?" Ethan sounded more hurt than angry. "The Dire Wolf I knew would never be afraid to accept a challenge. Come on, old friend! For men like you and me, the world is our arena."
A full minute crawled by before Bane shrugged out of his topcoat and dropped it behind him. He was wearing his trademark uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket so only the pale oval of his face was clearly visible in the night. "I guess this is the only way."
III.
Even in the light had been better, a civilian Human witness to that duel would have seen only a baffling blur of movement where the crisp sounds of impact seemed to come from no blow being struck. Both Bane and Ethan began with short straight punches and kicks. These were economical in energy used. After thirty seconds, combination attacks were tried, more complicated strikes from different angles, more attempts to seize an arm or leg for leverage.
At ninety seconds at a pace that no normal athlete could have maintained, Ethan saw an opening and whipped a backfist that caught Bane squarely on the cheekbone. The Dire Wolf reeled to one side and fell. Ethan had drawn back, fists raised for an expected counter-attack but none came.
It only took an instant for Bane to leap back up to his feet but the fact he had been dropped at all was a surprise. "What is wrong with you?" demanded Ethan, still breathing easily enough to talk."
Lunging forward, Bane threw a left side kick that was a feint. Before it could make contact, while Ethan was slamming his hand down to deflect it, Bane redirected the kick upward and cracked it to his opponent's nose with a whiplash noise. Now it was Ethan who staggered backward a few steps. The Dire Wolf closed in to launch a series of drumming body blows with both fists, intending to sidestep before he could be seized. But that backfist to the face had hurt him more than he had expected. He stayed too close too long and paid for it by taking an open-hand chop to the base of the neck.
This time, when he dropped to hands and knees, Bane had trouble recovering. He was so used to even the most brutal blows being nothing but vague thumps he hardly felt. The pain had become something new.
"Oh my God!" whispered his enemy. "You've lost your healing factor." In the second before Bane could rise, Ethan blasted a front snap kick that caught Bane under the chin and swung his head back so far his neck almost broke. The Dire Wolf landed full on his back, gasping for breath.
Lowering his hands to his hips, Ethan Petrov laughed out loud. "Hurts, doesn't it? Good. Now you know what it's like."
With infinite effort, Bane rolled over and got on his hands and knees. He was having resistance moving his neck and could not look up. The ringing in his ears made it difficult to hear what Ethan said.
"Well. Maybe I will let you live and we can resume this some other time," Ethan announced. "Beating you now wouldn't prove anything. I do have my chore to attend to. After I kill that geneticist in the house and his INTERCEPT guards, I might come back to hurt you a little more. Like this!" With terrifying speed, Ethan plunged forward, seized Bane's right arm and yanked it straight, then broke it at the elbow with his free palm.
For the first time, Bane cried out at an injury. He caught himself with his left hand, then rolled over onto his side with his right arm bent at an unnatural angle. He was breathing in short rapid gasps. "Wait. Don't go after Ling, Ethan."
"Why not? I've already been paid half. Furious Buddha has its reputation to uphold, you know. Come to think of it, I should take you prisoner. You still have many enemies in the Midnight War, Dire Wolf. Some would pay well to see you die."
There was no choice any more. Bane managed to get over onto his back and sit up a little using mostly his stomach muscles. He had reached behind him with his left hand. As Ethan stood grinning, Bane raised his Smith & Wesson and fired three times in a horizontal grouping at chest level.
As he had expected, Ethan's reflexes were at peak Human and he had stepped to one side as soon as he saw the muzzle pointed at him... but this placed him right in the path of the second of the three slugs. The impact drove directly into the left side of his chest. Ethan grunted and fell over backwards without trying to catch himself.
Tears were running down his face but Bane did not know this and would not have cared. Moving more carefully, trying to keep his broken arm still, he slid over on the frozen grass until he could see Ethan's head. His former teammate's eyes were open and blank but the Dire Wolf shot once more to be absolutely certain. At that range, the bullet made a good half of Ethan's face vanish in a spray of blood that was black in the winter night.
Then, panting with effort, Bane tried to sit up without success. He was going into shock, which he had forgotten all about. He could hear yelling from the house and the INTERCEPT bodyguards were running toward the scene. They were asking questions, examining Ethan, gently helping Bane to his feet.
"Hold still," one of them said. "We're calling an ambulance now. You'll be all right."
"That's the end of Ethan Petrov," added another. "Ling will make it into relocation and a new identity. You've done good work, Mr Bane."
"It's still dirty work," the Dire Wolf replied miserably.
5/19/2021
